“Master Hal!” exclaimed Purday, “don’t throw them little apples about.” “They are red-hot shot, Purday!” “I’ll red-hot shot you if you break my cucumber frames, young gentleman! Come, get out with you.” Probably anxiety made Purday cross as well as everyone else, or else he distrusted Henry’s discretion without Sam, for he hunted the little boys away wherever they went. Now they would break the cucumber frames; now they would meddle with the gooseberries, or trample on the beds; and at last he only relented so far as to let David stay with him on condition of being very good, and holding the little cabbages as he planted them out. “Master Davie was a solemn one,” Purday said, and they were great friends; but Hal and Johnnie were fairly turned out, as their idle hands were continually finding fresh mischief to do in their sauntering desultory mood. “I think,” said Hal, “since Purday is so savage, we’ll go and look out at the gate, and then we shall see if the telegraph comes.” Johnnie had no clear idea what a telegraph was, and was curious to know how it would come, rather expecting it to be a man in a red coat on horseback, blowing a horn—a sight that certainly was not to be missed; so he willingly strolled down after Henry to the gate leading to the lane. “I can’t see any way at all,” said Henry, looking out into the lane. “I shall get up, and so see over into the bend of the road;” and Hal mounted to the topmost bar of the gate, and sat astride there, John scrambling after him not quite so easily, his legs being less long, and his dress less convenient. Both knew that their Papa strongly objected to their climbing on this iron gate, the newest and handsomest thing about the place; but thought Hal, “Of course no one will care what I do when I am so anxious about poor Mamma!” and thought Johnnie, “What Hal does, of course I may do!” So there the two young gentlemen sat perched, each with one leg on either side of the new iron gate. It was rather like sitting on the edge of a knife; and John could scarcely reach his toes down to rest them on the bar below, but he held on by the spikes, and it was so new and glorious a position, that it made up for a good deal to be five feet above the road; moreover, Hal said it was just like the mast-head of a man-of-war—at _least_, when the waves didn’t dash right overhead, like the picture of the Eddystone Lighthouse. “Hollo! what, a couple of cherubs aloft!” cried a voice from the road; and looking round, Henry beheld the two Grevilles. “Yes,” he answered; “it’s very jolly up here.”