The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories

by E. Nesbit

  When the unfortunate one came out of the back-kitchen he looked quite a decent chap, though still blue in patches from the lining of his hat. Dicky whispered to me what a difference clothes made.

  He made a polite though jerky bow to the girls, and Dora said:

  ‘How do you do? I hope you are quite well.’

  ‘As well as can be expected,’ replied the now tidy outcast, ‘considering what I’ve gone through.’

  ‘Tea or cocoa?’ said Dora. ‘And do you like cheese or cold bacon best?’

  ‘I’ll leave it to you entirely,’ he answered. And he added, without a pause, ‘I’m sure I can trust you.’

  ‘Indeed you can,’ said Dora earnestly; ‘you needn’t be a bit afraid. You’re perfectly safe with us.’

  He opened his eyes at this.

  ‘He didn’t expect such kindness,’ Alice whispered. ‘Poor man! he’s quite overcome.’

  We gave him cocoa, and cheese, and bacon, and butter and bread, and he ate a great deal, with his feet in Mr. Sandal’s all-wool boots on the kitchen fender.

  The girls wrung the water out of his clothes, and hung them on the clothes-horse on the other side of the fire.

  ‘I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you,’ he said; ‘real charity I call this. I shan’t forget it, I assure you. I ought to apologise for knocking you up like this, but I’d been hours tramping through this precious marsh of yours wet to the skin, and not a morsel of food since mid-day. And yours was the first light I’d seen for a couple of hours.’

  ‘I’m very glad it was us you knocked up,’ said Alice.

  ‘So am I,’ said he; ‘I might have knocked at a great many doors before I got such a welcome. I’m quite aware of that.’

  He spoke all right, not like a labouring man; but it wasn’t a gentleman’s voice, and he seemed to end his sentences off short at the end, as though he had it on the tip of his tongue to say ‘Miss’ or ‘Sir.’

  Oswald thought how terrible it must be to be out alone in the rain and the dark, with the police after you, and no one to be kind to you if you knocked at their doors.

  ‘You must have had an awful day,’ he said.

  ‘I believe you,’ said the stranger, cutting himself more bacon. ‘Thank you, miss (he really did say it that time), just half a cup if you don’t mind. I believe you! I never want to have such a day again, I can tell you. I took one or two little things in the morning, but I wasn’t in the mood or something. You know how it is sometimes.’

  ‘I can fancy it,’ said Alice.

  ‘And then the afternoon clouded over. It cleared up at sunset, you remember, but then it was too late. And then the rain came on. Not half! My word! I’ve been in a ditch. Thought my last hour had come, I tell you. Only got out by the skin of my teeth. Got rid of my whole outfit. There’s a nice thing to happen to a young fellow! Upon my Sam, it’s enough to make a chap swear he’ll never take another thing as long as he lives.’

  ‘I hope you never will,’ said Dora earnestly; ‘it doesn’t pay, you know.’

  ‘Upon my word, that’s nearly true, though I don’t know how you know,’ said the stranger, beginning on the cheese and pickles.

  ‘I wish,’ Dora was beginning, but Oswald interrupted. He did not think it was fair to preach at the man.

  ‘So you lost your outfit in the ditch,’ he said; ‘and how did you get those clothes?’

  He pointed to the steaming gray suit.

  ‘Oh,’ replied the stranger, ‘the usual way.’

  Oswald was too polite to ask what was the usual way of getting a gray suit to replace a prison outfit. He was afraid the usual way was the way the four-pound cake had been got.

  Alice looked at me helplessly. I knew just how she felt.

  Harbouring a criminal when people are ‘out after him’ gives you a very chilly feeling in the waistcoat—or, if in pyjamas, in the part that the plaited cotton cord goes round. By the greatest good luck there were a few of the extra-strong peppermints left. We had two each, and felt better.

  The girls put the sheets off Oswald’s bed on to the bed Miss Sandal used to sleep in when not in London nursing the shattered bones of her tract-distributing brother.

