The Happy Adventurers by Lydia Miller Middleton (best thriller novels of all time TXT) đ
- Author: Lydia Miller Middleton
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âJolly nice smells here,â Dick remarked. âHow ripping the almond blossom looks in the sunshine. Weâve got an almond tree in our backyard, and once there was an almond on it.â
âThere are thousands of almonds here,â Prue said, pausing in her work for a moment and gazing dreamily at the delicate outline of almond branches against the sky. âThey are nicest when they are green, but I must say they do give you dreadful pains. I wonder why so many nice things leave a pain. Music does tooâand even oneâs best friends sometimes.â
âDo you eat your best friends boiled up with green almonds to the tune of âGoodbye for everâgoodbye, goodbyeâ?â Dick inquired.
They laughed. âThereâs an old gentleman come to live next door,â Prudence continued, taking up her sewing again, âwho watches us through a telescope sometimes, and when he sees us in the green-almond trees he writes to Papa. He says it is for our good, old telltale. Once, though, he took us into his library and showed us some beautiful fossils. He said they were as old as Moses, and one of them might be a million years old. It was a fan-shell, quite whole and pretty. Fancy a million years! I wonder what the world will be like in another million years.â
âBust,â said Dick briefly.
They laughed again and then were silent. Mollie looked round at the little group and thought how easy it was to be good when one had nice things to do and plenty of time and room to do them in. âWhere is Miss Hilton?â she asked, âand where is Laddie? And why arenât you at school this time? How do you ever learn enough to pass your exams?â
âMiss Hilton is housekeeper while Mamma is away,â Prudence answered, âand she hasnât much time for lessons. Laddie is dead. He was poisoned. We couldnât bear to have another dog. Papa doesnât like exams. He likes us to be out all the time and not to stoop over books. He says we can âfind tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everythingâ.â
Mollie gave a little jump. The very words Aunt Mary had quoted that morning! There was certainly something queer somewhere!
âWhat a jolly kind of father to have,â Dick exclaimed. âI wish my good parent held these views. His are quite otherwise. He believes in any amount of stooping over books, though I am always pointing out to him that it isnât the chaps who swot over books that turn into Generals and things in the end.â
âWhen Mamma comes home Grizzel and I are going to school.â Prudence said regretfully. âI know we shall hate it, but I suppose we must learn grammar and geography some time.â She sighed at the distressing prospect before her.
Mollie smiled as she wondered what school would make of Grizzel. She looked at Hugh, absorbed in some great new idea. What would he be like in forty years. In Chauncery Time he must now be fifty-four. Were there then two Hughs? And if two, why not twenty? Or hundreds, for that matter, like the films of a cinematograph. Perhaps everyone had a sort of film-picture running off all the time, and some day, before those million years had passed, a way would be found to develop them. It would not be much more wonderful than wireless and flying and all those things that looked impossible to people in this Time. Mollie began to think of London, and of home in North Kensington, and then felt a sudden longing for her mother and Jean and the little onesâfor all the familiar ways of home and school. This place was lovely, and the children were perfect dears, but it would be nice to feel a hockey-stick in her hand againâand she should like to see her own comfortable mother. In fact, she felt homesick!
âA balloon is all very well,â Hugh said, âso far as it goes.â He rolled round on to his back, clasping his hands under his head and staring up at the white clouds over which he had flown yesterday. âBut it doesnât go far enough. It will never be much use until we learn to steer. You have to go whichever way the wind chooses, which may be exactly the way you donât want to go. I canât see myself how one could ever steer without machinery, and to carry that weight youâd have to have a balloon the size of a mountain.â
âThereâs wings,â said Prudence, âlike Hiram Brown.â
âWhatâs the good of wings that let you drop the moment you try to fly with them. Hiram Brown is as dead as a door nail with his wings. No, wings fastened on that way will never work. Our internal machinery isnât made like birdsâ.â As he spoke a parrot flew overhead, its brilliant wings flashing in the sunlight and then becoming apparently motionless as it swooped down towards the house. Hughâs eyes followed it intently, and presently he rolled over again and resumed his study of the steam-engine.
âWings,â he murmured, âafter all wings are the right things to fly with. Why not make the whole thing, body and all.â He frowned hard as he concentrated his whole attention upon the toy before him. âWingsâand steamâa boilerââ
The boys and Mollie watched him curiously. This was the Thought that came before the Thing, Mollie thought, remembering her conversation with Aunt Mary. It was rather like a game of hide-and-seek. Hugh was getting warmâhow near would he get? They tried to catch the disjointed words that fell from his lips at intervals. âWings,â he muttered again, âand a place for the flierâwhy not a carâaâaâa box like an engine-driverâs, with handles for controllingââ
In the minds of the English children, now listening breathlessly, there arose a vividly distinct image of an aeroplane, darkly silhouetted against a pale English sky. How many they had seen!
