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CHAPTER 11. THE BENEVOLENT BAR
The *** was very dusty about the feet and legs, and his clothes were
very ragged and dirty, but he had cheerful twinkly grey eyes, and he
touched his cap to the girls when he spoke to us, though a little as
though he would rather not.
We were on the top of the big wall of the Roman ruin in the Three Tree
pasture. We had just concluded a severe siege with bows and arrows—the
ones that were given us to make up for the pistol that was confiscated
after the sad but not sinful occasion when it shot a fox.
To avoid accidents that you would be sorry for afterwards, Oswald, in
his thoughtfulness, had decreed that everyone was to wear wire masks.
Luckily there were plenty of these, because a man who lived in the Moat
House once went to Rome, where they throw hundreds and thousands at
each other in play, and call it a Comfit Battle or Battaglia di Confetti
(that's real Italian). And he wanted to get up that sort of thing among
the village people—but they were too beastly slack, so he chucked it.
And in the attic were the wire masks he brought home with him from Rome,
which people wear to prevent the nasty comfits getting in their mouths
and eyes.
So we were all armed to the teeth with masks and arrows, but in
attacking or defending a fort your real strength is not in your
equipment, but in your power of Shove. Oswald, Alice, Noel and Denny
defended the fort. We were much the strongest side, but that was how
Dicky and Oswald picked up.
The others got in, it is true, but that was only because an arrow hit
Dicky on the nose, and it bled quarts as usual, though hit only
through the wire mask. Then he put into dock for repairs, and while the
defending party weren't looking he sneaked up the wall at the back and
shoved Oswald off, and fell on top of him, so that the fort, now that
it had lost its gallant young leader, the life and soul of the besieged
party, was of course soon overpowered, and had to surrender.
Then we sat on the top and ate some peppermints Albert's uncle brought
us a bag of from Maidstone when he went to fetch away the Roman pottery
we tried to sell the Antiquities with.
The battle was over, and peace raged among us as we sat in the sun on
the big wall and looked at the fields, all blue and swimming in the
heat.
We saw the *** coming through the beetfield. He made a dusty blot on
the fair scene.
When he saw us he came close to the wall, and touched his cap, as I have
said, and remarked—
'Excuse me interrupting of your sports, young gentlemen and ladies, but
if you could so far oblige as to tell a labouring man the way to the
nearest pub. It's a dry day and no error.'
'The "Rose and Crown" is the best pub,' said Dicky, 'and the landlady is
a friend of ours. It's about a mile if you go by the field path.'
'Lor' love a duck!' said the ***, 'a mile's a long way, and walking's
a dry job this 'ere weather.' We said we agreed with him.
'Upon my sacred,' said the ***, 'if there was a pump handy I believe
I'd take a turn at it—I would indeed, so help me if I wouldn't! Though
water always upsets me and makes my 'and shaky.'
We had not cared much about tramps since the adventure of the villainous
sailor-man and the Tower of Mystery, but we had the dogs on the wall
with us (Lady was awfully difficult to get up, on account of her long
deer-hound legs), and the position was a strong one, and easy to defend.
Besides the *** did not look like that bad sailor, nor talk like it.
And we considerably outnumbered the ***, anyway.
Alice nudged Oswald and said something about Sir Philip Sidney and the
***'s need being greater than his, so Oswald was obliged to go to the
hole in the top of the wall where we store provisions during sieges and
get out the bottle of ginger-beer which he had gone without when
the others had theirs so as to drink it when he got really thirsty.
Meanwhile Alice said—
'We've got some ginger-beer; my brother's getting it. I hope you won't
mind drinking out of our glass. We can't wash it, you know—unless we
rinse it out with a little ginger-beer.'
'Don't ye do it, miss,' he said eagerly; 'never waste good liquor on
washing.'
The glass was beside us on the wall. Oswald filled it with ginger-beer
and handed down the foaming tankard to the ***. He had to lie on his
young stomach to do this.
The *** was really quite polite—one of Nature's gentlemen, and a man
as well, we found out afterwards. He said—
'Here's to you!' before he drank. Then he drained the glass till the rim
rested on his nose.
'Swelp me, but I WAS dry,' he said. 'Don't seem to matter much what
it is, this weather, do it?—so long as it's suthink wet. Well, here's
thanking you.'
'You're very welcome,' said Dora; 'I'm glad you liked it.'
'Like it?'—said he. 'I don't suppose you know what it's like to have a
thirst on you. Talk of free schools and free libraries, and free baths
and wash-houses and such! Why don't someone start free DRINKS? He'd be a
ero, he would. I'd vote for him any day of the week and one over. Ef yer
don't objec I'll set down a bit and put on a pipe.'
He sat down on the grass and began to smoke. We asked him questions
about himself, and he told us many of his secret sorrows—especially
about there being no work nowadays for an honest man. At last he dropped
asleep in the middle of a story about a vestry he worked for that hadn't
acted fair and square by him like he had by them, or it (I don't know if
vestry is singular or plural), and we went home. But before we went we
held a hurried council and collected what money we could from the little
we had with us (it was ninepence-halfpenny), and wrapped it in an old
envelope Dicky had in his pocket and put it gently on the billowing
middle of the poor ***'s sleeping waistcoat, so that he would find
it when he woke. None of the dogs said a single syllable while we were
doing this, so we knew they believed him to be poor but honest, and we
always find it safe to take their word for things like that.
As we went home a brooding silence fell upon us; we found out afterwards
that those words of the poor ***'s about free drinks had sunk deep in
all our hearts, and rankled there.
After dinner we went out and sat with our feet in the stream. People
tell you it makes your grub disagree with you to do this just after
meals, but it never hurts us. There is a fallen willow across the stream
that just seats the eight of us, only the ones at the end can't get
their feet into the water properly because of the bushes, so we keep
changing places. We had got some liquorice root to chew. This helps
thought. Dora broke a peaceful silence with this speech—
'Free drinks.'
The words awoke a response in every breast.
'I wonder someone doesn't,' H. O. said, leaning back till he nearly
toppled in, and was only saved by Oswald and Alice at their own deadly
peril.
'Do for goodness sake sit still, H. O.,' observed Alice. 'It would be a
glorious act! I wish WE could.'
