THE RUNAWAYS
It was after we had had the measles, that fell and blighting disorderwhich we got from Alice picking up five deeply infected shillings that abemeasled family had wrapped in a bit of paper to pay the doctor withand then carelessly dropped in the street. Alice held the packet hotlyin her muff all through a charity concert. Hence these tears, as it saysin Virgil. And if you have ever had measles you will know that this isnot what is called figuring speech, because your eyes do run like madall the time.
When we were unmeasled again we were sent to stay at Lymchurch with aMiss Sandal, and her motto was plain living and high thinking. She had abrother, and his motto was the same, and it was his charity concert thatAlice held the fatal shillings in her muff throughout of. Later on hewas giving tracts to a bricklayer, and fell off a scaffold in his giddyearnestness, and Miss Sandal had to go and nurse him. So the six of usstayed in the plain living, high thinking house by ourselves, and oldMrs. Beale from the village came in every day and did the housework. Shewas of humble birth, but was a true lady in minding her own affairs,which is what a great many ladies do not know how to do at all. We hadno lessons to do, and we were thus free to attend to any adventureswhich came along. Adventures are the real business of life. The rest isonly in-betweenness--what Albert's uncle calls padding. He is an author.
Miss Sandal's house was very plain and clean, with lots of white paint,and very difficult to play in. So we were out a good deal. It wasseaside, so, of course, there was the beach, and besides that themarsh--big green fields with sheep all about, and wet dykes with sedgegrowing, and mud, and eels in the mud, and winding white roads that alllook the same, and all very interesting, as though they might lead toalmost anything that you didn't expect. Really, of course, they lead toAshford and Romney and Ivychurch, and real live places like that. Butthey don't look it.
The day when what I am going to tell you about happened, we were allleaning on the stone wall looking at the pigs. The pigman is a greatfriend of ours--all except H. O., who is my youngest brother. His nameis Horace Octavius, and if you want to know why we called him H. O. youhad better read 'The Treasure Seekers' and find out. He had gone to teawith the schoolmaster's son--a hateful kid.
'Isn't that the boy you're always fighting?' Dora asked when H. O. saidhe was going.
'Yes,' said H. O., 'but, then, he keeps rabbits.'
So then we understood and let him go.
Well, the rest of us were gazing fondly on the pigs, and two soldierscame by.
We asked them where they were off to.
They told us to mind our own business, which is not manners, even if youare a soldier on private affairs.
'Oh, all right,' said Oswald, who is the eldest. And he advised thesoldiers to keep their hair on. The little they had was cut very short.
'I expect they're scouts or something,' said Dicky; 'it's a field-day,or a sham-fight, or something, as likely as not.'
'Let's go after them and see,' said Oswald, ever prompt in hisdecidings. So we did.
We ran a bit at first, so as not to let the soldiers have too much of alead. Their red coats made it quite easy to keep them in sight on thewinding white marsh road. But we did not catch them up: they seemed togo faster and faster. So we ran a little bit more every now and then,and we went quite a long way after them. But they didn't meet any oftheir officers or regiments or things, and we began to think thatperchance we were engaged in the disheartening chase of the wild goose.This has sometimes occurred.
There is a ruined church about two miles from Lymchurch, and when we gotclose to that we lost sight of the red coats, so we stopped on thelittle bridge that is near there to reconnoitre.
The soldiers had vanished.
'Well, here's a go!' said Dicky.
'It _is_ a wild-goose chase,' said Noel. 'I shall make a piece of poetryabout it. I shall call the title the "Vanishing Reds, or, the Soldiersthat were not when you got there."'
'You shut up!' said Oswald, whose eagle eye had caught a glimpse ofscarlet through the arch of the ruin.
None of the others had seen this. Perhaps you will think I do not sayenough about Oswald's quickness of sight, so I had better tell you thatis only because Oswald is me, and very modest. At least, he tries tobe, because he knows it is what a true gentleman ought to.
'They're in the ruins,' he went on. 'I expect they're going to have aneasy and a pipe--out of the wind.'
'I think it's very mysterious,' said Noel. 'I shouldn't wonder ifthey're going to dig for buried treasure. Let's go and see.'
