The Eagles Nest

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12. A New Ladder



John and Betty started rather unwillingly on their task. It seemed sadly dull to walk across several fields under a burning sun merely to deliver a message for Madge, while she was enjoying an afternoon among the Churchbury shops. Of course they were at perfect liberty to stay playing in the Eagle's Nest as long as they liked. But somehow they did not care to linger there by themselves. Without Madge's substantial protection the shade of the spreading beech-trees seemed more gloomy, and the distance from the house greater, even than usual. Besides, when Madge was not present to remind them of the laws of trespass, they could not help feeling as if Mrs. Howard might pounce upon them at any moment and drag them over the wall to her darkest cellars. So they only intended just to give their message to Lewis if he appeared, and then to hurry back to those little gardens of which they were so fond, where there was always something to be done, and no fear of being kidnapped.

However, everything turned out as differently as possible to what they had expected. No sooner had they climbed on to the Eagle's Nest than they heard a low whistle, and looking down saw Lewis gliding along on his side of the wall with the stealthy tread of an Indian on an enemy's trail. He was a thin boy, with a white face, and always looked over his shoulder as if he expected some foe to be coming up behind him.

"Madge can't come. She had to go to Churchbury shopping. She told us to tell you," said Betty, leaning down from her perch and speaking as low as she could. The children at Beechgrove shouted so much when they were at home, that it was always a great effort to them to lower their voices. Lewis, on the contrary, had the art of carrying on a long conversation all in whispers, it seemed natural to him.

"All right! Never mind. We can do just as well without her," was the unexpected answer.

Betty looked puzzled. "Shall I give her any message from you about Saturday?" Betty said, preparing to leave the Eagle's Nest.

"What are you in such a hurry to be off for?" cried Lewis, rather louder than usual. "Aren't you going to stop and talk?"

"But Madge isn't here, and--"

"Oh, bother Madge!" interrupted Lewis. "You and John aren't her slaves, are you? Can't we have a bit of fun by ourselves for once, without having her interfering and trying to manage everything? I often wonder you two stand it! I know I wouldn't!"

"But I thought you and Madge were such friends!" said Betty, much bewildered by the strangeness of this declaration.

"She thinks you don't care to speak to us. Only to her, because she is older," chimed in John.

"Well, that's just where she makes a mistake," said Lewis roughly. "I can't abide girls who think they are so grand, and are always ordering other people about! Why, to hear her talk of this Eagle's Nest one would believe she made it all herself, and I daresay you and John worked just as hard as she did."

Now until this moment it had never struck Betty and John as strange that Madge should take the lead in everything. She was the oldest, biggest, and strongest of the three; and if she usually had her own way about everything, it had only seemed natural to the others that this should be so. Besides, she took all the trouble of making plans for them, and they really had much more fun under her guidance than they would have had alone. So it was quite a new view to them that they were oppressed, but when it had once been put into their heads they began to think that perhaps they had something to complain of after all.

"Now you won't be such silly sneaks as to go and tell Madge everything I have been saying?" observed Lewis rather anxiously when he noticed what a serious impression his words were making. "If you are such babies as that I shall never speak to you again. And I have not been saying any harm either, you know." He was beginning to fear, from the twins' solemn faces, that they would go home and repeat his words to Madge. "Only I have always thought you two looked such jolly little things, if your sister would give you a chance of being spoken to, or played with," he added.

All this was excessively flattering coming from a big boy of fourteen, and after some more remarks of the sort Betty and John began to feel that they were very fine people, who had always, rather unjustly, been kept in the background by their elder sister. For the first time in their lives they looked upon Madge as a tyrant.

"I should like to come up there and play with you," continued Lewis. "Only the wall is rather too high for me to climb now that the ladder has gone. Oh, I have a good idea! Capital! The very thing! Why didn't we think of it before, I wonder?"

"What is it?" cried the twins. "What have you thought of?"

Lewis did not answer, but turned away and ran quickly to the shed where Jack had been shut up. Presently he came out again, dragging some iron railings, which with considerable trouble he got as far as the overhanging boughs of the beech-tree.

"There's a ladder for you!" he exclaimed proudly, as he propped the railings against the wall.

"It's splendid! Quite splendid!" shouted the twins, forgetting in their excitement how near they were to the terrible house with the cellar.

"Hush! Hush!" whispered Lewis. "If you make such a noise we shall be caught, and all our fun stopped. And it's not quite perfect either. Not high enough. See!"

In point of fact the top bar of the railings was only five feet from the ground, so that it did not reach more than half-way up the wall. It was very nice as far as it went, but more of it was badly wanted. However, Lewis was not easily discouraged. He returned to the shed, where there were several more railings, and dragged out another. "They are dreadfully heavy," he said; "but I don't care. I shall go on fetching them until I get enough to reach the top of the wall. I know there are a heap of them in the shed. They are kept there when they are not being used to divide the field."

