"There's something queer about this!" said the squire, cutting into his third pear. Then, suddenly catching sight of the air of elaborate nonchalance which the boys were rather overdoing, "You young rascals!" he roared. "I verily believe this is your handiwork!"
I will draw a veil over the explanations which followed. To Dick and George they proved extremely unpleasant, as Mr. Winstanley was really angry. He had little patience with practical jokes, and especially disliked to give any cause of offence to his neighbours, so he insisted upon marching both the boys off then and there to make their apologies to Captain Vernon.
"And if he likes to horse-whip you, he may do so," he declared. "And I'll stand by and watch it done, and say you deserve it for a couple of mischievous young jackanapes!"
To the great surprise of all concerned, however, the old captain "turned up trumps". Bursting into a roar of laughter, he declared he had had the best of the joke, shook the boys warmly by the hand, and proclaimed an amnesty. He even did more. Next day he sent us a beautiful basketful of his best wall-apricots as a peace-offering, and permission to pick blackberries in his fields if we chose.
"It's ever so decent of the old chap," said George. "We certainly did rag him rather hard. But I've promised to catch the moles in his garden—I'm a capital hand at setting mole-traps—and he says if I like to come and scare the birds from his autumn peas, he'll lend me an air-gun, and I can blaze away all day if I want."
It was a very satisfactory conclusion to the feud, and I think the boys were glad it had ended thus; for by the next holidays the poor old captain's cough no longer resounded through the village, his garden knew him no more, and other and younger faces looked out from his red-curtained windows.
CHAPTER VII
TIT FOR TAT
"All in the nick
To play some trick
And frolic it with Ho! ho! ho!"
THOUGH the natural-history portion of the Marshlands Museum grew so rapidly that it threatened to overflow the cabinet, there were very few antiquities in the collection, a Roman lamp, an Egyptian scarab, a few old coins, and a Georgian snuff-box making up the whole of the scanty store.