You have no idea how uncomfortable the house was on the day when we sought for gold with the divining-rod. It was like a spring-cleaning in the winter-time. All the carpets were up, because Father had told Eliza to make the place decent as there was a gentleman coming to dinner the next day. So she got in a charwoman, and they slopped water about, and left brooms and brushes on the stairs for people to tumble over. H. O. got a big bump on his head in that way, and when he said it was too bad, Eliza said he should keep in the nursery then, and not be where he’d no business. We bandaged his head with a towel, and then he stopped crying and played at being England’s wounded hero dying in the cockpit, while every man was doing his duty, as the hero had told them to, and Alice was Hardy, and I was the doctor, and the others were the crew. Playing at Hardy made us think of our own dear robber, and we wished he was there, and wondered if we should ever see him any more.
We were rather astonished at Father’s having anyone to dinner, because now he never seems to think of anything but business. Before Mother died people often came to dinner, and Father’s business did not take up so much of his time and was not the bother it is now. And we used to see who could go furthest down in our nightgowns and get nice things to eat, without being seen, out of the dishes as they came out of the dining-room. Eliza can’t cook very nice things. She told Father she was a good plain cook, but he says it was a fancy portrait. We stayed in the nursery till the charwoman came in and told us to be off—she was going to make one job of it, and have our carpet up as well as all the others, now the man was here to beat them. It came up, and it was very dusty—and under it we found my threepenny-bit that I lost ages ago, which shows what Eliza is. H. O. had got tired of being the wounded hero, and Dicky was so tired of doing nothing that Dora said she knew he’d begin to tease Noel in a minute; then of course Dicky said he wasn’t going to tease anybody—he was going out to the Heath. He said he’d heard that nagging women drove a man from his home, and now he found it was quite true. Oswald always tries to be a peacemaker, so he told Dicky to shut up and not make an ass of himself. And Alice said, ‘Well, Dora began’—And Dora tossed her chin up and said it wasn’t any business of Oswald’s any way, and no one asked Alice’s opinion. So we all felt very uncomfortable till Noel said, ‘Don’t let’s quarrel about nothing. You know let dogs delight—and I made up another piece while you were talking—
Quarrelling is an evil thing,It fills with gall life’s cup;For when once you beginIt takes such a long time to make it up.’
We all laughed then and stopped jawing at each other. Noel is very funny with his poetry. But that piece happened to come out quite true. You begin to quarrel and then you can’t stop; often, long before the others are ready to cry and make it up, I see how silly it is, and I want to laugh; but it doesn’t do to say so—for it only makes the others crosser than they were before. I wonder why that is?
Alice said Noel ought to be poet laureate, and she actually went out in the cold and got some laurel leaves—the spotted kind—out of the garden, and Dora made a crown and we put it on him. He was quite pleased; but the leaves made a mess, and Eliza said, ‘Don’t.’ I believe that’s a word grown-ups use more than any other. Then suddenly Alice thought of that old idea of hers for finding treasure, and she said—‘Do let’s try the divining-rod.’
So Oswald said, ‘Fair priestess, we do greatly desire to find gold beneath our land, therefore we pray thee practise with the divining-rod, and tell us where we can find it.’
‘Do ye desire to fashion of it helms and hauberks?’ said Alice.
‘Yes,’ said Noel; ‘and chains and ouches.’
‘I bet you don’t know what an “ouch” is,’ said Dicky.
‘Yes I do, so there!’ said Noel. ‘It’s a carcanet. I looked it out in the dicker, now then!’ We asked him what a carcanet was, but he wouldn’t say.
‘And we want to make fair goblets of the gold,’ said Oswald.
‘Yes, to drink coconut milk out of,’ said H. O.
‘And we desire to build fair palaces of it,’ said Dicky.
‘And to buy things,’ said Dora; ‘a great many things. New Sunday frocks and hats and kid gloves and—’
She would have gone on for ever so long only we reminded her that we hadn’t found the gold yet.
By this Alice had put on the nursery tablecloth, which is green, and tied the old blue and yellow antimacassar over her head, and she said—
‘If your intentions are correct, fear nothing and follow me.’
And she went down into the hall. We all followed chanting ‘Heroes.’ It is a gloomy thing the girls learnt at the High School, and we always use it when we want a priestly chant.
Alice stopped short by the hat-stand, and held up her hands as well as she could for the tablecloth, and said—
‘Now, great altar of the golden idol, yield me the divining-rod that I may use it for the good of the suffering people.’
The umbrella-stand was the altar of the golden idol, and it yielded her the old school umbrella. She carried it between her palms.
‘Now,’ she said, ‘I shall sing the magic chant. You mustn’t say anything, but just follow wherever I go—like follow my leader, you know—and when there is gold underneath the magic rod will twist in the hand of the priestess like a live thing that seeks to be free. Then you will dig, and the golden treasure will be revealed. H. O., if you make that clatter with your boots they’ll come and tell us not to. Now come on all of you.’
So she went upstairs and down and into every room. We followed her on tiptoe, and Alice sang as she went. What she sang is not out of a book—Noel made it up while she was dressing up for the priestess.
Ashen rod coldThat here I hold,Teach me where to find the gold.
When we came to where Eliza was, she said, ‘Get along with you’; but Dora said it was only a game, and we wouldn’t touch anything, and our boots were quite clean, and Eliza might as well let us. So she did.
