CHAPTER XXIV.

“HURRAH! HURRAH!”

“Oh! hurrah! Andrew, hurrah! They’re off at last! Did you think that they would ever start? Well, if this isn’t the rarest bit of good luck that ever was!”

And, standing out in the broad noon-day sunshine on the grass plait in front of the farm-house, Diana pirouetted like an accomplished dervish. The headache that was on the road to her at breakfast must surely have lost its way.

“What a blessing that Gaston has gone too,” said Andrew. “I was in a blue fright that he wouldn’t, after all, just because we wanted him to go so much.”

“Yes, but I’ll tell you what’s even better,” rejoined Di. “Nellie’s going over to Spelmonden.”

“What for?”

“There’s an obliging old woman there who’s broken her arm or her neck, I forget which,” said Di, “and I heard Mrs. Busson tell Libbie that Nellie was not to hurry home. If she was back by supper-time it would do quite well.”

“Splendid! She’ll be out of the way at any rate.”

“Yes,” went on Di, “and so you see there will only be Libbie indoors, and Polly, who----”

“Who doesn’t count,” put in Andrew, “for she’s always running after the pigs or the poultry, or gathering things in the garden.”

“Exactly; and Libbie is going to be busy all the afternoon in the brew-house tapping the last barrel of cowslip wine.”

“Are you quite sure?”

“Yes. I heard her arranging with Mrs. Busson how she would bottle it to-day. When she is once in there she’ll be safely out of hearing of anything that we may do.”

“Hadn’t we better soon begin?” suggested Andrew. “You see we don’t know how long it may take.”

“We must watch Nellie off the premises first,” said Di. “We’ll go and sit under the walnut-tree near the stack-yard. We shall be able to see the back-door splendidly from there without seeming to be watching.”

“All right,” assented Andrew.

“You’re quite sure that you have got all your tools ready, Andrew?” enquired Di, presently, as the two young conspirators stretched themselves on the short grass in the shade of the venerable walnut.

“No fear,” laughed Andrew; “I think these instruments ought to suffice, even for our undertaking,” and he put his hand into his jacket pocket and rattled the chisel, hammer and gimlet which lay concealed there. “That sounds like business, eh?”

“And I’ve got two big knives,” announced Di, triumphantly.

“Knives? But what for?” cried Andrew.

“They may be very useful, very useful indeed,” repeated Di, with great emphasis.

“What do you mean?” asked Andrew, nervously.

“Well, you see,” said Di, slowly, “we’re not quite sure what or _who_ we may find inside this mysterious chamber; anyway I think that we may as well be armed, both of us.”

“But Di,” said Andrew, very distinctly alarmed now, “you don’t really suppose that there’s anyone really alive in there?”

“I’m not so sure. I heard Libbie telling that man--a man who came about some cheeses, I think--that there were very odd customers inside there. Yes, really that was what she said.”

“What did she say, tell me exactly,” insisted Andrew.

“Oh, well, it was when Libbie and the man were coming downstairs from the cheese-room,” said Di. “The man asked--he was joking, you know--if she dealt in cobwebs as well as cheese, for he had never seen such a sight as over that door.”

“Yes, and what did Libbie say?” asked Andrew, breathlessly.

“Oh, she said the spiders had had a good time there, for the door hadn’t been opened for fifty years or more.”

“And didn’t the man ask why?”

“Yes, but I couldn’t hear Libbie’s answer; only when the man said, ‘Well, if that’s so I’d have a try and see what I could make out of it.’ Then I heard Libbie say: ‘Ah! that’s all very pretty, but I expect we’d find some rare awkward customers to deal with on the other side of the door.’”

“What could she mean?” speculated Andrew. “It is odd that no one will open that door.”

“Libbie told the man that the missus wouldn’t have it tried, not for any sake,” said Di.

“What can it be?” repeated Andrew, with a very long face.

“I did ask the little farm boy,” proceeded Di, “what all that odd rumbling noise in the cheese-room meant, and he looked dreadfully scared. He said that was what he’d never been able to find out, but people did say it was haunted by the ghosts of some wicked smugglers who lived long ago at the farm; in fact,” went on Di, drawing largely on her own imagination now, “from what Henry said I believe that the room is crammed full of all sorts of beautiful stolen goods, so that no one has ever been able to get the door open. Oh! Andrew, won’t it be grand if we’re the very first people who have ever been brave enough to force our way in?”

“Yes,” said Andrew, but his assent was pitched in a less jubilant key.

“I believe you’re getting into a fright already,” sneered Di.

“No I’m not; only I can’t help wishing that there was a real window, so that we might get a peep at what is inside, before actually going in,” said Andrew.

