Next day he was well enough to go to school, but he thought he would
just take some candle-ends and have a look at the cellar, and see if it
was really likely that there was any gold there. It did not seem
probable, but he thought he would try, and he did. It was terribly hard
work, for he had no tools but a spade he had had at the seaside, and
when that broke, as it did almost at once, he had to go on with a piece
of hoop-iron and the foot of an old bedstead. He went on till long past
dinner-time, and his hands were torn and bleeding, his back felt broken
in two, and his head was spinning with hunger and tiredness. At last,
just as the tea-bell rang, he reached his hand down deep into the hole
he had made, and felt something cold and round. He held his candle down.
It was a pot, tied over with brown paper, like pickled onions. When he
got it out he took off the paper. The pot was filled to the brim with
gold coins. Hildebrand blew out his candle and went up. The cook stopped
him at the top of the cellar stairs.
'What's that you got there, Master Hildy? Pickles, I lay my boots,' she
said.
'It's not,' said he.
'Let me look,' said she.
'Let me alone,' said Hildebrand.
'Not me,' said the cook.
She had her hand on the brown paper.
Hildebrand had heard how treasure-trove has to be given up to
Government, and he did not trust the cook.
'You'd better not,' he said quickly; 'it's not what you think it is.'
'What is it, then?'
'It's--it's _snakes_!' said Hildebrand desperately--'snakes out of the
wine-cellar.'
The cook went into hysterics, and Hildebrand was punished twice, once
for staying away from school without leave, and once for frightening the
servants with silly stories. But in the confusion brought about by the
cook's screams he managed to hide the pot of gold in the bottom of the
boot cupboard, among the old gaiters and goloshes, and when peace was
restored and he was sent to bed in disgrace he took the pot with him. He
lay long awake thinking of the model engine he would buy for himself,
also of the bay pony, the collections of coins, birds' eggs, and
postage-stamps, the fishing-rods, the guns, revolvers, and bows and
arrows, the sweets and cakes and nuts, he would get all for himself. He
never thought of so much as a pennyworth of toffee for Ethel, or a
silver thimble for his mother, or a twopenny cigar for Mr. Pilkings.
The first thing in the morning he jumped up and felt under the bed for
the pot of gold. His hand touched something that was not the pot. He
screamed, and drew his hand back as quickly as though he had burned it;
but what he had touched was not hot: it was cold, and thin, and alive.
It was a snake. And there was another on his bed, and another on the
dressing-table, and half a dozen more were gliding about inquisitively
on the floor.
Hildebrand gathered his clothes together--a snake tumbled out of his
shirt as he lifted it--and made one bound for the door. He dressed on
the landing, and went to school without breakfast. I am glad to be able
to tell you that he did say to Sarah the housemaid:
'For goodness' sake don't go into my bedroom--it's running alive with
snakes!'
She did not believe him, of course; and, indeed, when she went up the
snakes were safe back in the pot. She did not see this, because she was
not the kind of girl who sweeps under things every day. That night
Hildebrand secretly slept in the boxroom, on a pile of newspapers, with
a rag-bag and a hearthrug over him.
Next day he said to Sarah:
'Did you go into my room yesterday?'
'Of course,' said she.
'Did you take the snakes away?'
'Go along with your snakes!' she said.
So he understood that she had not seen any, and very cautiously he
looked into his room, and finding it snakeless, crept in, hoping that
the snakes had changed back into gold. But they had not--snakes and gold
and pot had all vanished. Then he thought he would be very careful. He
said to Ethel:
'I had twenty golden sovereigns in my pocket yesterday.'
This was Saturday. Next day was Sunday, and all day long he jingled the
twenty golden sovereigns he had found that morning in his knickerbocker
pocket. But they were not there on Monday. And then he saw that though
he could make things _happen_, he could not make them _last_. So he told
Ethel he had had seven jam-tarts. He meant to eat them as soon as he got
them. But the next day when they came he had a headache and did not
want to eat them. He might have given them to Ethel, but he didn't, and
next day they had disappeared.
