Complete Novels of E Nesbit

by Edith Nesbit

  “Rather!” was all there was time for Elfrida to say.

  The welcome that awaited Dickie at Beale’s cottage from Beale, Amelia, and, not least, the dogs, was enough to drive all thoughts of unlikely places out of anybody’s head. And besides, there were always so many interesting things to do at the cottage. He helped to wash True, cleaned the knives, and rinsed lettuce for tea; helped to dry the tea-things, and to fold the washing when Mrs. Beale brought it in out of the yard in dry, sweet armfuls of white folds.

  It was dusk when he bade them good-night, embracing each dog in turn, and set out to walk the little way to the crossroads, where the dog-cart returning from Cliffville would pick him up. But the dog-cart was a little late, because the pony had dropped a shoe and had had to be taken to the blacksmith’s.

  So when Dickie had waited a little while he began to think, as one always does when people don’t keep their appointments, that perhaps he had mistaken the time, or that the clock at the cottage was slow. And when he had waited a little longer, it seemed simply silly to be waiting at all. So he picked up his crutch and got up from the milestone where he had been sitting and set off to walk down to the Castle.

  As he went he thought many things, and one of the things he thought was that the memories of King James’s time had grown dim and distant — he looked down on Arden Castle and loved it, and felt that he asked no better than to live there all his life with his cousins and their father, and that, after all, the magic of a dream-life was not needed, when life itself was so good and happy.

  And just as he was thinking this a twig cracked sharply in the hedge. Then a dozen twigs rustled and broke, and something like a great black bird seemed to fly out at him and fold him in its wings.

  It was not a bird — he knew that the next moment — but a big, dark cloak, that some one had thrown over his head and shoulders, and through it strong hands were holding him.

  “Hold yer noise!” said a voice; “if you so much as squeak it’ll be the worse for you.”

  “Help!” shouted Dickie instantly.

  He was thrown on to the ground. Hands fumbled, his face was cleared of the cloak, and a handkerchief with a round pebble in it was stuffed into his mouth so that he could not speak. Then he was dragged behind a hedge and held there, while two voices whispered above him. The cloak was over his head again now, and he could see nothing, but he could hear. He heard one of the voices say, “Hush! they’re coming.” And then he heard the sound of hoofs and wheels, and Lord Arden’s jolly voice saying, “He must have walked on; we shall catch him up all right.” Then the sound of wheels and hoofs died away, and hard hands pulled him to his feet and thrust the crutch under his arm.

  “Step out!” said one of the voices, “and step out sharp — see? — or I’ll l’arn you! There’s a carriage awaiting for you.”

  He stepped out; there was nothing else to be done. They had taken the cloak from his eyes now, and he saw presently that they were nearing a coster’s barrow.

  They laid him in the barrow, covered him with the cloak, and put vegetable marrows and cabbages on that. They only left him a little room to breathe.

  “Now lie still for your life!” said the second voice. “If you stir a inch I’ll lick you till you can’t stand! And now you know.”

  So he lay still, rigid with misery and despair. For neither of these voices was strange to him. He knew them both only too well.

  CHAPTER X. THE NOBLE DEED

  When Lord Arden and Elfrida and Edred reached the castle and found that Dickie had not come back, the children concluded that Beale had persuaded him to stay the night at the cottage. And Lord Arden thought that the children must be right. He was extremely annoyed both with Beale and with Dickie for making such an arrangement without consulting him.

  “It is impertinent of Beale and thoughtless of the boy,” he said; “and I shall speak a word to them both in the morning.”

  But when Edred and Elfrida were gone to bed Lord Arden found that he could not feel quite sure or quite satisfied. Suppose Dickie was not at Beale’s? He strolled up to the cottage to see. Everything was dark at the cottage. He hesitated, then knocked at the door. At the third knock Beale, very sleepy, put his head out of the window.

  “Who’s there?” said he.

  “I am here,” said Lord Arden. “Richard is asleep, I suppose?”

  “I suppose so, my lord,” said Beale, sleepy and puzzled.

  “You have given me some anxiety. I had to come up to make sure he was here.”

