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diff --git a/25496.txt b/25496.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e5772bb --- /dev/null +++ b/25496.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8506 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, New Treasure Seekers, by E. (Edith) Nesbit, +Illustrated by Gordon Browne and Lewis Baumer + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: New Treasure Seekers + or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune + + +Author: E. (Edith) Nesbit + + + +Release Date: May 16, 2008 [eBook #25496] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW TREASURE SEEKERS*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Emmy, and the Project Gutenberg Online +Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net) + + + +Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this + file which includes the original illustrations. + See 25496-h.htm or 25496-h.zip: + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/4/9/25496/25496-h/25496-h.htm) + or + (https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/4/9/25496/25496-h.zip) + + + + + +NEW TREASURE SEEKERS + +[Illustration: THE STAIR WAS OF STONE, ARCHED OVERHEAD LIKE CHURCHES.] + +NEW TREASURE SEEKERS + +Or The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune + +by + +E. NESBIT + Author of "The Treasure Seekers," + "The Would-Be-Goods," Etc. + +With Illustrations by Gordon Browne and Lewis Baumer [Illustration] + + + + + + + +[Illustration] + +New York +Frederick A. Stokes Company +Publishers + + + + + TO + ARTHUR WATTS + (OSWALD IN PARIS) + FROM + E. NESBIT + + _Montparnasse, 1904._ + + + + +NEW TREASURE SEEKERS + + +[Illustration] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + PAGE + THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY 15 + + THE CONSCIENCE-PUDDING 37 + + ARCHIBALD THE UNPLEASANT 62 + + OVER THE WATER TO CHINA 88 + + THE YOUNG ANTIQUARIES 113 + + THE INTREPID EXPLORER AND HIS LIEUTENANT 136 + + THE TURK IN CHAINS; OR, RICHARD'S REVENGE 161 + + THE GOLDEN GONDOLA 185 + + THE FLYING LODGER 209 + + THE SMUGGLER'S REVENGE 236 + + ZAIDA, THE MYSTERIOUS PROPHETESS OF THE GOLDEN ORIENT 262 + + THE LADY AND THE LICENSE; OR, FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND 287 + + THE POOR AND NEEDY 311 + + + + +LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS + + + PAGE + + THE STAIR WAS OF STONE, ARCHED OVERHEAD LIKE CHURCHES _Frontispiece_ + + DORA DID SOME WHITE SEWING 19 + + THEY LAUGHED EVER SO 34 + + AND HE WAS AWFULLY RUDE TO THE SERVANTS 69 + + THE OTHERS CAME UP BY THE ROPE-LADDER 73 + + SO OSWALD OPENED THE TRAP-DOOR AND SQUINTED DOWN, AND + THERE WAS THAT ARCHIBALD 75 + + "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG," JANE + ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY 83 + + WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW 85 + + IT SEEMS THE SAILOR WAS ASLEEP, BUT OF COURSE WE DID NOT + KNOW, OR WE SHOULD NOT HAVE DISTURBED HIM 94 + + WE WENT ROUND A CORNER RATHER FAST, AND CAME SLAP INTO + THE LARGEST WOMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN 99 + + IT WAS INDEED A CELESTIAL CHINAMAN IN DEEP DIFFICULTIES 103 + + ON THE SIDEBOARD WAS A BLUEY-WHITE CROCKERY IMAGE 107 + + OSWALD LISTENED AS CAREFULLY AS HE COULD, BUT DENNY + ALWAYS BUZZES SO WHEN HE WHISPERS 117 + + IT WAS NOT TILL NEXT DAY THAT HE OWNED THAT THE TYPEWRITER + HAD BEEN A FIEND IN DISGUISE 123 + + THE STATIONMASTER AND PORTER LOOKED RESPECTFULLY AT US 127 + + HER VOICE WHEN SHE TOLD US WE WERE TRESPASSING WAS NOT SO + FURIOUS 131 + + THE LUNCH WAS A PERFECT DREAM OF A.1.-NESS 137 + + OSWALD DID NOT STRIKE THE NEXT MATCH CAREFULLY ENOUGH 145 + + WITH SCISSORS AND GAS PLIERS THEY CUT EVERY FUSE 157 + + "HI, BRIGANDS!" HE EXCLAIMED 167 + + IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A + TURKEY 173 + + WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, "I AIN'T GOT MUCH TO SAY, + YOUNG GEMMEN" 179 + + THE FIVE OTHERS 191 + + OSWALD SAW THE DRIVER WINK AS HE PUT HIS BOOT ON THE STEP, + AND THE PORTER WHO WAS OPENING THE CAB DOOR WINKED BACK 201 + + HE LOOKED AT OSWALD'S BOOTS 203 + + HE FETCHED DOWN HALF A DOZEN PLANKS AND THE WORKMAN 218 + + "HOW MUCH?" SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY 222 + + "THEN I'LL MAKE YOU!" HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF OSWALD 232 + + A COASTGUARD ORDERED US QUITE HARSHLY 244 + + SURE ENOUGH IT WAS SEA-WATER, AS THE UNAMIABLE ONE SAID + WHEN HE HAD TASTED IT 259 + + "I SAY, BEALIE DEAR, YOU'VE GOT A BOOK UP AT YOUR PLACE" 265 + + ALICE BEAT THE DONKEY FROM THE CART, THE REST SHOUTED 272 + + "WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOEL 280 + + + + +_THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY_ + + +WE Bastables have only two uncles, and neither of them, are our +own natural-born relatives. One is a great-uncle, and the other is +the uncle from his birth of Albert, who used to live next door to +us in the Lewisham Road. When we first got to know him (it was over +some baked potatoes, and is quite another story) we called him +Albert-next-door's-Uncle, and then Albert's uncle for short. But +Albert's uncle and my father joined in taking a jolly house in the +country, called the Moat House, and we stayed there for our summer +holidays; and it was there, through an accident to a pilgrim with peas +in his shoes--that's another story too--that we found Albert's uncle's +long-lost love; and as she was very old indeed--twenty-six next +birthday--and he was ever so much older in the vale of years, he had to +get married almost directly, and it was fixed for about Christmas-time. +And when our holidays came the whole six of us went down to the Moat +House with Father and Albert's uncle. We never had a Christmas in the +country before. It was simply ripping. And the long-lost love--her name +was Miss Ashleigh, but we were allowed to call her Aunt Margaret even +before the wedding made it really legal for us to do so--she and her +jolly clergyman brother used to come over, and sometimes we went to the +Cedars, where they live, and we had games and charades, and +hide-and-seek, and Devil in the Dark, which is a game girls pretend to +like, and very few do really, and crackers and a Christmas-tree for the +village children, and everything you can jolly well think of. + +And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts of +silly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from London +with hats and jackets in, and wedding presents--all glassy and silvery, +or else brooches and chains--and clothes sent down from London to choose +from. I can't think how a lady can want so many petticoats and boots and +things just because she's going to be married. No man would think of +getting twenty-four shirts and twenty-four waistcoats, and so on, just +to be married in. + +"It's because they're going to Rome, I think," Alice said, when we +talked it over before the fire in the kitchen the day Mrs. Pettigrew +went to see her aunt, and we were allowed to make toffee. "You see, in +Rome you can only buy Roman clothes, and I think they're all stupid +bright colours--at least I know the sashes are. You stir now, Oswald. +My face is all burnt black." + +Oswald took the spoon, though it was really not his turn by three; but +he is one whose nature is so that he cannot make a fuss about little +things--and he knows he can make toffee. + +"Lucky hounds," H.O. said, "to be going to Rome. I wish I was." + +"Hounds isn't polite, H.O., dear," Dora said; and H.O. said-- + +"Well, lucky bargees, then." + +"It's the dream of my life to go to Rome," Noel said. Noel is our poet +brother. "Just think of what the man says in the 'Roman Road.' I wish +they'd take me." + +"They won't," Dicky said. "It costs a most awful lot. I heard Father +saying so only yesterday." + +"It would only be the fare," Noel answered; "and I'd go third, or even +in a cattle-truck, or a luggage van. And when I got there I could easily +earn my own living. I'd make ballads and sing them in the streets. The +Italians would give me lyres--that's the Italian kind of shilling, they +spell it with an _i_. It shows how poetical they are out there, their +calling it that." + +"But you couldn't make Italian poetry," H.O. said, staring at Noel with +his mouth open. + +"Oh, I don't know so much about that," Noel said. "I could jolly soon +learn anyway, and just to begin with I'd do it in English. There are +sure to be some people who would understand. And if they didn't, don't +you think their warm Southern hearts would be touched to see a pale, +slender, foreign figure singing plaintive ballads in an unknown tongue? +I do. Oh! they'd chuck along the lyres fast enough--they're not hard and +cold like North people. Why, every one here is a brewer, or a baker, or +a banker, or a butcher, or something dull. Over there they're all +bandits, or vineyardiners, or play the guitar, or something, and they +crush the red grapes and dance and laugh in the sun--you know jolly well +they do." + +"This toffee's about done," said Oswald suddenly. "H.O., shut your silly +mouth and get a cupful of cold water." And then, what with dropping a +little of the toffee into the water to see if it was ready, and pouring +some on a plate that wasn't buttered and not being able to get it off +again when it was cold without breaking the plate, and the warm row +there was about its being one of the best dinner-service ones, the wild +romances of Noel's poetical intellect went out of our heads altogether; +and it was not till later, and when deep in the waters of affliction, +that they were brought back to us. + +Next day H.O. said to Dora, "I want to speak to you all by yourself and +me." So they went into the secret staircase that creaks and hasn't been +secret now for countless years; and after that Dora did some white +sewing she wouldn't let us look at, and H.O. helped her. + +[Illustration: DORA DID SOME WHITE SEWING.] + +"It's another wedding present, you may depend," Dicky said--"a beastly +surprise, I shouldn't wonder." And no more was said. The rest of us were +busy skating on the moat, for it was now freezing hard. Dora never did +care for skating; she says it hurts her feet. + +And now Christmas and Boxing Day passed like a radiating dream, and it +was the wedding-day. We all had to go to the bride's mother's house +before the wedding, so as to go to church with the wedding party. The +girls had always wanted to be somebody's bridesmaids, and now they +were--in white cloth coats like coachmen, with lots of little capes, and +white beaver bonnets. They didn't look so bad, though rather as if they +were in a Christmas card; and their dresses were white silk like +pocket-handkerchiefs under the long coats. And their shoes had real +silver buckles our great Indian uncle gave them. H.O. went back just as +the waggonette was starting, and came out with a big brown-paper parcel. +We thought it was the secret surprise present Dora had been making, and, +indeed, when I asked her she nodded. We little recked what it really +was, or how our young brother was going to shove himself forward once +again. He _will_ do it. Nothing you say is of any lasting use. + +There were a great many people at the wedding--quite crowds. There was +lots to eat and drink, and though it was all cold, it did not matter, +because there were blazing fires in every fireplace in the house, and +the place all decorated with holly and mistletoe and things. Every one +seemed to enjoy themselves very much, except Albert's uncle and his +blushing bride; and they looked desperate. Every one said how sweet she +looked, but Oswald thought she looked as if she didn't like being +married as much as she expected. She was not at all a blushing bride +really; only the tip of her nose got pink, because it was rather cold in +the church. But she is very jolly. + +Her reverend but nice brother read the marriage service. He reads better +than any one I know, but he is not a bit of a prig really, when you come +to know him. + +When the rash act was done Albert's uncle and his bride went home in a +carriage all by themselves, and then we had the lunch and drank the +health of the bride in real champagne, though Father said we kids must +only have just a taste. I'm sure Oswald, for one, did not want any more; +one taste was quite enough. Champagne is like soda-water with medicine +in it. The sherry we put sugar in once was much more decent. + +Then Miss Ashleigh--I mean Mrs. Albert's uncle--went away and took off +her white dress and came back looking much warmer. Dora heard the +housemaid say afterwards that the cook had stopped the bride on the +stairs with "a basin of hot soup, that would take no denial, because the +bride, poor dear young thing, not a bite or sup had passed her lips that +day." We understood then why she had looked so unhappy. But Albert's +uncle had had a jolly good breakfast--fish and eggs and bacon and three +goes of marmalade. So it was not hunger made him sad. Perhaps he was +thinking what a lot of money it cost to be married and go to Rome. + +A little before the bride went to change, H.O. got up and reached his +brown-paper parcel from under the sideboard and sneaked out. We thought +he might have let us see it given, whatever it was. And Dora said she +had understood he meant to; but it was his secret. + +The bride went away looking quite comfy in a furry cloak, and Albert's +uncle cheered up at the last and threw off the burden of his cares and +made a joke. I forget what it was; it wasn't a very good one, but it +showed he was trying to make the best of things. + +Then the Bridal Sufferers drove away, with the luggage on a cart--heaps +and heaps of it, and we all cheered and threw rice and slippers. Mrs. +Ashleigh and some other old ladies cried. + +And then every one said, "What a pretty wedding!" and began to go. And +when our waggonette came round we all began to get in. And suddenly +Father said-- + +"Where's H.O.?" And we looked round. He was in absence. + +"Fetch him along sharp--some of you," Father said; "I don't want to keep +the horses standing here in the cold all day." + +So Oswald and Dicky went to fetch him along. We thought he might have +wandered back to what was left of the lunch--for he is young and he does +not always know better. But he was not there, and Oswald did not even +take a crystallised fruit in passing. He might easily have done this, +and no one would have minded, so it would not have been wrong. But it +would have been ungentlemanly. Dicky did not either. H.O. was not there. + +We went into the other rooms, even the one the old ladies were crying +in, but of course we begged their pardons. And at last into the kitchen, +where the servants were smart with white bows and just sitting down to +their dinner, and Dicky said-- + +"I say, cookie love, have you seen H.O.?" + +"Don't come here with your imperence!" the cook said, but she was +pleased with Dicky's unmeaning compliment all the same. + +"_I_ see him," said the housemaid. "He was colloguing with the butcher +in the yard a bit since. He'd got a brown-paper parcel. Perhaps he got a +lift home." + +So we went and told Father, and about the white present in the parcel. + +"I expect he was ashamed to give it after all," Oswald said, "so he +hooked off home with it." + +And we got into the wagonette. + +"It wasn't a present, though," Dora said; "it was a different kind of +surprise--but it really is a secret." + +Our good Father did not command her to betray her young brother. + +But when we got home H.O. wasn't there. Mrs. Pettigrew hadn't seen him, +and he was nowhere about. Father biked back to the Cedars to see if he'd +turned up. No. Then all the gentlemen turned out to look for him through +the length and breadth of the land. + +"He's too old to be stolen by gipsies," Alice said. + +"And too ugly," said Dicky. + +"Oh _don't_!" said both the girls; "and now when he's lost, too!" + +We had looked for a long time before Mrs. Pettigrew came in with a +parcel she said the butcher had left. It was not addressed, but we knew +it was H.O.'s, because of the label on the paper from the shop where +Father gets his shirts. Father opened it at once. + +Inside the parcel we found H.O.'s boots and braces, his best hat and his +chest-protector. And Oswald felt as if we had found his skeleton. + +"Any row with any of you?" Father asked. But there hadn't been any. + +"Was he worried about anything? Done anything wrong, and afraid to own +up?" + +We turned cold, for we knew what he meant. That parcel was so horribly +like the lady's hat and gloves that she takes off on the seashore and +leaves with a letter saying it has come to this. + +"_No_, _no_, NO, NO!" we all said. "He was perfectly jolly all the +morning." + +Then suddenly Dicky leaned on the table and one of H.O.'s boots toppled +over, and there was something white inside. It was a letter. H.O. must +have written it before we left home. It said-- + + "DEAR FATHER AND EVERY ONE,--I am going to be a + Clown. When I am rich and reveared I will come + back rolling. + + "Your affectionate son, + "HORACE OCTAVIUS BASTABLE." + +"Rolling?" Father said. + +"He means rolling in money," Alice said. Oswald noticed that every one +round the table where H.O.'s boots were dignifiedly respected as they +lay, was a horrid pale colour, like when the salt is thrown into +snapdragons. + +"Oh dear!" Dora cried, "that was it. He asked me to make him a clown's +dress and keep it deeply secret. He said he wanted to surprise Aunt +Margaret and Albert's uncle. And I didn't think it was wrong," said +Dora, screwing up her face; she then added, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh, oh!" +and with these concluding remarks she began to howl. + +Father thumped her on the back in an absent yet kind way. + +"But where's he gone?" he said, not to any one in particular. "I saw the +butcher; he said H.O. asked him to take a parcel home and went back +round the Cedars." + +Here Dicky coughed and said-- + +"I didn't think he meant anything, but the day after Noel was talking +about singing ballads in Rome, and getting poet's lyres given him, H.O. +did say if Noel had been really keen on the Roman lyres and things he +could easily have been a stowaway, and gone unknown." + +"A stowaway!" said my Father, sitting down suddenly and hard. + +"In Aunt Margaret's big dress basket--the one she let him hide in when +we had hide-and-seek there. He talked a lot about it after Noel had said +that about the lyres--and the Italians being so poetical, you know. You +remember that day we had toffee." + +My Father is prompt and decisive in action, so is his eldest son. + +"I'm off to the Cedars," he said. + +"Do let me come, Father," said the decisive son. "You may want to send a +message." + +So in a moment Father was on his bike and Oswald on the step--a +dangerous but delightful spot--and off to the Cedars. + +"Have your teas; and _don't_ any more of you get lost, and don't sit up +if we're late," Father howled to them as we rushed away. How glad then +the thoughtful Oswald was that he was the eldest. It was very cold in +the dusk on the bicycle, but Oswald did not complain. + +At the Cedars my father explained in a few manly but well-chosen words, +and the apartment of the dear departed bride was searched. + +"Because," said my father, "if H.O. really was little ass enough to get +into that basket, he must have turned out something to make room for +himself." + +Sure enough, when they came to look, there was a great bundle rolled in +a sheet under the bed--all lace things and petticoats and ribbons and +dressing-gowns and ladies' flummery. + +"If you will put the things in something else, I'll catch the express to +Dover and take it with me," Father said to Mrs. Ashleigh; and while she +packed the things he explained to some of the crying old ladies who had +been unable to leave off, how sorry he was that a son of his--but you +know the sort of thing. + +Oswald said: "Father, I wish you'd let me come too. I won't be a bit of +trouble." + +Perhaps it was partly because my Father didn't want to let me walk home +in the dark, and he didn't want to worry the Ashleighs any more by +asking them to send me home. He said this was why, but I hope it was his +loving wish to have his prompt son, so like himself in his decisiveness, +with him. + +We went. + +It was an anxious journey. We knew how far from pleased the bride would +be to find no dressing-gowns and ribbons, but only H.O. crying and cross +and dirty, as likely as not, when she opened the basket at the hotel at +Dover. + +Father smoked to pass the time, but Oswald had not so much as a +peppermint or a bit of Spanish liquorice to help him through the +journey. Yet he bore up. + +When we got out at Dover there were Mr. and Mrs. Albert's uncle on the +platform. + +"Hullo," said Albert's uncle. "What's up? Nothing wrong at home, I +hope." + +"We've only lost H.O.," said my father. "You don't happen to have him +with you?" + +"No; but you're joking," said the bride. "We've lost a dress-basket." + +_Lost a dress-basket!_ The words struck us dumb, but my father recovered +speech and explained. The bride was very glad when we said we had +brought her ribbons and things, but we stood in anxious gloom, for now +H.O. was indeed lost. The dress-basket might be on its way to Liverpool, +or rocking on the Channel, and H.O. might never be found again. Oswald +did not say these things. It is best to hold your jaw when you want to +see a thing out, and are liable to be sent to bed at a strange hotel if +any one happens to remember you. + +Then suddenly the station master came with a telegram. + +It said: "A dress-basket without label at Cannon Street detained for +identification suspicious sounds from inside detain inquirers dynamite +machine suspected." + +He did not show us this till my Father had told him about H.O., which it +took some time for him to believe, and then he did and laughed, and said +he would wire them to get the dynamite machine to speak, and if so, to +take it out and keep it till its Father called for it. + +So back we went to London, with hearts a little lighter, but not gay, +for we were a very long time from the last things we had had to eat. And +Oswald was almost sorry he had not taken those crystallised fruits. + +It was quite late when we got to Cannon Street, and we went straight +into the cloakroom, and there was the man in charge, a very jolly chap, +sitting on a stool. And there was H.O., the guilty stowaway, dressed in +a red-and-white clown's dress, very dusty, and his face as dirty as I +have ever seen it, sitting on some one else's tin box, with his feet on +some body else's portmanteau, eating bread and cheese, and drinking ale +out of a can. + +My Father claimed him at once, and Oswald identified the basket. It was +very large. There was a tray on the top with hats in it, and H.O. had +this on top of him. We all went to bed in Cannon Street Hotel. My Father +said nothing to H.O. that night. When we were in bed I tried to get H.O. +to tell me all about it, but he was too sleepy and cross. It was the +beer and the knocking about in the basket, I suppose. Next day we went +back to the Moat House, where the raving anxiousness of the others had +been cooled the night before by a telegram from Dover. + +My Father said he would speak to H.O. in the evening. It is very horrid +not to be spoken to at once and get it over. But H.O. certainly deserved +something. + +It is hard to tell this tale, because so much of it happened all at once +but at different places. But this is what H.O. said to us about it. He +said-- + +"Don't bother--let me alone." + +But we were all kind and gentle, and at last we got it out of him what +had happened. He doesn't tell a story right from the beginning like +Oswald and some of the others do, but from his disjunctured words the +author has made the following narration. This is called editing, I +believe. + +"It was all Noel's fault," H.O. said; "what did he want to go jawing +about Rome for?--and a clown's as good as a beastly poet, anyhow! You +remember that day we made toffee? Well, I thought of it then." + +"You didn't tell us." + +"Yes, I did. I half told Dicky. He never said don't, or you'd better +not, or gave me any good advice or anything. It's his fault as much as +mine. Father ought to speak to him to-night the same as me--and Noel, +too." + +We bore with him just then because we wanted to hear the story. And we +made him go on. + +"Well--so I thought if Noel's a cowardy custard I'm not--and I wasn't +afraid of being in the basket, though it was quite dark till I cut the +air-holes with my knife in the railway van. I think I cut the string off +the label. It fell off afterwards, and I saw it through the hole, but of +course I couldn't say anything. I thought they'd look after their silly +luggage better than that. It was all their fault I was lost." + +"Tell us how you did it, H.O. dear," Dora said; "never mind about it +being everybody else's fault." + +"It's yours as much as any one's, if you come to that," H.O. said. "You +made me the clown dress when I asked you. You never said a word about +not. So there!" + +"Oh, H.O., you _are_ unkind!" Dora said. "You know you said it was for a +surprise for the bridal pair." + +"So it would have been, if they'd found me at Rome, and I'd popped up +like what I meant to--like a jack-in-the-box--and said, 'Here we are +again!' in my clown's clothes, at them. But it's all spoiled, and +father's going to speak to me this evening." H.O. sniffed every time he +stopped speaking. But we did not correct him then. We wanted to hear +about everything. + +"Why didn't you tell me straight out what you were going to do?" Dicky +asked. + +"Because you'd jolly well have shut me up. You always do if I want to do +anything you haven't thought of yourself." + +"What did you take with you, H.O.?" asked Alice in a hurry, for H.O. was +now sniffing far beyond a whisper. + +"Oh, I'd saved a lot of grub, only I forgot it at the last. It's under +the chest of drawers in our room. And I had my knife--and I changed into +the clown's dress in the cupboard at the Ashleighs--over my own things +because I thought it would be cold. And then I emptied the rotten girl's +clothes out and hid them--and the top-hatted tray I just put it on a +chair near, and I got into the basket, and I lifted the tray up over my +head and sat down and fitted it down over me--it's got webbing bars, you +know, across it. And none of you would ever have thought of it, let +alone doing it." + +"I should hope not," Dora said, but H.O. went on unhearing. + +"I began to think perhaps I wished I hadn't directly they strapped up +the basket. It was beastly hot and stuffy--I had to cut an air-hole in +the cart, and I cut my thumb; it was so bumpety. And they threw me about +as if I was coals--and wrong way up as often as not. And the train was +awful wobbly, and I felt so sick, and if I'd had the grub I couldn't +have eaten it. I had a bottle of water. And that was all right till I +dropped the cork, and I couldn't find it in the dark till the water got +upset, and then I found the cork that minute. + +"And when they dumped the basket on to the platform I was so glad to sit +still a minute without being jogged I nearly went to sleep. And then I +looked out, and the label was off, and lying close by. And then some one +gave the basket a kick--big brute, I'd like to kick him!--and said, +'What's this here?' And I daresay I did squeak--like a rabbit-noise, you +know--and then some one said, 'Sounds like live-stock, don't it? No +label.' And he was standing on the label all the time. I saw the string +sticking out under his nasty boot. And then they trundled me off +somewhere, on a wheelbarrow it felt like, and dumped me down again in a +dark place--and I couldn't see anything more." + +"I wonder," said the thoughtful Oswald, "what made them think you were a +dynamite machine?" + +"Oh, that was awful!" H.O. said. "It was my watch. I wound it up, just +for something to do. You know the row it makes since it was broken, and +I heard some one say, 'Shish! what's that?' and then, 'Sounds like an +infernal machine'--don't go shoving me, Dora, it was him said it, not +me--and then, 'If I was the inspector I'd dump it down in the river, so +I would. Any way, let's shift it.' But the other said, 'Let well alone,' +so I wasn't dumped any more. And they fetched another man, and there was +a heap of jaw, and I heard them say 'Police,' so I let them have it." + +[Illustration: THEY LAUGHED EVER SO.] + +"What _did_ you do?" + +"Oh, I just kicked about in the basket, and I heard them all start off, +and I shouted, 'Hi, here! let me out, can't you!'" + +"And did they?" + +"Yes, but not for ever so long, I had to jaw at them through the cracks +of the basket. And when they opened it there was quite a crowd, and they +laughed ever so, and gave me bread and cheese, and said I was a plucky +youngster--and I am, and I do wish Father wouldn't put things off so. He +might just as well have spoken to me this morning. And I can't see I've +done anything so awful--and it's all your faults for not looking after +me. Aren't I your little brother? and it's your duty to see I do what's +right. You've told me so often enough." + +These last words checked the severe reprimand trembling on the hitherto +patient Oswald's lips. And then H.O. began to cry, and Dora nursed him, +though generally he is much too big for this and knows it. And he went +to sleep on her lap, and said he didn't want any dinner. + +When it came to Father's speaking to H.O. that evening it never came +off, because H.O. was ill in bed, not sham, you know, but real, +send-for-the-doctor ill. The doctor said it was fever from chill and +excitement, but I think myself it was very likely the things he ate at +lunch, and the shaking up, and then the bread and cheese, and the beer +out of a can. + +He was ill a week. When he was better, not much was said. My Father, who +is the justest man in England, said the boy had been punished +enough--and so he had, for he missed going to the pantomime, and to +"Shock-Headed Peter" at the Garrick Theatre, which is far and away the +best play that ever was done, and quite different from any other acting +I ever saw. They are exactly like real boys; I think they must have been +reading about us. And he had to take a lot of the filthiest medicine I +ever tasted. I wonder if Father told the doctor to make it nasty on +purpose? A woman would have directly, but gentlemen are not generally so +sly. Any way, you live and learn. None of us would now ever consent to +be a stowaway, no matter who wanted us to, and I don't think H.O.'s very +likely to do it again. + +The only _meant_ punishment he had was seeing the clown's dress burnt +before his eyes by Father. He had bought it all with his own saved-up +money, red trimmings and all. + +Of course, when he got well we soon taught him not to say again that it +was any of our faults. As he owned himself, he _is_ our little brother, +and we are not going to stand that kind of cheek from _him_. + + + + +_THE CONSCIENCE-PUDDING_ + + +IT was Christmas, nearly a year after Mother died. I cannot write about +Mother--but I will just say one thing. If she had only been away for a +little while, and not for always, we shouldn't have been so keen on +having a Christmas. I didn't understand this then, but I am much older +now, and I think it was just because everything was so different and +horrid we felt we _must_ do something; and perhaps we were not +particular enough _what_. Things make you much more unhappy when you +loaf about than when you are doing events. + +Father had to go away just about Christmas. He had heard that his wicked +partner, who ran away with his money, was in France, and he thought he +could catch him, but really he was in Spain, where catching criminals is +never practised. We did not know this till afterwards. + +Before Father went away he took Dora and Oswald into his study, and +said-- + +"I'm awfully sorry I've got to go away, but it is very serious business, +and I must go. You'll be good while I'm away, kiddies, won't you?" + +We promised faithfully. Then he said-- + +"There are reasons--you wouldn't understand if I tried to tell you--but +you can't have much of a Christmas this year. But I've told Matilda to +make you a good plain pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter." + +(It was; for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces +of an Indian uncle--but that is quite another story, as good old Kipling +says.) + +When Father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with his bags, and a +plaid rug in a strap, we came home again, and it was horrid. There were +papers and things littered all over his room where he had packed. We +tidied the room up--it was the only thing we could do for him. It was +Dicky who accidentally broke his shaving-glass, and H.O. made a paper +boat out of a letter we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted +to keep. This took us some time, and when we went into the nursery the +fire was black out, and we could not get it alight again, even with the +whole _Daily Chronicle_. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as +well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a +good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so +we spread newspapers on it. + +It was sitting in the kitchen, I think, that brought to our minds my +Father's parting words--about the pudding, I mean. + +Oswald said, "Father said we couldn't have much of a Christmas for +secret reasons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain +pudding." + +The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of +our young minds. + +"I wonder _how_ plain she'll make it?" Dicky said. + +"As plain as plain, you may depend," said Oswald. "A +here-am-I-where-are-you pudding--that's her sort." + +The others groaned, and we gathered closer round the fire till the +newspapers rustled madly. + +"I believe I could make a pudding that _wasn't_ plain, if I tried," +Alice said. "Why shouldn't we?" + +"No chink," said Oswald, with brief sadness. + +"How much would it cost?" Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence +and H.O. had a French halfpenny. + +Dora got the cookery-book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay +doubled up among clothes-pegs, dirty dusters, scallop shells, string, +penny novelettes, and the dining-room corkscrew. The general we had +then--it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery-book +instead of on the baking-board, there were traces of so many bygone +meals upon its pages. + +"It doesn't say Christmas pudding at all," said Dora. + +"Try plum," the resourceful Oswald instantly counselled. + +Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously. + +"'Plum-pudding, 518. + +"'A rich, with flour, 517. + +"'Christmas, 517. + +"'Cold brandy sauce for, 241.' + +"We shouldn't care about that, so it's no use looking. + +"'Good without eggs, 518. + +"'Plain, 518.' + +"We don't want _that_ anyhow. 'Christmas, 517'--that's the one." + +It took her a long time to find the page. Oswald got a shovel of coals +and made up the fire. It blazed up like the devouring elephant the +_Daily Telegraph_ always calls it. Then Dora read-- + +"'Christmas plum-pudding. Time six hours.'" + +"To eat it in?" said H.O. + +"No, silly! to make it." + +"Forge ahead, Dora," Dicky replied. + +Dora went on-- + +"'2072. One pound and a half of raisins; half a pound of currants; three +quarters of a pound of breadcrumbs; half a pound of flour; +three-quarters of a pound of beef suet; nine eggs; one wine glassful of +brandy; half a pound of citron and orange peel; half a nutmeg; and a +little ground ginger.' I wonder _how_ little ground ginger." + +"A teacupful would be enough, I think," Alice said; "we must not be +extravagant." + +"We haven't got anything yet to be extravagant _with_," said Oswald, who +had toothache that day. "What would you do with the things if you'd got +them?" + +"You'd 'chop the suet as fine as possible'--I wonder how fine that is?" +replied Dora and the book together--"'and mix it with the breadcrumbs +and flour; add the currants washed and dried.'" + +"Not starched, then," said Alice. + +"'The citron and orange peel cut into thin slices'--I wonder what they +call thin? Matilda's thin bread-and-butter is quite different from what +I mean by it--'and the raisins stoned and divided.' How many heaps would +you divide them into?" + +"Seven, I suppose," said Alice; "one for each person and one for the +pot--I mean pudding." + +"'Mix it all well together with the grated nutmeg and ginger. Then stir +in nine eggs well beaten, and the brandy'--we'll leave that out, I +think--'and again mix it thoroughly together that every ingredient may +be moistened; put it into a buttered mould, tie over tightly, and boil +for six hours. Serve it ornamented with holly and brandy poured over +it.'" + +"I should think holly and brandy poured over it would be simply +beastly," said Dicky. + +"I expect the book knows. I daresay holly and water would do as well +though. 'This pudding may be made a month before'--it's no use reading +about that though, because we've only got four days to Christmas." + +"It's no use reading about any of it," said Oswald, with thoughtful +repeatedness, "because we haven't got the things, and we haven't got the +coin to get them." + +"We might get the tin somehow," said Dicky. + +"There must be lots of kind people who would subscribe to a Christmas +pudding for poor children who hadn't any," Noel said. + +"Well, I'm going skating at Penn's," said Oswald. "It's no use thinking +about puddings. We must put up with it plain." + +So he went, and Dicky went with him. + +When they returned to their home in the evening the fire had been +lighted again in the nursery, and the others were just having tea. We +toasted our bread-and-butter on the bare side, and it gets a little warm +among the butter. This is called French toast. "I like English better, +but it is more expensive," Alice said-- + +"Matilda is in a frightful rage about your putting those coals on the +kitchen fire, Oswald. She says we shan't have enough to last over +Christmas as it is. And Father gave her a talking to before he went +about them--asked her if she ate them, she says--but I don't believe he +did. Anyway, she's locked the coal-cellar door, and she's got the key in +her pocket. I don't see how we can boil the pudding." + +"What pudding?" said Oswald dreamily. He was thinking of a chap he had +seen at Penn's who had cut the date 1899 on the ice with four strokes. + +"_The_ pudding," Alice said. "Oh, we've had such a time, Oswald! First +Dora and I went to the shops to find out exactly what the pudding would +cost--it's only two and elevenpence halfpenny, counting in the holly." + +"It's no good," Oswald repeated; he is very patient and will say the +same thing any number of times. "It's no good. You know we've got no +tin." + +"Ah," said Alice, "but Noel and I went out, and we called at some of the +houses in Granville Park and Dartmouth Hill--and we got a lot of +sixpences and shillings, besides pennies, and one old gentleman gave us +half-a-crown. He was so nice. Quite bald, with a knitted red and blue +waistcoat. We've got eight-and-sevenpence." + +Oswald did not feel quite sure Father would like us to go asking for +shillings and sixpences, or even half-crowns from strangers, but he did +not say so. The money had been asked for and got, and it couldn't be +helped--and perhaps he wanted the pudding--I am not able to remember +exactly why he did not speak up and say, "This is wrong," but anyway he +didn't. + +Alice and Dora went out and bought the things next morning. They bought +double quantities, so that it came to five shillings and elevenpence, +and was enough to make a noble pudding. There was a lot of holly left +over for decorations. We used very little for the sauce. The money that +was left we spent very anxiously in other things to eat, such as dates +and figs and toffee. + +We did not tell Matilda about it. She was a red-haired girl, and apt to +turn shirty at the least thing. + +Concealed under our jackets and overcoats we carried the parcels up to +the nursery, and hid them in the treasure-chest we had there. It was the +bureau drawer. It was locked up afterwards because the treacle got all +over the green baize and the little drawers inside it while we were +waiting to begin to make the pudding. It was the grocer told us we ought +to put treacle in the pudding, and also about not so much ginger as a +teacupful. + +When Matilda had begun to pretend to scrub the floor (she pretended this +three times a week so as to have an excuse not to let us in the kitchen, +but I know she used to read novelettes most of the time, because Alice +and I had a squint through the window more than once), we barricaded the +nursery door and set to work. We were very careful to be quite clean. We +washed our hands as well as the currants. I have sometimes thought we +did not get all the soap off the currants. The pudding smelt like a +washing-day when the time came to cut it open. And we washed a corner of +the table to chop the suet on. Chopping suet looks easy till you try. + +Father's machine he weighs letters with did to weigh out the things. We +did this very carefully, in case the grocer had not done so. Everything +was right except the raisins. H.O. had carried them home. He was very +young then, and there was a hole in the corner of the paper bag and his +mouth was sticky. + +Lots of people have been hanged to a gibbet in chains on evidence no +worse than that, and we told H.O. so till he cried. This was good for +him. It was not unkindness to H.O., but part of our duty. + +Chopping suet as fine as possible is much harder than any one would +think, as I said before. So is crumbling bread--especially if your loaf +is new, like ours was. When we had done them the breadcrumbs and the +suet were both very large and lumpy, and of a dingy gray colour, +something like pale slate pencil. + +They looked a better colour when we had mixed them with the flour. The +girls had washed the currants with Brown Windsor soap and the sponge. +Some of the currants got inside the sponge and kept coming out in the +bath for days afterwards. I see now that this was not quite nice. We cut +the candied peel as thin as we wish people would cut our +bread-and-butter. We tried to take the stones out of the raisins, but +they were too sticky, so we just divided them up in seven lots. Then we +mixed the other things in the wash-hand basin from the spare bedroom +that was always spare. We each put in our own lot of raisins and turned +it all into a pudding-basin, and tied it up in one of Alice's pinafores, +which was the nearest thing to a proper pudding-cloth we could find--at +any rate clean. What was left sticking to the wash-hand basin did not +taste so bad. + +"It's a little bit soapy," Alice said, "but perhaps that will boil out; +like stains in table-cloths." + +It was a difficult question how to boil the pudding. Matilda proved +furious when asked to let us, just because some one had happened to +knock her hat off the scullery door and Pincher had got it and done for +it. However, part of the embassy nicked a saucepan while the others were +being told what Matilda thought about the hat, and we got hot water out +of the bath-room and made it boil over our nursery fire. We put the +pudding in--it was now getting on towards the hour of tea--and let it +boil. With some exceptions--owing to the fire going down, and Matilda +not hurrying up with coals--it boiled for an hour and a quarter. Then +Matilda came suddenly in and said, "I'm not going to have you messing +about in here with my saucepans"; and she tried to take it off the fire. +You will see that we couldn't stand this; it was not likely. I do not +remember who it was that told her to mind her own business, and I think +I have forgotten who caught hold of her first to make her chuck it. I am +sure no needless violence was used. Anyway, while the struggle +progressed, Alice and Dora took the saucepan away and put it in the +boot-cupboard under the stairs and put the key in their pocket. + +This sharp encounter made every one very hot and cross. We got over it +before Matilda did, but we brought her round before bedtime. Quarrels +should always be made up before bedtime. It says so in the Bible. If +this simple rule was followed there would not be so many wars and +martyrs and law suits and inquisitions and bloody deaths at the stake. + +All the house was still. The gas was out all over the house except on +the first landing, when several darkly-shrouded figures might have been +observed creeping downstairs to the kitchen. + +On the way, with superior precaution, we got out our saucepan. The +kitchen fire was red, but low; the coal-cellar was locked, and there was +nothing in the scuttle but a little coal-dust and the piece of brown +paper that is put in to keep the coals from tumbling out through the +bottom where the hole is. We put the saucepan on the fire and plied it +with fuel--two _Chronicles_, a _Telegraph_, and two _Family Herald_ +novelettes were burned in vain. I am almost sure the pudding did not +boil at all that night. + +"Never mind," Alice said. "We can each nick a piece of coal every time +we go into the kitchen to-morrow." + +This daring scheme was faithfully performed, and by night we had nearly +half a waste-paper basket of coal, coke, and cinders. And in the depth +of night once more we might have been observed, this time with our +collier-like waste-paper basket in our guarded hands. + +There was more fire left in the grate that night, and we fed it with the +fuel we had collected. This time the fire blazed up, and the pudding +boiled like mad. This was the time it boiled two hours--at least I think +it was about that, but we dropped asleep on the kitchen tables and +dresser. You dare not be lowly in the night in the kitchen, because of +the beetles. We were aroused by a horrible smell. It was the +pudding-cloth burning. All the water had secretly boiled itself away. We +filled it up at once with cold, and the saucepan cracked. So we cleaned +it and put it back on the shelf and took another and went to bed. You +see what a lot of trouble we had over the pudding. Every evening till +Christmas, which had now become only the day after to-morrow, we sneaked +down in the inky midnight and boiled that pudding for as long as it +would. + +On Christmas morning we chopped the holly for the sauce, but we put hot +water (instead of brandy) and moist sugar. Some of them said it was not +so bad. Oswald was not one of these. + +Then came the moment when the plain pudding Father had ordered smoked +upon the board. Matilda brought it in and went away at once. She had a +cousin out of Woolwich Arsenal to see her that day, I remember. Those +far-off days are quite distinct in memory's recollection still. + +Then we got out our own pudding from its hiding-place and gave it one +last hurried boil--only seven minutes, because of the general impatience +which Oswald and Dora could not cope with. + +We had found means to secrete a dish, and we now tried to dish the +pudding up, but it stuck to the basin, and had to be dislodged with the +chisel. The pudding was horribly pale. We poured the holly sauce over +it, and Dora took up the knife and was just cutting it when a few simple +words from H.O. turned us from happy and triumphing cookery artists to +persons in despair. + +He said: "How pleased all those kind ladies and gentlemen would be if +they knew _we_ were the poor children they gave the shillings and +sixpences and things for!" + +We all said, "_What?