“Oh, please, Mr. Busson,” implored Faith, as they trooped out of the orchard, “you won’t leave Andrew very long up there; suppose he got very tired of standing up on that chair, and tumbled off.”
“No fear of that happening, missy,” said the farmer, who had worked off the worst part of his temper by now, “for before we put that comfortable straw jacket over him, we stood him up on the chair, and tied him pretty tightly to the back of it. Then, to make sure that the chair itself wouldn’t budge, we slipped a chain round the legs of it, and so made the chain taut to the flag-staff, so you see that it’s all been carefully arranged. I’ve told him that most likely he’ll be there till the sundown, but I’ll let him off, may be, in a couple of hours.”
“Well, really,” said Faith, as they started on their expedition, “I think after all he has done, that Andrew has got off uncommonly well. Of course, Nanny invented that punishment, she always used to concoct the most fearful chastisements for us.”
“It must be disgustingly stuffy inside all that straw,” said Jack, “I’d sooner have had twenty lickings.”
“And I’d sooner have had forty than been made such a tom-fool of,” said Phil.
“Yes, but then you are not Andrew,” remarked Fay.
“Well, at any rate,” said Phoena, “I’m very glad that we know the worst of what is to happen to him, because now we needn’t feel so very selfish, going off to our picnic and not knowing what dreadful punishment Andrew might be undergoing all the time.”
“That’s true,” said Faith, “but where’s Gaston, I thought he started with us.”
“So he did,” said Phoena, “I expect he has gone round by the road, with Ruth, and the infants, and the donkey cart.”
“And we had better hurry up,” said Jack, “for they are going to wait for us at the stile by the barley-held.”