by Edith Nesbit
‘Nelson was sea-sick,’ said Oswald.
‘Ah,’ said the robber; ‘but I hadn’t his luck or his pluck, or something. He stuck to it and won Trafalgar, didn’t he? “Kiss me, Hardy” — and all that, eh? I couldn’t stick to it — I had to resign. And nobody kissed me.’
I saw by his understanding about Nelson that he was really a man who had been to a good school as well as to Balliol.
Then we asked him, ‘And what did you do then?’
And Alice asked if he was ever a coiner, and we told him how we had thought we’d caught the desperate gang next door, and he was very much interested and said he was glad he had never taken to coining.
‘Besides, the coins are so ugly nowadays,’ he said, ‘no one could really find any pleasure in making them. And it’s a hole-and-corner business at the best, isn’t it? — and it must be a very thirsty one — with the hot metal and furnaces and things.’
And again he looked at the fire.
Oswald forgot for a minute that the interesting stranger was a robber, and asked him if he wouldn’t have a drink. Oswald has heard Father do this to his friends, so he knows it is the right thing. The robber said he didn’t mind if he did. And that is right, too.
And Dora went and got a bottle of Father’s ale — the Light Sparkling Family — and a glass, and we gave it to the robber. Dora said she would be responsible.
Then when he had had a drink he told us about bandits, but he said it was so bad in wet weather. Bandits’ caves were hardly ever properly weathertight. And bush-ranging was the same.
‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I was bush-ranging this afternoon, among the furze-bushes on the Heath, but I had no luck. I stopped the Lord Mayor in his gilt coach, with all his footmen in plush and gold lace, smart as cockatoos. But it was no go. The Lord Mayor hadn’t a stiver in his pockets. One of the footmen had six new pennies: the Lord Mayor always pays his servants’ wages in new pennies. I spent fourpence of that in bread and cheese, that on the table’s the tuppence. Ah, it’s a poor trade!’ And then he filled his pipe again.
We had turned out the gas, so that Father should have a jolly good surprise when he did come home, and we sat and talked as pleasant as could be. I never liked a new man better than I liked that robber. And I felt so sorry for him. He told us he had been a war-correspondent and an editor, in happier days, as well as a horse-stealer and a colonel of dragoons.
And quite suddenly, just as we were telling him about Lord Tottenham and our being highwaymen ourselves, he put up his hand and said ‘Shish!’ and we were quiet and listened.
There was a scrape, scrape, scraping noise; it came from downstairs.
‘They’re filing something,’ whispered the robber, ‘here — shut up, give me that pistol, and the poker. There is a burglar now, and no mistake.’
‘It’s only a toy one and it won’t go off,’ I said, ‘but you can cock it.’
Then we heard a snap. ‘There goes the window bar,’ said the robber softly. ‘Jove! what an adventure! You kids stay here, I’ll tackle it.’
But Dicky and I said we should come. So he let us go as far as the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and we took the tongs and shovel with us. There was a light in the kitchen; a very little light. It is curious we never thought, any of us, that this might be a plant of our robber’s to get away. We never thought of doubting his word of honour. And we were right.
That noble robber dashed the kitchen door open, and rushed in with the big toy pistol in one hand and the poker in the other, shouting out just like Oswald had done —
‘Surrender! You are discovered! Surrender, or I’ll fire! Throw up your hands!’ And Dicky and I rattled the tongs and shovel so that he might know there were more of us, all bristling with weapons.
And we heard a husky voice in the kitchen saying —
‘All right, governor! Stow that scent sprinkler. I’ll give in. Blowed if I ain’t pretty well sick of the job, anyway.’
Then we went in. Our robber was standing in the grandest manner with his legs very wide apart, and the pistol pointing at the cowering burglar. The burglar was a large man who did not mean to have a beard, I think, but he had got some of one, and a red comforter, and a fur cap, and his face was red and his voice was thick. How different from our own robber! The burglar had a dark lantern, and he was standing by the plate-basket. When we had lit the gas we all thought he was very like what a burglar ought to be.
He did not look as if he could ever have been a pirate or a highwayman, or anything really dashing or noble, and he scowled and shuffled his feet and said: ‘Well, go on: why don’t yer fetch the pleece?’
‘Upon my word, I don’t know,’ said our robber, rubbing his chin. ‘Oswald, why don’t we fetch the police?’
It is not every robber that I would stand Christian names from, I can tell you but just then I didn’t think of that. I just said—’Do you mean I’m to fetch one?’
Our robber looked at the burglar and said nothing.
Then the burglar began to speak very fast, and to look different ways with his hard, shiny little eyes.
‘Lookee ‘ere, governor,’ he said, ‘I was stony broke, so help me, I was. And blessed if I’ve nicked a haporth of your little lot. You know yourself there ain’t much to tempt a bloke,’ he shook the plate-basket as if he was angry with it, and the yellowy spoons and forks rattled. ‘I was just a-looking through this ‘ere Bank-ollerday show, when you come. Let me off, sir. Come now, I’ve got kids of my own at home, strike me if I ain’t — same as yours — I’ve got a nipper just about ‘is size, and what’ll come of them if I’m lagged? I ain’t been in it long, sir, and I ain’t ‘andy at it.’
‘No,’ said our robber; ‘you certainly are not.’ Alice and the others had come down by now to see what was happening. Alice told me afterwards they thought it really was the cat this time.
‘No, I ain’t ‘andy, as you say, sir, and if you let me off this once I’ll chuck the whole blooming bizz; rake my civvy, I will. Don’t be hard on a cove, mister; think of the missis and the kids. I’ve got one just the cut of little missy there bless ‘er pretty ‘eart.’
‘Your family certainly fits your circumstances very nicely,’ said our robber. Then Alice said —
‘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 played 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 Noel 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 Noel 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. Noel 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 Noel 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 Noel; ‘and chains and ouches.’
‘I bet you don’t know what an “ouch” is,’ said Dicky.
‘Yes I do, so there!’ said Noel. ‘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 —