"Some are," Bob admitted. "That red-headed chap is, I should think, or he wouldn't have looked at us over the wall like that."
Tim Shuttleworth watched the young folk next door constantly during the next day or two, for they spent much time in the back garden; but he always kept behind the lace curtains in the dining-room, and did not try to attract their notice again. Their doings interested him exceedingly. Sometimes they would place Snip on the wall to watch for cats, and on one occasion the little dog hunted one of his natural enemies all about Mr. Shuttleworth's garden, around the house, and out into the road. No one would have been more shocked and horrified than the two young Glanvilles had Snip really caught a cat; but he had never done so, and it was most unlikely he ever would, so his mistress and master saw no harm in permitting him to enjoy his little game, though they had several times been told by their father not to encourage him in his favourite pursuit.
Tim knew his visit to his uncle was to be of long duration. He was the eldest of several children, and as his father was only a clerk in a bank in Dublin, his home was a comparatively poor one. During the winter he had had a serious attack of pneumonia, and when his uncle had written and suggested that he should spend the summer with him in England, at the small country town where Mr. Shuttleworth had lived for many years, his parents had promptly accepted the invitation; for the doctor who had attended him during his illness had declared that a thorough change of air and scene, and an absence from school for a few months, would be to his ultimate benefit. Tim had known but little of his uncle up to the present, having only seen him on the rare occasions when he had come on a visit to Dublin, and when he found out how thoroughly engrossed his relative was in his books and his studies, he was dismayed at the prospect of the months of loneliness, he feared he must look forward to. If only the children next door would seek to know him! But he realized that they were not prepossessed with his appearance, and he was too shy and too proud to make any overtures of friendship to them, and determined to find his own amusements, as his uncle expected him to do.
Accordingly, he selected a sunny spot in the back garden—which was almost a wilderness, for Mr. Shuttleworth did not care for flowers, and bought his vegetables—and began to turn up the soil. It was hard work, for the ground had long been neglected, and the tools he found in the tool-house were blunt and heavy; but he persevered. He would have a garden of his own, he decided, which should rival those of the children next door; and at length he succeeded in getting the earth in fairly good condition, and planted it with the seeds of nasturtiums and mignonette and other hardy annuals which he purchased with his own pocket-money.
There came a night when Tim went to bed greatly pleased with the result of his finished labours; but the next morning he found they had been all in vain, for on going into the back garden after breakfast, he discovered that some animal—a dog, presumably—had been scratching and digging holes in the ground he had prepared so carefully for the reception of the seeds.
His indignation was intense; and fetching the ladder from the tool-house, he placed it against the partition wall, climbed it, and looked into the next garden. There were the sister and brother, their attention fixed on the contents of a big box which they had placed against the wall, and near them was Snip, his nose covered with earth.
Tim's wrath burst bounds as he regarded the trio, and he poured forth a volume of angry words, his Irish accent growing more and more pronounced as he proceeded, in which he accused Kitty and Bob of having deliberately put Snip in over the wall to destroy his garden. He vowed vengeance upon them, and at last, overcome with rage, he shook his fist at them and then abruptly quitted the scene.
"What a dreadful boy!" cried Kitty, who had turned quite pale. "What can he mean by speaking to us like that? What can Snip have done?"
"Destroyed his garden, he said," responded Bob. "I didn't put Snip over the wall, though. If he's been in there, he went by himself. My, what a temper that fellow has! I believe, as you say, he's a dreadful boy."