The Wouldbegoods ..............................................................................................................................................1

Children are like jam: all very well in the proper place, but you can't stand them all over the shopeh, what?'

These were the dreadful words of our Indian uncle. They made us feel very young and angry; and yet we

could not be comforted by calling him names to ourselves, as you do when nasty grownups say nasty things,

because he is not nasty, but quite the exact opposite when not irritated. And we could not think it

ungentlemanly of him to say we were like jam, because, as Alice says, jam is very nice indeedonly not on

furniture and improper places like that. My father said, 'Perhaps they had better go to boardingschool.' And

that was awful, because we know Father disapproves of boardingschools. And he looked at us and said, 'I

Your lot is indeed a dark and terrible one when your father is ashamed of you. And we all knew this, so that

we felt in our chests just as if we had swallowed a hardboiled egg whole. At least, this is what Oswald felt,

and Father said once that Oswald, as the eldest, was the representative of the family, so, of course, the others

The words that followed I am not going to tell you. It is no use telling you what you know beforeas they

do in schools. And you must all have had such words said to you many times. We went away when it was

over. The girls cried, and we boys got out books and began to read, so that nobody should think we cared. But

we felt it deeply in our interior hearts, especially Oswald, who is the eldest and the representative of the

We felt it all the more because we had not really meant to do anything wrong. We only thought perhaps the

grownups would not be quite pleased if they knew, and that is quite different. Besides, we meant to put all

the things back in their proper places when we had done with them before anyone found out about it. But I

must not anticipate (that means telling the end of the story before the beginning. I tell you this because it is so

sickening to have words you don't know in a story, and to be told to look it up in the dicker).

We are the BastablesOswald, Dora, Dicky, Alice, Noel, and H. O. If you want to know why we call our

youngest brother H. O. you can jolly well read The Treasure Seekers and find out. We were the Treasure

Seekers, and we sought it high and low, and quite regularly, because we particularly wanted to find it. And at

last we did not find it, but we were found by a good, kind Indian uncle, who helped Father with his business,

so that Father was able to take us all to live in a jolly big red house on Blackheath, instead of in the

Lewisham Road, where we lived when we were only poor but honest Treasure Seekers. When we were poor

but honest we always used to think that if only Father had plenty of business, and we did not have to go short

of pocket money and wear shabby clothes (I don't mind this myself, but the girls do), we should be happy and

And when we were taken to the beautiful big Blackheath house we thought now all would be well, because it

was a house with vineries and pineries, and gas and water, and shrubberies and stabling, and replete with

every modern convenience, like it says in Dyer Hilton's list of Eligible House Property. I read all about it, and

It is a beautiful house, all the furniture solid and strong, no casters off the chairs, and the tables not scratched,

and the silver not dented; and lots of servants, and the most decent meals every dayand lots of

But it is wonderful how soon you get used to things, even the things you want most. Our watches, for

instance. We wanted them frightfully; but when I had mine a week or two, after the mainspring got broken

and was repaired at Bennett's in the village, I hardly cared to look at the works at all, and it did not make me

feel happy in my heart any more, though, of course, I should have been very unhappy if it had been taken

away from me. And the same with new clothes and nice dinners and having enough of everything. You soon

get used to it all, and it does not make you extra happy, although, if you had it all taken away, you would be

very dejected. (That is a good word, and one I have never used before.) You get used to everything, as I said,

and then you want something more. Father says this is what people mean by the deceitfulness of riches; but

Albert's uncle says it is the spirit of progress, and Mrs Leslie said some people called it 'divine discontent'.

Oswald asked them all what they thought one Sunday at dinner. Uncle said it was rot, and what we wanted

was bread and water and a licking; but he meant it for a joke. This was in the Easter holidays.

We went to live at the Red House at Christmas. After the holidays the girls went to the Blackheath High

School, and we boys went to the Prop. (that means the Proprietary School). And we had to swot rather during

term; but about Easter we knew the deceitfulness of riches in the vac., when there was nothing much on, like

pantomimes and things. Then there was the summer term, and we swotted more than ever; and it was boiling

hot, and masters' tempers got short and sharp, and the girls used to wish the exams came in cold weather. I

can't think why they don't. But I suppose schools don't think of sensible thinks like that. They teach botany at

Then the Midsummer holidays came, and we breathed againbut only for a few days. We began to feel as if

we had forgotten something, and did not know what it was. We wanted something to happenonly we didn't

'I've asked Mr Foulkes to send his children here for a week or two. You knowthe kids who came at

Christmas. You must be jolly to them, and see that they have a good time, don't you know.'

We remembered them right enoughthey were little pinky, frightened things, like white mice, with very

bright eyes. They had not been to our house since Christmas, because Denis, the boy, had been ill, and they

Alice and Dora would have liked to get the bedrooms ready for the honoured guests, but a really good

housemaid is sometimes more ready to say 'Don't' than even a general. So the girls had to chuck it. Jane only

let them put flowers in the pots on the visitors' mantelpieces, and then they had to ask the gardener which

kind they might pick, because nothing worth gathering happened to be growing in our own gardens just then.

Their train got in at 12.27. We all went to meet them. Afterwards I thought that was a mistake, because their

aunt was with them, and she wore black with beady things and a tight bonnet, and she said, when we took our

The aunt is a very rude lady, and it made us sorry for Daisy and Denny when she said to them

'Are these the children? Do you remember them?' We weren't very tidy, perhaps, because we'd been playing

brigands in the shrubbery; and we knew we should have to wash for dinner as soon as we got back, anyhow.

Denny said he thought he remembered us. But Daisy said, 'Of course they are,' and then looked as if she was

So then the aunt called a cab, and told the man where to drive, and put Daisy and Denny in, and then she

So the cab went off, and we were left. The aunt turned to us to say a few last words. We knew it would have

been about brushing your hair and wearing gloves, so Oswald said, 'Goodbye', and turned haughtily away,

before she could begin, and so did the others. No one but that kind of black beady tight lady would say 'little

boys'. She is like Miss Murdstone in David Copperfield. I should like to tell her so; but she would not

understand. I don't suppose she has ever read anything but Markham's History and Mangnall's

When we got home we found all four of those who had ridden in the cab sitting in our sittingroomwe

don't call it nursery nowlooking very thoroughly washed, and our girls were asking polite questions and

the others were saying 'Yes' and 'No', and 'I don't know'. We boys did not say anything. We stood at the

window and looked out till the gong went for our dinner. We felt it was going to be awfuland it was. The

newcomers would never have done for knighterrants, or to carry the Cardinal's sealed message through the

heart of France on a horse; they would never have thought of anything to say to throw the enemy off the scent

They said 'Yes, please', and 'No, thank you'; and they ate very neatly, and always wiped their mouths before

We got out all our books and they said 'Thank you', and didn't look at them properly. And we got out all our

toys, and they said 'Thank you, it's very nice' to everything. And it got less and less pleasant, and towards

teatime it came to nobody saying anything except Noel and H. O.and they talked to each other about

After tea Father came in, and he played 'Letters' with them and the girls, and it was a little better; but while

late dinner was going onI shall never forget it. Oswald felt like the hero of a book'almost at the end of

his resources'. I don't think I was ever glad of bedtime before, but that time I was.

When they had gone to bed (Daisy had to have all her strings and buttons undone for her, Dora told me,

though she is nearly ten, and Denny said he couldn't sleep without the gas being left a little bit on) we held a

council in the girls' room. We all sat on the bedit is a mahogany fourposter with green curtains very good

'We're not wild beasts or Indians; we shan't eat them. What have they got to be frightened of?' Dicky said

Noel told us he thought they were an enchanted prince and princess who'd been turned into white rabbits, and

'It's no use making things up about them,' he said. 'The thing is: what are we going to DO? We can't have our

'No,' Alice said, 'but they can't possibly go on snivelling for ever. Perhaps they've got into the habit of it with

'All the same,' said Oswald, 'we jolly well aren't going to have another day like today. We must do something

to rouse them from their snivelling lethwhat's its name?something sudden andwhat is it?decisive.'

'A booby trap,' said H. O., 'the first thing when they get up, and an applepie bed at night.'

'Suppose,' she said, 'we could get up a good play like we did when we were Treasure Seekers.'

'It ought to be a good long thingto last all day,' Dicky said, 'and if they like they can play, and if they

And Dicky added, 'I wasn't going to say that at all. I was going to say if they didn't like it they could jolly

We all agreed that we must think of something, but we none of us could, and at last the council broke up in

confusion because Mrs Blakeshe is the housekeepercame up and turned off the gas.

But next morning when we were having breakfast, and the two strangers were sitting there so pink and clean,

And the others agreed, and we talked about it till brek was over. The little strangers only said 'I don't know'

After brekker Oswald beckoned his brothers and sisters mysteriously apart and said

Then he said, 'We'll play Jungle Book, and I shall be Mowgli. The rest of you can be what you

'I don't suppose they know the book,' said Noel. 'They don't look as if they read anything, except at lesson

'Then they can go on being beasts all the time,' Oswald said. 'Anyone can be a beast.'

And now OswaldAlbert's uncle has sometimes said he is clever at arranging thingsbegan to lay his plans

for the jungle. The day was indeed well chosen. Our Indian uncle was away; Father was away; Mrs Blake

was going away, and the housemaid had an afternoon off. Oswald's first conscious act was to get rid of the

white miceI mean the little good visitors. He explained to them that there would be a play in the afternoon,

and they could be what they liked, and gave them the Jungle Book to read the stories he told them toall the

ones about Mowgli. He led the strangers to a secluded spot among the seakale pots in the kitchen garden

and left them. Then he went back to the others, and we had a jolly morning under the cedar talking about

When we asked Denny what he would like to be in the play, it turned out he had not read the stories Oswald

We then agreed to make the jungle first and dress up for our parts afterwards. Oswald was a little

uncomfortable about leaving the strangers alone all the morning, so he said Denny should be his

aidedecamp, and he was really quite useful. He is rather handy with his fingers, and things that he does up

do not come untied. Daisy might have come too, but she wanted to go on reading, so we let her, which is the

truest manners to a visitor. Of course the shrubbery was to be the jungle, and the lawn under the cedar a forest

glade, and then we began to collect the things. The cedar lawn is just nicely out of the way of the windows. It

was a jolly hot daythe kind of day when the sunshine is white and the shadows are dark grey, not black

We all thought of different things. Of course first we dressed up pillows in the skins of beasts and set them

about on the grass to look as natural as we could. And then we got Pincher, and rubbed him all over with

powdered slatepencil, to make him the right colour for Grey Brother. But he shook it all off, and it had

'Oh, I know!' and she ran off to Father's dressingroom, and came back with the tube of creme d'amande pour

la barbe et les mains, and we squeezed it on Pincher and rubbed it in, and then the slatepencil stuff stuck all

right, and he rolled in the dustbin of his own accord, which made him just the right colour. He is a very

clever dog, but soon after he went off and we did not find him till quite late in the afternoon. Denny helped

with Pincher, and with the wildbeast skins, and when Pincher was finished he said

And of course we said 'Yes', and he only had red ink and newspapers, and quickly he made quite a lot of large

paper birds with red tails. They didn't look half bad on the edge of the shrubbery.

And we looked, and it was a creature with great horns and a fur rugsomething like a bull and something

like a minotaurand I don't wonder Denny was frightened. It was Alice, and it was firstclass.

Up to now all was not yet lost beyond recall. It was the stuffed fox that did the mischiefand I am sorry to

own it was Oswald who thought of it. He is not ashamed of having THOUGHT of it. That was rather clever

of him. But he knows now that it is better not to take other people's foxes and things without asking, even if

It was Oswald who undid the back of the glass case in the hall and got out the fox with the green and grey

duck in its mouth, and when the others saw how awfully like life they looked on the lawn, they all rushed off

to fetch the other stuffed things. Uncle has a tremendous lot of stuffed things. He shot most of them

himselfbut not the fox, of course. There was another fox's mask, too, and we hung that in a bush to look as

if the fox was peeping out. And the stuffed birds we fastened on to the trees with string. The

duckbillwhat's its name?looked very well sitting on his tail with the otter snarling at him. Then Dicky

had an idea; and though not nearly so much was said about it afterwards as there was about the stuffed things,

I think myself it was just as bad, though it was a good idea, too. He just got the hose and put the end over a

branch of the cedartree. Then we got the steps they clean windows with, and let the hose rest on the top of

the steps and run. It was to be a waterfall, but it ran between the steps and was only wet and messy; so we got

Father's mackintosh and uncle's and covered the steps with them, so that the water ran down all right and was

glorious, and it ran away in a stream across the grass where we had dug a little channel for itand the otter

and the duckbillthing were as if in their native haunts. I hope all this is not very dull to read about. I know

it was jolly good fun to do. Taking one thing with another, I don't know that we ever had a better time while

We got all the rabbits out of the hutches and put pink paper tails on to them, and hunted them with horns

made out of The Times. They got away somehow, and before they were caught next day they had eaten a

good many lettuces and other things. Oswald is very sorry for this. He rather likes the gardener.

Denny wanted to put paper tails on the guineapigs, and it was no use our telling him there was nothing to tie

the paper on to. He thought we were kidding until we showed him, and then he said, 'Well, never mind', and

got the girls to give him bits of the blue stuff left over from their dressinggowns.

'I'll make them sashes to tie round their little middles,' he said. And he did, and the bows stuck up on the tops

of their backs. One of the guineapigs was never seen again, and the same with the tortoise when we had

done his shell with vermilion paint. He crawled away and returned no more. Perhaps someone collected him

The lawn under the cedar was transformed into a dream of beauty, what with the stuffed creatures and the

'I wish the tigers did not look so flat.' For of course with pillows you can only pretend it is a sleeping tiger

getting ready to make a spring out at you. It is difficult to prop up tigerskins in a lifelike manner when

'What about the beerstands?' I said. And we got two out of the cellar. With bolsters and string we fastened

insides to the tigersand they were really fine. The legs of the beerstands did for tigers' legs. It was indeed

Then we boys put on just our bathing drawers and vestsso as to be able to play with the waterfall without

hurting our clothes. I think this was thoughtful. The girls only tucked up their frocks and took their shoes and

stockings off. H. O. painted his legs and his hands with Condy's fluidto make him brown, so that he might

be Mowgli, although Oswald was captain and had plainly said he was going to be Mowgli himself. Of course

'Very well. Nobody asked you to brown yourself like that. But now you've done it, you've simply got to go

'Don't make him. Let him be the bronze statue in the palace gardens that the fountain plays out of.'

So we let him have the hose and hold it up over his head. It made a lovely fountain, only he remained brown.

So then Dicky and Oswald and I did ourselves brown too, and dried H. O. as well as we could with our

handkerchiefs, because he was just beginning to snivel. The brown did not come off any of us for days.

Oswald was to be Mowgli, and we were just beginning to arrange the different parts. The rest of the hose that

was on the ground was Kaa, the Rock Python, and Pincher was Grey Brother, only we couldn't find him. And

while most of us were talking, Dicky and Noel got messing about with the beerstand tigers.

And then a really sad event instantly occurred, which was not really our fault, and we did not mean to.

That Daisy girl had been mooning indoors all the afternoon with the Jungle Books, and now she came

suddenly out, just as Dicky and Noel had got under the tigers and were shoving them along to fright each

other. Of course, this is not in the Mowgli book at all: but they did look jolly like real tigers, and I am very

far from wishing to blame the girl, though she little knew what would be the awful consequence of her rash

act. But for her we might have got out of it all much better than we did. What happened was truly horrid.

As soon as Daisy saw the tigers she stopped short, and uttering a shriek like a railway whistle she fell flat on

'Fear not, gentle Indian maid,' Oswald cried, thinking with surprise that perhaps after all she did know how to

play, 'I myself will protect thee.' And he sprang forward with the native bow and arrows out of uncle's study.

'Come hither,' Dora said, 'let us take refuge in yonder covert while this good knight does battle for us.' Dora

might have remembered that we were savages, but she did not. And that is Dora all over. And still the Daisy

Then we were truly frightened. Dora and Alice lifted her up, and her mouth was a horrid violetcolour and

her eyes half shut. She looked horrid. Not at all like fair fainting damsels, who are always of an interesting

We did what we could, a prey to alarm as we were. We rubbed her hands and let the hose play gently but

perseveringly on her unconscious brow. The girls loosened her dress, though it was only the kind that comes

down straight without a waist. And we were all doing what we could as hard as we could, when we heard the

'I hope whoever it is will go straight to the front door,' said Alice. But whoever it was did not. There were feet

'This way. This way. On such a day as this we shall find our young barbarians all at play somewhere about

And then, without further warning, the uncle, three other gentlemen and two ladies burst upon the scene.

We had no clothes on to speak ofI mean us boys. We were all wet through. Daisy was in a faint or a fit, or

dead, none of us then knew which. And all the stuffed animals were there staring the uncle in the face. Most

of them had got a sprinkling, and the otter and the duckbill brute were simply soaked. And three of us were

The quick brain of Oswald saw, in a flash, exactly how it would strike the uncle, and his brave young blood

Oswald spoke up and said it was jungles we were playing, and he didn't know what was up with Daisy. He

The uncle had a Malacca cane in his hand, and we were but ill prepared to meet the sudden attack. Oswald

and H. O. caught it worst. The other boys were under the tigersand of course my uncle would not strike a

But it was bread and water for us for the next three days, and our own rooms. I will not tell you how we

sought to vary the monotonousness of imprisonment. Oswald thought of taming a mouse, but he could not

find one. The reason of the wretched captives might have given way but for the gutter that you can crawl

along from our room to the girls'. But I will not dwell on this because you might try it yourselves, and it

really is dangerous. When my father came home we got the talking to, and we said we were sorryand we

really wereespecially about Daisy, though she had behaved with muffishness, and then it was settled that

Albert's uncle was writing a book in the country; we were to go to his house. We were glad of thisDaisy

and Denny too. This we bore nobly. We knew we had deserved it. We were all very sorry for everything, and

I am not sure whether we kept this resolution or not. Oswald thinks now that perhaps we made a mistake in

trying so very hard to be good all at once. You should do everything by degrees.

P.S.It turned out Daisy was not really dead at all. It was only faintingso like a girl.

Appendix.I have not told you half the things we did for the junglefor instance, about the elephants' tusks

When we were sent down into the country to learn to be good we felt it was rather good business, because we

knew our being sent there was really only to get us out of the way for a little while, and we knew right

enough that it wasn't a punishment, though Mrs Blake said it was, because we had been punished thoroughly

for taking the stuffed animals out and making a jungle on the lawn with them, and the garden hose. And you

cannot be punished twice for the same offence. This is the English law; at least I think so. And at any rate no

one would punish you three times, and we had had the Malacca cane and the solitary confinement; and the

uncle had kindly explained to us that all illfeeling between him and us was wiped out entirely by the bread

and water we had endured. And what with the bread and water and being prisoners, and not being able to

tame any mice in our prisons, I quite feel that we had suffered it up thoroughly, and now we could start fair.

I think myself that descriptions of places are generally dull, but I have sometimes thought that was because

the authors do not tell you what you truly want to know. However, dull or not, here goesbecause you won't

The Moat House was the one we went to stay at. There has been a house there since Saxon times. It is a

manor, and a manor goes on having a house on it whatever happens. The Moat House was burnt down once

or twice in ancient centuriesI don't remember whichbut they always built a new one, and Cromwell's

soldiers smashed it about, but it was patched up again. It is a very odd house: the front door opens straight

into the diningroom, and there are red curtains and a blackandwhite marble floor like a chessboard, and

there is a secret staircase, only it is not secret nowonly rather rickety. It is not very big, but there is a

watery moat all round it with a brick bridge that leads to the front door. Then, on the other side of the moat

there is the farm, with barns and oast houses and stables, or things like that. And the other way the garden

lawn goes on till it comes to the churchyard. The churchyard is not divided from the garden at all except by a

little grass bank. In the front of the house there is more garden, and the big fruit garden is at the back.

The man the house belongs to likes new houses, so he built a big one with conservatories and a stable with a

clock in a turret on the top, and he left the Moat House. And Albert's uncle took it, and my father was to

come down sometimes from Saturday to Monday, and Albert's uncle was to live with us all the time, and he

would be writing a book, and we were not to bother him, but he would give an eye to us. I hope all this is

We got down rather late, but there was still light enough to see the big bell hanging at the top of the house.

The rope belonging to it went right down the house, through our bedroom to the diningroom. H. O. saw the

rope and pulled it while he was washing his hands for supper, and Dicky and I let him, and the bell tolled

But presently there were many feet trampling on the gravel, and Father went out to see. When he came back

he said 'The whole village, or half of it, has come up to see why the bell rang. It's only rung for fire or

'Bed follows supper as the fruit follows the flower. They'll do no more mischief tonight, sir. Tomorrow I

So it was bed directly after supper, and that was why we did not see much that night.

But in the morning we were all up rather early, and we seemed to have awakened in a new world rich in

We went everywhere we could in the time, but when it was breakfasttime we felt we had not seen half or a

quarter. The room we had breakfast in was exactly like in a storyblack oak panels and china in corner

cupboards with glass doors. These doors were locked. There were green curtains, and honeycomb for

breakfast. After brekker my father went back to town, and Albert's uncle went too, to see publishers. We saw

them to the station, and Father gave us a long list of what we weren't to do. It began with 'Don't pull ropes

unless you're quite sure what will happen at the other end,' and it finished with 'For goodness sake, try to keep

out of mischief till I come down on Saturday'. There were lots of other things in between.

We all promised we would. And we saw them off and waved till the train was quite out of sight. Then we

started to walk home. Daisy was tired so Oswald carried her home on his back. When we got home she

She is not a bad little kid; and Oswald felt it was his duty to be nice to her because she was a visitor. Then we

looked all over everything. It was a glorious place. You did not know where to begin. We were all a little

tired before we found the hayloft, but we pulled ourselves together to make a fort with the trusses of

haygreat square thingsand we were having a jolly good time, all of us, when suddenly a trapdoor

opened and a head bobbed up with a straw in its mouth. We knew nothing about the country then, and the

head really did scare us rather, though, of course, we found out directly that the feet belonging to it were

'Don't you let the governor catch you aspoiling of that there hay, that's all.' And it spoke thickly because of

It is strange to think how ignorant you were in the past. We can hardly believe now that once we really did

not know that it spoiled hay to mess about with it. Horses don't like to eat it afterwards.

When the head had explained a little more it went away, and we turned the handle of the chaffcutting

machine, and nobody got hurt, though the head HAD said we should cut our fingers off if we touched it.

And then we sat down on the floor, which is dirty with the nice clean dirt that is more than half chopped hay,

and those there was room for hung their legs down out of the top door, and we looked down at the farmyard,

'Now we're all here, and the boys are tired enough to sit still for a minute, I want to have a council.'

We said what about? And she said, 'I'll tell you.' H. O., don't wriggle so; sit on my frock if the straws tickle

You see he wears socks, and so he can never be quite as comfortable as anyone else.

'Promise not to laugh' Alice said, getting very red, and looking at Dora, who got red too.

'Dora and I have talked this over, and Daisy too, and we have written it down because it is easier than saying

Dora said it didn't matter; Alice might. So Alice read it, and though she gabbled a bit we all heard it. I copied

'I, Dora Bastable, and Alice Bastable, my sister, being of sound mind and body, when we were shut up with

bread and water on that jungle day, we thought a great deal about our naughty sins, and we made our minds

up to be good for ever after. And we talked to Daisy about it, and she had an idea. So we want to start a

'You know,' Dora interrupted, 'when people want to do good things they always make a society. There are

'Yes,' Alice said, 'and the Society for the Prevention of something or other, and the Young Men's Mutual

'Society for the Propagation of the Jews, of course,' said Noel, who cannot always spell.

'We propose to get up a society, with a chairman and a treasurer and secretary, and keep a journalbook

'The aim of the society is nobleness and goodness, and great and unselfish deeds. We wish not to be such a

nuisance to grownup people and to perform prodigies of real goodness. We wish to spread our wings'here

Alice read very fast. She told me afterwards Daisy had helped her with that part, and she thought when she

came to the wings they sounded rather silly'to spread our wings and rise above the kind of interesting

things that you ought not to do, but to do kindnesses to all, however low and mean.'

This did not sound right, but we let it pass, because an eagle does have wings, and we wanted to hear the rest

'That depends,' Oswald answered, 'who is president and what you mean by being good.'

Oswald did not care very much for the idea himself, because being good is not the sort of thing he thinks it is

proper to talk about, especially before strangers. But the girls and Denny seemed to like it, so Oswald did not

say exactly what he thought, especially as it was Daisy's idea. This was true politeness.

'I think it would be nice,' Noel said, 'if we made it a sort of play. Let's do the Pilgrim's Progress.'

We talked about that for some time, but it did not come to anything, because we all wanted to be Mr

Greatheart, except H. O., who wanted to be the lions, and you could not have lions in a Society for Goodness.

Dicky said he did not wish to play if it meant reading books about children who die; he really felt just as

Oswald did about it, he told me afterwards. But the girls were looking as if they were in Sunday school, and

At last Oswald said, 'Well, let's draw up the rules of the society, and choose the president and settle the

Dora said Oswald should be president, and he modestly consented. She was secretary, and Denny treasurer if

2. There is to be no more jaw than necessary about being good. (Oswald and Dicky put that rule in.)

3. No day must pass without our doing some kind action to a suffering fellowcreature.

And when we got as far as that we all began to talk at once. Dora wanted it called the Society for Humane

Improvement; Denny said the Society for Reformed Outcast Children; but Dicky said, No, we really were not

'That's priggish,' said Oswald; 'besides, we don't know whether we shall be so very.'

'Well, then,' Dicky said, getting up and beginning to dust the chopped hay off himself, 'call it the Society of

Oswald thinks Dicky was getting sick of it and wanted to make himself a little disagreeable. If so, he was

doomed to disappointment. For everyone else clapped hands and called out, 'That's the very thing!' Then the

girls went off to write out the rules, and took H. O. with them, and Noel went to write some poetry to put in

the minute book. That's what you call the book that a society's secretary writes what it does in. Denny went

with him to help. He knows a lot of poetry. I think he went to a lady's school where they taught nothing but

that. He was rather shy of us, but he took to Noel. I can't think why. Dicky and Oswald walked round the

'I'm not sure we oughtn't to have put our foot down at the beginning,' Dicky said. 'I don't see much in it,

'But we're not going to stand jaw, and "words in season", and "loving sisterly warnings". I tell you what it is,

Oswald, we'll have to run this thing our way, or it'll be jolly beastly for everybody.'

'We must do something,' Dicky said; it's very very hard, though. Still, there must be SOME interesting things

'I suppose so,' Oswald said, 'but being good is so much like being a muff, generally. Anyhow I'm not going to

smooth the pillows of the sick, or read to the aged poor, or any rot out of Ministering Children.'

'No more am I,' Dicky said. He was chewing a straw like the head had in its mouth, 'but I suppose we must

play the game fair. Let's begin by looking out for something useful to dosomething like mending things or

'The boys in books chop kindling wood and save their pennies to buy tea and tracts.'

'Little beasts!' said Dick. 'I say, let's talk about something else.' And Oswald was glad to, for he was

We were all rather quiet at tea, and afterwards Oswald played draughts with Daisy and the others yawned. I

don't know when we've had such a gloomy evening. And everyone was horribly polite, and said 'Please' and

Albert's uncle came home after tea. He was jolly, and told us stories, but he noticed us being a little dull, and

asked what blight had fallen on our young lives. Oswald could have answered and said, 'It is the Society of

the Wouldbegoods that is the blight,' but of course he didn't and Albert's uncle said no more, but he went up

and kissed the girls when they were in bed, and asked them if there was anything wrong. And they told him

The next morning Oswald awoke early. The refreshing beams of the morning sun shone on his narrow white

bed and on the sleeping forms of his dear little brothers and Denny, who had got the pillow on top of his head

and was snoring like a kettle when it sings. Oswald could not remember at first what was the matter with him,

and then he remembered the Wouldbegoods, and wished he hadn't. He felt at first as if there was nothing you

could do, and even hesitated to buzz a pillow at Denny's head. But he soon saw that this could not be. So he

chucked his boot and caught Denny right in the waistcoat part, and thus the day began more brightly than he

Oswald had not done anything out of the way good the night before, except that when no one was looking he

polished the brass candlestick in the girls' bedroom with one of his socks. And he might just as well have let

it alone, for the servants cleaned it again with the other things in the morning, and he could never find the

sock afterwards. There were two servants. One of them had to be called Mrs Pettigrew instead of Jane and

'I now seek the retirement of my study. At your peril violate my privacy before 1.30 sharp. Nothing short of

bloodshed will warrant the intrusion, and nothing short of manor rather boyslaughter shall avenge it.'

So we knew he wanted to be quiet, and the girls decided that we ought to play out of doors so as not to

disturb him; we should have played out of doors anyhow on a jolly fine day like that.

So Oswald came along, and Dicky took him into the other parlour and shut the door, and Oswald said

'Well, spit it out: what is it?' He knows that is vulgar, and he would not have said it to anyone but his own

'It's a pretty fair nuisance. I told you how it would be.' And Oswald was patient with him, and said

'Well, I did as I said. I looked about for something useful to do. And you know that dairy window that

wouldn't openonly a little bit like that? Well, I mended the catch with wire and whip cord and it opened

'And I suppose they didn't want it mended,' said Oswald. He knew but too well that grownup people

sometimes like to keep things far different from what we would, and you catch it if you try to do otherwise.

'I shouldn't have minded THAT,' Dicky said, 'because I could easily have taken it all off again if they'd only

said so. But the sillies went and propped up a milkpan against the window. They never took the trouble to

notice I had mended it. So the wretched thing pushed the window open all by itself directly they propped it

up, and it tumbled through into the moat, and they are most awfully waxy. All the men are out in the fields

and they haven't any spare milkpans. If I were a farmer, I must say I wouldn't stick at an extra milkpan or

Dicky spoke in savage tones. But Oswald was not so unhappy, first because it wasn't his fault, and next

'Never mind,' he said kindly. 'Keep your tail up. We'll get the beastly milkpan out all right. Come on.' He

rushed hastily to the garden and gave a low, signifying whistle, which the others know well enough to mean

'It's nothing naughty, is it,' Daisy asked, 'like the last time you had that was rousingly good?'

'A precious treasure,' he said, 'has inadvertently been laid low in the moat by one of us.'

Oswald waved his hand and said, 'Anyhow, it's there. It's our duty to restore it to its sorrowing owners. I say,

Everyone brightened up at this. It was our duty and it was interesting too. This is very uncommon.

So we went out to where the orchard is, at the other side of the moat. There were gooseberries and things on

the bushes, but we did not take any till we had asked if we might. Alice went and asked. Mrs Pettigrew said,

She little knows the honourable nature of the house of Bastable. But she has much to learn.

The orchard slopes gently down to the dark waters of the moat. We sat there in the sun and talked about

And we were speechless, because, though we had read many times about a moat being dragged for missing

heirs and lost wills, we really had never thought about exactly how it was done.

'Grapplingirons are right, I believe,' Denny said, 'but I don't suppose they'd have any at the farm.'

And we asked, and found they had never even heard of them. I think myself he meant some other word, but

So then we got a sheet off Oswald's bed, and we all took our shoes and stockings off, and we tried to see if

the sheet would drag the bottom of the moat, which is shallow at that end. But it would keep floating on the

top of the water, and when we tried sewing stones into one end of it, it stuck on something in the bottom, and

when we got it up it was torn. We were very sorry, and the sheet was in an awful mess; but the girls said they

were sure they could wash it in the basin in their room, and we thought as we had torn it anyway, we might as

'No human being,' Noel said, 'knows half the treasures hidden in this dark tarn.'

And we decided we would drag a bit more at that end, and work gradually round to under the dairy window

where the milkpan was. We could not see that part very well, because of the bushes that grow between the

cracks of the stones where the house goes down into the moat. And opposite the dairy window the barn goes

straight down into the moat too. It is like pictures of Venice; but you cannot get opposite the dairy window

We got the sheet down again when we had tied the torn parts together in a bunch with string, and Oswald was

'Now then, my hearties, pull together, pull with a will! One, two, three,' when suddenly Dora dropped her bit

'Oh! it's all wormy at the bottom. I felt them wriggle.' And she was out of the water almost before the words

The other girls all scuttled out too, and they let the sheet go in such a hurry that we had no time to steady

ourselves, and one of us went right in, and the rest got wet up to our waistbands. The one who went right in

was only H. O.; but Dora made an awful fuss and said it was our fault. We told her what we thought, and it

ended in the girls going in with H. O. to change his things. We had some more gooseberries while they were

gone. Dora was in an awful wax when she went away, but she is not of a sullen disposition though sometimes

Alice said, 'I don't think we need drag any more. It is wormy. I felt it when Dora did. And besides, the

milkpan is sticking a bit of itself out of the water. I saw it through the dairy window.'

'Couldn't we get it up with fishhooks?' Noel said. But Alice explained that the dairy was now locked up and

'Look here, we'll make a raft. We should have to do it some time, and we might as well do it now. I saw an

old door in that corner stable that they don't use. You know. The one where they chop the wood.'

We had never made a raft, any of us, but the way to make rafts is better described in books, so we knew what

We found some nice little tubs stuck up on the fence of the farm garden, and nobody seemed to want them for

anything just then, so we took them. Denny had a box of tools someone had given him for his last birthday;

they were rather rotten little things, but the gimlet worked all right, so we managed to make holes in the

edges of the tubs and fasten them with string under the four corners of the old door. This took us a long time.

Albert's uncle asked us at dinner what we had been playing at, and we said it was a secret, and it was nothing

wrong. You see we wished to atone for Dicky's mistake before anything more was said. The house has no

The rays of the afternoon sun were beaming along the orchard grass when at last we launched the raft. She

floated out beyond reach with the last shove of the launching. But Oswald waded out and towed her back; he

is not afraid of worms. Yet if he had known of the other things that were in the bottom of that moat he would

At last the gallant craft rode upon the waves. We manned her, though not up to our full strength, because if

more than four got on the water came up too near our knees, and we feared she might founder if

Daisy and Denny did not want to go on the raft, white mice that they were, so that was all right. And as H. O.

had been wet through once he was not very keen. Alice promised Noel her best paintbrush if he'd give up

and not go, because we knew well that the voyage was fraught with deep dangers, though the exact danger

So we four elder ones got on the raft very carefully; and even then, every time we moved the water swished

Dicky was captain, because it was his adventure. We had hoppoles from the hopgarden beyond the orchard

to punt with. We made the girls stand together in the middle and hold on to each other to keep steady. Then

we christened our gallant vessel. We called it the Richard, after Dicky, and also after the splendid admiral

who used to eat wineglasses and died after the Battle of the Revenge in Tennyson's poetry.

Then those on shore waved a fond adieu as well as they could with the dampness of their handkerchiefs,

which we had had to use to dry our legs and feet when we put on our stockings for dinner, and slowly and

stately the good ship moved away from shore, riding on the waves as though they were her native element.

We kept her going with the hoppoles, and we kept her steady in the same way, but we could not always

keep her steady enough, and we could not always keep her in the wind's eye. That is to say, she went where

we did not want, and once she bumped her corner against the barn wall, and all the crew had to sit down

suddenly to avoid falling overboard into a watery grave. Of course then the waves swept her decks, and when

But we pressed on undaunted, and at last our saucy craft came into port, under the dairy window and there

was the milkpan, for whose sake we had endured such hardships and privations, standing up on its edge

The girls did not wait for orders from the captain, as they ought to have done; but they cried out, 'Oh, here it

is!' and then both reached out to get it. Anyone who has pursued a naval career will see that of course the raft

capsized. For a moment it felt like standing on the roof of the house, and the next moment the ship stood up

We boys can swim all right. Oswald has swum three times across the Ladywell Swimming Baths at the

shallow end, and Dicky is nearly as good; but just then we did not think of this; though, of course, if the

As soon as Oswald could get the muddy water out of his eyes he opened them on a horrid scene.

Dicky was standing up to his shoulders in the inky waters; the raft had righted itself, and was drifting gently

away towards the front of the house, where the bridge is, and Dora and Alice were rising from the deep, with

There was a great noise of splashing. And besides that a feminine voice, looking out of the dairy window and

It was Mrs Pettigrew. She disappeared at once, and we were sorry we were in such a situation that she would

be able to get at Albert's uncle before we could. Afterwards we were not so sorry.

Before a word could be spoken about our desperate position Dora staggered a little in the water, and suddenly

The others on the bank could hear her shrieking, but they could not see us properly; they did not know what

Of course we knew it could not be a shark, but I thought of pike, which are large and very angry always, and

I caught hold of Dora. She screamed without stopping. I shoved her along to where there was a ledge of

brickwork, and shoved her up, till she could sit on it, then she got her foot out of the water, still screaming.

It was indeed terrible. The thing she thought was a shark came up with her foot, and it was a horrid, jagged,

old meattin, and she had put her foot right into it. Oswald got it off, and directly he did so blood began to

pour from the wounds. The tin edges had cut it in several spots. It was very pale blood, because her foot was

She stopped screaming, and turned green, and I thought she was going to faint, like Daisy did on the jungle

Oswald held her up as well as he could, but it really was one of the least agreeable moments in his life. For

the raft was gone, and she couldn't have waded back anyway, and we didn't know how deep the moat might

Just as Oswald was wondering whether he could swim after the raft and get it back, a boat's nose shot out

from under a dark archway a little further up under the house. It was the boathouse, and Albert's uncle had

got the punt and took us back in it. When we had regained the dark arch where the boat lives we had to go up

There was but little said to us that day. We were sent to bedthose who had not been on the raft the same as

the others, for they owned up all right, and Albert's uncle is the soul of justice.

The worst was when Dora couldn't get her shoe on, so they sent for the doctor, and Dora had to lie down for

'It IS hard lines, but Dora's very jolly about it. Daisy's been telling her about how we should all go to her with

our little joys and sorrows and things, and about the sweet influence from a sick bed that can be felt all over

the house, like in What Katy Did, and Dora said she hoped she might prove a blessing to us all while she's

Oswald said he hoped so, but he was not pleased. Because this sort of jaw was exactly the sort of thing he and

The thing we got it hottest for was those little tubs off the garden railings. They turned out to be buttertubs

But as Denny said, 'After the mud in that moat not all the perfumes of somewhere or other could make them

I own this was rather a bad business. Yet we did not do it to please ourselves, but because it was our duty.

But that made no difference to our punishment when Father came down. I have known this mistake occur

There were soldiers riding down the road, on horses two and two. That is the horses were two and two, and

the men not. Because each man was riding one horse and leading another. To exercise them. They came from

Chatham Barracks. We all drew up in a line outside the churchyard wall, and saluted as they went by, though

we had not read Toady Lion then. We have since. It is the only decent book I have ever read written by

Toady Lion's author. The others are mere piffle. But many people like them. In Sir Toady Lion the officer

There was only a lieutenant with those soldiers, and he did not salute me. He kissed his hand to the girls; and

Next day we made a Union Jack out of pockethandkerchiefs and part of a red flannel petticoat of the White

Mouse's, which she did not want just then, and some blue ribbon we got at the village shop.

Then we watched for the soldiers, and after three days they went by again, by twos and twos as before. It was

We waved our flag, and we shouted. We gave them three cheers. Oswald can shout loudest. So as soon as the

first man was level with us (not the advance guard, but the first of the battery)he shouted

'Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' And then we waved the flag, and bellowed. Oswald stood

on the wall to bellow better, and Denny waved the flag because he was a visitor, and so politeness made us let

The next day we all got up as much like soldiers as we could. H. O. and Noel had tin swords, and we asked

Albert's uncle to let us wear some of the real arms that are on the wall in the diningroom.

And he said, 'Yes', if we would clean them up afterwards. But we jolly well cleaned them up first with

Brooke's soap and brick dust and vinegar, and the knife polish (invented by the great and immortal Duke of

Wellington in his spare time when he was not conquering Napoleon. Three cheers for our Iron Duke!), and

with emery paper and wash leather and whitening. Oswald wore a cavalry sabre in its sheath. Alice and the

Mouse had pistols in their belts, large old flintlocks, with bits of red flannel behind the flints. Denny had a

naval cutlass, a very beautiful blade, and old enough to have been at Trafalgar. I hope it was. The others had

French swordbayonets that were used in the FrancoGerman war. They are very bright when you get them

bright, but the sheaths are hard to polish. Each swordbayonet has the name on the blade of the warrior who

once wielded it. I wonder where they are now. Perhaps some of them died in the war. Poor chaps! But it is a

I should like to be a soldier. It is better than going to the best schools, and to Oxford afterwards, even if it is

Balliol you go to. Oswald wanted to go to South Africa for a bugler, but father would not let him. And it is

true that Oswald does not yet know how to bugle, though he can play the infantry 'advance', and the 'charge'

and the 'halt' on a penny whistle. Alice taught them to him with the piano, out of the red book Father's cousin

had when he was in the Fighting Fifth. Oswald cannot play the 'retire', and he would scorn to do so. But I

suppose a bugler has to play what he is told, no matter how galling to the young boy's proud spirit.

The next day, being thoroughly armed, we put on everything red, white and blue that we could think of

nightshirts are good for white, and you don't know what you can do with red socks and blue jerseys till you

tryand we waited by the churchyard wall for the soldiers. When the advance guard (or whatever you call it

of artilleryit's that for infantry, I know) came by, we got ready, and when the first man of the first battery

was level with us Oswald played on his penny whistle the 'advance' and the 'charge'and then shouted

'Three cheers for the Queen and the British Army!' This time they had the guns with them. And every man of

the battery cheered too. It was glorious. It made you tremble all over. The girls said it made them want to

crybut no boy would own to this, even if it were true. It is babyish to cry. But it was glorious, and Oswald

Then suddenly the officer in front said, 'Battery! Halt!' and all the soldiers pulled their horses up, and the

great guns stopped too. Then the officer said, 'Sit at ease,' and something else, and the sergeant repeated it,

and some of the men got off their horses and lit their pipes, and some sat down on the grass edge of the road,

Then the officer came up to us. We were all standing on the wall that day, except Dora, who had to sit,

because her foot was bad, but we let her have the threeedged rapier to wear, and the blunderbuss to hold as

He was a beautiful man the officer. Like a Viking. Very tall and fair, with moustaches very long, and bright

Then he said he had noticed us there for several days, and he had halted the battery because he thought we

Alas! there are but too few grownup people so far seeing and thoughtful as this brave and distinguished

We said, 'Oh, yes', and then we got off the wall, and that good and noble man showed us the string that moves

the detonator and the breechblock (when you take it out and carry it away the gun is in vain to the enemy,

even if he takes it); and he let us look down the gun to see the rifling, all clean and shinyand he showed us

the ammunition boxes, but there was nothing in them. He also told us how the gun was unlimbered (this

means separating the gun from the ammunition carriage), and how quick it could be donebut he did not

make the men do this then, because they were resting. There were six guns. Each had painted on the carriage,

'I should have thought the gun weighed more than fifteen pounds,' Dora said. 'It would if it was beef, but I

And the officer explained to her very kindly and patiently that 15 Pr. meant the gun could throw a SHELL

When we had told him how jolly it was to see the soldiers go by so often, he said

'You won't see us many more times. We're ordered to the front; and we sail on Tuesday week; and the guns

will be painted mudcolour, and the men will wear mudcolour too, and so shall I.'

The men looked very nice, though they were not wearing their busbies, but only Tommy caps, put on all sorts

We were very sorry they were going, but Oswald, as well as others, looked with envy on those who would

soon be allowedbeing grown up, and no nonsense about your educationto go and fight for their Queen

He said, 'What?' which was a natural remark; not rude, as it is with children. Alice said

'We want to give the soldiers a keepsake and will write to ask my father. He is very well off just now. Look

hereif we're not on the wall when you come by, don't stop; but if we are, please, PLEASE do!'

The officer pulled his moustache and looked as if he did not know; but at last he said 'Yes', and we were very

glad, though but Alice and Oswald knew the dark but pleasant scheme at present fermenting in their youthful

'I think you are like Diarmid of the Golden Collar. But I should like to see your sword out, and shining in the

The captain laughed and grasped the hilt of his good blade. But Oswald said hurriedly

'Don't. Not yet. We shan't ever have a chance like this. If you'd only show us the pursuing practice! Albert's

And that brave and swagger captain did really do it. He rode his horse right into our gate when we opened it,

and showed us all the cuts, thrusts, and guards. There are four of each kind. It was splendid. The morning sun

shone on his flashing blade, and his good steed stood with all its legs far apart and stiff on the lawn.

Then we opened the paddock gate, and he did it again, while the horse galloped as if upon the bloody

battlefield among the fierce foes of his native land, and this was far more ripping still.

Then we thanked him very much, and he went away, taking his men with him. And the guns of course.

Then we wrote to my father, and he said 'Yes', as we knew he would, and next time the soldiers came by

but they had no guns this time, only the captive Arabs of the desertwe had the keepsakes ready in a

Then the girls had the splendid honour and pleasure of giving a pipe and four whole ounces of tobacco to

Then we shook hands with the captain, and the sergeant and the corporals, and the girls kissed the captainI

can't think why girls will kiss everybody and we all cheered for the Queen. It was grand. And I wish my

father had been there to see how much you can do with L12 if you order the things from the Stores.

I have told you all this to show you how we got so keen about soldiers, and why we sought to aid and abet the

Her name was Simpkins, and her cottage was just beyond the churchyard, on the other side from our house.

On the different military occasions which I have remarked upon this widow woman stood at her garden gate

and looked on. And after the cheering she rubbed her eyes with her apron. Alice noticed this slight but

We feel quite sure Mrs Simpkins liked soldiers, and so we felt friendly to her. But when we tried to talk to

her she would not. She told us to go along with us, do, and not bother her. And Oswald, with his usual

But we were not to be thus repulsed with impunity. We made complete but cautious inquiries, and found out

that the reason she cried when she saw soldiers was that she had only one son, a boy. He was twentytwo,

and he had gone to the War last April. So that she thought of him when she saw the soldiers, and that was

why she cried. Because when your son is at the wars you always think he is being killed. I don't know why. A

great many of them are not. If I had a son at the wars I should never think he was dead till I heard he was, and

perhaps not then, considering everything. After we had found this out we held a council.

Alice said, 'The gift of money might be deemed an insult by that proud, patriotic spirit. Besides, we haven't

The Mouse then said, 'Couldn't we make her a flannel petticoat and leave it without a word upon her

Noel said he would write her a poem, but Oswald had a deep, inward feeling that Mrs Simpkins would not

H. O. said, 'Why not sing "Rule Britannia" under her window after she had gone to bed, like waits,' but no

Denny thought we might get up a subscription for her among the wealthy and affluent, but we said again that

we knew money would be no balm to the haughty mother of a brave British soldier.

'What we want,' Alice said, 'is something that will be a good deal of trouble to us and some good to her.'

' What DOES she do that we can help in?' Dora asked. 'Besides, she won't let us help.'

H. O. said, 'She does nothing but work in the garden. At least if she does anything inside you can't see it,

Then at once we saw. And we agreed to get up the very next day, ere yet the rosy dawn had flushed the east,

We got up. We really did. But too often when you mean to, overnight, it seems so silly to do it when you

come to waking in the dewy morn. We crept downstairs with our boots in our hands. Denny is rather unlucky,

though a most careful boy. It was he who dropped his boot, and it went blundering down the stairs, echoing

like thunderbolts, and waking up Albert's uncle. But when we explained to him that we were going to do

Everything is very pretty and different in the early morning, before people are up. I have been told this is

because the shadows go a different way from what they do in the awake part of the day. But I don't know.

Noel says the fairies have just finished tidying up then. Anyhow it all feels quite otherwise.

We put on our boots in the porch, and we got our gardening tools and we went down to the white cottage. It is

a nice cottage, with a thatched roof, like in the drawing copies you get at girls' schools, and you do the

thatchif you canwith a B.B. pencil. If you cannot, you just leave it. It looks just as well, somehow, when

We looked at the garden. It was very neat. Only one patch was coming up thick with weeds. I could see

groundsel and chickweed, and others that I did not know. We set to work with a will. We used all our

toolsspades, forks, hoes, and rakesand Dora worked with the trowel, sitting down, because her foot was

hurt. We cleared the weedy patch beautifully, scraping off all the nasty weeds and leaving the nice clean

brown dirt. We worked as hard as ever we could. And we were happy, because it was unselfish toil, and no

one thought then of putting it in the Book of Golden Deeds, where we had agreed to write down our virtuous

We had just done, and we were looking at the beautiful production of our honest labour, when the cottage

door burst open, and the soldier's widowed mother came out like a wild tornado, and her eyes looked like

'You wicked, meddlesome, nasty children!' she said, ain't you got enough of your own good ground to runch

'We have only been weeding your garden,' Dora said; 'we wanted to do something to help you.'

'Dratted little busybodies,' she said. It was indeed hard, but everyone in Kent says 'dratted' when they are

cross. 'It's my turnips,' she went on, 'you've hoed up, and my cabbages. My turnips that my boy sowed afore

he went. There, get along with you do, afore I come at you with my broomhandle.'

She did come at us with her broomhandle as she spoke, and even the boldest turned and fled. Oswald was

And Dicky said, 'It all comes of trying to do golden deeds.' This was when we were out in the road.

As we went along, in a silence full of gloomy remorse, we met the postman. He said

When we came to look through the letters, which were nearly all for Albert's uncle, we found there was a

postcard that had got stuck in a magazine wrapper. Alice pulled it out. It was addressed to Mrs Simpkins. We

honourably only looked at the address, although it is allowed by the rules of honourableness to read postcards

After a heated discussion, Alice and Oswald said they were not afraid, whoever was, and they retraced their

steps, Alice holding the postcard right way up, so that we should not look at the lettery part of it, but only the

With quicklybeating heart, but outwardly unmoved, they walked up to the white cottage door.

'Well?' Mrs Simpkins said, and I think she said it what people in books call 'sourly'.

Oswald said, 'We are very, very sorry we spoiled your turnips, and we will ask my father to try and make it

'We came back,' Oswald went on, with his always unruffled politeness, 'because the postman gave us a

'We haven't read it,' Alice said quickly. I think she needn't have said that. Of course we hadn't. But perhaps

The soldier's mother took the postcard (she snatched it really, but 'took' is a kinder word, considering

everything) and she looked at the address a long time. Then she turned it over and read what was on the back.

Then she drew her breath in as far as it would go, and caught hold of the doorpost. Her face got awful. It

And the woman said nothing, but shoved the postcard into Alice's hand, and we both read itand it WAS

Alice gave her back the card. She had held on to the woman's hand all the time, and now she squeezed the

hand, and held it against her face. But she could not say a word because she was crying so. The soldier's

mother took the card again and she pushed Alice away, but it was not an unkind push, and she went in and

shut the door; and as Alice and Oswald went down the road Oswald looked back, and one of the windows of

the cottage had a white blind. Afterwards the other windows had too. There were no blinds really to the

Alice cried most of the morning, and so did the other girls. We wanted to do something for the soldier's

mother, but you can do nothing when people's sons are shot. It is the most dreadful thing to want to do

He said, 'I suppose they don't put up tombstones to soldiers when they die in war. But thereI mean Oswald

Noel said, 'I daresay you'll think it's silly, but I don't care. Don't you think she'd like it, if we put one up to

HIM? Not in the churchyard, of course, because we shouldn't be let, but in our garden, just where it joins on

Then we remembered that poor brave Bill was really buried far away in the Southern hemisphere, if at all. So

Then we looked out a nice flagstone in the stableyard, and we got a cold chisel out of the Dentist's toolbox,

Oswald went at it a bit, but he chipped his thumb, and it bled so he had to chuck it. Then Dicky tried, and

then Denny, but Dicky hammered his finger, and Denny took all day over every stroke, so that by teatime

we had only done the H, and about half the Eand the E was awfully crooked. Oswald chipped his thumb

We looked at it the next morning, and even the most sanguinary of us saw that it was a hopeless task.

Then Denny said, 'Why not wood and paint?' and he showed us how. We got a board and two stumps from

the carpenter's in the village, and we painted it all white, and when that was dry Denny did the words on it.

We fixed it up when it was dry. We had to dig jolly deep to get the posts to stand up, but the gardener helped

Then the girls made wreaths of white flowers, roses and Canterbury bells, and lilies and pinks, and

sweetpeas and daisies, and put them over the posts. And I think if Bill Simpkins had known how sorry we

were, he would have been glad. Oswald only hopes if he falls on the wild battlefield, which is his highest

ambition, that somebody will be as sorry about him as he was about Bill, that's all!

When all was done, and what flowers there were over from the wreaths scattered under the tombstone

We are very, very sorry about the turnips and things, and we beg your pardon humbly. We have put up a

The soldier's mother read it, and said something about our oughting to know better than to make fun of

'It's not! it's NOT! Dear, DEAR Mrs Simpkins, do come with me and see! You don't know how sorry we are

We can go through the churchyard, and the others have all gone in, so as to leave it quiet for you. Do come.'

And Mrs Simpkins did. And when she read what we had put up, and Alice told her the verse we had not had

room for, she leant against the wall by the grave I mean the tombstoneand Alice hugged her, and they

both cried bitterly. The poor soldier's mother was very, very pleased, and she forgave us about the turnips,

and we were friends after that, but she always liked Alice the best. A great many people do, somehow.

After that we used to put fresh flowers every day on Bill's tombstone, and I do believe his mother was

pleased, though she got us to move it away from the churchyard edge and put it in a corner of our garden

under a laburnum, where people could not see it from the church. But you could from the road, though I think

she thought you couldn't. She came every day to look at the new wreaths. When the white flowers gave out

About a fortnight after the erecting of the tombstone the girls were putting fresh wreaths on it when a soldier

in a red coat came down the road, and he stopped and looked at us. He walked with a stick, and he had a

And he looked again, and he came nearer, and he leaned on the wall, so that he could read the black printing

And he read it all out in a sort of half whisper, and when he came to the end, where it says, 'and all such brave

'Well, I really AM!' I suppose he meant he really was blessed. Oswald thought it was like the soldier's cheek,

'I daresay you aren't so very blessed as you think. What's it to do with you, anyway, eh, Tommy?'

Of course Oswald knew from Kipling that an infantry soldier is called that. The soldier said

'Then you're Bill, and you're not dead,' she said. 'Oh, Bill, I am so glad! Do let ME tell your mother.'

She started running, and so did we all. Bill had to go slowly because of his leg, but I tell you he went as fast

'Come out! come out!' and when she opened the door we were going to speak, but she pushed us away, and

went tearing down the garden path like winking. I never saw a grownup woman run like it, because she saw

She met him at the gate, running right into him, and caught hold of him, and she cried much more than when

The soldier's mother kept hold of him with both hands, and I couldn't help looking at her face. It was like wax

that had been painted on both pink cheeks, and the eyes shining like candles. And when we had all said how

'Thank the dear Lord for His mercies,' and she took her boy Bill into the cottage and shut the door.

We went home and chopped up the tombstone with the woodaxe and had a blazing big bonfire, and cheered

The postcard was a mistake; he was only missing. There was a pipe and a whole pound of tobacco left over

from our keepsake to the other soldiers. We gave it to Bill. Father is going to have him for undergardener

when his wounds get well. He'll always be a bit lame, so he cannot fight any more.

It was very rough on Dora having her foot bad, but we took it in turns to stay in with her, and she was very

decent about it. Daisy was most with her. I do not dislike Daisy, but I wish she had been taught how to play.

Because Dora is rather like that naturally, and sometimes I have thought that Daisy makes her worse.

I talked to Albert's uncle about it one day, when the others had gone to church, and I did not go because of

earache, and he said it came from reading the wrong sort of books partlyshe has read Ministering

Children, and Anna Ross, or The Orphan of Waterloo, and Ready Work for Willing Hands, and Elsie, or Like

a Little Candle, and even a horrid little blue book about the something or other of Little Sins. After this

conversation Oswald took care she had plenty of the right sort of books to read, and he was surprised and

pleased when she got up early one morning to finish Monte Cristo. Oswald felt that he was really being

useful to a suffering fellowcreature when he gave Daisy books that were not all about being good.

A few days after Dora was laid up, Alice called a council of the Wouldbegoods, and Oswald and Dicky

attended with darklyclouded brows. Alice had the minutebook, which was an exercisebook that had not

much written in it. She had begun at the other end. I hate doing that myself, because there is so little room at

Dora and a sofa had been carried out on to the lawn, and we were on the grass. It was very hot and dry. We

'"We have not done much. Dicky mended a window, and we got the milkpan out of the moat that dropped

through where he mended it. Dora, Oswald, Dicky and me got upset in the moat. This was not goodness.

This sounded so much righter than Noel's poetry generally does, that Oswald said so, and Noel explained that

'He seems to know the right length for lines of poetry. I suppose it comes of learning so much at school,' Noel

Then Oswald proposed that anybody should be allowed to write in the book if they found out anything good

that anyone else had done, but not things that were public acts; and nobody was to write about themselves, or

After a brief jaw the others agreed, and Oswald felt, not for the first time in his young life, that he would have

made a good diplomatic hero to carry despatches and outwit the other side. For now he had put it out of the

minutebook's power to be the kind of thing readers of Ministering Children would have wished.

'And if anyone tells other people any good thing he's done he is to go to Coventry for the rest of the day.'

After that nothing was written in the book for some time. I looked about, and so did the others, but I never

caught anyone in the act of doing anything extra; though several of the others have told me since of things

I think I said before that when you tell a story you cannot tell everything. It would be silly to do it. Because

ordinary kinds of play are dull to read about; and the only other thing is meals, and to dwell on what you eat

is greedy and not like a hero at all. A hero is always contented with a venison pasty and a horn of sack. All

the same, the meals were very interesting; with things you do not get at homeLent pies with custard and

currants in them, sausage rolls and fiede cakes, and raisin cakes and apple turnovers, and honeycomb and

syllabubs, besides as much new milk as you cared about, and cream now and then, and cheese always on the

table for tea. Father told Mrs Pettigrew to get what meals she liked, and she got these strange but attractive

In a story about Wouldbegoods it is not proper to tell of times when only some of us were naughty, so I will

pass lightly over the time when Noel got up the kitchen chimney and brought three bricks and an old

starling's nest and about a ton of soot down with him when he fell. They never use the big chimney in the

summer, but cook in the washhouse. Nor do I wish to dwell on what H. O. did when he went into the dairy.

I do not know what his motive was. But Mrs Pettigrew said SHE knew; and she locked him in, and said if it

was cream he wanted he should have enough, and she wouldn't let him out till teatime. The cat had also got

into the dairy for some reason of her own, and when H. O. was tired of whatever he went in for he poured all

the milk into the churn and tried to teach the cat to swim in it. He must have been desperate. The cat did not

even try to learn, and H. O. had the scars on his hands for weeks. I do not wish to tell tales of H. O., for he is

very young, and whatever he does he always catches it for; but I will just allude to our being told not to eat

the greengages in the garden. And we did not. And whatever H. O. did was Noel's faultfor Noel told H. O.

that greengages would grow again all right if you did not bite as far as the stone, just as wounds are not

mortal except when you are pierced through the heart. So the two of them bit bites out of every greengage

Oswald did not do things like these, but then he is older than his brothers. The only thing he did just about

then was making a boobytrap for Mrs Pettigrew when she had locked H. O. up in the dairy, and

unfortunately it was the day she was going out in her best things, and part of the trap was a can of water.

Oswald was not willingly vicious; it was but a light and thoughtless act which he had every reason to be sorry

for afterwards. And he is sorry even without those reasons, because he knows it is ungentlemanly to play

I remember Mother telling Dora and me when we were little that you ought to be very kind and polite to

servants, because they have to work very hard, and do not have so many good times as we do. I used to think

about Mother more at the Moat House than I did at Blackheath, especially in the garden. She was very fond

of flowers, and she used to tell us about the big garden where she used to live; and I remember Dora and I

helped her to plant seeds. But it is no use wishing. She would have liked that garden, though.

The girls and the white mice did not do anything boldly wickedthough of course they used to borrow Mrs

Pettigrew's needles, which made her very nasty. Needles that are borrowed might just as well be stolen. But I

I have only told you these things to show the kind of events which occurred on the days I don't tell you about.

It was on the day we had the pillowfight that we went for the long walk. Not the Pilgrimagethat is

another story. We did not mean to have a pillowfight. It is not usual to have them after breakfast, but

Oswald had come up to get his knife out of the pocket of his Etons, to cut some wire we were making rabbit

snares of. It is a very good knife, with a file in it, as well as a corkscrew and other thingsand he did not

come down at once, because he was detained by having to make an applepie bed for Dicky. Dicky came up

after him to see what he was up to, and when he did see he buzzed a pillow at Oswald, and the fight began.

The others, hearing the noise of battle from afar, hastened to the field of action, all except Dora, who couldn't

because of being laid up with her foot, and Daisy, because she is a little afraid of us still, when we are all

Well, the fight was a very fine one. Alice backed me up, and Noel and H. O. backed Dicky, and Denny

heaved a pillow or two; but he cannot shy straight, so I don't know which side he was on.

And just as the battle raged most fiercely, Mrs Pettigrew came in and snatched the pillows away, and shook

those of the warriors who were small enough for it. SHE was rough if you like. She also used language I

should have thought she would be above. She said, Drat you!' and 'Drabbit you!' The last is a thing I have

'There's no peace of your life with you children. Drat your antics! And that poor, dear, patient gentleman right

underneath, with his headache and his handwriting: and you rampaging about over his head like young

'I really am awfully sorry; we forgot about the headache. Don't be cross, Mrs Pettigrew; we didn't mean to;

'You never do,' she said, and her voice, though grumpy, was no longer violent. 'Why on earth you can't take

She said, 'Of course you may. Now put on your boots and go for a good long walk. And I'll tell you

whatI'll put you up a snack, and you can have an egg to your tea to make up for missing your dinner. Now

don't go clattering about the stairs and passages, there's good children. See if you can't be quiet this once, and

She went off. Her bark is worse than her bite. She does not understand anything about writing books, though.

She thinks Albert's uncle copies things out of printed books, when he is really writing new ones. I wonder

how she thinks printed books get made first of all. Many servants are like this.

She gave us the 'snack' in a basket, and sixpence to buy milk with. She said any of the farms would let us

have it, only most likely it would be skim. We thanked her politely, and she hurried us out of the front door

(I did not know till after I had left the farm gate open, and the hens had got into the garden, that these

feathered bipeds display a great partiality for the young buds of plants of the genus viola, to which they are

extremely destructive. I was told that by the gardener. I looked it up in the gardening book afterwards to be

We went through the garden as far as the church, and then we rested a bit in the porch, and just looked into

the basket to see what the 'snack' was. It proved to be sausage rolls and queen cakes, and a Lent pie in a round

tin dish, and some hardboiled eggs, and some apples. We all ate the apples at once, so as not to have to carry

them about with us. The churchyard smells awfully good. It is the wild thyme that grows on the graves. This

Then the door of the church tower was ajar, and we all went up; it had always been locked before when we

We saw the ringers' loft where the ends of the bellropes hang down with long, furry handles to them like

great caterpillars, some red, and some blue and white, but we did not pull them. And then we went up to

where the bells are, very big and dusty among large dirty beams; and four windows with no glass, only

shutters like Venetian blinds, but they won't pull up. There were heaps of straws and sticks on the window

Then the tower stairs got very narrow and dark, and we went on up, and we came to a door and opened it

suddenly, and it was like being hit in the face, the light was so sudden. And there we were on the top of the

tower, which is flat, and people have cut their names on it, and a turret at one corner, and a low wall all

round, up and down, like castle battlements. And we looked down and saw the roof of the church, and the

leads, and the churchyard, and our garden, and the Moat House, and the farm, and Mrs Simpkins's cottage,

looking very small, and other farms looking like toy things out of boxes, and we saw cornfields and

meadows and pastures. A pasture is not the same thing as a meadow, whatever you may think. And we saw

the tops of trees and hedges, looking like the map of the United States, and villages, and a tower that did not

look very far away standing by itself on the top of a hill. Alice pointed to it, and said

'It's not a church,' said Noel, 'because there's no churchyard. Perhaps it's a tower of mystery that covers the

Alice thought perhaps it was a ruined castle, and the rest of its crumbling walls were concealed by ivy, the

Oswald could not make his mind up what it was, so he said, 'Let's go and see! We may as well go there as

The Tower of Mystery showed quite plainly from the road, now that we knew where to look for it, because it

was on the top of a hill. We began to walk. But the tower did not seem to get any nearer. And it was very hot.

So we sat down in a meadow where there was a stream in the ditch and ate the 'snack'. We drank the pure

water from the brook out of our hands, because there was no farm to get milk at just there, and it was too

much fag to look for oneand, besides, we thought we might as well save the sixpence.

Then we started again, and still the tower looked as far off as ever. Denny began to drag his feet, though he

He knew all about getting lifts, of course, from having been in the country before. He is not quite the white

mouse we took him for at first. Of course when you live in Lewisham or Blackheath you learn other things. If

you asked for a lift in Lewisham, High Street, your only reply would be jeers. We sat down on a heap of

stones, and decided that we would ask for a lift from the next cart, whichever way it was going. It was while

When the sound of wheels came we remarked with joy that the cart was going towards the Tower of Mystery.

'What, all that little lot?' but he winked at Alice, and we saw that he meant to aid us on our way. So we

climbed up, and he whipped up the horse and asked us where we were going. He was a kindly old man, with

'It ain't no ruin,' the man said; 'no fear of that! The man wot built it he left so much a year to be spent on

'Church?' he said. 'Not it. It's more of a tombstone, from all I can make out. They do say there was a curse on

him that built it, and he wasn't to rest in earth or sea. So he's buried halfway up the towerif you can call it

'Lord love you! yes; a fine view from the top they say. I've never been up myself, though I've lived in sight of

Alice asked whether you had to go past the dead and buried person to get to the top of the tower, and could

'No, no,' the man said; 'that's all hid away behind a slab of stone, that is, with reading on it. You've no call to

be afraid, missy. It's daylight all the way up. But I wouldn't go there after dark, so I wouldn't. It's always

open, day and night, and they say tramps sleep there now and again. Anyone who likes can sleep there, but it

We thought that it would not be us either, but we wanted to go more than ever, especially when the man

'My own greatuncle of the mother's side, he was one of the masons that set up the stone slab. Before then it

was thick glass, and you could see the dead man lying inside, as he'd left it in his will. He was lying there in a

glass coffin with his best clothesblue satin and silver, my uncle said, such as was all the go in his day, with

his wig on, and his sword beside him, what he used to wear. My uncle said his hair had grown out from under

his wig, and his beard was down to the toes of him. My uncle he always upheld that that dead man was no

deader than you and me, but was in a sort of fit, a transit, I think they call it, and looked for him to waken into

life again some day. But the doctor said not. It was only something done to him like Pharaoh in the Bible

Alice whispered to Oswald that we should be late for tea, and wouldn't it be better to go back now directly.

The man who was going for the pig put us down at a gate quite near the towerat least it looked so until we

We were rather quiet going through the wood. What we had heard made us very anxious to see the tower

all except Alice, who would keep talking about tea, though not a greedy girl by nature. None of the others

encouraged her, but Oswald thought himself that we had better be home before dark.

As we went up the path through the wood we saw a poor wayfarer with dusty bare feet sitting on the bank.

He stopped us and said he was a sailor, and asked for a trifle to help him to get back to his ship.

I did not like the look of him much myself, but Alice said, 'Oh, the poor man, do let's help him, Oswald.' So

we held a hurried council, and decided to give him the milk sixpence. Oswald had it in his purse, and he had

to empty the purse into his hand to find the sixpence, for that was not all the money he had, by any means.

