The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories

by E. Nesbit

  “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:

  Every night when the bright stars blink

  The guards shall turn out, and have a drink

  As the clock strikes two.

  And every night when no stars are seen

  The guards shall drink in their own canteen

  When the clock strikes two.

  Tonight there aren’t any stars, so we have the drinks served here. It’s less trouble than going across the square to the canteen, and the principle’s the same. Principle is the great thing with a prophecy, my boy.”

  “Yes,” said Philip. And then the far-away bell beat again. One, two. And outside was a light patter of feet.

  A soldier rose—saluted his officer and threw open the door. There was a moment’s pause; Philip expected some one to come in with a tray and glasses, as they did at his great-uncle’s when gentlemen were suddenly thirsty at times that were not meal-times.

  But instead, after a moment’s pause, a dozen greyhounds stepped daintily in on their padded cat-like feet; and round the neck of each dog was slung a roundish thing that looked like one of the little barrels which St. Bernard dogs wear round their necks in the pictures. And when these were loosened and laid on the table Philip was charmed to see that the roundish things were not barrels but cocoa-nuts.

  The soldiers reached down some pewter pots from a high shelf—pierced the cocoa-nuts with their bayonets and poured out the cocoa-nut milk. They all had drinks, so the prophecy came true, and what is more they gave Philip a drink as well. It was delicious, and there was as much of it as he wanted. I have never had as much cocoa-nut milk as I wanted. Have you?

  Then the hollow cocoa-nuts were tied on to the dogs’ necks again and out they went, slim and beautiful, two by two, wagging their slender tails, in the most amiable and orderly way.

  “They take the cocoa-nuts to the town kitchen,” said the captain, “to be made into cocoa-nut ice for the army breakfast; waste not want not, you know. We don’t waste anything here, my boy.” Philip had quite got over his snubbing. He now felt that the captain was talking with him as man to man. Helen had gone away and left him; well, he was learning to do without Helen. And he had got away from the Grange, and Lucy, and that nurse. He was a man among men. And then, just as he was feeling most manly and important, and quite equal to facing any number of judges, there came a little tap at the door of the guard-room, and a very little voice said:

  “Oh, do please let me come in.”

  Then the door opened slowly.

  “Well, come in, whoever you are,” said the captain. And the person who came in was—Lucy. Lucy, whom Philip thought he had got rid of—Lucy, who stood for the new hateful life to which Helen had left him. Lucy, in her serge skirt and jersey, with her little sleek fair pig-tails, and that anxious “I-wish-we-could-be-friends” smile of hers. Philip was furious. It was too bad.

  “And who is this?” the captain was saying kindly.

  “It’s me—it’s Lucy,” she said. “I came up with him.”

  She pointed to Philip. “No manners,” thought Philip in bitterness.

  “No, you didn’t,” he said shortly.

  “I did—I was close behind you when you were climbing the ladder bridge. And I’ve been waiting alone ever since, when you were asleep and all. I knew he’d be cross when he knew I’d come,” she explained to the soldiers.

  “I’m not cross,” said Philip very crossly indeed, but the captain signed to him to be silent. Then Lucy was questioned and her answers written in the book, and when that was done the captain said:

  “So this little girl is a friend of yours?”

  “No, she isn’t,” said Philip violently; “she’s not my friend, and she never will be. I’ve seen her, that’s all, and I don’t want to see her again.”

  “You are unkind,” said Lucy.

  And then there was a grave silence, most unpleasant to Philip. The soldiers, he perceived, now looked coldly at him. It was all Lucy’s fault. What did she want to come shoving in for, spoiling everything? Any one but a girl would have known that a guard-room wasn’t the right place for a girl. He frowned and said nothing. Lucy had smuggled up against the captain’s knee, and he was stroking her hair.

  “Poor little woman,” he said. “You must go to sleep now, so as to be rested before you go to the Hall of Justice in the morning.”

  They made Lucy a bed of soldiers’ cloaks laid on a bench; and bearskins are the best of pillows. Philip had a soldier’s cloak and a bench, and a bearskin too—but what was the good? Everything was spoiled. If Lucy had not come the guard-room as a sleeping-place would have been almost as good as the tented field. But she had come, and the guard-room was no better now than any old night-nursery. And how had she known? How had she come? How had she made her way to that illimitable prairie where he had found the mysterious beginning of the ladder bridge? He went to sleep a bunched-up lump of prickly discontent and suppressed fury.

