by Edith Nesbit
‘I must have paved paths and a fountain,’ said Philip thoughtfully. The paths were paved with mother-of-pearl card counters, and the fountain was a silver and glass ash-tray, with a needlecase of filigree silver rising up from the middle of it; and the falling water was made quite nicely out of narrow bits of the silver paper off the chocolate Helen had given him at parting. Palm trees were easily made — Helen had shown him how to do that — with bits of larch fastened to elder stems with plasticine. There was plenty of plasticine among Lucy’s toys; there was plenty of everything.
And the city grew, till it covered the table. Philip, unwearied, set about to make another city on another table. This had for chief feature a great water-tower, with a fountain round its base; and now he stopped at nothing. He unhooked the crystal drops from the great chandeliers to make his fountains. This city was grander than the first. It had a grand tower made of a waste-paper basket and an astrologer’s tower that was a photograph-enlarging machine.
The cities were really very beautiful. I wish I could describe them thoroughly to you. But it would take pages and pages. Besides all the things I have told of alone there were towers and turrets and grand staircases, pagodas and pavilions, canals made bright and water-like by strips of silver paper, and a lake with a boat on it. Philip put into his buildings all the things out of the doll’s house that seemed suitable. The wooden things-to-eat and dishes. The leaden tea-cups and goblets. He peopled the place with dominoes and pawns. The handsome chessmen were used for minarets. He made forts and garrisoned them with lead soldiers.
He worked hard and he worked cleverly, and as the cities grew in beauty and interestingness he loved them more and more. He was happy now. There was no time to be unhappy in.
‘I will keep it as it is till Helen comes. How she will love it!’ he said.
The two cities were connected by a bridge which was a yard-stick he had found in the servants’ sewing-room and taken without hindrance, for by this time all the servants were his friends. Susan had been the first — that was all.
He had just laid his bridge in place, and put Mr. and Mrs. Noah in the chief square to represent the inhabitants, and was standing rapt in admiration of his work, when a hard hand on each of his shoulders made him start and scream.
It was the nurse. She had come back a day sooner than any one expected her. The brother had brought home a wife, and she and the nurse had not liked each other; so she was very cross, and she took Philip by the shoulders and shook him, a thing which had never happened to him before.
‘You naughty, wicked boy!’ she said, still shaking.
‘But I haven’t hurt anything — I’ll put everything back,’ he said, trembling and very pale.
‘You’ll not touch any of it again,’ said the nurse. ‘I’ll see to that. I shall put everything away myself in the morning. Taking what doesn’t belong to you!’
‘But you said I might take anything I liked,’ said Philip, ‘so if it’s wrong it’s your fault.’
‘You untruthful child!’ cried the nurse, and hit him over the knuckles. Now, no one had ever hit Philip before. He grew paler than ever, but he did not cry, though his hands hurt rather badly. For she had snatched up the yard-stick to hit him with, and it was hard and cornery.
‘You are a coward,’ said Philip, ‘and it is you who are untruthful and not me.’
‘Hold your tongue,’ said the nurse, and whirled him off to bed.
‘You’ll get no supper, so there!’ she said, angrily tucking him up.
‘I don’t want any,’ said Philip, ‘and I have to forgive you before the sun goes down.’
‘Forgive, indeed!’ said she, flouncing out.
‘When you get sorry you’ll know I’ve forgiven you,’ Philip called after her, which, of course, made her angrier than ever.
Whether Philip cried when he was alone is not our business. Susan, who had watched the shaking and the hitting without daring to interfere, crept up later with milk and sponge-cakes. She found him asleep, and she says his eyelashes were wet.
When he awoke he thought at first that it was morning, the room was so light. But presently he saw that it was not yellow sunlight but white moonshine which made the beautiful brightness.
He wondered at first why he felt so unhappy, then he remembered how Helen had gone away and how hateful the nurse had been. And now she would pull down the city and Helen would never see it. And he would never be able to build such a beautiful one again. In the morning it would be gone, and he would not be able even to remember how it was built.
