Chapter IX: Part III: 50. The Doings at Home 139 (7)

Vanderdecken set to work and made a neat swinging bridge, light but strong, across the deep river, and King Kul made a visit to the Snergs and spent two days at Watkyns Bay. He distributed the prizes at the term end, and made one of those speeches about even little children having their responsibilities. Invitations had been sent to Joe and Sylvia and six other children to attend the wedding of Sir Giles and Lady Ermyntrude, but Miss Watkyns thanked His Majesty deeply and said she thought it inadvisable for them to go, as tending to unsettle their minds. She sent a wedding-present of a dainty tortoise-shell toilet and manicure-set, and the bride wrote to her on a piece of parchment that she considered it the most charming of all her presents. It was really good; it had been bought in Bond Street, at an expensive shop. Baldry overdid it at last at the wedding and got seven days. He had buttered the steps of the palace hall.

Gorbo is passing the time quite nicely, occasionally doing a job of work but more often resting. Gubbins, the black cat, sticks close to him and travels with him everywhere. It has great ability for catching game, such as birds and young rabbits and the like, and has learned to retrieve quite well, so Gorbo has his hunting cat like the Egyptian kings of old. He goes now and then to visit at Banrive and see what new trouble Baldry has got into, and to pay his respects to the King. He never fails to say, “Oh, this corn of mine!” and pulls off one boot.

The door in the region of twisted trees and the one on the other side were built up with masonry. It was agreed that though Gorbo and the children found enormous supplies of mushrooms in the cavern, there was a nasty flavour of magic about the place and it was as well to leave it alone. I never heard what happened in the dark woods after Mother Meldrum had gone and the bats and other grisly things had it all to themselves, because no one, I believe, ever went there, which shows sense.

The knight Sir Percival gave up chivalrous doings on the day that he had the adventure at the castle. He did not slacken his anxious pace until he was back at his own little moated grange, and there he hung his armour and lance over the fireplace in the hall and decided to live quietly, and if he could not get a wife except by fighting for her, to go without. He went in for breeding a superior kind of pig and did rather well at it, taking several prizes.

Vanderdecken and his men make special efforts every now and then to clean up the old ship for her voyage home; but there is so much to do, what with weeds and barnacles and the gear having to be rove afresh and so forth, that they generally get tired of it after a short spell and say to the effect that it is no good overworking and it would be best to go for a day or two’s hunting with the Snergs. It is my belief that they never will go away. And there is no particular reason why they should; things are very well as they are.

There is little more to tell now. It is possible that Joe and Sylvia may be sent to England if suitable new parents can be found for them, this being the usual thing after some years with the Society (but not of course years in the ordinary way), but I don’t know if anything definite has been done in the matter. It is my opinion that Miss Watkyns will not let them go for a long time because they certainly keep the place lively. She tried to make them have a sense of responsibility by giving them charge of a new arrival, a little girl who was very thin and weepy, but the result was she became a riotous handful and broke a window for fun.

Tiger is doing well, though he had a touch of distemper last August. But nothing serious.

Lack of space prevents me from going into details of costs, etc., of the S.R.S.C., which is to be regretted as I am sure they would prove of absorbing interest to my more serious readers. I will therefore merely state that the Society is flourishing and on a sound financial basis, and that Miss Watkyns and the other ladies have an immense amount of work to do, which keeps them fit, sundry improvements of buildings and extensions having been put in hand at Watkyns Bay. The children go on happily year after year, slowly increasing in numbers as fresh cases arrive, and they splash about in the sea and play their various games and roam the woods and fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN BY
THE EDINBURGH PRESS, 9 AND 11 YOUNG STREET, EDINBURGH

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES

- Clear typos and wrong punctuation were corrected.

- In the chapter “_Dinner with a Witch_” there is a passage that’s
says “There’s about ten thousand of the real ones to one of the
others.” Based on context, the intention may have been “There’s about
ten thousand of the spurious ones to one of the others.” but the
original has been retained.

- This book has several illustrations, some in the middle of
paragraphs. To improve readability, these have been moved to either
before or after the paragraph they occur.