Judy still looked pale and tired, and her cough was rather troublesome; but she was fast getting her high spirits back, and was enjoying her adventure immensely.

The only drawback was the cribbed, cabined, and confined space of the loft.

“You will have to arrange things so that I can go for a run,” she said one morning, in a determined manner.  “My legs are growing shorter, I am sure, with not exercising them.  I shall have forgotten how to walk by the end of the week.”

Pip didn’t think it could be done; Meg besought her to run no risks; but Bunty and Nell were eager for it.

“Meg could talk to Father,” Bunty said, “and Pip could keep teasing General till Esther would be frightened to leave the room, and then me and Judy would nick down and have a run, and get back before you let them go.”

Judy shook her head.

“That would be awfully stale,” she said.  “If I go, I shall stay down some time.  Why shouldn’t we have a picnic down at the river?”

“Oh, yes, let’s!” Bunty cried, with sparkling eyes.

“I’m sure we could manage it especially as it’s Saturday, and Pip hasn’t to go to school,” Judy continued, thinking it rapidly out.  “Two of you could go and get some food.  Tell Martha you are all going for a picnic—­she’ll be glad enough not to have dinner to set—­then you go on.  Two others can watch if the coast’s clear while I get down and across the paddocks, and once we’re at the corner of the road we’re safe.”

It seemed feasible enough, and in a very short time the preparations were all made.  Pip was mounting guard at the shed, and had undertaken to get Judy safely away, and Bunty had been stationed on the back veranda to keep cave and whistle three times if there was any danger.

He was to wait for a quarter of an hour by the kitchen clock, and then, if all was well, to bring the big billy and a bread loaf, and catch the others up on the road.

It was slow work waiting there, and he stood on one leg, like a meditative fowl, and reviewed the events of the last few exciting days.

He had a depressed feeling at his heart, but why he could hardly tell.  Perhaps it was the lie he had told his father, and which was still unconfessed, because the horse was seriously lame, and his courage oozed away every time he thought of that riding-whip.

Perhaps it was the reaction after the great excitement.  Or it may have been a rankling sense of injustice at the small glory his brave deeds on Judy’s behalf evoked from the others.  They did not seem to attach any importance to them, and, indeed, laughed every time he alluded to them or drew public attention to his scars.  Two or three of the scratches on his legs were really bad ones, and while he was standing waiting he turned down his stockings and gazed at these with pitying eyes and something like a sob in his throat.

“Nobody cares!” he muttered, and one of his ever-ready tears fell splashing down on one extended bare leg.  “Judy likes Pip best, and he never climbed the cactus; Meg thinks I tell stories; and Nellie says I’m a greedy pig—­nobody cares!”