'What, sit still?' asked H. O.
'No, my child,' replied Oswald, 'most of us can do that when we try.
Your angel sister was only wishing to set up free drinks for the poor
and thirsty.'
'Not for all of them,' Alice said, 'just a few. Change places now,
Dicky. My feet aren't properly wet at all.'
It is very difficult to change places safely on the willow. The changers
have to crawl over the laps of the others, while the rest sit tight and
hold on for all they're worth. But the hard task was accomplished and
then Alice went on—
'And we couldn't do it for always, only a day or two—just while our
money held out. Eiffel Tower lemonade's the best, and you get a jolly
lot of it for your money too. There must be a great many sincerely
thirsty persons go along the Dover Road every day.'
'It wouldn't be bad. We've got a little *** between us,' said Oswald.
'And then think how the poor grateful creatures would linger and tell us
about their inmost sorrows. It would be most frightfully interesting.
We could write all their agonied life histories down afterwards like All
the Year Round Christmas numbers. Oh, do let's!'
Alice was wriggling so with earnestness that Dicky thumped her to make
her calm.
'We might do it, just for one day,' Oswald said, 'but it wouldn't be
much—only a drop in the ocean compared with the enormous dryness of all
the people in the whole world. Still, every little helps, as the mermaid
said when she cried into the sea.'
'I know a piece of poetry about that,' Denny said.
'Small things are best. Care and unrest
To wealth and rank are given, But little things
On little wings—
do something or other, I forget what, but it means the same as Oswald
was saying about the mermaid.'
'What are you going to call it?' asked Noel, coming out of a dream.
'Call what?'
'The Free Drinks game.'
'It's a horrid shame If the Free Drinks game
Doesn't have a name. You would be to blame
If anyone came And—'
'Oh, shut up!' remarked Dicky. 'You've been making that rot up all the
time we've been talking instead of listening properly.' Dicky hates
poetry. I don't mind it so very much myself, especially Macaulay's and
Kipling's and Noel's.
'There was a lot more—"lame" and "dame" and "name" and "game" and
things—and now I've forgotten it,' Noel said in gloom.
'Never mind,' Alice answered, 'it'll come back to you in the silent
watches of the night; you see if it doesn't. But really, Noel's right,
it OUGHT to have a name.'
'Free Drinks Company.' 'Thirsty Travellers' Rest.' 'The Travellers'
joy.'
These names were suggested, but not cared for extra.
Then someone said—I think it was Oswald—'Why not "The House
Beautiful"?'
'It can't be a house, it must be in the road. It'll only be a stall.'
'The "Stall Beautiful" is simply silly,' Oswald said.
'The "Bar Beautiful" then,' said Dicky, who knows what the 'Rose and
Crown' bar is like inside, which of course is hidden from girls.
'Oh, wait a minute,' cried the Dentist, snapping his fingers like
he always does when he is trying to remember things. 'I thought of
something, only Daisy tickled me and it's gone—I know—let's call it
the Benevolent Bar!'
It was exactly right, and told the whole truth in two words.
'Benevolent' showed it was free and 'Bar' showed what was free; e.g.
things to drink. The 'Benevolent Bar' it was.
We went home at once to prepare for the morrow, for of course we meant
to do it the very next day. Procrastination is you know what—and delays
are dangerous. If we had waited long we might have happened to spend our
money on something else.
The utmost secrecy had to be observed, because Mrs Pettigrew hates
tramps. Most people do who keep fowls. Albert's uncle was in London till
the next evening, so we could not consult him, but we know he is always
chock full of intelligent sympathy with the poor and needy.
Acting with the deepest disguise, we made an awning to cover the
Benevolent Bar keepers from the searching rays of the monarch of the
skies. We found some old striped sun-blinds in the attic, and the girls
sewed them together. They were not very big when they were done, so we
added the girls' striped petticoats. I am sorry their petticoats turn
up so constantly in my narrative, but they really are very useful,
especially when the band is cut off. The girls borrowed Mrs Pettigrew's
sewing-machine; they could not ask her leave without explanations, which
we did not wish to give just then, and she had lent it to them before.
They took it into the cellar to work it, so that she should not hear the
noise and ask bothering questions.
They had to balance it on one end of the beer-stand. It was not easy.
While they were doing the sewing we boys went out and got willow poles
and chopped the twigs off, and got ready as well as we could to put up
the awning.
When we returned a detachment of us went down to the shop in the village
for Eiffel Tower lemonade. We bought seven-and-sixpence worth; then we
made a great label to say what the bar was for. Then there was nothing
else to do except to make rosettes out of a blue sash of Daisy's to show
we belonged to the Benevolent Bar.
The next day was as hot as ever. We rose early from our innocent
slumbers, and went out to the Dover Road to the spot we had marked down
the day before. It was at a cross-roads, so as to be able to give drinks
to as many people as possible.
We hid the awning and poles behind the hedge and went home to brekker.
After break we got the big zinc bath they wash clothes in, and after
filling it with clean water we just had to empty it again because it was
too heavy to lift. So we carried it vacant to the trysting-spot and left
H. O. and Noel to guard it while we went and fetched separate pails of
water; very heavy work, and no one who wasn't really benevolent would
have bothered about it for an instant. Oswald alone carried three pails.
So did Dicky and the Dentist. Then we rolled down some empty barrels
and stood up three of them by the roadside, and put planks on them.
This made a very first-class table, and we covered it with the best
tablecloth we could find in the linen cupboard. We brought out several
glasses and some teacups—not the best ones, Oswald was firm about
that—and the kettle and spirit-lamp and the tea-pot, in case any weary
***-woman fancied a cup of tea instead of Eiffel Tower. H. O. and Noel
had to go down to the shop for tea; they need not have grumbled; they
had not carried any of the water. And their having to go the second time
was only because we forgot to tell them to get some real lemons to put
on the bar to show what the drink would be like when you got it. The man
at the shop kindly gave us tick for the lemons, and we cashed up out of
our next week's pocket-money.
Two or three people passed while we were getting things ready, but
no one said anything except the man who said, 'Bloomin' Sunday-school
treat', and as it was too early in the day for anyone to be thirsty we
did not stop the wayfarers to tell them their thirst could be slaked
without cost at our Benevolent Bar.
