Don't, don't"--

"Let her cry," said Robert desperately; "if she howls loud enough,
someone may hear and come and let us out."

"And see the soda-water thing," said Anthea swiftly. "Robert, don't be a
brute. Oh, Jane, do try to be a man! It's just the same for all of us."

Jane did try to "be a man"--and reduced her howls to sniffs.

There was a pause. Then Cyril said slowly, "Look here. We must risk that
syphon. I'll button it up inside my jacket--perhaps no one will notice
it. You others keep well in front of me. There are lights in the
clergyman's house. They've not gone to bed yet. We must just yell as
loud as ever we can. Now all scream when I say three. Robert, you do the
yell like a railway engine, and I'll do the coo-ee like father's. The
girls can do as they please. One, two, three!"

A four-fold yell rent the silent peace of the evening, and a maid at one
of the Vicarage windows paused with her hand on the blind-cord.

"One, two, three!" Another yell, piercing and complex, startled the owls
and starlings to a flutter of feathers in the belfry below. The maid
flew from the Vicarage window and ran down the Vicarage stairs and into
the Vicarage kitchen, and fainted as soon as she had explained to the
man-servant and the cook and the cook's cousin that she had seen a
ghost. It was quite untrue, of course, but I suppose the girl's nerves
were a little upset by the yelling.

"One, two, three!" The Vicar was on his doorstep by this time, and there