for "after tea" on winter evenings.
"Where did we leave him?" he asked, sitting down obediently.
"Don't you remember, Father?" said Buff. "In the Robbers' Cave."
"He was just untying that girl," said Thomas.
"She wasn't a girl," corrected Billy, "she was a princess."
"It's the same thing," said Thomas. "He was untying her when he found the Robber Chief looking at him with a knife in his mouth."
So the story began and ended all too soon for the eager listeners, and Mr. Seton hurried away to his work.
"Say good-night, Thomas and Billy," said Elizabeth, "and run home. It's very nearly bed-time."
"To-morrow's Saturday," said Thomas suggestively.
"So it is. Ask 'Mamma' if you may come to tea, and come over directly you have had dinner."
Thomas looked dissatisfied.
"Couldn't I say to Mamma you would like us to come to dinner? Then we could come just after breakfast. You see, there's that house we're building——"
"I'm going to buy nails with my Saturday penny," said Billy.
"By all means come to dinner," said Elizabeth, "if Mamma doesn't mind. Good-night, sonnies—now run."
She opened the front-door for them, and watched them scud across the road to their own gate—then she went back to the drawing-room.
"I must be going too," said Miss Christie, sitting back more comfortably in her chair.
"It's Band of Hope night," said Elizabeth.
Buff had been marching up and down the room, with Launcelot in his arms, telling himself a story, but he now came and leant against his sister. She stroked his hair as she asked, "What's the matter, Buffy boy?"
"I wish," said Buff, "that I lived in a house where people didn't go to meetings."
"But I'm not going out till you're in bed. We shall have time for reading and everything. Say good-night to Christina, and see if Ellen has got your bath ready. And, Buff," she said, as he went out of the door, "pay particular attention to your knees—scrub them with a brush; and don't forget your fair large ears, my gentle joy."
"Those boys are curiosities," said Miss Christie. "What house is this they're building?"
"It's a Shelter for Homeless Cats," said Elizabeth, "made of orange boxes begged from the grocer. I think it was Buff's idea to start with, but Thomas has the clever hands. Must you go?"
"These chairs are too comfortable," said Miss Christie, as she rose; "they make one lazy. If I were you, Elizabeth, I wouldn't let Buff talk to himself and tell himself stories. He'll grow up queer.... You needn't laugh."
"I'm very sorry, Christina. I'm afraid we're a frightfully eccentric family, but you'll come and see us all the same, won't you?"
Miss Christie looked at her tall friend, and a quizzical smile lurked at the corner of her rather dour mouth. "Ay, Elizabeth," she said, "you sound very humble, but I wouldn't like to buy you at your own valuation, my dear."
Elizabeth put her hands on Christina's shoulders as she kissed her good-night. "You're a rude old Kirsty," she said, "but I dare say you're right."
CHAPTER VI
"How now, sir? What are you reasoning with yourself?
Nay, I was rhyming; 'tis you that have the reason."
Two Gentlemen of Verona.
About a fortnight later—it was Saturday afternoon—an April day strayed into November, and James Seton walked in his garden and was grateful.
He had his next day's sermon in his hand and as he walked he studied it, but now and again he would lift his head to look at the blue sky, or he would stoop and touch gently the petals of a Christmas-rose, flowering bravely if sootily in the border. Behind the hedge, on the drying green, Thomas and Billy and Buff disported themselves. They had been unusually quiet, but now the sound of raised voices drew Mr. Seton to the scene of action. Looking over the hedge, he saw an odd sight. Thomas lay grovelling on the ground; Billy, with a fierce black moustache sketched on his cherubic face, sat on the roof of the ash-pit; while Buff, a bulky sack strapped on his back, struggled in the arms of Marget the cook.
"Gie me that bag, ye ill laddie," she was saying.
"What's the matter, Marget?" Mr. Seton asked mildly.
Buff was butting Marget wildly with his head, but hearing his father's voice, he stopped to explain.
"It's my sins, Father," he gasped.
"It's naething o' the kind, sir; it's ma bag o' claes-pins. Stan' up, David, this meenit. D'ye no' see ye're fair scrapin' it i' the mud?"
Thomas raised his head.
"We're pilgrims, Mr. Seton," he explained. "I'm Hopeful, and Buff's Christian. This is me in Giant Despair's dungeon;" and he rolled on his face and realistically chewed the grass to show the extent of his despair.
"But you've got your facts wrong," said Mr. Seton. "Christian has lost his load long before he got to Doubting Castle."
"Then," said Buff, picking himself up and wriggling out of the straps which tied the bag to his person—"then, Marget, you can have your old clothes-pins."
"Gently, my boy," said his father. "Hand the bag to Marget and say you're sorry."
"Sorry, Marget," said Buff in a very casual tone, as he heaved the bag at her.
Marget received it gloomily, prophesied the probable end of Buff, and went indoors.
Buff joined Thomas in the dungeon of Doubting Castle.
"Why is Billy sitting up there?" asked Mr. Seton.
"He's Apollyon," said Thomas, "and he's coming down in a minute to straddle across the way. By rights, I should have been Apollyon——"
Mr. Seton's delighted survey of the guileless fiend on the ash-pit roof was interrupted by Ellen, who came with a message that Mr. Stevenson had called and would Mr. Seton please go in.
In the drawing-room he found Elizabeth conversing with a tall young man, and from the fervour with which she welcomed his appearance he inferred that it was not altogether easy work.
"Father," said Elizabeth, "you remember I told you about meeting Mr. Stevenson at the Thomsons' party? He has brought us such a treasure of a ballad book to look over. Do let my father see it, Mr. Stevenson."
James Seton greeted the visitor in his kind, absent-minded way, and sat down to discuss ballads with him, while Elizabeth, having, so to speak, laboured in rowing, lay back and studied Mr. Stevenson.
