CHAPTER XV.

“FIRST CATCH YOUR BIRD.”

Thus it came to pass on that pleasant July morning that as old Jonas Tubbs, cobbler by trade and a rare practical joker by taste, was following the stitching duties of his calling, he was surprised by the arrival of a troop of boys and girls at his door.

By this time Phoena and Di had joined the others.

“Bother my best button boots!” said Jonas, “I’d like to know what’s the meaning of all this! ’Tisn’t as if I sported lollipops and sweetstuff in my winder to tempt anyone, and they ain’t the sort of youngsters to want any of my goods,” he added, casting a professional eye on the nine pair of feet which belonged by right to the assembled party. “Well, I do wonder what they’re all after.”

Although at first starting, the boys would have resented the idea of being joined by the girls, yet just then they were really very glad to see them. The truth was, that though they had found the cobbler’s cottage easily enough, they had failed to discover the cage hanging by the door containing the hapless victim they had come to champion.

“I believe you dreamt it all, Phoena,” said Andrew, peevishly.

“Any way,” laughed Jack, “it looks much more as if we had come on a wild goose chase than a caged thrush one.”

“But it was here,” cried Phoena, earnestly, “I know I was not mistaken. I’ll go inside and ask that old man.”

“No, don’t,” said the boys, quickly, “you’ll spoil sport if you do; he’ll smell a rat then and be bound to gammon you.”

“Then I’ll go into that shop opposite,” said Phoena, “and ask if they can tell me whether Tubbs--yes, that is the right name,” she added, going backwards on the narrow pavement in order to read the description of himself and his performances over Jonas’s door--“whether Tubbs does not keep a caged thrush.”

Therewith Phoena darted into a small shop, which was evidently the “Harrod’s Stores” of Playden, offering a miscellaneous assortment of wares for sale, varying from bootlaces to bacon, and from mouse-traps to smart bonnets.

“Please can you tell me,” asked Phoena of the woman at the counter, “if there isn’t generally a bird-cage hanging outside Tubbs’s door?”

“To be sure, can’t you see it for yourself, Miss?” was the reply, and Mrs. Bowles ducked her head under a string of brilliant handkerchiefs to secure a better view of her opposite neighbour’s door.

“But it’s not there to-day,” said Phoena.

“No, more it is,” cried Mrs. Bowles. “Well, I never! ’Twasn’t more than an hour ago that I saw it there with my own eyes, with a cabbage leaf laid on the top, same as they always put over in the heat. Maybe they’ve just taken it inside, whilst the day’s at its hottest.”

“Thank you,” said Phoena, and without noticing the woman’s disappointment at her abrupt departure, she flew back to the others.

“That wicked old man must have guessed that we were coming,” she said, “for the woman in the shop says that the cage was put out to-day.”

“I wish we had come earlier,” said Faith, “for it makes it much more difficult to do anything now.”

“Nonsense,” cried Jack, “it’ll be all the more exciting. Now we must go in and make the old beggar hand up the bird or show us where it is.”

“I shouldn’t be surprised if we have to use a little force,” said Phil, “for if he tries to rot us about the thrush we’ll make him sit up.”

“The best way,” suggested Andrew, “would be for you two boys to tackle the fellow, and leave me to free the bird. You deal with Jonas, and I will open the cage and let out the bird. I’m not a bit afraid of taking that responsibility,” he added loftily.

“Trust you,” began Phil, “to take the eas--”

But Faith broke in, “You really mustn’t set about it in that way, boys,” she said, “you’ve no right to touch what doesn’t belong to you. Let us go in first and offer to pay for the thrush, then when it belongs to us we can do what we like with it.”

“But of course, he won’t sell it, he--”

“Well, let’s ask him, at all events.”

“And suppose he flatly refuses?” asked Phil.

“Then,” shouted Jack, “we’ll wreck the whole show, shop and all.”

“You can’t,” said Fay, in the severe tone that she always assumed when she was most terrified, “you won’t forget that you are gentlemen, I’m quite sure that you won’t.”

“And that it is the duty of real knights to redress wrongs, but not to inflict them,” put in Phoena, who was feeling a little frightened.

Fay meanwhile had quickly stepped into the cobbler’s half-opened door.

“Good-morning,” she said, very hurriedly, “you have a caged thrush, have you not?”

“Well, who said I hadn’t,” said Jonas, not looking up from his work.

“Oh, nobody,” said Faith, very politely, “but we saw it by your door, and we want to know if you would sell it to us.”

