“Little boys shouldn’t interrupt,” said Phoena, severely. “I was going to say, shall we fix the grand day for this day fortnight? That will give a clear twelve week-days for all to achieve their noble exploits.”

Unanimous cries of “Yes.”

“But,” said Faith, “how are we to settle who has done the noblest deed?”

“That will be my business,” said Andrew.

“Cock-a-doodle-do,” broke in Phil, “hark to the Biddie Tom.”

“Of course it will be,” asserted Andrew, “I’m the eldest of you all, except Fay, and she’s only a girl, of course it’s my right.”

“Bosh,” said Jack, “if only one person is to decide, then it ought to be Phoena, she knows the most about the Round Table laws, and besides she’s sure not to be sneaky.”

“Be what?” cried Andrew, springing up, “say that again and I’ll—”

“Get another jolly good licking, eh?” retorted Phil.

“If you don’t shut up, Miss Annie, we’ll turn you out of this,” said Jack.

“I shall decline to have any share in the business,” said Andrew, “if I’m not properly treated.”

“Which would be, of course,” remarked Jack, “to give you another licking, but it’s too much fag.”

“You wretched boys,” cried Di, “can’t you manage to be ten minutes together without fighting? Oh! take care, that nearly hit me,” as Andrew flung Mrs. Busson’s best crazy patchwork cushion at Jack’s head, via Diana’s.

“I’m very much afraid that there will have to be another free fight,” said Phil, drawing a long face, and straightway making himself ready to battle.

“Well, did I ever!” exclaimed Mrs. Busson, appearing in the doorway, “talk of a Welsh Fair, all this noise would beat it to pancakes. Well, you are young gentlemen to talk, and no mistake.”

“To fight, you mean, you dear old Busson, only you’re too civil to say so,” laughed Phil.

“Fight! I should hope not indeed,” exclaimed Mrs. Busson, “whatever could you find to fight about, the idea!”

“We are not exactly fighting,” began Andrew, grandly.

“What a cracker!” cried Jack.

“We were only differing,” protested Andrew, “I was trying to—”

“Oh, please Mrs. Busson, do hear what a beautiful plan we are making,” said Phoena, “if you can stay to listen that is, for I daresay we may have to get you to help us in carrying it out.”

“And very glad I’ll be to help you any way I can,” said Mrs. Busson, “so just you tell me what it’s all about.”

To anyone less enthusiastic in her cause than Phoena it would have seemed rather a formidable undertaking to initiate worthy Mrs. Busson into the mysteries of the Round Table lore, but not so to Phoena.

True, she wisely confined herself to giving the merest outline of the scheme, and laid the chief stress upon the two leading features in the programme, namely, the promised distinction to be awarded to the noblest deed and the grand ceremony which should celebrate that function.

“Well now, I call that quite the prettiest bit of play-acting I’ve ever heard of,” she declared, “and nothing to quarrel over, I’m sure.”

“Oh, it was only Andrew trying to be disagreeable,” said Di, “he always wants to be first, you know, in everything.”

“Now isn’t it strange?” said the old farmer’s wife, “how, ever since the Bible days, when the good Lord chid His disciples for just such disputing amongst themselves, there’s never been a little company but what one of them has wanted to be first. There,” went on Mrs. Busson, smoothing down the folds of her black silk apron, which was the badge of her “evening dress,” “you children put me in mind of something that happened in my young days, when I wasn’t much older than Miss Fay.”

“Oh! tell us about it,” said Di.

“Well, we were all over at grandfather’s farm, a number of girl cousins, for it was the day before Harvest Home, and we always went to help prepare the supper for next day, Dear me! what a sight of roasting, and stewing, and boiling, and baking there was to be done, for grandfather never would allow of any stint, everyone on the place was feasted. But to come to what I was going to tell you.

“There were about a dozen of us girls in the kitchen, and for want of knowing better, we all fell to squabbling as to who could make the best puff-pastry, and we grew that spiteful against each other that from saying ugly things about each other’s pastry, we finished by saying them about each other.

“There, we got to such high words that I can’t tell where it would have ended if grandmother had not come into the kitchen and stopped us, short and sharp.

“And though we all in turn tried to make the old lady say that our own particular recipe was bound to turn out the best, she had only one answer for us all:

“ ‘Tarry the baking, and then the best will be called the best.’ ”

“And was yours the best?” asked Fay.

