The Woodlanders

“What shall we do?” whispered Jack; “this field’s so large they’ll run us down before we get to the other hedge. Shall we make a bolt and chance it?”

Diggory was just about to reply in the affirmative, when help came from an unexpected quarter.

“What are you boys doing out here at this time?” cried a loud, stern voice.–“Noaks, what are you about down the road there?–Come in this moment, every one of you!”

“Saved!” whispered Jack Vance, in an ecstasy of delight as the Philistines trooped back through the double doors. “That was old Phillips. I hope he gives Noaks a jolly good ‘impot.’ That chap is a cad,” continued the speaker, as they hurried back towards The Birches: “when he can’t do anything else, he chucks stones like he did to-night. The wonder is he hasn’t killed some one before now. I don’t see how it’s possible for the Philistines to show up well when they’ve got a chap like him bossing the show.”

The bell for evening preparation was ringing as they reached The Birches, and only a very few hasty replies could be given to Acton’s eager inquiries as they rushed together up the garden path. In the little interval before supper, however, the subject was resumed in a quiet corner of the passage.

“So it must have been old Noaks who told them,” said Acton; “that’s proved without a doubt. I vote we go and have a jolly row with him to-morrow morning.”

“No, I shouldn’t do that,” answered Diggory; “don’t let him know that we’ve found him out.”

“Well, look here,” answered Acton, thumping the wall with his fist and frowning heavily, “what are we going to do to get even with the Philistines? We can’t go out and fight them in Locker’s Lane; we’re too small, and they know it. Young Noaks would never have dared to act as he did after they’d knocked our snow man down if Mason had been here. They think now they’re going to ride rough-shod over us; but they aren’t, and we must show them we aren’t going to be trampled on.”

“So we will,” cried Jack Vance excitedly, “and that jolly quick!”

“But how?”

There was a moment’s pause. “I’m sure I don’t know,” answered Jack sadly, and so the meeting terminated.

The fact of the insult, which had been put upon them by the destruction of their snow man, remaining unavenged, caused a sense of gloom to rest upon the Birchites, as though they already felt themselves suffering beneath the yoke of the conquering Philistines. Even the bedroom feuds were forgotten: night after night the “House of Lords” left the “Dogs’ Home” in undisturbed tranquillity, and the occupants of the “Main-top” retired to rest without even putting a washstand against their door. One thought occupied the minds of all, and even Mugford, when asked on one occasion by Mr. Blake who were the conspirators in the Gunpowder Plot, answered absent-mindedly, “The Philistines!”

“Look here, you two,” said Diggory one evening, as he scrambled into bed, “we three must think of some way of paying those fellows out for knocking down our snow man. It would be splendid if we could say that the Triple Alliance had done it, and without telling any one beforehand.”