in the square.

"If they just kent!" muttered the smallest, who was wearing his jacket
outside in to escape observation.

"But they little ken!" said Gav Dishart.

"They hinna a notion!" said Corp, contemptuously, but still he was a
little puzzled, and presently he asked softly: "Lads, what just is it
that they dinna ken?"

Had Gav been ready with an answer he could not have uttered it, for just
then a terrible little man in black, who had been searching for him in
likely places, seized him by the cuff of the neck, and, turning his face
in an easterly direction, ran him to family worship. But there was still
work to do for the other two. Walking home alone that night from Mr.
Patullo's party, Mr. Cathro had an uncomfortable feeling that he was
being dogged. When he stopped to listen, all was at once still, but the
moment he moved onward he again heard stealthy steps behind. He retired
to rest as soon as he reached his house, to be wakened presently by a
slight noise at the window, whence the flag-post protruded. It had been
but a gust of wind, he decided, and turned round to go to sleep again,
when crash! the post was plucked from its place and cast to the ground.
The dominie sprang out of bed, and while feeling for a light, thought he
heard scurrying feet, but when he looked out at the window no one was to
be seen; _Vivat Regina_ lay ignobly in the gutters. That it could have
been the object of an intended theft was not probable, but the open
window might have tempted thieves, and there was a possible though risky
way up by the spout. The affair was a good deal talked about at the
time, but it remained shrouded in a mystery which even we have been
unable to penetrate.

On the heels of the Queen's birthday came the Muckley, the one that was
to be known to fame, if fame was willing to listen to Corp, as Tommy's
Muckley. Unless he had some grand aim in view never was a boy who
yielded to temptations more blithely than Tommy, but when he had such
aim never was a boy so firm in withstanding them. At this Muckley he had
a mighty reason for not spending money, and with ninepence in his pocket
clamoring to be out he spent not one halfpenny. There was something
uncanny in the sight of him stalking unscathed between rows of stands
and shows, everyone of them aiming at his pockets. Corp and Gav, of
course, were in the secret and did their humble best to act in the same
unnatural manner, but now and again a show made a succ