THE next day, directly breakfast was over, there was a solemn meeting in the Cuckoo copse, to consider the further details in the development of Phoena’s scheme.

“There’s only one thing that I want to say,” said Di.

“When isn’t there?” asked Jack.

“Well, but,” persisted the eager speaker, “what Phoena read out of the book last night was all very well, but as far as we are concerned there’s no sense in it in these days. I mean as regards keeping the vows, we can only do the dull part, such as speaking the truth and being kind to each other, and all that sort of thing.”

“Hear, hear,” broke in the boys.

“But as to the other part,” went on Di, encouraged by their applause, “which really was the only nice part, what chance have we of pursuing infidels, and riding abroad to maintain the right and of breaking lances over wicked people’s heads?”

“Oh! but Di,” cried Phoena, “you mustn’t talk like that. Proper knights didn’t break their lances over people’s heads as if they were only old women’s broomsticks.”

“Oh! all right then, stuck them into people’s hearts,” retorted Di, with a delightful independence as to the accuracy of her language, “so any way, I’m going to propose something much simpler. Let’s all agree that the boys are to do one brave thing every day and we girls one kind thing. And whoever fails to fulfil this, must be summoned before the whole lot of us and—”

“Capital, capital!” resounded from all sides.

Only Faith dissented. Did she not know the fearful squabbling which under the proposed conditions would most surely mar the close of each day. “I don’t want to preach—” she began.

“Then don’t,” said Di, promptly.

“No, but,” continued Faith, growing scarlet, “if we bind ourselves at all, wouldn’t it be better to try and be kind instead of binding ourselves to do something kind and brave and all that? Because, though, I can’t exactly explain what I mean, doing things isn’t always being them. One may do a kind thing without being really kind.”

“What on earth do you mean?” asked Diana.

“This sort of thing,” said Faith. “Last evening when poor little Gaston looked through the door at us all eating cherries—”

“Well, we gave him some,” said Andrew.

“Yes, and giving him a handful of cherries was a kind act, but you were not kind in giving them to him. You called him a flabby French frog and in such a nasty tone too, I’m quite sure that he would have been much happier if he hadn’t had the cherries at all.”

“Yes,” said Jack, “I see what you mean, you dear pious old Fay, but look here, we’re going to turn over a new leaf altogether, you know, and we mean both to be good and to do good.”

“Still,” said Phoena, “Fay’s right, Di’s scheme won’t do. To start with, we shouldn’t probably have all an equal chance of doing great things, and then besides,” Phoena rather faltered over this bit of plain speaking, “besides we are none of us so extra kind and good, you know, that we are likely to—”

“Something like it,” admitted Phoena, “so that we had better be contented with all trying to do our best, and then at the end of our time we must all solemnly consider whose best is bestest.”

Then followed a tremendous argument as to what kind of deed should be considered best. On this point, there were of course so many different opinions that the discussion bid fair to last to midnight, had not Hubert’s shrill tones asserted themselves.

“The most unselfish thing that we can do, and the thing that hurts ourselves the most, that ought to be called the bestest deed,” proclaimed this small self-constituted oracle.

Vague and distinctly ungrammatical as this proposition was, it was nevertheless hailed as a welcome end to the long discussion, and was duly carried in these terms.

“That that deed which shall be the most unselfish, and shall cost the doer the heaviest price shall be adjudged the best.”

And as Phoena entered this important resolution into her code of rules and regulations Faith wondered a little anxiously as to how and when that resolution would be enforced.

If she had only guessed what was coming!

But though Hubert’s suggestion was adopted, his sudden leap into public life, as well as to the top of the fence, whence he had delivered himself, nearly cost him the chance of being enrolled himself into the order at all, for the elder boys agreed that it was quite impossible to admit such an infant on the same footing as themselves.

“He’s such an awful youngster,” said Phil, sighing heavily at the thought of Hubert’s four years juniorship to himself.

“Of course,” said Andrew, decidedly, “we can’t have such a baby amongst us.”

“Phoena, can’t we take him in as something that isn’t a knight?” he asked; “As a squire or a page?”

“He might go in as a valet,” said Phoena. “No, you needn’t look offended, Hubert. A valet in those days didn’t mean a man who brushed clothes, but simply a vassalet or little page. He began his training for the knighthood just about your age, and valet was only the short for vassalet.”

“Vaseline you mean,” said Di, wickedly.

