DIAGRAM SHOWING THE COURSE OF THE GULF STREAM.DIAGRAM SHOWING THE COURSE OF THE GULF STREAM.
From this point the river flows straight to the north, pressing through the ocean with a width of nearly thirty-seven miles, and of an average depth of two hundred fathoms. The mass of water has been estimated at some forty-five millions of cubic yards a second. The mean discharge of the Mississippi is barely twenty-five thousand cubic yards.
As the Gulf Stream expands and spreads in its northward and easterly course, its depth becomes proportionately less considerable. The strata of cold water which serve as its banks retire on each side and allow it more breadth. The cold bed of water which bears it, and over which it flows, as terrestrial rivers glide over beds of rocks, gradually approaches nearer the surface. Off Cape Hatteras the depth is about one hundred and twenty fathoms, and its speed does not exceed three miles an hour, but it is twice as wide as when it emerges from the Strait of Florida. Its width is here seventy-eight miles. Its thickness, of course, constantly diminishes until it is only a thin sheet of warm water on the other side of the Atlantic, and is gradually dissipated in the sub-Arctic sea.
THE "CITY OF SAVANNAH," WRECKED IN THE GREAT STORMS OF 1893.THE "CITY OF SAVANNAH," WRECKED IN THE GREAT STORMS OF 1893.
As the travellers proceeded almost due north the island of Great Bahama sooncame to form the eastern boundary of the Gulf Stream. In this locality many fearful storms have occurred, for when the river is angry it is one of the most fearful places in the world for a ship to be. It is said that the whole of the Bahama Islands which lie scattered through the sea to the east of the Gulf Stream rest on a foundation of submarine banks formed by the deposits of the river. The same may be said of the islands which line the coasts of Georgia and the Carolinas on the west. Off one of these islands the captain distinctly made out the wreck of a large craft, floating free on the edge of this current, which he has since been told was theCity of Savannah, wrecked in the great storms of 1893. Derelicts are common in these parts, no fewer than forty having been reported last year.
Long ago the soundings taken by the officers of the American Coast Survey showed, according to Lieut. Maury, that the Gulf Stream flows along the coast of America at some distance from the land. The slight inclination of the low lands of Georgia and Carolina is continued under water till the sounding line attains a depth of about fifty fathoms. The bottom then sinks rapidly and forms a long valley parallel to the shore of America and the chalky walls of the Appalachian range. In this valley, hollowed to the east of the submarine basement of America, the Gulf Stream waters flow. Owing to the rotatory motion of the globe and also to the curve of the coasts, the Stream follows a constant direction to the north-east. Off New York and Cape Cod it deviates more and more to the east. It ceases to follow the coast-line, and rolls across the open Atlantic towards the shores of Western Europe. Thus, as Maury says, if an enormous cannon had force enough to send a bullet from the Strait of the Bahamas to the North Pole the projectile would follow almost exactly the curve of the Gulf Stream and, gradually deviating on its way, reach Europe from the west.
THE SOUTH SHOAL LIGHTSHIP, WHICH MARKS THE SITE OF AN OCEAN GRAVEYARD.THE SOUTH SHOAL LIGHTSHIP, WHICH MARKS THE SITE OF AN OCEAN GRAVEYARD.
We have spoken of the driftwood boundaries of the Gulf Stream; but there is an even more pronounced barrier easily ascertained by a use of the thermometer. The warmest and most rapid part of the Gulf Stream is that in most immediate juxtaposition to a sheet of cold water flowing in an opposite direction off Carolina which bounds our river like a wall of ice. Occasionally the line of demarcation is so precise that it is visible to the naked eye, and the exact moment when a ship leaves the cold current and its prow cleaves the Gulf Stream may be observed. The latter waters are of a beautiful azure, that of the counter-current is greenish; one is saturated with salt, the other contains the mineral to a far slighter extent. But the chief distinction is that one is tepid, the other frigid as ice.
