_OVER THE WATER TO CHINA_
OSWALD is a very modest boy, I believe, but even he would not deny thathe has an active brain. The author has heard both his Father andAlbert's uncle say so. And the most far-reaching ideas often come to himquite naturally--just as silly notions that aren't any good might cometo you. And he had an idea which he meant to hold a council; about withhis brothers and sisters; but just as he was going to unroll his idea tothem our Father occurred suddenly in our midst and said a strange cousinwas coming, and he came, and he was strange indeed! And when Fate hadwoven the threads of his dark destiny and he had been dyed a dark brightnavy-blue, and had gone from our midst, Oswald went back to the ideathat he had not forgotten. The words "tenacious of purpose" meansticking to things, and these words always make me think of thecharacter of the young hero of these pages. At least I suppose hisbrothers Dicky and Noel and H.O. are heroes too, in a way, but somehowthe author of these lines knows more about Oswald's inside realnessthan he does about the others. But I am getting too deep for words.
So Oswald went into the common-room. Every one was busy. Noel and H.O.were playing Halma. Dora was covering boxes with silver paper to putsweets in for a school treat, and Dicky was making a cardboard model ofa new screw he has invented for ocean steamers. But Oswald did not mindinterrupting, because Dora ought not to work too hard, and Halma alwaysends in a row, and I would rather not say what I think of Dicky's screw.So Oswald said--
"I want a council. Where's Alice?"
Every one said they didn't know, and they made haste to say that wecouldn't have a council without her. But Oswald's determined nature madehim tell H.O. to chuck that rotten game and go and look for her. H.O. isour youngest brother, and it is right that he should remember this anddo as he was told. But he happened to be winning the beastly Halma game,and Oswald saw that there was going to be trouble--"big trouble," as Mr.Kipling says. And he was just bracing his young nerves for the conflictwith H.O., because he was not going to stand any nonsense from his youngbrother about his not fetching Alice when he was jolly well told to,when the missing maiden bounced into the room bearing upon her brow themarks of ravaging agitatedness.
"Have any of you seen Pincher?" she cried, in haste.
We all said, "No, not since last night."
"Well, then, he's lost," Alice said, making the ugly face that means youare going to blub in half a minute.
Every one had sprung to their feet. Even Noel and H.O. saw at once whata doddering game Halma is, and Dora and Dicky, whatever their faults,care more for Pincher than for boxes and screws. Because Pincher is ourfox-terrier. He is of noble race, and he was ours when we were poor,lonely treasure-seekers and lived in humble hard-upness in the LewishamRoad.
To the faithful heart of young Oswald the Blackheath affluent mansionand all it contains, even the stuffed fox eating a duck in the glasscase in the hall that he is so fond of, and even the council he wantedto have, seemed to matter much less than old Pincher.
"I want you all to let's go out and look for him," said Alice, carryingout the meaning of the faces she had made and beginning to howl. "Oh,Pincher, suppose something happens to him; you might get my hat andcoat, Dora. Oh, oh, oh!"
We all got our coats and hats, and by the time we were ready Alice hadconquered it to only sniffing, or else, as Oswald told her kindly, shewouldn't have been allowed to come.
"Let's go on the Heath," Noel said. "The dear departed dog used to likedigging there."
So we went. And we said to every single person we met--
"Please have you seen a thorough-bred fox-terrier dog with a black patchover one eye, and another over his tail, and a tan patch on his rightshoulder?" And every one said, "No, they hadn't," only some had morepolite ways of saying it than others. But after a bit we met apoliceman, and he said, "I see one when I was on duty last night, likewhat you describe, but it was at the end of a string. There was a younglad at the other end. The dog didn't seem to go exactly willing."
He also told us the lad and the dog had gone over Greenwich way. So wewent down, not quite so wretched in our insides, because now it seemedthat there was some chance, though we wondered the policeman _could_have let Pincher go when he saw he didn't want to, but he said it wasn'this business. And now we asked every one if they'd seen a lad and athoroughbred fox-terrier with a black patch, and cetera.