It was all right for the priestess, but it was a little dull for the rest of us, because she wouldn’t let us sing, too; so we said we’d had enough of it, and if she couldn’t find the gold we’d leave off and play something else. The priestess said, ‘All right, wait a minute,’ and went on singing. Then we all followed her back into the nursery, where the carpet was up and the boards smelt of soft soap. Then she said, ‘It moves, it moves! Once more the choral hymn!’ So we sang ‘Heroes’ again, and in the middle the umbrella dropped from her hands.
‘The magic rod has spoken,’ said Alice; ‘dig here, and that with courage and despatch.’ We didn’t quite see how to dig, but we all began to scratch on the floor with our hands, but the priestess said, ‘Don’t be so silly! It’s the place where they come to do the gas. The board’s loose. Dig an you value your lives, for ere sundown the dragon who guards this spoil will return in his fiery fury and make you his unresisting prey.’
So we dug—that is, we got the loose board up. And Alice threw up her arms and cried—
‘See the rich treasure—the gold in thick layers, with silver and diamonds stuck in it!’
‘Like currants in cake,’ said H. O.
‘It’s a lovely treasure,’ said Dicky yawning. ‘Let’s come back and carry it away another day.’
But Alice was kneeling by the hole.
‘Let me feast my eyes on the golden splendour,’ she said, ‘hidden these long centuries from the human eye. Behold how the magic rod has led us to treasures more—Oswald, don’t push so!—more bright than ever monarch—I say, thereissomething down there, really. I saw it shine!’
We thought she was kidding, but when she began to try to get into the hole, which was much too small, we saw she meant it, so I said, ‘Let’s have a squint,’ and I looked, but I couldn’t see anything, even when I lay down on my stomach. The others lay down on their stomachs too and tried to see, all but Noel, who stood and looked at us and said we were the great serpents come down to drink at the magic pool. He wanted to be the knight and slay the great serpents with his good sword—he even drew the umbrella ready—but Alice said, ‘All right, we will in a minute. But now—I’m sure I saw it; do get a match, Noel, there’s a dear.’
‘What did you see?’ asked Noel, beginning to go for the matches very slowly.
‘Something bright, away in the corner under the board against the beam.’
‘Perhaps it was a rat’s eye,’ Noel said, ‘or a snake’s,’ and we did not put our heads quite so close to the hole till he came back with the matches.
Then I struck a match, and Alice cried, ‘There it is!’ And there it was, and it was a half-sovereign, partly dusty and partly bright. We think perhaps a mouse, disturbed by the carpets being taken up, may have brushed the dust of years from part of the half-sovereign with his tail. We can’t imagine how it came there, only Dora thinks she remembers once when H. O. was very little Mother gave him some money to hold, and he dropped it, and it rolled all over the floor. So we think perhaps this was part of it. We were very glad. H. O. wanted to go out at once and buy a mask he had seen for fourpence. It had been a shilling mask, but now it was going very cheap because Guy Fawkes’ Day was over, and it was a little cracked at the top. But Dora said, ‘I don’t know that it’s our money. Let’s wait and ask Father.’
But H. O. did not care about waiting, and I felt for him. Dora is rather like grown-ups in that way; she does not seem to understand that when you want a thing you do want it, and that you don’t wish to wait, even a minute.
So we went and asked Albert-next-door’s uncle. He was pegging away at one of the rotten novels he has to write to make his living, but he said we weren’t interrupting him at all.
‘My hero’s folly has involved him in a difficulty,’ he said. ‘It is his own fault. I will leave him to meditate on the incredible fatuity—the hare-brained recklessness—which have brought him to this pass. It will be a lesson to him. I, meantime, will give myself unreservedly to the pleasures of your conversation.’
That’s one thing I like Albert’s uncle for. He always talks like a book, and yet you can always understand what he means. I think he is more like us, inside of his mind, than most grown-up people are. He can pretend beautifully. I never met anyone else so good at it, except our robber, and we began it, with him. But it was Albert’s uncle who first taught us how to make people talk like books when you’re playing things, and he made us learn to tell a story straight from the beginning, not starting in the middle like most people do. So now Oswald remembered what he had been told, as he generally does, and began at the beginning, but when he came to where Alice said she was the priestess, Albert’s uncle said—
‘Let the priestess herself set forth the tale in fitting speech.’
So Alice said, ‘O high priest of the great idol, the humblest of thy slaves took the school umbrella for a divining-rod, and sang the song of inver—what’s-it’s-name?’
‘Invocation perhaps?’ said Albert’s uncle. ‘Yes; and then I went about and about and the others got tired, so the divining-rod fell on a certain spot, and I said, “Dig”, and we dug—it was where the loose board is for the gas men—and then there really and truly was a half-sovereign lying under the boards, and here it is.’
Albert’s uncle took it and looked at it.
‘The great high priest will bite it to see if it’s good,’ he said, and he did. ‘I congratulate you,’ he went on; ‘you are indeed among those favoured by the Immortals. First you find half-crowns in the garden, and now this. The high priest advises you to tell your Father, and ask if you may keep it. My hero has become penitent, but impatient. I must pull him out of this scrape. Ye have my leave to depart.’