On the 21st one of the men reported having sighted a light to the north, and had also clearly heard a distant bell tolling. This was probably the South Shoal Lightship, which marks the site of an ocean graveyard hereabouts. This lightship, with acrew of a dozen men, has been adrift nearly thirty times in the course of her history, and was once fourteen days in the Gulf Stream. She is a schooner or barge of two hundred and seventy-five tons, about one hundred feet long, chained to an anchor of three and a half tons. But it is said the life aboard is so unbearably monotonous to the crew that they cut the chain and so send the lightship adrift. The skipper was glad when the Gulf Stream carried him away from the neighbourhood, for he was reminded that over five hundred wrecks have taken place some leagues to the northward of his course.
"THE TEMPERATURE OF THE STREAM WAS DISAGREEABLE TO HIM.""THE TEMPERATURE OF THE STREAM WAS DISAGREEABLE TO HIM."
TheMiosenwas now bound almost due east, as if headed for the Azores, for the great river curves at this point. Just south of Halifax, in longitude sixty-five degrees, they came across their first iceberg, drifting on the very edge of the stream. There is nothing so unhealthy for an iceberg as the Gulf Stream, and an iceberg seems to know it. When, however, it is fairly caught in its clutches it soon melts away to nothingness before it has been carried many leagues eastward, all depending, of course, upon its size. As with icebergs, so with whales, as we have already mentioned. The vessel encountered a whale later in longitude fifty, but it was obvious that the temperature of the Stream was disagreeable to him, for he soon headed again for the Arctic regions. Other whales make a dash through or remain by the side of the big river and so reach lower latitudes, but a brief sojourn is enough for them. The Gulf Stream is a river which can boast everything maritime but whales.
The great river just touches the southern extremity of the Grand Banks of Newfoundland. This bank of Newfoundland, an enormous plateau surrounded on all sides by abysses five to six miles deep, is chiefly due to the contact of the Arctic current with the Gulf Stream. For here is the chief graveyard of icebergs. On entering the tepid waters of the river the frozen mountains gradually melt and let fall the fragments of rock and loads of earth they bear into the sea. The bank, which rises gradually from the bottom, is the work of the Greenland glaciers and the floes of the Polar Sea. It is the presence of the Gulf Stream in these latitudes which is the cause of the prevalent fogs not only here, but in the islands off Europe. From here onward a sailor can always tell whether or not he is in the Stream by plunging a thermometer overboard. Capt. Westrup found that it crosses the Atlantic with a mean speed of twenty-four knots a day. This had previously been ascertained, according to Maury, by direct measurement at different parts of the ocean, or by means of notes, which, having beenthrown overboard in bottles, carefully closed, have floated for weeks or months at the will of the waves, and then been fished up in other latitudes or found on some seashore. In its long journey this mighty river transports hardly any other alluvium than the living frustules of animalculæ which fill the tepid waters of the current, and are constantly falling like snowflakes to the bottom of the ocean. However, during the whole distance across theMiosenconstantly met with the trunks and branches of trees, cane stalks, and woody flotsam, much of which finally reaches the coasts of Europe, even as far as Spitzbergen.
"It was," says M. Reclus, "these remains which our ancestors of the Middle Ages believed to come from the fabulous island of St. Brandan or from Antilia, and which furnished matter for thought to daring navigators like the great Columbus. Seeds carried from the New World by the current have found a favourable soil on the shores of the Azores, and, although many thousands of miles from their native land, have germinated and borne fruit. Frequently the Gulf Stream brings to Europe the damaged products of human industry and the timber of wrecked ships. During the Seven Years' War the main-mast of an English man-of-war, theTilbury, which had been burnt near San Domingo, was found on the northern coasts of Scotland. Also, a river-boat laden with mahogany was once driven to the Färöe Islands. The remnants of vessels wrecked in the latitude of Guinea have reached the British Isles on the Gulf Stream, and Esquimaux canoes have often been carried on its waves to the Orkneys."
The Färöe Islands formed the temporary stopping-place of theMiosen.
"Here," states the captain, "we disembarked at Thorshaven on May 13th. On the morning of the 12th we sighted Tindhölm, which is generally regarded as the barrier or point marking the end of the longest river in the world. We had begun our voyage at its source, and had traversed four thousand two hundred and twelve miles to its mouth, where the waters spread out into the great North Sea."
APPROACH TO THE FÄRÖE ISLANDS—THE END OF THE GULF STREAM. From a Photo.APPROACH TO THE FÄRÖE ISLANDS—THE END OF THE GULF STREAM.From a Photo.
