 CHAPTER VIII. Albert's Uncle is tremendously clever, and he writes books. I have told how he fled to southern shores with a lady who is rather nice. His having to marry her was partly our fault, but we did not mean to do it, and we were very sorry for what we had done. But afterwards we thought perhaps it was all for the best, because if left alone he might have married widows, or old German governesses, or mudstone aunts, like Daisy and Denny had, instead of the fortunate lady that we were the cause of his being married by. The wedding was just before Christmas, and we were all there, and then they went to Rome for a period of time that is spoken of in books as the honeymoon. You know that H.O., my youngest brother, tried to go to, disguised as the contents of a dress basket that was betrayed and brought back. Conversation often takes place about the things you like, and we often spoke of Albert's uncle. One day we had a ripping game of hide and seek all over the house and all the lights out, sometimes called devil in the dark, and never to be played except when your father and uncle are out, because of the screams which the strongest cannot suppress when caught by. He, in unexpectedness and total darkness. The girls do not like this game so much as we do, but it is only fair for them to play it. We have more than once played dolls tea parties to please them. Well, when the game was over, we were panting like dogs on the hearthrope in front of the common room fire, and H.O. said, I wish Albert's uncle had been here. He does enjoy it so. Oswell has sometimes thought Albert's uncle only played to pleases that H.O. may be right. I wonder if they often play it in Rome, H.O. went on. That postcard he sent us, with the collie, what's its name on you know, the round place with arches. They could have ripping games there. It's not much fun with only two, said Dickie. Besides, Dora said, when people are first married, they always sit in balconies and look at the moon, or else at each other's eyes. They ought to know what their eyes look like by this time, said Dickie. I believe they sit and write poetry about their eyes all day, and only look at each other when they can't think of the rhymes, said Noel. I don't believe she knows how, but I'm certain they read aloud to each other out of the poetry books we gave them for wedding presents, Alice said. It would be beastly ungrateful if they didn't, especially with their backs all covered with gold like they are, said H.O. About those books, said Oswald slowly. Now, for the first time joining in, what was being said. Of course, it was jolly decent of Father to get such ripping presents for us to give them. But I've sometimes wished we'd given Albert's uncle a really truly present that we'd chosen ourselves for with our own chink. I wish we could have done something for him, Noel said. I'd have killed a dragon for him as soon as look at it, and Mrs. Albert's uncle could have been the princess, and I would have let him have her. Yes, said Dickie, and we just have brought in books, but it's no use grizzling over it now, it's all over, and he won't get married again while she's alive. This was true, for we live in England, which is a morganatic empire where more than one wife at a time is not allowed. In the glorious East he might have married again and again, and we could have made it all right about the wedding present. I wish he was a Turk for some things, said Oswald, and explained why. I don't think she would like it, said Dora. Oswald explained that if he was a Turk, she would be a turquoise. I think that is the feminine Turk, and so would be used to lots of wives and be lonely without them. And just then, you know what they say about talking of angels and hearing the wings. There is another way of saying this, but it is not polite, as the present author knows. Well, just then the postman came, and of course we rushed out, and among father's dull letters we found one addressed to the bestables junior. It had an Italian stamp, not at all a rare one, and it was a poor specimen too, and the postmark was Roma. That is what the Italians have got into the habit of calling Rome. I have been told that they put the A instead of the E, because they like to open their mouths as much as possible in that sunny and agreeable climate. The letter was jolly, it was just like hearing him talk. I mean reading, not hearing of course, but reading him talk is not grammar, and if you can't be both sensible and grammatical, it is better to be senseless. Well, kitties, it begun, and it went on to tell us about things he had seen, not dull pictures and beastly old buildings, but amusing incidents of comic nature. The Italians must be extreme jugonists, for the kind of things he described to be of such everyday occurring. Indeed, Oswald could hardly believe about the soda water label that the Italian translated for the English traveller so that it said, To distrust of the mineral waters too fountain like foaming, they spread the shape. Near the end of this letter came this. You remember the chapter of the golden gondola that I wrote from the people's pageant just before I had the honour to lead to the altar, etc. I mean the one that ends in the subterranean passage with Geraldine's hair down and her last hope gone, and the three villains stealing upon her with the Venetian supplity in their hearts and Toledo daggers, specially imported in their garters. I didn't care much for it myself, you remember? I think I must have been thinking of other things when I wrote it, but you, I recollect, consoled me by refusing to regard it as other than ripping, thinking was, as I recall it, Oswald's consolatory epithet. You'll work with me, I feel confident, when you hear that my editor does not share your sentiments. He writes me that it is not up to my usual form. He fears that the public, etc., and he trusts that in the next chapter, etc. Let us hope that the public will, in this matter, take your views and not his. Oh, for a really discerning public, just like you, you amiable critics. Albert's new aunt is leaning over my shoulder. I can't break her at the distracting habit. How on earth am I ever to write another line? Greetings to all from Albert's uncle and aunt. P.S. She insists on having her name put to this, but, of course, she didn't write it. I am trying to teach her to spell. P.S.S. Italian spelling, of course. And now, cried Oswald, I see it all. The others didn't, they often don't, when Oswald does. Why, don't you see? He patiently explained that he knows that it is vain to be angry with people, because they are not so clever as, as other people. It's the direct aspiration of fate. He wants it, does he? Well, he shall have it. What, said everybody? We'll be it. What was the not very polite remark now repeated by all? Why, he's discerning public. And still, they all remain quite blind to what was so clear to Oswald, the astute and discernical. It will be much more useful than killing dragons, Oswald went on, especially as there aren't any, and it will be a really, truly wedding present, just what we were wishing would give him. The five others now fell on Oswald and rolled him under the table and sat on his head, so that he had to speak loudly and plainly. All right, I'll tell you, in words of one syllable, if you like, let go, I say. And when he had rolled out with the others, and the tablecloth had caught on H.O.'s boots and the books and Dora's work box and the glass of paint water that came down with it, he said, we will be the public. We will all write to the editor of the People's Pageant and tell him what we think about the Geraldine chapter. Do mop up that water, Dora. It's running all under where I'm sitting. Don't you think, said Dora, devoting her handkerchief and Alice's in the obedient way she does not always use, that six letters, all sign, and all coming from the same house, would be rather, rather, a bit too thick, yes, said Alice. But, of course, we'd have all different names and addresses. We might as well do it thoroughly, said Dickie, and send three or four different letters each and have them posted in different parts of London. Right-O! remarked Oswald. I shall write a piece of poetry for mine, said Noel. They ought all to be on different kinds of paper, said Oswald. Let's go out and get the paper directly after tea. We did, but we could only get 15 different kinds of paper and envelopes, though we went to every shop in the village. At the first shop, when we said, please, we want a penneth worth of paper and envelopes of each of all the different kinds you keep, the lady of the shop looked at us dimly over blue-rimmed spectacles and said, what for? And H.O. said, to write unanimous letters. Anonymous letters are very wrong, the lady said, and she wouldn't sell us any paper at all. But at the other places, we did not say what it was for and they sold it us. There were blue-y and yellow-y and gray-y and white-coins and some was violet-ish with violets on it and some pink with roses. The girls took the floral-ish ones, which Oswald thinks are unmanly for any but girls, but you'll excuse they're using it. It seems natural to them to mess about like that. We wrote the fifteen letters, disguising our handwriting as much as we could. It was not easy. Oswald tried to write one of them with his left hand, but the consequences were almost totally unreadable. Besides, if anyone could have read it, they would only have thought it was written in an asylum for the insane. The writing was so delirious, so he chucked it. Noel was only allowed to write one poem. It began, O Geraldine, O Geraldine, you are the loveliest heroine. I never read about one before that made me want to write more poetry and your Venetian eyes, they must have been an awful size and black and blue and like your hair. And your nose and chin were a perfect pair and so on for ages. The other letters were all saying what a beautiful chapter beneath the dog's home was and how we liked it better than the other chapters before and how we hoped the next would be like it. We found out when all too late that H.O. had called it the dog's home, but we hoped this would pass unnoticed among all the others. We read the reviews of books in the old spectators and Athenians