'_Have you found your prize essay?_'
'_No; but I have found the bicycle of the butcher's boy._'
It is rather trying to have to walk three miles to the station, to say
nothing of the three miles back, to meet a cousin you have never seen
and never wish to see, especially if you have to leave a kite half made,
and there is no proper lock to the shed you are making your kite in.
The road was flat and dusty, the sun felt much too warm on his back, the
hill to the station was long and steep, and the train was nearly an hour
late, because it was a train on the South-Eastern Railway. So William
was exceedingly cross, and he would have been crosser still if he could
have known that I should ever call him William, for though that happened
to be his name, the one he 'answered to' (as the stolen-dog
advertisements say) was 'Billy.' So perhaps it would be kind of me to
speak of him as Billy, because it is rather horrid to do things you know
people won't like, even if you think they'll never know you've done
them.
Well, the train came in, and it was annoying to Billy, very, that four
or five boys should bundle out of the train, and he should have to go up
to them one after the other and say:
'I say, is your name Harold St. Leger?'
He did not particularly like the look of any of the boys, and of course
it happened that the very last one he spoke to was Harold, and that he
was also the one whom Billy liked least particularly of the whole lot.
'Oh, you are, are you?' was all he could find to say when Harold had
blushingly owned to his name. Then in manly tones Billy gave the order
about Harold's luggage and the carrier, said 'Come along!' and Harold
came.
Harold was a fattish boy with whitey-brown hair, and he was as soft and
white as a silkworm. Billy did not admire him. He himself was hard and
brown, with thin arms and legs and joints like the lumps of clay on
branches that the gardener has grafted. And Harold did not admire _him_.
There was little conversation on the way home; when you don't want to
have a visitor and he doesn't want to be one, talking is not much fun.
When they got home there was tea. Billy's mother talked politely to
Harold, but that did not make anyone any happier. Then Billy took his
cousin round and showed him the farm and the stock, and Harold was less
interested than you would think a boy could be. At last, weary of trying
to behave nicely, Billy said:
'I suppose there must be _something_ you like, however much of a muff
you are. Well, you can jolly well find it out for yourself. I'm going to
finish my kite.'
The silkworm-soft face of Harold lighted up.
'Oh, _I_ can make kites,' he said; 'I've invented a new kind. I'll help
you if you'll let me.'
Harold, eager, quick fingered, skilful, in the shed among the string,
and the glue, and the paper, and the bendable, breakable laths, was
quite a different person from Harold, nervous and dull, among the
farmyard beasts. Billy allowed him to help with the kite, and he began
to respect his cousin a little more.
'Though it's rather like a girl, being so neat with your fingers,' he
said disparagingly.
'I wish I'd got the proper sort of paper,' Harold said, 'then I'd make
my new patent kite that I've invented; but it's a very extra sort of
kind of paper. I got some once at a butter-shop in Bermondsey, but that
was in a dream.'
Billy stared.
'You must be off your chump,' he said; and he felt more sorry than ever
that his jolly country holiday was to be spoiled by a strange cousin,
who ought, perhaps, to be in a lunatic asylum rather than at a
respectable farm.
That night Billy was awakened from the dreamless sleep which blesses the
sort of boy he was to find Harold excitedly thumping him on the back
with a roll of stiff paper.
'Wake up,' he said--'wake up! I _will_ tell somebody that's awake. I
dreamed that a jackdaw came in and flew off with that thin paper thing
that was on the chest of drawers with the gilt button at the corner, and
then I dreamed I got up and found this roll of paper up the chimney. And
when I woke up I found _it_ had and _I_ had, and it's the real right
kite-paper for my patent kite--just like I dreamed I bought in the
butter-shop in Bermondsey. And it's five o'clock by the church clock,
and it's quite light. I'm going to get up directly minute and make my
patent kite.'
'Patent fiddlestick!' replied Billy, sleepy and indignant. 'You get
along and leave me be; you've been dreaming, that's all. Just like a
girl!'
