Oswald did look out—of course, he would not wish to walk on any one's bones. But he did not jump back with a scream, whatever Noël may say when he is in a temper.
The heap really did look very like bones, partly covered with earth. Oswald was glad to learn that they were only parsnips.
"We waited as long as we could," said Alice, "but we thought perhaps you'd been collared for some little thing you'd forgotten all about doing, and wouldn't be able to come back, but we found Noël had, fortunately, got your matches. I'm so glad you weren't collared, Oswald dear."
Some boys would have let Noël know about the matches, but Oswald didn't. The heaps of carrots and turnips and parsnips and things were not very interesting when you knew that they were not bleeding warriors' or pilgrims' bones, and it was too cold to pretend for long with any comfort to the young Pretenders. So Oswald said—
"Let's go out on the Heath and play something warm. You can't warm yourself with matches, even if they're not your own."
That was all he said. A great hero would not stoop to argue about matches.
And Alice said, "All right," and she and Oswald went out and played pretending golf with some walking-sticks of Father's. But Noël and H.O. preferred to sit stuffily over the common-room fire. So that Oswald and Alice, as well as Dora and Dicky, who were being measured for boots, were entirely out of the rest of what happened, and the author can only imagine the events that now occurred.
When Noël and H.O. had roasted their legs by the fire till they were so hot that their stockings quite hurt them, one of them must have said to the other—I never knew which:
"Let's go and have another look at that cellar."
The other—whoever it was—foolishly consented. So they went, and they took Oswald's dark-lantern in his absence and without his leave.