“I do many wonderful things,” he told her. “You will be cold, naked thus,” he said. “Get back into your bed.”
“Yes,” she said, shivering, half with cold and half with excitement. “I am cold.”
She leapt gracefully into bed, and pulled the clothes up to her chin. He sat on the bed, admiring the mud on his shoes and the unkempt appearance of his clothes.
“Do tell me,” she said, her knees at her chin, her eyes sparkling.
“I fear it is not for little girls’ ears.”
“I am not such a little girl. It is only because you are big that it seems so.”
“Ah!” he mused, well pleased to consider it in that way. “That may well be so; perhaps you are not so small. I have been having adventures, Cousin; I have been out trapping hares and shooting game!”
Her mouth was a round O of wonder.
“Did you catch many?”
“Hundreds, Cousin! More than a little girl like you could count.”
“I could count hundreds!” she protested.
“It would have taken you days to count these. Do you know that, had I been caught, I could have been hanged at Tyburn?”
“Yes,” said Catherine, who could have told him more gruesome stories of Tyburn than he could tell her, for he had never known Doll Tappit.
“But,” said Thomas, “I expect Sir John, my father, would not have allowed that to happen. And then again ’twas scarcely poaching, as it happened on my father’s land which will be one day mine, so now, Cousin Catherine, you see what adventures I have!”
“You are very brave,” said Catherine.
“Perhaps a little. I have been helping a man whose acquaintance I made. He is a very interesting man, Cousin; a poacher. So I for fun, and he for profit, poach on my father’s land.”
“Were he caught, he would hang by the neck.”
“I should intercede for him with my father.”
“I would that I were brave as you are!”
“Bah! You are just a girl...and frightened that you might see a ghost.”
“I am not now. It is only when I am alone.”
“Will you be afraid when I have gone?”
“Very much afraid,” she said.
He surveyed her in kingly fashion. She was such a little girl, and she paid such pleasant tribute to his masculine superiority. Yes, assuredly he was glad his cousin had come to Hollingbourne.
“I shall be here to protect you,” he said.
“Oh, will you? Cousin Thomas, I know not how to thank you.”
“You surely do not think I could be afraid of a ghost!”
“I know it to be impossible.”
“Then you are safe, Catherine.”
“But if, when I am alone...”
“Listen!” He put his head close to hers conspiratorially. “There”—he pointed over his shoulder—“is my room. Only one wall dividing me from you, little Cousin. I am ever alert for danger, and very lightly do I sleep. Now listen very attentively, Catherine. Should a ghost come, all you must do is tap on this wall, and depend upon it you will have me here before you can bat an eyelid. I shall sleep with my sword close at hand.”
“Oh, Thomas! You have a sword too?”
“It is my father’s, but as good as mine because one day it will be so.”
“Oh, Thomas!” Sweet was her adulation to the little braggart.
“None dare harm you when I am by,” he assured her. “Dead or living will have to deal with me.”
“You would make yourself my knight then, Thomas,” she said softly.
“You could not have a braver...”
“Oh, I know it. I do not think I shall cry very much now.”
“Why should you cry?”
“For my mother, who is dead.”
“No, Catherine, you need not cry; for in place of your mother you have your brave cousin, Thomas Culpepper.”
“Shall I then tap on the wall if...?”
He wrinkled his brows. “For tonight, yes. Tomorrow we shall find a stick for you...a good, stout stick I think; that will make a good banging on the wall, and you could, in an emergency, hit the ghost should it be necessary
