Drifted ashore;

QUEENIE was very much surprised when she found that Bertie had taken her at her word, and had not tried to follow her or coax her out of her fit of temper. As soon as her pride would allow her, she turned to look back, and saw Bertie quietly climbing the fence and pursuing his way home again, without a single lingering backward glance at his offended companion.

Queenie was so much astonished by this unexpected display of spirit, that she stood quite still for several minutes, and then suddenly began to laugh. It occurred to her that Bertie was only doing exactly what she would have done in his place, and she was sensible enough as well as generous enough to see that she could not reasonably take offence at conduct so very like her own.

“After all, it was my fault,” she said to herself. “I told him to go, which wasn’t quite polite, as he was my guest. I hope papa will not come after me and ask where he is. He would not like me to be rude. Bertie was rude too; he had no business to speak of me and David as if we were anything to do with one another—and to call him gooder than me!” Queenie often became ungrammatical when she was put out. “I’ll soon show him that I’m not going to put up with that sort of thing.” The little girl tossed her curly head, and her face assumed its expression of greatest dignity, which was, however, soon replaced by a look of regret and sorrow. “But I wish he had not gone, all the same. I do like having a boy to play with, and he was a nice little boy, I think, although he’s not a bit like any one I’ve ever seen before.”

Queenie pursued her way to the house in rather a melancholy mood, feeling as if a promising beginning to friendship had suddenly been nipped in the bud. She was afraid to stay in the garden, lest her father should see her and ask what had become of Bertie, so she wandered rather aimlessly into the house and up the staircase to the corridor where the nurseries were situated. These were shut off from the rest of the house by a red baize door, and as Queenie heard this swing to behind her this afternoon, and saw the row of doors belonging to the “boys’ rooms,” which were never banged now, and only shut in cold emptiness and vacancy, she said once more softly to herself,—

“I do hate term-time. It is quite horrid when all the boys are away.”

Then Queenie stopped short suddenly, for she saw something that puzzled, and for a moment rather startled her.

The door of one of these empty rooms moved, and opened quite slowly a very little way. The sun was shining upon the panels from the window at the end of the passage, otherwise her attention might hardly have been attracted by anything so slight as the movement of the door; but as it was she stood quite still, gazing with all her eyes, and wondering in a half-fearful fashion what could have opened it.

The next thing she saw was an eye cautiously applied to the chink of the door. She was quite certain that it was an eye, although the chink was so narrow that she could see nothing else, and only a glimpse of the eye.

Queenie was not a timid child. She did not shriek or rush screaming away; but she was a little afraid, for she could not imagine who could be hiding in the empty room, and she did not much think that her nurse was up-stairs.

But as she stood there quite still, wondering what she should do, a head was suddenly popped round the door, a smothered, laughing voice cried, “Queenie!” in a sort of whisper, and the head was instantly withdrawn. Queenie uttered a little shriek of ecstasy, and made a dash at the door.

“Phil!” she cried, with breathless eagerness.

The closed door opened suddenly, she was pulled in with unceremonious haste, and the door was closed and bolted behind them in a moment of time.

Queenie was so bewildered by this mysterious appearance of her favorite brother, that she was absolutely tongue-tied. She could only gasp out,—

“Phil!”

And the curly-headed lad, his eyes full of laughter and his face brimming over with fun, caught his little sister round the waist, and executed the wildest of war-dances without speaking a single word.

At last, when both were fairly exhausted, he flung himself upon his bed and burst into a fit of tumultuous yet noiseless laughter.

Queenie’s eyes were quite round with astonishment. She was too much perplexed and surprised to join in her brother’s mirth.

“Phil,” she said at last, in her little imperious way, “do tell me what it is. I don’t understand. Why have you come home now?”

The boy sat up on his bed and laid his finger on his lips. His eyes were sparkling with mischief, yet his face wore a look of preternatural gravity.

“Hush!” he said, in a tragic whisper; “if any one hears us I am lost!”

“What do you mean, Phil?”

Queenie, however, lowered her voice to a whisper. If she did not believe in danger, at least she scented mischief, and her eyes began to shine like Phil’s with the anticipation of coming fun.