and put in the words they say they're about other people's books. We said we thought that chapter about Geraldine and the garters were subtle and masterly and ineventable that it had an old world charm and was redolent of the soil. We said too that we had read it with breathless interest from cover to cover and that it had poignant pathos and a convincing realism and the fine flower of delicate sentiment besides much other rot that the author can't remember. When all the letters were done we addressed them and stamped them and knicked them down and then we got different people to post them. Our undergardener who lives in Greenwich and the other undergardener who lives in Lewisham and the servants on their evenings out which they spent in distant spots like Placeau and Grove Park each had a letter to post. The piano tuner was a great catch. He lived in Highgate and the electric bell man was Lambert so we got rid of all the letters and watched the post for a reply. We watched for a week but no answer came. You'd think perhaps that we were duffers to watch for a reply when we had signed all the letters with fancy names like Daisy Doleman, Everard St. Moore and Sir Cole Mondley, Marjorie Banks and put fancy addresses on them like Chatsworth House, Blonde Pit Vale and the Bungalow, Eaton Square but we were not such idiots as you think, dear reader and you are not so extra clever as you think either. We had written one letter. It had the grandest spectator words in it on our own letter paper and the address on the top and the uncle's coat of arms outside the envelope. Oswell's real name was signed to this letter and this was the one we looked for the answer to see but that answer did not come and when three long days had passed away we all felt most awfully stale about it knowing the great good we had done for Albert's uncle made our interior feelings very little better if at all and on the fourth day Oswell spoke up and said what was in everybody's inside heart he said this is futile rot I vote we write and ask that editor why he doesn't answer letters he wouldn't answer that one any more than he did the other said no why should he he knows you can't do anything to him for not why shouldn't we go and ask him H.O. said he could not answer us if we was all there staring him in the face I don't suppose he'd see you said Dora and it's were not was the other editor did when I got the guinea for my beautiful poems no reminded us yes said the thoughtful Oswell but then it doesn't matter how young you are when you're just a poetry seller but we're the discerning public now and he'd think we ought to be grown up I say Dora suppose you rigged yourself up in old blackies things you'd look quite 20 or 30 Dora looked frightened and said she thought we better not but Alice said well I will be I don't care I am as tall as Dora but I won't go alone Oswell you'll have to dress up old and come too it's not much to do for Albert's uncle's sake you know you'll enjoy it said Dora and she may have wished that she did not so often think that we had better not however the die was now cast and the remainder of this adventure was doomed to be coloured by the die we now prepared this is an allegory it means we had burned our boats and that is another we decided to do the deed next day and during the evening Dickie and Oswell went out and bought a grey beard and moustache which was the only thing we could think of to disguise the manly and youthful form of the bold Oswald into the mature shape of a grown up and discerning public character meanwhile the girls made tiptoe and regained like excursions into Miss Blake's room she is the housekeeper and got several things among others a sort of undecided thing like part of a week which Miss Blake wears on Sundays Jane our housemaid says it is called a transformation and that Duchesses wear them we had to be very secret about the dressing up that night and to put Blackie's things all back when they had been tried on Dora did Alice's hair she twisted up what little hair Alice has got by natural means and tied on a long tail of hair that was Miss Blake's tomb then she twisted that up bun like with many hair pins then the wiggler or transformation was plastered over the front part a Miss Blake's Sunday hat which is of a very brisk character with a half a blue bird in it was placed on top of everything there were several petticoats used and a round dress and some stockings and hankies to stuff it out where it was too big a black jacket and crimson tie that completed the picture we thought Alice would do then Oswald went out of the room and secretly assumed his dark disguise but when he came in with the beard on and a hat of fathers the others were not struck with admiration and respect like he meant them to be they rolled about roaring with laughter and when he crept into Miss Blake's room and turned up the gas at it and looked in her long glass he owned that they were right and that it was no go he is tall for his age but that beard made him look like some horrible dwarf and his hair being so short added to everything any idiot could have seen that the beard had not originally flourished where it now was that had been transplanted from some other place of growth and when he laughed which now became necessary he really did look most awful he has read a beard wagging that he never saw it before while he was looking at himself the girls had thought of a new idea but Oswald had an inside presentiment that made it some time before he could even consent to listen to it but at last when the others reminded him that it was a noble act and for the good of Albert's uncle he let them explain the horrid scheme in all its lurid parts it was this that Oswald should consent to be disguised in women's reignments and go with Alice to see the editor no man ever wants to be a woman and it was a bitter thing that Oswald's pride but at last he consented he is glad he is not a girl you have no idea what it is like to wear petticoats especially long ones I wonder that ladies continue to endure their miserable existences the top parts of the clothes too seem to be too tight and too loose in the wrong places Oswald's head also was terribly in the way he had no wandering hairs to fasten transformations onto even if Miss Blake had had another one which was not the case but the girls remembered a governess they had once witnessed whose hair was brief as any boys so they put a large hat with a very tight elastic behind onto Oswald's head just as it was and then with a tickly pussiest featherish thing round his neck hanging wobbly down in long ends he looked more young lady like than he will ever feel some courage was needed for the start next day things look so different in the daylight remember Lord Nistales coming out of the tower said Alice think of the great cause and she tied his neck up I'm brave alright said Oswald only I do feel such an ass I feel rather an ape myself Alice owned but I've got three penith worth of peppermints to inspire us with bravery it is called Dutch Courage I believe owing to our telling Jane we managed to get out unseen by Blackie all the others would come too in their natural appearance except that we made them wash their hands and faces we happened to be flush of chink so we let them come but if you do Oswald said you must surround us in a hollow square of four so they did and we got down to the station alright but in the train there were two ladies who steered and porters and people like that came round the window far more than there could be any need for Oswald's boots must have shown as he got in he had forgotten to burrow a pair of jeans as he had meant to and the ones he had on were his largest his ears got hotter and hotter and it got more and more difficult to manage his feet and hands he failed to suck any courage of any nation from the peppermints owing to the state Oswald's ears were now in we agreed to take a cab at Cannon Street we all crammed in somehow but Oswald saw the driver wink as he put his boot on the step and the porter who was opening the cab door winked back and I am sorry to say Oswald forgot that he was a high-born lady and he told the porter that he had better jolly well stow his cheek then several bystanders began to try and be funny and Oswald knew exactly what particular sort of feel he was being but he bravely silenced the fierce warnings of his ears and when he got to the editor's address we sent Dick up with a large card on Miss Daisy Dolman and the right honourable Miss Ethel Cruder Bustler on urgent business and Oswald kept himself and Ellers concealed in the cab till the return of the messenger all right you're to go up Dickie came back and said but the boy grinned who told me so you'd better be jolly careful we bolted like rabbits across the pavement and up the editor's stairs he was very polite he asked us to sit down and Oswald did but first he tumbled over the front of his dress because it would get under his boots and he was afraid to hold it up not having practice doing this I think I have had letters from you said the editor Ellers who looked terrible with the motion leaning right earwood said yes and that we had come to say what a fine bold conception we thought the dog's chapter was this was what we had settled to say but she'd named her first out with a life that I suppose she forgot herself Oswald in the agitation of his clothes could say nothing the elastic of the hat very slowly slipping up the back of his head and he knew that if it once passed the bump the backs of heads are made with the hat would spring from his head like an arrow from a bow and all would be frustrated yes said the editor that chapter seems to have had great success a wonderful success I had no fewer than 16 letters about it raising it in unmeasured terms he looked at Oswald's boots which Oswald had neglected to cover over with his petticoats he now did this it is a nice story you know said Alice timidly so it seems the gentleman went on 14 of the 16 letters bear the black heath postmark the enthusiasm for the chapter would seem to be mainly local Oswald would not look at Alice he could not trust himself with her looking like she did he knew at once that only the piano tuner and the electric man had been faithful to