All this was excessively flattering coming from a big boy of fourteen, and after some more remarks of the sort Betty and John began to feel that they were very fine people, who had always, rather unjustly, been kept in the background by their elder sister. For the first time in their lives they looked upon Madge as a tyrant.
"I should like to come up there and play with you," continued Lewis. "Only the wall is rather too high for me to climb now that the ladder has gone. Oh, I have a good idea! Capital! The very thing! Why didn't we think of it before, I wonder?"
"What is it?" cried the twins. "What have you thought of?"
Lewis did not answer, but turned away and ran quickly to the shed where Jack had been shut up. Presently he came out again, dragging some iron railings, which with considerable trouble he got as far as the overhanging boughs of the beech-tree.
"There's a ladder for you!" he exclaimed proudly, as he propped the railings against the wall.
"It's splendid! Quite splendid!" shouted the twins, forgetting in their excitement how near they were to the terrible house with the cellar.
"Hush! Hush!" whispered Lewis. "If you make such a noise we shall be caught, and all our fun stopped. And it's not quite perfect either. Not high enough. See!"
In point of fact the top bar of the railings was only five feet from the ground, so that it did not reach more than half-way up the wall. It was very nice as far as it went, but more of it was badly wanted. However, Lewis was not easily discouraged. He returned to the shed, where there were several more railings, and dragged out another. "They are dreadfully heavy," he said; "but I don't care. I shall go on fetching them until I get enough to reach the top of the wall. I know there are a heap of them in the shed. They are kept there when they are not being used to divide the field."
"Take care you don't tumble! Oh, that's beautiful! I do wish we could help you!" cried the twins, looking on in the highest admiration while Lewis slowly pushed and pulled one railing on the top of another against the wall. Then he tied them together with some bits of string out of his pocket, and proceeded to mount. It was not a very steady ladder, but with the wall to lean against there was small fear of falling, and when near the top of it Lewis could reach the hands that were eagerly stretched out to help him. In another moment he was sitting on the Eagle's Nest.
"This is a goodish sort of tree," he remarked, looking round with a patronizing air. "Very easy to climb, of course—"