the big meadow. Mutinous, sulky, charged with plots and
conspiracies, one always got behind the shelter of the
raspberry-canes.


. . . . . . .

"You can come too if you like," said Harold, in a subdued sort of
way, as soon as he was aware that I was sitting up in bed
watching him. "We didn't think you'd care, 'cos you've got to
catapults. But we're goin' to do what we've settled to do, so
it's no good sayin' we hadn't ought and that sort of thing, 'cos
we're goin' to!"

The day had passed in an ominous peacefulness. Charlotte and
Harold had kept out of my way, as well as out of everybody
else's, in a purposeful manner that ought to have bred suspicion.

In the evening we had read books, or fitfully drawn ships and
battles on fly-leaves, apart, in separate corners, void of
conversation or criticism, oppressed by the lowering tidiness of
the universe, till bedtime came, and disrobement, and
prayers even more mechanical than usual, and lastly bed itself
without so much as a giraffe under the pillow. Harold had
grunted himself between the sheets with an ostentatious pretence
of overpowering fatigue; but I noticed that he pulled his pillow
forward and propped his head against the brass bars of his crib,
and, as I was acquainted with most of his tricks and subterfuges,
it was easy for me to gather that a painful wakefulness was his
aim that night.