THE HIGH-BORN BABE
It really was not such a bad baby--for a baby. Its face was round andquite clean, which babies' faces are not always, as I dare say you knowby your own youthful relatives; and Dora said its cape was trimmed withreal lace, whatever that may be--I don't see myself how one kind of lacecan be realler than another. It was in a very swagger sort ofperambulator when we saw it; and the perambulator was standing quite byitself in the lane that leads to the mill.
"I wonder whose baby it is," Dora said. "Isn't it a darling, Alice?"
Alice agreed to its being one, and said she thought it was most likelythe child of noble parents stolen by gipsies.
"These two, as likely as not," Noel said. "Can't you see somethingcrime-like in the very way they're lying?"
They were two tramps, and they were lying on the grass at the edge ofthe lane on the shady side, fast asleep, only a very little further onthan where the Baby was. They were very ragged, and their snores didhave a sinister sound.
"I expect they stole the titled heir at dead of night, and they've beentravelling hot-foot ever since, so now they're sleeping the sleep ofexhaustedness," Alice said. "What a heartrending scene when thepatrician mother wakes in the morning and finds the infant aristocratisn't in bed with his mamma."
The Baby was fast asleep or else the girls would have kissed it. Theyare strangely fond of kissing. The author never could see anything in ithimself.
"If the gipsies _did_ steal it," Dora said, "perhaps they'd sell it tous. I wonder what they'd take for it."
"What could you do with it if you'd got it?" H. O. asked.
"Why, adopt it, of course," Dora said. "I've often thought I shouldenjoy adopting a baby. It would be a golden deed, too. We've hardly gotany in the book yet."
"I should have thought there were enough of us," Dicky said.
"Ah, but you're none of you babies," said Dora.
"Unless you count H. O. as a baby: he behaves jolly like one sometimes."
This was because of what had happened that morning when Dicky found H.O. going fishing with a box of worms, and the box was the one Dickykeeps his silver studs in, and the medal he got at school, and what isleft of his watch and chain. The box is lined with red velvet and it wasnot nice afterwards. And then H. O. said Dicky had hurt him, and he wasa beastly bully, and he cried. We thought all this had been made up,and were sorry to see it threaten to break out again. So Oswald said:
"Oh, bother the Baby! Come along, do!"
And the others came.
We were going to the miller's with a message about some flour thathadn't come, and about a sack of sharps for the pigs.
After you go down the lane you come to a cloverfield, and then acornfield, and then another lane, and then it is the mill. It is a jollyfine mill; in fact, it is two--water and wind ones--one of eachkind--with a house and farm buildings as well. I never saw a mill likeit, and I don't believe you have either.
If we had been in a story-book the miller's wife would have taken usinto the neat sanded kitchen where the old oak settle was black withtime and rubbing, and dusted chairs for us--old brown Windsorchairs--and given us each a glass of sweet-scented cowslip wine and athick slice of rich home-made cake. And there would have been freshroses in an old china bowl on the table. As it was, she asked us allinto the parlor and gave us Eiffel Tower lemonade and Marie biscuits.The chairs in her parlor were "bent wood," and no flowers, except somewax ones under a glass shade, but she was very kind, and we were verymuch obliged to her. We got out to the miller, though, as soon as wecould; only Dora and Daisy stayed with her, and she talked to them abouther lodgers and about her relations in London.
The miller is a MAN. He showed us all over the mills--both kinds--andlet us go right up into the very top of the wind-mill, and showed us howthe top moved round so that the sails could catch the wind, and thegreat heaps of corn, some red and some yellow (the red is Englishwheat), and the heaps slide down a little bit at a time into a squarehole and go down to the millstones. The corn makes a rustling, softnoise that is very jolly--something like the noise of the sea--and youcan hear it through all the other mill noises.
Then the miller let us go all over the water-mill. It is fairy palacesinside a mill. Everything is powdered over white, like sugar on pancakeswhen you are allowed to help yourself. And he opened a door and showedus the great water-wheel working on slow and sure, like some great,round dripping giant, Noel said, and then he asked us if we fished.
"Yes," was our immediate reply.
"Then why not try the mill-pool?" he said, and we replied politely; andwhen he was gone to tell his man something, we owned to each other thathe was a trump.
He did the thing thoroughly. He took us out and cut us ash saplings forrods; he found us in lines and hooks, and several different sorts ofbait, including a handsome handful of meal-worms, which Oswald put loosein his pocket.
