Chapter 8

'It wasn't my fault about your essay, and I'm sorry, and am going to run away to India to find my people. I shall go disguised as a stowaway.

'Your affectionate cousin,

'HAROLD EGBERT DARWIN ST. LEGER.'

Billy did not have to show this letter to his mother, because she had gone away for the day, so he did not have to explain to her what a beast he had been. If he had had to do this, it would have been part of what is called Expiation.

Then he got the farm men to go out in every direction, furnished with a full description of Harold's silkworm-like appearance, and Billy borrowed a bicycle from a noble-hearted butcher's boy in the village and set out for Plymouth, because that seemed the likeliest place to look in for a cousin who was running away disguised as a stowaway. The wind blew straight towards the sea, and it occurred to Billy--he deserves to be called Billy now, I think--that the great patent kite, which was ten feet high, would drag him along like winking if he could only set it flying, and then tie it to the handle-bar of the bicycle. It was rather a ticklish business to get the kite up, but the butcher's boy helped--he had a noble heart--and at last it was done. Billy saw the great bird-kite flying off towards Plymouth. He hastily knotted the string to the bicycle handle, held the slack of it in his hand, mounted, started, paid out the slack of the string, and the next moment the string was tight, and the kite was pulling Billy and the bicycle along the Plymouth road at the rate of goodness-only-knows-how-improbably many miles an hour.

At last he came to the outskirts of Plymouth. I shall not tell you what Plymouth was like, because Billy did not notice or know at all what it was like, and there is no reason why you should. Plymouth seemed to Billy very much like other places. The only odd thing was that he could not stop his bicycle, though he pulled in the kite string as hard as he could. He flew through the town. All the traffic stopped to let him steer his mad-paced machine through the streets, and tradespeople, and people walking on business, and people walking for pleasure, all stopped with their respectable mouths wide open to stare at Billy on his bicycle. And the kite pulled the machine on and on without pause, and at a furious rate, and Billy, in despair, was just feeling in his pocket for his knife to cut the string, when some mighty sky-wind seemed to catch the kite, and it gave a leap and went twenty times as fast as it had gone before, and the bicycle had to go twenty times as fast too, and before Billy could say 'Jack Robinson,' or even 'J. R.,' for short, the kite rushed wildly out to sea, dragging the bicycle after it, right slap off the edge of England. So Billy and the butcher's boy's bicycle were dragged into the sea? Not at all. They were dragged _on_ to the sea, which is not at all the same sort of thing. For the kite was such a very extra patent one, and so perfectly designed and made, that it was just strong enough to bear the weight of Billy and the bicycle, and to keep them out of the water. So that Billy found himself riding splendidly over the waves, and there was no more splashing than there would have been on the road on a very muddy day. Luckily, the sea was smooth, or I don't know what would have happened. It was smooth and greeny-blue, and the sun made diamond sparkles on it, and Billy felt as grand as grand to be riding over such a glorious floor. It was a fine time, but rather an anxious one too. Because, suppose the string had not held? No one could possibly ride a bicycle on the sea unless they had the really only truly right sort of kite to hold the machine up.

Away and away went the kite, through the blue air up above, and away and away went the bicycle over the greeny, foamy sea down below, and away and away went Billy, and the kite went faster and faster and faster, and faster went the bicycle--much, much faster than you would believe unless you had seen it as Billy did. And just at the front-door of the Bay of Biscay the bicycle caught up with a P. and O. steamer, and the kite followed the course of the ship, and went alongside of it, so you can guess how fast the bicycle was going.

And the Captain of the ship hailed Billy through a speaking-trumpet, and said:

'Ahoy, there!'

Billy replied:

'Ahoy yourself!'

But the Captain couldn't hear him. So the Captain said something that Billy couldn't hear either. But the people who were meant to hear heard, and the great ship stopped, and Billy rode close up to it, and they hauled him up by the string of the kite, and they put the bicycle in a safe place, and tied the string to the mast, and then the Captain said:

'I suppose I'm dreaming you, boy, because what you're doing is impossible.'

'I know it is,' said Billy; 'only I'm doing it--at least, I was till you stopped me.'

