George had to own that he had not learned that.
"But I know," said he, "that it has something to do with the Great Bear, and the Dipper, and the Plough, and Charles"s Wain."
"And what are they?" asked Jane.
"Oh, they"re the surnames of some of the star families. There goes a jolly rocket," answered George, and Jane felt as if she almost understood about the star families.
The fairy spears of light twinkled and gleamed: They were much prettier than the big, blaring, blazing bonfire that was smoking and flaming and spluttering in the next-door-but-one garden--prettier even than the colored fires at the Crystal Palace.
"I wish we could see them nearer," Jane said. "I wonder if the star families are nice families--the kind that Mother would like us to go to tea with, if we were little stars?"
"They aren"t that sort of families at all, Silly," said her brother, kindly trying to explain. "I only said "families" because a kid like you wouldn"t have understood if I"d said constel ... and, besides, I"ve forgotten the end of the word. Anyway, the stars are all up in the sky, so you can"t go to tea with them."
"No," said Jane. "I said if we were little stars."
"But we aren"t," said George.
"No," said Jane, with a sigh. "I know that. I"m not so stupid as you think, George. But the Tory Bories are somewhere at the edge. Couldn"t we go and see them?"
"Considering you"re eight, you haven"t much sense." George kicked his boots against the fencing to warm his toes. "It"s half the world away."
"It looks very near," said Jane, hunching up her shoulders to keep her neck warm.
"They"re close to the North Pole," said George. "Look here--I don"t care a straw about the Aurora Borealis, but I shouldn"t mind discovering the North Pole: It"s awfully difficult and dangerous, and then you come home and write a book about it with a lot of pictures, and everybody says how brave you are."
Jane got off the fence.
"Oh, George, _let"s_," she said. "We shall never have such a chance again--all alone by ourselves--and quite late, too."
"I"d go right enough if it wasn"t for you," George answered gloomily, "but you know they always say I lead you into mischief--and if we went to the North Pole we should get our boots wet, as likely as not, and you remember what they said about not going on the gra.s.s."
"They said the _lawn_," said Jane. "We"re not going on the _lawn_. Oh, George, do, do let"s. It doesn"t look so _very_ far--we could be back before they had time to get dreadfully angry."
"All right," said George, "but mind, I don"t want to go."
So off they went. They got over the fence, which was very cold and white and shiny because it was beginning to freeze, and on the other side of the fence was somebody else"s garden, so they got out of that as quickly as they could, and beyond that was a field where there was another big bonfire, with people standing around it who looked quite dark-skinned.
"It"s like Indians," said George, and wanted to stop and look, but Jane pulled him on, and they pa.s.sed by the bonfire and got through a gap in the hedge into another field--a dark one; and far away, beyond quite a number of other dark fields, the Northern Lights shone and sparkled and twinkled.
Now, during the winter the Arctic regions come much farther south than they are marked on the map. Very few people know this, though you would think they could tell it by the ice in the jugs of a morning. And just when George and Jane were starting for the North Pole, the Arctic regions had come down very nearly as far as Forest Hill, so that, as the children walked on, it grew colder and colder, and presently they saw that the fields were covered with snow, and there were great icicles hanging from all the hedges and gates. And the Northern Lights still seemed some way off.
They were crossing a very rough, snowy field when Jane first noticed the animals. There were white rabbits and white hares and all sorts and sizes of white birds, and some larger creatures in the shadows of the hedges that Jane was sure were wolves and bears.
"Polar bears and Arctic wolves, of course I mean," she said, for she did not want George to think her stupid again.
There was a great hedge at the end of this field, all covered with snow and icicles; but the children found a place where there was a hole, and as no bears or wolves seemed to be just in that part of the hedge, they crept through and scrambled out of the frozen ditch on the other side.
And then they stood still and held their breath with wonder.
For in front of them, running straight and smooth right away to the Northern Lights, lay a great wide road of pure dark ice, and on each side were tall trees all sparkling with white frost, and from the boughs of the trees hung strings of stars threaded on fine moonbeams, and shining so brightly that it was like a beautiful fairy daylight. Jane said so; but George said it was like the electric lights at the Earl"s Court Exhibition.
The rows of trees went as straight as ruled lines away--away and away--and at the other end of them shone the Aurora Borealis.
There was a signpost of silvery snow, and on it in letters of pure ice the children read: THIS WAY TO THE NORTH POLE.
