THE WOULDBEGOODS by E. NESBIT

THE WOULDBEGOODS
by E. NESBIT
BEING THE FURTHER ADVENTURES
OF THE TREASURE SEEKERS
TO
My Dear Son
Fabian Bland
CONTENTS
1. The Jungle
2. The Wouldbegoods
3. Bill's Tombstone
4. The Tower of Mystery
5. The Waterworks
6. The Circus
7. Being Beavers; or, The Young Explorers (Arctic or Otherwise)
8. The High-Born Babe
9. Hunting the Fox
10. The Sale of Antiquities
11. The Benevolent Bar
12. The Canterbury Pilgrims
13. The Dragon's Teeth; or, Army Seed
14. Albert's Uncle's Grandmother; or, The Long-Lost
CHAPTER 1
THE JUNGLE
Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you
can't stand them all over the shop--eh, what?'
These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us
feel very young and angry; and yet we could not be comforted by
calling him names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grown-ups say
nasty things, because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite
when not irritated. And we could not think it ungentlemanly of him
to say we were like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice
indeed--only not on furniture and improper places like that. My
father said, 'Perhaps they had better go to boarding-school.' And
that was awful, because we know Father disapproves of
boarding-schools. And he looked at us and said, 'I am ashamed of
them, sir!'
Your lot is indeed a dark and terrible one when your father is
ashamed of you. And we all knew this, so that we felt in our
chests just as if we had swallowed a hard-boiled egg whole. At
least, this is what Oswald felt, and Father said once that Oswald,
as the eldest, was the representative of the family, so, of course,
the others felt the same.
And then everybody said nothing for a short time. At last Father
said--
'You may go--but remember--'
The words that followed I am not going to tell you. It is no use
telling you what you know before--as they do in schools. And you
must all have had such words said to you many times. We went away
when it was over. The girls cried, and we boys got out books and
began to read, so that nobody should think we cared. But we felt
it deeply in our interior hearts, especially Oswald, who is the
eldest and the representative of the family.
We felt it all the more because we had not really meant to do
anything wrong. We only thought perhaps the grown-ups would not be
quite pleased if they knew, and that is quite different. Besides,
we meant to put all the things back in their proper places when we
had done with them before anyone found out about it. But I must
not anticipate (that means telling the end of the story before the
beginning. I tell you this because it is so sickening to have
words you don't know in a story, and to be told to look it up in
the dicker).
We are the Bastables--Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H. O.
If you want to know why we call our youngest brother H. O. you can
jolly well read The Treasure Seekers and find out. We were the
Treasure Seekers, and we sought it high and low, and quite
regularly, because we particularly wanted to find it. And at last
we did not find it, but we were found by a good, kind Indian uncle,
who helped Father with his business, so that Father was able to
take us all to live in a jolly big red house on Blackheath, instead
of in the Lewisham Road, where we lived when we were only poor but
honest Treasure Seekers. When we were poor but honest we always
used to think that if only Father had plenty of business, and we
did not have to go short of pocket money and wear shabby clothes (I
don't mind this myself, but the girls do), we should be happy and
very, very good.
And when we were taken to the beautiful big Blackheath house we
thought now all would be well, because it was a house with vineries
and pineries, and gas and water, and shrubberies and stabling, and
replete with every modern convenience, like it says in Dyer &
Hilton's list of Eligible House Property. I read all about it, and
I have copied the words quite right.
It is a beautiful house, all the furniture solid and strong, no
casters off the chairs, and the tables not scratched, and the
silver not dented; and lots of servants, and the most decent meals
every day--and lots of pocket-money.
But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the
things you want most. Our watches, for instance. We wanted them
frightfully; but when I had mine a week or two, after the
mainspring got broken and was repaired at Bennett's in the village,
I hardly cared to look at the works at all, and it did not make me
feel happy in my heart any more, though, of course, I should have
been very unhappy if it had been taken away from me. And the same
with new clothes and nice dinners and having enough of everything.
You soon get used to it all, and it does not make you extra happy,
although, if you had it all taken away, you would be very dejected.
(That is a good word, and one I have never used before.) You get
used to everything, as I said, and then you want something more.
Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of
riches; but Albert's uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and
Mrs Leslie said some people called it 'divine discontent'. Oswald
asked them all what they thought one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said
it was rot, and what we wanted was bread and water and a licking;
but he meant it for a joke. This was in the Easter holidays.
We went to live at the Red House at Christmas. After the holidays
the girls went to the Blackheath High School, and we boys went to
the Prop. (that means the Proprietary School). And we had to swot
rather during term; but about Easter we knew the deceitfulness of
riches in the vac., when there was nothing much on, like pantomimes
and things. Then there was the summer term, and we swotted more
than ever; and it was boiling hot, and masters' tempers got short
and sharp, and the girls used to wish the exams came in cold
weather. I can't think why they don't. But I suppose schools
don't think of sensible thinks like that. They teach botany at
girls' schools.
Then the Midsummer holidays came, and we breathed again--but only
for a few days. We began to feel as if we had forgotten something,
and did not know what it was. We wanted something to happen--only
we didn't exactly know what. So we were very pleased when Father
said--
'I've asked Mr Foulkes to send his children here for a week or two.
You know--the kids who came at Christmas. You must be jolly to
them, and see that they have a good time, don't you know.'
We remembered them right enough--they were little pinky, frightened
things, like white mice, with very bright eyes. They had not been
to our house since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill,
and they had been with an aunt at Ramsgate.
Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for the
honoured guests, but a really good housemaid is sometimes more
ready to say 'Don't' than even a general. So the girls had to
chuck it. Jane only let them put flowers in the pots on the
visitors' mantelpieces, and then they had to ask the gardener which
kind they might pick, because nothing worth gathering happened to
be growing in our own gardens just then.
Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards
I thought that was a mistake, because their aunt was with them, and
she wore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said,
when we took our hats off-- 'Who are you?' quite crossly.
We said, 'We are the Bastables; we've come to meet Daisy and
Denny.'
The aunt is a very rude lady, and it made us sorry for Daisy and
Denny when she said to them--
'Are these the children? Do you remember them?' We weren't very
tidy, perhaps, because we'd been playing brigands in the shrubbery;
and we knew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we got
back, anyhow. But still--
Denny said he thought he remembered us. But Daisy said, 'Of course
they are,' and then looked as if she was going to cry.
So then the aunt called a cab, and told the man where to drive, and
put Daisy and Denny in, and then she said--
'You two little girls may go too, if you like, but you little boys
must walk.'
So the cab went off, and we were left. The aunt turned to us to
say a few last words. We knew it would have been about brushing
your hair and wearing gloves, so Oswald said, 'Good-bye', and
turned haughtily away, before she could begin, and so did the
others. No one but that kind of black beady tight lady would say
'little boys'. She is like Miss Murdstone in David Copperfield.
I should like to tell her so; but she would not understand. I
don't suppose she has ever read anything but Markham's History and
Mangnall's Questions--improving books like that.
When we got home we found all four of those who had ridden in the
cab sitting in our sitting-room--we don't call it nursery
now--looking very thoroughly washed, and our girls were asking
polite questions and the others were saying 'Yes' and 'No', and 'I
don't know'. We boys did not say anything. We stood at the window
and looked out till the gong went for our dinner. We felt it was
going to be awful--and it was. The newcomers would never have done
for knight-errants, or to carry the Cardinal's sealed message
through the heart of France on a horse; they would never have
thought of anything to say to throw the enemy off the scent when
they got into a tight place.
They said 'Yes, please', and 'No, thank you'; and they ate very
neatly, and always wiped their mouths before they drank, as well as
after, and never spoke with them full.
And after dinner it got worse and worse.
We got out all our books and they said 'Thank you', and didn't look
at them properly. And we got out all our toys, and they said
'Thank you, it's very nice' to everything. And it got less and
less pleasant, and towards teatime it came to nobody saying
anything except Noel and H. O.--and they talked to each other about
cricket.
After tea Father came in, and he played 'Letters' with them and the
girls, and it was a little better; but while late dinner was going
on--I shall never forget it. Oswald felt like the hero of a
book--'almost at the end of his resources'. I don't think I was
ever glad of bedtime before, but that time I was.
When they had gone to bed (Daisy had to have all her strings and
buttons undone for her, Dora told me, though she is nearly ten, and
Denny said he couldn't sleep without the gas being left a little
bit on) we held a council in the girls' room. We all sat on the
bed--it is a mahogany fourposter with green curtains very good for
tents, only the housekeeper doesn't allow it, and Oswald said--
'This is jolly nice, isn't it?'
'They'll be better to-morrow,' Alice said, 'they're only shy.'
Dicky said shy was all very well, but you needn't behave like a
perfect idiot.
'They're frightened. You see we're all strange to them,' Dora
said.
'We're not wild beasts or Indians; we shan't eat them. What have
they got to be frightened of?' Dicky said this.
Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess
who'd been turned into white rabbits, and their bodies had got
changed back but not their insides.
But Oswald told him to dry up.
'It's no use making things up about them,' he said. 'The thing is:
what are we going to DO? We can't have our holidays spoiled by
these snivelling kids.'
'No,' Alice said, 'but they can't possibly go on snivelling for
ever. Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with that Murdstone
aunt. She's enough to make anyone snivel.'
'All the same,' said Oswald, 'we jolly well aren't going to have
another day like today. We must do something to rouse them from
their snivelling leth--what's its name?--something sudden and--what
is it?--decisive.'
'A booby trap,' said H. O., 'the first thing when they get up, and
an apple-pie bed at night.'
But Dora would not hear of it, and I own she was right.
'Suppose,' she said, 'we could get up a good play-- like we did
when we were Treasure Seekers.'
We said, well what? But she did not say.
'It ought to be a good long thing--to last all day,' Dicky said,
'and if they like they can play, and if they don't--'
'If they don't, I'll read to them,' Alice said.
But we all said 'No, you don't--if you begin that way you'll have
to go on.'
And Dicky added, 'I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going
to say if they didn't like it they could jolly well do the other
thing.'
We all agreed that we must think of something, but we none of us
could, and at last the council broke up in confusion because Mrs
Blake--she is the housekeeper--came up and turned off the gas.
But next morning when we were having breakfast, and the two
strangers were sitting there so pink and clean, Oswald suddenly
said--
'I know; we'll have a jungle in the garden.'
And the others agreed, and we talked about it till brek was over.
The little strangers only said 'I don't know' whenever we said
anything to them.
After brekker Oswald beckoned his brothers and sisters mysteriously
apart and said--
'Do you agree to let me be captain today, because I thought of it?'
And they said they would.
Then he said, 'We'll play Jungle Book, and I shall be Mowgli. The
rest of you can be what you like--Mowgli's father and mother, or
any of the beasts.'
'I don't suppose they know the book,' said Noel. 'They don't look
as if they read anything, except at lesson times.'
'Then they can go on being beasts all the time,' Oswald said.
'Anyone can be a beast.'
So it was settled.
And now Oswald--Albert's uncle has sometimes said he is clever at
arranging things--began to lay his plans for the jungle. The day
was indeed well chosen. Our Indian uncle was away; Father was
away; Mrs Blake was going away, and the housemaid had an afternoon
off. Oswald's first conscious act was to get rid of the white
mice--I mean the little good visitors. He explained to them that
there would be a play in the afternoon, and they could be what they
liked, and gave them the Jungle Book to read the stories he told
them to--all the ones about Mowgli. He led the strangers to a
secluded spot among the sea-kale pots in the kitchen garden and
left them. Then he went back to the others, and we had a jolly
morning under the cedar talking about what we would do when Blakie
was gone. She went just after our dinner.
When we asked Denny what he would like to be in the play, it turned
out he had not read the stories Oswald told him at all, but only
the 'White Seal' and 'Rikki Tikki'.
We then agreed to make the jungle first and dress up for our parts
afterwards. Oswald was a little uncomfortable about leaving the
strangers alone all the morning, so he said Denny should be his
aide-de-camp, and he was really quite useful. He is rather handy
with his fingers, and things that he does up do not come untied.
Daisy might have come too, but she wanted to go on reading, so we
let her, which is the truest manners to a visitor. Of course the
shrubbery was to be the jungle, and the lawn under the cedar a
forest glade, and then we began to collect the things. The cedar
lawn is just nicely out of the way of the windows. It was a jolly
hot day--the kind of day when the sunshine is white and the shadows
are dark grey, not black like they are in the evening.
We all thought of different things. Of course first we dressed up
pillows in the skins of beasts and set them about on the grass to
look as natural as we could. And then we got Pincher, and rubbed
him all over with powdered slate-pencil, to make him the right
colour for Grey Brother. But he shook it all off, and it had taken
an awful time to do. Then Alice said--
'Oh, I know!' and she ran off to Father's dressing-room, and came
back with the tube of creme d'amande pour la barbe et les mains,
and we squeezed it on Pincher and rubbed it in, and then the
slate-pencil stuff stuck all right, and he rolled in the dust-bin
of his own accord, which made him just the right colour. He is a
very clever dog, but soon after he went off and we did not find him
till quite late in the afternoon. Denny helped with Pincher, and
with the wild-beast skins, and when Pincher was finished he said--
'Please, may I make some paper birds to put in the trees? I know
how.'
And of course we said 'Yes', and he only had red ink and
newspapers, and quickly he made quite a lot of large paper birds
with red tails. They didn't look half bad on the edge of the
shrubbery.
While he was doing this he suddenly said, or rather screamed, 'Oh?'
And we looked, and it was a creature with great horns and a fur
rug--something like a bull and something like a minotaur--and I
don't wonder Denny was frightened. It was Alice, and it was
first-class.
Up to now all was not yet lost beyond recall. It was the stuffed
fox that did the mischief--and I am sorry to own it was Oswald who
thought of it. He is not ashamed of having THOUGHT of it. That
was rather clever of him. But he knows now that it is better not
to take other people's foxes and things without asking, even if you
live in the same house with them.
It was Oswald who undid the back of the glass case in the hall and
got out the fox with the green and grey duck in its mouth, and when
the others saw how awfully like life they looked on the lawn, they
all rushed off to fetch the other stuffed things. Uncle has a
tremendous lot of stuffed things. He shot most of them
himself--but not the fox, of course. There was another fox's mask,
too, and we hung that in a bush to look as if the fox was peeping
out. And the stuffed birds we fastened on to the trees with
string. The duck-bill--what's its name?--looked very well sitting
on his tail with the otter snarling at him. Then Dicky had an
idea; and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards as
there was about the stuffed things, I think myself it was just as
bad, though it was a good idea, too. He just got the hose and put
the end over a branch of the cedar-tree. Then we got the steps
they clean windows with, and let the hose rest on the top of the
steps and run. It was to be a waterfall, but it ran between the
steps and was only wet and messy; so we got Father's mackintosh and
uncle's and covered the steps with them, so that the water ran down
all right and was glorious, and it ran away in a stream across the
grass where we had dug a little channel for it--and the otter and
the duck-bill-thing were as if in their native haunts. I hope all
this is not very dull to read about. I know it was jolly good fun
to do. Taking one thing with another, I don't know that we ever
had a better time while it lasted.
We got all the rabbits out of the hutches and put pink paper tails
on to them, and hunted them with horns made out of The Times. They
got away somehow, and before they were caught next day they had
eaten a good many lettuces and other things. Oswald is very sorry
for this. He rather likes the gardener.
Denny wanted to put paper tails on the guinea-pigs, and it was no
use our telling him there was nothing to tie the paper on to. He
thought we were kidding until we showed him, and then he said,
'Well, never mind', and got the girls to give him bits of the blue
stuff left over from their dressing-gowns.
'I'll make them sashes to tie round their little middles,' he said.
And he did, and the bows stuck up on the tops of their backs. One
of the guinea-pigs was never seen again, and the same with the
tortoise when we had done his shell with vermilion paint. He
crawled away and returned no more. Perhaps someone collected him
and thought he was an expensive kind unknown in these cold
latitudes.
The lawn under the cedar was transformed into a dream of beauty,
what with the stuffed creatures and the paper-tailed things and the
waterfall. And Alice said--
'I wish the tigers did not look so flat.' For of course with
pillows you can only pretend it is a sleeping tiger getting ready
to make a spring out at you. It is difficult to prop up
tiger-skins in a life-like manner when there are no bones inside
them, only pillows and sofa cushions.
'What about the beer-stands?' I said. And we got two out of the
cellar. With bolsters and string we fastened insides to the
tigers--and they were really fine. The legs of the beer-stands did
for tigers' legs. It was indeed the finishing touch.
Then we boys put on just our bathing drawers and vests--so as to be
able to play with the waterfall without hurting our clothes. I
think this was thoughtful. The girls only tucked up their frocks
and took their shoes and stockings off. H. O. painted his legs and
his hands with Condy's fluid--to make him brown, so that he might
be Mowgli, although Oswald was captain and had plainly said he was
going to be Mowgli himself. Of course the others weren't going to
stand that. So Oswald said--
'Very well. Nobody asked you to brown yourself like that. But now
you've done it, you've simply got to go and be a beaver, and live
in the dam under the waterfall till it washes off.'
He said he didn't want to be beavers. And Noel said--
'Don't make him. Let him be the bronze statue in the palace
gardens that the fountain plays out of.'
So we let him have the hose and hold it up over his head. It made
a lovely fountain, only he remained brown. So then Dicky and
Oswald and I did ourselves brown too, and dried H. O. as well as we
could with our handkerchiefs, because he was just beginning to
snivel. The brown did not come off any of us for days.
Oswald was to be Mowgli, and we were just beginning to arrange the
different parts. The rest of the hose that was on the ground was
Kaa, the Rock Python, and Pincher was Grey Brother, only we
couldn't find him. And while most of us were talking, Dicky and
Noel got messing about with the beer-stand tigers.
And then a really sad event instantly occurred, which was not
really our fault, and we did not mean to.
That Daisy girl had been mooning indoors all the afternoon with the
Jungle Books, and now she came suddenly out, just as Dicky and Noel
had got under the tigers and were shoving them along to fright each
other. Of course, this is not in the Mowgli book at all: but they
did look jolly like real tigers, and I am very far from wishing to
blame the girl, though she little knew what would be the awful
consequence of her rash act. But for her we might have got out of
it all much better than we did. What happened was truly horrid.
As soon as Daisy saw the tigers she stopped short, and uttering a
shriek like a railway whistle she fell flat on the ground.
'Fear not, gentle Indian maid,' Oswald cried, thinking with
surprise that perhaps after all she did know how to play, 'I myself
will protect thee.' And he sprang forward with the native bow and
arrows out of uncle's study.
The gentle Indian maiden did not move.
'Come hither,' Dora said, 'let us take refuge in yonder covert
while this good knight does battle for us.' Dora might have
remembered that we were savages, but she did not. And that is Dora
all over. And still the Daisy girl did not move.
Then we were truly frightened. Dora and Alice lifted her up, and
her mouth was a horrid violet-colour and her eyes half shut. She
looked horrid. Not at all like fair fainting damsels, who are
always of an interesting pallor. She was green, like a cheap
oyster on a stall.
We did what we could, a prey to alarm as we were. We rubbed her
hands and let the hose play gently but perseveringly on her
unconscious brow. The girls loosened her dress, though it was only
the kind that comes down straight without a waist. And we were all
doing what we could as hard as we could, when we heard the click of
the front gate. There was no mistake about it.
'I hope whoever it is will go straight to the front door,' said
Alice. But whoever it was did not. There were feet on the gravel,
and there was the uncle's voice, saying in his hearty manner--
'This way. This way. On such a day as this we shall find our
young barbarians all at play somewhere about the grounds.'
And then, without further warning, the uncle, three other gentlemen
and two ladies burst upon the scene.
We had no clothes on to speak of--I mean us boys. We were all wet
through. Daisy was in a faint or a fit, or dead, none of us then
knew which. And all the stuffed animals were there staring the
uncle in the face. Most of them had got a sprinkling, and the
otter and the duck-bill brute were simply soaked. And three of us
were dark brown. Concealment, as so often happens, was impossible.
The quick brain of Oswald saw, in a flash, exactly how it would
strike the uncle, and his brave young blood ran cold in his veins.
His heart stood still.
'What's all this--eh, what?' said the tones of the wronged uncle.
Oswald spoke up and said it was jungles we were playing, and he
didn't know what was up with Daisy. He explained as well as anyone
could, but words were now in vain.
The uncle had a Malacca cane in his hand, and we were but ill
prepared to meet the sudden attack. Oswald and H. O. caught it
worst. The other boys were under the tigers--and of course my
uncle would not strike a girl. Denny was a visitor and so got off.
But it was bread and water for us for the next three days, and our
own rooms. I will not tell you how we sought to vary the
monotonousness of imprisonment. Oswald thought of taming a mouse,
but he could not find one. The reason of the wretched captives
might have given way but for the gutter that you can crawl along
from our room to the girls'. But I will not dwell on this because
you might try it yourselves, and it really is dangerous. When my
father came home we got the talking to, and we said we were
sorry--and we really were--especially about Daisy, though she had
behaved with muffishness, and then it was settled that we were to
go into the country and stay till we had grown into better
children.
Albert's uncle was writing a book in the country; we were to go to
his house. We were glad of this--Daisy and Denny too. This we
bore nobly. We knew we had deserved it. We were all very sorry
for everything, and we resolved that for the future we WOULD be
good.
I am not sure whether we kept this resolution or not. Oswald
thinks now that perhaps we made a mistake in trying so very hard to
be good all at once. You should do everything by degrees.
P.S.--It turned out Daisy was not really dead at all. It was only
fainting--so like a girl.
N.B.--Pincher was found on the drawing-room sofa.
Appendix.--I have not told you half the things we did for the
jungle--for instance, about the elephants' tusks and the horse-hair
sofa-cushions, and uncle's fishing-boots.
CHAPTER 2
THE WOULDBEGOODS
When we were sent down into the country to learn to be good we felt
it was rather good business, because we knew our being sent there
was really only to get us out of the way for a little while, and we
knew right enough that it wasn't a punishment, though Mrs Blake
said it was, because we had been punished thoroughly for taking the
stuffed animals out and making a jungle on the lawn with them, and
the garden hose. And you cannot be punished twice for the same
offence. This is the English law; at least I think so. And at any
rate no one would punish you three times, and we had had the
Malacca cane and the solitary confinement; and the uncle had kindly
explained to us that all ill-feeling between him and us was wiped
out entirely by the bread and water we had endured. And what with
the bread and water and being prisoners, and not being able to tame
any mice in our prisons, I quite feel that we had suffered it up
thoroughly, and now we could start fair.
I think myself that descriptions of places are generally dull, but
I have sometimes thought that was because the authors do not tell
you what you truly want to know. However, dull or not, here
goes--because you won't understand anything unless I tell you what
the place was like.
The Moat House was the one we went to stay at. There has been a
house there since Saxon times. It is a manor, and a manor goes on
having a house on it whatever happens. The Moat House was burnt
down once or twice in ancient centuries--I don't remember
which--but they always built a new one, and Cromwell's soldiers
smashed it about, but it was patched up again. It is a very odd
house: the front door opens straight into the dining-room, and
there are red curtains and a black-and-white marble floor like a
chess-board, and there is a secret staircase, only it is not secret
now--only rather rickety. It is not very big, but there is a
watery moat all round it with a brick bridge that leads to the
front door. Then, on the other side of the moat there is the farm,
with barns and oast houses and stables, or things like that. And
the other way the garden lawn goes on till it comes to the
churchyard. The churchyard is not divided from the garden at all
except by a little grass bank. In the front of the house there is
more garden, and the big fruit garden is at the back.
The man the house belongs to likes new houses, so he built a big
one with conservatories and a stable with a clock in a turret on
the top, and he left the Moat House. And Albert's uncle took it,
and my father was to come down sometimes from Saturday to Monday,
and Albert's uncle was to live with us all the time, and he would
be writing a book, and we were not to bother him, but he would give
an eye to us. I hope all this is plain. I have said it as short
as I can.
We got down rather late, but there was still light enough to see
the big bell hanging at the top of the house. The rope belonging
to it went right down the house, through our bedroom to the
dining-room. H. O. saw the rope and pulled it while he was washing
his hands for supper, and Dicky and I let him, and the bell tolled
solemnly. Father shouted to him not to, and we went down to
supper.
But presently there were many feet trampling on the gravel, and
Father went out to see. When he came back he said--
'The whole village, or half of it, has come up to see why the bell
rang. It's only rung for fire or burglars. Why can't you kids let
things alone?'
Albert's uncle said--
'Bed follows supper as the fruit follows the flower. They'll do no
more mischief to-night, sir. To-morrow I will point out a few of
the things to be avoided in this bucolic retreat.'
So it was bed directly after supper, and that was why we did not
see much that night.
But in the morning we were all up rather early, and we seemed to
have awakened in a new world rich in surprises beyond the dreams of
anybody, as it says in the quotation.
We went everywhere we could in the time, but when it was
breakfast-time we felt we had not seen half or a quarter. The room
we had breakfast in was exactly like in a story--black oak panels
and china in corner cupboards with glass doors. These doors were
locked. There were green curtains, and honeycomb for breakfast.
After brekker my father went back to town, and Albert's uncle went
too, to see publishers. We saw them to the station, and Father
gave us a long list of what we weren't to do. It began with 'Don't
pull ropes unless you're quite sure what will happen at the other
end,' and it finished with 'For goodness sake, try to keep out of
mischief till I come down on Saturday'. There were lots of other
things in between.
We all promised we would. And we saw them off and waved till the
train was quite out of sight. Then we started to walk home. Daisy
was tired so Oswald carried her home on his back. When we got home
she said--
'I do like you, Oswald.'
She is not a bad little kid; and Oswald felt it was his duty to be
nice to her because she was a visitor. Then we looked all over
everything. It was a glorious place. You did not know where to
begin. We were all a little tired before we found the hayloft, but
we pulled ourselves together to make a fort with the trusses of
hay--great square things--and we were having a jolly good time, all
of us, when suddenly a trap-door opened and a head bobbed up with
a straw in its mouth. We knew nothing about the country then, and
the head really did scare us rather, though, of course, we found
out directly that the feet belonging to it were standing on the bar
of the loose-box underneath. The head said--
'Don't you let the governor catch you a-spoiling of that there hay,
that's all.' And it spoke thickly because of the straw.
It is strange to think how ignorant you were in the past. We can
hardly believe now that once we really did not know that it spoiled
hay to mess about with it. Horses don't like to eat it afterwards.
Always remember this.
When the head had explained a little more it went away, and we
turned the handle of the chaff-cutting machine, and nobody got
hurt, though the head HAD said we should cut our fingers off if we
touched it.
And then we sat down on the floor, which is dirty with the nice
clean dirt that is more than half chopped hay, and those there was
room for hung their legs down out of the top door, and we looked
down at the farmyard, which is very slushy when you get down into
it, but most interesting.
Then Alice said--
'Now we're all here, and the boys are tired enough to sit still for
a minute, I want to have a council.'
We said what about? And she said, 'I'll tell you.' H. O., don't
wriggle so; sit on my frock if the straws tickle your legs.'
You see he wears socks, and so he can never be quite as comfortable
as anyone else.
'Promise not to laugh' Alice said, getting very red, and looking at
Dora, who got red too.
We did, and then she said:
'Dora and I have talked this over, and Daisy too, and we have
written it down because it is easier than saying it. Shall I read
it? or will you, Dora?'
Dora said it didn't matter; Alice might. So Alice read it, and
though she gabbled a bit we all heard it. I copied it afterwards.
This is what she read:
NEW SOCIETY FOR BEING GOOD IN
'I, Dora Bastable, and Alice Bastable, my sister, being of sound
mind and body, when we were shut up with bread and water on that
jungle day, we thought a great deal about our naughty sins, and we
made our minds up to be good for ever after. And we talked to
Daisy about it, and she had an idea. So we want to start a society
for being good in. It is Daisy's idea, but we think so too.'
'You know,' Dora interrupted, 'when people want to do good things
they always make a society. There are thousands--there's the
Missionary Society.'
'Yes,' Alice said, 'and the Society for the Prevention of something
or other, and the Young Men's Mutual Improvement Society, and the
S.P.G.'
'What's S.P.G.?' Oswald asked.
'Society for the Propagation of the Jews, of course,' said Noel,
who cannot always spell.
'No, it isn't; but do let me go on.'
Alice did go on.
'We propose to get up a society, with a chairman and a treasurer
and secretary, and keep a journal-book saying what we've done. If
that doesn't make us good it won't be my fault.
'The aim of the society is nobleness and goodness, and great and
unselfish deeds. We wish not to be such a nuisance to grown-up
people and to perform prodigies of real goodness. We wish to
spread our wings'--here Alice read very fast. She told me
afterwards Daisy had helped her with that part, and she thought
when she came to the wings they sounded rather silly--'to spread
our wings and rise above the kind of interesting things that you
ought not to do, but to do kindnesses to all, however low and
mean.'
Denny was listening carefully. Now he nodded three or four times.
'Little words of kindness' (he said),
'Little deeds of love,
Make this earth an eagle
Like the one above.'
This did not sound right, but we let it pass, because an eagle does
have wings, and we wanted to hear the rest of what the girls had
written. But there was no rest.
'That's all,' said Alice, and Daisy said--
'Don't you think it's a good idea?'
'That depends,' Oswald answered, 'who is president and what you
mean by being good.'
Oswald did not care very much for the idea himself, because being
good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is proper to talk about,
especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to
like it, so Oswald did not say exactly what he thought, especially
as it was Daisy's idea. This was true politeness.
'I think it would be nice,' Noel said, 'if we made it a sort of
play. Let's do the Pilgrim's Progress.'
We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to
anything, because we all wanted to be Mr Greatheart, except H. O.,
who wanted to be the lions, and you could not have lions in a
Society for Goodness.
Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about
children who die; he really felt just as Oswald did about it, he
told me afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in
Sunday school, and we did not wish to be unkind.
At last Oswald said, 'Well, let's draw up the rules of the society,
and choose the president and settle the name.'
Dora said Oswald should be president, and he modestly consented.
She was secretary, and Denny treasurer if we ever had any money.
Making the rules took us all the afternoon. They were these:
RULES
1. Every member is to be as good as possible.
2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good.
(Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)
3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a
suffering fellow-creature.
4. We are to meet every day, or as often as we like.
5. We are to do good to people we don't like as often as we can.
6. No one is to leave the Society without the consent of all the
rest of us.
7. The Society is to be kept a profound secret from all the world
except us.
8. The name of our Society is--
And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora
wanted it called the Society for Humane Improvement; Denny said the
Society for Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, No, we
really were not so bad as all that.
Then H. O. said, 'Call it the Good Society.'
'Or the Society for Being Good In,' said Daisy.
'Or the Society of Goods,' said Noel.
'That's priggish,' said Oswald; 'besides, we don't know whether we
shall be so very.'
'You see,' Alice explained, 'we only said if we COULD we would be
good.'
'Well, then,' Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the
chopped hay off himself, 'call it the Society of the Wouldbegoods
and have done with it.'
Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make
himself a little disagreeable. If so, he was doomed to
disappointment. For everyone else clapped hands and called out,
'That's the very thing!' Then the girls went off to write out the
rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noel went to write some poetry
to put in the minute book. That's what you call the book that a
society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went with him to
help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's
school where they taught nothing but that. He was rather shy of
us, but he took to Noel. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald
walked round the garden and told each other what they thought of
the new society.
'I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the
beginning,' Dicky said. 'I don't see much in it, anyhow.'
'It pleases the girls,' Oswald said, for he is a kind brother.
'But we're not going to stand jaw, and "words in season", and
"loving sisterly warnings". I tell you what it is, Oswald, we'll
have to run this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for
everybody.'
Oswald saw this plainly.
'We must do something,' Dicky said; it's very very hard, though.
Still, there must be SOME interesting things that are not wrong.'
'I suppose so,' Oswald said, 'but being good is so much like being
a muff, generally. Anyhow I'm not going to smooth the pillows of
the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of Ministering
Children.'
'No more am I,' Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head
had in its mouth, 'but I suppose we must play the game fair. Let's
begin by looking out for something useful to do--something like
mending things or cleaning them, not just showing off.'
'The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy
tea and tracts.'
'Little beasts!' said Dick. 'I say, let's talk about something
else.' And Oswald was glad to, for he was beginning to feel jolly
uncomfortable.
We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played
draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I don't know when we've
had such a gloomy evening. And everyone was horribly polite, and
said 'Please' and 'Thank you' far more than requisite.
Albert's uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us
stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and asked what
blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered
and said, 'It is the Society of the Wouldbegoods that is the
blight,' but of course he didn't and Albert's uncle said no more,
but he went up and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and
asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him no, on
their honour.
The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the
morning sun shone on his narrow white bed and on the sleeping forms
of his dear little brothers and Denny, who had got the pillow on
top of his head and was snoring like a kettle when it sings.
Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him,
and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn't. He
felt at first as if there was nothing you could do, and even
hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny's head. But he soon saw that
this could not be. So he chucked his boot and caught Denny right
in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he
had expected.
Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before,
except that when no one was looking he polished the brass
candlestick in the girls' bedroom with one of his socks. And he
might just as well have let it alone, for the servants cleaned it
again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find
the sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to
be called Mrs Pettigrew instead of Jane and Eliza like others. She
was cook and managed things.
After breakfast Albert's uncle said--
'I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my
privacy before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of bloodshed will warrant
the intrusion, and nothing short of man--or rather boy--slaughter
shall avenge it.'
So we knew he wanted to be quiet, and the girls decided that we
ought to play out of doors so as not to disturb him; we should have
played out of doors anyhow on a jolly fine day like that.
But as we were going out Dicky said to Oswald--
'I say, come along here a minute, will you?'
So Oswald came along, and Dicky took him into the other parlour and
shut the door, and Oswald said--
'Well, spit it out: what is it?' He knows that is vulgar, and he
would not have said it to anyone but his own brother. Dicky said--
'It's a pretty fair nuisance. I told you how it would be.'
And Oswald was patient with him, and said--
'What is? Don't be all day about it.'
Dicky fidgeted about a bit, and then he said--
'Well, I did as I said. I looked about for something useful to do.
And you know that dairy window that wouldn't open--only a little
bit like that? Well, I mended the catch with wire and whip cord
and it opened wide.'
'And I suppose they didn't want it mended,' said Oswald. He knew
but too well that grown-up people sometimes like to keep things far
different from what we would, and you catch it if you try to do
otherwise.
'I shouldn't have minded THAT,' Dicky said, 'because I could easily
have taken it all off again if they'd only said so. But the
sillies went and propped up a milk-pan against the window. They
never took the trouble to notice I had mended it. So the wretched
thing pushed the window open all by itself directly they propped it
up, and it tumbled through into the moat, and they are most awfully
waxy. All the men are out in the fields and they haven't any spare
milk-pans. If I were a farmer, I must say I wouldn't stick at an
extra milk-pan or two. Accidents must happen sometimes. I call it
mean.'
Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first
because it wasn't his fault, and next because he is a far-seeing
boy.
'Never mind,' he said kindly. 'Keep your tail up. We'll get the
beastly milk-pan out all right. Come on.' He rushed hastily to
the garden and gave a low, signifying whistle, which the others
know well enough to mean something extra being up.
And when they were all gathered round him he spoke.
'Fellow countrymen,' he said, 'we're going to have a rousing good
time.'
'It's nothing naughty, is it,' Daisy asked, 'like the last time you
had that was rousingly good?'
Alice said 'Shish', and Oswald pretended not to hear.
'A precious treasure,' he said, 'has inadvertently been laid low in
the moat by one of us.'
'The rotten thing tumbled in by itself,' Dicky said.
Oswald waved his hand and said, 'Anyhow, it's there. It's our duty
to restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say, look here--we're
going to drag the moat.'
Everyone brightened up at this. It was our duty and it was
interesting too. This is very uncommon.
So we went out to where the orchard is, at the other side of the
moat. There were gooseberries and things on the bushes, but we did
not take any till we had asked if we might. Alice went and asked.
Mrs Pettigrew said, 'Law! I suppose so; you'd eat 'em anyhow,
leave or no leave.'
She little knows the honourable nature of the house of Bastable.
But she has much to learn.
The orchard slopes gently down to the dark waters of the moat. We
sat there in the sun and talked about dragging the moat, till Denny
said, 'How DO you drag moats?'
And we were speechless, because, though we had read many times
about a moat being dragged for missing heirs and lost wills, we
really had never thought about exactly how it was done.
'Grappling-irons are right, I believe,' Denny said, 'but I don't
suppose they'd have any at the farm.'
And we asked, and found they had never even heard of them. I think
myself he meant some other word, but he was quite positive.
So then we got a sheet off Oswald's bed, and we all took our shoes
and stockings off, and we tried to see if the sheet would drag the
bottom of the moat, which is shallow at that end. But it would
keep floating on the top of the water, and when we tried sewing
stones into one end of it, it stuck on something in the bottom, and
when we got it up it was torn. We were very sorry, and the sheet
was in an awful mess; but the girls said they were sure they could
wash it in the basin in their room, and we thought as we had torn
it anyway, we might as well go on. That washing never came off.
'No human being,' Noel said, 'knows half the treasures hidden in
this dark tarn.'
And we decided we would drag a bit more at that end, and work
gradually round to under the dairy window where the milk-pan was.
We could not see that part very well, because of the bushes that
grow between the cracks of the stones where the house goes down
into the moat. And opposite the dairy window the barn goes
straight down into the moat too. It is like pictures of Venice;
but you cannot get opposite the dairy window anyhow.
We got the sheet down again when we had tied the torn parts
together in a bunch with string, and Oswald was just saying--
'Now then, my hearties, pull together, pull with a will! One, two,
three,' when suddenly Dora dropped her bit of the sheet with a
piercing shriek and cried out--
'Oh! it's all wormy at the bottom. I felt them wriggle.' And she
was out of the water almost before the words were out of her mouth.
The other girls all scuttled out too, and they let the sheet go in
such a hurry that we had no time to steady ourselves, and one of us
went right in, and the rest got wet up to our waistbands. The one
who went right in was only H. O.; but Dora made an awful fuss and
said it was our fault. We told her what we thought, and it ended
in the girls going in with H. O. to change his things. We had some
more gooseberries while they were gone. Dora was in an awful wax
when she went away, but she is not of a sullen disposition though
sometimes hasty, and when they all came back we saw it was all
right, so we said--
'What shall we do now?'
Alice said, 'I don't think we need drag any more. It is wormy. I
felt it when Dora did. And besides, the milk-pan is sticking a bit
of itself out of the water. I saw it through the dairy window.'
'Couldn't we get it up with fish-hooks?' Noel said. But Alice
explained that the dairy was now locked up and the key taken out.
So then Oswald said--
'Look here, we'll make a raft. We should have to do it some time,
and we might as well do it now. I saw an old door in that corner
stable that they don't use. You know. The one where they chop the
wood.'
We got the door.
We had never made a raft, any of us, but the way to make rafts is
better described in books, so we knew what to do.
We found some nice little tubs stuck up on the fence of the farm
garden, and nobody seemed to want them for anything just then, so
we took them. Denny had a box of tools someone had given him for
his last birthday; they were rather rotten little things, but the
gimlet worked all right, so we managed to make holes in the edges
of the tubs and fasten them with string under the four corners of
the old door. This took us a long time. Albert's uncle asked us
at dinner what we had been playing at, and we said it was a secret,
and it was nothing wrong. You see we wished to atone for Dicky's
mistake before anything more was said. The house has no windows in
the side that faces the orchard.
The rays of the afternoon sun were beaming along the orchard grass
when at last we launched the raft. She floated out beyond reach
with the last shove of the launching. But Oswald waded out and
towed her back; he is not afraid of worms. Yet if he had known of
the other things that were in the bottom of that moat he would have
kept his boots on. So would the others, especially Dora, as you
will see.
At last the gallant craft rode upon the waves. We manned her,
though not up to our full strength, because if more than four got
on the water came up too near our knees, and we feared she might
founder if over-manned.
Daisy and Denny did not want to go on the raft, white mice that
they were, so that was all right. And as H. O. had been wet
through once he was not very keen. Alice promised Noel her best
paint-brush if he'd give up and not go, because we knew well that
the voyage was fraught with deep dangers, though the exact danger
that lay in wait for us under the dairy window we never even
thought of.
So we four elder ones got on the raft very carefully; and even
then, every time we moved the water swished up over the raft and
hid our feet. But I must say it was a jolly decent raft.
Dicky was captain, because it was his adventure. We had hop-poles
from the hop-garden beyond the orchard to punt with. We made the
girls stand together in the middle and hold on to each other to
keep steady. Then we christened our gallant vessel. We called it
the Richard, after Dicky, and also after the splendid admiral who
used to eat wine-glasses and died after the Battle of the Revenge
in Tennyson's poetry.
Then those on shore waved a fond adieu as well as they could with
the dampness of their handkerchiefs, which we had had to use to dry
our legs and feet when we put on our stockings for dinner, and
slowly and stately the good ship moved away from shore, riding on
the waves as though they were her native element.
We kept her going with the hop-poles, and we kept her steady in the
same way, but we could not always keep her steady enough, and we
could not always keep her in the wind's eye. That is to say, she
went where we did not want, and once she bumped her corner against
the barn wall, and all the crew had to sit down suddenly to avoid
falling overboard into a watery grave. Of course then the waves
swept her decks, and when we got up again we said that we should
have to change completely before tea.
But we pressed on undaunted, and at last our saucy craft came into
port, under the dairy window and there was the milk-pan, for whose
sake we had endured such hardships and privations, standing up on
its edge quite quietly.
The girls did not wait for orders from the captain, as they ought
to have done; but they cried out, 'Oh, here it is!' and then both
reached out to get it. Anyone who has pursued a naval career will
see that of course the raft capsized. For a moment it felt like
standing on the roof of the house, and the next moment the ship
stood up on end and shot the whole crew into the dark waters.
We boys can swim all right. Oswald has swum three times across the
Ladywell Swimming Baths at the shallow end, and Dicky is nearly as
good; but just then we did not think of this; though, of course, if
the water had been deep we should have.
As soon as Oswald could get the muddy water out of his eyes he
opened them on a horrid scene.
Dicky was standing up to his shoulders in the inky waters; the raft
had righted itself, and was drifting gently away towards the front
of the house, where the bridge is, and Dora and Alice were rising
from the deep, with their hair all plastered over their faces--like
Venus in the Latin verses.
There was a great noise of splashing. And besides that a feminine
voice, looking out of the dairy window and screaming--
'Lord love the children!'
It was Mrs Pettigrew. She disappeared at once, and we were sorry
we were in such a situation that she would be able to get at
Albert's uncle before we could. Afterwards we were not so sorry.
Before a word could be spoken about our desperate position Dora
staggered a little in the water, and suddenly shrieked, 'Oh, my
foot! oh, it's a shark! I know it is--or a crocodile!'