But Phoena went on:

“His chief duties were to attend his lord in the chase, to learn from him how to shoot and use the lance, to be taught courteous ways towards ladies, and to be ever of a modest and obedient behaviour.”

“Then, as I’m eldest, you’ll have to be my valet,” broke in Andrew.

“Only so long as you treat him properly, though,” said both boys; while Hubert, content through sad necessity, accepted these terms.

“But what shall we girls have to do?” asked Di. “I suppose we shall have to fulfil our good intentions in some way or other.”

“Of course,” said Phoena, “we shall have to be much more careful than the knights to fulfil our vows and to set them a good example. In olden times it was always the ladies, you know, who used to inspire the flower of chivalry to do noble deeds and teach high thoughts and——”

“High jinks will be what Di’ll teach us, and nothing else,” laughed Jack; “but I say, what about taking that little French beggar into the Order.”

“Oh! please do,” begged both the infants.

“It would be rather unkind to leave him out,” said Fay.

“Take care,” warned Phoena, “or you may get turned out of the Order and dubbed a false knight, for to revenge yourself on the weak would be breaking your vows, you know.”

“Oh! let’s have the poor little beggar in,” said Phil, good-naturedly. Marygold had been whispering so pleadingly in his ear.

“He is rather a Molly, you know,” objected Jack.

“And scarcely likely to be an ornament to the Order,” remarked Di.

“And very likely to be a bone of contention,” sighed Faith, who began to realise that there might be many objections to admitting Gaston to closer companionship with the older boys.

And so the motion for admitting Gaston into the noble company was not carried; but when, on the next afternoon, they held high festival in the Cuckoo Copse to inaugurate their Order, and Gaston, under Ruth’s protection, ran to and fro, a willing helper in carrying the good things which Mrs. Busson had provided for the feast, they all felt, as Phil expressed it, that it would be awfully mean to keep the wretched little chap out of their fun.

With infinite trouble Phoena had traced out a huge circle on the mossy ground, which was to represent the Round Table, and within this magic ring, all the viands were arranged also in a circle.

Mrs. Busson had indeed spared no pains to make the banquet worthy of the occasion.

But when, after Gaston had finished helping Ruth to arrange the table with such deftness that Ruth declared he was a regular little French cook, he meekly followed her back to the house without attempting to stay beside the tempting board, there was a violent reaction in Gaston’s favour amongst all the intending merry-makers.

To the infants’ exceeding joy they were bidden to pursue the outcast and to bring him back to the feast.

And so, with no very clear comprehension of his obligations, Gaston joined in the banquet, and was duly enrolled as the youngest knight in the Order of Good Intentions.

“I WONDER what sort of grand things he will do,” said Andrew with a sneer at Gaston, who, at the close of the banquet ran off to tell of his new honours to Ruth. “Not much fear of his carrying off the prize from any of us.”

“Not much,” laughed the schoolboys.

“It doesn’t seem to me,” remarked Phil after a pause, “that it’ll be an easy matter for any of us to get a chance of doing anything really swagger.”

“Just what I was thinking,” said Jack; “if only one had the chance of slashing off a few Turk’s heads it would be easy enough to get famous,” and as he lay on his back amongst the high grass, Jack made a ferocious onslaught with his stick at the tall blades waving above his head. “But you see where it is, however much those youngsters may break down the fences and rob the cherry orchards, we can’t go and slice off their heads.”

“I should think not, indeed,” cried Faith; “why you know that you must not even strike them.”

“We shall see about that,” said Jack, very ominously, “when the time for action comes; but depend upon it, my fellow knights,” he added, with a knowing wink at Phil, “it was not customary to hold councils of war in the presence of gentle ladies.”

“Of course not,” said Andrew; “knights brought their trophies to their fair ladies to win their praises, but they didn’t tell them beforehand how they were going to get them.”

“Perhaps in those days,” remarked Andrew, “the ladies had more go in them than the meek and mild Fay has.”

“Now, I say, don’t you jeer at Faith,” cried Phil, quickly.

“You’d better not,” cried Phoena, “or you’ll be disgraced and degraded, Andrew, as recreant to your vows.”

“Come on,” said Jack, springing to his feet, and thrusting his cap in true schoolboy fashion at the back of his head with the peak well over his left ear, “come on, fellow conspira—— knights I mean, I’ve an idea.”

