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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Five Children and It
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Illustrator: H.R. Millar
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17314]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE CHILDREN AND IT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Psammead]
+
+
+
+
+FIVE CHILDREN
+   AND IT
+
+BY
+E. NESBIT
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE TREASURE-SEEKERS,"
+"THE WOULD-BE-GOODS," ETC.
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+     NEW YORK
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+1905
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+_Published October, 1905_
+
+
+
+
+          _TO_
+
+          JOHN BLAND
+
+
+          _My Lamb, you are so very small,
+          You have not learned to read at all;
+          Yet never a printed book withstands
+          The urgence of your dimpled hands.
+          So, though this book is for yourself,
+          Let mother keep it on the shelf
+          Till you can read. O days that pass,
+          That day will come too soon, alas!_
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+Parts of this story have appeared in the _Strand Magazine_ under the
+title of
+
+          "THE PSAMMEAD."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                            PAGE
+
+   I BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY            1
+
+  II GOLDEN GUINEAS                 36
+
+ III BEING WANTED                   70
+
+  IV WINGS                         108
+
+   V NO WINGS                      141
+
+  VI A CASTLE AND NO DINNER        159
+
+ VII A SIEGE AND BED               183
+
+VIII BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY   203
+
+  IX GROWN UP                      236
+
+   X SCALPS                        261
+
+  XI THE LAST WISH                 287
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The Psammead                                          _Frontispiece_
+
+That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden         _Facing page_    2
+
+Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch   "     "       4
+
+Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!"              "     "      12
+
+The Baby Did Not Know Them!                          "     "      28
+
+Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him   "     "      32
+
+The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face      "     "      36
+
+He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry   "     "      50
+
+Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in
+  His Pocket                                         "     "       58
+
+They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby                "     "       64
+
+He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr.
+  Peasemarsh                                         "     "       66
+
+The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel
+  Pit                                                "     "       78
+
+"Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab        "     "       86
+
+At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the
+  Lamb's Brothers and Sisters                        "      "      88
+
+The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting                "      "      90
+
+He Snatched the Baby from Anthea                     "      "      94
+
+He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him     "      "      98
+
+The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out                      "      "     122
+
+They Flew Over Rochester                             "      "     126
+
+The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and
+  Heavily                                            "      "     128
+
+Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets                  "      "     132
+
+These Were the Necessaries of Life                   "      "     134
+
+The Children Were Fast Asleep                        "      "     138
+
+The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the
+  Keyhole                                            "      "     150
+
+There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately            "      "     164
+
+Robert Was Dragged Forthwith--by the Reluctant Ear   "      "     166
+
+He Wiped Away a Manly Tear                           "      "     168
+
+"Oh, Do, Do, Do, _Do_!" Said Robert                  "      "     174
+
+The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water       "      "     196
+
+Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole      "      "     198
+
+He Pulled Robert's Hair                              "      "     210
+
+"The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril           "      "     214
+
+He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of
+  the Haystack                                       "      "     216
+
+It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a
+  Pony-carriage by a Giant                           "      "     220
+
+When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling    "      "     228
+
+"When Your Time's Up Come to Me"                     "      "     230
+
+He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a
+  Garden Spade                                       "      "     238
+
+She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of
+    Honeysuckle                                      "      "     244
+
+There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle                  "      "     248
+
+The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident           "      "     250
+
+The Grown-up Lamb Struggled                          "      "     258
+
+She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker     "      "     266
+
+"Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said                         "      "     278
+
+Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them   "      "     284
+
+She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms                 "      "     294
+
+"We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently            "      "     298
+
+It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely
+  to the Last                                        "      "     308
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY
+
+
+The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired
+hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
+heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
+every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
+"Oh, _is_ this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
+the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
+gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
+orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"
+
+"How white the house is," said Robert.
+
+"And look at the roses," said Anthea.
+
+"And the plums," said Jane.
+
+"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.
+
+The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
+and jolt.
+
+Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
+get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
+Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
+had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
+seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
+instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
+orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
+broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
+children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
+it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
+and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
+a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
+roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
+deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
+been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
+seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House
+seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
+For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
+are not rich.
+
+[Illustration: That first glorious rush round the garden]
+
+Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
+things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
+theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
+of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
+things or themselves--such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
+nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape--all straight
+lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
+things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
+am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
+blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
+don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
+children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
+know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and
+mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
+know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
+too, but that is for quite different reasons.
+
+The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
+before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
+that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
+from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
+with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
+most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
+when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
+from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found
+the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were
+almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled
+out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had
+nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep
+rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts
+whatever.
+
+[Illustration: Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch]
+
+The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to
+places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled
+"You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad,
+because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.
+
+The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it--and
+the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at
+the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white
+buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other
+houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting,
+the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the
+limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were
+like an enchanted city out of the _Arabian Nights_.
+
+Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could
+go on and make this into a most interesting story about all the
+ordinary things that the children did,--just the kind of things you do
+yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I
+told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your
+aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How
+true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be
+annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that
+happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts
+and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the
+story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
+wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children
+will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they
+tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see
+perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the
+earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the
+sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as
+it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet
+I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so
+you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and
+the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At
+least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and
+of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever
+saw or heard of or read about.
+
+It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business,
+and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well.
+They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house
+seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one
+room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors
+left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had
+something to do. It was Cyril who said--
+
+"I say, let's take our spades and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend
+it's seaside."
+
+"Father says it was once," Anthea said; "he says there are shells there
+thousands of years old."
+
+So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and
+looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should
+say they mustn't play there, and it was the same with the chalk-quarry.
+The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don't try to climb down
+the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a
+cart.
+
+Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
+carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because "Baa"
+was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea "Panther," which
+seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little
+like her name.
+
+The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
+edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is
+like a giant's washbowl. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in
+the sides of the bowl where gravel has been taken out, and high up in
+the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front
+doors of the little bank-martins' little houses.
+
+The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather
+poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to
+fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last,
+to wet everybody up to the waist at least.
+
+Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
+thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to
+work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you
+see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the
+little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like
+flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.
+
+The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy
+and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried
+to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found that it was not,
+as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was
+lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished
+castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and
+the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane,
+who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.
+
+"Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly," said she, "and you
+tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in
+their eyes."
+
+"Yes," said Robert; "and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and
+not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or bluegums, or Emu Brand
+birds, or anything."
+
+Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that,
+but they agreed to stop using the spades and to go on with their hands.
+This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very
+soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
+it.
+
+"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
+Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."
+
+"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
+gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.
+
+"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.
+
+"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.
+
+"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
+sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
+off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
+and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
+little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
+bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
+hole."
+
+The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
+finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
+disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.
+
+The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
+wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
+handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
+makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
+suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly
+screamed--
+
+"Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick--It's alive! It'll get away! Quick!"
+
+They all hurried back.
+
+"It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder," said Robert. "Father says they infest
+old places--and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of
+years ago"--
+
+"Perhaps it is a snake," said Jane, shuddering.
+
+"Let's look," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I'm not afraid of
+snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow
+me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at night."
+
+"No, you won't," said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril's bedroom. "But
+you may if it's a rat."
+
+[Illustration: Anthea suddenly screamed, "It's alive!"]
+
+"Oh, don't be silly!" said Anthea; "it's not a rat, it's _much_ bigger.
+And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur! No--not the
+spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands."
+
+"And let _it_ hurt _me_ instead! That's so likely, isn't it?" said
+Cyril, seizing a spade.
+
+"Oh, don't!" said Anthea. "Squirrel, _don't_. I--it sounds silly, but it
+said something. It really and truly did"--
+
+"What?"
+
+"It said, 'You let me alone.'"
+
+But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head,
+and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the
+hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully,
+and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving
+in the bottom of the Australian hole.
+
+Then Anthea cried out, "_I'm_ not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her
+knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
+remembered where it was that he buried his bone.
+
+"Oh, I felt fur," she cried, half laughing and half crying. "I did
+indeed! I did!" when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them
+all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.
+
+"Let me alone," it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at
+the others to see if they had heard it too.
+
+"But we want to see you," said Robert bravely.
+
+"I wish you'd come out," said Anthea, also taking courage.
+
+"Oh, well--if that's your wish," the voice said, and the sand stirred
+and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came
+rolling out into the hole, and the sand fell off it, and it sat there
+yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.
+
+"I believe I must have dropped asleep," it said, stretching itself.
+
+The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature
+they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns
+like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes;
+it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a
+spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry
+too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.
+
+"What on earth is it?" Jane said. "Shall we take it home?"
+
+The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said--
+
+"Does she always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head
+that makes her silly?"
+
+It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.
+
+"She doesn't mean to be silly," Anthea said gently; "we none of us do,
+whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to hurt you,
+you know."
+
+"Hurt _me_!" it said. "_Me_ frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk as
+if I were nobody in particular." All its fur stood out like a cat's when
+it is going to fight.
+
+"Well," said Anthea, still kindly, "perhaps if we knew who you are in
+particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you
+angry. Everything we've said so far seems to have done so. Who are you?
+And don't get angry! Because really we don't know."
+
+"You don't know?" it said. "Well, I knew the world had
+changed--but--well, really--Do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
+know a Psammead when you see one?"
+
+"A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me."
+
+"So it is to everyone," said the creature sharply. "Well, in plain
+English, then, a _Sand-fairy_. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see
+one?"
+
+It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I
+see you are, _now_. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you."
+
+"You came to look at me, several sentences ago," it said crossly,
+beginning to curl up again in the sand.
+
+"Oh--don't go away again! Do talk some more," Robert cried. "I didn't
+know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw you that you were
+much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen."
+
+The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.
+
+"It isn't talking I mind," it said, "as long as you're reasonably civil.
+But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If you talk
+nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I won't. Now say
+something."
+
+Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
+thought of "How long have you lived here?" and he said it at once.
+
+"Oh, ages--several thousand years," replied the Psammead.
+
+"Tell us about it. Do."
+
+"It's all in books."
+
+"_You_ aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about
+yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you _are_ so nice."
+
+The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between
+them.
+
+"Do please tell!" said the children all together.
+
+It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
+astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than
+you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and
+now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives.
+
+It drew its eyes in and said--
+
+"How very sunny it is--quite like old times! Where do you get your
+Megatheriums from now?"
+
+"What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to
+remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or
+agitation.
+
+"Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on.
+
+The children were unable to reply.
+
+"What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who
+gives it to you?"
+
+"Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things.
+Mother gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
+Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?"
+
+"Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
+Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds--I
+believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of
+course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early
+you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you
+your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in
+the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the
+eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready
+jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was
+a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus
+was asked for,--he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of
+him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
+pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
+things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
+Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy
+and his tail made soup."
+
+"There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said
+Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.
+
+"Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course
+at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones
+of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell
+me."
+
+"Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig
+very fast with its furry hands.
+
+"Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was
+Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?"
+
+It stopped digging.
+
+"Not a bit," it said; "it was nearly all sand where I lived, and coal
+grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays--you find
+them now; they're turned into stone. We Sand-fairies used to live on the
+seashore, and the children used to come with their little flint-spades
+and flint-pails and make castles for us to live in. That's thousands of
+years ago, but I hear that children still build castles on the sand.
+It's difficult to break yourself of a habit."
+
+"But why did you stop living in the castles?" asked Robert.
+
+"It's a sad story," said the Psammead gloomily. "It was because they
+_would_ build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling sea used
+to come in, and of course as soon as a Sand-fairy got wet it caught
+cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer and fewer, and,
+whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used to wish for a
+Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted, because it might be
+weeks before you got another wish."
+
+"And did _you_ get wet?" Robert inquired.
+
+The Sand-fairy shuddered. "Only once," it said; "the end of the twelfth
+hair of my top left whisker--I feel the place still in damp weather. It
+was only once, but it was quite enough for me. I went away as soon as
+the sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I scurried away to the back of
+the beach, and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand, and there I've
+been ever since. And the sea changed its lodgings afterwards. And now
+I'm not going to tell you another thing."
+
+"Just one more, please," said the children. "Can you give wishes now?"
+
+"Of course," said it; "didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago? You
+said, 'I wish you'd come out,' and I did."
+
+"Oh, please, mayn't we have another?"
+
+"Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you."
+
+I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
+wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
+black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you
+could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation.
+These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance
+had suddenly come to them, they could not make up their minds.
+
+"Quick," said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of anything,
+only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her own and Jane's
+which they had never told the boys. She knew the boys would not care
+about it--but still it was better than nothing.
+
+"I wish we were all as beautiful as the day," she said in a great hurry.
+
+The children looked at each other, but each could see that the others
+were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed out his long
+eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out till
+it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly it let its breath go
+in a long sigh.
+
+"I'm really afraid I can't manage it," it said apologetically; "I must
+be out of practice."
+
+The children were horribly disappointed.
+
+"Oh, _do_ try again!" they said.
+
+"Well," said the Sand-fairy, "the fact is, I was keeping back a little
+strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If you'll be
+contented with one wish a day among the lot of you I daresay I can
+screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes!" said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did not
+believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls believe
+things much easier than you can boys.
+
+It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and swelled and
+swelled.
+
+"I do hope it won't hurt itself," said Anthea.
+
+"Or crack its skin," Robert said anxiously.
+
+Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting so
+big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let out its
+breath and went back to its proper size.
+
+"That's all right," it said, panting heavily. "It'll come easier
+to-morrow."
+
+"Did it hurt much?" said Anthea.
+
+"Only my poor whisker, thank you," said he, "but you're a kind and
+thoughtful child. Good day."
+
+It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
+disappeared in the sand.
+
+Then the children looked at each other, and each child suddenly found
+itself alone with three perfect strangers, all radiantly beautiful.
+
+They stood for some moments in silence. Each thought that its brothers
+and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange children had stolen
+up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the Sand-fairy.
+Anthea spoke first--
+
+"Excuse me," she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous blue
+eyes and a cloud of russet hair, "but have you seen two little boys and
+a little girl anywhere about?"
+
+"I was just going to ask you that," said Jane. And then Cyril cried--
+
+"Why, it's _you_! I know the hole in your pinafore! You _are_ Jane,
+aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief
+that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! The wish _has_
+come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as you are?"
+
+"If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before," said
+Anthea decidedly. "You look like the picture of the young chorister,
+with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if
+that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder. His hair's all
+black."
+
+"You two girls are like Christmas cards, then--that's all--silly
+Christmas cards," said Robert angrily. "And Jane's hair is simply
+carrots."
+
+It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.
+
+"Well, it's no use finding fault with each other," said Anthea; "let's
+get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will admire us most
+awfully, you'll see."
+
+Baby was just waking up when they got to him, and not one of the
+children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful
+as the day, but just the same as usual.
+
+"I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally," said Jane. "We
+shall have to mention him specially next time."
+
+Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.
+
+"Come, then," she said.
+
+The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb in his
+mouth. Anthea was his favourite sister.
+
+"Come, then," she said.
+
+"G'way 'long!" said the Baby.
+
+"Come to own Pussy," said Jane.
+
+"Wants my Panty," said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.
+
+"Here, come on, Veteran," said Robert, "come and have a yidey on Yobby's
+back."
+
+"Yah, narky narky boy," howled the Baby, giving way altogether. Then the
+children knew the worst. _The Baby did not know them!_
+
+[Illustration: The baby did not know them!]
+
+They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each, in
+this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
+strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling, jolly
+little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.
+
+"This is most truly awful," said Cyril when he had tried to lift up the
+Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed like a bull!
+"We've got to _make friends_ with him! I can't carry him home screaming
+like that. Fancy having to make friends with our own baby!--it's too
+silly."
+
+That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an hour,
+and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the Lamb was
+by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert.
+
+At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
+turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a
+dead weight, and most exhausting.
+
+"Thank goodness, we're home!" said Jane, staggering through the iron
+gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door shading her
+eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. "Here! Do take Baby!"
+
+Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.
+
+"Thanks be, _he's_ safe back," she said. "Where are the others, and
+whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?"
+
+"We're _us_, of course," said Robert.
+
+"And who's Us, when you're at home?" asked Martha scornfully.
+
+"I tell you it's _us_, only we're beautiful as the day," said Cyril.
+"I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let us in,
+and don't be a silly idiot."
+
+Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door in
+his face.
+
+"I know we _look_ different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
+it's long past dinner-time."
+
+"Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children put
+you up to this play-acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it,
+so they know what to expect!" With that she did bang the door. Cyril
+rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook put her head out of a
+bedroom window and said--
+
+"If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go and
+fetch the police." And she slammed down the window.
+
+"It's no good," said Anthea. "Oh, do, do come away before we get sent to
+prison!"
+
+The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put you
+in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the same they
+followed the others out into the lane.
+
+"We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose," said Jane.
+
+"I don't know," Cyril said sadly; "it mayn't be like that now--things
+have changed a good deal since Megatherium times."
+
+"Oh," cried Anthea suddenly, "perhaps we shall turn into stone at
+sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of us
+left over for the next day."
+
+She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one had the
+heart to say anything.
+
+It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the children
+could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They were afraid to
+go to the village, because they had seen Martha go down there with a
+basket, and there was a local constable. True, they were all as
+beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry
+as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.
+
+Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White House to
+let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert went alone, hoping
+to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and so open the door
+to the others. But all the windows were out of reach, and Martha emptied
+a toilet-jug of cold water over him from a top window, and said--
+
+"Go along with you, you nasty little Eye-talian monkey."
+
+It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge, with
+their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering whether,
+when the sun _did_ set, they would turn into stone, or only into their
+own old natural selves; and each of them still felt lonely and among
+strangers, and tried not to look at the others, for, though their voices
+were their own, their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite
+irritating to look at.
+
+"I don't believe we _shall_ turn to stone," said Robert, breaking a long
+miserable silence, "because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us another
+wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could he?"
+
+The others said "No," but they weren't at all comforted.
+
+Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
+suddenly saying, "I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe it's
+beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning to stone, I
+know I am, and so will you in a minute."
+
+"Never mind," said Robert kindly, "perhaps you'll be the only stone one,
+and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your statue and
+hang garlands on it."
+
+But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through
+his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to life in an
+agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.
+
+"Giving us such a fright for nothing!" said Anthea.
+
+[Illustration: Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him]
+
+The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
+said--
+
+"If we _do_ come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd to make
+it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no matter what
+wishes we have."
+
+The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
+resolutions.
+
+At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness--four very nasty
+things--all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep.
+The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and
+their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the
+twilight was coming on.
+
+Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she
+could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then
+she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.
+
+"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not
+stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old
+freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!"
+she added, so that they might not feel jealous.
+
+When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them
+about the strange children.
+
+"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."
+
+"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be
+to try to explain things to Martha.
+
+"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
+things, you?"
+
+"In the lane."
+
+"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"
+
+"We couldn't because of _them_," said Anthea.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till
+after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how
+we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry."
+
+"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like
+this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with
+strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind,
+if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so
+much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their
+beauty for them!"
+
+"If ever we _do_ see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and
+Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought
+in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones--
+
+"And we'll take jolly good care we never _do_ see them again."
+
+And they never have.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GOLDEN GUINEAS
+
+
+Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she
+was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an
+umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain,
+and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and
+the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular
+breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still
+asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet
+corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently
+squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.
+
+"Oh, drop it!" she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not a
+brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps,
+original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and the other
+little accomplishments which make home happy.
+
+[Illustration: The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face]
+
+"I had such a funny dream," Anthea began.
+
+"So did I," said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. "I dreamed
+we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it was a Sammyadd,
+and we might have a new wish every day, and"----
+
+"But that's what _I_ dreamed," said Robert; "I was just going to tell
+you,--and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I dreamed you
+girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be beautiful as day, and
+we jolly well were, and it was perfectly beastly."
+
+"But _can_ different people all dream the same thing?" said Anthea,
+sitting up in bed, "because I dreamed all that as well as about the Zoo
+and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the servants shut
+us out of the house because the radiantness of our beauty was such a
+complete disguise, and"----
+
+The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.
+
+"Come on, Robert," it said, "you'll be late for breakfast again--unless
+you mean to shirk your bath as you did on Tuesday."
+
+"I say, come here a second," Robert replied; "I didn't shirk it; I had
+it after brekker in father's dressing-room because ours was emptied
+away."
+
+Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.
+
+"Look here," said Anthea, "we've all had such an odd dream. We've all
+dreamed we found a Sand-fairy."
+
+Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance.
+
+"Dream?" he said; "you little sillies, it's _true_. I tell you it all
+happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up there
+directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll make up our
+minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and no one must ask
+for anything unless the others agree first. No more peerless beauties
+for this child, thank you. Not if I know it!"
+
+The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream about
+the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like a dream,
+the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but Anthea was not
+sure, till after they had seen Martha and heard her full and plain
+reminders about their naughty conduct the day before. Then Anthea was
+sure.
+
+"Because," said she, "servants never dream anything but the things in
+the Dream-book, like snakes and oysters and going to a wedding--that
+means a funeral, and snakes are a false female friend, and oysters are
+babies."
+
+"Talking of babies," said Cyril, "where's the Lamb?"
+
+"Martha's going to take him to Rochester to see her cousins. Mother said
+she might. She's dressing him now," said Jane, "in his very best coat
+and hat. Bread-and-butter, please."
+
+"She seems to like taking him too," said Robert in a tone of wonder.
+
+"Servants _do_ like taking babies to see their relations," Cyril said;
+"I've noticed it before--especially in their best clothes."
+
+"I expect they pretend they're their own babies, and that they're not
+servants at all, but married to noble dukes of high degree, and they say
+the babies are the little dukes and duchesses," Jane suggested dreamily,
+taking more marmalade. "I expect that's what Martha'll say to her
+cousin. She'll enjoy herself most frightfully."
+
+"She won't enjoy herself most frightfully carrying our infant duke to
+Rochester," said Robert; "not if she's anything like me--she won't."
+
+"Fancy walking to Rochester with the Lamb on your back!" said Cyril in
+full agreement.
+
+"She's gone by the carrier's cart," said Jane. "Let's see them off, then
+we shall have done a polite and kindly act, and we shall be quite sure
+we've got rid of them for the day."
+
+So they did.
+
+Martha wore her Sunday dress of two shades of purple, so tight in the
+chest that it made her stoop, and her blue hat with the pink
+cornflowers and white ribbon. She had a yellow-lace collar with a green
+bow. And the Lamb had indeed his very best cream-colored silk coat and
+hat. It was a smart party that the carrier's cart picked up at the Cross
+Roads. When its white tilt and red wheels had slowly vanished in a swirl
+of chalk-dust--
+
+"And now for the Sammyadd!" said Cyril, and off they went.
+
+As they went they decided on the wish they would ask for. Although they
+were all in a great hurry they did not try to climb down the sides of
+the gravel-pit, but went round by the safe lower road, as if they had
+been carts.
+
+They had made a ring of stones round the place where the Sand-fairy had
+disappeared, so they easily found the spot. The sun was burning and
+bright, and the sky was deep blue--without a cloud. The sand was very
+hot to touch.
+
+"Oh--suppose it was only a dream, after all," Robert said as the boys
+uncovered their spades from the sand-heap where they had buried them
+and began to dig.
+
+"Suppose you were a sensible chap," said Cyril; "one's quite as likely
+as the other!"
+
+"Suppose you kept a civil tongue in your head," Robert snapped.
+
+"Suppose we girls take a turn," said Jane, laughing. "You boys seem to
+be getting very warm."
+
+"Suppose you don't come putting your silly oar in," said Robert, who was
+now warm indeed.
+
+"We won't," said Anthea quickly. "Robert dear, don't be so grumpy--we
+won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy and tell
+him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much better than we
+shall."
+
+"Suppose you drop being a little humbug," said Robert, but not crossly.
+"Look out--dig with your hands, now!"
+
+So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body,
+long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy
+himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction, for now of course
+it couldn't have been a dream.
+
+The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur.
+
+"How's your left whisker this morning?" said Anthea politely.
+
+"Nothing to boast of," said it; "it had rather a restless night. But
+thank you for asking."
+
+"I say," said Robert, "do you feel up to giving wishes to-day, because
+we very much want an extra besides the regular one? The extra's a very
+little one," he added reassuringly.
+
+"Humph!" said the Sand-fairy. (If you read this story aloud, please
+pronounce "humph" exactly as it is spelt, for that is how he said it.)
+"Humph! Do you know, until I heard you being disagreeable to each other
+just over my head, and so loud too, I really quite thought I had dreamed
+you all. I do have very odd dreams sometimes."
+
+"Do you?" Jane hurried to say, so as to get away from the subject of
+disagreeableness. "I wish," she added politely, "you'd tell us about
+your dreams--they must be awfully interesting"--
+
+"Is that the day's wish?" said the Sand-fairy, yawning.
+
+Cyril muttered something about "just like a girl," and the rest stood
+silent. If they said "Yes," then good-bye to the other wishes they had
+decided to ask for. If they said "No," it would be very rude, and they
+had all been taught manners, and had learned a little too, which is not
+at all the same thing. A sigh of relief broke from all lips when the
+Sand-fairy said--
+
+"If I do, I shan't have strength to give you a second wish; not even
+good tempers, or common-sense, or manners, or little things like that."
+
+"We don't want you to put yourself out at all about _these_ things, we
+can manage them quite well ourselves," said Cyril eagerly; while the
+others looked guiltily at each other, and wished the Fairy would not
+keep all on about good tempers, but give them one good scolding if it
+wanted to, and then have done with it.
+
+"Well," said the Psammead, putting out his long snail's eyes so suddenly
+that one of them nearly went into the round boy's eye of Robert, "let's
+have the little wish first."
+
+"We don't want the servants to notice the gifts you give us."
+
+"Are kind enough to give us," said Anthea in a whisper.
+
+"Are kind enough to give us, I mean," said Robert.
+
+The Fairy swelled himself out a bit, let his breath go, and said--
+
+"I've done _that_ for you--it was quite easy. People don't notice things
+much, anyway. What's the next wish?"
+
+"We want," said Robert slowly, "to be rich beyond the dreams of
+something or other."
+
+"Avarice," said Jane.
+
+"So it is," said the Fairy unexpectedly. "But it won't do you much good,
+that's one comfort," it muttered to itself. "Come--I can't go beyond
+dreams, you know! How much do you want, and will you have it in gold or
+notes?"
+
+"Gold, please--and millions of it"--
+
+"This gravel-pit full be enough?" said the Fairy in an off-hand manner.
+
+"Oh _yes_"--
+
+"Then go out before I begin, or you'll be buried alive in it."
+
+It made its skinny arms so long, and waved them so frighteningly, that
+the children ran as hard as they could towards the road by which carts
+used to come to the gravel-pits. Only Anthea had presence of mind enough
+to shout a timid "Good-morning, I hope your whisker will be better
+to-morrow," as she ran.
+
+On the road they turned and looked back, and they had to shut their
+eyes, and open them very slowly, a little bit at a time, because the
+sight was too dazzling for their eyes to be able to bear. It was
+something like trying to look at the sun at high noon on Midsummer Day.
+For the whole of the sand-pit was full, right up to the very top, with
+new shining gold pieces, and all the little bank-martins' little front
+doors were covered out of sight. Where the road for carts wound into the
+gravel-pit the gold lay in heaps like stones lie by the roadside, and a
+great bank of shining gold shelved down from where it lay flat and
+smooth between the tall sides of the gravel-pit. And all the gleaming
+heaps was minted gold. And on the sides and edges of these countless
+coins the mid-day sun shone and sparkled, and glowed and gleamed till
+the quarry looked like the mouth of a smelting furnace, or one of the
+fairy halls that you see sometimes in the sky at sunset.
+
+The children stood with their mouths open, and no one said a word.
+
+At last Robert stooped and picked up one of the loose coins from the
+edge of the heap by the cart-road, and looked at it. He looked on both
+sides. Then he said in a low voice, quite different to his own, "It's
+not sovereigns."
+
+"It's gold, anyway," said Cyril. And now they all began to talk at once.
+They all picked up the golden treasure by handfuls and let it run
+through their fingers like water, and the chink it made as it fell was
+wonderful music. At first they quite forgot to think of spending the
+money, it was so nice to play with. Jane sat down between two heaps of
+the gold, and Robert began to bury her, as you bury your father in sand
+when you are at the seaside and he has gone to sleep on the beach with
+his newspaper over his face. But Jane was not half buried before she
+cried out, "Oh stop, it's too heavy! It hurts!"
+
+Robert said "Bosh!" and went on.
+
+"Let me out, I tell you," cried Jane, and was taken out, very white, and
+trembling a little.
+
+"You've no idea what it's like," said she; "it's like stones on you--or
+like chains."
+
+"Look here," Cyril said, "if this is to do us any good, it's no good our
+staying gasping at it like this. Let's fill our pockets and go and buy
+things. Don't you forget, it won't last after sunset. I wish we'd asked
+the Sammyadd why things don't turn to stone. Perhaps this will. I'll
+tell you what, there's a pony and cart in the village."
+
+"Do you want to buy that?" asked Jane.
+
+"No, silly,--we'll _hire_ it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy
+heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as we can
+carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head on one side and
+a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill your pockets with it,
+I tell you, and come along. You can talk as we go--if you _must_ talk."
+
+Cyril sat down and began to fill his pockets.
+
+"You made fun of me for getting father to have nine pockets in my suit,"
+said he, "but now you see!"
+
+They did. For when Cyril had filled his nine pockets and his
+handkerchief and the space between himself and his shirt front with the
+gold coins, he had to stand up. But he staggered, and had to sit down
+again in a hurry.
+
+"Throw out some of the cargo," said Robert. "You'll sink the ship, old
+chap. That comes of nine pockets."
+
+And Cyril had to do so.
+
+Then they set off to walk to the village. It was more than a mile, and
+the road was very dusty indeed, and the sun seemed to get hotter and
+hotter, and the gold in their pockets got heavier and heavier.
+
+It was Jane who said, "I don't see how we're to spend it all. There must
+be thousands of pounds among the lot of us. I'm going to leave some of
+mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly we get to the village
+we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long past dinner-time." She took
+out a handful or two of gold and hid it in the hollows of an old
+hornbeam. "How round and yellow they are," she said. "Don't you wish
+they were made of gingerbread and we were going to eat them?"
+
+"Well, they're not, and we're not," said Cyril. "Come on!"
+
+But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the village,
+more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little hoard of hidden
+treasure. Yet they reached the village with about twelve hundred guineas
+in their pockets. But in spite of this inside wealth they looked
+quite ordinary outside, and no one would have thought they could have
+more than a half-crown each at the outside. The haze of heat, the blue
+of the wood smoke, made a sort of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of
+the village. The four sat down heavily on the first bench to which they
+came. It happened to be outside the Blue Boar Inn.
+
+[Illustration: He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry]
+
+It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
+ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, "It was not wrong for men to go
+into beer-saloons, only for children. And Cyril is nearer being a man
+than us, because he is the eldest." So he went. The others sat in the
+sun and waited.
+
+"Oh, how hot it is!" said Robert. "Dogs put their tongues out when
+they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put out ours?"
+
+"We might try," Jane said; and they all put their tongues out as far as
+ever they could go, so that it quite stretched their throats, but it
+only seemed to make them thirstier than ever, besides annoying everyone
+who went by. So they took their tongues in again, just as Cyril came
+back with ginger-beer.
+
+"I had to pay for it out of my own money, though, that I was going to
+buy rabbits with," he said. "They wouldn't change the gold. And when I
+pulled out a handful the man just laughed and said it was card-counters.
+And I got some sponge-cakes too, out of a glass jar on the bar-counter.
+And some biscuits with caraways in."
+
+The sponge-cakes were both soft and dry and the biscuits were dry too,
+and yet soft, which biscuits ought not to be. But the ginger-beer made
+up for everything.
+
+"It's my turn now to try to buy something with the money," Anthea said;
+"I'm next eldest. Where is the pony-cart kept?"
+
+It was at The Chequers, and Anthea went in the back way to the yard,
+because they all knew that little girls ought not to go into the bars of
+beer-saloons. She came out, as she herself said, "pleased but not
+proud."
+
+"He'll be ready in a brace of shakes, he says," she remarked, "and he's
+to have one sovereign--or whatever it is--to drive us into Rochester and
+back, besides waiting there till we've got everything we want. I think I
+managed very well."
+
+"You think yourself jolly clever, I daresay," said Cyril moodily. "How
+did you do it?"
+
+"I wasn't jolly clever enough to go taking handfuls of money out of my
+pocket, to make it seem cheap, anyway," she retorted. "I just found a
+young man doing something to a horse's legs with a sponge and a pail.
+And I held out one sovereign, and I said--'Do you know what this is?' He
+said 'No,' and he'd call his father. And the old man came, and he said
+it was a spade guinea; and he said was it my own to do as I liked with,
+and I said 'Yes'; and I asked about the pony-cart, and I said he could
+have the guinea if he'd drive us into Rochester. And his name is S.
+Crispin. And he said, 'Right oh.'"
+
+It was a new sensation to be driven in a smart pony-trap along pretty
+country roads; it was very pleasant too (which is not always the case
+with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans of spending
+the money which each child made as they went along, silently of course
+and quite to itself, for they felt it would never have done to let the
+old innkeeper hear them talk in the affluent sort of way in which they
+were thinking. The old man put them down by the bridge at their request.
+
+"If you were going to buy a carriage and horses, where would you go?"
+asked Cyril, as if he were only asking for the sake of something to say.
+
+"Billy Peasemarsh, at the Saracen's Head," said the old man promptly.
+"Though all forbid I should recommend any man where it's a question of
+horses, no more than I'd take anybody else's recommending if I was
+a-buying one. But if your pa's thinking of a rig of any sort, there
+ain't a straighter man in Rochester, nor civiller spoken, than Billy,
+though I says it."
+
+"Thank you," said Cyril. "The Saracen's Head."
+
+And now the children began to see one of the laws of nature turn upside
+down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up person would
+tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend. But the fairy
+money had been easy to get, and spending it was not only hard, it was
+almost impossible. The trades-people of Rochester seemed to shrink, to a
+trades-person, from the glittering fairy gold ("furrin money" they
+called it, for the most part).
+
+To begin with, Anthea, who had had the misfortune to sit on her hat
+earlier in the day, wished to buy another. She chose a very beautiful
+one, trimmed with pink roses and the blue breasts of peacocks. It was
+marked in the window, "Paris Model, three guineas."
+
+"I'm glad," she said, "because it says guineas, and not sovereigns,
+which we haven't got."
+
+But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was by
+this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves before
+going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the shop looked
+very hard at her, and went and whispered something to an older and
+uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave her back the money
+and said it was not current coin.
+
+"It's good money," said Anthea, "and it's my own."
+
+"I daresay," said the lady, "but it's not the kind of money that's
+fashionable now, and we don't care about taking it."
+
+"I believe they think we've stolen it," said Anthea, rejoining the
+others in the street; "if we had gloves they wouldn't think we were so
+dishonest. It's my hands being so dirty fills their minds with doubts."
+
+So they chose a humble shop, and the girls bought cotton gloves, the
+kind at a shilling, but when they offered a guinea the woman looked at
+it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had
+to be paid for out of Cyril's money with which he meant to buy rabbits
+and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at nine-pence which
+had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the
+kinds where you buy toys and perfume and silk handkerchiefs and books,
+and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects of interest in
+the vicinity. But nobody cared to change a guinea that day in Rochester,
+and as they went from shop to shop they got dirtier and dirtier, and
+their hair got more and more untidy, and Jane slipped and fell down on a
+part of the road where a water cart had just gone by. Also they got very
+hungry, but they found no one would give them anything to eat for their
+guineas.
+
+After trying two baker shops in vain, they became so hungry, perhaps
+from the smell of the cake in the shops, as Cyril suggested, that they
+formed a plan of campaign in whispers and carried it out in desperation.
+They marched into a third baker shop,--Beale was his name,--and before
+the people behind the counter could interfere each child had seized
+three new penny buns, clapped the three together between its dirty
+hands, and taken a big bite out of the triple sandwich. Then they stood
+at bay, with the twelve buns in their hands and their mouths very full
+indeed. The shocked baker's man bounded round the corner.
+
+"Here," said Cyril, speaking as distinctly as he could, and holding out
+the guinea he got ready before entering the shops, "pay yourself out of
+that."
+
+Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.
+
+[Illustration: Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his
+pocket]
+
+"Off you go," he said, brief and stern like the man in the song.
+
+"But the change?" said Anthea, who had a saving mind.
+
+"Change!" said the man, "I'll change you! Hout you goes; and you may
+think yourselves lucky I don't send for the police to find out where you
+got it!"
+
+In the Gardens of the Castle the millionaires finished the buns, and
+though the curranty softness of these were delicious, and acted like a
+charm in raising the spirits of the party, yet even the stoutest heart
+quailed at the thought of venturing to sound Mr. Billy Peasemarsh at the
+Saracen's Head on the subject of a horse and carriage. The boys would
+have given up the idea, but Jane was always a hopeful child, and Anthea
+generally an obstinate one, and their earnestness prevailed.
+
+The whole party, by this time indescribably dirty, therefore betook
+itself to the Saracen's Head. The yard-method of attack having been
+successful at The Chequers, was tried again here. Mr. Peasemarsh was in
+the yard, and Robert opened the business in these terms--
+
+"They tell me you have a lot of horses and carriages to sell." It had
+been agreed that Robert should be spokesman, because in books it is
+always gentlemen who buy horses, and not ladies, and Cyril had had his
+go at the Blue Boar.
+
+"They tell you true, young man," said Mr. Peasemarsh. He was a long lean
+man, with very blue eyes and a tight mouth and narrow lips.
+
+"We should like to buy some, please," said Robert politely.
+
+"I daresay you would."
+
+"Will you show us a few, please? To choose from."
+
+"Who are you a-kiddin of?" inquired Mr. Billy Peasemarsh. "Was you sent
+here of a message?"
+
+"I tell you," said Robert, "we want to buy some horses and carriages,
+and a man told us you were straight and civil spoken, but I shouldn't
+wonder if he was mistaken"--
+
+"Upon my sacred!" said Mr. Peasemarsh. "Shall I trot the whole stable
+out for your Honor's worship to see? Or shall I send round to the
+Bishop's to see if he's a nag or two to dispose of?"
+
+"Please do," said Robert, "if it's not too much trouble. It would be
+very kind of you."
+
+Mr. Peasemarsh put his hands in his pockets and laughed, and they did
+not like the way he did it. Then he shouted "Willum!"
+
+A stooping ostler appeared in a stable door.
+
+"Here, Willum, come and look at this 'ere young dook! Wants to buy the
+whole stud, lock, stock, and bar'l. And ain't got tuppence in his
+pocket to bless hisself with, I'll go bail!"
+
+Willum's eyes followed his master's pointing thumb with contemptuous
+interest.
+
+"Do 'e, for sure?" he said.
+
+But Robert spoke, though both the girls were now pulling at his jacket
+and begging him to "come along." He spoke, and he was very angry; he
+said--
+
+"I'm not a young duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for
+tuppence--what do you call this?" And before the others could stop him
+he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and held them out
+for Mr. Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He snatched one up in his
+finger and thumb. He bit it, and Jane expected him to say, "The best
+horse in my stables is at your service." But the others knew better.
+Still it was a blow, even to the most desponding, when he said shortly--
+
+"Willum, shut the yard doors;" and Willum grinned and went to shut them.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said Robert hastily; "we shan't buy any horses now,
+whatever you say, and I hope it'll be a lesson to you." He had seen a
+little side gate open, and was moving towards it as he spoke. But Billy
+Peasemarsh put himself in the way.
+
+"Not so fast, you young off-scouring!" he said. "Willum, fetch the
+pleece."
+
+Willum went. The children stood huddled together like frightened sheep,
+and Mr. Peasemarsh spoke to them till the pleece arrived. He said many
+things. Among other things he said--
+
+"Nice lot you are, aren't you, coming tempting honest men with your
+guineas!"
+
+"They _are_ our guineas," said Cyril boldly.
+
+"Oh, of course we don't know all about that, no more we don't--oh
+no--course not! And dragging little gells into it, too. 'Ere--I'll let
+the gells go if you'll come along to the pleece quiet."
+
+"We won't be let go," said Jane heroically; "not without the boys. It's
+our money just as much as theirs, you wicked old man."
+
+"Where'd you get it, then?" said the man, softening slightly, which was
+not at all what the boys expected when Jane began to call names.
+
+Jane cast a silent glance of agony at the others.
+
+"Lost your tongue, eh? Got it fast enough when it's for calling names
+with. Come, speak up! Where'd you get it?"
+
+"Out of the gravel-pit," said truthful Jane.
+
+"Next article," said the man.
+
+"I tell you we did," Jane said. "There's a fairy there--all over brown
+fur--with ears like a bat's and eyes like a snail's, and he gives you a
+wish a day, and they all come true."
+
+"Touched in the head, eh?" said the man in a low voice; "all the more
+shame to you boys dragging the poor afflicted child into your sinful
+burglaries."
+
+"She's not mad; it's true," said Anthea; "there _is_ a fairy. If I ever
+see him again I'll wish for something for you; at least I would if
+vengeance wasn't wicked--so there!"
+
+"Lor' lumme," said Billy Peasemarsh, "if there ain't another on 'em!"
+
+And now Willum came back, with a spiteful grin on his face, and at his
+back a policeman, with whom Mr. Peasemarsh spoke long in a hoarse
+earnest whisper.
+
+"I daresay you're right," said the policeman at last. "Anyway, I'll take
+'em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending inquiries. And the
+magistrate will deal with the case. Send the afflicted ones to a home,
+as likely as not, and the boys to a reformatory. Now then, come along,
+youngsters! No use making a fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr.
+Peasemarsh, sir, and I'll shepherd the boys."
+
+Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven along the
+streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded them, so that
+when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not recognise her till a
+well-known voice said, "Well, if ever I did! Oh, Master Robert, whatever
+have you been a-doing of now?" And another voice, quite as well known,
+said, "Panty; want go own Panty!"
+
+They had run into Martha and the Baby!
+
+[Illustration: They had run into Martha and the baby]
+
+Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the
+policeman's story, or of Mr. Peasemarsh's either, even when they made
+Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the guineas.
+
+"I don't see nothing," she said. "You've gone out of your senses, you
+two! There ain't any gold there--only the poor child's hands, all over
+dirt, and like the very chimbley. Oh that I should ever see the day!"
+
+And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather
+wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the
+servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course Martha
+couldn't see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth, and that was
+quite right, of course, but not extra noble.
+
+It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The policeman
+told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare room with a thing
+like a clumsy nursery-fender at one end to put prisoners in. Robert
+wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.
+
+"Produce the coins, officer," said the inspector.
+
+"Turn out your pockets," said the constable.
+
+Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a
+moment, and then began to laugh--an odd sort of laugh that hurt, and
+that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So were the
+pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the fairy gold had
+vanished away.
+
+"Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise," said the inspector.
+
+Cyril turned out his pockets, every one of the nine which enriched his
+suit. And every pocket was empty.
+
+"Well!" said the inspector.
+
+"I don't know how they done it--artful little beggars! They walked in
+front of me the 'ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on them and not to
+attract a crowd and obstruct the traffic."
+
+"It's very remarkable," said the inspector, frowning.
+
+"If you've done a-browbeating of the innocent children," said Martha,
+"I'll hire a private carriage and we'll drive home to their papa's
+mansion. You'll hear about this again, young man!--I told you they
+hadn't got any gold, when you were pretending to see it in their poor
+helpless hands. It's early in the day for a constable on duty not to be
+able to trust his own eyes. As to the other one, the less said the
+better; he keeps the Saracen's Head, and he knows best what his liquor's
+like."
+
+[Illustration: He said, "Now then!" to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh]
+
+"Take them away, for goodness' sake," said the inspector crossly. But as
+they left the police-station he said, "Now then!" to the policeman and
+Mr. Peasemarsh, and he said it twenty times as crossly as he had spoken
+to Martha.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Martha was as good as her word. She took them home in a very grand
+carriage, because the carrier's cart was gone, and, though she had stood
+by them so nobly with the police, she was so angry with them as soon as
+they were alone for "trapesing into Rochester by themselves," that none
+of them dared to mention the old man with the pony-cart from the
+village who was waiting for them in Rochester. And so, after one day of
+boundless wealth, the children found themselves sent to bed in deep
+disgrace, and only enriched by two pairs of cotton gloves, dirty inside
+because of the state of the hands they had been put on to cover, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and twelve penny buns, long since
+digested.
+
+The thing that troubled them most was the fear that the old gentleman's
+guinea might have disappeared at sunset with all the rest, so they went
+down to the village next day to apologise for not meeting him in
+Rochester, and to _see_. They found him very friendly. The guinea had
+not disappeared, and he had bored a hole in it and hung it on his
+watch-chain. As for the guinea the baker took, the children felt they
+_could_ not care whether it had vanished or not, which was not perhaps
+very honest, but on the other hand was not wholly unnatural. But
+afterwards this preyed on Anthea's mind, and at last she secretly sent
+twelve postage stamps by post to "Mr. Beale, Baker, Rochester." Inside
+she wrote, "To pay for the buns." I hope the guinea did disappear, for
+that baker was really not at all a nice man, and, besides, penny buns
+are seven for sixpence in all really respectable shops.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BEING WANTED
+
+
+The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless
+wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or enjoyable
+with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny buns, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart, they awoke
+without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had felt on the
+previous day when they remembered how they had had the luck to find a
+Psammead, or Sand-fairy, and to receive its promise to grant them a new
+wish every day. For now they had had two wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and
+neither had exactly made them happy. But the happening of strange
+things, even if they are not completely pleasant things, is more amusing
+than those times when nothing happens but meals, and they are not always
+completely pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or
+hash.
+
+There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast, because
+everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a vigorous and
+determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only ten minutes late for
+breakfast. During this meal some efforts were made to deal with the
+question of the Psammead in an impartial spirit, but it is very
+difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and at the same time to attend
+faithfully to your baby brother's breakfast needs. The Baby was
+particularly lively that morning. He not only wriggled his body through
+the bar of his high chair, and hung by his head, choking and purple, but
+he seized a tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on
+the head with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He
+put his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded "nam," which was
+only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table--he
+clamoured to "go walky." The conversation was something like this--
+
+"Look here--about that Sand-fairy---- Look out!--he'll have the milk
+over."
+
+Milk removed to a safe distance.
+
+"Yes--about that Fairy---- No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky poon."
+
+Then Cyril tried. "Nothing we've had yet has turned out---- He nearly
+had the mustard that time!"
+
+"I wonder whether we'd better wish---- Hullo!--you've done it now, my
+boy!" And in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of golden
+carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side and poured a flood of
+mixed water and gold-fish into the Baby's lap and into the laps of the
+others.
+
+Everyone was almost as much upset as the gold-fish; the Lamb only
+remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and the
+leaping, gasping gold-fish had been collected and put back in the water,
+the Baby was taken away to be entirely re-dressed by Martha, and most of
+the others had to change completely. The pinafores and jackets that had
+been bathed in gold-fish-and-water were hung out to dry, and then it
+turned out that Jane must either mend the dress she had torn the day
+before or appear all day in her best petticoat. It was white and soft
+and frilly, and trimmed with lace, and very, very pretty, quite as
+pretty as a frock, if not more so. Only it was _not_ a frock, and
+Martha's word was law. She wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and
+she refused to listen for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane
+should wear her best petticoat and call it a dress.
+
+"It's not respectable," she said. And when people say that, it's no use
+anyone's saying anything. You'll find this out for yourselves some day.
+
+So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The hole had
+been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down in the High
+Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed on its silvery
+way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was much more than
+grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone which had attended to
+the knee and the stocking. Of course the others were not such sneaks as
+to abandon a comrade in misfortune, so they all sat on the grass-plot
+round the sun-dial, and Jane darned away for dear life. The Lamb was
+still in the hands of Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation
+was possible.
+
+Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought, which
+was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said--
+
+"Speak out--say what you've got to say--I hate hinting, and 'don't
+know,' and sneakish ways like that."
+
+So then Robert said, as in honour bound, "Sneak yourself--Anthea and me
+weren't so gold-fishy as you two were, so we got changed quicker, and
+we've had time to think it over, and if you ask me"--
+
+"I didn't ask you," said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as she
+had always been strictly forbidden to do. (Perhaps you don't know that
+if you bite off ends of cotton and swallow them they wind tight round
+your heart and kill you? My nurse told me this, and she told me also
+about the earth going round the sun. Now what is one to believe--what
+with nurses and science?)
+
+"I don't care who asks or who doesn't," said Robert, "but Anthea and I
+think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our wishes I
+suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure it wishes
+every time that our wishes shan't do us any good. Let's let the tiresome
+beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good game of forts, on our
+own, in the chalk-pit."
+
+(You will remember that the happily-situated house where these children
+were spending their holidays lay between a chalk-quarry and a
+gravel-pit.)
+
+Cyril and Jane were more hopeful--they generally were.
+
+"I don't think the Sammyadd does it on purpose," Cyril said; "and, after
+all, it _was_ silly to wish for boundless wealth. Fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces would have been much more sensible. And wishing to
+be beautiful as the day was simply donkeyish. I don't want to be
+disagreeable, but it _was_. We must try to find a really useful wish,
+and wish it."
+
+Jane dropped her work and said--
+
+"I think so too, it's too silly to have a chance like this and not use
+it. I never heard of anyone else outside a book who had such a chance;
+there must be simply heaps of things we could wish for that wouldn't
+turn out Dead Sea fish, like these two things have. Do let's think hard
+and wish something nice, so that we can have a real jolly day--what
+there is left of it."
