Elizabeth Fortinbras who was outside, but for all that I did not even go
to the door to see.

After what seemed a very long while Hugh John came in. He was looking
rather pale.

"Can I go to the Edam Post Office?" he asked. "I shall not be long."

But though he asked politely, he was gone almost before permission could
be given.

He told me all about it when he came back. I had been at the window, and
had seen Hugh John and Elizabeth Fortinbras ride off together. For any
one who saw them there was but one thing to think. They looked so
handsome that any other explanation seemed inadmissible. Only we at home
knew different.

"Sis," he said, when at last we got out to the gun-room, which father
uses occasionally for smoking in, "there never was a girl like Elizabeth
Fortinbras!"

At this I whistled softly--a habit for which I am always being checked,
and as often forgetting.

"_And what about Cissy Carter?_" I asked.

He looked at me once with a kind of "If-you-have-any-shame-in-thee,
girl, prepare-to-shed-it-now" manner, before which I quailed. Then he
told me how Elizabeth had ridden out to tell him of the treachery of Meg
Linwood. Together they had made out an urgency telegram, had found the
post-master, and had dispatched it to Paris that very night.

It said: "_Half silver token lost. If sent you by mischievous persons,
please return immediately to its owner, Hugh John Picton Smith._"

"And that, I think, covers the case--she will understand!" said
Elizabeth Fortinbras.

But low in her own heart, as she rode up the long steep street to New
Erin Villa, she added the rider, "That is, if she is not a goose!"

XXIII

HONOR THY DAUGHTER!

But, alas! Cissy Carter _was_ a goose! In the well-meant telegram she
saw only a new machination of the enemy--perhaps even of Elizabeth
Fortinbras. And the heart in the Boulevard d'Argenson became, for the
moment, sadder than ever. Also Madame asked for an explanation in a tone
to which the proud little daughter of Colonel Davenant Carter had been
quite unaccustomed. She resented Madame Rolly's interference rather more
sharply than wisely. Whereupon she was told that her father would be
requested to remove her, if, on the morrow, she was not ready with an
explanation, in addition to the apology which Madame, perhaps correctly,
considered her due.

Now it chanced that Colonel Carter, finding himself with a week-end to
spare in London, had crossed the Channel to give himself the treat (and
his daughter the surprise) of dropping in upon her unexpectedly. He
could not have come more to the purpose so far as that daughter was
concerned. Or more malapropos from the point of view of Madame Rolly.

As many people know, the good Colonel, once the devoted slave of Sir
Toady Lion, was occasionally exceedingly peppery. And when he arrived
with his pockets bulging with good things, only to find "his little
girl" in tears--and, indeed, brought hastily down from the room in which
she had been locked--his military ardor exploded.

"If, Madame," he is reported to have said, "I am to understand
that you cannot keep discipline without having resort to methods
more suitable to a boy of eight than to a young lady of eighteen,
it is time that I undertook the responsibility myself! Cecilia, go
up to your room. I will settle with Madame. And by the time that
is done--the--ah--baggage-cart will be at the door--as sure
as my name is G-rrrrrumph--G-rrrumph--G-rrrummph!"

And, indeed, the "baggage-cart" (in the shape of a small omnibus) was at
the door. Although really, you know, the Colonel's name was not as he
himself affirmed.

"And now, Missy," growled the Colonel in his finest
Full-Bench-of-Justices manner, "kindly tell me what you have been
doing!"

For, very characteristically, the Colonel, though entirely declining to
listen to a word of accusation against his daughter from Madame Rolly,
reserved to himself the right of distributing an even-handed justice
afterwards. His method on such occasions is just the reverse of
father's, as we have all learned to our cost. Our father would have
listened gravely to all that Madame had to recount of our misdeeds. Then
he would have nodded, remarked, "You did perfectly right, Madame! In
anything that you may propose, I will support you--so long, that is, as
I judge it best that my child shall remain at your school!" For father's
first principle in all such matters is, "Support authority--receive or
make no complaints--and, above all, work out your own salvation, my
young friend!"

And though it sometimes looks a bit hard at the time, as Hugh John says,
"It prepares a fellow for taking his own part in the world, as you soon
find you have jolly well to do if you mean to get on."

But Cissy knew her father, and promptly set herself to cry as
heartbrokenly as she could manage on such short notice. Colonel
Davenant Carter gazed at her a moment with a haughty and defiant
expression. But as Toady Lion had once said of him, "I teached him to
come the High Horsicle wif ME!" So now, as the rickety omnibus jogged
and swayed over the Parisian cobbles, Cissy wept ever more bitterly,
till the old soldier had to entreat her to stop. They would, so it
appeared, soon be at his hotel. Even now they were passing his club, and
"that old gossiping beast, Repton Reeves," was at the window. If it got
about that he, Colonel Davenant Carter, had been seen driving down the
Rue de Rivoli with a damsel drowned in floods of tears--why, by all the
bugles of Balaclava, he would never hear the end of it. He might as well
resign at the club. All which, as Cissy sobbed out in the French
language, was "exceedingly equal" to her! But it was very far indeed
from being "égal" to the peppery Colonel. And at last, as the sobs
increased in carry and volume, he was reduced to the ignominious
expedient of personal bribery.

"Look here, Cissy," he said in tremulous tones, "we absolutely _can't_
go into the courtyard of the Grand Hotel like this! Now, if you will be
a good girl, and will stop this instant, I will drive you up the Rue de
la Paix, and there I will buy----!"

"_What?_" said Cissy, looking up with eyes that still brimmed ready for
action.

"A gold bracelet!" said her father tentatively, but still quite
uncertain of his effect.

"Boohoo!" said Cissy Carter, dropping her face once more between her
hands.

"Goodness gracious," cried the Colonel, invoking his favorite divinity,
"what can the girl want? A gold watch, then?"

"Real gold this time, then!" said Cissy, who had been "had" once before,
and, even with an aching heart, was properly cautious.

"You shall do the choosing yourself!" said her father, thinking that he
had conquered. But Cissy knew her opportunity--and the relative whom
fate had given her. The tears welled again. Her bosom was shaken by
timely sobs.

"Well, what then, Celia--really, this becomes past bearing! Why, we are
nearly at the hotel!"

Cissy glanced up quickly. "A gold bracelet _with_ a gold watch, then!"
she sighed gently.

And this is the truth, and the whole truth, as to why Colonel Davenant
Carter gave his arm to a radiant and beautiful daughter in the courtyard
of the Grand Hotel--a daughter, also, who lifted up a prettily-gloved
hand (twelve buttons), and at every fourth step _looked at the time_!

XXIV

CISSY'S MEANNESS

Miss Cecilia Davenant Carter had been at home a good many weeks before
she came to see me. Of course Hugh John was now at college, and
doubtless that made a difference. But she had never stayed away so long
before, and whatever reason Cissy might have to be angry with Master
Hugh John, she had not the least right to take it out on ME!

However, she came at last--chiefly, I think, to show me the gold watch
on her wrist. This she wanted so badly to do that it must have hurt her
dreadfully to stay away as long as she did. So she sat fingering it, but
not running to ask me to admire it, as a girl naturally does. Of course
I took no notice, though it made me feel mean. We talked about the woods
and the autumn tints (schoolgirls always like these two words--they
remind them that it is the season for blackberries and jam), till at
last I was thoroughly ashamed of myself. So I went over to Cissy, and
said, "I think that's the prettiest bracelet I ever saw in all my life!"

