The E. Nesbit Megapack: 26 Classic Novels and Stories (75 page)

She closed the door softly and stood there, still wondering whether she
could
bring herself to say, “What’s ’oo doing here, Mithter Wobber?” and whether any other kind of talk would do.

Then she heard the burglar draw a long breath, and he spoke.

“It’s a judgement,” he said, “so help me bob if it ain’t. Oh, ’ere’s a thing to ’appen to a chap! Makes it come ’ome to you, don’t it neither? Cats an’ cats an’ cats. There couldn’t be all them cats. Let alone the cow. If she ain’t the moral of the old man’s Daisy. She’s a dream out of when I was a lad—I don’t mind ’er so much. ’Ere, Daisy, Daisy?”

The cow turned and looked at him.

“
She’s
all right,” he went on. “Sort of company, too. Though them above knows how she got into this downstairs parlour. But them cats—oh, take ’em away, take ’em away! I’ll chuck the ’ole show—Oh, take ’em away.”

“Burglar,” said Jane, close behind him, and he started convulsively, and turned on her a blank face, whose pale lips trembled. “I can’t take those cats away.”

“Lor’ lumme!” exclaimed the man; “if ’ere ain’t another on ’em. Are you real, miss, or something I’ll wake up from presently?”

“I am quite real,” said Jane, relieved to find that a lisp was not needed to make the burglar understand her. “And so,” she added, “are the cats.”

“Then send for the police, send for the police, and I’ll go quiet. If you ain’t no realler than them cats, I’m done, spunchuck—out of time. Send for the police. I’ll go quiet. One thing, there’d not be room for ’arf them cats in no cell as ever
I
see.”

He ran his fingers through his hair, which was short, and his eyes wandered wildly round the roomful of cats.

“Burglar,” said Jane, kindly and softly, “if you didn’t like cats, what did you come here for?”

“Send for the police,” was the unfortunate criminal’s only reply. “I’d rather you would—honest, I’d rather.”

“I daren’t,” said Jane, “and besides, I’ve no one to send. I hate the police. I wish he’d never been born.”

“You’ve a feeling ’art, miss,” said the burglar; “but them cats is really a little bit too thick.”

“Look here,” said Jane, “I won’t call the police. And I am quite a real little girl, though I talk older than the kind you’ve met before when you’ve been doing your burglings. And they are real cats—and they want real milk—and—Didn’t you say the cow was like somebody’s Daisy that you used to know?”

“Wish I may die if she ain’t the very spit of her,” replied the man.

“Well, then,” said Jane—and a thrill of joyful pride ran through her—“perhaps you know how to milk cows?”

“Perhaps I does,” was the burglar’s cautious rejoinder.

“Then,” said Jane, “if you will
only
milk ours—you don’t know how we shall always love you.”

The burglar replied that loving was all very well.

“If those cats only had a good long, wet, thirsty drink of milk,” Jane went on with eager persuasion, “they’d lie down and go to sleep as likely as not, and then the police won’t come back. But if they go on mewing like this he will, and then I don’t know what’ll become of us, or you either.”

This argument seemed to decide the criminal. Jane fetched the wash-bowl from the sink, and he spat on his hands and prepared to milk the cow. At this instant boots were heard on the stairs.

“It’s all up,” said the man, desperately, “this ’ere’s a plant. ’
Ere’s
the police.” He made as if to open the window and leap from it.

“It’s all right, I tell you,” whispered Jane, in anguish. “I’ll say you’re a friend of mine, or the good clergyman called in, or my uncle, or
anything
—only do, do, do milk the cow. Oh,
don’t
go—oh—oh, thank goodness it’s only the boys!”

It was; and their entrance had awakened Anthea, who, with her brothers, now crowded through the doorway. The man looked about him like a rat looks round a trap.

“This is a friend of mine,” said Jane; “he’s just called in, and he’s going to milk the cow for us.
Isn’t
it good and kind of him?”

She winked at the others, and though they did not understand they played up loyally.

“How do?” said Cyril, “Very glad to meet you. Don’t let us interrupt the milking.”

“I shall ’ave a ’ead and a ’arf in the morning, and no bloomin’ error,” remarked the burglar; but he began to milk the cow.

Robert was winked at to stay and see that he did not leave off milking or try to escape, and the others went to get things to put the milk in; for it was now spurting and foaming in the wash-bowl, and the cats had ceased from mewing and were crowding round the cow, with expressions of hope and anticipation on their whiskered faces.

“We can’t get rid of any more cats,” said Cyril, as he and his sisters piled a tray high with saucers and soup-plates and platters and pie-dishes, “the police nearly got us as it was. Not the same one—a much stronger sort. He thought it really was a foundling orphan we’d got. If it hadn’t been for me throwing the two bags of cat slap in his eye and hauling Robert over a railing, and lying like mice under a laurel-bush—Well, it’s jolly lucky I’m a good shot, that’s all. He pranced off when he’d got the cat-bags off his face—thought we’d bolted. And here we are.”