  ‘If you will go to bed now,’ Oswald said to the stranger, ‘we will wake you in good time. And you may sleep as sound as you like. We’ll wake you all right.’

  ‘You might wake me about eight,’ he said; ‘I ought to be getting on. I’m sure I don’t know what to say in return for the very handsome reception you’ve given me. Good-night to you all, I’m sure.’

  ‘Good-night,’ said everyone. And Dora added, ‘Don’t you bother. While you’re asleep we’ll think what’s best to be done.’

  ‘Don’t you bother,’ said the stranger, and he absently glanced at his own clothes. ‘What’s big enough to get out of’s big enough to get into.’

  Then he took the candle, and Dicky showed him to his room.

  ‘What’s big enough to get out of,’ repeated Alice. ‘Surely he doesn’t mean to creep back into prison, and pretend he was there all the time, only they didn’t notice him?’

  ‘Well, what are we to do?’ asked Dicky, rejoining the rest of us. ‘He told me the dark room at Dover was a disgrace. Poor chap!’

  ‘We must invent a disguise,’ said Dora.

  ‘Let’s pretend he’s our aunt, and dress him up—like in “Hard Cash,”’ said Alice.

  It was now three o’clock, but no one was sleepy. No one wanted to go to sleep at all till we had taken our candles up into the attic and rummaged through Miss Sandal’s trunks, and found a complete disguise exactly suited to an aunt. We had everything—dress, cloak, bonnet, veil, gloves, petticoats, and even boots, though we knew all the time, in our hearts, that these were far too small. We put all ready on the parlour sofa, and then at last we began to feel in our eyes and ears and jaws how late it was. So we went back to bed. Alice said she knew how to wake exact to the minute, and we had known her do it before, so we trusted her, and agreed that she was to wake us at six.

  But, alas! Alice had deemed herself cleverer than she was, by long chalks, and it was not her that woke us.

  We were aroused from deep slumber by the voice of Mrs. Beale.

  ‘Hi!’ it remarked,’wake up, young gentlemen! It’s gone the half after nine, and your gentleman friend’s up and dressed and a-waiting for his breakfast.’

  We sprang up.

  ‘I say, Mrs. Beale,’ cried Oswald, who never even in sleep quite loses his presence of mind, ‘don’t let on to anyone that we’ve got a visitor.’

  She went away laughing. I suppose she thought it was some silly play-secret. She little knew.

  We found the stranger looking out of the window.

  ‘I wouldn’t do that,’ said Dora softly; ‘it isn’t safe. Suppose someone saw you?’

  ‘Well,’ said he, ‘suppose they did?’

  ‘They might take you, you know,’ said Dora; ‘it’s done in a minute. We saw two poor men taken yesterday.’

  Her voice trembled at the gloomy recollection.

  ‘Let ’em take me,’ said the man who wore the clothes of the plain-living and high-thinking Mr. Sandal; ‘I don’t mind so long as my ugly mug don’t break the camera!’

  ‘We want to save you,’ Dora was beginning; but Oswald, far-sighted beyond his years, felt a hot redness spread over his youthful ears and right down his neck. He said:

  ‘Please, what were you doing in Dover? And what did you take yesterday?’

  ‘I was in Dover on business,’ said the man, ‘and what I took was Hythe Church and Burmarsh Church, and——’

  ‘Then you didn’t steal a cake and get put into Dover Gaol, and break loose, and——’ said Dicky, though I kicked him as a sign not to.

  ‘Me?
’ said our friend. ‘Not exactly!’

  ‘Then, what are you? If you’re not that poor escaped thief, what are you?’ asked Dora fiercely, before Oswald could stop her.

  ‘I’m a photographer, miss,’ said he—‘a travelling photographer.’

  Then slowly but surely he saw it all, and I thought he would never have done laughing.

  * * * *

  ‘Breakfast is getting cold,’ said Oswald.

  ‘So it is,’ said our guest. ‘Lordy, what a go! This’ll be something to talk about between friends for many a year.’

