Edith Nesbit

“ Great flames were rising to heaven against the evening sky. And we had left it a smouldering, flat heap.
"The clay must have caught alight," H. O. said. "Perhaps it's the kind that burns. I know I've heard of fire-clay. And there's another sort you can eat."
"Oh, shut up!" Dicky said, with anxious scorn.
With one accord we turned back. We all felt the feeling—the one that means something fatal being up and it being your fault.
"Perhaps," Alice said, "a beautiful young lady in a muslin dress was passing by, and a spark flew on to her, and now she is rolling in agony enveloped in flames." ”

“ The wounded explorer was lying with his wounds and bandages on the sofa, and we were all having our tea, with raspberries and white currants, which we richly needed after our torrid adventures, when Mrs. Pettigrew, the house-keeper, put her head in at the door and said:
"Please could I speak to you half a moment, sir," to Albert's uncle. And her voice was the kind that makes you look at each other when the grown-up has gone out, and you are silent, with your bread-and-butter half way to the next bite, or your teacup in mid flight to your lips. ”

“ Well, Martha knocked the ball out of Oswald's hands, and it fell on the grass, and Noël pounced on it like a hooded falcon on its prey. Oswald would scorn to deny that he was not going to stand this, and the next moment the two were rolling over on the grass, and very soon Noël was made to bite the dust. And serve him right. He is old enough to know his own mind.
Then Oswald walked slowly away with the ball, and the others picked Noël up, and consoled the beaten, but Dicky would not take either side. ”

“ Oswald never hesitated. He crammed the cricket-ball into his pocket and climbed up the shelves and unbolted the trap-door, and shoved it up, and pulled himself up through it. Though above all was dark and smelled of spiders, Oswald fearlessly shut the trap-door down again before he struck a match. He always carries matches. He is a boy fertile in every subtle expedient. Then he saw he was in the wonderful, mysterious place between the ceiling and the roof of the house. The roof is beams and tiles. ”

“ Then he said a thing which Oswald at least will never forget (though but little he deserved it, with the obstruction in his pocket, unowned up to all the time) .
He said, "I have known you all for four years—and you know as well as I do how many scrapes I've seen you in and out of—but I've never known one of you tell a lie, and I've never known one of you do a mean or dishonorable action. And when you have done wrong you are always sorry. Now this is something to stand firm on. You'll learn to be good in the other ways some day." ”

“ Dora said—so like a girl. "Will you all agree to be his fathers and mothers?"
"Anything for a quiet life," said Dicky, and Oswald said:
"Oh yes, if you like. But you'll see we sha'n't be allowed to keep it."
"You talk as if he was rabbits or white rats," said Dora, "and he's not—he's a little man, he is."
"All right, he's no rabbit, but a man. Come on and get some grub, Dora," rejoined the kindhearted Oswald, and Dora did, with Oswald and the other boys. Only Noël stayed with Alice. He really seemed to like the baby. ”

“ Then Oswald said, "We were playing at fox-hunting, but we couldn't find anything but a rabbit that hid, so my brother was being the fox, and then we found the fox shot dead, and I don't know who did it; and we were sorry for it and we buried it—and that's all."
"Not quite," said the riding-breeches gentleman, with what I think you call a bitter smile, "not quite. This is my land, and I'll have you up for trespass and damage. Come along now, no nonsense! I'm a magistrate and I'm Master of the Hounds. A vixen, too! What did you shoot her with? You're too young to have a gun. ”

“ Dora said, blowing her nose.
"And never run about through the wood again; lend me your hanky, Dora," said Alice.
"And never be hunted or get into a hen-roost or a trap or anything exciting, poor little thing," said Dicky.
The girls began to pick green chestnut leaves to cover up the poor fox's fatal wound, and Noël began to walk up and down making faces, the way he always does when he's making poetry. He cannot make one without the other. It works both ways, which is a comfort.
"What are we going to do now?" H. O. said; "the huntsman ought to cut off its tail, I'm quite certain. ”

