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HALF-PAST BEDTIME
_By the Same Author_
THE CORNER OF HARLEY STREET
PITY THE POOR BLIND
VAGABONDS IN PERIGORD
SONGS OUT OF SCHOOL
THE PLAIN GIRL'S TALE
[Illustration: HALF-PAST BEDTIME]
HALF-PAST
BEDTIME
_BY_
H. H. BASHFORD
AUTHOR OF
"THE CORNER OF HARLEY STREET" ETC.
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY THE AUTHOR_
[Illustration]
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
TO
JOE & ADA MAGGS
AND THE CHILDREN THAT LOVE THEM
When Farmer Sun with rosy wink
Says good-bye all, and drives away,
When safe in fold the sheep-bells clink,
And hard-worked horses munch their hay,
When brown and blue eyes sleepy grow,
And Nurse downstairs clears up the crumbs,
When God pulls down His blind, and so
What people call the twilight comes,
Then lazy Moon lifts up her arm,
Shakes back her hair and smooths her beams,
And softly over field and farm
Scatters the milk-white seed of dreams.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. MR JUGG 13
II. GWENDOLEN 29
III. THE LITTLE ICE-MEN 45
IV. UNCLE JOE'S STORY 61
V. BEARDY NED 75
VI. THE MAGIC SONG 89
VII. THE IMAGINARY BOY 105
VIII. THE HILL THAT REMEMBERED 121
IX. ST UNCUS 137
X. OLD MOTHER HUBBARD 151
XI. MARIAN'S PARTY 167
XII. THE SORROWFUL PICTURE 183
XIII. THE MOON-BOY'S FRIEND 199
XIV. THE CHRISTMAS TREE 215
ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
HALF-PAST BEDTIME _Frontispiece_
MARIAN AND MR JUGG 12
MONKEY ISLAND 28
CUTHBERT AND DORIS 44
BELLA AT EDEN 60
BEARDY NED'S FIRE 74
THE MAGIC SONG 88
THE HAUNTED WOOD 104
CAESAR'S CAMP 120
DORIS AND ST UNCUS 136
MOTHER HUBBARD'S 150
THE LITTLE TEMPLE 166
PORTO BLANCO 182
THE LAGOON 198
STILL TALKING 214
MR JUGG
[Illustration: Marian and Mr. Jugg]
I
MR JUGG
The name of the town doesn't really matter; but it was a big town in the
middle of the country; and the first of these adventures happened to a
little girl whose Christian name was Marian. She was only seven when it
happened to her, so that it was rather a young sort of adventure; but
the older ones happened later on, and this is the best, perhaps, to
begin with.
Marian's house was in a street called Peter Street, because there was a
church in it called St Peter's Church; and some people liked this
church, because it had a great spire soaring up into the sky. But
Marian's daddy didn't like spires, because they were so sharp and so
slippery. He liked towers better, because the old church towers, he
said, were like little laps, ready to catch God's blessing. But Marian's
daddy was a queer sort of man, and nobody took much notice of what he
said.
At the other end of Peter Street there was a field in which some people
were beginning to build houses, and Marian used to love going into this
field to watch the builders at work. But one afternoon she became tired
of watching them, and so she climbed over a gate into the next field.
Here the grass was so tall that it tickled Marian's chin. There were
great daisies in it, taller than the grass, and they looked into
Marian's eyes. They had calm faces like Marian's mummy's nurney's face,
and they didn't mind a bit when Marian picked them. There were also
buttercups, shiny and fat, like the man in the butcher's shop who was
always smiling.
This was such a big field that when Marian came to the middle of it the
voices of the builders were quite faint, and the tinkle of their trowels
on the edges of the bricks sounded like sheep-bells a long way off. When
she turned round she could see the roofs of the houses, and the tops of
the chimneys, and the spires of the churches all trembly because of the
heat, as if they were tired and wanted to lie down. But they couldn't
lie down, although they were so much older and bigger and stronger than
Marian. "I'd rather be me," thought Marian, and when she had picked a
bundle of flowers she lay down in the deep grass.
It was so hot that, when once they had become used to her, the stalks of
the grasses stood quite still. She could see hundreds and hundreds of
them, like trees in a forest, or people in church waiting for the
anthem. Up in the hills it was different. There the grasses were always
moving--not running about, of course, but standing in the same place and
bending to and fro, to and fro. Some of them would move, so her father
had once told her, as much as four miles in a single day, just as far as
it was from Marian's house to the top of Fairbarrow Down.
But here in the valley they weren't moving at all. They weren't even
whispering. They were holding their breath; and if they were listening
to anything, it was to something that a little girl couldn't hear. She
stared into the sky, but it was so blue that it made her eyes ache
trying to see how blue it was; and when she closed them, to give them a
rest, she could see little patterns on her eyelids. Then she opened them
again, and the green of the grass, as she looked between the grass
blades, was cool like an ointment.
"And nobody in the world," she thought, "knows where I am."
She felt a sort of tickle in the middle of her stomach.
"How do you do?" said a voice.
Marian gave a jump. She saw a little man looking up at her. He was not
even as tall as an afternoon tea-table.
"What's your name?" he asked. He was very polite. He held his hat in his
right hand. Marian told him her name. She wasn't a bit frightened.
"What's yours?" she asked.
"I'm Mr Jugg," he said.
"And who are you, Mr Jugg?" she inquired.
"I'm the King of the Bumpies," he replied.
When Marian was puzzled there came a little straight line, exactly in
the middle, between her two eyebrows.
