Five Children and It
Someone put 'em up to it, and they won't peach. Game little kids."
"Tell me," said the Vicar kindly, "are you screening someone else? Had
anyone else anything to do with this?"
"Yes," said Anthea, thinking of the Psammead; "but it wasn't their
fault."
"Very well, my dears," said the Vicar, "then let's say no more about it.
Only just tell us why you wrote such an odd letter."
"I don't know," said Cyril. "You see, Anthea wrote it in such a hurry,
and it really didn't seem like stealing then. But afterwards, when we
found we couldn't get down off the church-tower, it seemed just exactly
like it. We are all very sorry"--
"Say no more about it," said the Vicar's wife; "but another time just
think before you take other people's tongues. Now--some cake and milk
before you go home?"
When Andrew came to say that the horse was put to, and was he expected
to be led alone into the trap that he had plainly seen from the first,
he found the children eating cake and drinking milk and laughing at the
Vicar's jokes. Jane was sitting on the Vicar's wife's lap.
So you see they got off better than they deserved.
The gamekeeper, who was the cook's cousin, asked leave to drive home
with them, and Andrew was only too glad to have someone to protect him
from that trap he was so certain of.
When the wagonette reached their own house, between the chalk-quarry and
the gravel-pit, the children were very sleepy, but they felt that they
and the keeper were friends for life.
Andrew dumped the children down at the iron gate without a word.
"You get along home," said the Vicarage cook's cousin, who was a
gamekeeper. "I'll get me home on shanks' mare."
So Andrew had to drive off alone, which he did not like at all, and it
was the keeper that was cousin to the Vicarage cook who went with the
children to the door, and, when they had been swept to bed in a
whirlwind of reproaches, remained to explain to Martha and the cook and
the housemaid exactly what had happened. He explained so well that
Martha was quite amicable the next morning.
After that he often used to come over and see Martha, and in the
end--but that is another story, as dear Mr. Kipling says.
Martha was obliged to stick to what she had said the night before about
keeping the children indoors the next day for a punishment. But she
wasn't at all ugly about it, and agreed to let Robert go out for half an
hour to get something he particularly wanted.
This, of course, was the day's wish.
Robert rushed to the gravel-pit, found the Psammead, and presently
wished for--
But that, too, is another story.
CHAPTER VI
A CASTLE AND NO DINNER
The others were to be kept in as a punishment for the misfortunes of the
day before. Of course Martha thought it was naughtiness, and not
misfortune--so you must not blame her. She only thought she was doing
her duty. You know, grown-up people often say they do not like to punish
you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them
as much as it hurts you--and this is really very often the truth.
Martha certainly hated having to punish the children quite as much as
they hated to be punished. For one thing, she knew what a noise there
would be in the house all day. And she had other reasons.
"I declare," she said to the cook, "it seems almost a shame keeping of
them indoors this lovely day; but they are that audacious, they'll be
walking in with their heads knocked off some of these days, if I don't
put my foot down. You make them a cake for tea to-morrow, dear. And
we'll have Baby along of us soon as we've got a bit forrard with our
work. Then they can have a good romp with him, out of the way. Now,
Eliza, come, get on with them beds. Here's ten o'clock nearly, and no
rabbits caught!"
People say that in Kent when they mean "and no work done."
So all the others were kept in, but Robert, as I have said, was allowed
to go out for half an hour to get something they all wanted. And that,
of course, was the day's wish.
He had no difficulty in finding the Sand-fairy, for the day was already
so hot that it had actually, for the first time, come out of its own
accord, and was sitting in a sort of pool of soft sand, stretching
itself, and trimming its whiskers, and turning its snail's eyes round
and round.
"Ha!" it said when its left eye saw Robert; "I've been looking for you.
Where are the rest of you? Not smashed themselves up with those wings,
I hope?"
"No," said Robert; "but the wings got us into a row, just like all the
wishes always do. So the others are kept indoors, and I was only let out
for half an hour--to get the wish. So please let me wish as quickly as I
can."
"Wish away," said the Psammead, twisting itself round in the sand. But
Robert couldn't wish away. He forgot all the things he had been thinking
about, and nothing would come into his head but little things for
himself, like candy, a foreign stamp album, or a knife with three blades
and a corkscrew. He sat down to think better of things the others would
not have cared for--such as a football, or a pair of leg-guards, or to
be able to lick Simpkins Minor thoroughly when he went back to school.
"Well," said the Psammead at last, "you'd better hurry up with that wish
of yours. Time flies."
"I know it does," said Robert. "_I_ can't think what to wish for. I wish
you could give one of the others their wish without their having to
come here to ask for it. Oh, _don't_!"
