Sweethearts at Home

"Doing Kow-Tow to This False God"

He was had up into the study for that, though, because father said he would have no "mockery" about such things. But I don't think he got it very bad, because we all knew by the noise he made that Big Growly wasn't really very mad.

When he is, he goes off and you see no more of him for a long time. He only stops in his den and doesn't growl. That is a good time to keep away and say nothing, till he has done chewing his paws. Only Maid Margaret dare go in then, and even she is wearing out of it—getting too old, I mean.

But about Polly Pretend. Of course she did not pretend to us. First of all, she could not—she knew that it was quite in vain. Children don't try on things with one another. They know they will be seen through. Generally they can see through Grown-ups too, though, bless you, They never know it.

Oh, poor Polly! I was sorry for Polly. Because she could never be natural, but all the time had got to—what is it the book says?—"assume a virtue when she had it not."

At school she knew wads of Scripture and all the Kings of Israel and Judah, but never did a French exercise without copying. Then, because her people were rich, and she so good, she got lots of money sent her—so much for telling what her place in class was. She told lies about that, and got money for being first when really most of the time she was first at the wrong end.

Now at our school every fortnight the class was turned upside down, the top girl being put at the bottom and the wooden spoon at the top, so that the clever ones could work their way up again. And so each alternate Monday Polly Pretend was really top girl for about five minutes. It was on that day she wrote to her parents, and often got a golden sovereign or a Post Office Order sent to her for her wonderful cleverness. So, after all, in a way it was true.

But there was trouble at the end of term—after the examinations, when Polly Pretend always came out the very last.

Because, you see, she had to save money to buy her own prizes, get one of the charwomen to steal the school tickets that they stick in prize-books, and print in her own name in capital letters as "first prize" to show her parents.

Then she had to watch for the School Report, which comes a day or two after, and get it safely from the postman. She burned it, after trying to alter the figures, but, of course, was anxious all the holidays. Also she warned me to say nothing about it when I came to see her.

As if I would! I knew Polly Pretend too well. So I never said a thing about school, for fear Polly had been telling some lie about it, and I should be giving her away. The visit was an unhappy time for all of us—except, that is, for Sir Toady, who invented new and horrible forms of idolatry every other day, and scared the immortal soul out of Polly Pretend by putting on his day-shirt (the spare one) over his clothes, and letting on to be an Evil Spirit which haunted the gooseberry-bushes.

And I will say he did growl most fearfully—especially when he found a good ripe bush. But we knew that was only to keep the rest of us off. So Hugh John chased the Evil Spirit by the sound, and growled too. Because the bush really was a good one—thin-skinned "silver-grays," and quite ripe. I had some.

But you should have seen poor Polly. She was frightened till she nearly told the truth. I can't say more than that. Almost—but not quite. I do believe that she would have gone and confessed the most innocent of her lies to her parents, if it had not been for that young Imp, Sir Toady, who laughed out loud, and jumped up and down in the shirt like a white Jack-in-the-Box.

But perhaps it was as well that she did not. For they were just the sort of people not to understand that Polly's lies had mostly been their own fault. But of course, as you may imagine, it was only putting off the day of reckoning.

It was in holiday-time—midsummer—when school-mistresses are just like other folk; only, if anything, a trifle nicer.

Now the head of our school, Miss Gray, came to Romano, which is the name of the town where Polly Pretend lived. And Miss Gray thought it would be a nice thing to call upon the mother of her pupil. Perhaps she might be able to give Mrs. Pretend a hint or two which would keep Polly from entirely wasting her time next term at Olympia.

Oh, Miss Gray meant it just as kindly as she could, and that's saying a good deal. She is a nice chicky-biddy, fussy, motherly sort of thing, and wears the nicest satiny gowns at dinner-parties. It was the last thing in the world she would have thought of, to give Polly Pretend away—even to her parents.

But it happened that on this day the Pretends had gone for a motor-ride. And as it was hot, Miss Gray said that she would be glad to wait a few minutes in the drawing-room. Because, you see, Mrs. Pretend was expected in every minute. The maid knew her business, of course; there was no "pretend" about her. She brought a cup of tea, and left Miss Gray to do—what do you think?—look over the books on the table.

At first Miss Gray thought that something had suddenly gone wrong with her eyes. She opened a fine Macaulay, and saw "First Prize for History, Presented to Miss P. Pretend." Next came "Special Prize for Good Conduct—Miss P. Pretend."

There was a whole table covered with them, laid out in the center of the room, and more stuck in decorative oaken shelves, of fine old oak, made by the village handy-man.

