_THE ROAD TO ROME; OR, THE SILLY STOWAWAY_
WE Bastables have only two uncles, and neither of them, are ourown natural-born relatives. One is a great-uncle, and the other isthe uncle from his birth of Albert, who used to live next door tous in the Lewisham Road. When we first got to know him (it was oversome baked potatoes, and is quite another story) we called himAlbert-next-door's-Uncle, and then Albert's uncle for short. ButAlbert's uncle and my father joined in taking a jolly house in thecountry, called the Moat House, and we stayed there for our summerholidays; and it was there, through an accident to a pilgrim with peasin his shoes--that's another story too--that we found Albert's uncle'slong-lost love; and as she was very old indeed--twenty-six nextbirthday--and he was ever so much older in the vale of years, he had toget married almost directly, and it was fixed for about Christmas-time.And when our holidays came the whole six of us went down to the MoatHouse with Father and Albert's uncle. We never had a Christmas in thecountry before. It was simply ripping. And the long-lost love--her namewas Miss Ashleigh, but we were allowed to call her Aunt Margaret evenbefore the wedding made it really legal for us to do so--she and herjolly clergyman brother used to come over, and sometimes we went to theCedars, where they live, and we had games and charades, andhide-and-seek, and Devil in the Dark, which is a game girls pretend tolike, and very few do really, and crackers and a Christmas-tree for thevillage children, and everything you can jolly well think of.
And all the time, whenever we went to the Cedars, there was all sorts ofsilly fuss going on about the beastly wedding; boxes coming from Londonwith hats and jackets in, and wedding presents--all glassy and silvery,or else brooches and chains--and clothes sent down from London to choosefrom. I can't think how a lady can want so many petticoats and boots andthings just because she's going to be married. No man would think ofgetting twenty-four shirts and twenty-four waistcoats, and so on, justto be married in.
"It's because they're going to Rome, I think," Alice said, when wetalked it over before the fire in the kitchen the day Mrs. Pettigrewwent to see her aunt, and we were allowed to make toffee. "You see, inRome you can only buy Roman clothes, and I think they're all stupidbright colours--at least I know the sashes are. You stir now, Oswald.My face is all burnt black."
Oswald took the spoon, though it was really not his turn by three; buthe is one whose nature is so that he cannot make a fuss about littlethings--and he knows he can make toffee.
"Lucky hounds," H.O. said, "to be going to Rome. I wish I was."
"Hounds isn't polite, H.O., dear," Dora said; and H.O. said--
"Well, lucky bargees, then."
"It's the dream of my life to go to Rome," Noel said. Noel is our poetbrother. "Just think of what the man says in the 'Roman Road.' I wishthey'd take me."
"They won't," Dicky said. "It costs a most awful lot. I heard Fathersaying so only yesterday."
"It would only be the fare," Noel answered; "and I'd go third, or evenin a cattle-truck, or a luggage van. And when I got there I could easilyearn my own living. I'd make ballads and sing them in the streets. TheItalians would give me lyres--that's the Italian kind of shilling, theyspell it with an _i_. It shows how poetical they are out there, theircalling it that."
"But you couldn't make Italian poetry," H.O. said, staring at Noel withhis mouth open.
"Oh, I don't know so much about that," Noel said. "I could jolly soonlearn anyway, and just to begin with I'd do it in English. There aresure to be some people who would understand. And if they didn't, don'tyou think their warm Southern hearts would be touched to see a pale,slender, foreign figure singing plaintive ballads in an unknown tongue?I do. Oh! they'd chuck along the lyres fast enough--they're not hard andcold like North people. Why, every one here is a brewer, or a baker, ora banker, or a butcher, or something dull. Over there they're allbandits, or vineyardiners, or play the guitar, or something, and theycrush the red grapes and dance and laugh in the sun--you know jolly wellthey do."
"This toffee's about done," said Oswald suddenly. "H.O., shut your sillymouth and get a cupful of cold water." And then, what with dropping alittle of the toffee into the water to see if it was ready, and pouringsome on a plate that wasn't buttered and not being able to get it offagain when it was cold without breaking the plate, and the warm rowthere was about its being one of the best dinner-service ones, the wildromances of Noel's poetical intellect went out of our heads altogether;and it was not till later, and when deep in the waters of affliction,that they were brought back to us.
Next day H.O. said to Dora, "I want to speak to you all by yourself andme." So they went into the secret staircase that creaks and hasn't beensecret now for countless years; and after that Dora did some whitesewing she wouldn't let us look at, and H.O. helped her.
DORA DID SOME WHITE SEWING.]
"It's another wedding present, you may depend," Dicky said--"a beastlysurprise, I shouldn't wonder." And no more was said. The rest of us werebusy skating on the moat, for it was now freezing hard. Dora never didcare for skating; she says it hurts her feet.
And now Christmas and Boxing Day passed like a radiating dream, and itwas the wedding-day. We all had to go to the bride's mother's housebefore the wedding, so as to go to church with the wedding party. Thegirls had always wanted to be somebody's bridesmaids, and now theywere--in white cloth coats like coachmen, with lots of little capes, andwhite beaver bonnets. They didn't look so bad, though rather as if theywere in a Christmas card; and their dresses were white silk likepocket-handkerchiefs under the long coats. And their shoes had realsilver buckles our great Indian uncle gave them. H.O. went back just asthe waggonette was starting, and came out with a big brown-paper parcel.We thought it was the secret surprise present Dora had been making, and,indeed, when I asked her she nodded. We little recked what it reallywas, or how our young brother was going to shove himself forward onceagain. He _will_ do it. Nothing you say is of any lasting use.
There were a great many people at the wedding--quite crowds. There waslots to eat and drink, and though it was all cold, it did not matter,because there were blazing fires in every fireplace in the house, andthe place all decorated with holly and mistletoe and things. Every oneseemed to enjoy themselves very much, except Albert's uncle and hisblushing bride; and they looked desperate. Every one said how sweet shelooked, but Oswald thought she looked as if she didn't like beingmarried as much as she expected. She was not at all a blushing bridereally; only the tip of her nose got pink, because it was rather cold inthe church. But she is very jolly.
Her reverend but nice brother read the marriage service. He reads betterthan any one I know, but he is not a bit of a prig really, when you cometo know him.
When the rash act was done Albert's uncle and his bride went home in acarriage all by themselves, and then we had the lunch and drank thehealth of the bride in real champagne, though Father said we kids mustonly have just a taste. I'm sure Oswald, for one, did not want any more;one taste was quite enough. Champagne is like soda-water with medicinein it. The sherry we put sugar in once was much more decent.
Then Miss Ashleigh--I mean Mrs. Albert's uncle--went away and took offher white dress and came back looking much warmer. Dora heard thehousemaid say afterwards that the cook had stopped the bride on thestairs with "a basin of hot soup, that would take no denial, because thebride, poor dear young thing, not a bite or sup had passed her lips thatday." We understood then why she had looked so unhappy. But Albert'suncle had had a jolly good breakfast--fish and eggs and bacon and threegoes of marmalade. So it was not hunger made him sad. Perhaps he wasthinking what a lot of money it cost to be married and go to Rome.
A little before the bride went to change, H.O. got up and reached hisbrown-paper parcel from under the sideboard and sneaked out. We thoughthe might have let us see it given, whatever it was. And Dora said shehad understood he meant to; but it was his secret.
The bride went away looking quite comfy in a furry cloak, and Albert'suncle cheered up at the last and threw off th
e burden of his cares andmade a joke. I forget what it was; it wasn't a very good one, but itshowed he was trying to make the best of things.
Then the Bridal Sufferers drove away, with the luggage on a cart--heapsand heaps of it, and we all cheered and threw rice and slippers. Mrs.Ashleigh and some other old ladies cried.
And then every one said, "What a pretty wedding!" and began to go. Andwhen our waggonette came round we all began to get in. And suddenlyFather said--
"Where's H.O.?" And we looked round. He was in absence.
"Fetch him along sharp--some of you," Father said; "I don't want to keepthe horses standing here in the cold all day."
So Oswald and Dicky went to fetch him along. We thought he might havewandered back to what was left of the lunch--for he is young and he doesnot always know better. But he was not there, and Oswald did not eventake a crystallised fruit in passing. He might easily have done this,and no one would have minded, so it would not have been wrong. But itwould have been ungentlemanly. Dicky did not either. H.O. was not there.
We went into the other rooms, even the one the old ladies were cryingin, but of course we begged their pardons. And at last into the kitchen,where the servants were smart with white bows and just sitting down totheir dinner, and Dicky said--
"I say, cookie love, have you seen H.O.?"
"Don't come here with your imperence!" the cook said, but she waspleased with Dicky's unmeaning compliment all the same.
"_I_ see him," said the housemaid. "He was colloguing with the butcherin the yard a bit since. He'd got a brown-paper parcel. Perhaps he got alift home."
So we went and told Father, and about the white present in the parcel.
"I expect he was ashamed to give it after all," Oswald said, "so hehooked off home with it."
And we got into the wagonette.
"It wasn't a present, though," Dora said; "it was a different kind ofsurprise--but it really is a secret."