“ It was Alice who said:
"Why not ask them to tea? They'll be very tired coming all the way from Maidstone."
"Would you really like it?" Albert's uncle asked. "I'm afraid they'll be but dull dogs, the Antiquities, stuffy old gentlemen with amphoræ in their button-holes instead of orchids, and pedigrees poking out of all their pockets."
We laughed—because we knew what an amphoræ is. If you don't you might look it up in the dicker. It's not a flower, though it sounds like one out of the gardening book, the kind you never hear of any one growing.
Dora said she thought it would be splendid. ”

“ As they ran across the field Oswald had a dream-like fancy that perhaps the bull had rooted up the gate with one paralyzing blow, and was now tearing across the field after him and Alice, with the broken gate balanced on its horns. We climbed the stile quickly and looked back; the bull was still on the right side of the gate.
Oswald said, "I think we'll do without the bull. He did not seem to want to come. We must be kind to dumb animals." ”

“ The first man we came to at the edge of the camp was cleaning a sort of cauldron thing like witches brew bats in.
We went up to him and said, "Who are you? Are you English, or are you the enemy?"
"We're the enemy," he said, and he did not seem ashamed of being what he was. And he spoke English with quite a good accent for a foreigner.
"The enemy!" Oswald echoed, in shocked tones. It is a terrible thing to a loyal and patriotic youth to see an enemy cleaning a pot in an English field, with English sand, and looking as much at home as if he was in his foreign fastnesses. ”

“ Then some one said—I think it was Oswald:
"Why not 'The House Beautiful'?"
"It can't be a house, it must be in the road. It'll only be a stall."
"The 'Stall Beautiful' is simply silly," Oswald said.
"The 'Bar Beautiful' then," said Dicky, who knows what the "Rose and Crown" bar is like inside, which of course is hidden from girls.
"Oh, wait a minute," cried the Dentist, snapping his fingers like he always does when he is trying to remember things. "I thought of something, only Daisy tickled me and it's gone—I know—let's call it the Benevolent Bar!" ”

“ I'm sure Dora was right, and it's only his horrid sweetheart. I feel it in my bones. Now, don't you really think we'd better chuck it; we're sure to catch it for interfering. We always do."
"The cross of true love never did come smooth," said the Dentist. "We ought to help him to bear his cross."
"But if we find her for him, and she's not his grandmother, he'll marry her," Dicky said, in tones of gloominess and despair.
Oswald felt the same, but he said, "Never mind. We should all hate it, but perhaps Albert's uncle might like it. You can never tell. ”

“ Then Noël called Oswald names, and Oswald did not answer back but just kept smiling pleasantly, and carelessly throwing up the ball and catching it again with an air of studied indifference.
It was Martha's fault that what happened happened. She is the bull-dog, and very stout and heavy. She had just been let loose and she came bounding along in her clumsy way, and jumped up on Oswald, who is beloved by all dumb animals. ”

“ Dicky and Oswald made a sedan-chair and carried Denny to the high-road, and we sat down in a ditch to wait. For a long time nothing went by but a brewer's dray. We hailed it, of course, but the man was so sound asleep that our hails were vain, and none of us thought soon enough about springing like a flash to the horses' heads,
"A DOG-CART WITH A YOUNG LADY IN IT"
though we all thought of it directly the dray was out of sight. ”

“ Do! do!—oh, don't, don't! Don't let them dig!"
Alas! Oswald was, as usual, right. The ground of the grave had not been trampled down hard enough, and he had said so plainly at the time, but his prudent counsels had been overruled. Now these busy-bodying, meddling, mischief-making fox-terriers (how different from Pincher, who minds his own business unless told otherwise) had scratched away the earth and laid bare the reddish tip of the poor corpse's tail. ”

“ It was a frightened procession, whose cheeks were pale with alarm—except those between white whiskers, and they were red—that wound in at our gate and into the hall, among the old oak furniture and black and white marble floor and things. Dora and Daisy were at the door. The pink petticoat lay on the table, all stained with the gore of the departed. Dora looked at us all, and she saw that it was serious. She pulled out the big oak chair and said:
"Won't you sit down?" very kindly to the white-whiskered magistrate. ”

“ Albert's uncle is the gentleman I told you about. And, my dear children, this is my brother that I haven't seen for three years."
"Then he's a long-lost too," said H. O.
The lady said, "Not now," and smiled at him. And the rest of us were dumb with confounding emotions. Oswald was particularly dumb. He might have known it was her brother, because in rotten grown-up books if a girl kisses a man in a shrubbery that is not the man you think she's in love with; it always turns out to be a brother, though generally the disgrace of the family and not a respectable chaplain from Calcutta. ”

