The morning dawned in cloudless splendour. The sky was a pale cobalt colour, as in pictures of Swiss scenery. The sun shone brightly, and all the green things in the garden sparkled in the bewitching rays of the monarch of the skies.
The author of this does not like to read much about the weather in books, but he is obliged to put this piece in because it is true; and it is a thing that does not very often happen in the middle of January. In fact, I never remember the weather being at all like that in the winter except on that one day.
Of course we all went into the garden directly after brekker. (PS.—I have said green things: perhaps you think that is a lapsus lazuli, or slip of the tongue, and that there are not any green things in the winter. But there are. And not just evergreens either. Wallflowers and pansies and snapdragons and primroses, and lots of things, keep green all the year unless it's too frosty. Live and learn.)
And it was so warm we were able to sit in the summer-house. The birds were singing like mad. Perhaps they thought it was springtime. Or perhaps they always sing when they see the sun, without paying attention to dates.
And now, when all his brothers and sisters were sitting on the rustic seats in the summer-house, the far-sighted Oswald suddenly saw that now was the moment for him to hold that council he had been wanting to hold for some time.
So he stood in the door of the summer-house, in case any of the others should suddenly remember that they wanted to be in some other place. And he said—
"I say. About that council I want to hold."
And Dicky replied: "Well, what about it?"
So then Oswald explained all over again that we had been Treasure Seekers, and we had been Would-be-Goods, and he thought it was time we were something else.
"Being something else makes you think of things," he said at the end of all the other things he said.
"Yes," said H.O., yawning, without putting up his hand, which is not manners, and we told him so. "But I can think of things without being other things. Look how I thought about being a clown, and going to Rome."
"I shouldn't think you would want us to remember that," said Dora. And indeed Father had not been pleased with H.O. about that affair. But Oswald never encourages Dora to nag, so he said patiently—
"Yes, you think of things you'd much better not have thought of. Now my idea is let's each say what sort of a society we shall make ourselves into—like we did when we were Treasure Seekers—about the different ways to look for it, I mean. Let's hold our tongues (no, not with your dirty fingers, H.O., old chap; hold it with your teeth if you must hold it with something)—let's hold our tongues for a bit, and then all say what we've thought of—in ages," the thoughtful boy added hastily, so that every one should not speak at once when we had done holding our tongues.
So we were all silent, and the birds sang industriously among the leafless trees of our large sunny garden in beautiful Blackheath. (The author is sorry to see he is getting poetical. It shall not happen again, and it was an extra fine day, really, and the birds did sing, a fair treat.)
When three long minutes had elapsed themselves by the hands of Oswald's watch, which always keeps perfect time for three or four days after he has had it mended, he closed the watch and observed—
"Time! Go ahead, Dora."
Dora went ahead in the following remarks:
"I've thought as hard as I can, and nothing will come into my head except—
"'Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever.'
Don't you think we might try to find some new ways to be good in?"
"No, you don't!" "I bar that!" came at once from the mouths of Dicky and Oswald.
"You don't come that over us twice," Dicky added. And Oswald eloquently said, "No more Would-be-Goods, thank you, Dora."
Dora said, well, she couldn't think of anything else. And she didn't expect Oswald had thought of anything better.
"Yes, I have," replied her brother. "What I think is that we don't know half enough."
"If you mean extra swat," said Alice; "I've more homers than I care for already, thank you."
"I do not mean swat," rejoined the experienced Oswald. "I want to know all about real things, not booky things. If you kids had known about electric bells you wouldn't have" Oswald stopped, and then said, "I won't say any more, because Father says a gentleman does not support his arguments with personal illusions to other people's faults and follies."
"Faults and follies yourself," said H.O. The girls restored peace, and Oswald went on—
"Let us seek to grow wiser, and to teach each other."
"I bar that," said H.O. "I don't want Oswald and Dicky always on to me and call it teaching."
"We might call the society the Would-be-Wisers," said Oswald hastily.
"It's not so dusty," said Dicky; "let's go on to the others before we decide."
"You're next yourself," said Alice.
"Oh, so I am," remarked Dicky, trying to look surprised. "Well, my idea is let's be a sort of Industrious Society of Beavers, and make a solemn vow and covenant to make something every day. We might call it the Would-be-Clevers."
"It would be the Too-clever-by-half's before we'd done with it," said Oswald.