Then Miss Gray understood, and her feelings were too much for her. But even then she did not give Polly away. You see, Miss Gray was a pretty good sort—that is, a good sort, and a pretty one too—which is the best sort of all, Hugh John says.

So she just rang the bell, and told the maid that she could not wait any longer to see Mrs. Pretend, but that she would write.

And she did. It was a little letter just saying that circumstances over which she had no control, etc., had caused such a pressure upon Olympia College that she was sorry there would not be a vacancy for Polly that year.

Well, you can fancy—Polly's mother and father were very angry. So much so that they determined to start off at once to call on the heads of the college and complain.

But Polly herself, as soon as she had heard from Ellen, the housemaid, what had happened, and how Miss Gray had been twenty minutes in the drawing-room, and gone away leaving her tea hardly "sipped," knew at once what was the matter.

So she dissuaded her father and mother from going to Olympia College.

She was not appreciated, she said. She had always known it. Even Miss Gray was jealous of her. And her mother said to her father, "I do not wonder at it, dear. It is all the effect of our too careful bringing up of Polly. Truly we may say with the Psalmist—

And in a way, do you know, she had. And it was the training that did it.

But later on, Dear Diary, I shall write more about Polly Pretend, when she got a governess. For then she pretended and the governess pretended, and instead of getting out of the habit, as Hugh John says, seven Pretending Devils worse than the first entered into her.

But of that another time.

PRINCIPIA

June continued, but nearer the end, and hotter.

Polly Pretend's governess, after she could not be received at Olympia, was Miss Principia Crow. She had more than three miles of testimonials, if all had been written out in a line in text hand and measured.

The only curious thing was that the dates of all these were old, and Miss Principia was still fairly young. Also, she admitted having changed her name "for family reasons."

But she seemed just the sort of person for Polly Pretend. She did not know much arithmetic—just enough to cheat at tennis. She had certificates that reached as far as "trig"—the wonderful science which makes the boys stamp and throw their books about the room when they have to study it.

Now Pa and Ma Pretend had taken a great deal of trouble in providing a suitable companion for Polly, and in a way they had managed all right. Miss Crow pretended to teach, and Polly pretended to learn, and one knew as much about the matter as the other.

Miss Crow passed the time in telling Polly how many people had been in love with her, and the hopes she had of as many more. Polly begged the loan of a pier-glass from her mother, and thought, as she pretended before it, smiling at herself and sweeping imaginary trains, how soon her turn would come to have scores of lovers all willing and anxious to drown themselves for her sake, like Miss Principia Crow.

Fragments of conversation were sometimes caught by Mamma Pretend, and she thought to herself, "What strange authors they do set young people to study now-a-days! When I was a girl we had Magnall's Questions and Little Arthur's History of England!"

It was Miss Crow's voice, however. No mistake about that.

"Yes, and he said to me, 'I adore you with all the fervor of a free and untrammeled genius, with the noble indignation of a spirit on fire against wrong and oppression. It is true that in the meantime, though of an exalted race, I am poor, receiving only twelve shillings a week in one of the institutions of trust vulgarly called a pawn-broker's. But next year and every succeeding year I shall have my salary raised by the sum of two shillings—per fortnight. Oh, Principia, my Principia——'"

At this moment, overcome by her own pardonable curiosity, Mrs. Pretend entered hurriedly to see what they were doing.

She found them busily employed, with head bent over an exercise in dictation.... "From Milton's Essay on Macaulay!" Miss Polly Pretend explained in answer to her mother's question.

"Dear me," said Mrs. Pretend, as she went out, "and I always thought that Milton wrote poetry. It's true I never could make out how they could say that blank verse was really poetry—not, I mean, like 'How doth the little busy' and 'Twinkle, twinkle'! But he wrote a long time ago, and perhaps then they had not learned to make the words at the end rhyme!"

But now I must tell how Polly Pretend corrupted the whole house. At first we had only called Polly's father and mother "the Pretends" because they belonged to Polly, and so that we might know who was meant.

But to begin with, Mrs. Pretend had to make up a lot of things to explain why, after all these prizes, Polly had not gone back to Olympia School. She had to think up something that people would believe. You see, Polly's inventions were really too daring—as that after a year abroad she and Miss Crow were going to set up a college of their own, a far better one than Olympia. And then she would show Miss Gray!

Now you will hardly believe me, but old Pretend, who was on the County Council and fussed about roads and drainage—"an innocent enough old duck," Sir Toady calls him—took to magnifying Miss Polly Pretend and her governess. I think he actually began to count up his dollars to see if he had really enough money to start Polly Pretend in a school of her own. But one fine day he met old Lovell, of Castle Lovell, at some joint business meeting about a Combination Poorhouse, or something like that.