The moonlight was very bright.
‘I wonder how my city looks by moonlight?’ he said.
And then, all in a thrilling instant, he made up his mind to go down and see for himself how it did look.
He slipped on his dressing-gown, opened his door softly, and crept along the corridor and down the broad staircase, then along the gallery and into the drawing-room. It was very dark, but he felt his way to a window and undid the shutter, and there lay his city, flooded with moonlight, just as he had imagined it.
He gazed on it for a moment in ecstasy and then turned to shut the door. As he did so he felt a slight strange giddiness and stood a moment with his hand to his head. He turned and went again towards the city, and when he was close to it he gave a little cry, hastily stifled, for fear some one should hear him and come down and send him to bed. He stood and gazed about him bewildered and, once more, rather giddy. For the city had, in a quick blink of light, followed by darkness, disappeared. So had the drawing-room. So had the chair that stood close to the table. He could see mountainous shapes raising enormous heights in the distance, and the moonlight shone on the tops of them. But he himself seemed to be in a vast, flat plain. There was the softness of long grass round his feet, but there were no trees, no houses, no hedges or fences to break the expanse of grass. It seemed darker in some parts than others. That was all. It reminded him of the illimitable prairie of which he had read in books of adventure.
‘I suppose I’m dreaming,’ said Philip, ‘though I don’t see how I can have gone to sleep just while I was turning the door handle. However — —’
He stood still expecting that something would happen. In dreams something always does happen, if it’s only that the dream comes to an end. But nothing happened now — Philip just stood there quite quietly and felt the warm soft grass round his ankles.
Then, as his eyes became used to the darkness of the plain, he saw some way off a very steep bridge leading up to a dark height on whose summit the moon shone whitely. He walked towards it, and as he approached he saw that it was less like a bridge than a sort of ladder, and that it rose to a giddy height above him. It seemed to rest on a rock far up against dark sky, and the inside of the rock seemed hollowed out in one vast dark cave.
Beyond it he could see dim piles that looked like churches and houses.
And now he was close to the foot of the ladder. It had no rungs, but narrow ledges made hold for feet and hands. Philip remembered Jack and the Beanstalk, and looked up longingly; but the ladder was a very very long one. On the other hand, it was the only thing that seemed to lead anywhere, and he had had enough of standing lonely in the grassy prairie, where he seemed to have been for a very long time indeed. So he put his hands and feet to the ladder and began to go up. It was a very long climb. There were three hundred and eight steps, for he counted them. And the steps were only on one side of the ladder, so he had to be extremely careful. On he went, up and on, on and up, till his feet ached and his hands felt as though they would drop off for tiredness. He could not look up far, and he dared not look down at all. There was nothing for it but to climb and climb and climb, and at last he saw the ground on which the ladder rested — a terrace hewn in regular lines, and, as it seemed, hewn from the solid rock. His head was level with the ground, now his hands, now his feet. He leaped sideways from the ladder and threw himself face down on the ground, which was cold and smooth like marble. There he lay, dr
awing deep breaths of weariness and relief.
There was a great silence all about, which rested and soothed, and presently he rose and looked around him. He was close to an archway with very thick pillars, and he went towards it and peeped cautiously in. It seemed to be a great gate leading to an open space, and beyond it he could see dim piles that looked like churches and houses. But all was deserted; the moonlight and he had the place, whatever it was, to themselves.
‘I suppose every one’s in bed,’ said Philip, and stood there trembling a little, but very curious and interested, in the black shadow of the strange arch.
CHAPTER II. DELIVERER OR DESTROYER
Philip stood in the shadow of the dark arch and looked out. He saw before him a great square surrounded by tall irregular buildings. In the middle was a fountain whose waters, silver in the moonlight, rose and fell with gentle plashing sound. A tall tree, close to the archway, cast the shadow of its trunk across the path — a broad black bar. He listened, listened, listened, but there was nothing to listen to, except the deep night silence and the changing soft sound the fountain made.
