CHAPTER V

The "Ogre's" Arrival

IT was a wet day. Lessons had been done; dinner was over, and Miss Gubbins had told her little charges not to leave the schoolroom. She had been reading them some of the "Idylls of the King;" and then seeing them settle down quietly on the old window-seat to talk them over, she slipped away to write some letters in her room. The servants were all busy making preparations for their master, as he was now expected back any day, and Mrs. Peck was in the worst of humours, scolding the maids, and full of lamentation over the old times that were gone.

The children wisely kept out of her way; even Smythe would have nothing to do with them, and they were glad to have the safe refuge of the school room to play in.

Now they were talking with serious eyes, and in earnest tones, about their beloved King Arthur and his knights.

"I'll be Arthur," said Donald, at last starting up, "and I'm going to give a banquet to Lancelot and my queen. Come on to the table!"

"It isn't like Arthur's table," objected Claud, "it's a nasty square thing, and you're not to sit at the head of it, Don, for Arthur never had a head, he sat equal with his knights!"

"Couldn't we pretend it was round?" suggested Gypsy.

Donald walked round the offending object with frowning brow, then his face cleared.

"We'll make it round," he said; "we'll cut off the corners!"

Claud capered up and down with delight at this inspiration.

"With our pocket-knives! Come on!"

The table was an old mahogany one, and the boys found it harder work than they anticipated.

"Will Gubby be angry?" asked Gypsy doubtfully, as she saw the shavings drop on the carpet.

"She knows we like a round table," said Donald, panting for breath, as he hacked away with a ruthless hand. "I know what will be better. I will go and get a saw. There is one in the toolhouse."

Away he ran, and Claud rested from his labour.

"You see," he explained to Gypsy, who was looking on with round eyes, "it's a very old table, and it's covered with ink, and it always has a cloth on, so it can't be very wrong to make it round instead of square!"

Donald soon returned, and the destruction of the table was renewed with fresh vigour. They were in the very midst of it, when the door suddenly opened, and Victor Thurston stood on the threshold.

So intent had they been in their occupation, that his arrival, and the consequent bustle in the house, had been entirely unnoticed by them. It was an unfortunate meeting.

A short, sharp ejaculation started the children. "Good heavens, what imps of mischief! Where on earth is your governess? Does she allow you to hack all the furniture to pieces in this fashion?"

Gypsy ran out of the room thoroughly frightened; Claud retreated to the window-seat; Donald only stood his ground.

"We're only altering our table a little. We want it round. This is our table, and this is our room. Mrs. Peck said so!"

He looked defiant, as he often did when his conscience told him he had done wrong; but the hurried entrance of Miss Gubbins, and her horror-stricken exclamations and apologies cut his excuses short.

"You must have your hands full," said Victor, with a short laugh, as he tried to greet Miss Gubbins politely, "if this is a specimen of how they employ themselves in your absence!"

"They have never done such a naughty thing before," said poor Miss Gubbins. "I cannot think how they could have dared to do it! Come and tell your brother how sorry you are, Donald, for spoiling his furniture so!"

"It isn't his table, it's ours," muttered Donald sullenly.

"Look here, youngster," and Victor drew his little brother to him by the ear. "I have given you a home here, but I don't expect you to ruin everything in it by wanton mischief. You are old enough to know better. We'll say no more about it now, but don't let me find you destroying anything else, or there will be a row. Now make yourself scarce, for, I want to have a few words with Miss Gubbins."

Donald darted out of the room, and Claud followed him.

Victor looked after them; then with a smile and shrug of his shoulders, said to Miss Gubbins, "I hope I have not made a mistake in having them here. I never pretend to understand children; they are unknown quantities to me, but I wanted to give them a comfortable home, and I was going to ask you, Miss Gubbins, if you felt it possible to superintend the household here a little. They say it wants a lady to make a place homelike, and these old servants have had it all their own way too long. I thought perhaps I could make some arrangement about the boys being taught out of the house, if only for a few hours every day, and Gypsy seems such a baby that she would not require much of your time. What do you think? Of course it remains with you whether you would be willing to try it."