Our good Father did not command her to betray her young brother.
But when we got home H.O. wasn't there. Mrs. Pettigrew hadn't seen him,and he was nowhere about. Father biked back to the Cedars to see if he'dturned up. No. Then all the gentlemen turned out to look for him throughthe length and breadth of the land.
"He's too old to be stolen by gipsies," Alice said.
"And too ugly," said Dicky.
"Oh _don't_!" said both the girls; "and now when he's lost, too!"
We had looked for a long time before Mrs. Pettigrew came in with aparcel she said the butcher had left. It was not addressed, but we knewit was H.O.'s, because of the label on the paper from the shop whereFather gets his shirts. Father opened it at once.
Inside the parcel we found H.O.'s boots and braces, his best hat and hischest-protector. And Oswald felt as if we had found his skeleton.
"Any row with any of you?" Father asked. But there hadn't been any.
"Was he worried about anything? Done anything wrong, and afraid to ownup?"
We turned cold, for we knew what he meant. That parcel was so horriblylike the lady's hat and gloves that she takes off on the seashore andleaves with a letter saying it has come to this.
"_No_, _no_, NO, NO!" we all said. "He was perfectly jolly all themorning."
Then suddenly Dicky leaned on the table and one of H.O.'s boots toppledover, and there was something white inside. It was a letter. H.O. musthave written it before we left home. It said--
"DEAR FATHER AND EVERY ONE,--I am going to be a Clown. When I am rich and reveared I will come back rolling.
"Your affectionate son, "HORACE OCTAVIUS BASTABLE."
"Rolling?" Father said.
"He means rolling in money," Alice said. Oswald noticed that every oneround the table where H.O.'s boots were dignifiedly respected as theylay, was a horrid pale colour, like when the salt is thrown intosnapdragons.
"Oh dear!" Dora cried, "that was it. He asked me to make him a clown'sdress and keep it deeply secret. He said he wanted to surprise AuntMargaret and Albert's uncle. And I didn't think it was wrong," saidDora, screwing up her face; she then added, "Oh dear, oh dear, oh, oh!"and with these concluding remarks she began to howl.
Father thumped her on the back in an absent yet kind way.
"But where's he gone?" he said, not to any one in particular. "I saw thebutcher; he said H.O. asked him to take a parcel home and went backround the Cedars."
Here Dicky coughed and said--
"I didn't think he meant anything, but the day after Noel was talkingabout singing ballads in Rome, and getting poet's lyres given him, H.O.did say if Noel had been really keen on the Roman lyres and things hecould easily have been a stowaway, and gone unknown."
"A stowaway!" said my Father, sitting down suddenly and hard.
"In Aunt Margaret's big dress basket--the one she let him hide in whenwe had hide-and-seek there. He talked a lot about it after Noel had saidthat about the lyres--and the Italians being so poetical, you know. Youremember that day we had toffee."
My Father is prompt and decisive in action, so is his eldest son.
"I'm off to the Cedars," he said.
"Do let me come, Father," said the decisive son. "You may want to send amessage."
So in a moment Father was on his bike and Oswald on the step--adangerous but delightful spot--and off to the Cedars.
"Have your teas; and _don't_ any more of you get lost, and don't sit upif we're late," Father howled to them as we rushed away. How glad thenthe thoughtful Oswald was that he was the eldest. It was very cold inthe dusk on the bicycle, but Oswald did not complain.
At the Cedars my father explained in a few manly but well-chosen words,and the apartment of the dear departed bride was searched.
"Because," said my father, "if H.O. really was little ass enough to getinto that basket, he must have turned out something to make room forhimself."
Sure enough, when they came to look, there was a great bundle rolled ina sheet under the bed--all lace things and petticoats and ribbons anddressing-gowns and ladies' flummery.
"If you will put the things in something else, I'll catch the express toDover and take it with me," Father said to Mrs. Ashleigh; and while shepacked the things he explained to some of the crying old ladies who hadbeen unable to leave off, how sorry he was that a son of his--but youknow the sort of thing.
Oswald said: "Father, I wish you'd let me come too. I won't be a bit oftrouble."
Perhaps it was partly because my Father didn't want to let me walk homein the dark, and he didn't want to worry the Ashleighs any more byasking them to send me home. He said this was why, but I hope it was hisloving wish to have his prompt son, so like himself in his decisiveness,with him.
We went.
It was an anxious journey. We knew how far from pleased the bride wouldbe to find no dressing-gowns and ribbons, but only H.O. crying and crossand dirty, as likely as not, when she opened the basket at the hotel atDover.
