Five Children and It
to starve in the midst of plenty."
"Plenty?" repeated Robert hungrily; and the others looked vaguely round
the bare leads of the church-tower, and murmured, "In the midst of?"
"Yes," said Cyril impressively. "There is a larder window at the side of
the clergyman's house, and I saw things to eat inside--custard pudding
and cold chicken and tongue--and pies--and jam. It's rather a high
window--but with wings"--
"How clever of you!" said Jane.
"Not at all," said Cyril modestly; "any born general--Napoleon or the
Duke of Marlborough--would have seen it just the same as I did."
"It seems very wrong," said Anthea.
"Nonsense," said Cyril. "What was it Sir Philip Sidney said when the
soldier wouldn't give him a drink?--'My necessity is greater than his.'"
"We'll club together our money, though, and leave it to pay for the
things, won't we?" Anthea was persuasive, and very nearly in tears,
because it is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably
sinful at one and the same time.
"Some of it," was the cautious reply.
Everyone now turned out its pockets on the lead roof of the tower, where
visitors for the last hundred and fifty years had cut their own and
their sweethearts' initials with penknives in the soft lead. There was
five-and-seven-pence halfpenny altogether, and even the upright Anthea
admitted that that was too much to pay for four people's dinners. Robert
said he thought eighteenpence.
And half-a-crown was finally agreed to be "handsome."
So Anthea wrote on the back of her last term's report, which happened to
be in her pocket, and from which she first tore her own name and that of
the school, the following letter:--
"DEAR REVEREND CLERGYMAN,--We are very hungry
indeed because of having to fly all day, and we
think it is not stealing when you are starving to
death. We are afraid to ask you for fear you
should say 'No,' because of course you know about
angels, but you would not think we were angels. We
will only take the necessities of life, and no
pudding or pie, to show you it is not grediness
but true starvation that makes us make your larder
stand and deliver. But we are not highwaymen by
trade."
"Cut it short," said the others with one accord. And Anthea hastily
added--
"Our intentions are quite honourable if you only
knew. And here is half-a-crown to show we are
sinseer and grateful.
"Thank you for your kind hospitality.
"FROM US FOUR."
The half-crown was wrapped in this letter, and all the children felt
that when the clergyman had read it he would understand everything, as
well as anyone could who had not even seen the wings.
"Now," said Cyril, "of course there's some risk; we'd better fly
straight down the other side of the tower and then flutter low across
the churchyard and in through the shrubbery. There doesn't seem to be
anyone about. But you never know. The window looks out into the
shrubbery. It is embowered in foliage, like a window in a story. I'll go
in and get the things. Robert and Anthea can take them as I hand them
out through the window; and Jane can keep watch,--her eyes are
sharp,--and whistle if she sees anyone about. Shut up, Robert! she can
whistle quite well enough for that, anyway. It ought not to be a very
good whistle--it'll sound more natural and birdlike. Now then--off we
go!"
I cannot pretend that stealing is right. I can only say that on this
occasion it did not look like stealing to the hungry four, but appeared
in the light of a fair and reasonable business transaction. They had
never happened to learn that a tongue,--hardly cut into,--a chicken and
a half, a loaf of bread, and a syphon of soda-water cannot be bought in
the stores for half-a-crown. These were the necessaries of life, which
Cyril handed out of the larder window when, quite unobserved and without
hindrance or adventure, he had led the others to that happy spot. He
felt that to refrain from jam, apple pie, cake, and mixed candied peel,
was a really heroic act--and I agree with him. He was also proud of not
taking the custard pudding,--and there I think he was wrong,--because if
he had taken it there would have been a difficulty about returning the
dish; no one, however starving, has a right to steal china pie-dishes
with little pink flowers on them. The soda-water syphon was different.
They could not do without something to drink, and as the maker's name
was on it they felt sure it would be returned to him wherever they might
leave it. If they had time they would take it back themselves. The
man appeared to live in Rochester, which would not be much out of their
way home.
Everything was carried up to the top of the tower, and laid down on a
sheet of kitchen paper which Cyril had found on the top shelf of the
larder. As he unfolded it, Anthea said, "I don't think _that's_ a
necessity of life."
"Yes, it is," said he. "We must put the things down somewhere to cut
them up; and I heard father say the other day people got diseases from
germans in rain-water. Now there must be lots of rain-water here,--and
when it dries up the germans are left, and they'd get into the things,
and we should all die of scarlet fever."
"What are germans?"
"Little waggly things you see with microscopes," said Cyril, with a
scientific air. "They give you every illness you can think of. I'm sure
the paper was a necessary, just as much as the bread and meat and water.
Now then! Oh, I'm hungry!"