"Take care you don't tumble! Oh, that's beautiful! I do wish we could help you!" cried the twins, looking on in the highest admiration while Lewis slowly pushed and pulled one railing on the top of another against the wall. Then he tied them together with some bits of string out of his pocket, and proceeded to mount. It was not a very steady ladder, but with the wall to lean against there was small fear of falling, and when near the top of it Lewis could reach the hands that were eagerly stretched out to help him. In another moment he was sitting on the Eagle's Nest.

"This is a goodish sort of tree," he remarked, looking round with a patronizing air. "Very easy to climb, of course--"

"Oh, but I can go much higher than these boughs by the wall!" interrupted Betty. "So high that my feet are where your head is now."

"That's not much," said Lewis scornfully. "Girls never can climb much. They just flop about, and catch their frocks in all the branches, and get giddy, and cry to be helped down again!"

Betty flushed hotly. "You are talking nonsense!" she shrieked. "Silly nonsense! I can climb much higher than John; and as for crying--"

Her remarks were promptly cut short by a hand being roughly pressed over her mouth. "Hold your tongue!" whispered Lewis. "Unless you wish old Mother Howard and her slave-drivers to be after us!"

At this terrible threat Betty looked nervously towards the brick house. But there was nothing to be seen in that direction except the quiet old cows in the orchard below. She was so reassured by seeing them chewing the cud, as if nothing dreadful could possibly happen, that she regained sufficient courage to remark defiantly that after all Mrs. Howard did not seem a very formidable person.

"That shows all you know about it!" replied Lewis. "I can tell you a very different tale. If you two will promise faithfully not to say a single word of what I tell you to anybody--not to Madge, or your nurse, or anybody,--then I will tell you something that nobody else knows. Only it's a secret, you must remember,--a dead secret."

This was very solemn work. Betty and John glanced at each other, both longing to know the secret, and yet a little afraid of the conditions that had been imposed.

"Mightn't we just tell Madge if she promises not to repeat it?" Betty ventured to say.

"Certainly not! We don't want Madge poking her interfering nose into everything, do we?" replied Lewis rudely. "Just make up your minds whether you want to hear a most terrible and extraordinary thing, or not, for I can't wait much longer. But if I don't tell you to-day I sha'n't breathe a word of it another time, so it's no good teasing me again."

This last remark decided Betty. She was very curious by nature, and could not bear to miss any piece of news that promised to be interesting.

"I think I must hear the secret, although I would much rather tell Madge about it," she said in a hesitating voice. "And if you don't like to promise, John, you must go a little way off and stop your ears."

But John was not equal to so much self-restraint. If Betty had resisted the temptation of hearing the secret he would have done so too, but he could not possibly let her enjoy the advantage of knowing more than he did. "I promise not to tell," he grunted.

"Ah, that's all very well!" exclaimed Lewis; "but I must see if you two babies can keep a secret. Just put out your hands. Now I am going to pinch your little fingers, and if you cry out it means that you can't be trusted." And pinch he did, and very hard too, but the twins bravely clenched their teeth and said nothing.

When Lewis had teased them to his heart's content, he began his wonderful tale by whispering in a mysterious voice:

"Do you know what Mrs. Howard really is?"

"An old lady," replied Betty very naturally. "Your aunt, perhaps? No? But she looks rather like it, doesn't she?"

"Ah! but she is something quite different really," said Lewis. And after pausing a short time to heighten Betty's curiosity, he added: "She is a witch!"

The twins started back, hardly able to believe their ears. "But there aren't any witches now!" they cried. "Besides, there aren't such things really. They used to be burned, but Miss Thompson says most likely they were only poor old women who couldn't hurt anybody."

"I don't care a bit what Miss Thompson or anybody says," replied Lewis. "Mrs. Howard is an old witch, you can tell that by the black cat that follows her everywhere. That's a sure sign."

Betty hardly knew what to say, for she had once seen a picture of a witch, and there was undoubtedly a black cat crouching in the corner of it.

"You noticed the way she shook her head, I dare say?" continued Lewis, who was delighted by the awestruck looks of his two companions. "Well, she is muttering spells when she does that. She has the power to destroy things if she says the right words. Any morning I may wake up and find the house changed into a heap of dust, or perhaps be struck dead myself."

It seemed impossible that such things should be going on almost within sight of Miss Thompson's schoolroom window. And yet, judging by the gravity of Lewis's face, he was speaking in most sober earnest. John and Betty pressed tighter together, and took hold of each other's hands.

"I hope for your sakes that the old witch won't find out you've been talking to me," continued Lewis solemnly.

"Why what would she do?" Betty ventured to ask.

"That would depend on what sort of a temper she happened to be in," was the reassuring reply.

And then Lewis proceeded to tell such terrible tales about Mrs. Howard's power and malignity, that the poor twins longed to be safely back at home, out of sight of that weird brick house, whose commonplace walls concealed such dreadful deeds of cruelty.