"

"I know it's mean. But what's the good of fighting when you'll only
get the worst of it?"

"Why to show that you're in the right, and that you know you are,"
said Arthur. "Good night, Mary. We'll have a compost heap of our own
this autumn, mark my words."

Next day, in spite of my remonstrances, Arthur and Harry came to open
war with John, and loudly and long did they rehearse their
grievances, when we were out of Father's hearing.

"Have we ever swept our own walks, except that once, long ago, when
the German women came round with threepenny brooms?" asked Arthur,
throwing out his right arm, as if he were making a speech. "And think
of all the years John has been getting leaf mould for himself out of
our copper beech leaves and now refuses us a barrow load of loam!"

The next morning but one Harry was late for breakfast, and then it
seemed that he was not dressing; he had gone out,--very early, one of
the servants said. It frightened me, and I went out to look for him.

When I came upon him in our gardens, it was he who was frightened.

"Oh, dear," he exclaimed, "I thought you were John."

I have often seen Harry dirty--very dirty,--but from the mud on his
boots to the marks on his face where he had pushed the hair out of his
eyes with earthy fingers, I never saw him quite so grubby before. And
if there had been a clean place left in any part of his clothes well
away from the ground, that spot must have been soiled by a huge and
very dirty sack, under the weight of which his poor little shoulders
were bent nearly to his knees.

"What are you doing, Honest Root-gatherer?" I asked; "are you turning
yourself into a hump-backed dwarf?"

"I'm not honest, and I'm not a root-gatherer just now," said Harry,
when he had got breath after setting down his load. He spoke shyly and
a little surlily like Chris when he is in mischief.

"Harry, what's that?"

"It's a sack I borrowed from Michael. It won't hurt it, it's had
mangel-wurzels in already."

"What have you got in it now? It looks dreadfully heavy."

"It _is_ heavy, I can tell you," said Harry, with one more rub of his
dirty fingers over his face.

"You look half dead. What is it?"

"It's top spit;" and Harry began to discharge his load on to the walk.

"Oh, Harry, where did you get it?"

"Out of the paddock. I've been digging up turfs and getting this out,
and putting the turfs back, and stamping them down not to show, ever
since six o'clock. It _wa