This is the story of one of the most far-reaching and influentially
naughty things we ever did in our lives. We did not mean to do such
a deed. And yet we did do it. These things will happen with the
best-regulated consciences.
The story of this rash and fatal act is intimately involved--which means
all mixed up anyhow--with a private affair of Oswald’s, and the one
cannot be revealed without the other. Oswald does not particularly want
his story to be remembered, but he wishes to tell the truth, and perhaps
it is what father calls a wholesome discipline to lay bare the awful
facts.
It was like this.
On Alice’s and Noel’s birthday we went on the river for a picnic. Before
that we had not known that there was a river so near us. Afterwards
father said he wished we had been allowed to remain on our pristine
ignorance, whatever that is. And perhaps the dark hour did dawn when we
wished so too. But a truce to vain regrets.
It was rather a fine thing in birthdays. The uncle sent a box of toys
and sweets, things that were like a vision from another and a brighter
world. Besides that Alice had a knife, a pair of shut-up scissors, a
silk handkerchief, a book--it was The Golden Age and is A1 except where
it gets mixed with grown-up nonsense. Also a work-case lined with pink
plush, a boot-bag, which no one in their senses would use because it
had flowers in wool all over it. And she had a box of chocolates and a
musical box that played ‘The Man who broke’ and two other tunes, and two
pairs of kid gloves for church, and a box of writing-paper--pink--with
‘Alice’ on it in gold writing, and an egg coloured red that said ‘A.
Bastable’ in ink on one side. These gifts were the offerings of Oswald,
Dora, Dicky, Albert’s uncle, Daisy, Mr Foulkes (our own robber), Noel,
H. O., father and Denny. Mrs Pettigrew gave the egg. It was a kindly
housekeeper’s friendly token.
I shall not tell you about the picnic on the river because the happiest
times form but dull reading when they are written down. I will merely
state that it was prime. Though happy, the day was uneventful. The only
thing exciting enough to write about was in one of the locks, where
there was a snake--a viper. It was asleep in a warm sunny corner of the
lock gate, and when the gate was shut it fell off into the water.
Alice and Dora screamed hideously. So did Daisy, but her screams were
thinner.
The snake swam round and round all the time our boat was in the lock.
It swam with four inches of itself--the head end--reared up out of the
water, exactly like Kaa in the Jungle Book--so we know Kipling is a true
author and no rotter. We were careful to keep our hands well inside the
boat. A snake’s eyes strike terror into the boldest breast.
When the lock was full father killed the viper with a boat-hook. I was
sorry for it myself. It was indeed a venomous serpent. But it was the
first we had ever seen, except at the Zoo. And it did swim most awfully
well.
Directly the snake had been killed H. O. reached out for its corpse,
and the next moment the body of our little brother was seen wriggling
conclusively on the boat’s edge. This exciting spectacle was not of
a lasting nature. He went right in. Father clawed him out. He is very
unlucky with water.
Being a birthday, but little was said. H. O. was wrapped in everybody’s
coats, and did not take any cold at all.
This glorious birthday ended with an iced cake and ginger wine, and
drinking healths. Then we played whatever we liked. There had been
rounders during the afternoon. It was a day to be for ever marked by
memory’s brightest what’s-its-name.
I should not have said anything about the picnic but for one thing. It
was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the all-powerful lever that moved
but too many events. You see, WE WERE NO LONGER STRANGERS TO THE RIVER.
And we went there whenever we could. Only we had to take the dogs, and
to promise no bathing without grown-ups. But paddling in back waters was
allowed. I say no more.
I have not numerated Noel’s birthday presents because I wish to leave
something to the imagination of my young readers. (The best authors
always do this.) If you will take the large, red catalogue of the Army
and Navy Stores, and just make a list of about fifteen of the things you
would like best--prices from 2s. to 25s.--you will get a very good idea
of Noel’s presents, and it will help you to make up your mind in case
you are asked just before your next birthday what you really NEED.
One of Noel’s birthday presents was a cricket ball. He cannot bowl for
nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the birthday
Oswald offered him to exchange it for a coconut he had won at the fair,
and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and
he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noel at the
time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it
wasn’t fair, and Oswald had the best of it. And then that young beggar
Noel wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not angry, was firm.