their trust the others had all posted their letters in the pillar box just outside our gate they wanted to get rid of them as quickly as they could I suppose selfishness is a vile quality the author cannot deny that Oswald now wished he hadn't the elastic was certainly moving slowly but too surely Oswald tried to check its career by swelling out the bump on the back of his head but he could not think of the right way to do this I am very pleased to see you the editor went on slowly and there was something about the way he spoke that made Oswald think of the cat playing with the mouse perhaps you can tell me are there many spiritualists in black heath many clairvoyance A. said Alice forgetting that this is not the way to behave people who foretold the future he said I don't think so said Alice, why I saw he had wanted her to ask this because said the editor more slowly than ever I think there must be how otherwise can we account for the chapter about the dog's home being read and admired by sixteen different people before it is even printed that chapter has not been printed it has not been published it will not be published either at the people's pageant yet in black heath sixteen people already appreciate its supplity and its realism and all the rest of it how do you account for this Miss Daisy Dolman I am the right honourable Ethel Truder said Alice at least, oh, it's no use going on we are not what we seem oddly enough that at the beginning of our interview said the editor then the elastic finished slipping up Oswald's head at the back and the hat leapt from its head exactly as he'd known it would he fielded it deftly however and it did not touch the ground Concealment said Oswald is at an end so it appears said the editor well I hope next time the editor of the golden gondola will choose his instruments more carefully he didn't, we aren't cried Alice and she instantly told the editor everything concealment being at an end Oswald was able to get his trousers pocket it did not matter now how many boots he showed and to get out Elbert's uncle's letter actually when the editor made her take off the hat with the bluebird and the transformation and the tail so that he could see what she really looked like he was quite decent when he really understood how Elbert's uncle's threatened marriage must have upset his brain while he was writing that chapter and pondering on the dark future he began to laugh then and kept it up till the hour of parting he advised Alice not to put on the transformation and the tail again to go home and she didn't then he said to me are you in a finished state under Miss Daisy Dolman and when Oswald said yes the editor helped him to take off the womanly accountants and to do them up in brown paper and he lent him a cap to go home I never saw a man laugh more he is an excellent sort but no slow passage of years however many can ever weaken Oswald's memory of what those petticoats were like to walk in and how ripping it was to get out of them and have your own natural leagues again we parted from the editor without a strain on anybody's character he must have written to Albert Sunkel and told him all for we got a letter next week it said my dear kitties art cannot be forced nor can fame may I beg you for the future to confine your exertions to blowing my trumpet or fame's with your natural voices editors may be lit but they won't be drab the right honourable Miss Ethel Truder-Busler seems to have aroused a deep pity for me in my editor's heart let that suffice and for the future permit me as firmly as affectionately to reiterate the assurance with the advice which I have so often breathed in your long young years I am not ungrateful but I do wish you would mind your own business that's just because we were found out, said Alice if we'd succeeded he'd have been sitting on the top of the pinnacle of fame and he would have owed it all to us that would have been making him something like a wedding present what we had really done was to make something very like that the author is sure he has said enough End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The New Treasure Seekers This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Chloe Winters The New Treasure Seekers by Edith Nesbitt Chapter 9 The Flying Lodger Father knows a man called Eustis Sandel I do not know how to express his inside soul but I have heard Father say he means well he is a vegetarian and a primitive social something and an all-woller in things like that and he is really as good as he can stick only most awfully dull I believe he eats bread and milk from choice Well, he has great magnificent dreams about all the things you can do for other people and he wants to distill cultivatedness into the sort of people who live in model workman's dwellings and teach them to live up to better things This is what he says So he gives concerts in Camberwell and places like that and curates come from far and near to sing about bold bandoleros and the song of the bow and people who have escaped being curates give comic recitings and he is sure that it does everyone good and gives them glimpses of the life beautiful He said that Oswald heard him with his own trustworthy ears Anyway, the people enjoy the concert's no end and that's the great thing Well, he came one night with a lot of tickets he wanted to sell and father bought some for the servants and Dora happened to go in to get the gum for a kite we were making and Mr. Sandel said Well, my little maiden, would you not like to come on Thursday evening and share in the task of raising our poor brothers and sisters to the higher levels of culture? So of course Dora said she would very much Then he explained about the concert calling her my little one and dear child which Alice never would have born It was not of a sensitive nature and Harley minds what she has called so long as it is not names which she does not deem dear child in Satira to be, though Oswald would Dora was quite excited about it and the stranger so worked upon her feelings that she accepted the deep responsibility of selling tickets and for a week there was no bearing her I believe she did sell nine to people in Lewisham and Newcross who knew no better and father bought tickets for all of us and on we went to Camberwell by train and tram via Miss Blake that means we shouldn't have been allowed to go without her The tram ride was rather jolly but when we got out and walked we felt like alone in London or Jessica's first prayer because Camberwell is a devastating region that makes you think of rickety addicts with the wind whistling through them or miserable sellers where forsaken children do wonders by pawning their relations clothes and looking after the baby It was a dampish night and we walked on greasy mud and as we walked along Alice kicked against something on the pavement and it chinked and when she picked it up it was five Bob rolled up in newspaper I expected somebody's little all said Alice and the cup was dashed from their lips just when they were going to joyfully spend it we ought to give it to the police but Miss Blake said no and that we were late already so we went on and Alice held the packet in her muff I will not tell you anything about the concert except that it was quite fairly jolly you must have been to these self-raising concerts in the course of your young lives when it was over we reasoned with Miss Blake and she let us go through the light blue paper door beside the stage and find Mr. Sandel we thought he might happen to hear who had lost the five Bob and return it to its farrowing family he was in a great hurry but he took the chink and said he'd let us know if anything happened then we went home very cheerful singing bits of the comic songs a bishop's son had done in the concert and little thinking what we were taking home with us it was only a few days after this or perhaps a week that we all began to be rather cross Alice, usually as near a brick as a girl can go was the worst of the lot and if you said what you thought of her she instantly began to snivel and we all had awful colds under handkerchiefs gave out it was a bit of a mistake Oswald's head was particularly hot, I remember and he wanted to rest it on the backs of chairs or on tables or anything steady but why prolong the painful narrative what we had brought home from Camberwell was the measles and as soon as the grown-ups recognized the grim intruder for the fell disease it is we all went to bed and there was an end of active adventure for some time of course when you begin to get better there are grapes and other luxuries of everyday occurrences but while you're sniffling and fevering in bed as red as a lobster and blazing hot you are inclined to think it is a heavy price to pay for any concert however raising Mr. Sandel came to see father the very day we all marched to Bedward he had found the owner of the five shillings it was a doctor's fee about to be paid by the parent of a thoroughly measly family and if we had taken it to the police at once Alice would not have held it in her hand all through the concert but I will not blame Blakey she was a jolly good nurse and read aloud to us with unfatigable industry while we were getting better our having fallen victim to this disgusting complaint ended in our being sent to the seaside father could not take us himself so we went to stay with the sister of Mr. Sandel's she was like him only more so in every way the journey was very joyous father saw us off the Cannon Street we carried to ourselves all the way and we passed the station where Oswald would not like to be a porter rude boys at this station put their heads out of the window and shout who's a duffer and things like that and the porters have to shout I am because Higgum is the name of the station and porters seldom have any h's with which to protect themselves from this cruel joke it was a glorious moment when the train swooped out of a tunnel and we looked over the downs the grey-blue line that was the sea we had not seen the sea since before mother died I believe we older ones all thought of that and it made us quieter than the younger ones were I do not want to forget anything but it makes you feel empty and stupid when you remember some things there was a good