The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories

by E. Nesbit

  ‘Oh, do let him go! If he’s got a little girl like me, whatever will she do? Suppose it was Father!’

  ‘I don’t think he’s got a little girl like you, my dear,’ said our robber, ‘and I think he’ll be safer under lock and key.’

  ‘You ask yer Father to let me go, miss,’ said the burglar; ‘’e won’t ’ave the ’art to refuse you.’

  ‘If I do,’ said Alice, ‘will you promise never to come back?’

  ‘Not me, miss,’ the burglar said very earnestly, and he looked at the plate-basket again, as if that alone would be enough to keep him away, our robber said afterwards.

  ‘And will you be good and not rob any more?’ said Alice.

  ‘I’ll turn over a noo leaf, miss, so help me.’

  Then Alice said—‘Oh, do let him go! I’m sure he’ll be good.’

  But our robber said no, it wouldn’t be right; we must wait till Father came home. Then H. O. said, very suddenly and plainly:

  ‘I don’t think it’s at all fair, when you’re a robber yourself.’

  The minute he’d said it the burglar said, ‘Kidded, by gum!’—and then our robber made a step towards him to catch hold of him, and before you had time to think ‘Hullo!’ the burglar knocked the pistol up with one hand and knocked our robber down with the other, and was off out of the window like a shot, though Oswald and Dicky did try to stop him by holding on to his legs.

  And that burglar had the cheek to put his head in at the window and say, ‘I’ll give yer love to the kids and the missis’—and he was off like winking, and there were Alice and Dora trying to pick up our robber, and asking him whether he was hurt, and where. He wasn’t hurt at all, except a lump at the back of his head. And he got up, and we dusted the kitchen floor off him. Eliza is a dirty girl.

  Then he said, ‘Let’s put up the shutters. It never rains but it pours. Now you’ve had two burglars I daresay you’ll have twenty.’ So we put up the shutters, which Eliza has strict orders to do before she goes out, only she never does, and we went back to Father’s study, and the robber said, ‘What a night we are having!’ and put his boots back in the fender to go on steaming, and then we all talked at once. It was the most wonderful adventure we ever had, though it wasn’t treasure-seeking—at least not ours. I suppose it was the burglar’s treasure-seeking, but he didn’t get much—and our robber said he didn’t believe a word about those kids that were so like Alice and me.

  And then there was the click of the gate, and we said, ‘Here’s Father,’ and the robber said, ‘And now for the police.’

  Then we all jumped up. We did like him so much, and it seemed so unfair that he should be sent to prison, and the horrid, lumping big burglar not.

  And Alice said, ‘Oh, no—run! Dicky will let you out at the back door. Oh, do go, go now.’

  And we all said, ‘Yes, go,’ and pulled him towards the door, and gave him his hat and stick and the things out of his pockets.

  But Father’s latchkey was in the door, and it was too late.

  Father came in quickly, purring with the cold, and began to say, ‘It’s all right, Foulkes, I’ve got—’ And then he stopped short and stared at us. Then he said, in the voice we all hate, ‘Children, what is the meaning of all this?’ And for a minute nobody spoke.

  Then my Father said, ‘Foulkes, I must really apologize for these very naughty—’ And then our robber rubbed his hands and laughed, and cried out:

  ‘You’re mistaken, my dear sir, I’m not Foulkes; I’m a robber, captured by these young people in the most gallant manner. “Hands up, surrender, or I fire,” and all the rest of it. My word, Bastable, but you’ve got some kids worth having! I wish my Denny had their pluck.’

  Then we began to understand, and it was like being knocked down, it was so sudden. And our robber told us he wasn’t a robber after all. He was only an old college friend of my Father’s, and he had come after dinner, when Father was just trying to mend the lock H. O. had broken, to ask Father to get him a letter to a doctor about his little boy Denny, who was ill. And Father had gone over the Heath to Vanbrugh Park to see some rich people he knows and get the letter. And he had left Mr Foulkes to wait till he came back, because it was important to know at once whether Father could get the letter, and if he couldn’t Mr Foulkes would have had to try some one else directly.

  We were dumb with amazement.

