OceanofPDF.com the Reb and the Redcoats - Constance Savery

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THE REb
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THE REDCOATS
Constance Savery
Tlustrated
by
Vera Bock
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

NEW YORK e¢ LONDON « TORONTO
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., INC.
119 WEST 40TH STREET, NEW YORK 18
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., Lt.

48 GROSVENOR STREET, LONDON W 1
LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

137 BOND STREET, TORONTO 2
THE REB AND THE REDCOATS
COPYRIGHT © 1961
BY CONSTANCE SAVERY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE

THIS BOOK, OR ANY PORTION THEREOF, IN ANY FORM
PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., TORONTO
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 61—11481
Printed in the United States of America

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ae The Youngest Rebel
CHARLOTTE DARRINGTON was writing her copy when her

brothers, Joseph and George, pounded up the stairs, They
rushed into the schoolroom.
“Charlotte, come to the parlor this instant. Old Harry is
back from the American war with a bullet wound in his
chest. He has brought a box of gifts from Papa, which is
going to be unpacked as soon as Mamma has read Papa’s
long letters, sheaves of them. And Old Harry has a special
gift from himself, for you. Lucky girl, you always were Old
Harry’s favorite!”
Down went Charlotte’s pen, and scamper, scamper went
Charlotte’s feet, with Joseph and George scurrying after.
There in the parlor sat Old Harry in his red coat, beaming
all over his face. He was not really old, but after he went to
the war, his place as gardener at Thorndale Hall was taken
by his son, Young Harry. Now he was at home again, glad
to be in England once more. The box of gifts stood on the
table in front of him, and on his knees, in a wrapper of coarse
2 THE REB AND THE REDCOATS
canvas, lay the parcel containing the special gift for Char-
lotte. ;
Mrs. Darrington was asking Old Harry questions about
his wound, and promising to send to the nearest town for
medicines and comforts that could not be obtained in the
country. Her eyes kept wandering to the packet of letters
she held. Charlotte knew that she was counting the minutes
until she was free to read what Papa had written.
Joseph and George began to drum on the box. Mamma
said pleasantly:
“After all, we will open the box first. We know that
dearest Papa was alive and well when he wrote the letters—
and we couldn’t wish for better news than that! So you shall
not be kept waiting, my dears.”
“Thank you, Mamma,” said Joseph, George and Kitty
the youngest. Charlotte did not speak. She was thinking,
Mamma is the kindest, most unselfish person in the world.
She puts everybody before herself.
Old Harry made short work of the fastenings. Out of the
box came treasures for everyone in Thorndale Hall, from
little kitchenmaid, Sukey, to the governess, Miss Pipkin.
The gifts were of fine Indian workmanship: bows, arrows
and headdresses for the boys; purses, mats, carved spoons, .
scarves, bead ornaments and basketry for the rest. Charlotte
had a purple-and-white flower basket, with a necklace of
purple and white stones to match.
At last the box was empty, and only Charlotte’s special
present remained to be unpacked. With proud looks, Harry
THE YOUNGEST REBEL 3
unpicked the stitches round the canvas wrapper. Beneath the
canvas was a layer of wadding, and under that was a minia-
ture patchwork quilt. Old Harry unrolled it. ;
A little waxen face looked up at Charlotte, a resolute little
face with a sparkle of defiance about it, despite its dimples
and laughter curves. The eyes were brown, and brown too
was the straight silky hair that was cut in a fringe across the
forehead. Harry drew out the owner of the face, and laid in
Charlotte’s arms a doll with a small American painted paper
flag pinned to the bodice of its brown dress. Its body was of
pink kid, with beautifully fashioned hands and feet.
“Oh, Harry, thank you a thousand, thousand times!” ex-
claimed Charlotte. “This is by far the prettiest doll I ever saw.
She’s as real as if she were alive. How I shall love her! And
what fine shops they must have in America!”
“She didn’t come out of no shop,” said Harry, grinning.
“No, missy, that doll once belonged to a little rebel girl, as
lived in Virginny in a big owd house summat like Thorndale
Hall, as full of rebels as an egg is full of meat. The family,
they had to skip when we British come that way. ‘Redcoats,’
they call us, or ‘Scarlet Lobsters’ when they want to be down-
right insulting. Well, arter we'd rushed the house, we took
a look ’round, see? And fust thing I spied was this here little
creature a-sitting on a chair staring at me as bold as brass.
Oho! says I to myself, this young lady shall up and come
along of us Redcoats. She'll suit Miss Charlotte to a T, as the
saying goes.”
“Oh-h-h!” said Charlotte. She met her mother’s eyes, and
saw that she too was distressed. Not knowing what next to
say, Charlotte kissed the doll. |
Harry was delighted. “That’s how that should be! I
knowed what I wor about when I laid hands on that reb
doll!”
At this moment the butler, Gregory, came to say that the
rest of the household had assembled in the servants’ hall.
“Pooh! What a fuss about a trumpery doll!” scoffed
George. “Now if Harry had given you the rebel ball that
was dug out of his chest, that would have been worth hay-
ing! He’s got it. He asked the surgeon to keep it for him.
He’s going to have it mounted in crystal and silver, to be an
heirloom for Young Harry. I wish it was mine, I do!”
If Charlotte had been able to pay attention to anything
save the rebel doll, she would have said, “Ugh, how horrid!”
But she was still looking sorrowfully into Mamma’s sorrow-
ful face. |
“T think, my dear Charlotte,” her mother said, “that for
the present at any rate you must keep the doll. Its poor little
owner would prefer to know that her treasure was in loving ~
hands. Perhaps we'll find some way of sending the doll back
when this dreadful war comes to an end, as we pray God it
_ may. Carry her up to the schoolroom, my love, and make her |
acquainted with the other dolls.”
“T do believe she understands what you say, Mamma! 1?
said Charlotte. “She looks as if she did. I never saw a doll
like her. I am glad her hair is the same color as mine. And
she is every bit a rebel, for all she is so young.”
“The youngest rebel in the world, I should say,” said her
mother, smiling.
Charlotte carried the rebel doll to the schoolroom, which
was also the playroom.
“My dears,” she said to her assembled dolls, “this is a
young friend who has come all the way from America to
see you. Friend, I said, Rosalba! Not enemy,” Charlotte
added with a stern glance at her biggest doll, who was flop-
ping sideways with her face averted from the stranger.
Rosalba did not respond.
“This is Clarissa, that is Evelina, and here are Susanna
and Laurence,” said Charlotte. “Laurence is named for my
Uncle Laurence, who was badly wounded in the war last
autumn, in a skirmish. He was sent home to England, and
since Christmas he has been living at the White Priory in
Marton Green with Grandpapa and Grandmamma. The
doctors say he will not be fit to rejoin his regiment before
the summer. Laurence, how often must I tell you not to
slouch? It is most unmilitary.”
Charlotte bent forward to straighten Laurence. Then she
began to undress the weary traveler.
“I wonder how you lost your shoes and stockings and
cap, my dear,” said Charlotte; “but I suppose I shall never
know. And how could your mamma forget you when she
and the others escaped from the house? Perhaps the alarm
was so sudden that she was hurried away without being al-
lowed a moment to run and fetch you. Oh, poor little girl!”
Charlotte did not like thinking about the American girl.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she talked fast to keep herself
from crying. “Oh, what’s this? I declare, there’s writing on ©
the back of the flag, done by a person about as old as J am!”
Charlotte had unpinned the flag on the doll’s dress. It
was painted only on the upper side. On the reverse, she read:
Go home, Redcoats!
I stand for my country.
Go home, Redcoats!
My name is Patty.
I am Patty’s dearest Patty.
“So you are Patty’s Patty,” said Charlotte. “What a dear,
little funny name! I like it.”
The schoolroom windows looked east to the gray sea,
foaming under a bitter late February wind. Charlotte turned
from the windows to face the west.
“Patty in America,” she said aloud, “I am sorry to say that
I have your Patty. There’s nothing I can do about it, but I
promise you that you shall have her again some day, if I
can contrive it. In the meantime I will take great care of her.”
After that, Charlotte brushed the doll’s hair. It was real
hair, she noticed. She felt sure that it had once belonged to
Patty across the sea. |
“There you are, Patty dear,” she said, as she tucked the
rebel up in the bed that belonged to Rosalba. “All comfy,
aren’t you? Have a good long rest after your journey.” Rebel
Patty looked up at Charlotte, a puckish smile on her face. -
Charlotte had just gone down to join her mother in the
parlor when a maid came bringing a letter from the Rector

of Tumblesand Bay, to whom Joseph, George and about a
dozen other boys went for lessons every day, as there was no
school near Thorndale Hall. He had been ill for a week, un-
able to teach his pupils.
“Oh, this is frightful!” said Mamma, after she had read
the letter. “Mr. Whittaker is so much worse that the doctor
has ordered him perfect rest for the next six months. He is
going away tomorrow, and in his absence the services will
be taken by a clergyman who does not wish to teach boys!”
“Hurrah, hurrah!” shouted Joseph and George. “Holidays
for six months! Hurrah!” |
Mamma did not echo the “Hurrah!” She looked sober over
the thought that the boys would miss so much school.
“I tell you what, Mamma!” said Joseph. “This is all that
young rebel’s doing. She’s plotted it, nobody knows how,
just to upset the house!”
That made Mamma laugh, in spite of her trouble.
“T shall ask Miss Pipkin to teach you and George for a few
days until I can make other arrangements,” she said.
Joseph and George looked glum. Miss Pipkin was Char-
lotte’s and Kitty’s governess, She was away for the day in
Gippeswich, where she was choosing schoolbooks.
Before the boys had opened their mouths to protest, Greg-
ory came in with a letter on a salver. “From Captain Temple-
ton, madam. The messenger is waiting for an answer.”
Captain Templeton was Uncle Laurence. Looking a little
alarmed, Mamma opened the letter. The children knew why
she was alarmed. No sooner were the Christmas holidays

over than Grandpapa and Grandmamma had fallen ill.
Though not yet recovered from his war wounds, Uncle
Laurence had been nursing them, helped by another married
sister, the children’s Aunt Sophy, who had left her own home
to come to his aid.
“My dears,” said Mamma, when she had read the letter,
“Uncle Laurence has sent bad news. Aunt Sophy has had to
leave the White Priory at a moment’s notice, for your poor
Cousin Marcus has been thrown in the hunting field and
will need his mother for a long while to come. Uncle Lau-
rence cannot manage the nursing all by himself. He wants
me. I shall have to go to the White Priory tomorrow, leaving
you in Miss Pipkin’s care.”
A dreadful howl went up. “Leave us with Miss Pipkin,
Mamma! Mamma, you can’t!”
“I must,” said Mamma.
“This is the rebel’s work again, I'll be bound!” Joseph
shouted, his fist in the air. “She’s a menace, that’s what she
is! Oh, Mamma, tell Uncle Laurence you’re stopping here!”
Mamma shook her head and sat down to answer Uncle
Laurence’s letter.
To lose Mamma for an unknown length of time was a
terrible prospect. After they had recovered from the first
shock, Kitty, and even George, began to think of the rebel
doll with respect mingled with fear.
“T shouldn’t wonder,” said George, “if there weren’t great
goings-on in the schoolroom tonight, after the house is
asleep. That rebel will get up and fight the other dolls, ’'m
sure she will. In the morning you'll find legs and arms and
flaxen wigs and sawdust and stuffing all over the floor!”
“Do you really think so, George?” asked little Kitty anx-
iously.
“It might be as well to build a barricade round her for the
night,” said George, “so that she can’t do any harm.”
George built the barricade that evening, with help from
Joseph, who happened to be at a loss for something to do.
Rosalba’s bed was put on the floor by one of the windows. In
front of it, Joseph and George built a stockade of chairs with
legs pointing outward, upward and inward in such a way
that the rebel doll would find much difficulty in climbing out
to attack the English dolls, and even more difficulty in run-
ning for shelter if she should be defeated. For extra security,
Joseph and George locked the doors of the clothespress in
which the Darrington dolls had been hidden, and they bal-
anced the schoolroom bell and a wooden basin on the top of
it, so that Patty could not shake the door without sounding
an alarm and giving herself a cold bath.
Then they went to bed and to sleep. An hour later they
were awakened by a crash, a noise of clattering and rumbling,
accompanied by frantic yells.
Joseph and George jumped out of bed and ran to the
schoolroom, whence the noise came. Charlotte and Kitty
followed, trembling. Mrs. Darrington hurried up the stairs.
Men and maids flocked after her, carrying candles and
pokers.
A dire sight awaited them. Floundering in a sea of tangled

chairs by a badly broken window lay Miss Pipkin, who had -
come into the room in the dark intending to put a parcel
of newly purchased schoolbooks in the press. She was scream-
- ing at the top of her voice, and she went on screaming for
some time after she had been picked out of the tangle,
smoothed down, anointed with arnica, and plentifully sup-
plied with burnt feathers, aromatic essences and glasses of
water.
When she stopped screaming, she was so angry that she
vowed she would leave the house by the London coach the
next morning. Nothing would induce her to remain in a
situation where she was so abominably treated. As for
teaching and taking charge of those impudent practical
jokers, Joseph and George, she would sooner jump over the
moon.
The four Darringtons did their best to explain, but Miss
Pipkin refused to listen to what they said. Mamma apolo-
gized, pleaded, remonstrated, all in vain. Miss Pipkin went
to her room in a rage, and they could hear her pulling out |
boxes and drawers as she packed for going away.
Rebel Patty had not been injured when chairs, bell, basin
and Pipkin tumbled around her brown head. Calm and un- .
moved she lay, with the impish smile still there.
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Mamma’s neRvES had been shaken. Some time after peace

had been restored, she went to the room shared by Charlotte
and Kitty, and woke Charlotte up, very gently. In a whisper
that did not disturb the sleeping Kitty, she said:
“Charlotte, you know that Miss Pipkin and I always go
around the house at night, to make sure that all the doors
and windows are fast. I can’t ask her tonight, can I? Will
you come the rounds with me instead? I should be ashamed
to ask the boys—they would think me so silly and cowardly!”
“You are not silly or a coward, Mamma!” said Charlotte
as she scrambled into her dressing gown. “The bravest
_ mamma in the world might be afraid of meeting Captain
Paul Jones! Think how it would be if he took away all our
silver, as he did the Countess of Selkirk’s!”
Thorndale Hall was in a lonely part of the east coast of
England, a likely spot for one of the famous American naval
captain’s sudden raids. Like all English and Scottish chil-
dren at that time, Charlotte dreaded his name.
II
Around the house they went, trying the doors and inspect-
ing the shutters. Candle in hand, Charlotte led the way into
the broad, windowed recess in the entrance hall where cloaks
and shawls were kept. She was not thinking any longer of
Captain Paul Jones, but of a certain oaken biscuit barrel in
which Mamma kept a store of oatmeal biscuits, crisp and
‘sweet. It would be cosy to fall asleep nibbling a crinkled
edge. |
The candle flared. “Oh, Mamma, the shutters aren’t
drawn!” cried Charlotte. “Oh, oh, a face! Mamma, run!”
Out of the darkness, a face glimmered against the window-
pane, a white face, young and determined, with dark hair
tossed by the night wind. For a moment, a pair of dark eyes
looked straight into Charlotte’s. Then Mamma blew out the
candle, caught her daughter by the hand, and fled. Groping
her way to the gong that summoned the household to meals,
Charlotte fumbled for the gong stick and beat a furious
tattoo. Doors were thrown open and lights began to appear.
Mamma was crying and laughing at the same time.
The only men in the house were old Gregory and elderly
Sam, who loudly accused Miss Pipkin of meddling with the
bolts of the shutter after they had secured it for the night,
only because she always maintained that it ought to be se-
cured in another way. As for pursuing the intruder, Gregory
and Sam would not hear of it. The fellow would go away of
his own accord, they argued, once he had seen that the house
was aroused. Most likely, he was only a poor tramp or gypsy.
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FAMILY COACH 15
Charlotte was sorry for Gregory and Sam when she saw
their frightened looks. “Mamma,” she said, “I do think there
is no need to chase the housebreaker. He was not very old. He
could not possibly have been Paul Jones.”
“No,” said Mamma, “but he may have been one of the
American prisoners of war that Colonel Gatwick has under
his charge at Gatwick Hall.”
The children had heard about the twenty American officers
and men who had been captured on the high seas aboard the
French ship that was taking them on an important mission
to their ally, France. She had been chased through the Straits
of Dover and up into the North Sea before she was forced to
surrender, and the Americans had been interned in Suffolk
instead of being sent the long way back to the Isle Royale or
elsewhere. |
“But this boy wasn’t so very much older than Joseph,
though he was much taller,” said Charlotte. “He was rather
like the eagle in the picture on the schoolroom wall, and he
was a little like Patty too. Yes, there was something in his
face that reminded me of Patty, I don’t know why. But he
couldn’t be a soldier, dear Mamma, he truly couldn’t. He was
much too young.”
Mamma was barely listening. “Soldier or not, I can’t let
- you children stay here without me!” she cried. “This is the
third or fourth attempt at escape since they came to England
in the weeks before Christmas. I dare not leave you behind.
You shall come to the White Priory with me.”
“Hip, hip, hurrah!” shouted Joseph and George.
if THE REB AND THE REDCOATS
“Oh, delightful!” shrieked Charlotte and Kitty.
All four thoroughly enjoyed visiting White Priory, fifteen
miles away. Memories of Christmas week were still fresh
in their minds. They would have begun to pack their pos-
sessions then and there, if Mamma had not sent them back
to bed. As it was, they were up with the first streak of dawn.
Charlotte went to the schoolroom, where the chairs were
scattered in confusion, just as they had fallen. The fire had
not been lighted yet, and an icy wind blew through the shat-
tered windowpane. While she was dressing Patty, she heard
her brothers talking excitedly in the garden below.
“Come and look, Charlotte!” called Joseph, at sight of her
head bobbing near the gaping hole in the glass. “But take
care how you tread. Somebody ran into Miss Pipkin’s
smashed window last night, and cut himself badly. And
other people wrenched off an outside shutter. There are
-footmarks all over the place.”
With Patty tucked under her arm, Charlotte tore down-
stairs.
The two boys had moved away from beneath the school-
room windows. They were now outside their father’s study.
“See, Charlotte, it’s the study’s outside shutter that’s been
taken. The men weren’t housebreakers, that’s plain. They
wanted a shutter to carry the fellow who had gashed his
foot or his leg. You can be sure they were escaping prisoners
of war.”
“Then it wasn’t Captain Paul Jones and his crew?”
“They wouldn’t have stopped short at taking one window
FAMILY COACH 17
shutter! Perhaps Mamma will change her mind about the
White Priory when she knows that our midnight visitors
were only prowling in search of food, hens’ eggs and what
not.”
“Mamma won't change her mind,” Charlotte said con-
fidently.
And Mamma, when questioned, declared that nothing
would induce her to leave her four darlings behind at the
mercy of escaped prisoners of war.
They were as busy as bees all the morning. At half-past ten
Miss Pipkin, stiff and dignified, bade them a cold good-by
before driving off in the London coach. By twelve o’clock
they were eating an early dinner. The family coach, uphol-
stered in red with gold facings, stood ready outside the front
door, with a cart for the luggage behind it. Two garden
lads were to ride Joseph’s and Charlotte’s ponies. With the
five travelers went Dorcas the housemaid, little Sukey, and
the sewing woman, who had once been their nurse and was
still called by that name. The other servants had agreed to
remain in charge of Thorndale Hall. Provided nobody ex-
pected them to run after midnight marauders, said Gregory,
he had no doubt that he and Sam could do their duty by the
place. |
Away went the coach on its long slow journey of fifteen
miles through stony, rutted lanes. Once it nearly overturned,
and once it was stuck for an hour in a bad patch of freezing
mud. Extra horses had to be fetched from the nearest farm
to help pull it out.
To cheer the cold waiting time, Mamma handed around
the sandwiches and cakes that had been stowed in the sword .
case. Nurse refused to be cheered. She had her doubts whether
Young Harry, who had been sent on horseback ahead of the
coach, had arrived early enough to allow the children’s beds
to be properly aired, and she was much afraid that the unex-
pected incursion of four nephews and nieces would upset
Uncle Laurence. It had been very good of him to put up with
them for Christmas week, when everybody could see he was
in a mizzable state, just off a long voyage and suffering from
his war wounds. To have them come spufhing along so soon
again might be too much for him. She hoped they would
keep to their own quarters in the nursery wing behind the
baize door and not go whoop-a-hooping along the passages
and up the stairs.
_ Charlotte whispered to Patty: “Do you hear that, Seer
No more wicked pranks! You must behave yourself, or I
don’t know what will become of you. Before he went to the
war, Uncle Laurence was always sunny and gay. Now he is
different, I don’t know how. It is as if a witch had got hold
of him and put a cold spell on him, making him—oh, I can’t
begin to tell you what! He seems to be always looking, look-
ing, looking at something he doesn’t like to see. And he is
often—I hope it is not naughty to say so—moody and im-
patient and cross. I am warning you for your own sake. You
must not offend Uncle Laurence.”
The rebel doll’s gaze was unwavering. She had the air of
FAMILY COACH 19
one who did not mind whether she offended Uncle Laurence
or not. |
The park gates were already open when at nightfall the
coach at last lumbered into the drive. At the door of his
lodge the gatekeeper stood with lantern raised high, the
better to watch the progress of a small body of men who had
just passed him on their way to the house. Charlotte, who —
was nearest the window, held Patty up to have a look. Joseph
also pressed forward.
The men were soldiers. In their midst was someone who
was obviously a prisoner. He was young, clad in the tattered
remains of a blue-and-white Continental uniform. In the
rays of the gatekeeper’s lantern, his eyes showed dark and
proud under his dusky tumbled hair.
“It’s the face I saw at the window!” gasped Charlotte. “It’s
my face!” ,
“He does not look English,” said Joseph. “He must be
one of the American prisoners. But why are they taking him
to Grandpapa’s house instead of Colonel Gatwick’s? Grand-
papa retired from the Army long ago.”
“Don’t stare, my dears,” said Mamma. “It is unkind to
stare.”
Between the lines of giant lime trees the coach rolled
onward, ahead of the marching men. The sound of the
wheels brought Uncle Laurence to the pillared portico out-
side the front door, with the warmth of the firelit hall behind
him.
“Uncle Laurence,” shouted George in the middle of the
greetings, “there are some soldiers bringing a prisoner up the
drive. We think he is one of the Americans who came to our
house last night and stole a shutter—”
“Oh, so the Reb has been caught again!” said Uncle
Laurence. He turned to Mamma. “I have been ordered to
take charge of one of Gatwick’s Americans. He was too
clever for Gatwick, and one of these days he'll be too clever
for me. Don’t mention him to the parents, Fanny, I haven’t
told them about him. He won’t come in this way, George, the
men will take him in by another door. You needn’t be
afraid.” ,
“I am not afraid of any rebel!” said George indig-
nantly.
But Uncle Laurence had already dismissed the Reb from
his thoughts, and was asking Mamma whether they had
escaped being bogged at Hake’s Piece, the muddy patch in
which they had stuck fast.
There was soon a great bustle of unpacking, in the middle
of which Charlotte fancied that Patty was sad and droopy.
Perhaps, thought Charlotte, it is because she saw the rebel
being marched back to his prison quarters. Where has Uncle
Laurence put him, I wonder. Poor Patty, I must keep her
from fretting.
So she carried Patty from room to room in the nursery
wing, showed her the old playthings in the playroom, gave
her a ride on the rocking horse that had belonged to Mamma,
Aunt Sophy, Uncle Laurence and their brothers and sisters,
FAMILY COACH 21
and even promised to read aloud to her from The History of

a Great Many Little Boys and Girls.
“Tt is a pretty story, dear Patty, and you will enjoy it. Or
would you like better to hear The History of Kind Lady
Goodheart of Hospitable Hall?”
In spite of these attentions, Patty stayed dull and down. So
Charlotte took her to share her chair at supper in the dining
room, and afterward in the drawing room she showed her
to Uncle Laurence, told her story, and asked questions about
the Reb.
Uncle Laurence answered the questions curtly and unwill-
ingly.
“This fellow, young as he is, has given more trouble than
the rest of them put together. It’s known now that he con-
trived to secrete the important dispatches that the leader of
the party was taking to France. What’s more, within a day
or two of their imprisonment in the disused militia barracks
near Gatwick Hali, he escaped, released his leader and three
others, and put them in touch with French smugglers. Those
treasonable dispatches got safely to France with no more
delay than they might have had if the original French ship
had run into bad weather on her voyage across the Atlantic!
He speaks French like a native, and was traveling as assist-
ant interpreter. He escaped twice more and was responsible
for the disappearance of another dozen, going either to
France direct or more likely in Dutch boats to France by
way of Holland. After the third escape, the authorities
granted Colonel Gatwick’s request that he might be relieved
of the custody of the Reb. As I’ve already told you, they

pounced on me to act jailer in Gatwick’s stead. Seems to |
be their notion of an easy simple task that a man on sick
leave can usefully perform! I shouldn’t have thought it pos-
sible that he could escape from the White Priory, but he has
now done so twice.”
“And he gets caught every time, though he has helped
the others to escape,” said Joseph. “That’s odd.” |
“Not as odd as it sounds,” his uncle said. “There’s a lame
duck in the party, an amazingly unlucky friend of his, Win-
gate by name, who comes to grief regularly every time an
escape attempt is made. He runs slap into a sentry, tumbles
over a watchdog’s kennel, sends bricks or tiles rattling down,
coughs or sneezes at the wrong moment! According to Colo-
nel Gatwick, the Reb promised Wingate’s mother that he
would stick by him. And does. I’ve just heard from Gat-
wick’s men that it was Wingate who brought disaster on
his companions, as usual. Fell on the glass that Miss Pipkin
broke, and damaged his leg so badly that there was nothing
for it but to carry him back to Gatwick Hall on a shutter.
The Reb could have remained at large, awaiting the next
opportunity to release his friends, if Wingate hadn’t said
something in Colonel Gatwick’s hearing that gave the clue |
as to where he was hiding!”
The children knew, from the edge in Uncle Laurence’s
voice, that he wanted to stop talking about the Reb. But they
would not take the hint. | |
“How old is he?” Joseph asked.
FAMILY COACH 23
— I believe. For what it’s worth, he She his com-
mission.”
“Fifteen!” said Mamma. “Laurence, it is pitiful. It is alto-
gether wrong.”
“Blame General Washington, Fan, not me!” was Uncle
Laurence’s prompt retort.
“Where is Mr. Reb?” asked little Kin.“Where have you
put him, Uncle Laurence! aa
Uncle Laurence was not anxious to tell where he had put
the Reb. He said, rather shortly, “In the safest place I could
find.”
Mamma started and looked appealingly at Uncle Laurence.
“Oh, Laurence, not there!” she cried distressfully. “The
poor boy!”
“It’s entirely his own fault,” said Uncle Laurence, more
shortly than ever. “He refused his parole. What else could
I do? I assure you, Fanny, I wouldn’t have placed a prisoner
there if I had had any alternative. I’ve pestered the War
Office with applications to have him sent to join the French
prisoners, who are billeted at the other end of the county.
The War Office won’t listen. It knows better! And I’ve asked
the Reb a dozen times to reconsider his decision. He’s as
stubborn as a mule.”
Mamma’s face was sad. “I hope the servants look after him
well,” she said timidly. “Has he a good fire?”
“He has no fire at all,” said Uncle Laurence, exasperated.
“Now, Fanny, don’t fuss. You can’t have forgotten that
there’s no possibility of lighting a fire down there. The Reb
24 THE’ REB AND THE REDCOATS
would have something to complain about if he found himself

blinded and choked with smoke. I’ve done all that is required
of me, and a little extra into the bargain. Why, he has the
newspaper sent along to him every day, provided it doesn’t
contain news of a British setback! Sophy told me I had been
unnecessarily generous in the matter of blankets, too. And I
asked her to find him some books from the library and any-
thing he needed in the way of furniture. I’ve given the correct
orders to the servants. If they don’t do as they’re bid—and
as two of them have lost brothers in the war I don’t suppose
they feel exactly cordial toward the Reb! Well, it’s always
open to him to speak when I pay him an official visit every
other day. But he never makes either request or complaint,
so he has only himself to thank if he doesn’t get his meals or
his candle.”
~ Mamma was still looking distressed, but she said no more.
Charlotte guessed that she would plead again for the Reb
when she was alone with her brother.
Kitty said, “Oo-oh! Shall we see the Reb ever?”
“You'll be able to see him tomorrow, when he takes exer-.
cise on the terrace. He walks up and down for an hour,
morning and afternoon, guarded by two militia men. Have
a look at him then, if you like, but keep out of his sight and
don’t attempt to talk to him.”
“Why not? Is he wicked?” asked Kitty, with round eyes.
“He’s a prisoner of war, that’s why not,” said Uncle
Laurence. “I don’t want you children going all romantic
and helping the beggar to escape! Now, one last question
FAMILY COACH 25
and then we'll quit the subject for good. I don’t want to
waste my time jabbering about the Reb.”
“What is his name?” George asked.
“It’s as fine a fancy name as anyone could wish for!” said
Uncle Laurence. “His initials are R-E.B. and ‘Reb’ is all he
gets from me, except when I pay my state visits. Then he
becomes ‘Mr. So and So,’ as ceremonious as you please. I'll
give half a crown to whichever of you can guess his real
name. No cheating, mind! You’re not to ask your mamma or
the servants.”
Half a crown was a prize worth having. The attempt to
win it kept the four Darringtons quiet for the rest of the
evening, which was perhaps what Uncle Laurence wanted,
for he was left free to chat with his sister without interrup-
tion. At bedtime they showed him a slate filled with names:
Roger Edward Barton, Roderick Edmund Brown, Rupert
Evelyn Beresford, Roland Egbert Bright, but all the guesses
were wrong.
“Try again tomorrow,” said Uncle Laurence.
On the way upstairs they peeped about, wondering in
which of the many rooms the Reb was imprisoned. While
Nurse was putting Kitty to bed, the other three started off
on a voyage of exploration, Charlotte carrying Patty, George
a candle, and Joseph a stick in case the Reb should be danger-
ous. They looked into the spare bedrooms, but they did not
find the Reb in any of them, even in the brown room that
could only be used in summer because the chimney smoked.
“It’s a pity the Reb wouldn’t give his parole,” said Char-
lotte, when they came to the blue room, which had a book-
case, a sheepskin rug, a writing table, and a solitaire board
with twizzly balls of colored glass. “He would have been so
comfortable here, and it’s always kept ready for visitors, But
the attics are interesting—they are stuffed so full of boxes and
chests of old treasures. They might be cold and drafty, but
at least he could never be dull.”
However, the Reb was not having a good time among the
stores in the attics. Charlotte and George were at a loss to
know where he could be. Joseph, who had had his suspicions
from the first, now began to be sure that those suspicions
were well founded.
“Listen, you two,” he said. “You know that the oldest
part of the White Priory used to be a monastery, hundreds
of years ago? You have never been into the penance cell,
where the prior shut up the monks who had done wrong.
Grandpapa was afraid it might frighten you. But I am older,
and once, when we were staying here, he showed it to me and
told me not to talk about it.”
“Then don’t, Joseph,” said Charlotte. |
“Ah, but that was long ago, when you and George were
much smaller. Telling you now doesn’t matter. The penance
cell is a room in the thickness of the walls—three feet thick,
they are—with a stone floor, a high barred window, great
round squat pillars to support the ceiling, no fireplace or
chimney. Its great oak door is studded with nails and
strengthened with iron bars. The servants don’t need to un-
lock the door when they give the Reb his meals. In the
FAMILY COACH 27
passage wall there is a small serving hatch, covered by a
shutter. I am positive we shall find the Reb in the penance
cell.”
Joseph led the way to a passage on the ground floor not
far from the kitchen quarters. A bolted door led into another
passage, at the far end of which another door opened on the
kitchens. Halfway down the second passage, they stopped by
the nail-studded door and serving hatch of the penance cell.
Only George was bold enough to push the shutter aside and
peep in.
All was dark within the room. They listened, but could
not hear a sound. Nevertheless they knew that the Reb was
enclosed by those icy walls.
“The servants must have forgotten to give him a candle,”
said George. “We can’t tell ’em. Uncle Laurence might find
out we'd been here.”
“Come away, come away!” cried Charlotte. “We ought
not to be prying and spying!”
They hurried off. In the entrance hall they ran into their
mother.
“We went to look for the Reb, Mamma, and I am sorry
we did it,” said Charlotte. “Mamma, he is in the old monks’
penance cell without even a candle. I do think it is unkind of
the servants to keep him in the dark!”
“IT will remind them about the candle,” said Mamma. “I
do not think they meant to be unkind tonight. Perhaps they
forgot because they have had so much extra work to do.
They have had to feed and find beds for all the men we
28 THE*REB AND THE REDCOATS
brought with us as well as for ourselves. Do not go near the

penance cell again, my dears. You will vex Uncle Laurence
if you do.” |
“Mamma,” said Charlotte, “you knew, didn’t you, that
the Reb was in the penance cell. That’s why you looked at
Uncle Laurence so?”
“Yes,” said Mamma, more gravely than they had ever
heard her speak. “This is not our house, my loves, and I
cannot hinder Uncle Laurence from dealing as he sees fit
with a young man who has given much trouble to his cap-
tors by his daring and resolute spirit. But there is something
we can all do to help him. In a few minutes I am going to
help Kitty say her prayers. When you say yours, will you
remember to pray for all prisoners and captives, and espe-
cially for the captive under this roof?”
_ “Yes, we'll remember,” said Joseph, Charlotte and George.
WOW or erent eae nk 3
xe
Ww
*
* Fine Fancy Name
WHEN THE Darringtons stayed with their grandparents at

the White Priory, it was the rule that they should go out to
play in the gardens or the park for an hour after breakfast.
In cold weather they preferred playing on the great broad
flagged terrace at the back of the house. Joseph was too old
to care about rolling one of the wooden hoops that their
grandpapa had provided, but he was never tired of using a
pair of skates of a kind unknown anywhere else in England.
The wheel skates, as they were called, had been invented by
a clever old man of the neighborhood, who was considered
to be a genius. They were regarded as Joseph’s own particu-
lar property, and he was chary about lending them.
All four children were dismayed to learn that in future
the after-breakfast hour must be spent in other parts of the
grounds, where there was less convenience for rolling hoops
and none for using skates that ran on little rollers.
However, on that first morning they had the excitement
of watching the Reb. Wearing thick coats, mufflers and
ay
gloves, they crept into some laurel bushes from which a good
view of the terrace could be obtained.
There were the two red-nosed militia men in their scarlet
uniforms, one at each end of the terrace, standing with mus-
ket and bayonet in what shelter they could find, and blowing
stealthily on their frozen fingers. Between them the Reb
paced up and down, looking rather like a wild animal in a
cage. He was so thinly clad that it made the well-padded
Darringtons shiver to look at him, but he held his dark head
high and gave no sign of his feelings.
“Come away,” said Charlotte, tugging at Joseph’s sleeve.
“We are pigs, to do this. Come away before he sees us,
quick!”
She peeped over her shoulder as they ran off. The Reb’s
face was as white and unmoved as ever. There was no telling
whether or not he had seen four bunchy shapes scuffling in
the shrubbery. But her own heart told Charlotte that he had
both seen and resented their coming. She felt guilty and un-
comfortable and hardly dared look at Patty when, the open-
air hour over, they all came racing back to the playroom with
its jolly fire leaping up the chimney. After a time, however,
she found courage to pick Patty up and carry her over to the
window seat. The youngest rebel looked at her squarely with ©
the very same glint of defiance that had shone in the Reb’s
eyes the night before.
“Tt’s very strange,” said Charlotte, “but you do look like
the Reb! Yes, you do, though yours is a little girl’s face and
his is a lean, nearly grown-up boy’s face. I didn’t mean to
FINE FANCY NAME 31
be unkind, Patty, but I was inquisitive, and now I’m sorry.