  “But ‘e ain’t ‘ere,” said Beale. “Didn’t you pick ‘im up with the dog-cart, same as you said you would?”

  “No,” shouted Lord Arden. “Come down, Beale, and get a lantern. There must have been an accident.”

  The bedroom window showed a square of light, and Lord Arden below heard Beale blundering about above.

  “‘Ere’s your coat,” Mrs. Beale’s voice sounded; “never mind lacing up of your boots. You orter gone a bit of the way with ‘im.”

  “Well, I offered for to go, didn’t I?” Beale growled, blundered down the stairs and out through the wash-house, and came round the corner of the house with a stable lantern in his hand. He came close to where Lord Arden stood — a tall, dark figure in the starlight — and spoke in a voice that trembled.

  “The little nipper,” he said; and again, “the little nipper. If anything’s happened to ‘im! Swelp me! gov’ner — my lord, I mean. What I meanter say, if anything’s ‘appened to ‘im! One of the best!”

  The two men went quickly towards the gate. As they passed down the quiet, dusty road Beale spoke again.

  “I wasn’t no good — I don’t deceive you, guv’ner — a no account man I was, swelp me! And the little ‘un, ‘e tidied me up and told me tales and kep’ me straight. It was ‘is doing me and ‘Melia come together. An’ the dogs an’ all. An’ the little one. An’ ‘e got me to chuck the cadgin’. An’ worse. ‘E don’t know what I was like when I met ‘im. Why, I set out to make a blighted burglar of ‘im — you wouldn’t believe!”

  And out the whole story came as Lord Arden and he went along the gray road, looking to right and left where no bushes were nor stones, only the smooth curves of the down, so that it was easy to see that no little boy was there either.

  They looked for Dickie to right and left and here and there under bushes, and by stiles and hedges, and with trembling hearts they searched in the little old chalk quarry, and the white moon came up very late to help them. But they did not find him, though they roused a dozen men in the village to join in the search, and old Beale himself, who knew every yard of the ground for five miles round, came out with the spaniel who knew every inch of it for ten. But True rushed about the house and garden whining and yelping so piteously that ‘Melia tied him up, and he stayed tied up.

  And so, when Edred and Elfrida came down to breakfast, Mrs. Honeysett met them with the news that Dickie was lost and their father still out looking for him.

  “It’s that beastly magic,” said Edred as soon as the children were alone. “He’s done it once too often, and he’s got stuck some time in history and can’t get back.”

  “And we can’t do anything. We can’t get to him,” said Elfrida. “Oh! if only we’d got the old white magic and the Mouldiwarp to help us, we could find out what’s become of him.”

  “Perhaps he has fallen down a disused mine,” Edred suggested, “and is lying panting for water, and his faithful dog has jumped down after him and broken all its dear legs.”

  Elfrida melted to tears at this desperate picture, melted to a speechless extent.

  “We can’t do anything,” said Edred again; “don’t snivel like that, for goodness’ sake, Elfrida. This is a man’s job. Dry up. I can’t think, with you blubbing like that.”

  “I’m not,” said Elfrida untruly, and sniffed with some intensity.

  “If you could make up some poetry now,” Edred went on, “would that be any good?”

  “Not without t
he dresses,” she sniffed. “You know we always had dresses for our magic, or nearly always; and they have to be dead and gone people’s dresses, and you’ll only go to the dead and gone people’s time when the dresses were worn. Oh! dear Dickie, and if he’s really down a mine, or things like that, what’s the good of anything?”

  “I’m going to try, anyway,” said Edred, “at least you must too. Because I can’t make poetry.”

  “No more can I when I’m as unhappy as this. Poetry’s the last thing you think of when you’re mizzy.”

  “We could dress up, anyway,” said Edred hopefully. “The bits of armor out of the hall, and the Indian feather head-dresses father brought home, and I have father’s shooting-gaiters and brown paper tops, and you can have Aunt Edith’s Roman sash. It’s in the right-hand corner drawer. I saw it on the wedding day when I went to get her prayer-book.”