  ‘No,’ said Alice suddenly; ‘we thought you were a runaway thief, and we wanted to help you whatever you were.’ She pointed to the sofa, where the whole costume of the untrue aunt was lying in simple completeness. ‘And you’re in honour bound never to tell a soul. Think,’ she added in persuading tones—‘think of the cold bacon and the cheese, and all those pickles you had, and the fire and the cocoa, and us being up all night, and the dry all-wool boots.’

  ‘Say no more, miss,’ said the photographer (for such he indeed was) nobly. ‘Your will is my law; I won’t never breathe a word.’

  And he sat down to the ham and eggs as though it was weeks since he had tasted bacon.

  * * * *

  But we found out afterwards he went straight up to the Ship, and told everybody all about it. I wonder whether all photographers are dishonourable and ungrateful. Oswald hopes they are not, but he cannot feel at all sure.

  Lots of people chaffed us about it afterwards, but the pigman said we were jolly straight young Britons, and it is something to be called that by a man you really respect. It doesn’t matter so much what the other people say—the people you don’t really care about.

  When we told our Indian uncle about it he said, ‘Nonsense! you ought never to try and shield a criminal.’ But that was not at all the way we felt about it at the time when the criminal was there (or we thought he was), all wet, and hunted, and miserable, with people ‘out after him.’ He meant his friends who were expecting him, but we thought he meant police. It is very hard sometimes to know exactly what is right. If what feels right isn’t right, how are you to know, I wonder.

  * * * *

  The only comforting thing about it all is that we heard next day that the soldiers had got away from the brown bicycle beast after all. I suppose it came home to them suddenly that they were two to one, and they shoved him into a ditch and got away. They were never caught; I am very glad. And I suppose that’s wrong too—so many things are. But I am.

  THE ARSENICATORS

  A TALE OF CRIME

  It was Mrs. Beale who put it into our heads that Miss Sandal lived plain because she was poor. We knew she thought high, because that is what you jolly well have to do if you are a vegetationist and an all-wooler, and those sort of things.

  And we tried to get money for her, like we had once tried to do for ourselves. And we succeeded by means that have been told alone in another place in getting two golden pounds.

  Then, of course, we began to wonder what we had better do with the two pounds now we had got them.

  ‘Put them in the savings-bank,’ Dora said.

  Alice said:

  ‘Why, when we could have them to look at?’

  Noël thought we ought to buy her something beautiful to adorn Miss Sandal’s bare dwelling.

  H. O. thought we might spend it on nice tinned and potted things from the stores, to make the plain living and high thinking go down better.

  But Oswald knew that, however nice the presents are that other people buy for you, it is really more satisfying to have the chink to spend exactly as you like.

  Then Dicky said:

  ‘I don’t believe in letting money lie idle. Father always says it’s bad business.’

  ‘They give interest at the bank, don’t they?’ Dora said.

  ‘Yes; tuppence a year, or some rot like that! We ought to go into trade with it, and try to make more of it. That’s what we ought to do.’

  ‘If it’s Miss Sandal’s money, do you think we ought to do anything with it without asking her?’

  ‘It isn’t hers till she’s got it, and it is hers because it’s not ours to spend. I think we’re—what is it?—in loco parentis to that two quid, because anyone can see poor Miss Sandal doesn’t know how to manage her money. And it will be much better if we give her ten pounds than just two.’

  This is how Dicky argued.

  We were sitting on the sands when this council took place, and Alice said, ‘Suppose we bought a shrimping-net, and sold shrimps from our window in red handkerchiefs and white French caps.’ But we asked her how she would like going into the sea nearly up to her neck in all weathers, and she had to own she had not thought of that. Besides, shrimps are so beastly cheap—more than you can eat for twopence.

  The conversation was not interesting to anyone but Dicky, because we did not then believe we could do it, though later we thought differently. But I dare say we should have gone on with it just out of politeness to him, only at this moment we saw a coastguard, who is a great friend of ours, waving to us from the sea-wall. So we went up. And he said:

  ‘You take my tip and cut along home. There’s something come for you.’

  ‘Perhaps it’s heaps of things, like I said, to eat with the plain living,’ said H. O.

