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The Happy Adventurers

by Lydia Miller Middleton · English · Gutenberg #6901 · 373,612 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Happy Adventurers

Author: Lydia Miller Middleton


        
Release date: November 1, 2004 [eBook #6901]
                Most recently updated: October 31, 2014

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/6901

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Produced by Tiffany Vergon, Charles Franks, and the Online
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THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS

[Illustration: YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME]

The Happy Adventurers

BY

LYDIA MILLER MIDDLETON



To Alastair and Margaret

"I tell this tale, which is strictly true, Just by way of convincing
you How very little, since things were made, Things have altered in the
building trade."--Kipling.



CONTENTS

CHAPTER

I.    HOW IT BEGAN II.   THE BUILDERS, OR THE LITTLE HOUSE III.  THE
FORTUNE-MAKERS, OR THE CHERRY-GARDEN IV.   THE TREASURE-HUNTERS, OR THE
DUKE'S NOSE V.    THE GOLD-DIGGERS, OR THE MIRACLE VI.   THE
GRAPE-GATHERERS, OR WHO WAS MR. SMITH? VII.  THE AERONAUTS, OR THE
FATEFUL STONE VIII. HOW IT ENDED

ILLUSTRATIONS

"YOU CALLED ME, SO I CAME"

"I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM HERE TO MY BROTHER"

GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA

DICK STARTED VIOLENTLY

THEY STOOD AND WATCHED THE "KANGAROO" FOR SOME TIME

THERE THEY WERE-OH, HOW MOLLY LONGED TO KEEP THEM!



THE HAPPY ADVENTURERS

CHAPTER I

How it Began


"Dear, dear!" said Grannie, "woes cluster, as my mother used to say."

"Let us hope that this is the last woe, and that now the luck will
turn," said Aunt Mary.

Mollie did not say anything. She had smiled the Guides' smile valiantly
through the worst of her misfortunes, but now she was so tired that she
felt nothing short of a hammer and two tacks could fasten that smile on
to her face any longer. So she closed her eyes and lay back on the
cushions, feeling that Fate had done its worst and that no more blows
were possible in the immediate future.

Grannie fetched an eiderdown and tucked it cosily round the patient,
who looked pale and chilly even on this fine warm day in June, while
Aunt Mary tidied away the remains of lotions and bandages left by the
doctor.

"The best thing now will be a little sleep," said Grannie, looking down
with kind old eyes at her granddaughter, "a little quiet sleep and then
a nice tea, with the first strawberries from the garden. I saw quite a
number of red ones this morning, and Susan shall give us some cream."

Mollie opened her eyes again and tried to look pleased, but even the
thought of strawberries and cream could not make her feel really happy
in her heart; for one thing, she still felt rather sick.

"That will be lovely," she said, as gratefully as she could, "and now I
think I _will_ try to go to sleep, and perhaps forget things for a
little while--" and, in spite of all her efforts, a few tears insisted
upon rolling down her cheeks as she thought of home, and Mother's
disappointment, and the dull time that lay before her.

Mollie Gordon's home was in London, in the somewhat dull district of
North Kensington, where her father, Dr. Gordon, had a large but not
particularly lucrative practice, and her mother cheerfully made the
best of things from Monday morning till Sunday night. There were five
children: Mollie and her twin brother Dick; Jean, Billy, and Bob. They
lived in a large, ugly house, one of a long row of ugly houses in a
dull gardenless street, where the sidewalks were paved, and the plane
trees which bordered the road were stunted and dusty. In the near
neighbourhood ran a railway line, a car line, and four bus routes, so
that noise and dust were familiar elements in the Gordons' lives--so
familiar, indeed, that they passed unnoticed.

A month ago Mollie had been in the full swing of mid-term. Every moment
of her life had been taken up with lessons, games, and Guiding; the
days had been too short for all she wanted to get into them, and, if
she had been allowed, she would certainly have followed the poet's
advice to "steal a few hours from the night", but, fortunately for
herself, she had a sensible mother whose views did not coincide with
the poet's.

And then in the midst of all her busyness, just when she thought
herself quite indispensable to the school play, the hockey team, and
her Patrol, she fell ill with measles. She was not very ill, so far as
measles went, but her eyes remained obstinately weak, and so it was
decided that she should be sent down to the country to stay with
Grannie, do no lessons at all, and spend as much time as possible in
the open air. Luckily, or unluckily, according to the point of view,
none of the other children had caught the disease, so that Mollie went
alone to Chauncery, as Grannie's house in Sussex was called.

Chauncery was an old-fashioned house standing in a beautiful garden
surrounded by fields and woods. If Mollie could have had a companion of
her own age, she would have been perfectly happy there, in spite of
frustrated ambitions and the trial of not being allowed to read; but
the very word "measles" frightened away the neighbours, so that no one
came to keep her company, and she sometimes felt very lonely.
Nevertheless, she had accommodated herself to circumstances, and,
between playing golf with Aunt Mary, driving the fat pony, and learning
to milk the pretty Guernsey cows, she managed to "put in a very decent
time", as she expressed it. Till this third misfortune befell her.

"First measles, then eyes, and now a sprained ankle," she sighed to
Aunt Mary on the morning after her accident; "what _can_ I do to pass
the time? It's all very well for Baden-Powell to talk, but I can't sing
and laugh all day for a week; it would drive you crazy if I did. I have
smiled till my mouth aches. What shall I do next?"

"You poor chicken!" Aunt Mary exclaimed, with the most comforting
sympathy. "You have had a run of bad luck and no mistake! We must
invent something. You can't read and you can't sew--how about knitting?
Suppose we knit a scarf in school colours for Dick, or a jumper for
yourself to wear when you are better? I could get wool in the village.
That would do to begin with, till I think of something better."

Mollie agreed that it certainly would be better than doing nothing,
though hardly an exciting occupation for an active girl of thirteen. So
the scarf was set agoing, whilst Grannie read aloud, and the first half
of the first day was got through pretty well. But after lunch the day
darkened and rain began to fall in heavy slate-coloured streaks,
pouring down the window-panes and streaming across the greenhouse roof,
changing the bright daylight into a dismal twilight, and blotting out
all view of the garden. It was depressing weather even for people who
were quite well, and poor Mollie might be forgiven for finding it hard
to keep up her spirits. She was tired of knitting, tired of being read
aloud to, and tired of writing letters to her family.

"How would you like to see some photographs of your father when he was
little?" suggested Grannie at last. "He was the most beautiful infant I
ever saw." She opened a cupboard door as she spoke, and presently came
back to Mollie's side with an arm-load of photograph-albums, the kind
of albums to be found in country houses, filled with carte-de-visite
photographs of old-fashioned people, all standing, apparently, in the
same studio, and each resting one hand on the same marble pillar. The
ladies wore spreading crinoline skirts, and had hair brushed in smooth
bands on either side of their high foreheads; the men wore baggy
trousers and beards; family groups were large, and those boys and girls
taken separately looked altogether too good for this world.

Mollie smiled at the picture of her father, a fat, solemn baby in his
mother's arms. She thought, but did not say, that he was a remarkably
plain child, and congratulated herself that she took after her mother
in appearance; though, of course, Father, as she knew him, was not in
the least like that infant. At the rest of the photographs she looked
politely, but it was hard work to keep from yawning, and at last her
mouth suddenly opened of itself and gave a great gape.

"That's right," said Grannie, "now I'll tuck you up and lower the
blinds, and you'll have a nice little nap till tea-time."

Mollie closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but sleep would not come.
She missed her morning walk and the fresh air of out-of-doors, so she
gave it up, opened her eyes again, and lay wakefully thinking of home
and Mother, Dick and Jean, and school. The big clock on the mantelpiece
seemed to go very, very slowly, its tick loud and deliberate, as though
it would say: "Don't think you are going to get off one single
minute--sixty minutes to the hour you have to live through, and there
are still two hours till tea-time." The rain splashed against the
window, the wind moaned through the tree-tops, and the room got
steadily darker.

"Oh dear!" Mollie whispered to herself, "what _can_ I do to make the
time pass?"

She sat up and looked round, and her eyes fell upon the last of the
photograph-albums--the one she had yawned over. She picked it up,
propped it on her knees, and, lying back against the cushions, turned
the pages over. These were all children, prim children with tidy hair
and solemn faces. Mollie stopped at the picture of a girl dressed in a
wide-skirted, sprigged-muslin frock. Her hair fell in plump curls from
beneath a broad-brimmed hat with long ribbons floating over one
shoulder. Her legs were very conspicuous in white stockings and funny
boots with tassels dangling on their fronts.

"I expect this is how Ellen Montgomery looked in _The Wide, Wide
World_," Mollie said to herself. "She would be rather pretty if she
were properly dressed; she looks about my age. I wonder what sort of
time she had--horribly dull, probably. No hockey, no Guiding, no
fox-trots--I expect she danced the polka, and recited 'Lives of great
men all remind us', and got pi-jawed ten times a day. I can't imagine
how children endured life in those days. Thank goodness I wasn't born
till 1907! She does look rather nice, though--and oh! I wish you could
talk, my dear! I _am_ dull."

Just then Aunt Mary began to play the piano in the next room. She
played soft, old-fashioned tunes, so that her niece might be soothed to
sleep. Mollie did not recognize the tunes but she liked them; they
seemed to sympathize with her as she continued to look at the prim
little girl in the photograph.

"Perhaps she played those very tunes; she looks as if she practised for
one hour a day _regularly_."

As Mollie lay there, the sweet old music sounding in her ears and her
eyes steadily fixed on the face of that other child of long ago, it
seemed to her that the child smiled at her.

"I am getting sleepy," she said to herself, and shut her eyes. But she
did not feel sleepy and soon opened them again. This time there was no
mistake about it--the child in the photograph _was_ smiling, first with
her solemn eyes, and then with her prim little mouth. Mollie was so
startled that she let the album slip from her lap, and it fell down
between the sofa and the wall. She turned round, and, after groping in
the narrow space for a minute, she succeeded in getting hold of the
album again and pulled it up. As she raised her head and sat up, she
saw, standing beside her sofa, as large as life, the prim little
girl--wide skirts, white stockings, tasselled boots, and all.

As Mollie stared "with all her eyes" as people say, the little girl
smiled at her again, and she noticed that, although the child's dress
was so very old-fashioned, her smile was quite a To-day smile, so to
speak.

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie, "who are you?"

"I am a Time-traveller," the child answered, speaking in a peculiarly
soft voice. "You called me, so I came."

"What on earth is a Time-traveller?" asked Mollie, rather surprised to
find that she did not feel in the least alarmed at this sudden
apparition.

"A person who travels in Time," the child replied. "I am one, and you
are one, but everybody isn't one. I can't explain, so you'd better not
waste time asking questions if you want to travel. I can't wait here
long."

"But--" said Mollie, looking bewildered, as well she might. "Travel
where? Of course I'd love to come, but how can I with a crocked-up
ankle; and what would Grannie say?"

"Those things don't matter to Time-travellers," said the other child.
"We travel about in Time. You haven't got to think about what is
happening here and now--that will be all right. But you have to make a
vow before you begin Time-travelling. Do you know what a vow is?"

"Of course I do," Mollie replied; "I'm a Girl Guide."

"I don't know what a Girl Guide is," said the other girl, wrinkling up
her pretty forehead, "but a Time-traveller has to vow on her faith and
honour never to say one single word about her adventures to any
grown-up, either here or there. You must not ask them questions that
will make them wonder things, however much you want to, because they
don't understand, and would be almost sure to interfere. Will you vow?"

"Yes, I will, but you must give me one moment to think. Where shall I
travel to and how long shall I stay?"

"You come along with me to my Time; I don't know how long you will
stay. A year of our Time might be a minute of yours, or a minute of
ours might be a year of yours, but you will be all right. Have you ever
seen a dissolving view?"

"That's a magic lantern, isn't it? Yes, Dick once had one. I think they
are rather dull."

"Oh no, not if they are properly done. Hugh--" she stopped and then
began again. "You will step into a dissolving view of our Time. It just
begins and ends anyhow, and you go out of it again."

"But it's so _queer_," Mollie said doubtfully. "I never _heard_ of such
a thing. I must be dreaming."

The other child shook her head. "No, you're not," she said patiently.
She looked around the room as though in search of inspiration, and her
eyes fell upon a volume of Shakespeare which Aunt Mary had been
reading: "Do you learn Shakespeare at your school?" she asked.

"Rather," Mollie answered, in a slightly superior voice; "I have acted
in six plays."

"Ah--then you remember what Hamlet says: 'There are more things in
Heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy'."

"We haven't done _Hamlet_ yet," Mollie answered, in a less superior
tone, "I don't think I quite understand what that means."

"Neither do I," said the child. "That's it, you see. Papa says--" she
stopped short again, and then went on. "It's nearly time for me to
go--and I can never come back if you don't come this time," moving away
a few steps as she spoke.

"Oh, don't go--don't go," Mollie cried. "I do want to come; it won't do
anyone any harm, will it?"

The child smiled very sweetly: "Not the least in the world. But
remember the vow. On your faith and honour."

"I vow, I vow--on my word of honour as a Guide. I can't say more than
that."

"Give me your hand, then. Listen to the music, and shut your eyes till
I tell you to open them."

Mollie closed her eyes. She had a queer swimmy feeling, as if she were
in a high swing and were just swooping down to the lowest point. All
the time Aunt Mary's tunes went on, but they seemed to go farther and
farther away.

"Open," said a soft voice.

       *       *       *       *       *

The darkened room had vanished, and the ticking clock; Aunt Mary's
tunes and the rain splashing on the window-panes; the sofa too, and the
prim child. And Mollie herself!

       *       *       *       *       *

She was standing in a sunny road, with one foot on a white painted
wooden gate, upon which she had evidently been swinging. The gate
opened into a large garden, and before her lay a broad path planted on
either side with tall, pointed cypress trees, their thin shadows lying
across the walk like black bars. Between the trees ran narrow
flower-beds, and beyond these stretched a wide, open space, so solidly
spread with yellow dandelions that it looked as though the golden floor
of heaven had come to rest upon earth. The path, with its sentinel
trees, led straight as a rod to a distant house, long and low,
surrounded by a vine-covered veranda. There were strange, sweet smells
in the air, which felt soft and warm. The sky was brilliantly blue, and
on the fence across the road a gorgeous parrot sat preening its
feathers in the sunshine.

Mollie looked about her with curious eyes, wondering where she was. Not
in England, of that she was sure--there was a different feel in the
air, colours were brighter, scents were stronger, and that radiant
parrot would never perch itself so tranquilly upon an English fence.

Then she saw, coming down the path, a girl of about her own age,
dressed in a brown-holland overall trimmed with red braid, high to the
throat, and belted round the waist. She wore no hat, and her hair fell
over her shoulders in plump brown curls. By her side paced a large dog,
a rough-haired black-and-white collie with sagacious brown eyes. He
leapt forward with a short bark, but the girl laid a restraining hand
on his back:

"Down, Laddie, down," she said, "don't you know a friend when you see
one? Come in, Mollie."

And suddenly Mollie knew where she was. This was Adelaide, in
Australia; that was the child in the photograph, whose name, she knew,
was Prudence Campbell; and they were living in the year 1878.




CHAPTER II

The Builders or The Little House


Mollie left the white gate, which swung behind her with a sharp click,
and walked up the path towards Prudence. Laddie circled round with a
few inquiring sniffs, decided that the newcomer was harmless, and stood
blinking his eyes in the sunlight, his bushy tail waving slowly from
side to side. Prudence slid an arm through Mollie's.

"I'm so glad you've come," she said. "Hugh's little house is all but
finished, and he promised to let us up to-day. Let's go and sit beside
Grizzel till he calls."

Mollie's eyes followed the turn of Prue's head, and she saw a younger
child seated upon the golden floor beyond the flower-beds. This child
wore an overall of bright blue cotton, shaped like Prue's, and her head
was covered with short red curls, which shone in the sun like burnished
copper. Prudence frowned a little as she looked at her sister:

"How Grizzel can sit in the middle of that yellow, dressed in that
blue, with that red hair, I can't think," she said. "She calls herself
an artist, but it simply puts my teeth on edge. Did you ever see
anything so ugly?"

"Ugly!" Mollie repeated in surprise. "I think it is beautiful, just
like a picture in _Colour_. What is she doing?"

The child looked up at that moment and smiled at them. "Hullo, Mollie,"
she said in a friendly tone, as if she were quite well acquainted with
the new arrival, "come and see my dandelion-chain; it's nearly done."

Prudence jumped the flower-bed, followed by Mollie and the dog, and all
three made their way through the thickly growing dandelions, and seated
themselves beside Grizzel. She had filled her lap with dandelions, and
was busily occupied in linking them together as English children link a
daisy-chain.

"What are you doing?" Mollie asked again, as her eyes followed
Grizzel's chain, and she observed that it stretched far away out of
sight among the trees and bushes.

"I am laying a chain right round the garden," Grizzel replied. "When it
is finished it will be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."

"What are you going to do with it?" asked Mollie.

"Nothing," answered Grizzel.

"Then what's the good of making it?" asked Mollie.

"It isn't meant to be any good," answered Grizzel, "it's only meant to
be the longest dandelion-chain in the world."

"But there's nothing beautiful about longness," persisted Mollie. "You
wouldn't like to have the longest nose in the world."

"It would be rather nice," said Grizzel, working as steadily as the
Princess in Hans Andersen's tale of the "White Swans", "then I could
smell all the delicious smells there are. Mamma says a primrose-patch
in an English wood is delicious."

"Don't waste your breath trying to make Grizzel change her mind,"
Prudence interposed. "Papa says you might as well explain to a pigling
which way you want it to go. Let's help with her chain and get it
finished. I'm tired of it." She threw a handful of yellow bloom into
Mollie's lap as she spoke, and began herself to link some stalks
together in a somewhat dreamy and lazy fashion. Mollie followed her
example more briskly.

"It's a pity, you know," she said to Grizzel, "to leave the poor little
flowers withering all round the garden when they might have gone on
growing for days. They will soon be faded and forgotten."

"I'd rather fade in the longest chain in the world than be one of a
million dandelions growing on their roots," Grizzel said, pulling a
fresh handful and shifting her chain to make room for them.

Mollie shook her head but did not argue any more. She dropped her chain
and looked round the garden. Although the sun was so warm and bright
the flowers were those which grow in springtime in England. Daffodils,
narcissus, freesias, and violets grew thickly in the borders and under
the trees, which seemed to be mostly fruit-trees, though Mollie did not
recognize them all. Peach and apricot were in bloom; fig trees and
mulberry trees spread out their broad leaves; and an immense vividly
scarlet geranium dazzled even Mollie's modern eyes. It was a funny
mixture of seasons, she thought.

Suddenly Prudence jumped to her feet, letting all her dandelions drop
unheeded. "There's Hugh!" she exclaimed; "he is calling us. The house
must be finished. Come on, Grizzel, leave your old chain--come on,
Mollie."

Grizzel shook her head and set all the red curls bobbing; "I must
finish my chain first. You go. I won't be long."

Prudence and Mollie jumped the flower-beds again, Laddie, who had
fallen comfortably asleep among the dandelions, deciding after a few
lazy blinks to stay where he was. A slender boy in grey was waiting for
them in the veranda. He was like Prue, but fairer, and his eyes were
peculiarly clear and thoughtful.

"Come on," he said, "I'm ready for the furnishings now. What I want is:
first, a carpet; second, curtains; and third--third--a tin-opener; but
there is no great hurry for that. Where can I get a carpet?"

"Schoolroom hearthrug," Prudence suggested promptly. "No one will
notice, and it's pretty shabby since I dropped the red-hot poker and
you spilt the treacle-toffee."

"And the curtains?"

"You can have the striped blanket off my bed," said Prue, after a
moment's consideration, "we can cut it in halves."

"Good gracious!" exclaimed Mollie. "Cut a blanket in halves! What will
your mother say to that?"

"Mamma won't know," Prudence replied calmly. "She never looks at my
bed, and, if she did, she would forget it had ever had a striped
blanket on it. Come on, Mollie, we'll get the things and smuggle them
across while no one is looking."

Mollie felt shocked for a minute. Doing things behind backs was all
against Guide Law, and at home she would almost as soon think of
chopping up her own feet as of cutting up Mother's blankets to play
with. But, she reflected, different times have different ways; there
was no Guide Law in 1878, and perhaps Prue's mother was very extra
strict, in which case "all's fair in love and war", so she followed
Prue into the house. It was, to her eyes, an unusual sort of house, all
built on the ground floor, so that there was no staircase. The front
door opened into a square hall with doors on all sides. Prue pushed one
open and they passed through into a bedroom, very plainly furnished
with two little beds, two chests of drawers, a wash-stand, and a chair.
They pulled the white cover off one bed and hauled away a blanket,
cheerfully striped in scarlet, purple, yellow, and green, with a few
black and white lines thrown in here and there. Mollie thought it would
be rather a difficult blanket to forget about. Prue replaced the white
cover, spreading it smoothly and neatly, rolled up the blanket, and
made for the door again.

Hugh had disappeared. They walked down the veranda, passing several
open French windows through which Mollie caught a glimpse of
sitting-rooms, and crossed a paved courtyard, at the farther side of
which was a red brick house with a wooden porch in front of it.

"The schoolroom is here," Prudence explained, "because Mamma doesn't
like noise. It's a very good plan for us; we can do lots of things we
couldn't do if we were in the house. Miss Wilton is our governess; she
has gone home to-day to nurse a sister with bronchitis. I'm sorry for
the sister, but it's a treat for us, especially as Hugh has got a
half-holiday. Mamma is out, Bridget has taken Baby for a walk, and Mary
is talking to her sweetheart across the fence, so we'll get the
hearthrug without any questions."

