'No, I sha'n't. It's my look out, anyhow. Do shut up,' said the
Princess, stamping her foot. 'Now then, Ken, go ahead. Ken, you say, "Oh
Lady, I faint with rapture!"'
'I faint with rapture,' said Kenneth stolidly. 'Now I land, don't I?'
He landed and stared at the jewelled hand the Princess held out.
'At last, at last,' she said, 'but you ought to say that, Ken. I say, I
think I'd better be an eloping Princess, and then I can come in the
boat. Rudel dies really, but that's so dull. Lead me to your ship, oh
noble stranger! for you have won the Princess, and with you I will live
and die. Give me your hand, can't you, silly, and do mind my train.'
So Kenneth led her to the boat, and with some difficulty, for the satin
train got between her feet, she managed to flounder into the punt.
'Now you stand and bow,' she said. 'Fair Rudel, with this ring I thee
wed,' she pressed a large amethyst ring into his hand, 'remember that
the Princess of Tripoli is yours for ever. Now let's sing _Integer
Vitae_ because it's Latin.'
So they sat in the boat and sang. And presently the servants came out to
listen and admire, and at the sound of the servants' approach the
Princess veiled her shining splendour.
'It's prettier than wot the Coventry pageant was, so it is,' said the
cook, 'but it's long past your bed times. So come on out of that there
dangerous boat, there's dears.'
So then the children went to bed. And when the house was quiet again,
Alison slipped down and put back Ethel's jewelry, fitting the things
into their cases and boxes as correctly as she could. 'Ethel won't
notice,' she thought, but of course Ethel did.
So that next day each child was asked separately by Ethel's mother who
had been playing with Ethel's jewelry. And Conrad and George said they
would rather not say. This was a form they always used in that family
when that sort of question was asked, and it meant, 'It wasn't me, and I
don't want to sneak.'
And when it came to Alison's turn, she found to her surprise and horror
that instead of saying, 'I played with them,' she had said, 'I would
rather not say.'
Of course the mother thought that it was Kenneth who had had the jewels
to play with. So when it came to his turn he was not asked the same
question as the others, but his aunt said:
'Kenneth, you are a very naughty little boy to take your cousin Ethel's
jewelry to play with.'
'I didn't,' said Kenneth.
'Hush! hush!' said the aunt, 'do not make your fault worse by
untruthfulness. And what have you done with the amethyst ring?'
Kenneth was just going to say that he had given it back to Alison, when
he saw that this would be sneakish. So he said, getting hot to the ears,
'You don't suppose I've stolen your beastly ring, do you, Auntie?'
'Don't you dare to speak to me like that,' the aunt very naturally
replied. 'No, Kenneth, I do not think you would steal, but the ring is
missing and it must be found.'
Kenneth was furious and frightened. He stood looking down and kicking
the leg of the chair.
'You had better look for it. You will have plenty of time, because I
shall not allow you to go to the picnic with the others. The mere taking
of the jewelry was wrong, but if you had owned your fault and asked
Ethel's pardon, I should have overlooked it. But you have told me an
untruth and you have lost the ring. You are a very wicked child, and it
will make your dear mother very unhappy when she hears of it. That her
boy should be a liar. It is worse than being a thief!'
At this Kenneth's fortitude gave way, and he lost his head. 'Oh, don't,'
he said, 'I didn't. I didn't. I didn't. Oh! don't tell mother I'm a
thief and a liar. Oh! Aunt Effie, please, _please_ don't.' And with that
he began to cry.
Any doubts Aunt Effie might have had were settled by this outbreak. It
was now quite plain to her that Kenneth had really intended to keep the
ring.
'You will remain in your room till the picnic party has started,' the
aunt went on, 'and then you must find the ring. Remember I expect it to
be found when I return. And I hope you will be in a better frame of mind
and really sorry for having been so wicked.'
'Mayn't I see Alison?' was all he found to say.
And the answer was, 'Certainly not. I cannot allow you to associate with
your cousins. You are not fit to be with honest, truthful children.'
So they all went to the picnic, and Kenneth was left alone. When they
had gone he crept down and wandered furtively through the empty rooms,
ashamed to face the servants, and feeling almost as wicked as though he
had really done something wrong. He thought about it all, over and over
again, and the more he thought the more certain he was that he _had_
handed back the ring to Alison last night when the voices of the
servants were first heard from the dark lawn.
But what was the use of saying so? No one would believe him, and it
would be sneaking anyhow. Besides, perhaps he _hadn't_ handed it back to
her. Or rather, perhaps he had handed it and she hadn't taken it.
Perhaps it had slipped into the boat. He would go and see.