+
+Jane darned away again like mad, for time was indeed getting on, and
+everyone began to talk at once. If you had been there you could not
+possibly have made head or tail of the talk, but these children were
+used to talking "by fours," as soldiers march, and each of them could
+say what it had to say quite comfortably, and listen to the agreeable
+sound of its own voice, and at the same time have three-quarters of two
+sharp ears to spare for listening to what the others said. That is an
+easy example in multiplication of vulgar fractions, but, as I daresay
+you can't do even that, I won't ask you to tell me whether 3/4 � 2 =
+1-1/2, but I will ask you to believe me that this was the amount of ear
+each child was able to lend to the others. Lending ears was common in
+Roman times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too
+instructive.
+
+When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed by
+Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands--which was nonsense,
+because nobody had been doing anything at all, except Jane, and how can
+you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult question, and I cannot
+answer it on paper. In real life I could very soon show you--or you me,
+which is much more likely.
+
+During the conversation in which the six ears were lent (there were four
+children, so _that_ sum comes right), it had been decided that fifty
+pounds in two-shilling pieces was the right wish to have. And the lucky
+children, who could have anything in the wide world by just wishing for
+it, hurriedly started for the gravel-pit to express their wishes to the
+Psammead. Martha caught them at the gate, and insisted on their taking
+the Baby with them.
+
+[Illustration: The lucky children ... hurriedly started for the gravel
+pit]
+
+"Not want him indeed! Why, everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with all
+their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to take him
+out every blessed day," said Martha.
+
+"I know we did," said Robert in gloom, "but I wish the Lamb wasn't quite
+so young and small. It would be much better fun taking him out."
+
+"He'll mend of his youngness with time," said Martha; "and as for
+smallness, I don't think you'd fancy carrying of him any more, however
+big he was. Besides he can walk a bit, bless his precious fat legs, a
+ducky! He feels the benefit of the new-laid air, so he does, a pet!"
+
+With this and a kiss, she plumped the Lamb into Anthea's arms, and went
+back to make new pinafores on the sewing-machine. She was a rapid
+performer on this instrument.
+
+The Lamb laughed with pleasure, and said, "Walky wif Panty," and rode on
+Robert's back with yells of joy, and tried to feed Jane with stones,
+and altogether made himself so agreeable that nobody could long be sorry
+that he was of the party.
+
+The enthusiastic Jane even suggested that they should devote a week's
+wishes to assuring the Baby's future, by asking such gifts for him as
+the good fairies give to Infant Princes in proper fairy-tales, but
+Anthea soberly reminded her that as the Sand-fairy's wishes only lasted
+till sunset they could not ensure any benefit to the Baby's later years;
+and Jane owned that it would be better to wish for fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces, and buy the Lamb a three-pound fifteen
+rocking-horse, like those in the big stores, with a part of the money.
+
+It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and got
+it, they would get Mr. Crispin to drive them into Rochester again,
+taking Martha with them if they could not get out of taking her. And
+they would make a list of things they really wanted before they started.
+Full of high hopes and excellent resolutions, they went round the safe
+slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as they went in between the
+mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to them, and would have turned
+their ruddy cheeks pale if they had been children in a book. Being real
+live children, it only made them stop and look at each other with rather
+blank and silly expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday,
+when they had asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was
+getting ready to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright
+guineas--millions of them--it had told the children to run along outside
+the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy splendid
+treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they had not had
+time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a ring of stones, as
+before. And it was this thought that put such silly expressions on their
+faces.
+
+"Never mind," said the hopeful Jane, "we'll soon find him."
+
+But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked and
+they looked, and, though they found their seaside spades, nowhere could
+they find the Sand-fairy.
+
+At last they had to sit down and rest--not at all because they were
+weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb insisted on being
+put down, and you cannot look very carefully after anything you may have
+happened to lose in the sand if you have an active baby to look after at
+the same time. Get someone to drop your best knife in the sand next time
+you go to the seashore and then take your baby brother with you when you
+go to look for it, and you will see that I am right.
+
+The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the country
+air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones longed to go
+on talking about the new wishes they would have when (or if) they found
+the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to enjoy himself.
+
+He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into Anthea's
+face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand and waved his
+fat legs in the air. Then of course the sand got into his eyes, as it
+had into Anthea's, and he howled.
+
+The thoughtful Robert had brought one solid brown bottle of ginger-beer
+with him, relying on a thirst that had never yet failed him. This had to
+be uncorked hurriedly--it was the only wet thing within reach, and it
+was necessary to wash the sand out of the Lamb's eyes somehow. Of course
+the ginger hurt horribly, and he howled more than ever. And, amid his
+anguish of kicking, the bottle was upset and the beautiful ginger-beer
+frothed out into the sand and was lost for ever.
+
+It was then that Robert, usually a very patient brother, so far forgot
+himself as to say--
+
+"Anybody would want him, indeed! Only they don't; Martha doesn't, not
+really, or she'd jolly well keep him with her. He's a little nuisance,
+that's what he is. It's too bad. I only wish everybody _did_ want him
+with all their hearts; we might get some peace in our lives."
+
+The Lamb stopped howling now, because Jane had suddenly remembered that
+there is only one safe way of taking things out of little children's
+eyes, and that is with your own soft wet tongue. It is quite easy if you
+love the Baby as much as you ought to do.
+
+Then there was a little silence. Robert was not proud of himself for
+having been so cross, and the others were not proud of him either. You
+often notice that sort of silence when someone has said something it
+ought not to--and everyone else holds its tongue and waits for the one
+who oughtn't to have said it is sorry.
+
+The silence was broken by a sigh--a breath suddenly let out. The
+children's heads turned as if there had been a string tied to each nose,
+and somebody had pulled all the strings at once.
+
+And everyone saw the Sand-fairy sitting quite close to them, with the
+expression which it used as a smile on its hairy face.
+
+"Good-morning," it said; "I did that quite easily! Everyone wants him
+now."
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had been
+behaving rather like a pig. "No matter who wants him--there's no one
+here to--anyhow."
+
+"Ingratitude," said the Psammead, "is a dreadful vice."
+
+"We're not ungrateful," Jane made haste to say, "but we didn't _really_
+want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take it back and
+give us a new one?"
+
+"No--I can't," the Sand-fairy said shortly; "chopping and changing--it's
+not business. You ought to be careful what you _do_ wish. There was a
+little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead of an
+Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy names of
+everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with him, and had
+made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let him go out in the
+nice flint boat along with the other children,--it was the annual
+school-treat next day,--and he came and flung himself down near me on
+the morning of the treat, and he kicked his little prehistoric legs
+about and said he wished he was dead. And of course then he was."
+
+"How awful! said the children all together.
+
+"Only till sunset, of course," the Psammead said; "still it was quite
+enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he woke up--I
+tell you. He didn't turn to stone--I forget why--but there must have
+been some reason. They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and
+you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep
+or in some better place. You may be sure he caught it, giving them such
+a turn. Why, he wasn't allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after
+that. Nothing but oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that."
+
+All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They looked
+at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that something
+brown and furry was near him.
+
+"Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab.
+
+[Illustration: "Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab]
+
+"It's not a pussy," Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy leaped
+back.
+
+"Oh, my left whisker!" it said; "don't let him touch me. He's wet."
+
+Its fur stood on end with horror--and indeed a good deal of the
+ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.
+
+The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an instant and
+a whirl of sand.
+
+The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.
+
+"We may as well get along home," said Robert. "I'll say I'm sorry; but
+anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the sandy thing
+is for to-morrow."
+
+The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril picked up
+the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they went by the safe
+cart-road.
+
+The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.
+
+At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from
+Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open carriage
+came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and inside the
+carriage a lady--very grand indeed, with a dress all white lace and
+red ribbons and a parasol all red and white--and a white fluffy dog on
+her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She looked at the children,
+and particularly at the Baby, and she smiled at him. The children were
+used to this, for the Lamb was, as all the servants said, a "very taking
+child." So they waved their hands politely to the lady and expected her
+to drive on. But she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And
+she beckoned to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said--
+
+"What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I _should_ so like to adopt it!
+Do you think its mother would mind?"
+
+"She'd mind very much indeed," said Anthea shortly.
+
+"Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady Chittenden.
+You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated papers. They call me
+a Beauty, you know, but of course that's all nonsense. Anyway"--
+
+She opened the carriage door and jumped out. She had the wonderfullest
+red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. "Let me hold him a minute,"
+she said. And she took the Lamb and held him very awkwardly, as if she
+was not used to babies.
+
+Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her arms and
+slammed the door, and said, "Drive on!"
+
+The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman
+hesitated.
+
+"Drive on, I tell you!" cried the lady; and the coachman did, for, as he
+said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not to.
+
+The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord they
+rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty road went
+the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time, ran the
+twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.
+
+[Illustration: At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the
+Lamb's brothers and sisters]
+
+The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed by
+slow degrees to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still, and they knew
+he had gone to sleep.
+
+The carriage went on, and the eight feet that twinkled through the
+dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped at
+the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind the
+carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it lay on the
+carriage seat, and hesitated.
+
+"The darling--I won't disturb it," she said, and went into the lodge to
+talk to the woman there about a setting of eggs that had not turned out
+well.
+
+The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the sleeping
+Lamb.
+
+"Fine boy--wish he was mine," said the coachman.
+
+"He wouldn't favour _you_ much," said the groom sourly; "too 'andsome."
+
+The coachman pretended not to hear. He said--
+
+"Wonder at her now--I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her own, and
+can't abide other folkses'."
+
+The children, crouched in the white dust under the carriage, exchanged
+uncomfortable glances.
+
+"Tell you what," the coachman went on firmly, "blowed if I don't hide
+the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took 'im! Then
+I'll come back for him afterwards."
+
+"No, you don't," said the footman. "I've took to that kid so as never
+was. If anyone's to have him, it's me--so there!"
+
+"Stop your talk!" the coachman rejoined. "You don't want no kids, and,
+if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a married man
+and a judge of breed. I knows a firstrate yearling when I sees him. I'm
+a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest mended."
+
+"I should 'a' thought," said the footman sneeringly, "you'd a'most
+enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor Stanley,
+and Helena Beatrice, and another"--
+
+The coachman hit the footman in the chin--the footman hit the coachman
+in the waist-coat--the next minute the two were fighting here and there,
+in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere, and the little dog
+jumped on the box of the carriage and began barking like mad.
+
+[Illustration: The next minute the two were fighting]
+
+Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the side of
+the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened the door of
+the carriage--the two men were far too much occupied with their quarrel
+to notice anything--took the Lamb in his arms, and, still stooping,
+carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along the road to where a stile
+led into a wood. The others followed, and there among the hazels and
+young oaks and sweet chestnuts, covered by high strong-scented
+brake-fern, they all lay hidden till the angry voices of the men were
+hushed at the angry voice of the red-and-white lady, and, after a long
+and anxious search, the carriage at last drove away.
+
+"My only hat!" said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of wheels
+at last died away. "Everyone _does_ want him now--and no mistake! That
+Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any sake, let's get the
+kid safe home."
+
+So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white
+road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took courage,
+and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.
+
+Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots on his
+back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to look at the Baby,
+and then offered to carry him; but Anthea was not to be caught that way
+twice. They all walked on, but the boy followed, and Cyril and Robert
+couldn't make him go away till they had more than once invited him to
+smell their fists. Afterwards a little girl in a blue-and-white checked
+pinafore actually followed them for a quarter of a mile crying for "the
+precious Baby," and then she was only got rid of by threats of tying her
+to a tree in the wood with all their pocket handkerchiefs. "So that
+bears can come and eat you as soon as it gets dark," said Cyril
+severely. Then she went off crying. It presently seemed wise, to the
+brothers and sisters of the Baby who was wanted by everyone, to hide in
+the hedge whenever they saw anyone coming, and thus they managed to
+prevent the Lamb from arousing the inconvenient affection of a milkman,
+a stone-breaker, and a man who drove a cart with a paraffin barrel at
+the back of it. They were nearly home when the worst thing of all
+happened. Turning a corner suddenly they came upon two vans, a tent, and
+a company of gipsies encamped by the side of the road. The vans were
+hung all round with wicker chairs and cradles, and flower-stands and
+feather brushes. A lot of ragged children were industriously making
+dust-pies in the road, two men lay on the grass smoking, and three women
+were doing the family washing in an old red watering-can with the top
+broken off.
+
+In a moment every gipsy, men, women, and children, surrounded Anthea and
+the Baby.
+
+"Let me hold him, little lady," said one of the gipsy women, who had a
+mahogany-coloured face and dust-coloured hair; "I won't hurt a hair of
+his head, the little picture!"
+
+"I'd rather not," said Anthea.
+
+"Let _me_ have him," said the other woman, whose face was also of the
+hue of mahogany, and her hair jet-black, in greasy curls. "I've nineteen
+of my own, so I have"--
+
+"No," said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly choked
+her.
+
+Then one of the men pushed forward.
+
+"Swelp me if it ain't!" he cried, "my own long-lost cheild! Have he a
+strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby, stolen from
+me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over--and we'll not 'ave the law on
+yer this time."
+
+He snatched the Baby from Anthea, who turned scarlet and burst into
+tears of pure rage.
+
+[Illustration: He snatched the baby from Anthea]
+
+The others were standing quite still; this was much the most terrible
+thing that had ever happened to them. Even being taken up by the police
+in Rochester was nothing to this. Cyril was quite white, and his hands
+trembled a little, but he made a sign to the others to shut up. He was
+silent a minute, thinking hard. Then he said--
+
+"We don't want to keep him if he's yours. But you see he's used to us.
+You shall have him if you want him"--
+
+"No, no!" cried Anthea,--and Cyril glared at her.
+
+"Of course we want him," said the women, trying to get the Baby out of
+the man's arms. The Lamb howled loudly.
+
+"Oh, he's hurt!" shrieked Anthea; and Cyril, in a savage undertone, bade
+her "stop it!"
+
+"You trust to me," he whispered. "Look here," he went on, "he's awfully
+tiresome with people he doesn't know very well. Suppose we stay here a
+bit till he gets used to you, and then when it's bedtime I give you my
+word of honour we'll go away and let you keep him if you want to. And
+then when we're gone you can decide which of you is to have him, as you
+all want him so much."
+
+"That's fair enough," said the man who was holding the Baby, trying to
+loosen the red neckerchief which the Lamb had caught hold of and drawn
+round his mahogany throat so tight that he could hardly breathe. The
+gipsies whispered together, and Cyril took the chance to whisper too. He
+said, "Sunset! we'll get away then."
+
+And then his brothers and sisters were filled with wonder and admiration
+at his having been so clever as to remember this.
+
+"Oh, do let him come to us!" said Jane. "See, we'll sit down here and
+take care of him for you till he gets used to you."
+
+"What about dinner?" said Robert suddenly. The others looked at him with
+scorn. "Fancy bothering about your beastly dinner when your br--I mean
+when the Baby"--Jane whispered hotly. Robert carefully winked at her and
+went on--
+
+"You won't mind my just running home to get our dinner?" he said to the
+gipsy; "I can bring it out here in a basket."
+
+His brothers and sisters felt themselves very noble and despised him.
+They did not know his thoughtful secret intention. But the gipsies did
+in a minute.
+
+"Oh yes!" they said; "and then fetch the police with a pack of lies
+about it being your baby instead of ours! D'jever catch a weasel
+asleep?" they asked.
+
+"If you're hungry you can pick a bit along of us," said the light-haired
+gipsy-woman, not unkindly. "Here Levi, that blessed kid'll howl all his
+buttons off. Give him to the little lady, and let's see if they can't
+get him used to us a bit."
+
+So the Lamb was handed back; but the gipsies crowded so closely that he
+could not possibly stop howling. Then the man with the red handkerchief
+said--
+
+"Here, Pharaoh, make up the fire; and you girls see to the pot. Give the
+kid a chanst." So the gipsies, very much against their will, went off to
+their work, and the children and the Lamb were left sitting on the
+grass.
+
+"He'll be all right at sunset," Jane whispered. "But, oh, it is awful!
+Suppose they are frightfully angry when they come to their senses! They
+might beat us, or leave us tied to trees, or something."
+
+"No, they won't," Anthea said ("Oh, my Lamb, don't cry any more, it's
+all right, Panty's got oo, duckie"); "they aren't unkind people, or they
+wouldn't be going to give us any dinner."
+
+"Dinner?" said Robert; "I won't touch their nasty dinner. It would choke
+me!"
+
+The others thought so too then. But when the dinner was ready--it turned
+out to be supper, and happened between four and five--they were all glad
+enough to take what they could get. It was boiled rabbit, with onions,
+and some bird rather like a chicken, but stringier about its legs and
+with a stronger taste. The Lamb had bread soaked in hot water and brown
+sugar sprinkled on the top. He liked this very much, and consented to
+let the two gipsy women feed him with it, as he sat on Anthea's lap. All
+that long hot afternoon Robert and Cyril and Anthea and Jane had to keep
+the Lamb amused and happy, while the gipsies looked eagerly on. By the
+time the shadows grew long and black across the meadows he had really
+"taken to" the woman with the light hair, and even consented to kiss
+his hand to the children, and to stand up and bow, with his hand on his
+chest--"like a gentleman"--to the two men. The whole gipsy camp was in
+raptures with him, and his brothers and sisters could not help taking
+some pleasure in showing off his accomplishments to an audience so
+interested and enthusiastic. But they longed for sunset.
+
+[Illustration: He consented to let the two gypsy women feed him]
+
+"We're getting into the habit of longing for sunset," Cyril whispered.
+"How I do wish we could wish something really sensible, that would be of
+some use, so that we should be quite sorry when sunset came."
+
+The shadows got longer and longer, and at last there were no separate
+shadows any more, but one soft glowing shadow over everything; for the
+sun was out of sight--behind the hill--but he had not really set yet.
+The people who make the laws about lighting bicycle lamps are the people
+who decide when the sun sets; she has to do it too, to the minute, or
+they would know the reason why!
+
+But the gipsies were getting impatient.
+
+"Now, young uns," the red-handkerchief man said, "it's time you were
+laying of your heads on your pillowses--so it is! The kid's all right
+and friendly with us now--so you just hand him over and get home like
+you said."
+
+The women and children came crowding round the Lamb, arms were held out,
+fingers snapped invitingly, friendly faces beaming with admiring smiles;
+but all failed to tempt the loyal Lamb. He clung with arms and legs to
+Jane, who happened to be holding him, and uttered the gloomiest roar of
+the whole day.
+
+"It's no good," the woman said, "hand the little poppet over, miss.
+We'll soon quiet him."
+
+And still the sun would not set.
+
+"Tell her about how to put him to bed," whispered Cyril; "anything to
+gain time--and be ready to bolt when the sun really does make up its
+silly old mind to set."
+
+"Yes, I'll hand him over in just one minute," Anthea began, talking very
+fast,--"but do let me just tell you he has a warm bath every night and
+cold in the morning, and he has a crockery rabbit to go into the warm
+bath with him, and little Samuel saying his prayers in white china on a
+red cushion for the cold bath; and he hates you to wash his ears, but
+you must; and if you let the soap get into his eyes, the Lamb"--
+
+"Lamb kyes," said he--he had stopped roaring to listen.
+
+The woman laughed. "As if I hadn't never bath'd a babby!" she said.
+"Come--give us a hold of him. Come to 'Melia, my precious"--
+
+"G'way, ugsie!" replied the Lamb at once.
+
+"Yes, but," Anthea went on, "about his meals; you really _must_ let me
+tell you he has an apple or banana every morning, and bread and milk for
+breakfast, and an egg for his tea sometimes, and"--
+
+"I've brought up ten," said the black ringleted woman, "besides the
+others. Come, miss, 'and 'im over--I can't bear it no longer. I just
+must give him a hug."
+
+"We ain't settled yet whose he's to be, Esther," said one of the men.
+
+"It won't be you, Esther, with seven of 'em at your tail a'ready."
+
+"I ain't so sure of that," said Esther's husband.
+
+"And ain't I nobody, to have a say neither?" said the husband of 'Melia.
+
+Zillah, the girl, said, "An' me? I'm a single girl--and no one but 'im
+to look after--I ought to have him."
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+"Shut your mouth!"
+
+"Don't you show me no more of your imperence!"
+
+Everyone was getting very angry. The dark gipsy faces were frowning and
+anxious-looking. Suddenly a change swept over them, as if some invisible
+sponge had wiped away these cross and anxious expressions, and left only
+a blank.
+
+The children saw that the sun really _had_ set. But they were afraid to
+move. And the gipsies were feeling so muddled because of the invisible
+sponge that had washed all the feelings of the last few hours out of
+their hearts, that they could not say a word.
+
+The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gipsies, when they
+recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they had been all
+day?
+
+It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held out the
+Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.
+
+"Here he is!" she said.
+
+The man drew back. "I shouldn't like to deprive you, miss," he said
+hoarsely.
+
+"Anyone who likes can have my share of him," said the other man.
+
+"After all, I've got enough of my own," said Esther.
+
+"He's a nice little chap, though," said Amelia. She was the only one who
+now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.
+
+Zillah said, "If I don't think I must have had a touch of the sun. _I_
+don't want him."
+
+"Then shall we take him away?" said Anthea.
+
+"Well--suppose you do," said Pharaoh heartily, "and we'll say no more
+about it!"
+
+And with great haste all the gipsies began to be busy about their tents
+for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children as far as the
+bend in the road--and there she said--
+
+"Let me give him a kiss, miss,--I don't know what made us go for to
+behave so silly. Us gipsies don't steal babies, whatever they may tell
+you when you're naughty. We've enough of our own, mostly. But I've lost
+all mine."
+
+She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes, unexpectedly
+put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.
+
+"Poor, poor!" said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him, and,
+what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return--a very nice kiss, as
+all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gipsy
+woman moved her finger about on his forehead as if she had been writing
+something there, and the same with his chest and his hands and his
+feet; then she said--
+
+"May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong
+heart to love with, and the strong arms to work with, and the strong
+feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own." Then she
+said something in a strange language no one could understand, and
+suddenly added--
+
+"Well, I must be saying 'so long'--and glad to have made your
+acquaintance." And she turned and went back to her home--the tent by the
+grassy roadside.
+
+The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert
+said, "How silly of her! Even sunset didn't put _her_ right. What rot
+she talked!"
+
+"Well," said Cyril, "if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of
+her"--
+
+"Decent?" said Anthea; "it was very nice indeed of her. I think she's a
+dear"--
+
+"She's just too frightfully nice for anything," said Jane.
+
+And they went home--very late for tea and unspeakably late for dinner.
+Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.
+
+"I say--it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone," said
+Robert, later.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But do you feel different about it now the sun's set?"
+
+"_No_," said all the others together.
+
+"Then it's lasted over sunset with us."
+
+"No, it hasn't," Cyril explained. "The wish didn't do anything to _us_.
+We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves,
+only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert." Robert bore
+this much with a strange calm.
+
+"I certainly _thought_ I didn't want him this morning," said he.
+"Perhaps I _was_ a pig. But everything looked so different when we
+thought we were going to lose him."
+
+And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean
+it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep
+putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has
+crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it next
+time you feel piggy yourself and want to get rid of any of your brothers
+and sisters. I hope this doesn't often happen, but I daresay it has
+happened sometimes, even to you!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WINGS
+
+
+The next day was very wet--too wet to go out, and far too wet to think
+of disturbing a Sand-fairy so sensitive to water that he still, after
+thousands of years, felt the pain of once having his left whisker
+wetted. It was a long day, and it was not till the afternoon that all
+the children suddenly decided to write letters to their mother. It was
+Robert who had the misfortune to upset the ink well--an unusually deep
+and full one--straight into that part of Anthea's desk where she had
+long pretended that an arrangement of mucilage and cardboard painted
+with Indian ink was a secret drawer. It was not exactly Robert's fault;
+it was only his misfortune that he chanced to be lifting the ink across
+the desk just at the moment when Anthea had got it open, and that that
+same moment should have been the one chosen by the Lamb to get under
+the table and break his squeaking bird. There was a sharp convenient
+wire inside the bird, and of course the Lamb ran the wire into Robert's
+leg at once; and so, without anyone's meaning to do it the secret drawer
+was flooded with ink. At the same time a stream was poured over Anthea's
+half-finished letter.
+
+So that her letter was something like this--
+
+          "DARLING MOTHER,--I hope you are quite well, and I
+          hope Granny is better. The other day we...."
+
+Then came a flood of ink, and at the bottom these words in pencil--
+
+          "It was not me upset the ink, but it took such a
+          time clearing up, so no more as it is
+          post-time.--From your loving daughter     "ANTHEA."
+
+Robert's letter had not even been begun. He had been drawing a ship on
+the blotting paper while he was trying to think of what to say. And of
+course after the ink was upset he had to help Anthea to clean out her
+desk, and he promised to make her another secret drawer, better than
+the other. And she said, "Well, make it now." So it was post-time and
+his letter wasn't done. And the secret drawer wasn't done either.
+
+Cyril wrote a long letter, very fast, and then went to set a trap for
+slugs that he had read about in the _Home-made Gardener_, and when it
+was post-time the letter could not be found, and it was never found.
+Perhaps the slugs ate it.
+
+Jane's letter was the only one that went. She meant to tell her mother
+all about the Psammead,--in fact they had all meant to do this,--but she
+spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to
+tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you
+_do_ tell it properly, so she had to be contented with this--
+
+          "MY DEAR MOTHER DEAR,--We are all as good as we
+          can, like you told us to, and the Lamb has a
+          little cold, but Martha says it is nothing, only
+          he upset the gold-fish into himself yesterday
+          morning. When we were up at the sand-pit the other
+          day we went round by the safe way where carts go,
+          and we found  a"--
+
+Half an hour went by before Jane felt quite sure that they could none of
+them spell Psammead. And they could not find it in the dictionary
+either, though they looked. Then Jane hastily finished her letter--
+
+          "We found a strange thing, but it is nearly
+          post-time, so no more at present from your little
+          girl,
+
+                                                   "JANE.
+
+          "P.S.--If you could have a wish come true what
+          would you have?"
+
+Then the postman was heard blowing his horn, and Robert rushed out in
+the rain to stop his cart and give him the letters. And that was how it
+happened that, though all the children meant to tell their mother about
+the Sand-fairy, somehow or other she never got to know. There were other
+reasons why she never got to know, but these come later.
+
+The next day Uncle Richard came and took them all to Maidstone in a
+wagonette--all except the Lamb. Uncle Richard was the very best kind of
+uncle. He bought them toys at Maidstone. He took them into a shop and
+let them all choose exactly what they wanted, without any restrictions
+about price, and no nonsense about things being instructive. It is very
+wise to let children choose exactly what they like, because they are
+very foolish and inexperienced, and sometimes they will choose a really
+instructive thing without meaning to do so. This happened to Robert, who
+chose, at the last moment, and in a great hurry, a box with pictures on
+it of winged bulls with men's heads and winged men with eagles' heads.
+He thought there would be animals inside, the same as on the box. When
+he got it home it was a Sunday puzzle about ancient Nineveh! The others
+chose in haste, and were happy at leisure. Cyril had a model engine, and
+the girls had two dolls, as well as a china tea-set with forget-me-nots
+on it, to be "between them." The boys' "between them" was bow and arrow.
+
+Then Uncle Richard took them on the beautiful Medway in a boat, and then
+they all had tea at a beautiful confectioner's and when they reached
+home it was far too late to have any wishes that day.
+
+They did not tell Uncle Richard anything about the Psammead. I do not
+know why. And they do not know why. But I daresay you can guess.
+
+The day after Uncle Richard had behaved so handsomely was a very hot day
+indeed. The people who decide what the weather is to be, and put its
+orders down for it in the newspapers every morning, said afterwards that
+it was the hottest day there had been for years. They had ordered it to
+be "warmer--some showers," and warmer it certainly was. In fact it was
+so busy being warmer that it had no time to attend to the order about
+showers, so there weren't any.
+
+Have you ever been up at five o'clock on a fine summer morning? It is
+very beautiful. The sunlight is pinky and yellowy, and all the grass and
+trees are covered with dew-diamonds. And all the shadows go the opposite
+way to the way they do in the evening, which is very interesting and
+makes you feel as though you were in a new other world.
+
+Anthea woke at five. She had made herself wake, and I must tell you how
+it is done, even if it keeps you waiting for the story to go on.
+
+You get into bed at night, and lie down quite flat on your little back,
+with your hands straight down by your sides. Then you say "I _must_ wake
+up at five" (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or whatever the time
+is that you want), and as you say it you push your chin down on your
+chest and then whack your head back on the pillow. And you do this as
+many times as there are ones in the time you want to wake up at. (It is
+quite an easy sum.) Of course everything depends on your really wanting
+to get up at five (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine); if you don't
+really want to, it's all of no use. But if you do--well, try it and see.
+Of course in this, as in doing Latin proses or getting into mischief,
+practice makes perfect.
+
+Anthea was quite perfect.
+
+At the very moment when she opened her eyes she heard the black-and-gold
+clock down in the dining-room strike eleven. So she knew it was three
+minutes to five. The black-and-gold clock always struck wrong, but it
+was all right when you knew what it meant. It was like a person talking
+a foreign language. If you know the language it is just as easy to
+understand as English. And Anthea knew the clock language. She was very
+sleepy, but she jumped out of bed and put her face and hands into a
+basin of cold water. This is a fairy charm that prevents your wanting to
+get back into bed again. Then she dressed, and folded up her night
+dress. She did not tumble it together by the sleeves, but folded it by
+the seams from the hem, and that will show you the kind of
+well-brought-up little girl she was.
+
+Then she took her shoes in her hand and crept softly down the stairs.
+She opened the dining-room window and climbed out. It would have been
+just as easy to go out by the door, but the window was more romantic,
+and less likely to be noticed by Martha.
+
+"I will always get up at five," she said to herself. "It was quite too
+awfully pretty for anything."
+
+Her heart was beating very fast, for she was carrying out a plan quite
+her own. She could not be sure that it was a good plan, but she was
+quite sure that it would not be any better if she were to tell the
+others about it. And she had a feeling that, right or wrong, she would
+rather go through with it alone. She put on her shoes under the iron
+verandah, on the red-and-yellow shining tiles, and then she ran straight
+to the sand-pit, and found the Psammead's place, and dug it out; it was
+very cross indeed.
+
+"It's too bad," it said, fluffing up its fur as pigeons do their
+feathers at Christmas time. "The weather's arctic, and it's the middle
+of the night."
+
+"I'm so sorry," said Anthea gently, and she took off her white pinafore
+and covered the Sand-fairy up with it, all but its head, its bat's ears,
+and its eyes that were like a snail's eyes.
+
+"Thank you," it said, "that's better. What's the wish this morning?"
+
+"I don't know," she said; "that's just it. You see we've been very
+unlucky, so far. I wanted to talk to you about it. But--would you mind
+not giving me any wishes till after breakfast? It's so hard to talk to
+anyone if they jump out at you with wishes you don't really want!"
+
+"You shouldn't say you wish for things if you don't wish for them. In
+the old days people almost always knew whether it was Megatherium or
+Ichthyosaurus they really wanted for dinner."
+
+"I'll try not to do so," said Anthea, "but I do wish"--
+
+"Look out!" said the Psammead in a warning voice, and it began to blow
+itself out.
+
+"Oh, this isn't a magic wish--it's just--I should be so glad if you'd
+not swell yourself out and nearly burst to give me anything just now.
+Wait till the others are here."
+
+"Well, well," it said indulgently, but it shivered.
+
+"Would you," asked Anthea kindly--"would you like to come and sit on my
+lap? You'd be warmer, and I could turn the skirt of my frock up around
+you. I'd be very careful."
+
+Anthea had never expected that it would, but it did.
+
+"Thank you," it said; "you really are rather thoughtful." It crept on to
+her lap and snuggled down, and she put her arms round it with a rather
+frightened gentleness. "Now then!" it said.
+
+"Well then," said Anthea, "everything we have wished has turned out
+rather horrid. I wish you would advise us. You are so old, you must be
+very wise."
+
+"I was always generous from a child," said the Sand-fairy. "I've spent
+the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won't
+give--that's advice."
+
+"You see," Anthea went on, "it's such a wonderful thing--such a
+splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give
+us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just
+because we are too silly to know what to wish for."
+
+Anthea had meant to say that--and she had not wanted to say it before
+the others. It's one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to
+say that other people are.
+
+"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think
+before you speak"--
+
+"But I thought you never gave advice."
+
+"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides,
+it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."
+
+"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"
+
+"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care
+you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I
+heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller
+brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the
+palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course;
+still the boy _was_ the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for
+wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at
+sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the
+top of his father's great staircase; and what with _his_ stone wings
+and the lion's stone wings--well it's not a very pretty story! But I
+believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then."
+
+"Tell me," said Anthea, "why don't our wishes turn into stone now? Why
+do they just vanish?"
+
+"_Autre temps autres moeurs_," said the creature.
+
+"Is that the Ninevite language?" asked Anthea, who had learned no
+foreign language at school except French.
+
+"What I mean is," the Psammead went on, "that in the old days people
+wished for good solid everyday gifts,--Mammoths and Pterodactyls and
+things,--and those could be turned into stone as easy as not. But people
+wish such high-flying fanciful things nowadays. How are you going to
+turn being beautiful as the day, or being wanted by everybody, into
+stone? You see it can't be done. And it would never do to have two
+rules, so they simply vanish. If being beautiful as the day _could_ be
+turned into stone it would last an awfully long time, you know--much
+longer than you would. Just look at the Greek statues. It's just as
+well as it is. Good-bye. I _am_ so sleepy."
+
+It jumped off her lap--dug frantically, and vanished.
+
+Anthea was late for breakfast. It was Robert who quietly poured a
+spoonful of molasses down the Lamb's frock, so that he had to be taken
+away and washed thoroughly directly after breakfast. And it was of
+course a very naughty thing to do; yet it served two purposes--it
+delighted the Lamb, who loved above all things to be completely sticky,
+and it engaged Martha's attention so that the others could slip away to
+the sand-pit without the Lamb.
+
+They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the hurry of that
+slipping, panted out--
+
+"I want to propose we take turns to wish. Only, nobody's to have a wish
+if the others don't think it's a nice wish. Do you agree?"
+
+"Who's to have first wish?" asked Robert cautiously.
+
+"Me, if you don't mind," said Anthea apologetically. "And I've thought
+about it--and it's _wings_."
+
+There was a silence. The others rather wanted to find fault, but it was
+hard, because the word "wings" raised a flutter of joyous excitement in
+every breast.
+
+"Not so dusty," said Cyril generously; and Robert added, "Really,
+Panther, you're not quite such a fool as you look."
+
+Jane said, "I think it would be perfectly lovely. It's like a bright
+dream of delirium."
+
+They found the Sand-fairy easily. Anthea said--
+
+"I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with."
+
+The Sand-fairy blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny
+feeling, half heaviness and half lightness, on its shoulders. The
+Psammead put its head on one side and turned its snail eyes from one
+side to the other.
+
+[Illustration: The Sand-fairy blew himself out]
+
+"Not so bad," it said dreamily. "But really, Robert, you're not quite
+such an angel as you look." Robert almost blushed.
+
+The wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can possibly
+imagine--for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in
+its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing
+colors, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum
+that sometimes floats on water that is not at all nice to drink.
+
+"Oh--but how can we fly?" Jane said, standing anxiously first on one
+foot and then on the other.
+
+"Look out!" said Cyril; "you're treading on my wing."
+
+"Does it hurt?" asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for
+Robert had spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising
+in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker suit--his boots
+in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was
+standing in them. But the others cared but little how he looked,--or how
+they looked, for that matter. For now they all spread out their wings
+and rose in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like,
+because everyone has dreamed about flying, and is seems so beautifully
+easy--only, you can never remember how you did it; and as a rule you
+have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever and
+uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four
+children rose flapping from the ground, and you can't think how good the
+air felt as it ran against their faces. Their wings were tremendously
+wide when they were spread out, and they had to fly quite a long way
+apart so as not to get in each other's way. But little things like this
+are easily learned.
+
+All the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as
+well, are, I find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels
+like to be flying, so I will not try. But I will say that to look _down_
+on the fields and woods instead of _along_ at them, is something like
+looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead of silly colors on
+paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields laid out one
+after the other. As Cyril said, and I can't think where he got hold of
+such a strange expression, "It does you a fair treat!" It was most
+wonderful and more like real magic than any wish the children had had
+yet. They flapped and flew and sailed on their great rainbow wings,
+between green earth and blue sky; and they flew over Rochester and then
+swerved round towards Maidstone, and presently they all began to feel
+extremely hungry. Curiously enough, this happened when they were flying
+rather low, and just as they were crossing an orchard where some early
+plums shone red and ripe.
+
+[Illustration: They flew over Rochester]
+
+They paused on their wings. I cannot explain to you how this is done,
+but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks
+do it extremely well.
+
+"Yes, I daresay," said Cyril, though no one had spoken. "But stealing is
+stealing even if you've got wings."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Jane briskly. "If you've got wings you're
+a bird, and no one minds birds breaking the commandments. At least,
+they may _mind_, but the birds always do it, and no one scolds them or
+sends them to prison."
+
+It was not so easy to perch on a plum-tree as you might think, because
+the rainbow wings were so _very_ large; but somehow they all managed to
+do it, and the plums were certainly very sweet and juicy.
+
+Fortunately, it was not till they had all had quite as many plums as
+were good for them that they saw a stout man, who looked exactly as
+though he owned the plum-trees, come hurrying through the orchard gate
+with a thick stick, and with one accord they disentangled their wings
+from the plum-laden branches and began to fly.
+
+The man stopped short, with his mouth open. For he had seen the boughs
+of his trees moving and twitching, and he had said to himself, "Them
+young varmint--at it again!" And he had come out at once, for the lads
+of the village had taught him in past seasons that plums want looking
+after. But when he saw the rainbow wings flutter up out of the
+plum-tree he felt that he must have gone quite mad, and he did not like
+the feeling at all. And when Anthea looked down and saw his mouth go
+slowly open, and stay so, and his face become green and mauve in
+patches, she called out--
+
+"Don't be frightened," and felt hastily in her pocket for a
+threepenny-bit with a hole in it, which she had meant to hang on a
+ribbon round her neck, for luck. She hovered round the unfortunate
+plum-owner, and said, "We have had some of your plums; we thought it
+wasn't stealing, but now I am not so sure. So here's some money to pay
+for them."
+
+She swooped down toward the terror-stricken grower of plums, and slipped
+the coin into the pocket of his jacket, and in a few flaps she had
+rejoined the others.
+
+The farmer sat down on the grass, suddenly and heavily.
+
+[Illustration: The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly and heavily]
+
+"Well--I'm blessed!" he said. "This here is what they call delusions, I
+suppose. But this here threepenny"--he had pulled it out and bitten
+it,--"_that's_ real enough. Well, from this day forth I'll be a better
+man. It's the kind of thing to sober a chap for life, this is. I'm glad
+it was only wings, though. I'd rather see the birds as aren't there, and
+couldn't be, even if they pretend to talk, than some things as I could
+name."
+
+He got up slowly and heavily, and went indoors, and he was so nice to
+his wife that day that she felt quite happy, and said to herself, "Law,
+whatever have a-come to the man!" and smartened herself up and put a
+blue ribbon bow at the place where her collar fastened on, and looked so
+pretty that he was kinder than ever. So perhaps the winged children
+really did do one good thing that day. If so, it was the only one; for
+really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on
+the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for
+getting you out of it.
+
+This was the case in the matter of the fierce dog who sprang out at them
+when they had folded up their wings as small as possible and were going
+up to a farm door to ask for a crust of bread and cheese, for in
+spite of the plums they were soon just as hungry as ever again.
+
+Now there is no doubt whatever that, if the four had been ordinary
+wingless children, that black and fierce dog would have had a good bite
+out of the brown-stockinged leg of Robert, who was the nearest. But at
+its first growl there was a flutter of wings, and the dog was left to
+strain at his chain and stand on his hind-legs as if he were trying to
+fly too.
+
+They tried several other farms, but at those where there were no dogs
+the people were far too frightened to do anything but scream; and at
+last, when it was nearly four o'clock, and their wings were getting
+miserably stiff and tired, they alighted on a church-tower and held a
+council of war.
+
+"We can't possibly fly all the way home without dinner _or_ tea," said
+Robert with desperate decision.
+
+"And nobody will give us any dinner, or even lunch, let alone tea," said
+Cyril.
+
+"Perhaps the clergyman here might," suggested Anthea. "He must know all
+about angels"--
+
+"Anybody could see we're not that," said Jane. "Look at Robert's boots
+and Squirrel's plaid necktie."
+
+"Well," said Cyril firmly, "if the country you're in won't _sell_
+provisions, you _take_ them. In wars I mean. I'm quite certain you do.
+And even in other stories no good brother would allow his little sisters
+to starve in the midst of plenty."
+
+"Plenty?" repeated Robert hungrily; and the others looked vaguely round
+the bare leads of the church-tower, and murmured, "In the midst of?"
+
+"Yes," said Cyril impressively. "There is a larder window at the side of
+the clergyman's house, and I saw things to eat inside--custard pudding
+and cold chicken and tongue--and pies--and jam. It's rather a high
+window--but with wings"--
+
+"How clever of you!" said Jane.
+
+"Not at all," said Cyril modestly; "any born general--Napoleon or the
+Duke of Marlborough--would have seen it just the same as I did."
+
+"It seems very wrong," said Anthea.
+
+"Nonsense," said Cyril. "What was it Sir Philip Sidney said when the
+soldier wouldn't give him a drink?--'My necessity is greater than his.'"
+
+"We'll club together our money, though, and leave it to pay for the
+things, won't we?" Anthea was persuasive, and very nearly in tears,
+because it is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably
+sinful at one and the same time.
+
+"Some of it," was the cautious reply.
+
+Everyone now turned out its pockets on the lead roof of the tower, where
+visitors for the last hundred and fifty years had cut their own and
+their sweethearts' initials with penknives in the soft lead. There was
+five-and-seven-pence halfpenny altogether, and even the upright Anthea
+admitted that that was too much to pay for four people's dinners. Robert
+said he thought eighteenpence.
+
+[Illustration: Every one now turned out his pockets]
+
+And half-a-crown was finally agreed to be "handsome."
+
+So Anthea wrote on the back of her last term's report, which happened to
+be in her pocket, and from which she first tore her own name and that of
+the school, the following letter:--
+
+          "DEAR REVEREND CLERGYMAN,--We are very hungry
+          indeed because of having to fly all day, and we
+          think it is not stealing when you are starving to
+          death. We are afraid to ask you for fear you
+          should say 'No,' because of course you know about
+          angels, but you would not think we were angels. We
+          will only take the necessities of life, and no
+          pudding or pie, to show you it is not grediness
+          but true starvation that makes us make your larder
+          stand and deliver. But we are not highwaymen by
+          trade."
+
+"Cut it short," said the others with one accord. And Anthea hastily
+added--
+
+          "Our intentions are quite honourable if you only
+          knew. And here is half-a-crown to show we are
+          sinseer and grateful.
+
+          "Thank you for your kind hospitality.
+
+                                          "FROM US FOUR."
+
+The half-crown was wrapped in this letter, and all the children felt
+that when the clergyman had read it he would understand everything, as
+well as anyone could who had not even seen the wings.
+
+"Now," said Cyril, "of course there's some risk; we'd better fly
+straight down the other side of the tower and then flutter low across
+the churchyard and in through the shrubbery. There doesn't seem to be
+anyone about. But you never know. The window looks out into the
+shrubbery. It is embowered in foliage, like a window in a story. I'll go
+in and get the things. Robert and Anthea can take them as I hand them
+out through the window; and Jane can keep watch,--her eyes are
+sharp,--and whistle if she sees anyone about. Shut up, Robert! she can
+whistle quite well enough for that, anyway. It ought not to be a very
+good whistle--it'll sound more natural and birdlike. Now then--off we
+go!"
+
+I cannot pretend that stealing is right. I can only say that on this
+occasion it did not look like stealing to the hungry four, but appeared
+in the light of a fair and reasonable business transaction. They had
+never happened to learn that a tongue,--hardly cut into,--a chicken and
+a half, a loaf of bread, and a syphon of soda-water cannot be bought in
+the stores for half-a-crown. These were the necessaries of life, which
+Cyril handed out of the larder window when, quite unobserved and without
+hindrance or adventure, he had led the others to that happy spot. He
+felt that to refrain from jam, apple pie, cake, and mixed candied peel,
+was a really heroic act--and I agree with him. He was also proud of not
+taking the custard pudding,--and there I think he was wrong,--because if
+he had taken it there would have been a difficulty about returning the
+dish; no one, however starving, has a right to steal china pie-dishes
+with little pink flowers on them. The soda-water syphon was different.
+They could not do without something to drink, and as the maker's name
+was on it they felt sure it would be returned to him wherever they might
+leave it. If they had time they would take it back themselves. The
+man appeared to live in Rochester, which would not be much out of their
+way home.
+
+[Illustration: These were the necessaries of life]
+
+Everything was carried up to the top of the tower, and laid down on a
+sheet of kitchen paper which Cyril had found on the top shelf of the
+larder. As he unfolded it, Anthea said, "I don't think _that's_ a
+necessity of life."
+
+"Yes, it is," said he. "We must put the things down somewhere to cut
+them up; and I heard father say the other day people got diseases from
+germans in rain-water. Now there must be lots of rain-water here,--and
+when it dries up the germans are left, and they'd get into the things,
+and we should all die of scarlet fever."
+
+"What are germans?"
+
+"Little waggly things you see with microscopes," said Cyril, with a
+scientific air. "They give you every illness you can think of. I'm sure
+the paper was a necessary, just as much as the bread and meat and water.
+Now then! Oh, I'm hungry!"
+
+I do not wish to describe the picnic party on the top of the tower. You
+can imagine well enough what it is like to carve a chicken and a tongue
+with a knife that has only one blade and that snapped off short about
+half-way down. But it was done. Eating with your fingers is greasy and
+difficult--and paper dishes soon get to look very spotty and horrid. But
+one thing you _can't_ imagine, and that is how soda-water behaves when
+you try to drink it straight out of a syphon--especially a quite full
+one. But if imagination will not help you, experience will, and you can
+easily try it for yourself if you can get a grown-up to give you the
+syphon. If you want to have a really thorough experience, put the tube
+in your mouth and press the handle very suddenly and very hard. You had
+better do it when you are alone--and out of doors is best for this
+experiment.
+
+However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good
+things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a
+really fine hot day. So that everyone enjoyed the dinner very much
+indeed, and everyone ate as much as it possibly could: first, because it
+was extremely hungry; and secondly, because, as I said, tongue and
+chicken and new bread are very nice.
+
+Now, I daresay you will have noticed that if you have to wait for your
+dinner till long after the proper time, and then eat a great deal more
+dinner than usual, and sit in the hot sun on the top of a
+church-tower--or even anywhere else--you become soon and strangely
+sleepy. Now Anthea and Jane and Cyril and Robert were very like you in
+many ways, and when they had eaten all they could, and drunk all there
+was, they became sleepy, strangely and soon--especially Anthea, because
+she had gotten up so early.
+
+[Illustration: The children were fast asleep]
+
+One by one they left off talking and leaned back, and before it was a
+quarter of an hour after dinner they had all curled round and tucked
+themselves up under their large soft warm wings and were fast asleep.
+And the sun was sinking slowly in the west. (I must say it was in the
+west, because it is usual in books to say so, for fear careless people
+should think it was setting in the east. In point of fact, it was not
+exactly in the west either--but that's near enough.) The sun, I repeat,
+was sinking slowly in the west, and the children slept warmly and
+happily on--for wings are cosier than eider-down quilts to sleep under.
+The shadow of the church-tower fell across the churchyard, and across
+the Vicarage, and across the field beyond; and presently there were no
+more shadows, and the sun had set, and the wings were gone. And still
+the children slept. But not for long. Twilight is very beautiful, but it
+is chilly; and you know, however sleepy you are, you wake up soon enough
+if your brother or sister happens to be up first and pulls your blankets
+off you. The four wingless children shivered and woke. And there they
+were,--on the top of a church-tower in the dusky twilight, with blue
+stars coming out by ones and twos and tens and twenties over their
+heads,--miles away from home, with three shillings and three-halfpence
+in their pockets, and a doubtful act about the necessities of life to
+be accounted for if anyone found them with the soda-water syphon.
+
+They looked at each other. Cyril spoke first, picking up the syphon--
+
+"We'd better get along down and get rid of this beastly thing. It's dark
+enough to leave it on the clergyman's doorstep, I should think. Come
+on."
+
+There was a little turret at the corner of the tower, and the little
+turret had a door in it. They had noticed this when they were eating,
+but had not explored it, as you would have done in their place. Because,
+of course, when you have wings and can explore the whole sky, doors seem
+hardly worth exploring.
+
+Now they turned towards it.
+
+"Of course," said Cyril "this is the way down."
+
+It was. But the door was locked on the inside!
+
+And the world was growing darker and darker. And they were miles from
+home. And there was the soda-water syphon.
+
+I shall not tell you whether anyone cried, nor, if so, how many cried,
+nor who cried. You will be better employed in making up your minds what
+you would have done if you had been in their place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NO WINGS
+
+
+Whether anyone cried or not, there was certainly an interval during
+which none of the party was quite itself. When they grew calmer, Anthea
+put her handkerchief in her pocket and her arm round Jane, and said--
+
+"It can't be for more than one night. We can signal with our
+handkerchiefs in the morning. They'll be dry then. And someone will come
+up and let us out"--
+
+"And find the syphon," said Cyril gloomily; "and we shall be sent to
+prison for stealing"--
+
+"You said it wasn't stealing. You said you were sure it wasn't."