"What are bumpies?" she said.
"My hat!" he gasped. "Haven't you ever heard of bumpies?"
Marian shook her head.
"Oh dear, oh dear!" he sighed. "Have you ever heard of angels?"
"Well, of course," said Marian. "Everybody's heard of angels."
"Well then, bumpies," said Mr Jugg, "are baby angels. They're called
bumpies till they've learned to fly."
"I see," said Marian, "but why are they called bumpies?"
"Because they bump," said Mr Jugg, "not knowing how."
Marian laughed.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"If you'd care to come with me," he said, "I could show you."
"Oh, I should love to!" said Marian. "May I?"
He put on his hat and gave her his hand, and helped her to stand up with
her bunch of daisies.
"Come along," he said, and he took her across the field, and through a
hole in the hedge into the next one. This was a smaller field with some
cows in it, and the grass in it was quite short. He led her across it,
and helped her over a gate into the field beyond, where the grass was
shorter still.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"I'm seven," said Marian.
"That's very young," he replied. "I'm seven million."
"Good gracious!" said Marian. "And how old is Mrs Jugg?"
"She's as old as I am," he said, "but she looks younger."
When they came to the middle of this field he stood still and stamped
with his foot three and a half times--three big stamps and a little
stamp--and then the field suddenly opened. Marian saw a hole at her feet
with a lot of steps in it going down, down, down.
"This is where I live," he said. "You needn't be frightened. It's quite
safe. I'll lead the way."
He was still holding her hand, and he went down before her, a step at a
time, very carefully.
"Isn't it rather dark?" said Marian.
"Wait till I've shut the door," he said, "and then you'll get a
surprise."
When both their heads were well below the ground, he tapped twice on the
wall; and then the hole was shut so that they couldn't see the sky, and
a most wonderful thing happened. They were at the beginning of a long
passage, almost a mile long, with a lovely slope in it; and on each side
of it there were hundreds of little lights, all of different colours.
There were blue lights, and green lights, and yellow lights, and crimson
lights, and lights of all sorts of other colours that Marian had never
seen or even imagined. Both the walls and the floor of the passage were
quite smooth, and just where they stood there was a little cupboard.
"This is where I keep my scooter," he said. "It saves time, and there's
lots of room on it for two."
He opened the cupboard door and took out a scooter.
"Now put your hands," he said, "on my shoulders."
"Oh, what fun!" said Marian, and she suddenly noticed that he seemed to
have grown taller.
She climbed on to the scooter behind him. He gave it a little push and
they began to glide down the passage. At first they went quite slowly,
because the slope was so gentle. But soon they were going faster and
faster; and presently they went so fast that all the coloured lights
became two streaks of light, one on each side of them. Marian could
hardly breathe.
"What's going to happen at the end?" she thought. But about half-way
along the passage began to go uphill again. The coloured streaks became
separate lights. The scooter went slower and slower. At last it stopped
just in front of a closed door, and there, in the wall, was another
little cupboard.
"Here we are," said Mr Jugg, putting the scooter away. "I expect they're
all having tea."
Then he opened the door, and Marian almost lost her breath again, for
what she saw was a great long room, with lots and lots of little tables
in it, and bumpies sitting on chairs round every table. Hanging from the
ceiling of this room were hundreds of coloured lights just like the
lights that she had seen in the passage--blue lights, and green lights,
and yellow lights, and crimson lights, and lights of all sorts of other
colours of which she didn't even know the name. And there was such a
clamour of talking and laughing, and spoon-clinking and plate-clinking,
and chair-creaking and table-creaking, that Marian could hardly hear
what Mr Jugg was saying, although he was shouting in her ear.
"That's my wife," he said. "That's Mrs Jugg, that lady over there, just
coming toward us."
Marian looked where he was pointing, and saw a stout little lady with a
smiling face.
She was exactly as tall as Mr Jugg, but she weighed two and a half
pounds more. As for the bumpies, they were of all sorts of sizes, but
they all wore the same kind of clothes--little dark green jackets over
little dark green vests, little dark green knickers, and little dark
green socks. Fastened to each jacket were two little hooks, one behind
each shoulder--these were for their wings. But they only wore wings when
they were having their flying lessons. Suddenly they all stopped talking
and stared at Marian. Some of them stood on their chairs in order to see
her better. She felt very shy, and began to blush.
Mrs Jugg came and gave her a kiss.
"This is Marian," said Mr Jugg. "Can you give her some tea?"
"Why, of course I can," said Mrs Jugg, giving Marian two more kisses.
"Come with me, my dear. You shall have tea at my table."
She introduced Marian to all the bumpies.
They gave her three cheers, and then went on with their tea, and soon
Marian was having tea herself--such a tea as she had never had before,
not even at her Uncle Joe's. There was bread and butter with bumpy jam
on it and bumpy Devonshire cream on the top of the jam, and there was
bumpy cake with bumpy cherries in it, and there were bumpy meringues,
and there was bumpy honey.
"Why, it's just like a birthday tea!" said Marian.
"That's because it is one," said Mr Jugg. "Every tea's a birthday tea
down here. There are so many bumpies, you see, that it's always
somebody's birthday."
"Dear me!" said Marian; "but isn't that rather a bother--I mean for you
and Mrs Jugg?"
Mrs Jugg gave her another meringue.
"There aren't any bothers," she said, "in Heaven."
"But this isn't Heaven," said Marian, "is it?"
"Well, of course it is," said Mrs Jugg--"part of it."
