"Oh, please call him off; oh, do please," said Bill Jenkins; "I'll ne'er throw stones at him again. Oh, please call him off."

Harry laid hold of d.i.c.k's tail, and Philip took him by the ears, and they carried him off to the yard and chained him up again, when he set to barking as loudly as he could, until his enemy had left the premises, which he did directly, leaving the letter, which he had brought for Mr Inglis, in the charge of Fred, and then slipping off, after faring no worse than being in a most horrible fright, for d.i.c.k's teeth went no farther than through his trousers. As to Harry and Philip, they enjoyed the fun, as they called it, immensely, which can hardly be wondered at when the provocation they had received is taken into consideration; but I must do them the credit of saying that they would not have set the dog at poor Bill, and that they could not have stopped him if they had tried ever so hard, which, in the hurry-skurry of the affair, they had no chance of attempting. d.i.c.k had a good memory for those who were kind, and those who behaved ill to him, as Bill Jenkins found to his cost; and never afterwards could he be persuaded to take a message to Mr Inglis's house, so wholesome was the dread with which the dog had inspired him.

This episode supplied the boys with what they had wanted--something to take up their attention till dinner-time, which Harry, by making a charge into the kitchen, found to be in the process of what Mrs Cook termed "dishing up;" so they entered the house, where they found Papa just going to relieve himself of a little of the black which clung to him; and soon afterwards, at dinner, they heard all that had been done to make the best of the existing state of affairs.

During tea the family party were again alarmed by the cry of "Fire!" of which they could see the glare through the window; but, on hastening to the farm-yard, it proved to be only one of the smouldering heaps which had burst out again, and a few pails of water soon extinguished the flames.

Watchmen were left in charge of the place, and soon after returning to the house, the whole of the inmates, thoroughly tired out with the excitement of the past twenty-four hours, retired to rest.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

BEWARE OF THE SNAKE.

"Now, boys," said Philip, "tumble up--tumble up--tumble up, it's such a beautiful morning. Come, get up, Harry," he continued, giving his brother a rough shake.

"Aw--yaw--aw--aw--aw--aw," said Harry, gaping fearfully.

"Get up-p-p-p-p-p," shouted Philip again, giving him another shake.

"Oh, don't, Philip," said Harry, "I'm so slee-aw-aw-aw-ah-aw-aw-py."

"What an old stupid!" said Philip again. "If you don't get up, I'll cold sponge you."

Harry did not wait for the cold sponge, but got up at once, and then the young dogs seemed to enter into a compact to disturb the rest of poor Fred, which they did by torturing him most ingeniously.

Fred was lying fast asleep, and, the night having been warm, he had kicked all the clothes off, so Harry and Philip collected the hair-brushes in the two bedrooms, which, old and new, amounted to five; after which, Harry slipped down into the hall, and brought up the two clothes-brushes, and these they carefully arranged upon the bed, all on one side of the sleeper. They next screwed up the corner of a handkerchief, and began to tickle him on the side farthest from the brushes. The first application of the tickler produced an impatient rub; the second, an irritable scratch; but the third made the sleeper turn right over on to the sharp brushes, and begin to curl and twist about with pain.

"Oh, dear! what's--ah--ah--er--oh, dear--don't. What's in the bed?"

said Fred, muttering and groaning and twisting amongst the brushes, but still keeping his eyes obstinately closed.

His tormentors roared with laughter; and it was this mirth which thoroughly aroused Fred to the comprehension of his position, which he no sooner realised than he sat up in bed, but in so doing only increased his pain--penetrating hair-brushes, although meant expressly for going through the hair, having, for all that, the power to pierce the skin, as Fred found, and he soon made a sort of rabbit leap off the bed on to the floor, and confronted his tormentors, who directly took to ign.o.ble flight; but they did not get off scot-free, for Fred managed to send a missile in the shape of one of the brushes flying after them, and it caught Harry a pretty good thump in the back with the hardest part.

"I say," said Philip, when they were nearly dressed, "we were to have gone to the mill last night to bob for eels; let's go to-night, or Dusty Bob will think we are not coming."

"Oh, he wouldn't expect us when he saw what a fire there was. He would know that we should not go directly afterwards. But we might go to-night, though. Let's ask Mamma to have tea early, so that we can start directly after."

"Well, but we have not had breakfast yet," said Fred.

"Well, I know that," said Harry; "but it's always best to be in good time about everything, and then you don't get all behind. I say, what shall we do this morning? I should like to go down to the seash.o.r.e.

Let's ask Papa to take us."

"Why, what's the use," said Philip, "when you know how busy he is about the fire? I shouldn't like to ask him. But he said he would take us again before Fred goes back, so let's wait and see."