Now old Lovell is a fearful big-wig, and looked up to by everybody because he is too stupid ever to pretend the least little bit. He would get found out in a moment if he did. But solid as the Bank of England, and as conceited as Mir-row with a rosette tied to her tail last King's birthday!

And old Lovell said, "I hear you have a Miss Crow to be governess to your little child! I think I ought to know her!"

"Ye-es!" said Father Pretend slowly. He did not like to hear a young lady who was going to set up a school next year to rival Olympia itself called "your little child."

But he could not afford to fall out with old Lovell, who always seemed as wise as a bench of judges and as rich-looking as a jeweler's shop which can afford to keep its blinds down. So he only said, "My daughter is not quite a child!"

"Oh," said old Lovell, "then it can't be Lizzie you have for governess!"

"Certainly not!" said Mr. Pretend, much relieved; "her name is Principia!"

"I thought that was a Latin Grammar or something like that!" said old Lovell, scratching his head like a bald old parrot.

"Well, perhaps," said Papa Pretend, "it is very likely. Miss Crow has been educated in all the languages that are—from her youth up!"

Now all would have gone well if only it had not happened that at that moment Polly and her governess came out of Parkins the pastry-cook's, where they had been stuffing fruit-cakes.

"Why, Lizzie!" cried old Lovell, shaking Miss Principia heartily by the hand, "now I am pleased to see you have got on so well. This is my butler's daughter," he explained, turning to Mr. Pretend, whose mouth was the shape of a capital O; "it does Lizzie much credit. Because, you see, she never got any regular schooling, being kept at home to help her mother in the still-room and with the jams. Good-by, Lizzie! I shall not forget to inform your father and mother that I have seen you—also John the gardener, with whom, I understand, you are keeping company, as they call it. Ah, ha! young people will be young people! Good-by, Pretend! Good-by! Congratulate you on having the daughter of a respectable man in your house. She will teach your little girl to make jams, and her gooseberry-fool will be a marvel, if she is a bit like her mother. Sensible man, Pretend! Far better to teach your daughter to brew and bake than all the modern 'ologies' and fiddle-faddle in the world! Keeps their husbands in better temper. Ah, clever fellow, Pretend! But you couldn't take an old fellow in, eh, Pretend? I knew all that about learning Latin grammar was stuff and nonsense. Good-by, good-by! So long, Lizzie! Don't forget about that gooseberry-fool!"

So off he went, like the rough timber-sided old bargee he was, and left Mr. Pretend muttering angrily, "Gooseberry-fool! Gooseberry-fool!" As if he knew very well who the "Gooseberry Fool" was—knew, that is, but had promised not to tell.

But poor Principia went as white as a sheet and shook like a fly caught in a spider's web. I'm afraid in her heart she called old Lovell names.

How did it turn out? Oh, the best way in the world. You would hardly believe. At first, of course, old Pretend was all for packing off Principia for teaching his child deceit! But he calmed down when he thought of the lot of money he owed to old Lovell of Castle Lovell, and of the use that his influence would be to him. Besides, he had boasted so much about her. So had his wife.

So he not only let Principia stay on, but actually set her to teach Polly Pretend all she really knew. And she did know about cookery. That was the real college she had been at, and her mother was a better professor than all the ladies who gave lessons there. And Polly was obliged to learn, too, because her father ate all the things she cooked, and if he had indigestion, why, Polly heard about it, that's all. So she stopped pretending and really did learn.

And after a while they set up their college with old Pretend's money—old Lovell's too, and it was called

And that sentence was the last little bit of "Pretend." For neither Polly nor Miss Crow has any family. Nor, between ourselves, are they likely to have.

TORRES VEDRAS

July the first in the year when I was eleven on August tenth.

Father has seen the real place, and, of course, knows all about it. He says that it is just a lot of rough mountains, with bits of wall built into the open places to connect them and make them strong.

But we know that there are not one, but two Torres Vedrases—all on one bend of a river. The first one is quite near the Low Park, between the Weir and Jackson's Pool. It is a pebbly bar with a kind of green tufty island. From one side of it there is a rippling ford crossing slantwise, by which you can lose yourself barefooted in the woods on the other side.

The water only takes you to about the knee, even if you are pretty little. It is always one of the nicest places in the world. The water makes a soft tinkling over the ford. The grasses and bluebells wave, and the wind goes sough through the big solid walls of pine on either side.

Yes, it is first-rate to play there with your oldest things on, especially on a warm day about this time of the year. The river is pretty dry, and there is a great deal of pebbly bar, also the little green island with rough grass on it has grown to about twice the size.