His eyes, growing accustomed to the dimness, showed him that he was under a heavy domed roof supported on large square pillars — to the right and left stood dark doors, shut fast.
‘I will explore these doors by daylight,’ he said. He did not feel exactly frightened. But he did not feel exactly brave either. But he wished and intended to be brave, so he said, ‘I will explore these doors. At least I think I will,’ he added, for one must not only be brave but truthful.
And then suddenly he felt very sleepy. He leaned against the wall, and presently it seemed that sitting down would be less trouble, and then that lying down would be more truly comfortable. A bell from very very far away sounded the hour, twelve. Philip counted up to nine, but he missed the tenth bell-beat, and the eleventh and the twelfth as well, because he was fast asleep cuddled up warmly in the thick quilted dressing-gown that Helen had made him last winter. He dreamed that everything was as it used to be before That Man came and changed everything and took Helen away. He was in his own little bed in his own little room in their own little house, and Helen had come to call him. He could see the sunlight through his closed eyelids — he was keeping them closed just for the fun of hearing her try to wake him, and presently he would tell her he had been awake all the time, and they would laugh together about it. And then he awoke, and he was not in his soft bed at home but on the hard floor of a big, strange gate-house, and it was not Helen who was shaking him and saying, ‘Here — I say, wake up, can’t you,’ but a tall man in a red coat; and the light that dazzled his eyes was not from the sun at all, but from a horn lantern which the man was holding close to his face.
‘What’s the matter?’ said Philip sleepily.
‘That’s the question,’ said the man in red. ‘Come along to the guard-room and give an account of yourself, you young shaver.’
He took Philip’s ear gently but firmly between a very hard finger and thumb.
‘Leave go,’ said Philip, ‘I’m not going to run away.’ And he stood up feeling very brave.
The man shifted his hold from ear to shoulder and led Philip through one of those doors which he had thought of exploring by daylight. It was not daylight yet, and the room, large and bare, with an arch at each end and narrow little windows at the sides, was lighted by horn lanterns and tall tapers in pewter candlesticks. It seemed to Philip that the room was full of soldiers.
Their captain, with a good deal of gold about him and a very smart black moustache, got up from a bench.
‘Look what I’ve caught, sir,’ said the man who owned the hand on Philip’s shoulder.
‘Humph,’ said the captain, ‘so it’s really happened at last.’
‘Here — I say, wake up, can’t you?’
‘What has?’ said Philip.
‘Why, you have,’ said the captain. ‘Don’t be frightened, little man.’
‘I’m not frightened,’ said Philip, and added politely, ‘I should be so much obliged if you’d tell me what you mean.’ He added something which he had heard people say when they asked the way to the market or the public gardens, ‘I’m quite a stranger here,’ he said.
A jolly roar of laughter went up from the red-coats.
‘It isn’t manners to laugh at strangers,’ said Philip.
‘Mind your own manners,’ said the captain sharply; ‘in this country little boys speak when they’re spoken to. Stranger, eh? Well, we knew that, you know!’
Philip, though he felt snubbed, yet felt grand too. Here he was in the middle of an adventure with grown-up soldiers. He threw out his chest and tried to look manly.
The captain sat down in a chair at the end of a long table, drew a black book to him — a black book covered with dust — and began to rub a rusty pen-nib on his sword, which was not rusty.
‘Come now,’ he said, opening the book, ‘tell me how you came here. And mind you speak the truth.’
‘I always speak the truth,’ said Philip proudly.
All the soldiers rose and saluted him with looks of deep surprise and respect.
‘Well, nearly always,’ said Philip, hot to the ears, and the soldiers clattered stiffly down again on to the benches, laughing once more. Philip had imagined there to be more discipline in the army.
‘How did you come here?’ said the captain.