They were both wrong, because, of course, if it had been impossible, Billy could not have done it; but neither of them had a scientific mind, as you and I have, dear reader.

So the Captain asked Billy to dinner, which was very nice, only there was an uncertain feeling about it. And when Billy had had dinner, he said to the Captain:

'I must be going.'

'Is there nothing I can do for you?' said the Captain.

'I don't know,' said Billy, 'unless you happen to have a boy named Harold Egbert Darwin St. Leger on board. He said he was going away in a ship to India, disguised as a stowaway.'

The Captain at once ordered the ship to be searched for a boy of this name in this disguise. The crew looked in the hold, and in the galley, and in the foretop, and on the quarter, and in the gaff, and the jib, and the topsail, and the boom, but they could not find Harold. They ransacked the cross-trees, and the engine-room, and the bowsprit; they explored the backstays, the stays, and the waist, but they found no stowaway. They examined truck and block, they hunted through every porthole, they left not an inch of the ribs unexplored; but no Harold. He was not in any of the belaying-pins or dead-eyes, nor was he hidden in the capstan or the compass. At last, in despair, the Captain thought of looking in the cabins, and in one of them, hidden under the scattered pyjamas and embroidered socks of a Major of Artillery, they found Harold.

He and Billy explained everything to each other, and shook hands, and there was not a dry eye in the ship. (Did you ever see a dry eye? I think it would look rather nasty.)

Then said Billy to Harold:

'This is all very well, but how am I to get you home?'

'I can ride on the step of the bike,' said Harold.

'But the wind won't take us back,' said Billy; 'it's dead against us.'

'Excuse me,' said the Captain in a manly manner; 'you know that Britannia rules the waves and controls the elements. Allow me one moment.'

He sent for the boatswain and bade him whistle for a wind, expressly stating what kind of wind was needed.

And everyone saw with delight, but with little surprise, the kite deliberately turn round and retrace its steps towards the cliffs of Albion.

A cheer rose from passengers and crew alike as the bicycle was lowered to the waves, the string tightened, and the bicycle started, Billy in the saddle and Harold on the step. The event was a perfect windfall to the passengers. It gave them something to talk of all the way to Suez; some of them are talking about it still.

The kite went back even faster than it had come; it pulled the bicycle behind it as easily as a child pulls a cotton-reel along the floor by a bit of thread. So that Harold and Billy were home by tea-time, and it was the jolliest meal either of them had ever had.

They had determined to stop the bicycle by cutting the string, and then Harold would have lost the patent kite, which would have been a pity. But, most happily, the string of the kite caught in the vane on the top of the church tower, and the bicycle stopped by itself exactly opposite the butcher's boy to whom it belonged. He had a noble heart, and he was very glad to see his bicycle again.

After tea the boys went up the church tower to get the kite; and I don't suppose you will believe me when I tell you that there, in the niche of a window of the belfry, was a jackdaw's nest, and in it the Historical Essay which the jackdaw had stolen, as you will have guessed, for the sake of the bright gilt manuscript fastener in the corner.

And now Harold and Billy became really chums, in spite of all the qualities which they could not help disliking in each other. Each found some things in the other that he didn't dislike so very much, after all.

When Harold grows up he will sell many patent kites, and we shall all be able to ride bicycles on the sea.

Billy sent in his essay, but he did not get the prize; so it wouldn't have mattered if it had never been found, only I am glad it was found.

I hope you will not think that this is a made-up story. It is very nearly as true as any of the history in Billy's essay that didn't get a prize. The only thing I can't quite believe myself is about the roll of the right kind of paper being in the chimney; but Harold couldn't think of anything else to dream about, and the most fortunate accidents do happen sometimes even in stories.

