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it out of a tin cup, for nothing else would convince him. "But I smell brandy still," he said, wiping his mouth after the sea-water.
Our Viking slowly drew a good-sized flat labelled bottle out of the front of his jersey.
"From the 'Old Ship,'" he said gently. "I may have spilt a drop or two here or there over the keg, my hand not being very steady, as is well known, owing to spells of marsh fever as comes over me every six weeks to the day."
The coastguard that we never could bear said, "Marsh fever be something or othered," and his comrades said the same. But they all blamed him, and we were glad.
We went home sleepy, but rejoicing. The whole thing was as complete a sell as ever I wish to see.
Of course we told our own dear and respected Lymchurch coastguards, and I think they may be trusted not to let it down on the Longbeach coastguards for many a good day. If their memories get bad I think there will always be plenty of people along that coast to remind them!
So that's all right.
When we had told the girls all, and borne their reproaches for not telling them before, we decided to give the Viking five bob for the game way he had played up.
So we did. He would not take it at first, but when we said, "Do—you might buy a pig with it, and call it Stokes after that coastguard," he could no longer resist, and accepted our friendly gift.
We talked with him for a bit, and when we were going we thanked him for being so jolly, and helping us to plant out the repulsive coastguard so thoroughly.
Then he said, "Don't mention it. Did you tell your little gells what you was up to?"
"No," said Oswald, "not till afterwards."
"Then you can hold your tongues. Well, since you've acted so handsome about that there pig, what's to be named for Stokes, I don't mind if I tells you something. Only mum's the word."
We said we were quite sure it was.
"Well, then," said he, leaning over the pig-stye wall, and rubbing the spotted pig's back with his stick. "It's an ill wind that blows no good to nobody. You see, that night there was a little bird went an' whispered to 'em up at Longbeach about our little bit of a keg. So when we landed they was there."
"Of course," said Oswald.
"Well, if they was there they couldn't be somewheres else, could they?"
We owned they could not.
"I shouldn't wonder," he went on, "but what a bit of a cargo was run that night further up the beach: something as wasn't sea-water. I don't say it was so, mind—and mind you don't go for to say it."
Then we understood that there is a little smuggling done still, and that we had helped in it, though quite without knowing.
We were jolly glad. Afterwards, when we had had that talk with Father, when he told us that the laws are made by the English people, and it is dishonourable for an Englishman not to stick to them, we saw that smuggling must be wrong.
But we have never been able to feel really sorry. I do not know why this is.
Zaïda, the Mysterious Prophetess of the Golden Orient
This is the story of how we were gipsies and wandering minstrels. And, like everything else we did about that time, it was done to make money for Miss Sandal, whose poorness kept on, making our kind hearts ache.
It is rather difficult to get up any good game in a house like Miss Sandal's, where there is nothing lying about, except your own things, and where everything is so neat and necessary. Your own clothes are seldom interesting, and even if you change hats with your sisters it is not a complete disguise.
The idea of being gipsies was due to Alice. She had not at all liked being entirely out of the smuggling affray, though Oswald explained to her that it was her own fault for having been born a girl. And, of course, after the event, Dicky and I had some things to talk about that the girls hadn't, and we had a couple of wet days.
You have no idea how dull you can be in a house like that, unless you happen to know the sort of house I mean. A house that is meant for plain living and high thinking, like Miss Sandal told us, may be very nice for the high thinkers, but if you are not accustomed to thinking high there is only the plain living left, and it is like boiled rice for every meal to any young mind, however much beef and Yorkshire there may be for the young insides. Mrs. Beale saw to our having plenty of nice things to eat, but, alas! it is not always dinner-time, and in between meals the cold rice-pudding feeling is very chilling. Of course we had the splendid drawings of winged things made by our Flying Lodger, but you cannot look at pictures all day long, however many coloured chalks they are drawn with, and however fond you may be of them.
Miss Sandal's was the kind of house that makes you wander all round it and say, "What shall we do next?" And when it rains the little ones get cross.
It was the second wet day when we were wandering round the house to the sad music of our boots on the clean, bare boards that Alice said—
"Mrs. Beale has got a book at her house called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' You might ask her to let you go and get it, Oswald. She likes you best."
Oswald is as modest as any one I know, but the truth is the truth.
"We could tell our fortunes, and read the dark future," Alice went on. "It would be better than high thinking without anything particular to think about."
So Oswald went down to Mrs. Beale and said—
"I say, Bealie dear, you've got a book up at your place. I wish you'd lend it to us to read."
"If it's the Holy Book you mean, sir," replied Mrs. Beale, going on with peeling the potatoes that were to be a radiant vision later on, all brown and crisp in company with a leg of mutton—"if it's the Holy Book you want there's one up on Miss Sandal's chest of drawerses."
"I know," said Oswald. He knew every book in the house. The backs of them were beautiful—leather and gold—but inside they were like whited sepulchres, full of poetry and improving reading. "No—we didn't want that book just now. It is a book called 'Napoleon's book of Fate.' Would you mind if I ran up to your place and got it?"
"There's no one at home," said Mrs. Beale; "wait a bit till I go along to the bakus with the meat, and I'll fetch it along."
"You might let me go," said Oswald, whose high spirit is always ill-attuned to waiting a bit. "I wouldn't touch anything else, and I know where you keep the key."
"There's precious little as ye don't know, it seems to me," said Mrs. Beale. "There, run along do. It's on top of the mantelshelf alongside the picture tea-tin. It's a red book. Don't go taking the 'Wesleyan Conference Reports' by mistake, the two is both together on the mantel."
Oswald in his macker splashed through the mud to Mrs. Beale's, found the key under the loose tile behind the water-butt, and got the book without adventure. He had promised not to touch anything else, so he could not make even the gentlest booby-trap as a little surprise for Mrs. Beale when she got back.
And most of that day we were telling our fortunes by the ingenious means invented by the great Emperor, or by cards, which it is hard to remember the rules for, or by our dreams. The only blights were that the others all wanted to have the book all the time, and that Noël's dreams were so long and mixed that we got tired of hearing about them before he did. But he said he was quite sure he had dreamed every single