Sweethearts at Home

Father has seen the real place, and, of course, knows all about it. He says that it is just a lot of rough mountains, with bits of wall built into the open places to connect them and make them strong.

But we know that there are not one, but two Torres Vedrases – all on one bend of a river. The first one is quite near the Low Park, between the Weir and Jackson's Pool. It is a pebbly bar with a kind of green tufty island. From one side of it there is a rippling ford crossing slantwise, by which you can lose yourself barefooted in the woods on the other side.

The water only takes you to about the knee, even if you are pretty little. It is always one of the nicest places in the world. The water makes a soft tinkling over the ford. The grasses and bluebells wave, and the wind goes sough through the big solid walls of pine on either side.

Yes, it is first-rate to play there with your oldest things on, especially on a warm day about this time of the year. The river is pretty dry, and there is a great deal of pebbly bar, also the little green island with rough grass on it has grown to about twice the size.

You can fortify this island, and it is fine to dig channels through the bar for the water, with all sorts of lovely harbors and pleasure-lakes. Once the boys and I made a channel right from one end of the bar to the other, and father helped – and got wet too!

Yes, he did. We always encouraged him to get wet, by saying, "Oh, here is a place we can't reach!" Because if he got wet, we knew very well there would be nothing said to us. Fathers are fearful nice and useful – sometimes. Ours particularly when he helps us to play, and forgets he isn't a boy. Oh, I can see quite well when he says to himself, "I ought to be working —but– oh, bother, how much nicer it is to dig in the sand with the other children!"

And then he took pictures of us – photographs, I mean – working at our engineering, and building and paddling – oh, whole albums full. They began when we were quite little tots. The best are of Maid Margaret and Sir Toady. For I was too old, I suppose, to look nice stuck among trees, and Hugh John hated so being photographed. When told to, he stood up stiff like a stork on one leg. But Sir Toady was usually as nice as pie, being made that way, and as for the Maid, she always looks natural whatever she is doing.

Father has a whole set called the History of a Biscuit. It is only the Maid eating one. But it is funny to see it getting smaller and smaller till it is all gone. They are flashed on quickly by our magic lantern, and we children go wild when it comes to the funny ones. The grand exhibitions are for winter nights. Then we are well wrapped up in gray Harris cloaks and come up, closely marshaled by Somebody to see that we don't snowball too much. They are quite lovely, these nights, with the snow crisping under our feet, and Somebody carrying a swig-swagging lantern before us – everybody's shadow swaying tipsily about, and the sky so near and so thick with stars that it seems as if you had only to put up your hand to catch a whole cluster.

There are usually many pictures of this first Torres, because we were younger, and it is a prettier place. We wore little red coats with big white buttons then, and marched regularly like soldiers. Hugh John beat us on the legs if we did not. He had a switch for the purpose, and he said that was the way the father of Frederick the Great did to make his son turn out a good soldier.

But we didn't care about such very practical history, and it made our legs sore – especially us girls, who wore thinner stockings. So there was a regular mutiny, and the whole army was degraded. You see, we were all generals – except Boss, our fox-terrier, who was named Inspector-General of Communications, because he ran from side to side of the road sniffing, and nothing or nobody could stop him. So, as Boss did not join the mutiny – not knowing how – he was promoted next in rank after the Commander-in-Chief, who was Hugh John. He was permanent Commander, because, you see, he could lick the whole standing army even if it attacked him on all sides at once.

Sir Toady and Bobby Coates were the ring-leaders of the revolt, and they called out, "Hem him in! Hem him in!" But, you see, that was the very thing Hugh John wanted, and the more they "hemmed," the harder he laid into them till Bobby said he would tell his father, which he did. But Mr. Coates was a sensible man, and only said that he was all the better for a "hiding," and that if he came bothering him any more, he would give him another on his own account! So after that Bobby Coates became a good soldier, and lived long as an ornament to the service.

Yes, the nursery army was good fun while it lasted, before we all split up and went to different schools. We tried it once after in the first vacation. But somehow it wasn't the same, and ended in a fight. You see, the boys especially had learned a good deal between them, and though it made no difference to Hugh John, the others kept squabbling all the time, and saying how much better they did things at their school than at any other – which was not at all the way they talked about their school in private.

Then "school was a beastly hole." The masters were "Old Buster," "Plummy," "Sick Cat," and "The Dishlicker"!