As she talked, Prudence led the way into the schoolroom. It was plainly
furnished and not very tidy, but it had a homely look--in fact it
reminded Mollie of the nursery in North Kensington, so that, for one
very brief moment, she almost felt homesick. But Prudence gave her
little time to indulge in this luxurious sensation (because having a
home nice enough to be sick for is a luxury in its way), and Mollie had
merely taken in a general impression of books, toys, and shabbiness,
when Prudence called her to help with the hearthrug. It certainly was
shabby and by no means added to the beauty of the room. They rolled it
up with the blanket inside, and, carrying it between them, they left
the schoolroom, crossed the courtyard again, scrambled over a low stone
wall, and arrived at the foot of a tall tree.

It was a very large tree. Its trunk, grey, smooth, and absolutely
straight, rose from the ground for fourteen feet without a branch or
foothold of any description. At that height its thick boughs spread out
in a broad and even circumference, and across two of these boughs was
built a hut, perhaps five by seven feet in area, and high enough for a
child of ten to stand upright in. It had a floor, four walls, and a
roof, an opening for a door, and three smaller openings for windows. At
the door sat Hugh, waiting for the girls and their bundle. When they
came to a standstill below him he let down a rope.

"Tie the things on and I'll haul them up," he ordered; "and then you
two climb up and give me a hand. Better send Mollie up first, as the
ladder is a bit shaky till you know it, and Prue can hang on to it
below."

Mollie noticed then that a narrow green ladder leant up against the
smooth trunk; it looked as if an unwary step would send it flying, and
she put a reluctant foot on the lowest rung. The ground below was hard
and stony, most uninviting for a fall.

"You are quite safe so long as you push and don't pull," Prudence
assured her. "I am holding on here, and the ladder is firmer than it
looks."

Mollie mounted with gingerly tread, but reached the top safely and
crawled into the hut through the little door. She was quickly followed
by Prudence, and the two girls examined the interior with interest.
There was not very much room; two could sit down with comfort, three
would be slightly crowded, and four would be a tight fit but not
impossible.

"You won't be able to lay the carpet with all of us inside," said
Mollie, as she felt the big roll at her back.

"One of you had better stay out," said Hugh. "There are seats all over
the tree."

Mollie put her head out at the door and looked up into the branches.
They were very much forked, and upon every difficult branch Hugh had
nailed steps and made a railing. In some of the forks he had inserted
wooden seats, others he had left to nature. The topmost seat was almost
at the summit of the tree, and behind it was firmly lashed a flagpole,
with a Union Jack hanging limply in the still air, and a lantern with
green and red glass on two of its sides. Near the door of the little
house there hung from a stout branch a curious-looking canvas bag,
broadly tubular in shape, and with a small brass tap at the lower end.
The tree was thickly foliaged, but the leaves were delicate and lacy,
and, though they formed an admirable screen for the climbers, a good
view of the surrounding country was to be obtained between them, and
even through them in some places. Mollie decided to climb to the top
and look about.

"That's our look-out," Hugh explained. "We can see the enemy from there
a long time before the enemy can see us."

"'O Pip', is what _we_ call it," said Mollie. "Who is the enemy?"

"It all depends," Hugh replied evasively. "Now, Prue, look alive."

Mollie was a level-headed climber when she had something reasonably
solid beneath her feet; no one unfamiliar with the vagaries of the
green ladder could be expected to climb it with enthusiasm. She crawled
out of the house by the little door again, found her road to the
nearest staircase, and climbed this way and that among the leafy
branches till she reached the Look-out. There she settled herself
comfortably and examined her surroundings near and far, whilst the
other two laid the carpet and tacked up the blanket, now cut into three
strips by Prudence.

"She looks as if she were hemming sheets for missionaries," Mollie said
to herself, as she watched Prudence doing execution on the blanket with
a large pair of scissors. "It would be almost impossible for any girl
to be as good as Prue looks; it's her eyelashes, and the way she does
her hair."

After admiring the well-planned architecture of the tree Mollie turned
her attention to the scenery. At her feet lay the garden with the long,
vine-wreathed house and the red schoolroom at one side. It was a large
garden, stretching far behind the house, and, as Mollie surveyed the
rows of almond trees which outlined its boundaries, she felt some
respect for Grizzel's perseverance. "If she has laid a chain right
round that she knows how to stick to a thing," she thought, as she
caught sight of the little blue figure still sitting amongst the golden
dandelions. "It's a pity she doesn't do something more worth while. She
would make a good Guide." Looking beyond the garden, Mollie could see
the town of Adelaide. It was a white town among green trees, with many
slender spires and pointed steeples piercing the blue sky, many gardens
and meadows, and a silvery streak of river winding across it like a
twisted thread. A semicircle of softly swelling hills enclosed the town
upon two sides, some of them striped with vineyards, some wooded, and
some brilliantly yellow, for the dandelions seemed to be spread over
the country like a carpet. Mollie shook a wise head at such waste of
good land, for of what use are dandelions! In the far distance she
could see a straight white road leading from the town into the hills.
She thought she would like to follow that road and see what happened to
it in the end. "I had not the least idea," she murmured to herself,
"that Adelaide and Australia were like this; not the very least. There
must be a great deal of world outside England, when you come to think
of it. When I am grown-up--"

"Come down, Mollie," called Prue. "The house is beautiful now; come and
see it."

It certainly looked very snug, with the carpet, whose shabbiness was
not noticeable in the dim light, and the gaily striped curtains, which
had been tacked up and fastened back from the windows. They had added a
set of shelves made out of a box covered with American leather and
brass-headed nails. A few books lay upon one shelf, and on another
stood a collection of cups, saucers, and plates, cracked, perhaps, and
not all matching, but suggestive of convivial parties and good cheer.
In one corner lay a cushion embroidered in woolwork with magenta roses,
pea-green leaves, and orange-coloured daisies, all upon a background of
ultramarine blue. Mollie thought it gave an effective touch to the
somewhat scanty furnishing--in fact, it was the only furniture there
was, except the shelves.

"How perfectly _ripping_!" Mollie exclaimed enthusiastically. "If I had
this house I would live in it all the time. It is _much_ nicer than a
common house in a road. I do think Hugh is the cleverest boy I ever
met."

"This is nothing much," Hugh said modestly, "you should see my
raft--that _is_ worth seeing. I have invented a way of arranging corks
so that it will float in the severest storm. It could not sink if it
tried, unless, of course, it became waterlogged. But I can only work at
that when we are down at Brighton."

"I wish my brother Dick could be a Time-traveller and come here,"
sighed Mollie. "He would adore this tree, and the raft too."

"How old is Dick?" Hugh asked with interest.

"He is my twin; we are thirteen and a half," answered Mollie, quite
forgetting that in the year 1878 Dick was still minus twenty-nine. "We
do everything together in the holidays except football, and just now
there isn't any football, so Dick is rather bored at school. In
term-time we hardly see each other at all, we are both so horribly
busy. How do you find time to do all these things?"

"I don't find it, I steal it," Hugh answered. "If I waited to _find_
time I should never have enough to be useful. To-day is a half-holiday,
and I am supposed to be learning Roman history and writing out five
hundred lines. But I'm not," he added unnecessarily.

"Building is much more important than Roman history," said Mollie
decidedly, "and lines are absolutely rotten. I wonder why--"

"Hullo!" came a voice from below. "It's me. I have finished my chain at
last, and now I want to come up. Please come and hold the ladder, Prue."

Prudence crept out, tripped lightly down the ladder, and stood beside
her sister.

"Hold tight, Grizzel, and do remember to push and not pull; if you pull
I can't hold the ladder up."

"I wish Hugh would cut steps in the tree-trunk like the blacks,"
Grizzel complained, as she proceeded rather nervously to climb the
ladder. "I do hate this old tobbely old green old thing."

"I am going to make a rope-ladder and pull it up after me," Hugh said,
watching her from the door of his castle in the air. "I don't want
steps that everybody could climb. Look out, Griz, you are pulling--" he
stretched out a hand as he spoke, and held the top of the ladder, while
Prudence steadied it at the bottom, until Grizzel had safely negotiated
"the green passage", as Hugh called it, and crawled in at his little
front door.

"It is very, very, very, very nice," she said approvingly, "and it will
make a lovely place to come and hate in when everybody is horrid. You
can draw the curtains and shut the door, and light your lantern and sit
here hating as long as you like, for no one can get up when you have
your rope-ladder."

"It would be rather stuffy," Mollie said, looking at the thick blanket
curtains. "If he went on hating very long he would be suffocated. I'd
sooner have a tea-party myself, and pull all the tea up in baskets. The
water would be the hard part."

"The water is in that canvas bag," Hugh pointed out; "Papa gave it to
me; it's the boiling that bothers me, because I don't much like using a
spirit-lamp in here."

"Get an old biscuit-tin and fasten it up in the tree and put your
spirit-lamp in that," suggested Mollie the Guide. "Cut out the front;
then you will have a nice little cave all safe and sheltered."

"That's a jolly good idea," said Hugh; "I'll do it to-morrow and we'll
have a party."

A bell in the distance warned the children that it was time to go in
and tidy up for tea. Grizzel, however, was far too much enthralled by
the little house to want to come down so soon. "I don't want any
bread-and-butter tea," she announced; "bring me three oranges and
eleven biscuits, and the _Swiss Family Robinson_, and let me stay up
here."

Tea was laid in the dining-room, where they found Baby already seated
in her high chair. She was a very pretty baby, with large dark eyes,
silky golden hair, and a dear little mouth parting over two rows of
tiny pearly teeth. She gurgled melodiously to her family in the
intervals of dropping bits of jammy bread into her mug of milk, and
watching them bob about with absorbed interest.

"Good old Mary! She's made potato scones _and_ almond gingerbread."
Hugh remarked approvingly. "If you've never tasted real Irish potato
scones baked on a girdle, Mollie, you'd better chalk it up, as Bridget
says. You split them in two, pop in a lump of butter, shut them up, and
eat them. Too soon they are but a sweet dream of the past."

"They'll soon be a horrid dream of the future if you gobble them like
that," Prudence said warningly, "and you've forgotten Grizzel's
oranges; go and pull three fresh ones, and we'd better send her ginger
cake."

The gingerbread was baked in thin oblong squares frosted with white
sugar, each child's name being written on its own cake in pink letters.
They were most fascinating, and Mollie was charmed to see one with her
own name on it. The delightful part about this most unexpected visit,
she thought, was the way everyone had apparently expected her. She
could not help wondering how the invitation had been sent, but decided
that it was better not to ask too many questions.

Hugh departed with Grizzel's oranges, biscuits, and gingerbread,
elegantly arranged in a green-rush basket, the _Swiss Family Robinson_
forming the basis of the repast. He returned with a smile upon his face
which disclosed two most engaging dimples.

"I've sneaked the ladder," he said. "Won't Frizzy Grizzy be pleased
when she finds out! Ha ha! More scones, please."

"She won't mind," Prudence answered placidly, "she knows someone will
have to let her down before Mamma comes in. You've had enough jam, Baby
darling; let Prudence take off your bib now and wash your handy-pandys.
You can have half my gingerbread if you like, Hugh--hullo, there's
Papa!"

There was a sharp double knock at the front door, followed by the sound
of someone entering. Prudence set Baby on her feet and bolted
helter-skelter across the square hall, flinging herself into the arms
of a stout man with a brown beard, who returned her embrace so warmly
that Mollie wondered if he had been away from home for some time. He
removed his tall silk hat, showing a head as thickly covered with curls
as Grizzel's, but the hair was dark and slightly touched with grey.

"Well, my chick-a-biddies," he said, in a delightfully genial voice,
beaming upon them all with the kindest blue eyes Mollie had ever seen,
"and what has everybody been doing? And where is Grizzel?"

As he spoke he lifted Baby into his arms, ignoring the jammy little
fingers, laid a hand on Mollie's head, and looked round inquiringly for
his missing daughter.

"She's in my Nest," Hugh replied, "it's finished. Come and see it. You
can't climb into it yet, but it looks very nice from the outside. I
think I'll arrange a box to pull you and Mamma up in. The zinc-lined
box the piano came in would do."

"Thank you, my son," said Papa kindly, "thank you, thank you. At the
moment I am rather pressed for time. I have to meet Mamma at Mrs.
Taylor's at half-past five, and we are going to the town-hall to hear
this wonderful new telephone, as they call it. They say that someone
speaking from the post office at Glenelg will be perfectly audible in
the town-hall here, a distance of six and a half miles. It sounds
almost incredible. What will they discover next! Truly this is an
amazing age, and you children may live to see men flying yet."

Hugh had left his gingerbread, which lay forgotten on his plate, and
stood before his father flushed with excitement:

"Take me with you, _do_, Papa," he cried. "I'll learn reams of Latin
and get up at four o'clock and--"

"Well, get your hat and be quick then," Papa interrupted indulgently.
"Prue, my pet, look in my bag and you will find five parcels, one for
each young robber. Be fair and amiable, my children. Come, Hugh. Good
night, Papa's little angel." He kissed Baby, handed her over to
Prudence, put on his hat again, and was off down the wide path between
the cypress trees with Hugh hanging on his arm, in less than no time.

"Let's watch from the gate," said Prudence. "Bridget will take Baby.
Hurry up, Mollie."

They reached the foot of the garden just in time to see Papa's tall hat
disappear round the corner of the road. It was a lovely evening, and
the girls lingered by the gate; the scent of violets and freesias rose
from the flowerbed at their feet, and every now and again came a whiff
of something else--something exquisitely fragrant and delicate.

"What's that?" asked Mollie, with an unladylike sniff; "that lovely
smell?"

"It's wattle," Prudence answered. "It's in the fields over there. You
can smell it for miles sometimes, in the country; it's a nice smell.
Let's go and look at Papa's parcels. He went to see Mrs. Macfarline at
her toyshop to-day, and when he goes there he always brings something
home. It's a beautiful shop. Once I stayed with Lucy Macfarline from
Saturday till Monday, and her mamma allowed us to play in the shop on
Sunday; it was so funny, all dark and dim, and the dolls looking like
little ghosts. We played with the toys on the shelves and had a lovely
time. I love shops--oh, Mollie, we have forgotten Grizzel! She is up in
the tree all this time! We must run and get her down. I hope Hugh
hasn't hidden the ladder--I wish he wouldn't tease so."

"All brothers do," Mollie said philosophically. "Dick is simply the
limit sometimes, but I do wish we could get him over here, Prudence. Do
you think we could?"

"I'll think. But first we must find that ladder."

As they neared the tree Prudence called to her sister that they were
coming, but got no answer. They jumped the low wall and stood
underneath the tree, nearly dislocating their necks in their efforts to
see some sign of life in the little house. But Grizzel neither answered
nor showed herself, in spite of Prue's eloquent description of Papa's
parcels and denunciations of their brother.

"Perhaps she is having her evening hate," suggested Mollie.

"She does take awful fits of the sulks sometimes," Prudence allowed,
"but I don't think she would be sulky with _me_ just now; it wasn't me
that stole the ladder--oh _bother_ that Hugh! We had better go and look
for it as fast as we can. I wonder where he has hidden it?"

"It can't be far away, because he was only gone for a few minutes at
tea-time," Mollie remarked sensibly. "Very likely it is simply lying on
the ground behind the wall."

That was precisely where it was, and without much trouble the girls got
it into place again, and Prudence mounted quickly. She disappeared
through the little door, but in one moment appeared again with a
frightened face.

"She's not here, Mollie. She's gone."

"Gone!" Mollie exclaimed incredulously. "She can't be gone! How could
she get down without the ladder? She must be up in the tree."

"No, she isn't. I can see every branch from here; there is not a single
place where she could hide."

"But she _must_ be up there somewhere," Mollie persisted. "If she had
fallen out she would be lying round somewhere. There is no way she
_could_ get down without the ladder. She is so nervous. I'll come up
too and look."

"You may come, but you won't see anything," Prudence said, steadying
her end of the ladder while Mollie climbed.

The Nest was certainly empty. The little blue bird must have found
wings and flown, Mollie thought. She looked up and down and round
about, but not a vestige of Grizzel was there to be seen. Then she
called her Scouting lore to her aid, and set her wits to work.

"The basket has gone too, and there is no orange peel anywhere, but the
_Swiss Family Robinson_ is there on the book-shelf. So she did not go
in a great hurry, because she tidied up first. Let us go to the
Look-out and see if we can catch sight of her blue frock. She may be
hiding quite near and laughing at us all the time."

They climbed to the Look-out and anxiously scanned all the visible
parts of the garden, but nowhere was there a morsel of blue pinafore or
red curls to be seen.

"We had better get down," Prudence said, "and search the garden
properly; I'll ask Bridget to come and help us. What I can't understand
is how she got down at all, and, if she _was_ down, why she didn't come
to meet Papa. She always meets him; always, always. Whoever doesn't
meet him Grizzel always does."

Bridget laughed at their fears, but under her laugh Mollie could detect
a tone of anxiety, and when house and garden had been searched in vain,
Bridget and Prudence faced each other in silence. Then Prue spoke out
the fear which Mollie had not understood:

"The blacks have come to town; I saw their wurlies yesterday when we
left the Gardens."

"Away wid ye, Miss Prudence," Bridget scoffed. "An' what for wud the
blacks be touchin' Grizzel? Isn't yur Pa the kindest gintleman in the
whole wurrld to thim, dirrty things they be!"

"Old Sammy was angry because Mamma would not give him a new blanket
last time he came," Prudence answered, her face pale with anxiety and
tears not far away. "He just goes and sells them, that's what he does,
and buys whisky. He followed me all down the road one day when I was
alone, and jabbered away till his wife came and hauled him off."

There was a troubled silence while Bridget and Prue considered the next
step to take. Mollie felt that this problem was beyond her powers of
solving. Then a sudden thought struck her:

"Where's Laddie? We haven't seen him either."

"Praise be!" exclaimed Bridget. "The dog'll be wid Grizzel, an' that's
sure. Blessin's on ye for the thought, Miss Mollie, for it's scared I
was an' there's no use denyin'."

"Thank goodness! If the blacks had come Laddie would have barked,"
Prudence said, taking a long breath of relief. "How on earth did I not
miss him myself!"

"Your mind was so full of Grizzel you had no room for another thought,
but now--where is she, and how did she get down?"

"We _must_ find her before Mamma comes home. Mollie, you are clever;
think some more."

Mollie thought her hardest, but, as she explained, it was difficult to
make suggestions when she knew neither Grizzel nor the surroundings
very well. "She had no hat on; let us go and see if she has taken a
hat. Would she be likely to go out without one?"

No, they said, going out without a hat was unheard of. So a search was
instituted in the girl's room, and to their relief Grizzel's garden hat
was missing--somehow, even to Mollie, it seemed less alarming to be
missing with a hat than without one. In fact, if it had not been for
the mystery of the tree--which certainly _was_ very
inexplicable--Mollie would not have disturbed herself. Grizzel had gone
out, wearing her hat, carrying her basket, and accompanied by the large
and capable Laddie. Most likely she would come back presently with some
simple explanation to account for everything.

"I think she has gone for a walk. She got down somehow and ran off to
give Hugh a fright. Let's go and look for her along the road," was
Mollie's next proposal.

"If she has gone for a walk she will most likely come home by the lane,
unless she went over to the parklands--oh, I wish she would come back!
She never goes out alone in town, because she is frightened of meeting
Things. She says there are all sorts of Things in town. Once she got
lost in a big crowd, and I think it made her rather nervous. Besides,
Mamma will be angry if she is not home when they come in, and we'll get
such scoldings." Prudence sighed and looked longingly towards the white
gate, but there was no sign of the wanderer's return.

"Suppose we go to the Look-out and reconnoitre, and if we see her we
can go and meet her," said Mollie.

This seemed a good idea, so they climbed the ladder once more, and, one
behind the other, scrambled to the top of the tree. But twilight was
already creeping over the land--the brief Australian twilight which
turns to darkness so quickly. It was impossible to see any distance,
and the girls were turning their backs on the flagpole when Prudence
stopped with an exclamation:

"I think I will light the lantern. Grizzel will see it from a long way
off. Look in the house for matches, Mollie, while I turn the red
glasses both ways."

"But red means danger," Mollie objected, "and we aren't dangerous."

"Mamma is when we break rules," Prudence replied, "and it will remind
Grizzel to hurry up."

"Good gracious!" Mollie ejaculated, as she climbed down on her errand,
"I am glad we don't hang a red lantern out of the nursery window when
we see Mother coming along. How she would laugh if we did!"

"It won't burn long," Prue said, as she shut the lantern door, "but it
will do. Now we'll go down the lane; I am almost sure Grizzel will come
that way."

They crossed the garden and slipped into the lane through a narrow back
gate. It seemed to Mollie that the darkness fell like a curtain, so
quickly did it come dropping down. High up above the trees they could
see the red lantern shining in the dusk like a glowing ruby; the air
was growing chilly, and all the warm bright colours were fading into a
dull uniform grey, when suddenly out of the shadowy dimness there leapt
a dark form--a form with a bushy tail and a friendly bark.

"Laddie!" exclaimed Prudence, and a moment after Grizzel appeared,
running along and swinging her basket.

"Am I late?" she asked breathlessly. "I didn't mean to be so long; I
stopped to look at the shop windows."

"Oh, Grizzel, where _have_ you been?" Prue said, catching her sister by
the arm. "I have been so frightened. Come on quickly now, or we won't
be ready, and _then_ there will be a hullabuloo and goodness knows what
tomorrow."

