their burden and carried it out into the lane, where
the rest of us pulled away the furze-bushes stopping he gate into the
park, and so followed the body up the green slope towards the rise,
over which, as we climbed, the thatched roof of the pavilion slowly
hove into sight.

"Hallo!" Mr. Rogers halted and stared at the bearers, who also had
halted. "What the devil noise is that?"

The noise was that of a sudden blow or impact upon timber.
After about thirty seconds it was repeated, and our senses told us
that it came from within the pavilion.

"I reckon, sir," suggested one of the woodmen, "'tis Miss Belcher
practising."

"Good Lord! Come with us, Harry--the rest stay where you are,"
Mr. Rogers commanded, and ran towards the pavilion; and as we started
I heard a whizzing and cracking within, as of machinery, followed by
a double crack of timber.

"Lydia! Lydia Belcher!"

"Hey! What's the matter now?" I heard Miss Belcher's voice demand, as
he burst in through the doorway. "Take care, the catapult's loaded!"
A whiz, and again a crack. "There now! Oh, well fielded, indeed!
Well fiel--Eh? Caught you on the ankle, did it? Well, and you're
lucky it didn't find your skull, blundering in upon a body in this
fashion."

The first sight that met me as I reached the doorway was Mr. Jack
Rogers holding one foot and hopping around with a face of agony.
From him my astonished gaze travelled to Miss Lydia Belcher, whom I
must pause to describe.

I have hinted before that Miss Belcher was an eccentric; but I
certainly cannot have prepared the reader--as I was certainly
unprepared myself--for Miss Belcher as we surprised her.

She wore top-boots, but this is a trifle, for she habitually wore
top-boots. Upon them, and beneath the short skirt of a red flannel
petticoat, she had indued a pair of cricket-guards. Above the red
flannel petticoat came, frank and unashamed, an ample pair of stays;
above them, the front of a yet ampler chemise and a yellow bandanna
kerchief tied in a sailor's knot; above these, a middle-aged face
full of character and not without a touch of moustache on the upper
lip; an aquiline nose, grey eyes that apologized to nobody, a broad
brow to balance a broad, square jaw, and, on the top of all, a
square-topped beaver hat. So stood Miss Belcher, with a cricket-bat
under her arm; an Englishwoman, owner of one of England's "stately
homes"; a lady amenable to few laws save of her own making, an