“You be quiet!” flashed his sister. She cast a look of sudden inspiration at his innocent face. “I do believe——!” She broke off, and hurriedly unfastened Blackie’s girth, lifting the saddle. A dry thistle-head, considerably flattened, came into view.
“You did it!” she screamed, and darted at him. Jack’s movement of flight was a thought too late: she grabbed his leg as he swung his pony round, and in a moment he, too, lay on the grass, the injured Judy pounding him scientifically. We dragged the combatants apart, holding them at a safe distance.
“What do you mean by putting a thing like that under your sister’s saddle, sir?” demanded Dr. Firth severely.
“Well, she wanted an exciting ride,” Jack grinned. “She wouldn’t do anything but abuse poor old Blackie ’cause he wouldn’t go. She said he ought to be in a Home for Decayed Animals, and she wouldn’t believe me when I told her he only wanted a little handling. So I thought I’d show her that he wasn’t as old as he looked, and I put that thistle under the saddle while she was finding a new switch. And my goodness, didn’t he go! Wasn’t it just scrumptious when he kicked her off!” He dissolved in helpless laughter at the recollection, and Judy writhed in Dr. Firth’s hands.
“It isn’t fair!” she protested. “Just let me get at him for a moment!”
“Murder is forbidden on this property,” answered her host sententiously. “He deserves hanging, but you had better forgive him, Judy, and come in for some tea.”
Judy submitted with a bad grace.
“Oh, all right,” she said. “Let’s go—I won’t kill him now, but I’ll pay him out afterwards—you see if I don’t, young Jack!” With a swift movement she possessed herself of Jack’s pony, scrambling into the saddle and setting off at a gallop, a proceeding Jack vainly endeavoured to check by clinging to the tail of his steed, and narrowly escaping being kicked. He shrugged his shoulders, grinned cheerfully, girthed up Blackie’s saddle, and went off in pursuit. They appeared together, presently, on the verandah, washed and brushed, and apparently the best of friends: and proceeded to demonstrate how many chocolate éclairs may be consumed at an early age without fatal results to the consumers.
We found a silent house when we reached The Towers at six o’clock, for the house-party had suddenly decided upon a moonlight picnic, and had vanished into the bush. Mrs. McNab did not appear at all: genius was working, and she had given orders that she was not to be disturbed. We dined in the schoolroom in unwonted quiet; the children confessed to being tired, and went off to bed early, leaving me free to answer long letters that had awaited me from Colin and Madge—long, cheery letters, written with the evident intention of making me believe that life in the Prahran flat was one long dream of joy. I was reading them, for the fourth time, when Julia dropped in to see me, on her way downstairs with Mrs. McNab’s dinner-tray.
“I’d sooner be carryin’ it down than up,” she remarked, putting the tray upon the schoolroom table. “ ’Tis herself has the great appetite when she’s worrkin’: that tray was as heavy as lead when I tuk it up. Indeed, though, wouldn’t the poor thing want nourishing an’ she writin’ her ould books night afther night! ’Tis no wonder she looks annyhow next day.”