‘You said it was a bargain, and you shook hands on it,’ he said, and he
said it quite kindly and calmly.
Noel said he didn’t care. He wanted his cricket ball back. And the girls
said it was a horrid shame.
If they had not said that, Oswald might yet have consented to let Noel
have the beastly ball, but now, of course, he was not going to. He
said--
‘Oh, yes, I daresay. And then you would be wanting the coconut and
things again the next minute.’
‘No, I shouldn’t,’ Noel said. It turned out afterwards he and H. O.
had eaten the coconut, which only made it worse. And it made them worse
too--which is what the book calls poetic justice.
Dora said, ‘I don’t think it was fair,’ and even Alice said--
‘Do let him have it back, Oswald.’
I wish to be just to Alice. She did not know then about the coconut
having been secretly wolfed up.
We were in the garden. Oswald felt all the feelings of the hero when
the opposing forces gathered about him are opposing as hard as ever they
can. He knew he was not unfair, and he did not like to be jawed at just
because Noel had eaten the coconut and wanted the ball back. Though
Oswald did not know then about the eating of the coconut, but he felt
the injustice in his soul all the same.
Noel said afterwards he meant to offer Oswald something else to make up
for the coconut, but he said nothing about this at the time.
‘Give it me, I say,’ Noel said.
And Oswald said, ‘Shan’t!’
Then Noel called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but
just kept smiling pleasantly, and carelessly throwing up the ball and
catching it again with an air of studied indifference.
It was Martha’s fault that what happened happened. She is the bull-dog,
and very stout and heavy. She had just been let loose and she came
bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on Oswald, who is
beloved by all dumb animals. (You know how sagacious they are.) Well,
Martha knocked the ball out of Oswald’s hands, and it fell on the grass,
and Noel pounced on it like a hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald would
scorn to deny that he was not going to stand this, and the next moment
the two were rolling over on the grass, and very soon Noel was made to
bite the dust. And serve him right. He is old enough to know his own
mind.
Then Oswald walked slowly away with the ball, and the others picked Noel
up, and consoled the beaten, but Dicky would not take either side.
And Oswald went up into his own room and lay on his bed, and reflected
gloomy reflections about unfairness.
Presently he thought he would like to see what the others were doing
without their knowing he cared. So he went into the linen-room and
looked out of its window, and he saw they were playing Kings and
Queens--and Noel had the biggest paper crown and the longest stick
sceptre.
Oswald turned away without a word, for it really was sickening.
Then suddenly his weary eyes fell upon something they had not before
beheld. It was a square trap-door in the ceiling of the linen-room.
Oswald never hesitated. He crammed the cricket ball into his pocket and
climbed up the shelves and unbolted the trap-door, and shoved it up,
and pulled himself up through it. Though above all was dark and smelt
of spiders, Oswald fearlessly shut the trap-door down again before he
struck a match. He always carries matches. He is a boy fertile in every
subtle expedient. Then he saw he was in the wonderful, mysterious place
between the ceiling and the roof of the house. The roof is beams
and tiles. Slits of light show through the tiles here and there. The
ceiling, on its other and top side, is made of rough plaster and beams.
If you walk on the beams it is all right--if you walk on the plaster you
go through with your feet. Oswald found this out later, but some fine
instinct now taught the young explorer where he ought to tread and where
not. It was splendid. He was still very angry with the others and he was
glad he had found out a secret they jolly well didn’t know.
He walked along a dark, narrow passage. Every now and then cross-beams
barred his way, and he had to creep under them. At last a small door
loomed before him with cracks of light under and over. He drew back the
rusty bolts and opened it. It opened straight on to the leads, a flat
place between two steep red roofs, with a parapet two feet high back and
front, so that no one could see you. It was a place no one could have
invented better than, if they had tried, for hiding in.
Oswald spent the whole afternoon there. He happened to have a volume of
Percy’s Anecdotes in his pocket, the one about lawyers, as well as a
few apples. While he read he fingered the cricket ball, and presently it
rolled away, and he thought he would get it by-and-by.
