Part 26 (1/2)
The boy gasped, glanced once at his chief, and made a bolt for the door, through which he had fled before the sentinels had time to stop him. At the clatter Prissy opened her eyes.
”What is the matter with that boy? Couldn't he say grace? Didn't he remember the beginning? Well, you say it then----”
Nipper Donnan shook his head. He had a fine natural contempt for all religious services in the abstract, but when one was brought before him as a ceremony, his sense of discipline told him that it must somehow be valuable.
”Better say it yourself,” he suggested.
Whereat Prissy devoutly clasped her hands and shut her eyes.
There was a smart smack and something fell over. Prissy opened her eyes, and saw a boy sprawling on the gra.s.s.
”Right,” said Nipper Donnan cheerfully, ”go ahead--Joe Craig laughed.
I'll teach him to laugh except when I tell him to.”
So Prissy again proceeded with a grace of her own composition:
”_G.o.d bless our table, Bless our food; And make us stable, Brave and good._”
After all was over Prissy left the Castle of Windy Standard, without indeed obtaining any pledge from the chief of the army of occupation, but not without having done some good. And she went forth with dignity too. For not only did the robber chieftain provide her with an escort, but he ordered the ramparts to be manned, and a general salute to be fired in her honour.
Prissy waved her hand vigorously, and had already proceeded a little way towards the stepping-stones, when she stopped, laid down her basket, and ran back to the postern gate. She took her little tortoise-sh.e.l.l card-case out of her pocket.
”Oh, I was nearly forgetting--how dreadfully rude of me!” she said, and forthwith pulled out a card on which she had previously written very neatly:
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_Miss Priscilla Smith_
_At Home Every Day_
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She laid it on the stones, and tripped away. ”I'm sorry I have not my brother's card to leave also,” she said, looking up at the brigand chief, who had been watching her curiously from a window.
”Oh,” said Nipper Donnan, ”we shall be pleased to see him if he drops in on Sat.u.r.day--or any other time.”
Then he waited till the trim white figure was some distance from the gateway before he took his cap from his head and waved it in the air.
”Three proper cheers for the little lady!” he cried.
And the grim old walls of the Castle of Windy Standard never echoed to a heartier shout than that with which the Smoutchy boys sped Miss Priscilla Smith, the daughter of their arch enemy, upon her homeward way.
Prissy poised herself on tiptoe at the entrance of the copse, and blew them a dainty collective kiss from her fingers.
”Thank you so much,” she cried, ”you are very kind. Come and see me soon--and be sure you stop to tea.”
And with that she tripped swiftly away homeward with an empty basket and a happy heart.
That night in her little room before she went to sleep she read over her favourite text, ”Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of G.o.d.”