by Edith Nesbit
“May I be called a beastly sneak If this great secret I ever repeat.”
White Whiskers actually grinned.
“Well,” he said, “I see it was an accident, my boy.” Then he turned to us and said:
“I owe you an apology for doubting your word — all of you. I hope it’s accepted.”
We said it was all right and he was to never mind.
But all the same we hated him for it. He tried to make up for his unbelievingness afterwards by asking Albert’s uncle to shoot rabbits; but we did not really forgive him till the day when he sent the fox’s brush to Alice, mounted in silver, with a note about her plucky conduct in standing by her brothers.
We got a lecture about not playing with firearms, but no punishment, because our conduct had not been exactly sinful, Albert’s uncle said, but merely silly.
The pistol and the cartridges were confiscated.
I hope the house will never be attacked by burglars. When it is, Albert’s uncle will only have himself to thank if we are rapidly overpowered, because it will be his fault that we shall have to meet them totally unarmed, and be their almost unresisting prey.
THE SALE OF ANTIQUITIES
It began one morning at breakfast. It was the fifteenth of August — the birthday of Napoleon the Great, Oswald Bastable, and another very nice writer. Oswald was to keep his birthday on the Saturday, so that his father could be there. A birthday when there are only many happy returns is a little like Sunday or Christmas Eve. Oswald had a birthday-card or two — that was all; but he did not repine, because he knew they always make it up to you for putting off keeping your birthday, and he looked forward to Saturday.
Albert’s uncle had a whole stack of letters as usual, and presently he tossed one over to Dora, and said, “What do you say, little lady? Shall we let them come?”
But Dora, butter-fingered as ever, missed the catch, and Dick and Noël both had a try for it, so that the letter went into the place where the bacon had been, and where now only a frozen-looking lake of bacon fat was slowly hardening, and then somehow it got into the marmalade, and then H. O. got it, and Dora said:
“I don’t want the nasty thing now — all grease and stickiness.” So H. O. read it aloud:
“Maidstone Society of Antiquities and Field Club,
“Aug. 14, 1900.
“Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the—”
H. O. stuck fast here, and the writing was really very bad, like a spider that has been in the 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 above minding a little marmalade or bacon. He began to read. It ran thus:
“It’s not Antiquities, you little silly,” he said; “it’s Antiquaries.”
“The other’s a very good word,” said Albert’s uncle, “and I never call names at breakfast myself — it upsets the digestion, my egregious Oswald.”
“That’s a name though,” said Alice, “and you got it out of ‘Stalky,’ too. Go on, Oswald.”
So Oswald went on where he had been interrupted:
“Maidstone Society of Antiquaries and Field Club,
“Aug. 14, 1900.
“Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the Committee of this Society it was agreed that a field day should be held on Aug. 20, when the Society proposes to visit the interesting church of Ivybridge and also the Roman remains in the vicinity. Our president, Mr. Longchamps, F.R.S., has obtained permission to open a barrow in the Three Trees pasture. We venture to ask whether you would allow the members of the Society to walk through your grounds and to inspect — from without, of course — your beautiful house, which is, as you are doubtless aware, of great historic interest, having been for some years the residence of the celebrated Sir Thomas Wyatt. — I am, dear Sir, yours faithfully,
“Edward K. Turnbull (Hon. Sec.).”
“Just so,” said Albert’s uncle; “well, shall we permit the eye of the Maidstone Antiquities to profane these sacred solitudes, and the foot of the Field Club to kick up a dust on our gravel?”
“Our gravel is all grass,” H. O. said. And the girls said, “Oh, do let them come!” It was Alice who said:
“Why not ask them to tea? They’ll be very tired coming all the way from Maidstone.”
“Would you really like it?” Albert’s uncle asked. “I’m afraid they’ll be but dull dogs, the Antiquities, stuffy old gentlemen with amphoræ in their button-holes instead of orchids, and pedigrees poking out of all their pockets.”
We laughed — because we knew what an amphoræ 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 any one growing.
Dora said she thought it would be splendid.
“And we could have out the best china,” she said, “and decorate the table with flowers. We could have tea in the garden. We’ve never had a party since we’ve been here.”
“I warn you that your guests may be boresome; however, have it your own way,” Albert’s uncle said; and he went off to write the invitation to tea to the Maidstone Antiquities. I know that is the wrong word — but somehow we all used it whenever we spoke of them, which was often.
In a day or two Albert’s uncle came in to tea with a lightly clouded brow.
“You’ve let me in for a nice thing,” he said. “I asked the Antiquities to tea, and I asked casually how many we might expect. I thought we might need at least the full dozen of the best teacups. Now the secretary writes accepting my kind invitation—”
“Oh, good!” we cried. “And how many are coming?”
“Oh, only about sixty,” was the groaning rejoinder. “Perhaps more, should the weather be exceptionally favorable.”
Though stunned at first, we presently decided that we were pleased. We had never, never given such a big party.
The girls were allowed to help in the kitchen, where Mrs. Pettigrew made cakes all day long without stopping. They did not let us boys be there, though I cannot see any harm in putting your finger in a cake before it is baked, and then licking your finger, if you are careful to put a different finger in the cake next time. Cake before it is baked is delicious — like a sort of cream.
Albert’s uncle said he was the prey of despair. He drove in to Maidstone one day. When we asked him where he was going, he said:
“To get my hair cut: if I keep it this length I shall certainly tear it out by double handfuls in the extremity of my anguish every time I think of those innumerable Antiquities.”
But we found out afterwards that he really went to borrow china and things to give the Antiquities their tea out of; though he did have his hair cut too, because he is the soul of truth and honor.
Oswald had a very good sort of birthday, with bows and arrows as well as other presents. I think these were meant to make up for the pistol that was taken away after the adventure of the fox-hunting. These gave us boys something to do between the birthday-keeping, which was on the Saturday, and the Wednesday when the Antiquities were to come.
We did not allow the girls to play with the bows and arrows, because they had the cakes that we were cut off from: there was little or no unpleasantness over this.
On the Tuesday we went down to look at the Roman place where the Antiquities were going to dig. We sat on the Roman wall and ate nuts. And as we sat there, we saw coming through the beet-field two laborers with picks and shovels, and a very young man with thin legs and a bicycle. It turned out afterwards to be a free wheel, the first we had ever seen.
They stopped at a mound inside the Roman wall, and the men took their coats off and spat on their hands.
We went down at once, of course. The thin-legged bicyclist explained his machine to us very fully and carefully when we asked him, and then we saw the men were cutting turfs and turning them over and rolling them up, and putting them in a heap. So we asked the gentleman with his thin legs what they were doing. He said:
“They
are beginning the preliminary excavation in readiness for to-morrow.”
“What’s up to-morrow?” H. O. asked.
“To-morrow we propose to open this barrow and examine it.”
“Then you’re the Antiquities,” said H. O.
“I’m the secretary,” said the gentleman, smiling, but narrowly.
“Oh, you’re all coming to tea with us,” Dora said, and added anxiously, “how many of you do you think there’ll be?”
“Oh, not more than eighty or ninety, I should think,” replied the gentleman.
This took our breath away and we went home. As we went, Oswald, who notices many things that would pass unobserved by the light and careless, saw Denny frowning hard.
So he said, “What’s up?”
“I’ve got an idea,” the Dentist said. “Let’s call a council.” The Dentist had grown quite used to our ways now. We had called him Dentist ever since the fox-hunt day. He called a council as if he had been used to calling such things all his life, and having them come, too; whereas we all know that his former existing was that of a white mouse in a trap, with that cat of a Murdstone aunt watching him through the bars.
(That is what is called a figure of speech. Albert’s uncle told me.)
Councils are held in the straw-loft.