But he did not find it in the boat, though he turned up the carpet and
even took up the boards to look. And then an extremely miserable little
boy began to search for an amethyst ring in all sorts of impossible
places, indoors and out. You know the hopeless way in which you look for
things that you know perfectly well you will never find, the borrowed
penknife that you dropped in the woods, for instance, or the week's
pocket-money which slipped through that hole in your pocket as you went
to the village to spend it.
The servants gave him his meals and told him to cheer up. But cheering
up and Kenneth were, for the time, strangers. People in books never can
eat when they are in trouble, but I have noticed myself that if the
trouble has gone on for some hours, eating is really rather a comfort.
You don't enjoy eating so much as usual, perhaps, but at any rate it is
something to do, and takes the edge off your sorrow for a short time.
And cook was sorry for Kenneth and sent him up a very nice dinner and a
very nice tea. Roast chicken and gooseberry pie the dinner was, and for
tea there was cake with almond icing on it.
The sun was very low when he went back wearily to have one more look in
the boat for that detestable amethyst ring. Of course it was not there.
And the picnic party would be home soon. And he really did not know what
his aunt would do to him.
'Shut me up in a dark cupboard, perhaps,' he thought gloomily, 'or put
me to bed all day to-morrow. Or give me lines to write out, thousands,
and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, and thousands, of them.'
The boat, set in motion by his stepping into it, swung out to the full
length of its rope. The sun was shining almost level across the water.
It was a very still evening, and the reflections of the trees and of the
house were as distinct as the house and the trees themselves. And the
water was unusually clear. He could see the fish swimming about, and the
sand and pebbles at the bottom of the moat. How clear and quiet it
looked down there, and what fun the fishes seemed to be having.
'I wish I was a fish,' said Kenneth. 'Nobody punishes _them_ for taking
rings they _didn't_ take.'
And then suddenly he saw the ring itself, lying calm, and quiet, and
round, and shining, on the smooth sand at the bottom of the moat.
He reached for the boat-hook and leaned over the edge of the boat trying
to get up the ring on the boat-hook's point. Then there was a splash.
'Good gracious! I wonder what that is?' said cook in the kitchen, and
dropped the saucepan with the welsh rabbit in it which she had just made
for kitchen supper.
Kenneth had leaned out too far over the edge of the boat, the boat had
suddenly decided to go the other way, and Kenneth had fallen into the
water.
The first thing he felt was delicious coolness, the second that his
clothes had gone, and the next thing he noticed was that he was swimming
quite easily and comfortably under water, and that he had no trouble
with his breathing, such as people who tell you not to fall into water
seem to expect you to have. Also he could see quite well, which he had
never been able to do under water before.
'I can't think,' he said to himself, 'why people make so much fuss about
your falling into the water. I sha'n't be in a hurry to get out. I'll
swim right round the moat while I'm about it.'
[Illustration: There was a splash.]
It was a very much longer swim than he expected, and as he swam he
noticed one or two things that struck him as rather odd. One was that he
couldn't see his hands. And another was that he couldn't feel his feet.
And he met some enormous fishes, like great cod or halibut, they seemed.
He had had no idea that there were fresh-water fish of that size.
They towered above him more like men-o'-war than fish, and he was
rather glad to get past them. There were numbers of smaller fishes, some
about his own size, he thought. They seemed to be enjoying themselves
extremely, and he admired the clever quickness with which they darted
out of the way of the great hulking fish.
And then suddenly he ran into something hard and very solid, and a voice
above him said crossly:
'Now then, who are you a-shoving of? Can't you keep your eyes open, and
keep your nose out of gentlemen's shirt fronts?'
'I beg your pardon,' said Kenneth, trying to rub his nose, and not being
able to. 'I didn't know people could talk under water,' he added very
much astonished to find that talking under water was as easy to him as
swimming there.
'Fish can talk under water, of course,' said the voice, 'if they didn't,
they'd never talk at all: they certainly can't talk _out_ of it.'
'But I'm not a fish,' said Kenneth, and felt himself grin at the absurd
idea.
'Yes, you are,' said the voice, 'of course you're a fish,' and Kenneth,
with a shiver of certainty, felt that the voice spoke the truth. He
_was_ a fish. He must have become a fish at the very moment when he fell
into the water. That accounted for his not being able to see his hands
or feel his feet. Because of course his hands were fins and his feet
were a tail.
'Who are you?' he asked the voice, and his own voice trembled.
'I'm the Doyen Carp,' said the voice. 'You must be a very new fish
indeed or you'd know that. Come up, and let's have a look at you.'
Kenneth came up and found himself face to face with an enormous fish who
had round staring eyes and a mouth that opened and shut continually. It
opened square like a kit-bag, and it shut with an extremely sour and
severe expression like that of an offended rhinoceros.
'Yes,' said the Carp, 'you _are_ a new fish. Who put you in?'