They hurried back to the house, and were met by an anxious Bridget with
Baby in her arms. Bridget scolded, and Baby laughed, and they were all
so busy "getting ready" that it was not till three white muslin frocks
were spread primly over three green damask Victorian chairs that
Prudence found time to ask:

"How on earth did you get down from the tree?"

"I just got down," Grizzel answered, looking mysterious, "I invented a
secret way of getting down."

"Nonsense," Prudence said rather crossly; "there can't be a secret way
down."

"Well, find out for yourself," Grizzel retorted, her face taking on an
obstinate expression.

"But how _did_ you?" Mollie asked, with an ingratiating smile.

Grizzel shook her rebellious little red curls. "It's my secret," she
repeated; "I won't tell."

"When did you find out that the ladder was gone?" Prue asked, in a more
amiable voice.

"I just knew. It's part of the secret."

"You'll have to tell Hugh," Prudence said firmly; "you can't have
secret ways into other people's houses."

"I won't tell anyone. It's my mysterious secret and I shall keep it."

Prudence frowned and opened her mouth to speak again, but Mollie signed
to her to be silent. Mollie was not a Patrol Leader for nothing; she
had learned to be diplomatic, and now she turned the conversation:

"Where are those parcels?" she asked.

"The parcels! Goodness me, I forgot them! How _could_ I do such a
thing!" Prudence exclaimed, jumping up from the green chair and rushing
into the hall, followed by Mollie; Grizzel sat on in sulky dignity,
trying to look uninterested.

"Suppose Papa had come home and found we had not opened them, his
feelings would have been dreadfully hurt," Prudence said with
compunction. "It would have been murder outing. He always says murder
will out." Grizzel's dignity could not survive the sight of the
brown-paper packages, and the parcels were quickly undone and the
wrappings and string tidied away--"the evidences of our folly", Prue
said, as she bundled them out of sight. The contents were so charming
that everybody forgot their little difference of opinion. There was a
fine large kaleidoscope, the first she had ever seen, for Mollie; a
charming musical box, with a long list of tunes printed inside the lid
and a little gilt key to wind it up with, for Prudence; a Winsor and
Newton paint-box for Grizzel; _Five Weeks in a Balloon_, by Jules
Verne, for Hugh; and a Punchinello doll on a stick for Baby.

"I must say," Mollie remarked appreciatively, "your father _is_ a
peach. I have often wanted to see a proper kaleidoscope, but they seem
to have gone out of fashion."

The others were too busy admiring their own things to observe Mollie's
remarks. Grizzel was speechless with joy as she found all the paints
she had been longing for--the crimson lake, Prussian blue, Vandyke
brown, and the rest; Prue had wound up her box, and as Mollie turned
her kaleidoscope towards the light, and delighted herself with the
wonderful colours and designs it produced, she heard the delicate,
sweet tinkle of a faintly familiar tune--an old-fashioned sort of
tune....

While they were thus pleasantly occupied Professor and Mrs. Campbell
and Hugh returned, and Mollie was introduced to "Mamma" who after all
did not look in the least alarming. She was a fair, pretty woman, with
large clear eyes like Hugh's and a beautifully modulated voice. She
kissed Mollie and looked at her with rather a sad expression in her
eyes:

"You must tell me all about home this evening," she said in her musical
voice. "How nicely your hair is cut; I wonder if Prue's would look nice
like that."

"No, no," said Papa, laying his hand on Prue's curls, "I can't spare
one hair off my Prue's head. I must have my brown ringlets to play with
sometimes."

Hugh could talk of nothing but the wonderful telephone. "I believe I
could make one," he said later on. "I understood a good deal of what
the man said. I shall require a new magnet and some other things. I'll
begin tomorrow." He had forgotten all about such trifles as hidden
ladders and treed sisters, and the girls did not remind him.

But when Mollie found herself alone with Grizzel she began to talk
about the little house and described a beautiful plan she had concocted
for a house-warming, finishing up with the remark that it was a pity
that Grizzel could not come.

"Why can't I come?" demanded Grizzel. "Of course I'll come. I adore the
little house."

"It's Hugh's house, and I don't think he will let you come if you have
a mysterious secret way of getting up and down. He won't like it."

Grizzel was silent. "It's nothing very wonderful," she said at last. "I
was only paying Prudence out for forgetting me. She might have
remembered to let me down when Papa came home--" and Grizzel's eyes
filled with tears. Mollie's heart softened:

"He was in such a hurry that there was no time to get you, and it was
my fault afterwards just as much as Prue's."

"I'll tell you now if you like," Grizzel went on; "only you must
promise not to tell Prudence and Hugh."

"No," said Mollie, "I can't do that. Prudence was awfully frightened;
she got quite pale. We were frightened together and looked for you
together; it wouldn't be fair for you to tell me and not to tell her. I
hate things that are not fair."

Grizzel was silent again and then sighed. "Oh well, I suppose I'd
better tell. I'd have liked to keep one secret, but I can't bear not to
go to Hugh's party. It was very easy--I only--"

"Wait," said Mollie, "I'll call Prue."

[Illustration: I WISH I COULD MAKE SOMETHING THAT WOULD REACH FROM HERE
TO MY BROTHER]

"I saw Hugh take the ladder," Grizzel went on, after Prue joined them;
"of course I heard it scraping along; Hugh is a silly. So I watched him
hide it, and when the milkman came I called him, and he put it up and
helped me down and we hid it back again. That's all."

The others looked at each other, and then Mollie began to laugh, and
went on laughing till Prue and Grizzel laughed at her laughing. "Well,
I must say!" she exclaimed at last, "I _am_ a Sherlock Holmes and no
mistake! I was so busy being clever that I never even thought of a
milkman, which would have been Baden-Powell's first idea. Of all the
silly things! Why on earth didn't we think of it, Prue?"

Hugh, most reluctantly, went to school next morning, and Mamma kept the
girls busy with Italian, music, and needlework till lunch-time. After
that Grizzel departed with her paint-box, Bridget took Baby for a walk,
and Mollie and Prue settled themselves in the little house, with a
cushion apiece at their backs, a basket of freshly pulled oranges
between them, and a couple of books in case conversation should flag.

"Now, Prudence, tell me more about Time-travellers," Mollie said;
"somehow I can't seem to remember that I am one; in fact--" she paused.

"You can't believe it," Prudence finished for her. "I know. But it's
meant to be like that. If you didn't forget you would remember too
much, and then you would stop being a Time-traveller, because your mind
can't be in two places at once. So it is better _not_ to talk; or you
may have to go."

"I won't again, but just tell me two things. Can we travel forwards as
well as backwards?"

"A few people can, not everyone; but it is better not, Mollie. It is
far better not."

"But you came into my Time to fetch me."

"I didn't exactly come, you brought me; and I can only stay a moment."

"Well," Mollie said, after a short silence, "the other thing is: Can I
bring Dick? He would love this place and this Time--somehow you seem to
have more room than we have, and you are not so frightfully busy. We
never have _enough_ time; I think your hours must be longer than ours,"
she went on, with a sigh. "I simply cannot get all the things squeezed
in that I want to do. I often wish the days were thirty hours long."

"You weren't wishing that when I came," Prudence said, with a little
laugh. "I don't know about Dick; you can't bring him unless he wants to
come--of his own accord, I mean."

Mollie pondered a little, and then sighed again: "It will be rather
hard. He doesn't want anything frightfully except football, and there
isn't any just now. Perhaps we could make him want to come; couldn't
Hugh invent some way? It was only one chance in a hundred--in a
thousand, perhaps, that made me talk to your photograph. Let us ask
Hugh."

"We can ask," Prudence agreed, "but his head is going to be packed full
of telephone now, and he won't think or speak of anything else for
days. That's the way he is; we get rather tired of it sometimes,
especially when we have to help. Grizzel collected four hundred corks
for his raft. She grubbed in the ashpit, and among the empty
beer-bottles--" Prudence sighed in her turn.

The two girls met Hugh at the white gate on his return from school, and
Mollie seized the first opportunity to make her request.

"I don't know," Hugh answered thoughtfully; "there ought to be a way. I
believe there is a way _somewhere_ to do everything, if you can only
find it. It's mostly a question of looking long enough. And a thing is
always in the last place you look for it--naturally. I am going to make
a telephone; if I could make one long enough--" he paused.

They were strolling up the wide, cypress-bordered path as they talked,
and Mollie's wandering gaze fell upon a low mound at the foot of one of
the cypress trees.

"What's that?" she asked, coming to a standstill. "It looks like a
cat's grave."

It was a grave sure enough, and crowned with a bunch of pansies. A
small headstone had been made from the lid of an old soapbox, on which
was printed the following inscription:

          HERE LITH
             THE
           LONGEST
      DANDY LION CHANE
             IN
          THE WURLD

"It's Grizzel," said Prudence; "why on earth has she gone and buried
her beautiful chain?"

Grizzel joined the group and answered for herself:

"Mollie said the poor flowers would be forgotten. I should hate to be
forgotten, so I lifted them all up and buried them. I bought a yard of
lovely yellow muslin when I was out yesterday and made a beautiful
shroud. That cypress tree is rather big for such a little grave, but
it's the littlest in the garden."

No one smiled. "It was a wonderful chain," Mollie said, remembering her
view from the Look-out, "I wish I could make something that would reach
from here to my brother Dick. I wish we had wireless. I wonder if
'willing' would be any good. Have you ever played willing? We join
hands and will with all our might that Dick would come here."

"It sounds easy," said Hugh, always ready for a new experiment, "much
easier than making a telephone; we might as well try."

So they joined hands and wished. As they loosened hands again a shrill
cry above their heads made them all look up--it was a parrot flying low
across the garden, its brilliant plumage shining in the evening
sunlight like jewels. "It's my parrot!" Mollie exclaimed, "it met me by
the gate yesterday."

Mollie sat up. The rain was still splashing on the window-panes, but
Aunt Mary was drawing the curtains, and a cheerful little fire had been
lighted. There was a pleasant tinkle of china as tea-cups were settled
on the tray.

"Have I been asleep?" she asked incredulously. (It surely was not all a
_dream_!)

"A beautiful sleep," Aunt Mary answered; "and now tea, and after
tea--you shall see what you shall see."




CHAPTER III

The Fortune-makers or The Cherry-garden


Mollie was rather silent at tea-time. She could not help thinking of
those other children in that long-ago far-away garden. Were they real?
Or had it all been a dream? It _must_ have been a dream, she
thought--such things do not happen in real life--it was impossible that
it should have been true. And yet, never before had she dreamt anything
so clearly, so "going-on" as she expressed it to herself. She longed to
tell Aunt Mary all about it, but the memory of her vow restrained her.
If nothing further happened, in course of time she would feel free to
tell of her wonderful experience, but in the meantime she must have
patience. She racked her brains to think of some roundabout way of
introducing the subject of Australia and the year 1878, but could not
get past her vow--it seemed to block the way in every direction.

So she ate her little triangles of toast--made in a particularly
fascinating way peculiar to Grannie's housekeeping--without enjoying
the scrunch, scrunch between her teeth so much as usual. Even the early
strawberries and cream found her somewhat absent-minded.

But after tea was cleared away and the room tidied up, Aunt Mary
disappeared for a short time and returned with her hands behind her
back. She stood before Mollie, and in a solemn voice chanted the
following words:

  "Neevie neevie nick nack,
  Which hand will ye tak?
  Tak the right or tak the wrong,
  I'll beguile ye if I can."

This was too interesting to be ignored. Mollie sat up and became her
ordinary self again. She looked critically at Aunt Mary's arms,
shoulders, and eyes, but got no information from any of these. Then she
laughed:

"I _won't_ have the wrong, please, I'll have the right."

Aunt Mary laughed too. "You are too clever, Miss Mollie. That is not
the way _I_ did neevie-neevie when I was young." She brought her right
hand round as she spoke, and in it was a charming box, large,
varnished, and clamped at the corners with brass. She laid it on
Mollie's lap, and watched the sliding lid being pulled out by a pair of
impatient hands. It was a beautiful jig-saw puzzle.

"Oh, where _did_ you get it?" Mollie cried joyfully. "I _adore_ jig-saw
puzzles. You are a lovely, lovely aunt!" and she held out her arms for
a hug and a kiss.

"Well," said Aunt Mary, smiling with pleasure at the success of her
surprise, "I remembered how fond you are of jig-saws, so yesterday, as
soon as you had fallen asleep, I wired to Hamley's. I was not sure if
it would arrive to-day, so I did not tell you. Now, let us see what it
is--a map! Oh, dear me, I hope you won't find a map dull!"

Grannie, who loved jig-saws almost as much as Mollie did, had drawn up
a substantial table to the sofa and seated herself beside it. "Dull!"
she said reprovingly, "I hope not indeed. Maps are the most interesting
puzzles one can have. What is it a map of?"

"We'll soon find that out," said Mollie, laying a very jagged section
upon the table and studying it with interest. "What funny names--Weeah!
Where's that? It sounds like China."

Grannie had also possessed herself of a section, and was scrutinizing
it through her spectacles. "I'll need my reading-glass, Mary, my dear,"
she said; "my old eyes cannot see this tiny print."

A silver-handled reading-glass was brought, and Grannie considered her
section again: "The Yarra," she read out, "I wonder if you can tell me
where the Yarra is, Mollie?"

"Never heard of it," said Mollie, shaking her head. "Yankalilla.
Where's that? Goomooroo, Wanrearah, Koolywurtie. _What_ names! I am
glad I am not a railway guard in this place, wherever it may be."

"Aha, Miss Mollie, I am cleverer than you are with all your Oxford and
Cambridge examinations!" Grannie exclaimed triumphantly, "for I can
tell you where the Yarra is--it is the river upon which Melbourne is
built, and Melbourne is the capital of Victoria, and Victoria is a
colony in Australia."

"Australia!" Mollie exclaimed, a little startled. "How funny--I mean
how interesting!" It was certainly rather odd, she thought, that her
difficulty should be solved so promptly, for now, of course, she might
ask as many questions as she pleased and no one would wonder at her
sudden interest in our distant colonies. In the meantime Grannie and
Aunt Mary were both too much engrossed in the puzzle to notice the
rather peculiar expression on Mollie's face, and soon she too became
absorbed in the puzzle under her eyes, and forgot for the moment the
stranger puzzle in her mind.

When Mollie's breakfast-tray came up next morning, the first thing she
saw on it was a letter from Dick. She seized it and tore it open.


"DEAR MOLL,

"I've had the rummest experience you ever. Young Outram says it was
-pyh- -psy- -pysh---ghosts, you know. He says I must tell you _exactly_
what happened and not leave out anything, because quite small things
might turn out to be most important. Young Outram is great on ghosts
and Spirits, he says it is because he was born in the East. It happened
like this. Y.O. and me were sitting together at our desk, which is at
the back beside the window. It is a very good desk. Old Nosey was
talking about _Macbeth_--or perhaps it was _Paradise Lost,_ I am not
sure of this point, because sometimes he does one and sometimes the
other, according to the mood he is in. But it was one of them. Y.O. and
I were making a list of Probable Players in next term's 1st XV, and we
both said 'Jenkyns will have left', at the same time, so we hooked
little fingers and said Kipling, and were wishing a wish when all of a
sudden, _without the slightest warning_ there appeared, sitting on _our
desk,_ the most absolutely top-hole parrot I ever saw in my life. We
sat staring, because, you see, we never saw the beast fly in, and if it
flew through the window we _must_ have seen it, because of my arm being
on the window-sill. While we were still staring I _distinctly_ heard
your voice say, 'Do come here, Dick.' Just those words and then no
more. Then the parrot vanished absolutely, tail and everything, though
it was the finest parrot's tail I ever saw in my life. I can tell you,
Moll, it made me sit up hearing you like that. Y.O. said my freckles
came out like a rash because I got almost pale under them. I wish I'd
seen myself. Then we made the astonishing discovery that none of the
other chaps had seen the parrot, in fact they say it is a cock-and-bull
story, but we are sitting tight because of the phyc-thingummy. Young O.
says that whatever it is he has to be in it too, because most probably
it was owing to his peculiar Indian ghostiness that we saw it at all. I
don't quite agree, but anyhow that's what he says, and he'd better be
in. Please write by return of post if you can explain this phenomenon.
We hope you aren't dead.

"Yours affec.,

"DICK."


Mollie read this letter through twice, then laid it down and ate her
egg and toast without thinking much of what she was doing. She felt
rather startled again; things were certainly queerish. Either her vivid
dream had penetrated to Dick's brain--and such experiences were not
altogether unknown between the twins--or else--or else Prudence really
_had_ come yesterday, and there was something in that story of the
Time-travellers. So the experiment had worked too. She remembered the
brilliant parrot.

She could not make up her mind how much of her story she might tell to
Dick. Her vow had only applied to grown-ups, and since the Campbells
had helped her to wish Dick over, presumably they would allow her to
take him into her confidence. But would he believe such an unlikely
story--and what about Young Outram? They had not bargained for two
boys. She decided to wait and see if Prudence came again, and, in the
meantime, to write and tell Dick that she was alive and well, and that
some explanation of his most extraordinary vision would certainly be
forthcoming sooner or later.

The morning passed much more quickly than the previous morning had
done. Mollie and Grannie worked hard at the jig-saw puzzle, and,
without breaking her word by the smallest fraction, Mollie contrived to
get a considerable amount of information about Australia from Grannie.
Not, of course, that she was totally ignorant on the subject of our
Australian colonies, but her knowledge was vague, and her interest
before this time had been so faint that it was hardly worth mentioning.
Grannie, on the other hand, had had a brother and many friends in
Australia, and had, at one time or another, corresponded with a number
of people there. She was able to tell Mollie several thrilling tales of
bush fires, of the gold-fields, and of Ned Kelly, the great bushranger.
But in none of her stories did the name of the Campbells appear.

After lunch Mollie was again tucked up on her sofa and told to take a
little nap. Grannie was somewhat amused to be asked for the
photograph-album again. "Bairns have queer fancies," she thought to
herself, as she laid it on Mollie's lap. "Don't look too long, my
lamb," she said aloud. "Try and go to sleep. You were all the better
yesterday. There is Aunt Mary playing the piano--dear me, it is long
since I heard that tune!"

When Mollie was left alone she opened the album, lay back on her
cushions, and stared hard at the picture of prim little Prudence.

"_Now_ we shall see! Was it a dream, or will she come again? That is
the question."

But nothing happened. Prudence stared solemnly and stolidly back,
looking almost too good for human nature's daily food.

"But she wasn't, I feel sure she wasn't, even if it _was_ all a dream.
Oh--_how_ disappointing! I did hope that parrot of Dick's meant
something, and I do so want to see those children again and know what
happened next. Besides, it would be thrilling to be a
Time-traveller--one could see all sorts of things."

As she meditated over her disappointment Mollie turned the pages of the
album, looking rather listlessly at the other children, and deciding
that none was so attractive as Prudence, till she came to a group of
three girls and a boy. She looked closer, then stretched out her hand
for the reading-glass and looked again: "I do believe it is--yes, it
_is_--Hugh and Prudence and Grizzel and Baby! How I _wish_ they would
come alive!"

Even as she said the last word she saw a smile dawn upon Prue's face.
She did not drop the album this time but held tightly on to it, closed
her eyes, and counted twenty. When she opened them there stood Prue,
looking as good and sweet as ever.

"Oh, I _am_ glad to see you!" Mollie exclaimed, sitting up and holding
out her hands. "I thought it was all a dream, and that you were not
coming. You will take me with you again, won't you? I did love
yesterday."

Prudence smiled and took Mollie's hands in her own. "We need not waste
time talking to-day," she said. "Listen to the music."

Mollie shut her eyes and listened to Aunt Mary, who just then began to
sing--Mollie could hear the words quite plainly:

  "Oft in the stilly night,
  Ere slumber's chain hath bound me,
  Fond memory brings the light
  Of other days around me."

They were standing on a rough deeply rutted cart-track high up on a
hill-side. Behind them the hill rose steeply, so thickly wooded that
Mollie could not see plainly to the top. Before her it fell in a gentle
slope to a narrow valley, through which ran a shallow creek with green
banks on either side. Straight before her, half-way up the opposite
hill, she saw a white cottage covered with a scarlet flowering creeper.
It had casement windows all wide open, and a trellised porch. The
garden of the cottage reached to the foot of the hill, and for
three-quarters of its length was filled with rows of vines, looking
like green lines ruled on a brown slate.

On one side of the little vineyard Mollie could see a path winding up
the hill, twisting in and out between vines and overhanging trees till
it lost itself in a flower-garden, which made such a splash of rosy
pink and flaming scarlet that Mollie thought it might have been spilt
out of a sunset.

By the roadside at her feet sat Grizzel, red curls still bobbing round
her head, and apparently the very same blue overall still clothing her
slim little body. She was moulding a lump of wet clay, shaping it into
a bowl, pinching here, smoothing there, patting and pressing with both
little grubby hands. On a strip of grass before her stood a long row of
golden balls, glittering in the sunshine as if they had newly left a
jeweller's shop.

Prudence stood beside Mollie, rolling a clay ball round and round in
her hands; and Mollie discovered presently that she herself was also
rolling a lump of sticky stiff mud into some sort of shape, she was not
sure what, but it seemed very important that it should be exactly right.

As she watched the other two children, she saw Grizzel rise to her feet
and run a few steps along the road to where, on the upper slope, a
wedge had been sliced out of the hill, leaving a three-cornered open
space which glittered curiously. This apparently was where the golden
balls came from, for Grizzel stooped down, and lifting a handful of
shining sand let it filter evenly through her fingers over her bowl.
She then set the bowl on the ground, and lightly rubbed the gold sand
into its surface. She repeated this process three times, then
straightened herself, rubbed her gritty hands on her overall, shook the
curls out of her eyes, and said:

"It's quite a nice bowl. If _only_ we could make them hold water, Prue,
it would do beautifully for Mamma's Russian violets."

