by E. Nesbit
_THE YOUNG ANTIQUARIES_
THIS really happened before Christmas, but many authors go back tobygone years for whole chapters, and I don't see why I shouldn't.
It was one Sunday--the Somethingth Sunday in Advent, I think--and Dennyand Daisy and their father and Albert's uncle came to dinner, which isin the middle of the day on that day of rest and the same things to eatfor grown-ups and us. It is nearly always roast beef and Yorkshire, butthe puddings and vegetables are brightly variegated and never the sametwo Sundays running.
At dinner some one said something about the coat-of-arms that is on thesilver tankards which once, when we were poor and honest, used to stayat the shop having the dents slowly taken out of them for months andmonths. But now they are always at home and are put at the four cornersof the table every day, and any grown-up who likes can drink beer out ofthem.
After some talk of the sort you don't listen to, in which bends andlioncels and gules and things played a promising part, Albert's unclesaid that Mr. Turnbull had told him something about that coat-of-armsbeing carved on a bridge somewhere in Cambridgeshire, and again theconversation wandered into things like Albert's uncle had talked aboutto the Maidstone Antiquarian Society the day they came over to see hisold house in the country and we arranged the time-honoured Roman remainsfor them to dig up. So, hearing the words king-post and mullion andmoulding and underpin, Oswald said might we go; and we went, and tookour dessert with us and had it in our own common-room, where you canroast chestnuts with a free heart and never mind what your fingers getlike.
When first we knew Daisy we used to call her the White Mouse, and herbrother had all the appearance of being one too, but you know howuntruthful appearances are, or else it was that we taught him happierthings, for he certainly turned out quite different in the end; and shewas not a bad sort of kid, though we never could quite cure her ofwanting to be "ladylike"--that is the beastliest word there is, I think,and Albert's uncle says so, too. He says if a girl can't be a lady it'snot worth while to be only like one--she'd better let it alone and be afree and happy bounder.
But all this is not what I was going to say, only the author does thinkof so many things besides the story, and sometimes he puts them in. Thisis the case with Thackeray and the Religious Tract Society and otherauthors, as well as Mrs. Humphrey Ward. Only I don't suppose you haveever heard of her, though she writes books that some people like verymuch. But perhaps they are her friends. I did not like the one I readabout the Baronet. It was on a wet Sunday at the seaside, and nothingelse in the house but Bradshaw and "Elsie; or like a----" or I shouldn'thave. But what really happened to us before Christmas is strictly thefollowing narrative.
"I say," remarked Denny, when he had burned his fingers with a chestnutthat turned out a bad one after all--and such is life--and he hadfinished sucking his fingers and getting rid of the chestnut, "aboutthese antiquaries?"
"Well, what about them?" said Oswald. He always tries to be gentle andkind to Denny, because he knows he helped to make a man of the youngMouse.
"I shouldn't think," said Denny, "that it was so very difficult to beone."
"I don't know," said Dicky. "You have to read very dull books and anawful lot of them, and remember what you read, what's more."
"I don't think so," said Alice. "That girl who came with theantiquities--the one Albert's uncle said was upholstered in red plushlike furniture--_she_ hadn't read anything, you bet."
Dora said, "You ought not to bet, especially on Sunday," and Alicealtered it to "You may be sure."
"Well, but what then?" Oswald asked Denny. "Out with it," for he sawthat his youthful friend had got an idea and couldn't get it out. Youshould always listen patiently to the ideas of others, no matter howsilly you expect them to be.
"I do wish you wouldn't hurry me so," said Denny, snapping his fingersanxiously. And we tried to be patient.
"Why shouldn't we _be_ them?" Denny said at last.
"He means antiquaries," said Oswald to the bewildered others. "Butthere's nowhere to go and nothing to do when we get there."
The Dentist (so-called for short, his real name being Denis) got red andwhite, and drew Oswald aside to the window for a secret discussion.Oswald listened as carefully as he could, but Denny always buzzes sowhen he whispers.
"Right oh," he remarked, when the confidings of the Dentist had got sothat you could understand what he was driving at. "Though you're beingshy with us now, after all we went through together in the summer, issimply skittles."
Then he turned to the polite and attentive others and said--
OSWALD LISTENED AS CAREFULLY AS HE COULD, BUT DENNYALWAYS BUZZES SO WHEN HE WHISPERS.]