"But it's under the ground," said Marian.
"Well, never mind. Heaven's everywhere, only most people don't know it."
Marian was surprised, but she felt all lovely and shivery. Fancy Heaven
being so near home! What a thing to be able to tell Mummy! Mrs Jugg gave
her some more cake. Some of the bumpies had finished now, and were
getting impatient. Presently Mr Jugg clapped his hands. Then they all
stood up, and Mrs Jugg said grace, and then they all rushed toward the
door.
This wasn't the door by which Marian had come in, but a door that opened
into another room--a great big room with even more lights in it, and
hundreds of swings and all sorts of rocking-horses. In less than a
minute there were bumpies upon every one of them, and two of the bumpies
took charge of Marian. She had a lovely swing and a ride on a
rocking-horse, and then they all began to play games. They played
ring-a-ring o' roses, and bumpy in the corner, and bumpy hide-and-seek,
and angel's buff; and then Mr Jugg took her into the flying school to
see some of the older bumpies fly.
This was like a big gymnasium, with lots and lots of pegs in it, and a
pair of wings hanging from each peg; and on the floor there were great
soft mattresses so that the bumpies shouldn't hurt themselves if they
fell down. But the bumpies that Marian saw had almost learned to fly.
They would soon be proper angels and able to fly anywhere.
"And then," said Mr Jugg, "they'll be going into the upper school to
learn history and geography and all about dreams and things."
"Where's the upper school?" asked Marian.
"Oh, it's all over the place," said Mr Jugg; "there are ever so many
class-rooms, you see. And then they go to college."
"And what happens then?" asked Marian.
"Well, then they're able to begin to work. There's always heaps for them
to do."
"I see," said Marian; "and now I really think that I ought to be going
home."
"Perhaps you ought," said Mr Jugg. He led her back into the playroom,
and then into the room where they had all had tea. The tables had been
cleared now, but Mrs Jugg came toward them with a big box of bumpy
chocolates. Marian took one, and Mrs Jugg kissed her and told her that
she must be sure to come again.
"You haven't seen half the place," she said, "nor a quarter of it. There
are miles and miles of it. Have another chocolate."
Then Marian thanked her and gave her a kiss, and Mr Jugg opened the door
and they went into the passage. When they had come this part of the
passage had been uphill, but going back, of course, it was downhill. He
opened the cupboard and took out the scooter, and Marian stood behind
him with her hands on his shoulders. Just as before, they began to go
quite slowly, but soon they were going as fast as ever. Just as before,
the coloured lights became two streaks of light, one on each side of
them. But Marian knew now what was going to happen, and presently the
scooter went slower and slower. At last it stopped just at the foot of
the steps, and Mr Jugg put it away in the cupboard. He hit the wall
twice, and there, at the top of the steps, Marian saw the hole open, and
the sky above it.
"Goodness me!" she said. "How late it is!"
The sky was quite dark, and the stars were shining.
Mr Jugg blew his nose.
"Poor Mummy!" she said; "she will be so frightened."
"Where do you live?" asked Mr Jugg.
Marian told him.
"I'd better fly you there," he said. "Half a tick."
He went down the steps again, and opened the little cupboard, and came
back with a pair of wings.
"Now, if you can get on my back," he said, "we'll be home in half a
minute."
She climbed on to his shoulders, just as if she were going to ride
pick-a-back, and then he gave a little jump and they were up in the air.
They skimmed across the fields and down Peter Street just as fast as an
express train. At Marian's door he put her down.
"Which is your bedroom window?" he asked.
She told him.
"Now I must be saying good-night," he said. "No, I won't come in. It's
against the rules for the King of the Bumpies." So he took off his hat
and made her a little bow, and before she could wink almost, he had
gone. Then she knocked at the door, and next moment Mummy was hugging
her as tight as tight. Then Daddy came and hugged her too, and Cuthbert,
who had gone to bed, looked over the landing banisters.
"Where have you been?" he asked.
"Why, where _haven't_ I been?" said Marian, and then she told them all
about it. Cuthbert didn't believe her. But Cuthbert didn't believe
anything. He was nine years old, and was beginning to learn French. But
Mummy believed her, and Daddy believed her; and I'll tell you another
thing that happened.
Late that night, when everybody was asleep, Mr Jugg flew to Marian's
window. Marian's angel--everybody has a guardian angel--was smoking a
quiet cigarette on the sill outside.
"Hullo!" he said; "fancy seeing you here!"
He had once been a bumpy, you see, and Mr Jugg had taught him to fly.
"Good evening," said Mr Jugg; "what do you think of this?"
It was a little dream that he had brought for Marian.
"By George!" said the angel, "that's a beauty."
He slipped it very softly under Marian's pillow.
She must have dreamed it too, for next morning when Mummy made her bed
it wasn't there. But, alas! the loveliest dreams of all are the ones
that we never remember.
Like the jungle he lives in,
Tiger wears a dappled skin.
Foxes on the plains of snow
White as their surroundings go.
So do fishes lose their sight,
Buried in the ocean's night,
Little knowing lovely day
Lies but half a mile away.
For the truth is plain to see,
As our haunts are, so are we;
And in cities you will find
Busy blind men just as blind.
Long ago they lost their eyes
Under bags of merchandise;
And they know not there are still
Angels on the window-sill.
