"Don't talk nonsense!" said Captain West severely. He would play with the children all day, and readily forgive them any damage they did through carelessness, but he never could stand their trying to argue that wrong was right. "You know as much about dew as I do," he continued; "and I have put on thick boots while you have been running about for an hour in dripping wet shoes."
It was quite impossible to deny this, for Madge's feet presented a most miserable appearance. She had been running through the shrubberies, where the long wet grass reached up to her knees, and her kid shoes were also scratched and muddy.
"If I go in and put on thick boots may I come out again and help you to drive the goats?" inquired Madge anxiously.
Seeing how very wet she was, Captain West did not dare grant this request, but ordered her straight back to bed. With many a grumble Madge returned to her room and threw all her clothes in a heap on the floor. Then she slowly climbed into bed, protesting to herself that she should be sure to lie awake until it was time to get up, in spite of which resolve she fell asleep in about two minutes.
Whether Jack and Jill thought that Captain West did not look like a person to be trifled with, or whether they were really getting a little tired of their prolonged frolic, it is impossible to say. At all events, soon after he appeared they allowed themselves to be quietly driven to the end of the garden and out through the door into the farmyard, where they remained until Barton came to milk the cows in the morning.
CHAPTER IX.
AN ALARMING JUMP.
"I'll tell you what it is, children," said Captain West briskly as he entered the dining-room rather late for breakfast, "if these pets of yours are going to keep me trotting about the garden at night I shall lose my excellent character for punctuality in the morning. Why, here is Madge coming down late too, and looking very displeased with the world. I don't know if Jack and Jill are responsible for her frowns as well as my lateness; if so, they have a good deal upon their consciences!"
The fact of the matter was, that poor Madge was labouring under a grievance. In the morning she and Betty usually tried who should get down earliest to breakfast, and to-day, as might have been expected, Madge's shoes had shrunk up so uncomfortably after their wetting that she could not get them on without a great deal of rough handling. And then, to make matters worse, Nurse had declared that they were still damp, and made her take them off again to be put in front of the fire and thoroughly dried. Of course Betty was downstairs and half through a basin of bread-and-milk before Madge appeared, with a very gloomy countenance.