"That's just what folks always tell me in a little affair of this kind," said the man, producing a pencil and a notebook. "I'm getting rather tired of the story. I'll trouble you for your names and addresses, if you please."

"Why do you want them?" asked Artie cautiously.

"You'll know why when you find yourselves charged at the Llanrwst County Court," replied the man with a grin, "or your father will, to the tune of five pounds and costs, I reckon, or pretty near. It'll take all your pocket money or more."

"I'll go to prison first," said Oswald stoutly.

"And so will I," declared Artie.

"Oh, no, no!" cried Linda, thoroughly frightened, and dissolving into tears. "Please don't send them to prison! Look, I'll put the fish back into the water. We didn't know it was wrong to take them; we didn't indeed!"

The man coughed softly behind his hand.

"I wouldn't like to disoblige the young lady," he said; "but it's no use putting dead fish back into the stream. There," as Linda's tears flowed faster, "I won't be too hard on you this time. Give me the trout, and we'll say no more about it. But don't let me catch any of you poaching here again, or I can't let you go so easy. I've my orders from headquarters. Now be off with you all!"

Much relieved that the boys should escape fine or imprisonment, Linda emptied the fish from the basket on to the gra.s.s, and, seizing Sylvia's hand, ran as fast as she could up the bank to where they had left the donkey tied to the gate, followed by Oswald and Artie, who only stopped to pick up their shoes and stockings by the way. They were glad to place the stone wall between themselves and the angry gamekeeper, and as soon as the boys had put on their footgear, they loosed Teddie, and started off once more on the road towards Pen y Gaer.

"What a horrid cross man!" said Sylvia. "I peeped over the wall just now, and he was still standing there, and shook his fist at me."

"I didn't know any of the water was preserved," said Oswald, who felt sore at the remembrance. "Well, he needn't think we want to go there again after his old fish; they aren't such treasures as he supposes."

"Sour grapes!" laughed Artie.

"Oh, shut up! It was you who suggested tickling them first!" said Oswald, who was thoroughly out of temper, and ready to quarrel with anybody.

Artie, however, was a good-natured little fellow, and had the tact simply to whistle, and leave his brother to get over his ill humour.

As n.o.body was riding the donkey, he mounted it himself, and, persuading Linda and Sylvia to try what he called "the double-smack method", indulged in a splendid gallop, which did not meet with so disastrous a termination as the last one.

They had almost reached the goal of their walk, and, taking Teddie to a farm which stood near, they asked the woman to allow them to leave him there while they scaled the summit of Pen y Gaer, and to have her kettle boiling by the time they came back. Their path now led away from the road, and over a stile on to the heather. It was a stiff climb, and made more difficult by the thick gorse through which they were obliged to push their way, but the view from the top was sufficient compensation for any trouble they had in arriving there. On one hand they could see the whole extent of the valley from Bettws y Coed to Conway, and even the houses on the promenade at Llandudno fully ten miles away; while on the other stretched the beautiful moors leading to the gloomy hollow of Lake Dulyn, behind which the mountain ridges showed purple and jagged against the sky. All around they could trace the ruins of the old British fort, great piles of stones that must have been rolled there with incredible labour, perhaps by the very tribe which had reared the Druids' circle on the slope of Tal y fan.

"Some of the Welsh people say a giant put them here," said Oswald, who had recovered his spirits; "or I'm not sure if it wasn't King Arthur himself. At any rate he took a tremendous jump down the hillside, and left his footprint on a rock in the stream below there. He must have worn a No. 15 shoe, to judge by the size."

"Uncle Frank made up a ridiculous story once," said Linda. "It was all about the black bull of Llyn Dulyn, and how it came one night to Garth Avon, and tapped at Mother's window with its horns, and said that one of the little bulls had met with an accident to its eye, and he'd heard that she had a whole bottle of bulls'-eyes, so would she please bring some, and come at once with him and cure it. The village people are always fetching Mother like that to see their children, and she's simply terrified of bulls, so he told it just on purpose to tease her."

"Talking of bulls'-eyes makes me think of tea," said Artie. "I'm sure that old woman's kettle must be boiling now. I vote we go down and see. Let us try this other part of the hill; it'll be far quicker than scrambling through the gorse again."

One side of the summit was almost as steep as the roof of a house, and covered with very short, fine gra.s.s, at present so dry and slippery that the children sat down and slid almost as if it were winter, and they were tobogganing on the snow. It was great fun, especially when Artie caught against a stone, and rolled over and over like a ball, till a convenient gorse bush made a p.r.i.c.kly impediment in his career, and Linda left both hat and hair ribbon behind, and was obliged to scramble up the slope again to fetch them. It was certainly a much faster way back to the little whitewashed cottage.