And she said, "Do you?" looking up at me funnily. "Do you really?" she
repeated the words, looking straight at me.

"Yes, I do indeed!" I answered. And--what do you think?--the next moment
she was crying on my shoulder! Of course I understood. Every girl will,
without needing to be told. And as for men (and "Old Cats"), it is no
use attempting to explain to them. They never could know just how we two
felt.

But Cissy had really nothing in the least "catty" about her. "Quite the
reverse, I assure _you_!" as the East Country folk say. She even took it
off and let me try it on without ever warning me to be careful with it.
And that, you know, is a good deal for a girl who is "not friends" with
your own brother, and has only had a new "real-gold" watch-bracelet for
three or four weeks.

But then, Cissy could never be calm and restful like Elizabeth
Fortinbras. Cissy did everything in a rush, and so, I suppose, got
somehow closer to the heart of our impassive Hugh John just on that
account. Elizabeth Fortinbras was too like my brother to touch him
"where he lived," as Sir Toady would say.

Well, after a while Cissy stopped crying, and took my handkerchief
without a word and quite as a matter of course (which showed as clearly
as anything how things stood between us).

Then she said, "Priss, do you know, I did an awfully mean thing, and I
want you to help me to make it all right again!"

In a book, of course (a proper book, I mean), I ought to have asked Ciss
all sorts of questions, and said that in everything which did not affect
the honor of the house of Picton Smith I was at her service. And so on.

But of course ordinary girls don't talk like that now-a-days. If you
have what our sweet Maid calls a "snarl" against anybody--why, mostly
every one plays hockey now, and it is the simplest thing in the world to
"take a drive at her shins, and say how sorry you are afterwards"! So at
least (the Maid informs me) some girls, who shall be nameless, have been
known to do at her school.

I waited for Cissy to tell me of the dreadfully mean thing she had done.
But of course I assured her first that, whatever it was--yes,
_whatever_--I should do just what she wanted done to help her. For I
knew she would do the same for me.

Then she told me that in her first anger about the telegram--for she had
been far more angry about that than about the sending back the other
half of the crooked sixpence--a thing which really mattered a thousand
times more (but of course that was exactly like a girl!)--she had put
the telegram, and both parts of the crooked sixpence, and all of Hugh
John's letters she could find--chiefly the short and simple annals of a
Rugby "forward"--in a lozenge-box--and (here Cissy dropped her voice)
_sent them all, registered, to Elizabeth Fortinbras_!

XXV

"NOT EVEN HUGH JOHN!"

"To Elizabeth--Elizabeth Fortinbras!" I cried. Here was a new
difficulty. If only people would not do things in a hurry, as Hugh John
says, they would mostly end by not doing them at all!

"What sort of a girl is this Elizabeth Fortinbras?" Cissy Carter asked.
"She is only a shop-girl after all, isn't she?"

I set Cissy right on this head. There were shop-girls _and_ shop-girls.
And this one not only came of a respectable ancestry, but had been well
educated, was the heiress of Erin Villa, and would succeed to one of the
best businesses in Edam!

"Is she pretty?"

Oh, of course I had foreseen the question. It was quite inevitable, and
there was but one thing to say--

"Come to the shop and see for yourself!"

But Cissy hung back. You see, she had done a perfectly mad thing,
and yet was not quite ready to make it up with the person
concerned--especially when Cissy was Colonel Davenant Carter's only
daughter just home from Paris, and when, in spite of my explanations,
Elizabeth was little more to her than a "girl behind a counter"!

You may be sure that I put her duty before her--yes, plainly and with
point. But Cissy had in her all the pride of the Davenant Carters, and
go she would not, till I told her plump and plain that she was afraid!

My, how that made her jump! She turned a little pale, rose quietly,
adjusted her hat at the mirror, took off her watch-bracelet and gave it
to me to keep for her.

"I will go and see this Elizabeth Fortinbras now--and alone!" she said,
with that nice quiet dignity which became her so well. I would greatly
have liked to have gone along with her. But, first of all, she had not
asked me, and, secondly, I knew that I had better not.

Cissy Carter had to see Elizabeth alone. Only they could arrange
matters. Still, of course, both of them told me all about it afterwards,
and it is from these two narratives that the following short account is
written out.

Elizabeth was in the front shop, busy as a bee among the sweet things,
white-aproned, and wearing dainty white armlets of linen which came from
the wrist to above the elbow. Then these two looked at each other as
only girls do--or perhaps more exactly, attractive young women of about
the same age. Boys are different--they behave just like strange dogs on
being introduced, sulky and ready to snarl. A young man seems to be
wondering how such a contemptible fellow as that other fellow could
possibly have gained admittance to a respectable house. Only experienced
women can manage the business properly, putting just the proper amount
of cordiality into the bow and handshake. Grown men--most of them, that
is--allow their natural feeling of boredom to appear too obviously.

At any rate Cissy and Elizabeth took in each other at a glance, far more
searching and exhaustive as to "points" than ever any man's could be.
Then they bowed to each other very coldly.

"Will you come this way?" said Elizabeth, instantly discerning that
Cissy had not come to New Erin Villa as a customer. Accordingly she led
the way into the little sitting-room, all in pale creamy _cretonne_ with
old-fashioned roses scattered upon it, which her own taste and the full
purse of Ex-Butcher Donnan had provided for her.

"Be good enough to take a seat," said Elizabeth Fortinbras. But she
herself remained standing.

Now you never can tell by which end a girl--or a woman, for that
matter--will tackle anything. All that you can be sure of is that it
will not be the obvious and natural one--the one nearest her hand. So
Cissy, instead of coming right out with her confession and having done
with it, began by asking Elizabeth if she knew a Mr. Hugh John Picton
Smith.

"He is my friend!" said Elizabeth, very quiet and grave, standing with
one hand in the pocket of her apron and the other hanging easily by her
side.

"And nothing more?" said Cissy, looking up at her very straight.

"I must first know by what right you ask me that question!" said
Elizabeth. And then, her lips quivering (I know exactly how) a long
minute between pride and pitifulness, Cissy did the best thing in the
world she could have done to soften Elizabeth Fortinbras. She struggled
an instant with herself. Her pride gave way exactly as it had with me,
and she began to sob quietly and continuously.

Elizabeth took one step towards her. Presently her cool, strong arms
were about Cissy's neck, who struggled a second or two like a captive
bird, and then the next Elizabeth was soothing her like an elder sister.

"Yes, dear, I know--I know! You did a foolish thing. But then it was to
me. I understood! I understand! It does not matter! No one else need
know!"

Then, in a voice quiet as the falling of summer rain among the misty
isles of the West, Elizabeth added, "_Not even Hugh John!_"

XXVI

HAUNTS REVISITED

I think we were all a bit unstrung after this. It was a good many weeks
before Cissy could bring herself to speak about Elizabeth Fortinbras,
and then it was in a rush, as, indeed, she did everything. It was one
afternoon, over at Young Mrs. Winter's. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary (who
always was as superior as a pussy-cat with a new blue ribbon about her
neck, all because her husband kept three gardeners, one of whom blacked
the Camsteary boots) happened to remark that there was "a rather
ladylike girl" in those butcher-people's sweet-shop opposite the
station.

