_THE INTREPID EXPLORER AND HIS LIEUTENANT_
WE had spectacles to play antiquaries in, and the rims were vaselined toprevent rust, and it came off on our faces with other kinds of dirt, andwhen the antiquary game was over, Mrs. Red House helped us to wash itoff with all the thoroughness of aunts, and far more gentleness.
Then, clean and with our hairs brushed, we were led from the bath-roomto the banqueting hall or dining-room.
It is a very beautiful house. The girls thought it was bare, but Oswaldlikes bareness because it leaves more room for games. All the furniturewas of agreeable shapes and colours, and so were all the things on thetable--glasses and dishes and everything. Oswald politely said how niceeverything was.
The lunch was a blissful dream of perfect A.1.-ness. Tongue, and nuts,and apples, and oranges, and candied fruits, and ginger-wine in tinyglasses that Noel said were fairy goblets. Everybody drank everybodyelse's health--and Noel told Mrs. Red House just how lovely she was,and he would have paper and pencil and write her a poem for her veryown. I will not put it in here, because Mr. Red House is an authorhimself, and he might want to use it in some of his books. And thewriter of these pages has been taught to think of others, and besides Iexpect you are jolly well sick of Noel's poetry.
THE LUNCH WAS A BLISSFUL DREAM OF A.1.-NESS.]
There was no restrainingness about that lunch. As far as a married ladycan possibly be a regular brick, Mrs. Red House is one. And Mr. RedHouse is not half bad, and knows how to talk about interesting thingslike sieges, and cricket, and foreign postage stamps.
Even poets think of things sometimes, and it was Noel who said directlyhe had finished his poetry,
"Have you got a secret staircase? And have you explored your houseproperly?"
"Yes--we have," said that well-behaved and unusual lady--Mrs. Red House,"but _you_ haven't. You may if you like. Go anywhere," she added withthe unexpected magnificence of a really noble heart. "Look ateverything--only don't make hay. Off with you!" or words to that effect.
And the whole of us, with proper thanks, offed with us instantly, incase she should change her mind.
I will not describe the Red House to you--because perhaps you do notcare about a house having three staircases and more cupboards and oddcorners than we'd ever seen before, and great attics with beams, andenormous drawers on rollers, let into the wall--and half the rooms notfurnished, and those that were all with old-looking, interestingfurniture. There was something about that furniture that even thepresent author can't describe--as though any of it might have secretdrawers or panels--even the chairs. It was all beautiful, and mysteriousin the deepest degree.
When we had been all over the house several times, we thought about thecellars. There was only one servant in the kitchen (so we saw Mr. andMrs. Red House must be poor but honest, like we used to be), and we saidto her--
"How do you do? We've got leave to go wherever we like, and please whereare the cellars, and may we go in?"
She was quite nice, though she seemed to think there was an awful lot ofus. People often think this. She said:
"Lor, love a duck--yes, I suppose so," in not ungentle tones, and showedus.
I don't think we should ever have found the way from the house into thecellar by ourselves. There was a wide shelf in the scullery with a rowof gentlemanly boots on it that had been cleaned, and on the floor infront a piece of wood. The general servant--for such indeed she provedto be--lifted up the wood and opened a little door under the shelf. Andthere was the beginning of steps, and the entrance to them was halftrap-door, and half the upright kind--a thing none of us had seenbefore.
She gave us a candle-end, and we pressed forward to the dark unknown.The stair was of stone, arched overhead like churches--and it twistedmost unlike other cellar stairs. And when we got down it was all archedlike vaults, very cobwebby.
"Just the place for crimes," said Dicky. There was a beer cellar, and awine cellar with bins, and a keeping cellar with hooks in the ceilingand stone shelves--just right for venison pasties and haunches of thesame swift animal.
Then we opened a door and there was a cellar with a well in it.
"To throw bodies down, no doubt," Oswald explained.
They were cellars full of glory, and passages leading from one to theother like the Inquisition, and I wish ours at home were like them.
There was a pile of beer barrels in the largest cellar, and it was H.O.who said, "Why not play 'King of the Castle?'"
