"Hugh John! Priscilla!" came a voice from a distance.
The great soldier Napoleon Smith instantly effected a retreat in masterly fashion behind a gooseberry bush.
"There's Jane calling us," said Priscilla; "she wants us to go in and be washed for dinner."
"Course she does," sneered Napoleon; "think she's out screeching like that for fun? Well, let her. I am not going in to be towelled till I'm all over red and scurfy, and get no end of soap in my eyes."
"But Jane wants you; she'll be so cross if you don't come."
"I don't care for Jane," said Napoleon Smith with dignity, but all the same making himself as small as possible behind his gooseberry bush.
"But if you don't come in, Jane will tell father——"
"I don't care for father—" the prone but gallant General was proceeding to declare in the face of Priscilla's horrified protestations that he mustn't speak so, when a slow heavy step was heard on the other side of the hedge, and a deep voice uttered the single syllable, "John!"
"Yes, father," a meek young man standing up behind the gooseberry bush instantly replied: he was trying to brush himself as clean as circumstances would permit. "Yes, father; were you calling me, father?"