I'll say the prayer for prisoners and captives every day, truly
I will, and I won’t go near the terrace again, honestly. Indeed
I won’t, unless I have a good reason for doing it.”
Charlotte kept her promise faithfully for the next three
days. She would not allow herself to walk anywhere within
sight of the prisoner, and she scolded the others for doing it.
They would not take any notice of her scoldings, for they had
a notion that merely gazing at the Reb might help them to
guess his name. This they were as far as ever from doing,
though the slate was handed to Uncle Laurence every morn-
ing with new suggestions on it: Richard Edwin Burton,
Reginald Eugene Bannister, Ralph Eustace Ballard, Rufus
Elijah Briggs, Rudolf Ellis Bradley—all of them as wrong
as they could be.
George was particularly anxious to win the prize. Uncle
Laurence had taken him to Eastwich, which was full of
shops that were positively crammed with goods asking to be
bought. On the fourth day George thought of an excellent
scheme for outdoing his brother and sisters. Uncle Laurence
had forbidden them to ask their mother or the servants to
tell them the Reb’s name, but he had not thought of forbid-
ding them to ask the Reb himself. This George resolved to do.
Snow had fallen during the night, only to melt again.
George stole off by himself while the others were running
races in the drive. He walked up the central flight of shallow
stone steps that led from the garden to the terrace, and waited
at the top between two pillars surmounted by stone balls.
When the prisoner came near enough, George piped out,

“What’s your name, Reb?”
George did not mean to be uncivil, but his manner was
blunt and his voice so squeaky that it sounded pert. The
Reb’s face appeared to have been carved in marble. He turned
his head slightly and walked past. George waited till he came
back, then tried again.
“T say, Reb, what’s your name?”
Once more George found himself teslnhalty ignored by
the Reb. He did not like this. When he had for the third
time asked his question in vain, his temper rose. George had
the quickest temper of the four Darringtons. Nurse had been
heard to say that he was also the most like his Uncle Lau-
rence. Instead of going quietly away, he flew into a rage and
began to stamp and storm and insult the Reb.
“Boo!” he shouted. “Boo! Don’t be so stuck up when
you're all in rags! My father’s gone to fight you. He'll kill
your old General Washbasin, you see if he doesn’t! Boo, Reb,
boo!”
The guards clapped their hands to their mouths, guffawing.
But the Reb paced up and down, not taking the slightest
noticeofGeorge, even when some wet and squishy snowballs
of mixed sludge and snow were whizzed from between the
pillars. George would have gone on throwing snowballs, had
he not caught sight of somebody coming into the gun room,
the windows of which overlooked the terrace.
Not wanting to be caught by Uncle Laurence, he ran
away to join the others. He strutted about, boasting of what
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he had said and done. Joseph, Charlotte and Kitty were horri-
fied. They tried to make George say he was sorry for his bad
behavior, but George was in such an evil mood that he
danced a jig, repeatedly declaring he was glad he had teased
the horrid Reb.
“Joseph,” said Charlotte, “if George won’t say he is sorry,
then you or I must go and tell the Reb that we are ashamed
of our brother.”
Joseph was a shy boy. He blushed as red as a poppy and
said that he could not speak to the Reb.
“Then I must do it,” said Charlotte, who did not feel very
brave either. |
“T tell you what,” said Joseph, “the snow’s melting so fast
that the terrace will be dry underfoot this afternoon. Why
don’t you offer him the loan of my wheel skates? He would
have fun learning to use them, and he would be much
warmer skating than walking. Yes, Charlotte, you offer the
skates. That will show him that you and Kitty and I aren't
in league with George.”
Charlotte did not find it easy to walk up the steps. Stand-
ing where George had stood between the pillars, she began
the speech of apology she had prepared. But being much
alarmed, she began the apology the wrong way round, with
the offer of the skates.
“If you please, Mr. Rebel, would you like to borrow Jo-
seph’s wheel skates?” she began, in a voice as high and
squeaky as George’s.
As soon as she had said it, she knew she and Joseph had
36 THE REB AND THE REDCOATS —
made an appalling mistake. No prisoner officer, however
young he might be, would condescend to do anything so
undignified as learning to roller skate in the presence of his
guards. She could not say another word.
The Reb walked to the end of the terrace, swung round and
came marching back again. One glance at his frozen face
_ told Charlotte that he thought her another tormentor. She
made a second attempt, and to her horror heard herself
saying nearly the same words in the same shrill tone, “Please,
Mr. Rebel, Joseph says he will lend you his wheel skates
because—”
Before Charlotte could finish her sentence, Uncle Laurence
opened one of the French windows of the gun room.
“Charlotte, come here!” he said in a voice like a thunder-
clap.
The Reb drew back a pace or two to let her pass. There was
~ not the smallest change on his face, nothing but icy coldness.
Charlotte knew he still thought she was mocking him by her
offer of the skates. She could not bear to go away without
making one last effort to explain.
“Oh, please, please, I’m not being unkind! I came because
Joseph and Kitty and I are sorry that our other brother was
so rude when he tried to win the half crown that Uncle Lau-
rence had promised to whichever of us could find out your
name—” 7
It was over in one desperate burst. Charlotte dared not
look at the Reb, so she could not judge whether her explana-
tion had appeased him or had made matters worse. Some-
FINE FANCY NAME 37
where above her head she heard a voice that was softer than
Uncle Laurence’s, with a little musical drawl in it.
“This is for you, not for your brother. My name is Randal
Everard Baltimore, at your service.”
“Oh, oh! That’s not what I came for!” said Charlotte, in
pink confusion.
“It’s what you’ve gotten, anyhow,” said the Reb. “Don’t
forget—Randal Everard Baltimore. | guess you'll need the
thought of that half crown to support you through the next
five minutes.”
“Charlotte!” roared Uncle Laurence from the doorway.
Charlotte flew, feeling very much in need of support.
Uncle Laurence pulled her into the house and slammed the
French window behind her.
“What’s the meaning of this, pray?” he asked. “Didn’t
I forbid you children to talk to him?”
Charlotte could not explain her own disobedience without
telling Uncle Laurence how badly George had behaved. She
did not want to do that.
“Now listen, Charlotte,” said Uncle Laurence, “I'll give you
one more chance. If you don’t take it, Pll make your mother
pack you off to boarding school. Don’t you make any mistake
about that! I mean what I say. You silly little girl, you're as
foolish as Colonel Gatwick’s sons were when they made
friends with the Reb against their father’s strictest orders.
Oh, they enjoyed themselves amazingly while the friendship
lasted! He told them hair-raising Indian yarns, showed them
conjuring tricks, and helped them with a tunnel they were
digging in the garden. Helped them so well that in the night

the Reb’s chief and some of his brother officers escaped
through the tunnel to France, taking with them, as I’ve
already told you, the important secret dispatches that it was
vital to keep out of French hands. When Colonel Gatwick
found out what Billy and Johnny had done, they had good
reason to wish they had never set eyes on the Reb! They
were soundly whipped, and if you follow their bad example
you'll be instantly whisked off to the strictest boarding school
I can find. Just you remember that! Never mention the Reb
in my hearing again, and by you I mean your brothers and
your sister as well as yourself. And now, before I let you go,
you'll kindly tell me what you and he were talking about.
I'll not have him plotting escape under my very nose!”
“He wasn’t plotting escape,” said Charlotte. “I came to
offer him Joseph’s skates because—because—well, because
_ we thought he might like to use them. He never said a word
about Indians or conjuring tricks or tunnels. But he told me
his name—Randal Everard Baltimore—and he said he
guessed I’d need the thought of sh half crown to —
me through the next five minutes.”
“Ha! Said that, did he? Like his impudence!” snorted
Uncle Laurence. He took a. half crown from his pocket
and crashed it down on the gun-room table. “Take that, will
you, and be gone!”
Charlotte went on the wings of the wind. She took Joseph
aside, told him her story. They agreed that they could not
let the matter rest where it stood. Something must be done
FINE FANCY NAME 39
to make up to the Reb for George’s insults. Trying hard to
think of something she could do, Charlotte looked away
across the gray-green sea marshes.
There was a small round house on a hillock in the middle
of the marshes, not far away. It looked not unlike a giant
mushroom. The inventor of the wheel skates lived inside the
mushroom with his old wife.
The young Darringtons had known Mr. and Mrs. Dick
Hickory all their lives. They often visited the mushroom to
buy lollipops and sugarplums made by Mrs. Dick. She sold
sticky gingerbread too, wheat-meal loaves, rich shortbread,
pickled samphire, mushroom ketchup and a host of other
delicacies. She was tailoress to the whole village and a famous
maker of playthings out of pine cones, beechnuts, acorn cups,
and the corks that were cast up with the sea drift.
“Let’s buy something for the Reb with part of the half
crown,” said Charlotte. “Nurse says his windows are barred
but not glazed. He broke the glass, trying to escape, and
Uncle Laurence hasn’t had it mended. We could put what
we buy through the window, to be a surprise for him when
he comes back from the terrace.”
They hurried off at once.
The inside of the mushroom was warm, clean, comfortable,
- but crowded. Gay-colored broadsheets of ballads adorned
every inch of wall that was not already occupied by shelves
and cupboards holding the jars, bottles and phials that Mr.
and Mrs, Dick had for sale. Bunches of dried herbs hung from
the rafters, for the Hickorys were thrifty people, who made
use of everything that grew, from the thistledown on the

common to the wild peas and the wild cabbage, Good King
Henry, that flourished on the shore. When Uncle Laurence
was a boy, they had often asked him to sup with them on all
sorts of edible mushrooms that other people believed to be
poisonous. Joseph and Charlotte hoped that some day they
too would be invited to those mushroom suppers which were,
as Uncle Laurence always said, delicious beyond anything he
had ever tasted, and from which Grandmamma always
feared he would never return alive.
Dick Hickory smiled at the children from the corner where
he was polishing and shaping the shore pebbles and the bits
of amber, carnelian, and agate that he meant to sell when the
weather was fine enough for him to go on one of his long
tours, selling salves, simples and ornaments all round the
countryside. Everybody said that Dick had magic in his
fingers. They could not only turn common salt-encrusted
pebbles into things of beauty, but they could also bring heal-
ing to sick folk and sick animals alike.
The puzzle was, what to choose. Joseph favored a large
bag of black-and-white-striped peppermints, which he said
would be warming on a cold day. Charlotte plumped for an
apple pie, hot from the oven. In the end, they took both pie
and peppermints. The pie was neatly tied up in a white cloth
with a knot at the top. It smelled so good that they could
hardly bear to think they were not going to eat it. They felt
obliged to sample a peppermint or two, by way of discovering
whether Joseph’s choice had been sound. It had. |
FINE FANCY NAME AI
A deep ditch, full of stones and stinging nettles, lay be-
tween them and the outer wall of the penance cell. Using
fingers and toes, Joseph could scrabble up the wall as far as
the narrow barred window near the roof of the cell. But he
could not take the pie with him, nor could he lean down far
enough to take it from Charlotte’s upstretched hands.
“We must fasten it and the peppermints to a stick or
something,” said Joseph, coming down in disgust. “We
should need a stick anyhow, because it will have to be tied
to one of the window bars, with the things dangling from it.
Can’t let them drop—the floor’s a long way down. The Reb
will have to climb on a chair to get them.”
He was about to go in search of a stick when he caught
sight of a length of rusty iron hoop lying forgotten among the
nettles. With twine from his pockets he secured the pie and
the peppermints to one end of it. Then he clambered up the
wall again and bent as far as he could to catch at the iron,
which Charlotte, standing on tiptoe, held toward him. After
a little trouble, he succeeded in fastening it and its suspended
treasures to the inner side of the window bar.
They returned to the playroom, where Kitty was in the
act of telling Mamma the story of George and the Reb.
Mamma was grieved when she heard how unkind George
had been. She gave him a sheet of paper on which he had to
write an apology in his best hand, and she folded the sheet
and herself directed it to R. E. Baltimore, Esq. It would be
handed to him by the servant who brought his dinner, said
Mamma. She added that Uncle Laurence must be told of
the real reason for Charlotte’s disobedience, but she under-

took that George should not hear any more about his rude-
ness.
“And will Uncle Laurence really send us to boarding
school if we so much as mention the Reb’s name in his hear-
ing?” Charlotte asked, after she had told Mamma about the
purchase of the pie and the peppermints.
“T think Uncle Laurence spoke without thinking,” said
her mother. “You must all do your best not to displease him
in any way. Remember, he is still almost an invalid, and in-
valids are apt to be irritable. And when he was not fit to
undertake the responsibility, he was put in charge of a
spirited young man who has given a great deal of trouble to
all his captors.”
“Let’s go home, Mamma, to our own home. I don’t like
Uncle Laurence when he is cross,” said Kitty.
“Dear Kitty, we cannot go home,” said her mother. “One
reason is that I cannot leave your grandparents while they
are ailing. An even stronger reason is that I have, at their
suggestion, let Thorndale Hall for a year to some friends who
wish to rent a house while their own is under repair.” |
“Oh!” groaned the four children. But inwardly they were
not disappointed. With Papa away, Thorndale Hall was
lonely. The White Priory would have been perfect, if Uncle
Laurence had not changed from the sunny, good-natured
uncle he used to be.
Their mother rose and went to the door.
FINE FANCY NAME 3
“Children,” she said, “Uncle Laurence has gone down to

the village. Before he returns, I am going to take you into the
gun room and show you something that will help you
understand why he is not the merry, friendly uncle you knew
in old days—something that will help you understand his
harshness toward Mr. Baltimore.”
The four children followed her, wondering what lived in
the gun room that had witch power to change Uncle Lau-
rence into another man. They knew the gun room well—it
was their favorite room, a jumble of guns, fishing rods, ten-
nis racquets, cases of stuffed fish, highly colored sporting
prints, with big crimson curtains to divide the main room
from a fencing floor.
Mrs. Darrington held back the lid of Uncle Laurence’s
large writing desk. Fastened within, they saw the miniature
portrait of a young officer in a gay scarlet uniform. The pic-
tured face smiled at them so winningly that they found
themselves smiling back at him as if he were alive.
“That was Uncle Laurence’s closest friend,” said their
mother. “He died last October, a few days before Uncle
Laurence was sent home to England. His name was Major
John André.”
_ Joseph started and his eyes met his mother’s. George and
Kitty did not perceive, as Charlotte did, a kind of signal
flashed between Mamma and Joseph. It told her that Joseph
had heard part of a sorrowful story that she had been con-
sidered too young to know.
ae THE REB AND THE REDCOATS
“Mamma,” Charlotte whispered, “what did happen to
Major André? Was he killed in battle?”
“I would rather not tell you anything about his sad death,”
Mamma answered. “The tidings of it were brought to Uncle
Laurence while he lay helpless and wounded. The news had
a dreadful effect on him. That is why he finds it hard to show
kindness or pity to any American, least of all to one who
is known to have been present in Tappan on the day Major
André died.” .
“But Uncle Laurence can’t justly blame the Reb for being
there,” argued Joseph. “After all, if the Reb is an officer in
the rebel army, he is bound to go where his commanding
officer sends him. You don’t mean—you surely can’t mean
—that the Reb was one of the scouts who caught Major
André?” !
Mamma shuddered. “No, no, dear Joseph, I didn’t mean
that. As far as I know, Mr. Baltimore had no part in the
capture or court-martial of Major André. He was a spectator
only. But in Uncle Laurence’s mind he is associated with
those who did have such a part.”
Mamma would not answer any more questions. She shut
the desk and hurried the children back to the playroom.
Charlotte took up rebel Patty, who was locking, she thought,
most melancholy. She told Patty the whole story of the morn-
ing, and showed her the pence left from the half crown.
“And if I ever do get sent to boarding school by Uncle
Laurence, you shall come too, my Patty, depend on it,” said
Charlotte. “Unless of course I can arrange to send you back
FINE FANCY NAME 45
to your own Patty in America. It is a great shame that I
shall never have a chance of asking the Reb how best to do
it. He is so clever, he might suggest some way. As he has
been able to set so many of his fellow officers free, he could
surely do something for you!”
we ue as ee Ne ees Fe A
za :
at
mg
ve Under the Stars and Stripes
Two pays later Charlotte had even stronger reason to believe

that she would never have a chance of begging the Reb’s
help. As she and the others came down to breakfast, they
heard Uncle Laurence in the hall below, storming at the
servants. He was in riding clothes, with his horse ready at
the door. Farther along the drive were more horses, ridden
by scarlet-clad troopers. Charlotte gripped Joseph’s arm.
“I know. what has happened. The Reb has broken prison
again!”
“Sh-sh, Uncle Laurence will hear you!” warned Joseph.
Uncle Laurence was making too much noise himself to ©
have ears for what his niece was saying. From his questions
and the servants’ answers, the children soon made out what
had happened. With a tool obtained nobody knew how, the >
Reb had made the opening in the wall large enough to climb
through. Once in the passage, he had escaped through a door
that someone had forgotten to lock.
“It was that piece of iron!” Joseph muttered to Charlotte.
46.
UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES 47
“Must have been. What will become of us if Uncle Laurence

finds out?”
It soon appeared that Uncle Laurence was not going to
find out, for the tool itself had disappeared in the Reb’s
company, and its nature consequently remained a mystery.
Uncle Laurence finished scolding the servants, drank a
scalding cup of coffee, sprang into the saddle. His troop of
horsemen clattered down the drive through the falling snow.
Two hours later the countryside was blotted out by a vast
white whirling cloud.
For five days Uncle Laurence came home only to snatch
a hasty meal or a few hours of sleep. Mamma told the chil-
dren that the Reb must have made his way by night to
Gatwick Hall. Taking the injured Timothy Wingate with
them, his fellow prisoners had one and all escaped through
a trap door that had been opened from the outside by a
rescuer whose steady nerves did not flinch from perilous
roof climbing in the dark.
Although Uncle Laurence and his men were scouring
the neighborhood as well as they could in a raging blizzard,
it was thought unlikely that any of the fugitives would be
recaptured. French or Dutch agents among the smugglers
were hiding them till it should be safe to make the trip to
Holland or to France.
On the fifth evening, Joseph said, “It looks as though
Timothy Wingate hasn’t run into any trouble this time.”
Joseph was mistaken. The next morning, scarlet coats
gleamed in the drive. Once more the Reb was a prisoner.
During his absence, the damage he had done had been

thoroughly repaired, and his cell was now so effectively
barricaded that escape was harder than it had ever been.
The soldiers who had brought the Reb back were enter-
tained to a splendid feast in the servants’ hall, with a huge
fire to warm their cold bones. At breakfast, Uncle Laurence
was tired and cross after being out all night. As briefly as
he could, he told what had happened.
Once again, Timothy Wingate had ruined the plans made
for his escape.
“Before going to the disused militia barracks where his
companions were imprisoned, the Reb had successfully got
in touch with the French agents among the smugglers,”
said Uncle Laurence. “Out of consideration for Wingate’s
damaged leg, he was left at Wood End Point to rest, while
the others went by the cliff path to Smugglers’ Cove. The
Reb undertook to come back and fetch him by boat, but
Wingate, like an idiot, grew restless and decided to limp
after the others instead of waiting as he had been told. He
was seen and chased by a coastguard, fled across the marshes,
lost his way in the dark. The Reb arrived by boat and found
Wingate gone. He directed the smugglers who had brought
him to Wood End Point to return and tell the other men
not to wait but to make good their escape. Owing to the
blizzard, they probably haven’t crossed to Holland or France
yet, but they’ve been taken down the coast to the Essex
marshes where the Essex militia can take on the job of hunt-
ing men who will be about as easy to find as a needle in a
haystack. We've seen the last of them, that’s all I know.
The Reb stayed behind to look after his friend.”
“Did the Reb tell you all this, Uncle Laurence?” asked
George.
“Not he! Haughty silence was what we got from him—
except once, when he flew out at my men for clumsiness in
carrying Wingate. Yes, Wingate returned to Gatwick Hall
horizontally, as before. The Reb was just in time to rescue
him from a well into which he had fallen while floundering
about in the dark. Before they could get back to Smugglers’
Cove, the alarm had been given. Thanks to the snow, they
dodged us through the day.
“At night, more disaster,’ Uncle Laurence continued.
“Wingate was rash enough to take a leap from the top of a
snow-covered bank. He fell across a balk of timber in the
ditch at the bottom, and hurt his back badly. If the Reb
hadn’t contrived to get him somehow into shelter in a de-
serted eel-pitcher’s hut, he would have been frozen to death
where he lay. Then they were cut off by the blizzard. Win-
gate couldn’t move, and the Reb dared not leave him to go
in search of help. He’s coolness and resourcefulness itself,
Tl allow that. As long as there was a scrap of wood within
reach, he kept a fire going, and he snared a wild duck and
caught some fish. Yesterday, he made a desperate sally
across the marshes, gave himself up, and asked for a doctor
for Wingate.”
“Where on the marshes were they?” Mamma asked.
“Pebney Marsh, right in the center, by the Delse.”
“Laurence, it is nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Balti-

more found his way across.”
“Looks like it. Though we knew the lie of the land, we
had need of a second miracle to bring us safely to the eel-
pitcher’s hut. Couldn’t return till this morning, had to spend
the night in the beastly little hole. Wingate had time to
relate his adventures. He’s a chatterer. Well, he'll have no-
body to chat to for some months to come. He’s been moved
out of the militia barracks and into a room at the side of
Gatwick Hall where, according to Dr. Feltwell, he'll have
to lie flat till “Nature does her own healing work.’ There’s no
safe surgical remedy, it appears.”
Uncle Laurence then devoted himself to the enjoyment of
his breakfast, making it plain that he did not want to talk
about the Reb. He was much more concerned about his
favorite mare. Dorinda had caught a severe cold while she
was chasing the escaped prisoners, and he brushed aside his
sister’s timid inquiry how Mr. Baltimore had fared.
“If you mean, did he have an enjoyable five days, no.
Judging by the look of him, he didn’t. Who could expect it?
If you mean, did we handle him roughly when we got him, —
no, we didn’t. There was no struggle or scuffle—all he wanted
was to lead us to Wingate as quickly as possible. He ought to
be thankful that this last attempt at escape hasn’t ended in
arrest and imprisonment in the county jail instead of in a
return to his old quarters, where, if he wants anything, all
he has to do is ring. It’s ere if the beggar hasn’t been the
death of my poor mare.”
And all day long Uncle Laurence was making journeys

down to the stables, talking to the mare, soothing her, fon-
dling her, giving her apples and sugar, consulting with the
coachman, grooms, and Dick Hickory the horse doctor,
about hot mashes, warm blankets, special titbits and physic.
Charlotte was unhappy, and by evening, she could bear
her unhappiness no longer.
“Listen, you others,” she said. “This is what the soldiers
told Nurse. They said the Reb hadn’t smashed himself up,
but he wasn’t in any better shape than Mr. Wingate. And now
there is Uncle Laurence going again and again to see after
Dorinda, who has never been hungry or uncared for in the
last five days, but he says he need not visit the Reb till the
day after tomorrow. And perhaps in the meantime the Reb
will starve or freeze. The servants won’t look after him
properly, Nurse is sure they won’t. They are angry with him
for getting them into a tremendous row with Uncle Lau-
rence.”
“But what can we do?” said Joseph.
“T think,” said Charlotte, “that we ought to go—all four
of us—and ask Uncle Laurence to see the Reb tonight and
try once more to persuade him to give his parole. Then, if
he gave it, he could leave the penance cell and live in a room
with a fire.”
“Look here,” said Joseph, “if you’ve forgotten what Uncle
Laurence threatened, I haven’t! I don’t want to be packed
off to a strict boarding school of his choice! And it’s a waste
of time, asking. Uncle Laurence would burst into flames if
we told him his duty. Even if he did go, which he won’t, the
Reb would never, never, never give his parole. He’s made up
of pride and obstinacy, everybody says so.”
“T think he would give it, now,” said Charlotte. “I’ve
reasoned it out, and I do believe I am right. He has promised
to stand by his friend Mr. Wingate, hasn’t he? And he must
know that Mr. Wingate can’t escape for however long it
takes to mend an injured back. So it can’t hurt him to give
his parole for two months or so. Perhaps Uncle Laurence
hasn’t thought of that, or the Reb either. If they haven't,
then someone ought to tell them. Let’s all four tell. Uncle
Laurence couldn’t send four of us to boarding school at his
own expense! Think of what it would cost!”
But Joseph, George and Kitty said firmly that they could
not risk a row with Uncle Laurence, though they were very
sorry indeed for the Reb.
Charlotte’s knees wobbled under her at the thought of
facing Uncle Laurence alone. She caught up Patty, as if the
company of the rebel doll might be expected to give her
courage. But she was so frightened that she could scarcely
see Patty’s defiant, laughing little face. It seemed to be look-
ing at her out of a mist.
Clutching Patty hard, she went downstairs and tapped
at the gun-room door. |
Uncle Laurence was lounging half asleep in an easy chair
by a heaped-up fire. He wore a ua gown, and had a
novel on his knee.
“Well, what is it?” he asked. “And what have you Brought
that doll for? I mistrust the creature. She has a look in her
eye that I don’t like. Reminds me of someone, I can’t think
of whom.”
Charlotte gave a gasp. “Uncle Laurence, the soldiers say
that the Reb is iil.”
“Didn’t notice it myself,” said Uncle Laurence. “We gave
him a mount from Gatwick Hall here, and he rode straight
as a die—no swaying in the saddle! But you are very bold,
young woman. Have you forgotten what I said when I
caught you talking to the Reb on the terrace?”
“No,” said Charlotte. Her knees wobbled worse than ever,
and she dared not look at Uncle Laurence. Patty the rebel
was not afraid. She gave Uncle Laurence glare for glare,
perfectly unconcerned.
“Then what did I say?”
Charlotte could hardly get the words out. “You said you
would send me to the strictest boarding school you could
find if I as much as mentioned the Reb’s name in your
hearing.”
Uncle Laurence flung his book into another chair and
struck his foot violently on the floor.
“You didn’t come here of your own accord. I believe
you've been put up to this by your mother. She has been
pestering me all day about the Reb’s living conditions, and
now as a last hope she has sent you to attack me. Isn’t that
so?”
“No,” said Charlotte, “No, Uncle Laurence, Mamma did
not send me. J came because I thought I ought.”
She did not know what would happen next, and she
would not have been surprised if the ceiling had fallen down
on top of her. When Uncle Laurence sprang to his feet, she ~
thought she was going to be packed off to boarding school
that minute. But he only said tartly:
“Turn that doll round, will you? I won’t have her arro-
gant face staring at me. Now I know who she’s like! It’s the
Reb, insolent young scoundrel that he is! As for you, Char-
lotte, you’re a goose! Do you really suppose I have the power
to send you to school without your mother’s consent? It
was an idle threat, that’s all.”
In her relief, Charlotte nearly cried.
“But you're a plucky goose, I'll say that for you,” Uncle
Laurence added. “What exactly do you want me to do?”
He was taking off his dressing gown and putting on his
coat as if he knew the answer.
‘Charlotte said: “Please, I want you to see the Reb tonight
instead of waiting till the day after tomorrow.”
“What for? I last saw him this morning. We’ve had
enough of each other’s companionship for one while.”
Charlotte explained. Uncle Laurence shook his head.
“A parole until Wingate is well enough to make another
escape attempt? Not if I know it! As I’ve already told you,
I’ve offered to accept his parole often enough, and he has |
stubbornly refused every chance he’s had. Let him wait a
couple of days for another!”
“It’s too dreadful there!” faltered Charlotte. “Not two
more days! Uncle Laurence, please!” |
UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES me
“You talk as if I made a habit of immuring innocent vic-
tims in dungeons!” said Uncle Laurence crossly. “Very well,
then, Pll go—but Ill take you with me! You shall see
for yourself what sort of a reception I'll get from his
high mightiness. A caning would do him all the good
in the world. Pity it isn’t permitted to cane prisoners of
war!” |
Muttering and grumbling, Uncle Laurence stalked out of
the room and across the hall, Charlotte at his heels. He
lighted a candle from a side table, called a manservant to
stand on guard, then unlocked and unbolted the passage
door.
No glimmer of light stole into the dark passage from
cracks in the shutter over the opening in the wall. Uncle
Laurence pulled the shutter aside. The stones loosened by
the rebel had been firmly recemented. On their flat surface
stood a tumbler of water and a plate of cold greasy food that
had obviously been left there hours before. The room beyond
showed a black square.
“They’ve forgotten his candle again,” said Charlotte.
“Again?”
“They forgot it before, on our first night here. We ex-
plored. I’m sorry, Uncle Laurence. We never came into the
passage afterward.”
Uncle Laurence made a little displeased sound in his
throat. Charlotte did not know whether it had reference to
her confession or to the absence of the Reb’s candle. He
unlocked the door, drew the bolts, knocked. No one an-
swered. He knocked louder, and this time a lifeless voice

said, “Come in.”
Uncle Laurence and Charlotte went in. Charlotte sawa
vaultlike pillared room furnished with a strip of carpet, a
chair, a table on which were piled the mouldering volumes
of an out-of-date encyclopedia. On a peg in a corner, hidden
behind pillars, she spied a gleam of scarlet and recognized
what was certainly a military cloak belonging to uncle or
grandfather.
Before she could make further discoveries, Uncle Lau-
rence said sharply: “Mr. Baltimore, what is it? Are you ill?”
The Reb was lying on a camp bed in the gloom behind two
more great rounded pillars. He was gazing in his visitors’
direction with eyes that seemed to see nothing, though they
were bright as stars. There were blankets under him, but
none above. It looked as if he had flung himself down just as
_ he was in his tattered, snow-soaked uniform, too weary to
crawl into bed. He said nothing, only stared, stared, stared.
Suddenly a change came over his face at sight of Charlotte,
a look of intense bewilderment. A moment later the ere
sightless stare came back again.
“Mr. Baltimore—” said Uncle Laurence once more, but
broke off abruptly. “Charlotte! Just search about for a cloak,
a gray cloak. There should be one somewhere.” He was
bending over the Reb, with a hand on the boy’s wrist.
Charlotte searched, but found nothing save the army scar-
let. She climbed on the chair, took it from the peg, ran with
it to the bedside. !
“What’s this?” said Uncle Laurence, with a snap like a

pistol. He dropped the Reb’s wrist and strode to the door.
“James!”
“Sir?” quavered the footman.
“Last January I told you to place my gray cloak in this
room for Mr. Baltimore’s use when he takes exercise on the
terrace. What is this old red cloak of General Templeton’s
doing here?”
“It was a mistake, sir,” murmured James.
“Mistake! It was a cruel, scoundrelly jest! You knew very
well that Mr. Baltimore would die of cold sooner than wear
British uniform. I'll talk to you by-and-by. Bring me the
gray cloak instantly.”
James could be heard running at top speed. Uncle Lau-
rence swung round. “Charlotte, fetch your mother and Nurse.
This is work for them.”
Charlotte ran faster than James at his best. “Mamma,
Mamma! Nurse, Nurse! The Reb is very ill, and Uncle
Laurence wants you to come quick.”
They came. Charlotte stole after them. The Reb was lying
under the gray cloak, ghastly pale one moment, burning red
the next. Mrs. Darrington gave a little soft cry of pity and
dismay as she laid her hand on his forehead, pushing back
the wet tangle of dark hair. She and Nurse consulted with
Uncle Laurence. He hurried to the door and gave curt orders
to James, who dashed down the passage and thumped on
the door leading to the kitchens. Unseen feet pattered to and
fro in the distance, cries of “blue room”—“fire”—“warming
pan”—were heard. ‘Cook appeared with a steaming cup.

Mamma held it to the Reb’s lips, but he could not drink.
“I can’t. Give it to Tim,” he whispered.
Oh, thought Charlotte, this is dreadful! The Reb is so ill
that he doesn’t know where he is, and he thinks his friend
Mr. Wingate is here!
The Reb must have had some confused notion of his
circumstances, for he raised himself and said distinctly, “I
can’t give my parole.”
“Tm not asking for your parole,” said Uncle Laurence
gruffly. “We can do without it for a few weeks, I fancy.”
The words seemed to puzzle the Reb. He pointed to the
scarlet cloak, now lying in a heap on the floor. “I won’t wear
that! I never will!”
“Nobody’s asking you to wear it,’ growled Uncle Lau-
rence. “I suppose you think I’m the author of the detestable
joke that was played on you by my father’s rascally servants.
I knew nothing about it.”
The Reb moved restlessly. Mamma signed to Uncle Lau-
rence to be quiet. She said, “Your Christian names are Ran-
dal Everard, are they not? Which name do you use at —
home?”
Making a great effort, the Reb said, “Randal.”
“Well, Randal, I lost my eldest little son long ago. If he
had lived, he would have been just your age. I want to care
for you as a son, in memory of my little lost Philip. Here is
Nurse, the best nurse in the world, who was my nurse and
Captain Templeton’s when we were children. She wants to
take care of you too. Forget about the past, and only remem-
ber that you are among friends.”
“Yes, ma’am,” the Reb said obediently.
He sighed and shut his eyes. Charlotte saw his eyelashes
making a dark line against the whiteness of his face. She
crept away.
Upstairs, maids were flitting to and fro. The blue curtains
were drawn across the windows of the blue room, shutting
out the icy night. Jenny was lighting the fire, and Dorcas
stood holding the huge copper warming pan between the
sheets.
Charlotte wished she could do something to show kind-
ness to the Reb.
“If I had known beforehand, I could have made him a
pincushion,” she said to herself. “Though I do not know
whether gentlemen and particularly soldiers have much use
for pins. 1 am sure Uncle Laurence made fuss enough over
the pin the laundress left in the collar of his shirt, which he
never noticed till it pricked him in church when he couldn’t
take it out. I have it! I can do something for the Reb after
all. I know what he would like better than anything.”
Charlotte hurried to the drawer in which she had put
Patty’s American flag, to save it from being crushed. She
went into the blue room and pinned the flag to the bed cur-
tains, taking care to put it where the Reb could see it easily.
“Whatever’s that, Miss Charlotte?” asked Jenny.
“Tt’s the American flag,” said Charlotte.
“Lawk, miss, you’d better take it down at once. Captain
Templeton won’t have no rebel flags a-flying in this house.