GWENDOLEN
[Illustration: Monkey Island]
II
GWENDOLEN
Living in the same town as Marian there was a little girl called
Gwendolen. Marian didn't know her very well, though they went to the
same school and sometimes smiled at each other in church. Her father and
mother were always climbing mountains and lecturing about them
afterward, so Gwendolen had to live with her aunt, who was very rich and
wore a lot of rings.
In many ways Gwendolen was a nice girl, but she had an exceptionally
large tummy. Some people said that it was her own fault, because she was
always sitting about eating marzipan. But some people said that she
couldn't help her tummy, and had to eat a lot to keep it full. There
were also people who said that her aunt spoiled her, being so greedy
herself and always eating buttered toast.
Gwendolen's aunt had a pale, proud face, deeply lined by indigestion,
and she lived in a big house on the right-hand side of Bellington
Square. The colour of this house was a yellowish cream, and it had two
pillars in front of the front door. There were eleven steps leading up
to it, and there was a boy to open it who wore twelve brass buttons.
In the middle of this Square there was a sort of garden with tall iron
railings all round it, and each of the people living in the Square had a
key to open the gate of it. It was the tidiest garden in the whole
world, and all the flowers in it stood in rows; and the people in the
Square paid for a gardener to shave the grass every day. One of the
reasons why the people in the Square were so rich was that they had so
few children; and the children that they did have had to be very careful
not to make foot-marks on the grass. Gwendolen's aunt sometimes went
there when she had a headache and wanted to throw it off; and Gwendolen
went there to eat marzipan and read about Princes and Princesses. She
generally sat on a painted iron seat in front of a flower-bed shaped
like a lozenge, and once she was sick behind a bush called _B.
stenophylla_ on a tin label.
One day she was sitting on this seat when she heard a curious sort of
sound. At first it was rather faint, so that she didn't take much notice
of it, but gradually it became louder and louder. Her aunt was sitting
on the same seat wondering which of her medicines to take before dinner,
and Gwendolen noticed that she began to look annoyed, because the noise
was the sound of a harmonium. Some people like harmoniums, and have them
in their houses, and play hymns on them on Sunday afternoons. But this
was a harmonium that went on wheels, with a man to push it, and a woman
walking beside him. After he had pushed it for a few yards he would sit
down and play a tune on it, while the woman walked up and down, looking
at people's windows and trying to catch their eye. If she saw anybody
she would say "Kind lady," or "Kind gentleman," as the case might be,
and perhaps the kind lady or the kind gentleman would throw her some
money, and then she would say "God bless you." But people like that,
with travelling harmoniums, weren't allowed to come into Bellington
Square, and Gwendolen's aunt said, "Dear me, just when I wanted a little
peace and quiet!"
If there had been anybody near, such as a policeman or a gardener, she
would have told him to send the musicians away. But it was very hot, and
there was nobody about, and so the people went on playing. Gwendolen
watched them for a while through the railings, and the butler at Number
Ten gave the woman a sixpence. Her aunt was very angry about it when
Gwendolen told her, for what was the good of making rules, she said, if
you encouraged people to break them?
The people with the harmonium came a little nearer, and then Gwendolen
could see what they looked like. The woman was stout, with a hard brown
face and rolling eyes like dark-coloured pebbles. When she smiled it was
as if she had pinned it on, and as if the smile didn't really belong to
her. The man had pale eyes, like those of ferrets in a hutch, and he
watched the woman all the time he was playing. Gwendolen noticed that
there was a long string fastened to one of the handles of the harmonium.
She heard a little voice close to her knees.
"Oh, Gwendolen," it said, "save me."
Gwendolen looked down and saw the unhappiest little face that she had
ever seen in her life. It belonged to a small brown monkey wearing a red
jacket and a blue sailor hat. He was staring up at her with timid dark
eyes.
"I heard your aunt speak to you," he said. "So I know your name."
He looked over his shoulder at the man and the woman. But the woman was
looking at the houses, and the man was watching her.
"What's the matter?" said Gwendolen.
He was holding on to the garden railings.
"Lift up my jacket," he said, "and you'll see."
Gwendolen stooped down and lifted up his jacket. There were three great
wounds across his back.
"Oh dear!" she cried; "how did you get those?"
"They beat me," he said. "They're always beating me."
Gwendolen may have been lazy, and she may have been greedy, but she had
a soft heart, and the monkey had seen this.
"Oh, how dreadful!" she said. "But when did you learn to talk?"
The monkey shivered a little.
"Hush, they don't know," he replied. "I've lived with them so long that
I've learned their language."
"But why don't you run away?" asked Gwendolen.
"How can I? They keep me on this string and beat me every night."
Gwendolen thought for a moment.
"Oh, Gwendolen," he said, "do save me if you can!"
From where she was kneeling Gwendolen could see the woman going up the
steps to one of the houses. The man was watching her as usual. Gwendolen
was half hidden from them by a bush.
"But there's my aunt," she said. "I don't know what my aunt would say."
"Listen," said the monkey. "I could take you to a lovely island."
Gwendolen frowned a little.
"But I don't know," she said, "that my aunt's very fond of islands."
"She would be of this," said the monkey. "What's your aunt fondest of?"
Gwendolen thought for a moment.
"Buttered toast," she said.
"Well, it's ever so much nicer," said the monkey, "than buttered toast."
Gwendolen looked at her aunt and then at the monkey, with his sad eyes
and shaking limbs. There wasn't much time. In another minute the man and
the woman would be moving on. Close beside her, in a little green box,
she could see the tops of the handles of the gardener's shears. She took
a deep breath. Then she made up her mind.
"All right," she said. "I'll see what I can do."
