‘Promise faithfully you’ll endure any amount of awful tortures, sooner than betray us?’ he demanded threateningly, when he arrived in her room.
‘I’ll be killed first, honour bright,’ said Barbara, solemnly; and the letter passed into her hands. Her countenance grew very perplexed as she read it; for, to tell the truth, she could make neither head nor tail of its mysterious contents.
‘Dearest Jill,’ it ran,–‘We the undersigned are anxious to save you from an awful and terrible fate that is hanging over your head. The barn, we know, is not a place you would choose to spend a happy afternoon in, but Peter has cleaned out as much of the filth as he can (he found several decayed martins’ nests full of insects, two dead rats in an unspeakable condition, and a rotting owlet that made you squirm; so you see it might have been much worse, mightn’t it?) And I (that’s Wilfred) have successfully deposited in a box you will find secreted in the manger, two apples, some seed-cake (sorry it isn’t plum, but there wasn’t any), and a bottle of ginger beer. This, we think, will keep starvation from gnawing at you till the hour of release, which is seven o’clock, when we hope the Doctor will have given up waiting for you. We would put some more things to eat, but they are a little difficult to get without arousing suspicion; and we are afraid of attracting the mice and rats, which are plentiful already, and of which we believe you are afraid. We the undersigned all hope, dear Jill, that you will not attribute base motives to our action in this matter. We do assure you, honest Injun, that though you may dislike us for the moment, you will thank us deeply all the rest of your life.–We have the honour to remain,
Wilfred Everard Berkeley,
Peter Everard Berkeley,
Robin Everard Berkeley.
‘P.S.–Kit isn’t in it, because he raised objections and we shunted him. So your lifelong gratitude need not be extended to him.’
‘But when are you going to give Jill the letter?’ asked Barbara, looking extremely puzzled, as she came to the end of this elaborate composition.
‘We’re not going to give it to her,’ explained Peter. ‘It’s going to be dropped into the barn through a hole in the roof, as soon as Robin has coaxed her to go inside. The letter is to explain why we’ve locked her––’
He did not finish his sentence, for Wilfred called him from below, and he seized the sheet of paper and scampered off with it.