not half so nice as
his own mother. On the other hand she was Coppy's property, and would
in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as
much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol.

The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee
Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam
broke out, and he made what he called a "camp-fire" at the bottom of
the garden. How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would
have lighted the Colonel's little hay-rick and consumed a week's store
for the horses? Sudden and swift was the punishment--deprivation of
the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days'
confinement to barracks--the house and veranda--coupled with the
withdrawal of the light of his father's countenance.

He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up
with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran
to weep bitterly in his nursery--called by him "my quarters." Coppy
came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit.

"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, "and I did n't
ought to speak to you."

Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the
house--that was not forbidden--and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a
ride.

"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie.

"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward.

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by
a river--dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie
had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even
Coppy--the almost almighty Coppy--had never set foot beyond it. Wee
Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the
history of the Princess and the Goblins--a most wonderful tale of a
land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men
until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed
to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were
inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, everyone had said that there
lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the
windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who
might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and
comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end
of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's
big girl, Coppy's property,