The farmer's wife could not speak much English, but she said a great deal in Welsh which they took to be an invitation to come inside, where they found she had set a round table by the fire, nicely spread with cups and saucers and a clean cloth. The chimney was so big and wide that as they sat on the old-fashioned settle they could look right up and see a patch of sky at the top. From a large smoke-stained beam hung a chain supporting the kettle, which was boiling over on a fire of peat and dried heather that gave out a very fragrant aromatic smell, almost recalling Guy Fawkes Day, especially when it was blown by the bellows. For tea there was a large loaf of home-baked brown barley bread, and, notwithstanding the ample lunch which they had eaten by the stream, they were all hungry enough to enjoy it thoroughly, in spite of the saltness of the b.u.t.ter. It was so pleasant sitting in the quaint little mountain cottage, with its dim light and peaty atmosphere, and there were so many jokes to make and stories to tell, that they lingered until the tall grandfather's clock striking five reminded them that they were still a good many miles away from Craigwen, and that it was time to be taking the donkey and setting out once more on their homeward walk.

"We've had a jolly day," said Oswald, as, tired but in excellent spirits, the four at last reached the gate of Garth Avon. "Teddie's done splendidly. I'll give him a first-cla.s.s report, even for galloping, and he deserves a good feed of oats. You girls go in; Artie and I'll take him back to the farm. Are you coming, Scamp? Why, I really believe it's the first time in my life I've ever seen a dog look dead beat!"

CHAPTER XVI

The Chinese Charm

"What are we going to do to-day?" asked Oswald after breakfast next morning. "We've an uncommonly short holiday, so we must spin it out as well as we can. Who votes for Llangelynin?"

"Too far and too hot," replied Artie, stretching himself comfortably in his father's armchair. "I feel more inclined to lie on the lawn and laze than go climbing hills again."

"It's too far for you all after your long walk yesterday," said Mrs.

Marshall. "You boys may do what you like this morning, but Linda and Sylvia are to stay quietly in the garden until dinner-time. There's an invitation for you to have tea at Dr. Severn's, which of course I have accepted. I was sure you would all like to go."

"Rather!" said Oswald. "He's the jolliest chap I know, and that's saying a good deal. Artie, suppose we take ourselves off to the marsh and have a dip in the pool; it's about the coolest thing I can suggest for a day like this, and we shall both enjoy a swim."

"Who is Dr. Severn?" said Sylvia to Linda, when the boys had started for their bathe, and the two little girls were sitting in a cool, shady place under the trees, with their books on their knees.

"He's a gentleman who came last summer to live at a house not very far away," answered Linda. "We only got to know him lately; but he's so nice, and the boys simply adore him!"

"Hasn't he any children of his own?"

"No. We heard they were dead, and his wife too, but he's never spoken about them even to Father and Mother. He lives quite alone, with a housekeeper to look after him. He's been in all kinds of foreign places, and his rooms are so full of funny things, it's just like going to a museum. There's a stuffed crocodile, and a mummied cat, and a horrid lizard in a bottle, and some snake skins, and a locust, and a scorpion, and a whole case of lovely b.u.t.terflies. He tells us about them sometimes, and where he found them."

"I hope he'll show them to us to-day," said Sylvia, who thought the collection sounded interesting.

"I'm sure he will if we ask him," said Linda. "I should like to see them again myself, especially the crocodile. He has a big cabinet full of little drawers, and he keeps curiosities in them from every place he's been to. There's one with nothing but sh.e.l.ls, and another for corals, and a third for coins, and the rest are each for a separate country. He's very careful over them; he won't let us take anything out ourselves, or even handle some of them, he's so afraid they might get broken. Still, it's fun to look, even if we mayn't touch."

"I expect it's a thousand times nicer than my museum at home," said Sylvia, "though I have a cabinet in the schoolroom."

"I haven't seen your museum yet, so I can't say, but I'm sure you'll enjoy Dr. Severn's. We've been to tea twice before, and each time we've had raspberry sandwich and plumcake and little crisp cocoanut biscuits. I hope the housekeeper will make them to-day. There's always the most delicious apricot jam, too, and he hands round a big jug of cream, and tells us to help ourselves. Then there's a horizontal bar in the garden that the boys love; they do some of the things on it that they learn in the gymnasium at school; and there's a tank with pink water lilies growing in it, only I don't think they'll be out just yet. I'm so glad he's asked us to-day, because I want you to go and see it all."

"What a good thing Miss Coleman managed to put that clean dress in my bag!" said Sylvia. "What should I have done without it? I got this in quite a mess yesterday."

