As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a very long Athletic Sports, the youthful Bastables and their friends dragged their weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was compelled to go on holding the titled infant, for fear it should wake up if it changed hands, and begin to yell again. Dora’s flannelette petticoat had been got off somehow—how I do not seek to inquire—and the Secret was covered with it. The others surrounded Oswald as much as possible, with a view to concealment if we met Mrs Pettigrew. But the coast was clear. Oswald took the Secret up into his bedroom. Mrs Pettigrew doesn’t come there much, it’s too many stairs.
With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It sighed, but did not wake. Then we took it in turns to sit by it and see that it did not get up and fling itself out of bed, which, in one of its furious fits, it would just as soon have done as not.
We expected Albert’s uncle every minute.
At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out and saw that there he was talking to a distracted-looking man on a piebald horse—one of the miller’s horses.
A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not remember having done anything wrong at the miller’s. But you never know. And it seemed strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But when we had looked a bit longer our fears went down and our curiosity got up. For we saw that the distracted one was a gentleman.
Presently he rode off, and Albert’s uncle came in. A deputation met him at the door—all the boys and Dora, because the baby was her idea.
‘We’ve found something,’ Dora said, ‘and we want to know whether we may keep it.’
The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to keep it after we had heard how much and how long it could howl. Even Noel had said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only cried because it was sleepy, but we reflected that it would certainly be sleepy once a day, if not oftener.
‘What is it?’ said Albert’s uncle. ‘Let’s see this treasure-trove. Is it a wild beast?’
‘Come and see,’ said Dora, and we led him to our room.