'Sit nearer the ends, then,' said Oswald. 'Well?'
'We thought we would go to the pinewoods because of reading in Bret Harte that the resinous balsam of the pine is healing to the wounded spirit.'
'I should have thought if anybody's spirit was wounded...' said Dicky in tones of heatening indignantness.
'Yes, I know. But you'd got the oak, and I expect oaks are just as good, if not better, especially for English people, because of Oakapple Day--and----Where was I?'
'So we went, and it is a very nice wood--quite tulgy, you know. We expected to see a Bandersnatch every minute, didn't we, Noël? It's not very big, though, and on the other side there's an enchanted desert--rather bare, with patches of grass and brambles. And in the very middle of it we found the treasure.'
'Let's have a squint at the treasure,' said Dicky. 'Did you fetch it along?'
'Not exactly,' said Alice; 'the treasure is a _house_.'
'It's an enchanted house,' said Noël, 'and it's a deserted house, and the garden is like in "The Sensitive Plant" after the lady has given up attending.'
'No,' said Alice; 'we came back for you. And we asked an old man, and he _did_ say it was in Chancery, so no one can live in it.'
'I'm certain the old man meant enchanted,' said Noël, 'only I expect that's the old-fashioned word for it. Enchanceried is a very nice word. And it means it's an enchanted house, just like I said.'
Nurse now came out to remark, 'Tea, my dears,' so we left the Saracens' tower and went in to that meal.
Noël began to make a poem called 'The Enchanceried House,' but we got him to stop till there was more for him to write about. There soon was more, and more than enough, as it turned out.
The setting sun had set, but it had left a redness in the sky (like one of those distant fires that you go after, and they are always miles from where you are) which shone through the pinetrees. The house looked black and mysterious against the strawberry-ice-coloured horizon.
It was a good-sized house. The bottom-floor windows were boarded up. It had a Sensitive-Plantish garden and a paved yard and outhouses. The garden had a high wall with glass on top, but Oswald and Dicky got into the yard. Green grass was growing between the paving-stones. The corners of the stable and coach-house doors were rough, as if from the attacks of rats, but we never saw any of these stealthy rodents. The back-door was locked, but we climbed up on the water-butt and looked through a little window, and saw a plate-rack, and a sink with taps, and a copper, and a broken coal-scuttle. It was very exciting.