_" It was no moment for politeness. + +"I say," H.O. said, "they'd be glad if they knew it was us was enjoying +the pudding, and not dirty little, really poor children." + +"You should say 'you were,' not 'you was,'" said Dora, but it was as in +a dream and only from habit. + +"Do you mean to say"--Oswald spoke firmly, yet not angrily--"that you +and Alice went and begged for money for poor children, and then _kept_ +it?" + +"We didn't keep it," said H.O., "we spent it." + +"We've kept the _things_, you little duffer!" said Dicky, looking at the +pudding sitting alone and uncared for on its dish. "You begged for money +for poor children, and then _kept_ it. It's stealing, that's what it is. +I don't say so much about you--you're only a silly kid--but Alice knew +better. Why did you do it?" + +He turned to Alice, but she was now too deep in tears to get a word out. + +H.O. looked a bit frightened, but he answered the question. We have +taught him this. He said-- + +"I thought they'd give us more if I said poor children than if I said +just us." + +"_That's_ cheating," said Dicky--"downright beastly, mean, low +cheating." + +"I'm not," said H.O.; "and you're another." Then he began to cry too. I +do not know how the others felt, but I understand from Oswald that he +felt that now the honour of the house of Bastable had been stamped on +in the dust, and it didn't matter what happened. He looked at the +beastly holly that had been left over from the sauce and was stuck up +over the pictures. It now appeared hollow and disgusting, though it had +got quite a lot of berries, and some of it was the varied kind--green +and white. The figs and dates and toffee were set out in the doll's +dinner service. The very sight of it all made Oswald blush sickly. He +owns he would have liked to cuff H.O., and, if he did for a moment wish +to shake Alice, the author, for one, can make allowances. + +Now Alice choked and spluttered, and wiped her eyes fiercely, and said, +"It's no use ragging H.O. It's my fault. I'm older than he is." + +H.O. said, "It couldn't be Alice's fault. I don't see as it was wrong." + +"That, not as," murmured Dora, putting her arm round the sinner who had +brought this degrading blight upon our family tree, but such is girls' +undetermined and affectionate silliness. "Tell sister all about it, H.O. +dear. Why couldn't it be Alice's fault?" + +H.O. cuddled up to Dora and said snufflingly in his nose-- + +"Because she hadn't got nothing to do with it. I collected it all. She +never went into one of the houses. She didn't want to." + +"And then took all the credit of getting the money," said Dicky +savagely. + +Oswald said, "Not much _credit_," in scornful tones. + +"Oh, you are _beastly_, the whole lot of you, except Dora!" Alice said, +stamping her foot in rage and despair. "I tore my frock on a nail going +out, and I didn't want to go back, and I got H.O. to go to the houses +alone, and I waited for him outside. And I asked him not to say anything +because I didn't want Dora to know about the frock--it's my best. And I +don't know what he said inside. He never told me. But I'll bet anything +he didn't _mean_ to cheat." + +"You _said_ lots of kind people would be ready to give money to get +pudding for poor children. So I asked them to." + +Oswald, with his strong right hand, waved a wave of passing things over. + +"We'll talk about that another time," he said; "just now we've got +weightier things to deal with." + +He pointed to the pudding, which had grown cold during the conversation +to which I have alluded. H.O. stopped crying, but Alice went on with it. +Oswald now said-- + +"We're a base and outcast family. Until that pudding's out of the house +we shan't be able to look any one in the face. We must see that that +pudding goes to poor children--not grisling, grumpy, whiney-piney, +pretending poor children--but real poor ones, just as poor as they can +stick." + +"And the figs too--and the dates," said Noel, with regretting tones. + +"Every fig," said Dicky sternly. "Oswald is quite right." + +This honourable resolution made us feel a bit better. We hastily put on +our best things, and washed ourselves a bit, and hurried out to find +some really poor people to give the pudding to. We cut it in slices +ready, and put it in a basket with the figs and dates and toffee. We +would not let H.O. come with us at first because he wanted to. And Alice +would not come because of him. So at last we had to let him. The +excitement of tearing into your best things heals the hurt that wounded +honour feels, as the poetry writer said--or at any rate it makes the +hurt feel better. + +We went out into the streets. They were pretty quiet--nearly everybody +was eating its Christmas dessert. But presently we met a woman in an +apron. Oswald said very politely-- + +"Please, are you a poor person?" And she told us to get along with us. + +The next we met was a shabby man with a hole in his left boot. + +Again Oswald said, "Please, are you a poor person, and have you any poor +little children?" + +The man told us not to come any of our games with him, or we should +laugh on the wrong side of our faces. We went on sadly. We had no heart +to stop and explain to him that we had no games to come. + +The next was a young man near the Obelisk. Dora tried this time. + +She said, "Oh, if you please we've got some Christmas pudding in this +basket, and if you're a poor person you can have some." + +"Poor as Job," said the young man in a hoarse voice, and he had to come +up out of a red comforter to say it. + +We gave him a slice of the pudding, and he bit into it without thanks or +delay. The next minute he had thrown the pudding slap in Dora's face, +and was clutching Dicky by the collar. + +"Blime if I don't chuck ye in the river, the whole bloomin' lot of you!" +he exclaimed. + +The girls screamed, the boys shouted, and though Oswald threw himself on +the insulter of his sister with all his manly vigour, yet but for a +friend of Oswald's, who is in the police, passing at that instant, the +author shudders to think what might have happened, for he was a strong +young man, and Oswald is not yet come to his full strength, and the +Quaggy runs all too near. + +Our policeman led our assailant aside, and we waited anxiously, as he +told us to. After long uncertain moments the young man in the comforter +loafed off grumbling, and our policeman turned to us. + +"Said you give him a dollop o' pudding, and it tasted of soap and +hair-oil." + +I suppose the hair-oil must have been the Brown Windsoriness of the soap +coming out. We were sorry, but it was still our duty to get rid of the +pudding. The Quaggy was handy, it is true, but when you have collected +money to feed poor children and spent it on pudding it is not right to +throw that pudding in the river. People do not subscribe shillings and +sixpences and half-crowns to feed a hungry flood with Christmas pudding. + +Yet we shrank from asking any more people whether they were poor +persons, or about their families, and still more from offering the +pudding to chance people who might bite into it and taste the soap +before we had time to get away. + +It was Alice, the most paralysed with disgrace of all of us, who thought +of the best idea. + +She said, "Let's take it to the workhouse. At any rate they're all poor +people there, and they mayn't go out without leave, so they can't run +after us to do anything to us after the pudding. No one would give them +leave to go out to pursue people who had brought them pudding, and wreck +vengeance on them, and at any rate we shall get rid of the +conscience-pudding--it's a sort of conscience-money, you know--only it +isn't money but pudding." + +The workhouse is a good way, but we stuck to it, though very cold, and +hungrier than we thought possible when we started, for we had been so +agitated we had not even stayed to eat the plain pudding our good Father +had so kindly and thoughtfully ordered for our Christmas dinner. + +The big bell at the workhouse made a man open the door to us, when we +rang it. Oswald said (and he spoke because he is next eldest to Dora, +and she had had jolly well enough of saying anything about pudding)--he +said-- + +"Please we've brought some pudding for the poor people." + +He looked us up and down, and he looked at our basket, then he said: +"You'd better see the Matron." + +We waited in a hall, feeling more and more uncomfy, and less and less +like Christmas. We were very cold indeed, especially our hands and our +noses. And we felt less and less able to face the Matron if she was +horrid, and one of us at least wished we had chosen the Quaggy for the +pudding's long home, and made it up to the robbed poor in some other way +afterwards. + +Just as Alice was saying earnestly in the burning cold ear of Oswald, +"Let's put down the basket and make a bolt for it. Oh, Oswald, _let's_!" +a lady came along the passage. She was very upright, and she had eyes +that went through you like blue gimlets. I should not like to be obliged +to thwart that lady if she had any design, and mine was opposite. I am +glad this is not likely to occur. + +She said, "What's all this about a pudding?" + +H.O. said at once, before we could stop him, "They say I've stolen the +pudding, so we've brought it here for the poor people." + +"No, we didn't!" "That wasn't why!" "The money was given!" "It was +meant for the poor!" "Shut up, H.O.!" said the rest of us all at once. + +Then there was an awful silence. The lady gimleted us again one by one +with her blue eyes. + +Then she said: "Come into my room. You all look frozen." + +She took us into a very jolly room with velvet curtains and a big fire, +and the gas lighted, because now it was almost dark, even out of doors. +She gave us chairs, and Oswald felt as if his was a dock, he felt so +criminal, and the lady looked so Judgular. + +Then she took the arm-chair by the fire herself, and said, "Who's the +eldest?" + +"I am," said Dora, looking more like a frightened white rabbit than I've +ever seen her. + +"Then tell me all about it." + +Dora looked at Alice and began to cry. That slab of pudding in the face +had totally unnerved the gentle girl. Alice's eyes were red, and her +face was puffy with crying; but she spoke up for Dora and said-- + +"Oh, please let Oswald tell. Dora can't. She's tired with the long walk. +And a young man threw a piece of it in her face, and----" + +The lady nodded and Oswald began. He told the story from the very +beginning, as he has always been taught to, though he hated to lay bare +the family honour's wound before a stranger, however judgelike and +gimlet-eyed. He told all--not concealing the pudding-throwing, nor what +the young man said about soap. + +"So," he ended, "we want to give the conscience-pudding to you. It's +like conscience-money--you know what that is, don't you? But if you +really think it is soapy and not just the young man's horridness, +perhaps you'd better not let them eat it. But the figs and things are +all right." + +When he had done the lady said, for most of us were crying more or +less-- + +"Come, cheer up! It's Christmas-time, and he's very little--your +brother, I mean. And I think the rest of you seem pretty well able to +take care of the honour of the family. I'll take the conscience-pudding +off your minds. Where are you going now?" + +"Home, I suppose," Oswald said. And he thought how nasty and dark and +dull it would be. The fire out most likely and Father away. + +"And your Father's not at home, you say," the blue-gimlet lady went on. +"What do you say to having tea with me, and then seeing the +entertainment we have got up for our old people?" + +Then the lady smiled and the blue gimlets looked quite merry. + +The room was so warm and comfortable and the invitation was the last +thing we expected. It was jolly of her, I do think. + +No one thought quite at first of saying how pleased we should be to +accept her kind invitation. Instead we all just said "Oh!" but in a tone +which must have told her we meant "Yes, please," very deeply. + +Oswald (this has more than once happened) was the first to restore his +manners. He made a proper bow like he has been taught, and said-- + +"Thank you very much. We should like it very much. It is very much nicer +than going home. Thank you very much." + +I need not tell the reader that Oswald could have made up a much better +speech if he had had more time to make it up in, or if he had not been +so filled with mixed flusteredness and furification by the shameful +events of the day. + +We washed our faces and hands and had a first rate muffin and crumpet +tea, with slices of cold meats, and many nice jams and cakes. A lot of +other people were there, most of them people who were giving the +entertainment to the aged poor. + +After tea it was the entertainment. Songs and conjuring and a play +called "Box and Cox," very amusing, and a lot of throwing things about +in it--bacon and chops and things--and nigger minstrels. We clapped till +our hands were sore. + +When it was over we said goodbye. In between the songs and things Oswald +had had time to make up a speech of thanks to the lady. + +He said-- + +"We all thank you heartily for your goodness. The entertainment was +beautiful. We shall never forget your kindness and hospitableness." + +The lady laughed, and said she had been very pleased to have us. A fat +gentleman said-- + +"And your teas? I hope you enjoyed those--eh?" + +Oswald had not had time to make up an answer to that, so he answered +straight from the heart, and said-- + +"Ra--_ther_!" + +And every one laughed and slapped us boys on the back and kissed the +girls, and the gentleman who played the bones in the nigger minstrels +saw us home. We ate the cold pudding that night, and H.O. dreamed that +something came to eat him, like it advises you to in the advertisements +on the hoardings. The grown-ups said it was the pudding, but I don't +think it could have been that, because, as I have said more than once, +it was so very plain. + +Some of H.O.'s brothers and sisters thought it was a judgment on him for +pretending about who the poor children were he was collecting the money +for. Oswald does not believe such a little boy as H.O. would have a real +judgment made just for him and nobody else, whatever he did. + +But it certainly is odd. H.O. was the only one who had bad dreams, and +he was also the only one who got any of the things we bought with that +ill-gotten money, because, you remember, he picked a hole in the +raisin-paper as he was bringing the parcel home. The rest of us had +nothing, unless you count the scrapings of the pudding-basin, and those +don't really count at all. + + + + +_ARCHIBALD THE UNPLEASANT_ + + +THE house of Bastable was once in poor, but honest, circs. That was when +it lived in a semi-detached house in the Lewisham Road, and looked for +treasure. There were six scions of the house who looked for it--in fact +there were seven, if you count Father. I am sure he looked right enough, +but he did not do it the right way. And we did. And so we found a +treasure of a great-uncle, and we and Father went to live with him in a +very affluent mansion on Blackheath--with gardens and vineries and +pineries and everything jolly you can think of. And then, when we were +no longer so beastly short of pocket-money, we tried to be good, and +sometimes it came out right, and sometimes it didn't. Something like +sums. + +And then it was the Christmas holidays--and we had a bazaar and raffled +the most beautiful goat you ever saw, and we gave the money to the poor +and needy. + +And then we felt it was time to do something new, because we were as +rich as our worthy relative, the uncle, and our Father--now also +wealthy, at least, compared to what he used to be--thought right for us; +and we were as good as we could be without being good for nothing and +muffs, which I hope no one calling itself a Bastable will ever stoop to. + +So then Oswald, so often the leader in hazardous enterprises, thought +long and deeply in his interior self, and he saw that something must be +done, because, though there was still the goat left over, unclaimed by +its fortunate winner at the Bazaar, somehow no really fine idea seemed +to come out of it, and nothing else was happening. Dora was getting a +bit domineering, and Alice was too much taken up with trying to learn to +knit. Dicky was bored and so was Oswald, and Noel was writing far more +poetry than could be healthy for any poet, however young, and H.O. was +simply a nuisance. His boots are always much louder when he is not +amused, and that gets the rest of us into rows, because there are hardly +any grown-up persons who can tell the difference between his boots and +mine. Oswald decided to call a council (because even if nothing comes of +a council it always means getting Alice to drop knitting, and making +Noel chuck the poetical influences, that are no use and only make him +silly), and he went into the room that is our room. It is called the +common-room, like in colleges, and it is very different from the room +that was ours when we were poor, but honest. It is a jolly room, with a +big table and a big couch, that is most useful for games, and a thick +carpet because of H.O.'s boots. + +Alice was knitting by the fire; it was for Father, but I am sure his +feet are not at all that shape. He has a high and beautifully formed +instep like Oswald's. Noel was writing poetry, of course. + + "My dear sister sits + And knits, + I hope to goodness the stocking fits," + +was as far as he had got. + +"It ought to be 'my dearest sister' to sound right," he said, "but that +wouldn't be kind to Dora." + +"Thank you," said Dora, "You needn't trouble to be kind to me, if you +don't want to." + +"Shut up, Dora!" said Dicky, "Noel didn't mean anything." + +"He never does," said H.O., "nor yet his poetry doesn't neither." + +"_And_ his poetry doesn't _either_," Dora corrected; "and besides, you +oughtn't to say that at all, it's unkind----" + +"You're too jolly down on the kid," said Dicky. + +And Alice said, "Eighty-seven, eighty-eight--oh, do be quiet half a +sec.!--eighty-nine, ninety--now I shall have to count the stitches all +over again!" + +Oswald alone was silent and not cross. I tell you this to show that the +sort of worryingness was among us that is catching, like measles. +Kipling calls it the cameelious hump, and, as usual, that great and good +writer is quite correct. + +So Oswald said, "Look here, let's have a council. It says in Kipling's +book when you've got the hump go and dig till you gently perspire. Well, +we can't do that, because it's simply pouring, but----" + +The others all interrupted him, and said they hadn't got the hump and +they didn't know what he meant. So he shrugged his shoulders patiently +(it is not his fault that the others hate him to shrug his shoulders +patiently) and he said no more. + +Then Dora said, "Oh, don't be so disagreeable, Oswald, for goodness' +sake!" + +I assure you she did, though he had done simply nothing. + +Matters were in this cryptical state when the door opened and Father +came in. + +"Hullo, kiddies!" he remarked kindly. "Beastly wet day, isn't it? And +dark too. I can't think why the rain can't always come in term time. It +seems a poor arrangement to have it in 'vac.,' doesn't it?" + +I think every one instantly felt better. I know one of us did, and it +was me. + +Father lit the gas, and sat down in the armchair and took Alice on his +knee. + +"First," he said, "here is a box of chocs." It was an extra big and +beautiful one and Fuller's best. "And besides the chocs., a piece of +good news! You're all asked to a party at Mrs. Leslie's. She's going to +have all sorts of games and things, with prizes for every one, and a +conjurer and a magic lantern." + +The shadow of doom seemed to be lifted from each young brow, and we felt +how much fonder we were of each other than any one would have thought. +At least Oswald felt this, and Dicky told me afterwards he felt Dora +wasn't such a bad sort after all. + +"It's on Tuesday week," said Father. "I see the prospect pleases. Number +three is that your cousin Archibald has come here to stay a week or two. +His little sister has taken it into her head to have whooping-cough. And +he's downstairs now, talking to your uncle." + +We asked what the young stranger was like, but Father did not know, +because he and cousin Archibald's father had not seen much of each other +for some years. Father said this, but we knew it was because Archibald's +father hadn't bothered to see ours when he was poor and honest, but now +he was the wealthy sharer of the red-brick, beautiful Blackheath house +it was different. This made us not like Uncle Archibald very much, but +we were too just to blame it on to young Archibald. All the same we +should have liked him better if his father's previous career had not +been of such a worldly and stuck-up sort. Besides, I do think Archibald +is quite the most rotten sort of name. We should have called him +Archie, of course, if he had been at all decent. + +"You'll be as jolly to him as you can, I know," Father said; "he's a bit +older than you, Oswald. He's not a bad-looking chap." + +Then Father went down and Oswald had to go with him, and there was +Archibald sitting upright in a chair and talking to our Indian uncle as +if he was some beastly grown-up. Our cousin proved to be dark and rather +tall, and though he was only fourteen he was always stroking his lip to +see if his moustache had begun to come. + +Father introduced us to each other, and we said, "How do you do?" and +looked at each other, and neither of us could think of anything else to +say. At least Oswald couldn't. So then we went upstairs. Archibald shook +hands with the others, and every one was silent except Dora, and she +only whispered to H.O. to keep his feet still. + +You cannot keep for ever in melancholy silence however few things you +have to say, and presently some one said it was a wet day, and this +well-chosen remark made us able to begin to talk. + +I do not wish to be injurious to anybody, especially one who was a +Bastable, by birth at least if not according to the nobler attributes, +but I must say that Oswald never did dislike a boy so much as he did +that young Archibald. He was as cocky as though he'd done something to +speak of--been captain of his eleven, or passed a beastly exam., or +something--but we never could find that he had done anything. He was +always bragging about the things he had at home, and the things he was +allowed to do, and all the things he knew all about, but he was a most +untruthful chap. He laughed at Noel's being a poet--a thing we never do, +because it makes him cry and crying makes him ill--and of course Oswald +and Dicky could not punch his head in their own house because of the +laws of hospitableness, and Alice stopped it at last by saying she +didn't care if it was being a sneak, she would tell Father the very next +time. I don't think she would have, because we made a rule, when we were +poor and honest, not to bother Father if we could possibly help it. And +we keep it up still. But Archibald didn't know that. Then this cousin, +who is, I fear, the black sheep of the Bastables, and hardly worthy to +be called one, used to pull the girls' hair, and pinch them at prayers +when they could not call out or do anything to him back. + +And he was awfully rude to the servants, ordering them about, and +playing tricks on them, not amusing tricks like other Bastables might +have done--such as booby-traps and mice under dish-covers, which seldom +leaves any lasting ill-feeling--but things no decent boy would do--like +hiding their letters and not giving them to them for days, and then it +was too late to meet the young man the letter was from, and squirting +ink on their aprons when they were just going to open the door, and once +he put a fish-hook in the cook's pocket when she wasn't looking. He did +not do anything to Oswald at that time. I suppose he was afraid. I just +tell you this to show you that Oswald didn't cotton to him for no +selfish reason, but because Oswald has been taught to feel for others. + +[Illustration: AND HE WAS AWFULLY RUDE TO THE SERVANTS.] + +He called us all kids--and he was that kind of boy we knew at once it +was no good trying to start anything new and jolly--so Oswald, ever +discreet and wary, shut up entirely about the council. We played games +with him sometimes, not really good ones, but Snap and Beggar my +Neighbour, and even then he used to cheat. I hate to say it of one of +our blood, but I can hardly believe he was. I think he must have been +changed at nurse like the heirs to monarchies and dukeries. + +Well, the days passed slowly. There was Mrs. Leslie's party shining +starrishly in the mysteries of the future. Also we had another thing to +look forward to, and that was when Archibald would have to go back to +school. But we could not enjoy that foreshadowing so much because of us +having to go back at nearly the same time. + +Oswald always tries to be just, no matter how far from easy, and so I +will say that I am not quite sure that it was Archibald that set the +pipes leaking, but we were all up in the loft the day before, snatching +a golden opportunity to play a brief game of robbers in a cave, while +Archibald had gone down to the village to get his silly hair cut. +Another thing about him that was not natural was his being always +looking in the glass and wanting to talk about whether people were +handsome or not; and he made as much fuss about his ties as though he +had been a girl. So when he was gone Alice said-- + +"Hist! The golden moment. Let's be robbers in the loft, and when he +comes back he won't know where we are." + +"He'll hear us," said Noel, biting his pencil. + +"No, he won't. We'll be the Whispering Band of Weird Bandits. Come on, +Noel; you can finish the poetry up here." + +"It's about _him_," said Noel gloomily, "when he's gone back to----" +(Oswald will not give the name of Archibald's school for the sake of the +other boys there, as they might not like everybody who reads this to +know about there being a chap like him in their midst.) "I shall do it +up in an envelope and put a stamp on it and post it to him, and----" + +"Haste!" cried Alice. "Bard of the Bandits, haste while yet there's +time." + +So we tore upstairs and put on our slippers and socks over them, and we +got the high-backed chair out of the girls' bedroom, and the others held +it steady while Oswald agilitively mounted upon its high back and opened +the trap-door and got up into the place between the roof and the +ceiling (the boys in "Stalky & Co." found this out by accident, and they +were surprised and pleased, but we have known all about it ever since we +can remember). + +Then the others put the chair back, and Oswald let down the rope ladder +that we made out of bamboo and clothes-line after uncle told us the +story of the missionary lady who was shut up in a rajah's palace, and +some one shot an arrow to her with a string tied to it, and it might +have killed her I should have thought, but it didn't, and she hauled in +the string and there was a rope and a bamboo ladder, and so she escaped, +and we made one like it on purpose for the loft. No one had ever told us +not to make ladders. + +The others came up by the rope-ladder (it was partly bamboo, but +rope-ladder does for short) and we shut the trap-door down. It is jolly +up there. There are two big cisterns, and one little window in a gable +that gives you just enough light. The floor is plaster with wooden +things going across, beams and joists they are called. There are some +planks laid on top of these here and there. Of course if you walk on the +plaster you will go through with your foot into the room below. + +We had a very jolly game, in whispers, and Noel sat by the little +window, and was quite happy, being the bandit bard. The cisterns are +rocks you hide behind. But the jolliest part was when we heard Archibald +shouting out, "Hullo! kids, where are you?" and we all stayed as still +as mice, and heard Jane say she thought we must have gone out. Jane was +the one that hadn't got her letter, as well as having her apron inked +all over. + +[Illustration: THE OTHERS CAME UP BY THE ROPE-LADDER.] + +Then we heard Archibald going all over the house looking for us. Father +was at business and uncle was at his club. And we were _there_. And so +Archibald was all alone. And we might have gone on for hours enjoying +the spectacle of his confusion and perplexedness, but Noel happened to +sneeze--the least thing gives him cold and he sneezes louder for his age +than any one I know--just when Archibald was on the landing underneath. +Then he stood there and said-- + +"I know where you are. Let me come up." + +We cautiously did not reply. Then he said: + +"All right. I'll go and get the step-ladder." + +We did not wish this. We had not been told not to make rope-ladders, nor +yet about not playing in the loft; but if he fetched the step-ladder +Jane would know, and there are some secrets you like to keep to +yourself. + +So Oswald opened the trap-door and squinted down, and there was that +Archibald with his beastly hair cut. Oswald said-- + +"We'll let you up if you promise not to tell you've been up here." + +So he promised, and we let down the rope-ladder. And it will show you +the kind of boy he was that the instant he had got up by it he began +to find fault with the way it was made. + +[Illustration: SO OSWALD OPENED THE TRAP-DOOR AND SQUINTED DOWN, AND +THERE WAS THAT ARCHIBALD.] + +Then he wanted to play with the ball-cock. But Oswald knows it is better +not to do this. + +"I daresay _you're_ forbidden," Archibald said, "little kids like you. +But _I_ know all about plumbing." + +And Oswald could not prevent his fiddling with the pipes and the +ball-cock a little. Then we went down. All chance of further banditry +was at an end. Next day was Sunday. The leak was noticed then. It was +slow, but steady, and the plumber was sent for on Monday morning. + +Oswald does not know whether it was Archibald who made the leak, but he +does know about what came after. + +I think our displeasing cousin found that piece of poetry that Noel was +beginning about him, and read it, because he is a sneak. Instead of +having it out with Noel he sucked up to him and gave him a six-penny +fountain-pen which Noel liked, although it is really no good for him to +try to write poetry with anything but a pencil, because he always sucks +whatever he writes with, and ink is poisonous, I believe. + +Then in the afternoon he and Noel got quite thick, and went off +together. And afterwards Noel seemed very peacocky about something, but +he would not say what, and Archibald was grinning in a way Oswald would +have liked to pound his head for. + +Then, quite suddenly, the peaceable quietness of that happy Blackheath +home was brought to a close by screams. Servants ran about with brooms +and pails, and the water was coming through the ceiling of uncle's room +like mad, and Noel turned white and looked at our unattractive cousin +and said: "Send him away." + +Alice put her arm round Noel and said: "Do go, Archibald." + +But he wouldn't. + +So then Noel said he wished he had never been born, and whatever would +Father say. + +"Why, what is it, Noel?" Alice asked that. "Just tell us, we'll all +stand by you. What's he been doing?" + +"You won't let him do anything to me if I tell?" + +"Tell tale tit," said Archibald. + +"He got me to go up into the loft and he said it was a secret, and would +I promise not to tell, and I won't tell; only I've done it, and now the +water's coming in." + +"You've done it? You young ass, I was only kidding you!" said our +detestable cousin. And he laughed. + +"I don't understand," said Oswald. "What did you tell Noel?" + +"He can't tell you because he promised--and I won't--unless you vow by +the honour of the house you talk so much about that you'll never tell I +had anything to do with it." + +That will show you what he was. We had never mentioned the honour of the +house except once quite at the beginning, before we knew how discapable +he was of understanding anything, and how far we were from wanting to +call him Archie. + +We had to promise, for Noel was getting greener and more gurgly every +minute, and at any moment Father or uncle might burst in foaming for an +explanation, and none of us would have one except Noel, and him in this +state of all-anyhow. + +So Dicky said-- + +"We promise, you beast, you!" And we all said the same. + +Then Archibald said, drawling his words and feeling for the moustache +that wasn't there, and I hope he'll be quite old before he gets one-- + +"It's just what comes of trying to amuse silly little kids. I told the +foolish little animal about people having arteries cut, and your having +to cut the whole thing to stop the bleeding. And he said, 'Was that what +the plumber would do to the leaky pipe?' And how pleased your governor +would be to find it mended. And then he went and did it." + +"You told me to," said Noel, turning greener and greener. + +"Go along with Alice," said Oswald. "We'll stand by you. And Noel, old +chap, you must keep your word and not sneak about that sneaking hound." + +Alice took him away, and we were left with the horrid Archibald. + +"Now," said Oswald, "I won't break my word, no more will the rest of us. +But we won't speak another word to you as long as we live." + +"Oh, Oswald," said Dora, "what about the sun going down?" + +"Let it jolly well go," said Dicky in furiousness. "Oswald didn't say +we'd go on being angry for ever, but I'm with Oswald all the way. I +won't talk to cads--no, not even before grown-ups. They can jolly well +think what they like." + +After this no one spoke to Archibald. + +Oswald rushed for a plumber, and such was his fiery eloquence he really +caught one and brought him home. Then he and Dicky waited for Father +when he came in, and they got him into the study, and Oswald said what +they had all agreed on. It was this: + +"Father, we are all most awfully sorry, but one of us has cut the pipe +in the loft, and if you make us tell you any more it will not be +honourable, and we are very sorry. Please, please don't ask who it was +did it." + +Father bit his moustache and looked worried, and Dicky went on-- + +"Oswald has got a plumber and he is doing it now." + +Then Father said, "How on earth did you get into the loft?" + +And then of course the treasured secret of the rope-ladder had to be +revealed. We had never been told not to make rope-ladders and go into +the loft, but we did not try to soften the anger of our Father by saying +this. It would not have been any good either. We just had to stick it. +And the punishment of our crime was most awful. It was that we weren't +to go to Mrs. Leslie's party. And Archibald was to go, because when +Father asked him if he was in it with the rest of us, he said "No." I +cannot think of any really gentle, manly, and proper words to say what I +think about my unnatural cousin. + +We kept our word about not speaking to him, and I think Father thought +we were jealous because he was going to that conjuring, magic lantern +party and we were not. Noel was the most unhappy, because he knew we +were all being punished for what he had done. He was very affectionate +and tried to write pieces of poetry to us all, but he was so unhappy he +couldn't even write, and he went into the kitchen and sat on Jane's knee +and said his head ached. + +Next day it was the day of the party and we were plunged in gloom. +Archibald got out his Etons and put his clean shirt ready, and a pair of +flashy silk socks with red spots, and then he went into the bath-room. + +Noel and Jane were whispering on the stairs. Jane came up and Noel went +down, Jane knocked at the bath-room door and said-- + +"Here's the soap, Master Archerbald. I didn't put none in to-day." + +He opened the door and put out his hand. + +"Half a moment," said Jane, "I've got something else in my hand." + +As she spoke the gas all over the house went down blue, and then went +out. We held our breaths heavily. + +"Here it is," she said; "I'll put it in your hand. I'll go down and turn +off the burners and see about the gas. You'll be late, sir. If I was you +I should get on a bit with the washing of myself in the dark. I daresay +the gas'll be five or ten minutes, and it's five o'clock now." + +It wasn't, and of course she ought not to have said it, but it was +useful all the same. + +Noel came stumping up the stairs in the dark. He fumbled about and then +whispered, "I've turned the little white china knob that locks the +bath-room door on the outside." + +The water was bubbling and hissing in the pipes inside, and the darkness +went on. Father and uncle had not come in yet, which was a fortunate +blessing. + +"Do be quiet!" said Noel. "Just you wait." + +We all sat on the stairs and waited. Noel said-- + +"Don't ask me yet--you'll see--you wait." + +And we waited, and the gas did not come back. + +At last Archibald tried to come out--he thought he had washed himself +clean, I suppose--and of course the door was fastened. He kicked and he +hammered and he shouted, and we were glad. + +At last Noel banged on the door and screamed through the keyhole-- + +"If we let you out will you let us off our promise not to tell about you +and the pipes? We won't tell till you've gone back to school." + +He wouldn't for a long time, but at last he had to. + +"I shan't ever come to your beastly house again," he bellowed through +the keyhole, "so I don't mind." + +"Turn off the gas-burners then," said Oswald, ever thoughtful, though he +was still in ignorance of the beautiful truth. + +Then Noel sang out over the stairs, "Light up!" and Jane went round with +a taper, and when the landing gas was lighted Noel turned the knob of +the bath-room, and Archibald exited in his Indian red and yellow +dressing-gown that he thought so much of. Of course we expected his face +to be red with rage, or white with passion, or purple with mixed +emotions, but you cannot think what our feelings were--indeed, we hardly +knew what they were ourselves--when we saw that he was not red or white +or purple, but _black_. He looked like an uneven sort of bluish nigger. +His face and hands were all black and blue in streaks, and so were the +bits of his feet that showed between his Indian dressing-gown and his +Turkish slippers. + +[Illustration: "WHAT ARE YOU STARING AT?" HE ASKED. "NYANG, NYANG!" JANE +ANSWERED TAUNTINGLY.] + +The word "Krikey" fell from more than one lip. + +"What are you staring at?" he asked. + +We did not answer even then, though I think it was less from +keep-your-wordishness than amazement. But Jane did. + +"Nyang, Nyang!" she uttered tauntingly. "You thought it was soap I was +giving you, and all the time it was Maple's dark bright navy-blue +indelible dye--won't wash out." She flashed a looking-glass in his face, +and he looked and saw the depth of his dark bright navy-blueness. + +Now, you may think that we shouted with laughing to see him done brown +and dyed blue like this, but we did not. There was a spellbound silence. +Oswald, I know, felt a quite uncomfortable feeling inside him. + +When Archibald had had one good look at himself he did not want any +more. He ran to his room and bolted himself in. + +"_He_ won't go to no parties," said Jane, and she flounced downstairs. + +We never knew how much Noel had told her. He is very young, and not so +strong as we are, and we thought it better not to ask. + +Oswald and Dicky and H.O.--particularly H.O.--told each other it served +him right, but after a bit Dora asked Noel if he would mind her trying +to get some of it off our unloved cousin, and he said "No." + +[Illustration: WHEN FATHER CAME HOME THERE WAS AN AWFUL ROW.] + +But nothing would get it off him; and when Father came home there was an +awful row. And he said we had disgraced ourselves and forgotten the +duties of hospitality. We got it pretty straight, I can tell you. And we +bore it all. I do not say we were martyrs to the honour of our house and +to our plighted word, but I do say that we got it very straight indeed, +and we did not tell the provocativeness we had had from our guest that +drove the poet Noel to this wild and desperate revenge. + +But some one told, and I have always thought it was Jane, and that is +why we did not ask too many questions about what Noel had told her, +because late that night Father came and said he now understood that we +had meant to do right, except perhaps the one who cut the pipe with a +chisel, and that must have been more silliness than naughtiness; and +perhaps the being dyed blue served our cousin rather right. And he gave +Archibald a few remarks in private, and when the dye began to come +off--it was not a fast dye, though it said so on the paper it was +wrapped in--Archibald, now a light streaky blue, really did seem to be +making an effort to be something like decent. And when, now merely a +pale grey, he had returned to school, he sent us a letter. It said:-- + + "_My dear Cousins_,-- + + "_I think that I was beastlier than I meant to + be, but I am not accustomed to young kids. And I + think uncle was right, and the way you stand up + for the honour of our house is not all nonsense, + like I said it was. If we ever meet in the future + life I hope you will not keep a down on me about + things. I don't think you can expect me to say + more. From your affectionate cousin,_ + + "_Archibald Bastable._" + +So I suppose rays of remorse penetrated that cold heart, and now perhaps +he will be a reformed Bastable. I am sure I hope so, but I believe it is +difficult, if not impossible, for a leopard to change his skin. + +Still, I remember how indelibly black he looked when he came out of the +fatal bath-room; and it nearly all wore off. And perhaps spots on the +honourable inside parts of your soul come off with time. I hope so. The +dye never came off the inside of the bath though. I think that was what +annoyed our good great-uncle the most. + + + + +_OVER THE WATER TO CHINA_ + + +OSWALD is a very modest boy, I believe, but even he would not deny that +he has an active brain. The author has heard both his Father and +Albert's uncle say so. And the most far-reaching ideas often come to him +quite naturally--just as silly notions that aren't any good might come +to you. And he had an idea which he meant to hold a council; about with +his brothers and sisters; but just as he was going to unroll his idea to +them our Father occurred suddenly in our midst and said a strange cousin +was coming, and he came, and he was strange indeed! And when Fate had +woven the threads of his dark destiny and he had been dyed a dark bright +navy-blue, and had gone from our midst, Oswald went back to the idea +that he had not forgotten. The words "tenacious of purpose" mean +sticking to things, and these words always make me think of the +character of the young hero of these pages. At least I suppose his +brothers Dicky and Noel and H.O. are heroes too, in a way, but somehow +the author of these lines knows more about Oswald's inside realness +than he does about the others. But I am getting too deep for words. + +So Oswald went into the common-room. Every one was busy. Noel and H.O. +were playing Halma. Dora was covering boxes with silver paper to put +sweets in for a school treat, and Dicky was making a cardboard model of +a new screw he has invented for ocean steamers. But Oswald did not mind +interrupting, because Dora ought not to work too hard, and Halma always +ends in a row, and I would rather not say what I think of Dicky's screw. +So Oswald said-- + +"I want a council. Where's Alice?" + +Every one said they didn't know, and they made haste to say that we +couldn't have a council without her. But Oswald's determined nature made +him tell H.O. to chuck that rotten game and go and look for her. H.O. is +our youngest brother, and it is right that he should remember this and +do as he was told. But he happened to be winning the beastly Halma game, +and Oswald saw that there was going to be trouble--"big trouble," as Mr. +Kipling says. And he was just bracing his young nerves for the conflict +with H.O., because he was not going to stand any nonsense from his young +brother about his not fetching Alice when he was jolly well told to, +when the missing maiden bounced into the room bearing upon her brow the +marks of ravaging agitatedness. + +"Have any of you seen Pincher?" she cried, in haste. + +We all said, "No, not since last night." + +"Well, then, he's lost," Alice said, making the ugly face that means you +are going to blub in half a minute. + +Every one had sprung to their feet. Even Noel and H.O. saw at once what +a doddering game Halma is, and Dora and Dicky, whatever their faults, +care more for Pincher than for boxes and screws. Because Pincher is our +fox-terrier. He is of noble race, and he was ours when we were poor, +lonely treasure-seekers and lived in humble hard-upness in the Lewisham +Road. + +To the faithful heart of young Oswald the Blackheath affluent mansion +and all it contains, even the stuffed fox eating a duck in the glass +case in the hall that he is so fond of, and even the council he wanted +to have, seemed to matter much less than old Pincher. + +"I want you all to let's go out and look for him," said Alice, carrying +out the meaning of the faces she had made and beginning to howl. "Oh, +Pincher, suppose something happens to him; you might get my hat and +coat, Dora. Oh, oh, oh!" + +We all got our coats and hats, and by the time we were ready Alice had +conquered it to only sniffing, or else, as Oswald told her kindly, she +wouldn't have been allowed to come. + +"Let's go on the Heath," Noel said. "The dear departed dog used to like +digging there." + +So we went. And we said to every single person we met-- + +"Please have you seen a thorough-bred fox-terrier dog with a black patch +over one eye, and another over his tail, and a tan patch on his right +shoulder?" And every one said, "No, they hadn't," only some had more +polite ways of saying it than others. But after a bit we met a +policeman, and he said, "I see one when I was on duty last night, like +what you describe, but it was at the end of a string. There was a young +lad at the other end. The dog didn't seem to go exactly willing." + +He also told us the lad and the dog had gone over Greenwich way. So we +went down, not quite so wretched in our insides, because now it seemed +that there was some chance, though we wondered the policeman _could_ +have let Pincher go when he saw he didn't want to, but he said it wasn't +his business. And now we asked every one if they'd seen a lad and a +thoroughbred fox-terrier with a black patch, and cetera. + +And one or two people said they had, and we thought it must be the same +the policeman had seen, because they said, too, that the dog didn't seem +to care about going where he was going. + +So we went on and through the Park and past the Naval College, and we +didn't even stop to look at that life-sized firm ship in the playground +that the Naval Collegians have to learn about ropes and spars on, and +Oswald would willingly give a year of his young life to have that ship +for his very own. + +And we didn't go into the Painted Hall either, because our fond hearts +were with Pincher, and we could not really have enjoyed looking at +Nelson's remains, of the shipwrecks where the drowning people all look +so dry, or even the pictures where young heroes are boarding pirates +from Spain, just as Oswald would do if he had half a chance, with the +pirates fighting in attitudes more twisted and Spanish than the pirates +of any nation could manage even if they were not above it. It is an odd +thing, but all those pictures are awfully bad weather--even the ones +that are not shipwrecks. And yet in books the skies are usually a +stainless blue and the sea is a liquid gem when you are engaged in the +avocation of pirate-boarding. + +The author is sorry to see that he is not going on with the story. + +We walked through Greenwich Hospital and asked there if they have seen +Pincher, because I heard Father say once that dogs are sometimes stolen +and taken to hospitals and never seen again. It is wrong to steal, but I +suppose the hospital doctors forget this because they are so sorry for +the poor ill people, and like to give them dogs to play with them and +amuse them on their beds of anguish. But no one had seen our Pincher, +who seemed to be becoming more dear to our hearts every moment. + +When we got through the Hospital grounds--they are big and the buildings +are big, and I like it all because there's so much room everywhere and +nothing niggling--we got down to the terrace over the river, next to the +Trafalgar Hotel. And there was a sailor leaning on the railings, and we +asked him the usual question. It seems that he was asleep, but of course +we did not know, or we would not have disturbed him. He was very angry, +and he swore, and Oswald told the girls to come away; but Alice pulled +away from Oswald and said, + +"Oh, don't be so cross. Do tell us if you've seen our dog? He is----" +and she recited Pincher's qualifications. + +"Ho yes," said the sailor--he had a red and angry face. "I see 'im a +hour ago 'long of a Chinaman. 