The children set about their tasks, and Humphrey cried out, as he very often did, "Now, this is jolly!"
While the dinner was cooking, Jacob amused the children by showing them how to put things in order; the floor was swept, the hearth was made tidy. He shewed Alice how to wash out a cloth, and Humphrey how to dust the chairs. They all worked merrily, while little Edith stood and clapped her hands.
But just before dinner was ready, Edward came in and said, "Here are troopers galloping in the forest!" Jacob went out, and observed that they were coming in a direction that would lead near to the cottage.
He walked in, and, after a moment's thought, he said, "My dear children, those men may come and search the cottage; you must do as I tell you, and mind that you are very quiet. Humphrey, you and your sisters must go to bed, and pretend to be very ill. Edward, take off your coat and put on this old hunting-frock of mine. You must be in the bedroom attending your sick brother and sisters. Come, Edith, dear, you must play at going to bed, and have your dinner afterward."
Jacob took the children into the bedroom, and, removing the upper dress, which would have betrayed that they were not the children of poor people, put them in bed, and covered them up to the chins with the clothes. Edward had put on the old hunting-shirt, which came below his knees, and stood with a mug of water in his hand by the bedside of the two girls. Jacob went to the outer room, to remove the platters laid out for dinner; and he had hardly done so when he heard the noise of the troopers, and soon afterward a knock at the cottage-door.
"Come in," said Jacob.
"Who are you, my friend?" said the leader of the troop, entering the door.
"A poor forester, sir," replied Jacob, "under great trouble."
"What trouble, my man?"
"I have the children all in bed with the small-pox."