And one or two people said they had, and we thought it must be the samethe policeman had seen, because they said, too, that the dog didn't seemto care about going where he was going.
So we went on and through the Park and past the Naval College, and wedidn't even stop to look at that life-sized firm ship in the playgroundthat the Naval Collegians have to learn about ropes and spars on, andOswald would willingly give a year of his young life to have that shipfor his very own.
And we didn't go into the Painted Hall either, because our fond heartswere with Pincher, and we could not really have enjoyed looking atNelson's remains, of the shipwrecks where the drowning people all lookso dry, or even the pictures where young heroes are boarding piratesfrom Spain, just as Oswald would do if he had half a chance, with thepirates fighting in attitudes more twisted and Spanish than the piratesof any nation could manage even if they were not above it. It is an oddthing, but all those pictures are awfully bad weather--even the onesthat are not shipwrecks. And yet in books the skies are usually astainless blue and the sea is a liquid gem when you are engaged in theavocation of pirate-boarding.
The author is sorry to see that he is not going on with the story.
We walked through Greenwich Hospital and asked there if they have seenPincher, because I heard Father say once that dogs are sometimes stolenand taken to hospitals and never seen again. It is wrong to steal, but Isuppose the hospital doctors forget this because they are so sorry forthe poor ill people, and like to give them dogs to play with them andamuse them on their beds of anguish. But no one had seen our Pincher,who seemed to be becoming more dear to our hearts every moment.
When we got through the Hospital grounds--they are big and the buildingsare big, and I like it all because there's so much room everywhere andnothing niggling--we got down to the terrace over the river, next to theTrafalgar Hotel. And there was a sailor leaning on the railings, and weasked him the usual question. It seems that he was asleep, but of coursewe did not know, or we would not have disturbed him. He was very angry,and he swore, and Oswald told the girls to come away; but Alice pulledaway from Oswald and said,
"Oh, don't be so cross. Do tell us if you've seen our dog? He is----"and she recited Pincher's qualifications.
"Ho yes," said the sailor--he had a red and angry face. "I see 'im ahour ago 'long of a Chinaman. 'E crossed the river in a open boat. You'dbest look slippy arter 'im." He grinned and spat; he was a detestablecharacter, I think. "Chinamen puts puppy-dogs in pies. If 'e catches youthree young chaps 'e'll 'ave a pie as'll need a big crust to cover it.Get along with your cheek!"
So we got along. Of course, we knew that the Chinese are not cannibals,so we were not frightened by that rot; but we knew, too, that theChinese do really eat dogs, as well as rats and birds' nests and otherdisgraceful forms of eating.
IT SEEMS THE SAILOR WAS ASLEEP, BUT OF COURSE WE DID NOTKNOW, OR WE SHOULD NOT HAVE DISTURBED HIM.]
H.O. was very tired, and he said his boots hurt him; and Noel wasbeginning to look like a young throstle--all eyes and beak. He alwaysdoes when he is tired. The others were tired too, but their proudspirits would never have owned it. So we went round to the TrafalgarHotel's boathouse, and there was a man in slippers, and we said could wehave a boat, and he said he would send a boatman, and would we walk in?
We did, and we went through a dark room piled up to the ceiling withboats and out on to a sort of thing half like a balcony and half like apier. And there were boats there too, far more than you would think anyone could want; and then a boy came. We said we wanted to go across theriver, and he said, "Where to?"
"To where the Chinamen live," sa
id Alice.
"You can go to Millwall if you want to," he said, beginning to put oarsinto the boat.
"Are there any Chinese people there?" Alice asked.
And the boy replied, "I dunno." He added that he supposed we could payfor the boat.
By a fortunate accident--I think Father had rather wanted to make up tous for our martyr-like enduring when our cousin was with us--we werefairly flush of chink. Oswald and Dicky were proudly able to producehandfuls of money; it was mostly copper, but it did not fail of itseffect.