Of the incalculable benefit to the climate of the British Isles and Western Europe which the Gulf Stream confers, one need not here pretend to speak. The river waters lose their warmth but slowly, and during winter they often have, off Cape Hatteras and the bank of Newfoundland, a temperature twenty-eight degrees Fahrenheit above that of the ocean. Thus they become a source of heat to Western Europe. Owing to the warmth of its waters the lakes of the Färöe and Shetland Isles never freeze in winter. Great Britain is enveloped in fogs and the myrtle grows on Irish shores in the same latitude as icy Labrador. The western coasts of Ireland have five degrees higher temperature even than those of the eastern, and there the fifty-second degree of latitude corresponds to the thirty-eighth degree in America. All this is ascribed, and rightly, to the proximity of the world's greatest river.
Hooray! hooray! hooray!Mother comes home to-day;Mother comes home to-day,Hooray! hooray! hooray!
Hooray! hooray! hooray!Mother comes home to-day;Mother comes home to-day,Hooray! hooray! hooray!
Jane sang this simple song directly after breakfast, and the Phœnix shed crystal tears of affectionate sympathy.
"How beautiful," it said, "is filial devotion!"
"She won't be home till past bed-time, though," said Robert. "We might have one more carpet-day."
He was glad that mother was coming home—quite glad, very glad; but at the same time that gladness was rudely contradicted by a quite strong feeling of sorrow, because now they could not go out all day on the carpet.
"I do wish we could go and get something nice for mother, only she'd want to know where we got it," said Anthea. "And she'd never, never believe the truth. People never do, somehow, if it's at all interesting."
"I'll tell you what," said Robert. "Suppose we wished the carpet to take us somewhere where we could find a purse with money in it—then we could buy her something."
"Suppose it took us somewhere foreign, and the purse was covered with strange Eastern devices, embroidered in rich silks, and full of money that wasn't money at all here, only foreign curiosities, then we couldn't spend it, and people would bother about where we got it, and we shouldn't know how on earth to get out of it all." Cyril moved the table off the carpet as he spoke, and its leg caught in one of Anthea's darns and ripped away most of it, as well as a large slit in the carpet.
"Well, now youhavedone it," said Robert.
But Anthea was a really first-class sister. She did not say a word till she had got out the Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool, and the darning-needle and the thimble and the scissors, and by that time she had been able to get the better of her natural wish to be thoroughly disagreeable, and was able to say quite kindly:—
"Never mind, Squirrel, I'll soon mend it."
Cyril thumped her on the back. He understood exactly how she had felt, and he was not an ungrateful brother.
"Respecting the purse containing coins," the Phœnix said, scratching its invisible earthoughtfully with its shining claw, "it might be as well, perhaps, to state clearly the amount which you wish to find, as well as the country where you wish to find it, and the nature of the coins which you prefer. It would be indeed a cold moment when you should find a purse containing but three oboloi."
"How much is an oboloi?"
"An obol is about twopence halfpenny," the Phœnix replied.
"Yes," said Jane, "and if you find a purse I suppose it is only because someone has lost it, and you ought to take it to the policeman."
"The situation," remarked the Phœnix, "does indeed bristle with difficulties."
"What about a buried treasure," said Cyril, "and everyone was dead that it belonged to?"
"Mother wouldn't believethat," said more than one voice.
"Suppose," said Robert—"suppose we asked to be taken where we could find a purse and give it back to the person it belonged to, and they would give us something for finding it?"
"We aren't allowed to take money from strangers. You know we aren't, Bobs," said Anthea, making a knot at the end of a needleful of Scotch heather-mixture fingering wool (which is very wrong, and you must never do it when you are darning).
"No,thatwouldn't do," said Cyril. "Let's chuck it and go to the North Pole, or somewhere really interesting."
"No," said the girls together, "there must besomeway."
"Wait a sec," Anthea added. "I've got an idea coming. Don't speak."
There was a silence as she paused with the darning-needle in the air. Suddenly she spoke:—
"I see. Let's tell the carpet to take us somewhere where we can get the money for mother's present, and—and—and get it some way that she'll believe in and not think wrong."