"She _is_ a lady!" said Cissy Carter, lifting up her proud little chin
with an air of finality.

And, indeed, there was, in Edam at least, no discussing with Miss
Davenant Carter on such a matter. Mrs. Christopher Camsteary, whose
husband, greatly to his credit, had made a large fortune in
cattle-feeding oilcake ("in the wholesale, of course, you know, my
dear!"), could not, even if she had wished, contradict the daughter of
ten generations of Davenant Carters as to who was a lady and who not! So
it was settled that, whenever Cissy Carter was in the room, Elizabeth
Fortinbras was a lady. Which must have been a great comfort to her!

Well, the following summer-time when the good days came--perhaps because
everybody, including even Hugh John, was a little tired and
"edgy"--father took us all off to his own country.

I was the one who had seen the most of it before, as you may see if ever
you have read the book called _Sweetheart Travelers_ that father wrote
about our gypsyings and goings-on. Of course (all our family say "of
course"--and it all fills up first-rate when the man comes to count the
pages up for printing)--well, of course I had forgotten a good deal
about it, only I read over the book on the sly, and so was posted for
everything as it came along.

This time we did not go on "The-Old-Homestead-on-Wheels," as we called
the historic tricycle, but in the nicest and biggest of all wagonettes,
with two lovely horses driven by a friend of ours with a cleverness
which did one's heart good to see. His name was "Jim." We called him so
from the first, and he was dreadfully nice to all of us, because he had
been at school with father. This made us think for a good while that it
was because of his superior goodness and cleverness there that so many
people were glad to remember that they had been at school with father.
Jim, when we asked him, said that it was so, but Hugh John immediately
smelt a rat. So he asked another and yet older friend of father's, named
Massa--because, I think, he sang negro melodies so beautifully. (Who
would have thought that they sang "coon" songs so long ago?--but I
suppose it was really just a kind of "boot-room music," or the sort of
thing they play on board trip-steamers, when the trombone is away taking
up a collection, and everybody is moving to the other side of the deck!)
Well, Massa came along with us and Jim one lovely Saturday to see the
place where my great-grandmother had kept sheep "on the bonny banks of
the Cluden" a full hundred years ago.

Somehow I always liked that. It means more to a girl than even father's
misdeeds, the hearing about which amuses the boys so.

However, it really was about those that I began. So, reluctantly, I must
leave the little hundred-year-old girl keeping her sheep on the green
holms of Cluden, and tell about father and his wonderful influence.
Massa said that we were not to tell on him, and of course we promised.
This is not _telling_, but only writing all about it down in my
Diary--quite a different thing. Well, Massa said that when "Mac" and he
had "done anything," they used to climb up different trees as quickly as
they could, and then, when father came after them (he was not our father
then, of course, but only Roman Dictator and Tyrant of Syracuse), he
could only get one of them. For while he was climbing the tree occupied
by one, the other could drop out of the branches and cut and run. It was
a good way, especially for Number Two, who got away--not quite so fine,
though, for Number One, who was caught. Whenever a new boy visited the
town and the Dictator was seen coming along, they ran the stranger up a
tree and introduced him from there, as it were, lest, by mistake, a
worse thing should befall him! Really it is difficult to believe all
this, even when Massa swears it. Because father, if you let his pet
books alone and don't make too big a row outside the _châlet_ when he is
working, hardly minds at all what you do. We don't really recognize him
in the Roaring Lion, going about seeking whom he might devour, of Mr.
Massa's legends.

So Sir Toady, in the interests of public information, asked Mr. Massa if
the boys of that time were not pretty bad. And Mr. Massa said that they
were, but that "they were not a patch on your----" He stopped just at
the word "your," for father was coming round the corner. And, do you
know, I don't believe he has quite lost his influence with Mr. Massa
even now. It is a fine thing, Hugh John says, to be such a power for
good among your fellows. He had that sort of power himself at school,
and he managed to keep it, even though fellows ever so much bigger came
while he was there.

Well, no matter; what I keep really in my heart, or maybe like an amulet
about my neck, is the memory of the little hundred-year-old girl (that
is, she _would_ be if she were alive now) tending sheep and twining
daisy-chains on the meadows by the Water of Cluden, with the Kirk of
Iron-gray glinting through the trees, and Helen Walker (which is to say
Jeanie Deans) calling in the cows to be milked at the farm across the
burn.

Now I don't know how _you_ feel, but the story of this great-grandmother
of mine always seems sort of kind and warm and sacred to me, a mixture
of the stillness of an old-fashioned Sabbath and the first awakening
hush when you remember that it is your birthday--a sort of religious
fairyland, if you know what I mean--like "playing house" (oh, such a
long time ago!) with Puck and Ariel and the Queen of the Fairies, while
several of the very nicest people out of the Bible stories sat in the
shade and watched--perhaps Ruth and, of course, her mother-in-law, and
David when he was very young, and kept sheep also. He would certainly
come to see our play--his shepherd's crook in his hand, and his eye
occasionally taking a survey of great-grandmother's flocks and herds to
see that there were no lions or bears about!

Yes, I know it's fearfully silly. Of course it is. But, all the same, I
have oftener put myself happily to sleep thinking about that, and with
the music of the Cluden Water low in my ear, than with all the wisdom
that ever I learned at school! So there!

Of course you mustn't suppose that at the time I said a word of all this
even to the Maid, much less to the others. Though I do think that
father, who knows a lot of things without being told, partly guessed
what I was thinking of. For once when we had all got down to gather
flowers, he led me down to the water's edge, and, pointing across the
clear purl of the stream to the opposite bank (where is a little green
level, with, in the midst, a still greener Fairy Ring), he took my hand
and, standing behind me, pointed with it. "It was there!" he whispered.

He did not say a word more. But that was enough. I understood, and he
knew that I understood. It was like the old days when we made our
travels together, he and I, with the Things of the Wide World running
back past us, all beautiful and all sweet as dreaming of plucking
flowers in the kindly shade of woods.

Soon after this, on our journey through father's country, we came to a
little village--the cleanest and dearest that ever was seen. It was the
one after which father had called one of his early books of
verse--"Dulce Cor." Here we were very happy, for there was a lovely old
Abbey, roofless, of course, but all blooming like one great rose when
the sun shone on it at evening and morning. The colors of the stones
were so rich with age and mellowing that from the little walk on the
other side of the valley it seemed as if the whole had been dipped for a
thousand years in a bath of sunset clouds, and then left out among the
cornstooks to dry! Even more beautiful and kindly was a certain nice
Doctor--only he wasn't the sort that come to see you when you are ill,
to tap you on the back and write prescriptions. He took me to see the
Abbey, and told me about the Last of all the Abbots, who was so kind
that the people would not let him be sent away, but kept him always
hidden here and there among them. And about how he died at long and
last, "much respected and deeply regretted," as the papers say, even by
those who did not go to his church--which, indeed, very few in these
parts did.

