CHAPTER 2: THE SOUND OF MYSTERIOUS WHEELS
CHAPTER 3: THE THOROUGH EXAMINATION
CHAPTER 4: THE ITEMS
CHAPTER 5: DIOGENES AND MOSES
CHAPTER 6: THE PLANS
CHAPTER 7: MR. LENOX'S YOUNG BROTHER
CHAPTER 8: THE FIRST DAY
CHAPTER 9: THE FIRST NIGHT
CHAPTER 10: THE ADVENTURE OF THE SECOND CARAVAN
CHAPTER 11: THE WAYSIDE FRIEND
CHAPTER 12: STRATFORD-ON-AVON
CHAPTER 13: THE ADVENTURE OF THE YOUNG POLICEMAN
CHAPTER 14: THE ADVENTURE OF THE LITTLE OLD LADY
CHAPTER 15: THE ADVENTURE OF THE RUNAWAY PONIES
CHAPTER 16: THE BLACK SPANIELS
CHAPTER 17: THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST BABY
CHAPTER 18: THE ADVENTURE OF THE OLD IRISHWOMAN
CHAPTER 19: THE LETTER TO X
CHAPTER 20: THE ADVENTURE OF THE LINE OF POETRY
CHAPTER 21: COLLINS'S PEOPLE
CHAPTER 22: THE ADVENTURE OF THE GIANT
CHAPTER 23: THE MOST SURPRISING ADVENTURE OF ALL
CHAPTER 24: THE END
CHAPTER 1
THE AVORIES
Once upon a time there was a nice family. Its name was Avory, and it
lived in an old house in Chiswick, where the Thames is so sad on grey
days and so gay on sunny ones.
Mr.--or rather Captain--Avory was dead; he had been wounded at Spion
Kop, and died a few years after. Mrs. Avory was thirty-five, and she
had four children. The eldest was Janet, aged fourteen, and the
youngest was Gregory Bruce, aged seven. Between these came Robert
Oliver, who was thirteen, and Hester, who was nine.
They were all very fond of each other, and they rarely quarreled. (If
they had done so, I should not be telling this story. You don't catch
me writing books about people who quarrel.) They adored their mother.
The name of the Avories' house was "The Gables," which was a better
name than many houses have, because there actually were gables in its
roof. Hester, who had funny ideas, wanted to see all the people who
lived in all the houses that are called "The Gables" everywhere drawn
up in a row so that she might examine them. She used to lie awake at
night and wonder how many there would be. "I'm sure mother would be the
most beautiful, anyway," she used to say.
History was Hester's passion. She could read history all day. Here she
differed from Robert Oliver, who was all for geography. Their friends
knew of these tastes, of course, and so Hester's presents were nearly
always history books or portraits of great men, such as Napoleon and
Shakespeare, both of whom she almost worshipped, while Robert's were
compasses and maps. He also had a mapmeasurer (from Mr. Lenox), and at
the moment at which this story opens, his birthday being just over, he
was the possessor of a pedometer, which he carried fastened to his leg,
under his knickerbockers, so that it was certain to register every time
he took a step. He kept a careful record of the distance he had walked
since his birthday, and could tell you at any time what it was, if you
gave him a minute or two to crawl under the table and undo his clothes.
He could be heard grunting in dark places all day long, having been
forbidden by Janet to undress in public.
Robert's birthday was on June 20, Hester's on November 8, and Janet's
on February 28. She had the narrowest escape, you see, of getting
birthdays only once in every four years; which is one of the worst
things that can happen to a human being. Gregory Bruce was a little
less lucky, for his birthday was on December 20, which is so near to
Christmas Day that mean persons have been known to make one gift do for
both events. None the less, Gregory's possessions were very numerous;
for he had many friends, and most of them were careful to keep these
two great anniversaries apart.
Gregory's particular passion just now was the names of engines, of
which he had one of the finest collections in Europe; but a model
aeroplane which Mr. Scott had given him was beginning to turn his
thoughts towards the conquest of the air, and whereas he used to tell
people that he meant to be an engine driver when he grew up, he was now
adding, "or a man like Wilbur Wright."
Most children have wanted to fly ever since "Peter Pan" began, and, as
I dare say you have heard, some have tried from the nursery window,
with perfectly awful results, having neglected to have their shoulders
first touched magically; but Gregory Bruce Avory wanted to fly in a
more regular and scientific manner. He wanted to fly like an engineer.
To his mind, indeed, the flying part of "Peter Pan" was the least
fascinating; he preferred the underground home, and the fight with the
Indians, and the mechanism of the crocodile. For a short time, in fact,
his only ambition had been to be the crocodile's front half.
Janet, on the other hand, liked Nana and the pathetic motherly parts
the best; Robert's favourite was Smee, and often at meal times he used
to say, "Woe is me, I have no knife"; while Hester was happiest in the
lagoon scene. This difference of taste in one small family shows how
important it is for anyone who writes a play to put a lot of variety
into it.
Janet, the eldest, was also the most practical. She was, in fact,
towards the others almost more of a younger mother than an elder
sister. Not that Mrs. Avory neglected them at all; but Janet relieved
her of many little duties. She always knew when their feet were likely
to be wet, and Robert had once said that she had "stocking changing on
the brain." She could cook, too, especially cakes, and the tradesmen
had a great respect for her judgment when she went shopping. She knew
when a joint would be too fat, and you should see her pointing out the
bone!
