Hugh John paused as he put one foot into the bedroom, heavy and yet homelike with the night smell of a sleeping house. Toady Lion had fallen out of bed and lay, still with his blanket wrapped round him like a martial cloak, half under his cot and half on the floor. But this he did every other night. Prissy was breathing quietly in the next room. All was safe. Hugh John called softly down, "Tom, Tom!" "What now?" returned the keeper, who had been spying along the top windows to distinguish a certain one dear to his heart. "I say, Tom--I'll tell Jane Housemaid to-morrow that you're a proper brick." "Thank'ee, sir!" said Tom, saluting gravely and turning off across the lawn towards the "bothy," where among the pine woods he kept his owl-haunted bachelor quarters. CHAPTER XII. MOBILISATION. Generally speaking, Hugh John despised Sammy Carter--first, because he could lick him with one hand, and, secondly, because Sammy Carter was a clever boy and could discover ways of getting even without licking him. Clever boys are all cheeky and need hammering. Besides, Sammy Carter was in love with Prissy, and every one knew what that meant. But then Sammy Carter had a sister, Cissy by name, and she was quite a different row of beans. Furthermore, Sammy Carter read books--a degrading pursuit, unless they had to do with soldiering, and especially with the wars of Napoleon, Hugh John's great ancestor. In addition, Sammy knew every date that was, and would put you right in a minute if you said that Bannockburn happened after Waterloo, or any little thing like that. A disposition so perverse as this could only be cured with a wicket or with Hugh John's foot, and our hero frequently applied both corrections. But Cissy Carter--ah! now there was a girl if you like. She never troubled about such things. She could not run so fast as Prissy, but then she had a perfect colt's mane of hair, black and glossy, which flew out behind her when she did. Moreover, she habitually did what Hugh John told her, and burned much incense at his shrine, so that modest youth approved of her. It was of her he first thought when he set about organising his army for the assault upon the Black Sheds, where, like Hofer at Mantua, the gallant Donald lay in chains.