We felt rather better when we had had a good splash in the brick-paved back kitchen that Miss Sandal calls the bath-room. 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 part of the house before Mrs. Beale came.
"I wish we"d tried to live the higher life some less beastly way," said d.i.c.ky as we went along the pa.s.sage.
"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 at 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 lodgings 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 jewellery except a brooch of pewter, and the very teaspoons were of wood--very hard to keep clean and having to be sc.r.a.ped.
"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 lark," said Alice, "and is wondering why brekker isn"t ready."
So then we listened at the sitting-room doors, and through the keyhole of the parlour we heard a noise of some one moving, and then in a soft whistle the tune of the "Would I were a bird" song.
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 "Krikey," which was what we all thought.
I have read of people who could not believe their eyes; and I have always thought it such 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 gentleman 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.
The 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 coloured chalk--I don"t mean mixed up, like we do with our chalks--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. Beale"s," said Noel. "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 b.u.t.terflies, and ballet girls with b.u.t.terflies" 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, and 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 angel"s. 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, the door of the other room opened, and the gentleman stood before us, more covered with different-coloured chalks 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 every one.
"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.
[Ill.u.s.tration: "THEN I"LL _MAKE_ YOU!" HE SAID, CATCHING HOLD OF OSWALD.]
"You jolly well won"t," cried d.i.c.ky, 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. We 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 Mill!" 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. Beale.
And we thumped Dora on the back, and d.i.c.ky 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 that you must pretend to humour them, and then get away, for of course I saw at 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 pa.s.sed, and we got Alice to take off her red flannel petticoat for a signal.
The first people who came were two men in a dog-cart. We waved the signalising 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 came over, and the other went to the house.
"Come along down, young ladies and gentlemen," said the second man when 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 gentleman."
"How did he get away?" Alice asked.
"Well, miss, the poor gentleman"s brother got hurt and Mr.
Sidney--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. Sidney 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. Oughtn"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? Gee up!"
And he left us.