SATURDAY morning dawned calm and clear after heavy rain on the hills, with a Sabbath-like peace in the air. The smoke of Edam rose straight up into the firmament from a hundred chimneys, and the Lias Coal Mine contributed a yet taller pillar to the skies, which bushed out at the top till it resembled an umbrella with a thick handle. Hugh John had been very early astir, and one of his first visits had been to the gipsy camp, where he found Billy Blythe with several others all clad in their tumbling tights, practising their great Bounding Brothers' act.
"Hello," cried Hugh John jovially, "at it already?"
"The mornin's the best time for suppling the jints!" answered Billy sententiously; "ask Lepronia Lovell, there. She should know with all them tin pans going clitter-clatter on her back."
"I'll be thankin' ye, Billy Blythe, to kape a tight holt on the slack o' that whopper jaw of yours. It will be better for you at supper-time than jeerin' at a stranger girl, that is arnin' her bite o' bread daycent. And that's a deal more than ye can do, aye, or anny wan like ye!"
And with these brave words, Lepronia Lovell went jingling away.
The Bounding Brothers threw themselves into knots, spun themselves into parti-coloured tops, turned double and treble somersaults, built human pyramids, and generally behaved as if they had no bones in any permanent positions throughout their entire bodies. Hugh John stood by in wonder and admiration.
"Are you afraid?" cried Billy from where he stood, arching his shoulders and swaying a little, as one of the supporters of the pyramid. "No?—then take off your boots." Hugh John instantly stood in his stocking soles.
"Up with him!" And before he knew it, he was far aloft, with his feet on the shoulders of the highest pair, who supported him with their right and left hands respectively. From his elevated perch he could see the enemy's flag flaunting defiance from the topmost battlements of the castle.
As soon as he reached the ground he mentioned what he had seen to Billy Blythe.