"You remember that day we went to Bexley Heath with Albert's uncle?Well, there was a house, and Albert's uncle said a clever writer livedthere, and in more ancient years that chap in history--Sir Thomas What'shis name; and Denny thinks he might let us be antiquaries there. Itlooks a ripping place from the railway."
It really does. It's a fine big house, and splendid gardens, and a lawnwith a sundial, and the tallest trees anywhere about here.
"But what could we _do_?" said Dicky. "I don't suppose _he'd_ give _us_tea," though such, indeed, had been our hospitable conduct to theantiquaries who came to see Albert's uncle.
"Oh, I don't know," said Alice. "We might dress up for it, and wearspectacles, and we could all read papers. It would be lovely--somethingto fill up the Christmas holidays--the part before the wedding, I mean.Do let's."
"All right, I don't mind. I suppose it would be improving," said Dora."We should have to read a lot of history. You can settle it. I'm goingto show Daisy our bridesmaids' dresses."
It was, alas! too true. Albert's uncle was to be married but shortlyafter, and it was partly our faults, though that does not come into thisstory.
So the two D.'s went to look at the clothes--girls like this--but Alice,who wishes she had never consented to be born a girl, stayed with us,and we had a long and earnest council about it.
"One thing," said Oswald, "it can't possibly be wrong--so perhaps itwon't be amusing."
"Oh, Oswald!" said Alice, and she spoke rather like Dora.
"I don't mean what you mean," said Oswald in lofty scorn. "What I meanto say is that when a thing is quite sure to be right, it's notso--well--I mean to say there it is, don't you know; and if it might bewrong, and isn't, it's a score to you; and if it might be wrong, andis--as so often happens--well, you know yourself, adventures sometimesturn out wrong that you didn't think were going to, but seldom, ornever, the uninteresting kind, and----"
Dicky told Oswald to dry up--which, of course, no one stands from ayounger brother, but though Oswald explained this at the time, he feltin his heart that he has sometimes said what he meant with moreclearness. When Oswald and Dicky had finished, we went on and arrangedeverything.
Every one was to write a paper--and read it.
"If the papers are too long to read while we're there," said Noel, "wecan read them in the long winter evenings when we are grouped along thehousehold hearthrug. I shall do my paper in poetry--about Agincourt."
Some of us thought Agincourt wasn't fair, because no one could be sureabout any knight who took part in that well-known conflict having livedin the Red House; but Alice got us to agree, because she said it wouldbe precious dull if we all wrote about nothing but Sir ThomasWhatdoyoucallhim--whose real name in history Oswald said he would findout, and then write his paper on that world-renowned person, who is ahousehold word in all families. Denny said he would write about Charlesthe First, because they were just doing that part at his school.
"I shall write about what happened in 1066," said H.O. "I know that."
Alice said, "If I write a paper it will be about Mary Queen of Scots."
Dora and Daisy came in just as she said this, and it transpired thatthis ill-fated but good-looking lady was the only one they either ofthem wanted to write about. So Alice gave it up to them and settled todo Magna Charta, and they could se
ttle something between themselves forthe one who would have to give up Mary Queen of Scots in the end. We allagreed that the story of that lamented wearer of pearls and black velvetwould not make enough for two papers.
Everything was beautifully arranged, when suddenly H.O. said--
"Supposing he doesn't let us?"
"Who doesn't let us what?"
"The Red House man--read papers at his Red House."
This was, indeed, what nobody had thought of--and even now we did notthink any one could be so lost to proper hospitableness as to say no.Yet none of us liked to write and ask. So we tossed up for it, only Dorahad feelings about tossing up on Sunday, so we did it with a hymn-bookinstead of a penny.
We all won except Noel, who lost, so he said he would do it on Albert'suncle's typewriter, which was on a visit to us at the time, waiting forMr. Remington to fetch it away to mend the "M." We think it was brokenthrough Albert's uncle writing "Margaret" so often, because it is thename of the lady he was doomed to be married by.
