he distracted horse-man.

It was HIS baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife were
the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the village.

She SAID she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to speak to
her sweetheart who was gardener at the Red House. But we knew she left
it over an hour, and nearly two.

I never saw anyone so pleased as the distracted horseman.

When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was the
prey of gipsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the Baby, and
actually thanked us.

But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business.
But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of the
others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all
their lives than mind a baby for a single hour.

If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of
sleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like.

If you have been through such a scene you will understand how we managed
to bear up under having no baby to adopt. Oswald insisted on having the
whole thing written in the Golden Deed book. Of course his share could
not be put in without telling about Dora's generous adopting of the
forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald could not and cannot forget that he
was the one who did get that baby to sleep.

What a time Mr and Mrs Distracted Horseman must have of it,
though--especially now they've sacked the nursemaid.

If Oswald is ever married--I suppose he must be some day--he will have
ten nurses to each baby. Eight is not enough. We know that because we
tried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the needs of that
deserted infant who was not so extra high-born after all.

CHAPTER 9. HUNTING THE FOX

It is idle to expect everyone to know everything in the world without
being told. If we had been brought up in the country we should have
known that it is not done--to hunt the fox in August. But in the
Lewisham Road the most observing boy does not notice the dates when it
is proper to hunt foxes.

And there are some things you cannot bear to think that anybody would
think you would do; that is why I wish to say plainly at the very
beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose even to save
our skins. Of course, if a man were at bay in a cave, and had to defend
girls from the simultaneous attack of a herd of savage foxes it would be
different. A man is bound