“May I come, too?” asked Hubert, timidly.

“And I, too?” enquired Gaston, returning at that moment.

There was a whispered conference between the elders, then Andrew said audibly:

“As my valet, you know, he will be under my control, and we might find him useful.”

“Oh! yes, I’d be werry useful,” shouted Hubert, fervently. He was trembling with fear lest on the very threshold of his new career he should meet with a rebuff.

“Well, you understand,” said Jack, turning rather a grim countenance on the small suppliant, “that you’ll have to knock under to us; if you don’t you’ll get toko, mind that.”

“What’s toko?” asked Gaston, under his breath.

“Only a whacking,” said Hubert, as gaily as if it had been a plum bun. “I don’t mind that.”

“Then you’re the right sort of man, old chap,” cried Phil.

At this bit of praise Hubert swelled almost visibly with pride.

“And may Gaston come?” he asked.

“He’ll have to come as knight, you know,” said Jack to Phil.

“Yes, and Andrew would be sure to fight him and spoil sport that way,” whispered the latter in return.

“May Gaston come too?” asked Hubert again.

“No, he had better not come,” they agreed.

“So hop off, Master Frog, till further orders,” jeered Andrew.

“Never mind, Gaston, you’ll go with them next time,” comforted Faith. But Gaston, seeing all the boys disappear without him, and thus realising that, in spite of their promise, he was to be excluded from their games, was deaf to consolation.

He stood motionless, like a small monument of stony grief, his sorrowful eyes fixed on the opening in the thick bushes through which the others had vanished.

“Never mind, dear little Gaston,” said Phoena, kindly, running up to him and putting her hand on his arm, “you shall be my own knight, and we will do something grand between us.”

“You are good,” he said, slowly, but so mournfully that even Di’s heart was touched, “but it is not just; no, no, it is not just.”

Then he turned, and, with almost a majestic step, he walked out of the wood. A minute later he might have been seen executing a kind of war-dance on the top of the steep bank which separated the wood from the fields, and muttering in his mother tongue words to this effect:

“Ha! I am a French frog indeed! Yes, yes, a frog! Ah! it is well; they shall see, they shall see.”

Fay, meanwhile, and the other girls were speculating rather anxiously as to what might be the outcome of the boys’ conclave.

“I do hope they’re not going to do anything very dreadful,” said Fay, “but the boys are so foolhardy.”

“I wish they hadn’t taken Hubert,” said Faith.

“I don’t,” said Marygold, like a cunning little woman, “ ’cause I expect Hubert will tell us all about it when they come back, and the others wouldn’t.”

But Marygold was somewhat disappointed.

Hubert had been bound over to secrecy, and consequently his reticence as to the affairs of the meeting—at this early stage of the proceedings at any rate—was not to be shaken.

“Nuffin very important was to happen till to-morrow evening,” was all he could be coaxed into divulging.

“I’m going to start a kind of diary,” announced Phoena at breakfast next morning, “where I shall enter everything grand that anyone does in the day. It’ll make it easier to settle up at the end, you know.”

“Capital notion,” said several voices.

“I expect you’ll have a not half bad entry for to-night,” said Jack, mysteriously, upon which all the boys chuckled meaningly; and, to judge from their long absences during the day, and their very pre-occupied airs during meals and on all other public occasions, it was clear that something was brewing.

“I guess,” said Di, “that at last they’ve found a wasps’ nest, and are going to blow it up; that’s why they are in such a hurry for tea.”

For Hubert had just come to say that they had asked Mrs. Busson to have tea half an hour earlier than usual.

“For particular reasons,” Hubert had explained.

Diana’s guess was wrong, however.

By way of beginning their new career, the boys had determined to turn their attention to the trespassers, who vexed Busson’s soul so sorely and so persistently by straying from the footpaths through his grass fields, and making short cuts instead.

“We’ll give them such a lesson in trespassing,” the boys agreed, “that old Busson will bless us for ever after.”

With this laudable result in view, it would appear that they had arranged to lie in wait, “armed to the teef” as Hubert expressed it, i.e., provided with stout sticks, and concealed behind hay-stacks and hedges, in order to fall upon the first evil-doer who should stray from the right path. Their dream was to capture as many of these malefactors as possible, and to drag them to the farm bound in chains.