“ It was Dora who said it all came from my quarrelling with Noël about that rotten cricket-ball; but Alice, gently yet firmly, made her shut up.
I let Noël have the ball. It had been thoroughly soaked, but it dried all right. But it could never be the same to me after what it had done and what I had done.
I hope you will try to agree with Albert's uncle and not think foul scorn of Oswald because of this story. Perhaps you have done things nearly as bad yourself sometimes. If you have, you will know how "owning up" soothes the savage breast and alleviates the gnawings of remorse. ”

“ When we were asked we explained about having thought the Baby was the prey of gypsies, and the distracted horseman stood hugging the Baby, and actually thanked us.
But when he had gone we had a brief lecture on minding our own business. But Dora still thinks she was right. As for Oswald and most of the others, they agreed that they would rather mind their own business all their lives than mind a baby for a single hour.
If you have never had to do with a baby in the frenzied throes of sleepiness you can have no idea what its screams are like. ”

“ So I just put some pease in my pocket and dropped one or two at a time into my shoes when you weren't looking."
In his secret heart Oswald said, "Greedy young ass." For it is greedy to want to have more of anything than other people, even goodness.
Outwardly Oswald said nothing.
"You see," Denny went on,—"I do want to be good. And if pilgriming is to do you good, you ought to do it properly. I shouldn't mind being hurt in my feet if it would make me good for ever and ever. And besides, I wanted to play the game thoroughly. You always say I don't." ”

“ Oswald and Dora had been reading about the Canterbury Pilgrims in a book called A Short History of the English People. It is not at all short really—three fat volumes—but it has jolly good pictures. It was written by a gentleman named Green. So Oswald said:
"All right. I'll be the Knight."
"I'll be the wife of Bath," Dora said. "What will you be, Dicky?"
"Oh, I don't care, I'll be Mr. Bath if you like."
"We don't know much about the people," Alice said. "How many were there?"
"Thirty," Oswald replied, "but we needn't be all of them. There's the Nun-Priest." ”

“ HUNTING THE FOX
T is idle to expect every one to know everything in the world without being told. If we had been brought up in the country we should have known that it is not done—to hunt the fox in August. But in the Lewisham Road the most observing boy does not notice the dates when it is proper to hunt foxes.
And there are some things you cannot bear to think that anybody would think you would do; that is why I wish to say plainly at the very beginning that none of us would have shot a fox on purpose even to save our skins. ”

“ And we have a very nice colonel, too—quiet to ride or drive."
Oswald does not mind chaff at proper times. But this was not one.
"You seem to be taking it very easy," he said, with disdainful expression.
"This is an easy," said the gray soldier, sucking at his pipe to see if it would draw.
"I suppose you don't care if the enemy gets into Maidstone or not!" exclaimed Oswald, bitterly. "If I were a soldier I'd rather die than be beaten."
The soldier saluted. "Good old patriotic sentiment," he said, smiling at the heartfelt boy. But Oswald could bear no more. ”

“ At last, just when despair was beginning to eat into the vital parts of even Oswald, there was a quick tap-tapping of horses' feet on the road, and a dog-cart came in sight with a lady in it all alone. ”

“ So at last we made Dicky be a fox, and chased him down the green rides. A wide walk in a wood is called a ride, even if people never do anything but walk in it.
We had only three hounds—Lady, Pincher, and Martha—so we joined the glad throng and were being hounds as hard as we could, when we suddenly came barking round a corner in full chase and stopped short, for we saw that our fox had stayed his hasty flight. ”

“ We aren't traitors. We are the Bastables and one of us is a Foulkes. We only mingled unsuspected with the enemy's soldiery and learned the secret of their acts, which is what Baden-Powell always does when the natives rebel in South Africa; and Denis Foulkes thought of altering the sign-posts to lead the foe astray. And if we did cause all this fighting, and get Maidstone threatened with capture and all that, it was only because we didn't believe Greek things could happen in Great Britain and Ireland, even if you sow dragon's teeth, and besides, some of us were not asked about sowing them. ”