New Treasure Seekers; Or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune
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.
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."