Sweethearts at Home

by S. R. Crockett

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.