"Pooh! I like his cheek!" cried Jack. "At the time he said it was the sun; and now he says, 'the hayrick we set on fire,' when he knows perfectly well it was entirely his own doing. I should think he's rich enough to find the five shillings himself."
"Oh, he's always short of money, and trying to borrow from somebody," answered Valentine. "The thing I don't understand is, what good five shillings can be; the man would want more than that for his hay."
"I don't understand Master Raymond," said Jack. "What shall you do?"
"Well, as we were all there together, I suppose we ought to try to help him out. The damage ought to be made good; I thought he would have got Uncle Fosberton to do that. I'll send him the money; though I should like to know how he's going to square the man with five shillings."
A description of half the pleasures and merry-making that went to make up a holiday at Brenlands would need a book to itself, and it would therefore be impossible for me to attempt to give an account of all that happened. The jollification was somehow very different from much of the fun which Fenleigh J. had been accustomed to indulge in, in company with his associates in the Upper Fourth; and though it was not a whit less enjoyable, yet after it was over no one was heard to remark that they'd "had their cake, and now they must pay for it."
On the last morning but one, when the boys came down to breakfast, they found Queen Mab making a great fuss over something that had come by post.
"Isn't it kind of your father?" she said. "Look what he's sent me!"
The present was handed round. It was a gold brooch, containing three locks of hair arranged like a Prince of Wales's plume, two light curls, and a dark one in the middle—Valentine's, Helen's, and Barbara's.
"He says it's to remind me of my three chicks when they are not with me at Brenlands."
"Mine's in the middle!" cried Barbara.