You can fortify this island, and it is fine to dig channels through the bar for the water, with all sorts of lovely harbors and pleasure-lakes. Once the boys and I made a channel right from one end of the bar to the other, and father helped—and got wet too!

Yes, he did. We always encouraged him to get wet, by saying, "Oh, here is a place we can't reach!" Because if he got wet, we knew very well there would be nothing said to us. Fathers are fearful nice and useful—sometimes. Ours particularly when he helps us to play, and forgets he isn't a boy. Oh, I can see quite well when he says to himself, "I ought to be working—but—oh, bother, how much nicer it is to dig in the sand with the other children!"

And then he took pictures of us—photographs, I mean—working at our engineering, and building and paddling—oh, whole albums full. They began when we were quite little tots. The best are of Maid Margaret and Sir Toady. For I was too old, I suppose, to look nice stuck among trees, and Hugh John hated so being photographed. When told to, he stood up stiff like a stork on one leg. But Sir Toady was usually as nice as pie, being made that way, and as for the Maid, she always looks natural whatever she is doing.

Father has a whole set called the History of a Biscuit. It is only the Maid eating one. But it is funny to see it getting smaller and smaller till it is all gone. They are flashed on quickly by our magic lantern, and we children go wild when it comes to the funny ones. The grand exhibitions are for winter nights. Then we are well wrapped up in gray Harris cloaks and come up, closely marshaled by Somebody to see that we don't snowball too much. They are quite lovely, these nights, with the snow crisping under our feet, and Somebody carrying a swig-swagging lantern before us—everybody's shadow swaying tipsily about, and the sky so near and so thick with stars that it seems as if you had only to put up your hand to catch a whole cluster.

There are usually many pictures of this first Torres, because we were younger, and it is a prettier place. We wore little red coats with big white buttons then, and marched regularly like soldiers. Hugh John beat us on the legs if we did not. He had a switch for the purpose, and he said that was the way the father of Frederick the Great did to make his son turn out a good soldier.

But we didn't care about such very practical history, and it made our legs sore—especially us girls, who wore thinner stockings. So there was a regular mutiny, and the whole army was degraded. You see, we were all generals—except Boss, our fox-terrier, who was named Inspector-General of Communications, because he ran from side to side of the road sniffing, and nothing or nobody could stop him. So, as Boss did not join the mutiny—not knowing how—he was promoted next in rank after the Commander-in-Chief, who was Hugh John. He was permanent Commander, because, you see, he could lick the whole standing army even if it attacked him on all sides at once.

Sir Toady and Bobby Coates were the ring-leaders of the revolt, and they called out, "Hem him in! Hem him in!" But, you see, that was the very thing Hugh John wanted, and the more they "hemmed," the harder he laid into them till Bobby said he would tell his father, which he did. But Mr. Coates was a sensible man, and only said that he was all the better for a "hiding," and that if he came bothering him any more, he would give him another on his own account! So after that Bobby Coates became a good soldier, and lived long as an ornament to the service.

Yes, the nursery army was good fun while it lasted, before we all split up and went to different schools. We tried it once after in the first vacation. But somehow it wasn't the same, and ended in a fight. You see, the boys especially had learned a good deal between them, and though it made no difference to Hugh John, the others kept squabbling all the time, and saying how much better they did things at their school than at any other—which was not at all the way they talked about their school in private.

Then "school was a beastly hole." The masters were "Old Buster," "Plummy," "Sick Cat," and "The Dishlicker"!

But to hear them talking to one another you would have thought that at least half what was said on the prospectus was Gospel Truth. Yes, and ever so much more. And it was "The Doctor," and "Mr. Traynor, the Head of our House, who made a double century in the ''Varsity' match, and is the best bowler in the whole world!"

Going down by Torres there is a darkish place, all yew-trees, very ancient, and there sometimes we would see one of the maids walking arm-in-arm with a young man. Of course, though we thought it very silly, we never told the Grown-ups. We knew by instinct that we must not. Then after a month or two the cook or the housemaid or the under-nurse would come and say she was "leaving to get married."

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.

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 ignoble, 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 ashore 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 Godiva riding through Coventry, while his things dried over the ramparts. But he took good care that nobody 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-chinky-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 noble 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-glass if I take good care not to drop it."

There was a steep wood to climb, all among the fir-trees, some grass 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 glasses 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 passing 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 glass 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-châlet 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 glasses 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.