“Is anybody about?” asked Phil, cautiously.

“I don’t know. Shall I go and see?”

“Yes, do; and bring me something to eat if you can. I’m half famished.”

Queenie asked no more questions for the moment; but, after listening intently at the door, to make sure there was nobody outside, she glided out into the corridor and dashed across to the nursery. Nobody was there. She had announced her intention of spending the afternoon in the garden, so that her nurse had left her usual domain and had gone elsewhere. She might, of course, be back at any moment, as the child well knew, and she did not waste a moment in the fulfilment of her task.

Queenie was quite the spoiled darling of the household, and all the servants vied with each other to do her pleasure, and give her everything they thought she could want. The cook made her cakes of every description, of which she had quite a collection in the nursery cupboard; the butler gave her more figs and plums, almonds and raisins and crystallized fruits than she could possibly consume; and, as a natural consequence, Queenie could provide a feast for herself or anybody else at a moment’s notice, and in less time than it has taken to explain all this she had filled a little basket with all sorts of good things, and had rushed back to Phil as silently and swiftly as a bird.

The schoolboy’s eye sparkled as the contents of the basket were emptied upon the bed. He snatched up the most substantial of the cakes and set to work upon it with ravenous eagerness.

Queenie saw at a glance that it would be hopeless to expect him to speak until he had satisfied his hunger. She sat down upon the bed also, nibbled at a date, and tried to hazard a guess as to what could possibly have happened.

Phil was the youngest of the boys, and had not yet gone to Eton, being still at a preparatory school. He was nearly thirteen, and in September he was to join his brothers, and become a public schoolboy, which was the summit of his present ambition; this therefore was his last term at Dr. Steele’s school, where all the Arbuthnot boys had received their early education; and what made him suddenly turn up at home, when the first month of term-time had not expired, was more than his little sister could imagine. She knew he always professed to hate Dr. Steele’s establishment; but by his own account he always managed to have plenty of fun there.

Phil was not long in making away with all the good things his sister had brought him. When the last mouthful had been consumed, he heaved a sigh and said,—

“Ah, now I feel rather better; but I’ve had no dinner, and hardly any breakfast. Queenie, you’ll have to hide me somewhere for a few days, and feed me secretly, like people used to do in the olden times. I’m a fugitive, you know, in peril of my life.”

Queenie’s eyes dilated slowly.

“Oh, Phil!” she said, in awestruck tones; “what have you done?”

“I’ve run away,” he answered, the gravity of his face belied by the mirthful twinkle of his eye,—“I’ve run away, Queenie, to save Dr. Steele the pain and trouble of sending me away.”

“Oh!” breathed Queenie, her mouth growing as round as her eyes as she began to understand a little. She had often heard it said that Phil would undoubtedly be expelled some day, if he could not conquer his predilection for playing pranks, and she had secretly wished that he might. “So you have been getting into a row, have you, Phil?”

She spoke in an eager whisper, for she delighted in Phil’s natural bias towards mischief and bravado. She never felt more entirely proud of her brother than when listening to accounts of his reckless disregard for rules and his calm defiance when detected. I am afraid Queenie is not the only little girl in existence who shares in this admiration for lawlessness and mischief; and perhaps those of us who have not grown too old to remember how we felt when we were young may understand this naughty feeling, and perhaps sympathize a little with it. After all, if boys never got into mischief, the nursery would be a duller place than it is; and so long as they can be manly and truthful and honest with it all, it is not so very hard to forgive a little “kicking over the traces,” which is common and natural to two-legged as well as four-footed creatures, when first they begin to run in harness. As a rule, they do no great harm, and steady down to the collar in due time.

“Do tell me all about it, Phil,” pleaded Queenie, very eagerly. “Have you got into a very bad row this time?”

Queenie must be forgiven if she used slang words now and then. With four brothers to teach her, she could hardly have escaped.

Phil looked at his sister, and winked his eye in a very knowing way.

“I’ve not got into a row at all. I just cut and ran before there was time for the explosion. I’m a fugitive, Queenie! I’ve run away! and now you’ve got to hide me!”

