CHAPTER 14. THE DIVINING-ROD
You have no idea how uncomfortable the house was on the day when wesought for gold with the divining-rod. It was like a spring-cleaning inthe winter-time. All the carpets were up, because Father had told Elizato make the place decent as there was a gentleman coming to dinner thenext day. So she got in a charwoman, and they slopped water about, andleft brooms and brushes on the stairs for people to tumble over. H. O.got a big bump on his head in that way, and when he said it was too bad,Eliza said he should keep in the nursery then, and not be where he'd nobusiness. We bandaged his head with a towel, and then he stopped cryingand played at being England's wounded hero dying in the cockpit, whileevery man was doing his duty, as the hero had told them to, and Alicewas Hardy, and I was the doctor, and the others were the crew. Playingat Hardy made us think of our own dear robber, and we wished he wasthere, and wondered if we should ever see him any more.
We were rather astonished at Father's having anyone to dinner, becausenow he never seems to think of anything but business. Before Mother diedpeople often came to dinner, and Father's business did not take up somuch of his time and was not the bother it is now. And we used to seewho could go furthest down in our nightgowns and get nice things toeat, without being seen, out of the dishes as they came out of thedining-room. Eliza can't cook very nice things. She told Father she wasa good plain cook, but he says it was a fancy portrait. We stayed in thenursery till the charwoman came in and told us to be off--she was goingto make one job of it, and have our carpet up as well as all theothers, now the man was here to beat them. It came up, and it was verydusty--and under it we found my threepenny-bit that I lost ages ago,which shows what Eliza is. H. O. had got tired of being the woundedhero, and Dicky was so tired of doing nothing that Dora said she knewhe'd begin to tease Noel in a minute; then of course Dicky said hewasn't going to tease anybody--he was going out to the Heath. He saidhe'd heard that nagging women drove a man from his home, and now hefound it was quite true. Oswald always tries to be a peacemaker, so hetold Dicky to shut up and not make an ass of himself. And Alice said,'Well, Dora began'--And Dora tossed her chin up and said it wasn't anybusiness of Oswald's any way, and no one asked Alice's opinion. So weall felt very uncomfortable till Noel said, 'Don't let's quarrel aboutnothing. You know let dogs delight--and I made up another piece whileyou were talking--
Quarrelling is an evil thing, It fills with gall life's cup; For when once you begin It takes such a long time to make it up.'
We all laughed then and stopped jawing at each other. Noel is very funnywith his poetry. But that piece happened to come out quite true. Youbegin to quarrel and then you can't stop; often, long before the othersare ready to cry and make it up, I see how silly it is, and I want tolaugh; but it doesn't do to say so--for it only makes the others crosserthan they were before. I wonder why that is?
Alice said Noel ought to be poet laureate, and she actually went outin the cold and got some laurel leaves--the spotted kind--out ofthe garden, and Dora made a crown and we put it on him. He was quitepleased; but the leaves made a mess, and Eliza said, 'Don't.' I believethat's a word grown-ups use more than any other. Then suddenly Alicethought of that old idea of hers for finding treasure, and she said--'Dolet's try the divining-rod.'
So Oswald said, 'Fair priestess, we do greatly desire to find goldbeneath our land, therefore we pray thee practise with the divining-rod,and tell us where we can find it.'
'Do ye desire to fashion of it helms and hauberks?' said Alice.
'Yes,' said Noel; 'and chains and ouches.'
'I bet you don't know what an "ouch" is,' said Dicky.
'Yes I do, so there!' said Noel. 'It's a carcanet. I looked it out inthe dicker, now then!' We asked him what a carcanet was, but he wouldn'tsay.
'And we want to make fair goblets of the gold,' said Oswald.
'Yes, to drink coconut milk out of,' said H. O.
'And we desire to build fair palaces of it,' said Dicky.
'And to buy things,' said Dora; 'a great many things. New Sunday frocksand hats and kid gloves and--'
She would have gone on for ever so long only we reminded her that wehadn't found the gold yet.
By this Alice had put on the nursery tablecloth, which is green, andtied the old blue and yellow antimacassar over her head, and she said--
'If your intentions are correct, fear nothing and follow me.'
And she went down into the hall. We all followed chanting 'Heroes.' Itis a gloomy thing the girls learnt at the High School, and we always useit when we want a priestly chant.
Alice stopped short by the hat-stand, and held up her hands as well asshe could for the tablecloth, and said--
'Now, great altar of the golden idol, yield me the divining-rod that Imay use it for the good of the suffering people.'
The umbrella-stand was the altar of the golden idol, and it yielded herthe old school umbrella. She carried it between her palms.
'Now,' she said, 'I shall sing the magic chant. You mustn't sayanything, but just follow wherever I go--like follow my leader, youknow--and when there is gold underneath the magic rod will twist in thehand of the priestess like a live thing that seeks to be free. Then youwill dig, and the golden treasure will be revealed. H. O., if you makethat clatter with your boots they'll come and tell us not to. Now comeon all of you.'
So she went upstairs and down and into every room. We followed heron tiptoe, and Alice sang as she went. What she sang is not out of abook--Noel made it up while she was dressing up for the priestess.
Ashen rod cold That here I hold, Teach me where to find the gold.
When we came to where Eliza was, she said, 'Get along with you'; butDora said it was only a game, and we wouldn't touch anything, and ourboots were quite clean, and Eliza might as well let us. So she did.
It was all right for the priestess, but it was a little dull for therest of us, because she wouldn't let us sing, too; so we said we'd hadenough of it, and if she couldn't find the gold we'd leave off and playsomething else. The priestess said, 'All right, wait a minute,' and wenton singing. Then we all followed her back into the nursery, where thecarpet was up and the boards smelt of soft soap. Then she said, 'Itmoves, it moves! Once more the choral hymn!' So we sang 'Heroes' again,and in the middle the umbrella dropped from her hands.
'The magic rod has spoken,' said Alice; 'dig here, and that with courageand despatch.' We didn't quite see how to dig, but we all began toscratch on the floor with our hands, but the priestess said, 'Don'tbe so silly! It's the place where they come to do the gas. The board'sloose. Dig an you value your lives, for ere sundown the dragon whoguards this spoil will return in his fiery fury and make you hisunresisting prey.'
So we dug--that is, we got the loose board up. And Alice threw up herarms and cried--
'See the rich treasure--the gold in thick layers, with silver anddiamonds stuck in it!'
'Like currants in cake,' said H. O.
'It's a lovely treasure,' said Dicky yawning. 'Let's come back and carryit away another day.'
But Alice was kneeling by the hole.
'Let me feast my eyes on the golden splendour,' she said, 'hidden theselong centuries from the human eye. Behold how the magic rod has ledus to treasures more--Oswald, don't push so!--more bright than evermonarch--I say, there _is_ something down there, really. I saw itshine!'
We thought she was kidding, but when she began to try to get into thehole, which was much too small, we saw she meant it, so I said, 'Let'shave a squint,' and I looked, but I couldn't see anything, even when Ilay down on my stomach. The others lay down on their stomachs too andtried to see, all but Noel, who stood and looked at us and said we werethe great serpents come down to drink at the magic pool. He wanted to bethe knight and slay the great serpents with his good sword--he even drewthe umbrella ready--but Alice said, 'All right, we will in a minute. Butnow--I'm sure I saw it; do get a match, Noel, there's a dear.'
'What did you see?' asked Noel, begi
nning to go for the matches veryslowly.
'Something bright, away in the corner under the board against the beam.'
'Perhaps it was a rat's eye,' Noel said, 'or a snake's,' and we didnot put our heads quite so close to the hole till he came back with thematches.
Then I struck a match, and Alice cried, 'There it is!' And there it was,and it was a half-sovereign, partly dusty and partly bright. We thinkperhaps a mouse, disturbed by the carpets being taken up, may havebrushed the dust of years from part of the half-sovereign with his tail.We can't imagine how it came there, only Dora thinks she remembers oncewhen H. O. was very little Mother gave him some money to hold, and hedropped it, and it rolled all over the floor. So we think perhaps thiswas part of it. We were very glad. H. O. wanted to go out at once andbuy a mask he had seen for fourpence. It had been a shilling mask, butnow it was going very cheap because Guy Fawkes' Day was over, and it wasa little cracked at the top. But Dora said, 'I don't know that it's ourmoney. Let's wait and ask Father.'
But H. O. did not care about waiting, and I felt for him. Dora is ratherlike grown-ups in that way; she does not seem to understand that whenyou want a thing you do want it, and that you don't wish to wait, even aminute.
So we went and asked Albert-next-door's uncle. He was pegging away atone of the rotten novels he has to write to make his living, but he saidwe weren't interrupting him at all.