+
+"I'm not sure _now_" said Cyril shortly.
+
+"Let's throw the thing away among the trees," said Robert, "then no one
+can do anything to us."
+
+"Oh yes,"--Cyril's laugh was not a light-hearted one,--"and hit some
+chap on the head, and be murderers as well as--as the other thing."
+
+"But we can't stay up here all night," said Jane; "and I want my tea."
+
+"You _can't_ want your tea," said Robert; "you've only just had your
+dinner."
+
+"But I _do_ want it," she said; "especially when you begin talking about
+stopping up here all night. Oh, Panther--I want to go home! I want to go
+home!"
+
+"Hush, hush," Anthea said. "Don't, dear. It'll be all right, somehow.
+Don't, don't"--
+
+"Let her cry," said Robert desperately; "if she howls loud enough,
+someone may hear and come and let us out."
+
+"And see the soda-water thing," said Anthea swiftly. "Robert, don't be a
+brute. Oh, Jane, do try to be a man! It's just the same for all of us."
+
+Jane did try to "be a man"--and reduced her howls to sniffs.
+
+There was a pause. Then Cyril said slowly, "Look here. We must risk that
+syphon. I'll button it up inside my jacket--perhaps no one will notice
+it. You others keep well in front of me. There are lights in the
+clergyman's house. They've not gone to bed yet. We must just yell as
+loud as ever we can. Now all scream when I say three. Robert, you do the
+yell like a railway engine, and I'll do the coo-ee like father's. The
+girls can do as they please. One, two, three!"
+
+A four-fold yell rent the silent peace of the evening, and a maid at one
+of the Vicarage windows paused with her hand on the blind-cord.
+
+"One, two, three!" Another yell, piercing and complex, startled the owls
+and starlings to a flutter of feathers in the belfry below. The maid
+flew from the Vicarage window and ran down the Vicarage stairs and into
+the Vicarage kitchen, and fainted as soon as she had explained to the
+man-servant and the cook and the cook's cousin that she had seen a
+ghost. It was quite untrue, of course, but I suppose the girl's nerves
+were a little upset by the yelling.
+
+"One, two, three!" The Vicar was on his doorstep by this time, and there
+was no mistaking the yell that greeted him.
+
+"Goodness me," he said to his wife, "my dear, someone's being murdered
+in the church! Give me my hat and a thick stick, and tell Andrew to come
+after me. I expect it's the lunatic who stole the tongue."
+
+The children had seen the flash of light when the Vicar opened his front
+door. They had seen his dark form on his doorstep, and they had paused
+for breath, and also to see what he would do.
+
+When he turned back for his hat, Cyril said hastily--
+
+"He thinks he only fancied he heard something. You don't half yell! Now!
+One, two, three!"
+
+It was certainly a whole yell this time, and the Vicar's wife flung her
+arms round her husband and screamed a feeble echo of it.
+
+"You shan't go!" she said, "not alone. Jessie!"--the maid unfainted and
+came out of the kitchen,--"send Andrew at once. There's a dangerous
+lunatic in the church, and he must go immediately and catch him."
+
+"I expect he _will_ catch it too," said Jessie to herself as she went
+through the kitchen door. "Here, Andrew," she said, "there's someone
+screaming like mad in the church, and the missus says you're to go along
+and catch it."
+
+"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew in low firm tones. To his master he
+merely said, "Yis sir."
+
+"You heard those screams?"
+
+"I did think I noticed a sort of something," said Andrew.
+
+"Well, come on, then," said the Vicar. "My dear, I _must_ go!" He pushed
+her gently into the sitting-room, banged the door, and rushed out,
+dragging Andrew by the arm.
+
+A volley of yells greeted them. Then as it died into silence Andrew
+shouted, "Hullo, you there! Did you call?"
+
+"Yes," shouted four far-away voices.
+
+"They seem to be in the air," said the Vicar. "Very remarkable."
+
+"Where are you?" shouted Andrew; and Cyril replied in his deepest
+voice, very slow and loud--
+
+"CHURCH! TOWER! TOP!"
+
+"Come down, then!" said Andrew; and the same voice replied--
+
+"_Can't! Door locked!_"
+
+"My goodness!" said the Vicar. "Andrew, fetch the stable lantern.
+Perhaps it would be as well to fetch another man from the village."
+
+"With the rest of the gang about, very likely. No, sir; if this 'ere
+ain't a trap--well, may I never! There's cook's cousin at the back door
+now. He's a keeper, sir, and used to dealing with vicious characters.
+And he's got his gun, sir."
+
+"Hullo there!" shouted Cyril from the church-tower; "come up and let us
+out."
+
+"We're a-coming," said Andrew. "I'm a-going to get a policeman and a
+gun."
+
+"Andrew, Andrew," said the Vicar, "that's not the truth."
+
+"It's near enough, sir, for the likes of them."
+
+So Andrew fetched the lantern and the cook's cousin; and the Vicar's
+wife begged them all to be very careful.
+
+They went across the churchyard--it was quite dark now--and as they went
+they talked. The Vicar was certain a lunatic was on the
+church-tower--the one who had written the mad letter, and taken the cold
+tongue and things. Andrew thought it was a "trap"; the cook's cousin
+alone was calm. "Great cry, little wool," said he; "dangerous chaps is
+quieter." He was not at all afraid. But then he had a gun. That was why
+he was asked to lead the way up the worn, steep, dark steps of the
+church-tower. He did lead the way, with the lantern in one hand and the
+gun in the other. Andrew went next. He pretended afterwards that this
+was because he was braver than his master, but really it was because he
+thought of traps and he did not like the idea of being behind the others
+for fear someone should come softly up behind him and catch hold of his
+legs in the dark. They went on and on, and round and round the little
+corkscrew staircase--then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the
+bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars--then up
+another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are--and then
+on up a ladder with broad steps--and then up a little stone stair. And
+at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on
+the stair side.
+
+The cook's cousin, who was a gamekeeper, kicked at the door, and said--
+
+"Hullo, you there!"
+
+The children were holding on to each other on the other side of the
+door, and trembling with anxiousness--and very hoarse with their howls.
+They could hardly speak, but Cyril managed to reply huskily--
+
+"Hullo, you there!"
+
+"How did you get up there?"
+
+It was no use saying "We flew up," so Cyril said--
+
+"We got up--and then we found the door was locked and we couldn't get
+down. Let us out--do."
+
+"How many of you are there?" asked the keeper.
+
+"Only four," said Cyril.
+
+"Are you armed?"
+
+"Are we what?"
+
+"I've got my gun handy--so you'd best not try any tricks," said the
+keeper. "If we open the door, will you promise to come quietly down, and
+no nonsense?"
+
+"Yes--oh YES!" said all the children together.
+
+"Bless me," said the Vicar, "surely that was a female voice?"
+
+"Shall I open the door, sir?" said the keeper. Andrew went down a few
+steps, "to leave room for the others" he said afterwards.
+
+"Yes," said the Vicar, "open the door. Remember," he said through the
+keyhole, "we have come to release you. You will keep your promise to
+refrain from violence?"
+
+"How this bolt do stick," said the keeper; "anyone 'ud think it hadn't
+been drawed for half a year." As a matter of fact it hadn't.
+
+When all the bolts were drawn, the keeper spoke deep-chested words
+through the keyhole.
+
+[Illustration: The keeper spoke deep-chested words through the keyhole]
+
+"I don't open," said he, "till you've gone over to the other side of the
+tower. And if one of you comes at me I fire. Now!"
+
+"We're all over on the other side," said the voices.
+
+The keeper felt pleased with himself, and owned himself a bold man when
+he threw open that door, and, stepping out into the leads, flashed the
+full light of the stable lantern on the group of desperadoes standing
+against the parapet on the other side of the tower.
+
+He lowered his gun, and he nearly dropped the lantern.
+
+"So help me," he cried, "if they ain't a pack of kiddies!"
+
+The Vicar now advanced.
+
+"How did you come here?" he asked severely. "Tell me at once."
+
+"Oh, take us down," said Jane, catching at his coat, "and we'll tell you
+anything you like. You won't believe us, but it doesn't matter. Oh, take
+us down!"
+
+The others crowded round him, with the same entreaty. All but Cyril.
+He had enough to do with the soda-water syphon, which would keep
+slipping down under his jacket. It needed both hands to keep it steady
+in its place.
+
+But he said, standing as far out of the lantern light as possible--
+
+"Please do take us down."
+
+So they were taken down. It is no joke to go down a strange church-tower
+in the dark, but the keeper helped them--only, Cyril had to be
+independent because of the soda-water syphon. It would keep trying to
+get away. Half-way down the ladder it all but escaped. Cyril just caught
+it by its spout, and as nearly as possible lost his footing. He was
+trembling and pale when at last they reached the bottom of the winding
+stair and stepped out on to the stones of the church-porch.
+
+Then suddenly the keeper caught Cyril and Robert each by an arm.
+
+"You bring along the gells, sir," said he; "you and Andrew can manage
+them."
+
+"Let go!" said Cyril; "we aren't running away. We haven't hurt your old
+church. Leave go!"
+
+"You just come along," said the keeper; and Cyril dared not oppose him
+with violence, because just then the syphon began to slip again.
+
+So they were marched into the Vicarage study, and the Vicar's wife came
+rushing in.
+
+"Oh, William, _are_ you safe?" she cried.
+
+Robert hastened to allay her anxiety.
+
+"Yes," he said, "he's quite safe. We haven't hurt them at all. And
+please, we're very late, and they'll be anxious at home. Could you send
+us home in your carriage?"
+
+"Or perhaps there's a hotel near where we could get a carriage," said
+Anthea. "Martha will be very anxious as it is."
+
+The Vicar had sunk into a chair, overcome by emotion and amazement.
+
+Cyril had also sat down, and was leaning forward with his elbows on his
+knees because of the soda-water syphon.
+
+"But how did you come to be locked up in the church-tower?" asked the
+Vicar.
+
+"We went up," said Robert slowly, "and we were tired, and we all went to
+sleep, and when we woke up we found the door was locked, so we yelled."
+
+"I should think you did!" said the Vicar's wife. "Frightening everybody
+out of their wits like this! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
+
+"We _are_," said Jane gently.
+
+"But who locked the door?" asked the Vicar.
+
+"I don't know at all," said Robert, with perfect truth. "Do please send
+us home."
+
+"Well, really," said the Vicar, "I suppose we'd better. Andrew, put the
+horse to, and you can take them home."
+
+"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew to himself.
+
+And the Vicar went on, "let this be a lesson to you"---- He went on
+talking, and the children listened miserably. But the keeper was not
+listening. He was looking at the unfortunate Cyril. He knew all about
+poachers, of course, so he knew how people look when they're hiding
+something. The Vicar had just got to the part about trying to grow up
+to be a blessing to your parents, and not a trouble and disgrace, when
+the keeper suddenly said--
+
+"Arst him what he's got there under his jacket;" and Cyril knew that
+concealment was at an end. So he stood up, and squared his shoulders and
+tried to look noble, like the boys in books that no one can look in the
+face of and doubt that they come of brave and noble families, and will
+be faithful to the death, and he pulled out the syphon and said--
+
+"Well, there you are, then."
+
+There was silence. Cyril went on--there was nothing else for it--
+
+"Yes, we took this out of your larder, and some chicken and tongue and
+bread. We were very hungry, and we didn't take the custard or jam. We
+only took bread and meat and water,--and we couldn't help its being soda
+kind,--just the necessaries of life; and we left half-a-crown to pay for
+it, and we left a letter. And we're very sorry. And my father will pay a
+fine and anything you like, but don't send us to prison. Mother would
+be so vexed. You know what you said about not being a disgrace. Well,
+don't you go and do it to us--that's all! We're as sorry as we can be.
+There!"
+
+"However did you get up to the larder window?" said Mrs. Vicar.
+
+"I can't tell you that," said Cyril firmly.
+
+"Is this the whole truth you've been telling me?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"No," answered Jane suddenly; "it's all true, but it's not the whole
+truth. We can't tell you that. It's no good asking. Oh, do forgive us
+and take us home!" She ran to the Vicar's wife and threw her arms round
+her. The Vicar's wife put her arms round Jane, and the keeper whispered
+behind his hand to the Vicar--
+
+"They're all right, sir--I expect it's a pal they're standing by.
+Someone put 'em up to it, and they won't peach. Game little kids."
+
+"Tell me," said the Vicar kindly, "are you screening someone else? Had
+anyone else anything to do with this?"
+
+"Yes," said Anthea, thinking of the Psammead; "but it wasn't their
+fault."
+
+"Very well, my dears," said the Vicar, "then let's say no more about it.
+Only just tell us why you wrote such an odd letter."
+
+"I don't know," said Cyril. "You see, Anthea wrote it in such a hurry,
+and it really didn't seem like stealing then. But afterwards, when we
+found we couldn't get down off the church-tower, it seemed just exactly
+like it. We are all very sorry"--
+
+"Say no more about it," said the Vicar's wife; "but another time just
+think before you take other people's tongues. Now--some cake and milk
+before you go home?"
+
+When Andrew came to say that the horse was put to, and was he expected
+to be led alone into the trap that he had plainly seen from the first,
+he found the children eating cake and drinking milk and laughing at the
+Vicar's jokes. Jane was sitting on the Vicar's wife's lap.
+
+So you see they got off better than they deserved.
+
+The gamekeeper, who was the cook's cousin, asked leave to drive home
+with them, and Andrew was only too glad to have someone to protect him
+from that trap he was so certain of.
+
+When the wagonette reached their own house, between the chalk-quarry and
+the gravel-pit, the children were very sleepy, but they felt that they
+and the keeper were friends for life.
+
+Andrew dumped the children down at the iron gate without a word.
+
+"You get along home," said the Vicarage cook's cousin, who was a
+gamekeeper. "I'll get me home on shanks' mare."
+
+So Andrew had to drive off alone, which he did not like at all, and it
+was the keeper that was cousin to the Vicarage cook who went with the
+children to the door, and, when they had been swept to bed in a
+whirlwind of reproaches, remained to explain to Martha and the cook and
+the housemaid exactly what had happened. He explained so well that
+Martha was quite amicable the next morning.
+
+After that he often used to come over and see Martha, and in the
+end--but that is another story, as dear Mr. Kipling says.
+
+Martha was obliged to stick to what she had said the night before about
+keeping the children indoors the next day for a punishment. But she
+wasn't at all ugly about it, and agreed to let Robert go out for half an
+hour to get something he particularly wanted.
+
+This, of course, was the day's wish.
+
+Robert rushed to the gravel-pit, found the Psammead, and presently
+wished for--
+
+But that, too, is another story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CASTLE AND NO DINNER
+
+
+The others were to be kept in as a punishment for the misfortunes of the
+day before. Of course Martha thought it was naughtiness, and not
+misfortune--so you must not blame her. She only thought she was doing
+her duty. You know, grown-up people often say they do not like to punish
+you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them
+as much as it hurts you--and this is really very often the truth.
+
+Martha certainly hated having to punish the children quite as much as
+they hated to be punished. For one thing, she knew what a noise there
+would be in the house all day. And she had other reasons.
+
+"I declare," she said to the cook, "it seems almost a shame keeping of
+them indoors this lovely day; but they are that audacious, they'll be
+walking in with their heads knocked off some of these days, if I don't
+put my foot down. You make them a cake for tea to-morrow, dear. And
+we'll have Baby along of us soon as we've got a bit forrard with our
+work. Then they can have a good romp with him, out of the way. Now,
+Eliza, come, get on with them beds. Here's ten o'clock nearly, and no
+rabbits caught!"
+
+People say that in Kent when they mean "and no work done."
+
+So all the others were kept in, but Robert, as I have said, was allowed
+to go out for half an hour to get something they all wanted. And that,
+of course, was the day's wish.
+
+He had no difficulty in finding the Sand-fairy, for the day was already
+so hot that it had actually, for the first time, come out of its own
+accord, and was sitting in a sort of pool of soft sand, stretching
+itself, and trimming its whiskers, and turning its snail's eyes round
+and round.
+
+"Ha!" it said when its left eye saw Robert; "I've been looking for you.
+Where are the rest of you? Not smashed themselves up with those wings,
+I hope?"
+
+"No," said Robert; "but the wings got us into a row, just like all the
+wishes always do. So the others are kept indoors, and I was only let out
+for half an hour--to get the wish. So please let me wish as quickly as I
+can."
+
+"Wish away," said the Psammead, twisting itself round in the sand. But
+Robert couldn't wish away. He forgot all the things he had been thinking
+about, and nothing would come into his head but little things for
+himself, like candy, a foreign stamp album, or a knife with three blades
+and a corkscrew. He sat down to think better of things the others would
+not have cared for--such as a football, or a pair of leg-guards, or to
+be able to lick Simpkins Minor thoroughly when he went back to school.
+
+"Well," said the Psammead at last, "you'd better hurry up with that wish
+of yours. Time flies."
+
+"I know it does," said Robert. "_I_ can't think what to wish for. I wish
+you could give one of the others their wish without their having to
+come here to ask for it. Oh, _don't_!"
+
+But it was too late. The Psammead had blown itself out to about three
+times its proper size, and now it collapsed like a pricked bubble, and
+with a deep sigh leaned back against the edge of the sand-pool, quite
+faint with the effort.
+
+"There!" it said in a weak voice; "it was tremendously hard--but I did
+it. Run along home, or they're sure to wish for something silly before
+you get there."
+
+They were--quite sure; Robert felt this, and as he ran home his mind was
+deeply occupied with the sort of wishes he might find they had wished in
+his absence. They might wish for rabbits, or white mice, or chocolate,
+or a fine day to-morrow, or even--and that was most likely--someone
+might have said, "I do wish to goodness Robert would hurry up." Well, he
+_was_ hurrying up, and so they would have had their wish, and the day
+would be wasted. Then he tried to think what they could wish
+for--something that would be amusing indoors. That had been his own
+difficulty from the beginning. So few things are amusing indoors when
+the sun is shining outside and you mayn't go out, however much you want
+to do so.
+
+Robert was running as fast as he could, but when he turned the corner
+that ought to have brought him within sight of the architect's
+nightmare--the ornamental iron-work on the top of the house--he opened
+his eyes so wide that he had to drop into a walk; for you cannot run
+with your eyes wide open. Then suddenly he stopped short, for there was
+no house to be seen. The front garden railings were gone too, and where
+the house had stood--Robert rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yes, the
+others _had_ wished,--there was no doubt about it,--and they must have
+wished that they lived in a castle; for there the castle stood, black
+and stately, and very tall and broad, with battlements and lancet
+windows, and eight great towers; and, where the garden and the orchard
+had been, there were white things dotted like mushrooms. Robert walked
+slowly on, and as he got nearer he saw that these were tents, and men in
+armor were walking about among the tents--crowds and crowds of them.
+
+[Illustration: There the castle stood, black and stately]
+
+"Oh!" said Robert fervently. "They _have_! They've wished for a castle,
+and it's being besieged! It's just like that Sand-fairy! I wish we'd
+never seen the beastly thing!"
+
+At the little window above the great gateway, across the moat that now
+lay where the garden had been but half an hour ago, someone was waving
+something pale dust-colored. Robert thought it was one of Cyril's
+handkerchiefs. They had never been white since the day when he had upset
+the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer
+where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had
+been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and
+two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots
+on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides
+that Robert remembered the shortness of his own legs and did not run
+away. He knew it would be useless to himself, and he feared it might be
+irritating to the foe. So he stood still--and the two men seemed quite
+pleased with him.
+
+"By my halidom," said one, "a brave varlet this!"
+
+Robert felt pleased at being _called_ brave, and somehow it made him
+_feel_ brave. He passed over the "varlet." It was the way people talked
+in historical romances for the young, he knew, and it was evidently not
+meant for rudeness. He only hoped he would be able to understand what
+they said to him. He had not been always able quite to follow the
+conversations in the historical romances for the young.
+
+"His garb is strange," said the other. "Some outlandish treachery,
+belike."
+
+"Say, lad, what brings thee hither?"
+
+Robert knew this meant, "Now then, youngster, what are you up to here,
+eh?"--so he said--
+
+"If you please, I want to go home."
+
+"Go, then!" said the man in the longest boots; "none hindereth, and
+nought lets us to follow. Zooks!" he added in a cautious undertone, "I
+misdoubt me but he beareth tidings to the besieged."
+
+"Where dwellest thou, young knave?" inquired the man with the largest
+steel-cap.
+
+"Over there," said Robert; and directly he had said it he knew he ought
+to have said "Yonder!"
+
+"Ha--sayest so?" rejoined the longest boots. "Come hither, boy. This is
+matter for our leader."
+
+And to the leader Robert was dragged forthwith--by the reluctant ear.
+
+[Illustration: Robert was dragged forthwith--by the reluctant ear]
+
+The leader was the most glorious creature Robert had ever seen. He was
+exactly like the pictures Robert had so often admired in the historical
+romances. He had armor, and a helmet, and a horse, and a crest, and
+feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his
+weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The
+shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern
+used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I.,
+and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield
+were very grand--three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents
+were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the
+whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to
+some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him
+perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or arch�ology
+than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical
+romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired it
+all so much that he felt braver than ever.
+
+"Come hither, lad," said the glorious leader, when the men in
+Cromwellian steel-caps had said a few low eager words. And he took off
+his helmet, because he could not see properly with it on. He had a kind
+face, and long fair hair. "Have no fear; thou shalt take no scathe," he
+said.
+
+Robert was glad of that. He wondered what "scathe" was, and if it was
+nastier than the medicine which he had to take sometimes.
+
+"Unfold thy tale without alarm," said the leader kindly. "Whence comest
+thou, and what is thine intent?"
+
+"My what?" said Robert.
+
+"What seekest thou to accomplish? What is thine errand, that thou
+wanderest here alone among these rough men-at-arms? Poor child, thy
+mother's heart aches for thee e'en now, I'll warrant me."
+
+"I don't think so," said Robert; "you see, she doesn't know I'm out."
+
+[Illustration: He wiped away a manly tear]
+
+The leader wiped away a manly tear, exactly as a leader in a historical
+romance would have done, and said--
+
+"Fear not to speak the truth, my child; thou hast nought to fear from
+Wulfric de Talbot."
+
+Robert had a wild feeling that this glorious leader of the besieging
+party--being himself part of a wish--would be able to understand better
+than Martha, or the gipsies, or the policeman in Rochester, or the
+clergyman of yesterday, the true tale of the wishes and the Psammead.
+The only difficulty was that he knew he could never remember enough
+"quothas" and "beshrew me's," and things like that, to make his talk
+sound like the talk of a boy in a historical romance. However, he began
+boldly enough, with a sentence straight out of _Ralph de Courcy; or, The
+Boy Crusader_. He said--
+
+"Grammercy for thy courtesy, fair sir knight. The fact is, it's like
+this--and I hope you're not in a hurry, because the story's rather a
+breather. Father and mother are away, and when we went down playing in
+the sand-pits we found a Psammead."
+
+"I cry thee mercy! A Sammyadd?" said the knight.
+
+"Yes, a sort of--of fairy, or enchanter--yes, that's it, an enchanter;
+and he said we could have a wish every day, and we wished first to be
+beautiful."
+
+"Thy wish was scarce granted," muttered one of the men-at-arms, looking
+at Robert, who went on as if he had not heard, though he thought the
+remark very rude indeed.
+
+"And then we wished for money--treasure, you know; but we couldn't spend
+it. And yesterday we wished for wings, and we got them, and we had a
+ripping time to begin with"--
+
+"Thy speech is strange and uncouth," said Sir Wulfric de Talbot. "Repeat
+thy words--what hadst thou?"
+
+"A ripping--I mean a jolly--no--we were contented with our lot--that's
+what I mean; only, after we got into an awful fix."
+
+"What is a fix? A fray, mayhap?"
+
+"No--not a fray. A--a--a tight place."
+
+"A dungeon? Alas for thy youthful fettered limbs!" said the knight, with
+polite sympathy.
+
+"It wasn't a dungeon. We just--just encountered undeserved misfortunes,"
+Robert explained, "and to-day we are punished by not being allowed to go
+out. That's where I live,"--he pointed to the castle. "The others are in
+there, and they're not allowed to go out. It's all the Psammead's--I
+mean the enchanter's fault. I wish we'd never seen him."
+
+"He is an enchanter of might?"
+
+"Oh yes--of might and main. Rather!"
+
+"And thou deemest that it is the spells of the enchanter whom thou hast
+angered that have lent strength to the besieging party," said the
+gallant leader; "but know thou that Wulfric de Talbot needs no
+enchanter's aid to lead his followers to victory."
+
+"No, I'm sure you don't," said Robert, with hasty courtesy; "of course
+not--you wouldn't, you know. But, all the same, it's partly his fault,
+but we're most to blame. You couldn't have done anything if it hadn't
+been for us."
+
+"How now, bold boy?" asked Sir Wulfric haughtily. "Thy speech is dark,
+and eke scarce courteous. Unravel me this riddle!"
+
+"Oh," said Robert desperately, "of course you don't know it, but you're
+not _real_ at all. You're only here because the others must have been
+idiots enough to wish for a castle--and when the sun sets you'll just
+vanish away, and it'll be all right."
+
+The captain and the men-at-arms exchanged glances at first pitying, and
+then sterner, as the longest-booted man said, "Beware, my noble lord;
+the urchin doth but feign madness to escape from our clutches. Shall we
+not bind him?"
+
+"I'm no more mad than you are," said Robert angrily, "perhaps not so
+much--Only, I was an idiot to think you'd understand anything. Let me
+go--I haven't done anything to you."
+
+"Whither?" asked the knight, who seemed to have believed all the
+enchanter story till it came to his own share in it. "Whither wouldst
+thou wend?"
+
+"Home, of course." Robert pointed to the castle.
+
+"To carry news of succor? Nay!"
+
+"All right, then," said Robert, struck by a sudden idea; "then let me go
+somewhere else." His mind sought eagerly among the memories of the
+historical romance.
+
+"Sir Wulfric de Talbot," he said slowly, "should think foul scorn to--to
+keep a chap--I mean one who has done him no hurt--when he wants to cut
+off quietly--I mean to depart without violence."
+
+"This to my face! Beshrew thee for a knave!" replied Sir Wulfric. But
+the appeal seemed to have gone home. "Yet thou sayest sooth," he added
+thoughtfully. "Go where thou wilt," he added nobly, "thou art free.
+Wulfric de Talbot warreth not with babes, and Jakin here shall bear thee
+company."
+
+"All right," said Robert wildly. "Jakin will enjoy himself, I think.
+Come on, Jakin. Sir Wulfric, I salute thee."
+
+He saluted after the modern military manner, and set off running to the
+sand-pit, Jakin's long boots keeping up easily.
+
+He found the Fairy. He dug it up, he woke it up, he implored it to give
+him one more wish.
+
+"I've done two to-day already," it grumbled, "and one was as stiff a bit
+of work as ever I did."
+
+"Oh, do, do, do, do, _do_!" said Robert, while Jakin looked on with an
+expression of open-mouthed horror at the strange beast that talked, and
+gazed with its snail's eyes at him.
+
+[Illustration: "Oh, do, do, _do_!" said Robert]
+
+"Well, what is it?" snapped the Psammead, with cross sleepiness.
+
+"I wish I was with the others," said Robert. And the Psammead began to
+swell. Robert never thought of wishing the castle and the siege away. Of
+course he knew they had all come out of a wish, but swords and daggers
+and pikes and lances seemed much too real to be wished away. Robert lost
+consciousness for an instant. When he opened his eyes the others were
+crowding round him.
+
+"We never heard you come in," they said. "How awfully jolly of you to
+wish it to give us our wish!"
+
+"Of course we understood that was what you'd done."
+
+"But you ought to have told us. Suppose we'd wished something silly."
+
+"Silly?" said Robert, very crossly indeed. "How much sillier could you
+have been, I'd like to know? You nearly settled _me_--I can tell
+you."
+
+Then he told his story, and the others admitted that it certainly had
+been rough on him. But they praised his courage and cleverness so much
+that he presently got back his lost temper, and felt braver than ever,
+and consented to be captain of the besieged force.
+
+"We haven't done anything yet," said Anthea comfortably; "we waited for
+you. We're going to shoot at them through these little loopholes with
+the bow and arrows uncle gave you, and you shall have first shot."
+
+"I don't think I would," said Robert cautiously; "you don't know what
+they're like near to. They've got _real_ bows and arrows--an awful
+length--and swords and pikes and daggers, and all sorts of sharp things.
+They're all quite, quite real. It's not just a--a picture, or a vision
+or anything; they can _hurt us_--or kill us even, I shouldn't wonder. I
+can feel my ear all sore yet. Look here--have you explored the castle?
+Because I think we'd better let them alone as long as they let us alone.
+I heard that Jakin man say they weren't going to attack till just
+before sundown. We can be getting ready for the attack. Are there any
+soldiers in the castle to defend it?"
+
+"We don't know," said Cyril. "You see, directly I'd wished we were in a
+besieged castle, everything seemed to go upside down, and when it came
+straight we looked out of the window, and saw the camp and things and
+you--and of course we kept on looking at everything. Isn't this room
+jolly? It's as real as real!"
+
+It was. It was square, with stone walls four feet thick, and great beams
+for ceiling. A low door at the corner led to a flight of steps, up and
+down. The children went down; they found themselves in a great arched
+gate-house--the enormous doors were shut and barred. There was a window
+in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair
+wound, rather larger than the other windows, and looking through it they
+saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down; the moat looked
+very wide and deep. Opposite the great door that led to the moat was
+another great door, with a little door in it. The children went through
+this, and found themselves in a big courtyard, with the great grey walls
+of the castle rising dark and heavy on all four sides.
+
+Near the middle of the courtyard stood Martha, moving her right hand
+backwards and forwards in the air. The cook was stooping down and moving
+her hands, also in a very curious way. But the oddest and at the same
+time most terrible thing was the Lamb, who was sitting on nothing, about
+three feet from the ground, laughing happily.
+
+The children ran towards him. Just as Anthea was reaching out her arms
+to take him, Martha said crossly, "Let him alone--do, miss, when he _is_
+good."
+
+"But what's he _doing_?" said Anthea.
+
+"Doing? Why, a-setting in his high chair as good as gold, a precious,
+watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do--my iron's cold
+again."
+
+She went towards the cook, and seemed to poke an invisible fire with an
+unseen poker--the cook seemed to be putting an unseen dish into an
+invisible oven.
+
+"Run along with you, do," she said; "I'm behindhand as it is. You won't
+get no dinner if you come a-hindering of me like this. Come, off you
+goes, or I'll pin a discloth to some of your tails."
+
+"You're _sure_ the Lamb's all right?" asked Jane anxiously.
+
+"Right as ninepence, if you don't come unsettling of him. I thought
+you'd like to be rid of him for to-day; but take him, if you want him,
+for gracious' sake."
+
+"No, no," they said, and hastened away. They would have to defend the
+castle presently, and the Lamb was safer even suspended in mid air in an
+invisible kitchen than in the guard-room of the besieged castle. They
+went through the first doorway they came to, and sat down helplessly on
+a wooden bench that ran along the room inside.
+
+"How awful!" said Anthea and Jane together; and Jane added, "I feel as
+if I was in a lunatic asylum."
+
+"What does it mean?" Anthea said. "It's creepy; I don't like it. I wish
+we'd wished for something plain--a rocking-horse, or a donkey, or
+something."
+
+"It's no use wishing _now_," said Robert bitterly; and Cyril said--
+
+"Do be quiet; I want to think."
+
+He buried his face in his hands, and the others looked about them. They
+were in a long room with an arched roof. There were wooden tables along
+it, and one across at the end of the room, on a sort of raised platform.
+The room was very dim and dark. The floor was strewn with dry things
+like sticks, and they did not smell nice.
+
+Cyril sat up suddenly and said--
+
+"Look here--it's all right. I think it's like this. You know, we wished
+that the servants shouldn't notice any difference when we got wishes.
+And nothing happens to the Lamb unless we specially wish it to. So of
+course they don't notice the castle or anything. But then the castle is
+on the same place where our house was--is, I mean--and the servants have
+to go on being in the house, or else they _would_ notice. But you can't
+have a castle mixed up with our house--and so _we_ can't see the house,
+because we see the castle; and they can't see the castle, because they
+go on seeing the house; and so"--
+
+"Oh, _don't_," said Jane; "you make my head go all swimmy, like being on
+a roundabout. It doesn't matter! Only, I hope we shall be able to see
+our dinner, that's all--because if it's invisible it'll be unfeelable as
+well, and then we can't eat it! I _know_ it will, because I tried to
+feel if I could feel the Lamb's chair and there was nothing under him at
+all but air. And we can't eat air, and I feel just as if I hadn't had
+any breakfast for years and years."
+
+"It's no use thinking about it," said Anthea. "Let's go on exploring.
+Perhaps we might find something to eat."
+
+This lighted hope in every breast, and they went on exploring the
+castle. But though it was the most perfect and delightful castle you can
+possibly imagine, and furnished in the most complete and beautiful
+manner, neither food nor men-at-arms were to be found in it.
+
+"If you'd only thought of wishing to be besieged in a castle thoroughly
+garrisoned and provisioned!" said Jane reproachfully.
+
+"You can't think of everything, you know," said Anthea. "I should think
+it must be nearly dinner-time by now."
+
+It wasn't; but they hung about watching the strange movements of the
+servants in the middle of the courtyard, because, of course, they
+couldn't be sure where the dining-room of the invisible house was.
+Presently they saw Martha carrying an invisible tray across the
+courtyard, for it seemed that, by the most fortunate accident, the
+dining-room of the house and the banqueting-hall of the castle were in
+the same place. But oh, how their hearts sank when they perceived that
+the tray _was_ invisible!
+
+They waited in wretched silence while Martha went through the form of
+carving an unseen leg of mutton and serving invisible greens and
+potatoes with a spoon that no one could see. When she had left the room,
+the children looked at the empty table, and then at each other.
+
+"This is worse than anything," said Robert, who had not till now been
+particularly keen on his dinner.
+
+"I'm not so very hungry," said Anthea, trying to make the best of
+things, as usual.
+
+Cyril tightened his belt ostentatiously. Jane burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SIEGE AND BED
+
+
+The children were sitting in the gloomy banqueting-hall, at the end of
+one of the long bare wooden tables. There was now no hope. Martha had
+brought in the dinner, and the dinner was invisible, and unfeelable too;
+for, when they rubbed their hands along the table, they knew but too
+well that for them there was nothing there _but_ table.
+
+Suddenly Cyril felt in his pocket.
+
+"Right, _oh_!" he cried. "Look here! Biscuits."
+
+Somewhat broken and crumbled, certainly, but still biscuits. Three whole
+ones, and a generous handful of crumbs and fragments.
+
+"I got them this morning--cook--and I'd quite forgotten," he explained
+as he divided them with scrupulous fairness into four heaps.
+
+They were eaten in a happy silence, though they had an odd taste,
+because they had been in Cyril's pocket all the morning with a hank of
+tarred twine, some green fir-cones, and a ball of cobbler's wax.
+
+"Yes, but look here, Squirrel," said Robert; "you're so clever at
+explaining about invisibleness and all that. How is it the biscuits are
+here, and all the bread and meat and things have disappeared?"
+
+"I don't know," said Cyril after a pause, "unless it's because _we_ had
+them. Nothing about _us_ has changed. Everything's in my pocket all
+right."
+
+"Then if we _had_ the mutton it would be real," said Robert. "Oh, don't
+I wish we could find it!"
+
+"But we can't find it. I suppose it isn't ours till we've got it in our
+mouths."
+
+"Or in our pockets," said Jane, thinking of the biscuits.
+
+"Who puts mutton in their pockets, goose-girl?" said Cyril. "But I
+know--at any rate, I'll try it!"
+
+He leaned over the table with his face about an inch from it, and kept
+opening and shutting his mouth as if he were taking bites out of air.
+
+"It's no good," said Robert in deep dejection. "You'll only---- Hullo!"
+
+Cyril stood up with a grin of triumph, holding a square piece of bread
+in his mouth. It was quite real. Everyone saw it. It is true that,
+directly he bit a piece off, the rest vanished; but it was all right,
+because he knew he had it in his hand though he could neither see nor
+feel it. He took another bite from the air between his fingers, and it
+turned into bread as he bit. The next moment all the others were
+following his example, and opening and shutting their mouths an inch or
+so from the bare-looking table. Robert captured a slice of mutton,
+and--but I think I will draw a veil over the rest of this painful scene.
+It is enough to say that they all had enough mutton, and that when
+Martha came to change the plates she said she had never seen such a mess
+in all her born days.
+
+The pudding was, fortunately, a plain suet one, and in answer to
+Martha's questions the children all with one accord said that they would
+_not_ have molasses on it--nor jam, nor sugar--"Just plain, please,"
+they said. Martha said, "Well, I never--what next, I wonder!" and went
+away.
+
+Then ensued another scene on which I will not dwell, for nobody looks
+nice picking up slices of suet pudding from the table in its mouth, like
+a dog.
+
+The great thing, after all, was that they had had dinner; and now
+everyone felt more courage to prepare for the attack that was to be
+delivered before sunset. Robert, as captain, insisted on climbing to the
+top of one of the towers to reconnoitre, so up they all went. And now
+they could see all round the castle, and could see, too, that beyond the
+moat, on every side, tents of the besieging party were pitched. Rather
+uncomfortable shivers ran down the children's backs as they saw that all
+the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing
+their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along the
+road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril
+felt quite pale, because he knew this was for a battering-ram.
+
+"What a good thing we've got a moat," he said; "and what a good thing
+the drawbridge is up--I should never have known how to work it."
+
+"Of course it would be up in a besieged castle."
+
+"You'd think there ought to have been soldiers in it, wouldn't you?"
+said Robert.
+
+"You see you don't know how long it's been besieged," said Cyril darkly;
+"perhaps most of the brave defenders were killed early in the siege and
+all the provisions eaten, and now there are only a few intrepid
+survivors,--that's us, and we are going to defend it to the death."
+
+"How do you begin--defending to the death, I mean?" asked Anthea.
+
+"We ought to be heavily armed--and then shoot at them when they advance
+to the attack."
+
+"They used to pour boiling lead down on besiegers when they got too
+close," said Anthea. "Father showed me the holes on purpose for pouring
+it down through at Bodiam Castle. And there are holes like it in the
+gate-tower here."
+
+"I think I'm glad it's only a game; it _is_ only a game, isn't it?" said
+Jane.
+
+But no one answered.
+
+The children found plenty of strange weapons in the castle, and if they
+were armed at all it was soon plain that they would be, as Cyril said,
+"armed heavily"--for these swords and lances and crossbows were far too
+weighty even for Cyril's manly strength; and as for the longbows, none
+of the children could even begin to bend them. The daggers were better;
+but Jane hoped that the besiegers would not come close enough for
+daggers to be of any use.
+
+"Never mind, we can hurl them like javelins," said Cyril, "or drop them
+on people's heads. I say--there are lots of stones on the other side of
+the courtyard. If we took some of those up? Just to drop on their heads
+if they were to try swimming the moat."
+
+So a heap of stones grew apace, up in the room above the gate; and
+another heap, a shiny spiky dangerous-looking heap, of daggers and
+knives.
+
+As Anthea was crossing the courtyard for more stones, a sudden and
+valuable idea came to her.
+
+She went to Martha and said, "May we have just biscuits for tea? We're
+going to play at besieged castles, and we'd like the biscuits to
+provision the garrison. Put mine in my pocket, please, my hands are so
+dirty. And I'll tell the others to fetch theirs."
+
+This was indeed a happy thought, for now with four generous handfuls of
+air, which turned to biscuits as Martha crammed it into their pockets,
+the garrison was well provisioned till sundown.
+
+They brought up some iron pots of cold water to pour on the besiegers
+instead of hot lead, with which the castle did not seem to be provided.
+
+The afternoon passed with wonderful quickness. It was very exciting; but
+none of them, except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real
+deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the
+besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of
+make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream.
+But it was only now and then that Robert could feel this.
+
+When it seemed to be tea-time the biscuits were eaten, with water from
+the deep well in the courtyard, drunk out of horns. Cyril insisted on
+putting by eight of the biscuits, in case anyone should feel faint in
+stress of battle.
+
+Just as he was putting away the reserve biscuits in a sort of little
+stone cupboard without a door, a sudden sound made him drop three. It
+was the loud fierce cry of a trumpet.
+
+"You see it _is_ real," said Robert, "and they are going to attack."
+
+All rushed to the narrow windows.
+
+"Yes," said Robert, "they're all coming out of their tents and moving
+about like ants. There's that Jakin dancing about where the bridge
+joins on. I wish he could see me put my tongue out at him! Yah!"
+
+The others were far too pale to wish to put their tongues out at
+anybody. They looked at Robert with surprised respect. Anthea said--
+
+"You really _are_ brave, Robert."
+
+"Rot!" Cyril's pallor turned to redness now, all in a minute. "He's been
+getting ready to be brave all the afternoon. And I wasn't ready, that's
+all. I shall be braver than he is in half a jiffy."
+
+"Oh dear!" said Jane, "what does it matter which of you is the bravest?
+I think Cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle, and I don't want
+to play."
+
+"It _isn't_"--Robert was beginning sternly, but Anthea interrupted--
+
+"Oh yes, you do," she said coaxingly; "it's a very nice game, really,
+because they can't possibly get in, and if they do the women and
+children are always spared by civilised armies."
+
+"But are you quite, quite sure they _are_ civilised?" asked Jane,
+panting. "They seem to be such a long time ago."
+
+"Of course they are." Anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow
+window. "Why, look at the little flags on their lances, how bright they
+are--and how fine the leader is! Look, that's him--isn't it, Robert?--on
+the gray horse."
+
+Jane consented to look, and the scene was almost too pretty to be
+alarming. The green turf, the white tents, the flash of pennoned lances,
+the gleam of armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic--it was
+just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and
+when the trumpeters stopped for breath the children could hear the
+cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices.
+
+A trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat, which now seemed very
+much narrower than at first, and blew the longest and loudest blast they
+had yet heard. When the blaring noise had died away, a man who was with
+the trumpeter shouted--
+
+"What ho, within there!" and his voice came plainly to the garrison in
+the gate-house.
+
+"Hullo there!" Robert bellowed back at once.
+
+"In the name of our Lord the King, and of our good lord and trusty
+leader Sir Wulfric de Talbot, we summon this castle to surrender--on
+pain of fire and sword and no quarter. Do ye surrender?"
+
+"_No_" bawled Robert; "of course we don't! Never, _Never, NEVER_!"
+
+The man answered back--
+
+"Then your fate be on your own heads."
+
+"Cheer," said Robert in a fierce whisper. "Cheer to show them we aren't
+afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip,
+hip, hooray! Again--Hip, hip, hooray! One more--Hip, hip, hooray!" The
+cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent
+them strength and depth.
+
+There was another shout from the camp across the moat--and then the
+beleaguered fortress felt that the attack had indeed begun.
+
+It was getting rather dark in the room above the great gate, and Jane
+took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset _couldn't_ be
+far off now.
+
+"The moat is dreadfully thin," said Anthea.
+
+"But they can't get into the castle even if they do swim over," said
+Robert. And as he spoke he heard feet on the stair outside--heavy feet
+and the clang of steel. No one breathed for a moment. The steel and the
+feet went on up the turret stairs. Then Robert sprang softly to the
+door. He pulled off his shoes.
+
+"Wait here," he whispered, and stole quickly and softly after the boots
+and the spur-clank. He peeped into the upper room. The man was
+there--and it was Jakin, all dripping with moat-water, and he was
+fiddling about with the machinery which Robert felt sure worked the
+drawbridge. Robert banged the door suddenly, and turned the great key in
+the lock, just as Jakin sprang to the inside of the door. Then he tore
+downstairs and into the little turret at the foot of the tower where the
+biggest window was.
+
+"We ought to have defended _this_!" he cried to the others as they
+followed him. He was just in time. Another man had swum over, and his
+fingers were on the window-ledge. Robert never knew how the man had
+managed to climb up out of the water. But he saw the clinging fingers,
+and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from
+the floor. The man fell with a splash into the moat-water. In another
+moment Robert was outside the little room, had banged its door and was
+shooting home the enormous bolts, and calling to Cyril to lend a hand.
+
+[Illustration: The man fell with a splash into the moat-water]
+
+Then they stood in the arched gate-house, breathing hard and looking at
+each other.
+
+Jane's mouth was open.
+
+"Cheer up, Jenny," said Robert,--"it won't last much longer."
+
+There was a creaking above, and something rattled and shook. The
+pavement they stood on seemed to tremble. Then a crash told them that
+the drawbridge had been lowered to its place.
+
+"That's that beast Jakin," said Robert. "There's still the portcullis;
+I'm almost certain that's worked from lower down."
+
+And now the drawbridge rang and echoed hollowly to the hoofs of horses
+and the tramp of armed men.
+
+"Up--quick!" cried Robert,--"let's drop things on them."
+
+Even the girls were feeling almost brave now. They followed Robert
+quickly, and under his directions began to drop stones out through the
+long narrow windows. There was a confused noise below, and some groans.
+
+"Oh dear!" said Anthea, putting down the stone she was just going to
+drop out, "I'm afraid we've hurt somebody!"
+
+Robert caught up the stone in a fury.
+
+"I should hope we _had_!" he said; "I'd give something for a jolly good
+boiling kettle of lead. Surrender, indeed!"
+
+And now came more tramping and a pause, and then the thundering thump of
+the battering-ram. And the little room was almost pitch dark.
+
+"We've held it," cried Robert, "we _won't_ surrender! The sun _must_ set
+in a minute. Here--they're all jawing underneath again. Pity there's no
+time to get more stones! Here, pour that water down on them. It's no
+good, of course, but they'll hate it."
+
+"Oh dear!" said Jane, "don't you think we'd better surrender?"
+
+"Never!" said Robert; "we'll have a parley if you like, but we'll never
+surrender. Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up--you just see if I
+don't. I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says."
+
+"Let's wave a handkerchief and ask for a parley," Jane pleaded. "I don't
+believe the sun's going to set to-night at all."
+
+"Give them the water first--the brutes!" said the bloodthirsty Robert.
+So Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole, and poured. They
+heard a splash below, but no one below seemed to have felt it. And again
+the ram battered the great door. Anthea paused.
+
+[Illustration: Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole]
+
+"How idiotic," said Robert, lying flat on the floor and putting one eye
+to the lead-hole. "Of course the holes go straight down into the
+gate-house--that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the
+portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot." He crawled
+on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and,
+taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.
+
+And as he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the
+trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for
+ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the
+little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when
+the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the
+big front bedroom of their own house--the house with the ornamental
+nightmare iron-top to the roof.
+
+They all crowded to the window and looked out. The moat and the tents
+and the besieging force were all gone--and there was the garden with its
+tangle of dahlias and marigolds and asters and later roses, and the
+spiky iron railings and the quiet white road.
+
+Everyone drew a deep breath.
+
+"And that's all right!" said Robert. "I told you so! And, I say, we
+didn't surrender, did we?"
+
+"Aren't you glad now I wished for a castle?" asked Cyril.
+
+"I think I am _now_," said Anthea slowly. "But I wouldn't wish for it
+again, I think, Squirrel dear!"
+
+"Oh, it was simply splendid!" said Jane unexpectedly. "I wasn't
+frightened a bit."
+
+"Oh, I say!" Cyril was beginning, but Anthea stopped him.
+
+"Look here," she said, "it's just come into my head. This is the very
+first thing we've wished for that hasn't got us into a row. And there
+hasn't been the least little scrap of a row about this. Nobody's raging
+downstairs, we're safe and sound, we've had an awfully jolly day--at
+least, not jolly exactly, but you know what I mean. And we know now how
+brave Robert is--and Cyril too, of course," she added hastily, "and
+Jane as well. And we haven't got into a row with a single grown-up."
+
+The door was opened suddenly and fiercely.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Martha, and
+they could tell by her voice that she was very angry indeed. "I thought
+you couldn't last through the day without getting up to some mischief! A
+person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be
+emptying the water jug on their heads! Off you go to bed, the lot of
+you, and try to get up better children in the morning. Now then--don't
+let me have to tell you twice. If I find any of you not in bed in ten
+minutes I'll let you know it, that's all! A new cap, and everything!"
+
+She flounced out amid a disregarded chorus of regrets and apologies. The
+children were very sorry, but really it was not their faults.
+
+You can't help it if you are pouring water on a besieging foe, and your
+castle suddenly changes into your house--and everything changes with it
+except the water, and that happens to fall on somebody else's clean cap.
+
+"I don't know why the water didn't change into nothing, though," said
+Cyril.
+
+"Why should it?" asked Robert. "Water's water all the world over."
+
+"I expect the castle well was the same as ours in the stable-yard," said
+Jane. And that was really the case.
+
+"I thought we couldn't get through a wish-day without a row," said
+Cyril; "it was much too good to be true. Come on, Bobs, my military
+hero. If we lick into bed sharp she won't be so furious, and perhaps
+she'll bring us up some supper. I'm jolly hungry! Good-night, kids."
+
+"Good-night. I hope the castle won't come creeping back in the night,"
+said Jane.
+
+"Of course it won't," said Anthea briskly, "but Martha will--not in the
+night, but in a minute. Here, turn round, I'll get that knot out of your
+pinafore strings."
+
+"Wouldn't it have been degrading for Sir Wulfric de Talbot," said Jane
+dreamily, "if he could have known that half the besieged garrison wore
+pinafores?"