When the tea-bell rang he forgot the ball and went hurriedly down, for
apples do not keep the inside from the pangs of hunger.
Noel met him on the landing, got red in the face, and said--
‘It wasn’t QUITE fair about the ball, because H. O. and I had eaten the
coconut. YOU can have it.’
‘I don’t want your beastly ball,’ Oswald said, ‘only I hate unfairness.
However, I don’t know where it is just now. When I find it you shall
have it to bowl with as often as you want.’
‘Then you’re not waxy?’
And Oswald said ‘No’ and they went in to tea together. So that was all
right. There were raisin cakes for tea.
Next day we happened to want to go down to the river quite early. I
don’t know why; this is called Fate, or Destiny. We dropped in at the
‘Rose and Crown’ for some ginger-beer on our way. The landlady is a
friend of ours and lets us drink it in her back parlour, instead of in
the bar, which would be improper for girls.
We found her awfully busy, making pies and jellies, and her two sisters
were hurrying about with great hams, and pairs of chickens, and rounds
of cold beef and lettuces, and pickled salmon and trays of crockery and
glasses.
‘It’s for the angling competition,’ she said.
We said, ‘What’s that?’
‘Why,’ she said, slicing cucumber like beautiful machinery while she
said it, ‘a lot of anglers come down some particular day and fish one
particular bit of the river. And the one that catches most fish gets the
prize. They’re fishing the pen above Stoneham Lock. And they all come
here to dinner. So I’ve got my hands full and a trifle over.’
We said, ‘Couldn’t we help?’
But she said, ‘Oh, no, thank you. Indeed not, please. I really am so I
don’t know which way to turn. Do run along, like dears.’
So we ran along like these timid but graceful animals.
Need I tell the intellectual reader that we went straight off to the pen
above Stoneham Lock to see the anglers competing? Angling is the same
thing as fishing.
I am not going to try and explain locks to you. If you’ve never seen
a lock you could never understand even if I wrote it in words of one
syllable and pages and pages long. And if you have, you’ll understand
without my telling you. It is harder than Euclid if you don’t know
beforehand. But you might get a grown-up person to explain it to you
with books or wooden bricks.
I will tell you what a pen is because that is easy. It is the bit of
river between one lock and the next. In some rivers ‘pens’ are called
‘reaches’, but pen is the proper word.
We went along the towing-path; it is shady with willows, aspens,
alders, elders, oaks and other trees. On the banks are flowers--yarrow,
meadow-sweet, willow herb, loosestrife, and lady’s bed-straw. Oswald
learned the names of all these trees and plants on the day of the
picnic. The others didn’t remember them, but Oswald did. He is a boy of
what they call relenting memory.
The anglers were sitting here and there on the shady bank among the
grass and the different flowers I have named. Some had dogs with them,
and some umbrellas, and some had only their wives and families.
We should have liked to talk to them and ask how they liked their lot,
and what kinds of fish there were, and whether they were nice to eat,
but we did not like to.
Denny had seen anglers before and he knew they liked to be talked to,
but though he spoke to them quite like to equals he did not ask the
things we wanted to know. He just asked whether they’d had any luck, and
what bait they used.
And they answered him back politely. I am glad I am not an angler.
It is an immovable amusement, and, as often as not, no fish to speak of
after all.
Daisy and Dora had stayed at home: Dora’s foot was nearly well but they
seem really to like sitting still. I think Dora likes to have a little
girl to order about. Alice never would stand it. When we got to Stoneham
Lock Denny said he should go home and fetch his fishing-rod. H. O. went
with him. This left four of us--Oswald, Alice, Dicky, and Noel. We went
on down the towing-path. The lock shuts up (that sounds as if it was
like the lock on a door, but it is very otherwise) between one pen of
the river and the next; the pen where the anglers were was full right
up over the roots of the grass and flowers. But the pen below was nearly
empty.
‘You can see the poor river’s bones,’ Noel said.
And so you could.
Stones and mud and dried branches, and here and there an old kettle or a
tin pail with no bottom to it, that some bargee had chucked in.
From walking so much along the river we knew many of the bargees.