  And bright visions of hampers full of the most superior tuck winged our young legs as we cut along home.

  It was not, however, a hamper that we found awaiting us. It was a large box. And besides that there were two cases addressed to Dicky and me, and through the gaps in the boards we could see twisted straw, and our hearts leapt high in our breasts, because we knew that they were bikes.

  And such, indeed, they proved to be—free-wheels of the most unspotted character, the noble gift of our Indian uncle, ever amiable, generous, and esteemed.

  While we were getting the glorious bikes from their prison bars, the others were undoing the box which had their names on it.

  It contained cakes and sweets, a work-basket for Dora, lined with red satin, and dressed up with silver thimbles, and all sorts of bodkins and scissors, and knives with silver handles. There was a lovely box of paints for Alice.

  Noël had a paint-box too, and H. O. had a very good Aunt Sally. And there were lots of books—not the sawdusty, dry kind that Miss Sandal had in her house, but jolly good books, the kind you can’t put down till you’ve finished. But just now we hardly looked at them. For who with a spark of manly spirit would think twice about a book with a new free-wheel champing the oil like a charger in a ballad?

  Dicky and I had a three-mile spin before dinner, and only fell off five times between us. Three spills were Dicky’s, one was Oswald’s, and one was when we ran into each other. The bikes were totally uninjured.

  As time ran its appointed course we got a bit used to the bikes, and, finding that you cannot ride all day and all night, we began to look at the books. Only one of them comes into this story. It was called ‘The Youth’s Manual of Scientific and Mechanical Recreation,’ and, of course, we none of us read it till we’d read everything else, and then we found it wasn’t half bad. It taught you how to make all sorts of things—galvanic batteries, and kites, and mouse-traps, and how to electroplate things, and how to do wood-carving and leather-work. We tried as many of the things as we had money for, and some of them succeeded. Then we made a fire-balloon.

  It took a long time to make, and then it caught fire and blazed away before we could get it launched.

  So we made another, and Noël dropped it near the water-butt, where there was a puddle, and, being tissue-paper, it was unable to stand the strain.

  So we made another. But the paste was bad, and it did not stick.

  So we made another.

  Then, at
last, when all was ready, Oswald climbed on to the pigsty at Mrs. Beales’, and held the balloon very steady while Dicky lighted the cotton-wool, soaked in spirits of wine, which hangs from the end (where cars are in larger sizes), and causes it to be called a fire-balloon. A taper is burned inside the balloon, and then, according to the book, ‘it readily ascends, and is carried away by the wind, sometimes to a considerable distance.’

  Well, this time everything happened just as the book said, which is not always the case.

  It was a clear, dark night, bright stars only. And, to our relief and agreeable surprise, our balloon rose up and sailed away, dragging its lighted tail like a home-made comet.

  It sailed away over the marshes, getting smaller and smaller, and at last it was, though lost to sight, to memory dear. Some of us thought it wasn’t worth doing, but Oswald was glad he had persevered. He does hate to be beaten. However, we none of us cared to make another, so we went to bed.

  Dicky always goes to sleep directly on these occasions, but Oswald, more thoughtful for his years, sometimes reviews the events of the day. He must have been nearly asleep, because he was just reviewing an elephant that flew with a lamp inside, so that it looked like a fire-balloon, when Alice suddenly came and woke him up completely.

  ‘Beware!’ she said in tones of awe.

  And he said, but not crossly:

  ‘Well, what on earth’s up now?’

  ‘The fire-balloon!’ replied Alice.

  ‘What about it?’ he rejoined, still calm and kind, though roused from his reviews.

  ‘Why, it came to me all in a minute! Oh, Oswald—when it comes down—there are lots of farms in the march. Suppose it comes down and sets light to something! It’s a crime—arsenic or something—and you can be hanged for it!’

  ‘Don’t be an idiot!’ said Oswald kindly. ‘The book wouldn’t have told youths how to make them if they were crimes. Go back to bed, for goodness’ sake!’

  ‘I wish we hadn’t—oh, I do!’ said Alice.