The others on the bank could hear her shrieking, but they could not
see us properly; they did not know what was happening. Noel told
me afterwards he never could care for that paint-brush.
Of course we knew it could not be a shark, but I thought of pike,
which are large and very angry always, and I caught hold of Dora.
She screamed without stopping. I shoved her along to where there
was a ledge of brickwork, and shoved her up, till she could sit on
it, then she got her foot out of the water, still screaming.
It was indeed terrible. The thing she thought was a shark came up
with her foot, and it was a horrid, jagged, old meat-tin, and she
had put her foot right into it. Oswald got it off, and directly he
did so blood began to pour from the wounds. The tin edges had cut
it in several spots. It was very pale blood, because her foot was
wet, of course.
She stopped screaming, and turned green, and I thought she was
going to faint, like Daisy did on the jungle day.
Oswald held her up as well as he could, but it really was one of
the least agreeable moments in his life. For the raft was gone,
and she couldn't have waded back anyway, and we didn't know how
deep the moat might be in other places.
But Mrs Pettigrew had not been idle. She is not a bad sort really.
Just as Oswald was wondering whether he could swim after the raft
and get it back, a boat's nose shot out from under a dark archway
a little further up under the house. It was the boathouse, and
Albert's uncle had got the punt and took us back in it. When we
had regained the dark arch where the boat lives we had to go up the
cellar stairs. Dora had to be carried.
There was but little said to us that day. We were sent to
bed--those who had not been on the raft the same as the others, for
they owned up all right, and Albert's uncle is the soul of justice.
Next day but one was Saturday. Father gave us a talking to--with
other things.
The worst was when Dora couldn't get her shoe on, so they sent for
the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for ever so long. It was
indeed poor luck.
When the doctor had gone Alice said to me--
'It IS hard lines, but Dora's very jolly about it. Daisy's been
telling her about how we should all go to her with our little joys
and sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sick
bed that can be felt all over the house, like in What Katy Did, and
Dora said she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while
she's laid up.'
Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased. Because this sort
of jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and Dicky didn't want to
have happen.
The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the
garden railings. They turned out to be butter-tubs that had been
put out there 'to sweeten'.
But as Denny said, 'After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes
of somewhere or other could make them fit to use for butter again.'
I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to
please ourselves, but because it was our duty. But that made no
difference to our punishment when Father came down. I have known
this mistake occur before.
CHAPTER 3
BILL'S TOMBSTONE
There were soldiers riding down the road, on horses two and two.
That is the horses were two and two, and the men not. Because each
man was riding one horse and leading another. To exercise them.
They came from Chatham Barracks. We all drew up in a line outside
the churchyard wall, and saluted as they went by, though we had not
read Toady Lion then. We have since. It is the only decent book
I have ever read written by Toady Lion's author. The others are
mere piffle. But many people like them. In Sir Toady Lion the
officer salutes the child.
There was only a lieutenant with those soldiers, and he did not
salute me. He kissed his hand to the girls; and a lot of the
soldiers behind kissed theirs too. We waved ours back.
Next day we made a Union Jack out of pocket-handkerchiefs and part
of a red flannel petticoat of the White Mouse's, which she did not
want just then, and some blue ribbon we got at the village shop.
Then we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by
again, by twos and twos as before. It was A1.
We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers.
Oswald can shout loudest. So as soon as the first man was level
with us (not the advance guard, but the first of the battery)--he
shouted--
'Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' And then we
waved the flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood on the wall to bellow
better, and Denny waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so
politeness made us let him enjoy the fat of whatever there was
going.
The soldiers did not cheer that day; they only grinned and kissed
their hands.
The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H.
O. and Noel had tin swords, and we asked Albert's uncle to let us
wear some of the real arms that are on the wall in the dining-room.
And he said, 'Yes', if we would clean them up afterwards. But we
jolly well cleaned them up first with Brooke's soap and brick dust
and vinegar, and the knife polish (invented by the great and
immortal Duke of Wellington in his spare time when he was not
conquering Napoleon. Three cheers for our Iron Duke!), and with
emery paper and wash leather and whitening. Oswald wore a cavalry
sabre in its sheath. Alice and the Mouse had pistols in their
belts, large old flint-locks, with bits of red flannel behind the
flints. Denny had a naval cutlass, a very beautiful blade, and old
enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope it was. The others had
French sword-bayonets that were used in the Franco-German war.
They are very bright when you get them bright, but the sheaths are
hard to polish. Each sword-bayonet has the name on the blade of
the warrior who once wielded it. I wonder where they are now.
Perhaps some of them died in the war. Poor chaps! But it is a
very long time ago.
I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best
schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is Balliol you go to.
Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would
not let him. And it is true that Oswald does not yet know how to
bugle, though he can play the infantry 'advance', and the 'charge'
and the 'halt' on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with
the piano, out of the red book Father's cousin had when he was in
the Fighting Fifth. Oswald cannot play the 'retire', and he would
scorn to do so. But I suppose a bugler has to play what he is
told, no matter how galling to the young boy's proud spirit.
The next day, being thoroughly armed, we put on everything red,
white and blue that we could think of-- night-shirts are good for
white, and you don't know what you can do with red socks and blue
jerseys till you try--and we waited by the churchyard wall for the
soldiers. When the advance guard (or whatever you call it of
artillery--it's that for infantry, I know) came by, we got ready,
and when the first man of the first battery was level with us
Oswald played on his penny whistle the 'advance' and the
'charge'--and then shouted--
'Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' This time they
had the guns with them. And every man of the battery cheered too.
It was glorious. It made you tremble all over. The girls said it
made them want to cry--but no boy would own to this, even if it
were true. It is babyish to cry. But it was glorious, and Oswald
felt differently to what he ever did before.
Then suddenly the officer in front said, 'Battery! Halt!' and all
the soldiers pulled their horses up, and the great guns stopped
too. Then the officer said, 'Sit at ease,' and something else, and
the sergeant repeated it, and some of the men got off their horses
and lit their pipes, and some sat down on the grass edge of the
road, holding their horses' bridles.
We could see all the arms and accoutrements as plain as plain.
Then the officer came up to us. We were all standing on the wall
that day, except Dora, who had to sit, because her foot was bad,
but we let her have the three-edged rapier to wear, and the
blunderbuss to hold as well--it has a brass mouth and is like in Mr
Caldecott's pictures.
He was a beautiful man the officer. Like a Viking. Very tall and
fair, with moustaches very long, and bright blue eyes. He said--
'Good morning.'
So did we.
Then he said--
'You seem to be a military lot.'
We said we wished we were.
'And patriotic,' said he.
Alice said she should jolly well think so.
Then he said he had noticed us there for several days, and he had
halted the battery because he thought we might like to look at the
guns.
Alas! there are but too few grown-up people so far- seeing and
thoughtful as this brave and distinguished officer.
We said, 'Oh, yes', and then we got off the wall, and that good and
noble man showed us the string that moves the detonator and the
breech-block (when you take it out and carry it away the gun is in
vain to the enemy, even if he takes it); and he let us look down
the gun to see the rifling, all clean and shiny--and he showed us
the ammunition boxes, but there was nothing in them. He also told
us how the gun was unlimbered (this means separating the gun from
the ammunition carriage), and how quick it could be done--but he
did not make the men do this then, because they were resting.
There were six guns. Each had painted on the carriage, in white
letters, 15 Pr., which the captain told us meant fifteen-pounder.
'I should have thought the gun weighed more than fifteen pounds,'
Dora said. 'It would if it was beef, but I suppose wood and gun
are lighter.'
And the officer explained to her very kindly and patiently that 15
Pr. meant the gun could throw a SHELL weighing fifteen pounds.
When we had told him how jolly it was to see the soldiers go by so
often, he said--
'You won't see us many more times. We're ordered to the front; and
we sail on Tuesday week; and the guns will be painted mud-colour,
and the men will wear mud-colour too, and so shall I.'
The men looked very nice, though they were not wearing their
busbies, but only Tommy caps, put on all sorts of ways.
We were very sorry they were going, but Oswald, as well as others,
looked with envy on those who would soon be allowed--being grown
up, and no nonsense about your education--to go and fight for their
Queen and country.
Then suddenly Alice whispered to Oswald, and he said--
'All right; but tell him yourself.'
So Alice said to the captain--
'Will you stop next time you pass?'
He said, 'I'm afraid I can't promise that.'
Alice said, 'You might; there's a particular reason.'
He said, 'What?' which was a natural remark; not rude, as it is
with children. Alice said--
'We want to give the soldiers a keepsake and will write to ask my
father. He is very well off just now. Look here--if we're not on
the wall when you come by, don't stop; but if we are, please,
PLEASE do!'
The officer pulled his moustache and looked as if he did not know;
but at last he said 'Yes', and we were very glad, though but Alice
and Oswald knew the dark but pleasant scheme at present fermenting
in their youthful nuts.
The captain talked a lot to us. At last Noel said--
'I think you are like Diarmid of the Golden Collar. But I should
like to see your sword out, and shining in the sun like burnished
silver.'
The captain laughed and grasped the hilt of his good blade. But
Oswald said hurriedly--
'Don't. Not yet. We shan't ever have a chance like this. If
you'd only show us the pursuing practice! Albert's uncle knows it;
but he only does it on an armchair, because he hasn't a horse.'
And that brave and swagger captain did really do it. He rode his
horse right into our gate when we opened it, and showed us all the
cuts, thrusts, and guards. There are four of each kind. It was
splendid. The morning sun shone on his flashing blade, and his
good steed stood with all its legs far apart and stiff on the lawn.
Then we opened the paddock gate, and he did it again, while the
horse galloped as if upon the bloody battlefield among the fierce
foes of his native land, and this was far more ripping still.
Then we thanked him very much, and he went away, taking his men
with him. And the guns of course.
Then we wrote to my father, and he said 'Yes', as we knew he would,
and next time the soldiers came by --but they had no guns this
time, only the captive Arabs of the desert--we had the keepsakes
ready in a wheelbarrow, and we were on the churchyard wall.
And the bold captain called an immediate halt.
Then the girls had the splendid honour and pleasure of giving a
pipe and four whole ounces of tobacco to each soldier.
Then we shook hands with the captain, and the sergeant and the
corporals, and the girls kissed the captain--I can't think why
girls will kiss everybody-- and we all cheered for the Queen.
It was grand. And I wish my father had been there to see how much
you can do with L12 if you order the things from the Stores.
We have never seen those brave soldiers again.
I have told you all this to show you how we got so keen about
soldiers, and why we sought to aid and abet the poor widow at the
white cottage in her desolate and oppressedness.
Her name was Simpkins, and her cottage was just beyond the
churchyard, on the other side from our house. On the different
military occasions which I have remarked upon this widow woman
stood at her garden gate and looked on. And after the cheering she
rubbed her eyes with her apron. Alice noticed this slight but
signifying action.
We feel quite sure Mrs Simpkins liked soldiers, and so we felt
friendly to her. But when we tried to talk to her she would not.
She told us to go along with us, do, and not bother her. And
Oswald, with his usual delicacy and good breeding, made the others
do as she said.
But we were not to be thus repulsed with impunity. We made
complete but cautious inquiries, and found out that the reason she
cried when she saw soldiers was that she had only one son, a boy.
He was twenty-two, and he had gone to the War last April. So that
she thought of him when she saw the soldiers, and that was why she
cried. Because when your son is at the wars you always think he is
being killed. I don't know why. A great many of them are not. If
I had a son at the wars I should never think he was dead till I
heard he was, and perhaps not then, considering everything. After
we had found this out we held a council.
Dora said, 'We must do something for the soldier's widowed mother.'
We all agreed, but added 'What?'
Alice said, 'The gift of money might be deemed an insult by that
proud, patriotic spirit. Besides, we haven't more than
eighteenpence among us.'
We had put what we had to father's L12 to buy the baccy and pipes.
The Mouse then said, 'Couldn't we make her a flannel petticoat and
leave it without a word upon her doorstep?'
But everyone said, 'Flannel petticoats in this weather?' so that
was no go.
Noel said he would write her a poem, but Oswald had a deep, inward
feeling that Mrs Simpkins would not understand poetry. Many people
do not.
H. O. said, 'Why not sing "Rule Britannia" under her window after
she had gone to bed, like waits,' but no one else thought so.
Denny thought we might get up a subscription for her among the
wealthy and affluent, but we said again that we knew money would be
no balm to the haughty mother of a brave British soldier.
'What we want,' Alice said, 'is something that will be a good deal
of trouble to us and some good to her.'
'A little help is worth a deal of poetry,' said Denny.
I should not have said that myself. Noel did look sick.
' What DOES she do that we can help in?' Dora asked. 'Besides, she
won't let us help.'
H. O. said, 'She does nothing but work in the garden. At least if
she does anything inside you can't see it, because she keeps the
door shut.'
Then at once we saw. And we agreed to get up the very next day,
ere yet the rosy dawn had flushed the east, and have a go at Mrs
Simpkins's garden.
We got up. We really did. But too often when you mean to,
overnight, it seems so silly to do it when you come to waking in
the dewy morn. We crept downstairs with our boots in our hands.
Denny is rather unlucky, though a most careful boy. It was he who
dropped his boot, and it went blundering down the stairs, echoing
like thunderbolts, and waking up Albert's uncle. But when we
explained to him that we were going to do some gardening he let us,
and went back to bed.
Everything is very pretty and different in the early morning,
before people are up. I have been told this is because the shadows
go a different way from what they do in the awake part of the day.
But I don't know. Noel says the fairies have just finished tidying
up then. Anyhow it all feels quite otherwise.
We put on our boots in the porch, and we got our gardening tools
and we went down to the white cottage. It is a nice cottage, with
a thatched roof, like in the drawing copies you get at girls'
schools, and you do the thatch--if you can--with a B.B. pencil. If
you cannot, you just leave it. It looks just as well, somehow,
when it is mounted and framed.
We looked at the garden. It was very neat. Only one patch was
coming up thick with weeds. I could see groundsel and chickweed,
and others that I did not know. We set to work with a will. We
used all our tools--spades, forks, hoes, and rakes--and Dora worked
with the trowel, sitting down, because her foot was hurt. We
cleared the weedy patch beautifully, scraping off all the nasty
weeds and leaving the nice clean brown dirt. We worked as hard as
ever we could. And we were happy, because it was unselfish toil,
and no one thought then of putting it in the Book of Golden Deeds,
where we had agreed to write down our virtuous actions and the good
doings of each other, when we happen to notice them.
We had just done, and we were looking at the beautiful production
of our honest labour, when the cottage door burst open, and the
soldier's widowed mother came out like a wild tornado, and her eyes
looked like upas trees--death to the beholder.
'You wicked, meddlesome, nasty children!' she said, ain't you got
enough of your own good ground to runch up and spoil, but you must
come into MY little lot?'
Some of us were deeply alarmed, but we stood firm.
'We have only been weeding your garden,' Dora said; 'we wanted to
do something to help you.'
'Dratted little busybodies,' she said. It was indeed hard, but
everyone in Kent says 'dratted' when they are cross. 'It's my
turnips,' she went on, 'you've hoed up, and my cabbages. My
turnips that my boy sowed afore he went. There, get along with you
do, afore I come at you with my broom-handle.'
She did come at us with her broom-handle as she spoke, and even the
boldest turned and fled. Oswald was even the boldest. 'They
looked like weeds right enough,' he said.
And Dicky said, 'It all comes of trying to do golden deeds.' This
was when we were out in the road.
As we went along, in a silence full of gloomy remorse, we met the
postman. He said--
'Here's the letters for the Moat,' and passed on hastily. He was
a bit late.
When we came to look through the letters, which were nearly all for
Albert's uncle, we found there was a postcard that had got stuck in
a magazine wrapper. Alice pulled it out. It was addressed to Mrs
Simpkins. We honourably only looked at the address, although it is
allowed by the rules of honourableness to read postcards that come
to your house if you like, even if they are not for you.
After a heated discussion, Alice and Oswald said they were not
afraid, whoever was, and they retraced their steps, Alice holding
the postcard right way up, so that we should not look at the
lettery part of it, but only the address.
With quickly-beating heart, but outwardly unmoved, they walked up
to the white cottage door.
It opened with a bang when we knocked.
'Well?' Mrs Simpkins said, and I think she said it what people in
books call 'sourly'.
Oswald said, 'We are very, very sorry we spoiled your turnips, and
we will ask my father to try and make it up to you some other way.'
She muttered something about not wanting to be beholden to anybody.
'We came back,' Oswald went on, with his always unruffled
politeness, 'because the postman gave us a postcard in mistake with
our letters, and it is addressed to you.'
'We haven't read it,' Alice said quickly. I think she needn't have
said that. Of course we hadn't. But perhaps girls know better
than we do what women are likely to think you capable of.
The soldier's mother took the postcard (she snatched it really, but
'took' is a kinder word, considering everything) and she looked at
the address a long time. Then she turned it over and read what was
on the back. Then she drew her breath in as far as it would go,
and caught hold of the door-post. Her face got awful. It was like
the wax face of a dead king I saw once at Madame Tussaud's.
Alice understood. She caught hold of the soldier's mother's hand
and said--
'Oh, NO--it's NOT your boy Bill!'
And the woman said nothing, but shoved the postcard into Alice's
hand, and we both read it--and it WAS her boy Bill.
Alice gave her back the card. She had held on to the woman's hand
all the time, and now she squeezed the hand, and held it against
her face. But she could not say a word because she was crying so.
The soldier's mother took the card again and she pushed Alice away,
but it was not an unkind push, and she went in and shut the door;
and as Alice and Oswald went down the road Oswald looked back, and
one of the windows of the cottage had a white blind. Afterwards
the other windows had too. There were no blinds really to the
cottage. It was aprons and things she had pinned up.
Alice cried most of the morning, and so did the other girls. We
wanted to do something for the soldier's mother, but you can do
nothing when people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing
to want to do something for people who are unhappy, and not to know
what to do.
It was Noel who thought of what we COIULD do at last.
He said, 'I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when
they die in war. But there--I mean Oswald said, 'Of course not.'
Noel said, 'I daresay you'll think it's silly, but I don't care.
Don't you think she'd like it, if we put one up to HIM? Not in the
churchyard, of course, because we shouldn't be let, but in our
garden, just where it joins on to the churchyard?'
And we all thought it was a first-rate idea.
This is what we meant to put on the tombstone:
'Here lies
BILL SIMPKINS
Who died fighting for Queen
and Country.'
'A faithful son,
A son so dear,
A soldier brave
Lies buried here.'
Then we remembered that poor brave Bill was really buried far away
in the Southern hemisphere, if at all. So we altered it to--
'A soldier brave
We weep for here.'
Then we looked out a nice flagstone in the stable-yard, and we got
a cold chisel out of the Dentist's toolbox, and began.
But stone-cutting is difficult and dangerous work.
Oswald went at it a bit, but he chipped his thumb, and it bled so
he had to chuck it. Then Dicky tried, and then Denny, but Dicky
hammered his finger, and Denny took all day over every stroke, so
that by tea-time we had only done the H, and about half the E--and
the E was awfully crooked. Oswald chipped his thumb over the H.
We looked at it the next morning, and even the most sanguinary of
us saw that it was a hopeless task.
Then Denny said, 'Why not wood and paint?' and he showed us how.
We got a board and two stumps from the carpenter's in the village,
and we painted it all white, and when that was dry Denny did the
words on it.
It was something like this:
'IN MEMORY OF
BILL SIMPKINS
DEAD FOR QUEEN AND COUNTRY.
HONOUR TO HIS NAME AND ALL
OTHER BRAVE SOLDIERS.'
We could not get in what we meant to at first, so we had to give up
the poetry.
We fixed it up when it was dry. We had to dig jolly deep to get
the posts to stand up, but the gardener helped us.
Then the girls made wreaths of white flowers, roses and Canterbury
bells, and lilies and pinks, and sweet-peas and daisies, and put
them over the posts. And I think if Bill Simpkins had known how
sorry we were, he would have been glad. Oswald only hopes if he
falls on the wild battlefield, which is his highest ambition, that
somebody will be as sorry about him as he was about Bill, that's
all!
When all was done, and what flowers there were over from the
wreaths scattered under the tombstone between the posts, we wrote
a letter to Mrs Simpkins, and said--
DEAR MRS SIMPKINS--
We are very, very sorry about the turnips and things, and we beg
your pardon humbly. We have put up a tombstone to your brave son.
And we signed our names. Alice took the letter.
The soldier's mother read it, and said something about our oughting
to know better than to make fun of people's troubles with our
tombstones and tomfoolery.
Alice told me she could not help crying.
She said--
'It's not! it's NOT! Dear, DEAR Mrs Simpkins, do come with me and
see! You don't know how sorry we are about Bill. Do come and see.
We can go through the churchyard, and the others have all gone in,
so as to leave it quiet for you. Do come.'
And Mrs Simpkins did. And when she read what we had put up, and
Alice told her the verse we had not had room for, she leant against
the wall by the grave-- I mean the tombstone--and Alice hugged her,
and they both cried bitterly. The poor soldier's mother was very,
very pleased, and she forgave us about the turnips, and we were
friends after that, but she always liked Alice the best. A great
many people do, somehow.
After that we used to put fresh flowers every day on Bill's
tombstone, and I do believe his mother was pleased, though she got
us to move it away from the churchyard edge and put it in a corner
of our garden under a laburnum, where people could not see it from
the church. But you could from the road, though I think she
thought you couldn't. She came every day to look at the new
wreaths. When the white flowers gave out we put coloured, and she
liked it just as well.
About a fortnight after the erecting of the tombstone the girls
were putting fresh wreaths on it when a soldier in a red coat came
down the road, and he stopped and looked at us. He walked with a
stick, and he had a bundle in a blue cotton handkerchief, and one
arm in a sling.
And he looked again, and he came nearer, and he leaned on the wall,
so that he could read the black printing on the white paint.
And he grinned all over his face, and he said--
'Well, I AM blessed!'
And he read it all out in a sort of half whisper, and when he came
to the end, where it says, 'and all such brave soldiers', he said--
'Well, I really AM!' I suppose he meant he really was blessed.
Oswald thought it was like the soldier's cheek, so he said--
'I daresay you aren't so very blessed as you think. What's it to
do with you, anyway, eh, Tommy?'
Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is
called that. The soldier said--
'Tommy yourself, young man. That's ME!' and he pointed to the
tombstone.
We stood rooted to the spot. Alice spoke first.
'Then you're Bill, and you're not dead,' she said. 'Oh, Bill, I am
so glad! Do let ME tell your mother.'
She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly
because of his leg, but I tell you he went as fast as ever he
could.
We all hammered at the soldier's mother's door, and shouted--
'Come out! come out!' and when she opened the door we were going to
speak, but she pushed us away, and went tearing down the garden
path like winking. I never saw a grown-up woman run like it,
because she saw Bill coming.
She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of
him, and she cried much more than when she thought he was dead.
And we all shook his hand and said how glad we were.
The soldier's mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I
couldn't help looking at her face. It was like wax that had been
painted on both pink cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles.
And when we had all said how glad we were, she said--
'Thank the dear Lord for His mercies,' and she took her boy Bill
into the cottage and shut the door.
We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the wood-axe and had
a blazing big bonfire, and cheered till we could hardly speak.
The postcard was a mistake; he was only missing. There was a pipe
and a whole pound of tobacco left over from our keepsake to the
other soldiers. We gave it to Bill. Father is going to have him
for under-gardener when his wounds get well. He'll always be a bit
lame, so he cannot fight any more.
CHAPTER 4
THE TOWER OF MYSTERY
It was very rough on Dora having her foot bad, but we took it in
turns to stay in with her, and she was very decent about it. Daisy
was most with her. I do not dislike Daisy, but I wish she had been
taught how to play. Because Dora is rather like that naturally,
and sometimes I have thought that Daisy makes her worse.
I talked to Albert's uncle about it one day, when the others had
gone to church, and I did not go because of ear-ache, and he said
it came from reading the wrong sort of books partly--she has read
Ministering Children, and Anna Ross, or The Orphan of Waterloo, and
Ready Work for Willing Hands, and Elsie, or Like a Little Candle,
and even a horrid little blue book about the something or other of
Little Sins. After this conversation Oswald took care she had
plenty of the right sort of books to read, and he was surprised and
pleased when she got up early one morning to finish Monte Cristo.
Oswald felt that he was really being useful to a suffering
fellow-creature when he gave Daisy books that were not all about
being good.
A few days after Dora was laid up, Alice called a council of the
Wouldbegoods, and Oswald and Dicky attended with darkly-clouded
brows. Alice had the minute-book, which was an exercise-book that
had not much written in it. She had begun at the other end. I
hate doing that myself, because there is so little room at the top
compared with right way up.
Dora and a sofa had been carried out on to the lawn, and we were on
the grass. It was very hot and dry. We had sherbet. Alice read:
'"Society of the Wouldbegoods.
'"We have not done much. Dicky mended a window, and we got the
milk-pan out of the moat that dropped through where he mended it.
Dora, Oswald, Dicky and me got upset in the moat. This was not
goodness. Dora's foot was hurt. We hope to do better next time."'
Then came Noel's poem:
'We are the Wouldbegoods Society,
We are not good yet, but we mean to try,
And if we try, and if we don't succeed,
It must mean we are very bad indeed.'
This sounded so much righter than Noel's poetry generally does,
that Oswald said so, and Noel explained that Denny had helped him.
'He seems to know the right length for lines of poetry. I suppose
it comes of learning so much at school,' Noel said.
Then Oswald proposed that anybody should be allowed to write in the
book if they found out anything good that anyone else had done, but
not things that were public acts; and nobody was to write about
themselves, or anything other people told them, only what they
found out.
After a brief jaw the others agreed, and Oswald felt, not for the
first time in his young life, that he would have made a good
diplomatic hero to carry despatches and outwit the other side. For
now he had put it out of the minute-book's power to be the kind of
thing readers of Ministering Children would have wished.
'And if anyone tells other people any good thing he's done he is to
go to Coventry for the rest of the day.'
And Denny remarked, 'We shall do good by stealth, and blush to find
it shame.'
After that nothing was written in the book for some time. I looked
about, and so did the others, but I never caught anyone in the act
of doing anything extra; though several of the others have told me
since of things they did at this time, and really wondered nobody
had noticed.
I think I said before that when you tell a story you cannot tell
everything. It would be silly to do it. Because ordinary kinds of
play are dull to read about; and the only other thing is meals, and
to dwell on what you eat is greedy and not like a hero at all. A
hero is always contented with a venison pasty and a horn of sack.
All the same, the meals were very interesting; with things you do
not get at home--Lent pies with custard and currants in them,
sausage rolls and fiede cakes, and raisin cakes and apple
turnovers, and honeycomb and syllabubs, besides as much new milk as
you cared about, and cream now and then, and cheese always on the
table for tea. Father told Mrs Pettigrew to get what meals she
liked, and she got these strange but attractive foods.
In a story about Wouldbegoods it is not proper to tell of times
when only some of us were naughty, so I will pass lightly over the
time when Noel got up the kitchen chimney and brought three bricks
and an old starling's nest and about a ton of soot down with him
when he fell. They never use the big chimney in the summer, but
cook in the wash-house. Nor do I wish to dwell on what H. O. did
when he went into the dairy. I do not know what his motive was.
But Mrs Pettigrew said SHE knew; and she locked him in, and said if
it was cream he wanted he should have enough, and she wouldn't let
him out till tea-time. The cat had also got into the dairy for
some reason of her own, and when H. O. was tired of whatever he
went in for he poured all the milk into the churn and tried to
teach the cat to swim in it. He must have been desperate. The cat
did not even try to learn, and H. O. had the scars on his hands for
weeks. I do not wish to tell tales of H. O., for he is very young,
and whatever he does he always catches it for; but I will just
allude to our being told not to eat the greengages in the garden.
And we did not. And whatever H. O. did was Noel's fault--for Noel
told H. O. that greengages would grow again all right if you did
not bite as far as the stone, just as wounds are not mortal except
when you are pierced through the heart. So the two of them bit
bites out of every greengage they could reach. And of course the
pieces did not grow again.
Oswald did not do things like these, but then he is older than his
brothers. The only thing he did just about then was making a
booby-trap for Mrs Pettigrew when she had locked H. O. up in the
dairy, and unfortunately it was the day she was going out in her
best things, and part of the trap was a can of water. Oswald was
not willingly vicious; it was but a light and thoughtless act which
he had every reason to be sorry for afterwards. And he is sorry
even without those reasons, because he knows it is ungentlemanly to
play tricks on women.
I remember Mother telling Dora and me when we were little that you
ought to be very kind and polite to servants, because they have to
work very hard, and do not have so many good times as we do. I
used to think about Mother more at the Moat House than I did at
Blackheath, especially in the garden. She was very fond of
flowers, and she used to tell us about the big garden where she
used to live; and I remember Dora and I helped her to plant seeds.
But it is no use wishing. She would have liked that garden,
though.
The girls and the white mice did not do anything boldly
wicked--though of course they used to borrow Mrs Pettigrew's
needles, which made her very nasty. Needles that are borrowed
might just as well be stolen. But I say no more.
I have only told you these things to show the kind of events which
occurred on the days I don't tell you about. On the whole, we had
an excellent time.
It was on the day we had the pillow-fight that we went for the long
walk. Not the Pilgrimage--that is another story. We did not mean
to have a pillow-fight. It is not usual to have them after
breakfast, but Oswald had come up to get his knife out of the
pocket of his Etons, to cut some wire we were making rabbit snares
of. It is a very good knife, with a file in it, as well as a
corkscrew and other things--and he did not come down at once,
because he was detained by having to make an apple-pie bed for
Dicky. Dicky came up after him to see what he was up to, and when
he did see he buzzed a pillow at Oswald, and the fight began. The
others, hearing the noise of battle from afar, hastened to the
field of action, all except Dora, who couldn't because of being
laid up with her foot, and Daisy, because she is a little afraid of
us still, when we are all together. She thinks we are rough. This
comes of having only one brother.
Well, the fight was a very fine one. Alice backed me up, and Noel
and H. O. backed Dicky, and Denny heaved a pillow or two; but he
cannot shy straight, so I don't know which side he was on.
And just as the battle raged most fiercely, Mrs Pettigrew came in
and snatched the pillows away, and shook those of the warriors who
were small enough for it. SHE was rough if you like. She also
used language I should have thought she would be above. She said,
Drat you!' and 'Drabbit you!' The last is a thing I have never
heard said before. She said--
'There's no peace of your life with you children. Drat your
antics! And that poor, dear, patient gentleman right underneath,
with his headache and his handwriting: and you rampaging about over
his head like young bull-calves. I wonder you haven't more sense,
a great girl like you.'
She said this to Alice, and Alice answered gently, as we are told
to do--
'I really am awfully sorry; we forgot about the headache. Don't be
cross, Mrs Pettigrew; we didn't mean to; we didn't think.'
'You never do,' she said, and her voice, though grumpy, was no
longer violent. 'Why on earth you can't take yourselves off for
the day I don't know.'
We all said, 'But may we?'
She said, 'Of course you may. Now put on your boots and go for a
good long walk. And I'll tell you what--I'll put you up a snack,
and you can have an egg to your tea to make up for missing your
dinner. Now don't go clattering about the stairs and passages,
there's good children. See if you can't be quiet this once, and
give the good gentleman a chance with his copying.'
She went off. Her bark is worse than her bite. She does not
understand anything about writing books, though. She thinks
Albert's uncle copies things out of printed books, when he is
really writing new ones. I wonder how she thinks printed books get
made first of all. Many servants are like this.
She gave us the 'snack' in a basket, and sixpence to buy milk with.
She said any of the farms would let us have it, only most likely it
would be skim. We thanked her politely, and she hurried us out of
the front door as if we'd been chickens on a pansy bed.
(I did not know till after I had left the farm gate open, and the
hens had got into the garden, that these feathered bipeds display
a great partiality for the young buds of plants of the genus viola,
to which they are extremely destructive. I was told that by the
gardener. I looked it up in the gardening book afterwards to be
sure he was right. You do learn a lot of things in the country.)
We went through the garden as far as the church, and then we rested
a bit in the porch, and just looked into the basket to see what the
'snack' was. It proved to be sausage rolls and queen cakes, and a
Lent pie in a round tin dish, and some hard-boiled eggs, and some
apples. We all ate the apples at once, so as not to have to carry
them about with us. The churchyard smells awfully good. It is the
wild thyme that grows on the graves. This is another thing we did
not know before we came into the country.
Then the door of the church tower was ajar, and we all went up; it
had always been locked before when we had tried it.
We saw the ringers' loft where the ends of the bellropes hang down
with long, furry handles to them like great caterpillars, some red,
and some blue and white, but we did not pull them. And then we
went up to where the bells are, very big and dusty among large
dirty beams; and four windows with no glass, only shutters like
Venetian blinds, but they won't pull up. There were heaps of
straws and sticks on the window ledges. We think they were owls'
nests, but we did not see any owls.
Then the tower stairs got very narrow and dark, and we went on up,
and we came to a door and opened it suddenly, and it was like being
hit in the face, the light was so sudden. And there we were on the
top of the tower, which is flat, and people have cut their names on
it, and a turret at one corner, and a low wall all round, up and
down, like castle battlements. And we looked down and saw the roof
of the church, and the leads, and the churchyard, and our garden,
and the Moat House, and the farm, and Mrs Simpkins's cottage,
looking very small, and other farms looking like toy things out of
boxes, and we saw corn-fields and meadows and pastures. A pasture
is not the same thing as a meadow, whatever you may think. And we
saw the tops of trees and hedges, looking like the map of the
United States, and villages, and a tower that did not look very far
away standing by itself on the top of a hill. Alice pointed to it,
and said--
'What's that?'
'It's not a church,' said Noel, 'because there's no churchyard.
Perhaps it's a tower of mystery that covers the entrance to a
subterranean vault with treasure in it.'
Dicky said, 'Subterranean fiddlestick!' and 'A waterworks, more
likely.'
Alice thought perhaps it was a ruined castle, and the rest of its
crumbling walls were concealed by ivy, the growth of years.
Oswald could not make his mind up what it was, so he said, 'Let's
go and see! We may as well go there as anywhere.'
So we got down out of the church tower and dusted ourselves, and
set out.
The Tower of Mystery showed quite plainly from the road, now that
we knew where to look for it, because it was on the top of a hill.
We began to walk. But the tower did not seem to get any nearer.
And it was very hot.
So we sat down in a meadow where there was a stream in the ditch
and ate the 'snack'. We drank the pure water from the brook out of
our hands, because there was no farm to get milk at just there, and
it was too much fag to look for one--and, besides, we thought we
might as well save the sixpence.
Then we started again, and still the tower looked as far off as
ever. Denny began to drag his feet, though he had brought a
walking-stick which none of the rest of us had, and said--
'I wish a cart would come along. We might get a lift.'
He knew all about getting lifts, of course, from having been in the
country before. He is not quite the white mouse we took him for at
first. Of course when you live in Lewisham or Blackheath you learn
other things. If you asked for a lift in Lewisham, High Street,
your only reply would be jeers. We sat down on a heap of stones,
and decided that we would ask for a lift from the next cart,
whichever way it was going. It was while we were waiting that
Oswald found out about plantain seeds being good to eat.
When the sound of wheels came we remarked with joy that the cart
was going towards the Tower of Mystery. It was a cart a man was
going to fetch a pig home in. Denny said--
'I say, you might give us a lift. Will you?'
The man who was going for the pig said--
'What, all that little lot?' but he winked at Alice, and we saw
that he meant to aid us on our way. So we climbed up, and he
whipped up the horse and asked us where we were going. He was a
kindly old man, with a face like a walnut shell, and white hair and
beard like a jack-in-the-box.
'We want to get to the tower,' Alice said. 'Is it a ruin, or not?'
'It ain't no ruin,' the man said; 'no fear of that! The man wot
built it he left so much a year to be spent on repairing of it!
Money that might have put bread in honest folks' mouths.'
We asked was it a church then, or not.
'Church?' he said. 'Not it. It's more of a tombstone, from all I
can make out. They do say there was a curse on him that built it,
and he wasn't to rest in earth or sea. So he's buried half-way up
the tower--if you can call it buried.'
'Can you go up it?' Oswald asked.
'Lord love you! yes; a fine view from the top they say. I've never
been up myself, though I've lived in sight of it, boy and man,
these sixty-three years come harvest.'
Alice asked whether you had to go past the dead and buried person
to get to the top of the tower, and could you see the coffin.
'No, no,' the man said; 'that's all hid away behind a slab of
stone, that is, with reading on it. You've no call to be afraid,
missy. It's daylight all the way up. But I wouldn't go there
after dark, so I wouldn't. It's always open, day and night, and
they say tramps sleep there now and again. Anyone who likes can
sleep there, but it wouldn't be me.'
We thought that it would not be us either, but we wanted to go more
than ever, especially when the man said--
'My own great-uncle of the mother's side, he was one of the masons
that set up the stone slab. Before then it was thick glass, and
you could see the dead man lying inside, as he'd left it in his
will. He was lying there in a glass coffin with his best
clothes--blue satin and silver, my uncle said, such as was all the
go in his day, with his wig on, and his sword beside him, what he
used to wear. My uncle said his hair had grown out from under his
wig, and his beard was down to the toes of him. My uncle he always
upheld that that dead man was no deader than you and me, but was in
a sort of fit, a transit, I think they call it, and looked for him
to waken into life again some day. But the doctor said not. It
was only something done to him like Pharaoh in the Bible afore he
was buried.'
Alice whispered to Oswald that we should be late for tea, and
wouldn't it be better to go back now directly. But he said--
'If you're afraid, say so; and you needn't come in anyway--but I'm
going on.'
The man who was going for the pig put us down at a gate quite near
the tower--at least it looked so until we began to walk again. We
thanked him, and he said--
'Quite welcome,' and drove off.
We were rather quiet going through the wood. What we had heard
made us very anxious to see the tower-- all except Alice, who would
keep talking about tea, though not a greedy girl by nature. None
of the others encouraged her, but Oswald thought himself that we
had better be home before dark.
As we went up the path through the wood we saw a poor wayfarer with
dusty bare feet sitting on the bank.
He stopped us and said he was a sailor, and asked for a trifle to
help him to get back to his ship.
I did not like the look of him much myself, but Alice said, 'Oh,
the poor man, do let's help him, Oswald.' So we held a hurried
council, and decided to give him the milk sixpence. Oswald had it
in his purse, and he had to empty the purse into his hand to find
the sixpence, for that was not all the money he had, by any means.
Noel said afterwards that he saw the wayfarer's eyes fastened
greedily upon the shining pieces as Oswald returned them to his
purse. Oswald has to own that he purposely let the man see that he
had more money, so that the man might not feel shy about accepting
so large a sum as sixpence.
The man blessed our kind hearts and we went on.
The sun was shining very brightly, and the Tower of Mystery did not
look at all like a tomb when we got to it. The bottom Storey was
on arches, all open, and ferns and things grew underneath. There
was a round stone stair going up in the middle. Alice began to
gather ferns while we went up, but when we had called out to her
that it was as the pig-man had said, and daylight all the way up,
she said--
'All right. I'm not afraid. I'm only afraid of being late home,'
and came up after us. And perhaps, though not downright manly
truthfulness, this was as much as you could expect from a girl.
There were holes in the little tower of the staircase to let light
in. At the top of it was a thick door with iron bolts. We shot
these back, and it was not fear but caution that made Oswald push
open the door so very slowly and carefully.
Because, of course, a stray dog or cat might have got shut up there
by accident, and it would have startled Alice very much if it had
jumped out on us.
When the door was opened we saw that there was no such thing. It
was a room with eight sides. Denny says it is the shape called
octogenarian; because a man named Octagius invented it. There were
eight large arched windows with no glass, only stone-work, like in
churches. The room was full of sunshine, and you could see the
blue sky through the windows, but nothing else, because they were
so high up. It was so bright we began to think the pig-man had
been kidding us. Under one of the windows was a door. We went
through, and there was a little passage and then a turret-twisting
stair, like in the church, but quite light with windows. When we
had gone some way up this, we came to a sort of landing, and there
was a block of stone let into the wall--polished--Denny said it was
Aberdeen graphite, with gold letters cut in it. It said--
'Here lies the body of Mr Richard Ravenal
Born 1720. Died 1779.'
and a verse of poetry:
'Here lie I, between earth and sky,
Think upon me, dear passers -by,
And you who do my tombstone see
Be kind to say a prayer for me.'
'How horrid!' Alice said. 'Do let's get home.'
'We may as well go to the top,' Dicky said, 'just to say we've
been.'
And Alice is no funk--so she agreed; though I could see she did not
like it.
Up at the top it was like the top of the church tower, only
octogenarian in shape, instead of square.
Alice got all right there; because you cannot think much about
ghosts and nonsense when the sun is shining bang down on you at
four o'clock in the afternoon, and you can see red farm-roofs
between the trees, and the safe white roads, with people in carts
like black ants crawling.
It was very jolly, but we felt we ought to be getting back, because
tea is at five, and we could not hope to find lifts both ways.
So we started to go down. Dicky went first, then Oswald, then
Alice--and H. O. had just stumbled over the top step and saved
himself by Alice's back, which nearly upset Oswald and Dicky, when
the hearts of all stood still, and then went on by leaps and
bounds, like the good work in missionary magazines.
For, down below us, in the tower where the man whose beard grew
down to his toes after he was dead was buried, there was a noise--a
loud noise. And it was like a door being banged and bolts
fastened. We tumbled over each other to get back into the open
sunshine on the top of the tower, and Alice's hand got jammed
between the edge of the doorway and H. O.'s boot; it was bruised
black and blue, and another part bled, but she did not notice it
till long after.
We looked at each other, and Oswald said in a firm voice (at least,
I hope it was)--
'What was that?'
'He HAS waked up,' Alice said. 'Oh, I know he has. Of course
there is a door for him to get out by when he wakes. He'll come up
here. I know he will.'
Dicky said, and his voice was not at all firm (I noticed that at
the time), 'It doesn't matter, if he's ALIVE.'
'Unless he's come to life a raving lunatic,' Noel said, and we all
stood with our eyes on the doorway of the turret--and held our
breath to hear.
But there was no more noise.
Then Oswald said--and nobody ever put it in the Golden Deed book,
though they own that it was brave and noble of him--he said--
'Perhaps it was only the wind blowing one of the doors to. I'll go
down and see, if you will, Dick.'
Dicky only said--
'The wind doesn't shoot bolts.'
'A bolt from the blue,' said Denny to himself, looking up at the
sky. His father is a sub-editor. He had gone very red, and he was
holding on to Alice's hand. Suddenly he stood up quite straight
and said--
'I'm not afraid. I'll go and see.'
