"I've got an idea," the Dentist said. "Let's call a council." The
Dentist had grown quite used to our ways now. We had called him Dentist
ever since the fox-hunt day. He called a council as if he had been used
to calling such things all his life, and having them come, too; whereas
we all know that his former existing was that of a white mouse in a
trap, with that cat of a Murdstone aunt watching him through the bars.
(That is what is called a figure of speech. Albert's uncle told me.)
Councils are held in the straw-loft.
As soon as we were all there and the straw had stopped rustling after
our sitting down, Dicky said:
"I hope it's nothing to do with the Wouldbegoods?"
"No," said Denny in a hurry: "quite the opposite."
"I hope it's nothing wrong," said Dora and Daisy together.
"It's--it's 'Hail to thee, blithe spirit--bird thou never wert,'" said
Denny. "I mean, I think it's what is called a lark."
"You never know your luck. Go on, Dentist," said Dick.
"Well, then, do you know a book called _The Daisy Chain_?"
We didn't.
"It's by Miss Charlotte M. Yonge," Daisy interrupted, "and it's about a
family of poor motherless children who tried so hard to be good, and
they were confirmed, and had a bazaar, and went to church at the
Minster, and one of them got married and wore black watered silk and
silver ornaments. So her baby died, and then she was sorry she had not
been a good mother to it. And--"
Here Dicky got up and said he'd got some snares to attend to, and he'd
receive a report of the Council after it was over. But he only got as
far as the trap-door, and then Oswald, the fleet of foot, closed with
him, and they rolled together on the floor--while all the others called
out "Come back! Come back!" like guinea-hens on a fence.
Through the rustle and bustle and hustle of the struggle with Dicky,
Oswald heard the voice of Denny murmuring one of his everlasting
quotations:
"'Come back, come back!' he cried in Greek,
'Across the stormy water,
And I'll forgive your Highland cheek,
My daughter, O my daughter!'"
When quiet was restored and Dicky had agreed to go through with the
Council, Denny said:
"_The Daisy Chain_ is not a bit like that really. It's a ripping book.
One of the boys dresses up like a lady and comes to call, and another
tries to hit his little sister with a hoe. It's jolly fine, I tell you."
Denny is learning to say what he thinks, just like other boys. He would
never have learned such words as "ripping" and "jolly fine" while under
the auntal tyranny.
Since then I have read _The Daisy Chain_. It is a first-rate book for
girls and little boys.
But we did not want to talk about _The Daisy Chain_ just then, so Oswald
said:
"But what's your lark?"
Denny got pale pink and said:
"Don't hurry me. I'll tell you directly. Let me think a minute."
Then he shut his pale pink eyelids a moment in thought, and then opened
them and stood up on the straw and said very fast:
"Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears, or if not ears, pots.
You know we've been told that they are going to open the barrow, to
look for Roman remains to-morrow. Don't you think it seems a pity they
shouldn't find any?"
"Perhaps they will," Dora said. But Oswald _saw_, and he said, "Primus!
Go ahead, old man."
The Dentist went ahead.
"In _The Daisy Chain_," he said, "they dug in a Roman encampment, and
the children went first and put some pottery there they'd made
themselves, and Harry's old medal of the Duke of Wellington. The doctor
helped them to some stuff to partly efface the inscription, and all the
grown-ups were sold. I thought we might:
"You may break, you may shatter
The vase if you will;
But the scent of the Romans
Will cling round it still."
Denny sat down amid applause. It really was a great idea, at least for
_him_. It seemed to add just what was wanted to the visit of the
Maidstone Antiquities. To sell the Antiquities thoroughly would be
indeed splendiferous. Of course, Dora made haste to point out that we
had not got an old medal of the Duke of Wellington, and that we hadn't
any doctor who would "help us to stuff to efface," and etcetera; but we
sternly bade her stow it. We weren't going to do _exactly_ like those
_Daisy Chain_ kids.
The pottery was easy. We had made a lot of it by the stream--which was
the Nile when we discovered its source--and dried it in the sun, and
then baked it under a bonfire, like in _Foul Play_. And most of the
things were such queer shapes that they would have done for almost
anything--Roman or Greek, or even Egyptian or antediluvian, or household
milk-jugs of the cave-men, Albert's uncle said. The pots were,
fortunately, quite ready and dirty, because we had already buried them
in mixed sand and river mud to improve the color, and not remembered to
wash it off.
So the Council at once collected it all--and some rusty hinges and some
brass buttons and a file without a handle; and the girl Councillors
carried it all concealed in their pinafores, while the men members
carried digging tools. H. O. and Daisy were sent on ahead as scouts to
see if the coast was clear. We have learned the true usefulness of
scouts from reading about the Transvaal War. But all was still in the
hush of evening sunset on the Roman ruin.
We posted sentries, who were to lie on their stomachs on the walls and
give a long, low, signifying whistle if aught approached.
Then we dug a tunnel, like the one we once did after treasure, when we
happened to bury a boy. It took some time; but never shall it be said
that a Bastable grudged time or trouble when a lark was at stake. We put
the things in as naturally as we could, and shoved the dirt back, till
everything looked just as before. Then we went home, late for tea. But
it was in a good cause; and there was no hot toast, only
bread-and-butter, which does not get cold with waiting.
That night Alice whispered to Oswald on the stairs, as we went up to
bed:
"Meet me outside your door when the others are asleep. Hist! Not a
word."