For though this mysterious room was furnished with a door and a chimney, it had no window. There was only a sham painted semblance of one set in the house wall, to match, as best it might, the other real ones.

“You see,” continued Andrew, “one hasn’t the least idea what one may see when the door bursts open.”

“Or what may see us,” laughed Diana.

“Oh, don’t,” cried Andrew; “that’s too horrid.”

“Nonsense,” said Di. “There wouldn’t be much real courage wanted in the world, if people could always see exactly what sort of danger they were going to face. Why, you silly Andrew, anyone could win a page in the book of golden deeds at that rate.”

“But you don’t think, Di, that Mrs. Busson will be very angry?”

“Angry! why, she’ll go on her knees with gratitude,” cried Di.

“Will she really, do you think?”

“Go on her knees, I say, and so will Mr. Busson, and Libbie, and everyone in the whole place, I expect,” asserted Di, trying hard to make herself believe in the probability of this crowd of grateful genuflectors, who were to flock round Andrew and herself, with the opened room as their background. “They’ll be awfully grateful.”

“It’ll be a great score over the others,” said Andrew.

“Yes, won’t it,” said Di.

“It will be such a sell for Jack and Phil,” remarked Andrew further.

“But time’s precious,” said Di, “I think we ought to be stirring.”

“But suppose Libbie hears us going upstairs,” began Andrew.

“Oh, you Master Much-afraid,” cried Di, impatiently, “suppose you run and hide yourself with Mr. Despondency, in the pages of ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’; won’t you give me your tools, and you go and play with Marygold’s doll in the Cuckoo-copse?”

“It isn’t that I’m the least afraid for myself,” began Andrew, “but--”

But Di cut him short. “Now, look here, don’t be such a coward, and listen to me. _I_ can get upstairs quietly enough, but you’re such an idiot that I can’t depend on you for doing anything decently.”

“That’s cheek,” pouted Andrew.

“So listen,” continued Di, “Libbie has just gone into the brew-house, to bottle the cowslip wine, so I’ll go in there and tease and worry her so much that she won’t have any ears to spare for what you may be doing. Meanwhile, take off your boots, and creep upstairs till you reach _the_ door. When you’re once there you can’t do much harm, because you see the room isn’t over the brew-house, and the walls are so fearfully thick, I don’t believe that even a dancing elephant could make itself heard downstairs.”

“But you will promise to come up soon,” said Andrew, terribly afraid of being left too long within reach of this dread, undiscovered territory, “I can’t stop up there too long, all by myself.”

“I’ll come as soon as I’ve worried Libbie into wanting to be rid of me,” said wicked Di. “I’ll make her feel thankful to leave me to my own devices. But don’t you begin to do anything till I come.”

“Oh, no, that I won’t,” said Andrew so fervently that Di felt sure that on this occasion, at any rate, Andrew might be trusted to keep his word.

“Very well, then, I’m off to begin operations,” said Di, springing to her feet. Tilting her hat over her eyes, and walking with a very leisurely step, Di took her way to the back regions of the farmhouse.

Poor Libbie, with her head and hands engaged in her bottling process, fell an easy prey to her wiles. If the truth were known, Libbie had been bitterly disappointed, and so had Mrs. Busson, by Andrew’s and Diana’s refusal to join the fair-going party. They had reckoned so confidently on securing a quiet, undisturbed afternoon for the “flasking and cellaring” of the cowslip wine, as Libbie termed it.

“Headaches, indeed! Stuff and nonsense,” she had said, “it’s just their _contrariness_, and that’s all. I’d like to give them a good dose of senna tea each, and lock them up in a dark room.”

So, when Di appeared in the doorway of the brew-house, she found exactly the kind of reception she would have chosen.

“Now I can’t have you worrying in here, Miss Di,” said Libbie, “for as you can see for yourself, there isn’t standing room for a well grown rat,” and she pointed to the regiment of dusty bottles with which the door was crowded. “Why dear me! I thought you had a bad headache. What ever has become of it so soon?”

“It never was a very bad one, besides I don’t make a fuss about things when I’m ill. I never do,” said Di, forgetting that _never_ is a long word.

“Well, I can’t have either you or Master Andrew bothering in here, this afternoon,” said Libbie, “it’ll be your own faults, if you find it dull, but you must amuse yourselves as best you can. Only don’t go getting into mischief. I’ve got my work cut out for me, here.”

“And so have I,” thought naughty Di, only she took care not to say so.

“Very well,” she answered aloud, “then if you won’t let me help you Libbie, I’ll go now.”

And very slowly, Diana turned away and recrossed the threshold.