  When he woke it was bright daylight, and a soldier was saying, “Wake up, Trespassers. Breakfast—”

  “How jolly,” thought Philip, “to be having military breakfast.” Then he remembered Luc
y, and hated her being there, and felt once more that she had spoiled everything.

  I should not, myself, care for a breakfast of cocoa-nut ice, peppermint creams, apples, bread and butter and sweet milk. But the soldiers seemed to enjoy it. And it would have exactly suited Philip if he had not seen that Lucy was enjoying it too.

  “I do hate greedy girls,” he told himself, for he was now in that state of black rage when you hate everything the person you are angry with does or says or is.

  And now it was time to start for the Hall of Justice. The guard formed outside, and Philip noticed that each soldier stood on a sort of green mat. When the order to march was given, each soldier quickly and expertly rolled up his green mat and put it under his arm. And whenever they stopped, because of the crowd, each soldier unrolled his green mat, and stood on it till it was time to go on again. And they had to stop several times, for the crowd was very thick in the great squares and in the narrow streets of the city. It was a wonderful crowd. There were men and women and children in every sort of dress. Italian, Spanish, Russian; French peasants in blue blouses and wooden shoes, workmen in the dress English working people wore a hundred years ago. Norwegians, Swedes, Swiss, Turks, Greeks, Indians, Arabians, Chinese, Japanese, besides Red Indians in dresses of skins, and Scots in kilts and sporrans. Philip did not know what nation most of the dresses belonged to—to him it was a brilliant patchwork of gold and gay colours. It reminded him of the fancy-dress party he had once been to with Helen, when he wore a Pierrot’s dress and felt very silly in it. He noticed that not a single boy in all that crowd was dressed as he was—in what he thought was the only correct dress for boys. Lucy walked beside him. Once, just after they started, she said, “Aren’t you frightened, Philip?” and he would not answer, though he longed to say, “Of course not. It’s only girls who are afraid.” But he thought it would be more disagreeable to say nothing, so he said it.

  When they got to the Hall of Justice, she caught hold of his hand, and said:

  “Oh!” very loud and sudden, “doesn’t it remind you of anything?” she asked.

  Philip pulled his hand away and said “No” before he remembered that he had decided not to speak to her. And the “No” was quite untrue, for the building did remind him of something, though he couldn’t have told you what.

  The prisoners and their guard passed through a great arch between magnificent silver pillars, and along a vast corridor, lined with soldiers who all saluted.

  “Do all sorts of soldiers salute you?” he asked the captain, “or only just your own ones?”

  “It’s you they’re saluting,” the captain said; “our laws tell us to salute all prisoners out of respect for their misfortunes.”

  The judge sat on a high bronze throne with colossal bronze dragons on each side of it, and wide shallow steps of ivory, black and white.

  Two attendants spread a round mat on the top of the steps in front of the judge—a yellow mat it was, and very thick, and he stood up and saluted the prisoners. (“Because of your misfortunes,” the captain whispered.)

  The judge wore a bright yellow robe with a green girdle, and he had no wig, but a very odd-shaped hat, which he kept on all the time.

  The trial did not last long, and the captain said very little, and the judge still less, while the prisoners were not allowed to speak at all. The judge looked up something in a book, and consulted in a low voice with the crown lawyer and a sour-faced person in black. Then he put on his spectacles and said:

  “Prisoners at the bar, you are found guilty of trespass. The punishment is Death—if the judge does not like the prisoners. If he does not dislike them it is imprisonment for life, or until the judge has had time to think it over. Remove the prisoners.”

  “Oh, don’t!” cried Philip, almost weeping.

  “I thought you weren’t afraid,” whispered Lucy.

  “Silence in court,” said the judge.

  Then Philip and Lucy were removed.

  They were marched by streets quite different from those they had come by, and at last in the corner of a square they came to a large house that was quite black.

  “Here we are,” said the captain kindly. “Good-bye. Better luck next time.”

  The gaoler, a gentleman in black velvet, with a ruff and a pointed beard, came out and welcomed them cordially.

  “How do you do, my dears?” he said. “I hope you’ll be comfortable here. First-class misdemeanants, I suppose?” he asked.

  “Of course,” said the captain.

  “Top floor, if you please,” said the gaoler politely, and stood back to let the children pass. “Turn to the left and up the stairs.”

  The stairs were dark and went on and on, and round and round, and up and up. At the very top was a big room, simply furnished with a table, chairs, and a rocking-horse. Who wants more furniture than that?