As Grizzel spoke Mollie suddenly realized that she knew where she was.
They were in "the hills", across the way was their summer cottage, and
those blue-green trees were gum trees. She remembered the long road she
had seen from the Look-out, and how she had longed to follow it and see
what lay behind those hills.

She carried her ball along to the wedge in the hill-side and rolled it
in the golden sand, rubbing it and sprinkling it as she had seen
Grizzel do, and soon it took on a splendid yellow shine.

"It looks very nice, Mollie," said Grizzel. "I like the way you've
shaped it like an orange. I wonder if I could make a bunch of
cherries--I think I will try to-morrow. Put it here beside mine; it is
the hottest place."

Mollie stopped and put her ball--which she now saw she _had_ shaped
like an orange--beside Grizzel's on the sunny patch of grass. Then she
stood up and looked round her again.

"Where is Hugh?" she asked, "and Baby, and your father and mother?"

"I think that is Hugh prowling among the roses over the way," Prudence
answered, shading her eyes with one hand, and looking across the valley
at the garden. "What is he doing, I wonder--he seems to have lost
something! Baby is with Bridget. Papa and Mamma haven't come up yet.
Miss Hilton is supposed to be taking care of us, but she is rather a
goose."

"All the better for us," said Grizzel. "If she were strict and fussy we
wouldn't have nearly such a nice time as we do. You have only to say
snake to Miss Hilton and she is ready to faint; it is useful sometimes."

"Why should you say snake?" asked Mollie, feeling rather relieved to
hear that the elders of the family were away.

"Because there are snakes about, and she is terrified of them,"
Prudence explained.

"Oh dear--so am I, horribly frightened!" Mollie exclaimed. "I never saw
a snake in my life except in the Zoo." "Then how do you know you are
frightened of them?" Grizzel asked. "You only have to be a little firm
with them and they won't do you any harm. I have lived in Australia for
years and years and have never once been bitten."

"I hope I will never meet one when I am alone," Mollie said, shaking an
unconvinced head.

While the other children counted their balls, dried their hands, and
tied on their sunbonnets, Mollie stood still and gazed about her. The
country she saw looked strange and unfamiliar to her eyes. So far as
she could see there seemed to be few trees but gum trees, with their
monotonous foliage and gaunt grey trunks, so different from the mossy
trunks at home in English woods. Here and there one had fallen, and lay
like a giant skeleton on the ground. On all sides were hills, not very
high, but rolling one behind the other like waves, some wooded and some
bare of trees and covered only with short grass and rough boulders.
Over everything was the same beautiful clear sunlight that had
impressed Mollie so much on her first visit, and the air was warm and
soft. She thought of the dull street at home in North Kensington, with
brick houses all crowded up together and dingy little back-yards, and
she wished that her family could come and live in this wide and sunny
country.

As she stood, a cry came across the valley.

"Coo-eee! Cooo-eeeee!"

"There's Bridget calling for tea," said Prudence. "Come on quick; I'm
as hungry as a hunter, and Biddy said she would make some damper,
because we are rather short of bread."

"What is damper?" asked Mollie, as she followed the other two down the
hill. "Is it wet bread?"

"Don't you know what _damper_ is?" Grizzel asked, with round eyes. "It
is unleavened bread--you know, like the Children of Israel ate.
Sometimes we find manna too, lying underneath the trees, but I don't
like it much. I am glad I am not a Child of Israel," she added; "I
don't like that old Moses. Do you?"

"I haven't thought about him very much," Mollie confessed; "I suppose
he was all right in his own way."

"He was so fond of Thou shalt not," Grizzel objected, "and I can't
_bear_ thou shalt nots. If _I_ had made the commandments I should have
said 'Thou oughtest not to commit murder, but if thou doest thou shalt
be hung'. Don't you think that would be more interesting?"

"No, I don't," Mollie answered decidedly, "I like things to be short
and plain like Thou shalt not steal. Then you know where you are."

Prudence looked disapprovingly at her sister. "You should not talk like
that, Grizzel; it is flippant, and you know what Papa says about
flippancy."

Grizzel made a face but did not answer, and they went on in silence
till they reached the foot of the hill. They crossed the little creek
by stepping-stones, and walked slowly up the winding path, the vines
with their ripening grapes on the one side, and on the other great
cherry trees, laden with the largest and reddest cherries that Mollie
had ever seen in her life. They hung down temptingly among the green
leaves, dangling their little bunches in the most inviting way
imaginable, some scarlet, some black, and some almost white, but all
ripe and luscious. The children stretched up their hands and pulled
some, which tasted as good as they looked.

"I'm going to make cherry jam to-morrow," Grizzel said, dropping her
stones on the ground and carefully pushing them into the soil with the
heel of her boot. "I'm going to make the first beginnings of my
fortune."

"What fortune?" asked Mollie, throwing her stones away in the careless
fashion of people who are accustomed to buying their fruit in shops.

"My jam fortune," Grizzel answered. "Every year Mamma sends a case of
jam home to Grandmamma, and this year I am going to put in twelve tins
of my very own jam, and Grandmamma will sell it and put the money in
the bank for me. She promised she would if I was a good girl, and I've
been as good as it is possible for a human being to be."

"But can _you_ make really-truly jam?" Mollie asked
incredulously--Grizzel looked so small and young to be a maker of real
jam in shoppy tins.

"Grizzel is a _beautiful_ cook," said Prudence, with an air of great
pride. "You wait till you taste her herring-shape, and her parsnip
sauce. Mamma says that cooks are born, not made, and that Grizzel is
born and I'm not made."

Mollie felt an immense respect for Grizzel. Cooking was not her own
strong point, as her Guide captain had informed her in plain language
more than once, and in any case food at home was too precious for
children to experiment with except under supervision--there could be no
playing about with fruit and sugar for instance. She began to think
that if there were some things she could teach these forty-years-ago
children, there were also some things she could learn from them--a
thought which would have given her mother much pleasure could she have
seen into her daughter's mind at that moment.

"Hullo, girls!" said Hugh, coming out of the garden as they drew near
the cottage, "I've got an idea."

[Illustration: GRIZZEL THREW IN A SMALL HANDFUL OF TEA]

Mollie turned to look at Hugh. He had grown a little taller, she
thought, but was as clear-eyed and meditative as ever. And behind Hugh
was the flower-garden, full of roses--thousands and thousands of roses,
mostly pale pink. They were loose-petalled and exquisitely sweet. The
children paused for a moment before going into the house, and all four
sniffed up the delicate fragrance appreciatively.

"That's my idea," said Hugh, with an extra loud sniff. "Scent! Let's
make attar of roses. It costs a guinea a drop to buy, and we could make
bottles full. I've been examining the rose-bushes--they are simply
packed full of buds behind the flowers. I have been reading about it.
It's quite easy to do; you merely have to extract the essential oil
from the petals and there you are. I'll show you after tea."

They passed through the porch into the house. There was no hall; they
walked straight into the sitting-room, where a table was spread with
tea, and Miss Hilton, a rather faded-looking lady of middling age, was
already seated behind the tea-pot.

"Go and wash your hands, children," she said, in a voice that matched
her looks, "and smooth your hair. I am _surprised_ at you coming into
the room like this. I don't know what your visitor will think, I am
sure. Children have _very_ different manners in England."

Mollie glanced round at the other three. She herself stood behind Miss
Hilton and was therefore not within that lady's line of vision. She
winked largely with her left eye, and a smile of relief travelled round
the room.

Tea was a silent meal in spite of the festive damper, which was so good
that Mollie thought it must have alleviated the unfortunate lot of the
Children of Israel considerably. Hugh was thinking out his plan for
making attar of roses; Prue was day-dreaming about nothing in
particular, as she was too fond of doing; Grizzel's mind was wandering
away to golden bowls, golden cherries, and other possible and some
quite impossible golden achievements; while Mollie listened to Baby,
who carried on a long and intimate conversation with a family of
bread-and-butter--otherwise the beddy-buts--which had found a temporary
home upon her plate. Miss Hilton poured out tea absent-mindedly, and
seldom spoke except to rebuke someone for putting elbows on the table.

As soon as the meal was over the children went into the garden again,
and, once outside, their tongues began to move.

"I shall nab Baby's bronchitis-kettle," Hugh announced, "and make a
distiller, and we can begin to-morrow. You girls will have to help me,
for I must watch the distilling all the time, and someone must keep me
supplied with fresh rose-petals."

"I can't do much, because I'm going to make jam," said Grizzel, "and I
want Prue and Mollie to help me to gather cherries. I've got one or two
new ideas"--Mollie thought the family seemed great on ideas--"but, if
you'll solder up my jam tins, I'll help with your attar."

"I'll tell you what," said Prue, "we'll have a secret breakfast."

"What's a secret breakfast?" asked Mollie.

"You'll see in a minute," Prue answered. "It's a lovely thing. Then
we'll get up and pull the cherries and cut them open, and we can pick
the roses afterwards, when they are warm and dry."

"Then we had better get the things ready now," said Grizzel.

So while Hugh went off to a little old hut, which served them for a
playroom, to build up his distillery, the three girls set out to
inspect the cherry trees, and engaged in the pleasing task of tasting a
few cherries off each tree to decide which had the finest flavour.

"I think they are all absolutely topping," said Mollie. "I don't know
how you can tell which is best."

"What funny words you use," said Grizzel. "Topping!"

"Well--top-hole then, or ripping, or great, or first-class, or jolly
good."

Both hearers laughed. "You had better not let Miss Hilton hear you,"
said Prue, "or she will tell Mamma, and then you will have to write out
'topping' a hundred times."

Grizzel led the way to the flower-garden, which was laid out on the
terrace immediately below the cottage. A sanded path ran along by the
rose-bed, which was banked up for two feet or so to keep the soil from
washing down in the rainy season. Prudence and Grizzel stopped at a
corner where, in a sheltered angle, lay a low pile of bricks built up
four-square with a hollow centre.

"This is our fire-place," Prue explained to Mollie. "When we get up
very early we make a fire here and boil tea and have a secret
breakfast, because proper breakfast isn't till nine o'clock when Miss
Hilton is mistress, and we get so hungry--besides, it is a lark."

"Write out 'lark' one hundred times, my dear Prudence," said Grizzel,
in a voice so exactly like Miss Hilton's that Mollie looked round with
a start, and the other two laughed.

They gathered sticks, which they carried into the kitchen to be dried,
Bridget being a good-natured conspirator, and they collected sugar,
tea, and damper for their feast. Darkness falls early in Australia, and
the children decided to go to bed in good time, so that they should
waken fresh in the morning. Mollie thought that their bedroom was a
delightful place, quite different from a London bedroom. It had a door
to itself, with a flight of wooden steps leading down to the garden, so
that the children could slip out without disturbing the household.
Mollie thought this very romantic.

"You won't think it very romantic if some old bushranger gets in
through the night and shoots you dead," Grizzel cheerfully suggested.

"Be quiet, Grizzel," Prudence said reprovingly. "What is the use of
frightening Mollie like that? You never saw a bushranger in your life."

But a London girl, who has been through a dozen air-raids without
losing any nerve, is not likely to disturb herself over a possible but
improbable bushranger, and indeed Mollie was blissfully ignorant on the
subject in spite of Grannie's tales; so she went to bed quite
peacefully in the little camp-bed, and lay for a time watching the
brilliant stars shine through the wide-open window. The lovely night
scents floated in with the soft breeze, and Mollie could hear strange
birds calling to their mates at an hour when most English birds are in
bed and fast asleep.

The first rosy streaks of dawn saw the three girls making their morning
toilet at the pump, where the water was cold even to the touch of
English Mollie, but it was freshening, and they emerged from their
splashes with pink cheeks and ravenous appetites. The "inventor" loved
his bed and did not join in the morning revels. (So boys _were_ lazy
lie-a-beds in Father's young days, thought Mollie.)

Prudence and Mollie went straight to the cherry trees with their
baskets, while Grizzel lighted the fire and prepared the secret
breakfast. She called them before the first baskets were quite full.
The fire was burning cheerfully, sending long streamers of wood smoke
into the morning air. On the bricks sat a billy-can full of water just
on the boil, and, as it bubbled up, Grizzel threw in a small handful of
tea, giving it a stir round with a cherry twig. She let it bubble again
while she counted ten, then lifted the can to one side and put the lid
on. She had begged a cup of warm, frothy milk from the milk-boy's pail
as he came up the hill. The damper was sitting on the hot bricks, and
Grizzel had gathered a plateful of strawberries from the berry-bed at
the foot of the hill.

They sat down on the sandy path, holding their mugs of steaming tea in
one hand and their damper in the other, large juicy strawberries taking
the place of jam. Mollie thought it was the most exquisitely delightful
breakfast she had ever tasted in her life. The sun had risen and was
sending his beautiful rays along the valley; they fell upon the roses
and heliotrope in the garden and on the misty blue-green of the gum
trees on the hill opposite. As the children munched in silent
enjoyment, their eyes wandering here and there, one long shaft of light
fell straight upon the patch of golden sand, so that it glittered as
though it were the door to Aladdin's cave. Prue reached out her hand
and pulled down a branch of sweet-scented geranium, crushing a leaf and
holding it to Mollie's nose.

"Isn't it nice here, Mollie?" she said.

"It's perfectly heavenly," Mollie answered, with a sigh. "Why can't all
the world be as nice as this, and why do people _ever_ live in streets?"

They tidied up the remains of their breakfast, and were soon back at
work in the cherry trees. By nine o'clock they had filled four baskets
and had stoned more than half, and laid them in a shallow pan with
sugar over them "to draw", as Grizzel explained. They cracked the
kernels and took out the tiny white nuts, and last of all Grizzel added
a good handful of gooseberries.

"That's my idea," she said, "it will help the cherries to jell. I think
I will pop in some red currants too."

"You _are_ clever," Mollie said admiringly. "I never in all my life saw
a girl as young as you make jam."

"When I am grown up," Grizzel said, sucking her sugary fingers as she
spoke, "I am going to have a fruit-farm and make immense quantities of
jam to send home. Grandmamma says our jam is the nicest she has tasted,
especially our peach and apricot. I am going to try grape jam too, and
I shall preserve mandarin oranges whole, and pineapples, and figs."

Mollie suddenly remembered big tins of jam which used to arrive from
Australia now and then, at a time when jam was very scarce and precious
in London. She smiled to herself as she wondered if they had been
Grizzel's jams--they might have been. At any rate they must have come
from beautiful gardens like this.

"If you do," she said to Grizzel, "put a picture of yourself and a
cherry tree on the tin. It will look much prettier than 'Campbell's
Jams'!"

This made the children laugh, and they went in to their second
breakfast feeling very cheerful and what Mollie called "pleased with
life". The lazy inventor made his appearance halfway through the meal,
looking still rather sleepy. "Come and see my distillery," he said,
when breakfast was over, "I fixed it up last night."

Hugh had set the bronchitis-kettle--always carried about with Baby, who
was subject to croup--on the fire-place, and had fixed a long narrow
jam-tin on to the end of the spout.

"I put the roses and water into the kettle," he explained, "and they
boil, and the steam comes out and drops into this cold tin and
condenses. Then, when we have enough, we boil that up and condense
again. Then we skim the oil that rises to the top, and that is attar of
roses. It is perfectly simple."

"It _sounds_ simple," said Mollie, "but--"

"But what?" asked Hugh, with a frown.

"Oh, I don't know--just but," said Mollie, in a hurry. "I don't know a
thing about distilling; how many boilings will it take to collect a
bottle of attar?"

"A good many, but you must not forget that a bottle holds a great many
drops, and each drop is worth a guinea, so that a lavender-water bottle
will hold about three hundred guineas' worth."

Mollie was greatly impressed. How easy it was to make fortunes in
Australia! And how much pleasanter a way than Father's way, which meant
living in a street and sighing over bills, and not making much of a
fortune after all.

The girls returned to the garden, and soon gathered enough petals for
the first boiling. Hugh, in the meantime, lit the fire and fetched
water from the rain-water tank. "It says water from a spring, in the
book," he said, "but there's nothing like rain-water really for this
kind of work."

Soon Grizzel said she must go to her jam-making. Prudence stayed to
help Hugh, and Mollie decided to hover between both fortune-building
schemes, as she was too deeply interested in the results to wish to
miss either. For an hour they worked hard, Mollie and Prudence bringing
in fresh supplies of roses, rain-water, and logs of wood, for the fire
had to be kept well stocked. The room got very hot, for Hugh would not
allow any windows to be opened, and a good part of the steam managed to
escape in spite of all his care. Indeed it seemed to Mollie that more
steam got into the room than into the tin. After the third instalment
of roses and water she asked if she could be spared to go and see how
the jam was getting on.

"You might bring back some bread and skimmings," said Prudence.
"Working like this makes you so hungry."

The day was warm, but it was refreshing to get out of doors after the
steamy atmosphere of the playroom. Mollie sauntered along, keeping in
the shade of the trees, a little tired after her early rising. She
could see Bridget and Baby at the bottom of the garden gathering
gooseberries for a pudding. Baby's pink sun-bonnet bobbed about like a
rose going for a walk in the berry-bed. Before she reached the kitchen
door she began to smell something uncommonly like burning sugar.

"I expect it has spilt on the stove," she thought; "that pot is pretty
heavy for Grizzel to lift."

The smell got stronger and stronger, and when Mollie reached the
kitchen there was not only a smell but smoke. There was no sign of
Grizzel, nor of anyone else; the house was silent and empty but for the
sizzling and smoking of the boiled-over jam. Mollie ran to the stove--a
funny flat arrangement, different from the stoves of her acquaintance.
The jam had evidently been boiling over for some time, for not only the
saucepan, the stove, and the fender, but even the floor was covered
with a dark-brown sticky syrup. She trod carefully to the fire-place
and lifted the pan to one side, the smoke and steam making her eyes
water.

"Making fortunes is pretty hot work in Australia," she muttered to
herself. "If I made many there wouldn't be much of me left to enjoy
them with. Where on earth is Grizzel?"

She found her in their bedroom, arranging some vine leaves and green
grapes in her golden bowl, quite oblivious of a world which contained
jam.

"I think your jam is burning, Grizzel--I am afraid it is rather badly
burnt."

"My jam!" said Grizzel, coming back to the world of every day.
"Goodness me! I forgot all about the jam." She hastily dumped her bowl
down on the window-sill, and flew to the kitchen, followed by Mollie.

"Oh dear, dear, dear!" she cried, when her eyes fell upon the scene of
devastation. "Oh, my jam! my jam! Oh, why am I _both_ a cook and an
artist? One half of me is _always_ getting into the way of the other
half! Oh, Mollie--my lovely, beautiful jam!"

"Let's taste it and see; _perhaps_ it isn't burnt," Mollie suggested.
But one sip was enough. "Ab-so-lute wash-out!" was her verdict. Grizzel
seized the pot by the handle and made for the door.

"What are you going to do?" asked Mollie, following her.

"Bury it," said Grizzel, laying down the pot and seizing a spade. She
rapidly dug a shallow hole, poured the sticky black mixture into it and
tossed back the earth.

"And they were so pretty a few hours ago," she wailed. "Why on earth
did I go and spoil them like that! Oh, Mollie, I am a cruel girl!"

"It isn't _really_ any more cruel than eating them," said Mollie
consolingly. "I'd just as soon be burnt as eaten myself--only perhaps
one might be cooked first and eaten afterwards. I must say it is rather
hard lines on mutton when you come to think of it."

Grizzel took the blackened pot to the pump, filled it with water, and
carried it back to the kitchen. The fire was nearly out, and logs had
to be piled on and blown up with the bellows before the pot could be
set on again. Grizzel looked round for a towel to clear up the horrible
mess with, but Bridget had washed her towels that morning and they were
all hanging out to dry on the line.

"Get a newspaper and crumple it up," suggested Mollie; "wet it in the
pot-water."

When Bridget and Baby appeared at the door, two very hot and sticky
children were surrounded by a litter of crumpled, wet, black
newspapers, and the stove was as far as you can possibly imagine from
being clean.

"Holy saints!" said Bridget.

Nothing could have looked less like holy saints than Mollie and Grizzel
did at that moment. They stood up in the midst of the ruins, and Mollie
waited for the skies to fall. But Biddy was a good-natured soul.

"An' me stove new cleaned this very mornin'--you an' yir jam! Be off
wid ye!" flapping the children out of the way with her apron as she
spoke.

"Come and wash," said Grizzel, catching up a tin basin from the porch
as they went out.

When they were moderately clean again they went back to the playroom to
see how the scent-makers were faring. They found Hugh and Prudence as
red as lobsters; the big kettle had been moved and a tiny one put in
its place.

"I thought I'd better try how the experiment was getting on," Hugh
explained to Mollie and Grizzel. "There's no use doing all the roses
till we see if it's all right; so I'm boiling up the distilled water
now."

He peered into a doll's milk-jug, which was fastened on to the end of
the little spout. "There is a little. We'll just try for oil," he said,
lifting the jug off and carrying it to the window. There was about half
a teaspoonful of water in the bottom.

"It looks oily; I guess there will be one drop." He sniffed anxiously
as he spoke. "And it does smell of roses too, by jiminy!"

They all sniffed in turn, and agreed that there really was an
undeniable smell of roses. "And it _might_ have only smelt of wet tin,"
Hugh said. "Look here, Prue, don't empty that little kettle. We'll boil
it up again and collect another drop. Put some more logs on the fire."