So we did. We had a most refreshing game. It was exactly like Denny tobe the one who slipped down behind the barrels, and did not break asingle one of all his legs or arms.
"No," he cried, in answer to our anxious inquiries. "I'm not hurt abit, but the wall here feels soft--at least not soft--but it doesn'tscratch your nails like stone does, so perhaps it's the door of a secretdungeon or something like that."
"Good old Dentist!" replied Oswald, who always likes Denny to have ideasof his own, because it was us who taught him the folly ofwhite-mousishness.
"It might be," he went on, "but these barrels are as heavy as lead, andmuch more awkward to collar hold of."
"Couldn't we get in some other way?" Alice said. "There ought to be asubterranean passage. I expect there is if we only knew."
Oswald has an enormous geographical bump in his head. He said--
"Look here! That far cellar, where the wall doesn't go quite up to theroof--that space we made out was under the dining-room--I could creepunder there. I believe it leads into behind this door."
"Get me out! Oh do, do get me out, and let me come!" shouted thebarrel-imprisoned Dentist from the unseen regions near the door.
So we got him out by Oswald lying flat on his front on the top barrel,and the Dentist clawed himself up by Oswald's hands while the otherskept hold of the boots of the representative of the house of Bastable,which, of course, Oswald is, whenever Father is not there.
"Come on," cried Oswald, when Denny was at last able to appear, verycobwebby and black. "Give us what's left of the matches!"
The others agreed to stand by the barrels and answer our knocking on thedoor if we ever got there.
"But I daresay we shall perish on the way," said Oswald hopefully.
So we started. The other cellar was easily found by the ingenious andgeography-bump-headed Oswald. It opened straight on to the moat, and wethink it was a boathouse in middle-aged times.
Denny made a back for Oswald, who led the way, and then he turned roundand hauled up his inexperienced, but rapidly improving, follower on tothe top of the wall that did not go quite up to the roof.
"It is like coal mines," he said, beginning to crawl on hands and kneesover what felt like very prickly beach, "only we've no picks orshovels."
"And no Sir Humphry Davy safety lamps," said Denny in sadness.
"They wouldn't be any good," said Oswald; "they're only to protect thehard-working mining men against fire-damp and choke-damp. And there'snone of those kinds here."
"No," said Denny, "the damp here is only just the common kind."
"Well, then," said Oswald, and they crawled a bit further still ontheir furtive and unassuming stomachs.
"This is a very glorious adventure. It is, isn't it?" inquired theDentist in breathlessness, when the young stomachs of the youngexplorers had bitten the dust for some yards further.
"Yes," said Oswald, encouraging the boy, "and it's _your_ find, too," headded, with admirable fairness and justice, unusual in one so young. "Ionly hope we shan't find a mouldering skeleton buried alive behind thatdoor when we get to it. Come on. What are you stopping for now?" headded kindly.
"It's--it's only cobwebs in my throat," Denny remarked, and he came on,though slower than before.
Oswald, with his customary intrepid caution, was leading the way, and hepaused every now and then to strike a match because it was pitch dark,and at any moment the courageous leader might have tumbled into a wellor a dungeon, or knocked his dauntless nose against something in thedark
.
"It's all right for you," he said to Denny, when he had happened to kickhis follower in the eye. "You've nothing to fear except my boots, andwhatever they do is accidental, and so it doesn't count, but _I_ may begoing straight into some trap that has been yawning for me for countlessages."
"I won't come on so fast, thank you," said the Dentist. "I don't thinkyou've kicked my eye out yet."
So they went on and on, crampedly crawling on what I have mentionedbefore, and at last Oswald did not strike the next match carefullyenough, and with the suddenness of a falling star his hands, which, withhis knees, he was crawling on, went over the edge into infinite space,and his chest alone, catching sharply on the edge of the precipice,saved him from being hurled to the bottom of it.
"Halt!" he cried, as soon as he had any breath again. But, alas! it wastoo late! The Dentist's nose had been too rapid, and had caught up theboot-heel of the daring leader. This was very annoying to Oswald, andwas not in the least his fault.
"Do keep your nose off my boots half a sec.," he remarked, but notcrossly. "I'll strike a match."