The girls had got the letter the Maidstone Antiquarian Society and FieldClubs Secretary had sent to Albert's uncle--H.O. said they kept it for amomentum of the day--and we altered the dates and names in blue chalkand put in a piece about might we skate on the moat, and gave it toNoel, who had already begun to make up his poetry about Agincourt, andso had to be shaken before he would attend. And that evening, whenFather and our Indian uncle and Albert's uncle were seeing the others onthe way to Forest Hill, Noel's poetry and pencil were taken away fromhim and he was shut up in Father's room with the Remington typewriter,which we had never been forbidden to touch. And I don't think he hurtit much, except quite at the beginning, when he jammed the "S" and the"J" and the thing that means per cent. so that they stuck--and Dickysoon put that right with a screwdriver.
He did not get on very well, but kept on writing MOR7E HOAS5 or MORD6MHOVCE on new pieces of paper and then beginning again, till the floorwas strewn with his remains; so we left him at it, and went and playedCelebrated Painters--a game even Dora cannot say anything about onSunday, considering the Bible kind of pictures most of them painted. Andmuch later, the library door having banged once and the front doortwice, Noel came in and said he had posted it, and already he was deepin poetry again, and had to be roused when requisite for bed.
It was not till next day that he owned that the typewriter had been afiend in disguise, and that the letter had come out so odd that he couldhardly read it himself.
"The hateful engine of destruction wouldn't answer to the bit in theleast," he said, "and I'd used nearly a wastepaper basket of Father'sbest paper, and I thought he might come in and say something, so I justfinished it as well as I could, and I corrected it with the bluechalk--because you'd bagged that B.B. of mine--and I didn't notice whatname I'd signed till after I'd licked the stamp."
The hearts of his kind brothers and sisters sank low. But they keptthem up as well as they could, and said--
IT WAS NOT TILL NEXT DAY THAT HE OWNED THAT THETYPEWRITER HAD BEEN A FIEND IN DISGUISE.]
"What name _did_ you sign?"
And Noel said, "Why, Edward Turnbull, of course--like at the end of thereal letter. You never crossed it out like you did his address."
"No," said Oswald witheringly. "You see, I did think, whatever else youdidn't know, I did think you knew your own silly name."
Then Alice said Oswald was unkind, though you see he was not, and shekissed Noel and said she and he would take turns to watch for thepostman, so as to get the answer (which of course would be subscribed onthe envelope with the name of Turnbull instead of Bastable) before theservant could tell the postman that the name was a stranger to her.
And next evening it came, and it was very polite and grown-up--and saidwe should be welcome, and that we might read our papers and skate on themoat. The Red House has a moat, like the Moat House in the country, butnot so wild and dangerous. Only we never skated on it because the frostgave out the minute we had got leave to. Such is life, as the sparks flyupwards. (The last above is called a moral reflection.)
So now, having got leave from Mr. Red House (I won't give his namebecause he is a writer of worldly fame and he might not like it), we setabout writing our papers. It was not bad fun, only rather difficultbecause Dora said she never knew which Encyclo. volume she might bewanting, as she was using Edinburgh, Mary, Scotland, Bothwell, Holywell,and France, and many others, and Oswald never knew which he might want,owing to his not being able exactly to remember the distinguished anddeathless other appellation of Sir Thomas Thingummy, who had lived inthe Red House.
Noel was up to the ears in Agincourt, yet that made but littledifference to our destiny. He is always plunged in poetry of one sort oranother, and if it hadn't been that, it would have been something else.This, at least, we insisted on having kept a secret, so he could notread it to us.
H.O. got very inky the first half-holiday, and then he got somesealing-wax and a big envelope from Father, and put something in andfastened it up, and said he had done his.
Dicky would not tell us what his paper was going to be about, but hesaid it would not be like ours, and he let H.O. help him by looking onwhile he invented more patent screws for ships.
The spectacles were difficult. We got three pairs of the uncle's, andone that had belonged to the housekeeper's grandfather, but nine pairswere needed, because Albert-next-door mouched in one half-holiday andwanted to join, and said if we'd let him he'd write a paper on theConstitutions of Clarendon, and we thought he couldn't do it, so we lethim. And then, after all, he did.
So at last Alice went down to Bennett's in the village, that we are suchgood customers of, because when our watches stop we take them there, andhe lent us a lot of empty frames on the instinctive understanding thatwe would pay for them if we broke them or let them get rusty.