‘Up the great bridge staircase,’ said Philip.
The captain wrote busily in the book.
‘What did you come for?’
‘I didn’t know what else to do. There was nothing but illimitable prairie — and so I came up.’
‘You are a very bold boy,’ said the captain.
‘Thank you,’ said Philip. ‘I do want to be.’
‘What was your purpose in coming?’
‘I didn’t do it on purpose — I just happened to come.’
The captain wrote that down too. And then he and Philip and the soldiers looked at each other in silence.
‘Well?’ said the boy.
‘Well?’ said the captain.
‘I do wish,’ said the boy, ‘you’d tell me what you meant by my really happening after all. And then I wish you’d tell me the way home.’
‘Where do you want to get to?’ asked the captain.
‘The address,’ said Philip, ‘is The Grange, Ravelsham, Sussex.’
‘Don’t know it,’ said the captain briefly, ‘and anyhow you can’t go back there now. Didn’t you read the notice at the top of the ladder? Trespassers will be prosecuted. You’ve got to be prosecuted before you can go back anywhere.’
‘I’d rather be persecuted than go down that ladder again,’ he said. ‘I suppose it won’t be very bad — being persecuted, I mean?’
His idea of persecution was derived from books. He thought it to be something vaguely unpleasant from which one escaped in disguise — adventurous and always successful.
‘That’s for the judges to decide,’ said the captain, ‘it’s a serious thing trespassing in our city. This guard is put here expressly to prevent it.’
‘Do you have many trespassers?’ Philip asked. The captain seemed kind, and Philip had a great-uncle who was a judge, so the word judges made him think of tips and good advice, rather than of justice and punishment.
‘Many trespassers indeed!’ the captain almost snorted his answer. ‘That’s just it. There’s never been one before. You’re the first. For years and years and years there’s been a guard here, because when the town was first built the astrologers foretold that some day there would be a trespasser who would do untold mischief. So it’s our privilege — we’re the Polistopolitan guards — to keep watch over the only way by which a trespasser could come in.’
‘May I sit down?’ said Philip suddenly, and the soldiers made room for him on the bench.
‘My father and my grandfather and all my ancestors were in the guards,’ said the captain proudly. ‘It’s a very great honour.’
/> ‘I wonder,’ said Philip, ‘why you don’t cut off the end of your ladder — the top end I mean; then nobody could come up.’
‘That would never do,’ said the captain, ‘because, you see, there’s another prophecy. The great deliverer is to come that way.’
‘Couldn’t I,’ suggested Philip shyly, ‘couldn’t I be the deliverer instead of the trespasser? I’d much rather, you know.’
‘I daresay you would,’ said the captain; ‘but people can’t be deliverers just because they’d much rather, you know.’
‘And isn’t any one to come up the ladder bridge except just those two?’
‘We don’t know; that’s just it. You know what prophecies are.’
‘I’m afraid I don’t — exactly.’
‘So vague and mixed up, I mean. The one I’m telling you about goes something like this.
Who comes up the ladder stair?
Beware, beware,
Steely eyes and copper hair
Strife and grief and pain to bear
All come up the ladder stair.
You see we can’t tell whether that means one person or a lot of people with steely eyes and copper hair.’
‘My hair’s just plain boy-colour,’ said Philip; ‘my sister says so, and my eyes are blue, I believe.’
‘I can’t see in this light;’ the captain leaned his elbows on the table and looked earnestly in the boy’s eyes. ‘No, I can’t see. The other prophecy goes:
From down and down and very far down
The king shall come to take his own;
He shall deliver the Magic town,
And all that he made shall be his own.
Beware, take care. Beware, prepare,
The king shall come by the ladder stair.
‘How jolly,’ said Philip; ‘I love poetry. Do you know any more?’
‘There are heaps of prophecies of course,’ said the captain; ‘the astrologers must do something to earn their pay. There’s rather a nice one: