Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  I did not like the look of him much myself, but Alice said, “Oh, the poor man, do let’s help him, Oswald.” So we held a hurried council, and decided to give him the milk sixpence. Oswald had it in his purse, and he had to empty the purse into his hand to find the sixpence, for that was not all the money he had, by any means. Noël said afterwards that he saw the wayfarer’s eyes fastened greedily upon the shining pieces as Oswald returned them to his purse. Oswald has to own that he purposely let the man see that he had more money, so that the man might not feel shy about accepting so large a sum as sixpence.

  The man blessed our kind hearts and we went on.

  The sun was shining very brightly, and the Tower of Mystery did not look at all like a tomb when we got to it. The bottom story was on arches, all open, and ferns and things grew underneath. There was a round stone stair going up in the middle. Alice began to gather ferns while we went up, but when we had called out to her that it was as the pig-man had said, and daylight all the way up, she said:

  “All right. I’m not afraid. I’m only afraid of being late home,” and came up after us. And perhaps, though not downright manly truthfulness, this was as much as you could expect from a girl.

  There were holes in the little tower of the staircase to let light in. At the top of it was a thick door with iron bolts. We shot these back, and it was not fear but caution that made Oswald push open the door so very slowly and carefully.

  Because, of course, a stray dog or cat might have got shut up there by accident, and it would have startled Alice very much if it had jumped out on us.

  When the door was opened we saw that there was no such thing. It was a room with eight sides. Denny says it is the shape called octagenarian; because a man named Octagius invented it. There were eight large arched windows with no glass, only stone-work, like in churches. The room was full of sunshine, and you could see the blue sky through the windows, but nothing else, because they were so high up. It was so bright we began to think the pig-man had been kidding us. Under one of the windows was a door. We went through, and there was a little passage and then a turret-twisting stair, like in the church, but quite light with windows. When we had gone some way up this, we came to a sort of landing, and there was a block of stone let into the wall — polished — Denny said it was Aberdeen graphite, with gold letters cut in it. It said:

  “Here lies the body of Mr. Richard Ravenal. Born 1720. Died 1779.”

  and a verse of poetry:

  “Here lie I, between earth and sky, Think upon me, dear passers-by, And you who do my tombstone see Be kind to say a prayer for me.”

  “How horrid!” Alice said. “Do let’s get home.”

  “We may as well go to the top,” Dicky said, “just to say we’ve been.”

  And Alice is no funk — so she agreed; though I could see she did not like it.

  Up at the top it was like the top of the church tower, only octagenarian in shape, instead of square.

  Alice got all right there; because you cannot think much about ghosts and nonsense when the sun is shining bang down on you at four o’clock in the afternoon, and you can see red farm-roofs between the trees, and the safe white roads, with people in carts like black ants crawling.

  It was very jolly, but we felt we ought to be getting back, because tea is at five, and we could not hope to find lifts both ways.

  So we started to go down. Dicky went first, then Oswald, then Alice — and H. O. had just stumbled over the top step and saved himself by Alice’s back, which nearly upset Oswald and Dicky, when the hearts of all stood still, and then went on by leaps and bounds, like the good work in missionary magazines.

  For, down below us, in the tower where the man whose beard grew down to his toes after he was dead was buried, there was a noise — a loud noise. And it was like a door being banged and bolts fastened. We tumbled over each other to get back into the open sunshine on the top of the tower, and Alice’s hand got jammed between the edge of the doorway and H. O.’s boot; it was bruised black and blue, and another part bled, but she did not notice it till long after.

  We looked at each other, and Oswald said in a firm voice (at least, I hope it was):

  “What was that?”

  “He has waked up,” Alice said. “Oh, I know he has. Of course there is a door for him to get out by when he wakes. He’ll come up here. I know he will.”

  Dicky said, and his voice was not at all firm (I noticed that at the time), “It doesn’t matter, if he’s alive.”

  “Unless he’s come to life a raving lunatic,” Noël said, and we all stood with our eyes on the doorway of the turret — and held our breath to hear.

