A cry of terror issuing from above froze the very blood in Mistress Charity’s veins.

“Stop! stop! you young limb of Satan!” came from Master Busy’s nearly choking throat.

“It’s evildoers or evil spirits, master,” cried Mistress Charity in an agony of fear.

“Whatever it be, mistress, this should destroy it!” said Master Courage philosophically, as turning the syringe upwards he squirted the whole of its contents straight into the fork of the ivy-covered branches.

There was a cry of rage, followed by a cry of terror, then Master Hymn-of-Praise Busy with a terrific clatter of breaking boughs, fell in a heap upon the soft carpet of moss.

Master Courage be it said to the eternal shame of venturesome youth, took incontinently to his heels, leaving Mistress Charity to bear the brunt of the irate saintly man’s wrath.

Master Busy, we must admit had but little saintliness left in him now.  Let us assume that—­as he explained afterwards—­he was not immediately aware of Mistress Charity’s presence, and that his own sense of propriety and of decorum had been drowned in a cataract of tar water.  Certain it is that a volley of oaths, which would have surprised Sir Marmaduke himself, escaped his lips.

Had he not every excuse?  He was dripping from head to foot, spluttering, blinded, choked and bruised.

He shook himself like a wet spaniel.  Then hearing the sound of a smothered exclamation which did not seem altogether unlike a giggle, he turned round savagely and perceived the dim outline of Mistress Charity’s dainty figure.

“The Lord love thee, Master Hymn-of-Praise,” she began, somewhat nervously, “but you have made yourself look a sight.”

“And by G—­d I’ll make that young jackanapes look a sight ere I take my hand off him,” he retorted savagely.

“But what were you ... hem! what wert thou doing up in the elm tree, friend Hymn-of-Praise?” she asked demurely.

“Thee me no thou!” he said with enigmatic pompousness, followed by a distinctly vicious snarl, “Master Busy will be my name in future for a saucy wench like thee.”

He turned towards the house.  Mistress Charity following meekly—­somewhat subdued, for Master Busy was her affianced husband, and she had no mind to mar her future, through any of young Courage’s dare-devil escapades.

“Thou wouldst wish to know what I was doing up in that forked tree?” he asked her with calm dignity after a while, when the hedges of the flower garden came in sight.  “I was making a home for thee, according to the commands of the Lord.”

“Not in the elm trees of a surety, Master Busy?”

“I was making a home for thee,” he repeated without heeding her flippant observation, “by rendering myself illustrious.  I told thee, wench, did I not? that something was happening within the precincts of Acol Court, and that it is my duty to lie in wait and to watch.  The heiress is about to be abducted, and it is my task to frustrate the evil designs of the mysterious criminal.”