There
was a certain amount of furtive haste mingled with the stateliness of
their advance, as though hostile search-lights might be turned on them at
any moment; and, as a matter of fact, they were not unobserved. Matilda
Cuvering, with the alert eyes of thirteen years old and the added
advantage of an exalted position in the branches of a medlar tree, had
enjoyed a good view of the Stossen flanking movement and had foreseen
exactly where it would break down in execution.
"They'll find the door locked, and they'll jolly well have to go back the
way they came," she remarked to herself. "Serves them right for not
coming in by the proper entrance. What a pity Tarquin Superbus isn't
loose in the paddock. After all, as every one else is enjoying
themselves, I don't see why Tarquin shouldn't have an afternoon out."
Matilda was of an age when thought is action; she slid down from the
branches of the medlar tree, and when she clambered back again Tarquin,
the huge white Yorkshire boar-pig, had exchanged the narrow limits of his
stye for the wider range of the grass paddock. The discomfited Stossen
expedition, returning in recriminatory but otherwise orderly retreat from
the unyielding obstacle of the locked door, came to a sudden halt at the
gate dividing the paddock from the gooseberry garden.
"What a villainous-looking animal," exclaimed Mrs. Stossen; "it wasn't
there when we came in."
"It's there now, anyhow," said her daughter. "What on earth are we to
do? I wish we had never come.
Pages:
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29