"And we'll stow away a little of our pudding to take him--sick people always have puddings."

They had no difficulty in carrying out this plan. They always dined in the nursery, and if nurse wondered at the amount of pudding that her charges managed to consume that day, her old eyes were not sharp enough to detect the transfer from plates to pockets. She sent them out into the garden to play, and they soon were scampering out of the back gate and along the road toward the little cottage at the bottom of the hill.

It was a warm afternoon, and when they at length came near it they threw themselves down on the gra.s.s to rest.

"We mustn't frighten the old man," said Dudley, gazing at the thatched cottage with a critical eye. "I see the windows are tight shut in front, but there's one open at the side; we must creep up very quietly and get in before he sees us, and then we can explain who we are."

"And if the window won't do, we'll try the chimney, it looks a jolly big one."

Then after a pause--

"I suppose he'll be glad to see us?"

"Of course he will. He must be dreadfully dull all alone."

A few minutes after, they were holding a whispered consultation outside a small pantry window through which Roy was going to squeeze himself.

"I'll go first. It will be a tight fit for you, Dudley, but I'll give you a good pull through, and you must hold your breath well in."

"It's a kind of housebreaking," Dudley said, ripples of fun pa.s.sing over his face; "I don't mind visiting sick people if we go in at their windows like this!"

But Roy's little face was full of anxious gravity and purpose, and he checked Dudley's inclination to laugh at once.

He accomplished his part successfully, and then poor Dudley was hauled and pulled at till purple in the face, and breathless with exertion, he exclaimed, "I'm being squashed to a jelly; let go, I can't do it!"

"Just one more try--now then--there, we've done it!"

But Roy's exclamation of delight was drowned in an awful crash, as Dudley swept off some shelves a bowl of milk, two plates, and a cup of soup, and fell to the ground himself in the midst of it all.

Immediately a man's voice called out, "Who's there! Hi! Help! Thieves!

Help!"

Roy darted into the kitchen, and confronted a tall, hollow-cheeked man who had scrambled out of his bed in the chimney corner, and stood trembling from head to foot clutching hold of the bed-post, and coughing violently.

He did not seem at all appeased at the sight of the boys, but shook his fist at them in a paroxysm of fright and rage.

"Go away, you young blackguards--a robbin' honest folk, and a darin' to show yer impudent faces, and disturbin' a dyin' man, knowin' as he's too bad to give yer the hidin' ye desarve!"

Roy was quite taken aback.

"You're quite mistaken--let us explain--we've come to see you and do you good. Don't you know who we are? We live at the Manor. Look--get back into bed again, you'll take cold. We've brought you some pudding."

Here a parcel of currant pudding was taken out of his jacket pocket and held out temptingly.

"A' don't believe a word! Ye've been in the pantry a smashin' the missus' things, and a eatin' and a drinkin' all ye can lay hands on--begone, I tell ye!"

"That was me," put in Dudley, edging up to the irate invalid; "you see the door was locked and we had to come in at the window, and I'm rather fat about the shoulders, and Roy jerked me through too quick and I fell amongst some plates. But we really haven't stolen anything, we aren't robbers!"

"Begone, ye rascals!" repeated the old man, and then such a violent fit of coughing took possession of him that he sank back on his bed perfectly exhausted and helpless, waving them away and shaking his head at them when they tried to approach him.

Dudley looked doubtfully at Roy.

"I'm afraid we aren't doing him any good," he said, slowly. "He won't let us."

"No," was Roy's response, "we must go, I suppose. He is a foolish, stupid old man, or he would listen to us and let us explain."

Then advancing again to the sick man Roy said slowly and solemnly, "You'll be very sorry one day when you know how you've treated us, and we shall never, never try to see you again, or bring you pudding or comfort you, _never_! If you had let us, we should have washed your face and hands, and made you some gruel, and given you your medicine, and then sat down by your bed and talked nicely to you, but you won't let us do you good, so we shall leave you, and if you're lonely locked in here all day with no one to speak to, it's your own fault!"

Then holding his head up bravely, Roy marched out of the kitchen, and Dudley followed him with some misgivings as to his exit again by the pantry window. But Roy solved this difficulty.

"Look here, the key is in the back door; we will unlock it and get out properly. I'm sorry we've smashed those plates."

They walked home in the deepest dejection; as they went through the village there met them on the bridge the same man that had pa.s.sed them when on the garden wall. He was much the worse for drink, and seemed inclined to be quarrelsome.

"Look 'ee here now, I'll just trouble 'ee to give me another sixpence, young gent, or I'll help myself, and no nonsense, for I'm the feller for fightin'!"

He stood barring their way, lurching from side to side, and brandishing a stick in his hand.

Neither of the boys were daunted. Dudley shouted out,

"Let us by at once, or we'll make you! You'd better look out how you cheek us!"

And Roy in a moment had his jacket off, and was rolling up his shirt sleeves.

"Come on, Dudley, we'll lick him into shape, if he dares to touch us!"

What might have befallen our two little heroes cannot be told, for at this critical juncture the rector came up, and in stern, commanding tones ordered the man on.

"That stamp of man is a pest in the place," he said; "he won't be influenced for good but hangs about the ale-houses and lives on the proceeds of his begging. If people only knew the harm they do in giving him money instead of a little honest work! Well, boys, run along home, it's a good thing I came up to stop a free fight. How do you think you two atoms could have got the better of a man like that? 'Discretion is the better part of valor' remember. Keep your fists for a good cause.

And never entice a drunken man to fight. It is a degrading spectacle."

Saying which Mr. Selby pa.s.sed on, and Roy and Dudley walked home without saying a word to each other.

By the time they had finished their tea, they recovered their spirits, and were in the midst of an exciting game of cricket in a field adjoining the house with the old coachman and the stable-boy, when a summons came to them from the house to come in at once to their aunt.

"What's up, I wonder!" exclaimed Dudley, as he raced Roy up to the front door; "Aunt Judy never sends for us at dinner time."

They found their aunt in the library. She was in her dinner dress and the dinner gong was sounding in the hall, but her face was puzzled as she turned from a woman talking to her, to the boys.

"My nephews are little gentlemen; you must be mistaken," she was saying.

Roy and Dudley recognized the woman immediately. It was Mrs. Cullen, and their hearts sank.

"Come here, boys," Miss Bertram said; "I have been hearing a strange story from Mrs. Cullen, of two boys breaking into her house while she was away this afternoon, frightening her dying husband so much that the doctor fears he won't outlive the night, and breaking, and stealing things from her pantry. She insists upon it that it was you; her husband told her so, but I cannot believe it. You would have no object in behaving so wickedly."

Dudley's cheeks were crimson, and he hung his head in shame. Roy, as usual, was not daunted.

"It's all a great mistake, Aunt Judy, we never stole a thing; we went to see him and take him some pudding and do him good. We had to get in at the pantry window because the doors were all locked, and we did spill some milk and some soup, and broke a few plates. We couldn't make him understand we weren't robbers, so we came away again--and we're very sorry."