THIS was afterwards put in the Golden Deed book. It ended in
Oswald and Dicky and Denny going. Denny went first because he said
he would rather-- and Oswald understood this and let him. If
Oswald had pushed first it would have been like Sir Lancelot
refusing to let a young knight win his spurs. Oswald took good
care to go second himself, though. The others never understood
this. You don't expect it from girls; but I did think father would
have understood without Oswald telling him, which of course he
never could.
We all went slowly.
At the bottom of the turret stairs we stopped short. Because the
door there was bolted fast and would not yield to shoves, however
desperate and united.
Only now somehow we felt that Mr Richard Ravenal was all right and
quiet, but that some one had done it for a lark, or perhaps not
known about anyone being up there. So we rushed up, and Oswald
told the others in a few hasty but well-chosen words, and we all
leaned over between the battlements, and shouted, 'Hi! you there!'
Then from under the arches of the quite-downstairs part of the
tower a figure came forth--and it was the sailor who had had our
milk sixpence. He looked up and he spoke to us. He did not speak
loud, but he spoke loud enough for us to hear every word quite
plainly. He said--
'Drop that.'
Oswald said, 'Drop what?'
He said, 'That row.'
Oswald said, 'Why?'
He said, 'Because if you don't I'll come up and make you, and
pretty quick too, so I tell you.'
Dicky said, 'Did you bolt the door?'
The man said, 'I did so, my young cock.'
Alice said--and Oswald wished to goodness she had held her tongue,
because he saw right enough the man was not friendly--'Oh, do come
and let us out--do, please.'
While she was saying it Oswald suddenly saw that he did not want
the man to come up. So he scurried down the stairs because he
thought he had seen something on the door on the top side, and sure
enough there were two bolts, and he shot them into their sockets.
This bold act was not put in the Golden Deed book, because when
Alice wanted to, the others said it was not GOOD of Oswald to think
of this, but only CLEVER. I think sometimes, in moments of danger
and disaster, it is as good to be clever as it is to be good. But
Oswald would never demean himself to argue about this.
When he got back the man was still standing staring up. Alice
said--
'Oh, Oswald, he says he won't let us out unless we give him all our
money. And we might be here for days and days and all night as
well. No one knows where we are to come and look for us. Oh, do
let's give it him ALL.'
She thought the lion of the English nation, which does not know
when it is beaten, would be ramping in her brother's breast. But
Oswald kept calm. He said--
'All right,' and he made the others turn out their pockets. Denny
had a bad shilling, with a head on both sides, and three halfpence.
H. O. had a halfpenny. Noel had a French penny, which is only good
for chocolate machines at railway stations. Dicky had
tenpence-halfpenny, and Oswald had a two-shilling piece of his own
that he was saving up to buy a gun with. Oswald tied the whole lot
up in his handkerchief, and looking over the battlements, he said--
'You are an ungrateful beast. We gave you sixpence freely of our
own will.'
The man did look a little bit ashamed, but he mumbled something
about having his living to get. Then Oswald said--
'Here you are. Catch!' and he flung down the handkerchief with the
money in it.
The man muffed the catch--butter-fingered idiot!-- but he picked up
the handkerchief and undid it, and when he saw what was in it he
swore dreadfully. The cad!
'Look here,' he called out, 'this won't do, young shaver. I want
those there shiners I see in your pus! Chuck 'em along!'
Then Oswald laughed. He said--
'I shall know you again anywhere, and you'll be put in prison for
this. Here are the SHINERS.' And he was so angry he chucked down
purse and all. The shiners were not real ones, but only
card-counters that looked like sovereigns on one side. Oswald used
to carry them in his purse so as to look affluent. He does not do
this now.
When the man had seen what was in the purse he disappeared under
the tower, and Oswald was glad of what he had done about the
bolts--and he hoped they were as strong as the ones on the other
side of the door.
They were.
We heard the man kicking and pounding at the door, and I am not
ashamed to say that we were all holding on to each other very
tight. I am proud, however, to relate that nobody screamed or
cried.
After what appeared to be long years, the banging stopped, and
presently we saw the brute going away among the trees. Then Alice
did cry, and I do not blame her. Then Oswald said--
'It's no use. Even if he's undone the door, he may be in ambush.
We must hold on here till somebody comes.'
Then Alice said, speaking chokily because she had not quite done
crying--
'Let's wave a flag.'
By the most fortunate accident she had on one of her Sunday
petticoats, though it was Monday. This petticoat is white. She
tore it out at the gathers, and we tied it to Denny's stick, and
took turns to wave it. We had laughed at his carrying a stick
before, but we were very sorry now that we had done so.
And the tin dish the Lent pie was baked in we polished with our
handkerchiefs, and moved it about in the sun so that the sun might
strike on it and signal our distress to some of the outlying farms.
This was perhaps the most dreadful adventure that had then ever
happened to us. Even Alice had now stopped thinking of Mr Richard
Ravenal, and thought only of the lurker in ambush.
We all felt our desperate situation keenly. I must say Denny
behaved like anything but a white mouse. When it was the others'
turn to wave, he sat on the leads of the tower and held Alice's and
Noel's hands, and said poetry to them--yards and yards of it. By
some strange fatality it seemed to comfort them. It wouldn't have
me.
He said 'The Battle of the Baltic', and 'Gray's Elegy', right
through, though I think he got wrong in places, and the 'Revenge',
and Macaulay's thing about Lars Porsena and the Nine Gods. And
when it was his turn he waved like a man.
I will try not to call him a white mouse any more. He was a brick
that day, and no mouse.
The sun was low in the heavens, and we were sick of waving and very
hungry, when we saw a cart in the road below. We waved like mad,
and shouted, and Denny screamed exactly like a railway whistle, a
thing none of us had known before that he could do.
And the cart stopped. And presently we saw a figure with a white
beard among the trees. It was our Pig-man.
We bellowed the awful truth to him, and when he had taken it in--he
thought at first we were kidding-- he came up and let us out.
He had got the pig; luckily it was a very small one-- and we were
not particular. Denny and Alice sat on the front of the cart with
the Pig-man, and the rest of us got in with the pig, and the man
drove us right home. You may think we talked it over on the way.
Not us. We went to sleep, among the pig, and before long the
Pig-man stopped and got us to make room for Alice and Denny. There
was a net over the cart. I never was so sleepy in my life, though
it was not more than bedtime.
Generally, after anything exciting, you are punished--but this
could not be, because we had only gone for a walk, exactly as we
were told.
There was a new rule made, though. No walks except on the
high-roads, and we were always to take Pincher and either Lady, the
deer-hound, or Martha, the bulldog. We generally hate rules, but
we did not mind this one.
Father gave Denny a gold pencil-case because he was first to go
down into the tower. Oswald does not grudge Denny this, though
some might think he deserved at least a silver one. But Oswald is
above such paltry jealousies.
CHAPTER 5
THE WATERWORKS
This is the story of one of the most far-reaching and influentially
naughty things we ever did in our lives. We did not mean to do
such a deed. And yet we did do it. These things will happen with
the best-regulated consciences.
The story of this rash and fatal act is intimately involved--which
means all mixed up anyhow--with a private affair of Oswald's, and
the one cannot be revealed without the other. Oswald does not
particularly want his story to be remembered, but he wishes to tell
the truth, and perhaps it is what father calls a wholesome
discipline to lay bare the awful facts.
It was like this.
On Alice's and Noel's birthday we went on the river for a picnic.
Before that we had not known that there was a river so near us.
Afterwards father said he wished we had been allowed to remain on
our pristine ignorance, whatever that is. And perhaps the dark
hour did dawn when we wished so too. But a truce to vain regrets.
It was rather a fine thing in birthdays. The uncle sent a box of
toys and sweets, things that were like a vision from another and a
brighter world. Besides that Alice had a knife, a pair of shut-up
scissors, a silk handkerchief, a book--it was The Golden Age and is
Ai except where it gets mixed with grown-up nonsense. Also a
work-case lined with pink plush, a boot-bag, which no one in their
senses would use because it had flowers in wool all over it. And
she had a box of chocolates and a musical box that played 'The Man
who broke' and two other tunes, and two pairs of kid gloves for
church, and a box of writing-paper--pink--with 'Alice' on it in
gold writing, and an egg coloured red that said 'A. Bastable' in
ink on one side. These gifts were the offerings of Oswald, Dora,
Dicky, Albert's uncle, Daisy, Mr Foulkes (our own robber), Noel, H.
O., father and Denny. Mrs Pettigrew gave the egg. It was a kindly
housekeeper's friendly token.
I shall not tell you about the picnic on the river because the
happiest times form but dull reading when they are written down.
I will merely state that it was prime. Though happy, the day was
uneventful. The only thing exciting enough to write about was in
one of the locks, where there was a snake--a viper. It was asleep
in a warm sunny corner of the lock gate, and when the gate was shut
it fell off into the water.
Alice and Dora screamed hideously. So did Daisy, but her screams
were thinner.
The snake swam round and round all the time our boat was in the
lock. It swam with four inches of itself--the head end--reared up
out of the water, exactly like Kaa in the Jungle Book--so we know
Kipling is a true author and no rotter. We were careful to keep
our hands well inside the boat. A snake's eyes strike terror into
the boldest breast.
When the lock was full father killed the viper with a boat-hook.
I was sorry for it myself. It was indeed a venomous serpent. But
it was the first we had ever seen, except at the Zoo. And it did
swim most awfully well.
Directly the snake had been killed H. O. reached out for its
corpse, and the next moment the body of our little brother was seen
wriggling conclusively on the boat's edge. This exciting spectacle
was not of a lasting nature. He went right in. Father clawed him
out. He is very unlucky with water.
Being a birthday, but little was said. H. O. was wrapped in
everybody's coats, and did not take any cold at all.
This glorious birthday ended with an iced cake and ginger wine, and
drinking healths. Then we played whatever we liked. There had
been rounders during the afternoon. It was a day to be for ever
marked by memory's brightest what's-its-name.
I should not have said anything about the picnic but for one thing.
It was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the all-powerful lever
that moved but too many events. You see, WE WERE NO LONGER
STRANGERS TO THE RIVER.
And we went there whenever we could. Only we had to take the dogs,
and to promise no bathing without grown-ups. But paddling in back
waters was allowed. I say no more.
I have not numerated Noel's birthday presents because I wish to
leave something to the imagination of my young readers. (The best
authors always do this.) If you will take the large, red catalogue
of the Army and Navy Stores, and just make a list of about fifteen
of the things you would like best--prices from 2s. to 25s.--you
will get a very good idea of Noel's presents, and it will help you
to make up your mind in case you are asked just before your next
birthday what you really NEED.
One of Noel's birthday presents was a cricket ball. He cannot bowl
for nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the
birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won
at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book.
Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange,
and so did Noel at the time, and he agreed to it, and was quite
pleased till the girls said it wasn't fair, and Oswald had the best
of it. And then that young beggar Noel wanted the ball back, but
Oswald, though not angry, was firm.
'You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it,' he said,
and he said it quite kindly and calmly.
Noel said he didn't care. He wanted his cricket ball back. And
the girls said it was a horrid shame.
If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let
Noel have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going
to. He said--
'Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and
things again the next minute.'
'No, I shouldn't,' Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H.
O. had eaten the coconut, which only made it worse. And it made
them worse too--which is what the book calls poetic justice.
Dora said, 'I don't think it was fair,' and even Alice said--
'Do let him have it back, Oswald.'
I wish to be just to Alice. She did not know then about the
coconut having been secretly wolfed up.
We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero
when the opposing forces gathered about him are opposing as hard as
ever they can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to
be jawed at just because Noel had eaten the coconut and wanted the
ball back. Though Oswald did not know then about the eating of the
coconut, but he felt the injustice in his soul all the same.
Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to
make up for the coconut, but he said nothing about this at the
time.
'Give it me, I say,' Noel said.
And Oswald said, 'Shan't!'
Then Noel called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but
just kept smiling pleasantly, and carelessly throwing up the ball
and catching it again with an air of studied indifference.
It was Martha's fault that what happened happened. She is the
bull-dog, and very stout and heavy. She had just been let loose
and she came bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on
Oswald, who is beloved by all dumb animals. (You know how
sagacious they are.) Well, Martha knocked the ball out of Oswald's
hands, and it fell on the grass, and Noel pounced on it like a
hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald would scorn to deny that he was
not going to stand this, and the next moment the two were rolling
over on the grass, and very soon Noel was made to bite the dust.
And serve him right. He is old enough to know his own mind.
Then Oswald walked slowly away with the ball, and the others picked
Noel up, and consoled the beaten, but Dicky would not take either
side.
And Oswald went up into his own room and lay on his bed, and
reflected gloomy reflections about unfairness.
Presently he thought he would like to see what the others were
doing without their knowing he cared. So he went into the
linen-room and looked out of its window, and he saw they were
playing Kings and Queens--and Noel had the biggest paper crown and
the longest stick sceptre.
Oswald turned away without a word, for it really was sickening.
Then suddenly his weary eyes fell upon something they had not
before beheld. It was a square trap-door in the ceiling of the
linen-room.
Oswald never hesitated. He crammed the cricket ball into his
pocket and climbed up the shelves and unbolted the trap-door, and
shoved it up, and pulled himself up through it. Though above all
was dark and smelt of spiders, Oswald fearlessly shut the trap-door
down again before he struck a match. He always carries matches.
He is a boy fertile in every subtle expedient. Then he saw he was
in the wonderful, mysterious place between the ceiling and the roof
of the house. The roof is beams and tiles. Slits of light show
through the tiles here and there. The ceiling, on its other and
top side, is made of rough plaster and beams. If you walk on the
beams it is all right--if you walk on the plaster you go through
with your feet. Oswald found this out later, but some fine
instinct now taught the young explorer where he ought to tread and
where not. It was splendid. He was still very angry with the
others and he was glad he had found out a secret they jolly well
didn't know.
He walked along a dark, narrow passage. Every now and then
cross-beams barred his way, and he had to creep under them. At
last a small door loomed before him with cracks of light under and
over. He drew back the rusty bolts and opened it. It opened
straight on to the leads, a flat place between two steep red roofs,
with a parapet two feet high back and front, so that no one could
see you. It was a place no one could have invented better than, if
they had tried, for hiding in.
Oswald spent the whole afternoon there. He happened to have a
volume of Percy's Anecdotes in his pocket, the one about lawyers,
as well as a few apples. While he read he fingered the cricket
ball, and presently it rolled away, and he thought he would get it
by-and-by.
When the tea-bell rang he forgot the ball and went hurriedly down,
for apples do not keep the inside from the pangs of hunger.
Noel met him on the landing, got red in the face, and said--
'It wasn't QUITE fair about the ball, because H. O. and I had eaten
the coconut. YOU can have it.'
'I don't want your beastly ball,' Oswald said, 'only I hate
unfairness. However, I don't know where it is just now. When I
find it you shall have it to bowl with as often as you want.'
'Then you're not waxy?'
And Oswald said 'No' and they went in to tea together. So that was
all right. There were raisin cakes for tea.
Next day we happened to want to go down to the river quite early.
I don't know why; this is called Fate, or Destiny. We dropped in
at the 'Rose and Crown' for some ginger-beer on our way. The
landlady is a friend of ours and lets us drink it in her back
parlour, instead of in the bar, which would be improper for girls.
We found her awfully busy, making pies and jellies, and her two
sisters were hurrying about with great hams, and pairs of chickens,
and rounds of cold beef and lettuces, and pickled salmon and trays
of crockery and glasses.
'It's for the angling competition,' she said.
We said, 'What's that?'
'Why,' she said, slicing cucumber like beautiful machinery while
she said it, 'a lot of anglers come down some particular day and
fish one particular bit of the river. And the one that catches
most fish gets the prize. They're fishing the pen above Stoneham
Lock. And they all come here to dinner. So I've got my hands full
and a trifle over.'
We said, 'Couldn't we help?'
But she said, 'Oh, no, thank you. Indeed not, please. I really am
so I don't know which way to turn. Do run along, like dears.'
So we ran along like these timid but graceful animals.
Need I tell the intellectual reader that we went straight off to
the pen above Stoneham Lock to see the anglers competing? Angling
is the same thing as fishing.
I am not going to try and explain locks to you. If you've never
seen a lock you could never understand even if I wrote it in words
of one syllable and pages and pages long. And if you have, you'll
understand without my telling you. It is harder than Euclid if you
don't know beforehand. But you might get a grown-up person to
explain it to you with books or wooden bricks.
I will tell you what a pen is because that is easy. It is the bit
of river between one lock and the next. In some rivers 'pens' are
called 'reaches', but pen is the proper word.
We went along the towing-path; it is shady with willows, aspens,
alders, elders, oaks and other trees. On the banks are
flowers--yarrow, meadow-sweet, willow herb, loosestrife, and lady's
bed-straw. Oswald learned the names of all these trees and plants
on the day of the picnic. The others didn't remember them, but
Oswald did. He is a boy of what they call relenting memory.
The anglers were sitting here and there on the shady bank among the
grass and the different flowers I have named. Some had dogs with
them, and some umbrellas, and some had only their wives and
families.
We should have liked to talk to them and ask how they liked their
lot, and what kinds of fish there were, and whether they were nice
to eat, but we did not like to.
Denny had seen anglers before and he knew they liked to be talked
to, but though he spoke to them quite like to equals he did not ask
the things we wanted to know. He just asked whether they'd had any
luck, and what bait they used.
And they answered him back politely. I am glad I am not an angler.
It is an immovable amusement, and, as often as not, no fish to
speak of after all.
Daisy and Dora had stayed at home: Dora's foot was nearly well but
they seem really to like sitting still. I think Dora likes to have
a little girl to order about. Alice never would stand it. When we
got to Stoneham Lock Denny said he should go home and fetch his
fishing-rod. H. O. went with him. This left four of us--Oswald,
Alice, Dicky, and Noel. We went on down the towing-path.
The lock shuts up (that sounds as if it was like the lock on a
door, but it is very otherwise) between one pen of the river and
the next; the pen where the anglers were was full right up over the
roots of the grass and flowers. But the pen below was nearly
empty.
'You can see the poor river's bones,' Noel said.
And so you could.
Stones and mud and dried branches, and here and there an old kettle
or a tin pail with no bottom to it, that some bargee had chucked
in.
From walking so much along the river we knew many of the bargees.
Bargees are the captains and crews of the big barges that are
pulled up and down the river by slow horses. The horses do not
swim. They walk on the towing-path, with a rope tied to them, and
the other end to the barge. So it gets pulled along. The bargees
we knew were a good friendly sort, and used to let us go all over
the barges when they were in a good temper. They were not at all
the sort of bullying, cowardly fiends in human form that the young
hero at Oxford fights a crowd of, single-handed, in books.
The river does not smell nice when its bones are showing. But we
went along down, because Oswald wanted to get some cobbler's wax in
Falding village for a bird-net he was making.
But just above Falding Lock, where the river is narrow and
straight, we saw a sad and gloomy sight--a big barge sitting flat
on the mud because there was not water enough to float her.
There was no one on board, but we knew by a red flannel waistcoat
that was spread out to dry on top that the barge belonged to
friends of ours.
Then Alice said, 'They have gone to find the man who turns on the
water to fill the pen. I daresay they won't find him. He's gone
to his dinner, I shouldn't wonder. What a lovely surprise it would
be if they came back to find their barge floating high and dry on
a lot of water! DO let's do it. It's a long time since any of us
did a kind action deserving of being put in the Book of Golden
Deeds.'
We had given that name to the minute-book of that beastly 'Society
of the Wouldbegoods'. Then you could think of the book if you
wanted to without remembering the Society. I always tried to
forget both of them.
Oswald said, 'But how? YOU don't know how. And if you did we
haven't got a crowbar.'
I cannot help telling you that locks are opened with crowbars. You
push and push till a thing goes up and the water runs through. It
is rather like the little sliding door in the big door of a
hen-house.
'I know where the crowbar is,' Alice said. 'Dicky and I were down
here yesterday when you were su--' She was going to say sulking, I
know, but she remembered manners ere too late so Oswald bears her
no malice. She went on: 'Yesterday, when you were upstairs. And
we saw the water-tender open the lock and the weir sluices. It's
quite easy, isn't it, Dicky?'
'As easy as kiss your hand,' said Dicky; 'and what's more, I know
where he keeps the other thing he opens the sluices with. I votes
we do.'
'Do let's, if we can,' Noel said, 'and the bargees will bless the
names of their unknown benefactors. They might make a song about
us, and sing it on winter nights as they pass round the wassail
bowl in front of the cabin fire.'
Noel wanted to very much; but I don't think it was altogether for
generousness, but because he wanted to see how the sluices opened.
Yet perhaps I do but wrong the boy.
We sat and looked at the barge a bit longer, and then Oswald said,
well, he didn't mind going back to the lock and having a look at
the crowbars. You see Oswald did not propose this; he did not even
care very much about it when Alice suggested it.
But when we got to Stoneham Lock, and Dicky dragged the two heavy
crowbars from among the elder bushes behind a fallen tree, and
began to pound away at the sluice of the lock, Oswald felt it would
not be manly to stand idly apart. So he took his turn.
It was very hard work but we opened the lock sluices, and we did
not drop the crowbar into the lock either, as I have heard of being
done by older and sillier people.
The water poured through the sluices all green and solid, as if it
had been cut with a knife, and where it fell on the water
underneath the white foam spread like a moving counterpane. When
we had finished the lock we did the weir--which is wheels and
chains-- and the water pours through over the stones in a
magnificent waterfall and sweeps out all round the weir-pool.
The sight of the foaming waterfalls was quite enough reward for our
heavy labours, even without the thought of the unspeakable
gratitude that the bargees would feel to us when they got back to
their barge and found her no longer a stick-in-the-mud, but
bounding on the free bosom of the river.
When we had opened all the sluices we gazed awhile on the beauties
of Nature, and then went home, because we thought it would be more
truly noble and good not to wait to be thanked for our kind and
devoted action--and besides, it was nearly dinner-time and Oswald
thought it was going to rain.
On the way home we agreed not to tell the others, because it would
be like boasting of our good acts.
'They will know all about it,' Noel said, 'when they hear us being
blessed by the grateful bargees, and the tale of the Unknown
Helpers is being told by every village fireside. And then they can
write it in the Golden Deed book.'
So we went home. Denny and H. O. had thought better of it, and
they were fishing in the moat. They did not catch anything.
Oswald is very weather-wise--at least, so I have heard it said, and
he had thought there would be rain. There was. It came on while
we were at dinner--a great, strong, thundering rain, coming down in
sheets--the first rain we had had since we came to the Moat House.
We went to bed as usual. No presentiment of the coming awfulness
clouded our young mirth. I remember Dicky and Oswald had a
wrestling match, and Oswald won.
In the middle of the night Oswald was awakened by a hand on his
face. It was a wet hand and very cold. Oswald hit out, of course,
but a voice said, in a hoarse, hollow whisper--
'Don't be a young ass! Have you got any matches? My bed's full of
water; it's pouring down from the ceiling.'
Oswald's first thoughts was that perhaps by opening those sluices
we had flooded some secret passage which communicated with the top
of Moat House, but when he was properly awake he saw that this
could not be, on account of the river being so low.
He had matches. He is, as I said before, a boy full of resources.
He struck one and lit a candle, and Dicky, for it was indeed he,
gazed with Oswald at the amazing spectacle.
Our bedroom floor was all wet in patches. Dicky's bed stood in a
pond, and from the ceiling water was dripping in rich profusion at
a dozen different places. There was a great wet patch in the
ceiling, and that was blue, instead of white like the dry part, and
the water dripped from different parts of it.
In a moment Oswald was quite unmanned.
'Krikey!' he said, in a heart-broken tone, and remained an instant
plunged in thought.
'What on earth are we to do?' Dicky said.
And really for a short time even Oswald did not know. It was a
blood-curdling event, a regular facer. Albert's uncle had gone to
London that day to stay till the next. Yet something must be done.
The first thing was to rouse the unconscious others from their deep
sleep, because the water was beginning to drip on to their beds,
and though as yet they knew it not, there was quite a pool on
Noel's bed, just in the hollow behind where his knees were doubled
up, and one of H. O.'s boots was full of water, that surged wildly
out when Oswald happened to kick it over.
We woke them--a difficult task, but we did not shrink from it.
Then we said, 'Get up, there is a flood! Wake up, or you will be
drowned in your beds! And it's half past two by Oswald's watch.'
They awoke slowly and very stupidly. H. O. was the slowest and
stupidest.
The water poured faster and faster from the ceiling.
We looked at each other and turned pale, and Noel said--
'Hadn't we better call Mrs Pettigrew?'
But Oswald simply couldn't consent to this. He could not get rid
of the feeling that this was our fault somehow for meddling with
the river, though of course the clear star of reason told him it
could not possibly be the case.
We all devoted ourselves, heart and soul, to the work before us.
We put the bath under the worst and wettest place, and the jugs and
basins under lesser streams, and we moved the beds away to the dry
end of the room. Ours is a long attic that runs right across the
house.
But the water kept coming in worse and worse. Our nightshirts were
wet through, so we got into our other shirts and knickerbockers,
but preserved bareness in our feet. And the floor kept on being
half an inch deep in water, however much we mopped it up.
We emptied the basins out of the window as fast as they filled, and
we baled the bath with a jug without pausing to complain how hard
the work was. All the same, it was more exciting than you can
think. But in Oswald's dauntless breast he began to see that they
would HAVE to call Mrs Pettigrew.
A new waterfall broke out between the fire-grate and the
mantelpiece, and spread in devastating floods. Oswald is full of
ingenious devices. I think I have said this before, but it is
quite true; and perhaps even truer this time than it was last time
I said it.
He got a board out of the box-room next door, and rested one end in
the chink between the fireplace and the mantelpiece, and laid the
other end on the back of a chair, then we stuffed the rest of the
chink with our nightgowns, and laid a towel along the plank, and
behold, a noble stream poured over the end of the board right into
the bath we put there ready. It was like Niagara, only not so
round in shape. The first lot of water that came down the chimney
was very dirty. The wind whistled outside. Noel said, 'If it's
pipes burst, and not the rain, it will be nice for the
water-rates.' Perhaps it was only natural after this for Denny to
begin with his everlasting poetry. He stopped mopping up the water
to say:
'By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-rats were shrieking,
And in the howl of Heaven each face
Grew black as they were speaking.'
Our faces were black, and our hands too, but we did not take any
notice; we only told him not to gas but to go on mopping. And he
did. And we all did.
But more and more water came pouring down. You would not believe
so much could come off one roof.
When at last it was agreed that Mrs Pettigrew must be awakened at
all hazards, we went and woke Alice to do the fatal errand.
When she came back, with Mrs Pettigrew in a nightcap and red
flannel petticoat, we held our breath.
But Mrs Pettigrew did not even say, 'What on earth have you
children been up to NOW?' as Oswald had feared.
She simply sat down on my bed and said--
'Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!' ever so many times.
Then Denny said, 'I once saw holes in a cottage roof. The man told
me it was done when the water came through the thatch. He said if
the water lies all about on the top of the ceiling, it breaks it
down, but if you make holes the water will only come through the
holes and you can put pails under the holes to catch it.'
So we made nine holes in the ceiling with the poker, and put pails,
baths and tubs under, and now there was not so much water on the
floor. But we had to keep on working like niggers, and Mrs
Pettigrew and Alice worked the same.
About five in the morning the rain stopped; about seven the water
did not come in so fast, and presently it only dripped slowly. Our
task was done.
This is the only time I was ever up all night. I wish it happened
oftener. We did not go back to bed then, but dressed and went
down. We all went to sleep in the afternoon, though. Quite
without meaning to.
Oswald went up on the roof, before breakfast, to see if he could
find the hole where the rain had come in. He did not find any
hole, but he found the cricket ball jammed in the top of a gutter
pipe which he afterwards knew ran down inside the wall of the house
and ran into the moat below. It seems a silly dodge, but so it
was.
When the men went up after breakfast to see what had caused the
flood they said there must have been a good half-foot of water on
the leads the night before for it to have risen high enough to go
above the edge of the lead, and of course when it got above the
lead there was nothing to stop it running down under it, and
soaking through the ceiling. The parapet and the roofs kept it
from tumbling off down the sides of the house in the natural way.
They said there must have been some obstruction in the pipe which
ran down into the house, but whatever it was the water had washed
it away, for they put wires down, and the pipe was quite clear.
While we were being told this Oswald's trembling fingers felt at
the wet cricket ball in his pocket. And he KNEW, but he COULD
not tell. He heard them wondering what the obstruction could have
been, and all the time he had the obstruction in his pocket, and
never said a single word.
I do not seek to defend him. But it really was an awful thing to
have been the cause of; and Mrs Pettigrew is but harsh and hasty.
But this, as Oswald knows too well, is no excuse for his silent
conduct.
That night at tea Albert's uncle was rather silent too. At last he
looked upon us with a glance full of intelligence, and said--
'There was a queer thing happened yesterday. You know there was an
angling competition. The pen was kept full on purpose. Some
mischievous busybody went and opened the sluices and let all the
water out. The anglers' holiday was spoiled. No, the rain
wouldn't have spoiled it anyhow, Alice; anglers LIKEe rain. The
'Rose and Crown' dinner was half of it wasted because the anglers
were so furious that a lot of them took the next train to town.
And this is the worst of all--a barge, that was on the mud in the
pen below, was lifted and jammed across the river and the water
tilted her over, and her cargo is on the river bottom. It was
coals.'
During this speech there were four of us who knew not where to turn
our agitated glances. Some of us tried bread-and-butter, but it
seemed dry and difficult, and those who tried tea choked and
spluttered and were sorry they had not let it alone. When the
speech stopped Alice said, 'It was us.'
And with deepest feelings she and the rest of us told all about it.
Oswald did not say much. He was turning the obstruction round and
round in his pocket, and wishing with all his sentiments that he
had owned up like a man when Albert's uncle asked him before tea to
tell him all about what had happened during the night.
When they had told all, Albert's uncle told us four still more
plainly, and exactly, what we had done, and how much pleasure we
had spoiled, and how much of my father's money we had
wasted--because he would have to pay for the coals being got up
from the bottom of the river, if they could be, and if not, for the
price of the coals. And we saw it ALL.
And when he had done Alice burst out crying over her plate and
said--
'It's no use! We HAVE tried to be good since we've been down here.
You don't know how we've tried! And it's all no use. I believe we
are the wickedest children in the whole world, and I wish we were
all dead!'
This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were
all very shocked. But Oswald could not help looking at Albert's
uncle to see how he would take it.
He said very gravely, 'My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and
I wish you to be sorry for what you've done. And you will be
punished for it.' (We were; our pocket-money was stopped and we
were forbidden to go near the river, besides impositions miles
long.) 'But,' he went on, 'you mustn't give up trying to be good.
You are extremely naughty and tiresome, as you know very well.'
Alice, Dicky, and Noel began to cry at about this time.
'But you are not the wickedest children in the world by any means.'
Then he stood up and straightened his collar, and put his hands in
his pockets.
'You're very unhappy now,' he said, 'and you deserve to be. But I
will say one thing to you.'
Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget
(though but little he deserved it, with the obstruction in his
pocket, unowned up to all the time).
He said, 'I have known you all for four years--and you know as well
as I do how many scrapes I've seen you in and out of--but I've
never known one of you tell a lie, and I've never known one of you
do a mean or dishonourable action. And when you have done wrong
you are always sorry. Now this is something to stand firm on.
You'll learn to be good in the other ways some day.'
He took his hands out of his pockets, and his face looked
different, so that three of the four guilty creatures knew he was
no longer adamant, and they threw themselves into his arms. Dora,
Denny, Daisy, and H. O., of course, were not in it, and I think
they thanked their stars.
Oswald did not embrace Albert's uncle. He stood there and made up
his mind he would go for a soldier. He gave the wet ball one last
squeeze, and took his hand out of his pocket, and said a few words
before going to enlist. He said--
'The others may deserve what you say. I hope they do, I'm sure.
But I don't, because it was my rotten cricket ball that stopped up
the pipe and caused the midnight flood in our bedroom. And I knew
it quite early this morning. And I didn't own up.'
Oswald stood there covered with shame, and he could feel the
hateful cricket ball heavy and cold against the top of his leg,
through the pocket.
Albert's uncle said--and his voice made Oswald hot all over, but
not with shame--he said--
I shall not tell you what he said. It is no one's business but
Oswald's; only I will own it made Oswald not quite so anxious to
run away for a soldier as he had been before.
That owning up was the hardest thing I ever did. They did put that
in the Book of Golden Deeds, though it was not a kind or generous
act, and did no good to anyone or anything except Oswald's own
inside feelings. I must say I think they might have let it alone.
Oswald would rather forget it. Especially as Dicky wrote it in and
put this:
'Oswald acted a lie, which, he knows, is as bad as telling one.
But he owned up when he needn't have, and this condones his sin.
We think he was a thorough brick to do it.'
Alice scratched this out afterwards and wrote the record of the
incident in more flattering terms. But Dicky had used Father's
ink, and she used Mrs Pettigrew's, so anyone can read his
underneath the scratching outs.
The others were awfully friendly to Oswald, to show they agreed
with Albert's uncle in thinking I deserved as much share as anyone
in any praise there might be going.
It was Dora who said it all came from my quarrelling with Noel
about that rotten cricket ball; but Alice, gently yet firmly, made
her shut up.
I let Noel have the ball. It had been thoroughly soaked, but it
dried all right. But it could never be the same to me after what
it had done and what I had done.
I hope you will try to agree with Albert's uncle and not think foul
scorn of Oswald because of this story. Perhaps you have done
things nearly as bad yourself sometimes. If you have, you will
know how 'owning up' soothes the savage breast and alleviates the
gnawings of remorse.
If you have never done naughty acts I expect it is only because you
never had the sense to think of anything.
CHAPTER 6
THE CIRCUS
The ones of us who had started the Society of the Wouldbegoods
began, at about this time, to bother.
They said we had not done anything really noble-- not worth
speaking of, that is--for over a week, and that it was high time to
begin again--'with earnest endeavour', Daisy said. So then Oswald
said--
'All right; but there ought to be an end to everything. Let's each
of us think of one really noble and unselfish act, and the others
shall help to work it out, like we did when we were Treasure
Seekers. Then when everybody's had their go-in we'll write every
single thing down in the Golden Deed book, and we'll draw two lines
in red ink at the bottom, like Father does at the end of an
account. And after that, if anyone wants to be good they can jolly
well be good on our own, if at all.'
The ones who had made the Society did not welcome this wise idea,
but Dicky and Oswald were firm.
So they had to agree. When Oswald is really firm, opposingness and
obstinacy have to give way.
Dora said, 'It would be a noble action to have all the
school-children from the village and give them tea and games in the
paddock. They would think it so nice and good of us.'
But Dicky showed her that this would not be OUR good act, but
Father's, because he would have to pay for the tea, and he had
already stood us the keepsakes for the soldiers, as well as having
to stump up heavily over the coal barge. And it is in vain being
noble and generous when someone else is paying for it all the time,
even if it happens to be your father. Then three others had ideas
at the same time and began to explain what they were.
We were all in the dining-room, and perhaps we were making a bit of
a row. Anyhow, Oswald for one, does not blame Albert's uncle for
opening his door and saying--
'I suppose I must not ask for complete silence. That were too
much. But if you could whistle, or stamp with your feet, or shriek
or howl--anything to vary the monotony of your well-sustained
conversation.'
Oswald said kindly, 'We're awfully sorry. Are you busy?'
'Busy?' said Albert's uncle. 'My heroine is now hesitating on the
verge of an act which, for good or ill, must influence her whole
subsequent career. You wouldn't like her to decide in the middle
of such a row that she can't hear herself think?'
We said, 'No, we wouldn't.'
Then he said, 'If any outdoor amusement should commend itself to
you this bright mid-summer day.' So we all went out.
Then Daisy whispered to Dora--they always hang together. Daisy is
not nearly so white-micey as she was at first, but she still seems
to fear the deadly ordeal of public speaking. Dora said--
'Daisy's idea is a game that'll take us all day. She thinks
keeping out of the way when he's making his heroine decide right
would be a noble act, and fit to write in the Golden Book; and we
might as well be playing something at the same time.'
We all said 'Yes, but what?'
There was a silent interval.
'Speak up, Daisy, my child.' Oswald said; 'fear not to lay bare
the utmost thoughts of that faithful heart.'
Daisy giggled. Our own girls never giggle--they laugh right out or
hold their tongues. Their kind brothers have taught them this.
Then Daisy said--
'If we could have a sort of play to keep us out of the way. I once
read a story about an animal race. Everybody had an animal, and
they had to go how they liked, and the one that got in first got
the prize. There was a tortoise in it, and a rabbit, and a
peacock, and sheep, and dogs, and a kitten.'
This proposal left us cold, as Albert's uncle says, because we knew
there could not be any prize worth bothering about. And though you
may be ever ready and willing to do anything for nothing, yet if
there's going to be a prize there must BE a prize and there's an
end of it.
Thus the idea was not followed up. Dicky yawned and said, 'Let's
go into the barn and make a fort.'
So we did, with straw. It does not hurt straw to be messed about
with like it does hay.
The downstairs--I mean down-ladder--part of the barn was fun too,
especially for Pincher. There was as good ratting there as you
could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running
kindly beside the rat, as if she was in double harness with it.
This is the noble bull-dog's gentle and affectionate nature coming
out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual,
in the girls crying because of the poor rats. Girls cannot help
this; we must not be waxy with them on account of it, they have
their nature, the same as bull-dogs have, and it is this that makes
them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sick-bed and tending
wounded heroes.
However, the forts, and Pincher, and the girls crying, and having
to be thumped on the back, passed the time very agreeably till
dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce, and a roly-poly
pudding.
Albert's uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually,
which means we hadn't bothered.
So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told
us his heroine was by no means out of the wood yet.
And at first it was easy. Jam roly gives you a peaceful feeling
and you do not at first care if you never play any runabout game
ever any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away.
Oswald was the first to recover from his.
He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he
turned over on his back and kicked his legs up, and said--
'I say, look here; let's do something.'
Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of
grass, but I could see she was still thinking about that animal
race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without
a tortoise and a peacock, and she saw this, though not willingly.
It was H. O. who said--
'Doing anything with animals is prime, if they only will. Let's
have a circus!'
At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald's
memory, and he stretched himself, sat up, and said--
'Bully for H. O. Let's!'
The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up
and said 'Let's!' too.
Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of
animals at our command. The rabbits and the guinea-pigs, and even
all the bright, glass-eyed, stuffed denizens of our late-lamented
jungle paled into insignificance before the number of live things
on the farm.
(I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long.
I know they are the right words. And Albert's uncle says your
style is always altered a bit by what you read. And I have been
reading the Vicomte de Bragelonne. Nearly all my new words come
out of those.)
'The worst of a circus is,' Dora said, 'that you've got to teach
the animals things. A circus where the performing creatures hadn't
learned performing would be a bit silly. Let's give up a week to
teaching them and then have the circus.'
Some people have no idea of the value of time. And Dora is one of
those who do not understand that when you want to do a thing you do
want to, and not to do something else, and perhaps your own thing,
a week later.
Oswald said the first thing was to collect the performing animals.
'Then perhaps,' he said, 'we may find that they have hidden talents
hitherto unsuspected by their harsh masters.'
So Denny took a pencil and wrote a list of the animals required.
This is it:
LIST OF ANIMALS REQUISITE FOR THE
CIRCUS WE ARE GOING TO HAVE
1 Bull for bull-fight.
1 Horse for ditto (if possible).
1 Goat to do Alpine feats of daring.
1 Donkey to play see-saw.
2 White pigs--one to be Learned, and the other to play with the
clown.
Turkeys, as many as possible, because they can make a noise that
sounds like an audience applauding.
The dogs, for any odd parts.
1 Large black pig--to be the Elephant in the procession.
Calves (several) to be camels, and to stand on tubs.
Daisy ought to have been captain because it was partly her idea,
but she let Oswald be, because she is of a retiring character.
Oswald said--
'The first thing is to get all the creatures together; the paddock
at the side of the orchard is the very place, because the hedge is
good all round. When we've got the performers all there we'll make
a programme, and then dress for our parts. It's a pity there won't
be any audience but the turkeys.'
We took the animals in their right order, according to Denny's
list. The bull was the first. He is black. He does not live in
the cowhouse with the other horned people; he has a house all to
himself two fields away. Oswald and Alice went to fetch him. They
took a halter to lead the bull by, and a whip, not to hurt the bull
with, but just to make him mind.
The others were to try to get one of the horses while we were gone.
Oswald as usual was full of bright ideas.
'I daresay,' he said, 'the bull will be shy at first, and he'll
have to be goaded into the arena.'
'But goads hurt,' Alice said.
'They don't hurt the bull,' Oswald said; 'his powerful hide is too
thick.'
'Then why does he attend to it,' Alice asked, 'if it doesn't hurt?'
'Properly-brought-up bulls attend because they know they ought,'
Oswald said. 'I think I shall ride the bull,' the brave boy went
on. 'A bull-fight, where an intrepid rider appears on the bull,
sharing its joys and sorrows. It would be something quite new.'
'You can't ride bulls,' Alice said; 'at least, not if their backs
are sharp like cows.'
But Oswald thought he could. The bull lives in a house made of
wood and prickly furze bushes, and he has a yard to his house. You
cannot climb on the roof of his house at all comfortably.
When we got there he was half in his house and half out in his
yard, and he was swinging his tail because of the flies which
bothered. It was a very hot day.
'You'll see,' Alice said, 'he won't want a goad. He'll be so glad
to get out for a walk he'll drop his head in my hand like a tame
fawn, and follow me lovingly all the way.'
Oswald called to him. He said, 'Bull! Bull! Bull! Bull!' because
we did not know the animal's real name. The bull took no notice;
then Oswald picked up a stone and threw it at the bull, not
angrily, but just to make it pay attention. But the bull did not
pay a farthing's worth of it. So then Oswald leaned over the iron
gate of the bull's yard and just flicked the bull with the
whiplash. And then the bull DID pay attention. He started when
the lash struck him, then suddenly he faced round, uttering a roar
like that of the wounded King of Beasts, and putting his head down
close to his feet he ran straight at the iron gate where we were
standing.
Alice and Oswald mechanically turned away; they did not wish to
annoy the bull any more, and they ran as fast as they could across
the field so as not to keep the others waiting.
As they ran across the field Oswald had a dream-like fancy that
perhaps the bull had rooted up the gate with one paralysing blow,
and was now tearing across the field after him and Alice, with the
broken gate balanced on its horns. We climbed the stile quickly
and looked back; the bull was still on the right side of the gate.
Oswald said, 'I think we'll do without the bull. He did not seem
to want to come. We must be kind to dumb animals.'
Alice said, between laughing and crying--
'Oh, Oswald, how can you!' But we did do without the bull, and we
did not tell the others how we had hurried to get back. We just
said, 'The bull didn't seem to care about coming.'