THE TWOPENNY SPELL

Lucy was a very good little girl indeed, and Harry was not so bad--for a boy, though the grown-ups called him a limb! They both got on very well at school, and were not wholly unloved at home. Perhaps Lucy was a bit of a muff, and Harry was certainly very rude to call her one, but she need not have replied by calling him a 'beast.' I think she did it partly to show him that she was not quite so much of a muff as he thought, and partly because she was naturally annoyed at being buried up to her waist in the ground among the gooseberry-bushes. She got into the hole Harry had dug because he said it might make her grow, and then he suddenly shovelled down a heap of earth and stamped it down so that she could not move. She began to cry, then he said 'muff' and she said 'beast,' and he went away and left her 'planted there,' as the French people say. And she cried more than ever, and tried to dig herself out, and couldn't, and although she was naturally such a gentle child, she would have stamped with rage, only she couldn't get her feet out to do it. Then she screamed, and her Uncle Richard came and dug her out, and said it was a shame, and gave her twopence to spend as she liked. So she got nurse to clean the gooseberry ground off her, and when she was cleaned she went out to spend the twopence. She was allowed to go alone, because the shops were only a little way off on the same side of the road, so there was no danger from crossings.

'I'll spend every penny of it on myself,' said Lucy savagely; 'Harry shan't have a bit, unless I could think of something he wouldn't like, and then I'd get it and put it in his bread and milk!' She had never felt quite so spiteful before, but, then, Harry had never before been quite so aggravating.

She walked slowly along by the shops, wishing she could think of something that Harry hated; she herself hated worms, but Harry didn't mind them. Boys are so odd.

Suddenly she saw a shop she had never noticed before. The window was quite full of flowers--roses, lilies, violets, pinks, pansies--everything you can think of, growing in a tangled heap, as you see them in an old garden in July.

She looked for the name over the shop. Instead of being somebody or other, Florist, it was 'Doloro de Lara, Professor of white and black Magic,' and in the window was a large card, framed and glazed. It said:

ENCHANTMENTS DONE WHILE YOU WAIT. EVERY DESCRIPTION OF CHARM CAREFULLY AND COMPETENTLY WORKED. STRONG SPELLS FROM FIFTY GUINEAS TO TUPPENCE. WE SUIT ALL PURSES. GIVE US A TRIAL. BEST AND CHEAPEST HOUSE IN THE TRADE. COMPETITION DEFIED.

Lucy read this with her thumb in her mouth. It was the tuppence that attracted her; she had never bought a spell, and even a tuppenny one would be something new.

'It's some sort of conjuring trick, I suppose,' she thought, 'and I'll never let Harry see how it's done--never, never, never!'

She went in. The shop was just as flowery, and bowery, and red-rosy, and white-lilyish inside as out, and the colour and the scent almost took her breath away. A thin, dark, unpleasing gentleman suddenly popped out of a bower of flowering nightshade, and said:

'And what can we do for you to-day, miss?'

'I want a spell, if you please,' said Lucy; 'the best you can do for tuppence.'

'Is that all you've got?' said he.

'Yes,' said Lucy.

'Well, you can't expect much of a spell for that,' said he; 'however, it's better that I should have the tuppence than that you should; you see that, of course. Now, what would you like? We can do you a nice little spell at sixpence that'll make it always jam for tea. And I've another article at eighteenpence that'll make the grown-ups always think you're good even if you're not; and at half a crown----'

'I've only got tuppence.'

'Well,' he said crossly, 'there's only one spell at that price, and that's really a tuppenny-half-penny one; but we'll say tuppence. I can make you like somebody else, and somebody else like you.'

'Thank you,' said Lucy; 'I like most people, and everybody likes me.'

'I don't mean _that_,' he said. 'Isn't there someone you'd like to hurt if you were as strong as they are, and they were as weak as you?'

'Yes,' said Lucy in a guilty whisper.

'Then hand over your tuppence,' said the dark gentleman, 'and it's a bargain.'

He snatched the coppers warm from her hand.

'Now,' he said, 'to-morrow morning you'll be as strong as Harry, and he'll be little and weak like you. Then you can hurt him as much as you like, and he won't be able to hurt back.'

'Oh!' said Lucy; 'but I'm not sure I want----I think I'd like to change the spell, please.'

'No goods exchanged,' he said crossly; 'you've got what you asked for.'

'Thank you,' said Lucy doubtfully, 'but how am I----?'

'It's entirely self-adjusting,' said nasty Mr. Doloro. 'No previous experience required.'