But when everything was quite ready, and our blue rosettes fastened on
our *** over our benevolent hearts, we stuck up the great placard we
had made with 'Benevolent Bar. Free Drinks to all Weary Travellers', in
white wadding on red calico, like Christmas decorations in church. We
had meant to fasten this to the edge of the awning, but we had to pin
it to the front of the tablecloth, because I am sorry to say the awning
went wrong from the first. We could not drive the willow poles into the
road; it was much too hard. And in the ditch it was too soft, besides
being no use. So we had just to cover our benevolent heads with our
hats, and take it in turns to go into the shadow of the tree on the
other side of the road. For we had pitched our table on the sunny side
of the way, of course, relying on our broken-reed-like awning, and
wishing to give it a fair chance.
Everything looked very nice, and we longed to see somebody really
miserable come along so as to be able to allieve their distress.
A man and woman were the first: they stopped and stared, but when Alice
said, 'Free drinks! Free drinks! Aren't you thirsty?' they said, 'No
thank you,' and went on. Then came a person from the village—he didn't
even say 'Thank you' when we asked him, and Oswald began to fear it
might be like the awful time when we wandered about on Christmas Day
trying to find poor persons and persuade them to eat our Conscience
pudding.
But a man in a blue jersey and a red bundle eased Oswald's fears by
being willing to drink a glass of lemonade, and even to say, 'Thank you,
I'm sure' quite nicely.
After that it was better. As we had foreseen, there were plenty of
thirsty people walking along the Dover Road, and even some from the
cross-road.
We had had the pleasure of seeing nineteen tumblers drained to the dregs
ere we tasted any ourselves. Nobody asked for tea.
More people went by than we gave lemonade to. Some wouldn't have it
because they were too grand. One man told us he could pay for his own
liquor when he was dry, which, praise be, he wasn't over and above, at
present; and others asked if we hadn't any beer, and when we said 'No',
they said it showed what sort we were—as if the sort was not a good
one, which it is.
And another man said, 'Slops again! You never get nothing for nothing,
not this side of heaven you don't. Look at the bloomin' blue ribbon on
'em! Oh, Lor'!' and went on quite sadly without having a drink.
Our Pig-man who helped us on the Tower of Mystery day went by and we
hailed him, and explained it all to him and gave him a drink, and asked
him to call as he came back. He liked it all, and said we were a real
good sort. How different from the man who wanted the beer. Then he went
on.
One thing I didn't like, and that was the way boys began to gather. Of
course we could not refuse to give drinks to any traveller who was old
enough to ask for it, but when one boy had had three glasses of lemonade
and asked for another, Oswald said—
'I think you've had jolly well enough. You can't be really thirsty after
all that lot.'
The boy said, 'Oh, can't I? You'll just see if I can't,' and went away.
Presently he came back with four other boys, all bigger than Oswald; and
they all asked for lemonade. Oswald gave it to the four new ones, but he
was determined in his behaviour to the other one, and wouldn't give him
a drop. Then the five of them went and sat on a gate a little way off
and kept laughing in a nasty way, and whenever a boy went by they called
out—
'I say, 'ere's a go,' and as often as not the new boy would hang about
with them. It was disquieting, for though they had nearly all had
lemonade we could see it had not made them friendly.
A great glorious glow of goodness gladdened (those go all together and
are called alliteration) our hearts when we saw our own *** coming
down the road. The dogs did not growl at him as they had at the boys or
the beer-man. (I did not say before that we had the dogs with us, but
of course we had, because we had promised never to go out without them.)
Oswald said, 'Hullo,' and the *** said, 'Hullo.' Then Alice said, 'You
see we've taken your advice; we're giving free drinks. Doesn't it all
look nice?'
'It does that,' said the ***. 'I don't mind if I do.'
So we gave him two glasses of lemonade succeedingly, and thanked him
for giving us the idea. He said we were very welcome, and if we'd no
objection he'd sit down a bit and put on a pipe. He did, and after
talking a little more he fell asleep. Drinking anything seemed to end in
sleep with him. I always thought it was only beer and things made people
sleepy, but he was not so. When he was asleep he rolled into the ditch,
but it did not wake him up.
The boys were getting very noisy, and they began to shout things, and to
make silly noises with their mouths, and when Oswald and Dicky went over
to them and told them to just chuck it, they were worse than ever.
I think perhaps Oswald and Dicky might have fought and settled
them—though there were eleven, yet back to back you can always do it
against overwhelming numbers in a book—only Alice called out—
'Oswald, here's some more, come back!'
We went. Three big men were coming down the road, very red and hot, and
not amiable-looking. They stopped in front of the Benevolent Bar and
slowly read the wadding and red-stuff label.
Then one of them said he was blessed, or something like that, and
another said he was too. The third one said, 'Blessed or not, a drink's
a drink. Blue ribbon, though, by ——' (a word you ought not to say,
though it is in the Bible and the catechism as well). 'Let's have a
liquor, little missy.'
The dogs were growling, but Oswald thought it best not to take any
notice of what the dogs said, but to give these men each a drink. So he
did. They drank, but not as if they cared about it very much, and then
they set their glasses down on the table, a liberty no one else had
entered into, and began to try and chaff Oswald. Oswald said in an
undervoice to H. O.—
'Just take charge. I want to speak to the girls a sec. Call if you want
anything.' And then he drew the others away, to say he thought there'd
been enough of it, and considering the boys and new three men, perhaps
we'd better chuck it and go home. We'd been benevolent nearly four hours
anyway.
While this conversation and the objections of the others were going on,
H. O. perpetuated an act which nearly wrecked the Benevolent Bar.
Of course Oswald was not an eye or ear witness of what happened, but
from what H. O. said in the calmer moments of later life, I think this
was about what happened. One of the big disagreeable men said to H. O.—
'Ain't got such a thing as a drop o' spirit, 'ave yer?'
H. O. said no, we hadn't, only lemonade and tea.
'Lemonade and tea! blank' (bad word I told you about) 'and blazes,'
replied the bad character, for such he afterwards proved to be. 'What's
THAT then?'
He pointed to a bottle labelled Dewar's whisky, which stood on the table
near the spirit-kettle.