  “I don’t want to dress up,” said Elfrida; “I want to find Dickie.”

  “I don’t want to dress up either,” said Edred; “but we must do something, and perhaps, I know it’s just only perhaps, it might help if we dressed up. Let’s try it, anyway.”

  Elfrida was too miserable to argue. Before long two most miserable children faced each other in Edred’s bedroom, dressed as Red Indians so far as their heads and backs went. Then came lots of plate armor for chest and arms; then, in the case of Elfrida, petticoats and Roman sash and Japanese wickerwork shoes and father’s shooting-gaiters made to look like boots by brown paper tops. And in the case of Edred, legs cased in armor that looked like cricket pads, ending in jointed foot-coverings that looked like chrysalises. (I am told the correct plural is chrysalides, but life would be dull indeed if one always used the correct plural.) They were two forlorn faces that looked at each other as Edred said —

  “Now the poetry.”

  “I can’t,” said Elfrida, bursting into tears again; “I can’t! So there. I’ve been trying all the time we’ve been dressing, and I can only think of —

  “Oh, call dear Dickie back to me,

  I cannot play alone;

  The summer comes with flower and bee,

  Where is dear Dickie gone?

  And I know that’s no use.”

  “I should think not,” said Edred. “Why, it isn’t your own poetry at all. It’s Felicia M. Hemans’. I’ll try.” And he got a pencil and paper and try he did, his very hardest, be sure. But there are some things that the best and bravest cannot do. And the thing Edred couldn’t do was to make poetry, however bad. He simply couldn’t do it, any more than you can fly. It wasn’t in him, any more than wings are on you.

  “Oh, Mouldiwarp, you said we must

  Not have any more magic. But we trust

  You won’t be hard on us, because Dickie is lost

  And we don’t know how to find him.”

  That was the best Edred could do, and I tell it to his credit, he really did feel doubtful whether what he had so slowly and carefully written was indeed genuine poetry. So much so, that he would not show it to Elfrida until she had begged very hard indeed. At about the thirtieth “Do, please! Edred, do!” he gave her the paper. No little girl was ever more polite than Elfrida or less anxious to hurt the feelings of others. But she was also quite truthful, and when Edred said in an ashamed, muffled voice, “Is it all right, do you think?” the best she could find by way of answer was, “I don’t know much about poetry. We’ll try it.”

  And they did try it, and nothing happened.

  “I knew it was no good,” Edred said crossly; “and I’ve made an ass of myself for nothing.”

  “Well, I’ve often made one of myself,” said Elfrida comfortingly, “and I will again if you like. But I don’t suppose it’ll be any more good than yours.”

  Elfrida frowned fiercely and the feathers on her Indian head-dress quivered with the intensity of her effort.

  “Is it coming?” Edred asked in anxious tones, and she nodded distractedly.

  “Great Mouldiestwarp, on you we call

  To do the greatest magic of all;

  To show us how we are to find

  Dear Dickie who is lame and kind.

  Do this for us, and on our hearts we swore

  We’ll never ask you for anything more.”

  “I don’t see that it’s so much better than mine,” said Edred, “and it ought to be swear, not swore.”

  “I don’t think it is. But you didn’t finish yours. And it couldn’t be ‘swear,’ because of rhyming,” Elfrida explained. “But I’m sure if the Mouldiestwarp hears it he won’t care tuppence whether it’s swear or swore. He is much too great. He’s far above grammar, I’m sure.”

  “I wish every one was,” sighed Edred, and I dare say you have often felt the same.

  “Well, fire away! Not that it’s any good. Don’t you remember you can only get at the Mouldiestwarp by a noble deed? And wanting to find Dickie isn’t noble.”

  “No,” she agreed; “but then if we could get Dickie back by doing a noble deed we’d do it like a shot, wouldn’t we?”

  “Oh! I suppose so,” said Edred grumpily; “fire away, can’t you?”

  Elfrida fired away, and the next moment it was plain that Elfrida’s poetry was more potent than Edred’s; also that a little bad grammar is a trifle to a mighty Mouldiwarp.

