15

A huge fire blazed cheerfully in the nobly proportioned fireplace of Chippings Castle great hall. Beside it the Duchess dozed in an oak settle, surrounded by her embroidery. Occasionally she woke and put a stitch or two into the tapestry.

Upstairs, in an attic leading onto the castle battlements, the Du e was happily occupied with one of his experiments, something to do with air balloons. After the last few weeks of excitement, rescues by land and water, perils of fire, drowning, and wolves, not to mention the loss of a nephew and the discovery of an unexpected niece, his Grace was badly in need of peace and solitude.

Sophie, seated at the fireside opposite the Duchess, also appeared to be peacefully engaged—in mending the Duke's socks but—her thoughts were not peaceful. She was anxious and miserable, longing to be back in London. The party had now been at Chippings for three weeks, but still Justin had not turned up. Every body here was kind and faithful, she was sure, and the Duke and Duchess were safe, but Sophie felt dreadfully isolated. She wanted to know what had happened in Rose Alley. What had become of Simon, Justin, and Dido?

It had been snowing now for two days, there were reports that the wolves on the wolds were becoming very bold, and Sophie feared greatly that the castle might be cut off from all news for weeks and weeks—perhaps until spring.

As if to give emphasis to her thoughts, a baleful howling arose outside, and the stabled horses neighed and stamped in fear. Sophie shivered, threw a log on the fire, and went to look out of the window, but although it was hardly more than midafternoon the day was so dim with whirling snow that she could see nothing.

The Duchess nodded, yawned, and opened her eyes. "What was that noise, Sophie dear?"

"I'm afraid it was wolves, ma'am."

"Oh dear me, wolves so early? I suppose that means we shall not be getting the evening paper from York," her Grace said dolefully. But just then they heard a fusillade of shots, a tremendous jingling of sleigh bells, and, almost immediately, an urgent tattoo of knocks upon the great door of the castle.

Sophie ran to the door, but old Mogg the steward was before her.

"All right, all right," he grumbled, letting down the massive bars. "Leave a bit of t'door standing, cansta? We doesn't want t'wolves taborin' in and setting by her Grace's fire—"

"And we don't want the wolves biting off our breeches pockets while you fiddle with the bolt!" shouted an impatient voice.

"Naay that's nivver t'paper boy?" muttered Mogg, scratching his head. "Happen t'wolves got him and yon's t'replacement? Or could it be woon o' they doddy travelin' salesmen? Ye can coom in, but coom in slow and careful, for if ye're a highwayman I'll shoot ye full o' gravel chips," he warned, and pulled an ancient pistol out of his green baize apron pocket. He stepped back from the door, which burst open, allowing four people and a wolf to surge into the hall. The wolf was chased out again, with kicks and curses; Sophie gave a joyful shriek.

"Simon! You're safe! Oh, how glad I am to see you. And Justin too!—their Graces will be so relieved. Ma'am, ma'am, see who's here!"

"What about the evening paper?" grumbled Mogg, but nobody heeded him amid the cries of wonder, relief, and joy. Sophie was hugging Simon, the Duchess was simultaneously patting Justin's head and shaking hands with Dr. Field, though rather puzzled as to how he came to be with the party.

"Why, if that beant Dolly Buckle!" old Mogg suddenly ejaculated. "Eh, Dolly, my lass, 'tis a rare long year since we've seen thee here! Wheer's 'a bin, lass?" Then his jaw dropped and he gaped at Simon, whom he had only just noticed. "And who's thon? Why, t'lad's the dead spit of Mester Henry as died in Hanover!"

"Who is he?" shrilled Mrs. Buckle. "Who is he? Why, use your wits, Matthew Mogg, who should he be but his young lordship?"

"Nay," said Mogg obstinately "yon's his young lordship, Mester Justin there, nobbut skin and gristle, granted, but he's bahn to be lordship for all that."

"Him? He's my Justin that I never thought I'd rear, aren't you, my lovey?"

Justin looked slightly embarrassed and sidled away from his mother's embrace. "But as for Master Simon," she went on, "he's family, not a doubt of it, for he's got the Battersea tuft."

"Tuft, sitha? Let's see, then, lad. Kneel down on't' flagstones, tha be's such a beanpole." Rather puzzled, Simon submitted to the old man's parting the thick black locks on the back of his head, where Mogg evidently found what he expected, for he cried, "Eh, tha's reet, Dolly my woman! To think that I should see the day! Eh, your Grace, tak' a look at this!"

"Why, what a curious thing!" the Duchess remarked. "A little tuft of white hair among the black, precisely like the one my husband had before all his hair turned white. Is that the Battersea tuft?"

"Indeed it is, ma'am," Mrs. Buckle cried. "All the Battersea babies have had it."

"Then Sophie must have it too—Sophie, child, kneel down!"

