Part 13 (1/2)

Away darted Philip, and soon returned with Harry, the barrow, and Fred.

Old Sam made sure of the barrow by sitting down upon the edge, and would have been canted over by Harry, only he expected, and very naturally, that it would make the poor old man cross.

”Now, Sam, what is it?” said Harry. ”Come, look sharp.”

”Ah,” said Sam, ”I've a good mind not to tell you. You don't deserve it, you know.”

”Oh, I don't care,” said Harry, seizing the old man's broom, and darting off with it. ”Come along, Phil, Fred, and we'll have such a game.”

”Now, Master Harry,” said Sam, appealingly. Then to himself, ”I never did see sich a young dog in my life. Do come, please,” he continued aloud.

”Well, what is it?” said Harry, advancing with the broom, held like a gun with fixed bayonet brought to the charge, and poking with the birch part at the old gardener.

”Well, you know, you promised to be quiet, you know, didn't you?”

”Why, of course we did,” said Harry and Philip together. ”Now, come, tell us what it is.”

”Well,” said Sam at last, ”it's a wopses' nest as wants taking.”

”Capital!” said Harry, throwing down the broom; ”where is it?”

Old Sam's eyes twinkled with triumph as he got slowly up and led the way to his tool-shed, where he reached down the large fumigating bellows, and in the hollow made for the purpose he put in some hot cinders, which Harry fetched in a shovel from the kitchen, and then on them a lump of brimstone, and closed the nozzle over all; but not so quickly but that a puff or two of the penetrating fumes escaped, and made the boys' eyes water, and old Sam cough and choke most terribly for a minute or two.

”Now then,” said Sam, wheezing away at a dreadful rate, ”I'm not going with you, you know, so you take the bellows, Master Harry; and I should take some boughs, if I were you, and beat the wopses off if they gets loose. The nest is in the plantation, in the dead willow-tree that lies by the path; so now go on, and good luck to you.”

The lads wanted no further incentive, but started off at full speed, to come back again directly to say that the brimstone wasn't burning.

However, on giving two or three puffs with the bellows, Sam found this was not the case, for it was alight; so off they started, half wild with excitement, across the lawn, and old Sam rubbing his hands down the sides of his trousers to give vent to his intense feeling of satisfaction to think how well his device had succeeded; and then the old man returned to his work, chuckling away, and, I am sorry to add, muttering that he hoped they'd ”some on 'em get stung;” an uncharitable wish, however, that had no fulfilment in the sequel.

”Come along, boys,” said Harry, who was bellows-bearer; and away they scudded till they reached the wooden bridge over the ditch, and then they stood together beneath the trees.

Puff, puff. Yes, the brimstone was all right, and now for the wasps.

”Let me do it,” said Philip, catching at the bellows.

”No, no; I'll do it,” said Harry, putting them behind his back.

”Now, Harry, you know I'm older than you, and you carried them here, so you ought to give way,” said Philip.

”Why,” said Harry, ”we ought neither of us to do it, because Cousin Fred's here, and he's a visitor. Here, Fred,” he said, holding out the bellows, ”you do it.”

”Do what?” said Fred, staring. ”I don't know what you are going to do.”

”Why, take the wasps' nest in that old touchwood tree. You're only got to put the nose of the bellows into the hole where they are going in and out, and blew, and then keep them tight there till all the wasps are dead.”

Fred looked at the bellows, then at his cousins, then at the hole in the fallen trunk where the wasps were flying about; and after giving a puff with the bellows, when smoke issued from the nozzle, he slowly approached the hole, and stooped over it to insert the death-dealing instrument.

”Buzz--booz--whooz--ooz--ooz--ooz,” said a couple of wasps, coming home in a hurry, and circling round Fred's head so very closely that the boy shut his eyes, and, stooping down very low, backed away crab fas.h.i.+on as fast as ever he could.

”I shan't do it,” said Fred, rather red in the face; ”they'll sting.”