"Here, it's my turn," shouted the boy gleefully. "I'll race you."

"Martin! Martin! I want you!" shrieked Angle, running after him.

He paid no heed to her cries. Outstripping both girls in the race, he sprang at the swing, and was carried almost to the debated limit of the tree by the impetus of the rush. When he felt himself stopping he threw up his feet in a wild effort to touch the leaves so tantalizingly out of reach, and in that instant the rope broke.

He turned completely over and fell with a heavy thud on the back of his bent head. The screaming of the girls brought the vicar from his prints in great alarm, and his agitation increased when he discovered that the boy could neither move nor speak.

Elsie was halfway to the White House before Martin regained his breath.

Once vitality returned, however, he was quickly on his feet again.

"What happened?" he asked, craning his head awkwardly. "I thought someone fired a gun!"

"You frightened us nearly out of our wits," cried the vicar. "And I was stupid enough to send Elsie flying to your people. Goodness knows what she will have said to them!"

Promptly the boy shook himself and tried to break into a run.

"I must--follow her," he gasped. But not yet was the masterful spirit able to control relaxed muscles; he collapsed again.

Mrs. Saumarez cried aloud in a new fear, but the vicar, accustomed to the minor accidents of the cricket field and gymnasium, was cooler now.

"He's all right--only needs a drink of water and a few minutes' rest,"

he explained.

He bade one of the maids go as quickly as possible to the Bollands' farm and say that the mischief to Martin was a mere nothing, and then busied himself in more scientific fashion with restoring his patient's animation.

Unfastening the boy's collar and the neckband of his shirt, Mr. Herbert satisfied himself that the clavicle was uninjured. There was a slight abrasion of the scalp, which was sore to the touch. In a minute, or less, Martin was again protesting that there was little the matter with him. He would not be satisfied until the vicar allowed him to start once more for the village, though at a more sedate pace.

Then Mrs. Saumarez, in a voice of deep distress, asked Mr. Herbert if the rope had really been cut.

"Yes," he said. "You can see yourself that there is no doubt about it."

"But your daughter charged Angle with this--this crime. My child denies it. She has no knife or implement of any sort in her pocket. I a.s.sure you I have satisfied myself on that point."

"The affair is a mystery, Mrs. Saumarez. It must be cleared up. Thank G.o.d, Martin escaped! He might be lying here dead at this moment."

"Are you sure it was not an accident?"

"What am I to say? Here is a stout hempen cord with nearly all its strands severed as if with a razor, and the other torn asunder. And, from what I can gather, it was Elsie, and not Martin, for whose benefit this diabolical outrage was planned."

The vicar spoke warmly, but the significance of the incident was dawning slowly on his perplexed mind. Providence alone had ordained that neither the boy nor the girl had been gravely, perhaps fatally, injured.

Mrs. Saumarez was haggard. She seemed to have aged in those few minutes.

"Angle!" she cried.

The girl, who was sobbing, came to her.

"Can it be possible," said the distracted mother, "that you interfered with the swing? Why did you leave the drawing-room during tea?"

"I only went to stroke a cat, mamma. Indeed, I never touched the swing.

Why should I? And I could not cut it with my fingers."

"On second thoughts," said the vicar coldly, "I think that the matter may be allowed to rest where it is. Of course, one of my servants may be the culprit, or a mischievous village youth who had been watching the children at play. But the two girls do not seem to get on well together, Mrs. Saumarez. I fear they are endowed with widely different temperaments."

The hint could not be ignored. The lady smiled bitterly.

"It is well that I should have decided already to leave Elmsdale," she said. "It is a charming place, but my visit has not been altogether fortunate."

Mr. Herbert remembered the curious phrase in after years. He understood it then. At the moment he was candidly relieved when Mrs. Saumarez and Angle took their departure. He jammed on a hat and hastened to the White House to learn what sort of sensation Elsie had created.

A week later he made a discovery. He had a curious hobby--he was his own bootmaker, and Elsie's, having taught himself to be a craftsman in an art which might well claim higher rank than it holds. When next he rummaged among his implements for a shoemaker's knife it was missing. It was found in the garden next spring, jammed to the top of the hilt into the soft mold beneath a rhododendron. The tools were kept on a bench in the conservatory; so Angle might have accomplished her impish desire in a few seconds.

On reaching the White House he was mildly surprised at finding Martin propped against the knee of a tall, soldierly stranger, who was consoling the boy with a reminiscence of a far worse toss at polo, by which a hard _sola topi_ was flattened on the iron surface of an Indian _maidan_. Elsie, white, but much interested, was sipping a gla.s.s of milk.

"Eh, Vicar," cried Mrs. Bolland, in whose face Mr. Herbert saw signs of recent excitement, "your la.s.s gev us a rare start. She landed here like a mad thing, screamed oot that Martin was dead, an' dropped te t' flure half dead herself."

"The fault was mine, Mrs. Bolland. There was an accident. At first I thought Martin was badly hurt. I am, indeed, very sorry if Elsie alarmed you."

His words were meant to rea.s.sure the others, but his eyes were fixed on the girl's pallid face. John Bolland laughed in his dry way.

"Nay, Pa.s.son, dinnat fret aboot Elsie. She's none t' wa.r.s.e for a sudden stop. She was ower-excited. Where's yon la.s.s o' Mrs. Saumarez's?"

"Gone home with her mother. I hear they are leaving Elmsdale."

"A good riddance!" said John heartily. He turned to Martin. "Ye'll be winded again, I reckon?"

"Yes, sir."

"Well, I left my ash stick i' t' low yard. Mebbe you an' t' young leddy will fetch it. There's noa need te hurry."

This was an oblique instruction to the boy to make himself scarce for half an hour. With Elsie as a companion he needed no urging. They set off, happy as grigs.

"Noo, afore ye start te fill t' vicar wi' wunnerment," cried Martha, "I want te ax t' colonel a question."

"What is it, Mrs. Bolland?"

Colonel Grant was smiling at the vicar's puzzled air. These good people knew naught of formal introductions.

"How old is t' lad?"

"He was fourteen years old on the sixth of last June."

"Eh, but that's grand." She clapped her hands delightedly. "I guessed him tiv a week or two. We reckoned his birthday as a twel'month afore we found him, and that was June the eighteenth. And what's his right nem?"

"He was christened after me and after his mother's family. His name is Reginald Ingram Grant."

"May I ask who in the world you are talking about?" interposed the perplexed vicar.