The others had not been idle. They had got old Clover, the
cart-horse, but she would do nothing but graze, so we decided not
to use her in the bull-fight, but to let her be the Elephant. The
Elephant's is a nice quiet part, and she was quite big enough for
a young one. Then the black pig could be Learned, and the other
two could be something else. They had also got the goat; he was
tethered to a young tree.
The donkey was there. Denny was leading him in the halter. The
dogs were there, of course--they always are.
So now we only had to get the turkeys for the applause and the
calves and pigs.
The calves were easy to get, because they were in their own house.
There were five. And the pigs were in their houses too. We got
them out after long and patient toil, and persuaded them that they
wanted to go into the paddock, where the circus was to be. This is
done by pretending to drive them the other way. A pig only knows
two ways--the way you want him to go, and the other. But the
turkeys knew thousands of different ways, and tried them all. They
made such an awful row, we had to drop all ideas of ever hearing
applause from their lips, so we came away and left them.
'Never mind,' H. O. said, 'they'll be sorry enough afterwards,
nasty, unobliging things, because now they won't see the circus.
I hope the other animals will tell them about it.'
While the turkeys were engaged in baffling the rest of us, Dicky
had found three sheep who seemed to wish to join the glad throng,
so we let them.
Then we shut the gate of the paddock, and left the dumb circus
performers to make friends with each other while we dressed.
Oswald and H. O. were to be clowns. It is quite easy with Albert's
uncle's pyjamas, and flour on your hair and face, and the red they
do the brick-floors with.
Alice had very short pink and white skirts, and roses in her hair
and round her dress. Her dress was the pink calico and white
muslin stuff off the dressing-table in the girls' room fastened
with pins and tied round the waist with a small bath towel. She
was to be the Dauntless Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act
a barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we
found was freshest and most skittish. Dora was dressed for the
Haute ecole, which means a riding-habit and a high hat. She took
Dick's topper that he wears with his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs
Pettigrew's. Daisy, dressed the same as Alice, taking the muslin
from Mrs Pettigrew's dressing-table with- out saying anything
beforehand. None of us would have advised this, and indeed we were
thinking of trying to put it back, when Denny and Noel, who were
wishing to look like highwaymen, with brown-paper top-boots and
slouch hats and Turkish towel cloaks, suddenly stopped dressing and
gazed out of the window.
'Krikey!' said Dick, 'come on, Oswald!' and he bounded like an
antelope from the room.
Oswald and the rest followed, casting a hasty glance through the
window. Noel had got brown-paper boots too, and a Turkish towel
cloak. H. O. had been waiting for Dora to dress him up for the
other clown. He had only his shirt and knickerbockers and his
braces on. He came down as he was--as indeed we all did. And no
wonder, for in the paddock, where the circus was to be, a
blood-thrilling thing had transpired. The dogs were chasing the
sheep. And we had now lived long enough in the country to know the
fell nature of our dogs' improper conduct.
We all rushed into the paddock, calling to Pincher, and Martha, and
Lady. Pincher came almost at once. He is a well-brought-up
dog--Oswald trained him. Martha did not seem to hear. She is
awfully deaf, but she did not matter so much, because the sheep
could walk away from her easily. She has no pace and no wind. But
Lady is a deer-hound. She is used to pursuing that fleet and
antlered pride of the forest--the stag--and she can go like
billyo. She was now far away in a distant region of the paddock,
with a fat sheep just before her in full flight. I am sure if ever
anybody's eyes did start out of their heads with horror, like in
narratives of adventure, ours did then.
There was a moment's pause of speechless horror. We expected to
see Lady pull down her quarry, and we know what a lot of money a
sheep costs, to say nothing of its own personal feelings.
Then we started to run for all we were worth. It is hard to run
swiftly as the arrow from the bow when you happen to be wearing
pyjamas belonging to a grown-up person--as I was--but even so I
beat Dicky. He said afterwards it was because his brown-paper
boots came undone and tripped him up. Alice came in third. She
held on the dressing-table muslin and ran jolly well. But ere we
reached the fatal spot all was very nearly up with the sheep. We
heard a plop; Lady stopped and looked round. She must have heard
us bellowing to her as we ran. Then she came towards us, prancing
with happiness, but we said 'Down!' and 'Bad dog!' and ran sternly
on.
When we came to the brook which forms the northern boundary of the
paddock we saw the sheep struggling in the water. It is not very
deep, and I believe the sheep could have stood up, and been well in
its depth, if it had liked, but it would not try.
It was a steepish bank. Alice and I got down and stuck our legs
into the water, and then Dicky came down, and the three of us
hauled that sheep up by its shoulders till it could rest on Alice
and me as we sat on the bank. It kicked all the time we were
hauling. It gave one extra kick at last, that raised it up, and I
tell you that sopping wet, heavy, panting, silly donkey of a sheep
sat there on our laps like a pet dog; and Dicky got his shoulder
under it at the back and heaved constantly to keep it from flumping
off into the water again, while the others fetched the shepherd.
When the shepherd came he called us every name you can think of,
and then he said--
'Good thing master didn't come along. He would ha' called you some
tidy names.'
He got the sheep out, and took it and the others away. And the
calves too. He did not seem to care about the other performing
animals.
Alice, Oswald and Dick had had almost enough circus for just then,
so we sat in the sun and dried ourselves and wrote the programme of
the circus. This was it:
PROGRAMME
1. Startling leap from the lofty precipice by the performing
sheep. Real water, and real precipice. The gallant rescue. O. A.
and D. Bastable. (We thought we might as well put
that in though it was over and had happened accidentally.)
2. Graceful bare-backed equestrienne act on the trained pig,
Eliza. A. Bastable.
3. Amusing clown interlude, introducing trained dog, Pincher, and
the other white pig. H. O. and O. Bastable.
4. The See-Saw. Trained donkeys. (H. O. said we had only one
donkey, so Dicky said H. O. could be the other. When peace was
restored we went on to 5.)
5. Elegant equestrian act by D. Bastable. Haute ecole, on Clover,
the incomparative trained elephant from the plains of Venezuela.
6. Alpine feat of daring. The climbing of the Andes, by Billy,
the well-known acrobatic goat. (We thought we could make the Andes
out of hurdles and things, and so we could have but for what always
happens. (This is the unexpected. (This is a saying Father told
me--but I see I am three deep in brackets so I will close them
before I get into any more).).).
7. The Black but Learned Pig. ('I daresay he knows something,'
Alice said, 'if we can only find out what.' We DID find out all
too soon.)
We could not think of anything else, and our things were nearly
dry--all except Dick's brown-paper top-boots, which were mingled
with the gurgling waters of the brook.
We went back to the seat of action--which was the iron trough where
the sheep have their salt put--and began to dress up the creatures.
We had just tied the Union Jack we made out of Daisy's flannel
petticoat and cetera, when we gave the soldiers the baccy, round
the waist of the Black and Learned Pig, when we heard screams from
the back part of the house, and suddenly we saw that Billy, the
acrobatic goat, had got loose from the tree we had tied him to.
(He had eaten all the parts of its bark that he could get at, but
we did not notice it until next day, when led to the spot by a
grown-up.)
The gate of the paddock was open. The gate leading to the bridge
that goes over the moat to the back door was open too. We hastily
proceeded in the direction of the screams, and, guided by the
sound, threaded our way into the kitchen. As we went, Noel, ever
fertile in melancholy ideas, said he wondered whether Mrs Pettigrew
was being robbed, or only murdered.
In the kitchen we saw that Noel was wrong as usual. It was
neither. Mrs Pettigrew, screaming like a steam-siren and waving a
broom, occupied the foreground. In the distance the maid was
shrieking in a hoarse and monotonous way, and trying to shut
herself up inside a clothes-horse on which washing was being aired.
On the dresser--which he had ascended by a chair--was Billy, the
acrobatic goat, doing his Alpine daring act. He had found out his
Andes for himself, and even as we gazed he turned and tossed his
head in a way that showed us some mysterious purpose was hidden
beneath his calm exterior. The next moment he put his off-horn
neatly behind the end plate of the next to the bottom row, and ran
it along against the wall. The plates fell crashing on to the soup
tureen and vegetable dishes which adorned the lower range of the
Andes.
Mrs Pettigrew's screams were almost drowned in the discarding crash
and crackle of the falling avalanche of crockery.
Oswald, though stricken with horror and polite regret, preserved
the most dauntless coolness.
Disregarding the mop which Mrs Pettigrew kept on poking at the goat
in a timid yet cross way, he sprang forward, crying out to his
trusty followers, 'Stand by to catch him!'
But Dick had thought of the same thing, and ere Oswald could carry
out his long-cherished and general-like design, Dicky had caught
the goat's legs and tripped it up. The goat fell against another
row of plates, righted itself hastily in the gloomy ruins of the
soup tureen and the sauce-boats, and then fell again, this time
towards Dicky. The two fell heavily on the ground together. The
trusty followers had been so struck by the daring of Dicky and his
lion-hearted brother, that they had not stood by to catch anything.
The goat was not hurt, but Dicky had a sprained thumb and a lump on
his head like a black marble door-knob. He had to go to bed.
I will draw a veil and asterisks over what Mrs Pettigrew said.
Also Albert's uncle, who was brought to the scene of ruin by her
screams. Few words escaped our lips. There are times when it is
not wise to argue; however, little what has occurred is really our
fault.
When they had said what they deemed enough and we were let go, we
all went out. Then Alice said distractedly, in a voice which she
vainly strove to render firm--
'Let's give up the circus. Let's put the toys back in the
boxes--no, I don't mean that--the creatures in their places--and
drop the whole thing. I want to go and read to Dicky.'
Oswald has a spirit that no reverses can depreciate. He hates to
be beaten. But he gave in to Alice, as the others said so too, and
we went out to collect the performing troop and sort it out into
its proper places.
Alas! we came too late. In the interest we had felt about whether
Mrs Pettigrew was the abject victim of burglars or not, we had left
both gates open again. The old horse--I mean the trained elephant
from Venezuela--was there all right enough. The dogs we had beaten
and tied up after the first act, when the intrepid sheep bounded,
as it says in the programme. The two white pigs were there, but
the donkey was gone. We heard his hoofs down the road, growing
fainter and fainter, in the direction of the 'Rose and Crown'. And
just round the gatepost we saw a flash of red and white and blue
and black that told us, with dumb signification, that the pig was
off in exactly the opposite direction. Why couldn't they have gone
the same way? But no, one was a pig and the other was a donkey, as
Denny said afterwards.
Daisy and H. O. started after the donkey; the rest of us, with one
accord, pursued the pig--I don't know why. It trotted quietly down
the road; it looked very black against the white road, and the ends
on the top, where the Union Jack was tied, bobbed brightly as it
trotted. At first we thought it would be easy to catch up to it.
This was an error.
When we ran faster it ran faster; when we stopped it stopped and
looked round at us, and nodded. (I daresay you won't swallow this,
but you may safely. It's as true as true, and so's all that about
the goat. I give you my sacred word of honour.) I tell you the pig
nodded as much as to say--
'Oh, yes. You think you will, but you won't!' and then as soon as
we moved again off it went. That pig led us on and on, o'er miles
and miles of strange country. One thing, it did keep to the roads.
When we met people, which wasn't often, we called out to them to
help us, but they only waved their arms and roared with laughter.
One chap on a bicycle almost tumbled off his machine, and then he
got off it and propped it against a gate and sat down in the hedge
to laugh properly. You remember Alice was still dressed up as the
gay equestrienne in the dressing-table pink and white, with rosy
garlands, now very droopy, and she had no stockings on, only white
sand-shoes, because she thought they would be easier than boots for
balancing on the pig in the graceful bare-backed act.
Oswald was attired in red paint and flour and pyjamas, for a clown.
It is really IMPOSSIBLE to run speedfully in another man's pyjamas,
so Oswald had taken them off, and wore his own brown knickerbockers
belonging to his Norfolks. He had tied the pyjamas round his neck,
to carry them easily. He was afraid to leave them in a ditch, as
Alice suggested, because he did not know the roads, and for aught
he recked they might have been infested with footpads. If it had
been his own pyjamas it would have been different. (I'm going to
ask for pyjamas next winter, they are so useful in many ways.)
Noel was a highwayman in brown-paper gaiters and bath towels and a
cocked hat of newspaper. I don't know how he kept it on. And the
pig was encircled by the dauntless banner of our country. All the
same, I think if I had seen a band of youthful travellers in bitter
distress about a pig I should have tried to lend a helping hand and
not sat roaring in the hedge, no matter how the travellers and the
pig might have been dressed.
It was hotter than anyone would believe who has never had occasion
to hunt the pig when dressed for quite another part. The flour got
out of Oswald's hair into his eyes and his mouth. His brow was wet
with what the village blacksmith's was wet with, and not his fair
brow alone. It ran down his face and washed the red off in
streaks, and when he rubbed his eyes he only made it worse. Alice
had to run holding the equestrienne skirts on with both hands, and
I think the brown-paper boots bothered Noel from the first. Dora
had her skirt over her arm and carried the topper in her hand. It
was no use to tell ourselves it was a wild boar hunt--we were long
past that.
At last we met a man who took pity on us. He was a kind-hearted
man. I think, perhaps, he had a pig of his own--or, perhaps,
children. Honour to his name!
He stood in the middle of the road and waved his arms. The pig
right-wheeled through a gate into a private garden and cantered up
the drive. We followed. What else were we to do, I should like to
know?
The Learned Black Pig seemed to know its way. It turned first to
the right and then to the left, and emerged on a lawn.
'Now, all together!' cried Oswald, mustering his failing voice to
give the word of command. 'Surround him!--cut off his retreat!'
We almost surrounded him. He edged off towards the house.
'Now we've got him!' cried the crafty Oswald, as the pig got on to
a bed of yellow pansies close against the red house wall.
All would even then have been well, but Denny, at the last, shrank
from meeting the pig face to face in a manly way. He let the pig
pass him, and the next moment, with a squeak that said 'There now!'
as plain as words, the pig bolted into a French window. The
pursuers halted not. This was no time for trivial ceremony. In
another moment the pig was a captive. Alice and Oswald had their
arms round him under the ruins of a table that had had teacups on
it, and around the hunters and their prey stood the startled
members of a parish society for making clothes for the poor
heathen, that that pig had led us into the very midst of. They
were reading a missionary report or something when we ran our
quarry to earth under their table. Even as he crossed the
threshold I heard something about 'black brothers being already
white to the harvest'. All the ladies had been sewing flannel
things for the poor blacks while the curate read aloud to them.
You think they screamed when they saw the Pig and Us? You are
right.
On the whole, I cannot say that the missionary people behaved
badly. Oswald explained that it was entirely the pig's doing, and
asked pardon quite properly for any alarm the ladies had felt; and
Alice said how sorry we were but really it was NOT our fault this
time. The curate looked a bit nasty, but the presence of ladies
made him keep his hot blood to himself.
When we had explained, we said, 'Might we go?' The curate said,
'The sooner the better.' But the Lady of the House asked for our
names and addresses, and said she should write to our Father. (She
did, and we heard of it too.) They did not do anything to us, as
Oswald at one time believed to be the curate's idea. They let us
go.
And we went, after we had asked for a piece of rope to lead the pig
by.
'In case it should come back into your nice room,' Alice said.
'And that would be such a pity, wouldn't it?'
A little girl in a starched pinafore was sent for the rope. And as
soon as the pig had agreed to let us tie it round his neck we came
away. The scene in the drawing-room had not been long. The pig
went slowly,
'Like the meandering brook,'
Denny said. just by the gate the shrubs rustled and opened, and
the little girl came out. Her pinafore was full of cake.
'Here,' she said. 'You must be hungry if you've come all that way.
I think they might have given you some tea after all the trouble
you've had.' We took the cake with correct thanks.
'I wish I could play at circuses,' she said. 'Tell me about it.'
We told her while we ate the cake; and when we had done she said
perhaps it was better to hear about than do, especially the goat's
part and Dicky's.
'But I do wish auntie had given you tea,' she said.
We told her not to be too hard on her aunt, because you have to
make allowances for grown-up people. When we parted she said she
would never forget us, and Oswald gave her his pocket button-hook
and corkscrew combined for a keepsake.
Dicky's act with the goat (which is true, and no kid) was the only
thing out of that day that was put in the Golden Deed book, and he
put that in himself while we were hunting the pig.
Alice and me capturing the pig was never put in. We would scorn to
write our own good actions, but I suppose Dicky was dull with us
all away; and you must pity the dull, and not blame them.
I will not seek to unfold to you how we got the pig home, or how
the donkey was caught (that was poor sport compared to the pig).
Nor will I tell you a word of all that was said and done to the
intrepid hunters of the Black and Learned. I have told you all the
interesting part. Seek not to know the rest. It is better buried
in obliquity.
CHAPTER 7
BEING BEAVERS; OR, THE YOUNG EXPLORERS
(ARCTIC OR OTHERWISE)
You read in books about the pleasures of London, and about how
people who live in the country long for the gay whirl of fashion in
town because the country is so dull. I do not agree with this at
all. In London, or at any rate Lewisham, nothing happens unless
you make it happen; or if it happens it doesn't happen to you, and
you don't know the people it does happen to. But in the country
the most interesting events occur quite freely, and they seem to
happen to you as much as to anyone else. Very often quite without
your doing anything to help.
The natural and right ways of earning your living in the country
are much jollier than town ones, too; sowing and reaping, and doing
things with animals, are much better sport than fishmongering or
bakering or oil-shopping, and those sort of things, except, of
course, a plumber's and gasfitter's, and he is the same in town or
country--most interesting and like an engineer.
I remember what a nice man it was that came to cut the gas off once
at our old house in Lewisham, when my father's business was feeling
so poorly. He was a true gentleman, and gave Oswald and Dicky over
two yards and a quarter of good lead piping, and a brass tap that
only wanted a washer, and a whole handful of screws to do what we
liked with. We screwed the back door up with the screws, I
remember, one night when Eliza was out without leave. There was an
awful row. We did not mean to get her into trouble. We only
thought it would be amusing for her to find the door screwed up
when she came down to take in the milk in the morning. But I must
not say any more about the Lewisham house. It is only the
pleasures of memory, and nothing to do with being beavers, or any
sort of exploring.
I think Dora and Daisy are the kind of girls who will grow up very
good, and perhaps marry missionaries. I am glad Oswald's destiny
looks at present as if it might be different.
We made two expeditions to discover the source of the Nile (or the
North Pole), and owing to their habit of sticking together and
doing dull and praiseable things, like sewing, and helping with the
cooking, and taking invalid delicacies to the poor and indignant,
Daisy and Dora were wholly out of it both times, though Dora's foot
was now quite well enough to have gone to the North Pole or the
Equator either. They said they did not mind the first time,
because they like to keep themselves clean; it is another of their
queer ways. And they said they had had a better time than us. (It
was only a clergyman and his wife who called, and hot cakes for
tea.) The second time they said they were lucky not to have been in
it. And perhaps they were right. But let me to my narrating. I
hope you will like it. I am going to try to write it a different
way, like the books they give you for a prize at a girls' school--I
mean a 'young ladies' school', of course--not a high school. High
schools are not nearly so silly as some other kinds. Here goes:
'"Ah, me!" sighed a slender maiden of twelve summers, removing her
elegant hat and passing her tapery fingers lightly through her fair
tresses, "how sad it is--is it not?--to see able-bodied youths and
young ladies wasting the precious summer hours in idleness and
luxury."
'The maiden frowned reproachingly, but yet with earnest gentleness,
at the group of youths and maidens who sat beneath an umbragipeaous
beech tree and ate black currants.
'"Dear brothers and sisters," the blushing girl went on, "could we
not, even now, at the eleventh hour, turn to account these wasted
lives of ours, and seek some occupation at once improving and
agreeable?"
'"I do not quite follow your meaning, dear sister," replied the
cleverest of her brothers, on whose brow--'
It's no use. I can't write like these books. I wonder how the
books' authors can keep it up.
What really happened was that we were all eating black currants in
the orchard, out of a cabbage leaf, and Alice said--
'I say, look here, let's do something. It's simply silly to waste
a day like this. It's just on eleven. Come on!'
And Oswald said, 'Where to?'
This was the beginning of it.
The moat that is all round our house is fed by streams. One of
them is a sort of open overflow pipe from a good-sized stream that
flows at the other side of the orchard.
It was this stream that Alice meant when she said--
'Why not go and discover the source of the Nile?'
Of course Oswald knows quite well that the source of the real live
Egyptian Nile is no longer buried in that mysteriousness where it
lurked undisturbed for such a long time. But he was not going to
say so. It is a great thing to know when not to say things.
'Why not have it an Arctic expedition?' said Dicky; 'then we could
take an ice-axe, and live on blubber and things. Besides, it
sounds cooler.'
'Vote! vote!' cried Oswald. So we did.
Oswald, Alice, Noel, and Denny voted for the river of the ibis and
the crocodile. Dicky, H. O., and the other girls for the region of
perennial winter and rich blubber.
So Alice said, 'We can decide as we go. Let's start anyway.'
The question of supplies had now to be gone into. Everybody wanted
to take something different, and nobody thought the other people's
things would be the slightest use. It is sometimes thus even with
grown-up expeditions. So then Oswald, who is equal to the hardest
emergency that ever emerged yet, said--
'Let's each get what we like. The secret storehouse can be the
shed in the corner of the stableyard where we got the door for the
raft. Then the captain can decide who's to take what.'
This was done. You may think it but the work of a moment to fit
out an expedition, but this is not so, especially when you know not
whether your exploring party is speeding to Central Africa or
merely to the world of icebergs and the Polar bear.
Dicky wished to take the wood-axe, the coal hammer, a blanket, and
a mackintosh.
H. O. brought a large faggot in case we had to light fires, and a
pair of old skates he had happened to notice in the box-room, in
case the expedition turned out icy.
Noel had nicked a dozen boxes of matches, a spade, and a trowel,
and had also obtained--I know not by what means--a jar of pickled
onions.
Denny had a walking-stick--we can't break him of walking with it--a
book to read in case he got tired of being a discoverer, a
butterfly net and a box with a cork in it, a tennis ball, if we
happened to want to play rounders in the pauses of exploring, two
towels and an umbrella in the event of camping or if the river got
big enough to bathe in or to be fallen into.
Alice had a comforter for Noel in case we got late, a pair of
scissors and needle and cotton, two whole candles in case of caves.
And she had thoughtfully brought the tablecloth off the small table
in the dining-room, so that we could make all the things up into
one bundle and take it in turns to carry it.
Oswald had fastened his master mind entirely on grub. Nor had the
others neglected this.
All the stores for the expedition were put down on the tablecloth
and the corners tied up. Then it was more than even Oswald's
muscley arms could raise from the ground, so we decided not to take
it, but only the best-selected grub. The rest we hid in the straw
loft, for there are many ups and downs in life, and grub is grub at
any time, and so are stores of all kinds. The pickled onions we
had to leave, but not for ever.
Then Dora and Daisy came along with their arms round each other's
necks as usual, like a picture on a grocer's almanac, and said they
weren't coming.
It was, as I have said, a blazing hot day, and there were
differences of opinion among the explorers about what eatables we
ought to have taken, and H. O. had lost one of his garters and
wouldn't let Alice tie it up with her handkerchief, which the
gentle sister was quite willing to do. So it was a rather gloomy
expedition that set off that bright sunny day to seek the source of
the river where Cleopatra sailed in Shakespeare (or the frozen
plains Mr Nansen wrote that big book about).
But the balmy calm of peaceful Nature soon made the others less
cross--Oswald had not been cross exactly but only disinclined to do
anything the others wanted--and by the time we had followed the
stream a little way, and had seen a water-rat and shied a stone or
two at him, harmony was restored. We did not hit the rat.
You will understand that we were not the sort of people to have
lived so long near a stream without plumbing its depths. Indeed it
was the same stream the sheep took its daring jump into the day we
had the circus. And of course we had often paddled in it--in the
shallower parts. But now our hearts were set on exploring. At
least they ought to have been, but when we got to the place where
the stream goes under a wooden sheep-bridge, Dicky cried, 'A camp!
a camp!' and we were all glad to sit down at once. Not at all like
real explorers, who know no rest, day or night, till they have got
there (whether it's the North Pole, or the central point of the
part marked 'Desert of Sahara' on old-fashioned maps).
The food supplies obtained by various members were good and plenty
of it. Cake, hard eggs, sausage-rolls, currants, lemon
cheese-cakes, raisins, and cold apple dumplings. It was all very
decent, but Oswald could not help feeling that the source of the
Nile (or North Pole) was a long way off, and perhaps nothing much
when you got there.
So he was not wholly displeased when Denny said, as he lay kicking
into the bank when the things to eat were all gone--
'I believe this is clay: did you ever make huge platters and bowls
out of clay and dry them in the sun? Some people did in a book
called Foul Play, and I believe they baked turtles, or oysters, or
something, at the same time.'
He took up a bit of clay and began to mess it about, like you do
putty when you get hold of a bit. And at once the heavy gloom that
had hung over the explorers became expelled, and we all got under
the shadow of the bridge and messed about with clay.
'It will be jolly!' Alice said, 'and we can give the huge platters
to poor cottagers who are short of the usual sorts of crockery.
That would really be a very golden deed.'
It is harder than you would think when you read about it, to make
huge platters with clay. It flops about as soon as you get it any
size, unless you keep it much too thick, and then when you turn up
the edges they crack. Yet we did not mind the trouble. And we had
all got our shoes and stockings off. It is impossible to go on
being cross when your feet are in cold water; and there is
something in the smooth messiness of clay, and not minding how
dirty you get, that would soothe the savagest breast that ever
beat.
After a bit, though, we gave up the idea of the huge platter and
tried little things. We made some platters--they were like
flower-pot saucers; and Alice made a bowl by doubling up her fists
and getting Noel to slab the clay on outside. Then they smoothed
the thing inside and out with wet fingers, and it was a bowl--at
least they said it was. When we'd made a lot of things we set them
in the sun to dry, and then it seemed a pity not to do the thing
thoroughly. So we made a bonfire, and when it had burnt down we
put our pots on the soft, white, hot ashes among the little red
sparks, and kicked the ashes over them and heaped more fuel over
the top. It was a fine fire.
Then tea-time seemed as if it ought to be near, and we decided to
come back next day and get our pots.
As we went home across the fields Dicky looked back and said--
'The bonfire's going pretty strong.'
We looked. It was. Great flames were rising to heaven against the
evening sky. And we had left it,a smouldering flat heap.
'The clay must have caught alight,' H. O. said. 'Perhaps it's the
kind that burns. I know I've heard of fireclay. And there's
another sort you can eat.'
'Oh, shut up!' Dicky said with anxious scorn.
With one accord we turned back. We all felt THE feeling--the one
that means something fatal being up and it being your fault.
'Perhaps, Alice said, 'a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress was
passing by, and a spark flew on to her, and now she is rolling in
agony enveloped in flames.'
We could not see the fire now, because of the corner of the wood,
but we hoped Alice was mistaken.
But when we got in sight of the scene of our pottering industry we
saw it was as bad nearly as Alice's wild dream. For the wooden
fence leading up to the bridge had caught fire, and it was burning
like billy oh.
Oswald started to run; so did the others. As he ran he said to
himself, 'This is no time to think about your clothes. Oswald, be
bold!'
And he was.
Arrived at the site of the conflagration, he saw that caps or straw
hats full of water, however quickly and perseveringly given, would
never put the bridge out, and his eventful past life made him know
exactly the sort of wigging you get for an accident like this.
So he said, 'Dicky, soak your jacket and mine in the stream and
chuck them along. Alice, stand clear, or your silly girl's
clothes'll catch as sure as fate.'
Dicky and Oswald tore off their jackets, so did Denny, but we would
not let him and H. O. wet theirs. Then the brave Oswald advanced
warily to the end of the burning rails and put his wet jacket over
the end bit, like a linseed poultice on the throat of a suffering
invalid who has got bronchitis. The burning wood hissed and
smouldered, and Oswald fell back, almost choked with the smoke.
But at once he caught up the other wet jacket and put it on another
place, and of course it did the trick as he had known it would do.
But it was a long job, and the smoke in his eyes made the young
hero obliged to let Dicky and Denny take a turn as they had
bothered to do from the first. At last all was safe; the devouring
element was conquered. We covered up the beastly bonfire with clay
to keep it from getting into mischief again, and then Alice said--
'Now we must go and tell.'
'Of course,' Oswald said shortly. He had meant to tell all the
time.
So we went to the farmer who has the Moat House Farm, and we went
at once, because if you have any news like that to tell it only
makes it worse if you wait about. When we had told him he said--
'You little ---.' I shall not say what he said besides that,
because I am sure he must have been sorry for it next Sunday when
he went to church, if not before.
We did not take any notice of what he said, but just kept on saying
how sorry we were; and he did not take our apology like a man, but
only said he daresayed, just like a woman does. Then he went to
look at his bridge, and we went in to our tea. The jackets were
never quite the same again.
Really great explorers would never be discouraged by the daresaying
of a farmer, still less by his calling them names he ought not to.
Albert's uncle was away so we got no double slating; and next day
we started again to discover the source of the river of cataracts
(or the region of mountain-like icebergs).
We set out, heavily provisioned with a large cake Daisy and Dora
had made themselves, and six bottles of ginger-beer. I think real
explorers most likely have their ginger-beer in something lighter
to carry than stone bottles. Perhaps they have it by the cask,
which would come cheaper; and you could make the girls carry it on
their back, like in pictures of the daughters of regiments.
We passed the scene of the devouring conflagration, and the thought
of the fire made us so thirsty we decided to drink the ginger-beer
and leave the bottles in a place of concealment. Then we went on,
determined to reach our destination, Tropic or Polar, that day.
Denny and H. O. wanted to stop and try to make a fashionable
watering-place at that part where the stream spreads out like a
small-sized sea, but Noel said, 'No.' We did not like
fashionableness.
'YOU ought to, at any rate,' Denny said. 'A Mr Collins wrote an
Ode to the Fashions, and he was a great poet.'
'The poet Milton wrote a long book about Satan,' Noel said, 'but
I'm not bound to like HIM.' I think it was smart of Noel.
'People aren't obliged to like everything they write about even,
let alone read,' Alice said. 'Look at "Ruin seize thee, ruthless
king!" and all the pieces of poetry about war, and tyrants, and
slaughtered saints--and the one you made yourself about the black
beetle, Noel.'
By this time we had got by the pondy place and the danger of delay
was past; but the others went on talking about poetry for quite a
field and a half, as we walked along by the banks of the stream.
The stream was broad and shallow at this part, and you could see
the stones and gravel at the bottom, and millions of baby fishes,
and a sort of skating-spiders walking about on the top of the
water. Denny said the water must be ice for them to be able to
walk on it, and this showed we were getting near the North Pole.
But Oswald had seen a kingfisher by the wood, and he said it was an
ibis, so this was even.
When Oswald had had as much poetry as he could bear he said, 'Let's
be beavers and make a dam.' And everybody was so hot they agreed
joyously, and soon our clothes were tucked up as far as they could
go and our legs looked green through the water, though they were
pink out of it.
Making a dam is jolly good fun, though laborious, as books about
beavers take care to let you know.
Dicky said it must be Canada if we were beavers, and so it was on
the way to the Polar system, but Oswald pointed to his heated brow,
and Dicky owned it was warm for Polar regions. He had brought the
ice-axe (it is called the wood chopper sometimes), and Oswald, ever
ready and able to command, set him and Denny to cut turfs from the
bank while we heaped stones across the stream. It was clayey here,
or of course dam making would have been vain, even for the
best-trained beaver.
When we had made a ridge of stones we laid turfs against
them--nearly across the stream, leaving about two feet for the
water to go through--then more stones, and then lumps of clay
stamped down as hard as we could. The industrious beavers spent
hours over it, with only one easy to eat cake in. And at last the
dam rose to the level of the bank. Then the beavers collected a
great heap of clay, and four of them lifted it and dumped it down
in the opening where the water was running. It did splash a
little, but a true-hearted beaver knows better than to mind a bit
of a wetting, as Oswald told Alice at the time. Then with more
clay the work was completed. We must have used tons of clay; there
was quite a big long hole in the bank above the dam where we had
taken it out.
When our beaver task was performed we went on, and Dicky was so hot
he had to take his jacket off and shut up about icebergs.
I cannot tell you about all the windings of the stream; it went
through fields and woods and meadows, and at last the banks got
steeper and higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their
mysterious branches, and we felt like the princes in a fairy tale
who go out to seek their fortunes.
And then we saw a thing that was well worth coming all that way
for; the stream suddenly disappeared under a dark stone archway,
and however much you stood in the water and stuck your head down
between your knees you could not see any light at the other end.
The stream was much smaller than where we had been beavers.
Gentle reader, you will guess in a moment who it was that said--
'Alice, you've got a candle. Let's explore.' This gallant
proposal met but a cold response. The others said they didn't care
much about it, and what about tea?
I often think the way people try to hide their cowardliness behind
their teas is simply beastly.
Oswald took no notice. He just said, with that dignified manner,
not at all like sulking, which he knows so well how to put on--
'All right. I'M going. If you funk it you'd better cut along home
and ask your nurses to put you to bed.' So then, of course, they
agreed to go. Oswald went first with the candle. It was not
comfortable; the architect of that dark subterranean passage had
not imagined anyone would ever be brave enough to lead a band of
beavers into its inky recesses, or he would have built it high
enough to stand upright in. As it was, we were bent almost at a
right angle, and this is very awkward if for long.
But the leader pressed dauntlessly on, and paid no attention to the
groans of his faithful followers, nor to what they said about their
backs.
It really was a very long tunnel, though, and even Oswald was not
sorry to say, 'I see daylight.' The followers cheered as well as
they could as they splashed after him. The floor was stone as well
as the roof, so it was easy to walk on. I think the followers
would have turned back if it had been sharp stones or gravel.
And now the spot of daylight at the end of the tunnel grew larger
and larger, and presently the intrepid leader found himself
blinking in the full sun, and the candle he carried looked simply
silly. He emerged, and the others too, and they stretched their
backs and the word 'krikey' fell from more than one lip. It had
indeed been a cramping adventure. Bushes grew close to the mouth
of the tunnel, so we could not see much landscape, and when we had
stretched our backs we went on upstream and nobody said they'd had
jolly well enough of it, though in more than one young heart this
was thought.
It was jolly to be in the sunshine again. I never knew before how
cold it was underground. The stream was getting smaller and
smaller.
Dicky said, 'This can't be the way. I expect there was a turning
to the North Pole inside the tunnel, only we missed it. It was
cold enough there.'
But here a twist in the stream brought us out from the bushes, and
Oswald said--
'Here is strange, wild, tropical vegetation in the richest
profusion. Such blossoms as these never opened in a frigid
what's-its-name.'
It was indeed true. We had come out into a sort of marshy, swampy
place like I think, a jungle is, that the stream ran through, and
it was simply crammed with queer plants, and flowers we never saw
before or since. And the stream was quite thin. It was torridly
hot, and softish to walk on. There were rushes and reeds and small
willows, and it was all tangled over with different sorts of
grasses--and pools here and there. We saw no wild beasts, but
there were more different kinds of wild flies and beetles than you
could believe anybody could bear, and dragon-flies and gnats. The
girls picked a lot of flowers. I know the names of some of them,
but I will not tell you them because this is not meant to be
instructing. So I will only name meadow-sweet, yarrow,
loose-strife, lady's bed-straw and willow herb--both the larger and
the lesser.
Everyone now wished to go home. It was much hotter there than in
natural fields. It made you want to tear all your clothes off and
play at savages, instead of keeping respectable in your boots.
But we had to bear the boots because it was so brambly.
It was Oswald who showed the others how flat it would be to go home
the same way we came; and he pointed out the telegraph wires in the
distance and said--
'There must be a road there, let's make for it,' which was quite a
simple and ordinary thing to say, and he does not ask for any
credit for it. So we sloshed along, scratching our legs with the
brambles, and the water squelched in our boots, and Alice's blue
muslin frock was torn all over in those crisscross tears which are
considered so hard to darn.
We did not follow the stream any more. It was only a trickle now,
so we knew we had tracked it to its source. And we got hotter and
hotter and hotter, and the dews of agony stood in beads on our
brows and rolled down our noses and off our chins. And the flies
buzzed, and the gnats stung, and Oswald bravely sought to keep up
Dicky's courage, when he tripped on a snag and came down on a
bramble bush, by saying--
'You see it IS the source of the Nile we've discovered. What price
North Poles now?'
Alice said, 'Ah, but think of ices! I expect Oswald wishes it HAD
been the Pole, anyway.'
Oswald is naturally the leader, especially when following up what
is his own idea, but he knows that leaders have other duties
besides just leading. One is to assist weak or wounded members of
the expedition, whether Polar or Equatorish.
So the others had got a bit ahead through Oswald lending the
tottering Denny a hand over the rough places. Denny's feet hurt
him, because when he was a beaver his stockings had dropped out of
his pocket, and boots without stockings are not a bed of
luxuriousness. And he is often unlucky with his feet.
Presently we came to a pond, and Denny said--
'Let's paddle.'
Oswald likes Denny to have ideas; he knows it is healthy for the
boy, and generally he backs him up, but just now it was getting
late and the others were ahead, so he said--
'Oh, rot! come on.'
Generally the Dentist would have; but even worms will turn if they
are hot enough, and if their feet are hurting them.
'I don't care, I shall!' he said.
Oswald overlooked the mutiny and did not say who was leader. He
just said--
'Well don't be all day about it,' for he is a kind-hearted boy and
can make allowances.
So Denny took off his boots and went into the pool. 'Oh, it's
ripping!' he said. 'You ought to come in.'
'It looks beastly muddy,' said his tolerating leader.
'It is a bit,' Denny said, 'but the mud's just as cool as the
water, and so soft, it squeezes between your toes quite different
to boots.'
And so he splashed about, and kept asking Oswald to come along in.
But some unseen influence prevented Oswald doing this; or it may
have been because both his bootlaces were in hard knots.
Oswald had cause to bless the unseen influence, or the bootlaces,
or whatever it was.
Denny had got to the middle of the pool, and he was splashing
about, and getting his clothes very wet indeed, and altogether you
would have thought his was a most envious and happy state. But
alas! the brightest cloud had a waterproof lining. He was just
saying--
'You are a silly, Oswald. You'd much better--' when he gave a
blood-piercing scream, and began to kick about.
'What's up?' cried the ready Oswald; he feared the worst from the
way Denny screamed, but he knew it could not be an old meat tin in
this quiet and jungular spot, like it was in the moat when the
shark bit Dora.
'I don't know, it's biting me. Oh, it's biting me all over my
legs! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh! oh! oh!'
remarked Denny, among his screams, and he splashed towards the
bank. Oswald went into the water and caught hold of him and helped
him out. It is true that Oswald had his boots on, but I trust he
would not have funked the unknown terrors of the deep, even without
his boots, I am almost sure he would not have.
When Denny had scrambled and been hauled ashore, we saw with horror
and amaze that his legs were stuck all over with large black,
slug-looking things. Denny turned green in the face--and even
Oswald felt a bit queer, for he knew in a moment what the black
dreadfulnesses were. He had read about them in a book called
Magnet Stories, where there was a girl called Theodosia, and she
could play brilliant trebles on the piano in duets, but the other
girl knew all about leeches which is much more useful and golden
deedy. Oswald tried to pull the leeches off, but they wouldn't,
and Denny howled so he had to stop trying. He remembered from the
Magnet Stories how to make the leeches begin biting--the girl did
it with cream--but he could not remember how to stop them, and they
had not wanted any showing how to begin.
'Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh,
oh!' Denny observed, and Oswald said--
'Be a man! Buck up! If you won't let me take them off you'll just
have to walk home in them.'
At this thought the unfortunate youth's tears fell fast. But
Oswald gave him an arm, and carried his boots for him, and he
consented to buck up, and the two struggled on towards the others,
who were coming back, attracted by Denny's yells. He did not stop
howling for a moment, except to breathe. No one ought to blame him
till they have had eleven leeches on their right leg and six on
their left, making seventeen in all, as Dicky said, at once.
It was lucky he did yell, as it turned out, because a man on the
road--where the telegraph wires were--was interested by his howls,
and came across the marsh to us as hard as he could. When he saw
Denny's legs he said--
'Blest if I didn't think so,' and he picked Denny up and carried
him under one arm, where Denny went on saying 'Oh!' and 'It does
hurt' as hard as ever.
Our rescuer, who proved to be a fine big young man in the bloom of
youth, and a farm-labourer by trade, in corduroys, carried the
wretched sufferer to the cottage where he lived with his aged
mother; and then Oswald found that what he had forgotten about the
leeches was SALT. The young man in the bloom of youth's mother put
salt on the leeches, and they squirmed off, and fell with
sickening, slug-like flops on the brick floor.
Then the young man in corduroys and the bloom, etc., carried Denny
home on his back, after his legs had been bandaged up, so that he
looked like 'wounded warriors returning'.
It was not far by the road, though such a long distance by the way
the young explorers had come.
He was a good young man, and though, of course, acts of goodness
are their own reward, still I was glad he had the two half-crowns
Albert's uncle gave him, as well as his own good act. But I am not
sure Alice ought to have put him in the Golden Deed book which was
supposed to be reserved for Us.
Perhaps you will think this was the end of the source of the Nile
(or North Pole). If you do, it only shows how mistaken the
gentlest reader may be.
The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the
sofa, and we were all having our tea, with raspberries and white
currants, which we richly needed after our torrid adventures, when
Mrs Pettigrew, the housekeeper, put her head in at the door and
said--
'Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir?' to Albert's
uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you look at each
other when the grown-up has gone out, and you are silent, with your
bread-and-butter halfway to the next bite, or your teacup in mid
flight to your lips.
It was as we suppose. Albert's uncle did not come back for a long
while. We did not keep the bread-and-butter on the wing all that
time, of course, and we thought we might as well finish the
raspberries and white currants. We kept some for Albert's uncle,
of course, and they were the best ones too but when he came back he
did not notice our thoughtful unselfishness.
He came in, and his face wore the look that means bed, and very
likely no supper.
He spoke, and it was the calmness of white-hot iron, which is
something like the calmness of despair. He said--
'You have done it again. What on earth possessed you to make a
dam?'
'We were being beavers,' said H. O., in proud tones. He did not
see as we did where Albert's uncle's tone pointed to.
'No doubt,' said Albert's uncle, rubbing his hands through his
hair. 'No doubt! no doubt! Well, my beavers, you may go and build
dams with your bolsters. Your dam stopped the stream; the clay you
took for it left a channel through which it has run down and ruined
about seven pounds' worth of freshly-reaped barley. Luckily the
farmer found it out in time or you might have spoiled seventy
pounds' worth. And you burned a bridge yesterday.'
We said we were sorry. There was nothing else to say, only Alice
added, 'We didn't MEAN to be naughty.'
