Oswald Bastable and Others

Presently he stopped crying, and let his little sister in. She had been crying, too, outside the door, ever since he came home and pushed past her on the stairs. She pitied his bruised face, and said it was a shame of Billson Minor to hit a boy littler than he was.

'I'm not so very little,' said Hildebrand; 'and you know how brave I am. Why, it was only last week that I was the chief of the mighty tribe of Moccasins, who waged war against Bill Billson, the Vulture-faced Redskin – '

He told the story to its gory end, and Ethel liked it very much, and hoped it wasn't wrong to make up such things. She couldn't quite believe it all.

Then she went down, and Hildebrand had to wash his face for dinner; and when he looked at the boy in the looking-glass and saw the black eye Billson Minor had given him, and the cut lip from the same giver, he clenched his fist and said:

'I wish I could make things true by saying them. Wouldn't I bung up old Billson's peepers, that's all?'

'Well, you can if you like,' said the boy in the glass, whom Hildebrand had thought was his own reflection.

'What?' said he, with his mouth open. He was horribly startled.

'You can if you like,' said the looking-glass boy again. 'I'll give you your wish. Will you have it?'

'Is this a fairy-tale?' asked Hildebrand cautiously.

'Yes,' said the boy.

Hildebrand had never expected to be allowed to take part in a fairy-tale, and at first he could hardly believe in such luck.

'Do you mean to say,' he said, 'that if I say I found a pot of gold in the garden yesterday I did find a pot of gold?'

'No; you'll find it to-morrow. The thing works backwards, you see, like all looking-glass things. You know your "Alice," I suppose? There's only one condition: you won't be able to see yourself in the looking-glass any more!'

'Who wants to,' said Hildebrand.

'And things you say to yourself don't count.'

'There's always Ethel,' said Ethel's brother.

'You accept, then?' said the boy in the glass.

'Rather!'

'Right' And with that the looking-glass boy vanished, and Hildebrand was left staring at the mirror, which now reflected only the wash-hand-stand and the chest of drawers, and part of the picture of Lord Roberts pinned against the wall. You have no idea how odd and unpleasant it is to look at a glass and see everything reflected as usual, except yourself, though you are right in front of it. Hildebrand felt as if he must have vanished as well as the looking-glass boy. But he was reassured when he looked down at his hands. They were still there, and still extremely dirty. The second bell had rung, and he washed them hastily and went down.

'How untidy your hair is!' said his mother; 'and oh, Hildebrand, what a disagreeable expression, dear! and look at your eye! You've been fighting again.'

'I couldn't help it,' said our hero sulkily; 'he called names. Anyway, I gave him an awful licking. He's worse than I am. Potatoes, please.'

Next day Hildebrand had forgotten the words he had said at dinner. And when Billson asked him if one licking was enough, and whether he, Billson, was a liar or not, Hildebrand said:

'You can lick me and make me anything you like, but you are, all the same, just as much as me,' and he began to cry.

And Billson called him schoolgirl and slapped his face – because Billson knew nothing of the promise of the looking-glass boy, that whatever Hildebrand said had happened should happen.

It was a dreadful fight, and when it was over Hildebrand could hardly walk home. He was much more hurt than he had been the day before. But Billson Minor had to be carried home. Only he was all right again next day, and Hildebrand wasn't, so he did not get much out of this affair, except glory, and the comfort of knowing that Billson and the other boys would now be jolly careful how they called him anything but Pilkings, which was his father's and his mother's name, and therefore his as well.

He had to stay in bed the next day, and his father punished him for fighting, so he consoled himself by telling Ethel how he had found a pot of gold in the cellar the day before, after digging in the hard earth for hours, till his hands were all bleeding, and how he had hidden it under his bed.

'Do let me see, Hildy dear,' she said, trying hard to believe him.

But he said, 'No, not till to-morrow.'

Next day he was well enough to go to school, but he thought he would just take some candle-ends and have a look at the cellar, and see if it was really likely that there was any gold there. It did not seem probable, but he thought he would try, and he did. It was terribly hard work, for he had no tools but a spade he had had at the seaside, and when that broke, as it did almost at once, he had to go on with a piece of hoop-iron and the foot of an old bedstead. He went on till long past dinner-time, and his hands were torn and bleeding, his back felt broken in two, and his head was spinning with hunger and tiredness. At last, just as the tea-bell rang, he reached his hand down deep into the hole he had made, and felt something cold and round. He held his candle down. It was a pot, tied over with brown paper, like pickled onions. When he got it out he took off the paper. The pot was filled to the brim with gold coins. Hildebrand blew out his candle and went up. The cook stopped him at the top of the cellar stairs.

'What's that you got there, Master Hildy? Pickles, I lay my boots,' she said.

'It's not,' said he.

'Let me look,' said she.

'Let me alone,' said Hildebrand.

'Not me,' said the cook.

She had her hand on the brown paper.

Hildebrand had heard how treasure-trove has to be given up to Government, and he did not trust the cook.

'You'd better not,' he said quickly; 'it's not what you think it is.'

'What is it, then?'

'It's – it's snakes!' said Hildebrand desperately – 'snakes out of the wine-cellar.'

The cook went into hysterics, and Hildebrand was punished twice, once for staying away from school without leave, and once for frightening the servants with silly stories. But in the confusion brought about by the cook's screams he managed to hide the pot of gold in the bottom of the boot cupboard, among the old gaiters and goloshes, and when peace was restored and he was sent to bed in disgrace he took the pot with him. He lay long awake thinking of the model engine he would buy for himself, also of the bay pony, the collections of coins, birds' eggs, and postage-stamps, the fishing-rods, the guns, revolvers, and bows and arrows, the sweets and cakes and nuts, he would get all for himself. He never thought of so much as a pennyworth of toffee for Ethel, or a silver thimble for his mother, or a twopenny cigar for Mr. Pilkings.

The first thing in the morning he jumped up and felt under the bed for the pot of gold. His hand touched something that was not the pot. He screamed, and drew his hand back as quickly as though he had burned it; but what he had touched was not hot: it was cold, and thin, and alive. It was a snake. And there was another on his bed, and another on the dressing-table, and half a dozen more were gliding about inquisitively on the floor.

Hildebrand gathered his clothes together – a snake tumbled out of his shirt as he lifted it – and made one bound for the door. He dressed on the landing, and went to school without breakfast. I am glad to be able to tell you that he did say to Sarah the housemaid:

'For goodness' sake don't go into my bedroom – it's running alive with snakes!'

She did not believe him, of course; and, indeed, when she went up the snakes were safe back in the pot. She did not see this, because she was not the kind of girl who sweeps under things every day. That night Hildebrand secretly slept in the boxroom, on a pile of newspapers, with a rag-bag and a hearthrug over him.

Next day he said to Sarah:

'Did you go into my room yesterday?'

'Of course,' said she.

'Did you take the snakes away?'

'Go along with your snakes!' she said.

So he understood that she had not seen any, and very cautiously he looked into his room, and finding it snakeless, crept in, hoping that the snakes had changed back into gold. But they had not – snakes and gold and pot had all vanished. Then he thought he would be very careful. He said to Ethel: