The Eagle's Nest Part 7

Perhaps it was because Madge went to sleep rather early that evening that she was enabled to wake proportionately early the following morning. It was fairly light and fine, though not sunny. She got out of bed and went to the window. Madge invariably looked out of the window the first thing in the morning, but to-day she was rewarded by seeing something that had never met her eyes before.

On the lawn, directly in front of the house, was a large flower-bed, containing many roses of different colours. They were Mrs. West's favourite flowers, and even when she could not go out, she enjoyed seeing them from the drawing-room window. In the middle of this flower-bed now stood Jack and Jill, cropping off and devouring dozens of rose-buds with evident relish.

Madge rubbed her eyes and looked again. It was no dream, and there was no possibility of a mistake. She had seen the goats safely shut into the calves' house the night before, and here they were loose and walking about the garden. She could not understand in the least how it had happened; but nevertheless it was a fact. And, moreover, they were eating her mother's favourite roses as fast as they could. She tapped gently on the window-pane, but the goats took absolutely no notice. At this rate there would not be a rose left by the time the gardener came to work.

A great idea occurred to Madge. We know that she was rather independent, as befitted the eldest of a family, and decidedly fond of managing things her own way. So it presently came about that she decided not to let the roses be eaten, and not to disturb anybody else, but to drive Jack and Jill out of the garden all by herself. Perhaps it seemed rather unkind not to wake Betty, who was sleeping quietly in her little bed in the other corner of the room. However, she looked so comfortable that it was almost a pity to disturb her, and after all she was two years younger than Madge, and could not reasonably expect to do exactly the same things as her elder sister. She would be very full of reproaches when she woke up, but Madge resolved to risk a little sisterly abuse sooner than permit anyone to share the glory of her exploit.

It really does not take very long to dress if one omits all ornamental additions, and dispenses with everything in the shape of a bath! Jack and Jill had not time to do more than taste the succulent young shoots of half a dozen rose-trees before Madge had crept downstairs and quietly opened the front-door. Then with a half-suppressed shout of battle she rushed towards them, waving a walking-stick which she had the presence of mind to s.n.a.t.c.h up in pa.s.sing through the hall. The goats both gave a guilty start at the first sound, and then crossed the lawn in a series of most amazing bounds. Madge afterwards compared them to gigantic gra.s.shoppers; and, indeed, as she panted hopelessly behind them, she would scarcely have felt surprised if one of her nimble pets had, with a higher leap than usual, suddenly perched on the bough of a tree or the roof of a house!

Madge had often laughed at her father's little terrier, Snap, for chasing the sparrows up and down the lawn in the vain hope of some day catching them, but she soon began to realize that she had started on quite as hopeless an enterprise herself. However rapidly she ran along the paths, however stealthily she stalked behind the bushes, Jack and Jill proved quicker and more artful. When, with untold trouble, she had driven them into a corner, and was advancing with outstretched hands to grasp their pert little horns, they would just toss their heads, and without any apparent effort skip right over her shoulder and be off half across the garden almost before she could turn round.

"I do believe I shall have to go back and fetch Betty after all,"

muttered Madge, when this sort of thing had gone on so long that she was fairly tired out. "Not that she can run half as fast as I can, her legs are so short! But she could help. I really can't be expected to do all the work by myself!"

Madge was getting tired, and consequently cross. So, rather funnily, she was beginning to feel it quite a grievance that n.o.body had come out to help her to drive the goats, forgetting that it was entirely her own wish to undertake the job alone. As she somewhat sullenly walked towards the house, she prepared several severe speeches to be addressed to Betty on the selfishness of lying in bed and leaving her sister to do all the work. But just as she was getting into a state of considerable indignation, out of the open front-door walked her father.

Captain West had evidently dressed in a hurry like his daughter. In point of fact he had been suddenly wakened by one of Madge's involuntary cries, for though she had every intention of being very quiet, she could not altogether suppress an occasional shout when the goats were unusually irritating. He had started up and looked into the pa.s.sage. All seemed quiet, but a gleam of light in the hall below showed him that the front-door was open. Between three and four o'clock in the morning this was a fairly peculiar circ.u.mstance. So, returning to his room he hastily slipped on the first clothes he came across and proceeded downstairs, to find out who was about at that early hour.

"Hullo, Madge! What on earth are you doing?" he exclaimed, as he suddenly found himself face to face with his eldest daughter.

