`And you're as wrong as ever!' Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. `It's just the four I can be sure about; 'cause they're here, grubbling under the window! It's the thousand I isn't pruffickly sure about!'

`But some of them have gone into the sty,' Sylvie said, leaning over him to look out of the window.

`Yes,' said Bruno; `but they went so slowly and so fewly, I didn't care to count them.'

`We must be going, children,' I said. `Wish Bessie good-bye.' Sylvie flung her arms round the little maiden's neck, and kissed her: but Bruno stood aloof, looking unusually shy. (`I never kiss nobody but Sylvie!' he explained to me afterwards.) The Farmer's wife showed us out: and we were soon on our way back to Elveston.

`And that's the new public-house that we were talking about, I suppose?' I said, as we came in sight of a long low building, with the words `THE GOLDEN LION' over the door.

`Yes, that's it,' said Sylvie. `I wonder if her Willie's inside? Run in, Bruno, and see if he's there.'

I interposed, feeling that Bruno was, in a sort of way, in my care. `That's not a place to send a child into.' For already the revellers were getting noisy: and a wild discord of singing, shouting, and meaningless laughter came to us through the open windows.

`They wo'n't see him, you know,' Sylvie explained. `Wait a minute, Bruno!' She clasped the jewel, that always hung round her neck, between the palms of her hands, and muttered a few words to herself. What they were I could not at all make out, but some mysterious change seemed instantly to pass over us. My feet seemed to me no longer to press the ground, and the dream-like feeling came upon me, that I was suddenly endowed with the power of floating in the air. I could still just see the children: but their forms were shadowy and unsubstantial, and their voices sounded as if they came from some distant place and time, they were so unreal. However, I offered no further opposition to Bruno's going into the house. He was back again in a few moments. `No, he isn't come yet,' he said. `They're talking about him inside, and saying how drunk he was last week.'

While he was speaking, one of the men lounged out through the door, a pipe in one hand and a mug of beer in the other, and crossed to where we were standing, so as to get a better view along the road. Two or three others leaned out through the open window, each holding his mug of beer, with red faces and sleepy eyes. `Canst see him, lad?' one of them asked.

`I dunnot know,' the man said, taking a step forwards, which brought us nearly face to face. Sylvie hastily pulled me out of his way. `Thanks, child,' I said. `I had forgotten he couldn't see us. What would have happened if I had stayed in his way?'

`I don't know,' Sylvie said gravely. `It wouldn't matter to us; but you may be different.' She said this in her usual voice, but the man took no sort of notice, though she was standing close in front of him, and looking up into his face as she spoke.

`He's coming now!' cried Bruno, pointing down the road.

`He be a-coomin noo!' echoed the man, stretching out his arm exactly over Bruno's head, and pointing with his pipe.

`Then chorus agin!' was shouted out by one of the red-faced men in the window: and forthwith a dozen voices yelled, to a harsh discordant melody, the refrain:

`There's him, an' yo', an' me,
                     Roarin' laddies!
We loves a bit o' spree,
Roarin' laddies we,
                     Roarin' laddies
                     Roarin' laddies!'

The man lounged back again to the house, joining lustily in the chorus as he went: so that only the children and I were in the road when `Willie' came up.