Deep Moat Grange

by S. R. Crockett

"Just a little way across a green glade—stood Mad Jeremy—he had Harriett Caw by the hand."

But when Mad Jeremy saw me, or, perhaps, before (I do not want to take credit for anything that isn't my due), he let go of Harriet Caw, saying just "She isn't the pretty one! What is she doing here?" And with a skip and a jump he was gone. That is, so far as I could see.

Then Harriet swooned away in my arms, toppling over like a ladder slipping off the side of a house. At least, I suppose that is what they call it. But at that time I had had no experience of swoons. For Elsie never went on like that. At all events, Harriet Caw clutched me about the neck, her fingers working as if they would claw off my collar, and she laughing and crying both at once. Funny it was, but though it made a fellow squirm—not altogether so horrid as you might think. But I did not know what to do. I tried hard to think whether it was the palms of her hands or the backs of her ears that you ought to rub, or whether I should lay her down or stand her up against a tree. I knew there was something. Then I got in a funk lest, after all, it should be the soles of her feet.

But Mad Jeremy had not altogether gone away. He had been watching, and now popped his head and shiny ringlets round a tree trunk, which brought me to myself.

"Ah—ha!" he cried, "I'll tell the pretty one about these goings on!"

And, quick as a flash, that brought Harriet Caw to herself, also. It did better than splashing water or rubbing hands. The moment before she had been all rigid like a lump of wood in my arms. But as soon as the words were out of Mad Jeremy's mouth, she was standing before me, her eyes flashing lightning, and her elbows drawn a little in to her sides.

Mad? Well, rather. She was hopping, just.

"So I'm not the pretty one," she said—whispered it, rather, with a husky sound, like frying bacon in her voice. "Oh, I see—that's why my eyes are like brown paint—varnished! Well, who's the pretty one? Answer me that!"

"I think he must mean Elsie!" I said, telling the truth just as briefly as I could.