Noel said afterwards that he saw the wayfarer's eyes fastened greedily upon the shining pieces as Oswald

returned them to his purse. Oswald has to own that he purposely let the man see that he had more money, so

The sun was shining very brightly, and the Tower of Mystery did not look at all like a tomb when we got to

it. The bottom Storey was on arches, all open, and ferns and things grew underneath. There was a round stone

stair going up in the middle. Alice began to gather ferns while we went up, but when we had called out to her

'All right. I'm not afraid. I'm only afraid of being late home,' and came up after us. And perhaps, though not

There were holes in the little tower of the staircase to let light in. At the top of it was a thick door with iron

bolts. We shot these back, and it was not fear but caution that made Oswald push open the door so very

Because, of course, a stray dog or cat might have got shut up there by accident, and it would have startled

When the door was opened we saw that there was no such thing. It was a room with eight sides. Denny says it

is the shape called octogenarian; because a man named Octagius invented it. There were eight large arched

windows with no glass, only stonework, like in churches. The room was full of sunshine, and you could see

the blue sky through the windows, but nothing else, because they were so high up. It was so bright we began

to think the pigman had been kidding us. Under one of the windows was a door. We went through, and there

was a little passage and then a turrettwisting stair, like in the church, but quite light with windows. When we

had gone some way up this, we came to a sort of landing, and there was a block of stone let into the

wallpolishedDenny said it was Aberdeen graphite, with gold letters cut in it. It said

Up at the top it was like the top of the church tower, only octogenarian in shape, instead of square.

Alice got all right there; because you cannot think much about ghosts and nonsense when the sun is shining

bang down on you at four o'clock in the afternoon, and you can see red farmroofs between the trees, and the

It was very jolly, but we felt we ought to be getting back, because tea is at five, and we could not hope to find

So we started to go down. Dicky went first, then Oswald, then Aliceand H. O. had just stumbled over the

top step and saved himself by Alice's back, which nearly upset Oswald and Dicky, when the hearts of all

stood still, and then went on by leaps and bounds, like the good work in missionary magazines.

For, down below us, in the tower where the man whose beard grew down to his toes after he was dead was

buried, there was a noisea loud noise. And it was like a door being banged and bolts fastened. We tumbled

over each other to get back into the open sunshine on the top of the tower, and Alice's hand got jammed

between the edge of the doorway and H. O.'s boot; it was bruised black and blue, and another part bled, but

We looked at each other, and Oswald said in a firm voice (at least, I hope it was)

'He HAS waked up,' Alice said. 'Oh, I know he has. Of course there is a door for him to get out by when he

Dicky said, and his voice was not at all firm (I noticed that at the time), 'It doesn't matter, if he's ALIVE.'

'Unless he's come to life a raving lunatic,' Noel said, and we all stood with our eyes on the doorway of the

Then Oswald saidand nobody ever put it in the Golden Deed book, though they own that it was brave and

'Perhaps it was only the wind blowing one of the doors to. I'll go down and see, if you will, Dick.'

'A bolt from the blue,' said Denny to himself, looking up at the sky. His father is a subeditor. He had gone

very red, and he was holding on to Alice's hand. Suddenly he stood up quite straight and said

THIS was afterwards put in the Golden Deed book. It ended in Oswald and Dicky and Denny going. Denny

went first because he said he would rather and Oswald understood this and let him. If Oswald had pushed

first it would have been like Sir Lancelot refusing to let a young knight win his spurs. Oswald took good care

to go second himself, though. The others never understood this. You don't expect it from girls; but I did think

father would have understood without Oswald telling him, which of course he never could.

At the bottom of the turret stairs we stopped short. Because the door there was bolted fast and would not yield

Only now somehow we felt that Mr Richard Ravenal was all right and quiet, but that some one had done it

for a lark, or perhaps not known about anyone being up there. So we rushed up, and Oswald told the others in

a few hasty but wellchosen words, and we all leaned over between the battlements, and shouted, 'Hi! you

Then from under the arches of the quitedownstairs part of the tower a figure came forthand it was the

sailor who had had our milk sixpence. He looked up and he spoke to us. He did not speak loud, but he spoke

He said, 'Because if you don't I'll come up and make you, and pretty quick too, so I tell you.'

Alice saidand Oswald wished to goodness she had held her tongue, because he saw right enough the man

While she was saying it Oswald suddenly saw that he did not want the man to come up. So he scurried down

the stairs because he thought he had seen something on the door on the top side, and sure enough there were

two bolts, and he shot them into their sockets. This bold act was not put in the Golden Deed book, because

when Alice wanted to, the others said it was not GOOD of Oswald to think of this, but only CLEVER. I think

sometimes, in moments of danger and disaster, it is as good to be clever as it is to be good. But Oswald

'Oh, Oswald, he says he won't let us out unless we give him all our money. And we might be here for days

and days and all night as well. No one knows where we are to come and look for us. Oh, do let's give it him

She thought the lion of the English nation, which does not know when it is beaten, would be ramping in her

'All right,' and he made the others turn out their pockets. Denny had a bad shilling, with a head on both sides,

and three halfpence. H. O. had a halfpenny. Noel had a French penny, which is only good for chocolate

machines at railway stations. Dicky had tenpencehalfpenny, and Oswald had a twoshilling piece of his

own that he was saving up to buy a gun with. Oswald tied the whole lot up in his handkerchief, and looking

The man did look a little bit ashamed, but he mumbled something about having his living to get. Then

The man muffed the catchbutterfingered idiot! but he picked up the handkerchief and undid it, and

'Look here,' he called out, 'this won't do, young shaver. I want those there shiners I see in your pus! Chuck

'I shall know you again anywhere, and you'll be put in prison for this. Here are the SHINERS.' And he was so

angry he chucked down purse and all. The shiners were not real ones, but only cardcounters that looked like

sovereigns on one side. Oswald used to carry them in his purse so as to look affluent. He does not do this

When the man had seen what was in the purse he disappeared under the tower, and Oswald was glad of what

he had done about the boltsand he hoped they were as strong as the ones on the other side of the door.

We heard the man kicking and pounding at the door, and I am not ashamed to say that we were all holding on

to each other very tight. I am proud, however, to relate that nobody screamed or cried.

After what appeared to be long years, the banging stopped, and presently we saw the brute going away

'It's no use. Even if he's undone the door, he may be in ambush. We must hold on here till somebody comes.'

By the most fortunate accident she had on one of her Sunday petticoats, though it was Monday. This petticoat

is white. She tore it out at the gathers, and we tied it to Denny's stick, and took turns to wave it. We had

laughed at his carrying a stick before, but we were very sorry now that we had done so.

And the tin dish the Lent pie was baked in we polished with our handkerchiefs, and moved it about in the sun

so that the sun might strike on it and signal our distress to some of the outlying farms.

This was perhaps the most dreadful adventure that had then ever happened to us. Even Alice had now stopped

We all felt our desperate situation keenly. I must say Denny behaved like anything but a white mouse. When

it was the others' turn to wave, he sat on the leads of the tower and held Alice's and Noel's hands, and said

poetry to themyards and yards of it. By some strange fatality it seemed to comfort them. It wouldn't have

He said 'The Battle of the Baltic', and 'Gray's Elegy', right through, though I think he got wrong in places, and

the 'Revenge', and Macaulay's thing about Lars Porsena and the Nine Gods. And when it was his turn he

I will try not to call him a white mouse any more. He was a brick that day, and no mouse.

The sun was low in the heavens, and we were sick of waving and very hungry, when we saw a cart in the

road below. We waved like mad, and shouted, and Denny screamed exactly like a railway whistle, a thing

And the cart stopped. And presently we saw a figure with a white beard among the trees. It was our Pigman.

We bellowed the awful truth to him, and when he had taken it inhe thought at first we were kidding he

He had got the pig; luckily it was a very small one and we were not particular. Denny and Alice sat on the

front of the cart with the Pigman, and the rest of us got in with the pig, and the man drove us right home.

You may think we talked it over on the way. Not us. We went to sleep, among the pig, and before long the

Pigman stopped and got us to make room for Alice and Denny. There was a net over the cart. I never was so

Generally, after anything exciting, you are punishedbut this could not be, because we had only gone for a

There was a new rule made, though. No walks except on the highroads, and we were always to take Pincher

and either Lady, the deerhound, or Martha, the bulldog. We generally hate rules, but we did not mind this

Father gave Denny a gold pencilcase because he was first to go down into the tower. Oswald does not

grudge Denny this, though some might think he deserved at least a silver one. But Oswald is above such

This is the story of one of the most farreaching and influentially naughty things we ever did in our lives. We

did not mean to do such a deed. And yet we did do it. These things will happen with the bestregulated

The story of this rash and fatal act is intimately involvedwhich means all mixed up anyhowwith a

private affair of Oswald's, and the one cannot be revealed without the other. Oswald does not particularly

want his story to be remembered, but he wishes to tell the truth, and perhaps it is what father calls a

On Alice's and Noel's birthday we went on the river for a picnic. Before that we had not known that there was

a river so near us. Afterwards father said he wished we had been allowed to remain on our pristine ignorance,

whatever that is. And perhaps the dark hour did dawn when we wished so too. But a truce to vain regrets.

It was rather a fine thing in birthdays. The uncle sent a box of toys and sweets, things that were like a vision

from another and a brighter world. Besides that Alice had a knife, a pair of shutup scissors, a silk

handkerchief, a bookit was The Golden Age and is Ai except where it gets mixed with grownup

nonsense. Also a workcase lined with pink plush, a bootbag, which no one in their senses would use

because it had flowers in wool all over it. And she had a box of chocolates and a musical box that played 'The

Man who broke' and two other tunes, and two pairs of kid gloves for church, and a box of

writingpaperpinkwith 'Alice' on it in gold writing, and an egg coloured red that said 'A. Bastable' in

ink on one side. These gifts were the offerings of Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Albert's uncle, Daisy, Mr Foulkes

(our own robber), Noel, H. O., father and Denny. Mrs Pettigrew gave the egg. It was a kindly housekeeper's

I shall not tell you about the picnic on the river because the happiest times form but dull reading when they

are written down. I will merely state that it was prime. Though happy, the day was uneventful. The only thing

exciting enough to write about was in one of the locks, where there was a snakea viper. It was asleep in a

warm sunny corner of the lock gate, and when the gate was shut it fell off into the water.

The snake swam round and round all the time our boat was in the lock. It swam with four inches of

itselfthe head endreared up out of the water, exactly like Kaa in the Jungle Bookso we know Kipling

is a true author and no rotter. We were careful to keep our hands well inside the boat. A snake's eyes strike

When the lock was full father killed the viper with a boathook. I was sorry for it myself. It was indeed a

venomous serpent. But it was the first we had ever seen, except at the Zoo. And it did swim most awfully

Directly the snake had been killed H. O. reached out for its corpse, and the next moment the body of our little

brother was seen wriggling conclusively on the boat's edge. This exciting spectacle was not of a lasting

Being a birthday, but little was said. H. O. was wrapped in everybody's coats, and did not take any cold at all.

This glorious birthday ended with an iced cake and ginger wine, and drinking healths. Then we played

whatever we liked. There had been rounders during the afternoon. It was a day to be for ever marked by

I should not have said anything about the picnic but for one thing. It was the thin edge of the wedge. It was

the allpowerful lever that moved but too many events. You see, WE WERE NO LONGER STRANGERS

And we went there whenever we could. Only we had to take the dogs, and to promise no bathing without

I have not numerated Noel's birthday presents because I wish to leave something to the imagination of my

young readers. (The best authors always do this.) If you will take the large, red catalogue of the Army and

Navy Stores, and just make a list of about fifteen of the things you would like bestprices from 2s. to

25s.you will get a very good idea of Noel's presents, and it will help you to make up your mind in case you

One of Noel's birthday presents was a cricket ball. He cannot bowl for nuts, and it was a firstrate ball. So

some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won at the fair, and two

pencils (new), and a brandnew notebook. Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange,

and so did Noel at the time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it wasn't fair, and

Oswald had the best of it. And then that young beggar Noel wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not

'You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it,' he said, and he said it quite kindly and calmly.

Noel said he didn't care. He wanted his cricket ball back. And the girls said it was a horrid shame.

If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel have the beastly ball, but now, of

'Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and things again the next minute.'

'No, I shouldn't,' Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O. had eaten the coconut, which only made it

I wish to be just to Alice. She did not know then about the coconut having been secretly wolfed up.

We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero when the opposing forces gathered about him

are opposing as hard as ever they can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to be jawed at just

because Noel had eaten the coconut and wanted the ball back. Though Oswald did not know then about the

Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to make up for the coconut, but he said

Then Noel called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but just kept smiling pleasantly, and

carelessly throwing up the ball and catching it again with an air of studied indifference.

It was Martha's fault that what happened happened. She is the bulldog, and very stout and heavy. She had

just been let loose and she came bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on Oswald, who is

beloved by all dumb animals. (You know how sagacious they are.) Well, Martha knocked the ball out of

Oswald's hands, and it fell on the grass, and Noel pounced on it like a hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald

would scorn to deny that he was not going to stand this, and the next moment the two were rolling over on

the grass, and very soon Noel was made to bite the dust. And serve him right. He is old enough to know his

Then Oswald walked slowly away with the ball, and the others picked Noel up, and consoled the beaten, but

And Oswald went up into his own room and lay on his bed, and reflected gloomy reflections about

Presently he thought he would like to see what the others were doing without their knowing he cared. So he

went into the linenroom and looked out of its window, and he saw they were playing Kings and

Then suddenly his weary eyes fell upon something they had not before beheld. It was a square trapdoor in

Oswald never hesitated. He crammed the cricket ball into his pocket and climbed up the shelves and unbolted

the trapdoor, and shoved it up, and pulled himself up through it. Though above all was dark and smelt of

spiders, Oswald fearlessly shut the trapdoor down again before he struck a match. He always carries

matches. He is a boy fertile in every subtle expedient. Then he saw he was in the wonderful, mysterious place

between the ceiling and the roof of the house. The roof is beams and tiles. Slits of light show through the tiles

here and there. The ceiling, on its other and top side, is made of rough plaster and beams. If you walk on the

beams it is all rightif you walk on the plaster you go through with your feet. Oswald found this out later,

but some fine instinct now taught the young explorer where he ought to tread and where not. It was splendid.

He was still very angry with the others and he was glad he had found out a secret they jolly well didn't know.

He walked along a dark, narrow passage. Every now and then crossbeams barred his way, and he had to

creep under them. At last a small door loomed before him with cracks of light under and over. He drew back

the rusty bolts and opened it. It opened straight on to the leads, a flat place between two steep red roofs, with

a parapet two feet high back and front, so that no one could see you. It was a place no one could have

Oswald spent the whole afternoon there. He happened to have a volume of Percy's Anecdotes in his pocket,

the one about lawyers, as well as a few apples. While he read he fingered the cricket ball, and presently it

When the teabell rang he forgot the ball and went hurriedly down, for apples do not keep the inside from the

'It wasn't QUITE fair about the ball, because H. O. and I had eaten the coconut. YOU can have it.'

'I don't want your beastly ball,' Oswald said, 'only I hate unfairness. However, I don't know where it is just

And Oswald said 'No' and they went in to tea together. So that was all right. There were raisin cakes for tea.

Next day we happened to want to go down to the river quite early. I don't know why; this is called Fate, or

Destiny. We dropped in at the 'Rose and Crown' for some gingerbeer on our way. The landlady is a friend of

ours and lets us drink it in her back parlour, instead of in the bar, which would be improper for girls.

We found her awfully busy, making pies and jellies, and her two sisters were hurrying about with great hams,

and pairs of chickens, and rounds of cold beef and lettuces, and pickled salmon and trays of crockery and

'Why,' she said, slicing cucumber like beautiful machinery while she said it, 'a lot of anglers come down some

particular day and fish one particular bit of the river. And the one that catches most fish gets the prize.

They're fishing the pen above Stoneham Lock. And they all come here to dinner. So I've got my hands full

But she said, 'Oh, no, thank you. Indeed not, please. I really am so I don't know which way to turn. Do run

Need I tell the intellectual reader that we went straight off to the pen above Stoneham Lock to see the anglers

I am not going to try and explain locks to you. If you've never seen a lock you could never understand even if

I wrote it in words of one syllable and pages and pages long. And if you have, you'll understand without my

telling you. It is harder than Euclid if you don't know beforehand. But you might get a grownup person to

I will tell you what a pen is because that is easy. It is the bit of river between one lock and the next. In some

We went along the towingpath; it is shady with willows, aspens, alders, elders, oaks and other trees. On the

banks are flowersyarrow, meadowsweet, willow herb, loosestrife, and lady's bedstraw. Oswald learned

the names of all these trees and plants on the day of the picnic. The others didn't remember them, but Oswald

The anglers were sitting here and there on the shady bank among the grass and the different flowers I have

named. Some had dogs with them, and some umbrellas, and some had only their wives and families.

We should have liked to talk to them and ask how they liked their lot, and what kinds of fish there were, and

Denny had seen anglers before and he knew they liked to be talked to, but though he spoke to them quite like

to equals he did not ask the things we wanted to know. He just asked whether they'd had any luck, and what

It is an immovable amusement, and, as often as not, no fish to speak of after all.

Daisy and Dora had stayed at home: Dora's foot was nearly well but they seem really to like sitting still. I

think Dora likes to have a little girl to order about. Alice never would stand it. When we got to Stoneham

Lock Denny said he should go home and fetch his fishingrod. H. O. went with him. This left four of

usOswald, Alice, Dicky, and Noel. We went on down the towingpath. The lock shuts up (that sounds as

if it was like the lock on a door, but it is very otherwise) between one pen of the river and the next; the pen

where the anglers were was full right up over the roots of the grass and flowers. But the pen below was nearly

Stones and mud and dried branches, and here and there an old kettle or a tin pail with no bottom to it, that

From walking so much along the river we knew many of the bargees. Bargees are the captains and crews of

the big barges that are pulled up and down the river by slow horses. The horses do not swim. They walk on

the towingpath, with a rope tied to them, and the other end to the barge. So it gets pulled along. The bargees

we knew were a good friendly sort, and used to let us go all over the barges when they were in a good temper.

They were not at all the sort of bullying, cowardly fiends in human form that the young hero at Oxford fights

The river does not smell nice when its bones are showing. But we went along down, because Oswald wanted

But just above Falding Lock, where the river is narrow and straight, we saw a sad and gloomy sighta big

There was no one on board, but we knew by a red flannel waistcoat that was spread out to dry on top that the

Then Alice said, 'They have gone to find the man who turns on the water to fill the pen. I daresay they won't

find him. He's gone to his dinner, I shouldn't wonder. What a lovely surprise it would be if they came back to

find their barge floating high and dry on a lot of water! DO let's do it. It's a long time since any of us did a

We had given that name to the minutebook of that beastly 'Society of the Wouldbegoods'. Then you could

think of the book if you wanted to without remembering the Society. I always tried to forget both of them.

Oswald said, 'But how? YOU don't know how. And if you did we haven't got a crowbar.'

I cannot help telling you that locks are opened with crowbars. You push and push till a thing goes up and the

water runs through. It is rather like the little sliding door in the big door of a henhouse.

'I know where the crowbar is,' Alice said. 'Dicky and I were down here yesterday when you were su' She

was going to say sulking, I know, but she remembered manners ere too late so Oswald bears her no malice.

She went on: 'Yesterday, when you were upstairs. And we saw the watertender open the lock and the weir

'As easy as kiss your hand,' said Dicky; 'and what's more, I know where he keeps the other thing he opens the

'Do let's, if we can,' Noel said, 'and the bargees will bless the names of their unknown benefactors. They

might make a song about us, and sing it on winter nights as they pass round the wassail bowl in front of the

Noel wanted to very much; but I don't think it was altogether for generousness, but because he wanted to see

We sat and looked at the barge a bit longer, and then Oswald said, well, he didn't mind going back to the lock

and having a look at the crowbars. You see Oswald did not propose this; he did not even care very much

But when we got to Stoneham Lock, and Dicky dragged the two heavy crowbars from among the elder

bushes behind a fallen tree, and began to pound away at the sluice of the lock, Oswald felt it would not be

It was very hard work but we opened the lock sluices, and we did not drop the crowbar into the lock either, as

The water poured through the sluices all green and solid, as if it had been cut with a knife, and where it fell

on the water underneath the white foam spread like a moving counterpane. When we had finished the lock we

did the weirwhich is wheels and chains and the water pours through over the stones in a magnificent

The sight of the foaming waterfalls was quite enough reward for our heavy labours, even without the thought

of the unspeakable gratitude that the bargees would feel to us when they got back to their barge and found her

When we had opened all the sluices we gazed awhile on the beauties of Nature, and then went home, because

we thought it would be more truly noble and good not to wait to be thanked for our kind and devoted

actionand besides, it was nearly dinnertime and Oswald thought it was going to rain.

On the way home we agreed not to tell the others, because it would be like boasting of our good acts.

'They will know all about it,' Noel said, 'when they hear us being blessed by the grateful bargees, and the tale

of the Unknown Helpers is being told by every village fireside. And then they can write it in the Golden Deed

So we went home. Denny and H. O. had thought better of it, and they were fishing in the moat. They did not

Oswald is very weatherwiseat least, so I have heard it said, and he had thought there would be rain. There

was. It came on while we were at dinnera great, strong, thundering rain, coming down in sheetsthe first

We went to bed as usual. No presentiment of the coming awfulness clouded our young mirth. I remember

In the middle of the night Oswald was awakened by a hand on his face. It was a wet hand and very cold.

'Don't be a young ass! Have you got any matches? My bed's full of water; it's pouring down from the ceiling.'

Oswald's first thoughts was that perhaps by opening those sluices we had flooded some secret passage which

communicated with the top of Moat House, but when he was properly awake he saw that this could not be, on

He had matches. He is, as I said before, a boy full of resources. He struck one and lit a candle, and Dicky, for

Our bedroom floor was all wet in patches. Dicky's bed stood in a pond, and from the ceiling water was

dripping in rich profusion at a dozen different places. There was a great wet patch in the ceiling, and that was

blue, instead of white like the dry part, and the water dripped from different parts of it.

'Krikey!' he said, in a heartbroken tone, and remained an instant plunged in thought.

And really for a short time even Oswald did not know. It was a bloodcurdling event, a regular facer. Albert's

uncle had gone to London that day to stay till the next. Yet something must be done.

The first thing was to rouse the unconscious others from their deep sleep, because the water was beginning to

drip on to their beds, and though as yet they knew it not, there was quite a pool on Noel's bed, just in the

hollow behind where his knees were doubled up, and one of H. O.'s boots was full of water, that surged

Then we said, 'Get up, there is a flood! Wake up, or you will be drowned in your beds! And it's half past two

But Oswald simply couldn't consent to this. He could not get rid of the feeling that this was our fault

somehow for meddling with the river, though of course the clear star of reason told him it could not possibly

We all devoted ourselves, heart and soul, to the work before us. We put the bath under the worst and wettest

place, and the jugs and basins under lesser streams, and we moved the beds away to the dry end of the room.

But the water kept coming in worse and worse. Our nightshirts were wet through, so we got into our other

shirts and knickerbockers, but preserved bareness in our feet. And the floor kept on being half an inch deep in

We emptied the basins out of the window as fast as they filled, and we baled the bath with a jug without

pausing to complain how hard the work was. All the same, it was more exciting than you can think. But in

Oswald's dauntless breast he began to see that they would HAVE to call Mrs Pettigrew.

A new waterfall broke out between the firegrate and the mantelpiece, and spread in devastating floods.

Oswald is full of ingenious devices. I think I have said this before, but it is quite true; and perhaps even truer

He got a board out of the boxroom next door, and rested one end in the chink between the fireplace and the

mantelpiece, and laid the other end on the back of a chair, then we stuffed the rest of the chink with our

nightgowns, and laid a towel along the plank, and behold, a noble stream poured over the end of the board

right into the bath we put there ready. It was like Niagara, only not so round in shape. The first lot of water

that came down the chimney was very dirty. The wind whistled outside. Noel said, 'If it's pipes burst, and not

the rain, it will be nice for the waterrates.' Perhaps it was only natural after this for Denny to begin with his

Our faces were black, and our hands too, but we did not take any notice; we only told him not to gas but to go

But more and more water came pouring down. You would not believe so much could come off one roof.

When at last it was agreed that Mrs Pettigrew must be awakened at all hazards, we went and woke Alice to

When she came back, with Mrs Pettigrew in a nightcap and red flannel petticoat, we held our breath.

But Mrs Pettigrew did not even say, 'What on earth have you children been up to NOW?' as Oswald had

Then Denny said, 'I once saw holes in a cottage roof. The man told me it was done when the water came

through the thatch. He said if the water lies all about on the top of the ceiling, it breaks it down, but if you

make holes the water will only come through the holes and you can put pails under the holes to catch it.'

So we made nine holes in the ceiling with the poker, and put pails, baths and tubs under, and now there was

not so much water on the floor. But we had to keep on working like niggers, and Mrs Pettigrew and Alice

About five in the morning the rain stopped; about seven the water did not come in so fast, and presently it

This is the only time I was ever up all night. I wish it happened oftener. We did not go back to bed then, but

dressed and went down. We all went to sleep in the afternoon, though. Quite without meaning to.

Oswald went up on the roof, before breakfast, to see if he could find the hole where the rain had come in. He

did not find any hole, but he found the cricket ball jammed in the top of a gutter pipe which he afterwards

knew ran down inside the wall of the house and ran into the moat below. It seems a silly dodge, but so it was.

When the men went up after breakfast to see what had caused the flood they said there must have been a good

halffoot of water on the leads the night before for it to have risen high enough to go above the edge of the

lead, and of course when it got above the lead there was nothing to stop it running down under it, and soaking

through the ceiling. The parapet and the roofs kept it from tumbling off down the sides of the house in the

natural way. They said there must have been some obstruction in the pipe which ran down into the house, but

whatever it was the water had washed it away, for they put wires down, and the pipe was quite clear.

While we were being told this Oswald's trembling fingers felt at the wet cricket ball in his pocket. And he

KNEW, but he COULD not tell. He heard them wondering what the obstruction could have been, and all the

I do not seek to defend him. But it really was an awful thing to have been the cause of; and Mrs Pettigrew is

but harsh and hasty. But this, as Oswald knows too well, is no excuse for his silent conduct.

That night at tea Albert's uncle was rather silent too. At last he looked upon us with a glance full of

'There was a queer thing happened yesterday. You know there was an angling competition. The pen was kept

full on purpose. Some mischievous busybody went and opened the sluices and let all the water out. The

anglers' holiday was spoiled. No, the rain wouldn't have spoiled it anyhow, Alice; anglers LIKEe rain. The

'Rose and Crown' dinner was half of it wasted because the anglers were so furious that a lot of them took the

next train to town. And this is the worst of alla barge, that was on the mud in the pen below, was lifted and

jammed across the river and the water tilted her over, and her cargo is on the river bottom. It was coals.'

During this speech there were four of us who knew not where to turn our agitated glances. Some of us tried

breadandbutter, but it seemed dry and difficult, and those who tried tea choked and spluttered and were

sorry they had not let it alone. When the speech stopped Alice said, 'It was us.'

Oswald did not say much. He was turning the obstruction round and round in his pocket, and wishing with all

his sentiments that he had owned up like a man when Albert's uncle asked him before tea to tell him all about

When they had told all, Albert's uncle told us four still more plainly, and exactly, what we had done, and how

much pleasure we had spoiled, and how much of my father's money we had wastedbecause he would have

to pay for the coals being got up from the bottom of the river, if they could be, and if not, for the price of the

You don't know how we've tried! And it's all no use. I believe we are the wickedest children in the whole

This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were all very shocked. But Oswald could not

He said very gravely, 'My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and I wish you to be sorry for what you've done.

And you will be punished for it.' (We were; our pocketmoney was stopped and we were forbidden to go

near the river, besides impositions miles long.) 'But,' he went on, 'you mustn't give up trying to be good. You

'You're very unhappy now,' he said, 'and you deserve to be. But I will say one thing to you.'

Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but little he deserved it, with the

He said, 'I have known you all for four yearsand you know as well as I do how many scrapes I've seen you

in and out ofbut I've never known one of you tell a lie, and I've never known one of you do a mean or

dishonourable action. And when you have done wrong you are always sorry. Now this is something to stand

He took his hands out of his pockets, and his face looked different, so that three of the four guilty creatures

knew he was no longer adamant, and they threw themselves into his arms. Dora, Denny, Daisy, and H. O., of

Oswald did not embrace Albert's uncle. He stood there and made up his mind he would go for a soldier. He

gave the wet ball one last squeeze, and took his hand out of his pocket, and said a few words before going to

'The others may deserve what you say. I hope they do, I'm sure. But I don't, because it was my rotten cricket

ball that stopped up the pipe and caused the midnight flood in our bedroom. And I knew it quite early this

Oswald stood there covered with shame, and he could feel the hateful cricket ball heavy and cold against the

Albert's uncle saidand his voice made Oswald hot all over, but not with shamehe said

I shall not tell you what he said. It is no one's business but Oswald's; only I will own it made Oswald not

That owning up was the hardest thing I ever did. They did put that in the Book of Golden Deeds, though it

was not a kind or generous act, and did no good to anyone or anything except Oswald's own inside feelings. I

must say I think they might have let it alone. Oswald would rather forget it. Especially as Dicky wrote it in

'Oswald acted a lie, which, he knows, is as bad as telling one. But he owned up when he needn't have, and

Alice scratched this out afterwards and wrote the record of the incident in more flattering terms. But Dicky

had used Father's ink, and she used Mrs Pettigrew's, so anyone can read his underneath the scratching outs.

The others were awfully friendly to Oswald, to show they agreed with Albert's uncle in thinking I deserved as

It was Dora who said it all came from my quarrelling with Noel about that rotten cricket ball; but Alice,

I let Noel have the ball. It had been thoroughly soaked, but it dried all right. But it could never be the same to

I hope you will try to agree with Albert's uncle and not think foul scorn of Oswald because of this story.

Perhaps you have done things nearly as bad yourself sometimes. If you have, you will know how 'owning up'

If you have never done naughty acts I expect it is only because you never had the sense to think of anything.

The ones of us who had started the Society of the Wouldbegoods began, at about this time, to bother.

They said we had not done anything really noble not worth speaking of, that isfor over a week, and that

it was high time to begin again'with earnest endeavour', Daisy said. So then Oswald said

'All right; but there ought to be an end to everything. Let's each of us think of one really noble and unselfish

act, and the others shall help to work it out, like we did when we were Treasure Seekers. Then when

everybody's had their goin we'll write every single thing down in the Golden Deed book, and we'll draw two

lines in red ink at the bottom, like Father does at the end of an account. And after that, if anyone wants to be

The ones who had made the Society did not welcome this wise idea, but Dicky and Oswald were firm.

So they had to agree. When Oswald is really firm, opposingness and obstinacy have to give way.

Dora said, 'It would be a noble action to have all the schoolchildren from the village and give them tea and

But Dicky showed her that this would not be OUR good act, but Father's, because he would have to pay for

the tea, and he had already stood us the keepsakes for the soldiers, as well as having to stump up heavily over

the coal barge. And it is in vain being noble and generous when someone else is paying for it all the time,

even if it happens to be your father. Then three others had ideas at the same time and began to explain what

We were all in the diningroom, and perhaps we were making a bit of a row. Anyhow, Oswald for one, does

'I suppose I must not ask for complete silence. That were too much. But if you could whistle, or stamp with

your feet, or shriek or howlanything to vary the monotony of your wellsustained conversation.'

'Busy?' said Albert's uncle. 'My heroine is now hesitating on the verge of an act which, for good or ill, must

influence her whole subsequent career. You wouldn't like her to decide in the middle of such a row that she

Then he said, 'If any outdoor amusement should commend itself to you this bright midsummer day.' So we

Then Daisy whispered to Dorathey always hang together. Daisy is not nearly so whitemicey as she was at

first, but she still seems to fear the deadly ordeal of public speaking. Dora said

'Daisy's idea is a game that'll take us all day. She thinks keeping out of the way when he's making his heroine

decide right would be a noble act, and fit to write in the Golden Book; and we might as well be playing

'Speak up, Daisy, my child.' Oswald said; 'fear not to lay bare the utmost thoughts of that faithful heart.'

Daisy giggled. Our own girls never gigglethey laugh right out or hold their tongues. Their kind brothers

'If we could have a sort of play to keep us out of the way. I once read a story about an animal race. Everybody

had an animal, and they had to go how they liked, and the one that got in first got the prize. There was a

tortoise in it, and a rabbit, and a peacock, and sheep, and dogs, and a kitten.'

This proposal left us cold, as Albert's uncle says, because we knew there could not be any prize worth

bothering about. And though you may be ever ready and willing to do anything for nothing, yet if there's

Thus the idea was not followed up. Dicky yawned and said, 'Let's go into the barn and make a fort.'

So we did, with straw. It does not hurt straw to be messed about with like it does hay.

The downstairsI mean downladderpart of the barn was fun too, especially for Pincher. There was as

good ratting there as you could wish to see. Martha tried it, but she could not help running kindly beside the

rat, as if she was in double harness with it. This is the noble bulldog's gentle and affectionate nature coming

out. We all enjoyed the ratting that day, but it ended, as usual, in the girls crying because of the poor rats.

Girls cannot help this; we must not be waxy with them on account of it, they have their nature, the same as

bulldogs have, and it is this that makes them so useful in smoothing the pillows of the sickbed and tending

However, the forts, and Pincher, and the girls crying, and having to be thumped on the back, passed the time

very agreeably till dinner. There was roast mutton with onion sauce, and a rolypoly pudding.

Albert's uncle said we had certainly effaced ourselves effectually, which means we hadn't bothered.

So we determined to do the same during the afternoon, for he told us his heroine was by no means out of the

And at first it was easy. Jam roly gives you a peaceful feeling and you do not at first care if you never play

any runabout game ever any more. But after a while the torpor begins to pass away. Oswald was the first to

He had been lying on his front part in the orchard, but now he turned over on his back and kicked his legs up,

Daisy looked thoughtful. She was chewing the soft yellow parts of grass, but I could see she was still

thinking about that animal race. So I explained to her that it would be very poor fun without a tortoise and a

At the word the last thought of the pudding faded from Oswald's memory, and he stretched himself, sat up,

The others also threw off the heavy weight of memory, and sat up and said 'Let's!' too.

Never, never in all our lives had we had such a gay galaxy of animals at our command. The rabbits and the

guineapigs, and even all the bright, glasseyed, stuffed denizens of our latelamented jungle paled into

(I hope you do not think that the words I use are getting too long. I know they are the right words. And

Albert's uncle says your style is always altered a bit by what you read. And I have been reading the Vicomte

'The worst of a circus is,' Dora said, 'that you've got to teach the animals things. A circus where the

performing creatures hadn't learned performing would be a bit silly. Let's give up a week to teaching them

Some people have no idea of the value of time. And Dora is one of those who do not understand that when

you want to do a thing you do want to, and not to do something else, and perhaps your own thing, a week

'Then perhaps,' he said, 'we may find that they have hidden talents hitherto unsuspected by their harsh

Daisy ought to have been captain because it was partly her idea, but she let Oswald be, because she is of a

'The first thing is to get all the creatures together; the paddock at the side of the orchard is the very place,

because the hedge is good all round. When we've got the performers all there we'll make a programme, and

then dress for our parts. It's a pity there won't be any audience but the turkeys.'