Madge explained the whole story in rather a confused, disjointed sort of way. It was not at all the triumphal return to the house that she had planned. If things had gone as she intended she would easily have caught Jack and Jill; they would have come to eat a little gra.s.s out of her hand, and then she would gently but firmly have led them back to the calves' house. Here she would have secured the door more skilfully than her elders had done the previous evening, so that there would have been no further possibility of escape for the prisoners. And then she would have strolled quietly back to the house, and explained to an admiring audience at breakfast-time what precautions she had taken for the safety of the garden while the more negligent members of the family slept. It was certainly very disappointing to be treated by her father as a naughty child instead of a heroine, and scolded for her stupidity in running out on the wet gra.s.s in thin shoes.

"But I couldn't expect it to be wet in the summer," replied Madge, who would seldom admit that she was in the wrong without an argument.

"Don't talk nonsense!" said Captain West severely. He would play with the children all day, and readily forgive them any damage they did through carelessness, but he never could stand their trying to argue that wrong was right. "You know as much about dew as I do," he continued; "and I have put on thick boots while you have been running about for an hour in dripping wet shoes."

It was quite impossible to deny this, for Madge's feet presented a most miserable appearance. She had been running through the shrubberies, where the long wet gra.s.s reached up to her knees, and her kid shoes were also scratched and muddy.

"If I go in and put on thick boots may I come out again and help you to drive the goats?" inquired Madge anxiously.

Seeing how very wet she was, Captain West did not dare grant this request, but ordered her straight back to bed. With many a grumble Madge returned to her room and threw all her clothes in a heap on the floor. Then she slowly climbed into bed, protesting to herself that she should be sure to lie awake until it was time to get up, in spite of which resolve she fell asleep in about two minutes.

Whether Jack and Jill thought that Captain West did not look like a person to be trifled with, or whether they were really getting a little tired of their prolonged frolic, it is impossible to say. At all events, soon after he appeared they allowed themselves to be quietly driven to the end of the garden and out through the door into the farmyard, where they remained until Barton came to milk the cows in the morning.

CHAPTER IX.

AN ALARMING JUMP.

"I'll tell you what it is, children," said Captain West briskly as he entered the dining-room rather late for breakfast, "if these pets of yours are going to keep me trotting about the garden at night I shall lose my excellent character for punctuality in the morning. Why, here is Madge coming down late too, and looking very displeased with the world. I don't know if Jack and Jill are responsible for her frowns as well as my lateness; if so, they have a good deal upon their consciences!"

The fact of the matter was, that poor Madge was labouring under a grievance. In the morning she and Betty usually tried who should get down earliest to breakfast, and to-day, as might have been expected, Madge's shoes had shrunk up so uncomfortably after their wetting that she could not get them on without a great deal of rough handling. And then, to make matters worse, Nurse had declared that they were still damp, and made her take them off again to be put in front of the fire and thoroughly dried. Of course Betty was downstairs and half through a basin of bread-and-milk before Madge appeared, with a very gloomy countenance.

However, Captain West could not abide melancholy faces around the table, and he began to make such outrageous suggestions about a fitting punishment for the goats who had disturbed his night's rest, that at last even Madge was compelled to relax into a smile.

"Oh, don't pretend you will shave them, Papa! I don't believe anybody could make them stand still enough to be shaved," she said. "And as for harnessing them to the brougham, you know they are so small they would slip through the horses' great collars. But it would be very nice to have a tiny cart that they really could draw," she added wistfully.

"I think the first thing is to accustom your steeds to come when they are called," replied Captain West. "It will be very awkward if, whenever you want to go for a drive, you have to chase them up hill and down dale for an hour before you can catch them."

Acting on this suggestion, the children spent all their spare moments during the next day or two in trying to make friends with the goats.

They were so successful, that at last Jack would consent to be led about by a bit of string tied to one of his horns, almost as quietly as a little dog. Jill remained shy to the last, and in spite of being perpetually offered the most tempting bits of carrot, could never summon up sufficient courage to eat anything out of the children's hands.

"Now that Jack is so tame he shall join in all our games," said Madge.

So the children led him about everywhere with them in the garden and fields. But they never dared let go the string, or he would be off, running and leaping into the most extraordinary places before they could come up with him again.

Poor Barton was much perplexed where to shut up the two goats at night.

The cow-house was a perfect failure; Jack and Jill stayed in it just as long as they liked, and not a moment longer. Unless all the doors and windows were shut, which was very stuffy in hot weather, there was no keeping them in an instant after they had decided to take a walk. And if they got out, they were not content to stay in the fields, but always found their way into the garden, where they cropped off the most cherished shrubs and flowers.

