About three o'clock in the afternoon, Dr and Mrs Bevengton and Bessie arrived. After half an hour's exchange of family greetings, Jack and Bessie went out into the garden, leaving the old people indoors.
"Shall we go for a stroll through Cleeve woods?" Jack asked, presently.
"Yes, I haven't been there for a long time."
Cleeve woods were the private property of Lady Cleeve, but Jack and Bessie were privileged persons, allowed to trespass whenever they liked. They wandered along the well-known paths, going very slowly; every tree and bush held its own secret for them, recalling each its own little tragedy or comedy of their early lives.
Bessie stopped in front of a tall pine tree. "Do you remember when you climbed up there and took the kestrel's eggs?"
"I remember curly-haired 'Fatty,' and Jim down below keeping 'cave,' in case the keeper came."
The dimples burst out anew. "I was a fatty then, wasn't I? You came down all the way without a word. I knew you'd got eggs by the careful way you were watching your pockets. I thought it was only a magpie's, then you glanced round like a burglar and just showed one eye over the top of your pocket, I knew it was a hawk's because it was red."
"A kestrel is a falcon, Bessie, not a hawk. You said, 'O-oh,' under your breath, and Jim whispered 'what is it?' Jim never could tell one egg from another."
"We all felt like desperate poachers and crept out of the wood in breathless haste, and you blew them under the chestnut tree on your lawn."
Jack looked at her with a sudden admiration.