Miss Gubbins gazed out of the window with a little frown between her eyes. She took off her pince-nez, rubbed them nervously, then put them on, and looked up at the young man before her.

"I will be quite frank with you," she said. "I could not superintend such a large household and the children's lessons too. If the boys were taken off my hands, it would be a different matter; but even then, unless you gave Mrs. Peck notice to leave, I should not like to attempt it. She does not like our being here, and would never be willing to take any orders from me."

"Mrs. Peck can go to Jericho!" exclaimed Victor, a little hotly. "She treated me to a little of her independence directly I came into the house. I wrote to her to make you thoroughly comfortable; I find she has banished you to the top of the house, and when I remonstrated, I met with quiet insolence. One thing I have quite determined, and that is, to be master here; and the sooner she knows it, and every one else too, the better it will be for them all!"

Miss Gubbins was silent. Victor went on:

"I shall lead a very quiet life here; there is a good bit of land which will need my attention, and I shall be in town very often. I want things to go on smoothly in my absence, and I don't consider Mrs. Peck will be needed any more. The cook, I find, has been here fifteen years, and seems a motherly, capable old body, quite anxious to escape Mrs. Peck's rule. Don't decide hastily, but let me know in a day or two what you feel about it. I won't keep you any longer now, but I hope you will dine with me at eight to-night. I conclude the children will be in bed by that time, and if not, there are plenty of servants here to look after them."

He strode away, and Miss Gubbins heaved a heavy sigh. "I must do it. I don't mind the housekeeping. It is these old servants I dread, and I shall not like to lose control over the boys. I hope they will get on well with Mr. Thurston. I wish he were not quite so masterful."

And then with another sigh, she settled herself in the window-seat, and took up one of her beloved poets to soothe her perturbed spirit.

The children meanwhile were discussing the arrival of their brother with vigour, in a favourite corner of theirs on the stairs. It was a little square landing overlooking the entrance hall, and was partially curtained off the wide staircase.

If "Agony's" subjects proved rebellious, she was sure to rush out at them from this corner after dusk as they passed upstairs, and Gypsy the heavy damask curtain at all times with awe and dread. She was sitting now on the floor, her legs well tucked under her, and Donald was holding forth:

"He's a worse Ogre than ever, and he'll make this house a kind of prison. He pinched my ear till I could have kicked him! He thinks he is going to be a kind of lord here."

"Like King Arthur," put in Gypsy; "and we shall be the knights, only we don't love him like they loved Arthur!"

"I've just made up my mind what I shall do," said Claud, sticking his hands in his pockets, and his chin in the air; "I shall get one of those suits of armour off the wall, and dress up in one, and I shall go to his bedroom at night, and frighten him well!"

"You'd be a wicked boy, then," said Gypsy, who had a fellow feeling for any one frightened after dark, "and perhaps you'd make him into an idiot, like the boy that Gubby told us about!"

"We'll do it, Claud," said Donald with enthusiasm, "and we'll do it to-morrow night!"

"And then he'll take out his pistol and shoot you," pursued Gypsy; "and it will serve you right, for Arthur's knights never went about frightening people. Galahad wouldn't do it."

"I'm not going to be Galahad," said Donald, a little impatiently, "he was too good. I can't be good, so it's no use trying."

"Then you'll never see the Holy Thing."

"Well, you won't, so you needn't think it. You're not a bit better than we are; you're worse, for you're a girl, and girls are made to be good, and Jane says you kicked her this morning!"

"Well," said Gypsy, a little abashed, "she tried to shut me into a cupboard 'to keep me quiet,' she said. I was only just getting a blacking brush to clean Helen Mary's shoes, and it was only a tiny little soft kick on her dress! I told her I was sorry after, because I'm trying hard to find the Holy Thing!"