'E crossed the river in a open boat. You'd +best look slippy arter 'im." He grinned and spat; he was a detestable +character, I think. "Chinamen puts puppy-dogs in pies. If 'e catches you +three young chaps 'e'll 'ave a pie as'll need a big crust to cover it. +Get along with your cheek!" + +So we got along. Of course, we knew that the Chinese are not cannibals, +so we were not frightened by that rot; but we knew, too, that the +Chinese do really eat dogs, as well as rats and birds' nests and other +disgraceful forms of eating. + +[Illustration: IT SEEMS THE SAILOR WAS ASLEEP, BUT OF COURSE WE DID NOT +KNOW, OR WE SHOULD NOT HAVE DISTURBED HIM.] + +H.O. was very tired, and he said his boots hurt him; and Noel was +beginning to look like a young throstle--all eyes and beak. He always +does when he is tired. The others were tired too, but their proud +spirits would never have owned it. So we went round to the Trafalgar +Hotel's boathouse, and there was a man in slippers, and we said could we +have a boat, and he said he would send a boatman, and would we walk in? + +We did, and we went through a dark room piled up to the ceiling with +boats and out on to a sort of thing half like a balcony and half like a +pier. And there were boats there too, far more than you would think any +one could want; and then a boy came. We said we wanted to go across the +river, and he said, "Where to?" + +"To where the Chinamen live," said Alice. + +"You can go to Millwall if you want to," he said, beginning to put oars +into the boat. + +"Are there any Chinese people there?" Alice asked. + +And the boy replied, "I dunno." He added that he supposed we could pay +for the boat. + +By a fortunate accident--I think Father had rather wanted to make up to +us for our martyr-like enduring when our cousin was with us--we were +fairly flush of chink. Oswald and Dicky were proudly able to produce +handfuls of money; it was mostly copper, but it did not fail of its +effect. + +The boy seemed not to dislike us quite so much as before, and he helped +the girls into the boat, which was now in the water at the edge of a +sort of floating, unsteady raft, with openings in it that you could see +the water through. The water was very rough, just like real sea, and not +like a river at all. And the boy rowed; he wouldn't let us, although I +can, quite well. The boat tumbled and tossed just like a sea-boat. When +we were about half-way over, Noel pulled Alice's sleeve and said-- + +"Do I look very green?" + +"You do rather, dear," she said kindly. + +"I feel much greener than I look," said Noel. And later on he was not at +all well. + +The boy laughed, but we pretended not to notice. I wish I could tell you +half the things we saw as our boat was pulled along through the +swishing, lumpy water that turned into great waves after every steamer +that went by. Oswald was quite fit, but some of the others were very +silent. Dicky says he saw everything that Oswald saw, but I am not sure. +There were wharves and engines, and great rusty cranes swinging giant's +handfuls of iron rails about in the air, and once we passed a ship that +was being broken up. All the wood was gone, and they were taking away +her plates, and the red rust was running from her and colouring the +water all round; it looked as though she was bleeding to death. I +suppose it was silly to feel sorry for her, but I did. I thought how +beastly it was that she would never go to sea again, where the waves are +clean and green, even if no rougher than the black waves now raging +around our staunch little bark. I never knew before what lots of kinds +of ships there can be, and I think I could have gone on and on for ever +and ever looking at the shapes of things and the colours they were, and +dreaming about being a pirate, and things like that, but we had come +some way; and now Alice said-- + +"Oswald, I think Noel will die if we don't make land soon." + +And indeed he had been rather bad for some time, only I thought it was +kinder to take no notice. + +So our ship was steered among other pirate craft, and moored at a +landing-place where there were steps up. + +Noel was now so ill that we felt we could not take him on a Chinese +hunt, and H.O. had sneaked his boots off in the boat, and he said they +hurt him too much to put them on again; so it was arranged that those +two should sit on a dry corner of the steps and wait, and Dora said she +would stay with them. + +"I think we ought to go home," she said. "I'm quite sure Father wouldn't +like us being in these wild, savage places. The police ought to find +Pincher." + +But the others weren't going to surrender like that, especially as Dora +had actually had the sense to bring a bag of biscuits, which all, except +Noel, were now eating. + +"Perhaps they ought, but they _won't_," said Dicky. "I'm boiling hot. +I'll leave you my overcoat in case you're cold." + +Oswald had been just about to make the same manly proposal, though he +was not extra warm. So they left their coats, and, with Alice, who would +come though told not to, they climbed the steps, and went along a narrow +passage and started boldly on the Chinese hunt. It was a strange sort of +place over the river; all the streets were narrow, and the houses and +the pavements and the people's clothes and the mud in the road all +seemed the same sort of dull colour--a sort of brown-grey it was. + +All the house doors were open, and you could see that the insides of the +houses were the same colour as the outsides. Some of the women had blue, +or violet or red shawls, and they sat on the doorsteps and combed their +children's hair, and shouted things to each other across the street. +They seemed very much struck by the appearance of the three travellers, +and some of the things they said were not pretty. + +That was the day when Oswald found out a thing that has often been of +use to him in after-life. However rudely poor people stare at you they +become all right instantly if you ask them something. I think they don't +hate you so much when they've done something for you, if it's only to +tell you the time or the way. + +[Illustration: WE WENT ROUND A CORNER RATHER FAST, AND CAME SLAP INTO +THE LARGEST WOMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN.] + +So we got on very well, but it does not make me comfortable to see +people so poor and we have such a jolly house. People in books feel +this, and I know it is right to feel it, but I hate the feeling all the +same. And it is worse when the people are nice to you. + +And we asked and asked and asked, but nobody had seen a dog or a +Chinaman, and I began to think all was indeed lost, and you can't go on +biscuits all day, when we went round a corner rather fast, and came slap +into the largest woman I have ever seen. She must have been yards and +yards round, and before she had time to be in the rage that we saw she +was getting into, Alice said-- + +"Oh, I beg your pardon! I _am_ so sorry, but we really didn't mean to! I +_do_ so hope we didn't hurt you!" + +We saw the growing rage fade away, and she said, as soon as she got her +fat breath-- + +"No 'arm done, my little dear. An' w'ere are you off to in such a +'urry?" + +So we told her all about it. She was quite friendly, although so stout, +and she said we oughtn't to be gallivanting about all on our own. We +told her we were all right, though I own Oswald was glad that in the +hurry of departing Alice hadn't had time to find anything +smarter-looking to wear than her garden coat and grey Tam, which had +been regretted by some earlier in the day. + +"Well," said the woman, "if you go along this 'ere turning as far as +ever you can go, and then take the first to the right and bear round to +the left, and take the second to the right again, and go down the alley +between the stumps, you'll come to Rose Gardens. There's often Chinamen +about there. And if you come along this way as you come back, keep your +eye open for me, and I'll arks some young chaps as I know as is +interested like in dogs, and perhaps I'll have news for you." + +"Thank you very much," Alice said, and the woman asked her to give her a +kiss. Everybody is always wanting to kiss Alice. I can't think why. And +we got her to tell us the way again, and we noticed the name of the +street, and it was Nightingale Street, and the stairs where we had left +the others was Bullamy's Causeway, because we have the true explorer's +instincts, and when you can't blaze your way on trees with your axe, or +lay crossed twigs like the gypsies do, it is best to remember the names +of streets. + +So we said goodbye, and went on through the grey-brown streets with +hardly any shops, and those only very small and common, and we got to +the alley all right. It was a narrow place between high blank brown-grey +walls. I think by the smell it was gasworks and tanneries. There was +hardly any one there, but when we got into it we heard feet running +ahead of us, and Oswald said-- + +"Hullo, suppose that's some one with Pincher, and they've recognized his +long-lost masters and they're making a bolt for it?" + +And we all started running as hard as ever we could. There was a turn in +the passage, and when we got round it we saw that the running was +stopping. There were four or five boys in a little crowd round some one +in blue--blue looked such a change after the muddy colour of everything +in that dead Eastern domain--and when we got up, the person the blue was +on was a very wrinkled old man, with a yellow wrinkled face and a soft +felt hat and blue blouse-like coat, and I see that I ought not to +conceal any longer from the discerning reader that it was exactly what +we had been looking for. It was indeed a Celestial Chinaman in deep +difficulties with these boys who were, as Alice said afterwards, truly +fiends in mortal shape. They were laughing at the old Chinaman, and +shouting to each other, and their language was of that kind that I was +sorry we had got Alice with us. But she told Oswald afterwards that she +was so angry she did not know what they were saying. + +"Pull his bloomin' pigtail," said one of these outcasts from decent +conduct. + +The old man was trying to keep them off with both hands, but the hands +were very wrinkled and trembly. + +Oswald is grateful to his good Father who taught him and Dicky the +proper way to put their hands up. If it had not been for that, Oswald +does not know what on earth would have happened, for the outcasts were +five to our two, because no one could have expected Alice to do what +she did. + +[Illustration: IT WAS INDEED A CELESTIAL CHINAMAN IN DEEP DIFFICULTIES.] + +Before Oswald had even got his hands into the position required by the +noble art of self-defence, she had slapped the largest boy on the face +as hard as ever she could--and she can slap pretty hard, as Oswald knows +but too well--and she had taken the second-sized boy and was shaking him +before Dicky could get his left in on the eye of the slapped assailant +of the aged denizen of the Flowery East. The other three went for +Oswald, but three to one is nothing to one who has hopes of being a +pirate in his spare time when he grows up. + +In an instant the five were on us. Dicky and I got in some good ones, +and though Oswald cannot approve of my sister being in a street fight, +he must own she was very quick and useful in pulling ears and twisting +arms and slapping and pinching. But she had quite forgotten how to hit +out from the shoulder like I have often shown her. + +The battle raged, and Alice often turned the tide of it by a well-timed +shove or nip. The aged Eastern leaned against the wall, panting and +holding his blue heart with his yellow hand. Oswald had got a boy down, +and was kneeling on him, and Alice was trying to pull off two other boys +who had fallen on top of the fray, while Dicky was letting the fifth +have it, when there was a flash of blue and another Chinaman dashed into +the tournament. Fortunately this one was not old, and with a few +well-directed, if foreign looking, blows he finished the work so ably +begun by the brave Bastables, and next moment the five loathsome and +youthful aggressors were bolting down the passage. Oswald and Dicky were +trying to get their breath and find out exactly where they were hurt and +how much, and Alice had burst out crying and was howling as though she +would never stop. That is the worst of girls--they never can keep +anything up. Any brave act they may suddenly do, when for a moment they +forget that they have not the honour to be boys, is almost instantly +made into contemptibility by a sudden attack of crybabyishness. But I +will say no more: for she did strike the first blow, after all, and it +did turn out that the boys had scratched her wrist and kicked her shins. +These things make girls cry. + +The venerable stranger from distant shores said a good deal to the other +in what I suppose was the language used in China. It all sounded like +"hung" and "li" and "chi," and then the other turned to us and said-- + +"Nicee lilly girlee, same piecee flowelee, you takee my head to walkee +on. This is alle samee my father first chop ancestor. Dirty white devils +makee him hurt. You come alongee fightee ploper. Me likee you welly +muchee." + +Alice was crying too much to answer, especially as she could not find +her handkerchief. I gave her mine, and then she was able to say that +she did not want to walk on anybody's head, and she wanted to go home. + +"This not nicee place for lillee whitee girlee," said the young +Chinaman. His pigtail was thicker than his father's and black right up +to the top. The old man's was grey at the beginning, but lower down it +was black, because that part of it was not hair at all, but black +threads and ribbons and odds and ends of trimmings, and towards the end +both pigtails were greenish. + +"Me lun backee takee him safee," the younger of the Eastern adventurers +went on, pointing to his father. "Then me makee walkee all alonk you, +takee you back same placee you comee from. Little white devils waitee +for you on ce load. You comee with? Not? Lillee girlee not cly. John +givee her one piecee pletty-pletty. Come makee talkee with the House +Lady." + +I believe this is about what he said, and we understood that he wanted +us to come and see his mother, and that he would give Alice something +pretty, and then see us safe out of the horrible brown-grey country. + +So we agreed to go with them, for we knew those five boys would be +waiting for us on the way back, most likely with strong reinforcements. +Alice stopped crying the minute she could--I must say she is better than +Dora in that way--and we followed the Chinamen, who walked in single +file like Indians, so we did the same, and talked to each other over our +shoulders. Our grateful Oriental friends led us through a good many +streets, and suddenly opened a door with a key, pulled us in, and shut +the door. Dick thought of the kidnapping of Florence Dombey and good +Mrs. Brown, but Oswald had no such unnoble thoughts. + +[Illustration: ON THE SIDEBOARD WAS A BLUEY-WHITE CROCKERY IMAGE.] + +The room was small, and very, very odd. It was very dirty too, but +perhaps it is not polite to say that. There was a sort of sideboard at +one end of the room, with an embroidered dirty cloth on it, and on the +cloth a bluey-white crockery image over a foot high. It was very fat and +army and leggy, and I think it was an idol. The minute we got inside the +young man lighted little brown sticks, and set them to burn in front of +it. I suppose it was incense. There was a sort of long, wide, low sofa, +without any arms or legs, and a table that was like a box, with another +box in front of it for you to sit down on when you worked, and on the +table were all sorts of tiny little tools--awls and brads they looked +like--and pipe-stems and broken bowls of pipes and mouthpieces, for our +rescued Chinaman was a pipe-mender by trade. There wasn't much else in +the room except the smell, and that seemed to fill it choke-full. The +smell seemed to have all sorts of things in it--glue and gunpowder, and +white garden lilies and burnt fat, and it was not so easy to breathe as +plain air. + +Then a Chinese lady came in. She had green-grey trousers, shiny like +varnish, and a blue gown, and her hair was pulled back very tight, and +twisted into a little knob at the back. + +She wanted to go down on the floor before Alice, but we wouldn't let +her. Then she said a great many things that we feel sure were very nice, +only they were in Chinese, so we could not tell what they were. + +And the Chinaman said that his mother also wanted Alice to walk on her +head--not Alice's own, of course, but the mother's. + +I wished we had stayed longer, and tried harder to understand what they +said, because it was an adventure, take it how you like, that we're not +likely to look upon the like of again. Only we were too flustered to see +this. + +We said, "Don't mention it," and things like that; and when Dicky said, +"I think we ought to be going," Oswald said so too. + +Then they all began talking Chinese like mad, and the Chinese lady came +back and suddenly gave Alice a parrot. + +It was red and green, with a very long tail, and as tame as any pet fawn +I ever read about. It walked up her arm and round her neck, and stroked +her face with its beak. And it did not bite Oswald or Alice, or even +Dicky, though they could not be sure at first that it was not going to. + +We said all the polite things we could, and the old lady made thousands +of hurried Chinese replies, and repeated many times, "All litey, John," +which seemed to be all the English she knew. + +We never had so much fuss made over us in all our lives. I think it was +that that upset our calmness, and seemed to put us into a sort of silly +dream that made us not see what idiots we were to hurry off from scenes +we should never again behold. So we went. And the youthful Celestial saw +us safely to the top of Bullamy's Stairs, and left us there with the +parrot and floods of words that seemed all to end in double "e." + +We wanted to show him to the others, but he would not come, so we +rejoined our anxious relations without him. + +The scene of rejoinder was painful, at first because they were most +frightfully sick at us having been such an age away; but when we let +them look at the parrot, and told them about the fight, they agreed that +it was not our fault, and we really had been unavoidably detained. + +But Dora said, "Well, you may say I'm always preaching, but I _don't_ +think Father would like Alice to be fighting street boys in Millwall." + +"I suppose _you'd_ have run away and let the old man be killed," said +Dicky, and peace was not restored till we were nearly at Greenwich +again. + +We took the tram to Greenwich Station, and then we took a cab home (and +well worth the money, which was all we now had got, except +fourpence-halfpenny), for we were all dog-tired. + +And dog-tired reminds me that we hadn't found Pincher, in spite of all +our trouble. + +Miss Blake, who is our housekeeper, was angrier than I have ever seen +her. She had been so anxious that she had sent the police to look for +us. But, of course, they had not found us. You ought to make allowances +for what people do when they are anxious, so I forgive her everything, +even what she said about Oswald being a disgrace to a respectable house. +He owns we were rather muddy, owing to the fight. + +And when the jaw was over and we were having tea--and there was meat to +it, because we were as near starving as I ever wish to be--we all ate +lots. Even the thought of Pincher could not thwart our bold appetites, +though we kept saying, "Poor old Pincher!" "I do wish we'd found him," +and things like that. The parrot walked about among the tea-things as +tame as tame. And just as Alice was saying how we'd go out again +to-morrow and have another try for our faithful hound there was a +scratching at the door, and we rushed--and there was Pincher, perfectly +well and mad with joy to see us. + +H.O. turned an abrupt beetroot colour. + +"Oh!" he said. + +We said, "What? Out with it." + +And though he would much rather have kept it a secret buried in his +breast, we made him own that he had shut Pincher up yesterday in the +empty rabbit-hutch when he was playing Zoological Gardens and forgotten +all about it in the pleasures of our cousin having left us. + +So we need not have gone over the water at all. But though Oswald pities +all dumb animals, especially those helplessly shut in rabbit-hutches at +the bottoms of gardens, he cannot be sorry that we had such a Celestial +adventure and got hold of such a parrot. For Alice says that Oswald and +Dicky and she shall have the parrot between them. + +She is tremendously straight. I often wonder why she was made a girl. +She's a jolly sight more of a gentleman than half the boys at our +school. + + + + +_THE YOUNG ANTIQUARIES_ + + +THIS really happened before Christmas, but many authors go back to +bygone years for whole chapters, and I don't see why I shouldn't. + +It was one Sunday--the Somethingth Sunday in Advent, I think--and Denny +and Daisy and their father and Albert's uncle came to dinner, which is +in the middle of the day on that day of rest and the same things to eat +for grown-ups and us. It is nearly always roast beef and Yorkshire, but +the puddings and vegetables are brightly variegated and never the same +two Sundays running. + +At dinner some one said something about the coat-of-arms that is on the +silver tankards which once, when we were poor and honest, used to stay +at the shop having the dents slowly taken out of them for months and +months. But now they are always at home and are put at the four corners +of the table every day, and any grown-up who likes can drink beer out of +them. + +After some talk of the sort you don't listen to, in which bends and +lioncels and gules and things played a promising part, Albert's uncle +said that Mr. Turnbull had told him something about that coat-of-arms +being carved on a bridge somewhere in Cambridgeshire, and again the +conversation wandered into things like Albert's uncle had talked about +to the Maidstone Antiquarian Society the day they came over to see his +old house in the country and we arranged the time-honoured Roman remains +for them to dig up. So, hearing the words king-post and mullion and +moulding and underpin, Oswald said might we go; and we went, and took +our dessert with us and had it in our own common-room, where you can +roast chestnuts with a free heart and never mind what your fingers get +like. + +When first we knew Daisy we used to call her the White Mouse, and her +brother had all the appearance of being one too, but you know how +untruthful appearances are, or else it was that we taught him happier +things, for he certainly turned out quite different in the end; and she +was not a bad sort of kid, though we never could quite cure her of +wanting to be "ladylike"--that is the beastliest word there is, I think, +and Albert's uncle says so, too. He says if a girl can't be a lady it's +not worth while to be only like one--she'd better let it alone and be a +free and happy bounder. + +But all this is not what I was going to say, only the author does think +of so many things besides the story, and sometimes he puts them in. This +is the case with Thackeray and the Religious Tract Society and other +authors, as well as Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Only I don't suppose you have +ever heard of her, though she writes books that some people like very +much. But perhaps they are her friends. I did not like the one I read +about the Baronet. It was on a wet Sunday at the seaside, and nothing +else in the house but Bradshaw and "Elsie; or like a----" or I shouldn't +have. But what really happened to us before Christmas is strictly the +following narrative. + +"I say," remarked Denny, when he had burned his fingers with a chestnut +that turned out a bad one after all--and such is life--and he had +finished sucking his fingers and getting rid of the chestnut, "about +these antiquaries?" + +"Well, what about them?" said Oswald. He always tries to be gentle and +kind to Denny, because he knows he helped to make a man of the young +Mouse. + +"I shouldn't think," said Denny, "that it was so very difficult to be +one." + +"I don't know," said Dicky. "You have to read very dull books and an +awful lot of them, and remember what you read, what's more." + +"I don't think so," said Alice. "That girl who came with the +antiquities--the one Albert's uncle said was upholstered in red plush +like furniture--_she_ hadn't read anything, you bet." + +Dora said, "You ought not to bet, especially on Sunday," and Alice +altered it to "You may be sure." + +"Well, but what then?" Oswald asked Denny. "Out with it," for he saw +that his youthful friend had got an idea and couldn't get it out. You +should always listen patiently to the ideas of others, no matter how +silly you expect them to be. + +"I do wish you wouldn't hurry me so," said Denny, snapping his fingers +anxiously. And we tried to be patient. + +"Why shouldn't we _be_ them?" Denny said at last. + +"He means antiquaries," said Oswald to the bewildered others. "But +there's nowhere to go and nothing to do when we get there." + +The Dentist (so-called for short, his real name being Denis) got red and +white, and drew Oswald aside to the window for a secret discussion. +Oswald listened as carefully as he could, but Denny always buzzes so +when he whispers. + +"Right oh," he remarked, when the confidings of the Dentist had got so +that you could understand what he was driving at. "Though you're being +shy with us now, after all we went through together in the summer, is +simply skittles." + +Then he turned to the polite and attentive others and said-- + +[Illustration: OSWALD LISTENED AS CAREFULLY AS HE COULD, BUT DENNY +ALWAYS BUZZES SO WHEN HE WHISPERS.] + +"You remember that day we went to Bexley Heath with Albert's uncle? +Well, there was a house, and Albert's uncle said a clever writer lived +there, and in more ancient years that chap in history--Sir Thomas What's +his name; and Denny thinks he might let us be antiquaries there. It +looks a ripping place from the railway." + +It really does. It's a fine big house, and splendid gardens, and a lawn +with a sundial, and the tallest trees anywhere about here. + +"But what could we _do_?" said Dicky. "I don't suppose _he'd_ give _us_ +tea," though such, indeed, had been our hospitable conduct to the +antiquaries who came to see Albert's uncle. + +"Oh, I don't know," said Alice. "We might dress up for it, and wear +spectacles, and we could all read papers. It would be lovely--something +to fill up the Christmas holidays--the part before the wedding, I mean. +Do let's." + +"All right, I don't mind. I suppose it would be improving," said Dora. +"We should have to read a lot of history. You can settle it. I'm going +to show Daisy our bridesmaids' dresses." + +It was, alas! too true. Albert's uncle was to be married but shortly +after, and it was partly our faults, though that does not come into this +story. + +So the two D.'s went to look at the clothes--girls like this--but Alice, +who wishes she had never consented to be born a girl, stayed with us, +and we had a long and earnest council about it. + +"One thing," said Oswald, "it can't possibly be wrong--so perhaps it +won't be amusing." + +"Oh, Oswald!" said Alice, and she spoke rather like Dora. + +"I don't mean what you mean," said Oswald in lofty scorn. "What I mean +to say is that when a thing is quite sure to be right, it's not +so--well--I mean to say there it is, don't you know; and if it might be +wrong, and isn't, it's a score to you; and if it might be wrong, and +is--as so often happens--well, you know yourself, adventures sometimes +turn out wrong that you didn't think were going to, but seldom, or +never, the uninteresting kind, and----" + +Dicky told Oswald to dry up--which, of course, no one stands from a +younger brother, but though Oswald explained this at the time, he felt +in his heart that he has sometimes said what he meant with more +clearness. When Oswald and Dicky had finished, we went on and arranged +everything. + +Every one was to write a paper--and read it. + +"If the papers are too long to read while we're there," said Noel, "we +can read them in the long winter evenings when we are grouped along the +household hearthrug. I shall do my paper in poetry--about Agincourt." + +Some of us thought Agincourt wasn't fair, because no one could be sure +about any knight who took part in that well-known conflict having lived +in the Red House; but Alice got us to agree, because she said it would +be precious dull if we all wrote about nothing but Sir Thomas +Whatdoyoucallhim--whose real name in history Oswald said he would find +out, and then write his paper on that world-renowned person, who is a +household word in all families. Denny said he would write about Charles +the First, because they were just doing that part at his school. + +"I shall write about what happened in 1066," said H.O. "I know that." + +Alice said, "If I write a paper it will be about Mary Queen of Scots." + +Dora and Daisy came in just as she said this, and it transpired that +this ill-fated but good-looking lady was the only one they either of +them wanted to write about. So Alice gave it up to them and settled to +do Magna Charta, and they could settle something between themselves for +the one who would have to give up Mary Queen of Scots in the end. We all +agreed that the story of that lamented wearer of pearls and black velvet +would not make enough for two papers. + +Everything was beautifully arranged, when suddenly H.O. said-- + +"Supposing he doesn't let us?" + +"Who doesn't let us what?" + +"The Red House man--read papers at his Red House." + +This was, indeed, what nobody had thought of--and even now we did not +think any one could be so lost to proper hospitableness as to say no. +Yet none of us liked to write and ask. So we tossed up for it, only Dora +had feelings about tossing up on Sunday, so we did it with a hymn-book +instead of a penny. + +We all won except Noel, who lost, so he said he would do it on Albert's +uncle's typewriter, which was on a visit to us at the time, waiting for +Mr. Remington to fetch it away to mend the "M." We think it was broken +through Albert's uncle writing "Margaret" so often, because it is the +name of the lady he was doomed to be married by. + +The girls had got the letter the Maidstone Antiquarian Society and Field +Clubs Secretary had sent to Albert's uncle--H.O. said they kept it for a +momentum of the day--and we altered the dates and names in blue chalk +and put in a piece about might we skate on the moat, and gave it to +Noel, who had already begun to make up his poetry about Agincourt, and +so had to be shaken before he would attend. And that evening, when +Father and our Indian uncle and Albert's uncle were seeing the others on +the way to Forest Hill, Noel's poetry and pencil were taken away from +him and he was shut up in Father's room with the Remington typewriter, +which we had never been forbidden to touch. And I don't think he hurt +it much, except quite at the beginning, when he jammed the "S" and the +"J" and the thing that means per cent. so that they stuck--and Dicky +soon put that right with a screwdriver. + +He did not get on very well, but kept on writing MOR7E HOAS5 or MORD6M +HOVCE on new pieces of paper and then beginning again, till the floor +was strewn with his remains; so we left him at it, and went and played +Celebrated Painters--a game even Dora cannot say anything about on +Sunday, considering the Bible kind of pictures most of them painted. And +much later, the library door having banged once and the front door +twice, Noel came in and said he had posted it, and already he was deep +in poetry again, and had to be roused when requisite for bed. + +It was not till next day that he owned that the typewriter had been a +fiend in disguise, and that the letter had come out so odd that he could +hardly read it himself. + +"The hateful engine of destruction wouldn't answer to the bit in the +least," he said, "and I'd used nearly a wastepaper basket of Father's +best paper, and I thought he might come in and say something, so I just +finished it as well as I could, and I corrected it with the blue +chalk--because you'd bagged that B.B. of mine--and I didn't notice what +name I'd signed till after I'd licked the stamp." + +The hearts of his kind brothers and sisters sank low. But they kept +them up as well as they could, and said-- + +[Illustration: IT WAS NOT TILL NEXT DAY THAT HE OWNED THAT THE +TYPEWRITER HAD BEEN A FIEND IN DISGUISE.] + +"What name _did_ you sign?" + +And Noel said, "Why, Edward Turnbull, of course--like at the end of the +real letter. You never crossed it out like you did his address." + +"No," said Oswald witheringly. "You see, I did think, whatever else you +didn't know, I did think you knew your own silly name." + +Then Alice said Oswald was unkind, though you see he was not, and she +kissed Noel and said she and he would take turns to watch for the +postman, so as to get the answer (which of course would be subscribed on +the envelope with the name of Turnbull instead of Bastable) before the +servant could tell the postman that the name was a stranger to her. + +And next evening it came, and it was very polite and grown-up--and said +we should be welcome, and that we might read our papers and skate on the +moat. The Red House has a moat, like the Moat House in the country, but +not so wild and dangerous. Only we never skated on it because the frost +gave out the minute we had got leave to. Such is life, as the sparks fly +upwards. (The last above is called a moral reflection.) + +So now, having got leave from Mr. Red House (I won't give his name +because he is a writer of worldly fame and he might not like it), we set +about writing our papers. It was not bad fun, only rather difficult +because Dora said she never knew which Encyclo. volume she might be +wanting, as she was using Edinburgh, Mary, Scotland, Bothwell, Holywell, +and France, and many others, and Oswald never knew which he might want, +owing to his not being able exactly to remember the distinguished and +deathless other appellation of Sir Thomas Thingummy, who had lived in +the Red House. + +Noel was up to the ears in Agincourt, yet that made but little +difference to our destiny. He is always plunged in poetry of one sort or +another, and if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else. +This, at least, we insisted on having kept a secret, so he could not +read it to us. + +H.O. got very inky the first half-holiday, and then he got some +sealing-wax and a big envelope from Father, and put something in and +fastened it up, and said he had done his. + +Dicky would not tell us what his paper was going to be about, but he +said it would not be like ours, and he let H.O. help him by looking on +while he invented more patent screws for ships. + +The spectacles were difficult. We got three pairs of the uncle's, and +one that had belonged to the housekeeper's grandfather, but nine pairs +were needed, because Albert-next-door mouched in one half-holiday and +wanted to join, and said if we'd let him he'd write a paper on the +Constitutions of Clarendon, and we thought he couldn't do it, so we let +him. And then, after all, he did. + +So at last Alice went down to Bennett's in the village, that we are such +good customers of, because when our watches stop we take them there, and +he lent us a lot of empty frames on the instinctive understanding that +we would pay for them if we broke them or let them get rusty. + +And so all was ready. And the fatal day approached; and it was the +holidays. For us, that is, but not for Father, for his business never +seems to rest by day and night, except at Christmas and times like that. +So we did not need to ask him if we might go. Oswald thought it would be +more amusing for Father if we told it all to him in the form of an +entertaining anecdote, afterwards. + +Denny and Daisy and Albert came to spend the day. + +We told Mrs. Blake Mr. Red House had asked us, and she let the girls put +on their second-best things, which are coats with capes and red +Tam-o'shanters. These capacious coats are very good for playing +highwaymen in. + +We made ourselves quite clean and tidy. At the very last we found that +H.O. had been making marks on his face with burnt matches, to imitate +wrinkles, but really it only imitated dirt, so we made him wash it off. +Then he wanted to paint himself red like a clown, but we had decided +that the spectacles were to be our only disguise, and even those were +not to be assumed till Oswald gave the word. + +[Illustration: THE STATIONMASTER AND PORTER LOOKED RESPECTFULLY AT US.] + +No casuist observer could have thought that the nine apparently +light-headed and careless party who now wended their way to Blackheath +Station, looking as if they were not up to anything in particular, were +really an Antiquarian Society of the deepest dye. We got an empty +carriage to ourselves, and halfway between Blackheath and the other +station Oswald gave the word, and we all put on the spectacles. We had +our antiquarian papers of lore and researched history in exercise-books, +rolled up and tied with string. + +The stationmaster and porter, of each of which the station boasted but +one specimen, looked respectfully at us as we got out of the train, and +we went straight out of the station, under the railway arch, and down to +the green gate of the Red House. It has a lodge, but there is no one in +it. We peeped in at the window, and there was nothing in the room but an +old beehive and a broken leather strap. + +We waited in the front for a bit, so that Mr. Red House could come out +and welcome us like Albert's uncle did the other antiquaries, but no one +came, so we went round the garden. It was very brown and wet, but full +of things you didn't see every day. Furze summer-houses, for instance, +and a red wall all round it, with holes in it that you might have +walled heretics up in in the olden times. Some of the holes were quite +big enough to have taken a very small heretic. There was a broken swing, +and a fish-pond--but we were on business, and Oswald insisted on reading +the papers. + +He said, "Let's go to the sundial. It looks dryer there, my feet are +like ice-houses." + +It was dryer because there was a soaking wet green lawn round it, and +round that a sloping path made of little squares of red and white +marble. This was quite waterless, and the sun shone on it, so that it +was warm to the hands, though not to the feet, because of boots. Oswald +called on Albert to read first. Albert is not a clever boy. He is not +one of us, and Oswald wanted to get over the Constitutions. For Albert +is hardly ever amusing, even in fun, and when he tries to show off it is +sometimes hard to bear. He read-- + + "THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON. + + "Clarendon (sometimes called Clarence) had only + one constitution. It must have been a very bad + one, because he was killed by a butt of Malmsey. + If he had had more constitutions or better ones he + would have lived to be very old. This is a warning + to everybody." + +To this day none of us know how he could, and whether his uncle helped +him. + +We clapped, of course, but not with our hearts, which were hissing +inside us, and then Oswald began to read his paper. He had not had a +chance to ask Albert's uncle what the other name of the world-famous Sir +Thomas was, so he had to put him in as Sir Thomas Blank, and make it up +by being very strong on scenes that could be better imagined than +described, and, as we knew that the garden was five hundred years old, +of course he could bring in any eventful things since the year 1400. + +He was just reading the part about the sundial, which he had noticed +from the train when we went to Bexley Heath. It was rather a nice piece, +I think. + +"Most likely this sundial told the time when Charles the First was +beheaded, and recorded the death-devouring progress of the Great Plague +and the Fire of London. There is no doubt that the sun often shone even +in these devastating occasions, so that we may picture Sir Thomas Blank +telling the time here and remarking--O crikey!" + +These last words are what Oswald himself remarked. Of course a person in +history would never have said them. + +The reader of the paper had suddenly heard a fierce, woodeny sound, like +giant singlesticks, terrifyingly close behind him, and looking hastily +round, he saw a most angry lady, in a bright blue dress with fur on it, +like a picture, and very large wooden shoes, which had made the +singlestick noise. Her eyes were very fierce, and her mouth tight +shut. She did not look hideous, but more like an avenging sprite or +angel, though of course we knew she was only mortal, so we took off our +caps. A gentleman also bounded towards us over some vegetables, and +acted as reserve support to the lady. + +[Illustration: HER VOICE WHEN SHE TOLD US WE WERE TRESPASSING WAS NOT SO +FURIOUS.] + +Her voice when she told us we were trespassing and it was a private +garden was not so furious as Oswald had expected from her face, but it +_was_ angry. H.O. at once said it wasn't her garden, was it? But, of +course, we could see it _was_, because of her not having any hat or +jacket or gloves, and wearing those wooden shoes to keep her feet dry, +which no one would do in the street. + +So then Oswald said we had leave, and showed her Mr. Red House's letter. + +"But that was written to Mr. Turnbull," said she, "and how did _you_ get +it?" + +Then Mr. Red House wearily begged us to explain, so Oswald did, in that +clear, straightforward way some people think he has, and that no one can +suspect for an instant. And he ended by saying how far from comfortable +it would be to have Mr. Turnbull coming with his thin mouth and his +tight legs, and that we were Bastables, and much nicer than the +tight-legged one, whatever she might think. + +And she listened, and then she quite suddenly gave a most jolly grin and +asked us to go on reading our papers. + +It was plain that all disagreeableness was at an end, and, to show this +even to the stupidest, she instantly asked us to lunch. Before we could +politely accept H.O. shoved his oar in as usual and said _he_ would stop +no matter how little there was for lunch because he liked her very much. + +So she laughed, and Mr. Red House laughed, and she said they wouldn't +interfere with the papers, and they went away and left us. + +Of course Oswald and Dicky insisted on going on with the papers; though +the girls wanted to talk about Mrs. Red House, and how nice she was, and +the way her dress was made. Oswald finished his paper, but later he was +sorry he had been in such a hurry, because after a bit Mrs. Red House +came out, and said she wanted to play too. She pretended to be a very +ancient antiquary, and was most jolly, so that the others read their +papers to her, and Oswald knows she would have liked his paper best, +because it _was_ the best, though I say it. + +Dicky's turned out to be all about that patent screw, and how Nelson +would not have been killed if his ship had been built with one. + +Daisy's paper was about Lady Jane Grey, and hers and Dora's were exactly +alike, the dullest by far, because they had got theirs out of books. + +Alice had not written hers because she had been helping Noel to copy +his. + +Denny's was about King Charles, and he was very grown-up and fervent +about this ill-fated monarch and white roses. + +Mrs. Red House took us into the summer-houses, where it was warmer, and +such is the wonderful architecture of the Red House gardens that there +was a fresh summer-house for each paper, except Noel's and H.O.'s, which +were read in the stable. There were no horses there. + +Noel's was very long, and it began-- + + "This is the story of Agincourt. + If you don't know it you jolly well ought. + It was a famous battle fair, + And all your ancestors fought there + That is if you come of a family old. + The Bastables do; they were always very bold. + And at Agincourt + They fought + As they ought; + So we have been taught." + +And so on and so on, till some of us wondered why poetry was ever +invented. But Mrs. Red House said she liked it awfully, so Noel said-- + +"You may have it to keep. I've got another one of it at home." + +"I'll put it next my heart, Noel," she said. And she did, under the blue +stuff and fur. + +H.O.'s was last, but when we let him read it he wouldn't, so Dora opened +his envelope and it was thick inside with blotting-paper, and in the +middle there was a page with + + "1066 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR," + +and nothing else. + +"Well," he said, "I said I'd write all I knew about 1066, and that's it. +I can't write more than I know, can I?" The girls said he couldn't, but +Oswald thought he might have tried. + +"It wasn't worth blacking your face all over just for that," he said. +But Mrs. Red House laughed very much and said it was a lovely paper, and +told _her_ all she wanted to know about 1066. + +Then we went into the garden again and ran races, and Mrs. Red House +held all our spectacles for us and cheered us on. She said she was the +Patent Automatic Cheering Winning-post. We do like her. + +Lunch was the glorious end of the Morden House Antiquarian Society and +Field Club's Field Day. But after lunch was the beginning of a real +adventure such as real antiquarians hardly ever get. This will be +unrolled later. I will finish with some French out of a newspaper. +Albert's uncle told it me, so I know it is right. Any of your own +grown-ups will tell you what it means. + +_Au prochain numero je vous promets des emotions._ + + * * * * * + +PS.