Five Children and It by E. Nesbit (booksvooks .txt) 📖

The afternoon passed with wonderful quickness. It was very exciting; but none of them, [Pg 190]except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream. But it was only now and then that Robert could feel this.

When it seemed to be tea-time the biscuits were eaten, with water from the deep well in the courtyard, drunk out of horns. Cyril insisted on putting by eight of the biscuits, in case anyone should feel faint in stress of battle.

Just as he was putting away the reserve biscuits in a sort of little stone cupboard without a door, a sudden sound made him drop three. It was the loud fierce cry of a trumpet.

"You see it is real," said Robert, "and they are going to attack."

All rushed to the narrow windows.

"Yes," said Robert, "they're all coming out of their tents and moving about like ants. There's that Jakin dancing about where the [Pg 191]bridge joins on. I wish he could see me put my tongue out at him! Yah!"

The others were far too pale to wish to put their tongues out at anybody. They looked at Robert with surprised respect. Anthea said—

"You really are brave, Robert."

"Rot!" Cyril's pallor turned to redness now, all in a minute. "He's been getting ready to be brave all the afternoon. And I wasn't ready, that's all. I shall be braver than he is in half a jiffy."

"Oh dear!" said Jane, "what does it matter which of you is the bravest? I think Cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle, and I don't want to play."

"It isn't"—Robert was beginning sternly, but Anthea interrupted—

"Oh yes, you do," she said coaxingly; "it's a very nice game, really, because they can't possibly get in, and if they do the women and children are always spared by civilised armies."

"But are you quite, quite sure they are civil[Pg 192]ised?" asked Jane, panting. "They seem to be such a long time ago."

"Of course they are." Anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow window. "Why, look at the little flags on their lances, how bright they are—and how fine the leader is! Look, that's him—isn't it, Robert?—on the gray horse."

Jane consented to look, and the scene was almost too pretty to be alarming. The green turf, the white tents, the flash of pennoned lances, the gleam of armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic—it was just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and when the trumpeters stopped for breath the children could hear the cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices.

A trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat, which now seemed very much narrower than at first, and blew the longest and loudest blast they had yet heard. When the blaring noise had died away, a man who was with the trumpeter shouted—[Pg 193]

"What ho, within there!" and his voice came plainly to the garrison in the gate-house.

"Hullo there!" Robert bellowed back at once.

"In the name of our Lord the King, and of our good lord and trusty leader Sir Wulfric de Talbot, we summon this castle to surrender—on pain of fire and sword and no quarter. Do ye surrender?"

"No" bawled Robert; "of course we don't! Never, Never, NEVER!"

The man answered back—

"Then your fate be on your own heads."

"Cheer," said Robert in a fierce whisper. "Cheer to show them we aren't afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip, hip, hooray! Again—Hip, hip, hooray! One more—Hip, hip, hooray!" The cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent them strength and depth.

There was another shout from the camp across the moat—and then the beleaguered fortress felt that the attack had indeed begun.[Pg 194]

It was getting rather dark in the room above the great gate, and Jane took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset couldn't be far off now.

"The moat is dreadfully thin," said Anthea.

"But they can't get into the castle even if they do swim over," said Robert. And as he spoke he heard feet on the stair outside—heavy feet and the clang of steel. No one breathed for a moment. The steel and the feet went on up the turret stairs. Then Robert sprang softly to the door. He pulled off his shoes.

"Wait here," he whispered, and stole quickly and softly after the boots and the spur-clank. He peeped into the upper room. The man was there—and it was Jakin, all dripping with moat-water, and he was fiddling about with the machinery which Robert felt sure worked the drawbridge. Robert banged the door suddenly, and turned the great key in the lock, just as Jakin sprang to the inside of the door. Then he tore downstairs and into the little turret at the foot of the tower where the biggest window was.[Pg 195]

"We ought to have defended this!" he cried to the others as they followed him. He was just in time. Another man had swum over, and his fingers were on the window-ledge. Robert never knew how the man had managed to climb up out of the water. But he saw the clinging fingers, and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from the floor. The man fell with a splash into the moat-water. In another moment Robert was outside the little room, had banged its door and was shooting home the enormous bolts, and calling to Cyril to lend a hand.

The man fell with a splash into the moat-water

Then they stood in the arched gate-house, breathing hard and looking at each other.

Jane's mouth was open.

"Cheer up, Jenny," said Robert,—"it won't last much longer."

There was a creaking above, and something rattled and shook. The pavement they stood on seemed to tremble. Then a crash told them that the drawbridge had been lowered to its place.

