Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding—­ “You’re the best of little fellows, Winkie.  I tell you what.  In thirty days from now you can tell if you like—­tell any one you like.”

Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on a little child’s word.  Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie’s idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises.  Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye.  He was trying to discover why Coppy should have kissed her.  She was not half so nice as his own mother.  On the other hand, she was Coppy’s property, and would in time belong to him.  Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy’s big sword or shiny pistol.

The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks.  Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a “camp-fire” at the bottom of the garden.  How could be have foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Colonel’s little hay-rick and consumed a week’s store for the horses?  Sudden and swift was the punishment—­deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days’ confinement to barracks—­the house and veranda—­coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father’s countenance.

He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery—­called by him “my quarters.”  Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit.

“I’m under awwest,” said Wee Willie Winkie mournfully, “and I didn’t ought to speak to you.”

Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house—­that was not forbidden—­and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride.

“Where are you going?” cried Wee Willie Winkie.

“Across the river,” she answered, and trotted forward.

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by a river—­dry in the winter.  From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy—­the almost almighty Coppy—­had never set foot beyond it.  Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess find the Goblins—­a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie.  Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men.  Even in his own house the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms.  Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men.  And here was Major Allardyce’s big girl, Coppy’s property, preparing to venture into their borders!  What would Coppy say if anything happened to her?  If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie’s Princess?  She must at all hazards be turned back.