Part 2 (1/2)

This was only an excuse, of course, to have the chair turned round with its back to us.

Then I would walk up to it, and with my forefinger raised chidingly--

”You are a naughty old chair,” I would say; ”you cannot be at rest five minutes at a time, and I am afraid you are showing your brother a bad example. Go into the corner, sir, until I tell you to come out.”

”Now then,” I would continue, mimicking the fishermen we listened to hoisting their yawls from the beach and surf. ”Now then, Jill, lend a hand here, and look lively, lad. Tackle on to her. Merrily matches it.

Together. Heave with a will. Up with her. Round she goes, and up she is, and we go rolling home. Hurrah!”

When we got the chair fairly round with its back to us we felt at peace to do as we liked. We could stand on our heads till our faces got blue and our eyes felt ready to burst; I could make a go-cart of Jill, and haul him all round the room with the skipping-rope; he could make a s.h.i.+p's mast of me, and squirm up and stand on my shoulders to give three cheers for the Queen and the Royal Navy; we could build a tower with the chairs, and in fact do anything or everything except spill the ink.

When we did that it cast a damp gloom over our spirits just as it spread an inky pall over a portion of the table-cloth.

My father was our friend and playmate whenever he came home. This was not oftener than twice or thrice a week, for he was doing duty with his regiment at the somewhat distant naval and military port of P--. He would fain have come oftener, but dared not offend so kindly a superior officer as Colonel McReady.

Now auntie did not actually complain to father, but she used to mention some of the maddest of our escapades, and with Jill climbing over the back of his chair, and I, perhaps, standing bolt upright on his knees, balanced by his hands, father would say--

”You young rascals, what did you do it for? Eh?”

And this made us laugh like mad things, for we knew father was not angry.

”Ah, well, auntie dear,” he would say, ”boys will be boys.”

”True,” she would reply; ”but boys needn't be monkeys, need they, Harold?”

”And really, Harold,” she would add, ”the boys would be so different if you were to show just a little more parental authority.”

This always made dear daddie laugh. I don't know why. The ”parental authority” somehow tickled him, for, as mother used to say, he looked more a boy himself than a wise old parent.

But father loved auntie as much as any of us did, and looked up to her too. As she was his sister-in-law he needn't have done that, only she was ever so much older, and, as father would add, ”wiser as well.”

Here is one proof that she had a deal of power over him:

Father did not hate his uniform; no real soldier does, although I have heard some say they did; but he did not see the fun, as he called it, of wearing it when off duty. He was off duty going to church on Sundays, but he went in uniform, nevertheless. Why? Because auntie like to see him dressed so.

Mother did not always go to church, because she was delicate; but father and auntie and we boys invariably did.

Let me think a moment. How old would we have been then? Oh, about nine. Dressed exactly alike--black jackets alike, broad white collars alike, tall silk hats alike--the hats were auntie's notion of the severely genteel--and little rattan canes alike.

Faces and eyes and hair all alike. So much alike were we, indeed, on a Sunday morning, that if any one, except mamma and auntie, who I daresay had their own private marks, called us by our correct names, it was just guesswork or merely chance.

Father made no attempt at distinguis.h.i.+ng us on Sundays and holidays.

If, for example, he had given Jill a penny with a view to lollipops, and I came round soon after, he would say:

”Let me see, now--I gave you a penny before, didn't I?”

Or he would quiz me, and say, ”Are you Jack, or are you Jill?”

It will be observed that father had taken to call us Jack and Jill, though auntie rather objected.

But hardly any one else knew us apart even on week-days; even Sally was puzzled, and Robert never made any attempt at nomenclature.