She crept to the box and took out the shears. The monkey squeezed
himself through the railings. With a beating heart Gwendolen cut the
string, caught up the monkey, and ran to her aunt. Her aunt looked up.
"Why, what have you got here?" she asked.
"He belongs to those people," said Gwendolen, "with the harmonium."
"Oh, save me!" said the monkey. "Save me!"
"Look what they've done to him," said Gwendolen. She lifted the monkey's
jacket. Gwendolen's aunt put on her spectacles.
"Dear me!" she said; "but the monkey talks!"
"Yes," said Gwendolen. "He's been learning for a long time."
The monkey clasped his hands and looked into Gwendolen's aunt's face. He
saw deep down into her, where her good nature was.
"If you let me go back to them," he said, "they'll kill me. Oh, lady
dear, please help me!"
Gwendolen's aunt was rather disturbed. Nothing like this had happened to
her before. If she took the monkey away, people would call her a thief.
But if she let him go back, perhaps he would be beaten to death.
"Where do you live?" she asked.
"On Monkey Island; it's the loveliest island in the world."
"But how did you come here?" she said.
The monkey began to tremble again.
"They stole me away," he said, "from my wife and children."
"Oh, Auntie," said Gwendolen, "can't we take him back there? He says
it's ever so much nicer than buttered toast."
Her aunt stood up.
"Oh, bother the buttered toast," she said. "It's his wife and babies
that I'm thinking about."
Then the harmonium suddenly stopped, and they heard the man cry out.
"Why, where's that monkey?" he said. He began to swear. They saw the
woman run down the steps. The monkey gave a little cry and jumped into
Gwendolen's aunt's arms. Then they saw the man and the woman rush toward
the railings. Both their faces were dark as night.
"Come on," said Gwendolen's aunt. "We'll have to run for it. Make for
the gate."
Fortunately, the gate was on the opposite side of the garden, and their
own house was opposite the gate. The man and the woman would have to run
right round the Square.
"We ought to beat them," said Gwendolen's aunt.
Oh, how sorry Gwendolen was then that her tummy was so large! But she
ran as fast as ever she could, and almost kept up with her aunt. The man
and the woman had started to run too, shouting aloud at the tops of
their voices.
"We shan't be safe," said her aunt, "till we've got to the island;
because we shall really be thieves till we've taken the monkey home."
They dashed across the grass and through the gate, and, just as they
were running up their own front steps, they saw the man and the woman
coming into sight round the corner of the railings. They had found a
policeman, and he was running with them.
"Luckily the servants are out," said Gwendolen's aunt.
She was quite excited, and her eyes were shining. Gwendolen had never
seen her looking so young. As soon as they were safely in the house, she
shut the front door and bolted it.
"That'll give us another five minutes," she said. "Run upstairs and get
your hat and overcoat."
Gwendolen ran upstairs, panting and puffing, and fetched her hat and
overcoat and her doll David. Meanwhile her aunt ran into the study,
opened her cash-box, and took out a hundred pounds. A minute later there
came a thunder of knocks and two or three peals of the front-door bell.
"We'll get away," said her aunt, "through the back garden."
She had packed up a knapsack and slipped into a rain-coat. The knocks
were repeated--rat-a-tat-_tat_. They heard angry voices shouting through
the letter-box. Gwendolen's aunt laughed and shook her fist at them.
"Come along," she said; "now for the back garden."
From the back garden there was a little door leading into a street
behind. Here there was a cab-stand, and Gwendolen's aunt told the
cab-driver to drive to the station.
"We shall just be in time," she said, "to catch the 3.40 train."
It was only a horse-cab, but the horse galloped, and they arrived at the
station just as the train came in. There was hardly a moment to take
their tickets in. But the guard waited for them, and they just managed
it. The engine whistled, the porter slammed the door, and the next
moment they were off. The monkey, who had been hiding under Gwendolen's
aunt's coat, poked his head out, and looked about him. Fortunately they
had the carriage all to themselves.
"Oh dear!" said Gwendolen. "How splendid!"
It was an express train, and it didn't stop for an hour, and then
Gwendolen's aunt thought that they had better get out.
"We'll hire a motor-car," she said, "and go to Lullington Bay and find
my old friend Captain Jeremy. When I was young he wanted to marry me.
But I was too proud and wouldn't let him."
So they got out and hired a motor-car, and drove at full speed to
Lullington Bay. It was a long drive, and when they arrived at the
Captain's cottage the stars were shining and the Captain was in his
garden. Deep below them they could see the ocean, dark as bronze and
knocking at the shore. Captain Jeremy was looking through a telescope. A
stout little sailing-ship was anchored in the bay.
"Why, Josina," he said--that was Gwendolen's aunt's name--"fancy seeing
you here after all these years!"
He was a sunburnt man with blue eyes, and Gwendolen liked him because he
looked so kind. They told him what had happened, and he looked very
grave.
"We must be off at once," he said. "I know that man and woman."
"Why, who are they?" asked Gwendolen.
"Smugglers," he said. "They're two of the most dangerous people I know.
Luckily my ship is all ready to sail. We'll put off at once for Monkey
Island."
The Captain lived alone. He had never been married. So he had only to
lock up his cottage and put the key in his pocket.
"We ought to get there," he said, "in a couple of months' time if the
wind holds fair."
