“I don’t suppose she ever thought of it,” Nicholas said, candidly, wagging his curly head from side to side.
“She knows we’re mummers,” said Robin, “for she helped us. When we were abroad, you know, she used to tell us about the mummers acting at Christmas, when she was a little girl; and so we thought we’d be mummers, and so we acted to papa and mamma, and so we thought we’d act to the maids, but they were cleaning the passages, and so we thought we’d really go mumming; and we’ve got several other houses to go to before supper-time; we’d better begin, I think,” said Robin; and without more ado he began to march round and round, raising his sword and shouting,—
“I am St. George, who from Old England sprung,
My famous name throughout the world hath rung.”
And the performance went off quite as creditably as before.
As the children acted the old man’s anger wore off. He watched them with an interest he could not express. When Nicholas took some hard thwacks from St. George without flinching, the old man clapped his hands; and after the encounter between St. George and the Black Prince, he said he would not have had the dogs excluded on any consideration. It was just at the end, when they were all marching round and round, holding on by each other’s swords “over the shoulder,” and singing “A mumming we will go, &c.,” that Nicholas suddenly brought the circle to a standstill by stopping dead short, and staring up at the wall before him.
“What are you stopping for?” said St. George, turning indignantly round.
“Look there!” cried Nicholas, pointing to a little painting which hung above the old man’s head.
Robin looked, and said, abruptly, “It’s Dora.”
“Which is Dora?” asked the old man, in a strange sharp tone.