'Oh, is THAT what you want?' said H. O. kindly.
The man is understood to have said he should bloomin' well think so, but
H. O. is not sure about the 'bloomin'.
He held out his glass with about half the lemonade in it, and H. O.
generously filled up the tumbler out of the bottle, labelled Dewar's
whisky. The man took a great drink, and then suddenly he spat out what
happened to be left in his mouth just then, and began to swear. It was
then that Oswald and Dicky rushed upon the scene.
The man was shaking his fist in H. O.'s face, and H. O. was still
holding on to the bottle we had brought out the methylated spirit in for
the lamp, in case of anyone wanting tea, which they hadn't. 'If I was
Jim,' said the second ruffian, for such indeed they were, when he had
snatched the bottle from H. O. and smelt it, 'I'd chuck the whole show
over the hedge, so I would, and you young gutter-snipes after it, so I
wouldn't.'
Oswald saw in a moment that in point of strength, if not numbers, he and
his party were out-matched, and the unfriendly boys were drawing gladly
near. It is no shame to signal for help when in distress—the best ships
do it every day. Oswald shouted 'Help, help!' Before the words were out
of his brave yet trembling lips our own *** leapt like an antelope
from the ditch and said—
'Now then, what's up?'
The biggest of the three men immediately knocked him down. He lay still.
The biggest then said, 'Come on—any more of you? Come on!'
Oswald was so enraged at this cowardly attack that he actually hit out
at the big man—and he really got one in just above the belt. Then he
shut his eyes, because he felt that now all was indeed up. There was
a shout and a scuffle, and Oswald opened his eyes in astonishment at
finding himself still whole and unimpaired. Our own *** had artfully
simulated insensibleness, to get the men off their guard, and then had
suddenly got his arms round a leg each of two of the men, and pulled
them to the ground, helped by Dicky, who saw his game and rushed in at
the same time, exactly like Oswald would have done if he had not had his
eyes shut ready to meet his doom.
The unpleasant boys shouted, and the third man tried to help his
unrespectable friends, now on their backs involved in a desperate
struggle with our own ***, who was on top of them, accompanied by
Dicky. It all happened in a minute, and it was all mixed up. The dogs
were growling and barking—Martha had one of the men by the trouser
leg and Pincher had another; the girls were screaming like mad and the
strange boys shouted and laughed (little beasts!), and then suddenly our
Pig-man came round the corner, and two friends of his with him. He
had gone and fetched them to take care of us if anything unpleasant
occurred. It was a very thoughtful, and just like him.
'Fetch the police!' cried the Pig-man in noble tones, and H. O. started
running to do it. But the scoundrels struggled from under Dicky and our
***, shook off the dogs and some bits of trouser, and fled heavily
down the road.
Our Pig-man said, 'Get along home!' to the disagreeable boys, and
'Shoo'd' them as if they were hens, and they went. H. O. ran back when
they began to go up the road, and there we were, all standing breathless
in tears on the scene of the late desperate engagement. Oswald gives you
his word of honour that his and Dicky's tears were tears of pure rage.
There are such things as tears of pure rage. Anyone who knows will tell
you so.
We picked up our own *** and bathed the lump on his forehead with
lemonade. The water in the zinc bath had been upset in the struggle.
Then he and the Pig-man and his kind friends helped us carry our things
home.
The Pig-man advised us on the way not to try these sort of kind actions
without getting a grown-up to help us. We've been advised this before,
but now I really think we shall never try to be benevolent to the poor
and needy again. At any rate not unless we know them very well first.
We have seen our own *** often since. The Pig-man gave him a job. He
has got work to do at last. The Pig-man says he is not such a very bad
chap, only he will fall asleep after the least drop of drink. We know
that is his failing. We saw it at once. But it was lucky for us he fell
asleep that day near our benevolent bar.
I will not go into what my father said about it all. There was a good
deal in it about minding your own business—there generally is in most
of the talkings-to we get. But he gave our *** a sovereign, and the
Pig-man says he went to sleep on it for a solid week.
End of Chapter 11
CHAPTER 12. THE CANTERBURY PILGRIMS
The author of these few lines really does hope to goodness that no one
will be such an owl as to think from the number of things we did when we
were in the country, that we were wretched, neglected little children,
whose grown-up relations sparkled in the bright haunts of pleasure, and
whirled in the giddy what's-its-name of fashion, while we were left to
weep forsaken at home. It was nothing of the kind, and I wish you to
know that my father was with us a good deal—and Albert's uncle (who is
really no uncle of ours, but only of Albert next door when we lived
in Lewisham) gave up a good many of his valuable hours to us. And the
father of Denny and Daisy came now and then, and other people, quite as
many as we wished to see. And we had some very decent times with them;
and enjoyed ourselves very much indeed, thank you. In some ways the
good times you have with grown-ups are better than the ones you have by
yourselves. At any rate they are safer. It is almost impossible, then,
to do anything fatal without being pulled up short by a grown-up ere yet
the deed is done. And, if you are careful, anything that goes wrong can
be looked on as the grown-up's fault. But these secure pleasures are not
so interesting to tell about as the things you do when there is no one
to stop you on the edge of the rash act.
It is curious, too, that many of our most interesting games happened
when grown-ups were far away. For instance when we were pilgrims.
It was just after the business of the Benevolent Bar, and it was a wet
day. It is not easy to amuse yourself indoors on a wet day as older
people seem to think, especially when you are far removed from your
own home, and haven't got all your own books and things. The girls were
playing Halma—which is a beastly game—Noel was writing poetry, H. O.
was singing 'I don't know what to do' to the tune of 'Canaan's happy
shore'. It goes like this, and is very tiresome to listen to—
'I don't know what to do—oo—oo—oo! I don't know what to do—oo—oo!
It IS a beastly rainy day And I don't know what to do.'
The rest of us were trying to make him shut up. We put a carpet bag over
his head, but he went on inside it; and then we sat on him, but he sang
under us; we held him upside down and made him crawl head first under
the sofa, but when, even there, he kept it up, we saw that nothing short
of violence would induce him to silence, so we let him go. And then he
said we had hurt him, and we said we were only in fun, and he said if
we were he wasn't, and ill feeling might have grown up even out of a
playful brotherly act like ours had been, only Alice chucked the Halma
and said—
'Let dogs delight. Come on—let's play something.'