Father smoked to pass the time, but Oswald had not so much as apeppermint or a bit of Spanish liquorice to help him through thejourney. Yet he bore up.
When we got out at Dover there were Mr. and Mrs. Albert's uncle on theplatform.
"Hullo," said Albert's uncle. "What's up? Nothing wrong at home, Ihope."
"We've only lost H.O.," said my father. "You don't happen to have himwith you?"
"No; but you're joking," said the bride. "We've lost a dress-basket."
_Lost a dress-basket!_ The words struck us dumb, but my father recoveredspeech and explained. The bride was very glad when we said we hadbrought her ribbons and things, but we stood in anxious gloom, for nowH.O. was indeed lost. The dress-basket might be on its way to Liverpool,or rocking on the Channel, and H.O. might never be found again. Oswalddid not say these things. It is best to hold your jaw when you want tosee a thing out, and are liable to be sent to bed at a strange hotel ifany one happens to remember you.
Then suddenly
the station master came with a telegram.
It said: "A dress-basket without label at Cannon Street detained foridentification suspicious sounds from inside detain inquirers dynamitemachine suspected."
He did not show us this till my Father had told him about H.O., which ittook some time for him to believe, and then he did and laughed, and saidhe would wire them to get the dynamite machine to speak, and if so, totake it out and keep it till its Father called for it.
So back we went to London, with hearts a little lighter, but not gay,for we were a very long time from the last things we had had to eat. AndOswald was almost sorry he had not taken those crystallised fruits.
It was quite late when we got to Cannon Street, and we went straightinto the cloakroom, and there was the man in charge, a very jolly chap,sitting on a stool. And there was H.O., the guilty stowaway, dressed ina red-and-white clown's dress, very dusty, and his face as dirty as Ihave ever seen it, sitting on some one else's tin box, with his feet onsome body else's portmanteau, eating bread and cheese, and drinking aleout of a can.
My Father claimed him at once, and Oswald identified the basket. It wasvery large. There was a tray on the top with hats in it, and H.O. hadthis on top of him. We all went to bed in Cannon Street Hotel. My Fathersaid nothing to H.O. that night. When we were in bed I tried to get H.O.to tell me all about it, but he was too sleepy and cross. It was thebeer and the knocking about in the basket, I suppose. Next day we wentback to the Moat House, where the raving anxiousness of the others hadbeen cooled the night before by a telegram from Dover.
My Father said he would speak to H.O. in the evening. It is very horridnot to be spoken to at once and get it over. But H.O. certainly deservedsomething.
It is hard to tell this tale, because so much of it happened all at oncebut at different places. But this is what H.O. said to us about it. Hesaid--
"Don't bother--let me alone."
But we were all kind and gentle, and at last we got it out of him whathad happened. He doesn't tell a story right from the beginning likeOswald and some of the others do, but from his disjunctured words theauthor has made the following narration. This is called editing, Ibelieve.
"It was all Noel's fault," H.O. said; "what did he want to go jawingabout Rome for?--and a clown's as good as a beastly poet, anyhow! Youremember that day we made toffee? Well, I thought of it then."
"You didn't tell us."
"Yes, I did. I half told Dicky. He never said don't, or you'd betternot, or gave me any good advice or anything. It's his fault as much asmine. Father ought to speak to him to-night the same as me--and Noel,too."
We bore with him just then because we wanted to hear the story. And wemade him go on.
"Well--so I thought if Noel's a cowardy custard I'm not--and I wasn'tafraid of being in the basket, though it was quite dark till I cut theair-holes with my knife in the railway van. I think I cut the string offthe label. It fell off afterwards, and I saw it through the hole, but ofcourse I couldn't say anything. I thought they'd look after their sillyluggage better than that. It was all their fault I was lost."
"Tell us how you did it, H.O. dear," Dora said; "never mind about itbeing everybody else's fault."
"It's yours as much as any one's, if you come to that," H.O. said. "Youmade me the clown dress when I asked you. You never said a word aboutnot. So there!"
"Oh, H.O., you _are_ unkind!" Dora said. "You know you said it was for asurprise for the bridal pair."
"So it would have been, if they'd found me at Rome, and I'd popped uplike what I meant to--like a jack-in-the-box--and said, 'Here we areagain!' in my clown's clothes, at them. But it's all spoiled, andfather's going to speak to me this evening." H.O. sniffed every time hestopped speaking. But we did not correct him then. We wanted to hearabout everything.
"Why didn't you tell me straight out what you were going to do?" Dickyasked.
"Because you'd jolly well have shut me up. You always do if I want to doanything you haven't thought of yourself."
