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06 - The House of Arden - E Nesbit · Daily Classic Sci Fi Books

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Speaker 1: Chapter four, The Landing of the French. Then they had dinner.
0:06
Speaker 1: The children had to sit very straight and eat very slowly,
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Speaker 1: and their glasses were filled with spear instead of water,
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Speaker 1: And when they asked for water, Lady Arden asked how
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Speaker 1: many more times they would have to be told that
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Speaker 1: water was unholesome. Lord Arden was very quiet at quite
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Speaker 1: the beginning of dinner. He had told his wife all
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Speaker 1: about the Wise Woman and the landing of the French
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Speaker 1: and the three signs, and she had said, law save us,
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Speaker 1: my lord, you don't say so, and gone un placidly
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Speaker 1: cutting up her meat. But when the cloth had been
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Speaker 1: drawn and decanters of wine placed among the dishes of
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Speaker 1: dried plums and preserved pears, Lord Arden brought down his
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Speaker 1: fist on the table and said, not more than three
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Speaker 1: glasses for me to day, My lady, I am not
0:51
Speaker 1: superstitious as well, you know, but facts are facts. What
0:54
Speaker 1: did you do with that white moldiwarp? Elfrida had put
0:58
Speaker 1: it in the bottom drawer of the torber in her room.
1:01
Speaker 1: Cook had told her which room that was, and said
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Speaker 1: so rather timidly. It's my belief, said Lady Arden, who
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Speaker 1: seemed to see what was her husband's belief, and to
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Speaker 1: make it her own a very winning quality. It's my
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Speaker 1: belief that it's a direct warning in return, perhaps for
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Speaker 1: the tea and sugar. Ah said Lord Adden. Well whether
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Speaker 1: or no every man in this village shall be armed
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Speaker 1: and paraded this day, or I know the reason why
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Speaker 1: I'm not going to have the French stepping ashore as
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Speaker 1: cool as cucumbers without with your leave or by your leave?
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Speaker 1: And any one to say afterwards, well, Arden, you had
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Speaker 1: fair warning. Only you would know best. No, said Lady Adden,
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Speaker 1: that would be unpleasant. Lord Arden's decision was made stronger
1:47
Speaker 1: by the arrival of a man on a very hot horse.
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Speaker 1: The French are coming, he said, quite out of breath,
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Speaker 1: but he could not say how he knew. They all
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Speaker 1: say so was all they could be got out of him.
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Speaker 1: And they told me to come tell you, my lord,
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Speaker 1: And what's us to do? We live so safely now,
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Speaker 1: we have nothing to be afraid of. When we have wars,
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Speaker 1: they are not in our own country. The police look
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Speaker 1: after burglars, and even thunder is attended to by lightning rods.
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Speaker 1: It is not easy for us to understand the frantic
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Speaker 1: terror of those times when from day to day, every man,
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Speaker 1: woman and child trembled in its truth, for fear lest
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Speaker 1: the French should come. The French, led by Bony Bony
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Speaker 1: to us is Napoleon buena parte, a little person in
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Speaker 1: a cocked head out of the history books to those
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Speaker 1: who lived in England when he was a man alive.
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Speaker 1: He was the terror that walked by night, making children
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Speaker 1: afraid to go to bed, and causing strong men to
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Speaker 1: sleep in their boots. Were sword and pistol by the
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Speaker 1: bed head, with an easy reach of the newly awakened
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Speaker 1: hand Edred and Elfrida began to understand a little when
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Speaker 1: they saw how the foretelling of the wise Woman, strengthened
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Speaker 1: by the rumors that began to run about like rats
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Speaker 1: in every house in the village, stirred the people to
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Speaker 1: the wildest activity. Lord Arden was so busy giving orders,
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Speaker 1: and my ladies so busy talking as orders over with
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Speaker 1: the maid servants, that the children were left free to
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Speaker 1: use their eyes and ears. And they went down into
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Speaker 1: the village and saw many strange things. They saw men
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Speaker 1: at the grindstone sharpening out swords, and others who had
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Speaker 1: no swords putting a fine edge on bill hooks, hatchets, skies,
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Speaker 1: and kitchen shoppers. They saw other men boarding up their
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Speaker 1: windows and digging holes in their gardens, and burying their
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Speaker 1: money and their teaspoons in the holds. No one knew
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Speaker 1: how the rumor had begun, but everyone believed it now.
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Speaker 1: They went in and out of the cottages as they chose.
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Speaker 1: Everyone seemed to know them and to be pleased in
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Speaker 1: an absent sort of way to see them, but nobody
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Speaker 1: had time to talk to them, so they soon lost
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Speaker 1: the fear they had had at first of being found
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Speaker 1: out to be not the people they were being taken for.