The boys did not listen to this defence; they were busily engaged in laying their plans for the next night. They had both a great longing to get down one of the suits of armour from the wall, and try it on, but the difficulty was to reach them. However, the next day they pressed Ned, the stable-boy, into their service, and when Miss Gubbins went down to dine with their brother, the three conspirators crept to the darkest corner of the big hall, and with great trouble the smallest suit of armour was unfastened, and Claud put into it. The weight of it astonished and alarmed him.

"I'm nearly buried," he said in a muffled voice; "I can't keep it on long, Don. Let me out!"

"No; you must come upstairs and hide in his bedroom, and wait till he comes to bed!"

"That will be hours and hours; it's so heavy; I can't wait all that time!"

After further consideration, they decided that Claud should hide in "Agony's" corner on the stairs, and pounce out upon his victim as he came upstairs. It was a great labour to help him up there, but that was accomplished at last, and then Donald ran up to tell Gypsy that everything was in readiness. The audacity of the exploit awed her, but though she felt in her small heart that trouble would follow, she could not resist creeping out of bed and down the stairs to see Claud in his armour.

"Oh," she said with clasped hands, "you look beautiful, Claud, dear."

"It's awful hot and uncomfortable," was Claud's response.

[Illustration: THE ARMOUR WAS UNFASTENED.]

"Yes, but just think! You're like a real knight now, and no one would be able to hurt you, if you had a fight. Who do you feel like? Galahad or Lancelot?"

"Sh—sh! Here's some one coming!" cried Donald.

Away he and Gypsy scampered back to their beds, and Claud stepped behind the curtain.

It was only Miss Gubbins. Having left Victor to have a smoke, she was coming up to her own set of rooms. Claud held his breath while she went by. Though he was sorely tempted to show himself, he refrained from doing so, as he knew in that case his plan would be frustrated. Time passed very slowly. Donald and Gypsy did not return to him, and his shoulders and arms were aching from the heavy weight of his armour.

"It isn't much fun, after all," was his rueful thought.

And then at last he heard his brother's voice in the hall, and the quick, heavy tread up the staircase.

Opening the curtain, he strode out.

"Who goes there?"

The challenge was not given in such gruff, manly tones as was planned. If truth must out, it was a very thin quavering treble squeak, and Victor was not in the least alarmed. For a minute he stood still, regarding the queer little figure in front of him with some amusement; then in a very determined tone he said:

"This will never do. I can't have my old armour walking over the house in this style. I must string it up again, and drive a nail through the helmet to make it secure."

Before Claud knew where he was, he found himself tucked under Victor's arm and being carried downstairs as if he were a mere parcel.

He was too proud to call out, and the rapid movement through the air so bewildered him, that it was not till he fancied he actually felt a cord being tied round his neck, and expected to be slung up on the wall the next minute, that all his courage deserted him.

Then Victor heard a piteous little muffled cry out of the old visor:

"Oh, please let me out! I won't do it again, I promise! Please undo me, and let me go out!"

But Victor was not so easily persuaded.

"I'll tie you up here, whoever you are, and there you shall stay till I choose to release you."

Poor Claud found he was being secured effectually to an old stone pillar in the outer hall, and then, whistling unconcernedly, his step-brother pursued his way upstairs, and he was left alone in the darkness.

This was turning the tables on him with a vengeance! The servants' hall was too far off to hear his muffled cries for help; he ached from the heavy, cumbersome weight of the armour, and he longed with all his heart to be safe in his own little bed. He wondered if Donald would come to his rescue, but he would not think of looking for him downstairs, and poor Claud quite expected to be left there all night.

It seemed to be hours to him before he saw, through the dimly-lighted hall, the figure of his brother descending the stairs.

But he was liberated at last, and emerged from his knightly covering, a tearful, woe-begone little figure.

"Now off to bed with you, and let this be the last prank with any of the armour here!"

Claud crept up to bed, quite cured of his love of intimidating any "grown-up," but with less love than ever for the one who had outdone him.