Then Dora said, 'Yes, but look here. Now we're together I do want to say
something. What about the Wouldbegoods Society?'
Many of us groaned, and one said, 'Hear! hear!' I will not say which
one, but it was not Oswald.
'No, but really,' Dora said, 'I don't want to be preachy—but you know
we DID say we'd try to be good. And it says in a book I was reading only
yesterday that NOT being naughty is not enough. You must BE good. And
we've hardly done anything. The Golden Deed book's almost empty.'
'Couldn't we have a book of leaden deeds?' said Noel, coming out of his
poetry, 'then there'd be plenty for Alice to write about if she wants
to, or brass or zinc or aluminium deeds? We shan't ever fill the book
with golden ones.'
H. O. had rolled himself in the red tablecloth and said Noel was only
advising us to be naughty, and again peace waved in the balance. But
Alice said, 'Oh, H. O., DON'T—he didn't mean that; but really and
truly, I wish wrong things weren't so interesting. You begin to do a
noble act, and then it gets so exciting, and before you know where you
are you are doing something wrong as hard as you can lick.'
'And enjoying it too' *** said.
'It's very curious,' Denny said, 'but you don't seem to be able to be
certain inside yourself whether what you're doing is right if you happen
to like doing it, but if you don't like doing it you know quite well. I
only thought of that just now. I wish Noel would make a poem about it.'
'I am,' Noel said; 'it began about a crocodile but it is finishing
itself up quite different from what I meant it to at first. Just wait a
minute.'
He wrote very hard while his kind brothers and sisters and his little
friends waited the minute he had said, and then he read:
'The crocodile is very wise, He lives in the Nile with little eyes, He
eats the hippopotamus too, And if he could he would eat up you.
'The lovely woods and starry skies He looks upon with glad surprise! He
sees the riches of the east, And the tiger and lion, kings of beast.
'So let all be good and beware Of saying shan't and won't and don't
care; For doing wrong is easier far Than any of the right things I know
about are.
And I couldn't make it king of beasts because of it not rhyming with
east, so I put the s off beasts on to king. It comes even in the end.'
We all said it was a very nice piece of poetry. Noel gets really ill if
you don't like what he writes, and then he said, 'If it's trying that's
wanted, I don't care how hard we TRY to be good, but we may as well
do it some nice way. Let's be Pilgrim's Progress, like I wanted to at
first.'
And we were all beginning to say we didn't want to, when suddenly Dora
said, 'Oh, look here! I know. We'll be the Canterbury Pilgrims. People
used to go pilgrimages to make themselves good.'
'With peas in their shoes,' the Dentist said. 'It's in a piece of
poetry—only the man boiled his peas—which is quite unfair.'
'Oh, yes,' said H. O., 'and cocked hats.'
'Not cocked—cockled'—it was Alice who said this. 'And they had staffs
and scrips, and they told each other tales. We might as well.'
Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in a book
called A Short History of the English People. It is not at all short
really—three fat volumes—but it has jolly good pictures. It was
written by a gentleman named Green. So Oswald said—
'All right. I'll be the Knight.'
'I'll be the wife of Bath,' Dora said. 'What will you be, Dicky?'
'Oh, I don't care, I'll be Mr Bath if you like.'
'We don't know much about the people,' Alice said. 'How many were
there?'
'Thirty,' Oswald replied, 'but we needn't be all of them. There's a
Nun-Priest.'
'Is that a man or a woman?'
Oswald said he could not be sure by the picture, but Alice and Noel
could be it between them. So that was settled. Then we got the book and
looked at the dresses to see if we could make up dresses for the parts.
At first we thought we would, because it would be something to do,
and it was a very wet day; but they looked difficult, especially the
Miller's. Denny wanted to be the Miller, but in the end he was the
Doctor, because it was next door to Dentist, which is what we call him
for short. Daisy was to be the Prioress—because she is good, and has
'a soft little red mouth', and H. O. WOULD be the Manciple (I don't know
what that is), because the picture of him is bigger than most of the
others, and he said Manciple was a nice portmanteau word—half mandarin
and half disciple.
'Let's get the easiest parts of the dresses ready first.' Alice
said—'the pilgrims' staffs and hats and the cockles.'
So Oswald and Dicky braved the fury of the elements and went into the
wood beyond the orchard to cut ash-sticks. We got eight jolly good long
ones. Then we took them home, and the girls bothered till we changed our
clothes, which were indeed sopping with the elements we had faced.
Then we peeled the sticks. They were nice and white at first, but they
soon got dirty when we carried them. It is a curious thing: however
often you wash your hands they always seem to come off on anything
white. And we nailed paper rosettes to the tops of them. That was the
nearest we could get to cockle-shells.
'And we may as well have them there as on our hats,' Alice said. 'And
let's call each other by our right names to-day, just to get into it.
Don't you think so, Knight?'
'Yea, Nun-Priest,' Oswald was replying, but Noel said she was only half
the Nun-Priest, and again a threat of unpleasantness darkened the air.
But Alice said—
'Don't be a piggy-wiggy, Noel, dear; you can have it all, I don't want
it. I'll just be a plain pilgrim, or Henry who killed Becket.'
So she was called the Plain Pilgrim, and she did not mind.
We thought of cocked hats, but they are warm to wear, and the big garden
hats that make you look like pictures on the covers of plantation songs
did beautifully. We put cockle-shells on them. Sandals we did try, with
pieces of oil-cloth cut the shape of soles and fastened with tape, but
the dust gets into your toes so, and we decided boots were better for
such a long walk. Some of the pilgrims who were very earnest decided
to tie their boots with white tape crossed outside to pretend sandals.
Denny was one of these earnest palmers. As for dresses, there was no
time to make them properly, and at first we thought of nightgowns; but
we decided not to, in case people in Canterbury were not used to that
sort of pilgrim nowadays. We made up our minds to go as we were—or as
we might happen to be next day.
You will be ready to believe we hoped next day would be fine. It was.
Fair was the morn when the pilgrims arose and went down to breakfast.
Albert's uncle had had brekker early and was hard at work in his study.