'No,' said Oswald, who, though modest, is thoughtful. 'If we do they'llstop digging, or whatever they're doing. When they've gone away, we'llgo and see if the ground is scratched about.'
So we delayed where we were, but we saw no more scarlet.
In a little while a dull-looking man in brown came by on a bicycle. Hestopped and got off.
'Seen a couple of Tommies about here, my lad?' he said to Oswald.
Oswald does not like being called anybody's lad, especially that kind ofman's; but he did not want to spoil the review, or field-day, orsham-fight, or whatever it might be, so he said:
'Yes; they're up in the ruins.'
'You don't say so!' said the man. 'In uniform, I suppose? Yes, ofcourse, or you wouldn't have known they were soldiers. Silly cuckoos!'
He wheeled his bicycle up the rough lane that leads to the old ruin.
'It can't be buried treasure,' said Dicky.
'I don't care if it is,' said Oswald. 'We'll see what's happening. Idon't mind spoiling _his_ sport. "My ladding" me like that!'
So we followed the man with the bicycle. It was leaning against thechurchyard gate when we got there. The man off it was going up to theruin, and we went after him.
He did not call out to the soldiers, and we thought that odd; but itdidn't make us think where it might have made us if we had had anysense. He just went creeping about, looking behind walls and insidearches, as though he was playing at hide-and-seek. There is a mound inthe middle of the ruin, where stones and things have fallen during darkages, and the grass has grown all over them. We stood on the mound, andwatched the bicycling stranger nosing about like a ferret.
There is an archway in that ruin, and a flight of steps goes down--onlyfive steps--and then it is all stopped up with fallen stones and earth.The stranger stopped at last at this arch, and stooped forward with hishands on his knees, and looked through the arch and down the steps.Then he said suddenly and fiercely:
'Come out of it, will you?'
And the soldiers came. I wouldn't have. They were two to his one. Theycame cringing out like beaten dogs. The brown man made a sort of bound,and next minute the two soldiers were handcuffed together, and he wasdriving them before him like sheep.
'Back you go the same way as what you come,' he said.
And then Oswald saw the soldiers' faces, and he will never forget whatthey looked like.
He jumped off the mound, and ran to where they were.
'What have they done?' he asked the handcuffer.
'Deserters,' said the man. 'Thanks to you, my lad, I got 'em as easy askiss your hand.'
Then one of the soldiers looked at Oswald. He was not very old--about asbig as a fifth-form boy. And Oswald answered what the soldier looked athim.
'I'm _not_ a sneak,' he said. 'I wouldn't have told if I'd known. Ifyou'd told me, instead of saying to mind my own business I'd have helpedyou.'
The soldier didn't answer, but the bicycle man did.
'Then you'd 'a helped yourself into the stone jug, my lad,' said he.'Help a dirty deserter? You're young enough to know better. Come along,you rubbish!'
And they went.
When they were gone Dicky said:
'It's very rum. I hate cowards. And deserters are cowards. I don't seewhy we feel like this.'
Alice and Dora and Noel were now discovered to be in tears.
'Of course we did right to tell. Only when the soldier looked at me ...'said Oswald.
r />
'Yes,' said Dicky, 'that's just it.'
In deepest gloom the party retraced its steps.
As we went, Dora said with sniffs:
'I suppose it was the bicycle man's duty.'
'Of course,' said Oswald, 'but it wasn't _our_ duty. And I jolly wellwish we hadn't!'
'And such a beautiful day, too,' said Noel, sniffing in his turn.
It _was_ beautiful. The afternoon had been dull, but now the sun wasshining flat across the marshes, making everything look as if it hadbeen covered all over with the best gold-leaf--marsh and trees, androofs and stacks, and everything.
That evening Noel wrote a poem about it all. It began:
'Poor soldiers, why did you run away On such a beautiful, beautiful day? If you had run away in the rain, Perhaps they would never have found you again, Because then Oswald would not have been there To show the hunter the way to your lair.'
