The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (147 page)

‘I don’t say there are no ups and downs in it,’ he said, ‘especially in stormy weather. But what a trade! And a sword at your side, and the Jolly Roger flying at the peak, and a prize in sight. And all the black mouths of your guns pointed at the laden trader—and the wind in your favour, and your trusty crew ready to live and die for you! Oh—but it’s a grand life!’

I did feel so sorry for him. He used such nice words, and he had a gentleman’s voice.

‘I’m sure you weren’t brought up to be a pirate,’ said Dora. She had dressed even to her collar—and made Noël do it too—but the rest of us were in blankets with just a few odd things put on anyhow underneath.

The robber frowned and sighed.

‘No,’ he said, ‘I was brought up to the law. I was at Balliol, bless your hearts, and that’s true anyway.’ He sighed again, and looked hard at the fire.

‘That was my Father’s college,’ H. O. was beginning, but Dicky said—‘Why did you leave off being a pirate?’

‘A pirate?’ he said, as if he had not been thinking of such things.

‘Oh, yes; why I gave it up because—because I could not get over the dreadful sea-sickness.’

‘Nelson was sea-sick,’ said Oswald.

‘Ah,’ said the robber; ‘but I hadn’t his luck or his pluck, or something. He stuck to it and won Trafalgar, didn’t he? “Kiss me, Hardy”—and all that, eh?
I
couldn’t stick to it—I had to resign. And nobody kissed
me
.’

I saw by his understanding about Nelson that he was really a man who had been to a good school as well as to Balliol.

Then we asked him, ‘And what did you do then?’

And Alice asked if he was ever a coiner, and we told him how we had thought we’d caught the desperate gang next door, and he was very much interested and said he was glad he had never taken to coining.

‘Besides, the coins are so ugly nowadays,’ he said, ‘no one could really find any pleasure in making them. And it’s a hole-and-corner business at the best, isn’t it?—and it must be a very thirsty one—with the hot metal and furnaces and things.’

And again he looked at the fire.

Oswald forgot for a minute that the interesting stranger was a robber, and asked him if he wouldn’t have a drink. Oswald has heard Father do this to his friends, so he knows it is the right thing. The robber said he didn’t mind if he did. And that is right, too.

And Dora went and got a bottle of Father’s ale—the Light Sparkling Family—and a glass, and we gave it to the robber. Dora said she would be responsible.

Then when he had had a drink he told us about bandits, but he said it was so bad in wet weather. Bandits’ caves were hardly ever properly weather-tight. And bush-ranging was the same.

‘As a matter of fact,’ he said, ‘I was bush-ranging this afternoon, among the furze-bushes on the Heath, but I had no luck. I stopped the Lord Mayor in his gilt coach, with all his footmen in plush and gold lace, smart as cockatoos. But it was no go. The Lord Mayor hadn’t a stiver in his pockets. One of the footmen had six new pennies: the Lord Mayor always pays his servants’ wages in new pennies. I spent fourpence of that in bread and cheese, that on the table’s the tuppence. Ah, it’s a poor trade!’ And then he filled his pipe again.

We had turned out the gas, so that Father should have a jolly good surprise when he did come home, and we sat and talked as pleasant as could be. I never liked a new man better than I liked that robber. And I felt so sorry for him. He told us he had been a war-correspondent and an editor, in happier days, as well as a horse-stealer and a colonel of dragoons.

And quite suddenly, just as we were telling him about Lord Tottenham and our being highwaymen ourselves, he put up his hand and said ‘Shish!’ and we were quiet and listened.

There was a scrape, scrape, scraping noise; it came from downstairs.

‘They’re filing something,’ whispered the robber, ‘here—shut up, give me that pistol, and the poker. There is a burglar now, and no mistake.’

‘It’s only a toy one and it won’t go off,’ I said, ‘but you can cock it.’

Then we heard a snap. ‘There goes the window bar,’ said the robber softly. ‘Jove! what an adventure! You kids stay here, I’ll tackle it.’

But Dicky and I said we should come. So he let us go as far as the bottom of the kitchen stairs, and we took the tongs and shovel with us. There was a light in the kitchen; a very little light. It is curious we never thought, any of us, that this might be a plant of our robber’s to get away. We never thought of doubting his word of honour. And we were right.