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Speaker 1: They found the women busy brushing and mending old scarlet
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Speaker 1: coats and tied white trousers, and all along the dip
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Speaker 1: of the cliff, men were posted with spyglasses, looking out
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Speaker 1: to see other men toiled up the slope with great
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Speaker 1: bundles of brown brushwood and dried furs on their backs,
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Speaker 1: and those bundles were piled high, ready to be lighted
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Speaker 1: the moment it should be certain that the French were coming.
4:25
Speaker 1: Elfrida wished more than ever that she knew more about
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Speaker 1: the later chapters of the history book Ditch Bony Land
4:31
Speaker 1: in England on the seventeenth of June eighteen o seven.
4:35
Speaker 1: She could not remember. There was something she knew in
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Speaker 1: the book about a French invasion, but she could not
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Speaker 1: remember what it was an invasion of, nor when it
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Speaker 1: took place. So she and Edred knew as little as
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Speaker 1: any one else what really was going to happen. The mouldiwarp,
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Speaker 1: in the hurried interview she had had with it before dinner,
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Speaker 1: had promised to come if she called it with poetry.
4:57
Speaker 1: Of course, it added as it could, up in the
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Speaker 1: corner of the drawer, and this comforted her a great deal.
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Speaker 1: When going up to get her bonnet, she found the
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Speaker 1: bottom drawer empty. So though she was as interested as
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Speaker 1: Edred in all that was going on, it was only
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Speaker 1: with half her mind. The other half was busy trying
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Speaker 1: to make up a piece of poetry so that any
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Speaker 1: emergency which might suddenly arise would not find her powerless
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Speaker 1: because poetry less. So for once, Edred was more observant
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Speaker 1: than she, And when he noticed that the man built
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Speaker 1: a bonfire not at all on the spot which Lord
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Speaker 1: Arden had pointed out as most convenient, he wondered why,
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Speaker 1: And presently, seeing a man going by that way spot,
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Speaker 1: he asked him why. To a surprise, the man at
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Speaker 1: once poked him in the ribs with the bay hard
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Speaker 1: finger and said, ah, you are a little work you are.
5:49
Speaker 1: But you are a little gentleman too, and so is
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Speaker 1: the little lady Blessel. You never gave us a way
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Speaker 1: to the preventives for all you found out, of course,
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Speaker 1: said Efrida, cautiously, should never give any one away. Won't
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Speaker 1: you come along down now? The man asked. He was
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Speaker 1: a brown faced, sturdy sailor looking man, with a short
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Speaker 1: pigtail sticking out from the back of his head like
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Speaker 1: the china handle of a Japanese teapot. Oh yes, said Elfrida,
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Speaker 1: and Edred did not say. Oh no, then just you
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Speaker 1: wait till I'm out of sight, and then come down
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Speaker 1: the way you see me, go go long, same as
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Speaker 1: if he was after butterflies or the like. A bit
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Speaker 1: this way and a bit that, ye see, said the man,
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Speaker 1: and they obeyed. Alas two few children in these uninteresting
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Speaker 1: times of ours have ever been in a smuggler's cave.
6:40
Speaker 1: To Edward and Elfrida, it was as great a novelty
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Speaker 1: as it would be to you or to me. When
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Speaker 1: they came up with the brown man. He was crouching
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Speaker 1: in the middle of a patch of furs. Jump they
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Speaker 1: outside bushes, he said, And they jumped and wound their
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Speaker 1: way among the first bushes by little narrow rabbit paths,
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Speaker 1: till they stood by his side. Then he lifted a
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Speaker 1: great heap of furs and bramble that looked as if
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Speaker 1: it had lived and died exactly where it was. And
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Speaker 1: there was a hole with steps going down. It was
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Speaker 1: dark below. But Ifrida did not hesitate, to do as
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Speaker 1: she was told and to go forward, and if Edward hesitated,
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Speaker 1: it was only for a minute. The children went down
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Speaker 1: some half a dozen steps. Then the brown man came
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Speaker 1: into the hoteu and drew the furs after him, and
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Speaker 1: he lighted a lantern. There was a tallow candle in it,
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Speaker 1: and it smelt very nasty. Indeed, But what as smells,
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Speaker 1: even those of hot tallow and hot iron, compared with
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Speaker 1: the splendid exploring of a smugler's cave. It was everything
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Speaker 1: the children had ever dreamed of. And more. There was
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Speaker 1: the slow descent, with the yellowness of the lantern flame,
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Speaker 1: casting golden lights and inky shadows on the smooth whiteness
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Speaker 1: of the passage's chalk walls. There were steps, There was
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Speaker 1: the rude, heavy door, fastened by a great lock and
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Speaker 1: a key to open it, as big as a church.
