‘Oh, Mr. Brown!’ cried Kitty, dismayed at the vista of endless captivity which seemed to be opening before poor Punch, ‘you don’t mean to say you’ll never let him run about the garden again?’
Of course Mr. Brown did not seriously mean any such thing, but it pleased him to walk away grimly, muttering terrible threats about what he would do to Punch if he caught him in the garden again, and poor Kitty, who fully believed all he said, burst into fresh tears. ‘Oh, what shall we do?’ she sobbed. ‘Punch’ll die of grief, if he has to be chained up for always!’
‘Oh, but Aunt Grace would never stand that,’ said Emmeline, trying to comfort Kitty, though she herself felt very unhappy, ‘and, of course, it’s she who will really have to settle. It’s rubbish for Mr. Brown to talk as if this was his garden.’
‘I can’t help being afraid,’ she went on uneasily, ‘that it may have been Micky who broke that chrysanthemum last night, when he jumped down from the schoolroom window. You see it was exactly underneath the schoolroom window—just where he would jump. I wonder Mr. Brown didn’t notice his footsteps, but I suppose the rain in the night must have washed them out, and, of course, the ones he made this morning when he was swarming up the water-pipe would be a little further along.’
‘If it was Micky it makes it all the harder on poor darling Punch,’ said Kitty sorrowfully.
‘Well, we can’t be sure, you know, said Emmeline. ‘Anyhow, it’s no good crying over it now—it isn’t as if Punch had been whipped. There’s Mr. Brown going round to the front of the house! You’d better run and get Diamond Jubilee’s water, and take it out to him while you can, and I’ll see if I can get out the blankets.’
This diverted Kitty’s attention from Punch’s wrongs, and she ran into the house wiping her eyes on her overall sleeve. Emmeline made her way to the yard, but found Cook standing there trying to comfort poor Punch, who had just been chained up, and who looked as though he did not at all understand or like having to go to bed so early.
‘So you’ve come to talk to the poor animal,’ remarked Cook. ‘I reckon it’s best to chain him up for a bit, or he’d be running out into the garden and getting into Mr. Brown’s way, but it do seem hard.’
‘Do you think he would really beat him?’ asked Emmeline, trying to conceal the fact that she was rather dismayed at finding anybody there.