The Peace Egg and Other tales | Page 8

very unsteady fashion, and shouting as they rolled from side to side.
"They're drunk," said Nicholas; "and they're shouting at us."

"Oh, run, run!" cried Dora; and down the road they ran, the men
shouting and following them. They had not run far, when Hector
caught his foot in the Captain's great-coat, which he was wearing, and
came down headlong in the road. They were close by a gate, and when
Nicholas had set Hector upon his legs, St. George hastily opened it.
"This is the first house," he said. "We'll act here;" and all, even the
Valiant Slasher, pressed in as quickly as possible. Once safe within the
grounds, they shouldered their sticks, and resumed their composure.
"You're going to the front door," said Nicholas, "Mummers ought to go
to the back."
"We don't know where it is," said Robin, and he rang the front-door
bell. There was a pause. Then lights shone, steps were heard, and at last
a sound of much unbarring, unbolting, and unlocking. It might have
been a prison. Then the door was opened by an elderly, timid-looking
woman, who held a tallow candle above her head.
"Who's there," she said, "at this time of night?"
"We're Christmas mummers," said Robin, stoutly; "we don't know the
way to the back door, but--"
"And don't you know better than to come here?" said the woman. "Be
off with you, as fast as you can."
"You're only the servant," said Robin. "Go and ask your master and
mistress if they wouldn't like to see us act. We do it very well."
"You impudent boy, be off with you!" repeated the woman. "Master'd
no more let you nor any other such rubbish set foot in this house--"
"Woman!" shouted a voice close behind her, which made her start as if
she had been shot, "who authorizes you to say what your master will or
will not do, before you've asked him? The boy is right. You are the
servant, and it is not your business to choose for me whom I shall or
shall not see."

"I meant no harm, sir, I'm sure," said the housekeeper; "but I thought
you'd never--"
"My good woman," said her master, "if I had wanted somebody to
think for me, you're the last person I should have employed. I hire you
to obey orders, not to think."
"I'm sure, sir," said the housekeeper, whose only form of argument was
reiteration, "I never thought you would have seen them--"
"Then you were wrong," shouted her master. "I will see them. Bring
them in."
He was a tall, gaunt old man, and Robin stared at him for some minutes,
wondering where he could have seen somebody very like him. At last
he remembered. It was the old gentleman of the blue cloak.
The children threw off their wraps, the housekeeper helping them, and
chattering ceaselessly, from sheer nervousness.
"Well, to be sure," said she, "their dresses are pretty too. And they
seem quite a better sort of children, they talk quite genteel. I might ha'
knowed they weren't like common mummers, but I was so flusterated
hearing the bell go so late, and--"
"Are they ready?" said the old man, who had stood like a ghost in the
dim light of the flaring tallow candle, grimly watching the proceedings.
"Yes, sir. Shall I take them to the kitchen, sir?"
"--for you and the other idle hussies to gape and grin at? No. Bring
them to the library," he snapped, and then stalked off, leading the way.
The housekeeper accordingly led them to the library, and then
withdrew, nearly falling on her face as she left the room by stumbling
over Darkie, who slipped in last like a black shadow.
The old man was seated in a carved oak chair by the fire.

"I never said the dogs were to come in," he said.
"But we can't do without them, please," said Robin, boldly. "You see
there are eight people in 'The Peace Egg,' and there are only five of us;
and so Darkie has to be the Black Prince, and Pax has to be the Fool,
and so we have to have them."
"Five and two make seven," said the old man, with a grim smile; "what
do you do for the eighth?"
"Oh, that's the little one at the end," said Robin, confidentially.
"Mamma said we weren't to mention him, but I think that's because
we're children.--You're grown up, you know, so I'll show you the book,
and you can see for yourself," he went on, drawing "The Peace Egg"
from his pocket: "there, that's the picture of him, on the last page; black,
with horns and a tail."
The old man's stern face relaxed into a broad smile as he examined the
grotesque woodcut; but