When it came to bait, Alice said she was going home with Dora and Daisy.Girls are strange, mysterious, silly things. Alice always enjoys a rathunt until the rat is caught, but she hates fishing from beginning toend. We boys have got to like it. We don't feel now as we did when weturned off the water and stopped the competition of the competinganglers. We had a grand day's fishing that day. I can't think what madethe miller so kind to us. Perhaps he felt a thrill of fellow-feeling inhis manly breast for his fellow-sportsmen, for he was a noble fishermanhimself.
We had glorious sport--eight roach, six dace, three eels, seven perch,and a young pike, but he was so very young the miller asked us to puthim back, and of course we did.
"He'll live to bite another day," said the miller.
The miller's wife gave us bread and cheese and more Eiffel Towerlemonade, and we went home at last, a little damp, but full ofsuccessful ambition, with our fish on a string.
It had been a strikingly good time--one of those times that happen inthe country quite by themselves. Country people are much more friendlythan town people. I suppose they don't have to spread their friendlyfeelings out over so many persons, so it's thicker, like a pound ofbutter on one loaf is thicker than on a dozen. Friendliness in thecountry is not scrape, like it is in London. Even Dicky and H. O. forgotthe affair of honor that had taken place in the morning. H. O. changedrods with Dicky because H. O.'s was the best rod, and Dicky baited H.O.'s hook for him, just like loving, unselfish brothers in Sunday-schoolmagazines.
We were talking fishlikely as we went along down the lane and throughthe cornfield and the cloverfield, and then we came to the other lanewhere we had seen the Baby. The tramps were gone, and the perambulatorwas gone, and, of course, the Baby was gone too.
"I wonder if those gypsies _had_ stolen the Baby," Noel said, dreamily.He had not fished much, but he had made a piece of poetry. It was this:
"How I wish I was a fish. I would not look At your hook, But lie still and be cool At the bottom of the pool. And when you went to look At your cruel hook, You would not find me there, So there!"
"If they did steal the Baby," Noel went on, "they will be tracked by thelordly perambulator. You can disguise a baby in rags and walnut juice,but there isn't any disguise dark enough to conceal a perambulator'sperson."
"You might disguise it as a wheelbarrow," said Dicky.
"Or cover it with leaves," said H. O., "like the robins."
We told him to shut up and not gibber, but afterwards we had to own thateven a young brother may sometimes talk sense by accident.
For we took the short cut home from the lane--it begins with a large gapin the hedge and the grass and weeds trodden down by the hasty feet ofpersons who were late for church and in too great a hurry to go round bythe road. Our house is next to the church, as I think I have saidbefore, some time.
The short cut leads to a stile at the edge of a bit of wood (theParson's Shave, they call it, because it belongs to him). The wood hasnot been shaved for some time, and it has grown out beyond the stile;and here, among the hazels and chestnuts and yo
ung dog-wood bushes, wesaw something white. We felt it was our duty to investigate, even if thewhite was only the under side of the tail of a dead rabbit caught in atrap. It was not--it was part of the perambulator. I forgot whether Isaid that the perambulator was enamelled white--not the kind ofenamelling you do at home with Aspinall's and the hairs of the brushcome out and it is gritty-looking, but smooth, like the handles ofladies' very best lace parasols. And whoever had abandoned the helplessperambulator in that lonely spot had done exactly as H. O. said, andcovered it with leaves, only they were green and some of them haddropped off.
The others were wild with excitement. Now or never, they thought, was achance to be real detectives. Oswald alone retained a calm exterior. Itwas he who would not go straight to the police station.
He said: "Let's try and ferret out something for ourselves before wetell the police. They always have a clue directly they hear about thefinding of the body. And besides, we might as well let Alice be inanything there is going. And besides, we haven't had our dinners yet."
This argument of Oswald's was so strong and powerful--his arguments areoften that, as I dare say you have noticed--that the others agreed. Itwas Oswald, too, who showed his artless brothers why they had muchbetter not take the deserted perambulator home with them.
"The dead body, or whatever the clew is, is always left exactly as it isfound," he said, "till the police have seen it, and the coroner, and theinquest, and the doctor, and the sorrowing relations. Besides, supposesome one saw us with the beastly thing, and thought we had stolen it;then they would say, '_What have you done with the Baby?_' and thenwhere should we be?"
