YOU'RE going to!"

"No," said Peter, rather touched by this devotion; "it's a forlorn hope,
and I'm going to lead it. All I ask is that if Mother asks where I am,
you won't blab."

"We haven't got anything TO blab," said Bobbie, indignantly.

"Oh, yes, you have!" said Peter, dropping horse-beans through his
fingers. "I've trusted you to the death. You know I'm going to do a lone
adventure--and some people might think it wrong--I don't. And if Mother
asks where I am, say I'm playing at mines."

"What sort of mines?"

"You just say mines."

"You might tell US, Pete."

"Well, then, COAL-mines. But don't you let the word pass your lips on
pain of torture."

"You needn't threaten," said Bobbie, "and I do think you might let us
help."

"If I find a coal-mine, you shall help cart the coal," Peter
condescended to promise.

"Keep your secret if you like," said Phyllis.

"Keep it if you CAN," said Bobbie.

"I'll keep it, right enough," said Peter.

Between tea and supper there is an interval even in the most greedily
regulated families. At this time Mother was usually writing, and Mrs.
Viney had gone home.

Two nights after the dawning of Peter's idea he beckoned the girls
mysteriously at the twilight hour.

"Come hither with me," he said, "and bring the Roman Chariot."

The Roman Chariot was a very old perambulator that had spent years of
retirement in the loft over the coach-house. The children had oiled its
works till it glided noiseless as a pneumatic bicycle, and answered to
the helm as it had probably done in its best days.

"Follow your dauntless leader," said Peter, and led the way down the
hill towards the station.

Just above the station many rocks have pushed their heads out through
the turf as though they, like the children, were interested in the
railway.

In a little hollow between three rocks lay a heap of dried brambles and
heather.

Peter halted, turned over the brushwood with a well-scarred boot, and
said:--

"Here's the first coal from the St. Peter's Mine. We'll take it home in
the chariot. Punctuality and despatch. All orders carefully attended to.
Any shaped lump cut to suit regular customers."

The chariot was packed full of coal. And when it was packed it had to
be unpacked again because it was so heavy that it couldn't be got up the
hill by the three children, not even when Peter harnessed himself to the
handle with his braces, and firmly grasping his waistband in one hand