That noble robber dashed the kitchen door open, and rushed in with the big toy pistol in one hand and the poker in the other, shouting out just like Oswald had done—

‘Surrender! You are discovered! Surrender, or I’ll fire! Throw up your hands!’ And Dicky and I rattled the tongs and shovel so that he might know there were more of us, all bristling with weapons.

And we heard a husky voice in the kitchen saying—

‘All right, governor! Stow that scent sprinkler. I’ll give in. Blowed if I ain’t pretty well sick of the job, anyway.’

Then we went in. Our robber was standing in the grandest manner with his legs very wide apart, and the pistol pointing at the cowering burglar. The burglar was a large man who did not mean to have a beard, I think, but he had got some of one, and a red comforter, and a fur cap, and his face was red and his voice was thick. How different from our own robber! The burglar had a dark lantern, and he was standing by the plate-basket. When we had lit the gas we all thought he was very like what a burglar ought to be.

He did not look as if he could ever have been a pirate or a highwayman, or anything really dashing or noble, and he scowled and shuffled his feet and said: ‘Well, go on: why don’t yer fetch the pleece?’

‘Upon my word, I don’t know,’ said our robber, rubbing his chin. ‘Oswald, why don’t we fetch the police?’

It is not every robber that I would stand Christian names from, I can tell you but just then I didn’t think of that. I just said—‘Do you mean I’m to fetch one?’

Our robber looked at the burglar and said nothing.

Then the burglar began to speak very fast, and to look different ways with his hard, shiny little eyes.

‘Lookee ’ere, governor,’ he said, ‘I was stony broke, so help me, I was. And blessed if I’ve nicked a haporth of your little lot. You know yourself there ain’t much to tempt a bloke,’ he shook the plate-basket as if he was angry with it, and the yellowy spoons and forks rattled. ‘I was just a-looking through this ’ere Bank-ollerday show, when you come. Let me off, sir. Come now, I’ve got kids of my own at home, strike me if I ain’t—same as yours—I’ve got a nipper just about ‘is size, and what’ll come of them if I’m lagged? I ain’t been in it long, sir, and I ain’t ’andy at it.’

‘No,’ said our robber; ‘you certainly are not.’ Alice and the others had come down by now to see what was happening. Alice told me afterwards they thought it really was the cat this time.

‘No, I ain’t ’andy, as you say, sir, and if you let me off this once I’ll chuck the whole blooming bizz; rake my civvy, I will. Don’t be hard on a cove, mister; think of the missis and the kids. I’ve got one just the cut of little missy there bless ’er pretty ’eart.’

‘Your family certainly fits your circumstances very nicely,’ said our robber. Then Alice said—

‘Oh, do let him go! If he’s got a little girl like me, whatever will she do? Suppose it was Father!’

‘I don’t think he’s got a little girl like you, my dear,’ said our robber, ‘and I think he’ll be safer under lock and key.’

‘You ask yer Father to let me go, miss,’ said the burglar; ‘’e won’t ’ave the ’art to refuse you.’

‘If I do,’ said Alice, ‘will you promise never to come back?’

‘Not me, miss,’ the burglar said very earnestly, and he looked at the plate-basket again, as if that alone would be enough to keep him away, our robber said afterwards.

‘And will you be good and not rob any more?’ said Alice.

‘I’ll turn over a noo leaf, miss, so help me.’

Then Alice said—‘Oh, do let him go! I’m sure he’ll be good.’

But our robber said no, it wouldn’t be right; we must wait till Father came home. Then H. O. said, very suddenly and plainly:

‘I don’t think it’s at all fair, when you’re a robber yourself.’

The minute he’d said it the burglar said, ‘Kidded, by gum!’—and then our robber made a step towards him to catch hold of him, and before you had time to think ‘Hullo!’ the burglar knocked the pistol up with one hand and knocked our robber down with the other, and was off out of the window like a shot, though Oswald and Dicky did try to stop him by holding on to his legs.

And that burglar had the cheek to put his head in at the window and say, ‘I’ll give yer love to the kids and the missis’—and he was off like winking, and there were Alice and Dora trying to pick up our robber, and asking him whether he was hurt, and where. He wasn’t hurt at all, except a lump at the back of his head. And he got up, and we dusted the kitchen floor off him. Eliza is a dirty girl.