'Of course not,' said Albert's uncle, 'you never do. Oh, yes, I'll
kiss you--but it's bed and it's two hundred lines to-morrow, and
the line is--"Beware of Being Beavers and Burning Bridges. Dread
Dams." It will be a capital exercise in capital B's and D's.'
We knew by that that, though annoyed, he was not furious; we went
to bed.
I got jolly sick of capital B's and D's before sunset on the
morrow. That night, just as the others were falling asleep, Oswald
said--
'I say.'
'Well,' retorted his brother.
'There is one thing about it,' Oswald went on, 'it does show it was
a rattling good dam anyhow.'
And filled with this agreeable thought, the weary beavers (or
explorers, Polar or otherwise) fell asleep.
CHAPTER 8
THE HIGH-BORN BABE
It really was not such a bad baby--for a baby. Its face was round
and quite clean, which babies' faces are not always, as I daresay
you know by your own youthful relatives; and Dora said its cape was
trimmed with real lace, whatever that may be--I don't see myself
how one kind of lace can be realler than another. It was in a very
swagger sort of perambulator when we saw it; and the perambulator
was standing quite by itself in the lane that leads to the mill.
'I wonder whose baby it is,' Dora said. 'Isn't it a darling,
Alice?'
Alice agreed to its being one, and said she thought it was most
likely the child of noble parents stolen by gipsies.
'These two, as likely as not,' Noel said. 'Can't you see something
crime-like in the very way they're lying?'
They were two tramps, and they were lying on the grass at the edge
of the lane on the shady side fast asleep, only a very little
further on than where the Baby was. They were very ragged, and
their snores did have a sinister sound.
'I expect they stole the titled heir at dead of night, and they've
been travelling hot-foot ever since, so now they're sleeping the
sleep of exhaustedness,' Alice said. 'What a heart-rending scene
when the patrician mother wakes in the morning and finds the infant
aristocrat isn't in bed with his mamma.'
The Baby was fast asleep or else the girls would have kissed it.
They are strangely fond of kissing. The author never could see
anything in it himself.
'If the gipsies DID steal it,' Dora said 'perhaps they'd sell it to
us. I wonder what they'd take for it.'
'What could you do with it if you'd got it?' H. O. asked.
'Why, adopt it, of course,' Dora said. 'I've often thought I
should enjoy adopting a baby. It would be a golden deed, too.
We've hardly got any in the book yet.'
'I should have thought there were enough of us,' Dicky said.
'Ah, but you're none of you babies,' said Dora.
'Unless you count H. O. as a baby: he behaves jolly like one
sometimes.'
This was because of what had happened that morning when Dicky found
H. O. going fishing with a box of worms, and the box was the one
Dicky keeps his silver studs in, and the medal he got at school,
and what is left of his watch and chain. The box is lined with red
velvet and it was not nice afterwards. And then H. O. said Dicky
had hurt him, and he was a beastly bully, and he cried. We thought
all this had been made up, and were sorry to see it threaten to
break out again. So Oswald said--
'Oh, bother the Baby! Come along, do!'
And the others came.
We were going to the miller's with a message about some flour that
hadn't come, and about a sack of sharps for the pigs.
After you go down the lane you come to a clover-field, and then a
cornfield, and then another lane, and then it is the mill. It is
a jolly fine mill: in fact it is two--water and wind ones--one of
each kind--with a house and farm buildings as well. I never saw a
mill like it, and I don't believe you have either.
If we had been in a story-book the miller's wife would have taken
us into the neat sanded kitchen where the old oak settle was black
with time and rubbing, and dusted chairs for us--old brown Windsor
chairs--and given us each a glass of sweet- scented cowslip wine
and a thick slice of rich home-made cake. And there would have
been fresh roses in an old china bowl on the table. As it was, she
asked us all into the parlour and gave us Eiffel Tower lemonade and
Marie biscuits. The chairs in her parlour were 'bent wood', and no
flowers, except some wax ones under a glass shade, but she was very
kind, and we were very much obliged to her. We got out to the
miller, though, as soon as we could; only Dora and Daisy stayed
with her, and she talked to them about her lodgers and about her
relations in London.
The miller is a MAN. He showed us all over the mills--both
kinds--and let us go right up into the very top of the wind-mill,
and showed us how the top moved round so that the sails could catch
the wind, and the great heaps of corn, some red and some yellow
(the red is English wheat), and the heaps slice down a little bit
at a time into a square hole and go down to the mill-stones. The
corn makes a rustling soft noise that is very jolly--something like
the noise of the sea--and you can hear it through all the other
mill noises.
Then the miller let us go all over the water-mill. It is fairy
palaces inside a mill. Everything is powdered over white, like
sugar on pancakes when you are allowed to help yourself. And he
opened a door and showed us the great water-wheel working on slow
and sure, like some great, round, dripping giant, Noel said, and
then he asked us if we fished.
'Yes,' was our immediate reply.
'Then why not try the mill-pool?' he said, and we replied politely;
and when he was gone to tell his man something we owned to each
other that he was a trump.
He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash
saplings for rods; he found us in lines and hooks, and several
different sorts of bait, including a handsome handful of
meal-worms, which Oswald put loose in his pocket.
When it came to bait, Alice said she was going home with Dora and
Daisy. Girls are strange, mysterious, silly things. Alice always
enjoys a rat hunt until the rat is caught, but she hates fishing
from beginning to end. We boys have got to like it. We don't feel
now as we did when we turned off the water and stopped the
competition of the competing anglers. We had a grand day's fishing
that day. I can't think what made the miller so kind to us.
Perhaps he felt a thrill of fellow-feeling in his manly breast for
his fellow-sportsmen, for he was a noble fisherman himself.
We had glorious sport--eight roach, six dace, three eels, seven
perch, and a young pike, but he was so very young the miller asked
us to put him back, and of course we did. 'He'll live to bite
another day,' said the miller.
The miller's wife gave us bread and cheese and more Eiffel Tower
lemonade, and we went home at last, a little damp, but full of
successful ambition, with our fish on a string.
It had been a strikingly good time--one of those times that happen
in the country quite by themselves. Country people are much more
friendly than town people. I suppose they don't have to spread
their friendly feelings out over so many persons, so it's thicker,
like a pound of butter on one loaf is thicker than on a dozen.
Friendliness in the country is not scrape, like it is in London.
Even Dicky and H. O. forgot the affair of honour that had taken
place in the morning. H. O. changed rods with Dicky because H.
O.'s was the best rod, and Dicky baited H. O.'s hook for him, just
like loving, unselfish brothers in Sunday School magazines.
We were talking fishlikely as we went along down the lane and
through the cornfield and the cloverfield, and then we came to the
other lane where we had seen the Baby. The tramps were gone, and
the perambulator was gone, and, of course, the Baby was gone too.
'I wonder if those gipsies HAD stolen the Baby?' Noel said
dreamily. He had not fished much, but he had made a piece of
poetry. It was this:
'How I wish
I was a fish.
I would not look
At your hook,
But lie still and be cool
At the bottom of the pool
And when you went to look
At your cruel hook,
You would not find me there,
So there!'
'If they did steal the Baby,' Noel went on, 'they will be tracked
by the lordly perambulator. You can disguise a baby in rags and
walnut juice, but there isn't any disguise dark enough to conceal
a perambulator's person.'
'You might disguise it as a wheel-barrow,' said Dicky.
'Or cover it with leaves,' said H. O., 'like the robins.'
We told him to shut up and not gibber, but afterwards we had to own
that even a young brother may sometimes talk sense by accident.
For we took the short cut home from the lane--it begins with a
large gap in the hedge and the grass and weeds trodden down by the
hasty feet of persons who were late for church and in too great a
hurry to go round by the road. Our house is next to the church, as
I think I have said before, some time.
The short cut leads to a stile at the edge of a bit of wood (the
Parson's Shave, they call it, because it belongs to him). The wood
has not been shaved for some time, and it has grown out beyond the
stile and here, among the hazels and chestnuts and young dogwood
bushes, we saw something white. We felt it was our duty to
investigate, even if the white was only the under side of the tail
of a dead rabbit caught in a trap.
It was not--it was part of the perambulator. I forget whether I
said that the perambulator was enamelled white--not the kind of
enamelling you do at home with Aspinall's and the hairs of the
brush come out and it is gritty-looking, but smooth, like the
handles of ladies very best lace parasols. And whoever had
abandoned the helpless perambulator in that lonely spot had done
exactly as H. O. said, and covered it with leaves, only they were
green and some of them had dropped off.
The others were wild with excitement. Now or never, they thought,
was a chance to be real detectives. Oswald alone retained a calm
exterior. It was he who would not go straight to the police
station.
He said: 'Let's try and ferret out something for ourselves before
we tell the police. They always have a clue directly they hear
about the finding of the body. And besides, we might as well let
Alice be in anything there is going. And besides, we haven't had
our dinners yet.'
This argument of Oswald's was so strong and powerful--his arguments
are often that, as I daresay you have noticed--that the others
agreed. It was Oswald, too, who showed his artless brothers why
they had much better not take the deserted perambulator home with
them.
'The dead body, or whatever the clue is, is always left exactly as
it is found,' he said, 'till the police have seen it, and the
coroner, and the inquest, and the doctor, and the sorrowing
relations. Besides, suppose someone saw us with the beastly thing,
and thought we had stolen it; then they would say, "What have you
done with the Baby?" and then where should we be?' Oswald's
brothers could not answer this question, but once more Oswald's
native eloquence and far-seeing discerningness conquered.
'Anyway,' Dicky said, 'let's shove the derelict a little further
under cover.'
So we did.
Then we went on home. Dinner was ready and so were Alice and
Daisy, but Dora was not there.
'She's got a-- well, she's not coming to dinner anyway,' Alice said
when we asked. 'She can tell you herself afterwards what it is
she's got.'
Oswald thought it was headache, or pain in the temper, or in the
pinafore, so he said no more, but as soon as Mrs Pettigrew had
helped us and left the room he began the thrilling tale of the
forsaken perambulator. He told it with the greatest thrillingness
anyone could have, but Daisy and Alice seemed almost unmoved.
Alice said--
'Yes, very strange,' and things like that, but both the girls
seemed to be thinking of something else. They kept looking at each
other and trying not to laugh, so Oswald saw they had got some
silly secret and he said--
'Oh, all right! I don't care about telling you. I only thought
you'd like to be in it. It's going to be a really big thing, with
policemen in it, and perhaps a judge.'
'In what?' H. O. said; 'the perambulator?'
Daisy choked and then tried to drink, and spluttered and got
purple, and had to be thumped on the back. But Oswald was not
appeased. When Alice said, 'Do go on, Oswald. I'm sure we all
like it very much,' he said--
'Oh, no, thank you,' very politely. 'As it happens,' he went on,
'I'd just as soon go through with this thing without having any
girls in it.'
'In the perambulator?' said H. O. again.
'It's a man's job,' Oswald went on, without taking any notice of H.
O.
'Do you really think so,' said Alice, 'when there's a baby in it?'
'But there isn't,' said H. O., 'if you mean in the perambulator.'
'Blow you and your perambulator,' said Oswald, with gloomy
forbearance.
Alice kicked Oswald under the table and said--
'Don't be waxy, Oswald. Really and truly Daisy and I HAVE got a
secret, only it's Dora's secret, and she wants to tell you herself.
If it was mine or Daisy's we'd tell you this minute, wouldn't we,
Mouse?'
'This very second,' said the White Mouse.
And Oswald consented to take their apologies.
Then the pudding came in, and no more was said except asking for
things to be passed--sugar and water, and bread and things.
Then when the pudding was all gone, Alice said--
'Come on.'
And we came on. We did not want to be disagreeable, though really
we were keen on being detectives and sifting that perambulator to
the very dregs. But boys have to try to take an interest in their
sisters' secrets, however silly. This is part of being a good
brother.
Alice led us across the field where the sheep once fell into the
brook, and across the brook by the plank. At the other end of the
next field there was a sort of wooden house on wheels, that the
shepherd sleeps in at the time of year when lambs are being born,
so that he can see that they are not stolen by gipsies before the
owners have counted them.
To this hut Alice now led her kind brothers and Daisy's kind
brother.
'Dora is inside,' she said, 'with the Secret. We were afraid to
have it in the house in case it made a noise.'
The next moment the Secret was a secret no longer, for we all
beheld Dora, sitting on a sack on the floor of the hut, with the
Secret in her lap.
It was the High-born Babe!
Oswald was so overcome that he sat down suddenly, just like Betsy
Trotwood did in David Copperfield, which just shows what a true
author Dickens is.
'You've done it this time,' he said. 'I suppose you know you're a
baby-stealer?'
'I'm not,' Dora said. 'I've adopted him.'
'Then it was you,' Dicky said, 'who scuttled the perambulator in
the wood?'
'Yes,' Alice said; 'we couldn't get it over the stile unless Dora
put down the Baby, and we were afraid of the nettles for his legs.
His name is to be Lord Edward.'
'But, Dora--really, don't you think--'
'If you'd been there you'd have done the same,' said Dora firmly.
'The gipsies had gone. Of course something had frightened them and
they fled from justice. And the little darling was awake and held
out his arms to me. No, he hasn't cried a bit, and I know all
about babies; I've often nursed Mrs Simpkins's daughter's baby when
she brings it up on Sundays. They have bread and milk to eat. You
take him, Alice, and I'll go and get some bread and milk for him.'
Alice took the noble brat. It was horribly lively, and squirmed
about in her arms, and wanted to crawl on the floor. She could
only keep it quiet by saying things to it a boy would be ashamed
even to think of saying, such as 'Goo goo', and 'Did ums was', and
'Ickle ducksums, then'.
When Alice used these expressions the Baby laughed and chuckled and
replied--
'Daddadda', 'Bababa', or 'Glueglue'.
But if Alice stopped her remarks for an instant the thing screwed
its face up as if it was going to cry, but she never gave it time
to begin.
It was a rummy little animal.
Then Dora came back with the bread and milk, and they fed the noble
infant. It was greedy and slobbery, but all three girls seemed
unable to keep their eyes and hands off it. They looked at it
exactly as if it was pretty.
We boys stayed watching them. There was no amusement left for us
now, for Oswald saw that Dora's Secret knocked the bottom out of
the perambulator.
When the infant aristocrat had eaten a hearty meal it sat on
Alice's lap and played with the amber heart she wears that Albert's
uncle brought her from Hastings after the business of the bad
sixpence and the nobleness of Oswald.
'Now,' said Dora, 'this is a council, so I want to be
business-like. The Duckums Darling has been stolen away; its
wicked stealers have deserted the Precious. We've got it. Perhaps
its ancestral halls are miles and miles away. I vote we keep the
little Lovey Duck till it's advertised for.'
'If Albert's uncle lets you,' said Dicky darkly.
'Oh, don't say "you" like that,' Dora said; 'I want it to be all of
our baby. It will have five fathers and three mothers, and a
grandfather and a great Albert's uncle, and a great grand-uncle.
I'm sure Albert's uncle will let us keep it--at any rate till it's
advertised for.'
'And suppose it never is,' Noel said.
'Then so much the better,' said Dora, 'the little Duckyux.'
She began kissing the baby again. Oswald, ever thoughtful, said--
'Well, what about your dinner?'
'Bother dinner!' Dora said--so like a girl. 'Will you all agree to
be his fathers and mothers?'
'Anything for a quiet life,' said Dicky, and Oswald said--
'Oh, yes, if you like. But you'll see we shan't be allowed to keep
it.'
'You talk as if he was rabbits or white rats,' said Dora, 'and he's
not--he's a little man, he is.'
'All right, he's no rabbit, but a man. Come on and get some grub,
Dora,' rejoined the kind-hearted Oswald, and Dora did, with Oswald
and the other boys. Only Noel stayed with Alice. He really seemed
to like the baby. When I looked back he was standing on his head
to amuse it, but the baby did not seem to like him any better
whichever end of him was up.
Dora went back to the shepherd's house on wheels directly she had
had her dinner. Mrs Pettigrew was very cross about her not being
in to it, but she had kept her some mutton hot all the same. She
is a decent sort. And there were stewed prunes. We had some to
keep Dora company. Then we boys went fishing again in the moat,
but we caught nothing.
Just before tea-time we all went back to the hut, and before we got
half across the last field we could hear the howling of the Secret.
'Poor little beggar,' said Oswald, with manly tenderness. 'They
must be sticking pins in it.'
We found the girls and Noel looking quite pale and breathless.
Daisy was walking up and down with the Secret in her arms. It
looked like Alice in Wonderland nursing the baby that turned into
a pig. Oswald said so, and added that its screams were like it
too.
'What on earth is the matter with it?' he said.
'_I_ don't know,' said Alice. 'Daisy's tired, and Dora and I are
quite worn out. He's been crying for hours and hours. YOU take
him a bit.'
'Not me,' replied Oswald, firmly, withdrawing a pace from the
Secret.
Dora was fumbling with her waistband in the furthest corner of the
hut.
'I think he's cold,' she said. 'I thought I'd take off my
flannelette petticoat, only the horrid strings got into a hard
knot. Here, Oswald, let's have your knife.'
With the word she plunged her hand into Oswald's jacket pocket, and
next moment she was rubbing her hand like mad on her dress, and
screaming almost as loud as the Baby. Then she began to laugh and
to cry at the same time. This is called hysterics.
Oswald was sorry, but he was annoyed too. He had forgotten that
his pocket was half full of the meal-worms the miller had kindly
given him. And, anyway, Dora ought to have known that a man always
carries his knife in his trousers pocket and not in his jacket one.
Alice and Daisy rushed to Dora. She had thrown herself down on the
pile of sacks in the corner. The titled infant delayed its screams
for a moment to listen to Dora's, but almost at once it went on
again.
'Oh, get some water!' said Alice. 'Daisy, run!'
The White Mouse, ever docile and obedient, shoved the baby into the
arms of the nearest person, who had to take it or it would have
fallen a wreck to the ground. This nearest person was Oswald. He
tried to pass it on to the others, but they wouldn't. Noel would
have, but he was busy kissing Dora and begging her not to.
So our hero, for such I may perhaps term him, found himself the
degraded nursemaid of a small but furious kid.
He was afraid to lay it down, for fear in its rage it should beat
its brains out against the hard earth, and he did not wish, however
innocently, to be the cause of its hurting itself at all. So he
walked earnestly up and down with it, thumping it unceasingly on
the back, while the others attended to Dora, who presently ceased
to yell.
Suddenly it struck Oswald that the High-born also had ceased to
yell. He looked at it, and could hardly believe the glad tidings
of his faithful eyes. With bated breath he hastened back to the
sheep-house.
The others turned on him, full of reproaches about the meal-worms
and Dora, but he answered without anger.
'Shut up,' he said in a whisper of imperial command. 'Can't you
see it's GONE TO SLEEP?'
As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a
very long Athletic Sports, the youthful Bastables and their friends
dragged their weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was
compelled to go on holding the titled infant, for fear it should
wake up if it changed hands, and begin to yell again. Dora's
flannelette petticoat had been got off somehow--how I do not seek
to inquire--and the Secret was covered with it. The others
surrounded Oswald as much as possible, with a view to concealment
if we met Mrs Pettigrew. But the coast was clear. Oswald took the
Secret up into his bedroom. Mrs Pettigrew doesn't come there much,
it's too many stairs.
With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It
sighed, but did not wake. Then we took it in turns to sit by it
and see that it did not get up and fling itself out of bed, which,
in one of its furious fits, it would just as soon have done as not.
We expected Albert's uncle every minute.
At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out
and saw that there he was talking to a distracted-looking man on a
piebald horse--one of the miller's horses.
A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not remember
having done anything wrong at the miller's. But you never know.
And it seemed strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But
when we had looked a bit longer our fears went down and our
curiosity got up. For we saw that the distracted one was a
gentleman.
Presently he rode off, and Albert's uncle came in. A deputation
met him at the door--all the boys and Dora, because the baby was
her idea.
'We've found something,' Dora said, 'and we want to know whether we
may keep it.'
The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to
keep it after we had heard how much and how long it could howl.
Even Noel had said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora
said it only cried because it was sleepy, but we reflected that it
would certainly be sleepy once a day, if not oftener.
'What is it?' said Albert's uncle. 'Let's see this treasure-trove.
Is it a wild beast?'
'Come and see,' said Dora, and we led him to our room.
Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride,
and showed the youthful heir fatly and pinkly sleeping.
'A baby!' said Albert's uncle. 'THE Baby! Oh, my cat's alive!'
That is an expression which he uses to express despair unmixed with
anger.
'Where did you?-- but that doesn't matter. We'll talk of this
later.'
He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount
his bicycle and ride off.
Quite shortly he returned with the distracted horse- man.
It was HIS baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife
were the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the
village.
She SAID she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to
speak to her sweetheart who was gardener at the Red House. But we
knew she left it over an hour, and nearly two.
I never saw anyone so pleased as the distracted horseman.
When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was
the prey of gipsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the
Baby, and actually thanked us.
But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own
business. But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and
most of the others, they agreed that they would rather mind their
own business all their lives than mind a baby for a single hour.
If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of
sleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like.
If you have been through such a scene you will understand how we
managed to bear up under having no baby to adopt.
Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden
Deed book. Of course his share could not be put in without telling
about Dora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and
Oswald could not and cannot forget that he was the one who did get
that baby to sleep.
What a time Mr and Mrs Distracted Horseman must have of it,
though--especially now they've sacked the nursemaid.
If Oswald is ever married--I suppose he must be some day--he will
have ten nurses to each baby. Eight is not enough. We know that
because we tried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the
needs of that deserted infant who was not so extra high-born after
all.
CHAPTER 9
HUNTING THE FOX
It is idle to expect everyone to know everything in the world
without being told. If we had been brought up in the country we
should have known that it is not done--to hunt the fox in August.
But in the Lewisham Road the most observing boy does not notice the
dates when it is proper to hunt foxes.
And there are some things you cannot bear to think that anybody
would think you would do; that is why I wish to say plainly at the
very beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose
even to save our skins. Of course, if a man were at bay in a cave,
and had to defend girls from the simultaneous attack of a herd of
savage foxes it would be different. A man is bound to protect
girls and take care of them--they can jolly well take care of
themselves really it seems to me--still, this is what Albert's
uncle calls one of the 'rules of the game', so we are bound to
defend them and fight for them to the death, if needful. Denny
knows a quotation which says--
'What dire offence from harmless causes springs,
What mighty contests rise from trefoil things.'
He says this means that all great events come from three
things--threefold, like the clover or trefoil, and the causes are
always harmless. Trefoil is short for threefold.
There were certainly three things that led up to the adventure
which is now going to be told you. The first was our Indian uncle
coming down to the country to see us. The second was Denny's
tooth. The third was only our wanting to go hunting; but if you
count it in it makes the thing about the trefoil come right. And
all these causes were harmless.
It is a flattering thing to say, and it was not Oswald who said it,
but Dora. She said she was certain our uncle missed us, and that
he felt he could no longer live without seeing his dear ones (that
was us).
Anyway, he came down, without warning, which is one of the few bad
habits that excellent Indian man has, and this habit has ended in
unpleasantness more than once, as when we played jungles.
However, this time it was all right. He came on rather a dull kind
of day, when no one had thought of anything particularly amusing to
do. So that, as it happened to be dinner-time and we had just
washed our hands and faces, we were all spotlessly clean (compared
with what we are sometimes, I mean, of course).
We were just sitting down to dinner, and Albert's uncle was just
plunging the knife into the hot heart of the steak pudding, when
there was the rumble of wheels, and the station fly stopped at the
garden gate. And in the fly, sitting very upright, with his hands
on his knees, was our Indian relative so much beloved. He looked
very smart, with a rose in his buttonhole. How different from what
he looked in other days when he helped us to pretend that our
currant pudding was a wild boar we were killing with our forks.
Yet, though tidier, his heart still beat kind and true. You should
not judge people harshly because their clothes are tidy. He had
dinner with us, and then we showed him round the place, and told
him everything we thought he would like to hear, and about the
Tower of Mystery, and he said--
'It makes my blood boil to think of it.'
Noel said he was sorry for that, because everyone else we had told
it to had owned, when we asked them, that it froze their blood.
'Ah,' said the Uncle, 'but in India we learn how to freeze our
blood and boil it at the same time.'
In those hot longitudes, perhaps, the blood is always near
boiling-point, which accounts for Indian tempers, though not for
the curry and pepper they eat. But I must not wander; there is no
curry at all in this story. About temper I will not say.
Then Uncle let us all go with him to the station when the fly came
back for him; and when we said good-bye he tipped us all half a
quid, without any insidious distinctions about age or considering
whether you were a boy or a girl. Our Indian uncle is a true-born
Briton, with no nonsense about him.
We cheered him like one man as the train went off, and then we
offered the fly-driver a shilling to take us back to the four
cross-roads, and the grateful creature did it for nothing because,
he said, the gent had tipped him something like. How scarce is
true gratitude! So we cheered the driver too for this rare virtue,
and then went home to talk about what we should do with our money.
I cannot tell you all that we did with it, because money melts away
'like snow-wreaths in thaw-jean', as Denny says, and somehow the
more you have the more quickly it melts. We all went into
Maidstone, and came back with the most beautiful lot of brownpaper
parcels, with things inside that supplied long-felt wants.
But none of them belongs to this narration, except what Oswald and
Denny clubbed to buy.
This was a pistol, and it took all the money they both had, but
when Oswald felt the uncomfortable inside sensation that reminds
you who it is and his money that are soon parted he said to
himself--
'I don't care. We ought to have a pistol in the house, and one
that will go off, too--not those rotten flintlocks. Suppose there
should be burglars and us totally unarmed?'
We took it in turns to have the pistol, and we decided always to
practise with it far from the house, so as not to frighten the
grown-ups, who are always much nervouser about firearms than we
are.
It was Denny's idea getting it; and Oswald owns it surprised him,
but the boy was much changed in his character. We got it while the
others were grubbing at the pastry-cook's in the High Street, and
we said nothing till after tea, though it was hard not to fire at
the birds on the telegraph wires as we came home in the train.
After tea we called a council in the straw-loft, and Oswald said--
'Denny and I have got a secret.'
'I know what it is,' Dicky said contemptibly. 'You've found out
that shop in Maidstone where peppermint rock is four ounces a
penny. H. O. and I found it out before you did.'
Oswald said, 'You shut-up. If you don't want to hear the secret
you'd better bunk. I'm going to administer the secret oath.'
This is a very solemn oath, and only used about real things, and
never for pretending ones, so Dicky said--
'Oh, all right; go ahead! I thought you were only rotting.'
So they all took the secret oath. Noel made it up long before,
when he had found the first thrush's nest we ever saw in the
Blackheath garden:
'I will not tell, I will not reveal,
I will not touch, or try to steal;
And may I be called a beastly sneak,
If this great secret I ever repeat.'
It is a little wrong about the poetry, but it is a very binding
promise. They all repeated it, down to H. O.
'Now then,' Dicky said, 'what's up?'
Oswald, in proud silence, drew the pistol from his breast and held
it out, and there was a murmur of awful amazement and respect from
every one of the council. The pistol was not loaded, so we let
even the girls have it to look at. And then Dicky said, 'Let's go
hunting.'
And we decided that we would. H. O. wanted to go down to the
village and get penny horns at the shop for the huntsmen to wind,
like in the song, but we thought it would be more modest not to
wind horns or anything noisy, at any rate not until we had run down
our prey. But his talking of the song made us decide that it was
the fox we wanted to hunt. We had not been particular which animal
we hunted before that.
Oswald let Denny have first go with the pistol, and when we went to
bed he slept with it under his pillow, but not loaded, for fear he
should have a nightmare and draw his fell weapon before he was
properly awake.
Oswald let Denny have it, because Denny had toothache, and a pistol
is consoling though it does not actually stop the pain of the
tooth. The toothache got worse, and Albert's uncle looked at it,
and said it was very loose, and Denny owned he had tried to crack
a peach-stone with it. Which accounts. He had creosote and
camphor, and went to bed early, with his tooth tied up in red
flannel.
Oswald knows it is right to be very kind when people are ill, and
he forbore to wake the sufferer next morning by buzzing a pillow at
him, as he generally does. He got up and went over to shake the
invalid, but the bird had flown and the nest was cold. The pistol
was not in the nest either, but Oswald found it afterwards under
the looking-glass on the dressing-table. He had just awakened the
others (with a hair- brush because they had not got anything the
matter with their teeth), when he heard wheels, and, looking out,
beheld Denny and Albert's uncle being driven from the door in the
farmer's high cart with the red wheels.
We dressed extra quick, so as to get downstairs to the bottom of
the mystery. And we found a note from Albert's uncle. It was
addressed to Dora, and said--
'Denny's toothache got him up in the small hours. He's off to the
dentist to have it out with him, man to man. Home to dinner.'
Dora said, 'Denny's gone to the dentist.'
'I expect it's a relation,' H. O. said. 'Denny must be short for
Dentist.'
I suppose he was trying to be funny--he really does try very hard.
He wants to be a clown when he grows up. The others laughed.
'I wonder,' said Dicky, 'whether he'll get a shilling or
half-a-crown for it.'
Oswald had been meditating in gloomy silence, now he cheered up and
said--
'Of course! I'd forgotten that. He'll get his tooth money, and
the drive too. So it's quite fair for us to have the fox-hunt
while he's gone. I was thinking we should have to put it off.'
The others agreed that it would not be unfair.
'We can have another one another time if he wants to,' Oswald said.
We know foxes are hunted in red coats and on horseback--but we
could not do this--but H. O. had the old red football jersey that
was Albert's uncle's when he was at Loretto. He was pleased.
'But I do wish we'd had horns,' he said grievingly. 'I should have
liked to wind the horn.'
'We can pretend horns,' Dora said; but he answered, 'I didn't want
to pretend. I wanted to wind something.'
'Wind your watch,' Dicky said. And that was unkind, because we all
know H. O.'s watch is broken, and when you wind it, it only rattles
inside without going in the least.
We did not bother to dress up much for the hunting expedition--just
cocked hats and lath swords; and we tied a card on to H. O.'s chest
with 'Moat House Fox-Hunters' on it; and we tied red flannel round
all the dogs' necks to show they were fox-hounds. Yet it did not
seem to show it plainly; somehow it made them look as if they were
not fox-hounds, but their own natural breeds--only with sore
throats.
Oswald slipped the pistol and a few cartridges into his pocket. He
knew, of course, that foxes are not shot; but as he said--
'Who knows whether we may not meet a bear or a crocodile.'
We set off gaily. Across the orchard and through two cornfields,
and along the hedge of another field, and so we got into the wood,
through a gap we had happened to make a day or two before, playing
'follow my leader'.
The wood was very quiet and green; the dogs were happy and most
busy. Once Pincher started a rabbit. We said, 'View Halloo!' and
immediately started in pursuit; but the rabbit went and hid, so
that even Pincher could not find him, and we went on. But we saw
no foxes.
So at last we made Dicky be a fox, and chased him down the green
rides. A wide walk in a wood is called a ride, even if people
never do anything but walk in it.
We had only three hounds--Lady, Pincher and Martha--so we joined
the glad throng and were being hounds as hard as we could, when we
suddenly came barking round a corner in full chase and stopped
short, for we saw that our fox had stayed his hasty flight. The
fox was stooping over something reddish that lay beside the path,
and he cried--
'I say, look here!' in tones that thrilled us throughout.
Our fox--whom we must now call Dicky, so as not to muddle the
narration--pointed to the reddy thing that the dogs were sniffing
at.
'It's a real live fox,' he said. And so it was. At least it was
real--only it was quite dead--and when Oswald lifted it up its head
was bleeding. It had evidently been shot through the brain and
expired instantly. Oswald explained this to the girls when they
began to cry at the sight of the poor beast; I do not say he did
not feel a bit sorry himself.
The fox was cold, but its fur was so pretty, and its tail and its
little feet. Dicky strung the dogs on the leash; they were so much
interested we thought it was better.
'It does seem horrid to think it'll never see again out of its poor
little eyes,' Dora said, blowing her nose.
'And never run about through the wood again, lend me your hanky,
Dora' said Alice.
'And never be hunted or get into a hen-roost or a trap or anything
exciting, poor little thing,' said Dicky.
The girls began to pick green chestnut leaves to cover up the poor
fox's fatal wound, and Noel began to walk up and down making faces,
the way he always does when he's making poetry. He cannot make one
without the other. It works both ways, which is a comfort.
'What are we going to do now?' H. O. said; 'the huntsman ought to
cut off its tail, I'm quite certain. Only, I've broken the big
blade of my knife, and the other never was any good.'
The girls gave H. O. a shove, and even Oswald said, 'Shut up', for
somehow we all felt we did not want to play fox-hunting any more
that day. When his deadly wound was covered the fox hardly looked
dead at all.
'Oh, I wish it wasn't true!' Alice said.
Daisy had been crying all the time, and now she said, 'I should
like to pray God to make it not true.'
But Dora kissed her, and told her that was no good --only she might
pray God to take care of the fox's poor little babies, if it had
had any, which I believe she has done ever since.
'If only we could wake up and find it was a horrid dream,' Alice
said.
It seems silly that we should have cared so much when we had really
set out to hunt foxes with dogs, but it is true. The fox's feet
looked so helpless. And there was a dusty mark on its side that I
know would not have been there if it had been alive and able to
wash itself.
Noel now said, 'This is the piece of poetry':
'Here lies poor Reynard who is slain,
He will not come to life again.
I never will the huntsman's horn
Wind since the day that I was born
Until the day I die--
For I don't like hunting, and this is why.'
'Let's have a funeral,' said H. O. This pleased everybody, and we
got Dora to take off her petticoat to wrap the fox in, so that we
could carry it to our garden and bury it without bloodying our
jackets. Girls' clothes are silly in one way, but I think they are
useful too. A boy cannot take off more than his jacket and
waistcoat in any emergency, or he is at once entirely undressed.
But I have known Dora take off two petticoats for useful purposes
and look just the same outside afterwards.
We boys took it in turns to carry the fox. It was very heavy.
When we got near the edge of the wood Noel said--
'It would be better to bury it here, where the leaves can talk
funeral songs over its grave for ever, and the other foxes can come
and cry if they want to.' He dumped the fox down on the moss under
a young oak tree as he spoke.
'If Dicky fetched the spade and fork we could bury it here, and
then he could tie up the dogs at the same time.'
'You're sick of carrying it,' Dicky remarked, 'that's what it is.'
But he went on condition the rest of us boys went too.
While we were gone the girls dragged the fox to the edge of the
wood; it was a different edge to the one we went in by--close to a
lane--and while they waited for the digging or fatigue party to
come back, they collected a lot of moss and green things to make
the fox's long home soft for it to lie in. There are no flowers in
the woods in August, which is a pity.
When we got back with the spade and fork we dug a hole to bury the
fox in. We did not bring the dogs back, because they were too
interested in the funeral to behave with real, respectable
calmness.
The ground was loose and soft and easy to dig when we had scraped
away the broken bits of sticks and the dead leaves and the wild
honeysuckle; Oswald used the fork and Dicky had the spade. Noel
made faces and poetry--he was struck so that morning--and the girls
sat stroking the clean parts of the fox's fur till the grave was
deep enough. At last it was; then Daisy threw in the leaves and
grass, and Alice and Dora took the poor dead fox by his two ends
and we helped to put him in the grave. We could not lower him
slowly--he was dropped in, really. Then we covered the furry body
with leaves, and Noel said the Burial Ode he had made up. He says
this was it, but it sounds better now than it did then, so I think
he must have done something to it since:
THE FOX'S BURIAL ODE
'Dear Fox, sleep here, and do not wake,
We picked these leaves for your sake
You must not try to rise or move,
We give you this with our love.
Close by the wood where once you grew
Your mourning friends have buried you.
If you had lived you'd not have been
(Been proper friends with us, I mean),
But now you're laid upon the shelf,
Poor fox, you cannot help yourself,
So, as I say, we are your loving friends--
And here your Burial Ode, dear Foxy, ends.
P. S.--When in the moonlight bright
The foxes wander of a night,
They'll pass your grave and fondly think of you,
Exactly like we mean to always do.
So now, dear fox, adieu!
Your friends are few
But true
To you.
Adieu!'
When this had been said we filled in the grave and covered the top
of it with dry leaves and sticks to make it look like the rest of
the wood. People might think it was a treasure, and dig it up, if
they thought there was anything buried there, and we wished the
poor fox to sleep sound and not to be disturbed.
The interring was over. We folded up Dora's bloodstained pink
cotton petticoat, and turned to leave the sad spot.
We had not gone a dozen yards down the lane when we heard footsteps
and a whistle behind us, and a scrabbling and whining, and a
gentleman with two fox-terriers had called a halt just by the place
where we had laid low the 'little red rover'.
The gentleman stood in the lane, but the dogs were digging--we
could see their tails wagging and see the dust fly. And we SAW
WHERE. We ran back.
'Oh, please, do stop your dogs digging there!' Alice said.
The gentleman said 'Why?'
'Because we've just had a funeral, and that's the grave.'
The gentleman whistled, but the fox-terriers were not trained like
Pincher, who was brought up by Oswald. The gentleman took a stride
through the hedge gap.
'What have you been burying--pet dicky bird, eh?' said the
gentleman, kindly. He had riding breeches and white whiskers.
We did not answer, because now, for the first time, it came over
all of us, in a rush of blushes and uncomfortableness, that burying
a fox is a suspicious act. I don't know why we felt this, but we
did.
Noel said dreamily--
'We found his murdered body in the wood,
And dug a grave by which the mourners stood.'
But no one heard him except Oswald, because Alice and Dora and
Daisy were all jumping about with the jumps of unrestrained
anguish, and saying, 'Oh, call them off! Do! do!--oh, don't,
don't! Don't let them dig.'
Alas! Oswald was, as usual, right. The ground of the grave had not
been trampled down hard enough, and he had said so plainly at the
time, but his prudent counsels had been overruled. Now these
busy-bodying, meddling, mischief-making fox-terriers (how different
from Pincher, who minds his own business unless told otherwise) had
scratched away the earth and laid bare the reddish tip of the poor
corpse's tail.
We all turned to go without a word, it seemed to be no use staying
any longer.
But in a moment the gentleman with the whiskers had got Noel and
Dicky each by an ear--they were nearest him. H. O. hid in the
hedge. Oswald, to whose noble breast sneakishness is, I am
thankful to say, a stranger, would have scorned to escape, but he
ordered his sisters to bunk in a tone of command which made refusal
impossible.
'And bunk sharp, too' he added sternly. 'Cut along home.'
So they cut. The white-whiskered gentleman now encouraged his
angry fox-terriers, by every means at his command, to continue
their vile and degrading occupation; holding on all the time to the
ears of Dicky and Noel, who scorned to ask for mercy. Dicky got
purple and Noel got white. It was Oswald who said--
'Don't hang on to them, sir. We won't cut. I give you my word of
honour.'
'YOUR word of honour,' said the gentleman, in tones for which, in
happier days, when people drew their bright blades and fought
duels, I would have had his heart's dearest blood. But now Oswald
remained calm and polite as ever.
'Yes, on my honour,' he said, and the gentleman dropped the ears of
Oswald's brothers at the sound of his firm, unswerving tones. He
dropped the ears and pulled out the body of the fox and held it up.
The dogs jumped up and yelled.
'Now,' he said, 'you talk very big about words of honour. Can you
speak the truth?'
Dickie said, 'If you think we shot it, you're wrong. We know
better than that.'
The white-whiskered one turned suddenly to H. O. and pulled him out
of the hedge.
'And what does that mean?' he said, and he was pink with fury to
the ends of his large ears, as he pointed to the card on H. O.'s
breast, which said, 'Moat House Fox-Hunters'.
Then Oswald said, 'We WERE playing at fox-hunting, but we couldn't
find anything but a rabbit that hid, so my brother was being the
fox; and then we found the fox shot dead, and I don't know who did
it; and we were sorry for it and we buried it--and that's all.'
'Not quite,' said the riding-breeches gentleman, with what I think
you call a bitter smile, 'not quite. This is my land and I'll have
you up for trespass and damage. Come along now, no nonsense! I'm
a magistrate and I'm Master of the Hounds. A vixen, too! What did
you shoot her with? You're too young to have a gun. Sneaked your
Father's revolver, I suppose?'
Oswald thought it was better to be goldenly silent. But it was
vain. The Master of the Hounds made him empty his pockets, and
there was the pistol and the cartridges.
The magistrate laughed a harsh laugh of successful
disagreeableness.
'All right,' said he, 'where's your licence? You come with me. A
week or two in prison.'
I don't believe now he could have done it, but we all thought then
he could and would, what's more.
So H. O. began to cry, but Noel spoke up. His teeth were
chattering yet he spoke up like a man.
He said, 'You don't know us. You've no right not to believe us
till you've found us out in a lie. We don't tell lies. You ask
Albert's uncle if we do.'
'Hold your tongue,' said the White-Whiskered. But Noel's blood was
up.
'If you do put us in prison without being sure,' he said, trembling
more and more, 'you are a horrible tyrant like Caligula, and Herod,
or Nero, and the Spanish Inquisition, and I will write a poem about
it in prison, and people will curse you for ever.'
'Upon my word,' said White Whiskers. 'We'll see about that,' and
he turned up the lane with the fox hanging from one hand and Noel's
ear once more reposing in the other.
I thought Noel would cry or faint. But he bore up nobly--exactly
like an early Christian martyr.
The rest of us came along too. I carried the spade and Dicky had
the fork. H. O. had the card, and Noel had the magistrate. At the
end of the lane there was Alice. She had bunked home, obeying the
orders of her thoughtful brother, but she had bottled back again
like a shot, so as not to be out of the scrape. She is almost
worthy to be a boy for some things.
She spoke to Mr Magistrate and said--
'Where are you taking him?'
The outraged majesty of the magistrate said, 'To prison, you
naughty little girl.'
Alice said, 'Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to
prison before--about a dog. Do please come to our house and see
our uncle--at least he's not--but it's the same thing. We didn't
kill the fox, if that's what you think--indeed we didn't. Oh,
dear, I do wish you'd think of your own little boys and girls if
you've got any, or else about when you were little. You wouldn't
be so horrid if you did.'
I don't know which, if either, of these objects the fox-hound
master thought of, but he said--
'Well, lead on,' and he let go Noel's ear and Alice snuggled up to
Noel and put her arm round him.
It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with
alarm--except those between white whiskers, and they were red--that
wound in at our gate and into the hall among the old oak furniture,
and black and white marble floor and things.
Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the
table, all stained with the gore of the departed. Dora looked at
us all, and she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big
oak chair and said, 'Won't you sit down?' very kindly to the whitewhiskered
magistrate.
He grunted, but did as she said.
Then he looked about him in a silence that was not comforting, and
so did we. At last he said--
'Come, you didn't try to bolt. Speak the truth, and I'll say no
more.'
We said we had.
Then he laid the fox on the table, spreading out the petticoat
under it, and he took out a knife and the girls hid their faces.