Hustle it away, missy dear, before he sets eyes on it. He’s in
a tantrum already, along of that red cloak and there being
no candle in Mr. Baltimore’s room and Cook not having
reported that Mr. Baltimore hadn’t eaten all day. Best not
vex him further, Miss Charlotte.”
“T won’t take it down,” said Charlotte, “and somehow I
don’t believe Uncle Laurence will.”
She went back to the playroom and told the others what
had been happening. While she was speaking, they heard
on the stairs sounds that told them Uncle Laurence and the
menservants were bringing the Reb to the blue room. The
four waited till all was quiet again, and then they came out
of the children’s wing and stood on the landing.
The door of the blue room stood open, and the Reb’s
dark head could be seen on the snowy pillows. Mamma and
Nurse were hovering like shadows in the warm firelight.
“Can you see Patty’s flag, Joseph?” whispered Charlotte.
“T can’t. Has Uncle Laurence torn it down?”
Joseph craned his neck.
“No, Uncle Laurence hasn’t. It’s there, safe enough.” -
The Reb slept that night under the protection of the Stars
and Stripes.
WO VSPA. ae, aan ane 5
xe
Ww
te Thank You
For soME days the Reb was as ill as anyone could be. “In-
flammation of the lungs,” was the name Nurse gave to his
illness. The children were bidden to tiptoe past the door of
the blue room, and to make as little noise as they could in
the house. There came a Sunday service when they were
awed to hear the announcement, “The prayers of the congre-
gation are desired for Randal Everard Baltimore, who is
seriously ill.” That afternoon the Vicar tramped up the drive
between the high-piled snowdrifts. Peeping over the ban-
isters, they saw him raise his hand as he stood on the thresh-
old.
“Peace be to this house, and to all that dwell in it,” he
said solemnly.
_ “Why does Mr. Cheriton say that?” George and Kitty
asked.
“It is because the Reb is so ill,” Joseph and Charlotte an-
swered. “He is going to hold a different kind of service in
the Reb’s room. It is called “The Visitation of the Sick.’”
61
Looking strangely grave, Uncle Laurence escorted the

Vicar up the stairs. Mamma and Nurse were with the Reb, |
who lay as if asleep. From their sitting room Grandmamma
and Grandpapa came hobbling.
Once the Reb had been moved into his new quarters, his
presence in the house could no longer be concealed. Rumor
said that Grandpapa had been much displeased with Uncle
Laurence for imprisoning the Reb in the penance cell. Had
his consent been asked, said Grandpapa, it would never have
been granted. He was horrified to learn that a son of his had
been so lacking in common humanity. Neither then nor
afterward did the children hear whether or not the rumor
was based on truth. But they could see for themselves the
distress in their grandparents’ faces.
The door had been left wide open to give the Reb air,
and the children stood outside, listening. The Reb did not
stir, nor could he answer the questions that the Vicar asked.
Only when the Blessing was pronounced, did his eyes open
wide for one startled second.
Throughout that Sunday night the trees in the garden
bent beneath a renewed burden of snow, falling, falling, fall-
ing. Nobody expected the Reb to live until the morning, but
when dawn came in white and gray and silver robes, the Reb
was still there. A day or two later, the doctor said, “He will
live.” Not long after that, the doctor talked to Mrs. Darring-
ton about what he called “the incurable resilience of youth.”
The four knew that the long word meant that the Reb would
get well because he had youth to help him. George was
THANK YOU 63
especially pleased to hear the news, because he was tired of
being in “such a hushified house.”
The next day, being sent by isicndatuadtng to the Reb’s
door with a message for their mother, George and Kitty
took a good look at the Reb, propped up on his pillows.
“Good morning, Reb,” said George, in a loud, cheerful
voice. “Kitty and I are glad you didn’t die.”
The Reb smiled, and made a gesture of salute. “Good
morning, Redcoats!” said he.
After that, it became the custom for all four to call out
“Good morning, Reb,” or “Good night, Reb,” as they passed
his door on the way to breakfast or bed. Always the Reb
answered promptly, “Good morning, Redcoats,” or “Good
night, Redcoats!” They liked the titleso well that they
adopted it. “We are the Reb’s Redcoats,” small Kitty would
boast, marching round the playroom with an old red sash
tied across her shoulder. “There, Patty, you rebel doll, what
do you think of that?”
Patty didn’t say. She went on smiling her little secret smile.
One afternoon Mamma came into the playroom.
“Joseph and Charlotte,” she said, “Randal would like to
see you. He wants to thank you both for the pie and the
peppermints, and he wants to thank you, Charlotte, for
your kind thought in putting the American flag on the
curtain. Some days ago he asked me who had pinned the
flag there, and IJ told him, but without explaining how you
came by it. Be careful, my dears, not to say anything about
the doll that Harry brought from Virginia. The story might
distress an invalid. Slip away as soon as you can, for Randal
is not strong enough to talk much.”
Joseph and Charlotte followed Mamma into the Reb’s
room.
“Thank you for the apple pie and the peppermints,” said
the Reb’s quiet, tired voice.
“Were they good? Did you enjoy them?” asked Char-
lotte, Joseph having refused to speak.
“They were very good indeed,” answered the Reb. “I ate
one peppermint and saved everything else for the escape.”
“Did you eatitwhen you were in the eel-pitcher’s hut?”
“Well, no. My friends were hungry when they escaped by
night. We had a feast while we were making for Smugglers’
Cove.”
Charlotte suspected that the lion’s share of the feast had
gone to the friends. It was much to be feared that the Reb
had contented himself with his solitary peppermint. But
she did not ask.
“Thank you for the iron hoop,” said the Reb. “Your
mother tells me that Captain Templeton didn’t find out. I .
took care not to leave it behind for him to see.”
This thoughtfulness made Joseph and Charlotte feel sure
that Mamma had been right when she told them, some days .
earlier, that she thought the Reb had been acting under the
commands of his superior officer when he began the friend-
ship that plunged poor Billy and Johnny into such trouble.
He was not as heartless as Uncle Laurence had made him out
to be.
‘THANK YOU 65
“And thank you for my flag.” The Reb was looking directly ©
at Charlotte. |
“T am glad you liked it.”
“It helped me,” said the Reb simply.
“Tt is a pretty flag,” said Charlotte.
“General Washington designed it,” said the Reb. “I’ve
heard that the design was suggested to him by his family
coat of arms. But some people say—it may or may not be
true—that Betsy Ross helped. Betsy Ross is a widow who
keeps an upholstering shop in Philadelphia where my Aunt
Lydia lives. She made General Washington change from six-
pointed stars to five-pointed stars because stars with five
points are easier to cut out of white bunting.”
“Are they?I didn’t know.”
“You just try. Do you know what the shapes and colors
mean?”
Charlotte shook her head.
“The thirteen stars in a circle represent the thirteen states.
Mine’s Virginia.”
“Is it?” said Charlotte and Joseph, with a start they
couldn’t help.
“What do you know about Virginia?” asked the Reb,
surprised. “Has your father gone there? But your mother
said—” |
“No, he is still in South Carolina,” Mrs. Darrington an-
swered, before Charlotte or Joseph could speak. “Our old
gardener was in Virginia for a short time before he returned
home wounded. Pray tell us more about your flag.”
“General Washington said, ‘We take the stars from heaven,

the red from our mother country, separating it by white
stripes, thus showing we have separated from her, and the
white stripes shall go down to posterity representing lib-
erty.)
“Why—why, you and England belong to each other still,
in spite of the war!” cried Charlotte.
“Of course we do. She’s our mother—but she doesn’t love
uss
“T’m sorry for that,” said Charlotte.
“Did you draw and paint the flag yourself? It’s very well
done.”
“T didn’t do it, Patty did it.”
“Who is Patty?” The Reb spoke the name gently, as if
he liked the sound of it.
“She’s two people. She’s a girl about as old as I am, and
she’s the girl’s doll, Patty’s Patty. The flag was fastened to
Patty’s Patty’s dress when Harry brought her home from
Virginia—Oh, oh! Mamma, I forgot, I didn’t see you waving
at me till too late! Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Yes, dear, you are a sad chatterbox. Randal will be worn
out by so much talking. Run away now,” said her mother.
“No, stop a minute if you please,” said the Reb, with a
very odd note in his voice. “Pray permit Miss Charlotte to —
finish what she was telling me, ma’am. It—it interests me.”
“Mamma,” said Charlotte, “if Mr. Baltimore is quite sure
it will not make him worse, I would like to tell him all
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THANK YOU 69
about Patty’s Patty. Because, you recollect, we are very —
anxious to find a way of sending the doll back to Patty. And
if Mr. Baltimore lives in Virginia, as the two Pattys do, then
perhaps he would be kind enough to carry her back to
America when the war is over, or when there is an exchange
of prisoners.”
Mamma was looking anxiously at the Reb, whose eyes
were bigger and darker than ever in his white face.
“Very well,” she said, “but first will you unpin the flag
and show Randal the writing on the back of it. Have you
ever seen that writing before, Randal?”
The Reb could not turn any whiter than he was. His hand
trembled as he took the flag. “I—I can’t tell. It is—it is a
good deal neater than it used to be. If I could see the doll,
I should know for sure.”
Charlotte flew to the playroom. She was back in time to
hear her mother saying reassuringly:
“The occupants of the house had escaped, Randal. They
were unharmed, we know they were—Harry said so—”
Charlotte pressed forward, putting Patty forward.
“Here she is! Have you seen her before? Do you know
the name of the little girl who has lost her?”
“Mary Martha Baltimore, one of my sisters,” said the Reb.
“T can’t be mistaken. My mother made the body, and I made
the wax head from a likeness of Patty that I had modeled
in clay. You said they were safe, ma’am? You did say they
were safer”
Mrs. Darrington again told the Reb that she had Harry’s
word for it that the dwellers in the house had not been
harmed. But her manner was uneasy, for she could not help
recollecting that Harry’s story had been told in a mysterious,
shuffling way, as if he were trying to hide the truth.
The Reb understood her, Setting his lips in an iron-hard
line, he asked one question: “Was the house gutted?”
“I do not know. Harry’s account was confused, and I—I
shrank from pressing for an explanation. Try not to think
the worst. It is too late for Harry to be brought here today;
but early tomorrow morning a cart shall be sent to fetch
him, and you shall question him yourself.”
“Thank you,” the Reb said, jerking the words out. “It’s
the fortunes of war, ma’am. Don’t mind me.”
He turned his face to the wall and lay still. Their mother
hurried Joseph and Charlotte out of the room and went to
her own room. The Redcoats saw that the tears were run-
ning down her cheeks.
“The Reb ought to know tonight,” said Joseph. “It is
cruel to keep him waiting till tomorrow.”
“But how can it be helped?” asked Charlotte. “Mamma
knows that it wouldn’t be of any use to send a servant, if
- one could be found who was willing to take such a long ride _
in the dark. Old Harry won’t tell a servant what he wouldn’t
tell us.”
“Somebody is needed who could be very firm with Harry,”
said Joseph. 7 )
“That’s Uncle Laurence. But, Joseph, Uncle Laurence
THANK YOU 7
wouldn’t go, you know he wouldn’t. He would say, ‘Let the
Reb wait till tomorrow.’ ”
“You might ask him—”
“No, not twice. He wouldn’t listen to me a second time. I
am afraid, Joseph, that you and I will have to ride home and
see Harry for ourselves. We will behave as much like Uncle
Laurence as we can. When he sees how determined we are,
Harry will speak out.” |
“T daren’t. Think what a fume Uncle Laurence will be
in, if we do. I’m not allowed to ride more than two miles
from home without leave, and you’re never allowed out at
all unless there’s a grownup with you. I don’t know what will
happen to us when we come back.”
“Neither do I. But it won’t be boarding school, whatever
else it may be. You remember, Uncle Laurence admitted
that he couldn’t send us. I don’t mind anything less than
that, do you?” |
“It depends,” said Joseph cautiously.
“Oh, Joseph, you know Mamma says the Reb never talks
much about himself, but he did tell her that in his home
there was a new baby brother, Oliver, whom he had never
seen. I daresay he is seeing pictures of his mother wandering
through the countryside with Baby Oliver in her arms, and
her house burned over her head. Do come with me.”
“Tll risk it. After all, Uncle Laurence may not find out.
He is going to spend the rest of the day with his friends,
the Darbishires.”
The stables were deserted, save for a stableboy. He and —
Joseph saddled the ponies and brought them to a side gate

where Charlotte stood waiting. |
The first part of the ride was pleasant, though chilly. They
trotted gaily down a long road bordered by pollard willows,
with marshy water meadows heavy with melted snow on
either side. But as the red sun sank low in the flaming sky,
their spirits sank too, and they began to wonder whether
they would reach Thorndale Hall that night, even with the
aid of the lanterns Joseph had smuggled into a bag, unseen
by the stableboy. To add to their troubles, they were as
hungry as they could be.
“Listen!” said Joseph. “Someone is riding behind us.”
“Do you think it is a highwayman?” —
“No, I'm afraid it is Uncle Laurence. What can have in-
duced him to take this road to the Darbishires? The Mere
Road is far the best way! Be quick, Charlotte, we’ll slip into
Primrose Dingle and hide till he has gone past.”
The Redcoats urged their ponies forward, but the plump
little beasts were no match for the powerful hunter in their
rear, Before the dingle was gained, there was a stentorian
shout that made Joseph and Charlotte pull up in dismay.
“What are you doing here?” demanded Uncle Laurence,
in tones to curdle the blood.
Explanations were hard to give; for the children’s teeth —
were chattering with cold and terror. When Uncle Laurence
had succeeded in piecing the story together, he was quite
as angry as they had expected.
THANK YOU 73
“How dare you steal off like this without your mother’s
leave, which you know very well she wouldn’t have given?
Back you go to the White Priory this moment! You deserve
—well, you'll soon discover what! Pll deal with you when
I come home.”
The Redcoats had no defense to make. They turned their
ponies and rode off, thankful to be out of their uncle’s
neighborhood. Once they looked over their shoulders. Uncle
Laurence had not moved. He was sitting there, dimly out-
lined in the gloom, watching to insure that his orders were
obeyed.
When she heard the story, their mother was so sorry for
the Redcoats’ disappointment that she forgot to scold them
for their disobedient venture. As for staying up to be dealt
with by Uncle Laurence on his return from supper with the
Darbishires, she would not hear of it. They guessed she was
hoping that, after a merry evening with his friends and a
sound night’s rest, Uncle Laurence would wake in an amiable
mood, prepared to overlook anything that had vexed him a
~ few hours before.
Nevertheless, a secret uneasiness made Joseph and Char-
lotte sleep badly. They tossed and turned and woke from
dreams about the Reb’s burning house, fired by Uncle Lau-
rence and Olid Harry, who carried long torches that curled
and streamed like whips in the wind. From one of these
nightmares they woke to hear a commotion going on. Leay-
ing Kitty and George peacefully slumbering, the other two
stole out of their rooms and put their heads round the baize
door.
Grandpapa, Grandmamma and Mamma stood on the
landing, swathed in wraps and shawls. Uncle Laurence was
in the hall below. He was saying in his crossest voice:
“No, I haven’t just come back from the Darbishires. They
don’t give supper parties that last until one in the morning!
Then where have I been? Well, where do you suppose? To
Thorndale Hall, of course, to get the truth out of Harry.
You and your wretched brats have made a prodigious fuss
over nothing, Fanny. It’s all right.”
Mamma said something that Joseph and Charlotte could
not catch. Uncle Laurence spoke again,as crossly as ever.
“I wish you didn’t spoil your children so outrageously,
Fanny. They’re crazy about the Reb. What! Me go in to
speak to Baltimore tonight? Nonsense! Tell him early to-
morrow, can’t you? He must have been asleep for hours.”
“When I last saw him, he looked as if he would never
sleep again,” said Mamma.
“Oh, very well then!” said Uncle Laurence impatiently.
He dashed up the stairs and knocked in a very ill-tempered
way at the Reb’s door.
“Are you awake, Mr. Baltimore?” |
It appeared that the Reb was awake. Joseph and Charlotte
could not see into the blue room, but they could picture
him lying there, staring into the darkness.
“I have questioned Harry Smith, the man who brought
away the doll from your father’s house. He has stated posi-
THANK YOU 35
tively that no harm whatever was done to any person in it
or on your father’s estate. All had fled, but were safely at
home again within a few hours. The house was not burned,
nor was it damaged. It was not looted—nothing was taken
save one or two inconsiderable trifles like the doll.”
Never before had Patty the rebel been described as an
inconsiderable trifle! Charlotte hoped she wasn’t listening.
Woe betide Uncle Laurence if she was!
Uncle Laurence seemed to be answering a question that
the Reb had not asked.
“No, you needn’t think you are being told lies to pacify
you, It’s the truth. If you want grounds for thinking so, here
they are. Smith and a small body of picked men had been
sent by General Cornwallis, then operating, as you already
know, in South Carolina, on a secret errand to sympathizers
in Virginia, to which he hoped later to make his way. Pass-
ing an isolated country mansion, occupied only by women,
children and servants, they could not resist an opportunity
of obtaining entirely unauthorized plunder. But they had
barely begun their nefarious work when they were driven
off by militia men the fugitives had summoned to their aid.
When telling the story at home, Harry put the best face on
it. He said, I believe, that your family had to skip. They
didn’t skip far. He skipped farther and faster!”
The Reb said not a word. Uncle Laurence was annoyed.
“Did you hear me, Mr. Baltimore?” he asked pointedly.
As if speaking between his teeth, the Reb said, “Yes—
sir,” and nothing else.
Uncle Laurence went out, slamming the door behind him.
“There’s gratitude!” he said. “The fellow couldn’t even -
say thank you after I had missed my evening with the Dar-
bishires and had taken a thirty-mile ride in the dark for his
sake! But I got a sir out of him for the first time. I suppose
I ought to be content with that.”
“My dear Laurence,” said Grandmamma mildly, “pray be
reasonable. The good news was unexpected, remember. I
daresay the young man was a little overcome.”
“Overcome! Him!” said Uncle Laurence contemptuously.
He spun round on his heel, intending to go in search of
some supper. But he caught his foot on a small object that
was lying on the polished oak boards, slipped, slithered, and
only by a succession of wild grabs and clawings at the ban-
isters managed to save himself from ignominiously measur-
ing his length on the floor.
“I wish you would keep your children in better order,
Fanny!” Uncle Laurence exclaimed irately. “Can’t you teach
them not to leave their playthings everywhere for people to
trip over?”
Wrathfully Uncle Laurence held up a small box contain-
ing a doll’s bead necklace and a doll’s hat with a jaunty jay’s
feather stuck in the side. |
“Oh, Laurence dear, the children are not to blame! It was
my fault,” their mother said contritely. “I tried to cheer Mr.
Baltimore up by showing him all the little clothes Charlotte
and I have been making for his sister’s doll. I must have
dropped the box on my way back to the playroom.”
THANK YOU m7
“Umph!” said Uncle Laurence. “Might have known that

if one rebel wasn’t somehow responsible, the other would be.
I'll pitch that doll into the sea the next time she tries her
tricks, I vow I will!”
wwe lie are ee 6
we
we
& Grandpapa and the Reb
AFTER ALL, the Reb was not ungrateful. Early in the morn-
ing he asked Nurse for paper and pen, and when the Red-
coats stopped at his door, he asked them to give a letter to
Captain Templeton.
Joseph and Charlotte were unwilling to draw Uncle Lau-
rence’s attention to themselves; but George and Kitty gladly
undertook to be the messengers.
Uncle Laurence propped the letter against the toast
rack and read it aloud to his sister and his parents, who were
now well enough to take their meals with the family instead
of in the upstairs sitting room. |
“What do you think of that?” said he.
“The youth expresses himself correctly, though formally,”
said Grandpapa. “He writes an excellent pa I wish you |
wrote half as well, my son.”
Uncle Laurence grunted. He had not expected this, and it
did not make him feel any more kindly disposed to the Reb,
But to Joseph’s and Charlotte’s relief, he had apparently for-
a
GRANDPAPA AND THE REB 79
gotten his promise to deal with them, for he said no more

about the ride to Thorndale Hall. |
As yet, the Reb did not know about the risks they had run
for his sake. During the day, he heard the story from Nurse,
and at night he thanked the two riders in his own words,
without any formality. To turn the conversation, which was
making them feel shy, they told him about a plan they had
made. |
“Get better as quickly as you can, Reb, for as soon as you
are able to come to it, we are going to hold a mischianza for
you.”
“What in the world is that?” asked the Reb.
“Tt’s an Italian word, meaning medley or féte,” explained
Charlotte. “You can spell it meschianza or muschianza,
whichever you like. On special occasions, Mamma gives us
leave to have a mischianza. We dress up, and we sing songs
and recite pieces of poetry, and we havea feast of lemonade
and raspberry vinegar and cakes. We first heard about a
mischianza a long time ago, when Uncle Laurence wrote a
letter to Mamma. He was stationed with General Howe’s
army in a place with a very long name where Mrs. Betsy
Ross lived, who helped to make your flag—” |
“Philadelphia. Yes, that was before I was old enough to
fight. My father was with General Washington’s men. They
were in huts around the city, ragged, shoeless, starving. Did
the British have a mischianza then?”
“Yes,” said Joseph, “a magnificent mischianza. There was
a regatta on the river followed by a tournament in a field |
between six knights of the Blended Rose and six knights of

the Burning Mountain, all dressed up in silk, with ribbons,
devices, mottoes, lances, shields and pistols. Then they danced
in a grand house, ate an elegant supper, and finished the day
with fireworks.”
“But our mischianza won't be as grand as that,” Charlotte
hastened to warn the Reb. “It will last for about an hour in
Grandpapa’s largest attic, where there is plenty of room for
capering about. Still, we will do our best to make it amusing
for you.”
“Thank you very much beforehand,” said the Reb, “but I
doubt whether I'll be able to accept your kind invitation. I
guess I'll be down cellar again as soon as I’m fairly on my
feet.
“You needn’t trouble about that at present,” said Joseph.
“What matters is, when Mr. Wingate is fairly on his! Until
then, nobody’s going to worry over you. I thought you
knew.”
“T reckon I need a mite of reassurance now and then,”
said the Reb, “especially after your Uncle Laurence has come
to call on your humble servant. I can hear the keys clank,
sure enough, when he’s around.”
The Redcoats laughed, and the Reb laughed with them.
“Tll be well soon, with that splendid prospect of the
mischianza in view!” said he.
Though the Reb did his best to keep his promise, a good
many days passed before Dr. Feltwell would allow him to get
up, and a good many more days before he was considered

fit to leave his room. |
The Redcoats would have liked to keep him company,
but Nurse firmly refused to allow them to “worrit” the in-
valid. Miss Charlotte had done harm enough already by
giving poor Mr. Baltimore to understand that his family
was homeless if not murdered outright. As long as she was
in charge in the sickroom, there wasn’t going to be more of
that kind of nonsense. They might come to the door with
flowers, or with supplies of nuts for the pesky little red squir-
rels Mr. Baltimore was so fond of feeding on the window sill,
but they shouldn’t put their heads in farther! And their
mother supported Nurse, telling the Redcoats that, although
Randal was so young, he was a soldier and an officer, whose
place was among the grown-up people. His room was his
castle, and his privacy must be respected.
At last the Redcoats held an indignation meeting in the
playroom. While the Reb was dangerously ill, he had been
watched and tended constantly by Mamma and Nurse, but
as soon as he was convalescent, he was left alone by the
grownups to whom he belonged. Nurse busied herself with
her neglected sewing and mending, only stopping now and
then to chase intruders away from the blue room. Mamma
returned to the care of Grandmamma, who had missed her
daughter’s kind offices while the Reb was at his worst. Ob-
viously, it was useless to expect Uncle Laurence to play any
part in the cheering up of the Reb. As part of his military
duty he had been present on the night that the Reb was
thought to be dying, and later he had most reluctantly gone -
in to tell the Reb the results of the visit to Thorndale Hall.
He now considered himself released from the task of paying
official visits to the prisoner, at least until such times as the
question of parole cropped up again.
“That only leaves Grandmamma and Grandpapa,” said
Charlotte. “Grandmamma is doing as much as an old lady
can. She is knitting him some vests ‘to protect his delicate
chest against our severe climate,’ she says. It wouldn’t hurt
Grandpapa to go in sometimes to chat with the poor Reb.
But he never does.”
“What could Grandpapa and the Reb find to talk about?”
wondered George. “Grandpapa doesn’t talk to me much, un-
less it is a question about the multiplication table: “What
are nine times eight, my little man?’ He couldn’t ask the
Reb questions of that sort. The Reb’s too old.”
“T should hope that a general would be able to say some-
thing that could interest the Reb,” said Charlotte. “Even
if it didn’t, the Reb would be pleased that Grandpapa had
taken the trouble to come and see him.”
“Who is going to ask Grandpapa?” said Joseph.
“Patty and I have done the asking so far,” said Charlotte.
“Tt’s somebody else’s turn.”
She was fairly sure that she and Patty would have to step
into the breach once more. Their opportunity came almost
as she spoke. Grandpapa entered the playroom, a letter in
his hand.
“Fanny, my dear, the postboy has just brought a letter from

Edward. Where is your mother, children?”
“Mamma has gone to call on Mrs. Lindo,” answered Jo-
seph.
Grandpapa nodded. He was turning away when Charlotte
summoned up courage to speak.
“Please, Grandpapa, could you not talk to the Reb a little
while? He must be so lonely, all by himself.”
“The term ‘Reb’ is very familiar, my child,” said Grand-
papa, ““Mr. Baltimore’ would be an improvement. What
makes you think Mr. Baltimore would welcome a visit from
an old fogy like me?”
“T think he will be lonelier than ever this afternoon, Grand-
papa, after hearing, as he must have, the postboy’s horn. He
will be disappointed that once again there is no letter for
him. Mamma and Nurse say he is always looking for a
letter. They are sure he is, though he never says so. And it is
a letter that he is very, very anxious to see.”
“Dear, dear,” said Grandpapa, “doesn’t the boy realize
that his chances of receiving a letter are exceedingly slender?
And even if a letter did arrive, it would be your Uncle Lau-
rence’s painful duty to forward it immediately to the de-
ciphering office to be inspected for traces of secret informa-
tion? Perhaps, then, it would be advisable to look in for a few
minutes. He must not be left to mope.”
Grandpapa’s entry into the Reb’s room was watched by
the four Redcoats.
A bright fire was burning, and on table and tallboy were
the sprays of yellow jessamine, the blue winter irises and

the pink clusters of breath-of-spring their mother had ar-
ranged so charmingly. From his window the Reb could look
from well-wooded parklands to the North Sea, tossing gray
and creamy under a gray sky. He had a book, but he was not
reading. At sight of Grandpapa, he started up, eyes on the
letter in Grandpapa’s hand.
“No, no, Mr. Baltimore, I am sorry to disappoint you,”
said Grandpapa, hastily putting the letter into his pocket.
“This missive is from my son-in-law to his wife. I am afraid a
letter for you could only come through less orthodox chan-
nels. And—you have heard the instructions about decipher-
ing?”
“Captain Templeton mentioned them to me when | first
came to the White Priory,” said the Reb. His voice was ex-
pressionless, but the light had gone out of his eyes.
“Ah yes, just so!” said Grandpapa, a little uncomfortably.
“You are supplied with books, I see. Have you something
there to your taste?”
“An abundance of poetry and romances in the bookcase,”
said the Reb. “I hope you don’t object, sir, to my acceptance
of Mrs. Darrington’s kind offer to borrow more sober books
for me from the library. My father has always desired me to
resume my studies as often as occasion permits. This is an
account of the late campaigns against the French in Canada.
It is sprightly enough, but to my mind the author hardly
does justice to his subject.”
“What? What?” said Grandpapa, taking up the book.

“Bless me, Mr. Baltimore, you are right. What induced my
daughter Fanny to make choice of this monument of in-
competence? I thought I had ejected it from my library the
day after I bought it. Well, well, you must excuse the mis-
take. Ladies are seldom good judges of military matters. But
such rubbish shall no longer be permitted to disgrace my
shelves!”
The unlucky book met a worse fate than the mouldering
encyclopedias provided for the Reb by Aunt Sophy. It was
flung forthwith into the wastepaper basket.
“Mrs. Darrington told me that you fought throughout the
Seven Years War and were present at the taking of Quebec,”
said the Reb. “Shall you ever write your memoirs, sir? They
should be worth hearing.”
“IT never kept a journal,” said Grandpapa, “more’s the
pity. That, young man, is what you should do. I have given
the same recommendation to my son Laurence, but I cannot
persuade him to bestir himself. "Tis too late for me! How-
ever, my memory is good and I have half an hour to spare.
Would you like to hear some of my adventures?”
“I should be most happy, sir.”
Grandpapa closed the door and sat down.
Coming home soon after, Mamma had to wait an hour
for her precious letter. When at last Grandpapa emerged
from the blue room, he showed himself greatly pleased with
the Reb, who had listened to his stories with much closer
86 THE*‘REB AND THE REDCOATS
attention than Uncle Laurence had ever given. In the future,

Grandpapa told her, he would himself select books for the
Reb, as he thought he was better qualified than she to direct
a young man’s reading.
Grandpapa had made the further agreeable discovery that
the Reb delighted in a game of chess, having played con-
stantly with his father since his seventh birthday, on which
date he had begun to learn the rules as a special birthday
treat. This was a rare find for Grandpapa, who was a keen
chess player with no sympathizers in his own family.
The friendship between Grandpapa and the Reb grew and
flourished, Uncle Laurence was half amused and half nettled
by it. |
“I suppose you realize, sir, that you are giving a good-for-
nothing rebel quite an extensive military training,” he said
one day when he found Grandpapa hunting out standard
works on strategy and tactics in the library. “He’s clever
enough to be dangerous two or three years hence. Much
better leave him to sketch landscapes and make portraits with
those crayons and colored inks that Fanny has given him.
They'll do this country no harm!” |
Grandpapa acknowledged the force of Uncle Laurence’s
objections. But he said he could not forgo the pleasure of
instructing in the right principles of warfare—and, he
trusted, of loyalty to the British Crown also—anyone so
intelligent and teachable as the Reb, whose filial devotion
he had never seen equaled. Though the boy said little about
his father, who had been his superior officer in the Hud-
son Valley and elsewhere, it was plain that he held him

in the greatest respect and affection and was ever eager
to please Major Baltimore by paying attention to his
studies.
At the mention of the Hudson Valley, Uncle Laurence’s
brow grew black, and he turned away with an impatient
shrug. Afterward, he revenged himself on Grandpapa by
telling his sister that he foresaw the Reb’s future career would
be jeopardized—and serve him right, too—if he allowed his
so-called intelligence to be stuffed with military notions that
were at least twenty years behind the times.
The Reb was recovering, slowly at first, then fast. Now he
was sitting by the fire for a few hours, in a dressing gown
lent by Grandpapa. Then he was up all day. Dressed in the
once-torn and tattered uniform that Mamma and Nurse had
with some difficulty mended for him, he was working harder
than ever to prepare himself both for war service and for
the civilian life that would come when the war was over and
the army disbanded. Finally, he regularly made his way in
the afternoons to Grandpapa’s and Grandmamma’s upstairs
sitting room for the daily game of chess and discussion of
the latest news from America.
Then Mamma told the Redcoats that they might hold
their féte that very afternoon, for it had been decided that
from tomorrow onward the Reb should take his meals
downstairs with the family. Uncle Laurence, who was
present, added that there was no need to give the servants
any more trouble carrying trays all day long.
88 THE.REB AND THE REDCOATS
Mamma glanced reprovingly at Uncle Laurence, and went
on to say that for the present—until Mr. Wingate was better
—the Reb would have the free run of the house. :
“Barring the gun room,” said Uncle Laurence. “If my
father chooses to have him hanging about the library and the
parlor, that’s his concern. The gun room’s closed to the Reb,
and don’t let me catch you children bringing him there
when I’m out!”
“Laurence,” said Mamma appealingly, “you didn’t tell
him soP”
“No, not in words, I gave him credit for that much com-
mon sense! But I did tell him that he would be marched off
to Eastwich jail the first time I caught him outside the
boundary of the White Priory grounds. You needn’t make
great eyes at me, Fanny. It’s our father who’s to blame for
refusing to allow me the use of the penance cell! And I
warned him that every member of the household was going
to have orders to report him if he disobeyed. You hear that,
all of you Redcoats down to Kitty? If you catch the Reb on
the wrong side of the garden or park fence, you're to come
and tell me instantly! It will be the worse for you if you
don’t!”
“What did the Reb say when you told him that?” asked
George, after a dismayed pause.
“Nothing. Regarded me with an air of dignified disdain,”
said Uncle Laurence. “After all, he can afford to ignore what
I say to him, when he knows he has got the rest of my family
under his thumb! And he also knows that the restrictions
are reasonable enough, considering the prodigious amount |

of trouble he has given since he landed in England.”
The Redcoats silently made up their minds that no terror
should make them report the Reb. Uncle Laurence guessed
their thoughts.
“Remember Billy and Johnny!” he said, and laughed dis-
agreeably.
Little Kitty did not fully understand what was happening.
She only gathered that Uncle Laurence was cross with the
Reb for being well enough to run away and escape to Hol-
land or France, and she wanted to smooth matters down.
“Uncle Laurence,” she said, “are you coming to our
mischianza this afternoon?”
“Your what?” said Uncle Laurence, frowning at the word.
Mamma began to look troubled. Too late the Redcoats
recollected that she had once or twice suggested that they
should call their féte by its English name of concert or med-
ley instead of mzschianza. She had not given any reason why
they should make the change, and it so happened that none
of them had talked to Uncle Laurence about their prepara-
tions.
Kitty explained that there was to be a grand entertain-
ment in the attic to celebrate the Reb’s recovery. Grand-
mamma, Grandpapa and Nurse were all coming. Wouldn’t
Uncle Laurence come too?
“Certainly not!” said Uncle Laurence, with clouded
- brow.
He turned and walked out of the room. The Redcoats did
not like to admit to themselves that he banged the door, but

they knew that if any one of them had shut it in such a.
fashion, he or she would have been called back and bidden
to shut it again quietly.
“I ought to have explained more clearly why that word
was not to be used before Uncle Laurence,” said Mamma.
“His friend Major André was leader of the revels at the
mischianza in Philadelphia. He was a knight of the Blended
Rose.”
“Shall we have to give up having the féte?” the Redcoats
asked anxiously.
“Oh, no!” Mamma assured them. “Your grandparents are
willing that you should do what you can to make Mr. Balti-
more feel at home among us.”
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oe The Mischianza
In THE afternoon the mischianza took place in grand style.

Out of deference to the Reb’s feelings, no flags adorned
the walls of the biggest attic, but sprays of almond blossom,
winter sweet and variegated laurel were used for decorations
instead. The audience sat on shaky chairs or on rolls of old
carpet. Grandpapa had the only armchair, which had three
fairly sound legs and a fourth that had to be supported on a
book. Clad in ancient straw hats and antiquated garments
from a dressing-up box and adorned with feathers, fans and
furbelows from the same useful receptacle, the four per-
formers sang, recited and played on whistle pipes and toy
dulcimers. !
Mamma contrived to look as if she had not heard “John
Gilpin,” “Edwin and Angelina,” “The Hermit,” “My Name
is Norval,” and “To Fair Fidele’s Grassy Tomb” many times
before. Nurse, Grandpapa and the Reb also listened well,
though they sometimes applauded in the wrong places, and
gI
the Reb was once or twice suspected of doing his best not to
laugh at what was intended to be very sad.
Grandmamma, on the contrary, did not behave as she
should. Owing to her rheumatism, it was long since she had
last inspected the attic, and her housewifely mind was now
distracted by the sight of cobwebs in corners and a damp
patch on the ceiling. She also doubted the security of a high
wobbly erection supposed to represent the haughty rock
above cold Conway’s foaming flood on which, attended by
the ghosts of three slain fellow seers dressed in sheets re-
moved from their beds when Nurse was not by, the last
Bard of Wales stood to call down vengeance on the cruel
invader, Edward the First, before throwing himself in wild
despair into the river. The rock was built of piled-up empty
boxes covered with old green and brown curtains, and
Grandmamma did not believe that the Bard and his three
ghosts could stand on it safely. She spoiled the effect of the
opening lines of the Bard by a loud cry of “I am sure it will
give way!” just as Joseph in the title rdle was declaiming:
“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!