“Oh, Phil! Why!”

The boy showed his white teeth in one of his own merriest smiles.

“Hush! that’s part of the plan. I want to give them a good scare, and then they’ll be so glad to get me safe home they’ll never think of putting me into disgrace; and we’ll just have a jolly summer together, Queenie, you and I, until September comes and I go to Eton. You’ll help me, won’t you? and then we’ll have the best times we ever had in our lives.”

Queenie’s eyes sparkled.

“Oh, Phil, how splendid! But won’t they send you back to Dr. Steele’s?”

“Not they! Besides, he would not have me at any price, the old buffer. He says I’m worse than all the rest of the four dozen put together. Oh no, trust him! He’ll not have me back; and if we only manage to give them a scare at this end, I shall be received with open arms, and they’ll be so glad to get me home safe that they’ll never remember to scold.”

“But what have you done, Phil?” asked Queenie. “I want to know all about it.”

Phil grinned from ear to ear.

“Oh, it was such a lark! I’d do it again to-morrow if I had the chance. I do love to rile old Higgins! You know who old Higgins is, don’t you?—the under-master next to Steele himself,—a horrid old curmudgeon whom we all detest. Steele is bad enough, but Higgins!—such a name too!—Higgins! It’s enough to put any fellow’s monkey up to be bullied by a creature with a name like that! Well, this is how it was, you know. Steele had to go away for a day or two, and of course Higgins was left boss of the place, and began his usual bullying tricks, keeping us twice as strict as the Doctor does, and giving us twice the punishment we ought to have if ever he caught us at anything.”

“What a horrid creature!” interposed Queenie, with sympathetic indignation.

“So he is; but we weren’t going to be done by him, you bet. I’m not the fellow to sit quiet and be bullied, and there were plenty of fellows ready to join with me. You know, on the 1st of May every year, there is a big fair at Blexbury, three miles away, and of course we’re not allowed to go. It’s long out of bounds, and then a fair’s considered an awful bad sort of place. I’m sure I don’t know why, for there’s nothing but fun, and gingerbread, and merry-go-rounds, and shooting-galleries, and things that couldn’t hurt anybody. Anyhow, of course, we weren’t allowed to go, and of course lots of us do go every year.”

“Do you?”

“Why, to be sure we do; and this year there were to be fireworks in the evening too, and we meant to go twice, first in the afternoon, and then at night. It was a half-holiday, you know,—Saturday,—so nothing could have been better; and old Higgins gave out after morning school that no boy was to go beyond bounds that day, on pain of—I don’t know what—unheard-of penalties.”

Queenie drew a long breath.

“But you went?”

“Of course we went—a dozen of us at least, and old Higgins too, and we dodged him about up and down the fair, and led him such a dance. Oh, didn’t he get wild, and didn’t the people laugh at him! And didn’t the little boys throw mud, and the women tell him he ought to be ashamed of himself, chasing about the lads who only wanted to enjoy themselves and get a little fun. Some of the fellows kept out of sight, but I didn’t care; I let him see me fast enough, and, as he always hated me, he pretended he only saw me, and only really tried to catch me.”

“And did he?”

Phil laughed uproariously and kicked up his heels with joy.

“Catch me! I should just think he didn’t. I’d like to have seen him do it. Everybody was on my side. The men hid me in their tents and the women in their stalls, and wouldn’t let him come in at any price; and the menagerie-man—he was a jolly fellow—he beckoned me to come up into his circus place, and when old Higgins came rushing up after me, he just opened the cage of a big monkey, who sprang out at old Higgins, whipped off his hat and chawed it up, and gave him such a scratch all down his nose! He’ll carry that scratch to the end of time, I know. After that he thought he’d had enough, and went home without his hat in such a sweet temper. And that night we screwed him up in his room, after all the servants had gone to bed, and let off fireworks under his window.”

Queenie’s delight knew no bounds. Phil was more of a hero than ever.

“Go on! go on!” she cried. “What happened next day?”

