“You’ve killed me—­oh, you’ve killed me!  I know you have!” yelled the wretched child, squirming all over the floor. “’Twasn’t me, ’twasn’t my fault—­hit the others some.”

Swish, swish, swish.  “Do you think the others would lie so contemptibly?  Philip never lied to me.  Judy would cut her tongue out first.”  Swish, swish, swish.  “Going to a picnic, are you?  You can picnic in your room till to-morrow’s breakfast.”  Swish, swish, swish.  “Pah—­get away with you!”

Human endurance could go no further.  The final swish had been actual agony to his smarting, quivering shoulders and back.  He thought of the others, happy and heedless, out in the sunshine, trudging merrily off to the river, without a thought of what he was bearing, and his very heart seethed to burst in the hugeness of its bitterness and despair.  “Judy’s home!” he said, in a choking, passionate voice.  “She lives in the old shed in the cow, paddock.  Boo, hoo, hoo!  They’re keepin’ it secret from you.  Boo, hoo.  She’s gone to the picnic, and she’s run away from school.”

CHAPTER XIII Uninvited Guests

The captain was walking slowly across the paddocks with the cabbage-tree hat he kept for the garden pushed back from his brow.  He was rather heated after his tussle with his second son, and there was a thoughtful light in his eyes.  He did not believe the truth of Bunty’s final remark, but still he considered there was sufficient probability in it to make a visit to the shed not altogether superfluous.

Not that he expected, in any case, to find his errant daughter there, for had not Bunty said there was a picnic down at the river?  But he thought, there might be some trace or other.

The door of the shed swung back on its crazy hinges, and the sunlight streamed in and made a bar of glorified dust across the place.

There was no sign of habitation here, unless a hair ribbon of Meg’s and some orange peel, might be considered as such.

He saw the shaky, home-made ladder, resting against the hole in the ceiling, and though he had generally more respect for his neck than his children had for theirs, he ventured his safety upon it.  It creaked ominously as he reached the top step and crawled through into the loft.

There were a ham-bone, a box of dominoes, and a burst pillow this side of the partition, nothing else, so he walked across and looked over.

“Very cosy,” he murmured, “I shouldn’t mind camping here myself for a little time,” and it even came into his head to do so, and be there as a “surprise party” when Judy returned.  But he dismissed the idea as hardly compatible with dignity.  He remembered hearing rumours of missing furniture in the house, and almost a smile came into his eyes as he saw the little old table with the spirit-lamp and teapot thereon, the bed-clothing and washing-basin.  But a stern look succeeded it.  Were seventy-seven miles not sufficient obstacle to Judy’s mischievous plans?  How did she dare thus to defy him, a child of thirteen:  and he her father?  His lips compressed ominously, and he went down again and strode heavily back to the house.