"Well, I must say you are learning the way to get the most out of the carpet," said Cyril. He spoke more heartily and kindly than usual, because he remembered how Anthea had refrained from snarking him about tearing the carpet.
"Yes," said the Phœnix, "you certainly are. And you have to remember that if you take a thing out it doesn't stay in."
No one paid any attention to this remark at the time, but afterwards everyone thought of it.
"Do hurry up, Panther," said Robert; and that was why Anthea did hurry up and why the big darn in the middle of the carpet was all open and webby like a fishing-net, not tight and close like woven cloth, which is what a good, well-behaved darn should be like.
Then everyone put on its outdoor things, the Phœnix fluttered on to the mantelpiece and arranged its golden feathers in the glass, and then all was ready. Everyone got on to the carpet.
"Please go slowly, dear carpet," Anthea began; "we like to see where we're going." And then she added the difficult wish that had been decided on.
Next moment the carpet, stiff and raft-like, was sailing over the roofs of Kentish Town.
"I wish——No, I don't mean that. I mean it's apitywe aren't higher up," said Anthea, as the edge of the carpet grazed a chimney-pot.
"That's right. Be careful," said the Phœnix, in warning tones. "If you wish when you're on a Wishing Carpet, youdowish, and there's an end of it."
So for a short time no one spoke, and the carpet sailed on in calm magnificence over St. Pancras and King's Cross stations and over the crowded streets of Clerkenwell.
"We're going out Greenwich way," said Cyril, as they crossed the streak of rough, tumbled water that was the Thames. "We might go and have a look at the Palace."
On and on the carpet swept, still keeping much nearer to the chimney-pots than the children found at all comfortable. And then, just over New Cross, a terrible thing happened.
Jane and Robert were in the middle of the carpet. Part of them was on the carpet, and part of them—the heaviest part—was on the great central darn.
"It's all very misty," said Jane; "it looks partly like out of doors and partly like in the nursery at home. I feel as if I was going to have measles; everything looked awfully rum then, I remember."
"I feel just exactly the same," Robert said.
"It's the hole," said the Phœnix; "it's not measles, whatever that possession may be."
And at that both Robert and Jane suddenly and at once made a bound to try and get on to the safer part of the carpet, and the darngave wayand their boots went up, and the heavy heads and bodies of them wentdownthrough the hole, and they landed in a position something between sitting and sprawling on the flat leads on the top of a high, grey, gloomy, respectable house whose address was 705, Amersham Road, New Cross.
The carpet seemed to awaken to new energy as soon as it had got rid of their weight, and rose high in the air. The others lay down flat and peeped over the edge of the rising carpet.
"'ARE YOU HURT?' CRIED CYRIL.""'ARE YOU HURT?' CRIED CYRIL."
"Are you hurt?" cried Cyril, and Robert shouted "No," and next moment the carpet had sped away, and Jane and Robert were hidden from the sight of the others by a stack of smoky chimneys.
"Oh, how awful!" said Anthea.
"It might have been worse," said the Phœnix. "What would have been the sentiments of the survivors if that darn had given way when we were crossing the river?"
"Yes, there's that," said Cyril, recovering himself. "They'll be all right. They'll howl till someone gets them down, or drop tiles into the front garden to attract the attention of passers-by. Bobs has got my one and five-pence—lucky you forgot to mend that hole in my pocket, Panther, or he wouldn't have had it. They can tram it home."
But Anthea would not be comforted.
"It's all my fault," she said. "Iknewthe proper way to darn, and I didn't do it. It's all my fault. Let's go home and patch the carpet with your Etons—something really strong—and send it to fetch them."
"All right," said Cyril; "but your Sunday jacket is stronger than my Etons. We must just chuck mother's present, that's all. I wish——"
"Stop!" cried the Phœnix; "the carpet is dropping to earth."
And indeed it was.
It sank swiftly, yet steadily, and landed on the pavement of the Deptford Road. It tipped a little as it landed, so that Cyril and Anthea naturally walked off it, and in an instant it had rolled itself up and hidden behind a gate-post. It did this so quickly that not a single person in the Deptford Road noticed it. The Phœnix rustled its way into the breast of Cyril's coat, and almost at the same moment a well-known voice remarked:—
"Well, I never! What on earth are you doing here?"