The chains were to be represented by some strong whipcord, upon the purchase of which the knights expended a considerable amount of their week’s pocket money. They made their plans with much care. They had learnt the “lay of the land” by heart, they had reconnoitred their positions again and again, and had rehearsed their manœuvres at least a dozen times during the day. Hubert had been well drilled in his part, with a good allowance of “toko,” which he had taken in excellent part as belonging of right to the fortunes of war; yet, despite all these preparations, when the moment for action came the result was a failure, and rather an ignominious one too.

“They must be caught red-handed,” the boys had decreed.

Loyally did Hubert fulfill his duty, though he literally hungered to see each passing pair of feet stray into forbidden paths. But none of the tired labourers who passed along the field showed any inclination to wander. Hubert had to let all go by with a heavy sigh and an increased longing for “really bad ones” to come soon.

At length, when it was growing very dusk, a short figure was seen to vault over the stile at the further end of the field, and without attempting to approach the foot-path, run boldly across the meadow.

Here, at last, was the longed-for malefactor.

Before even Hubert could whistle, Andrew, who was nearest to the stile, had darted out of his hiding-place and was attacking the foe.

But instead of meeting him face to face, as had been agreed should be done, according to the accepted canons of fair fighting, Andrew had allowed his victim to pass him, and had then followed him and struck him with his stick.

“I am just glad to be the very first of them all to be in the field,” he was saying to himself, but he didn’t say it twice.

In another second the figure, who was one of the odd men on his way to see to some yearling colts in the upper meadow, had rounded upon Andrew and seized him by the collar. Then he shook him so roughly that feeble cries for “he-elp” were nearly choked in his throat.

“And sarve him jolly well right, too, for hittin’ a chap over the head in the dark, and from behind, too,” Ned said.

“Well, you have gone and made a fool of yourself, and of us too,” cried his cousins, in deep disgust, as Ned departed. “Why on earth couldn’t you observe our laws and behave like a man? Now, at any rate, hold your tongue and don’t blab a word of what has happened. We wouldn’t let the girls know for anything.”

“And so you mustn’t never say one word of it to anyone,” Hubert gravely told Marygold, who had forthwith taken the earliest opportunity to repeat “only a little bit of it” to Phoena, and a little more to Di, and pretty nearly the whole to Faith.

IN spite of the boys’ efforts to conceal the failure of their first essay in knightly deeds, there was no doubt that it had a very depressing effect on their ardour.

Indeed, the grand project might quite possibly have languished and died out, if it had not been for a fresh impetus given to it from outside. This came in the form of a letter from Mrs. Durand.

Faith had sent an account of their scheme to her mother, who entered so cordially into their project, that she wrote, promising to award as her own prize one golden sovereign to the best deserving of the knights. She only stipulated that the record of the noblest deed of each should be submitted to her for consideration.

Fay and Phoena were to be responsible for the accuracy of the list, which was to be endorsed by all the other members’ signatures.

“I’m glad,” ended Mrs. Durand, “that you’ve taken little Gaston into your number. A Gaston should do doughty deeds to keep up the reputation of such a bright name in the rolls of chivalry; besides, it would have been unkind, and therefore unknightly, to have left him out.”

Fay was careful to read this last remark out, and though it was received with evident dissatisfaction, it nevertheless bore fruit.

Phoena furnished them with an object on which to expend their zeal.

In a certain village, Playden by name, through which they had driven, coming from the station, she had noticed a thrush hung up in a cage outside a cobbler’s door. The poor bird was beating itself so wildly against the bars that Phoena felt certain that it could not have been bred in its wicker prison, and must, therefore, have been only recently captured.

“Now that really is a poor distressed creature that ought to be succoured,” she declared; “I’ve thought of it ever since I saw it.”

“It shall regain its liberty before sunset,” said Jack, solemnly.

“And vengeance shall overtake its persecutors,” added Phil.

“If necessary the whole cottage shall be burnt to the ground, as a warning to all the surroundings,” added Andrew.

“I’ve got a whole big match box in my pocket,” whispered Hubert to Phil.

“Bring it with you,” replied the latter, to Hubert’s excessive joy.

“How far off is the village?” asked Fay, not daring to show the immense alarm with which the prospect of this punitive expedition filled her.

“Oh!” said Phoena, who had evidently given much thought to the subject, “it’s only about a mile off; if the boys go now they will have plenty of time to free the captive and return for dinner.”

“It rather depends,” said Andrew, “upon the amount of resistence we may encounter.”

