“Did my beautiful mother send you?”
With what guile Mrs. Sheerug answered the boys could only guess by the effect.
“Well, then,” came the piping little voice, “tell Farmer Joseph to stop looking, and you stop poking at me. I don’t like your umbrella.”
They saw her wade out, drops of water falling from her elfin whiteness like jewels; then saw her folded in the bat-like wings of the faery-godmother’s ample mantle. The glade emptied. The wood grew silent They dared to swim to land.
Ruddy was the first to say anything. “Ma—Ma’s a wonder. I oughtn’t to have sent that pigeon till this s’moming.” Then, in a burst of penitence for his zeal, “I’m afraid I’ve spoiled—— I say, I’m beastly sorry.”
He had spoiled everything; there was no denying it There would be no more camp-fires, no more slaying of bird-catchers, no more pretending you were a war-horse with a rescued Princess from Goblinland riding on your back. Teddy was too unhappy to blame or forgive Ruddy. He pulled on his shirt and indulged in reflections.
“Wonder how they found us?” muttered Ruddy. “Must have seen the smoke of our fire. That wasn’t my fault anyhow; you did agree to lighting that.”
“Oh, be quiet,” growled Teddy. “What does anything matter? Who cares now how they found out?”
Ruddy stole away to see what was happening, thinking that he might prove more acceptable elsewhere.
Teddy stared at the pool. Birds flew across its quiet breast; fish leaped; the sun smiled grandly. Everything was as it had been, yet he was altered. They would take her away from him; of that he was certain. Perhaps they would put her on another ship and send her traveling again across the world. There would be other boys who had never had a sister. He hated them. Because he was young, he would have to stay just where he had been always—in Eden Row, where nothing ever happened. The tyranny of it!