  Our robber told my Father about the other burglar, and said he was sorry he’d let him escape, but my Father said, ‘Oh, it’s all right: poor beggar; if he really had kids at home: you never can tell—forgive us our debts, don’t you know; but tell me about the first business. It must have been moderately entertaining.’

  Then our robber told my Father how I had rushed into the room with a pistol, crying out…but you know all about that. And he laid it on so thick and fat about plucky young-uns, and chips of old blocks, and things like that, that I felt I was purple with shame, even under the blanket. So I swallowed that thing that tries to prevent you speaking when you ought to, and I said, ‘Look here, Father, I didn’t really think there was any one in the study. We thought it was a cat at first, and then I thought there was no one there, and I was just larking. And when I said surrender and all that, it was just the game, don’t you know?’

  Then our robber said, ‘Yes, old chap; but when you found there really was someone there, you dropped the pistol and bunked, didn’t you, eh?’

  And I said, ‘No; I thought, “Hullo! here’s a robber! Well, it’s all up, I suppose, but I may as well hold on and see what happens.”’

  And I was glad I’d owned up, for Father slapped me on the back, and said I was a young brick, and our robber said I was no funk anyway, and though I got very hot under the blanket I liked it, and I explained that the others would have done the same if they had thought of it.

  Then Father got up some more beer, and laughed about Dora’s responsibility, and he got out a box of figs he had bought for us, only he hadn’t given it to us because of the Water Rates, and Eliza came in and brought up the bread and cheese, and what there was left of the neck of mutton—cold wreck of mutton, Father called it—and we had a feast—like a picnic—all sitting anywhere, and eating with our fingers. It was prime. We sat up till past twelve o’clock, and I never felt so pleased to think I was not born a girl. It was hard on the others; they would have done just the same if they’d thought of it. But it does make you feel jolly when your pater says you’re a young brick!

  When Mr Foulkes was going, he said to Alice, ‘Good-bye, Hardy.’

  And Alice understood, of course, and kissed him as hard as she could.

  And she said, ‘I wanted to, when you said no one kissed you when you left off being a pirate.’ And he said, ‘I know you did, my dear.’ And Dora kissed him too, and said, ‘I suppose none of these tales were true?’

  And our robber just said, ‘I tried to play the part properly, my dear.’

  And he jolly well did play it, and no mistake. We have often seen him since, and his boy Denny, and his girl Daisy, but that comes in another story.

  And if any of you kids who read this ever had two such adventures in one night you can just write and tell me. That’s all.

  CHAPTER 14

  THE DIVINING-ROD

  You have no idea how uncomfortable the house was on the day when we sought for gold with the divining-rod. It was like a spring-cleaning in the winter-time. All the carpets were up, because Father had told Eliza to make the place decent as there was a gentleman coming to dinner the next day. So she got in a charwoman, and they slopped water about, and left brooms and brushes on the stairs for people to tumble over. H. O. got a big bump on his head in that way, and when he said it was too bad, Eliza said he should keep in the nursery then, and not be where he’d no business. We bandaged his head with a towel, and then he stopped crying and p
layed at being England’s wounded hero dying in the cockpit, while every man was doing his duty, as the hero had told them to, and Alice was Hardy, and I was the doctor, and the others were the crew. Playing at Hardy made us think of our own dear robber, and we wished he was there, and wondered if we should ever see him any more.

  We were rather astonished at Father’s having anyone to dinner, because now he never seems to think of anything but business. Before Mother died people often came to dinner, and Father’s business did not take up so much of his time and was not the bother it is now. And we used to see who could go furthest down in our nightgowns and get nice things to eat, without being seen, out of the dishes as they came out of the dining-room. Eliza can’t cook very nice things. She told Father she was a good plain cook, but he says it was a fancy portrait. We stayed in the nursery till the charwoman came in and told us to be off—she was going to make one job of it, and have our carpet up as well as all the others, now the man was here to beat them. It came up, and it was very dusty—and under it we found my threepenny-bit that I lost ages ago, which shows what Eliza is. H. O. had got tired of being the wounded hero, and Dicky was so tired of doing nothing that Dora said she knew he’d begin to tease Noël in a minute; then of course Dicky said he wasn’t going to tease anybody—he was going out to the Heath. He said he’d heard that nagging women drove a man from his home, and now he found it was quite true. Oswald always tries to be a peacemaker, so he told Dicky to shut up and not make an ass of himself. And Alice said, ‘Well, Dora began’—And Dora tossed her chin up and said it wasn’t any business of Oswald’s any way, and no one asked Alice’s opinion. So we all felt very uncomfortable till Noël said, ‘Don’t let’s quarrel about nothing. You know let dogs delight—and I made up another piece while you were talking—

