During this drive, Grace and Rachel had the care of the elder boys, whom Rachel thought safer in her keeping than in Coombe's. A walk along the cliffs was one resource for their amusement, but it resulted in Conrade's climbing into the most break-neck places, by preference selecting those that Rachel called him out of, and as all the others thought it necessary to go after him, the jeopardy of Leoline and Hubert became greater than it was possible to permit; so Grace took them by the hands, and lured them home with promises of an introduction to certain white rabbits at the lodge. After their departure, their brothers became infinitely more obstreperous. Whether it were that Conrade had some slight amount of consideration for the limbs of his lesser followers, or whether the fact were--what Rachel did not remotely imagine--that he was less utterly unmanageable with her sister than with herself, certain it is that the brothers went into still more intolerable places, and treated their guardian as ducklings treat an old hen. At last they quite disappeared from the view round a projecting point of rock, and when she turned it, she found a battle royal going on over an old lobster- pot--Conrade hand to hand with a stout fisher-boy, and Francis and sundry amphibious creatures of both sexes exchanging a hail of stones, water-smoothed brick-bats, cockle-shells, fishes' backbones, and other unsavoury missiles. Abstractedly, Rachel had her theory that young gentlemen had better scramble their way among their poor neighbours, and become used to all ranks; but when it came to witnessing an actual skirmish when she was responsible for Fanny's sons, it was needful to interfere, and in equal dismay and indignation she came round the point. The light artillery fled at her aspect, and she had to catch Francis's arm in the act of discharging after them a cuttlefish's white spine, with a sharp "For shame, they are running away! Conrade, Zack, have done!" Zack was one of her own scholars, and held her in respect.
He desisted at once, and with a touch of his rough forelock, looked sheepish, and said, "Please ma'am, he was meddling with our lobster- pot."
"I wasn't doing any harm," said Conrade. "I was just looking in, and they all came and shied stones at us."
"I don't care how the quarrel began," said Rachel. "You would not have run into it if you had been behaving properly. Zack was quite right to protect his father's property, but he might have been more civil. Now shake hands, and have done with it."
"Not shake hands with a low boy," growled Francis. But happily Conrade was of a freer spirit, and in spite of Rachel's interference, had sense enough to know himself in the wrong. He held out his hand, and when the ceremony had been gone through, put his hands in his pockets, produced a shilling, and said, "There, that's in case I did the thing any harm." Rachel would have preferred Zachary's being above its acceptance, but he was not, and she was thankful that a wood path offend itself, leading through the Homestead plantations away from the temptations and perils of the shore.
That the two boys, instead of listening to her remonstrance, took to punching and kicking one another, was a mitigated form of evil for which she willingly compounded, having gone through so much useless interference already, that she felt as if she had no spirit left to keep the peace, and that they must settle their little affairs between themselves. It was the most innocent diversion in which she could hope to see them indulge. She only desired that it might last them past a thrush's nest, in the hedge between the park and plantation, a somewhat treasured discovery of Grace's. No such good luck. Either the thrush's imprudence or Grace's visits had made the nest dangerously visible, and it was proclaimed with a shout. Rachel, in hot haste, warned them against taking birds'-nests in general, and that in particular.
"Nests are made to be taken," said Francis.
"I've got an egg of all the Australian birds the Major could get me," said Conrade, "and I mean to have all the English ones."
"Oh, one egg; there's no harm in taking that; but this nest has young birds."
The young birds must of course be seen, and Rachel stood by with despairing frowns, commands, and assurances of their mother's displeasure, while they peeped in, tantalized the gaping yellow throats, by holding up their fingers, and laid hands on the side of the nest, peeping at her with laughing, mischievous eyes, enjoying her distress. She was glad at last to find them coming away without the nest, and after crossing the park, arrived at the house, tired out, but with two hours of the boys still on her hands. They, however, were a little tired, too; and, further, Grace had hunted out the old bowls, much to the delight of the younger ones. This sport lasted a good while, but at last the sisters, who had relaxed their attention a little, perceived that Conrade and Hubert were both missing, and on Rachel's inquiry where they were, she received from Francis that elegant stock answer, "in their skins." However, they came to light in process of time, the two mothers returned home, and Mrs. Curtis and Grace had the conversation almost in their own hands. Rachel was too much tired to do anything but read the new number of her favourite "Traveller's Magazine," listening to her mother with one ear, and gathering additional impressions of Sir Stephen Temple's imprudence, and the need of their own vigilance. To make Fanny feel that she could lean upon some one besides the military secretary, seemed to be the great object, and she was so confiding and affectionate with her own kin, that there were great hopes. Those boys were an infliction, no doubt, but, thought Rachel, 'there is always an ordeal at the beginning of one's mission. I am mastering them by degrees, and should do so sooner if I had them in my own hands, and no more worthy task can be done than training human beings for their work in this world, so I must be willing to go through a little while I bring them into order, and fit their mother for managing them."
She spent the time before breakfast the next morning in a search among the back numbers of the "Traveller's Magazine" for a paper upon "Educational Laws," which she thought would be very good reading for Fanny. Her search had been just completed when Grace returned home from church, looking a good deal distressed. "My poor thrushes have not escaped, Rachel," she said; "I came home that way to see how they were going on, and the nest is torn out, one poor little fellow lying dead below it."
"Well, that is much worse than I expected!" burst out Rachel. "I did think that boy Conrade would at least keep his promises." And she detailed the adventure of the previous day, whence the conclusion was but too evident. Grace, however, said in her own sweet manner that she believed boys could not resist a nest, and thought it mere womanhood to intercede for such lawful game. She thought it would be best to take no notice, it would only distress Fanny and make "the mother" more afraid of the boys than she was already, and she doubted the possibility of bringing it home to the puerile conscience.