Prudence looked at Hugh with a slightly exasperated expression; she was
very hot and rather tired: "Hugh Campbell, you know as well as I do
that there is nothing but tinny water left in that kettle. If you think
anyone is going to pay a guinea a drop for scent called Wet Tin you are
a goose. I wouldn't buy it if it was the only scent in the world."

Hugh was not discouraged. "My _idea_ is right," he said. "I shall make
a larger distiller and try again. There's plenty more roses. Next time
we are by the sea I shall look for ambergris. It is found floating on
the shores of warm countries, and all scent should have ambergris in
it, properly speaking."

"I shall try again too," said Grizzel. "There's plenty more cherries,
and a new barrel of sugar came yesterday. After all, everybody has ups
and downs when they are making fortunes. I'll take good care never to
burn my jam again."

"I'm not really sure if attar of roses is worth while," Hugh said
thoughtfully, his eyes on the tiny milk-jug in his hand; "only rich
people could afford to buy it. If you want to make a fortune it is
better to make something that everyone wants, rich and poor. Soap might
do."

"Jam," said Grizzel.

"_I'm_ not sure if it is right to make fortunes at all," said Mollie
slowly.

"Why not?" asked the other three all at once.

"Because it doesn't seem fair, somehow. Some people are so frightfully
rich, and some people haven't even enough to eat. My mother goes to the
children's hospital every week, and sometimes she takes me. You can't
_think_ what some of the poor babies are like--and then you go outside
and see rich, _rich_ women in splendid motor-cars--I mean carriages,"
she corrected herself, "and it does make you feel things aren't fair,
and I do like fairness."

The Australian children were silent for a minute or two.

"But if no one was rich no one could give," Grizzel said at last. "We
know very rich people here, and they do lovely kind things. Mrs. Basil
Hill sends us a packing-case of _exquisite_ oranges every summer, and
when she comes to see Mamma she almost always brings us a surprise
packet--last time it was five pounds of the most beautiful sweets in
Rundle Street, and the time before it was all Miss Alcott's books."

"But if everybody was the same, people wouldn't have to give you
things," said Mollie. "You'd have them yourself."

"Then we would never get a surprise," said Grizzel, "and that would be
horribly dull. Don't you think it would be dull if everybody was
exactly the same?"

"I suppose it would," Mollie admitted, with a sigh, feeling that she
had not presented her case attractively; "but I think they might be
samer than they are."

"There's no use talking," Hugh said decisively. "Australia is full of
fortunes waiting to be made. I heard Papa say so. And the early bird
gets the worm, and the better the bird the better it is for everyone
all round."

"Except the worm," said Grizzel.

They all laughed. "I wish I had a brother instead of three sisters,"
Hugh remarked, emptying the contents of the tiny milk-jug over a
handkerchief which had once been clean. "A brother would be some use.
Where's yours?" he asked Mollie. "Did he get our message?"

This reminded Mollie of Dick's letter, which impressed the Australians
as much as it had impressed Mollie.

"So the next thing--the next thing----" she repeated, looking round at
the other three children. "What _is_ the next thing to do?"

"We can't tell you," Prudence said, with a funny little smile, "you'll
have to fix it yourself in the end."

"Cooo-eeeee!" sounded from the cottage.

       *       *       *       *       *

"Cherry jam for tea to-day, fresh from the preserving-pan," Aunt Mary
was saying. "That will be a treat for you, Mollie, my dear."




CHAPTER IV

The Treasure-hunters or The Duke's Nose


"Cherry jam is certainly very _runny_," said Aunt Mary at tea-time.

"Do you put a handful of gooseberries into it?" Mollie asked rather
dreamily, as she tried in vain to spread her scone tidily.

"Gooseberries! Why, no; I never thought of it. It might be quite a good
idea."

"Or red currants?" Mollie went on.

"Red currants! Bless the child! I didn't know you were a cook, Mollie."

"Neither I am," said Mollie, rousing herself up to the fact that she
was back in Chauncery, and must set a watch upon her tongue. Why was
it, she wondered, that she forgot Chauncery so much more when she was
with those other children than she forgot the children when she was at
Chauncery? "I once heard a person say they put gooseberries and red
currants into cherry jam, and I suddenly remembered," she told Aunt
Mary.

"Well, it is too late for cherries, but I will try it for the
strawberries to-morrow. It will be quite an interesting experiment."

Mollie resolutely pushed her thoughts about the cherry garden and its
occupants into the background, and gave her whole mind to a game of
patience with Grannie, who was getting a little tired of jig-saw. But
when that was over, and Grannie was absorbed in casting on a
stocking-top with an intricate pattern, while Aunt Mary wrote letters,
she began again to think and wonder about her curious journey, which
for some reason seemed less strange to-day than it had done yesterday.
She pondered over ways and means to get Dick across, or over, or
through, "or whatever you call it when you travel in Time", she
thought; "back might be the best word. I do _wish_ I could tell Aunt
Mary."

She looked thoughtfully at her aunt, whose head was bent over her
writing, the smooth bands of her silky, brown hair shining brightly in
the lamp-light. No doubt some, perhaps most, grown-ups would scoff at
her tale if she told it, Mollie thought. Grown-up people as a rule love
best to jog along on well-trodden, safe, commonplace paths, and avoid
adventurous by-ways, but Aunt Mary, Mollie felt sure, was an
anti-jogger, so to speak, and would always choose adventures if she had
a choice. "It's funny to think," Mollie reflected, "that she can't be
so very much younger than Mrs. Campbell is--was--is--was then. I
suppose she is about thirty-five, and Mrs. Campbell forty or so--she
looks--looked old enough to be Aunt Mary's mother. Being good at games
keeps her young; she can beat me to a frazzle at golf and tennis; and
she is frightfully keen on aeroplanes; I'm sure she would fly if it
weren't for Grannie. I wonder why she never got married?"

Mollie had not yet come to the age of sentiment, but now and then she
reached forward a little and surveyed its possibilities, and now she
paused awhile to muse upon the subject of her aunt's spinsterhood. Not
for long, however; she decided that Aunt Mary must have had excellent
reasons of her own for remaining single, and returned to the more
pressing problem of how to get Dick into the Campbells' garden. Finally
she thought of a plan worth trying.

"Grannie, may I have the loan of one of your photographs?" she asked.
"Dick has a way of copying them with a thing he has that makes them
look like drawings, and the old-fashioned ones are the prettiest."

"By all means, if he will be careful," Grannie answered, nine-tenths of
her mind being fixed on her new pattern and only one-tenth upon her
grandchild's peculiar fancy for Victorian photographs. So Mollie wrote
a short letter to her brother, enclosing the group which had worked the
magic charm for herself that afternoon. She put it into the evening
post-bag with a sigh. "If that doesn't do it I _can't_ think of
anything else," she said to herself.

It is remarkable how quickly one becomes used to a new routine. Already
Mollie was making more use of her hands and head because she could not
use her feet. She was fond of writing, and decided next morning to
begin an account of her strange adventure while it was still fresh in
her mind. In the intervals of other plans for her future career she had
dreams of becoming a writer of books, but her difficulty hitherto had
been that the usual sort of book is so ordinary, and she had never been
able to think of anything remarkably unusual to write about. The
autobiography of a person who could live in various periods of the
Christian Era might turn out to be quite interesting, she thought, if
only people would believe that it was true. The trouble was that most
likely they would think she was inventing it, "and anyone can _invent_
any old thing. And this is only the beginning of my adventures. When I
have thoroughly learnt how to Time-travel I will go back much
further--perhaps to the French Revolution, and watch people being
guillotined."

She scribbled diligently in the thick exercise-book, which Aunt Mary
produced without once asking what it was wanted for. "It just shows--"
Mollie murmured gratefully; "some people would have teased me to death."

And so time passed, and half-past two came round again in the usual
inevitable way, and Mollie lay expecting Prudence as calmly as though
she were coming from next door. She had the album on her lap, and was
turning the pages in search of a new photograph, when in the twinkling
of an eye Prue was there.

"We don't need that now," she said, "but we must have Aunt Mary's
tunes. Where is she?"

"Oh dear, dear, I forgot!" Mollie cried in dismay. "I do believe Aunt
Mary is making strawberry jam, and I went and told her about putting in
gooseberries and red currants, and her head will be full of them and
she will forget me!"

But the lullaby had not been forgotten. At that very moment the piano
began--a tune Mollie knew well this time, for she had often heard the
American soldiers sing it in London:

  "Oh, darkies, how my heart grows weary,
  Far from the old folks at home".

"Give me your hand--quick," said Prue in a whisper.

       *       *       *       *       *

Mollie found herself standing on a wide beach in the curve of a
beautiful bay. Before her lay the sea, dark blue in the distance, a
clear emerald green by the shore. To the right of her the beach
stretched as far as she could see, firm yellow sand on the lower half,
fine white silvery sand higher up. On the left it only ran for a couple
of miles or so and then ended in rocks, over which the sea threw a cool
white spray. Behind her, Mollie saw, when she turned, the line of the
beach was followed by sandhills, some covered with low-growing scrub
and some quite bare and treeless, shining like snow in the hot sunlight.

The children were all there. At a little distance from where she stood
Mollie could see Hugh and Prudence, Hugh lightly clad in a
swimming-suit, and Prue with her skirts rolled up and her feet bare. A
wide sun-hat covered her head, and her brown curls were fastened back
with a clasp, which made her look older, Mollie thought.

The two children were hauling a large, square, flat object down to the
sea, Hugh pulling in front with ropes, and Prudence pushing behind.

"I do believe it's the raft," thought Mollie. "This must be Brighton,
and I suppose the summer holidays have come round again. It is a little
difficult to keep up with Time here. I do _wish_ Dick could come!"

Grizzel was sitting on the beach close beside her, and seemed to be
gathering shells from a little pale-rose patch on the sand at her feet.
She was very absorbed in her task, but she looked up at Mollie with a
smile, apparently not at all surprised to see her there. She was
dressed, like Prue, in a turned-up overall and wore a wide hat, which
hid the red curls from view and gave her an unfamiliar look. Bridget
was sitting not far from Grizzel, busily doing crochet-work and singing
a song about a wild Irish boy, while her eyes wandered after Baby, who
was singing a little song of her own invention about a poor lonely
whale who had a loving heart. Higher up the beach, at the foot of the
sandhills, Mollie could see Professor and Mrs. Campbell, one reading
aloud and the other sewing.

"Where shall I go first?" Mollie asked herself, "I think I'll go and
see what Hugh and Prudence are doing."

She found, when she began to walk, that she was bare-legged and bunchy
about the skirts like the other girls, and that her head was covered
with a sun-hat like theirs, a tanned Panama straw, light as a feather,
and shading her eyes from the glare of sea and sand. The sun was very
hot and the sand was warm under her feet.

"Hullo! Here's Mollie the Jolly!" exclaimed Hugh, as she drew near.
"Come along and lend a hand--we are just about to launch the good ship
_Nancy Lee_ on her trial trip."

Mollie examined the raft with deep interest. It was really very neatly
made, the planks straight and smooth, and firmly held together by
cross-bars underneath. There was a mast in the exact centre, with a
sail at present close-reefed, and there was a pair of old oars which,
Hugh explained, had been purchased from a boatman of his acquaintance.
All round the raft were bunches of corks, several hundreds at least.

"Did Prue and Grizzel find all those?" Mollie asked.

"We all collected 'em," Hugh replied; "lots of people gave us
corks--jolly old winebibbers they must be," he added ungratefully. "Now
then--with a long, long pull and a strong, strong pull!"

They got to the edge of the water, and the two girls waded in as far as
they could go without getting their clothes wet, before the raft
finally took to her natural element and rocked up and down on the
smoothly rippling wavelets. A gentle breeze was blowing off the sea,
but the tide was running out, which, Hugh remarked, was a good plan, as
the raft would go out to sea with the tide and come back with the wind
in her sail. He thought, however, that he would not carry any
passengers on the first trip--in fact, to begin with, he would harness
himself to his craft and pull her both out and in, "just till I see how
she goes; she's got to find her sea-legs."

The girls watched the raft and its owner depart into deep water; they
saw Hugh climb on board, and decided that the passengers who sailed
aboard the _Nancy Lee_ would be most suitably attired in
bathing-dresses, as she appeared to slide along as much below the ocean
as above it. After standing for some minutes they wandered along
towards Grizzel, who was still sitting by the pale rosy patch on the
sand. When they sat down beside her Mollie saw that the shells she was
gathering were so tiny that they were hardly larger than a pin's head,
and yet they were perfect in form and colour; she thought she had never
seen anything more exquisite.

"We thread them and make necklaces," Prudence explained; "they are so
thin that you can stick a needle through them quite easily; they come
in beds like this all along the beach. There are lots of lovely shells
here, and sea-eggs too. We collect them sometimes, but our collections
have such a way of getting lost somehow, they are always beginning over
again and ending too soon."

"Can you say 'She sells sea-shells' twenty times running, as fast as
lightning?" asked Grizzel.

"Not running as fast as lightning," Mollie answered, "but I could say
it if I were walking rather slowly."

"I couldn't," said Grizzel, taking no notice of Mollie's flippancy, "if
I were to crawl at the rate of half an inch a year I should be saying
'She shells sea-shells' the whole time."

"You are talking nonsense," said Prudence. "Come up and see Papa and
Mamma."

Mollie was greeted kindly by the older people. She had forgotten to ask
if she was supposed to be a visitor or only spending the day with the
Campbells, but gathered from Mamma's conversation that she was paying a
visit and had arrived that morning. She wondered again how they heard
about her coming; the children appeared to take her for granted, but,
of course, _they_ knew she was a Time-traveller!

As the girls sat by their elders, idly playing with the silvery sand
and chatting to each other, a large steamship came in view, coming from
the north and heading south-west. They all stopped working and talking
as they watched her steaming along, a trail of smoke blowing behind
her, smudging the blue sky with clouds, black at first and gradually
fading to grey.

"That's the English mail," Papa said at last; "she was due to leave the
Semaphore at three o'clock to-day."

They were silent again; the great ship drew nearer--now she was almost
opposite.

"Oh--John--_Home!"_ Mamma said. There was a tremble in her voice that
made Prudence and Mollie look up--there were tears in her eyes.

"I know, little wife, I know," Papa answered softly, putting a hand
over the white hands which had dropped the busy needle.

The girls rose to their feet and left Papa and Mamma. They went down to
the edge of the shore, and stood watching the ship as she began to slip
over the horizon.

"Now she has begun to go down the Big Hill," said Prue. "She will sail
for miles and miles and thousands of miles, and for days and nights and
weeks across all that sea. I wonder if some children on the other side
will be playing on that beach, and will watch her funnel climb over the
top of the hill again and say: 'Here comes the Australian mail!'"

Mollie did not answer. She could not remember ever taking much interest
in the Australian mail. But in future she determined she would always
watch when she had the chance, and wave a friendly hand to the incoming
ships.

Soon there was nothing to be seen of the big steamer but a trail of
smoke, which lingered long in the sky.

Prudence had fallen into a day-dream; and Mollie's eyes were roaming
over the blue sea, when suddenly she caught sight of the raft bobbing
about on the little waves, sometimes above and sometimes below. In the
water in front of the raft she could see Hugh's head, like a round
black ball--and--yes, she was not mistaken, there were two other round
black balls which must also be heads. That was rather odd, she thought;
she had not noticed any other boys about.

"Look, Prue!" she exclaimed, catching Prue by the arm, "look--there is
Hugh, and he has got someone with him--oh, _do_ you think he has
rescued some drowning sailors?"

Prue came out of her day-dream with a jerk, and brought her thoughts
and her eyes back to earth, or rather to sea.

"Yes, he _has_ someone with him," she said. "How funny!"

As they gazed, the three swimmers turned round and, with a good deal of
ducking and slipping, climbed aboard the raft, which triumphantly
survived and remained afloat, though decidedly wet about the deck. They
proceeded to unfurl the sail, which one boy held while the other two
took to the oars, and, after some hard work, the _Nancy Lee_ was safely
beached. Grizzel joined Mollie and Prudence, and the three girls
watched the three boys, not offering to go and help with the raft
because they felt a little shy of the strangers.

Presently one of them turned round--and Mollie gave a jump. The boy's
hair hung over his forehead in wet, black streaks, and he was dressed,
or rather undressed, in a swimming-suit, the rest of him being wet,
white skin; but in spite of this unusual appearance Mollie was almost
sure--in fact she was quite sure--that it was Young Outram. And the
other boy--who kept his back turned in a provoking way as he examined
the raft--why, _that_ boy--yes, it surely was Dick! Mollie squealed and
caught Prue by the arm:

"It's Dick and Jerry Outram!" she exclaimed, jumping up and down with
excitement. "Oh, Prue--have they swum all the way from London without
any clothes?"

Prudence laughed. "Mollie, you _are_ a goose! _Do_ you think they could
swim fourteen thousand miles?"

"Well how--? Oh, I forgot! It is so hard to remember about
Time-travelling here! Oh, Prue, _how_ exciting it is!"

At that moment Dick looked round and saw his sister. Both boys came
racing along the sand towards the girls, kicking up their heels like
young colts.

"Cheerio!" cried Dick, as he pranced up. "What price school! How's this
for a rag? Jolly old beano, I call it!"

"What does he say?" asked Grizzel.

"He says that school isn't much of a place, and that this is a great
lark, and that he enjoys being here immensely," translated Mollie.
"_Some_ psychical phenomena!" exclaimed Young Outram, prancing up in
his turn.

"I'm afraid we haven't got any," said Prudence politely.

"And you forgot to say 'Please' if we had," said Grizzel, with a frown.

"_What_ do they say?" asked Young Outram, looking puzzled.

"Prudence thought you were asking for some what's-its-name-how-much,"
Mollie explained again.

"What _does_ he mean then?" Grizzel asked.

"He means that this is the loveliest magic that he ever heard of," said
Mollie. "You shouldn't use such long words, Jerry, and they aren't true
either, for this is _not_ thingummy phenomena, it is simply common
everyday magic."

"There is no such thing as common magic," said Jerry.

"There is," said Mollie.

"There isn't," said Jerry.

"What do you call it when your mother gives you a dirty little brown
onion to put in the ground and you bring it back to her turned into a
parrot-tulip?" asked Mollie.

"Oh--if you--"

"Stow it, Young Outram, you blighter," Dick interrupted. "Don't be such
a silly old Juggins, making them ratty first go-off like that. Keep
your hair on, Mollie, and don't get the hump over nothing. If you
_must_ jaw about parrots, jaw about the dossy chap we spotted in
school; you are simply talking hot air, both of you."

"_What_ does he say?" asked Hugh, who had come up by this time.

"I wish to goodness you boys would speak plain English," Mollie said
impatiently. "I don't want to spend all my time explaining you to the
others."

"Irry yourry tawrry lierry tharry weerry wirry tawrry lierry thirry,
arry therry yourry woerry urrystarry wurry wurry tharry weerry sayrry,"
said Grizzel, rather angrily and very rapidly.

"_What_ does she say?" asked both boys at once.

"It's only our private language," said Prudence; "she says that if you
talk that way we'll talk our way, and then you won't understand us.
_That_ wouldn't do any good. I think we'd better have a Circle. Give me
your hand, Mollie, and you take Hugh's. And Hugh Dick's, and Dick
Grizzel's, and Grizzel Young Outram's, and Young Outram my other hand.
Now all stand quite still and shut your eyes; listen to the waves, and
try and think of three nice things about the people next you."

The six children stood in a circle, silent and still, as Prudence had
ordered, their eyes tightly closed. They felt the hot beams of the sun
pouring over them, and the cool salt wind blew on their faces and
through their hair; their toes curled and wriggled in the warm, wet
sand, and in their ears was the plash-plash of the little waves beating
backwards and forwards on the beach. It was very pleasant. It seemed
quite easy to think of those three nice things. And presently each
child felt a warm and friendly glow steal up its left arm, through its
heart, down its right arm--and so on to its neighbour. When this
pleasing and cheerful sensation had gone round the Circle three times,
Prudence said: "Now, open your eyes and let go."

They stood there smiling at each other, and feeling almost ready to
burst with goodness and loving kindness towards all the world.

"Now we'll understand each other," said Prue. "Words don't matter much
if you understand people. Now what shall we do?"

"Don't let's stand about any more," said Mollie; "the time does go so
quickly, and there are lovely things to do. What would you like to do,
Young Outram?"

"Call me Jerry all the time," he answered first. "I want to forget
about school while I can--there are a good many of us at school," he
explained to Prudence, "and we are called Old Outram, and Outram Two,
and Young Outram; and there are three Outram Kids at the prep, and
another kid at home."

"_All_ boys!" exclaimed Prudence.

Jerry nodded. There had been nine Outram boys before the war! "Let's go
out on the raft again--please," he added, with a wink at Grizzel, who
smiled back. "You come too; we could easily push you along."

"We'll have to change into our bathing things first," said Prudence;
"the raft looks a little wet. We won't be long."

The girls ran up into the sandhills to change, but before Prue
disappeared she returned to the boys with a basket made of rushes in
her hand, which she had begged from Bridget.

"Here are some buns and grapes," she said a little shyly, "I thought
you might be feeling hungry, and it is a long time yet till tea-time."

Jerry decided on the spot that if he ever _did_ go in for the peculiar
entertainment of falling in love, he would choose a shy girl with brown
curls who did not talk slang and went about distributing buns to hungry
boys. "Her for mine," he expressed it to himself.

The girls were soon back, all in navy-blue bathing-suits, knickers
below, and a belted tunic reaching to their knees above--too much
clothed for Mollie's taste; she liked to be skimpy when she went
swimming. But no one grumbles after they have been in a Circle--at
least, not for the next twenty-four hours--so Mollie endured her
substantial garments philosophically and soon forgot all about them.