'Yes,' repeated Harold gently, 'I _have_ been dreaming; but when I woke
up I found _it_ had and _I_ had; and here's the paper, and the flimsy
thing with the gold stud's _gone_. You get up and see----'
Billy did. He got up with a bound, and he saw with an eye. And William
turned on Harold and shook him till his teeth nearly rattled in his head
and his pale eyes nearly dropped out. (I have called him William here
because I really think he deserves it. It is a cowardly thing to shake a
cousin, even if you do not happen to be pleased with him.)
'Wha--wha--what's the matter?' choked the wretched Harold.
'Why, you miserable little idiot, you've _not_ been dreaming at all!
You've been lying like a silly log, and letting that beastly bird carry
off my prize essay! That's _all_! And it took me ten days to do, and I
had to get almost all of it out of books, and the worse swat I ever did
in my life. And now it's all no good. And there aren't any books down
here to do it again out of. Oh, bother, _bother_, BOTHER!'
'I'm very sorry for you,' said Harold, 'but I didn't lie like logs--I
did dream--and I've got the kite-paper, and I'll help you write the
essay again if you like.'
'I shouldn't be surprised if it was all a make-up,' said William. (I
_must_ go on calling him William at present.) 'You've hidden the essay
so as to be able to send it in yourself.'
'Oh, how _can_ you?' said Harold; and he turned pale just like a girl,
and just like a girl he began to cry.
'Now, look here,' the enraged William went on, 'I've got to be civil to
you before people; but don't you dare to speak to me when we're alone.
You're either a silly idiot or a sneaking hound, and either way I'm not
going to have anything to do with you.'
I don't know how he could have done it, but William kept his word, and
for three days he only spoke to Harold when other people were about.
This was horrible for Harold; he had been used to being his father's
pride and his mother's joy, and now he was Nobody's Anything, which is
the saddest thing in the world to be. He tried to console himself by
making kites all day long, but even kites cannot comfort you when nobody
loves you, and when you feel that it really is not your fault at all.
William went about his own affairs; he was not at all happy. He finished
his kite and flew it, and he lost it because the string caught on the
church weather-cock, which cut it in two. And he tried to rewrite his
prize essay, but he couldn't, because he had taken all the stuffing for
it out of books and not out of his head, where it ought to have been.
Harold found some moments of forgetfulness when he was making the patent
kite. It was very big, and the roll of paper he had found in his dream
in the chimney was exactly the right thing for patent kite-making. But
when it was done, what was the good? There was no one to see him fly it.
He did fly it, and it was perfect. It was shaped like a bird, and it
rose up, and up, and up, and hung poised above the church-tower, light
and steady as a hawk poised above its prey. William wouldn't even come
out to look at it, though Harold begged him to.
The next morning Harold dreamed that he had not been able to bear things
any longer, and had run away, and when William woke up Harold was gone.
Then William remembered how Harold had offered to help him with his
kite, and would have helped him to rewrite the essay, and how through
those three cruel days Harold had again and again tried to make friends,
and how, after all, he was with his own people, and Harold was a
stranger.
He said, 'Oh, bother, I wish I hadn't!' and he felt that he had been a
beast. This is called Remorse. Then he said, 'I'll find him, and I'll be
as decent to him as I can, poor chap! though he _is_ silly.' This is
called Repentance.
Then he found a letter on Harold's bed. It said (and it was blotted with
tears, and it had a blob of glue on it):
'DEAR BILLY,
'It wasn't my fault about your essay, and I'm sorry, and am going
to run away to India to find my people. I shall go disguised as a
stowaway.
'Your affectionate cousin,
'HAROLD EGBERT DARWIN ST. LEGER.'
Billy did not have to show this letter to his mother, because she had
gone away for the day, so he did not have to explain to her what a
beast he had been. If he had had to do this, it would have been part of
what is called Expiation.