"What did you take with you, H.O.?" asked Alice in a hurry, for H.O. wasnow sniffing far beyond a whisper.
"Oh, I'd saved a lot of grub, only I forgot it at the last. It's underthe chest of drawers in our room. And I had my knife--and I changed intothe clown's dress in the cupboard at the Ashleighs--over my own thingsbecause I thought it would be cold. And then I emptied the rotten girl'sclothes out and hid them--and the top-hatted tray I just put it on achair near, and I got into the basket, and I lifted the tray up over myhead and sat down and fitted it down over me--it's got webbing bars, youknow, across it. And none of you would ever have thought of it, letalone doing it."
"I should hope not," Dora said, but H.O. went on unhearing.
"I began to think perhaps I wished I hadn't directly they strapped upthe basket. It was beastly hot and stuffy--I had to cut an air-hole inthe cart, and I cut my thumb; it was so bumpety. And they threw me aboutas if I was coals--and wrong way up as often as not. And the train wasawful wobbly, and I felt so sick, and if I'd had the grub I couldn'thave eaten it. I had a bottle of water. And that was all right till Idropped the cork, and I couldn't find it in the dark till the water gotupset, and then I found the cork that minute.
"And when they dumped the basket on to the platform I was so glad to sitstill a minute without being jogged I nearly went to sleep. And then Ilooked out, and the label was off, and lying close by. And then some onegave the basket a kick--big brute, I'd like to kick him!--and said,'What's this here?' And I daresay I did squeak--like a rabbit-noise, youknow--and then some one said, 'Sounds like live-stock, don't it? Nolabel.' And he was standing on the label all the time. I saw the stringsticking out under his nasty boot. And then they trundled me offsomewhere, on a wheelbarrow it felt like, and dumped me down again in adark place--and I couldn't see anything more."
"I wonder," said the thoughtful Oswald, "what made them think you were adynamite machine?"
"Oh, that was awful!" H.O. said. "It was my watch. I wound it up, justfor something to do. You know the row it makes since it was broken, andI heard some one say, 'Shish! what's that?' and then, 'Sounds like aninfernal machine'--don't go shoving me, Dora, it was him said it, notme--and then, 'If I was the inspector I'd dump it down in the river, soI would. Any way, let's shift it.' But the other said, 'Let well alone,'so I wasn't dumped any more. And they fetched another man, and there wasa heap of jaw, and I heard them say 'Police,' so I let them have it."
THEY LAUGHED EVER SO.]
"What _did_ you do?"
"Oh, I just kicked about in the basket, and I heard them all start off,and I shouted, 'Hi, here! let me out, can't you!'"
"And did they?"
"Yes, but not for ever so long, I had to jaw at them through the cracksof the basket. And when they opened it there was quite a crowd, and theylaughed ever so, and gave me bread and cheese, and said I was a pluckyyoungster--and I am, and I do wish Father wouldn't put things off so. Hemight just as well have spoken to me this morning. And I can't see I'vedone anything so awful--and it's all your faults for not looking afterme. Aren't I your little brother? and it's your duty to see I do what'sright. You've told me so often enough."
These last words checked the severe reprimand trembling on the hithertopatient Oswald's lips. And then H.O. began to cry, and Dora nursed him,though generally he is much too big for this and knows it. And he wentto sleep on her lap, and said he didn't want any dinner.
When it came to Father's speaking to H.O. that evening it never cameoff, because H.O. was ill in bed, not sham, you know, but real,send-for-the-doctor ill. The doctor said it was fever from chill andexcitement, but I think myself it was very likely the things he ate atlunch, and the shaking up, and then the bread and cheese, and the beerout of a can.
He was ill a week. When he was better, not much was said. My Father, whois the justest man in England, said the boy had been punishedenough--and so he had, for he missed going to the pantomime, and to"Shock-Headed Peter" at the Garrick Theatre, which is far and aw
ay thebest play that ever was done, and quite different from any other actingI ever saw. They are exactly like real boys; I think they must have beenreading about us. And he had to take a lot of the filthiest medicine Iever tasted. I wonder if Father told the doctor to make it nasty onpurpose? A woman would have directly, but gentlemen are not generally sosly. Any way, you live and learn. None of us would now ever consent tobe a stowaway, no matter who wanted us to, and I don't think H.O.'s verylikely to do it again.
The only _meant_ punishment he had was seeing the clown's dress burntbefore his eyes by Father. He had bought it all with his own saved-upmoney, red trimmings and all.
Of course, when he got well we soon taught him not to say again that itwas any of our faults. As he owned himself, he _is_ our little brother,and we are not going to stand that kind of cheek from _him_.