'Thank you very much,' said Lucy. 'Good----'

She was going to say 'good-morning,' but it turned into 'good gracious,' because she was so very much astonished. For, without a moment's warning, the flower-shop had turned into the sweet-shop that she knew so well, and nasty Mr. Doloro had turned into the sweet-woman, who was asking what she wanted, to which, of course, as she had spent her twopence, the answer was 'Nothing.' She was already sorry that she had spent it, and in such a way, and she was sorrier still when she got home, and Harry owned handsomely that _he_ was sorry he had planted her out, but he really hadn't thought she was such a little idiot, and he _was_ sorry--so there! This touched Lucy's heart, and she felt more than ever that she had not laid out her tuppence to the best advantage. She tried to warn Harry of what was to happen in the morning, but he only said, 'Don't yarn; Billson Minor's coming for cricket. You can field if you like.' Lucy didn't like, but it seemed the only thing she could do to show that she accepted in a proper spirit her brother's apology about the planting out. So she fielded gloomily and ineffectively.

Next morning Harry got up in good time, folded up his nightshirt, and made his room so tidy that the housemaid nearly had a surprise-fit when she went in. He crept downstairs like a mouse, and learned his lessons before breakfast. Lucy, on the other hand, got up so late that it was only by dressing hastily that she had time to prepare a thoroughly good booby-trap before she slid down the banisters just as the breakfast-bell rang. She was first in the room, so she was able to put a little salt in all the tea-cups before anyone else came in. Fresh tea was made, and Harry was blamed. Lucy said, 'I did it,' but no one believed her. They said she was a noble, unselfish sister to try and shield her naughty brother, and Harry burst into floods of tears when she kicked him under the table; she hated herself for doing this, but somehow it seemed impossible to do anything else.

Harry cried nearly all the way to school, while Lucy insisted on sliding along all the gutters and dragging Harry after her. She bought a catapult at the toy-shop and a pennyworth of tintacks at the oil-shop, both on credit, and as Lucy had never asked for credit before, she got it.

At the top of Blackheath Village they separated--Harry went back to his school, which is at the other side of the station, and Lucy went on to the High School.

The Blackheath High School has a large and beautiful hall, with a staircase leading down into it like a staircase in a picture, and at the other end of the hall is a big statue of a beautiful lady. The High School mistresses call her Venus, but I don't really believe that is her name.

Lucy--good, gentle, little Lucy, beloved by her form mistress and respected by all the school--sat on those steps--I don't know why no one caught her--and used her catapult to throw ink pellets (you know what they are, of course) with her catapult at the beautiful white statue-lady, till the Venus--if that is her name, which I doubt--was all over black spots, like a Dalmation or carriage dog.

Then she went into her class room and arranged tintacks, with the business end up, on all the desks and seats, an act fraught with gloomy returns to Blossoma Rand and Wilhelmina Marguerite Asterisk. Another booby-trap--a dictionary, a pot of water, three pieces of chalk, and a handful of torn paper--was hastily sketched above the door. Three other little girls looked on in open-mouthed appreciation. I do not wish to shock you, so I will not tell you about the complete success of the booby-trap, nor of the bloodthirsty fight between Lucy and Bertha Kaurter in a secluded fives-court during rec. Dora Spielman and Gertrude Rook were agitated seconds. It was Lucy's form mistress, the adored Miss Harter Larke, who interrupted the fight at the fifth round, and led the blood-stained culprits into the hall and up the beautiful picture-like steps to the Headmistress's room.

The Head of the Blackheath High School has all the subtle generalship of the Head in Mr. Kipling's 'Stalky.' She has also a manner which subdues parents and children alike to 'what she works in, like the dyer's hand.' Anyone less clever would have expelled the luckless Lucy--saddled with her brother's boy-nature--on such evidence as was now brought forward. Not so the Blackheath Head. She reserved judgment, the most terrible of all things for a culprit, by the way, who thought it over for an hour and a half in the mistress's room, and she privately wrote a note to Lucy's mother, gently hinting that Lucy was not quite herself: might be sickening for something. Perhaps she had better be kept at home for a day or two. Lucy went home, and on the way upset a bicycle with a little girl on it, and came off best in a heated physical argument with a baker's boy.

