nstant his neighbour also desired
to investigate matters, with the effect that no sooner did he open _his_
door, than it drew the rope so tightly that the captain's door was
banged to with great violence. In a fury of rage he pulled it open
again, which had the result of shutting his neighbour's, and for a few
moments the two doors opened and closed as if they were worked by a
wire. It really looked very funny, and in spite of our guilty
consciences we nearly choked ourselves with trying to laugh noiselessly.
I think a faint giggle must have escaped us, or perhaps the victims of
our practical joke suspected that somebody was trying to play a trick
upon them, at any rate both doors were hastily slammed hard, and all was
silence.

"Good old Babe!" whispered Dick, when he had recovered his breath. "Your
dodge went even better than mine! But I say, we can't leave our
apparatus over there! We must manage to fetch it somehow!"

They slipped across the road again, Dick to remove his lump of bees'-wax
and the button, and George to untie the rope; but they had counted
without their host. The captain had evidently scented the plot, and was
waiting for them, for from the bedroom casement above descended a
perfect deluge of water, as though the whole contents of a bath had been
suddenly emptied on to the pavement below. Almost blinded for the
moment, and drenched to the skin, the boys beat a gasping retreat, while
such extraordinary sounds of mixed chuckling and coughing proceeded from
the open window, as to lead us to suppose that the old man was exulting
in his triumph.

We kept this adventure a dead secret. Cathy and I felt rather ashamed of
ourselves, and, as Edward had hinted, we knew Mrs. Winstanley would have
been greatly annoyed if she had discovered that we had made use of her
absence to play such very questionable pranks, especially in the
village, where we might so easily have been seen and recognized. Whether
the captain suspected us, we could not tell; if he did, he said nothing
to the squire, probably thinking that on the whole he had had the best
of it, and that as he could not prove us to be the culprits, it was
wiser not to push his advantage too far.

The next event in the feud was really a very innocent one on our part.
Even the boys on this occasion were quite guiltless of any evil intent,
and I think the fault lay with the old captain's hot temper. It was a
most lovely September afternoon, and we decided th