We heard his quill pen squeaking when we listened at the door. It is not
wrong to listen at doors when there is only one person inside, because
nobody would tell itself secrets aloud when it was alone.
We got lunch from the housekeeper, Mrs Pettigrew. She seems almost to
LIKE us all to go out and take our lunch with us. Though I should think
it must be very dull for her all alone. I remember, though, that Eliza,
our late general at Lewisham, was just the same. We took the dear dogs
of course. Since the Tower of Mystery happened we are not allowed to go
anywhere without the escort of these faithful friends of man. We did not
take Martha, because bull-dogs do not like walks. Remember this if you
ever have one of those valuable animals.
When we were all ready, with our big hats and cockle-shells, and our
staves and our tape sandals, the pilgrims looked very nice.
'Only we haven't any scrips,' Dora said. 'What is a scrip?'
'I think it's something to read. A roll of parchment or something.'
So we had old newspapers rolled up, and carried them in our hands. We
took the Globe and the Westminster Gazette because they are pink and
green. The Dentist wore his white sandshoes, sandalled with black tape,
and bare legs. They really looked almost as good as bare feet.
'We OUGHT to have peas in our shoes,' he said. But we did not think so.
We knew what a very little stone in your boot will do, let alone peas.
Of course we knew the way to go to Canterbury, because the old Pilgrims'
Road runs just above our house. It is a very pretty road, narrow, and
often shady. It is nice for walking, but carts do not like it because it
is rough and rutty; so there is grass growing in patches on it.
I have said that it was a fine day, which means that it was not raining,
but the sun did not shine all the time.
''Tis well, O Knight,' said Alice, 'that the orb of day shines not in
undi—what's-its-name?—splendour.'
'Thou sayest sooth, Plain Pilgrim,' replied Oswald. ''Tis jolly warm
even as it is.'
'I wish I wasn't two people,' Noel said, 'it seems to make me hotter. I
think I'll be a Reeve or something.'
But we would not let him, and we explained that if he hadn't been so
beastly particular Alice would have been half of him, and he had only
himself to thank if being all of a Nun-Priest made him hot.
But it WAS warm certainly, and it was some time since we'd gone so far
in boots. Yet when H. O. complained we did our duty as pilgrims and
made him shut up. He did as soon as Alice said that about whining and
grizzling being below the dignity of a Manciple.
It was so warm that the Prioress and the wife of Bath gave up walking
with their arms round each other in their usual silly way (Albert's
uncle calls it Laura Matildaing), and the Doctor and Mr Bath had to take
their jackets off and carry them.
I am sure if an artist or a photographer, or any person who liked
pilgrims, had seen us he would have been very pleased. The paper
cockle-shells were first-rate, but it was awkward having them on the top
of the staffs, because they got in your way when you wanted the staff to
use as a walking-stick.
We stepped out like a man all of us, and kept it up as well as we could
in book-talk, and at first all was merry as a dinner-bell; but presently
Oswald, who was the 'very perfect gentle knight', could not help
noticing that one of us was growing very silent and rather pale, like
people are when they have eaten something that disagrees with them
before they are quite sure of the fell truth.
So he said, 'What's up, Dentist, old man?' quite kindly and like a
perfect knight, though, of course, he was annoyed with Denny. It is
sickening when people turn pale in the middle of a game and everything
is spoiled, and you have to go home, and tell the spoiler how sorry you
are that he is knocked up, and pretend not to mind about the game being
spoiled.
Denny said, 'Nothing', but Oswald knew better.
Then Alice said, 'Let's rest a bit, Oswald, it IS hot.'
'Sir Oswald, if you please, Plain Pilgrim,' returned her brother
dignifiedly. 'Remember I'm a knight.'
So then we sat down and had lunch, and Denny looked better. We played
adverbs, and twenty questions, and apprenticing your son, for a bit in
the shade, and then Dicky said it was time to set sail if we meant to
make the port of Canterbury that night. Of course, pilgrims reck not of
ports, but Dicky never does play the game thoughtfully.
We went on. I believe we should have got to Canterbury all right and
quite early, only Denny got paler and paler, and presently Oswald saw,
beyond any doubt, that he was beginning to walk lame.
'Shoes hurt you, Dentist?' he said, still with kind striving
cheerfulness.
'Not much—it's all right,' returned the other.
So on we went—but we were all a bit tired now—and the sun was hotter
and hotter; the clouds had gone away. We had to begin to sing to keep up
our spirits. We sang 'The British Grenadiers' and 'John Brown's Body',
which is grand to march to, and a lot of others. We were just starting
on '***, ***, ***, the boys are marching', when Denny stopped
short. He stood first on one foot and then on the other, and suddenly
screwed up his face and put his knuckles in his eyes and sat down on
a heap of stones by the roadside. When we pulled his hands down he was
actually crying. The author does not wish to say it is babyish to cry.
'Whatever is up?' we all asked, and Daisy and Dora petted him to get him
to say, but he only went on howling, and said it was nothing, only would
we go on and leave him, and call for him as we came back.
Oswald thought very likely something had given Denny the stomach-ache,
and he did not like to say so before all of us, so he sent the others
away and told them to walk on a bit.
Then he said, 'Now, Denny, don't be a young ***. What is it? Is it
stomach-ache?'
And Denny stopped crying to say 'No!' as loud as he could.
'Well, then,' Oswald said, 'look here, you're spoiling the whole thing.
Don't be a jackape, Denny. What is it?'
'You won't tell the others if I tell you?'
'Not if you say not,' Oswald answered in kindly tones.
'Well, it's my shoes.'
'Take them off, man.'
'You won't laugh?'
'NO!' cried Oswald, so impatiently that the others looked back to see
why he was shouting. He waved them away, and with humble gentleness
began to undo the black-tape sandals.
Denny let him, crying hard all the time.
When Oswald had got off the first shoe the mystery was made plain to
him.
'Well! Of all the—' he said in proper indignation.
Denny quailed—though he said he did not—but then he doesn't know what
quailing is, and if Denny did not quail then Oswald does not know what
quailing is either.
For when Oswald took the shoe off he naturally chucked it down and
gave it a kick, and a lot of little pinky yellow things rolled out. And
Oswald look closer at the interesting sight. And the little things were
SPLIT peas.
