For a full minute Mr. Picton Smith gazed speechless at the spectacle before him. He had been writing something that crinkled his brow and compressed his lips, and at the patter of the children's feet in the passage outside his door, as they ceremoniously marshalled themselves to enter, he had turned about on his great office chair with a smile of expectation and anticipation. The door opened, and Janet Sheepshanks pushed in first Sir Toady Lion, still voluble and calling for vengeance on the "bad, bad boys at the castle that had striked him and hurted his dear Prissy." Priscilla herself stood white-lipped and dumb, and through the awful silence pulsed the dry, recurrent, sobbing catch in the throat of Hugh John.
Mr. Picton Smith was a stern man, whose great loss had caused him to shut up the springs of his tenderness from the world. But they flowed the sweeter and the rarer underneath; and though his grave and dignified manner daunted his children on the occasion of any notable evil-doing, they had no reason to be afraid of him.
"Well, what is the meaning of this?" he said, his face falling into a greyer and graver silence at the sound of Hugh John's sobs, and turning to Priscilla for explanation.
Meanwhile Sir Toady Lion was pursuing the subject with his usual shrill alacrity.
"Be quiet, sir," said his father. "I will hear
you all one by one, but let Priscilla begin she is the eldest."
"We went to the castle after dinner, over by the stepping-stones," began Priscilla, fingering nervously the frill of the torn pinafore about her throat, "and when we got to the castle we found out that our pet lamb Donald had come after us by the ford; and he was going everywhere about the castle, trying to rub his bell off his neck on the gate-posts and on the stones at the corners."
"Yes, and I stooded on a rock, and Donald he butted me over behind!" came the voice of Sir Toady Lion in shrill explanation of his personal share in the adventure.
"And then we played on the grass in the inside of the castle. Toady Lion and I were plaiting daisy-chains and garlands for Donald, and Hugh John was playing at being the Prisoner of Chillyon: he had tied himself to the gate-post with a rope."
"'Twasn't," muttered Hugh John, who was a stickler for accuracy; "it was a plough-chain!"
"And it rattled," added Sir Toady Lion, not to be out of the running.
"And just when we were playing nicely, a lot of horrid boys from the town came swarming and clambering in. They had run over the bridge and climbed the gate, and then they began calling us names and throwing mud. So Hugh John said he would tell on them."
"Didn't," interrupted Hugh John indignantly. "I said I'd knock the heads off them if they didn't stop and get out; and they only laughed and said things about father. So I hit one of them with a stone."
"Then," continued Priscilla, gaining confidence from a certain curious spark of light which began to burn steadily in her father's eyes, "after Hugh John threw the stone, the horrid boys all came and said that they would kill us, and that we had no business there anyway."
"They frowed me down the well, and I went splass! Yes, indeedy!" interrupted Toady Lion, who had imagination.
"Then Donald, our black pet lamb, that is, came into the court, and they all ran away after him and caught him. First he knocked down one or two of them, and then they put a rope round his neck and began to take rides on his back."
"Yes, and he bleated and 'kye-kyed' just feeful!" whimpered Toady Lion, beginning to weep all over again at the remembrance.
But the Smith of the imperial race only clenched his torn hands and looked at his bruised knuckles.
"So Hugh John said he would kill them if they did not let Donald go, and that he was a soldier. But they only laughed louder, and one of them struck him across the lip with a stick I know him, he's the butch "
"Shut up, Pris!" shouted Hugh John, with sudden fierceness, "it's dasht-mean to tell names."
"Be quiet, sir," said his father severely; "let your sister finish her story in her own way."
But for all that there was a look of some pride on his face. At that moment Mr. Picton Smith was not sorry to have Hugh John for a son.
"Well," said Priscilla, who had no such scruples as to telling on her enemies, "I won't tell if you say not. But that was the boy who hurt Donald the worst."
"Well, I smashed him for that!" muttered Napoleon Smith.
"And then when Hugh John saw them dragging Donald away and heard him bleating "
"And 'kye-kying' big, big tears, big as cherries!" interjected Toady Lion, who considered every narrative incomplete to which he did not contribute.
"He was overcome with rage and anger" at this point Priscilla began to talk by the book, the dignity of the epic tale working on her "and he rushed upon them fearlessly, though they were ten to one; and they all struck him and kicked him. But Hugh John fought like a lion."
"Yes, like Wichard Toady Lion," cried the namesake of that hero, "and I helpted him and bited a bad boy on the leg, and didn't let go though he kicked and hurted feeful! Yes, indeedy!"