"Well--so I thought if Noel"s a cowardy custard I"m not--and I wasn"t afraid of being in the basket, though it was quite dark till I cut the air-holes with my knife in the railway van. I think I cut the string off the label. It fell off afterwards, and I saw it through the hole, but of course I couldn"t say anything. I thought they"d look after their silly luggage better than that. It was all their fault I was lost."
"Tell us how you did it, H.O. dear," Dora said; "never mind about it being everybody else"s fault."
"It"s yours as much as any one"s, if you come to that," H.O. said. "You made me the clown dress when I asked you. You never said a word about not. So there!"
"Oh, H.O., you _are_ unkind!" Dora said. "You know you said it was for a surprise for the bridal pair."
"So it would have been, if they"d found me at Rome, and I"d popped up like what I meant to--like a jack-in-the-box--and said, "Here we are again!" in my clown"s clothes, at them. But it"s all spoiled, and father"s going to speak to me this evening." H.O. sniffed every time he stopped speaking. But we did not correct him then. We wanted to hear about everything.
"Why didn"t you tell me straight out what you were going to do?" d.i.c.ky asked.
"Because you"d jolly well have shut me up. You always do if I want to do anything you haven"t thought of yourself."
"What did you take with you, H.O.?" asked Alice in a hurry, for H.O. was now sniffing far beyond a whisper.
"Oh, I"d saved a lot of grub, only I forgot it at the last. It"s under the chest of drawers in our room. And I had my knife--and I changed into the clown"s dress in the cupboard at the Ashleighs--over my own things because I thought it would be cold. And then I emptied the rotten girl"s clothes out and hid them--and the top-hatted tray I just put it on a chair near, and I got into the basket, and I lifted the tray up over my head and sat down and fitted it down over me--it"s got webbing bars, you know, across it. And none of you would ever have thought of it, let alone doing it."
"I should hope not," Dora said, but H.O. went on unhearing.
"I began to think perhaps I wished I hadn"t directly they strapped up the basket. It was beastly hot and stuffy--I had to cut an air-hole in the cart, and I cut my thumb; it was so b.u.mpety. And they threw me about as if I was coals--and wrong way up as often as not. And the train was awful wobbly, and I felt so sick, and if I"d had the grub I couldn"t have eaten it. I had a bottle of water. And that was all right till I dropped the cork, and I couldn"t find it in the dark till the water got upset, and then I found the cork that minute.
"And when they dumped the basket on to the platform I was so glad to sit still a minute without being jogged I nearly went to sleep. And then I looked out, and the label was off, and lying close by. And then some one gave the basket a kick--big brute, I"d like to kick him!--and said, "What"s this here?" And I daresay I did squeak--like a rabbit-noise, you know--and then some one said, "Sounds like live-stock, don"t it? No label." And he was standing on the label all the time. I saw the string sticking out under his nasty boot. And then they trundled me off somewhere, on a wheelbarrow it felt like, and dumped me down again in a dark place--and I couldn"t see anything more."
"I wonder," said the thoughtful Oswald, "what made them think you were a dynamite machine?"
"Oh, that was awful!" H.O. said. "It was my watch. I wound it up, just for something to do. You know the row it makes since it was broken, and I heard some one say, "Shish! what"s that?" and then, "Sounds like an infernal machine"--don"t go shoving me, Dora, it was him said it, not me--and then, "If I was the inspector I"d dump it down in the river, so I would. Any way, let"s shift it." But the other said, "Let well alone,"
so I wasn"t dumped any more. And they fetched another man, and there was a heap of jaw, and I heard them say "Police," so I let them have it."
[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY LAUGHED EVER SO.]
"What _did_ you do?"
"Oh, I just kicked about in the basket, and I heard them all start off, and I shouted, "Hi, here! let me out, can"t you!""
"And did they?"
"Yes, but not for ever so long, I had to jaw at them through the cracks of the basket. And when they opened it there was quite a crowd, and they laughed ever so, and gave me bread and cheese, and said I was a plucky youngster--and I am, and I do wish Father wouldn"t put things off so. He might just as well have spoken to me this morning. And I can"t see I"ve done anything so awful--and it"s all your faults for not looking after me. Aren"t I your little brother? and it"s your duty to see I do what"s right. You"ve told me so often enough."
These last words checked the severe reprimand trembling on the hitherto patient Oswald"s lips. And then H.O. began to cry, and Dora nursed him, though generally he is much too big for this and knows it. And he went to sleep on her lap, and said he didn"t want any dinner.