--In case your grown-ups can't be bothered, "_emotions_" mean +sensation, I believe. + + + + +_THE INTREPID EXPLORER AND HIS LIEUTENANT_ + + +WE had spectacles to play antiquaries in, and the rims were vaselined to +prevent rust, and it came off on our faces with other kinds of dirt, and +when the antiquary game was over, Mrs. Red House helped us to wash it +off with all the thoroughness of aunts, and far more gentleness. + +Then, clean and with our hairs brushed, we were led from the bath-room +to the banqueting hall or dining-room. + +It is a very beautiful house. The girls thought it was bare, but Oswald +likes bareness because it leaves more room for games. All the furniture +was of agreeable shapes and colours, and so were all the things on the +table--glasses and dishes and everything. Oswald politely said how nice +everything was. + +The lunch was a blissful dream of perfect A.1.-ness. Tongue, and nuts, +and apples, and oranges, and candied fruits, and ginger-wine in tiny +glasses that Noel said were fairy goblets. Everybody drank everybody +else's health--and Noel told Mrs. Red House just how lovely she was, +and he would have paper and pencil and write her a poem for her very +own. I will not put it in here, because Mr. Red House is an author +himself, and he might want to use it in some of his books. And the +writer of these pages has been taught to think of others, and besides I +expect you are jolly well sick of Noel's poetry. + +[Illustration: THE LUNCH WAS A BLISSFUL DREAM OF A.1.-NESS.] + +There was no restrainingness about that lunch. As far as a married lady +can possibly be a regular brick, Mrs. Red House is one. And Mr. Red +House is not half bad, and knows how to talk about interesting things +like sieges, and cricket, and foreign postage stamps. + +Even poets think of things sometimes, and it was Noel who said directly +he had finished his poetry, + +"Have you got a secret staircase? And have you explored your house +properly?" + +"Yes--we have," said that well-behaved and unusual lady--Mrs. Red House, +"but _you_ haven't. You may if you like. Go anywhere," she added with +the unexpected magnificence of a really noble heart. "Look at +everything--only don't make hay. Off with you!" or words to that effect. + +And the whole of us, with proper thanks, offed with us instantly, in +case she should change her mind. + +I will not describe the Red House to you--because perhaps you do not +care about a house having three staircases and more cupboards and odd +corners than we'd ever seen before, and great attics with beams, and +enormous drawers on rollers, let into the wall--and half the rooms not +furnished, and those that were all with old-looking, interesting +furniture. There was something about that furniture that even the +present author can't describe--as though any of it might have secret +drawers or panels--even the chairs. It was all beautiful, and mysterious +in the deepest degree. + +When we had been all over the house several times, we thought about the +cellars. There was only one servant in the kitchen (so we saw Mr. and +Mrs. Red House must be poor but honest, like we used to be), and we said +to her-- + +"How do you do? We've got leave to go wherever we like, and please where +are the cellars, and may we go in?" + +She was quite nice, though she seemed to think there was an awful lot of +us. People often think this. She said: + +"Lor, love a duck--yes, I suppose so," in not ungentle tones, and showed +us. + +I don't think we should ever have found the way from the house into the +cellar by ourselves. There was a wide shelf in the scullery with a row +of gentlemanly boots on it that had been cleaned, and on the floor in +front a piece of wood. The general servant--for such indeed she proved +to be--lifted up the wood and opened a little door under the shelf. And +there was the beginning of steps, and the entrance to them was half +trap-door, and half the upright kind--a thing none of us had seen +before. + +She gave us a candle-end, and we pressed forward to the dark unknown. +The stair was of stone, arched overhead like churches--and it twisted +most unlike other cellar stairs. And when we got down it was all arched +like vaults, very cobwebby. + +"Just the place for crimes," said Dicky. There was a beer cellar, and a +wine cellar with bins, and a keeping cellar with hooks in the ceiling +and stone shelves--just right for venison pasties and haunches of the +same swift animal. + +Then we opened a door and there was a cellar with a well in it. + +"To throw bodies down, no doubt," Oswald explained. + +They were cellars full of glory, and passages leading from one to the +other like the Inquisition, and I wish ours at home were like them. + +There was a pile of beer barrels in the largest cellar, and it was H.O. +who said, "Why not play 'King of the Castle?'" + +So we did. We had a most refreshing game. It was exactly like Denny to +be the one who slipped down behind the barrels, and did not break a +single one of all his legs or arms. + +"No," he cried, in answer to our anxious inquiries. "I'm not hurt a +bit, but the wall here feels soft--at least not soft--but it doesn't +scratch your nails like stone does, so perhaps it's the door of a secret +dungeon or something like that." + +"Good old Dentist!" replied Oswald, who always likes Denny to have ideas +of his own, because it was us who taught him the folly of +white-mousishness. + +"It might be," he went on, "but these barrels are as heavy as lead, and +much more awkward to collar hold of." + +"Couldn't we get in some other way?" Alice said. "There ought to be a +subterranean passage. I expect there is if we only knew." + +Oswald has an enormous geographical bump in his head. He said-- + +"Look here! That far cellar, where the wall doesn't go quite up to the +roof--that space we made out was under the dining-room--I could creep +under there. I believe it leads into behind this door." + +"Get me out! Oh do, do get me out, and let me come!" shouted the +barrel-imprisoned Dentist from the unseen regions near the door. + +So we got him out by Oswald lying flat on his front on the top barrel, +and the Dentist clawed himself up by Oswald's hands while the others +kept hold of the boots of the representative of the house of Bastable, +which, of course, Oswald is, whenever Father is not there. + +"Come on," cried Oswald, when Denny was at last able to appear, very +cobwebby and black. "Give us what's left of the matches!" + +The others agreed to stand by the barrels and answer our knocking on the +door if we ever got there. + +"But I daresay we shall perish on the way," said Oswald hopefully. + +So we started. The other cellar was easily found by the ingenious and +geography-bump-headed Oswald. It opened straight on to the moat, and we +think it was a boathouse in middle-aged times. + +Denny made a back for Oswald, who led the way, and then he turned round +and hauled up his inexperienced, but rapidly improving, follower on to +the top of the wall that did not go quite up to the roof. + +"It is like coal mines," he said, beginning to crawl on hands and knees +over what felt like very prickly beach, "only we've no picks or +shovels." + +"And no Sir Humphry Davy safety lamps," said Denny in sadness. + +"They wouldn't be any good," said Oswald; "they're only to protect the +hard-working mining men against fire-damp and choke-damp. And there's +none of those kinds here." + +"No," said Denny, "the damp here is only just the common kind." + +"Well, then," said Oswald, and they crawled a bit further still on +their furtive and unassuming stomachs. + +"This is a very glorious adventure. It is, isn't it?" inquired the +Dentist in breathlessness, when the young stomachs of the young +explorers had bitten the dust for some yards further. + +"Yes," said Oswald, encouraging the boy, "and it's _your_ find, too," he +added, with admirable fairness and justice, unusual in one so young. "I +only hope we shan't find a mouldering skeleton buried alive behind that +door when we get to it. Come on. What are you stopping for now?" he +added kindly. + +"It's--it's only cobwebs in my throat," Denny remarked, and he came on, +though slower than before. + +Oswald, with his customary intrepid caution, was leading the way, and he +paused every now and then to strike a match because it was pitch dark, +and at any moment the courageous leader might have tumbled into a well +or a dungeon, or knocked his dauntless nose against something in the +dark. + +"It's all right for you," he said to Denny, when he had happened to kick +his follower in the eye. "You've nothing to fear except my boots, and +whatever they do is accidental, and so it doesn't count, but _I_ may be +going straight into some trap that has been yawning for me for countless +ages." + +"I won't come on so fast, thank you," said the Dentist. "I don't think +you've kicked my eye out yet." + +So they went on and on, crampedly crawling on what I have mentioned +before, and at last Oswald did not strike the next match carefully +enough, and with the suddenness of a falling star his hands, which, with +his knees, he was crawling on, went over the edge into infinite space, +and his chest alone, catching sharply on the edge of the precipice, +saved him from being hurled to the bottom of it. + +"Halt!" he cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it was +too late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up the +boot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, and +was not in the least his fault. + +"Do keep your nose off my boots half a sec.," he remarked, but not +crossly. "I'll strike a match." + +And he did, and by its weird and unscrutatious light looked down into +the precipice. + +Its bottom transpired to be not much more than six feet below, so Oswald +turned the other end of himself first, hung by his hands, and dropped +with fearless promptness, uninjured, in another cellar. He then helped +Denny down. The cornery thing Denny happened to fall on could not have +hurt him so much as he said. + +The light of the torch, I mean match, now revealed to the two bold and +youthful youths another cellar, with _things_ in it--very dirty +indeed, but of thrilling interest and unusual shapes, but the match went +out before we could see exactly what the things were. + +[Illustration: OSWALD DID NOT STRIKE THE NEXT MATCH CAREFULLY ENOUGH.] + +The next match was the last but one, but Oswald was undismayed, whatever +Denny may have been. He lighted it and looked hastily round. There was a +door. + +"Bang on that door--over there, silly!" he cried, in cheering accents, +to his trusty lieutenant; "behind that thing that looks like a _chevaux +de frize_." + +Denny had never been to Woolwich, and while Oswald was explaining what a +_chevaux de frize_ is, the match burnt his fingers almost to the bone, +and he had to feel his way to the door and hammer on it yourself. + +The blows of the others from the other side were deafening. + +All was saved. + +It was the right door. + +"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tell +them there are all sorts of things in here--a _chevaux de frize_ of +chair-legs, and----" + +"A shovel of _what_?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other side +of the door. + +"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get a +candle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back the +way we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorry +for afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the others +heard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were being +climbed over. + +This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise the +barrels insisted on making when Dicky had collected some grown-ups and +the barrels were being rolled away. During this thunder-like interval +Denny and Oswald were all the time in the pitch dark. They had lighted +their last match, and by its flickering gleam we saw a long, large +mangle. + +"It's like a double coffin," said Oswald, as the match went out. "You +can take my arm if you like, Dentist." + +The Dentist did--and then afterwards he said he only did it because he +thought Oswald was frightened of the dark. + +"It's only for a little while," said Oswald in the pauses of the +barrel-thunder, "and I once read about two brothers confined for life in +a cage so constructed that the unfortunate prisoners could neither sit, +lie, nor stand in comfort. We can do all those things." + +"Yes," said Denny; "but I'd rather keep on standing if it's the same to +you, Oswald. I don't like spiders--not much, that is." + +"You are right," said Oswald with affable gentleness; "and there might +be toads perhaps in a vault like this--or serpents guarding the treasure +like in the Cold Lairs. But of course they couldn't have cobras in +England. They'd have to put up with vipers, I suppose." + +Denny shivered, and Oswald could feel him stand first on one leg and +then on the other. + +"I wish I could stand on neither of my legs for a bit," he said, but +Oswald answered firmly that this could not be. + +And then the door opened with a crack-crash, and we saw lights and faces +through it, and something fell from the top of the door that Oswald +really did think for one awful instant was a hideous mass of writhing +serpents put there to guard the entrance. + +"Like a sort of live booby-trap," he explained; "just the sort of thing +a magician or a witch would have thought of doing." + +But it was only dust and cobwebs--a thick, damp mat of them. + +Then the others surged in, in light-hearted misunderstanding of the +perils Oswald had led Denny into--I mean through, with Mr. Red House and +another gentleman, and loud voices and candles that dripped all over +everybody's hands, as well as their clothes, and the solitary +confinement of the gallant Oswald was at an end. Denny's solitary +confinement was at an end, too--and he was now able to stand on both +legs and to let go the arm of his leader who was so full of fortitude. + +"This _is_ a find," said the pleased voice of Mr. Red House. "Do you +know, we've been in this house six whole months and a bit, and _we_ +never thought of there being a door here." + +"Perhaps you don't often play 'King of the Castle,'" said Dora +politely; "it _is_ rather a rough game, I always think." + +"Well, curiously enough, we never have," said Mr. Red House, beginning +to lift out the chairs, in which avocation we all helped, of course. + +"Nansen is nothing to you! You ought to have a medal for daring +explorations," said the other gentleman, but nobody gave us one, and, of +course, we did not want any reward for doing our duty, however tight and +cobwebby. + +The cellars proved to be well stocked with spiders and old furniture, +but no toads or snakes, which few, if any, regretted. Snakes are +outcasts from human affection. Oswald pities them, of course. + +There was a great lumpish thing in four parts that Mr. Red House said +was a press, and a ripping settle--besides the chairs, and some carved +wood that Mr. Red House and his friend made out to be part of an old +four-post bed. There was also a wooden thing like a box with another box +on it at one end, and H.O. said-- + +"You could make a ripping rabbit-hutch out of that." + +Oswald thought so himself. But Mr. Red House said he had other uses for +it, and would bring it up later. + +It took us all that was left of the afternoon to get the things up the +stairs into the kitchen. It was hard work, but we know all about the +dignity of labour. The general hated the things we had so enterprisingly +discovered. I suppose she knew who would have to clean them, but Mrs. +Red House was awfully pleased and said we were dears. + +We were not very clean dears by the time our work was done, and when the +other gentleman said, "Won't you all take a dish of tea under my humble +roof?" the words "Like this?" were formed by more than one youthful +voice. + +"Well, if you would be happier in a partially cleansed state?" said Mr. +Red House. And Mrs. Red House, who is my idea of a feudal lady in a +castle, said, "Oh, come along, let's go and partially clean ourselves. +I'm dirtier than anybody, though I haven't explored a bit. I've often +noticed that the more you admire things the more they come off on you!" + +So we all washed as much as we cared to, and went to tea at the +gentleman's house, which was only a cottage, but very beautiful. He had +been a war correspondent, and he knew a great many things, besides +having books and books of pictures. + +It was a splendid party. + +We thanked Mrs. R.H. and everybody when it was time to go, and she +kissed the girls and the little boys, and then she put her head on one +side and looked at Oswald and said, "I suppose you're too old?" + +Oswald did not like to say he was not. If kissed at all he would prefer +it being for some other reason than his being not too old for it. So he +did not know what to say. But Noel chipped in with-- + +"_You'll_ never be too old for it," to Mrs. Red House--which seemed to +Oswald most silly and unmeaning, because she was already much too old to +be kissed by people unless she chose to begin it. But every one seemed +to think Noel had said something clever. And Oswald felt like a young +ass. But Mrs. R.H. looked at him so kindly and held out her hand so +queenily that, before he knew he meant to, he had kissed it like you do +the Queen's. Then, of course, Denny and Dicky went and did the same. +Oswald wishes that the word "kiss" might never be spoken again in this +world. Not that he minded kissing Mrs. Red House's hand in the least, +especially as she seemed to think it was nice of him to--but the whole +thing is such contemptible piffle. + +We were seen home by the gentleman who wasn't Mr. Red House, and he +stood a glorious cab with a white horse who had a rolling eye, from +Blackheath Station, and so ended one of the most adventuring times we +ever got out of a play-beginning. + +The _time_ ended as the author has pointed out, but not its +resultingness. Thus we ever find it in life--the most unharmful things, +thoroughly approved even by grown-ups, but too often lead to something +quite different, and that no one can possibly approve of, not even +yourself when you come to think it over afterwards, like Noel and H.O. +had to. + +It was but natural that the hearts of the young explorers should have +dwelt fondly on everything underground, even drains, which was what made +us read a book by Mr. Hugo, all the next day. It is called "The +Miserables," in French, and the man in it, who is a splendid hero, +though a convict and a robber and various other professions, escapes +into a drain with great rats in it, and is miraculously restored to the +light of day, unharmed by the kindly rodents. (N.B.--Rodents mean rats.) + +When we had finished all the part about drains it was nearly +dinner-time, and Noel said quite suddenly in the middle of a bite of +mutton-- + +"The Red House isn't nearly so red as ours is outside. Why should the +cellars be so much cellarier? Shut up H.O.!" For H.O. was trying to +speak. + +Dora explained to him how we don't all have exactly the same blessings, +but he didn't seem to see it. + +"It doesn't seem like the way things happen in books," he said, "In +Walter Scott it wouldn't be like that, nor yet in Anthony Hope. I should +think the rule would be the redder the cellarier. If I was putting it +into poetry I should make our cellars have something much wonderfuller +in them than just wooden things. H.O., if you don't shut up I'll never +let you be in anything again." + +"There's that door you go down steps to," said Dicky; "we've never been +in there. If Dora and I weren't going with Miss Blake to be fitted for +boots we might try that." + +"That's just what I was coming to. (Stow it, H.O.!) I felt just like +cellars to-day, while you other chaps were washing your hands for +din.--and it was very cold; but I made H.O. feel the same, and we went +down, and--that door _isn't shut now_." + +The intelligible reader may easily guess that we finished our dinner as +quickly as we could, and we put on our outers, sympathising with Dicky +and Dora, who, owing to boots, were out of it, and we went into the +garden. There are five steps down to that door. They were red brick when +they began, but now they are green with age and mysteriousness and not +being walked on. And at the bottom of them the door was, as Noel said, +not fastened. We went in. + +"It isn't beery, winey cellars at all," Alice said; "it's more like a +robber's store-house. Look there." + +We had got to the inner cellar, and there were heaps of carrots and +other vegetables. + +"Halt, my men!" cried Oswald, "advance not an inch further! The bandits +may lurk not a yard from you!" + +"Suppose they jump out on us?" said H.O. + +"They will not rashly leap into the light," said the discerning Oswald. +And he went to fetch a new dark-lantern of his that he had not had any +chance of really using before. But some one had taken Oswald's secret +matches, and then the beastly lantern wouldn't light for ever so long. +But he thought it didn't matter his being rather a long time gone, +because the others could pass the time in wondering whether anything +would jump out on them, and if so, what and when. + +So when he got back to the red steps and the open door and flashed his +glorious bull's-eye round it was rather an annoying thing for there not +to be a single other eye for it to flash into. Every one had vanished. + +"Hallo!" cried Oswald, and if his gallant voice trembled he is not +ashamed of it, because he knows about wells in cellars, and, for an +instant, even he did not know what had happened. + +But an answering hullo came from beyond, and he hastened after the +others. + +"Look out," said Alice; "don't tumble over that heap of bones." + +Oswald did look out--of course, he would not wish to walk on any one's +bones. But he did not jump back with a scream, whatever Noel may say +when he is in a temper. + +The heap really did look very like bones, partly covered with earth. +Oswald was glad to learn that they were only parsnips. + +"We waited as long as we could," said Alice, "but we thought perhaps +you'd been collared for some little thing you'd forgotten all about +doing, and wouldn't be able to come back, but we found Noel had, +fortunately, got your matches. I'm so glad you weren't collared, Oswald +dear." + +Some boys would have let Noel know about the matches, but Oswald didn't. +The heaps of carrots and turnips and parsnips and things were not very +interesting when you knew that they were not bleeding warriors' or +pilgrims' bones, and it was too cold to pretend for long with any +comfort to the young Pretenders. So Oswald said-- + +"Let's go out on the Heath and play something warm. You can't warm +yourself with matches, even if they're not your own." + +That was all he said. A great hero would not stoop to argue about +matches. + +And Alice said, "All right," and she and Oswald went out and played +pretending golf with some walking-sticks of Father's. But Noel and H.O. +preferred to sit stuffily over the common-room fire. So that Oswald and +Alice, as well as Dora and Dicky, who were being measured for boots, +were entirely out of the rest of what happened, and the author can only +imagine the events that now occurred. + +When Noel and H.O. had roasted their legs by the fire till they were so +hot that their stockings quite hurt them, one of them must have said to +the other--I never knew which: + +"Let's go and have another look at that cellar." + +The other--whoever it was--foolishly consented. So they went, and they +took Oswald's dark-lantern in his absence and without his leave. + +They found a hitherto unnoticed door behind the other one, and Noel says +he said, "We'd better not go in." H.O. says he said so too. But any way, +they _did_ go in. + +They found themselves in a small vaulted place that we found out +afterwards had been used for mushrooms. But it was long since any fair +bud of a mushroom had blossomed in that dark retreat. The place had been +cleaned and new shelves put up, and when Noel and H.O. saw what was on +these shelves the author is sure they turned pale, though they say not. + +For what they saw was coils, and pots, and wires; and one of them said, +in a voice that must have trembled-- + +"It is dynamite, I am certain of it; what shall we do?" + +I am certain the other said, "This is to blow up Father because he took +part in the Lewisham Election, and his side won." + +The reply no doubt was, "There is no time for delay; we must act. We +must cut the fuse--all the fuses; there are dozens." + +Oswald thinks it was not half bad business, those two kids--for Noel is +little more than one, owing to his poetry and his bronchitis--standing +in the abode of dynamite and not screeching, or running off to tell Miss +Blake, or the servants, or any one--but just doing _the right thing_ +without any fuss. + +[Illustration: WITH SCISSORS AND GAS PLIERS THEY CUT EVERY FUSE.] + +I need hardly say it did not prove to be the right thing--but they +thought it was. And Oswald cannot think that you are really doing wrong +if you really think you are doing right. I hope you will understand +this. + +I believe the kids tried cutting the fuses with Dick's pocket-knife that +was in the pocket of his other clothes. But the fuses would not--no +matter how little you trembled when you touched them. + +But at last, with scissors and the gas pliers, they cut every fuse. The +fuses were long, twisty, wire things covered with green wool, like +blind-cords. + +Then Noel and H.O. (and Oswald for one thinks it showed a goodish bit of +pluck, and policemen have been made heroes for less) got cans and cans +of water from the tap by the greenhouse and poured sluicing showers of +the icy fluid in among the internal machinery of the dynamite +arrangement--for so they believed it to be. + +Then, very wet, but feeling that they had saved their Father and the +house, they went and changed their clothes. I think they were a little +stuck-up about it, believing it to be an act unrivalled in devotedness, +and they were most tiresome all the afternoon, talking about their +secret, and not letting us know what it was. + +But when Father came home, early, as it happened, those swollen-headed, +but, in Oswald's opinion, quite-to-be-excused, kiddies learned the +terrible truth. + +Of course Oswald and Dicky would have known at once; if Noel and H.O. +hadn't been so cocky about not telling us, we could have exposed the +truth to them in all its uninteresting nature. + +I hope the reader will now prepare himself for a shock. In a wild whirl +of darkness, and the gas being cut off, and not being able to get any +light, and Father saying all sorts of things, it all came out. + +Those coils and jars and wires in that cellar were not an infernal +machine at all. It was--I know you will be very much surprised--it was +the electric lights and bells that Father had had put in while we were +at the Red House the day before. + +H.O. and Noel caught it very fully; and Oswald thinks this was one of +the few occasions when my Father was not as just as he meant to be. My +uncle was not just either, but then it is much longer since he was a +boy, so we must make excuses for him. + + * * * * * + +We sent Mrs. Red House a Christmas card each. In spite of the trouble +that her cellars had lured him into, Noel sent her a homemade one with +an endless piece of his everlasting poetry on it, and next May she wrote +and asked us to come and see her. _We_ try to be just, and we saw that +it was not really her fault that Noel and H.O. had cut those electric +wires, so we all went; but we did not take Albert Morrison, because he +was fortunately away with an aged god-parent of his mother's who writes +tracts at Tunbridge Wells. + +The garden was all flowery and green, and Mr. and Mrs. Red House were +nice and jolly, and we had a distinguished and first-class time. + +But would you believe it?--that boxish thing in the cellar, that H.O. +wanted them to make a rabbit-hutch of--well, Mr. Red House had cleaned +it and mended it, and Mrs. Red House took us up to the room where it +was, to let us look at it again. And, unbelievable to relate, it turned +out to have rockers, and some one in dark, bygone ages seems, for +reasons unknown to the present writer, to have wasted no end of +carpentry and carving on it, just to make it into a _Cradle_. And what +is more, since we were there last Mr. and Mrs. Red House had succeeded +in obtaining a small but quite alive baby to put in it. + +I suppose they thought it was wilful waste to have a cradle and no baby +to use it. But it could so easily have been used for something else. It +would have made a ripping rabbit-hutch, and babies are far more trouble +than rabbits to keep, and not nearly so profitable, I believe. + + + + +_THE TURK IN CHAINS; OR, RICHARD'S REVENGE_ + + +THE morning dawned in cloudless splendour. The sky was a pale cobalt +colour, as in pictures of Swiss scenery. The sun shone brightly, and all +the green things in the garden sparkled in the bewitching rays of the +monarch of the skies. + +The author of this does not like to read much about the weather in +books, but he is obliged to put this piece in because it is true; and it +is a thing that does not very often happen in the middle of January. In +fact, I never remember the weather being at all like that in the winter +except on that one day. + +Of course we all went into the garden directly after brekker. (PS.--I +have said green things: perhaps you think that is a _lapsus lazuli_, or +slip of the tongue, and that there are not any green things in the +winter. But there are. And not just evergreens either. Wallflowers and +pansies and snapdragons and primroses, and lots of things, keep green +all the year unless it's too frosty. Live and learn.) + +And it was so warm we were able to sit in the summer-house. The birds +were singing like mad. Perhaps they thought it was springtime. Or +perhaps they always sing when they see the sun, without paying attention +to dates. + +And now, when all his brothers and sisters were sitting on the rustic +seats in the summer-house, the far-sighted Oswald suddenly saw that now +was the moment for him to hold that council he had been wanting to hold +for some time. + +So he stood in the door of the summer-house, in case any of the others +should suddenly remember that they wanted to be in some other place. And +he said-- + +"I say. About that council I want to hold." + +And Dicky replied: "Well, what about it?" + +So then Oswald explained all over again that we had been Treasure +Seekers, and we had been Would-be-Goods, and he thought it was time we +were something else. + +"Being something else makes you think of things," he said at the end of +all the other things he said. + +"Yes," said H.O., yawning, without putting up his hand, which is not +manners, and we told him so. "But _I_ can think of things without being +other things. Look how I thought about being a clown, and going to +Rome." + +"I shouldn't think you would want us to remember _that_," said Dora. And +indeed Father had not been pleased with H.O. about that affair. But +Oswald never encourages Dora to nag, so he said patiently-- + +"Yes, you think of things you'd much better not have thought of. Now my +idea is let's each say what sort of a society we shall make ourselves +into--like we did when we were Treasure Seekers--about the different +ways to look for it, I mean. Let's hold our tongues (no, not with your +dirty fingers, H.O., old chap; hold it with your teeth if you must hold +it with something)--let's hold our tongues for a bit, and then all say +what we've thought of--in ages," the thoughtful boy added hastily, so +that every one should not speak at once when we had done holding our +tongues. + +So we were all silent, and the birds sang industriously among the +leafless trees of our large sunny garden in beautiful Blackheath. (The +author is sorry to see he is getting poetical. It shall not happen +again, and it _was_ an extra fine day, really, and the birds did sing, a +fair treat.) + +When three long minutes had elapsed themselves by the hands of Oswald's +watch, which always keeps perfect time for three or four days after he +has had it mended, he closed the watch and observed-- + +"Time! Go ahead, Dora." + +Dora went ahead in the following remarks: + +"I've thought as hard as I can, and nothing will come into my head +except-- + + "'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.' + +Don't you think we might try to find some new ways to be good in?" + +"No, you don't!" "I bar that!" came at once from the mouths of Dicky and +Oswald. + +"You don't come that over us twice," Dicky added. And Oswald eloquently +said, "No more Would-be-Goods, thank you, Dora." + +Dora said, well, she couldn't think of anything else. And she didn't +expect Oswald had thought of anything better. + +"Yes, I have," replied her brother. "What I think is that we don't +_know_ half enough." + +"If you mean extra swat," said Alice; "I've more homers than I care for +already, thank you." + +"I do not mean swat," rejoined the experienced Oswald. "I want to know +all about real things, not booky things. If you kids had known about +electric bells you wouldn't have----" Oswald stopped, and then said, "I +won't say any more, because Father says a gentleman does not support his +arguments with personal illusions to other people's faults and follies." + +"Faults and follies yourself," said H.O. The girls restored peace, and +Oswald went on-- + +"Let us seek to grow wiser, and to teach each other." + +"_I_ bar that," said H.O. "I don't want Oswald and Dicky always on to me +and call it teaching." + +"We might call the society the Would-be-Wisers," said Oswald hastily. + +"It's not so dusty," said Dicky; "let's go on to the others before we +decide." + +"You're next yourself," said Alice. + +"Oh, so I am," remarked Dicky, trying to look surprised. "Well, my idea +is let's be a sort of Industrious Society of Beavers, and make a solemn +vow and covenant to make something every day. We might call it the +Would-be-Clevers." + +"It would be the Too-clever-by-half's before we'd done with it," said +Oswald. + +And Alice said, "We couldn't always make things that would be any good, +and then we should have to do something that wasn't any good, and that +would be rot. Yes, I know it's my turn--H.O., you'll kick the table to +pieces if you go on like that. Do, for goodness' sake, keep your feet +still. The only thing I can think of is a society called the +Would-be-Boys." + +"With you and Dora for members." + +"And Noel--poets aren't boys exactly," said H.O. + +"If you don't shut up you shan't be in it at all," said Alice, putting +her arm round Noel. "No; I meant us all to be in it--only you boys are +not to keep saying we're only girls, and let us do everything the same +as you boys do." + +"I don't want to be a boy, thank you," said Dora, "not when I see how +they behave. H.O., _do_ stop sniffing and use your handkerchief. Well, +take mine, then." + +It was now Noel's turn to disclose his idea, which proved most awful. + +"Let's be Would-be-Poets," he said, "and solemnly vow and convenient to +write one piece of poetry a day as long as we live." + +Most of us were dumb at the dreadful thought. But Alice said-- + +"That would never do, Noel dear, because you're the only one of us who's +clever enough to do it." + +So Noel's detestable and degrading idea was shelved without Oswald +having to say anything that would have made the youthful poet weep. + +"I suppose you don't mean me to say what I thought of," said H.O., "but +I shall. I think you ought all to be in a Would-be-Kind Society, and vow +solemn convents and things not to be down on your younger brother." + +We explained to him at once that _he_ couldn't be in that, because he +hadn't got a younger brother. + +"And you may think yourself lucky you haven't," Dicky added. + +The ingenious and felicitous Oswald was just going to begin about the +council all over again, when the portable form of our Indian uncle came +stoutly stumping down the garden path under the cedars. + +"Hi, brigands!" he cried in his cheerful unclish manner. "Who's on for +the Hippodrome this bright day?" + +And instantly we all were. Even Oswald--because after all you can have +a council any day, but Hippodromes are not like that. + +[Illustration: "HI, BRIGANDS!" HE CRIED.] + +We got ready like the whirlwind of the desert for quickness, and started +off with our kind uncle, who has lived so long in India that he is much +more warm-hearted than you would think to look at him. + +Half-way to the station Dicky remembered his patent screw for working +ships with. He had been messing with it in the bath while he was waiting +for Oswald to have done plunging cleanly in the basin. And in the +desert-whirlwinding he had forgotten to take it out. So now he ran back, +because he knew how its cardboardiness would turn to pulp if it was +left. + +"I'll catch you up," he cried. + +The uncle took the tickets and the train came in and still Dicky had not +caught us up. + +"Tiresome boy!" said the uncle; "you don't want to miss the +beginning--eh, what? Ah, here he comes!" The uncle got in, and so did +we, but Dicky did not see the uncle's newspaper which Oswald waved, and +he went running up and down the train looking for us instead of just +getting in anywhere sensibly, as Oswald would have done. When the train +began to move he did try to open a carriage door but it stuck, and the +train went faster, and just as he got it open a large heavy porter +caught him by the collar and pulled him off the train, saying-- + +"Now, young shaver, no susansides on this ere line, if _you_ please." + +Dicky hit the porter, but his fury was vain. Next moment the train had +passed away, and us in it. Dicky had no money, and the uncle had all the +tickets in the pocket of his fur coat. + + * * * * * + +I am not going to tell you anything about the Hippodrome because the +author feels that it was a trifle beastly of us to have enjoyed it as +much as we did considering Dicky. We tried not to talk about it before +him when we got home, but it was very difficult--especially the +elephants. + + * * * * * + +I suppose he spent an afternoon of bitter thoughts after he had told +that porter what he thought of him, which took some time, and the +station-master interfered in the end. + +When we got home he was all right with us. He had had time to see it was +not our faults, whatever he thought at the time. + +He refused to talk about it. Only he said-- + +"I'm going to take it out of that porter. You leave me alone. I shall +think of something presently." + +"Revenge is very wrong," said Dora; but even Alice asked her kindly to +dry up. We all felt that it was simply piffle to talk copy-book to one +so disappointed as our unfortunate brother. + +"It _is_ wrong, though," said Dora. + +"Wrong be blowed!" said Dicky, snorting; "who began it I should like to +know! The station's a beastly awkward place to take it out of any one +in. I wish I knew where he lived." + +"_I_ know _that_," said Noel. "I've known it a long time--before +Christmas, when we were going to the Moat House." + +"Well, what is it, then?" asked Dicky savagely. + +"Don't bite his head off," remarked Alice. "Tell us about it, Noel. How +do you know?" + +"It was when you were weighing yourselves on the weighing machine. I +didn't because my weight isn't worth being weighed for. And there was a +heap of hampers and turkeys and hares and things, and there was a label +on a turkey and brown-paper parcel; and that porter that you hate so +said to the other porter----" + +"Oh, hurry up, do!" said Dicky. + +"I won't tell you at all if you bully me," said Noel, and Alice had to +coax him before he would go on. + +"Well, he looked at the label and said, 'Little mistake here, +Bill--wrong address; ought to be 3, Abel Place, eh?' + +"And the other one looked, and he said, 'Yes; it's got your name right +enough. Fine turkey, too, and his chains in the parcel. Pity they ain't +more careful about addressing things, eh?' So when they had done +laughing about it I looked at the label and it said, 'James Johnson, 8, +Granville Park.' So I knew it was 3, Abel Place, he lived at, and his +name was James Johnson." + +"Good old Sherlock Holmes!" said Oswald. + +"You won't really _hurt_ him," said Noel, "will you? Not Corsican +revenge with knives, or poisoned bowls? I wouldn't do more than a good +booby-trap, if I was you." + +When Noel said the word "booby-trap," we all saw a strange, happy look +come over Dicky's face. It is called a far-away look, I believe, and you +can see it in the picture of a woman cuddling a photograph-album with +her hair down, that is in all the shops, and they call it "The Soul's +Awakening." + +Directly Dicky's soul had finished waking up he shut his teeth together +with a click. Then he said, "I've got it." + +Of course we all knew that. + +"Any one who thinks revenge is wrong is asked to leave _now_." + +Dora said he was very unkind, and did he really want to turn her out? + +"There's a jolly good fire in Father's study," he said. "No, I'm not +waxy with you, but I'm going to have my revenge, and I don't want you to +do anything you thought wrong. You'd only make no end of a fuss +afterwards." + +"Well, it _is_ wrong, so I'll go," said Dora. "Don't say I didn't warn +you, that's all!" + +And she went. + +Then Dicky said, "Now, any more conscious objectors?" + +And when no one replied he went on: "It was you saying 'Booby-trap' gave +me the idea. His name's James Johnson, is it? And he said the things +were addressed wrong, did he? Well, _I'll_ send him a Turkey-and-chains." + +"A Turk in chains," said Noel, growing owley-eyed at the thought--"a +_live_ Turk--or--no, not a dead one, Dicky?" + +"The Turk I'm going to send won't be a live one nor yet a dead one." + +"How horrible! _Half_ dead. That's worse than anything," and Noel became +so green in the face that Alice told Dicky to stop playing the goat, and +tell us what his idea really was. + +"Don't you see _yet_?" he cried; "_I_ saw it directly." + +"I daresay," said Oswald; "it's easy to see your own idea. Drive ahead." + +"Well, I'm going to get a hamper and pack it full of parcels and put a +list of them on the top--beginning Turk-and-chains, and send it to +Mister James Johnson, and when he opens the parcels there'll be nothing +inside." + +"There must be something, you know," said H.O., "or the parcels won't be +any shape except flatness." + +"Oh, there'll be _something_ right enough," was the bitter reply of the +one who had not been to the Hippodrome, "but it won't be the sort of +something he'll expect it to be. Let's do it now. I'll get a hamper." + +[Illustration: IT WAS RATHER DIFFICULT TO GET ANYTHING THE SHAPE OF A +TURKEY.] + +He got a big one out of the cellar and four empty bottles with their +straw cases. We filled the bottles with black ink and water, and red +ink and water, and soapy water, and water plain. And we put them down on +the list-- + + 1 bottle of port wine. + 1 bottle of sherry wine. + 1 bottle of sparkling champagne. + 1 bottle of rum. + +The rest of the things we put on the list were-- + + 1 turkey-and-chains. + 2 pounds of chains. + 1 plum-pudding. + 4 pounds of mince-pies. + 2 pounds of almonds and raisins. + 1 box of figs. + 1 bottle of French plums. + 1 large cake. + +And we made up parcels to look outside as if their inside was full of +the delicious attributes described in the list. It was rather difficult +to get anything the shape of a turkey but with coals and crushed +newspapers and firewood we did it, and when it was done up with lots of +string and the paper artfully squeezed tight to the firewood to look +like the Turk's legs it really was almost lifelike in its deceivingness. +The chains, or sausages, we did with dusters--and not clean ones--rolled +tight, and the paper moulded gently to their forms. The plum-pudding was +a newspaper ball. The mince-pies were newspapers too, and so were the +almonds and raisins. The box of figs was a real fig-box with cinders +and ashes in it damped to keep them from rattling about. The French-plum +bottle was real too. It had newspaper soaked in ink in it, and the cake +was half a muff-box of Dora's done up very carefully and put at the +bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-box we put a paper with-- + +"Revenge is not wrong when the other people begin. It was you began, and +now you are jolly well served out." + +We packed all the bottles and parcels into the hamper, and put the list +on the very top, pinned to the paper that covered the false breast of +the imitation Turk. + +Dicky wanted to write--"From an unknown friend," but we did not think +that was fair, considering how Dicky felt. + +So at last we put--"From one who does not wish to sign his name." + +And that was true, at any rate. + +Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter +Paterson's board outside. + +"I vote we don't pay the carriage," said Dicky, but that was perhaps +because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train. +Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the +carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling +had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let +it rise in his. + +We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was +cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money +the carriage was paid with. + +So then we went home and had another go in of grub--because tea had been +rather upset by Dicky's revenge. + +The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered +next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that +porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one. + +"I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first +class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He'll read the list and then +he'll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It +_was_ a ripping idea! I'm glad I thought of it!" + +"I'm not," said Noel suddenly. "I wish you hadn't--I wish we hadn't. I +know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he'd like to +_kill_ you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn't been a craven, +white-feathered skulker and not signed your name." + +It was a thunderbolt in our midst Noel behaving like this. It made +Oswald feel a sick inside feeling that perhaps Dora had been right. She +sometimes is--and Oswald hates this feeling. + +Dicky was so surprised at the unheard-of cheek of his young brother that +for a moment he was speechless, and before he got over his +speechlessness Noel was crying and wouldn't have any more dinner. Alice +spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky to look +over it this once. And he replied by means of the same useful organ that +he didn't care what a silly kid thought. So no more was said. When Noel +had done crying he began to write a piece of poetry and kept at it all +the afternoon. Oswald only saw just the beginning. It was called + + "THE DISAPPOINTED PORTER'S FURY + _Supposed to be by the Porter himself_," + +and it began:-- + + "When first I opened the hamper fair + And saw the parcel inside there + My heart rejoiced like dry gardens when + It rains--but soon I changed and then + I seized my trusty knife and bowl + Of poison, and said 'Upon the whole + I will have the life of the man + Or woman who thought of this wicked plan + To deceive a trusting porter so. + No noble heart would have thought of it. No.'" + +There were pages and pages of it. Of course it was all nonsense--the +poetry, I mean. And yet . . . . . . (I have seen that put in books when +the author does not want to let out all he thought at the time.) + +That evening at tea-time Jane came and said-- + +"Master Dicky, there's an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live +here." + +So Dicky thought it was the bootmaker perhaps; so he went out, and +Oswald went with him, because he wanted to ask for a bit of cobbler's +wax. + +But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and +white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father's +study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he +wanted to see. + +When we got him there he said-- + +"Might I trouble you to shut the door?" + +This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not +think he was one. He looked too old for these professions. + +When the door was shut, he said-- + +"I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent +this?" + +He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. +Oswald and Dicky looked at each other. + +"Did you send it?" said the old man again. + +So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes." + +Oswald said, "How did you know and who are you?" + +The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper--it was +the greenish-grey piece we'd wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had +a label on it that we hadn't noticed, with Dicky's name and address on +it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it. + +[Illustration: WHEN THE DOOR WAS SHUT HE SAID, "I AIN'T GOT MUCH TO SAY, +YOUNG GEMMEN."] + +"That's how I know," said the old man. "Ah, be sure your sin will find +you out." + +"But who are you, anyway!" asked Oswald again. + +"Oh, _I_ ain't nobody in particular," he said. "I'm only the father of +the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks. +Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I'm here to speak my mind, and +I'll speak it if I die for it. So now!" + +"But we didn't send it to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a +thing. We sent it for a--for a----" I think he tried to say for a joke, +but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him--"for a +sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it +was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others." +Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He +was rather afraid he might be. + +"I never sent it to a girl," he said again. + +"Ho," said the aged one. "An' who told you that there porter was a +single man? It was his wife--my pore gell--as opened your low parcel, +and she sees your lying list written out so plain on top, and, sez she +to me, 'Father,' says she, 'ere's a friend in need! All these good +things for us, and no name signed, so that we can't even say thank you. +I suppose it's some one knows how short we are just now, and hardly +enough to eat with coals the price they are,' says she to me. 'I do call +that kind and Christian,' says she, 'and I won't open not one of them +lovely parcels till Jim comes 'ome,' she says, 'and we'll enjoy the +pleasures of it together, all three of us,' says she. And when he came +home--we opened of them lovely parcels. She's a cryin' her eyes out at +home now, and Jim, he only swore once, and I don't blame him for that +one--though never an evil speaker myself--and then he set himself down +on a chair and puts his elbows on it to hide his face like--and 'Emmie,' +says he, 'so help me. I didn't know I'd got an enemy in the world. I +always thought we'd got nothing but good friends,' says he. An' I says +nothing, but I picks up the paper, and comes here to your fine house to +tell you what I think of you. It's a mean, low-down, dirty, nasty trick, +and no gentleman wouldn't a-done it. So that's all--and it's off my +chest, and good-night to you gentlemen both!" + +He turned to go out. I shall not tell you what Oswald felt, except that +he did hope Dicky felt the same, and would behave accordingly. And Dicky +did, and Oswald was both pleased and surprised. + +Dicky said-- + +"Oh, I say, stop a minute. I didn't think of your poor girl." + +"And her youngest but a bare three weeks old," said the old man angrily. + +"I didn't, on my honour I didn't think of anything but paying the porter +out." + +"He was only a doing of his duty," the old man said. + +"Well, I beg your pardon and his," said Dicky; "it was ungentlemanly, +and I'm very sorry. And I'll try to make it up somehow. Please make it +up. I can't do more than own I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't--there!" + +"Well," said the old man slowly, "we'll leave it at that. Next time +p'r'aps you'll think a bit who it's going to be as'll get the benefit of +your payings out." + +Dicky made him shake hands, and Oswald did the same. + +Then we had to go back to the others and tell them. It was hard. But it +was ginger-ale and seed-cake compared to having to tell Father, which +was what it came to in the end. For we all saw, though Noel happened to +be the one to say it first, that the only way we could really make it up +to James Johnson and his poor girl and his poor girl's father, and the +baby that was only three weeks old, was to send them a hamper with all +the things in it--_real_ things, that we had put on the list in the +revengeful hamper. And as we had only six-and-sevenpence among us we had +to tell Father. Besides, you feel better inside when you have. He talked +to us about it a bit, but he is a good Father and does not jaw unduly. +He advanced our pocket-money to buy a real large Turk-and-chains. And he +gave us six bottles of port wine, because he thought that would be +better for the poor girl who had the baby than rum or sherry or even +sparkling champagne. + +We were afraid to send the hamper by Carter Pat. for fear they should +think it was another Avenging Take-in. And that was one reason why we +took it ourselves in a cab. The other reason was that we wanted to see +them open the hamper, and another was that we wanted--at least Dicky +wanted--to have it out man to man with the porter and his wife, and tell +them himself how sorry he was. + +So we got our gardener to find out secretly when that porter was off +duty, and when we knew the times we went to his house at one of them. + +Then Dicky got out of the cab and went in and said what he had to say. +And then we took in the hamper. + +And the old man and his daughter and the porter were most awfully decent +to us, and the porter's wife said, "Lor! let bygones be bygones is what +_I_ say! Why, we wouldn't never have had this handsome present but for +the other. Say no more about it, sir, and thank you kindly, I'm sure." + +And we have been friends with them ever since. + +We were short of pocket-money for some time, but Oswald does not +complain, though the Turk was Dicky's idea entirely. Yet Oswald is just, +and he owns that he helped as much as he could in packing the Hamper of +the Avenger. Dora paid her share, too, though she wasn't in it. The +author does not shrink from owning that this was very decent of Dora. + +This is all the story of-- + + THE TURK IN CHAINS; or, + RICHARD'S REVENGE. + +(His name is really Richard, the same as Father's. We only call him +Dicky for short.) + + + + +_THE GOLDEN GONDOLA_ + + +ALBERT'S uncle is tremendously clever, and he writes books. I have told +how he fled to Southern shores with a lady who is rather nice. His +having to marry her was partly our fault, but we did not mean to do it, +and we were very sorry for what we had done. But afterwards we thought +perhaps it was all for the best, because if left alone he might have +married widows, or old German governesses, or Murdstone aunts, like +Daisy and Denny have, instead of the fortunate lady that we were the +cause of his being married by. + +The wedding was just before Christmas, and we were all there. And then +they went to Rome for a period of time that is spoken of in books as the +honeymoon. You know that H.O., my youngest brother, tried to go too, +disguised as the contents of a dress-basket--but was betrayed and +brought back. + +Conversation often takes place about the things you like, and we often +spoke of Albert's uncle. + +One day we had a ripping game of +hide-and-seek-all-over-the-house-and-all-the-lights-out, sometimes +called devil-in-the-dark, and never to be played except when your father +and uncle are out, because of the screams which the strongest cannot +suppress when caught by "he" in unexpectedness and total darkness. The +girls do not like this game so much as we do. But it is only fair for +them to play it. We have more than once played doll's tea-parties to +please them. + +Well, when the game was over we were panting like dogs on the hearthrug +in front of the common-room fire, and H.O. said-- + +"I wish Albert's uncle had been here; he does enjoy it so." + +Oswald has sometimes thought Albert's uncle only played to please us. +But H.O. may be right. + +"I wonder if they often play it in Rome," H.O. went on. "That post-card +he sent us with the Colly-whats-its-name-on--you know, the round place +with the arches. They could have ripping games there----" + +"It's not much fun with only two," said Dicky. + +"Besides," Dora said, "when people are first married they always sit in +balconies and look at the moon, or else at each other's eyes." + +"They ought to know what their eyes look like by this time," said Dicky. + +"I believe they sit and write poetry about their eyes all day, and only +look at each other when they can't think of the rhymes," said Noel. + +"I don't believe she knows how, but I'm certain they read aloud to each +other out of the poetry books we gave them for wedding presents," Alice +said. + +"It would be beastly ungrateful if they didn't, especially with their +backs all covered with gold like they are," said H.O. + +"About those books," said Oswald slowly, now for the first time joining +in what was being said; "of course it was jolly decent of Father to get +such ripping presents for us to give them. But I've sometimes wished +we'd given Albert's uncle a really truly present that we'd chosen +ourselves and bought with our own chink." + +"I wish we could have _done_ something for him," Noel said; "I'd have +killed a dragon for him as soon as look at it, and Mrs. Albert's uncle +could have been the Princess, and I would have let him have her." + +"Yes," said Dicky; "and we just gave rotten books. But it's no use +grizzling over it now. It's all over, and he won't get married again +while she's alive." + +This was true, for we live in England which is a morganatic empire where +more than one wife at a time is not allowed. In the glorious East he +might have married again and again and we could have made it all right +about the wedding present. + +"I wish he was a Turk for some things," said Oswald, and explained why. + +"I don't think _she_ would like it," said Dora. + +Oswald explained that if he was a Turk, she would be a Turquoise (I +think that is the feminine Turk), and so would be used to lots of wives +and be lonely without them. + +And just then . . . You know what they say about talking of angels, and +hearing their wings? (There is another way of saying this, but it is not +polite, as the present author knows.) + +Well, just then the postman came, and of course we rushed out, and among +Father's dull letters we found one addressed to "The Bastables Junior." +It had an Italian stamp--not at all a rare one, and it was a poor +specimen too, and the post-mark was _Roma_. + +That is what the Italians have got into the habit of calling Rome. I +have been told that they put the "a" instead of the "e" because they +like to open their mouths as much as possible in that sunny and +agreeable climate. + +The letter was jolly--it was just like hearing him talk (I mean reading, +not hearing, of course, but reading him talk is not grammar, and if you +can't be both sensible and grammarical, it is better to be senseless). + +"Well, kiddies," it began, and it went on to tell us about things he had +seen, not dull pictures and beastly old buildings, but amusing incidents +of comic nature. The Italians must be extreme Jugginses for the kind of +things he described to be of such everyday occurring. Indeed, Oswald +could hardly believe about the soda-water label that the Italian +translated for the English traveller so that it said, "To distrust of +the Mineral Waters too fountain-like foaming. They spread the shape." + +Near the end of the letter came this:-- + +"You remember the chapter of 'The Golden Gondola' that I wrote for the +_People's Pageant_ just before I had the honour to lead to the altar, +&c. I mean the one that ends in the subterranean passage, with +Geraldine's hair down, and her last hope gone, and the three villains +stealing upon her with Venetian subtlety in their hearts and Toledo +daggers (specially imported) in their garters? I didn't care much for it +myself, you remember. I think I must have been thinking of other things +when I wrote it. But you, I recollect, consoled me by refusing to regard +it as other than 'ripping.' 'Clinking' was, as I recall it, Oswald's +consolatory epithet. You'll weep with me, I feel confident, when you +hear that my Editor does not share your sentiments. He writes me that it +is not up to my usual form. He fears that the public, &c., and he trusts +that in the next chapter, &c. Let us hope that the public will, in this +matter, take your views, and not his. Oh! for a really discerning +public, just like you--you amiable critics! Albert's new aunt is +leaning over my shoulder. I can't break her of the distracting habit. +How on earth am I ever to write another line? Greetings to all from + + "ALBERT'S UNCLE AND AUNT. + +"PS.--She insists on having her name put to this, but of course she +didn't write it. I am trying to teach her to spell." + +"PSS.--Italian spelling, of course." + +"And now," cried Oswald, "I see it all!" + +The others didn't. They often don't when Oswald does. + +"Why, don't you see!" he patiently explained, for he knows that it is +vain to be angry with people because they are not so clever as--as other +people. "It's the direct aspiration of Fate. He wants it, does he? Well, +he shall have it!" + +"What?" said everybody. + +"We'll be it." + +"_What?_" was the not very polite remark now repeated by all. + +"Why, his discerning public." + +And still they all remained quite blind to what was so clear to Oswald, +the astute and discernful. + +"It will be much more useful than killing dragons," Oswald went on, +"especially as there aren't any; and it will be a really truly wedding +present--just what we were wishing we'd given him." + +The five others now fell on Oswald and rolled him under the table and +sat on his head so that he had to speak loudly and plainly. + +[Illustration: THE FIVE OTHERS] + +"All right! I'll tell you--in words of one syllable if you like. Let go, +I say!" And when he had rolled out with the others and the tablecloth +that caught on H.O.'s boots and the books and Dora's workbox, and the +glass of paint-water that came down with it, he said-- + +"We will _be_ the public. We will all write to the editor of the +_People's Pageant_ and tell him what we think about the Geraldine +chapter. Do mop up that water, Dora; it's running all under where I'm +sitting." + +"Don't you think," said Dora, devoting her handkerchief and Alice's in +the obedient way she does not always use, "that six letters, all signed +'Bastable,' and all coming from the same house, would be +rather--rather----" + +"A bit too thick? Yes," said Alice; "but of course we'd have all +different names and addresses." + +"We might as well do it thoroughly," said Dicky, "and send three or four +different letters each." + +"And have them posted in different parts of London. Right oh!" remarked +Oswald. + +"_I_ shall write a piece of poetry for mine," said Noel. + +"They ought all to be on different kinds of paper," said Oswald. "Let's +go out and get the paper directly after tea." + +We did, but we could only get fifteen different kinds of paper and +envelopes, though we went to every shop in the village. + +At the first shop, when we said, "Please we want a penn'orth of paper +and envelopes of each of all the different kinds you keep," the lady of +the shop looked at us thinly over blue-rimmed spectacles and said, "What +for?" + +And H.O. said, "To write unonymous letters." + +"Anonymous letters are very wrong," the lady said, and she wouldn't sell +us any paper at all. + +But at the other places we did not say what it was for, and they sold it +us. There were bluey and yellowy and grey and white kinds, and some was +violetish with violets on it, and some pink, with roses. The girls took +the florivorous ones, which Oswald thinks are unmanly for any but girls, +but you excuse their using it. It seems natural to them to mess about +like that. + +We wrote the fifteen letters, disguising our handwritings as much as we +could. It was not easy. Oswald tried to write one of them with his left +hand, but the consequences were almost totally unreadable. Besides, if +any one could have read it, they would only have thought it was written +in an asylum for the insane, the writing was so delirious. So he chucked +it. + +Noel was only allowed to write one poem. It began-- + + "Oh, Geraldine! Oh, Geraldine! + You are the loveliest heroine! + I never read about one before + That made me want to write more + Poetry. And your Venetian eyes, + They must have been an awful size; + And black and blue, and like your hair, + And your nose and chin were a perfect pair." + +and so on for ages. + +The other letters were all saying what a beautiful chapter "Beneath the +Doge's Home" was, and how we liked it better than the other chapters +before, and how we hoped the next would be like it. We found out when +all too late that H.O. had called it the "Dog's Home." But we hoped this +would pass unnoticed among all the others. We read the reviews of books +in the old _Spectators_ and _Athenaeums_, and put in the words they say +there about other people's books. We said we thought that chapter about +Geraldine and the garters was "subtle" and "masterly" and +"inevitable"--that it had an "old-world charm," and was "redolent of the +soil." We said, too, that we had "read it with breathless interest from +cover to cover," and that it had "poignant pathos and a convincing +realism," and the "fine flower of delicate sentiment," besides much +other rot that the author can't remember. + +When all the letters were done we addressed them and stamped them and +licked them down, and then we got different people to post them. Our +under-gardener, who lives in Greenwich, and the other under-gardener, +who lives in Lewisham, and the servants on their evenings out, which +they spend in distant spots like Plaistow and Grove Park--each had a +letter to post. The piano-tuner was a great catch--he lived in Highgate; +and the electric-bell man was Lambeth. So we got rid of all the letters, +and watched the post for a reply. We watched for a week, but no answer +came. + +You think, perhaps, that we were duffers to watch for a reply when we +had signed all the letters with fancy names like Daisy Dolman, Everard +St. Maur, and Sir Cholmondely Marjoribanks, and put fancy addresses on +them, like Chatsworth House, Loampit Vale, and The Bungalow, Eaton +Square. But we were not such idiots as you think, dear reader, and you +are not so extra clever as you think, either. We had written _one_ +letter (it had the grandest _Spectator_ words in it) on our own +letter-paper, with the address on the top and the uncle's coat-of-arms +outside the envelope. Oswald's real own name was signed to this letter, +and this was the one we looked for the answer to. See? + +But that answer did not come. And when three long days had passed away +we all felt most awfully stale about it. Knowing the great good we had +done for Albert's uncle made our interior feelings very little better, +if at all. + +And on the fourth day Oswald spoke up and said what was in everybody's +inside heart. He said-- + +"This is futile rot. I vote we write and ask that editor why he doesn't +answer letters." + +"He wouldn't answer that one any more than he did the other," said Noel. +"Why should he? He knows you can't do anything to him for not." + +"Why shouldn't we go and ask him?" H.O. said. "He couldn't not answer us +if we was all there, staring him in the face." + +"I don't suppose he'd see you," said Dora; "and it's 'were,' not 'was.'" + +"The other editor did when I got the guinea for my beautiful poems," +Noel reminded us. + +"Yes," said the thoughtful Oswald; "but then it doesn't matter how young +you are when you're just a poetry-seller. But we're the discerning +public now, and he'd think we ought to be grown up. I say, Dora, suppose +you rigged yourself up in old Blakie's things. You'd look quite twenty +or thirty." + +Dora looked frightened, and said she thought we'd better not. + +But Alice said, "Well, I will, then. I don't care. I'm as tall as Dora. +But I won't go alone. Oswald, you'll have to dress up old and come too. +It's not much to do for Albert's uncle's sake." + +"You know you'll enjoy it," said Dora, and she may have wished that she +did not so often think that we had better not. However, the dye was now +cast, and the remainder of this adventure was doomed to be coloured by +the dye we now prepared. (This is an allegory. It means we had burned +our boats. And that is another.) + +We decided to do the deed next day, and during the evening Dicky and +Oswald went out and bought a grey beard and moustache, which was the +only thing we could think of to disguise the manly and youthful form of +the bold Oswald into the mature shape of a grown-up and discerning +public character. + +Meanwhile, the girls made tiptoe and brigand-like excursions into Miss +Blake's room (she is the housekeeper) and got several things. Among +others, a sort of undecided thing like part of a wig, which Miss Blake +wears on Sundays. Jane, our housemaid, says it is called a +"transformation," and that duchesses wear them. + +We had to be very secret about the dressing-up that night, and to put +Blakie's things all back when they had been tried on. + +Dora did Alice's hair. She twisted up what little hair Alice has got by +natural means, and tied on a long tail of hair that was Miss Blake's +too. Then she twisted that up, bun-like, with many hairpins. Then the +wiglet, or transformation, was plastered over the front part, and Miss +Blake's Sunday hat, which is of a very brisk character, with half a blue +bird in it, was placed on top of everything. There were several +petticoats used, and a brown dress and some stockings and hankies to +stuff it out where it was too big. A black jacket and crimson tie +completed the picture. We thought Alice would do. + +Then Oswald went out of the room and secretly assumed his dark disguise. +But when he came in with the beard on, and a hat of Father's, the others +were not struck with admiration and respect, like he meant them to be. +They rolled about, roaring with laughter, and when he crept into Miss +Blake's room and turned up the gas a bit, and looked in her long glass, +he owned that they were right and that it was no go. He is tall for his +age, but that beard made him look like some horrible dwarf; and his hair +being so short added to everything. Any idiot could have seen that the +beard had not originally flourished where it now was, but had been +transplanted from some other place of growth. + +And when he laughed, which now became necessary, he really did look most +awful. He has read of beards wagging, but he never saw it before. + +While he was looking at himself the girls had thought of a new idea. + +But Oswald had an inside presentiment that made it some time before he +could even consent to listen to it. But at last, when the others +reminded him that it was a noble act, and for the good of Albert's +uncle, he let them explain the horrid scheme in all its lurid parts. + +It was this: That Oswald should consent to be disguised in women's +raiments and go with Alice to see the Editor. + +No man ever wants to be a woman, and it was a bitter thing for Oswald's +pride, but at last he consented. He is glad he is not a girl. You have +no idea what it is like to wear petticoats, especially long ones. I +wonder that ladies continue to endure their miserable existences. The +top parts of the clothes, too, seemed to be too tight and too loose in +the wrong places. Oswald's head, also, was terribly in the way. He had +no wandering hairs to fasten transformations on to, even if Miss Blake +had had another one, which was not the case. But the girls remembered a +governess they had once witnessed whose hair was brief as any boy's, so +they put a large hat, with a very tight elastic behind, on to Oswald's +head, just as it was, and then with a tickly, pussyish, featherish thing +round his neck, hanging wobblily down in long ends, he looked more +young-lady-like than he will ever feel. + +Some courage was needed for the start next day. Things look so different +in the daylight. + +"Remember Lord Nithsdale coming out of the Tower," said Alice. "Think of +the great cause and be brave," and she tied his neck up. + +"I'm brave all right," said Oswald, "only I do feel such an ass." + +"I feel rather an ape myself," Alice owned, "but I've got +three-penn'orth of peppermints to inspire us with bravery. It is called +Dutch courage, I believe." + +Owing to our telling Jane we managed to get out unseen by Blakie. + +All the others would come, too, in their natural appearance, except that +we made them wash their hands and faces. We happened to be flush of +chink, so we let them come. + +"But if you do," Oswald said, "you must surround us in a hollow square +of four." + +So they did. And we got down to the station all right. But in the train +there were two ladies who stared, and porters and people like that came +round the window far more than there could be any need for. Oswald's +boots must have shown as he got in. He had forgotten to borrow a pair of +Jane's, as he had meant to, and the ones he had on were his largest. His +ears got hotter and hotter, and it got more and more difficult to manage +his feet and hands. He failed to suck any courage, of any nation, from +the peppermints. + +[Illustration: OSWALD SAW THE DRIVER WINK AS HE PUT HIS BOOT ON THE +STEP, AND THE PORTER WHO WAS OPENING THE CAB DOOR WINKED BACK.] + +Owing to the state Oswald's ears were now in, we agreed to take a cab at +Cannon Street. We all crammed in somehow, but Oswald saw the driver wink +as he put his boot on the step, and the porter who was opening the cab +door winked back, and I am sorry to say Oswald forgot that he was a +high-born lady, and he told the porter that he had better jolly well +stow his cheek. Then several bystanders began to try and be funny, and +Oswald knew exactly what particular sort of fool he was being. + +But he bravely silenced the fierce warnings of his ears, and when we got +to the Editor's address we sent Dick up with a large card that we had +written on, + + "MISS DAISY DOLMAN + and + THE RIGHT HONOURABLE MISS + ETHELTRUDA BUSTLER. + On urgent business." + +and Oswald kept himself and Alice concealed in the cab till the return +of the messenger. + +"All right; you're to go up," Dicky came back and said; "but the boy +grinned who told me so. You'd better be jolly careful." + +We bolted like rabbits across the pavement and up the Editor's stairs. + +He was very polite. He asked us to sit down, and Oswald did. But first +he tumbled over the front of his dress because it would get under his +boots, and he was afraid to hold it up, not having practised doing this. + +"I think I have had letters from you?" said the Editor. + +[Illustration: HE LOOKED AT OSWALD'S BOOTS.] + +Alice, who looked terrible with the transformation leaning +right-ear-ward, said yes, and that we had come to say what a fine, +bold conception we thought the Doge's chapter was. This was what we +had settled to say, but she needn't have burst out with it like that. I +suppose she forgot herself. Oswald, in the agitation of his clothes, +could say nothing. The elastic of the hat seemed to be very slowly +slipping up the back of his head, and he knew that, if it once passed +the bump that backs of heads are made with, the hat would spring from +his head like an arrow from a bow. And all would be frustrated. + +"Yes," said the Editor; "that chapter seems to have had a great +success--a wonderful success. I had no fewer than sixteen letters about +it, all praising it in unmeasured terms." He looked at Oswald's boots, +which Oswald had neglected to cover over with his petticoats. He now did +this. + +"It _is_ a nice story, you know," said Alice timidly. + +"So it seems," the gentleman went on. "Fourteen of the sixteen letters +bear the Blackheath postmark. The enthusiasm for the chapter would seem +to be mainly local." + +Oswald would not look at Alice. He could not trust himself, with her +looking like she did. He knew at once that only the piano-tuner and the +electric bell man had been faithful to their trust. The others had all +posted their letters in the pillar-box just outside our gate. They +wanted to get rid of them as quickly as they could, I suppose. +Selfishness is a vile quality. + +The author cannot deny that Oswald now wished he hadn't. The elastic was +certainly moving, slowly, but too surely. Oswald tried to check its +career by swelling out the bump on the back of his head, but he could +not think of the right way to do this. + +"I am very pleased to see you," the Editor went on slowly, and there was +something about the way he spoke that made Oswald think of a cat playing +with a mouse. "Perhaps you can tell me. Are there many spiritualists in +Blackheath? Many clairvoyants?" + +"Eh?" said Alice, forgetting that that is not the way to behave. + +"People who foretell the future?" he said. + +"I don't think so," said Alice. "Why?" + +His eye twinkled. Oswald saw he had wanted her to ask this. + +"Because," said the Editor, more slowly than ever, "I think there must +be. How otherwise can we account for that chapter about the 'Doge's +Home' being read and admired by sixteen different people before it is +even printed. That chapter has not been printed, it has not been +published; it will not be published till the May number of the _People's +Pageant_. Yet in Blackheath sixteen people already appreciate its +subtlety and its realism and all the rest of it. How do you account for +this, Miss Daisy Dolman?" + +"I am the Right Honourable Etheltruda," said Alice. "At least--oh, it's +no use going on. We are not what we seem." + +"Oddly enough, I inferred that at the very beginning of our interview," +said the Editor. + +Then the elastic finished slipping up Oswald's head at the back, and the +hat leapt from his head exactly as he had known it would. He fielded it +deftly, however, and it did not touch the ground. + +"Concealment," said Oswald, "is at an end." + +"So it appears," said the Editor. "Well, I hope next time the author of +the 'Golden Gondola' will choose his instruments more carefully." + +"He didn't! We aren't!" cried Alice, and she instantly told the Editor +everything. + +Concealment being at an end, Oswald was able to get at his trousers +pocket--it did not matter now how many boots he showed--and to get out +Albert's uncle's letter. + +Alice was quite eloquent, especially when the Editor had made her take +off the hat with the blue bird, and the transformation and the tail, so +that he could see what she really looked like. He was quite decent when +he really understood how Albert's uncle's threatened marriage must have +upset his brain while he was writing that chapter, and pondering on the +dark future. + +He began to laugh then, and kept it up till the hour of parting. + +He advised Alice not to put on the transformation and the tail again to +go home in, and she didn't. + +Then he said to me: "Are you in a finished state under Miss Daisy +Dolman?" and when Oswald said, "Yes," the Editor helped him to take off +all the womanly accoutrements, and to do them up in brown paper. And he +lent him a cap to go home in. + +I never saw a man laugh more. He is an excellent sort. + +But no slow passage of years, however many, can ever weaken Oswald's +memory of what those petticoats were like to walk in, and how ripping it +was to get out of them, and have your own natural legs again. + +We parted from that Editor without a strain on anybody's character. + +He must have written to Albert's uncle, and told him all, for we got a +letter next week. It said-- + + "MY DEAR KIDDIES,--Art cannot be forced. Nor can + Fame. May I beg you for the future to confine your + exertions to blowing my trumpet--or Fame's--with + your natural voices? Editors may be led, but they + won't be druv. The Right Honourable Miss + Etheltruda Bustler seems to have aroused a deep + pity for me in my Editor's heart. Let that + suffice. And for the future permit me, as firmly + as affectionately, to reiterate the assurance and + the advice which I have so often breathed in your + long young ears, '_I am not ungrateful; but I do + wish you would mind your own business._'" + +"That's just because we were found out," said Alice. "If we'd succeeded +he'd have been sitting on the top of the pinnacle of Fame, and he would +have owed it all to us. That would have been making him something like a +wedding present." + +What we had really done was to make something very like----but the +author is sure he has said enough. + + + + +_THE FLYING LODGER_ + + +FATHER knows a man called Eustace Sandal. I do not know how to express +his inside soul, but I have heard Father say he means well. He is a +vegetarian and a Primitive Social Something, and an all-wooler, and +things like that, and he is really as good as he can stick, only most +awfully dull. I believe he eats bread and milk from choice. Well, he has +great magnificent dreams about all the things you can do for other +people, and he wants to distill cultivatedness into the sort of people +who live in Model Workmen's Dwellings, and teach them to live up to +better things. This is what he says. So he gives concerts in Camberwell, +and places like that, and curates come from far and near, to sing about +Bold Bandaleros and the Song of the Bow, and people who have escaped +being curates give comic recitings, and he is sure that it does every +one good, and "gives them glimpses of the Life Beautiful." He said that. +Oswald heard him with his own trustworthy ears. Anyway the people enjoy +the concerts no end, and that's the great thing. + +Well, he came one night, with a lot of tickets he wanted to sell, and +Father bought some for the servants, and Dora happened to go in to get +the gum for a kite we were making, and Mr. Sandal said, "Well, my little +maiden, would you not like to come on Thursday evening, and share in the +task of raising our poor brothers and sisters to the higher levels of +culture?" So of course Dora said she would, very much. Then he explained +about the concert, calling her "My little one," and "dear child," which +Alice never would have borne, but Dora is not of a sensitive nature, and +hardly minds what she is called, so long as it is not names, which she +does not deem "dear child" and cetera to be, though Oswald would. + +Dora was quite excited about it, and the stranger so worked upon her +feelings that she accepted the deep responsibility of selling tickets, +and for a week there was no bearing her. I believe she did sell nine, to +people in Lewisham and New Cross who knew no better. And Father bought +tickets for all of us, and when the eventful evening dawned we went to +Camberwell by train and tram _via_ Miss Blake (that means we shouldn't +have been allowed to go without her). + +The tram ride was rather jolly, but when we got out and walked we felt +like "Alone in London," or "Jessica's First Prayer," because Camberwell +is a devastating region that makes you think of rickety attics with the +wind whistling through them, or miserable cellars where forsaken +children do wonders by pawning their relations' clothes and looking +after the baby. It was a dampish night, and we walked on greasy mud. And +as we walked along Alice kicked against something on the pavement, and +it chinked, and when she picked it up it was five bob rolled up in +newspaper. + +"I expect it's somebody's little all," said Alice, "and the cup was +dashed from their lips just when they were going to joyfully spend it. +We ought to give it to the police." + +But Miss Blake said no, and that we were late already, so we went on, +and Alice held the packet in her muff throughout the concert which +ensued. I will not tell you anything about the concert except that it +was quite fairly jolly--you must have been to these Self-Raising +Concerts in the course of your young lives. + +When it was over we reasoned with Miss Blake, and she let us go through +the light blue paper door beside the stage and find Mr. Sandal. We +thought he might happen to hear who had lost the five bob, and return it +to its sorrowing family. He was in a great hurry, but he took the chink +and said he'd let us know if anything happened. Then we went home very +cheerful, singing bits of the comic songs a bishop's son had done in +the concert, and little thinking what we were taking home with us. + +It was only a few days after this, or perhaps a week, that we all began +to be rather cross. Alice, usually as near a brick as a girl can go, was +the worst of the lot, and if you said what you thought of her she +instantly began to snivel. And we all had awful colds, and our +handkerchiefs gave out, and then our heads ached. Oswald's head was +particularly hot, I remember, and he wanted to rest it on the backs of +chairs or on tables--or anything steady. + +But why prolong the painful narrative? What we had brought home from +Camberwell was the measles, and as soon as the grown-ups recognised the +Grim Intruder for the fell disease it is we all went to bed, and there +was an end of active adventure for some time. + +Of course, when you begin to get better there are grapes and other +luxuries not of everyday occurrences, but while you're sniffling and +fevering in bed, as red as a lobster and blazing hot, you are inclined +to think it is a heavy price to pay for any concert, however raising. + +Mr. Sandal came to see Father the very day we all marched Bedward. He +had found the owner of the five shillings. It was a doctor's fee, about +to be paid by the parent of a thoroughly measly family. And if we had +taken it to the police at once Alice would not have held it in her hand +all through the concert--but I will not blame Blakie. She was a jolly +good nurse, and read aloud to us with unfatiguable industry while we +were getting better. + +Our having fallen victims to this disgusting complaint ended in our +being sent to the seaside. Father could not take us himself, so we went +to stay with a sister of Mr. Sandal's. She was like him, only more so in +every way. + +The journey was very joyous. Father saw us off at Cannon Street, and we +had a carriage to ourselves all the way, and we passed the station where +Oswald would not like to be a porter. Rude boys at this station put +their heads out of the window and shout, "Who's a duffer?" and things +like that, and the porters _have_ to shout "I am!" because Higham is the +name of the station, and porters have seldom any H's with which to +protect themselves from this cruel joke. + +It was a glorious moment when the train swooped out of a tunnel and we +looked over the downs and saw the grey-blue line that was the sea. We +had not seen the sea since before Mother died. I believe we older ones +all thought of that, and it made us quieter than the younger ones were. +I do not want to forget anything, but it makes you feel empty and stupid +when you remember some things. + +There was a good drive in a waggonette after we got to our station. +There were primroses under some of the hedges, and lots of dog-violets. +And at last we got to Miss Sandal's house. It is before you come to the +village, and it is a little square white house. There is a big old +windmill at the back of it. It is not used any more for grinding corn, +but fishermen keep their nets in it. + +Miss Sandal came out of the green gate to meet us. She had a soft, drab +dress and a long thin neck, and her hair was drab too, and it was +screwed up tight. + +She said, "Welcome, one and all!" in a kind voice, but it was too much +like Mr. Sandal's for me. And we went in. She showed us the +sitting-rooms, and the rooms where we were to sleep, and then she left +us to wash our hands and faces. When we were alone we burst open the +doors of our rooms with one consent, and met on the landing with a rush +like the great rivers of America. + +"_Well!