"That's that beast Jakin," said Robert.[Pg 196] "There's still the portcullis; I'm almost certain that's worked from lower down."

And now the drawbridge rang and echoed hollowly to the hoofs of horses and the tramp of armed men.

"Up—quick!" cried Robert,—"let's drop things on them."

Even the girls were feeling almost brave now. They followed Robert quickly, and under his directions began to drop stones out through the long narrow windows. There was a confused noise below, and some groans.

"Oh dear!" said Anthea, putting down the stone she was just going to drop out, "I'm afraid we've hurt somebody!"

Robert caught up the stone in a fury.

"I should hope we had!" he said; "I'd give something for a jolly good boiling kettle of lead. Surrender, indeed!"

And now came more tramping and a pause, and then the thundering thump of the battering-ram. And the little room was almost pitch dark.[Pg 197]

"We've held it," cried Robert, "we won't surrender! The sun must set in a minute. Here—they're all jawing underneath again. Pity there's no time to get more stones! Here, pour that water down on them. It's no good, of course, but they'll hate it."

"Oh dear!" said Jane, "don't you think we'd better surrender?"

"Never!" said Robert; "we'll have a parley if you like, but we'll never surrender. Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up—you just see if I don't. I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says."

"Let's wave a handkerchief and ask for a parley," Jane pleaded. "I don't believe the sun's going to set to-night at all."

"Give them the water first—the brutes!" said the bloodthirsty Robert. So Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole, and poured. They heard a splash below, but no one below seemed to have felt it. And again the ram battered the great door. Anthea paused.

Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole

"How idiotic," said Robert, lying flat on the [Pg 198]floor and putting one eye to the lead-hole. "Of course the holes go straight down into the gate-house—that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot." He crawled on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and, taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.

And as he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the big front bedroom of their own house—the house with the ornamental nightmare iron-top to the roof.

They all crowded to the window and looked out. The moat and the tents and the besieging force were all gone—and there was the garden with its tangle of dahlias and mari[Pg 199]golds and asters and later roses, and the spiky iron railings and the quiet white road.

Everyone drew a deep breath.

"And that's all right!" said Robert. "I told you so! And, I say, we didn't surrender, did we?"

"Aren't you glad now I wished for a castle?" asked Cyril.

"I think I am now," said Anthea slowly. "But I wouldn't wish for it again, I think, Squirrel dear!"

"Oh, it was simply splendid!" said Jane unexpectedly. "I wasn't frightened a bit."

"Oh, I say!" Cyril was beginning, but Anthea stopped him.

"Look here," she said, "it's just come into my head. This is the very first thing we've wished for that hasn't got us into a row. And there hasn't been the least little scrap of a row about this. Nobody's raging downstairs, we're safe and sound, we've had an awfully jolly day—at least, not jolly exactly, but you know what I mean. And we know now how brave Robert is—and Cyril too, of course,"[Pg 200] she added hastily, "and Jane as well. And we haven't got into a row with a single grown-up."

The door was opened suddenly and fiercely.

"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Martha, and they could tell by her voice that she was very angry indeed. "I thought you couldn't last through the day without getting up to some mischief! A person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be emptying the water jug on their heads! Off you go to bed, the lot of you, and try to get up better children in the morning. Now then—don't let me have to tell you twice. If I find any of you not in bed in ten minutes I'll let you know it, that's all! A new cap, and everything!"

She flounced out amid a disregarded chorus of regrets and apologies. The children were very sorry, but really it was not their faults.

You can't help it if you are pouring water on a besieging foe, and your castle suddenly changes into your house—and everything [Pg 201]changes with it except the water, and that happens to fall on somebody else's clean cap.

"I don't know why the water didn't change into nothing, though," said Cyril.

"Why should it?" asked Robert. "Water's water all the world over."

"I expect the castle well was the same as ours in the stable-yard," said Jane. And that was really the case.

"I thought we couldn't get through a wish-day without a row," said Cyril; "it was much too good to be true. Come on, Bobs, my military hero. If we lick into bed sharp she won't be so furious, and perhaps she'll bring us up some supper. I'm jolly hungry! Good-night, kids."

"Good-night. I hope the castle won't come creeping back in the night," said Jane.

"Of course it won't," said Anthea briskly, "but Martha will—not in the night, but in a minute. Here, turn round, I'll get that knot out of your pinafore strings."

"Wouldn't it have been degrading for Sir Wulfric de Talbot," said Jane dreamily, "if [Pg 202]he could have known that half the besieged garrison wore pinafores?"

"And the other

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