Bargees are the captains and crews of the big barges that are pulled up
and down the river by slow horses. The horses do not swim. They walk
on the towing-path, with a rope tied to them, and the other end to the
barge. So it gets pulled along. The bargees we knew were a good friendly
sort, and used to let us go all over the barges when they were in a good
temper. They were not at all the sort of bullying, cowardly fiends
in human form that the young hero at Oxford fights a crowd of,
single-handed, in books.
The river does not smell nice when its bones are showing. But we went
along down, because Oswald wanted to get some cobbler’s wax in Falding
village for a bird-net he was making.
But just above Falding Lock, where the river is narrow and straight, we
saw a sad and gloomy sight--a big barge sitting flat on the mud because
there was not water enough to float her.
There was no one on board, but we knew by a red flannel waistcoat that
was spread out to dry on top that the barge belonged to friends of ours.
Then Alice said, ‘They have gone to find the man who turns on the water
to fill the pen. I daresay they won’t find him. He’s gone to his dinner,
I shouldn’t wonder. What a lovely surprise it would be if they came back
to find their barge floating high and dry on a lot of water! DO let’s
do it. It’s a long time since any of us did a kind action deserving of
being put in the Book of Golden Deeds.’
We had given that name to the minute-book of that beastly ‘Society of
the Wouldbegoods’. Then you could think of the book if you wanted to
without remembering the Society. I always tried to forget both of them.
Oswald said, ‘But how? YOU don’t know how. And if you did we haven’t got
a crowbar.’
I cannot help telling you that locks are opened with crowbars. You push
and push till a thing goes up and the water runs through. It is rather
like the little sliding door in the big door of a hen-house.
‘I know where the crowbar is,’ Alice said. ‘Dicky and I were down here
yesterday when you were su--’ She was going to say sulking, I know, but
she remembered manners ere too late so Oswald bears her no malice. She
went on: ‘Yesterday, when you were upstairs. And we saw the water-tender
open the lock and the weir sluices. It’s quite easy, isn’t it, Dicky?’
‘As easy as kiss your hand,’ said Dicky; ‘and what’s more, I know where
he keeps the other thing he opens the sluices with. I votes we do.’
‘Do let’s, if we can,’ Noel said, ‘and the bargees will bless the names
of their unknown benefactors. They might make a song about us, and sing
it on winter nights as they pass round the wassail bowl in front of the
cabin fire.’
Noel wanted to very much; but I don’t think it was altogether for
generousness, but because he wanted to see how the sluices opened. Yet
perhaps I do but wrong the boy.
We sat and looked at the barge a bit longer, and then Oswald said, well,
he didn’t mind going back to the lock and having a look at the crowbars.
You see Oswald did not propose this; he did not even care very much
about it when Alice suggested it.
But when we got to Stoneham Lock, and Dicky dragged the two heavy
crowbars from among the elder bushes behind a fallen tree, and began to
pound away at the sluice of the lock, Oswald felt it would not be manly
to stand idly apart. So he took his turn.
It was very hard work but we opened the lock sluices, and we did not
drop the crowbar into the lock either, as I have heard of being done by
older and sillier people.
The water poured through the sluices all green and solid, as if it had
been cut with a knife, and where it fell on the water underneath the
white foam spread like a moving counterpane. When we had finished the
lock we did the weir--which is wheels and chains--and the water pours
through over the stones in a magnificent waterfall and sweeps out all
round the weir-pool.
The sight of the foaming waterfalls was quite enough reward for our
heavy labours, even without the thought of the unspeakable gratitude
that the bargees would feel to us when they got back to their barge and
found her no longer a stick-in-the-mud, but bounding on the free bosom
of the river.
When we had opened all the sluices we gazed awhile on the beauties of
Nature, and then went home, because we thought it would be more truly
noble and good not to wait to be thanked for our kind and devoted
action--and besides, it was nearly dinner-time and Oswald thought it was
going to rain.
On the way home we agreed not to tell the others, because it would be
like boasting of our good acts.
‘They will know all about it,’ Noel said, ‘when they hear us being
blessed by the grateful bargees, and the tale of the Unknown Helpers is
being told by every village fireside. And then they can write it in the
Golden Deed book.’