+
+"And the other half knickerbockers. Yes--frightfully. Do stand
+still--you're only tightening the knot," said Anthea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY
+
+
+"Look here," said Cyril. "I've got an idea."
+
+"Does it hurt much?" said Robert sympathetically.
+
+"Don't be a jackanape! I'm not humbugging."
+
+"Shut up, Bobs!" said Anthea.
+
+"Silence for the Squirrel's oration," said Robert.
+
+Cyril balanced himself on the edge of the water-butt in the backyard,
+where they all happened to be, and spoke.
+
+"Friends, Romans, countrymen--and women--we found a Sammyadd. We have
+had wishes. We've had wings, and being beautiful as the day--ugh!--that
+was pretty jolly beastly if you like--and wealth and castles, and that
+rotten gipsy business with the Lamb. But we're no forrarder. We haven't
+really got anything worth having for our wishes."
+
+"We've had things happening," said Robert; "that's always something."
+
+"It's not enough, unless they're the right things," said Cyril firmly.
+"Now I've been thinking"--
+
+"Not really?" whispered Robert.
+
+"In the silent what's-its-names of the night. It's like suddenly being
+asked something out of history--the date of the Conquest or something;
+you know it all right all the time, but when you're asked it all goes
+out of your head. Ladies and gentlemen, you know jolly well that when
+we're all rotting about in the usual way heaps of things keep cropping
+up, and then real earnest wishes come into the heads of the beholder"--
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Robert.
+
+"--of the beholder, however, stupid he is," Cyril went on. "Why, even
+Robert might happen to think of a really useful wish if he didn't injure
+his poor little brains trying so hard to think.--Shut up, Bobs, I tell
+you!--You'll have the whole show over."
+
+A struggle on the edge of a water-butt is exciting but damp. When it was
+over, and the boys were partially dried, Anthea said--
+
+"It really was you began it, Bobs. Now honour is satisfied, do let
+Squirrel go on. We're wasting the whole morning."
+
+"Well then," said Cyril, still wringing the water out of the tails of
+his jacket, "I'll call it pax if Bobs will."
+
+"Pax then," said Robert sulkily. "But I've got a lump as big as a
+cricket ball over my eye."
+
+Anthea patiently offered a dust-coloured handkerchief, and Robert bathed
+his wounds in silence. "Now, Squirrel," she said.
+
+"Well then--let's just play bandits, or forts, or soldiers, or any of
+the old games. We're dead sure to think of something if we try not to.
+You always do."
+
+The others consented. Bandits was hastily chosen for the game. "It's as
+good as anything else," said Jane gloomily. It must be owned that
+Robert was at first but a half-hearted bandit, but when Anthea had
+borrowed from Martha the red-spotted handkerchief in which the keeper
+had brought her mushrooms that morning, and had tied up Robert's head
+with it so that he could be the wounded hero who had saved the bandit
+captain's life the day before, he cheered up wonderfully. All were soon
+armed. Bows and arrows slung on the back look well; and umbrellas and
+cricket stumps through the belt give a fine impression of the wearer's
+being armed to the teeth. The white cotton hats that men wear in the
+country nowadays have a very brigandish effect when a few turkey's
+feathers are stuck in them. The Lamb's mail-cart was covered with a
+red-and-blue checked table-cloth, and made an admirable baggage-wagon.
+The Lamb asleep inside it was not at all in the way. So the banditti set
+out along the road that led to the sand-pit.
+
+"We ought to be near the Sammyadd," said Cyril, "in case we think of
+anything suddenly."
+
+It is all very well to make up your minds to play bandit--or chess, or
+ping-pong, or any other agreeable game--but it is not easy to do it with
+spirit when all the wonderful wishes you can think of, or can't think
+of, are waiting for you round the corner. The game was dragging a
+little, and some of the bandits were beginning to feel that the others
+were disagreeable things, and were saying so candidly, when the baker's
+boy came along the road with loaves in a basket. The opportunity was not
+one to be lost.
+
+"Stand and deliver!" cried Cyril.
+
+"Your money or your life!" said Robert.
+
+And they stood on each side of the baker's boy. Unfortunately, he did
+not seem to enter into the spirit of the thing at all. He was a baker's
+boy of an unusually large size. He merely said--
+
+"Chuck it now, d'ye hear!" and pushed the bandits aside most
+disrespectfully.
+
+Then Robert lassoed him with Jane's skipping-rope, and instead of going
+round his shoulders, as Robert intended, it went round his feet and
+tripped him up. The basket was upset, the beautiful new loaves went
+bumping and bouncing all over the dusty chalky road. The girls ran to
+pick them up, and all in a moment Robert and the baker's boy were
+fighting it out, man to man, with Cyril to see fair play, and the
+skipping-rope twisting round their legs like an interesting snake that
+wished to be a peace-maker. It did not succeed; indeed the way the
+boxwood handles sprang up and hit the fighters on the shins and ankles
+was not at all peace-making. I know this is the second fight--or
+contest--in this chapter, but I can't help it. It was that sort of day.
+You know yourself there are days when rows seem to keep on happening,
+quite without your meaning them to. If I were a writer of tales of
+adventure such as those which used to appear in _The Boys of England_
+when I was young of course I should be able to describe the fight, but I
+cannot do it. I never can see what happens during a fight, even when it
+is only dogs. Also, if I had been one of these _Boys of England_
+writers, Robert would have got the best of it. But I am like George
+Washington--I cannot tell a lie, even about a cherry-tree, much less
+about a fight, and I cannot conceal from you that Robert was badly
+beaten, for the second time that day. The baker's boy blacked his other
+eye, and being ignorant of the first rules of fair play and gentlemanly
+behaviour, he also pulled Robert's hair, and kicked him on the knee.
+Robert always used to say he could have licked the baker if it hadn't
+been for the girls. But I am not sure. Anyway, what happened was this,
+and very painful it was to self-respecting boys.
+
+[Illustration: He pulled Robert's hair]
+
+Cyril was just tearing off his coat so as to help his brother in proper
+style, when Jane threw her arms round his legs and began to cry and ask
+him not to go and be beaten too. That "too" was very nice for Robert, as
+you can imagine--but it was nothing to what he felt when Anthea rushed
+in between him and the baker's boy, and caught that unfair and degraded
+fighter round the waist, imploring him not to fight any more.
+
+"Oh, don't hurt my brother any more!" she said in floods of tears. "He
+didn't mean it--it's only play. And I'm sure he's very sorry."
+
+You see how unfair this was to Robert. Because, if the baker's boy had
+had any right and chivalrous instincts, and had yielded to Anthea's
+pleading and accepted her despicable apology, Robert could not, in
+honour, have done anything to him at any future time. But Robert's
+fears, if he had any, were soon dispelled. Chivalry was a stranger to
+the breast of the baker's boy. He pushed Anthea away very roughly, and
+he chased Robert with kicks and unpleasant conversation right down the
+road to the sand-pit, and there, with one last kick, he landed him in a
+heap of sand.
+
+"I'll larn you, you young varmint!" he said, and went off to pick up his
+loaves and go about his business. Cyril, impeded by Jane, could do
+nothing without hurting her, for she clung round his legs with the
+strength of despair. The baker's boy went off red and damp about the
+face; abusive to the last, he called them a pack of silly idiots, and
+disappeared round the corner. Then Jane's grasp loosened. Cyril turned
+away in silent dignity to follow Robert, and the girls followed him,
+weeping without restraint.
+
+It was not a happy party that flung itself down in the sand beside the
+sobbing Robert. For Robert was sobbing--mostly with rage. Though of
+course I know that a really heroic boy is always dry-eyed after a fight.
+But then he always wins, which had not been the case with Robert.
+
+Cyril was angry with Jane; Robert was furious with Anthea; the girls
+were miserable; and not one of the four was pleased with the baker's
+boy. There was, as French writers say, "a silence full of emotion."
+
+Then Robert dug his toes and his hands into the sand and wriggled in his
+rage. "He'd better wait till I'm grown up--the cowardly brute! Beast!--I
+hate him! But I'll pay him out. Just because he's bigger than me."
+
+"You began," said Jane incautiously.
+
+"I know I did, silly--but I was only jollying--and he kicked me--look
+here"--
+
+Robert tore down a stocking and showed a purple bruise touched up with
+red.
+
+"I only wish I was bigger than him, that's all."
+
+He dug his fingers in the sand, and sprang up, for his hand had touched
+something furry. It was the Psammead, of course--"On the look-out to
+make sillies of them as usual," as Cyril remarked later. And of course
+the next moment Robert's wish was granted, and he was bigger than the
+baker's boy. Oh, but much, much bigger! He was bigger than the big
+policeman who used to be at the crossing at the Mansion House years
+ago,--the one who was so kind in helping old ladies over the
+crossing,--and he was the biggest man _I_ have ever seen, as well as the
+kindest. No one had a foot-rule in its pocket, so Robert could not be
+measured--but he was taller than your father would be if he stood on
+your mother's head, which I am sure he would never be unkind enough to
+do. He must have been ten or eleven feet high, and as broad as a boy of
+that height ought to be. His suit had fortunately grown too, and now he
+stood up in it--with one of his enormous stockings turned down to show
+the gigantic bruise on his vast leg. Immense tears of fury still stood
+on his flushed giant face. He looked so surprised, and he was so large
+to be wearing a turned down collar outside of his jacket that the others
+could not help laughing.
+
+"The Sammyadd's done us again," said Cyril.
+
+[Illustration: "The Sammyadd's done us again," said Cyril]
+
+"Not us--_me_," said Robert. "If you'd got any decent feeling you'd try
+to make it make you the same size. You've no idea how silly it feels,"
+he added thoughtlessly.
+
+"And I don't want to; I can jolly well see how silly it looks," Cyril
+was beginning; but Anthea said--
+
+"Oh, _don't_! I don't know what's the matter with you boys to-day. Look
+here, Squirrel, let's play fair. It is hateful for poor old Bobs, all
+alone up there. Let's ask the Sammyadd for another wish, and, if it
+will, I do really think we ought all to be made the same size."
+
+The others agreed, but not gaily; but when they found the Psammead, it
+wouldn't.
+
+"Not I," it said crossly, rubbing its face with its feet. "He's a rude
+violent boy, and it'll do him good to be the wrong size for a bit. What
+did he want to come digging me out with his nasty wet hands for? He
+nearly touched me! He's a perfect savage. A boy of the Stone Age would
+have had more sense."
+
+Robert's hands had indeed been wet--with tears.
+
+"Go away and leave me in peace, do," the Psammead went on. "I can't
+think why you don't wish for something sensible--something to eat or
+drink, or good manners, or good tempers. Go along with you, do!"
+
+It almost snarled as it shook its whiskers, and turned a sulky brown
+back on them. The most hopeful felt that further parley was vain.
+
+They turned again to the colossal Robert.
+
+"What ever shall we do?" they said; and they all said it.
+
+"First," said Robert grimly, "I'm going to reason with that baker's boy.
+I shall catch him at the end of the road."
+
+"Don't hit a chap smaller than yourself, old man," said Cyril.
+
+"Do I look like hitting him?" said Robert scornfully. "Why, I should
+_kill_ him. But I'll give him something to remember. Wait till I pull up
+my stocking." He pulled up his stocking, which was as large as a small
+bolster-case, and strode off. His strides were six or seven feet long,
+so that it was quite easy for him to be at the bottom of the hill, ready
+to meet the baker's boy when he came down swinging the empty basket to
+meet his master's cart, which had been leaving bread at the cottages
+along the road.
+
+Robert crouched behind a haystack in the farmyard, that is at the
+corner, and when he heard the boy come whistling along he jumped out at
+him and caught him by the collar.
+
+"Now," he said, and his voice was about four times its usual size, just
+as his body was four times its, "I'm going to teach you to kick boys
+smaller than you."
+
+He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on the top of the haystack,
+which was about sixteen feet from the ground, and then he sat down on
+the roof of the barn and told the baker's boy exactly what he thought of
+him. I don't think the boy heard it all--he was in a sort of trance of
+terror. When Robert had said everything he could think of, and some
+things twice over, he shook the boy and said--
+
+[Illustration: He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on top of the
+haystack]
+
+"And now get down the best way you can," and left him.
+
+I don't know how the baker's boy got down, but I do know that he missed
+the cart and got into the very hottest of hot water when he turned up at
+last at the bakehouse. I am sorry for him, but after all, it was quite
+right that he should be taught that boys mustn't use their feet when
+they fight, but their fists. Of course the water he got into only became
+hotter when he tried to tell his master about the boy he had licked
+and the giant as high as a church, because no one could possibly believe
+such a tale as that. Next day the tale was believed--but that was too
+late to be of any use to the baker's boy.
+
+When Robert rejoined the others he found them in the garden. Anthea had
+thoughtfully asked Martha to let them have dinner out there--because the
+dining-room was rather small, and it would have been so awkward to have
+a brother the size of Robert in there. The Lamb, who had slept
+peacefully during the whole stormy morning, was now found to be
+sneezing, and Martha said he had a cold and would be better indoors.
+
+"And really it's just as well," said Cyril, "for I don't believe he'd
+ever have stopped screaming if he'd once seen you, the awful size you
+are!"
+
+Robert was indeed what a draper would call an "out-size" in boys. He
+found himself able to step right over the iron gate in the front
+garden.
+
+Martha brought out the dinner--it was cold veal and baked potatoes, with
+sago pudding and stewed plums to follow.
+
+She of course did not notice that Robert was anything but the usual
+size, and she gave him as much meat and potatoes as usual and no more.
+You have no idea how small your usual helping of dinner looks when you
+are many times your proper size. Robert groaned, and asked for more
+bread. But Martha would not go on giving more bread for ever. She was in
+a hurry, because the keeper intended to call on his way to Benenhurst
+Fair, and she wished to be smartly dressed before he came.
+
+"I wish _we_ were going to the Fair," said Robert.
+
+"You can't go anywhere that size," said Cyril.
+
+"Why not?" said Robert. "They have giants at fairs, much bigger ones
+than me."
+
+"Not much, they don't," Cyril was beginning, when Jane screamed "Oh!"
+with such loud suddenness that they all thumped her on the back and
+asked whether she had swallowed a plum-stone.
+
+"No," she said, breathless from being thumped, "it's--it's not a
+plum-stone. It's an idea. Let's take Robert to the Fair, and get them to
+give us money for showing him! Then we really _shall_ get something out
+of the old Sammyadd at last!"
+
+"Take me, indeed!" said Robert indignantly. "Much more likely me take
+you!"
+
+And so it turned out. The idea appealed irresistibly to everyone but
+Robert, and even he was brought round by Anthea's suggestion that he
+should have a double share of any money they might make. There was a
+little old pony-cart in the coach-house--the kind that is called a
+governess-cart. It seemed desirable to get to the Fair as quickly as
+possible, so Robert--who could now take enormous steps and so go very
+fast indeed--consented to wheel the others in this. It was as easy to
+him now as wheeling the Lamb in the mail-cart had been in the morning.
+The Lamb's cold prevented his being of the party.
+
+It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant.
+Everyone enjoyed the journey except Robert and the few people they
+passed on the way. These mostly went into what looked like some kind of
+standing-up fits by the roadside, as Anthea said. Just outside
+Benenhurst, Robert hid in a barn, and the others went on to the Fair.
+
+[Illustration: It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a
+pony-carriage by a giant]
+
+There were some swings, and a hooting-tooting blaring merry-go-round,
+and a shooting-gallery and Aunt Sallies. Resisting an impulse to win a
+cocoanut,--or at least to attempt the enterprise,--Cyril went up to the
+woman who was loading little guns before the array of glass bottles on
+strings against a sheet of canvas.
+
+"Here you are, little gentleman!" she said. "Penny a shot!"
+
+"No, thank you," said Cyril, "we are here on business, not on pleasure.
+Who's the master?"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The master--the head--the boss of the show."
+
+"Over there," she said, pointing to a stout man in a dirty linen jacket
+who was sleeping in the sun; "but I don't advise you to wake him sudden.
+His temper's contrairy, especially these hot days. Better have a shot
+while you're waiting."
+
+"It's rather important," said Cyril. "It'll be very profitable to him. I
+think he'll be sorry if we take it away."
+
+"Oh, if it's money in his pocket," said the woman. "No kid now? What is
+it?"
+
+"It's a _giant_."
+
+"You _are_ kidding?"
+
+"Come along and see," said Anthea.
+
+The woman looked doubtfully at them, then she called to a ragged little
+girl in striped stockings and a dingy white petticoat that came below
+her brown frock, and leaving her in charge of the "shooting-gallery" she
+turned to Anthea and said, "Well, hurry up! But if you _are_ kidding,
+you'd best say so. I'm as mild as milk myself, but my Bill he's a fair
+terror and"--
+
+Anthea led the way to the barn. "It really _is_ a giant," she said.
+"He's a giant little boy--in a suit like my brother's there. And we
+didn't bring him up to the Fair because people do stare so, and they
+seem to go into kind of standing-up fits when they see him. And we
+thought perhaps you'd like to show him and get pennies; and if you like
+to pay us something, you can--only, it'll have to be rather a lot,
+because we promised him he should have a double share of whatever we
+made."
+
+The woman murmured something indistinct, of which the children could
+only hear the words, "Swelp me!" "balmy," and "crumpet," which conveyed
+no definite idea to their minds.
+
+She had taken Anthea's hand, and was holding it very firmly; and Anthea
+could not help wondering what would happen if Robert should have
+wandered off or turned his proper size during the interval. But she knew
+that the Psammead's gifts really did last till sunset, however
+inconvenient their lasting might be; and she did not think, somehow,
+that Robert would care to go out alone while he was that size.
+
+When they reached the barn and Cyril called "Robert!" there was a stir
+among the loose hay, and Robert began to come out. His hand and arm came
+first--then a foot and leg. When the woman saw the hand she said "My!"
+but when she saw the foot she said "Upon my word!" and when, by slow and
+heavy degrees, the whole of Robert's enormous bulk was at last
+disclosed, she drew a long breath and began to say many things, compared
+with which "balmy" and "crumpet" seemed quite ordinary. She dropped into
+understandable English at last.
+
+"What'll you take for him?" she said excitedly. "Anything in reason.
+We'd have a special van built--leastways, I know where there's a
+second-hand one would do up handsome--what a baby elephant had, as died.
+What'll you take? He's soft, ain't he? Them giants mostly is--but I
+never see--no, never! What'll you take? Down on the nail. We'll treat
+him like a king, and give him first-rate grub and a doss fit for a
+bloomin' dook. He must be dotty or he wouldn't need you kids to cart him
+about. What'll you take for him?"
+
+"They won't take anything," said Robert sternly. "I'm no more soft than
+you are--not so much, I shouldn't wonder. I'll come and be a show for
+to-day if you'll give me,"--he hesitated at the enormous price he was
+about to ask,--"if you'll give me fifteen shillings."
+
+"Done," said the woman, so quickly that Robert felt he had been unfair
+to himself, and wished he had asked thirty. "Come on now--and see my
+Bill--and we'll fix a price for the season. I dessay you might get as
+much as two pounds a week reg'lar. Come on--and make yourself as small
+as you can for gracious' sake!"
+
+This was not very small, and a crowd gathered quickly, so that it was at
+the head of an enthusiastic procession that Robert entered the trampled
+meadow where the Fair was held, and passed over the stubby yellow dusty
+grass to the door of the biggest tent. He crept in, and the woman went
+to call her Bill. He was the big sleeping man, and he did not seem at
+all pleased at being awakened. Cyril, watching through a slit in the
+tent, saw him scowl and shake a heavy fist and a sleepy head. Then the
+woman went on speaking very fast. Cyril heard "Strewth," and "biggest
+draw you ever, so help me!" and he began to share Robert's feeling that
+fifteen shillings was indeed far too little. Bill slouched up to the
+tent and entered. When he beheld the magnificent proportions of Robert
+he said but little,--"Strike me pink!" were the only words the children
+could afterwards remember,--but he produced fifteen shillings, mainly in
+sixpences and coppers, and handed it to Robert.
+
+"We'll fix up about what you're to draw when the show's over to-night,"
+he said with hoarse heartiness. "Lor' love a duck! you'll be that happy
+with us you'll never want to leave us. Can you do a song now--or a bit
+of a breakdown?"
+
+"Not to-day," said Robert, rejecting the idea of trying to sing "As once
+in May," a favourite of his mother's, and the only song he could think
+of at the moment.
+
+"Get Levi and clear them bloomin' photos out. Clear the tent. Stick out
+a curtain or suthink," the man went on. "Lor', what a pity we ain't got
+no tights his size! But we'll have 'em before the week's out. Young man,
+your fortune's made. It's a good thing you came to me, and not to some
+chaps as I could tell you on. I've known blokes as beat their giants,
+and starved 'em too; so I'll tell you straight, you're in luck this day
+if you never was afore. 'Cos I'm a lamb, I am--and I don't deceive you."
+
+"I'm not afraid of anyone beating me," said Robert, looking down on the
+"lamb." Robert was crouched on his knees, because the tent was not big
+enough for him to stand upright in, but even in that position he could
+still look down on most people. "But I'm awfully hungry--I wish you'd
+get me something to eat."
+
+"Here, 'Becca," said the hoarse Bill. "Get him some grub--the best
+you've got, mind!" Another whisper followed, of which the children only
+heard, "Down in black and white--first thing to-morrow."
+
+Then the woman went to get the food--it was only bread and cheese when
+it came, but it was delightful to the large and empty Robert; and the
+man went to post sentinels round the tent, to give the alarm if Robert
+should attempt to escape with his fifteen shillings.
+
+"As if we weren't honest," said Anthea indignantly when the meaning of
+the sentinels dawned on her.
+
+Then began a very strange and wonderful afternoon.
+
+Bill was a man who knew his business. In a very little while, the
+photographic views, the spyglasses you look at them through so that they
+really seem rather real, and the lights you see them by, were all packed
+away. A curtain--it was an old red-and-black carpet really--was run
+across the tent. Robert was concealed behind, and Bill was standing on a
+trestle-table outside the tent making a speech. It was rather a good
+speech. It began by saying that the giant it was his privilege to
+introduce to the public that day was the eldest son of the Emperor of
+San Francisco, compelled through an unfortunate love affair with the
+Duchess of the Fiji Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in
+England--the land of liberty--where freedom was the right of every man,
+no matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first
+twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for threepence
+apiece. "After that," said Bill, "the price is riz, and I don't
+undertake to say what it won't be riz to. So now's yer time."
+
+A young man with his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the first to
+come forward. For this occasion his was the princely attitude--no
+expense spared--money no object. His girl wished to see the giant? Well,
+she should see the giant, even though seeing the giant cost threepence
+each and the other entertainments were all penny ones.
+
+The flap of the tent was raised--the couple entered. Next moment a wild
+shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill slapped his leg.
+"That's done the trick!" he whispered to 'Becca. It was indeed a
+splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert.
+
+When the young girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was
+round the tent.
+
+[Illustration: When the girl came out she was pale and trembling]
+
+"What was it like?" asked a farm-hand.
+
+"Oh!--horrid!--you wouldn't believe," she said. "It's as big as a barn,
+and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I wouldn't ha' missed
+seeing it for anything."
+
+The fierceness was only caused by Robert's trying not to laugh. But the
+desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was more inclined
+to cry than laugh, and more inclined to sleep than either. For, by ones
+and twos and threes, people kept coming in all the afternoon, and Robert
+had to shake hands with those who wished it, and to allow himself to be
+punched and pulled and patted and thumped, so that people might make
+sure he was really real.
+
+The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were very
+bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way of earning
+money that could have been invented. And only fifteen shillings! Bill
+had taken four times that already, for the news of the giant had spread,
+and trades-people in carts, and gentlepeople in carriages, came from far
+and near. One gentleman with an eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose
+in his buttonhole, offered Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a
+week to appear at the Crystal Palace. Robert had to say "No."
+
+"I can't," he said regretfully. "It's no use promising what you can't
+do."
+
+"Ah, poor fellow, bound for a term of years, I suppose! Well, here's my
+card; when your time's up come to me."
+
+[Illustration: "When your time's up come to me"]
+
+"I will--if I'm the same size then," said Robert truthfully.
+
+"If you grow a bit, so much the better," said the gentleman.
+
+When he had gone, Robert beckoned Cyril and said--
+
+"Tell them I must and will have a rest. And I want my tea."
+
+Tea was provided, and a paper hastily pinned on the tent. It said--
+
+            CLOSED FOR HALF AN HOUR
+          WHILE THE GIANT GETS HIS TEA
+
+Then there was a hurried council.
+
+"How am I to get away?" said Robert.
+
+"I've been thinking about it all the afternoon."
+
+"Why, walk out when the sun sets and you're your right size. They can't
+do anything to us."
+
+Robert opened his eyes. "Why, they'd nearly kill us," he said, "when
+they saw me get my right size. No, we must think of some other way. We
+_must_ be alone when the sun sets."
+
+"I know," said Cyril briskly, and he went to the door, outside which
+Bill was smoking a clay pipe and talking in a low voice to 'Becca.
+Cyril heard him say--"Good as havin' a fortune left you."
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, "you can let people come in again in a minute.
+He's nearly finished tea. But he _must_ be left alone when the sun sets.
+He's very queer at that time of day, and if he's worried I won't answer
+for the consequences."
+
+"Why--what comes over him?" asked Bill.
+
+"I don't know; it's--it's sort of a _change_," said Cyril candidly. "He
+isn't at all like himself--you'd hardly know him. He's very queer
+indeed. Someone'll get hurt if he's not alone about sunset." This was
+true.
+
+"He'll pull round for the evening, I s'pose?"
+
+"Oh yes--half an hour after sunset he'll be quite himself again."
+
+"Best humour him," said the woman.
+
+And so, at what Cyril judged was about half an hour before sunset, the
+tent was again closed "whilst the giant gets his supper."
+
+The crowd was very merry about the giant's meals and their coming so
+close together.
+
+"Well, he can pick a bit," Bill owned. "You see he has to eat hearty,
+being the size he is."
+
+Inside the tent the four children breathlessly arranged a plan of
+retreat.
+
+"You go _now_," said Cyril to the girls, "and get along home as fast as
+you can. Oh, never mind the pony-cart; we'll get that to-morrow. Robert
+and I are dressed the same. We'll manage somehow, like Sydney Carton
+did. Only, you girls _must_ get out, or it's all no go. We can run, but
+you can't--whatever you may think. No, Jane, it's no good Robert going
+out and knocking people down. The police would follow him till he turned
+his proper size, and then arrest him like a shot. Go you must! If you
+don't, I'll never speak to you again. It was you got us into this mess
+really, hanging round people's legs the way you did this morning. _Go_,
+I tell you!"
+
+And Jane and Anthea went.
+
+"We're going home," they said to Bill. "We're leaving the giant with
+you. Be kind to him." And that, as Anthea said afterwards, was very
+deceitful, but what were they to do?
+
+When they had gone, Cyril went to Bill.
+
+"Look here," he said, "he wants some ears of corn--there's some in the
+next field but one. I'll just run and get it. Oh, and he says can't you
+loop up the tent at the back a bit? He says he's stifling for a breath
+of air. I'll see no one peeps in at him. I'll cover him up, and he can
+take a nap while I go for the corn. He _will_ have it--there's no
+holding him when he gets like this."
+
+The giant was made comfortable with a heap of sacks and an old
+tarpaulin. The curtain was looped up, and the brothers were left alone.
+They matured their plan in whispers. Outside, the merry-go-round blared
+out its comic tunes, screaming now and then to attract public notice.
+
+Half a minute after the sun had set, a boy came out past Bill.
+
+"I'm off for the corn," he said, and mingled quickly with the crowd.
+
+At the same instant a boy came out of the back of the tent past 'Becca,
+posted there as sentinel.
+
+"I'm off after the corn," said this boy also. And he, too, moved away
+quietly and was lost in the crowd. The front-door boy was Cyril; the
+back-door was Robert--now, since sunset, once more his proper size. They
+walked quickly through the field, along the road, where Robert caught
+Cyril up. Then they ran. They were home as soon as the girls were, for
+it was a long way, and they ran most of it. It was indeed a _very_ long
+way, as they found when they had to go and drag the pony-cart home next
+morning, with no enormous Robert to wheel them in it as if it were a
+mail-cart, and they were babies and he was their gigantic nursemaid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I cannot possibly tell you what Bill and 'Becca said when they found
+that the giant had gone. For one thing, I do not know.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GROWN UP
+
+
+Cyril had once pointed out that ordinary life is full of occasions on
+which a wish would be most useful. And this thought filled his mind when
+he happened to wake early on the morning after the morning after Robert
+had wished to be bigger than the baker's boy, and had been it. The day
+that lay between these two days had been occupied entirely by getting
+the governess-cart home from Benenhurst.
+
+Cyril dressed hastily; he did not take a bath, because tin baths are so
+noisy, and he had no wish to rouse Robert, and he slipped off alone, as
+Anthea had once done, and ran through the dewy morning to the sand-pit.
+He dug up the Psammead very carefully and kindly, and began the
+conversation by asking it whether it still felt any ill effects from
+the contact with the tears of Robert the day before yesterday. The
+Psammead was in good temper. It replied politely.
+
+"And now, what can I do for you?" it said. "I suppose you've come here
+so early to ask for something for yourself--something your brothers and
+sisters aren't to know about, eh? Now, do be persuaded for your own
+good! Ask for a good fat Megatherium and have done with it."
+
+"Thank you--not to-day, I think," said Cyril cautiously. "What I really
+wanted to say was--you know how you're always wishing for things when
+you're playing at anything?"
+
+"I seldom play," said the Psammead coldly.
+
+"Well, you know what I mean," Cyril went on impatiently. "What I want to
+say is: won't you let us have our wish just when we think of it, and
+just where we happen to be? So that we don't have to come and disturb
+you again," added the crafty Cyril.
+
+"It'll only end in your wishing for something you don't really want, as
+you did about the castle," said the Psammead, stretching its brown arms
+and yawning. "It's always the same since people left off eating really
+wholesome things. However, have it your own way. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Cyril politely.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the Psammead suddenly, shooting out its long
+snail's eyes,--"I'm getting tired of you--all of you. You have no more
+sense than so many oysters. Go along with you!"
+
+And Cyril went.
+
+"What an awful long time babies _stay_ babies," said Cyril after the
+Lamb had taken his watch out of his pocket while he wasn't noticing, and
+with coos and clucks of naughty rapture had opened the case and used the
+whole thing as a garden spade, and when even immersion in a wash basin
+had failed to wash the mould from the works and make the watch go again.
+Cyril had said several things in the heat of the moment; but now he was
+calmer, and had even consented to carry the Lamb part of the way to
+the woods. Cyril had persuaded the others to agree to his plan, and not
+to wish for anything more till they really did wish it. Meantime it
+seemed good to go to the woods for nuts, and on the mossy grass under a
+sweet chestnut tree the five were sitting. The Lamb was pulling up the
+moss by fat handfuls, and Cyril was gloomily contemplating the ruins of
+his watch.
+
+[Illustration: He opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden
+spade]
+
+"He does grow," said Anthea. "Doesn't 'oo, precious?"
+
+"Me grow," said the Lamb cheerfully--"me grow big boy, have guns' an'
+mouses--an'--an'"---- Imagination or vocabulary gave out here. But
+anyway it was the longest speech the Lamb had ever made, and it charmed
+everyone, even Cyril, who tumbled the Lamb over and rolled him in the
+moss to the music of delighted squeals.
+
+"I suppose he'll be grown up some day," Anthea was saying, dreamily
+looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight
+chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling gaily with
+Cyril, thrust a stout-shod little foot against his brother's chest;
+there was a crack!--the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father's
+second-best Waterbury watch, which Cyril had borrowed without leave.
+
+"Grow up some day!" said Cyril bitterly, plumping the Lamb down on the
+grass. "I daresay he will--when nobody wants him to. I wish to goodness
+he would"--
+
+"_Oh_, take care!" cried Anthea in an agony of apprehension. But it was
+too late--like music to a song her words and Cyril's came out together--
+
+Anthea--"Oh, take care!"
+
+Cyril--"Grow up now!"
+
+The faithful Psammead was true to its promise, and there, before the
+horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters, the Lamb suddenly and
+violently grew up. It was the most terrible moment. The change was not
+so sudden as the wish-changes usually were. The Baby's face changed
+first. It grew thinner and larger, lines came in the forehead, the eyes
+grew more deep-set and darker in colour, the mouth grew longer and
+thinner; most terrible of all, a little dark mustache appeared on the
+lip of one who was still--except as to the face--a two-year-old baby in
+a linen smock and white open-work socks.
+
+"Oh, I wish it wouldn't! Oh, I wish it wouldn't! You boys might wish as
+well!"
+
+They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to dismay the most
+heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that they felt quite giddy
+and almost lost consciousness; but the wishing was quite vain, for, when
+the wood ceased to whirl round, their dazed eyes were riveted at once by
+the spectacle of a very proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw
+hat--a young man who wore the same little black mustache which just
+before they had actually seen growing upon the Baby's lip. This, then,
+was the Lamb--grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The
+grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself
+against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat over
+his eyes. He was evidently weary. He was going to sleep. The Lamb--the
+original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to sleep at odd times
+and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in the grey flannel suit and
+the pale green necktie like the other Lamb? or had his mind grown up
+together with his body?
+
+That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held among
+the yellowing brake-fern a few yards from the sleeper, debated eagerly.
+
+"Whichever it is, it'll be just as awful," said Anthea. "If his inside
+senses are grown up too, he won't stand our looking after him; and if
+he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do
+anything? And it'll be getting on for dinner-time in a minute."
+
+"And we haven't got any nuts," said Jane.
+
+"Oh bother nuts!" said Robert, "but dinner's different--I didn't have
+half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn't we tie him to the tree and go
+home to our dinner and come back afterwards?"
+
+"A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the Lamb!"
+said Cyril in scornful misery. "And it'll be just the same if we go back
+with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it's my doing; don't rub it
+in! I know I'm a beast, and not fit to live; you can take that for
+settled, and say no more about it. The question is, what are we going to
+do?"
+
+"Let's wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and get
+something to eat at a baker's shop," said Robert hopefully.
+
+"Take him?" repeated Cyril. "Yes--do! It's all my fault--I don't deny
+that--but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to
+take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he's
+grown up he's a demon--simply. I can see it. Look at his mouth."
+
+"Well then," said Robert, "let's wake him up and see what _he'll_ do.
+Perhaps _he'll_ take _us_ to Maidstone and stand treat. He ought to have
+a lot of money in the pockets of those extra-special pants. We _must_
+have dinner, anyway."
+
+They drew lots with little bits of brake fern. It fell to Jane's lot to
+waken the grown-up Lamb.
+
+She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle. He
+said "Bother the flies!" twice, and then opened his eyes.
+
+[Illustration: She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of
+honeysuckle]
+
+"Hullo, kiddies!" he said in a languid tone, "still here? What's the
+giddy hour? You'll be late for your grub!"
+
+"I know we shall," said Robert bitterly.
+
+"Then cut along home," said the grown-up Lamb.
+
+"What about your grub, though?" asked Jane.
+
+"Oh, how far is it to the station, do you think? I've a sort of a notion
+that I'll run up to town and have some lunch at the club."
+
+Blank misery fell like a pall on the four others. The
+Lamb--alone--unattended--would go to town and have lunch at a club!
+Perhaps he would also have tea there. Perhaps sunset would come upon him
+amid the dazzling luxury of club-land, and a helpless cross sleepy
+baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters, and would wail
+miserably for "Panty" from the depths of a club arm-chair! The picture
+moved Anthea almost to tears.
+
+"Oh no, Lamb ducky, you mustn't do that!" she cried incautiously.
+
+The grown-up Lamb frowned. "My dear Anthea," he said, "how often am I to
+tell you that my name is Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux?--any of my
+baptismal names are free to my little brothers and sisters, but _not_
+'Lamb'--a relic of foolishness and far-off childhood."
+
+This was awful. He was their elder brother now, was he? Well of course
+he was, if he was grown-up--since they weren't. Thus, in whispers,
+Anthea and Robert.
+
+But the almost daily adventures resulting from the Psammead's wishes
+were making the children wise beyond their years.
+
+"Dear Hilary," said Anthea, and the others choked at the name, "you know
+father didn't wish you to go to London. He wouldn't like us to be left
+alone without you to take care of us. Oh, deceitful thing that I am!"
+she added to herself.
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, "if you're our elder brother, why not behave as
+sich and take us over to Maidstone and give us a jolly good blow-out,
+and we'll go on the river afterwards?"
+
+"I'm infinitely obliged to you," said the Lamb courteously, "but I
+should prefer solitude. Go home to your lunch--I mean your dinner.
+Perhaps I may look in about tea-time--or I may not be home till after
+you are in your beds."
+
+Their beds! Speaking glances flashed between the wretched four. Much bed
+there would be for them if they went home without the Lamb.
+
+"We promised mother not to lose sight of you if we took you out," Jane
+said before the others could stop her.
+
+"Look here, Jane," said the grown-up Lamb, putting his hands in his
+pockets and looking down at her, "little girls should be seen and not
+heard. You kids must learn not to make yourselves a nuisance. Run along
+home now--and perhaps, if you're good, I'll give you each a penny
+to-morrow."
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, in the best "man to man" tone at his command,
+"where are you going, old man? You might let Bobs and me come with
+you--even if you don't want the girls."
+
+This was really rather noble of Cyril, for he never did care much about
+being seen in public with the Lamb, who of course after sunset would be
+a baby again.
+
+The "man to man" tone succeeded.
+
+"I shall run over to Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily,
+fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown--and
+perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the
+machine--now, can I? Run along home, like good children."
+
+The position was desperate. Robert exchanged a despairing look with
+Cyril. Anthea detached a pin from her waistband, a pin whose withdrawal
+left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice, and handed it furtively to
+Robert--with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning. Robert
+slipped away to the road. There, sure enough, stood a bicycle--a
+beautiful new one. Of course Robert understood at once that if the Lamb
+was grown up he _must_ have a bicycle.
+
+[Illustration: There, sure enough, stood a bicycle]
+
+This had always been one of Robert's own reasons for wishing to be
+grown-up. He hastily began to use the pin--eleven punctures in the back
+tyre, seven in the front. He would have made the total twenty-two but
+for the rustling of the yellow hazel-leaves, which warned him of the
+approach of the others. He hastily leaned a hand on each wheel, and was
+rewarded by the "whish" of the what was left of air escaping from
+eighteen neat pin-holes.
+
+"Your bike's run down," said Robert, wondering how he could so soon have
+learned to deceive.
+
+"So it is," said Cyril.
+
+"It's a puncture," said Anthea, stooping down, and standing up again
+with a thorn which she had got ready for the purpose.
+
+"Look here."
+
+The grown-up Lamb (or Hilary, as I suppose one must now call him) fixed
+his pump and blew up the tyre. The punctured state of it was soon
+evident.
+
+[Illustration: The punctured state of it was soon evident]
+
+"I suppose there's a cottage somewhere near--where one could get a pail
+of water?" said the Lamb.
+
+There was; and when the number of punctures had been made manifest, it
+was felt to be a special blessing that the cottage provided "teas for
+cyclists." It provided an odd sort of tea-and-hammy meal for the Lamb
+and his brothers. This was paid for out of the fifteen shillings which
+had been earned by Robert when he was a giant--for the Lamb, it
+appeared, had unfortunately no money about him. This was a great
+disappointment for the others; but it is a thing that will happen, even
+to the most grown-up of us. However, Robert had enough to eat, and that
+was something. Quietly but persistently the miserable four took it in
+turns to try and persuade the Lamb (or St. Maur) to spend the rest of
+the day in the woods. There was not very much of the day left by the
+time he had mended the eighteenth puncture. He looked up from the
+completed work with a sigh of relief, and suddenly put his tie straight.
+
+"There's a lady coming," he said briskly,--"for goodness' sake, get out
+of the way. Go home--hide--vanish somehow! I can't be seen with a pack
+of dirty kids." His brothers and sisters were indeed rather dirty,
+because, earlier in the day, the Lamb, in his infant state, had
+sprinkled a good deal of garden soil over them. The grown-up Lamb's
+voice was so tyrant-like, as Jane said afterwards, that they actually
+retreated to the back garden, and left him with his little mustache and
+his flannel suit to meet alone the young lady, who now came up the front
+garden wheeling a bicycle.
+
+The woman of the house came out, and the young lady spoke to her,--the
+Lamb raised his hat as she passed him,--and the children could not hear
+what she said, though they were craning round the corner and listening
+with all their ears. They felt it to be "perfectly fair," as Robert
+said, "with that wretched Lamb in that condition."
+
+When the Lamb spoke, in a languid voice heavy with politeness, they
+heard well enough.
+
+"A puncture?" he was saying. "Can I not be of any assistance? If you
+could allow me----?"
+
+There was a stifled explosion of laughter and the grown-up Lamb
+(otherwise Devereux) turned the tail of an angry eye in its direction.
+
+"You're very kind," said the lady, looking at the Lamb. She looked
+rather shy, but, as the boys put it, there didn't seem to be any
+nonsense about her.
+
+"But oh," whispered Cyril, "I should have thought he'd had enough
+bicycle-mending for one day--and if she only knew that really and truly
+he's only a whiny-piny, silly little baby!"
+
+"He's _not_," Anthea murmured angrily. "He's a dear--if people only let
+him alone. It's our own precious Lamb still, whatever silly idiots may
+turn him into--isn't he, Pussy?"
+
+Jane doubtfully supposed so.
+
+Now, the Lamb--whom I must try to remember to call St. Maur--was
+examining the lady's bicycle and talking to her with a very grown-up
+manner indeed. No one could possibly have supposed, to see and hear him,
+that only that very morning he had been a chubby child of two years
+breaking other people's Waterbury watches. Devereux (as he ought to be
+called for the future) took out a gold watch when he had mended the
+lady's bicycle, and all the hidden onlookers said "Oh!"--because it
+seemed so unfair that the Baby, who had only that morning destroyed two
+cheap but honest watches, should now, in the grown-upness to which
+Cyril's folly had raised him, have a real gold watch--with a chain and
+seals!
+
+Hilary (as I will now term him) withered his brothers and sisters with a
+glance, and then said to the lady--with whom he seemed to be quite
+friendly--
+
+"If you will allow me, I will ride with you as far as the Cross Roads;
+it is getting late, and there are tramps about."
+
+No one will ever know what answer the young lady intended to give to
+this gallant offer, for, directly Anthea heard it made, she rushed out,
+knocking against a swill pail, which overflowed in a turbid stream, and
+caught the Lamb (I suppose I ought to say Hilary) by the arm. The others
+followed, and in an instant the four dirty children were visible beyond
+disguise.
+
+"Don't let him," said Anthea to the lady, and she spoke with intense
+earnestness; "he's not fit to go with anyone!"
+
+"Go away, little girl!" said St. Maur (as we will now call him) in a
+terrible voice.
+
+"Go home at once!"
+
+"You'd much better not have anything to do with him," the now reckless
+Anthea went on. "He doesn't know who he is. He's something very
+different from what you think he is."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the lady, not unnaturally, while Devereux (as
+I must term the grown-up Lamb) tried vainly to push Anthea away. The
+others backed her up, and she stood solid as a rock.
+
+"You just let him go with you," said Anthea, "you'll soon see what I
+mean! How would you like to suddenly see a poor little helpless baby
+spinning along downhill beside you with its feet up on a bicycle it had
+lost control of?"
+
+The lady had turned rather pale.
+
+"Who are these very dirty children?" she asked the grown-up Lamb
+(sometimes called St. Maur in these pages).
+
+"I don't know," he lied miserably.
+
+"Oh, Lamb! how _can_ you?" cried Jane,--"when you know perfectly well
+you're our own little baby brother that we're so fond of. We're his big
+brothers and sisters," she explained, turning to the lady, who with
+trembling hands was now turning her bicycle towards the gate, "and we've
+got to take care of him. And we must get him home before sunset, or I
+don't know whatever will become of us. You see, he's sort of under a
+spell--enchanted--you know what I mean!"
+
+Again and again the Lamb (Devereux, I mean) had tried to stop Jane's
+eloquence, but Robert and Cyril held him, one by each leg, and no proper
+explanation was possible. The lady rode hastily away, and electrified
+her relatives at dinner by telling them of her escape from a family of
+dangerous lunatics. "The little girl's eyes were simply those of a
+maniac. I can't think how she came to be at large," she said.
+
+When her bicycle had whizzed away down the road, Cyril spoke gravely.
+
+"Hilary, old chap," he said, "you must have had a sunstroke or
+something. And the things you've been saying to that lady! Why, if we
+were to tell you the things you've said when you are yourself again,
+say to-morrow morning, you wouldn't ever understand them--let alone
+believe them! You trust to me, old chap, and come home now, and if
+you're not yourself in the morning we'll ask the milkman to ask the
+doctor to come."
+
+The poor grown-up Lamb (St. Maur was really one of his Christian names)
+seemed now too bewildered to resist.
+
+"Since you seem all to be as mad as the whole worshipful company of
+hatters," he said bitterly, "I suppose I _had_ better take you home. But
+you're not to suppose I shall pass this over. I shall have something to
+say to you all to-morrow morning."
+
+"Yes, you will, my Lamb," said Anthea under her breath, "but it won't be
+at all the sort of thing you think it's going to be."
+
+In her heart she could hear the pretty, soft little loving voice of the
+baby Lamb--so different from the affected tones of the dreadful grown-up
+Lamb (one of whose names was Devereux)--saying, "Me love Panty--wants to
+come to own Panty."
+
+"Oh, let's go home, for goodness' sake," she said. "You shall say
+whatever you like in the morning--if you can," she added in a whisper.
+
+It was a gloomy party that went home through the soft evening. During
+Anthea's remarks Robert had again made play with the pin and the bicycle
+tyre, and the Lamb (whom they had to call St. Maur or Devereux or
+Hilary) seemed really at last to have had his fill of bicycle-mending.
+So the machine was wheeled.
+
+The sun was just on the point of setting when they arrived at the White
+House. The four elder children would have liked to linger in the lane
+till the complete sunsetting turned the grown-up Lamb (whose Christian
+names I will not further weary you by repeating) into their own dear
+tiresome baby brother. But he, in his grown-upness, insisted on going
+on, and thus he was met in the front garden by Martha.
+
+Now you remember that, as a special favour, the Psammead had arranged
+that the servants in the house should never notice any change brought
+about by the wishes of the children. Therefore Martha merely saw the
+usual party, with the baby Lamb, about whom she had been desperately
+anxious all the afternoon, trotting beside Anthea, on fat baby legs,
+while the children, of course, still saw the grown-up Lamb (never mind
+what names he was christened by), and Martha rushed at him and caught
+him in her arms, exclaiming--
+
+"Come to his own Martha, then--a precious poppet!"
+
+The grown-up Lamb (whose names shall now be buried in oblivion)
+struggled furiously. An expression of intense horror and annoyance was
+seen on his face. But Martha was stronger than he. She lifted him up and
+carried him into the house. None of the children will ever forget that
+picture. The neat grey-flannel-suited grown-up young man with the green
+necktie and the little black mustache--fortunately, he was slightly
+built, and not tall--struggling in the sturdy arms of Martha, who
+bore him away helpless, imploring him, as she went, to be a good boy
+now, and come and have his nice bremmink! Fortunately, the sun set as
+they reached the doorstep, the bicycle disappeared, and Martha was seen
+to carry into the house the real live darling sleepy two-year-old Lamb.
+The grown-up Lamb (nameless henceforth) was gone for ever.
+
+[Illustration: The grown-up Lamb struggled]
+
+"For ever," said Cyril, "because, as soon as ever the Lamb's old enough
+to be bullied, we must jolly well begin to bully him, for his own
+sake--so that he mayn't grow up like _that_."
+
+"You shan't bully him," said Anthea stoutly,--"not if I can stop it."
+
+"We must tame him by kindness," said Jane.
+
+"You see," said Robert, "if he grows up in the usual way, there'll be
+plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing to-day
+was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to improve him at
+all."
+
+"He doesn't want any improving," said Anthea as the voice of the Lamb
+came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in her heart
+that afternoon--
+
+"Me loves Panty--wants to come to own Panty!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SCALPS
+
+
+Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not been
+reading _The Last of the Mohicans_. The story was running in his head at
+breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said dreamily, "I wish
+there were Red Indians in England--not big ones, you know, but little
+ones, just about the right size for us to fight."
+
+Everyone disagreed with him at the time and no one attached any
+importance to the incident. But when they went down to the sand-pit to
+ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with Queen Victoria's
+head on, to prevent mistakes--which they had always felt to be a really
+reasonable wish that must turn out well--they found out that they had
+done it again! For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy,
+said--
+
+"Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish."
+
+"I didn't know it," said Cyril.
+
+"Don't you remember yesterday?" said the Sand-fairy, still more
+disagreeably. "You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever you
+happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got it."
+
+"Oh, have we?" said Robert. "What is it?"
+
+"So you've forgotten?" said the Psammead, beginning to burrow. "Never
+mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it! A nice thing
+you've let yourselves in for!"
+
+"We always do somehow," said Jane sadly.
+
+And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having
+wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not
+stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was
+trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and
+everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was
+most agitating; they knew from what the Psammead had said, that they
+must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they
+spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till
+nearly dinner-time that Jane tumbled over _The Last of the
+Mohicans_,--which had of course, been left face downwards on the
+floor,--and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly
+said, "I know!" and sat down flat on the carpet.