“It’s to be hoped there’ll be a jolly lot,” said Jack.

“I think,” said Andrew, grandly, “you may leave us to conduct the matter so as to preserve our own honour. And now,” turning to Hubert, “you valet, wind your horn and assemble our lieges.”

The horn was a tin pipe, from whose slender interior, at the expense of much puffing, Hubert managed to extract a thin shrill note.

Phil and Jack being already on the field, that summons would have been the merest formality, had Gaston not been allowed to respond to it.

But to Marygold’s delight, when poor little Delzant came flying across the paddock in answer to the horn, he was graciously permitted to set forth in company with his brothers-in-arms.

“There’s a short cut across the fields,” began Phoena, but a frown from Faith stopped her.

“No short cuts for us,” replied Andrew, who privately hated fields which might hold cattle of uncertain temper, “we march to glory on a straight and open road.”

“Hear, hear,” from the rest of the company.

Therewith those gallant redressers of wrong sallied forth to execute justice on the unsuspecting, and, to all appearances, law-abiding population of the small village of Playden.

“There they go,” said Di; she had clambered up to the top of a high gate, and was standing on the bar. “Hubert’s heading them with his pipe, thank goodness that he’s not blowing it very loud, and Gaston is following him. The others are marching abreast, because I suppose they are all of equal rank, just behind Gaston. It’s such a lonely road that they’re not likely to meet anybody. I wonder how they’ll get on.”

“I’m sorry for the poor bird,” said Fay, “still, I wish Phoena, that you’d never told them about it. You don’t know what it may lead to.”

“Oh! you coward, Fay,” cried Phoena, “how would wrongs ever get righted if people stayed to think what it might lead to? When would they do anything grand if they always stopped to count the cost?”

“Well, I’m going to see what this’ll lead to,” retorted Fay, flushing angrily. “I’m going to take the short cut across the fields, and get to Playden before the boys arrive, and offer to buy the thrush. I’m quite sure it’s the only way to prevent a row.”

“Oh, you traitor,” cried Di; whilst Phoena added, “If you do that, you’ll encourage all the village to imprison other birds.”

“I don’t care,” said Faith, “that’s what I’m going to do,” and with Marygold for a companion, she set off at a brisk rate through the fields.

“We won’t come with you,” said Di and Phoena together.

But Faith had not gone far before Marygold, looking behind her, announced with great excitement, that the two girls were following them. “But they bobbed and hid behind the haystack when they saw me looking,” said Marygold.

THUS it came to pass on that pleasant July morning that as old Jonas Tubbs, cobbler by trade and a rare practical joker by taste, was following the stitching duties of his calling, he was surprised by the arrival of a troop of boys and girls at his door.

By this time Phoena and Di had joined the others.

“Bother my best button boots!” said Jonas, “I’d like to know what’s the meaning of all this! ’Tisn’t as if I sported lollipops and sweetstuff in my winder to tempt anyone, and they ain’t the sort of youngsters to want any of my goods,” he added, casting a professional eye on the nine pair of feet which belonged by right to the assembled party. “Well, I do wonder what they’re all after.”

Although at first starting, the boys would have resented the idea of being joined by the girls, yet just then they were really very glad to see them. The truth was, that though they had found the cobbler’s cottage easily enough, they had failed to discover the cage hanging by the door containing the hapless victim they had come to champion.

“I believe you dreamt it all, Phoena,” said Andrew, peevishly.

“Any way,” laughed Jack, “it looks much more as if we had come on a wild goose chase than a caged thrush one.”

“But it was here,” cried Phoena, earnestly, “I know I was not mistaken. I’ll go inside and ask that old man.”

“Then I’ll go into that shop opposite,” said Phoena, “and ask if they can tell me whether Tubbs—yes, that is the right name,” she added, going backwards on the narrow pavement in order to read the description of himself and his performances over Jonas’s door—“whether Tubbs does not keep a caged thrush.”

Therewith Phoena darted into a small shop, which was evidently the “Harrod’s Stores” of Playden, offering a miscellaneous assortment of wares for sale, varying from bootlaces to bacon, and from mouse-traps to smart bonnets.

“Please can you tell me,” asked Phoena of the woman at the counter, “if there isn’t generally a bird-cage hanging outside Tubbs’s door?”