The gentle samishness of the milk swishing into the hand-bowl seemed to have soothed the burglar very much. He went on milking in a sort of happy dream, while the children got a cap and ladled the warm milk out into the pie-dishes and plates, and platters and saucers, and set them down to the music of Persian purrs and lappings.

“It makes me think of old times,” said the burglar, smearing his ragged coat-cuff across his eyes—“about the apples in the orchard at home, and the rats at threshing time, and the rabbits and the ferrets, and how pretty it was seeing the pigs killed.”

Finding him in this softened mood, Jane said—

“I wish you’d tell us how you came to choose our house for your burglaring tonight. I am awfully glad you did. You have been so kind. I don’t know what we should have done without you,” she added hastily. “We all love you ever so. Do tell us.”

The others added their affectionate entreaties, and at last the burglar said—

“Well, it’s my first job, and I didn’t expect to be made so welcome, and that’s the truth, young gents and ladies. And I don’t know but what it won’t be my last. For this ’ere cow, she reminds me of my father, and I know ’ow ’e’d ’ave ’ided me if I’d laid ’ands on a ’a’penny as wasn’t my own.”

“I’m sure he would,” Jane agreed kindly; “but what made you come here?”

“Well, miss,” said the burglar, “you know best ’ow you come by them cats, and why you don’t like the police, so I’ll give myself away free, and trust to your noble ’earts. (You’d best bale out a bit, the pan’s getting fullish.) I was a-selling oranges off of my barrow—for I ain’t a burglar by trade, though you ’ave used the name so free—an’ there was a lady bought three ’a’porth off me. An’ while she was a-pickin’ of them out—very careful indeed, and I’m always glad when them sort gets a few over-ripe ones—there was two other ladies talkin’ over the fence. An’ one on ’em said to the other on ’em just like this—

“‘I’ve told both gells to come, and they can doss in with M’ria and Jane, ’cause their boss and his missis is miles away and the kids too. So they can just lock up the ’ouse and leave the gas a-burning, so’s no one won’t know, and get back bright an’ early by ’leven o’clock. And we’ll make a night of it, Mrs Prosser, so we will. I’m just a-going to run out to pop the letter in the post.’ And then the lady what had chosen the three ha’porth so careful, she said: ‘Lor, Mrs Wigson, I wonder at you, and your hands all over suds. This good gentleman’ll slip it into the post for yer, I’ll be bound, seeing I’m a customer of his.’ So they give me the letter, and of course I read the direction what was written on it afore I shoved it into the post. And then when I’d sold my barrowful, I was a-goin’ ’ome with the chink in my pocket, and I’m blowed if some bloomin’ thievin’ beggar didn’t nick the lot whilst I was just a-wettin’ of my whistle, for callin’ of oranges is dry work. Nicked the bloomin’ lot ’e did—and me with not a farden to take ’ome to my brother and his missus.”

“How awful!” said Anthea, with much sympathy.

“Horful indeed, miss, I believe yer,” the burglar rejoined, with deep feeling. “You don’t know her temper when she’s roused. An’ I’m sure I ’ope you never may, neither. And I’d ’ad all my oranges off of ’em. So it came back to me what was wrote on the ongverlope, and I says to myself, ‘Why not, seein’ as I’ve been done myself, and if they keeps two slaveys there must be some pickings?’ An’ so ’ere I am. But them cats, they’ve brought me back to the ways of honestness. Never no more.”

“Look here,” said Cyril, “these cats are very valuable—very indeed. And we will give them all to you, if only you will take them away.”

“I see they’re a breedy lot,” replied the burglar. “But I don’t want no bother with the coppers. Did you come by them honest now? Straight?”

“They are all our very own,” said Anthea, “we wanted them, but the confidement—”

“Consignment,” whispered Cyril, “was larger than we wanted, and they’re an awful bother. If you got your barrow, and some sacks or baskets, your brother’s missus would be awfully pleased. My father says Persian cats are worth pounds and pounds each.”

“Well,” said the burglar—and he was certainly moved by her remarks—“I see you’re in a hole—and I don’t mind lending a helping ’and. I don’t ask ’ow you come by them. But I’ve got a pal—“e’s a mark on cats. I’ll fetch him along, and if he thinks they’d fetch anything above their skins I don’t mind doin’ you a kindness.”

“You won’t go away and never come back,” said Jane, “because I don’t think I
could
bear that.”

The burglar, quite touched by her emotion, swore sentimentally that, alive or dead, he would come back.

Then he went, and Cyril and Robert sent the girls to bed and sat up to wait for his return. It soon seemed absurd to await him in a state of wakefulness, but his stealthy tap on the window awoke them readily enough. For he did return, with the pal and the barrow and the sacks. The pal approved of the cats, now dormant in Persian repletion, and they were bundled into the sacks, and taken away on the barrow—mewing, indeed, but with mews too sleepy to attract public attention.