So we went home. Denny and H. O. had thought better of it, and they were
fishing in the moat. They did not catch anything.
Oswald is very weather-wise--at least, so I have heard it said, and he
had thought there would be rain. There was. It came on while we were
at dinner--a great, strong, thundering rain, coming down in sheets--the
first rain we had had since we came to the Moat House.
We went to bed as usual. No presentiment of the coming awfulness clouded
our young mirth. I remember Dicky and Oswald had a wrestling match, and
Oswald won.
In the middle of the night Oswald was awakened by a hand on his face.
It was a wet hand and very cold. Oswald hit out, of course, but a voice
said, in a hoarse, hollow whisper--
‘Don’t be a young ass! Have you got any matches? My bed’s full of water;
it’s pouring down from the ceiling.’
Oswald’s first thoughts was that perhaps by opening those sluices we
had flooded some secret passage which communicated with the top of Moat
House, but when he was properly awake he saw that this could not be, on
account of the river being so low.
He had matches. He is, as I said before, a boy full of resources. He
struck one and lit a candle, and Dicky, for it was indeed he, gazed with
Oswald at the amazing spectacle.
Our bedroom floor was all wet in patches. Dicky’s bed stood in a pond,
and from the ceiling water was dripping in rich profusion at a dozen
different places. There was a great wet patch in the ceiling, and that
was blue, instead of white like the dry part, and the water dripped from
different parts of it.
In a moment Oswald was quite unmanned.
‘Krikey!’ he said, in a heart-broken tone, and remained an instant
plunged in thought.
‘What on earth are we to do?’ Dicky said.
And really for a short time even Oswald did not know. It was a
blood-curdling event, a regular facer. Albert’s uncle had gone to London
that day to stay till the next. Yet something must be done.
The first thing was to rouse the unconscious others from their deep
sleep, because the water was beginning to drip on to their beds, and
though as yet they knew it not, there was quite a pool on Noel’s bed,
just in the hollow behind where his knees were doubled up, and one of
H. O.’s boots was full of water, that surged wildly out when Oswald
happened to kick it over.
We woke them--a difficult task, but we did not shrink from it.
Then we said, ‘Get up, there is a flood! Wake up, or you will be drowned
in your beds! And it’s half past two by Oswald’s watch.’
They awoke slowly and very stupidly. H. O. was the slowest and
stupidest.
The water poured faster and faster from the ceiling.
We looked at each other and turned pale, and Noel said--
‘Hadn’t we better call Mrs Pettigrew?’
But Oswald simply couldn’t consent to this. He could not get rid of the
feeling that this was our fault somehow for meddling with the river,
though of course the clear star of reason told him it could not possibly
be the case.
We all devoted ourselves, heart and soul, to the work before us. We
put the bath under the worst and wettest place, and the jugs and basins
under lesser streams, and we moved the beds away to the dry end of the
room. Ours is a long attic that runs right across the house.
But the water kept coming in worse and worse. Our nightshirts were
wet through, so we got into our other shirts and knickerbockers, but
preserved bareness in our feet. And the floor kept on being half an inch
deep in water, however much we mopped it up.
We emptied the basins out of the window as fast as they filled, and we
baled the bath with a jug without pausing to complain how hard the
work was. All the same, it was more exciting than you can think. But in
Oswald’s dauntless breast he began to see that they would HAVE to call
Mrs Pettigrew.
A new waterfall broke out between the fire-grate and the mantelpiece,
and spread in devastating floods. Oswald is full of ingenious devices.
I think I have said this before, but it is quite true; and perhaps even
truer this time than it was last time I said it.
He got a board out of the box-room next door, and rested one end in the
chink between the fireplace and the mantelpiece, and laid the other end
on the back of a chair, then we stuffed the rest of the chink with our
nightgowns, and laid a towel along the plank, and behold, a noble stream
poured over the end of the board right into the bath we put there ready.
It was like Niagara, only not so round in shape. The first lot of water
that came down the chimney was very dirty. The wind whistled outside.