  For the walls of Edred’s room receded further and further, till the children found themselves in a great white hall with avenues of tall pillars stretching in every direction as far as you could see. The hall was crowded with people dressed in costumes of all countries and all ages — Chinamen, Indians, Crusaders in armor, powdered ladies, doubleted gentlemen, Cavaliers in curls, Turks in turbans, Arabs, monks, abbesses, jesters, grandees with ruffs round their necks, and savages with kilts of thatch. Every kind of dress you can think of was there. Only all the dresses were white. It was like a redoute, which is a fancy-dress ball where the guests may wear any dress they choose, only all the dresses must be of one color.

  Elfrida saw the whiteness all about her and looked down anxiously at her clothes and Edred’s, which she remembered to have been of rather odd colors. Everything they wore was white now. Even the Roman sash, instead of having stripes blue and red and green and black and yellow, was of five different shades of white. If you think there are not so many shades of white, try to paper a room with white paper and get it at five different shops.

  The people round the children pushed them gently forward. And then they saw that in the middle of the hall was a throne of silver, spread with a fringed cloth of checkered silver and green, and on it, with the Mouldiwarp standing on one side and the Mouldierwarp on the other, the Mouldiestwarp was seated in state and splendor. He was much larger than either of the other moles, and his fur was as silvery as the feathers of a swan.

  Every one in the room was looking at the two children, and it seemed impossible for them not to advance, though slowly and shyly, right to the front of the throne.

  Arrived there, it seemed right to bow, very low. So they did it.

  Then the Mouldiwarp said —

  “What brings you here?”

  “Kind magic,” Elfrida answered.

  And the Mouldierwarp said —

  “What is your desire?”

  And Edred said, “We want Dickie, please.”

  Then the Mouldiestwarp said, and it was to Edred that he said it —

  “Dickie is in the hands of those who will keep him from you for many a day unless you yourself go, alone, and rescue him. It will be difficult, and it will be dangerous. Will you go?”

  “Me? Alone?” said Edred rather blankly. “Not Elfrida?”

  “Dickie can only be ransomed at a great price, and it must be paid by you. It will cost you more to do it than it would cost Elfrida, because she is braver than you are.”

  Here was a nice thing for a boy to have said to him, and before all these people too! To ask a chap to do a noble deed and in the same breath to tell him he is a coward!

  Edred flush
ed crimson, and a shudder ran through the company.

  “Don’t turn that horrible color,” whispered a white toreador who was close to him. “This is the white world. No crimson allowed.”

  Elfrida caught Edred’s hand.

  “Edred is quite as brave as me,” she said. “He’ll go. Won’t you?”

  “Of course I will,” said Edred impatiently.

  “Then ascend the steps of the throne,” said the Mouldiestwarp, very kindly now, “and sit here by my side.”

  Edred obeyed, and the Mouldiestwarp leaned towards him and spoke in his ear.

  So that neither Elfrida nor any of the great company in the White Hall could hear a word, only Edred alone.

  “If you go to rescue Richard Arden,” the Mouldiestwarp said, “you make the greatest sacrifice of your life. For he who was called Richard Harding is Richard Arden, and it is he who is Lord Arden and not you or your father. And if you go to his rescue you will be taking from your father the title and the Castle, and you will be giving up your place as heir of Arden to your cousin Richard who is the rightful heir.”

  “But how is he the rightful heir?” Edred asked, bewildered.

  “Three generations ago,” said the Mouldiestwarp, “a little baby was stolen from Arden. Death came among the Ardens and that child became the heir to the name and the lands of Arden. The man who stole the child took it to a woman in Deptford, and gave it in charge to her to nurse. She knew nothing but that the child’s clothes were marked Arden, and that it had, tied to its waist, a coral and bells engraved with a coat of arms. The man who had stolen the child said he would return in a month. He never returned. He fought in a duel and was killed. But the night before the duel he wrote a letter saying what he had done and put it in a secret cupboard behind a picture of a lady who was born an Arden, at Talbot Court. And there that letter is to this day.”

  “I hope I shan’t forget it all,” said Edred.