The Runaways

by Elizabeth Goudge

She began to think that Robert’s latest idea had not been one of his best, but she did not say so because when an idea has hardened into consequences it is too late to change it for another. That is why ideas should never be put into practice the moment you have them. They should be chewed like cud for twenty-four hours.

‘Sh!’ the others hissed at her. It seemed to them dreadfully dangerous to put it into words like that, for lately the things they didn’t want to happen were the things that happened, and the logic of this was that if you pretended not to want what you really wanted dreadfully, you would be more likely to get it.

Robert did not notice these things about Moses because he was a practical person, always much occupied in telling people what they ought to do, but Timothy was not practical and following where Robert led he was able to notice things.

Once it had been Uncle Ambrose’s best top hat, but now, having become his third-best, it had shut up like a concertina beneath the weight of water that had descended upon it during the years that Uncle Ambrose had lived in Devonshire, and it was not what it had been.

‘He lets us down lightly.’ ‘It’s heavy going when he has us at the bottom,’ sighed Robert.

They couldn’t believe it. Uncle Ambrose was marvellous. Apart from Father, he was the first grown-up they had met who understood that you couldn’t be good without something to be good with.

distance lends enchantment to the view.

It was almost as bright as day, for all the clouds had cleared away now and in the month of June daylight lingers long enough to make love to the moonlight.

He, like all children, could use exquisite tact when telling a true story to grown-ups. He knew one must not ask too much of their credulity. Things are seen and heard by the keen senses of the young which are not experienced by the failing powers of their elders, but as powers fail pride increases and the elders do not like to admit this. Therefore, when told by the young of some occurrence outside the range of their own now most limited experience, they read them a lecture on the iniquity of telling lies.

‘If there’s one thing I dislike more than a child it’s a roguish child,’ he said sternly.

The gentry always seemed to think that cold meat and potato salad and orange jelly fell already chilled from heaven. They failed to grasp the fact that meat has to be hot before it is cold and jelly liquid before it solidifies.

and when one is tired, it is always one’s nearest and dearest who fall under one’s heaviest displeasure.

‘Ah!’ said Ezra. ‘I ain’t never wanted to learn to read. Book learnin’ destroys the memory.’

‘No need to teach your grandmother to suck eggs,’

‘In these enlightened days,’ said Uncle Ambrose politely but firmly, ‘we have learnt that spells and charms and so on are mere superstition. Those who fear them fear no more than a bad dream.’

‘I have experienced that on mountain tops,’ said Uncle Ambrose. ‘These ascents are not only physical, Nan. The world of the spirit too has many mansions. We live upon a staircase.’

Of course they did not know what a hard fight the goodwill of the children and Uncle Ambrose and Ezra had put up against the ill will that had opposed them, and they did not know about Ezra’s good spells or the labour of the bees.