The boy seemed not to dislike us quite so much as before, and he helpedthe girls into the boat, which was now in the water at the edge of asort of floating, unsteady raft, with openings in it that you could seethe water through. The water was very rough, just like real sea, and notlike a river at all. And the boy rowed; he wouldn't let us, although Ican, quite well. The boat tumbled and tossed just like a sea-boat. Whenwe were about half-way over, Noel pulled Alice's sleeve and said--
"Do I look very green?"
"You do rather, dear," she said kindly.
"I feel much greener than I look," said Noel. And later on he was not atall well.
The boy laughed, but we pretended not to notice. I wish I could tell youhalf the things we saw as our boat was pulled along through theswishing, lumpy water that turned into great waves after every steamerthat went by. Oswald was quite fit, but some of the others were verysilent. Dicky says he saw everything that Oswald saw, but I am not sure.There were wharves and engines, and great rusty cranes swinging giant'shandfuls of iron rails about in the air, and once we passed a ship thatwas being broken up. All the wood was gone, and they were taking awayher plates, and the red rust was running from her and colouring thewater all round; it looked as though she was bleeding to death. Isuppose it was silly to feel sorry for her, but I did. I thought howbeastly it was that she would never go to sea again, where the waves areclean and green, even if no rougher than the black waves now ragingaround our staunch little bark. I never knew before what lots of kindsof ships there can be, and I think I could have gone on and on for everand ever looking at the shapes of things and the colours they were, anddreaming about being a pirate, and things like that, but we had comesome way; and now Alice said--
"Oswald, I think Noel will die if we don't make land soon."
And indeed he had been rather bad for some time, only I thought it waskinder to take no notice.
So our ship was steered among other pirate craft, and moored at alanding-place where there were steps up.
Noel was now so ill that we felt we could not take him on a Chinesehunt, and H.O. had sneaked his boots off in the boat, and he said theyhurt him too much to put them on again; so it was arranged that thosetwo should sit on a dry corner of the steps and wait, and Dora said shewould stay with them.
"I think we ought to go home," she said. "I'm quite sure Father wouldn'tlike us being in these wild, savage places. The police ought to findPincher."
But the others weren't going to surrender like that, especially as Dorahad actually had the sense to bring a bag of biscuits, which all, exceptNoel, were now eating.
"Perhaps they ought, but they _won't_," said Dicky. "I'm boiling hot.I'll leave you my overcoat in case you're cold."
Oswald had been just about to make the same manly proposal, though hewas not extra warm. So they left their coats, and, with Alice, who wouldcome though told not to, they climbed the steps, and went along a narrowpassage and started boldly on the Chinese hunt. It was a strange sort ofplace over the river; all the streets were narrow, and the houses andthe pavements and the people's clothes and the mud in the road allseemed the same sort of dull colour--a sort of brown-grey it was.
All the house doors were open, and you could see that the insides of thehouses were the same colour as the outsides. Some of the women had blue,or violet or red shawls, and they sat on the doorsteps and combed theirchildren's hair, and shouted things to each other across the street.They seemed very much struck by the appearance of the three travellers,and some of the things they said were not pretty.
That was the day when Oswald found out a thing that has often been ofuse to him in after-life. However rudely poor people stare at you theybecome all right instantly if you ask them something. I think they don'thate you so much when they've done something for you, if it's only totell you the time or the way.
WE WENT ROUND A CORNER RATHER FAST, AND CAME SLAP INTOTHE LARGEST WOMAN I HAVE EVER SEEN.]
So we got on very well, but it does not make me comfortable to seepeople so poor and we have such a jolly house. People in books feelthis, and I know it is right to feel it, but I hate the feeling all thesame. And it is worse when the people are nice to you.
And we asked and asked and asked, but nobody had seen a dog or aChinaman, and I began to think all was indeed lost, and you can't go onbiscuits all day, when we went round a corner rather fast, and came slapinto the largest woman I have ever seen. She must have been yards andyards round, and before she had time to be in the rage that we saw shewas getting into, Alice said--
"Oh, I beg your pardon! I _am_ so sorry, but we really didn't mean to! I_do_ so hope we didn't hurt you!"