Hughâs mutterings ceased. It seemed to Mollie that the world had grown very still. She fancied that she could almost hear the blossoms dropping on the grass; there was a faint stir of leaves as a stray breeze came wandering by, and another sound mingled with that stirâa far-away humâhumâgrowing louder every moment!
The English children looked at each other. Was this one of Grizzelâs miracles? Their eyes turned to the skyâyes, there it came! It winged its way like a mighty bird, singing its strange rough song. Prue dropped her work and stood up, Grizzel let fall her pencil and clung to Prue, Hugh leapt to his feet and ran down the steps, his face upturned to the clouds.
âOh, what is it?â he cried. âWhat is it? Who are you?â
The aeroplane swooped down as the bird had done, till it was straight overhead, then, with a lovely curve, it skimmed away, the great wings outstretched as the birdâs had been, away into the distant blue!
Hugh held out his arms. âDonât goâoh, donât go!â he cried. âCome back, come back!â
But it had gone.
The English children looked at each other again, and from each other to Hugh.
âWe brought it,â whispered Jerry, âit was a Time-traveller.â
Mollie turned to the Australians. The sunlight fell on Hughâs pale face, on Grizzelâs ruddy curls; there was a faint smile on Prueâs lips.
âOh, we have brought our Time too near,â she exclaimed. âIt is goodbye! No, no, Prue! Ohâ_this_ time it is goodbye!â
*
âNo, noâI donât want to wake up yet! It is too soon! I havenât said goodbye. Not yet, Aunt Mary!â
âItâs not âgoodbyeâ, my Mollie, itâs âhow dâye do?â youâve got to say! You have been dreaming too hard, child.â
Mollie sat up and rubbed her eyes in bewilderment, for it was not Aunt Mary at all, but Mother, standing there and smiling.
âNo, itâs not my ghost,â she laughed, when Mollie had released her stranglehold. âI came down partly to see how my daughterling was getting along, and partly to ask Grannie and Aunt Mary if they would like two more troublesome, non-paying guests. Would it bore you unutterably to have to entertain your twin and Jerry Outram for a fortnight?â
âOh, Mother! Not really! How perfectly lovely! Why?â
âMeasles at school; so they are closing a month early, and it would be such a boon to Mrs. Outram and me if the boys could be quarantined away from home. Aunt Mary says she would like to have them, strange woman, and Grannie is already planning a course of Mannersâthe beautiful capital-M Manners of her young days.â
Mollie laughed as she gave her mother a comfortable unmannerly hug. âYou are all frauds,â she said. âDonât talk to me of your young days. I guess they werenât one pin better than ours. I hope Dick and Jerry are coming soon.â
âTomorrow. Now, Iâll have some tea, and then a little talk, and then I must be off again. I stole Fatherâs car, as he has gone down to Bournemouth. So thereâs no time to waste. What beautiful strawberries!â
âThey are ready just in time for the boys,â said Grannie benignly.
Dick and Jerry arrived on the following morning in rampageous spirits. To get away from hot and dusty London to the cool, green country, from the discipline and restrictions of school to the benevolent and generous rule of Grannieâs household, from plain bread-and-butter, stews, and solid puddings, to Marthaâs delicious scones and unlimited strawberries and creamâwas enough to make any thirteen-year-old schoolboy radiantly cheerful. There was plenty to do at Chauncery, too; a first-class tennis-court and an aunt who played for her county; excellent golf and the same aunt nearly as good at golf as she was at tennis; a pony to be ridden or driven, several dogs and a new litter of puppies, and last but not least, Mollie, and the mystery of the Time-travellers to be talked over.
âHere we are, Grannie,â Dick exclaimed superfluously, running up the front steps to where Grannie stood with a smile of welcome on her beaming face. âAnd jolly glad to be here, you bet your best Sunday bonnet. London is like a bakerâs oven. You look very fit, Grannie, and Jerry says Aunt Mary is too young to be my aunt; I believe he is spoons on her alreadyâwhat ho! my Uncle Jerry! Come and be introduced.â Dick gave Jerryâs arm a tug, and Young Outram shook hands with a smile that won Grannieâs heart at once.
Mollie had limped out of the morning-room with the help of a stout crook-handled stick. Dick gave her a brotherly peck,
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