Mrs. Grey put into Darby's hand the shallow basket of round brown eggs, with two tiny white ones on the top for themselves that had been laid by Specky, the lovely black-and-buff bantam. Then, with many kisses and warnings to be careful, she set the happy pair upon their homeward way.
They took turns at carrying the basket, and paused now and again to peep at their bantam eggs, not much bigger than marbles, and the others which held the promise of such sweet baby Cochins within their smooth, silk-lined shells.
"Oh, I am tired!" sighed Darby at length, when they were still only half-way down the road, just passing by the entrance to the pine wood. "Are you tired, Joan?"
"Yes," assented Joan promptly; "this basket's so heavy. Can't we rest awhile after we pass the trees?"
"We shall rest here," said Darby decidedly; and suiting the action to the word, he took the basket from his sister's hand, placed it carefully on the roadside, and, with a deep breath of satisfaction, dropped on the soft grass beside it, just where the path branched off the highway into Copsley Wood.
"Darby!" cried Joan in remonstrance, "are you forgetting what you promised Auntie Alice, and that Aunt Catharine said we wasn't to go into the wood?"
"I'm not forgetting one bit," he replied loftily. "Sure, sitting here isn't going into the wood, is it, Miss Joan? Besides, I don't believe there's any bad people in it. They only want to frighten us," he continued, in a grown-up sort of tone; and when Darby spoke like that, Joan felt quite sure he knew what he was talking about—better even than Aunt Catharine herself!
They sat still for a little while, resting on the soft, mossy grass, listening to the song of the robins in the hedges, watching the snowy sea-gulls that hovered about the tail of Mr. Grey's plough as it turned the stubble into long, even furrows of dark, fresh-smelling soil.
Then a couple of rabbits darted by to their burrow in the wood; and at the foot of a big beech tree growing close beside the children a whole party of squirrels had gathered, nibbling hungrily at the nuts that were scattered round its base.
The little ones hushed their chatter, afraid to breathe almost, lest they should disturb the merry family meal.