Even Oswald did not care to look. Wounds in battle are all very
well, but it's different to see a dead fox cut into with a knife.
Next moment the magistrate wiped something on his handkerchief and
then laid it on the table, and put one of my cartridges beside it.
It was the bullet that had killed the fox.
'Look here!' he said. And it was too true. The bullets were the
same.
A thrill of despair ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero
feels when he is innocently accused of a crime and the judge is
putting on the black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all
human aid is despaired of.
'I can't help it,' he said, 'we didn't kill it, and that's all
there is to it.'
The white-whiskered magistrate may have been master of the
fox-hounds, but he was not master of his temper, which is more
important, I should think, than a lot of beastly dogs.
He said several words which Oswald would never repeat, much less in
his own conversing, and besides that he called us 'obstinate little
beggars'.
Then suddenly Albert's uncle entered in the midst of a silence
freighted with despairing reflections. The M.F.H. got up and told
his tale: it was mainly lies, or, to be more polite, it was hardly
any of it true, though I supposed he believed it.
'I am very sorry, sir' said Albert's uncle, looking at the bullets.
'You'll excuse my asking for the children's version?'
'Oh, certainly, sir, certainly,' fuming, the fox-hound magistrate
replied.
Then Albert's uncle said, 'Now Oswald, I know I can trust you to
speak the exact truth.'
So Oswald did.
Then the white-whiskered fox-master laid the bullets before
Albert's uncle, and I felt this would be a trial to his faith far
worse than the rack or the thumb-screw in the days of the Armada.
And then Denny came in. He looked at the fox on the table.
'You found it, then?' he said.
The M.F.H. would have spoken but Albert's uncle said, 'One moment,
Denny; you've seen this fox before?'
'Rather,' said Denny; 'I--'
But Albert's uncle said, 'Take time. Think before you speak and
say the exact truth. No, don't whisper to Oswald. This boy,' he
said to the injured fox-master, 'has been with me since seven this
morning. His tale, whatever it is, will be independent evidence.'
But Denny would not speak, though again and again Albert's uncle
told him to.
'I can't till I've asked Oswald something,' he said at last. White
Whiskers said, 'That looks bad--eh?'
But Oswald said, 'Don't whisper, old chap. Ask me whatever you
like, but speak up.'
So Denny said, 'I can't without breaking the secret oath.'
So then Oswald began to see, and he said, 'Break away for all
you're worth, it's all right.'
And Denny said, drawing relief's deepest breath, 'Well then, Oswald
and I have got a pistol--shares--and I had it last night. And when
I couldn't sleep last night because of the toothache I got up and
went out early this morning. And I took the pistol. And I loaded
it just for fun. And down in the wood I heard a whining like a
dog, and I went, and there was the poor fox caught in an iron trap
with teeth. And I went to let it out and it bit me--look, here's
the place--and the pistol went off and the fox died, and I am so
sorry.'
'But why didn't you tell the others?'
'They weren't awake when I went to the dentist's.'
'But why didn't you tell your uncle if you've been with him all the
morning?'
'It was the oath,' H. O. said--
'May I be called a beastly sneak
If this great secret I ever repeat.'
White Whiskers actually grinned.
'Well,' he said, 'I see it was an accident, my boy.' Then he
turned to us and said--
'I owe you an apology for doubting your word--all of you. I hope
it's accepted.'
We said it was all right and he was to never mind.
But all the same we hated him for it. He tried to make up for his
unbelievingness afterwards by asking Albert's uncle to shoot
rabbits; but we did not really forgive him till the day when he
sent the fox's brush to Alice, mounted in silver with a note about
her plucky conduct in standing by her brothers.
We got a lecture about not playing with firearms, but no
punishment, because our conduct had not been exactly sinful,
Albert's uncle said, but merely silly.
The pistol and the cartridges were confiscated.
I hope the house will never be attacked by burglars. When it is,
Albert's uncle will only have himself to thank if we are rapidly
overpowered, because it will be his fault that we shall have to
meet them totally unarmed, and be their almost unresisting prey.
CHAPTER 10
THE SALE OF ANTIQUITIES
It began one morning at breakfast. It was the fifteenth of
August--the birthday of Napoleon the Great, Oswald Bastable, and
another very nice writer. Oswald was to keep his birthday on the
Saturday, so that his Father could be there. A birthday when there
are only many happy returns is a little like Sunday or Christmas
Eve. Oswald had a birthday-card or two--that was all; but he did
not repine, because he knew they always make it up to you for
putting off keeping your birthday, and he looked forward to
Saturday.
Albert's uncle had a whole stack of letters as usual, and presently
he tossed one over to Dora, and said, 'What do you say, little
lady? Shall we let them come?'
But Dora, butter-fingered as ever, missed the catch, and Dick and
Noel both had a try for it, so that the letter went into the place
where the bacon had been, and where now only a frozen-looking lake
of bacon fat was slowly hardening, and then somehow it got into the
marmalade, and then H. O. got it, and Dora said--
'I don't want the nasty thing now--all grease and stickiness.' So
H. O. read it aloud--
MAIDSTONE SOCIETY OF ANTIQUITIES AND
FIELD CLUB
Aug. 14, 1900
'DEAR SIR,--At a meeting of the--'
H. O. stuck fast here, and the writing was really very bad, like a
spider that has been in the ink-pot crawling in a hurry over the
paper without stopping to rub its feet properly on the mat. So
Oswald took the letter. He is above minding a little marmalade or
bacon. He began to read. It ran thus:
'It's not Antiquities, you little silly,' he said; 'it's
Antiquaries.'
'The other's a very good word,' said Albert's uncle, 'and I never
call names at breakfast myself--it upsets the digestion, my
egregious Oswald.'
'That's a name though,' said Alice, 'and you got it out of
"Stalky", too. Go on, Oswald.'
So Oswald went on where he had been interrupted:
'MAIDSTONE SOCIETY OF "ANTIQUARIES"
AND FIELD CLUB
Aug. 14,1900.
'DEAR SIR,--At a meeting of the Committee of this Society it was
agreed that a field day should be held on Aug. 20, when the
Society proposes to visit the interesting church of Ivybridge and
also the Roman remains in the vicinity. Our president, Mr
Longchamps, F.R.S., has obtained permission to open a barrow in the
Three Trees pasture. We venture to ask whether you would allow the
members of the Society to walk through your grounds and to
inspect--from without, of course--your beautiful house, which is,
as you are doubtless aware, of great historic interest, having been
for some years the residence of the celebrated Sir Thomas Wyatt.--I
am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
EDWARD K. TURNBULL (Hon. Sec.).'
'Just so,' said Albert's uncle; 'well, shall we permit the eye of
the Maidstone Antiquities to profane these sacred solitudes, and
the foot of the Field Club to kick up a dust on our gravel?'
'Our gravel is all grass,' H. O. said.
And the girls said, 'Oh, do let them come!' It was Alice who said--
'Why not ask them to tea? They'll be very tired coming all the way
from Maidstone.'
'Would you really like it?' Albert's uncle asked. 'I'm afraid
they'll be but dull dogs, the Antiquities, stuffy old gentlemen
with amphorae in their buttonholes instead of orchids, and
pedigrees poking out of all their pockets.'
We laughed--because we knew what an amphorae is. If you don't you
might look it up in the dicker. It's not a flower, though it
sounds like one out of the gardening book, the kind you never hear
of anyone growing.
Dora said she thought it would be splendid.
'And we could have out the best china,' she said, 'and decorate the
table with flowers. We could have tea in the garden. We've never
had a party since we've been here.'
'I warn you that your guests may be boresome; however, have it your
own way,' Albert's uncle said; and he went off to write the
invitation to tea to the Maidstone Antiquities. I know that is the
wrong word but somehow we all used it whenever we spoke of them,
which was often.
In a day or two Albert's uncle came in to tea with a
lightly-clouded brow.
'You've let me in for a nice thing,' he said. 'I asked the
Antiquities to tea, and I asked casually how many we might expect.
I thought we might need at least the full dozen of the best
teacups. Now the secretary writes accepting my kind invitation--'
'Oh, good!' we cried. 'And how many are coming?'
'Oh, only about sixty,' was the groaning rejoinder. 'Perhaps more,
should the weather be exceptionally favourable.'
Though stunned at first, we presently decided that we were pleased.
We had never, never given such a big party.
The girls were allowed to help in the kitchen, where Mrs Pettigrew
made cakes all day long without stopping. They did not let us boys
be there, though I cannot see any harm in putting your finger in a
cake before it is baked, and then licking your finger, if you are
careful to put a different finger in the cake next time. Cake
before it is baked is delicious--like a sort of cream.
Albert's uncle said he was the prey of despair. He drove in to
Maidstone one day. When we asked him where he was going, he said--
'To get my hair cut: if I keep it this length I shall certainly
tear it out by double handfuls in the extremity of my anguish every
time I think of those innumerable Antiquities.'
But we found out afterwards that he really went to borrow china and
things to give the Antiquities their tea out of; though he did have
his hair cut too, because he is the soul of truth and honour.
Oswald had a very good sort of birthday, with bows and arrows as
well as other presents. I think these were meant to make up for
the pistol that was taken away after the adventure of the
fox-hunting. These gave us boys something to do between the
birthday-keeping, which was on the Saturday, and the Wednesday when
the Antiquities were to come.
We did not allow the girls to play with the bows and arrows,
because they had the cakes that we were cut off from: there was
little or no unpleasantness over this.
On the Tuesday we went down to look at the Roman place where the
Antiquities were going to dig. We sat on the Roman wall and ate
nuts. And as we sat there, we saw coming through the beet-field
two labourers with picks and shovels, and a very young man with
thin legs and a bicycle. It turned out afterwards to be a
free-wheel, the first we had ever seen.
They stopped at a mound inside the Roman wall, and the men took
their coats off and spat on their hands.
We went down at once, of course. The thin-legged bicyclist
explained his machine to us very fully and carefully when we asked
him, and then we saw the men were cutting turfs and turning them
over and rolling them up and putting them in a heap. So we asked
the gentleman with the thin legs what they were doing. He said--
'They are beginning the preliminary excavation in readiness for
to-morrow.'
'What's up to-morrow?' H. O. asked.
'To-morrow we propose to open this barrow and examine it.'
'Then YOU'RE the Antiquities?' said H. O.
'I'm the secretary,' said the gentleman, smiling, but narrowly.
'Oh, you're all coming to tea with us,' Dora said, and added
anxiously, 'how many of you do you think there'll be?'
'Oh, not more than eighty or ninety, I should think,' replied the
gentleman.
This took our breath away and we went home. As we went, Oswald,
who notices many things that would pass unobserved by the light and
careless, saw Denny frowning hard. So he said, 'What's up?'
'I've got an idea,' the Dentist said. 'Let's call a council.' The
Dentist had grown quite used to our ways now. We had called him
Dentist ever since the fox-hunt day. He called a council as if he
had been used to calling such things all his life, and having them
come, too; whereas we all know that his former existing was that of
a white mouse in a trap, with that cat of a Murdstone aunt watching
him through the bars.
(That is what is called a figure of speech. Albert's uncle told
me.)
Councils are held in the straw-loft. As soon as we were all there,
and the straw had stopped rustling after our sitting down, Dicky
said--
'I hope it's nothing to do with the Wouldbegoods?'
'No,' said Denny in a hurry: 'quite the opposite.'
'I hope it's nothing wrong,' said Dora and Daisy together.
'It's--it's "Hail to thee, blithe spirit--bird thou never wert",'
said Denny. 'I mean, I think it's what is called a lark.'
'You never know your luck. Go on, Dentist,' said Dicky.
'Well, then, do you know a book called The Daisy Chain?'
We didn't.
'It's by Miss Charlotte M. Yonge,' Daisy interrupted, 'and it's
about a family of poor motherless children who tried so hard to be
good, and they were confirmed, and had a bazaar, and went to church
at the Minster, and one of them got married and wore black watered
silk and silver ornaments. So her baby died, and then she was
sorry she had not been a good mother to it. And--'
Here Dicky got up and said he'd got some snares to attend to, and
he'd receive a report of the Council after it was over. But he
only got as far as the trap-door, and then Oswald, the fleet of
foot, closed with him, and they rolled together on the floor, while
all the others called out 'Come back! Come back!' like guinea-hens
on a fence.
Through the rustle and bustle and hustle of the struggle with
Dicky, Oswald heard the voice of Denny murmuring one of his
everlasting quotations--
'"Come back, come back!" he cried in Greek,
"Across the stormy water,
And I'll forgive your Highland cheek,
My daughter, O my daughter!"'
When quiet was restored and Dicky had agreed to go through with the
Council, Denny said--
'The Daisy Chain is not a bit like that really. It's a ripping
book. One of the boys dresses up like a lady and comes to call,
and another tries to hit his little sister with a hoe. It's jolly
fine, I tell you.'
Denny is learning to say what he thinks, just like other boys. He
would never have learnt such words as 'ripping' and 'jolly fine'
while under the auntal tyranny.
Since then I have read The Daisy Chain. It is a first-rate book
for girls and little boys.
But we did not want to talk about The Daisy Chain just then, so
Oswald said--
'But what's your lark?'Denny got pale pink and said--
'Don't hurry me. I'll tell you directly. Let me think a minute.'
Then he shut his pale pink eyelids a moment in thought, and then
opened them and stood up on the straw and said very fast--
'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, or if not ears,
pots. You know Albert's uncle said they were going to open the
barrow, to look for Roman remains to-morrow. Don't you think it
seems a pity they shouldn't find any?'
'Perhaps they will,' Dora said.
But Oswald saw, and he said 'Primus! Go ahead, old man.'
The Dentist went ahead.
'In The Daisy Chain,' he said, 'they dug in a Roman encampment and
the children went first and put some pottery there they'd made
themselves, and Harry's old medal of the Duke of Wellington. The
doctor helped them to some stuff to partly efface the inscription,
and all the grown-ups were sold. I thought we might--
'You may break, you may shatter
The vase if you will;
But the scent of the Romans
Will cling round it still.'
Denny sat down amid applause. It really was a great idea, at least
for HIM. It seemed to add just what was wanted to the visit of the
Maidstone Antiquities. To sell the Antiquities thoroughly would be
indeed splendiferous. Of course Dora made haste to point out that
we had not got an old medal of the Duke of Wellington, and that we
hadn't any doctor who would 'help us to stuff to efface', and
etcetera; but we sternly bade her stow it. We weren't going to do
EXACTLY like those Daisy Chain kids.
The pottery was easy. We had made a lot of it by the stream--which
was the Nile when we discovered its source--and dried it in the
sun, and then baked it under a bonfire, like in Foul Play. And
most of the things were such queer shapes that they should have
done for almost anything--Roman or Greek, or even Egyptian or
antediluvian, or household milk-jugs of the cavemen, Albert's uncle
said. The pots were, fortunately, quite ready and dirty, because
we had already buried them in mixed sand and river mud to improve
the colour, and not remembered to wash it off.
So the Council at once collected it all--and some rusty hinges and
some brass buttons and a file without a handle; and the girl
Councillors carried it all concealed in their pinafores, while the
men members carried digging tools. H. O. and Daisy were sent on
ahead as scouts to see if the coast was clear. We have learned the
true usefulness of scouts from reading about the Transvaal War.
But all was still in the hush of evening sunset on the Roman ruin.
We posted sentries, who were to lie on their stomachs on the walls
and give a long, low, signifying whistle if aught approached.
Then we dug a tunnel, like the one we once did after treasure, when
we happened to bury a boy. It took some time; but never shall it
be said that a Bastable grudged time or trouble when a lark was at
stake. We put the things in as naturally as we could, and shoved
the dirt back, till everything looked just as before. Then we went
home, late for tea. But it was in a good cause; and there was no
hot toast, only bread-and-butter, which does not get cold with
waiting.
That night Alice whispered to Oswald on the stairs, as we went up
to bed--
'Meet me outside your door when the others are asleep. Hist! Not
a word.'
Oswald said, 'No kid?' And she replied in the affirmation.
So he kept awake by biting his tongue and pulling his hair--for he
shrinks from no pain if it is needful and right.
And when the others all slept the sleep of innocent youth, he got
up and went out, and there was Alice dressed.
She said, 'I've found some broken things that look ever so much
more Roman--they were on top of the cupboard in the library. If
you'll come with me, we'll bury them just to see how surprised the
others will be.'
It was a wild and daring act, but Oswald did not mind.
He said--
'Wait half a shake.' And he put on his knickerbockers and jacket,
and slipped a few peppermints into his pocket in case of catching
cold. It is these thoughtful expedients which mark the born
explorer and adventurer.
It was a little cold; but the white moonlight was very fair to see,
and we decided we'd do some other daring moonlight act some other
day. We got out of the front door, which is never locked till
Albert's uncle goes to bed at twelve or one, and we ran swiftly and
silently across the bridge and through the fields to the Roman
ruin.
Alice told me afterwards she should have been afraid if it had been
dark. But the moonlight made it as bright as day is in your
dreams.
Oswald had taken the spade and a sheet of newspaper.
We did not take all the pots Alice had found--but just the two that
weren't broken--two crooked jugs, made of stuff like flower-pots
are made of. We made two long cuts with the spade and lifted the
turf up and scratched the earth under, and took it out very
carefully in handfuls on to the newspaper, till the hole was
deepish. Then we put in the jugs, and filled it up with earth and
flattened the turf over. Turf stretches like elastic. This we did
a couple of yards from the place where the mound was dug into by
the men, and we had been so careful with the newspaper that there
was no loose earth about.
Then we went home in the wet moonlight--at least the grass was very
wet--chuckling through the peppermint, and got up to bed without
anyone knowing a single thing about it.
The next day the Antiquities came. It was a jolly hot day, and the
tables were spread under the trees on the lawn, like a large and
very grand Sunday-school treat. There were dozens of different
kinds of cake, and bread-and-butter, both white and brown, and
gooseberries and plums and jam sandwiches. And the girls decorated
the tables with flowers--blue larkspur and white Canterbury bells.
And at about three there was a noise of people walking in the road,
and presently the Antiquities began to come in at the front gate,
and stood about on the lawn by twos and threes and sixes and
sevens, looking shy and uncomfy, exactly like a Sunday-school
treat. Presently some gentlemen came, who looked like the
teachers; they were not shy, and they came right up to the door.
So Albert's uncle, who had not been too proud to be up in our room
with us watching the people on the lawn through the netting of our
short blinds, said--
'I suppose that's the Committee. Come on!'
So we all went down--we were in our Sunday things--and Albert's
uncle received the Committee like a feudal system baron, and we
were his retainers.
He talked about dates, and king posts and gables, and mullions, and
foundations, and records, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, and poetry, and
Julius Caesar, and Roman remains, and lych gates and churches, and
dog's-tooth moulding till the brain of Oswald reeled. I suppose
that Albert's uncle remarked that all our mouths were open, which
is a sign of reels in the brain, for he whispered--
'Go hence, and mingle unsuspected with the crowd!'
So we went out on to the lawn, which was now crowded with men and
women and one child. This was a girl; she was fat, and we tried to
talk to her, though we did not like her. (She was covered in red
velvet like an arm-chair.) But she wouldn't. We thought at first
she was from a deaf-and-dumb asylum, where her kind teachers had
only managed to teach the afflicted to say 'Yes' and 'No'. But
afterwards we knew better, for Noel heard her say to her mother, 'I
wish you hadn't brought me, mamma. I didn't have a pretty teacup,
and I haven't enjoyed my tea one bit.' And she had had five pieces
of cake, besides little cakes and nearly a whole plate of plums,
and there were only twelve pretty teacups altogether.
Several grown-ups talked to us in a most uninterested way, and then
the President read a paper about the Moat House, which we couldn't
understand, and other people made speeches we couldn't understand
either, except the part about kind hospitality, which made us not
know where to look.
Then Dora and Alice and Daisy and Mrs Pettigrew poured out the tea,
and we handed cups and plates.
Albert's uncle took me behind a bush to see him tear what was left
of his hair when he found there were one hundred and twenty-three
Antiquities present, and I heard the President say to the Secretary
that 'tea always fetched them'.
Then it was time for the Roman ruin, and our hearts beat high as we
took our hats--it was exactly like Sunday--and joined the crowded
procession of eager Antiquities. Many of them had umbrellas and
overcoats, though the weather was fiery and without a cloud. That
is the sort of people they were. The ladies all wore stiff
bonnets, and no one took their gloves off, though, of course, it
was quite in the country, and it is not wrong to take your gloves
off there.
We had planned to be quite close when the digging went on; but
Albert's uncle made us a mystic sign and drew us apart.
Then he said: 'The stalls and dress circle are for the guests. The
hosts and hostesses retire to the gallery, whence, I am credibly
informed, an excellent view may be obtained.'
So we all went up on the Roman walls, and thus missed the cream of
the lark; for we could not exactly see what was happening. But we
saw that things were being taken from the ground as the men dug,
and passed round for the Antiquities to look at. And we knew they
must be our Roman remains; but the Antiquities did not seem to care
for them much, though we heard sounds of pleased laughter. And at
last Alice and I exchanged meaning glances when the spot was
reached where we had put in the extras. Then the crowd closed up
thick, and we heard excited talk and we knew we really HAD sold the
Antiquities this time.
Presently the bonnets and coats began to spread out and trickle
towards the house and we were aware that all would soon be over.
So we cut home the back way, just in time to hear the President
saying to Albert's uncle--
'A genuine find--most interesting. Oh, really, you ought to have
ONE. Well, if you insist--'
And so, by slow and dull degrees, the thick sprinkling of
Antiquities melted off the lawn; the party was over, and only the
dirty teacups and plates, and the trampled grass and the pleasures
of memory were left.
We had a very beautiful supper--out of doors, too-- with jam
sandwiches and cakes and things that were over; and as we watched
the setting monarch of the skies--I mean the sun--Alice said--
'Let's tell.'
We let the Dentist tell, because it was he who hatched the lark,
but we helped him a little in the narrating of the fell plot,
because he has yet to learn how to tell a story straight from the
beginning.
When he had done, and we had done, Albert's uncle said, 'Well, it
amused you; and you'll be glad to learn that it amused your friends
the Antiquities.'
'Didn't they think they were Roman?' Daisy said; 'they did in The
Daisy Chain.'
'Not in the least,' said Albert's uncle; 'but the Treasurer and
Secretary were charmed by your ingenious preparations for their
reception.'
'We didn't want them to be disappointed,' said Dora.
'They weren't,' said Albert's uncle. 'Steady on with those plums,
H.O. A little way beyond the treasure you had prepared for them
they found two specimens of REAL Roman pottery which sent every
man-jack of them home thanking his stars he had been born a happy
little Antiquary child.'
'Those were our jugs,' said Alice, 'and we really HAVE sold the
Antiquities. She unfolded the tale about our getting the jugs and
burying them in the moonlight, and the mound; and the others
listened with deeply respectful interest. 'We really have done it
this time, haven't we?' she added in tones of well-deserved
triumph.
But Oswald had noticed a queer look about Albert's uncle from
almost the beginning of Alice's recital; and he now had the
sensation of something being up, which has on other occasions
frozen his noble blood. The silence of Albert's uncle now froze it
yet more Arcticly.
'Haven't we?' repeated Alice, unconscious of what her sensitive
brother's delicate feelings had already got hold of. 'We have done
it this time, haven't we?'
'Since you ask me thus pointedly,' answered Albert's uncle at last,
'I cannot but confess that I think you have indeed done it. Those
pots on the top of the library cupboard ARE Roman pottery. The
amphorae which you hid in the mound are probably--I can't say for
certain, mind--priceless. They are the property of the owner of
this house. You have taken them out and buried them. The
President of the Maidstone Antiquarian Society has taken them away
in his bag. Now what are you going to do?'
Alice and I did not know what to say, or where to look. The others
added to our pained position by some ungenerous murmurs about our
not being so jolly clever as we thought ourselves.
There was a very far from pleasing silence. Then Oswald got up.
He said--
'Alice, come here a sec; I want to speak to you.'
As Albert's uncle had offered no advice, Oswald disdained to ask
him for any.
Alice got up too, and she and Oswald went into the garden, and sat
down on the bench under the quince tree, and wished they had never
tried to have a private lark of their very own with the Antiquities
--'A Private Sale', Albert's uncle called it afterwards. But
regrets, as nearly always happens, were vain. Something had to be
done.
But what?
Oswald and Alice sat in silent desperateness, and the voices of the
gay and careless others came to them from the lawn, where,
heartless in their youngness, they were playing tag. I don't know
how they could. Oswald would not like to play tag when his brother
and sister were in a hole, but Oswald is an exception to some boys.
But Dicky told me afterwards he thought it was only a joke of
Albert's uncle's.
The dusk grew dusker, till you could hardly tell the quinces from
the leaves, and Alice and Oswald still sat exhausted with hard
thinking, but they could not think of anything. And it grew so
dark that the moonlight began to show.
Then Alice jumped up--just as Oswald was opening his mouth to say
the same thing--and said, 'Of course--how silly! I know. Come on
in, Oswald.' And they went on in.
Oswald was still far too proud to consult anyone else. But he just
asked carelessly if Alice and he might go into Maidstone the next
day to buy some wire-netting for a rabbit-hutch, and to see after
one or two things.
Albert's uncle said certainly. And they went by train with the
bailiff from the farm, who was going in about some sheep-dip and
too buy pigs. At any other time Oswald would not have been able to
bear to leave the bailiff without seeing the pigs bought. But now
it was different. For he and Alice had the weight on their bosoms
of being thieves without having meant it--and nothing, not even
pigs, had power to charm the young but honourable Oswald till that
stain had been wiped away.
So he took Alice to the Secretary of the Maidstone Antiquities'
house, and Mr Turnbull was out, but the maid-servant kindly told us
where the President lived, and ere long the trembling feet of the
unfortunate brother and sister vibrated on the spotless gravel of
Camperdown Villa.
When they asked, they were told that Mr Longchamps was at home.
Then they waited, paralysed with undescribed emotions, in a large
room with books and swords and glass bookcases with rotten-looking
odds and ends in them. Mr Longchamps was a collector. That means
he stuck to anything, no matter how ugly and silly, if only it was
old.
He came in rubbing his hands, and very kind. He remembered us very
well, he said, and asked what he could do for us.
Oswald for once was dumb. He could not find words in which to own
himself the ass he had been. But Alice was less delicately
moulded. She said--
'Oh, if you please, we are most awfully sorry, and we hope you'll
forgive us, but we thought it would be such a pity for you and all
the other poor dear Antiquities to come all that way and then find
nothing Roman--so we put some pots and things in the barrow for
you to find.'
'So I perceived,' said the President, stroking his white beard and
smiling most agreeably at us; 'a harmless joke, my dear! Youth's
the season for jesting. There's no harm done--pray think no more
about it. It's very honourable of you to come and apologize, I'm
sure.'
His brow began to wear the furrowed, anxious look of one who would
fain be rid of his guests and get back to what he was doing before
they interrupted him.
Alice said, 'We didn't come for that. It's MUCH worse. Those were
two REAL true Roman jugs you took away; we put them there; they
aren't ours. We didn't know they were real Roman. We wanted to
sell the Antiquities--I mean Antiquaries--and we were sold
ourselves.'
'This is serious,' said the gentleman. 'I suppose you'd know
the--the "jugs" if you saw them again?'
'Anywhere,' said Oswald, with the confidential rashness of one who
does not know what he is talking about.
Mr Longchamps opened the door of a little room leading out of the
one we were in, and beckoned us to follow. We found ourselves amid
shelves and shelves of pottery of all sorts; and two whole shelves
--small ones--were filled with the sort of jug we wanted.
'Well,' said the President, with a veiled menacing sort of smile,
like a wicked cardinal, 'which is it?'
Oswald said, 'I don't know.'
Alice said, 'I should know if I had it in my hand.'
The President patiently took the jugs down one after another, and
Alice tried to look inside them. And one after another she shook
her head and gave them back. At last she said, 'You didn't WASH
them?'
Mr Longchamps shuddered and said 'No'.
'Then,' said Alice, 'there is something written with lead-pencil
inside both the jugs. I wish I hadn't. I would rather you didn't
read it. I didn't know it would be a nice old gentleman like you
would find it. I thought it would be the younger gentleman with
the thin legs and the narrow smile.'
'Mr Turnbull.' The President seemed to recognize the description
unerringly. 'Well, well--boys will be boys--girls, I mean. I
won't be angry. Look at all the "jugs" and see if you can find
yours.'
Alice did--and the next one she looked at she said, 'This is
one'--and two jugs further on she said, 'This is the other.'
'Well,' the President said, 'these are certainly the specimens
which I obtained yesterday. If your uncle will call on me I will
return them to him. But it's a disappointment. Yes, I think you
must let me look inside.'
He did. And at the first one he said nothing. At the second he
laughed.
'Well, well,' he said, 'we can't expect old heads on young
shoulders. You're not the first who went forth to shear and
returned shorn. Nor, it appears, am I. Next time you have a Sale
of Antiquities, take care that you yourself are not "sold".
Good-day to you, my dear. Don't let the incident prey on your
mind,' he said to Alice. 'Bless your heart, I was a boy once
myself, unlikely as you may think it. Good-bye.'
We were in time to see the pigs bought after all.
I asked Alice what on earth it was she'd scribbled inside the
beastly jugs, and she owned that just to make the lark complete she
had written 'Sucks' in one of the jugs, and 'Sold again, silly', in
the other.
But we know well enough who it was that was sold. And if ever we
have any Antiquities to tea again, they shan't find so much as a
Greek waistcoat button if we can help it.
Unless it's the President, for he did not behave at all badly. For
a man of his age I think he behaved exceedingly well. Oswald can
picture a very different scene having been enacted over those
rotten pots if the President had been an otherwise sort of man.
But that picture is not pleasing, so Oswald will not distress you
by drawing it for you. You can most likely do it easily for
yourself.
CHAPTER 11
THE BENEVOLENT BAR
The tramp was very dusty about the feet and legs, and his clothes
were very ragged and dirty, but he had cheerful twinkly grey eyes,
and he touched his cap to the girls when he spoke to us, though a
little as though he would rather not.
We were on the top of the big wall of the Roman ruin in the Three
Tree pasture. We had just concluded a severe siege with bows and
arrows--the ones that were given us to make up for the pistol that
was confiscated after the sad but not sinful occasion when it shot
a fox.
To avoid accidents that you would be sorry for afterwards, Oswald,
in his thoughtfulness, had decreed that everyone was to wear wire
masks.
Luckily there were plenty of these, because a man who lived in the
Moat House once went to Rome, where they throw hundreds and
thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or
Battaglia di Confetti (that's real Italian). And he wanted to get
up that sort of thing among the village people--but they were too
beastly slack, so he chucked it.
And in the attic were the wire masks he brought home with him from
Rome, which people wear to prevent the nasty comfits getting in
their mouths and eyes.
So we were all armed to the teeth with masks and arrows, but in
attacking or defending a fort your real strength is not in your
equipment, but in your power of Shove. Oswald, Alice, Noel and
Denny defended the fort. We were much the strongest side, but that
was how Dicky and Oswald picked up.
The others got in, it is true, but that was only because an arrow
hit Dicky on the nose, and it bled quarts as usual, though hit only
through the wire mask. Then he put into dock for repairs, and
while the defending party weren't looking he sneaked up the wall at
the back and shoved Oswald off, and fell on top of him, so that the
fort, now that it had lost its gallant young leader, the life and
soul of the besieged party, was of course soon overpowered, and had
to surrender.
Then we sat on the top and ate some peppermints Albert's uncle
brought us a bag of from Maidstone when he went to fetch away the
Roman pottery we tried to sell the Antiquities with.
The battle was over, and peace raged among us as we sat in the sun
on the big wall and looked at the fields, all blue and swimming in
the heat.
We saw the tramp coming through the beetfield. He made a dusty
blot on the fair scene.
When he saw us he came close to the wall, and touched his cap, as
I have said, and remarked--
'Excuse me interrupting of your sports, young gentlemen and ladies,
but if you could so far oblige as to tell a labouring man the way
to the nearest pub. It's a dry day and no error.'
'The "Rose and Crown" is the best pub,' said Dicky, 'and the
landlady is a friend of ours. It's about a mile if you go by the
field path.'
'Lor' love a duck!' said the tramp, 'a mile's a long way, and
walking's a dry job this 'ere weather.' We said we agreed with
him.
'Upon my sacred,' said the tramp, 'if there was a pump handy I
believe I'd take a turn at it--I would indeed, so help me if I
wouldn't! Though water always upsets me and makes my 'and shaky.'
We had not cared much about tramps since the adventure of the
villainous sailor-man and the Tower of Mystery, but we had the dogs
on the wall with us (Lady was awfully difficult to get up, on
account of her long deer-hound legs), and the position was a strong
one, and easy to defend. Besides the tramp did not look like that
bad sailor, nor talk like it. And we considerably outnumbered the
tramp, anyway.
Alice nudged Oswald and said something about Sir Philip Sidney and
the tramp's need being greater than his, so Oswald was obliged to
go to the hole in the top of the wall where we store provisions
during sieges and get out the bottle of ginger-beer which he had
gone without when the others had theirs so as to drink it when he
got really thirsty. Meanwhile Alice said--
'We've got some ginger-beer; my brother's getting it. I hope you
won't mind drinking out of our glass. We can't wash it, you
know--unless we rinse it out with a little ginger-beer.'
'Don't ye do it, miss,' he said eagerly; 'never waste good liquor
on washing.'
The glass was beside us on the wall. Oswald filled it with
ginger-beer and handed down the foaming tankard to the tramp. He
had to lie on his young stomach to do this.
The tramp was really quite polite--one of Nature's gentlemen, and
a man as well, we found out afterwards. He said--
'Here's to you!' before he drank. Then he drained the glass till
the rim rested on his nose.
'Swelp me, but I WAS dry,' he said. 'Don't seem to matter much
what it is, this weather, do it?--so long as it's suthink wet.
Well, here's thanking you.'
'You're very welcome,' said Dora; 'I'm glad you liked it.'
'Like it?'--said he. 'I don't suppose you know what it's like to
have a thirst on you. Talk of free schools and free libraries, and
free baths and wash-houses and such! Why don't someone start free
DRINKS? He'd be a ero, he would. I'd vote for him any day of the
week and one over. Ef yer don't objec I'll set down a bit and put
on a pipe.'
He sat down on the grass and began to smoke. We asked him
questions about himself, and he told us many of his secret
sorrows--especially about there being no work nowadays for an
honest man. At last he dropped asleep in the middle of a story
about a vestry he worked for that hadn't acted fair and square by
him like he had by them, or it (I don't know if vestry is singular
or plural), and we went home. But before we went we held a hurried
council and collected what money we could from the little we had
with us (it was ninepence-halfpenny), and wrapped it in an old
envelope Dicky had in his pocket and put it gently on the billowing
middle of the poor tramp's sleeping waistcoat, so that he would
find it when he woke. None of the dogs said a single syllable
while we were doing this, so we knew they believed him to be poor
but honest, and we always find it safe to take their word for
things like that.
As we went home a brooding silence fell upon us; we found out
afterwards that those words of the poor tramp's about free drinks
had sunk deep in all our hearts, and rankled there.
After dinner we went out and sat with our feet in the stream.
People tell you it makes your grub disagree with you to do this
just after meals, but it never hurts us. There is a fallen willow
across the stream that just seats the eight of us, only the ones at
the end can't get their feet into the water properly because of the
bushes, so we keep changing places. We had got some liquorice root
to chew. This helps thought. Dora broke a peaceful silence with
this speech--
'Free drinks.'
The words awoke a response in every breast.
'I wonder someone doesn't,' H. O. said, leaning back till he nearly
toppled in, and was only saved by Oswald and Alice at their own
deadly peril.
'Do for goodness sake sit still, H. O.,' observed Alice. 'It would
be a glorious act! I wish WE could.'
'What, sit still?' asked H. O.
'No, my child,' replied Oswald, 'most of us can do that when we
try. Your angel sister was only wishing to set up free drinks for
the poor and thirsty.'
'Not for all of them,' Alice said, 'just a few. Change places now,
Dicky. My feet aren't properly wet at all.'
It is very difficult to change places safely on the willow. The
changers have to crawl over the laps of the others, while the rest
sit tight and hold on for all they're worth. But the hard task was
accomplished and then Alice went on--
'And we couldn't do it for always, only a day or two--just while
our money held out. Eiffel Tower lemonade's the best, and you get
a jolly lot of it for your money too. There must be a great many
sincerely thirsty persons go along the Dover Road every day.'
'It wouldn't be bad. We've got a little chink between us,' said
Oswald.
'And then think how the poor grateful creatures would linger and
tell us about their inmost sorrows. It would be most frightfully
interesting. We could write all their agonied life histories down
afterwards like All the Year Round Christmas numbers. Oh, do
let's!'
Alice was wriggling so with earnestness that Dicky thumped her to
make her calm.
'We might do it, just for one day,' Oswald said, 'but it wouldn't
be much--only a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous
dryness of all the people in the whole world. Still, every little
helps, as the mermaid said when she cried into the sea.'
'I know a piece of poetry about that,' Denny said.
'Small things are best.
Care and unrest
To wealth and rank are given,
But little things
On little wings--
do something or other, I forget what, but it means the same as
Oswald was saying about the mermaid.'
'What are you going to call it?' asked Noel, coming out of a dream.
'Call what?'
'The Free Drinks game.'
'It's a horrid shame
If the Free Drinks game
Doesn't have a name.
You would be to blame
If anyone came
And--'
'Oh, shut up!' remarked Dicky. 'You've been making that rot up all
the time we've been talking instead of listening properly.' Dicky
hates poetry. I don't mind it so very much myself, especially
Macaulay's and Kipling's and Noel's.
'There was a lot more--"lame" and "dame" and name" and "game" and
things--and now I've forgotten it,' Noel said in gloom.
'Never mind,' Alice answered, 'it'll come back to you in the silent
watches of the night; you see if it doesn't. But really, Noel's
right, it OUGHT to have a name.'
'Free Drinks Company.' 'Thirsty Travellers' Rest.' 'The
Travellers' joy.'
These names were suggested, but not cared for extra.
Then someone said--I think it was Oswald-- 'Why not "The House
Beautiful"?'
'It can't be a house, it must be in the road. It'll only be a
stall.'
'The "Stall Beautiful" is simply silly,' Oswald said.
'The "Bar Beautiful" then,' said Dicky, who knows what the 'Rose
and Crown' bar is like inside, which of course is hidden from
girls.
'Oh, wait a minute,' cried the Dentist, snapping his fingers like
he always does when he is trying to remember things. 'I thought of
something, only Daisy tickled me and it's gone--I know--let's call
it the Benevolent Bar!'
It was exactly right, and told the whole truth in two words.
'Benevolent' showed it was free and 'Bar' showed what was free;
e.g. things to drink. The 'Benevolent Bar' it was.
We went home at once to prepare for the morrow, for of course we
meant to do it the very next day. Procrastination is you know
what--and delays are dangerous. If we had waited long we might
have happened to spend our money on something else.
The utmost secrecy had to be observed, because Mrs Pettigrew hates
tramps. Most people do who keep fowls. Albert's uncle was in
London till the next evening, so we could not consult him, but we
know he is always chock full of intelligent sympathy with the poor
and needy.
Acting with the deepest disguise, we made an awning to cover the
Benevolent Bar keepers from the searching rays of the monarch of
the skies. We found some old striped sun-blinds in the attic, and
the girls sewed them together. They were not very big when they
were done, so we added the girls' striped petticoats. I am sorry
their petticoats turn up so constantly in my narrative, but they
really are very useful, especially when the band is cut off. The
girls borrowed Mrs Pettigrew's sewing-machine; they could not ask
her leave without explanations, which we did not wish to give just
then, and she had lent it to them before. They took it into the
cellar to work it, so that she should not hear the noise and ask
bothering questions.
They had to balance it on one end of the beer-stand. It was not
easy. While they were doing the sewing we boys went out and got
willow poles and chopped the twigs off, and got ready as well as we
could to put up the awning.
When we returned a detachment of us went down to the shop in the
village for Eiffel Tower lemonade. We bought seven-and-sixpence
worth; then we made a great label to say what the bar was for.
Then there was nothing else to do except to make rosettes out of a
blue sash of Daisy's to show we belonged to the Benevolent Bar.
The next day was as hot as ever. We rose early from our innocent
slumbers, and went out to the Dover Road to the spot we had marked
down the day before. It was at a cross-roads, so as to be able to
give drinks to as many people as possible.
We hid the awning and poles behind the hedge and went home to
brekker.
After break we got the big zinc bath they wash clothes in, and
after filling it with clean water we just had to empty it again
because it was too heavy to lift. So we carried it vacant to the
trysting-spot and left H. O. and Noel to guard it while we went and
fetched separate pails of water; very heavy work, and no one who
wasn't really benevolent would have bothered about it for an
instant. Oswald alone carried three pails. So did Dicky and the
Dentist. Then we rolled down some empty barrels and stood up three
of them by the roadside, and put planks on them. This made a very
first-class table, and we covered it with the best tablecloth we
could find in the linen cupboard. We brought out several glasses
and some teacups--not the best ones, Oswald was firm about
that--and the kettle and spirit-lamp and the tea-pot, in case any
weary tramp-woman fancied a cup of tea instead of Eiffel Tower. H.
O. and Noel had to go down to the shop for tea; they need not have
grumbled; they had not carried any of the water. And their having
to go the second time was only because we forgot to tell them to
get some real lemons to put on the bar to show what the drink would
be like when you got it. The man at the shop kindly gave us tick
for the lemons, and we cashed up out of our next week's
pocket-money.
Two or three people passed while we were getting things ready, but
no one said anything except the man who said, 'Bloomin'
Sunday-school treat', and as it was too early in the day for anyone
to be thirsty we did not stop the wayfarers to tell them their
thirst could be slaked without cost at our Benevolent Bar.
But when everything was quite ready, and our blue rosettes fastened
on our breasts over our benevolent hearts, we stuck up the great
placard we had made with 'Benevolent Bar. Free Drinks to all Weary
Travellers', in white wadding on red calico, like Christmas
decorations in church. We had meant to fasten this to the edge of
the awning, but we had to pin it to the front of the tablecloth,
because I am sorry to say the awning went wrong from the first. We
could not drive the willow poles into the road; it was much too
hard. And in the ditch it was too soft, besides being no use. So
we had just to cover our benevolent heads with our hats, and take
it in turns to go into the shadow of the tree on the other side of
the road. For we had pitched our table on the sunny side of the
way, of course, relying on our broken-reed-like awning, and wishing
to give it a fair chance.
Everything looked very nice, and we longed to see somebody really
miserable come along so as to be able to allieve their distress.