drive and a wagon at after we got to our station there were prim roses under some of the hedges and lots of dog violets and at last we got to Miss Sandel's house it is before you come to the village and it is a little square white house there is a big old windmill at the back of it it is not used anymore for grinding corn but fishermen keep their nets in it Miss Sandel came out of the green gate to meet us she had a soft drab dress and a long thin neck and her hair was drab too and it was screwed up tight she said welcome one and all in a kind voice but it was too much like Mr. Sandel's for me and we went in to the rooms and the rooms where we were to sleep and then she left us to wash our hands and faces when we were alone we burst open the doors of our rooms with one consent and met on the landing with a rush like the great rivers of America well said Oswald and the others said the same of all the rummy cribs remarked Dicky it's like a workhouse or a hospital said Dora I think I like it it makes me think of bald-headed gentleman so it is so bare it was all the walls were white plaster the furniture was white deal what there was of it which was precious little there were no carpets only white matting and there was not a single ornament in a single room there was a clock on the dining room mantel piece but that could not be counted as an ornament because of the useful side of its character there were only about six pictures all of a brownish color one was the blind girl sitting on an orange with a broken fiddle it is called hope when we were clean Miss Sandle gave us tea as we sat down she said the motto of our little household is plain living and high thinking and some of us feared for an instant that this might mean not enough to eat but fortunately this was not the case there was plenty but all of a milky, bunny, fruity vegetable sort we soon got used to it and liked it all right Miss Sandle was very kind she offered to read aloud to us after tea and exchanging glances of despair some of us said that we should like it very much it was Oswald who found the manly courage to say very politely would it be all the same to you if we went and looked at the sea first because—and she said not at all adding something about nature the dear old nurse taking somebody on her knee and let us go we asked her which way and we tore up the road and threw the village and onto the sea wall and then with six joyous bounds we leaped down onto the sand the author will not bother you with the description of the mighty billows of ocean which you must have read about if not seen but he will just say what perhaps you are not aware of that seagulls eat clams and mussels and cockles and crack the shells with their beaks the author has seen this done I suppose that you can dig in the sand if you have a spade and make sand castles and stay in them till the tide washes you out I will say no more except that when we gazed upon the sea and the sand we felt we did not care tuppence how highly Miss Sandal might think of us or how plainly she might make us live so long as we had got the briny deep to go down to it was too early in the year and too late in the day to bathe but we paddled into much the same thing and you almost always have to change everything afterwards when it got dark we had to go back to the White House and there was supper and then we found that Miss Sandal did not keep a servant so of course we offered to help wash up H.O. only broke two plates nothing worth telling about happened till we had been there over a week and got to know the coast guards and a lot of the village people quite well I do like coast guards I want to hear about Miss Sandal used to read to us out of poetry books and about a chap called Thoreau who could tickle fish and they liked it and let him she was kind but rather like her house there was something bare and bald about her inside mind I believe she was very, very calm and said that people who lost their tempers were not living the higher life but one day a telegram came and then she was not calm at all she got quite like other people and H.O. for getting in her way when she was looking for her purse to pay for the answer to the telegram then she said to Dora and she was pale and her eyes red just like people who live the lower or ordinary life my dears it's dreadful my poor brother he's had a fall I must go to him at once and she sent Oswald to order the fly from the old ship hotel and the girls to see if Mrs. Biel would come and take care of us while she was away and she left us all and went off very unhappy we heard afterwards that poor, worthy Mr. Sandel had climbed a scaffolding to give a workman a tract about drink and he didn't know the proper part of the scaffolding to stand on the workman did of course so he fetched down half a dozen planks and the workman and if a dust cart hadn't happened to be passing just under so that they fell into it their lives would not have been spared as it was Mr. Sandel broke his arm the workman escaped unscathed but furious the workman was a teetotaler Mrs. Biel came and the first thing she did was to buy a leg of mutton and cook it it was the first meat we had had since arriving at Limchurch I suspect you can't afford good butchers' meat said Mrs. Biel but your pa I expect he pays for you and I lay he'd like you to have your fill of something as a lay across your chesties so she made a Yorkshire pudding as well it was good after dinner we sat on the sea wall feeling more like after dinner than we had felt for days and Dora said, poor Miss Sandel I never thought about it being hard up somehow I wish we could do something to help her we might go out street singing Noel said but that was no good because there is only one street in the village and the people there are much too poor for one to be able to ask them for anything all around it is fields with only sheep who have nothing to give except their wool and when it comes to taking that they are never asked Dora thought we might get farther to give her money but Oswald knew this would never do then suddenly a thought struck someone I will not say who and that someone said she ought to let lodgings like all the other people do in Limchurch that was the beginning of it the end for that day we were in the middle of a cardboard box and printing on it the following lines in as many different colored chalks as we happened to have with us lodgings to let inquire inside we ruled spaces for the letters to go in and did it very neatly when we went to bed we stuck it in our bedroom window with stamp paper in the morning when Oswald drew up his blind there was quite a crowd of kids looking at the card Mrs. Beale came out and shoot them away and we did not have to explain the card to her at all she never said anything about it I never knew such a woman as Mrs. Beale for minding her own business she said afterwards she supposed Miss Sandal had told us to put up the card well two or three days went by and nothing happened only we had a letter from Miss Sandal telling us how the poor sufferer was groaning and one from father telling us to be good children and not get into scrapes and people who drove by used to look at the card and laugh and then one day a carriage came driving up with a gentleman in it and he saw the rainbow beauty of our chalked card and then got out and came up the path he had a pale face and white hair and very bright eyes that moved about quickly like a bird's and he was dressed in a quite new tweed suit that did not fit him very well Dora and Alice answered the door before anyone had time to knock and the author has reason to believe their hearts were beating wildly how much said the gentleman shortly Alice and Dora were so surprised by his suddenness that they could only reply um, um just so said the gentleman briskly as Oswald stepped modestly forward and said won't you come inside the very thing said he and came in we showed him into the dining room and asked him to excuse us a minute and then held a breathless council outside the door it depends on how many rooms he wants said Dora let's say so much a room said Dicky and extra if he wants Mrs. Beale to wait on him so we decided to do this we thought a pound of room seemed fair and we went back how many rooms do you want Oswald asked all the room there is said the gentleman they are a pound each said Oswald and extra for Mrs. Beale how much together Oswald thought a minute and then said nine rooms is nine pounds and two pounds a week for Mrs. Beale because she is a widow done said the gentleman I'll go and fetch my portmanteau he bounced up and out and got into his carriage and drove away it was not till he was finally gone quite beyond recall that Alice suddenly said but if he has all the rooms where are we going to sleep he must be awfully rich said H.O. wanting all those rooms well he can't sleep in more than one at once said Dicky we might wait till he has bedded down and then sleep in the rooms he didn't want but Oswald was firm he knew that if the man paid for the rooms he must have them to himself he won't sleep in the kitchen said Dora couldn't we sleep there but we all said we couldn't and wouldn't then Alice suddenly said I know the mill there are heaps and heaps of fishing nets there and we could each take a blanket like Indians and creep over under cover of the night after the beale has gone and get back before she comes in the morning it seemed a sporting thing to do when we agreed only Dora said she thought it would be drafty of course we went over to the mill at once to lay our plans and prepare for the silent watches of the night there are three stories to a windmill besides the ground floor the first floor is pretty empty the next is nearly full of millstones and machinery and the one above is where the corn runs down from on to the millstones we settled to let the girls have the first floor which was covered with heaps of nets and we would pig in with the millstones on the floor above we had just secretly got out the last of the six blankets from the house and got it into the mill disguised in the clothes basket when we heard wheels and there was the gentleman back again he had only got one portmanteau after all and that was a very little one Mrs. Beale was bobbing at him in