The House of Arden, E. Nesbit [best historical fiction books of all time TXT] 📗

door was open. It was quite calm on that side, but as soon as the children left the shelter of the castle wall the wind caught at them, hit, slapped, drove, worried, beat them, till they had hard work to stand upright, and getting along was very slow and difficult. Yet they made their way somehow to the cliff, where a thick, black crowd stood⁠—a crowd that was not really black when you got quite close and could look at it in the grey dawn⁠—light, but rather brilliantly red, white, and blue, like the Union Jack, because they were the armed men in their makeshift uniforms whom old Lord Arden had drilled and paraded the evening before. And they were all looking out to sea.

The sea was like the inside of an oyster-shell, barred with ridges of cold silver, the sky above was grey as a gull’s wing, and between sea and sky a ship was driving straight on to the rocks a hundred feet below.

“ ’Tis a French ship, by her rig,” someone said.

“The first of the fleet⁠—a scout,” said another, “and Heaven has sent a storm to destroy them like it destroyed the accursed Armada in Queen Bess’s time.”

And still the ship came nearer.

“ ’Tis the Bonne Esperance,” said the low voice of the smuggler friend close to Elfrida’s ear, and she could only just hear him through the whistling of the gale. “ ’Tis true what old Betty said; the French will land here today⁠—but they’ll land dead corpses. And all our little cargo⁠—they’ve missed our boat in the gale⁠—it’ll all be smashed to bits afore our eyes. It’s poor work being a honest merchant.”

The men in their queer uniforms, carrying their queer weapons, huddled closer together, and all eyes were fixed on the ship as it came on and on.

“Is it sure to be wrecked?” whispered Elfrida, catching at old Lord Arden’s hand.

“No hope, my child. Get you home to bed,” he said.

It did not make any difference that all this had happened a hundred years ago. There was the cold, furious sea lashing the rocks far down below the cliff. Elfrida could not bear to stay and see that ship smash on the rocks as her carved work-box had smashed when she dropped it on the kitchen bricks. She could not even bear to think of seeing it. Poetry was difficult, but to stay here and see a ship wrecked⁠—a ship that had men aboard⁠—was more difficult still.

“Oh, Mouldiwarp, do come to me;
I cannot bear it, do you see,”

was not, perhaps, fine poetry, but it expressed her feelings exactly, and, anyhow, it did what it was meant to do. The white mole rubbed against her ankles even as she spoke. She caught it up.

“Oh, what are we to do?”

“Go home,” it said, “to the castle⁠—you’ll find the door now.”

And they turned to go. And as they turned they heard a grinding crunch, mixed with the noise of the waves and winds, enormously louder, but yet just the sort of noise a dog makes when he is eating the bones of the chicken you had for dinner and gets the chicken’s ribs all at once into his mouth. Then there was a sort of sighing moan from the crowd on the cliff, who had been there all night for the French to land, and then Lord Arden’s voice⁠—

“The French have landed. She spoke the truth. The French have landed⁠—Heaven help them!”

And as the children ran towards the house they knew that every man in that crowd would now be ready to risk his life to save from the sea those Frenchies whom they had sat up all night to kill with swords and scythes and bills and meat-choppers. Men are queer creatures!

To get out of it⁠—back to the safe quiet of a life without shipwrecks and witches⁠—that was all Elfrida wanted. Holding the mole in one hand and dragging Edred by the other, she got back to the castle and in at the open front door, up the stairs, and straight to a door⁠—she knew it would be the right one, and it was.

There was the large attic with the beams, and the long, wonderful row of chests under the sloping roof. And the moment the door was shut, the raging noise of the winds ceased, as the flaring noise of gas ceases when you turn it off. And now once more the golden light filtered through the chinks of the tiles, and outside was the “tick, tick” of moving pigeon feet, the rustling of pigeon feathers, and the cooroocoo of pigeon voices.

On the ground lay their own clothes. “Change,” said the white mole, a little out of breath because it had been held very tight and carried very fast.

And the moment they began to put on their own clothes it seemed that the pigeon noises came closer and closer, and somehow helped them out of the prickly clothes of 1807 and back into the comfortable sailor suits of 1907.

“Did ye find the treasure?” the mole asked, and the children answered⁠—

“Why no; we never thought of it.”

“It don’t make no odds,” said the mole. “ ’Twaren’t dere.”

“There?” said Elfrida. “Then we’re here? We’re now again, I mean? We’re not then?”

“Oh, you’re now, sure enough,” said the mole, “and won’t you catch it! Dame Honeysett’s been raising the countryside arter ye. Next time ye go gallivantin’ into old ancient days you’d best set the clock back. Young folks don’t know everything. Get along down and take your scolding.

“What must be must.
If you can’t get crumb, you must put up with crust.

Goodbye.”

It ran under one of the chests, and Edred and Elfrida were left looking at each other in the attic between the rows of chests.

“Do you like adventures?” said Edred slowly.

“Yes,” said Elfrida firmly; “and so do you. Come along down.”

V The Highwayman and the ⸻

They both meant what they said. And yet, of course, it is nonsense to promise