"You've hurt your head," said Gerald. "Lie still."
"No--more--smelling-bottle," he said weakly, and lay.
Quite soon he sat up and looked round him. There was an anxious silence. Here was a grown-up who knew last night's secret, and none of the children were at all sure what the utmost rigour of the law might be in a case where people, no matter how young, made Ugly-Wuglies, and brought them to life--dangerous, fighting, angry life. What would he say--what would he do? He said: "What an odd thing! Have I been insensible long?"
"We don't know. We found you like it," said Gerald.
"I'm all right now," said the bailiff, and his eye fell on the blood-stained handkerchief. "I say, I did give my head a bang. And you've been giving me first aid. Thank you most awfully. But it is rum."
"What's rum?" politeness obliged Gerald to ask.
"Well, I suppose it isn't really rum--I expect I saw you just before I fainted, or whatever it was--but I've dreamed the most extraordinary dream while I've been insensible, and you were in it."
"Nothing but us?" asked Mabel breathlessly.
"Oh, lots of things--impossible things--but _you_ were real enough."
Every one breathed deeply in relief. It was indeed, as they agreed later, a lucky let-off.
"Are you _sure_ you're all right?" they all asked, as he got on his feet.
"Perfectly, thank you." He glanced behind Flora's statue as he spoke. "Do you know, I dreamed there was a door there, but of course there isn't. I don't know how to thank you," he added, looking at them with what the girls called his beautiful, kind eyes; "it's lucky for me you came along. You come here whenever you like, you know," he added. "I give you the freedom of the place."
"You're the new bailiff, aren't you?" said Mabel.
"Yes. How did you know?" he asked quickly; but they did not tell him how they knew. Instead, they found out which way he was going, and went the other way after warm hand-shakes and hopes on both sides that they would meet again soon.
"I'll tell you what," said Gerald, as they watched the tall, broad figure of the bailiff grow smaller across the hot green of the grass slope, "have you got any idea of how we're going to spend the day? Because I have."
"We'll get rid of that Ugly-Wugly--oh, we'll find a way right enough--and directly we've done it we'll go home and seal up the ring in an envelope so that its teeth'll be drawn and it'll be powerless to have unforeseen larks with us. Then we'll get out on the roof, and have a quiet day--books and apples. I'm about fed up with adventures, so I tell you."