Jim thought it was doubtful.

"I believe they always play cricket in the summer term," he said. "But this will be a splendid change for him."

"I hope it will," said Drusie, with a sigh. "But I am simply not going to think what we shall do if, after all our trouble, Hal turns up his nose at a fight on Tuesday."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Hal running]

At tea-time Hal did not put in an appearance at all.

"He ought to be hungry," nurse said, "for he did not eat much dinner.

I wonder where he can be?"

Tea was over, and they had all gone out into the garden again for a last stroll before bed-time, when they saw him come running across the field, which was separated from the lawn by a sunk fence. Leaping this, he rushed towards them, looking brighter and happier than he had done since his return.

"I say," he called out; "whom do you think I have met this afternoon?

I have had such a splendid time; just guess."

They shook their heads; they could form no guess at all.

"Well, you will hardly believe it, but Dodds is down here. Dodds Major," he added, seeing that somehow his news did not produce as much effect as he had antic.i.p.ated.

"Who is Dodds Major?" Drusie asked.

"Oh, how stupid you are!" Hal cried; "Why, I have told you about him in my letters lots of times. He is out and away the nicest fellow in our school. A big fellow, too, thirteen and a half, and simply splendid at cricket. He is leaving at Christmas, and going to the college."

"Does he live down here?" said Drusie.

"No; he is staying at the Grange with his uncle, Captain Grey. He is going to be here the whole holidays. Isn't it splendid for me?"

"Why," said Drusie, with a sudden sinking of her heart, "will you be much with him?"

"Rather," said Hal; "as much as ever he will have me. Of course," he added, with an important air, "he is jolly glad, too, to find another fellow down here. We are going fishing to-morrow in Captain Grey's trout stream. Dodds says that it is simply packed with fish. Won't that be jolly? I was playing cricket with him all this afternoon. He is going to play in a match that some friends of his uncle's are getting up next week, and he says that perhaps he can get me into it too. Won't that be jolly?"

In short, Hal was br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with good spirits. When, soon afterwards, nurse called Helen and Tommy to come to bed, Hal invited Drusie and Jim to come and sit with him while he had his tea, in order that he might chatter to them of his doings that afternoon, and about what he intended to do in future. And, of course, Dodds's name figured largely in his conversation, and neither Drusie nor Jim could help feeling rather glum as they heard how completely they were to be left out in the cold.

"It was a lucky chance meeting him," Hal rattled on. "After dinner I had a nap, and then I went for a stroll. I crossed over the river and went up the field that lies next to the Wilderness, and there, sitting on a gate, I saw Dodds. I can tell you I was surprised, and so was he.

We talked for a bit, and then he asked me to come and play cricket. We had an awfully jolly afternoon, I can tell you," Hal added for the fiftieth time, at least. "I am jolly glad that he is here."

"Will you ask him to come over here and play?" said Drusie. "It would be rather nice to have some cricket with him--wouldn't it, Jim?"

Hal looked as though his ears had been deceiving him.

"What?" he said. "Ask Dodds over here to play with all of you? Why, you must be out of your senses, Drusie. The idea of Dodds playing with a girl! I say, how he would laugh!--We might have you, though, sometimes, Jim; you would be useful for fielding. I will ask him to-morrow if he would mind."

Jim, far from being overwhelmed at the possible honour in store for him, privately made up his mind to decline it with thanks when the time came.

While Hal had been speaking, a sudden idea had occurred to Drusie, and her face lit up with eagerness and excitement.

"O Hal," she exclaimed, "I believe that Dodds Major is our boy--the nice boy who rescued Jumbo, and who talked to us for such a long time."

Hal laughed scornfully.

"You don't know Dodds Major," he said. "He is not a bit like that.

Why, I tell you that he hates girls, and wouldn't take any notice at all of any of you. Why, he is older even than I am."

"So was this boy," said Drusie. "But, of course, if you say that Dodds Major is not nice, they cannot be the same."

"I never said Dodds was not nice," Hal said impatiently. "I only said that he was not the sort of boy to play with girls. I expect that fellow you met this morning was an awful m.u.f.f."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Chapter IV headpiece]

CHAPTER IV.

DISAPPOINTED HOPES.

For the next two or three days his family saw little of Hal. Morning, afternoon, and evening he was over at the Greys'. His meals he took in the schoolroom, and though nurse would have allowed him to come back to the nursery, if he had cared to do so, he very much preferred to have them in solitary state. He seemed to see nothing ridiculous in sitting there by himself; indeed, as he confided to Drusie, he thought it perfectly absurd that a boy of his age should ever have been expected to take them in the nursery.

She and the rest had plenty of time to make all their preparations for the double birthday to be celebrated on Tuesday, for Hal left them completely to themselves; and when he did see them, he was so full of all that he and Dodds Major did together that he had no time to show any interest in them.

"I should very much like to ask him whether he intends to take part in the fight to-morrow, or whether he means to spend the day as usual with his friend," said Helen.

It was late on Monday evening, and they had brought all their preparations to a satisfactory conclusion. The flag--a bright, new Union Jack--had been fastened to a long, slender pole, and was quite ready to be hoisted. The ammunition was arranged in a neat, high pile, and the armour lay ready to hand.

And in the garden summer-house, where, a few days back, the secret meeting had been held, the materials for a most sumptuous feast were in readiness to refresh the weary warriors when the day's work was done.

On previous birthdays they had always been satisfied with lemonade as a drink, but Drusie, feeling that this was a special occasion, had considered that lemonade was, perhaps, hardly a suitable form of refreshment; and so, from a recipe which she was proud to think was entirely out of her own head, she had concocted a bottle of red wine.

"And I think," she said, as she carefully hid it under the seat--"I think that when you taste it you will say that you never in all your lives before drank anything like it."

Tartlets and buns and a few other delicacies were to be ordered from the pastry-cook's on the eventful day itself.

So, everything being ready, and it wanting still an hour or more till their bedtime, they were rather at a loss to know what to do with themselves; and then it was that Helen expressed a desire to know what part Hal intended to take in the morrow's proceedings.

"No part at all, if you ask me," she added. "I say, Drusie, don't you think we might go up to the Greys' gate, and see if we can get a look at Hal and his precious friend Dodds?"

"Hal would be awfully angry if he saw us," said Drusie. "I don't think we should go."

But the hesitating tone in which she spoke showed that she was open to persuasion; and when Jim added his word to Helen's, and said that he thought there would be no harm in just going up and having a look over, she gave way. They soon reached the five-barred gate on which Hal had found Dodds sitting.

Neither of them was there, now, however; and so Helen proposed that they should climb over, and go down the gra.s.sy glade, which would bring them on to a small knoll, from whence they could command a view of the house and the wide lawn that lay in front of it.

The temptation to see Hal and his friend together was too strong for them to remember that they would be trespa.s.sing, and, scrambling over the gate, they made their way cautiously through the wood.

It was as well that they went cautiously, for the two boys were much closer to them than they had expected. To the left of the wood was a big level field, and it was here, and not on the lawn, that they were playing. The sound of a voice calling impatiently to Hal to hurry up with that ball, and not to be all night about it, was what first drew their attention to his whereabouts; and feeling rather astonished that any one should venture to address him in that imperious way, they crept up to the edge of the wood, and became silent spectators of what was going on.