When it came to Father"s speaking to H.O. that evening it never came off, because H.O. was ill in bed, not sham, you know, but real, send-for-the-doctor ill. The doctor said it was fever from chill and excitement, but I think myself it was very likely the things he ate at lunch, and the shaking up, and then the bread and cheese, and the beer out of a can.
He was ill a week. When he was better, not much was said. My Father, who is the justest man in England, said the boy had been punished enough--and so he had, for he missed going to the pantomime, and to "Shock-Headed Peter" at the Garrick Theatre, which is far and away the best play that ever was done, and quite different from any other acting I ever saw. They are exactly like real boys; I think they must have been reading about us. And he had to take a lot of the filthiest medicine I ever tasted. I wonder if Father told the doctor to make it nasty on purpose? A woman would have directly, but gentlemen are not generally so sly. Any way, you live and learn. None of us would now ever consent to be a stowaway, no matter who wanted us to, and I don"t think H.O."s very likely to do it again.
The only _meant_ punishment he had was seeing the clown"s dress burnt before his eyes by Father. He had bought it all with his own saved-up money, red tr.i.m.m.i.n.gs and all.
Of course, when he got well we soon taught him not to say again that it was any of our faults. As he owned himself, he _is_ our little brother, and we are not going to stand that kind of cheek from _him_.
_THE CONSCIENCE-PUDDING_
IT was Christmas, nearly a year after Mother died. I cannot write about Mother--but I will just say one thing. If she had only been away for a little while, and not for always, we shouldn"t have been so keen on having a Christmas. I didn"t understand this then, but I am much older now, and I think it was just because everything was so different and horrid we felt we _must_ do something; and perhaps we were not particular enough _what_. Things make you much more unhappy when you loaf about than when you are doing events.
Father had to go away just about Christmas. He had heard that his wicked partner, who ran away with his money, was in France, and he thought he could catch him, but really he was in Spain, where catching criminals is never practised. We did not know this till afterwards.
Before Father went away he took Dora and Oswald into his study, and said--
"I"m awfully sorry I"ve got to go away, but it is very serious business, and I must go. You"ll be good while I"m away, kiddies, won"t you?"
We promised faithfully. Then he said--
"There are reasons--you wouldn"t understand if I tried to tell you--but you can"t have much of a Christmas this year. But I"ve told Matilda to make you a good plain pudding. Perhaps next Christmas will be brighter."
(It was; for the next Christmas saw us the affluent nephews and nieces of an Indian uncle--but that is quite another story, as good old Kipling says.)
When Father had been seen off at Lewisham Station with his bags, and a plaid rug in a strap, we came home again, and it was horrid. There were papers and things littered all over his room where he had packed. We tidied the room up--it was the only thing we could do for him. It was d.i.c.ky who accidentally broke his shaving-gla.s.s, and H.O. made a paper boat out of a letter we found out afterwards Father particularly wanted to keep. This took us some time, and when we went into the nursery the fire was black out, and we could not get it alight again, even with the whole _Daily Chronicle_. Matilda, who was our general then, was out, as well as the fire, so we went and sat in the kitchen. There is always a good fire in kitchens. The kitchen hearthrug was not nice to sit on, so we spread newspapers on it.
It was sitting in the kitchen, I think, that brought to our minds my Father"s parting words--about the pudding, I mean.
Oswald said, "Father said we couldn"t have much of a Christmas for secret reasons, and he said he had told Matilda to make us a plain pudding."
The plain pudding instantly cast its shadow over the deepening gloom of our young minds.
"I wonder _how_ plain she"ll make it?" d.i.c.ky said.
"As plain as plain, you may depend," said Oswald. "A here-am-I-where-are-you pudding--that"s her sort."
The others groaned, and we gathered closer round the fire till the newspapers rustled madly.
"I believe I could make a pudding that _wasn"t_ plain, if I tried,"
Alice said. "Why shouldn"t we?"
"No c.h.i.n.k," said Oswald, with brief sadness.
"How much would it cost?" Noel asked, and added that Dora had twopence and H.O. had a French halfpenny.
Dora got the cookery-book out of the dresser drawer, where it lay doubled up among clothes-pegs, dirty dusters, scallop sh.e.l.ls, string, penny novelettes, and the dining-room corkscrew. The general we had then--it seemed as if she did all the cooking on the cookery-book instead of on the baking-board, there were traces of so many bygone meals upon its pages.
"It doesn"t say Christmas pudding at all," said Dora.
"Try plum," the resourceful Oswald instantly counselled.
Dora turned the greasy pages anxiously.
""Plum-pudding, 518.