And though it was, of course, foolish, and I would never have said it to
the Doctor himself for worlds, I could not help thinking that this Last
of all the Abbots (Gilbert Brown, I think his name was) must have been a
good deal like this friend of mine, with his beautiful silvery head, and
maybe the same gentle break in his voice when he gave out such a text as
"I came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

We went through the cornfields very early next morning, father and I. It
was Sunday, at dawn or a little after. The dew was still on all the
little fairy cobwebs, but the sun had been before us in getting out of
bed, and now was busy as he could be, drinking up the dew. We had to
cross the churchyard under the big eastern side of the Abbey, all
drowned in level sunshine, yellow as primrose-beds. We crossed a stile,
and there, pacing slowly, his hands behind his back, saffron cornstooks
on his one side and five centuries of well-peopled holy ground on the
other, was the minister. He did not see us--lost in high thoughts, his
lips moving with the unspoken prayer.

"Come away," whispered father, hurrying me along. "He speaks with his
Master! A stranger intermeddleth not therewith!"

Then I did not know very well what he meant, nor did I ask. Only the
two of us slipped down where, beyond the cornfields, a little road, all
fern-grown, saunters half hidden; and where, a bit farther on, there is
a bridge and a burn in which, in the daytime, children play and women
wash their linen. But this morning all was still and quiet--as father
said, "with the Peace of Jubilee, when all the land had rest!" I like to
hear things like that--things I only half understand, but can think over
afterwards. They make me feel all nice and thrilly, like after a
shower-bath--only it is a mind-bath, and not a body-bath! Perhaps a
soul-bath, if I knew what that was.

We came back another way by a higher path, and through a lane of tall
old trees. When we got to our inn, the door was closed just as we had
left it, and not a soul astir. We had seen no one at all that Sabbath
morn except the silver-haired minister, his hands behind his
back--perhaps, as the Psalm says, looking to the hills from which cometh
his aid. Going up-stairs, I opened my grandmother's Bible at the
metrical Psalms, and the first words that met my eyes were these: "In
Salem is his tabernacle--in Sion is his seat!" Now I will confess again
that I always like texts and poems out of which I can take my own
meaning, without being bothered with notes and explanations. And so I
thought how that morning I had surely gone out by Salem His Tabernacle
and come back by Sion His Holy Seat!

XXVII

SIR TOADY RELAPSES

Ever such a lot of children whom I don't know have written to me to say
how glad they were that I made father take me with him on his cycle such
splendid long journeys. Because, you see, _their_ fathers read the book,
and had a little seat fitted for them! On the other hand, I suppose
parents write and abuse my father for putting such ideas into their
little girls' heads. In fact, I know they do. Here is a true story. One
irate old fellow wrote to say that "Sir Toady" was quite unfit to
associate with clean and properly brought up children! And he put down
the references, too, where Toadums had misbehaved, like you find them on
the margin of a Bible! How he had sat down in the dusty road at page
some-number-or-other, where he had omitted to blow his nose, how he had
fought, and thrown mud, and generally broken every law laid down for the
good conduct of little boys in the olden times--just exactly what Sir
Toady used to do! As if father was responsible for all that! Well, he
_was_, in the old gentleman's opinion. For he ended with: "If only your
little rascal of a hero were _my_ son, sir----!"

This amused my brother Toadums for quite a long time, and one day he
sneaked the letter, and wrote himself to the old gentleman to say how
that he had reformed, and now always went about with two
pocket-handkerchiefs; also how, at school, he had founded the "Admiral
Benbow Toilet Club," to which the annual subscription was five
shillings.

Further, he expressed a willingness to propose the old gentleman's name
at the next meeting, and in the meantime he suggested sending on the
money! Yes--and would you believe it?--he actually got the five
shillings, along with a very nice letter from the old gentleman, couched
in a sort of Better-Late-than-Never strain. So Toady Lion, who can be
honest when he tries very hard, wrote and asked the old chap whether he
would prefer to have the brilliantine supplied by the club in bottle, or
like paint in a squeezable tube. But the old gentleman replied that,
being completely bald, Sir Toady had better consider himself as a new
returned prodigal, and use the five shillings "to kill the fatted
calf"! So we killed him, and the noise we made on the top of Low-Hill
was spread abroad over three counties. A "gamey" came to tell us that we
were trespassing. But we feasted him on the old man's five shillings,
while Hugh John explained that there was no such thing as trespass, and
Sir Toady, getting hold of the keeper's double-barrel, practiced on
bowlders till he nearly slew a stray pointer dog! Then, after braying
ourselves hoarse, we had fights, rebellions, revolutions, cabals, which
always ended in pushing each other into pitfalls and peat-bogs. We
tripped in knotted heather as we chased downhill, skirmishing and
yelling. Even Hugh John forgot himself, and all returned home, sated
with the slaughter of the old gentleman's fatted calf, tired to death,
not a shout left in any of us, but, as it were, stained with mud and
crime!

Ordinarily now Sir Toady has grown too old for the "sins and faults of
youth" already set down against him. But sometimes he relapses--and then
he has it bad. He does not say "roo" for "you" any more, but sometimes
the house is afflicted for days with an exhibition of what Hugh John
calls "Royal Naval Manners." Usually this occurs at table when father
is absent, because Toady has a quite real respect for the Fifth
Commandment, a respect gained at an early age, and ever since retained.
But on this journey there were a good many opportunities. You see, we
did not go to bed at the usual time. We got up when we liked, and I
often had to say the prayers for the entire family. Because the boys
shirked most shamefully, and the Maid was so sleepy with driving in the
open air all day that she often would be found sound asleep on her knees
when not carefully looked after.

"The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak!" said our good old
Doctor of the parish of "Dulce Cor." "I wish all my own prayers had as
good a chance of being heard as this little sleeping child's!" After
this Toady Lion declared that he would always say his prayers in the
same way--_asleep_!

Well, of course you could not imagine--nobody could--the new and
peculiar wickedness devised by Sir Toady. It was simply _bound_ to be a
success. Besides which, it was perfectly safe; after what Mr. Massa had
told up at the Communion Stones of Iron-gray, The Powers-That-Be could
not say a word. Oh, the beautiful thing it is to have a friend of your
youth with a good memory, and, above all, communicative and frank with
your own children! Oh, I know that there are people who will say, with
some outside show of reason, "Well, just be perfectly good when you are
young, and then you don't need to fear the frankest of your intimate
friends!"

This, of course, is rank nonsense, and nothing but! For that kind of
very immaculate young person does not make the best sort of father or
mother when the time comes. They don't know anything. They are not up to
things, and get "taken the loan of," as the boys say in that rude but
expressive speech of theirs. But it is not accounted healthy to "monkey"
with ours, who generally can tell beforehand when you are going to do a
thing, and after it is done (if you get the chance) will tell you--what
very likely you didn't know before--_why_ you did it. If, in spite of
all, you get into scrapes, The Powers-That-Be usually sympathize. But
(and this is the awkward part) they remember the remedy that proved
effectual in former and more personal cases. That remedy is applied,
and, generally speaking, the same result follows. With this experience
we shall all make excellent heads of families, and shall hire ourselves
out--if we do not happen to have any of our own! Only, we are glad that
we came into the world too early to be part of Hugh John's family. His
methods are altogether too Spartan. And we tell him that the plain
English for the name of his favorite hero, Brutus (the one who cut his
children's heads off), was just simply Brute!

