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“Richard, you’re a genius! (You needn’t bite him after all, Zero.) That will be the very thing for guests on Sunday afternoons–not to mention us ourselves.”

“I was thinking principally of us ourselves.”

“Where is that big-scale plan of the land? We’ll pin it down flat on the table, and start arranging it now. We shall probably have to alter it all afterwards, but that don’t matter.”

CHAPTER V

Six years had passed; and Zero had got a new master, a somewhat dictatorial gentleman, but with genuine goodness of heart, aged five, bearing the same name as his father, Richard Staines, but never by any chance addressed by it. His father called him Dick. His mother called him by various fond and foolish appellations. He was known to the servants of the household as the Emperor. He had two sisters, whom he always spoke of collectively as “the children.” He always spoke of Zero as “my dog.”

Zero was rather an old dog now, but hale and hearty. In his own circle he was highly valued, but his formidable appearance still struck terror among strangers, willing though he was to make friends with them. The tradespeople, who had at first approached very delicately, had now grown used to him; but the tramp or hawker who entered the garden at Midway, and found Zero looking at him pensively, as a rule retired quickly to see if the road was still there. No further instance had occurred of Zero’s mysterious powers, and in consequence they tended to become legendary. Richard Staines had now definitely adopted the theory of coincidence.

“Zero’s a good old friend of mine, and I love him,” he said; “but we must give up pretending he’s a miracle.” Jane’s faith, however, remained unshaken.

And then, one summer evening, Dick came into the drawing-room with determination in his face.

“Mother,” he said, “I want a stick or whip, please.”

“Well, now,” said Jane, “what for?”

“To beat my dog with. He’s got to be punished.”

“That’s a pity, Dickywick. What’s he been doing?”

“He won’t let me go out into the road. Every time he caught hold of my coat and pulled me back. He’s most frightfully strong, and he pulled me over once. He wants a lamming.”

“I wonder if he would let me go out,” said Jane. “Let’s go and see, shall we?”

“Right-oh,” said Dick, perfectly satisfied.

In the garden they found Zero cheerful and quite unrepentant. As a rule, he rushed to the gate in the hopes of being taken out for a run. But this evening, as Jane neared the gate, he became disquieted. He caught hold of her dress and tried to drag her back. He ran round and round her, whimpering. He flung himself in front of her feet.

“Now, you see,” said Dick triumphantly.

“Yes, I see.”

“Well, I shall go and fetch a stick.”

“Oh, no. Zero does not want us to go out because he believes there’s some danger on the road.”

“O-o-oh! Do you really mean it?”

“Honest Injun.”

“Then he’s not a bad dog at all, and I told him he was. Come here, Zero.” He patted the dog’s head. “You’re a good dog really. My mistake. Sorry. What are you laughing at, mother? That’s what Tom always says. Now let’s go and see the danger on the road.”

“Well, it wouldn’t be quite fair to Zero, after all the trouble he’s taken. Besides, I want to see the rabbits at their games. They ought to be out just now.”

“All right,” said Dick. “You follow me, and I’ll show you them. But you mustn’t make the least sound. You must be very Red-Indian.”

Dick’s mother followed him obediently, and was very Red-Indian. The rabbits lived in a high bank just beyond the far end of the garden, and what the gardener had said about them before the wire-netting came could not be printed. Jane watched the rabbits, and conversed about them in the hoarse whisper enjoined by her son, but she was thinking principally about Zero.