"Well, think of being shut up in a perfectly dark cellar--"

"Is it underground?" interrupted John.

"Jolly well underground I should say!" continued the boy. "Fifty steps down, and an iron door at the top and the bottom of the stairs, so that however much you shouted n.o.body could possibly hear you. And nothing but slimy black earth to lie upon."

"How do you know it's black if you are in the dark?" asked Betty, so deeply interested in this terrible tale that she wished to understand every detail.

"I tell you I know it is black!" said the boy sharply. "Black, and covered with pools of dirty water. And there are toads all about. If you don't believe me, though, I won't tell you any more about it."

"Oh, I do believe you! It wasn't that at all," said Betty. "But what a dreadful woman Mrs. Howard must be! Jane says the village people think she is quite mad."

"And who is Jane?"

"She is our nurse-maid. But everybody thinks the same. Very likely Father and Mother do, only they never talk about Mrs. Howard to us."

"I dare say she is mad," said the boy. "I can tell you enough things about her to make your hair stand on end, although I have only been here a week."

"But how did you come here, and what is your name? And how old are you?" asked Madge.

"My name is Lewis Brand, and I was fourteen last Christmas."

"Then you are two years older than me!" cried Madge, this announcement putting everything else out of her head. "I had no idea you were so old as that. And you have been at school?"

"Two schools, and now I have been sent to prison here."

"I shall go to school soon," interposed John, who was rather ashamed of his want of experience before this big boy. John had been kept at home a little longer than would otherwise have been the case, because his mother had a romantic idea that the twins were inseparable. It had lately become apparent, however, that John and Betty were most affectionate when they did not see too much of each other; and since a baby-boy had lately appeared in the nursery, Captain West had felt that his eldest son could be very well spared to go to school.

"Ah, school is bad enough!" said Lewis gloomily. "You wait till you get there! You'll just jolly well wish you were home again! But," he broke off suddenly, "do let us begin to play. Talking all the afternoon is dull work."

It was wonderful how soon the victim of Mrs. Howard's cruelties recovered his spirits when they once started a game. He established himself as chief of a tribe of wild Indians, with the modest t.i.tle "Bravest of the Brave". And he led his warriors to victory with such shrill battle-cries that the veriest coward would have felt compelled to follow him. The absence of enemies was the chief want that afternoon. They had to pretend that some iron railings on the other side of the field were an army advancing towards them in the distance.

"But it is much more fun when the enemy is alive, so that he runs away and we can hurt him," explained Madge. "Next time we will try to drive the pigs up to this end of the field when we are coming here. They make capital enemies, they scream so beautifully while they are running away."

It seemed to be taken for granted by everybody that in future Lewis would often join the three Wests in their games.

"And I'm sure Mama won't mind your coming to play with us when she hears how cruelly you are treated at home," observed Betty.

"You don't mean to say you were going to tell anybody that you met me here!" cried Lewis excitedly. "Now, that's just like a girl! They never can keep the least bit of a secret. If you say a single word about me to anybody at all I shall never be able to come here any more.

And very likely something dreadful will happen to me."

"But Mama would not tell Mrs. Howard if I asked her not. Besides, she doesn't even know her," argued Betty, who was rather frightened at the prospect of keeping such a very large secret for an indefinite period.

"I tell you I shall be put in that dark cellar, and fed--" Lewis suddenly broke off, and whispered in a tone of real terror, "Lie down flat! Keep still! There she is!"

All four children happened to be on the Eagle's Nest at the moment, having just returned from a most violent raid against the Iron-Railing tribe, which, however, did not seem in any hurry to avenge its wrongs by pursuing the enemy back to his stronghold. At Lewis's words they all crouched down on the sticks, making themselves as small as possible. And they looked in the direction to which he silently pointed.

From the height of the Eagle's Nest it was possible to see over the boundary wall into Mrs. Howard's domain. It is a fact, however, that until to-day the children had found this view exceedingly uneventful.

At the bottom of the wall there was a small orchard, beyond that a glimpse could be caught of an old-fashioned garden and the end of a brick house. It was all very ordinary and homely-looking, not at all like the surroundings one naturally expects to find a.s.sociated with deeds of wrong and cruelty. But since the children had heard of the fearful cellar beneath that innocent brick house, they shuddered as they glanced towards it. And to-day for the first time they saw someone moving about the garden.

"Lie still," whispered Lewis, "as still as death! She is coming this way!"