It was the first time that Gwendolen had been on the sea, and for two or
three days she was rather sea-sick. But after that she began to enjoy
the voyage and the smell of the spray and the sight of the waves. It was
lovely weather, and as they drew near the equator a great yellow moon
shone on them all night. It was so hot that she hardly wore any clothes,
and used to go barefooted just like the sailors; and she grew so brown
and so graceful that she scarcely looked like the same girl. As for her
tummy--well, there was no marzipan on board, and she soon began to lose
all her love for it. She would ever so much rather be up in the rigging
with David her doll and Captain Jeremy's telescope.
One day she suddenly noticed a sort of little cloud on the horizon. But
it didn't move, and as the ship drew nearer she saw that the cloud was
really an island. She called to the monkey, and he ran up the rigging
beside her, and after one look he could hardly contain himself.
"That's the island," he cried, "my beautiful island, with my wife on it
and my children."
Presently they came so close that they could see the golden sand and the
tall trees with their clusters of fruit; and soon the ship was
anchored, and Captain Jeremy gave orders for a boat to be lowered.
Captain Jeremy himself, with two of his sailors, and Gwendolen, and
Gwendolen's aunt all got into it; and in another five minutes they were
standing on dry land again, with the happy monkey dancing beside them.
Captain Jeremy and the sailors stayed by the boat, but Gwendolen and her
aunt and the monkey began to explore the island. There were flowers
everywhere, not planted in rows like the flowers in Bellington Square,
but growing where they liked, and rejoicing in their freedom and
praising God with their beautiful colours. Some of the trees were
smooth, with curious flat leaves and knobbly brown berries that tasted
like buttered toast. But Gwendolen's aunt had made a resolve to give up
eating buttered toast. Since she had helped Gwendolen to rescue the
monkey all her indigestion had disappeared; and she felt as fresh, and
looked as pretty, as if she were only half her age.
Some of the trees were different, with twisted trunks, and pale red
blossoms dripping with juice; and this juice tasted like marzipan, but
Gwendolen had resolved to give up marzipan.
But it was a lovelier island than they had ever imagined, and soon the
little monkey gave a cry of joy, and the next moment he was hugging in
his arms another little monkey that had dashed to meet him. It was his
wife, and just behind her there were two smaller monkeys waiting to be
kissed; and Gwendolen and her aunt could almost have cried to see how
happy they all were.
For nearly a month they stayed at the island, sleeping on board, but
landing every morning; and Gwendolen learned to swim almost as well as a
fish and to climb trees almost as well as a monkey. But Captain Jeremy
wasn't really happy until a big steamer happened to come by with news
that the man and the woman had been drowned in a storm on their way to
try and catch Gwendolen and her aunt. It was now October, and by the
time that they arrived home Gwendolen would have been away from school
for a term and a half. So they said good-bye to the monkey and his
family, and set sail from the island. Gwendolen cried a little, and so
did her aunt; but on the way home an odd thing happened, for Captain
Jeremy asked her aunt to marry him, and they had to think a lot about
the wedding. They decided to get married on Christmas Day, and when
Gwendolen's school-friends saw her as a bridesmaid she had grown so tall
and straight and happy-looking that they wondered what on earth could
possibly have happened to her.
"Sailor, sailor,
What's the song
That you sing
The whole day long?"
And the sailor
Said to me:
"Birth's the jetty,
Time's the sea,
"Death's the harbour,
Life's the trip,
Hope's the pilot,
You're the ship."
"Sailor, sailor,
Tell me true,
What's beyond
Those waters blue?"
But the sailor
Shook his head;
"That's a secret,
Sir," he said.
THE LITTLE ICE-MEN
[Illustration: Cuthbert and Doris]
III
THE LITTLE ICE-MEN
Marian's daddy was very glad when Captain Jeremy married Gwendolen's
aunt, because he and Captain Jeremy had been boys at school together,
and he had always been very fond of him; and he was gladder still when
Captain Jeremy and Gwendolen's aunt left Bellington Square. This they
did a week after the wedding, because Captain Jeremy hated Bellington
Square; and they went to live in an old farmhouse, two miles out of the
town.
It was a beautiful old house, with a gabled roof and golden-red bricks
like a winter sunset; and the hall and passages of it were dark and
velvety, and the rooms upstairs smelt of lavender. Leading from the road
to the front door was a cobbly path, with lawns on each side of it, and
big trees standing on the lawns, with low-spreading branches that
touched the grass. Behind the house was a kitchen-garden full of
cucumber-frames and vegetables, and behind that was an orchard, with a
gate leading into the fields. These were all hard and crinkly with
frost, and the fruit-trees were bare, because it was the second of
January, but that made the house seem all the snugger, with its low
panelled walls and log fires.
When they had been in this house a week, Gwendolen's aunt gave a
children's party, and Marian and Cuthbert were asked to go, because
their daddy was Captain Jeremy's friend. Marian was very pleased,
because she had always liked Gwendolen, although she had never known her
very well, but Cuthbert said that he didn't like her and that he'd
rather stay at home. Marian told him how much she had improved since her
voyage to Monkey Island, but Cuthbert said that he didn't care, and that
she was a silly sort of girl anyhow. He was only pretending, however,
because just after Christmas he had been in hospital having his tonsils
out, and he had already missed two or three parties and didn't mean to
miss another.
So they went to the party, and Cuthbert was rather glad, because one of
the girls there was a girl called Doris, who had been in hospital having
her tonsils out just at the same time as he. She was rather a decent
girl, ten years old, with dark-coloured eyes and brown hair, and one of
her thumbs was double-jointed, and she had been eight times to the
seaside. Just at present she was a little pale, and so was Cuthbert
himself; and Gwendolen was so brown that, when they stood near her, they
looked paler still.
