The Happy Adventurers Part 25

"That? Oh--that was merely my little experiment; that is my secret for the present, and I trust you not to mention it. But no one has told me why your brother chucked a diamond ring out of the balloon."

"It was a mistake; he was trying experiments too," Grizzel explained. "But, please, may I go and tell him that he isn't a murderer? He is expecting to be hanged every minute, and it makes him feel perfectly miserable. But I was sure that my ring would bring him luck."

Grizzel sped off on her mission. She knocked at the dark-room door.

"Please put an ear at the keyhole--I have important news."

An ear was promptly at her disposal. She did not ask whose, but went on:

"The murdered man has come, and he isn't in the least dead. And his blood wasn't blood, only his experiment, and he's got my ring. He is a nice man, and he is forgiving Hugh as hard as he can, and there were two miracles, and I told you so!"

There was a momentary silence within, and then a glad shout. d.i.c.k began to sing "G.o.d save the King", which seemed less appropriate when he remembered that the sovereign of the moment was a queen; but no one noticed, and the main point was that someone was saved. A few minutes later the dark-room party emerged, Hugh very pale and shaky as he went to meet his supposed victim. Indeed, for a moment he was incapable of speech, and Jerry, who knew only too well what it felt like to have a lump sticking in his throat just when he wanted to be most manly and soldier-like, filled up what would have been an awkward pause by saying anything that came into his head until Hugh had recovered himself.

"I've had a lesson," he began, as he shook hands with the young man, whose name they now learnt was Desmond O'Rourke. "I am awfully sorry--"

"That's all right," Mr. O'Rourke interrupted, "we all have to learn lessons now and then--I've learnt some myself--at least I hope I have. How are the photographs turning out?"

"Very well, thank you. Would you like to come and see them? Mr.

Ferguson's is the best portrait I have done yet." Hugh recovered from his emotion as he spoke, but he was still very pale.

Mr. O'Rourke accepted the invitation with alacrity. "We can exchange experiences," he said. "I am curious to know what the experiment was that so nearly bowled me out. But first I must return the diamond to its owner." He drew the ring out of an inner pocket and held it out to Grizzel. As the diamond met the golden glow of the fading day its green rays gleamed and sparkled. "One might believe it was alive!"

Mr. O'Rourke exclaimed. "I never saw anything like it. You kids ought not to have a jewel like that to play pitch-and-toss with; someone should keep it for you."

"I wear it round my neck," said Grizzel, unfastening the neckband of her overall and showing a slender chain of finely wrought gold. She took it off and slung the ring on.

"I have one almost as good," Hugh observed, as they watched Grizzel, "but mine is not set yet; perhaps I'll have it made into a ring some day. Mamma says I should keep it till I want an engagement ring--"

"O bay o' Dublin, my heart you're troublin',"

Mollie gave a violent start--but it was only Bridget singing in the kitchen.

Mr. O'Rourke turned his head and listened. "Who comes from Dublin?"

he asked.

"It's Bridget, our nurse when Baby is here and our cook just now,"

Prudence answered. "She's feeling homesick. She does sometimes."

"So do I," said Mr. O'Rourke. "It's a long time since I've seen the bay o' Dublin. I must shake hands with Bridget."

Mollie gazed earnestly at Mr. O'Rourke. Was _he_ Aunt Mary's long- ago lover? No--he was too old. He must be twenty-two at least. But she felt almost sure that _somehow_ he had something to do with that romance.

As they stood at the white gate later on, saying good-bye, their new friend pulled a round white stone out of one of his many pockets.

"Shall I keep this or shall I give it to you?" he asked Hugh.

There was a curious silence as the children gathered round to gaze at the innocent-looking missile in Mr. O'Rourke's hand. It was little the worse of its adventure--slightly chipped and scratched, and on one side an ominous red stain which made Hugh shiver and turn pale again, as it reminded him how nearly his thoughtlessness had cost a life.

"Give it to me," he said at last. "I will write the date on it, and if it doesn't remind me to think twice, nothing will, and I will _deserve_ to be hanged."

"Very well," agreed Mr. O'Rourke, "only remember that the red stain is only what I told you it was."

"I'll remember," said Hugh, holding the stone in his hand and looking gravely down at it, "but I won't forget that it _might_ have been what I thought it was."

Grizzel's solemn round eyes went from one to the other during this transaction. "Is that what it means in books when it says, 'marked with a white stone'?" she asked Hugh.

"It _is_ a sort of milestone," Hugh answered thoughtfully, "and it will mark a new start for me. It ought to have your name on as well as mine," he added, looking up at Mr. O'Rourke. "Perhaps it means a new mile for you too. You can't tell."

The young man laughed: "You make me feel as if it were my tombstone; you are all so solemn. Let me see a smile before I go."

A nice white smile flashed round the company, but Hugh's eyes remained thoughtful as he watched the young Irishman walk away down the leafy road.

After all the emotions of that exciting day Hugh was tired, so next morning found the children sitting quietly in the broad veranda.