And Alice said, "We couldn't always make things that would be any good, and then we should have to do something that wasn't any good, and that would be rot. Yes, I know it's my turn—H.O., you'll kick the table to pieces if you go on like that. Do, for goodness' sake, keep your feet still. The only thing I can think of is a society called the Would-be-Boys."
"With you and Dora for members."
"And Noël—poets aren't boys exactly," said H.O.
"If you don't shut up you shan't be in it at all," said Alice, putting her arm round Noël. "No; I meant us all to be in it—only you boys are not to keep saying we're only girls, and let us do everything the same as you boys do."
"I don't want to be a boy, thank you," said Dora, "not when I see how they behave. H.O., do stop sniffing and use your handkerchief. Well, take mine, then."
It was now Noël's turn to disclose his idea, which proved most awful.
"Let's be Would-be-Poets," he said, "and solemnly vow and convenient to write one piece of poetry a day as long as we live."
Most of us were dumb at the dreadful thought. But Alice said—
"That would never do, Noël dear, because you're the only one of us who's clever enough to do it."
So Noël's detestable and degrading idea was shelved without Oswald having to say anything that would have made the youthful poet weep.
"I suppose you don't mean me to say what I thought of," said H.O., "but I shall. I think you ought all to be in a Would-be-Kind Society, and vow solemn convents and things not to be down on your younger brother."
We explained to him at once that he couldn't be in that, because he hadn't got a younger brother.
"And you may think yourself lucky you haven't," Dicky added.
The ingenious and felicitous Oswald was just going to begin about the council all over again, when the portable form of our Indian uncle came stoutly stumping down the garden path under the cedars.
"Hi, brigands!" he cried in his cheerful unclish manner. "Who's on for the Hippodrome this bright day?"
And instantly we all were. Even Oswald—because after all you can have a council any day, but Hippodromes are not like that.
We got ready like the whirlwind of the desert for quickness, and started off with our kind uncle, who has lived so long in India that he is much more warm-hearted than you would think to look at him.
Half-way to the station Dicky remembered his patent screw for working ships with. He had been messing with it in the bath while he was waiting for Oswald to have done plunging cleanly in the basin. And in the desert-whirlwinding he had forgotten to take it out. So now he ran back, because he knew how its cardboardiness would turn to pulp if it was left.
"I'll catch you up," he cried.
The uncle took the tickets and the train came in and still Dicky had not caught us up.
"Tiresome boy!" said the uncle; "you don't want to miss the beginning—eh, what? Ah, here he comes!" The uncle got in, and so did we, but Dicky did not see the uncle's newspaper which Oswald waved, and he went running up and down the train looking for us instead of just getting in anywhere sensibly, as Oswald would have done. When the train began to move he did try to open a carriage door but it stuck, and the train went faster, and just as he got it open a large heavy porter caught him by the collar and pulled him off the train, saying—
"Now, young shaver, no susansides on this ere line, if you please."
Dicky hit the porter, but his fury was vain. Next moment the train had passed away, and us in it. Dicky had no money, and the uncle had all the tickets in the pocket of his fur coat.
•••••••
I am not going to tell you anything about the Hippodrome because the author feels that it was a trifle beastly of us to have enjoyed it as much as we did considering Dicky. We tried not to talk about it before him when we got home, but it was very difficult—especially the elephants.
•••••••
I suppose he spent an afternoon of bitter thoughts after he had told that porter what he thought of him, which took some time, and the station-master interfered in the end.
When we got home he was all right with us. He had had time to see it was not our faults, whatever he thought at the time.
He refused to talk about it. Only he said—
"I'm going to take it out of that porter. You leave me alone. I shall think of something presently."
"Revenge is very wrong," said Dora; but even Alice asked her kindly to dry up. We all felt that it was simply piffle to talk copy-book to one so disappointed as our unfortunate brother.
"It is wrong, though," said Dora.
"Wrong be blowed!" said Dicky, snorting; "who began it I should like to know! The station's a beastly awkward place to take it out of any one in. I wish I knew where he lived."
"I know that," said Noël. "I've known it a long time—before Christmas, when we were going to the Moat House."
"Well, what is it, then?" asked Dicky savagely.
"Don't bite his head off," remarked Alice. "Tell us about it, Noël. How do you know?"