  But there was no more noise.

  Then Oswald said — and nobody ever put it in the Golden Deed book, though they own that it was brave and noble of him — he said:

  “Perhaps it was only the wind blowing one of the doors to. I’ll go down and see, if you will, Dick.”

  Dicky only said:

  “The wind doesn’t shoot bolts.”

  “A bolt from the blue,” said Denny to himself, looking up at the sky. His father is a sub-editor. He had gone very red, and he was holding on to Alice’s hand. Suddenly he stood up quite straight and said:

  “I’m not afraid. I’ll go and see.”

  This was afterwards put in the Golden Deed book. It ended in Oswald and Dicky and Denny going. Denny went first because he said he would rather — and Oswald understood this and let him. If Oswald had pushed first it would have been like Sir Launcelot refusing to let a young knight win his spurs. Oswald took good care to go second himself, though. The others never understood this. You don’t expect it from girls; but I did think father would have understood without Oswald telling him, which of course he never could.

  We all went slowly.

  At the bottom of the turret stairs we stopped short. Because the door there was bolted fast and would not yield to shoves, however desperate and united.

  Only now somehow we felt that Mr. Richard Ravenal was all right and quiet, but that some one had done it for a lark, or perhaps not known about any one being up there. So we rushed up, and Oswald told the others in a few hasty but well-chosen words, and we all leaned over between the battlements, and shouted, “Hi! you there!”

  Then from under the arches of the quite-down-stairs part of the tower a figure came forth — and it was the sailor who had had our milk sixpence. He looked up and he spoke to us. He did not speak loud, but he spoke loud enough for us to hear every word quite plainly. He said:

  “Drop that.”

  Oswald said, “Drop what?”

  He said, “That row.”

  Oswald said, “Why?”

  He said, “Because if you don’t I’ll come up and make you, and pretty quick too, so I tell you.”

  Dicky said, “Did you bolt the door?”

  The man said, “I did so, my young cock.”

  Alice said — and Oswald wished to goodness she had held her tongue, because he saw right enough the man was not friendly—”Oh, do come and let us out — do, please.”

  While she was saying it Oswald suddenly saw that he did not want the man to come up. So he scurried down the stairs because he thought he had seen something on the door on the top side, and sure enough there were two bolts, and he shot them into their sockets. This bold act was not put in the Golden Deed book, because when Alice wanted to, the others said it was not good of Oswald to think of this, but only clever. I think sometimes, in moments of danger and disaster, it is as good to be clever as it is to be good. But Oswald would never demean himself to argue about this.

  When he got back the man was still standing staring up. Alice said:

  “Oh, Oswald, he says he won’t let us out unless we give him all our money. And we might be here for days and days and all night as well. No one knows where we are to come and look for us. Oh, do let’s give it him all.”

  She thought the lion of the English nation, which does not know when it is beaten, would be
ramping in her brother’s breast. But Oswald kept calm. He said:

  “All right,” and he made the others turn out their pockets. Denny had a bad shilling, with a head on both sides, and three halfpence. H. O. had a halfpenny. Noël had a French penny, which is only good for chocolate machines at railway stations. Dicky had tenpence halfpenny, and Oswald had a two-shilling piece of his own that he was saving up to buy a gun with. Oswald tied the whole lot up in his handkerchief, and looking over the battlements, he said:

  “You are an ungrateful beast. We gave you sixpence freely of our own will.”

  The man did look a little bit ashamed, but he mumbled something about having his living to get.

  Then Oswald said:

  “Here you are. Catch!” and he flung down the handkerchief with the money in it.

  The man muffed the catch — butter-fingered idiot! — but he picked up the handkerchief and undid it, and when he saw what was in it he swore dreadfully. The cad!

  “Look here,” he called out, “this won’t do, young shaver. I want those there shiners I see in your pus! Chuck ’em along!”