+
+"Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for--Cyril--at
+breakfast, don't you remember? He said, 'I wish there were Red Indians
+in England,'--and now there are, and they're going about scalping people
+all over the country, as likely as not."
+
+"Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham," said Jane
+soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really
+hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.
+
+"Don't you believe it!" said Anthea. "The Sammyadd said we'd let
+ourselves in for a nice thing. That means they'll come _here_. And
+suppose they scalped the Lamb!"
+
+"Perhaps the scalping would come right again at sunset," said Jane; but
+she did not speak so hopefully as usual.
+
+"Not it!" said Anthea. "The things that grow out of the wishes don't go.
+Look at the fifteen shillings! Pussy, I'm going to break something, and
+you must let me have every penny of money you've got. The Indians will
+come _here_, don't you see? That Spiteful Psammead as good as said so.
+You see what my plan is? Come on!"
+
+Jane did not see at all. But she followed her sister meekly into
+mother's bedroom.
+
+Anthea lifted down the heavy water-jug--it had a pattern of storks and
+long grasses on it, which Anthea never forgot. She carried it into the
+dressing-room, and carefully emptied the water out of it into the bath.
+Then she took the jug back into the bedroom and dropped it on the floor.
+You know how a jug always breaks if you happen to drop it by accident.
+If you happen to drop it on purpose, it is quite different. Anthea
+dropped that jug three times, and it was as unbroken as ever. So at last
+she had to take her father's boot-tree and break the jug with that in
+cold blood. It was heartless work.
+
+Next she broke open the missionary-box with the poker. Jane told her
+that it was wrong, of course, but Anthea shut her lips very tight and
+then said--
+
+[Illustration: She broke open the missionary-box with the poker.]
+
+"Don't be silly--it's a matter of life and death."
+
+There was not very much in the missionary-box,--only
+seven-and-fourpence,--but the girls between them had nearly four
+shillings. This made over eleven shillings, as you will easily see.
+
+Anthea tied up the money in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. "Come
+on, Jane!" she said, and ran down to the farm. She knew that the farmer
+was going into Rochester that afternoon. In fact it had been arranged
+that he was to take the four children with him. They had planned this in
+the happy hour when they believed that they we're going to get that
+hundred pounds, in two-shilling pieces, out of the Psammead. They had
+arranged to pay the farmer two shillings each for the ride. Now Anthea
+hastily explained to him that they could not go, but would he take
+Martha and the Baby instead? He agreed, but he was not pleased to get
+only half-a-crown instead of eight shillings.
+
+Then the girls ran home again. Anthea was agitated, but not flurried.
+When she came to think it over afterwards, she could not help seeing
+that she had acted with the most far-seeing promptitude, just like a
+born general. She fetched a little box from her corner drawer, and went
+to find Martha, who was laying the cloth and not in the best of tempers.
+
+"Look here," said Anthea. "I've broken the water jug in mother's room."
+
+"Just like you--always up to some mischief," said Martha, dumping down a
+salt-cellar with a bang.
+
+"Don't be cross, Martha dear," said Anthea. "I've got enough money to
+pay for a new one--if only you'll be a dear and go and buy it for us.
+Your cousins keep a china-shop, don't they? And I would like you to get
+it to-day, in case mother comes home to-morrow. You know she said she
+might perhaps."
+
+"But you're all going into town yourselves," said Martha.
+
+"We can't afford to, if we get the new jug," said Anthea; "but we'll pay
+for you to go, if you'll take the Lamb. And I say, Martha, look
+here--I'll give you my Liberty box, if you'll go. Look, it's most
+awfully pretty--all inlaid with real silver and ivory and ebony, like
+King Solomon's temple."
+
+"I see," said Martha,--"no, I don't want your box, miss. What you want
+is to get the precious Lamb off your hands for the afternoon. Don't you
+go for to think I don't see through you!"
+
+This was so true that Anthea longed to deny it at once. Martha had no
+business to know so much. But she held her tongue.
+
+Martha set down the bread with a bang that made it jump off its
+trencher.
+
+"I _do_ want the jug got," said Anthea softly. "You _will_ go, won't
+you?"
+
+"Well, just for this once, I don't mind; but mind you don't get into
+none of your outrageous mischief while I'm gone--that's all!"
+
+"He's going earlier than he thought," said Anthea eagerly. "You'd better
+hurry and get dressed. Do put on that lovely purple frock, Martha, and
+the hat with the pink cornflowers, and the yellow-lace collar. Jane'll
+finish laying the cloth, and I'll wash the Lamb and get him ready."
+
+As she washed the unwilling Lamb and hurried him into his best clothes,
+Anthea peeped out of the window from time to time; so far all was
+well--she could see no Red Indians. When with a rush and a scurry and
+some deepening of the damask of Martha's complexion she and the Lamb had
+been got off, Anthea drew a deep breath.
+
+"_He's_ safe!" she said, and, to Jane's horror, flung herself down on
+the floor and burst into floods of tears. Jane did not understand at all
+how a person could be so brave and like a general, and then suddenly
+give way and go flat like an air-balloon when you prick it. It is better
+not to go flat, of course, but you will observe that Anthea did not give
+way till her aim was accomplished. She had got the dear Lamb out of
+danger--she felt certain that the Red Indians would be round the White
+House or nowhere--the farmer's cart would not come back till after
+sunset, so she could afford to cry a little. It was partly with joy that
+she cried, because she had done what she meant to do. She cried for
+about three minutes, while Jane hugged her miserably and said at
+five-second intervals, "Don't cry, Panther dear!"
+
+Then she jumped up, rubbed her eyes hard with the corner of her
+pinafore, so that they kept red for the rest of the day, and started to
+tell the boys. But just at that moment cook rang the dinner-bell, and
+nothing could be said till they had been helped to minced beef. Then
+cook left the room, and Anthea told her tale. But it is a mistake to
+tell a thrilling tale when people are eating minced beef and boiled
+potatoes. There seemed somehow to be something about the food that made
+the idea of Red Indians seem flat and unbelievable. The boys actually
+laughed, and called Anthea a little silly.
+
+"Why," said Cyril, "I'm almost sure it was before I said that, that Jane
+said she wished it would be a fine day."
+
+"It wasn't," said Jane briefly.
+
+"Why, if it was Indians," Cyril went on,--"salt, please, and mustard--I
+must have something to make this mush go down,--if it was Indians,
+they'd have been infesting the place long before this--you know they
+would. I believe it's the fine day."
+
+"Then why did the Sammyadd say we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing?"
+asked Anthea. She was feeling very cross. She knew she had acted with
+nobility and discretion, and after that it was very hard to be called a
+little silly, especially when she had the weight of a burglared
+missionary-box and about seven-and-fourpence, mostly in coppers, lying
+like lead upon her conscience.
+
+There was a silence, during which cook took away the mincy plates and
+brought in the pudding. As soon as she had retired, Cyril began again.
+
+"Of course I don't mean to say," he admitted, "that it wasn't a good
+thing to get Martha and the Lamb out of the way for the afternoon; but
+as for Red Indians--why, you know jolly well the wishes always come that
+very minute. If there was going to be Red Indians, they'd be here now."
+
+"I expect they are," said Anthea; "they're lurking amid the undergrowth,
+for anything you know. I do think you're most unkind."
+
+"Indians almost always _do_ lurk, really, though, don't they?" put in
+Jane, anxious for peace.
+
+"No, they don't," said Cyril tartly. "And I'm not unkind, I'm only
+truthful. And I say it was utter rot breaking the water-jug; and as for
+the missionary-box, I believe it's a treason-crime, and I shouldn't
+wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to split"--
+
+"Shut up, can't you?" said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he felt
+in his heart that if there _should_ be Indians they would be entirely
+his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And trying not to
+believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is
+as bad for the temper as anything I know.
+
+"It's simply idiotic," he said, "talking about Indians, when you can see
+for yourself that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look what a fine day it
+is----_OH!_--"
+
+He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the
+day--the others turned too--and a frozen silence caught at Cyril, and
+none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there, peering
+round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the Virginia
+creeper, was a face--a brown face, with a long nose and a tight mouth
+and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in coloured patches. It
+had long black hair, and in the hair were feathers!
+
+Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was
+growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.
+
+Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was
+broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a
+girl.
+
+"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"
+
+The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their
+portions in a _Spectator_ of the week before the week before last, they
+hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to
+reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.
+
+"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom.
+"Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."
+
+"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"
+
+No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
+windows.
+
+"Well," said Robert, "what are we to do?"
+
+"The only thing I can think of," said Anthea, who was now generally
+admitted to be the heroine of the day, "is--if we dressed up as like
+Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went out. They
+might think we were the powerful leaders of a large neighbouring tribe,
+and--and not do anything to us, you know, for fear of awful vengeance."
+
+"But Eliza, and the cook?" said Jane.
+
+"You forget--they can't notice anything," said Robert. "They wouldn't
+notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped or roasted at
+a slow fire."
+
+"But would they come right at sunset?"
+
+"Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
+noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it escaped
+your attention at the time," said Cyril. "I think Anthea's right, but we
+shall want a most awful lot of feathers."
+
+"I'll go down to the hen-house," said Robert. "There's one of the
+turkeys in there--it's not very well. I could cut its feathers without
+it minding much. It's very bad--doesn't seem to care what happens to it.
+Get me the cutting-out scissors."
+
+Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in the
+poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back--pale, but with
+many feathers.
+
+"Look here," he said, "this is jolly serious. I cut off the feathers,
+and when I turned to come out there was an Indian squinting at me from
+under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the feathers and yelled, and
+got away before he could get the coop off top of himself. Panther, get
+the coloured blankets off our beds, and look slippy, can't you?"
+
+It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourself with blankets
+and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children
+happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico
+that had been bought to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this
+into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with the
+amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck
+turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black
+hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit.
+
+"But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour.
+We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the
+colour of putty."
+
+"I'm not," said Cyril.
+
+"The real Indians outside seem to be brownish," said Robert hastily. "I
+think we ought to be really _red_--it's sort of superior to have a red
+skin, if you are one."
+
+The red ochre cook uses for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about the
+reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a saucer with
+milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor. Then they
+carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it, till they were
+quite as red as any Red Indian need be--if not redder.
+
+They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met Eliza
+in the passage, and she screamed aloud. This unsolicited testimonial
+pleased them very much. Hastily telling her not to be a goose, and that
+it was only a game, the four blanketed, feathered, really and truly
+Redskins went boldly out to meet the foe. I say boldly. That is because
+I wish to be polite. At any rate, they went.
+
+Along the hedge dividing the wilderness from the garden was a row of
+dark heads, all highly feathered.
+
+"It's our only chance," whispered Anthea. "Much better than to wait for
+their blood-freezing attack. We must pretend like mad. Like that game of
+cards where you pretend you've got aces when you haven't. Fluffing they
+call it, I think. Now then. Whoop!"
+
+With four wild war-whoops--or as near them as white children could be
+expected to go without any previous practice--they rushed through the
+gate and struck four war-like attitudes in face of the line of Red
+Indians. These were all about the same height, and that height was
+Cyril's.
+
+"I hope to goodness they can talk English," said Cyril through his
+attitude.
+
+Anthea knew they could, though she never knew how she came to know it.
+She had a white towel tied to a walking-stick. This was a flag of truce,
+and she waved it, in the hope that the Indians would know what it was.
+Apparently they did--for one who was browner than the others stepped
+forward.
+
+"Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said in excellent English. "I am Golden Eagle,
+of the mighty tribe of Rock-dwellers."
+
+[Illustration: "Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said]
+
+"And I," said Anthea, with a sudden inspiration, "am the Black
+Panther--chief of the--the--the--Mazawattee tribe. My brothers--I don't
+mean--yes, I do--the tribe--I mean the Mazawattees--are in ambush below
+the brow of yonder hill."
+
+"And what mighty warriors be these?" asked Golden Eagle, turning to the
+others.
+
+Cyril said he was the great chief Squirrel, of the Moning Congo tribe,
+and, seeing that Jane was sucking her thumb and could evidently think of
+no name for herself, he added, "This great warrior is Wild Cat--Pussy
+Ferox we call it in this land--leader of the vast Phiteezi tribe."
+
+"And thou, valorous Redskin?" Golden Eagle inquired suddenly of Robert,
+who, taken unawares, could only reply that he was Bobs--leader of the
+Cape Mounted Police.
+
+"And now," said Black Panther, "our tribes, if we just whistle them up,
+will far outnumber your puny forces; so resistance is useless. Return,
+therefore, to your land, O brother, and smoke pipes of peace in your
+wampums with your squaws and your medicine-men, and dress yourselves in
+the gayest wigwams, and eat happily of the juicy fresh-caught
+moccasins."
+
+"You've got it all wrong," murmured Cyril angrily. But Golden Eagle only
+looked inquiringly at her.
+
+"Thy customs are other than ours, O Black Panther," he said. "Bring up
+thy tribe, that we may hold pow-wow in state before them, as becomes
+great chiefs."
+
+"We'll bring them up right enough," said Anthea, "with their bows and
+arrows, and tomahawks and scalping-knives, and everything you can think
+of, if you don't look sharp and go."
+
+She spoke bravely enough, but the hearts of all the children were
+beating furiously, and their breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.
+For the little real Red Indians were closing up round them--coming
+nearer and nearer with angry murmurs--so that they were the centre of a
+crowd of dark cruel faces.
+
+"It's no go," whispered Robert. "I knew it wouldn't be. We must make a
+bolt for the Psammead. It might help us. If it doesn't--well, I suppose
+we shall come alive again at sunset. I wonder if scalping hurts as much
+as they say."
+
+"I'll wave the flag again," said Anthea. "If they stand back, we'll run
+for it."
+
+She waved the towel, and the chief commanded his followers to stand
+back. Then, charging wildly at the place where the line of Indians was
+thinnest, the four children started to run. Their first rush knocked
+down some half-dozen Indians, over whose blanketed bodies the children
+leaped, and made straight for the sand-pit. This was no time for the
+safe easy way by which carts go down--right over the edge of the
+sand-pit they went, among the yellow and pale purple flowers and dried
+grasses, past the little bank martins' little front doors, skipping,
+clinging, bounding, stumbling, sprawling, and finally rolling.
+
+Yellow Eagle and his followers came up with them just at the very spot
+where they had seen the Psammead that morning.
+
+Breathless and beaten, the wretched children now awaited their fate.
+Sharp knives and axes gleamed round them, but worse than these was the
+cruel light in the eyes of Golden Eagle and his followers.
+
+"Ye have lied to us, O Black Panther of the Mazawattees--and thou, too,
+Squirrel of the Moning Congos. These also, Pussy Ferox of the Phiteezi,
+and Bobs of the Cape Mounted Police,--these also have lied to us, if not
+with their tongues, yet by their silence. Ye have lied under the cover
+of the Truce-flag of the Pale-face. Ye have no followers. Your tribes
+are far away--following the hunting trail. What shall be their doom?" he
+concluded, turning with a bitter smile to the other Red Indians.
+
+"Build we the fire!" shouted his followers; and at once a dozen ready
+volunteers started to look for fuel. The four children, each held
+between two strong little Indians, cast despairing glances round them.
+Oh, if they could only see the Psammead!
+
+"Do you mean to scalp us first and then roast us?" asked Anthea
+desperately.
+
+"Of course!" Redskin opened his eyes at her. "It's always done."
+
+The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on the
+ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening silence.
+
+Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for
+firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been
+able to find a single stick of wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a
+matter of fact, in that part of Kent.
+
+The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan of
+terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them. Next
+moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its eyes and
+tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of the knife. It
+did not come. Next moment they were released, and fell in a trembling
+heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They only felt strangely cool!
+Wild war-whoops rang in their ears. When they ventured to open their
+eyes they saw four of their foes dancing round them with wild leaps and
+screams, and each of the four brandished in his hand a scalp of long
+flowing black hair. They put their hands to their heads--their own
+scalps were safe! The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the
+children. But they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black
+calico ringlets!
+
+[Illustration: Bright knives were being brandished all about them]
+
+The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.
+
+"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their
+ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors--without
+struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the
+conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly
+won!"
+
+"They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't," said
+Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and hands on to
+his hair.
+
+"Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we," the chant went on,--"but
+there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the flames. Yet is
+the slow fire the correct thing. O strange unnatural country, wherein a
+man may find no wood to burn his enemy!--Ah for the boundless forests of
+my native land, where the great trees for thousands of miles grow but to
+furnish firewood wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in
+our native forest once more!"
+
+Suddenly like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all round
+the four children instead of the dusky figures. For every single
+Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word. The Psammead
+must have been there all the time. And it had given the Indian chief his
+wish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long grasses on
+it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.
+
+"My cousin, she gave me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd one
+what the basin of had got smashed."
+
+"Oh, Martha, you are a dear!" sighed Anthea, throwing her arms round
+her.
+
+"Yes," giggled Martha, "you'd better make the most of me while you've
+got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she comes back."
+
+"Oh, Martha, we haven't been so _very_ horrid to you, have we?" asked
+Anthea, aghast.
+
+"Oh, it isn't that, miss." Martha giggled more than ever. "I'm a-goin'
+to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been a-proposin' to me
+off and on ever since you come home from the clergyman's where you got
+locked up on the church-tower. And to-day I said the word an' made him a
+happy man."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and
+pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was very
+glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day whether
+breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging matter!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)
+
+THE LAST WISH
+
+
+Of course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last)
+chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be
+the last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of
+getting anything out of the Psammead, or Sand-fairy.
+
+But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy
+visions, and, whereas on the other days they had often found it
+extremely difficult to think of anything really nice to wish for, their
+brains were now full of the most beautiful and sensible ideas. "This,"
+as Jane remarked afterwards, "is always the way." Everyone was up extra
+early that morning, and these plans were hopefully discussed in the
+garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred pounds in modern
+florins was still first favourite, but there were others that ran it
+close--the chief of these being the "pony-each" idea. This had a great
+advantage. You could wish for a pony each during the morning, ride it
+all day, have it vanish at sunset, and wish it back again next day.
+Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at breakfast two
+things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was
+better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A
+cheer arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the
+before-breakfast wish-ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the
+wish of the day must be something to please mother and not to please
+themselves.
+
+"I wonder what she _would_ like," pondered Cyril.
+
+"She'd like us all to be good," said Jane primly.
+
+"Yes--but that's so dull for us," Cyril rejoined; "and besides, I should
+hope we could be that without sand-fairies to help us. No; it must be
+something splendid, that we couldn't possibly get without wishing for."
+
+"Look out," said Anthea in a warning voice; "don't forget yesterday.
+Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen to be when we
+say 'I wish.' Don't let's let ourselves in for anything silly--to-day of
+all days."
+
+"All right," said Cyril. "You needn't talk so much."
+
+Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the
+tea-pot--and a face full of importance for the children.
+
+"A blessing we're all alive to eat our breakfast!" she said darkly.
+
+"Why, whatever's happened?" everybody asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Martha, "only it seems nobody's safe from being
+murdered in their beds nowadays."
+
+"Why," said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and
+legs and out at her toes, "_has_ anyone been murdered in their beds?"
+
+"Well--not exactly," said Martha; "but they might just as well. There's
+been burglars over at Peasemarsh Place--Beale's just told me--and
+they've took every single one of Lady Chittenden's diamonds and jewels
+and things, and she's a-goin out of one fainting fit into another, with
+hardly time to say 'Oh, my diamonds!' in between. And Lord Chittenden's
+away in London."
+
+"Lady Chittenden," said Anthea; "we've seen her. She wears a
+red-and-white dress, and she has no children of her own and can't abide
+other folkses'."
+
+"That's her," said Martha. "Well, she's put all her trust in riches, and
+you see how she's served. They say the diamonds and things was worth
+thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river--whatever that
+is--and no end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But
+there, I mustn't stand talking and all the place to clean down afore
+your ma comes home."
+
+"I don't see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said
+Anthea when Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I
+thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels--the
+topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were
+engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with
+great-grandpapa's hair in it,--that's about all."
+
+"When I'm grown up I'll buy mother no end of diamonds," said Robert, "if
+she wants them. I shall make so much money exploring in Africa I shan't
+know what to do with it."
+
+"Wouldn't it be jolly," said Jane dreamily, "if mother could find all
+these lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?"
+
+"_Ti--aras_," said Cyril.
+
+"Ti--aras, then,--and rings and everything in her room when she came
+home. I wish she would"--
+
+The others gazed at her in horror.
+
+"Well, she _will_," said Robert; "you've wished, my good Jane--and our
+only chance now is to find the Psammead, and if it's in a good temper
+it _may_ take back the wish and give us another. If not--well--goodness
+knows what we're in for!--the police of course, and---- Don't cry,
+silly! We'll stand by you. Father says we need never to be afraid if we
+don't do anything wrong and always speak the truth."
+
+But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how
+convincing the truth about the Psammead had been once before when told
+to the police.
+
+It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found.
+Nor the jewels, though every one of the children searched the mother's
+room again and again.
+
+"Of course," Robert said, "_we_ couldn't find them. It'll be mother
+who'll do that. Perhaps she'll think they've been in the house for years
+and years, and never know they are the stolen ones at all."
+
+"Oh yes!" Cyril was very scornful; "then mother will be a receiver of
+stolen goods, and you know jolly well what _that's_ worse than."
+
+Another and exhaustive search of the sand-pit failed to reveal the
+Psammead, so the children went back to the house slowly and sadly.
+
+"I don't care," said Anthea stoutly, "we'll tell mother the truth, and
+she'll give back the jewels--and make everything all right."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Cyril slowly. "Do you think she'll believe us?
+Could anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they'd seen it? She'll
+think we're pretending. Or else she'll think we're raving mad, and then
+we shall be sent to the mad-house. How would you like it?"--he turned
+suddenly on the miserable Jane,--"how would you like it, to be shut up
+in an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick
+straws in your hair all day, and listen to the howlings and ravings of
+the other maniacs? Make up your minds to it, all of you. It's no use
+telling mother."
+
+"But it's true," said Jane.
+
+"Of course it is, but it's not true enough for grown-up people to
+believe it," said Anthea.
+
+"Cyril's right. Let's put flowers in all the vases, and try not to think
+about the diamonds. After all, everything has come right in the end all
+the other times."
+
+So they filled all the pots they could find with flowers--asters and
+zinnias, and loose-leaved late red roses from the wall of the
+stableyard, till the house was a perfect bower.
+
+And almost as soon as dinner was cleared away mother arrived, and was
+clasped in eight loving arms. It was very difficult indeed not to tell
+her all about the Psammead at once, because they had got into the habit
+of telling her everything. But they did succeed in not telling her.
+
+[Illustration: She was clasped in eight loving arms]
+
+Mother, on her side, had plenty to tell them--about Granny, and Granny's
+pigeons, and Auntie Emma's lame tame donkey. She was very delighted with
+the flowery-boweryness of the house; and everything seemed so natural
+and pleasant, now that she was home again, that the children almost
+thought they must have dreamed the Psammead.
+
+But, when mother moved towards the stairs to go up to her bedroom and
+take off her bonnet, the eight arms clung round her just as if she only
+had two children, one the Lamb and the other an octopus.
+
+"Don't go up, mummy darling," said Anthea; "let me take your things up
+for you."
+
+"Or I will," said Cyril.
+
+"We want you to come and look at the rose-tree," said Robert.
+
+"Oh, don't go up!" said Jane helplessly.
+
+"Nonsense, dears," said mother briskly, "I'm not such an old woman yet
+that I can't take my bonnet off in the proper place. Besides I must wash
+these black hands of mine."
+
+So up she went, and the children, following her, exchanged glances of
+gloomy foreboding.
+
+Mother took off her bonnet,--it was a very pretty hat, really, with
+white roses in it,--and when she had taken it off she went to the
+dressing-table to do her pretty hair.
+
+On the table between the ring-stand and the pin-cushion lay a green
+leather case. Mother opened it.
+
+"Oh, how lovely!" she cried. It was a ring, a large pearl with shining
+many-lighted diamonds set round it. "Wherever did this come from?"
+mother asked, trying it on her wedding finger, which it fitted
+beautifully. "However did it come here?"
+
+"I don't know," said each of the children truthfully.
+
+"Father must have told Martha to put it here," mother said. "I'll run
+down and ask her."
+
+"Let me look at it," said Anthea, who knew Martha would not be able to
+see the ring. But when Martha was asked, of course she denied putting
+the ring there, and so did Eliza and cook.
+
+Mother came back to her bedroom, very much interested and pleased about
+the ring. But, when she opened the dressing-table drawer and found a
+long case containing an almost priceless diamond necklace, she was more
+interested still, though not so pleased. In the wardrobe, when she went
+to put away her "bonnet," she found a tiara and several brooches, and
+the rest of the jewellery turned up in various parts of the room during
+the next half-hour. The children looked more and more uncomfortable, and
+now Jane began to sniff.
+
+Mother looked at her gravely.
+
+"Jane," she said, "I am sure you know something about this. Now think
+before you speak, and tell me the truth."
+
+"We found a Fairy," said Jane obediently.
+
+[Illustration: "We found a Fairy," said Jane obediently]
+
+"No nonsense, please," said her mother sharply.
+
+"Don't be silly, Jane," Cyril interrupted. Then he went on desperately.
+"Look here, mother, we've never seen the things before, but Lady
+Chittenden at Peasmarsh Place lost all her jewellery by wicked burglars
+last night. Could this possibly be it?"
+
+All drew a deep breath. They were saved.
+
+"But how could they have put it here? And why should they?" asked
+mother, not unreasonably. "Surely it would have been easier and safer to
+make off with it?"
+
+"Suppose," said Cyril, "they thought it better to wait for--for
+sunset--nightfall, I mean, before they went off with it. No one but us
+knew that you were coming back to-day."
+
+"I must send for the police at once," said mother distractedly. "Oh, how
+I wish daddy were here!"
+
+"Wouldn't it be better to wait till he _does_ come?" asked Robert,
+knowing that his father would not be home before sunset.
+
+"No, no; I can't wait a minute with all this on my mind," cried mother.
+"All this" was the heap of jewel-cases on the bed. They put them all in
+the wardrobe, and mother locked it. Then mother called Martha.
+
+"Martha," she said, "has any stranger been into my room since I've been
+away? Now, answer me truthfully."
+
+"No, mum," answered Martha; "leastways, what I mean to say"--
+
+She stopped.
+
+"Come," said her mistress kindly, "I see someone has. You must tell me
+at once. Don't be frightened. I'm sure _you_ haven't done anything
+wrong."
+
+Martha burst into heavy sobs.
+
+"I was a-goin' to give you warning this very day, mum, to leave at the
+end of my month, so I was,--on account of me being going to make a
+respectable young man happy. A gamekeeper he is by trade, mum--and I
+wouldn't deceive you--of the name of Beale. And it's as true as I stand
+here, it was your coming home in such a hurry, and no warning given, out
+of the kindness of his heart it was, as he says, 'Martha, my beauty,' he
+says,--which I ain't, and never was, but you know how them men will go
+on,--'I can't see you a-toiling and a-moiling and not lend a 'elping
+'and; which mine is a strong arm, and it's yours Martha, my dear,' says
+he. And so he helped me a-cleanin' of the windows--but outside, mum, the
+whole time, and me in; if I never say another breathing word it's gospel
+truth."
+
+"Were you with him the whole time?" asked her mistress.
+
+"Him outside and me in, I was," said Martha; "except for fetching up a
+fresh pail and the leather that that slut of a Eliza'd hidden away
+behind the mangle."
+
+"That will do," said the children's mother. "I am not pleased with you,
+Martha, but you have spoken the truth, and that counts for something."
+
+When Martha had gone, the children clung round their mother.
+
+"Oh, mummy darling," cried Anthea, "it isn't Beale's fault, it isn't
+really! He's a great dear; he is, truly and honourably, and as honest as
+the day. Don't let the police take him, mummy! Oh, don't, don't, don't!"
+
+It was truly awful. Here was an innocent man accused of robbery through
+that silly wish of Jane's, and it was absolutely useless to tell the
+truth. All longed to, but they thought of the straws in the hair and the
+shrieks of the other frantic maniacs, and they could not do it.
+
+"Is there a cart hereabouts?" asked the mother feverishly. "A trap of
+any sort? I must drive in to Rochester and tell the police at once."
+
+All the children sobbed, "There's a cart at the farm, but, oh, don't
+go!--don't go!--oh, don't go!--wait till daddy comes home!"
+
+Mother took not the faintest notice. When she had set her mind on a
+thing she always went straight through with it; she was rather like
+Anthea in this respect.
+
+"Look here, Cyril," she said, sticking on her hat with long sharp
+violet-headed pins, "I leave you in charge. Stay in the dressing-room.
+You can pretend to be swimming boats in the bath, or something. Say I
+gave you leave. But stay there, with the door on the landing open; I've
+locked the other. And don't let anyone go into my room. Remember, no one
+knows the jewels are there except me, and all of you, and the wicked
+thieves who put them there. Robert, you stay in the garden and watch the
+windows. If anyone tries to get in you must run and tell the two farm
+men that I'll send up to wait in the kitchen. I'll tell them there are
+dangerous characters about--that's true enough. Now remember, I trust
+you both. But I don't think they'll try it till after dark, so you're
+quite safe. Good-bye, darlings."
+
+And she locked her bedroom door and went off with the key in her pocket.
+
+The children could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in
+which she had acted. They thought how useful she would have been in
+organising escape from some of the tight places in which they had found
+themselves of late in consequence of their ill-timed wishes.
+
+"She's a born general," said Cyril,--"but _I_ don't know what's going to
+happen to us. Even if the girls were to hunt for that old Sammyadd and
+find it, and get it to take the jewels away again, mother would only
+think we hadn't looked out properly and let the burglars sneak in and
+get them--or else the police will think _we've_ got them--or else that
+she's been fooling them. Oh, it's a pretty decent average ghastly mess
+this time, and no mistake!"
+
+He savagely made a paper boat and began to float it in the bath, as he
+had been told to do.
+
+Robert went into the garden and sat down on the worn yellow grass, with
+his miserable head between his helpless hands.
+
+Anthea and Jane whispered together in the passage downstairs, where the
+cocoanut matting was--with the hole in it that you always caught your
+foot in if you were not careful. Martha's voice could be heard in the
+kitchen,--grumbling loud and long.
+
+"It's simply quite too dreadfully awful," said Anthea. "How do you know
+all the diamonds are there, too? If they aren't, the police will think
+mother and father have got them, and that they've only given up some of
+them for a kind of desperate blind. And they'll be put in prison, and we
+shall be branded outcasts, the children of felons. And it won't be at
+all nice for father and mother either," she added, by a candid
+after-thought.
+
+"But what can we _do_?" asked Jane.
+
+"Nothing--at least we might look for the Psammead again. It's a very,
+_very_ hot day. He may have come out to warm that whisker of his."
+
+"He won't give us any more beastly wishes to-day," said Jane flatly. "He
+gets crosser and crosser every time we see him. I believe he hates
+having to give wishes."
+
+Anthea had been shaking her head gloomily--now she stopped shaking it so
+suddenly that it really looked as though she were pricking up her ears.
+
+"What is it?" asked Jane. "Oh, have you thought of something?"
+
+"Our one chance," cried Anthea dramatically; "the last lone-lorn forlorn
+hope. Come on."
+
+At a brisk trot she led the way to the sand-pit. Oh, joy!--there was the
+Psammead, basking in a golden sandy hollow and preening its whiskers
+happily in the glowing afternoon sun. The moment it saw them it whisked
+round and began to burrow--it evidently preferred its own company to
+theirs. But Anthea was too quick for it. She caught it by its furry
+shoulders gently but firmly, and held it.
+
+"Here--none of that!" said the Psammead. "Leave go of me, will you?"
+
+But Anthea held him fast.
+
+"Dear kind darling Sammyadd," she said breathlessly.
+
+"Oh yes--it's all very well," it said; "you want another wish, I expect.
+But I can't keep on slaving from morning till night giving people their
+wishes. I must have _some_ time to myself."
+
+"Do you hate giving wishes?" asked Anthea gently, and her voice trembled
+with excitement.
+
+"Of course I do," it said. "Leave go of me or I'll bite!--I really
+will--I mean it. Oh, well, if you choose to risk it."
+
+Anthea risked it and held on.
+
+"Look here," she said, "don't bite me--listen to reason. If you'll only
+do what we want to-day, we'll never ask you for another wish as long as
+we live."
+
+The Psammead was much moved.
+
+"I'd do anything," it said in a tearful voice. "I'd almost burst myself
+to give you one wish after another, as long as I held out, if you'd only
+never, never ask me to do it after to-day. If you knew how I hate to
+blow myself out with other people's wishes, and how frightened I am
+always that I shall strain a muscle or something. And then to wake up
+every morning and know you've _got_ to do it. You don't know what it
+is--you don't know what it is, you don't!" Its voice cracked with
+emotion, and the last "don't" was a squeak.
+
+Anthea set it down gently on the sand.
+
+"It's all over now," she said soothingly. "We promise faithfully never
+to ask for another wish after to-day."
+
+"Well, go ahead," said the Psammead; "let's get it over."
+
+"How many can you do?"
+
+"I don't know--as long as I can hold out."
+
+"Well, first, I wish Lady Chittenden may find she's never lost her
+jewels."
+
+The Psammead blew itself out, collapsed, and said, "Done."
+
+"I wish," said Anthea more slowly, "mother mayn't get to the police."
+
+"Done," said the creature after the proper interval.
+
+"I wish," said Jane suddenly, "mother could forget all about the
+diamonds."
+
+"Done," said the Psammead; but its voice was weaker.
+
+"Would you like to rest a little?" asked Anthea considerately.
+
+"Yes, please," said the Psammead; "and, before we go any further, will
+you wish something for me?"
+
+"Can't you do wishes for yourself?"
+
+"Of course not," it said; "we were always expected to give each other
+our wishes--not that we had any to speak of in the good old Megatherium
+days. Just wish, will you, that you may never be able, any of you, to
+tell anyone a word about _Me_."
+
+"Why?" asked Jane.
+
+"Why, don't you see, if you told grown-ups I should have no peace of my
+life. They'd get hold of me, and they wouldn't wish silly things like
+you do, but real earnest things; and the scientific people would hit on
+some way of making things last after sunset, as likely as not; and
+they'd ask for a graduated income-tax, and old-age pensions, and manhood
+suffrage, and free secondary education, and dull things like that; and
+get them, and keep them, and the whole world would be turned
+topsy-turvy. Do wish it! Quick!"
+
+Anthea repeated the Psammead's wish, and it blew itself out to a larger
+size than they had yet seen it attain.
+
+"And now," it said as it collapsed, "can I do anything more for you?"
+
+"Just one thing; and I think that clears everything up, doesn't it,
+Jane? I wish Martha to forget about the diamond ring, and mother to
+forget about the keeper cleaning the windows."
+
+"It's like the 'Brass Bottle,'" said Jane.
+
+"Yes, I'm glad we read that or I should never have thought of it."
+
+"Now," said the Psammead faintly, "I'm almost worn out. Is there
+anything else?"
+
+"No; only thank you kindly for all you've done for us, and I hope you'll
+have a good long sleep, and I hope we shall see you again some day."
+
+"Is that a wish?" it said in a weak voice.
+
+"Yes, please," said the two girls together.
+
+[Illustration: It burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the
+last]
+
+Then for the last time in this story they saw the Psammead blow itself
+out and collapse suddenly. It nodded to them, blinked its long snail's
+eyes, burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last, and
+the sand closed over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I hope we've done right?" said Jane.
+
+"I'm sure we have," said Anthea. "Come on home and tell the boys."
+
+Anthea found Cyril glooming over his paper boats, and told him. Jane
+told Robert. The two tales were only just ended when mother walked in,
+hot and dusty. She explained that as she was being driven into Rochester
+to buy the girls' autumn school-dresses the axle had broken, and but for
+the narrowness of the lane and the high soft hedges she would have been
+thrown out. As it was, she was not hurt, but she had had to walk home.
+"And oh, my dearest dear chicks," she said, "I am simply dying for a cup
+of tea! Do run and see if the water boils!"
+
+"So you see it's all right," Jane whispered. "She doesn't remember."
+
+"No more does Martha," said Anthea, who had been to ask after the state
+of the kettle.
+
+As the servants sat at their tea, Beale the gamekeeper dropped in. He
+brought the welcome news that Lady Chittenden's diamonds had not been
+lost at all. Lord Chittenden had taken them to be re-set and cleaned,
+and the maid who knew about it had gone for a holiday. So that was all
+right.
+
+"I wonder if we ever shall see the Psammead again," said Jane wistfully
+as they walked in the garden, while mother was putting the Lamb to bed.
+
+"I'm sure we shall," said Cyril, "if you really wished it."
+
+"We've promised never to ask it for another wish," said Anthea.
+
+"I never want to," said Robert earnestly.
+
+They did see it again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not
+in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was
+in a---- But I must say no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Varied hyphenation retained where a majority could not be found.
+Exceptions noted.
+
+Page 60, "Peasemarch" changed to "Peasemarsh" to conform to rest of
+text. "Billy Peasemarsh."
+
+Page 111, "hasily" changed to "hastily" in "Jane hastily finished".
+
+Page 116, extraneous " removed. "better. What"
+
+Page 179, Quotation mark added. "...Anthea said. "It's creepy..."
+
+Page 193, "gatehouse" changed to "gate-house" to conform to rest of
+text, "in the gate-house."
+
+Page 290, "Peasmarsh" changed to "Peasemarsh" in "at Peasemarsh Place",
+also on page 297, "Peasemarsh Place".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
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+<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
+  <head>
+    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1" />
+    <title>
+      The Project Gutenberg eBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit.
+    </title>
+    <style type="text/css">
+/*<![CDATA[  XML blockout */
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+<pre>
+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Five Children and It
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Illustrator: H.R. Millar
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17314]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE CHILDREN AND IT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress)
+
+
+
+
+
+Character set for HTML: ISO-8859-1
+
+
+</pre>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iii" id="Page_iii">[Pg iii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_iv" id="Page_iv">[Pg iv]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<h1>FIVE CHILDREN</h1>
+
+<h1>AND IT</h1>
+
+<h3>BY</h3>
+
+<h2>E. NESBIT</h2>
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Author of "The Treasure-seekers,"</span><br />
+<span class="smcap">"The Would-be-goods," etc.</span><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="center"><i>ILLUSTRATED</i><br /><br /></div>
+
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 81px;">
+<img src="images/emblem.png" width="81" height="100" alt="Emblem" title="Emblem" />
+</div>
+
+
+<div class="center"><br /><br />NEW YORK<br />
+DODD, MEAD &amp; COMPANY</div>
+
+<div class="center">1905
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_v" id="Page_v">[Pg v]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class="center"><span class="smcap">Copyright, 1905, by<br />
+Dodd, Mead and Company</span></div>
+
+<div class="center"><i>Published October, 1905</i>
+</div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vi" id="Page_vi">[Pg vi]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 353px;"><a name="front" id="front"></a>
+<img src="images/01.png" width="353" height="400" alt="The Psammead" title="The Psammead" />
+<span class="caption">The Psammead</span>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+
+<div class='center'>
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><i>TO</i></span><br />
+<br />
+<span style="margin-left: 5em;"><big>JOHN BLAND</big></span>
+<br />
+<br /></div>
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="My Lamb">
+<tr><td align='left'><i>My Lamb, you are so very small,<br />
+You have not learned to read at all;<br />
+Yet never a printed book withstands<br />
+The urgence of your dimpled hands.<br />
+So, though this book is for yourself,<br />
+Let mother keep it on the shelf<br />
+Till you can read. O days that pass,<br />
+That day will come too soon, alas!</i><br /></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_vii" id="Page_vii">[Pg vii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>NOTE</h2>
+
+
+<div class='center'>Parts of this story have appeared in<br />the <i>Strand Magazine</i> under the
+title of<br /><br />
+
+
+"THE PSAMMEAD."<br /></div>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" /><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_viii" id="Page_viii">[Pg viii]</a></span></p>
+<h2>CONTENTS</h2>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Contents">
+<tr><td align='left'>CHAPTER</td><td align='left'></td><td align='left'>PAGE</td></tr>
+<tr><td align='right'>I&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Beautiful as the Day</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>II&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Golden Guineas</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_36'>36</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>III&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Being Wanted</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_70'>70</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IV&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Wings</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_108'>108</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>V&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">No Wings</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_141'>141</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VI&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Castle and No Dinner</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_159'>159</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VII&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">A Siege and Bed</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_183'>183</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>VIII&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Bigger than the Baker's Boy</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_203'>203</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>IX&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Grown Up</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_236'>236</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>X&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">Scalps</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_261'>261</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='right'>XI&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;</td>
+<td align='left'><span class="smcap">The Last Wish</span></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#Page_287'>287</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_ix" id="Page_ix">[Pg ix]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_x" id="Page_x">[Pg x]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>ILLUSTRATIONS</h2>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xi" id="Page_xi">[Pg xi]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xii" id="Page_xii">[Pg xii]</a></span></p>
+
+
+<div class='center'>
+<table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="0" summary="Illustrations">
+<tr><td align='left'>The Psammead</td>
+<td align='left'></td><td align='left'></td>
+<td align='left'><a href='#front'><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden</td>
+<td align='left'><i>Facing</i></td>
+<td align='left'><i>page</i></td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#first'>2</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#cyril'>4</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!"</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#anthea'>12</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Baby Did Not Know Them!</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#baby'>28</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#martha'>32</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#rain'>36</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#staggered'>50</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in His Pocket</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#beale'>58</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#run'>64</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#now'>66</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel Pit</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#lucky'>78</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#poof'>86</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the Lamb's Brothers and Sisters</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#double'>88</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#next'>90</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Snatched the Baby from Anthea</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#snatched'>94</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#consented'>98</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#sand'>122</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>They Flew Over Rochester</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#flew'>126</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and Heavily</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#farmer'>128</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#every'>132</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>These Were the Necessaries of Life</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#these'>134</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Children Were Fast Asleep</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#children'>138</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the Keyhole</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#keeper'>150</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#castle'>164</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Robert Was Dragged Forthwith&mdash;by the Reluctant Ear</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#robert'>166</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Wiped Away a Manly Tear</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#wiped'>168</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"Oh, Do, Do, Do, <i>Do</i>!" Said Robert</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#do'>174</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#man'>196</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#tilted'>198</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Pulled Robert's Hair</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#pulled'>210</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#done'>214</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of the Haystack</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#lifted'>216</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a Pony-carriage by a Giant</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#strange'>220</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#when'>228</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"When Your Time's Up Come to Me"</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#time'>230</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a Garden Spade</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#opened'>238</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of Honeysuckle</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#did'>244</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#sure'>248</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#punctured'>250</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>The Grown-up Lamb Struggled</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#grown'>258</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#broke'>266</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#ye'>278</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#bright'>284</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#clasped'>294</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>"We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#found'>298</a></td></tr>
+
+<tr><td align='left'>It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely to the Last</td>
+<td align='center'>"</td><td align='center'>"</td>
+<td align='right'><a href='#it'>308</a></td></tr>
+</table></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_xiii" id="Page_xiii">[Pg xiii]</a></span></p>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_1" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER I</h2>
+
+<h3>BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY</h3>
+
+
+<p>The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired
+hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
+heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
+every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
+"Oh, <i>is</i> this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
+the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
+gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
+orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"</p>
+
+<p>"How white the house is," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"And look at the roses," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"And the plums," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.</p>
+
+<p>The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
+and jolt.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_2" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
+get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
+Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
+had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
+seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
+instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
+orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
+broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
+children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
+it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
+and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
+a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
+roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
+deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
+been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
+seaside even for a day by an excursion <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_3" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</a></span>train, and so the White House
+seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
+For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
+are not rich.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="first" id="first"></a>
+<img src="images/02.png" width="400" height="385" alt="That first glorious rush round the garden" title="That first glorious rush round the garden" />
+<span class="caption">That first glorious rush round the garden</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
+things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
+theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
+of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
+things or themselves&mdash;such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
+nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape&mdash;all straight
+lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
+things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
+am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
+blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
+don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
+children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
+know what is the matter with them, and no more <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_4" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</a></span>do their fathers and
+mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
+know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
+too, but that is for quite different reasons.</p>
+
+<p>The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
+before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
+that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
+from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
+with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
+most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
+when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
+from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found
+the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were
+almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled
+out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had
+nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep
+rab<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_5" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</a></span>bits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts
+whatever.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 330px;"><a name="cyril" id="cyril"></a>
+<img src="images/03.png" width="330" height="400" alt="Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch" title="Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch" />
+<span class="caption">Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to
+places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled
+"You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad,
+because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.</p>
+
+<p>The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it&mdash;and
+the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at
+the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white
+buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other
+houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting,
+the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the
+limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were
+like an enchanted city out of the <i>Arabian Nights</i>.</p>
+
+<p>Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could
+go on and make <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_6" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</a></span>this into a most interesting story about all the
+ordinary things that the children did,&mdash;just the kind of things you do
+yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I
+told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your
+aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How
+true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be
+annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that
+happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts
+and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the
+story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
+wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children
+will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they
+tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see
+perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the
+earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the
+sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_7" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</a></span>night like a good sun as
+it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet
+I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so
+you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and
+the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At
+least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and
+of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever
+saw or heard of or read about.</p>
+
+<p>It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business,
+and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well.
+They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house
+seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one
+room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors
+left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had
+something to do. It was Cyril who said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I say, let's take our spades and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend
+it's seaside."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_8" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Father says it was once," Anthea said; "he says there are shells there
+thousands of years old."</p>
+
+<p>So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and
+looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should
+say they mustn't play there, and it was the same with the chalk-quarry.
+The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don't try to climb down
+the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a
+cart.</p>
+
+<p>Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
+carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because "Baa"
+was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea "Panther," which
+seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little
+like her name.</p>
+
+<p>The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
+edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is
+like a giant's washbowl. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in
+the sides <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_9" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</a></span>of the bowl where gravel has been taken out, and high up in
+the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front
+doors of the little bank-martins' little houses.</p>
+
+<p>The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather
+poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to
+fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last,
+to wet everybody up to the waist at least.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
+thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to
+work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you
+see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the
+little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like
+flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.</p>
+
+<p>The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy
+and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried
+to eat the sand, and had cried <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_10" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</a></span>so hard when he found that it was not,
+as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was
+lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished
+castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and
+the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane,
+who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly," said she, "and you
+tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in
+their eyes."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Robert; "and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and
+not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or bluegums, or Emu Brand
+birds, or anything."</p>
+
+<p>Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that,
+but they agreed to stop using the spades and to go on with their hands.
+This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very
+soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
+it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_11" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
+Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."</p>
+
+<p>"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
+gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.</p>
+
+<p>"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.</p>
+
+<p>"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
+sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
+off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
+and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
+little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
+bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
+hole."</p>
+
+<p>The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
+finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
+disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_12" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
+wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
+handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
+makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
+suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly
+screamed&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick&mdash;It's alive! It'll get away! Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>They all hurried back.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder," said Robert. "Father says they infest
+old places&mdash;and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of
+years ago"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps it is a snake," said Jane, shuddering.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's look," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I'm not afraid of
+snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow
+me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at night."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you won't," said Robert firmly. He <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_13" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</a></span>shared Cyril's bedroom. "But
+you may if it's a rat."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 355px;"><a name="anthea" id="anthea"></a>
+<img src="images/04.png" width="355" height="400" alt="Anthea suddenly screamed, &quot;It&#39;s alive!&quot;" title="Anthea suddenly screamed, &quot;It&#39;s alive!&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">Anthea suddenly screamed, &quot;It&#39;s alive!&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't be silly!" said Anthea; "it's not a rat, it's <i>much</i> bigger.
+And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur! No&mdash;not the
+spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands."</p>
+
+<p>"And let <i>it</i> hurt <i>me</i> instead! That's so likely, isn't it?" said
+Cyril, seizing a spade.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't!" said Anthea. "Squirrel, <i>don't</i>. I&mdash;it sounds silly, but it
+said something. It really and truly did"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What?"</p>
+
+<p>"It said, 'You let me alone.'"</p>
+
+<p>But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head,
+and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the
+hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully,
+and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving
+in the bottom of the Australian hole.</p>
+
+<p>Then Anthea cried out, "<i>I'm</i> not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her
+knees and began <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_14" id="Page_14">[Pg 14]</a></span>to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
+remembered where it was that he buried his bone.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I felt fur," she cried, half laughing and half crying. "I did
+indeed! I did!" when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them
+all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me alone," it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at
+the others to see if they had heard it too.</p>
+
+<p>"But we want to see you," said Robert bravely.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish you'd come out," said Anthea, also taking courage.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, well&mdash;if that's your wish," the voice said, and the sand stirred
+and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came
+rolling out into the hole, and the sand fell off it, and it sat there
+yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.</p>
+
+<p>"I believe I must have dropped asleep," it said, stretching itself.</p>
+
+<p>The children stood round the hole in a ring, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_15" id="Page_15">[Pg 15]</a></span>looking at the creature
+they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns
+like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes;
+it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a
+spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry
+too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.</p>
+
+<p>"What on earth is it?" Jane said. "Shall we take it home?"</p>
+
+<p>The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Does she always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head
+that makes her silly?"</p>
+
+<p>It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"She doesn't mean to be silly," Anthea said gently; "we none of us do,
+whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to hurt you,
+you know."</p>
+
+<p>"Hurt <i>me</i>!" it said. "<i>Me</i> frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk as
+if I were nobody in particular." All its fur stood out like a cat's when
+it is going to fight.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Anthea, still kindly, "perhaps <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_16" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</a></span>if we knew who you are in
+particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you
+angry. Everything we've said so far seems to have done so. Who are you?