We took the animals in their right order, according to Denny's list. The bull was the first. He is black. He

does not live in the cowhouse with the other horned people; he has a house all to himself two fields away.

Oswald and Alice went to fetch him. They took a halter to lead the bull by, and a whip, not to hurt the bull

'I daresay,' he said, 'the bull will be shy at first, and he'll have to be goaded into the arena.'

'Properlybroughtup bulls attend because they know they ought,' Oswald said. 'I think I shall ride the bull,'

the brave boy went on. 'A bullfight, where an intrepid rider appears on the bull, sharing its joys and sorrows.

'You can't ride bulls,' Alice said; 'at least, not if their backs are sharp like cows.'

But Oswald thought he could. The bull lives in a house made of wood and prickly furze bushes, and he has a

yard to his house. You cannot climb on the roof of his house at all comfortably.

When we got there he was half in his house and half out in his yard, and he was swinging his tail because of

'You'll see,' Alice said, 'he won't want a goad. He'll be so glad to get out for a walk he'll drop his head in my

Oswald called to him. He said, 'Bull! Bull! Bull! Bull!' because we did not know the animal's real name. The

bull took no notice; then Oswald picked up a stone and threw it at the bull, not angrily, but just to make it pay

attention. But the bull did not pay a farthing's worth of it. So then Oswald leaned over the iron gate of the

bull's yard and just flicked the bull with the whiplash. And then the bull DID pay attention. He started when

the lash struck him, then suddenly he faced round, uttering a roar like that of the wounded King of Beasts,

and putting his head down close to his feet he ran straight at the iron gate where we were standing.

Alice and Oswald mechanically turned away; they did not wish to annoy the bull any more, and they ran as

As they ran across the field Oswald had a dreamlike fancy that perhaps the bull had rooted up the gate with

one paralysing blow, and was now tearing across the field after him and Alice, with the broken gate balanced

on its horns. We climbed the stile quickly and looked back; the bull was still on the right side of the gate.

Oswald said, 'I think we'll do without the bull. He did not seem to want to come. We must be kind to dumb

'Oh, Oswald, how can you!' But we did do without the bull, and we did not tell the others how we had hurried

The others had not been idle. They had got old Clover, the carthorse, but she would do nothing but graze, so

we decided not to use her in the bullfight, but to let her be the Elephant. The Elephant's is a nice quiet part,

and she was quite big enough for a young one. Then the black pig could be Learned, and the other two could

The donkey was there. Denny was leading him in the halter. The dogs were there, of coursethey always

The calves were easy to get, because they were in their own house. There were five. And the pigs were in

their houses too. We got them out after long and patient toil, and persuaded them that they wanted to go into

the paddock, where the circus was to be. This is done by pretending to drive them the other way. A pig only

knows two waysthe way you want him to go, and the other. But the turkeys knew thousands of different

ways, and tried them all. They made such an awful row, we had to drop all ideas of ever hearing applause

'Never mind,' H. O. said, 'they'll be sorry enough afterwards, nasty, unobliging things, because now they

While the turkeys were engaged in baffling the rest of us, Dicky had found three sheep who seemed to wish

Then we shut the gate of the paddock, and left the dumb circus performers to make friends with each other

Oswald and H. O. were to be clowns. It is quite easy with Albert's uncle's pyjamas, and flour on your hair and

Alice had very short pink and white skirts, and roses in her hair and round her dress. Her dress was the pink

calico and white muslin stuff off the dressingtable in the girls' room fastened with pins and tied round the

waist with a small bath towel. She was to be the Dauntless Equestrienne, and to give her enhancing act a

barebacked daring, riding either a pig or a sheep, whichever we found was freshest and most skittish. Dora

was dressed for the Haute ecole, which means a ridinghabit and a high hat. She took Dick's topper that he

wears with his Etons, and a skirt of Mrs Pettigrew's. Daisy, dressed the same as Alice, taking the muslin from

Mrs Pettigrew's dressingtable with out saying anything beforehand. None of us would have advised this,

and indeed we were thinking of trying to put it back, when Denny and Noel, who were wishing to look like

highwaymen, with brownpaper topboots and slouch hats and Turkish towel cloaks, suddenly stopped

'Krikey!' said Dick, 'come on, Oswald!' and he bounded like an antelope from the room.

Oswald and the rest followed, casting a hasty glance through the window. Noel had got brownpaper boots

too, and a Turkish towel cloak. H. O. had been waiting for Dora to dress him up for the other clown. He had

only his shirt and knickerbockers and his braces on. He came down as he wasas indeed we all did. And no

wonder, for in the paddock, where the circus was to be, a bloodthrilling thing had transpired. The dogs were

chasing the sheep. And we had now lived long enough in the country to know the fell nature of our dogs'

We all rushed into the paddock, calling to Pincher, and Martha, and Lady. Pincher came almost at once. He is

a wellbroughtup dogOswald trained him. Martha did not seem to hear. She is awfully deaf, but she did

not matter so much, because the sheep could walk away from her easily. She has no pace and no wind. But

Lady is a deerhound. She is used to pursuing that fleet and antlered pride of the forestthe stagand she

can go like billyo. She was now far away in a distant region of the paddock, with a fat sheep just before her in

full flight. I am sure if ever anybody's eyes did start out of their heads with horror, like in narratives of

There was a moment's pause of speechless horror. We expected to see Lady pull down her quarry, and we

know what a lot of money a sheep costs, to say nothing of its own personal feelings.

Then we started to run for all we were worth. It is hard to run swiftly as the arrow from the bow when you

happen to be wearing pyjamas belonging to a grownup personas I wasbut even so I beat Dicky. He

said afterwards it was because his brownpaper boots came undone and tripped him up. Alice came in third.

She held on the dressingtable muslin and ran jolly well. But ere we reached the fatal spot all was very nearly

up with the sheep. We heard a plop; Lady stopped and looked round. She must have heard us bellowing to

her as we ran. Then she came towards us, prancing with happiness, but we said 'Down!' and 'Bad dog!' and

When we came to the brook which forms the northern boundary of the paddock we saw the sheep struggling

in the water. It is not very deep, and I believe the sheep could have stood up, and been well in its depth, if it

It was a steepish bank. Alice and I got down and stuck our legs into the water, and then Dicky came down,

and the three of us hauled that sheep up by its shoulders till it could rest on Alice and me as we sat on the

bank. It kicked all the time we were hauling. It gave one extra kick at last, that raised it up, and I tell you that

sopping wet, heavy, panting, silly donkey of a sheep sat there on our laps like a pet dog; and Dicky got his

shoulder under it at the back and heaved constantly to keep it from flumping off into the water again, while

When the shepherd came he called us every name you can think of, and then he said

He got the sheep out, and took it and the others away. And the calves too. He did not seem to care about the

Alice, Oswald and Dick had had almost enough circus for just then, so we sat in the sun and dried ourselves

5. Elegant equestrian act by D. Bastable. Haute ecole, on Clover, the incomparative trained elephant from the

6. Alpine feat of daring. The climbing of the Andes, by Billy, the wellknown acrobatic goat. (We thought

we could make the Andes out of hurdles and things, and so we could have but for what always happens. (This

is the unexpected. (This is a saying Father told mebut I see I am three deep in brackets so I will close them

7. The Black but Learned Pig. ('I daresay he knows something,' Alice said, 'if we can only find out what.' We

We could not think of anything else, and our things were nearly dryall except Dick's brownpaper

We went back to the seat of actionwhich was the iron trough where the sheep have their salt putand

We had just tied the Union Jack we made out of Daisy's flannel petticoat and cetera, when we gave the

soldiers the baccy, round the waist of the Black and Learned Pig, when we heard screams from the back part

of the house, and suddenly we saw that Billy, the acrobatic goat, had got loose from the tree we had tied him

to. (He had eaten all the parts of its bark that he could get at, but we did not notice it until next day, when led

The gate of the paddock was open. The gate leading to the bridge that goes over the moat to the back door

was open too. We hastily proceeded in the direction of the screams, and, guided by the sound, threaded our

way into the kitchen. As we went, Noel, ever fertile in melancholy ideas, said he wondered whether Mrs

In the kitchen we saw that Noel was wrong as usual. It was neither. Mrs Pettigrew, screaming like a

steamsiren and waving a broom, occupied the foreground. In the distance the maid was shrieking in a hoarse

and monotonous way, and trying to shut herself up inside a clotheshorse on which washing was being aired.

On the dresserwhich he had ascended by a chairwas Billy, the acrobatic goat, doing his Alpine daring

act. He had found out his Andes for himself, and even as we gazed he turned and tossed his head in a way

that showed us some mysterious purpose was hidden beneath his calm exterior. The next moment he put his

offhorn neatly behind the end plate of the next to the bottom row, and ran it along against the wall. The

plates fell crashing on to the soup tureen and vegetable dishes which adorned the lower range of the Andes.

Mrs Pettigrew's screams were almost drowned in the discarding crash and crackle of the falling avalanche of

Oswald, though stricken with horror and polite regret, preserved the most dauntless coolness.

Disregarding the mop which Mrs Pettigrew kept on poking at the goat in a timid yet cross way, he sprang

But Dick had thought of the same thing, and ere Oswald could carry out his longcherished and generallike

design, Dicky had caught the goat's legs and tripped it up. The goat fell against another row of plates, righted

itself hastily in the gloomy ruins of the soup tureen and the sauceboats, and then fell again, this time

towards Dicky. The two fell heavily on the ground together. The trusty followers had been so struck by the

daring of Dicky and his lionhearted brother, that they had not stood by to catch anything.

The goat was not hurt, but Dicky had a sprained thumb and a lump on his head like a black marble

I will draw a veil and asterisks over what Mrs Pettigrew said. Also Albert's uncle, who was brought to the

scene of ruin by her screams. Few words escaped our lips. There are times when it is not wise to argue;

When they had said what they deemed enough and we were let go, we all went out. Then Alice said

'Let's give up the circus. Let's put the toys back in the boxesno, I don't mean thatthe creatures in their

Oswald has a spirit that no reverses can depreciate. He hates to be beaten. But he gave in to Alice, as the

others said so too, and we went out to collect the performing troop and sort it out into its proper places.

Alas! we came too late. In the interest we had felt about whether Mrs Pettigrew was the abject victim of

burglars or not, we had left both gates open again. The old horseI mean the trained elephant from

Venezuelawas there all right enough. The dogs we had beaten and tied up after the first act, when the

intrepid sheep bounded, as it says in the programme. The two white pigs were there, but the donkey was

gone. We heard his hoofs down the road, growing fainter and fainter, in the direction of the 'Rose and

Crown'. And just round the gatepost we saw a flash of red and white and blue and black that told us, with

dumb signification, that the pig was off in exactly the opposite direction. Why couldn't they have gone the

same way? But no, one was a pig and the other was a donkey, as Denny said afterwards.

Daisy and H. O. started after the donkey; the rest of us, with one accord, pursued the pigI don't know why.

It trotted quietly down the road; it looked very black against the white road, and the ends on the top, where

the Union Jack was tied, bobbed brightly as it trotted. At first we thought it would be easy to catch up to it.

When we ran faster it ran faster; when we stopped it stopped and looked round at us, and nodded. (I daresay

you won't swallow this, but you may safely. It's as true as true, and so's all that about the goat. I give you my

'Oh, yes. You think you will, but you won't!' and then as soon as we moved again off it went. That pig led us

on and on, o'er miles and miles of strange country. One thing, it did keep to the roads. When we met people,

which wasn't often, we called out to them to help us, but they only waved their arms and roared with laughter.

One chap on a bicycle almost tumbled off his machine, and then he got off it and propped it against a gate

and sat down in the hedge to laugh properly. You remember Alice was still dressed up as the gay

equestrienne in the dressingtable pink and white, with rosy garlands, now very droopy, and she had no

stockings on, only white sandshoes, because she thought they would be easier than boots for balancing on

Oswald was attired in red paint and flour and pyjamas, for a clown. It is really IMPOSSIBLE to run

speedfully in another man's pyjamas, so Oswald had taken them off, and wore his own brown knickerbockers

belonging to his Norfolks. He had tied the pyjamas round his neck, to carry them easily. He was afraid to

leave them in a ditch, as Alice suggested, because he did not know the roads, and for aught he recked they

might have been infested with footpads. If it had been his own pyjamas it would have been different. (I'm

Noel was a highwayman in brownpaper gaiters and bath towels and a cocked hat of newspaper. I don't know

how he kept it on. And the pig was encircled by the dauntless banner of our country. All the same, I think if I

had seen a band of youthful travellers in bitter distress about a pig I should have tried to lend a helping hand

and not sat roaring in the hedge, no matter how the travellers and the pig might have been dressed.

It was hotter than anyone would believe who has never had occasion to hunt the pig when dressed for quite

another part. The flour got out of Oswald's hair into his eyes and his mouth. His brow was wet with what the

village blacksmith's was wet with, and not his fair brow alone. It ran down his face and washed the red off in

streaks, and when he rubbed his eyes he only made it worse. Alice had to run holding the equestrienne skirts

on with both hands, and I think the brownpaper boots bothered Noel from the first. Dora had her skirt over

her arm and carried the topper in her hand. It was no use to tell ourselves it was a wild boar huntwe were

At last we met a man who took pity on us. He was a kindhearted man. I think, perhaps, he had a pig of his

He stood in the middle of the road and waved his arms. The pig rightwheeled through a gate into a private

garden and cantered up the drive. We followed. What else were we to do, I should like to know?

The Learned Black Pig seemed to know its way. It turned first to the right and then to the left, and emerged

'Now, all together!' cried Oswald, mustering his failing voice to give the word of command. 'Surround

'Now we've got him!' cried the crafty Oswald, as the pig got on to a bed of yellow pansies close against the

All would even then have been well, but Denny, at the last, shrank from meeting the pig face to face in a

manly way. He let the pig pass him, and the next moment, with a squeak that said 'There now!' as plain as

words, the pig bolted into a French window. The pursuers halted not. This was no time for trivial ceremony.

In another moment the pig was a captive. Alice and Oswald had their arms round him under the ruins of a

table that had had teacups on it, and around the hunters and their prey stood the startled members of a parish

society for making clothes for the poor heathen, that that pig had led us into the very midst of. They were

reading a missionary report or something when we ran our quarry to earth under their table. Even as he

crossed the threshold I heard something about 'black brothers being already white to the harvest'. All the

ladies had been sewing flannel things for the poor blacks while the curate read aloud to them. You think they

On the whole, I cannot say that the missionary people behaved badly. Oswald explained that it was entirely

the pig's doing, and asked pardon quite properly for any alarm the ladies had felt; and Alice said how sorry

we were but really it was NOT our fault this time. The curate looked a bit nasty, but the presence of ladies

When we had explained, we said, 'Might we go?' The curate said, 'The sooner the better.' But the Lady of the

House asked for our names and addresses, and said she should write to our Father. (She did, and we heard of

it too.) They did not do anything to us, as Oswald at one time believed to be the curate's idea. They let us go.

'In case it should come back into your nice room,' Alice said. 'And that would be such a pity, wouldn't it?'

A little girl in a starched pinafore was sent for the rope. And as soon as the pig had agreed to let us tie it

round his neck we came away. The scene in the drawingroom had not been long. The pig went slowly,

Denny said. just by the gate the shrubs rustled and opened, and the little girl came out. Her pinafore was full

I think they might have given you some tea after all the trouble you've had.' We took the cake with correct

We told her while we ate the cake; and when we had done she said perhaps it was better to hear about than

We told her not to be too hard on her aunt, because you have to make allowances for grownup people.

When we parted she said she would never forget us, and Oswald gave her his pocket buttonhook and

Dicky's act with the goat (which is true, and no kid) was the only thing out of that day that was put in the

Alice and me capturing the pig was never put in. We would scorn to write our own good actions, but I

suppose Dicky was dull with us all away; and you must pity the dull, and not blame them.

I will not seek to unfold to you how we got the pig home, or how the donkey was caught (that was poor sport

compared to the pig). Nor will I tell you a word of all that was said and done to the intrepid hunters of the

Black and Learned. I have told you all the interesting part. Seek not to know the rest. It is better buried in

You read in books about the pleasures of London, and about how people who live in the country long for the

gay whirl of fashion in town because the country is so dull. I do not agree with this at all. In London, or at

any rate Lewisham, nothing happens unless you make it happen; or if it happens it doesn't happen to you, and

you don't know the people it does happen to. But in the country the most interesting events occur quite freely,

and they seem to happen to you as much as to anyone else. Very often quite without your doing anything to

The natural and right ways of earning your living in the country are much jollier than town ones, too; sowing

and reaping, and doing things with animals, are much better sport than fishmongering or bakering or

oilshopping, and those sort of things, except, of course, a plumber's and gasfitter's, and he is the same in

I remember what a nice man it was that came to cut the gas off once at our old house in Lewisham, when my

father's business was feeling so poorly. He was a true gentleman, and gave Oswald and Dicky over two yards

and a quarter of good lead piping, and a brass tap that only wanted a washer, and a whole handful of screws

to do what we liked with. We screwed the back door up with the screws, I remember, one night when Eliza

was out without leave. There was an awful row. We did not mean to get her into trouble. We only thought it

would be amusing for her to find the door screwed up when she came down to take in the milk in the

morning. But I must not say any more about the Lewisham house. It is only the pleasures of memory, and

I think Dora and Daisy are the kind of girls who will grow up very good, and perhaps marry missionaries. I

We made two expeditions to discover the source of the Nile (or the North Pole), and owing to their habit of

sticking together and doing dull and praiseable things, like sewing, and helping with the cooking, and taking

invalid delicacies to the poor and indignant, Daisy and Dora were wholly out of it both times, though Dora's

foot was now quite well enough to have gone to the North Pole or the Equator either. They said they did not

mind the first time, because they like to keep themselves clean; it is another of their queer ways. And they

said they had had a better time than us. (It was only a clergyman and his wife who called, and hot cakes for

tea.) The second time they said they were lucky not to have been in it. And perhaps they were right. But let

me to my narrating. I hope you will like it. I am going to try to write it a different way, like the books they

give you for a prize at a girls' schoolI mean a 'young ladies' school', of coursenot a high school. High

'"Ah, me!" sighed a slender maiden of twelve summers, removing her elegant hat and passing her tapery

fingers lightly through her fair tresses, "how sad it isis it not?to see ablebodied youths and young

'The maiden frowned reproachingly, but yet with earnest gentleness, at the group of youths and maidens who

'"Dear brothers and sisters," the blushing girl went on, "could we not, even now, at the eleventh hour, turn to

account these wasted lives of ours, and seek some occupation at once improving and agreeable?"

'"I do not quite follow your meaning, dear sister," replied the cleverest of her brothers, on whose brow'

It's no use. I can't write like these books. I wonder how the books' authors can keep it up.

What really happened was that we were all eating black currants in the orchard, out of a cabbage leaf, and

'I say, look here, let's do something. It's simply silly to waste a day like this. It's just on eleven. Come on!'

The moat that is all round our house is fed by streams. One of them is a sort of open overflow pipe from a

Of course Oswald knows quite well that the source of the real live Egyptian Nile is no longer buried in that

mysteriousness where it lurked undisturbed for such a long time. But he was not going to say so. It is a great

'Why not have it an Arctic expedition?' said Dicky; 'then we could take an iceaxe, and live on blubber and

'Vote! vote!' cried Oswald. So we did. Oswald, Alice, Noel, and Denny voted for the river of the ibis and the

crocodile. Dicky, H. O., and the other girls for the region of perennial winter and rich blubber.

The question of supplies had now to be gone into. Everybody wanted to take something different, and nobody

thought the other people's things would be the slightest use. It is sometimes thus even with grownup

expeditions. So then Oswald, who is equal to the hardest emergency that ever emerged yet, said

'Let's each get what we like. The secret storehouse can be the shed in the corner of the stableyard where we

This was done. You may think it but the work of a moment to fit out an expedition, but this is not so,

especially when you know not whether your exploring party is speeding to Central Africa or merely to the

H. O. brought a large faggot in case we had to light fires, and a pair of old skates he had happened to notice in

Noel had nicked a dozen boxes of matches, a spade, and a trowel, and had also obtainedI know not by

Denny had a walkingstickwe can't break him of walking with ita book to read in case he got tired of

being a discoverer, a butterfly net and a box with a cork in it, a tennis ball, if we happened to want to play

rounders in the pauses of exploring, two towels and an umbrella in the event of camping or if the river got big

Alice had a comforter for Noel in case we got late, a pair of scissors and needle and cotton, two whole

And she had thoughtfully brought the tablecloth off the small table in the diningroom, so that we could

Oswald had fastened his master mind entirely on grub. Nor had the others neglected this.

All the stores for the expedition were put down on the tablecloth and the corners tied up. Then it was more

than even Oswald's muscley arms could raise from the ground, so we decided not to take it, but only the

bestselected grub. The rest we hid in the straw loft, for there are many ups and downs in life, and grub is

grub at any time, and so are stores of all kinds. The pickled onions we had to leave, but not for ever.

Then Dora and Daisy came along with their arms round each other's necks as usual, like a picture on a

It was, as I have said, a blazing hot day, and there were differences of opinion among the explorers about

what eatables we ought to have taken, and H. O. had lost one of his garters and wouldn't let Alice tie it up

with her handkerchief, which the gentle sister was quite willing to do. So it was a rather gloomy expedition

that set off that bright sunny day to seek the source of the river where Cleopatra sailed in Shakespeare (or the

But the balmy calm of peaceful Nature soon made the others less crossOswald had not been cross exactly

but only disinclined to do anything the others wantedand by the time we had followed the stream a little

way, and had seen a waterrat and shied a stone or two at him, harmony was restored. We did not hit the rat.

You will understand that we were not the sort of people to have lived so long near a stream without plumbing

its depths. Indeed it was the same stream the sheep took its daring jump into the day we had the circus. And

of course we had often paddled in itin the shallower parts. But now our hearts were set on exploring. At

least they ought to have been, but when we got to the place where the stream goes under a wooden

sheepbridge, Dicky cried, 'A camp! a camp!' and we were all glad to sit down at once. Not at all like real

explorers, who know no rest, day or night, till they have got there (whether it's the North Pole, or the central

The food supplies obtained by various members were good and plenty of it. Cake, hard eggs, sausagerolls,

currants, lemon cheesecakes, raisins, and cold apple dumplings. It was all very decent, but Oswald could not

help feeling that the source of the Nile (or North Pole) was a long way off, and perhaps nothing much when

So he was not wholly displeased when Denny said, as he lay kicking into the bank when the things to eat

'I believe this is clay: did you ever make huge platters and bowls out of clay and dry them in the sun? Some

people did in a book called Foul Play, and I believe they baked turtles, or oysters, or something, at the same

He took up a bit of clay and began to mess it about, like you do putty when you get hold of a bit. And at once

the heavy gloom that had hung over the explorers became expelled, and we all got under the shadow of the

'It will be jolly!' Alice said, 'and we can give the huge platters to poor cottagers who are short of the usual

It is harder than you would think when you read about it, to make huge platters with clay. It flops about as

soon as you get it any size, unless you keep it much too thick, and then when you turn up the edges they

crack. Yet we did not mind the trouble. And we had all got our shoes and stockings off. It is impossible to go

on being cross when your feet are in cold water; and there is something in the smooth messiness of clay, and

not minding how dirty you get, that would soothe the savagest breast that ever beat.

After a bit, though, we gave up the idea of the huge platter and tried little things. We made some

plattersthey were like flowerpot saucers; and Alice made a bowl by doubling up her fists and getting

Noel to slab the clay on outside. Then they smoothed the thing inside and out with wet fingers, and it was a

bowlat least they said it was. When we'd made a lot of things we set them in the sun to dry, and then it

seemed a pity not to do the thing thoroughly. So we made a bonfire, and when it had burnt down we put our

pots on the soft, white, hot ashes among the little red sparks, and kicked the ashes over them and heaped more

Then teatime seemed as if it ought to be near, and we decided to come back next day and get our pots.

We looked. It was. Great flames were rising to heaven against the evening sky. And we had left it,a

'The clay must have caught alight,' H. O. said. 'Perhaps it's the kind that burns. I know I've heard of fireclay.

With one accord we turned back. We all felt THE feelingthe one that means something fatal being up and

'Perhaps, Alice said, 'a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress was passing by, and a spark flew on to her, and

We could not see the fire now, because of the corner of the wood, but we hoped Alice was mistaken.

But when we got in sight of the scene of our pottering industry we saw it was as bad nearly as Alice's wild

dream. For the wooden fence leading up to the bridge had caught fire, and it was burning like billy oh.

Oswald started to run; so did the others. As he ran he said to himself, 'This is no time to think about your

Arrived at the site of the conflagration, he saw that caps or straw hats full of water, however quickly and

perseveringly given, would never put the bridge out, and his eventful past life made him know exactly the

So he said, 'Dicky, soak your jacket and mine in the stream and chuck them along. Alice, stand clear, or your

Dicky and Oswald tore off their jackets, so did Denny, but we would not let him and H. O. wet theirs. Then

the brave Oswald advanced warily to the end of the burning rails and put his wet jacket over the end bit, like

a linseed poultice on the throat of a suffering invalid who has got bronchitis. The burning wood hissed and

smouldered, and Oswald fell back, almost choked with the smoke. But at once he caught up the other wet

jacket and put it on another place, and of course it did the trick as he had known it would do. But it was a

long job, and the smoke in his eyes made the young hero obliged to let Dicky and Denny take a turn as they

had bothered to do from the first. At last all was safe; the devouring element was conquered. We covered up

the beastly bonfire with clay to keep it from getting into mischief again, and then Alice said

So we went to the farmer who has the Moat House Farm, and we went at once, because if you have any news

like that to tell it only makes it worse if you wait about. When we had told him he said

'You little .' I shall not say what he said besides that, because I am sure he must have been sorry for it

We did not take any notice of what he said, but just kept on saying how sorry we were; and he did not take

our apology like a man, but only said he daresayed, just like a woman does. Then he went to look at his

Really great explorers would never be discouraged by the daresaying of a farmer, still less by his calling them

names he ought not to. Albert's uncle was away so we got no double slating; and next day we started again to

discover the source of the river of cataracts (or the region of mountainlike icebergs).

We set out, heavily provisioned with a large cake Daisy and Dora had made themselves, and six bottles of

gingerbeer. I think real explorers most likely have their gingerbeer in something lighter to carry than stone

bottles. Perhaps they have it by the cask, which would come cheaper; and you could make the girls carry it on

We passed the scene of the devouring conflagration, and the thought of the fire made us so thirsty we decided

to drink the gingerbeer and leave the bottles in a place of concealment. Then we went on, determined to

Denny and H. O. wanted to stop and try to make a fashionable wateringplace at that part where the stream

spreads out like a smallsized sea, but Noel said, 'No.' We did not like fashionableness.

'YOU ought to, at any rate,' Denny said. 'A Mr Collins wrote an Ode to the Fashions, and he was a great poet.'

'The poet Milton wrote a long book about Satan,' Noel said, 'but I'm not bound to like HIM.' I think it was

'People aren't obliged to like everything they write about even, let alone read,' Alice said. 'Look at "Ruin seize

thee, ruthless king!" and all the pieces of poetry about war, and tyrants, and slaughtered saintsand the one

By this time we had got by the pondy place and the danger of delay was past; but the others went on talking

about poetry for quite a field and a half, as we walked along by the banks of the stream. The stream was

broad and shallow at this part, and you could see the stones and gravel at the bottom, and millions of baby

fishes, and a sort of skatingspiders walking about on the top of the water. Denny said the water must be ice

for them to be able to walk on it, and this showed we were getting near the North Pole. But Oswald had seen

When Oswald had had as much poetry as he could bear he said, 'Let's be beavers and make a dam.' And

everybody was so hot they agreed joyously, and soon our clothes were tucked up as far as they could go and

Making a dam is jolly good fun, though laborious, as books about beavers take care to let you know.

Dicky said it must be Canada if we were beavers, and so it was on the way to the Polar system, but Oswald

pointed to his heated brow, and Dicky owned it was warm for Polar regions. He had brought the iceaxe (it is

called the wood chopper sometimes), and Oswald, ever ready and able to command, set him and Denny to cut

turfs from the bank while we heaped stones across the stream. It was clayey here, or of course dam making

When we had made a ridge of stones we laid turfs against themnearly across the stream, leaving about two

feet for the water to go throughthen more stones, and then lumps of clay stamped down as hard as we

could. The industrious beavers spent hours over it, with only one easy to eat cake in. And at last the dam rose

to the level of the bank. Then the beavers collected a great heap of clay, and four of them lifted it and dumped

it down in the opening where the water was running. It did splash a little, but a truehearted beaver knows

better than to mind a bit of a wetting, as Oswald told Alice at the time. Then with more clay the work was

completed. We must have used tons of clay; there was quite a big long hole in the bank above the dam where

When our beaver task was performed we went on, and Dicky was so hot he had to take his jacket off and shut

I cannot tell you about all the windings of the stream; it went through fields and woods and meadows, and at

last the banks got steeper and higher, and the trees overhead darkly arched their mysterious branches, and we

And then we saw a thing that was well worth coming all that way for; the stream suddenly disappeared under

a dark stone archway, and however much you stood in the water and stuck your head down between your

'Alice, you've got a candle. Let's explore.' This gallant proposal met but a cold response. The others said they

I often think the way people try to hide their cowardliness behind their teas is simply beastly.

Oswald took no notice. He just said, with that dignified manner, not at all like sulking, which he knows so

'All right. I'M going. If you funk it you'd better cut along home and ask your nurses to put you to bed.' So

then, of course, they agreed to go. Oswald went first with the candle. It was not comfortable; the architect of

that dark subterranean passage had not imagined anyone would ever be brave enough to lead a band of

beavers into its inky recesses, or he would have built it high enough to stand upright in. As it was, we were

But the leader pressed dauntlessly on, and paid no attention to the groans of his faithful followers, nor to what

It really was a very long tunnel, though, and even Oswald was not sorry to say, 'I see daylight.' The followers

cheered as well as they could as they splashed after him. The floor was stone as well as the roof, so it was

easy to walk on. I think the followers would have turned back if it had been sharp stones or gravel.

And now the spot of daylight at the end of the tunnel grew larger and larger, and presently the intrepid leader

found himself blinking in the full sun, and the candle he carried looked simply silly. He emerged, and the

others too, and they stretched their backs and the word 'krikey' fell from more than one lip. It had indeed been

a cramping adventure. Bushes grew close to the mouth of the tunnel, so we could not see much landscape,

and when we had stretched our backs we went on upstream and nobody said they'd had jolly well enough of

It was jolly to be in the sunshine again. I never knew before how cold it was underground. The stream was

Dicky said, 'This can't be the way. I expect there was a turning to the North Pole inside the tunnel, only we

'Here is strange, wild, tropical vegetation in the richest profusion. Such blossoms as these never opened in a

It was indeed true. We had come out into a sort of marshy, swampy place like I think, a jungle is, that the

stream ran through, and it was simply crammed with queer plants, and flowers we never saw before or since.

And the stream was quite thin. It was torridly hot, and softish to walk on. There were rushes and reeds and

small willows, and it was all tangled over with different sorts of grassesand pools here and there. We saw

no wild beasts, but there were more different kinds of wild flies and beetles than you could believe anybody

could bear, and dragonflies and gnats. The girls picked a lot of flowers. I know the names of some of them,

but I will not tell you them because this is not meant to be instructing. So I will only name meadowsweet,

yarrow, loosestrife, lady's bedstraw and willow herbboth the larger and the lesser.

Everyone now wished to go home. It was much hotter there than in natural fields. It made you want to tear all

your clothes off and play at savages, instead of keeping respectable in your boots.

It was Oswald who showed the others how flat it would be to go home the same way we came; and he

'There must be a road there, let's make for it,' which was quite a simple and ordinary thing to say, and he does

not ask for any credit for it. So we sloshed along, scratching our legs with the brambles, and the water

squelched in our boots, and Alice's blue muslin frock was torn all over in those crisscross tears which are

We did not follow the stream any more. It was only a trickle now, so we knew we had tracked it to its source.

And we got hotter and hotter and hotter, and the dews of agony stood in beads on our brows and rolled down

our noses and off our chins. And the flies buzzed, and the gnats stung, and Oswald bravely sought to keep up

Dicky's courage, when he tripped on a snag and came down on a bramble bush, by saying

'You see it IS the source of the Nile we've discovered. What price North Poles now?'

Alice said, 'Ah, but think of ices! I expect Oswald wishes it HAD been the Pole, anyway.'

Oswald is naturally the leader, especially when following up what is his own idea, but he knows that leaders

have other duties besides just leading. One is to assist weak or wounded members of the expedition, whether

So the others had got a bit ahead through Oswald lending the tottering Denny a hand over the rough places.

Denny's feet hurt him, because when he was a beaver his stockings had dropped out of his pocket, and boots

without stockings are not a bed of luxuriousness. And he is often unlucky with his feet.

Oswald likes Denny to have ideas; he knows it is healthy for the boy, and generally he backs him up, but just

Generally the Dentist would have; but even worms will turn if they are hot enough, and if their feet are

'Well don't be all day about it,' for he is a kindhearted boy and can make allowances. So Denny took off his

boots and went into the pool. 'Oh, it's ripping!' he said. 'You ought to come in.'

'It is a bit,' Denny said, 'but the mud's just as cool as the water, and so soft, it squeezes between your toes

But some unseen influence prevented Oswald doing this; or it may have been because both his bootlaces were

Oswald had cause to bless the unseen influence, or the bootlaces, or whatever it was.

Denny had got to the middle of the pool, and he was splashing about, and getting his clothes very wet indeed,

and altogether you would have thought his was a most envious and happy state. But alas! the brightest cloud

'You are a silly, Oswald. You'd much better' when he gave a bloodpiercing scream, and began to kick

'What's up?' cried the ready Oswald; he feared the worst from the way Denny screamed, but he knew it could

not be an old meat tin in this quiet and jungular spot, like it was in the moat when the shark bit Dora.