A man and woman were the first: they stopped and stared, but when
Alice said, 'Free drinks! Free drinks! Aren't you thirsty?' they
said, 'No thank you,' and went on. Then came a person from the
village--he didn't even say 'Thank you' when we asked him, and
Oswald began to fear it might be like the awful time when we
wandered about on Christmas Day trying to find poor persons and
persuade them to eat our Conscience pudding.
But a man in a blue jersey and a red bundle eased Oswald's fears by
being willing to drink a glass of lemonade, and even to say, 'Thank
you, I'm sure' quite nicely.
After that it was better. As we had foreseen, there were plenty of
thirsty people walking along the Dover Road, and even some from the
cross-road.
We had had the pleasure of seeing nineteen tumblers drained to the
dregs ere we tasted any ourselves. Nobody asked for tea.
More people went by than we gave lemonade to. Some wouldn't have
it because they were too grand. One man told us he could pay for
his own liquor when he was dry, which, praise be, he wasn't over
and above, at present; and others asked if we hadn't any beer, and
when we said 'No', they said it showed what sort we were--as if the
sort was not a good one, which it is.
And another man said, 'Slops again! You never get nothing for
nothing, not this side of heaven you don't. Look at the bloomin'
blue ribbon on 'em! Oh, Lor'!' and went on quite sadly without
having a drink.
Our Pig-man who helped us on the Tower of Mystery day went by and
we hailed him, and explained it all to him and gave him a drink,
and asked him to call as he came back. He liked it all, and said
we were a real good sort. How different from the man who wanted
the beer. Then he went on.
One thing I didn't like, and that was the way boys began to gather.
Of course we could not refuse to give drinks to any traveller who
was old enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three
glasses of lemonade and asked for another, Oswald said--
'I think you've had jolly well enough. You can't be really thirsty
after all that lot.'
The boy said, 'Oh, can't I? You'll just see if I can't,' and went
away. Presently he came back with four other boys, all bigger than
Oswald; and they all asked for lemonade. Oswald gave it to the
four new ones, but he was determined in his behaviour to the other
one, and wouldn't give him a drop. Then the five of them went and
sat on a gate a little way off and kept laughing in a nasty way,
and whenever a boy went by they called out--
'I say, 'ere's a go,' and as often as not the new boy would hang
about with them. It was disquieting, for though they had nearly
all had lemonade we could see it had not made them friendly.
A great glorious glow of goodness gladdened (those go all together
and are called alliteration) our hearts when we saw our own tramp
coming down the road. The dogs did not growl at him as they had at
the boys or the beer-man. (I did not say before that we had the
dogs with us, but of course we had, because we had promised never
to go out without them.) Oswald said, 'Hullo,' and the tramp said,
'Hullo.' Then Alice said, 'You see we've taken your advice; we're
giving free drinks. Doesn't it all look nice?'
'It does that,' said the tramp. 'I don't mind if I do.'
So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked
him for giving us the idea. He said we were very welcome, and if
we'd no objection he'd sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did,
and after talking a little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything
seemed to end in sleep with him. I always thought it was only beer
and things made people sleepy, but he was not so. When he was
asleep he rolled into the ditch, but it did not wake him up.
The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things,
and to make silly noises with their mouths, and when Oswald and
Dicky went over to them and told them to just chuck it, they were
worse than ever. I think perhaps Oswald and Dicky might have
fought and settled them--though there were eleven, yet back to back
you can always do it against overwhelming numbers in a book--only
Alice called out--
'Oswald, here's some more, come back!'
We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and
hot, and not amiable-looking. They stopped in front of the
Benevolent Bar and slowly read the wadding and red-stuff label.
Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and
another said he was too. The third one said, 'Blessed or not, a
drink's a drink. Blue ribbon, though, by ---' (a word you ought
not to say, though it is in the Bible and the catechism as well).
'Let's have a liquor, little missy.'
The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any
notice of what the dogs said, but to give these men each a drink.
So he did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very
much, and then they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty
no one else had entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald.
Oswald said in an undervoice to H. O.--
'Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if
you want anything.' And then he drew the others away, to say he
thought there'd been enough of it, and considering the boys and new
three men, perhaps we'd better chuck it and go home. We'd been
benevolent nearly four hours anyway.
While this conversation and the objections of the others were going
on, H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly wrecked the Benevolent
Bar.
Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened,
but from what H. O. said in the calmer moments of later life, I
think this was about what happened. One of the big disagreeable
men said to H. O.--
'Ain't got such a thing as a drop o' spirit, 'ave yer?'
H. O. said no, we hadn't, only lemonade and tea.
'Lemonade and tea! blank' (bad word I told you about) 'and blazes,'
replied the bad character, for such he afterwards proved to be.
'What's THAT then?'
He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whisky, which stood on the
table near the spirit-kettle.
'Oh, is THAT what you want?' said H. O. kindly.
The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think
so, but H. O. is not sure about the 'bloomin'.
He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O.
generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle, labelled
Dewar's whisky. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he
spat out what happened to be left in his mouth just then, and began
to swear. It was then that Oswald and Dicky rushed upon the scene.
The man was shaking his fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still
holding on to the bottle we had brought out the methylated spirit
in for the lamp, in case of anyone wanting tea, which they hadn't.
'If I was Jim,' said the second ruffian, for such indeed they were,
when he had snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, 'I'd chuck
the whole show over the hedge, so I would, and you young guttersnipes
after it, so I wouldn't.'
Oswald saw in a moment that in point of strength, if not numbers,
he and his party were out-matched, and the unfriendly boys were
drawing gladly near. It is no shame to signal for help when in
distress--the best ships do it every day. Oswald shouted 'Help,
help!' Before the words were out of his brave yet trembling lips
our own tramp leapt like an antelope from the ditch and said--
'Now then, what's up?'
The biggest of the three men immediately knocked him down. He lay
still.
The biggest then said, 'Come on--any more of you? Come on!'
Oswald was so enraged at this cowardly attack that he actually hit
out at the big man--and he really got one in just above the belt.
Then he shut his eyes, because he felt that now all was indeed up.
There was a shout and a scuffle, and Oswald opened his eyes in
astonishment at finding himself still whole and unimpaired. Our
own tramp had artfully simulated insensibleness, to get the men off
their guard, and then had suddenly got his arms round a leg each of
two of the men, and pulled them to the ground, helped by Dicky, who
saw his game and rushed in at the same time, exactly like Oswald
would have done if he had not had his eyes shut ready to meet his
doom.
The unpleasant boys shouted, and the third man tried to help his
unrespectable friends, now on their backs involved in a desperate
struggle with our own tramp, who was on top of them, accompanied by
Dicky. It all happened in a minute, and it was all mixed up. The
dogs were growling and barking--Martha had one of the men by the
trouser leg and Pincher had another; the girls were screaming like
mad and the strange boys shouted and laughed (little beasts!), and
then suddenly our Pig-man came round the corner, and two friends of
his with him. He had gone and fetched them to take care of us if
anything unpleasant occurred. It was a very thoughtful, and just
like him.
'Fetch the police!' cried the Pig-man in noble tones, and H. O.
started running to do it. But the scoundrels struggled from under
Dicky and our tramp, shook off the dogs and some bits of trouser,
and fled heavily down the road.
Our Pig-man said, 'Get along home!' to the disagreeable boys, and
'Shoo'd' them as if they were hens, and they went. H. O. ran back
when they began to go up the road, and there we were, all standing
breathless in tears on the scene of the late desperate engagement.
Oswald gives you his word of honour that his and Dicky's tears were
tears of pure rage. There are such things as tears of pure rage.
Anyone who knows will tell you so.
We picked up our own tramp and bathed the lump on his forehead with
lemonade. The water in the zinc bath had been upset in the
struggle. Then he and the Pig-man and his kind friends helped us
carry our things home.
The Pig-man advised us on the way not to try these sort of kind
actions without getting a grown-up to help us. We've been advised
this before, but now I really think we shall never try to be
benevolent to the poor and needy again. At any rate not unless we
know them very well first.
We have seen our own tramp often since. The Pig-man gave him a
job. He has got work to do at last. The Pig-man says he is not
such a very bad chap, only he will fall asleep after the least drop
of drink. We know that is his failing. We saw it at once. But it
was lucky for us he fell asleep that day near our benevolent bar.
I will not go into what my father said about it all. There was a
good deal in it about minding your own business--there generally is
in most of the talkings-to we get. But he gave our tramp a
sovereign, and the Pig-man says he went to sleep on it for a solid
week.
CHAPTER 12
THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
The author of these few lines really does hope to goodness that no
one will be such an owl as to think from the number of things we
did when we were in the country, that we were wretched, neglected
little children, whose grown-up relations sparkled in the bright
haunts of pleasure, and whirled in the giddy what's-its-name of
fashion, while we were left to weep forsaken at home. It was
nothing of the kind, and I wish you to know that my father was with
us a good deal--and Albert's uncle (who is really no uncle of ours,
but only of Albert next door when we lived in Lewisham) gave up a
good many of his valuable hours to us. And the father of Denny and
Daisy came now and then, and other people, quite as many as we
wished to see. And we had some very decent times with them; and
enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you. In some ways the
good times you have with grown-ups are better than the ones you
have by yourselves. At any rate they are safer. It is almost
impossible, then, to do anything fatal without being pulled up
short by a grown-up ere yet the deed is done. And, if you are
careful, anything that goes wrong can be looked on as the
grown-up's fault. But these secure pleasures are not so
interesting to tell about as the things you do when there is no one
to stop you on the edge of the rash act.
It is curious, too, that many of our most interesting games
happened when grown-ups were far away. For instance when we were
pilgrims.
It was just after the business of the Benevolent Bar, and it was a
wet day. It is not easy to amuse yourself indoors on a wet day as
older people seem to think, especially when you are far removed
from your own home, and haven't got all your own books and things.
The girls were playing Halma--which is a beastly game--Noel was
writing poetry, H. O. was singing 'I don't know what to do' to the
tune of 'Canaan's happy shore'. It goes like this, and is very
tiresome to listen to--
'I don't know what to do--oo--oo--oo!
I don't know what to do--oo--oo!
It IS a beastly rainy day
And I don't know what to do.'
The rest of us were trying to make him shut up. We put a carpet
bag over his head, but he went on inside it; and then we sat on
him, but he sang under us; we held him upside down and made him
crawl head first under the sofa, but when, even there, he kept it
up, we saw that nothing short of violence would induce him to
silence, so we let him go. And then he said we had hurt him, and
we said we were only in fun, and he said if we were he wasn't, and
ill feeling might have grown up even out of a playful brotherly act
like ours had been, only Alice chucked the Halma and said--
'Let dogs delight. Come on--let's play something.'
Then Dora said, 'Yes, but look here. Now we're together I do want
to say something. What about the Wouldbegoods Society?'
Many of us groaned, and one said, 'Hear! hear!' I will not say
which one, but it was not Oswald.
'No, but really,' Dora said, 'I don't want to be preachy--but you
know we DID say we'd try to be good. And it says in a book I was
reading only yesterday that NOT being naughty is not enough. You
must BE good. And we've hardly done anything. The Golden Deed
book's almost empty.'
'Couldn't we have a book of leaden deeds?' said Noel, coming out of
his poetry, 'then there'd be plenty for Alice to write about if she
wants to, or brass or zinc or aluminium deeds? We shan't ever fill
the book with golden ones.'
H. O. had rolled himself in the red tablecloth and said Noel was
only advising us to be naughty, and again peace waved in the
balance. But Alice said, 'Oh, H. O., DON'T--he didn't mean that;
but really and truly, I wish wrong things weren't so interesting.
You begin to do a noble act, and then it gets so exciting, and
before you know where you are you are doing something wrong as hard
as you can lick.'
'And enjoying it too' Dick said.
'It's very curious,' Denny said, 'but you don't seem to be able to
be certain inside yourself whether what you're doing is right if
you happen to like doing it, but if you don't like doing it you
know quite well. I only thought of that just now. I wish Noel
would make a poem about it.'
'I am,' Noel said; 'it began about a crocodile but it
is finishing itself up quite different from what I meant it to at
first. just wait a minute.'
He wrote very hard while his kind brothers and sisters and his
little friends waited the minute he had said, and then he read:
'The crocodile is very wise,
He lives in the Nile with little eyes,
He eats the hippopotamus too,
And if he could he would eat up you.
'The lovely woods and starry skies
He looks upon with glad surprise!
He sees the riches of the east,
And the tiger and lion, kings of beast.
'So let all be good and beware
Of saying shan't and won't and don't care;
For doing wrong is easier far
Than any of the right things I know about are.
And I couldn't make it king of beasts because of it not rhyming
with east, so I put the s off beasts on to king. It comes even in
the end.'
We all said it was a very nice piece of poetry. Noel gets really
ill if you don't like what he writes, and then he said, 'If it's
trying that's wanted, I don't care how hard we TRY to be good, but
we may as well do it some nice way. Let's be Pilgrim's Progress,
like I wanted to at first.'
And we were all beginning to say we didn't want to, when suddenly
Dora said, 'Oh, look here! I know. We'll be the Canterbury
Pilgrims. People used to go pilgrimages to make themselves good.'
'With peas in their shoes,' the Dentist said. 'It's in a piece of
poetry--only the man boiled his peas--which is quite unfair.'
'Oh, yes,' said H. O., 'and cocked hats.'
'Not cocked--cockled'--it was Alice who said this. 'And they had
staffs and scrips, and they told each other tales. We might as
well.'
Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in
a book called A Short History of the English People. It is not at
all short really--three fat volumes--but it has jolly good
pictures. It was written by a gentleman named Green. So Oswald
said--
'All right. I'll be the Knight.'
'I'll be the wife of Bath,' Dora said. 'What will you be, Dicky?'
'Oh, I don't care, I'll be Mr Bath if you like.'
'We don't know much about the people,' Alice said. 'How many were
there?'
'Thirty,' Oswald replied, 'but we needn't be all of them. There's
a Nun-Priest.'
'Is that a man or a woman?'
Oswald said he could not be sure by the picture, but Alice and Noel
could be it between them. So that was settled. Then we got the
book and looked at the dresses to see if we could make up dresses
for the parts. At first we thought we would, because it would be
something to do, and it was a very wet day; but they looked
difficult, especially the Miller's. Denny wanted to be the Miller,
but in the end he was the Doctor, because it was next door to
Dentist, which is what we call him for short. Daisy was to be the
Prioress--because she is good, and has 'a soft little red mouth',
and H. O. WOULD be the Manciple (I don't know what that is),
because the picture of him is bigger than most of the others, and
he said Manciple was a nice portmanteau word--half mandarin and
half disciple.
'Let's get the easiest parts of the dresses ready first.' Alice
said--'the pilgrims' staffs and hats and the cockles.'
So Oswald and Dicky braved the fury of the elements and went into
the wood beyond the orchard to cut ash-sticks. We got eight jolly
good long ones. Then we took them home, and the girls bothered
till we changed our clothes, which were indeed sopping with the
elements we had faced.
Then we peeled the sticks. They were nice and white at first, but
they soon got dirty when we carried them. It is a curious thing:
however often you wash your hands they always seem to come off on
anything white. And we nailed paper rosettes to the tops of them.
That was the nearest we could get to cockle-shells.
'And we may as well have them there as on our hats,' Alice said.
'And let's call each other by our right names to-day, just to get
into it. Don't you think so, Knight?'
'Yea, Nun-Priest,' Oswald was replying, but Noel said she was only
half the Nun-Priest, and again a threat of unpleasantness darkened
the air. But Alice said--
'Don't be a piggy-wiggy, Noel, dear; you can have it all, I don't
want it. I'll just be a plain pilgrim, or Henry who killed
Becket.'
So she was called the Plain Pilgrim, and she did not mind.
We thought of cocked hats, but they are warm to wear, and the big
garden hats that make you look like pictures on the covers of
plantation songs did beautifully. We put cockle-shells on them.
Sandals we did try, with pieces of oil-cloth cut the shape of soles
and fastened with tape, but the dust gets into your toes so, and we
decided boots were better for such a long walk. Some of the
pilgrims who were very earnest decided to tie their boots with
white tape crossed outside to pretend sandals. Denny was one of
these earnest palmers. As for dresses, there was no time to make
them properly, and at first we thought of nightgowns; but we
decided not to, in case people in Canterbury were not used to that
sort of pilgrim nowadays. We made up our minds to go as we
were--or as we might happen to be next day.
You will be ready to believe we hoped next day would be fine. It
was.
Fair was the morn when the pilgrims arose and went down to
breakfast. Albert's uncle had had brekker early and was hard at
work in his study. We heard his quill pen squeaking when we
listened at the door. It is not wrong to listen at doors when
there is only one person inside, because nobody would tell itself
secrets aloud when it was alone.
We got lunch from the housekeeper, Mrs Pettigrew. She seems almost
to LIKE us all to go out and take our lunch with us. Though I
should think it must be very dull for her all alone. I remember,
though, that Eliza, our late general at Lewisham, was just the
same. We took the dear dogs of course. Since the Tower of Mystery
happened we are not allowed to go anywhere without the escort of
these faithful friends of man. We did not take Martha, because
bull-dogs do not like walks. Remember this if you ever have one of
those valuable animals.
When we were all ready, with our big hats and cockle-shells, and
our staves and our tape sandals, the pilgrims looked very nice.
'Only we haven't any scrips,' Dora said. 'What is a scrip?'
'I think it's something to read. A roll of parchment or
something.'
So we had old newspapers rolled up, and carried them in our hands.
We took the Globe and the Westminster Gazette because they are pink
and green. The Dentist wore his white sandshoes, sandalled with
black tape, and bare legs. They really looked almost as good as
bare feet.
'We OUGHT to have peas in our shoes,' he said. But we did not
think so. We knew what a very little stone in your boot will do,
let alone peas.
Of course we knew the way to go to Canterbury, because the old
Pilgrims' Road runs just above our house. It is a very pretty
road, narrow, and often shady. It is nice for walking, but carts
do not like it because it is rough and rutty; so there is grass
growing in patches on it.
I have said that it was a fine day, which means that it was not
raining, but the sun did not shine all the time.
''Tis well, O Knight,' said Alice, 'that the orb of day shines not
in undi--what's-its-name?--splendour.'
'Thou sayest sooth, Plain Pilgrim,' replied Oswald. ''Tis jolly
warm even as it is.'
'I wish I wasn't two people,' Noel said, 'it seems to make me
hotter. I think I'll be a Reeve or something.'
But we would not let him, and we explained that if he hadn't been
so beastly particular Alice would have been half of him, and he had
only himself to thank if being all of a Nun-Priest made him hot.
But it WAS warm certainly, and it was some time since we'd gone so
far in boots. Yet when H. O. complained we did our duty as
pilgrims and made him shut up. He did as soon as Alice said that
about whining and grizzling being below the dignity of a Manciple.
It was so warm that the Prioress and the wife of Bath gave up
walking with their arms round each other in their usual silly way
(Albert's uncle calls it Laura Matildaing), and the Doctor and Mr
Bath had to take their jackets off and carry them.
I am sure if an artist or a photographer, or any person who liked
pilgrims, had seen us he would have been very pleased. The paper
cockle-shells were first-rate, but it was awkward having them on
the top of the staffs, because they got in your way when you wanted
the staff to use as a walking-stick.
We stepped out like a man all of us, and kept it up as well as we
could in book-talk, and at first all was merry as a dinner-bell;
but presently Oswald, who was the 'very perfect gentle knight',
could not help noticing that one of us was growing very silent and
rather pale, like people are when they have eaten something that
disagrees with them before they are quite sure of the fell truth.
So he said, 'What's up, Dentist, old man?' quite kindly and like a
perfect knight, though, of course, he was annoyed with Denny. It
is sickening when people turn pale in the middle of a game and
everything is spoiled, and you have to go home, and tell the
spoiler how sorry you are that he is knocked up, and pretend not to
mind about the game being spoiled.
Denny said, 'Nothing', but Oswald knew better.
Then Alice said, 'Let's rest a bit, Oswald, it IS hot.'
'Sir Oswald, if you please, Plain Pilgrim,' returned her brother
dignifiedly. 'Remember I'm a knight.'
So then we sat down and had lunch, and Denny looked better. We
played adverbs, and twenty questions, and apprenticing your son,
for a bit in the shade, and then Dicky said it was time to set sail
if we meant to make the port of Canterbury that night. Of course,
pilgrims reck not of ports, but Dicky never does play the game
thoughtfully.
We went on. I believe we should have got to Canterbury all right
and quite early, only Denny got paler and paler, and presently
Oswald saw, beyond any doubt, that he was beginning to walk lame.
'Shoes hurt you, Dentist?' he said, still with kind striving
cheerfulness.
'Not much--it's all right,' returned the other.
So on we went--but we were all a bit tired now--and the sun was
hotter and hotter; the clouds had gone away. We had to begin to
sing to keep up our spirits. We sang 'The British Grenadiers' and
'John Brown's Body', which is grand to march to, and a lot of
others. We were just starting on 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the boys
are marching', when Denny stopped short. He stood first on one
foot and then on the other, and suddenly screwed up his face and
put his knuckles in his eyes and sat down on a heap of stones by
the roadside. When we pulled his hands down he was actually
crying. The author does not wish to say it is babyish to cry.
'Whatever is up?' we all asked, and Daisy and Dora petted him to
get him to say, but he only went on howling, and said it was
nothing, only would we go on and leave him, and call for him as we
came back.
Oswald thought very likely something had given Denny the
stomach-ache, and he did not like to say so before all of us, so he
sent the others away and told them to walk on a bit.
Then he said, 'Now, Denny, don't be a young ass. What is it? Is
it stomach-ache?'
And Denny stopped crying to say 'No!' as loud as he could.
'Well, then,' Oswald said, 'look here, you're spoiling the whole
thing. Don't be a jackape, Denny. What is it?'
'You won't tell the others if I tell you?'
'Not if you say not,' Oswald answered in kindly tones.
'Well, it's my shoes.'
'Take them off, man.'
'You won't laugh?'
'NO!' cried Oswald, so impatiently that the others looked back to
see why he was shouting. He waved them away, and with humble
gentleness began to undo the black-tape sandals.
Denny let him, crying hard all the time.
When Oswald had got off the first shoe the mystery was made plain
to him.
'Well! Of all the--' he said in proper indignation.
Denny quailed--though he said he did not--but then he doesn't know
what quailing is, and if Denny did not quail then Oswald does not
know what quailing is either.
For when Oswald took the shoe off he naturally chucked it down and
gave it a kick, and a lot of little pinky yellow things rolled out.
And Oswald look closer at the interesting sight. And the little
things were SPLIT peas.
'Perhaps you'll tell me,' said the gentle knight, with the
politeness of despair, 'why on earth you've played the goat like
this?'
'Oh, don't be angry,' Denny said; and now his shoes were off, he
curled and uncurled his toes and stopped crying. 'I KNEW pilgrims
put peas in their shoes--and--oh, I wish you wouldn't laugh!'
'I'm not,' said Oswald, still with bitter politeness.
'I didn't want to tell you I was going to, because I wanted to be
better than all of you, and I thought if you knew I was going to
you'd want to too, and you wouldn't when I said it first. So I
just put some peas in my pocket and dropped one or two at a time
into my shoes when you weren't looking.'
In his secret heart Oswald said, 'Greedy young ass.' For it IS
greedy to want to have more of anything than other people, even
goodness.
Outwardly Oswald said nothing.
'You see'--Denny went on--'I do want to be good. And if pilgriming
is to do you good, you ought to do it properly. I shouldn't mind
being hurt in my feet if it would make me good for ever and ever.
And besides, I wanted to play the game thoroughly. You always say
I don't.'
The breast of the kind Oswald was touched by these last words.
'I think you're quite good enough,' he said. 'I'll fetch back the
others--no, they won't laugh.'
And we all went back to Denny, and the girls made a fuss with him.
But Oswald and Dicky were grave and stood aloof. They were old
enough to see that being good was all very well, but after all you
had to get the boy home somehow.
When they said this, as agreeably as they could, Denny said--
'It's all right--someone will give me a lift.'
'You think everything in the world can be put right with a lift,'
Dicky said, and he did not speak lovingly.
'So it can,' said Denny, 'when it's your feet. I shall easily get
a lift home.'
'Not here you won't,' said Alice. 'No one goes down this road; but
the high road's just round the corner, where you see the telegraph
wires.'
Dickie and Oswald made a sedan chair and carried Denny to the high
road, and we sat down in a ditch to wait. For a long time nothing
went by but a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man
was so sound asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us
thought soon enough about springing like a flash to the horses'
heads, though we all thought of it directly the dray was out of
sight.
So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than
one pilgrim was heard to say it wished we had never come. Oswald
was not one of those who uttered this useless wish.
At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital
parts of even Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet
on the road, and a dogcart came in sight with a lady in it all
alone.
We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the
long-boat hail the passing sail.
She pulled up. She was not a very old lady--twenty-five we found
out afterwards her age was--and she looked jolly.
'Well,' she said, 'what's the matter?'
'It's this poor little boy,' Dora said, pointing to the Dentist,
who had gone to sleep in the dry ditch, with his mouth open as
usual. 'His feet hurt him so, and will you give him a lift?'
'But why are you all rigged out like this?' asked the lady, looking
at our cockle-shells and sandals and things. We told her.
'And how has he hurt his feet?' she asked. And we told her that.
She looked very kind. 'Poor little chap,' she said. 'Where do you
want to go?'
We told her that too. We had no concealments from this lady.
'Well,' she said, 'I have to go on to--what is its name?'
'Canterbury,' said H. O.
'Well, yes, Canterbury,' she said; 'it's only about half a mile.
I'll take the poor little pilgrim--and, yes, the three girls. You
boys must walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll
drive you home--at least some of you. How will that do?'
We thanked her very much indeed, and said it would do very nicely.
Then we helped Denny into the cart, and the girls got up, and the
red wheels of the cart spun away through the dust.
'I wish it had been an omnibus the lady was driving,' said H. O.,
'then we could all have had a ride.'
'Don't you be so discontented,' Dicky said. And Noel said--
'You ought to be jolly thankful you haven't got to carry Denny all
the way home on your back. You'd have had to if you'd been out
alone with him.'
When we got to Canterbury it was much smaller than we expected, and
the cathedral not much bigger than the Church that is next to the
Moat House. There seemed to be only one big street, but we
supposed the rest of the city was hidden away somewhere.
There was a large inn, with a green before it, and the red-wheeled
dogcart was standing in the stableyard and the lady, with Denny and
the others, sitting on the benches in the porch, looking out for
us. The inn was called the 'George and Dragon', and it made me
think of the days when there were coaches and highwaymen and
foot-pads and jolly landlords, and adventures at country inns, like
you read about.
'We've ordered tea,' said the lady. 'Would you like to wash your
hands?'
We saw that she wished us to, so we said yes, we would. The girls
and Denny were already much cleaner than when we parted from them.
There was a courtyard to the inn and a wooden staircase outside the
house. We were taken up this, and washed our hands in a big room
with a fourpost wooden bed and dark red hangings--just the sort of
hangings that would not show the stains of gore in the dear old
adventurous times.
Then we had tea in a great big room with wooden chairs and tables,
very polished and old.
It was a very nice tea, with lettuces, and cold meat, and three
kinds of jam, as well as cake, and new bread, which we are not
allowed at home.
While tea was being had, the lady talked to us. She was very kind.
There are two sorts of people in the world, besides others; one
sort understand what you're driving at, and the other don't. This
lady was the one sort.
After everyone had had as much to eat as they could possibly want,
the lady said, 'What was it you particularly wanted to see at
Canterbury?'
'The cathedral,' Alice said, 'and the place where Thomas A Becket
was murdered.'
'And the Danejohn,' said Dicky.
Oswald wanted to see the walls, because he likes the Story of St
Alphege and the Danes.
'Well, well,' said the lady, and she put on her hat; it was a
really sensible one--not a blob of fluffy stuff and feathers put on
sideways and stuck on with long pins, and no shade to your face,
but almost as big as ours, with a big brim and red flowers, and
black strings to tie under your chin to keep it from blowing off.
Then we went out all together to see Canterbury. Dicky and Oswald
took it in turns to carry Denny on their backs. The lady called
him 'The Wounded Comrade'.
We went first to the church. Oswald, whose quick brain was easily
aroused to suspicions, was afraid the lady might begin talking in
the church, but she did not. The church door was open. I remember
mother telling us once it was right and good for churches to be
left open all day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet,
and say their prayers, if they wanted to. But it does not seem
respectful to talk out loud in church. (See Note A.)
When we got outside the lady said, 'You can imagine how on the
chancel steps began the mad struggle in which Becket, after hurling
one of his assailants, armour and all, to the ground--'
'It would have been much cleverer,' H. O. interrupted, 'to hurl him
without his armour, and leave that standing up.'
'Go on,' said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a
withering glance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about
Becket, and then about St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till
he died, because he wouldn't tax his poor people to please the
beastly rotten Danes.
And Denny recited a piece of poetry he knows called 'The Ballad of
Canterbury'.
It begins about Danish warships snake-shaped, and ends about doing
as you'd be done by. It is long, but it has all the beef-bones in
it, and all about St Alphege.
Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an
oast-house. And Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes
from looked down on a quite common farmyard. The hospital was like
a barn, and other things were like other things, but we went all
about and enjoyed it very much. The lady was quite amusing,
besides sometimes talking like a real cathedral guide I met
afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said we thought
Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said--
'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear
something about Canterbury.'
And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said--
'What a horrid sell!' But Oswald, with immediate courteousness,
said--
'I don't care. You did it awfully well.' And he did not say,
though he owns he thought of it--
'I knew it all the time,' though it was a great temptation.
Because really it was more than half true. He had felt from the
first that this was too small for Canterbury. (See Note C.)
The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at
all. We went to Canterbury another time. (See Note D.)
We were not angry with the lady for selling us about it being
Canterbury, because she had really kept it up first-rate. And she
asked us if we minded, very handsomely, and we said we liked it.
But now we did not care how soon we got home. The lady saw this,
and said--
'Come, our chariots are ready, and our horses caparisoned.'
That is a first-rate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and
he liked her for using it, though he wondered why she said
chariots. When we got back to the inn I saw her dogcart was there,
and a grocer's cart too, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it.
She took the girls in her cart, and the boys went with the grocer.
His horse was a very good one to go, only you had to hit it with
the wrong end of the whip. But the cart was very bumpety.
The evening dews were falling--at least, I suppose so, but you do
not feel dew in a grocer's cart--when we reached home. We all
thanked the lady very much, and said we hoped we should see her
again some day. She said she hoped so.
The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the
lady and kissed her, according as we were boys or girls, or little
boys, she touched up her horse and drove away.
She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done
waving, and were turning into the house, Albert's uncle came into
our midst like a whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt
had no stud in at the neck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his
hands were inky, and we knew he had left off in the middle of a
chapter by the wildness of his eye.
'Who was that lady?' he said. 'Where did you meet her?'
Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the
story from the beginning.
'The other day, protector of the poor,' he began; 'Dora and I were
reading about the Canterbury pilgrims ...'
Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his
instructions about beginning at the beginning had borne fruit, but
instead he interrupted.
'Stow it, you young duffer! Where did you meet her?'
Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, 'Hazelbridge.'
Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went
he called out to Oswald--
'Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tyre.'
I am sure Oswald was as quick as anyone could have been, but long
ere the tyre was thoroughly blowed Albert's uncle appeared, with a
collar-stud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenching
the unoffending machine from Oswald's surprised fingers.
Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging
himself into the saddle he set off, scorching down the road at a
pace not surpassed by any highwayman, however black and
high-mettled his steed. We were left looking at each other.
'He must have recognized her,' Dicky said.
'Perhaps,' Noel said, 'she is the old nurse who alone knows the
dark secret of his highborn birth.'
'Not old enough, by chalks,' Oswald said.
'I shouldn't wonder,' said Alice, 'if she holds the secret of the
will that will make him rolling in long-lost wealth.'
'I wonder if he'll catch her,' Noel said. 'I'm quite certain all
his future depends on it. Perhaps she's his long-lost sister, and
the estate was left to them equally, only she couldn't be found, so
it couldn't be shared up.'
'Perhaps he's only in love with her,' Dora said, 'parted by cruel
Fate at an early age, he has ranged the wide world ever since
trying to find her.'
'I hope to goodness he hasn't--anyway, he's not ranged since we
knew him--never further than Hastings,' Oswald said. 'We don't
want any of that rot.'
'What rot?' Daisy asked. And Oswald said--
'Getting married, and all that sort of rubbish.'
And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn't agree with him.
Even Alice owned that being bridesmaids must be fairly good fun.
It's no good. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give
them every comfort and luxury, and play fair just as if they were
boys, but there is something unmanly about the best of girls. They
go silly, like milk goes sour, without any warning.
When Albert's uncle returned he was very hot, with a beaded brow,
but pale as the Dentist when the peas were at their worst.
'Did you catch her?' H. O. asked.
Albert's uncle's brow looked black as the cloud that thunder will
presently break from. 'No,'he said.
'Is she your long-lost nurse?' H. O. went on, before we could stop
him.
'Long-lost grandmother! I knew the lady long ago in India,' said
Albert's uncle, as he left the room, slamming the door in a way we
should be forbidden to.
And that was the end of the Canterbury Pilgrimage.
As for the lady, we did not then know whether she was his long-lost
grandmother that he had known in India or not, though we thought
she seemed youngish for the part. We found out afterwards whether
she was or not, but that comes in another part. His manner was not
the one that makes you go on asking questions. The Canterbury
Pilgriming did not exactly make us good, but then, as Dora said, we
had not done anything wrong that day. So we were twenty-four hours
to the good.
Note A.--Afterwards we went and saw real Canterbury. It is
very large. A disagreeable man showed us round the cathedral, and
jawed all the time quite loud as if it wasn't a church. I remember
one thing he said. It was this:
'This is the Dean's Chapel; it was the Lady Chapel in the wicked
days when people used to worship the Virgin Mary.'
And H. O. said, 'I suppose they worship the Dean now?'
Some strange people who were there laughed out loud. I think this
is worse in church than not taking your cap off when you come in,
as H. O. forgot to do, because the cathedral was so big he didn't
think it was a church.
Note B. (See Note C.)
Note C. (See Note D.)
Note D. (See Note E.)
Note E. (See Note A.)
This ends the Canterbury Pilgrims.
CHAPTER 13
THE DRAGON'S TEETH; OR, ARMY-SEED
Albert's uncle was out on his bicycle as usual. After the day when
we became Canterbury Pilgrims and were brought home in the dog-cart
with red wheels by the lady he told us was his long-lost
grandmother he had known years ago in India, he spent not nearly so
much of his time in writing, and he used to shave every morning
instead of only when requisite, as in earlier days. And he was
always going out on his bicycle in his new Norfolk suit. We are
not so unobserving as grown-up people make out. We knew well
enough he was looking for the long-lost. And we jolly well wished
he might find her. Oswald, always full of sympathy with
misfortune, however undeserved, had himself tried several times to
find the lady. So had the others. But all this is what they call
a digression; it has nothing to do with the dragon's teeth I am now
narrating.
It began with the pig dying--it was the one we had for the circus,
but it having behaved so badly that day had nothing to do with its
illness and death, though the girls said they felt remorse, and
perhaps if we hadn't made it run so that day it might have been
spared to us. But Oswald cannot pretend that people were right
just because they happen to be dead, and as long as that pig was
alive we all knew well enough that it was it that made us run--and
not us it.
The pig was buried in the kitchen garden. Bill, that we made the
tombstone for, dug the grave, and while he was away at his dinner
we took a turn at digging, because we like to be useful, and
besides, when you dig you never know what you may turn up. I knew
a man once that found a gold ring on the point of his fork when he
was digging potatoes, and you know how we found two half-crowns
ourselves once when we were digging for treasure.
Oswald was taking his turn with the spade, and the others were
sitting on the gravel and telling him how to do it.
'Work with a will,' Dicky said, yawning.
Alice said, 'I wish we were in a book. People in books never dig
without finding something. I think I'd rather it was a secret
passage than anything.'
Oswald stopped to wipe his honest brow ere replying.
'A secret's nothing when you've found it out. Look at the secret
staircase. It's no good, not even for hide-and-seek, because of
its squeaking. I'd rather have the pot of gold we used to dig for
when we were little.' It was really only last year, but you seem
to grow old very quickly after you have once passed the prime of
your youth, which is at ten, I believe.
'How would you like to find the mouldering bones of Royalist
soldiers foully done to death by nasty Ironsides?'Noel asked, with
his mouth full of plum.
'If they were really dead it wouldn't matter,' Dora said. 'What
I'm afraid of is a skeleton that can walk about and catch at your
legs when you're going upstairs to bed.'
'Skeletons can't walk,' Alice said in a hurry; 'you know they
can't, Dora.'
And she glared at Dora till she made her sorry she had said what
she had. The things you are frightened of, or even those you would
rather not meet in the dark, should never be mentioned before the
little ones, or else they cry when it comes to bed-time, and say it
was because of what you said.
'We shan't find anything. No jolly fear,' said Dicky.
And just then my spade I was digging with struck on something hard,
and it felt hollow. I did really think for one joyful space that
we had found that pot of gold. But the thing, whatever it was,
seemed to be longish; longer, that is, than a pot of gold would
naturally be. And as I uncovered it I saw that it was not at all
pot-of-gold-colour, but like a bone Pincher has buried. So Oswald
said--
'It IS the skeleton.'
The girls all drew back, and Alice said, 'Oswald, I wish you
wouldn't.'
A moment later the discovery was unearthed, and Oswald lifted it
up, with both hands.
'It's a dragon's head,' Noel said, and it certainly looked like it.
It was long and narrowish and bony, and with great yellow teeth
sticking in the jaw.
Bill came back just then and said it was a horse's head, but H. O.
and Noel would not believe it, and Oswald owns that no horse he has
ever seen had a head at all that shape.
But Oswald did not stop to argue, because he saw a keeper who
showed me how to set snares going by, and he wanted to talk to him
about ferrets, so he went off and Dicky and Denny and Alice with
him. Also Daisy and Dora went off to finish reading Ministering
Children. So H. O. and Noel were left with the bony head. They
took it away.
The incident had quite faded from the mind of Oswald next day. But
just before breakfast Noel and H. O. came in, looking hot and
anxious. They had got up early and had not washed at all--not even
their hands and faces. Noel made Oswald a secret signal. All the
others saw it, and with proper delicate feeling pretended not to
have.
When Oswald had gone out with Noel and H. O. in obedience to the
secret signal, Noel said--
'You know that dragon's head yesterday?'
'Well?' Oswald said quickly, but not crossly--the two things are
quite different.
'Well, you know what happened in Greek history when some chap sowed
dragon's teeth?'
'They came up armed men,' said H. O., but Noel sternly bade him
shut up, and Oswald said 'Well,' again. If he spoke impatiently it
was because he smelt the bacon being taken in to breakfast.
'Well,' Noel went on, 'what do you suppose would have come up if
we'd sowed those dragon's teeth we found yesterday?'
'Why, nothing, you young duffer,' said Oswald, who could now smell
the coffee. 'All that isn't History it's Humbug. Come on in to
brekker.'
'It's NOT humbug,' H. O. cried, 'it is history. We DID sow--'
'Shut up,' said Noel again. 'Look here, Oswald. We did sow those
dragon's teeth in Randall's ten-acre meadow, and what do you think
has come up?'
'Toadstools I should think,' was Oswald's contemptible rejoinder.
'They have come up a camp of soldiers,' said Noel--ARMED MEN. So
you see it WAS history. We have sowed army-seed, just like Cadmus,
and it has come up. It was a very wet night. I daresay that
helped it along.'
Oswald could not decide which to disbelieve--his brother or his
ears. So, disguising his doubtful emotions without a word, he led
the way to the bacon and the banqueting hall.
He said nothing about the army-seed then, neither did Noel and H.
O. But after the bacon we went into the garden, and then the good
elder brother said--
'Why don't you tell the others your cock-and-bull story?'
So they did, and their story was received with warm expressions of
doubt. It was Dicky who observed--
'Let's go and have a squint at Randall's ten-acre, anyhow. I saw
a hare there the other day.'
We went. It is some little way, and as we went, disbelief reigned
superb in every breast except Noel's and H. O.'s, so you will see
that even the ready pen of the present author cannot be expected to
describe to you his variable sensations when he got to the top of
the hill and suddenly saw that his little brothers had spoken the
truth. I do not mean that they generally tell lies, but people
make mistakes sometimes, and the effect is the same as lies if you
believe them.
There WAS a camp there with real tents and soldiers in grey and red
tunics. I daresay the girls would have said coats. We stood in
ambush, too astonished even to think of lying in it, though of
course we know that this is customary. The ambush was the wood on
top of the little hill, between Randall's ten-acre meadow and
Sugden's Waste Wake pasture.
'There would be cover here for a couple of regiments,' whispered
Oswald, who was, I think, gifted by Fate with the far-seeingness of
a born general.
Alice merely said 'Hist', and we went down to mingle with the
troops as though by accident, and seek for information.
The first man we came to at the edge of the camp was cleaning a
sort of cauldron thing like witches brew bats in.
We went up to him and said, 'Who are you? Are you English, or are
you the enemy?'
'We're the enemy,' he said, and he did not seem ashamed of being
what he was. And he spoke English with quite a good accent for a
foreigner.
'The enemy!' Oswald echoed in shocked tones. It is a terrible
thing to a loyal and patriotic youth to see an enemy cleaning a pot
in an English field, with English sand, and looking as much at home
as if he was in his foreign fastnesses.
The enemy seemed to read Oswald's thoughts with deadly
unerringness. He said--
'The English are somewhere over on the other side of the hill.
They are trying to keep us out of Maidstone.'
After this our plan of mingling with the troops did not seem worth
going on with. This soldier, in spite of his unerringness in
reading Oswald's innermost heart, seemed not so very sharp in other
things, or he would never have given away his secret plans like
this, for he must have known from our accents that we were Britons
to the backbone. Or perhaps (Oswald thought this, and it made his
blood at once boil and freeze, which our uncle had told us was
possible, but only in India), perhaps he thought that Maidstone was
already as good as taken and it didn't matter what he said. While
Oswald was debating within his intellect what to say next, and how
to say it so as to discover as many as possible of the enemy's dark
secrets, Noel said--
'How did you get here? You weren't here yesterday at tea-time.'
The soldier gave the pot another sandy rub, and said--
'I daresay it does seem quick work--the camp seems as if it had
sprung up in the night, doesn't it?--like a mushroom.'
Alice and Oswald looked at each other, and then at the rest of us.
The words 'sprung up in the night' seemed to touch a string in
every heart.
'You see,' whispered Noel, 'he won't tell us how he came here.
NOW, is it humbug or history?'
Oswald, after whisperedly requesting his young brother to dry up
and not bother, remarked, 'Then you're an invading army?'
'Well,' said the soldier, 'we're a skeleton battalion, as a matter
of fact, but we're invading all right enough.'
And now indeed the blood of the stupidest of us froze, just as the
quick-witted Oswald's had done earlier in the interview. Even H.
