indeed I will,” she replied, pleased at his frankness. “It was silly and wrong in you, and the consequences might, in some instances, have been serious. I am bound to tell you this that I may warn you against playing such tricks in future; but as far as I am individually concerned I most heartily forgive you, and will entirely overlook the matter.”
Julian could not understand these sentiments, and thought Digby a very silly fellow to make what he called an unnecessary apology. They all went downstairs together, and then Kate took the governess to her room, and confessed that she had herself concocted the scheme which had so signally failed, and told her, indeed, all I have already described about the matter. With eager haste she undid, too, the apple-pie bed which Digby and Julian had made, and assuring her how different a person she was to what she expected, promised that she would never again attempt to play her another trick, and that she would be answerable that Digby would not either.
“Why did you come out and show yourself, Digby?” said Julian, when they were alone together. “I don’t understand your way of doing things; if you had groaned, as it was arranged, when that Miss Apsley and Kate first appeared, we should have put her to flight, and I should not have had my nose pulled – she knows how to pinch hard let me tell you.”
Digby confessed that she really was so nice a person that he did not like to frighten her, and that had he not undertaken to groan, he could not have brought himself to do so at all.
Julian only sneered at this, and said no more on the subject.
It was most unfortunate for Digby that he had at that time so evil a counsellor as Julian to turn him aside from the right course, in which Miss Apsley was so anxious and so well able to direct him. Often and often have boys been warned to avoid bad companions. Let me assure my readers, that they are the emissaries of the evil one, and that their vocation is to destroy, both in body and soul, all who come under their influence.
Chapter Three
There was a large gathering at Bloxholme Hall, both from far and near, of most of the principal families in the county. The house was full of those acquaintances of Mr and Mrs Heathcote who lived too far off to return the same night, but numbers came who were to drive home again the same evening.
There was an archery meeting in the morning, and then a dinner and a dance afterwards. Julian and Digby voted it very slow work. It was, probably, so to them. Kate liked the archery, and especially the dancing, for gentlemen asked her to dance, and chatted with her, and she skipped about like a little fairy, as merrily as possible. The boys had not gone in to the dinner, but they had helped themselves plentifully to the good things on which they could lay hands, and Julian especially had got hold of some wine. In consequence of this, he had become very pot-valorous.
“I’ll tell you what, Digby,” said he, “we must do something, or I shall go to sleep. This dancing is all nonsense. Come into the garden. I dare say I shall knock out an idea; it’s seldom I fail, when I try.”
That was true; but they were very bad ideas Master Julian knocked out.
Before long they found their way into the court-yard, where the carriages of the company were left standing by themselves. The horses were in the stables, pleasantly munching their corn. The coachmen and grooms were in the servants’ hall, as agreeably occupied in eating their suppers.
Julian went in and out among the carriages, and whatever rugs, or gloves, or wrappers, or halters he could find, he transferred from one carriage to the other.
“I say, Digby, it will be a capital joke,” he exclaimed. “When the fat old coachmen come out, they’ll all set to quarrelling. One will think that the other has stolen his things; and they will never dream that we did it.”
Digby thought the joke a good one, and helped to take the articles out of some carriages and to put them into others, till it was evidently almost impossible for any one, in the dark, to regain their lost property. When this was done, and the joke, as they called it, enjoyed, the boys sat down to consider what else they could do.
“I have a notion of something,” said Julian. “It is dangerous, because, if we were found out, we should get into a terrible scrape; but I should like to try it.”
“What is it?” asked Digby, eagerly. “As for the scrape, I don’t mind that; I rather like the risk.”
“Well, young ’un, that’s according to fancy,” said Julian. “I like to take care of myself, but still I like fun. My notion is, that if we were to take the linch-pins out of the carriages we should see a scene not often beheld. As soon as they begin to move, the wheels will go spinning off in every direction, and the people will be spilt right and left into the road. Wouldn’t it be fun?”
Digby did not think so. He could scarcely fancy that Julian was in earnest. “Why, some of the coachmen might be killed,” he exclaimed; “and the people inside would certainly be hurt.”
“Oh, nonsense,” answered Julian. “You are qualmish. I’ll do it. You just stand by and see. Look, they are out in a minute. Just untwist the wire. Here’s somebody’s chaise; I suspect it is the parson’s. There, he’ll get a spill. Now, then, this old family coach; it belongs to those old frumps the Fullers. Lord, what fun, to see them all sprawling out into the road.”
Thus Julian went on, Digby felt very much inclined to stop him, and to entreat him to replace the linch-pins; but Julian rattled away, and was so amusing, that his first feeling of the wrong to which he was a party wore off. It never occurred to him that, if he could not stop Julian, his wisest course would have been to tell the coachmen to look to their linch-pins. Fortunately, many of the carriages had been built in London, and were supplied with patent boxes, so that they escaped the contemplated mischief.
While the boys were thus engaged they heard some footsteps, and they guessed that the coachmen were returning from their suppers to look after their horses. They therefore beat a precipitate retreat through the gate which led into the garden, and quickly made their way into the ball-room.
Mr Bowdler was walking about the room, speaking a kindly word whenever he had an opportunity, both to young and old, of those among whom he had come to live, and whom he was anxious to instruct, and endeavouring, as he felt it most important to do, to win the confidence of all, when he saw the two boys return. Their hair was disordered, their shoes were far from clean, and there were thin lines of dust or mud on their jackets. Julian looked flushed, and Digby had a sheepish abashed manner, very different from that which usually distinguished him. He was very certain that they had been about something they should not, but the question as to what they had been doing he did not think fit to ask. It was already getting later than the hour which he liked to be away from home, so, wishing Mr and Mrs Heathcote good-night, in that pleasant cordial manner which had already gained him their good-will, he walked out to get ready his own carriage. The glass door of the house which led into the garden was open, and so was that which led from the garden into the court-yard. Near his own carriage he saw something shining on the ground. He stooped down, and picked up a clasp knife which he himself had given to Digby a few days before. A groom came and brought out his horse and harnessed it to his carriage. When, however, the man led it out to be clear of the other carriages, in crossing a shallow open drain, first one wheel came off, and then, to his surprise, another followed. As the carriage was moving very slowly, and no one was in it, there was little harm done.
Mr Bowdler said nothing. “That was a cruel trick of those thoughtless boys,” he uttered to himself. “They could scarcely have wished to injure me, but I fear they are the guilty ones.”
He