  Quarrelling is an evil thing,

  It fills with gall life’s cup;

  For when once you begin

  It takes such a long time to make it up.’

  We all laughed then and stopped jawing at each other. Noël is very funny with his poetry. But that piece happened to come out quite true. You begin to quarrel and then you can’t stop; often, long before the others are ready to cry and make it up, I see how silly it is, and I want to laugh; but it doesn’t do to say so—for it only makes the others crosser than they were before. I wonder why that is?

  Alice said Noël ought to be poet laureate, and she actually went out in the cold and got some laurel leaves—the spotted kind—out of the garden, and Dora made a crown and we put it on him. He was quite pleased; but the leaves made a mess, and Eliza said, ‘Don’t.’ I believe that’s a word grown-ups use more than any other. Then suddenly Alice thought of that old idea of hers for finding treasure, and she said—‘Do let’s try the divining-rod.’

  So Oswald said, ‘Fair priestess, we do greatly desire to find gold beneath our land, therefore we pray thee practise with the divining-rod, and tell us where we can find it.’

  ‘Do ye desire to fashion of it helms and hauberks?’ said Alice.

  ‘Yes,’ said Noël; ‘and chains and ouches.’

  ‘I bet you don’t know what an “ouch” is,’ said Dicky.

  ‘Yes I do, so there!’ said Noël. ‘It’s a carcanet. I looked it out in the dicker, now then!’ We asked him what a carcanet was, but he wouldn’t say.

  ‘And we want to make fair goblets of the gold,’ said Oswald.

  ‘Yes, to drink coconut milk out of,’ said H. O.

  ‘And we desire to build fair palaces of it,’ said Dicky.

  ‘And to buy things,’ said Dora; ‘a great many things. New Sunday frocks and hats and kid gloves and—’

  She would have gone on for ever so long only we reminded her that we hadn’t found the gold yet.

  By this Alice had put on the nursery tablecloth, which is green, and tied the old blue and yellow antimacassar over her head, and she said—

  ‘If your intentions are correct, fear nothing and follow me.’

  And she went down into the hall. We all followed chanting ‘Heroes.’ It is a gloomy thing the girls learnt at the High School, and we always use it when we want a priestly chant.

  Alice stopped short by the hat-stand, and held up her hands as well as she could for the tablecloth, and said—

  ‘Now, great altar of the golden idol, yield me the divining-rod that I may use it for the good of the suffering people.’

  The umbrella-stand was the altar of the golden idol, and it yielded her the old school umbrella. She carried it between her palms.

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘I shall sing the magic chant. You mustn’t say anything, but just follow wherever I go—like follow my leader, you know—and when there is gold underneath the magic rod will twist in the hand of the priestess like a live thing that seeks to be free. Then you will dig, and the golden treasure will be revealed. H. O., if you make that clatter with your boots they’ll come and tell us not to. Now come on all of you.’

  So she went upstairs and down and into every room. We followed her on tiptoe, and Alice sang as she went. What she sang is not out of a book—Noël made it up while she was dressing up for the priestess.

  Ashen rod cold

  That here I hold,

  Teach me where to find the gold.

  When we came to where Eliza was, she said, ‘Get along with you’; but Dora said it was only a game, and we wouldn’t touch anything, and our boots were quite clean, and Eliza might as well let us. So she did.