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Speaker 1: And when the door had creaked open, there was the
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Speaker 1: great cave. It was so high that you could not
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Speaker 1: see the roof, only darkness. Out of an opening in
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Speaker 1: the chalk at the upper end. A stream of water fell,
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Speaker 1: slid along a smooth channel down the middle of the cave,
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Speaker 1: and ran along down a steep incline, rather like a
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Speaker 1: small railway cutting, and disappeared under a low arch. So
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Speaker 1: there always be water if you had to stand a siege,
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Speaker 1: said Edred. On both sides of the great cave, barrels
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Speaker 1: and bales were heaped on a sand floor. There were
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Speaker 1: a table and benches cut out of solid chalk, and
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Speaker 1: in an irregular opening, partly blocked by a mass of
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Speaker 1: fallen cliff, through which you saw the mysterious twilight sea
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Speaker 1: with stars coming out over it. You saw this, and
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Speaker 1: you felt quite suddenly too, a white wind that pressed
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Speaker 1: itself against you like a wrestler trying a fall, and
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Speaker 1: whistled in your ears, and drove you back to the
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Speaker 1: cave out of breath and panting. There'll be half a
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Speaker 1: gay to night, said the smuggler, for such no doubt
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Speaker 1: he was. Do you think the French will lend to morrow?
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Speaker 1: In limchurch bay? Edred asked by the light of the lantern.
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Speaker 1: The smuggler solemnly winked. You two can keep a secret
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Speaker 1: and know, he said, the French won't land. It's us
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Speaker 1: what a land, And we'll land here and not in bay.
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Speaker 1: And what we'll land is a good drop of the
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Speaker 1: real thing, and a yard or two of silic or
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Speaker 1: lace may be. I dunno who it was put it
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Speaker 1: out about as the French was a coming, But you
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Speaker 1: may lay to it. They aren't friends of the revenue.
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Speaker 1: Oh I see, said Elfrida, and did the worst of
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Speaker 1: It'll be the lookout they'll keep. Lucky for us, it's
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Speaker 1: all our men as has volunteered for duty, and we
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Speaker 1: know our friends. But do you mean, said Edid, that
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Speaker 1: you can be friends with the Frenchman when we're at
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Speaker 1: war with them? It's like this little man, said the smuggler,
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Speaker 1: sitting down on a keg that stood on its head,
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Speaker 1: ready for a seat. We ain't no quarrel with the
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Speaker 1: free trade man, neither here nor there. A man's got
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Speaker 1: his living to get, hasn't he. Now, So you see
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Speaker 1: a man's trade comes first, what he gets a bread by.
10:14
Speaker 1: So you see these chaps as meat as much channel
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Speaker 1: and heners the stuff. They are free traders first in
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Speaker 1: French is after the same like we are merchants before all.
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Speaker 1: We ain't no quarrel with them. It's the French soldiers
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Speaker 1: we are at war with, not the honest French trader
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Speaker 1: that's in the same boat as as ourselves. Then somebody's
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Speaker 1: just made up about boney coming so as to keep
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Speaker 1: people busy in the bay while you are smuggling here,
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Speaker 1: said Edward. I wouldn't go so fast that, sir, said
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Speaker 1: the man. But if it did happen that way, it'd
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Speaker 1: be a sort of special dispensation for us free trade
10:47
Speaker 1: men that get our living by honest work and honest danger.
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Speaker 1: That's all I say. Knowing by what's gone before, that
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Speaker 1: you two are safe as any old salt afloat. The
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Speaker 1: two children would have given a good deal to know
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Speaker 1: what it was that had gone before, but they never
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Speaker 1: did know, and sometimes even now they wonder what it
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Speaker 1: was that the Edred and Alfrida of those days had
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Speaker 1: done to win the confidence of this swrouggering smuggler. They
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Speaker 1: both think, and I dare say they are right that
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Speaker 1: it must have been something rather fine. Having seen all
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Speaker 1: the ins and outs of the cave, the children were
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Speaker 1: not sorry to get back to Arden Castle, for it
11:24
Speaker 1: was now dark and long past their proper bedtime, and
11:28
Speaker 1: it really had been rather a varying day. They were
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Speaker 1: put to bed rather severely by Lady Arden's own maid,
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Speaker 1: whom they had not met before and did not want
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Speaker 1: to meet again. So shriveled and dry and harsh was she.