And he did, and by its weird and unscrutatious light looked down intothe precipice.
Its bottom transpired to be not much more than six feet below, so Oswaldturned the other end of himself first, hung by his hands, and droppedwith fearless promptness, uninjured, in another cellar. He then helpedDenny down. The cornery thing Denny happened to fall on could not havehurt him so much as he said.
The light of the torch, I mean match, now revealed to the two bold andyouthful youths another cellar, with _things_ in it--very dirtyindeed, but of thrilling interest and unusual shapes, but the match wentout before we could see exactly what the things were.
OSWALD DID NOT STRIKE THE NEXT MATCH CAREFULLY ENOUGH.]
The next match was the last but one, but Oswald was undismayed, whateverDenny may have been. He lighted it and looked hastily round. There was adoor.
"Bang on that door--over there, silly!" he cried, in cheering accents,to his trusty lieutenant; "behind that thing that looks like a _chevauxde frize_."
Denny had never been to Woolwich, and while Oswald was explaining what a_chevaux de frize_ is, the match burnt his fingers almost to the bone,and he had to feel his way to the door and hammer on it yourself.
The blows of the others from the other side were deafening.
All was saved.
It was the right door.
"Go and ask for candles and matches," shouted the brave Oswald. "Tellthem there are all sorts of things in here--a _chevaux de frize_ ofchair-legs, and----"
"A shovel of _what_?" asked Dicky's voice hollowly from the other sideof the door.
"Freeze," shouted Denny. "I don't know what it means, but do get acandle and make them unbarricade the door. I don't want to go back theway we came." He said something about Oswald's boots that he was sorryfor afterwards, so I will not repeat it, and I don't think the othersheard, because of the noise the barrels made while they were beingclimbed over.
This noise, however, was like balmy zephyrs compared to the noise thebarrels insisted on making when Dicky had collected some grown-ups andthe barrels were being rolled away. During this thunder-like intervalDenny and Oswald were all the time in the pitch dark. They had lightedtheir last match, and by its flickering gleam we saw a long, largemangle.
"It's like a double coffin," said Oswald, as the match went out. "Youcan take my arm if you like, Dentist."
The Dentist did--and then afterwards he said he only did it because hethought Oswald was frightened of the dark.
"It's only for a little while," said Oswald in the pauses of thebarrel-thunder, "and I once read about two brothers confined for life ina cage so constructed that the unfortunate prisoners could neither sit,lie, nor stand in comfort. We can do all those things."
"Yes," said Denny; "but I'd rather keep on standing if it's the same toyou, Oswald. I don't like spiders--not much, that is."
"You are right," said Oswald with affable gentleness; "and there mightbe toads perhaps in a vault like this--or serpents guarding the treasurelike in the Cold Lairs. But of course they couldn't have cobras inEngland. They'd have to put up with vipers, I suppose."
Denny shivered, and Oswald could feel him stand first on one leg andthen on the other.
"I wish I could stand on neither of my legs for a bit," he said, butOswald answered firmly that this could not be.
And then the door opened with a crack-crash, and we saw lights and facesthrough it, and something fell from the top of the door that Oswaldreally did think for one awful instant was a hideous mass of writhingserpents put there to guard the entrance.
"Like a sort of live booby-trap," he explained; "just the sort of thinga magician or a witch would have thought of doing."
But it was only dust and cobwebs--a thick, damp mat of them.
Then the others surged in, in light-hearted misunderstanding of theperils Oswald had led Denny into--I mean through, with Mr. Red House andanother gentleman, and loud voices and candles that dripped all overeverybody's hands, as well as their clothes, and the solitaryconfinement of the gallant Oswald was at an end. Denny's solitaryconfinement was at an end, too--and he was now able to stand on bothlegs and to let go the arm of his leader who was so full of fortitude.
"This _is_ a find," said the pleased voice of Mr. Red House. "Do youknow, we've been in this house six whole months and a bit, and _we_never thought of there being a door here."
"Perhaps you don't often play 'King of the Castle,'" said Dorapolitely; "it _is_ rather a rough game, I always think."
