The boys and Mollie watched him curiously. This was the Thought that came before the Thing, Mollie thought, remembering her conversation with Aunt Mary. It was rather like a game of hide-and-seek. Hugh was getting warm--how near would he get? They tried to catch the disjointed words that fell from his lips at intervals. "Wings," he muttered again, "and a place for the flier--why not a car--a--a--a box like an engine-driver's, with handles for controlling--"

In the minds of the English children, now listening breathlessly, there arose a vividly distinct image of an aeroplane, darkly silhouetted against a pale English sky. How many they had seen!

Hugh's mutterings ceased. It seemed to Mollie that the world had grown very still. She fancied that she could almost hear the blossoms dropping on the gra.s.s; there was a faint stir of leaves as a stray breeze came wandering by, and another sound mingled with that stir--a far-away hum--hum--growing louder every moment!

The English children looked at each other. Was this one of Grizzel's miracles? Their eyes turned to the sky--yes, there it came! It winged its way like a mighty bird, singing its strange rough song.

Prue dropped her work and stood up, Grizzel let fall her pencil and clung to Prue, Hugh leapt to his feet and ran down the steps, his face upturned to the clouds.

"Oh, what is it?" he cried. "What is it? Who are you?"

The aeroplane swooped down as the bird had done, till it was straight overhead, then, with a lovely curve, it skimmed away, the great wings outstretched as the bird's had been, away into the distant blue!

Hugh held out his arms. "Don't go--oh, don't go!" he cried. "Come back, come back!"

But it had gone.

The English children looked at each other again, and from each other to Hugh.

"_We_ brought it," whispered Jerry, "it was a Time-traveller."

Mollie turned to the Australians. The sunlight fell on Hugh's pale face, on Grizzel's ruddy curls; there was a faint smile on Prue's lips.

"Oh, we have brought our Time too near," she exclaimed. "It is good- bye! No, no, Prue! Oh--_this_ time it is good-bye!"

"No, no--I don't want to wake up yet! It is too soon! I haven't said good-bye. Not yet, Aunt Mary!"

"It's not 'good-bye', my Mollie, it's 'how d'ye do?' you've got to say! You have been dreaming too hard, child."

Mollie sat up and rubbed her eyes in bewilderment, for it was not Aunt Mary at all, but Mother, standing there and smiling.

"No, it's not my ghost," she laughed, when Mollie had released her stranglehold. "I came down partly to see how my daughterling was getting along, and partly to ask Grannie and Aunt Mary if they would like two more troublesome, non-paying guests. Would it bore you unutterably to have to entertain your twin and Jerry Outram for a fortnight?"

"Oh, Mother! Not really! How perfectly lovely! Why?"

"Measles at school; so they are closing a month early, and it would be _such_ a boon to Mrs. Outram and me if the boys could be quarantined away from home. Aunt Mary says she would _like_ to have them, strange woman, and Grannie is already planning a course of Manners--the beautiful capital-M Manners of her young days."

Mollie laughed as she gave her mother a comfortable unmannerly hug.

"You are all frauds," she said. "Don't talk to me of your young days. I guess they weren't one pin better than ours. I hope d.i.c.k and Jerry are coming soon."

"To-morrow. Now, I'll have some tea, and then a little talk, and then I must be off again. I stole Father's car, as he has gone down to Bournemouth. So there's no time to waste. What beautiful strawberries!"

"They are ready just in time for the boys," said Grannie benignly.

CHAPTER VIII

How it Ended

d.i.c.k and Jerry arrived on the following morning in rampageous spirits. To get away from hot and dusty London to the cool, green country, from the discipline and restrictions of school to the benevolent and generous rule of Grannie's household, from plain bread-and-b.u.t.ter, stews, and solid puddings, to Martha's delicious scones and unlimited strawberries and cream--was enough to make any thirteen-year-old schoolboy radiantly cheerful. There was plenty to do at Chauncery, too; a first-cla.s.s tennis-court and an aunt who played for her county; excellent golf and the same aunt nearly as good at golf as she was at tennis; a pony to be ridden or driven, several dogs and a new litter of puppies, and last but not least, Mollie, and the mystery of the Time-travellers to be talked over.

"Here we are, Grannie," d.i.c.k exclaimed superfluously, running up the front steps to where Grannie stood with a smile of welcome on her beaming face. "And jolly glad to be here, you bet your best Sunday bonnet. London is like a baker's oven. You look very fit, Grannie, and Jerry says Aunt Mary is too young to be my aunt; I believe he is spoons on her already--what ho! my Uncle Jerry! Come and be introduced." d.i.c.k gave Jerry's arm a tug, and Young Outram shook hands with a smile that won Grannie's heart at once.