the doorway when we got up of course we had told her he had rented rooms but we had not said how many for fear she would ask us where we were going to sleep and we had a feeling that but few grown-ups would like our sleeping in a mill however much we were living the higher life by sacrificing ourselves to get money from his sandal the gentleman ordered sheep's head and trotters for dinner and when he found he could not have that he said gammon and spinach but there was not any spinach in the village so he had to fall back on eggs and bacon Mrs. Beale cooked it and when he had fallen back on it she washed up and went home and we were left we could hear the gentleman singing to himself something about that he might fly to thee then we got the lanterns that you take when you go up street on a dark night and we crept over to the mill it was much darker than we expected we decided to keep our clothes on partly for warmness and partly in case of any sudden alarm or the fishermen wanting their nets in the middle of the night the tide is favourable we let the girls keep the lantern and we went up with a bit of candle Dickie had saved and tried to get comfortable among the mill stones and machinery but it was not easy and Oswald for one was not sorry when he heard the voice of Dora calling in trembling tones from the floor below Oswald Dickie said the voice I wish one of you would come down a sec Oswald flew to the assistance of his distressed sister it's only that we're a little bit uncomfortable she whispered I didn't want to yell it out because of Noel and H.O I don't want to frighten them but I can't help feeling that if anything popped out of the darkness I should die can't you all come down here the nets are quite comfortable and I do wish you would Alice said she was not frightened but suppose there were rats which are said to infest old buildings especially mills so we consented to come down it was more comfy and it is easier to settle yourself for the night among fishing nets than among machinery there was a rustling now and then among the heap of broken chairs and jack planes and baskets and spades and hose and bits of the spars of ships at the far end of our sleeping apartment but Dickie and Oswald resolutely said it was the wind or else Jack does making their nests though of course they knew this is not done at night sleeping in a mill was not nearly the fun we had thought it would be somehow for one thing it was horrid not having a pillow and the fishing nets were so stiff you could not bench them up properly to make one and unless you have been born and bred a red Indian you do not know how to manage your blanket so as to make it keep out the drafts and when we had put out the light Oswald more than once felt as though earwigs and spiders were walking on his face in the dark but when we struck a match there was nothing there and empty mills do creak and rustle and move about in a very odd way Oswald was not afraid but he did think we might as well have slept in the kitchen because the gentleman could not have wanted to use that when he was asleep you see we thought then that he would sleep all night like other people we got to sleep at last and in the night the girls edged up to their bold brothers so that when the morning sun shone in bars of dusty gold through the chinks of the aged edifice and woke us up we were all lying in a snugly heap like a litter of puppies oh I am so stiff said Alice stretching I never slept in my clothes before it makes me feel as if I had been starched and ironed like a boys collar we all felt pretty much the same and our faces were tired too and stiff which was rum and the author cannot account for it unless it really was spiders that walked on us I believe the ancient Greeks considered them to be venomous and perhaps that's how their venom influences their victims I think mills are merely beastly remarked H.O. when we had woke him up you can't wash yourself or brush your hair or anything you want always so jolly particular about your hair said Dickie don't be so disagreeable said Dora and Dickie rejoined disagreeable yourself there is certainly something about sleeping in your clothes that makes you feel not so kind and polite as usual I expect this is why tramps are so fierce and knock people down in lonely roads and kick them Oswald knows he felt just like kicking anyone if they had happened to cheek him the least little bit but by a fortunate accident nobody did the author believes there was a picture called hopeless dawn we felt exactly like that nothing seemed the least bit of good it was a pitiful band with hands and faces dirtier than anyone would believe who had not slept in a mill or witnessed others who had done so they crossed the wet green grass between the mill and the white house I shan't ever put morning do into my poetry again Noel said it is not nearly so poetical as people make out and it is as cold as ice right through your boots we felt rather better when we had had a good splash in the brick paved back kitchen Miss Sandal calls the bathroom and Alice made a fire and boiled a kettle and we had some tea and eggs then we looked at the clock and it was half past five so we hastened to get into another of the house before Mrs. Biel came I wish we tried to live the higher life some less beastly way said Dicky as we went along the passage living the higher life always hurts at the beginning Alice said I expect it's like new boots only when you've got used to it you're glad you bore it first let's listen at the doors till we find out where he isn't sleeping so we listened at all the bedroom doors but not a snore was heard perhaps he was a burglar said H.O. and only pretended to want lodging so as to get in and bone all the valuables there aren't any valuables said Noel and this was quite true for Miss Sandal had no silver or jewelry except a brooch of pewter and the very teaspoons were of wood very hard to keep clean and having to be scraped perhaps he sleeps without snoring said Oswald, some people do not old gentlemen said Noel think of our Indian uncle H.O. used to think it was bears at first perhaps he rises with the lock said Alice and is wondering why Brecker isn't ready so then we listened at the sitting-room doors and through the keyhole of the parlor we heard a noise of someone moving and then in a soft whistle the tune of the so then we went into the dining-room to sit down but when we opened the door we almost fell in a heap on the matting and no one had breath for a word not even for crikey which was what we all thought I have read of people who could not believe their eyes and I have always thought it's such a rot of them but now as the author gazed on the scene he really could not be quite sure that he was not in a dream and that the gentlemen and the night in the mill weren't dreams too pull back the curtains Alice said and we did I wish I could make the reader feel as astonished as we did though last time we had seen the room the walls had been bare and white now they were covered with the most splendid drawings you can think of all done in colored chalk I don't mean mixed up like we do with our talks but one picture was done in green and another in brown and another in red and so on and the chalk must have been of some fat radiant kind quite unknown to us for some of the lines were over an inch thick how perfectly lovely Alice said he must have sat up all night to do it he is good I expect he's trying to live the higher life too just going about doing secretly and spending his time making other people's houses pretty I wonder what he'd have done if the room had had a large pattern of brown roses on it like Mrs. Beals said no I say look at that angel isn't it poetical it makes me feel I must write something about it it was a good angel all drawn in grey that was with very wide wings going right across the room and a whole bundle of lilies in his arms then there were seagulls and ravens and butterflies and ballet girls with butterflies wings and a man with artificial wings being fastened on and you could see he was just going to jump off a rock and there were fairies and bats flying foxes and flying fish and one glorious winged horse done in red chalk and his wings went from one side of the room to the other and crossed the angels there were dozens and dozens of birds all done in just a few lines but exactly right you couldn't make any mistake about what anything was meant for and all the things whatever they were had wings to them how Oswald wishes that those pictures had been done in his house while we stood gazing at the door of the other room opened and the gentleman stood before us more covered with different coloured chocks than I should have thought he could have got even with all those drawings and he had a thing made of wire and paper in his hand and he said wouldn't you like to fly? yes said everyone well then he said I've got a nice little flying machine here I'll fit it on to one of you and then you jump out of the attic window you don't know what it's like to fly we said we would rather not but I insist said the gentleman I have your real interest at heart my children I can't allow you in your ignorance to reject the chance of a lifetime we still said no thank you and we began to feel very uncomfy for the gentleman's eyes were now rolling wildly then I'll make you he said catching hold of Oswald you jolly well won't cried Dicky catching hold of the arm of the gentleman then Dora said very primly and speaking rather slowly and she was very pale I think it would be lovely to fly will you just show me how the flying machine looks when it is unfolded the gentleman dropped Oswald and Dora made go go with her lips without speaking while he began to unfold the flying machine the others went Oswald lingering last and then in an instant Dora had nipped out of the room and banged the door and locked it to the mail she cried and we ran like mad and got in and barred the big door and went up to the first floor and looked out of the big window to warn off Mrs. Biel and we thumped Dora on the back and Dicky called her a Sherlock Holmes and Noel said she was a heroine it wasn't anything Dora said just before she began to cry only I remember reading and then get away for of course I saw