"Well, curiously enough, we never have," said Mr. Red House, beginningto lift out the chairs, in which avocation we all helped, of course.
"Nansen is nothing to you! You ought to have a medal for daringexplorations," said the other gentleman, but nobody gave us one, and, ofcourse, we did not want any reward for doing our duty, however tight andcobwebby.
The cellars proved to be well stocked with spiders and old furniture,but no toads or snakes, which few, if any, regretted. Snakes areoutcasts from human affection. Oswald pities them, of course.
There was a great lumpish thing in four parts that Mr. Red House saidwas a press, and a ripping settle--besides the chairs, and some carvedwood that Mr. Red House and his friend made out to be part of an oldfour-post bed. There was also a wooden thing like a box with another boxon it at one end, and H.O. said--
"You could make a ripping rabbit-hutch out of that."
Oswald thought so himself. But Mr. Red House said he had other uses forit, and would bring it up later.
It took us all that was left of the afternoon to get the things up thestairs into the kitchen. It was hard work, but we know all about thedignity of labour. The general hated the things we had so enterprisinglydiscovered. I suppose she knew who would have to clean them, but Mrs.Red House was awfully pleased and said we were dears.
We were not very clean dears by the time our work was done, and when theother gentleman said, "Won't you all take a dish of tea under my humbleroof?" the words "Like this?" were formed by more than one youthfulvoice.
"Well, if you would be happier in a partially cleansed state?" said Mr.Red House. And Mrs. Red House, who is my idea of a feudal lady in acastle, said, "Oh, come along, let's go and partially clean ourselves.I'm dirtier than anybody, though I haven't explored a bit. I've oftennoticed that the more you admire things the more they come off on you!"
So we all washed as much as we cared to, and went to tea at thegentleman's house, which was only a cottage, but very beautiful. He hadbeen a war correspondent, and he knew a great many things, besideshaving books and books of pictures.
It was a splendid party.
We thanked Mrs. R.H. and everybody when it was time to go, and shekissed the girls and the little boys, and then she put her head on oneside and looked at Oswald and said, "I suppose you're too old?"
Oswald did not like to say he was not. If kissed at all he would preferit being for some other
reason than his being not too old for it. So hedid not know what to say. But Noel chipped in with--
"_You'll_ never be too old for it," to Mrs. Red House--which seemed toOswald most silly and unmeaning, because she was already much too old tobe kissed by people unless she chose to begin it. But every one seemedto think Noel had said something clever. And Oswald felt like a youngass. But Mrs. R.H. looked at him so kindly and held out her hand soqueenily that, before he knew he meant to, he had kissed it like you dothe Queen's. Then, of course, Denny and Dicky went and did the same.Oswald wishes that the word "kiss" might never be spoken again in thisworld. Not that he minded kissing Mrs. Red House's hand in the least,especially as she seemed to think it was nice of him to--but the wholething is such contemptible piffle.
We were seen home by the gentleman who wasn't Mr. Red House, and hestood a glorious cab with a white horse who had a rolling eye, fromBlackheath Station, and so ended one of the most adventuring times weever got out of a play-beginning.
The _time_ ended as the author has pointed out, but not itsresultingness. Thus we ever find it in life--the most unharmful things,thoroughly approved even by grown-ups, but too often lead to somethingquite different, and that no one can possibly approve of, not evenyourself when you come to think it over afterwards, like Noel and H.O.had to.
It was but natural that the hearts of the young explorers should havedwelt fondly on everything underground, even drains, which was what madeus read a book by Mr. Hugo, all the next day. It is called "TheMiserables," in French, and the man in it, who is a splendid hero,though a convict and a robber and various other professions, escapesinto a drain with great rats in it, and is miraculously restored to thelight of day, unharmed by the kindly rodents. (N.B.--Rodents mean rats.)
When we had finished all the part about drains it was nearlydinner-time, and Noel said quite suddenly in the middle of a bite ofmutton--
"The Red House isn't nearly so red as ours is outside. Why should thecellars be so much cellarier? Shut up H.O.!" For H.O. was trying tospeak.
Dora explained to him how we don't all have exactly the same blessings,but he didn't seem to see it.