Then he got the farm men to go out in every direction, furnished with a
full description of Harold's silkworm-like appearance, and Billy
borrowed a bicycle from a noble-hearted butcher's boy in the village and
set out for Plymouth, because that seemed the likeliest place to look in
for a cousin who was running away disguised as a stowaway. The wind blew
straight towards the sea, and it occurred to Billy--he deserves to be
called Billy now, I think--that the great patent kite, which was ten
feet high, would drag him along like winking if he could only set it
flying, and then tie it to the handle-bar of the bicycle. It was rather
a ticklish business to get the kite up, but the butcher's boy helped--he
had a noble heart--and at last it was done. Billy saw the great
bird-kite flying off towards Plymouth. He hastily knotted the string to
the bicycle handle, held the slack of it in his hand, mounted, started,
paid out the slack of the string, and the next moment the string was
tight, and the kite was pulling Billy and the bicycle along the
Plymouth road at the rate of goodness-only-knows-how-improbably many
miles an hour.
At last he came to the outskirts of Plymouth. I shall not tell you what
Plymouth was like, because Billy did not notice or know at all what it
was like, and there is no reason why you should. Plymouth seemed to
Billy very much like other places. The only odd thing was that he could
not stop his bicycle, though he pulled in the kite string as hard as he
could. He flew through the town. All the traffic stopped to let him
steer his mad-paced machine through the streets, and tradespeople, and
people walking on business, and people walking for pleasure, all stopped
with their respectable mouths wide open to stare at Billy on his
bicycle. And the kite pulled the machine on and on without pause, and at
a furious rate, and Billy, in despair, was just feeling in his pocket
for his knife to cut the string, when some mighty sky-wind seemed to
catch the kite, and it gave a leap and went twenty times as fast as it
had gone before, and the bicycle had to go twenty times as fast too, and
before Billy could say 'Jack Robinson,' or even 'J. R.,' for short, the
kite rushed wildly out to sea, dragging the bicycle after it, right slap
off the edge of England. So Billy and the butcher's boy's bicycle were
dragged into the sea? Not at all. They were dragged _on_ to the sea,
which is not at all the same sort of thing. For the kite was such a very
extra patent one, and so perfectly designed and made, that it was just
strong enough to bear the weight of Billy and the bicycle, and to keep
them out of the water. So that Billy found himself riding splendidly
over the waves, and there was no more splashing than there would have
been on the road on a very muddy day. Luckily, the sea was smooth, or I
don't know what would have happened. It was smooth and greeny-blue, and
the sun made diamond sparkles on it, and Billy felt as grand as grand to
be riding over such a glorious floor. It was a fine time, but rather an
anxious one too. Because, suppose the string had not held? No one could
possibly ride a bicycle on the sea unless they had the really only truly
right sort of kite to hold the machine up.
Away and away went the kite, through the blue air up above, and away and
away went the bicycle over the greeny, foamy sea down below, and away
and away went Billy, and the kite went faster and faster and faster, and
faster went the bicycle--much, much faster than you would believe
unless you had seen it as Billy did. And just at the front-door of the
Bay of Biscay the bicycle caught up with a P. and O. steamer, and the
kite followed the course of the ship, and went alongside of it, so you
can guess how fast the bicycle was going.
And the Captain of the ship hailed Billy through a speaking-trumpet, and
said:
'Ahoy, there!'
Billy replied:
'Ahoy yourself!'
But the Captain couldn't hear him. So the Captain said something that
Billy couldn't hear either. But the people who were meant to hear heard,
and the great ship stopped, and Billy rode close up to it, and they
hauled him up by the string of the kite, and they put the bicycle in a
safe place, and tied the string to the mast, and then the Captain said:
'I suppose I'm dreaming you, boy, because what you're doing is
impossible.'
'I know it is,' said Billy; 'only I'm doing it--at least, I was till you
stopped me.'