_" said Oswald, and the others said the same. + +"Of all the rummy cribs!" remarked Dicky. + +"It's like a workhouse or a hospital," said Dora. "I think I like it." + +"It makes me think of bald-headed gentlemen," said H.O., "it is so +bare." + +It was. All the walls were white plaster, the furniture was white +deal--what there was of it, which was precious little. There were no +carpets--only white matting. And there was not a single ornament in a +single room! There was a clock on the dining-room mantel-piece, but that +could not be counted as an ornament because of the useful side of its +character. There were only about six pictures--all of a brownish colour. +One was the blind girl sitting on an orange with a broken fiddle. It is +called Hope. + +When we were clean Miss Sandal gave us tea. As we sat down she said, +"The motto of our little household is 'Plain living and high thinking.'" + +And some of us feared for an instant that this might mean not enough to +eat. But fortunately this was not the case. There was plenty, but all of +a milky, bunny, fruity, vegetable sort. We soon got used to it, and +liked it all right. + +Miss Sandal was very kind. She offered to read aloud to us after tea, +and, exchanging glances of despair, some of us said that we should like +it very much. + +It was Oswald who found the manly courage to say very politely-- + +"Would it be all the same to you if we went and looked at the sea first? +Because----" + +And she said, "Not at all," adding something about "Nature, the dear old +nurse, taking somebody on her knee," and let us go. + +We asked her which way, and we tore up the road and through the village +and on to the sea-wall, and then with six joyous bounds we leaped down +on to the sand. + +The author will not bother you with a description of the mighty billows +of ocean, which you must have read about, if not seen, but he will just +say what perhaps you are not aware of--that seagulls eat clams and +mussels and cockles, and crack the shells with their beaks. The author +has seen this done. + +You also know, I suppose, that you can dig in the sand (if you have a +spade) and make sand castles, and stay in them till the tide washes you +out. + +I will say no more, except that when we gazed upon the sea and the sand +we felt we did not care tuppence how highly Miss Sandal might think of +us or how plainly she might make us live, so long as we had got the +briny deep to go down to. + +It was too early in the year and too late in the day to bathe, but we +paddled, which comes to much the same thing, and you almost always have +to change everything afterwards. + +When it got dark we had to go back to the White House, and there was +supper, and then we found that Miss Sandal did not keep a servant, so of +course we offered to help wash up. H.O. only broke two plates. + +Nothing worth telling about happened till we had been there over a week, +and had got to know the coastguards and a lot of the village people +quite well. I do like coastguards. They seem to know everything you want +to hear about. Miss Sandal used to read to us out of poetry books, and +about a chap called Thoreau, who could tickle fish, and they liked it, +and let him. She was kind, but rather like her house--there was +something bare and bald about her inside mind, I believe. She was very, +very calm, and said that people who lost their tempers were not living +the higher life. But one day a telegram came, and then she was not calm +at all. She got quite like other people, and quite shoved H.O. for +getting in her way when she was looking for her purse to pay for the +answer to the telegram. + +Then she said to Dora--and she was pale and her eyes red, just like +people who live the lower or ordinary life--"My dears, it's dreadful! My +poor brother! He's had a fall. I must go to him at _once_." And she sent +Oswald to order the fly from the Old Ship Hotel, and the girls to see if +Mrs. Beale would come and take care of us while she was away. Then she +kissed us all and went off very unhappy. We heard afterwards that poor, +worthy Mr. Sandal had climbed a scaffolding to give a workman a tract +about drink, and he didn't know the proper part of the scaffolding to +stand on (the workman did, of course) so he fetched down half a dozen +planks and the workman, and if a dust-cart hadn't happened to be passing +just under so that they fell into it their lives would not have been +spared. As it was Mr. Sandal broke his arm and his head. The workman +escaped unscathed but furious. The workman was a teetotaler. + +Mrs. Beale came, and the first thing she did was to buy a leg of mutton +and cook it. It was the first meat we had had since arriving at +Lymchurch. + +[Illustration: HE FETCHED DOWN HALF A DOZEN PLANKS AND THE WORKMAN.] + +"I 'spect she can't afford good butcher's meat," said Mrs. Beale; "but +your pa, I expect he pays for you, and I lay he'd like you to have your +fill of something as'll lay acrost your chesties." So she made a +Yorkshire pudding as well. It was good. + +After dinner we sat on the sea-wall, feeling more like after dinner than +we had felt for days, and Dora said-- + +"Poor Miss Sandal! I never thought about her being hard-up, somehow. I +wish we could do something to help her." + +"We might go out street-singing," Noel said. But that was no good, +because there is only one street in the village, and the people there +are much too poor for one to be able to ask them for anything. And all +round it is fields with only sheep, who have nothing to give except +their wool, and when it comes to taking that, they are never asked. + +Dora thought we might get Father to give her money, but Oswald knew this +would never do. + +Then suddenly a thought struck some one--I will not say who--and that +some one said-- + +"She ought to let lodgings, like all the other people do in Lymchurch." + +That was the beginning of it. The end--for that day--was our getting the +top of a cardboard box and printing on it the following lines in as +many different coloured chalks as we happened to have with us. + + LODGINGS TO LET. + + ENQUIRE INSIDE. + +We ruled spaces for the letters to go in, and did it very neatly. When +we went to bed we stuck it in our bedroom window with stamp-paper. + +In the morning when Oswald drew up his blind there was quite a crowd of +kids looking at the card. Mrs. Beale came out and shoo-ed them away as +if they were hens. And we did not have to explain the card to her at +all. She never said anything about it. I never knew such a woman as Mrs. +Beale for minding her own business. She said afterwards she supposed +Miss Sandal had told us to put up the card. + +Well, two or three days went by, and nothing happened, only we had a +letter from Miss Sandal, telling us how the poor sufferer was groaning, +and one from Father telling us to be good children, and not get into +scrapes. And people who drove by used to look at the card and laugh. + +And then one day a carriage came driving up with a gentleman in it, and +he saw the rainbow beauty of our chalked card, and he got out and came +up the path. He had a pale face, and white hair and very bright eyes +that moved about quickly like a bird's, and he was dressed in a quite +new tweed suit that did not fit him very well. + +Dora and Alice answered the door before any one had time to knock, and +the author has reason to believe their hearts were beating wildly. + +"How much?" said the gentleman shortly. + +Alice and Dora were so surprised by his suddenness that they could only +reply-- + +"Er--er----" + +"Just so," said the gentleman briskly as Oswald stepped modestly forward +and said-- + +"Won't you come inside?" + +"The very thing," said he, and came in. + +We showed him into the dining-room and asked him to excuse us a minute, +and then held a breathless council outside the door. + +"It depends how many rooms he wants," said Dora. + +"Let's say so much a room," said Dicky, "and extra if he wants Mrs. +Beale to wait on him." + +So we decided to do this. We thought a pound a room seemed fair. + +And we went back. + +"How many rooms do you want?" Oswald asked. + +"All the room there is," said the gentleman. + +"They are a pound each," said Oswald, "and extra for Mrs. Beale." + +"How much altogether?" + +Oswald thought a minute and then said "Nine rooms is nine pounds, and +two pounds a week for Mrs. Beale, because she is a widow." + +[Illustration: "HOW MUCH?" SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY.] + +"Done!" said the gentleman. "I'll go and fetch my portmanteaus." + +He bounced up and out and got into his carriage and drove away. It was +not till he was finally gone quite beyond recall that Alice suddenly +said-- + +"But if he has all the rooms where are _we_ to sleep?" + +"He must be awfully rich," said H.O., "wanting all those rooms." + +"Well, he can't sleep in more than one at once," said Dicky, "however +rich he is. We might wait till he was bedded down and then sleep in the +rooms he didn't want." + +But Oswald was firm. He knew that if the man paid for the rooms he must +have them to himself. + +"He won't sleep in the kitchen," said Dora; "couldn't we sleep there?" + +But we all said we couldn't and wouldn't. + +Then Alice suddenly said-- + +"I know! The Mill. There are heaps and heaps of fishing-nets there, and +we could each take a blanket like Indians and creep over under cover of +the night after the Beale has gone, and get back before she comes in the +morning." + +It seemed a sporting thing to do, and we agreed. Only Dora said she +thought it would be draughty. + +Of course we went over to the Mill at once to lay our plans and prepare +for the silent watches of the night. + +There are three stories to a windmill, besides the ground-floor. The +first floor is pretty empty; the next is nearly full of millstones and +machinery, and the one above is where the corn runs down from on to the +millstones. + +We settled to let the girls have the first floor, which was covered with +heaps of nets, and we would pig in with the millstones on the floor +above. + +We had just secretly got out the last of the six blankets from the house +and got it into the Mill disguised in a clothes-basket, when we heard +wheels, and there was the gentleman back again. He had only got one +portmanteau after all, and that was a very little one. + +Mrs. Beale was bobbing at him in the doorway when we got up. Of course +we had told her he had rented rooms, but we had not said how many, for +fear she should ask where we were going to sleep, and we had a feeling +that but few grown-ups would like our sleeping in a mill, however much +we were living the higher life by sacrificing ourselves to get money for +Miss Sandal. + +The gentleman ordered sheep's-head and trotters for dinner, and when he +found he could not have that he said-- + +"Gammon and spinach!" + +But there was not any spinach in the village, so he had to fall back on +eggs and bacon. Mrs. Beale cooked it, and when he had fallen back on it +she washed up and went home. And we were left. We could hear the +gentleman singing to himself, something about woulding he was a bird +that he might fly to thee. + +Then we got the lanterns that you take when you go "up street" on a dark +night, and we crept over to the Mill. It was much darker than we +expected. + +We decided to keep our clothes on, partly for warmness and partly in +case of any sudden alarm or the fishermen wanting their nets in the +middle of the night, which sometimes happens if the tide is favourable. + +We let the girls keep the lantern, and we went up with a bit of candle +Dicky had saved, and tried to get comfortable among the millstones and +machinery, but it was not easy, and Oswald, for one, was not sorry when +he heard the voice of Dora calling in trembling tones from the floor +below. + +"Oswald! Dicky!" said the voice, "I wish one of you would come down a +sec." + +Oswald flew to the assistance of his distressed sister. + +"It's only that we're a little bit uncomfortable," she whispered. "I +didn't want to yell it out because of Noel and H.O. I don't want to +frighten them, but I can't help feeling that if anything popped out of +the dark at us I should die. Can't you all come down here? The nets are +quite comfortable, and I do wish you would." + +Alice said she was not frightened, but suppose there were rats, which +are said to infest old buildings, especially mills? + +So we consented to come down, and we told Noel and H.O. to come down +because it was more comfy, and it is easier to settle yourself for the +night among fishing-nets than among machinery. There _was_ a rustling +now and then among the heap of broken chairs and jack-planes and baskets +and spades and hoes and bits of the spars of ships at the far end of our +sleeping apartment, but Dicky and Oswald resolutely said it was the wind +or else jackdaws making their nests, though, of course, they knew this +is not done at night. + +Sleeping in a mill was not nearly the fun we had thought it would +be--somehow. For one thing, it was horrid not having a pillow, and the +fishing-nets were so stiff you could not bunch them up properly to make +one. And unless you have been born and bred a Red Indian you do not know +how to manage your blanket so as to make it keep out the draughts. And +when we had put out the light Oswald more than once felt as though +earwigs and spiders were walking on his face in the dark, but when we +struck a match there was nothing there. + +And empty mills do creak and rustle and move about in a very odd way. +Oswald was not afraid, but he did think we might as well have slept in +the kitchen, because the gentleman could not have wanted to use that +when he was asleep. You see, we thought then that he would sleep all +night like other people. + +We got to sleep at last, and in the night the girls edged up to their +bold brothers, so that when the morning sun "shone in bars of dusty gold +through the chinks of the aged edifice" and woke us up we were all lying +in a snuggly heap like a litter of puppies. + +"Oh, I _am_ so stiff!" said Alice, stretching. "I never slept in my +clothes before. It makes me feel as if I had been starched and ironed +like a boy's collar." + +We all felt pretty much the same. And our faces were tired too, and +stiff, which was rum, and the author cannot account for it, unless it +really was spiders that walked on us. I believe the ancient Greeks +considered them to be venomous, and perhaps that's how their venom +influences their victims. + +"I think mills are merely beastly," remarked H.O. when we had woke him +up. "You can't wash yourself or brush your hair or anything." + +"You aren't always so jolly particular about your hair," said Dicky. + +"Don't be so disagreeable," said Dora. + +And Dicky rejoined, "Disagreeable yourself!" + +There is certainly something about sleeping in your clothes that makes +you feel not so kind and polite as usual. I expect this is why tramps +are so fierce and knock people down in lonely roads and kick them. +Oswald knows he felt just like kicking any one if they had happened to +cheek him the least little bit. But by a fortunate accident nobody did. + +The author believes there is a picture called "Hopeless Dawn." We felt +exactly like that. Nothing seemed the least bit of good. + +It was a pitiful band with hands and faces dirtier than any one would +believe who had not slept in a mill or witnessed others who had done so, +that crossed the wet, green grass between the Mill and the white house. + +"I shan't ever put morning dew into my poetry again," Noel said; "it is +not nearly so poetical as people make out, and it is as cold as ice, +right through your boots." + +We felt rather better when we had had a good splash in the brick-paved +back kitchen that Miss Sandal calls the bath-room. And Alice made a fire +and boiled a kettle and we had some tea and eggs. Then we looked at the +clock and it was half-past five. So we hastened to get into another part +of the house before Mrs. Beale came. + +"I wish we'd tried to live the higher life some less beastly way," said +Dicky as we went along the passage. + +"Living the higher life always hurts at the beginning," Alice said. "I +expect it's like new boots, only when you've got used to it you're glad +you bore it at first. Let's listen at the doors till we find out where +he isn't sleeping." + +So we listened at all the bedroom doors, but not a snore was heard. + +"Perhaps he was a burglar," said H.O., "and only pretended to want +lodgings so as to get in and bone all the valuables." + +"There aren't any valuables," said Noel, and this was quite true, for +Miss Sandal had no silver or jewellery except a brooch of pewter, and +the very teaspoons were of wood--very hard to keep clean and having to +be scraped. + +"Perhaps he sleeps without snoring," said Oswald, "some people do." + +"Not old gentlemen," said Noel; "think of our Indian uncle--H.O. used to +think it was bears at first." + +"Perhaps he rises with the lark," said Alice, "and is wondering why +brekker isn't ready." + +So then we listened at the sitting-room doors, and through the keyhole +of the parlour we heard a noise of some one moving, and then in a soft +whistle the tune of the "Would I were a bird" song. + +So then we went into the dining-room to sit down. But when we opened the +door we almost fell in a heap on the matting, and no one had breath for +a word--not even for "Krikey," which was what we all thought. + +I have read of people who could not believe their eyes; and I have +always thought it such rot of them, but now, as the author gazed on the +scene, he really could not be quite sure that he was not in a dream, and +that the gentleman and the night in the Mill weren't dreams too. + +"Pull back the curtains," Alice said, and we did. I wish I could make +the reader feel as astonished as we did. + +The last time we had seen the room the walls had been bare and white. +Now they were covered with the most splendid drawings you can think of, +all done in coloured chalk--I don't mean mixed up, like we do with our +chalks--but one picture was done in green, and another in brown, and +another in red, and so on. And the chalk must have been of some fat +radiant kind quite unknown to us, for some of the lines were over an +inch thick. + +"How perfectly _lovely_!" Alice said; "he must have sat up all night to +do it. He _is_ good. I expect he's trying to live the higher life, +too--just going about doing secretly, and spending his time making other +people's houses pretty." + +"I wonder what he'd have done if the room had had a large pattern of +brown roses on it, like Mrs. Beale's," said Noel. "I say, _look_ at that +angel! Isn't it poetical? It makes me feel I must write something about +it." + +It _was_ a good angel--all drawn in grey, that was--with very wide wings +going right across the room, and a whole bundle of lilies in his arms. +Then there were seagulls and ravens, and butterflies, and ballet girls +with butterflies' wings, and a man with artificial wings being fastened +on, and you could see he was just going to jump off a rock. And there +were fairies, and bats, and flying-foxes, and flying-fish. And one +glorious winged horse done in red chalk--and his wings went from one +side of the room to the other, and crossed the angel's. There were +dozens and dozens of birds--all done in just a few lines--but exactly +right. You couldn't make any mistake about what anything was meant for. + +And all the things, whatever they were, had wings to them. How Oswald +wishes that those pictures had been done in his house! + +While we stood gazing, the door of the other room opened, and the +gentleman stood before us, more covered with different-coloured chalks +than I should have thought he could have got, even with all those +drawings, and he had a thing made of wire and paper in his hand, and he +said-- + +"Wouldn't you like to fly?" + +"Yes," said every one. + +"Well then," he said, "I've got a nice little flying-machine here. I'll +fit it on to one of you, and then you jump out of the attic window. You +don't know what it's like to fly." + +We said we would rather not. + +"But I insist," said the gentleman. "I have your real interest at heart, +my children--I can't allow you in your ignorance to reject the chance of +a lifetime." + +We still said "No, thank you," and we began to feel very uncomfy, for +the gentleman's eyes were now rolling wildly. + +"Then I'll _make_ you!" he said, catching hold of Oswald. + +[Illustration: "THEN I'LL _MAKE_ YOU!" HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF +OSWALD.] + +"You jolly well won't," cried Dicky, catching hold of the arm of the +gentleman. + +Then Dora said very primly and speaking rather slowly, and she was very +pale-- + +"I think it would be lovely to fly. Will you just show me how the +flying-machine looks when it is unfolded?" + +The gentleman dropped Oswald, and Dora made "Go! go" with her lips +without speaking, while he began to unfold the flying-machine. We others +went, Oswald lingering last, and then in an instant Dora had nipped out +of the room and banged the door and locked it. + +"To the Mill!" she cried, and we ran like mad, and got in and barred the +big door, and went up to the first floor, and looked out of the big +window to warn off Mrs. Beale. + +And we thumped Dora on the back, and Dicky called her a Sherlock Holmes, +and Noel said she was a heroine. + +"It wasn't anything," Dora said, just before she began to cry, "only I +remember reading that you must pretend to humour them, and then get +away, for of course I saw at once he was a lunatic. Oh, how awful it +might have been! He could have made us all jump out of the attic window, +and there would have been no one left to tell Father. Oh! oh!" and then +the crying began. + +But we were proud of Dora, and I am sorry we make fun of her sometimes, +but it is difficult not to. + +We decided to signal the first person that passed, and we got Alice to +take off her red flannel petticoat for a signal. + +The first people who came were two men in a dog-cart. We waved the +signalising petticoat and they pulled up, and one got out and came up to +the Mill. + +We explained about the lunatic and the wanting us to jump out of the +windows. + +"Right oh!" cried the man to the one still in the cart; "got him." And +the other hitched the horse to the gate and came over, and the other +went to the house. + +"Come along down, young ladies and gentlemen," said the second man when +he had been told. "He's as gentle as a lamb. He does not think it hurts +to jump out of windows. He thinks it really is flying. He'll be like an +angel when he sees the doctor." + +We asked if he had been mad before, because we had thought he might have +suddenly gone so. + +"Certainly he has!" replied the man; "he has never been, so to say, +himself since tumbling out of a flying-machine he went up in with a +friend. He was an artist previous to that--an excellent one, I believe. +But now he only draws objects with wings--and now and then he wants to +make people fly--perfect strangers sometimes, like yourselves. Yes, +miss, I am his attendant, and his pictures often amuse me by the +half-hours together, poor gentleman." + +"How did he get away?" Alice asked. + +"Well, miss, the poor gentleman's brother got hurt and Mr. +Sidney--that's him inside--seemed wonderfully put out and hung over the +body in a way pitiful to see. But really he was extracting the cash from +the sufferer's pockets. Then, while all of us were occupied with Mr. +Eustace, Mr. Sidney just packs his portmanteau and out he goes by the +back door. When we missed him we sent for Dr. Baker, but by the time he +came it was too late to get here. Dr. Baker said at once he'd revert to +his boyhood's home. And the doctor has proved correct." + +We had all come out of the Mill, and with this polite person we went to +the gate, and saw the lunatic get into the carriage, very gentle and +gay. + +"But, Doctor," Oswald said, "he did say he'd give nine pounds a week for +the rooms. Oughtn't he to pay?" + +"You might have known he was mad to say that," said the doctor. "No. Why +should he, when it's his own sister's house? Gee up!" + +And he left us. + +It was sad to find the gentleman was not a Higher Life after all, but +only mad. And I was more sorry than ever for poor Miss Sandal. As Oswald +pointed out to the girls they are much more blessed in their brothers +than Miss Sandal is, and they ought to be more grateful than they are. + + + + +_THE SMUGGLER'S REVENGE_ + + +THE days went on and Miss Sandal did not return. We went on being very +sorry about Miss Sandal being so poor, and it was not our fault that +when we tried to let the house in lodgings, the first lodger proved to +be a lunatic of the deepest dye. Miss Sandal must have been a fairly +decent sort, because she seems not to have written to Father about it. +At any rate he didn't give it us in any of our letters, about our good +intentions and their ending in a maniac. + +Oswald does not like giving up a thing just because it has once been +muffed. The muffage of a plan is a thing that often happens at first to +heroes--like Bruce and the spider, and other great characters. Beside, +grown-ups always say-- + + "If at first you don't succeed, + Try, try, try again!" + +And if this is the rule for Euclid and rule-of-three and all the things +you would rather not do, think how much more it must be the rule when +what you are after is your own idea, and not just the rotten notion of +that beast Euclid, or the unknown but equally unnecessary author who +composed the multiplication table. So we often talked about what we +could do to make Miss Sandal rich. It gave us something to jaw about +when we happened to want to sit down for a bit, in between all the +glorious wet sandy games that happen by the sea. + +Of course if we wanted real improving conversation we used to go up to +the boat-house and talk to the coastguards. I do think coastguards are +A1. They are just the same as sailors, having been so in their youth, +and you can get at them to talk to, which is not the case with sailors +who are at sea (or even in harbours) on ships. Even if you had the luck +to get on to a man-of-war, you would very likely not be able to climb to +the top-gallants to talk to the man there. Though in books the young +hero always seems able to climb to the mast-head the moment he is told +to. The coastguards told us tales of Southern ports, and of shipwrecks, +and officers they had _not_ cottoned to, and messmates that they _had_, +but when we asked them about smuggling they said there wasn't any to +speak of nowadays. + +"I expect they think they oughtn't to talk about such dark crimes before +innocent kids like us," said Dicky afterwards, and he grinned as he said +it. + +"Yes," said Alice; "they don't know how much we know about smugglers, +and bandits, and highwaymen, and burglars, and coiners," and she sighed, +and we all felt sad to think that we had not now any chance to play at +being these things. + +"We might play smugglers," said Oswald. + +But he did not speak hopefully. The worst of growing up is that you seem +to want more and more to have a bit of the real thing in your games. +Oswald could not now be content to play at bandits and just capture +Albert next door, as once, in happier days, he was pleased and proud to +do. + +It was not a coastguard that told us about the smugglers. It was a very +old man that we met two or three miles along the beach. He was leaning +against a boat that was wrong way up on the shingle, and smoking the +strongest tobacco Oswald's young nose has ever met. I think it must have +been Black Jack. We said, "How do you do?" and Alice said, "Do you mind +if we sit down near you?" + +"Not me," replied the aged seafarer. We could see directly that he was +this by his jersey and his sea-boots. + +The girls sat down on the beach, but we boys leaned against the boat +like the seafaring one. We hoped he would join in conversation, but at +first he seemed too proud. And there was something dignified about him, +bearded and like a Viking, that made it hard for us to begin. + +At last he took his pipe out of his mouth and said-- + +"Here's a precious Quakers' meeting! You didn't set down here just for +to look at me?" + +"I'm sure you look very nice," Dora said. + +"Same to you, miss, I'm sure," was the polite reply. + +"We want to talk to you awfully," said Alice, "if you don't mind?" + +"Talk away," said he. + +And then, as so often happens, no one could think of anything to say. + +Suddenly Noel said, "_I_ think you look nice too, but I think you look +as though you had a secret history. Have you?" + +"Not me," replied the Viking-looking stranger. "I ain't got no history, +nor jog-graphy neither. They didn't give us that much schooling when I +was a lad." + +"Oh!" replied Noel; "but what I really meant was, were you ever a pirate +or anything?" + +"Never in all my born," replied the stranger, now thoroughly roused; +"I'd scorn the haction. I was in the navy, I was, till I lost the sight +of my eye, looking too close at gunpowder. Pirates is snakes, and they +ought to be killed as such." + +We felt rather sorry, for though of course it is very wrong to be a +pirate, it is very interesting too. Things are often like this. That is +one of the reasons why it is so hard to be truly good. + +Dora was the only one who was pleased. She said-- + +"Yes, pirates _are_ very wrong. And so are highwaymen and smugglers." + +"I don't know about highwaymen," the old man replied; "they went out +afore my time, worse luck; but my father's great-uncle by the mother's +side, he see one hanged once. A fine upstanding fellow he was, and made +a speech while they was a-fitting of the rope. All the women was +snivelling and sniffing and throwing bokays at him." + +"Did any of the bouquets reach him?" asked the interested Alice. + +"Not likely," said the old man. "Women can't never shy straight. But I +shouldn't wonder but what them posies heartened the chap up a bit. An +afterwards they was all a-fightin' to get a bit of the rope he was hung +with, for luck." + +"Do tell us some more about him," said all of us but Dora. + +"I don't know no more about him. He was just hung--that's all. They was +precious fond o' hangin' in them old far-away times." + +"Did you ever know a smuggler?" asked H.O.--"to speak to, I mean?" + +"Ah, that's tellings," said the old man, and he winked at us all. + +So then we instantly knew that the coastguards had been mistaken when +they said there were no more smugglers now, and that this brave old man +would not betray his comrades, even to friendly strangers like us. But +of course he could not know exactly how friendly we were. So we told +him. + +Oswald said-- + +"We _love_ smugglers. We wouldn't even tell a word about it if you would +only tell us." + +"There used to be lots of smuggling on these here coasts when my father +was a boy," he said; "my own father's cousin, his father took to the +smuggling, and he was a doin' so well at it, that what does he do, but +goes and gets married, and the Preventives they goes and nabs him on his +wedding-day, and walks him straight off from the church door, and claps +him in Dover Jail." + +"Oh, his poor wife," said Alice, "whatever did she do?" + +"_She_ didn't do nothing," said the old man. "It's a woman's place not +to do nothing till she's told to. He'd done so well at the smuggling, +he'd saved enough by his honest toil to take a little public. So she +sets there awaitin' and attendin' to customers--for well she knowed him, +as he wasn't the chap to let a bit of a jail stand in the way of his +station in life. Well, it was three weeks to a day after the wedding, +there comes a dusty chap to the 'Peal of Bells' door. That was the sign +over the public, you understand." + +We said we did, and breathlessly added, "Go on!" + +"A dusty chap he was; got a beard and a patch over one eye, and he come +of a afternoon when there was no one about the place but her. + +"'Hullo, missis,' says he; 'got a room for a quiet chap?' + +"'I don't take in no men-folks,' says she; 'can't be bothered with 'em.' + +"'You'll be bothered with _me_, if I'm not mistaken,' says he. + +"'Bothered if I will,' says she. + +"'Bothered if you won't,' says he, and with that he ups with his hand +and off comes the black patch, and he pulls off the beard and gives her +a kiss and a smack on the shoulder. She always said she nearly died when +she see it was her new-made bridegroom under the beard. + +"So she took her own man in as a lodger, and he went to work up at +Upton's Farm with his beard on, and of nights he kept up the smuggling +business. And for a year or more no one knowd as it was him. But they +got him at last." + +"What became of him?" We all asked it. + +"He's dead," said the old man. "But, Lord love you, so's everybody as +lived in them far-off old ancient days--all dead--Preventives too--and +smugglers and gentry: all gone under the daisies." + +We felt quite sad. Oswald hastily asked if there wasn't any smuggling +now. + +"Not hereabouts," the old man answered, rather quickly for him. "Don't +you go for to think it. But I did know a young chap--quite young he is +with blue eyes--up Sunderland way it was. He'd got a goodish bit o' +baccy and stuff done up in a ole shirt. And as he was a-goin' up off of +the beach a coastguard jumps out at him, and he says to himself, 'All u. +p. this time,' says he. But out loud he says, 'Hullo, Jack, that you? I +thought you was a tramp,' says he. + +"'What you got in that bundle?' says the coastguard. + +"'My washing,' says he, 'and a couple pairs of old boots.' + +"Then the coastguard he says, 'Shall I give you a lift with it?' +thinking in himself the other chap wouldn't part if it was anything it +oughtn't to be. But that young chap was too sharp. He says to himself, +'If I don't he'll nail me, and if I do--well, there's just a chance.' + +"So he hands over the bundle, and the coastguard he thinks it must be +all right, and he carries it all the way up to his mother's for him, +feeling sorry for the mean suspicions he'd had about the poor old chap. +But that didn't happen near here. No, no." + +I think Dora was going to say, "_Old_ chap--but I thought he was young +with blue eyes?" but just at that minute a coastguard came along and +ordered us quite harshly not to lean on the boat. He was quite +disagreeable about it--how different from our own coastguards! He was +from a different station to theirs. The old man got off very slowly. +And all the time he was arranging his long legs so as to stand on them, +the coastguard went on being disagreeable as hard as he could, in a loud +voice. + +[Illustration: A COASTGUARD ORDERED US QUITE HARSHLY NOT TO LEAN ON THE +BOAT.] + +When our old man had told the coastguard that no one ever lost anything +by keeping a civil tongue in his head, we all went away feeling very +angry. + +Alice took the old man's hand as we went back to the village, and asked +him why the coastguard was so horrid. + +"They gets notions into their heads," replied the old man; "the most +innocentest people they comes to think things about. It's along of there +being no smuggling in these ere parts now. The coastguards ain't got +nothing to do except think things about honest people." + +We parted from the old man very warmly, all shaking hands. He lives at a +cottage not quite in the village, and keeps pigs. We did not say goodbye +till we had seen all the pigs. + +I daresay we should not have gone on disliking that disagreeable +coastguard so much if he had not come along one day when we were talking +to our own coastguards, and asked why they allowed a pack of young +shavers in the boat-house. We went away in silent dignity, but we did +not forget, and when we were in bed that night Oswald said-- + +"Don't you think it would be a good thing if the coastguards had +something to do?" + +Dicky yawned and said he didn't know. + +"I should like to be a smuggler," said Oswald. "Oh, yes, go to sleep if +you like; but I've got an idea, and if you'd rather be out of it I'll +have Alice instead." + +"Fire away!" said Dicky, now full of attention, and leaning on his +elbow. + +"Well, then," said Oswald, "I think we _might_ be smugglers." + +"We've played all those things so jolly often," said Dicky. + +"But I don't mean play," said Oswald. "I mean the real thing. Of course +we should have to begin in quite a small way. But we should get on in +time. And we might make quite a lot for poor Miss Sandal." + +"Things that you smuggle are expensive," said Dicky. + +"Well, we've got the chink the Indian uncle sent us on Saturday. I'm +certain we could do it. We'd get some one to take us out at night in one +of the fishing-boats--just tear across to France and buy a keg or a bale +or something, and rush back." + +"Yes, and get nabbed and put in prison. Not me," said Dicky. "Besides, +who'd take us?" + +"That old Viking man would," said Oswald; "but of course, if you funk +it!" + +"I don't funk anything," said Dicky, "bar making an ape of myself. Keep +your hair on, Oswald. Look here. Suppose we get a keg with nothing in +it--or just water. We should have all the fun, and if we _were_ collared +we should have the laugh of that coastguard brute." + +Oswald agreed, but he made it a condition that we should call it the keg +of brandy, whatever was in it, and Dicky consented. + +Smuggling is a manly sport, and girls are not fitted for it by nature. +At least Dora is not; and if we had told Alice she would have insisted +on dressing as a boy and going too, and we knew Father would not like +this. And we thought Noel and H.O. were too young to be smugglers with +any hope of success. So Dicky and I kept the idea to ourselves. + +We went to see the Viking man the next day. It took us some time to make +him understand what we wanted, but when he did understand he slapped his +leg many times, and very hard, and declared that we were chips of the +old block. + +"But I can't go for to let you," he said; "if you was nailed it's the +stone jug, bless your hearts." + +So then we explained about the keg really having only water in, and he +slapped his leg again harder than ever, so that it would really have +been painful to any but the hardened leg of an old sea-dog. But the +water made his refusals weaker, and at last he said-- + +"Well, see here, Benenden, him as owns the _Mary Sarah_, he's often took +out a youngster or two for the night's fishing, when their pa's and ma's +hadn't no objection. You write your pa, and ask if you mayn't go for +the night's fishing, or you get Mr. Charteris to write. He knows it's +all right, and often done by visitors' kids, if boys. And if your pa +says yes, I'll make it all right with Benenden. But mind, it's just a +night's fishing. No need to name no kegs. That's just betwixt +ourselves." + +So we did exactly as he said. Mr. Charteris is the clergyman. He was +quite nice about it, and wrote for us, and Father said "Yes, but be very +careful, and don't take the girls or the little ones." + +We showed the girls the letter, and that removed the trifling +ill-feeling that had grown up through Dick and me having so much secret +talk about kegs and not telling the others what was up. + +Of course we never breathed a word about kegs in public, and only to +each other in bated breaths. + +What Father said about not taking the girls or the little ones of course +settled any wild ideas Alice might have had of going as a cabin-girl. + +The old Viking man, now completely interested in our scheme, laid all +the plans in the deepest-laid way you can think. He chose a very dark +night--fortunately there was one just coming on. He chose the right time +of the tide for starting, and just in the greyness of the evening when +the sun is gone down, and the sea somehow looks wetter than at any other +time, we put on our thick undershirts, and then our thickest suits and +football jerseys over everything, because we had been told it would be +very cold. Then we said goodbye to our sisters and the little ones, and +it was exactly like a picture of the "Tar's Farewell," because we had +bundles, with things to eat tied up in blue checked handkerchiefs, and +we said goodbye to them at the gate, and they would kiss us. + +Dora said, "Goodbye, I _know_ you'll be drowned. I hope you'll enjoy +yourselves, I'm sure!" + +Alice said, "I do think it's perfectly beastly. You might just as well +have asked for me to go with you; or you might let us come and see you +start." + +"Men must work, and women must weep," replied Oswald with grim sadness, +"and the Viking said he wouldn't have us at all unless we could get on +board in a concealed manner, like stowaways. He said a lot of others +would want to go too if they saw us." + +We made our way to the beach, and we tried to conceal ourselves as much +as possible, but several people did see us. + +When we got to the boat we found she was manned by our Viking and +Benenden, and a boy with red hair, and they were running her down to the +beach on rollers. Of course Dicky and I lent a hand, shoving at the +stern of the boat when the men said, "Yo, ho! Heave ho, my merry boys +all!" It wasn't exactly that that they said, but it meant the same +thing, and we heaved like anything. + +It was a proud moment when her nose touched the water, and prouder still +when only a small part of her stern remained on the beach and Mr. +Benenden remarked-- + +"All aboard!" + +The red boy gave a "leg up" to Dicky and me and clambered up himself. +Then the two men gave the last shoves to the boat, already cradled +almost entirely on the bosom of the deep, and as the very end of the +keel grated off the pebbles into the water, they leaped for the gunwale +and hung on it with their high sea-boots waving in the evening air. + +By the time they had brought their legs on board and coiled a rope or +two, we chanced to look back, and already the beach seemed quite a long +way off. + +We were really afloat. Our smuggling expedition was no longer a dream, +but a real realness. Oswald felt almost too excited at first to be able +to enjoy himself. I hope you will understand this and not think the +author is trying to express, by roundabout means, that the sea did not +agree with Oswald. This is not the case. He was perfectly well the whole +time. It was Dicky who was not. But he said it was the smell of the +cabin, and not the sea, and I am sure he thought what he said was true. + +In fact, that cabin was a bit stiff altogether, and was almost the means +of upsetting even Oswald. + +It was about six feet square, with bunks and an oil stove, and heaps of +old coats and tarpaulins and sou'-westers and things, and it smelt of +tar, and fish, and paraffin-smoke, and machinery oil, and of rooms where +no one ever opens the window. + +Oswald just put his nose in, and that was all. He had to go down later, +when some fish was cooked and eaten, but by that time he had got what +they call your sea-legs; but Oswald felt more as if he had got a +sea-waistcoat, rather as if he had got rid of a land-waistcoat that was +too heavy and too tight. + +I will not weary the reader by telling about how the nets are paid out +and dragged in, or about the tumbling, shining heaps of fish that come +up all alive over the side of the boat, and it tips up with their weight +till you think it is going over. It was a very good catch that night, +and Oswald is glad he saw it, for it was very glorious. Dicky was asleep +in the cabin at the time and missed it. It was deemed best not to rouse +him to fresh sufferings. + +It was getting latish, and Oswald, though thrilled in every marrow, was +getting rather sleepy, when old Benenden said, "There she is!" + +Oswald could see nothing at first, but presently he saw a dark form on +the smooth sea. It turned out to be another boat. + +She crept quietly up till she was alongside ours, and then a keg was +hastily hoisted from her to us. + +A few words in low voices were exchanged. Oswald only heard-- + +"Sure you ain't give us the wrong un?" + +And several people laughed hoarsely. + +On first going on board Oswald and Dicky had mentioned kegs, and had +been ordered to "Stow that!" so that Oswald had begun to fear that after +all it _was_ only a night's fishing, and that his glorious idea had been +abandoned. + +But now he saw the keg his trembling heart was reassured. + +It got colder and colder. Dicky, in the cabin, was covered with several +coats richly scented with fish, and Oswald was glad to accept an oilskin +and sou'-wester, and to sit down on some spare nets. + +Until you are out on the sea at night you can never have any idea how +big the world really is. The sky looks higher up, and the stars look +further off, and even if you know it is only the English Channel, yet it +is just as good for feeling small on as the most trackless Atlantic or +Pacific. Even the fish help to show the largeness of the world, because +you think of the deep deepness of the dark sea they come up out of in +such rich profusion. The hold was full of fish after the second haul. + +Oswald sat leaning against the precious keg, and perhaps the bigness and +quietness of everything had really rendered him unconscious. But he did +not know he was asleep until the Viking man woke him up by kindly +shaking him and saying-- + +"Here, look alive! Was ye thinking to beach her with that there precious +keg of yours all above board, and crying out to be broached?" + +So then Oswald roused himself, and the keg was rolled on to the fish +where they lay filling the hold, and armfuls of fish thrown over it. + +"Is it _really_ only water?" asked Oswald. "There's an awfully odd +smell." And indeed, in spite of the many different smells that are +natural to a fishing-boat, Oswald began to notice a strong scent of +railway refreshment-rooms. + +"In course it's only water," said the Viking. "What else would it be +likely to be?" and Oswald thinks he winked in the dark. + +Perhaps Oswald fell asleep again after this. It was either that or deep +thought. Any way, he was aroused from it by a bump, and a soft grating +sound, and he thought at first the boat was being wrecked on a coral +reef or something. + +But almost