"It doesn't seem like the way things happen in books," he said, "InWalter Scott it wouldn't be like that, nor yet in Anthony Hope. I shouldthink the rule would be the redder the cellarier. If I was putting itinto poetry I should make our cellars have something much wonderfullerin them than just wooden things. H.O., if you don't shut up I'll neverlet you be in anything again."
"There's that door you go down steps to," said Dicky; "we've never beenin there. If Dora and I weren't going with Miss Blake to be fitted forboots we might try that."
"That's just what I was coming to. (Stow it, H.O.!) I felt just likecellars to-day, while you other chaps were washing your hands fordin.--and it was very cold; but I made H.O. feel the same, and we wentdown, and--that door _isn't shut now_."
The intelligible reader may easily guess that we finished our dinner asquickly as we could, and we put on our outers, sympathising with Dickyand Dora, who, owing to boots, were out of it, and we went into thegarden. There are five steps down to that door. They were red brick whenthey began, but now they are green with age and mysteriousness and notbeing walked on. And at the bottom of them the door was, as Noel said,not fastened. We went in.
"It isn't beery, winey cellars at all," Alice said; "it's more like arobber's store-house. Look there."
We had got to the inner cellar, and there were heaps of carrots andother vegetables.
"Halt, my men!" cried Oswald, "advance not an inch further! The banditsmay lurk not a yard from you!"
"Suppose they jump out on us?" said H.O.
"They will not rashly leap into the light," said the discerning Oswald.And he went to fetch a new dark-lantern of his that he had not had anychance of really using before. But some one had taken Oswald's secretmatches, and then the beastly lantern wouldn't light for ever so long.But he thought it didn't matter his being rather a long time gone,because the others could pass the time in wondering whether anythingwould jump out on them, and if so, what and when.
So when he got back to the red steps and the open door and flashed hisglorious bull's-eye round it was rather an annoying thing for there notto be a single other eye for it to flash into. Every one had vanished.
"Hallo!" cried Oswald, and if his gallant voice trembled he is notashamed of it, because he knows about wells in cellars, and, for aninstant, even he did not know what had happened.
But an answering hullo came from beyond, and he hastened after theothers.
"Look out," said Alice; "don't tumble over that heap of bones."
Oswald did look out--of course, he would not wish to walk on any one'sbones. But he did not jump back with a scream, whatever Noel may saywhen he is in a temper.
The heap really did look very like bones, partly covered with earth.Oswald was glad to learn that they were only parsnips.
"We waited as long as we could," said Alice, "but we thought perhapsyou'd been collared for some little thing you'd forgotten all aboutdoing, and wouldn't be able to come back, but we found Noel had,fortunately, got your matches. I'm so glad you weren't collared, Oswalddear."
Some boys would have let Noel know about the matches, but Oswald didn't.The heaps of carrots and turnips and parsnips and things were not veryinteresting when you knew that they were not bleeding warriors' orpilgrims' bones, and it was too cold to pretend for long with anycomfort to the young Pretenders. So Oswald said--
"Let's go out on the Heath and play something warm. You can't warmyourself with matches, even if they're not your own."
That was all he said. A great hero would not stoop to argue aboutmatches.
And Alice said, "All right," and she and Oswald went out and playedpretending golf with some walking-sticks of Father's. But Noel and H.O.preferred to sit stuffily over the common-room fire. So that Oswald andAlice, as well as Dora and Dicky, who were being measured for boots,were entirely out of the rest of what happened, and the author can onlyimagine the events that now occurred.
When Noel and H.O. had roasted their legs by the fire till they were sohot that their stockings quite hurt them, one of them must have said tothe other--I never knew which:
"Let's go and have another look at that cellar."
The other--whoever it was--foolishly consented. So they went, and theytook Oswald's dark-lantern in his absence and without his leave.
They found a hitherto unnoticed door behind the other one, and Noel sayshe said, "We'd better not go in." H.O. says he said so too. But any way,they _did_ go in.
They found themselves in a small vaulted place that we found outafterwards had been used for mushrooms. But it was long since any fairbud of a mushroom had blossomed in that dark retreat. The place had beencleaned and new shelves put up, and when Noel and H.O. saw what was onthese shelves the author is sure they turned pale, though they say not.