'I fell in,' said Kenneth, 'out of the boat, but I'm not a fish at all,
really I'm not. I'm a boy, but I don't suppose you'll believe me.'
'Why shouldn't I believe you?' asked the Carp wagging a slow fin.
'Nobody tells untruths under water.'
And if you come to think of it, no one ever does.
'Tell me your true story,' said the Carp very lazily. And Kenneth told
it.
'Ah! these humans!' said the Carp when he had done. 'Always in such a
hurry to think the worst of everybody!' He opened his mouth squarely and
shut it contemptuously. 'You're jolly lucky, you are. Not one boy in a
million turns into a fish, let me tell you.'
'Do you mean that I've got to _go on_ being a fish?' Kenneth asked.
'Of course you'll go on being a fish as long as you stop in the water.
You couldn't live here, you know, if you weren't.'
'I might if I was an eel,' said Kenneth, and thought himself very
clever.
'Well, _be_ an eel then,' said the Carp, and swam away sneering and
stately. Kenneth had to swim his hardest to catch up.
'Then if I get out of the water, shall I be a boy again?' he asked
panting.
'Of course, silly,' said the Carp, 'only you can't get out.'
'Oh! can't I?' said Kenneth the fish, whisked his tail and swam off. He
went straight back to the amethyst ring, picked it up in his mouth, and
swam into the shallows at the edge of the moat. Then he tried to climb
up the slanting mud and on to the grassy bank, but the grass hurt his
fins horribly, and when he put his nose out of the water, the air
stifled him, and he was glad to slip back again. Then he tried to jump
out of the water, but he could only jump straight up into the air, so of
course he fell straight down again into the water. He began to be
afraid, and the thought that perhaps he was doomed to remain for ever a
fish was indeed a terrible one. He wanted to cry, but the tears would
not come out of his eyes. Perhaps there was no room for any more water
in the moat.
The smaller fishes called to him in a friendly jolly way to come and
play with them--they were having a quite exciting game of
follow-my-leader among some enormous water-lily stalks that looked like
trunks of great trees. But Kenneth had no heart for games just then.
He swam miserably round the moat looking for the old Carp, his only
acquaintance in this strange wet world. And at last, pushing through a
thick tangle of water weeds he found the great fish.
'Now then,' said the Carp testily, 'haven't you any better manners than
to come tearing a gentleman's bed-curtains like that?'
'I beg your pardon,' said Kenneth Fish, 'but I know how clever you are.
Do please help me.'
'What do you want now?' said the Carp, and spoke a little less crossly.
'I want to get out. I want to go and be a boy again.'
'But you must have said you wanted to be a fish.'
'I didn't mean it, if I did.'
'You shouldn't say what you don't mean.'
'I'll try not to again,' said Kenneth humbly, 'but how can I get out?'
'There's only one way,' said the Carp rolling his vast body over in his
watery bed, 'and a jolly unpleasant way it is. Far better stay here and
be a good little fish. On the honour of a gentleman that's the best
thing you can do.'
'I want to get out,' said Kenneth again.
'Well then, the only way is ... you know we always teach the young fish
to look out for hooks so that they may avoid them. _You_ must look out
for a hook and _take it_. Let them catch you. On a hook.'
The Carp shuddered and went on solemnly, 'Have you strength? Have you
patience? Have you high courage and determination? You will want them
all. Have you all these?'
'I don't know what I've got,' said poor Kenneth, 'except that I've got a
tail and fins, and I don't know a hook when I see it. Won't you come
with me? Oh! dear Mr. Doyen Carp, _do_ come and show me a hook.'
'It will hurt you,' said the Carp, 'very much indeed. You take a
gentleman's word for it.'
'I know,' said Kenneth, 'you needn't rub it in.'
The Carp rolled heavily out of his bed.
'Come on then,' he said, 'I don't admire your taste, but if you _want_ a
hook, well, the gardener's boy is fishing in the cool of the evening.
Come on.'
He led the way with a steady stately movement.
'I want to take the ring with me,' said Kenneth, 'but I can't get hold
of it. Do you think you could put it on my fin with your snout?'
'My what!' shouted the old Carp indignantly and stopped dead.
'Your nose, I meant,' said Kenneth. 'Oh! please don't be angry. It would
be so kind of you if you would. Shove the ring on, I mean.'
'That will hurt too,' said the Carp, and Kenneth thought he seemed not
altogether sorry that it should.
It did hurt very much indeed. The ring was hard and heavy, and somehow
Kenneth's fin would not fold up small enough for the ring to slip over
it, and the Carp's big mouth was rather clumsy at the work. But at last
it was done. And then they set out in search of a hook for Kenneth to be
caught with.
'I wish we could find one! I wish we could!' Kenneth Fish kept saying.
'You're just looking for trouble,' said the Carp. 'Well, here you are!'