As soon as we were all there and the straw had stopped rustling after our sitting down, Dicky said:
“I hope it’s nothing to do with the Wouldbegoods?”
“No,” said Denny in a hurry: “quite the opposite.”
“I hope it’s nothing wrong,” said Dora and Daisy together.
“It’s — it’s ‘Hail to thee, blithe spirit — bird thou never wert,’” said Denny. “I mean, I think it’s what is called a lark.”
“You never know your luck. Go on, Dentist,” said Dick.
“Well, then, do you know a book called The Daisy Chain?”
We didn’t.
“It’s by Miss Charlotte M. Yonge,” Daisy interrupted, “and it’s about a family of poor motherless children who tried so hard to be good, and they were confirmed, and had a bazaar, and went to church at the Minster, and one of them got married and wore black watered silk and silver ornaments. So her baby died, and then she was sorry she had not been a good mother to it. And—”
Here Dicky got up and said he’d got some snares to attend to, and he’d receive a report of the Council after it was over. But he only got as far as the trap-door, and then Oswald, the fleet of foot, closed with him, and they rolled together on the floor — while all the others called out “Come back! Come back!” like guinea-hens on a fence.
Through the rustle and bustle and hustle of the struggle with Dicky, Oswald heard the voice of Denny murmuring one of his everlasting quotations:
“‘Come back, come back!’ he cried in Greek, ‘Across the stormy water, And I’ll forgive your Highland cheek, My daughter, O my daughter!’”
When quiet was restored and Dicky had agreed to go through with the Council, Denny said:
“The Daisy Chain is not a bit like that really. It’s a ripping book. One of the boys dresses up like a lady and comes to call, and another tries to hit his little sister with a hoe. It’s jolly fine, I tell you.”
Denny is learning to say what he thinks, just like other boys. He would never have learned such words as “ripping” and “jolly fine” while under the auntal tyranny.
Since then I have read The Daisy Chain. It is a first-rate book for girls and little boys.
But we did not want to talk about The Daisy Chain just then, so Oswald said:
“But what’s your lark?”
Denny got pale pink and said:
“Don’t hurry me. I’ll tell you directly. Let me think a minute.”
Then he shut his pale pink eyelids a moment in thought, and then opened them and stood up on the straw and said very fast:
“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, or if not ears, pots. You know we’ve been told that they are going to open the barrow, to look for Roman remains to-morrow. Don’t you think it seems a pity they shouldn’t find any?”
“Perhaps they will,” Dora said. But Oswald saw, and he said, “Primus! Go ahead, old man.”
The Dentist went ahead.
“In The Daisy Chain,” he said, “they dug in a Roman encampment, and the children went first and put some pottery there they’d made themselves, and Harry’s old medal of the Duke of Wellington. The doctor helped them to some stuff to partly efface the inscription, and all the grown-ups were sold. I thought we might:
“You may break, you may shatter The vase if you will; But the scent of the Romans Will cling round it still.”
Denny sat down amid applause. It really was a great idea, at least for him. It seemed to add just what was wanted to the visit of the Maidstone Antiquities. To sell the Antiquities thoroughly would be indeed splendiferous. Of course, Dora made haste to point out that we had not got an old medal of the Duke of Wellington, and that we hadn’t any doctor who would “help us to stuff to efface,” and etcetera; but we sternly bade her stow it. We weren’t going to do exactly like those Daisy Chain kids.
The pottery was easy. We had made a lot of it by the stream — which was the Nile when we discovered its source — and dried it in the sun, and then baked it under a bonfire, like in Foul Play. And most of the things were such queer shapes that they would have done for almost anything — Roman or Greek, or even Egyptian or antediluvian, or household milk-jugs of the cave-men, 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 color, and not remembered to wash it off.
So the Council at once collected it all — and some rusty hinges and some brass buttons and a file without a handle; and the girl Councillors carried it all concealed in their pinafores, while the men members carried digging tools. H. O. and Daisy were sent on ahead as scouts to see if the coast was clear. We have learned the true usefulness of scouts from reading about the Transvaal War. But all was still in the hush of evening sunset on the Roman ruin.
