"And if both Tib and Gussie fell in I would pull them both out," said Gerald, feeling, I suppose, that he had been left rather out in the cold.
Grandpapa, who had been poking at the back of the pit with his stick, turned sharp round upon us. "Children," he said, "listen to me. If one of you, or two of you, or all of you fell into one of those ponds, you would be drowned--as certainly as that I am standing here, you would be drowned. They are very, _very_ deep--there would be no chance of saving you, far less than in a larger piece of water, even if it were as deep.
I cannot have the pits filled up nor railed round, for the place does not belong to me, and I cannot ask anything of the person it does belong to. All I can do is to make you promise--to make you give your word of honour, if you know what that means--that you will never come here alone, and never try to reach flowers; if you come this way with nurse, you must pa.s.s by as quickly as possible. Now, do you hear? Do you quite understand? Have I your promise?"
We all stood still, looking and feeling rather frightened.
"Do you promise?" repeated grandpapa.
"Yes, grandpapa," we all said together, "we do promise."
"That"s right," he said, and then we all walked on in silence.
Grandpapa"s earnestness had impressed us. I think the same thought was in all our minds: "He must love us, after all, or he would not be so afraid of our being drowned." I don"t think we had ever felt ourselves of so much consequence before.
"Was ever anybody drowned in those pools, please, grandpapa?" I ventured to ask.
"Not that I know of," he said; "but two or three cows have been drowned there. The place is exceedingly dangerous--it is a shame to leave it so.
I shall speak to Farmer Blake about it when he comes into possession."
Then we went in to tea, and early the next morning grandpapa went back to London.
But oh! I am forgetting--before he went he told us another thing. Our holidays were over already. He had found us another Miss Evans! No; I am joking. It was not quite so bad as that. He _couldn"t_ find another Miss Evans, so he had had to make another plan. We were to have a tutor instead of a governess; and I don"t think we were sorry to hear it.
The tutor was a young man living in the town, two stations from _our_ station, and he was to come every morning, except Sat.u.r.day, for two hours. That wasn"t so bad, was it? He wasn"t to come before half-past ten, so we could have an hour and a half"s play in our dear garden before he came, and all the afternoons to ourselves; for we were quite sure we could do all the preparing of our lessons in the evening, and grandpapa had always been very sensible about not wanting us to have too many lessons to do.
It turned out very well. Mr. Markham began to come that very week, but he was really very nice, and he didn"t give us too much to do, though what he did give was pretty hard, for he would have it done very well.
Only when we did try he was pleased, and told us so. But of course we did not see very much of him, as he was very busy at his home, and he had to leave as soon as ever lessons were over, to get back in time.
We went on with our fancy play in the tangle. In the mornings it was hardly worth while beginning it, for if you have ever played at that sort of game you will know that it needs a comfortable feeling of plenty of time before you can get into it properly. We should have liked to dress up a little for it, but nurse wouldn"t let us do so till the weather was warmer, and we were obliged to promise her never to take off our hats and jackets in the garden for fear of catching cold. We were more in danger of "catching hot," Gerald told her, for we really worked pretty hard, particularly at getting the summer-house into order. We got some nails and a hammer from Mrs. Munt, and hammered the broken seats together again; we fastened on the door rather cleverly by making hinges of an old leather belt of Gerald"s, and we put up one or two shelves on the walls, as we called them, on which the princess, or heiress--we called her sometimes one, and sometimes the other--could keep her tea-cups and saucers in her tower. These tea-cups and saucers were the remains of an old toy set, which Mrs. Munt had found and given us to play with--no doubt, Tib and I said to each other, the "young ladies"
had played with them long ago!
Then we "carted" heaps of dry leaves from one corner, where they were really dry and not sodden, to make a bed for her. This carting was an uncertain sort of business, for we had to be content with Gerald"s wheelbarrow, which was painfully low and little, except when we could get hold of the gardener"s standing about. And _his_ was, on the contrary, disagreeably heavy and big. But at last, one fine afternoon we came to an end of our labours, and stood surveying them with considerable satisfaction.
"It really looks quite nice and comfortable," Tib said. "I really think to-morrow the baron may carry her off to the tower--he"s to pretend, you know, to be only taking her out a walk in her litter."
"A _walk_ in a litter," I said; "why, a litter"s a lying-down-in thing, and we haven"t got anything the least like one."
"Well, then, a walk on her feet," said Tib, testily; "that did very well the other day," for you must understand that we had acted it all several times, and then we found what was wanting in the way of scenery, &c.
"If only we had the dungeon," she went on. "It"s a very poor pretence to call those steps the dungeon--besides, they"re horribly damp and dirty."
"Oh, for that part of it, all the better," I said. "Dungeons always are damp and dirty."
"But my frock?" said Tib, ruefully. "I _can"t_ sit down on those steps without getting it horribly spoilt. If we could but get into the tool-house!"
