with Ipse.'

The words were uttered almost in a whisper, and Nancy looked on
with wonder.

'It isn't right,' he said, after a long pause. 'I do want--at least, Ipse
wants--to leave him there awfully, but mother would say it was very
naughty, and I think--I think my Captain doesn't like it. I shall have to
go back and undo him.'

'Oh, you mustn't!' cried Nancy. 'You'll wake him up, and then you'll
catch it! Let him undo himself!' Teddy shook his head, and then stole
softly back to the tree, Nancy following him at a respectful distance.

It seemed a harder business to untie the knots than to tie them, but at
length it was done, and the unwinding process began. Alas! Farmer
Green's nap was over, and with a hasty start he was roused to the full
use of his faculties. When he discovered his condition he swore a round
oath, and turned upon Teddy in great wrath, as he vainly tried to
extricate himself.

'Please, sir,' said Teddy, nothing daunted, 'if you keep still, I shall
undo you very soon, and I won't break your line if I can help it.'

'You young scoundrel! how dare you show your face, after such an
audacious piece of impudence! You're the plague of the parish, and a good
thrashing is what you will get, sure as my name's Jonathan Green!'

Teddy's face was hot and red, and the spectacle of him trying to unwind
the line from the struggling and exasperated farmer was so irresistibly
comic to Nancy that she burst out laughing.

Jonathan Green was soon on his feet again, and seizing hold of Teddy by
the collar, shook him like a terrier would shake a rat; then, without
leaving go of him, he pulled out a piece of cord from his coat pocket.
'Now, I'll teach you a lesson, youngster, that you won't forget. It's
lucky I've got this bit o' rope.'

And in another few minutes he had bound the boy securely to the tree,
tying his hands together with his handkerchief; then, as Nancy stepped
forward, indignant at this severe treatment, he turned upon her.

'There are two of you, are there? Well, you shall share the same fate
till I think fit to release you. I'll teach you to stop playing such
impish tricks on decent folk.'

'You're the wickedest man that's living, I'm sure!' cried Nancy
wrathfully. 'Why, he was undoing you when you woke up, which was very
kind of him. I wish he'd left you tied up, I do!'

But Farmer Green, with a grim smile of satisfaction, soon settled her in
the same fashion as he had done the boy; and then,