We posted sentries, who were to lie on their stomachs on the walls and give a long, low, signifying whistle if aught approached.
Then we dug a tunnel, like the one we once did after treasure, when we happened to bury a boy. It took some time; but never shall it be said that a Bastable grudged time or trouble when a lark was at stake. We put the things in as naturally as we could, and shoved the dirt back, till everything looked just as before. Then we went home, late for tea. But it was in a good cause; and there was no hot toast, only bread-and-butter, which does not get cold with waiting.
That night Alice whispered to Oswald on the stairs, as we went up to bed:
“Meet me outside your door when the others are asleep. Hist! Not a word.”
Oswald said, “No kid?”
And she replied in the affirmation.
So he kept awake by biting his tongue and pulling his hair — for he shrinks from no pain if it is needful and right.
And when the others all slept the sleep of innocent youth, he got up and went out, and there was Alice dressed.
She said, “I’ve found some broken things that look ever so much more Roman — they were on top of the cupboard in the library. If you’ll come with me, we’ll bury them — just to see how surprised the others will be.”
It was a wild and daring act, but Oswald did not mind.
He said:
“Wait half a shake.” And he put on his knickerbockers and jacket, and slipped a few peppermints into his pocket in case of catching cold. It is these thoughtful expedients which mark the born explorer and adventurer.
It was a little cold; but the white moonlight was very fair to see, and we decided we’d do some other daring moonlight act some other day. We got out of the front door, which is never locked till Albert’s uncle goes to bed at twelve or one, and we ran swiftly and silently across the bridge and through the fields to the Roman ruin.<
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Alice told me afterwards she should have been afraid if it had been dark. But the moonlight made it as bright as day is in your dreams.
Oswald had taken the spade and a sheet of newspaper.
We did not take all the pots Alice had found — but just the two that weren’t broken — two crooked jugs, made of stuff like flower-pots are made of. We made two long cuts with the spade and lifted the turf up and scratched the earth under, and took it out very carefully in handfuls on to the newspaper, till the hole was deepish. Then we put in the jugs, and filled it up with earth and flattened the turf over. Turf stretches like elastic. This we did a couple of yards from the place where the mound was dug into by the men, and we had been so careful with the newspaper that there was no loose earth about.
Then we went home in the wet moonlight — at least, the grass was very wet — chuckling through the peppermint, and got up to bed without any one knowing a single thing about it.
“THEN WE PUT IN THE JUGS AND FILLED IT UP WITH EARTH”
The next day the Antiquities came. It was a jolly hot day, and the tables were spread under the trees on the lawn, like a large and very grand Sunday-school treat. There were dozens of different kinds of cake, and bread-and-butter, both white and brown, and gooseberries and plums and jam sandwiches. And the girls decorated the tables with flowers — blue larkspur and white canterbury bells. And at about three there was a noise of people walking in the road, and presently the Antiquities began to come in at the front gate, and stood about on the lawn by twos and threes and sixes and sevens, looking shy and uncomfy, exactly like a Sunday-school treat. Presently some gentlemen came, who looked like the teachers; they were not shy, and they came right up to the door. So Albert’s uncle, who had not been too proud to be up in our room with us watching the people on the lawn through the netting of our short blinds, said:
“I suppose that’s the Committee. Come on!”
So we all went down — we were in our Sunday things — and Albert’s uncle received the Committee like a feudal system baron, and we were his retainers.
He talked about dates, and king-posts and gables, and mullions, and foundations, and records, and Sir Thomas Wyatt, and poetry, and Julius Cæsar, and Roman remains, and lych-gates and churches, and dog’s-tooth moulding till the brain of Oswald reeled. I suppose that Albert’s uncle remarked that all our mouths were open, which is a sign of reels in the brain, for he whispered: