Paul the Courageous

by Mabel Quiller-Couch

He opened his eyes with a puzzled stare. "Is it late, mother? Have you had breakfast? What's the time?"

"Eleven o'clock. Yes, we had breakfast hours ago, but when we found we could not rouse you, we let you sleep on. Were you disturbed in the night, dear?"

He opened his still drowsy eyes again. "Disturbed!" he said stupidly. He really did not remember at once all that had happened. "No, I don't think so. Why?"

"We think someone broke into the house last night. At least, one of the kitchen windows and the shutter were found open, and there were footmarks on the window-sill, and about the floor. The strange thing is that nothing has been moved or taken away, but Mrs. Minards is greatly frightened, so are the maids; the foolish girls seem to have lost their heads entirely."

Long before she had finished speaking, Paul had remembered that he had left the window and the shutters open, and that he must have left footmarks where he trod. He felt thoroughly despicable as he lay there, listening to his mother's story, knowing that he could explain all, and so save every one much alarm and trouble. "I should not have told Stella and Michael," she went on, "lest they should be nervous another time, but they had heard it all from the maids before I could prevent it."

But Paul did not hear what she was saying; he had suddenly thought of his clothes, those he wore last night, and his tell-tale stockings. If his mother noticed them now, the whole affair would be shown up. And at that moment Mrs. Anketell did catch sight of the stockings, lying inside out and rolled up anyhow, on the floor, and instinctively she picked one up and began to straighten it, while Paul watched her actions with feelings such as an animal must suffer when caught in a trap.

"Why, Paul," she exclaimed, as she thrust her hand into the foot of it, "your stockings are quite wet, and—oh, look, my dear child, what have you done to them?" She held up the foot on her hand for him to see. The bottom of it was riddled with holes!

He had never thought of their wearing out like that, and he leaned up, gazing at the stocking in sheer astonishment. His mother mistook the look on his face for another kind of surprise. "How can they have got into such a state? They were quite sound when I bandaged your ankle. Were they sound when you took them off last night?"

"They were all right when I came to bed," stammered Paul.

"But they have thorns and bits of grass stuck in them," she cried, examining them closely. "Some one must have walked about in them on grass, and wet grass too." She put down the stocking, and picked up the knickerbockers which were lying on a chair. "My dear child, these are all muddy too!" And as she held them up Paul saw on them the clear marks of his fall, and his attempts to scale the window.