The girls waded out to the raft, which the boys had launched. They
climbed on board and were soon in fairly deep water. Mollie and
Prudence slipped off and left lazy Grizzel alone on deck, sitting
cross-legged like a little tailor, one arm flung round the mast. The
raft rocked gently up and down on the calm sea, while the children
swam, ducked, and played about in the clear, sun-warmed water like a
school of young porpoises. As Grizzel sat idly watching the rest, her
eyes fell upon an object which floated at a little distance from the
raft. It was a bottle--a common beer-bottle--its cork rammed well in
and sealed with red wax.

"What's that?" she called to Hugh, pointing to the bottle as it danced
about, twirling round and round, tossing from side to side in the wide
ripples sent out by the children and the drifting raft.

They all made for it. "It's a message from the deep," cried Jerry;
"probably from a ship-wrecked sailor."

Hugh, being the nearest, caught it by its red neck, and the whole party
collected on and about the raft to see what would happen next. But Hugh
refused to break the bottle until they went ashore again.

"The sea might get in and spoil the paper, and the broken glass would
get on deck and cut us; we'll pull her in now and read the message on
the beach," he decided.

They got under way and, practice making perfect, were soon high and dry
on the beach, and the _Nancy Lee_ dragged up and comfortably moored.
The children seated themselves in a ring, and Hugh cautiously knocked
off the neck of the bottle with a stone. He drew out a paper, which had
been carefully rolled round a thin bamboo stick and tied with a red
ribbon. There was no date on the paper, nor was there any sign to show
where the bottle had been thrown in, but written in large, clear
round-hand was the following message:

  IF THE FINDER OF THIS BOTTLE
  WILL SEARCH THE CAVE UNDER
  _THE DUKE'S NOSE_ HE WILL FIND
  SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.

"Hidden treasure," said three boys all at once. "Where is The Duke's
Nose?" asked Dick.

"Never heard of it," answered Hugh, looking hard at Jerry, whose nose
was distinctly aquiline and promised to be more so in the future. "You
aren't a duke by any chance, I suppose?" he asked.

"No, old sport, I'm not," Jerry answered, with a grin, "and if I were,
the only treasure you would find in the cave under my nose would be
some jolly sharp teeth, and they wouldn't be at all to your advantage
either."

"It's probably among those rocks over there," Mollie suggested; "I
expect if we went there and walked round we would see something that
looked like a duke's nose."

"But there aren't any big enough to have a cave under them," said
Prudence; "they are all quite little rocks."

"It will be a bit of the cliff, most likely," said Dick, "in fact it is
almost bound to be if there is a cave."

The others agreed that this was probable. "What do you think the hidden
treasure will be?" asked Grizzel. "A sack of diamonds and rubies?"

"I hope not," said Jerry, "for, if it is anything of that sort, we will
have to give it up. If we were caught trying to sell diamonds we'd be
copped at once, and the bobbies would think the bottle story was all
made up. I expect we'd all be put in jail, and it would be jolly
awkward for Dick and me when we got back to school. I think I see the
Old Man's face when we explained that we couldn't come because we were
in an Australian prison in the year 1879 for stealing diamonds. I don't
think!"

"Schoolmasters and mistresses are extraordinarily stupid sometimes,"
said Mollie reflectively. "They are so hard to convince, even about
quite simple things, if they don't want to be convinced. But I
shouldn't care for diamonds myself. I'd like a swanky tennis-racket."

"I'd like a revolver, latest pattern," said Jerry.

"I should like a first-class camera," said Hugh.

"I'd like a pure-bred bull-dog," said Dick.

"I'd like a nice little model sewing-machine," said Prue.

"I'd like six pairs of stilts," said Grizzel, "and then we could all
walk home on them."

Everyone looked a little ashamed; Grizzel was the only one who had
thought of the five others. A murmur went round that of course they had
_meant_ six of everything. Then Mollie began to laugh: "How funny we
will look if we each get all the things," she giggled. "We will walk
home on the stilts, with a revolver and a sewing-machine tied on to
each stilt, and a tennis-racket and a camera on our backs, and six
bull-dogs trotting after us."

This flight of fancy made everyone laugh consumedly: "We must go home
now, anyway," Prudence said, as she dried a tear, "because it is
getting on for tea-time and we have got to get dressed. Perhaps there
will be time to go to the rocks after tea and just _look_ for a nose,
and if we find it we'll take some spades in the morning and dig."

The Campbell's seaside cottage stood behind the sandhills. It had been
built by a retired sea-captain, who had planned it to look as like a
ship inside as a house could be made to look. The walls were panelled
in wood, painted bird's-egg blue, and decorated with pictures of ships.
The windows were round like portholes; the table stood across one end
of the room and was screwed to the floor, as were also the benches on
either side. In the children's rooms were bunks, in rows one above the
other, and the washing-stands were fixtures. It was altogether very
charming and romantic.

Tea was of the kind called high, and the hungry children disposed of
cold ham, an extraordinary number of boiled eggs, several loaves of
smoking hot new bread, and at least a pound of butter and two or three
pounds of jam.

"May we go for a walk to the rocks?" asked Prudence, when tea was over.
"We will go very quietly along the beach and not get wet, and be home
before dark."

Papa said he would walk that way a little later on and meet them; so
Mamma gave permission, and soon a party of six were wandering by the
shore towards the rocks, carrying their boots and stockings slung round
their necks. It did not take them long to cover the two miles which lay
between their beach and the rocks. Mollie found it hard to pass by all
the lovely shells with which the beach was strewn, but the rest were
impatient. The sun was dropping down the sky and they had not too much
time for their search.

It did not promise to be a very successful search, for nowhere was
there anything even remotely like a duke's nose to be seen--nor indeed
any sort of nose. The rocks were low and for the most part jagged, with
pools of water in the hollows between them for unwary or careless
people to slip into. Many of them were covered with periwinkles, which
Grizzel could not resist gathering. She filled her boots with them.

"Papa likes them," she said, when Prudence and Mollie remonstrated with
her for lingering; "he says they taste like a sea-breeze, and if we
aren't going to take back a duke's nose I may as well take a
periwinkle's nose; it will be better than nothing."

The cliffs were high and precipitous, but they were no particular
shape, being, as Hugh said, merely the edge of Australia. The children
scrambled along till they reached the turn of the coast-line, beyond
which were more rocks and cliffs, much the same as those about them.

"Perhaps it isn't here at all," Prudence said, as they seated
themselves in a row on the edge of a big boulder; "the message didn't
say it was. It might be anywhere. Perhaps that bottle came hundreds of
miles, and the Duke's Nose is at the South Pole."

"More likely Kangaroo Island or Yorke's Peninsula," Hugh said. "We
might sail the raft across--it's only about fifty miles to the
Peninsula."

"How'd you get her to go?" asked Jerry. "We couldn't swim fifty miles;
half a mile is my limit at a stretch; Dick can do three-quarters."

"We'd have to use the sail and tack a bit, and we'd have the oars."

"What about food?" asked Prudence.

"We'd sling it in a can on the mast. Water's the trouble; we'd have to
distil sea-water, and that takes coal and might be a bit difficult;
there isn't a place for coal on board yet."

Mollie remembered the attar of roses and decided not to embark upon
that voyage. "We would be pretty thirsty before there was enough water
distilled for us all to drink," she thought to herself.

"Well, we'll have to be getting home now," said Prudence, with a sigh.
"It will be dark before so very long."

A somewhat silent and subdued party set out on the homeward scramble,
the boys in front, Mollie and Prue together, and Grizzel in the rear,
being hampered by her bootfuls of periwinkles, which would keep falling
out. She stopped at last, and, sitting down, she laced her boots
tightly up and tied the tops round with the lace ends. When she looked
up from this task she stopped again to admire the gorgeous sunset. The
whole sky was ablaze, and the sea had changed from blue to crimson and
gold; the wet beach was gleaming like an opal, pale-rose and lavender,
with fiery amber lights shimmering on the rippled sand. The brilliant
glow of the western sky was reflected in the east, and the cliffs stood
out sharply against the light, themselves flushed with pink. Grizzel's
keen young gaze ran along the outline, black where it cut the sky.

"There's nothing there," she said to herself, "only that flagstaff hut,
and it's as square as square."

As she watched, a door opened in the side of the hut and a man came
out, swinging a billy-can in his hand. Suddenly Grizzel caught her
breath. Where had she heard someone say that that hut was a tiny
refreshment-bar, where a man could go in and get boiling water for his
tea--that everlasting tea which the Australian drinks at any and every
hour of the day? It was Papa, and he had said they called the hut 'The
Nose'--short, Grizzel felt sure, for The Duke's Nose. Her eyes ran
quickly down the cliff underneath--yes, she could see the cave quite
plainly when she looked hard, though to the casual glance it looked
like a deep crevice in the cliff.

She looked after the others. They had scrambled on ahead while she was
tying up her periwinkles, and were now too far away to hear anything
but a shout. She put her two hands up to her mouth and gave the long
shrill "Cooo-eeeee!" of the Australian-born child, which caused five
heads to be turned in her direction instantaneously. Prudence started
running back, fearing that her sister had fallen and hurt herself.
Grizzel's gesticulations made things no plainer to the others--when she
pointed to the hut they thought she meant them to get help, so that
Hugh and Dick set off towards the cliff, while Jerry came on with
Mollie and Prudence in case there should be a broken limb.

Even when they got within hailing distance they did not understand, for
what between keeping a foothold on the slippery rocks, hanging on to
her periwinkles, and her excitement over her discovery, Grizzel was
getting breathless and incoherent, and all she did was to point a small
forefinger at the hut and say:
"Duke's-nose-you-know-duke's-nose-you-know-your-nose-dukes-know."

"She is delirious with pain," said Mollie, "and she is mixing the
Duke's Nose up with 'She sells sea-shells'."

However, it was not very long before they reached her side, and she was
able to explain the situation. A few more excited coo-ees brought the
boys back, and the question became: What to do next? The sun was
getting perilously near the horizon, and once it dropped behind the
sea, darkness would fall rapidly and the rocks be really unsafe,
especially as the tide was now coming in.

"We must get up frightfully early in the morning," said Dick at last,
"and come along before breakfast. Nobody is likely to find that
treasure in the next ten hours or so."

With many backward looks they resumed their homeward trek. It was hard
luck to have to leave the treasure when, perhaps, they had almost found
it, but Mamma's word was law, and if they broke their promise about
getting home, or at least meeting Papa, it was quite possible that
to-morrow would be spent by the girls in doing French verbs and making
buttonholes.

The children slept soundly all night in their funny little bunks. Early
in the morning a small figure slipped into the boys' room and shook
first one boy and then another by the shoulders. Dick and Jerry woke up
after a few grunts; Hugh as usual was a sleepy-head.

"Leave him to us," Dick said confidently, "_we'll_ get him up--you'll
see."

"Tell him to come by Gobbler's Hollow," ordered Grizzel; "you'll find
us there. Don't stop to wash."

When the boys were half-way across the sandhills, they saw a thin
column of blue smoke rising from somewhere among the low scrubby trees,
and a minute after a delicious smell greeted their unducal noses--a
smell of wood-smoke and toast combined.

"It's the girls making grub," Hugh explained to the other two; "they're
great on grub." He might have added that he was great on it himself, so
far as eating it was concerned. Certainly Dick and Jerry were very
pleased to know that they had not to wait until half-past eight for
breakfast, for the fresh sea air had given them ravenous appetites.
They found the girls in Gobbler's Hollow--appropriately so named by
Hugh--bending over a gipsy fire. The inevitable billy-can hung from a
tripod, and the steam from it mingled with the smoke of the fire.
Mollie was toasting bread, which Prudence buttered with a lavish hand,
and Grizzel was shelling hard-boiled eggs.

"I call this top-hole," Dick announced, as he squatted down on the sand
and took his tin mug from Mollie, who had begged to be allowed to make
the tea as she had seen Grizzel make it before. "It will buck us up no
end and make us as sharp as needles."

They were in a hurry to get on; so when breakfast was done they pushed
the mugs and knives into the hollow of a bush, which Grizzel explained
was their storeroom. Later in the day the girls would come back and
tidy up; for the present the great thing was to get to the cave as
quickly as possible. They had two clear hours before them in which to
make their search.

The tide was at its lowest, and there was a broad stretch of wet sand
between the sandhills and the sea. Wide shallow pools of water had been
left behind by the receding waves, while here and there lay long heavy
drifts of seaweed, shining darkly in the early rays of the morning
sunlight. The children splashed their way along, their eyes fixed on
the flagstaff hut. As they drew nearer they left the sea and steered
for the cave, the entrance to which was plain enough now that they knew
where to look for it.

"It's such a conspicuous sort of cave," Hugh said, "I don't see how
anyone could miss finding treasure unless it is buried very deep."

Caves have always a certain amount of mystery about them, but this one
was undoubtedly as ordinary looking a cave as one could find. It did
not burrow very far back into the cliff side, and what there was of it
was open to the daylight and contained no lurking dark corners. The
walls were rough and rocky but not high; the roof was, as Jerry said,
nothing particular, and the floor was of shingle and rather wet, as if
the sea, now so far away, had paid it a visit not so very long ago.
But, as the rocks and stones before the entrance were dry, it was
obviously not the tide which had washed the floor.

"It must be a spring or something," Hugh said; "let's taste and see--"
he stooped as he spoke and scooped up a handful of water, which he put
to his lips.

"Thought so; it's quite fresh and sweet--that's rather a find--jolly
useful for picnics, it will save us carting water about--by jinks!" he
exclaimed, looking round at the others with an expression of blank
dismay; "do you suppose _that's_ what we were to find to our advantage?"

They all stared hard at the shining wet stones, through which the
trickle of water was now plainly discernable. Then they stared round
the cave again. There did not seem to be a place where treasure _could_
be hidden. Moreover, there were traces of a not very remote picnic--the
dead ashes of a gipsy fire, one or two crumpled-up balls of paper, some
broken bottles!

"That's it," said Jerry at last. "It was probably the people who had
that picnic--those broken bottles are the same as the one we found.
They played cock-shy with them, and then thought it would be a lark to
chuck one into the sea. What a jolly old sell!"

"We've had a nice morning anyhow," said Prudence, "and the spring
certainly _will_ be an advantage when we've got used to it not being a
sewing-machine and bull-dogs and things."

"I somehow don't believe it is the spring," said Mollie thoughtfully,
still staring about her. "There is something about the way that paper
is written; it doesn't look like the writing of the sort of person who
plays that kind of joke--and of course it would be meant for a joke.
Let's all stand quite still in a circle back to back, and each stare
hard all over the bit of cave that comes in front of us, and see if
there isn't a sign of some sort."

They agreed that there would be no harm in trying this plan, though the
boys' hopes were small. Dick and Jerry were uneasily conscious that
they were "the sort of person" who would have thought that bottled
message an excellent joke--to play on someone else!

So they stared. They even circled slowly round so that each part of the
cave was examined with meticulous care by six pairs of eyes in turn.
But it was all in vain; the cave only seemed to become more and more
ordinary the longer they looked at it.

"There's not a place where you could hide a thimble," Prue said sadly,
"let alone a treasure."

"What's that?" Grizzel called out suddenly, pointing to the broken
bottles in the corner.

After all there _had_ been a dark spot, and with the brightening
daylight that dark spot had all at once lighted up, and there lay a
bottle, the very twin of the one they had found in the sea, red
sealing-wax and all. The boys made a dive for it, but Dick stopped
abruptly and held back the others: "Grizzel saw it first, let her open
it too," he said.

Grizzel advanced, and picking up the bottle held it to the light--yes,
there was a message plainly to be seen.

"I think one of you had better break it open," she said; "I'd probably
cut my fingers."

Hugh solemnly knocked off its head and drew out the paper. It was
written in the same round, clear handwriting:

  IF THE PERSON WHO FINDS THIS
  BOTTLE WILL ASK FOR MR. BROWN
  AT THE DUKE'S NOSE, HE WILL
  HEAR OF SOMETHING TO HIS ADVANTAGE.

"Why the dickens couldn't they have said that first shot?" Jerry
exclaimed.

"I expect Mr. Brown will tell us to go to the Duchess's Toes and hear
of something to our _dis_-advantage," said Hugh sarcastically.

"If we are going to look for Mr. Brown we will have to hurry," said
Prudence, who had gone to the entrance of the cave and was scrutinizing
the beach; "by the look of the shadows I should say it was a good bit
after seven. In not much more than an hour we must be sitting down at
breakfast tidy and brushed."

They found when they came out that there was a footpath up to the
Duke's Nose--a very steep and boulder-strewn path, but quite a possible
one for them all; so they went for it manfully and womanfully and were
soon at top. But alas! the door of the hut was closed and locked; no
one answered their repeated knocks, and they came to the unwilling
conclusion that the place was empty.

"Blow!" said Dick at last. "Why couldn't the old treasure-hider put his
old treasure in an easier place?"

"If he had, someone else would have found it," Mollie remarked
sensibly, "and anyhow it is a lark searching for it."

At that moment a man's figure could be seen coming towards the hut; he
was swinging a billy-can by the handle.

"That's the man I saw last night," exclaimed Grizzel; "I expect he is
Mr. Brown."

The man was rather surprised to see six children congregated before his
hut door at that hour of the morning. Prudence was pushed forward as
spokeswoman. "Please, are you Mr. Brown?" she asked, in her most polite
voice.

"I am, miss. Anything I can do for you?"

"We found this piece of paper," she said, showing the latest message to
him, "and we brought it to you like it says."

The man grinned broadly--he had a nice grin, the children
thought--"You've found it, have you? Well, that beats me! That's darned
clever of you. Our little Missie will be no end bucked to hear that bit
o' news; she was mighty taken up with her messages, she was. You'll
have to wait a bit, though. I can't leave this place before twelve
noon. You be on the beach above where that big hump o' seaweed is at
twelve-thirty to-day, an' you'll see--" the man broke off and grinned
again.

"What?" asked several excited people at once.

"That's tellin'," said Mr. Brown; "just you wait an' you'll see
somethin' to your advantage, same as it says here."

It was terribly hard to have to leave the treasure at this thrilling
stage, but there was nothing else to be done, especially as it was
getting late, and they would have to hasten their steps as it was, if
they were to reach home in time for a proper tidy-up before breakfast.
Mamma was very particular about many things, but she was particularly
particular about coming to table with clean hands and freshly brushed
hair.

       *       *       *       *       *

They were at the trysting-place long before half-past twelve. Nobody
had a watch, but the Australian children had a device of their own for
telling the time.

"You stand on one foot," Hugh explained, "and twirl round with your
other big toe in the sand--like this. That makes a circle to fit your
own shadow. Then you stand in the middle and see where the shadow hits
the circle. And then you guess the time near enough for all practical
purposes. It's quite simple."

"Did you invent that sort of clock yourself?" Mollie asked
deferentially.

"There wasn't much to invent," Hugh replied modestly; "it's on the same
principle as a sundial. I only applied my legs."

"God invented Hugh's legs and the sun," Grizzel said; "Hugh only put in
the squiggly toe."

"But that's just it," Jerry argued; "like Newton and the apple. The
simple things are there all the time, and no one sees them till the
right person comes along. I think that's a jolly ingenious idea. You'd
have to know exactly where due north was, of course, and you'd have to
have the sun. That's the trouble in London; the sun just slops about
the sky, and half the time you can't see him at all."

The children now twirled round and round like dervishes, making
shadow-clocks till there were hardly any shadows left, as the sun rose
higher and higher in the heavens. It also became warmer and warmer; so
they decided to sit in a row with their backs to the sea and their eyes
firmly fixed upon the hut, determined not to miss the sight of the
treasure for a single moment.

"Let's play 'I went to market with a green umbrella'," Prue suggested,
"and we can think of all the things the treasure might be." The green
umbrella had been to market about twenty times when a voice behind them
made them all start.

"Well, now--to be sure!"

And there was Mr. Brown, with nothing in his hands--no sack upon his
back.

"How _did_ you come, Mr. Brown?" Mollie asked. "We looked and looked."

"Grand sentries you'd make--all lookin' one way," said Mr. Brown.
"Suppose you look at the sea for a change."

Six pairs of eyes turned to gaze at the sea--and six pairs of feet
instantly began to run, for there, drawn up on the beach, was a boat!

"How's that for a tidy craft?" asked Mr. Brown. "Is she pretty shaped?
How do you like her paint? Look at her nice little oars. Eight, she
holds--nice-sized party eight is, sort o' cosy an' cheerful."

The children looked from the boat to Mr. Brown and back again. Nobody
thought any more of stilts or sewing-machines, or even of bull-dogs;
the only thing on earth worth having at that moment was the wonderful
boat around which they were standing. Her outer dress was of bright,
dark green, with a scarlet line round the rim; inside she was pure
white. A little railing of delicate iron scroll-work ran round her
stern, and across it curved a board, with the boat's name in scarlet
and gold: _The Belle of Canada._

"Do you mean--" Hugh began, but he was too overpowered to finish,
because it was all very well to talk about cameras and things in the
abstract, but that such a thing as a real, life-sized boat--and such a
beautiful boat too--should fall into their hands in this casual way was
too wildly improbable to be true.

But it was true, nevertheless. That lovely little boat was really
theirs!

