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06 - The House of Arden - E Nesbit · Classic Science Fiction Books

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