“To be sure, can’t you see it for yourself, Miss?” was the reply, and Mrs. Bowles ducked her head under a string of brilliant handkerchiefs to secure a better view of her opposite neighbour’s door.

“But it’s not there to-day,” said Phoena.

“No, more it is,” cried Mrs. Bowles. “Well, I never! ’Twasn’t more than an hour ago that I saw it there with my own eyes, with a cabbage leaf laid on the top, same as they always put over in the heat. Maybe they’ve just taken it inside, whilst the day’s at its hottest.”

“Thank you,” said Phoena, and without noticing the woman’s disappointment at her abrupt departure, she flew back to the others.

“That wicked old man must have guessed that we were coming,” she said, “for the woman in the shop says that the cage was put out to-day.”

“I wish we had come earlier,” said Faith, “for it makes it much more difficult to do anything now.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if we have to use a little force,” said Phil, “for if he tries to rot us about the thrush we’ll make him sit up.”

“The best way,” suggested Andrew, “would be for you two boys to tackle the fellow, and leave me to free the bird. You deal with Jonas, and I will open the cage and let out the bird. I’m not a bit afraid of taking that responsibility,” he added loftily.

“Trust you,” began Phil, “to take the eas—”

But Faith broke in, “You really mustn’t set about it in that way, boys,” she said, “you’ve no right to touch what doesn’t belong to you. Let us go in first and offer to pay for the thrush, then when it belongs to us we can do what we like with it.”

“But of course, he won’t sell it, he—”

“Well, let’s ask him, at all events.”

“And suppose he flatly refuses?” asked Phil.

“Then,” shouted Jack, “we’ll wreck the whole show, shop and all.”

“You can’t,” said Fay, in the severe tone that she always assumed when she was most terrified, “you won’t forget that you are gentlemen, I’m quite sure that you won’t.”

“And that it is the duty of real knights to redress wrongs, but not to inflict them,” put in Phoena, who was feeling a little frightened.

Fay meanwhile had quickly stepped into the cobbler’s half-opened door.

“Good-morning,” she said, very hurriedly, “you have a caged thrush, have you not?”

“Well, who said I hadn’t,” said Jonas, not looking up from his work.

Jonas Tubbs looked up from his boot-mending. There was an expression of exceeding surliness on his face, but there was likewise a malicious twinkle in his eye which would probably not have escaped the notice of an older person. To Fay, however, he only appeared an abominably cross-looking old man.

“How much would you take for the thrush?” she asked.

“All depends how much you’d like to give,” snarled Jonas.

“We’d give you—” began Faith, but the others cut her short.

“Don’t be so green as to make an offer,” whispered Di, at her elbow, whilst the boys, who were dying to put in their tongues, repeated Faith’s first enquiry in deafening tones. “Come, out with it, how much will you take for that thrush that we saw in the cage?”

“Aaron,” called Jonas, by way of answer—Biblical names were evidently in favour in the house of Tubbs—“Aaron, just come here.”

There was the sound of shuffling footsteps, accompanied by that of a hollow cough, then a miserable-looking, undersized youth with a crutch under one arm became visible.

“You come here, Aaron, just as a witness to this here bit of business,” said the cobbler. “Now then, young ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the party, which was fast filling up his small shop, “you want to know, I understand, what I’ll charge for the thrush what you saw in the cage outside my door.”

“How much I’ll take for the thrush, that’s what you want to know, eh?”

“Yes, you old stick-in-the-mud,” cried the boys, “haven’t we said so a dozen times? Hurry up and give us an answer.”

“All in good time,” said Jonas, quietly. “You’ve heard that, Aaron?”

“Yes, father,” said the boy. There was a look on his face now of mingled expectation and amusement, which puzzled the girls and irritated the boys not a little.

“Repeat it after me, my lad,” said Jonas, “when parties are entering into a contract, ’specially where they’re all strangers, one can’t be too partiklar as to the terms of a bargain.”

Aaron obeyed dutifully, whilst Phil whispered to Jack that if the old “demon” went on much longer at this sort of game they would have recourse to different measures.

“Now tell us the price,” said Andrew, “or it’ll be the worse for you.”

“And the better for us,” laughed Jack, who was pining for an excuse to come to stronger measures.

But at this point Tubbs saw fit to make an offer.

“Suppose I said ten shillings?” he enquired.

Blank dismay, accompanied by a great silence, fell upon the group, but barely for a minute. Then Jack came forward.