Prudence busied herself with sewing; Grizzel sat at the table happily absorbed in painting a spray of wattle to send to Mamma. She had placed it in a tall, slender vase of Venetian gla.s.s, pale yellow flecked with gold. Hugh lay on the floor, his chin in the hollow of his hands, and his feet alternately tapping the red bricks and waving in the air, as he contemplated a small steam-engine which he had been putting through its paces. Mollie, d.i.c.k, and Jerry sat on the veranda steps, the boys printing photographs, while Mollie idly played with the trailing garlands of morning-glory and traveller's joy which hung around her. Between the blossoming almond trees she could see golden splashes of wattle in the field beyond. At her feet a ma.s.s of big Russian violets boldly lifted their heads above their leaves, and an acacia, which overshadowed the veranda, was dropping milky petals on the path. Mollie knew all the sweet scents by name now. It was queer, she thought, how the seasons came slipping round, each bringing its own fruit and flowers--here in Australia in Prue's Time, and there in Chauncery in her own Time. She turned her head and stared at the shabby old grandfather clock which stood in a corner of the veranda. For forty years, she thought, its pendulum would slowly swing, till it said "How d'ye do" to the ticking clock in Grannie's morning-room. Forty years was a long time to look forward to.

"Jolly nice smells here," d.i.c.k remarked. "How ripping the almond blossom looks in the sunshine. We've got an almond tree in our backyard, and once there was an almond on it."

"There are thousands of almonds here," Prue said, pausing in her work for a moment and gazing dreamily at the delicate outline of almond branches against the sky. "They are nicest when they are green, but I must say they do give you dreadful pains. I wonder why so many nice things leave a pain. Music does too--and even one's best friends sometimes."

"Do you eat your best friends boiled up with green almonds to the tune of 'Good-bye for ever--good-bye, good-bye'?" d.i.c.k inquired.

They laughed. "There's an old gentleman come to live next door,"

Prudence continued, taking up her sewing again, "who watches us through a telescope sometimes, and when he sees us in the green- almond trees he writes to Papa. He says it is for our good, old telltale. Once, though, he took us into his library and showed us some beautiful fossils. He said they were as old as Moses, and one of them might be a million years old. It was a fan-sh.e.l.l, quite whole and pretty. Fancy a million years! I wonder what the world will be like in another million years."

"Bust," said d.i.c.k briefly.

They laughed again and then were silent. Mollie looked round at the little group and thought how easy it was to be good when one had nice things to do and plenty of time and room to do them in. "Where is Miss Hilton?" she asked, "and where is Laddie? And why aren't you at school this time? How do you ever learn enough to pa.s.s your exams?"

"Miss Hilton is housekeeper while Mamma is away," Prudence answered, "and she hasn't much time for lessons. Laddie is dead. He was poisoned. We couldn't bear to have another dog. Papa doesn't like exams. He likes us to be out all the time and not to stoop over books. He says we can 'find tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything'."

Mollie gave a little jump. The very words Aunt Mary had quoted that morning! There was certainly _something_ queer somewhere!

"What a jolly kind of father to have," d.i.c.k exclaimed. "I wish my good parent held these views. His are quite otherwise. He believes in any amount of stooping over books, though I am always pointing out to him that it isn't the chaps who swot over books that turn into Generals and things in the end."

"When Mamma comes home Grizzel and I are going to school." Prudence said regretfully. "I know we shall hate it, but I suppose we must learn grammar and geography some time." She sighed at the distressing prospect before her.

Mollie smiled as she wondered what school would make of Grizzel. She looked at Hugh, absorbed in some great new idea. What would he be like in forty years. In Chauncery Time he must now be fifty-four.

Were there then _two_ Hughs? And if two, why not twenty? Or hundreds, for that matter, like the films of a cinematograph.

Perhaps everyone had a sort of film-picture running off all the time, and some day, before those million years had pa.s.sed, a way would be found to develop them. It would not be much more wonderful than wireless and flying and all those things that looked impossible to people in this Time. Mollie began to think of London, and of home in North Kensington, and then felt a sudden longing for her mother and Jean and the little ones--for all the familiar ways of home and school. This place was lovely, and the children were perfect dears, but it would be nice to feel a hockey-stick in her hand again--and she _should_ like to see her own comfortable mother. In fact, she felt homesick!

"A balloon is all very well," Hugh said, "so far as it goes." He rolled round on to his back, clasping his hands under his head and staring up at the white clouds over which he had flown yesterday.

"But it doesn't go far _enough_. It will never be much use until we learn to steer. You have to go whichever way the wind chooses, which may be exactly the way you don't want to go. I can't see myself how one could ever steer without machinery, and to carry that weight you'd have to have a balloon the size of a mountain."

"There's wings," said Prudence, "like Hiram Brown."

"What's the good of wings that let you drop the moment you try to fly with them. Hiram Brown is as dead as a door nail with his wings.

No, wings fastened on _that_ way will never work. Our internal machinery isn't made like birds'." As he spoke a parrot flew overhead, its brilliant wings flashing in the sunlight and then becoming apparently motionless as it swooped down towards the house.

Hugh's eyes followed it intently, and presently he rolled over again and resumed his study of the steam-engine.

"Wings," he murmured, "after all wings are the right things to fly with. Why not make the whole thing, body and all." He frowned hard as he concentrated his whole attention upon the toy before him.

"Wings--and steam--a boiler--"