"Oh, that's the little one at the end," said Robin, confidently. "Mamma said we weren't to mention him, but I think that's because we're children.—You're grown up, you know, so I'll show you the book, and you can see for yourself," he went on, drawing "The Peace Egg" from his pocket: "there, that's the picture of him, on the last page; black, with horns and a tail."
The old man's stern face relaxed into a broad smile as he examined the grotesque woodcut; but when he turned to the first page the smile vanished in a deep frown, and his eyes shone like hot coals with anger. He had seen Robin's name.
"Who sent you here?" he asked, in a hoarse voice. "Speak, and speak the truth! Did your mother send you here?"
Robin thought the old man was angry with them for playing truant. He said, slowly, "N—no. She didn't exactly send us; but I don't think she'll mind our having come if we get back in time for supper. Mamma never forbid our going mumming, you know."
"I don't suppose she ever thought of it," Nicholas said candidly, wagging his curly head from side to side.
"She knows we're mummers," said Robin, "for she helped us. When we were abroad, you know, she used to tell us about the mummers acting at Christmas, when she was a little girl; and so we thought we'd be mummers, and so we acted to papa and mamma, and so we thought we'd act to the maids, but they were cleaning the passages, and so we thought we'd really go mumming; and we've got several other houses to go to before supper-time; we'd better begin, I think," said Robin; and without more ado he began to march round and round, raising his sword, and the performance went off quite as creditably as before.
As the children acted the old man's anger wore off. He watched them with an interest he could not repress. When Nicholas took some hard thwacks from Robert without flinching, the old man clapped his hands; and after the encounter was over, he said he would not have had the dogs excluded on any consideration. It was just at the end, when they were all marching round and round, holding on by each other's swords "over the shoulder," and singing "A mumming we will go, etc.," that Nicholas suddenly brought the circle to a stand-still by stopping dead short, and staring up at the wall before him.
"What are you stopping for?" said Robert, turning indignantly around.
"Look there!" cried Nicholas, pointing to a little painting which hung above the old man's head.