'I don't know, it's biting me. Oh, it's biting me all over my legs! Oh, what shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh! oh!

oh!' remarked Denny, among his screams, and he splashed towards the bank. Oswald went into the water and

caught hold of him and helped him out. It is true that Oswald had his boots on, but I trust he would not have

funked the unknown terrors of the deep, even without his boots, I am almost sure he would not have.

When Denny had scrambled and been hauled ashore, we saw with horror and amaze that his legs were stuck

all over with large black, sluglooking things. Denny turned green in the faceand even Oswald felt a bit

queer, for he knew in a moment what the black dreadfulnesses were. He had read about them in a book called

Magnet Stories, where there was a girl called Theodosia, and she could play brilliant trebles on the piano in

duets, but the other girl knew all about leeches which is much more useful and golden deedy. Oswald tried to

pull the leeches off, but they wouldn't, and Denny howled so he had to stop trying. He remembered from the

Magnet Stories how to make the leeches begin bitingthe girl did it with creambut he could not

'Oh, what shall I do? What shall I do? Oh, it does hurt! Oh, oh!' Denny observed, and Oswald said

'Be a man! Buck up! If you won't let me take them off you'll just have to walk home in them.'

At this thought the unfortunate youth's tears fell fast. But Oswald gave him an arm, and carried his boots for

him, and he consented to buck up, and the two struggled on towards the others, who were coming back,

attracted by Denny's yells. He did not stop howling for a moment, except to breathe. No one ought to blame

him till they have had eleven leeches on their right leg and six on their left, making seventeen in all, as Dicky

It was lucky he did yell, as it turned out, because a man on the roadwhere the telegraph wires werewas

interested by his howls, and came across the marsh to us as hard as he could. When he saw Denny's legs he

'Blest if I didn't think so,' and he picked Denny up and carried him under one arm, where Denny went on

Our rescuer, who proved to be a fine big young man in the bloom of youth, and a farmlabourer by trade, in

corduroys, carried the wretched sufferer to the cottage where he lived with his aged mother; and then Oswald

found that what he had forgotten about the leeches was SALT. The young man in the bloom of youth's

mother put salt on the leeches, and they squirmed off, and fell with sickening, sluglike flops on the brick

Then the young man in corduroys and the bloom, etc., carried Denny home on his back, after his legs had

It was not far by the road, though such a long distance by the way the young explorers had come.

He was a good young man, and though, of course, acts of goodness are their own reward, still I was glad he

had the two halfcrowns Albert's uncle gave him, as well as his own good act. But I am not sure Alice ought

to have put him in the Golden Deed book which was supposed to be reserved for Us.

Perhaps you will think this was the end of the source of the Nile (or North Pole). If you do, it only shows how

The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the sofa, and we were all having our tea,

with raspberries and white currants, which we richly needed after our torrid adventures, when Mrs Pettigrew,

'Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir?' to Albert's uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you

look at each other when the grownup has gone out, and you are silent, with your breadandbutter halfway

It was as we suppose. Albert's uncle did not come back for a long while. We did not keep the

breadandbutter on the wing all that time, of course, and we thought we might as well finish the raspberries

and white currants. We kept some for Albert's uncle, of course, and they were the best ones too but when he

He came in, and his face wore the look that means bed, and very likely no supper.

He spoke, and it was the calmness of whitehot iron, which is something like the calmness of despair. He

'We were being beavers,' said H. O., in proud tones. He did not see as we did where Albert's uncle's tone

'No doubt,' said Albert's uncle, rubbing his hands through his hair. 'No doubt! no doubt! Well, my beavers,

you may go and build dams with your bolsters. Your dam stopped the stream; the clay you took for it left a

channel through which it has run down and ruined about seven pounds' worth of freshlyreaped barley.

Luckily the farmer found it out in time or you might have spoiled seventy pounds' worth. And you burned a

We said we were sorry. There was nothing else to say, only Alice added, 'We didn't MEAN to be naughty.'

'Of course not,' said Albert's uncle, 'you never do. Oh, yes, I'll kiss youbut it's bed and it's two hundred

lines tomorrow, and the line is"Beware of Being Beavers and Burning Bridges. Dread Dams." It will be a

I got jolly sick of capital B's and D's before sunset on the morrow. That night, just as the others were falling

'There is one thing about it,' Oswald went on, 'it does show it was a rattling good dam anyhow.'

And filled with this agreeable thought, the weary beavers (or explorers, Polar or otherwise) fell asleep.

It really was not such a bad babyfor a baby. Its face was round and quite clean, which babies' faces are not

always, as I daresay you know by your own youthful relatives; and Dora said its cape was trimmed with real

lace, whatever that may beI don't see myself how one kind of lace can be realler than another. It was in a

very swagger sort of perambulator when we saw it; and the perambulator was standing quite by itself in the

Alice agreed to its being one, and said she thought it was most likely the child of noble parents stolen by

'These two, as likely as not,' Noel said. 'Can't you see something crimelike in the very way they're lying?'

They were two tramps, and they were lying on the grass at the edge of the lane on the shady side fast asleep,

only a very little further on than where the Baby was. They were very ragged, and their snores did have a

'I expect they stole the titled heir at dead of night, and they've been travelling hotfoot ever since, so now

they're sleeping the sleep of exhaustedness,' Alice said. 'What a heartrending scene when the patrician

mother wakes in the morning and finds the infant aristocrat isn't in bed with his mamma.'

The Baby was fast asleep or else the girls would have kissed it. They are strangely fond of kissing. The

'If the gipsies DID steal it,' Dora said 'perhaps they'd sell it to us. I wonder what they'd take for it.'

'Why, adopt it, of course,' Dora said. 'I've often thought I should enjoy adopting a baby. It would be a golden

This was because of what had happened that morning when Dicky found H. O. going fishing with a box of

worms, and the box was the one Dicky keeps his silver studs in, and the medal he got at school, and what is

left of his watch and chain. The box is lined with red velvet and it was not nice afterwards. And then H. O.

said Dicky had hurt him, and he was a beastly bully, and he cried. We thought all this had been made up, and

We were going to the miller's with a message about some flour that hadn't come, and about a sack of sharps

After you go down the lane you come to a cloverfield, and then a cornfield, and then another lane, and then

it is the mill. It is a jolly fine mill: in fact it is twowater and wind onesone of each kindwith a house

and farm buildings as well. I never saw a mill like it, and I don't believe you have either.

If we had been in a storybook the miller's wife would have taken us into the neat sanded kitchen where the

old oak settle was black with time and rubbing, and dusted chairs for usold brown Windsor chairsand

given us each a glass of sweet scented cowslip wine and a thick slice of rich homemade cake. And there

would have been fresh roses in an old china bowl on the table. As it was, she asked us all into the parlour and

gave us Eiffel Tower lemonade and Marie biscuits. The chairs in her parlour were 'bent wood', and no

flowers, except some wax ones under a glass shade, but she was very kind, and we were very much obliged to

her. We got out to the miller, though, as soon as we could; only Dora and Daisy stayed with her, and she

The miller is a MAN. He showed us all over the millsboth kindsand let us go right up into the very top

of the windmill, and showed us how the top moved round so that the sails could catch the wind, and the

great heaps of corn, some red and some yellow (the red is English wheat), and the heaps slice down a little bit

at a time into a square hole and go down to the millstones. The corn makes a rustling soft noise that is very

jollysomething like the noise of the seaand you can hear it through all the other mill noises.

Then the miller let us go all over the watermill. It is fairy palaces inside a mill. Everything is powdered over

white, like sugar on pancakes when you are allowed to help yourself. And he opened a door and showed us

the great waterwheel working on slow and sure, like some great, round, dripping giant, Noel said, and then

'Then why not try the millpool?' he said, and we replied politely; and when he was gone to tell his man

He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash saplings for rods; he found us in lines and hooks,

and several different sorts of bait, including a handsome handful of mealworms, which Oswald put loose in

When it came to bait, Alice said she was going home with Dora and Daisy. Girls are strange, mysterious, silly

things. Alice always enjoys a rat hunt until the rat is caught, but she hates fishing from beginning to end. We

boys have got to like it. We don't feel now as we did when we turned off the water and stopped the

competition of the competing anglers. We had a grand day's fishing that day. I can't think what made the

miller so kind to us. Perhaps he felt a thrill of fellowfeeling in his manly breast for his fellowsportsmen,

We had glorious sporteight roach, six dace, three eels, seven perch, and a young pike, but he was so very

young the miller asked us to put him back, and of course we did. 'He'll live to bite another day,' said the

The miller's wife gave us bread and cheese and more Eiffel Tower lemonade, and we went home at last, a

It had been a strikingly good timeone of those times that happen in the country quite by themselves.

Country people are much more friendly than town people. I suppose they don't have to spread their friendly

feelings out over so many persons, so it's thicker, like a pound of butter on one loaf is thicker than on a

dozen. Friendliness in the country is not scrape, like it is in London. Even Dicky and H. O. forgot the affair of

honour that had taken place in the morning. H. O. changed rods with Dicky because H. O.'s was the best rod,

and Dicky baited H. O.'s hook for him, just like loving, unselfish brothers in Sunday School magazines.

We were talking fishlikely as we went along down the lane and through the cornfield and the cloverfield, and

then we came to the other lane where we had seen the Baby. The tramps were gone, and the perambulator

'I wonder if those gipsies HAD stolen the Baby?' Noel said dreamily. He had not fished much, but he had

'If they did steal the Baby,' Noel went on, 'they will be tracked by the lordly perambulator. You can disguise a

baby in rags and walnut juice, but there isn't any disguise dark enough to conceal a perambulator's person.'

We told him to shut up and not gibber, but afterwards we had to own that even a young brother may

For we took the short cut home from the laneit begins with a large gap in the hedge and the grass and

weeds trodden down by the hasty feet of persons who were late for church and in too great a hurry to go

round by the road. Our house is next to the church, as I think I have said before, some time.

The short cut leads to a stile at the edge of a bit of wood (the Parson's Shave, they call it, because it belongs

to him). The wood has not been shaved for some time, and it has grown out beyond the stile and here, among

the hazels and chestnuts and young dogwood bushes, we saw something white. We felt it was our duty to

investigate, even if the white was only the under side of the tail of a dead rabbit caught in a trap.

It was notit was part of the perambulator. I forget whether I said that the perambulator was enamelled

whitenot the kind of enamelling you do at home with Aspinall's and the hairs of the brush come out and it

is grittylooking, but smooth, like the handles of ladies very best lace parasols. And whoever had abandoned

the helpless perambulator in that lonely spot had done exactly as H. O. said, and covered it with leaves, only

The others were wild with excitement. Now or never, they thought, was a chance to be real detectives.

Oswald alone retained a calm exterior. It was he who would not go straight to the police station.

He said: 'Let's try and ferret out something for ourselves before we tell the police. They always have a clue

directly they hear about the finding of the body. And besides, we might as well let Alice be in anything there

This argument of Oswald's was so strong and powerfulhis arguments are often that, as I daresay you have

noticedthat the others agreed. It was Oswald, too, who showed his artless brothers why they had much

'The dead body, or whatever the clue is, is always left exactly as it is found,' he said, 'till the police have seen

it, and the coroner, and the inquest, and the doctor, and the sorrowing relations. Besides, suppose someone

saw us with the beastly thing, and thought we had stolen it; then they would say, "What have you done with

the Baby?" and then where should we be?' Oswald's brothers could not answer this question, but once more

Then we went on home. Dinner was ready and so were Alice and Daisy, but Dora was not there.

'She's got a well, she's not coming to dinner anyway,' Alice said when we asked. 'She can tell you herself

Oswald thought it was headache, or pain in the temper, or in the pinafore, so he said no more, but as soon as

Mrs Pettigrew had helped us and left the room he began the thrilling tale of the forsaken perambulator. He

told it with the greatest thrillingness anyone could have, but Daisy and Alice seemed almost unmoved. Alice

'Yes, very strange,' and things like that, but both the girls seemed to be thinking of something else. They kept

looking at each other and trying not to laugh, so Oswald saw they had got some silly secret and he said

'Oh, all right! I don't care about telling you. I only thought you'd like to be in it. It's going to be a really big

Daisy choked and then tried to drink, and spluttered and got purple, and had to be thumped on the back. But

Oswald was not appeased. When Alice said, 'Do go on, Oswald. I'm sure we all like it very much,' he said

'Oh, no, thank you,' very politely. 'As it happens,' he went on, 'I'd just as soon go through with this thing

'Don't be waxy, Oswald. Really and truly Daisy and I HAVE got a secret, only it's Dora's secret, and she

wants to tell you herself. If it was mine or Daisy's we'd tell you this minute, wouldn't we, Mouse?'

Then the pudding came in, and no more was said except asking for things to be passedsugar and water, and

And we came on. We did not want to be disagreeable, though really we were keen on being detectives and

sifting that perambulator to the very dregs. But boys have to try to take an interest in their sisters' secrets,

Alice led us across the field where the sheep once fell into the brook, and across the brook by the plank. At

the other end of the next field there was a sort of wooden house on wheels, that the shepherd sleeps in at the

time of year when lambs are being born, so that he can see that they are not stolen by gipsies before the

To this hut Alice now led her kind brothers and Daisy's kind brother. 'Dora is inside,' she said, 'with the

The next moment the Secret was a secret no longer, for we all beheld Dora, sitting on a sack on the floor of

Oswald was so overcome that he sat down suddenly, just like Betsy Trotwood did in David Copperfield,

'Yes,' Alice said; 'we couldn't get it over the stile unless Dora put down the Baby, and we were afraid of the

'If you'd been there you'd have done the same,' said Dora firmly. 'The gipsies had gone. Of course something

had frightened them and they fled from justice. And the little darling was awake and held out his arms to me.

No, he hasn't cried a bit, and I know all about babies; I've often nursed Mrs Simpkins's daughter's baby when

she brings it up on Sundays. They have bread and milk to eat. You take him, Alice, and I'll go and get some

Alice took the noble brat. It was horribly lively, and squirmed about in her arms, and wanted to crawl on the

floor. She could only keep it quiet by saying things to it a boy would be ashamed even to think of saying,

But if Alice stopped her remarks for an instant the thing screwed its face up as if it was going to cry, but she

Then Dora came back with the bread and milk, and they fed the noble infant. It was greedy and slobbery, but

all three girls seemed unable to keep their eyes and hands off it. They looked at it exactly as if it was pretty.

We boys stayed watching them. There was no amusement left for us now, for Oswald saw that Dora's Secret

When the infant aristocrat had eaten a hearty meal it sat on Alice's lap and played with the amber heart she

wears that Albert's uncle brought her from Hastings after the business of the bad sixpence and the nobleness

'Now,' said Dora, 'this is a council, so I want to be businesslike. The Duckums Darling has been stolen

away; its wicked stealers have deserted the Precious. We've got it. Perhaps its ancestral halls are miles and

'Oh, don't say "you" like that,' Dora said; 'I want it to be all of our baby. It will have five fathers and three

mothers, and a grandfather and a great Albert's uncle, and a great granduncle. I'm sure Albert's uncle will let

She began kissing the baby again. Oswald, ever thoughtful, said 'Well, what about your dinner?'

'Bother dinner!' Dora saidso like a girl. 'Will you all agree to be his fathers and mothers?'

'You talk as if he was rabbits or white rats,' said Dora, 'and he's nothe's a little man, he is.'

'All right, he's no rabbit, but a man. Come on and get some grub, Dora,' rejoined the kindhearted Oswald,

and Dora did, with Oswald and the other boys. Only Noel stayed with Alice. He really seemed to like the

baby. When I looked back he was standing on his head to amuse it, but the baby did not seem to like him any

Dora went back to the shepherd's house on wheels directly she had had her dinner. Mrs Pettigrew was very

cross about her not being in to it, but she had kept her some mutton hot all the same. She is a decent sort. And

there were stewed prunes. We had some to keep Dora company. Then we boys went fishing again in the

Just before teatime we all went back to the hut, and before we got half across the last field we could hear the

'Poor little beggar,' said Oswald, with manly tenderness. 'They must be sticking pins in it.'

We found the girls and Noel looking quite pale and breathless. Daisy was walking up and down with the

Secret in her arms. It looked like Alice in Wonderland nursing the baby that turned into a pig. Oswald said so,

'_I_ don't know,' said Alice. 'Daisy's tired, and Dora and I are quite worn out. He's been crying for hours and

'I think he's cold,' she said. 'I thought I'd take off my flannelette petticoat, only the horrid strings got into a

With the word she plunged her hand into Oswald's jacket pocket, and next moment she was rubbing her hand

like mad on her dress, and screaming almost as loud as the Baby. Then she began to laugh and to cry at the

Oswald was sorry, but he was annoyed too. He had forgotten that his pocket was half full of the mealworms

the miller had kindly given him. And, anyway, Dora ought to have known that a man always carries his knife

Alice and Daisy rushed to Dora. She had thrown herself down on the pile of sacks in the corner. The titled

infant delayed its screams for a moment to listen to Dora's, but almost at once it went on again.

The White Mouse, ever docile and obedient, shoved the baby into the arms of the nearest person, who had to

take it or it would have fallen a wreck to the ground. This nearest person was Oswald. He tried to pass it on to

the others, but they wouldn't. Noel would have, but he was busy kissing Dora and begging her not to. So our

hero, for such I may perhaps term him, found himself the degraded nursemaid of a small but furious kid.

He was afraid to lay it down, for fear in its rage it should beat its brains out against the hard earth, and he did

not wish, however innocently, to be the cause of its hurting itself at all. So he walked earnestly up and down

with it, thumping it unceasingly on the back, while the others attended to Dora, who presently ceased to yell.

Suddenly it struck Oswald that the Highborn also had ceased to yell. He looked at it, and could hardly

believe the glad tidings of his faithful eyes. With bated breath he hastened back to the sheephouse.

The others turned on him, full of reproaches about the mealworms and Dora, but he answered without

'Shut up,' he said in a whisper of imperial command. 'Can't you see it's GONE TO SLEEP?'

As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a very long Athletic Sports, the youthful

Bastables and their friends dragged their weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was compelled to go on

holding the titled infant, for fear it should wake up if it changed hands, and begin to yell again. Dora's

flannelette petticoat had been got off somehowhow I do not seek to inquireand the Secret was covered

with it. The others surrounded Oswald as much as possible, with a view to concealment if we met Mrs

Pettigrew. But the coast was clear. Oswald took the Secret up into his bedroom. Mrs Pettigrew doesn't come

With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It sighed, but did not wake. Then we took it in

turns to sit by it and see that it did not get up and fling itself out of bed, which, in one of its furious fits, it

At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out and saw that there he was talking to a

A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not remember having done anything wrong at the

miller's. But you never know. And it seemed strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But when we

had looked a bit longer our fears went down and our curiosity got up. For we saw that the distracted one was

Presently he rode off, and Albert's uncle came in. A deputation met him at the doorall the boys and Dora,

'We've found something,' Dora said, 'and we want to know whether we may keep it.'

The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to keep it after we had heard how much and

how long it could howl. Even Noel had said he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only cried

because it was sleepy, but we reflected that it would certainly be sleepy once a day, if not oftener.

'What is it?' said Albert's uncle. 'Let's see this treasuretrove. Is it a wild beast?'

Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride, and showed the youthful heir fatly and

He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount his bicycle and ride off.

It was HIS baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife were the lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid

She SAID she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to speak to her sweetheart who was gardener at

When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was the prey of gipsies, and the distracted

But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business. But Dora still thinks she was

right. As for Oswald and most of the others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all

If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of sleepiness you can have no idea what its

If you have been through such a scene you will understand how we managed to bear up under having no baby

to adopt. Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden Deed book. Of course his share

could not be put in without telling about Dora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald

What a time Mr and Mrs Distracted Horseman must have of it, thoughespecially now they've sacked the

If Oswald is ever marriedI suppose he must be some dayhe will have ten nurses to each baby. Eight is

not enough. We know that because we tried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the needs of that

It is idle to expect everyone to know everything in the world without being told. If we had been brought up in

the country we should have known that it is not doneto hunt the fox in August. But in the Lewisham Road

the most observing boy does not notice the dates when it is proper to hunt foxes.

And there are some things you cannot bear to think that anybody would think you would do; that is why I

wish to say plainly at the very beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose even to save our

skins. Of course, if a man were at bay in a cave, and had to defend girls from the simultaneous attack of a

herd of savage foxes it would be different. A man is bound to protect girls and take care of themthey can

jolly well take care of themselves really it seems to mestill, this is what Albert's uncle calls one of the

'rules of the game', so we are bound to defend them and fight for them to the death, if needful. Denny knows

He says this means that all great events come from three thingsthreefold, like the clover or trefoil, and the

There were certainly three things that led up to the adventure which is now going to be told you. The first was

our Indian uncle coming down to the country to see us. The second was Denny's tooth. The third was only

our wanting to go hunting; but if you count it in it makes the thing about the trefoil come right. And all these

It is a flattering thing to say, and it was not Oswald who said it, but Dora. She said she was certain our uncle

missed us, and that he felt he could no longer live without seeing his dear ones (that was us).

Anyway, he came down, without warning, which is one of the few bad habits that excellent Indian man has,

and this habit has ended in unpleasantness more than once, as when we played jungles.

However, this time it was all right. He came on rather a dull kind of day, when no one had thought of

anything particularly amusing to do. So that, as it happened to be dinnertime and we had just washed our

hands and faces, we were all spotlessly clean (com pared with what we are sometimes, I mean, of course).

We were just sitting down to dinner, and Albert's uncle was just plunging the knife into the hot heart of the

steak pudding, when there was the rumble of wheels, and the station fly stopped at the garden gate. And in

the fly, sitting very upright, with his hands on his knees, was our Indian relative so much beloved. He looked

very smart, with a rose in his buttonhole. How different from what he looked in other days when he helped us

to pretend that our currant pudding was a wild boar we were killing with our forks. Yet, though tidier, his

heart still beat kind and true. You should not judge people harshly because their clothes are tidy. He had

dinner with us, and then we showed him round the place, and told him everything we thought he would like

Noel said he was sorry for that, because everyone else we had told it to had owned, when we asked them, that

'Ah,' said the Uncle, 'but in India we learn how to freeze our blood and boil it at the same time.'

In those hot longitudes, perhaps, the blood is always near boilingpoint, which accounts for Indian tempers,

though not for the curry and pepper they eat. But I must not wander; there is no curry at all in this story.

Then Uncle let us all go with him to the station when the fly came back for him; and when we said goodbye

he tipped us all half a quid, without any insidious distinctions about age or considering whether you were a

boy or a girl. Our Indian uncle is a trueborn Briton, with no nonsense about him.

We cheered him like one man as the train went off, and then we offered the flydriver a shilling to take us

back to the four crossroads, and the grateful creature did it for nothing because, he said, the gent had tipped

him something like. How scarce is true gratitude! So we cheered the driver too for this rare virtue, and then

went home to talk about what we should do with our money. I cannot tell you all that we did with it, because

money melts away 'like snowwreaths in thawjean', as Denny says, and somehow the more you have the

more quickly it melts. We all went into Maidstone, and came back with the most beautiful lot of brown

paper parcels, with things inside that supplied longfelt wants. But none of them belongs to this narration,

This was a pistol, and it took all the money they both had, but when Oswald felt the uncomfortable inside

sensation that reminds you who it is and his money that are soon parted he said to himself

'I don't care. We ought to have a pistol in the house, and one that will go off, toonot those rotten flintlocks.

We took it in turns to have the pistol, and we decided always to practise with it far from the house, so as not

to frighten the grownups, who are always much nervouser about firearms than we are.

It was Denny's idea getting it; and Oswald owns it surprised him, but the boy was much changed in his

character. We got it while the others were grubbing at the pastrycook's in the High Street, and we said

nothing till after tea, though it was hard not to fire at the birds on the telegraph wires as we came home in the

'I know what it is,' Dicky said contemptibly. 'You've found out that shop in Maidstone where peppermint rock

Oswald said, 'You shutup. If you don't want to hear the secret you'd better bunk. I'm going to administer the

This is a very solemn oath, and only used about real things, and never for pretending ones, so Dicky said

So they all took the secret oath. Noel made it up long before, when he had found the first thrush's nest we

It is a little wrong about the poetry, but it is a very binding promise. They all repeated it, down to H. O.

Oswald, in proud silence, drew the pistol from his breast and held it out, and there was a murmur of awful

amazement and respect from every one of the council. The pistol was not loaded, so we let even the girls

And we decided that we would. H. O. wanted to go down to the village and get penny horns at the shop for

the huntsmen to wind, like in the song, but we thought it would be more modest not to wind horns or

anything noisy, at any rate not until we had run down our prey. But his talking of the song made us decide

that it was the fox we wanted to hunt. We had not been particular which animal we hunted before that.

Oswald let Denny have first go with the pistol, and when we went to bed he slept with it under his pillow, but

not loaded, for fear he should have a nightmare and draw his fell weapon before he was properly awake.

Oswald let Denny have it, because Denny had toothache, and a pistol is consoling though it does not actually

stop the pain of the tooth. The toothache got worse, and Albert's uncle looked at it, and said it was very loose,

and Denny owned he had tried to crack a peachstone with it. Which accounts. He had creosote and

Oswald knows it is right to be very kind when people are ill, and he forbore to wake the sufferer next

morning by buzzing a pillow at him, as he generally does. He got up and went over to shake the invalid, but

the bird had flown and the nest was cold. The pistol was not in the nest either, but Oswald found it afterwards

under the lookingglass on the dressingtable. He had just awakened the others (with a hair brush because

they had not got anything the matter with their teeth), when he heard wheels, and, looking out, beheld Denny

and Albert's uncle being driven from the door in the farmer's high cart with the red wheels.

We dressed extra quick, so as to get downstairs to the bottom of the mystery. And we found a note from

'Denny's toothache got him up in the small hours. He's off to the dentist to have it out with him, man to man.

I suppose he was trying to be funnyhe really does try very hard. He wants to be a clown when he grows up.

'Of course! I'd forgotten that. He'll get his tooth money, and the drive too. So it's quite fair for us to have the

We know foxes are hunted in red coats and on horsebackbut we could not do thisbut H. O. had the old

red football jersey that was Albert's uncle's when he was at Loretto. He was pleased.

'But I do wish we'd had horns,' he said grievingly. 'I should have liked to wind the horn.'

'We can pretend horns,' Dora said; but he answered, 'I didn't want to pretend. I wanted to wind something.'

'Wind your watch,' Dicky said. And that was unkind, because we all know H. O.'s watch is broken, and when

We did not bother to dress up much for the hunting expeditionjust cocked hats and lath swords; and we

tied a card on to H. O.'s chest with 'Moat House FoxHunters' on it; and we tied red flannel round all the

dogs' necks to show they were foxhounds. Yet it did not seem to show it plainly; somehow it made them

look as if they were not foxhounds, but their own natural breedsonly with sore throats.

Oswald slipped the pistol and a few cartridges into his pocket. He knew, of course, that foxes are not shot; but

We set off gaily. Across the orchard and through two cornfields, and along the hedge of another field, and so

we got into the wood, through a gap we had happened to make a day or two before, playing 'follow my

The wood was very quiet and green; the dogs were happy and most busy. Once Pincher started a rabbit. We

said, 'View Halloo!' and immediately started in pursuit; but the rabbit went and hid, so that even Pincher

could not find him, and we went on. But we saw no foxes. So at last we made Dicky be a fox, and chased him

down the green rides. A wide walk in a wood is called a ride, even if people never do anything but walk in it.

We had only three houndsLady, Pincher and Marthaso we joined the glad throng and were being

hounds as hard as we could, when we suddenly came barking round a corner in full chase and stopped short,

for we saw that our fox had stayed his hasty flight. The fox was stooping over something reddish that lay

Our foxwhom we must now call Dicky, so as not to muddle the narrationpointed to the reddy thing that

'It's a real live fox,' he said. And so it was. At least it was realonly it was quite deadand when Oswald

lifted it up its head was bleeding. It had evidently been shot through the brain and expired instantly. Oswald

explained this to the girls when they began to cry at the sight of the poor beast; I do not say he did not feel a

The fox was cold, but its fur was so pretty, and its tail and its little feet. Dicky strung the dogs on the leash;

'It does seem horrid to think it'll never see again out of its poor little eyes,' Dora said, blowing her nose.

'And never run about through the wood again, lend me your hanky, Dora' said Alice.

'And never be hunted or get into a henroost or a trap or anything exciting, poor little thing,' said Dicky.

The girls began to pick green chestnut leaves to cover up the poor fox's fatal wound, and Noel began to walk

up and down making faces, the way he always does when he's making poetry. He cannot make one without

'What are we going to do now?' H. O. said; 'the huntsman ought to cut off its tail, I'm quite certain. Only, I've

The girls gave H. O. a shove, and even Oswald said, 'Shut up', for somehow we all felt we did not want to

play foxhunting any more that day. When his deadly wound was covered the fox hardly looked dead at all.

Daisy had been crying all the time, and now she said, 'I should like to pray God to make it not true.'

But Dora kissed her, and told her that was no good only she might pray God to take care of the fox's poor

It seems silly that we should have cared so much when we had really set out to hunt foxes with dogs, but it is

true. The fox's feet looked so helpless. And there was a dusty mark on its side that I know would not have

'Let's have a funeral,' said H. O. This pleased everybody, and we got Dora to take off her petticoat to wrap the

fox in, so that we could carry it to our garden and bury it without bloodying our jackets. Girls' clothes are

silly in one way, but I think they are useful too. A boy cannot take off more than his jacket and waistcoat in

any emergency, or he is at once entirely undressed. But I have known Dora take off two petticoats for useful

We boys took it in turns to carry the fox. It was very heavy. When we got near the edge of the wood Noel

'It would be better to bury it here, where the leaves can talk funeral songs over its grave for ever, and the

other foxes can come and cry if they want to.' He dumped the fox down on the moss under a young oak tree

'If Dicky fetched the spade and fork we could bury it here, and then he could tie up the dogs at the same time.'

'You're sick of carrying it,' Dicky remarked, 'that's what it is.' But he went on condition the rest of us boys

While we were gone the girls dragged the fox to the edge of the wood; it was a different edge to the one we

went in byclose to a laneand while they waited for the digging or fatigue party to come back, they

collected a lot of moss and green things to make the fox's long home soft for it to lie in. There are no flowers

When we got back with the spade and fork we dug a hole to bury the fox in. We did not bring the dogs back,

because they were too interested in the funeral to behave with real, respectable calmness.

The ground was loose and soft and easy to dig when we had scraped away the broken bits of sticks and the

dead leaves and the wild honeysuckle; Oswald used the fork and Dicky had the spade. Noel made faces and

poetryhe was struck so that morningand the girls sat stroking the clean parts of the fox's fur till the

grave was deep enough. At last it was; then Daisy threw in the leaves and grass, and Alice and Dora took the

poor dead fox by his two ends and we helped to put him in the grave. We could not lower him slowlyhe

was dropped in, really. Then we covered the furry body with leaves, and Noel said the Burial Ode he had

made up. He says this was it, but it sounds better now than it did then, so I think he must have done

When this had been said we filled in the grave and covered the top of it with dry leaves and sticks to make it

look like the rest of the wood. People might think it was a treasure, and dig it up, if they thought there was

anything buried there, and we wished the poor fox to sleep sound and not to be disturbed.

The interring was over. We folded up Dora's bloodstained pink cotton petticoat, and turned to leave the sad

We had not gone a dozen yards down the lane when we heard footsteps and a whistle behind us, and a

scrabbling and whining, and a gentleman with two foxterriers had called a halt just by the place where we

The gentleman stood in the lane, but the dogs were diggingwe could see their tails wagging and see the

The gentleman whistled, but the foxterriers were not trained like Pincher, who was brought up by Oswald.

'What have you been buryingpet dicky bird, eh?' said the gentleman, kindly. He had riding breeches and

We did not answer, because now, for the first time, it came over all of us, in a rush of blushes and

uncomfortableness, that burying a fox is a suspicious act. I don't know why we felt this, but we did.

'We found his murdered body in the wood, And dug a grave by which the mourners stood.'

But no one heard him except Oswald, because Alice and Dora and Daisy were all jumping about with the

jumps of unrestrained anguish, and saying, 'Oh, call them off! Do! do!oh, don't, don't! Don't let them dig.'

Alas! Oswald was, as usual, right. The ground of the grave had not been trampled down hard enough, and he

had said so plainly at the time, but his prudent counsels had been overruled. Now these busybodying,

meddling, mischiefmaking foxterriers (how different from Pincher, who minds his own business unless

told otherwise) had scratched away the earth and laid bare the reddish tip of the poor corpse's tail.

But in a moment the gentleman with the whiskers had got Noel and Dicky each by an earthey were nearest

him. H. O. hid in the hedge. Oswald, to whose noble breast sneakishness is, I am thankful to say, a stranger,

would have scorned to escape, but he ordered his sisters to bunk in a tone of command which made refusal

So they cut. The whitewhiskered gentleman now encouraged his angry foxterriers, by every means at his

command, to continue their vile and degrading occupation; holding on all the time to the ears of Dicky and

Noel, who scorned to ask for mercy. Dicky got purple and Noel got white. It was Oswald who said

'YOUR word of honour,' said the gentleman, in tones for which, in happier days, when people drew their

bright blades and fought duels, I would have had his heart's dearest blood. But now Oswald remained calm

'Yes, on my honour,' he said, and the gentleman dropped the ears of Oswald's brothers at the sound of his

firm, unswerving tones. He dropped the ears and pulled out the body of the fox and held it up.

'Now,' he said, 'you talk very big about words of honour. Can you speak the truth?'

The whitewhiskered one turned suddenly to H. O. and pulled him out of the hedge.

'And what does that mean?' he said, and he was pink with fury to the ends of his large ears, as he pointed to

Then Oswald said, 'We WERE playing at foxhunting, but we couldn't find anything but a rabbit that hid, so

my brother was being the fox; and then we found the fox shot dead, and I don't know who did it; and we were

'Not quite,' said the ridingbreeches gentleman, with what I think you call a bitter smile, 'not quite. This is my

land and I'll have you up for trespass and damage. Come along now, no nonsense! I'm a magistrate and I'm

Master of the Hounds. A vixen, too! What did you shoot her with? You're too young to have a gun. Sneaked

Oswald thought it was better to be goldenly silent. But it was vain. The Master of the Hounds made him

'All right,' said he, 'where's your licence? You come with me. A week or two in prison.'