it once he was a lunatic oh how awful it might have been he could have made us all jump out of the attic window and there would have been no one left to tell father oh oh and then the crying began but we were proud of Dora and I am sorry we make fun of her sometimes but it is difficult not to we decided to signal the first person that passed and we got Alice to take off her red flannel petticoat signal the first people who came were two men in a dog cart we waved the signalizing petticoat and they pulled up and one got out and came up to the mill we explained about the lunatic and the wanting us to jump out of the windows right oh cried the man to the one still in the cart got him and the other hitched the horse to the gate and over and the other went to the house come along down young ladies and gentlemen said the second man he had been told he's as gentle as a lamb he does not think it hurts to jump out of windows he thinks it really is flying he'll be like an angel when he sees the doctor we asked if he had been mad before because we had thought he might have suddenly gone so certainly he has replied the man he has never been so to say himself since tumbling out of a flying machine he went up in with a friend he was an artist previous to that an excellent one I believe but now he only draws objects with wings and now and then he wants to make people fly perfect strangers sometimes like yourselves yes miss I am his attendant and his pictures often amuse me by the half hours together poor gentlemen how did he get away Alice asked well miss the poor gentleman's brother got hurt and Mr. Sydney that's him inside seemed wonderfully put out and hung over the body in a way pitiful to see but really he was extracting the cash from the sufferer's pockets then while all of us were occupied with Mr. Eustace Mr. Sydney just packs his portmanteau and out he goes by the back door when we missed him we sent for Dr. Baker but by the time he came it was too late to get here Dr. Baker said at once he'd revert to his boyhood's home and the doctor has proved correct we had all come out of the mill and with this polite person we went to the gate and saw the lunatic get into the carriage very gentle and gay but doctor Oswald said he did say he'd give nine pounds a week for the rooms wouldn't he to pay you might have known he was mad to say that said the doctor no why should he when it's his own sister's house and he left us it was sad to find the gentleman was not a higher life after all but only mad and I was more sorry than ever for poor miss Sandel as Oswald pointed out to the girls they are much more blessed in their brothers than miss Sandel is and they ought to be more grateful than they are the days went on and miss Sandel did not return we went on being very sorry about miss Sandel being so poor and it was not our fault that when we tried to let the house in lodgings the first lodger proved to be a lunatic of the deepest die miss Sandel must have been a fairly decent sort because she seems not to have written to father about it at any rate he didn't give it to us in any of our letters about our good intentions and their ending in a maniac Oswald does not like giving up a thing just because it has once been muffed the muffage of a plan is a thing that often happens at first to heroes like Bruce and the spider and other great characters besides grownups always say if at first you don't succeed try, try, try again and if this is the rule for Euclid and the rule of three and all the things you would rather not do think how much more it must be the rule when what you are after is your own idea and not just the rotten notion of that beast Euclid or the unknown but equally unnecessary author who composed the multiplication table so we often talked about what we could do to make miss Sandel rich it gave us something to job about when we happened to want to sit down for a bit in between all the glorious wet sandy games that happened by the sea of course if we wanted real improving conversation we used to go up to the boat house and talk to the coast guards I think coast guards are A1 they are just the same as sailors having been so in their youth and you can get at them to talk to which is not the case with sailors who are at sea or even in harbors on ships even if you had the luck to get on to a man of war you would very likely not be able to climb to the top gallons to talk to the man there though in books the young hero always seems to be able to climb to the mast head at the moment he is told to the coast guards told us tales of southern ports and of shipwrecks and officers they had not caught into and mess mates that they had but when we asked them about smuggling they said there wasn't any to speak of nowadays I expect they think they oughtn't to talk about such dark crimes before innocent kids like us said Dickie afterwards and he grinned as he said it yes said Alice they don't know how much we know about smugglers and bandits and highwaymen and she sighed and we all felt sad to think that we had not now any chance to play at being those things we might play smugglers said Oswald but he did not speak hopefully the worst of growing up is that you seem to want more and more to have a bit of the real thing in your games Oswald could not now be content to play at bandits and just capture Albert next door as once in happier days he was pleased and proud to do it was not a coast guard that told us about the smugglers it was a very old man that we met two or three miles along the beach he was leaning against a boat that was wrong way up on the shingle and smoking the strongest tobacco Oswald's young nose has ever met I think it must have been Blackjack we said how do you do and Alice said do you mind if we sit down near you not me replied the agency fare we could see directly that he was this by his jersey and his sea boots the girls sat down on the beach but we boys leaned against the boat like the seafaring one we hoped he would join in conversation but at first he seemed too proud and there was something dignified about him bearded and like a viking that made it hard for us to begin at last he took his pipe out of his mouth and said here's a precious Crakers meeting he didn't sit down here for just to look at me I'm sure you look very nice Dora said same to you miss I'm sure was the polite reply we want to talk to you awfully said Alice if you don't mind talk away said he and then as so often happens no one could think of anything to say suddenly Noel said I think you look nice too but I think you look as though you had a secret history have you not me replied the viking looking stranger I ain't got no history nor geography neither they didn't give us that much schooling oh replied Noel but what I really meant was were you ever a pirate or anything never in all my born replied the stranger now thoroughly roused I'd scorn the haction I was in the Navy I was till I lost the side of my eye looking too close at gunpowder pirates is snakes and they ought to be killed as such we felt rather sorry for though of course it is very wrong to be a pirate it is very interesting too things are often like this that is one of the reasons why it is so hard to be truly good Dora was the only one who was pleased she said yes pirates are very wrong and so are high women and smugglers I don't know about high women the old man replied they went out of for my time worse luck but my father's great uncle by the mother's side he see one hanged once a fine upstanding fellow he was and made a speech while they was a fit in of the rope all the women were sniveling and throwing bouquets at him not likely said the old man women can't never shy straight but I shouldn't wonder but what the imposes heartened the chap up a bit afterwards they was all a fighting to get a bit of the rope he was hung with for luck do tell us some more about him said all of us but Dora I don't know no more about him he was just hung that's all they was precious fond of hanging in them far away times did you ever know a smuggler to speak to I mean ah that's telling said the old man and he winked at us all so then we instantly knew that the coast guards had been mistaken when they said there were no more smugglers now and that this brave old man would not betray his comrades even to friendly strangers like us but of course he could not know exactly how friendly we were so we told him Oswald said we love smugglers we wouldn't even tell a word about it if you would only tell us there used to be lots of smuggling on these here coasts when my father was a boy he said my own father's cousin his father took to the smuggling and he was a doing so well at it that what does he do but goes and gets married and the preventatives they goes and nabs him on his wedding day and walks him straight off from the church door and claps him in dover jail oh his poor wife said she whatever did she do nothing said the old man it's a woman's place not to do nothing till she's told to he'd done so well at the smuggling he'd saved enough by his honest toil to take a little public so she sets there a waitin' and attending to customers for well she knowed him as he wasn't the chap to let a bit of jail stand in the way of his station in life well it was three weeks to a day after the wedding there comes a dusty chap to the peel a bell's door we said we did and breathlessly added go on a dusty chap he was got a beard and a patch over one eye and he come of an afternoon when there was no one about the place but her hello mrs. says he got a room for a quiet chap I don't take in no men folks says she can't be bothered with him you'll be bothered with me if I'm not mistaken says he bothered if I will says she bothered if you won't says he he ups with his hand and off comes the black patch and he pulls off the beard and gives her a kiss and a smack on the shoulder she always said she nearly died when she see it was her new maid bridegroom under the beard so she took her own man in as a lodger and he went to work up at Upton's farm with his beard on and of nights he kept up the smuggling business and for a year or more no one knowed as it was him but they got him at last what became of him we all asked it said the old man but lord love you so's everybody has