Confusion on thy banners wait!”
and throughout the whole length of the poem she was giving .
startled squeaks and clucks mingled with appeals to the
ghosts to mind and not trip over their robes. Her fears
reached their height as the moment approached for the
Bard’s leap into the Conway, a square of old blue drugget,
stretched across the boards over purloined pillows.
THE MISCHIANZA 93
“To triumph and to die are mine!” proclaimed the Bard,
screwing himself up for the fatal spring. It looked a long
way down to the hard floor. There were not as many pillows
under the drugget as he could have wished.
“Joseph, be careful!” shrieked Grandmamma.
Joseph gritted his teeth. With the Reb looking on, he
wasn’t going to flinch. He quavered out the final couplet:
“He spoke, and headlong from the mountain height
Deep in the roaring tide he plunged to endless night”
and sprang. But the outermost part of the haughty rock sprang
with him, oversetting the nearest ghost in its fall. The ghost
staggered, clutched his neighbor, caught a foot in a curtain
ring. A cascade of boxes and beings followed the Bard.
Within a second the Conway was a heaving mass of hampers,
trunks, curtains and ghosts screaming and kicking in their
sheets.
Mamma and the Reb rushed to the rescue. Grandmamma
sat still, calling, “Help, help!” Jumping too hurriedly to his
feet, Grandpapa tipped the fourth leg of his chair off its
book. It and he rolled over together.
There was a sound of somebody charging up the attic
stairs. Uncle Laurence burst into the room. “What is it?
What’s wrong? Is the place on fire?”
No one answered. He helped his father up and replaced
him in his chair. Then, while Mamma and Grandmamma
soothed the victims and searched them for broken bones, he
began, with the Reb’s assistance, to stack the boxes in the
dark corner from which they had been taken. One of the
undermost boxes was not empty like the rest. It was a bat- -
tered trunk, which had fallen on its side and burst open,
spilling some of the contents.
“Laurence!” cried Grandmamma, with an accusing finger
pointed at the box. “There is the trunk of clothes that was
missing after you came back from a visit to your Uncle Peter
five years ago. You insisted that it must have been stolen out
of the post chaise during the journey home. How did it get
up here?”
“!’m sure I don’t know, Mamma,” answered Uncle Lau-
rence, who did not like being called to account in the presence
of the Reb. “I don’t suppose I stayed to watch my luggage
being taken out of the chaise. No doubt, I left all that to the
servants. Some stupid fellow must have dragged it up here
and dumped it, mistaking what he was told to do, and after-
ward hadn’t the wits to comprehend that this was the lost
trunk everybody was making such a pother about! That’s the
only solution of the puzzle I can offer.”
It was not a solution that Grandmamma felt disposed to
accept. As nobody else could suggest any other way, reason-
able or unreasonable, in which the trunk could have mounted
to the attic, she was obliged, after some grumbling, to admit
that there was sense in what Uncle Laurence had said. She
then began pulling the clothes out of the trunk, moaning
over each, and bitterly rebuking Uncle Laurence for the
waste of money caused by his carelessness.
For the suits and linen worn five years ago by ae
THE MISCHIANZA 95
Laurence were not nearly broad enough or long enough for
him now. Groan as she might, Grandmamma had to ac-
knowledge that her suggestions for “letting down” and
“piecing out” were totally useless. Under her reproaches,
Uncle Laurence was not long in losing his own quick temper.
“What’s the good of raising a storm about what was over
and done with ages past?” said he. “Here, Fanny, take the
lot and do as you please with it. Use it for your sons or your
charities. I only ask that I be allowed to hear the last of it!
And you needn’t blame me, Mamma, for what is, after all,
mostly your own fault. I maintain that there’s something
wrong with the management of a house where the empty
boxes aren’t scrubbed or rubbed or tubbed or whatever has
to be done to dusty boxes oftener than once in five years!”
Restored to good humor by this turning of the tables on his
mother, Uncle Laurence withdrew, whistling the air of a
popular military march, “The World Turned Upside Down.”
The Redcoats composed themselves to attack the next part
of the program, a much-needed and cheering feast. This was
followed by a presentation of gifts to the Reb.
From Grandmamma the Reb received with outward grati-
tude but perhaps some inward perturbation the vests of
thick Scotch wool that she had knitted for him. The Red-
coats, whose mamma had been obliged to bribe them into
wearing similar gifts, had already told him that Uncle Lau-
rence vowed that his mother’s knitting yarn came from
sheep that grew bristles instead of wool. |
Grandpapa gave the Reb the beautiful traveling chess set
that had been his own constant companion in his army life.
“My traveling days are over, lad, but yours are only begin- .
ning,” said Grandpapa.
Nurse gave the Reb a set of handkerchiefs that she had
hemmed and marked.
George and Kitty had spent all their money. In this emer-
gency, they applied to Grandpapa, who kindly gave them
leave to rummage in the cupboard where he kept mementoes
of his campaigns of long ago. Being watchless, the Reb was
delighted to receive a ponderous old timepiece which was,
Grandpapa assured him, as trustworthy as a watch could be.
A soldier’s water flask in its case was also a welcome gift.
Grandpapa, however, was taken aback when George and
Kitty proudly handed over a compass, which they had for-
gotten to show to their grandfather before bestowing it on
its obviously delighted recipient. General Templeton
hemmed and hawed and was so much embarrassed that the
Reb sadly tendered the compass back again.
“You would rather I didn’t keep this, sir?” he said, look-
ing wistfully down on his treasure. , 7
Tenderhearted Grandpapa could not bear to disappoint
the Reb. “No, no, keep it, my boy. But—but it might be as
well, er, that is, er, if I were you, I wouldn’t mention this gift
to my son.”
“Not likely to, sir,” said the Reb, slipping the compass
into his pocket with a mischievous grin.
In addition to the drawing materials, Mamma had er
the Reb a Bible and comforts of all sorts during his illness.
THE MISCHIANZA 97
She did not now give a separate gift, but helped Joseph and
Charlotte with theirs, which cost more than they could
afford. It was a writing case that held, in addition to the
usual contents, a fine stout manuscript book interleaved with
drawing paper, in which the Reb could keep a journal as
recommended by Grandpapa, illustrating it by his own
sketches. A case with lock and key had been specially chosen
by the donors, for the Reb had shown a remarkable aptitude
for dashing off likenesses, not all of which were compli-
mentary. Mamma was continually on thorns lest an unflatter-
ing portrait of himself should somehow find its way into
Uncle Laurence’s hands.
Redcoats and Reb enjoyed themselves to the full. In spite
of the accident that befell the Bard and his ghosts, the Red-
coats pronounced it to be the best mischianza they had ever
had, and the Reb assured them that however many others
he might attend in the future, he guessed none of them would
ever beat his first. With pride the Redcoats saw that the guest
of honor looked so young and happy that Grandmamma and
Grandpapa more than once exchanged congratulatory
glances with Mamma, as much as to say that they would
hardly have known their prisoner again.
When Grandpapa had gone down to his sitting room, the
Reb helped his hosts tidy up the attic. Grandmamma soon
summoned him to her side and asked him to move Uncle
Laurence’s long-lost trunk into a more convenient place.
She wanted, said Grandmamma, to search for Uncle Lau-
rence’s keys, the whole set of which had unaccountably van-
98 THE REB AND THE REDCOATS ©
ished at about the same time as the trunk. It was more than
possible that the key ring might be found among his pos-
sessions. |
“But what is the good of looking for the keys now?”
asked Joseph. “Uncle Laurence has keys for everything, from
the boathouse to his cashbox. I’ve seen them. He must have
had another set made.”
“Yes, indeed he did! Such expense—such wastefulness!”
said Grandmamma.
She did not answer Joseph’s question. In the minds of the
Redcoats it answered itself. They knew Grandmamma
wanted an excuse for giving Uncle Laurence another lecture
on carelessness, in revenge for the remark he had made about
the dusty boxes. The lecture could be delivered with much
greater effect if she went in pursuit of her son with the miss-
ing key ring in her hand.
However, Grandmamma was obliged to do without the
keys, which the most diligent search failed to reveal, though
the Reb turned everything inside out and carefully explored
the lining of the trunk in his anxiety to be of use in the mat- _
ter. When she had gone hurrying off in search of Uncle
Laurence, Mamma and the Reb began folding the clothes
and putting them back. :
Mamma said in a low voice to the Reb, “You heard what
my brother said, Randal? I think these clothes will fit you
with little or no alteration.”
Mamma and the Redcoats knew that the Reb had lost
nearly everything he possessed when he was captured at sea.
THE MISCHIANZA 99
During his illness, she had drawn on Grandpapa’s wardrobe
for his needs. She spoke as if it were the most natural thing
in the world that he should make use of these other clothes.
But the Reb’s mouth took its most determined lines, and
he shook his head.
“Randal,” said Mamma persuasively, “you are one of my
sons, aren’t you, for the time being? I’ve borrowed you from
your own mother for a little while. If she were here, she
would say just what I am saying. You will do as we ask,
won’t you?”
The Reb only answered, “I’m sorry, I can’t.”
“It’s a pity,” said Mamma, “for I had thought of sug-
gesting that you should go shares with your friend Mr. Win-
gate. But if you refuse to take your half, then he must do
without his.”
“Let him have the lot,” said the Reb. “He won’t have
any difficulty in accepting. It’s different for him. Tim hasn’t
been Captain Templeton’s prisoner—”
“No,” said Mamma. “I know it is harder, much harder
for you, Randal. Look at it this way. You are barely recov-
ered from a very serious illness, and you have yet to face the
rigors of an English April and May. They can be delightful
months, but on the other hand they are often all that is de-
testable, cold, rainy, treacherous. You need more to protect
you than the vests my mother made—”
“Neer change a clout

Till May be out!”
chanted George. “That is the rule in England, Reb.”
“Mr. Wingate is in a similar position,” said Mamma. “If.
he should make a quicker recovery than Dr. Feltwell ex-
pects, how is he going to manage for warm clothing? You
may be prepared to risk your own health, but are you pre- |
pared to risk his?”
The Reb’s hand was resting on the back of a chair. Char-
lotte noticed that he was clenching the wood so hard that
his knuckles showed white.
“I—I can’t,” he said again. “You ought not to ask that
of me. But—but it isn’t fair that Tim should suffer for my
fault. Pray let him have the clothes.” _
Using the Reb’s own words, Mamma said, “I’m sorry,
Randal. I can’t, either.”
They stood facing each other like two duelists. Grand-
mamma had come back to the attic, after failing to catch
Uncle Laurence, who had gone out. She was glad to have
somebody else to scold.
“Tut, tut, tut! This is a very sad display of pride!” she
said. |
“No, it isn’t going to be,” said Mamma suddenly. “Randal
loves his friend better than he loves himself. Don’t you,
Randal?”
The Reb muttered hoarsely, “Yes.”
“Oh, Reb, how lucky for me!” cried Charlotte. “Because
now Patty will be able to have some new outdoor clothes
out of any alterations that may have to be made. There’s
nothing suitable in Grandmamma’s piece bag. And the
THE MISCHIANZA 101
other dolls, particularly Rosalba, are so disagreeable about

lending. You wouldn’t believe!”
“Mustn’t disappoint Patty’s Patty, of course. That would
never do!” said the Reb, with the wry beginnings of a smile
about his lips. |
Mrs. Darrington was too wise to allow the Reb time to
brood over his defeat. She made haste to suggest that Mr.
Wingate’s share of the spoil should be chosen and packed at
once. She threw an imploring glance at Grandmamma, who
was preparing a further disquisition on the subject of pride.
Grandmamma coughed and turned the disquisition into an
offer to provide twine and a canvas wrapper.
The Redcoats, deeply interested, sat on the floor to watch
their mother and the Reb at work over the division.
If the Reb had had his way, Tim Wingate would have
received more than the lion’s share of what was in the box.
But Mamma insisted on making the division as nearly equal
as possible. In the end, all that was in dispute was a fencing
outfit, for which the unfortunate Tim could have no use for
a considerable time to come. Though it was of no particular
use to the Reb either, he preferred adding it to his pile of
goods to leaving it to find a home in Grandmamma’s piece
bag.
“Can you fence, Reb?” George asked. “Uncle Laurence
is teaching Joe.”
“I used to fence with my father. It’s one of my favorite
sports,” the Reb answered. Patty’s defiant smile puckered
the corners of his mouth as he added, “There’s plenty of
fencing to be had in France. This will be invaluable when I
get there! And this’— holding up a blue coat—“will be in- ©
valuable now!” |
The Redcoats were surprised to find what an interest the
Reb took in that blue coat and in a black hat, a white waist-
coat, a black stock and a pair of white breeches, whereas he
dismissed a wine-colored suit, which they all thought much
prettier, with a casual glance and an assurance that it would
fit perfectly as it was. But the blue coat and its companions
required a number of small changes, which Mamma, Grand-
mamma and Nurse good-naturedly undertook to make that
very evening.
Then the parcel for Tim Wingate was packed ready for
dispatch by the carrier’s cart on the next day, and the Reb’s
new possessions were bestowed in his room. The Reb himself
went, according to custom, to play chess and read the news-
paper with Grandpapa. Later, he ate his supper for the last
time alone in his own room.
His trio of tailoresses worked hard to complete the altera-
tions. At night the suit was handed in at the Reb’s door.
He came downstairs to breakfast the next morning in
a remarkably good imitation of a Continental uniform.
Grandpapa said, “What, what?” and Uncle Laurence looked _
decidedly grim. The Redcoats had reason to fear that he
meant to do some plain speaking when, after the meal was
over, he invited Mamma to step for a moment into the gun
room.
THE MISCHIANZA 103
“You knew perfectly well what you were doing, Fanny,”

they heard him say in a raised voice.
The Redcoats and the Reb stood for some moments look-
ing at the closed door.
“Uncle Laurence is furious. That’s your fault, Reb!” said
George.
“IT know.” For once the Reb sounded penitent. “But it’s
done now, and can’t be undone. D’you think Id better go
to the rescue?”
“You'll only make things worse if you do,” Joseph told
him. “Much worse! Let be! Uncle Laurence’s bark is more
scarifying than his bite.”
“T’ve not found it so,” said the Reb, and he walked toward
the gun-room door.
But at that instant they heard Uncle Laurence laugh un-
expectedly. A minute or two later Mamma tripped blithely
out of the lion’s den, smiling all over her face.
“T nearly had my head bitten off, and I quite deserved it,”
she said to the Reb. “Grandmamma and Nurse made those
alterations in all innocence—but you didn’t deceive me for
one single second! I knew very well what effect the black
stock, red facing and lining and white binding would have!
Now, children, to your lessons! We have wasted time
enough.”
“And after lessons, Reb, we will take you all ’round the
grounds and the park,” cried the Redcoats. “Don’t explore
by yourself. We want to show you everything.”
“T shall be studying too,” said the Reb.
The Redcoats did not love their lessons. They thought it:
extremely odd that anyone as old as the Reb should go on
learning just as if he were in school. When their mother was
worn out with the struggle to teach them what they had no
desire to know, they went in search of the Reb and found
him happily at work in the library. He put the books aside
and took his first free stroll in the grounds, with the four
Redcoats prancing round him.
Wy Wee SRA Bee as GC
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42 A Sermon on Pride
By UNSPOKEN consent the Redcoats avoided the terrace on

which the Reb had taken his hated walks. They took him to
the aviary, the bowling green, the archery butts, the walled
court where Uncie Laurence played fives with his friends.
After they had watched the deer in the park for long enough,
they escorted him to the boathouse close to the mouth of the
small tidal river, the Dare. As the door was locked, they
could not show the Reb Uncle Laurence’s sailing boat, the
Speedwell, in which they had often made sea and river trips
with him before he went to the war.
“Very dangerous, our sea expeditions were,” George told
the Reb with much satisfaction. “Grandmamma said so.”
“Oh, George, they were nothing of the kind!” protested
Joseph. “It’s so long ago, you can’t remember. We only
hugged the coast, that’s all we did. Uncle Laurence wouldn’t
dream of putting to sea in the Speedwell. She isn’t built for
a buffeting. If you like to climb up to that little high window,
Reb, you'll be able to see her fairly well.”
105
The Reb laughed, and said that he did not propose to

spoil his new clothes on the first day by climbing up to any |
little high windows.
“Have you a river and a basinal Reb?” George asked.
“Is your home like the White Priory?”
“In some ways it’s like,” the Reb said. Leaving the question
about river and boathouse unanswered, he described his
father’s Virginia estate. The Redcoats were surprised to
hear of the many smaller houses clustered about the big
family mansion with its box-boarded flower beds cut into
geometrical shapes and the approach to its doors guarded by
twelve pillars of trimmed red cedar. Major Baltimore had a
kitchen house, an icehouse, a smithy, workshops for carpen-
ter, wheelwright, shoemaker, and cabins for a multitude of
Negro servants with queer names like Uncle Cudjo and Aunt
Dinah. Odder still it was to learn that there was a school-
house on the grounds, in which lived the French tutor who
had once taught him and afterward the Reb, and who still
gave French lessons to the Reb’s brothers and sisters and
their friends. If M. Durand had not been so old, said the
Reb, the boys of the family would be living with him in the
schoolhouse instead of in their own home. As it was, they
all rode over every day, brothers and sisters alike, to the
Wingates’ plantation, where they had their schooling from
the Wingates’ tutor, who lived with his pupils in a school-
house like M. Durand’s.
“Ts that what you used to do, Reb?” asked Charlotte. “Is
A SERMON ON PRIDE 107
it what you would be doing now, if there wasn’t a war?

Will you do it again if the war stops soon?”
“Yes,” said the Reb, “I guess Tim and I will go back to our
studies for a while, provided the war ends before we’re old
enough for Princeton.”
“What’s that?”
“A university like your Oxford or Cambridge. We’re not
proposing to be soldiers all our lives. When we get peace,
we want to have a share in the governing of our country.”
The Redcoats listened respectfully to an ambition that was
beyond their ken. “Which schoolhouse do you like best,
yours or Tim Wingate’s?” they asked.
The Reb answered that for fun and liveliness nothing
could beat the Wingates’ schoolhouse, filled with sixteen to
twenty boys and girls of all ages from five to eighteen. For
situation, his own was vastly preferable. When he was study-
ing French with M. Durand, he could look out on a prospect
of lawns surrounded by magnolia trees, and close at hand
was the long bed in which his mother grew English hearts-
ease of every conceivable size and color. But from Tim’s
schoolroom window there was nothing whatever to be seen
save a great mound or bank grown over with goldenrod.
“But goldenrod is lovely in autumn, Reb,” said Charlotte,
quite shocked. “Jt grows in the herbaceous borders here and
at Thorndale Hall, so tall and stately.”
“With us, it’s a wayside weed,” said the Reb.
The Redcoats felt that the Reb lived in a world that had
turned upside down like the world in the military march.
“Why, even the food you eat is different!” said George,

after he had made some inquiries. “Blueberries, cranberries,
~ plum butter, pumpkins—and I don’t know what all.”
“Pork cheese, lardy cake, Suffolk rusks, fape tart—and I
don’t know what all, either,” said the Reb in the same tone.
The Redcoats next asked the names of the Reb’s father,
mother, younger brothers and sisters, and of the one sister
who was older than he. It appeared that his mother and
eldest sister shared the same name, Cecilia. His father’s
Christian names were also the same as his own, but in reverse
order.
“Which of your brothers and sisters do you like best?”
asked George.
The other Redcoats poked noenmtswith their elbows, to
show him that this was not a proper question to ask. After
some hesitation, the Reb answered it. He was very fond of
them all, he said, from Cecilia down to Baby Oliver. But
if he had to choose—well, Patty was a shade dearer than the
rest.
“What is Patty liker” the Redcoats wanted to know. “Not
her face—we know what her face is like. Herself, we mean.”
“I guess I won’t try to describe her character,” said the
Reb. “She’s my good comrade.”
This was not enough for the Redcoats, who were slightly
jealous of the unknown Patty. “Tell us more!” they said.
“Oh, well,” said the Reb, “she’s rather like Charlotte.”
“Hoo!” mocked George. “Like old Charlotte, is she? Then
she isn’t worth twopence! When Charlotte’s cross, we call

her Snarly Sharlie!”
And George in great scorn turned a somersault on the
garden path before flying off with Joseph and Kitty to find
out why the dogs were barking on the far side of the monks’ —
eel pond.
Charlotte blushed and nearly cried, she was so mortified
that her brothers thought poorly of her. But happening to
raise her eyes, she saw the Reb looking down at her so kindly
that she managed to summon up a quavery smile instead.
“You won’t call me Snarly Sharlie, will you?” she asked.
“Never, on my honor,” said the Reb.
Charlotte took his hand, and they walked on together.
She said to herself, “I do believe that I am the Reb’s good
comrade too. Patty and J are sisters across the sea.”
Charlotte felt proud and happy that it was so. “What shall
you do this afternoon, Reb?” she asked.
“T shall study again,” said the Reb, but he gazed wistfully
at the miles of flat yellow sand, parted from him only by a
field. Charlotte knew that he was pining to walk or ride be-
yond the cruel encircling hedge.
“The day after tomorrow is Sunday, Reb,” she said. “Of
course Uncle Laurence didn’t mean that you mustn’t go to
church. It’s a fairly long walk. You will like that.”
“Even if your Uncle Laurence has no objection, I can’t
go to church.”
“Why not?”
“Don’t wish to be present when there are prayers for King

George.”
“Oh, dear! But he’s your enemy, Reb, and you know we
ought to pray for our enemies.”
“Tt’s forbidden in my country.”
Charlotte could not think of any way out of this difficulty,
and when Sunday came the Reb stayed at home. So did
Grandmamma, Uncle Laurence, Charlotte and little Sukey,
the kitchenmaid from Thorndale Hall. Grandmamma’s
rheumatism was bad, Uncle Laurence and Charlotte had
colds, and poor little Sukey was suffering from chilblains on
her toes.
When Grandmamma had to stay at home from church
she always, if well enough to do so, read aloud a sermon to
those of her household who had likewise been detained at
home. On Sunday morning she made a point of telling the
Reb that she expected to see him in the dining room at a
quarter past ten. At that, Uncle Laurence looked sulky, but
held his peace after his mother had said to him, aside, that
the sermon had been chosen for the special benefit of the
Reb. .
From the Reb’s face, the Redcoats could not tell whether
he had heard what was in store for him. He only said, “Very
good, ma’am, I'll be there,” and went on eating his break-
fast.
But he came so early that he found nobody save Charlotte,
who sat learning her collect for the day. Grandmamma’s
armchair was drawn up to the fire, and on her small round
A SERMON ON PRIDE III
worktable lay the big book of sermons with her spectacles

on top.
The Reb coolly removed the spectacles and opened the
book at the place marked by Grandmamma with a cross-
stitch bookmark of Charlotte’s making. It was an old book,
which had been so much used that the pages were loose
inside the cover.
“A sermon on pride, meant for me,” said the Reb, mus-
ingly. “Ah yes, we'll see about that.”
And before Charlotte’s horrified eyes he gently detached
a bunch of pages and hid them under the cushions of Grand-
mamma’s chair, stuffing them well down the side. Charlotte
did not know whether to laugh or be shocked. But when he
moved another comfortable armchair into a part of the room
where Grandmamma could not see him without turning
her head right around, Charlotte felt bound to protest.
“Reb, please, that’s the chair Uncle Laurence always
chooses in sermon time, and that’s where he likes to sit.”
“Does he, indeed?” said the Reb, taking possession of the
chair. “First come, first served, that’s my motto.”
Almost on the words, Grandmamma entered with Uncle
Laurence and Sukey. The Reb stood up at her entrance, but
slid into his chair again with extraordinary rapidity as soon
as she had sat down. Uncle Laurence threw a dark look at
the Reb, and slowly lowered himself into a chair opposite
his mother.
Grandmamma settled her spectacles on her nose and read
the first page of the sermon on pride. In long words that
Charlotte could hardly understand, the writer of the sermon

said that the first sin ever committed was not, as many peo-
tg. eas ; ple supposed, the sin of disobedience. It was the sin of pride.
La Every sentence of the first page seemed to be aimed directly
at the Reb, and Uncle Laurence gave a disagreeable smirk
of satisfaction as he listened. Charlotte did not like to let her
eyes move in the direction of the Reb. To do so seemed
unkind.
But on the second page, the first sin ever committed had
changed unexpectedly and inexplicably into anger, which
was rebuked with great severity. Uncle Laurence stopped
smirking and began to fidget. He stood three pages of ad-
monitions to persons with passionate tempers, and then he
could bear no more, but burst in with:
“Mamma, that old book’s no good! You really must buy
a new one. You’ve mixed the pages!”
“I am sure I have not,” said Grandmamma, becoming
flustered. |
She looked at the sermon again, and was not so sure. Then
she whipped through the pages in a flurried manner, but
naturally she did not come across the rest of the sermon on
pride. Charlotte dared not look at Grandmamma’s cushions —
or at the Reb or at the giggling Sukey. She was afraid she
too would giggle if she did.
“I will finish what I was reading,” Grandmamma said,
when she had given up the search as hopeless. “It is very
strange, I cannot find the sermon on pride just now, but we
will have it next Sunday.”
“T shall be at church then, King George or no King

George,” observed the Reb, so softly that Grandmamma did
not hear him, though the other three did.
To his utter displeasure, Uncle Laurence was then com-
pelled to sit through the weary length of that stern sermon
on anger. Out of Grandmamma’s sight, the Reb leant back
comfortably in his armchair and shut his eyes as if to make
it plain that the sermon did not fit him. Whether he really
slept or not, no one could tell, but the sight of his apparent
slumber made Uncle Laurence angrier than ever. If he could
have stretched his foot far enough to wake the Reb, it would
have been a relief to his feelings, but the distance between
their chairs was too great. So he gave the nearest footstool a
sharp kick instead, and got a reproving “Laurence, my dear!”
from Grandmamma glancing over the top of her spectacles.
The Reb smiled sweetly in his sleep, a smile that made him
look absurdly like Patty’s Patty. Uncle Laurence scowled.
After the sermon was over, he scowled still more blackly
when he heard the Reb saying to Charlotte: “Your grand-
papa has been teaching me about the importance of securing
tactical advantages. There are always tactical advantages to
be secured by being first in the field.”
Charlotte did not know exactly what the Reb meant. She
could see that whatever it meant, it annoyed Uncle Laurence.
Grandmamma continued to wonder what could have be-
come of the sermon on pride, but she did not suspect the
Reb of having had a hand in its disappearance. Charlotte
guessed that Mamma had her suspicions, which, however,
were kept to herself. When the question of churchgoing

next came up, she took it for granted that the Reb would
keep the promise made in jest. She had a little grave private
conversation with him, the result of which was not known
to the Redcoats until they heard the Vicar say the following
Sunday, immediately before the General Thanksgiving:
“Randal Everard Baltimore desires to return thanks to
Almighty God for recovery from serious illness.”
It was the second time the Redcoats had heard that name
echoing solemnly through the small old church. They
started and looked at the Reb and wondered what his
thoughts were as he knelt with bent dark head. Joseph told
Charlotte afterward that the Reb was very brave.
“He can’t have found it easy to do,” said Joseph, “especially
in front of Uncle Laurence.”
For another week had not made the slightest difference in
Uncle Laurence’s treatment of the Reb. As far as he could
without being flagrantly uncivil, Uncle Laurence still ignored
the Reb’s existence and never addressed an unnecessary word
to him. At mealtimes he was icily courteous; but the Red-
coats agreed that the way in which he said, “More bread, Mr.
Baltimore?” or “Cold beef or cold mutton, Mr. Baltimore?”
must have made the food hard to swallow.
It went without saying that no invitations to ride or to
fence or to play fives ever came the Reb’s way. He spent the
most part of each day alone, studying either in his own room
or in the library. Sometimes the Redcoats would see the gray
cloak wandering alone in garden or park in the chilly sweet
April air. Always it came to a halt at some vantage point

whence a good view could be obtained of the sea that spoke
to the prisoner of freedom.
The Redcoats would gladly have welcomed the Reb to
their playroom, but their mother told them they must not.
Uncle Laurence often came to the playroom and he would
not be pleased to find the Reb there. Besides, they must re-
member what they had been told during the Reb’s illness:
Mr. Baltimore was an officer and was accustomed to being
treated as such. He would feel it beneath his dignity to be
adopted as playfellow and equal.
Mamma could not well be contradicted, but as day after
day marched by, the Redcoats had increasingly good reasons
for concluding that the Reb was not a person to stand on his
dignity. One night when the grownups were away at a
dinner party, he joined in wild games of hide-and-seek all
over the house; and on other evenings, when there was no
danger of a visit from Uncle Laurence, he borrowed Mam-
ma’s guitar and sang them plantation songs, and told them
some of the folk tales and the French fairy tales he had heard
long ago from Uncle Cudjo and his old tutor. But he never
came to the playroom uninvited, and opportunities for giving
invitations were, to their thinking, too few and too far
between.
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So THE Redcoats welcomed the Reb warmly on a rain-soaked

morning early in May when he came to the playroom door
in lesson hours and, with many apologies, asked Mamma
whether she would object to his spending an hour or two
there. The maids had ejected him from the blue room, which
was to have what they called “a thorough turnout,” and he
had found the upstairs sitting room occupied by the seam-
stress, the library occupied by Grandpapa and his lawyer,
and the dining room occupied by Grandmamma and a bevy
of friends, who were cutting out charity garments.
If there was a reason why he had not established himself
in the drawing room, it was drowned beneath the Redcoats’ |
cries of delight and their mother’s assurances that they were
all glad to see him, there was no need of so many excuses.
The Reb took himself and his books to the window seat.
and studied as well as he could for the din that went on
around him. Mamma was doing her best to teach her unruly
children, but she was not a born teacher, and she was not
116
THE NEW TUTOR 117
getting on well. This morning she was more than usually
agitated by her failure to teach and theirs to learn. The boys
could not be persuaded to attend to the lessons they were
supposed to be preparing for their Uncle Laurence, who had
volunteered to teach them Latin and mathematics on two
afternoons in the week.
There was at present no school in the neighborhood for
the Redcoats to attend, but their names were already entered
in the books of an excellent new school that was due to open
after the summer holidays. In the meantime, they must
manage as best they could. Mamma and Uncle Laurence
knew that it was useless to ask a really good teacher to accept
a post for a few months only.
Ten minutes after the Reb had arrived, Mamma grew al-
most desperate. “Joseph! George! Do put your minds to your
work. Look how the time is going! You will never have
those lessons ready for your Uncle Laurence—”
“T don’t care!” said George, boastful because the Reb was
present.
“Nor do I!” said Joseph, not to be outdone.
“Yes, you do!” gibed George. “Oh, yes, you do! You know
very well you do! Remember what happened last time you
didn’t know your Latin? You cared then!”
“T didn’t!”
“You did!”
Joseph rose up in his wrath and pommeled George vigor-
ously.
Charlotte shouted: “For shame! He’s younger than you!”
In the scuffle, Kitty’s foot was trodden on and she roared
at the top of her voice.
“Oh, children, children!” cried their distracted mother.
A strong young hand descended on Joseph’s shoulder and
another on the shoulder of George. The two fighters found
themselves whirled apart.
“Ma’am,” said the Reb, “you're tired to death, struggling
with these monkeys. I’ll tackle them.”
The Redcoats were delighted.
“Oh do, Reb!” said Charlotte. “You teach us! Mamma,
we'll be as good as gold if you let the Reb teach us. Won’t we,
boys?”
“Yes, we will,” said the boys, and even Kitty stopped mid-
way in a howl.
Mamma was only too thankful to let the Reb do what he
could. She did not suppese he would be able to control the
four Redcoats any better than she could, but to her surprise
and relief they settled down at once to their lessons and
worked steadily till playtime came. The boys’ sums were so
correctly worked and the Latin grammar so thoroughly |
learned that she knew she need not look forward with dread
to Uncle Laurence’s afternoon lessons, which nearly always
ended with tears on one side and temper on the other.
Uncle Laurence himself was secretly amazed at the success
of the Reb’s tuition, and the afternoon would have ended
most happily had not a servant brought a letter to the school-
room. While Uncle Laurence was reading the letter, George
was thinking about a comical picture he had seen earlier that
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THE NEW TUTOR I2I
day, in which a boy was shown balancing an inkpot on top

of a ruler on his nose. George decided to imitate this feat.
His brother and sisters saw what he was doing, but did not
try to stop him. They wished to find out whether he could
succeed.
George never came remotely near success. In the twinkling
of an eye he and his nearest neighbor were splashed with ink.
It was indeed unfortunate for George that his nearest neigh-
bor should be Uncle Laurence, who did not seem to have
profited much by the sermon on anger that he had been
obliged to hear. When Uncle Laurence had finished with
George, he blazed out at the other three for sitting by like so
many dummies and not attempting to cut short George’s
antics. Snatching up the schoolroom poetry book, he ordered
all four to learn the longest poem in it by heart before bed-
time. He should come himself to hear them say it, he thun-
dered. And woe betide anybody who hadn’t learned it per-
fectly!
Mamma was from home, and might not be back in time
to save her children from their fate. There was only one hope
of escape. As soon as Uncle Laurence had stormed downstairs
in search of inkstain remedies, they tiptoed to the blue room
and scratched with caution at the Reb’s door. He looked out.
In whispers they told him what had happened.
“Please, dear Reb, do come and teach us our poetry,”
pleaded Charlotte. “It is so long and so hard, and we have
only one book between the four of us. We shall never, never,
never learn it in time.”
The Reb was sorry for them. He came at once, looked at

“The Battle of Agincourt,” and whistled on a note of dismay.
“Fifteen stanzas! You can’t learn all that between now and
bedtime. Not possible!”
“It was very cruel of Uncle Laurence to give us a punish-
ment that we can’t do,” sobbed Kitty.
“T guess he never meant to be cruel,” said the Reb. “He’s
fond of you all, anyone can see that. But he doesn’t know
much about young ones and maybe he didn’t just take into
consideration that he has set you a task he wouldn’t care to
tackle himself! We'll work out a plan of action. First, we'll
find some more copies of the poem. I know it’s in an anthol-
ogy in my room, and Drayton’s Poems is in your grandpapa’s
library. Then we'll read the poem right through two or three
times, so that we know what it’s all about. After that, we'll
learn the first stanza and the last as well as we can. While
I’m helping Kitty to learn the second stanza—I reckon, she
can’t do much more than that—Charlotte will work away at
the second stanza to the sixth, George the sixth to the ninth,
Joseph the tenth to the fourteenth. If there’s any time to
spare, Charlotte, Joseph and George will learn as much as
they can of one another’s special stanzas. Beforehand, we'll
get hold of your mother or, failing her, of your grandmother,
and we will ask her to suggest to Captain Templeton that
he should save himself time and trouble by hearing you re-
cite the ballad in chorus, instead of one by one. In that way
you'll be able to support and prompt one another where it’s
needed—”
THE NEW TUTOR 123
“And cheat Uncle Laurence finely! Good, good!” said
George, clapping his hands.
“No, we’re not doing that. If you learn the poem this way,
you'll know it as well as a reasonable man has a right to
expect. Maybe you'll even find you can rattle off the lot! But
if you can’t, I guess your mother would say you ought to
finish learning it in your poetry lessons. Now then, to work!”
The Reb read the ballad aloud with such spirit and ex-
plained it so simply that the Redcoats secon found their task
turning into play. He had gone back to the blue room before
Uncle Laurence came striding upstairs with a very dour ex-
pression, Mamma in his wake, looking anxious. But the
Redcoats stood up boldly, and burst forth with—
“Fair stood the wind for France,

”
When we our sails advance. .. °
in a manner that made Mrs. Darrington smile contentedly

and Uncle Laurence admit, not quite so contentedly, that
they had done very well.
“The Reb taught us,” boasted Kitty, forgetting that she
had been strictly charged not to mention his name.
“He did, did he?” said Uncle Laurence, ill-pleased.
“He didn’t do it to spite you, Uncle Laurence,” said Char-
lotte in a hurry. “We went and asked him to help us.”
“Humph!” said Uncle Laurence. “Strikes me there’s
nothing much that young man doesn’t know about the de-
ployment of forces!”
This told the Redcoats that Uncle Laurence had seen
through the Reb’s plan of action. In some apprehension, they
waited for his next words. But he only laughed crossly and
said to Mamma: “You'd better ask him what pay he would
take for tutoring these creatures. I declare, Fanny, he’d make
a better schoolmaster than either of us.”
“Oh, Laurence, I couldn’t ask that!” said Mamma. “I only
wish I could! He is so clever and so capable—and his French
accent is a joy to hear.”
“Might as well ask for the moon on a dinner plate!” said
Uncle Laurence. “I can’t see your spoiled, silken-shirted Vir-
ginian accepting a post as usher. This house would go up in
flames when his lordship’s dignity caught fire!”
The Redcoats listened to this conversation with deep in-
terest. After Mrs. Darrington and Uncle Laurence had gone
away, they paid another stealthy visit to the Reb.
He was reading what appeared to be a letter. They saw at
once that it.could not be the longed-for letter from America.
It was a scrawled note in a round boyish hand, written on
one side of a partly used sheet of exercise paper that might
have belonged to Billy or Johnny Gatwick. How Tim Win-
gate had contrived to find a messenger, the Redcoats were
too prudent to inquire.
Joseph was first with the news. “Reb, Mamma would like |
you to teach us. To be our tutor.”
“Nonsense! Your mother was speaking in fun. You know
I’m only three years older than you.”
“Oh, Mamma meant it with all her heart! She told Uncle
Laurence so.”
THE NEW TUTOR 125
“And what did he say?”