+And don't get angry! Because really we don't know."</p>
+
+<p>"You don't know?" it said. "Well, I knew the world had
+changed&mdash;but&mdash;well, really&mdash;Do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
+know a Psammead when you see one?"</p>
+
+<p>"A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me."</p>
+
+<p>"So it is to everyone," said the creature sharply. "Well, in plain
+English, then, a <i>Sand-fairy</i>. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see
+one?"</p>
+
+<p>It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I
+see you are, <i>now</i>. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you."</p>
+
+<p>"You came to look at me, several sentences ago," it said crossly,
+beginning to curl up again in the sand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;don't go away again! Do talk some more," Robert cried. "I didn't
+know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_17" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</a></span>you that you were
+much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen."</p>
+
+<p>The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.</p>
+
+<p>"It isn't talking I mind," it said, "as long as you're reasonably civil.
+But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If you talk
+nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I won't. Now say
+something."</p>
+
+<p>Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
+thought of "How long have you lived here?" and he said it at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, ages&mdash;several thousand years," replied the Psammead.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell us about it. Do."</p>
+
+<p>"It's all in books."</p>
+
+<p>"<i>You</i> aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about
+yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you <i>are</i> so nice."</p>
+
+<p>The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between
+them.</p>
+
+<p>"Do please tell!" said the children all together.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_18" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
+astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than
+you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and
+now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives.</p>
+
+<p>It drew its eyes in and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How very sunny it is&mdash;quite like old times! Where do you get your
+Megatheriums from now?"</p>
+
+<p>"What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to
+remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or
+agitation.</p>
+
+<p>"Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on.</p>
+
+<p>The children were unable to reply.</p>
+
+<p>"What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who
+gives it to you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things. Mother
+gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
+Ptero-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_19" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</a></span>what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?"</p>
+
+<p>"Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
+Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds&mdash;I
+believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of
+course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early
+you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you
+your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in
+the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the
+eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready
+jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was
+a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus
+was asked for,&mdash;he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of
+him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
+pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
+things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
+Megatheriums; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_20" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</a></span> Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy
+and his tail made soup."</p>
+
+<p>"There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said
+Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course
+at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones
+of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell
+me."</p>
+
+<p>"Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig
+very fast with its furry hands.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was
+Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?"</p>
+
+<p>It stopped digging.</p>
+
+<p>"Not a bit," it said; "it was nearly all sand where I lived, and coal
+grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays&mdash;you find
+them now; they're turned into stone. We Sand-fairies used to live on the
+seashore, and the children used to come with their little flint-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_21" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</a></span>spades
+and flint-pails and make castles for us to live in. That's thousands of
+years ago, but I hear that children still build castles on the sand.
+It's difficult to break yourself of a habit."</p>
+
+<p>"But why did you stop living in the castles?" asked Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a sad story," said the Psammead gloomily. "It was because they
+<i>would</i> build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling sea used
+to come in, and of course as soon as a Sand-fairy got wet it caught
+cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer and fewer, and,
+whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used to wish for a
+Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted, because it might be
+weeks before you got another wish."</p>
+
+<p>"And did <i>you</i> get wet?" Robert inquired.</p>
+
+<p>The Sand-fairy shuddered. "Only once," it said; "the end of the twelfth
+hair of my top left whisker&mdash;I feel the place still in damp weather. It
+was only once, but it was quite enough for me. I went away as soon as
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_22" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</a></span>sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I scurried away to the back of
+the beach, and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand, and there I've
+been ever since. And the sea changed its lodgings afterwards. And now
+I'm not going to tell you another thing."</p>
+
+<p>"Just one more, please," said the children. "Can you give wishes now?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said it; "didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago? You
+said, 'I wish you'd come out,' and I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, please, mayn't we have another?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you."</p>
+
+<p>I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
+wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
+black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you
+could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation.
+These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance
+had suddenly come to them, they could not make up their minds.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_23" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Quick," said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of anything,
+only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her own and Jane's
+which they had never told the boys. She knew the boys would not care
+about it&mdash;but still it was better than nothing.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we were all as beautiful as the day," she said in a great hurry.</p>
+
+<p>The children looked at each other, but each could see that the others
+were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed out his long
+eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out till
+it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly it let its breath go
+in a long sigh.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm really afraid I can't manage it," it said apologetically; "I must
+be out of practice."</p>
+
+<p>The children were horribly disappointed.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>do</i> try again!" they said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the Sand-fairy, "the fact is, I was keeping back a little
+strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If you'll be
+contented with one wish a day among the lot <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_24" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</a></span>of you I daresay I can
+screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, oh yes!" said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did not
+believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls believe
+things much easier than you can boys.</p>
+
+<p>It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and swelled and
+swelled.</p>
+
+<p>"I do hope it won't hurt itself," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Or crack its skin," Robert said anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting so
+big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let out its
+breath and went back to its proper size.</p>
+
+<p>"That's all right," it said, panting heavily. "It'll come easier
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Did it hurt much?" said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Only my poor whisker, thank you," said he, "but you're a kind and
+thoughtful child. Good day."</p>
+
+<p>It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
+disappeared in the sand.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_25" id="Page_25">[Pg 25]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then the children looked at each other, and each child suddenly found
+itself alone with three perfect strangers, all radiantly beautiful.</p>
+
+<p>They stood for some moments in silence. Each thought that its brothers
+and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange children had stolen
+up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the Sand-fairy.
+Anthea spoke first&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Excuse me," she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous blue
+eyes and a cloud of russet hair, "but have you seen two little boys and
+a little girl anywhere about?"</p>
+
+<p>"I was just going to ask you that," said Jane. And then Cyril cried&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Why, it's <i>you</i>! I know the hole in your pinafore! You <i>are</i> Jane,
+aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief
+that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! The wish <i>has</i>
+come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as you are?"</p>
+
+<p>"If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before," said
+Anthea decidedly. <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_26" id="Page_26">[Pg 26]</a></span>"You look like the picture of the young chorister, with your golden
+hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if that's Robert, he's
+like an Italian organ-grinder. His hair's all black."</p>
+
+<p>"You two girls are like Christmas cards, then&mdash;that's all&mdash;silly
+Christmas cards," said Robert angrily. "And Jane's hair is simply
+carrots."</p>
+
+<p>It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, it's no use finding fault with each other," said Anthea; "let's
+get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will admire us most
+awfully, you'll see."</p>
+
+<p>Baby was just waking up when they got to him, and not one of the
+children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful
+as the day, but just the same as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally," said Jane. "We
+shall have to mention him specially next time."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_27" id="Page_27">[Pg 27]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come, then," she said.</p>
+
+<p>The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb in his
+mouth. Anthea was his favourite sister.</p>
+
+<p>"Come, then," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"G'way 'long!" said the Baby.</p>
+
+<p>"Come to own Pussy," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Wants my Panty," said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, come on, Veteran," said Robert, "come and have a yidey on Yobby's
+back."</p>
+
+<p>"Yah, narky narky boy," howled the Baby, giving way altogether. Then the
+children knew the worst. <i>The Baby did not know them!</i></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="baby" id="baby"></a>
+<img src="images/05.png" width="400" height="354" alt="The baby did not know them!" title="The baby did not know them!" />
+<span class="caption">The baby did not know them!</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each, in
+this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
+strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling, jolly
+little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<p>"This is most truly awful," said Cyril when he had tried to lift up the
+Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_28" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</a></span>like a bull!
+"We've got to <i>make friends</i> with him! I can't carry him home screaming
+like that. Fancy having to make friends with our own baby!&mdash;it's too
+silly."</p>
+
+<p>That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an hour,
+and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the Lamb was
+by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert.</p>
+
+<p>At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
+turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a
+dead weight, and most exhausting.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank goodness, we're home!" said Jane, staggering through the iron
+gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door shading her
+eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. "Here! Do take Baby!"</p>
+
+<p>Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.</p>
+
+<p>"Thanks be, <i>he's</i> safe back," she said. "Where are the others, and
+whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?"</p>
+
+<p>"We're <i>us</i>, of course," said Robert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_29" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"And who's Us, when you're at home?" asked Martha scornfully.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you it's <i>us</i>, only we're beautiful as the day," said Cyril.
+"I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let us in,
+and don't be a silly idiot."</p>
+
+<p>Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door in
+his face.</p>
+
+<p>"I know we <i>look</i> different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
+it's long past dinner-time."</p>
+
+<p>"Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children put
+you up to this play-acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it,
+so they know what to expect!" With that she did bang the door. Cyril
+rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook put her head out of a
+bedroom window and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go and
+fetch the police." And she slammed down the window.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no good," said Anthea. "Oh, do, do come away before we get sent to
+prison!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_30" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put you
+in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the same they
+followed the others out into the lane.</p>
+
+<p>"We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," Cyril said sadly; "it mayn't be like that now&mdash;things
+have changed a good deal since Megatherium times."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," cried Anthea suddenly, "perhaps we shall turn into stone at
+sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of us
+left over for the next day."</p>
+
+<p>She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one had the
+heart to say anything.</p>
+
+<p>It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the children
+could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They were afraid to
+go to the village, because they had seen Martha go down there with a
+basket, and there was a local constable. True, they were all as
+beautiful as the day, but that is a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_31" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</a></span>poor comfort when you are as hungry
+as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.</p>
+
+<p>Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White House to
+let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert went alone, hoping
+to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and so open the door
+to the others. But all the windows were out of reach, and Martha emptied
+a toilet-jug of cold water over him from a top window, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Go along with you, you nasty little Eye-talian monkey."</p>
+
+<p>It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge, with
+their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering whether,
+when the sun <i>did</i> set, they would turn into stone, or only into their
+own old natural selves; and each of them still felt lonely and among
+strangers, and tried not to look at the others, for, though their voices
+were their own, their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite
+irritating to look at.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't believe we <i>shall</i> turn to stone," said Robert, breaking a long
+miserable silence,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_32" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</a></span> "because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us another
+wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could he?"</p>
+
+<p>The others said "No," but they weren't at all comforted.</p>
+
+<p>Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
+suddenly saying, "I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe it's
+beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning to stone, I
+know I am, and so will you in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said Robert kindly, "perhaps you'll be the only stone one,
+and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your statue and
+hang garlands on it."</p>
+
+<p>But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through
+his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to life in an
+agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.</p>
+
+<p>"Giving us such a fright for nothing!" said Anthea.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 242px;"><a name="martha" id="martha"></a>
+<img src="images/06.png" width="242" height="400" alt="Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him" title="Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him" />
+<span class="caption">Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
+said&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_33" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"If we <i>do</i> come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd to make
+it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no matter what
+wishes we have."</p>
+
+<p>The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
+resolutions.</p>
+
+<p>At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness&mdash;four very nasty
+things&mdash;all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep.
+The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and
+their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the
+twilight was coming on.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she
+could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then
+she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.</p>
+
+<p>"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not
+stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old
+freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!"
+she added, so that they might not feel jealous.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_34" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them
+about the strange children.</p>
+
+<p>"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be
+to try to explain things to Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
+things, you?"</p>
+
+<p>"In the lane."</p>
+
+<p>"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"</p>
+
+<p>"We couldn't because of <i>them</i>," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Who?"</p>
+
+<p>"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till
+after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how
+we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper&mdash;we are so hungry."</p>
+
+<p>"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like
+this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with
+strange children&mdash;down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind,
+if you see <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_35" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</a></span>them again, don't you speak to them&mdash;not one word nor so
+much as a look&mdash;but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their
+beauty for them!"</p>
+
+<p>"If ever we <i>do</i> see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and
+Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought
+in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And we'll take jolly good care we never <i>do</i> see them again."</p>
+
+<p>And they never have.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_36" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER II</h2>
+
+<h3>GOLDEN GUINEAS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she
+was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an
+umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain,
+and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and
+the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular
+breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still
+asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet
+corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently
+squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, drop it!" she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not a
+brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps,
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_37" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</a></span>original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and the other
+little accomplishments which make home happy.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="rain" id="rain"></a>
+<img src="images/07.png" width="400" height="316" alt="The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea&#39;s face" title="The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea&#39;s face" />
+<span class="caption">The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea&#39;s face</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I had such a funny dream," Anthea began.</p>
+
+<p>"So did I," said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. "I dreamed
+we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it was a Sammyadd,
+and we might have a new wish every day, and"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But that's what <i>I</i> dreamed," said Robert; "I was just going to tell
+you,&mdash;and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I dreamed you
+girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be beautiful as day, and
+we jolly well were, and it was perfectly beastly."</p>
+
+<p>"But <i>can</i> different people all dream the same thing?" said Anthea,
+sitting up in bed, "because I dreamed all that as well as about the Zoo
+and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the servants shut
+us out of the house because the radiantness of our beauty was such a
+complete disguise, and"&mdash;&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_38" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Come on, Robert," it said, "you'll be late for breakfast again&mdash;unless
+you mean to shirk your bath as you did on Tuesday."</p>
+
+<p>"I say, come here a second," Robert replied; "I didn't shirk it; I had
+it after brekker in father's dressing-room because ours was emptied
+away."</p>
+
+<p>Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Anthea, "we've all had such an odd dream. We've all
+dreamed we found a Sand-fairy."</p>
+
+<p>Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance.</p>
+
+<p>"Dream?" he said; "you little sillies, it's <i>true</i>. I tell you it all
+happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up there
+directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll make up our
+minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and no one must ask
+for anything unless the others agree first. No more peerless beauties
+for this child, thank you. Not if I know it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_39" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream about
+the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like a dream,
+the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but Anthea was not
+sure, till after they had seen Martha and heard her full and plain
+reminders about their naughty conduct the day before. Then Anthea was
+sure.</p>
+
+<p>"Because," said she, "servants never dream anything but the things in
+the Dream-book, like snakes and oysters and going to a wedding&mdash;that
+means a funeral, and snakes are a false female friend, and oysters are
+babies."</p>
+
+<p>"Talking of babies," said Cyril, "where's the Lamb?"</p>
+
+<p>"Martha's going to take him to Rochester to see her cousins. Mother said
+she might. She's dressing him now," said Jane, "in his very best coat
+and hat. Bread-and-butter, please."</p>
+
+<p>"She seems to like taking him too," said Robert in a tone of wonder.</p>
+
+<p>"Servants <i>do</i> like taking babies to see their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_40" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</a></span>relations," Cyril said;
+"I've noticed it before&mdash;especially in their best clothes."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect they pretend they're their own babies, and that they're not
+servants at all, but married to noble dukes of high degree, and they say
+the babies are the little dukes and duchesses," Jane suggested dreamily,
+taking more marmalade. "I expect that's what Martha'll say to her
+cousin. She'll enjoy herself most frightfully."</p>
+
+<p>"She won't enjoy herself most frightfully carrying our infant duke to
+Rochester," said Robert; "not if she's anything like me&mdash;she won't."</p>
+
+<p>"Fancy walking to Rochester with the Lamb on your back!" said Cyril in
+full agreement.</p>
+
+<p>"She's gone by the carrier's cart," said Jane. "Let's see them off, then
+we shall have done a polite and kindly act, and we shall be quite sure
+we've got rid of them for the day."</p>
+
+<p>So they did.</p>
+
+<p>Martha wore her Sunday dress of two shades of purple, so tight in the
+chest that it made her <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_41" id="Page_41">[Pg 41]</a></span>stoop, and her blue hat with the pink
+cornflowers and white ribbon. She had a yellow-lace collar with a green
+bow. And the Lamb had indeed his very best cream-colored silk coat and
+hat. It was a smart party that the carrier's cart picked up at the Cross
+Roads. When its white tilt and red wheels had slowly vanished in a swirl
+of chalk-dust&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And now for the Sammyadd!" said Cyril, and off they went.</p>
+
+<p>As they went they decided on the wish they would ask for. Although they
+were all in a great hurry they did not try to climb down the sides of
+the gravel-pit, but went round by the safe lower road, as if they had
+been carts.</p>
+
+<p>They had made a ring of stones round the place where the Sand-fairy had
+disappeared, so they easily found the spot. The sun was burning and
+bright, and the sky was deep blue&mdash;without a cloud. The sand was very
+hot to touch.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;suppose it was only a dream, after all," Robert said as the boys
+uncovered their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_42" id="Page_42">[Pg 42]</a></span>spades from the sand-heap where they had buried them
+and began to dig.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you were a sensible chap," said Cyril; "one's quite as likely
+as the other!"</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you kept a civil tongue in your head," Robert snapped.</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose we girls take a turn," said Jane, laughing. "You boys seem to
+be getting very warm."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you don't come putting your silly oar in," said Robert, who was
+now warm indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"We won't," said Anthea quickly. "Robert dear, don't be so grumpy&mdash;we
+won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy and tell
+him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much better than we
+shall."</p>
+
+<p>"Suppose you drop being a little humbug," said Robert, but not crossly.
+"Look out&mdash;dig with your hands, now!"</p>
+
+<p>So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body,
+long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy
+himself. Everyone drew a deep breath <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_43" id="Page_43">[Pg 43]</a></span>of satisfaction, for now of course
+it couldn't have been a dream.</p>
+
+<p>The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur.</p>
+
+<p>"How's your left whisker this morning?" said Anthea politely.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing to boast of," said it; "it had rather a restless night. But
+thank you for asking."</p>
+
+<p>"I say," said Robert, "do you feel up to giving wishes to-day, because
+we very much want an extra besides the regular one? The extra's a very
+little one," he added reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p>"Humph!" said the Sand-fairy. (If you read this story aloud, please
+pronounce "humph" exactly as it is spelt, for that is how he said it.)
+"Humph! Do you know, until I heard you being disagreeable to each other
+just over my head, and so loud too, I really quite thought I had dreamed
+you all. I do have very odd dreams sometimes."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you?" Jane hurried to say, so as to get away from the subject of
+disagreeableness. "I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_44" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</a></span>wish," she added politely, "you'd tell us about
+your dreams&mdash;they must be awfully interesting"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the day's wish?" said the Sand-fairy, yawning.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril muttered something about "just like a girl," and the rest stood
+silent. If they said "Yes," then good-bye to the other wishes they had
+decided to ask for. If they said "No," it would be very rude, and they
+had all been taught manners, and had learned a little too, which is not
+at all the same thing. A sigh of relief broke from all lips when the
+Sand-fairy said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If I do, I shan't have strength to give you a second wish; not even
+good tempers, or common-sense, or manners, or little things like that."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want you to put yourself out at all about <i>these</i> things, we
+can manage them quite well ourselves," said Cyril eagerly; while the
+others looked guiltily at each other, and wished the Fairy would not
+keep all on about good tempers, but give them one good <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_45" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</a></span>scolding if it
+wanted to, and then have done with it.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the Psammead, putting out his long snail's eyes so suddenly
+that one of them nearly went into the round boy's eye of Robert, "let's
+have the little wish first."</p>
+
+<p>"We don't want the servants to notice the gifts you give us."</p>
+
+<p>"Are kind enough to give us," said Anthea in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"Are kind enough to give us, I mean," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>The Fairy swelled himself out a bit, let his breath go, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I've done <i>that</i> for you&mdash;it was quite easy. People don't notice things
+much, anyway. What's the next wish?"</p>
+
+<p>"We want," said Robert slowly, "to be rich beyond the dreams of
+something or other."</p>
+
+<p>"Avarice," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"So it is," said the Fairy unexpectedly. "But it won't do you much good,
+that's one comfort," it muttered to itself. "Come&mdash;I can't go beyond
+dreams, you know! How much do <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_46" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</a></span>you want, and will you have it in gold or
+notes?"</p>
+
+<p>"Gold, please&mdash;and millions of it"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"This gravel-pit full be enough?" said the Fairy in an off-hand manner.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh <i>yes</i>"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then go out before I begin, or you'll be buried alive in it."</p>
+
+<p>It made its skinny arms so long, and waved them so frighteningly, that
+the children ran as hard as they could towards the road by which carts
+used to come to the gravel-pits. Only Anthea had presence of mind enough
+to shout a timid "Good-morning, I hope your whisker will be better
+to-morrow," as she ran.</p>
+
+<p>On the road they turned and looked back, and they had to shut their
+eyes, and open them very slowly, a little bit at a time, because the
+sight was too dazzling for their eyes to be able to bear. It was
+something like trying to look at the sun at high noon on Midsummer Day.
+For the whole of the sand-pit was full, right up to the very top, with
+new shining gold <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_47" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</a></span>pieces, and all the little bank-martins' little front
+doors were covered out of sight. Where the road for carts wound into the
+gravel-pit the gold lay in heaps like stones lie by the roadside, and a
+great bank of shining gold shelved down from where it lay flat and
+smooth between the tall sides of the gravel-pit. And all the gleaming
+heaps was minted gold. And on the sides and edges of these countless
+coins the mid-day sun shone and sparkled, and glowed and gleamed till
+the quarry looked like the mouth of a smelting furnace, or one of the
+fairy halls that you see sometimes in the sky at sunset.</p>
+
+<p>The children stood with their mouths open, and no one said a word.</p>
+
+<p>At last Robert stooped and picked up one of the loose coins from the
+edge of the heap by the cart-road, and looked at it. He looked on both
+sides. Then he said in a low voice, quite different to his own, "It's
+not sovereigns."</p>
+
+<p>"It's gold, anyway," said Cyril. And now they all began to talk at once.
+They all picked up the golden treasure by handfuls and let it <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_48" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</a></span>run
+through their fingers like water, and the chink it made as it fell was
+wonderful music. At first they quite forgot to think of spending the
+money, it was so nice to play with. Jane sat down between two heaps of
+the gold, and Robert began to bury her, as you bury your father in sand
+when you are at the seaside and he has gone to sleep on the beach with
+his newspaper over his face. But Jane was not half buried before she
+cried out, "Oh stop, it's too heavy! It hurts!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert said "Bosh!" and went on.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me out, I tell you," cried Jane, and was taken out, very white, and
+trembling a little.</p>
+
+<p>"You've no idea what it's like," said she; "it's like stones on you&mdash;or
+like chains."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," Cyril said, "if this is to do us any good, it's no good our
+staying gasping at it like this. Let's fill our pockets and go and buy
+things. Don't you forget, it won't last after sunset. I wish we'd asked
+the Sammyadd why things don't turn to stone. Perhaps this will. I'll
+tell you what, there's a pony and cart in the village."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_49" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Do you want to buy that?" asked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"No, silly,&mdash;we'll <i>hire</i> it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy
+heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as we can
+carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head on one side and
+a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill your pockets with it,
+I tell you, and come along. You can talk as we go&mdash;if you <i>must</i> talk."</p>
+
+<p>Cyril sat down and began to fill his pockets.</p>
+
+<p>"You made fun of me for getting father to have nine pockets in my suit,"
+said he, "but now you see!"</p>
+
+<p>They did. For when Cyril had filled his nine pockets and his
+handkerchief and the space between himself and his shirt front with the
+gold coins, he had to stand up. But he staggered, and had to sit down
+again in a hurry.</p>
+
+<p>"Throw out some of the cargo," said Robert. "You'll sink the ship, old
+chap. That comes of nine pockets."</p>
+
+<p>And Cyril had to do so.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_50" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then they set off to walk to the village. It was more than a mile, and
+the road was very dusty indeed, and the sun seemed to get hotter and
+hotter, and the gold in their pockets got heavier and heavier.</p>
+
+<p>It was Jane who said, "I don't see how we're to spend it all. There must
+be thousands of pounds among the lot of us. I'm going to leave some of
+mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly we get to the village
+we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long past dinner-time." She took
+out a handful or two of gold and hid it in the hollows of an old
+hornbeam. "How round and yellow they are," she said. "Don't you wish
+they were made of gingerbread and we were going to eat them?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, they're not, and we're not," said Cyril. "Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the village,
+more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little hoard of hidden
+treasure. Yet they reached the village with about twelve hundred guineas
+in their <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_51" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</a></span>pockets. But in spite of this inside wealth they looked
+quite ordinary outside, and no one would have thought they could have
+more than a half-crown each at the outside. The haze of heat, the blue
+of the wood smoke, made a sort of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of
+the village. The four sat down heavily on the first bench to which they
+came. It happened to be outside the Blue Boar Inn.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 323px;"><a name="staggered" id="staggered"></a>
+<img src="images/08.png" width="323" height="400" alt="He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry" title="He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry" />
+<span class="caption">He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
+ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, "It was not wrong for men to go
+into beer-saloons, only for children. And Cyril is nearer being a man
+than us, because he is the eldest." So he went. The others sat in the
+sun and waited.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how hot it is!" said Robert. "Dogs put their tongues out when
+they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put out ours?"</p>
+
+<p>"We might try," Jane said; and they all put their tongues out as far as
+ever they could go, so that it quite stretched their throats, but it
+only seemed to make them thirstier than ever, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_52" id="Page_52">[Pg 52]</a></span>besides annoying everyone
+who went by. So they took their tongues in again, just as Cyril came
+back with ginger-beer.</p>
+
+<p>"I had to pay for it out of my own money, though, that I was going to
+buy rabbits with," he said. "They wouldn't change the gold. And when I
+pulled out a handful the man just laughed and said it was card-counters.
+And I got some sponge-cakes too, out of a glass jar on the bar-counter.
+And some biscuits with caraways in."</p>
+
+<p>The sponge-cakes were both soft and dry and the biscuits were dry too,
+and yet soft, which biscuits ought not to be. But the ginger-beer made
+up for everything.</p>
+
+<p>"It's my turn now to try to buy something with the money," Anthea said;
+"I'm next eldest. Where is the pony-cart kept?"</p>
+
+<p>It was at The Chequers, and Anthea went in the back way to the yard,
+because they all knew that little girls ought not to go into the bars of
+beer-saloons. She came out, as she herself said, "pleased but not
+proud."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be ready in a brace of shakes, he says,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_53" id="Page_53">[Pg 53]</a></span> she remarked, "and he's
+to have one sovereign&mdash;or whatever it is&mdash;to drive us into Rochester and
+back, besides waiting there till we've got everything we want. I think I
+managed very well."</p>
+
+<p>"You think yourself jolly clever, I daresay," said Cyril moodily. "How
+did you do it?"</p>
+
+<p>"I wasn't jolly clever enough to go taking handfuls of money out of my
+pocket, to make it seem cheap, anyway," she retorted. "I just found a
+young man doing something to a horse's legs with a sponge and a pail.
+And I held out one sovereign, and I said&mdash;'Do you know what this is?' He
+said 'No,' and he'd call his father. And the old man came, and he said
+it was a spade guinea; and he said was it my own to do as I liked with,
+and I said 'Yes'; and I asked about the pony-cart, and I said he could
+have the guinea if he'd drive us into Rochester. And his name is S.
+Crispin. And he said, 'Right oh.'"</p>
+
+<p>It was a new sensation to be driven in a smart pony-trap along pretty
+country roads; it was very pleasant too (which is not always the case
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_54" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</a></span>with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans of spending
+the money which each child made as they went along, silently of course
+and quite to itself, for they felt it would never have done to let the
+old innkeeper hear them talk in the affluent sort of way in which they
+were thinking. The old man put them down by the bridge at their request.</p>
+
+<p>"If you were going to buy a carriage and horses, where would you go?"
+asked Cyril, as if he were only asking for the sake of something to say.</p>
+
+<p>"Billy Peasemarsh, at the Saracen's Head," said the old man promptly.
+"Though all forbid I should recommend any man where it's a question of
+horses, no more than I'd take anybody else's recommending if I was
+a-buying one. But if your pa's thinking of a rig of any sort, there
+ain't a straighter man in Rochester, nor civiller spoken, than Billy,
+though I says it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," said Cyril. "The Saracen's Head."</p>
+
+<p>And now the children began to see one of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_55" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</a></span>the laws of nature turn upside
+down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up person would
+tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend. But the fairy
+money had been easy to get, and spending it was not only hard, it was
+almost impossible. The trades-people of Rochester seemed to shrink, to a
+trades-person, from the glittering fairy gold ("furrin money" they
+called it, for the most part).</p>
+
+<p>To begin with, Anthea, who had had the misfortune to sit on her hat
+earlier in the day, wished to buy another. She chose a very beautiful
+one, trimmed with pink roses and the blue breasts of peacocks. It was
+marked in the window, "Paris Model, three guineas."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm glad," she said, "because it says guineas, and not sovereigns,
+which we haven't got."</p>
+
+<p>But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was by
+this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves before
+going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the shop looked
+very hard at her, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_56" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</a></span>and went and whispered something to an older and
+uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave her back the money
+and said it was not current coin.</p>
+
+<p>"It's good money," said Anthea, "and it's my own."</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay," said the lady, "but it's not the kind of money that's
+fashionable now, and we don't care about taking it."</p>
+
+<p>"I believe they think we've stolen it," said Anthea, rejoining the
+others in the street; "if we had gloves they wouldn't think we were so
+dishonest. It's my hands being so dirty fills their minds with doubts."</p>
+
+<p>So they chose a humble shop, and the girls bought cotton gloves, the
+kind at a shilling, but when they offered a guinea the woman looked at
+it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had
+to be paid for out of Cyril's money with which he meant to buy rabbits
+and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at nine-pence which
+had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the
+kinds where <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_57" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</a></span>you buy toys and perfume and silk handkerchiefs and books,
+and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects of interest in
+the vicinity. But nobody cared to change a guinea that day in Rochester,
+and as they went from shop to shop they got dirtier and dirtier, and
+their hair got more and more untidy, and Jane slipped and fell down on a
+part of the road where a water cart had just gone by. Also they got very
+hungry, but they found no one would give them anything to eat for their
+guineas.</p>
+
+<p>After trying two baker shops in vain, they became so hungry, perhaps
+from the smell of the cake in the shops, as Cyril suggested, that they
+formed a plan of campaign in whispers and carried it out in desperation.
+They marched into a third baker shop,&mdash;Beale was his name,&mdash;and before
+the people behind the counter could interfere each child had seized
+three new penny buns, clapped the three together between its dirty
+hands, and taken a big bite out of the triple sandwich. Then they stood
+at bay, with the twelve buns <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_58" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</a></span>in their hands and their mouths very full
+indeed. The shocked baker's man bounded round the corner.</p>
+
+<p>"Here," said Cyril, speaking as distinctly as he could, and holding out
+the guinea he got ready before entering the shops, "pay yourself out of
+that."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="beale" id="beale"></a>
+<img src="images/09.png" width="400" height="360" alt="Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket" title="Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket" />
+<span class="caption">Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Off you go," he said, brief and stern like the man in the song.</p>
+
+<p>"But the change?" said Anthea, who had a saving mind.</p>
+
+<p>"Change!" said the man, "I'll change you! Hout you goes; and you may
+think yourselves lucky I don't send for the police to find out where you
+got it!"</p>
+
+<p>In the Gardens of the Castle the millionaires finished the buns, and
+though the curranty softness of these were delicious, and acted like a
+charm in raising the spirits of the party, yet even the stoutest heart
+quailed at the thought of venturing to sound Mr. Billy Peasemarsh at the
+Saracen's Head on the subject of a horse <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_59" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</a></span>and carriage. The boys would
+have given up the idea, but Jane was always a hopeful child, and Anthea
+generally an obstinate one, and their earnestness prevailed.</p>
+
+<p>The whole party, by this time indescribably dirty, therefore betook
+itself to the Saracen's Head. The yard-method of attack having been
+successful at The Chequers, was tried again here. Mr. Peasemarsh was in
+the yard, and Robert opened the business in these terms&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They tell me you have a lot of horses and carriages to sell." It had
+been agreed that Robert should be spokesman, because in books it is
+always gentlemen who buy horses, and not ladies, and Cyril had had his
+go at the Blue Boar.</p>
+
+<p>"They tell you true, young man," said Mr. Peasemarsh. He was a long lean
+man, with very blue eyes and a tight mouth and narrow lips.</p>
+
+<p>"We should like to buy some, please," said Robert politely.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you would."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_60" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Will you show us a few, please? To choose from."</p>
+
+<p>"Who are you a-kiddin of?" inquired Mr. Billy <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Peasemarch'">Peasemarsh</ins>. "Was you sent
+here of a message?"</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you," said Robert, "we want to buy some horses and carriages,
+and a man told us you were straight and civil spoken, but I shouldn't
+wonder if he was mistaken"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Upon my sacred!" said Mr. Peasemarsh. "Shall I trot the whole stable
+out for your Honor's worship to see? Or shall I send round to the
+Bishop's to see if he's a nag or two to dispose of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Please do," said Robert, "if it's not too much trouble. It would be
+very kind of you."</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Peasemarsh put his hands in his pockets and laughed, and they did
+not like the way he did it. Then he shouted "Willum!"</p>
+
+<p>A stooping ostler appeared in a stable door.</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Willum, come and look at this 'ere young dook! Wants to buy the
+whole stud, lock, stock, and bar'l. And ain't got tuppence <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_61" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</a></span>in his
+pocket to bless hisself with, I'll go bail!"</p>
+
+<p>Willum's eyes followed his master's pointing thumb with contemptuous
+interest.</p>
+
+<p>"Do 'e, for sure?" he said.</p>
+
+<p>But Robert spoke, though both the girls were now pulling at his jacket
+and begging him to "come along." He spoke, and he was very angry; he
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not a young duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for
+tuppence&mdash;what do you call this?" And before the others could stop him
+he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and held them out
+for Mr. Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He snatched one up in his
+finger and thumb. He bit it, and Jane expected him to say, "The best
+horse in my stables is at your service." But the others knew better.
+Still it was a blow, even to the most desponding, when he said shortly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Willum, shut the yard doors;" and Willum grinned and went to shut them.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-afternoon," said Robert hastily; "we <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_62" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</a></span>shan't buy any horses now,
+whatever you say, and I hope it'll be a lesson to you." He had seen a
+little side gate open, and was moving towards it as he spoke. But Billy
+Peasemarsh put himself in the way.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so fast, you young off-scouring!" he said. "Willum, fetch the
+pleece."</p>
+
+<p>Willum went. The children stood huddled together like frightened sheep,
+and Mr. Peasemarsh spoke to them till the pleece arrived. He said many
+things. Among other things he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Nice lot you are, aren't you, coming tempting honest men with your
+guineas!"</p>
+
+<p>"They <i>are</i> our guineas," said Cyril boldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, of course we don't know all about that, no more we don't&mdash;oh
+no&mdash;course not! And dragging little gells into it, too. 'Ere&mdash;I'll let
+the gells go if you'll come along to the pleece quiet."</p>
+
+<p>"We won't be let go," said Jane heroically; "not without the boys. It's
+our money just as much as theirs, you wicked old man."</p>
+
+<p>"Where'd you get it, then?" said the man, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_63" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</a></span>softening slightly, which was
+not at all what the boys expected when Jane began to call names.</p>
+
+<p>Jane cast a silent glance of agony at the others.</p>
+
+<p>"Lost your tongue, eh? Got it fast enough when it's for calling names
+with. Come, speak up! Where'd you get it?"</p>
+
+<p>"Out of the gravel-pit," said truthful Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Next article," said the man.</p>
+
+<p>"I tell you we did," Jane said. "There's a fairy there&mdash;all over brown
+fur&mdash;with ears like a bat's and eyes like a snail's, and he gives you a
+wish a day, and they all come true."</p>
+
+<p>"Touched in the head, eh?" said the man in a low voice; "all the more
+shame to you boys dragging the poor afflicted child into your sinful
+burglaries."</p>
+
+<p>"She's not mad; it's true," said Anthea; "there <i>is</i> a fairy. If I ever
+see him again I'll wish for something for you; at least I would if
+vengeance wasn't wicked&mdash;so there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Lor' lumme," said Billy Peasemarsh, "if there ain't another on 'em!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_64" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>And now Willum came back, with a spiteful grin on his face, and at his
+back a policeman, with whom Mr. Peasemarsh spoke long in a hoarse
+earnest whisper.</p>
+
+<p>"I daresay you're right," said the policeman at last. "Anyway, I'll take
+'em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending inquiries. And the
+magistrate will deal with the case. Send the afflicted ones to a home,
+as likely as not, and the boys to a reformatory. Now then, come along,
+youngsters! No use making a fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr.
+Peasemarsh, sir, and I'll shepherd the boys."</p>
+
+<p>Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven along the
+streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded them, so that
+when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not recognise her till a
+well-known voice said, "Well, if ever I did! Oh, Master Robert, whatever
+have you been a-doing of now?" And another voice, quite as well known,
+said, "Panty; want go own Panty!"</p>
+
+<p>They had run into Martha and the Baby!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 236px;"><a name="run" id="run"></a>
+<img src="images/10.png" width="236" height="400" alt="They had run into Martha and the baby" title="They had run into Martha and the baby" />
+<span class="caption">They had run into Martha and the baby</span>
+</div>
+
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_65" id="Page_65">[Pg 65]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the
+policeman's story, or of Mr. Peasemarsh's either, even when they made
+Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the guineas.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see nothing," she said. "You've gone out of your senses, you
+two! There ain't any gold there&mdash;only the poor child's hands, all over
+dirt, and like the very chimbley. Oh that I should ever see the day!"</p>
+
+<p>And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather
+wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the
+servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course Martha
+couldn't see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth, and that was
+quite right, of course, but not extra noble.</p>
+
+<p>It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The policeman
+told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare room with a thing
+like a clumsy nursery-fender at one end to put prisoners in. Robert
+wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_66" id="Page_66">[Pg 66]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Produce the coins, officer," said the inspector.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn out your pockets," said the constable.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a
+moment, and then began to laugh&mdash;an odd sort of laugh that hurt, and
+that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So were the
+pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the fairy gold had
+vanished away.</p>
+
+<p>"Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise," said the inspector.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril turned out his pockets, every one of the nine which enriched his
+suit. And every pocket was empty.</p>
+
+<p>"Well!" said the inspector.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know how they done it&mdash;artful little beggars! They walked in
+front of me the 'ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on them and not to
+attract a crowd and obstruct the traffic."</p>
+
+<p>"It's very remarkable," said the inspector, frowning.</p>
+
+<p>"If you've done a-browbeating of the inno<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_67" id="Page_67">[Pg 67]</a></span>cent children," said Martha,
+"I'll hire a private carriage and we'll drive home to their papa's
+mansion. You'll hear about this again, young man!&mdash;I told you they
+hadn't got any gold, when you were pretending to see it in their poor
+helpless hands. It's early in the day for a constable on duty not to be
+able to trust his own eyes. As to the other one, the less said the
+better; he keeps the Saracen's Head, and he knows best what his liquor's
+like."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 346px;"><a name="now" id="now"></a>
+<img src="images/11.png" width="346" height="400" alt="He said, &quot;Now then!&quot; to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh" title="e said, &quot;Now then!&quot; to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh" />
+<span class="caption">He said, &quot;Now then!&quot; to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Take them away, for goodness' sake," said the inspector crossly. But as
+they left the police-station he said, "Now then!" to the policeman and
+Mr. Peasemarsh, and he said it twenty times as crossly as he had spoken
+to Martha.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Martha was as good as her word. She took them home in a very grand
+carriage, because the carrier's cart was gone, and, though she had stood
+by them so nobly with the police, she was so angry with them as soon as
+they were alone for "trapesing into Rochester by themselves," that none
+of them dared to men<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_68" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</a></span>tion the old man with the pony-cart from the
+village who was waiting for them in Rochester. And so, after one day of
+boundless wealth, the children found themselves sent to bed in deep
+disgrace, and only enriched by two pairs of cotton gloves, dirty inside
+because of the state of the hands they had been put on to cover, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and twelve penny buns, long since
+digested.</p>
+
+<p>The thing that troubled them most was the fear that the old gentleman's
+guinea might have disappeared at sunset with all the rest, so they went
+down to the village next day to apologise for not meeting him in
+Rochester, and to <i>see</i>. They found him very friendly. The guinea had
+not disappeared, and he had bored a hole in it and hung it on his
+watch-chain. As for the guinea the baker took, the children felt they
+<i>could</i> not care whether it had vanished or not, which was not perhaps
+very honest, but on the other hand was not wholly unnatural. But
+afterwards this preyed on Anthea's mind, and at last she secretly sent
+twelve postage stamps by post to "Mr. Beale,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_69" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</a></span> Baker, Rochester." Inside
+she wrote, "To pay for the buns." I hope the guinea did disappear, for
+that baker was really not at all a nice man, and, besides, penny buns
+are seven for sixpence in all really respectable shops.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_70" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER III</h2>
+
+<h3>BEING WANTED</h3>
+
+
+<p>The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless
+wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or enjoyable
+with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny buns, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart, they awoke
+without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had felt on the
+previous day when they remembered how they had had the luck to find a
+Psammead, or Sand-fairy, and to receive its promise to grant them a new
+wish every day. For now they had had two wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and
+neither had exactly made them happy. But the happening of strange
+things, even if they are not completely pleasant things, is more amusing
+than those times when nothing happens but meals, and they are not always
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_71" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</a></span>completely pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or
+hash.</p>
+
+<p>There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast, because
+everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a vigorous and
+determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only ten minutes late for
+breakfast. During this meal some efforts were made to deal with the
+question of the Psammead in an impartial spirit, but it is very
+difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and at the same time to attend
+faithfully to your baby brother's breakfast needs. The Baby was
+particularly lively that morning. He not only wriggled his body through
+the bar of his high chair, and hung by his head, choking and purple, but
+he seized a tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on
+the head with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He
+put his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded "nam," which was
+only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table&mdash;he
+clamoured to "go walky." The conversation was something like this&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_72" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Look here&mdash;about that Sand-fairy&mdash;&mdash; Look out!&mdash;he'll have the milk
+over."</p>
+
+<p>Milk removed to a safe distance.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;about that Fairy&mdash;&mdash; No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky poon."</p>
+
+<p>Then Cyril tried. "Nothing we've had yet has turned out&mdash;&mdash; He nearly
+had the mustard that time!"</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder whether we'd better wish&mdash;&mdash; Hullo!&mdash;you've done it now, my
+boy!" And in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of golden
+carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side and poured a flood of
+mixed water and gold-fish into the Baby's lap and into the laps of the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone was almost as much upset as the gold-fish; the Lamb only
+remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and the
+leaping, gasping gold-fish had been collected and put back in the water,
+the Baby was taken away to be entirely re-dressed by Martha, and most of
+the others had to change completely. The pinafores and jackets that had
+been bathed in gold-fish-and-water <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_73" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</a></span>were hung out to dry, and then it
+turned out that Jane must either mend the dress she had torn the day
+before or appear all day in her best petticoat. It was white and soft
+and frilly, and trimmed with lace, and very, very pretty, quite as
+pretty as a frock, if not more so. Only it was <i>not</i> a frock, and
+Martha's word was law. She wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and
+she refused to listen for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane
+should wear her best petticoat and call it a dress.</p>
+
+<p>"It's not respectable," she said. And when people say that, it's no use
+anyone's saying anything. You'll find this out for yourselves some day.</p>
+
+<p>So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The hole had
+been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down in the High
+Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed on its silvery
+way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was much more than
+grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone which had attended to
+the knee and the stocking. Of course the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_74" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</a></span>others were not such sneaks as
+to abandon a comrade in misfortune, so they all sat on the grass-plot
+round the sun-dial, and Jane darned away for dear life. The Lamb was
+still in the hands of Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation
+was possible.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought, which
+was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Speak out&mdash;say what you've got to say&mdash;I hate hinting, and 'don't
+know,' and sneakish ways like that."</p>
+
+<p>So then Robert said, as in honour bound, "Sneak yourself&mdash;Anthea and me
+weren't so gold-fishy as you two were, so we got changed quicker, and
+we've had time to think it over, and if you ask me"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't ask you," said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as she
+had always been strictly forbidden to do. (Perhaps you don't know that
+if you bite off ends of cotton and swallow them they wind tight round
+your heart and kill you? My nurse told me this, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_75" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</a></span>and she told me also
+about the earth going round the sun. Now what is one to believe&mdash;what
+with nurses and science?)</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care who asks or who doesn't," said Robert, "but Anthea and I
+think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our wishes I
+suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure it wishes
+every time that our wishes shan't do us any good. Let's let the tiresome
+beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good game of forts, on our
+own, in the chalk-pit."</p>
+
+<p>(You will remember that the happily-situated house where these children
+were spending their holidays lay between a chalk-quarry and a
+gravel-pit.)</p>
+
+<p>Cyril and Jane were more hopeful&mdash;they generally were.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think the Sammyadd does it on purpose," Cyril said; "and, after
+all, it <i>was</i> silly to wish for boundless wealth. Fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces would have been much more sensible. And wishing to
+be beautiful as the day was simply donkeyish. I don't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_76" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</a></span>want to be
+disagreeable, but it <i>was</i>. We must try to find a really useful wish,
+and wish it."</p>
+
+<p>Jane dropped her work and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I think so too, it's too silly to have a chance like this and not use
+it. I never heard of anyone else outside a book who had such a chance;
+there must be simply heaps of things we could wish for that wouldn't
+turn out Dead Sea fish, like these two things have. Do let's think hard
+and wish something nice, so that we can have a real jolly day&mdash;what
+there is left of it."</p>
+
+<p>Jane darned away again like mad, for time was indeed getting on, and
+everyone began to talk at once. If you had been there you could not
+possibly have made head or tail of the talk, but these children were
+used to talking "by fours," as soldiers march, and each of them could
+say what it had to say quite comfortably, and listen to the agreeable
+sound of its own voice, and at the same time have three-quarters of two
+sharp ears to spare for listening to what the others said. That is an
+easy example in multiplication of vulgar fractions, but, as I daresay
+you can't do even that, I won't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_77" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</a></span>ask you to tell me whether 3/4 &times; 2 =
+1-1/2, but I will ask you to believe me that this was the amount of ear
+each child was able to lend to the others. Lending ears was common in
+Roman times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too
+instructive.</p>
+
+<p>When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed by
+Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands&mdash;which was nonsense,
+because nobody had been doing anything at all, except Jane, and how can
+you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult question, and I cannot
+answer it on paper. In real life I could very soon show you&mdash;or you me,
+which is much more likely.</p>
+
+<p>During the conversation in which the six ears were lent (there were four
+children, so <i>that</i> sum comes right), it had been decided that fifty
+pounds in two-shilling pieces was the right wish to have. And the lucky
+children, who could have anything in the wide world by just wishing for
+it, hurriedly started for the gravel-pit to express their wishes to the
+Psammead. Martha caught them at the gate, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_78" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</a></span>and insisted on their taking
+the Baby with them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="lucky" id="lucky"></a>
+<img src="images/12.png" width="400" height="280" alt="The lucky children ... hurriedly started for the gravel pit" title="The lucky children ... hurriedly started for the gravel pit" />
+<span class="caption">The lucky children ... hurriedly started for the gravel pit</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Not want him indeed! Why, everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with all
+their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to take him
+out every blessed day," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"I know we did," said Robert in gloom, "but I wish the Lamb wasn't quite
+so young and small. It would be much better fun taking him out."</p>
+
+<p>"He'll mend of his youngness with time," said Martha; "and as for
+smallness, I don't think you'd fancy carrying of him any more, however
+big he was. Besides he can walk a bit, bless his precious fat legs, a
+ducky! He feels the benefit of the new-laid air, so he does, a pet!"</p>
+
+<p>With this and a kiss, she plumped the Lamb into Anthea's arms, and went
+back to make new pinafores on the sewing-machine. She was a rapid
+performer on this instrument.</p>
+
+<p>The Lamb laughed with pleasure, and said, "Walky wif Panty," and rode on
+Robert's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_79" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</a></span>back with yells of joy, and tried to feed Jane with stones,
+and altogether made himself so agreeable that nobody could long be sorry
+that he was of the party.</p>
+
+<p>The enthusiastic Jane even suggested that they should devote a week's
+wishes to assuring the Baby's future, by asking such gifts for him as
+the good fairies give to Infant Princes in proper fairy-tales, but
+Anthea soberly reminded her that as the Sand-fairy's wishes only lasted
+till sunset they could not ensure any benefit to the Baby's later years;
+and Jane owned that it would be better to wish for fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces, and buy the Lamb a three-pound fifteen
+rocking-horse, like those in the big stores, with a part of the money.</p>
+
+<p>It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and got
+it, they would get Mr. Crispin to drive them into Rochester again,
+taking Martha with them if they could not get out of taking her. And
+they would make a list of things they really wanted before they started.