Noel said, ‘If it’s pipes burst, and not the rain, it will be nice for
the water-rates.’ Perhaps it was only natural after this for Denny to
begin with his everlasting poetry. He stopped mopping up the water to
say:
‘By this the storm grew loud apace,
The water-rats were shrieking,
And in the howl of Heaven each face
Grew black as they were speaking.’
Our faces were black, and our hands too, but we did not take any notice;
we only told him not to gas but to go on mopping. And he did. And we all
did.
But more and more water came pouring down. You would not believe so much
could come off one roof.
When at last it was agreed that Mrs Pettigrew must be awakened at all
hazards, we went and woke Alice to do the fatal errand.
When she came back, with Mrs Pettigrew in a nightcap and red flannel
petticoat, we held our breath.
But Mrs Pettigrew did not even say, ‘What on earth have you children
been up to NOW?’ as Oswald had feared.
She simply sat down on my bed and said--
‘Oh, dear! oh, dear! oh, dear!’ ever so many times.
Then Denny said, ‘I once saw holes in a cottage roof. The man told me
it was done when the water came through the thatch. He said if the water
lies all about on the top of the ceiling, it breaks it down, but if you
make holes the water will only come through the holes and you can put
pails under the holes to catch it.’
So we made nine holes in the ceiling with the poker, and put pails,
baths and tubs under, and now there was not so much water on the floor.
But we had to keep on working like niggers, and Mrs Pettigrew and Alice
worked the same.
About five in the morning the rain stopped; about seven the water did
not come in so fast, and presently it only dripped slowly. Our task was
done.
This is the only time I was ever up all night. I wish it happened
oftener. We did not go back to bed then, but dressed and went down. We
all went to sleep in the afternoon, though. Quite without meaning to.
Oswald went up on the roof, before breakfast, to see if he could find
the hole where the rain had come in. He did not find any hole, but
he found the cricket ball jammed in the top of a gutter pipe which he
afterwards knew ran down inside the wall of the house and ran into the
moat below. It seems a silly dodge, but so it was.
When the men went up after breakfast to see what had caused the flood
they said there must have been a good half-foot of water on the leads
the night before for it to have risen high enough to go above the edge
of the lead, and of course when it got above the lead there was nothing
to stop it running down under it, and soaking through the ceiling. The
parapet and the roofs kept it from tumbling off down the sides of
the house in the natural way. They said there must have been some
obstruction in the pipe which ran down into the house, but whatever it
was the water had washed it away, for they put wires down, and the pipe
was quite clear.
While we were being told this Oswald’s trembling fingers felt at the wet
cricket ball in his pocket. And he KNEW, but he COULD not tell. He heard
them wondering what the obstruction could have been, and all the time he
had the obstruction in his pocket, and never said a single word.
I do not seek to defend him. But it really was an awful thing to have
been the cause of; and Mrs Pettigrew is but harsh and hasty. But this,
as Oswald knows too well, is no excuse for his silent conduct.
That night at tea Albert’s uncle was rather silent too. At last he
looked upon us with a glance full of intelligence, and said--
‘There was a queer thing happened yesterday. You know there was an
angling competition. The pen was kept full on purpose. Some mischievous
busybody went and opened the sluices and let all the water out. The
anglers’ holiday was spoiled. No, the rain wouldn’t have spoiled it
anyhow, Alice; anglers LIKE rain. The ‘Rose and Crown’ dinner was half
of it wasted because the anglers were so furious that a lot of them took
the next train to town. And this is the worst of all--a barge, that was
on the mud in the pen below, was lifted and jammed across the river and
the water tilted her over, and her cargo is on the river bottom. It was
coals.’
During this speech there were four of us who knew not where to turn our
agitated glances. Some of us tried bread-and-butter, but it seemed dry
and difficult, and those who tried tea choked and spluttered and were
sorry they had not let it alone. When the speech stopped Alice said, ‘It
was us.’
And with deepest feelings she and the rest of us told all about it.
Oswald did not say much. He was turning the obstruction round and round
in his pocket, and wishing with all his sentiments that he had owned
up like a man when Albert’s uncle asked him before tea to tell him all
about what had happened during the night.
