Penelope and the Others Part 5

"I should hate it," said Nancy. "I'd much rather dig potatoes, or make chairs and tables."

"Girls can't do that sort of work," remarked Ambrose, who was sitting in the window-seat with a book. "Girls can't do many things. They're not brave enough, or strong enough, or clever enough. Boys and men earn money, not girls."

Nancy never wasted words on Ambrose when he talked in this way. She at once looked round for the nearest thing to throw at him. Quite aware of her intention, he quickly added holding up one arm to shield himself:

"Boys can do everything better than girls."

The school-room ruler whizzed through the air, and, without touching Ambrose, crashed through the window behind him.

"Girls can't even throw straight!" he exclaimed exultingly, jumping down from the window-seat.

With a very sober face Nancy advanced to examine the mischief. The ruler had broken one pane of gla.s.s, and cracked two others right across.

"There, you see!" said Ambrose tauntingly, "you've done it again.

You're always smashing things."

It was quite true. Nancy had a most unfortunate faculty for breaking gla.s.s, china, and any other fragile thing she came near. She looked sadly at the window.

"It'll be at least two weeks' pocket-money, Nancy," said Pennie, drawing near.

"I don't so much mind about that," said poor Nancy dejectedly; "but I do so hate telling mother I've broken something else. I did mean not to break anything while she was away this time."

"Mother's never really angry when we tell her," said Pennie, trying to give comfort.

"I wish someone else had broken something, or done something wrong,"

continued Nancy. "It's so horrid to be the only one."

Ambrose became suddenly grave. What was a broken window compared with his and David's disobedience in the matter of Rumborough Common? Each day the possession of that little crock with its gold pieces weighed upon his mind more heavily. They had not even dared to place it openly in the museum, but after hiding it for a while in the tool-house, had agreed to bury it in the garden as the only secure place. It might just as well, therefore, have remained in the Roman Camp; and with all his heart Ambrose wished it could be transported there again, for he had not known one happy minute since its discovery. It haunted him in lesson and play-hours, and visited him in feverish dreams at night; but, most of all, it spoilt his enjoyment of the garden. He got into a way of hovering round the spot where it was buried, and keeping a watchful eye on all Andrew's movements, for he felt that he might some day be seized by a whim to dig just there, and bring the dreadful thing to light. The only person he could talk to on the subject was David, but there was little comfort in that, for the conversation was sure to end in a quarrel. David had been excited and pleased at first; but now that the treasure was buried away, quite out of his sight, his interest in it became fainter and fainter.

"I don't see any good at all in it," he said; "the museum's just as empty as it was before. I think we'd better break it all up into tiny bits and throw it away."

"But the coins--" said Ambrose.

"Well, then," was David's next suggestion, "we'd better tell."

"If ever you dare to be so mean as that, I'll never speak to you or play with you again," returned Ambrose. "So there!"

David looked very sulky.

"I hate having it in my garden," he said. "I'm always wanting to plant things just where it is."

Disputes became so frequent between the boys that at length, by a silent agreement, they avoided the subject altogether, and by degrees the crock ceased to be so constantly in Ambrose's thoughts. But even when he had managed to forget it entirely for a little while, something always happened to bring it back to his memory, and this was the case after Nancy had made her confession of the broken window.

"My dear Nancy," said Mrs Hawthorne when she was told of it, "you knew it was wrong to throw things at your brother, didn't you?"

"Why, yes, mother," said Nancy; "but I didn't think of it till after the window was broken."

"But it would have been just as wrong if the ruler had not hit anyone or broken anything. The wrong thing was the feeling which made you throw it."

"I shouldn't have minded so much, though," said Nancy, "if it hadn't hit anything."

"I suppose not; and the next time you were vexed you would have been still readier to throw something. Each wrong thing makes it easier to do the next, and sometimes people go on until it comes to be more natural to do wrong than right. But when they find that the wrong-doing gets them into trouble, and gives them pain, they remember to stop in time when they are most tempted. So it is not altogether a pity that the window is broken."

"There are two panes," said Nancy, "it'll take three weeks'

pocket-money. You couldn't ask Mr Putney to put in very cheap gla.s.s, could you, mother?"

Ambrose had listened attentively to all this, though he was apparently deeply engaged in scooping out a boat with his penknife. It brought all his old trouble about the crock back again with redoubled force. He envied Nancy. Her fault was confessed and paid for. What was the loss of three weeks' money compared with the possession of unlawfully got and hidden treasure? And yet he felt it impossible to tell his mother that he had not only disobeyed her, but persuaded David to do so also. No.

The crock must take its chance of discovery. Perhaps in a little while he should be able to forget its existence altogether and be quite happy again.

But it was not easy, and, as if on purpose to prevent it, Pennie's stories had just now taken the direction of dire and dreadful subjects.