lived in them far off old ancient days all dead preventatives too and smugglers and gentry all gone under the daisies we felt quite sad Oswald hastily asked if there wasn't any smuggling now not hear abouts the old man answered rather quickly for him don't you go for to think about it but I did know a young chap quite young he is with blue eyes he got a goodish bit a backy and stuff done in an old shirt and as he was going up off the beach a coast guard jumps out at him and he says to himself all you pee this time says he but out loud he says hello jack that's you I thought she was a tramp says he what you got in that bundle says the coast guard my washing says he and a couple of pairs of old boots then the coast guard he says shall I give you a lift with it thinking in himself the other chap wouldn't part with it if it was anything it ought to be but that young chap was too sharp he says to himself if I don't he'll nail me and if I do well there's just a chance so he hands over the bundle and the coast guard he thinks it must be all right and he carries it all the way up to his mother's forum feeling sorry for the mean suspicions he had about the poor old chap but that didn't happen near here no no I was going to say old chap but I thought he was young with blue eyes but just at that minute a coast guard came along and ordered us quite harshly not to lean on the boat he was quite disagreeable about it how different from our own coast guards he was from a different station to theirs the old man got off very slowly and all the time he was arranging his long legs so as to stand on him the coast guard went on being disagreeable as hard as he could when our old man had told the coast guard that no one ever lost anything by keeping a civil tongue in his head we all went away feeling very angry Alice took the old man's hand as we went back to the village and asked him why the coast guard was so horrid they get some notions into their heads replied the old man the most innocent as people they comes to think things about it's a long of there being no smuggling in the easier parts now the coast guards ain't got nothing to do except think things about honest people we parted from the old man very warmly all shaking hands he lives at a cottage not quite in the village and keeps pigs we did not say goodbye till we had seen all the pigs I dare say we should not have gone on disliking that disagreeable coast guard so much if he had not come along one day when we were talking to our own coast guards and asked why they allowed a pack of young shavers in the boat house we went away we were in silent dignity but we did not forget and when we were in bed that night Oswald said don't you think it would be a good thing if the coast guards had something to do Dickie yawned and said he didn't know I should like to be a smuggler said Oswald oh yes go to sleep if you like but I've got an idea and if you'd rather be out of it I'll have Alice instead fire away said Dickie now full of attention and leaning on his elbows well then said Oswald you might be smugglers we've played all those things so jolly often said Dickie but I don't mean play said Oswald I mean the real thing of course we shall have to begin in quite a small way but we should get on in time and we might make quite a lot for poor Miss Sandle things that you smuggle are expensive said Dickie well we've got the chink the Indian Uncle sent us on Saturday I'm certain we could do it we've got someone to take us out at night fishing boats just tear across to France and buy a keg or a bale or something and rush back yes and get nabbed and put in prison not me said Dickie besides who'd take us that old Viking man would said Oswald but of course if you funk it I don't funk anything said Dickie bar making an ape out of myself keep your hair on Oswald look here suppose we get a keg with nothing in it we should have the laugh of that coast guard brute Oswald agreed but he made it a condition that we should call it the keg of brandy whatever was in it and Dickie consented smuggling is a manly sport and girls are not fitted for it by nature at least door is not and if we had told Alice she would have insisted on dressing as a boy and going to and we knew father would not like this and we thought Noelle and H.O. were too young to be smugglers with any hope of success so Dickie and I kept the idea to ourselves we went to see the Viking man the next day it took us some time to make him understand what we wanted but when he did understand he slapped his leg many times and very hard and declared that we were chips off the old block but I can't go for to let you he said if you was nailed it's the stone jug bless your hearts so then we explained about the keg really having only water in it and he slapped his leg harder than ever and it really had been painful to anyone but the hardened leg of an old sea dog but the water made his refusals weaker and at last he said well see here Benedin him is owns the Mary Sarah he's often took out a youngster or two for the knights fishing when their paws and maws had no objection you write your paw and ask if you may go for the knights fishing or you get Mr. Charteris to write he knows it's all right and is often done by visitors kids and his paw says yes I'll make it all right with Benedin but mind it's just a knights fishing no need to name no kegs that's just betwixt ourselves so we did exactly as he said Mr. Charteris is the clergyman he was quite nice about it and wrote for us and father said yes but be very careful and don't take the girls or the little ones we showed the girls the letter and that removed the trifling ill feeling that had grown up through Dick and me about kegs and not telling the others what was up of course we never breathed a word about kegs in public and only to each other in baited breaths what father said about not taking the girls or the little ones of course settled any wild ideas Alice might have had of going as a cabin girl the old viking man now completely interested in our scheme laid all the plans in the deepest laid way you can think he chose a very dark night fortunately there was one just coming on he chose the right time of the tide for starting and just in the grayness of the evening when sun has gone down and the sea somehow looks wetter than at any other time we put on our thick undershirts and then our thickest suits and football jerseys over everything because we had been told it would be very cold then we said goodbye to our sisters and the little ones and it was exactly like a picture of the Tars farewell because we had bundles with things to eat tied up and blue-checked tanker chips and we said goodbye to them at the gate and they would kiss us Dora said, goodbye I know you'll be drowned I hope you'll enjoy yourselves I'm sure Alice said, I do think it's perfectly beastly you might just as well have asked for me to go with you or you might have let us come and see you start men must work and women must weep replied Oswald with grim sadness and the viking said he wouldn't have us at all unless we could get aboard in a concealed manner like stowaways he said a lot of others would want to go too if they saw us we made our way to the beach and we tried to conceal ourselves as much as possible but several people did see us when we got to the boat we found she was manned by our viking and Benenden and a boy with red hair and they were running her down to the beach on rollers of course Dickey and I lent a hand shoving at the stern of the boat when the men said heave ho my merry boys all it wasn't exactly that that they said but it meant the same thing and we heaved like anything it was a proud moment when her nose touched the water and proud her still when only a small part of her stern remained on the beach and Mr. Benenden remarked all aboard the red boy gave a leg up to Dickey and me and clamored up himself then the two men gave the last shoves to the boat already cradled almost entirely in the bosom of the deep and as the very end of the keel grated off the pebbles into the water they leaped for the gunwale and hung on it with their high sea boots waving in the evening air by the time they had brought their legs on board and coiled a rope or two we chanced to look back and already the beach seemed quite a long way off we were really afloat our smuggling expedition was no longer a dream but a real realness Oswald felt almost too excited at first to be able to enjoy himself I hope you will understand this and not think the author is trying to express by roundabout means that the sea did not agree with Oswald this is not the case he was perfectly well the whole time it was Dickey who was not but he said it was the smell of the cabin and not the sea and I'm sure he thought what he said was true in fact that cabin was a bit stiff altogether and was almost the means of upsetting even Oswald it was about six feet square with bunks and an oil stove and heaps of old coats and tarpolin and sowwesters and things and it smelled of tar and fish and paraffin smoke and machinery oil and rooms where no one ever opens the window Oswald just put his nose in and that was all he had to go down later when some fish was cooked and eaten but by that time he had got what they call your sea legs but Oswald felt more as if he had got a sea waistcoat and he got rid of a land waistcoat that was too heavy and too tight I will not weary the reader by telling about how the nets are paid out and dragged in or about the tumbling shining heaps of fish that come up all alive over the side of the boat and it tips with their weight till you think it is going over it was a very good catch that night and Oswald is glad he saw it for it was very glorious Dickey was asleep in the cabin at the time and missed it it was getting ladish and Oswald, though thrilled in every marrow, was getting rather sleepy when old Benedict said there she is Oswald could see nothing at first but presently he saw a dark form on the smooth sea it turned out to be another boat she crept quietly up till she was alongside ours and then a keg was hastily hoisted from her to us a few words in low voices were exchanged Oswald only heard sure you ain't gave us the wrongan and several people laughed hoarsely on first going