Jonas Tubbs looked up from his boot-mending. There was an expression of exceeding surliness on his face, but there was likewise a malicious twinkle in his eye which would probably not have escaped the notice of an older person. To Fay, however, he only appeared an abominably cross-looking old man.

“How much would you take for the thrush?” she asked.

“All depends how much you’d like to give,” snarled Jonas.

“We’d give you--” began Faith, but the others cut her short.

“Don’t be so green as to make an offer,” whispered Di, at her elbow, whilst the boys, who were dying to put in their tongues, repeated Faith’s first enquiry in deafening tones. “Come, out with it, how much will you take for that thrush that we saw in the cage?”

“Aaron,” called Jonas, by way of answer--Biblical names were evidently in favour in the house of Tubbs--“Aaron, just come here.”

There was the sound of shuffling footsteps, accompanied by that of a hollow cough, then a miserable-looking, undersized youth with a crutch under one arm became visible.

“You come here, Aaron, just as a witness to this here bit of business,” said the cobbler. “Now then, young ladies and gentlemen,” he continued, turning to the party, which was fast filling up his small shop, “you want to know, I understand, what I’ll charge for the thrush what you saw in the cage outside my door.”

A look of startled surprise leapt into the cripple’s face, and his lips jerked as if he were about to protest, but his eye met his father’s, and what he would have said remained unspoken.

“How much I’ll take for the thrush, that’s what you want to know, eh?”

“Yes, you old stick-in-the-mud,” cried the boys, “haven’t we said so a dozen times? Hurry up and give us an answer.”

“All in good time,” said Jonas, quietly. “You’ve heard that, Aaron?”

“Yes, father,” said the boy. There was a look on his face now of mingled expectation and amusement, which puzzled the girls and irritated the boys not a little.

“Repeat it after me, my lad,” said Jonas, “when parties are entering into a contract, ’specially where they’re all strangers, one can’t be too _partiklar_ as to the terms of a bargain.”

Aaron obeyed dutifully, whilst Phil whispered to Jack that if the old “demon” went on much longer at this sort of game they would have recourse to different measures.

“Now tell us the price,” said Andrew, “or it’ll be the worse for you.”

“And the better for us,” laughed Jack, who was pining for an excuse to come to stronger measures.

But at this point Tubbs saw fit to make an offer.

“Suppose I said ten shillings?” he enquired.

Blank dismay, accompanied by a great silence, fell upon the group, but barely for a minute. Then Jack came forward.

“You’re trying to swindle us, you know you are,” he said, “we won’t give you anything like that.”

“Well, we’ll say nine shillings and elevenpence.”

“We’ll give you the elevenpence without the shillings,” said Phil.

“And if you don’t take care you won’t get that,” added Andrew.

Phoena, whose desire to aid anything in the form of distressed animal life made her bold beyond her wont, added, “You ought really to be ashamed of yourself to want to be paid at all.”

“Shut up, Phoena,” said Jack, “when girls put their oar in they spoil everything. Now listen, Mr. Jonas Tubbs,” he continued, “we’ll give you half-a-crown, neither more nor less, for that thrush, and if you don’t accept our offer you’ll repent it.”

“That you will,” echoed several voices in ominous tones.

“_Wull_,” said the cobbler, with an odd chuckle, “I expect I might, for it’s not every day that I get an offer of that sort. All right, then I close, on condition that the very instant that you get the bird you clear out of my place, every stick and staver of you.”

“Oh, you needn’t be anxious about that,” said Andrew, “this abominable smell of leather isn’t so particularly nice if you don’t happen to have a cobbler’s nose.”

“Isn’t that _raver_ rude?” asked Marygold, under her breath.

Fay set to work at once to collect the various contributions towards the poor thrush’s ransom. In due time, after the rifling of many pockets, the half-crown was collected and handed to the cobbler. Phoena was allowed the proud delight of actually paying down the sum.

With an ill-concealed chuckle, Jonas slipped the sundry coins into some safe hiding-place behind the folds of his black apron.

“Now Aaron, my lad, fetch the thrush for the young gentlefolk,” he said, turning with a grim smile to his son.

“Yes, and look alive,” added Andrew, sharply, “don’t be all night about it, do you hear?”

“Don’t rag the poor beggar,” said Jack, “he’s not so well off as we are in the leg line.”

“We won’t let the poor bird fly here,” said Phoena, “for there may be cats about for all we know.”

“I shall take over the thrush,” said Andrew, decidedly. “I’m the eldest, and besides, I was the only one amongst you who paid sixpence towards his ransom.”

“Yes,” said Faith, “I think it would be fair for Andrew to have it.”

“We’ll settle that when the bird comes,” said Jack, with the voice of an oracle.