Full of mingled terror and curiosity, Madge, Betty, and John lay motionless, hardly moving an eyelid. It was Lewis who fidgeted decidedly the most, in spite of his having been the one to give the order for silence. And presently through a gate from the garden came an old lady. She was dressed all in gray--gown, shawl, and bonnet, and most delicately clean and neat she looked. In her hand she carried a nosegay of white flowers, and a few paces behind her solemnly stalked a large black cat.

There were only two remarkable things about this old lady's appearance--always excepting her extreme air of daintiness. One was the smallness of her size, the other her funny trick of nodding her head continually. The latter seemed as much a habit with her as breathing; she nodded at the b.u.t.tercups and daisies beneath her feet, and she nodded at the two sleek cows, who stopped chewing the cud for a moment to gaze back with blinking, white-lashed eyes. She even nodded more than once towards the beech-tree, until Madge made sure that they were discovered, and began to prepare a fine speech, defying Mrs.

Howard to trespa.s.s one inch on Captain West's land. But after all there was no opportunity for delivering this timely warning, as the old lady glided slowly on through the orchard, and having gently inspected (and nodded to) every individual apple-tree, she returned to the garden and disappeared round a corner of the house, closely followed by the black cat.

"So that's Mrs. Howard!" exclaimed Madge, stretching her cramped limbs after the effort of remaining still so long. "She doesn't look as if she could hurt you very much. Why, I don't believe she is as tall as I am!"

"Perhaps not," replied Lewis. "But I never said she shut me up herself, did I? She keeps a sort of jailer to do that. And she stands and grins on the top step while he is hurling me into the cellar below.

You should see her grin!"

"But she looks so gentle," objected Betty.

"I'll tell you the reason of that. It's to deceive people and get them into her clutches," said Lewis. "Now I must be off, or they will half-murder me if they find out where I have been. I'll try and come another day if I can give old Mother Howard the slip." And seizing the rope-ladder, which had been hidden among the branches, he again dropped it over the wall. Climbing down the ladder was a much quicker matter than climbing up, and in a couple of minutes he was safely running across the orchard towards the brick house.

CHAPTER VII.

JACK AND JILL.

When Lewis Brand had disappeared from sight, the three children left in the Eagle's Nest could scarcely believe that since dinner-time so many curious things had happened. A strange boy, of whose existence they were not aware two hours before, had been playing with them just as if they had known each other all their lives. He had, moreover, told them his history, which was quite as wonderful as many fairy stories. And they had seen the mysterious Mrs. Howard.

These extraordinary new experiences had the effect of quite throwing the rope-ladder into the background, and they actually forgot all about its existence, and descended by the wall in the old way at the warning sound of the tea-bell. John was the first to notice this omission.

"Oughtn't we to climb up again and come down by the ladder?" he said.

"Oh no, bother the ladder!" replied Madge, so curtly that the others stared at her in surprise.

"But the ladder was your idea, your very own idea. And I thought you were so proud of it!" observed Betty in a bewildered voice.

"Oh yes, so I was!" cried Madge impatiently. "But don't you see, so many new things have happened that they have nearly put the old things out of my head. The ladder is quite safe up there twisted round the bough. Barton will never think of looking in the tree even if he does miss it, but it's my belief he doesn't count the ropes all through the summer. Now let us hurry back or there will be a fuss about our keeping tea waiting, and we sha'n't be allowed to go so far away in the fields. You know Miss Thompson once threatened not to let us out of sight of the schoolroom window if we so often came in late."

On the way home Madge impressed upon the other two the necessity of not boasting of their adventure.

"Mayn't we even say that we have seen Mrs. Howard? Not even tell Jane?" they asked.

"Certainly not," said Madge sternly. "It is not our own secret, remember. It is Lewis's. And we have promised him to say nothing about it, so of course we mustn't."

When the case was put that way it certainly sounded right to hold one's tongue. And yet a little time before it had seemed equally right to go home and confess that they had taken the unusual step of talking to a stranger. The younger ones couldn't help feeling that this was very confusing. Besides, it was disappointing to be forbidden to tell Jane that they now knew more about Mrs. Howard even than she did.

They would have discussed the subject all the way home if the sight of Captain West coming to meet them across the fields had not given an entirely new turn to their thoughts. As soon as they came near enough to hear what he said he shouted out:

"Come along quickly! I have been looking for you ever since I came back from Churchbury. There is a surprise for you!"

There was nothing the children liked better than being with their father. He was away a great part of every day attending Magistrates'

meetings, Boards of Guardians, and other useful county work. When he came home late in the afternoon, Madge, Betty, and John made such a rush for him that Mrs. West often complained that she could not get any attention until the children had gone to bed. It was no use her trying to talk, she said, every word was drowned by the three loud voices that insisted upon being heard and answered.