Captain Jeremy came and shook hands with them.
"Hullo," he said, "what's the matter with you?"
"It's their tonsils," said Marian. "They've just had them out, and of
course they're a little pulled down."
Captain Jeremy examined them thoughtfully.
Cuthbert liked him, and so did Doris.
"What you want," he said, "is a trip with me. That would soon set you up
again."
Gwendolen and Marian had gone off to play, so Cuthbert and Doris had him
to themselves.
"I should like it very much," said Cuthbert.
"So should I," said Doris, "but I'm afraid Mummy wouldn't let me go."
"I see," said the Captain. "Well, I'm off next week to Port Jacobson in
the Arctic Circle. But you wouldn't be able to go to school next term if
you came with me, because I shan't be back till the middle of May."
Cuthbert put his hand up and pinched his throat.
"It's still rather sore," he said.
"So is mine," said Doris.
Captain Jeremy laughed.
"Well, there's nothing like the Arctic Circle," he said, "for people
who've just had their tonsils out."
Then he spoke to Doris.
"Let me see," he said: "I know where Cuthbert lives, but where do you
live?"
Doris told him that she lived in John Street, which was the next street
to Cuthbert's. Her father was dead, and her mummy was rather poor, as
she had five other children besides Doris.
Captain Jeremy nodded.
"Then perhaps I shall be able to persuade her," he said, "to let me take
you off her hands for a bit."
Doris danced up and down.
"Oh, I wish you would!" she cried. "I'd simply love to see the Arctic
Circle!"
"So should I," said Cuthbert, and they were both so excited that they
could hardly eat any tea. When Marian heard about it, she wished that
she was pale too, and she wished it ever so much more the next morning
when Captain Jeremy called on her father and mother and persuaded them
to let Cuthbert go. Then he went to John Street and talked to Doris's
mother, and he looked so commanding and yet so gentle that Doris's
mother said she would be very glad to let Doris go with him to Port
Jacobson.
"Of course, it'll be very cold," he said, "and they'll have to wear
furs, but we can easily get those when we arrive, and all they'll want
for the voyage is plenty of underclothing and their oldest clothes."
For a voyage like that, all among the ice, Captain Jeremy's sailing-ship
wasn't quite suitable, so he had hired a little steamer with very thick
sides, and a trusty pilot. Port Jacobson was in a sort of bay just under
the shelter of Cape Fury, and beyond Cape Fury the coast had hardly been
explored, it was all so bare and bleak and rocky. The only people who
lived there were a few fishermen, a clergyman called Mr Smith, and a
couple of engineers, who had been there for a year and had just found a
coal-mine. It was the engineers who had written to Captain Jeremy,
because they wanted him to bring them some machinery, and also because
they wanted him to take back some of the coal that they had already dug
up. That was how Captain Jeremy made his living, fetching and carrying
things across the sea.
Neither Cuthbert nor Doris was the least bit sea-sick, and they loved
to stand on the bridge beside Captain Jeremy and see the great billows
rushing toward the steamer, one after another, in the bright sunshine.
Sometimes they went below into the dark engine-room, where they had to
shout to make themselves heard, and where the pistons of the engines
slid to and fro like the arms of boxers that never got tired. How they
loved the cabin, too, at meal-times, when the cook rolled in with the
steaming dishes, and what meals they ate, in spite of the lurching table
and the water slamming against the port-holes!
In a couple of days' time they had forgotten all about their tonsils,
and two days after that they had almost forgotten their homes, and a
week later they saw something in the distance like the grey ghost of a
cathedral. It was an iceberg--the first that they had seen; but soon
they began to see them every day, sometimes pale, in mournful groups,
like broken statues in a cemetery, and sometimes sparkling in the sun as
though they were crusted with a million diamonds.
One day they came on deck just after breakfast and saw miles and miles
of ice, all jumbled together, and three hours later they saw a great
cliff, covered with snow, standing out to sea. That was Cape Fury, and
as they drew nearer they could see a little cluster of dark houses, with
spires of smoke rising from their chimneys, and that was Port Jacobson.
The pilot was on deck now, shouting all the time, and the steamer was
going very slowly, with ice on each side of it, and they could see some
men coming toward them, with rough-haired dogs pulling sledges. At last
the steamer could get no farther, although it was still about a mile
from the town, and they cast out anchors and a long cable that they
began to carry toward the shore. It seemed very funny to Cuthbert and
Doris to feel their feet again on something steady, even though this was
only the rough surface of the frozen bay in front of the port. The days
were so short here that the sun was already low, and the great cape
stood dark and menacing, while far inland they could see the peaks of
mountains slowly fading against the sky.
Among the men who had come to meet them were the two engineers and Mr
Smith, and they were very surprised to see Cuthbert and Doris running
about on the ice and trying to make snowballs. Then they all set off
toward the little town, with the lights shining in its windows, and Mr
Smith said that they must stay with him, because he and Mrs Smith had no
children. Captain Jeremy was to stay with the two engineers, who had
built a little house of their own, but they all came in to supper with
the Smiths, and Cuthbert and Doris were allowed to sit up.
"To-morrow," said Mr Smith, "we'll get you some furs, and then you'll be
able to go tobogganing with the other children," and Cuthbert and Doris
said "Hooray!" because they had learned to toboggan on Fairbarrow Down.