  It was all right for the priestess, but it was a little dull for the rest of us, because she wouldn’t let us sing, too; so we said we’d had enough of it, and if she couldn’t find the gold we’d leave off and play something else. The priestess said, ‘All right, wait a minute,’ and went on singing. Then we all followed her back into the nursery, where the carpet was up and the boards smelt of soft soap. Then she said, ‘It moves, it moves! Once more the choral hymn!’ So we sang ‘Heroes’ again, and in the middle the umbrella dropped from her hands.

  ‘The magic rod has spoken,’ said Alice; ‘dig here, and that with courage and despatch.’ We didn’t quite see how to dig, but we all began to scratch on the floor with our hands, but the priestess said, ‘Don’t be so silly! It’s the place where they come to do the gas. The board’s loose. Dig an you value your lives, for ere sundown the dragon who guards this spoil will return in his fiery fury and make you his unresisting prey.’

  So we dug—that is, we got the loose board up. And Alice threw up her arms and cried—

  ‘See the rich treasure—the gold in thick layers, with silver and diamonds stuck in it!’

  ‘Like currants in cake,’ said H. O.

  ‘It’s a lovely treasure,’ said Dicky yawning. ‘Let’s come back and carry it away another day.’

  But Alice was kneeling by the hole.

  ‘Let me feast my eyes on the golden splendour,’ she said, ‘hidden these long centuries from the human eye. Behold how the magic rod has led us to treasures more—Oswald, don’t push so!—more bright than ever monarch—I say, there is something down there, really. I saw it shine!’

  We thought she was kidding, but when she began to try to get into the hole, which was much too small, we saw she meant it, so I said, ‘Let’s have a squint,’ and I looked, but I couldn’t see anything, even when I lay down on my stomach. The others lay down on their stomachs too and tried to see, all but Noël, who stood and looked at us and said we were the great serpents come down to drink at the magic pool. He wanted to be the knight and slay the great serpents with his good sword—he even drew the umbrella ready—but Alice said, ‘All right, we will in a minute. But now—I’m sure I saw it; do get a match, Noël, there’s a dear.’

  ‘What did you see?’ asked Noël, beginning to go for the matches very slowly.

  ‘Something bright, away in the corner under
the board against the beam.’

  ‘Perhaps it was a rat’s eye,’ Noël said, ‘or a snake’s,’ and we did not put our heads quite so close to the hole till he came back with the matches.

  Then I struck a match, and Alice cried, ‘There it is!’ And there it was, and it was a half-sovereign, partly dusty and partly bright. We think perhaps a mouse, disturbed by the carpets being taken up, may have brushed the dust of years from part of the half-sovereign with his tail. We can’t imagine how it came there, only Dora thinks she remembers once when H. O. was very little Mother gave him some money to hold, and he dropped it, and it rolled all over the floor. So we think perhaps this was part of it. We were very glad. H. O. wanted to go out at once and buy a mask he had seen for fourpence. It had been a shilling mask, but now it was going very cheap because Guy Fawkes’ Day was over, and it was a little cracked at the top. But Dora said, ‘I don’t know that it’s our money. Let’s wait and ask Father.’

  But H. O. did not care about waiting, and I felt for him. Dora is rather like grown-ups in that way; she does not seem to understand that when you want a thing you do want it, and that you don’t wish to wait, even a minute.

  So we went and asked Albert-next-door’s uncle. He was pegging away at one of the rotten novels he has to write to make his living, but he said we weren’t interrupting him at all.

  ‘My hero’s folly has involved him in a difficulty,’ he said. ‘It is his own fault. I will leave him to meditate on the incredible fatuity—the hare-brained recklessness—which have brought him to this pass. It will be a lesson to him. I, meantime, will give myself unreservedly to the pleasures of your conversation.’

  That’s one thing I like Albert’s uncle for. He always talks like a book, and yet you can always understand what he means. I think he is more like us, inside of his mind, than most grown-up people are. He can pretend beautifully. I never met anyone else so good at it, except our robber, and we began it, with him. But it was Albert’s uncle who first taught us how to make people talk like books when you’re playing things, and he made us learn to tell a story straight from the beginning, not starting in the middle like most people do. So now Oswald remembered what he had been told, as he generally does, and began at the beginning, but when he came to where Alice said she was the priestess, Albert’s uncle said—