Joseph hesitated. George had no qualms. “Oh, he said
your pride needed taking down and being an usher would
do it. Or something like that. I don’t remember exactly.”
After one glance at the letter in his hand, the Reb brushed
aside the observations of Uncle Laurence as if they were of
no importance.
“Tt’s like this,” he said. “I need money, and I haven’t any.
Not for myself, for Tim Wingate. He has nothing either,
and it’s hard for him now that he is ill. It was so different
for me. Everything an invalid could possibly want I had
before I even knew I wanted it! But there’s next to no care
taken of Tim. He doesn’t complain, but ’ve known him since
we were babies, and I understand without being told.”
“Isn’t Mrs. Gatwick kind?” said Charlotte pitifully.
“Mrs. Gatwick is what your grandfather would call ‘an
estimable woman.’ I’ve no doubt her husband and children
like her very much. All I know is, I wouldn’t exchange her
for your mother or mine, not with all the gold of the Indies
thrown in!”
The Redcoats were impressed by this tribute to their
mother. They feared that they had never truly appreciated
her worth.
“So if I could earn money, I could share it with Tim,” said
the Reb. “If you are dead sure your mother wasn’t jesting,
then—”
“We'll tell Mamma!” squealed the Redcoats, and they
_ bounded off in search of her before the Reb could stop them.
Mamma beamed when she heard the news. The Reb was
summoned to a conference without the smallest delay.
“I may not be much older than your children, ma’am,”
said the Reb, “but I have been well taught, and what I know
I know thoroughly enough to be able to teach it in my turn.”
“I am sure of that, Randal,” said Mamma. “I believe you
can prepare the children for school much better than their
Uncle Laurence and I. I shall be most grateful to you if you
will consent to help me in this way.”
- Then the Redcoats were sent off while Mamma and the
Reb talked about the terms of his employment. They pirou-
etted with impatience outside the door in their eagerness to
mend their pens, tidy their lesson-book cupboard, and unpack
the parcel of new schoolbooks purchased by Miss Pipkin,
which George had caused to disappear because he liked the
old books best, and which he now produced from its aging
place with a flourish.
Nine o’clock the next morning found them ranged de-
murely round the table in the playroom, which was thence-
forth to be renamed schoolroom, like the schoolroom at |
home. Addressing the Reb, Joseph said civilly, “If you please,
what are we to call you?”
The Reb said, “Out of school hours you may call me Reb
or Randal or anything you choose. In school, I am sir or Mr.
Baltimore.” |
“Thank you, sir,” said Joseph, speaking just as soneas
his tutor.
George had strutted into the schoolroom. Now he swung
THE NEW TUTOR 127
his chair backward till it all but tipped over, and said with a
snort of silly laughter, “And what will you do if we mis-
behave?”
The Reb gave George one long, level, steely look. His
fellow Redcoats were startled to see George leap to his feet,
dash to the door and vanish. They heard him clattering
down the stairs faster than ever before. Charlotte, who was
nearest the window, spied him flying across the pleasure
groundg to the park.
“Oh, Reb—Mr. Baltimore, I mean—George is running
like the wind!” she cried. “I don’t believe he will ever stop!”
“Charlotte,” said the Reb evenly, “sit down and begin your
work. You are not to look out of the window again.”
Charlotte was devoured by curiosity. To obey the Reb
was nearly the hardest thing she had ever done. But she did
not want to find herself running for her life like George, so
she twisted her ankles round the legs of her chair and kept
her eyes on her slate. Joseph and Kitty followed her example.
Perhaps the Reb himself was curious to know what had
become of the fugitive. For he called Kitty to him some time
later, when the three Redcoats were writing a composition.
She was looking doleful, for she had not yet full mastery
over pencil or pen.
“You are not quite old enough to write a composition,
Kitty,” said the Reb. “You shall say it instead. Stand here
and tell me what you see outside.”
With satisfaction Kitty began this new kind of lesson.
“T see Mrs. Sprunt, the weeding woman, at work in Grand-
mamma’s garden. The rose garden, I mean. Sam Odgers is

wheeling an empty wheelbarrow. There is nobody playing -
fives in Uncle Laurence’s fives court. Grandmamma’s
naughty Persian pussy is stalking birds. The grass is green
in the park. The waves are white horses today. On the far
side of the fence that divides Grandpapa’s land from Mr.
Curtis’, I can see a little dot. I think the little dot is George.”
“I wouldn’t be surprised,” said the Reb. “Thank you,
Kitty, that was a good composition. Now take your spelling
book—”
Schooltime was half over when Uncle Laurence, riding
home from an early visit to his friend Mr. Curtis, caught
sight of George lurking under Mr. Curtis’ trees.
“George!” he shouted. “What are you doing here?”
There was no answer. Instead, George took to his heels
again.
Uncle Laurence called after him, but he would not halt
or return. So Uncle Laurence dismounted, tied his horse to
the fence and went in search of his nephew whom he caught
at the end of a short sharp chase.
“Playing truant, are your” said Uncle Laurence, giving
George a shake. “Back you go to your lessons this minute,
you young rascal!”
With a yell of terror, George clung to Uncle Laurence —
as a limpet to a rock. “No, no, don’t take me back, please,
pray don’t take me back!”
The more Uncle Laurence tried to draw George toward
the fence, the harder George clung and the louder he
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THE NEW TUTOR 131
shrieked. Not wishing the Curtis family to witness such an

uproar on their property, Uncle Laurence was obliged to
pacify George by sitting down on a fallen log and pulling
the boy down beside him.
“Now, what’s all this about?” Uncle Laurence asked.
“Have you smashed something of mine? I'll forgive you,
whatever it was, if you'll only cease that caterwauling. What!
Not me? Have you upset the ink over Mr. Baltimore’s clothes
as well as mine?”
With considerable difficulty, Uncle Laurence made out
what George’s offense had been.
“T see. Well, what did Mr. Baltimore say?”
“N-n-nothing.”
“What did he do, then?”
“N-n-nothing.”
“What did he threaten to do?”
“N-n-nothing.”
“Then why did you run away?”
“He looked at me!” howled George.
“What of that? He has looked at me often enough. I’ve
survived the ordeal. So can you.”
George did not feel equal to arguing the point. He buried
his face in Uncle Laurence’s coat and held him tight.
Uncle Laurence whistled a few bars of “The World Turned
Upside Down.” He then took out a large clean handkerchief,
dried George’s tears with it, and said:
“Look here, George, you can’t spend the rest of your life
in hiding. If you are man enough to come with me, I'll take
you up to the schoolroom myself and ask Mr. Baltimore to

overlook your impertinence this once. It’s a good deal for
me to do, for I don’t like asking favors of anybody, least of
all from the Reb—ahem—from Mr. Baltimore. Coming?
You shall ride home on Dorinda.”
“Tll c-c-come!” gasped George. He was still much scared,
but he knew that there was nothing to be gained by refusing
Uncle Laurence’s kind offer.
“Ah!” said Uncle Laurence as they went home together,
George perched on Dorinda and Uncle Laurence walking
alongside. “You didn’t think last night that you would so
soon be regretting the King Log you had exchanged for
King Stork!”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“It’s one of Aesop’s fables. Some frogs asked the god
Jupiter to give them a king. Jupiter threw down a log into
their pond, like the log we were sitting on just now. The
frogs didn’t think much of having a quiet, tame, harmless
log for a king, so they asked Jupiter to take away the log and
give them someone a trifle livelier to rule over them. This time
Jupiter sent them a stork which went around snapping them
up. Then they wanted their old King Log back again, but
Jupiter said no, they’d have to stick to King Stork.”
The story did not cheer George. He crept behind his
uncle as they mounted the stairs and stood with hanging
head as Uncle Laurence, having knocked politely at the
schoolroom door, asked his “favor” in tones that showed
how much he disliked the asking.
THE NEW TUTOR 133
“Mr. Baltimore, George is very sorry for his bad behavior
this morning. I should be glad if you would consent to over-
look it for this once.”
The Reb had risen at Uncle Laurence’s entrance. He bowed
his assent to the request, and said to George:
“You cannot sit down to lessons in that state, George.
Wash your face, brush your hair and make yourself tidy.
Then come and take your place at the table.”
George scuttled away like a rabbit. With a short laugh,
Uncle Laurence said:
“IT congratulate you on your disciplinary powers, Mr.
Baltimore. Your absence from your troop must be mighty
inconvenient to General Washington. May I suggest, how-
ever, that next time you frighten a pupil of tender years out
of his wits, you should go in pursuit of him yourself and
not leave the business to other people?”
The Reb’s eyes flashed. He said drily, “Apart from other
considerations, your own orders would prevent me from
doing that!”
“Touché,” said Uncle Laurence, like a fencer acknowledg-
ing a hit. “You shan’t have that excuse in future. I withdraw
all restrictions on your movements, except in two directions.
Gatwick Hall and Smugglers’ Cove will continue to be
out of bounds.”
Not a muscle of the Reb’s face moved as he bowed his
acknowledgment of this unexpected concession. His self-
control was perfect, even after Uncle Laurence had taken
himself off and George had come back, sleek and shining
but adorned with a slight gingerbread moustache, the re-

mains of a token of sympathy shown by Cook. Lessons went
on steadily and well for the rest of the morning and for an
hour in the afternoon, during which latter period the Red-
coats bestowed some further attention on “The Battle of
Agincourt.” Not until lessons were fairly over did the Red-
coats find out how much Uncle Laurence’s words had meant
to the Reb.
He said to Mamma: “Ma’am, I understand General Tem-
pleton will be from home this afternoon, and will not be
wanting his game of chess. I’m going for a long walk, miles
and miles. No need to send a search party after me. I'll be
back by suppertime without fail.”
“We'll go with you!” cried the Redcoats, George louder
than all. “Oh, let us come too!”
“No, no! I cannot allow it,” said Mamma before the Reb
could speak. “Some other time, my dears. Not now!”
She smiled understandingly at the Reb, who shot off like
an arrow released from a bow. He chose the way to the sea.
They saw him swinging across the sands at a tremendous
rate, as close as he could get to the waves. ,
No more was seen of him until just before supper, when
he rushed in, soaked with spray, eyes bright and hair tossed
from a struggle against the wind. His hands and pockets
were full of seashells that he had gathered to take home to
Virginia. With the shells were golden, ivory and wine-
dark pebbles, which he had picked up in the hope that
some of them might turn out to be the amber, carnelians
THE NEW TUTOR 135
and agate that the Redcoats so often searched for, nearly
always in vain.
The Redcoats could tell him the names of the shells. For
a judgment on the pebbles, he and they had to apply to
Mamma. Most of them were valueless, but he had found
one really exquisite piece of amber, two fine fiery carnelians,
and a bit of agate.
“You have been uncommonly successful, Randal,” said
Mrs. Darrington. “Many people have hunted for months
without coming across stones as good as these. You will have
to take them to Dick Hickory to be polished and carved into
pretty ornaments for your mother and sisters. Or you might
keep them by you until you had collected enough to make a
bracelet or necklace—but you would have to be prepared to
spend years in the search. For your own sake, I hope you
won't be with us quite so long as that! And now, my dear
boy, I am obliged to remind you that you have barely ten
minutes in which to dress for supper, which is earlier than
usual tonight because, as you will remember, you and some
other people are coming to my musical evening.”
She went away. The Reb gathered up his treasures and
prepared to depart. His Redcoats were indignant.
“Stay with us, Reb, you’ve been away for ages!” pleaded
Charlotte. “Don’t go to the musical evening, it will be very
dull. Only a number of ladies playing fireworky pieces on
the harpsichord, crackle, crackle, crackle! Come back to
the schoolroom after supper.”
“No, indeed!” said the Reb. “I am to hear something I
wouldn’t care to miss. Your mother has promised to sing ‘Oh!

Had I Jubal’s Lyre,’ from Handel’s Joshua.”
“What! That squally thing?” cried George in disgust.
“If it were Uncle Laurence singing “The Boy that Sells
Broom, Green Broom,’ it wouldn’t be so bad. Handel’s not
worth a candle, truly he isn’t.”
The Reb was not to be moved. Charlotte followed him
a few steps down the passage.
“Reb!”
“At your service, Miss Darrington!”
“Tt’s after lesson hours, isn’t it?” said Charlotte, proceed-
ing with caution.
“Considerably so.”
“Then, please, Reb, will you tell me what you would
have done to George if he hadn’t run away when he did?”
“Ha, Miss Curiosity, you’d like to know that, would you?
Well, you won't!”
_ Charlotte waited till the Reb had reached the door of the
blue room. Then she called after him:
“Either it wasn’t anything at all, or else you yourself don’t
know what it was! So there!”
“So there be it!” said the Reb.
K Wk Expose THC aes &
10
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he Busy Balbus
Never AGAIN did the Reb have the smallest trouble with any
of the Redcoats. Until he taught them, they had not known
that it was possible to enjoy school hours.
“All our lessons have come alive,” Charlotte told her
mother one day. “They are about real people and real things.
In geography we are learning about. Holland. The Reb
shows us pictures out of Grandpapa’s books, and tells us how
they drain their land and make dikes to keep out the sea.
In the north of Holland are the Frisians, who speak a lan-
guage so like English that it isn’t hard to understand.
“Good butter and good cheese
Is good English and good Fries.
The Reb seems particularly interested in Holland.”
“Tve no doubt he is!” said Uncle Laurence, who was lis-
tening. “I can give you a few more particulars that the Reb
has prudently kept to himself. When he landed in England,
we were not at war with Holland, and the first three sets of
137
men he liberated had to make their way to France as best

they could. Now Holland will receive escaped prisoners and.
will send them on to the American Commissioners in Paris.
The distance across the North Sea from England to Holland
varies with the coastline of the two countries. Between the
North Foreland and Sluis it’s only eighty miles, but from
Yarmouth to Frisian territory it’s at least a hundred and
thirty. Here, it’s not much over a hundred. But the Reb won’t
see the tulips in bloom, I hope! Pray tell your tutor, with my
compliments, that I am having the haunts of both Dutch
and French smugglers carefully watched. He won’t find it
easy to make contacts with either of them.”
The Reb was not disconcerted when Charlotte gave him
Uncle Laurence’s message in the most tactful words she
could find.
“Your Uncle Laurence is giving himself a good deal of
unnecessary trouble. While Tim’s helpless, so am I.”
Lessons had been in full swing for close to a fortnight
when Grandpapa came into the schoolroom at the end of
a Wednesday morning. :
“Which of your pupils sence the best marks today, Mr.
Baltimore?”
“Charlotte, sir,” said the Reb, rising to show Grandpapa
the latest entry in the mark book that had oncejocladetd to
Miss Pipkin.
“Charlotte? Good girl! It’s a half holiday this afternoon,
isn’t it? Your Uncle Laurence is off somewhere or other, and
I have no companion for the first ride I have been able to
BUSY BALBUS 139
take since last autumn. So, Charlotte, I'll ask for the pleasure
of your company, my dear, and you shall have your choice
of the road. Hey, I shall be glad to be in the saddle once
more!”
“T’m sure you will, sir. It’s a long time since the autumn,”
said the Reb.
There was not the smallest trace in the Reb’s voice or
manner of anything save courteous sympathy with General
Templeton’s pleasure. Nevertheless, Charlotte remembered
that the Reb had not had a ride since last autumn either, with
the exception of that one terrible ride in the snow, which, as
Charlotte remarked to herself, didn’t count. She had a
further thought. |
“Grandpapa,” she said, stealing out in pursuit of General
Templeton, “I should like, if you please, to visit Gatwick
Hall. And may we take the Reb with us to see his friend
Mr. Wingate?”
Grandpapa was taken aback by the request. “I don’t know
what your Uncle Laurence would say to that, child. I have
no authority to countermand his orders.”
“What a pity! The Reb would be so happy,” said Char-
lotte.
At the back of Grandpapa’s mind there may have been
some notion of getting even with the son who had used the
monks’ penance cell as a prison without authority so to do.
Certainly he was emboldened by the knowledge that Uncle
Laurence was out for the rest of the day. After a slight hesi-
tation, he said:
“Well, I suppose that I am still master in my own house,

though I have retired from the Army. Your uncle would
hardly presume to challenge what I see fit to aliow. I am
afraid, though, that I should have to be present at any inter-
view between the youths. I owe it to your Uncle Laurence
to make sure that they do not make any escape plans during
the meeting. Go back to Mr. Baltimore, my dear, and invite
him to accompany us, at the same time warning him that he
will not be able to see his friend alone.”
The Reb joined the riding party with such a joyful air
that Grandpapa, despite sundry private misgivings, was him-
self obliged to share in his young friend’s pleasure. In great
amity the three rode through the winding lanes to Gatwick
Hall.
Colonel Gatwick and his wife received their guests in a
dark, stiffly furnished parlor. After the greetings were over,
Grandpapa explained that he had ventured to bring Mr.
Baltimore with him in the hope that Colonel Gatwick would
grant leave for a visit to Mr. Wingate.
The colonel gave the Reb a starchy look, but agreed to the
request, provided that he and General Templeton were both -
present.
“How is Mr. Wingate?” Grandpapa asked.
“He makes no progress whatever,” said Colonel Gatwick.
“That is only to be expected, Dr. Feltwell tells me. It may be
many months before there is any definite improvement.”
“It’s a great pity you can’t call in Dick Hickory,” said
Grandpapa. | |
BUSY BALBUS 141
Charlotte wondered whether the Reb had heard that Dick

Hickory was a bonesetter as well as herbalist, lapidary, wise
man and collector of curiosities. He had visited the mush-
room on the hillock two or three times in the last fortnight,
now with and again without the Redcoats, bringing more
carnelians and bits of amber and agate to be polished and
shaped. It so happened that the Reb was looking down and
playing with his riding crop. She could not see his face.
“Even if medical etiquette did not forbid, I have a strong
aversion to irregular practitioners,” said Colonel Gatwick.
“IT would not admit the fellow to my house.”
“T’m afraid I did so when Laurence was about Mr. Balti-
more’s age,” said Grandpapa with his easy laugh. “It was
the year of the heavy floods, when Feltwell was completely
cut off from my end of Marton Green. Laurence dislocated
his shoulder. I couldn’t leave the boy to suffer until the floods
went down, could I? And I had no reason to regret my course
of action. Hickory was not only more skillful than any army
surgeon I ever met, but by the exercise of his extraordinary
mesmeric powers he was able to do his work almost without
causing pain. It was the most remarkable feat of manipula-
tive surgery that a man could wish to see. A timid fellow,
Hickory. Prefers to exercise his healing powers in villages
where there is no doctor. Frightened to death of being caught
at work by Feltwell.”
“IT am glad to hear that the presumptuous charlatan is
a coward,” said Colonel Gatwick severely. “He will do the
less harm by his meddling if he confines his activities to
quarters where there is no highly qualified surgeon and

physician like our good Dr. Feltwell to serve the people. I
should not follow your example, sir, were I to find myself
and family marooned. These quacks ought not to be en-
couraged.”
He would have said more, but at that moment in trotted
his two sons, Billy and Johnny, each with a pile of lesson
books in hand. It was plain that they had no Wednesday
half holiday, but were come to repeat their lessons to their
father.
Billy and Johnny were pale, heavy boys who looked as
though they had too much suet pudding and too little fun.
Their eyes popped at sight of the Reb, and wide smiles
spread over their faces from ear to ear. Evidently they bore
the Reb no grudge for the affair of the tunnel.
“Lay your books down, boys, and wait until I am at
liberty,” said Colonel Gatwick. He turned to Grandpapa and
said, sighing:
“The usual trouble—we cannot find a dependable tutor.
The last man was a sad failure. Until the new school opens
in the autumn I am teaching William and John myself. But —
the arrangement is far from satisfactory.”
“Ah, we were in the same quandary ourselves until Mr.
Baltimore kindly came to our rescue,” said Grandpapa. “The >
children are as happy as possible with him, and I understand
they are becoming quite learned little people. Charlotte re-
cites prettily in French and English.”
Mrs. Gatwick immediately pressed Charlotte to show what
BUSY BALBUS 143
she could do. To recite at a mischianza in her own home was

one thing, to recite before semistrangers was another. Char-
lotte would have rejoiced to see the floor opening to swallow
her up. But she knew that the Reb’s credit was at stake. She
must not fail him.
Bravely she recited a short French poem that the Reb had
taught her. Then, nerving herself afresh, she plunged into
“The Battle of Agincourt,” which she recited with a force-
fulness that astonished herself as much as it impressed her
hearers. While they were thanking her, Colonel Gatwick
kept making signals with his eyebrows to his wife, who
presently said:
“My dear colonel, do you think we could persuade Mr.
Baltimore to add to the number of his pupils? I am sure Billy
and Johnny would profit by his teaching.”
“That is exactly what I had in mind,” said Colonel Gat-
wick,
Billy and Johnny goggled with excitement. Their father
suggested that they should take little Miss Darrington into
the greenhouse to look at the tropical plants and the aquar-
jum.
Reluctantly, the three withdrew. Once in the greenhouse,
the tropical plants and the fish tank received scant attention.
Billy, Johnny and Charlotte were much too busy talking
about the Reb.
After some time the door was opened and Charlotte was
called back to say good-by to Mrs. Gatwick, for Grandpapa
and the Reb were about to pay their visit to Tim Wingate.
“Are you going to teach Billy and Johnny?” Charlotte
whispered, as they followed Colonel Gatwick to the prisoner’s
room. 7
The Reb nodded, smiling. He seemed highly amused at
his own success.
“But Billy and Johnny are going to be solemnly warned
against helping me in any more escape attempts,” he whis-
pered back.
There was no time for further words. Colonel Gatwick
was unlocking a door.
“Visitors for you, Mr. Wingate,” he said. “General Temple-
ton, his granddaughter Miss Darrington, and your friend
Mr. Baltimore.”
Tim Wingate looked up with a cry of pleasure. He was
not in the least like the Reb. His hair was yellow and his
eyes were sea gray in a weary, sunken face.
At this moment a messenger summoned the colonel away
on business. Promising to return shortly, he went out. Talk
ran more freely when his stiff presence was withdrawn.
“Tm afraid you’ve had a bad time,” said Grandpapa, much
concerned. “I wish I could have brought Mr. Baltimore here
sooner, but he will tell you it’s the first ride I’ve taken for
many a month. How are you? Colonel Gatwick tells me you
don’t get on very fast.”
Charlotte had a dreadful suspicion that these words, per-
haps the kindest he had heard since the accident, brought
Tim near to tears. She turned her head and surveyed his
prison. It was a vast improvement on the monks’ penance
BUSY BALBUS 145
cell, but it was not to be compared to the blue room for com-
fort and charm. She was glad that Mamma and Grand-
mamma had put together some gifts for the Reb to take to
his friend. The fruit cake, the pot of green lime honey and the
pile of Gentleman’s Magazines would surely cheer Tim in
his bare dull loneliness.
Tim was answering Grandpapa rather shakily. He was
saying that the pain was not severe, provided he kept still.
Colonel Gatwick had told him that Baltimore had been very
seriously ill. Was that sor
“Tt was,” said Grandpapa, “but there’s not much wrong
with him today. Is there, Mr. Baltimore?”
“Nothing whatever,” said the Reb cheerfully.
“He teaches us now,” said Charlotte, by way of proving
to Tim that the Reb was fully restored to health. “He likes
being our tutor.”
“So he told—” began Tim, and broke off abruptly.
Charlotte guessed that somehow or other, despite Uncle
Laurence’s precautions, the Reb had contrived to send an
answer to Tim’s letter, though he had obviously not told
Tim all that Tim wanted to know. Swiftly the Reb covered
Tim’s slip before General Templeton had noticed it.
“Yes, I don’t object to leading a tutor’s life,” he agreed.
“What do you think, Tim? I’m to have two more pupils,
our old friends Billy and Johnny.”
“Billy and Johnny!” Tim echoed. “You don’t mean it?”
“Billy and Johnny, believe it or not. They will ride over in
a morning on their ponies, dine at the White Priory and
come back here when afternoon lessons are over. My other

pupils don’t do home lessons, but Colonel Gatwick says
Billy and Johnny are so backward they must work for an
hour at night. I told the colonel I was sure you wouldn't
mind giving them a helping hand with their preparation,
since you had nothing whatever to do. It would be a charity
to provide you with employment for your idle mind, I said.”
Tim did not look precisely grateful. “I hope it isn’t spelling
or sums. I can’t spell and I can’t add up.” |
“Now, now, don’t be fractious,” reproved the Reb. “By
his father’s special request, Billy is to concentrate on Latin,
which is to be learned out of this little book I have with me
here. It’s the very same book that Colonel Gatwick used
when he was a boy, and everything in it was so well
drummed into him at school that he is now able to examine
Billy and find out how he is getting on. Between you and
me, I incline to believe that all the Latin the good colonel
knows is confined to these dogeared pages. He wouldn’t
recognize the language if he met it outside them.”
“Boys, boys!” said Grandpapa, but he chuckled while he
admonished, and so spoiled the effect.
“Oh, I don’t despise the little book!” said the Reb. “You'll |
find the sentences for translation into Latin as interesting as
any novel, Tim. In some of them, for example, you'll meet
a gentleman with a name not unlike mine, Balbus. He seems -
to have led an uncommonly active life. Never an unoccupied
moment for busy Balbus!”
“Ah, I too heard of Balbus in my young days!” said
BUSY BALBUS 147
Grandpapa. “‘“Balbus built a wall’-— ‘Balbus aedificavit

murum. That was in my Latin grammar, I remember it
well. He was always turning up. I wonder who the original
Balbus was.”
“We'll look for him in the Classical Dictionary at the
White Priory, won’t we, Charlotte?” asked the Reb. “But
Colonel Gatwick’s Balbus didn’t stop short at building one
wall. No, indeed! Balbus ‘rode an elephant with splendid
trappings . . . hunted lions and tigers in dense forests . . .
sang songs sweetly toa lyre . . . married a wife who brought
him a large dowry . . . invited his mother-in-law to a ban-
quet of British oysters . . . praised the skill of the eminent
physician.’ Dear me, that sounds as though Balbus ate too
many British oysters at his banquet.”
“Look here,” said Tim firmly, “I can’t help Billy with
sentences of that sort. I haven’t opened a Latin book for two
years and I should be as lost as young William.”
“I never intended to set any of those sentences for home-
work,” said the Reb. “They were only chosen at random as
samples of the events in Balbus’ busy life. When we come to
them, Billy and I will study them in class. Only the simpler
sentences will be done with your help at home. ‘Balbus sailed
a ship,’ for example. How about that?”
It seemed to Charlotte that the Reb’s eyes met Tim’s for
a fleeting second.
“Yes, “Balbus sailed a ship’ is the sort of sentence I can put
into Latin,” said Tim. “Then there’s Johnny? Can I do any-
thing for him?”
“Johnny is, as you know, very backward in speaking.

Colonel Gatwick wishes him to learn chunks of poetry and
prose to help him to overcome this defect. Would you object
to hearing his recitations? They will be short and easy at .
first. It will be a long time before Johnny is able to recite
anything so difficult as ‘The Battle of Agincourt, the ballad
that Charlotte has recited with great spirit before Colonel
and Mrs. Gatwick. But I hope that one fine day you'll hear
Johnny saying, “ ‘Fair stood the wind for France, When we
our sails advance.’ ” |
Again Charlotte saw the eyes of Tim and the Reb meet.
“Any other commands for me?” said Tim.
“I’m trying to think,” said the Reb, “of the rhymes and
jingles they give to children to learn who are having trouble
in pronouncing their consonants. At the moment I can’t
recollect anything save the old nursery rhyme for the k
sounds:
“Hickory dickory dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.
Can you think of any others that might be useful for Johnny,
Tim? Can you, Charlotte? Or you, sir?”
““Around the rugged rock the ragged rascals ran.’ Good
practice in 7's,” suggested Tim.
BUSY BALBUS 149
““Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, ” said
99
Grandpapa.
Charlotte could not call any tongue twisters to mind.
While she was thinking her hardest, the colonel returned
and the visit was over. As the Reb went out, Tim said in a
low voice, “Have you heard from your father yet, Randy?”
The Reb answered, as quietly, “No.”
“What’s that?” Colonel Gatwick asked, wheeling sharply
round.
The Reb said, “Mr. Wingate asked me whether I had
heard from my father yet, and I told him I hadn’t.”
Colonel Gatwick was still suspicious. He glanced at Grand-
papa, who said:
“No, my dear sir, those words had no secret meaning. I
have long known that Mr. Baltimore is eager to have news
from home. Before you came in, he was telling Mr. Wingate
about the arrangements you and he had made about Billy and
Johnny’s lessons. Mr. Wingate is quite prepared to look over
Billy’s Latin exercises and to hear Johnny practice speech
sounds and English verse.”
The colonel was satisfied, but he said to Tim: “My boys
have given me their promise that they will not be the bearers
of messages from you to Mr. Baltimore or from Mr. Balti-
more to you. I can trust them.”
“I’m sure you can. They are reliable little fellows, who
would never break their word,” said Grandpapa heartily.
The Reb and Tim did not think it necessary either to
echo Grandpapa’s favorable opinion of Billy and Johnny or
to volunteer any promises on their own account. They bade

each other farewell with a wordless grip of the hand. Then
the Reb passed into the sunshine and Tim was left behind
in the dull room.
For some minutes the Reb rode silently, deep in thought.
Grandpapa knew what was troubling him.
“Mustn’t fret over that Dick Hickory business,” said
Grandpapa. “After all, Colonel Gatwick is in the right of it.
Mr. Wingate’s health is his responsibility. One can’t slight the
recognized medical man by calling in a clever Jack-of-all-
trades whose only qualification is a natural gift for healing.
Hickory’s skill might fail him, and then your poor friend
would be ten times worse off than before!”
“Very true, sir,” said the Reb, speaking as if he wished it
wasn’t.
“Perhaps there will be another flood and Gatwick Hall
will be surrounded and Colonel Gatwick will have to send
for Dick Hickory because Dr. Feltwell is cut off,” suggested
Charlotte, in an attempt to look on the bright side of the
matter.
“It’s so likely, isn’t it, seeing that the colonel and Dr. |
Feltwell live a stone’s throw from each other on top of what’s
called a hill in this flat pancake of a county of yours!” re-
torted the Reb.
They were all three laughing when Uncle Laurence rode
round a bend and confronted them. He pulled up short,
hardly able to believe his eyes. Then, without deigning to
notice the Reb or Charlotte, he coldly saluted his father and
BUSY BALBUS I51
went by without speaking. The air about him appeared to

be charged with a mixture of ice drops and electric sparks.
“Peter Piper won’t want for company in picking a peck
of pickled peppers when we reach home, sir,” said the Reb
to Grandpapa. “That’s my last ride to Gatwick Hall!”
“Tm afraid it is,’ agreed Grandpapa. “I ought not to have
taken you there. I knew that very well.”
“So did I,” the Reb confessed. “It wasn’t fair to Captain
Templeton. But it was such a temptation. And now I shall
have to pay for my fun!”
Charlotte thought she could guess what the payment
would be. But after Grandpapa and his son had talked to-
gether, Uncle Laurence did not cancel the Reb’s privilege
of roaming at will outside the grounds of the White Priory.
He merely let it be known that he had written yet another
letter to the military authorities, requesting to be relieved
from guarding the Reb. Since it was most unlikely that the
request would be granted, the Redcoats were of the opinion
that the Reb had escaped more lightly than might have been
expected. The Reb himself was less confident. He had a fore- |
boding, he said, that the “pickled peppers” were laid up
somewhere in store.
sel er
Wow Wrae Pa eee ree
ul
Ww
Ww
ste Wax Fruit for Mamma
Bitty AND Johnny were in such a hurry to begin lessons with

the Reb that their ponies were seen arriving at the White
Priory before breakfast was over. By the end of the day there
was a marked coolness between them and the Darringtons,
caused by the new pupils’ insistence that they had an equal
right to call themselves Redcoats. On the second morning
the coolness became a quarrel, for Billy and Johnny now had
the audacity to declare themselves to be the only original
owners of that honorable title, nobody else having any claim
to it whatever.
The quarrel took place in playtime and it grew so hot
that it would have turned into a fight if Charlotte had not
made an important discovery in the nick of time. |
“Pax, pax!” she shouted, “I’ve thought of something. If we
fight, the Reb will probably say that he won’t allow us to
be his Redcoats at all!”
Faced with this appalling prospect, the rival parties hastily .
made peace. In token of restored friendship, the Darringtons
152
WAX FRUIT FOR MAMMA 153
took the Gatwicks to some rusty iron railings at the back of
the shrubbery for the purpose of finding out whether they
could push their heads between any two rails and pull them
out again.
After some cautious experiments, Joseph and Billy were
positive it could not be done. Having forbidden the younger
Redcoats to attempt the risky feat, Joseph and Billy went
off arm in arm to play bat fives in Uncle Laurence’s court.
Charlotte said: “I don’t see why Joseph and Billy should
take it upon themselves to give orders as if they were the
Reb. I am going to do it, whatever they say.”
She knelt on the ground and put her head through. It
stuck there.
Charlotte screamed. Johnny ran to fetch Joseph and Billy.
Kitty cried. George seized the gardener’s shears, which were
lying on a bench.
“Dear Charlotte, keep as still as you can,” he begged his
sister. “Your hair must be cut off, that’s the only way. There’s
too much of it. No wonder you can’t get your head out!
But you'll soon feel the difference.”
At the touch of the shears going clop, clop slowly and
clumsily, Charlotte screamed louder than before. “Mind my
ears!” she wailed. “Oh, George, mind my ears! Eeeh-ow!”
“There, it’s off, practically all of it!” panted George. “Pull,
Charlotte, pull!”
Charlotte pulled. She had lost her hair to no purpose: her
head was still held in a vise. She shrieked, and George and
Kitty shrieked too.
“Quiet, Charlotte, the Army’s here,” said the Reb’s voice,
suddenly close. “No need to be frightened. Joseph’s fetching
your Uncle Laurence. We'll have you out in no time.” |
“Not Uncle Laurence!” implored Charlotte. “You do it
yourself, Reb.”
“T could drag the rails apart without help, but I mightn’t
get a good enough grip to let you out easily. With one of us
on each side, you'll be free without any trouble. All you have
to do is to draw your head back when we say ‘Now!’”
The Reb reached his hand down to give Charlotte’s shorn
head a light, comforting pat. Out of the corner of one eye
she saw him snatching up the fallen brown locks and tufts
and cramming them into his pockets. _
“George, put those shears out of sight!” she heard him
Say.
In spite of her discomfort, Charlotte was able to be grateful
for the Reb’s thoughtfulness. Uncle Laurence was bound to
be cross with her for playing a silly trick and for letting
George cut off her hair, but he would be much crosser if his
indignant eyes saw the results of George’s shearing scattered
about everywhere. Uncle Laurence had a particular aversion —
to little girls with cropped hair.
She heard Uncle Laurence approaching at a run, with
Joseph and Billy close behind him. Then came a quick .
“Now!” from the two young men. Hauled vigorously back-
ward by the other Redcoats, Charlotte rolled over on the
grass in a tumbled heap.
Uncle Laurence could not find fault with the Reb for neg-
lecting his charges, for he knew that the supervision of their

playtime formed no part of the Reb’s tutorial duties. He
therefore relieved his feelings by lecturing Charlotte. The
lecture would have been even more energetic if Uncle Lau-
rence had perceived that Charlotte had lost nearly all her
hair. Thanks to the Reb’s quickness of wit, Uncle Laurence
took it for granted that her wild, disheveled locks were the
result of struggling to free herself.
“Go to your mother, you little hoyden, and ask her to set
you to rights,” he said at last. “Whatever else your tutor has
taught you, he has signally failed to drive a modicum of
common sense into your empty head!”
Uncle Laurence never lost an opportunity of giving a sly
hit at the Reb. He was horribly clever, the Redcoats all
agreed, at finding the sort of taunt that the Reb couldn’t
contradict, even if pride had not made him take everything
that was said in the disdainful silence his tormentor found so
infuriating. Charlotte fled to her mother, who always under-
stood and who always had a way out of a trouble.
Hiding her own consternation at the loss of Charlotte’s
hair, Mamma went herself to ask the Reb whether he could
spare time to drive the pony wagonette into Eastwich as soon
as afternoon school was over. Owing to the sad accident,
Charlotte’s best and everyday hats and her riding cap no
longer fitted her. Eastwich was the nearest place where new
headgear could be bought. ,
A drive in the wagonette, with himself as driver, was an
expedition after the Reb’s heart, as Mamma well knew. To.
add to his enjoyment, he had that day received his salary,