"'I loved all manner of glades, valleys where it was always dusk—and thick woods. I loved heathery hills, ruined pleasaunces, and tumbled rocks fallen in avalanche. Still more I loved vast and shifting sands which never plowshare had furrowed nor human foot crossed—plains abandoned to the mountain doe or the frightened scouring hare. I never liked to sit amid the storming of cataracts, nor on a little hill overlooking a boundless plain. Rather I chose a hiding-place well sheltered, a block of stone wetted lip deep with the brook which glided through the silence of the valley, or better still, a mossy trunk, prone in the deeps of the forest, with the dry rustle of beech-leaves above me which the wind is getting ready to blow down when the time is ripe. Silently I march, my feet deep in last year's fallen leaves—the little worn footpath full of them from side to side.'

"Oh, and this is finest of all," said Hugh John, hurrying on, "but don't tell any one. I make you a partner of my solitude. It lasts just a little while. It is selfish, if you like, but sometimes it is good to live alone! Do you know what Senancour says love is?"

"No!" I gasped, "how should I know?"

And in truth I was more surprised that already Hugh John should be thinking of such things. But when I told father, he just said to let him alone—that the boy was finding his soul.

Perhaps it might be in this old, sad, hundred-year-old book that he was to find it. For the soul, father says, is just the capacity a man has of thinking for himself.

But Hugh John went on joyously, with his firm, pale, clean-cut face looking out of the Cave's mouth towards the distant sapphire band of the Firth, with the three Lomonds in a paler row of blue mounds behind.

"'Often on the breast of some mountain, when the winds, sweeping down from their wild "hopes" and gorges, ruffle the little high-lying solitary lakes, the eternal clatter of the waves, heard only by myself, makes me feel the instability of things, and the eternal reconstruction of the earth out of her own débris.

"'Thus giving myself up to the influence of all about me, bending to the stoop of the bird which passes above me, thrilled by the falling stone, conferring only with the moaning of the wind, watching the oncoming mist, I become a part of the Peace of Things which is God. All reposes, yet all is in motion, and I become part of it—calm as that higher serenity, cool as that shadow—the hum of an insect or the scent of a trampled herb making my communion with Nature. I also am of the great sweet earth. I live its life, and in time I shall die its death.'"

Now, for myself, I did not think that this was the sort of thing a boy ought to be thinking of at Hugh John's age. But, since father said he too had "passed that way," and since Hugh John could eat, sleep, run, and play as well as anybody, I did not say anything.

But I foresaw a day of reckoning—yes, I—because I am older, and a girl. And in the world there are other girls. One day Hugh John (or I am greatly mistaken) will turn the leaves of another book, and then Senancour the austere will be forgotten, passed by on his shelf like a chance acquaintance whose very name has become strange.

Perhaps I wrong him. But this is what I think. At any rate I resolved to try and guide his thoughts into more cheerful paths (it is a pity we have not Senancour's pretty word 'sentier'; I have always loved it).

"Do you never observe people?" I asked him.

He stared at me in amazement.

"Why, of course I do," he answered, and he got down two more thick copy-books. Everything Hugh John did about this time was original and unexpected.

"People!" he said, holding up the two manuscript books; "why, these are stuffed full of people. Enough to make a real book!"

Then I confided to Hugh John the great secret that I was making a book.

A look of joy flashed over his face.

"Let's make one together!" he said, "and not tell anybody!"

"Let's!" I answered.

Because I felt that I really owed Hugh John something for showing me the Cave.

And it was arranged that he was to tell me about his People and Things, and I was to write everything down with my thoughts planted in here and there.

HUGH JOHN'S PEOPLE

Through a glass clearly. July, and hot.

If you put your eye to the glass (said Hugh John) you will see where one of my greatest friends lives—Mr. Butcher Donnan. Or rather he used to be a butcher. For now he has given up his trade to his son Nipper, and regrets it every minute of his waking day.

Yes, that two-storied cottage with the garden in front, ablaze with flowers, with creepers clambering as high as the roof, that is "New Erin Villa," and the home of the most discontented man in Edam. Butcher Donnan has nothing to do. He hangs over his gate, and almost prays stray passers-by to stop and gossip. He has nothing to say to them or they to him. But when they are gone, he will pull out his big gold watch with a cluck like the cork drawn from a bottle, and say, "Thank God! Five minutes gone!"

Then he will stroll down the lanes towards Nipper's shop, making butcher's eyes at all the cows which look at him over the hedges. He is secretly calculating how they will cut up—jealous of Nipper, who has it to do really every day.