11:42
Speaker 1: And they slept like happy little tubs in the coarse
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Speaker 1: homespun linen sheets scented with lavender grown in the castle garden,
11:49
Speaker 1: that were spread over soft fat pincushioned beds filled with
11:53
Speaker 1: the feather of geese eaten at the castle table. Only
11:57
Speaker 1: Elfrida woke once and found the room filled with red light,
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Speaker 1: and looking out of the window, saw that one of
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Speaker 1: the beacon bonfires for the light, and that the flames
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Speaker 1: and smoke were streaming across the dark summer sky, driven
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Speaker 1: by the wind that shouted and yelled and shook the windows,
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Speaker 1: and was by this time. She was sure at least
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Speaker 1: three quarters of a gale. The beacon was lighted. Therefore
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Speaker 1: the French were coming, and Elfrida yawned and went back
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Speaker 1: to bed. She was too sleepy to believe in Bony.
12:29
Speaker 1: But at that time, a hundred years ago, hundreds of
12:32
Speaker 1: little children shivered and cried in their beds, be quite
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Speaker 1: sure that now, at last all the dreadful prophecies of
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Speaker 1: mothers and nurses would come true, and that Bony, in
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Speaker 1: all his mysterious, unknown horror, would really now at last
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Speaker 1: have them. It was gray morning when the wind, wearied
12:51
Speaker 1: of the silly resistance of the leaded window, suddenly put
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Speaker 1: forth the strings two of the window from its hinges,
12:57
Speaker 1: drove it across the window frame, and swept through the room,
13:01
Speaker 1: flapping the bedclothes like wet sails, and wakening the children
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Speaker 1: most thoroughly, far beyond any hope of one more snooze.
13:09
Speaker 1: They got up and dressed. No one was about in
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Speaker 1: the house, but the front door was open. It was
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Speaker 1: quite calm on that side, But as soon as the
13:18
Speaker 1: children left the shelter of the castle wall, the wind
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Speaker 1: caught at them, hid, slapped, drove worried bent them till
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Speaker 1: they had had worked set upright, and getting along was
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Speaker 1: very slow and difficult. Yet they made their way somehow
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Speaker 1: to the cliff, where a thick black crowd stood, a
13:37
Speaker 1: crowd that was not really black when he got quite
13:39
Speaker 1: close and could look at it in the great dawnlight,
13:41
Speaker 1: but rather brilliantly red, white and blue like the Union jack.
13:46
Speaker 1: Because they were the armed men in their makeshift uniforms
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Speaker 1: whom Old Lord Arden had drilled and paraded the evening before,
13:54
Speaker 1: and they were all looking out to sea. The sea
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Speaker 1: was like the inside of an oyster shell, bowed with
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Speaker 1: riches of cold silver, the sky above as gray as
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Speaker 1: a gull's wing, and between sea and sky a ship
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Speaker 1: was driving straight on to the rocks. A hundred feet below.
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Speaker 1: Tis the French ship by her rig, someone said. The
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Speaker 1: first of the fleet is Scout, said another, And Heaven
14:18
Speaker 1: has sent a storm to destroy them, like it destroyed
14:20
Speaker 1: the accursed a Marta in Queen Bass's time. And still
14:24
Speaker 1: the ship came nearer. Tis the Bonnes Bernce, said the
14:28
Speaker 1: low voice of the smuggler friend close to Elfrida's ear,
14:31
Speaker 1: and she could only just hear him through the whistling
14:34
Speaker 1: of the gale. Tis true what old Betty said. The
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Speaker 1: French will land here to day, But they land dead
14:40
Speaker 1: corpses and all our little cargo. They've missed our boat
14:44
Speaker 1: in the gale. It'll all be smashed to bits afore
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Speaker 1: our eyes. Its poor work, being our honest merchant. The
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Speaker 1: men in their queer uniforms, carrying their queer weapons, huddled
14:56
Speaker 1: closer together, and all eyes were fixed on the ship
14:59
Speaker 1: as it came on and on. Is it sure to
15:02
Speaker 1: be wrecked? Whispered Elfrida, catching at old Lord Arden's hand.
15:08
Speaker 1: No hope, my child, get you home to bed, he said.
