CHAPTER X.

“YOU’VE NEVER BEEN QUARRELLING.”

“Dear, dear Miss Faith, whatever has been happening?” enquired Ruth, anxiously. She had come to meet the little party as they returned in answer to the tea-bell’s summons.

Once within sight of shelter, Gaston had lifted up his voice in piteous weeping. Shaking and sobbing, he displayed the marks of ill-treatment that he had received at the hands of his so-called play-fellows that afternoon.

The sight of Andrew’s swollen nose and bleeding fingers, and the disturbed air pervading the whole company put the finishing stroke to Ruth’s alarm.

“You’ve never been quarrelling, I do hope,” she added, as fervently as if the bare possibility were not to be contemplated for a single instant by any sane person.

“Oh! haven’t we!” responded Jack, cheerfully; “and it’s done us all a jolly lot of good.”

“And made us awfully hungry,” added Phil.

And, to judge from the promptness with which they fell upon the good things provided for them, that afternoon’s misdoings had certainly not blunted the mis-doers’ appetites.

The girls, however, did not follow suit. Marygold was tired, and really very sad for Gaston, who was nowhere to be seen. Even Di was unusually subdued, whilst Fay and Phoena were thoroughly ashamed of the results of the first afternoon of taking care of themselves. Indeed, the latter’s sorrowful face, and yet more, her untasted tea, attracted Phil’s attention from his own plate.

“Hullo, Phoena,” he laughed, “whose funeral are you arranging for now? Why, your face is as long as all King Cole’s fiddlers put together.”

Phoena started. She had been very far away in thought-land just then.

“I was thinking,” she began.

“A good thing then,” said Di, “that you didn’t upset your tea this time.”

But Phoena went on: “I was thinking what a pity it seems that this time yesterday we all had such a lot of good intentions, and this afternoon we all managed to forget them so quickly.”

“Yes, indeed,” said Faith, with a sigh.

“A pity we couldn’t bottle them,” said Di, flippantly, “and label them to be used when wanted.”

“Or pickle them,” sneered Andrew.

“No, but do listen,” besought Phoena. Somehow when her eager face was all aglow with enthusiasm and her large eyes shining like lamps no one could resist listening to Phoena. “I’ve been thinking how in the old days, when they must have been just as fond of fighting as you boys are now, they had a very good plan for helping people not to forget their good intentions.”

“Really,” jeered Andrew, “pray how did they manage that, Mrs. Solomon?”

“Did they advertise them like Sunlight Soap?” broke in Di.

“Well, yes; they did something like that,” said Phoena; “that is, they made their good intentions so public that for very shame sake they had to fulfil them.”

“Oh! now I see what you mean,” said Di, who had plenty of wits when she chose to use them; “you’re thinking of those old creatures who were called--oh! what was their name? Cru--cru--something?”

“Cruets!” yelled Hubert, whose last spelling lesson had ended with that word.

“Crusaders, you little donkey,” said Andrew, with withering scorn.

“Yes,” said Phoena; “of course the Crusaders were amongst the people I meant, for you see when they once decided to deliver the Holy City, they did wear a red cross on their arm as an outward badge of their intentions; but I wasn’t thinking of them so much as of Arthur’s knights of the Round Table; that glorious company, you know, the flower of men.”

“I see,” said Di; “of course, by accepting knighthood they did advertise their good intentions.”

“Yes, but before they could be knights they had to bind themselves by vows to keep those good intentions,” said Phoena; “and those vows bound them fast like chains, from which they never could be set free without shame and dishonour until they had fulfilled them.”

“Then pray are we all to wear chains?” enquired Andrew.

“Chain up yourself,” said Phil, “and let Phoena speak, will you? Go on, Phoena.”

“Well, if you don’t mind listening,” she continued, “this is what I thought. Though we haven’t got a King Arthur, and----”

“But we’ve got Mrs. Busson’s round table in the window,” put in the irrepressible Di.

“And though we can’t get the Archbishop of Canterbury to come and bless our sieges--yes, don’t laugh, that is the proper name for our seats--and though we can’t have our names put in letters of gold over each of our places, yet I don’t see why we shouldn’t have a sort of Round Table here, and agree to promise to do as far as we can all that Arthur made his knights promise to do.”

“But where are the heathen to come from whom we ought to smash up?” asked Phil.

“I expect we might find something like them still,” remarked Fay.

“You see this is what my book says,” said Phoena, producing a volume from under the table, where she had evidently been studying it out of sight on her knees: “‘The knight was to take an oath to fulfil the duties of his profession, namely: to speak the truth, to maintain the right, to protect women, the poor and the distressed, to practise chivalry, to pursue infidels, to despise all temptations to ease and gluttony, and to uphold their honour in every perilous adventure.’”

“H’m!” remarked Jack, “rather a large order, but as Andrew always likes to be cock-of-the-walk let’s make him the first knight, and see how he manages to keep his vows.”

“I’ve no objection to being the Grand Master of the Order,” said Andrew, who was secretly rather pleased at being noticed again after his recent disgrace, “but before taking vows and that sort of thing there is a deal to be considered. In the first place,” he continued, in the tone of superiority that he loved to assume, “what kind of armour, I wonder, would be suitable.”

“Oh! the right kind for you would be _plate_ armour,” said Di, quickly, glancing at the amount of jam and cream with which Andrew had heaped his plate, “nothing else would suit you.”

“Happy hit, Di,” laughed Phil. “If you go on at this rate, Miss Annie, we shall have to label you the ‘hold-all’ when we take our luggage home again.”

“You dare!” began Andrew; but happily Ruth, who was perhaps doing duty as constable in plain clothes this evening, happened to appear at that moment to enquire if she could clear the table--all the others had finished their tea--whereupon Andrew, being far more anxious to clear his plate than his character, devoted all his attention to the former pursuit.

And so, when Mrs. Busson and Ruth finished dismantling the table, they were able to record with fervent thankfulness that at any rate the tea had been partaken of in peace and quietness.