“You’re trying to swindle us, you know you are,” he said, “we won’t give you anything like that.”

“Well, we’ll say nine shillings and elevenpence.”

“We’ll give you the elevenpence without the shillings,” said Phil.

Phoena, whose desire to aid anything in the form of distressed animal life made her bold beyond her wont, added, “You ought really to be ashamed of yourself to want to be paid at all.”

“Shut up, Phoena,” said Jack, “when girls put their oar in they spoil everything. Now listen, Mr. Jonas Tubbs,” he continued, “we’ll give you half-a-crown, neither more nor less, for that thrush, and if you don’t accept our offer you’ll repent it.”

“That you will,” echoed several voices in ominous tones.

“Wull,” said the cobbler, with an odd chuckle, “I expect I might, for it’s not every day that I get an offer of that sort. All right, then I close, on condition that the very instant that you get the bird you clear out of my place, every stick and staver of you.”

“Oh, you needn’t be anxious about that,” said Andrew, “this abominable smell of leather isn’t so particularly nice if you don’t happen to have a cobbler’s nose.”

“Isn’t that raver rude?” asked Marygold, under her breath.

Fay set to work at once to collect the various contributions towards the poor thrush’s ransom. In due time, after the rifling of many pockets, the half-crown was collected and handed to the cobbler. Phoena was allowed the proud delight of actually paying down the sum.

With an ill-concealed chuckle, Jonas slipped the sundry coins into some safe hiding-place behind the folds of his black apron.

“Now Aaron, my lad, fetch the thrush for the young gentlefolk,” he said, turning with a grim smile to his son.

“Yes, and look alive,” added Andrew, sharply, “don’t be all night about it, do you hear?”

“We won’t let the poor bird fly here,” said Phoena, “for there may be cats about for all we know.”

“I shall take over the thrush,” said Andrew, decidedly. “I’m the eldest, and besides, I was the only one amongst you who paid sixpence towards his ransom.”

“Yes,” said Faith, “I think it would be fair for Andrew to have it.”

“WAIT a minute, Aaron,” shouted Tubbs, a minute after his son had disappeared. “I’ll come and help you with that bird.”

Throwing aside his tools and scrooping back his wooden stool, the old cobbler vanished in his turn into the back regions of the establishment.

“I wish between them they’d be a little quicker,” sighed Fay, who regretted the delay in the winding up of this transaction.

She was terribly afraid that the boys, finding no outlet for the warlike intentions they had been nursing so zealously, would relieve their disappointment by indulging in a little civil war amongst themselves of a singularly uncivil type. “I do wish they wouldn’t be so slow,” she repeated.

“I suppose they will bring it,” said Phoena.

“I say, are you hatching the thrush?” shouted Jack.

“All in good time, young gentlemen,” came the cool answer.

“Look here,” called Phil, going to the inner door, “we’re not going to stand this any more; if you’re going to humbug us about that bird it will be the worse for you.”

“If you don’t bring up that bird by the time I’ve counted fifty,” said Andrew, “we’ll make hay of your shop.”

“Little squeakers, indeed,” cried Phil, “he ought to be knocked into the middle of next week for daring to speak like that;” whilst Andrew remarked, with a withering sneer at Gaston and Hubert, “That’s the sort of remark we must expect if we go about with babies.”

“I’m not a baby,” cried Hubert, flaring up with indignation, “a baby’s a horrid little thing that always seems crying out of its mouth, instead of its eyes.”

At that moment Jonas appeared with the cage, cabbage-leaf and all tucked under his arm. Aaron, with a broad grin on his face, followed close on his parent’s heels.

“Now give me the bird,” said Andrew, stepping forward, “let me have it, just as it is in its cage, do you hear?”

“Certainly, my young sir, by all manner of means,” said the cobbler. “You mind, Aaron, he says he’ll have it ‘just as it is in its cage!’ ”

And as Aaron nodded assent, Jonas, with much show of deference, placed the wicker cage in Andrew’s out-stretched hands.

The children clustered round Andrew at once, eagerly peering into the cage.

“Let Phoena have the first peep,” said Di, and all agreed thereto.

“Oh! thank you,” she said, “but we won’t open the cage here, he shall be set free out of doors, poor darling; you see——”

Her voice changed suddenly into an angry scream. “Oh! you wicked, wicked man, the poor darling’s dead, quite dead!”