They were face to face with their pet uncle—their Uncle Reginald.
"IN AN INSTANT IT HAD ROLLED ITSELF UP AND HIDDEN BEHIND A GATE-POST.""IN AN INSTANT IT HAD ROLLED ITSELF UP AND HIDDEN BEHIND A GATE-POST."
"Wedidthink of going to Greenwich Palace and talking about Nelson," said Cyril, telling as much of the truth as he thought his uncle could believe.
"And where are the others?" asked Uncle Reginald.
"I don't exactly know," Cyril replied, this time quite truthfully.
"Well," said Uncle Reginald, "I must fly. I've a case in the County Court. That's the worst of being a beastly solicitor. One can't take the chances of life when one gets them. If only I could come with you to the Painted Hall and give you lunch at the Ship afterwards! But, alas! it may not be."
The uncle felt in his pocket.
"Imustn't enjoy myself," he said, "but that's no reason why you shouldn't. Here, divide this by four, and the product ought to give yousomedesired result. Take care of yourselves. Adieu."
And waving a cheery farewell with his neat umbrella the good and high-hatted uncle passed away, leaving Cyril and Anthea to exchange eloquent glances over the shining golden sovereign that lay in Cyril's hand.
"Well!" said Anthea.
"Well!" said Cyril.
"Well!" said the Phœnix.
"Good old carpet," said Cyril, joyously.
"Itwasclever of it—so adequate and yet so simple," said the Phœnix, with calm approval.
"Oh, come on home and let's mend the carpet. I am a beast. I'd forgotten the others, just for a minute," said the conscience-stricken Anthea.
They unrolled the carpet quickly and slily—they did not want to attract public attention—and the moment their feet were on the carpet Anthea wished to be at home, and instantly they were.
The kindness of their excellent uncle had made it unnecessary for them to go to such extremes as Cyril's Etons or Anthea's Sunday jacket for the patching of the carpet.
Anthea set to work at once to draw the edges of the broken darn together, and Cyril hastily went out and bought a large piece of the marble-patterned American oil-cloth which careful housewives use to cover dressers and kitchen tables. It was the strongest thing he could think of.
Then they set to work to line the carpet throughout with the oil-cloth. The nursery felt very odd and empty without the others, and Cyril did not feel so sure as he had done about their being able to "tram it" home. So he tried to help Anthea, which was very good for him, but not much use to her.
The Phœnix watched them for a time, but it was plainly growing more and more restless. It fluffed up its splendid feathers, and stood first on one gilded claw and then on the other, and at last it said:—
"'GOOD OLD CARPET,' SAID CYRIL, JOYOUSLY.""'GOOD OLD CARPET,' SAID CYRIL, JOYOUSLY."
"I can bear it no longer. This suspense! My Robert—who set my egg to hatch—in the bosom of whose Norfolk raiment I have nestled so often and so pleasantly! I think, if you'll excuse me——"
"Yes—do," cried Anthea. "I wish we'd thought of asking you before."
Cyril opened the window. The Phoenix flapped its sun-bright wings and vanished.
"Sothat'sall right," said Cyril, taking up his needle and instantly pricking his hand in a new place.
Of course, I know that what you have really wanted to know about all this time is not what Anthea and Cyril did, but—what happened to Jane and Robert after they fell through the carpet on to the leads of the house which was called number 705, Amersham Road.
But I had to tell you the other first. That is one of the most annoying things about stories. You cannot tell all the different parts of them at the same time.
Robert's first remark when he found himself seated on the damp, cold, sooty leads was:—
"Here's a go!"
Jane's first act was tears.
"Dry up, Pussy; don't be a little duffer," said her brother, kindly. "It will be all right."
And then he looked about, just as Cyril had known he would, for something to throw down, so as to attract the attention of the wayfarers far below in the street. He could not find anything. Curiously enough there were no stones on the leads, not even a loose tile. The roof was of slate, and every single slate knew its place and kept it. But, as so often happens, in looking for one thing he found another. There was a trap-door leading down into the house.
And that trap-door was not fastened.
"Stop snivelling and come here, Jane," he cried, encouragingly. "Lend a hand to heave this up. If we can get into the house we might sneak down without meeting anyone, with luck. Come on."