We saw the growing rage fade away, and she said, as soon as she got herfat breath--
"No 'arm done, my little dear. An' w'ere are you off to in such a'urry?"
So we told her all about it. She was quite friendly, although so stout,and she said we oughtn't to be gallivanting about all on our own. Wetold her we were all right, though I own Oswald was glad that in thehurry of departing Alice hadn't had time to find anythingsmarter-looking to wear than her garden coat and grey Tam, which hadbeen regretted by some earlier in the day.
"Well," said the woman, "if you go along this 'ere turning as far asever you can go, and then take the first to the right and bear round tothe left, and take the second to the right again, and go down the alleybetween the stumps, you'll come to Rose Gardens. There's often Chinamenabout there. And if you come along this way as you come back, keep youreye open for me, and I'll arks some young chaps as I know as isinterested like in dogs, and perhaps I'll have news for you."
"Thank you very much," Alice said, and the woman asked her to give her akiss. Everybody is always wanting to kiss Alice. I can't think why. Andwe got her to tell us the way again, and we noticed the name of thestreet, and it was Nightingale Street, and the stairs where we had leftthe others was Bullamy's Causeway, because we have the true explorer'sinstincts, and when you can't blaze your way on trees with your axe, orlay crossed twigs like the gypsies do, it is best to remember the namesof streets.
So we said goodbye, and went on through the grey-brown streets withhardly any shops, and those only very small and common, and we got tothe alley all right. It was a narrow place between high blank brown-greywalls. I think by the smell it was gasworks and tanneries. There washardly any one there, but when we got into it we heard feet runningahead of us, and Oswald said--
"Hullo, suppose that's some one with Pincher, and they've recognized hislong-lost masters and they're making a bolt for it?"
And we all started running as hard as ever we could. There was a turn inthe passage, and when we got round it we saw that the running wasstopping. There were four or five boys in a little crowd round some onein blue--blue looked such a change after the muddy colour of everythingin that dead Eastern domain--and when we got up, the person the blue wason was a very wrinkled old man, with a yellow wrinkled face and a softfelt hat and blue blouse-like coat, and I see that I ought not toconceal any longer from the discerning reader that it was exactly whatwe had been looking for. It was indeed a Celestial Chinaman in deepdifficulties with these boys who were, as Alice said afterwards, trulyfiends in mortal shape. They were laughing at the old Chinaman, andshouting to each other, and their language was of that kind that I wassorry we had got Alice with us. But she told Oswald afterwards that shewas so angry she did not know what they were saying.
"Pull his bloomin' pigtail," said one of
these outcasts from decentconduct.
The old man was trying to keep them off with both hands, but the handswere very wrinkled and trembly.
Oswald is grateful to his good Father who taught him and Dicky theproper way to put their hands up. If it had not been for that, Oswalddoes not know what on earth would have happened, for the outcasts werefive to our two, because no one could have expected Alice to do whatshe did.
IT WAS INDEED A CELESTIAL CHINAMAN IN DEEP DIFFICULTIES.]
Before Oswald had even got his hands into the position required by thenoble art of self-defence, she had slapped the largest boy on the faceas hard as ever she could--and she can slap pretty hard, as Oswald knowsbut too well--and she had taken the second-sized boy and was shaking himbefore Dicky could get his left in on the eye of the slapped assailantof the aged denizen of the Flowery East. The other three went forOswald, but three to one is nothing to one who has hopes of being apirate in his spare time when he grows up.
In an instant the five were on us. Dicky and I got in some good ones,and though Oswald cannot approve of my sister being in a street fight,he must own she was very quick and useful in pulling ears and twistingarms and slapping and pinching. But she had quite forgotten how to hitout from the shoulder like I have often shown her.