Above them in the clear water hung a delicious-looking worm. Kenneth Boy
did not like worms any better than you do, but to Kenneth Fish that worm
looked most tempting and delightful.
'Just wait a sec.,' he said, 'till I get that worm.'
'You little silly,' said the Carp, '_that's the hook_. Take it.'
'Wait a sec.,' said Kenneth again.
His courage was beginning to ooze out of his fin tips, and a shiver ran
down him from gills to tail.
'If you once begin to think about a hook you never take it,' said the
Carp.
'_Never?_' said Kenneth 'Then ... oh! good-bye!' he cried desperately,
and snapped at the worm. A sharp pain ran through his head and he felt
himself drawn up into the air, that stifling, choking, husky, thick
stuff in which fish cannot breathe. And as he swung in the air the
dreadful thought came to him, 'Suppose I don't turn into a boy again?
Suppose I keep being a fish?' And then he wished he hadn't. But it was
too late to wish that.
Everything grew quite dark, only inside his head there seemed to be a
light. There was a wild, rushing, buzzing noise, then something in his
head seemed to break and he knew no more.
* * * * *
When presently he knew things again, he was lying on something hard. Was
he Kenneth Fish lying on a stone at the bottom of the moat, or Kenneth
Boy lying somewhere out of the water? His breathing was all right, so he
wasn't a fish out of water or a boy under it.
'He's coming to,' said a voice. The Carp's he thought it was. But next
moment he knew it to be the voice of his aunt, and he moved his hand and
felt grass in it. He opened his eyes and saw above him the soft gray of
the evening sky with a star or two.
'Here's the ring, Aunt,' he said.
* * * * *
[Illustration: 'Oh, good-bye!' he cried desperately, and snapped at the
worm.]
The cook had heard a splash and had run out just as the picnic party
arrived at the front door. They had all rushed to the moat, and the
uncle had pulled Kenneth out with the boat-hook. He had not been in the
water more than three minutes, they said. But Kenneth knew better.
They carried him in, very wet he was, and laid him on the breakfast-room
sofa, where the aunt with hurried thoughtfulness had spread out the
uncle's mackintosh.
'Get some rough towels, Jane,' said the aunt. 'Make haste, do.'
'I got the ring,' said Kenneth.
'Never mind about the ring, dear,' said the aunt, taking his boots off.
'But you said I was a thief and a liar,' Kenneth said feebly, 'and it
was in the moat all the time.'
'_Mother!_' it was Alison who shrieked. 'You didn't say that to him?'
'Of course I didn't,' said the aunt impatiently. She thought she hadn't,
but then Kenneth thought she had.
'It was _me_ took the ring,' said Alison, 'and I dropped it. I didn't
say I hadn't. I only said I'd rather not say. Oh Mother! poor Kenneth!'
The aunt, without a word, carried Kenneth up to the bath-room and turned
on the hot-water tap. The uncle and Ethel followed.
'Why didn't you own up, you sneak?' said Conrad to his sister with
withering scorn.
'Sneak,' echoed the stout George.
'I meant to. I was only getting steam up,' sobbed Alison. 'I didn't
know. Mother only told us she wasn't pleased with Ken, and so he wasn't
to go to the picnic. Oh! what shall I do? What shall I do?'
'Sneak!' said her brothers in chorus, and left her to her tears of shame
and remorse.
It was Kenneth who next day begged every one to forgive and forget. And
as it was _his_ day--rather like a birthday, you know--when no one could
refuse him anything, all agreed that the whole affair should be buried
in oblivion. Every one was tremendously kind, the aunt more so than any
one. But Alison's eyes were still red when in the afternoon they all
went fishing once more. And before Kenneth's hook had been two minutes
in the water there was a bite, a very big fish, the uncle had to be
called from his study to land it.
'Here's a magnificent fellow,' said the uncle. 'Not an ounce less than
two pounds, Ken. I'll have it stuffed for you.'
And he held out the fish and Kenneth found himself face to face with the
Doyen Carp. There was no mistaking that mouth that opened like a
kit-bag, and shut in a sneer like a rhinoceros's. Its eye was most
reproachful.
'Oh! no,' cried Kenneth, 'you helped me back and I'll help you back,'
and he caught the Carp from the hands of the uncle and flung it out in
the moat.
'Your head's not quite right yet, my boy,' said the uncle kindly.
'Hadn't you better go in and lie down a bit?'
But Alison understood, for he had told her the whole story. He had told
her that morning before breakfast while she was still in deep disgrace;
to cheer her up, he said. And, most disappointingly, it made her cry
more than ever.
'Your poor little fins,' she had said, 'and having your feet tied up in
your tail. And it was all my fault.'
'I liked it,' Kenneth had said with earnest politeness, 'it was a most
awful lark.' And he quite meant what he said.