Mollie had limped out of the morning-room with the help of a stout crook-handled stick. d.i.c.k gave her a brotherly peck, and Jerry looked at her commiseratingly. It was rather difficult to reconcile this pale, limping Mollie with the active young Time-traveller of yesterday.

"You're looking a bit like a mashed potato," d.i.c.k remarked critically. "You've been shut up in the house too much. It's time we came and hauled you out. I'll tell you what, Aunt Polly-wolly- doodle, we'll take her out for a drive in the trap this afternoon."

"We'll see," said Aunt Mary. "I am afraid you are too fresh, d.i.c.k.

You might tumble her out in the exuberance of your spirits. Besides, it is going to rain--it is drizzling already."

"Pouf!" said d.i.c.k lightly. "What's a little rain! A little soft, wet rain will do her good. And Long John seems to have been eating his fat head off; he played no end of jinks coming along just now. I'll take him round to the stables--I want to see the puppies. Hop in, Moll. We'll bring you back in a queen's chair."

But Grannie insisted upon some light refreshment first. She was sure the boys must be exhausted after their two hours' journey from town.

"And the best way to fight measles is to feed you up," she said, leading the way to the dining-room, where strawberries, cherries, biscuits, and a jug of creamy milk stood invitingly upon the table.

The boys consented to the feeding-up process without a murmur. When the plates were all empty they departed on a round of visits to the stable, tennis-court, tool-shed, and other haunts dear to the heart of boy. Aunt Mary firmly refused to allow Mollie to accompany them, even in the queen's chair they offered.

"You are tired already," she said to her niece, "and if you want to go for that drive this afternoon you must certainly rest first. Back to your sofa, Miss Mollie--away with you!"

So Mollie rested, with a book in her lap and her thoughts by turns far away and near home.

Later on she was carefully helped into the little governess-cart, with a list of messages to be done in the village, and another list of extravagant promises from the boys of the amazing benefits she was to derive from her outing with them. Long John had got over his first fine raptures, and was now willing to jog along the sweet country lanes at a steady and sober pace, suitable for the invalid he carried behind him.

"How jolly nice it does look after London," Jerry remarked, as a long branch of honeysuckle swept his cap on to the floor of the trap, where he let it lie unconcernedly. "After all--there's no place like old England. For looks, anyhow."

"Each to his choice, and I rejoice The lot has fallen to me In a fair ground--in a fair ground-- Yea, Suss.e.x by the sea,"

Mollie quoted, as they came to a standstill at the top of a long incline. In the distance they saw the sea gleaming somewhat greyly under a brief spell of sunshine. All around them the trees and hedges sparkled with raindrops, green and cool and wet.

"They look like green diamonds," said d.i.c.k, letting his cap drop beside Jerry's and allowing the reins to fall loosely on Long John's back, as the pony edged to the side of the road and began to nibble the gra.s.s. "Rather different from the gold-diggings, isn't it?"

This remark set the ball rolling. "What do you think it was?" Mollie began.

"Blessed if I know," d.i.c.k answered, with a shake of his head, "blue magic of some sort. Unless we all dreamt it."

"No, it wasn't a dream," said Jerry thoughtfully. "It was simply psychical phenomena. I've heard of things just as queer. Awfully funny things happen in India. And look at the 'phantom armies' in France."

"Rot," said d.i.c.k briefly. "_I_ think it was a kink in Mollie's brain, and she pa.s.sed it on to me. We do, sometimes. Mother says all twins do. And your silly head was as empty as usual and you psychicked it from me."

"Rot," said Jerry, with as much decision as d.i.c.k. "I saw the blooming parrot as soon as you did, if not sooner."

"It wasn't rot," Mollie said decidedly; "whatever it was it wasn't rot. _I_ think--" she paused for a moment to consider her words--"I believe it may have been just what Prue said it was. We travelled back in Time. It sounds impossible, but if you come to think of it lots of things that happen now would have sounded impossible to those children, or at any rate to Papa and Mamma. If Alice in Wonderland could have seen forty years ahead she would have found it quite easy to believe six impossible things before breakfast.

There's submarines for one, and flying, and wireless, especially telephones, and the cinema. If we could have taken the Campbells to a moving picture of a submarine submerging, with aeroplanes flying round, and a lecture wirelessed from America coming out of a gramophone, and the music done with a piano-player, Time-travelling would not have seemed much more wonderful to them."

d.i.c.k shook his head again. "It's different," he said. "All those things might have seemed very wonderful and _almost_ impossible, but they weren't _quite_ impossible. Time-travelling is."