  “You’ve got the best view in the whole city,” said the gaoler, “and you’ll be company for me. What? They gave me the post of gaoler because it’s nice, light, gentlemanly work, and leaves me time for my writing. I’m a literary man, you know. But I’ve sometimes found it a trifle lonely. You’re the first prisoners I’ve ever had, you see. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go and order some dinner for you. You’ll be contented with the feast of reason and the flow of soul, I feel certain.”

  The moment the door had closed on the gaoler’s black back Philip turned on Lucy.

  “I hope you’re satisfied,” he said bitterly. “This is all your doing. They’d have let me off if you hadn’t been here. What on earth did you want to come here for? Why did you come running after me like that? You know I don’t like you?”

  “You’re the hatefullest, disagreeablest, horridest boy in all the world,” said Lucy firmly—“there!”

  Philip had not expected this. He met it as well as he could.

  “I’m not a little sneak of a white mouse squeezing in where I’m not wanted, anyhow,” he said.

  And then they stood looking at each other, breathing quickly, both of them.

  “I’d rather be a white mouse than a cruel bully,” said Lucy at last.

  “I’m not a bully,” said Philip.

  Then there was another silence. Lucy sniffed. Philip looked round the bare room, and suddenly it came to him that he and Lucy were companions in misfortune, no matter whose fault it was that they were imprisoned. So he said:

  “Look here, I don’t like you and I shan’t pretend I do. But I’ll call it Pax for the present if you like. We’ve got to escape from this place somehow, and I’ll help you if you like, and you may help me if you can.”

  “Thank you,” said Lucy, in a tone which might have meant anything.

  “So we’ll call it Pax and see if we can escape by the window. There might be ivy—or a faithful page with a rope ladder. Have you a page at the Grange?”

  “There’s two stable-boys,” said Lucy, “but I don’t think they’re faithful, and I say, I think all this is much more magic than you think.”

  “Of course I know it’s magic,” said he impatiently; “but it’s quite real too.”

  “Oh, it’s real enough,” said she.

  They leaned out of the window. Alas, there was no ivy. Their window was very high up, and the wall outside, when they touched it with their hand, felt smooth as glass.

  “That’s no go,” said he, and the two leaned still farther out of the window looking down on the town. There were strong towers and fine minarets and palaces, the palm trees and fountains and gardens. A white building across the square looked strangely familiar. Could it be like St. Paul’s which Philip had been taken to see when he was very little, and which he had never been able to remember? No, he could not remember it even now. The two prisoners looked out in a long silence. Far below lay the city, its trees softly waving in the breeze, flowers shinin
g in a bright many-coloured patchwork, the canals that intersected the big squares gleamed in the sunlight, and crossing and recrossing the squares and streets were the people of the town, coming and going about their business.

  “Look here!” said Lucy suddenly, “do you mean to say you don’t know?”

  “Know what?” he asked impatiently.

  “Where we are. What it is. Don’t you?”

  “No. No more do you.”

  “Haven’t you seen it all before?”

  “No, of course I haven’t. No more have you.”

  “All right. I have seen it before though,” said Lucy, “and so have you. But I shan’t tell you what it is unless you’ll be nice to me.” Her tone was a little sad, but quite firm.

  “I am nice to you. I told you it was Pax,” said Philip. “Tell me what you think it is.”

  “I don’t mean that sort of grandish standoffish Pax, but real Pax. Oh, don’t be so horrid, Philip. I’m dying to tell you—but I won’t if you go on being like you are.”

  “I’m all right,” said Philip; “out with it.”

  “No. You’ve got to say it’s Pax, and I will stand by you till we get out of this, and I’ll always act like a noble friend to you, and I’ll try my best to like you. Of course if you can’t like me you can’t, but you ought to try. Say it after me, won’t you?”

  Her tone was so kind and persuading that he found himself saying after her, “I, Philip, agree to try and like you, Lucy, and to stand by you till we’re out of this, and always to act the part of a noble friend to you. And it’s real Pax. Shake hands.”

  “Now then,” said he when they had shaken hands, and Lucy uttered these words:

  “Don’t you see? It’s your own city that we’re in, your own city that you built on the tables in the drawing-room? It’s all got big by magic, so that we could get in. Look,” she pointed out of the window, “see that great golden dome, that’s one of the brass finger-bowls, and that white building’s my old model of St. Paul’s. And there’s Buckingham Palace over there, with the carved squirrel on the top, and the chessmen, and the blue and white china pepper-pots; and the building we’re in is the black Japanese cabinet.”