Oswald would have licked him for that--only Noel is not very strong, andthere is something about poets, however young, that makes it rather likelicking a girl. So Oswald did not even say what he thought--Noel criesat the least thing. Oswald only said, 'Let's go down to our pigman.'
And we all went except Noel. He never will go anywhere when in the midstof making poetry. And Alice stayed with him, and H. O. was in bed.
We told the pigman all about the deserters, and about our miserableinside remorsefulness, and he said he knew just how we felt.
'There's quite enough agin a pore chap that's made a bolt of it withoutthe rest of us a-joinin' in,' he said. 'Not as I holds withdeserting--mean trick I call it. But all the same, when the odds isthat heavy--thousands to one--all the army and the navy and the pleeceand Parliament and the King agin one pore silly bloke. You wouldn't 'adone it a purpose, I lay.'
'Not much,' said Oswald in gloomy dejection. 'Have a peppermint? They'reextra strong.'
When the pigman had had one he went on talking.
'There's a young chap, now,' he said, 'broke out of Dover Gaol. I 'appento know what he's in for--nicked a four-pound cake, he did, off of acounter at a pastrycook's--Jenner's it was, in the High Street--parthunger, part playfulness. But even if I wasn't to know what he waslagged for, do you think I'd put the coppers on to him? Not me. Give afellow a chance is what I say. But don't you grizzle about them thereTommies. P'raps it'll be the making of 'em in the end. A slack-bakedpair as ever wore boots. _I_ seed 'em. Only next time just you take andthink afore you pipes up--see?'
We said that we saw, and that next time we would do as he said. And wewent home again. As we went Dora said:
'But supposing it was a cruel murderer that had got loose, you ought totell then.'
'Yes,' said Dicky; 'but before you do tell you ought to be jolly sure it_is_ a cruel murderer, and not a chap that's taken a cake because he washungry. How do you know what _you'd_ do if you were hungry enough?'
'I shouldn't steal,' said Dora.
'I'm not so sure,' said Dicky; and they argued about it all the wayhome, and before we got in it began to rain in torrents.
Conversations about food always make you feel as though it was a verylong time since you had had anything to eat. Mrs. Beale had gone home,of course, but we went into the larder. It is a generous larder. Nolock, only a big wooden latch that pulls up with a string, like in RedRiding Hood. And the floor is clean damp red brick. It makes ginger-nutssoft if you put the bag on this floor. There was half a rhubarb pie, andthere were meat turnovers with potato in them. Mrs. Beale is athoughtful person, and I know many people much richer that are notnearly so thoughtful.
We had a comfortable feast at the kitchen table, standing up to eat,like horses.
Then we had to let Noel read us his piece of poetry about the soldier;he wouldn't have slept if we hadn't. It was very long, and it began asI have said, and ended up:
'Poor soldiers, learn a lesson from to-day, It is very wrong to run away; It is better to stay And serve your King and Country--hurray!'
Noel owned that Hooray sounded too cheerful for the end of a poem aboutsoldiers with faces like theirs were.
'But I didn't mean it about the soldiers. It was about the King andCountry. Half a sec. I'll put that in.' So he wrote:
'P.S.--I do not mean to be unkind, Poor soldiers, to you, so never mind. When I say hurray or sing, It is because I am thinking of my Country and my King.'
'You can't sing Hooray,' said Dicky. So Noel went to bed singing it,which was better than arguing about it, Alice said. But it was noisieras well.
Oswald and Dicky always went round the house to see that all the doorswere bolted and the shutters up. This is what the head of the housealways does, and Oswald is the head when father is not there. There areno shutters upstairs, only curtains. The White House, which is MissSandal's house's name, is not in the village, but 'quite a step' fromit, as Mrs. Beale says. It is the first house you come to as you comealong the road from the marsh.
We used to look in the cupboard and under the beds for burglars everynight. The girls liked us to, though they wouldn't look themselves, andI don't know that it was much good. If there _is_ a burglar, it'ssometimes safer for you not to know it. Where ignorance is bliss, 'tisfolly to find a burglar, especially as he would be armed to the teeth aslikely as not. However, there is not much worth being a burglar about,in houses where the motto is plain living and high thinking, and therenever was anyone in the cupboards or under the beds.
