CHAPTER XII.
Swish, Swish! On the fourth day of Judy's residence in the loft, Martha Tomlinson remarked to her fellow-servant and sufferer, Bridget, that she believed them blessed children were in a conspiracy to put her "over the river." Bridget's digestion was impaired that morning, and she merely remarked that she supposed the dear little things only felt a desire to see her in her proper place.
I should explain to you, perhaps, that "over the river" meant Gladesville, which is Sydney's Colney Hatch.
Many things had led the unhappy Martha to a belief in this conspiracy.
For instance, when she went to make Pip's bed as usual one morning all the bedclothes had gone.

The white counterpane was spread smoothly over the mattress, but there was absolutely no trace of the blankets, sheets, and pillows.

She hunted in every possible and impossible place, questioned the children, and even applied to Esther, but the missing things could not be found.
"There's a man in corduroy trousers hanging round here every night," Pip said, gloomily regarding his stripped bed.

"I shouldn't wonder if he had something to do with it." Which suggestion was distinctly unkind, seeing the man in corduroy trousers was Martha's most ardent and favoured admirer.
The next day the washing basin in Meg's room went, and after that a chair from the nursery, and a strip of carpet from the top landing, not to mention such small things as a teapot, a spirit-lamp, cups and plates, half a horn, and a whole baking of gingerbread nuts.
The losses preyed upon Martha, for the things seemed to disappear while the children were in bed; and though she suspected them, and watched them continually, she could get no clear proof of their guilt, nor even find any motive for them abstracting such things.
And after the disappearance of each fresh article, Pip used to ask whether the corduroy-trousered gentleman had been to the house the night before.

And as it always happened, that he had, Martha could do nothing but cast a wrathful glance at the boy and flounce from the room.
One night the little chess-table from the nursery was spirited away.
Pip fell upon Martha's neck the next morning early, as she was sweeping the carpet, and affected to be dissolved in tears.
"'We never prize the violet,'" he said, in broken tones.