'My hero's folly has involved him in a difficulty,' he said. 'It is hisown fault. I will leave him to meditate on the incredible fatuity--thehare-brained recklessness--which have brought him to this pass. It willbe a lesson to him. I, meantime, will give myself unreservedly to thepleasures of your conversation.'
That's one thing I like Albert's uncle for. He always talks like a book,and yet you can always understand what he means. I think he is more likeus, inside of his mind, than most grown-up people are. He can pretendbeautifully. I never met anyone else so good at it, except our robber,and we began it, with him. But it was Albert's uncle who first taughtus how to make people talk like books when you're playing things, and hemade us learn to tell a story straight from the beginning, not startingin the middle like most people do. So now Oswald remembered what he hadbeen told, as he generally does, and began at the beginning, but when hecame to where Alice said she was the priestess, Albert's uncle said--
'Let the priestess herself set forth the tale in fitting speech.'
So Alice said, 'O high priest of the great idol, the humblest of thyslaves took the school umbrella for a divining-rod, and sang the song ofinver--what's-it's-name?'
'Invocation perhaps?' said Albert's uncle. 'Yes; and then I went aboutand about and the others got tired, so the divining-rod fell on acertain spot, and I said, "Dig", and we dug--it was where the looseboard is for the gas men--and then there really and truly was ahalf-sovereign lying under the boards, and here it is.'
Albert's uncle took it and looked at it.
'The great high priest will bite it to see if it's good,' he said, andhe did. 'I congratulate you,' he went on; 'you are indeed among thosefavoured by the Immortals. First you find half-crowns in the garden, andnow this. The high priest advises you to tell your Father, and ask ifyou may keep it. My hero has become penitent, but impatient. I must pullhim out of this scrape. Ye have my leave to depart.'
Of course we know from Kipling that that means, 'You'd better bunk, andbe sharp about it,' so we came away. I do like Albert's uncle.
I shall be like that when I'm a man. He gave us our Jungle books, and heis awfully clever, though he does have to write grown-up tales.
We told Father about it that night. He was very kind. He said wemight certainly have the half-sovereign, and he hoped we should enjoyourselves with our treasure-trove.
Then he said, 'Your dear Mother's Indian Uncle is coming to dinner hereto-morrow night. So will you not drag the furniture about overhead,please, more than you're absolutely obliged; and H. O. might wearslippers or something. I can always distinguish the note of H. O.'sboots.'
We said we would be very quiet, and Father went on--
'This Indian Uncle is not used to children, and he is coming to talkbusiness with me. It is really important that he should be quiet. Do youthink, Dora, that perhaps bed at six for H. O. and Noel--'
But H. O. said, 'Father, I really and truly won't make a noise. I'llstand on my head all the evening sooner than disturb the Indian Unclewith my boots.'
And Alice said Noel never made a row anyhow. So Father laughed andsaid, 'All right.' And he said we might do as we liked with thehalf-sovereign. 'Only for goodness' sake don't try to go in for businesswith it,' he said. 'It's always a mistake to go into business with aninsufficient capital.'
We talked it over all that evening, and we decided that as we were notto go into business with our half-sovereign it was no use not spendingit at once, and so we might as well have a right royal feast. The nextday we went out and bought the things. We got figs, and almonds andraisins, and a real raw rabbit, and Eliza promised to cook it for usif we would wait till tomorrow, because of the Indian Uncle coming todinner. She was very busy cooking nice things for him to eat. We got therabbit because we are so tired of beef and mutton, and Father hasn'ta bill at the poultry shop. And we got some flowers to go on thedinner-table for Father's party. And we got hardbake and raspberry noyauand peppermint rock and oranges and a coconut, with other nice things.We put it all in the top long drawer. It is H. O.'s play drawer, and wemade him turn his things out and put them in Father's old portmanteau.H. O. is getting old enough now to learn to be unselfish, and besides,his drawer wanted tidying very badly. Then we all vowed by the honour ofthe ancient House of Bastable that we would not touch any of thefeast till Dora gave the word next day. And we gave H. O. some of thehardbake, to make it easier for him to keep his vow. The next day wasthe most rememorable day in all our lives, but we didn't know that then.But that is another story. I think that is such a useful way to knowwhen you can't think how to end up a chapter. I learnt it from anotherwriter named Kipling. I've mentioned him before, I believe, but hedeserves it!