Then we put out all the lights very carefully incase of fire--all except Noel's. He does not like the dark. He saysthere are things in it that go away when you light a candle, and howevermuch you talk reason and science to him, it makes no difference at all.
Then we got into our pyjamas. It was Oswald who asked father to let ushave pyjamas instead of nightgowns; they are so convenient for dressingup when you wish to act clowns, or West Indian planters, or anyloose-clothed characters. Then we got into bed, and then we got intosleep.
Little did the unconscious sleepers reck of the strange destiny that wasadvancing on them by leaps and bounds through the silent watches of thenight.
Although we were asleep, the rain went on raining just the same, and thewind blowing across the marsh with the fury of a maniac who has beentransformed into a blacksmith's bellows. And through the night, and thewind, and the rain, our dreadful destiny drew nearer and nearer. I wishthis to sound as if something was going to happen, and I hope it does. Ihope the reader's heart is now standing still with apprehensionness onour account, but I do not want it to stop altogether, so I will tell youthat we were not all going to be murdered in our beds, or passpeacefully away in our sleeps with angel-like smiles on our young andbeautiful faces. Not at all. What really happened was this. Some timemust have elapsed between our closing our eyes in serene slumber and thefollowing narrative:
Oswald was awakened by Dicky thumping him hard in the back, and sayingin accents of terror--at least, he says not, but Oswald knows what theysounded like:
'What's that?'
Oswald reared up on his elbow and listened, but there was nothing tolisten to except Dicky breathing like a grampus, and the giggle-guggleof the rain-water overflowing from the tub under the window.
'What's what?' said Oswald.
He did not speak furiously, as many elder brothers would have done whensuddenly awakened by thumps.
'_That!_' said Dicky. 'There it is again!'
And this time, certainly, there it was, and it sounded like somebodyhammering on the front-door with his fists. There is no knocker to theplain-living, high-thinking house.
Oswald controlled his fears, if he had any (I am not going to saywhether he had or hadn't), and struck a match. Before the candle had hadtime to settle its flame after the first flare up that doesn't last, therow began again.
Oswald's nerves are of iron, but it would have given anybody a start tosee two white figures in the doorway, yet so it was. They proved to beAlice and Dora in their nighties; but no one could blame anyone for notbeing sur
e of this at first.
'Is it burglars?' said Dora; and her teeth did chatter, whatever she maysay.
'_I_ think it's Mrs. Beale,' said Alice. 'I expect she's forgotten thekey.'
Oswald pulled his watch out from under his pillow.
'It's half-past one,' he said.
And then the knocking began again. So the intrepid Oswald went to thelanding window that is over the front-door. The others went too. And heopened the window in his pyjamas and said, 'Who's there?'
There was the scraping sound of boots on the doorstep, as somebody downthere stepped back.
'Is this the way to Ashford?' said the voice of a man.
'Ashford's thirteen miles off,' said Oswald. 'You get on to the Doverroad.'
'I don't want to get on the Dover road,' said the voice; 'I've hadenough of Dover.'
A thrill ran through every heart. We all told each other so afterwards.
'Well,' said Dicky, 'Ashford's thirteen miles----'
'Anybody but you in the house?'
'Say we've got men and dogs and guns,' whispered Dora.
'There are six of us,' said Oswald, 'all armed to the teeth.'
The stranger laughed.
'I'm not a burglar,' he said; 'I've lost my way, that's all. I thought Ishould have got to Ashford before dusk, but I missed the way. I've beenwandering all over these marshes ever since, in the rain. I expectthey're out after me now, but I'm dead beat. I can't go on. Won't youlet me in? I can sit by the kitchen fire.'
Oswald drew his head back through the window, and a hasty council tookplace on the landing.
'It _is_,' said Alice.
'You heard what he said about Dover, and their being out after him?'
'I say, you might let a chap in,' said the voice outside. 'I'm perfectlyrespectable. Upon my word I am.'
'I wish he hadn't said that,' whispered Dora. [** ']Such a dreadfulstory! And we didn't even ask him if he was.'