directly he knew that the boat had merely come ashore in the +proper manner, so he jumped up. + +You cannot push a boat out of the water like you push it in. It has to +be hauled up by a capstan. If you don't know what that is the author is +unable to explain, but there is a picture of one. + +When the boat was hauled up we got out, and it was very odd to stretch +your legs on land again. It felt shakier than being on sea. The +red-haired boy went off to get a cart to take the shining fish to +market, and Oswald decided to face the mixed-up smells of that cabin and +wake Dicky. + +Dicky was not grateful to Oswald for his thoughtful kindness in letting +him sleep through the perils of the deep and his own uncomfortableness. + +He said, "I do think you might have waked a chap. I've simply been out +of everything." + +Oswald did not answer back. His is a proud and self-restraining nature. +He just said-- + +"Well, hurry up, now, and see them cart the fish away." + +So we hurried up, and as Oswald came out of the cabin he heard strange +voices, and his heart leaped up like the persons who "behold a rainbow +in the sky," for one of the voices was the voice of that inferior and +unsailorlike coastguard from Longbeach, who had gone out of his way to +be disagreeable to Oswald and his brothers and sisters on at least two +occasions. And now Oswald felt almost sure that his disagreeablenesses, +though not exactly curses, were coming home to roost just as though they +had been. + +"You're missing your beauty sleep, Stokes," we heard our Viking remark. + +"I'm not missing anything else, though," replied the coastguard. + +"Like half a dozen mackerel for your breakfast?" inquired Mr. Benenden +in kindly accents. + +"I've no stomach for fish, thank you all the same," replied Mr. Stokes +coldly. + +He walked up and down on the beach, clapping his arms to keep himself +warm. + +"Going to see us unload her?" asked Mr. Benenden. + +"If it's all the same to you," answered the disagreeable coastguard. + +He had to wait a long time, for the cart did not come, and did not come, +and kept on not coming for ages and ages. When it did the men unloaded +the boat, carrying the fish by basketfuls to the cart. + +Every one played up jolly well. They took the fish from the side of the +hold where the keg wasn't till there was quite a deep hole there, and +the other side, where the keg really was, looked like a mountain in +comparison. + +This could be plainly seen by the detested coastguard, and by three of +his companions who had now joined him. + +It was beginning to be light, not daylight, but a sort of ghost-light +that you could hardly believe was the beginning of sunshine, and the sky +being blue again instead of black. + +The hated coastguard got impatient. He said-- + +"You'd best own up. It'll be the better for you. It's bound to come out, +along of the fish. I know it's there. We've had private information up +at the station. The game's up this time, so don't you make no mistake." + +Mr. Benenden and the Viking and the boy looked at each other. + +"An' what might your precious private information have been about?" +asked Mr. Benenden. + +"Brandy," replied the coastguard Stokes, and he went and got on to the +gunwale. "And what's more, I can smell it from here." + +Oswald and Dicky drew near, and the refreshment-room smell was stronger +than ever. And a brown corner of the keg was peeping out. + +"There you are!" cried the Loathed One. "Let's have that gentleman out, +if you please, and then you'll all just come alonger me." + +Remarking, with a shrug of the shoulders, that he supposed it was all +up, our Viking scattered the fish that hid the barrel, and hoisted it +out from its scaly bed. + +"That's about the size of it," said the coastguard we did not like. +"Where's the rest?" + +"That's all," said Mr. Benenden. "We're poor men, and we has to act +according to our means." + +"We'll see the boat clear to her last timber, if you've no objections," +said the Detestable One. + +I could see that our gallant crew were prepared to go through with the +business. More and more of the coastguards were collecting, and I +understood that what the crew wanted was to go up to the coastguard +station with that keg of pretending brandy, and involve the whole of the +coastguards of Longbeach in one complete and perfect sell. + +But Dicky was sick of the entire business. He really has not the proper +soul for adventures, and what soul he has had been damped by what he had +gone through. + +So he said, "Look here, there's nothing in that keg but water." + +Oswald could have kicked him, though he is his brother. + +"Huh!" replied the Unloved One, "d'you think I haven't got a nose? Why, +it's oozing out of the bunghole now as strong as Samson." + +"Open it and see," said Dicky, disregarding Oswald's whispered +instructions to him to shut up. "It _is_ water." + +"What do you suppose I suppose you want to get water from the other side +for, you young duffer!" replied the brutal official. "There's plenty +water and to spare this side." + +"It's--it's _French_ water," replied Dicky madly; "it's ours, my +brother's and mine. We asked these sailors to get it for us." + +"Sailors, indeed!" said the hateful coastguard. "You come along with +me." + +And our Viking said he was something or othered. But Benenden whispered +to him in a low voice that it was all right--time was up. No one heard +this but me and the Viking. + +"I want to go home," said Dicky. "I don't want to come along with you." + +"What did you want water for?" was asked. "To try it?" + +"To stand you a drink next time you ordered us off your beastly boat," +said Dicky. And Oswald rejoiced to hear the roar of laughter that +responded to this fortunate piece of cheek. + +I suppose Dicky's face was so angel-like, innocent-looking, like +stowaways in books, that they _had_ to believe him. Oswald told him so +afterwards, and Dicky hit out. + +Any way, the keg was broached, and sure enough it was water, and +sea-water at that, as the Unamiable One said when he had tasted it out +of a tin cup, for nothing else would convince him. "But I smell brandy +still," he said, wiping his mouth after the sea-water. + +Our Viking slowly drew a good-sized flat labelled bottle out of the +front of his jersey. + +"From the 'Old Ship,'" he said gently. "I may have spilt a drop or two +here or there over the keg, my hand not being very steady, as is well +known, owing to spells of marsh fever as comes over me every six weeks +to the day." + +The coastguard that we never could bear said, "Marsh fever be something +or othered," and his comrades said the same. But they all blamed _him_, +and we were glad. + +We went home sleepy, but rejoicing. The whole thing was as complete a +sell as ever I wish to see. + +[Illustration: SURE ENOUGH IT WAS SEA-WATER, AS THE UNAMIABLE ONE SAID +WHEN HE HAD TASTED IT.] + +Of course we told our own dear and respected Lymchurch coastguards, and +I think they may be trusted not to let it down on the Longbeach +coastguards for many a good day. If their memories get bad I think there +will always be plenty of people along that coast to remind them! + +So _that's_ all right. + + * * * * * + +When we had told the girls all, and borne their reproaches for not +telling them before, we decided to give the Viking five bob for the game +way he had played up. + +So we did. He would not take it at first, but when we said, "Do--you +might buy a pig with it, and call it Stokes after that coastguard," he +could no longer resist, and accepted our friendly gift. + +We talked with him for a bit, and when we were going we thanked him for +being so jolly, and helping us to plant out the repulsive coastguard so +thoroughly. + +Then he said, "Don't mention it. Did you tell your little gells what you +was up to?" + +"No," said Oswald, "not till afterwards." + +"Then you _can_ hold your tongues. Well, since you've acted so handsome +about that there pig, what's to be named for Stokes, I don't mind if I +tells you something. Only mum's the word." + +We said we were quite sure it was. + +"Well, then," said he, leaning over the pig-stye wall, and rubbing the +spotted pig's back with his stick. "It's an ill wind that blows no good +to nobody. You see, that night there was a little bird went an' +whispered to 'em up at Longbeach about our little bit of a keg. So when +we landed they was there." + +"Of course," said Oswald. + +"Well, if they was there they couldn't be somewheres else, could they?" + +We owned they could not. + +"I shouldn't wonder," he went on, "but what a bit of a cargo was run +that night further up the beach: something as _wasn't_ sea-water. I +don't say it was so, mind--and mind you don't go for to say it." + +Then we understood that there is a little smuggling done still, and that +we had helped in it, though quite without knowing. + +We were jolly glad. Afterwards, when we had had that talk with Father, +when he told us that the laws are made by the English people, and it is +dishonourable for an Englishman not to stick to them, we saw that +smuggling must be wrong. + +But we have never been able to feel really sorry. I do not know why this +is. + + + + +_ZAIDA, THE MYSTERIOUS PROPHETESS OF THE GOLDEN ORIENT_ + + +THIS is the story of how we were gipsies and wandering minstrels. And, +like everything else we did about that time, it was done to make money +for Miss Sandal, whose poorness kept on, making our kind hearts ache. + +It is rather difficult to get up any good game in a house like Miss +Sandal's, where there is nothing lying about, except your own things, +and where everything is so neat and necessary. Your own clothes are +seldom interesting, and even if you change hats with your sisters it is +not a complete disguise. + +The idea of being gipsies was due to Alice. She had not at all liked +being entirely out of the smuggling affray, though Oswald explained to +her that it was her own fault for having been born a girl. And, of +course, after the event, Dicky and I had some things to talk about that +the girls hadn't, and we had a couple of wet days. + +You have no idea how dull you can be in a house like that, unless you +happen to know the sort of house I mean. A house that is meant for +plain living and high thinking, like Miss Sandal told us, may be very +nice for the high thinkers, but if you are not accustomed to thinking +high there is only the plain living left, and it is like boiled rice for +every meal to any young mind, however much beef and Yorkshire there may +be for the young insides. Mrs. Beale saw to our having plenty of nice +things to eat, but, alas! it is not always dinner-time, and in between +meals the cold rice-pudding feeling is very chilling. Of course we had +the splendid drawings of winged things made by our Flying Lodger, but +you cannot look at pictures all day long, however many coloured chalks +they are drawn with, and however fond you may be of them. + +Miss Sandal's was the kind of house that makes you wander all round it +and say, "What shall we do next?" And when it rains the little ones get +cross. + +It was the second wet day when we were wandering round the house to the +sad music of our boots on the clean, bare boards that Alice said-- + +"Mrs. Beale has got a book at her house called 'Napoleon's book of +Fate.' You might ask her to let you go and get it, Oswald. She likes you +best." + +Oswald is as modest as any one I know, but the truth is the truth. + +"We could tell our fortunes, and read the dark future," Alice went on. +"It would be better than high thinking without anything particular to +think about." + +So Oswald went down to Mrs. Beale and said-- + +"I say, Bealie dear, you've got a book up at your place. I wish you'd +lend it to us to read." + +"If it's the Holy Book you mean, sir," replied Mrs. Beale, going on with +peeling the potatoes that were to be a radiant vision later on, all +brown and crisp in company with a leg of mutton--"if it's the Holy Book +you want there's one up on Miss Sandal's chest of drawerses." + +"I know," said Oswald. He knew every book in the house. The backs of +them were beautiful--leather and gold--but inside they were like whited +sepulchres, full of poetry and improving reading. "No--we didn't want +that book just now. It is a book called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' Would +you mind if I ran up to your place and got it?" + +"There's no one at home," said Mrs. Beale; "wait a bit till I go along +to the bakus with the meat, and I'll fetch it along." + +"You might let me go," said Oswald, whose high spirit is always +ill-attuned to waiting a bit. "I wouldn't touch anything else, and I +know where you keep the key." + +"There's precious little as ye don't know, it seems to me," said Mrs. +Beale. "There, run along do. It's on top of the mantelshelf alongside +the picture tea-tin. It's a red book. Don't go taking the 'Wesleyan +Conference Reports' by mistake, the two is both together on the mantel." + +[Illustration: "I SAY, BEALIE DEAR, YOU'VE GOT A BOOK UP AT YOUR +PLACE."] + +Oswald in his macker splashed through the mud to Mrs. Beale's, found the +key under the loose tile behind the water-butt, and got the book without +adventure. He had promised not to touch anything else, so he could not +make even the gentlest booby-trap as a little surprise for Mrs. Beale +when she got back. + +And most of that day we were telling our fortunes by the ingenious means +invented by the great Emperor, or by cards, which it is hard to remember +the rules for, or by our dreams. The only blights were that the others +all wanted to have the book all the time, and that Noel's dreams were so +long and mixed that we got tired of hearing about them before he did. +But he said he was quite sure he had dreamed every single bit of every +one of them. And the author hopes this was the truth. + +We all went to bed hoping we should dream something that we could look +up in the dream book, but none of us did. + +And in the morning it was still raining and Alice said-- + +"Look here, if it ever clears up again let's dress up and be gipsies. We +can go about in the distant villages telling people's fortunes. If +you'll let me have the book all to-day I can learn up quite enough to +tell them mysteriously and darkly. And gipsies always get their hands +crossed with silver." + +Dicky said that was one way of keeping the book to herself, but Oswald +said-- + +"Let her try. She shall have it for an hour, and then we'll have an +exam. to see how much she knows." + +This was done, but while she was swatting the thing up with her fingers +in her ears we began to talk about how gipsies should be dressed. + +And when we all went out of the room to see if we could find anything in +that tidy house to dress up in, she came after us to see what was up. So +there was no exam. + +We peeped into the cupboards and drawers in Miss Sandal's room, but +everything was grey or brown, not at all the sort of thing to dress up +for children of the Sunny South in. The plain living was shown in all +her clothes; and besides, grey shows every little spot you may happen to +get on it. + +We were almost in despair. We looked in all the drawers in all the +rooms, but found only sheets and tablecloths and more grey and brown +clothing. + +We tried the attic, with fainting hearts. Servants' clothes are always +good for dressing-up with; they have so many different colours. But Miss +Sandal had no servant. Still, she might have had one once, and the +servant might have left something behind her. Dora suggested this and +added-- + +"If you don't find anything in the attic you'll know it's Fate, and +you're not to do it. Besides, I'm almost sure you can be put in prison +for telling fortunes." + +"Not if you're a gipsy you can't," said Noel; "they have licences to +tell fortunes, I believe, and judges can't do anything to them." + +So we went up to the attic. And it was as bare and tidy as the rest of +the house. But there were some boxes and we looked in them. The smallest +was full of old letters, so we shut it again at once. Another had books +in it, and the last had a clean towel spread over what was inside. So we +took off the towel, and then every one said "Oh!" + +In right on the top was a scarlet thing, embroidered heavily with gold. +It proved, on unfolding, to be a sort of coat, like a Chinaman's. We +lifted it out and laid it on the towel on the floor. And then the full +glories of that box were revealed. There were cloaks and dresses and +skirts and scarves, of all the colours of a well-chosen rainbow, and all +made of the most beautiful silks and stuffs, with things worked on them +with silk, as well as chains of beads and many lovely ornaments. We +think Miss Sandal must have been very fond of pretty things when she was +young, or when she was better off. + +"Well, there won't be any gipsies near by to come up to _us_," said +Oswald joyously. + +"Do you think we ought to take them, without asking?" said Dora. + +"Of course not," said Oswald witheringly; "we ought to write to her and +say, 'Please, Miss Sandal, we know how poor you are, and may we borrow +your things to be gipsies in so as we get money for you---- All right! +You go and write the letter, Dora." + +"I only just asked," said Dora. + +We tried the things on. Some of them were so ladylike that they were no +good--evening dresses, and things like that. But there were enough +useful things to go round. Oswald, in white shirt and flannel +knee-breeches, tied a brick-coloured silk scarf round his middle part, +and a green one round his head for a turban. The turban was fastened +with a sparkling brooch with pink stones in it. He looked like a Moorish +toreador. Dicky had the scarlet and gold coat, which was the right +length when Dora had run a tuck in it. + +Alice had a blue skirt with embroidery of peacock's feathers on it, and +a gold and black jacket very short with no sleeves, and a yellow silk +handkerchief on her head like Italian peasants, and another handkie +round her neck. Dora's skirt was green and her handkerchiefs purple and +pink. + +Noel insisted on having his two scarves, one green and one yellow, +twisted on his legs like putties, and a red scarf wound round his +middle-part, and he stuck a long ostrich feather in his own bicycle cap +and said he was a troubadour bard. + +H.O. was able to wear a lady's blouse of mouse-coloured silk, +embroidered with poppies. It came down to his knees and a jewelled belt +kept it in place. + +We made up our costumes into bundles, and Alice thoughtfully bought a +pennyworth of pins. Of course it was idle to suppose that we could go +through the village in our gipsy clothes without exciting _some_ remark. + +The more we thought of it the more it seemed as if it would be a good +thing to get some way from our village before we began our gipsy career. + +The woman at the sweet shop where Alice got the pins has a donkey and +cart, and for two shillings she consented to lend us this, so that some +of us could walk while some of us would always be resting in the cart. + +And next morning the weather was bright and blue as ever, and we +started. We were beautifully clean, but all our hairs had been arranged +with the brush solely, because at the last moment nobody could find it's +comb. Mrs. Beale had packed up a jolly sandwichy and apply lunch for us. +We told her we were going to gather bluebells in the woods, and of +course we meant to do that too. + +The donkey-cart drew up at the door and we started. It was found +impossible to get every one into the cart at once, so we agreed to cast +lots for who should run behind, and to take it in turns, mile and mile. +The lot fell on Dora and H.O., but there was precious little running +about it. Anything slower than that donkey Oswald has never known, and +when it came to passing its own front door the donkey simply would not. +It ended in Oswald getting down and going to the animal's head, and +having it out with him, man to man. The donkey was small, but of +enormous strength. He set all his four feet firm and leant back--and +Oswald set his two feet firm and leant back--so that Oswald and the +front part of the donkey formed an angry and contentious letter V. And +Oswald gazed in the donkey's eyes in a dauntless manner, and the donkey +looked at Oswald as though it thought he was hay or thistles. + +Alice beat the donkey from the cart with a stick that had been given us +for the purpose. The rest shouted. But all was in vain. And four people +in a motor car stopped it to see the heroic struggle, and laughed till I +thought they would have upset their hateful motor. However, it was all +for the best, though Oswald did not see it at the time. When they had +had enough of laughing they started their machine again, and the noise +it made penetrated the donkey's dull intelligence, and he started off +without a word--I mean without any warning, and Oswald has only just +time to throw himself clear of the wheels before he fell on the ground +and rolled over, biting the dust. + +The motor car people behaved as you would expect. But accidents happen +even to motor cars, when people laugh too long and too unfeelingly. +The driver turned round to laugh, and the motor instantly took the bit +between its teeth and bolted into the stone wall of the churchyard. No +one was hurt except the motor, but that had to spend the day at the +blacksmith's, we heard afterwards. Thus was the outraged Oswald avenged +by Fate. + +[Illustration: ALICE BEAT THE DONKEY FROM THE CART. THE REST SHOUTED.] + +He was not hurt either--though much the motor people would have cared if +he had been--and he caught up with the others at the end of the village, +for the donkey's pace had been too good to last, and the triumphal +progress was resumed. + +It was some time before we found a wood sufficiently lurking-looking for +our secret purposes. There are no woods close to the village. But at +last, up by Bonnington, we found one, and tying our noble steed to the +sign-post that says how many miles it is to Ashford, we cast a hasty +glance round, and finding no one in sight disappeared in the wood with +our bundles. + +We went in just ordinary creatures. We came out gipsies of the deepest +dye, for we had got a pennorth of walnut stain from Mr. Jameson the +builder, and mixed with water--the water we had brought in a +medicine-bottle--it was a prime disguise. And we knew it would wash off, +unlike the Condy's fluid we once stained ourselves with during a +never-to-be-forgotten game of Jungle-Book. + +We had put on all the glorious things we had bagged from Miss Sandal's +attic treasures, but still Alice had a small bundle unopened. + +"What's that?" Dora asked. + +"I meant to keep it as a reserve force in case the fortune-telling +didn't turn out all our fancy painted it," said Alice; "but I don't mind +telling you now." + +She opened the bundle, and there was a tambourine, some black lace, a +packet of cigarette papers, and our missing combs. + +"What ever on earth----" Dicky was beginning, but Oswald saw it all. He +has a wonderfully keen nose. And he said-- + +"Bully for you, Alice. I wish I'd thought it myself." + +Alice was much pleased by this handsome speech. + +"Yes," she said; "perhaps really it would be best to begin with it. It +would attract the public's attention, and then we could tell the +fortunes. You see," she kindly explained to Dicky and H.O. and Dora, who +had not seen it yet--though Noel had, almost as soon as I did--"you see, +we'll all play on the combs with the veils over our faces, so that no +one can see what our instruments are. Why, they might be mouth-organs +for anything any one will know, or some costly instruments from the +far-off East, like they play to sultans in zenanas. Let's just try a +tune or two before we go on, to be sure that all the combs work right. +Dora's has such big teeth, I shouldn't wonder if it wouldn't act at +all." + +So we all papered our combs and did "Heroes," but that sounded awful. +"The Girl I Left Behind Me" went better, and so did "Bonnie Dundee." But +we thought "See the Conquering" or "The Death of Nelson" would be the +best to begin with. + +It was beastly hot doing it under the veils, but when Oswald had done +one tune without the veil to see how the others looked he could not help +owning that the veils did give a hidden mystery that was a stranger to +simple combs. + +We were all a bit puffed when we had played for awhile, so we decided +that as the donkey seemed calm and was eating grass and resting, we +might as well follow his example. + +"We ought not to be too proud to take pattern by the brute creation," +said Dora. + +So we had our lunch in the wood. We lighted a little fire of sticks and +fir-cones, so as to be as gipsyish as we could, and we sat round the +fire. We made a charming picture in our bright clothes, among what would +have been our native surroundings if we had been real gipsies, and we +knew how nice we looked, and stayed there though the smoke got in our +eyes, and everything we ate tasted of it. + +The woods were a little damp, and that was why the fire smoked so. There +were the jackets we had cast off when we dressed up, to sit on, and +there was a horse-cloth in the cart intended for the donkey's wear, but +we decided that our need was greater than its, so we took the blanket +to recline on. + +It was as jolly a lunch as ever I remember, and we lingered over that +and looking romantic till we could not bear the smoke any more. + +Then we got a lot of bluebells and we trampled out the fire most +carefully, because we know about not setting woods and places alight, +rolled up our clothes in bundles, and went out of the shadowy woodland +into the bright sunlight, as sparkling looking a crew of gipsies as any +one need wish for. + +Last time we had seen the road it had been quite white and bare of +persons walking on it, but now there were several. And not only walkers, +but people in carts. And some carriages passed us too. + +Every one stared at us, but they did not seem so astonished as we had +every right to expect, and though interested they were not rude, and +this is very rare among English people--and not only poor people +either--when they see anything at all out of the way. + +We asked one man, who was very Sunday-best indeed in black clothes and a +blue tie, where every one was going, for every one was going the same +way, and every one looked as if it was going to church, which was +unlikely, it being but Thursday. He said-- + +"Same place wot you're going to I expect." + +And when we said where was that we were requested by him to get along +with us. Which we did. + +An old woman in the heaviest bonnet I have ever seen and the highest--it +was like a black church--revealed the secret to us, and we learned that +there was a Primrose _fete_ going on in Sir Willoughby Blockson's +grounds. + +We instantly decided to go to the _fete_. + +"I've been to a Primrose _fete_, and so have you, Dora," Oswald +remarked, "and people are so dull at them, they'd gladly give gold to +see the dark future. And, besides, the villages will be unpopulated, and +no one at home but idiots and babies and their keepers." + +So we went to the _fete_. + +The people got thicker and thicker, and when we got to Sir Willoughby's +lodge gates, which have sprawling lions on the gate-posts, we were told +to take the donkey cart round to the stable-yard. + +This we did, and proud was the moment when a stiff groom had to bend his +proud stomach to go to the head of Bates's donkey. + +"This is something like," said Alice, and Noel added: + +"The foreign princes are well received at this palace." + +"We aren't princes, we're gipsies," said Dora, tucking his scarf in. It +would keep on getting loose. + +"There _are_ gipsy princes, though," said Noel, "because there are gipsy +kings." + +"You aren't always a prince first," said Dora; "don't wriggle so or I +can't fix you. Sometimes being made a king just happens to some one who +isn't any one in particular." + +"I don't think so," said Noel; "you have to be a prince before you're a +king, just as you have to be a kitten before you're a cat, or a puppy +before you're a dog, or a worm before you're a serpent, or----" + +"What about the King of Sweden?" Dora was beginning, when a very nice +tall, thin man, with white flowers in his buttonhole like for a wedding, +came strolling up and said-- + +"And whose show is this? Eh, what?" + +We said it was ours. + +"Are you expected?" he asked. + +We said we thought not, but we hoped he didn't mind. + +"What are you? Acrobats? Tight-rope? That's a ripping Burmese coat +you've got there." + +"Yes, it is. No we aren't," said Alice, with dignity. "I am Zaida, the +mysterious prophetess of the golden Orient, and the others are +mysterious too, but we haven't fixed on their names yet." + +"By jove!" said the gentleman; "but who are you really?" + +"Our names are our secret," said Oswald, with dignity, but Alice said, +"Oh, but we don't mind telling _you_, because I'm sure you're nice. +We're really the Bastables, and we want to get some money for some one +we know that's rather poor--of course I can't tell you _her_ name. And +we've learnt how to tell fortunes--really we have. Do you think they'll +let us tell them at the _fete_. People are often dull at _fetes_, aren't +they?" + +"By Jove!" said the gentleman again--"by Jove, they are!" + +He plunged for a moment in deep reflection. + +"We've got co--musical instruments," said Noel; "shall we play to you a +little?" + +"Not here," said the gentleman; "follow me." + +He led the way by the backs of shrubberies to an old summer-house, and +we asked him to wait outside. + +Then we put on our veils and tuned up. "See, see the conquering----" + +But he did not let us finish the tune; he burst in upon us, crying-- + +"Ripping--oh, ripping! And now tell me my fortune." + +Alice took off her veil and looked at his hand. + +"You will travel in distant lands," she said; "you will have great +wealth and honour; you will marry a beautiful lady--a very fine woman, +it says in the book, but I think a beautiful lady sounds nicer, don't +you?" + +[Illustration: "WE'VE GOT MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS," SAID NOEL.] + +"Much; but I shouldn't mention the book when you're telling the +fortune." + +"I wouldn't, except to you," said Alice, "and she'll have lots of money +and a very sweet disposition. Trials and troubles beset your path, but +do but be brave and fearless and you will overcome all your enemies. +Beware of a dark woman--most likely a widow." + +"I will," said he, for Alice had stopped for breath. "Is that all?" + +"No. Beware of a dark woman and shun the society of drunkards and +gamblers. Be very cautious in your choice of acquaintances, or you will +make a false friend who will be your ruin. That's all, except that you +will be married very soon and live to a green old age with the beloved +wife of your bosom, and have twelve sons and----" + +"Stop, stop!" said the gentleman; "twelve sons are as many as I can +bring up handsomely on my present income. Now, look here. You did that +jolly well, only go slower, and pretend to look for things in the hand +before you say them. Everything's free at the _fete_, so you'll get no +money for your fortune-telling." + +Gloom was on each young brow. + +"It's like this," he went on, "there is a lady fortune-teller in a tent +in the park." + +"Then we may as well get along home," said Dicky. + +"Not at all," said our new friend, for such he was now about to prove +himself to be; "that lady does not want to tell fortunes to-day. She has +a headache. Now, if you'll really stick to it, and tell the people's +fortunes as well as you told mine, I'll stand you--let's see--two quid +for the afternoon. Will that do? What?" + +We said we should just jolly well think it would. + +"I've got some Eau de Cologne in a medicine-bottle," Dora said; "my +brother Noel has headaches sometimes, but I think he's going to be all +right to-day. Do take it, it will do the lady's head good." + +"I'll take care of her head," he said, laughing, but he took the bottle +and said, "Thank you." + +Then he told us to stay where we were while he made final arrangements, +and we were left with palpitating breasts to look wildly through the +Book of Fate, so as to have the things ready. But it turned out to be +time thrown away, for when he came back he said to Alice-- + +"It'll have to be only you and your sister, please, for I see they've +stuck up a card with 'Esmeralda, the gipsy Princess, reads the hand and +foretells the future' on it. So you boys will have to be mum. You can be +attendants--mutes, by jove!--yes that's it. And, I say, kiddies, you +will jolly well play up, won't you? Don't stand any cheek. Stick it on, +you know. I can't tell you how important it is about----about the lady's +headache." + +"I should think this would be a cool place for a headache to be quiet +in," said Dora; and it was, for it was quite hidden in the shrubbery and +no path to it. + +"By Jove!" he remarked yet once again, "so it would. You're right!" + +He led us out of the shrubbery and across the park. There were people +dotted all about and they stared, but they touched their hats to the +gentleman, and he returned their salute with stern politeness. + +Inside the tent with "Esmeralda, &c.," outside there was a lady in a hat +and dust-cloak. But we could see her spangles under the cloak. + +"Now," said the gentleman to Dicky, "you stand at the door and let +people in, one at a time. You others can just play a few bars on your +instruments for each new person--only a very little, because you do get +out of tune, though that's barbaric certainly. Now, here's the two quid. +And you stick to the show till five; you'll hear the stable clock +chime." + +The lady was very pale with black marks under her eyes, and her eyes +looked red, Oswald thought. She seemed about to speak, but the gentleman +said-- + +"Do trust me, Ella. I'll explain everything directly. Just go to the old +summer-house--_you_ know--and I'll be there directly. I'll take a couple +of pegs out of the back and you can slip away among the trees. Hold your +cloak close over your gown. Goodbye, kiddies. Stay, give me your +address, and I'll write and tell you if my fortune comes true." + +So he shook hands with us and went. And we did stick to it, though it is +far less fun than you would think telling fortunes all the afternoon in +a stuffy tent, while outside you know there are things to eat and people +enjoying themselves. But there were the two gold quid, and we were +determined to earn them. It is very hard to tell a different fortune for +each person, and there were a great many. The girls took it in turns, +and Oswald wonders why their hairs did not go gray. Though of course it +was much better fun for them than for us, because we had just to be +mutes when we weren't playing on the combs. + +The people we told fortunes to at first laughed rather, and said we were +too young to know anything. But Oswald said in a hollow voice that we +were as old as the Pyramids, and after that Alice took the tucks out of +Dicky's red coat and put it on and turbaned herself, and looked much +older. + +The stable clock had chimed the quarter to five some little time, when +an elderly gentleman with whiskers, who afterwards proved to be Sir +Willoughby, burst into the tent. + +"Where's Miss Blockson?" he said, and we answered truthfully that we did +not know. + +"How long have you been here?" he furiously asked. + +"Ever since two," said Alice wearily. + +He said a word that I should have thought a baronet would have been +above using. + +"Who brought you here?" + +We described the gentleman who had done this, and again the baronet said +things we should never be allowed to say. "That confounded Carew!" he +added, with more words. + +"Is anything wrong?" asked Dora--"can we do anything? We'll stay on +longer if you like--if you can't find the lady who was doing Esmeralda +before we came." + +"I'm not very likely to find her," he said ferociously. "Stay longer +indeed! Get away out of my sight before I have you locked up for +vagrants and vagabonds." + +He left the scene in bounding and mad fury. We thought it best to do as +he said, and went round the back way to the stables so as to avoid +exciting his ungoverned rage by meeting him again. We found our cart and +went home. We had got two quid and something to talk about. + +But none of us--not even Oswald the discerning--understood exactly what +we had been mixed up in, till the pink satin box with three large +bottles of A1 scent in it, and postmarks of foreign lands, came to Dora. +And there was a letter. It said-- + +"My dear Gipsies,--I beg to return the Eau de Cologne you so kindly lent +me. The lady did use a little of it, but I found that foreign travel was +what she really wanted to make her quite happy. So we caught the 4.15 +to town, and now we are married, and intend to live to a green old age, +&c., as you foretold. But for your help my fortune couldn't have come +true, because my wife's father, Sir Willoughby, thought I was not rich +enough to marry. But you see I was. And my wife and I both thank you +heartily for your kind help. I hope it was not an awful swat. I had to +say five because of the train. Good luck to you, and thanks awfully. + + "Yours faithfully, + "CARISBROOK CAREW." + +If Oswald had known beforehand we should never have made that two quid +for Miss Sandal. + +For Oswald does not approve of marriages and would never, if he knew it, +be the means of assisting one to occur. + + + + +_THE LADY AND THE LICENSE; OR, FRIENDSHIP'S GARLAND_ + + + "MY DEAR KIDDIES,--Miss Sandal's married sister + has just come home from Australia, and she feels + very tired. No wonder, you will say, after such a + long journey. So she is going to Lymchurch to + rest. Now I want you all to be very quiet, because + when you are in your usual form you aren't exactly + restful, are you? If this weather lasts you will + be able to be out most of the time, and when you + are indoors for goodness' sake control your lungs + and your boots, especially H.O.'s. Mrs. Bax has + travelled about a good deal, and once was nearly + eaten by cannibals. But I hope you won't bother + her to tell you stories. She is coming on Friday. + I am glad to hear from Alice's letter that you + enjoyed the Primrose Fete. Tell Noel that + 'poetticle' is not the usual way of spelling the + word he wants. I send you ten shillings for + pocket-money, and again implore you to let Mrs. + Bax have a little rest and peace. + + "Your loving + "FATHER." + + "PS.--If you want anything sent down, tell me, and + I will get Mrs. Bax to bring it. I met your friend + Mr. Red House the other day at lunch." + +When the letter had been read aloud, and we had each read it to +ourselves, a sad silence took place. + +Dicky was the first to speak. + +"It _is_ rather beastly, I grant you," he said, "but it might be worse." + +"I don't see how," said H.O. "I do wish Father would jolly well learn to +leave my boots alone." + +"It might be worse, I tell you," said Dicky. "Suppose instead of telling +us to keep out of doors it had been the other way?" + +"Yes," said Alice, "suppose it had been, 'Poor Mrs. Bax requires to be +cheered up. Do not leave her side day or night. Take it in turns to make +jokes for her. Let not a moment pass without some merry jest'? Oh yes, +it might be much, much worse." + +"Being able to get out all day makes it all right about trying to make +that two pounds increase and multiply," remarked Oswald. "Now who's +going to meet her at the station? Because after all it's her sister's +house, and we've got to be polite to visitors even if we're in a house +we aren't related to." + +This was seen to be so, but no one was keen on going to the station. At +last Oswald, ever ready for forlorn hopes, consented to go. + +We told Mrs. Beale, and she got the best room ready, scrubbing +everything till it smelt deliciously of wet wood and mottled soap. And +then we decorated the room as well as we could. + +"She'll want some pretty things," said Alice, "coming from the land of +parrots and opossums and gum-trees and things." + +We did think of borrowing the stuffed wild-cat that is in the bar at the +"Ship," but we decided that our decorations must be very quiet--and the +wild-cat, even in its stuffed state, was anything but; so we borrowed a +stuffed roach in a glass box and stood it on the chest of drawers. It +looked very calm. Sea-shells are quiet things when they are vacant, and +Mrs. Beale let us have the four big ones off her chiffonnier. + +The girls got flowers--bluebells and white wood-anemones. We might have +had poppies or buttercups, but we thought the colours might be too loud. +We took some books up for Mrs. Bax to read in the night. And we took the +quietest ones we could find. + +"Sonnets on Sleep," "Confessions of an Opium Eater," "Twilight of the +Gods," "Diary of a Dreamer," and "By Still Waters," were some of them. +The girls covered them with grey paper, because some of the bindings +were rather gay. + +The girls hemmed grey calico covers for the drawers and the +dressing-table, and we drew the blinds half-down, and when all was done +the room looked as quiet as a roosting wood-pigeon. + +We put in a clock, but we did not wind it up. + +"She can do that herself," said Dora, "if she feels she can bear to hear +it ticking." + +Oswald went to the station to meet her. He rode on the box beside the +driver. When the others saw him mount there I think they were sorry they +had not been polite and gone to meet her themselves. Oswald had a jolly +ride. We got to the station just as the train came in. Only one lady got +out of it, so Oswald knew it must be Mrs. Bax. If he had not been told +how quiet she wanted to be he would have thought she looked rather +jolly. She had short hair and gold spectacles. Her skirts were short, +and she carried a parrot-cage in her hand. It contained our parrot, and +when we wrote to tell Father that it and Pincher were the only things we +wanted sent we never thought she would have brought either. + +"Mrs. Bax, I believe," was the only break Oswald made in the polite +silence that he took the parrot-cage and her bag from her in. + +"How do you do?" she said very briskly for a tired lady; and Oswald +thought it was noble of her to make the effort to smile. "Are you Oswald +or Dicky?" + +Oswald told her in one calm word which he was, and then Pincher rolled +madly out of a dog-box almost into his arms. Pincher would not be +quiet. Of course he did not understand the need for it. Oswald conversed +with Pincher in low, restraining whispers as he led the way to the +"Ship's" fly. He put the parrot-cage on the inside seat of the carriage, +held the door open for Mrs. Bax with silent politeness, closed it as +quietly as possible, and prepared to mount on the box. + +"Oh, won't you come inside?" asked Mrs. Bax. "Do!" + +"No, thank you," said Oswald in calm and mouse-like tones; and to avoid +any more jaw he got at once on to the box with Pincher. + +So that Mrs. Bax was perfectly quiet for the whole six miles--unless you +count the rattle and shake-up-and-down of the fly. On the box Oswald and +Pincher "tasted the sweets of a blissful re-union," like it says in +novels. And the man from the "Ship" looked on and said how well bred +Pincher was. It was a happy drive. + +There was something almost awful about the sleek, quiet tidiness of the +others, who were all standing in a row outside the cottage to welcome +Mrs. Bax. They all said, "How do you do?" in hushed voices, and all +looked as if butter would not melt in any of their young mouths. I never +saw a more soothing-looking lot of kids. + +She went to her room, and we did not see her again till tea-time. + +Then, still exquisitely brushed and combed, we sat round the board--in +silence. We had left the tea-tray place for Mrs. Bax, of course. But +she said to Dora-- + +"Wouldn't you like to pour out?" + +And Dora replied in low, soft tones, "If you wish me to, Mrs. Bax. I +usually do." And she did. + +We passed each other bread-and-butter and jam and honey with silent +courteousness. And of course we saw that she had enough to eat. + +"Do you manage to amuse yourself pretty well here?" she asked presently. + +We said, "Yes, thank you," in hushed tones. + +"What do you do?" she asked. + +We did not wish to excite her by telling her what we did, so Dicky +murmured-- + +"Nothing in particular," at the same moment that Alice said-- + +"All sorts of things." + +"Tell me about them," said Mrs. Bax invitingly. + +We replied by a deep silence. She sighed, and passed her cup for more +tea. + +"Do you ever feel shy," she asked suddenly. "I do, dreadfully, with new +people." + +We liked her for saying that, and Alice replied that she hoped she would +not feel shy with us. + +"I hope not," she said. "Do you know, there was such a funny woman in +the train? She had seventeen different parcels, and she kept counting +them, and one of them was a kitten, and it was always under the seat +when she began to count, so she always got the number wrong." + +We should have liked to hear about that kitten--especially what colour +it was and how old--but Oswald felt that Mrs. Bax was only trying to +talk for our sakes, so that we shouldn't feel shy, so he simply said, +"Will you have some more cake?" and nothing more was said about the +kitten. + +Mrs. Bax seemed very noble. She kept trying to talk to us about Pincher, +and trains and Australia, but we were determined she should be quiet, as +she wished it so much, and we restrained our brimming curiosity about +opossums up gum-trees, and about emus and kangaroos and wattles, and +only said "Yes" or "No," or, more often, nothing at all. + +When tea was over we melted away, "like snow-wreaths in Thawjean," and +went out on the beach and had a yelling match. Our throats felt as +though they were full of wool, from the hushed tones we had used in +talking to Mrs. Bax. Oswald won the match. Next day we kept carefully +out of the way, except for meals. Mrs. Bax tried talking again at +breakfast-time, but we checked our wish to listen, and passed the +pepper, salt, mustard, bread, toast, butter, marmalade, and even the +cayenne, vinegar, and oil, with such politeness