r Inglis had been waiting about an hour for the truants, and at last,
exhausted in patience, had ordered it in.

"Look! look! Papa, Mamma," shouted Harry, rushing in through the French
window; "look, here's a fish!"

"Soak, soak," went his boots as he went in.

"Take him outside," said his father to the two other boys, who were just
coming breathlessly in, only Fred was entangled by the rods crossing the
window. "Take him outside, the young rascal is spoiling the carpet with
his wet boots."

It was no use to think of dinner then, so Papa and Mamma both had to
come outside the window to see and admire the carp, and hear how it was
captured, before the mid-day meal could be gone on with.

"Ah!" said the Squire at last, "there used to be plenty of fine carp in
Trencher Pond down the deep hole under the tree, but I did not know
there were any left, for the dry summers killed them when the railway
cutting was made and took off so much water. But come, boys, dinner."

And then he drove them off, and made them enter the hall-door so as to
make themselves fit for the repast that awaited them. But he was not
quite successful, for Harry made a double, and ran off to pop his carp
in the pond, but was back directly, and shortly after in the
dining-room, feasting away with a country boy's appetite--an appetite,
too, that Fred already began to show symptoms of possessing, as the
fruit of his visit to Hollowdell.

CHAPTER THREE.

INDOOR AMUSEMENTS.

Dinner had not been finished above an hour before the sky became
overcast; and, all at once, a rushing, sweeping wind came over the
country. Far-off in the distance where the hills could be seen, a
thick, misty appearance almost hid them from sight. There was a low,
muttering sound, then another, seemingly nearer; then came a dazzling
blue flash of lightning that made all the party stationed at the
dining-room window start back; and then came a long, rolling, rattling
peal of thunder, that sounded as though it had come bellowing through
great metal pipes; while before it had died away in the distance,
splashing and plunging down came the rain in torrents, ploughing up the
flower-beds, and making little rivers run along each side of the
gravel-walks. Out in the home-fields the cows and horses were running
to get under shelter of the trees, and looked evidently frightened as
flash succeeded flash of lightning, and peal after peal of thunder
seemed to make the very heave