'He sounds very tired,' said Alice.
'And wet,' said Oswald. 'I heard the water squelching in his boots.'
'What'll happen if we don't let him in?' said Dicky.
'He'll be caught and taken back, like the soldiers,' said Oswald. 'Lookhere, I'm going to chance it. You others can lock yourselves into yourrooms if you're frightened.'
Then Oswald put his brave young head out of the window, and the raindripped on to the back of his bold young neck off the roof, like awatering-pot on to a beautiful flower, and he said:
'There's a porch to the side door. Just scoot round there and shelter,and I'll come down in half a sec.'
A resolve made in early youth never to face midnight encounters withoutboots was the cause of this delay. Oswald and Dicky got into their bootsand jackets, and told the girls to go back to bed.
Then we went down and opened the front-door. The stranger had heard thebolts go, and he was outside waiting.
We held the door open politely, and he stepped in and began at once todrip heavily on the doormat.
We shut the door. He looked wildly round.
'Be calm! You are safe,' said Oswald.
'Thanks,' said the stranger; 'I see I am.'
All our hearts were full of pity for the outcast. He was, indeed, aspectacle to shock the benevolent. Even the prison people, Oswaldthought, or the man he took the cake from, would have felt theirfierceness fade if they could have seen him then. He was not in prisondress. Oswald would have rather liked to see that, but he rememberedthat it was safer for the man that he had found means to rid himself ofthe felon's garb. He wore a gray knickerbocker suit, covered with mud.The lining of his hat must have been blue, and it had run down his facein streaks like the gentleman in Mr. Kipling's story. He was wetter thanI have ever seen anyone out of a bath or the sea.
'Come into the kitchen,' said Oswald; 'you can drip there quitecomfortably. The floor is brick.'
He followed us into the kitchen.
'Are you kids alone in the house?' he said.
'Yes,' said Oswald.
'Then I suppose it's no good asking if you've got a drop of brandy?'
'Not a bit,' said Dicky.
'"Come into the kitchen," said Oswald, "you can dripthere quite comfortably."'--Page 52]
'Whisky would do, or gin--any sort of spirit,' said the smeared strangerhopefully.
'Not a drop,' said Oswald; 'at least, I'll look in the medicinecupboard. And, I say, take off your things and put them in the sink.I'll get you some other clothes. There are some of Mr. Sandal's.'
The man hesitated.
'It'll make a better disguise,' said Oswald in a low, significantwhisper, and turned tactfully away, so as not to make the stranger feelawkward.
Dicky got the clothes, and the stranger changed in the back-kitchen. Theonly spirit Oswald could find was spirits of salts, which the strangersaid was poison, and spirits of camphor. Oswald gave him some of this onsugar; he knows it is a good thing when you have taken cold. Thestranger hated it. He changed in the back-kitchen, and while he wasdoing it we tried to light the kitchen fire, but it would not; so Dickywent up to ask Alice for some matches, and finding the girls had notgone to bed as ordered, but contrarily dressed themselves, he let themcome down. And then, of course, there was no reason why they should notlight the fire. They did.
When the unfortunate one came out of the back-kitchen he looked quite adecent chap, though still blue in patches from the lining of his hat.Dicky whispered to me what a difference clothes made.
He made a polite though jerky bow to the girls, and Dora said:
'How do you do? I hope you are quite well.'
'As well as can be expected,' replied the now tidy outcast, 'consideringwhat I've gone through.'
'Tea or cocoa?' said Dora. 'And do you like cheese or cold bacon best?'
'I'll leave it to you entirely,' he answered. And he added, without apause, 'I'm sure I can trust you.'
'Indeed you can,' said Dora earnestly; 'you needn't be a bit afraid.You're perfectly safe with us.'
He opened his eyes at this.
'He didn't expect such kindness,' Alice whispered. 'Poor man! he's quiteovercome.'
We gave him cocoa, and cheese, and bacon, and butter and bread, and heate a great deal, with his feet in Mr. Sandal's all-wool boots on thekitchen fender.
The girls wrung the water out of his clothes, and hung them on theclothes-horse on the other side of the fire.