The battle raged, and Alice often turned the tide of it by a well-timedshove or nip. The aged Eastern leaned against the wall, panting andholding his blue heart with his yellow hand. Oswald had got a boy down,and was kneeling on him, and Alice was trying to pull off two other boyswho had fallen on top of the fray, while Dicky was letting the fifthhave it, when there was a flash of blue and another Chinaman dashed intothe tournament. Fortunately this one was not old, and with a fewwell-directed, if foreign looking, blows he finished the work so ablybegun by the brave Bastables, and next moment the five loathsome andyouthful aggressors were bolting down the passage. Oswald and Dicky weretrying to get their breath and find out exactly where they were hurt andhow much, and Alice had burst out crying and was howling as though shewould never stop. That is the worst of girls--they never can keepanything up. Any brave act they may suddenly do, when for a moment theyforget that they have not the honour to be boys, is almost instantlymade into contemptibility by a sudden attack of crybabyishness. But Iwill say no more: for she did strike the first blow, after all, and itdid turn out that the boys had scratched her wrist and kicked her shins.These things make girls cry.
The venerable stranger from distant shores said a good deal to the otherin what I suppose was the language used in China. It all sounded like"hung" and "li" and "chi," and then the other turned to us and said--
"Nicee lilly girlee, same piecee flowelee, you takee my head to walkeeon. This is alle samee my father first chop ancestor. Dirty white devilsmakee him hurt. You come alongee fightee ploper. Me likee you wellymuchee."
Alice was crying too much to answer, especially as she could not findher handkerchief. I gave her mine, and then she was able to say thatshe did not want to walk on anybody's head, and she wanted to go home.
"This not nicee place for lillee whitee girlee," said the youngChinaman. His pigtail was thicker than his father's and black right upto the top. The old man's was grey at the beginning, but lower down itwas black, because that part of it was not hair at all, but blackthreads and ribbons and odds and ends of trimmings, and towards the endboth pigtails were greenish.
"Me lun backee takee him safee," the younger of the Eastern adventurerswent on, pointing to his father. "Then me makee walkee all alonk you,takee you back same placee you comee from. Little white devils waiteefor you on ce load. You comee with? Not? Lillee girlee not cly. Johngivee her one piecee pletty-pletty. Come makee talkee with the HouseLady."
I believe this is about what he said, and we understood that he wantedus to come and see his mother, and that he would give Alice somethingpretty, and then see us safe out of the horrible brown-grey country.
So we agreed to go with them, for we knew those five boys would bewaiting for us on the way back, most likely with strong reinforcements.Alice stopped crying the minute she could--I must say she is better thanDora in that way--and we followed the Chinamen, who walked in singlefile like Indians, so we did the same, and talked to each other over ourshoulders. Our grateful Oriental friends led us through a good manystreets, and suddenly opened a door with a key, pulled us in, and shutthe door. Dick thought of the kidnapping of Florence Dombey and goodMrs. Brown, but Oswald had no such unnoble thoughts.
ON THE SIDEBOARD WAS A BLUEY-WHITE CROCKERY IMAGE.]
The room was small, and very, very odd. It was very dirty too, butperhaps it is not polite to say that. There was a sort of sideboard atone end of the room, with an embroidered dirty cloth on it, and on thecloth a bluey-white crockery image over a foot high. It was very fat andarmy and leggy, and I think it was an idol. The minute we got inside theyoung man lighted little brown sticks, and set them to burn in front ofit. I suppose it was incense. There was a sort of long, wide, low sofa,without any arms or legs, and a table that was like a box, with anotherbox in front of it for you to sit down on when you worked, and on thetable were all sorts of tiny little tools--awls and brads they lookedlike--and pipe-stems and broken bowls of pipes and mouthpieces, for ourrescued Chinaman was a pipe-mender by trade. There wasn't much else inthe room except the smell, and that seemed to fill it choke-full. Thesmell seemed to have all sorts of things in it--glue and gunpowder, andwhite garden lilies and burnt fat, and it was not so easy to breathe asplain air.