Breakfast finished, the boys went out in the garden to amuse themselves, and plenty there always seemed to be in that garden to amuse any one of reasonable desires. There was fruit in abundance to begin with--no bad thing for a commencement either, as Harry appeared to think, for he began feasting first upon the gooseberries, and then turned his attention to the cherries on the big tree in the corner by the shrubbery--the tree which bore the great white Bigareau cherries; and it was quite time they were picked, for some were split right down the side from over-ripeness, while the sparrows had been attacking others, and had committed sad havoc amongst them--the little pert rascals having picked out all the finest and ripest for their operations, and then, after taking a few bites out of the richest and sweetest part, they commenced upon another. As for Harry, who was not at all a particular youth, he used to make a point of choosing the sparrow-picked cherries-- saying that they were the ripest and sweetest.

Harry was up in the fork of the tree, reaching the fruit and throwing it down to his companions, when the attention of all three boys was taken up by the movements of a little bird in a tree close by; it was one of the little t.i.tmice, and the tiny fellow seemed to be in a wonderful state of excitement, darting from branch to branch, and emitting his sharp cry in a most querulous manner.

"I say," said Philip, "look at that tom-t.i.t; it has a nest somewhere close by, I know."

This remark set six eyes searching about to discover the place of the little tom-t.i.t's home. Fred began looking up in the tree and amidst the laurel bushes--parting the boughs, and peering amidst the great green leaves.

"What are you looking for?" said Harry at last.

"The tom-t.i.t's nest," said Fred.

"Why, it's no use to look there; they always build in holes in the trees or wall. Last year there was one in that tall vase at the corner of the low wall; and we used to see the bird go down the neck ever so many times a day. It was such a snug place, n.o.body could touch it. I wonder where that little chap has been building. It must be close by, or he would not be so fidgety about our being here."

They all hunted about well, but no nest was to be found; so Harry came down from his elevated position, and proceeded to share the capful of cherries that he had picked in addition to those he had thrown down.

"Well, now, if that isn't droll," said Philip, laughing; "no wonder we could not find the nest: why, Harry was standing up with his foot over it. Why, there it is, in the trunk of the cherry-tree. I just saw the tom-t.i.t fly in."

And there, sure enough, was the nest right at the bottom of a deep hole in the tree trunk, the entrance to which was by a hole so small that it seemed impossible for any bird to pa.s.s through it; for to look at the size of the tom-t.i.t, his bulk appeared to be double the circ.u.mference of the hole; but his downy yielding little feathers gave him an easy pa.s.sage through; and, as the boys went up to the tree, out he darted with a sharp cry, and flew away.

"There's a hen-bird in the hole, sitting," said Harry, "and he has been to feed her, I know. Let's try." Saying which, he took a piece of stick, and began to insert it gently into the hole.

"Don't hurt it," said Philip. "Don't poke the stick in."

"Oh! I shan't hurt anything," said Harry brusquely. "Do you think I don't know what I'm about? I'm only going to push it in a little way to see if there is a nest, and then I shall--"

"Ciss-s-s-s-s-s-s-s," said something very sharply from the bottom of the hole, and back darted Harry, stick and all, as though he had been shot.

"Why, it's a snake," said Philip.

"How could a snake get there?" said Harry, looking rather discomposed.

"There must have been an egg laid in the hole," said Fred; offering, as he thought, a very clever solution of the difficulty.

"Well, but how did the egg get there?" said Harry.

"Why, it was laid there, of course," said Fred.

"Well, but," said Philip, "if an egg could be laid there, a snake could have got there; and I don't believe the English snakes could climb up the bark of a tree; and, besides, if there was one egg there would be more, for snakes' eggs are all joined together like French rolls at the baker's shop; and then there would have been a whole lot of snakes in the hole."

"Perhaps there is a whole party of them there now," said Fred. "I wish we could split the tree open. I shan't eat any more cherries; they smell snaky."

"Get out!" said Harry; "I don't believe it was a snake at all. I wish the hole was big enough to get my hand in; I'd soon see what it was."

"But if it was a snake, it would bite," said Fred, "and poison you."

"No, it wouldn't," said Harry; "it's only adders that bite and poison; snakes are quite harmless; Papa says so, and he knows everything."

"Does he?" said a voice behind the laurels, and Mr Inglis came up to them, smiling. "And so, Master Hal, you consider that Papa knows everything, do you? Ah, my boy, when you grow older, I trust that you will prove studious enough to find out how very ignorant your father is, and to look upon all he knows in the same way that he does himself, and that is, as a mere nothing in comparison with what there is to learn around us. But," he continued, cheerfully, "what is it I am said to know so much about?"

"Why, about snakes, Papa. They won't bite, will they?"

"Oh, yes," said Mr Inglis, "and pretty sharply, too, after their fashion. I do not suppose that it would pierce your skin; but if you could occupy the position of poor froggy some day, when a snake has got hold of him by the hind legs, I think you would find that he could bite.