Keepers and farmers had made no secret of their suspicions that this was the case: but the careful Twins never afforded them the pleasure of adducing evidence in support of those suspicions.

Then a heavy thunderstorm revealed the fact that they had removed a sheet of lead, which they had regarded as otiose, from the belfry gutter, to cast it into bullets for their catapults; a consensus of the public opinion of Little Deeping had demanded that they should be deprived of them; and their mother, yielding to the demand, had forbidden them to use them any longer.
The Twins always obeyed their mother; but they resented bitterly the action of Little Deeping.

It was, indeed, an ungrateful place, since their exploits afforded its old ladies much of the carping conversation they loved.

In a bitter and vindictive spirit the Twins set themselves to become the finest stone-throwers who ever graced a countryside; and since they had every natural aptitude in the way of muscle and keenness of eye, they were well on their way to realize their ambition.

There may, indeed, have been northern boys of thirteen who could outthrow the Terror, but not a girl in England could throw a stone straighter or harder than Erebus.
They came to a gate opening on to Little Deeping common; Erebus vaulted it gracefully; the Terror, hampered by the bag of booty, climbed over it (for the Twins it was always simpler to vault or climb over a gate than to unlatch it and walk through) and took their way along a narrow path through the gorse and bracken.