The elephant was fastened by the leg to a post, which perhaps he could have pulled up, had he thought it worth his while, but he was well contented to wave his trunk about and extend its clever finger to receive contributions of cakes and apples, and he was too well amused to resort to any strong measures.  The tiger, to Anne’s relief, proved to be only a stuffed specimen.  Peregrine, who had seen a good many foreign animals in Holland, where the Dutch captains were in the habit of bringing curiosities home for the delectation of their families in their Lusthausen, was a very amusing companion, having much to tell about bird and beast, while Robert stood staring with open mouth.  The long-legged secretary and the beautiful doves were, however, only stuffed, but Anne was much entertained at second hand with the relation of the numerous objects, which on the word of a Leyden merchant had been known to disappear in the former bird’s capacious crop, and with stories of the graceful dancing of the cobra, though she was not sorry that the present specimen was only visible in a bottle of arrack, where his spectacled hood was scarcely apparent.  Presently a well known shrill young voice was heard.  “Yes, yes, I know I shall swoon at that terrible tiger!  Oh, don’t!  I can’t come any farther.”

“Why, you would come, madam,” said Charles.

“Yes, yes! but—­oh, there’s a two-tailed monster!  I know it is the tiger!  It is moving!  I shall die if you take me any farther.”

“Plague upon your folly, madam!  It is only the elephant,” said a gruffer, rude voice.

“Oh, it is dreadful!  ’Tis like a mountain!  I can’t!  Oh no, I can’t!”

“Come, madam, you have brought us thus far, you must come on, and not make fools of us all,” said Charles’s voice.  “There’s nothing to hurt you.”

Anne, understanding the distress and perplexity, here turned back to the passage into the court, and began persuasively to explain to little Mrs. Archfield that the tiger was dead, and only a skin, and that the elephant was the mildest of beasts, till she coaxed forward that small personage, who had of course never really intended to turn back, supported and guarded as she was by her husband, and likewise by a tall, glittering figure in big boots and a handsome scarlet uniform and white feather who claimed her attention as he strode into the court.  “Ha!  Mistress Anne and the Doctor on my life.  What, don’t you know me?”

“Master Sedley Archfield!” said the Doctor; “welcome home, sir!  ’Tis a meeting of old acquaintance.  You and this gentleman are both so much altered that it is no wonder if you do not recognise one another at once.”

“No fear of Mr. Perry Oakshott not being recognised,” said Sedley Archfield, holding out his hand, but with a certain sneer in his rough voice that brought Peregrine’s eyebrows together.  “Kenspeckle enough, as the fools of Whigs say in Scotland.”