Sophie, laughing, allowed Mrs. Buckle to uncoil the curls of her long dark hair and discover the little white tuft on the back of her head. "I never knew it was there myself!" she said.

The Duchess was looking from Simon to Sophie and back, declaring in wonder, "I do not believe I have any eyes at all! Why did I never notice the likeness before? Of course they are brother and sister! Why, they are as like as one guinea to another. We must tell his Grace the news at once!"

"He's in the attic," Sophie said, and she ran from the room. As she darted up the winding stairs she wondered what troubles Simon had been through, to make him look so pale and haggard. She had asked where Dido was, and he had answered, "I can't tell you here," in an undertone, and with a look that went to her heart. Poor Simon! Poor Dido! What could have become of her?

Sophie knocked on the attic door and ran into his Grace's workroom, which was full of a general mess of scientific apparatus lying strewn over several large tables. The Duke was not there, but the outer door onto the battlements was open and gusts of snow were blowing in.

"Your Grace? Uncle William?" Sophie called. "Are you there?" She peered through the open door into the snowy dark. A lighted lantern stood on the leads, and there were footprints in the snow but she did not see the Duke until she looked up.

"Mercy!" she exclaimed.

A pair of legs was dangling just above her. Peering past them through the flutter of snowflakes, Sophie could just see the outline of an extremely large air balloon above her head; it was rising and tugging his Grace upward as he clung to it with one hand, while with the other he held on to the guttering of the attic roof.

"Your Grace! Oh, pray take care!" Sophie gasped. She pulled at his legs with all her strength, and then, discovering a dangling rope, ran it through a staple evidently intended for mooring, and dragged the balloon and its passenger back to safety.

"Ah, thank you, Sophie, my child," said the Duke, wiping off the snowflakes which had settled on his hair and eyebrows. "I was just wondering how much longer I could hang on. The mooring rope slipped out of my fingers after I had pumped in the gas. Have you made it fast? Capital. Is it not an excellent balloon? I am delighted with my work; quite delighted. It surpasses all my expectations as to buoyancy."

"Yes indeed, it's beautiful," Sophie said, dragging his Grace indoors as if she feared that he, too, might take off into the night air. "Only think, Uncle William, Simon is here!—and Justin, and Dr. Field, and Mrs. Buckle—Simon has the Battersea tuft, which proves he is my brother and your nephew, and Justin is Mrs. Buckle's son—oh, it is all most complicated. And I am sure they have had such adventures, do, pray, come and hear all about it!"

The Duke looked quite bewildered by this stream of news, all delivered at top speed, but he permitted Sophie to pull him down the winding stairs and into the great hall.

In no time the whole party was sitting down to crimped fish, pickled cockles, venison, and whortleberry pies, and a huge platter of spiced parkin. While they ate, Sophie and the Duchess bombarded Simon and Dr. Field with questions, and each told his tale; Mrs. Buckle put in explanations until the whole story of Buckle's plot and the Hanoverian conspiracy was made plain. Sophie then recounted how she had heard Buckle disclose his intentions to poison the Duke as soon as Justin returned.

Justin, who had been looking more and more miserable and apprehensive as the tales were told, revealing him as the unwitting tool of all this villainy, now broke down altogether and fairly boohooed.

"None of it's my fault," he howled. "I never asked to be swapped as a babby, and prosed and preached at and made into a Duke! Oh, boohoo, n-nobody likes me and I shall be t-turned out into the snow to starve! I wish I was back on Inchmore with my ma, I do!"

The Duchess exclaimed warmly, "Nonsense, Justin dear, nobody thinks of putting you out in the snow. Nobody blames you for what you didn't know about—I am sure we all pity you for having such a thoroughly unpleasant father. You can go back to Inchmore if you wish, next summer—in winter I am sure it must be most disagreeable and you had best stay here at Chippings with your mother, who has kindly agreed to help Mrs. Gossidge with the housekeeping. Now stop crying and do not be such a great gaby! Mrs. Buckle, perhaps he is overtired and should be put to bed."

"Indeed he should, your Grace, I declare I'm ashamed of him," exclaimed his mother, and whisked him away, crying, "Come along, my ducky, do, and don't make such a show of yourself, my precious lambkin, or Ma will be obliged to give you two Gregory's powders and a spoonful of calomel. Look at Simon. He's not crying!"

Simon looked pale and heavy-eyed, however, as the Duchess noticed with kindly concern. Dr. Field quickly finished the tale of their adventures: they had turned Dark Dimity over to the Preventives at Chipping Fishbury, the two recovered sufferers from quinsy had been allowed to ship as deck hands on a collier going south, and, learning that the Duke was at Chippings, the rest of the party had come straight there in a hired sleigh, only slightly hindered by wolves on the way.