He lounges into his son's shop—where not long ago he ruled supreme. Nipper, serving a customer, nods cheerfully to his father, and the Butcher, whose fingers itch for the apron and the swinging steel, clutches the gold head of his cane more tightly to keep him from applying the supple part of it to "every lazy man-Jack" in the establishment. Ah, things are not as they were in his time. The floor is not so clean and cool, in spite of the black and white marble squares on which Nipper had insisted. The eye of "Mister" Donnan could detect signs of wasteful cutting-up in the dismembered animals a-swing on the hooks. But Nipper was now "Butcher" Donnan, while he is no more than proprietor of "New Erin Villa," with nothing to do, and too much time and too much money to do it on.

Sadly he goes out again. His place is not there. He could not stay in that shop ten minutes without breaking the head of one of these stupid "assistants." Even Nipper might not get off scot-free. But Butcher Donnan knows that his son Nipper is of his own temper, a true Donnan, and, young as he is, will be master within his own gates.

So he says sadly, "So long, Nipper!" And, what is the greatest proof of his changed condition, goes out without offering any criticism. Then he "troddles" round the village on the look-out for little jobs, which he considers as his specialities, or even perquisites—though he takes no money for doing them. He can graft rose-trees better than any gardener in the parish. At least he says he can, and by reason of his repeating it often enough and offering to fight anybody who thinks otherwise, people have got to say so too. You believe an old middle-weight champion when he tells you a thing like that, his little eyes twinkling out suspiciously at you, and a fist the size of a mutton ham thrust under your nose.

Just now—"Watch him, Sis!" he is on the look-out for wasp nests. Edam is the most wasp-free parish for miles, all owing to him. He marks them down in the daytime, and then in the evening he will come with his utensils and a dark lantern to make an end. With hung nests under eaves, or attached to branches of trees, he deals by drenching them with petroleum and setting a match to them. Sometimes he will drop a big one into a pail of water and stand ready to clap on the lid. The swarming deep-sunk nests in dry banks he attacks more warily. He brings a little apparatus for heating pitch, and pours it, liquid and sinuous, into the hole till the startled hum sinks into silence. Since an accident which happened last year (owing to the wasp-nest operated upon having a back-door) Butcher Donnan has always taken a quick-sighted boy or two to spy out the land. I suspect our Sir Toady has acted as scout pretty often. Do you remember when he came home all bulgy about the eyes and with one of his ears swelled up double? He said he thought he must have taken cold, and I saw from the twinkle in Fuz's eye that he thought he had been fighting. But I took my magnifying glass and got out two of the wasp-stings. Sir Toady had been doing "scout" for Butcher Donnan. He had not "scouted" quite quick enough—that was all.

Butcher Donnan, born Irish, had spent some time in America. So he started politics here, and as he hoists the green flag with a harp, and hauls down the Union Jack on the occasion of every Irish debate in Parliament, you may be sure that he gets his windows broken.

He does not object. He likes putting the panes in again himself, because it is something for him to do. Sometimes he catches some local Unionist patriot and (what he calls) "lathers" him! Afterwards he supports him liberally during a prolonged convalescence. It is counted rather a good thing to be loyal and get battered by that furious Irish Revolutionary, Butcher Donnan. He has illuminations, too, and has stood for the School Board and County Council on purely Fenian lines. He said nothing, however, when young Nipper was elected instead of him, on that most popular of all municipal tickets which consists in "keeping down the rates."

In despair of other employment Butcher Donnan has married a second time, and his wife is a buxom woman, overcome with the glory of living in a villa. But she makes regular first-class custards, I tell you. And for toffee and shortcake there is not the like of her in the whole village of Edam. If it were not for Butcher Donnan's (senior's) dignity, he might be a happy man. For Mrs. Donnan could conduct the finest confectioner's shop that ever was, and if the Butcher could be kept from cutting up a mince-pie with a cleaver, and sharpening a jelly-spoon on a "steel," he might be the best of salesmen and the happiest of men.

Meanwhile, he has found the big wasp-nest behind the Mains entrance gate, and he will be off to get his pitch-kettle ready, the mask for his face, and the gloves for his hands. He does not mean to suffer if he can help it.

His wife, who cannot be all the time in the kitchen, is miserable because she has to do fancy work and receive callers (or at least sit waiting for them) in the fruit season, which is a clear waste of time. She has been so long making a green Berlin wool cushion for a bazaar—the "Sons of Clan-na-Gael Mutual Assistance Sale"—that it is just chock-full of moths, and in time will pollute the entire household into which it is "raffled." It is wrong to raffle, anyway, says the chief of police, so it will serve them quite right—I shall not take a ticket. Now (said Hugh John, shaking his wise head) if they would only listen to me and start a confectioner's shop, they would both be chirpy as the day is long, and in the winter time long after dark—she over her dishes and patty-pans in the kitchen, and he in a white cap and apron behind the counter, talking to everybody, busy as honey-bees in clover-time, radiating sweetness and coining money.