But to hear them talking to one another you would have thought that at least half what was said on the prospectus was Gospel Truth. Yes, and ever so much more. And it was "The Doctor," and "Mr. Traynor, the Head of our House, who made a double century in the ''Varsity' match, and is the best bowler in the whole world!"

Going down by Torres there is a darkish place, all yew-trees, very ancient, and there sometimes we would see one of the maids walking arm-in-arm with a young man. Of course, though we thought it very silly, we never told the Grown-ups. We knew by instinct that we must not. Then after a month or two the cook or the housemaid or the under-nurse would come and say she was "leaving to get married."

Of course we never let on that we knew it all before. But we thought her very silly to leave a place where she could have stayed for ever at good wages (ever so much better than our weekly ones) just to go and do housework for somebody who never paid her any wages at all!

All this comes into the history of the First Torres Vedras, and of course I ought to have done it properly, like in a school history, all in order, with dates at the sides and notes at the bottom of each page. But being only a little girl, it has got to be written just so, or not at all. I am so afraid that I shall forget these things as I grow up – so I put them down as I remember them in my Dear Diary.

VII

TORRES THE SECOND

Written in the fourteenth year of my age.

[The date is July the Second – or Third. I am not sure which, for Mary Housemaid has burned yesterday's paper lighting the fire.]

We went to Torres Vedras the Second to-day. I don't quite know why – only there are bigger stones there, and the river rushes more rapidly. We often try to dam it altogether, but we have never quite succeeded. You see, just when we are getting to the last bit, the water always rises and sweeps it all away. But Hugh John said to-day he knew a way, and that was to make the dam like a very blunt capital V with its nose pointing up stream! The book on engineering he had been digging into said this was the proper right way, and it acted very well till the moment came when the very point of the V was put in. Hugh John was to do that, of course. He would yield the honor to no one else, and as for me, I did not want that kind of honor.

And, do you know, when he dropped in the big stone and stood on it to make it all safe by plugging up the "interstices" with smaller stones and rubble, as the book said – lo! the river rose again and swept away the whole work from side to side, all except the big bowlder Hugh John was standing on!

You never saw such a thing. Horatius, with the bridge going down behind him, was at least on dry land. But there stood Hugh John waving his arms to keep his balance, and crying out, "Oh – I don't care – I don't care – I'll dam it yet!"

It was very ignoble, he said afterwards, of any river to behave that way. Why couldn't it have stopped where it was put and done what it was told? Anyway, while we tried to get him a plank to crawl ashore on, the big bowlder swerved, and toppled him right in, and he was wet up to his watch-pocket.

He had to go to the top of the Feudal Tower all by himself, and play at being the Lady Godiva riding through Coventry, while his things dried over the ramparts. But he took good care that nobody saw him. He dared Toady Lion to come within half-a-mile. While he was away, we made great excavations and navigable channels. One of these was so huge that Sir Toady says that the ruins will remain even when we are Grown-ups ourselves. But that is a long time yet, and I don't see how Sir Toady can possibly know.

He also says that, just as there are the ruins of Memphis, Nineveh, Rome, the Calton Hill, and the Portobello Brickworks, so there will be the ruins of the First and Second Torres Vedras. Digging people in future generations will wonder who made them, and so on each of the big stones he has placed an inscription in the Abracadabrian language to tell the explorers all about it.

Now I will tell you about the Abracadabrian language. We made it up ourselves, and we four in the nursery all speak it fluently. Only the curious thing about it is that none of us has the least idea what the others are talking about! This must be owing, says Hugh John, to "some variation of dialect, such as creeps into all languages sooner or later."

The Abracadabrian language has suffered sooner than most, that is all. In fact, it was born suffering. But it is the writing of it that is most difficult. It is founded on always putting a Z for an A, and so back through the alphabet. And so difficult to read is it that not even the writer of any sentence in that language has ever been able to make out what he meant, twenty-four hours after!

Hugh John and I really labored at it hard, and might have made progress if we had not squabbled about the grammatical rules. But Sir Toady said brazenly, "Hinky-chinky-pin!" And stuck to it that it meant, "The enemy of the Nursery Commonwealth has arrived at Leith, burnt his ships, and is now marching on Peebles!" As for Maid Margaret, she said it was so, and would Sir Toady please come with her and fish for minnows with a tin can tied to a string?