“Next day was yesterday, and Sunday, you know; and old Higgins was so used up with rage that he could not appear all day. I was ordered to my room; but I said, ‘In for a penny, in for a pound,’ and went a walk instead. I knew it was all up with me by that time. The Doctor was coming back on Monday morning,—to-day you see,—so I didn’t trouble to wait for him, but just bolted before any one was astir. I didn’t go to the town or station, where we’re pretty well known, but cut across country for ten miles to a big junction, where I was not likely to be noticed. I’d just money enough for my ticket and some rolls, and that’s all I’ve had to eat since morning. You must manage to give me a good feed somehow, soon, and to look after me for a few days; for I mean to give Higgins and Steele a good fright before I’ve done with them.”

“Did nobody see you get in?” asked Queenie, excitedly.

“No, not a soul. I took good care of that. I managed beautifully, for I didn’t mean anybody but you to know. You’ll keep the secret, won’t you, Queenie? It will be such a lark having the whole country raised after me, and me here all the time.”

Queenie’s eyes sparkled.

“Like Cassy in ‘Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’ Oh yes, Phil, I’ll hide you if I can! only—only—won’t papa and mamma be frightened too?”

“Oh no, I don’t think so—not for a day or so. They know I can take care of myself well enough. I want them to be just frightened enough to be very pleased to see me back, and we’ll not let them get more frightened than will be just right.”

Queenie was satisfied with this compromise. She was eager to carry out Phil’s scheme, for she had a keen love for adventure and romance, and it seemed to her a delightfully romantic thing to hide away her fugitive brother whilst his cruel and inhuman schoolmasters hunted high and low for him. Her zeal was great, and Phil knew he could trust both her courage and discretion, and the main difficulty was to know how and where to dispose of himself.

“You had better stop here for to-night,” said Queenie, with her little air of command; “nobody will come till the housemaid goes round in the morning; I don’t know if she comes every day when you are all away. There is the wardrobe cupboard you could hide in, if you heard anybody coming, but I’ll take care nobody does to-day. To-morrow morning early, I think, you’ll have to get out of the window and down by the ivy and hide somewhere in the garden till we can settle something. If I were you, I’d get over the fence and hide in one of the Squire’s shrubberies, and I’ll come to you as soon as ever I can.”

Phil nodded his head approvingly.

“That’s the sort of thing, Queenie, that’s the sort of thing;” and after ten minutes’ animated discussion their plans till the morrow were all carefully laid. Then Queenie had to effect her escape unseen, for nursery tea was imminent; and then there was the difficult and delicate task of obtaining some substantial supplies and conveying them to Phil. Queenie, however, proved herself equal to the occasion. She wandered innocently down to the housekeeper’s room, where she was always welcome, and paid a visit to cook in the larder, and admired very much a row of meat pies that she had lately taken from the oven.

As she was wandering about in the aimless way that children do when they find themselves amongst indulgent old servants, who are pleased to see them about their premises, she was aware of a commotion in the servants’ hall.

“Cook!” cried a voice from thence,—“only think, cook, a telegram has just come from the master to say that Master Phil has run away from school, and can’t be heard of anywhere!”

Cook threw up her hands in dismay at the news, and hurried away to learn all particulars. Queenie was sharp enough to know that for the next few minutes all the servants would be congregated together to hear the news and discuss it with keen interest and wonder. She therefore acted with care and deliberation, took down one savory pie from the shelf, rearranging the rest so that it was not likely to be missed, and stole quietly and coolly away with her prize, no hurried movement or undue excitement hindering her from carrying out her design in the best possible way.

Bread and all other additions were easily obtained from the nursery table, and Phil supped sumptuously that night.

The little girl was told nothing about her brother, for which she was glad, in case her face might betray her; but when she went down to dessert that evening, she fancied her mother seemed rather nervous and put out, and she was a little troubled at first; but as she left the room, she was reassured by hearing her father say,—

“Of course I will go over to-morrow and see about it, but you may trust Phil for looking after himself. He’ll come to no harm, you may be sure; he’ll be turning up like a bad halfpenny somewhere before another day is out. You see if he doesn’t.”

And Queenie laughed quietly to herself as she ran up-stairs to her nursery, very full of importance and delight.