I don't believe now he could have done it, but we all thought then he could and would, what's more.

So H. O. began to cry, but Noel spoke up. His teeth were chattering yet he spoke up like a man.

He said, 'You don't know us. You've no right not to believe us till you've found us out in a lie. We don't tell

'If you do put us in prison without being sure,' he said, trembling more and more, 'you are a horrible tyrant

like Caligula, and Herod, or Nero, and the Spanish Inquisition, and I will write a poem about it in prison, and

'Upon my word,' said White Whiskers. 'We'll see about that,' and he turned up the lane with the fox hanging

I thought Noel would cry or faint. But he bore up noblyexactly like an early Christian martyr.

The rest of us came along too. I carried the spade and Dicky had the fork. H. O. had the card, and Noel had

the magistrate. At the end of the lane there was Alice. She had bunked home, obeying the orders of her

thoughtful brother, but she had bottled back again like a shot, so as not to be out of the scrape. She is almost

The outraged majesty of the magistrate said, 'To prison, you naughty little girl.'

Alice said, 'Noel will faint. Somebody once tried to take him to prison beforeabout a dog. Do please come

to our house and see our uncleat least he's notbut it's the same thing. We didn't kill the fox, if that's what

you thinkindeed we didn't. Oh, dear, I do wish you'd think of your own little boys and girls if you've got

I don't know which, if either, of these objects the foxhound master thought of, but he said

'Well, lead on,' and he let go Noel's ear and Alice snuggled up to Noel and put her arm round him.

It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with alarmexcept those between white whiskers,

and they were redthat wound in at our gate and into the hall among the old oak furniture, and black and

Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the table, all stained with the gore of the departed.

Dora looked at us all, and she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big oak chair and said, 'Won't you sit

Then he looked about him in a silence that was not comforting, and so did we. At last he said

Then he laid the fox on the table, spreading out the petticoat under it, and he took out a knife and the girls hid

their faces. Even Oswald did not care to look. Wounds in battle are all very well, but it's different to see a

Next moment the magistrate wiped something on his handkerchief and then laid it on the table, and put one of

A thrill of despair ran through Oswald. He knows now how a hero feels when he is innocently accused of a

crime and the judge is putting on the black cap, and the evidence is convulsive and all human aid is despaired

The whitewhiskered magistrate may have been master of the foxhounds, but he was not master of his

He said several words which Oswald would never repeat, much less in his own conversing, and besides that

Then suddenly Albert's uncle entered in the midst of a silence freighted with despairing reflections. The

M.F.H. got up and told his tale: it was mainly lies, or, to be more polite, it was hardly any of it true, though I

Then Albert's uncle said, 'Now Oswald, I know I can trust you to speak the exact truth.'

Then the whitewhiskered foxmaster laid the bullets before Albert's uncle, and I felt this would be a trial to

The M.F.H. would have spoken but Albert's uncle said, 'One moment, Denny; you've seen this fox before?'

But Albert's uncle said, 'Take time. Think before you speak and say the exact truth. No, don't whisper to

Oswald. This boy,' he said to the injured foxmaster, 'has been with me since seven this morning. His tale,

'I can't till I've asked Oswald something,' he said at last. White Whiskers said, 'That looks badeh?'

But Oswald said, 'Don't whisper, old chap. Ask me whatever you like, but speak up.'

So then Oswald began to see, and he said, 'Break away for all you're worth, it's all right.'

And Denny said, drawing relief's deepest breath, 'Well then, Oswald and I have got a pistolsharesand I

had it last night. And when I couldn't sleep last night because of the toothache I got up and went out early this

morning. And I took the pistol. And I loaded it just for fun. And down in the wood I heard a whining like a

dog, and I went, and there was the poor fox caught in an iron trap with teeth. And I went to let it out and it bit

melook, here's the placeand the pistol went off and the fox died, and I am so sorry.'

'Well,' he said, 'I see it was an accident, my boy.' Then he turned to us and said

But all the same we hated him for it. He tried to make up for his unbelievingness afterwards by asking

Albert's uncle to shoot rabbits; but we did not really forgive him till the day when he sent the fox's brush to

Alice, mounted in silver with a note about her plucky conduct in standing by her brothers.

We got a lecture about not playing with firearms, but no punishment, because our conduct had not been

I hope the house will never be attacked by burglars. When it is, Albert's uncle will only have himself to thank

if we are rapidly overpowered, because it will be his fault that we shall have to meet them totally unarmed,

It began one morning at breakfast. It was the fifteenth of Augustthe birthday of Napoleon the Great,

Oswald Bastable, and another very nice writer. Oswald was to keep his birthday on the Saturday, so that his

Father could be there. A birthday when there are only many happy returns is a little like Sunday or Christmas

Eve. Oswald had a birthdaycard or twothat was all; but he did not repine, because he knew they always

make it up to you for putting off keeping your birthday, and he looked forward to Saturday.

Albert's uncle had a whole stack of letters as usual, and presently he tossed one over to Dora, and said, 'What

But Dora, butterfingered as ever, missed the catch, and Dick and Noel both had a try for it, so that the letter

went into the place where the bacon had been, and where now only a frozenlooking lake of bacon fat was

slowly hardening, and then somehow it got into the marmalade, and then H. O. got it, and Dora said

'I don't want the nasty thing nowall grease and stickiness.' So H. O. read it aloud

H. O. stuck fast here, and the writing was really very bad, like a spider that has been in the inkpot crawling

in a hurry over the paper without stopping to rub its feet properly on the mat. So Oswald took the letter. He is

'The other's a very good word,' said Albert's uncle, 'and I never call names at breakfast myselfit upsets the

'That's a name though,' said Alice, 'and you got it out of "Stalky", too. Go on, Oswald.'

'Just so,' said Albert's uncle; 'well, shall we permit the eye of the Maidstone Antiquities to profane these

sacred solitudes, and the foot of the Field Club to kick up a dust on our gravel?'

'Why not ask them to tea? They'll be very tired coming all the way from Maidstone.'

'Would you really like it?' Albert's uncle asked. 'I'm afraid they'll be but dull dogs, the Antiquities, stuffy old

gentlemen with amphorae in their buttonholes instead of orchids, and pedigrees poking out of all their

We laughedbecause we knew what an amphorae is. If you don't you might look it up in the dicker. It's not

a flower, though it sounds like one out of the gardening book, the kind you never hear of anyone growing.

'And we could have out the best china,' she said, 'and decorate the table with flowers. We could have tea in

'I warn you that your guests may be boresome; however, have it your own way,' Albert's uncle said; and he

went off to write the invitation to tea to the Maidstone Antiquities. I know that is the wrong word but

'You've let me in for a nice thing,' he said. 'I asked the Antiquities to tea, and I asked casually how many we

might expect. I thought we might need at least the full dozen of the best teacups. Now the secretary writes

'Oh, good!' we cried. 'And how many are coming?' 'Oh, only about sixty,' was the groaning rejoinder.

The girls were allowed to help in the kitchen, where Mrs Pettigrew made cakes all day long without stopping.

They did not let us boys be there, though I cannot see any harm in putting your finger in a cake before it is

baked, and then licking your finger, if you are careful to put a different finger in the cake next time. Cake

Albert's uncle said he was the prey of despair. He drove in to Maidstone one day. When we asked him where

'To get my hair cut: if I keep it this length I shall certainly tear it out by double handfuls in the extremity of

But we found out afterwards that he really went to borrow china and things to give the Antiquities their tea

out of; though he did have his hair cut too, because he is the soul of truth and honour.

Oswald had a very good sort of birthday, with bows and arrows as well as other presents. I think these were

meant to make up for the pistol that was taken away after the adventure of the foxhunting. These gave us

boys something to do between the birthdaykeeping, which was on the Saturday, and the Wednesday when

We did not allow the girls to play with the bows and arrows, because they had the cakes that we were cut off

On the Tuesday we went down to look at the Roman place where the Antiquities were going to dig. We sat

on the Roman wall and ate nuts. And as we sat there, we saw coming through the beetfield two labourers

with picks and shovels, and a very young man with thin legs and a bicycle. It turned out afterwards to be a

They stopped at a mound inside the Roman wall, and the men took their coats off and spat on their hands.

We went down at once, of course. The thinlegged bicyclist explained his machine to us very fully and

carefully when we asked him, and then we saw the men were cutting turfs and turning them over and rolling

them up and putting them in a heap. So we asked the gentleman with the thin legs what they were doing. He

'Oh, you're all coming to tea with us,' Dora said, and added anxiously, 'how many of you do you think there'll

This took our breath away and we went home. As we went, Oswald, who notices many things that would pass

unobserved by the light and careless, saw Denny frowning hard. So he said, 'What's up?'

'I've got an idea,' the Dentist said. 'Let's call a council.' The Dentist had grown quite used to our ways now.

We had called him Dentist ever since the foxhunt day. He called a council as if he had been used to calling

such things all his life, and having them come, too; whereas we all know that his former existing was that of a

white mouse in a trap, with that cat of a Murdstone aunt watching him through the bars.

Councils are held in the strawloft. As soon as we were all there, and the straw had stopped rustling after our

'It'sit's "Hail to thee, blithe spiritbird thou never wert",' said Denny. 'I mean, I think it's what is called a

'It's by Miss Charlotte M. Yonge,' Daisy interrupted, 'and it's about a family of poor motherless children who

tried so hard to be good, and they were confirmed, and had a bazaar, and went to church at the Minster, and

one of them got married and wore black watered silk and silver ornaments. So her baby died, and then she

was sorry she had not been a good mother to it. And' Here Dicky got up and said he'd got some snares to

attend to, and he'd receive a report of the Council after it was over. But he only got as far as the trapdoor,

and then Oswald, the fleet of foot, closed with him, and they rolled together on the floor, while all the others

Through the rustle and bustle and hustle of the struggle with Dicky, Oswald heard the voice of Denny

'"Come back, come back!" he cried in Greek, "Across the stormy water, And I'll forgive your Highland

When quiet was restored and Dicky had agreed to go through with the Council, Denny said

'The Daisy Chain is not a bit like that really. It's a ripping book. One of the boys dresses up like a lady and

comes to call, and another tries to hit his little sister with a hoe. It's jolly fine, I tell you.'

Denny is learning to say what he thinks, just like other boys. He would never have learnt such words as

Since then I have read The Daisy Chain. It is a firstrate book for girls and little boys.

Then he shut his pale pink eyelids a moment in thought, and then opened them and stood up on the straw and

'Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, or if not ears, pots. You know Albert's uncle said they

were going to open the barrow, to look for Roman remains tomorrow. Don't you think it seems a pity they

'In The Daisy Chain,' he said, 'they dug in a Roman encampment and the children went first and put some

pottery there they'd made themselves, and Harry's old medal of the Duke of Wellington. The doctor helped

them to some stuff to partly efface the inscription, and all the grownups were sold. I thought we might

Denny sat down amid applause. It really was a great idea, at least for HIM. It seemed to add just what was

wanted to the visit of the Maidstone Antiquities. To sell the Antiquities thoroughly would be indeed

splendiferous. Of course Dora made haste to point out that we had not got an old medal of the Duke of

Wellington, and that we hadn't any doctor who would 'help us to stuff to efface', and etcetera; but we sternly

The pottery was easy. We had made a lot of it by the streamwhich was the Nile when we discovered its

sourceand dried it in the sun, and then baked it under a bonfire, like in Foul Play. And most of the things

were such queer shapes that they should have done for almost anythingRoman or Greek, or even Egyptian

or antediluvian, or household milkjugs of the cavemen, Albert's uncle said. The pots were, fortunately, quite

ready and dirty, because we had already buried them in mixed sand and river mud to improve the colour, and

So the Council at once collected it alland some rusty hinges and some brass buttons and a file without a

handle; and the girl Councillors carried it all concealed in their pinafores, while the men members carried

digging tools. H. O. and Daisy were sent on ahead as scouts to see if the coast was clear. We have learned the

true usefulness of scouts from reading about the Transvaal War. But all was still in the hush of evening sunset

We posted sentries, who were to lie on their stomachs on the walls and give a long, low, signifying whistle if

Then we dug a tunnel, like the one we once did after treasure, when we happened to bury a boy. It took some

time; but never shall it be said that a Bastable grudged time or trouble when a lark was at stake. We put the

things in as naturally as we could, and shoved the dirt back, till everything looked just as before. Then we

went home, late for tea. But it was in a good cause; and there was no hot toast, only breadandbutter, which

So he kept awake by biting his tongue and pulling his hairfor he shrinks from no pain if it is needful and

And when the others all slept the sleep of innocent youth, he got up and went out, and there was Alice

She said, 'I've found some broken things that look ever so much more Romanthey were on top of the

cupboard in the library. If you'll come with me, we'll bury them just to see how surprised the others will be.'

'Wait half a shake.' And he put on his knickerbockers and jacket, and slipped a few peppermints into his

pocket in case of catching cold. It is these thoughtful expedients which mark the born explorer and

It was a little cold; but the white moonlight was very fair to see, and we decided we'd do some other daring

moonlight act some other day. We got out of the front door, which is never locked till Albert's uncle goes to

bed at twelve or one, and we ran swiftly and silently across the bridge and through the fields to the Roman

Alice told me afterwards she should have been afraid if it had been dark. But the moonlight made it as bright

We did not take all the pots Alice had foundbut just the two that weren't brokentwo crooked jugs, made

of stuff like flowerpots are made of. We made two long cuts with the spade and lifted the turf up and

scratched the earth under, and took it out very carefully in handfuls on to the newspaper, till the hole was

deepish. Then we put in the jugs, and filled it up with earth and flattened the turf over. Turf stretches like

elastic. This we did a couple of yards from the place where the mound was dug into by the men, and we had

Then we went home in the wet moonlightat least the grass was very wetchuckling through the

The next day the Antiquities came. It was a jolly hot day, and the tables were spread under the trees on the

lawn, like a large and very grand Sundayschool treat. There were dozens of different kinds of cake, and

breadandbutter, both white and brown, and gooseberries and plums and jam sandwiches. And the girls

decorated the tables with flowersblue larkspur and white Canterbury bells. And at about three there was a

noise of people walking in the road, and presently the Antiquities began to come in at the front gate, and

stood about on the lawn by twos and threes and sixes and sevens, looking shy and uncomfy, exactly like a

Sundayschool treat. Presently some gentlemen came, who looked like the teachers; they were not shy, and

they came right up to the door. So Albert's uncle, who had not been too proud to be up in our room with us

So we all went downwe were in our Sunday thingsand Albert's uncle received the Committee like a

He talked about dates, and king posts and gables, and mullions, and foundations, and records, and Sir Thomas

Wyatt, and poetry, and Julius Caesar, and Roman remains, and lych gates and churches, and dog'stooth

moulding till the brain of Oswald reeled. I suppose that Albert's uncle remarked that all our mouths were

So we went out on to the lawn, which was now crowded with men and women and one child. This was a girl;

she was fat, and we tried to talk to her, though we did not like her. (She was covered in red velvet like an

armchair.) But she wouldn't. We thought at first she was from a deafanddumb asylum, where her kind

teachers had only managed to teach the afflicted to say 'Yes' and 'No'. But afterwards we knew better, for

Noel heard her say to her mother, 'I wish you hadn't brought me, mamma. I didn't have a pretty teacup, and I

haven't enjoyed my tea one bit.' And she had had five pieces of cake, besides little cakes and nearly a whole

Several grownups talked to us in a most uninterested way, and then the President read a paper about the

Moat House, which we couldn't understand, and other people made speeches we couldn't understand either,

Then Dora and Alice and Daisy and Mrs Pettigrew poured out the tea, and we handed cups and plates.

Albert's uncle took me behind a bush to see him tear what was left of his hair when he found there were one

hundred and twentythree Antiquities present, and I heard the President say to the Secretary that 'tea always

Then it was time for the Roman ruin, and our hearts beat high as we took our hatsit was exactly like

Sundayand joined the crowded procession of eager Antiquities. Many of them had umbrellas and

overcoats, though the weather was fiery and without a cloud. That is the sort of people they were. The ladies

all wore stiff bonnets, and no one took their gloves off, though, of course, it was quite in the country, and it is

We had planned to be quite close when the digging went on; but Albert's uncle made us a mystic sign and

Then he said: 'The stalls and dress circle are for the guests. The hosts and hostesses retire to the gallery,

So we all went up on the Roman walls, and thus missed the cream of the lark; for we could not exactly see

what was happening. But we saw that things were being taken from the ground as the men dug, and passed

round for the Antiquities to look at. And we knew they must be our Roman remains; but the Antiquities did

not seem to care for them much, though we heard sounds of pleased laughter. And at last Alice and I

exchanged meaning glances when the spot was reached where we had put in the extras. Then the crowd

closed up thick, and we heard excited talk and we knew we really HAD sold the Antiquities this time.

Presently the bonnets and coats began to spread out and trickle towards the house and we were aware that all

would soon be over. So we cut home the back way, just in time to hear the President saying to Albert's

'A genuine findmost interesting. Oh, really, you ought to have ONE. Well, if you insist'

And so, by slow and dull degrees, the thick sprinkling of Antiquities melted off the lawn; the party was over,

and only the dirty teacups and plates, and the trampled grass and the pleasures of memory were left.

We had a very beautiful supperout of doors, too with jam sandwiches and cakes and things that were

over; and as we watched the setting monarch of the skiesI mean the sunAlice said

We let the Dentist tell, because it was he who hatched the lark, but we helped him a little in the narrating of

the fell plot, because he has yet to learn how to tell a story straight from the beginning.

When he had done, and we had done, Albert's uncle said, 'Well, it amused you; and you'll be glad to learn that

'Not in the least,' said Albert's uncle; 'but the Treasurer and Secretary were charmed by your ingenious

'They weren't,' said Albert's uncle. 'Steady on with those plums, H.O. A little way beyond the treasure you

had prepared for them they found two specimens of REAL Roman pottery which sent every manjack of

'Those were our jugs,' said Alice, 'and we really HAVE sold the Antiquities. She unfolded the tale about our

getting the jugs and burying them in the moonlight, and the mound; and the others listened with deeply

respectful interest. 'We really have done it this time, haven't we?' she added in tones of welldeserved

But Oswald had noticed a queer look about Albert's uncle from almost the beginning of Alice's recital; and he

now had the sensation of something being up, which has on other occasions frozen his noble blood. The

'Haven't we?' repeated Alice, unconscious of what her sensitive brother's delicate feelings had already got

'Since you ask me thus pointedly,' answered Albert's uncle at last, 'I cannot but confess that I think you have

indeed done it. Those pots on the top of the library cupboard ARE Roman pottery. The amphorae which you

hid in the mound are probablyI can't say for certain, mindpriceless. They are the property of the owner

of this house. You have taken them out and buried them. The President of the Maidstone Antiquarian Society

Alice and I did not know what to say, or where to look. The others added to our pained position by some

Alice got up too, and she and Oswald went into the garden, and sat down on the bench under the quince tree,

and wished they had never tried to have a private lark of their very own with the Antiquities 'A Private

Sale', Albert's uncle called it afterwards. But regrets, as nearly always happens, were vain. Something had to

Oswald and Alice sat in silent desperateness, and the voices of the gay and careless others came to them from

the lawn, where, heartless in their youngness, they were playing tag. I don't know how they could. Oswald

would not like to play tag when his brother and sister were in a hole, but Oswald is an exception to some

The dusk grew dusker, till you could hardly tell the quinces from the leaves, and Alice and Oswald still sat

exhausted with hard thinking, but they could not think of anything. And it grew so dark that the moonlight

Then Alice jumped upjust as Oswald was opening his mouth to say the same thingand said, 'Of

Oswald was still far too proud to consult anyone else. But he just asked carelessly if Alice and he might go

into Maidstone the next day to buy some wirenetting for a rabbithutch, and to see after one or two things.

Albert's uncle said certainly. And they went by train with the bailiff from the farm, who was going in about

some sheepdip and too buy pigs. At any other time Oswald would not have been able to bear to leave the

bailiff without seeing the pigs bought. But now it was different. For he and Alice had the weight on their

bosoms of being thieves without having meant itand nothing, not even pigs, had power to charm the young

So he took Alice to the Secretary of the Maidstone Antiquities' house, and Mr Turnbull was out, but the

maidservant kindly told us where the President lived, and ere long the trembling feet of the unfortunate

When they asked, they were told that Mr Longchamps was at home. Then they waited, paralysed with

undescribed emotions, in a large room with books and swords and glass bookcases with rottenlooking odds

and ends in them. Mr Longchamps was a collector. That means he stuck to anything, no matter how ugly and

He came in rubbing his hands, and very kind. He remembered us very well, he said, and asked what he could

Oswald for once was dumb. He could not find words in which to own himself the ass he had been. But Alice

'Oh, if you please, we are most awfully sorry, and we hope you'll forgive us, but we thought it would be such

a pity for you and all the other poor dear Antiquities to come all that way and then find nothing Romanso

'So I perceived,' said the President, stroking his white beard and smiling most agreeably at us; 'a harmless

joke, my dear! Youth's the season for jesting. There's no harm donepray think no more about it. It's very

His brow began to wear the furrowed, anxious look of one who would fain be rid of his guests and get back to

Alice said, 'We didn't come for that. It's MUCH worse. Those were two REAL true Roman jugs you took

away; we put them there; they aren't ours. We didn't know they were real Roman. We wanted to sell the

'This is serious,' said the gentleman. 'I suppose you'd know thethe "jugs" if you saw them again?'

'Anywhere,' said Oswald, with the confidential rashness of one who does not know what he is talking about.

Mr Longchamps opened the door of a little room leading out of the one we were in, and beckoned us to

follow. We found ourselves amid shelves and shelves of pottery of all sorts; and two whole shelves small

'Well,' said the President, with a veiled menacing sort of smile, like a wicked cardinal, 'which is it?'

The President patiently took the jugs down one after another, and Alice tried to look inside them. And one

after another she shook her head and gave them back. At last she said, 'You didn't WASH them?'

'Then,' said Alice, 'there is something written with leadpencil inside both the jugs. I wish I hadn't. I would

rather you didn't read it. I didn't know it would be a nice old gentleman like you would find it. I thought it

'Mr Turnbull.' The President seemed to recognize the description unerringly. 'Well, wellboys will be

boysgirls, I mean. I won't be angry. Look at all the "jugs" and see if you can find yours.'

Alice didand the next one she looked at she said, 'This is one'and two jugs further on she said, 'This is

'Well,' the President said, 'these are certainly the specimens which I obtained yesterday. If your uncle will call

on me I will return them to him. But it's a disappointment. Yes, I think you must let me look inside.'

'Well, well,' he said, 'we can't expect old heads on young shoulders. You're not the first who went forth to

shear and returned shorn. Nor, it appears, am I. Next time you have a Sale of Antiquities, take care that you

yourself are not "sold". Goodday to you, my dear. Don't let the incident prey on your mind,' he said to Alice.

'Bless your heart, I was a boy once myself, unlikely as you may think it. Goodbye.'

I asked Alice what on earth it was she'd scribbled inside the beastly jugs, and she owned that just to make the

lark complete she had written 'Sucks' in one of the jugs, and 'Sold again, silly', in the other.

But we know well enough who it was that was sold. And if ever we have any Antiquities to tea again, they

Unless it's the President, for he did not behave at all badly. For a man of his age I think he behaved

exceedingly well. Oswald can picture a very different scene having been enacted over those rotten pots if the

But that picture is not pleasing, so Oswald will not distress you by drawing it for you. You can most likely do

The tramp was very dusty about the feet and legs, and his clothes were very ragged and dirty, but he had

cheerful twinkly grey eyes, and he touched his cap to the girls when he spoke to us, though a little as though

We were on the top of the big wall of the Roman ruin in the Three Tree pasture. We had just concluded a

severe siege with bows and arrowsthe ones that were given us to make up for the pistol that was

To avoid accidents that you would be sorry for afterwards, Oswald, in his thoughtfulness, had decreed that

Luckily there were plenty of these, because a man who lived in the Moat House once went to Rome, where

they throw hundreds and thousands at each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti

(that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among the village peoplebut they were too

And in the attic were the wire masks he brought home with him from Rome, which people wear to prevent

So we were all armed to the teeth with masks and arrows, but in attacking or defending a fort your real

strength is not in your equipment, but in your power of Shove. Oswald, Alice, Noel and Denny defended the

fort. We were much the strongest side, but that was how Dicky and Oswald picked up.

The others got in, it is true, but that was only because an arrow hit Dicky on the nose, and it bled quarts as

usual, though hit only through the wire mask. Then he put into dock for repairs, and while the defending

party weren't looking he sneaked up the wall at the back and shoved Oswald off, and fell on top of him, so

that the fort, now that it had lost its gallant young leader, the life and soul of the besieged party, was of course

Then we sat on the top and ate some peppermints Albert's uncle brought us a bag of from Maidstone when he

The battle was over, and peace raged among us as we sat in the sun on the big wall and looked at the fields,

We saw the tramp coming through the beetfield. He made a dusty blot on the fair scene.

When he saw us he came close to the wall, and touched his cap, as I have said, and remarked

'Excuse me interrupting of your sports, young gentlemen and ladies, but if you could so far oblige as to tell a

'The "Rose and Crown" is the best pub,' said Dicky, 'and the landlady is a friend of ours. It's about a mile if

'Lor' love a duck!' said the tramp, 'a mile's a long way, and walking's a dry job this 'ere weather.' We said we

'Upon my sacred,' said the tramp, 'if there was a pump handy I believe I'd take a turn at itI would indeed,

so help me if I wouldn't! Though water always upsets me and makes my 'and shaky.'

We had not cared much about tramps since the adventure of the villainous sailorman and the Tower of

Mystery, but we had the dogs on the wall with us (Lady was awfully difficult to get up, on account of her

long deerhound legs), and the position was a strong one, and easy to defend. Besides the tramp did not look

like that bad sailor, nor talk like it. And we considerably outnumbered the tramp, anyway.

Alice nudged Oswald and said something about Sir Philip Sidney and the tramp's need being greater than his,

so Oswald was obliged to go to the hole in the top of the wall where we store provisions during sieges and get

out the bottle of gingerbeer which he had gone without when the others had theirs so as to drink it when he

'We've got some gingerbeer; my brother's getting it. I hope you won't mind drinking out of our glass. We

The glass was beside us on the wall. Oswald filled it with gingerbeer and handed down the foaming tankard

The tramp was really quite politeone of Nature's gentlemen, and a man as well, we found out afterwards.

'Here's to you!' before he drank. Then he drained the glass till the rim rested on his nose.

'Swelp me, but I WAS dry,' he said. 'Don't seem to matter much what it is, this weather, do it?so long as

'Like it?'said he. 'I don't suppose you know what it's like to have a thirst on you. Talk of free schools and

free libraries, and free baths and washhouses and such! Why don't someone start free DRINKS? He'd be a

ero, he would. I'd vote for him any day of the week and one over. Ef yer don't objec I'll set down a bit and put

He sat down on the grass and began to smoke. We asked him questions about himself, and he told us many of

his secret sorrowsespecially about there being no work nowadays for an honest man. At last he dropped

asleep in the middle of a story about a vestry he worked for that hadn't acted fair and square by him like he

had by them, or it (I don't know if vestry is singular or plural), and we went home. But before we went we

held a hurried council and collected what money we could from the little we had with us (it was

ninepencehalfpenny), and wrapped it in an old envelope Dicky had in his pocket and put it gently on the

billowing middle of the poor tramp's sleeping waistcoat, so that he would find it when he woke. None of the

dogs said a single syllable while we were doing this, so we knew they believed him to be poor but honest,

As we went home a brooding silence fell upon us; we found out afterwards that those words of the poor

After dinner we went out and sat with our feet in the stream. People tell you it makes your grub disagree with

you to do this just after meals, but it never hurts us. There is a fallen willow across the stream that just seats

the eight of us, only the ones at the end can't get their feet into the water properly because of the bushes, so

we keep changing places. We had got some liquorice root to chew. This helps thought. Dora broke a peaceful

'I wonder someone doesn't,' H. O. said, leaning back till he nearly toppled in, and was only saved by Oswald

'Do for goodness sake sit still, H. O.,' observed Alice. 'It would be a glorious act! I wish WE could.'

'No, my child,' replied Oswald, 'most of us can do that when we try. Your angel sister was only wishing to set

'Not for all of them,' Alice said, 'just a few. Change places now, Dicky. My feet aren't properly wet at all.'

It is very difficult to change places safely on the willow. The changers have to crawl over the laps of the

others, while the rest sit tight and hold on for all they're worth. But the hard task was accomplished and then

'And we couldn't do it for always, only a day or twojust while our money held out. Eiffel Tower

lemonade's the best, and you get a jolly lot of it for your money too. There must be a great many sincerely

'And then think how the poor grateful creatures would linger and tell us about their inmost sorrows. It would

be most frightfully interesting. We could write all their agonied life histories down afterwards like All the

Alice was wriggling so with earnestness that Dicky thumped her to make her calm.

'We might do it, just for one day,' Oswald said, 'but it wouldn't be muchonly a drop in the ocean compared

with the enormous dryness of all the people in the whole world. Still, every little helps, as the mermaid said

do something or other, I forget what, but it means the same as Oswald was saying about the mermaid.'

'Oh, shut up!' remarked Dicky. 'You've been making that rot up all the time we've been talking instead of

listening properly.' Dicky hates poetry. I don't mind it so very much myself, especially Macaulay's and

'There was a lot more"lame" and "dame" and name" and "game" and thingsand now I've forgotten it,'

'Never mind,' Alice answered, 'it'll come back to you in the silent watches of the night; you see if it doesn't.

'The "Bar Beautiful" then,' said Dicky, who knows what the 'Rose and Crown' bar is like inside, which of

'Oh, wait a minute,' cried the Dentist, snapping his fingers like he always does when he is trying to remember

things. 'I thought of something, only Daisy tickled me and it's goneI knowlet's call it the Benevolent

It was exactly right, and told the whole truth in two words. 'Benevolent' showed it was free and 'Bar' showed

We went home at once to prepare for the morrow, for of course we meant to do it the very next day.

Procrastination is you know whatand delays are dangerous. If we had waited long we might have

The utmost secrecy had to be observed, because Mrs Pettigrew hates tramps. Most people do who keep fowls.

Albert's uncle was in London till the next evening, so we could not consult him, but we know he is always

Acting with the deepest disguise, we made an awning to cover the Benevolent Bar keepers from the searching

rays of the monarch of the skies. We found some old striped sunblinds in the attic, and the girls sewed them

together. They were not very big when they were done, so we added the girls' striped petticoats. I am sorry

their petticoats turn up so constantly in my narrative, but they really are very useful, especially when the band

is cut off. The girls borrowed Mrs Pettigrew's sewingmachine; they could not ask her leave without

explanations, which we did not wish to give just then, and she had lent it to them before. They took it into the

cellar to work it, so that she should not hear the noise and ask bothering questions.

They had to balance it on one end of the beerstand. It was not easy. While they were doing the sewing we

boys went out and got willow poles and chopped the twigs off, and got ready as well as we could to put up

When we returned a detachment of us went down to the shop in the village for Eiffel Tower lemonade. We

bought sevenandsixpence worth; then we made a great label to say what the bar was for. Then there was

nothing else to do except to make rosettes out of a blue sash of Daisy's to show we belonged to the

The next day was as hot as ever. We rose early from our innocent slumbers, and went out to the Dover Road

to the spot we had marked down the day before. It was at a crossroads, so as to be able to give drinks to as

After break we got the big zinc bath they wash clothes in, and after filling it with clean water we just had to

empty it again because it was too heavy to lift. So we carried it vacant to the trystingspot and left H. O. and

Noel to guard it while we went and fetched separate pails of water; very heavy work, and no one who wasn't

really benevolent would have bothered about it for an instant. Oswald alone carried three pails. So did Dicky

and the Dentist. Then we rolled down some empty barrels and stood up three of them by the roadside, and put

planks on them. This made a very firstclass table, and we covered it with the best tablecloth we could find in

the linen cupboard. We brought out several glasses and some teacupsnot the best ones, Oswald was firm

about thatand the kettle and spiritlamp and the teapot, in case any weary trampwoman fancied a cup of

tea instead of Eiffel Tower. H. O. and Noel had to go down to the shop for tea; they need not have grumbled;

they had not carried any of the water. And their having to go the second time was only because we forgot to

tell them to get some real lemons to put on the bar to show what the drink would be like when you got it. The

man at the shop kindly gave us tick for the lemons, and we cashed up out of our next week's pocketmoney.

Two or three people passed while we were getting things ready, but no one said anything except the man who

said, 'Bloomin' Sundayschool treat', and as it was too early in the day for anyone to be thirsty we did not

stop the wayfarers to tell them their thirst could be slaked without cost at our Benevolent Bar.

But when everything was quite ready, and our blue rosettes fastened on our breasts over our benevolent

hearts, we stuck up the great placard we had made with 'Benevolent Bar. Free Drinks to all Weary Travellers',

in white wadding on red calico, like Christmas decorations in church. We had meant to fasten this to the edge

of the awning, but we had to pin it to the front of the tablecloth, because I am sorry to say the awning went

wrong from the first. We could not drive the willow poles into the road; it was much too hard. And in the

ditch it was too soft, besides being no use. So we had just to cover our benevolent heads with our hats, and

take it in turns to go into the shadow of the tree on the other side of the road. For we had pitched our table on

the sunny side of the way, of course, relying on our brokenreedlike awning, and wishing to give it a fair

Everything looked very nice, and we longed to see somebody really miserable come along so as to be able to

A man and woman were the first: they stopped and stared, but when Alice said, 'Free drinks! Free drinks!

Aren't you thirsty?' they said, 'No thank you,' and went on. Then came a person from the villagehe didn't

even say 'Thank you' when we asked him, and Oswald began to fear it might be like the awful time when we

wandered about on Christmas Day trying to find poor persons and persuade them to eat our Conscience

But a man in a blue jersey and a red bundle eased Oswald's fears by being willing to drink a glass of

After that it was better. As we had foreseen, there were plenty of thirsty people walking along the Dover

We had had the pleasure of seeing nineteen tumblers drained to the dregs ere we tasted any ourselves.