It was very annoying to Hildebrand to know that he had this wonderful
power, yet he could not get any good out of it. He tried to consult his
father about it, but Mr. Pilkings said he had no time for romances, and
he advised Hildebrand to learn his lessons and stick to the truth. But
this was just what Hildebrand could not do, even after the awful
occasion when his schoolfellows began to tease him again, and, to
command their respect, he related how he had met a bear in the lane by
the church and fought it single-handed, and been carried off more dead
than alive. Next day, of course, he had to fight the bear, which was
very brown and clawy and toothy and fierce, and though the
more-dead-than-alive feeling had gone by next day, it was not a pleasant
experience. But even that was better than the time when they laughed at
a very bad construe of his--the form was in Caesar--and he told them how
he had once translated the inscription on an Egyptian Pyramid. He had no
peace for weeks after that, because he had forgotten to say how long it
took him. Every time he was alone he was wafted away to Egypt and set
down at that Pyramid. But he could not find the inscription, and if he
had found it he could not have translated it. So, in self-defence, he
spent most of his waking-time with Ethel. But every night the Pyramid
had its own way, and it was not till he had cut an inscription himself
on the Pyramid with the broken blade of his pocket-knife, and translated
it into English, that he was allowed any rest at all. The inscription
was _Ich bin eine Gans_, and you can translate it for yourself.
But that did him good in one way; it made him fonder of Ethel. Being so
much with her, he began to see what a jolly little girl she really was.
When she had measles--Hildebrand had had them, or it, last Christmas, so
he was allowed to see his sister--he was very sorry, and really wished
to do something for her. Mr. Pilkings brought her some hothouse grapes
one day, and she liked them so much that they were very soon gone. Then
Hildebrand, who had been very careful since the Pyramid occasion to say
nothing but the truth, said:
'Ethel, some grapes and pineapples came for you yesterday.'
Ethel knew it wasn't true, but she liked the idea, and said:
'Anything else?'
'Oh yes!' said her brother--'a wax doll and a china tea-set with pink
roses on it, and books and games,' and he went on to name everything he
thought she would like.
And, of course, next day the things came in a great packing-case. No one
ever knew who sent them, but Mr. and Mrs. Pilkings thought it was
Ethel's godfather in India. And, curiously enough, these things did not
vanish away, but were eaten and enjoyed and played with as long as they
lasted. Ethel has one of the dolls still, though now she is quite grown
up.
Now Hildebrand began to feel sorry to see how ill and worried his mother
looked; she was tired out with nursing Ethel, so he said to Sarah:
'Mother was quite well yesterday.'
Sarah answered:
'Much you know about it; your poor ma's wore to a shadow.'
[Illustration: 'The alligator very nearly had him.'--Page 195.]
But next day mother _was_ quite well, and this lasted, too. Then he
wanted to do something for his father, and as he had heard Mr. Pilkings
complain of his business being very bad, Hildebrand said to Ethel:
'Father made a most awful lot of money yesterday.'
And next day Mr. Pilkings came home and kissed Mrs. Pilkings in the hall
under the very eyes of Sarah and the boot-boy, and said:
'My dear, our fortune's made!'
The family did not have any nicer things to eat or wear than before, so
Hildebrand gained nothing by this, unless you count the pleasure he had
in seeing his father always jolly and cheerful and his mother well, and
not worried any more. Hildebrand _did_ count this, and it counted for a
good deal.
But though Hildebrand was now a much happier as well as a more agreeable
boy, he could not quite help telling a startling story now and then. As,
for instance, when he informed the butcher's boy that there was an
alligator in the back-garden. The butcher's boy did not go into the
garden--indeed, he had no business there, though that would have been no
reason if he had wanted to go--but next day, when Hildebrand, having
forgotten all about the matter, went out in the dusk to look for a fives
ball he had lost, the alligator very nearly had him.