'Perhaps you'll tell me,' said the gentle knight, with the politeness of
despair, 'why on earth you've played the goat like this?'
'Oh, don't be angry,' Denny said; and now his shoes were off, he curled
and uncurled his toes and stopped crying. 'I KNEW pilgrims put peas in
their shoes—and—oh, I wish you wouldn't laugh!'
'I'm not,' said Oswald, still with bitter politeness.
'I didn't want to tell you I was going to, because I wanted to be better
than all of you, and I thought if you knew I was going to you'd want to
too, and you wouldn't when I said it first. So I just put some peas
in my pocket and dropped one or two at a time into my shoes when you
weren't looking.'
In his secret heart Oswald said, 'Greedy young ***.' For it IS greedy to
want to have more of anything than other people, even goodness.
Outwardly Oswald said nothing.
'You see'—Denny went on—'I do want to be good. And if pilgriming is to
do you good, you ought to do it properly. I shouldn't mind being hurt
in my feet if it would make me good for ever and ever. And besides, I
wanted to play the game thoroughly. You always say I don't.'
The breast of the kind Oswald was touched by these last words.
'I think you're quite good enough,' he said. 'I'll fetch back the
others—no, they won't laugh.'
And we all went back to Denny, and the girls made a fuss with him. But
Oswald and Dicky were grave and stood aloof. They were old enough to see
that being good was all very well, but after all you had to get the boy
home somehow.
When they said this, as agreeably as they could, Denny said—
'It's all right—someone will give me a lift.'
'You think everything in the world can be put right with a lift,' Dicky
said, and he did not speak lovingly.
'So it can,' said Denny, 'when it's your feet. I shall easily get a lift
home.'
'Not here you won't,' said Alice. 'No one goes down this road; but the
high road's just round the corner, where you see the telegraph wires.'
Dickie and Oswald made a sedan chair and carried Denny to the high road,
and we sat down in a ditch to wait. For a long time nothing went by
but a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so sound
asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enough
about springing like a flash to the horses' heads, though we all thought
of it directly the dray was out of sight.
So we had to keep on sitting there by the dusty road, and more than one
pilgrim was heard to say it wished we had never come. Oswald was not one
of those who uttered this useless wish.
At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts of
even Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet on the road,
and a dogcart came in sight with a lady in it all alone.
We hailed her like the desperate shipwrecked mariners in the long-boat
hail the passing sail.
She pulled up. She was not a very old lady—twenty-five we found out
afterwards her age was—and she looked jolly.
'Well,' she said, 'what's the matter?'
'It's this poor little boy,' Dora said, pointing to the Dentist, who had
gone to sleep in the dry ditch, with his mouth open as usual. 'His feet
hurt him so, and will you give him a lift?'
'But why are you all rigged out like this?' asked the lady, looking at
our cockle-shells and sandals and things. We told her.
'And how has he hurt his feet?' she asked. And we told her that.
She looked very kind. 'Poor little chap,' she said. 'Where do you want
to go?'
We told her that too. We had no concealments from this lady.
'Well,' she said, 'I have to go on to—what is its name?'
'Canterbury,' said H. O.
'Well, yes, Canterbury,' she said; 'it's only about half a mile. I'll
take the poor little pilgrim—and, yes, the three girls. You boys
must walk. Then we'll have tea and see the sights, and I'll drive you
home—at least some of you. How will that do?'
We thanked her very much indeed, and said it would do very nicely.
Then we helped Denny into the cart, and the girls got up, and the red
wheels of the cart spun away through the dust.
'I wish it had been an omnibus the lady was driving,' said H. O., 'then
we could all have had a ride.'
'Don't you be so discontented,' Dicky said. And Noel said—
'You ought to be jolly thankful you haven't got to carry Denny all the
way home on your back. You'd have had to if you'd been out alone with
him.'
When we got to Canterbury it was much smaller than we expected, and
the cathedral not much bigger than the Church that is next to the Moat
House. There seemed to be only one big street, but we supposed the rest
of the city was hidden away somewhere. There was a large inn, with
a green before it, and the red-wheeled dogcart was standing in the
stableyard and the lady, with Denny and the others, sitting on the
benches in the porch, looking out for us. The inn was called the 'George
and Dragon', and it made me think of the days when there were coaches
and highwaymen and foot-pads and jolly landlords, and adventures at
country inns, like you read about.
'We've ordered tea,' said the lady. 'Would you like to wash your hands?'
We saw that she wished us to, so we said yes, we would. The girls and
Denny were already much cleaner than when we parted from them.
There was a courtyard to the inn and a wooden staircase outside the
house. We were taken up this, and washed our hands in a big room with
a fourpost wooden bed and dark red hangings—just the sort of hangings
that would not show the stains of gore in the dear old adventurous
times.
Then we had tea in a great big room with wooden chairs and tables, very
polished and old.
It was a very nice tea, with lettuces, and cold meat, and three kinds of
jam, as well as cake, and new bread, which we are not allowed at home.
While tea was being had, the lady talked to us. She was very kind.
There are two sorts of people in the world, besides others; one sort
understand what you're driving at, and the other don't. This lady was
the one sort.
After everyone had had as much to eat as they could possibly want, the
lady said, 'What was it you particularly wanted to see at Canterbury?'
'The cathedral,' Alice said, 'and the place where Thomas A Becket was
murdered.'
'And the Danejohn,' said Dicky.
Oswald wanted to see the walls, because he likes the Story of St Alphege
and the Danes.
'Well, well,' said the lady, and she put on her hat; it was a really
sensible one—not a blob of fluffy stuff and feathers put on sideways
and stuck on with long pins, and no shade to your face, but almost as
big as ours, with a big brim and red flowers, and black strings to tie
under your chin to keep it from blowing off.
Then we went out all together to see Canterbury. Dicky and Oswald took
it in turns to carry Denny on their backs. The lady called him 'The
Wounded Comrade'.
We went first to the church. Oswald, whose quick brain was easily
aroused to suspicions, was afraid the lady might begin talking in the
church, but she did not. The church door was open. I remember mother
telling us once it was right and good for churches to be left open
all day, so that tired people could go in and be quiet, and say their
prayers, if they wanted to. But it does not seem respectful to talk out
loud in church. (See Note A.)