And underneath the white apron Donnan could wear the butcher's "steel" if he liked, just to make him feel like himself.

Oh, I could arrange for people to be happy if they would only let me!

"And why don't you tell him?" I said to Hugh John, a little impatiently.

"Oh," said Hugh John, "you see, I have fought Nipper so long that there is a kind of hereditary household enmity."

"Nonsense," I said; "why, I saw Fuz talking to the old fellow for an hour the other day, the two of them sitting and smoking as thick as thieves. Besides, there's Toady!"

"Yes," said Hugh John. "Father has no sense of the dignity of the house or of what a 'vendetta' means. He always says that if he has a chance of getting to heaven on that clause about forgiving your enemies, he does not care a dump. Or words that mean just the same. And as for Sir Toady—well, give him liberty to go into the woods at night—only an excuse, mind you, and there is no sin that he will not commit—short, that is, of mutiny. Neither of them knows how to conduct a family quarrel on proper lines. I—you and I, I mean, have to sustain the honor of the house, eh, Sis?"

"Oh, nonsense, Hugh John," I said; "you know you have always been good friends with Nipper. And it was you that brought the whole of them here to listen to the Scott Redcap Tales at the Feudal Tower!"

"That was quite another matter," said Hugh John, hard pushed for an explanation. "It was a sort of Ossianic gathering where all the chiefs came to Morven, and made truce to listen to the tales and songs of the minstrel!"

"Oh, very likely," I said; "but why not put father or Sir Toady on to advise Butcher Donnan? There is need of such a shop as that in Edam. I have often felt the want myself."

Hugh John agreed, and added that he had too. But he said that Sir Toady could not be expected to act, seeing that he had already "sucked up" to the maker of the strawberry shortcake, not to mention the maple-sugar toffee. He could therefore get as much as he wanted for himself without paying, owing to Mrs. Donnan's weakness!

"And do you think that a young dev—imp like Sir Toady does not know when he is well off?" concluded Hugh John. "As for father, he has too much to do to bother his head about things like that—at least I shan't ask him; no, Sis, if anybody, it is you who ought to suggest to Butcher Donnan, or better, to Mrs. Donnan——"

"But," said I, "he is a violent man, and would not listen to a word his wife says. You know that very well!"

Hugh John considered, throwing his chin into the air with a gesture which, if he had not worn his hair of military shortness, would have cast it back elegantly and poetically. But he disdained such things.

"Oh, yes," he said, "Donnan makes a lot of noise, I know. He pretends to authority, but—don't tell anybody—he has it not. His wife can wear him down! She seems to submit. His authority at home is undisputed. So he tires of it, and finishes by letting her have her own way. That is the secret. Of course at the least word of objection it would be, 'What ho! my highest of high horses!' And crying aloud he would mount and ride. But Mrs. Donnan never gives him a chance. She knows better. And as he is really a good-hearted man—if he does bully, she just waits till he is sorry for it! It does not take long."

Thus in the depths of the cave, his chin on his hands and his eye glued to the telescope, spake the Philosopher of Esk Water Side.

I could not but admit that in the main he was right. Hugh John follows a truth with a certain slow, patient, tireless, sleuth-hound trot, which never puts him out of breath. But in the end he finishes by getting there. And now without ever moving he extorted from me the promise that, when I could (and as soon as I could) I should take in hand the task of restoring the married happiness of Mr. and Mrs. Donnan—retired from business, and fallen into the practice of idleness as a profession, and unhappiness as the wages thereof.

THE NEW SHOP

Aged about Fifteen. The Cave, in July.

It wasn't a job I liked. Nor would almost anybody. Still people can't say very much to a girl, and I had been at school and so had lost my—what shall I call it?—"sensitiveness."

As Sir Toady says, the golden rule is a first-rate thing—when you leave school. Even with a little addition, it flourishes there too. But you don't want to set up as a Christian martyr at school, I can tell you. It was very noble in the time of St. Francis, and Dr. Livingstone, and these people, and now-a-days there are people to whom we have to send our sixpences—people we never see. Perhaps I shall be one when I am older, but at school—these are Sir Toady's words—you find out what boy has a down on you and down him first! It saves trouble.

Afterwards you can be as sweet and child-like as possible, and go about the world taking people in with blue Madonna eyes all your life. But at school, if you don't want to have the life of a dog, it has got to be different.