This they did. They had no souls for true philology. They don't even know what the word means. (I have just looked it up.) After he was dried up all right alone in the Feudal Tower, Hugh John dressed himself, and signaled to me by waving his handkerchief three times, once with his right hand, once with his bare toes, and once holding it between his teeth – pretty intricate when you are not used to it.

This, when you can see it, is our fiery cross – that is, Hugh John's and mine. As I say, it takes a good deal of trouble, but it is a worthy summons – and the copy-book says that nothing truly noble is achieved without difficulty.

Well, when I got to him, he said that he would take me to his Cave of Mysteries. This was a great favor, for not even Sir Toady had ever been there before.

"Not a gamekeeper knows it," he said, "and Fuz says I can use his scouting-glass if I take good care not to drop it."

There was a steep wood to climb, all among the fir-trees, some grass fields, then above and quite suddenly we came out on the side of a rugged mountain.

The cave was about half-way up, under a slanting rock. You turned quickly to the side, grabbed a little pine-root and swung yourself in. Then you saw the cave. It was not much of a place for size, not like the self-contained villas they have in story-books. Only you could not be seen. The rain did not come in unless it was driving quite level along from the north, which did not happen often.

But when I turned about – why, it nearly took my breath away. We could see half-a-dozen counties – Edinburgh dusting the little lion of Arthur's Seat with her smoke, the blue firth beyond, little and narrow, the toy towers of the Big Bridge to the left, and the green country all between dotted with towers and towns innumerable.

Oh, it was so unexpected and so fine that I nearly cried. And Hugh John lay watching me, his chin among the heather. But, more than all, he was pleased that his cave had taken me so much by storm.

Then he showed me with his glasses he could "spot exactly where each of the gamekeepers was, also the wood-foresters, and Sir Bulleigh Bunny himself, if he were at home."

And indeed it was quite true. He could pick them all out one by one. Never once did he make a mistake. Then he would show me them, but often all I could see was no more than a little trembling among the green leaves of some far-distant wood.

It was not long till I found the secret of Hugh John's complete security in this his chosen Crusoe's Cave. Chesnay the gamekeeper was passing far below, a gun over his shoulder, and as the wind was blowing off the hill into the valley, it was almost certain that his dogs would scent us.

But Hugh John had thought all this out. Trust him for that. He took a gnawed bone out of an inner pocket, removed the wrapping of newspaper, leaned far over, and threw it with the long, sweeping curve of a boomerang upon the path in front of the dog's nose.

John Chesnay's retriever made a rush, a snap, and then sidled sidelong into the thick copse-wood. The rest of the dogs were after him in a moment. I had seen him glancing from side to side as if to watch for the fall of the bone. He knew it would come, and that even if the devil took the hindmost, the foremost would be sure of the bone. Therefore he, John Chesnay's big black retriever, would be that foremost.

He was far too wise a dog to argue, or bother about where the bone arrived from. His business was to find it, and then —crunch—crunch– get it stowed away out of harm's way as quickly as possible.

Caesar Augustus (that was the dog's name) knew very well that though you may hunt out the causes of bad luck, it is better to leave good luck alone. So at least Hugh John said, and if anybody knew all about such things, he did. There was hardly anything he could not tell you the true explanation of, or, if in doubt, you had only to wait a moment and he would make you up one on the spot quite as good, every bit, as the real one. Furthermore, he would prove to you (and very likely to himself) that it might be, must be, was, the only true and proper reason and explanation.

Anyway, reason or no reason, it was just as nice as ninepence in the Cave. Away down to the left where the sun was bright on the river we could see Sir Toady and the Maid, little black dots moving to and fro along the green edge of the river. Hugh John had the glass on them in a minute, and behold – they were squabbling! Sir Toady had tossed some of the Maid's fish out, and the Maid had promptly thrown the pail of water in his face.

He stood dripping and laughing. The Maid had gone for a fresh supply of ammunition. But war was over. Sir Toady had laughed. After that there was no more to be said.

It is different with Hugh John, when he sucks in his cheeks, clenches his fists, and laughs – well, look out for what you are going to get.

I asked Hugh John why he had never taken Sir Toady up to his Cave of the Winds, and he said, "Oh, Toady – he would be getting out boxes to stuff with beetles, and skirmishing for birds' eggs. He's all right in a wood, that Toadums – better than me – but no good on the hillside, and too larky all round in places where you can be seen miles off."

"And what do you do up here yourself?" I said.