Of course we know from Kipling that that means, ‘You’d better bunk, and be sharp about it,’ so we came away. I do like Albert’s uncle.
I shall be like that when I’m a man. He gave us our Jungle books, and he is awfully clever, though he does have to write grown-up tales.
We told Father about it that night. He was very kind. He said we might certainly have the half-sovereign, and he hoped we should enjoy ourselves with our treasure-trove.
Then he said, ‘Your dear Mother’s Indian Uncle is coming to dinner here to-morrow night. So will you not drag the furniture about overhead, please, more than you’re absolutely obliged; and H. O. might wear slippers or something. I can always distinguish the note of H. O.‘s boots.’
We said we would be very quiet, and Father went on—
‘This Indian Uncle is not used to children, and he is coming to talk business with me. It is really important that he should be quiet. Do you think, Dora, that perhaps bed at six for H. O. and Noel—’
But H. O. said, ‘Father, I really and truly won’t make a noise. I’ll stand on my head all the evening sooner than disturb the Indian Uncle with my boots.’
And Alice said Noel never made a row anyhow. So Father laughed and said, ‘All right.’ And he said we might do as we liked with the half-sovereign. ‘Only for goodness’ sake don’t try to go in for business with it,’ he said. ‘It’s always a mistake to go into business with an insufficient capital.’
We talked it over all that evening, and we decided that as we were not to go into business with our half-sovereign it was no use not spending it at once, and so we might as well have a right royal feast. The next day we went out and bought the things. We got figs, and almonds and raisins, and a real raw rabbit, and Eliza promised to cook it for us if we would wait till tomorrow, because of the Indian Uncle coming to dinner. She was very busy cooking nice things for him to eat. We got the rabbit because we are so tired of beef and mutton, and Father hasn’t a bill at the poultry shop. And we got some flowers to go on the dinner-table for Father’s party. And we got hardbake and raspberry noyau and peppermint rock and oranges and a coconut, with other nice things. We put it all in the top long drawer. It is H. O.‘s play drawer, and we made him turn his things out and put them in Father’s old portmanteau. H. O. is getting old enough now to learn to be unselfish, and besides, his drawer wanted tidying very badly. Then we all vowed by the honour of the ancient House of Bastable that we would not touch any of the feast till Dora gave the word next day. And we gave H. O. some of the hardbake, to make it easier for him to keep his vow. The next day was the most rememorable day in all our lives, but we didn’t know that then. But that is another story. I think that is such a useful way to know when you can’t think how to end up a chapter. I learnt it from another writer named Kipling. I’ve mentioned him before, I believe, but he deserves it!
It was all very well for Father to ask us not to make a row because the Indian Uncle was coming to talk business, but my young brother’s boots are not the only things that make a noise. We took his boots away and made him wear Dora’s bath slippers, which are soft and woolly, and hardly any soles to them; and of course we wanted to see the Uncle, so we looked over the banisters when he came, and we were as quiet as mice—but when Eliza had let him in she went straight down to the kitchen and made the most awful row you ever heard, it sounded like the Day of judgement, or all the saucepans and crockery in the house being kicked about the floor, but she told me afterwards it was only the tea-tray and one or two cups and saucers, that she had knocked over in her flurry. We heard the Uncle say, ‘God bless my soul!’ and then he went into Father’s study and the door was shut—we didn’t see him properly at all that time.
I don’t believe the dinner was very nice. Something got burned I’m sure—for we smelt it. It was an extra smell, besides the mutton.
I know that got burned. Eliza wouldn’t have any of us in the kitchen except Dora—till dinner was over. Then we got what was left of the dessert, and had it on the stairs—just round the corner where they can’t see you from the hall, unless the first landing gas is lighted. Suddenly the study door opened and the Uncle came out and went and felt in his greatcoat pocket. It was his cigar-case he wanted. We saw that afterwards. We got a much better view of him then. He didn’t look like an Indian but just like a kind of brown, big Englishman, and of course he didn’t see us, but we heard him mutter to himself—
‘Shocking bad dinner! Eh!—what?’
When he went back to the study he didn’t shut the door properly. That door has always been a little tiresome since the day we took the lock off to get out the pencil sharpener H. O. had shoved into the keyhole. We didn’t listen—really and truly—but the Indian Uncle has a very big voice, and Father was not going to be beaten by a poor Indian in talking or anything else—so he spoke up too, like a man, and I heard him say it was a very good business, and only wanted a little capital—and he said it as if it was an imposition he had learned, and he hated having to say it. The Uncle said, ‘Pooh, pooh!’ to that, and then he said he was afraid that what that same business wanted was not capital but management. Then I heard my Father say, ‘It is not a pleasant subject: I am sorry I introduced it. Suppose we change it, sir. Let me fill your glass.’ Then the poor Indian said something about vintage—and that a poor, broken-down man like he was couldn’t be too careful. And then Father said, ‘Well, whisky then,’ and afterwards they talked about Native Races and Imperial something or other and it got very dull.
So then Oswald remembered that you must not hear what people do not intend you to hear—even if you are not listening and he said, ‘We ought not to stay here any longer. Perhaps they would not like us to hear—’
Alice said, ‘Oh, do you think it could possibly matter?’ and went and shut the study door softly but quite tight. So it was no use staying there any longer, and we went to the nursery.
