’He’ll wake up and won’t be able to get away.  What fun! how I should like to see him!’

’Come on quick.  He’s Farmer Green, and he’s an awful angry man; he gave Sam such a thrashing for tying an old saucepan to one of his pigs’ tails.  He won’t know who has done it, and I did tie the knots awful tight.’

Away they ran; but they had not proceeded far before Teddy came to a standstill, and all the saucy sparkle died out of his eyes.

‘What’s the matter?’ asked Nancy.  ‘Have you got a pain?’

‘I’m afraid I am going to have a fight with Ipse.’

The words were uttered almost in a whisper, and Nancy looked on with wonder.

‘It isn’t right,’ he said, after a long pause.  ’I do want—­at least, Ipse wants—­to leave him there awfully, but mother would say it was very naughty, and I think—­I think my Captain doesn’t like it.  I shall have to go back and undo him.’

‘Oh, you mustn’t!’ cried Nancy.  ’You’ll wake him up, and then you’ll catch it!  Let him undo himself!’ Teddy shook his head, and then stole softly back to the tree, Nancy following him at a respectful distance.

It seemed a harder business to untie the knots than to tie them, but at length it was done, and the unwinding process began.  Alas!  Farmer Green’s nap was over, and with a hasty start he was roused to the full use of his faculties.  When he discovered his condition he swore a round oath, and turned upon Teddy in great wrath, as he vainly tried to extricate himself.

‘Please, sir,’ said Teddy, nothing daunted, ’if you keep still, I shall undo you very soon, and I won’t break your line if I can help it.’

’You young scoundrel! how dare you show your face, after such an audacious piece of impudence!  You’re the plague of the parish, and a good thrashing is what you will get, sure as my name’s Jonathan Green!’

Teddy’s face was hot and red, and the spectacle of him trying to unwind the line from the struggling and exasperated farmer was so irresistibly comic to Nancy that she burst out laughing.

Jonathan Green was soon on his feet again, and seizing hold of Teddy by the collar, shook him like a terrier would shake a rat; then, without leaving go of him, he pulled out a piece of cord from his coat pocket.  ’Now, I’ll teach you a lesson, youngster, that you won’t forget.  It’s lucky I’ve got this bit o’ rope.’

And in another few minutes he had bound the boy securely to the tree, tying his hands together with his handkerchief; then, as Nancy stepped forward, indignant at this severe treatment, he turned upon her.

’There are two of you, are there?  Well, you shall share the same fate till I think fit to release you.  I’ll teach you to stop playing such impish tricks on decent folk.’

‘You’re the wickedest man that’s living, I’m sure!’ cried Nancy wrathfully.  ’Why, he was undoing you when you woke up, which was very kind of him.  I wish he’d left you tied up, I do!’