THE WOULDBEGOODS
neither did Noël and H. O. But after the bacon we went into the garden, and then the good elder brother said:
"Why don't you tell the others your cock-and-bull story?"
So they did, and their story was received with warm expressions of doubt. It was Dicky who observed:
"Let's go and have a squint at Randall's ten-acre, anyhow. I saw a hare there the other day."
We went. It is some little way, and as we went disbelief reigned superb in every breast except Noël's and H. O.'s, so you will see that even the ready pen of the present author cannot be expected to describe to you his variable sensations when he got to the top of the hill and suddenly saw that his little brothers had spoken the truth. I do not mean that they generally tell lies, but people make mistakes sometimes and the effect is the same as lies if you believe them.
There was a camp there with real tents and soldiers in gray and red tunics. I dare say the girls would have said coats. We stood in ambush, too astonished even to think of lying in it, though of course we know that this is customary. The ambush was the wood on top of the little hill, between Randall's ten-acre meadow and Sugden's Waste Wake pasture.
"There would be cover here for a couple of regiments," whispered Oswald, who was, I think, gifted by Fate with the far-seeingness of a born general.
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