Part 12 (2/2)

”Bravo!” cried the others. ”Oh do, Uncle oh do, Papa!”

But Uncle and Papa, though always ready to do anything to please his boys, seemed to think that bowling all day long, with the thermometer marking some few degrees above summer heat, was rather too arduous a task, so he declined, and said--

”Now, I think it comes to my turn to choose, and I'll tell you what I think; and that is, as several of the specimens in the b.u.t.terfly cabinet are getting destroyed by the mites, we might take the nets and boxes, and have a very pleasant ramble by the side of Beechy Wood, and down the meadows, and then, if we happened to get so far, we could call and thank Mrs Benson again; and coming back to a late tea, we should find plenty of moths along by the wood-side.”

”That's the best idea yet,” said the boys; although it is most probable that they would have agreed to anything that Mr Inglis had proposed, and said it was the best idea that could have been thought of.

But this arrangement only provided for the afternoon: there was still the morning to be employed.

”If I were you, boys,” said Mrs Inglis, ”I should find something quiet to do indoors, and then you will not be tired before you start in the afternoon.”

”Ah,” said the Squire, ”have a look at your lessons. You have not touched them all through the holidays.”

”Oh-h-h--Ah-h-h--Er-r-r--Um-m-m,” groaned the boys. ”Oh, Pa; oh-h-h,”

they exclaimed, with such pitiful faces that any one might have thought that they had been required to quaff, each of them, a great goblet of salts and senna, or something equally nasty.

Mr and Mrs Inglis both laughed heartily, and the boys then saw that Papa was only joking, and the clouds disappeared from their faces _instanter_; and off they scampered into the garden to spend the morning quietly, so as not to be tired at the time appointed for starting.

”Come on, boys,” said Harry, taking flying leaps over all the flower-beds in the parterre, as they went down the garden--greatly to the disgust of old Sam, who very reasonably said, ”As flower-gardens warn't made to be jumped over;” and he then took off his old battered hat, and scratched his bald head viciously.

”Shouldn't I like to kick old Sam's hat!” said Philip; ”he always will wear such an old scarecrow of a thing.”

”I say, Sam,” said Harry, grinning, ”we are going to stop quietly in the garden all the morning and help you.”

Sam grinned too, as he looked sideways at the mischievous laughing face beside him.

”Then I shall go,” said Sam. ”I won't stop; for I know you'll be plaguing my very life out.”

”No, we won't, Sam, if you'll come and help us do our gardens up.”

”Oh, ah!” said Sam, ”and I've got no end of things as wants doing: there's all the wall fruit wants nailing in, and the grapes wants thinning, and-- There now, just look at that! Master Harry, you mustn't. If you don't put it down directly, I'll go and fetch out the Maester.”

Sam might well exclaim, for Harry was beginning to help him, and had seized the scythe. With cut number one he had shaved off the top of a fine verbena. With cut number two, he had driven the point of the sharp tool into the sod. Where the third cut would have gone, I can't say; for Sam, hobbling up to the young workman, the young workman frisked off, and seized the barrow half full of gra.s.s.

”Jump in, Fred!” he exclaimed; and of course Fred soon made himself a seat on the soft green contents, and then away went the barrow as fast as Harry could run, and of course right away from the place where Sam would require it next.

Poor old Sam! He loved his master's boys, and he loved to scold them too, as much as they loved to torment him; and in all their skirmishes-- one of which always occurred whenever they came into his garden, as he called it--Sam always got the worst of it, and had to yield to numbers.

And so in this case he saw that he should lose the day, and therefore he declared a truce, and called up Philip to act as mediator.

”Now, Master Phil, if you'll promise not to bother me any more, I'll put you all up to something.”

”What is it?” said Philip.

”Ah, you fetch them tother ones here, and I'll show you.”

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