They heaved up the door till it stood straight up, and, as they bent to look into the hole below, the door fell back with a hollow clang on the leads behind, and with its noise was mingled a blood-curdling scream from underneath.
"Discovered!" hissed Robert. "Oh, my cats alive!"
They were indeed discovered.
They found themselves looking down into an attic, which was also a lumber-room. It had boxes and broken chairs, old fenders and picture-frames, and rag-bags hanging from nails.
In the middle of the floor was a box, open, half full of clothes. Other clothes lay on the floor in neat piles. In the middle of the piles of clothes sat a lady, very flat indeed, with her feet sticking out straight in front of her. And it was she who had screamed, and who, in fact, was still screaming.
"Don't!" cried Jane, "please don't! We won't hurt you."
"Where are the rest of your gang?" asked the lady, stopping short in the middle of a scream.
"The others have gone on, on the Wishing Carpet," said Jane, truthfully.
"The Wishing Carpet?" said the lady.
"Yes," said Jane, before Robert could say, "You shut up!" "You must have read about it. The Phœnix is with them."
Then the lady got up, and picking her way carefully between the piles of clothes she got to the door and through it. She shut it behind her, and the two children could hear her calling "Septimus! Septimus!" in a loud yet frightened way.
"Now," said Robert, quickly; "I'll drop first."
He hung by his hands and dropped through the trap-door.
"Now you. Hang by your hands. I'll catch you. Oh, there's no time for jaw. Drop, I say."
Jane dropped.
"JANE DROPPED.""JANE DROPPED."
Robert tried to catch her, and even before they had finished the breathless roll among the piles of clothes, which was what his catching ended in, he whispered:—
"We'll hide—behind those fenders and things; they'll think we've gone along the roofs. Then, when all is calm, we'll creep down the stairs and take our chance."
They hastily hid. A corner of an iron bedstead struck into Robert's side, and Jane had only standing room for one foot—but they bore it—and when the lady came back, not with Septimus, but with another lady, they held their breath and their hearts beat thickly.
"Gone!" said the first lady; "poor little things—quite mad, my dear—and at large! We must lock this room and send for the police."
"Let me look out," said the second lady, who was, if possible, older and thinner and primmer than the first. So the two ladies dragged a box under the trap-door and put another box on the top of it, and then they both climbed up very carefully and put their two trim, tidy heads out of the trap-door to look for the "mad children."
"Now," whispered Robert, getting the bedstead-leg out of his side.
They managed to creep out from their hiding-place and out through the door before the two ladies had done looking out of the trap-door on to the empty leads.
Robert and Jane tiptoed down the stairs—one flight, two flights. Then they looked over the banisters. Horror! a servant was coming up with a loaded scuttle.
The children with one consent crept swiftly through the first open door.
The room was a study, calm and gentle, manly, with rows of books, a writing-table, and a pair of embroidered slippers warming themselves in the fender. The children hid behind the window-curtains. As they passed the table they saw on it a missionary-box with its bottom label torn off, open and empty.
"Oh, how awful!" whispered Jane. "We shall never get away alive."
"Hush!" said Robert, not a moment too soon,for there were steps on the stairs, and next instant the two ladies came into the room. They did not see the children, but they saw the empty missionary-box.
"I knew it," said one. "Selina, itwasa gang. I was certain of it from the first. The children were not mad. They were sent to distract our attention while their confederates robbed the house."
"I am afraid you are right," said Selina; "andwhere are they now?"
"Downstairs, no doubt, collecting the silver milk-jug and sugar-basin and the punch-ladle that was Uncle Joe's, and Aunt Jerusha's teaspoons. I shall go down."
"Oh, don't be so rash and heroic," said Selina. "Amelia, we must call the police from the window. Lock the door. Iwill—I will——"
The words ended in a yell as Selina, rushing to the window, came face to face with the hidden children.
"Oh, don't!" said Jane; "how can you be so unkind? Wearen'tburglars, and we haven't any gang, and we didn't open your missionary-box. We opened our own once, but we didn't have to use the money, so our consciences made us put it back and——Don't!Oh, I wish you wouldn't——"
Miss Selina had seized Jane and Miss Amelia captured Robert. The children found themselves held fast by strong, slim hands, pink at the wrists and white at the knuckles.