Gerald, who was standing beside us--we were close to the door in the wall--gave a sudden exclamation and darted off. Tib and I looked at each other in surprise. "What"s the matter with him?" we said. But he was back again in a moment, holding something in his hand. As he came near us he put both his hands behind his back.
"I"ve got something," he said. "I"d forgot about it. It was the day you teased me I found it. And I hid it, and I was afraid it was lost among the leaves, and all that, but it wasn"t. I"d hidden it safe. Guess what it is."
We tried, but we couldn"t. Gerald raised his hand slowly. "Shut your eyes," he said; and we shut them. "Now open them;" we opened them. "What is it?" we said, breathlessly.
"The key of the door!" he said, solemnly.
"The key of the tool-house!" exclaimed Tib. "How do you know it is it?
Where did you find it?"
"I found it among the p.r.i.c.kly things on the floor of the summer-house,"
he replied. "It"s quite dry and clean, see!" and so it was, as if it had been packed in sawdust.
"But how do you know what key it is?" we asked.
"I tried it--I stayed behind a minute that day; you didn"t notice. It is the key. It fits _pairfittly_," said Gerald. "Only it"s very stiff, and my hands wasn"t quite strong enough. If we all try, perhaps."
He put the key into the lock. Yes, it was evident it _was_ the key, lost for who knows how many years. How queer that no one had ever had another made; there was another tool-house, and one was enough, perhaps. But still, it did seem queer. First Tib, then I, tried to turn it, but it was no use.
"If we put a stick through the end of the key, we might turn it that way."
"But it might break it; don"t you remember we broke the nursery door key in London by trying to turn it with a tooth-brush handle?" I said. "It wants oiling, Tib--that"s it; not the key, perhaps, but the lock. We must wait till to-morrow, and get some oil in one of the doll"s cups, and a feather, and then I"m sure it"ll do. But what a bother to have to wait till to-morrow!"
There was no help for it, however. Wait till to-morrow we must.
CHAPTER VI.
OPEN, SESAME.
"I know thee not; but well my heart Interprets, darling, what thou art; Light of some old ancestral hall, Queen-gem of some proud coronal!
For, certes, such a perfect grace, Such l.u.s.trous loveliness of face, Such artless majesty as thine Proclaims thee of no sordid line!"
_The Unknown Portrait_--SIR NOEL PATON.
There was time the next morning, before Mr. Markham came, for coaxing a little oil out of Mrs. Munt, and fetching a feather from the poultry-yard, but for no more. For Mrs. Munt, kind as she was, very naturally objected to giving us the oil in one of the best tea-cups, which Gerald had brought for the purpose, thinking it must be "an old one," which it was indeed, though not in his sense of the word. So Tib ran off to the princess"s tower for one of the doll ones, and Gerald and I went in the other direction for a long feather. And by the time that we were ready for operations, it was within a quarter of an hour of lessons, and being rather sensible children in some ways--we had early learnt experience and responsibility in our own affairs, having no one to advise or arrange for us in such matters--we decided it was better to wait till we were sure of plenty of, and uninterrupted, time.
"You see, if f.a.n.n.y came shouting for us just as we had got into the tool-house, she might see it, and it would be no longer a private place of our own; we must keep it quite for our own," I said.
"_Certainly_," said Tib. "You know I asked grandpapa about it, and he didn"t seem to mind."
But lessons that morning did go very slowly. Once or twice Mr. Markham had to call us to attention, and there was even a slight threat on his part of "extra work to be done for to-morrow," if the rest of our preparation should not prove better done. It was not the fault of the preparation--which had been done as well as usual--it was that our heads were all agog over the tool-house! But we pulled up after this, and things ended fairly well.
And at last--though not till after our dinner, for we were never allowed more than "a run," and that well within view of the schoolroom window, between lessons and dinner--we found ourselves again in safety before the door in the wall--oil-cup and feather in hand.
We set to work methodically--with the help of nurse"s largest scissors and a skewer--how Gerald had got the skewer I don"t know: we raked out all the little bits of dirt and rubbish that had collected in the lock; then we oiled it as thoroughly as we knew how, though under the circ.u.mstances this was certainly a process of working in the dark. Then we carefully inserted the key--it went in to perfection, but we all looked at each other, and grew hot with excitement when it came to the moment for trying to turn it.
Tib as the eldest had the first try--a barren honour; she hurt her hands over it, but it would not move--not a hair"s breadth! Then it came to me. I have larger hands than Tib, and stronger muscles; I fancy I set to work in a more business-like manner. With me the key turned--with groans and grunts, it must be allowed--but still it turned--half-way!
then I too looked blank. Fortunately it did not refuse to turn back again, and then I took it out and looked at it reproachfully.
Gerald laid hands on it. It was _his_ turn, but what I had failed in, it was not likely his little, fat, stumpy paws would achieve. But Gerald is sharp in some ways. He first examined the key all over. Then he took up the oily feather again.