"Why don't they keep on?" asked Bets with interest "Is your nose too thin to hold them on?"
"Oh, what a funny little girl!" said Miss
Trimble, laughing again. "Well, good-bye my dear, I must away to my little jobs!"
She went off, and Bets was glad. "Her glasses fell off six times, Luke," she said.
"You're a caution, you are," said Luke. "I only hope she doesn't go and tell Mr. Tupping she saw you here!"
But that is just what Miss Trimble did do! She did not mean any harm. She did not even know that Tupping had ordered the children out of the garden some days before. She was picking roses the very next day, when Tupping came along behind her and stood watching her.
Miss Trimble began to feel scared, as she always did when the surly gardener came along. He was so rude. She turned and gave him a frightened smile.
"Lovely morning, Tupping, isn't it?" she said. "Beautiful roses these."
"Won't be beautiful long when you've finished messing about with them," said Tupping.
"Oh, I'm not spoiling them!" said Miss Trimble. "I know how to pick roses."
"You don't know any more than a child!" said surly Tupping, enjoying seeing how scared poor Miss Trimble was of him.
The mention of a child made Miss Trimble remember Bets. "Oh," she said, trying to turn the conversation away from roses "oh, there was such a dear little girl with Luke in the garden yesterday!"
Tupping's face grew as black as thunder. "A girl here!" he shouted. "Where's that Luke? I'll skin him if he lets those kids in here whilst my back is turned!"
He went off to find Luke. Miss Trimble shook with fright, and her glasses fell off and got so entangled in her lace collar that it took quite twenty minutes for her trembling hands to disentangle them.
"A most unpleasant fellow!" she kept murmuring to herself. "Dear, dear! I hope I haven't got poor Luke into trouble. He's such a pleasant fellow and only a boy too. I do hope he won't get into trouble."
Luke was in trouble. Tupping strode up to him and glowered, his stone-coloured eyes almost hidden under his shaggy brows.
"Who was that girl in here yesterday?" he demanded. "One of them kids next door, was it? What was she doing here?"
"Nothing she shouldn't do, Mr. Tupping," said Luke. "She's a good little thing."
"I said 'What was she doing here?' " shouted Mr. Tupping. "Taking the peaches, I suppose or picking the plums!"
"She's the little girl from next door," said Luke hotly. "She wouldn't take nothing like that. I just gave her some strawberry runners for her garden, that's all. They'd have been burnt on the rubbish-heap, anyway!"
Mr. Tupping looked as if he was going to have a fit. To think that Luke should give anyone anything out of his garden! He really thought it was his garden, and not Lady Candling's. He didn't stop to think that Lady Candling would willingly give a little girl a few strawberry runners, for she was fond of children.
Tupping gave Luke a box on the ears, and went straight to the wall. Luke did not dare to follow him. He felt certain that all the children were out, because he had heard their voices and their bicycle bells some time back on the road. He stooped over his work, his ears red. He felt angry with Miss Trimble. Why had she given Bets away?
The children had gone out on their bicycles all but Bets. The ride they were going was too far for her, so the little girl had been left behind with Buster, much to her annoyance. It was such a nuisance being four or five years younger than the others. They kept on leaving her out!
"Buster, come and sit by me and I'll read you a story about rabbits," said Bets. At the word "Rabbits" Buster fan to Bets. He thought she was going to take him for a walk. But instead she sat down under a tree and took a book from under her arm. She opened it and began to read.
"Once there was a big, fat rabbit called Woffly. He..."
But Buster was bored. He got up and ran to the bottom of the drive waiting for the others to come back. Bets sat there alone. She suddenly heard a noise and looked up and, oh dear me, there, climbing over the wall, looking as fierce as could be, was that horrid Mr. Tupping!
Tupping, Buster, And Mr. Goon
"You the little girl who came into my garden yesterday?" he said.
Bets nodded. She couldn't say a word.
"Did you take my strawberry runners?" asked Mr. Tupping, even more fiercely.
Still Bets couldn't say a word. She nodded again, her face very white.
Surely, surely, it hadn't been wrong to have those strawberry runners! She had planted them carefully in her little garden, and had watered them well. They were hers now. They would only have been thrown away and burnt.
Mr. Tupping put out his hand and jerked the frightened little girl to her feet "You show me where you put them," he said.
"Let me go," said Bets, finding her tongue at last. "I'll tell Mummy about you!"
"You tell her if you like," said Mr. Tupping. "And I'll tell Mr. Goon the policeman, see? I'll tell him you took my strawberry runners, and he'll put you and Luke into prison!"