Oswald's brothers could not answer this question, but once more Oswald'snative eloquence and far-seeing discerningness conquered.
"Anyway," Dicky said, "let's shove the derelict a little further undercover."
So we did.
Then we went on home. Dinner was ready and so were Alice and Daisy, butDora was not there.
"She's got a--well, she's not coming to dinner anyway," Alice said whenwe asked. "She can tell you herself afterwards what it is she's got."
Oswald thought it was headache, or pain in the temper, or in thepinafore, so he said no more, but as soon as Mrs. Pettigrew had helpedus and left the room he began the thrilling tale of the forsakenperambulator. He told it with the greatest thrillingness any one couldhave, but Daisy and Alice seemed almost unmoved. Alice said:
"Yes, very strange," and things like that, but both the girls seemed tobe thinking of something else. They kept looking at each other andtrying not to laugh, so Oswald saw they had got some silly secret, andhe said:
"Oh, all right! I don't care about telling you. I only thought you'dlike to be in it. It's going to be a real big thing, with policemen init, and perhaps a judge."
"In what?" H. O. said; "the perambulator?"
Daisy choked and then tried to drink, and spluttered and got purple, andhad to be thumped on the back. But Oswald was not appeased. When Alicesaid, "Do go on, Oswald. I'm sure we all like it very much," he said:
"Oh no, thank you," very politely. "As it happens," he went on, "I'djust as soon go through with this thing without having any girls in it."
"In the perambulator?" said H. O. again.
"It's a man's job," Oswald went on, without taking any notice of H. O.
"Do you really think so," said Alice, "when there's a baby in it?"
"But there isn't," said H. O., "if you mean in the perambulator."
"Blow you and your perambulator," said Oswald, with gloomy forbearance.
Alice kicked Oswald under the table and said:
"Don't be waxy, Oswald. Really and truly Daisy and I _have_ got asecret, only it's Dora's secret, and she wants to tell you herself. Ifit was mine or Daisy's we'd tell you this minute, wouldn't we, Mouse?"
"This very second," said the White Mouse.
And Oswald consented to take their apologies.
Then the pudding came in, and no more was said except asking for thingsto be passed--sugar and water, and bread and things.
Then, when the pudding was all gone, Alice said:
"Come on."
And we came on. We did not want to be disagreeable, though really wewere keen on being detectives and sifting that perambulator to the verydregs. But boys have to try to take an interest in their sisters'secrets, however silly. This is part of being a good brother.
Alice led us across the field where the sheep once fell into the brook,and across the brook by the plank. At the other end of the next fieldthere was a sort of wooden house on wheels, that the shepherd sleeps inat the time of year when lambs are being born, so that he can see thatthey are not stolen by gypsies before the owners have counted them.
To this hut Alice now led her kind brothers and Daisy's kind brother.
"Dora is inside," she said, "with the Secret. We were afraid to have itin the house in case it made a noise."
The next moment the Secret was a secret no longer, for we all beheldDora, sitting on a sack on the floor of the hut, with the Secret in herlap.
It was the High-born Babe!
Oswald was so overcome that he sat down suddenly, just like BetsyTrotwood did in _David Copperfield_, which just shows what a true authorDickens is.
"You've done it this time," he said. "I suppose you know you're ababy-stealer?"
"I'm not," Dora said. "I've adopted him."
"Then it was you," Dicky said, "who scuttled the perambulator in thewood?"
"Yes," Alice said; "we couldn't get it over the stile unless Dora putdown the Baby, and we were afraid of the nettles for his legs. His nameis to be Lord Edward."
"But, Dora--really, don't you think--"
"If you'd been there you'd have done the same," said Dora, firmly. "Thegypsies had gone. Of course something had frightened them, and they fledfrom justice. And the little darling was awake and held out his arms tome. No, he hasn't cried a bit, and I know all about babies; I've oftennursed Mrs. Simpkins's daughter's baby when she brings it up on Sundays.They have bread and milk to eat. You take him, Alice, and I'll go andget some bread and milk for him."
Alice took the noble brat. It was horribly lively, and squirmed about inher arms, and wanted to crawl on the floor. She could only keep it quietby saying things to it a boy would be ashamed even to think of saying,such as "Goo goo," and "Did ums was," and "Ickle ducksums then."
When Alice used these expressions the Baby laughed and chuckled andreplied:
"Daddadda," "Bababa," or "Glueglue."