More people went by than we gave lemonade to. Some wouldn't have it because they were too grand. One

man told us he could pay for his own liquor when he was dry, which, praise be, he wasn't over and above, at

present; and others asked if we hadn't any beer, and when we said 'No', they said it showed what sort we

And another man said, 'Slops again! You never get nothing for nothing, not this side of heaven you don't.

Look at the bloomin' blue ribbon on 'em! Oh, Lor'!' and went on quite sadly without having a drink.

Our Pigman who helped us on the Tower of Mystery day went by and we hailed him, and explained it all to

him and gave him a drink, and asked him to call as he came back. He liked it all, and said we were a real

One thing I didn't like, and that was the way boys began to gather. Of course we could not refuse to give

drinks to any traveller who was old enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three glasses of lemonade

'I think you've had jolly well enough. You can't be really thirsty after all that lot.'

The boy said, 'Oh, can't I? You'll just see if I can't,' and went away. Presently he came back with four other

boys, all bigger than Oswald; and they all asked for lemonade. Oswald gave it to the four new ones, but he

was determined in his behaviour to the other one, and wouldn't give him a drop. Then the five of them went

and sat on a gate a little way off and kept laughing in a nasty way, and whenever a boy went by they called

'I say, 'ere's a go,' and as often as not the new boy would hang about with them. It was disquieting, for though

A great glorious glow of goodness gladdened (those go all together and are called alliteration) our hearts

when we saw our own tramp coming down the road. The dogs did not growl at him as they had at the boys or

the beerman. (I did not say before that we had the dogs with us, but of course we had, because we had

promised never to go out without them.) Oswald said, 'Hullo,' and the tramp said, 'Hullo.' Then Alice said,

'You see we've taken your advice; we're giving free drinks. Doesn't it all look nice?'

So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked him for giving us the idea. He said we

were very welcome, and if we'd no objection he'd sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did, and after talking a

little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything seemed to end in sleep with him. I always thought it was only

beer and things made people sleepy, but he was not so. When he was asleep he rolled into the ditch, but it did

The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things, and to make silly noises with their mouths,

and when Oswald and Dicky went over to them and told them to just chuck it, they were worse than ever. I

think perhaps Oswald and Dicky might have fought and settled themthough there were eleven, yet back to

back you can always do it against overwhelming numbers in a bookonly Alice called out

We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and hot, and not amiablelooking. They

stopped in front of the Benevolent Bar and slowly read the wadding and redstuff label.

Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and another said he was too. The third one said,

'Blessed or not, a drink's a drink. Blue ribbon, though, by ' (a word you ought not to say, though it is in

The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any notice of what the dogs said, but to give

these men each a drink. So he did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then they set

their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald.

'Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if you want anything.' And then he drew the others

away, to say he thought there'd been enough of it, and considering the boys and new three men, perhaps we'd

While this conversation and the objections of the others were going on, H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly

Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened, but from what H. O. said in the calmer

moments of later life, I think this was about what happened. One of the big disagreeable men said to H. O.

'Lemonade and tea! blank' (bad word I told you about) 'and blazes,' replied the bad character, for such he

He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whisky, which stood on the table near the spiritkettle.

The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think so, but H. O. is not sure about the

He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O. generously filled up the tumbler out of the

bottle, labelled Dewar's whisky. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what happened to

be left in his mouth just then, and began to swear. It was then that Oswald and Dicky rushed upon the scene.

The man was shaking his fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still holding on to the bottle we had brought out

the methylated spirit in for the lamp, in case of anyone wanting tea, which they hadn't. 'If I was Jim,' said the

second ruffian, for such indeed they were, when he had snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, 'I'd chuck

the whole show over the hedge, so I would, and you young gutter snipes after it, so I wouldn't.'

Oswald saw in a moment that in point of strength, if not numbers, he and his party were outmatched, and

the unfriendly boys were drawing gladly near. It is no shame to signal for help when in distressthe best

ships do it every day. Oswald shouted 'Help, help!' Before the words were out of his brave yet trembling lips

Oswald was so enraged at this cowardly attack that he actually hit out at the big manand he really got one

in just above the belt. Then he shut his eyes, because he felt that now all was indeed up. There was a shout

and a scuffle, and Oswald opened his eyes in astonishment at finding himself still whole and unimpaired. Our

own tramp had artfully simulated insensibleness, to get the men off their guard, and then had suddenly got his

arms round a leg each of two of the men, and pulled them to the ground, helped by Dicky, who saw his game

and rushed in at the same time, exactly like Oswald would have done if he had not had his eyes shut ready to

The unpleasant boys shouted, and the third man tried to help his unrespectable friends, now on their backs

involved in a desperate struggle with our own tramp, who was on top of them, accompanied by Dicky. It all

happened in a minute, and it was all mixed up. The dogs were growling and barkingMartha had one of the

men by the trouser leg and Pincher had another; the girls were screaming like mad and the strange boys

shouted and laughed (little beasts!), and then suddenly our Pigman came round the corner, and two friends

of his with him. He had gone and fetched them to take care of us if anything unpleasant occurred. It was a

'Fetch the police!' cried the Pigman in noble tones, and H. O. started running to do it. But the scoundrels

struggled from under Dicky and our tramp, shook off the dogs and some bits of trouser, and fled heavily

Our Pigman said, 'Get along home!' to the disagreeable boys, and 'Shoo'd' them as if they were hens, and

they went. H. O. ran back when they began to go up the road, and there we were, all standing breathless in

tears on the scene of the late desperate engagement. Oswald gives you his word of honour that his and

Dicky's tears were tears of pure rage. There are such things as tears of pure rage. Anyone who knows will tell

We picked up our own tramp and bathed the lump on his forehead with lemonade. The water in the zinc bath

had been upset in the struggle. Then he and the Pigman and his kind friends helped us carry our things

The Pigman advised us on the way not to try these sort of kind actions without getting a grownup to help

us. We've been advised this before, but now I really think we shall never try to be benevolent to the poor and

We have seen our own tramp often since. The Pigman gave him a job. He has got work to do at last. The

Pigman says he is not such a very bad chap, only he will fall asleep after the least drop of drink. We know

that is his failing. We saw it at once. But it was lucky for us he fell asleep that day near our benevolent bar.

I will not go into what my father said about it all. There was a good deal in it about minding your own

businessthere generally is in most of the talkingsto we get. But he gave our tramp a sovereign, and the

The author of these few lines really does hope to goodness that no one will be such an owl as to think from

the number of things we did when we were in the country, that we were wretched, neglected little children,

whose grownup relations sparkled in the bright haunts of pleasure, and whirled in the giddy

what'sitsname of fashion, while we were left to weep forsaken at home. It was nothing of the kind, and I

wish you to know that my father was with us a good dealand Albert's uncle (who is really no uncle of ours,

but only of Albert next door when we lived in Lewisham) gave up a good many of his valuable hours to us.

And the father of Denny and Daisy came now and then, and other people, quite as many as we wished to see.

And we had some very decent times with them; and enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you. In some

ways the good times you have with grownups are better than the ones you have by yourselves. At any rate

they are safer. It is almost impossible, then, to do anything fatal without being pulled up short by a grownup

ere yet the deed is done. And, if you are careful, anything that goes wrong can be looked on as the

grownup's fault. But these secure pleasures are not so interesting to tell about as the things you do when

It is curious, too, that many of our most interesting games happened when grownups were far away. For

It was just after the business of the Benevolent Bar, and it was a wet day. It is not easy to amuse yourself

indoors on a wet day as older people seem to think, especially when you are far removed from your own

home, and haven't got all your own books and things. The girls were playing Halmawhich is a beastly

gameNoel was writing poetry, H. O. was singing 'I don't know what to do' to the tune of 'Canaan's happy

The rest of us were trying to make him shut up. We put a carpet bag over his head, but he went on inside it;

and then we sat on him, but he sang under us; we held him upside down and made him crawl head first under

the sofa, but when, even there, he kept it up, we saw that nothing short of violence would induce him to

silence, so we let him go. And then he said we had hurt him, and we said we were only in fun, and he said if

we were he wasn't, and ill feeling might have grown up even out of a playful brotherly act like ours had been,

Then Dora said, 'Yes, but look here. Now we're together I do want to say something. What about the

Many of us groaned, and one said, 'Hear! hear!' I will not say which one, but it was not Oswald.

'No, but really,' Dora said, 'I don't want to be preachybut you know we DID say we'd try to be good. And it

says in a book I was reading only yesterday that NOT being naughty is not enough. You must BE good. And

'Couldn't we have a book of leaden deeds?' said Noel, coming out of his poetry, 'then there'd be plenty for

Alice to write about if she wants to, or brass or zinc or aluminium deeds? We shan't ever fill the book with

H. O. had rolled himself in the red tablecloth and said Noel was only advising us to be naughty, and again

peace waved in the balance. But Alice said, 'Oh, H. O., DON'The didn't mean that; but really and truly, I

wish wrong things weren't so interesting. You begin to do a noble act, and then it gets so exciting, and before

'It's very curious,' Denny said, 'but you don't seem to be able to be certain inside yourself whether what you're

doing is right if you happen to like doing it, but if you don't like doing it you know quite well. I only thought

'I am,' Noel said; 'it began about a crocodile but it is finishing itself up quite different from what I meant it to

He wrote very hard while his kind brothers and sisters and his little friends waited the minute he had said, and

'The crocodile is very wise, He lives in the Nile with little eyes, He eats the hippopotamus too, And if he

'The lovely woods and starry skies He looks upon with glad surprise! He sees the riches of the east, And the

'So let all be good and beware Of saying shan't and won't and don't care; For doing wrong is easier far Than

And I couldn't make it king of beasts because of it not rhyming with east, so I put the s off beasts on to king.

We all said it was a very nice piece of poetry. Noel gets really ill if you don't like what he writes, and then he

said, 'If it's trying that's wanted, I don't care how hard we TRY to be good, but we may as well do it some

And we were all beginning to say we didn't want to, when suddenly Dora said, 'Oh, look here! I know. We'll

be the Canterbury Pilgrims. People used to go pilgrimages to make themselves good.'

'With peas in their shoes,' the Dentist said. 'It's in a piece of poetryonly the man boiled his peaswhich is

'Not cockedcockled'it was Alice who said this. 'And they had staffs and scrips, and they told each other

Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in a book called A Short History of the

English People. It is not at all short reallythree fat volumesbut it has jolly good pictures. It was written

Oswald said he could not be sure by the picture, but Alice and Noel could be it between them. So that was

settled. Then we got the book and looked at the dresses to see if we could make up dresses for the parts. At

first we thought we would, because it would be something to do, and it was a very wet day; but they looked

difficult, especially the Miller's. Denny wanted to be the Miller, but in the end he was the Doctor, because it

was next door to Dentist, which is what we call him for short. Daisy was to be the Prioressbecause she is

good, and has 'a soft little red mouth', and H. O. WOULD be the Manciple (I don't know what that is),

because the picture of him is bigger than most of the others, and he said Manciple was a nice portmanteau

'Let's get the easiest parts of the dresses ready first.' Alice said'the pilgrims' staffs and hats and the cockles.'

So Oswald and Dicky braved the fury of the elements and went into the wood beyond the orchard to cut

ashsticks. We got eight jolly good long ones. Then we took them home, and the girls bothered till we

Then we peeled the sticks. They were nice and white at first, but they soon got dirty when we carried them. It

is a curious thing: however often you wash your hands they always seem to come off on anything white. And

we nailed paper rosettes to the tops of them. That was the nearest we could get to cockleshells.

'And we may as well have them there as on our hats,' Alice said. 'And let's call each other by our right names

'Yea, NunPriest,' Oswald was replying, but Noel said she was only half the NunPriest, and again a threat of

'Don't be a piggywiggy, Noel, dear; you can have it all, I don't want it. I'll just be a plain pilgrim, or Henry

We thought of cocked hats, but they are warm to wear, and the big garden hats that make you look like

pictures on the covers of plantation songs did beautifully. We put cockleshells on them. Sandals we did try,

with pieces of oilcloth cut the shape of soles and fastened with tape, but the dust gets into your toes so, and

we decided boots were better for such a long walk. Some of the pilgrims who were very earnest decided to tie

their boots with white tape crossed outside to pretend sandals. Denny was one of these earnest palmers. As

for dresses, there was no time to make them properly, and at first we thought of nightgowns; but we decided

not to, in case people in Canterbury were not used to that sort of pilgrim nowadays. We made up our minds to

Fair was the morn when the pilgrims arose and went down to breakfast. Albert's uncle had had brekker early

and was hard at work in his study. We heard his quill pen squeaking when we listened at the door. It is not

wrong to listen at doors when there is only one person inside, because nobody would tell itself secrets aloud

We got lunch from the housekeeper, Mrs Pettigrew. She seems almost to LIKE us all to go out and take our

lunch with us. Though I should think it must be very dull for her all alone. I remember, though, that Eliza, our

late general at Lewisham, was just the same. We took the dear dogs of course. Since the Tower of Mystery

happened we are not allowed to go anywhere without the escort of these faithful friends of man. We did not

take Martha, because bulldogs do not like walks. Remember this if you ever have one of those valuable

When we were all ready, with our big hats and cockleshells, and our staves and our tape sandals, the

So we had old newspapers rolled up, and carried them in our hands. We took the Globe and the Westminster

Gazette because they are pink and green. The Dentist wore his white sandshoes, sandalled with black tape,

'We OUGHT to have peas in our shoes,' he said. But we did not think so. We knew what a very little stone in

Of course we knew the way to go to Canterbury, because the old Pilgrims' Road runs just above our house. It

is a very pretty road, narrow, and often shady. It is nice for walking, but carts do not like it because it is rough

I have said that it was a fine day, which means that it was not raining, but the sun did not shine all the time.

''Tis well, O Knight,' said Alice, 'that the orb of day shines not in undiwhat'sitsname?splendour.'

'Thou sayest sooth, Plain Pilgrim,' replied Oswald. ''Tis jolly warm even as it is.'

'I wish I wasn't two people,' Noel said, 'it seems to make me hotter. I think I'll be a Reeve or something.'

But we would not let him, and we explained that if he hadn't been so beastly particular Alice would have

been half of him, and he had only himself to thank if being all of a NunPriest made him hot.

But it WAS warm certainly, and it was some time since we'd gone so far in boots. Yet when H. O.

complained we did our duty as pilgrims and made him shut up. He did as soon as Alice said that about

It was so warm that the Prioress and the wife of Bath gave up walking with their arms round each other in

their usual silly way (Albert's uncle calls it Laura Matildaing), and the Doctor and Mr Bath had to take their

I am sure if an artist or a photographer, or any person who liked pilgrims, had seen us he would have been

very pleased. The paper cockleshells were firstrate, but it was awkward having them on the top of the

staffs, because they got in your way when you wanted the staff to use as a walkingstick.

We stepped out like a man all of us, and kept it up as well as we could in booktalk, and at first all was merry

as a dinnerbell; but presently Oswald, who was the 'very perfect gentle knight', could not help noticing that

one of us was growing very silent and rather pale, like people are when they have eaten something that

So he said, 'What's up, Dentist, old man?' quite kindly and like a perfect knight, though, of course, he was

annoyed with Denny. It is sickening when people turn pale in the middle of a game and everything is spoiled,

and you have to go home, and tell the spoiler how sorry you are that he is knocked up, and pretend not to

'Sir Oswald, if you please, Plain Pilgrim,' returned her brother dignifiedly. 'Remember I'm a knight.'

So then we sat down and had lunch, and Denny looked better. We played adverbs, and twenty questions, and

apprenticing your son, for a bit in the shade, and then Dicky said it was time to set sail if we meant to make

the port of Canterbury that night. Of course, pilgrims reck not of ports, but Dicky never does play the game

We went on. I believe we should have got to Canterbury all right and quite early, only Denny got paler and

paler, and presently Oswald saw, beyond any doubt, that he was beginning to walk lame.

So on we wentbut we were all a bit tired nowand the sun was hotter and hotter; the clouds had gone

away. We had to begin to sing to keep up our spirits. We sang 'The British Grenadiers' and 'John Brown's

Body', which is grand to march to, and a lot of others. We were just starting on 'Tramp, tramp, tramp, the

boys are marching', when Denny stopped short. He stood first on one foot and then on the other, and suddenly

screwed up his face and put his knuckles in his eyes and sat down on a heap of stones by the roadside. When

we pulled his hands down he was actually crying. The author does not wish to say it is babyish to cry.

'Whatever is up?' we all asked, and Daisy and Dora petted him to get him to say, but he only went on

howling, and said it was nothing, only would we go on and leave him, and call for him as we came back.

Oswald thought very likely something had given Denny the stomachache, and he did not like to say so

Then he said, 'Now, Denny, don't be a young ass. What is it? Is it stomachache?'

'Well, then,' Oswald said, 'look here, you're spoiling the whole thing. Don't be a jackape, Denny. What is it?'

'NO!' cried Oswald, so impatiently that the others looked back to see why he was shouting. He waved them

Denny quailedthough he said he did notbut then he doesn't know what quailing is, and if Denny did not

For when Oswald took the shoe off he naturally chucked it down and gave it a kick, and a lot of little pinky

yellow things rolled out. And Oswald look closer at the interesting sight. And the little things were SPLIT

'Perhaps you'll tell me,' said the gentle knight, with the politeness of despair, 'why on earth you've played the

'Oh, don't be angry,' Denny said; and now his shoes were off, he curled and uncurled his toes and stopped

crying. 'I KNEW pilgrims put peas in their shoesandoh, I wish you wouldn't laugh!'

'I didn't want to tell you I was going to, because I wanted to be better than all of you, and I thought if you

knew I was going to you'd want to too, and you wouldn't when I said it first. So I just put some peas in my

pocket and dropped one or two at a time into my shoes when you weren't looking.'

In his secret heart Oswald said, 'Greedy young ass.' For it IS greedy to want to have more of anything than

'You see'Denny went on'I do want to be good. And if pilgriming is to do you good, you ought to do it

properly. I shouldn't mind being hurt in my feet if it would make me good for ever and ever. And besides, I

'I think you're quite good enough,' he said. 'I'll fetch back the othersno, they won't laugh.'

And we all went back to Denny, and the girls made a fuss with him. But Oswald and Dicky were grave and

stood aloof. They were old enough to see that being good was all very well, but after all you had to get the

'You think everything in the world can be put right with a lift,' Dicky said, and he did not speak lovingly.

'Not here you won't,' said Alice. 'No one goes down this road; but the high road's just round the corner, where

Dickie and Oswald made a sedan chair and carried Denny to the high road, and we sat down in a ditch to

wait. For a long time nothing went by but a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so sound

asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enough about springing like a flash to the horses'

So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than one pilgrim was heard to say it wished

At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts of even Oswald, there was a quick

taptapping of horses' feet on the road, and a dogcart came in sight with a lady in it all alone.

We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the longboat hail the passing sail.

She pulled up. She was not a very old ladytwentyfive we found out afterwards her age wasand she

'It's this poor little boy,' Dora said, pointing to the Dentist, who had gone to sleep in the dry ditch, with his

'But why are you all rigged out like this?' asked the lady, looking at our cockleshells and sandals and things.

'Well, yes, Canterbury,' she said; 'it's only about half a mile. I'll take the poor little pilgrimand, yes, the

three girls. You boys must walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll drive you homeat least

Then we helped Denny into the cart, and the girls got up, and the red wheels of the cart spun away through

'I wish it had been an omnibus the lady was driving,' said H. O., 'then we could all have had a ride.'

'You ought to be jolly thankful you haven't got to carry Denny all the way home on your back. You'd have

When we got to Canterbury it was much smaller than we expected, and the cathedral not much bigger than

the Church that is next to the Moat House. There seemed to be only one big street, but we supposed the rest

of the city was hidden away somewhere. There was a large inn, with a green before it, and the redwheeled

dogcart was standing in the stableyard and the lady, with Denny and the others, sitting on the benches in the

porch, looking out for us. The inn was called the 'George and Dragon', and it made me think of the days when

there were coaches and highwaymen and footpads and jolly landlords, and adventures at country inns, like

We saw that she wished us to, so we said yes, we would. The girls and Denny were already much cleaner

There was a courtyard to the inn and a wooden staircase outside the house. We were taken up this, and

washed our hands in a big room with a fourpost wooden bed and dark red hangingsjust the sort of

hangings that would not show the stains of gore in the dear old adventurous times.

Then we had tea in a great big room with wooden chairs and tables, very polished and old.

It was a very nice tea, with lettuces, and cold meat, and three kinds of jam, as well as cake, and new bread,

There are two sorts of people in the world, besides others; one sort understand what you're driving at, and the

After everyone had had as much to eat as they could possibly want, the lady said, 'What was it you

'The cathedral,' Alice said, 'and the place where Thomas A Becket was murdered.'

Oswald wanted to see the walls, because he likes the Story of St Alphege and the Danes.

'Well, well,' said the lady, and she put on her hat; it was a really sensible onenot a blob of fluffy stuff and

feathers put on sideways and stuck on with long pins, and no shade to your face, but almost as big as ours,

with a big brim and red flowers, and black strings to tie under your chin to keep it from blowing off.

Then we went out all together to see Canterbury. Dicky and Oswald took it in turns to carry Denny on their

We went first to the church. Oswald, whose quick brain was easily aroused to suspicions, was afraid the lady

might begin talking in the church, but she did not. The church door was open. I remember mother telling us

once it was right and good for churches to be left open all day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet,

and say their prayers, if they wanted to. But it does not seem respectful to talk out loud in church. (See Note

When we got outside the lady said, 'You can imagine how on the chancel steps began the mad struggle in

which Becket, after hurling one of his assailants, armour and all, to the ground'

'It would have been much cleverer,' H. O. interrupted, 'to hurl him without his armour, and leave that standing

'Go on,' said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a withering glance. And the lady did go on. She

told us all about Becket, and then about St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because he

It begins about Danish warships snakeshaped, and ends about doing as you'd be done by. It is long, but it

Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oasthouse. And Canterbury walls that Alphege

defied the Danes from looked down on a quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other

things were like other things, but we went all about and enjoyed it very much. The lady was quite amusing,

besides sometimes talking like a real cathedral guide I met afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said we

'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear something about Canterbury.'

'I don't care. You did it awfully well.' And he did not say, though he owns he thought of it

'I knew it all the time,' though it was a great temptation. Because really it was more than half true. He had felt

The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at all. We went to Canterbury another time.

(See Note D.) We were not angry with the lady for selling us about it being Canterbury, because she had

really kept it up firstrate. And she asked us if we minded, very handsomely, and we said we liked it. But

That is a firstrate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and he liked her for using it, though he

wondered why she said chariots. When we got back to the inn I saw her dogcart was there, and a grocer's cart

too, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it. She took the girls in her cart, and the boys went with the

grocer. His horse was a very good one to go, only you had to hit it with the wrong end of the whip. But the

The evening dews were fallingat least, I suppose so, but you do not feel dew in a grocer's cartwhen we

reached home. We all thanked the lady very much, and said we hoped we should see her again some day. She

The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the lady and kissed her, according as we were

She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done waving, and were turning into the house,

Albert's uncle came into our midst like a whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt had no stud in at the

neck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his hands were inky, and we knew he had left off in the middle of a

Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the story from the beginning.

'The other day, protector of the poor,' he began; 'Dora and I were reading about the Canterbury pilgrims ...'

Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his instructions about beginning at the beginning had

Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went he called out to Oswald

I am sure Oswald was as quick as anyone could have been, but long ere the tyre was thoroughly blowed

Albert's uncle appeared, with a collarstud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenching the

Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging himself into the saddle he set off, scorching

down the road at a pace not surpassed by any highwayman, however black and highmettled his steed. We

'Perhaps,' Noel said, 'she is the old nurse who alone knows the dark secret of his highborn birth.'

'I shouldn't wonder,' said Alice, 'if she holds the secret of the will that will make him rolling in longlost

'I wonder if he'll catch her,' Noel said. 'I'm quite certain all his future depends on it. Perhaps she's his

longlost sister, and the estate was left to them equally, only she couldn't be found, so it couldn't be shared

'Perhaps he's only in love with her,' Dora said, 'parted by cruel Fate at an early age, he has ranged the wide

'I hope to goodness he hasn'tanyway, he's not ranged since we knew himnever further than Hastings,'

And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn't agree with him. Even Alice owned that being bridesmaids

must be fairly good fun. It's no good. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give them every comfort

and luxury, and play fair just as if they were boys, but there is something unmanly about the best of girls.

When Albert's uncle returned he was very hot, with a beaded brow, but pale as the Dentist when the peas

Albert's uncle's brow looked black as the cloud that thunder will presently break from. 'No,'he said.

'Longlost grandmother! I knew the lady long ago in India,' said Albert's uncle, as he left the room, slamming

As for the lady, we did not then know whether she was his longlost grandmother that he had known in India

or not, though we thought she seemed youngish for the part. We found out afterwards whether she was or not,

but that comes in another part. His manner was not the one that makes you go on asking questions. The

Canterbury Pilgriming did not exactly make us good, but then, as Dora said, we had not done anything wrong

'This is the Dean's Chapel; it was the Lady Chapel in the wicked days when people used to worship the

Some strange people who were there laughed out loud. I think this is worse in church than not taking your

cap off when you come in, as H. O. forgot to do, because the cathedral was so big he didn't think it was a

Albert's uncle was out on his bicycle as usual. After the day when we became Canterbury Pilgrims and were

brought home in the dogcart with red wheels by the lady he told us was his longlost grandmother he had

known years ago in India, he spent not nearly so much of his time in writing, and he used to shave every

morning instead of only when requisite, as in earlier days. And he was always going out on his bicycle in his

new Norfolk suit. We are not so unobserving as grownup people make out. We knew well enough he was

looking for the longlost. And we jolly well wished he might find her. Oswald, always full of sympathy with

misfortune, however undeserved, had himself tried several times to find the lady. So had the others. But all

this is what they call a digression; it has nothing to do with the dragon's teeth I am now narrating.

It began with the pig dyingit was the one we had for the circus, but it having behaved so badly that day had

nothing to do with its illness and death, though the girls said they felt remorse, and perhaps if we hadn't made

it run so that day it might have been spared to us. But Oswald cannot pretend that people were right just

because they happen to be dead, and as long as that pig was alive we all knew well enough that it was it that

The pig was buried in the kitchen garden. Bill, that we made the tombstone for, dug the grave, and while he

was away at his dinner we took a turn at digging, because we like to be useful, and besides, when you dig you

never know what you may turn up. I knew a man once that found a gold ring on the point of his fork when he

was digging potatoes, and you know how we found two halfcrowns ourselves once when we were digging

Oswald was taking his turn with the spade, and the others were sitting on the gravel and telling him how to do

Alice said, 'I wish we were in a book. People in books never dig without finding something. I think I'd rather

'A secret's nothing when you've found it out. Look at the secret staircase. It's no good, not even for

hideandseek, because of its squeaking. I'd rather have the pot of gold we used to dig for when we were

little.' It was really only last year, but you seem to grow old very quickly after you have once passed the

'How would you like to find the mouldering bones of Royalist soldiers foully done to death by nasty

'If they were really dead it wouldn't matter,' Dora said. 'What I'm afraid of is a skeleton that can walk about

and catch at your legs when you're going upstairs to bed.' 'Skeletons can't walk,' Alice said in a hurry; 'you

And she glared at Dora till she made her sorry she had said what she had. The things you are frightened of, or

even those you would rather not meet in the dark, should never be mentioned before the little ones, or else

And just then my spade I was digging with struck on something hard, and it felt hollow. I did really think for

one joyful space that we had found that pot of gold. But the thing, whatever it was, seemed to be longish;

longer, that is, than a pot of gold would naturally be. And as I uncovered it I saw that it was not at all

A moment later the discovery was unearthed, and Oswald lifted it up, with both hands.

It was long and narrowish and bony, and with great yellow teeth sticking in the jaw.

Bill came back just then and said it was a horse's head, but H. O. and Noel would not believe it, and Oswald

But Oswald did not stop to argue, because he saw a keeper who showed me how to set snares going by, and

he wanted to talk to him about ferrets, so he went off and Dicky and Denny and Alice with him. Also Daisy

and Dora went off to finish reading Ministering Children. So H. O. and Noel were left with the bony head.

The incident had quite faded from the mind of Oswald next day. But just before breakfast Noel and H. O.

came in, looking hot and anxious. They had got up early and had not washed at allnot even their hands and

faces. Noel made Oswald a secret signal. All the others saw it, and with proper delicate feeling pretended not

When Oswald had gone out with Noel and H. O. in obedience to the secret signal, Noel said

'Well, you know what happened in Greek history when some chap sowed dragon's teeth?'

'They came up armed men,' said H. O., but Noel sternly bade him shut up, and Oswald said 'Well,' again. If

he spoke impatiently it was because he smelt the bacon being taken in to breakfast.

'Well,' Noel went on, 'what do you suppose would have come up if we'd sowed those dragon's teeth we found

'Why, nothing, you young duffer,' said Oswald, who could now smell the coffee. 'All that isn't History it's

'Shut up,' said Noel again. 'Look here, Oswald. We did sow those dragon's teeth in Randall's tenacre

'They have come up a camp of soldiers,' said NoelARMED MEN. So you see it WAS history. We have

sowed armyseed, just like Cadmus, and it has come up. It was a very wet night. I daresay that helped it

Oswald could not decide which to disbelievehis brother or his ears. So, disguising his doubtful emotions

He said nothing about the armyseed then, neither did Noel and H. O. But after the bacon we went into the

So they did, and their story was received with warm expressions of doubt. It was Dicky who observed

'Let's go and have a squint at Randall's tenacre, anyhow. I saw a hare there the other day.'

We went. It is some little way, and as we went, disbelief reigned superb in every breast except Noel's and H.

O.'s, so you will see that even the ready pen of the present author cannot be expected to describe to you his

variable sensations when he got to the top of the hill and suddenly saw that his little brothers had spoken the

truth. I do not mean that they generally tell lies, but people make mistakes sometimes, and the effect is the

There WAS a camp there with real tents and soldiers in grey and red tunics. I daresay the girls would have

said coats. We stood in ambush, too astonished even to think of lying in it, though of course we know that

this is customary. The ambush was the wood on top of the little hill, between Randall's tenacre meadow and

'There would be cover here for a couple of regiments,' whispered Oswald, who was, I think, gifted by Fate

Alice merely said 'Hist', and we went down to mingle with the troops as though by accident, and seek for

The first man we came to at the edge of the camp was cleaning a sort of cauldron thing like witches brew bats

We went up to him and said, 'Who are you? Are you English, or are you the enemy?'

'We're the enemy,' he said, and he did not seem ashamed of being what he was. And he spoke English with

'The enemy!' Oswald echoed in shocked tones. It is a terrible thing to a loyal and patriotic youth to see an

enemy cleaning a pot in an English field, with English sand, and looking as much at home as if he was in his

'The English are somewhere over on the other side of the hill. They are trying to keep us out of Maidstone.'

After this our plan of mingling with the troops did not seem worth going on with. This soldier, in spite of his

unerringness in reading Oswald's innermost heart, seemed not so very sharp in other things, or he would

never have given away his secret plans like this, for he must have known from our accents that we were

Britons to the backbone. Or perhaps (Oswald thought this, and it made his blood at once boil and freeze,

which our uncle had told us was possible, but only in India), perhaps he thought that Maidstone was already

as good as taken and it didn't matter what he said. While Oswald was debating within his intellect what to say

next, and how to say it so as to discover as many as possible of the enemy's dark secrets, Noel said

'I daresay it does seem quick workthe camp seems as if it had sprung up in the night, doesn't it?like a

Alice and Oswald looked at each other, and then at the rest of us. The words 'sprung up in the night' seemed

'You see,' whispered Noel, 'he won't tell us how he came here. NOW, is it humbug or history?'

Oswald, after whisperedly requesting his young brother to dry up and not bother, remarked, 'Then you're an

'Well,' said the soldier, 'we're a skeleton battalion, as a matter of fact, but we're invading all right enough.'

And now indeed the blood of the stupidest of us froze, just as the quickwitted Oswald's had done earlier in

the interview. Even H. O. opened his mouth and went the colour of mottled soap; he is so fat that this is the

nearest he can go to turning pale. Denny said, 'But you don't look like skeletons.'

The soldier stared, then he laughed and said, 'Ah, that's the padding in our tunics. You should see us in the

grey dawn taking our morning bath in a bucket.' It was a dreadful picture for the imagination. A skeleton,

with its bones all loose most likely, bathing anyhow in a pail. There was a silence while we thought it over.

Now, ever since the cleaningcauldron soldier had said that about taking Maidstone, Alice had kept on

pulling at Oswald's jacket behind, and he had kept on not taking any notice. But now he could not stand it any

Alice drew him aside, or rather, she pulled at his jacket so that he nearly fell over backwards, and then she

whispered, 'Come along, don't stay parlaying with the foe. He's only talking to you to gain time.'

'Why, so that we shouldn't warn the other army, you silly,' Alice said, and Oswald was so upset by what she

'But we ought to warn them at home,' she said' suppose the Moat House was burned down, and all the

'Well, not as a rule,' he said, and he had the cheek to wink at Oswald, but Oswald would not look at him.

'A farm in Greek history it was, I expect,' Denny murmured. 'Civilized warriors do not burn farms nowadays,'

So we said good morning as quickly as we could: it is proper to be polite even to your enemy, except just at

The soldier said 'So long!' in quite a modern voice, and we retraced our footsteps in silence to the ambushI

mean the wood. Oswald did think of lying in the ambush then, but it was rather wet, because of the rain the

night before, that H. O. said had brought the armyseed up. And Alice walked very fast, saying nothing but

'Hurry up, can't you!' and dragging H. O. by one hand and Noel by the other. So we got into the road.

Then Alice faced round and said, 'This is all our fault. If we hadn't sowed those dragon's teeth there wouldn't

I am sorry to say Daisy said, 'Never mind, Alice, dear. WE didn't sow the nasty things, did we, Dora?'