'I'm sure I'm very much obliged to you,' he said; 'real charity I callthis. I shan't forget it, I assure you. I ought to apologise forknocking you up like this, but I'd been hours tramping through thisprecious marsh of yours wet to the skin, and not a morsel of food sincemid-day. And yours was the first light I'd seen for a couple of hours.'
'I'm very glad it _was_ us you knocked up,' said Alice.
'So am I,' said he; 'I might have knocked at a great many doors before Igot such a welcome. I'm quite aware of that.'
He spoke all right, not like a labouring man; but it wasn't agentleman's voice, and he seemed to end his sentences off short at theend, as though he had it on the tip of his tongue to say 'Miss' or'Sir.'
Oswald thought how terrible it must be to be out alone in the rain andthe dark, with the police after you, and no one to be kind to you if youknocked at their doors.
'You must have had an awful day,' he said.
'I believe you,' said the stranger, cutting himself more bacon. 'Thankyou, miss (he really did say it that time), just half a cup if you don'tmind. I believe you! I never want to have such a day again, I can tellyou. I took one or two little things in the morning, but I wasn't in themood or something. You know how it is sometimes.'
'I can fancy it,' said Alice.
'And then the afternoon clouded over. It cleared up at sunset, youremember, but then it was too late. And then the rain came on. Not half!My word! I've been in a ditch. Thought my last hour had come, I tellyou. Only got out by the skin of my teeth. Got rid of my whole outfit.There's a nice thing to happen to a young fellow! Upon my Sam,
it'senough to make a chap swear he'll never take another thing as long as helives.'
'I hope you never will,' said Dora earnestly; 'it doesn't pay, youknow.'
'Upon my word, that's nearly true, though I don't know how _you_ know,'said the stranger, beginning on the cheese and pickles.
'I wish,' Dora was beginning, but Oswald interrupted. He did not thinkit was fair to preach at the man.
'So you lost your outfit in the ditch,' he said; 'and how did you getthose clothes?'
He pointed to the steaming gray suit.
'Oh,' replied the stranger, 'the usual way.'
Oswald was too polite to ask what was the usual way of getting a graysuit to replace a prison outfit. He was afraid the usual way was the waythe four-pound cake had been got.
Alice looked at me helplessly. I knew just how she felt.
Harbouring a criminal when people are 'out after him' gives you a verychilly feeling in the waistcoat--or, if in pyjamas, in the part that theplaited cotton cord goes round. By the greatest good luck there were afew of the extra-strong peppermints left. We had two each, and feltbetter.
The girls put the sheets off Oswald's bed on to the bed Miss Sandal usedto sleep in when not in London nursing the shattered bones of hertract-distributing brother.
'If you will go to bed now,' Oswald said to the stranger, 'we will wakeyou in good time. And you may sleep as sound as you like. We'll wake youall right.'
'You might wake me about eight,' he said; 'I ought to be getting on.I'm sure I don't know what to say in return for the very handsomereception you've given me. Good-night to you all, I'm sure.'
'Good-night,' said everyone. And Dora added, 'Don't you bother. Whileyou're asleep we'll think what's best to be done.'
'Don't _you_ bother,' said the stranger, and he absently glanced at hisown clothes. 'What's big enough to get out of's big enough to get into.'
Then he took the candle, and Dicky showed him to his room.
'What's big enough to get out of,' repeated Alice. 'Surely he doesn'tmean to creep back into prison, and pretend he was there all the time,only they didn't notice him?'
'Well, what are we to do?' asked Dicky, rejoining the rest of us. 'Hetold me the dark room at Dover was a disgrace. Poor chap!'
'We must invent a disguise,' said Dora.
'Let's pretend he's our aunt, and dress him up--like in "Hard Cash,"'said Alice.
It was now three o'clock, but no one was sleepy. No one wanted to go tosleep at all till we had taken our candles up into the attic andrummaged through Miss Sandal's trunks, and found a complete disguiseexactly suited to an aunt. We had everything--dress, cloak, bonnet,veil, gloves, petticoats, and even boots, though we knew all the time,in our hearts, that these were far too small. We put all ready on theparlour sofa, and then at last we began to feel in our eyes and ears andjaws how late it was. So we went back to bed. Alice said she knew how towake exact to the minute, and we had known her do it before, so wetrusted her, and agreed that she was to wake us at six.