which was paid to him in fortnightly instalments. The
money was already burning a frightful hole in his pocket.
So as soon as school was out, Mamma and a bevy of Red-
coats went rattling off to Eastwich, a pleasant town with a
tall white lighthouse and a host of small shops.
The Redcoats were as much interested in the Reb’s pur-
chases as in their own. They knew, for Billy and Johnny had
told them, that both Uncle Laurence and Colonel Gatwick
had peremptorily refused his request to be allowed to share
his earnings with Tim Wingate. They had told him that he
must not give his friend anything save small occasional in-
valid luxuries or an agreed sum for feeing the servants who
waited on the helpless prisoner. Mr. Wingate’s escape route
should certainly not be paved with gold!
For himself the Reb bought nothing but a knapsack in
which Doll Patty would later travel home to Virginia. Her
outfit was already in preparation. In addition to lacy-pat-
terned mittens and stockings, felt shoes, and a frock of
flowered dimity, Mamma had made her a military-style
overcoat and a smart cocked hat out of the scraps left over
from the Reb’s uniform.
The Reb then bought a bag of sweetmeats for the Red-
coats and some easily transportable gifts for the folks at
home. He took, they noticed, as much trouble over choosing
a shell trinket box for Aunt Dinah and a brilliantly colored
neckerchief for Uncle Cudjo as he did over his elder sister
Cecilia’s carved fan or Baby Oliver’s ball of striped wool. —
And when Mrs. Darrington was elsewhere, he bought a
slender silver necklet for her birthday.
“You know that piece of amber I found?” he said to Char-
lotte. “Dick Hickory has been shaping it into a flower, with
one of the carnelians at its heart. It will serve as pendant to
this chain.”
Charlotte told the Reb that her mother would be charmed
to receive such a pretty gift. She said with a sigh:
“T wish I could think of something choice for Mamma.
She likes us to give presents of our own making, but I can
only think of stupid things. What can I give, Reb, that isn’t
a hair tidy, a penwiper, or a flowerpot mat?”
“Why not make some wax fruit?” said the Reb. “I could
help you. Once, when I was at home on sick leave, I watched
my sister Cecilia doing it. She makes wax flowers too, but
flowers are harder to make than fruit.” -
“Oh, I should like that above all things!” said Charlotte.
“What shall we need, Reb?”
“Wax, colors, plaster of Paris and fine sand. You will have
to make molds first with the plaster over fruit half sunk in
sand. I'll explain all about that by-and-by.”
“But suppose we haven’t got all the fruits we want? I
should like to have a pineapple and some colocynths, but
there aren’t any in Grandpapa’s greenhouse or in the East-
wich shops. What do we do then?”
“Why, make clay models, of course, using either your
own imagination or a picture! Then make plaster molds
from the clay models and wax casts from the molds. But I’m
afraid you are being too ambitious, Charlotte. Pineapples

and colocynths are not for beginners in the art like you and.
me. We must try our prentice hand only on the easiest
fruits.”
“You said you made Patty’s Patty from a clay model. Did
you make her when you were watching your sister at work
on her wax fruits?”
AS
“Oh, Reb, Patty’s Patty must have been very, very hard
to do! And you did her so beautifully. I’m sure that anyone
who modeled Patty’s Patty could easily make a pineapple or
a colocynth. Do, do let us try!”
“The clay model isn’t the hardest part,” said the Reb.
“You'll have to take my word for it that the mold making
and wax casting are beyond our joint capacities. Besides,
we must consider the feelings of the household before under-
taking what we can’t do as well as what we can. What with
plaster of Paris, sand, colors, wax and clay scattered about
everywhere, I warn you, Charlotte, that you and I are shortly
going to make ourselves unpopular enough!”
Little did Charlotte care about that! She at once consulted
Joseph, George and Kitty, who agreed to share in the buying
of a rush basket to hold the wax fruit and of a glass shade
to protect the finished work of art from dust. When they
drove home, her arms were full of important parcels.
Mamma’s birthday was on the first of June, a little over
two weeks away. In those weeks the Reb and Charlotte
worked away busily. The choice of a suitable basket also gave
the Reb some trouble, for he found it necessary to visit the
mushroom house three or four times at least for consultations
with Mrs. Dick Hickory over colors and shapes. He had al-
ready struck up quite a friendship with the Hickorys, to
whom he regularly carried every new find of amber, car-
nelian or agate to be fashioned into ornaments that looked
like bits of petrified sunshine or frozen fireglow.
When he and the Redcoats met the Hickorys on the beach,
he would help with the digging out of the cliff fossils they
collected for sale, the gathering of the crimson samphire that
they pickled for the same purpose, and the gathering of the
wild shore peas and the Good King Henry that the thrifty
old creatures ate to save their garden stuff. Nobody was more
concerned than the Reb when Dick was laid up for long
weeks by a severe blow on the chest from a tree that a com-
panion had felled awkwardly. Even after the choice of the
basket had been made, the Reb would run down to inquire
for the invalid, and would make himself perfectly at home
in Dick’s kitchen, sitting by the fire of sea driftwood to
watch Mrs. Dick cleaning fossils, cutting and polishing amber
and pebbleware, spinning or weaving the sheep’s wool that
she diligently plucked from every blackberry bush for miles
around.
At the White Priory, lessons went with a swing. The four
original Redcoats continued to make steady progress, and
the two Gatwicks improved beyond their father’s best hopes.
Billy lost his harried looks and Johnny his stammer when
they found that the Reb never hurried and flurried their slow
brains, but was always ready to explain the difficulties that

were so huge in their eyes and so small in everybody else’s.
Faithful to his promise, the Reb helped Billy in school hours
with the hard sentences about Balbus’ elephant, lyre, mother-
in-law and oyster banquet. Only the easier sentences were
left to be done at home, where Tim Wingate was as willing
to help as the Reb. Morning by morning Billy and Johnny
jumped briskly down from their ponies with a smiling, “I’ve
done my Latin. Mr. Wingate says it’s all right,” or, “I know
my poetry and my speech exercises. Mr. Wingate says I’m
getting on like a house on fire.”
So they came to Mrs. Darrington’s birthday, on which she
professed herself equally pleased with her silver-and-amber
necklet and her basket of fruit under its glass shade. As for
Grandpapa and Grandmamma, they were astonished at
Charlotte’s skill, and ever after regarded her as a talented
young sculptor. Had she chosen, Nurse could have told them
how much of the talented young sculptor’s success was due
to the Reb, who had not only guided, advised and demon-
strated, but had paid out of his own pocket for the extra
supplies of wax, fine sand, clay, colors and plaster that were
needed to make good Charlotte’s failures and to replace what
had been lost in the constant raids on the stores made by
George and Kitty for private ends of their own. However,
Nurse was too kind to tell tales. She said not a word.
Mamma’s birthday breakfast did not end as joyfully as it
began. By Aunt Sophy’s special request, the Redcoats were
to have a holiday, which was to be spent at her home, Dares-
field Park. It was also a holiday for Billy and Johnny, who
had long been promised a visit to their sailor uncle’s warship
when next she lay in Suffolk waters. Their absence from
school meant that the Reb would have been free to go to
Daresfield Park with the rest of the family if Aunt Sophy
had invited him, but this she did not do. As everybody was
well aware, Aunt Sophy had no love for the Reb.
The Redcoats had been eager that the Reb should meet
their Cousin Marcus, who was just his own age and had long
since recovered from his spill in the hunting field. They were
sorry that he would have to be left solitary from breakfast-
time until their return late at night. But they were a great
deal sorrier when in the course of the meal Uncle Laurence
unexpectedly announced that he too would be staying at
home. |
“But Sophy willbe so disappointed, Laurence,” said Grand-
mamma. “She wants us all, I know. And it is some weeks
since you last rode over. Did the ride tire you? Didn’t you
feel well after it? Do you feel it would be wiser not to at-
tempt it again at present?”
“T felt no ill effects whatever, Mamma. I was and am per-
fectly well. If the Medical Board wasn’t staffed by a parcel
of idiots, I should be on the other side of the Atlantic at this
- moment, knocking loyalty into rebel skulls. If you must
know why I don’t propose to ride to Daresfield Park, the
answer is, I’m kept here by military duty. That’s the reason
I can’t come.” Uncle Laurence looked very unpleasantly at
the Reb.
The Redcoats had never heard the Reb speak to Uncle

Laurence at the table—or indeed anywhere else—unless in
reply to a question or a command. He spoke now, with per-
fect courtesy.
“If you wish, sir, I am ready to promise not to leave the
house and grounds during the day.”
“You needn’t trouble to promise. You have your own ideas
on how promises ought to be honored. I don’t trust you.”
The Reb flushed dark red, but made no answer.
“Laurence, Laurence,” said Grandpapa, “if you are allud-
ing to the occasion on which J took Mr. Baltimore to visit
his sick friend, I must tell you that such an observation is
both unjust and uncalled for. Mr. Baltimore had made you
no promise. As I told you at the time, I alone was to blame.”
“Have it your own way, sir, I’m not going to argue,” said
Uncle Laurence. “All I say is, that Pll trust my own over-
sight rather than Mr. Baltimore’s promises. As for you, Mr.
Baltimore”—and here Uncle Laurence glowered at the Reb
more unpleasantly than before—‘“if you want for occupation,
you can go round the house with a dustpan and brush and
clear away every trace of that filthy wax and powder that has
got into every room and on to every chair and table in the
place. Don’t let me find any spot of it left anywhere!”
“No, sir. Pll see to that,” the Reb answered as quietly as if
he had been receiving a civil request instead of an offensive
direction.
The Redcoats could tell that he was straining every nerve
in the effort to keep their mother’s birthday breakfast from
being spoiled. It was spoiled, everybody knew it, but the

fault was none of his.
After a short, uncomfortable pause, Grandpapa began to
talk very fast about something else. Under cover of the gen-
eral conversation, the Reb said softly to Charlotte:
“The pickled peppers weren’t any the worse for keeping,
were they? I told you there were plenty laid up in store!”
Charlotte was glad to see that the Reb was smiling. She
said, as softly: “I’m positive we didn’t make a mess all over
the house with our wax. We did everything by Nurse’s leave
in her little kitchen, and we wereas careful as we could be.”
Opening out of the schoolroom there was a room in which
Nurse reigned supreme over ironing board, medicine chest,
cutting-out table. Her armchair and workbasket stood beside
the hearth where even in summer kettles of hot water were
constantly purring on the hearth, ready for every emergency.
“No work anywhere for my dustpan and brush,” said the
Reb, “except in the gun room that I’m not allowed to enter.
That’s where George and Kitty held high revel with the
stuff they stole!”
Charlotte left the breakfast table much cheered. Never-
theless, it was a subdued party that set off half an hour later
in the family coach. Everybody was thinking how much
more enjoyable the expedition would have been if Uncle
Laurence and the Reb had been riding alongside in friendly
wise. And everybody except Kitty, who was too young to
worry, was wondering whether Uncle Laurence had any
more pickled peppers for the Reb to pick. Grandmamma
spoke for all when she said it was a thousand pities those
two were going to be alone together for the whole day.
Owing to a mishap with a wheel, the coach was so late in
returning home that Uncle Laurence came out to greet them
in some perturbation.
“T was just about to organize a rescue team,” said he as he
carried sleepy Kitty indoors. “I’m thankful to see you safe
and sound. Had a good time?”
Before the others could answer, Kitty sat up id rubbed
her eyes. “Where’s the Reb?” she asked.
“All in one piece,” answered Uncle Laurence, setting
Kitty on her feet with unnecessary energy. “I don’t know
where he is, and I don’t care either. I’ve only seen him twice.
In the morning he was sketching Watermeadow Mill from —
_ the wall overlooking Green Lane, hobnobbing the while
with a stranger who was seemingly much interested in the
daubs he had with him on loose sheets of paper. I went up to
the pair of them to find out what spy he’d got hold of.”
“Spy?” said the Redcoats, pricking up their ears.
“Oh, he wasn’t a spy after all. Never should have suspected
him if the Reb hadn’t clutched at the papers as if there was
something among them I was not intended to see. Only
some painter fellow with a commission in the neighborhood
who had been attracted, as he said, by the sight of a young
brother artist at work. Praised the Reb a lot more than was
good for him. I left the pair of them jabbering away nineteen
to the dozen about art.” |
“Laurence,” Mrs. Darrington said faintly, “your painter
fellow must have been the great Mr. Gainsborough himself.

I know he has been asked to paint Mrs. Lorimer’s portrait.
I—I hope you were polite in what you said.”
“Only soso. This evening the Reb spent about half an hour
with the Hickorys. I saw him going there and timed him,
that’s how I know.”
“At mealtimes, Laurence?” said Grandmamma.
“He didn’t put in an appearance at meals. I daresay he
coaxed some sustenance out of Nurse.”
“Nurse has spent the day with her sister.”
“Then I’m sure I don’t know how he fared. Now, Mamma
be reasonable. He knows our mealtimes. The gong was
sounded as usual, and he isn’t deaf. What more did you ex-
pect me to do about it? Tie on his bib and feed him?”
There was nothing to be gained by discussing the question
further with Uncle Laurence. The Redcoats went in search
of the Reb, purposing to invite him to join them in a night
feast of biscuits and milk.
But the candle was out in the blue room.
;
yes Se I ee ae re ee
]2
xe
xg
% Nothing of Military Importance
Tue cypsy boy was lurking in the shrubbery when the Red-
coats were at play after dinner on the day following their
mother’s birthday. Shortly before afternoon lessons were due
to begin, they caught sight of him. Putting a finger on his
lips for silence, he drew a letter from among his rags and
held it out to them.
They knew it must be a letter for the Reb, perhaps the
very letter he so much wanted to see. Evidently, the smug-
glers knew all about their friendship with the Reb, and had
told the messenger he might safely entrust the letter to their
care. Joseph nodded and would have taken it. George shot
ahead of him.
“No, let me! Get out, Joe! I'll give it to the Reb!” ,
“What’s that you’re proposing to give to the Reb?” said
Uncle Laurence’s voice, and Uncle Laurence’s long arm came
over George’s shoulder and took the letter most uncere-
moniously. George lost his wits and struggled to keep his
166
NOTHING OF MILITARY IMPORTANCE 167
prize. The letter was torn across before he gave up the vain
struggle.
Uncle Laurence walked toward the house, with the Red-
coats trailing after. They had every reason to fear what
might happen next; for during the day the Reb had had,
as Joseph put it, “as much of Uncle Laurence as human na-
ture could stand!” Nobody knew, for nobody dared to
inquire, whether the Reb had gone fasting for twenty-four
hours or whether he had obtained food from the Hickorys
or elsewhere and had cooked himself meals in Nurse’s little
kitchen. But at breakfast and again at dinner Uncle Lau-
rence had chosen to assume that the Reb must be ravenously
hungry, and, not content with heaping the prisoner’s plate
to an absurd degree, had pursued him with sarcastic offers
of second and even of third helpings. Only the Reb’s habitual
self-control had kept him quiet under the petty insults. The
Redcoats and their elders knew that it had been strained to
breaking point.
_ Lesson time was drawing near. With his watch on the
window seat beside him, the Reb was waiting in the hall to
give the summons. While he waited, he was deep in a book.
He did not move or look up until Uncle Laurence addressed
him with a curt, “Mr. Baltimore!”
It brought the Reb to his feet with a start. His eyes went
to the letter in Uncle Laurence’s hand. Soiled and torn as
though it had been many months on its journey, it was ad-
dressed, as the Redcoats could see, in a bold flowing hand not
unlike the Reb’s.
“I have just intercepted this communication,” said Uncle
Laurence, speaking, as he always did, as if the Reb were a
contemptible object about a thousand miles away. “You have
already been warned that any such missive must be forwarded
through Colonel Gatwick to the deciphering office in Lon-
don.”
“Tt’s from my father,” said the Reb, and for the first time
the Redcoats heard something like a note of appeal in his
proud young voice. “May I—please, may I read it first?” —
“You should know better than to make such a childish
request. I am bound to refuse.”
“The contents are private,” the Reb pleaded, desperately.
“T assure you, sir, there can be nothing of military importance
in the letter.”
“So you say. The truth remains to be ascertained,” said
Uncle Laurence, with a demon smile.
“You're a loathsome, insufferable, bullying blackguard,
like all your scarlet lobsterbacks!” flashed the Reb, stung
beyond endurance. “You—”
Mrs. Darrington came out of the dining room. With a
mighty struggle the Reb stemmed the torrent of furious in- —
dignation that was sweeping away his defenses. He stood
silent. But his eyes said everything that his lips did not say.
“Thank you,” said Uncle Laurence. “After that pretty
little outburst, you will hardly expect me to ride posthaste in
the broiling sun to convey your letter to Gatwick Hall. It
will do no harm inside my desk for a month or two before
I send it on, and if you don’t keep a civil tongue in your

head, it shall stay there longer still!”
For a second or two the Redcoats thought that the Reb
would spring at Uncle Laurence and wrest the letter from
his grasp. Mrs. Darrington’s presence held him back from a
scuffle that could only have ended in ignominious defeat,
there being a couple of menservants and a gardener within
hail to second the other side. He remained rigid until Uncle
Laurence had taken himself and his smile into the gun room.
“Randal,” said Mrs. Darrington, with a gentle hand on the
Reb’s arm, “I know you were shamefully provoked, but still
you should not have said what you did. Won’t you follow
my brother and apologize? He will meet you halfway, I am
sure he will.”
“It’s for him to apologize to me!” said the Reb, quivering
from head to foot with passion. “And as for going into the
gun room—why, he'd be only too delighted to have the
chance of slinging me out like a dog! D’you suppose I don’t
know that?”
“Then shall I tell him for you?”
“T don’t shelter behind women, ma’am,” said the Reb. “No!
I’m much obliged to you, but I stand by what I said. All I
regret is that you and the little girls heard it.”
He picked up book and watch. “You have five minutes
more,” he said to the Redcoats.
With their mother, they stood irresolute in the hall, wait-
ing until the Reb had mounted the stairs and disappeared
beyond the baize door that led to the schoolroom wing. Then
Charlotte beckoned the five others to follow her.
She led them to one end of the great flagged terrace.
“I don’t know how you are going to spend the next five
minutes,” she said, “but I am going to stamp and stamp and
stamp. This is the best place for stamping. After I have
stamped for five minutes, I shall feel better.”
Watched by the five, Charlotte began her stamping. They
were as angry as she, but more prudent. A moment’s pause
for reflection told them that whereas Uncle Laurence might
fail to notice the noise made by one person stamping he
would certainly pay attention to the noise made by six.
Charlotte stamped so hard that she did not hear the French
window of the gun room being opened, or the sound of
footsteps on the stone flags.
“And pray what is the meaning of this extraordinary per-
formance?” said Uncle Laurence, towering above her.
Charlotte looked round for the support of her fellow Red-
coats. They were nowhere to be seen. At Uncle Laurence’s
approach they had fled helter-skelter. There was not a sign
of any one of them, though the agitated wavings of the |
nearest laurel bush on a windless day might be taken to sig-
nify that several fugitives had taken shelter beneath its
branches.
It was clear that Uncle Laurence knew the answer to his
question, but it was equally clear that he meant to have the
said answer from Charlotte. He waited. Charlotte had not
thought she would have to face him unaided by her com-
NOTHING OF MILITARY IMPORTANCE 17I
panions and a dismally long way from Mamma, Grand-

papa or the Reb.
She said in a voice that wobbled: “I was stamping at you,
Uncle Laurence.”
“So I supposed. Well, I don’t allow people to stamp at
me any more than I allow them to call me names. I’ve
punished the Reb, and now it’s your turn. But you needn’t
begin to yell your head off for your mother to come and
protect you. It’s not a painful punishment. Indeed, it can’t
be distinguished from a pleasure. Instead of doing lessons
this afternoon, you shall come for a ride with me.”
“I won’t!” said Charlotte. “I don’t want to! I won't!”
“No? You’d rather spend the afternoon surrounding the
Reb with a syrupy atmosphere of sympathy and loving-
kindness, wouldn’t you? All right, do as you please. But I
warn you, Charlotte, that if you don’t meet me in the front
drive in ten minutes’ time, dressed for riding, then I’ll take
it out of the Reb.” ,
“How?”
“Never you mind. I know how.”
“Do you mean you will keep his letter longer even than
two months?” faltered Charlotte. “Or that you won’t ever
let him have it at all?”
“I won't be cross-questioned by a young snippet like you!
I’ve told you, the Reb will be the one to suffer if you don’t
do as you’re bid. Let that suffice. Ten minutes is all you’ve
got. Not a word to a soul, do you understand? Keep your
laments until you are at home again.”
Charlotte ran into the house, meeting no one on the way.

She struggled into her riding habit and rejoined Uncle
Laurence, who was waiting in the drive with his mare. A
groom held her pony. He looked curiously at Charlotte, who
was, he thought, less cheerful than a girl should be whose
kind uncle had offered to take her for a ride.
_ The kind uncle and the uncheerful niece rode down the
drive and along the highway between high hedges crowned
with wild pink roses. Flaming June was at her flamingest
that afternoon; the sun poured relentlessly down.
“Thinking of what you are missing?” said Uncle Lau-
rence. “You were going to play the fairy scenes from A Mid-
summer Night's Dream, weren't you? I heard you all talking
about it at dinner. Billy was to be Oberon, George was to be
Puck, and you were to be Titania, with a golden crown that
the Reb had made for you out of gilt paper begged from your
mother. Now Kitty will be the crowned queen instead of
you. She won’t act nearly so well. She'll stick in the middle
of the bit about —
“apricocks and dewberries,

With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries,
and she’ll put her finger in her mouth and say she can’t re-
member any more. Who ever heard of a queen who forgot
what came next in her speech?”
“I wasn’t thinking of that at all!” said Chatterte, all the
more indignantly because Uncle Laurence’s words gave
her a pang of regret. ,
“What were you thinking about, then? Disrespectful
thoughts of me, I’ve no doubt. Come, let’s hear them.”
Charlotte did not dare disobey.
“I was thinking that you are sometimes very unkind,
Uncle Laurence. You never are just to the Reb because you
don’t like him. Today you did your best to put him in a rage,
and you succeeded. You said you had punished him. Punish-
ment isn’t the right word. It was revenge. And revenge is
wicked.” |
“So it is,” said Uncle Laurence. “Tell your rebel doll that,
will you? I’ve a notion she means to practice some uncom-
monly nasty black magic on me.”
He rode on in silence. Charlotte could not imagine where
she had found the courage to speak as she had done, even
though it was in obedience to orders. She wished Uncle
Laurence had not made her tell her thoughts. Back to her
memory came a picture of the gay, teasing, lighthearted
young uncle of the dimly remembered days before he went
to the war. Then she pictured the gaunt, haggard semi-invalid
the Redcoats had seen last Christmas, so unlike the adored
Uncle Laurence of long ago. For their sakes he had struggled
to throw off his despondency and make the Christmas visit
a happy one. After that, she again saw Mamma opening the
great desk to show the miniature portrait of the scarlet-clad
friend whose death had cast such a deep shadow over Uncle
Laurence’s life. She wondered, as she had often wondered
before, what sorrowful mystery enfolded Major André’s end.
Once she had tried to persuade Mamma to explain more
clearly why it was that Uncle Laurence hated his enemies
and especially the Reb with such relentless hatred. But
Mamma had said only: |
“Not now, my little Charlotte. I do not wish to tell you
more than I have already told, that there were circum-
stances that made the death of Major André more painful
to Uncle Laurence than the death of any other friend. Your
uncle is a brave man, and he has borne the loss of those other
friends as a soldier should. Remember, my darling, that the
blow fell on him at a time when he was himself almost at
death’s door. He is still suffering from an illness of the mind.
Let us hope and pray that in time he may be healed.”
The Reb had never heard what the Redcoats knew.
Mamma had warned them that Uncle Laurence would be
terribly angry if the story ever reached the prisoner. Char-
lotte was sorry that it had not been possible to tell the Reb
everything. He might have found Uncle Laurence’s moodi-
ness and his dark surges of wrath easier to understand and
to endure. ,
Charlotte’s ponderings were lost in surprise at the length
of her ride, which had now taken her into a part of the
neighborhood that she did not know. Up and down and
around a tangle of strange lanes rode Uncle Laurence, and
up and down and around and after him rode the unhappy
Charlotte. She was thankful when at last they trotted into
a wood where the cool duskiness was refreshing after the
glare outside. The wood ended in another lane. Fifty yards
down the lane, Uncle Laurence dismounted to open a white
NOTHING OF MILITARY IMPORTANCE v9
gate that gave entrance to a gentleman’s grounds. He walked
his horse along the path, which ran through a shrubbery to
a graveled sweep at the side of a large, prim, orderly house.
“Why! Why!” said Charlotte, “it’s—”
“Gatwick Hall, approached from the rear,” said Uncle
Laurence. “Yes, you stamping scolding little vixen, that’s
where we have come—and if you can’t guess my errand,
you'll be denser than I take you for!”
Charlotte’s heart gave a joyful jump. A groom ran up to
take her pony and Dorinda. She and Uncle Laurence walked
round the angle of the house. Under one of the windows,
full in the blazing sun, with gnats and mosquitoes dancing
giddily round it, stood an ancient shaky wheeled sofa, and
on the sofa lay Tim Wingate, looking as though he might
melt at any moment. | |
Uncle Laurence made the barest possible sign of recogni-
tion and walked on. Tim called after him, “If you please,
Captain Templeton—”
Wheeling round, Uncle Laurence went up to the sofa and
stood waiting to hear what Tim had to say. His face was not
encouraging.
“T just wanted to ask whether Baltimore has heard from
his father yet.”
Uncle Laurence said curtly, “Yes, today. That’s why I am
here?
“He has seen the letter?”
“No, certainly not.”
“Must it go up to LondonP”
“That’s for Colonel Gatwick to say. Surely you know the

decision doesn’t rest with me.” ,
Uncle Laurence moved as if to indicate that the conversa-
tion was ended. Tim detained him.
“Captain Templeton, could you possibly persuade Colonel
Gatwick to let Baltimore see that letter before it goes up to
London?”
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?”
“He wouldn’t listentome. You know he wouldn’t.”
“Nor to me. It’s waste of time to ask him. He would say
that a great fuss was being made about nothing.”
“It’s not nothing to Baltimore. He has a good reason for
wanting to read that letter at the earliest possible moment
after all those months of waiting. "T'was this way. Just before
we sailed for Europe, Baltimore got into a frightful scrape
with his father. They fell out—”
“You surprise me,” said Uncle Laurence, drily. “What's
his father like?”
“What should you suppose? Exactly like Baltimore.”
“Tt must have been a battle of the giants,” said Uncle ©
Laurence.
Tim was in no mood to smile. “You don’t understand,
Captain Templeton. It wasn’t the ordinary, everyday kind of ©
scrape that I might have found myself in, or you might
when you were my age. This was far more serious. Let me
tell you what happened, then you'll know why Baltimore
doesn’t want to wait. You were serving under Sir Henry
Clinton last year, at the time when Arnold was plotting to

betray West Point to the British—”
“T was. Look here, Mr. Wingate, consider well before
going further. Mr. Baltimore won’t thank you for giving
Colonel Gatwick and me unwanted and unnecessary infor-
mation about his private affairs, particularly if—”’ The break
had a meaning for Tim, though not for Charlotte.
“If—what?” Tim asked sharply.
“Nothing, Mr. Wingate.”
“Tt wasn’t nothing. You mean that one or other of the
Baltimores was treasonably, from our point of view, mixed
up in Arnold’s foul plot.”
“T did not say so.”
“You implied it. A thousand times, no! I never intended
to give that impression. What can have made you suppose
that I did? I’ve said too much not to say more. If you don’t
let me finish my story, it will be grossly unfair to both Balti-
more and his father. Nobody knows what you would be
~ thinking.”
“Don’t disturb yourself. I shouldn’t take the trouble to
think!” Uncle Laurence assured Tim crushingly.
Charlotte shivered with indignation. She felt better when
Uncle Laurence did the Reb reluctant justice a moment
later.
“You told me that it was a serious matter, Mr. Wingate.
I was only giving you a fair warning. I am unacquainted with
Major Baltimore, but of Mr. Baltimore’s personal integrity
I have no doubt. Go on by all means if it gives you any satis-

faction.”
Tim Wingate could hardly have had less encouragement
to proceed. But he persevered.
“Baltimore was shocked and horrified when the com-
mander in chief refused Major André’s request for a soldier’s
death. We were there at the time. We helped guard him. We
saw a good deal of him. We liked him. Everybody did.”
Charlotte saw Uncle Laurence wince. Tim saw it too. He
paused, discomforted.
“What then?” said Uncle Laurence, in a voice not like
his own.
But the check had served to remind Tim that he had more
than one listener. “Miss Darrington?” she said doubtfully,
with questioning eyes on Uncle Laurence.
“Never mind about Miss Darrington. She knows nothing
_ whatever about this. If you keep off plain English, she won’t
understand.”
“Baltimore never told a soul what he had done, but I
have reason to believe he appealed in writing to General
Washington—” :
“What!”
“Myself, I shouldn’t have dared,” Tim confessed frankly.
“Baltimore’s different, he'd dare anything. He failed, of
course.”
Uncle Laurence was now as motionless as if he had been
carved in stone.
“Early on the morning of the second of October, Baltimore

was in one of the store tents, with his father. He hadn’t slept
all night. I know, because I shared his quarters, and I was
wakeful too. Major Baltimore was tense, like everybody else
in the camp. Taut as fiddlestrings, we were. He and Randal
began to go over the old argument they had worried at again
and again. But this time there was a keener edge to it, be-
cause of what was going to happen that day.”
With surprise, Charlotte heard Tim using the Reb’s Chris-
tian name instead of his surname. He seemed unconscious of
the change, and Uncle Laurence gave no sign of noticing it.
“Randal said Major André was only technically a spy.
There were extenuating circumstances. He was acting under
orders and contrary to his own wishes, and he was a brave
man and should be allowed to die a soldier’s death. Major
Baltimore did not agree. He defended the commander in
chief’s decision, and told Randal bluntly there could be no
two sane opinions about the matter. André was undeniably
a spy, and the commander in chief was completely justified
in dismissing André’s request and condemning him to a
spy’s death.”
It was all very well for Uncle Laurence to say that Char-
lotte knew nothing and wouldn’t understand. Though Tim
had not used plain English, she perfectly comprehended
why her mother had hushed Joseph when they were looking
at the miniature in Uncle Laurence’s desk, and why after-
ward she had refused to explain the mystery. She shivered
in the bright June sunshine. A gray fog drew across the sky,
and 'Colonel Gatwick’s neatly laid out flower beds became
dark patches.
“Tf Randal had only had ceesense to leave it there!” said
Tim. “He wouldn’t leave it. There was a frightful scene.
Don’t think that Major Baltimore is a tyrant who won't
allow his son to hold an opinion contrary to his own. Noth-
ing of the sort. Up to that hour, he and Randal had argued
on equal terms and had agreed to differ, always without ill-
feeling. But that morning Major Baltimore, like the rest of
us, wasn’t himself. He’s quite as sensitive and highly strung
as Randy, and however hotly he stood up for his chief, he
hated the thought of what was coming. So for once he wasn’t
conciliatory in the way he attacked what he called Randal’s
wrong-headed views. And then Randy blazed up as only
Randy can blaze when he’s roused. Let fly at General Wash-
ington and said the most outrageous things about him!”
“Oh!” said Charlotte. “Oh-h-h!”
Uncle Laurence had apparently no comment to make, and
no statue could have been stiller. Tim went on:
“Major Baltimore was angrier than I’ve ever seen anyone ~
in my life. He fairly thundered at Randal, ordering him to
stop. Randal took no more notice than if his father had been
a fly on the wall. He went raging on regardless, in spite of
his father’s repeated commands. What Randy didn’t realize,
was that Major Baltimore was deadly frightened as well as
furious. If anybody had entered the store tent while Randy
was in full career—well, there’s no telling how the affair
might have ended! He might have been charged with mutiny

and who knows what besides! At the mildest, he would have
had to answer for insulting the commander in chief. Gen-
eral Washington is dangerous when he is enraged—”
“T know,” said Uncle Laurence, as if he were speaking in
a dream. “I’ve heard stories.”
“And they’re true! There was only one course open to
Major Baltimore, and he took it the instant he could make
himself heard. He put Randy under arrest for the day while
he considered what further steps it was his duty to take. And
he told Randy that if a second witness had been present in
the tent, it would have meant a court-martial and cashiering
—if nothing worse!
“That brought Randy to his senses mighty quick! A cor-
poral was summoned to escort him to the quarters we shared,
and I was sent for and told off to mount guard over him for
the day. I—I fancy there was a reason why Major Baltimore
chose me rather than anybody else. It was mostly for Randy’s
own sake, of course, so that he should have a friend with
him. But partly it was to spare me as well as Randy—the
ordeal that Major Baltimore and all the others had to face.”
Charlotte moved nearer Uncle Laurence, whose head was
bowed. She put her hand into his and held fast.
“Randy never spoke a word all day. In the evening, his
father sent a message, releasing him from arrest. Word had
arrived from General Washington that we were to join the
special mission that was going to France. We were needed
at short notice as interpreters, and were ordered to be ready
and off in half an hour. I think Major Baltimore was only

too thankful to get Randy out of the country while I and a
trustworthy corporal were still the only two who knew he
had been temporarily under arrest—and neither the corporal
nor I was supposed to know the reason. Randy and his father
didn’t meet again. Major Baltimore was on duty, and I guess
he couldn’t think up a plausible excuse for quitting.
“That night, after we had reached the mission’s head-
quarters, Randy told me a little, not much, of what had
passed. He was desperately wretched about the whole affair.
Not that he had changed his opinions. Not he! Not a bit of
it! He held, as firmly as ever, that Major André’s request for
a soldier’s death ought to have been granted. But he did fully
realize that his attack on the commander in chief had been
outrageous and unjustifiable. If we hadn’t been summoned
away, he would have apologized to his father as soon as they
met. As I’ve told you, they didn’t. So he sat up most of the
night writing to ask for pardon, and early the next morning
he sent the letter by a man who could be trusted to deliver
it, and who did—we know it for a fact—deliver it. :
“There was time for an answer to reach us on board ship.
He waited and hoped—and no letter came. We sailed, and
he has been waiting and hoping ever since, until now. He
scarcely ever speaks about that day and night, but I know he
is very nearly heartbroken. Because you see, sir, he and his
father had always been such close friends. Major Baltimore
had married early, and it was a joke in the regiment that they
were more like brothers than father and son. Randal all but
worshiped him. He has told me that he had never in his life

been punished in any way by his father, never even heard
a harsh word from him—never until the moment when he
found himself under arrest and in danger of a court-martial!
And then, to spend the best part of a year not knowing
whether he has been forgiven! The worst of it is, that he has
always had a queer, unreasonable, twisted notion that he
never will be forgiven, that he has, as he says, ‘sinned too
deeply for forgiveness.’ You can’t wonder that he wants his
letter, wants to be put out of his suspense.”
“No,” said Uncle Lawrence, “I don’t wonder. I wish with
all my heart I had heard this story six months ago. It would
have made a vast difference in my treatment of Mr. Balti-
more. I have much to regret.”
“He didn’t whine!” said Tim quickly.
“No, he wouldn’t. We'll leave that. I will do my best, Mr.
Wingate, to persuade Colonel Gatwick to allow Mr. Balti-
more to see the letter before it is forwarded, since it is, as
Mr. Baltimore told me, ‘of no military importance.’ If Colo-
nel Gatwick decides that the letter must go on, I am sure he
will make strong representations to the deciphering office to
insure its immediate return. It is indeed unfortunate that your
_ friend has had to wait so long. Let us hope that in his very
natural distress he has, without knowing it, exaggerated both
the depth of his’ offense and of his father’s displeasure.”
“Exaggerated! Not so, sir!” cried Tim. “You weren’t there,
you don’t know! You wouldn’t say that if you had been
present like me—”
184 THE. REB AND THE REDCOATS
“Like you? Then there was a second witness?”