To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside
village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front.
Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or
three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the
wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green
shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and buttoned down
the front with white sheep. What dainty coves! What pleasing,
friendly-featured lambs with shiny black noses and goggle eyes! How tame
the very gulls had become from never being shot at! There never was such
a place as Rough Island for us, or, indeed, any children. Away to the
right you could see Isle Rathan, certainly more famous in romance. But
to go there you had to get kind Captain Cassidy to take you in his
boat. And generally it ended (because the Captain is a busy man) in your
staying with his wife, and seeing--and being the better for seeing--how
the threatening of blindness at once sweetens and strengthens the life
of a delicate woman. But to Rough Island we could go by ourselves, so be
that we returned with the first flowing of the tide. There is a certain
Black Skerry to the south which, when covered, announces to all
concerned that haste of the hastiest kind had better be made. Of course
we called it Signal Rock. But one fine September forenoon, when the
light was mellow and gracious even on the rough slopes of the Island of
our choice, Sir Toady set us all (that is, all the children) searching
in sheltered coves and little pebbly bays for "leg-o'-mutton"
shells--just, he said, what father used to do. It was the bottom of the
"neaps," when the water does not go very far out--which, of course,
every shore child would have known by instinct. But we were landward
bred, and such distinctions as to the ebbing and flowing of salt water
were too fine for us! But Sir Toady had had converse with the
instructed. He had profited thereby. And so no one will be surprised
that, by dint of keeping our backs to the Signal Rock, our noses
pointing down, and our eyes well employed in the search for
"legs-o'-mutton," we did not discover the treachery of Sir Toady till
the Rock was covered, and there was no hope of return! None, that is,
for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had
reckoned without his Hugh John!

That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one
dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway
water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very
soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis,
stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with
The-Folk-Over-There!"

And at first Toady Lion had laughed, thinking that for once the
immaculate Hugh John would be caught along with the rest of us. He did
not laugh, however, at all when he saw his elder brother take his watch
out of his pocket and place it in his cap. He shouted out, "It's all
right, Hugh John; Mr. Massa told me at Iron-gray that he and father
often did it--spent ''Tween-Tides' on the Island. He will know all
about it. Come back, you fool, you'll be drowned!"

But our Old Ironsides only shouted back over his shoulder that father
and Mr. Massa had not passed their words to be in for lunch, and that
_he_ had!

"If the People are anxious Over-Yonder, they can come and fetch us off
in a boat. We can say that we forgot!"

But by this time Hugh John had made his first dash into the wimpling
line of creamy chocolate, like a steamer's wake, which marked the
causeway to the land. His last will and testimony came to us in the
command to "Stay where we were!" And in the final far-heard rider that,
"when he got him," he would quicken Sir Toady's uncertain memory by one
of the most complete fraternal "hidings" on record.

All the same, as we watched him plod along, the tides sweeping in from
both sides upon him, and the struggle swaying him now to one side and
now to the other in the effort to keep his feet, Sir Toady burst into a
kind of roar (which he now says is a "way they have in the Navy" for
long-distance signaling, but which sounded to us very much like a
howl). "Come back, Hugh John," he cried, "and I'll take the best
'whaling' you can give me _now_!"

But out in the brown pother the struggle went on. Hugh John never so
much as turned his head. We stood white and gasping, all pretty close
together, I can tell you. And once when we saw him swept from his feet
and only recovered his balance with an effort--though my heart was in my
throat, I said out loud to comfort the others, "Well, anyway, he has
taken the school medal for swimming. He has it on him now!"

Then Sir Toady turned on me a face of scorn and anger. He pointed to the
gush and swirl of the currents of Solway over the bank of pebbles. "Swim
in that!" he cried, "no, he can't! No, nor nobody can. I tell you one of
the best swimmers in Scotland was drowned over there in Balcary, within
sight of his own house, and a man in a boat within stonethrow!"

But for all that, Toady himself pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and
made him ready to go to the rescue (oh, how vainly!). So that in the
long run the Maid and I had to hold him down on the beach, half weeping,
half desperate, calling on Hugh John, his Hugh John, to come back and
slay him upon the spot. As if he was _his_ Hugh John, any more than
anybody else's Hugh John--and the two of them fighting like cat and dog
nine-tenths of the time! But at times, when his elder brother is in
danger or ill, Sir Toady is like that. Janet Sheepshanks speaks yet
about his face when he came back from Crusoeing-it with Dinky and Saucy
Easedale--all drawn and haggard and white it was. Well, it was like that
now. I declare, he turned and struck at us every time that Hugh John
stumbled, or looked like being carried away.

"See here, Sis," he gasped, "you let a fellow go, or I'll kill you. I
will, mind--if anything happens to My Hugh John--I'll kill you for
holding me back like this."

But at this very moment we began to see the lank figure of Hugh John
rising higher out of the swirling scum. Presently he scrambled out on
the steep beach of pebbles, all dripping. Then he gave himself a shake
like a retriever dog, shook his fist at the distant Sir Toady, now
sparsely equipped in fluttering linen: "Wait till I get you, you young
beast! Just you wait!"

That was what he was saying as plain as print. But Sir Toady, completely
reassured, only heaved a long sigh, murmuring, "That's all right!" And
went on calmly putting on his clothes, and laughing at the Maid and me
for having been frightened. He actually had the cheek to ask us what we
had been crying about!

XXVIII

TWICE-TRAVELED PATHS

Then we went to Kirkcudbright, where there is an old castle, very dirty,
but where we stayed in the loveliest old inn. It was so "comfy" and
home-like at the "Selkirk" that it seemed as if the hostelry had
wandered out into the country one fine day and--forgot the way to come
back again! We liked it so much because it was kept by a nice jolly man,
whose mother had been good to father once when he was ill, and who made
the nicest cakes. We were in clover there, I can tell you. Specially
because "Mac" (the painter whom, when I was very little, I once named
"The Little Brown Bear") came for walks with us, and made us laugh at
dinner till we youngsters nearly got sent from the table. Yet it wasn't
a bit our fault. He told us a lot of things, and I could see father
listening with all his ears, and not even checking Sir Toady when he
stole the sugar, though he saw him. I was sure that something would
come out of that. You see, I know father's ways. And so it comes about
that I don't need to write any of the funny things that we heard that
night, or the nights that followed. You have only to read them in the
chapters of _Little Esson_, the part all about Ladas II, and the trip in
the caravan. I think that father ought really to have sent some of the
money he got to "The Little Brown Bear"--but I don't believe he ever
did.

"Mac owes me more than that!" he said, when I asked him about it. "I
brought him up by hand!"

I presume he meant the way Hugh John, my brother, brings up Sir
Toady--though that is with both hands, sometimes feet too.

There was one Sunday that I remember very well; at Newton Stewart it
was. There had been (or was going to be) a kind of circus in the town.
Or maybe they were only resting, as even circus folk must do sometimes.

