up my mind we would have tea here some day. Well, what do
you say to it?"

We were all enthusiastic in our approval, and Cathy and I set to work at
once to lay out the tea, while the boys collected sticks for the fire,
and filled the kettle at the brook. The thought that we were trespassing
never entered into our heads. The Winstanleys knew all the farmers and
the land-owners about Everton, and were accustomed to go where they
pleased without thinking of asking leave. Being country bred they could
be trusted not to trample on springing crops, disturb young pheasants,
or in any way do injury to other people's property. We were quite
unaware, also, that the plantation belonged to old Captain Vernon (I am
not sure whether the knowledge would not have added a zest to our
enjoyment!); and though we knew he owned a considerable amount of land
in the district, we imagined this particular wood to be part of the
preserve of a neighbouring squire, with whom the boys were on very
friendly terms, and who had often taken them for a day's grouse-shooting
on the moors. Cathy and I arranged the tea-cups most artistically,
laying flowers and fronds of fern between them, with the cakes and the
bread-and-butter piled up in graceful pyramids in the centre. It looked
very tempting, and we all waited with some impatience for the kettle to
boil; but it was a case of the watched pot, for the sticks being rather
damp, the fire gave out more smoke than heat, in spite of Dick's
desperate efforts to fan it with a piece of newspaper.

"I'll fetch some bracken. They've been cutting it lower down," he
declared. "That'll be dry enough at any rate, and ought to help it a
little. Get up, George, you lazy-bones, and bestir yourself, or we
sha'n't have any tea to-night!"

The boys were not long in bringing back a large pile of withered ferns,
and stoked the fire to such good purpose that the kettle was soon
boiling briskly. Cathy had the tea ready in the pot, and Dick was in the
very act of pouring in the water, when we suddenly heard a tremendous
crashing a little higher up in the wood, and whom should we see bearing
down furiously upon us, his red face redder than ever with rage, and his
long white whiskers waving in the wind, but--the captain, followed by
his equally crusty old gardener!

"What are you doing here, you young scoundrels?" he roared, flourishing
his riding-whip as he ran, and interspersing his words with gusts of
coughing. "I'll teac