Then Noel said, ‘Now I understand. Of course my Father is making a banquet for the Indian, because he is a poor, broken-down man. We might have known that from “Lo, the poor Indian!” you know.’
We all agreed with him, and we were glad to have the thing explained, because we had not understood before what Father wanted to have people to dinner for—and not let us come in.
‘Poor people are very proud,’ said Alice, ‘and I expect Father thought the Indian would be ashamed, if all of us children knew how poor he was.’
Then Dora said, ‘Poverty is no disgrace. We should honour honest Poverty.’
And we all agreed that that was so.
‘I wish his dinner had not been so nasty,’ Dora said, while Oswald put lumps of coal on the fire with his fingers, so as not to make a noise. He is a very thoughtful boy, and he did not wipe his fingers on his trouser leg as perhaps Noel or H. O. would have done, but he just rubbed them on Dora’s handkerchief while she was talking.
‘I am afraid the dinner was horrid.’ Dora went on. ‘The table looked very nice with the flowers we got. I set it myself, and Eliza made me borrow the silver spoons and forks from Albert-next-door’s Mother.’
‘I hope the poor Indian is honest,’ said Dicky gloomily, ‘when you are a poor, broken-down man silver spoons must be a great temptation.’
Oswald told him not to talk such tommy-rot because the Indian was a relation, so of course he couldn’t do anything dishonourable. And Dora said it was all right any way, because she had washed up the spoons and forks herself and counted them, and they were all there, and she had put them into their wash-leather bag, and taken them back to Albert-next-door’s Mother.
‘And the brussels sprouts were all wet and swimmy,’ she went on, ‘and the potatoes looked grey—and there were bits of black in the gravy—and the mutton was bluey-red and soft in the middle. I saw it when it came out. The apple-pie looked very nice—but it wasn’t quite done in the apply part. The other thing that was burnt—you must have smelt it, was the soup.’
‘It is a pity,’ said Oswald; ‘I don’t suppose he gets a good dinner every day.’
‘No more do we,’ said H. O., ‘but we shall to-morrow.’
I thought of all the things we had bought with our half-sovereign—the rabbit and the sweets and the almonds and raisins and figs and the coconut: and I thought of the nasty mutton and things, and while I was thinking about it all Alice said—
‘Let’s ask the poor Indian to come to dinner withusto-morrow.’ I should have said it myself if she had given me time.
We got the little ones to go to bed by promising to put a note on their dressing-table saying what had happened, so that they might know the first thing in the morning, or in the middle of the night if they happened to wake up, and then we elders arranged everything.
I waited by the back door, and when the Uncle was beginning to go Dicky was to drop a marble down between the banisters for a signal, so that I could run round and meet the Uncle as he came out.
This seems like deceit, but if you are a thoughtful and considerate boy you will understand that we could not go down and say to the Uncle in the hall under Father’s eye, ‘Father has given you a beastly, nasty dinner, but if you will come to dinner with us tomorrow, we will show you our idea of good things to eat.’ You will see, if you think it over, that this would not have been at all polite to Father.
So when the Uncle left, Father saw him to the door and let him out, and then went back to the study, looking very sad, Dora says.
As the poor Indian came down our steps he saw me there at the gate.
I did not mind his being poor, and I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ just as politely as though he had been about to ascend into one of the gilded chariots of the rich and affluent, instead of having to walk to the station a quarter of a mile in the mud, unless he had the money for a tram fare.
‘Good evening, Uncle.’ I said it again, for he stood staring at me. I don’t suppose he was used to politeness from boys—some boys are anything but—especially to the Aged Poor.
So I said, ‘Good evening, Uncle,’ yet once again. Then he said—
‘Time you were in bed, young man. Eh!—what?’
Then I saw I must speak plainly with him, man to man. So I did. I said—
‘You’ve been dining with my Father, and we couldn’t help hearing you say the dinner was shocking. So we thought as you’re an Indian, perhaps you’re very poor’—I didn’t like to tell him we had heard the dreadful truth from his own lips, so I went on, ‘because of “Lo, the poor Indian”—you know—and you can’t get a good dinner every day. And we are very sorry if you’re poor; and won’t you come and have dinner with us to-morrow—with us children, I mean? It’s a very, very good dinner—rabbit, and hardbake, and coconut—and you needn’t mind us knowing you’re poor, because we know honourable poverty is no disgrace, and—’ I could have gone on much longer, but he interrupted me to say—‘Upon my word! And what’s your name, eh?’
‘Oswald Bastable,’ I said; and I do hope you people who are reading this story have not guessed before that I was Oswald all the time.
‘Oswald Bastable, eh? Bless my soul!’ said the poor Indian. ‘Yes, I’ll dine with you, Mr Oswald Bastable, with all the pleasure in life. Very kind and cordial invitation, I’m sure. Good night, sir. At one o’clock, I presume?’
‘Yes, at one,’ I said. ‘Good night, sir.’
Then I went in and told the others, and we wrote a paper and put it on the boy’s dressing-table, and it said—
‘The poor Indian is coming at one. He seemed very grateful to me for my kindness.’