But it was too late. The Psammead had blown itself out to about three
times its proper size, and now it collapsed like a pricked bubble, and
with a deep sigh leaned back against the edge of the sand-pool, quite
faint with the effort.
"There!" it said in a weak voice; "it was tremendously hard--but I did
it. Run along home, or they're sure to wish for something silly before
you get there."
They were--quite sure; Robert felt this, and as he ran home his mind was
deeply occupied with the sort of wishes he might find they had wished in
his absence. They might wish for rabbits, or white mice, or chocolate,
or a fine day to-morrow, or even--and that was most likely--someone
might have said, "I do wish to goodness Robert would hurry up." Well, he
_was_ hurrying up, and so they would have had their wish, and the day
would be wasted. Then he tried to think what they could wish
for--something that would be amusing indoors. That had been his own
difficulty from the beginning. So few things are amusing indoors when
the sun is shining outside and you mayn't go out, however much you want
to do so.
Robert was running as fast as he could, but when he turned the corner
that ought to have brought him within sight of the architect's
nightmare--the ornamental iron-work on the top of the house--he opened
his eyes so wide that he had to drop into a walk; for you cannot run
with your eyes wide open. Then suddenly he stopped short, for there was
no house to be seen. The front garden railings were gone too, and where
the house had stood--Robert rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yes, the
others _had_ wished,--there was no doubt about it,--and they must have
wished that they lived in a castle; for there the castle stood, black
and stately, and very tall and broad, with battlements and lancet
windows, and eight great towers; and, where the garden and the orchard
had been, there were white things dotted like mushrooms. Robert walked
slowly on, and as he got nearer he saw that these were tents, and men in
armor were walking about among the tents--crowds and crowds of them.
"Oh!" said Robert fervently. "They _have_! They've wished for a castle,
and it's being besieged! It's just like that Sand-fairy! I wish we'd
never seen the beastly thing!"
At the little window above the great gateway, across the moat that now
lay where the garden had been but half an hour ago, someone was waving
something pale dust-colored. Robert thought it was one of Cyril's
handkerchiefs. They had never been white since the day when he had upset
the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer
where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had
been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and
two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots
on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides
that Robert remembered the shortness of his own legs and did not run
away. He knew it would be useless to himself, and he feared it might be
irritating to the foe. So he stood still--and the two men seemed quite
pleased with him.
"By my halidom," said one, "a brave varlet this!"
Robert felt pleased at being _called_ brave, and somehow it made him
_feel_ brave. He passed over the "varlet." It was the way people talked
in historical romances for the young, he knew, and it was evidently not
meant for rudeness. He only hoped he would be able to understand what
they said to him. He had not been always able quite to follow the
conversations in the historical romances for the young.
"His garb is strange," said the other. "Some outlandish treachery,
belike."
"Say, lad, what brings thee hither?"
Robert knew this meant, "Now then, youngster, what are you up to here,
eh?"--so he said--
"If you please, I want to go home."
"Go, then!" said the man in the longest boots; "none hindereth, and
nought lets us to follow. Zooks!" he added in a cautious undertone, "I
misdoubt me but he beareth tidings to the besieged."
"Where dwellest thou, young knave?" inquired the man with the largest
steel-cap.
"Over there," said Robert; and directly he had said it he knew he ought
to have said "Yonder!"
"Ha--sayest so?" rejoined the longest boots. "Come hither, boy. This is
matter for our leader."
And to the leader Robert was dragged forthwith--by the reluctant ear.
The leader was the most glorious creature Robert had ever seen. He was
exactly like the pictures Robert had so often admired in the historical
romances. He had armor, and a helmet, and a horse, and a crest, and
feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his
weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The
shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern
used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I.,
and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield
were very grand--three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents
were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the
whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to
some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him
perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or archaeology
than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical
romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired it
all so much that he felt braver than ever.
"Come hither, lad," said the glorious leader, when the men in
Cromwellian steel-caps had said a few low eager words. And he took off
his helmet, because he could not see properly with it on. He had a kind
face, and long fair hair. "Have no fear; thou shalt take no scathe," he
said.
Robert was glad of that. He wondered what "scathe" was, and if it was
nastier than the medicine which he had to take sometimes.
"Unfold thy tale without alarm," said the leader kindly. "Whence comest
thou, and what is thine intent?"
"My what?" said Robert.
"What seekest thou to accomplish? What is thine errand, that thou
wanderest here alone among these rough men-at-arms? Poor child, thy
mother's heart aches for thee e'en now, I'll warrant me."