"It was when you were weighing yourselves on the weighing machine. I didn't because my weight isn't worth being weighed for. And there was a heap of hampers and turkeys and hares and things, and there was a label on a turkey and brown-paper parcel; and that porter that you hate so said to the other porter"
"Oh, hurry up, do!" said Dicky.
"I won't tell you at all if you bully me," said Noël, and Alice had to coax him before he would go on.
"Well, he looked at the label and said, 'Little mistake here, Bill—wrong address; ought to be 3, Abel Place, eh?'
"And the other one looked, and he said, 'Yes; it's got your name right enough. Fine turkey, too, and his chains in the parcel. Pity they ain't more careful about addressing things, eh?' So when they had done laughing about it I looked at the label and it said, 'James Johnson, 8, Granville Park.' So I knew it was 3, Abel Place, he lived at, and his name was James Johnson."
"Good old Sherlock Holmes!" said Oswald.
"You won't really hurt him," said Noël, "will you? Not Corsican revenge with knives, or poisoned bowls? I wouldn't do more than a good booby-trap, if I was you."
When Noël said the word "booby-trap," we all saw a strange, happy look come over Dicky's face. It is called a far-away look, I believe, and you can see it in the picture of a woman cuddling a photograph-album with her hair down, that is in all the shops, and they call it "The Soul's Awakening."
Directly Dicky's soul had finished waking up he shut his teeth together with a click. Then he said, "I've got it."
Of course we all knew that.
"Any one who thinks revenge is wrong is asked to leave now."
Dora said he was very unkind, and did he really want to turn her out?
"There's a jolly good fire in Father's study," he said. "No, I'm not waxy with you, but I'm going to have my revenge, and I don't want you to do anything you thought wrong. You'd only make no end of a fuss afterwards."
"Well, it is wrong, so I'll go," said Dora. "Don't say I didn't warn you, that's all!"
And she went.
Then Dicky said, "Now, any more conscious objectors?"
And when no one replied he went on: "It was you saying 'Booby-trap' gave me the idea. His name's James Johnson, is it? And he said the things were addressed wrong, did he? Well, I'll send him a Turkey-and-chains."
"A Turk in chains," said Noël, growing owley-eyed at the thought—"a live Turk—or—no, not a dead one, Dicky?"
"The Turk I'm going to send won't be a live one nor yet a dead one."
"How horrible! Half dead. That's worse than anything," and Noël became so green in the face that Alice told Dicky to stop playing the goat, and tell us what his idea really was.
"Don't you see yet?" he cried; "I saw it directly."
"I daresay," said Oswald; "it's easy to see your own idea. Drive ahead."
"Well, I'm going to get a hamper and pack it full of parcels and put a list of them on the top—beginning Turk-and-chains, and send it to Mister James Johnson, and when he opens the parcels there'll be nothing inside."
"There must be something, you know," said H.O., "or the parcels won't be any shape except flatness."
"Oh, there'll be something right enough," was the bitter reply of the one who had not been to the Hippodrome, "but it won't be the sort of something he'll expect it to be. Let's do it now. I'll get a hamper."
He got a big one out of the cellar and four empty bottles with their straw cases. We filled the bottles with black ink and water, and red ink and water, and soapy water, and water plain. And we put them down on the list—
1 bottle of port wine.
1 bottle of sherry wine.
1 bottle of sparkling champagne.
1 bottle of rum.
The rest of the things we put on the list were—
1 turkey-and-chains.
2 pounds of chains.
1 plum-pudding.
4 pounds of mince-pies.
2 pounds of almonds and raisins.
1 box of figs.
1 bottle of French plums.
1 large cake.
And we made up parcels to look outside as if their inside was full of the delicious attributes described in the list. It was rather difficult to get anything the shape of a turkey but with coals and crushed newspapers and firewood we did it, and when it was done up with lots of string and the paper artfully squeezed tight to the firewood to look like the Turk's legs it really was almost lifelike in its deceivingness. The chains, or sausages, we did with dusters—and not clean ones—rolled tight, and the paper moulded gently to their forms. The plum-pudding was a newspaper ball. The mince-pies were newspapers too, and so were the almonds and raisins. The box of figs was a real fig-box with cinders and ashes in it damped to keep them from rattling about. The French-plum bottle was real too. It had newspaper soaked in ink in it, and the cake was half a muff-box of Dora's done up very carefully and put at the bottom of the hamper. Inside the muff-box we put a paper with—
"Revenge is not wrong when the other people begin. It was you began, and now you are jolly well served out."