Tim groaned in dismay. “I never meant to let it out! Major
Baltimore and Randal didn’t know I was behind some crates
of stores all the time. Once the row had started, I didn’t care
to show myself—and after the arrest I dared not! His father
stayed in the store tent for some time after Randal had gone,
and kept sending men in all directions to look for me. I can
tell you, it was grisly, waiting for a chance to escape unseen.
Randy doesn’t know to this day. On your life, keep it dark.
He’s quixotic. He might feel it was his duty to tell his father
the second witness was forthcoming. Who’s to know Major
Baltimore mightn’t be forced to keep his word? It won’t get
round through you, sir? You won’t come out with it?”
“T certainly won't. Charlotte, you mustn’t speak of it to
anyone. Remember, Mr. Baltimore must on no account be
told. She’s a wise child, Mr. Wingate. You can trust her.”
Charlotte glowed with pleasure at these words of praise.
Uncle Laurence added: “You may stay here and chat with
Mr. Wingate, my dear, while I am talking to Colonel Gat-
wick. I shan’t be long.”
He walked off.
naan < icy ai <a IRS Sly geael SeaR >@
13
sr
Ww
ve In the Gun Room
A HUGE EMPTY flowerpot stood upside down near Tim’s sofa,

to serve him as a table. Charlotte’s knees felt so shaky that
she sat down on it for a rest.
“Mr. Wingate,” she said, when the silence became em-
barrassing, “there are plenty of tall green ferns in the wood.
Shall I bring you a big piece of bracken to drive away the
mosquitoes?”
“Td be grateful,” said Tim. “They’re enough to send a
fellow mad.”
Charlotte ran off and returned with a huge green frond.
“That’s better,” said Tim contentedly. “They put me out
here for the good of my health, and then they forget about
me. When it rains, I get soaked. When it blows, I freeze.
And when it shines, I frizzle. How’s Randy? By the way,
I didn’t use his home names when I was talking to your
uncle just now? I’ve a sort of notion it was so. I hope not.”
“Yes, you did, when you were carried away by your own
story. But never mind, Uncle Laurence was carried away
185
too. I don’t believe he could have told. I’m afraid the Reb
isn’t very happy at present. I think perhaps I oughtn’t to tell
you why. Please don’t ask me.” |
“Another breeze with your Uncle Laurence, I guess,” said
Tim. He added in puzzled tones, “But Captain Templeton
has taken the trouble to ride over with that letter on a grill-
ing afternoon.”
Charlotte did not offer an explanation. She knew Tim
would soon hear the whole story from Billy and Johnny.
“Why doesn’t Captain Templeton apply again to the War
Office to have Randy transferred to somebody else’s keeping,
if they can’t get on together?”
“Oh, I can’t count the times Uncle Laurence has applied!”
said Charlotte. “But there’s nowhere he could go except to
the French prisoners’ place. The commandant there won’t
have him for love or money. Uncle Laurence says the com-
mandant daren’t introduce an electric eel into his quiet fish
tank. Don’t be anxious, Mr. Wingate, there’s a great change
come over Uncle Laurence since he heard what you had to
say. He will be kinder now, I’m convinced he will. And the
Reb has been happy at the White Priory, in spite of every-
thing not always being exactly as it should be. We Redcoats
are very fond of him, and we shall be miserable when the
time comes for him to escape.” |
“There’s not much chance of that. He won’t go without
me, and I’m a fixture.”
“Can’t you walk at all? Not a tiny way?”
“If I were being chased by a mad bull, I might manage
IN THE GUN ROOM 187
to walk from here to my room, feeling as though someone

was prodding me with a red-hot poker at every step I took.
What’s that sentence Johnny is practicing to help him pro-
nounce his r’s—the sentence he still stumbles over? ‘Around
the rugged rock the ragged rascals ran’—that’s it. Gr-r-r-r!
The very thought of running makes me shudder! Let’s
change the subject. Anybody else in your family qualified
for a wig yet?”
Charlotte blushed.
“T heard all about that from Billy and Johnny. It gave
them some palpitating minutes. What did Randy do with the
pocketfuls of hair?”
“Threw the hair away, I suppose. I never asked him.”
“T shouldn’t wonder if he isn’t keeping it to take home to
Aunt Dinah, who has promised to make him a watch chain
woven out of his people’s hair as soon as she can collect
enough of it. She’s hairdresser to the Baltimores.”
“T shouldn’t like to have a watch chain made of human
hair,” said Charlotte, in disgust. “It’s true, the Reb has a watch
without a chain, but he didn’t have the watch till after he
came to England. How could Aunt Dinah know that?”
“She doesn’t. It happened the winter before last, when
we were having hard times. Randy sold his gold watch and
chain secretly, to buy comforts for his men. There are always
speculators hovering around in war, greedy to pick up what
they can. Nobody knew but me. Then Aunt Dinah found
out. She couldn’t replace the watch, but she guessed she could
replace the chain! Don’t tell Randy I told you.”
“No,” said Charlotte, who was a little sorry to lose the

chance of finding out whether her lost hair was really going
back to America to help Aunt Dinah make the watch chain.
“Here’s Uncle Laurence coming.”
Uncle Laurence had a quiet, thoughtful look that Char-
lotte did not remember to have seen before. He said to Tim:
“As I expected, Colonel Gatwick refused to let Mr. Balti-
more see the letter before it had passed through the decipher-
ing office. However, he has promised to ask for it to be sent
back as soon as possible. And he has made one small con-
cession.”
Uncle Laurence did not tell Tim and Charlotte what the
concession was, and they did not venture to inquire. Instead,
he volunteered to draw Tim’s sofa into the cool shade of a
neighboring tree, questioned him sympathetically about his
prospects of recovery, and asked whether he had any message
for Mr. Baltimore. All this was so unlike Uncle Laurence
that Charlotte could hardly hide her surprise.
During the ride home, she had to pinch herself more than
once to make sure she was not dreaming. For the Uncle
Laurence who returned from that ride was not the same man
who had set out on it. He was nearly as silent, but his silence
was not the heavy silence of displeasure. He had the air of
one who was thinking remorseful thoughts. Once he roused
himself to remind Charlotte that it was very important Mr.
Baltimore should not hear of Mr. Wingate’s presence in the
store tent. |
“Uncle Laurence,” said Charlotte, “I feel exactly like the
IN THE GUN ROOM 189
barber in the story of King Midas in one of Miss Pipkin’s
new lesson books that she bought for us. Nobody except his
barber knew that King Midas was unlucky enough to have
ears like an ass. The barber was strictly forbidden to tell the
secret. But he felt he would die if he didn’t tell someone, so
he dug a little hole in the earth by the river, and whispered
into it, ‘King Midas has ass’s ears.’ And the earth told the
river reeds, and the river reeds told the water nymphs, and
the water nymphs went and told everybody, and so the
dreadful secret was out. Oh, Uncle Laurence, I do under-
stand how that barber felt!”
“So do I, Charlotte. It’s a comfort that there are two of us
to share the secret. We can whisper it to each other, if need
be!” |
An hour earlier, these would have been the last words to
be expected from Uncle Laurence, but anything might hap-
pen on such a topsy-turvy afternoon! Charlotte held up her
head, proud that she and Uncle Laurence were joint guard-
ians of the Reb’s safety.
Uncle Laurence smiled like the Uncle Laurence of long
ago, and went back to his grave thoughts. Could it be, Char-
lotte asked herself, that the cold, cruel witch spell had been
broken for good and all by what Tim had said. Had Uncle
- Laurence really and truly stopped hating the Reb?
“Charlotte,” said Uncle Laurence, coming out of his
brown study with a start, “you couldn’t make out what Mr.
Wingate and I were talking about, could you?”
“Yes, I could,” said Charlotte.
“Your mother will never forgive me!” said Uncle Lau-

rence, with an exclamation of dismay.
“T shouldn’t have understood, not properly, if Mamma
hadn’t already told us part of the story herself,” said Char-
lotte. “Mamma took us into the gun room and showed us
the picture of Major John André in your desk. Joseph under-
stood. I didn’t understand all about everything then. I do
now.”
For a while Uncle Laurence did not speak. Save for distant
sounds from the farms and from the sea, it was quiet in the
lane. Not even a lark was singing overhead.
“Did your mother or any of you children tell Mr. Balti-
more?”
“No. Mamma said you wouldn’t want him to be told.”
“He will have to know now. I owe him that. But I don’t
look forward to the telling.”
Uncle Laurence did not speak another word until they
were walking from the stables to the house. Then he said to
Charlotte:
“Will you find Mr. Baltimore and bring him to me in the
gun room? Say I have a message from Colonel Gatwick.”
“What if he won’t come, Uncle Laurence?”
“Tl go to him if he won’t come to me. But I would prefer
to talk to him in the gun room.” |
Charlotte went in search of the Reb. Afternoon school was
over, and for reasons of her own she avoided meeting the
other Redcoats, whom she espied conferring at a distance, in
IN THE GUN ROOM gl
the summerhouse. After a search, she ran the Reb to earth

in a lonely part of the grounds, where a rustic bench stood
in a grove of nut trees. He was sitting on the bench, his
elbows on his knees, his chin in his hands, staring drearily
down at the little white pink-tipped daisies in the grass at
his feet. Charlotte thought she had never seen anyone look
so desolate.
“Reb,” she said, speaking so fast that her words fell over
one another like Johnny’s, “in spite of what he said, Uncle
Laurence didn’t keep your letter back. He and I took it to
Gatwick Hall. The colonel said it must go to London. I’m
sorry about that. Uncle Laurence is sorry too.”
The Reb looked his unbelief in Uncle Laurence’s sorrow.
“Did Captain Templeton give you a bad time this after-
noon?” he asked fiercely.
“Not after the beginning. Oh, Reb, you’ve been told he
barks worse than he bites. It’s true, though you don’t think
so. And he has a message for you from Colonel Gatwick. He
wants you to come and hear it.”
“You mean, your Uncle Laurence has gotten the wish of
his heart? I’m to be shipped off to another place of detention?
Let him send his message through a third person, then, for I
don’t want to see him any more than he wants to see me!
There would only be another explosion, and I should hurt
your mother, who has been so kind to me, more than I’ve
hurt her already.”
“T don’t know what the message was, but I do know it
192 | THE REB AND THE REDCOATS
had to do with the letter, not with your going away,” said
Charlotte. “Uncle Laurence seemed to think you would like
it. He called it a con- con- some long word that I have for-
gotten.”
“Where is he?”
“In the gun room.”
The Reb had risen at Charlotte’s entrance into the grove.
The last words made him turn back to the bench.
“It’s a trick!” he said vehemently. “Your uncle only wants
an excuse for doing what I said he would do. He overheard
me!” 3
“Oh, Reb, you can’t honestly think Uncle Laurence would
be as shabby as that!” protested Charlotte, who was finding
her task even harder than she had feared. “There’s no trick,
none whatever. Even if he did hear, through a closed door,
what you said, I am positively positive he isn’t holding it
against you. How many more times must I tell you he was
sorry about the letter? Won’t you do as he asks P”
“Tf I refuse, he'll think I’m afraid of him! I won’t risk
that. Yes, I'll come.” |
The Reb’s attitude did not promise well for the success of
the interview, but Charlotte was glad to secure his presence
on any terms. They went back to the house together. Char-
lotte knocked at the gun-room door. It was opened by Uncle
Laurence.
For the first time the Reb stood on the forbidden ground
he had viewed so often from without. But he did not show
the slightest interest in his novel surroundings. Standing at
IN THE GUN ROOM 193
attention, he waited stonily for what Uncle Laurence had to

say.
“On second thought, Mr. Baltimore,” began Uncle Lau-
rence, “I realized that I should not be justified in detaining
your letter. Charlotte has told you that we took it to Gatwick
Hall? And that it had to go to London?”
“Yes.”
“Colonel Gatwick desires me to tell you that he will
notify the deciphering office that you have urgent private
reasons for requiring that the letter should be returned to
you with the least possible delay.”
“He has read my letter? You have read it?” the Reb cried,
with gleaming eyes of rage.
“No, it has not been read by either of us.”
“Then how did either of you know I had urgent reasons
for wanting it sent back soon?”
“I am afraid you must blame Mr. Wingate for that. Char-
lotte and I found him lying in the garden, and he told us the
whole story.”
The Reb said something under his breath. It sounded like
a dark promise to revenge himself on the garrulous Tim
when next they met.
“By your leave, no!” said Uncle Laurence. “I am very
grateful to Mr. Wingate for telling me what he did. Let me
repeat, your letter has not been read either by Colonel Gat-
wick or by me. But in view of the special circumstances, I
took upon myself to suggest that, the letter being unfortu-
nately torn open, Colonel Gatwick should look at and after-
ward make known to me the opening and closing words,
and the date. He did what I asked. I hope you don’t object.
Shall I tell you what I know?”
Never before had Uncle Laurence addressed his prisoner
with such courteous sympathy in tone and manner. No
answer came from the Reb, who appeared to be struggling
with mixed emotions—amazement, pain, panien and hu-
miliated pride.
Uncle Laurence waited with unwonted patience until
pride conquered the Reb’s longing to hear the three items
from his intercepted letter. Drawing himself up with his
haughtiest air, the Reb said glacially:
“No, thank you. I prefer to wait until my private property
has been sent back from—”
And there the Reb’s voice trembled and died away, so that
the final word of the sentence was never spoken.
Uncle Laurence pretended not to notice anything amiss. He
said:
“If I apologize first, will that make it easier? I deeply
regret my treatment of you, Mr. Baltimore, not only during
the last two days, but from the hour you were first placed in
my charge. I ask your forgiveness.”
Startled almost out of his senses, the Reb stared incredu-
lously at Uncle Laurence. Then the hard, nines look left his
face.
“You have had a great deal to put up with. I’ve given you
no end of trouble. I forgot myself this afternoon, and at
other times. I apologize too.”
IN THE GUN ROOM 195
Their hands met.

“Your father’s letter began My very dear Son,” said Uncle
Laurence. “It was signed, Your ever-affectionate father, E. R.
Baltimore. And it was dated, Night, Oct. 2nd. There was a
postscript dated Oct. 3rd.”
The Reb made a blind movement toward the door, then
stopped.
“Thank you,” he said. “It’s—everything’s right—that’s all
I needed to know. The rest of the letter can wait.”
“Reb, I’m so glad!” said Charlotte. “Did you understand
what the two dates meant? Your father must have been writ-
ing to you while you were writing to him, and he added a
postscript the next morning when your letter had arrived.
But he hadn’t waited to write until you said you were sorry!
He hadn’t waited!”
“The best fathers don’t,” said Uncle Laurence. “Mine’s
like that. I congratulate you, Mr. Baltimore. Can you spare
me a few more minutes? I ought to explain why I have
treated you with unbecoming and inexcusable harshness. For
an utterly unworthy reason that you may already have
guessed, you had no mercy from me. I knew where you were
stationed when—”
He threw open his desk. For the second time Charlotte
saw Major Jobn André’s laughing face above his gay scarlet
coat.
The Reb recoiled, horror and pity in his eyes.
“André was my dearest friend,” said Uncle Laurence. “If
only I had heard sooner about the part you played! I have
offered you my sincere apologies for the past. Will you now
accept our thanks, his and mine, for the stand you took, for
the service you would have done him if it had lain in your
power, and for the suffering you have gone through in his
causePp”
Standing again stiffly to attention, the Reb gave the por-
trait a military salute.
“Sir, Major André was the bravest of the brave,” said the
Reb. “Sometime, may I tell you about the days after his
arrest? Wingate has perhaps mentioned that we were often
with him then? There may be—stories you would like to
hear,’
“No time like the present,” said Uncle Laurence. He drew
forward two chairs.
Charlotte knew that she was not needed. Uncle Laurence
stooped to kiss her as she went out, and the Reb held open
the door ceremoniously, as for a princess. Feeling shy but
excited, Charlotte sped away to tell her good news. The
grownups ought to hear it, she decided, from Uncle Laurence
or the Reb, but she herself was the proper person to enlighten
the Redcoats, |
However, she met with disappointment at first, for the
conclave in the summerhouse had broken up, and Joseph,
George and Kitty were not to be found.
Some auditor Charlotte must have! She took Patty from
the schoolroom cupboard.
“T cannot see how you could have had anything to do with
what has just happened, Patty mine,” said Charlotte to the
IN THE GUN ROOM 197
youngest rebel. “Uncle Laurence said he was afraid you

would practice black magic on him. But if you did practice
magic of any color, it was white magic, as white as can be!”
Patty looked uncommonly knowing, but she said never a
word. And Joseph, coming in at that moment, was pounced
on to hear Charlotte’s story. They had not finished talking
it over when George and Kitty rushed in, all agog.
“Oh, Charlotte, are you there?” cried George. “We did
not know you had come home. What has been happening?
We are all in a muddle, we can’t understand! Just now,
thinking he was still out, Kitty and I went into the gun
room to fetch something we had hidden in one of Uncle
Laurence’s places—”
“Yes, some more of that wax, little robbers!” thought
Charlotte.
“And there we saw Uncle Laurence and the Reb, as
friendly as you please. What do you suppose Uncle Laurence
was doing? In his paneled wall he was making a hole to
take a picture hook! Yes, in his wall with the linenfold
panels that Grandmamma says are so beautiful, so old, and
so valuable! I cannot imagine what she will say when she
finds out. The Reb was holding the picture that was going
to be put on the wall. And of all the pictures in the world,
what one do you think it was? Why, it was the very same
picture that Mamma showed us, the picture Uncle Laurence
keeps in his desk. He asked us what we wanted, and we were
obliged to tell him. The Reb and he looked at each other,
and they both laughed. Laughed! I ask you, where was the
198 THE.REB AND THE REDCOATS
joke? Kitty and I did not see it. We were so bewildered that
we ran off as fast as we could.” :
“Listen, you two,” said Charlotte. “I will explain.”
As she ended her story for the second time, they heard
the Reb coming. For once, they did not wish to meet him,
and they dashed into Nurse’s little kitchen and peeped unseen
round the door.
The Reb went to a shelf where he kept some of his posses-
sions. From his writing desk he took various sheets of paper,
and began to tear into minute pieces certain of the drawings
that the great Mr. Gainsborough had praised so highly. This
done, he stood by the window, looking out. Suddenly he was
gone. |
“What did he see in the garden, I wonder,” said Charlotte,
running across the schoolroom. “Oh, I might have known!
There’s Mamma, gathering roses. The Reb has joined her.”
oF6 Me OS AI | PS Ss
Grandpapa and Grandmamma had been visiting friends
from early in the afternoon till close on suppertime. They
came to the table in the melancholy expectation that this
meal would be as disagreeable as the two that had gone be-
fore. It was soon evident to them that something extraor-
dinary had happened during their absence from home. What
it was, they could not make out, though they perceived it had
exercised a remarkably cheering effect on Uncle Laurence,
on his prisoner and on the rest of the household. But Grand-
mamma’s satisfaction in the new state of affairs underwent
IN THE GUN ROOM 199
a severe setback when Uncle Laurence said across the table:

“Mr. Baltimore, some friends are due shortly for an hour’s
fencing. Mr. Curtis’ young brother is coming. Will you give
us the pleasure of your company?” An invitation the Reb
accepted with shining eyes.
“Oh, Laurence! That horrid, dangerous fencing! I thought
you had given it up for the summer months,” Grandmamma
groaned. “How many times have I begged you to desist be-
fore a fatal accident occurs! My heart is in my mouth every
time you give dear little Joseph a lesson in a sport that de-
serves to be prohibited by law under the sharpest penalties,
and would be if I had my way! But at least you are careful,
or you say you are, with a small boy like Joseph. I tremble
to think how it will be with Mr. Baltimore, whom you are
now persuading to risk his life.”
“Spare your fears, Mamma,” Uncle Laurence answered
coolly, “I assure you, Mr. Baltimore is more than capable of
looking after himself!”
Hn. ie Hn ee
The Redcoats heard the Reb whistling Uncle Laurence’s
favorite military march, “The World Turned Upside Down,”
as he donned his fencing suit. They assembled on the stairs
to watch him go into the gun room, and the three younger
Redcoats were doleful because Joseph alone had leave to
watch the fun. Kitty kept her spirits up by putting on the
gold-paper crown that the Reb had made. His eye rested on
it in passing, and he said to Charlotte:
“Never mind about the crown. One of these days you

shall have a gift made of real gold and no sham.”
“What sort of gift?”
“Round like a crown,” said the Reb. “A circlet, but much
smaller.”
“I can’t think what it can be.”
“Ask your mother. She knows,” said the Reb.
But Charlotte could not extract a satisfactory answer from
Mamma, who laughed and told her that the Reb was in
such high spirits that night that he was inclined to talk
nonsense. He would soon forget what he had said.
Charlotte did not believe it was nonsense, and she was
sure the Reb would not forget, though of course many years
must pass before he was rich enough to give gifts of gold.
He couldn’t do it now, out of the salary he was earning as
her tutor!
~ Putting the puzzle out of her mind, Charlotte scampered
after the others to the terrace, where they meant to watch
through the French window of the gun room until Nurse
called them in to bed. Together the Redcoats gazed admuir-
ingly at the slim figures with the masks and gleaming foils.
And within the long room a young man in a scarlet uniform
smiled down at the white-clad fencers from his station on
the paneled wall.
ie Ue ee ee ee Oe ee
14
yg
te Patty Mounts Guard
FRoM THAT evening it is to be feared that Grandmamma’s

heart took up permanent residence in her mouth. True, the
Reb did not meet with a sudden end on the fencing floor,
either on his first appearance there or in the frequent visits
he paid to it in the following weeks by Uncle Laurence’s
invitation. Poor Grandmamma, however, had many other
causes for alarm. Though she was delighted to perceive that
her son and his prisoner had come to a full and friendly
understanding, she never ceased to regret that the two of
them shared the same passion for dangerous sports. There
was that horrible game of fives, for example, which was
quite bad enough when played with a bat, as Joseph and
Billy played it, but which was, Grandmamma averred, deadly
as well as painful when played with the bare hand. The mere
sight of that savage little white stinging ball made her feel,
so she declared, quite sick and faint.
Having been once accidentally hit by one of Uncle Lau-
rence’s fastest balls, Charlotte sympathized with Grand-
201.
mamma’s terrors. But no persuasion would avail to make

Uncle Laurence and the Reb leave off playing fives. The Reb
was out of favor with Grandmamma for a whole hour after
she had heard him saying that the sound of the fives ball
whizzing through the air was the sweetest in the world.
If Grandmamma could have had her way, she would also
have put a stop to the swims that Uncle Laurence and the
Reb took in what she insisted on calling mountainous seas.
She could not bear to hear of them swimming far out in the
heaving water or being knocked over close inshore by the
huge gray breakers with curly yellow tops.
Even worse in her eyes were the days when Uncle Lau-
rence went out with the Reb in his sailboat. It was vain for
Uncle Laurence to protest that he only took his frail Speed-
well to sea on the safest days, hugging the coast and being
prepared to run for shelter if more wind rose than his butter-
fly craft could cope with. Grandmamma would respond by
dismally shaking her lofty cap as she prophesied that the
Reb would never see Virginia again.
“For you know, Laurence, what will be the inevitable
result of letting Randal sail with you,” said Grandmamma,
when engaged in making her third or fourth remonstrance.
“Hitherto, I have refrained from mentioning the most im-
portant of my objections to the practice. Since you cannot
take a hint, I am regretfully obliged to put my meaning into
plain words: one of these fine days the boy and the boat will
both be missing. And what I say is—and I am sure any person
of good sense would agree with me—that Randal would be
PATTY MOUNTS GUARD 203
a very great deal safer escaping to Holland or France in a

smuggler’s stout craft than aboard that dangerous toy of
yours. You should never have permitted him to set foot in
it, much less have taught him the ropes!”
Uncle Laurence accepted his mother’s rebuke meekly, but
he would not allow that there was much risk of an escape
to Holland in the Speedwell. When the right time for escape
came, Randal would undoubtedly find some way of getting
into touch with the smuggling fraternity. The Redcoats, who
were listening, noted with approval that Uncle Laurence had
quite given up his disparaging use of the term Reb. From
that hour of revelation on the terrace at Gatwick Hall, the
Reb had become Baltimore or Randal on informal occasions,
Mr. Baltimore when formality was required.
“You needn’t think, Mother,” said Uncle Laurence, “that
I didn’t put the matter squarely before Randal the very first
time I took him out with me. I told him bluntly what the
Speedwell could do and what she couldn’t, and I assured him
that only a madman would think of sailing her to Holland,
especially with Timothy Wingate as sole crew! Randal ad-
mitted that it would be the height of folly to risk one’s life
in that way. And as for teaching him the ropes, I did not!
He shammed ignorance cleverly enough, but I had my suspi-
cions and I looked up the position of his father’s estate on a
large-scale map. It is on the Virginia Tidewater, bounded
on one side by a navigable arm of the James River. Oddly
enough, I found Randal had always omitted to mention that
trifling fact when he spoke of his home to Fanny and the
children. But you may call me a Dutchman if he hasn’t

spent as much of his life on the water as off it, in an English-.
rigged craft that might be twin sister to the Speedwell! So
you can see, Mother, he’s in no danger of deluding himself
into the belief that the Speedwell could tackle a really big
job.”
Grandmamma sighed and said that was all very well, but
she hoped Uncle Laurence kept the boathouse key out of
Randal’s way. And when Uncle Laurence vowed that he
guarded the key like a dragon, Grandmamma sighed again
and said that dragons might be able to guard keys, but
Uncle Laurence certainly wasn’t. Had he not lost his key
ring five years ago with every key he possessed hanging on it,
and had he not been obliged to have a complete set of keys
cut at unnecessary expense?
Uncle Laurence did not relish being reminded of this
ancient piece of carelessness. For the second time he assured
Grandmamma that there was no danger of Randal’s laying
hands on the key, and then he fled before she could say a
word in season about the trunkful of clothes that had also
disappeared after the celebrated visit to Uncle Peter. |
So the Reb was not deprived of hours on the open sea
or on the Dare, winding between its banks of softly whisper-
ing rushes, where dragonflies flashed in green and gold over-
head and little bright-eyed water creatures watched from
burrows among the reeds. It was when he was setting out on
one of these river expeditions that a messenger brought back
the deciphered letter. The Reb read and reread the letter as
the boat glided along. Twenty minutes later he folded it up

with a look of the deepest content.
“Was that a very, very kind letter from your papa, Reb?”
inquired Kitty. “Were there dozens of kisses in it?”
“There weren’t any kisses in it,” the Reb answered, smil-
ing. “But it was the kindest letter in the world, just what I
wanted, Nothing could have been better.”
“And now you have nothing left to wish for,” said Kitty.
“I wouldn’t say that,” said the Reb. “I’ve a wish or two
unfulfilled. There’s Tim, still helpless. If it wasn’t for that,
every day would be made of twenty-four golden hours.”
The Redcoats were glad that the Reb was so happy. But
as summer week followed summer week, they sometimes
found it hard to rejoice unselfishly in the new state of affairs.
For now everybody seemed to be laying claim to the Reb
and demanding a vast amount of his attention. Young Tom
Curtis and his friends kept on turning up at the house and
carrying the Reb off to play cricket on the village green or
to watch cricket matches in the neighboring villages. Worse
still, their Cousin Marcus took a liking to the Reb when
Uncle Laurence, by way of reparation for former unkindness,
rode with him one day to Daresfield Park. Thereafter Marcus
haunted the White Priory as diligently as Tom Curtis, and
thought nothing of referring to the Redcoats as small fry
who must make themselves instantly scarce when it pleased
his lordly self to enjoy the company of the Reb.
Only in lesson hours could the unhappy Redcoats be sure
of having their rightful share of the Reb. They were roused
to fury when one day Tom Curtis and Marcus tried to invade
schooltime. After prowling restlessly up and down under the
schoolroom window, the two boys began to throw pebbles
and clods of earth at the panes. The Reb took no notice at
first; but after a while he opened the window and looked
out.
“How much longer have you got to stay with those miser-
able young squeakers?” shouted Marcus from below.
“Nine minutes only,” said the Reb, “if you'll have the
goodness to stop distracting them by your playful little
tricks. At the moment, they can’t put their minds to their
work,”
He shut the window and turned to find six pairs of re-
proachful eyes fixed on him.
“You didn’t tell him not to call us miserable young
squeakers,” said Charlotte. “Do you think so too? Is that
_ what you say of us when you and those two are alone to-
gether?”
“No, of course I don’t!” said the Reb. “Your Cousin Marcus
didn’t mean any harm, it’s just his impatient nature. What
was the use of arguing with him over a bit of nonsense? You
know very well that you are my Redcoats.”
“And you are our R—” said George, and caught himself
up in time. :
“Well saved, sir!” said the Reb, gently pinching George’s
ear.
It was reassuring to know that not all the Marcuses and
Tom Curtises in the world could take away their privileged
position as the Reb’s Redcoats. They were not so jealous of

the Reb’s numerous friends after that, and the days went
gaily by. It was sometimes hard for the Redcoats to make out
how the Reb contrived to find time for all that he wanted to
do, from helping their mother with her flowers to teaching
Charlotte to play chess. But he was never too busy for his
evening game with Grandpapa or for paying a visit to the
Hickorys in their mushroom house on the hillock.
There was much rejoicing in the mushroom that summer,
for shortly after Dick Hickory had returned from one of his
- summer tours round the countryside, Esther, his youngest
daughter, left her place as housemaid at Gatwick Hall and
came home to be married from her parents’ house.
It was at about the same time that Johnny Gatwick’s pro-
nunciation showed a marked improvement. Three days
before Esther’s wedding he recited without stumbling the
old rhyme: |
“Hickory dickory dock,

The mouse ran up the clock.
The clock struck one,
The mouse ran down,
Hickory dickory dock.”
“T repeated it to Mr. Wingate last night and he said that I

said it perfectly,” said Johnny with pride. “Every word was
perfect.”
The Reb was very well satisfied with Johnny’s recitation,
but he was even better pleased on the wedding day itself,

when Johnny was able to report that Mr. Wingate had given
equally high praise to his sixfold repetition of “Around the
rugged rock the ragged rascals ran.”
“Johnny, you'll have the finest Virginian accent in the
world before I’ve done with you!” said the Reb as he again
entered full marks for Johnny in Miss Pipkin’s mark book.
“This is splendid!”
The Redcoats had another reason for schon Mths Esther
Hickory’s wedding day. It was a half holiday and the day of
the Water Frolic at Eastwich, an important annual event to
which sailing craft of all kinds came from great distances.
Billy and Johnny had been invited to join the Darringtons
in a picnic on the beach with Mamma and Aunt Sophy, at
a spot convenient for watching the races. They had the
satisfaction of seeing the Speedwell, skippered by Uncle |
Laurence with the Reb as crew, victorious over the Curtis
brothers, Uncle Henry and Marcus and all the other boats in
her class. The Redcoats went home that night tired and
sleepy, but proud to know that there would be a silver cup
standing on the gun-room mantelpiece for the whole of the
next twelve months.
A few days later the weather changed, and for a fortnight
a succession of gales put a stop to any sailing in the Speed-
well. So rough was the sea that Uncle Laurence, daring
swimmer though he was, did not even try to swim, nor
would he permit the Reb to risk his life. |
After they had twice missed their early-morning swim,
Grandmamma was pleased enough to purr. The Reb was

unusually downcast, and on a Wednesday was heard to re-
mark at the midday meal that he did not believe the sea was
ever going to be calm again.
“Oh, cheer up, it isn’t as bad as all that!” said Uncle Lau-
rence. “You wouldn’t care to ride with me to Gatwick Hall
this afternoon, would you?”
The Reb looked more dismal than ever.
_“What’s the good? Colonel Gatwick won’t let me in.”
This was true. The Redcoats knew that since the recon-
ciliation Uncle Laurence had several times asked Colonel
Gatwick to allow the Reb to pay supervised visits to his
friend, but each request had met with a firm refusal. Colonel
Gatwick was very sorry indeed for his invalid prisoner, but
he could not see his way to sanctioning any visit at which
plans for escape might be concerted.
“You're in luck’s way, for once,” said Uncle Laurence. “I
met him an hour ago, and found him so much gratified by
Billy’s and Johnny’s recent progress that he actually volun-
teered permission for a visit as a reward for your tutorial
prowess.”
The Reb cheered up immediately and enormously. Char-
lotte would have liked to see Tim again, but Uncle Laurence
did not invite her to make a third in the half-holiday riding
party. He took Joseph instead.
They went the long way round by the woods. Just before
they reached Gatwick Hall, Uncle Laurence reined up
Dorinda.
“Whew!” he said to the Reb and Joseph. “Look there, will

your Who’s that?”
He pointed with his crop to a figure running and dedag
among the trees till it had run and dodged itself out of
sight.
“T don’t know,” said Joseph hurriedly.
True, he did not know, but he could make a sound guess.
The Reb looked down at his reins, and would not meet
Uncle Laurence’s eye.
“The invalid appears to have made rapid strides toward
recovery, said Uncle Laurence. “’Round about eleven
o'clock this morning, Colonel Gatwick was regretting that
his progress was so lamentably slow.”
The Reb had nothing to say to that.
“Let us hasten to congratulate Mr. Wingate on his full
restoration to health,” said Uncle Laurence. |
They rode to the side entrance, dismounted, and advanced
to the sofa on the graveled sweep. There lay Tim, his eyes
shut in what was intended to pass for profound slumber.
Unfortunately for the pretense, he was breathing short and
fast after his run.
“The game’s up, Wingate,” said Uncle Laurence. “We
know all about it. You might as well stop shamming.”
Tim obeyed.
“There! Blundering ass that I am, I’ve ruined the plans
again! I’m sorry, Randy. Everybody is out, and I thought it
would be pin to go for a stroll. Hardly anyone ever comes
that way.”
“We'll make new plans,” said the Reb encouragingly.