I do not wish to describe the picnic party on the top of the tower. You
can imagine well enough what it is like to carve a chicken and a tongue
with a knife that has only one blade and that snapped off short about
half-way down. But it was done. Eating with your fingers is greasy and
difficult--and paper dishes soon get to look very spotty and horrid. But
one thing you _can't_ imagine, and that is how soda-water behaves when
you try to drink it straight out of a syphon--especially a quite full
one. But if imagination will not help you, experience will, and you can
easily try it for yourself if you can get a grown-up to give you the
syphon. If you want to have a really thorough experience, put the tube
in your mouth and press the handle very suddenly and very hard. You had
better do it when you are alone--and out of doors is best for this
experiment.
However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good
things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a
really fine hot day. So that everyone enjoyed the dinner very much
indeed, and everyone ate as much as it possibly could: first, because it
was extremely hungry; and secondly, because, as I said, tongue and
chicken and new bread are very nice.
Now, I daresay you will have noticed that if you have to wait for your
dinner till long after the proper time, and then eat a great deal more
dinner than usual, and sit in the hot sun on the top of a
church-tower--or even anywhere else--you become soon and strangely
sleepy. Now Anthea and Jane and Cyril and Robert were very like you in
many ways, and when they had eaten all they could, and drunk all there
was, they became sleepy, strangely and soon--especially Anthea, because
she had gotten up so early.
One by one they left off talking and leaned back, and before it was a
quarter of an hour after dinner they had all curled round and tucked
themselves up under their large soft warm wings and were fast asleep.
And the sun was sinking slowly in the west. (I must say it was in the
west, because it is usual in books to say so, for fear careless people
should think it was setting in the east. In point of fact, it was not
exactly in the west either--but that's near enough.) The sun, I repeat,
was sinking slowly in the west, and the children slept warmly and
happily on--for wings are cosier than eider-down quilts to sleep under.
The shadow of the church-tower fell across the churchyard, and across
the Vicarage, and across the field beyond; and presently there were no
more shadows, and the sun had set, and the wings were gone. And still
the children slept. But not for long. Twilight is very beautiful, but it
is chilly; and you know, however sleepy you are, you wake up soon enough
if your brother or sister happens to be up first and pulls your blankets
off you. The four wingless children shivered and woke. And there they
were,--on the top of a church-tower in the dusky twilight, with blue
stars coming out by ones and twos and tens and twenties over their
heads,--miles away from home, with three shillings and three-halfpence
in their pockets, and a doubtful act about the necessities of life to
be accounted for if anyone found them with the soda-water syphon.
They looked at each other. Cyril spoke first, picking up the syphon--
"We'd better get along down and get rid of this beastly thing. It's dark
enough to leave it on the clergyman's doorstep, I should think. Come
on."
There was a little turret at the corner of the tower, and the little
turret had a door in it. They had noticed this when they were eating,
but had not explored it, as you would have done in their place. Because,
of course, when you have wings and can explore the whole sky, doors seem
hardly worth exploring.
Now they turned towards it.
"Of course," said Cyril "this is the way down."
It was. But the door was locked on the inside!
And the world was growing darker and darker. And they were miles from
home. And there was the soda-water syphon.
I shall not tell you whether anyone cried, nor, if so, how many cried,
nor who cried. You will be better employed in making up your minds what
you would have done if you had been in their place.
CHAPTER V
NO WINGS
Whether anyone cried or not, there was certainly an interval during
which none of the party was quite itself. When they grew calmer, Anthea
put her handkerchief in her pocket and her arm round Jane, and said--
"It can't be for more than one night. We can signal with our
handkerchiefs in the morning. They'll be dry then. And someone will come
up and let us out"--
"And find the syphon," said Cyril gloomily; "and we shall be sent to
prison for stealing"--
"You said it wasn't stealing. You said you were sure it wasn't."
"I'm not sure _now_" said Cyril shortly.
"Let's throw the thing away among the trees," said Robert, "then no one
can do anything to us."
"Oh yes,"--Cyril's laugh was not a light-hearted one,--"and hit some
chap on the head, and be murderers as well as--as the other thing."
"But we can't stay up here all night," said Jane; "and I want my tea."
"You _can't_ want your tea," said Robert; "you've only just had your
dinner."
"But I _do_ want it," she said; "especially when you begin talking about
stopping up here all night. Oh, Panther--I want to go home! I want to go
home!"
"Hush, hush," Anthea said. "Don't, dear. It'll be all right, somehow.
Don't, don't"--
"Let her cry," said Robert desperately; "if she howls loud enough,
someone may hear and come and let us out."
"And see the soda-water thing," said Anthea swiftly. "Robert, don't be a
brute. Oh, Jane, do try to be a man! It's just the same for all of us."
Jane did try to "be a man"--and reduced her howls to sniffs.
There was a pause. Then Cyril said slowly, "Look here. We must risk that
syphon. I'll button it up inside my jacket--perhaps no one will notice
it. You others keep well in front of me. There are lights in the