We did not tell Father that the Uncle was coming to dinner with us, for the polite reason that I have explained before. But we had to tell Eliza; so we said a friend was coming to dinner and we wanted everything very nice. I think she thought it was Albert-next-door, but she was in a good temper that day, and she agreed to cook the rabbit and to make a pudding with currants in it. And when one o’clock came the Indian Uncle came too. I let him in and helped him off with his greatcoat, which was all furry inside, and took him straight to the nursery. We were to have dinner there as usual, for we had decided from the first that he would enjoy himself more if he was not made a stranger of. We agreed to treat him as one of ourselves, because if we were too polite, he might think it was our pride because he was poor.
He shook hands with us all and asked our ages, and what schools we went to, and shook his head when we said we were having a holiday just now. I felt rather uncomfortable—I always do when they talk about schools—and I couldn’t think of anything to say to show him we meant to treat him as one of ourselves. I did ask if he played cricket. He said he had not played lately. And then no one said anything till dinner came in. We had all washed our faces and hands and brushed our hair before he came in, and we all looked very nice, especially Oswald, who had had his hair cut that very morning. When Eliza had brought in the rabbit and gone out again, we looked at each other in silent despair, like in books. It seemed as if it were going to be just a dull dinner like the one the poor Indian had had the night before; only, of course, the things to eat would be nicer. Dicky kicked Oswald under the table to make him say something—and he had his new boots on, too!—but Oswald did not kick back; then the Uncle asked—
‘Do you carve, sir, or shall I?’
Suddenly Alice said—
‘Would you like grown-up dinner, Uncle, or play-dinner?’
He did not hesitate a moment, but said, ‘Play-dinner, by all means. Eh!—what?’ and then we knew it was all right.
So we at once showed the Uncle how to be a dauntless hunter. The rabbit was the deer we had slain in the green forest with our trusty yew bows, and we toasted the joints of it, when the Uncle had carved it, on bits of firewood sharpened to a point. The Uncle’s piece got a little burnt, but he said it was delicious, and he said game was always nicer when you had killed it yourself. When Eliza had taken away the rabbit bones and brought in the pudding, we waited till she had gone out and shut the door, and then we put the dish down on the floor and slew the pudding in the dish in the good old-fashioned way. It was a wild boar at bay, and very hard indeed to kill, even with forks. The Uncle was very fierce indeed with the pudding, and jumped and howled when he speared it, but when it came to his turn to be helped, he said, ‘No, thank you; think of my liver. Eh!—what?’
But he had some almonds and raisins—when we had climbed to the top of the chest of drawers to pluck them from the boughs of the great trees; and he had a fig from the cargo that the rich merchants brought in their ship—the long drawer was the ship—and the rest of us had the sweets and the coconut. It was a very glorious and beautiful feast, and when it was over we said we hoped it was better than the dinner last night. And he said:
‘I never enjoyed a dinner more.’ He was too polite to say what he really thought about Father’s dinner. And we saw that though he might be poor, he was a true gentleman.
He smoked a cigar while we finished up what there was left to eat, and told us about tiger shooting and about elephants. We asked him about wigwams, and wampum, and mocassins, and beavers, but he did not seem to know, or else he was shy about talking of the wonders of his native land.
We liked him very much indeed, and when he was going at last, Alice nudged me, and I said—‘There’s one and threepence farthing left out of our half-sovereign. Will you take it, please, because we do like you very much indeed, and we don’t want it, really; and we would rather you had it.’ And I put the money into his hand.
‘I’ll take the threepenny-bit,’ he said, turning the money over and looking at it, ‘but I couldn’t rob you of the rest. By the way, where did you get the money for this most royal spread—half a sovereign you said—eh, what?’
We told him all about the different ways we had looked for treasure, and when we had been telling some time he sat down, to listen better and at last we told him how Alice had played at divining-rod, and how it really had found a half-sovereign.
Then he said he would like to see her do it again. But we explained that the rod would only show gold and silver, and that we were quite sure there was no more gold in the house, because we happened to have looked very carefully.
‘Well, silver, then,’ said he; ‘let’s hide the plate-basket, and little Alice shall make the divining-rod find it. Eh!—what?’
‘There isn’t any silver in the plate-basket now,’ Dora said. ‘Eliza asked me to borrow the silver spoons and forks for your dinner last night from Albert-next-door’s Mother. Father never notices, but she thought it would be nicer for you. Our own silver went to have the dents taken out; and I don’t think Father could afford to pay the man for doing it, for the silver hasn’t come back.’
‘Bless my soul!’ said the Uncle again, looking at the hole in the big chair that we burnt when we had Guy Fawkes’ Day indoors. ‘And how much pocket-money do you get? Eh!—what?’
‘We don’t have any now,’ said Alice; ‘but indeed we don’t want the other shilling. We’d much rather you had it, wouldn’t we?’
And the rest of us said, ‘Yes.’ The Uncle wouldn’t take it, but he asked a lot of questions, and at last he went away. And when he went he said—
‘Well, youngsters, I’ve enjoyed myself very much. I shan’t forget your kind hospitality. Perhaps the poor Indian may be in a position to ask you all to dinner some day.’
Oswald said if he ever could we should like to come very much, but he was not to trouble to get such a nice dinner as ours, because we could do very well with cold mutton and rice pudding. We do not like these things, but Oswald knows how to behave. Then the poor Indian went away.
We had not got any treasure by this party, but we had had a very good time, and I am sure the Uncle enjoyed himself.