They varied a good deal at different times, and depended on the sort of books she could get to read. After a visit to Nearminster, where Miss Unity's library consisted of rows and rows of solemn old brown volumes, Pennie's stories were chiefly religious and biographical, taken, with additional touches of her own, from the lives of bygone worthies. When she was at home, where she had read all the books in the school-room over and over again, she had to fall back on her own invention; and then the stories were full of fairies, goblins, dwarfs, and such like fancies. But lately, peering over the shelves in her father's study, where she was never allowed to touch a book without asking, she had discovered a thick old volume called _Hone's Miscellany_. To her great joy she was allowed to look at it, "although," her father added, "I don't think even you, Pennie, will find much that is interesting in it."

Pennie had soon dived into the inmost recesses of the _Miscellany_, where she found much that was interesting and much that she did not understand. There were all sorts of queer things in it. Anecdotes of celebrated misers, maxims and proverbs, legends and pieces of poetry, receipts for making pickles and jams, all mixed up together, so that you could never tell what you might find on the next page. She thought it a most wonderful and attractive book, and picked out a store of facts and fancies on which to build future stories.

Unfortunately for Ambrose, those which most attracted her were of a dark and grim character. One poem, called "_The Dream of Eugene Aram_," So thrilled and excited her that she learned it at once by heart and repeated it to her brothers and sisters. It would have had a great effect upon Ambrose at any time, but just now he saw a dreadful fitness in it to his own secret. Pennie added a moral when she had finished, which really seemed pointed directly at him.

"We learn by this," she said, "that it is of no use to hide anything, because it is always found out; and that if we do wrong we are sure to be punished."

Pennie was fond of morals, and they were always listened to with respect, except when they came into d.i.c.kie's stories, who could not bear them, and always knew when they were coming. At the least hint of their approach, however artfully contrived, she would abruptly leave her seat and run away, saying, "No more, no more." Ambrose, however, was deeply impressed both by the poem and the moral, and felt quite as guilty as Eugene Aram.

True, it was only a crock he had buried, and as far as he knew he had not robbed anyone of the gold, except the ancient Romans, who were all dead long ago. But he began to be troubled with doubts as to whether the coins were really so old. David had said they looked bright and new; perhaps they belonged to someone alive now, who had buried them in Rumborough Camp for safety. If this were so, he and David were robbers!

There was no other name for them.

This was such a new and terrible idea that he felt unable to keep it entirely to himself. He must have someone's opinion on the matter; and after some thought he resolved to try if Pennie could be of any service.

"If I say, 'Suppose So-and-so did so-and-so,'" he said to himself, "she won't know it really happened, and I shall hear what she thinks. I'll do it to-morrow on the way to Cheddington Fair."

For the time for Cheddington Fair had come round again, and as it was the only entertainment of any kind that happened near Easney, it was looked forward to for weeks beforehand, and remembered for weeks afterwards. It was indeed an occasion of importance to all the country-side, and was considered the best fair held for many miles round. The first day was given up to the buying and selling of cattle, and after that came two days of what was called the "pleasure fair,"

when all the booths and shows were open, and many wonderful sights were to be seen.

There was a wild-beast show of unusual size, a splendid circus, numbers of conjurers, places where you might fire off a rifle for a penny, merry-go-rounds where you might choose the colour of your horse, Aunt Sallys where you could win a cocoa-nut if you were skilful--no end to the attractions, no limit to the brilliancy and bustle of the scene.

The gingerbread to be bought at Cheddington Fair had a peculiar excellence of its own, whether in the form of gilded kings and queens, brandy-snap, or cakes; everything else tasted tame and flat after it, as indeed did most of the events of daily life for some days following these exciting events.

The children were glad when it was settled this year that they were to go on the first day of the pleasure fair, for they had an uneasy fear that if they waited till the second all the best things would be bought from the stalls and booths. They set out therefore in very good spirits, under the care of Nurse, and Jane the nursery-maid, to walk from Easney to Cheddington, which was about a mile.

Pennie did not join in the chatter and laughter at first: she walked along with unusual soberness, for though she liked going to the fair quite as much as the others, she had just now something to think about which made her grave. The children, she reflected, would certainly spend every penny of their money to-day, besides that which mother had given them for the wild-beast show. There would be nothing at all for the mandarin. Should she make up her mind to save all hers, and buy nothing at all for herself? As she gradually resolved upon this, she began to feel that it would certainly be a very unselfish thing to do, and she held her head a little higher, and listened with superiority to her brothers and sisters as they chattered on about their money.

"I haven't got much," said Nancy, "hardly anything really, because I've got to pay for that horrid window."

"I expect David's got most," said Ambrose, "he's as rich as a Jew."

"Jews aren't always rich," remarked David slowly. "Look at Mr Levi, who stands in the door of the rag-and-bone shop at Nearminster."

Pennie could not help striking in at this point. "He doesn't look rich," she said, "but I dare say he's got h.o.a.rds buried in his garden."

"He hasn't got a garden," objected Nancy.

"Well, then, in his chimney, or perhaps sewn up in his mattress," she answered.

"If that's all he does with it he might just as well be poor," said David.