Anyway I looked out at the window in the early morning, and if I had
seen a ghost I could not have been more surprised. And so would you--for
there, calmly grazing on the field just under my window, as quietly as
if it had been a cow, was a huge elephant! I did not see any circus
vans, nor the tents, nor anything--save and except this great Indian
elephant in the middle of the green field! You may imagine I thought
that I was still dreaming. I watched it pad-padding softly about, taking
the greatest pleasure in rolling like a donkey when the harness is taken
off. It also rubbed the big soft spreads of its feet on the softer
grass. I suppose its poor soles were sore with traveling over our hard
cycling roads, and now it was keeping Sunday after its kind, doing its
best to obey the commandment. And, as father says, what more can any of
us do than be fully persuaded in our own minds? One thing I noticed
which astonished me, and I think it will most people. The big beast must
have weighed a ton, I should think, at the least. And yet, as it went
here and there over the field of nice Galloway grass, it walked so
softly that the grass "rose elastic from its airy tread." Yes, it
actually did. Even Mr. Sherlock Holmes himself could hardly have found a
footmark in a quarter of an hour. Why, even the Maid, not to speak of
myself, could not get so lightly over the ground as that. We watched the
elephant all that day, whenever we could, that is--and thought of him in
church, though the minister was a nice man, nice-looking too, and did
not preach too long. It was, of course, frightfully wicked of us.
Because it was in one of the old "Kirks of the Martyrs" that the service
was held. But when the minister came to see us in the evening, we showed
him the elephant still grazing away, wig-wagging its long trunk like a
supple pendulum, and switching away quite imaginary flies with its tiny
tail! The minister was such a very good sort that we thought we ought to
own up why we had been restless in church. (He might have seen us, you
know.) So I said we were ashamed that we had not attended better to his
sermon. And do you know what he answered back, after seeing the elephant
take a double donkey roll, with its great sausagey legs in the air? "I'm
glad," he said, "that I did not see the elephant do that _before_
sermon. For if I had, I don't believe that I could have preached!"

"A pretty nice sort of a minister, that!" said Hugh John afterwards.

"I should go to his church myself," cried Toady Lion, and then, checking
himself suddenly under the gaze of Hugh John, he added, "I mean, when I
had to!"

There--that is quite enough to put in my Diary about a circus elephant,
though I will admit that it was about the very queerest thing that ever
happened to me in all my life--I mean the most unexpected, of course,
for when explained it was all perfectly simple.

But I must get on with my Diary of this Galloway journey, and the
"Sweethearty" things we saw there. Dear me, I had meant to tell about
Gatehouse too (which happened before Newton Stewart, only I forgot).
There was a nice minister there too, who went about without his hat, and
smoked, and called out nice things across the street to Tom and Dick and
Harry. Altogether we were fortunate in the ministers we met all through
the trip. And I think the children of Gatehouse must have benefited too,
owing to the nice bareheaded minister. For certainly they are not nearly
so rude and pesterful as I remember them when father and I stopped
there--oh, how many years ago? Ten, at least, or maybe more. Then they
rang the bell of the tricycle and said horrid things when father was in
the baker's shop. They made me so angry--I can remember it yet--I said I
would tell father. I nearly cried. But this time there was no one who
was not quite nice to us--except, Oh, yes, one person who wouldn't let
us any rooms. But that did not matter. Indeed, it was a blessing. For we
went farther down the street till we came to a delightful hotel or inn
or something, where Miss Blackett, who kept it, was just as good to us
as she could be, and gave us nice things to eat on the sly. Also the
"Little Brown Bear" came again, and told us more stories in the
evenings. Then, at ten or eleven at night, he got on his cycle and
wheeled away into the dark. It was so nice and romantic that I wished I
could have gone too. It is splendid in the summer to wheel on and on
through the archway of the green and sleeping woods. It is best when you
are sure of the policemen, and can ride without a light, which does no
good, but makes everything dark as pitch, and as uninteresting as the
Queensferry Road.

Then I saw the two boys at Creetown who once on a time were brought in
from playing on the street, and tidied up so that they might be ready to
kiss me. They both howled at the thought. For which I don't in the least
blame them. But all the same they had high collars on, and I don't think
that they would have minded nearly as much now.

This, of course, came before the elephant, but then, you see, if things
don't go into my Dear Diary just when I think of them, the probability
is that they won't go at all.

One long lovesome day, that I won't forget in a hurry, we spent driving
through Borgue--sunny, sweet, hawthorny Borgue, where the clover is, and
the green honey made by the bees that have never so much as sniffed a
heather bloom. It is not Galloway, of course. It has not the qualities
of Galloway, I mean. But there is something about it that makes the
heart grow fonder the longer one stays there--a kind of green "den" such
as the bairns have when playing at "soldiers-and-outlaws" in the wood--a
sheltered sanctuary, a Peace on Earth among men of good-will. At least
all we saw were that sort, and I hope the others were, just as much.
Here, I know, Hugh John would shrug his shoulders. But that does not
matter.

We did not linger in Borgue, however, which, with its still and pensive
beauty, was like a kirk-yard on Sunday morning. Indeed, there are many
of these along the shores--hidden nooks with tombstones, and beneath
wave-washed bights of clean sand. For assuredly it was not the right
Galloway. Rather it was like a bit of Devonshire that had floated away
and got joined on here, wooded and wind-swept, a carpet of flowers all
the summer long, one great bee-swarm booming all over it, from Kirk
Andrews, which is its Dan, to the Tower of Plunton, which is its
Beersheba. At any rate there is nothing like Borgue anywhere else in
Scotland. Which its natives declare, perhaps with truth, is the same as
to say in the world!

Well, we drove out of Newton Stewart past Palnure, turned sharply up the
hill road towards the Loch of the Lilies, past Clatteringshaws--where
not a shaw clattered, though in the wagonette there were many "she's"
who did--as a very clever lady, a friend of father's, once remarked when
her daughters proposed an excursion thither from Kenbank. "Deaved"[2]
with their tongues, she broke out at last with "Not Clatteringshaws, but
'Clatteringshe's'!" However, on this occasion not a dog barked. We
lunched in the midst of the solitude, and then father wandered away to
watch his dear hills through his glasses, while the rest of us washed
and cleaned up!

[Footnote 2: Deafened]

But the best of all days was that on the moors about the little house
where father was born. I had not been there for more than ten years,
and the ground was littered with memories. Father and I got off a little
south of the Raider's Bridge. We skirted the water meadows, and looked
back to the bulk of Bennan, still rugged and purple with heather, seeing
to the right of it Cairnsmore of Carsphairn, a double molehill of palest
blue paint. Then came the "Roman Camp," which, however, father told us
had been made by the "Levelers" in the early half of the eighteenth
century. But the other story of the farm bull which fell into the ditch,
was heard roaring for days, and, when found, had eaten every green thing
within reach of its hungry mouth--trees, leaves, branches and
all--pleased me most.

Then there was the well where once I had drunk from father's palms, and
of which there is such a very pretty picture in _Sweetheart
Travelers_--a picture which always used to puzzle me dreadfully. For I
knew that there were only father and I there. Besides which, there was
not nearly light enough for Mr. Gordon Browne to "take" us, even
supposing that he had been hid behind the bushes! At any rate we had a
drink at the ancient spring, just for old sake's sake. Some kind person
had cleaned it out not long before, and the water in the shade of the
woods of the Duchrae Bank was as cool and sweet as ever. Then across the
cropped meadows, again ankle-deep in aftermath, to the old
stepping-stones! Father carried me on his back to the big central
bowlder, which perhaps has been brought down by some forgotten flood,
and at any rate had long served for the keystone of the arrangement in
stepping-stones--which, even in father's day (so he told me), had been
variously named "Davie's Ford," "Auld Miss," "Rab's," and "Elphie's,"
according to the names of the various dwellers in the pretty cottage in
the wood above.