"We've gotyou, at any rate," said Miss Amelia. "Selina, your captive is smaller than mine. You open the window at once and call 'Murder!' as loud as you can."
Selina obeyed; but when she had opened the window, instead of calling "Murder!" she called "Septimus!" because at that very moment she saw her nephew coming in at the gate.
In another minute he had let himself in with his latch-key and had mounted the stairs. As he came into the room Jane and Robert each uttered a shriek of joy so loud and so sudden that the ladies leaped with surprise and nearly let them go.
"It's our own clergyman," cried Jane.
"Don't you remember us?" asked Robert. "You married our burglar for us—don't you remember?"
"Iknewit was a gang," said Amelia. "Septimus, these abandoned children are members of a desperate burgling gang who are robbing the house. They have already forced the missionary-box and purloined its contents."
"'DON'T YOU REMEMBER US?' ASKED ROBERT. 'YOU MARRIED OUR BURGLAR FOR US.'""'DON'T YOU REMEMBER US?' ASKED ROBERT. 'YOU MARRIED OUR BURGLAR FOR US.'"
The Reverend Septimus passed his hand wearily over his brow.
"I feel a little faint," he said, "running upstairs so quickly."
"We never touched the beastly box," said Robert.
"Then your confederates did," said Miss Selina.
"No, no," said the curate, hastily. "Iopened the box myself. This morning I found I had not enough small change for the Mothers' Independent Unity Measles and Croup Insurance payments. I suppose this isnota dream, is it?"
"Dream? No, indeed. Search the house. I insist upon it."
The curate, still pale and trembling, searched the house, which, of course, was blamelessly free of burglars.
When he came back he sank wearily into his chair.
"Aren't you going to let us go?" asked Robert, with furious indignation, for there is something in being held by a strong lady that sets the blood of a boy boiling in his veins with anger and despair. "We've never done anything to you. It's all the carpet. It dropped us on the leads.Wecouldn't help it. You know how it carried you over to the island, and you had to marry the burglar to the cook."
"Oh, my head!" said the curate.
"Never mind your head just now," said Robert; "try to be honest and honourable, and do your duty in that state of life!"
"This is a judgment on me for something, I suppose," said the Reverend Septimus, wearily, "but I really cannot at the moment remember what."
"Send for the police," said Miss Selina.
"Send for a doctor," said the curate.
"Do you think theyaremad then?" said Miss Amelia.
"I think I am," said the curate.
Jane had been crying ever since her capture. Now she said:—
"You aren't now, but perhaps you will be, if——And it would serve you jolly well right, too."
"Aunt Selina," said the curate, "and Aunt Amelia, believe me, this is only an insane dream. You will realize it soon. It has happened to me before. But do not let us be unjust, even in a dream. Do not hold the children; they have done no harm. As I said before, it was I who opened the box."
The strong, bony hands unwillingly loosed their grasp. Robert shook himself and stood in sulky resentment. But Jane ran to the curate and embraced him so suddenly that he had not time to defend himself.
"You're a dear," she said. "It is like a dream just at first, but you get used to it. Nowdolet us go. There's a good, kind, honourable clergyman."
"JANE RAN TO THE CURATE AND EMBRACED HIM.""JANE RAN TO THE CURATE AND EMBRACED HIM."
"I don't know," said the Reverend Septimus; "it's a difficult problem. It is such a very unusual dream. Perhaps it's only a sort of other life—quite real enough for you to be mad in. And if you're mad there might be a dream-asylum where you'd be kindly treated, and in time restored, cured, to your sorrowing relatives. It is very hard to see your duty plainly, even in ordinarylife, and these dream-circumstances are so complicated——"
"If it's a dream," said Robert, "you will wake up directly, and then you'd be sorry if you'd sent us into a dream-asylum, because you might never get into the same dream again and let us out, and so we might stay there for ever, and then what about our sorrowing relatives who aren't in the dreams at all?"
But all the curate could now say was, "Oh, my head!"
And Jane and Robert felt quite ill with helplessness and hopelessness. A really conscientious curate is a very difficult thing to manage.