Harry, meanwhile, had dried his tears, and gone to school. He knew his lessons, which was a strange and pleasing thing, and roused in his master hopes destined to be firmly and thoroughly crushed in the near future. But when he had emerged triumphantly from morning school he suddenly found his head being punched by Simpkins Minor, on the ground that he, Harry, had been showing off. The punching was scientific and irresistible. Harry, indeed, did not try to resist; in floods of tears and with uncontrolled emotion he implored Simpkins Minor to let him alone, and not be a brute. Then Simpkins Minor kicked him, and several other nice little boy-friends of his joined the glad throng, and it became quite a kicking party. So that when Harry and Lucy met at the corner of Wemyss Road his face was almost unrecognisable, while Lucy looked as happy as a king, and as proud as a peacock.

'What's up?' asked Lucy briskly.

'Every single boy in the school has kicked me,' said Harry in flat accents. 'I wish I was dead.'

'So do I,' said Lucy cheerily; 'I think I'm going to be expelled. I should be quite certain, only my booby-trap came down on Bessie Jayne's head instead of Miss Whatshername's, and Bessie's no sneak, though she has got a lump like an ostrich's egg on her forehead, and soaked through as well. But I think I'm certain to be expelled.'

'I wish I was,' said Harry, weeping with heartfelt emotion. 'I don't know what's the matter with me; I feel all wrong inside. Do you think you can turn into things just by reading them? Because I feel as if I was in "Sandford and Merton," or one of the books the kind clergyman lent us at the seaside.'

'How awfully beastly!' said Lucy. 'Now, I feel as if I didn't care tuppence whether I was expelled or not. And, I say, Harry, I feel as if I was much stronger than you. I know I could twist your arm round and then hit it like you did me the other day, and you couldn't stop me.'

'Of course I couldn't! _I_ can't stop anybody doing anything they want to do. Anybody who likes can hit me, and I can't hit back.'

He began to cry again. And suddenly Lucy was really sorry. She had done this, she had degraded her happy brother to a mere milksop, just because he had happened to plant her out, and leave her planted. Remorse suddenly gripped her with tooth and claw.

'Look here,' she said, 'it's all my fault! Because you planted me out, and I wanted to hurt you. But now I don't. I can't make you boy-brave again; but I'm sorry, and I'll look after you, Harry, old man! Perhaps you could disguise yourself in frocks and long hair, and come to the High School. I'd take care nobody bullied you. It isn't nice being bullied, is it?'

Harry flung his arms round her, a thing he would never have done in the public street if he had not been girlish inside at the time.

'No, it's hateful,' he said. 'Lucy, I'm sorry I've been such a pig to you.'

Lucy put her arms round him, and they kissed each other, though it was broad daylight and they were walking down Lee Park.

The same moment the enchanter Doloro de Lara ran into them on the pavement. Lucy screamed, and Harry hit out as hard as he could.

'Look out,' said he; 'who are you shoving into?'

'Tut-tut,' said the enchanter, putting his hat straight, 'you've bust up your spell, my Lucy--child; no spells hold if you go kissing and saying you're sorry. Just keep that in mind for the future, will you?'

He vanished in the white cloud of a passing steam-motor, and Harry and Lucy were left looking at each other. And Harry was Harry and Lucy was Lucy to the very marrow of their little back-bones. They shook hands with earnest feeling.

Next day Lucy went to the High School and apologised in dust and ashes.

'I don't think I was my right self,' she said to the Headmistress, who quite agreed with her, 'and I never will again!'

And she never has. Harry, on the other hand, thrashed Simpkins Minor thoroughly and scientifically on the first opportunity; but he did not thrash him extravagantly: he tempered pluck with mercy.

For this is the odd thing about the whole story. Ever since the day when the tuppenny spell did its work Harry has been kinder than before and Lucy braver. I can't think why, but so it is. He no longer bullies her, and she is no longer afraid of him, and every time she does something brave for him, or he does something kind for her, they grow more and more alike, so that when they are grown up he may as well be called Lucius and she Harriett, for all the difference there will be between them.