We packed all the bottles and parcels into the hamper, and put the list on the very top, pinned to the paper that covered the false breast of the imitation Turk.
Dicky wanted to write—"From an unknown friend," but we did not think that was fair, considering how Dicky felt.
So at last we put—"From one who does not wish to sign his name."
And that was true, at any rate.
Dicky and Oswald lugged the hamper down to the shop that has Carter Paterson's board outside.
"I vote we don't pay the carriage," said Dicky, but that was perhaps because he was still so very angry about being pulled off the train. Oswald had not had it done to him, so he said that we ought to pay the carriage. And he was jolly glad afterwards that this honourable feeling had arisen in his young bosom, and that he had jolly well made Dicky let it rise in his.
We paid the carriage. It was one-and-five-pence, but Dicky said it was cheap for a high-class revenge like this, and after all it was his money the carriage was paid with.
So then we went home and had another go in of grub—because tea had been rather upset by Dicky's revenge.
The people where we left the hamper told us that it would be delivered next day. So next morning we gloated over the thought of the sell that porter was in for, and Dicky was more deeply gloating than any one.
"I expect it's got there by now," he said at dinner-time; "it's a first class booby-trap; what a sell for him! He'll read the list and then he'll take out one parcel after another till he comes to the cake. It was a ripping idea! I'm glad I thought of it!"
"I'm not," said Noël suddenly. "I wish you hadn't—I wish we hadn't. I know just exactly what he feels like now. He feels as if he'd like to kill you for it, and I daresay he would if you hadn't been a craven, white-feathered skulker and not signed your name."
It was a thunderbolt in our midst Noël behaving like this. It made Oswald feel a sick inside feeling that perhaps Dora had been right. She sometimes is—and Oswald hates this feeling.
Dicky was so surprised at the unheard-of cheek of his young brother that for a moment he was speechless, and before he got over his speechlessness Noël was crying and wouldn't have any more dinner. Alice spoke in the eloquent language of the human eye and begged Dicky to look over it this once. And he replied by means of the same useful organ that he didn't care what a silly kid thought. So no more was said. When Noël had done crying he began to write a piece of poetry and kept at it all the afternoon. Oswald only saw just the beginning. It was called
"THE DISAPPOINTED PORTER'S FURY
Supposed to be by the Porter himself,"
and it began:—
"When first I opened the hamper fair
And saw the parcel inside there
My heart rejoiced like dry gardens when
It rains—but soon I changed and then
I seized my trusty knife and bowl
Of poison, and said 'Upon the whole
I will have the life of the man
Or woman who thought of this wicked plan
To deceive a trusting porter so.
No noble heart would have thought of it. No.'"
There were pages and pages of it. Of course it was all nonsense—the poetry, I mean. And yet . . . . . . (I have seen that put in books when the author does not want to let out all he thought at the time.)
That evening at tea-time Jane came and said—
"Master Dicky, there's an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here."
So Dicky thought it was the bootmaker perhaps; so he went out, and Oswald went with him, because he wanted to ask for a bit of cobbler's wax.
But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father's study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he wanted to see.
When we got him there he said—
"Might I trouble you to shut the door?"
This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.
When the door was shut, he said—
"I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent this?"
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.
"Did you send it?" said the old man again.
So then Dicky shrugged his shoulders and said, "Yes."
Oswald said, "How did you know and who are you?"
The old man got whiter than ever. He pulled out a piece of paper—it was the greenish-grey piece we'd wrapped the Turk and chains in. And it had a label on it that we hadn't noticed, with Dicky's name and address on it. The new bat he got at Christmas had come in it.
"That's how I know," said the old man. "Ah, be sure your sin will find you out."
"But who are you, anyway!" asked Oswald again.
"Oh, I ain't nobody in particular," he said. "I'm only the father of the pore gell as you took in with your cruel, deceitful, lying tricks. Oh, you may look uppish, young sir, but I'm here to speak my mind, and I'll speak it if I die for it. So now!"
