The Happy Adventurers | Page 8

with vineyards, some wooded, and some
brilliantly yellow, for the dandelions seemed to be spread over the
country like a carpet. Mollie shook a wise head at such waste of good
land, for of what use are dandelions! In the far distance she could see a
straight white road leading from the town into the hills. She thought she
would like to follow that road and see what happened to it in the end. "I
had not the least idea," she murmured to herself, "that Adelaide and
Australia were like this; not the very least. There must be a great deal
of world outside England, when you come to think of it. When I am
grown-up--"
"Come down, Mollie," called Prue. "The house is beautiful now; come
and see it."
It certainly looked very snug, with the carpet, whose shabbiness was
not noticeable in the dim light, and the gaily striped curtains, which had
been tacked up and fastened back from the windows. They had added a
set of shelves made out of a box covered with American leather and
brass-headed nails. A few books lay upon one shelf, and on another
stood a collection of cups, saucers, and plates, cracked, perhaps, and
not all matching, but suggestive of convivial parties and good cheer. In
one corner lay a cushion embroidered in woolwork with magenta roses,
pea-green leaves, and orange-coloured daisies, all upon a background

of ultramarine blue. Mollie thought it gave an effective touch to the
somewhat scanty furnishing--in fact, it was the only furniture there was,
except the shelves.
"How perfectly _ripping_!" Mollie exclaimed enthusiastically. "If I had
this house I would live in it all the time. It is much nicer than a
common house in a road. I do think Hugh is the cleverest boy I ever
met."
"This is nothing much," Hugh said modestly, "you should see my
raft--that is worth seeing. I have invented a way of arranging corks so
that it will float in the severest storm. It could not sink if it tried, unless,
of course, it became waterlogged. But I can only work at that when we
are down at Brighton."
"I wish my brother Dick could be a Time-traveller and come here,"
sighed Mollie. "He would adore this tree, and the raft too."
"How old is Dick?" Hugh asked with interest.
"He is my twin; we are thirteen and a half," answered Mollie, quite
forgetting that in the year 1878 Dick was still minus twenty-nine. "We
do everything together in the holidays except football, and just now
there isn't any football, so Dick is rather bored at school. In term-time
we hardly see each other at all, we are both so horribly busy. How do
you find time to do all these things?"
"I don't find it, I steal it," Hugh answered. "If I waited to find time I
should never have enough to be useful. To-day is a half- holiday, and I
am supposed to be learning Roman history and writing out five
hundred lines. But I'm not," he added unnecessarily.
"Building is much more important than Roman history," said Mollie
decidedly, "and lines are absolutely rotten. I wonder why--"
"Hullo!" came a voice from below. "It's me. I have finished my chain at
last, and now I want to come up. Please come and hold the ladder,
Prue."

Prudence crept out, tripped lightly down the ladder, and stood beside
her sister.
"Hold tight, Grizzel, and do remember to push and not pull; if you pull
I can't hold the ladder up."
"I wish Hugh would cut steps in the tree-trunk like the blacks," Grizzel
complained, as she proceeded rather nervously to climb the ladder. "I
do hate this old tobbely old green old thing."
"I am going to make a rope-ladder and pull it up after me," Hugh said,
watching her from the door of his castle in the air. "I don't want steps
that everybody could climb. Look out, Griz, you are pulling--" he
stretched out a hand as he spoke, and held the top of the ladder, while
Prudence steadied it at the bottom, until Grizzel had safely negotiated
"the green passage", as Hugh called it, and crawled in at his little front
door.
"It is very, very, very, very nice," she said approvingly, "and it will
make a lovely place to come and hate in when everybody is horrid. You
can draw the curtains and shut the door, and light your lantern and sit
here hating as long as you like, for no one can get up when you have
your rope-ladder."
"It would be rather stuffy," Mollie said, looking at the thick blanket
curtains. "If he went on hating very long he would be suffocated. I'd
sooner have a tea-party myself, and pull all the tea