We were so sorry he was gone that we could none of us eat much tea; but we did not mind, because we had pleased the poor Indian and enjoyed ourselves too. Besides, as Dora said, ‘A contented mind is a continual feast,’ so it did not matter about not wanting tea.
Only H. O. did not seem to think a continual feast was a contented mind, and Eliza gave him a powder in what was left of the red-currant jelly Father had for the nasty dinner.
But the rest of us were quite well, and I think it must have been the coconut with H. O. We hoped nothing had disagreed with the Uncle, but we never knew.
Now it is coming near the end of our treasure-seeking, and the end was so wonderful that now nothing is like it used to be. It is like as if our fortunes had been in an earthquake, and after those, you know, everything comes out wrong-way up.
The day after the Uncle speared the pudding with us opened in gloom and sadness. But you never know. It was destined to be a day when things happened. Yet no sign of this appeared in the early morning. Then all was misery and upsetness. None of us felt quite well; I don’t know why: and Father had one of his awful colds, so Dora persuaded him not to go to London, but to stay cosy and warm in the study, and she made him some gruel. She makes it better than Eliza does; Eliza’s gruel is all little lumps, and when you suck them it is dry oatmeal inside.
We kept as quiet as we could, and I made H. O. do some lessons, like the G. B. had advised us to. But it was very dull. There are some days when you seem to have got to the end of all the things that could ever possibly happen to you, and you feel you will spend all the rest of your life doing dull things just the same way. Days like this are generally wet days. But, as I said, you never know.
Then Dicky said if things went on like this he should run away to sea, and Alice said she thought it would be rather nice to go into a convent. H. O. was a little disagreeable because of the powder Eliza had given him, so he tried to read two books at once, one with each eye, just because Noel wanted one of the books, which was very selfish of him, so it only made his headache worse. H. O. is getting old enough to learn by experience that it is wrong to be selfish, and when he complained about his head Oswald told him whose fault it was, because I am older than he is, and it is my duty to show him where he is wrong. But he began to cry, and then Oswald had to cheer him up because of Father wanting to be quiet. So Oswald said—
‘They’ll eat H. O. if you don’t look out!’ And Dora said Oswald was too bad.
Of course Oswald was not going to interfere again, so he went to look out of the window and see the trams go by, and by and by H. O. came and looked out too, and Oswald, who knows when to be generous and forgiving, gave him a piece of blue pencil and two nibs, as good as new, to keep.
As they were looking out at the rain splashing on the stones in the street they saw a four-wheeled cab come lumbering up from the way the station is. Oswald called out—
‘Here comes the coach of the Fairy Godmother. It’ll stop here, you see if it doesn’t!’
So they all came to the window to look. Oswald had only said that about stopping and he was stricken with wonder and amaze when the cab really did stop. It had boxes on the top and knobby parcels sticking out of the window, and it was something like going away to the seaside and something like the gentleman who takes things about in a carriage with the wooden shutters up, to sell to the drapers’ shops. The cabman got down, and some one inside handed out ever so many parcels of different shapes and sizes, and the cabman stood holding them in his arms and grinning over them.
Dora said, ‘It is a pity some one doesn’t tell him this isn’t the house.’ And then from inside the cab some one put out a foot feeling for the step, like a tortoise’s foot coming out from under his shell when you are holding him off the ground, and then a leg came and more parcels, and then Noel cried—
‘It’s the poor Indian!’
And it was.
Eliza opened the door, and we were all leaning over the banisters. Father heard the noise of parcels and boxes in the hall, and he came out without remembering how bad his cold was. If you do that yourself when you have a cold they call you careless and naughty. Then we heard the poor Indian say to Father—
‘I say, Dick, I dined with your kids yesterday—as I daresay they’ve told you. Jolliest little cubs I ever saw! Why didn’t you let me see them the other night? The eldest is the image of poor Janey—and as to young Oswald, he’s a man! If he’s not a man, I’m a nigger! Eh!—what? And Dick, I say, I shouldn’t wonder if I could find a friend to put a bit into that business of yours—eh?’
Then he and Father went into the study and the door was shut—and we went down and looked at the parcels. Some were done up in old, dirty newspapers, and tied with bits of rag, and some were in brown paper and string from the shops, and there were boxes. We wondered if the Uncle had come to stay and this was his luggage, or whether it was to sell. Some of it smelt of spices, like merchandise—and one bundle Alice felt certain was a bale. We heard a hand on the knob of the study door after a bit, and Alice said—
‘Fly!’ and we all got away but H. O., and the Uncle caught him by the leg as he was trying to get upstairs after us.
‘Peeping at the baggage, eh?’ said the Uncle, and the rest of us came down because it would have been dishonourable to leave H. O. alone in a scrape, and we wanted to see what was in the parcels.
‘I didn’t touch,’ said H. O. ‘Are you coming to stay? I hope you are.’
‘No harm done if you did touch,’ said the good, kind, Indian man to all of us. ‘For all these parcels arefor you.’
I have several times told you about our being dumb with amazement and terror and joy, and things like that, but I never remember us being dumber than we were when he said this.
The Indian Uncle went on: ‘I told an old friend of mine what a pleasant dinner I had with you, and about the threepenny-bit, and the divining-rod, and all that, and he sent all these odds and ends as presents for you. Some of the things came from India.’
‘Have you come from India, Uncle?’ Noel asked; and when he said ‘Yes’ we were all very much surprised, for we never thought of his being that sort of Indian. We thought he was the Red kind, and of course his not being accounted for his ignorance of beavers and things.
He got Eliza to help, and we took all the parcels into the nursery and he undid them and undid them and undid them, till the papers lay thick on the floor. Father came too and sat in the Guy Fawkes chair. I cannot begin to tell you all the things that kind friend of Uncle’s had sent us. He must be a very agreeable person.
There were toys for the kids and model engines for Dick and me, and a lot of books, and Japanese china tea-sets for the girls, red and white and gold—there were sweets by the pound and by the box—and long yards and yards of soft silk from India, to make frocks for the girls—and a real Indian sword for Oswald and a book of Japanese pictures for Noel, and some ivory chess men for Dicky: the castles of the chessmen are elephant-and-castles. There is a railway station called that; I never knew what it meant before. The brown paper and string parcels had boxes of games in them—and big cases of preserved fruits and things. And the shabby old newspaper parcels and the boxes had the Indian things in. I never saw so many beautiful things before. There were carved fans and silver bangles and strings of amber beads, and necklaces of uncut gems—turquoises and garnets, the Uncle said they were—and shawls and scarves of silk, and cabinets of brown and gold, and ivory boxes and silver trays, and brass things. The Uncle kept saying, ‘This is for you, young man,’ or ‘Little Alice will like this fan,’ or ‘Miss Dora would look well in this green silk, I think. Eh!—what?’
And Father looked on as if it was a dream, till the Uncle suddenly gave him an ivory paper-knife and a box of cigars, and said, ‘My old friend sent you these, Dick; he’s an old friend of yours too, he says.’ And he winked at my Father, for H. O. and I saw him. And my Father winked back, though he has always told us not to.
That was a wonderful day. It was a treasure, and no mistake! I never saw such heaps and heaps of presents, like things out of a fairy-tale—and even Eliza had a shawl. Perhaps she deserved it, for she did cook the rabbit and the pudding; and Oswald says it is not her fault if her nose turns up and she does not brush her hair. I do not think Eliza likes brushing things. It is the same with the carpets. But Oswald tries to make allowances even for people who do not wash their ears.
The Indian Uncle came to see us often after that, and his friend always sent us something. Once he tipped us a sovereign each—the Uncle brought it; and once he sent us money to go to the Crystal Palace, and the Uncle took us; and another time to a circus; and when Christmas was near the Uncle said—
‘You remember when I dined with you, some time ago, you promised to dine with me some day, if I could ever afford to give a dinner-party. Well, I’m going to have one—a Christmas party. Not on Christmas Day, because every one goes home then—but on the day after. Cold mutton and rice pudding. You’ll come? Eh!—what?’
We said we should be delighted, if Father had no objection, because that is the proper thing to say, and the poor Indian, I mean the Uncle, said, ‘No, your Father won’t object—he’s coming too, bless your soul!’
We all got Christmas presents for the Uncle. The girls made him a handkerchief case and a comb bag, out of some of the pieces of silk he had given them. I got him a knife with three blades; H. O. got a siren whistle, a very strong one, and Dicky joined with me in the knife, and Noel would give the Indian ivory box that Uncle’s friend had sent on the wonderful Fairy Cab day. He said it was the very nicest thing he had, and he was sure Uncle wouldn’t mind his not having bought it with his own money.
I think Father’s business must have got better—perhaps Uncle’s friend put money in it and that did it good, like feeding the starving. Anyway we all had new suits, and the girls had the green silk from India made into frocks, and on Boxing Day we went in two cabs—Father and the girls in one, and us boys in the other.
We wondered very much where the Indian Uncle lived, because we had not been told. And we thought when the cab began to go up the hill towards the Heath that perhaps the Uncle lived in one of the poky little houses up at the top of Greenwich. But the cab went right over the Heath and in at some big gates, and through a shrubbery all white with frost like a fairy forest, because it was Christmas time. And at last we stopped before one of those jolly, big, ugly red houses with a lot of windows, that are so comfortable inside, and on the steps was the Indian Uncle, looking very big and grand, in a blue cloth coat and yellow sealskin waistcoat, with a bunch of seals hanging from it.
‘I wonder whether he has taken a place as butler here?’ said Dicky.
‘A poor, broken-down man—’
Noel thought it was very likely, because he knew that in these big houses there were always thousands of stately butlers.
The Uncle came down the steps and opened the cab door himself, which I don’t think butlers would expect to have to do. And he took us in. It was a lovely hall, with bear and tiger skins on the floor, and a big clock with the faces of the sun and moon dodging out when it was day or night, and Father Time with a scythe coming out at the hours, and the name on it was ‘Flint. Ashford. 1776’; and there was a fox eating a stuffed duck in a glass case, and horns of stags and other animals over the doors.
‘We’ll just come into my study first,’ said the Uncle, ‘and wish each other a Merry Christmas.’ So then we knew he wasn’t the butler, but it must be his own house, for only the master of the house has a study.
His study was not much like Father’s. It had hardly any books, but swords and guns and newspapers and a great many boots, and boxes half unpacked, with more Indian things bulging out of them.