15:12
Speaker 1: It did not make any difference that all this had
15:15
Speaker 1: happened a hundred years ago. There was the cold, furious
15:18
Speaker 1: sea lashing the rocks far down below the cliff. Efrida
15:23
Speaker 1: could not bear to stay and see that ship smash
15:25
Speaker 1: on the rocks, as her carved work box had smashed
15:28
Speaker 1: when she dropped it on the kitchen bricks. She could
15:31
Speaker 1: not even bear to think of seeing it. Poetry was difficult,
15:35
Speaker 1: but to stay here and see a ship wrecked, a
15:38
Speaker 1: ship that had man aboard, was more difficult still. Oh, mouldywarp,
15:43
Speaker 1: do come to me, I cannot bear it, do you see?
15:48
Speaker 1: Was not perhaps fine poetry, but it expressed her feelings exactly,
15:52
Speaker 1: and anyhow, it did what it was meant to do.
15:55
Speaker 1: The white mole wrapped against her ankles. Even as she spoke,
15:59
Speaker 1: she caught it up up, Oh what are we to do?
16:04
Speaker 1: Go home, and said to the castle you'll find the
16:06
Speaker 1: door now. And they turned to go, And as they
16:10
Speaker 1: turned they heard a grinding crunch mixed with the noise
16:13
Speaker 1: of the waves and winds enormously louder, but yet just
16:16
Speaker 1: the sort of noise a dark makes when he is
16:19
Speaker 1: eating the bones of the chicken you had for dinner,
16:21
Speaker 1: and gets the chickens ribs all at once into his mouth.
16:25
Speaker 1: Then there was a sort of sighing moan from the
16:28
Speaker 1: crowd on the cliff, who had been there all night
16:31
Speaker 1: for the French to land. And then Lord Arden's boys,
16:35
Speaker 1: the French have landed. She spoke the truce, the French
16:39
Speaker 1: have landed. Heaven help them. And as the children ran
16:44
Speaker 1: towards the house, they knew that every man in that
16:47
Speaker 1: crowd would now be ready to risk his life to
16:49
Speaker 1: save from the sea those Frenchies whom they had set
16:52
Speaker 1: up all night. To kill with swords and skies and
16:55
Speaker 1: bills and meat choppers. Men are queer creatures. To get
17:00
Speaker 1: out of it, back to the safe quiet of a
17:03
Speaker 1: life with her chipped brags and riches. That was all
17:06
Speaker 1: that freedom wanted. Holding the mole in one hand and
17:09
Speaker 1: dragging Edred by the other, she got back to the
17:12
Speaker 1: castle and in at the front door, up the stairs
17:15
Speaker 1: and straight to a door. She knew it would be
17:18
Speaker 1: the right one, and it was. There was the large
17:21
Speaker 1: attic with the beams, and the long wonderful row of
17:25
Speaker 1: chests under the sloping roof, and the moment the door shut,
17:29
Speaker 1: the raging noise of the wind ceased as the flaring
17:32
Speaker 1: noise of gas seizes when he turned it off. And
17:35
Speaker 1: now once more the golden light filtered through the chinks
17:38
Speaker 1: of the tiles, and outside was the tick tick of
17:42
Speaker 1: moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, and the
17:46
Speaker 1: cool roucou of pigeonvoises. On the ground lay their own clothes, change,
17:53
Speaker 1: said the white mole, a little out of breath because
17:55
Speaker 1: it had been held way tight and carried very fast.
17:59
Speaker 1: And the moment they began to put on their own clothes,
18:02
Speaker 1: it seemed that the pigeon noises came closer and closer,
18:06
Speaker 1: and somehow helped them out of the prickly clothes of
18:08
Speaker 1: eighteen o seven and back into the comfortable sailor suits
18:11
Speaker 1: of nineteen o seven. Did you find the treasure? The
18:16
Speaker 1: mole asked, and the children answered, why no, we never
18:20
Speaker 1: thought of it. That don't make noughts, said the mole.
18:24
Speaker 1: Trowned there there, said Efrida. Then we're here. We are
18:29
Speaker 1: now again, I mean we're not then? Oh you're now
18:34
Speaker 1: sure enough, said the mole. And won't you catch it?
18:37
Speaker 1: Dame Honeyset's been raising the countryside after year. Next time
18:41
Speaker 1: you go Galliventon into old ancient times, you'd best set
18:45
Speaker 1: the clock back. Young folks don't know everything. Get along
18:49
Speaker 1: down and take your scolding. What must be must. If
18:53
Speaker 1: you can't get crump, you must put up with crust.
18:56
Speaker 1: Good Bye. It ran under one of the chests, and
19:00
Speaker 1: Edred and Elfrida were left looking at each other in
19:03
Speaker 1: the attic between the rows of chests. Do you like adventures?
19:07
Speaker 1: Said Edred slowly, Yes, said Elfrida firmly, And so do
19:11
Speaker 1: you come along down? And of section six