And so all was ready. And the fatal day approached; and it was theholidays. For us, that is, but not for Father, for his business neverseems to rest by day and night, except at Christmas and times like that.So we did not need to ask him if we might go. Oswald thought it would bemore amusing for Father if we told it all to him in the form of anentertaining anecdote, afterwards.
Denny and Daisy and Albert came to spend the day.
We told Mrs. Blake Mr. Red House had asked us, and she let the girls puton their second-best things, which are coats with capes and redTam-o'shanters. These capacious coats are very good for playinghighwaymen in.
We made ourselves quite clean and tidy. At the very last we found thatH.O. had been making marks on his face with burnt matches, to imitatewrinkles, but really it only imitated dirt, so we made him wash it off.Then he wanted to paint himself red like a clown, but we had decidedthat the spectacles were to be our only disguise, and even those werenot to be assumed till Oswald gave the word.
THE STATIONMASTER AND PORTER LOOKED RESPECTFULLY AT US.]
No casuist observer could have thought that the nine apparentlylight-headed and careless party who now wended their way to BlackheathStation, looking as if they were not up to anything in particular, werereally an Antiquarian Society of the deepest dye. We got an emptycarriage to ourselves, and halfway between Blackheath and the otherstation Oswald gave the word, and we all put on the spectacles. We hadour antiquarian papers of lore and researched history in exercise-books,rolled up and tied with string.
The stationmaster and porter, of each of which the station boasted butone specimen, looked respectfully at us as we got out of the train, andwe went straight out of the station, under the railway arch, and down tothe green gate of the Red House. It has a lodge, but there is no one init. We peeped in at the window, and there was nothing in the room but anold beehive and a broken leather strap.
We waited in the front for a bit, so that Mr. Red House could come outand welcome us like Albert's uncle did the other antiquaries, but no onecame, so we went round the garden. It was very brown and wet, but fullof things you didn't see every day. Furze summer-houses, for instance,and a red wall
all round it, with holes in it that you might havewalled heretics up in in the olden times. Some of the holes were quitebig enough to have taken a very small heretic. There was a broken swing,and a fish-pond--but we were on business, and Oswald insisted on readingthe papers.
He said, "Let's go to the sundial. It looks dryer there, my feet arelike ice-houses."
It was dryer because there was a soaking wet green lawn round it, andround that a sloping path made of little squares of red and whitemarble. This was quite waterless, and the sun shone on it, so that itwas warm to the hands, though not to the feet, because of boots. Oswaldcalled on Albert to read first. Albert is not a clever boy. He is notone of us, and Oswald wanted to get over the Constitutions. For Albertis hardly ever amusing, even in fun, and when he tries to show off it issometimes hard to bear. He read--
"THE CONSTITUTIONS OF CLARENDON.
"Clarendon (sometimes called Clarence) had only one constitution. It must have been a very bad one, because he was killed by a butt of Malmsey. If he had had more constitutions or better ones he would have lived to be very old. This is a warning to everybody."
To this day none of us know how he could, and whether his uncle helpedhim.
We clapped, of course, but not with our hearts, which were hissinginside us, and then Oswald began to read his paper. He had not had achance to ask Albert's uncle what the other name of the world-famous SirThomas was, so he had to put him in as Sir Thomas Blank, and make it upby being very strong on scenes that could be better imagined thandescribed, and, as we knew that the garden was five hundred years old,of course he could bring in any eventful things since the year 1400.
He was just reading the part about the sundial, which he had noticedfrom the train when we went to Bexley Heath. It was rather a nice piece,I think.
"Most likely this sundial told the time when Charles the First wasbeheaded, and recorded the death-devouring progress of the Great Plagueand the Fire of London. There is no doubt that the sun often shone evenin these devastating occasions, so that we may picture Sir Thomas Blanktelling the time here and remarking--O crikey!"
These last words are what Oswald himself remarked. Of course a person inhistory would never have said them.
The reader of the paper had suddenly heard a fierce, woodeny sound, likegiant singlesticks, terrifyingly close behind him, and looking hastilyround, he saw a most angry lady, in a bright blue dress with fur on it,like a picture, and very large wooden shoes, which had made thesinglestick noise. Her eyes were very fierce, and her mouth tightshut. She did not look hideous, but more like an avenging sprite orangel, though of course we knew she was only mortal, so we took off ourcaps. A gentleman also bounded towards us over some vegetables, andacted as reserve support to the lady.