Hugh John, of course, says that the principle of school life is for everybody to obey one person. But, you see, that person is Hugh John. If they don't, most likely he will hammer them. And afterwards he will prove how they were wrong. He will do it at length, and at breadth, and at depth, and unto the fourth dimension, till even fellows who can stand up to his fists give in to him so as not to get lectured—or "jawed" as they ignorantly call it. For really what Hugh John says could be taken down and printed right off in a book.

And you have got to believe it, too. For he is always ready to support his opinion, in the same manner as the Highland chief in Kidnapped. "If any gentleman is not preceesely satisfied, I shall be proud to step outside with him."

Joined to this faculty for laying down the law, he possesses an admirable barbaric power of enforcing it, which would have been invaluable in feudal times, and is not without its uses even now.

Well, three days after I went and called on Mrs. Donnan. It came about quite naturally. She is a first-class person to call upon. No fuss or anything—only you have to catch her on the hop. This time I saw her in the garden gathering gooseberries, and in a moment she had her sunbonnet half off her head, and the basket dropped in the furrow, but I was upon her before she could get away.

"Oh, Mrs. Donnan, do let me help you!" I said.

"But, Miss——" she began, not knowing how to go on.

"I should love it," I added quickly, "and I promise not to eat a single one. In fact I shall whistle all the time!"

"Oh, miss," she said, all in a flurry, "you know it is not that! You or any of your family are only too welcome to come, and take as many as they like."

"If you want to keep any for the preserving pot," I said, smiling at her, "I should advise you not to say that to my entire family. There are certain members of it who are capable of cleaning up the branches as your dog Toby there would clean a bone!"

"Oh, you mean Master Toady," she said, all dimples in a moment at the recollection. "He comes here often. But the garden is large, and bless him! even he can't eat more than he can. More than that, he often leaves a rabbit, or even a brace—and my man havin' been a butcher, is remarkable fond of a bit o' game."

"Yes," I said, "my brother's shootings are like your garden, extensive. Still, it is a wonder how he can keep them up on a shilling a day, and all but twopence of it deferred pay!"

"It is a wonder, now I come to think of it!" said the good lady meditatively. "He must be a careful lad with his money!"

"What I wonder at,"—I went on talking as soon as I had got her settled back again at the picking of the gooseberries—"is that you never thought of making the prettiest little shop-window in the world of your cakes and pasties and jams and candies. You know nobody can make them in the least like you. Besides, I have spoken to my father and others who know lots more about it, and every one is sure that such a thing would be a great boon to Edam, and that you are the very person to take it in hand. It would not be like an ordinary shop. For every one knows that your husband has made his fortune and retired. But it would give you something to do. Shall I speak to Mr. Donnan about it?"

The poor woman flushed with pleasure at the very idea. So much I could see. Yet she hesitated.

"HE would never consent—his position—his politics—Oh, no!" Mrs. Donnan considered that I had better not speak to the master—at least not then.

However, I thought differently, and it was after the good lady had asked me to stay to tea that my chance came.

Donnan came in, fanning himself with his broad-brimmed Panama. Things had not been going well that afternoon. Nipper had been busy on account of a rush of trade, and had not welcomed his father's criticisms too gratefully. You see, the old man was accustomed to find fault with Nipper's management, and that day there had been a shortage of ice in the shop and a corresponding shortage in Nipper's temper.

Also, Mr. Donnan's more general perambulation had not turned out well. Some rude and vagrant boys had dug out the pet wasp-nest he had been saving up for the next dark night, and there were green flies all over his best Lasalle rose-tree. Two of his best Dorkings had "laid away."

"I don't want any tea to-day, Cynthia!" he grumbled crossly. And without looking at me he went to the sofa and threw himself down with a heavy creaking of furniture.

"My dear," said his wife, "surely you have not seen this young lady who has come to do you the honor of taking tea with you?"

"Nonsense," said I, "as long as there are such cakes to be had at New Erin Villa, the honor is all on my side."

But the polite Irishman was already on his feet.

"Miss Sweetheart—Miss Sweetheart!" he said, "what a blind old hedge-carpenter ye must have thought me! And you your own folks' daughter, and your father treating me like a long-lost brother, and instructin' me on hist'ry and the use of the globes!"

So we had tea, the prettiest little tea imaginable, with Mrs. Donnan going about as soft-footed as a pussy cat, and purring like one too.

Butcher Donnan looked after her with a kind of sudden bitterness. "It's all very well for her," he said; "she makes her life out of such things, but what is there for me to do? I'm about at the end of my tether!"

"Why, help her!" said I.

"Help her!" he muttered, not understanding. "Me, Butcher Donnan—why, the girl is mazed! I can't do housework!"