And then, just as the hopelessness and the helplessness were getting to be almost more than they could bear, the two children suddenly felt that extraordinary shrinking feeling that you always have when you are just going to vanish. And the next moment they had vanished, and the Reverend Septimus was left alone with his aunts.
"I knew it was a dream," he cried, wildly. "I've had something like it before. Did you dream it too, Aunt Selina, and you, Aunt Amelia? I dreamed that you did, you know."
Aunt Selina looked at him and then at Aunt Amelia. Then she said, boldly:—
"What do you mean?Wehaven't been dreaming anything. You must have dropped off in your chair."
The curate heaved a sigh of relief.
"Oh, if it's onlyI," he said; "if we'd all dreamed it I could never have believed it, never!"
Afterwards Aunt Selina said to the other aunt:—
"Yes, I know it was an untruth, and I shall doubtless be punished for it in due course. But I could see the poor, dear fellow's brain giving way before my very eyes. He couldn't have stood the strain ofthreedreams. Itwasodd, wasn't it? All three of us dreaming the same thing at the same moment. We must never tell dear Seppy. But I shall send an account of it to the Psychical Society, with stars instead of names, you know."
And she did. And you can read all about it in one of the society's fat Blue-books.
Of course, you understand what had happened?
The intelligent Phœnix had simply gone straight off to the psammead, or sand-fairy, who gives wishes and had wished Robert and Jane at home. And, of course, they were at home at once. Cyril and Anthea had not half finished mending the carpet.
When the joyful emotions of reunion had calmed down a little they all went out and spent what was left of Uncle Reginald's sovereign in presents for mother. They bought her a pink silk handkerchief, a pair of blue and white vases, a bottle of scent, a packet of Christmas candles, and a cake of soap shaped and coloured like a tomato, and one that was so like an orange that almost anyone you had given it to would have tried to peel it—if they liked oranges, of course. Also they bought a cake with icing on, and the rest of the money they spent in flowers to put in the vases.
When they had arranged all the things on a table, with the candles stuck up on a plate ready to light the moment mother's cab was heard, they washed themselves thoroughly and put on tidier clothes.
Then Robert said, "Good old psammead," and the others said so too.
"But, really, it's just as much good old Phœnix," said Robert. "Suppose it hadn't thought of getting the wish!"
"Ah!" said the Phœnix, "it is perhaps fortunate for you that I am such a competent bird."
"There's mother's cab," cried Anthea, and the Phœnix bird and they lighted the candles, and next moment mother's cab was home again.
She liked her presents very much, and found their story of Uncle Reginald and the sovereign easy and even pleasant to believe.
"Good old carpet," were Cyril's last sleepy words.
"What there is of it," said the Phœnix, from the cornice-pole.
FOOTNOTES:[A]Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
[A]Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
[A]Copyright, 1904, by George Newnes, Limited.
1.—A "CROWN" OF THE LILY OF THE VALLEY, SHOWING THE UNDERGROUND STEM WITH NEXT YEAR'S BUDS.1.—A "CROWN" OF THE LILY OF THE VALLEY, SHOWING THE UNDERGROUND STEM WITH NEXT YEAR'S BUDS.
2.—A RETARDED "CROWN" OF THE LILY OF THE VALLEY BEFORE BEING PLANTED IN THE FORCING-HOUSE.2.—A RETARDED "CROWN" OF THE LILY OF THE VALLEY BEFORE BEING PLANTED IN THE FORCING-HOUSE.
To the question, "What are your favourite flowers?" a large majority of people will be found to promptly answer, "Lilies." And every year these beautiful flowers seem to become more and more popular. They have a charm peculiarly their own, unmatched by any other flower; while a halo of romance has encompassed them from the earliest dawn of civilization, inspiring poets, painters, and all lovers of the beautiful in Nature.
North, south, east, and west collectors have travelled, diligently seeking for new species, until a wonderful collection of all sorts, shapes, and sizes of lilies has been brought together, to enrich our gardens and greenhouses with their graceful forms and delicate tints. But in spite of all this continual importation of gorgeous and distinguished foreigners, flaunting it bravely in scarlet and gold, our own native lily of the valley still ranks first favourite in the hearts of the people. Nor is this constancy surprising, for what can be more charming than the exquisite cool green of its foliage or the sweet, fresh fragrance of the clusters of its pure white flowers?