Then a Chinese lady came in. She had green-grey trousers, shiny likevarnish, and a blue gown, and her hair was pulled back very tight, andtwisted into a little knob at the back.
She wanted to go down on the floor before Alice, but we wouldn't lether. Then she said a great many things that we feel sure were very nice,only they were in Chinese, so we could not tell what they were.
And the Chinaman said that his mother also wanted Alice to walk on herhead--not Alice's own, of course, but the mother's.
I wished we had stayed longer, and tried harder to understand what theysaid, because it was an adventure, take it how you like, that we're notlikely to look upon the like of again. Only we were too flustered to seethis.
We said, "Don't mention it," and things like that; and when Dicky said,"I think we ought to be going," Oswald said so too.
Then they all began talking Chinese like mad, and the Chinese lady cameback and suddenly gave Alice a parrot.
It was red and green, with a very long tail, and as tame as any pet fawnI ever read about. It walked up her arm and round her neck, and strokedher face with its beak. And it did not bite Oswald or Alice, or evenDicky, though they could not be sure at first that it was not going to.
We said all the polite things we could, and the old lady made thousandsof hurried Chinese replies, and repeated many times, "All litey, John,"which seemed to be all the English she knew.
We never had so much fuss made over us in all our lives. I think it wasthat that upset our calmness, and seemed to put us into a sort of sillydream that made us not see what idiots we were to hurry off from sceneswe should never again behold. So we went. And the youthful Celestial sawus safely to the top of Bullamy's Stairs, and left us there with theparrot and floods of words that seemed all to end in double "e."
We wanted to show him to the others, but he would not come, so werejoined our anxious relations without him.
The scene of rejoinder was painful, at first because they were mostfrightfully sick at us having been such an age away; but when we letthem look at the parrot, and told them about the fight, they agreed thatit was not our fault, and we really had been unavoidably detained.
But Dora said, "Well, you may say I'm always preaching, but I _don't_think Father would like Alice to be fighting street boys in Millwall."
"I suppose _you'd_ have run away and let the old man be killed," saidDicky, and peace was not restored till we were nearly at Greenwichagain.
We took the tram to Greenwich Sta
tion, and then we took a cab home (andwell worth the money, which was all we now had got, exceptfourpence-halfpenny), for we were all dog-tired.
And dog-tired reminds me that we hadn't found Pincher, in spite of allour trouble.
Miss Blake, who is our housekeeper, was angrier than I have ever seenher. She had been so anxious that she had sent the police to look forus. But, of course, they had not found us. You ought to make allowancesfor what people do when they are anxious, so I forgive her everything,even what she said about Oswald being a disgrace to a respectable house.He owns we were rather muddy, owing to the fight.
And when the jaw was over and we were having tea--and there was meat toit, because we were as near starving as I ever wish to be--we all atelots. Even the thought of Pincher could not thwart our bold appetites,though we kept saying, "Poor old Pincher!" "I do wish we'd found him,"and things like that. The parrot walked about among the tea-things astame as tame. And just as Alice was saying how we'd go out againto-morrow and have another try for our faithful hound there was ascratching at the door, and we rushed--and there was Pincher, perfectlywell and mad with joy to see us.
H.O. turned an abrupt beetroot colour.
"Oh!" he said.
We said, "What? Out with it."
And though he would much rather have kept it a secret buried in hisbreast, we made him own that he had shut Pincher up yesterday in theempty rabbit-hutch when he was playing Zoological Gardens and forgottenall about it in the pleasures of our cousin having left us.
So we need not have gone over the water at all. But though Oswald pitiesall dumb animals, especially those helplessly shut in rabbit-hutches atthe bottoms of gardens, he cannot be sorry that we had such a Celestialadventure and got hold of such a parrot. For Alice says that Oswald andDicky and she shall have the parrot between them.
She is tremendously straight. I often wonder why she was made a girl.She's a jolly sight more of a gentleman than half the boys at ourschool.