But if Alice stopped her remarks for an instant the thing screwed itsface up as if it was going to cry, but she never gave it time to begin.
It was a rummy little animal.
Then Dora came back with the bread and milk, and they fed the nobleinfant. It was greedy and slobbery, but all three girls seemed unable tokeep their eyes and hands off it. They looked at it exactly as if it waspretty.
We boys stayed watching them. There was no amusement left for us now,for Oswald saw that Dora's Secret knocked the bottom out of theperambulator.
When the infant aristocrat had eaten a hearty meal it sat on Alice's lapand played with the amber heart she wears that Albert's uncle broughther from Hastings after the business of the bad sixpence and thenobleness of Oswald.
"Now," said Dora, "this is a council, so I want to be business-like. TheDuckums Darling has been stolen away; its wicked stealers have desertedthe Precious. We've got it. Perhaps its ancestral halls are miles andmiles away. I vote we keep the little Lovey Duck till it's advertisedfor."
"If Albert's uncle lets you," said Dicky, darkly.
"Oh, don't say 'you' like that," Dora said; "I want it to be all of ourbaby. It will have five fathers and three mothers, and a grandfather anda great Albert's uncle, and a great grand-uncle. I'm sure Albert's unclewill let us keep it--at any rate till it's advertised for."
"And suppose it never is," Noel said.
"Then so much the better," said Dora, "the little Duckywux."
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She began kissing the baby again. Oswald, ever thoughtful, said:
"Well, what about your dinner?"
"Bother dinner!" Dora said--so like a girl. "Will you all agree to behis fathers and mothers?"
"Anything for a quiet life," said Dicky, and Oswald said:
"Oh yes, if you like. But you'll see we sha'n't be allowed to keep it."
"You talk as if he was rabbits or white rats," said Dora, "and he'snot--he's a little man, he is."
"All right, he's no rabbit, but a man. Come on and get some grub, Dora,"rejoined the kind-hearted Oswald, and Dora did, with Oswald and theother boys. Only Noel stayed with Alice. He really seemed to like thebaby. When I looked back he was standing on his head to amuse it, butthe baby did not seem to like him any better whichever end of him wasup.
Dora went back to the shepherd's house on wheels directly she had hadher dinner. Mrs. Pettigrew was very cross about her not being in to it,but she had kept her some mutton hot all the same. She is a decent sort.And there were stewed prunes. We had some to keep Dora company. Then weboys went fishing again in the moat, but we caught nothing.
Just before tea-time we all went back to the hut, and before we got halfacross the last field we could hear the howling of the Secret.
"Poor little beggar," said Oswald, with manly tenderness. "They must besticking pins in it."
We found the girls and Noel looking quite pale and breathless. Daisy waswalking up and down with the Secret in her arms. It looked like Alice inWonderland nursing the baby that turned into a pig. Oswald said so, andadded that its screams were like it too.
"What on earth is the matter with it?" he said.
"_I_ don't know," said Alice. "Daisy's tired, and Dora and I are quiteworn out. He's been crying for hours and hours. _You_ take him a bit."
"Not me," replied Oswald, firmly, withdrawing a pace from the Secret.
Dora was fumbling with her waistband in the furthest corner of the hut.
"I think he's cold," she said. "I thought I'd take off my flannelettepetticoat, only the horrid strings got into a hard knot. Here, Oswald,let's have your knife."
With the word she plunged her hand into Oswald's jacket pocket, and nextmoment she was rubbing her hand like mad on her dress, and screamingalmost as loud as the Baby. Then she began to laugh and to cry at thesame time. This is called hysterics.
"FOUND HIMSELF THE DEGRADED NURSE-MAID OF A SMALL BUTFURIOUS KID"]
Oswald was sorry, but he was annoyed too. He had forgotten that hispocket was half full of the meal-worms the miller had kindly given him.And, anyway, Dora ought to have known that a man always carries hisknife in his trousers pocket and not in his jacket one.
Alice and Daisy rushed to Dora. She had thrown herself down on the pileof sacks in the corner. The titled infant delayed its screams for amoment to listen to Dora's, but almost at once it went on again.
"Oh, get some water!" said Alice. "Daisy, run!"
The White Mouse, ever docile and obedient, shoved the baby into the armsof the nearest person, who had to take it or it would have fallen awreck to the ground. This nearest person was Oswald. He tried to pass iton to the others, but they wouldn't. Noel would have, but he was busykissing Dora and begging her not to.