The Duke looked quite bewildered at this tale—he always found it hard to take in many new ideas all at once—and as everybody was fatigued with emotion and excitement they decided to go to bed and leave the discussion of plans till next day.

All night the snow fell steadily, and by the morning it lay five feet deep in the castle court, and the drifts were three times the height of a man. From the embrasured windows nothing could be seen but a white wilderness in which the trees seemed to be standing waist-deep. But at dawn a pale sun rose, drawing brilliant sparkles from the icicles on the branches.

"Now," said Dr. Field, who was sitting with the Duke and Duchess at a late breakfast, "We have only two problems."

"What are they?" asked Sophie, pouring his chocolate. She already felt a great confidence in his practical sense.

"You say that Cobb sent the Bow Street runners round to Rose Alley?"

"Yes, but I fear they will have found nothing. The Twites had been warned by Jem."

"There has been nothing about it in the papers," the Duchess put in.

"Neither Mr. Cobb nor the Bow Street officers knew that Buckle was involved?"

"No, for I overheard him plotting with Midwink after Mr. Cobb went to Bow Street."

"So Buckle at present thinks himself secure, and knows nothing of the loss of Dark Dew and Dark Dimity. Our two problems are to discover where the Hanoverians now keep their arms, and to reach London fast enough to take them by surprise."

"I have a very good notion of where the Hanoverians now put their arms," the Duke said. "Just before we left, Buckle asked me if he might house his fossil collection in Battersea Castle vaults. I said I had no objection, and gave him the key."

"Of course!" exclaimed Sophie. "That's why Midwink said, 'They'll never think of looking there.' You can enter the vaults from the tunnel, can you not? They could move the things in with very little risk of being seen."

"And as for traveling to London," pursued the Duke, "I have the most suitable equipage upstairs that could be devised—a strong, commodious, elegant air balloon, capable of carrying at least eight persons and their luggage for hundreds of miles. Simon, my boy, which way does the wind blow?"

Simon, who had been gazing out of the window, deep in sorrowful reverie, jumped at being addressed, but replied readily enough, "It still blows from the north, your Grace."

"Nothing could be more convenient. I have been working on a steering device for the balloon, but I am not yet fully satisfied with it. A north wind, however, should blow us straight to London."

"Travel in a balloon!" exclaimed the Duchess, aghast. "William! Are you out of your mind? We should all be killed—blow away to the South Pole—starve—freeze to death—crash to the ground—stick in a tree—oh, the very idea gives me the vapors!"

"Nonsense, Hettie," said the Duke impatiently, as Sophie administered hartshorn and fanned the palpitating Duchess. "We shall be famously snug. We can take up a brazier to keep us warm, besides fur rugs and such gear, food, amusements, knitting, and so forth; then, if we want to descend, why, we merely pull the cord and slowly deflate the balloon. It's as simple as kiss your hand!"

Dr. Field was delighted at this plan.

"Besides," the Duke pursued, "have you forgotten the mince-pie ceremony on Christmas Eve? It is our loyal duty to be back for that."

"What is the mince-pie ceremony, your Grace?" inquired Dr. Field. "And where does it take place?"

"Why, you see," explained the Duke, "it is the hereditary duty of our family to furnish the King with mince pies, and the presentation always takes place in Battersea Castle on Christmas Eve. In fact we have the King to dinner, serve some mince pies at table, and give him a washbasket of 'em to take away afterwards, while the trumpeters blow a special tune called the Battersea Fanfare. If we start today—it's five days to Christmas—we ought to arrive in nice time for the ceremony."

Sophie, Simon, and Dr. Field looked at one another in dismay. With such a nest of vipers hiding under its roof, Battersea Castle seemed the most dangerous place in the world to invite King James III for a mince-pie dinner. Would there be time to clear out the Hanoverian conspirators beforehand?

"I daresay Buckle knows nothing about this ceremony?" Dr. Field said at last, hopefully.

"Pshaw, my dear fellow, he has made all the arrangements for years. Besides which, I wrote him by carrier pigeon last week, reminding him to have the mince pies baked in good time."

"This complicates matters," said Dr. Field, scratching his head. "As your Grace has pointed out, we must get going at once. We shall need plenty of food, charcoal, telescopes, a weapon or two—"

"Dominoes, playing cards, spilikins, billiard balls," noted Sophie, ticking them off on her fingers, "thank goodness, at least we need not fear wolves in a balloon—"

"But suppose there should be eagles!" cried the Duchess fearfully. "Oh, William! Need we really travel in this dreadful apparatus? I shall be unwell, I know I shall be unwell!"

"Smelling salts, hartshorn, spirits of wine," Sophie noted down.

"And, Sophie my dear, whatever else you put in, pray do not forget your Aunt Henrietta's embroidery!"