  Then Oswald laughed. He said:

  “I shall know you again anywhere, and you’ll be put in prison for this. Here are the shiners.” And he was so angry he chucked down purse and all. The shiners were not real ones, but only card-counters that looked like sovereigns on one side. Oswald used to carry them in his purse so as to look affluent. He does not do this now.

  When the man had seen what was in the purse he disappeared under the tower, and Oswald was glad of what he had done about the bolts — and he hoped they were as strong as the ones on the other side of the door.

  They were.

  We heard the man kicking and pounding at the door, and I am not ashamed to say that we were all holding on to each other very tight. I am proud, however, to relate that nobody screamed or cried.

  After what appeared to be long years, the banging stopped, and presently we saw the brute going away among the trees.

  Then Alice did cry, and I do not blame her.

  Then Oswald said:

  “It’s no use. Even if he’s undone the door, he may be in ambush. We must hold on here till somebody comes.”

  Then Alice said, speaking chokily because she had not quite done crying:

  “Let’s wave a flag.”

  By the most fortunate accident she had on one of her Sunday petticoats, though it was Monday. This petticoat is white. She tore it out at the gathers, and we tied it to Denny’s stick, and took turns to wave it. We had laughed at his carrying a stick before, but we were very sorry now that we had done so.

  And the tin dish the Lent pie was baked in we polished with our handkerchiefs, and moved it about in the sun so that the sun might strike on it and signal our distress to some of the outlying farms.

  This was perhaps the most dreadful adventure that had then ever happened to us. Even Alice had now stopped thinking of Mr. Richard Ravenal, and thought only of the lurker in ambush.

  We all felt our desperate situation keenly. I must say Denny behaved like anything but a white mouse. When it was the others’ turn to wave, he sat on the leads of the tower and held Alice’s and Noël’s hands, and said poetry to them — yards and yards of it. By some strange fatality it seemed to comfort them. It wouldn’t have me.

  He said “The Battle of the Baltic,” and “Gray’s Elegy,” right through, though I think he got wrong in places, and the “Revenge,” and Macaulay’s thing about Lars Porsena and the Nine Gods. And when it was his turn he waved like a man.

  I will try not to call him a white mouse any more. He was a brick that day, and no mouse.

  The sun was low in the heavens, and we were sick of waving and very hungry, when we saw a cart in the road below. We waved like mad, and shouted, and Denny screamed exactly like a railway whistle, a thing none of us had known before that he could do.

  “DENNY HELD ALICE’S AND NOËL’S HANDS”

  And the cart stopped. And presently we saw a figure with a white beard among the trees. It was our pig-man.

  We bellowed the awful truth to him, and when he had taken it in — he thought at first we were kidding — he came up and let us out.

  He had got the pig; luckily it was a very small one — and we were not particular. Denny and Alice sat on the front of the cart with the pig-man, and the rest of us got in with the pig, and the man drove us right home. You may think we talked it over on the way. Not us. We went to sleep, among the pig, and before long the pig-man stopped and got us to make room for Alice and Denny. There was a net over the cart. I never was so sleepy in my life, though it was not more than bedtime.

  Generally, after anything exciting, you are punished — but this could not be, because we had only gone for a walk, exactly as we were told.

  There was a new rule made, though. No walks, except on the high-roads, and we were always to take Pincher, and either Lady, the deer-hound, or Martha, the bull-dog. We generally hate rules, but we did not mind this one.

  Father gave Denny a gold pencil-case because he was first to go down into the tower. Oswald does not grudge Denny this, though some might think he deserved at least a silver one.

  But Oswald is above such paltry jealousies.

  THE WATER-WORKS

  This is the story of one of the most far-reaching and influentially naughty things we ever did in our lives. We did not mean to do such a deed. And yet we did do it. These things will happen with the best-regulated consciences.

  The story of this rash and fatal act is intimately involved — which means all mixed up anyhow — with a private affair of Oswald’s, and the one cannot be revealed without the other. Oswald does not particularly want his story to be remembered, but he wishes to tell the truth, and perhaps it is what father calls a wholesome discipline to lay bare the awful facts.