Janet was a tall girl, and very active, and, in spite of her
responsibilities, very jolly. She played hockey as well almost as a
boy, which is, of course, saying everything, and her cricket was good,
too. Her bowling was fast and straight, and usually too much for
Robert, who knew, however, the initials of all the gentlemen and the
Christian names and birthplaces of most of the professionals. Gregory
could not bear cricket, except when it was his own innings, which he
seemed to enjoy during its brief duration. Hester thought it dull
throughout, so that Janet had to depend upon Robert and the Rotherams
for the best games.
Janet had very straight fair hair, and just enough freckles to be
pretty. She looked nicest in blue. Hester, on the contrary, was a dark
little thing, whose best frock was always red.
As for the boys--it doesn't matter what boys are like; but Gregory, I
might say, usually had black hands: not because he was naturally a
grubby little beast, but because engineers do. Robert, on the contrary,
was disposed to be dressy, and he declined to allow his mother or Janet
to buy his socks or neckties without first consulting him as to colours.
Among the friends of the family must be put first Uncle Chris, who was
Captain Avory's brother and a lawyer in Golden Square. Uncle Chris
looked after Mrs. Avory's money and gave advice. He was very nice, and
came to dinner every Sunday (hot roast beef and horse radish sauce).
There was an Aunt Chris, too, but she was an invalid and could not
leave her room, where she lay all the time and remembered birthdays.
Next to Uncle Chris came Mr. Scott, who was a famous author and a very
good cricketer on the lawn, and Mr. Lenox, who was private secretary to
a real lord, and therefore had lots of time and money. Both Mr. Scott
and Mr. Lenox were bachelors, as the best friends of families always
are; unless, of course, their wives are invalids.
Gregory, who was more social than Robert, also knew one policeman, one
coachman, three chauffeurs, and several Chiswick boatmen extremely
intimately. Robert's principal friend outside the family was a bird
stuffer in Hammersmith; but he does not come into this story.
The Avories did not go to boarding school, or, indeed, to any school in
the ordinary way at all; Mrs. Avory said she could not spare them.
Instead they were visited every day except Saturdays by Mr. Crawley and
Miss Bingham, who taught them the things that one is supposed to
know--Mr. Crawley taking the boys in the old billiard room, and Miss
Bingham the girls in the morning room. At some of the lessons--such as
history--they all joined. The classes were attended also by the
Rotherams, the doctor's children, who lived at "Fir Grove," and Horace
Campbell, the only son of the vicar. So it was a kind of school, after
all.
Horace Campbell had always intended to be a cowboy when he grew up, but
a visit to a play called "Raffles" was now rather inclining him to
gentlemanly burglary. William Rotheram, like Gregory, leaned towards
flying; but Jack Rotheram voted steadily for the sea, and talked of
little but Osborne.
Mary Rotheram played with a bat almost as straight as "Plum" Warner's,
and she knew most of the old Somersetshire songs--"Mowing the Barley,"
and "Lord Rendal," and "Seventeen come Sunday"--by heart, and sang them
beautifully. Gregory, who used to revel in Sankey's hymns as sung by
Eliza Pollard, the parlourmaid, now thought that the Somerset music was
the only real kind. Mary Rotheram had a snub nose and quantities of
freckle and a very nice nature.
"The Gables" had a large garden, with a shrubbery of evergreens in it
and a cedar. It was not at all a garden-party garden, because there was
a well-worn cricketpitch right in the middle of the lawn, and Gregory
had a railway system where the best flowers ought to be; but it was a
garden full of fun, and old Kink, the gardener, managed to get a great
many vegetables out of it, too, although not so many as Collins thought
he ought to.
Collins was the cook, a fat, smiling, hot lady of about fifty, who had
been with Mrs. Avory ever since she married. Collins understood
children thoroughly, and made cakes that were rather wet underneath.
Her Yorkshire pudding (for Sunday's dinner) was famous, and her horse
radish sauce was so perfect that it brought tears to the eyes.
Collins collected picture postcards and adored the family. She had
never been cross to any of them, but her way with the butcher's boy and
the grocer's boy and the fishmonger's boy was terrible.
She snapped their heads off (so to speak) every morning, and old Kink
spent quite a lot of his time in rubbing from off the backdoor the
awful things they wrote about her in chalk.
The parlourmaid was Eliza Pollard, who had red hair and a kind heart,
but was continually falling out with her last young man and getting
another. She told Hester all about it. Hester had a special knack of
being told about the servants' young men, for she knew also all about
those of Eliza Pollard's predecessors.
The housemaid was Jane Masters, who helped Eliza Pollard to make the
beds. Jane Masters did not hold with fickleness in love--in fact, she
couldn't abide it--and therefore she was steadily true to a young man
called 'Erb, who looked after the lift at the Stores, and was a
particular friend of Gregory's in consequence. No man who had charge of
a lift could fail to be admired by Gregory.
Finally--and very likely she ought to have come first--was Runcie, or
Mrs. Runciman, who had not only been the nurse of all the Avories, but
of Mrs. Avory before them, when Mrs. Avory was a slip of a girl named
Janet Easton. Runcie was then quite young herself, and why she was
suddenly called Mrs. no one ever quite knew, for she had never married.
And now she was getting on for sixty, and had not much to do except
sympathize with the Avories and reprove the servants. She had a nice
sitting room of her own, where she sat comfortably every afternoon when
such work as she did was done, and received visits from her pets, as
she called the children (none of whom, however, was quite so dear to
her as their mother), and listened to their adventures.
On those evenings on which he came to "The Gables" Mr. Lenox always
looked in on her for a little gossip; and this was called his "runcible
spoon"--the joke being that Mr. Lenox and Runcie were engaged to be
married.
And now you know the Avory family root and branch.