that she gave up. + +We took it in turns to watch the house and drive away organ-grinders. We +told them they must not play in front of that house, because there was +an Australian lady who had to be kept quiet. And they went at once. This +cost us expense, because an organ-grinder will never consent to fly the +spot under twopence a flight. + +We went to bed early. We were quite weary with being so calm and still. +But we knew it was our duty, and we liked the feel of having done it. + +The day after was the day Jake Lee got hurt. Jake is the man who drives +about the country in a covered cart, with pins and needles, and combs +and frying-pans, and all the sort of things that farmers' wives are +likely to want in a hurry, and no shops for miles. I have always thought +Jake's was a beautiful life. I should like to do it myself. Well, this +particular day he had got his cart all ready to start and had got his +foot on the wheel to get up, when a motor-car went by puffing and +hooting. I always think motor-cars seem so rude somehow. And the horse +was frightened; and no wonder. It shied, and poor Jake was thrown +violently to the ground, and hurt so much that they had to send for the +doctor. Of course we went and asked Mrs. Jake if we could do +anything--such as take the cart out and sell the things to the farmers' +wives. + +But she thought not. + +It was after this that Dicky said-- + +"Why shouldn't we get things of our own and go and sell them--with +Bates' donkey?" + +Oswald was thinking the same thing, but he wishes to be fair, so he owns +that Dicky spoke first. We all saw at once that the idea was a good one. + +"Shall we dress up for it?" H.O. asked. We thought not. It is always +good sport to dress up, but I have never heard of people selling things +to farmers' wives in really beautiful disguises. + +"We ought to go as shabby as we can," said Alice; "but somehow that +always seems to come natural to your clothes when you've done a few +interesting things in them. We have plenty of clothes that look poor but +deserving. What shall we buy to sell?" + +"Pins and needles, and tape and bodkins," said Dora. + +"Butter," said Noel; "it is terrible when there is no butter." + +"Honey is nice," said H.O., "and so are sausages." + +"Jake has ready-made shirts and corduroy trousers. I suppose a farmer's +shirt and trousers may give at any moment," said Alice, "and if he can't +get new ones he has to go to bed till they are mended." + +Oswald thought tin-tacks, and glue, and string must often be needed to +mend barns and farm tools with if they broke suddenly. And Dicky said-- + +"I think the pictures of ladies hanging on to crosses in foaming seas +are good. Jake told me he sold more of them than anything. I suppose +people suddenly break the old ones, and home isn't home without a lady +holding on to a cross." + +We went to Munn's shop, and we bought needles and pins, and tapes and +bodkins, a pound of butter, a pot of honey and one of marmalade, and +tin-tacks, string, and glue. But we could not get any ladies with +crosses, and the shirts and trousers were too expensive for us to dare +to risk it. Instead, we bought a head-stall for eighteenpence, because +how providential we should be to a farmer whose favourite horse had +escaped and he had nothing to catch it with; and three tin-openers, in +case of a distant farm subsisting entirely on tinned things, and the +only opener for miles lost down the well or something. We also bought +several other thoughtful and far-sighted things. + +That night at supper we told Mrs. Bax we wanted to go out for the day. +She had hardly said anything that supper-time, and now she said-- + +"Where are you going? Teaching Sunday school?" + +As it was Monday, we felt her poor brain was wandering--most likely for +want of quiet. And the room smelt of tobacco smoke, so we thought some +one had been to see her and perhaps been too noisy for her. So Oswald +said gently-- + +"No, we are not going to teach Sunday school." + +Mrs. Bax sighed. Then she said-- + +"I am going out myself to-morrow--for the day." + +"I hope it will not tire you too much," said Dora, with soft-voiced and +cautious politeness. "If you want anything bought we could do it for +you, with pleasure, and you could have a nice, quiet day at home." + +"Thank you," said Mrs. Bax shortly; and we saw she would do what she +chose, whether it was really for her own good or not. + +She started before we did next morning, and we were careful to be +mouse-quiet till the "Ship's" fly which contained her was out of +hearing. Then we had another yelling competition, and Noel won with that +new shriek of his that is like railway engines in distress; and then we +went and fetched Bates' donkey and cart and packed our bales in it and +started, some riding and some running behind. + +Any faint distant traces of respectableness that were left to our +clothes were soon covered up by the dust of the road and by some of the +ginger-beer bursting through the violence of the cart, which had no +springs. + +The first farm we stopped at the woman really did want some pins, for +though a very stupid person, she was making a pink blouse, and we +said-- + +"Do have some tape! You never know when you may want it." + +"I believe in buttons," she said. "No strings for me, thank you." + +But when Oswald said, "What about pudding-strings? You can't button up +puddings as if they were pillows!" she consented to listen to reason. +But it was only twopence altogether. + +But at the next place the woman said we were "mummickers," and told us +to "get along, do." And she set her dog at us; but when Pincher sprang +from the inmost recesses of the cart she called her dog off. But too +late, for it and Pincher were locked in the barking, scuffling, growling +embrace of deadly combat. When we had separated the dogs she went into +her house and banged the door, and we went on through the green flat +marshes, among the buttercups and may-bushes. + +"I wonder what she meant by 'mummickers'?" said H.O. + +"She meant she saw our high-born airs through our shabby clothes," said +Alice. "It's always happening, especially to princes. There's nothing so +hard to conceal as a really high-bred air." + +"I've been thinking," said Dicky, "whether honesty wouldn't perhaps be +the best policy--not always, of course; but just this once. If people +knew what we were doing it for they might be glad to help on the good +work---- What?" + +So at the next farm, which was half hidden by trees, like the picture at +the beginning of "Sensible Susan," we tied the pony to the gate-post and +knocked at the door. It was opened by a man this time, and Dora said to +him-- + +"We are honest traders. We are trying to sell these things to keep a +lady who is poor. If you buy some you will be helping too. Wouldn't you +like to do that? It is a good work, and you will be glad of it +afterwards, when you come to think over the acts of your life." + +"Upon my word an' 'onner!" said the man, whose red face was surrounded +by a frill of white whiskers. "If ever I see a walkin' Tract 'ere it +stands!" + +"She doesn't mean to be tractish," said Oswald quickly; "it's only her +way. But we really are trying to sell things to help a poor person--no +humbug, sir--so if we _have_ got anything you want we shall be glad. And +if not--well, there's no harm in asking, is there, sir?" + +The man with the frilly whiskers was very pleased to be called +"sir"--Oswald knew he would be--and he looked at everything we'd got, +and bought the head-stall and two tin-openers, and a pot of marmalade, +and a ball of string, and a pair of braces. This came to four and +twopence, and we were very pleased. It really seemed that our business +was establishing itself root and branch. + +When it came to its being dinner-time, which was first noticed through +H.O. beginning to cry and say he did not want to play any more, it was +found that we had forgotten to bring any dinner. So we had to eat some +of our stock--the jam, the biscuits, and the cucumber. + +"I feel a new man," said Alice, draining the last of the ginger-beer +bottles. "At that homely village on the brow of yonder hill we shall +sell all that remains of the stock, and go home with money in both +pockets." + +But our luck had changed. As so often happens, our hearts beat high with +hopeful thoughts, and we felt jollier than we had done all day. Merry +laughter and snatches of musical song re-echoed from our cart, and from +round it as we went up the hill. All Nature was smiling and gay. There +was nothing sinister in the look of the trees or the road--or anything. + +Dogs are said to have inside instincts that warn them of intending +perils, but Pincher was not a bit instinctive that day somehow. He +sported gaily up and down the hedge-banks after pretending rats, and +once he was so excited that I believe he was playing at weasels and +stoats. But of course there was really no trace of these savage denizens +of the jungle. It was just Pincher's varied imagination. + +We got to the village, and with joyful expectations we knocked at the +first door we came to. + +Alice had spread out a few choice treasures--needles, pins, tape, a +photograph-frame, and the butter, rather soft by now, and the last of +the tin-openers--on a basket-lid, like the fish-man does with herrings +and whitings and plums and apples (you cannot sell fish in the country +unless you sell fruit too. The author does not know why this is). + +The sun was shining, the sky was blue. There was no sign at all of the +intending thunderbolt, not even when the door was opened. This was done +by a woman. + +She just looked at our basket-lid of things any one might have been +proud to buy, and smiled. I saw her do it. Then she turned her +traitorous head and called "Jim!" into the cottage. + +A sleepy grunt rewarded her. + +"Jim, I say!" she repeated. "Come here directly minute." + +Next moment Jim appeared. He was Jim to her because she was his wife, I +suppose, but to us he was the Police, with his hair ruffled--from his +hateful sofa-cushions, no doubt--and his tunic unbuttoned. + +"What's up?" he said in a husky voice, as if he had been dreaming that +he had a cold. "Can't a chap have a minute to himself to read the paper +in?" + +"You told me to," said the woman. "You said if any folks come to the +door with things I was to call you, whether or no." + +Even now we were blind to the disaster that was entangling us in the +meshes of its trap. Alice said-- + +"We've sold a good deal, but we've _some_ things left--very nice things. +These crochet needles----" + +But the Police, who had buttoned up his tunic in a hurry, said quite +fiercely-- + +"Let's have a look at your license." + +"We didn't bring any," said Noel, "but if you will give us an order +we'll bring you some to-morrow." He thought a lisen was a thing to sell +that we ought to have thought of. + +"None of your lip," was the unexpected reply of the now plainly brutal +constable. "Where's your license, I say?" + +"We have a license for our dog, but Father's got it," said Oswald, +always quick-witted, but not, this time, quite quick enough. + +"Your 'awker's license is what I want, as well you knows, you young +limb. Your pedlar's license--your license to sell things. You ain't half +so half-witted as you want to make out." + +"We haven't got a pedlar's license," said Oswald. If we had been in a +book the Police would have been touched to tears by Oswald's simple +honesty. He would have said "Noble boy!" and then gone on to say he had +only asked the question to test our honour. But life is not really at +all the same as books. I have noticed lots of differences. Instead of +behaving like the book-Police, this thick-headed constable said-- + +"Blowed if I wasn't certain of it! Well, my young blokes, you'll just +come along o' me to Sir James. I've got orders to bring up the next case +afore him." + +"_Case!_" said Dora. "_Oh, don't!_ We didn't know we oughtn't to. We +only wanted----" + +"Ho, yes," said the constable, "you can tell all that to the magistrate; +and anything you say will be used against you." + +"I'm sure it will," said Oswald. "Dora, don't lower yourself to speak to +him. Come, we'll go home." + +The Police was combing its hair with a half-toothless piece of comb, and +we turned to go. But it was vain. + +Ere any of our young and eager legs could climb into the cart the Police +had seized the donkey's bridle. We could not desert our noble steed--and +besides, it wasn't really ours, but Bates's, and this made any hope of +flight quite a forlorn one. For better, for worse, we had to go with the +donkey. + +"Don't cry, for goodness' sake!" said Oswald in stern undertones. "Bite +your lips. Take long breaths. Don't let him see we mind. This beast's +only the village police. Sir James will be a gentleman. _He'll_ +understand. Don't disgrace the house of Bastable. Look here! Fall into +line--no, Indian file will be best, there are so few of us. Alice, if +you snivel I'll never say you ought to have been a boy again. H.O., shut +your mouth; no one's going to hurt you--you're too young." + +"I _am_ trying," said Alice, gasping. + +"Noel," Oswald went on--now, as so often, showing the brilliant +qualities of the born leader and general--"don't _you_ be in a funk. +Remember how Byron fought for the Greeks at Missy-what's-its-name. _He_ +didn't grouse, and he was a poet, like you! Now look here, let's be +_game_. Dora, you're the eldest. Strike up--any tune. We'll _march_ up, +and show this sneak we Bastables aren't afraid, whoever else is." + +You will perhaps find it difficult to believe, but we _did_ strike up. +We sang "The British Grenadiers," and when the Police told us to stow it +we did not. And Noel said-- + +"Singing isn't dogs or pedlaring. You don't want a license for that." + +"I'll soon show you!" said the Police. + +But he had to jolly well put up with our melodious song, because he knew +that there isn't really any law to prevent you singing if you want to. + +We went on singing. It soon got easier than at first, and we followed +Bates's donkey and cart through some lodge gates and up a drive with big +trees, and we came out in front of a big white house, and there was a +lawn. We stopped singing when we came in sight of the house, and got +ready to be polite to Sir James. There were some ladies on the lawn in +pretty blue and green dresses. This cheered us. Ladies are seldom quite +heartless, especially when young. + +The Police drew up Bates's donkey opposite the big front door with +pillars, and rang the bell. Our hearts were beating desperately. We cast +glances of despair at the ladies. Then, quite suddenly, Alice gave a +yell that wild Indian war-whoops are simply nothing to, and tore across +the lawn and threw her arms round the green waist of one of the ladies. + +"Oh, I'm so glad!" she cried; "oh, save us! We haven't done anything +wrong, really and truly we haven't." + +And then we all saw that the lady was our own Mrs. Red House, that we +liked so much. So we all rushed to her, and before that Police had got +the door answered we had told her our tale. The other ladies had turned +away when we approached her, and gone politely away into a shrubbery. + +"There, there," she said, patting Alice and Noel and as much of the +others as she could get hold of. "Don't you worry, dears, don't. I'll +make it all right with Sir James. Let's all sit down in a comfy heap, +and get our breaths again. I am so glad to see you all. My husband met +your father at lunch the other day. I meant to come over and see you +to-morrow." + +You cannot imagine the feelings of joy and safeness that we felt now we +had found someone who knew we were Bastables, and not vagrant outcasts +like the Police thought. + +The door had now been answered. We saw the base Police talking to the +person who answered it. Then he came towards us, very red in the face. + +"Leave off bothering the lady," he said, "and come along of me. Sir +James is in his lib_ra_ry, and he's ready to do justice on you, so he +is." + +Mrs. Red House jumped up, and so did we. She said with smiles, as if +nothing was wrong-- + +"Good morning, Inspector!" + +He looked pleased and surprised, as well he might, for it'll be long +enough before he's within a mile of being _that_. + +"Good morning, miss, I'm sure," he replied. + +"I think there's been a little mistake, Inspector," she said. "I expect +it's some of your men--led away by zeal for their duties. But I'm sure +_you'll_ understand. I am staying with Lady Harborough, and these +children are very dear friends of mine." + +The Police looked very silly, but he said something about hawking +without a license. + +"Oh no, not _hawking_," said Mrs. Red House, "not _hawking_, surely! +They were just _playing_ at it, you know. Your subordinates must have +been quite mistaken." + +Our honesty bade us say that he was his own only subordinate, and that +he hadn't been mistaken; but it is rude to interrupt, especially a lady, +so we said nothing. + +The Police said firmly, "You'll excuse me, miss, but Sir James expressly +told me to lay a information directly next time I caught any of 'em at +it without a license." + +"But, you see, you didn't catch them at it." Mrs. Red House took some +money out of her purse. "You might just give this to your subordinates +to console them for the mistake they've made. And look here, these +mistakes do lead to trouble sometimes. So I'll tell you what I'll do. +I'll promise not to tell Sir James a word about it. _So_ nobody will be +blamed." + +We listened breathless for his reply. He put his hands behind him-- + +"Well, miss," he said at last, "you've managed to put the Force in the +wrong somehow, which isn't often done, and I'm blest if I know how you +make it out. But there's Sir James a-waiting for me to come before him +with my complaint. What am I a-goin' to say to him?" + +"Oh, anything," said Mrs. Red House; "surely some one else has done +something wrong that you can tell him about?" + +"There was a matter of a couple of snares and some night lines," he said +slowly, drawing nearer to Mrs. Red House; "but I couldn't take no money, +of course." + +"Of course not," she said; "I beg your pardon for offering it. But I'll +give you my name and address, and if ever I can be of any use to +you----" + +She turned her back on us while she wrote it down with a stumpy pencil +he lent her; but Oswald could swear that he heard money chink, and that +there was something large and round wrapped up in the paper she gave +him. + +"Sorry for any little misunderstanding," the Police now said, feeling +the paper with his fingers; "and my respects to you, miss, and your +young friends. I'd best be going." + +And he went--to Sir James, I suppose. He seemed quite tamed. I hope the +people who set the snares got off. + +"So _that's_ all right," said Mrs. Red House. "Oh, you dear children, +you must stay to lunch, and we'll have a splendid time." + +"What a darling Princess you are!" Noel said slowly. "You are a witch +Princess, too, with magic powers over the Police." + +"It's not a very pretty sort of magic," she said, and she sighed. + +"Everything about you is pretty," said Noel. And I could see him +beginning to make the faces that always precur his poetry-fits. But +before the fit could break out thoroughly the rest of us awoke from our +stupor of grateful safeness and began to dance round Mrs. Red House in a +ring. And the girls sang-- + + "The rose is red, the violet's blue, + Carnation's sweet, and so are you," + +over and over again, so we had to join in; though I think "She's a jolly +good fellow would have been more manly and less like a poetry book." + +Suddenly a known voice broke in on our singing. + +"_Well!_" it said. And we stopped dancing. And there were the other two +ladies who had politely walked off when we first discovered Mrs. Red +House. And one of them was Mrs. Bax--of all people in the world! And she +was smoking a cigarette. So now we knew where the smell of tobacco came +from, in the White House. + +We said, "_Oh!_" in one breath, and were silent. + +"Is it possible," said Mrs. Bax, "that these are the Sunday-school +children I've been living with these three long days?" + +"We're sorry," said Dora, softly; "we wouldn't have made a noise if we'd +know you were here." + +"So I suppose," said Mrs. Bax. "Chloe, you seem to be a witch. How have +you galvanised my six rag dolls into life like this?" + +"Rag dolls!" said H.O., before we could stop him. "I think you're jolly +mean and ungrateful; and it was sixpence for making the organs fly." + +"My brain's reeling," said Mrs. Bax, putting her hands to her head. + +"H.O. is very rude, and I am sorry," said Alice, "but it _is_ hard to be +called rag dolls, when you've only tried to do as you were told." + +And then, in answer to Mrs. Red House's questions, we told how father +had begged us to be quiet, and how we had earnestly tried to. When it +was told, Mrs. Bax began to laugh, and so did Mrs. Red House, and at +last Mrs. Bax said-- + +"Oh, my dears! you don't know how glad I am that you're really alive! I +began to think--oh--I don't know what I thought! And you're not rag +dolls. You're heroes and heroines, every man jack of you. And I do thank +you. But I never wanted to be quiet like _that_. I just didn't want to +be bothered with London and tiresome grown-up people. And now let's +enjoy ourselves! Shall it be rounders, or stories about cannibals?" + +"Rounders first and stories after," said H.O. And it was so. + +Mrs. Bax, now that her true nature was revealed, proved to be A1. The +author does not ask for a jollier person to be in the house with. We had +rare larks the whole time she stayed with us. + +And to think that we might never have known her true character if she +hadn't been an old school friend of Mrs. Red House's, and if Mrs. Red +House hadn't been such a friend of ours! + +"Friendship," as Mr. William Smith so truly says in his book about +Latin, "is the crown of life." + + + + +_THE POOR AND NEEDY_ + + +"WHAT shall we do to-day, kiddies?" said Mrs. Bax. We had discovered her +true nature but three days ago, and already she had taken us out in a +sailing-boat and in a motor car, had given us sweets every day, and +taught us eleven new games that we had not known before; and only four +of the new games were rotters. How seldom can as much be said for the +games of a grown-up, however gifted! + +The day was one of cloudless blue perfectness, and we were all basking +on the beach. We had all bathed. Mrs. Bax said we might. There are +points about having a grown-up with you, if it is the right kind. You +can then easily get it to say "Yes" to what you want, and after that, if +anything goes wrong it is their fault, and you are pure from blame. But +nothing had gone wrong with the bathe, and, so far, we were all alive, +and not cold at all, except our fingers and feet. + +"What would you _like_ to do?" asked Mrs. Bax. We were far away from +human sight along the beach, and Mrs. Bax was smoking cigarettes as +usual. + +"I don't know," we all said politely. But H.O. said-- + +"What about poor Miss Sandal?" + +"Why poor?" asked Mrs. Bax. + +"Because she is," said H.O. + +"But how? What do you mean?" asked Mrs. Bax. + +"Why, isn't she?" said H.O. + +"Isn't she what?" said Mrs. Bax. + +"What you said why about," said H.O. + +She put her hands to her head. Her short hair was still damp and rumpled +from contact with the foaming billows of ocean. + +"Let's have a fresh deal and start fair," she said; "why do you think my +sister is poor?" + +"I forgot she was your sister," said H.O., "or I wouldn't have said +it--honour bright I wouldn't." + +"Don't mention it," said Mrs. Bax, and began throwing stones at a groin +in amiable silence. + +We were furious with H.O., first because it is such bad manners to throw +people's poverty in their faces, or even in their sisters' faces, like +H.O. had just done, and second because it seemed to have put out of Mrs. +Bax's head what she was beginning to say about what would we like to do. + +So Oswald presently remarked, when he had aimed at the stump she was +aiming at, and hit it before she did, for though a fair shot for a lady, +she takes a long time to get her eye in. + +"Mrs. Bax, we should like to do whatever _you_ like to do." This was +real politeness and true too, as it happened, because by this time we +could quite trust her not to want to do anything deeply duffing. + +"That's very nice of you," she replied, "but don't let me interfere with +any plans of yours. My own idea was to pluck a waggonette from the +nearest bush. I suppose they grow freely in these parts?" + +"There's one at the 'Ship,'" said Alice; "it costs seven-and-six to +pluck it, just for going to the station." + +"Well, then! And to stuff our waggonette with lunch and drive over to +Lynwood Castle, and eat it there." + +"A picnic!" fell in accents of joy from the lips of one and all. + +"We'll also boil the billy in the castle courtyard, and eat buns in the +shadow of the keep." + +"Tea as well?" said H.O., "with buns? You can't be poor and needy any +way, whatever your----" + +We hastily hushed him, stifling his murmurs with sand. + +"I always think," said Mrs. Bax dreamily, "that 'the more the merrier,' +is peculiarly true of picnics. So I have arranged--always subject to +your approval, of course--to meet your friends, Mr. and Mrs. Red House, +there, and----" + +We drowned her conclusive remarks with a cheer. And Oswald, always +willing to be of use, offered to go to the 'Ship' and see about the +waggonette. I like horses and stable-yards, and the smell of hay and +straw, and talking to ostlers and people like that. + +There turned out to be two horses belonging to the best waggonette, or +you could have a one-horse one, much smaller, with the blue cloth of the +cushions rather frayed, and mended here and there, and green in patches +from age and exposition to the weather. + +Oswald told Mrs. Bax this, not concealing about how shabby the little +one was, and she gloriously said-- + +"The pair by all means! We don't kill a pig every day!" + +"No, indeed," said Dora, but if "killing a pig" means having a lark, +Mrs. Bax is as good a pig-killer as any I ever knew. + +It was splendid to drive (Oswald, on the box beside the driver, who had +his best coat with the bright buttons) along the same roads that we had +trodden as muddy pedestrinators, or travelled along behind Bates's +donkey. + +It was a perfect day, as I said before. We were all clean and had our +second-best things on. I think second-bests are much more comfy than +first-bests. You feel equivalent to meeting any one, and have "a heart +for any fate," as it says in the poetry-book, and yet you are not +starched and booted and stiffened and tightened out of all human +feelings. + +Lynwood Castle is in a hollow in the hills. It has a moat all round it +with water-lily leaves on it. I suppose there are lilies when in +season. There is a bridge over the moat--not the draw kind of bridge. +And the castle has eight towers--four round and four square ones, and a +courtyard in the middle, all green grass, and heaps of stones--stray +bits of castle, I suppose they are--and a great white may-tree in the +middle that Mrs. Bax said was hundreds of years old. + +Mrs. Red House was sitting under the may-tree when we got there, nursing +her baby, in a blue dress and looking exactly like a picture on the top +of a chocolate-box. + +The girls instantly wanted to nurse the baby so we let them. And we +explored the castle. We had never happened to explore one thoroughly +before. We did not find the deepest dungeon below the castle moat, +though we looked everywhere for it, but we found everything else you can +think of belonging to castles--even the holes they used to pour boiling +lead through into the eyes of besiegers when they tried to squint up to +see how strong the garrison was in the keep--and the little slits they +shot arrows through, and the mouldering remains of the portcullis. We +went up the eight towers, every single one of them, and some parts were +jolly dangerous, I can tell you. Dicky and I would not let H.O. and Noel +come up the dangerous parts. There was no lasting ill-feeling about +this. By the time we had had a thorough good explore lunch was ready. + +It was a glorious lunch--not too many meaty things, but all sorts of +cakes and sweets, and grapes and figs and nuts. + +We gazed at the feast, and Mrs. Bax said-- + +"There you are, young Copperfield, and a royal spread you've got." + +"_They_ had currant wine," said Noel, who has only just read the book by +Mr. Charles Dickens. + +"Well, so have you," said Mrs. Bax. And we had. Two bottles of it. + +"I never knew any one like you," said Noel to Mrs. Red House, dreamily +with his mouth full, "for knowing the things people really like to eat, +not the things that are good for them, but what they _like_, and Mrs. +Bax is just the same." + +"It was one of the things they taught at our school," said Mrs. Bax. "Do +you remember the Saturday night feasts, Chloe, and how good the cocoanut +ice tasted after extra strong peppermints?" + +"Fancy you knowing _that_!" said H.O. "I thought it was us found _that_ +out." + +"I really know much more about things to eat than _she_ does," said Mrs. +Bax. "I was quite an old girl when she was a little thing in pinafores. +She was such a nice little girl." + +"I shouldn't wonder if she was always nice," said Noel, "even when she +was a baby!" + +Everybody laughed at this, except the existing baby, and it was asleep +on the waggonette cushions, under the white may-tree, and perhaps if it +had been awake it wouldn't have laughed, for Oswald himself, though +possessing a keen sense of humour, did not see anything to laugh at. + +Mr. Red House made a speech after dinner, and said drink to the health +of everybody, one after the other, in currant wine, which was done, +beginning with Mrs. Bax and ending with H.O. + +Then he said-- + +"Somnus, avaunt! What shall we play at?" and nobody, as so often +happens, had any idea ready. Then suddenly Mrs. Red House said-- + +"Good gracious, look there!" and we looked there, and where we were to +look was the lowest piece of the castle wall, just beside the keep that +the bridge led over to, and what we were to look at was a strange +blobbiness of knobbly bumps along the top, that looked exactly like +human heads. + +It turned out, when we had talked about cannibals and New Guinea, that +human heads were just exactly what they were. Not loose heads, stuck on +pikes or things like that, such as there often must have been while the +castle stayed in the olden times it was built in and belonged to, but +real live heads with their bodies still in attendance on them. + +They were, in fact, the village children. + +"Poor little Lazaruses!" said Mr. Red House. + +"There's not such a bad slice of Dives' feast left," said Mrs. Bax. +"Shall we----?" + +So Mr. Red House went out by the keep and called the heads in (with the +bodies they were connected with, of course), and they came and ate up +all that was left of the lunch. Not the buns, of course, for those were +sacred to tea-time, but all the other things, even the nuts and figs, +and we were quite glad that they should have them--really and truly we +were, even H.O.! + +They did not seem to be very clever children, or just the sort you would +choose for your friends, but I suppose you like to play, however little +you are other people's sort. So, after they had eaten all there was, +when Mrs. Red House invited them all to join in games with us we knew we +ought to be pleased. But village children are not taught rounders, and +though we wondered at first why their teachers had not seen to this, we +understood presently. Because it is most awfully difficult to make them +understand the very simplest thing. + +But they could play all the ring games, and "Nuts and May," and "There +Came Three Knights"--and another one we had never heard of before. The +singing part begins:-- + + "Up and down the green grass, + This and that and thus, + Come along, my pretty maid, + And take a walk with us. + You shall have a duck, my dear, + And you shall have a drake, + And you shall have a handsome man + For your father's sake." + +I forget the rest, and if anybody who reads this knows it, and will +write and tell me, the author will not have laboured in vain. + +The grown-ups played with all their heart and soul--I expect it is but +seldom they are able to play, and they enjoy the novel excitement. And +when we'd been at it some time we saw there was another head looking +over the wall. + +"Hullo!" said Mrs. Bax, "here's another of them, run along and ask it to +come and join in." + +She spoke to the village children, but nobody ran. + +"Here, you go," she said, pointing at a girl in red plaits tied with +dirty sky-blue ribbon. + +"Please, miss, I'd leifer not," replied the red-haired. "Mother says we +ain't to play along of him." + +"Why, what's the matter with him?" asked Mrs. Red House. + +"His father's in jail, miss, along of snares and night lines, and no one +won't give his mother any work, so my mother says we ain't to demean +ourselves to speak to him." + +"But it's not the child's fault," said Mrs. Red House, "is it now?" + +"I don't know, miss," said the red-haired. + +"But it's cruel," said Mrs. Bax. "How would you like it if your father +was sent to prison, and nobody would speak to you?" + +"Father's always kep' hisself respectable," said the girl with the dirty +blue ribbon. "You can't be sent to gaol, not if you keeps yourself +respectable, you can't, miss." + +"And do none of you speak to him?" + +The other children put their fingers in their mouths, and looked silly, +showing plainly that they didn't. + +"Don't you feel sorry for the poor little chap?" said Mrs. Bax. + +No answer transpired. + +"Can't you imagine how you'd feel if it was _your_ father?" + +"My father always kep' hisself respectable," the red-haired girl said +again. + +"Well, I shall ask him to come and play with us," said Mrs. Red House. +"Little pigs!" she added in low tones only heard by the author and Mr. +Red House. + +But Mr. Red House said in a whisper that no one overheard except Mrs. R. +H. and the present author. + +"Don't, Puss-cat; it's no good. The poor little pariah wouldn't like it. +And these kids only do what their parents teach them." + +If the author didn't know what a stainless gentleman Mr. Red House is he +would think he heard him mutter a word that gentlemen wouldn't say. + +"Tell off a detachment of consolation," Mr. Red House went on; "look +here, _our_ kids--who'll go and talk to the poor little chap?" + +We all instantly said, "_I_ will!" + +The present author was chosen to be the one. + +When you think about yourself there is a kind of you that is not what +you generally are but that you know you would like to be if only you +were good enough. Albert's uncle says this is called your ideal of +yourself. I will call it your best I, for short. Oswald's "best I" was +glad to go and talk to that boy whose father was in prison, but the +Oswald that generally exists hated being out of the games. Yet the whole +Oswald, both the best and the ordinary, was pleased that he was the one +chosen to be a detachment of consolation. + +He went out under the great archway, and as he went he heard the games +beginning again. This made him feel noble, and yet he was ashamed of +feeling it. Your feelings are a beastly nuisance, if once you begin to +let yourself think about them. Oswald soon saw the broken boots of the +boy whose father was in jail so nobody would play with him, standing on +the stones near the top of the wall where it was broken to match the +boots. + +He climbed up and said, "Hullo!" + +To this remark the boy replied, "Hullo!" + +Oswald now did not know what to say. The sorrier you are for people the +harder it is to tell them so. + +But at last he said-- + +"I've just heard about your father being where he is. It's beastly rough +luck. I hope you don't mind my saying I'm jolly sorry for you." + +The boy had a pale face and watery blue eyes. When Oswald said this his +eyes got waterier than ever, and he climbed down to the ground before he +said-- + +"I don't care so much, but it do upset mother something crool." + +It is awfully difficult to console those in affliction. Oswald thought +this, then he said-- + +"I say; never mind if those beastly kids won't play with you. It isn't +your fault, you know." + +"Nor it ain't father's neither," the boy said; "he broke his arm +a-falling off of a rick, and he hadn't paid up his club money along of +mother's new baby costing what it did when it come, so there warn't +nothing--and what's a hare or two, or a partridge? It ain't as if it was +pheasants as is as dear to rear as chicks." + +Oswald did not know what to say, so he got out his new +pen-and-pencil-combined and said-- + +"Look here! You can have this to keep if you like." + +The pale-eyed boy took it and looked at it and said-- + +"You ain't foolin' me?" + +And Oswald said no he wasn't, but he felt most awfully rum and uncomfy, +and though he wanted most frightfully to do something for the boy he +felt as if he wanted to get away more than anything else, and he never +was gladder in his life than when he saw Dora coming along, and she +said-- + +"You go back and play, Oswald. I'm tired and I'd like to sit down a +bit." + +She got the boy to sit down beside her, and Oswald went back to the +others. + +Games, however unusually splendid, have to come to an end. And when the +games were over and it was tea, and the village children were sent away, +and Oswald went to call Dora and the prisoner's son, he found nothing +but Dora, and he saw at once, in his far-sighted way, that she had been +crying. + +It was one of the A1est days we ever had, and the drive home was good, +but Dora was horribly quiet, as though the victim of dark interior +thoughts. + +And the next day she was but little better. + +We were all paddling on the sands, but Dora would not. And presently +Alice left us and went back to Dora, and we all saw across the sandy +waste that something was up. + +And presently Alice came down and said-- + +"Dry your feet and legs and come to a council. Dora wants to tell you +something." + +We dried our pink and sandy toes and we came to the council. Then Alice +said: "I don't think H.O. is wanted at the council, it isn't anything +amusing; you go and enjoy yourself by the sea, and catch the nice little +crabs, H.O. dear." + +H.O. said: "You always want me to be out of everything. I can be +councils as well as anybody else." + +"Oh, H.O.!" said Alice, in pleading tones, "not if I give you a +halfpenny to go and buy bulls-eyes with?" + +So then he went, and Dora said-- + +"I can't think how I could do it when you'd all trusted me so. And yet I +couldn't help it. I remember Dicky saying when you decided to give it me +to take care of--about me being the most trustworthy of all of us. I'm +not fit for any one to speak to. But it did seem the really right thing +at the time, it really and truly did. And now it all looks different." + +"What has she done?" Dicky asked this, but Oswald almost knew. + +"Tell them," said Dora, turning over on her front and hiding her face +partly in her hands, and partly in the sand. + +"She's given all Miss Sandal's money to that little boy that the father +of was in prison," said Alice. + +"It was one pound thirteen and sevenpence halfpenny," sobbed Dora. + +"You ought to have consulted us, I do think, really," said Dicky. "Of +course, I see you're sorry now, but I do think that." + +"How could I consult you?" said Dora; "you were all playing Cat and +Mouse, and he wanted to get home. I only wish you'd heard what he told +me--that's all--about his mother being ill, and nobody letting her do +any work because of where his father is, and his baby brother ill, poor +little darling, and not enough to eat, and everything as awful as you +can possibly think. I'll save up and pay it all back out of my own +money. Only do forgive me, all of you, and say you don't despise me for +a forger and embezzlementer. I couldn't help it." + +"I'm glad you couldn't," said the sudden voice of H.O., who had sneaked +up on his young stomach unobserved by the council. "You shall have all +my money too, Dora, and here's the bulls-eye halfpenny to begin with." +He crammed it into her hand. "Listen? I should jolly well think I did +listen," H.O. went on. "I've just as much right as anybody else to be in +at a council, and I think Dora was quite right, and the rest of you are +beasts not to say so, too, when you see how she's blubbing. Suppose it +had been _your_ darling baby-brother ill, and nobody hadn't given you +nothing when they'd got pounds and pounds in their silly pockets?" + +He now hugged Dora, who responded. + +"It wasn't her own money," said Dicky. + +"If you think _you're_ our darling baby-brother----" said Oswald. + +But Alice and Noel began hugging Dora and H.O., and Dicky and I felt it +was no go. Girls have no right and honourable feelings about business, +and little boys are the same. + +"All right," said Oswald rather bitterly, "if a majority of the council +backs Dora up, we'll give in. But we must all save up and repay the +money, that's all. We shall all be beastly short for ages." + +"Oh," said Dora, and now her sobs were beginning to turn into sniffs, +"you don't know how I felt! And I've felt most awful ever since, but +those poor, poor people----" + +At this moment Mrs. Bax came down on to the beach by the wooden steps +that lead from the sea-wall where the grass grows between the stones. + +"Hullo!" she said, "hurt yourself, my Dora-dove?" + +Dora was rather a favourite of hers. + +"It's all right now," said Dora. + +"_That's_ all right," said Mrs. Bax, who has learnt in +anti-what's-its-name climes the great art of not asking too many +questions. "Mrs. Red House has come to lunch. She went this morning to +see that boy's mother--you know, the boy the others wouldn't play with?" + +We said "Yes." + +"Well, Mrs. Red House has arranged to get the woman some work--like the +dear she is--the woman told her that the little lady--and that's you, +Dora--had given the little boy one pound thirteen and sevenpence." + +Mrs. Bax looked straight out to sea through her gold-rimmed spectacles, +and went on-- + +"That must have been about all you had among the lot of you. I don't +want to jaw, but I think you're a set of little bricks, and I must say +so or expire on the sandy spot." + +There was a painful silence. + +H.O. looked, "There, what did I tell you?" at the rest of us. + +Then Alice said, "We others had nothing to do with it. It was Dora's +doing." I suppose she said this because we did not mean to tell Mrs. Bax +anything about it, and if there was any brickiness in the act we wished +Dora to have the consolement of getting the credit of it. + +But of course Dora couldn't stand that. She said-- + +"Oh, Mrs. Bax, it was very wrong of me. It wasn't my own money, and I'd +no business to, but I was so sorry for the little boy and his mother and +his darling baby-brother. The money belonged to some one else." + +"Who?" Mrs. Bax asked ere she had time to remember the excellent +Australian rule about not asking questions. + +And H.O. blurted out, "It was Miss Sandal's money--every penny," before +we could stop him. + +Once again in our career concealment was at an end. The rule about +questions was again unregarded, and the whole thing came out. + +It was a long story, and Mrs. Red House came out in the middle, but +nobody could mind her hearing things. + +When she knew all, from the plain living to the pedlar who hadn't a +license, Mrs. Bax spoke up like a man, and said several kind things that +I won't write down. + +She then went on to say that her sister was not poor and needy at all, +but that she lived plain and thought high just because she liked it! + +We were very disappointed as soon as we had got over our hardly +believing any one could--like it, I mean--and then Mrs. Red House said-- + +"Sir James gave me five pounds for the poor woman, and she sent back +thirty of your shillings. She had spent three and sevenpence, and they +had a lovely supper of boiled pork and greens last night. So now you've +only got that to make up, and you can buy a most splendid present for +Miss Sandal." + +It is difficult to choose presents for people who live plain and think +high because they like it. But at last we decided to get books. They +were written by a person called Emerson, and of a dull character, but +the backs were very beautiful, and Miss Sandal was most awfully pleased +with them when she came down to her cottage with her partially repaired +brother, who had fallen off the scaffold when treating a bricklayer to +tracts. + +This is the end of the things we did when we were at Lymchurch in Miss +Sandal's house. + +It is the last story that the present author means ever to be the author +of. So goodbye, if you have got as far as this. + + Your affectionate author, + OSWALD BASTABLE. + + + + + * * * * * + + + + +Transcriber's Notes: + +Obvious punctuation errors repaired. + +Page 39, "Noel" changed to "Noel" (cost?" Noel asked) + +Page 77, "peacable" changed to "peaceable" (the peaceable quietness) + +Page 162, "alway" changed to "alway" (they always sing in) + +Page 196, "Its" changed to "It's" (It's not much to do) + +Page 217, "But" changed to "but" (but he will just say) + +Page 221, "birds" changed to "bird's" (like a bird's) + +Page 289, "anenomes" changed to "anemones" (wood-anemones) + +Page 294, "Mr." changed to "Mrs." (talking to Mrs. Bax.) + +Varied hyphenation retained: armchair and arm-chair; boathouse and +boat-house; halfway and half-way; postmark and post-mark; stationmaster +and station-master; tablecloths and table-cloths; thoroughbred and +thorough-bred; wastepaper and waste-paper; motor car; motor-car. + +Both Krikey and crikey and handkie and hankie were used and retained. + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NEW TREASURE SEEKERS*** + + +******* This file should be named 25496.txt or 25496.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/2/5/4/9/25496 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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