Now a seventh member of the party had been adding himself to it, unseen of the others, and in easy approaches. This was a grey goat belonging to the Greys for some years, whose intimacy with the family was fully established, and whose manners were of the pleasantest. But whether he regarded Bartlemy's easel as a personal affront, or whether he resented his daring to paint the pretty youngest girl, to whom the goat belonged in a particular manner, no one was ever sufficiently in his confidence to say, but just as Rob announced her desire to see things hum, they hummed, for the grey goat, kicking up his heels, charged head down, full at artist and easel.
Neither was prepared. Bartlemy was stooping, brush in teeth, to look for a palette-knife, and two of the easel's three legs rested on tufts of grass. As the goat charged Bartlemy went head over heels down a slope below him; the canvas flew up and lighted full on Oswyth's smooth head; the easel fell with a clatter, and paints danced broadcast over the grass. Prue screamed, and so did Oswyth, not recognizing the assailant in the first confusion. Basil and Bruce fell prone on their backs, one in each direction, like Max and Maurice in the old pictures, perfectly convulsed with laughter, while Rob, after the pause of a startled instant, fell on her face and nearly went into hysterics.
The goat, seeing that he was, after all, in the midst of friends, and seeming to fear that he might have estranged them, looked around on the company with a vacuous and conciliatory expression, while Bartlemy, sitting erect, and pulling his collar up and his belt down, returned the goat's gaze with a horrible scowl that sent his brothers and the girls off into fresh spasms of laughter.
"What is he?" demanded Bartlemy, and added, shaking his fist at the goat: "You old sign of the zodiac, I wasn't interfering with you, was I?"
"That's our—our nice—gentle—oh, dear me!—our nice, gentle, old Ben Bolt," gasped Rob, sitting up and wiping her eyes.
"Gentle!" ejaculated Bartlemy.
"He's our little pet," said Rob. "Come here, Ben, dear. Why did you go for to do it? Bowling over a harmless boy who was painting of your missus!"
Ben Bolt meekly obeyed, and took the chance to seize a mouthful of peas, as he gazed with his light-barred eyes at the wreck he had made.