Sweethearts at Home Part 7

Of course we never let on that we knew it all before. But we thought her very silly to leave a place where she could have stayed for ever at good wages (ever so much better than our weekly ones) just to go and do housework for somebody who never paid her any wages at all!

All this comes into the history of the First Torres Vedras, and of course I ought to have done it properly, like in a school history, all in order, with dates at the sides and notes at the bottom of each page.

But being only a little girl, it has got to be written just so, or not at all. I am so afraid that I shall forget these things as I grow up--so I put them down as I remember them in my Dear Diary.

VII

TORRES THE SECOND

_Written in the fourteenth year of my age._

[The date is July the Second--or Third. I am not sure which, for Mary Housemaid has burned yesterday's paper lighting the fire.]

We went to Torres Vedras the Second to-day. I don't quite know why--only there are bigger stones there, and the river rushes more rapidly. We often try to dam it altogether, but we have never quite succeeded. You see, just when we are getting to the last bit, the water always rises and sweeps it all away. But Hugh John said to-day he knew a way, and that was to make the dam like a very blunt capital V with its nose pointing up stream! The book on engineering he had been digging into said this was the proper right way, and it acted very well till the moment came when the very point of the V was put in. Hugh John was to do that, of course. He would yield the honor to no one else, and as for me, I did not want that kind of honor.

And, do you know, when he dropped in the big stone and stood on it to make it all safe by plugging up the "interstices" with smaller stones and rubble, as the book said--lo! the river rose again and swept away the whole work from side to side, all except the big bowlder Hugh John was standing on!

You never saw such a thing. Horatius, with the bridge going down behind him, was at least on dry land. But there stood Hugh John waving his arms to keep his balance, and crying out, "Oh--I don't care--I don't care--I'll dam it yet!"

It was very ign.o.ble, he said afterwards, of any river to behave that way. Why couldn't it have stopped where it was put and done what it was told? Anyway, while we tried to get him a plank to crawl ash.o.r.e on, the big bowlder swerved, and toppled him right in, and he was wet up to his watch-pocket.

He had to go to the top of the Feudal Tower all by himself, and play at being the Lady G.o.diva riding through Coventry, while his things dried over the ramparts. But he took good care that n.o.body saw him. He dared Toady Lion to come within half-a-mile. While he was away, we made great excavations and navigable channels. One of these was so huge that Sir Toady says that the ruins will remain even when we are Grown-ups ourselves. But that is a long time yet, and I don't see how Sir Toady can possibly know.

He also says that, just as there are the ruins of Memphis, Nineveh, Rome, the Calton Hill, and the Portobello Brickworks, so there will be the ruins of the First and Second Torres Vedras. Digging people in future generations will wonder who made them, and so on each of the big stones he has placed an inscription in the Abracadabrian language to tell the explorers all about it.

Now I will tell you about the Abracadabrian language. We made it up ourselves, and we four in the nursery all speak it fluently. Only the curious thing about it is that none of us has the least idea what the others are talking about! This must be owing, says Hugh John, to "some variation of dialect, such as creeps into all languages sooner or later."

The Abracadabrian language has suffered _sooner_ than most, that is all.

In fact, it was born suffering. But it is the writing of it that is most difficult. It is founded on always putting a Z for an A, and so back through the alphabet. And so difficult to read is it that not even the writer of any sentence in that language has ever been able to make out what he meant, twenty-four hours after!

Hugh John and I really labored at it hard, and might have made progress if we had not squabbled about the grammatical rules. But Sir Toady said brazenly, "_Hinky-c.h.i.n.ky-pin!_" And stuck to it that it meant, "The enemy of the Nursery Commonwealth has arrived at Leith, burnt his ships, and is now marching on Peebles!" As for Maid Margaret, she said it was so, and would Sir Toady please come with her and fish for minnows with a tin can tied to a string?

This they did. They had no souls for true philology. They don't even know what the word means. (_I_ have just looked it up.) After he was dried up all right alone in the Feudal Tower, Hugh John dressed himself, and signaled to me by waving his handkerchief three times, once with his right hand, once with his bare toes, and once holding it between his teeth--pretty intricate when you are not used to it.

This, when you can see it, is our fiery cross--that is, Hugh John's and mine. As I say, it takes a good deal of trouble, but it is a worthy summons--and the copy-book says that nothing truly n.o.ble is achieved without difficulty.

Well, when I got to him, he said that he would take me to his Cave of Mysteries. This was a great favor, for not even Sir Toady had ever been there before.

"Not a gamekeeper knows it," he said, "and Fuz says I can use his scouting-gla.s.s if I take good care not to drop it."

There was a steep wood to climb, all among the fir-trees, some gra.s.s fields, then above and quite suddenly we came out on the side of a rugged mountain.

The cave was about half-way up, under a slanting rock. You turned quickly to the side, grabbed a little pine-root and swung yourself in.

Then you saw the cave. It was not much of a place for size, not like the self-contained villas they have in story-books. Only you could not be seen. The rain did not come in unless it was driving quite level along from the north, which did not happen often.

