‘Ye-es,’ said Caroline; ‘but what could you do?’
‘Well, leaving the boy out of the question—he was just given as an instance, wasn’t he—suppose _you_ were in any other sort of difficulty, the thing for you to do would be to tell your uncle. You take it from me, you can trust him absolutely. He’ll decide what’s right. Unless you’d like to tell me. I’d help all I could.’
[Illustration: Showed her a green parrot sitting on a nest.]
‘If ever I have a secret I _can_ tell you, I will,’ Caroline promised. ‘We’re a Secret Society just at present. That’s why we’re all wearing red roses.’
‘I wish I could have joined it,’ said the Unusual Clergyman; ‘perhaps you’ll let me join later?’
‘If I ever can, I will,’ said Caroline cordially. And then the others came to look at the newt, and they all went home in the carriage to tea. The Uncle and the Unusual Clergyman talked about things which the children did not understand, or perhaps they might have understood if they had listened, but their thoughts were in tumblers full of beef and pudding behind the books on the shelves, and though they caught a few words, ‘golden bough,’ ‘myths,’ ‘folk-lore,’ they did not pay much attention till they heard the words ‘secret rites’ and ‘symbolic,’ and then the Uncle suddenly said:
‘Well, come along to my room, won’t you? I’ll show you that passage I was speaking of.’ And he and the clergyman went off.
Of course the three C.’s hastened to the stable-yard. The men had gone to their tea and the servants were having theirs, so it was quite safe. The tumblers of food, now thinly iced with congealed fat and looking very uninviting, were carried in the side-pockets of Charles and under the pinafores of the girls.
William received the visitors with marked disapproval.
‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to go down to the village to see about a new axle for the light cart. What’s all that rubbish? Ain’t what I gives him good enough for his lordship?’ He looked sourly at the tumblers the children had stood upon the corn-bin.
‘Of course it is,’ said Caroline, feeling that a fatal error had been committed. ‘We only thought he’d like a change. Don’t be cross, William. You know you’re our beanyfactor.’
‘Well, beany or no beany, you don’t see ’im to-night. Off with you. I’ll see ’e’s all right. Yes, you can leave the grub. You come ’bout eight in the morning if you can, and then we’ll see.’