But, alas! Alice had deemed herself cleverer than she was, by longchalks, and it was not her that woke us.
We were aroused from deep slumber by the voice of Mrs. Beale.
'Hi!' it remarked,'wake up, young gentlemen! It's gone the half afternine, and your gentleman friend's up and dressed and a-waiting for hisbreakfast.'
We sprang up.
'I say, Mrs. Beale,' cried Oswald, who never even in sleep quite loseshis presence of mind, 'don't let on to anyone that we've got a visitor.'
She went away laughing. I suppose she thought it was some sillyplay-secret. She little knew.
We found the stranger looking out of the window.
'I wouldn't do that,' said Dora softly; 'it isn't safe. Suppose someonesaw you?'
'Well,' said he, 'suppose they did?'
'They might take you, you know,' said Dora; 'it's done in a minute. Wesaw two poor men taken yesterday.'
Her voice trembled at the gloomy recollection.
'Let 'em take me,' said the man who wore the clothes of the plain-livingand high-thinking Mr. Sandal; '_I_ don't mind so long as my ugly mugdon't break the camera!'
'We want to save you,' Dora was beginning; but Oswald, far-sightedbeyond his years, felt a hot redness spread over his youthful ears andright down his neck. He said:
'Please, what were you doing in Dover? And what did you take yesterday?'
'I was in Dover on business,' said the man, 'and what I took was HytheChurch and Burmarsh Church, and----'
'Then you didn't steal a cake and get put into Dover Gaol, and breakloose, and----' said Dicky, though I kicked him as a sign not to.
'_Me?_' said our friend. 'Not exactly!'
'Then, _what_ are you? If you're not that poor escaped thief, what areyou?' asked Dora fiercely, before Oswald could stop her.
'I'm a photographer, miss,' said he--'a travelling photographer.'
Then slowly but surely he saw it all, and I thought he would never havedone laughing.
* * * * *
'Breakfast is getting cold,' said Oswald.
'So it is,' said our guest. 'Lordy, what a go! This'll be something totalk about between friends for many a year.'
'No,' said Alice suddenly; 'we thought you were a runaway thief, and wewanted to help you whatever you were.' She pointed to the sofa, wherethe whole costume of the untrue aunt was lying in simple completeness.'And you're in honour bound never to tell a soul. Think,' she added inpersuading tones--'think of the cold bacon and the cheese, and all thosepickles you had, and the fire and the cocoa, and us being up all night,and the dry all-wool boots.'
'Say no more, miss,' said the photographer (for such he indeed was)nobly. 'Your will is my law; I won't never breathe a word.'
And he sat down to the ham and eggs as though it was weeks since he hadtasted bacon.
* * * * *
But we found out afterwards he went straight up to the Ship, and toldeverybody all about it. I wonder whether all photographers aredishonourable and ungrateful. Oswald hopes they are not, but he cannotfeel at all sure.
Lots of people chaffed us about it afterwards, but the pigman said wewere jolly straight young Britons, and it is something to be called thatby a man you really respect. It doesn't matter so much what the otherpeople say--the people you don't really care about.
When we told our Indian uncle about it he said, 'Nonsense! you oughtnever to try and shield a criminal.' But that was not at all the way wefelt about it at the time when the criminal was there (or we thought hewas), all wet, and hunted, and miserable, with people 'out after him.'He meant his friends who were expecting him, but we thought he meantpolice. It is very hard sometimes to know exactly what is right. If what_feels_ right _isn't_ right, how are you to know, I wonder.
* * * * *
The only comforting thing about it all is that we heard next day thatthe soldiers had got away from the brown bicycle beast after all. Isuppose it came home to them suddenly that they _were_ two to one, andthey shoved him into a ditch and got away. They were never caught; I amvery glad. And I suppose _that's_ wrong too--so many things are. But I_am_.