"I should have had to lend you one of my white muslins, and I'm sure they'll be too short for me this year, so they would be far too small for you; you're an inch taller than I am, though you're so much thinner. We're both to wear our sailor hats. Mother said I couldn't put on my last year's Sunday summer one if you hadn't your best with you, and of course it isn't a party."

The invitation was for four o'clock, and by half-past three Mrs.

Marshall had succeeded in getting the prospective guests into what she considered a sufficient state of tidiness for the occasion.

It was about twenty minutes' walk to Dale Side, a pretty modern bungalow which had been built by an English gentleman with a leaning towards the picturesque, and who had therefore chosen the site to secure the most beautiful views, and had made the interior as artistic as his excellent taste could devise. After living there a few years, the owner, on account of his wife's health, had gone to reside in Italy, and the little property had been on sale until the preceding summer, when it had been purchased, together with a few acres of land, by Dr. Severn, who was a newcomer to the neighbourhood. Though he was therefore only a comparative stranger, the young Marshalls already regarded the kindly doctor as a friend, and it was with very smiling faces that they rang his bell that afternoon.

"I saw you arriving," cried their host, hastening to the door himself to meet them. "I was just looking out for you, and hoping you would come soon to interrupt a tiresome letter I felt obliged to write. Now I'm justified in putting it off for an hour or two at any rate.

Linda's quite shocked at me! But I didn't say I wouldn't finish it afterwards, did I? Shall we go straight through to the pine wood? I've had the table carried out there for tea. It's the coolest place we can find on a hot day."

By the time she had known him ten minutes, Sylvia had decided that she liked Dr. Severn immensely. He was a tall, rather gaunt man, with a thin, pale, clean-shaven face that bore traces of ill health or suffering in the hollow cheeks and the lines around the mouth; his hair was iron grey, rather long, and combed straight back from his broad forehead, and he had the brightest, keenest, pleasantest blue eyes that it was possible to imagine. His manner was so winning and jolly that he made everybody feel at home immediately. He seemed to know exactly the subjects about which boys and girls liked to talk, and to be able to enter into everything almost as if he were a boy himself. The four visitors soon found themselves chatting to him perfectly freely, telling him of school sc.r.a.pes and adventures, of plans for the summer holidays, and asking his opinion on various disputed points, while he, in turn, was full of jokes and reminiscences of his own far-off schooldays.

"Never save the best till last!" he declared, handing round the cake long before the plates of bread and b.u.t.ter were finished. "I've kept to that motto ever since I was a small boy, and I had very good reason for adopting it. Once, when I was a little fellow of about seven years old, I was taken to pay a visit to an old lady who lived in the country. Children were brought up on the plainest fare in those days--porridge, and bread and milk, roast beef or mutton with potatoes, rice pudding or suet dumpling, with jam roly-poly, as a special treat on your birthday, was all that was considered good for us; so you can imagine I felt pleased when I saw a large pudding full of currants come on to the table at dinner-time. The old lady gave me a generous serving, and told me to help myself to as much sugar as I liked with it, a.s.suring my mother that sweet things were necessary for children, a sentiment with which I cordially agreed then, whatever opinions my elders might hold. There were a great many currants in my slice of pudding, and it struck me how much nicer they would taste if I could eat them all together as a t.i.tbit at the last; so I picked them carefully out one by one, and put them to the side of my plate. I suppose it must have taken me rather a long time, or perhaps the others had smaller helpings; at any rate they had finished first, and all laid down their spoons and forks except myself. I gulped my last piece of pudding in a hurry, and was just going to enjoy my saved-up fruit, when the old lady, who had been watching me, said: "Poor boy!

Isn't he fond of currants? Leave them, my dear; I would never force a child to eat what it doesn't like," adding a direction to the servant to take my plate away. I had had tremendous warnings before I came about behaving myself properly, and also I was much too shy to protest, so I was obliged to watch my cherished currants being whisked from the table before I had been able to taste a single one of them.

If I had ever been inclined to be miserly, I think this incident would have cured me of h.o.a.rding up riches."

"What a shame! Didn't you get anything instead?" asked Artie.

"Not at dinner, but afterwards the old lady, who was a very kind soul, took me into her kitchen garden, and told me to eat as many ripe gooseberries as I liked. There were various sorts, big red ones, hairy yellow ones, and smooth green ones, and I'm sure I ate enough to make up amply for what I missed at pudding time. As far as I recollect I never stopped picking the whole afternoon. Small boys can accommodate a great deal."

"I don't think gooseberries do one any harm," said Artie. "We eat simply loads. We each sit down beside a bush, and try who can make the biggest pile of skins. Mother says the blackbirds would take them if we didn't."