on board Oswald and Dickey had mentioned kegs and had been ordered to stow that so that Oswald had begun to fear that after all it was only a night's fishing and that his glorious idea had been abandoned but now he saw the keg his trembling heart was reassured it got colder and colder Dickey in the cabin was covered with several coats richly scented with fish and Oswald was glad to accept an oil skin and southwestern and to sit down on some spare nets until you are out on the sea at night you can never have any idea how big the world really is the sky looks higher up and the stars look farther off and even if you know it is only the english channel yet it is just as good for feeling small on as the most trackless atlantic or pacific even the fish helped to show the largeness of the world what do you think of the deep deepness of the dark sea they came out of in such rich perfusion the hold was full of fish after the second haul Oswald sat leaning against the precious keg and perhaps the bigness and quietness of everything had really rendered him unconscious but he did not know he was asleep until the viking man woke him up by kindly shaking him and saying here look alive was you thinking to beature with that there precious keg of yours and crying out to be broached so then Oswald browsed himself and the keg was rolled on to the fish where they lay filling the hold and armfuls of fish thrown over it is it really only water asked Oswald there is an awfully odd smell and indeed in spite of the many different smells that are natural to a fishing boat Oswald began to notice a strong scent of railway refreshment rooms of course it is only water said the viking what else would it be possibly to be and Oswald thinks he winked in the dark perhaps Oswald fell asleep again after this it was either that or deep thought anyway he was aroused from it by a bump and a soft grating sound and he thought at first the boat was being wrecked on a coral reef or something but almost directly he knew that the boat had merely come ashore in the proper manner so he jumped up you cannot push a boat out of the water like you push it in it has to be hauled up by a capstan if you don't know what that is the author is unable to explain but there is a picture of one when the boat was hauled up we got out and it was very odd to stretch your legs on land again it felt shakier than being on sea the red haired boy went off to get a cart to take the shining fish to market and Oswald decided to face the mixed up smells of that cabin and wait Dickie Dickie was not grateful to Oswald for his thoughtful kindness and letting him sleep through the perils of the deep and his own uncomfortableness he said I do think you might have waked a chap I've simply been out of everything Oswald did not answer his is a proud and self restraining nature he just said well hurry up now and see them cart the fish away so we hurried up and as Oswald came out of the cabin he heard strange voices and his heart leaped up like the persons who behold a rainbow in the sky for one of the voices was the voice of that inferior and unsailor like Coast Guard from Long Beach who had gone out of his way to be disagreeable to Oswald and his brothers and sisters on at least two occasions and now Oswald felt almost sure that his disagreeableness though not exactly curses were coming home to roost just as though they had been you're missing your beauty sleep stoats we heard our Viking remark I'm not missing anything else though replied the Coast Guard I have no stomach for fish thank you all the same replied Mr. Stokes coldly he walked up and down on the beach clapping his arms to keep himself warm going to see a sun loader asked Mr. Benenden if it's all the same to you answered the disagreeable Coast Guard he had to wait a long time for the cart did not come and did not come and kept on not coming for ages and ages when it did the men unloaded the men unloaded the boat carrying the fish by basketfuls to the cart everyone played up jolly well they took the fish from the side of the hold where the keg wasn't till there was quite a deep hole there and the other side where the keg really was looked like a mountain in comparison this could be plainly seen by the detested Coast Guard and by three of his companions who had now joined him it was beginning to be light not daylight but a sort of ghost light that you could see was the beginning of sunshine and the sky being blue again instead of black the hated Coast Guard got impatient he said you best own up it'll be the better for you it's bound to come out along the fish I know it's there we've had private information up at the station the game's up this time so don't you make no mistake Mr. Benenden and the viking and the boy looked at each other and what might your precious private information have been about asked Mr. Benenden brandy replied the Coast Guard stokes and he went and got on to the gun well and what's more I can smell it from here Oswald and Dickie drew near and the refreshment smell was stronger than ever and a brown corner of the keg was peeping out there you are cried the loathed one let's have that gentleman out if you please and then you'll all just come along or me remarking with the shrug of the shoulders that he supposed it was all up our viking scattered the fish that pulled the barrel and hoisted it out from its scaly bed that's about the size of it said the Coast Guard we did not like where's the rest that's all said Mr. Benenden we're poor men and we has to act according to our means we'll see the boat clear to her last timber if you've no objections said the detestable one I could see that our gallant crew were prepared to go through with the business more and more of the Coast Guards were collecting and I understood what the crew wanted was to go to the Coast Guard Station with that keg of pretending brandy and involved the whole of the Coast Guards of Long Beach in one complete and perfect cell but Dickie was sick of the entire business he really has not the proper soul for adventures and what soul he has had been damped by what he had gone through so he said look here there's nothing in that keg but water Oswald could have kicked him though he is his brother huh? replied the unloved one I haven't got a nose why it's oozing out of the bung-hole now as strong as Samson open it and see said Dickie disregarding Oswald's whispered instructions to him to shut up it is water what do you suppose I suppose you want to get water from the other side for you young duffer replied the brutal official there's plenty of water and despair this side it's French water replied Dickie madly it's ours my brothers in mine for us sailors indeed said the hateful coast guard you come along with me and our viking said he was something or othered but Ben and didn't whisper to him in a low voice that it was all right time was up no one heard this but me and the viking I want to go home said Dickie I don't want to come along with you what did you want water for was asked to try it to stand you a drink next time you ordered us off your beastly boat said Dickie and Oswald rejoiced to hear the roar of laughter that responded to this fortunate piece of cheek I suppose Dickie's face was so angel like innocent looking like stowaways and books that they had to believe him Oswald told him so afterwards and Dickie hid out anyway the keg was broached and sure enough it was water and seawater at that as the unamiable one said when he had tasted it out of a tin cup for nothing else would convince him but I smell brandy still he said wiping his mouth after the seawater our viking slowly drew a good size flat labeled bottle out of the front of his jersey from the old ship he said gently I may have spilled a drop or two here or there over the keg my hand not being very steady as is well known owing to spells of marsh fever as comes over me every six weeks to the day the coast guard that we never could bear said marsh fever be something or othered and his comrade said the same but they all blamed him and we were glad we went home sleepy but rejoicing the whole thing was as complete a cell as I ever wish to see of course we told our own dear and respected limb church coast guards and I think they may be trusted not to let it down on the long beach coast guards for many a good day if their memories get bad I think there will always be plenty of people along that coast to remind them so that's all right when we had told the girls all and born their approaches for not telling them before we decided to give the Viking five bob for the game way he had played up so we did he would not take it at first but when we said do you might buy a pig with it and call it stoves after that coast guard he can no longer resist and accepted our friendly gift we talked with him for a bit and when we were going we thanked him for being so jolly and helping us to plant out the repulsive coast guard so thoroughly then he said don't mention it tell your little gals what she was up to no said Oswald not till afterwards then you can hold your tongues well since you've acted so handsome about that their pig what's to be named for stoves I don't mind if I tells you something only mums the word we said we were quite sure it was well then said he leaning over the pig sty wall and rubbing the spotted pigs back with his stick it's an ill wind that blows good to nobody you see that night there was a little bird went and whispered to him up at Long Beach about our little bit of a keg so when we landed they was there of course said Oswald well if they was there they couldn't be somewhere else could they we owned that they could not I shouldn't wonder he went on but what a bit of a cargo was run that night further up the beach something as wasn't sea water I don't say it was so mind and mind you don't go for to say it then we understood that there is smuggling done still and that we had helped in it though quite without knowing we were jolly glad afterwards when we had that talk with father when he told us that the laws are made by the English people and it is dishonorable for an Englishman not to stick to them we saw that smuggling must be wrong but we have never been able to feel really sorry I do not know why this is end of story 10