The way it happened was this, Mr. Brown explained: the year
before--while the Campbells were in the hills--a little Canadian girl,
visiting her Australian relations, had come with them to stay in the
very cottage the Campbells were in now. She was very ill when she
arrived. The doctors feared consumption, and said that open air all day
long was the best medicine she could have. So the boat was bought--"and
a fine price they paid for her too," Mr. Brown remarked--and the little
girl was half her time on the sea, and got so sun-burnt and sturdy that
before she left she was rowing the boat herself--"an' you'd never know
she'd had a mite the matter with her," Mr. Brown said. When the time
came for her to leave she took a fancy to give her boat to some other
children, so that they might have as happy a summer with it as she had
had. But it wasn't enough to give it in the usual way of giving--she
made up the plan of the message in the bottle, which she left with Mr.
Brown.

"But I wasn't in no hurry," he said. "I kep' my eye on the cottage
children. The last lot were a rampagin' set o' young ruffians, smashin'
everything they set hands on. I soon saw that this chap was a different
sort altogether, hammerin' an' tinkerin' away at his raft, and careful
of her as if she was a lady--he's the sort for little Missie an' me, I
said to myself, so in the bottle went, only an hour or two before you
found it."

"And suppose no one had found it, or the other bottle?" Dick suggested.

"Not much danger o' that, with six pair o' sharp eyes an' inquisitive
headpieces around," Mr. Brown answered, with a laugh. "The only bit I
wasn't sure about was the Duke's Nose, for not many knows it by that
name; but little Missie would have it--said it was more romantic like,
though what's romantic about a duke's nose it beats me to see--just
like any other nose, I don't mind bettin'."

"Hugh says Jerry's nose is like a duke's," Grizzel said, so that all
eyes were immediately fixed upon poor Jerry's nose.

"Jolly romantic, especially when I have a cold in the head!" he
exclaimed.

"Well now, jump in, the lot o' you, an' I'll row you along to your Pa,"
said Mr. Brown.

"Do you know Papa?" asked Grizzel, whose round blue eyes had never left
Mr. Brown's face since he began his story.

"Yes, I know your Pa. There ain't many round here that don't. Now
then----"

As Mr. Brown talked he had pushed the boat out, with some help from the
boys, and had lifted the girls in. Now he took the oars, and, with a
few powerful strokes, he sent the boat skimming over the sparkling blue
sea.

All the children could row, more or less, but Mr. Brown gave them some
useful hints. "An' you mustn't ever go far out to sea by yourselves,"
he said, "nor yet too near the rocks except it be a calm day like
to-day. Remember that a good sailor won't ever run his ship into danger
unless he can't help himself, no more than he would his wife. If you
want to go a regular excursion to the Port or such, you can always get
one of us to go with you, unless, of course, your Pa can take you. But
you'll get plenty of fun, an' learn a lot too, playin' round
here--you'll learn the feel o' the sea, which is something quite
different from rowin' on a river. An' don't you be givin' the raft the
go-by," he added, addressing himself to Hugh; "there's a lot goes to a
raft an' you never know when your knowledge o' handlin' one may come in
useful. That's a tidy one you've made, but it wants a bit o' tar. I'll
bring some along one o' these days an' show you how to use it--there's
your Pa wavin' to you."

An excited party of children landed on the beach and told their story
to Papa, whose consent had to be won before the lovely boat was really
theirs. He was as delighted as they were themselves, and an expedition
was planned for that very evening, to include Mamma and her guitar.

"If you will give me the little girl's address I will write and tell
her all about how we found the bottle," Prudence said to Mr. Brown,
"and we will all write and say 'Thank you' for her _beautiful_ idea."

"She's back in Canada now," Mr. Brown answered. "She'd be mighty
pleased to hear from you."

It was difficult to sit down soberly to boiled mutton and batter
pudding after these exhilarating adventures, but it had to be done, and
after dinner the girls had to "sit quietly with their needles" for an
hour; but at last tea-time came, and evening followed, and the whole
family except Baby embarked upon the first voyage in _The Belle of
Canada_. It was delightful to float about on the moonlit water and
listen to Mamma's lovely voice. She sang a Canadian boat-song, in
honour of the little hostess in far-away Canada:

  "From the lone sheiling of the misty island
  Mountains divide us, and the waste of seas--
  Yet still the blood is strong, the heart is Highland,
  And we in dreams behold the Hebrides.

 "Fair these broad meads--these hoary woods are grand;
  But we are exiles from our father's land."

Silence fell upon them all after that. Mamma's white hands dropped from
the guitar and slipped under Papa's arm; Prudence thought in her dreamy
way of the little Canadian; Mollie remembered the American soldiers and
their song; Hugh's mind was full to the brim of boats and rafts and
ships.

"Look here!" cried Jerry suddenly; "we're a good slice of our jolly old
Empire to-night--Great Britain, Australia, India, sailing in a Canadian
boat--there's another song we ought to sing----" he jumped to his feet
as he spoke, making the boat rock in the silvery water. "Come on!" he
sang:

  "Rule, Britannia! Britannia rule the waves!"

       *       *       *       *       *

"Oh, Jerry! _Why_ did you go and do that?" Mollie called out, as she
sat up and rubbed her eyes. "It isn't nearly time to wake up yet!"

"Indeed it is, you little lazy bones," Aunt Mary said, with a laugh.
"Goodness, child! You are beginning to look quite rosy and sunburnt!
Spraining your ankle seems to suit you. I think I'll sprain mine and
see if I can raise a complexion like that. It's as good as a visit to
the seaside."

"Ah!" said Mollie.




CHAPTER V

The Gold-diggers or The Miracle


"DEAR MOLL,

"This is exactly what happened yesterday. Young Outram says that it is
very important for us to keep notes, in case the Thingummy Society
should want to know all about it one of these days.

"To begin with I was late for breakfast, so I grabbed your letter and
stuck it in my pocket, along with a roll, and bolted. Everything as
usual till about 2.30. Bibs was trying to knock some maths into our
heads, which I call pretty hard luck on a chap who has crawled to the
top of his left wing while shots were dropping round like hail. He
looked fairly fed-up. It was tremendously hot and my head ached, and
Young Outram had a rag-nail on his first finger which he said was
causing him frightful agony, when I suddenly remembered the roll and
found your letter. So we ate the roll and read it, I mean we read your
letter and ate it--anyway, we were looking at that photograph and
thinking that the boy looked a pretty decent sort, and wishing we were
him instead of ourselves when suddenly he appeared! He really did, I'm
not making this up. At the window just where the parrot was yesterday.
And the funny thing is that we don't usually sit at that desk for
maths, but the other room was having something done to it, so we did
yesterday. The chap stared at us, and Y. O. said, 'Hullo!' and he said,
'Hullo!' And Y. O. said, 'Who are you?' And he said, 'I'm a
Time-traveller!' And we said, 'What the dickens is a Time-traveller?'
And he said 'Like to come and see?' And we said, 'You bet your hat!'
And he said, 'Hold my fist and shut your eyes!' So we did, and next
thing we knew we were floating on our backs in the sea as calm and cool
as cucumbers, and the raft was bobbing about, and you know the rest. At
least, we suppose you do. That's what we want to know. Hugh told us the
Time-traveller yarn. It sounds a fairly tall tale, but we've heard
taller from chaps who were at the front. The point is, how can we go
back? London is a rotten hole in this weather.

"Your affec. bro.,

"DICK."


Mollie read this letter as she ate her morning oatcake. So her spell
had worked! The question was, would it work again? For obviously she
could not continue sending away photographs without causing remarks to
be made and questions asked. She did not see how she could do anything
more herself; they must just trust to luck, at any rate till she saw
Prudence again.

It was rather odd, when she came to think of it, that she had not
questioned Dick yesterday about how they had got over. But the fact was
that, after the first surprise of seeing them, she had forgotten. "I
forget about Now and only remember Then," she said to herself. "There
is so much to do the time simply flies and comes to an end far too
soon."

When she arrived downstairs that morning she found that her sofa had
been carried out of doors. It was a lovely day. Here in the country the
leaves still retained their early freshness, and from where she lay she
could see the downs, mistily green against the pale morning blue of the
sky. The rose-garden, with its smoothly mown grass paths, its pergolas
and arches, its standards and dwarfs, was coming into bloom so fast
under the June sunshine that Mollie thought she might almost see a bud
swell into a full-blown rose if she watched steadily enough. Caroline
Testout had already dropped some of her pink blossoms, which lay
scattered about the path in rosy patches, reminding Mollie of Grizzel
and her shells. She smiled to herself and then sighed, as her eyes
wandered from the rose-garden to the long red brick wall beyond, where
the sweet cherries grew. The fruit was turning scarlet under an orderly
net, which had been put up to protect it from the greedy little birds.
Everything was so tidy, she thought. No one would dare to pull off
those rose petals for scent-making purposes, nor to gather those
cherries merely to play at making jam with. Chauncery was lovely and
spacious compared to the house in North Kensington, and the well-kept
gardens were a pleasure to look at, but----

"I don't think England is big enough to hold children," she said to
Aunt Mary, who sat near, reading the _Aeroplane_, with some neglected
needlework lying in her lap.

Aunt Mary looked up with a surprised expression: "I am sorry you are
feeling so crowded up," she said. "Would you like me to move a little
farther away?"

"No, thank you," Mollie answered, with a laugh, "I have room to breathe
even with you there. What I mean is----" she paused for a moment,
wrinkling her brow, and then went on: "London isn't like this; it's
full of poky holes. Ours is bad enough, but from the train you can see
much, much worse places than ours. Sometimes I wonder how people can
live in them, and yet Mother says they are not the worst. There is
simply no room for children to play, so they play on the streets and
sometimes get killed. The Girl Guides are going to help, but it takes a
long time "--Mollie shook her head thoughtfully--"and there is so
little time too; at home I never have any time to do anything except
work or Guiding. I have no time to think in, except after I am in bed,
and I go to sleep so horribly soon." She shook her head again and
sighed deeply.

"Well, that's one good thing to be thankful for," Aunt Mary said
cheerfully, dropping her paper and taking up her sewing, "and there are
the holidays for thinking in. I wouldn't think too much, if I were you.
You'll get plenty of that when you are old," and Aunt Mary sighed too,
as if she did not find her own thoughts very gay affairs always.

"But I want to think of things now that will be useful long before I am
old," Mollie persisted. "There is such a _tremendous_ lot of things to
be done, Aunt Mary. And things have to be thoughts long before they are
things. I expect the person who invented aeroplanes thought about them
for ages and ages before he began to make one."

"I haven't the slightest doubt of it," Aunt Mary agreed, "but you are
wandering from your subject, which was the smallness of Great Britain."

"No, I'm not--at least not exactly, I want to make Great Britain
greater, and I can't think of a way. I should like to have plenty of
room and plenty of time."

"That won't be an easy problem for you to solve, my lambkin," Aunt Mary
said. "As a matter of fact there is room enough, in the country, but
people prefer to live in towns. You will have to hire a pied piper and
pipe all the babies into the fields."

Mollie shook her head, her eyes resting again upon the distant downs.
"I don't know," she said seriously, "but something will have to be done
some day, Aunt Mary, besides play-centres. They are good, but they
aren't enough. Too many children die. Mother goes to a children's home
once a week, and she took me once. You should just see those babies.
And they could be such dear little things too. Why--" Mollie hesitated
for a moment and then went on, "Why don't more people go to live in
Australia and Canada? The maps are full of empty spaces."

"Ah, Mollie my dear, that's not so easy as it sounds," Aunt Mary said,
folding up her work and rising to her feet. "There are all sorts of
complications when it comes to shifting camp from the Old World to the
New. But perhaps--perhaps if everyone in this old country could be
persuaded to think of the children first--! In the meantime I must go
and get lunch for my particular child."

Probably Aunt Mary's mind was running on those sick babies of the poor
as she played to Mollie that afternoon, for her fingers wandered off
into the tune of a song she had not heard sung since her childhood:

  "'T is the song, the sigh of the weary:
  Hard times, hard times, come again no more!
  Many days you have lingered around our cottage door--
  Oh, hard times, come again no more!"

Mollie lay listening, the unopened album in her lap. She was drowsy
after her morning in the garden, and thought she would rest her eyes by
closing them for five minutes. "A little darkness will do them good
after all that sunshine," she murmured to herself.

It was very pleasant lying in the quiet room, on that broad sofa,
listening to Aunt Mary's soft music. Mingling with the sound of the
piano was the droning hum of a foolish bee, who had got on the wrong
side of the window and was now making vain efforts to fly home again
through the glass. A delicious scent came from somewhere--perhaps from
the syringa bushes growing just outside the open window. Mollie's lazy
eyelids fell over her eyes--"Just five minutes--"

"Five minutes," said the clock. "Ten minutes. Fifteen minutes. Twenty--"

"How soundly the child sleeps," Aunt Mary whispered, peeping in a
little later to look at her niece. "These afternoon naps are the best
thing in the world for her overworked little brain. I wish I could fill
Chauncery with children, and let them run wild in the garden." She
felt, not for the first time, how duty seemed to pull two ways at once,
for there were many things she would fain have done had her duty to her
mother not stood in the way.

Someone else came and looked at Mollie.

"Asleep!" Prudence exclaimed, with a smile. "Never mind, I can manage.
It is getting very easy."

       *       *       *       *       *

Mollie did not open her eyes the moment she woke up; she lay still,
enjoying the warmth, the sweet scents, and the balmy air, so different
from the cold winds of early spring. Presently she yawned, stretched
herself like a sleepy kitten, and finally sat up and opened the lazy
eyes.

"Good gracious!" she exclaimed, "Prue must have come and found me
asleep. I wonder where she is."

She rose to her feet and looked about her as usual. She was in a place
quite different from any she had seen hitherto. At her back stretched
an orange-grove--there was no mistaking it, for the trees, planted
evenly in rows, were laden with thousands of oranges, ripe and unripe,
while the waxy white blossom with its golden heart still grew in
clusters among the glossy dark leaves, sending its perfume out with the
warm wind far and near. Before her, divided from the grove by a narrow,
roughly fenced road, Mollie saw a wide, undulating plain, its surface
covered somewhat scantily with coarse grass and occasional clumps of
bracken. There were gum trees, large and small, their thin blue-green
leaves hanging limply from the grey boughs, and throwing but little
shade on the ground beneath. Some distance away a creek wound between
wide banks of shingly sand and low boulders. At the nearer end a gum
tree had fallen across the stream and had been left to form a crossing.
Mollie thought it did not look a very inviting bridge to cross on a
dark night.

It looked hot out there in the open. Mollie turned back to the
orange-grove, cool and inviting, and had almost decided to explore in
that direction, when the sound of voices fell upon her ear, and,
turning again, she saw a group of children crossing the scrub land in
front. In spite of wide hats and sunbonnets they were easily
recognizable. The boys were walking in front and carried spades and
pickaxes over their shoulders; the two girls were loitering along
behind, and carried between them a large round article which might be a
tub, a cradle, or a sieve. They were heading for the creek, and, as
Mollie watched, Hugh lifted his hand and pointed towards the fallen log.

"Dick and Jerry are first to-day, and they have got over without any
help from me," Mollie said to herself, with a tinge of jealousy, which,
however, she quickly got rid of--jealousy not being part of a Girl
Guide's equipment. She put her hands up to her mouth in the way she had
seen the Australians do, and shouted "Cooo-eeeeeee!", with a creditably
sustained shrill note at the end. Her call brought the children to a
standstill, and they waited for her to join them.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

"We are going to dig for gold," Prudence answered, as they started
again. "Hugh says there is gold in the river-bed. The boys dig, and we
sift the diggings in this cradle, which rocks in the water so that all
the dirt runs out and the gold stays in--at least, it would if there
were any to stay. Last year we dug for ever so long, but never got any
gold at all. We found some pretty crystals, though."

"I found a purple one just like an amethyst," Grizzel joined in; "but
Mr. Fraser said it wasn't. Then I found a white one like a diamond, and
a green one. I polished them with all my might, but I lost them except
the green one. I hid it in a tree like the person who shot an arrow
into the air, only my tree is a gum instead of an oak. I expect it is
there still unbroke if it hasn't been stolen by a magpie or a blackie."

When they reached the creek the boys laid down their tools, and Hugh
studied the lie of the land with an intent expression.

"We'll begin about here," he decided presently. "Last year we dug
higher up, but I shouldn't wonder if gold silts downwards and collects
in a hollow. This is about the hollowest place I have found yet. The
soil in these old alluvial beds is often auriferous," he went on; "Mr.
Fraser says this was once quite a respectable river, but years of dry
seasons shrank it up. It will never go quite dry, because there is a
good spring up there, and that is why he chose this place for his
oranges. Irrigation is absolutely necessary for an orange-grove."

"Are we allowed to eat the oranges?" Dick asked anxiously, as a breath
of scented wind blew across him.

"Oh yes--as many as we like. But we must dig first," Hugh replied
firmly, lifting his spade as he spoke and planting it upright in the
sandy soil. "First we must peg out our claims. There's a good deal of
luck about gold-digging, of course, but you'd better look round and
choose your own spot."

After some consideration the children decided to throw in their lot
with Hugh, who was the only one among them who knew what gold looked
like in its raw state.

"You can keep half and the rest of us will go shares in the other
half," Dick suggested, quite forgetting in his interest that
Time-travellers cannot carry profits with them on their travels. The
plan sounded fair, however, so they agreed to it.

"It is possible that we may not find _gold_," Hugh said, as he marked
out a square within which to begin operations; "but we are pretty sure
to find something. Australian soil is extraordinarily rich in products.
I should think it must be about the richest soil in the world."

"I hope it won't be ants," Prudence said nervously. "I do hate ants."

"Aunts!" exclaimed Jerry, not understanding Prue's Scottish-Australian
pronunciation. "Why the dickens should we find aunts in a river-bed? Do
they all drown themselves out here? Aunts can be jolly nice too--or
jolly nasty, according to circs."

"They're _always_ nasty here," Grizzel said emphatically, "I never met
a nice ant in my life. They bite like red-hot nippers."

"Bite! Oh, I see," said Jerry, "you mean black aunts," vague memories
of _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and Aunt Chloe floating in the back of his
brain. "I thought you meant white aunts. I didn't know that aborigines
were as fierce as all that."

"I have never seen any white ants here," said Prudence, who called the
native Australians blacks when she spoke of them and a-borry-jines when
she read about them. "Uncle Jim says there are a great many in India,
and they eat his books."

Jerry looked bewildered. "Of course there's lots of 'em in India," he
said, "but I never heard of them eating books."

"I expect your uncle means that they devour novels," suggested Mollie.

"No, he doesn't. He says they eat a tunnel through all his books from
one end to the other. And they stuff up the keyholes."

"Your uncle's aunts must be quaint old birds then," Jerry said
unbelievingly.

"But they aren't birds at all, they're _ants_," cried Grizzel.

A loud cackle from Hugh, whose grin had been growing wider and wider,
now interrupted the discussion: "Ho, ho, ho! One of you is talking
about aunts--your Aunt Maria--and the other is talking about ants--the
beasts that go to the sluggard," he exploded. "You _are_ a pair of
muffs! He, he, he!"

"'Go to the ant, thou sluggard'," Mollie quoted slowly. "Oh--_Jerry_--"

It took them some time to recover from this little misunderstanding.
"Next time I see Aunt Mary--bites like red-hot nippers--oh dear!"

"Well, come on and dig now," Hugh ordered at last, twisting a cord
neatly round his last peg as he spoke. "If you go on laughing like that
you'll soon begin to cry, and this mine will never get started."

Thus adjured they rolled up their sleeves and set to work. Pickaxes
were of no use in that sandy soil. The boys used their spades, and the
girls carried the turned-up sand to the creek, washing it with the
utmost care in the cinder-sifter. But their efforts met with no
success. Neither gold nor anything else, except pebbles, rewarded their
toil.

"It's always like that," Hugh said at last, sitting down on the edge of
the hole they had dug. "Gold is the most gambly stuff imaginable. We
know a lady who was as poor as a washerwoman one day, and then at
breakfast one morning she got a letter to say her goldmine shares had
struck a reef, and she got so rich she simply didn't know what to do
with her money. She came to see Papa about it. She was an old maid, so
naturally there wasn't much she wanted. You never know who is going to
be rich and who poor, with a goldmine. Some of these pebbles are quite
valuable," he continued, running a handful of shingle through his
fingers, "there are amethysts and opals and topazes in some river beds.
I have never found one myself, but I've picked up some pretty good
crystals."

"I think I'll go and look for mine," said Grizzel. "I hid it in a tree
near here. I am tired of gold-digging, and my feet are hot. I shall
dabble them in the creek and eat an orange."

She got up as she spoke and went off towards a particularly
gaunt-looking tree. Its trunk had split open, showing a hollow large
enough to hold several people; for some distance around its roots
protruded through the ground like old bones. Grizzel disappeared into
the hollow trunk, whence she presently emerged with an air of triumph.
"I've got it safe and sound. Now I'm going to get an orange."

Jerry eyed the orange-grove lovingly. Digging is thirsty work.

"Let's all go," said Hugh. "Orange juice is one of the most restorative
things in the world; if we eat enough we will be ready to make a fresh
start in half an hour or so. Very likely we shall have better luck next
time."

It was hot, and the change from the glaring sunshine into the cool
dampness of the orange-grove was very pleasant. The beautiful fruit
hung invitingly from the branches with a colour and fragrance unknown
to London shops. There were many varieties, and the Australian children
wandered critically from tree to tree.

"I'm not sure whether I like navels or bloods best," Hugh remarked,
"but perhaps on the whole, for pure refreshment, navels."

He stopped, as he spoke, before a tree on which grew oranges larger
than the London children had ever seen in their lives--immense, smooth,
opulent-looking globes of rich golden yellow. For a time silence
reigned, while six people covered themselves with juice, "Like the
ointment that ran down Aaron's beard," Grizzel said, and the ground in
the neighbourhood assumed an auriferous hue that made the inventor sigh.

