_July the first in the year when I was eleven on August tenth._
Father has seen the real place, and, of course, knows all about it. He
says that it is just a lot of rough mountains, with bits of wall built
into the open places to connect them and make them strong.
But _we_ know that there are not one, but two Torres Vedrases--all on
one bend of a river. The first one is quite near the Low Park, between
the Weir and Jackson's Pool. It is a pebbly bar with a kind of green
tufty island. From one side of it there is a rippling ford crossing
slantwise, by which you can lose yourself barefooted in the woods on the
other side.
The water only takes you to about the knee, even if you are pretty
little. It is always one of the nicest places in the world. The water
makes a soft tinkling over the ford. The grasses and bluebells wave,
and the wind goes _sough_ through the big solid walls of pine on either
side.
Yes, it is first-rate to play there with your oldest things on,
especially on a warm day about this time of the year. The river is
pretty dry, and there is a great deal of pebbly bar, also the little
green island with rough grass on it has grown to about twice the size.
You can fortify this island, and it is fine to dig channels through the
bar for the water, with all sorts of lovely harbors and pleasure-lakes.
Once the boys and I made a channel right from one end of the bar to the
other, and father helped--and got wet too!
Yes, he did. We always encouraged him to get wet, by saying, "Oh, here
is a place we can't reach!" Because if _he_ got wet, we knew very well
there would be nothing said to us. Fathers are fearful nice and
useful--sometimes. Ours particularly when he helps us to play, and
forgets he isn't a boy. Oh, I can see quite well when he says to
himself, "I ought to be working--_but_--oh, bother, how much nicer it is
to dig in the sand with the other children!"
And then he took pictures of us--photographs, I mean--working at our
engineering, and building and paddling--oh, whole albums full. They
began when we were quite little tots. The best are of Maid Margaret and
Sir Toady. For I was too old, I suppose, to look nice stuck among trees,
and Hugh John hated so being photographed. When told to, he stood up
stiff like a stork on one leg. But Sir Toady was usually as nice as pie,
being made that way, and as for the Maid, she always looks natural
whatever she is doing.
Father has a whole set called the History of a Biscuit. It is only the
Maid eating one. But it is funny to see it getting smaller and smaller
till it is all gone. They are flashed on quickly by our magic lantern,
and we children go wild when it comes to the funny ones. The grand
exhibitions are for winter nights. Then we are well wrapped up in gray
Harris cloaks and come up, closely marshaled by Somebody to see that we
don't snowball too much. They are quite lovely, these nights, with the
snow crisping under our feet, and Somebody carrying a swig-swagging
lantern before us--everybody's shadow swaying tipsily about, and the sky
so near and so thick with stars that it seems as if you had only to put
up your hand to catch a whole cluster.
There are usually many pictures of this first Torres, because we were
younger, and it is a prettier place. We wore little red coats with big
white buttons then, and marched regularly like soldiers. Hugh John beat
us on the legs if we did not. He had a switch for the purpose, and he
said that was the way the father of Frederick the Great did to make his
son turn out a good soldier.
But we didn't care about such very practical history, and it made our
legs sore--especially us girls, who wore thinner stockings. So there was
a regular mutiny, and the whole army was degraded. You see, we were all
generals--except Boss, our fox-terrier, who was named Inspector-General
of Communications, because he ran from side to side of the road
sniffing, and nothing or nobody could stop him. So, as Boss did not join
the mutiny--not knowing how--he was promoted next in rank after the
Commander-in-Chief, who was Hugh John. _He_ was permanent Commander,
because, you see, he could lick the whole standing army even if it
attacked him on all sides at once.
Sir Toady and Bobby Coates were the ring-leaders of the revolt, and they
called out, "Hem him in! Hem him in!" But, you see, that was the very
thing Hugh John wanted, and the more they "hemmed," the harder he laid
into them till Bobby said he would tell his father, which he did. But
Mr. Coates was a sensible man, and only said that he was all the better
for a "hiding," and that if he came bothering him any more, he would
give him another on his own account! So after that Bobby Coates became a
good soldier, and lived long as an ornament to the service.
Yes, the nursery army was good fun while it lasted, before we all split
up and went to different schools. We tried it once after in the first
vacation. But somehow it wasn't the same, and ended in a fight. You see,
the boys especially had learned a good deal between them, and though it
made no difference to Hugh John, the others kept squabbling all the
time, and saying how much better they did things at their school than at
any other--which was not at all the way they talked about their school
in private.
_Then_ "school was a beastly hole." The masters were "Old Buster,"
"Plummy," "Sick Cat," and "The Dishlicker"!
But to hear them talking to one another you would have thought that at
least half what was said on the prospectus was Gospel Truth. Yes, and
ever so much more. And it was "The Doctor," and "Mr. Traynor, the Head
of our House, who made a double century in the ''Varsity' match, and is
the best bowler in the whole world!"
Going down by Torres there is a darkish place, all yew-trees, very
ancient, and there sometimes we would see one of the maids walking
arm-in-arm with a young man. Of course, though we thought it very silly,
we never told the Grown-ups. We knew by instinct that we must not. Then
after a month or two the cook or the housemaid or the under-nurse would
come and say she was "leaving to get married."
Of course we never let on that we knew it all before. But we thought her
very silly to leave a place where she could have stayed for ever at good
wages (ever so much better than our weekly ones) just to go and do
housework for somebody who never paid her any wages at all!
All this comes into the history of the First Torres Vedras, and of
course I ought to have done it properly, like in a school history, all
in order, with dates at the sides and notes at the bottom of each page.
But being only a little girl, it has got to be written just so, or not
at all. I am so afraid that I shall forget these things as I grow up--so
I put them down as I remember them in my Dear Diary.