The Greatest Works of E. Nesbit (220+ Titles in One Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит
will hold him down. Anthea and Jane and the Phoenix can whisper soft nothings to him while he gradually awakes.’
This plan did not have the success it deserved, because the burglar, curiously enough, was much stronger, even in his sleep, than Robert and Cyril, and at the first touch of their hands he leapt up and shouted out something very loud indeed.
Instantly steps were heard outside. Anthea threw her arms round the burglar and whispered:
‘It’s us – the ones that gave you the cats. We’ve come to save you, only don’t let on we’re here. Can’t we hide somewhere?’
Heavy boots sounded on the flagged passage outside, and a firm voice shouted:
‘Here – you – stop that row, will you?’
‘All right, governor,’ replied the burglar, still with Anthea’s arms round him; ‘I was only a-talking in my sleep. No offence.’
It was an awful moment. Would the boots and the voice come in. Yes! No! The voice said:
‘Well, stow it, will you?’
And the boots went heavily away, along the passage and up some sounding stone stairs.
‘Now then,’ whispered Anthea.
‘How the blue Moses did you get in?’ asked the burglar, in a hoarse whisper of amazement.
‘On the carpet,’ said Jane, truly.
‘Stow that,’ said the burglar. ‘One on you I could ’a’ swallowed, but four – and a yellow fowl.’
‘Look here,’ said Cyril, sternly, ‘you wouldn’t have believed any one if they’d told you beforehand about your finding a cow and all those cats in our nursery.’
‘That I wouldn’t,’ said the burglar, with whispered fervour, ‘so help me Bob, I wouldn’t.’
‘Well, then,’ Cyril went on, ignoring this appeal to his brother, ‘just try to believe what we tell you and act accordingly. It can’t do you any harm, you know,’ he went on in hoarse whispered earnestness. ‘You can’t be very much worse off than you are now, you know. But if you’ll just trust to us we’ll get you out of this right enough. No one saw us come in. The question is, where would you like to go?’
‘I’d like to go to Boolong,’ was the instant reply of the burglar. ‘I’ve always wanted to go on that there trip, but I’ve never ’ad the ready at the right time of the year.’
‘Boolong is a town like London,’ said Cyril, well meaning, but inaccurate, ‘how could you get a living there?’
The burglar scratched his head in deep doubt.
‘It’s ’ard to get a ’onest living anywheres nowadays,’ he said, and his voice was sad.
‘Yes, isn’t it?’ said Jane, sympathetically; ‘but how about a sunny southern shore, where there’s nothing to do at all unless you want to.’
‘That’s my billet, miss,’ replied the burglar. ‘I never did care about work – not like some people, always fussing about.’
‘Did you never like any sort of work?’ asked Anthea, severely.
‘Lor’, lumme, yes,’ he answered, ‘gardening was my ’obby, so it was. But Father died afore ’e could bind me to a nurseryman, an’—’
‘We’ll take you to the sunny southern shore,’ said Jane; ‘you’ve no idea what the flowers are like.’
‘Our old cook’s there,’ said Anthea. ‘She’s queen—’
‘Oh, chuck it,’ the burglar whispered, clutching at his head with both hands. ‘I knowed the first minute I see them cats and that cow as it was a judgement on me. I don’t know now whether I’m a-standing on my hat or my boots, so help me I don’t. If you can get me out, get me, and if you can’t, get along with you for goodness’ sake, and give me a chanst to think about what’ll be most likely to go down with the Beak in the morning.’
‘Come on to the carpet, then,’ said Anthea, gently shoving. The others quietly pulled, and the moment the feet of the burglar were planted on the carpet Anthea wished: ‘I wish we were all on the sunny southern shore where cook is.’
And instantly they were. There were the rainbow sands, the tropic glories of leaf and flower, and there, of course, was the cook, crowned with white flowers, and with all the wrinkles of crossness and tiredness and hard work wiped out of her face.
‘Why, cook, you’re quite pretty!’ Anthea said, as soon as she had got her breath after the tumble-rush-whirl of the carpet. The burglar stood rubbing his eyes in the brilliant tropic sunlight, and gazing wildly round him on the vivid hues of the tropic land.
‘Penny plain and tuppence coloured!’ he exclaimed pensively, ‘and well worth any tuppence, however hard-earned.’
The cook was seated on a grassy mound with her court of copper-coloured savages around her. The burglar pointed a grimy finger at these.
‘Are they tame?’ he asked anxiously. ‘Do they bite or scratch, or do anything to yer with poisoned arrows or oyster shells or that?’
‘Don’t you be so timid,’ said the cook. ‘Lookee ’ere, this ’ere’s only a dream what you’ve come into, an’ as it’s only a dream there’s no nonsense about what a young lady like me ought to say or not, so I’ll say you’re the best-looking fellow I’ve seen this many a day. And the dream goes on and on, seemingly, as long as you behaves. The things what you has to eat and drink tastes just as good as real ones, and—’
‘Look ’ere,’ said the burglar, ‘I’ve come ’ere straight outer the pleece station. These ’ere kids’ll tell you it ain’t no blame er mine.’
‘Well, you were a burglar, you know,’ said the truthful Anthea gently.
‘Only because I was druv to it by dishonest blokes, as well you knows, miss,’ rejoined the criminal. ‘Blowed if this ain’t the ’ottest January as I’ve known for years.’
‘Wouldn’t you like a bath?’ asked the queen, ‘and some white clothes like me?’
‘I should only look a juggins in ’em, miss, thanking you all the same,’ was the reply; ‘but a bath I wouldn’t resist, and my shirt was only clean on week before last.’
Cyril and Robert led him to a rocky pool, where he bathed luxuriously. Then, in shirt and trousers he sat on the sand and spoke.
‘That cook, or queen, or whatever you call her – her with the white bokay on her ’ed – she’s my sort. Wonder if she’d keep company!’
‘I should ask her.’
‘I was always a quick hitter,’ the man went on; ‘it’s a word and a blow with me. I will.’
In shirt and trousers, and crowned with a scented flowery wreath which Cyril hastily wove as they returned to the court of the queen, the burglar stood before the cook and spoke.
‘Look ’ere, miss,’ he said. ‘You an’ me bein’ all forlorn-like, both on us, in this ’ere dream, or whatever you calls it, I’d like to tell you straight as I likes yer looks.’
The cook smiled and looked down bashfully.
‘I’m a single man – what you might call a batcheldore. I’m mild in my ’abits, which these kids’ll tell you the same, and I’d like to ’ave the pleasure of walkin’ out with you next Sunday.’
‘Lor!’ said the queen cook, ‘’ow sudden you are, mister.’
‘Walking out means you’re going to be married,’ said Anthea. ‘Why