But when I turned about--why, it nearly took my breath away. We could see half-a-dozen counties--Edinburgh dusting the little lion of Arthur's Seat with her smoke, the blue firth beyond, little and narrow, the toy towers of the Big Bridge to the left, and the green country all between dotted with towers and towns innumerable.

Oh, it was so unexpected and so fine that I nearly cried. And Hugh John lay watching me, his chin among the heather. But, more than all, he was pleased that his cave had taken me so much by storm.

Then he showed me with his gla.s.ses he could "spot exactly where each of the gamekeepers was, also the wood-foresters, and Sir Bulleigh Bunny himself, if he were at home."

And indeed it was quite true. He could pick them all out one by one.

Never once did he make a mistake. Then he would show me them, but often all I could see was no more than a little trembling among the green leaves of some far-distant wood.

It was not long till I found the secret of Hugh John's complete security in this his chosen Crusoe's Cave. Chesnay the gamekeeper was pa.s.sing far below, a gun over his shoulder, and as the wind was blowing off the hill into the valley, it was almost certain that his dogs would scent us.

But Hugh John had thought all this out. Trust him for that. He took a gnawed bone out of an inner pocket, removed the wrapping of newspaper, leaned far over, and threw it with the long, sweeping curve of a boomerang upon the path in front of the dog's nose.

John Chesnay's retriever made a rush, a snap, and then sidled sidelong into the thick copse-wood. The rest of the dogs were after him in a moment. I had seen him glancing from side to side as if to watch for the fall of the bone. He knew it would come, and that even if the devil took the hindmost, the foremost would be sure of the bone. Therefore he, John Chesnay's big black retriever, would be that foremost.

He was far too wise a dog to argue, or bother about where the bone arrived from. His business was to find it, and then--_crunch_--_crunch_--get it stowed away out of harm's way as quickly as possible.

Caesar Augustus (that was the dog's name) knew very well that though you may hunt out the causes of bad luck, it is better to leave good luck alone. So at least Hugh John said, and if anybody knew all about such things, _he_ did. There was hardly anything he could not tell you the true explanation of, or, if in doubt, you had only to wait a moment and he would make you up one on the spot quite as good, every bit, as the real one. Furthermore, he would prove to you (and very likely to himself) that it might be, must be, _was_, the only true and proper reason and explanation.

Anyway, reason or no reason, it was just as nice as ninepence in the Cave. Away down to the left where the sun was bright on the river we could see Sir Toady and the Maid, little black dots moving to and fro along the green edge of the river. Hugh John had the gla.s.s on them in a minute, and behold--they were squabbling! Sir Toady had tossed some of the Maid's fish out, and the Maid had promptly thrown the pail of water in his face.

He stood dripping and laughing. The Maid had gone for a fresh supply of ammunition. But war was over. Sir Toady had laughed. After that there was no more to be said.

It is different with Hugh John, when he sucks in his cheeks, clenches his fists, and laughs--well, look out for what you are going to get.

I asked Hugh John why he had never taken Sir Toady up to his Cave of the Winds, and he said, "Oh, Toady--he would be getting out boxes to stuff with beetles, and skirmishing for birds' eggs. He's all right in a wood, that Toadums--better than me--but no good on the hillside, and too larky all round in places where you can be seen miles off."

"And what do you do up here yourself?" I said.

"I am _by_ myself," he answered. "I think--I read!"

"But you have a room _to_ yourself in the house. You can go there!"

For I thought he was exceedingly well off. Because I have to share mine with the Maid, who kicks like a young colt in her sleep. But Hugh John gave me a look of utmost contempt.

"Did you never hear of Obermann?" he said, "--the man who made a cave on the Pic de Jaman. I showed it to you when we stopped at Glion on the way to Lausanne."

"It was a cow-chalet then," I reminded him. But he swept on without the least heed of details.

"Yes, and Mr. Arnold has a lovely poem all about him, and 'the wild bees' hum,' and 'his sad tranquil lore.' This isn't quite the Pic de Jaman, of course, but it is just as lonely, if you don't tell anybody, that is, and I've only told you, Sis! Never mind!"

So I swore never to reveal his hiding-place, and he showed me all he had written about his observations. He had a shelf covered in with wood and a lot of copy-books. Here was written all he had seen through the gla.s.ses he had borrowed and the three-draw telescope of his own which he carried constantly in his pocket.

Oh, it was wonderful what he had observed--all about the changing seasons, the country people, the moor-birds, the gamekeepers, and the comings and goings of Sir Bulleigh Bunny.

"Anybody can hide in a wood," he said, "but it takes Obermann and me to do it on a bare hill!"

Then he smiled a little and confessed.

"I don't really know much about him," he said, "except that his name was Senancour. I got his book out of the library, all marked with father's scribblings, but I really couldn't understand much of it. Only this that I translated--you could do it better, of course. It is about himself when he was as old as we are, and felt just the same.