"But we didn't send it to a girl," said Dicky. "We wouldn't do such a thing. We sent it for a—for a" I think he tried to say for a joke, but he couldn't with the fiery way the old man looked at him—"for a sell, to pay a porter out for stopping me getting into a train when it was just starting, and I missed going to the Circus with the others." Oswald was glad Dicky was not too proud to explain to the old man. He was rather afraid he might be.
"I never sent it to a girl," he said again.
"Ho," said the aged one. "An' who told you that there porter was a single man? It was his wife—my pore gell—as opened your low parcel, and she sees your lying list written out so plain on top, and, sez she to me, 'Father,' says she, 'ere's a friend in need! All these good things for us, and no name signed, so that we can't even say thank you. I suppose it's some one knows how short we are just now, and hardly enough to eat with coals the price they are,' says she to me. 'I do call that kind and Christian,' says she, 'and I won't open not one of them lovely parcels till Jim comes 'ome,' she says, 'and we'll enjoy the pleasures of it together, all three of us,' says she. And when he came home—we opened of them lovely parcels. She's a cryin' her eyes out at home now, and Jim, he only swore once, and I don't blame him for that one—though never an evil speaker myself—and then he set himself down on a chair and puts his elbows on it to hide his face like—and 'Emmie,' says he, 'so help me. I didn't know I'd got an enemy in the world. I always thought we'd got nothing but good friends,' says he. An' I says nothing, but I picks up the paper, and comes here to your fine house to tell you what I think of you. It's a mean, low-down, dirty, nasty trick, and no gentleman wouldn't a-done it. So that's all—and it's off my chest, and good-night to you gentlemen both!"
He turned to go out. I shall not tell you what Oswald felt, except that he did hope Dicky felt the same, and would behave accordingly. And Dicky did, and Oswald was both pleased and surprised.
Dicky said—
"Oh, I say, stop a minute. I didn't think of your poor girl."
"And her youngest but a bare three weeks old," said the old man angrily.
"I didn't, on my honour I didn't think of anything but paying the porter out."
"He was only a doing of his duty," the old man said.
"Well, I beg your pardon and his," said Dicky; "it was ungentlemanly, and I'm very sorry. And I'll try to make it up somehow. Please make it up. I can't do more than own I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't—there!"
"Well," said the old man slowly, "we'll leave it at that. Next time p'r'aps you'll think a bit who it's going to be as'll get the benefit of your payings out."
Dicky made him shake hands, and Oswald did the same.
Then we had to go back to the others and tell them. It was hard. But it was ginger-ale and seed-cake compared to having to tell Father, which was what it came to in the end. For we all saw, though Noël happened to be the one to say it first, that the only way we could really make it up to James Johnson and his poor girl and his poor girl's father, and the baby that was only three weeks old, was to send them a hamper with all the things in it—real things, that we had put on the list in the revengeful hamper. And as we had only six-and-sevenpence among us we had to tell Father. Besides, you feel better inside when you have. He talked to us about it a bit, but he is a good Father and does not jaw unduly. He advanced our pocket-money to buy a real large Turk-and-chains. And he gave us six bottles of port wine, because he thought that would be better for the poor girl who had the baby than rum or sherry or even sparkling champagne.
We were afraid to send the hamper by Carter Pat. for fear they should think it was another Avenging Take-in. And that was one reason why we took it ourselves in a cab. The other reason was that we wanted to see them open the hamper, and another was that we wanted—at least Dicky wanted—to have it out man to man with the porter and his wife, and tell them himself how sorry he was.
So we got our gardener to find out secretly when that porter was off duty, and when we knew the times we went to his house at one of them.
Then Dicky got out of the cab and went in and said what he had to say. And then we took in the hamper.
And the old man and his daughter and the porter were most awfully decent to us, and the porter's wife said, "Lor! let bygones be bygones is what I say! Why, we wouldn't never have had this handsome present but for the other. Say no more about it, sir, and thank you kindly, I'm sure."
And we have been friends with them ever since.
We were short of pocket-money for some time, but Oswald does not complain, though the Turk was Dicky's idea entirely. Yet Oswald is just, and he owns that he helped as much as he could in packing the Hamper of the Avenger. Dora paid her share, too, though she wasn't in it. The author does not shrink from owning that this was very decent of Dora.
This is all the story of—
THE TURK IN CHAINS;
or,
RICHARD'S REVENGE.
(His name is really Richard, the same as Father's. We only call him Dicky for short.)