For what they saw was coils, and pots, and wires; and one of them said,in a voice that must have trembled--
"It is dynamite, I am certain of it; what shall we do?"
I am certain the other said, "This is to blow up Father because he tookpart in the Lewisham Election, and his side won."
The reply no doubt was, "There is no time for delay; we must act. Wemust cut the fuse--all the fuses; there are dozens."
Oswald thinks it was not half bad business, those two kids--for Noel islittle more than one, owing to his poetry and his bronchitis--standingin the abode of dynamite and not screeching, or running off to tell MissBlake, or the servants, or any one--but just doing _the right thing_without any fuss.
WITH SCISSORS AND GAS PLIERS THEY CUT EVERY FUSE.]
I need hardly say it did not prove to be the right thing--but theythought it was. And Oswald cannot think that you are really doing wrongif you really think you are doing right. I hope you will understandthis.
I believe the kids tried cutting the fuses with Dick's pocket-knife thatwas in the pocket of his other
clothes. But the fuses would not--nomatter how little you trembled when you touched them.
But at last, with scissors and the gas pliers, they cut every fuse. Thefuses were long, twisty, wire things covered with green wool, likeblind-cords.
Then Noel and H.O. (and Oswald for one thinks it showed a goodish bit ofpluck, and policemen have been made heroes for less) got cans and cansof water from the tap by the greenhouse and poured sluicing showers ofthe icy fluid in among the internal machinery of the dynamitearrangement--for so they believed it to be.
Then, very wet, but feeling that they had saved their Father and thehouse, they went and changed their clothes. I think they were a littlestuck-up about it, believing it to be an act unrivalled in devotedness,and they were most tiresome all the afternoon, talking about theirsecret, and not letting us know what it was.
But when Father came home, early, as it happened, those swollen-headed,but, in Oswald's opinion, quite-to-be-excused, kiddies learned theterrible truth.
Of course Oswald and Dicky would have known at once; if Noel and H.O.hadn't been so cocky about not telling us, we could have exposed thetruth to them in all its uninteresting nature.
I hope the reader will now prepare himself for a shock. In a wild whirlof darkness, and the gas being cut off, and not being able to get anylight, and Father saying all sorts of things, it all came out.
Those coils and jars and wires in that cellar were not an infernalmachine at all. It was--I know you will be very much surprised--it wasthe electric lights and bells that Father had had put in while we wereat the Red House the day before.
H.O. and Noel caught it very fully; and Oswald thinks this was one ofthe few occasions when my Father was not as just as he meant to be. Myuncle was not just either, but then it is much longer since he was aboy, so we must make excuses for him.
* * * * *
We sent Mrs. Red House a Christmas card each. In spite of the troublethat her cellars had lured him into, Noel sent her a homemade one withan endless piece of his everlasting poetry on it, and next May she wroteand asked us to come and see her. _We_ try to be just, and we saw thatit was not really her fault that Noel and H.O. had cut those electricwires, so we all went; but we did not take Albert Morrison, because hewas fortunately away with an aged god-parent of his mother's who writestracts at Tunbridge Wells.
The garden was all flowery and green, and Mr. and Mrs. Red House werenice and jolly, and we had a distinguished and first-class time.
But would you believe it?--that boxish thing in the cellar, that H.O.wanted them to make a rabbit-hutch of--well, Mr. Red House had cleanedit and mended it, and Mrs. Red House took us up to the room where itwas, to let us look at it again. And, unbelievable to relate, it turnedout to have rockers, and some one in dark, bygone ages seems, forreasons unknown to the present writer, to have wasted no end ofcarpentry and carving on it, just to make it into a _Cradle_. And whatis more, since we were there last Mr. and Mrs. Red House had succeededin obtaining a small but quite alive baby to put in it.
I suppose they thought it was wilful waste to have a cradle and no babyto use it. But it could so easily have been used for something else. Itwould have made a ripping rabbit-hutch, and babies are far more troublethan rabbits to keep, and not nearly so profitable, I believe.