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