Then George said: "Way or no way, I know a slide when I see one--so here goes." And he took a run on the frozen snow, and Jane took a run when she saw him do it, and the next moment they were sliding away, each with feet half a yard apart, along the great slide that leads to the North Pole.
This great slide is made for the convenience of the Polar bears, who, during the winter months, get their food from the Army and Navy Stores--and it is the most perfect slide in the world. If you have never come across it, it is because you have never let off fireworks on the eleventh of December, and have never been thoroughly naughty and disobedient. But do not be these things in the hope of finding the great slide--because you might find something quite different, and then you will be sorry.
The great slide is like common slides in that when once you have started you have to go on to the end--unless you fall down--and then it hurts just as much as the smaller kind on ponds. The great slide runs downhill all the way, so that you keep on going faster and faster and faster. George and Jane went so fast that they had not time to notice the scenery. They only saw the long lines of frosted trees and the starry lamps, and on each side, rushing back as they slid on, a very broad, white world and a very large, black night; and overhead as well as in the trees the stars were bright like silver lamps, and far ahead shone and trembled and sparkled the line of fairy spears. Jane said that, and George said: "I can see the Northern Lights quite plain."
It is very pleasant to slide and slide and slide on clear, dark ice--especially if you feel you are really going somewhere, and more especially if that somewhere is the North Pole. The children"s feet made no noise on the ice, and they went on and on in a beautiful white silence. But suddenly the silence was shattered and a cry rang out over the snow.
"Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and he fell down at once, because it is the only way to stop. Jane fell on top of him--and then they crawled on hands and knees to the snow at the edge of the slide--and there was a sportsman, dressed in a peaked cap and a frozen moustache, like the one you see in the pictures about Ice-Peter, and he had a gun in his hand.
"You don"t happen to have any bullets about you?" said he.
"No," George said, truthfully. "I had five of father"s revolver cartridges, but they were taken away the day Nurse turned out my pockets to see if I had taken the k.n.o.b of the bathroom door by mistake."
"Quite so," said the sportsman, "these accidents will occur. You don"t carry firearms, then, I presume?"
"I haven"t any fire_arms_," said George, "but I have a fire_work_. It"s only a squib one of the boys gave me, if that"s any good." And he began to feel among the string and peppermints, and b.u.t.tons and tops and nibs and chalk and foreign postage stamps in his knickerbocker pockets.
"One could but try," the sportsman replied, and he held out his hand.
But Jane pulled at her brother"s jacket-tail and whispered, "Ask him what he wants it for."
So then the sportsman had to confess that he wanted the firework to kill the white grouse with; and, when they came to look, there was the white grouse himself, sitting in the snow, looking quite pale and careworn, and waiting anxiously for the matter to be decided one way or the other.
George put all the things back in his pockets, and said, "No, I shan"t.
The reason for shooting him stopped yesterday--I heard Father say so--so it wouldn"t be fair, anyhow. I"m very sorry; but I can"t--so there!"
The sportsman said nothing, only he shook his fist at Jane, and then he got on the slide and tried to go toward the Crystal Palace--which was not easy, because that way is uphill. So they left him trying, and went on.
Before they started, the white grouse thanked them in a few pleasant, well-chosen words, and then they took a sideways slanting run and started off again on the great slide, and so away toward the North Pole and the twinkling, beautiful lights.
The great slide went on and on, and the lights did not seem to come much nearer, and the white silence wrapped around them as they slid along the wide, icy path. Then once again the silence was broken to bits by someone calling: "Hey! You there! Stop!"
"Tumble for your life!" cried George, and tumbled as before, stopping in the only possible way, and Jane stopped on top of him, and they crawled to the edge and came suddenly on a b.u.t.terfly collector, who was looking for specimens with a pair of blue gla.s.ses and a blue net and a blue book with colored plates.
"Excuse me," said the collector, "but have you such a thing as a needle about you--a very long needle?"
"I have a needle _book_," replied Jane, politely, "but there aren"t any needles in it now. George took them all to do the things with pieces of cork--in the "Boy"s Own Scientific Experimenter" and "The Young Mechanic." He did not do the things, but he did for the needles."
"Curiously enough," said the collector, "I too wish to use the needle in connection with cork."
"I have a hatpin in my hood," said Jane. "I fastened the fur with it when it caught in the nail on the greenhouse door. It is very long and sharp--would that do?"