Just before they went to bed they saw a wonderful thing, for the whole
of the sky began to quiver, and beautiful colours went dancing across
it, melting away and then coming back again. These were the Northern
Lights, or the Aurora Borealis, and Cuthbert and Doris could have
watched them all night.
But they soon fell asleep; and most of the next day they were out
tobogganing with the other children, and they soon became so good at it
that they could go as fast as any of them, and hardly ever had a spill.
By the end of the week they had got into the habit of climbing on to the
top of Cape Fury and tobogganing back again, more than a mile and a
half, right down to Mr Smith's house. The first time they climbed up
there the slope had looked so steep, and the roofs of the houses so far
below them, that they had stood for nearly ten minutes before they could
make up their minds to start. But some of the other children had done
it, and at last Doris had said, "Well, come on, Cuthbert, we mustn't be
afraid," and Cuthbert had told her to hold on tight, and so they had
pushed off over the frozen snow.
By the time they had got half-way, they were going so fast that the air
was roaring in their ears, but the track was straight, and they had kept
in the middle of it, and ran safely into the town. After that it didn't
seem worth while to go tobogganing on any of the lower hills, and that
was how it came about that the following Wednesday they found themselves
as usual on the top of Cape Fury.
It was a still, cold day, and the air was so clear that they could see
the coast for miles and miles, and the tops of mountains far inland that
they had never seen before. Below them in the bay, stuck in the ice,
they could see the little steamer, with the sailors on the deck, and
beyond the ice a strip of blue water, and beyond that again more ice
still. That was on one side of them, and on the other they saw the
farther slope of Cape Fury, slanting down and down and down to the
unexplored regions toward the north. It was a gentler slope than the
slope toward the town, and suddenly Cuthbert had a great idea.
"I say," he said, "why shouldn't we toboggan down there? I don't suppose
anybody has ever done it."
What with the wind and the sun and the snow, the cheeks of both of them
were like ripe chestnuts, and Doris's eyes began to sparkle as she
listened to Cuthbert's great idea. When he was at home Cuthbert didn't
get many ideas, and he generally used to laugh at other people's, so he
was very pleased when he got this one and Doris said that she thought it
ripping.
"We won't go too fast," he said, "so that, if we see a precipice or
anything, we shall be able to stop ourselves in time."
They had a stout little toboggan, just big enough for two, and so they
started off down this new slope, with the sun shining and the snow
glittering. At first they moved quite slowly, but lower down the side of
the hill became steeper, and soon they were going so fast that, even if
they had wanted to, they would have found it pretty hard to stop
themselves. And then an awful thing happened, for suddenly, just in
front of them, they saw a deep cleft in the snow sliding down, at a
terrific angle, into a sort of tunnel under the hillside.
Almost before they could breathe, they had plunged into this, and now
there was nothing to do but to hold on. They saw the tunnel's mouth
leaping toward them, and the next moment they were in darkness. Neither
Cuthbert nor Doris had ever been so frightened before. In the pitchy
blackness they could see nothing. They could only feel themselves
shooting deeper and deeper into the very heart of the frozen earth.
Sometimes a bump on the floor of the tunnel would send them careering
toward the roof, and then they would come down again with a thud that
almost pitched them off the toboggan. Every moment they expected to be
killed. There came another tremendous bump. And then they felt their
toboggan springing through the air and dropping like a stone into some
fearful well. They shut their eyes, waiting for death, and then went
rolling over and over, with something strange and soft and feathery
wrapping them round like a bedroom quilt. For a minute or two they could
only gasp, and then Cuthbert sat up and called to Doris.
"Hullo, Doris!" he said; "are you all right?"
"Yes, I think so," said Doris. "Are you?"
Cuthbert told her that he was; and now that they could look about, they
saw that they were on the floor of an immense cave, and that they had
pitched down from somewhere near the top of it on to a huge mass of
feathers. These were evidently the feathers of thousands and thousands
of sea-birds; but who could have plucked them and stored them here so
carefully?
Then they heard a strange sort of coughing and grunting and spluttering,
and they saw the oddest of little men. He was about three feet high,
with a red beard and a very cheerful sort of face, and he had evidently
been asleep in among the feathers, for he was rubbing his eyes and
staring at them in astonishment. Then they heard some more grunting and
coughing, and at last they saw a dozen of these little men standing all
round them, dressed in the skins of animals, and with feathers sticking
to their beards. They were all looking rather disturbed, but when
Cuthbert and Doris smiled they began to smile too and come toward them.
Then they began to talk, and, though at first the sounds that they made
seemed very queer, Cuthbert and Doris, rather to their surprise, found
that they could understand them perfectly well. That was because the
language in which the little men spoke was the oldest language in the
world, the father and mother of all the other languages, and so of
course the children soon understood it. They also found that in a very
little while they could talk in this language themselves, and soon they
were all chattering together about what had happened, as if they had
known each other all their lives.
Now that they had become used to the dim light, they could see that this
great cave had walls of rock, with long icicles hanging from the roof
and the sticking-out pieces of the walls. Most of the floor of it was of
smooth ice, but in the middle there was a flat rock; and on this rock
there was a little fire burning, a little fire made of coal. The leader
of the men was a man called Marmaduke, and he told the children that
they had all been asleep, and that they had lived in this cave for
hundreds of thousands of years, and that the great pile of feathers was
where they went to bed.
"But it's day-time," said Cuthbert. "Why do you go to bed in day-time?"
Marmaduke laughed, and so did all the other men.
"Because at night," he said, "we go out and hunt to get our wolf-and
seal-meat, when no one can see us."