  It was like this.

  On Alice’s and Noël’s birthday we went on the river for a picnic. Before that we had not known that there was a river so near us. Afterwards father said he wished we had been allowed to remain in our pristine ignorance, whatever that is. And perhaps the dark hour did dawn when we wished so too. But a truce to vain regrets.

  It was rather a fine thing in birthdays. The uncle sent a box of toys and sweets, things that were like a vision from another and a brighter world. Besides that Alice had a knife, a pair of shut-up scissors, a silk handkerchief, a book — it was The Golden Age and is A1 except where it gets mixed with grown-up nonsense. Also a work-case lined with pink plush, a boot-bag, which no one in their senses would use because it had flowers in wool all over it. And she had a box of chocolates and a musical box that played “The Man Who Broke” and two other tunes, and two pairs of kid gloves for church, and a box of writing-paper — pink — with “Alice” on it in gold writing, and an egg colored red that said “A. Bastable” in ink on one side. These gifts were the offerings of Oswald, Dora, Dicky, Albert’s uncle, Daisy, Mr. Foulkes (our own robber), Noël, H. O., father, and Denny. Mrs. Pettigrew gave the egg. It was a kindly housekeeper’s friendly token.

  I shall not tell you about the picnic on the river, because the happiest times form but dull reading when they are written down. I will merely state that it was prime. Though happy, the day was uneventful. The only thing exciting enough to write about was in one of the locks, where there was a snake — a viper. It was asleep in a warm corner of the lock gate, and when the gate was shut it fell off into the water.

  Alice and Dora screamed hideously. So did Daisy, but her screams were thinner.

  The snake swam round and round all the time our boat was in the lock. It swam with four inches of itself — the head end — reared up out of the water, exactly like Kaa in the Jungle book — so we know Kipling is a true author and no rotter. We were careful to keep our hands well inside the boat. A snake’s eyes strike terror into the boldest breast.

  When the lock was full father killed the viper with a boat-hook. I was sorry for it myself. It was indeed a venomous serpe
nt. But it was the first we had ever seen, except at the Zoo. And it did swim most awfully well.

  Directly the snake had been killed H. O. reached out for its corpse, and the next moment the body of our little brother was seen wriggling conclusively on the boat’s edge. This exciting spectacle was not of a lasting nature. He went right in. Father clawed him out. He is very unlucky with water.

  Being a birthday, but little was said. H. O. was wrapped in everybody’s coats, and did not take any cold at all.

  This glorious birthday ended with an iced cake and ginger wine, and drinking healths. Then we played whatever we liked. There had been rounders during the afternoon. It was a day to be forever marked by memory’s brightest what’s-its-name.

  I should not have said anything about the picnic but for one thing. It was the thin edge of the wedge. It was the all-powerful lever that moved but too many events. You see, we were now no longer strangers to the river.

  And we went there whenever we could. Only we had to take the dogs, and to promise no bathing without grown-ups. But paddling in back waters was allowed. I say no more.

  I have not enumerated Noël’s birthday presents because I wish to leave something to the imagination of my young readers. (The best authors always do this.) If you will take the large, red catalogue of the Army and Navy Stores, and just make a list of about fifteen of the things you would like best — prices from 2s. to 25s. — you will get a very good idea of Noël’s presents, and it will help you to make up your mind in case you are asked just before your next birthday what you really need.

  One of Noël’s birthday presents was a cricket-ball. He cannot bowl for nuts, and it was a first-rate ball. So some days after the birthday Oswald offered him to exchange it for a cocoanut he had won at the fair, and two pencils (new), and a brand-new note-book. Oswald thought, and he still thinks, that this was a fair exchange, and so did Noël at the time, and he agreed to it, and was quite pleased till the girls said it wasn’t fair, and Oswald had the best of it. And then that young beggar Noël wanted the ball back, but Oswald, though not angry, was firm.