"I wish we could find a place where nuggets lay about like that," he
said rather pensively; "it would be awfully jolly."

"It would be," agreed the others, "most awfully jolly."

"I think I'd as soon have oranges as gold," Grizzel said reflectively,
looking down at the peel-strewn earth. "Think how nice it would be if
you were in the very middle of a scorching desert, and dying of thirst
like the men in _Five Weeks in a Balloon_, to find a lovely orange tree
covered with juicy oranges. It would be nicer than finding gold."

"You do talk silly slithers," Hugh said derisively. "Who ever found a
beautiful orange tree in the middle of a desert? You _might_ find gold
and bribe an Arab to give you water."

"You _might_ find an orange tree in an oasis," Grizzel said huffily. "I
am going to bathe my feet in the creek. Go and look for your old gold.
You won't find it."

"All right, Carroty-cross-patch. You won't get any if we do," Hugh
replied politely.

"Don't want it, Goggle-eyed-guinea-pig." Grizzel got up and walked off,
her sun-bonnet dangling down her back and her red curls waving over her
head. No one took any notice of these little amenities. No one
remembered that the ointment which ran down Aaron's beard was like
brethren dwelling together in unity--a good and pleasant thing. They
were all brothers or sisters and accustomed to such mellifluous modes
of address.

"We'd better go back and dig in a new place," said Hugh; "the light
will begin to fade before very long."

They gathered up their orange peel and buried it tidily, and then
stepped out of the cool grove into the hot sunshine with some
reluctance. But gold-digging is not mere play, as Hugh reminded them.
If you want to find a large nugget you begin by looking for small ones,
and the search undoubtedly entails some hard work.

The new diggings were no more productive than the old. The boys worked
industriously, digging widely rather than deeply. It was decidedly
monotonous work, and Dick began to think that for pure excitement
gold-digging showed up poorly beside football. Their backs ached, their
hands were blistered, and the shingly pebbles got into their shoes.
They were hot and thirsty, and into the minds of four of them crept a
suspicion that Grizzel had chosen the better way of spending the time.
They could see her sitting on a boulder, her feet in the water and her
hands occupied with her crystal, which she was rubbing in a leisurely
way on a stone, as one sharpens slate-pencils. The afternoon wore on;
the sun seemed to gain in speed as he slanted down the sky, and tree
shadows lay about the ground like long thin skeletons. A herd of cows,
on their way to the milking-shed, trailed lazily past the weary
diggers, reminding them of tea-time with its refreshing drinks and
soothing cream and butter.

Jerry stood up, dropping his spade and stretching his arms above his
head.

"I'm tired," he announced. "Let's hang our spades on a gummy tree and
sit beside Carrots for a bit. I'd like to dabble my little feet too,
before walking home."

Hugh assented somewhat reluctantly; he would have preferred to continue
digging while daylight lasted. "We've done _something_," he said, as
they took off their shoes and stockings; "we've found where gold isn't,
and that's rather important."

"I know lots of places where it isn't," said Dick, putting his hands in
his pockets, "I could have told you that without digging for a whole
afternoon, if I'd known it was important."

"Of course I mean when it isn't where it might be," Hugh amended,
taking no notice of Dick's gibe. "It's what Papa calls the process of
elimination. You've got to do it with almost everything worth having
really. You've only got to look at this river bed to see there's pretty
sure to be something worth having there--in fact I know there is. It
may not be gold, but it's something."

"How do you know it?" Mollie asked curiously. "I don't see anything
particular about the river bed. It doesn't look half so likely as the
gold patch in the road beside your cherry garden."

"I can't tell you how, but I do. Just you wait and see. To-morrow I
think I'll try the old place again. I shall go on trying till I find
something, either gold or precious stones. There might even be
diamonds; there are in some river beds."

"Look," said Grizzel, holding out her hand with the stone in it, "I
have rubbed a bit off one side at last. If I rub long enough it will
come bright all over."

A small, roughly eight-sided crystal lay in the palm of her hand. Six
sides were dull and colourless, the remaining two sides were clear and
transparent.

"I rubbed my bit off exactly opposite the bit that was clean already,"
she went on, "so that I could look through it at the sun." She turned
the crystal over and held it up as she spoke. A dazzling flash of
pale-green light darted out, as though an unearthly finger were
pointing at the sun. It was gone in a moment, and the stone looked dull
and rough as before.

"What was that?" Grizzel asked, in a startled voice. "Is it going to go
off like fireworks?"

"Give it to me," said Hugh, taking it from Grizzel's unresisting
fingers. He held it up as she had done, and again the pale-green light
flashed out. He moved it slightly from side to side, and with his
movements the green light took on the shining hues of a rainbow.

"It's like a diamond," said Prudence in an awed voice.

"It _is_ a diamond," cried Hugh. "I knew it! I knew it! I said so!
Grizzel found it in the place we dug last year. Grizzel found it, but
it was me that looked for it, because I knew! Where this one was there
will be more. _We have found a diamond bed!_"

"If Grizzel hadn't rubbed it so hard you would never have known,"
Prudence reminded him. "She rubbed that bit for _weeks_ last year."

Hugh turned the crystal over and over, examining it on every side.
"Diamonds are terrifically hard," he explained more calmly. "It takes
months to cut and polish a diamond properly. Grizzel's pretty good at
sticking to a thing; I'll say that for her. I'm glad the first diamond
was found by her."

"Well--it will take me some time to polish it all over," Grizzel said,
with a sigh. "If I did nothing else all day long but rub it on a stone
it would be clean in about six months."

"Who does this land belong to?" Jerry asked. "Is it your father's?"

"Oh, no--it's Mr. Eraser's. For miles around the land is his. That's
the man we are staying with."

"Then the diamond is Mr. Fraser's, not yours or Grizzel's," Jerry
pronounced.

There was a short silence. "Mr. Fraser said I might have all the gold I
found," Hugh said, in a doubtful tone.

"I expect he guessed that you wouldn't find any," Jerry responded. "But
a diamond like that is a different thing. If it really is a diamond it
is probably pretty valuable--perhaps it is worth a hundred pounds. You
can't walk off with a hundred pounds without telling."

"Well, we'll show it to him. Of course we'll tell him we have found a
diamond bed," Hugh answered.

"It's my diamond," Grizzel declared. "I found it and I rubbed it and it
slept under my pillow, and I hid it and I love it and it's mine. I
don't care what anybody says."

"Mr. Fraser will most likely give you lots of money for it," Mollie
suggested soothingly, "and then you can go and buy something nicer than
a diamond."

"I don't want lots of money. I want my own dear little stone that I
rubbed myself," Grizzel repeated, tears starting to her eyes. "Why
should Mr. Fraser take my stone and chop it all up with horrible sharp
grinding knives? It's mine. I found it."

"You'll have to show it to him first," Hugh said decisively, "whether
you found it or not. If you keep it you will be a thief, and perhaps
you will be sent to prison."

"Then I'd rather let it go back to its home in the river bed," Grizzel
cried passionately. As she spoke she snatched the crystal from Hugh's
hand; there was a flash of green light--a splash--and it was gone.

She turned and ran, sobbing and crying. Prudence followed, bent upon
comforting her. Mollie looked scared, Jerry laughed, Hugh shrugged his
shoulders:

"Just like a girl!" he said. "It doesn't matter; we'll find more. But
that was a good diamond; I'd have liked to show it to Mr. Fraser. We'd
better collect our things and go home."

Three of them turned away, but Dick lingered behind. His quick eyes,
trained to watching the flight of balls of all sizes from footballs to
golf-balls, had taken accurate note of the spot where that little
splash had been. There were still circles widening round it. The creek
looked shallow just there.

"If I scooped up the sand carefully _now_, as likely as not I'd
retrieve that stone," he said to himself. "Grizzel is a decent little
kid; she'll be sorry by and by, and, besides, the old chap ought to
have his diamond if it really is a diamond. Diamonds aren't so jolly
easy to come by as Hugh seems to think. That white stone is almost in
the middle of the circle--I'll make for that."

"Don't wait for me," he shouted after the others, "I'm coming in a
jiff." He waited till he saw them turn their somewhat dejected and
preoccupied backs upon the scene of the late disaster, and then
transferred his attention to the creek. At the point where he stood the
water was comparatively deep; it had evidently formed a channel for
itself, helped, probably, by a slender waterfall which dropped over a
large boulder on the higher ground some distance beyond the fallen tree.

"I can crawl over that and drop off at the shallow part," he thought,
"I'll have to look sharp or the circles will be gone."

He rolled up his already short flannels and started. The tree was by no
means steady--it rolled and shook under his weight; but, as the worst
that could happen would be a good soaking, he did not worry overmuch,
and soon slid off into the shallow stream. As he had predicted, the
water there barely reached to his knees. He scrutinized the
ever-widening circle, now faint and irregular, and, calculating the
distance from its edge to its centre, he fixed his eyes intently upon
the white stone and cautiously waded towards it, his movements in the
water breaking up the last traces of the circle. When he reached the
white stone he halted.

"It was here, almost to a T, or my name is not Richard Gordon," he
muttered, and, stooping carefully, he scooped up a double handful of
shingly sand from the river bottom. He stood up, letting the water run
away through his tightly closed fingers. As he bent his head to examine
the pebbles left in his hand, a sunbeam darted over his shoulder--there
was a flash of pale green.

"Got it, by jinks!" he chuckled exultantly. "First go-off! Good for
you, Richard, my boy--your eye is pretty well in and no mistake. Come
out of that, my young diamond, and let's have a look at you--you'd do
A1 for heliographing with."

Dick soon scrambled to shore, and stood for a moment looking after the
others, now far ahead. "I'll put him back in the hollow trunk where
Grizzel hid him," he decided, with a twinkle in his eyes. "It might be
rather a lark--"

A sharp sprint brought him up with the other two boys, who were
awaiting his arrival seated on the top of a slip-rail, Mollie having
gone in search of Prudence and Grizzel.

"What on earth have you been doing?" Hugh demanded. "Have you been
swimming?"

"I was only having a look round," Dick answered, with a wink at Jerry;
"I thought I'd do a little prospecting on my own."

"Why didn't you tell me, you beast?" Jerry asked, linking his arm into
Dick's affectionately.

Dick answered by a friendly punch on the head. "Who is Mr. Fraser?" he
asked Hugh, settling himself in his place on the rail.

"He is a man we know," Hugh replied rather vaguely. "He owns all this
part and is as rich as a nabob, but he isn't married, so he lives up
here all alone, with two or three Chinese servants in the house. He
once lived in China. He's awfully fond of gardening, and pictures, and
that sort of thing, like my mater. He's a merchant and he owns ships.
He's a great friend of the pater's, and he comes in about once a week
to hear the mater sing, and they yarn away about home and spout poetry.
But he is quite a jolly sort of chap when you get him alone. His house
is called Drink Between, which wouldn't be a bad name for a book if you
wanted to write one."

"Jolly good name for a pub, if you wanted to keep one," Jerry remarked.
"I shouldn't wonder if he got it from some old coaching inn of the
olden times--though, of course, we are in the olden times already, if
it comes to that--fairly old, at any rate."

"No, he got it from a place at home where Prince Charlie once had a
drink. When the girls are here he gets in a couple of women to look
after them. Other times he only has his heathen Chinee lot, and jolly
good they are! That is, of course, if you like stewed puppy and bird's
nest," Hugh added solemnly; "I love 'em myself."

"Adore 'em," Jerry said, smacking his lips. "Never lose a chance of
having puppy-tail hash when we can get it, do we, old son?"

"Rather not," Dick replied. "Remember those bird's-nest tarts our old
woman at the tuck-shop used to make before butter got so scarce?
Scrumptious!"

The appearance of the girls interrupted these flights of masculine
fancy. Grizzel still looked subdued, but the tears were dried, and she
was listening politely to Mollie's tuneful advice to "Pack your
troubles in your own kit-bag, and smile, smile, smile". Hugh shouted to
them to hurry up or they would be late for tea, and soon the little
party was under way again, as cheerful as if diamonds had never been
heard of. They were now in sight of Drink Between; a square, solidly
built house, with a wide veranda and balcony on three sides of it,
completely hidden at present under a pale-purple drapery of wistaria.

"It looks like an amethyst," Mollie said admiringly, as they drew near.
"I never saw such a purple house as that before."

The inside of Drink Between was entirely different from any of the
other Australian houses which Mollie had been in. They entered by a
side door which opened straight on to a narrow stairway. The girls
climbed up to their bedroom, a large airy apartment opening on to the
balcony.

"Where are your father and mother and Baby?" Mollie asked, as they
washed away the remains of oranges and gold-digging.

"Papa and Mamma have to go and meet an immigrant ship to-morrow, so
they aren't coming up till afterwards. And Baby and Bridget are with
them."

"What's an immigrant ship?" asked Mollie.

"A ship full of immigrants," Prudence replied, brushing out her curls
with conscientious care. "Immigrants are people who get their passage
out for nothing, or for very little, and then they go to work here.
Mamma is getting a new cook because ours is going to be married. And
Papa likes to meet the Scotch immigrants and say welcome to Australia
to them. Bridget was an immigrant, but she says she will soon be
Australian."

"I see," said Mollie thoughtfully. "Are they ever married? I mean--do
children come with their parents?"

"Yes, lots of them. Are you ready, Mollie? The boys are getting
impatient. I can hear them growling."

Feeling very fresh and clean in white muslin frocks with pale-blue
sashes, the girls descended by a different and much wider staircase
than the one they had gone up by. They stepped off the stairs straight
into a large hall, or living-room, which apparently occupied half the
floor of the house, for on two sides it opened on to the veranda, and
on the third side into a large bamboo house; the fourth wall was
unbroken but for one door. The room was painted white, and the floor
covered with fine white Chinese matting, over which lay a few Eastern
rugs, their once rich and glowing colours now dimmed by time and the
tread of generations of feet. Through the wide-open French windows
could be seen the long, graceful streamers of wistaria, hanging from
the arched boughs round the veranda like a lace veil. Against this
background grew masses of pale-pink and blue hydrangeas, with their
flat fragile flowers and broad leaves. The bamboo house was given
wholly to ferns, over which a fountain was playing, and under the fine
spray the green fronds glistened as freshly as though they grew in the
heart of an English wood.

The sun was now setting, and its crimson glow shone through the mauve
wistaria, filling the room with an opal-coloured light which made
Mollie think of fairyland. It fell with a peculiarly pleasant effect
upon a round tea-table spread for tea. She had never seen such fine and
snowy damask, such shining silver, or such delicately transparent china
cups and saucers. Even Grannie's well-kept table paled before the
exquisite freshness of this one. As for the food part--there was a
crystal bowl of yellow clotted cream, a plate of gossamer balls which
were probably intended to pass for scones, a twist of gold which was
most likely meant for bread, and dishes of preserves unknown to the
English children--tiny green oranges in syrup, scarlet rose-berries,
and jellies like amber and topaz, looking as though some of Hugh's
precious stones had been cooked for his tea.

They were about half-way through this beautiful meal when there was a
sound of footsteps on the matting, and a Chinese servant appeared,
bearing a large iced birthday cake set on a silver tray.

"Hullo, Ah Kew! What you gottee there?" called Hugh, under the
impression that he was speaking pidgin-English to perfection.

"Master talkee to-day b'long he burfday," Ah Kew replied. "He talkee
my, wanchee cook makee one piecee burfday-cake." He set the cake down
in front of Prudence as he spoke.

"Welly good, Ah Kew, Master b'long quitey righty," said Hugh
approvingly. "Cook makee jolly-good cakee, me eat jolly-good cakee.
Cook pleased, me pleased, cakee pleased, all jolly-welly pleased."

Ah Kew smiled a slow and mysterious smile, his black eyes closing up
under his slanting eyebrows, and his blue-capped head nodding. He
glanced over the tea-table.

"Tea b'long all plopper?" he asked anxiously. "S'pose you wanchee more
can have plenty more."

"No, thank you, Ah Kew, me eatee more me bustee," Hugh replied
politely. Ah Kew nodded his head again and departed, his pigtail
flapping against the long skirts of his blue cotton coat.

Prudence cut the beautiful cake and distributed large slices all round.
No grown-up person was present to make sensible remarks about not
eating too much, which was a good or a bad thing "according to circs"
as Jerry would say.

The children were all tired after their hard work and excitement; Mr.
Fraser was not coming home till late, and had left a message to say
that he expected to find everyone fast asleep in bed when he got back;
so, after a tour of exploration round the house and its immediate
neighbourhood, they went off to their rooms, and soon most of them were
asleep.

Not all of them, however. Whether it was the cake, or the change of
air, or the strange bed, or still stranger circumstances, or all
combined, it would be hard to say, but it seemed to Dick that the
longer he lay in bed the more wakeful he became. The thought of the
diamond began to worry him, and soon assumed gigantic proportions in
his mind. Suppose it got lost. Perhaps it was worth a hundred pounds,
as Jerry had suggested. Suppose a magpie flew off with it. It might be
worth more than a hundred; perhaps two hundred pounds. What if a
blackfellow stole it, or the tree fell down in the night, or got burnt
up. It is true that none of these things had happened during the months
in which it had lain there before, but _then_ no one had known that it
was valuable. It would be just like luck, or rather unluck, if
something happened this particular night. Dick's knowledge of diamonds
was so small that it could be hardly said to exist, and he now began to
have nightmarish visions of huge sums of money--thousands of pounds
perhaps, lost through his folly. To be sure, no one knew that he had
put the diamond back in the tree. But he knew himself, which was the
main thing. He tossed from side to side restlessly. A new thought
perplexed him. How could anything he did or left undone matter now,
seeing that he wasn't going to be born for another thirty years? He
belonged to the future, and the future could not influence the
present--at least, he supposed not, but funny things did happen.
Anyhow, this was _his_ present for the moment, and he had his usual
irritating conscience.

He got out of bed at last and went to the window. There was such a
flood of moonlight that out-of-doors was almost as light as day. Why
not slip into his clothes and scoot down to the bottom of the
scrub-land, and collect that diamond? It would be better than tossing
about in bed, and afterwards he would go calmly to sleep. The
difficulty would be to get out of the house. Probably Ah Kew was on the
watch for his master, and, if he saw Dick, would remark "no can do", or
words to that effect.

Dick went to the edge of the balcony and looked over; it was not very
far from the ground, but it was too far to jump. How about the wistaria
boughs? They looked pretty tough--he decided to try, and if he
fell--well, he had smashed himself up before this more than once, and
no doubt would do so again. A few tumbles more or less wouldn't make
much difference to him, especially, he reflected, as he was bound to
get back to 1920 somehow or other. He could hardly kill himself now if
he tried.

He reached the ground with nothing worse than a few scratches to his
credit, and set off along the path by which they had come in the
afternoon, keeping well in the shadow of the hedge in case Ah Kew's
beady eyes should be on the outlook. So long as he was within the
grounds of the house he felt confident and cheerful, but when he
reached the slip-rail and looked over into the land beyond he felt some
of his courage oozing away.

It looked eerie, that strange, unfamiliar country, in this white light.
There were dead trees standing here and there, and their pale trunks
took unpleasant shapes--they might conceivably be something else than
trees--not ghosts, of course; there were no such things as ghosts. All
the tales he had ever read about Australia suddenly started up in his
mind--tales of deadly snakes, of bushrangers, of blackfellows, who had
methods of their own of doing you in. One might go through a good deal
without being actually _killed_. Now that he came to think of it,
Australia in the 'seventies was a wildish sort of place--in some parts
at any rate. He wished that he was surer where he was--how far away
from civilization. He supposed that Ned Kelly and his gang were still
at large.

But, of course, he could not go back. He stepped cautiously from tree
to tree, keeping to the black shadows as much as possible. He could
hear the sound of that little waterfall quite distinctly, and see the
moonlight on the rippling shallows of the creek--now he could see the
gum tree he was making for--he had taken particular notice of a crooked
bough--what on earth was that?

A wild piercing shriek from somewhere beyond the creek brought him
suddenly to a standstill, his heart in his mouth. Undoubtedly a woman
was being murdered or tortured. Blackfellows, probably, as Ned Kelly
made a point of not hurting women--at least so it said in _Robbery
Under Arms_. Dick wondered what exactly the blackfellows had done to
the woman--and there was the blood-curdling shriek again!

He stood still. After all, why not leave the diamond till daylight? He
had been a silly ass to imagine all that rubbish about it, and a much
sillier ass to leave his safe bedroom and come out to this wild and
desolate spot all alone. If he had brought Jerry--

Ah, Jerry! There had been that affair of Jerry's eldest brother and the
guns. Ten wounds. Both legs shot off. "Stick it out, you chaps." The
very last words he spoke in this world, sweeter in Jerry's ear, Dick
knew, than the finest poetry ever written. He gathered himself together
and went on. It would never do to begin a habit of _not_ sticking it
out. For, wherever he was, he was always Dick Gordon to himself--a
person for whom he wished to have a considerable amount of respect.

He wished that the orange grove, so cool and lovely by day, did not
look so dark and mysterious by night.

At last! Here was the old tree. Now for it. He stepped round, prepared
to enter the empty hollow regardless of possible snakes or blacks, when
he heard a sound that made the hair rise on his head and the back of
his neck feel queer, for it was unmistakably a child crying inside the
tree. The child of the murdered woman, he thought. So the blacks _were_
near--perhaps inside the tree at this very moment. The idea flitted
across his mind that there was an extraordinary difference between
reading about a thing and experiencing it. As the child's sobs
continued he shrunk together--he would rather meet an enemy in the open
and be shot at twenty times than face these savage and mysterious
blacks--and then he suddenly decided that, if there were a

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