第65章 CHAPTER 12(5)

Then the lady showed us the Danejohn, and it was like an oast-house. And Canterbury walls that Alphege defied the Danes from looked down on a quite common farmyard. The hospital was like a barn, and other things were like other things, but we went all about and enjoyed it very much. The lady was quite amusing, besides sometimes talking like a real cathedral guide I met afterwards. (See Note B.) When at last we said we thought Canterbury was very small considering, the lady said--'Well, it seemed a pity to come so far and not at least hear something about Canterbury.'

And then at once we knew the worst, and Alice said--'What a horrid sell!' But Oswald, with immediate courteousness, said--'I don't care. You did it awfully well.' And he did not say, though he owns he thought of it--'I knew it all the time,' though it was a great temptation.

Because really it was more than half true. He had felt from the first that this was too small for Canterbury. (See Note C.)

The real name of the place was Hazelbridge, and not Canterbury at all. We went to Canterbury another time. (See Note D.)

We were not angry with the lady for selling us about it being Canterbury, because she had really kept it up first-rate. And she asked us if we minded, very handsomely, and we said we liked it.

But now we did not care how soon we got home. The lady saw this, and said--'Come, our chariots are ready, and our horses caparisoned.'

That is a first-rate word out of a book. It cheered Oswald up, and he liked her for using it, though he wondered why she said chariots. When we got back to the inn I saw her dogcart was there, and a grocer's cart too, with B. Munn, grocer, Hazelbridge, on it.

She took the girls in her cart, and the boys went with the grocer.

His horse was a very good one to go, only you had to hit it with the wrong end of the whip. But the cart was very bumpety.

The evening dews were falling--at least, I suppose so, but you do not feel dew in a grocer's cart--when we reached home. We all thanked the lady very much, and said we hoped we should see her again some day. She said she hoped so.

The grocer drove off, and when we had all shaken hands with the lady and kissed her, according as we were boys or girls, or little boys, she touched up her horse and drove away.

She turned at the corner to wave to us, and just as we had done waving, and were turning into the house, Albert's uncle came into our midst like a whirling wind. He was in flannels, and his shirt had no stud in at the neck, and his hair was all rumpled up and his hands were inky, and we knew he had left off in the middle of a chapter by the wildness of his eye.

'Who was that lady?' he said. 'Where did you meet her?'

Mindful, as ever, of what he was told, Oswald began to tell the story from the beginning.

'The other day, protector of the poor,' he began; 'Dora and I were reading about the Canterbury pilgrims ...'

Oswald thought Albert's uncle would be pleased to find his instructions about beginning at the beginning had borne fruit, but instead he interrupted.

'Stow it, you young duffer! Where did you meet her?'

Oswald answered briefly, in wounded accents, 'Hazelbridge.'

Then Albert's uncle rushed upstairs three at a time, and as he went he called out to Oswald--'Get out my bike, old man, and blow up the back tyre.'