XXIX

HOME-COMING

We brushed our way down through the meadows, and father went straight to
the place where the Grass of Parnassus had been growing when he was a
boy. It was growing there still--and thriving too. We called on a big
bumble-bee, of the kind that has its stinging end very blunt and red. It
was not at home, but the hole in the bank which it had occupied thirty
years ago was now let to a Rabbit family, the younger members of which
scuttled away at our approach, though without too much alarm. We could
see their tails bobbing among the ferns and undergrowth. And then we
came to the Stepping-Stones. It was ten years since I had seen them, and
then I was quite a little girl. But I remembered everything at once,
even to the small starry green plants that grew beneath the water, and
the sharp stones that get between your toes when you wade too far out.
The woods were as green and as solitary as ever--cool too, and all the
opposite ground elastic with pine-needles that were not nearly so
uncomfortable for the bare feet as you would suppose. We waded for quite
a long time, and then sat and ate our lunch on the big middle bowlder,
alternately dabbling our feet in the clear olive-green water and drying
them in the sunshine. Father told stories. No, I don't mean that he made
them up--only that, as is usual at such times, all sorts of funny
memories went and came in his head--all of the people about whom he told
them as completely passed away as the orange-trousered bee we had gone
so vainly out of our way to seek.

Then we went to the little farmhouse up the loaning, where they took us
for ordinary tourists, and pointed out to us the sights. More than once
I glanced at father, but he had so grave a face that the kind and pretty
girl who showed us over evidently took him for a very severe critic of
his own books, an enemy of dialect in any form. So, ceasing her legends,
she offered us refreshments instead. After that we tramped away over the
"Craigs" and the heather by the very little path along which father used
to go his three-and-a-half miles along the lochside to school. I saw the
Truant's Bathing-Place, the Far-Away-Turn, the Silver Mine (where once
on a time father had found half-a-crown, and dreamed of it for years),
and the Bogle Thorn, now sadly worn away since the days of the "Little
Green Man." After that I kept on asking questions till we got to
Laurieston, when I stopped, not because I had finished, but because tea
was waiting for us. They called us names, and said that they had eaten
up all the good things. But father answered, laughing, that it was
written that man should not live by bread alone, and that what he had
seen that day ought to suffice any one. But really I did not see that it
made any difference to his appetite, and, for all they said, there were
plenty of nice things left for us.

Then we came to Castle Douglas, and what I remember best is the big
courtyard of the hotel, the noise and rattle of horses' hoofs passing
through the narrow entry on to the street, the kind people who welcomed
us, and the home-like air of everything about the "Douglas Arms," which
I never have seen about an hotel before, though I had been in many.

Our journey was done. So it was quite proper that things should begin to
look a bit home-like. We had quite a nice homecoming. Cissy Carter met
us at the station in a pretty dark-blue dress, smartly belted in at the
waist, but with some flour on her right shoulder. And when I asked her
what she had been doing to herself, she answered in a matter-of-course
tone, "Oh, only helping Elizabeth!"

"What Elizabeth?" I had the strength to gasp.

"Why, Elizabeth Fortinbras, of course," she answered, quite sharply for
her; "whom else?" And this proved to me that the world had not been
standing still in Edam while we were whirling through Father's Country
at the tails of Jim's spanking chestnuts! I asked how about the pride of
all the Davenant Carters, and if her father knew that his only daughter
was assisting in a sweet-shop. Cissy held up her rounded chin with a
pout that made me at least almost forget our noble family motto: "WE DO
NOT KISS AT STATIONS!"

"I did not say that I was in the _shop_," said Cissy. "I am learning how
to make pastry rise till it is flake-light. And even you, Miss Priscilla
Picton Smith, could not do that without getting flour on your shoulder!"

Now I would quite well like to stop here, and, indeed, I could easily
do so. For a Diary, however dear, is not like any other book. When you
finish one year's doings, you just get another ruled book and start with
January First again. Only it is explained to me that I must not quite do
that. At any rate I must absolutely tell what became of my characters!
Now this is awfully funny. For, quite different from all the other
story-books I ever read--nothing at all happened to any of them. Cissy
is not married. No more is Elizabeth Fortinbras. No more, thank
goodness, am I. Hugh John can't be--not for a long time yet. As for
Toady Lion, he upholds the honor of his country (and of the Benbow
Dormitory) by not being sick on the stormiest seas--a thing which none
of the rest of the family would even attempt.

But there is one thing that I must tell. It is just as well that I wrote
down all about Torres Vedras, and the woods, and everything. For--sad it
is to tell it--strange children dig and play there now. All our old
beloved names for places and things and people would soon have been lost
if they had not been written down in this book. We have set up a new
home on the other side of the Edam Valley, and in some ways it is nicer.
But in others it can never have the charm of the "Wampage," the
"Scrubbery," the Low Park where the three bridges are, the Feudal Tower,
and Picnicville, up among the Sentinel Pines! They make one's heart
warm--only just the names of them said low in the heart, but now never
spoken out loud by the tongue!

Our new house is on a hill, and not in the howe of a valley. From the
front door (and almost from every window) we can see woods and fields,
and far-away cows that are no bigger than ants. Then on the hills beyond
are sheep that you cannot see at all without one of father's big
glasses, such as only the boys can use. Beyond those, again, there are
the mountains that run right away down into England in wave after purple
wave, each bending over a tiny bit as if it were real water just on the
point of breaking. Eastward and southward there are "Pens" and "Muirs"
and "Cairns" without number, and out of the window on clear mornings, as
I lie in bed, I can watch the tasseled larch and white-stemmed birch
sending scaling-parties up every ravine and watercourse, while the big
white clouds, hump-backed ones, sail majestically over all.

XXX

SOME DISCLAIMERS

LETTER NO. 1. HUGH JOHN'S LETTER.

     DEAR MR. PUBLISHER--You won't remember me, though once I came
     to your office with father to see you. You may recall the
     circumstance, because it was the first day your son went to
     college. I was quite a little chap then, and did not know what
     it was to be the son of an author with the habit of making
     people believe that he is writing about his own family, when
     half the time he is just making up. Or, as like as not, it was
     his own very self that did the things he blames on us. Anyway,
     a fellow has to be pretty stiff on his pins and pretty handy
     with his knuckles to be a good author's son in a big school. I
     came through right-side-up, however, but sometimes it must come
     hard on the little chaps.

     You see, the fellows want to know all the time if you really
     said or did some fool thing or other that father has stuffed
     into the books, and of which you are as innocent as Abel was of
     the murder of Cain. (He was. It's all right--only sounds rum!)

     But of course a fellow does not go back on his father at
     school. He can't afford to let anything like that pass. So of
     course there's a row--sometimes bigger, sometimes shorter,
     according to the length of time it takes the other fellow to
     decide about crying, "Hold, enough!" as they do in plays. Or,
     as we call it at school, "backing down."