When they had told all, Albert’s uncle told us four still more plainly,
and exactly, what we had done, and how much pleasure we had spoiled, and
how much of my father’s money we had wasted--because he would have to
pay for the coals being got up from the bottom of the river, if they
could be, and if not, for the price of the coals. And we saw it ALL.
And when he had done Alice burst out crying over her plate and said--
‘It’s no use! We HAVE tried to be good since we’ve been down here.
You don’t know how we’ve tried! And it’s all no use. I believe we are
the wickedest children in the whole world, and I wish we were all dead!’
This was a dreadful thing to say, and of course the rest of us were all
very shocked. But Oswald could not help looking at Albert’s uncle to see
how he would take it.
He said very gravely, ‘My dear kiddie, you ought to be sorry, and I wish
you to be sorry for what you’ve done. And you will be punished for it.’
(We were; our pocket-money was stopped and we were forbidden to go near
the river, besides impositions miles long.) ‘But,’ he went on, ‘you
mustn’t give up trying to be good. You are extremely naughty and
tiresome, as you know very well.’
Alice, Dicky, and Noel began to cry at about this time.
‘But you are not the wickedest children in the world by any means.’
Then he stood up and straightened his collar, and put his hands in his
pockets.
‘You’re very unhappy now,’ he said, ‘and you deserve to be. But I will
say one thing to you.’
Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but
little he deserved it, with the obstruction in his pocket, unowned up to
all the time).
He said, ‘I have known you all for four years--and you know as well as
I do how many scrapes I’ve seen you in and out of--but I’ve never known
one of you tell a lie, and I’ve never known one of you do a mean or
dishonourable action. And when you have done wrong you are always sorry.
Now this is something to stand firm on. You’ll learn to be good in the
other ways some day.’
He took his hands out of his pockets, and his face looked different, so
that three of the four guilty creatures knew he was no longer adamant,
and they threw themselves into his arms. Dora, Denny, Daisy, and H. O.,
of course, were not in it, and I think they thanked their stars.
Oswald did not embrace Albert’s uncle. He stood there and made up his
mind he would go for a soldier. He gave the wet ball one last squeeze,
and took his hand out of his pocket, and said a few words before going
to enlist. He said--
‘The others may deserve what you say. I hope they do, I’m sure. But I
don’t, because it was my rotten cricket ball that stopped up the pipe
and caused the midnight flood in our bedroom. And I knew it quite early
this morning. And I didn’t own up.’
Oswald stood there covered with shame, and he could feel the hateful
cricket ball heavy and cold against the top of his leg, through the
pocket.
Albert’s uncle said--and his voice made Oswald hot all over, but not
with shame--he said--
I shall not tell you what he said. It is no one’s business but Oswald’s;
only I will own it made Oswald not quite so anxious to run away for a
soldier as he had been before.
That owning up was the hardest thing I ever did. They did put that in
the Book of Golden Deeds, though it was not a kind or generous act, and
did no good to anyone or anything except Oswald’s own inside feelings.
I must say I think they might have let it alone. Oswald would rather
forget it. Especially as Dicky wrote it in and put this:
‘Oswald acted a lie, which, he knows, is as bad as telling one. But he
owned up when he needn’t have, and this condones his sin. We think he
was a thorough brick to do it.’
Alice scratched this out afterwards and wrote the record of the incident
in more flattering terms. But Dicky had used Father’s ink, and she used
Mrs Pettigrew’s, so anyone can read his underneath the scratching outs.
The others were awfully friendly to Oswald, to show they agreed with
Albert’s uncle in thinking I deserved as much share as anyone in any
praise there might be going.
It was Dora who said it all came from my quarrelling with Noel about
that rotten cricket ball; but Alice, gently yet firmly, made her shut
up.
I let Noel have the ball. It had been thoroughly soaked, but it dried
all right. But it could never be the same to me after what it had done
and what I had done.
I hope you will try to agree with Albert’s uncle and not think foul
scorn of Oswald because of this story. Perhaps you have done things
nearly as bad yourself sometimes. If you have, you will know how ‘owning
up’ soothes the savage breast and alleviates the gnawings of remorse.
If you have never done naughty acts I expect it is only because you
never had the sense to think of anything.