Then he said, ‘Let’s put up the shutters. It never rains but it pours. Now you’ve had two burglars I daresay you’ll have twenty.’ So we put up the shutters, which Eliza has strict orders to do before she goes out, only she never does, and we went back to Father’s study, and the robber said, ‘What a night we are having!’ and put his boots back in the fender to go on steaming, and then we all talked at once. It was the most wonderful adventure we ever had, though it wasn’t treasure-seeking—at least not ours. I suppose it was the burglar’s treasure-seeking, but he didn’t get much—and our robber said he didn’t believe a word about those kids that were so like Alice and me.

And then there was the click of the gate, and we said, ‘Here’s Father,’ and the robber said, ‘And now for the police.’

Then we all jumped up. We did like him so much, and it seemed so unfair that he should be sent to prison, and the horrid, lumping big burglar not.

And Alice said, ‘Oh,
no
—run! Dicky will let you out at the back door. Oh, do go, go
now
.’

And we all said, ‘Yes,
go
,’ and pulled him towards the door, and gave him his hat and stick and the things out of his pockets.

But Father’s latchkey was in the door, and it was too late.

Father came in quickly, purring with the cold, and began to say, ‘It’s all right, Foulkes, I’ve got—’ And then he stopped short and stared at us. Then he said, in the voice we all hate, ‘Children, what is the meaning of all this?’ And for a minute nobody spoke.

Then my Father said, ‘Foulkes, I must really apologize for these very naughty—’ And then our robber rubbed his hands and laughed, and cried out:

‘You’re mistaken, my dear sir, I’m not Foulkes; I’m a robber, captured by these young people in the most gallant manner. “Hands up, surrender, or I fire,” and all the rest of it. My word, Bastable, but you’ve got some kids worth having! I wish my Denny had their pluck.’

Then we began to understand, and it was like being knocked down, it was so sudden. And our robber told us he wasn’t a robber after all. He was only an old college friend of my Father’s, and he had come after dinner, when Father was just trying to mend the lock H. O. had broken, to ask Father to get him a letter to a doctor about his little boy Denny, who was ill. And Father had gone over the Heath to Vanbrugh Park to see some rich people he knows and get the letter. And he had left Mr Foulkes to wait till he came back, because it was important to know at once whether Father could get the letter, and if he couldn’t Mr Foulkes would have had to try some one else directly.

We were dumb with amazement.

Our robber told my Father about the other burglar, and said he was sorry he’d let him escape, but my Father said, ‘Oh, it’s all right: poor beggar; if he really had kids at home: you never can tell—forgive us our debts, don’t you know; but tell me about the first business. It must have been moderately entertaining.’

Then our robber told my Father how I had rushed into the room with a pistol, crying out…but you know all about that. And he laid it on so thick and fat about plucky young-uns, and chips of old blocks, and things like that, that I felt I was purple with shame, even under the blanket. So I swallowed that thing that tries to prevent you speaking when you ought to, and I said, ‘Look here, Father, I didn’t really think there was any one in the study. We thought it was a cat at first, and then I thought there was no one there, and I was just larking. And when I said surrender and all that, it was just the game, don’t you know?’

Then our robber said, ‘Yes, old chap; but when you found there really
was
someone there, you dropped the pistol and bunked, didn’t you, eh?’

And I said, ‘No; I thought, “Hullo! here’s a robber! Well, it’s all up, I suppose, but I may as well hold on and see what happens.”’

And I was glad I’d owned up, for Father slapped me on the back, and said I was a young brick, and our robber said I was no funk anyway, and though I got very hot under the blanket I liked it, and I explained that the others would have done the same if they had thought of it.

Then Father got up some more beer, and laughed about Dora’s responsibility, and he got out a box of figs he had bought for us, only he hadn’t given it to us because of the Water Rates, and Eliza came in and brought up the bread and cheese, and what there was left of the neck of mutton—cold wreck of mutton, Father called it—and we had a feast—like a picnic—all sitting anywhere, and eating with our fingers. It was prime. We sat up till past twelve o’clock, and I never felt so pleased to think I was not born a girl. It was hard on the others; they would have done just the same if they’d thought of it. But it does make you feel jolly when your pater says you’re a young brick!

When Mr Foulkes was going, he said to Alice, ‘Good-bye, Hardy.’

And Alice understood, of course, and kissed him as hard as she could.

And she said, ‘I wanted to, when you said no one kissed you when you left off being a pirate.’ And he said, ‘I know you did, my dear.’ And Dora kissed him too, and said, ‘I suppose none of these tales were true?’