At last Barton hit on the plan of putting them into an empty pig-sty for the night and spreading a piece of old netting over the opening.

This was very successful for a time.

When Jack was sufficiently tamed to be led about it occurred to the children that they might now introduce him to the Eagle's Nest. They had rather neglected their fortress of late, having had so much occupation at home with the goats; in fact they had not visited the beech-tree for nearly a week, not since the eventful day when they had seen Mrs. Howard and made acquaintance with Lewis Brand. In the new interest of training Jack and Jill everything else had been forgotten.

But as they came near the Eagle's Nest all their old excitement in it revived.

"Will Jack have to walk up the grand staircase or the rope-ladder?"

inquired John. "Or shall we have to lift him?"

"We can't stretch high enough to do that," observed Betty.

It was left to Madge as usual to decide this important question. She gave it as her opinion that with a little help from behind Jack could mount the grand staircase. "I will go up first," she said, "and pull at his horns. Then I can let down the rope-ladder for you two."

"I thought we left the rope-ladder coiled round that bough just above the Eagle's Nest," remarked Betty, "but I can't see it there now."

"Little Blind Eyes! Of course it must be there. I twisted it round the branch rather tightly, on purpose that it shouldn't show from below!" cried Madge rather impatiently, for she was leading Jack by a piece of string, and as he continually hung back to nibble bits of gra.s.s that looked especially tempting, it required a great deal of waiting about and coaxing to get along at all.

"I can't see it there now," repeated Betty obstinately.

"Oh, don't go on staring up at that old rope-ladder!" exclaimed Madge, "You just hold Jack at the bottom of the tree while I climb the grand staircase. And then, when I am ready to pull his horns, both push him from behind as hard as you can."

Whether Jack was more active even than they had credited him with being, or whether the twins pushed harder than had been expected, will never be known. At all events, long before Madge was firmly seated on the Eagle's Nest there was a terrific scramble, and the goat bounded past her almost knocking her out of the tree. In the struggle not to fall she very naturally dropped the leading-string and clung with both hands to a bough. Jack took advantage of his opportunity. Without pausing more than a second on the Eagle's Nest he skipped lightly on to the top of the boundary wall, and from there took a tremendous jump right into Mrs. Howard's orchard.

"He's gone!" shrieked Madge. "Oh, what shall we do!"

Quite overcome by this unforeseen calamity, the children actually forgot to quarrel among themselves about who was responsible for the accident. They all crouched down on the sticks composing the Eagle's Nest, and watched almost in silence the scene that was going on down in the orchard. At first Jack appeared frantic with delight at having regained his freedom and discovered a new playground. He scampered round and round the orchard, kicking up his heels, and disturbing horribly the placid old cows who were standing half asleep in the shade, chewing the cud and slowly whisking their tails to drive the flies off their sleek backs. But after a time it seemed as if Jack began to feel rather strange amidst his new surroundings. He left off frisking, and wandered restlessly about the orchard as if searching for some way to get out. Once or twice he looked up at the wall and bleated rather piteously.

"He wants to get back," said Betty. "Do you think he can possibly jump up the wall again?" She spoke almost in a whisper, having an uncomfortable feeling that if Mrs. Howard heard strange voices she might appear as suddenly as she had done on the last occasion.

"It's too high and straight even for Jack," replied Madge sadly. "You know the trunk of the tree helped him on this side, and, besides, you and John were both pus.h.i.+ng him from behind."

"I've thought of a way," cried Betty. "Only I'm not quite sure whether I should dare to do it. I would, if you promised to come with me. It is for two of us to go down the rope-ladder into the orchard and try to catch Jack, and then--"

"Push him up the wall again, you mean?" interrupted Madge eagerly.

"Yes, we'll do it! It's the only way we can get Jack back."

"But won't it be trespa.s.sing to go into Mrs. Howard's field?" inquired John.

This suggestion rather damped the spirits of the party. They knew that if you were caught trespa.s.sing, very terrible though ill-defined things might happen. When Barton found that village boys had been walking over the farm, searching for birds' nests and trampling down the mowing gra.s.s, he always said they had better not let him catch them trespa.s.sing or they would never forget it. He never condescended to explain exactly what punishment awaited them; but it sounded rather like imprisonment for life, with hard labour. So the little Wests grew up with a wholesome terror of being found trespa.s.sing, believing that such an offence might lead to something much more severe than the scolding at home, which was all the punishment they received for ordinary acts of mischief.