"Now carry him over the bridge and put him down there, and he must go home, whether he likes it or not," goes on Mona to her warrior, whereupon that renowned person, armed with the shrieking turkey, crosses the bridge. Having gained the other side, he places the angry bird on its mother earth, and with a final and almost tender "Shoo!" sends him scuttling along to the farmyard in the distance, where, no doubt, he is received either with open arms and kisses, or with a sounding "spank," as our American cousins would say, by his terrified mamma.
He finds Mona on his return sitting on a bank, laughing and trying to recover her breath.
"I hardly think this is Sunday work," she says, lightly; "but the poor little thing would have died if left out all night. Wasn't it well you saw him?"
"Most fortunate," says Rodney, with deep gravity. "I consider I have been the means of preventing a public calamity. Why, that bird might have haunted us later on."
"Fancy a turkey ghost," says Mona. "How ugly it would be. It would have all its feathers off, of course."
"Certainly not," says Geoffrey: "I blush for you. I never yet heard of a ghost that was not strictly decent. It would have had a winding sheet, of course. Come, let us go for a walk."
"To the old fort?" asks Mona, starting to her feet.
"Anywhere you like. I'm sure we deserve some compensation for the awful sermon that curate gave us this morning."
So they start, in a lazy, happy-go-lucky fashion, for their walk, conversing as they go, of themselves principally as all true lovers will.
But the fort, on this evening at least, is never reached Mona, coming to a stile, seats himself comfortably on the top of it, and looks with mild content around.