And when he related that adventure of the lost balloon, he had to go
through with it next day, and it made him dizzy for months only to think
of it.
But the worst thing of all was when Ethel was well, and he was allowed
to go back to school. Somehow the fellows were much jollier with him
than they used to be. Even Billson Minor was quite polite, and asked him
how the kid was.
'She's all right,' said Hildebrand.
'When my kiddie sister had measles,' Billson said, 'her eyes got bad
afterwards; she could hardly see.'
'Oh,' said Hildebrand promptly, '_my_ sister's been much worse than
that; she couldn't see at all.'
When Hildebrand went home next day he found his mother pale and in
tears. The doctor had just been to see Ethel's eyes--and Ethel was
blind.
Then Hildebrand went up to his own room. He had done this--his own
little sister who was so fond of him. And she was such a jolly little
thing, and he had made her blind, just for a silly bit of show-off to
Billson Minor; and he knew that the things he had said about Ethel
before had come true, and had not vanished like the things he said
about himself, and he felt that this, too, would last, and Ethel would
go on being blind always. So he lay face down on his bed and cried, and
was sorry, and wished with all his heart that he had been a good boy,
and had never looked in the glass, and wished to bung up the eyes of
Billson Minor, who, after all, was not such a bad sort of chap.
When he had cried till he could not cry any more he got up, and went to
the looking-glass to see if his eyes were red, which is always
interesting. He never could remember that he couldn't see himself in the
glass now. Then suddenly he knew what to do. He ran down into the
street, and said to the first person he met:
'I say, I saw the looking-glass boy yesterday, and he let me off things
coming true, and Ethel was all right again.'
It was a policeman, and the constable boxed his ears, and promised to
run him in next time he had any of his cheek. But Hildebrand went home
calmer, and he read 'The Jungle Book' aloud to Ethel all the evening.
Next morning he ran to his looking-glass, and it was strange and
wonderful to him to see his own reflection again after all these weeks
of a blank mirror, and of parting his hair as well as he could just by
feeling. But it wasn't his own reflection, of course: it was the
looking-glass boy.
'I say, you look very different to what you did that day,' said
Hildebrand slowly.
'So do you,' said the boy.
That other day, which was weeks ago, the looking-glass boy had been
swollen and scowling and angry, with a black eye and a cut lip, and
revengeful looks and spiteful words. Now he looked pale and a little
thinner, but his eyes were only anxious, and his mouth was kind. It was
just the same ugly shape as ever, but it looked different. And
Hildebrand was as like the boy in the glass as one pin is like another
pin.
'I say,' said Hildebrand suddenly and earnestly, 'let me off; I don't
want it any more, thank you. And oh, do--do make my sister all right
again.'
'Very well,' said the boy in the looking-glass; 'I'll let you off for
six months. If you haven't learned to speak the truth by then--well,
you'll see. Good-bye.'
He held out his hand, and Hildebrand eagerly reached out to shake it. He
had forgotten the looking-glass, and it smashed against his fist, and
cracked all over. He never saw the boy again, and he did not want to.
When he went down Ethel's eyes were all right again, and the doctor
thought it was _his_ doing, and was as proud as a King and as pleased as
Punch. Hildebrand could only express his own gladness by giving Ethel
every toy he had that he thought she would like, and he was so kind to
her that she cried with pleasure.
Before the six months were up Hildebrand was as truthful a boy as anyone
need wish to meet. He made little slips now and then, just at first,
about his escape from the mad bull, for instance, and about the
press-gang.
His stories did not come true next day any more, but he had to dream
them, which was nearly as bad. So he cured himself, and did his lessons,
and tried to stick to the truth; and when he told romances he let people
know what he was playing at. Now he is grown up he dreams his stories
first, and writes them afterwards; for he writes books, and also he
writes for the newspapers. When you do these things you may tell as many
stories as you like, and you need not be at all afraid that any of them
will come true.