“Can’t be helped, doesn’t matter. Don’t fret yourself.”
“T shall have to mention this to Colonel Gatwick,” said
Uncle Laurence, with real reluctance in his voice.
The dejected Tim crouched among his cushions, too much
ashamed to speak.
“Never mind, Tim!” said the Reb. “The end of the world
hasn’t come, remember. We'll wriggle out of this!”
He was so anxious to comfort the miserable Tim that he
seemed to forget about the total overthrow of the plans they
two had contrived to make, even though they had not met
since the day when he, Grandpapa and Charlotte took their
stolen ride to Gatwick Hall.
But his spirits flagged when the visit was over. All the
way home he was silent and subdued, and that evening he
could not keep his attention on Grandpapa’s game of chess.
At last he apologized for his poor play. Having heard the sad
story from Uncle Laurence, Grandpapa was full of sympathy.
“Who would have thought it?” the Reb said ruefully.
“Those were among the last words of my old commanding
officer, General Braddock,” said Grandpapa, “spoken as he
lay dying after his defeat by the French upon the Mononga-
hela. For your future guidance, I warn you that they are the
worst words a general can utter. You are but a young soldier
yet, my boy, and in the face of considerable evidence to the
contrary, you gave your friend Mr. Wingate credit for the
stern self-discipline I am sure you would have exercised if
you had been in his place.”
212 THE-‘REB AND THE REDCOATS
The Reb could not feel elated by the compliment with

which Grandpapa ended his mild military censure.
“Yes, I ought to have made much more allowance for
Tim’s impetuosity,” he said. “I ought not to have gone to the
Hall without warning. It was my fault. And everything is
going to be harder for us both from now on. Colonel Gatwick
will keep Tim under lock and key in future—and as for me,
I’m waiting to hear my fate. Captain Templeton hasn’t told
me what it will be.”
The Redcoats could tell that Uncle Laurence was unwill-
ing to be the bearer of bad tidings. Later in the evening he
came slowly to the table where the Reb was helping George
to put together the pieces of a dissected puzzle. The other
Redcoats were clustered round, watching.
“Well, what are we going to do now?” asked Uncle Lau-
_ rence, addressing the Reb. “I suppose it’s no use asking you
once again for your parole?”
The Redcoats saw the Reb’s eyes turn toward the London
newspapers on a table near at hand. News of Benedict Ar-
nold’s raids on Virginia had begun to reach England. They
were long since over, but that the Reb could not know.
“Tm afraid not,” said the Reb. “I couldn’t, even if Arnold
hadn’t—wasn’t—”
“Then what?” asked Uncle Laurence.
“My former quarters are still vacant, I take it?” said the
Reb.
“That’s out of the question.” —
The Reb laughed. He had known what Uncle Laurence’s

growled-out answer would be.
“You won’t like the only alternative I am able to suggest,”
said Uncle Laurence. “I shall have to mount a militia guard
over you day and night. I’m sorry to do it, but there’s no way
out.”
“Yes, there is a way out if you care to consider it,” said the
Reb. “A way that wouldn’t inconvenience either of us, a
very simple way.”
“What’s that?”
Rebel Patty was perched on the window ledge. The Reb
took her up in her little brown gown. He dangled her in
front of Uncle Laurence.
“Suppose I were to put Patty on top of the tall housemaid’s
cupboard in the passage outside the door of my room the last
thing at night, as a sign that I was willing to consider myself
on parole for the next twenty-four hours? You always stay
up later than I do, and you pass my door to get to your room,
so on any given night you couldn’t fail to see whether she was
in position or not. If on any night I don’t wish to give a
twenty-four hours parole, I won’t put Patty on the cupboard,
and when you see she isn’t on guard duty, you'll take what
_ measures you choose.”
Uncle Laurence caught at the suggestion, which did away
with trouble for him and humiliation for the Reb.
“An excellent notion, upon my word!” said he. “You won’t
find it tiresome so long as the present high seas are running,
I fancy. But when they subside, surely such an agreement will

—er—cramp your activities unduly.”
“Looks like it,” said the Reb. “We shall see.”
ner
So every night the Reb swung Patty up to the top of the
tall cupboard, and every morning, the guard duty done,
Charlotte stood on tiptoe to lift her down again. On the
third night, the Reb forgot the arrangement he had made.
In the morning he was horrified to find himself challenged
by a militia man when he dashed out of his room at dawn
to see whether there was any hope of a swim. Retreating in
haste, he saw two more militia men solemnly pacing to and
fro beneath his window. He came to breakfast full of apolo-
gies, which Uncle Laurence received with a grin.
Timothy Wingate did not fare as well as the Reb. Al-
though allowed to take regular exercise under the watchful
eyes of sentinels, most of his days were now spent in a room
with new bars across the window and additional bolts on the
door.
The Redcoats were sorry for Tim, but they were glad to
know that the Reb was theirs for a while yet. The days sped
by until July was nearly over and the stormy sea had been
calm for more than a week. They did their lessons as usual,
and at night Billy and Johnny stood outside Tim’s barred
window to consult him about their preparation. Billy’s Latin
was still improving, and Johnny had learned all his tongue
twisters and could rattle them off at speed. The proud day
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came when he was pronounced ready to begin learning “The

Battle of Agincourt,” at last.
Johnny beamed all over his chubby face as he carried
the poetry book home with a request from the Reb that Mr.
Wingate would teach him the second verse. By dint of much
perseverance, he had learned the first verse in class. This he
was especially directed to recite to Mr. Wingate, that he
might show how well he could say it.
On the same evening, the Darrington Redcoats were late
for supper. For once in a way they had the Reb to themselves,
without Cousin Marcus or Tom Curtis or any of his other
friends to spoil the fun. They had invited him to a game of
make-believe cricket on the smooth shining sands, played
with an odd dark ball that Uncle Henry had brought back
from his explorations in South America, a new kind of ball
that would really bounce. Uncle Laurence had joined the
game, and had had the misfortune to be bowled out first ball
by the Reb. The game went on longer than it should have
done, so determined was Uncle Laurence to revenge his
defeat. At last there came an irate message from Grand-
mamma, to say that supper was spoiling.
“It’s mostly the Reb’s fault,” said George, when they were
seated round the table and Grandmamma had administered
a general rebuke for unpunctuality, which she said was a
besetting sin of young people and should be firmly nipped
in the bud. “The Reb stood up better than usual to Uncle
Laurence’s bowling. Nothing would get him out tonight.
That’s why we're late.”
“Randal,” said Grandmamma, “you are a disturbing ele-

ment in this household.”
Grandmamma spoke with a gracious smile. She was as-
tonished and dismayed at the effect of her little jest. The Reb
stopped eating his supper and looked at her with such a
wounded, heartbroken expression that she had to explain
quickly she did not mean what she had said. No one, declared
Grandmamma, would miss their guest more than she would
when the happy moment of his release came, either through
an exchange of prisoners or through the ending of the dread-
ful war. Randal might be certain of that. |
The Reb allowed himself to be consoled, but from time to
time he gave Grandmamma another wistful glance as if he
still felt uneasy in his mind. Nobody was surprised when
after supper Grandmamma trotted to her store cupboard
and fetched from it a colossal slab of shortbread wrapped in
white paper, which she had purchased earlier in the day
from the basket of cakes that Mrs. Dick Hickory carried
round the village. This she gave to the Reb, recommending
him to keep it in his room and eat a portion when working
hard at his studies or whenever he felt hungry. It was rich
and nutritious, said Grandmamma, just what was likely to
benefit a young man who was, she felt sure, growing much
too fast for his strength.
The Redcoats were as much pleased as the Reb, for he al-
ways divided Grandmamma’s little extras with them in the
fairest way in the world. When they were sent off to bed,
they fully expected that he would shortly follow for the

customary division of the spoil.
“He’ll come to share out, he always does,” said George con-
fidently.
But the Reb did not come, though they lingered in the
passage and on the stairs till Nurse lost all patience and said
she should fetch their Uncle Laurence to them if they didn’t
go to their rooms at once. Such a pack of young greedy
greedies she had never seen in her life!
Charlotte had stayed with the others, not because she
wanted her portion of shortbread, but because she wanted
to see the Reb again. She felt, she did not know why, as
though the world had come to a stop that night, instead of
merely turning upside down as it had done so often in the
last few months.
There was nothing to disquiet her in the outward state of
affairs. When the four Redcoats paused as usual at the door
of the parlor, the boys to bow and the girls to curtsey, the
scene they left behind them was familiar enough. Grandpapa
was nodding in his easy chair, Grandmamma was busy over
some knitting done on large pins. At the harpsichord,
Mamma was playing tinkly fairy music. With a map between
them, Uncle Laurence and the Reb were following the latest
war reports. The Reb had looked at the four in the doorway
with the intent look he wore when he was about to make
a picture. Perhaps, thought Charlotte, on the morrow he
would tell them to stand that way again, so that he could
draw his group of Redcoats in the book in which he was

writing his memoirs. And then again came the queer feeling
that there would never be a tomorrow.
Long after the household had gone to rest, Charlotte
awoke, still oppressed by the dolorous conviction that all was
over forever. She could not bear it. The truth! the truth! She
must know the truth!
Down the passage she crept, pulled back the baize door,
and peeped to see whether Patty was mounting guard on top
of the cupboard close to the blue room. Yes, there she was,
dear rebel, with the moon’s silver rays glimmering over
brown dress, brown head and audacious little smile.
All was well, then. Dreams and imaginings were nonsense.
The Reb was safe at the White Priory for another twenty-
four hours. Tomorrow he would teach them again, play with
them too if that tiresome Marcus or some other tiresome per-
son didn’t whisk him out of their reach. He would come to
church with them next Sunday, and the next and the next.
Perhaps he would still be here in red-gold autumn, alarming
Grandmamma by going with Uncle Laurence to a mushroom
supper in the Hickorys’ house. Who knew but that he might
be with them at holy Christmastide in the December snows?
Charlotte pattered happily back to her pillow.
<4
Se Oe ae ae ee ae
15
Ww
w Speed Well, Speednell
THE sEA glittered temptingly at sunrise, but for once the Reb
did not come racing along to join Uncle Laurence, Joseph
and George in a before-breakfast swim. Uncle Laurence said
he had probably overslept after sitting up studying too long
with the help of Grandmamma’s shortbread.
“I knocked at his door, but he didn’t answer so I came
away, said George. “Look, there’s Billy’s pony in the pad-
dock. Billy can’t have come to school at this hour! Ruffo
must have escaped from the paddock at Gatwick Hall and
made his way here all by himself! Ruffo, you rascal, how
came you to play your master such a trick? He will have to
ride to school double with Johnny!”
Ruffo was an amiable pony. Hearing his name, he ambled
over to the paddock rails to be patted. On a card tied round
his neck, they read in the Reb’s bold hand:
Billy, Johnny and the other Redcoats are in no way to
blame. They know nothing. Signed
Randal E. Baltimore and Timothy Wingate
221
“What does it mean, Uncle Laurence?” gasped Joseph and

George. |
“Need you ask?” said Uncle Laurence. He pointed out to
sea. “That’s what it means! Well, since Wingate obviously
took Billy’s pony from the paddock and rode here, it doesn’t
look as though the pair made their escape with the help of
the smugglers. Let’s see how they contrived to force the
boathouse door—”
“The Speedwell’s gone, Uncle Laurence, she’s gone,”
squealed George, darting ahead. “But the lock hasn’t been
forced. See, it has been opened with your very own key that
you told Grandmamma you were guarding like a dragon!
Here it is, sticking in the door on the key ring with all your
other keys!”
“What! It can’t be!” cried Uncle Laurence. “Yes, it is!”
He thrust his hand into the pocket of his dressing gown and
brought out a second key ring. “No, it isn’t! Here are my
keys, all safe. That’s the old key on the old key ring, the set
I lost five years ago. Now how on earth did Baitimore get
hold of that?”
“The old key ring must have been in your trunk after
all, the trunk that went astray after your visit to Uncle Peter!”
said Joseph. “I remember now, Grandmamma and the Reb
searched every corner of that trunk when our mischianza was
over. He helped her. And he’s very good at conjuring. He
must have conjured them away when Grandmamma was
looking on!”
SPEED WELL, SPEEDWELL 223
“T hope he won’t repent his success,” said Uncle Laurence,

with a somber glance seaward. “Months ago, I had the fore-
thought to warn the local locksmiths not to sell him any keys
to try. Little did I suspect that some of mine no doubt went
to Gatwick Hall concealed in the innocent gifts he was for-
ever sending to his friend. No doubt Wingate found them
useful!”
There was no swim that morning. Uncle Laurence turned
and walked in silence back to the house. With his nephews
at his heels, he went to the blue room.
“See, Uncle Laurence, Patty’s sitting on top of the cup-
board! We’ve made a mistake! The Reb can’t have gone for
good, he’s playing a trick on us! He’s gone for a sail by him-
self up the Dare, perhaps, and he'll be back in time for
breakfast.” .
“Oh, it’s no trick! He has escaped, sure enough,” said
Uncle Laurence. But for form’s sake he knocked at the Reb’s
door.
The blue room was soldierly in its neatness. Every trace
of the Reb’s occupation had gone. White and smooth, his
bed had not been slept in. From her perch on the cupboard
Patty eyed Uncle Laurence as he went back to his own room
to finish dressing. She was still watching when he walked
downstairs to write a note to Colonel Gatwick.
By breakfasttime the whole household knew that the Reb
had gone. It was Grandpapa who told the Redcoats that
probably no pursuit would be attempted. The nearest naval
vessels were stationed at a considerable distance from Marton

Green, and they were light craft, not capable of giving battle
to any heavier Dutch or French ships that might be prowling
about. Colonel Gatwick would at once notify their captains,
but it was not likely that without orders from London they
would risk being sunk for the sake of recapturing two junior
officers of the Revolutionary Army.
“But it’s very, very dangerous for the Reb,” said Charlotte.
“Won't anybody go after him and fetch him back?”
It appeared that nobody could. There was no local craft
hardy enough to venture on the high seas in pursuit of a Reb
who had such an excellent start. The fishermen of Marton
Green did not want to be captured and imprisoned by the
Dutch.
Breakfast was a quiet meal. As it ended, Colonel Gatwick
came in with Billy and Johnny. He, Uncle Laurence and
Grandpapa at once set to work to discover how the escape
had been planned. It was known that the Reb and Tim had
met only twice since their last attempt at escape, and through-
out both meetings they had had no chance to talk in private.
Letters had, the Colonel suspected, been conveyed from one
prisoner to the other. But this had happened so long ago
that the missives could have contained nothing more treason-
able than accounts of the writer’s progress or lack of progress
in recovering from the disastrous days in the eel-pitcher’s
hut. The man believed to have been the messenger had since
been carried off by the press gang to serve in His Majesty’s
Navy, and so could have been of no help to Mr. Baltimore or

Mr. Wingate in recent months. As for the lad whom the
smugglers had employed to bring Mr. Baltimore a letter
from his father, he and his gypsy tribe had been hunted
from the parish by the constable on a suspicion of stealing
guinea fowls. Billy and Johnny were innocent of any share
in the plots and plans. There could be no two opinions about
that! |
The mystery might never have been solved if Johnny,
having lost what he called his “potheth hantherthief,” had
not asked Billy to lend him his.
“Pocket handkerchief, John!” cried the colonel impa-
tiently.
And Billy said: “Why, Johnny, you learned your k-sounds
a long time ago! Hickory dickory dock, the mouse ran up
the clock. That was what you had to recite to Mr. Wingate.
You said it perfectly, he told you so. And now you've for-
gotten!”
Uncle Laurence turned sharply to his father. “That re-
minds me! When you took Mr. Baltimore to visit his friend
at Gatwick Hall, I think you spoke to both of them of Dick
Hickory’s skill as a bonesetter?”
“T did, I did,” said Grandpapa. “I remember, Mr. Balti-
more told Mr. Wingate that Johnny should learn the rhyme
in which Hickory’s name occurs.”
“Precisely so!” said Uncle Laurence, “ ‘Hickory dickory
doc-torl’ It was a way of telling Mr. Wingate that sooner or
226 THE, REB AND THE REDCOATS
later a visit from the bonesetter might be expected. The

recitation of the rhyme by Johnny was the signal that Dick
Hickory had agreed to do what he could for Wingate!”
“This is nothing but a wild surmise,” said the colonel. “I
can’t accept it. Mr. Wingate owes his recovery to the skilful
treatment he received from our good friend Dr. Feltwell.
How could Hickory have intruded himself into my house
unknown to me? I repeat my old opinion, the man is as
timid as a hare. He would never have ventured on such an
audacious proceeding! Besides, it is common knowledge that
he was laid up for a long time with a chest injury. He has
been off on his country rounds ever since then.”
Uncle Laurence made some calculations, dating forward
from the afternoon when the Reb had said that, if it wasn’t
for Tim’s helplessness, every day would have twenty-four
golden hours.
“That’s the starting point,” he said. “I’ve no doubt that
Baltimore’s plans were twice wrecked, first by Dick’s illness
and then by his well-known timidity. But there was an
extra-strong reason why he held out against Baltimore’s per-
suasions and pleadings. His daughter Esther was in your
wife’s service. Naturally, Hickory did not want to involve
her in any way, but it was obvious that her help would be
needed. Nobody else could have let him into the house un-
seen! So he would not consent to go to Gatwick Hall until
just before Esther left to be married. When it no longer mat-
tered whether she was caught or not, he came back from the
last of his country rounds. Until then, Mr. Baltimore and Mr.
SPEED WELL, SPEEDWELL >
Wingate were forced to wait with what patience they could

muster. I am sure you will find I am right.”
The colonel did think so. Every hair on his head was bris-
tling with indignation.
“Johnny, when did you recite Hickory dickory dock to Mr.
Wingate?” asked Uncle Laurence.
“A little time before Esther Hickory’s wedding,” said
Johnny. “I am sure it was close before. And on her wedding
day Mr. Wingate told me that I could recite Around the rug-
ged rock the ragged rascals ran quite perfectly.”
“Oh, Uncle Laurence! That was a signal to show that Dick
Hickory had done what he came to do!” cried Charlotte.
“Tt must have been! Because when you and I rode to Gatwick
Hall, Mr. Wingate told me he positively shivered to think of
ragged rascals running. Don’t you remember, you others,
how pleased the Reb was when Johnny gave the message.
His face lighted up, and he said, ‘Splendid!’ ”
“All this is pure surmise,” said Colonel Gatwick crossly.
“For present purposes, it does not matter how the cure was
effected. We have yet to learn how the two youths made their
plans for escape. If they had any accomplices, the guilty
persons must be found and punished.”
Though they knew they were innocent, the six Redcoats
began to feel anxious. They were relieved when Uncle Lau-
rence said:
“Possibly through Billy’s Latin book. It can’t have been
done solely through Johnny’s tongue twisters. Let’s have a
look at your book, Billy.”
228 THE ‘REB AND THE REDCOATS
Nobody could ever guess why Billy had brought his book
with him to the White Priory when he knew his tutor was.
on the high seas. He handed it to Uncle Laurence, who flicked
over the pages.
“Balbus!” he said. “For Balbus, read Baltimore! That’s
the clue!”
_ It was Grandpapa’s turn to utter a shocked exclamation.
With much embarrassment he said:
“There was certainly some talk of Balbus on Pehle dayI
took Mr. Baltimore to visit his friend. They both seemed
highly amused by the activities of Balbus. Who would
have—?”
Grandpapa broke off in time to save himself from saying
the worst words a general can utter.
“I don’t wonder!” said Uncle Laurence. “Listen to this:
Balbus seeks for a physician—Balbus endured vexatious de-
lays—Balbus counseled patience—Balbus admired a ship
—Balbus set out at midnight, the tempests having subsided.
There are positively dozens of sentences that could be used
to convey messages to Wingate as occasion required. There’s |
no mention of my keys, but they must have played some part
in his escape.”
The colonel said glumly: “While Mr. Wingate was sup-
posed to be helpless, no particular care was taken about lock-
ing or bolting his door at night. He loosened some floor
boards underneath the chest of drawers in his room so that
he could descend into the cellar beneath and make his way
out of the house unsuspected. To do that, he must have been
able to open the tool chest in my study with one of your keys.
I am bound to admit that we did not test the soundness of
the floor when we were told of his unexpected restoration
to health. I knew, or believed that I knew, that he had had
no possible access to tools of any kind. His possessions were
searched, but my men found nothing with which he could
have forced a lock or removed a bolt.”
Uncle Laurence said “Just so,” and went on looking for
sentences about Balbus, whose activities had suddenly
ceased. “What did you learn yesterday, Johnny?” he
asked.
“Not a silly old tongue twister,” said Johnny. “A real poem,
a ballad, that the others have learned already. It begins, Fazer
stood the wind for France.”
“The last signal!” said Uncle Laurence. “For France, read
more probably Holland. Sir,” he added, turning to Grand-
papa, “did Mr. Baltimore quote “The Battle of Agincourt’ to
Mr. Wingate in your hearing?”
“Really, I cannot recollect at this distance of time,” said
poor confused Grandpapa. “Charlotte, my dear, how say
your”
“Yes, Grandpapa, he did,” said Charlotte.
There were still some questions that nobody save the fugi-
tives themselves could answer. Colonel Gatwick and Uncle
Laurence knew as much as they needed to know, but the
colonel was resolved to spread the blame for Tim’s escape
as widely as possible. He insisted on going with Uncle Lau-
rence to find out what part the Hickorys had played.
230 THE. REB AND THE REDCOATS
They did not gain much information from their visit. Dick
Hickory was away on his rounds. Mrs. Dick insisted that
she had had no hand whatever in helping prisoners to escape.
She and Hickory had polished Mr. Baltimore’s carnelians
and bits of amber and agate and had made them up into
pretty ornaments. She had also done some sewing for the
young American gentleman, and she wouldn’t deny that she
had recently sold him some provisions—bread, butter, cheese,
pressed beef—but how was she to know he wasn’t taking his
pupils on one of the gypsyings and junketings they were so
fond of having? As for Hickory and his patients, it would
be wholly against medical tickets for her to be telling aught
about their ailments and their cures. Colonel Gatwick and
Captain Templeton must please to ask Hickory himself,
time he came back from his rounds, which wouldn’t be for
weeks and weeks, she couldn’t say when.
Mrs. Hickory continued to entrench herself behind a
double barrier of medical etiquette and meek ignorance.
The questioners could make nothing of her answers, and
they returned to the White Priory no wiser than before. Still
very much displeased with the world in general, Colonel
Gatwick summoned Billy and Johnny and rode home to Gat-
wick Hall. |
Uncle Laurence was not cross like the colonel, but he was
extraordinarily grave and silent. Grandpapa, Grandmamma
and Mamma also spoke and acted as if a dark shadow over-
hung the house. The Redcoats did not at first understand
why some sort of disgrace seemed to have attached itself to

the Reb’s flight. Mamma presently explained the reason for
the grown folks’ depression. She said that nobody was vexed
with the Reb for escaping, but they all felt he had done
wrong in deliberately betraying Uncle Laurence’s trust in
him. When on terms of friendship with them all, the Reb
had volunteered a promise that he had no intention of keep-
ing. A broken agreement was a shameful thing.
“Perhaps the Reb forgot about Patty,” pleaded Charlotte.
“Oh, Mamma, the Reb wouldn’t break his word, he never
would! He must have forgotten he had put Patty on top of
the cupboard. He did forget about her once, he did, he did!”
“Dearest Charlotte, that was a different kind of forgetful-
ness, wasn’t it? Uncle Laurence says, and we all agree with
him, that this time Randal couldn’t have forgotten. He knew
what he was doing when he placed Patty in position before
going to his room on the very night he meant to escape. That
is why we are sad. We thought so highly of Randal, but he
has disappointed us.”
Joseph tried to argue that all’s fair in love and war. Uncle
Laurence hadn’t been angry with the Reb for conjuring away
the key ring or for going off with the Speedwell. “Military
necessity,” Uncle Laurence said, it ought not to be called
stealing. And cheating over Patty came under the same head,
of course it did. But Mamma only answered that no plea of
military necessity could excuse what Randal had done. And
she asked Charlotte to take Patty down from her guard post
and hide her away forever from Uncle Laurence’s sight, that
he might not have cause to remember how the Reb had
deceived him.
Sorrowfully Charlotte obeyed. A roguish smile from Patty
greeted her approach. But Charlotte was in no mood for
play.
“Come, Patty,” she said, as she laid hold of the rebel doll,
“you and the Reb are in dreadful disgrace again, and this
time I am afraid he does deserve it, although you, my poor
treasure, are the only one who will have to be shut up in a
cupboard where Uncle Laurence can’t see you.”
Charlotte carried rebel Patty into the schoolroom.
“Why, you naughty, naughty child, what is this?” she
cried. “You are wearing Rosalba’s mittens instead of your
own! Yes, you are, so don’t attempt to deny it! Now how
do you come to be wearing Rosalba’s mittens when you
have been told again and again that Rosalba does not like
lending her clothes? Stop smiling at me. You mustn’t look
so like the Reb! And don’t tell me that it was the Reb who
put them on! You ought not to have allowed him to steal
Rosalba’s mittens as well as the Speedwell. I shall take them
off at once, and before I put you into the cupboard I shall
make you tell Rosalba you are sorry for your naughtiness.”
There was a good deal of comfort to be obtained from
scolding Patty. Still looking stern, Charlotte pulled off
Rosalba’s mittens. Then she received such a surprise that her
eyes grew as round as buttons. She flew with Patty to the
window, looked closely at the rebel’s little bare pink hands,
gazed into her face. Next she rushed to the box in which
Patty’s clothes were kept. Then she ran down to the gun room
as fast as her feet could fly. George caught sight of her as
she ran. Scenting excitement, he hurried after her.
Uncle Laurence was alone. At sight of the rebel doll, he
looked up with a slight frown. Before he could speak, Char-
lotte burst out with:
“Uncle Laurence, this isn’t Patty! The Reb did keep his
word, It’s another doll. He has taken Patty with him in the
red dress and blue coat and hat and mittens that Mamma
made for her, and one pair out of Mamma’s two pairs of
felt shoes and feather-patterned stockings. And this doll that
he has left behind is wearing Patty’s old brown gown.”
“Nonsense, child! You’re dreaming,” said Uncle Lau-
rence. ! .
“It’s the truth, Uncle Laurence, it’s no dream. This doll is
as new as she can be, she’s never been played with! Look at
her dear little pinky-clean hands and feet! Her face is very
nearly the same as Patty’s Patty’s face, but there are tiny
differences. If you had looked at her last night, Uncle Lau-
rence, you would have seen she was a pretender.”
“To my mind, she’s exactly the same.”
“Oh, but she isn’t! This one is my own, own Patty and
already I love her better than Patty’s Patty who never was
mine. Do listen to me and believe me, Uncle Laurence. I’ve
guessed how the Reb did it. He must have secretly modeled
her head in clay, and made a plaster cast, and filled the cast
with wax and colored it. And when the head was made, he
took it to Mrs. Hickory and asked her to buy pink kid and
make a body of the right size. That’s my hair on my Patty’s
head. He didn’t take it back to America to be made into a
watch chain, he gave it to Mrs. Hickory to use. I shouldn’t
wonder if that was the errand that took him to the Hickorys’
house on the day you and he didn’t go to Daresfield Park.
We did wonder, Mamma and I, what Mrs. Hickory meant
by saying she had sewed for the Reb, for Mamma and Nurse
did all his mending. Don’t you agree that Patty’s Patty
never sat on top of the cupboard last night? She went off
to Virginia!”
“Ho, ho, ho!” shouted George. “Patty One has gone to the
war, and Patty Two mounted guard in her place!”
_ And that was exactly what had happened. Taking Char-
lotte and George with him, Uncle Laurence visited the mush-
_ room house for the second time. Questioned, Mrs. Hickory
admitted that the Reb had asked her to do him this service.
The doll, she understood, was to be a surprise for Miss
Charlotte.
“In the words of the late lamented General Braddock,
Who would have thought it?” said Uncle Laurence to the
two Redcoats as they turned homeward. “I ought to have
had my wits about me when dealing with Randal. It will be
my turn now to seek sympathy from your grandpapa. But
he won’t be able to excuse my failure, as he excused Randal’s,
on the ground either of extreme youth or of a generous dis-
position to think too well of other people!”
It was heartening to see ek change in Uncle eeahes
and the other grownups when they realized that the Reb
had not played them false after all. Mamma’s eyes lost their
sorrowful look, and Grandpapa confessed that he should
miss his evening game uncommonly. Charlotte ran up to
him when he made his complaint.
“Please, Grandpapa, would you like me to play chess with
you instead? The Reb has taught me the rules, and though I
am not a good player I might be better than nobody.”
Grandpapa patted her shoulder.
“Thank you very much, my dear, I am delighted to accept
your offer. Bless the boy, he must have taught you on pur-
pose! What a thoughtful act! And how like him!” And
Grandpapa blew his nose, much affected.
Grandmamma also took out her handkerchief. She la-
mented that the house seemed empty without the Reb, and
she sang his praises until, happening to put her hand down
the side of a dining-room chair in search of a runaway
thimble, she discovered the missing pages of the sermon on
pride artfully stuffed out of sight. Then she changed her
tune for a short time, and gathering the Redcoats about her,
she told them that they must never harbor reproachful
thoughts in regard to their dear Uncle Laurence’s long-past
severity toward the Reb, who was sometimes so wilful as to
stand in need of firm discipline.
Uncle Laurence did not say whether he missed the Reb or
not. But he was plainly anxious about the safety of the voy-
agers. Throughout the day he went constantly to consult the
weatherglass or to look at the sea, which now and then
236 THE ‘REB AND THE REDCOATS
showed sparkles of white against its blue. At nightfall the

wind freshened and the moon showed silver spray tossing
far out on the waves. The Redcoats clustered around their
uncle as he stood at the gun-room window.
“Uncle Laurence,” said Joseph, “what do you think of the
Speedwell’s chances?”
“T only hope she will fall in with a French privateer!” said
Uncle Laurence. “It will be a mercy for her if she does! The
attempt is sheer craziness. I did think I had made that clear
to Randal. I don’t see what more I could have said.”
“Uncle Laurence,” said Kitty, “tonight I shall ask God to
take very great care of the Reb.”
“Kitty,” said Uncle Laurence, “I can tell you, he needs our
prayers.”
pilin,
Sa Sa RS «4
Over a fortnight passed before the Redcoats knew whether
the Reb’s venture had succeeded. Their uncle had driven
them into Eastwich, where he had business with the family
lawyer. While he was in the lawyer’s office, they waited on
the quay, watching the boats.
There was an unusual bustle in the little port, for a vessel
from the neutral port of Ostend was berthing with her cargo
of foreign goods. Lashed to her deck was a beautiful little
sailboat. : |
“Why, why!” cried George. “It’s the Speedwell! It is! It
is! She has come back! Oh, what has happened to the Reb?”
They were frightened, but only for a moment. One of the
Flemish crew saw them peering down, with scared faces

and pointed fingers crooked in inquiry. He could not speak
English, but he smiled broadly, nodding first toward the
Speedwell and then waving his hand in the direction of the
invisible Dutch coast. With another smiling flourish, he
contrived to convey the news that all was well with the
Speedwell’s crew.
The Redcoats smiled back at the man and clapped their
hands to show they understood. Prancing with impatience,
they waited till they saw Uncle Laurence coming down the
steps of Lawyer Ferrars’ house. They ran to meet him.
Uncle Laurence was almost as excited as the Redcoats.
He reached the quayside just after the harbor master, who
could speak Flemish, had gone on board to talk with the
captain of the Ostend boat. Soon the harbor master reap-
peared, carrying a packet of letters. “For you, sir,” he said
to Uncle Laurence. |
The packet was addressed in the Reb’s hand.
Uncle Laurence would not break the seal there and then.
They knew that Randal and young Wingate were safe, he
said, and the rest must wait until their mother and the grand-
parents could hear it too. That was only fair.
So Uncle Laurence made arrangements for the Speedwell
to be brought back to the White Priory aboard a passing
wagon, and then they all drove gaily home.
The Reb’s letters had been written in the wildest spirits
on the eve of quitting Holland for France, to which country
he and Tim were about to be dispatched in style at the Dutch
government’s expense. They were filled with messages for all

his friends, from Nurse to Tom Curtis, and with many
expressions of regret that military duty had called him away.
One letter was addressed to Uncle Laurence, another to
Mrs. Darrington, and the third to the Redcoats themselves.
What was in Mamma’s letter nobody knew, for she laughed
over it and cried over it and put it away tenderly in her rose-
wood writing desk. The letter to the Redcoats said that Patty
had enjoyed the sea breezes and was now struck dumb with
amazement at finding herself in the land of Dutch dolls.
Uncle Laurence’s letter told of a voyage that had not been
without its harrowing moments, Captain and crew had
landed at Scheveningen, whence they had made their way
to The Hague, where they had been royally entertained.
He had delayed writing, said the Reb, until he was officially
informed that the Speedwell, with all charges paid, would
shortly be restored to her owner by the Dutch authorities,
through the neutral port of Ostend. A spare sail had unfor-
tunately been lost overboard. The cost of replacement could
be met from the last fortnight’s salary due to him on the day
after his escape. If there was anything left over, the change
could be expended on a slab of shortbread for George and
the others, to make up for the slab he had shared with Tim
instead of with them.
Tim Wingate added a postscript, which said, “Sail lost
through my clumsiness. Sorry.” ;
The Redcoats laughed, but their mother could not laugh.
She turned pale.
“With Tim on board, it is a wonder those boys ever came
to land!” she said.
“Tm glad I heard of their safety before I leave you,” said
Uncle Laurence to his parents. “I haven’t told you why I
went to see Ferrars this morning. I thought I had better put
my affairs in order.”
“Laurence, my boy! You are recalled at last?” said Grand-
papa. |
“Yes, sir. My papers came this morning. I sail for America
in five days. Baltimore and I may meet again.”
“Oh, Laurence, Laurence, God send you don’t!” cried
Mamma and Grandmamma.
Fe ea Hh Ee che
The Reb and Tim Wingate arrived in their native land in
time to be present at the later stages of the siege of York-
town. They did not meet Uncle Laurence, who was sent to
spend long months of dreary inaction in the North. But
after General Cornwallis had surrendered, the Redcoats’
father could never say too much in praise of a certain father
and son of the name of Baltimore, who, with another officer,
young Mr. Wingate, had shown him every courtesy and
delightful consideration while he was their prisoner.
And when in after years a fine copy of John Trumbull’s
famous picture, “The Surrender of Cornwallis,” found its
way into the Redcoats’ home, it was always a disappoint-
ment to them that they could never positively identify the
Reb, his father and Tim Wingate among the dignified im- |
passive figures in American uniform lining one side of the

route along which the scarlet-clad British Army passed with
shouldered arms, slow and solemn steps, colors cased, and
the band playing Uncle Laurence’s favorite march, “The
World Turned Upside Down.”
vdBe-Ray * pha 5 pyeX

Some years after peace had been declared, Uncle Laurence
rode over to Thorndale Hall with letters that had come to
the White Priory. When the tidings in them had been fully
discussed, Charlotte went away by herself to visit an oak
chest where she kept certain childish treasures long since
outgrown, from which she could not bear to part. She un-
rolled a length of violet silk. Inside, among lavender and
dried rose petals, lay a doll in a faded brown frock.
“News, Patty Two, great news!” said Charlotte. “You'll
never guess, my sweetest! The Reb’s father has been ap-
pointed to a post in the suite of the American Minister. He
has brought his family with him, and they will all be spend-
ing some years in England. Timothy Wingate has come too.
He and the Reb have finished their studies at Princeton and —
they now propose to study law at Cambridge as a further
means of fitting themselves for that share in governing their
country they have always hoped to have. They have asked
leave to call here and at the White Priory on their way to
Cambridge. Uncle Laurence says that it’s at least eighty
miles out of their way, but nobody in America thinks any-
thing of a mere eighty miles!”
Patty had the air of one who was listening with intelligent
interest, but she held her peace.
“They are living in London, Patty Two, and our families
will be exchanging visits. Oh, Patty, think of that! Mamma
will be happy to meet Mrs. Baltimore, who wrote her such
a beautiful letter long ago to thank her for all she did for the
Reb. Mamma means to keep his mother’s letter with the
other letter that the Reb wrote in her rosewood desk to the
end of her life. O fie, I mustn’t call him the Reb any longer,
he must be Mr. Baltimore nowadays, or perhaps Randal in
memory of old times. And we shall see pretty Cecilia, who
made the wax flowers, and Patty who was Randal’s good
comrade, and all the brothers and sisters down to Oliver.
The only person we shan’t see is your counterpart, dear
Patty One. Poor thing, she has doubtless been left behind in
Virginia, tucked into a chest like you. No, I don’t suppose I
shall ever see Patty One again. Now what can you be think-
ing, Patty Two, that makes you look so like the Reb?”
Patty Two made no answer. She looked up at Charlotte,
still smiling the same little secret smile.
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About the Author
CONSTANCE SAVERY was born in the Wiltshire village

of Froxfield, England, where her father was vicar. She was
educated at King Edward the Sixth’s High School for Girls
in Birmingham, and at Somerville College, Oxford, she
earned her M.A. (Honours) in the School of English Lan-
guage and Literature. After graduation she taught for some
years, but returned home when she was needed to help in
her father’s East Anglian parish.
Miss Savery’s chief interest is writing but she finds time in
her busy schedule for much church work—Overseas Mis-
sions, Diocesan Conference, Parochial Church Council, Sun-
day school, Mothers’ Union. During the war she cared for
numerous evacuated children as well as her own family.
There has always been a lively atmosphere of books in
Miss Savery’s home. Her father wrote on historical and
biographical subjects as well as articles on archaeology and
science, and three of her sisters are also writers. They now
live in the village of Southwold, Suffolk.
Constance Savery is the author of many books and short
stories. Among the books are Emeralds for the King, Enemy
Brothers, Magic in My Shoes, Welcome Santza, and The
Reb and the Redcoats.
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| HENRY MADDEN

California State University, Fresno

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO., Lt.

LONGMANS, GREEN AND CO.

THE REB AND THE REDCOATS

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THE RIGHT TO REPRODUCE

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA BY

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER 61—11481

Printed in the United States of America

ee Gycam terece Con mont oa

CHARLOTTE DARRINGTON was writing her copy when her

parlor when a maid came bringing a letter from the Rector

she was alarmed. No sooner were the Christmas holidays

A dire sight awaited them. Floundering in a sea of tangled

Mamma’s neRvES had been shaken. Some time after peace

noe. (ibe, Sieber:

and even promised to read aloud to her from The History of

of the custody of the Reb. As I’ve already told you, they

would have something to complain about if he found himself

brought with us as well as for ourselves. Do not go near the

WHEN THE Darringtons stayed with their grandparents at

be unkind, Patty, but I was inquisitive, and now I’m sorry.

When the prisoner came near enough, George piped out,

eee Pay ten

Po wy: Cpe” te es ae ght nee PAE HK ee fae

digging in the garden. Helped them so well that in the night

use of everything that grew, from the thistledown on the

the real reason for Charlotte’s disobedience, but she under-

“Children,” she said, “Uncle Laurence has gone down to

ve Under the Stars and Stripes

Two pays later Charlotte had even stronger reason to believe

“Must have been. What will become of us if Uncle Laurence

During his absence, the damage he had done had been

“Laurence, it is nothing short of a miracle that Mr. Balti-

And all day long Uncle Laurence was making journeys

swered. He knocked louder, and this time a lifeless voice

“What’s this?” said Uncle Laurence, with a snap like a

pan”—were heard. ‘Cook appeared with a steaming cup.

Templeton won’t have no rebel flags a-flying in this house.

Looking strangely grave, Uncle Laurence escorted the

“General Washington said, ‘We take the stars from heaven,

Joseph saddled the ponies and brought them to a side gate

“Umph!” said Uncle Laurence. “Might have known that

gotten his promise to deal with them, for he said no more

between six knights of the Blended Rose and six knights of

up, and a good many more days before he was considered

“Fanny, my dear, the postboy has just brought a letter from

the sprays of yellow jessamine, the blue winter irises and

“What? What?” said Grandpapa, taking up the book.

attention than Uncle Laurence had ever given. In the future,

son Valley and elsewhere, it was plain that he held him

are reasonable enough, considering the prodigious amount |

not like to admit to themselves that he banged the door, but

In THE afternoon the mischianza took place in grand style.

“Ruin seize thee, ruthless King!

“Neer change a clout

other dolls, particularly Rosalba, are so disagreeable about

“You knew perfectly well what you were doing, Fanny,”

By UNSPOKEN consent the Redcoats avoided the terrace on