We gave him our presents and he was awfully pleased. Then he gave us his Christmas presents. You must be tired of hearing about presents, but I must remark that all the Uncle’s presents were watches; there was a watch for each of us, with our names engraved inside, all silver except H. O.‘s, and that was a Waterbury, ‘To match his boots,’ the Uncle said. I don’t know what he meant.
Then the Uncle looked at Father, and Father said, ‘You tell them, sir.’
So the Uncle coughed and stood up and made a speech. He said—
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are met together to discuss an important subject which has for some weeks engrossed the attention of the honourable member opposite and myself.’
I said, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Alice whispered, ‘What happened to the guinea-pig?’ Of course you know the answer to that.
The Uncle went on—
‘I am going to live in this house, and as it’s rather big for me, your Father has agreed that he and you shall come and live with me. And so, if you’re agreeable, we’re all going to live here together, and, please God, it’ll be a happy home for us all. Eh!—what?’
He blew his nose and kissed us all round. As it was Christmas I did not mind, though I am much too old for it on other dates. Then he said, ‘Thank you all very much for your presents; but I’ve got a present here I value more than anything else I have.’
I thought it was not quite polite of him to say so, till I saw that what he valued so much was a threepenny-bit on his watch-chain, and, of course, I saw it must be the one we had given him.
He said, ‘You children gave me that when you thought I was the poor Indian, and I’ll keep it as long as I live. And I’ve asked some friends to help us to be jolly, for this is our house-warming. Eh!—what?’
Then he shook Father by the hand, and they blew their noses; and then Father said, ‘Your Uncle has been most kind—most—’
But Uncle interrupted by saying, ‘Now, Dick, no nonsense!’ Then H. O. said, ‘Then you’re not poor at all?’ as if he were very disappointed. The Uncle replied, ‘I have enough for my simple wants, thank you, H. O.; and your Father’s business will provide him with enough for yours. Eh!—what?’
Then we all went down and looked at the fox thoroughly, and made the Uncle take the glass off so that we could see it all round and then the Uncle took us all over the house, which is the most comfortable one I have ever been in. There is a beautiful portrait of Mother in Father’s sitting-room. The Uncle must be very rich indeed. This ending is like what happens in Dickens’s books; but I think it was much jollier to happen like a book, and it shows what a nice man the Uncle is, the way he did it all.
Think how flat it would have been if the Uncle had said, when we first offered him the one and threepence farthing, ‘Oh, I don’t want your dirty one and three-pence! I’m very rich indeed.’ Instead of which he saved up the news of his wealth till Christmas, and then told us all in one glorious burst. Besides, I can’t help it if it is like Dickens, because it happens this way. Real life is often something like books.
Presently, when we had seen the house, we were taken into the drawing-room, and there was Mrs Leslie, who gave us the shillings and wished us good hunting, and Lord Tottenham, and Albert-next-door’s Uncle—and Albert-next-door, and his Mother (I’m not very fond of her), and best of all our own Robber and his two kids, and our Robber had a new suit on. The Uncle told us he had asked the people who had been kind to us, and Noel said, ‘Where is my noble editor that I wrote the poetry to?’
The Uncle said he had not had the courage to ask a strange editor to dinner; but Lord Tottenham was an old friend of Uncle’s, and he had introduced Uncle to Mrs Leslie, and that was how he had the pride and pleasure of welcoming her to our house-warming. And he made her a bow like you see on a Christmas card.
Then Alice asked, ‘What about Mr Rosenbaum? He was kind; it would have been a pleasant surprise for him.’
But everybody laughed, and Uncle said—
‘Your father has paid him the sovereign he lent you. I don’t think he could have borne another pleasant surprise.’
And I said there was the butcher, and he was really kind; but they only laughed, and Father said you could not ask all your business friends to a private dinner.
Then it was dinner-time, and we thought of Uncle’s talk about cold mutton and rice. But it was a beautiful dinner, and I never saw such a dessert! We had ours on plates to take away into another sitting-room, which was much jollier than sitting round the table with the grown-ups. But the Robber’s kids stayed with their Father. They were very shy and frightened, and said hardly anything, but looked all about with very bright eyes. H. O. thought they were like white mice; but afterwards we got to know them very well, and in the end they were not so mousy. And there is a good deal of interesting stuff to tell about them; but I shall put all that in another book, for there is no room for it in this one. We played desert islands all the afternoon and drank Uncle’s health in ginger wine. It was H. O. that upset his over Alice’s green silk dress, and she never even rowed him. Brothers ought not to have favourites, and Oswald would never be so mean as to have a favourite sister, or, if he had, wild horses should not make him tell who it was.
And now we are to go on living in the big house on the Heath, and it is very jolly.
Mrs Leslie often comes to see us, and our own Robber and Albert-next-door’s uncle. The Indian Uncle likes him because he has been in India too and is brown; but our Uncle does not like Albert-next-door. He says he is a muff. And I am to go to Rugby, and so are Noel and H. O., and perhaps to Balliol afterwards. Balliol is my Father’s college. It has two separate coats of arms, which many other colleges are not allowed. Noel is going to be a poet and Dicky wants to go into Father’s business.
The Uncle is a real good old sort; and just think, we should never have found him if we hadn’t made up our minds to be Treasure Seekers! Noel made a poem about it—