"'They soon knocked down as many kids, hares, and rabbits as they desired. They caught some colts, placed the children on two of them and the game on the others, and home they went.'"
Myra glanced up at Clem, for this was a passage which ever called to him like a trumpet. But to-day Clem spread out both hands, protesting.
"'On their return, whilst waiting for supper, Jack wandered around the castle, and was struck by seeing a window which he had not before observed. Jack was resolved to discover the room to which this window belonged; so he very carefully noticed its position and then threw his hammer in through it, that he might be certain of the spot when he found his tool inside the castle. The next day, after dinner.'"—
"Wait a moment, Clem dear!"
"Oh, but we must!" Clem had jumped to his feet.
"It's too dreadfully hot. Very well, then; but wait for the end.
"'The next day, after dinner, when Tom was having his snooze, Jack took Tom's wife Jane with him, and they began a search for the hammer near the spot where Jack supposed the window should be; but they saw no signs of one in any part of the walls. They discovered, however, a strangely fashioned worm-eaten oak hanging-press. They carefully examined this, but found nothing. At last Jack, striking the back of it with his fist, was convinced from the sound that the wall behind it was hollow. He and Jane went steadily to work, and with some exertion they moved the press aside and disclosed a stone door. They opened this, and there was Jack's hammer lying amidst a pile of bones, evidently the relics of some of old Blunderbuss's wives, whom he had imprisoned in the wall and left to perish there!'"
Myra shut the book with a slam, and, groping beneath the seat of the summer-house, found and handed to Clem the torso of an old rag doll, which, because it might be thrown against a window without breaking the glass, served as their wonted substitute for the Tinker's hammer.
"O-oh!" cried Myra, clutching at Clem and drawing him back from the sudden apparition in the window; and so for a dozen seconds she and Hester stared at one another.
"Good-morning!"