     Well, I put my time through at school, and by and by the
     fellows got to know--that is, after several little difficulties
     had been adjusted. Not that I like having to fight. It is right
     to be patient just as long as ever you can. And then, when you
     can't--why, the best way and the quickest is to let her rip.
     Finish it good, once and for all. As father says, "Keep the
     peace, my boy! But if the other fellow won't, why, make him!
     First have your quarrel just, and then remember to open with
     your left!"

     Yes, of course, at school I back up what father has written,
     every word. It is what I am there for, and I mean to do it.
     That's playing the game. But what I did not bargain for was the
     whole family chipping in, and making a kind of lop-sided,
     ice-cream-freezer hero of a chap. Sis had no business with what
     is _my_ business--about Cissy Carter, I mean. At any rate she
     knows nothing about it really. Girls imagine all sorts of
     nonsense, of course. You can't stop them imagining, and if you
     think you can, why, you're a fool. That's all in the day's
     work, and I am not whining. But with regard to anything or
     person not "girlie-girl," I, Hugh John Picton Smith, give due
     notice that the first chap who turns up to me anything that Sis
     has imagined about Miss Cissy Carter, and especially about Miss
     Elizabeth Fortinbras, is going to get a calm and peaceful
     surprise--that may or may not confine him to his room for a day
     or two, but which, in any case, will afford him matter for
     reflection.

     Oh, I don't in the least want to queer Sis, or to say that she
     has put down anything not quite true, as far as _she_
     understands it. It isn't that I did not _do_ these things. But
     Sis being a girl, and the safety-valves of her
     imagination-boiler shut tight, and "Full Steam Ahead"
     ordered--why, I would rather have father on the job any day. He
     at least only puts things down (or invents them). He does not
     try to explain what's going on in a chap's inside. Besides, I
     don't see that it is anybody's business--and after this, on the
     whole, it had better not be. That "glacial reserve" (wasn't
     it?) which Sis yarned about might break up, and somebody who
     wasn't insured get hurt with the pieces. Please put this at the
     end, Mr. Publisher, to prevent mistakes. And if ever I write a
     book you shall publish it, and then at last the world will know
     the right and the wrong of things. Excuse bad writing. Our
     chaps played Smasherhampton on Saturday. It was pretty thick in
     the second half. The Smashers got me down and rolled me about a
     bit on the hardish ground. My arm is still in a sling, but it
     will be all right for Saturday fortnight, when we play a return
     on our own ground. _I_ am going to play a return match too, for
     I know the fellow that did it.

     (Signed) HUGH JOHN PICTON SMITH.

LETTER NO. 2. FROM CADET GEORGE PERCIVAL PICTON SMITH, R. N., ROYAL
NAVAL COLL., DARTBOURNE.

     DEAR MR. PUBLISHER--You can print any ...[3] thing you like
     about me--true or not, it does not matter. Only in the latter
     case it will come a little dearer. I am called Toady Lion, and
     I have stood this sort of thing ever since I can remember.
     Though I must say father has been awfully decent about it, and
     I got a Rudge-Whitworth "free-wheel" out of him two years
     running on the strength of what you sent him. But there's no
     hope of coming that with Sis, who is always "stony," anyway,
     and won't believe what an awfully expensive place the Coll. is.
     My "bike" is going to be awfully dangerous this year--that is,
     if I don't get a new one somehow. It is only my second best,
     and much too small for me. I might get killed, very likely, and
     then you couldn't publish any more books about me! _I suppose
     you don't feel as if you could_ ... No? That means "Yes," but
     don't let on to father. For, you see, last summer, when I had
     measles or something, I sold my best machine to a poor boy who
     hadn't any. Just think of that--the cruelty of it! But as I
     have never let my left hand know what my right hand does, I
     don't want father to do so either. So you won't give me away.

     (Signed) G. P. PICTON SMITH, R. N.

     P. S.--I might get a pretty good one for a tenner, but if it
     _could_ possibly run to fifteen, I know where I could pick up
     an awfully swell "two-speed-gear" like what some of the masters
     have at our Coll. But, dear Mr. Publisher, this is only a
     suggestion.--T. Lion.

     P. S. No. 2.--If _you_ did see your way to the 2-Speed, I tell
     you what--you could make up any old thing you liked about
     me--such as that I killed my grand-aunt Jane, and hid the
     remains in my Black Sea Chest. I've got one, honor bright. Only
     no grand-aunt Jane. So the crime could never, never be
     discovered; and I would never deny it a bit, but back you up
     like fun. Of course it is understood between gentlemen that
     this last is on the two-speed-basis, as above.

     T. LION,
     Now Cadet G. P. Picton Smith, R. N.
    (Postal Notes Preferred.)

[Footnote 3: The word "blooming" is scored out here, as being too
nautical for present publication.--Ed.]

LETTER NO. 3. FROM MAID MARGARET.

     DEAR SIR--(I would put "Publisher," but am not sure whether it
     is spelt with a B or a P--in the middle, I mean.) The boys want
     me to join in their protest, but you will excuse me, dear Sir.
     And the reason is that I sleep in the same room with the
     authoress. If you have any little girls, they will understand.

     Yours Afftly,
     MAID MARGARET.

Letter No. 4 Elizabeth Fortinbras's Letter.

     DEAR SIR--There has been a good deal said about me in these
     pages, perhaps more than I should have liked if the Editor had
     given my real name. Of course Miss Sweetheart is far too loving
     to set down anything untrue or unkind. Indeed, she has made me
     out far better than I deserve, and has very kindly altered
     relationships, so that nobody's feelings will be hurt. For they
     will not know that it is they who are meant--I mean, not in my
     own family.

     Now, the Editor tells me that all the people who read the book
     will be anxious to know what became of me--if I married, and
     whom! I should be very glad indeed to satisfy the curiosity of
     these good folk. I know what it is myself to glance over to the
     last page of a book and see "if it happened all right."

     But you see that I am still very happy at New Erin Villa, which
     is no longer a "villa," but a proper shop, with a house at the
     back big enough for us all to live happily in. We have a good
     maid for the inside work, and I have added a special "icing"
     department, where people can have their own home-made cakes
     iced and fired. Besides, I give cookery lessons twice a week in
     the evenings to all the mill-girls, and Polly Pretend comes
     over to help me sometimes. Sweetheart, too, and Miss Davenant
     Carter come when they can, and are a great encouragement.

     I don't mean to say, like most girls, that I never will get
     married. Perhaps I may, but it will be a very long time yet. I
     am quite content as things are, and, most important of all, I
     have yet to see the man I would freely marry darken the doors
     of Erin Villa! All I want to say is that Sweetheart has seen me
     and my doings through the sunlight of her own loving eyes--just
     as Hugh John and I have often looked at the long lines of
     cornstooks in the last rays of a September sun, and thought how
     much the common hills and holms and cornlands of Edam gained by
     the warm glow which caressed them. But how much the more I, who
     sign myself

     THE GIRL BEHIND THE COUNTER.

NO. 5. CERTIFICATE.

     This is to guarantee that the above letters are whole and exact
     copies of the originals, without alteration, suppression, or
     amendment.

     THE EDITOR.

THE END