“I’m a fence—that’s what I am,” said the burglar gloomily. “I never thought I’d come down to this, and all acause er my kind ’eart.”

Cyril knew that a fence is a receiver of stolen goods, and he replied briskly—

“I give you my sacred the cats aren’t stolen. What do you make the time?”

“I ain’t got the time on me,” said the pal—“but it was just about chucking-out time as I come by the ‘Bull and Gate.’ I shouldn’t wonder if it was nigh upon one now.”

When the cats had been removed, and the boys and the burglar had parted with warm expressions of friendship, there remained only the cow.

“She must stay all night,” said Robert. “Cook’ll have a fit when she sees her.”

“All night?” said Cyril. “Why—it’s tomorrow morning if it’s one. We can have another wish!”

So the carpet was urged, in a hastily written note, to remove the cow to wherever she belonged, and to return to its proper place on the nursery floor. But the cow could not be got to move on to the carpet. So Robert got the clothes line out of the back kitchen, and tied one end very firmly to the cow’s horns, and the other end to a bunched-up corner of the carpet, and said “Fire away.”

And the carpet and cow vanished together, and the boys went to bed, tired out and only too thankful that the evening at last was over.

Next morning the carpet lay calmly in its place, but one corner was very badly torn. It was the corner that the cow had been tied on to.

CHAPTER 9

THE BURGLAR’S BRIDE

The morning after the adventure of the Persian cats, the musk-rats, the common cow, and the uncommon burglar, all the children sle
pt till it was ten o’clock; and then it was only Cyril who woke; but he attended to the others, so that by half past ten every one was ready to help to get breakfast. It was shivery cold, and there was but little in the house that was really worth eating.

Robert had arranged a thoughtful little surprise for the absent servants. He had made a neat and delightful booby trap over the kitchen door, and as soon as they heard the front door click open and knew the servants had come back, all four children hid in the cupboard under the stairs and listened with delight to the entrance—the tumble, the splash, the scuffle, and the remarks of the servants. They heard the cook say it was a judgement on them for leaving the place to itself; she seemed to think that a booby trap was a kind of plant that was quite likely to grow, all by itself, in a dwelling that was left shut up. But the housemaid, more acute, judged that someone must have been in the house—a view confirmed by the sight of the breakfast things on the nursery table.

The cupboard under the stairs was very tight and paraffiny, however, and a silent struggle for a place on top ended in the door bursting open and discharging Jane, who rolled like a football to the feet of the servants.

“Now,” said Cyril, firmly, when the cook’s hysterics had become quieter, and the housemaid had time to say what she thought of them, “don’t you begin jawing us. We aren’t going to stand it. We know too much. You’ll please make an extra special treacle roley for dinner, and we’ll have a tinned tongue.”

“I daresay,” said the housemaid, indignant, still in her outdoor things and with her hat very much on one side. “Don’t you come a-threatening me, Master Cyril, because I won’t stand it, so I tell you. You tell your ma about us being out? Much I care! She’ll be sorry for me when she hears about my dear great-aunt by marriage as brought me up from a child and was a mother to me. She sent for me, she did, she wasn’t expected to last the night, from the spasms going to her legs—and cook was that kind and careful she couldn’t let me go alone, so—”

“Don’t,” said Anthea, in real distress. “You know where liars go to, Eliza—at least if you don’t—”

“Liars indeed!” said Eliza, “I won’t demean myself talking to you.”

“How’s Mrs Wigson?” said Robert, “and
did
you keep it up last night?”

The mouth of the housemaid fell open.

“Did you doss with Maria or Emily?” asked Cyril.

“How did Mrs Prosser enjoy herself?” asked Jane.

“Forbear,” said Cyril, “they’ve had enough. Whether we tell or not depends on your later life,” he went on, addressing the servants. “If you are decent to us we’ll be decent to you. You’d better make that treacle roley—and if I were you, Eliza, I’d do a little housework and cleaning, just for a change.”

The servants gave in once and for all.

“There’s nothing like firmness,” Cyril went on, when the breakfast things were cleared away and the children were alone in the nursery. “People are always talking of difficulties with servants. It’s quite simple, when you know the way. We can do what we like now and they won’t peach. I think we’ve broken
their
proud spirit. Let’s go somewhere by carpet.”

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” said the Phoenix, yawning, as it swooped down from its roost on the curtain pole. “I’ve given you one or two hints, but now concealment is at an end, and I see I must speak out.”

It perched on the back of a chair and swayed to and fro, like a parrot on a swing.

“What’s the matter now?” said Anthea. She was not quite so gentle as usual, because she was still weary from the excitement of last night’s cats. “I’m tired of things happening. I shan’t go anywhere on the carpet. I’m going to darn my stockings.”