They were both wrong, because, of course, if it had been impossible,
Billy could not have done it; but neither of them had a scientific
mind, as you and I have, dear reader.
So the Captain asked Billy to dinner, which was very nice, only there
was an uncertain feeling about it. And when Billy had had dinner, he
said to the Captain:
'I must be going.'
'Is there nothing I can do for you?' said the Captain.
'I don't know,' said Billy, 'unless you happen to have a boy named
Harold Egbert Darwin St. Leger on board. He said he was going away in a
ship to India, disguised as a stowaway.'
The Captain at once ordered the ship to be searched for a boy of this
name in this disguise. The crew looked in the hold, and in the galley,
and in the foretop, and on the quarter, and in the gaff, and the jib,
and the topsail, and the boom, but they could not find Harold. They
ransacked the cross-trees, and the engine-room, and the bowsprit; they
explored the backstays, the stays, and the waist, but they found no
stowaway. They examined truck and block, they hunted through every
porthole, they left not an inch of the ribs unexplored; but no Harold.
He was not in any of the belaying-pins or dead-eyes, nor was he hidden
in the capstan or the compass. At last, in despair, the Captain thought
of looking in the cabins, and in one of them, hidden under the scattered
pyjamas and embroidered socks of a Major of Artillery, they found
Harold.
He and Billy explained everything to each other, and shook hands, and
there was not a dry eye in the ship. (Did you ever see a dry eye? I
think it would look rather nasty.)
Then said Billy to Harold:
'This is all very well, but how am I to get you home?'
'I can ride on the step of the bike,' said Harold.
'But the wind won't take us back,' said Billy; 'it's dead against us.'
'Excuse me,' said the Captain in a manly manner; 'you know that
Britannia rules the waves and controls the elements. Allow me one
moment.'
He sent for the boatswain and bade him whistle for a wind, expressly
stating what kind of wind was needed.
And everyone saw with delight, but with little surprise, the kite
deliberately turn round and retrace its steps towards the cliffs of
Albion.
[Illustration: 'The bicycle started, Billy in the saddle and Harold on
the step.'--Page 165.]
A cheer rose from passengers and crew alike as the bicycle was lowered
to the waves, the string tightened, and the bicycle started, Billy in
the saddle and Harold on the step. The event was a perfect windfall to
the passengers. It gave them something to talk of all the way to Suez;
some of them are talking about it still.
The kite went back even faster than it had come; it pulled the bicycle
behind it as easily as a child pulls a cotton-reel along the floor by a
bit of thread. So that Harold and Billy were home by tea-time, and it
was the jolliest meal either of them had ever had.
They had determined to stop the bicycle by cutting the string, and then
Harold would have lost the patent kite, which would have been a pity.
But, most happily, the string of the kite caught in the vane on the top
of the church tower, and the bicycle stopped by itself exactly opposite
the butcher's boy to whom it belonged. He had a noble heart, and he was
very glad to see his bicycle again.
After tea the boys went up the church tower to get the kite; and I don't
suppose you will believe me when I tell you that there, in the niche of
a window of the belfry, was a jackdaw's nest, and in it the Historical
Essay which the jackdaw had stolen, as you will have guessed, for the
sake of the bright gilt manuscript fastener in the corner.
And now Harold and Billy became really chums, in spite of all the
qualities which they could not help disliking in each other. Each found
some things in the other that he didn't dislike so very much, after all.
When Harold grows up he will sell many patent kites, and we shall all be
able to ride bicycles on the sea.
Billy sent in his essay, but he did not get the prize; so it wouldn't
have mattered if it had never been found, only I am glad it was found.
I hope you will not think that this is a made-up story. It is very
nearly as true as any of the history in Billy's essay that didn't get a
prize. The only thing I can't quite believe myself is about the roll of
the right kind of paper being in the chimney; but Harold couldn't think
of anything else to dream about, and the most fortunate accidents do
happen sometimes even in stories.