O. opened his mouth and went the colour of mottled soap; he is so
fat that this is the nearest he can go to turning pale. Denny
said, 'But you don't look like skeletons.'
The soldier stared, then he laughed and said, 'Ah, that's the
padding in our tunics. You should see us in the grey dawn taking
our morning bath in a bucket.' It was a dreadful picture for the
imagination. A skeleton, with its bones all loose most likely,
bathing anyhow in a pail. There was a silence while we thought it
over.
Now, ever since the cleaning-cauldron soldier had said that about
taking Maidstone, Alice had kept on pulling at Oswald's jacket
behind, and he had kept on not taking any notice. But now he could
not stand it any longer, so he said--
'Well, what is it?'
Alice drew him aside, or rather, she pulled at his jacket so that
he nearly fell over backwards, and then she whispered, 'Come along,
don't stay parlaying with the foe. He's only talking to you to
gain time.'
'What for?' said Oswald.
'Why, so that we shouldn't warn the other army, you silly,' Alice
said, and Oswald was so upset by what she said, that he forgot to
be properly angry with her for the wrong word she used.
'But we ought to warn them at home,' she said--' suppose the Moat
House was burned down, and all the supplies commandeered for the
foe?'
Alice turned boldly to the soldier. 'DO you burn down farms?' she
asked.
'Well, not as a rule,' he said, and he had the cheek to wink at
Oswald, but Oswald would not look at him. 'We've not burned a farm
since--oh, not for years.'
'A farm in Greek history it was, I expect,' Denny murmured.
'Civilized warriors do not burn farms nowadays,' Alice said
sternly, 'whatever they did in Greek times. You ought to know
that.'
The soldier said things had changed a good deal since Greek times.
So we said good morning as quickly as we could: it is proper to be
polite even to your enemy, except just at the moments when it has
really come to rifles and bayonets or other weapons.
The soldier said 'So long!' in quite a modern voice, and we
retraced our footsteps in silence to the ambush--I mean the wood.
Oswald did think of lying in the ambush then, but it was rather
wet, because of the rain the night before, that H. O. said had
brought the army-seed up. And Alice walked very fast, saying
nothing but 'Hurry up, can't you!' and dragging H. O. by one hand
and Noel by the other. So we got into the road.
Then Alice faced round and said, 'This is all our fault. If we
hadn't sowed those dragon's teeth there wouldn't have been any
invading army.'
I am sorry to say Daisy said, 'Never mind, Alice, dear. WE didn't
sow the nasty things, did we, Dora?'
But Denny told her it was just the same. It was WE had done it, so
long as it was any of us, especially if it got any of us into
trouble. Oswald was very pleased to see that the Dentist was
beginning to understand the meaning of true manliness, and about
the honour of the house of Bastable, though of course he is only a
Foulkes. Yet it is something to know he does his best to learn.
If you are very grown-up, or very clever, I daresay you will now
have thought of a great many things. If you have you need not say
anything, especially if you're reading this aloud to anybody. It's
no good putting in what you think in this part, because none of us
thought anything of the kind at the time.
We simply stood in the road without any of your clever thoughts,
filled with shame and distress to think of what might happen owing
to the dragon's teeth being sown. It was a lesson to us never to
sow seed without being quite sure what sort it is. This is
particularly true of the penny packets, which sometimes do not come
up at all, quite unlike dragon's teeth.
Of course H. O. and Noel were more unhappy than the rest of us.
This was only fair.
'How can we possibly prevent their getting to Maidstone?' Dickie
said. 'Did you notice the red cuffs on their uniforms? Taken from
the bodies of dead English soldiers, I shouldn't wonder.'
'If they're the old Greek kind of dragon's-teeth soldiers, they
ought to fight each other to death,' Noel said; 'at least, if we
had a helmet to throw among them.'
But none of us had, and it was decided that it would be of no use
for H. O. to go back and throw his straw hat at them, though he
wanted to. Denny said suddenly--
'Couldn't we alter the sign-posts, so that they wouldn't know the
way to Maidstone?'
Oswald saw that this was the time for true generalship to be shown.
He said--
'Fetch all the tools out of your chest--Dicky go too, there's a
good chap, and don't let him cut his legs with the saw.' He did
once, tumbling over it. 'Meet us at the cross-roads, you know,
where we had the Benevolent Bar. Courage and dispatch, and look
sharp about it.'
When they had gone we hastened to the crossroads, and there a great
idea occurred to Oswald. He used the forces at his command so ably
that in a very short time the board in the field which says 'No
thoroughfare. Trespassers will be prosecuted' was set up in the
middle of the road to Maidstone. We put stones, from a heap by the
road, behind it to make it stand up.
Then Dicky and Denny came back, and Dicky shinned up the sign-post
and sawed off the two arms, and we nailed them up wrong, so that it
said 'To Maidstone' on the Dover Road, and 'To Dover' on the road
to Maidstone. We decided to leave the Trespassers board on the
real Maidstone road, as an extra guard.
Then we settled to start at once to warn Maidstone.
Some of us did not want the girls to go, but it would have been
unkind to say so. However, there was at least one breast that felt
a pang of joy when Dora and Daisy gave out that they would rather
stay where they were and tell anybody who came by which was the
real road.
'Because it would be so dreadful if someone was going to buy pigs
or fetch a doctor or anything in a hurry and then found they had
got to Dover instead of where they wanted to go to,' Dora said.
But when it came to dinner-time they went home, so that they were
entirely out of it. This often happens to them by some strange
fatalism.
We left Martha to take care of the two girls, and Lady and Pincher
went with us. It was getting late in the day, but I am bound to
remember no one said anything about their dinners, whatever they
may have thought. We cannot always help our thoughts. We happened
to know it was roast rabbits and currant jelly that day.
We walked two and two, and sang the 'British Grenadiers' and
'Soldiers of the queen' so as to be as much part of the British
Army as possible. The Cauldron-Man had said the English were the
other side of the hill. But we could not see any scarlet anywhere,
though we looked for it as carefully as if we had been fierce
bulls.
But suddenly we went round a turn in the road and came plump into
a lot of soldiers. Only they were not red-coats. They were
dressed in grey and silver. And it was a sort of furzy-common
place, and three roads branching out. The men were lying about,
with some of their belts undone, smoking pipes and cigarettes.
'It's not British soldiers,' Alice said. 'Oh dear, oh dear, I'm
afraid it's more enemy. You didn't sow the army-seed anywhere
else, did you, H. O. dear?'
H. O. was positive he hadn't. 'But perhaps lots more came up where
we did sow them,' he said; 'they're all over England by now very
likely. _I_ don't know how many men can grow out of one dragon's
tooth.'
Then Noel said, 'It was my doing anyhow, and I'm not afraid,' and
he walked straight up to the nearest soldier, who was cleaning his
pipe with a piece of grass, and said--
'Please, are you the enemy?' The man said--
'No, young Commander-in-Chief, we're the English.'
Then Oswald took command. 'Where is the General?' he said.
'We're out of generals just now, Field-Marshal,' the man said, and
his voice was a gentleman's voice. 'Not a single one in stock. We
might suit you in majors now --and captains are quite cheap.
Competent corporals going for a song. And we have a very nice
colonel, too quiet to ride or drive.'
Oswald does not mind chaff at proper times. But this was not one.
'You seem to be taking it very easy,' he said with disdainful
expression.
'This IS an easy,' said the grey soldier, sucking at his pipe to
see if it would draw.
'I suppose YOU don't care if the enemy gets into Maidstone or not!'
exclaimed Oswald bitterly. 'If I were a soldier I'd rather die
than be beaten.'
The soldier saluted. 'Good old patriotic sentiment' he said,
smiling at the heart-felt boy.
But Oswald could bear no more. 'Which is the Colonel?' he asked.
'Over there--near the grey horse.'
'The one lighting a cigarette?' H. O. asked.
'Yes--but I say, kiddie, he won't stand any jaw. There's not an
ounce of vice about him, but he's peppery. He might kick out.
You'd better bunk.'
'Better what?' asked H. O.
'Bunk, bottle, scoot, skip, vanish, exit,' said the soldier.
'That's what you'd do when the fighting begins,' said H. O. He is
often rude like that--but it was what we all thought, all the same.
The soldier only laughed.
A spirited but hasty altercation among ourselves in whispers ended
in our allowing Alice to be the one to speak to the Colonel. It
was she who wanted to. 'However peppery he is he won't kick a
girl,' she said, and perhaps this was true.
But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to
stand in front of the Colonel. And as we went along we agreed that
we would salute him on the word three. So when we got near, Dick
said, 'One, two, three', and we all saluted very well--except H.
O., who chose that minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left
lying about, and was only saved from falling by a man in a cocked
hat who caught him deftly by the back of his jacket and stood him
on his legs.
'Let go, can't you,' said H. O. 'Are you the General?'
Before the Cocked Hat had time to frame a reply, Alice spoke to the
Colonel. I knew what she meant to say, because she had told me as
we threaded our way among the resting soldiery. What she really
said was--
'Oh, how CAN you!'
'How can I WHAT?' said the Colonel, rather crossly.
'Why, SMOKE?' said Alice.
'My good children, if you're an infant Band of Hope, let me
recommend you to play in some other backyard,' said the Cock-Hatted
Man.
H. O. said, 'Band of Hope yourself'--but no one noticed it.
'We're NOT a Band of Hope,' said Noel. 'We're British, and the man
over there told us you are. And Maidstone's in danger, and the
enemy not a mile off, and you stand SMOKING.' Noel was standing
crying, himself, or something very like it.
'It's quite true,' Alice said.
The Colonel said, 'Fiddle-de-dee.'
But the Cocked-Hatted Man said, 'What was the enemy like?'
We told him exactly. And even the Colonel then owned there might
be something in it.
'Can you show me the place where they are on the map?' he asked.
'Not on the map, we can't,' said Dicky--'at least, I don't think
so, but on the ground we could. We could take you there in a
quarter of an hour.'
The Cocked-Hatted One looked at the Colonel, who returned his
scrutiny, then he shrugged his shoulders.
'Well, we've got to do something,' he said, as if to himself.
'Lead on, Macduff.'
The Colonel roused his soldiery from their stupor of pipes by words
of command which the present author is sorry he can't remember.
Then he bade us boys lead the way. I tell you it felt fine,
marching at the head of a regiment. Alice got a lift on the
Cocked-Hatted One's horse. It was a red-roan steed of might,
exactly as if it had been in a ballad. They call a grey-roan a
'blue' in South Africa, the Cocked-Hatted One said.
We led the British Army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the
gate of Sugden's Waste Wake pasture. Then the Colonel called a
whispered halt, and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless
and discerning commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He
chose Dicky and Oswald as guides. So we led him to the ambush, and
we went through it as quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle
and snap so when you are reconnoitring, or anxious to escape
detection for whatever reason.
Our Colonel's orderly crackled most. If you're not near enough to
tell a colonel by the crown and stars on his shoulder-strap, you
can tell him by the orderly behind him, like 'follow my leader'.
'Look out!' said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, 'the
camp's down in that field. You can see if you take a squint
through this gap.'
The speaker took a squint himself as he spoke, and drew back,
baffled beyond the power of speech. While he was struggling with
his baffledness the British Colonel had his squint. He also drew
back, and said a word that he must have known was not right--at
least when he was a boy.
'I don't care,' said Oswald, 'they were there this morning. White
tents like mushrooms, and an enemy cleaning a cauldron.'
'With sand,' said Dicky.
'That's most convincing,' said the Colonel, and I did not like the
way he said it.
'I say,' Oswald said, 'let's get to the top corner of the
ambush--the wood, I mean. You can see the crossroads from there.'
We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer
dismayed our almost despairing spirits.
We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald's patriotic heart
really did give a jump, and he cried, 'There they are, on the Dover
Road.'
Our miscellaneous signboard had done its work.
'By Jove, young un, you're right! And in quarter column, too!
We've got em on toast--on toast--egad!' I never heard anyone not in
a book say 'egad' before, so I saw something really out of the way
was indeed up.
The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the
orderly to tell the Major to advance two companies on the left
flank and take cover. Then we led him back through the wood the
nearest way, because he said he must rejoin the main body at once.
We found the main body very friendly with Noel and H. O. and the
others, and Alice was talking to the Cocked-Hatted One as if she
had known him all her life.
'I think he's a general in disguise,' Noel said. 'He's been giving
us chocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.'
Oswald thought about the roast rabbit then--and he is not ashamed
to own it--yet he did not say a word. But Alice is really not a
bad sort. She had saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky.
Even in war girls can sometimes be useful in their humble way.
The Colonel fussed about and said, 'Take cover there!' and
everybody hid in the ditch, and the horses and the Cocked Hat, with
Alice, retreated down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch
too. It was muddy--but nobody thought of their boots in that
perilous moment. It seemed a long time we were crouching there.
Oswald began to feel the water squelching in his boots, so we held
our breath and listened. Oswald laid his ear to the road like a
Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, but when your
country is in danger you care but little about keeping your ears
clean. His backwoods' strategy was successful. He rose and dusted
himself and said--
'They're coming!'
It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be
heard quite audibly, even by ears in their natural position. The
wicked enemy approached. They were marching with a careless
swaggeringness that showed how little they suspected the horrible
doom which was about to teach them England's might and supremeness.
Just as the enemy turned the corner so that we could see them, the
Colonel shouted--
'Right section, fire!' and there was a deafening banging.
The enemy's officer said something, and then the enemy got confused
and tried to get into the fields through the hedges. But all was
vain. There was firing now from our men, on the left as well as
the right. And then our Colonel strode nobly up to the enemy's
Colonel and demanded surrender. He told me so afterwards. His
exact words are only known to himself and the other Colonel. But
the enemy's Colonel said, 'I would rather die than surrender,' or
words to that effect.
Our Colonel returned to his men and gave the order to fix bayonets,
and even Oswald felt his manly cheek turn pale at the thought of
the amount of blood to be shed. What would have happened can never
now be revealed. For at this moment a man on a piebald horse came
clattering over a hedge--as carelessly as if the air was not full
of lead and steel at all. Another man rode behind him with a lance
and a red pennon on it. I think he must have been the enemy's
General coming to tell his men not to throw away their lives on a
forlorn hope, for directly he said they were captured the enemy
gave in and owned that they were. The enemy's Colonel saluted and
ordered his men to form quarter column again. I should have
thought he would have had about enough of that myself.
He had now given up all thought of sullen resistance to the bitter
end. He rolled a cigarette for himself, and had the foreign cheek
to say to our Colonel--
'By Jove, old man, you got me clean that time! Your scouts seem to
have marked us down uncommonly neatly.'
It was a proud moment when our Colonel laid his military hand on
Oswald's shoulder and said--
'This is my chief scout' which were high words, but not undeserved,
and Oswald owns he felt red with gratifying pride when he heard
them.
'So you are the traitor, young man,' said the wicked Colonel, going
on with his cheek.
Oswald bore it because our Colonel had, and you should be generous
to a fallen foe, but it is hard to be called a traitor when you
haven't.
He did not treat the wicked Colonel with silent scorn as he might
have done, but he said--
'We aren't traitors. We are the Bastables and one of us is a
Foulkes. We only mingled unsuspected with the enemy's soldiery and
learned the secrets of their acts, which is what Baden-Powell
always does when the natives rebel in South Africa; and Denis
Foulkes thought of altering the sign-posts to lead the foe astray.
And if we did cause all this fighting, and get Maidstone threatened
with capture and all that, it was only because we didn't believe
Greek things could happen in Great Britain and Ireland, even if you
sow dragon's teeth, and besides, some of us were not as e a out
sowing them.'
Then the Cocked-Hatted One led his horse and walked with us and
made us tell him all about it, and so did the Colonel. The wicked
Colonel listened too, which was only another proof of his cheek.
And Oswald told the tale in the modest yet manly way that some
people think he has, and gave the others all the credit they
deserved. His narration was interrupted no less than four times by
shouts of 'Bravo!' in which the enemy's Colonel once more showed
his cheek by joining. By the time the story was told we were in
sight of another camp. It was the British one this time. The
Colonel asked us to have tea in his tent, and it only shows the
magnanimosity of English chivalry in the field of battle that he
asked the enemy's Colonel too. With his usual cheek he accepted.
We were jolly hungry.
When everyone had had as much tea as they possibly could, the
Colonel shook hands with us all, and to Oswald he said--
'Well, good-bye, my brave scout. I must mention your name in my
dispatches to the War Office.'
H. O. interrupted him to say, 'His name's Oswald Cecil Bastable,
and mine is Horace Octavius.' I wish H. O. would learn to hold his
tongue. No one ever knows Oswald was christened Cecil as well, if
he can possibly help it. YOU didn't know it till now.
'Mr Oswald Bastable,' the Colonel went on--he had the decency not
to take any notice of the 'Cecil' -'you would be a credit to any
regiment. No doubt the War Office will reward you properly for
what you have done for your country. But meantime, perhaps, you'll
accept five shillings from a grateful comrade-in-arms.' Oswald
felt heart-felt sorry to wound the good Colonel's feelings, but he
had to remark that he had only done his duty, and he was sure no
British scout would take five bob for doing that. 'And besides,'
he said, with that feeling of justice which is part of his young
character, 'it was the others just as much as me.'
'Your sentiments, Sir,' said the Colonel who was one of the
politest and most discerning colonels I ever saw, 'your sentiments
do you honour. But, Bastables all, and--and non-Bastables' (he
couldn't remember Foulkes; it's not such an interesting name as
Bastable, of course) -'at least you'll accept a soldier's pay?'
'Lucky to touch it, a shilling a day!' Alice and Denny said
together. And the Cocked-Hatted Man said something about knowing
your own mind and knowing your own Kipling.
'A soldier,' said the Colonel, 'would certainly be lucky to touch
it. You see there are deductions for rations. Five shillings is
exactly right, deducting twopence each for six teas.'
This seemed cheap for the three cups of tea and the three eggs and
all the strawberry jam and bread-and-butter Oswald had had, as well
as what the others ate, and Lady's and Pincher's teas, but I
suppose soldiers get things cheaper than civilians, which is only
right.
Oswald took the five shillings then, there being no longer any
scruples why he should not.
Just as we had parted from the brave Colonel and the rest we saw a
bicycle coming. It was Albert's uncle. He got off and said--
'What on earth have you been up to? What were you doing with those
volunteers?'
We told him the wild adventures of the day, and he listened, and
then he said he would withdraw the word volunteers if we liked.
But the seeds of doubt were sown in the breast of Oswald. He was
now almost sure that we had made jolly fools of ourselves without
a moment's pause throughout the whole of this eventful day. He
said nothing at the time, but after supper he had it out with
Albert's uncle about the word which had been withdrawn.
Albert's uncle said, of course, no one could be sure that the
dragon's teeth hadn't come up in the good old-fashioned way, but
that, on the other hand, it was barely possible that both the
British and the enemy were only volunteers having a field-day or
sham fight, and he rather thought the Cocked-Hatted Man was not a
general, but a doctor. And the man with a red pennon carried
behind him MIGHT have been the umpire.
Oswald never told the others a word of this. Their young breasts
were all panting with joy because they had saved their country; and
it would have been but heartless unkindness to show them how silly
they had been. Besides, Oswald felt he was much too old to have
been so taken in--if he HAD been. Besides, Albert's uncle did say
that no one could be sure about the dragon's teeth.
The thing that makes Oswald feel most that, perhaps, the whole
thing was a beastly sell, was that we didn't see any wounded. But
he tries not to think of this. And if he goes into the army when
he grows up, he will not go quite green. He has had experience of
the arts of war and the tented field. And a real colonel has
called him 'Comrade-in-Arms', which is exactly what Lord Roberts
called his own soldiers when he wrote home about them.
CHAPTER 14
ALBERT'S UNCLE's GRANDMOTHER; OR, THE
LONG-LOST
The shadw of the termination now descended in sable thunder-clouds
upon our devoted nobs. As Albert's uncle said, 'School now gaped
for its prey'. In a very short space of time we should be wending
our way back to Blackheath, and all the variegated delightfulness
of the country would soon be only preserved in memory's faded
flowers. (I don't care for that way of writing very much. It
would be an awful swot to keep it up--looking out the words and all
that.)
To speak in the language of everyday life, our holiday was jolly
nearly up. We had had a ripping time, but it was all but over. We
really did feel sorry-- though, of course, it was rather decent to
think of getting back to Father and being able to tell the other
chaps about our raft, and the dam, and the Tower of Mystery, and
things like that.
When but a brief time was left to us, Oswald and Dicky met by
chance in an apple-tree. (That sounds like 'consequences', but it
is mere truthfulness.) Dicky said--
'Only four more days.'
Oswald said, 'Yes.'
'There's one thing,' Dickie said, 'that beastly society. We don't
want that swarming all over everything when we get home. We ought
to dissolve it before we leave here.'
The following dialogue now took place:
Oswald--'Right you are. I always said it was piffling rot.'
Dicky--'So did I.'
Oswald--'Let's call a council. But don't forget we've jolly well
got to put our foot down.'
Dicky assented, and the dialogue concluded with apples.
The council, when called, was in but low spirits. This made
Oswald's and Dicky's task easier. When people are sunk in gloomy
despair about one thing, they will agree to almost anything about
something else. (Remarks like this are called philosophic
generalizations, Albert's uncle says.) Oswald began by saying--
'We've tried the society for being good in, and perhaps it's done
us good. But now the time has come for each of us to be good or
bad on his own, without hanging on to the others.'
'The race is run by one and one,
But never by two and two,'
the Dentist said.
The others said nothing.
Oswald went on: 'I move that we chuck--I mean dissolve-- the
Wouldbegoods Society; its appointed task is done. If it's not well
done, that's ITS fault and not ours.'
Dicky said, 'Hear! hear! I second this prop.'
The unexpected Dentist said, 'I third it. At first I thought it
would help, but afterwards I saw it only made you want to be
naughty, just because you were a Wouldbegood.'
Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as
not to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noel and Alice voted with us, so
Daisy and Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried
to cheer their hopelessness by letting them read the things out of
the Golden Deed book aloud. Noel hid his face in the straw so that
we should not see the faces he made while he made poetry instead of
listening, and when the Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved for ever
he sat up, straws in his hair, and said--
THE EPITAPH
'The Wouldbegoods are dead and gone
But not the golden deeds they have done
These will remain upon Glory's page
To be an example to every age,
And by this we have got to know
How to be good upon our ow--N.
N is for Noel, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O,
W, N, own; do you see?'
We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the
council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight had been lifted from
his expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so
inclined to be good and a model youth as he did then. As he went
down the ladder out of the loft he said--
'There's one thing we ought to do, though, before we go home. We
ought to find Albert's uncle's long- lost grandmother for him.'
Alice's heart beat true and steadfast. She said, 'That's just
exactly what Noel and I were saying this morning. Look out,
Oswald, you wretch, you're kicking chaff into my eyes.' She was
going down the ladder just under me.
Oswald's younger sister's thoughtful remark ended in another
council. But not in the straw loft. We decided to have a quite
new place, and disregarded H. O.'s idea of the dairy and Noel's of
the cellars. We had the new council on the secret staircase, and
there we settled exactly what we ought to do. This is the same
thing, if you really wish to be good, as what you are going to do.
It was a very interesting council, and when it was over Oswald was
so pleased to think that the Wouldbegoods was unrecoverishly dead
that he gave Denny and Noel, who were sitting on the step below
him, a good-humoured, playful, gentle, loving, brotherly shove, and
said, 'Get along down, it's tea-time!'
No reader who understands justice and the real rightness of things,
and who is to blame for what, will ever think it could have been
Oswald's fault that the two other boys got along down by rolling
over and over each other, and bursting the door at the bottom of
the stairs open by their revolving bodies. And I should like to
know whose fault it was that Mrs Pettigrew was just on the other
side of that door at that very minute? The door burst open, and
the Impetuous bodies of Noel and Denny rolled out of it into Mrs
Pettigrew, and upset her and the tea-tray. Both revolving boys
were soaked with tea and milk, and there were one or two cups and
things smashed. Mrs Pettigrew was knocked over, but none of her
bones were broken. Noel and Denny were going to be sent to bed,
but Oswald said it was all his fault. He really did this to give
the others a chance of doing a refined golden deed by speaking the
truth and saying it was not his fault. But you cannot really count
on anyone. They did not say anything, but only rubbed the lumps on
their late-revolving heads. So it was bed for Oswald, and he felt
the injustice hard.
But he sat up in bed and read The Last of the Mohicans, and then he
began to think. When Oswald really thinks he almost always thinks
of something. He thought of something now, and it was miles better
than the idea we had decided on in the secret staircase, of
advertising in the Kentish Mercury and saying if Albert's uncle's
long-lost grandmother would call at the Moat House she might hear
of something much to her advantage.
What Oswald thought of was that if we went to Hazelbridge and asked
Mr B. Munn, Grocer, that drove us home in the cart with the horse
that liked the wrong end of the whip best, he would know who the
lady was in the red hat and red wheels that paid him to drive us
home that Canterbury night. He must have been paid, of course, for
even grocers are not generous enough to drive perfect strangers,
and five of them too, about the country for nothing.
Thus we may learn that even unjustness and sending the wrong people
to bed may bear useful fruit, which ought to be a great comfort to
everyone when they are unfairly treated. Only it most likely won't
be. For if Oswald's brothers and sisters had nobly stood by him as
he expected, he would not have had the solitary reflections that
led to the great scheme for finding the grandmother.
Of course when the others came up to roost they all came and
squatted on Oswald's bed and said how sorry they were. He waived
their apologies with noble dignity, because there wasn't much time,
and said he had an idea that would knock the council's plan into a
cocked hat. But he would not tell them what it was. He made them
wait till next morning. This was not sulks, but kind feeling. He
wanted them to have something else to think of besides the way they
hadn't stood by him in the bursting of the secret staircase door
and the tea-tray and the milk.
Next morning Oswald kindly explained, and asked who would volunteer
for a forced march to Hazelbridge. The word volunteer cost the
young Oswald a pang as soon as he had said it, but I hope he can
bear pangs with any man living. 'And mind,' he added, hiding the
pang under a general-like severeness, 'I won't have anyone in the
expedition who has anything in his shoes except his feet.'
This could not have been put more delicately and decently. But
Oswald is often misunderstood. Even Alice said it was unkind to
throw the peas up at Denny. When this little unpleasantness had
passed away (it took some time because Daisy cried, and Dora said,
'There now, Oswald!') there were seven volunteers, which, with
Oswald, made eight, and was, indeed, all of us. There were no
cockle-shells, or tape-sandals, or staves, or scrips, or anything
romantic and pious about the eight persons who set out for
Hazelbridge that morning, more earnestly wishful to be good and
deedful--at least Oswald, I know, was--than ever they had been in
the days of the beastly Wouldbegood Society. It was a fine day.
Either it was fine nearly all last summer, which is how Oswald
remembers it, or else nearly all the interesting things we did came
on fine days.
With hearts light and gay, and no peas in anyone's shoes, the walk
to Hazelbridge was perseveringly conducted. We took our lunch with
us, and the dear dogs. Afterwards we wished for a time that we had
left one of them at home. But they did so want to come, all of
them, and Hazelbridge is not nearly as far as Canterbury, really,
so even Martha was allowed to put on her things--I mean her
collar--and come with us. She walks slowly, but we had the day
before us so there was no extra hurry.
At Hazelbridge we went into B. Munn's grocer's shop and asked for
ginger-beer to drink. They gave it us, but they seemed surprised
at us wanting to drink it there, and the glass was warm--it had
just been washed. We only did it, really, so as to get into
conversation with B. Munn, grocer, and extract information without
rousing suspicion. You cannot be too careful.
However, when we had said it was first-class ginger- beer, and paid
for it, we found it not so easy to extract anything more from B.
Munn, grocer; and there was an anxious silence while he fiddled
about behind the counter among the tinned meats and sauce bottles,
with a fringe of hobnailed boots hanging over his head.
H. O. spoke suddenly. He is like the sort of person who rushes in
where angels fear to tread, as Denny says (say what sort of person
that is). He said--
'I say, you remember driving us home that day. Who paid for the
cart?'
Of course B. Munn, grocer, was not such a nincompoop (I like that
word, it means so many people I know) as to say right off. He
said--
'I was paid all right, young gentleman. Don't you terrify
yourself.'
People in Kent say terrify when they mean worry. So Dora shoved in
a gentle oar. She said--
'We want to know the kind lady's name and address, so that we can
write and thank her for being so jolly that day.'
B. Munn, grocer, muttered something about the lady's address being
goods he was often asked for. Alice said, 'But do tell us. We
forgot to ask her. She's a relation of a second-hand uncle of
ours, and I do so want to thank her properly. And if you've got
any extra-strong peppermints at a penny an ounce, we should like a
quarter of a pound.'
This was a master-stroke. While he was weighing out the
peppermints his heart got soft, and just as he was twisting up the
corner of the paper bag, Dora said, 'What lovely fat peppermints!
Do tell us.'
And B. Munn's heart was now quite melted, he said--
'It's Miss Ashleigh, and she lives at The Cedars--about a mile down
the Maidstone Road.'
We thanked him, and Alice paid for the peppermints. Oswald was a
little anxious when she ordered such a lot, but she and Noel had
got the money all right, and when we were outside on Hazelbridge
Green (a good deal of it is gravel, really), we stood and looked at
each other. Then Dora said--
'Let's go home and write a beautiful letter and all sign it.'
Oswald looked at the others. Writing is all very well, but it's
such a beastly long time to wait for anything to happen afterwards.
The intelligent Alice divined his thoughts, and the Dentist divined
hers--he is not clever enough yet to divine Oswald's--and the two
said together--
'Why not go and see her?'
'She did say she would like to see us again some day,' Dora
replied. So after we had argued a little about it we went.
And before we had gone a hundred yards down the dusty road Martha
began to make us wish with all our hearts we had not let her come.
She began to limp, just as a pilgrim, who I will not name, did when
he had the split peas in his silly palmering shoes.
So we called a halt and looked at her feet. One of them was quite
swollen and red. Bulldogs almost always have something the matter
with their feet, and it always comes on when least required. They
are not the right breed for emergencies.
There was nothing for it but to take it in turns to carry her. She
is very stout, and you have no idea how heavy she is. A
half-hearted unadventurous person name no names, but Oswald, Alice,
Noel, H. O., Dicky, Daisy, and Denny will understand me) said, why
not go straight home and come another day without Martha? But the
rest agreed with Oswald when he said it was only a mile, and
perhaps we might get a lift home with the poor invalid. Martha was
very grateful to us for our kindness. She put her fat white arms
round the person's neck who happened to be carrying her. She is
very affectionate, but by holding her very close to you you can
keep her from kissing your face all the time. As Alice said,
'Bulldogs do give you such large, wet, pink kisses.'
A mile is a good way when you have to take your turn at carrying
Martha.
At last we came to a hedge with a ditch in front of it, and chains
swinging from posts to keep people off the grass and out of the
ditch, and a gate with 'The Cedars' on it in gold letters. All
very neat and tidy, and showing plainly that more than one gardener
was kept. There we stopped. Alice put Martha down, grunting with
exhaustedness, and said--
'Look here, Dora and Daisy, I don't believe a bit that it's his
grandmother. I'm sure Dora was right, and it's only his horrid
sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think
we'd better chuck it; we're sure to catch it for interfering. We
always do.'
'The cross of true love never did come smooth,' said the Dentist.
'We ought to help him to bear his cross.'
'But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll
MARRY her,' Dicky said in tones of gloominess and despair.
Oswald felt the same, but he said, 'Never mind. We should all hate
it, but perhaps Albert's uncle MIGHT like it. You can never tell.
If you want to do a really unselfish action and no kid, now's your
time, my late Wouldbegoods.'
No one had the face to say right out that they didn't want to be
unselfish.
But it was with sad hearts that the unselfish seekers opened the
long gate and went up the gravel drive between the rhododendrons
and other shrubberies towards the house.
I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of
anybody is called the representative of the family if his father
isn't there. This was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got
to the last turn of the drive it was settled that the others were
to noiselessly ambush in the rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on
alone and ask at the house for the grandmother from India--I mean
Miss Ashleigh.
So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how
neat the flower-beds were with red geraniums, and the windows all
bright and speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green
parrot in a cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying
clean and untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still and thought of
his boots and how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone
into the farmyard after eggs before starting that morning. As he
stood there in anxious uncertainness he heard a low voice among the
bushes. It said, 'Hist! Oswald here!' and it was the voice of
Alice.
So he went back to the others among the shrubs and they all crowded
round their leader full of importable news.
'She's not in the house; she's HERE,' Alice said in a low whisper
that seemed nearly all S's. 'Close by--she went by just this
minute with a gentleman.'
'And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and
she's got her head on his shoulder, and he's holding her hand. I
never saw anyone look so silly in all my born,' Dicky said.
'It's sickening,' Denny said, trying to look very manly with his
legs wide apart.
'I don't know,' Oswald whispered. 'I suppose it wasn't Albert's
uncle?'
'Not much,' Dicky briefly replied.
'Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that
with this fellow she'll want to marry him, and Albert's uncle is
safe. And we've really done an unselfish action without having to
suffer for it afterwards.'
With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he spoke in
real joyfulness. We decided that we had better bunk unnoticed.
But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping
to look about her a bit in the shrubbery. 'Where's Martha?' Dora
suddenly said.
'She went that way,' pointingly remarked H. O.
'Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go
for?' Oswald said. 'And look sharp. Don't make a row.'
He went. A minute later we heard a hoarse squeak from Martha--the
one she always gives when suddenly collared from behind--and a
little squeal in a lady-like voice, and a man say 'Hallo!' and then
we knew that H. O. had once more rushed in where angels might have
thought twice about it. We hurried to the fatal spot, but it was
too late. We were just in time to hear H. O. say--
'I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you.
Are you Albert's uncle's long-lost grandmother?'
'NO,' said our lady unhesitatingly.
It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now
going on. We stood still. The man was standing up. He was a
clergyman, and I found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever
knew except our own Mr Briston at Lewisham, who is now a canon or
a dean, or something grand that no one ever sees. At present I did
not like him. He said, 'No, this lady is nobody's grandmother.
May I ask in return how long it is since you escaped from the
lunatic asylum, my poor child, and whence your keeper is?'
H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say, 'I think you
are very rude, and not at all funny, if you think you are.'
The lady said, 'My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all
the others, and are you pilgrims again to-day?'
H. O. does not always answer questions. He turned to the man and
said--
'Are you going to marry the lady?'
'Margaret,' said the clergyman, 'I never thought it would come to
this: he asks me my intentions.'
'If you ARE,' said H. O., 'it's all right, because if you do
Albert's uncle can't--at least, not till you're dead. And we don't
want him to.'
'Flattering, upon my word,' said the clergyman, putting on a deep
frown. 'Shall I call him out, Margaret, for his poor opinion of
you, or shall I send for the police?'
Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and
rather scared. She broke cover and sprang into the middle of the
scene.
'Don't let him rag H. O. any more,' she said, 'it's all our faults.
You see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find you, we thought
perhaps you were his long-lost heiress sister or his old nurse who
alone knew the secret of his birth, or something, and we asked him,
and he said you were his long-lost grandmother he had known in
India. And we thought that must be a mistake and that really you
were his long-lost sweetheart. And we tried to do a really
unselfish act and find you for him. Because we don't want him to
be married at all.'
'It isn't because we don't like YOU,' Oswald cut in, now emerging
from the bushes, 'and if he must marry, we'd sooner it was you than
anyone. Really we would.'
'A generous concession, Margaret,' the strange clergyman uttered,
'most generous, but the plot thickens. It's almost pea-soup-like
now. One or two points clamour for explanation. Who are these
visitors of yours? Why this Red Indian method of paying morning
calls? Why the lurking attitude of the rest of the tribe which I
now discern among the undergrowth? Won't you ask the rest of the
tribe to come out and join the glad throng?'
Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same
songs we do, and books and tunes and things.
The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as
if she was going to cry. But she couldn't help laughing too, as
more and more of us came out.
'And who,' the clergyman went on, 'who in fortune's name is Albert?
And who is his uncle? And what have they or you to do in this
galere--I mean garden?'
We all felt rather silly, and I don't think I ever felt more than
then what an awful lot there were of us.
'Three years' absence in Calcutta or elsewhere may explain my
ignorance of these details, but still--'
'I think we'd better go,' said Dora. 'I'm sorry if we've done
anything rude or wrong. We didn't mean to. Good-bye. I hope
you'll be happy with the gentleman, I'm sure.'
'I HOPE so too,' said Noel, and I know he was thinking how much
nicer Albert's uncle was. We turned to go. The lady had been very
silent compared with what she was when she pretended to show us
Canterbury. But now she seemed to shake off some dreamy silliness,
and caught hold of Dora by the shoulder.
'No, dear, no,' she said, 'it's all right, and you must have some
tea--we'll have it on the lawn. John, don't tease them any more.
Albert's uncle is the gentleman I told you about. And, my dear
children, this is my brother that I haven't seen for three years.'
'Then he's a long-lost too,' said H. O.
The lady said 'Not now' and smiled at him.
And the rest of us were dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was
particularly dumb. He might have known it was her brother, because
in rotten grown-up books if a girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that
is not the man you think she's in love with; it always turns out to
be a brother, though generally the disgrace of the family and not
a respectable chaplain from Calcutta.
The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and
said, 'John, go and tell them we'll have tea on the lawn.'
When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said,
'I'm going to tell you something, but I want to put you on your
honour not to talk about it to other people. You see it isn't
everyone I would tell about it. He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has
told me a lot about you, and I know I can trust you.'
We said 'Yes', Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too
well what was coming next.
The lady then said, 'Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother
I did know him in India once, and we were going to be married, but
we had a--a--misunderstanding.'
'Quarrel?' Row?' said Noel and H. O. at once.
'Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then.
And then ... well, we were both sorry, but well, anyway, when his
ship came back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he
couldn't find us. And he says he's been looking for me ever
since.'
'Not you for him?' said Noel.
'Well, perhaps,' said the lady.
And the girls said 'Ah!' with deep interest. The lady went on more
quickly, 'And then I found you, and then he found me, and now I
must break it to you. Try to bear up.'
She stopped. The branches cracked, and Albert's uncle was in our
midst. He took off his hat. 'Excuse my tearing my hair,' he said
to the lady, 'but has the pack really hunted you down?'
'It's all right,' she said, and when she looked at him she got
miles prettier quite suddenly. 'I was just breaking to them ...'
'Don't take that proud privilege from me,' he said. 'Kiddies,
allow me to present you to the future Mrs Albert's uncle, or shall
we say Albert's new aunt?'
* * *
There was a good deal of explaining done before tea--about how we
got there, I mean, and why. But after the first bitterness of
disappointment we felt not nearly so sorry as we had expected to.
For Albert's uncle's lady was very jolly to us, and her brother was
awfully decent, and showed us a lot of first-class native
curiosities and things, unpacking them on purpose; skins of beasts,
and beads, and brass things, and shells from different savage lands
besides India. And the lady told the girls that she hoped they
would like her as much as she liked them, and if they wanted a new
aunt she would do her best to give satisfaction in the new
situation. And Alice thought of the Murdstone aunt belonging to
Daisy and Denny, and how awful it would have been if Albert's uncle
had married HER. And she decided, she told me afterwards, that we
might think ourselves jolly lucky it was no worse.
Then the lady led Oswald aside, pretending to show him the parrot
which he had explored thoroughly before, and told him she was not
like some people in books. When she was married she would never
try to separate her husband from his bachelor friends, she only
wanted them to be her friends as well.
Then there was tea, and thus all ended in amicableness, and the
reverend and friendly drove us home in a wagonette. But for Martha
we shouldn't have had tea, or explanations, or lift or anything.
So we honoured her, and did not mind her being so heavy and walking
up and down constantly on our laps as we drove home.
And that is all the story of the long-lost grandmother and Albert's
uncle. I am afraid it is rather dull, but it was very important
(to him), so I felt it ought to be narrated. Stories about lovers
and getting married are generally slow. I like a love-story where
the hero parts with the girl at the garden-gate in the gloaming and
goes off and has adventures, and you don't see her any more till he
comes home to marry her at the end of the book. And I suppose
people have to marry. Albert's uncle is awfully old--more than
thirty, and the lady is advanced in years--twenty-six next
Christmas. They are to be married then. The girls are to be
bridesmaids in white frocks with fur. This quite consoles them.
If Oswald repines sometimes, he hides it. What's the use? We all
have to meet our fell destiny, and Albert's uncle is not extirpated
from this awful law.
Now the finding of the long-lost was the very last thing we did for
the sake of its being a noble act, so that is the end of the
Wouldbegoods, and there are no more chapters after this. But
Oswald hates books that finish up without telling you the things
you might want to know about the people in the book. So here goes.
We went home to the beautiful Blackheath house. It seemed very
stately and mansion-like after the Moat House, and everyone was
most frightfully pleased to see us.
Mrs Pettigrew CRIED when we went away. I never was so astonished
in my life. She made each of the girls a fat red pincushion like
a heart, and each of us boys had a knife bought out of the
housekeeping (I mean housekeeper's own) money.
Bill Simpkins is happy as sub-under-gardener to Albert's uncle's
lady's mother. They do keep three gardeners--I knew they did. And
our tramp still earns enough to sleep well on from our dear old
Pig-man.
Our last three days were entirely filled up with visits of farewell
sympathy to all our many friends who were so sorry to lose us. We
promised to come and see them next year. I hope we shall.
Denny and Daisy went back to live with their father at Forest Hill.
I don't think they'll ever be again the victims of the Murdstone
aunt--who is really a great-aunt and about twice as much in the
autumn of her days as our new Albert's-uncle aunt. I think they
plucked up spirit enough to tell their father they didn't like
her--which they'd never thought of doing before. Our own robber
says their holidays in the country did them both a great deal of
good. And he says us Bastables have certainly taught Daisy and
Denny the rudiments of the art of making home happy. I believe
they have thought of several quite new naughty things entirely on
their own--and done them too--since they came back from the Moat
House.
I wish you didn't grow up so quickly. Oswald can see that ere long
he will be too old for the kind of games we can all play, and he
feels grown-upness creeping inordiously upon him. But enough of
this.
And now, gentle reader, farewell. If anything in these chronicles
of the Wouldbegoods should make you try to be good yourself, the
author will be very glad, of course. But take my advice and don't
make a society for trying in. It is much easier without.
And do try to forget that Oswald has another name besides Bastable.
The one beginning with C., I mean. Perhaps you have not noticed
what it was. If so, don't look back for it. It is a name no manly
boy would like to be called by--if he spoke the truth. Oswald is
said to be a very manly boy, and he despises that name, and will
never give it to his own son when he has one. Not if a rich
relative offered to leave him an immense fortune if he did. Oswald
would still be firm. He would, on the honour of the House of
Bastable.