When we got outside the lady said, 'You can imagine how on the chancel
steps began the mad struggle in which Becket, after hurling one of his
assailants, armour and all, to the ground—'
'It would have been much cleverer,' H. O. interrupted, 'to hurl him
without his armour, and leave that standing up.'
'Go on,' said Alice and Oswald, when they had given H. O. a withering
glance. And the lady did go on. She told us all about Becket, and then
about St Alphege, who had bones thrown at him till he died, because he
wouldn't tax his poor people to please the beastly rotten Danes.
And Denny recited a piece of poetry he knows called 'The Ballad of
Canterbury'.
It begins about Danish warships snake-shaped, and ends about doing as
you'd be done by. It is long, but it has all the beef-bones in it, and
all about St Alphege.
Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oast-house.
And Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes from looked down on
a quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other things
were like other things, but we went all about and enjoyed it very
much. The lady was quite amusing, besides sometimes talking like a real
cathedral guide I met afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said we
thought Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said—
'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear something
about Canterbury.'
And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said—
'What a horrid sell!' But Oswald, with immediate courteousness, said—
'I don't care. You did it awfully well.' And he did not say, though he
owns he thought of it—
'I knew it all the time,' though it was a great temptation. Because
really it was more than half true. He had felt from the first that this
was too small for Canterbury. (See Note C.)
The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at all.
We went to Canterbury another time. (See Note D.) We were not angry
with the lady for selling us about it being Canterbury, because she
had really kept it up first-rate. And she asked us if we minded, very
handsomely, and we said we liked it. But now we did not care how soon we
got home. The lady saw this, and said—
'Come, our chariots are ready, and our horses caparisoned.'
That is a first-rate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and he
liked her for using it, though he wondered why she said chariots. When
we got back to the inn I saw her dogcart was there, and a grocer's cart
too, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it. She took the girls in her
cart, and the boys went with the grocer. His horse was a very good one
to go, only you had to hit it with the wrong end of the whip. But the
cart was very bumpety.
The evening dews were falling—at least, I suppose so, but you do not
feel dew in a grocer's cart—when we reached home. We all thanked the
lady very much, and said we hoped we should see her again some day. She
said she hoped so.
The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the lady
and kissed her, according as we were boys or girls, or little boys, she
touched up her horse and drove away.
She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done waving,
and were turning into the house, Albert's uncle came into our midst like
a whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt had no stud in at the
neck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his hands were inky, and we
knew he had left off in the middle of a chapter by the wildness of his
eye.
'Who was that lady?' he said. 'Where did you meet her?'
Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the story
from the beginning.
'The other day, protector of the poor,' he began; 'Dora and I were
reading about the Canterbury pilgrims...'
Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his instructions
about beginning at the beginning had borne fruit, but instead he
interrupted.
'Stow it, you young duffer! Where did you meet her?'
Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, 'Hazelbridge.'
Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went he
called out to Oswald—
'Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tyre.'
I am sure Oswald was as quick as anyone could have been, but long
ere the tyre was thoroughly blowed Albert's uncle appeared, with a
collar-stud and tie and blazer, and his hair tidy, and wrenching the
unoffending machine from Oswald's surprised fingers.
Albert's uncle finished pumping up the tyre, and then flinging himself
into the saddle he set off, scorching down the road at a pace not
surpassed by any highwayman, however black and high-mettled his steed.
We were left looking at each other. 'He must have recognized her,' Dicky
said.
'Perhaps,' Noel said, 'she is the old nurse who alone knows the dark
secret of his highborn birth.'
'Not old enough, by chalks,' Oswald said.
'I shouldn't wonder,' said Alice, 'if she holds the secret of the will
that will make him rolling in long-lost wealth.'
'I wonder if he'll catch her,' Noel said. 'I'm quite certain all his
future depends on it. Perhaps she's his long-lost sister, and the estate
was left to them equally, only she couldn't be found, so it couldn't be
shared up.'
'Perhaps he's only in love with her,' Dora said, 'parted by cruel Fate
at an early age, he has ranged the wide world ever since trying to find
her.'
'I hope to goodness he hasn't—anyway, he's not ranged since we knew
him—never further than Hastings,' Oswald said. 'We don't want any of
that rot.'
'What rot?' Daisy asked. And Oswald said—
'Getting married, and all that sort of rubbish.'
And Daisy and Dora were the only ones that didn't agree with him. Even
Alice owned that being bridesmaids must be fairly good fun. It's no
good. You may treat girls as well as you like, and give them every
comfort and luxury, and play fair just as if they were boys, but there
is something unmanly about the best of girls. They go silly, like milk
goes sour, without any warning.
When Albert's uncle returned he was very hot, with a beaded brow, but
pale as the Dentist when the peas were at their worst.
'Did you catch her?' H. O. asked.
Albert's uncle's brow looked black as the cloud that thunder will
presently break from. 'No,'he said.
'Is she your long-lost nurse?' H. O. went on, before we could stop him.
'Long-lost grandmother! I knew the lady long ago in India,' said
Albert's uncle, as he left the room, slamming the door in a way we
should be forbidden to.
And that was the end of the Canterbury Pilgrimage.
As for the lady, we did not then know whether she was his long-lost
grandmother that he had known in India or not, though we thought she
seemed youngish for the part. We found out afterwards whether she was
or not, but that comes in another part. His manner was not the one that
makes you go on asking questions. The Canterbury Pilgriming did not
exactly make us good, but then, as Dora said, we had not done anything
wrong that day. So we were twenty-four hours to the good.
Note A.—Afterwards we went and saw real Canterbury. It is
very large. A disagreeable man showed us round the cathedral, and jawed
all the time quite loud as if it wasn't a church. I remember one thing
he said. It was this:
'This is the Dean's Chapel; it was the Lady Chapel in the wicked days
when people used to worship the *** Mary.'
And H. O. said, 'I suppose they worship the Dean now?'
Some strange people who were there laughed out loud. I think this is
worse in church than not taking your cap off when you come in, as H. O.
forgot to do, because the cathedral was so big he didn't think it was a
church.
Note B. (See Note C.)
Note C. (See Note D.)
Note D. (See Note E.)
Note E. (See Note A.)
This ends the Canterbury Pilgrims. �