So our hero, for such I may perhaps term him, found himself the degradednursemaid of a small but furious kid.
He was afraid to lay it down, for fear in its rage it should beat itsbrains out against the hard earth, and he did not wish, howeverinnocently, to be the cause of its hurting itself at all. So he walkedearnestly up and down with it, thumping it unceasingly on the back,while the others attended to Dora, who presently ceased to yell.
Suddenly it struck Oswald that the High-born also had ceased to yell. Helooked at it, and could hardly believe the glad tidings of his faithfuleyes. With bated breath he hastened back to the sheep-house.
The others turned on him, full of reproaches about the meal-worms andDora, but he answered without anger.
"Shut up," he said, in a whisper of imperial command. "Can't you seeit's _gone to sleep_?"
* * * * *
As exhausted as if they had all taken part in all the events of a verylong Athletic Sports, the youthful Bastables and their friends draggedtheir weary limbs back across the fields. Oswald was compelled to go onholding the titled infant, for fear it should wake up if it changedhands, and begin to yell again. Dora's flannelette petticoat had beengot off somehow--how I do not seek to inquire--and the Secret wascovered with it. The others surrounded Oswald as much as possible, witha view to concealment if we met Mrs. Pettigrew. But the coast was clear.Oswald took the Secret up into his bedroom. Mrs. Pettigrew doesn't comethere much; it's too many stairs.
With breathless precaution Oswald laid it down on his bed. It sighed,but did not wake. Then we took it in turns to sit by it and see that itdid not get up and fling itself out of bed, which, in one of its furiousfits, it would just as soon have done as not.
We expected Albert's uncle every minute.
At last we heard the gate, but he did not come in, so we looked out andsaw that there he was talking to a distracted-looking man on a piebaldhorse--one of the miller's horses.
A shiver of doubt coursed through our veins. We could not rememberhaving done anything wrong at the miller's. But you never know. And itseemed strange his sending a man up on his own horse. But when we hadlooked a bit longer our fears went down and our curiosity got up. For wesaw that the distracted one was a gentleman.
Presently he rode off, and Albert's uncle came in. A deputation met himat the door--all the boys and Dora, because the baby was her idea.
"We've found something," Dora said, "and we want to know whether we maykeep it."
The rest of us said nothing. We were not so very extra anxious to keepit after we had heard how much and how long it could howl. Even Noel hadsaid he had no idea a baby could yell like it. Dora said it only criedbecause it was sleepy, but we reflected that it would certainly besleepy once a day, if not oftener.
"What is it?" said Albert's uncle. "Let's see this treasure-trove. Is ita wild beast?"
"Come and see," said Dora, and we led him to our room.
Alice turned down the pink flannelette petticoat with silly pride, andshowed the youthful heir fatly and pinkly sleeping.
"A baby!" said Albert's uncle. "_The_ Baby! Oh, my cat's alive!"
That is an expression which he uses to express despair unmixed withanger.
"Where did you?--but that doesn't matter. We'll talk of this later."
He rushed from the room, and in a moment or two we saw him mount hisbicycle and ride off.
Quite shortly he returned with the distracted horseman.
It was _his_ baby, and not titled at all. The horseman and his wife werethe lodgers at the mill. The nursemaid was a girl from the village.
She _said_ she only left the Baby five minutes while she went to speakto her sweetheart, who was gardener at the Red House. But _we_ knew sheleft it over an hour, and nearly two.
I never saw any one so pleased as the distracted horseman.
When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was theprey of gypsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the Baby, andactually thanked us.
But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business.But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of theothers, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business alltheir lives than mind a baby for a single hour.
If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes ofsleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like.
If you have been through such a scene you will understand how wemanaged to bear up under having no baby to adopt.
Oswald insisted on having the whole thing written in the Golden Deedbook. Of course his share could not be put in without telling aboutDora's generous adopting of the forlorn infant outcast, and Oswald couldnot and cannot forget that he was the one who
did get that baby tosleep.
What a time Mr. and Mrs. Distracted Horseman must have of it,though--especially now they've sacked the nursemaid.
If Oswald is ever married--I suppose he must be some day--he will haveten nurses to each baby. Eight is not enough. We know that because wetried, and the whole eight of us were not enough for the needs of thatdeserted infant, who was not so extra high-born after all.