But Denny told her it was just the same. It was WE had done it, so long as it was any of us, especially if it got

any of us into trouble. Oswald was very pleased to see that the Dentist was beginning to understand the

meaning of true manliness, and about the honour of the house of Bastable, though of course he is only a

If you are very grownup, or very clever, I daresay you will now have thought of a great many things. If you

have you need not say anything, especially if you're reading this aloud to anybody. It's no good putting in

what you think in this part, because none of us thought anything of the kind at the time.

We simply stood in the road without any of your clever thoughts, filled with shame and distress to think of

what might happen owing to the dragon's teeth being sown. It was a lesson to us never to sow seed without

being quite sure what sort it is. This is particularly true of the penny packets, which sometimes do not come

Of course H. O. and Noel were more unhappy than the rest of us. This was only fair.

'How can we possibly prevent their getting to Maidstone?' Dickie said. 'Did you notice the red cuffs on their

'If they're the old Greek kind of dragon'steeth soldiers, they ought to fight each other to death,' Noel said; 'at

But none of us had, and it was decided that it would be of no use for H. O. to go back and throw his straw hat

'Couldn't we alter the signposts, so that they wouldn't know the way to Maidstone?'

'Fetch all the tools out of your chestDicky go too, there's a good chap, and don't let him cut his legs with

the saw.' He did once, tumbling over it. 'Meet us at the crossroads, you know, where we had the Benevolent

When they had gone we hastened to the crossroads, and there a great idea occurred to Oswald. He used the

forces at his command so ably that in a very short time the board in the field which says 'No thoroughfare.

Trespassers will be prosecuted' was set up in the middle of the road to Maidstone. We put stones, from a heap

Then Dicky and Denny came back, and Dicky shinned up the signpost and sawed off the two arms, and we

nailed them up wrong, so that it said 'To Maidstone' on the Dover Road, and 'To Dover' on the road to

Maidstone. We decided to leave the Trespassers board on the real Maidstone road, as an extra guard.

Some of us did not want the girls to go, but it would have been unkind to say so. However, there was at least

one breast that felt a pang of joy when Dora and Daisy gave out that they would rather stay where they were

'Because it would be so dreadful if someone was going to buy pigs or fetch a doctor or anything in a hurry

and then found they had got to Dover instead of where they wanted to go to,' Dora said. But when it came to

dinnertime they went home, so that they were entirely out of it. This often happens to them by some strange

We left Martha to take care of the two girls, and Lady and Pincher went with us. It was getting late in the day,

but I am bound to remember no one said anything about their dinners, whatever they may have thought. We

cannot always help our thoughts. We happened to know it was roast rabbits and currant jelly that day.

We walked two and two, and sang the 'British Grenadiers' and 'Soldiers of the queen' so as to be as much part

of the British Army as possible. The CauldronMan had said the English were the other side of the hill. But

we could not see any scarlet anywhere, though we looked for it as carefully as if we had been fierce bulls.

But suddenly we went round a turn in the road and came plump into a lot of soldiers. Only they were not

redcoats. They were dressed in grey and silver. And it was a sort of furzycommon place, and three roads

branching out. The men were lying about, with some of their belts undone, smoking pipes and cigarettes.

'It's not British soldiers,' Alice said. 'Oh dear, oh dear, I'm afraid it's more enemy. You didn't sow the

H. O. was positive he hadn't. 'But perhaps lots more came up where we did sow them,' he said; 'they're all

over England by now very likely. _I_ don't know how many men can grow out of one dragon's tooth.'

Then Noel said, 'It was my doing anyhow, and I'm not afraid,' and he walked straight up to the nearest

'We're out of generals just now, FieldMarshal,' the man said, and his voice was a gentleman's voice. 'Not a

single one in stock. We might suit you in majors now and captains are quite cheap. Competent corporals

'This IS an easy,' said the grey soldier, sucking at his pipe to see if it would draw.

'I suppose YOU don't care if the enemy gets into Maidstone or not!' exclaimed Oswald bitterly. 'If I were a

The soldier saluted. 'Good old patriotic sentiment' he said, smiling at the heartfelt boy.

'Yesbut I say, kiddie, he won't stand any jaw. There's not an ounce of vice about him, but he's peppery. He

'That's what you'd do when the fighting begins,' said H. O. He is often rude like thatbut it was what we all

A spirited but hasty altercation among ourselves in whispers ended in our allowing Alice to be the one to

speak to the Colonel. It was she who wanted to. 'However peppery he is he won't kick a girl,' she said, and

But of course we all went with her. So there were six of us to stand in front of the Colonel. And as we went

along we agreed that we would salute him on the word three. So when we got near, Dick said, 'One, two,

three', and we all saluted very wellexcept H. O., who chose that minute to trip over a rifle a soldier had left

lying about, and was only saved from falling by a man in a cocked hat who caught him deftly by the back of

Before the Cocked Hat had time to frame a reply, Alice spoke to the Colonel. I knew what she meant to say,

because she had told me as we threaded our way among the resting soldiery. What she really said was

'My good children, if you're an infant Band of Hope, let me recommend you to play in some other backyard,'

'We're NOT a Band of Hope,' said Noel. 'We're British, and the man over there told us you are. And

Maidstone's in danger, and the enemy not a mile off, and you stand SMOKING.' Noel was standing crying,

But the CockedHatted Man said, 'What was the enemy like?' We told him exactly. And even the Colonel

'Not on the map, we can't,' said Dicky'at least, I don't think so, but on the ground we could. We could take

The CockedHatted One looked at the Colonel, who returned his scrutiny, then he shrugged his shoulders.

'Well, we've got to do something,' he said, as if to himself. 'Lead on, Macduff.'

The Colonel roused his soldiery from their stupor of pipes by words of command which the present author is

Then he bade us boys lead the way. I tell you it felt fine, marching at the head of a regiment. Alice got a lift

on the CockedHatted One's horse. It was a redroan steed of might, exactly as if it had been in a ballad.

We led the British Army by unfrequented lanes till we got to the gate of Sugden's Waste Wake pasture. Then

the Colonel called a whispered halt, and choosing two of us to guide him, the dauntless and discerning

commander went on, on foot, with an orderly. He chose Dicky and Oswald as guides. So we led him to the

ambush, and we went through it as quietly as we could. But twigs do crackle and snap so when you are

Our Colonel's orderly crackled most. If you're not near enough to tell a colonel by the crown and stars on his

shoulderstrap, you can tell him by the orderly behind him, like 'follow my leader'.

'Look out!' said Oswald in a low but commanding whisper, 'the camp's down in that field. You can see if you

The speaker took a squint himself as he spoke, and drew back, baffled beyond the power of speech. While he

was struggling with his baffledness the British Colonel had his squint. He also drew back, and said a word

'I don't care,' said Oswald, 'they were there this morning. White tents like mushrooms, and an enemy cleaning

'That's most convincing,' said the Colonel, and I did not like the way he said it.

'I say,' Oswald said, 'let's get to the top corner of the ambushthe wood, I mean. You can see the crossroads

We did, and quickly, for the crackling of branches no longer dismayed our almost despairing spirits.

We came to the edge of the wood, and Oswald's patriotic heart really did give a jump, and he cried, 'There

'By Jove, young un, you're right! And in quarter column, too! We've got em on toaston toastegad!' I

never heard anyone not in a book say 'egad' before, so I saw something really out of the way was indeed up.

The Colonel was a man of prompt and decisive action. He sent the orderly to tell the Major to advance two

companies on the left flank and take cover. Then we led him back through the wood the nearest way, because

he said he must rejoin the main body at once. We found the main body very friendly with Noel and H. O. and

the others, and Alice was talking to the CockedHatted One as if she had known him all her life.

'I think he's a general in disguise,' Noel said. 'He's been giving us chocolate out of a pocket in his saddle.'

Oswald thought about the roast rabbit thenand he is not ashamed to own ityet he did not say a word. But

Alice is really not a bad sort. She had saved two bars of chocolate for him and Dicky. Even in war girls can

The Colonel fussed about and said, 'Take cover there!' and everybody hid in the ditch, and the horses and the

Cocked Hat, with Alice, retreated down the road out of sight. We were in the ditch too. It was muddybut

nobody thought of their boots in that perilous moment. It seemed a long time we were crouching there.

Oswald began to feel the water squelching in his boots, so we held our breath and listened. Oswald laid his

ear to the road like a Red Indian. You would not do this in time of peace, but when your country is in danger

you care but little about keeping your ears clean. His backwoods' strategy was successful. He rose and dusted

It was true. The footsteps of the approaching foe were now to be heard quite audibly, even by ears in their

natural position. The wicked enemy approached. They were marching with a careless swaggeringness that

showed how little they suspected the horrible doom which was about to teach them England's might and

Just as the enemy turned the corner so that we could see them, the Colonel shouted 'Right section, fire!'

The enemy's officer said something, and then the enemy got confused and tried to get into the fields through

the hedges. But all was vain. There was firing now from our men, on the left as well as the right. And then

our Colonel strode nobly up to the enemy's Colonel and demanded surrender. He told me so afterwards. His

exact words are only known to himself and the other Colonel. But the enemy's Colonel said, 'I would rather

Our Colonel returned to his men and gave the order to fix bayonets, and even Oswald felt his manly cheek

turn pale at the thought of the amount of blood to be shed. What would have happened can never now be

revealed. For at this moment a man on a piebald horse came clattering over a hedgeas carelessly as if the

air was not full of lead and steel at all. Another man rode behind him with a lance and a red pennon on it. I

think he must have been the enemy's General coming to tell his men not to throw away their lives on a forlorn

hope, for directly he said they were captured the enemy gave in and owned that they were. The enemy's

Colonel saluted and ordered his men to form quarter column again. I should have thought he would have had

He had now given up all thought of sullen resistance to the bitter end. He rolled a cigarette for himself, and

'By Jove, old man, you got me clean that time! Your scouts seem to have marked us down uncommonly

It was a proud moment when our Colonel laid his military hand on Oswald's shoulder and said

'This is my chief scout' which were high words, but not undeserved, and Oswald owns he felt red with

'So you are the traitor, young man,' said the wicked Colonel, going on with his cheek.

Oswald bore it because our Colonel had, and you should be generous to a fallen foe, but it is hard to be called

He did not treat the wicked Colonel with silent scorn as he might have done, but he said

'We aren't traitors. We are the Bastables and one of us is a Foulkes. We only mingled unsuspected with the

enemy's soldiery and learned the secrets of their acts, which is what BadenPowell always does when the

natives rebel in South Africa; and Denis Foulkes thought of altering the signposts to lead the foe astray. And

if we did cause all this fighting, and get Maidstone threatened with capture and all that, it was only because

we didn't believe Greek things could happen in Great Britain and Ireland, even if you sow dragon's teeth, and

Then the CockedHatted One led his horse and walked with us and made us tell him all about it, and so did

the Colonel. The wicked Colonel listened too, which was only another proof of his cheek.

And Oswald told the tale in the modest yet manly way that some people think he has, and gave the others all

the credit they deserved. His narration was interrupted no less than four times by shouts of 'Bravo!' in which

the enemy's Colonel once more showed his cheek by joining. By the time the story was told we were in sight

of another camp. It was the British one this time. The Colonel asked us to have tea in his tent, and it only

shows the magnanimosity of English chivalry in the field of battle that he asked the enemy's Colonel too.

When everyone had had as much tea as they possibly could, the Colonel shook hands with us all, and to

'Well, goodbye, my brave scout. I must mention your name in my dispatches to the War Office.'

H. O. interrupted him to say, 'His name's Oswald Cecil Bastable, and mine is Horace Octavius.' I wish H. O.

would learn to hold his tongue. No one ever knows Oswald was christened Cecil as well, if he can possibly

'Mr Oswald Bastable,' the Colonel went onhe had the decency not to take any notice of the 'Cecil' 'you

would be a credit to any regiment. No doubt the War Office will reward you properly for what you have done

for your country. But meantime, perhaps, you'll accept five shillings from a grateful comradeinarms.'

Oswald felt heartfelt sorry to wound the good Colonel's feelings, but he had to remark that he had only done

his duty, and he was sure no British scout would take five bob for doing that. 'And besides,' he said, with that

feeling of justice which is part of his young character, 'it was the others just as much as me.'

'Your sentiments, Sir,' said the Colonel who was one of the politest and most discerning colonels I ever saw,

'your sentiments do you honour. But, Bastables all, andand nonBastables' (he couldn't remember Foulkes;

it's not such an interesting name as Bastable, of course) 'at least you'll accept a soldier's pay?'

'Lucky to touch it, a shilling a day!' Alice and Denny said together. And the CockedHatted Man said

'A soldier,' said the Colonel, 'would certainly be lucky to touch it. You see there are deductions for rations.

This seemed cheap for the three cups of tea and the three eggs and all the strawberry jam and

breadandbutter Oswald had had, as well as what the others ate, and Lady's and Pincher's teas, but I suppose

Oswald took the five shillings then, there being no longer any scruples why he should not.

Just as we had parted from the brave Colonel and the rest we saw a bicycle coming. It was Albert's uncle. He

We told him the wild adventures of the day, and he listened, and then he said he would withdraw the word

But the seeds of doubt were sown in the breast of Oswald. He was now almost sure that we had made jolly

fools of ourselves without a moment's pause throughout the whole of this eventful day. He said nothing at the

time, but after supper he had it out with Albert's uncle about the word which had been withdrawn.

Albert's uncle said, of course, no one could be sure that the dragon's teeth hadn't come up in the good

oldfashioned way, but that, on the other hand, it was barely possible that both the British and the enemy

were only volunteers having a fieldday or sham fight, and he rather thought the CockedHatted Man was

not a general, but a doctor. And the man with a red pennon carried behind him MIGHT have been the umpire.

Oswald never told the others a word of this. Their young breasts were all panting with joy because they had

saved their country; and it would have been but heartless unkindness to show them how silly they had been.

Besides, Oswald felt he was much too old to have been so taken inif he HAD been. Besides, Albert's uncle

The thing that makes Oswald feel most that, perhaps, the whole thing was a beastly sell, was that we didn't

see any wounded. But he tries not to think of this. And if he goes into the army when he grows up, he will not

go quite green. He has had experience of the arts of war and the tented field. And a real colonel has called

him 'ComradeinArms', which is exactly what Lord Roberts called his own soldiers when he wrote home

The shadw of the termination now descended in sable thunderclouds upon our devoted nobs. As Albert's

uncle said, 'School now gaped for its prey'. In a very short space of time we should be wending our way back

to Blackheath, and all the variegated delightfulness of the country would soon be only preserved in memory's

faded flowers. (I don't care for that way of writing very much. It would be an awful swot to keep it

To speak in the language of everyday life, our holiday was jolly nearly up. We had had a ripping time, but it

was all but over. We really did feel sorry though, of course, it was rather decent to think of getting back to

Father and being able to tell the other chaps about our raft, and the dam, and the Tower of Mystery, and

When but a brief time was left to us, Oswald and Dicky met by chance in an appletree. (That sounds like

'There's one thing,' Dickie said, 'that beastly society. We don't want that swarming all over everything when

Oswald'Let's call a council. But don't forget we've jolly well got to put our foot down.'

The council, when called, was in but low spirits. This made Oswald's and Dicky's task easier. When people

are sunk in gloomy despair about one thing, they will agree to almost anything about something else.

(Remarks like this are called philosophic generalizations, Albert's uncle says.) Oswald began by saying

'We've tried the society for being good in, and perhaps it's done us good. But now the time has come for each

Oswald went on: 'I move that we chuckI mean dissolve the Wouldbegoods Society; its appointed task is

The unexpected Dentist said, 'I third it. At first I thought it would help, but afterwards I saw it only made you

Oswald owns he was surprised. We put it to the vote at once, so as not to let Denny cool. H. O. and Noel and

Alice voted with us, so Daisy and Dora were what is called a hopeless minority. We tried to cheer their

hopelessness by letting them read the things out of the Golden Deed book aloud. Noel hid his face in the

straw so that we should not see the faces he made while he made poetry instead of listening, and when the

Wouldbegoods was by vote dissolved for ever he sat up, straws in his hair, and said

N is for Noel, that makes the rhyme and the sense both right. O, W, N, own; do you see?'

We saw it, and said so, and the gentle poet was satisfied. And the council broke up. Oswald felt that a weight

had been lifted from his expanding chest, and it is curious that he never felt so inclined to be good and a

'There's one thing we ought to do, though, before we go home. We ought to find Albert's uncle's long lost

Alice's heart beat true and steadfast. She said, 'That's just exactly what Noel and I were saying this morning.

Look out, Oswald, you wretch, you're kicking chaff into my eyes.' She was going down the ladder just under

Oswald's younger sister's thoughtful remark ended in another council. But not in the straw loft. We decided to

have a quite new place, and disregarded H. O.'s idea of the dairy and Noel's of the cellars. We had the new

council on the secret staircase, and there we settled exactly what we ought to do. This is the same thing, if

you really wish to be good, as what you are going to do. It was a very interesting council, and when it was

over Oswald was so pleased to think that the Wouldbegoods was unrecoverishly dead that he gave Denny and

Noel, who were sitting on the step below him, a goodhumoured, playful, gentle, loving, brotherly shove,

No reader who understands justice and the real rightness of things, and who is to blame for what, will ever

think it could have been Oswald's fault that the two other boys got along down by rolling over and over each

other, and bursting the door at the bottom of the stairs open by their revolving bodies. And I should like to

know whose fault it was that Mrs Pettigrew was just on the other side of that door at that very minute? The

door burst open, and the Impetuous bodies of Noel and Denny rolled out of it into Mrs Pettigrew, and upset

her and the teatray. Both revolving boys were soaked with tea and milk, and there were one or two cups and

things smashed. Mrs Pettigrew was knocked over, but none of her bones were broken. Noel and Denny were

going to be sent to bed, but Oswald said it was all his fault. He really did this to give the others a chance of

doing a refined golden deed by speaking the truth and saying it was not his fault. But you cannot really count

on anyone. They did not say anything, but only rubbed the lumps on their laterevolving heads. So it was bed

But he sat up in bed and read The Last of the Mohicans, and then he began to think. When Oswald really

thinks he almost always thinks of something. He thought of something now, and it was miles better than the

idea we had decided on in the secret staircase, of advertising in the Kentish Mercury and saying if Albert's

uncle's longlost grandmother would call at the Moat House she might hear of something much to her

What Oswald thought of was that if we went to Hazelbridge and asked Mr B. Munn, Grocer, that drove us

home in the cart with the horse that liked the wrong end of the whip best, he would know who the lady was in

the red hat and red wheels that paid him to drive us home that Canterbury night. He must have been paid, of

course, for even grocers are not generous enough to drive perfect strangers, and five of them too, about the

country for nothing. Thus we may learn that even unjustness and sending the wrong people to bed may bear

useful fruit, which ought to be a great comfort to everyone when they are unfairly treated. Only it most likely

won't be. For if Oswald's brothers and sisters had nobly stood by him as he expected, he would not have had

the solitary reflections that led to the great scheme for finding the grandmother.

Of course when the others came up to roost they all came and squatted on Oswald's bed and said how sorry

they were. He waived their apologies with noble dignity, because there wasn't much time, and said he had an

idea that would knock the council's plan into a cocked hat. But he would not tell them what it was. He made

them wait till next morning. This was not sulks, but kind feeling. He wanted them to have something else to

think of besides the way they hadn't stood by him in the bursting of the secret staircase door and the teatray

Next morning Oswald kindly explained, and asked who would volunteer for a forced march to Hazelbridge.

The word volunteer cost the young Oswald a pang as soon as he had said it, but I hope he can bear pangs with

any man living. 'And mind,' he added, hiding the pang under a generallike severeness, 'I won't have anyone

This could not have been put more delicately and decently. But Oswald is often misunderstood. Even Alice

said it was unkind to throw the peas up at Denny. When this little unpleasantness had passed away (it took

some time because Daisy cried, and Dora said, 'There now, Oswald!') there were seven volunteers, which,

with Oswald, made eight, and was, indeed, all of us. There were no cockleshells, or tapesandals, or staves,

or scrips, or anything romantic and pious about the eight persons who set out for Hazelbridge that morning,

more earnestly wishful to be good and deedfulat least Oswald, I know, wasthan ever they had been in

the days of the beastly Wouldbegood Society. It was a fine day. Either it was fine nearly all last summer,

which is how Oswald remembers it, or else nearly all the interesting things we did came on fine days.

With hearts light and gay, and no peas in anyone's shoes, the walk to Hazelbridge was perseveringly

conducted. We took our lunch with us, and the dear dogs. Afterwards we wished for a time that we had left

one of them at home. But they did so want to come, all of them, and Hazelbridge is not nearly as far as

Canterbury, really, so even Martha was allowed to put on her thingsI mean her collarand come with us.

At Hazelbridge we went into B. Munn's grocer's shop and asked for gingerbeer to drink. They gave it us, but

they seemed surprised at us wanting to drink it there, and the glass was warmit had just been washed. We

only did it, really, so as to get into conversation with B. Munn, grocer, and extract information without

rousing suspicion. You cannot be too careful. However, when we had said it was firstclass ginger beer, and

paid for it, we found it not so easy to extract anything more from B. Munn, grocer; and there was an anxious

silence while he fiddled about behind the counter among the tinned meats and sauce bottles, with a fringe of

H. O. spoke suddenly. He is like the sort of person who rushes in where angels fear to tread, as Denny says

Of course B. Munn, grocer, was not such a nincompoop (I like that word, it means so many people I know) as

People in Kent say terrify when they mean worry. So Dora shoved in a gentle oar. She said

'We want to know the kind lady's name and address, so that we can write and thank her for being so jolly that

B. Munn, grocer, muttered something about the lady's address being goods he was often asked for. Alice said,

'But do tell us. We forgot to ask her. She's a relation of a secondhand uncle of ours, and I do so want to

thank her properly. And if you've got any extrastrong peppermints at a penny an ounce, we should like a

This was a masterstroke. While he was weighing out the peppermints his heart got soft, and just as he was

twisting up the corner of the paper bag, Dora said, 'What lovely fat peppermints! Do tell us.'

'It's Miss Ashleigh, and she lives at The Cedarsabout a mile down the Maidstone Road.'

We thanked him, and Alice paid for the peppermints. Oswald was a little anxious when she ordered such a

lot, but she and Noel had got the money all right, and when we were outside on Hazelbridge Green (a good

deal of it is gravel, really), we stood and looked at each other. Then Dora said

Oswald looked at the others. Writing is all very well, but it's such a beastly long time to wait for anything to

The intelligent Alice divined his thoughts, and the Dentist divined hershe is not clever enough yet to divine

'She did say she would like to see us again some day,' Dora replied. So after we had argued a little about it we

And before we had gone a hundred yards down the dusty road Martha began to make us wish with all our

hearts we had not let her come. She began to limp, just as a pilgrim, who I will not name, did when he had the

So we called a halt and looked at her feet. One of them was quite swollen and red. Bulldogs almost always

have something the matter with their feet, and it always comes on when least required. They are not the right

There was nothing for it but to take it in turns to carry her. She is very stout, and you have no idea how heavy

she is. A halfhearted unadventurous person name no names, but Oswald, Alice, Noel, H. O., Dicky, Daisy,

and Denny will understand me) said, why not go straight home and come another day without Martha? But

the rest agreed with Oswald when he said it was only a mile, and perhaps we might get a lift home with the

poor invalid. Martha was very grateful to us for our kindness. She put her fat white arms round the person's

neck who happened to be carrying her. She is very affectionate, but by holding her very close to you you can

keep her from kissing your face all the time. As Alice said, 'Bulldogs do give you such large, wet, pink

At last we came to a hedge with a ditch in front of it, and chains swinging from posts to keep people off the

grass and out of the ditch, and a gate with 'The Cedars' on it in gold letters. All very neat and tidy, and

showing plainly that more than one gardener was kept. There we stopped. Alice put Martha down, grunting

'Look here, Dora and Daisy, I don't believe a bit that it's his grandmother. I'm sure Dora was right, and it's

only his horrid sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think we'd better chuck it; we're sure

'The cross of true love never did come smooth,' said the Dentist. 'We ought to help him to bear his cross.'

'But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll MARRY her,' Dicky said in tones of

Oswald felt the same, but he said, 'Never mind. We should all hate it, but perhaps Albert's uncle MIGHT like

it. You can never tell. If you want to do a really unselfish action and no kid, now's your time, my late

But it was with sad hearts that the unselfish seekers opened the long gate and went up the gravel drive

I think I have explained to you before that the eldest son of anybody is called the representative of the family

if his father isn't there. This was why Oswald now took the lead. When we got to the last turn of the drive it

was settled that the others were to noiselessly ambush in the rhododendrons, and Oswald was to go on alone

So he did, but when he got to the front of the house and saw how neat the flowerbeds were with red

geraniums, and the windows all bright and speckless with muslin blinds and brass rods, and a green parrot in

a cage in the porch, and the doorstep newly whited, lying clean and untrodden in the sunshine, he stood still

and thought of his boots and how dusty the roads were, and wished he had not gone into the farmyard after

eggs before starting that morning. As he stood there in anxious uncertainness he heard a low voice among the

So he went back to the others among the shrubs and they all crowded round their leader full of importable

'She's not in the house; she's HERE,' Alice said in a low whisper that seemed nearly all S's. 'Close byshe

'And they're sitting on a seat under a tree on a little lawn, and she's got her head on his shoulder, and he's

'It's sickening,' Denny said, trying to look very manly with his legs wide apart.

'Then don't you see it's all right. If she's going on like that with this fellow she'll want to marry him, and

Albert's uncle is safe. And we've really done an unselfish action without having to suffer for it afterwards.'

With a stealthy movement Oswald rubbed his hands as he spoke in real joyfulness. We decided that we had

better bunk unnoticed. But we had reckoned without Martha. She had strolled off limping to look about her a

'Then fetch her back, you young duffer! What did you let her go for?' Oswald said. 'And look sharp. Don't

He went. A minute later we heard a hoarse squeak from Marthathe one she always gives when suddenly

collared from behindand a little squeal in a ladylike voice, and a man say 'Hallo!' and then we knew that

H. O. had once more rushed in where angels might have thought twice about it. We hurried to the fatal spot,

'I'm sorry if she frightened you. But we've been looking for you. Are you Albert's uncle's longlost

It seemed vain to add seven more agitated actors to the scene now going on. We stood still. The man was

standing up. He was a clergyman, and I found out afterwards he was the nicest we ever knew except our own

Mr Briston at Lewisham, who is now a canon or a dean, or something grand that no one ever sees. At present

I did not like him. He said, 'No, this lady is nobody's grandmother. May I ask in return how long it is since

H. O. took no notice of this at all, except to say, 'I think you are very rude, and not at all funny, if you think

The lady said, 'My dear, I remember you now perfectly. How are all the others, and are you pilgrims again

'Margaret,' said the clergyman, 'I never thought it would come to this: he asks me my intentions.'

'If you ARE,' said H. O., 'it's all right, because if you do Albert's uncle can'tat least, not till you're dead.

'Flattering, upon my word,' said the clergyman, putting on a deep frown. 'Shall I call him out, Margaret, for

Alice now saw that H. O., though firm, was getting muddled and rather scared. She broke cover and sprang

'Don't let him rag H. O. any more,' she said, 'it's all our faults. You see, Albert's uncle was so anxious to find

you, we thought perhaps you were his longlost heiress sister or his old nurse who alone knew the secret of

his birth, or something, and we asked him, and he said you were his longlost grandmother he had known in

India. And we thought that must be a mistake and that really you were his longlost sweetheart. And we tried

to do a really unselfish act and find you for him. Because we don't want him to be married at all.'

'It isn't because we don't like YOU,' Oswald cut in, now emerging from the bushes, 'and if he must marry,

'A generous concession, Margaret,' the strange clergyman uttered, 'most generous, but the plot thickens. It's

almost peasouplike now. One or two points clamour for explanation. Who are these visitors of yours? Why

this Red Indian method of paying morning calls? Why the lurking attitude of the rest of the tribe which I now

discern among the undergrowth? Won't you ask the rest of the tribe to come out and join the glad throng?'

Then I liked him better. I always like people who know the same songs we do, and books and tunes and

The others came out. The lady looked very uncomfy, and partly as if she was going to cry. But she couldn't

'And who,' the clergyman went on, 'who in fortune's name is Albert? And who is his uncle? And what have

We all felt rather silly, and I don't think I ever felt more than then what an awful lot there were of us.

'Three years' absence in Calcutta or elsewhere may explain my ignorance of these details, but still'

'I think we'd better go,' said Dora. 'I'm sorry if we've done anything rude or wrong. We didn't mean to.

'I HOPE so too,' said Noel, and I know he was thinking how much nicer Albert's uncle was. We turned to go.

The lady had been very silent compared with what she was when she pretended to show us Canterbury. But

now she seemed to shake off some dreamy silliness, and caught hold of Dora by the shoulder.

'No, dear, no,' she said, 'it's all right, and you must have some teawe'll have it on the lawn. John, don't tease

them any more. Albert's uncle is the gentleman I told you about. And, my dear children, this is my brother

And the rest of us were dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was particularly dumb. He might have

known it was her brother, because in rotten grownup books if a girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that is not

the man you think she's in love with; it always turns out to be a brother, though generally the disgrace of the

The lady now turned to her reverend and surprising brother and said, 'John, go and tell them we'll have tea on

When he was gone she stood quite still a minute. Then she said, 'I'm going to tell you something, but I want

to put you on your honour not to talk about it to other people. You see it isn't everyone I would tell about it.

He, Albert's uncle, I mean, has told me a lot about you, and I know I can trust you.'

We said 'Yes', Oswald with a brooding sentiment of knowing all too well what was coming next.

The lady then said, 'Though I am not Albert's uncle's grandmother I did know him in India once, and we were

'Well, yes, a quarrel, and he went away. He was in the Navy then. And then ... well, we were both sorry, but

well, anyway, when his ship came back we'd gone to Constantinople, then to England, and he couldn't find

And the girls said 'Ah!' with deep interest. The lady went on more quickly, 'And then I found you, and then

She stopped. The branches cracked, and Albert's uncle was in our midst. He took off his hat. 'Excuse my

tearing my hair,' he said to the lady, 'but has the pack really hunted you down?'

'It's all right,' she said, and when she looked at him she got miles prettier quite suddenly. 'I was just breaking

'Don't take that proud privilege from me,' he said. 'Kiddies, allow me to present you to the future Mrs Albert's

* * * There was a good deal of explaining done before teaabout how we got there, I mean, and why. But

after the first bitterness of disappointment we felt not nearly so sorry as we had expected to. For Albert's

uncle's lady was very jolly to us, and her brother was awfully decent, and showed us a lot of firstclass native

curiosities and things, unpacking them on purpose; skins of beasts, and beads, and brass things, and shells

from different savage lands besides India. And the lady told the girls that she hoped they would like her as

much as she liked them, and if they wanted a new aunt she would do her best to give satisfaction in the new

situation. And Alice thought of the Murdstone aunt belonging to Daisy and Denny, and how awful it would

have been if Albert's uncle had married HER. And she decided, she told me afterwards, that we might think

Then the lady led Oswald aside, pretending to show him the parrot which he had explored thoroughly before,

and told him she was not like some people in books. When she was married she would never try to separate

her husband from his bachelor friends, she only wanted them to be her friends as well.

Then there was tea, and thus all ended in amicableness, and the reverend and friendly drove us home in a

wagonette. But for Martha we shouldn't have had tea, or explanations, or lift or anything. So we honoured

her, and did not mind her being so heavy and walking up and down constantly on our laps as we drove home.

And that is all the story of the longlost grandmother and Albert's uncle. I am afraid it is rather dull, but it

was very important (to him), so I felt it ought to be narrated. Stories about lovers and getting married are

generally slow. I like a lovestory where the hero parts with the girl at the gardengate in the gloaming and

goes off and has adventures, and you don't see her any more till he comes home to marry her at the end of the

book. And I suppose people have to marry. Albert's uncle is awfully oldmore than thirty, and the lady is

advanced in yearstwentysix next Christmas. They are to be married then. The girls are to be bridesmaids

in white frocks with fur. This quite consoles them. If Oswald repines sometimes, he hides it. What's the use?

We all have to meet our fell destiny, and Albert's uncle is not extirpated from this awful law.

Now the finding of the longlost was the very last thing we did for the sake of its being a noble act, so that is

the end of the Wouldbegoods, and there are no more chapters after this. But Oswald hates books that finish

up without telling you the things you might want to know about the people in the book. So here goes.

We went home to the beautiful Blackheath house. It seemed very stately and mansionlike after the Moat

Mrs Pettigrew CRIED when we went away. I never was so astonished in my life. She made each of the girls a

fat red pincushion like a heart, and each of us boys had a knife bought out of the housekeeping (I mean

Bill Simpkins is happy as subundergardener to Albert's uncle's lady's mother. They do keep three

gardenersI knew they did. And our tramp still earns enough to sleep well on from our dear old Pigman.

Our last three days were entirely filled up with visits of farewell sympathy to all our many friends who were

so sorry to lose us. We promised to come and see them next year. I hope we shall.

Denny and Daisy went back to live with their father at Forest Hill. I don't think they'll ever be again the

victims of the Murdstone auntwho is really a greataunt and about twice as much in the autumn of her

days as our new Albert'suncle aunt. I think they plucked up spirit enough to tell their father they didn't like

herwhich they'd never thought of doing before. Our own robber says their holidays in the country did them

both a great deal of good. And he says us Bastables have certainly taught Daisy and Denny the rudiments of

the art of making home happy. I believe they have thought of several quite new naughty things entirely on

I wish you didn't grow up so quickly. Oswald can see that ere long he will be too old for the kind of games

we can all play, and he feels grownupness creeping inordiously upon him. But enough of this.

And now, gentle reader, farewell. If anything in these chronicles of the Wouldbegoods should make you try

to be good yourself, the author will be very glad, of course. But take my advice and don't make a society for

And do try to forget that Oswald has another name besides Bastable. The one beginning with C., I mean.

Perhaps you have not noticed what it was. If so, don't look back for it. It is a name no manly boy would like

to be called byif he spoke the truth. Oswald is said to be a very manly boy, and he despises that name, and

will never give it to his own son when he has one. Not if a rich relative offered to leave him an immense

fortune if he did. Oswald would still be firm. He would, on the honour of the House of Bastable.