HER VOICE WHEN SHE TOLD US WE WERE TRESPASSING WAS NOT SOFURIOUS.]
Her voice when she told us we were trespassing and it was a privategarden was not so furious as Oswald had expected from her face, but it_was_ angry. H.O. at once said it wasn't her garden, was it? But, ofcourse, we could see it _was_, because of her not having any hat orjacket or gloves, and wearing those wooden shoes to keep her feet dry,which no one would do in the street.
So then Oswald said we had leave, and showed her Mr. Red House's letter.
"But that was written to Mr. Turnbull," said she, "and how did _you_ getit?"
Then Mr. Red House wearily begged us to explain, so Oswald did, in thatclear, straightforward way some people think he has, and that no one cansuspect for an instant. And he ended by saying how far from comfortableit would be to have Mr. Turnbull coming with his thin mouth and histight legs, and that we were Bastables, and much nicer than thetight-legged one, whatever she might think.
And she listened, and then she quite suddenly gave a most jolly grin andasked us to go on reading our papers.
It was plain that all disagreeableness was at an end, and, to show thiseven to the stupidest, she instantly asked us to lunch. Before we couldpolitely accept H.O. shoved his oar in as usual and said _he_ would stopno matter how little there was for lunch because he liked her very much.
So she laughed, and Mr. Red House laughed, and she said they wouldn'tinterfere with the papers, and they went away and left us.
Of course Oswald and Dicky insisted on going on with the papers; thoughthe girls wanted to talk about Mrs. Red House, and how nice she was, andthe way her dress was made. Oswald finished his paper, but later he wassorry he had been in such a hurry, because after a bit Mrs. Red Housecame out, and said she wanted to play too. She pretended to be a veryancient antiquary, and was most jolly, so that the others read theirpapers to her, and Oswald knows she would have liked his paper best,because it _was_ the best, though I say it.
Dicky's turned out to be all about that patent screw, and how Nelsonwould not have been killed if his ship had been built with one.
Daisy's paper was about Lady Jane Grey, and hers and Dora's were exactlyalike, the dullest by far, because they had got theirs out of books.
Alice had not written hers because she had been helping Noel to copyhis.
Denny's was about King Charles, and he was very grown-up and ferventabout this ill-fated monarch and white roses.
Mrs. Red House took us into the summer-houses, where it was warmer, andsuch is the wonderful architecture of the Red House gardens that therewas a fresh summer-house for each paper, except Noel's and H.O.'s, whichwere read in the stable. There were no horses there.
Noel's was very long, and it began--
"This is the story of Agincourt. If you don't know it you jolly well ought. It was a famous battle fair, And all your ancestors fought there That is if you come of a family old. The Bastables do; they were always very bold. And at Agincourt They fought As they ought; So we have been taught."
And so on and so on, till some of us wondered why poetry was everinvented. But Mrs. Red House said she liked it awfully, so Noel said--
"You may have it to keep. I've got another one of it at home."
"I'll put it next my heart, Noel," she said. And she did, under the bluestuff and fur.
H.O.'s was last, but when we let him read it he wouldn't, so Dora openedhis envelope and it was thick inside with blotting-paper, and in themiddle there was a page with
"1066 WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR,"
and nothing else.
"Well," he said, "I said I'd write all I knew about 1066, and that's it.I can't write more than I know, can I?" The girls said he couldn't, butOswald thought he might have tried.
"It wasn't worth blacking your face all over just for that," he said.But Mrs. Red House laughed very much and said it was a lovely paper, andtold _her_ all she wanted to know about 1066.
Then we went into the garden again and ran races, and Mrs. Red Househeld all our spectacles for us and cheered us on. She said she was thePatent Automatic Cheering Winning-post. We do like her.
Lunch was the glorious end of the Morden House Antiquarian Society andField Club's Field Day. But after lunch was the beginning of a realadventure such as real antiquarians hardly ever get. This will beunrolled later. I will finish with some French out of a newspaper.Albert's uncle told it me, so I know it is right. Any of your owngrown-ups will tell you what it means.
_Au prochain numero je vous promets des emotions._
* * * * *
PS.--In case your grown-ups can't be bothered, "_emotions_" meansensation, I believe.