+Full of high hopes and excellent <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_80" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</a></span>resolutions, they went round the safe
+slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as they went in between the
+mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to them, and would have turned
+their ruddy cheeks pale if they had been children in a book. Being real
+live children, it only made them stop and look at each other with rather
+blank and silly expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday,
+when they had asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was
+getting ready to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright
+guineas&mdash;millions of them&mdash;it had told the children to run along outside
+the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy splendid
+treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they had not had
+time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a ring of stones, as
+before. And it was this thought that put such silly expressions on their
+faces.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind," said the hopeful Jane, "we'll soon find him."</p>
+
+<p>But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked and
+they looked, and, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_81" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</a></span>though they found their seaside spades, nowhere could
+they find the Sand-fairy.</p>
+
+<p>At last they had to sit down and rest&mdash;not at all because they were
+weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb insisted on being
+put down, and you cannot look very carefully after anything you may have
+happened to lose in the sand if you have an active baby to look after at
+the same time. Get someone to drop your best knife in the sand next time
+you go to the seashore and then take your baby brother with you when you
+go to look for it, and you will see that I am right.</p>
+
+<p>The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the country
+air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones longed to go
+on talking about the new wishes they would have when (or if) they found
+the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to enjoy himself.</p>
+
+<p>He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into Anthea's
+face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand and waved his
+fat legs in the air. Then of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_82" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</a></span>course the sand got into his eyes, as it
+had into Anthea's, and he howled.</p>
+
+<p>The thoughtful Robert had brought one solid brown bottle of ginger-beer
+with him, relying on a thirst that had never yet failed him. This had to
+be uncorked hurriedly&mdash;it was the only wet thing within reach, and it
+was necessary to wash the sand out of the Lamb's eyes somehow. Of course
+the ginger hurt horribly, and he howled more than ever. And, amid his
+anguish of kicking, the bottle was upset and the beautiful ginger-beer
+frothed out into the sand and was lost for ever.</p>
+
+<p>It was then that Robert, usually a very patient brother, so far forgot
+himself as to say&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody would want him, indeed! Only they don't; Martha doesn't, not
+really, or she'd jolly well keep him with her. He's a little nuisance,
+that's what he is. It's too bad. I only wish everybody <i>did</i> want him
+with all their hearts; we might get some peace in our lives."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_83" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The Lamb stopped howling now, because Jane had suddenly remembered that
+there is only one safe way of taking things out of little children's
+eyes, and that is with your own soft wet tongue. It is quite easy if you
+love the Baby as much as you ought to do.</p>
+
+<p>Then there was a little silence. Robert was not proud of himself for
+having been so cross, and the others were not proud of him either. You
+often notice that sort of silence when someone has said something it
+ought not to&mdash;and everyone else holds its tongue and waits for the one
+who oughtn't to have said it is sorry.</p>
+
+<p>The silence was broken by a sigh&mdash;a breath suddenly let out. The
+children's heads turned as if there had been a string tied to each nose,
+and somebody had pulled all the strings at once.</p>
+
+<p>And everyone saw the Sand-fairy sitting quite close to them, with the
+expression which it used as a smile on its hairy face.</p>
+
+<p>"Good-morning," it said; "I did that quite easily! Everyone wants him
+now."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_84" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"It doesn't matter," said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had been
+behaving rather like a pig. "No matter who wants him&mdash;there's no one
+here to&mdash;anyhow."</p>
+
+<p>"Ingratitude," said the Psammead, "is a dreadful vice."</p>
+
+<p>"We're not ungrateful," Jane made haste to say, "but we didn't <i>really</i>
+want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take it back and
+give us a new one?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;I can't," the Sand-fairy said shortly; "chopping and changing&mdash;it's
+not business. You ought to be careful what you <i>do</i> wish. There was a
+little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead of an
+Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy names of
+everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with him, and had
+made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let him go out in the
+nice flint boat along with the other children,&mdash;it was the annual
+school-treat next day,&mdash;and he came and flung himself down near me on
+the morning of the treat, and he kicked his little prehistoric legs
+about and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_85" id="Page_85">[Pg 85]</a></span>said he wished he was dead. And of course then he was."</p>
+
+<p>"How awful! said the children all together.</p>
+
+<p>"Only till sunset, of course," the Psammead said; "still it was quite
+enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he woke up&mdash;I
+tell you. He didn't turn to stone&mdash;I forget why&mdash;but there must have
+been some reason. They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and
+you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep
+or in some better place. You may be sure he caught it, giving them such
+a turn. Why, he wasn't allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after
+that. Nothing but oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that."</p>
+
+<p>All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They looked
+at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that something
+brown and furry was near him.</p>
+
+<p>"Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="poof" id="poof"></a>
+<img src="images/13.png" width="400" height="224" alt="&quot;Poof, poof, poofy,&quot; he said, and made a grab" title="&quot;Poof, poof, poofy,&quot; he said, and made a grab" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Poof, poof, poofy,&quot; he said, and made a grab</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"It's not a pussy," Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy leaped
+back.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_86" id="Page_86">[Pg 86]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, my left whisker!" it said; "don't let him touch me. He's wet."</p>
+
+<p>Its fur stood on end with horror&mdash;and indeed a good deal of the
+ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an instant and
+a whirl of sand.</p>
+
+<p>The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.</p>
+
+<p>"We may as well get along home," said Robert. "I'll say I'm sorry; but
+anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the sandy thing
+is for to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril picked up
+the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they went by the safe
+cart-road.</p>
+
+<p>The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.</p>
+
+<p>At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from
+Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open carriage
+came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and inside the
+carriage a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_87" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</a></span>lady&mdash;very grand indeed, with a dress all white lace and
+red ribbons and a parasol all red and white&mdash;and a white fluffy dog on
+her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She looked at the children,
+and particularly at the Baby, and she smiled at him. The children were
+used to this, for the Lamb was, as all the servants said, a "very taking
+child." So they waved their hands politely to the lady and expected her
+to drive on. But she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And
+she beckoned to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I <i>should</i> so like to adopt it!
+Do you think its mother would mind?"</p>
+
+<p>"She'd mind very much indeed," said Anthea shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady Chittenden.
+You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated papers. They call me
+a Beauty, you know, but of course that's all nonsense. Anyway"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She opened the carriage door and jumped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_88" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</a></span>out. She had the wonderfullest
+red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. "Let me hold him a minute,"
+she said. And she took the Lamb and held him very awkwardly, as if she
+was not used to babies.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her arms and
+slammed the door, and said, "Drive on!"</p>
+
+<p>The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman
+hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"Drive on, I tell you!" cried the lady; and the coachman did, for, as he
+said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not to.</p>
+
+<p>The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord they
+rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty road went
+the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time, ran the
+twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 330px;"><a name="double" id="double"></a>
+<img src="images/14.png" width="330" height="400" alt="At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb&#39;s brothers and sisters" title="At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb&#39;s brothers and sisters" />
+<span class="caption">At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the Lamb&#39;s brothers and sisters</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed by
+slow degrees to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still, and they knew
+he had gone to sleep.</p>
+
+<p>The carriage went on, and the eight feet that <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_89" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</a></span>twinkled through the
+dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped at
+the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind the
+carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it lay on the
+carriage seat, and hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>"The darling&mdash;I won't disturb it," she said, and went into the lodge to
+talk to the woman there about a setting of eggs that had not turned out
+well.</p>
+
+<p>The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the sleeping
+Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"Fine boy&mdash;wish he was mine," said the coachman.</p>
+
+<p>"He wouldn't favour <i>you</i> much," said the groom sourly; "too 'andsome."</p>
+
+<p>The coachman pretended not to hear. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Wonder at her now&mdash;I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her own, and
+can't abide other folkses'."</p>
+
+<p>The children, crouched in the white dust under the carriage, exchanged
+uncomfortable glances.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_90" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Tell you what," the coachman went on firmly, "blowed if I don't hide
+the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took 'im! Then
+I'll come back for him afterwards."</p>
+
+<p>"No, you don't," said the footman. "I've took to that kid so as never
+was. If anyone's to have him, it's me&mdash;so there!"</p>
+
+<p>"Stop your talk!" the coachman rejoined. "You don't want no kids, and,
+if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a married man
+and a judge of breed. I knows a firstrate yearling when I sees him. I'm
+a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest mended."</p>
+
+<p>"I should 'a' thought," said the footman sneeringly, "you'd a'most
+enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor Stanley,
+and Helena Beatrice, and another"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The coachman hit the footman in the chin&mdash;the footman hit the coachman
+in the waist-coat&mdash;the next minute the two were fighting here and there,
+in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere, and the little dog
+jumped <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_91" id="Page_91">[Pg 91]</a></span>on the box of the carriage and began barking like mad.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 372px;"><a name="next" id="next"></a>
+<img src="images/15.png" width="372" height="400" alt="The next minute the two were fighting" title="The next minute the two were fighting" />
+<span class="caption">The next minute the two were fighting</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the side of
+the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened the door of
+the carriage&mdash;the two men were far too much occupied with their quarrel
+to notice anything&mdash;took the Lamb in his arms, and, still stooping,
+carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along the road to where a stile
+led into a wood. The others followed, and there among the hazels and
+young oaks and sweet chestnuts, covered by high strong-scented
+brake-fern, they all lay hidden till the angry voices of the men were
+hushed at the angry voice of the red-and-white lady, and, after a long
+and anxious search, the carriage at last drove away.</p>
+
+<p>"My only hat!" said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of wheels
+at last died away. "Everyone <i>does</i> want him now&mdash;and no mistake! That
+Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any sake, let's get the
+kid safe home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_92" id="Page_92">[Pg 92]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white
+road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took courage,
+and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots on his
+back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to look at the Baby,
+and then offered to carry him; but Anthea was not to be caught that way
+twice. They all walked on, but the boy followed, and Cyril and Robert
+couldn't make him go away till they had more than once invited him to
+smell their fists. Afterwards a little girl in a blue-and-white checked
+pinafore actually followed them for a quarter of a mile crying for "the
+precious Baby," and then she was only got rid of by threats of tying her
+to a tree in the wood with all their pocket handkerchiefs. "So that
+bears can come and eat you as soon as it gets dark," said Cyril
+severely. Then she went off crying. It presently seemed wise, to the
+brothers and sisters of the Baby who was wanted by everyone, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_93" id="Page_93">[Pg 93]</a></span>to hide in
+the hedge whenever they saw anyone coming, and thus they managed to
+prevent the Lamb from arousing the inconvenient affection of a milkman,
+a stone-breaker, and a man who drove a cart with a paraffin barrel at
+the back of it. They were nearly home when the worst thing of all
+happened. Turning a corner suddenly they came upon two vans, a tent, and
+a company of gipsies encamped by the side of the road. The vans were
+hung all round with wicker chairs and cradles, and flower-stands and
+feather brushes. A lot of ragged children were industriously making
+dust-pies in the road, two men lay on the grass smoking, and three women
+were doing the family washing in an old red watering-can with the top
+broken off.</p>
+
+<p>In a moment every gipsy, men, women, and children, surrounded Anthea and
+the Baby.</p>
+
+<p>"Let me hold him, little lady," said one of the gipsy women, who had a
+mahogany-coloured face and dust-coloured hair; "I won't hurt a hair of
+his head, the little picture!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_94" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'd rather not," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Let <i>me</i> have him," said the other woman, whose face was also of the
+hue of mahogany, and her hair jet-black, in greasy curls. "I've nineteen
+of my own, so I have"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly choked
+her.</p>
+
+<p>Then one of the men pushed forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Swelp me if it ain't!" he cried, "my own long-lost cheild! Have he a
+strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby, stolen from
+me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over&mdash;and we'll not 'ave the law on
+yer this time."</p>
+
+<p>He snatched the Baby from Anthea, who turned scarlet and burst into
+tears of pure rage.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 387px;"><a name="snatched" id="snatched"></a>
+<img src="images/16.png" width="387" height="400" alt="He snatched the baby from Anthea" title="He snatched the baby from Anthea" />
+<span class="caption">He snatched the baby from Anthea</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The others were standing quite still; this was much the most terrible
+thing that had ever happened to them. Even being taken up by the police
+in Rochester was nothing to this. Cyril was quite white, and his hands
+trembled a little, but he made a sign to the others to shut up. He was
+silent a minute, thinking hard. Then he said&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_95" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We don't want to keep him if he's yours. But you see he's used to us.
+You shall have him if you want him"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"No, no!" cried Anthea,&mdash;and Cyril glared at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we want him," said the women, trying to get the Baby out of
+the man's arms. The Lamb howled loudly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, he's hurt!" shrieked Anthea; and Cyril, in a savage undertone, bade
+her "stop it!"</p>
+
+<p>"You trust to me," he whispered. "Look here," he went on, "he's awfully
+tiresome with people he doesn't know very well. Suppose we stay here a
+bit till he gets used to you, and then when it's bedtime I give you my
+word of honour we'll go away and let you keep him if you want to. And
+then when we're gone you can decide which of you is to have him, as you
+all want him so much."</p>
+
+<p>"That's fair enough," said the man who was holding the Baby, trying to
+loosen the red neckerchief which the Lamb had caught hold of and drawn
+round his mahogany throat so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_96" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</a></span>tight that he could hardly breathe. The
+gipsies whispered together, and Cyril took the chance to whisper too. He
+said, "Sunset! we'll get away then."</p>
+
+<p>And then his brothers and sisters were filled with wonder and admiration
+at his having been so clever as to remember this.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do let him come to us!" said Jane. "See, we'll sit down here and
+take care of him for you till he gets used to you."</p>
+
+<p>"What about dinner?" said Robert suddenly. The others looked at him with
+scorn. "Fancy bothering about your beastly dinner when your br&mdash;I mean
+when the Baby"&mdash;Jane whispered hotly. Robert carefully winked at her and
+went on&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You won't mind my just running home to get our dinner?" he said to the
+gipsy; "I can bring it out here in a basket."</p>
+
+<p>His brothers and sisters felt themselves very noble and despised him.
+They did not know his thoughtful secret intention. But the gipsies did
+in a minute.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" they said; "and then fetch the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_97" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</a></span>police with a pack of lies
+about it being your baby instead of ours! D'jever catch a weasel
+asleep?" they asked.</p>
+
+<p>"If you're hungry you can pick a bit along of us," said the light-haired
+gipsy-woman, not unkindly. "Here Levi, that blessed kid'll howl all his
+buttons off. Give him to the little lady, and let's see if they can't
+get him used to us a bit."</p>
+
+<p>So the Lamb was handed back; but the gipsies crowded so closely that he
+could not possibly stop howling. Then the man with the red handkerchief
+said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Here, Pharaoh, make up the fire; and you girls see to the pot. Give the
+kid a chanst." So the gipsies, very much against their will, went off to
+their work, and the children and the Lamb were left sitting on the
+grass.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll be all right at sunset," Jane whispered. "But, oh, it is awful!
+Suppose they are frightfully angry when they come to their senses! They
+might beat us, or leave us tied to trees, or something."</p>
+
+<p>"No, they won't," Anthea said ("Oh, my<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_98" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</a></span> Lamb, don't cry any more, it's
+all right, Panty's got oo, duckie"); "they aren't unkind people, or they
+wouldn't be going to give us any dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"Dinner?" said Robert; "I won't touch their nasty dinner. It would choke
+me!"</p>
+
+<p>The others thought so too then. But when the dinner was ready&mdash;it turned
+out to be supper, and happened between four and five&mdash;they were all glad
+enough to take what they could get. It was boiled rabbit, with onions,
+and some bird rather like a chicken, but stringier about its legs and
+with a stronger taste. The Lamb had bread soaked in hot water and brown
+sugar sprinkled on the top. He liked this very much, and consented to
+let the two gipsy women feed him with it, as he sat on Anthea's lap. All
+that long hot afternoon Robert and Cyril and Anthea and Jane had to keep
+the Lamb amused and happy, while the gipsies looked eagerly on. By the
+time the shadows grew long and black across the meadows he had really
+"taken to" the woman with the light hair, and even con<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_99" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</a></span>sented to kiss
+his hand to the children, and to stand up and bow, with his hand on his
+chest&mdash;"like a gentleman"&mdash;to the two men. The whole gipsy camp was in
+raptures with him, and his brothers and sisters could not help taking
+some pleasure in showing off his accomplishments to an audience so
+interested and enthusiastic. But they longed for sunset.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="consented" id="consented"></a>
+<img src="images/17.png" width="400" height="351" alt="He consented to let the two gypsy women feed him" title="He consented to let the two gypsy women feed him" />
+<span class="caption">He consented to let the two gypsy women feed him</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"We're getting into the habit of longing for sunset," Cyril whispered.
+"How I do wish we could wish something really sensible, that would be of
+some use, so that we should be quite sorry when sunset came."</p>
+
+<p>The shadows got longer and longer, and at last there were no separate
+shadows any more, but one soft glowing shadow over everything; for the
+sun was out of sight&mdash;behind the hill&mdash;but he had not really set yet.
+The people who make the laws about lighting bicycle lamps are the people
+who decide when the sun sets; she has to do it too, to the minute, or
+they would know the reason why!</p>
+
+<p>But the gipsies were getting impatient.</p>
+
+<p>"Now, young uns," the red-handkerchief <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_100" id="Page_100">[Pg 100]</a></span>man said, "it's time you were
+laying of your heads on your pillowses&mdash;so it is! The kid's all right
+and friendly with us now&mdash;so you just hand him over and get home like
+you said."</p>
+
+<p>The women and children came crowding round the Lamb, arms were held out,
+fingers snapped invitingly, friendly faces beaming with admiring smiles;
+but all failed to tempt the loyal Lamb. He clung with arms and legs to
+Jane, who happened to be holding him, and uttered the gloomiest roar of
+the whole day.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no good," the woman said, "hand the little poppet over, miss.
+We'll soon quiet him."</p>
+
+<p>And still the sun would not set.</p>
+
+<p>"Tell her about how to put him to bed," whispered Cyril; "anything to
+gain time&mdash;and be ready to bolt when the sun really does make up its
+silly old mind to set."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'll hand him over in just one minute," Anthea began, talking very
+fast,&mdash;"but do let me just tell you he has a warm bath every <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_101" id="Page_101">[Pg 101]</a></span>night and
+cold in the morning, and he has a crockery rabbit to go into the warm
+bath with him, and little Samuel saying his prayers in white china on a
+red cushion for the cold bath; and he hates you to wash his ears, but
+you must; and if you let the soap get into his eyes, the Lamb"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Lamb kyes," said he&mdash;he had stopped roaring to listen.</p>
+
+<p>The woman laughed. "As if I hadn't never bath'd a babby!" she said.
+"Come&mdash;give us a hold of him. Come to 'Melia, my precious"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"G'way, ugsie!" replied the Lamb at once.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but," Anthea went on, "about his meals; you really <i>must</i> let me
+tell you he has an apple or banana every morning, and bread and milk for
+breakfast, and an egg for his tea sometimes, and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I've brought up ten," said the black ringleted woman, "besides the
+others. Come, miss, 'and 'im over&mdash;I can't bear it no longer. I just
+must give him a hug."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_102" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We ain't settled yet whose he's to be, Esther," said one of the men.</p>
+
+<p>"It won't be you, Esther, with seven of 'em at your tail a'ready."</p>
+
+<p>"I ain't so sure of that," said Esther's husband.</p>
+
+<p>"And ain't I nobody, to have a say neither?" said the husband of 'Melia.</p>
+
+<p>Zillah, the girl, said, "An' me? I'm a single girl&mdash;and no one but 'im
+to look after&mdash;I ought to have him."</p>
+
+<p>"Hold your tongue!"</p>
+
+<p>"Shut your mouth!"</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you show me no more of your imperence!"</p>
+
+<p>Everyone was getting very angry. The dark gipsy faces were frowning and
+anxious-looking. Suddenly a change swept over them, as if some invisible
+sponge had wiped away these cross and anxious expressions, and left only
+a blank.</p>
+
+<p>The children saw that the sun really <i>had</i> set. But they were afraid to
+move. And the gipsies were feeling so muddled because of the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_103" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</a></span>invisible
+sponge that had washed all the feelings of the last few hours out of
+their hearts, that they could not say a word.</p>
+
+<p>The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gipsies, when they
+recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they had been all
+day?</p>
+
+<p>It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held out the
+Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.</p>
+
+<p>"Here he is!" she said.</p>
+
+<p>The man drew back. "I shouldn't like to deprive you, miss," he said
+hoarsely.</p>
+
+<p>"Anyone who likes can have my share of him," said the other man.</p>
+
+<p>"After all, I've got enough of my own," said Esther.</p>
+
+<p>"He's a nice little chap, though," said Amelia. She was the only one who
+now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>Zillah said, "If I don't think I must have had a touch of the sun. <i>I</i>
+don't want him."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_104" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Then shall we take him away?" said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;suppose you do," said Pharaoh heartily, "and we'll say no more
+about it!"</p>
+
+<p>And with great haste all the gipsies began to be busy about their tents
+for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children as far as the
+bend in the road&mdash;and there she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let me give him a kiss, miss,&mdash;I don't know what made us go for to
+behave so silly. Us gipsies don't steal babies, whatever they may tell
+you when you're naughty. We've enough of our own, mostly. But I've lost
+all mine."</p>
+
+<p>She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes, unexpectedly
+put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.</p>
+
+<p>"Poor, poor!" said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him, and,
+what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return&mdash;a very nice kiss, as
+all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gipsy
+woman moved her finger about on his forehead as if she had been writing
+something there, and the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_105" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</a></span>same with his chest and his hands and his
+feet; then she said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong
+heart to love with, and the strong arms to work with, and the strong
+feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own." Then she
+said something in a strange language no one could understand, and
+suddenly added&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, I must be saying 'so long'&mdash;and glad to have made your
+acquaintance." And she turned and went back to her home&mdash;the tent by the
+grassy roadside.</p>
+
+<p>The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert
+said, "How silly of her! Even sunset didn't put <i>her</i> right. What rot
+she talked!"</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Cyril, "if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of
+her"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Decent?" said Anthea; "it was very nice indeed of her. I think she's a
+dear"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"She's just too frightfully nice for anything," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>And they went home&mdash;very late for tea and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_106" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</a></span>unspeakably late for dinner.
+Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.</p>
+
+<p>"I say&mdash;it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone," said
+Robert, later.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course."</p>
+
+<p>"But do you feel different about it now the sun's set?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No</i>," said all the others together.</p>
+
+<p>"Then it's lasted over sunset with us."</p>
+
+<p>"No, it hasn't," Cyril explained. "The wish didn't do anything to <i>us</i>.
+We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves,
+only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert." Robert bore
+this much with a strange calm.</p>
+
+<p>"I certainly <i>thought</i> I didn't want him this morning," said he.
+"Perhaps I <i>was</i> a pig. But everything looked so different when we
+thought we were going to lose him."</p>
+
+<p>And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean
+it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep
+putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_107" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</a></span>crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it next
+time you feel piggy yourself and want to get rid of any of your brothers
+and sisters. I hope this doesn't often happen, but I daresay it has
+happened sometimes, even to you!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_108" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IV</h2>
+
+<h3>WINGS</h3>
+
+
+<p>The next day was very wet&mdash;too wet to go out, and far too wet to think
+of disturbing a Sand-fairy so sensitive to water that he still, after
+thousands of years, felt the pain of once having his left whisker
+wetted. It was a long day, and it was not till the afternoon that all
+the children suddenly decided to write letters to their mother. It was
+Robert who had the misfortune to upset the ink well&mdash;an unusually deep
+and full one&mdash;straight into that part of Anthea's desk where she had
+long pretended that an arrangement of mucilage and cardboard painted
+with Indian ink was a secret drawer. It was not exactly Robert's fault;
+it was only his misfortune that he chanced to be lifting the ink across
+the desk just at the moment when Anthea had got it open, and that that
+same moment should have been the one chosen by the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_109" id="Page_109">[Pg 109]</a></span> Lamb to get under
+the table and break his squeaking bird. There was a sharp convenient
+wire inside the bird, and of course the Lamb ran the wire into Robert's
+leg at once; and so, without anyone's meaning to do it the secret drawer
+was flooded with ink. At the same time a stream was poured over Anthea's
+half-finished letter.</p>
+
+<p>So that her letter was something like this&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Darling Mother</span>,&mdash;I hope you are quite
+well, and I hope Granny is better. The other day
+we...." </p></div>
+
+<p>Then came a flood of ink, and at the bottom these words in pencil&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"It was not me upset the ink, but it took such a
+time clearing up, so no more as it is
+post-time.&mdash;From your loving daughter &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
+"<span class="smcap">Anthea</span>." </p></div>
+
+<p>Robert's letter had not even been begun. He had been drawing a ship on
+the blotting paper while he was trying to think of what to say. And of
+course after the ink was upset he had to help Anthea to clean out her
+desk, and he promised to make her another secret drawer, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_110" id="Page_110">[Pg 110]</a></span>better than
+the other. And she said, "Well, make it now." So it was post-time and
+his letter wasn't done. And the secret drawer wasn't done either.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril wrote a long letter, very fast, and then went to set a trap for
+slugs that he had read about in the <i>Home-made Gardener</i>, and when it
+was post-time the letter could not be found, and it was never found.
+Perhaps the slugs ate it.</p>
+
+<p>Jane's letter was the only one that went. She meant to tell her mother
+all about the Psammead,&mdash;in fact they had all meant to do this,&mdash;but she
+spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to
+tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you
+<i>do</i> tell it properly, so she had to be contented with this&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">My dear Mother Dear</span>,&mdash;We are all as good
+as we can, like you told us to, and the Lamb has a
+little cold, but Martha says it is nothing, only
+he upset the gold-fish into himself yesterday
+morning. When we were up at the sand-pit the other
+day we went round by the safe way where carts go,
+and we found  a"&mdash;</p></div><p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_111" id="Page_111">[Pg 111]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Half an hour went by before Jane felt quite sure that they could none of
+them spell Psammead. And they could not find it in the dictionary
+either, though they looked. Then Jane <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'hasily'">hastily</ins> finished her letter&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"We found a strange thing, but it is nearly
+post-time, so no more at present from your little
+girl,</p>
+
+<div class='right'>"<span class="smcap">Jane</span>.</div>
+
+<p>"P.S.&mdash;If you could have a wish come true what
+would you have?" </p></div>
+
+<p>Then the postman was heard blowing his horn, and Robert rushed out in
+the rain to stop his cart and give him the letters. And that was how it
+happened that, though all the children meant to tell their mother about
+the Sand-fairy, somehow or other she never got to know. There were other
+reasons why she never got to know, but these come later.</p>
+
+<p>The next day Uncle Richard came and took them all to Maidstone in a
+wagonette&mdash;all except the Lamb. Uncle Richard was the very best kind of
+uncle. He bought them toys at Maidstone. He took them into a shop and
+let them all choose exactly what they wanted, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_112" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</a></span>without any restrictions
+about price, and no nonsense about things being instructive. It is very
+wise to let children choose exactly what they like, because they are
+very foolish and inexperienced, and sometimes they will choose a really
+instructive thing without meaning to do so. This happened to Robert, who
+chose, at the last moment, and in a great hurry, a box with pictures on
+it of winged bulls with men's heads and winged men with eagles' heads.
+He thought there would be animals inside, the same as on the box. When
+he got it home it was a Sunday puzzle about ancient Nineveh! The others
+chose in haste, and were happy at leisure. Cyril had a model engine, and
+the girls had two dolls, as well as a china tea-set with forget-me-nots
+on it, to be "between them." The boys' "between them" was bow and arrow.</p>
+
+<p>Then Uncle Richard took them on the beautiful Medway in a boat, and then
+they all had tea at a beautiful confectioner's and when they reached
+home it was far too late to have any wishes that day.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_113" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They did not tell Uncle Richard anything about the Psammead. I do not
+know why. And they do not know why. But I daresay you can guess.</p>
+
+<p>The day after Uncle Richard had behaved so handsomely was a very hot day
+indeed. The people who decide what the weather is to be, and put its
+orders down for it in the newspapers every morning, said afterwards that
+it was the hottest day there had been for years. They had ordered it to
+be "warmer&mdash;some showers," and warmer it certainly was. In fact it was
+so busy being warmer that it had no time to attend to the order about
+showers, so there weren't any.</p>
+
+<p>Have you ever been up at five o'clock on a fine summer morning? It is
+very beautiful. The sunlight is pinky and yellowy, and all the grass and
+trees are covered with dew-diamonds. And all the shadows go the opposite
+way to the way they do in the evening, which is very interesting and
+makes you feel as though you were in a new other world.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea woke at five. She had made herself <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_114" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</a></span>wake, and I must tell you how
+it is done, even if it keeps you waiting for the story to go on.</p>
+
+<p>You get into bed at night, and lie down quite flat on your little back,
+with your hands straight down by your sides. Then you say "I <i>must</i> wake
+up at five" (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or whatever the time
+is that you want), and as you say it you push your chin down on your
+chest and then whack your head back on the pillow. And you do this as
+many times as there are ones in the time you want to wake up at. (It is
+quite an easy sum.) Of course everything depends on your really wanting
+to get up at five (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine); if you don't
+really want to, it's all of no use. But if you do&mdash;well, try it and see.
+Of course in this, as in doing Latin proses or getting into mischief,
+practice makes perfect.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea was quite perfect.</p>
+
+<p>At the very moment when she opened her eyes she heard the black-and-gold
+clock down in the dining-room strike eleven. So she knew it was three
+minutes to five. The black-and-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_115" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</a></span>gold clock always struck wrong, but it
+was all right when you knew what it meant. It was like a person talking
+a foreign language. If you know the language it is just as easy to
+understand as English. And Anthea knew the clock language. She was very
+sleepy, but she jumped out of bed and put her face and hands into a
+basin of cold water. This is a fairy charm that prevents your wanting to
+get back into bed again. Then she dressed, and folded up her night
+dress. She did not tumble it together by the sleeves, but folded it by
+the seams from the hem, and that will show you the kind of
+well-brought-up little girl she was.</p>
+
+<p>Then she took her shoes in her hand and crept softly down the stairs.
+She opened the dining-room window and climbed out. It would have been
+just as easy to go out by the door, but the window was more romantic,
+and less likely to be noticed by Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"I will always get up at five," she said to herself. "It was quite too
+awfully pretty for anything."</p>
+
+<p>Her heart was beating very fast, for she was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_116" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</a></span>carrying out a plan quite
+her own. She could not be sure that it was a good plan, but she was
+quite sure that it would not be any better if she were to tell the
+others about it. And she had a feeling that, right or wrong, she would
+rather go through with it alone. She put on her shoes under the iron
+verandah, on the red-and-yellow shining tiles, and then she ran straight
+to the sand-pit, and found the Psammead's place, and dug it out; it was
+very cross indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"It's too bad," it said, fluffing up its fur as pigeons do their
+feathers at Christmas time. "The weather's arctic, and it's the middle
+of the night."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm so sorry," said Anthea gently, and she took off her white pinafore
+and covered the Sand-fairy up with it, all but its head, its bat's ears,
+and its eyes that were like a snail's eyes.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," it said, "that's better. What's the wish this morning?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," she said; "that's just it. You see we've been very
+unlucky, so far. I wanted to talk to you about it. But&mdash;would <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_117" id="Page_117">[Pg 117]</a></span>you mind
+not giving me any wishes till after breakfast? It's so hard to talk to
+anyone if they jump out at you with wishes you don't really want!"</p>
+
+<p>"You shouldn't say you wish for things if you don't wish for them. In
+the old days people almost always knew whether it was Megatherium or
+Ichthyosaurus they really wanted for dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll try not to do so," said Anthea, "but I do wish"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" said the Psammead in a warning voice, and it began to blow
+itself out.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, this isn't a magic wish&mdash;it's just&mdash;I should be so glad if you'd
+not swell yourself out and nearly burst to give me anything just now.
+Wait till the others are here."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, well," it said indulgently, but it shivered.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you," asked Anthea kindly&mdash;"would you like to come and sit on my
+lap? You'd be warmer, and I could turn the skirt of my frock up around
+you. I'd be very careful."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_118" id="Page_118">[Pg 118]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Anthea had never expected that it would, but it did.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you," it said; "you really are rather thoughtful." It crept on to
+her lap and snuggled down, and she put her arms round it with a rather
+frightened gentleness. "Now then!" it said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," said Anthea, "everything we have wished has turned out
+rather horrid. I wish you would advise us. You are so old, you must be
+very wise."</p>
+
+<p>"I was always generous from a child," said the Sand-fairy. "I've spent
+the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won't
+give&mdash;that's advice."</p>
+
+<p>"You see," Anthea went on, "it's such a wonderful thing&mdash;such a
+splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give
+us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just
+because we are too silly to know what to wish for."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea had meant to say that&mdash;and she had not wanted to say it before
+the others. It's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_119" id="Page_119">[Pg 119]</a></span>one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to
+say that other people are.</p>
+
+<p>"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think
+before you speak"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"But I thought you never gave advice."</p>
+
+<p>"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides,
+it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."</p>
+
+<p>"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"</p>
+
+<p>"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care
+you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I
+heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller
+brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the
+palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course;
+still the boy <i>was</i> the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for
+wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at
+sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the
+top of his father's great staircase; and what with <i>his</i><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_120" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</a></span> stone wings
+and the lion's stone wings&mdash;well it's not a very pretty story! But I
+believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," said Anthea, "why don't our wishes turn into stone now? Why
+do they just vanish?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Autre temps autres m&oelig;urs</i>," said the creature.</p>
+
+<p>"Is that the Ninevite language?" asked Anthea, who had learned no
+foreign language at school except French.</p>
+
+<p>"What I mean is," the Psammead went on, "that in the old days people
+wished for good solid everyday gifts,&mdash;Mammoths and Pterodactyls and
+things,&mdash;and those could be turned into stone as easy as not. But people
+wish such high-flying fanciful things nowadays. How are you going to
+turn being beautiful as the day, or being wanted by everybody, into
+stone? You see it can't be done. And it would never do to have two
+rules, so they simply vanish. If being beautiful as the day <i>could</i> be
+turned into stone it would last an awfully long time, you know&mdash;much
+longer <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_121" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</a></span>than you would. Just look at the Greek statues. It's just as
+well as it is. Good-bye. I <i>am</i> so sleepy."</p>
+
+<p>It jumped off her lap&mdash;dug frantically, and vanished.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea was late for breakfast. It was Robert who quietly poured a
+spoonful of molasses down the Lamb's frock, so that he had to be taken
+away and washed thoroughly directly after breakfast. And it was of
+course a very naughty thing to do; yet it served two purposes&mdash;it
+delighted the Lamb, who loved above all things to be completely sticky,
+and it engaged Martha's attention so that the others could slip away to
+the sand-pit without the Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the hurry of that
+slipping, panted out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I want to propose we take turns to wish. Only, nobody's to have a wish
+if the others don't think it's a nice wish. Do you agree?"</p>
+
+<p>"Who's to have first wish?" asked Robert cautiously.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_122" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Me, if you don't mind," said Anthea apologetically. "And I've thought
+about it&mdash;and it's <i>wings</i>."</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence. The others rather wanted to find fault, but it was
+hard, because the word "wings" raised a flutter of joyous excitement in
+every breast.</p>
+
+<p>"Not so dusty," said Cyril generously; and Robert added, "Really,
+Panther, you're not quite such a fool as you look."</p>
+
+<p>Jane said, "I think it would be perfectly lovely. It's like a bright
+dream of delirium."</p>
+
+<p>They found the Sand-fairy easily. Anthea said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with."</p>
+
+<p>The Sand-fairy blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny
+feeling, half heaviness and half lightness, on its shoulders. The
+Psammead put its head on one side and turned its snail eyes from one
+side to the other.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="sand" id="sand"></a>
+<img src="images/18.png" width="400" height="251" alt="The Sand-fairy blew himself out" title="The Sand-fairy blew himself out" />
+<span class="caption">The Sand-fairy blew himself out</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Not so bad," it said dreamily. "But really,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_123" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</a></span> Robert, you're not quite
+such an angel as you look." Robert almost blushed.</p>
+
+<p>The wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can possibly
+imagine&mdash;for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in
+its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing
+colors, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum
+that sometimes floats on water that is not at all nice to drink.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh&mdash;but how can we fly?" Jane said, standing anxiously first on one
+foot and then on the other.</p>
+
+<p>"Look out!" said Cyril; "you're treading on my wing."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it hurt?" asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for
+Robert had spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising
+in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker suit&mdash;his boots
+in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was
+standing in them. But the others cared but little how he looked,&mdash;or how
+they looked, for that matter.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_124" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</a></span> For now they all spread out their wings
+and rose in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like,
+because everyone has dreamed about flying, and is seems so beautifully
+easy&mdash;only, you can never remember how you did it; and as a rule you
+have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever and
+uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four
+children rose flapping from the ground, and you can't think how good the
+air felt as it ran against their faces. Their wings were tremendously
+wide when they were spread out, and they had to fly quite a long way
+apart so as not to get in each other's way. But little things like this
+are easily learned.</p>
+
+<p>All the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as
+well, are, I find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels
+like to be flying, so I will not try. But I will say that to look <i>down</i>
+on the fields and woods instead of <i>along</i> at them, is something like
+looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead of silly colors on
+paper, you have real moving <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_125" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</a></span>sunny woods and green fields laid out one
+after the other. As Cyril said, and I can't think where he got hold of
+such a strange expression, "It does you a fair treat!" It was most
+wonderful and more like real magic than any wish the children had had
+yet. They flapped and flew and sailed on their great rainbow wings,
+between green earth and blue sky; and they flew over Rochester and then
+swerved round towards Maidstone, and presently they all began to feel
+extremely hungry. Curiously enough, this happened when they were flying
+rather low, and just as they were crossing an orchard where some early
+plums shone red and ripe.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 235px;"><a name="flew" id="flew"></a>
+<img src="images/19.png" width="235" height="400" alt="They flew over Rochester" title="They flew over Rochester" />
+<span class="caption">They flew over Rochester</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>They paused on their wings. I cannot explain to you how this is done,
+but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks
+do it extremely well.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I daresay," said Cyril, though no one had spoken. "But stealing is
+stealing even if you've got wings."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you really think so?" said Jane briskly. "If you've got wings you're
+a bird, and no one <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_126" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</a></span>minds birds breaking the commandments. At least,
+they may <i>mind</i>, but the birds always do it, and no one scolds them or
+sends them to prison."</p>
+
+<p>It was not so easy to perch on a plum-tree as you might think, because
+the rainbow wings were so <i>very</i> large; but somehow they all managed to
+do it, and the plums were certainly very sweet and juicy.</p>
+
+<p>Fortunately, it was not till they had all had quite as many plums as
+were good for them that they saw a stout man, who looked exactly as
+though he owned the plum-trees, come hurrying through the orchard gate
+with a thick stick, and with one accord they disentangled their wings
+from the plum-laden branches and began to fly.</p>
+
+<p>The man stopped short, with his mouth open. For he had seen the boughs
+of his trees moving and twitching, and he had said to himself, "Them
+young varmint&mdash;at it again!" And he had come out at once, for the lads
+of the village had taught him in past seasons that plums want looking
+after. But when he saw <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_127" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</a></span>the rainbow wings flutter up out of the
+plum-tree he felt that he must have gone quite mad, and he did not like
+the feeling at all. And when Anthea looked down and saw his mouth go
+slowly open, and stay so, and his face become green and mauve in
+patches, she called out&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be frightened," and felt hastily in her pocket for a
+threepenny-bit with a hole in it, which she had meant to hang on a
+ribbon round her neck, for luck. She hovered round the unfortunate
+plum-owner, and said, "We have had some of your plums; we thought it
+wasn't stealing, but now I am not so sure. So here's some money to pay
+for them."</p>
+
+<p>She swooped down toward the terror-stricken grower of plums, and slipped
+the coin into the pocket of his jacket, and in a few flaps she had
+rejoined the others.</p>
+
+<p>The farmer sat down on the grass, suddenly and heavily.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 266px;"><a name="farmer" id="farmer"></a>
+<img src="images/20.png" width="266" height="400" alt="The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly and heavily" title="The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly and heavily" />
+<span class="caption">The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly and heavily</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;I'm blessed!" he said. "This here is what they call delusions, I
+suppose. But this here threepenny"&mdash;he had pulled it out <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_128" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</a></span>and bitten
+it,&mdash;"<i>that's</i> real enough. Well, from this day forth I'll be a better
+man. It's the kind of thing to sober a chap for life, this is. I'm glad
+it was only wings, though. I'd rather see the birds as aren't there, and
+couldn't be, even if they pretend to talk, than some things as I could
+name."</p>
+
+<p>He got up slowly and heavily, and went indoors, and he was so nice to
+his wife that day that she felt quite happy, and said to herself, "Law,
+whatever have a-come to the man!" and smartened herself up and put a
+blue ribbon bow at the place where her collar fastened on, and looked so
+pretty that he was kinder than ever. So perhaps the winged children
+really did do one good thing that day. If so, it was the only one; for
+really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on
+the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for
+getting you out of it.</p>
+
+<p>This was the case in the matter of the fierce dog who sprang out at them
+when they had folded up their wings as small as possible and were going
+up to a farm door to ask for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_129" id="Page_129">[Pg 129]</a></span>crust of bread and cheese, for in
+spite of the plums they were soon just as hungry as ever again.</p>
+
+<p>Now there is no doubt whatever that, if the four had been ordinary
+wingless children, that black and fierce dog would have had a good bite
+out of the brown-stockinged leg of Robert, who was the nearest. But at
+its first growl there was a flutter of wings, and the dog was left to
+strain at his chain and stand on his hind-legs as if he were trying to
+fly too.</p>
+
+<p>They tried several other farms, but at those where there were no dogs
+the people were far too frightened to do anything but scream; and at
+last, when it was nearly four o'clock, and their wings were getting
+miserably stiff and tired, they alighted on a church-tower and held a
+council of war.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't possibly fly all the way home without dinner <i>or</i> tea," said
+Robert with desperate decision.</p>
+
+<p>"And nobody will give us any dinner, or even lunch, let alone tea," said
+Cyril.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_130" id="Page_130">[Pg 130]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the clergyman here might," suggested Anthea. "He must know all
+about angels"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Anybody could see we're not that," said Jane. "Look at Robert's boots
+and Squirrel's plaid necktie."</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Cyril firmly, "if the country you're in won't <i>sell</i>
+provisions, you <i>take</i> them. In wars I mean. I'm quite certain you do.
+And even in other stories no good brother would allow his little sisters
+to starve in the midst of plenty."</p>
+
+<p>"Plenty?" repeated Robert hungrily; and the others looked vaguely round
+the bare leads of the church-tower, and murmured, "In the midst of?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Cyril impressively. "There is a larder window at the side of
+the clergyman's house, and I saw things to eat inside&mdash;custard pudding
+and cold chicken and tongue&mdash;and pies&mdash;and jam. It's rather a high
+window&mdash;but with wings"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"How clever of you!" said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Not at all," said Cyril modestly; "any born <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_131" id="Page_131">[Pg 131]</a></span>general&mdash;Napoleon or the
+Duke of Marlborough&mdash;would have seen it just the same as I did."</p>
+
+<p>"It seems very wrong," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense," said Cyril. "What was it Sir Philip Sidney said when the
+soldier wouldn't give him a drink?&mdash;'My necessity is greater than his.'"</p>
+
+<p>"We'll club together our money, though, and leave it to pay for the
+things, won't we?" Anthea was persuasive, and very nearly in tears,
+because it is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably
+sinful at one and the same time.</p>
+
+<p>"Some of it," was the cautious reply.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone now turned out its pockets on the lead roof of the tower, where
+visitors for the last hundred and fifty years had cut their own and
+their sweethearts' initials with penknives in the soft lead. There was
+five-and-seven-pence halfpenny altogether, and even the upright Anthea
+admitted that that was too much to pay for four people's dinners. Robert
+said he thought eighteenpence.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_132" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="every" id="every"></a>
+<img src="images/21.png" width="400" height="286" alt="Every one now turned out his pockets" title="Every one now turned out his pockets" />
+<span class="caption">Every one now turned out his pockets</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>And half-a-crown was finally agreed to be "handsome."</p>
+
+<p>So Anthea wrote on the back of her last term's report, which happened to
+be in her pocket, and from which she first tore her own name and that of
+the school, the following letter:&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"<span class="smcap">Dear Reverend Clergyman</span>,&mdash;We are very
+hungry indeed because of having to fly all day,
+and we think it is not stealing when you are
+starving to death. We are afraid to ask you for
+fear you should say 'No,' because of course you
+know about angels, but you would not think we were
+angels. We will only take the necessities of life,
+and no pudding or pie, to show you it is not
+grediness but true starvation that makes us make
+your larder stand and deliver. But we are not
+highwaymen by trade." </p></div>
+
+<p>"Cut it short," said the others with one accord. And Anthea hastily
+added&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="blockquot"><p>"Our intentions are quite honourable if you only
+knew. And here is half-a-crown to show we are
+sinseer and grateful.</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you for your kind hospitality. </p></div>
+
+<div class='right'>
+"<span class="smcap">From Us Four</span>."<br /></div>
+<p><span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_133" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The half-crown was wrapped in this letter, and all the children felt
+that when the clergyman had read it he would understand everything, as
+well as anyone could who had not even seen the wings.</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said Cyril, "of course there's some risk; we'd better fly
+straight down the other side of the tower and then flutter low across
+the churchyard and in through the shrubbery. There doesn't seem to be
+anyone about. But you never know. The window looks out into the
+shrubbery. It is embowered in foliage, like a window in a story. I'll go
+in and get the things. Robert and Anthea can take them as I hand them
+out through the window; and Jane can keep watch,&mdash;her eyes are
+sharp,&mdash;and whistle if she sees anyone about. Shut up, Robert! she can
+whistle quite well enough for that, anyway. It ought not to be a very
+good whistle&mdash;it'll sound more natural and birdlike. Now then&mdash;off we
+go!"</p>
+
+<p>I cannot pretend that stealing is right. I can only say that on this
+occasion it did not look like stealing to the hungry four, but ap<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_134" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</a></span>peared
+in the light of a fair and reasonable business transaction. They had
+never happened to learn that a tongue,&mdash;hardly cut into,&mdash;a chicken and
+a half, a loaf of bread, and a syphon of soda-water cannot be bought in
+the stores for half-a-crown. These were the necessaries of life, which
+Cyril handed out of the larder window when, quite unobserved and without
+hindrance or adventure, he had led the others to that happy spot. He
+felt that to refrain from jam, apple pie, cake, and mixed candied peel,
+was a really heroic act&mdash;and I agree with him. He was also proud of not
+taking the custard pudding,&mdash;and there I think he was wrong,&mdash;because if
+he had taken it there would have been a difficulty about returning the
+dish; no one, however starving, has a right to steal china pie-dishes
+with little pink flowers on them. The soda-water syphon was different.
+They could not do without something to drink, and as the maker's name
+was on it they felt sure it would be returned to him wherever they might
+leave it. If they had time they would take it back themselves.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_135" id="Page_135">[Pg 135]</a></span> The
+man appeared to live in Rochester, which would not be much out of their
+way home.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 277px;"><a name="these" id="these"></a>
+<img src="images/22.png" width="277" height="400" alt="These were the necessaries of life" title="These were the necessaries of life" />
+<span class="caption">These were the necessaries of life</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Everything was carried up to the top of the tower, and laid down on a
+sheet of kitchen paper which Cyril had found on the top shelf of the
+larder. As he unfolded it, Anthea said, "I don't think <i>that's</i> a
+necessity of life."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, it is," said he. "We must put the things down somewhere to cut
+them up; and I heard father say the other day people got diseases from
+germans in rain-water. Now there must be lots of rain-water here,&mdash;and
+when it dries up the germans are left, and they'd get into the things,
+and we should all die of scarlet fever."</p>
+
+<p>"What are germans?"</p>
+
+<p>"Little waggly things you see with microscopes," said Cyril, with a
+scientific air. "They give you every illness you can think of. I'm sure
+the paper was a necessary, just as much as the bread and meat and water.
+Now then! Oh, I'm hungry!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_136" id="Page_136">[Pg 136]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I do not wish to describe the picnic party on the top of the tower. You
+can imagine well enough what it is like to carve a chicken and a tongue
+with a knife that has only one blade and that snapped off short about
+half-way down. But it was done. Eating with your fingers is greasy and
+difficult&mdash;and paper dishes soon get to look very spotty and horrid. But
+one thing you <i>can't</i> imagine, and that is how soda-water behaves when
+you try to drink it straight out of a syphon&mdash;especially a quite full
+one. But if imagination will not help you, experience will, and you can
+easily try it for yourself if you can get a grown-up to give you the
+syphon. If you want to have a really thorough experience, put the tube
+in your mouth and press the handle very suddenly and very hard. You had
+better do it when you are alone&mdash;and out of doors is best for this
+experiment.</p>
+
+<p>However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good
+things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a
+really fine hot day. So that every<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_137" id="Page_137">[Pg 137]</a></span>one enjoyed the dinner very much
+indeed, and everyone ate as much as it possibly could: first, because it
+was extremely hungry; and secondly, because, as I said, tongue and
+chicken and new bread are very nice.</p>
+
+<p>Now, I daresay you will have noticed that if you have to wait for your
+dinner till long after the proper time, and then eat a great deal more
+dinner than usual, and sit in the hot sun on the top of a
+church-tower&mdash;or even anywhere else&mdash;you become soon and strangely
+sleepy. Now Anthea and Jane and Cyril and Robert were very like you in
+many ways, and when they had eaten all they could, and drunk all there
+was, they became sleepy, strangely and soon&mdash;especially Anthea, because
+she had gotten up so early.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 386px;"><a name="children" id="children"></a>
+<img src="images/23.png" width="386" height="400" alt="The children were fast asleep" title="The children were fast asleep" />
+<span class="caption">The children were fast asleep</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>One by one they left off talking and leaned back, and before it was a
+quarter of an hour after dinner they had all curled round and tucked
+themselves up under their large soft warm wings and were fast asleep.
+And the sun was sinking slowly in the west. (I must say it was in the
+west, because it is usual in <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_138" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</a></span>books to say so, for fear careless people
+should think it was setting in the east. In point of fact, it was not
+exactly in the west either&mdash;but that's near enough.) The sun, I repeat,
+was sinking slowly in the west, and the children slept warmly and
+happily on&mdash;for wings are cosier than eider-down quilts to sleep under.
+The shadow of the church-tower fell across the churchyard, and across
+the Vicarage, and across the field beyond; and presently there were no
+more shadows, and the sun had set, and the wings were gone. And still
+the children slept. But not for long. Twilight is very beautiful, but it
+is chilly; and you know, however sleepy you are, you wake up soon enough
+if your brother or sister happens to be up first and pulls your blankets
+off you. The four wingless children shivered and woke. And there they
+were,&mdash;on the top of a church-tower in the dusky twilight, with blue
+stars coming out by ones and twos and tens and twenties over their
+heads,&mdash;miles away from home, with three shillings and three-halfpence
+in their pockets, and a doubtful act <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_139" id="Page_139">[Pg 139]</a></span>about the necessities of life to
+be accounted for if anyone found them with the soda-water syphon.</p>
+
+<p>They looked at each other. Cyril spoke first, picking up the syphon&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We'd better get along down and get rid of this beastly thing. It's dark
+enough to leave it on the clergyman's doorstep, I should think. Come
+on."</p>
+
+<p>There was a little turret at the corner of the tower, and the little
+turret had a door in it. They had noticed this when they were eating,
+but had not explored it, as you would have done in their place. Because,
+of course, when you have wings and can explore the whole sky, doors seem
+hardly worth exploring.</p>
+
+<p>Now they turned towards it.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," said Cyril "this is the way down."</p>
+
+<p>It was. But the door was locked on the inside!</p>
+
+<p>And the world was growing darker and darker. And they were miles from
+home. And there was the soda-water syphon.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_140" id="Page_140">[Pg 140]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>I shall not tell you whether anyone cried, nor, if so, how many cried,
+nor who cried. You will be better employed in making up your minds what
+you would have done if you had been in their place.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_141" id="Page_141">[Pg 141]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER V</h2>
+
+<h3>NO WINGS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Whether anyone cried or not, there was certainly an interval during
+which none of the party was quite itself. When they grew calmer, Anthea
+put her handkerchief in her pocket and her arm round Jane, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It can't be for more than one night. We can signal with our
+handkerchiefs in the morning. They'll be dry then. And someone will come
+up and let us out"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"And find the syphon," said Cyril gloomily; "and we shall be sent to
+prison for stealing"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You said it wasn't stealing. You said you were sure it wasn't."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not sure <i>now</i>" said Cyril shortly.</p>
+
+<p>"Let's throw the thing away among the trees," said Robert, "then no one
+can do anything to us."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes,"&mdash;Cyril's laugh was not a light-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_142" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</a></span>hearted one,&mdash;"and hit some
+chap on the head, and be murderers as well as&mdash;as the other thing."</p>
+
+<p>"But we can't stay up here all night," said Jane; "and I want my tea."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>can't</i> want your tea," said Robert; "you've only just had your
+dinner."</p>
+
+<p>"But I <i>do</i> want it," she said; "especially when you begin talking about
+stopping up here all night. Oh, Panther&mdash;I want to go home! I want to go
+home!"</p>
+
+<p>"Hush, hush," Anthea said. "Don't, dear. It'll be all right, somehow.
+Don't, don't"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Let her cry," said Robert desperately; "if she howls loud enough,
+someone may hear and come and let us out."</p>
+
+<p>"And see the soda-water thing," said Anthea swiftly. "Robert, don't be a
+brute. Oh, Jane, do try to be a man! It's just the same for all of us."</p>
+
+<p>Jane did try to "be a man"&mdash;and reduced her howls to sniffs.</p>
+
+<p>There was a pause. Then Cyril said slowly, "Look here. We must risk that
+syphon. I'll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_143" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</a></span>button it up inside my jacket&mdash;perhaps no one will notice
+it. You others keep well in front of me. There are lights in the
+clergyman's house. They've not gone to bed yet. We must just yell as
+loud as ever we can. Now all scream when I say three. Robert, you do the
+yell like a railway engine, and I'll do the coo-ee like father's. The
+girls can do as they please. One, two, three!"</p>
+
+<p>A four-fold yell rent the silent peace of the evening, and a maid at one
+of the Vicarage windows paused with her hand on the blind-cord.</p>
+
+<p>"One, two, three!" Another yell, piercing and complex, startled the owls
+and starlings to a flutter of feathers in the belfry below. The maid
+flew from the Vicarage window and ran down the Vicarage stairs and into
+the Vicarage kitchen, and fainted as soon as she had explained to the
+man-servant and the cook and the cook's cousin that she had seen a
+ghost. It was quite untrue, of course, but I suppose the girl's nerves
+were a little upset by the yelling.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_144" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"One, two, three!" The Vicar was on his doorstep by this time, and there
+was no mistaking the yell that greeted him.</p>
+
+<p>"Goodness me," he said to his wife, "my dear, someone's being murdered
+in the church! Give me my hat and a thick stick, and tell Andrew to come
+after me. I expect it's the lunatic who stole the tongue."</p>
+
+<p>The children had seen the flash of light when the Vicar opened his front
+door. They had seen his dark form on his doorstep, and they had paused
+for breath, and also to see what he would do.</p>
+
+<p>When he turned back for his hat, Cyril said hastily&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"He thinks he only fancied he heard something. You don't half yell! Now!
+One, two, three!"</p>
+
+<p>It was certainly a whole yell this time, and the Vicar's wife flung her
+arms round her husband and screamed a feeble echo of it.</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't go!" she said, "not alone. Jessie!"&mdash;the maid unfainted and
+came out of the kitchen,&mdash;"send Andrew at once. There's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_145" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</a></span>a dangerous
+lunatic in the church, and he must go immediately and catch him."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect he <i>will</i> catch it too," said Jessie to herself as she went
+through the kitchen door. "Here, Andrew," she said, "there's someone
+screaming like mad in the church, and the missus says you're to go along
+and catch it."</p>
+
+<p>"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew in low firm tones. To his master he
+merely said, "Yis sir."</p>
+
+<p>"You heard those screams?"</p>
+
+<p>"I did think I noticed a sort of something," said Andrew.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, come on, then," said the Vicar. "My dear, I <i>must</i> go!" He pushed
+her gently into the sitting-room, banged the door, and rushed out,
+dragging Andrew by the arm.</p>
+
+<p>A volley of yells greeted them. Then as it died into silence Andrew
+shouted, "Hullo, you there! Did you call?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," shouted four far-away voices.</p>
+
+<p>"They seem to be in the air," said the Vicar. "Very remarkable."</p>
+
+<p>"Where are you?" shouted Andrew; and<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_146" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</a></span> Cyril replied in his deepest
+voice, very slow and loud&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"CHURCH! TOWER! TOP!"</p>
+
+<p>"Come down, then!" said Andrew; and the same voice replied&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Can't! Door locked!</i>"</p>
+
+<p>"My goodness!" said the Vicar. "Andrew, fetch the stable lantern.
+Perhaps it would be as well to fetch another man from the village."</p>
+
+<p>"With the rest of the gang about, very likely. No, sir; if this 'ere
+ain't a trap&mdash;well, may I never! There's cook's cousin at the back door
+now. He's a keeper, sir, and used to dealing with vicious characters.
+And he's got his gun, sir."</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo there!" shouted Cyril from the church-tower; "come up and let us
+out."</p>
+
+<p>"We're a-coming," said Andrew. "I'm a-going to get a policeman and a
+gun."</p>
+
+<p>"Andrew, Andrew," said the Vicar, "that's not the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"It's near enough, sir, for the likes of them."</p>
+
+<p>So Andrew fetched the lantern and the cook's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_147" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</a></span>cousin; and the Vicar's
+wife begged them all to be very careful.</p>
+
+<p>They went across the churchyard&mdash;it was quite dark now&mdash;and as they went
+they talked. The Vicar was certain a lunatic was on the
+church-tower&mdash;the one who had written the mad letter, and taken the cold
+tongue and things. Andrew thought it was a "trap"; the cook's cousin
+alone was calm. "Great cry, little wool," said he; "dangerous chaps is
+quieter." He was not at all afraid. But then he had a gun. That was why
+he was asked to lead the way up the worn, steep, dark steps of the
+church-tower. He did lead the way, with the lantern in one hand and the
+gun in the other. Andrew went next. He pretended afterwards that this
+was because he was braver than his master, but really it was because he
+thought of traps and he did not like the idea of being behind the others
+for fear someone should come softly up behind him and catch hold of his
+legs in the dark. They went on and on, and round and round the little
+corkscrew staircase&mdash;then through the bell-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_148" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</a></span>ringers' loft, where the
+bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars&mdash;then up
+another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are&mdash;and then
+on up a ladder with broad steps&mdash;and then up a little stone stair. And
+at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on
+the stair side.</p>
+
+<p>The cook's cousin, who was a gamekeeper, kicked at the door, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, you there!"</p>
+
+<p>The children were holding on to each other on the other side of the
+door, and trembling with anxiousness&mdash;and very hoarse with their howls.
+They could hardly speak, but Cyril managed to reply huskily&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo, you there!"</p>
+
+<p>"How did you get up there?"</p>
+
+<p>It was no use saying "We flew up," so Cyril said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"We got up&mdash;and then we found the door was locked and we couldn't get
+down. Let us out&mdash;do."</p>
+
+<p>"How many of you are there?" asked the keeper.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_149" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Only four," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Are you armed?"</p>
+
+<p>"Are we what?"</p>
+
+<p>"I've got my gun handy&mdash;so you'd best not try any tricks," said the
+keeper. "If we open the door, will you promise to come quietly down, and
+no nonsense?"</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;oh YES!" said all the children together.</p>
+
+<p>"Bless me," said the Vicar, "surely that was a female voice?"</p>
+
+<p>"Shall I open the door, sir?" said the keeper. Andrew went down a few
+steps, "to leave room for the others" he said afterwards.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said the Vicar, "open the door. Remember," he said through the
+keyhole, "we have come to release you. You will keep your promise to
+refrain from violence?"</p>
+
+<p>"How this bolt do stick," said the keeper; "anyone 'ud think it hadn't
+been drawed for half a year." As a matter of fact it hadn't.</p>
+
+<p>When all the bolts were drawn, the keeper spoke deep-chested words
+through the keyhole.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_150" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</a></span></p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 376px;"><a name="keeper" id="keeper"></a>
+<img src="images/24.png" width="376" height="394" alt="The keeper spoke deep-chested words through the keyhole" title="The keeper spoke deep-chested words through the keyhole" />
+<span class="caption">The keeper spoke deep-chested words through the keyhole</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I don't open," said he, "till you've gone over to the other side of the
+tower. And if one of you comes at me I fire. Now!"</p>
+
+<p>"We're all over on the other side," said the voices.</p>
+
+<p>The keeper felt pleased with himself, and owned himself a bold man when
+he threw open that door, and, stepping out into the leads, flashed the
+full light of the stable lantern on the group of desperadoes standing
+against the parapet on the other side of the tower.</p>
+
+<p>He lowered his gun, and he nearly dropped the lantern.</p>
+
+<p>"So help me," he cried, "if they ain't a pack of kiddies!"</p>
+
+<p>The Vicar now advanced.</p>
+
+<p>"How did you come here?" he asked severely. "Tell me at once."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, take us down," said Jane, catching at his coat, "and we'll tell you
+anything you like. You won't believe us, but it doesn't matter. Oh, take
+us down!"</p>
+
+<p>The others crowded round him, with the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_151" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</a></span>same entreaty. All but Cyril.
+He had enough to do with the soda-water syphon, which would keep
+slipping down under his jacket. It needed both hands to keep it steady
+in its place.</p>
+
+<p>But he said, standing as far out of the lantern light as possible&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Please do take us down."</p>
+
+<p>So they were taken down. It is no joke to go down a strange church-tower
+in the dark, but the keeper helped them&mdash;only, Cyril had to be
+independent because of the soda-water syphon. It would keep trying to
+get away. Half-way down the ladder it all but escaped. Cyril just caught
+it by its spout, and as nearly as possible lost his footing. He was
+trembling and pale when at last they reached the bottom of the winding
+stair and stepped out on to the stones of the church-porch.</p>
+
+<p>Then suddenly the keeper caught Cyril and Robert each by an arm.</p>
+
+<p>"You bring along the gells, sir," said he; "you and Andrew can manage
+them."</p>
+
+<p>"Let go!" said Cyril; "we aren't running <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_152" id="Page_152">[Pg 152]</a></span>away. We haven't hurt your old
+church. Leave go!"</p>
+
+<p>"You just come along," said the keeper; and Cyril dared not oppose him
+with violence, because just then the syphon began to slip again.</p>
+
+<p>So they were marched into the Vicarage study, and the Vicar's wife came
+rushing in.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, William, <i>are</i> you safe?" she cried.</p>
+
+<p>Robert hastened to allay her anxiety.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," he said, "he's quite safe. We haven't hurt them at all. And
+please, we're very late, and they'll be anxious at home. Could you send
+us home in your carriage?"</p>
+
+<p>"Or perhaps there's a hotel near where we could get a carriage," said
+Anthea. "Martha will be very anxious as it is."</p>
+
+<p>The Vicar had sunk into a chair, overcome by emotion and amazement.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril had also sat down, and was leaning forward with his elbows on his
+knees because of the soda-water syphon.</p>
+
+<p>"But how did you come to be locked up in the church-tower?" asked the
+Vicar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_153" id="Page_153">[Pg 153]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We went up," said Robert slowly, "and we were tired, and we all went to
+sleep, and when we woke up we found the door was locked, so we yelled."</p>
+
+<p>"I should think you did!" said the Vicar's wife. "Frightening everybody
+out of their wits like this! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."</p>
+
+<p>"We <i>are</i>," said Jane gently.</p>
+
+<p>"But who locked the door?" asked the Vicar.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know at all," said Robert, with perfect truth. "Do please send
+us home."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, really," said the Vicar, "I suppose we'd better. Andrew, put the
+horse to, and you can take them home."</p>
+
+<p>"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew to himself.</p>
+
+<p>And the Vicar went on, "let this be a lesson to you"&mdash;&mdash; He went on
+talking, and the children listened miserably. But the keeper was not
+listening. He was looking at the unfortunate Cyril. He knew all about
+poachers, of course, so he knew how people look when they're hiding
+something. The Vicar <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_154" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</a></span>had just got to the part about trying to grow up
+to be a blessing to your parents, and not a trouble and disgrace, when
+the keeper suddenly said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Arst him what he's got there under his jacket;" and Cyril knew that
+concealment was at an end. So he stood up, and squared his shoulders and
+tried to look noble, like the boys in books that no one can look in the
+face of and doubt that they come of brave and noble families, and will
+be faithful to the death, and he pulled out the syphon and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Well, there you are, then."</p>
+
+<p>There was silence. Cyril went on&mdash;there was nothing else for it&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, we took this out of your larder, and some chicken and tongue and
+bread. We were very hungry, and we didn't take the custard or jam. We
+only took bread and meat and water,&mdash;and we couldn't help its being soda
+kind,&mdash;just the necessaries of life; and we left half-a-crown to pay for
+it, and we left a letter. And we're very sorry. And my father will pay a
+fine and anything you like, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_155" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</a></span>but don't send us to prison. Mother would
+be so vexed. You know what you said about not being a disgrace. Well,
+don't you go and do it to us&mdash;that's all! We're as sorry as we can be.
+There!"</p>
+
+<p>"However did you get up to the larder window?" said Mrs. Vicar.</p>
+
+<p>"I can't tell you that," said Cyril firmly.</p>
+
+<p>"Is this the whole truth you've been telling me?" asked the clergyman.</p>
+
+<p>"No," answered Jane suddenly; "it's all true, but it's not the whole
+truth. We can't tell you that. It's no good asking. Oh, do forgive us
+and take us home!" She ran to the Vicar's wife and threw her arms round
+her. The Vicar's wife put her arms round Jane, and the keeper whispered
+behind his hand to the Vicar&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"They're all right, sir&mdash;I expect it's a pal they're standing by.
+Someone put 'em up to it, and they won't peach. Game little kids."</p>
+
+<p>"Tell me," said the Vicar kindly, "are you screening someone else? Had
+anyone else anything to do with this?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_156" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Anthea, thinking of the Psammead; "but it wasn't their
+fault."</p>
+
+<p>"Very well, my dears," said the Vicar, "then let's say no more about it.
+Only just tell us why you wrote such an odd letter."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Cyril. "You see, Anthea wrote it in such a hurry,
+and it really didn't seem like stealing then. But afterwards, when we
+found we couldn't get down off the church-tower, it seemed just exactly
+like it. We are all very sorry"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Say no more about it," said the Vicar's wife; "but another time just
+think before you take other people's tongues. Now&mdash;some cake and milk
+before you go home?"</p>
+
+<p>When Andrew came to say that the horse was put to, and was he expected
+to be led alone into the trap that he had plainly seen from the first,
+he found the children eating cake and drinking milk and laughing at the
+Vicar's jokes. Jane was sitting on the Vicar's wife's lap.</p>
+
+<p>So you see they got off better than they deserved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_157" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The gamekeeper, who was the cook's cousin, asked leave to drive home
+with them, and Andrew was only too glad to have someone to protect him
+from that trap he was so certain of.</p>
+
+<p>When the wagonette reached their own house, between the chalk-quarry and
+the gravel-pit, the children were very sleepy, but they felt that they
+and the keeper were friends for life.</p>
+
+<p>Andrew dumped the children down at the iron gate without a word.</p>
+
+<p>"You get along home," said the Vicarage cook's cousin, who was a
+gamekeeper. "I'll get me home on shanks' mare."</p>
+
+<p>So Andrew had to drive off alone, which he did not like at all, and it
+was the keeper that was cousin to the Vicarage cook who went with the
+children to the door, and, when they had been swept to bed in a
+whirlwind of reproaches, remained to explain to Martha and the cook and
+the housemaid exactly what had happened. He explained so well that
+Martha was quite amicable the next morning.</p>
+
+<p>After that he often used to come over and see<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_158" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</a></span> Martha, and in the
+end&mdash;but that is another story, as dear Mr. Kipling says.</p>
+
+<p>Martha was obliged to stick to what she had said the night before about
+keeping the children indoors the next day for a punishment. But she
+wasn't at all ugly about it, and agreed to let Robert go out for half an
+hour to get something he particularly wanted.</p>
+
+<p>This, of course, was the day's wish.</p>
+
+<p>Robert rushed to the gravel-pit, found the Psammead, and presently
+wished for&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>But that, too, is another story.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_159" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VI</h2>
+
+<h3>A CASTLE AND NO DINNER</h3>
+
+
+<p>The others were to be kept in as a punishment for the misfortunes of the
+day before. Of course Martha thought it was naughtiness, and not
+misfortune&mdash;so you must not blame her. She only thought she was doing
+her duty. You know, grown-up people often say they do not like to punish
+you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them
+as much as it hurts you&mdash;and this is really very often the truth.</p>
+
+<p>Martha certainly hated having to punish the children quite as much as
+they hated to be punished. For one thing, she knew what a noise there
+would be in the house all day. And she had other reasons.</p>
+
+<p>"I declare," she said to the cook, "it seems almost a shame keeping of
+them indoors this lovely day; but they are that audacious, they'll <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_160" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</a></span>be
+walking in with their heads knocked off some of these days, if I don't
+put my foot down. You make them a cake for tea to-morrow, dear. And
+we'll have Baby along of us soon as we've got a bit forrard with our
+work. Then they can have a good romp with him, out of the way. Now,
+Eliza, come, get on with them beds. Here's ten o'clock nearly, and no
+rabbits caught!"</p>
+
+<p>People say that in Kent when they mean "and no work done."</p>
+
+<p>So all the others were kept in, but Robert, as I have said, was allowed
+to go out for half an hour to get something they all wanted. And that,
+of course, was the day's wish.</p>
+
+<p>He had no difficulty in finding the Sand-fairy, for the day was already
+so hot that it had actually, for the first time, come out of its own
+accord, and was sitting in a sort of pool of soft sand, stretching
+itself, and trimming its whiskers, and turning its snail's eyes round
+and round.</p>
+
+<p>"Ha!" it said when its left eye saw Robert; "I've been looking for you.
+Where are the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_161" id="Page_161">[Pg 161]</a></span>rest of you? Not smashed themselves up with those wings,
+I hope?"</p>
+
+<p>"No," said Robert; "but the wings got us into a row, just like all the
+wishes always do. So the others are kept indoors, and I was only let out
+for half an hour&mdash;to get the wish. So please let me wish as quickly as I
+can."</p>
+
+<p>"Wish away," said the Psammead, twisting itself round in the sand. But
+Robert couldn't wish away. He forgot all the things he had been thinking
+about, and nothing would come into his head but little things for
+himself, like candy, a foreign stamp album, or a knife with three blades
+and a corkscrew. He sat down to think better of things the others would
+not have cared for&mdash;such as a football, or a pair of leg-guards, or to
+be able to lick Simpkins Minor thoroughly when he went back to school.</p>
+
+<p>"Well," said the Psammead at last, "you'd better hurry up with that wish
+of yours. Time flies."</p>
+
+<p>"I know it does," said Robert. "<i>I</i> can't think what to wish for. I wish
+you could give <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_162" id="Page_162">[Pg 162]</a></span>one of the others their wish without their having to
+come here to ask for it. Oh, <i>don't</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>But it was too late. The Psammead had blown itself out to about three
+times its proper size, and now it collapsed like a pricked bubble, and
+with a deep sigh leaned back against the edge of the sand-pool, quite
+faint with the effort.</p>
+
+<p>"There!" it said in a weak voice; "it was tremendously hard&mdash;but I did
+it. Run along home, or they're sure to wish for something silly before
+you get there."</p>
+
+<p>They were&mdash;quite sure; Robert felt this, and as he ran home his mind was
+deeply occupied with the sort of wishes he might find they had wished in
+his absence. They might wish for rabbits, or white mice, or chocolate,
+or a fine day to-morrow, or even&mdash;and that was most likely&mdash;someone
+might have said, "I do wish to goodness Robert would hurry up." Well, he
+<i>was</i> hurrying up, and so they would have had their wish, and the day
+would be wasted. Then he tried to think what they could wish
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_163" id="Page_163">[Pg 163]</a></span>for&mdash;something that would be amusing indoors. That had been his own
+difficulty from the beginning. So few things are amusing indoors when
+the sun is shining outside and you mayn't go out, however much you want
+to do so.</p>
+
+<p>Robert was running as fast as he could, but when he turned the corner
+that ought to have brought him within sight of the architect's
+nightmare&mdash;the ornamental iron-work on the top of the house&mdash;he opened
+his eyes so wide that he had to drop into a walk; for you cannot run
+with your eyes wide open. Then suddenly he stopped short, for there was
+no house to be seen. The front garden railings were gone too, and where
+the house had stood&mdash;Robert rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yes, the
+others <i>had</i> wished,&mdash;there was no doubt about it,&mdash;and they must have
+wished that they lived in a castle; for there the castle stood, black
+and stately, and very tall and broad, with battlements and lancet
+windows, and eight great towers; and, where the garden and the orchard
+had been, there were white things <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_164" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</a></span>dotted like mushrooms. Robert walked
+slowly on, and as he got nearer he saw that these were tents, and men in
+armor were walking about among the tents&mdash;crowds and crowds of them.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="castle" id="castle"></a>
+<img src="images/25.png" width="400" height="293" alt="There the castle stood, black and stately" title="There the castle stood, black and stately" />
+<span class="caption">There the castle stood, black and stately</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Oh!" said Robert fervently. "They <i>have</i>! They've wished for a castle,
+and it's being besieged! It's just like that Sand-fairy! I wish we'd
+never seen the beastly thing!"</p>
+
+<p>At the little window above the great gateway, across the moat that now
+lay where the garden had been but half an hour ago, someone was waving
+something pale dust-colored. Robert thought it was one of Cyril's
+handkerchiefs. They had never been white since the day when he had upset
+the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer
+where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had
+been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and
+two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots
+on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides
+that Robert remem<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_165" id="Page_165">[Pg 165]</a></span>bered the shortness of his own legs and did not run
+away. He knew it would be useless to himself, and he feared it might be
+irritating to the foe. So he stood still&mdash;and the two men seemed quite
+pleased with him.</p>
+
+<p>"By my halidom," said one, "a brave varlet this!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert felt pleased at being <i>called</i> brave, and somehow it made him
+<i>feel</i> brave. He passed over the "varlet." It was the way people talked
+in historical romances for the young, he knew, and it was evidently not
+meant for rudeness. He only hoped he would be able to understand what
+they said to him. He had not been always able quite to follow the
+conversations in the historical romances for the young.</p>
+
+<p>"His garb is strange," said the other. "Some outlandish treachery,
+belike."</p>
+
+<p>"Say, lad, what brings thee hither?"</p>
+
+<p>Robert knew this meant, "Now then, youngster, what are you up to here,
+eh?"&mdash;so he said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you please, I want to go home."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_166" id="Page_166">[Pg 166]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Go, then!" said the man in the longest boots; "none hindereth, and
+nought lets us to follow. Zooks!" he added in a cautious undertone, "I
+misdoubt me but he beareth tidings to the besieged."</p>
+
+<p>"Where dwellest thou, young knave?" inquired the man with the largest
+steel-cap.</p>
+
+<p>"Over there," said Robert; and directly he had said it he knew he ought
+to have said "Yonder!"</p>
+
+<p>"Ha&mdash;sayest so?" rejoined the longest boots. "Come hither, boy. This is
+matter for our leader."</p>
+
+<p>And to the leader Robert was dragged forthwith&mdash;by the reluctant ear.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 314px;"><a name="robert" id="robert"></a>
+<img src="images/26.png" width="314" height="400" alt="Robert was dragged forthwith&mdash;by the reluctant ear" title="Robert was dragged forthwith&mdash;by the reluctant ear" />
+<span class="caption">Robert was dragged forthwith&mdash;by the reluctant ear</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The leader was the most glorious creature Robert had ever seen. He was
+exactly like the pictures Robert had so often admired in the historical
+romances. He had armor, and a helmet, and a horse, and a crest, and
+feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his
+weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The
+shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_167" id="Page_167">[Pg 167]</a></span>of the pattern
+used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I.,
+and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield
+were very grand&mdash;three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents
+were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the
+whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to
+some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him
+perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or arch&aelig;ology
+than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical
+romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired it
+all so much that he felt braver than ever.</p>
+
+<p>"Come hither, lad," said the glorious leader, when the men in
+Cromwellian steel-caps had said a few low eager words. And he took off
+his helmet, because he could not see properly with it on. He had a kind
+face, and long fair hair. "Have no fear; thou shalt take no scathe," he
+said.</p>
+
+<p>Robert was glad of that. He wondered <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_168" id="Page_168">[Pg 168]</a></span>what "scathe" was, and if it was
+nastier than the medicine which he had to take sometimes.</p>
+
+<p>"Unfold thy tale without alarm," said the leader kindly. "Whence comest
+thou, and what is thine intent?"</p>
+
+<p>"My what?" said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"What seekest thou to accomplish? What is thine errand, that thou
+wanderest here alone among these rough men-at-arms? Poor child, thy
+mother's heart aches for thee e'en now, I'll warrant me."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think so," said Robert; "you see, she doesn't know I'm out."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="wiped" id="wiped"></a>
+<img src="images/27.png" width="400" height="377" alt="He wiped away a manly tear" title="He wiped away a manly tear" />
+<span class="caption">He wiped away a manly tear</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The leader wiped away a manly tear, exactly as a leader in a historical
+romance would have done, and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Fear not to speak the truth, my child; thou hast nought to fear from
+Wulfric de Talbot."</p>
+
+<p>Robert had a wild feeling that this glorious leader of the besieging
+party&mdash;being himself part of a wish&mdash;would be able to understand better
+than Martha, or the gipsies, or the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_169" id="Page_169">[Pg 169]</a></span>policeman in Rochester, or the
+clergyman of yesterday, the true tale of the wishes and the Psammead.
+The only difficulty was that he knew he could never remember enough
+"quothas" and "beshrew me's," and things like that, to make his talk
+sound like the talk of a boy in a historical romance. However, he began
+boldly enough, with a sentence straight out of <i>Ralph de Courcy; or, The
+Boy Crusader</i>. He said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Grammercy for thy courtesy, fair sir knight. The fact is, it's like
+this&mdash;and I hope you're not in a hurry, because the story's rather a
+breather. Father and mother are away, and when we went down playing in
+the sand-pits we found a Psammead."</p>
+
+<p>"I cry thee mercy! A Sammyadd?" said the knight.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, a sort of&mdash;of fairy, or enchanter&mdash;yes, that's it, an enchanter;
+and he said we could have a wish every day, and we wished first to be
+beautiful."</p>
+
+<p>"Thy wish was scarce granted," muttered one of the men-at-arms, looking
+at Robert, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_170" id="Page_170">[Pg 170]</a></span>who went on as if he had not heard, though he thought the
+remark very rude indeed.</p>
+
+<p>"And then we wished for money&mdash;treasure, you know; but we couldn't spend
+it. And yesterday we wished for wings, and we got them, and we had a
+ripping time to begin with"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Thy speech is strange and uncouth," said Sir Wulfric de Talbot. "Repeat
+thy words&mdash;what hadst thou?"</p>
+
+<p>"A ripping&mdash;I mean a jolly&mdash;no&mdash;we were contented with our lot&mdash;that's
+what I mean; only, after we got into an awful fix."</p>
+
+<p>"What is a fix? A fray, mayhap?"</p>
+
+<p>"No&mdash;not a fray. A&mdash;a&mdash;a tight place."</p>
+
+<p>"A dungeon? Alas for thy youthful fettered limbs!" said the knight, with
+polite sympathy.</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't a dungeon. We just&mdash;just encountered undeserved misfortunes,"
+Robert explained, "and to-day we are punished by not being allowed to go
+out. That's where I live,"&mdash;he pointed to the castle. "The others are in
+there, and they're not allowed to go out. It's <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_171" id="Page_171">[Pg 171]</a></span>all the Psammead's&mdash;I
+mean the enchanter's fault. I wish we'd never seen him."</p>
+
+<p>"He is an enchanter of might?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes&mdash;of might and main. Rather!"</p>
+
+<p>"And thou deemest that it is the spells of the enchanter whom thou hast
+angered that have lent strength to the besieging party," said the
+gallant leader; "but know thou that Wulfric de Talbot needs no
+enchanter's aid to lead his followers to victory."</p>
+
+<p>"No, I'm sure you don't," said Robert, with hasty courtesy; "of course
+not&mdash;you wouldn't, you know. But, all the same, it's partly his fault,
+but we're most to blame. You couldn't have done anything if it hadn't
+been for us."</p>
+
+<p>"How now, bold boy?" asked Sir Wulfric haughtily. "Thy speech is dark,
+and eke scarce courteous. Unravel me this riddle!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh," said Robert desperately, "of course you don't know it, but you're
+not <i>real</i> at all. You're only here because the others must have been
+idiots enough to wish for a castle&mdash;and when the sun sets you'll just
+vanish away, and it'll be all right."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_172" id="Page_172">[Pg 172]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The captain and the men-at-arms exchanged glances at first pitying, and
+then sterner, as the longest-booted man said, "Beware, my noble lord;
+the urchin doth but feign madness to escape from our clutches. Shall we
+not bind him?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm no more mad than you are," said Robert angrily, "perhaps not so
+much&mdash;Only, I was an idiot to think you'd understand anything. Let me
+go&mdash;I haven't done anything to you."</p>
+
+<p>"Whither?" asked the knight, who seemed to have believed all the
+enchanter story till it came to his own share in it. "Whither wouldst
+thou wend?"</p>
+
+<p>"Home, of course." Robert pointed to the castle.</p>
+
+<p>"To carry news of succor? Nay!"</p>
+
+<p>"All right, then," said Robert, struck by a sudden idea; "then let me go
+somewhere else." His mind sought eagerly among the memories of the
+historical romance.</p>
+
+<p>"Sir Wulfric de Talbot," he said slowly, "should think foul scorn to&mdash;to
+keep a chap&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_173" id="Page_173">[Pg 173]</a></span>I mean one who has done him no hurt&mdash;when he wants to cut
+off quietly&mdash;I mean to depart without violence."</p>
+
+<p>"This to my face! Beshrew thee for a knave!" replied Sir Wulfric. But
+the appeal seemed to have gone home. "Yet thou sayest sooth," he added
+thoughtfully. "Go where thou wilt," he added nobly, "thou art free.
+Wulfric de Talbot warreth not with babes, and Jakin here shall bear thee
+company."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Robert wildly. "Jakin will enjoy himself, I think.
+Come on, Jakin. Sir Wulfric, I salute thee."</p>
+
+<p>He saluted after the modern military manner, and set off running to the
+sand-pit, Jakin's long boots keeping up easily.</p>
+
+<p>He found the Fairy. He dug it up, he woke it up, he implored it to give
+him one more wish.</p>
+
+<p>"I've done two to-day already," it grumbled, "and one was as stiff a bit
+of work as ever I did."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, do, do, do, do, <i>do</i>!" said Robert, while Jakin looked on with an
+expression of open-<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_174" id="Page_174">[Pg 174]</a></span>mouthed horror at the strange beast that talked, and
+gazed with its snail's eyes at him.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="do" id="do"></a>
+<img src="images/28.png" width="400" height="362" alt="&quot;Oh, do, do, do!&quot; said Robert" title="&quot;Oh, do, do, do!&quot; said Robert" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Oh, do, do, do!&quot; said Robert</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Well, what is it?" snapped the Psammead, with cross sleepiness.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish I was with the others," said Robert. And the Psammead began to
+swell. Robert never thought of wishing the castle and the siege away. Of
+course he knew they had all come out of a wish, but swords and daggers
+and pikes and lances seemed much too real to be wished away. Robert lost
+consciousness for an instant. When he opened his eyes the others were
+crowding round him.</p>
+
+<p>"We never heard you come in," they said. "How awfully jolly of you to
+wish it to give us our wish!"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course we understood that was what you'd done."</p>
+
+<p>"But you ought to have told us. Suppose we'd wished something silly."</p>
+
+<p>"Silly?" said Robert, very crossly indeed. "How much sillier could you
+have been, I'd like to know? You nearly settled <i>me</i>&mdash;I can tell
+you."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_175" id="Page_175">[Pg 175]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Then he told his story, and the others admitted that it certainly had
+been rough on him. But they praised his courage and cleverness so much
+that he presently got back his lost temper, and felt braver than ever,
+and consented to be captain of the besieged force.</p>
+
+<p>"We haven't done anything yet," said Anthea comfortably; "we waited for
+you. We're going to shoot at them through these little loopholes with
+the bow and arrows uncle gave you, and you shall have first shot."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't think I would," said Robert cautiously; "you don't know what
+they're like near to. They've got <i>real</i> bows and arrows&mdash;an awful
+length&mdash;and swords and pikes and daggers, and all sorts of sharp things.
+They're all quite, quite real. It's not just a&mdash;a picture, or a vision
+or anything; they can <i>hurt us</i>&mdash;or kill us even, I shouldn't wonder. I
+can feel my ear all sore yet. Look here&mdash;have you explored the castle?
+Because I think we'd better let them alone as long as they let us alone.
+I heard that Jakin man say they weren't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_176" id="Page_176">[Pg 176]</a></span>going to attack till just
+before sundown. We can be getting ready for the attack. Are there any
+soldiers in the castle to defend it?"</p>
+
+<p>"We don't know," said Cyril. "You see, directly I'd wished we were in a
+besieged castle, everything seemed to go upside down, and when it came
+straight we looked out of the window, and saw the camp and things and
+you&mdash;and of course we kept on looking at everything. Isn't this room
+jolly? It's as real as real!"</p>
+
+<p>It was. It was square, with stone walls four feet thick, and great beams
+for ceiling. A low door at the corner led to a flight of steps, up and
+down. The children went down; they found themselves in a great arched
+gate-house&mdash;the enormous doors were shut and barred. There was a window
+in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair
+wound, rather larger than the other windows, and looking through it they
+saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down; the moat looked
+very wide and deep. Opposite the great door that led to the moat was
+another <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_177" id="Page_177">[Pg 177]</a></span>great door, with a little door in it. The children went through
+this, and found themselves in a big courtyard, with the great grey walls
+of the castle rising dark and heavy on all four sides.</p>
+
+<p>Near the middle of the courtyard stood Martha, moving her right hand
+backwards and forwards in the air. The cook was stooping down and moving
+her hands, also in a very curious way. But the oddest and at the same
+time most terrible thing was the Lamb, who was sitting on nothing, about
+three feet from the ground, laughing happily.</p>
+
+<p>The children ran towards him. Just as Anthea was reaching out her arms
+to take him, Martha said crossly, "Let him alone&mdash;do, miss, when he <i>is</i>
+good."</p>
+
+<p>"But what's he <i>doing</i>?" said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Doing? Why, a-setting in his high chair as good as gold, a precious,
+watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do&mdash;my iron's cold
+again."</p>
+
+<p>She went towards the cook, and seemed to poke an invisible fire with an
+unseen poker&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_178" id="Page_178">[Pg 178]</a></span>the cook seemed to be putting an unseen dish into an
+invisible oven.</p>
+
+<p>"Run along with you, do," she said; "I'm behindhand as it is. You won't
+get no dinner if you come a-hindering of me like this. Come, off you
+goes, or I'll pin a discloth to some of your tails."</p>
+
+<p>"You're <i>sure</i> the Lamb's all right?" asked Jane anxiously.</p>
+
+<p>"Right as ninepence, if you don't come unsettling of him. I thought
+you'd like to be rid of him for to-day; but take him, if you want him,
+for gracious' sake."</p>
+
+<p>"No, no," they said, and hastened away. They would have to defend the
+castle presently, and the Lamb was safer even suspended in mid air in an
+invisible kitchen than in the guard-room of the besieged castle. They
+went through the first doorway they came to, and sat down helplessly on
+a wooden bench that ran along the room inside.</p>
+
+<p>"How awful!" said Anthea and Jane together; and Jane added, "I feel as
+if I was in a lunatic asylum."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_179" id="Page_179">[Pg 179]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What does it mean?" Anthea said. "It's creepy; I don't like it. I wish
+we'd wished for something plain&mdash;a rocking-horse, or a donkey, or
+something."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use wishing <i>now</i>," said Robert bitterly; and Cyril said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Do be quiet; I want to think."</p>
+
+<p>He buried his face in his hands, and the others looked about them. They
+were in a long room with an arched roof. There were wooden tables along
+it, and one across at the end of the room, on a sort of raised platform.
+The room was very dim and dark. The floor was strewn with dry things
+like sticks, and they did not smell nice.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril sat up suddenly and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Look here&mdash;it's all right. I think it's like this. You know, we wished
+that the servants shouldn't notice any difference when we got wishes.
+And nothing happens to the Lamb unless we specially wish it to. So of
+course they don't notice the castle or anything. But then the castle is
+on the same place where our house was&mdash;is, I mean&mdash;and the servants have
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_180" id="Page_180">[Pg 180]</a></span>to go on being in the house, or else they <i>would</i> notice. But you can't
+have a castle mixed up with our house&mdash;and so <i>we</i> can't see the house,
+because we see the castle; and they can't see the castle, because they
+go on seeing the house; and so"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i>," said Jane; "you make my head go all swimmy, like being on
+a roundabout. It doesn't matter! Only, I hope we shall be able to see
+our dinner, that's all&mdash;because if it's invisible it'll be unfeelable as
+well, and then we can't eat it! I <i>know</i> it will, because I tried to
+feel if I could feel the Lamb's chair and there was nothing under him at
+all but air. And we can't eat air, and I feel just as if I hadn't had
+any breakfast for years and years."</p>
+
+<p>"It's no use thinking about it," said Anthea. "Let's go on exploring.
+Perhaps we might find something to eat."</p>
+
+<p>This lighted hope in every breast, and they went on exploring the
+castle. But though it was the most perfect and delightful castle you can
+possibly imagine, and furnished in the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_181" id="Page_181">[Pg 181]</a></span>most complete and beautiful
+manner, neither food nor men-at-arms were to be found in it.</p>
+
+<p>"If you'd only thought of wishing to be besieged in a castle thoroughly
+garrisoned and provisioned!" said Jane reproachfully.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't think of everything, you know," said Anthea. "I should think
+it must be nearly dinner-time by now."</p>
+
+<p>It wasn't; but they hung about watching the strange movements of the
+servants in the middle of the courtyard, because, of course, they
+couldn't be sure where the dining-room of the invisible house was.
+Presently they saw Martha carrying an invisible tray across the
+courtyard, for it seemed that, by the most fortunate accident, the
+dining-room of the house and the banqueting-hall of the castle were in
+the same place. But oh, how their hearts sank when they perceived that
+the tray <i>was</i> invisible!</p>
+
+<p>They waited in wretched silence while Martha went through the form of
+carving an unseen leg of mutton and serving invisible greens and
+potatoes with a spoon that no one could see. When she had left the room,
+the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_182" id="Page_182">[Pg 182]</a></span>children looked at the empty table, and then at each other.</p>
+
+<p>"This is worse than anything," said Robert, who had not till now been
+particularly keen on his dinner.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not so very hungry," said Anthea, trying to make the best of
+things, as usual.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril tightened his belt ostentatiously. Jane burst into tears.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_183" id="Page_183">[Pg 183]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VII</h2>
+
+<h3>A SIEGE AND BED</h3>
+
+
+<p>The children were sitting in the gloomy banqueting-hall, at the end of
+one of the long bare wooden tables. There was now no hope. Martha had
+brought in the dinner, and the dinner was invisible, and unfeelable too;
+for, when they rubbed their hands along the table, they knew but too
+well that for them there was nothing there <i>but</i> table.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly Cyril felt in his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>"Right, <i>oh</i>!" he cried. "Look here! Biscuits."</p>
+
+<p>Somewhat broken and crumbled, certainly, but still biscuits. Three whole
+ones, and a generous handful of crumbs and fragments.</p>
+
+<p>"I got them this morning&mdash;cook&mdash;and I'd quite forgotten," he explained
+as he divided them with scrupulous fairness into four heaps.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_184" id="Page_184">[Pg 184]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>They were eaten in a happy silence, though they had an odd taste,
+because they had been in Cyril's pocket all the morning with a hank of
+tarred twine, some green fir-cones, and a ball of cobbler's wax.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, but look here, Squirrel," said Robert; "you're so clever at
+explaining about invisibleness and all that. How is it the biscuits are
+here, and all the bread and meat and things have disappeared?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said Cyril after a pause, "unless it's because <i>we</i> had
+them. Nothing about <i>us</i> has changed. Everything's in my pocket all
+right."</p>
+
+<p>"Then if we <i>had</i> the mutton it would be real," said Robert. "Oh, don't
+I wish we could find it!"</p>
+
+<p>"But we can't find it. I suppose it isn't ours till we've got it in our
+mouths."</p>
+
+<p>"Or in our pockets," said Jane, thinking of the biscuits.</p>
+
+<p>"Who puts mutton in their pockets, goose-girl?" said Cyril. "But I
+know&mdash;at any rate, I'll try it!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_185" id="Page_185">[Pg 185]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He leaned over the table with his face about an inch from it, and kept
+opening and shutting his mouth as if he were taking bites out of air.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no good," said Robert in deep dejection. "You'll only&mdash;&mdash; Hullo!"</p>
+
+<p>Cyril stood up with a grin of triumph, holding a square piece of bread
+in his mouth. It was quite real. Everyone saw it. It is true that,
+directly he bit a piece off, the rest vanished; but it was all right,
+because he knew he had it in his hand though he could neither see nor
+feel it. He took another bite from the air between his fingers, and it
+turned into bread as he bit. The next moment all the others were
+following his example, and opening and shutting their mouths an inch or
+so from the bare-looking table. Robert captured a slice of mutton,
+and&mdash;but I think I will draw a veil over the rest of this painful scene.
+It is enough to say that they all had enough mutton, and that when
+Martha came to change the plates she said she had never seen such a mess
+in all her born days.</p>
+
+<p>The pudding was, fortunately, a plain suet <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_186" id="Page_186">[Pg 186]</a></span>one, and in answer to
+Martha's questions the children all with one accord said that they would
+<i>not</i> have molasses on it&mdash;nor jam, nor sugar&mdash;"Just plain, please,"
+they said. Martha said, "Well, I never&mdash;what next, I wonder!" and went
+away.</p>
+
+<p>Then ensued another scene on which I will not dwell, for nobody looks
+nice picking up slices of suet pudding from the table in its mouth, like
+a dog.</p>
+
+<p>The great thing, after all, was that they had had dinner; and now
+everyone felt more courage to prepare for the attack that was to be
+delivered before sunset. Robert, as captain, insisted on climbing to the
+top of one of the towers to reconnoitre, so up they all went. And now
+they could see all round the castle, and could see, too, that beyond the
+moat, on every side, tents of the besieging party were pitched. Rather
+uncomfortable shivers ran down the children's backs as they saw that all
+the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing
+their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_187" id="Page_187">[Pg 187]</a></span>the
+road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril
+felt quite pale, because he knew this was for a battering-ram.</p>
+
+<p>"What a good thing we've got a moat," he said; "and what a good thing
+the drawbridge is up&mdash;I should never have known how to work it."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it would be up in a besieged castle."</p>
+
+<p>"You'd think there ought to have been soldiers in it, wouldn't you?"
+said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"You see you don't know how long it's been besieged," said Cyril darkly;
+"perhaps most of the brave defenders were killed early in the siege and
+all the provisions eaten, and now there are only a few intrepid
+survivors,&mdash;that's us, and we are going to defend it to the death."</p>
+
+<p>"How do you begin&mdash;defending to the death, I mean?" asked Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to be heavily armed&mdash;and then shoot at them when they advance
+to the attack."</p>
+
+<p>"They used to pour boiling lead down on besiegers when they got too
+close," said An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_188" id="Page_188">[Pg 188]</a></span>thea. "Father showed me the holes on purpose for pouring
+it down through at Bodiam Castle. And there are holes like it in the
+gate-tower here."</p>
+
+<p>"I think I'm glad it's only a game; it <i>is</i> only a game, isn't it?" said
+Jane.</p>
+
+<p>But no one answered.</p>
+
+<p>The children found plenty of strange weapons in the castle, and if they
+were armed at all it was soon plain that they would be, as Cyril said,
+"armed heavily"&mdash;for these swords and lances and crossbows were far too
+weighty even for Cyril's manly strength; and as for the longbows, none
+of the children could even begin to bend them. The daggers were better;
+but Jane hoped that the besiegers would not come close enough for
+daggers to be of any use.</p>
+
+<p>"Never mind, we can hurl them like javelins," said Cyril, "or drop them
+on people's heads. I say&mdash;there are lots of stones on the other side of
+the courtyard. If we took some of those up? Just to drop on their heads
+if they were to try swimming the moat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_189" id="Page_189">[Pg 189]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>So a heap of stones grew apace, up in the room above the gate; and
+another heap, a shiny spiky dangerous-looking heap, of daggers and
+knives.</p>
+
+<p>As Anthea was crossing the courtyard for more stones, a sudden and
+valuable idea came to her.</p>
+
+<p>She went to Martha and said, "May we have just biscuits for tea? We're
+going to play at besieged castles, and we'd like the biscuits to
+provision the garrison. Put mine in my pocket, please, my hands are so
+dirty. And I'll tell the others to fetch theirs."</p>
+
+<p>This was indeed a happy thought, for now with four generous handfuls of
+air, which turned to biscuits as Martha crammed it into their pockets,
+the garrison was well provisioned till sundown.</p>
+
+<p>They brought up some iron pots of cold water to pour on the besiegers
+instead of hot lead, with which the castle did not seem to be provided.</p>
+
+<p>The afternoon passed with wonderful quickness. It was very exciting; but
+none of them, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_190" id="Page_190">[Pg 190]</a></span>except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real
+deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the
+besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of
+make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream.
+But it was only now and then that Robert could feel this.</p>
+
+<p>When it seemed to be tea-time the biscuits were eaten, with water from
+the deep well in the courtyard, drunk out of horns. Cyril insisted on
+putting by eight of the biscuits, in case anyone should feel faint in
+stress of battle.</p>
+
+<p>Just as he was putting away the reserve biscuits in a sort of little
+stone cupboard without a door, a sudden sound made him drop three. It
+was the loud fierce cry of a trumpet.</p>
+
+<p>"You see it <i>is</i> real," said Robert, "and they are going to attack."</p>
+
+<p>All rushed to the narrow windows.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," said Robert, "they're all coming out of their tents and moving
+about like ants. There's that Jakin dancing about where the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_191" id="Page_191">[Pg 191]</a></span>bridge
+joins on. I wish he could see me put my tongue out at him! Yah!"</p>
+
+<p>The others were far too pale to wish to put their tongues out at
+anybody. They looked at Robert with surprised respect. Anthea said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"You really <i>are</i> brave, Robert."</p>
+
+<p>"Rot!" Cyril's pallor turned to redness now, all in a minute. "He's been
+getting ready to be brave all the afternoon. And I wasn't ready, that's
+all. I shall be braver than he is in half a jiffy."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" said Jane, "what does it matter which of you is the bravest?
+I think Cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle, and I don't want
+to play."</p>
+
+<p>"It <i>isn't</i>"&mdash;Robert was beginning sternly, but Anthea interrupted&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes, you do," she said coaxingly; "it's a very nice game, really,
+because they can't possibly get in, and if they do the women and
+children are always spared by civilised armies."</p>
+
+<p>"But are you quite, quite sure they <i>are</i> civil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_192" id="Page_192">[Pg 192]</a></span>ised?" asked Jane,
+panting. "They seem to be such a long time ago."</p>
+
+<p>"Of course they are." Anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow
+window. "Why, look at the little flags on their lances, how bright they
+are&mdash;and how fine the leader is! Look, that's him&mdash;isn't it, Robert?&mdash;on
+the gray horse."</p>
+
+<p>Jane consented to look, and the scene was almost too pretty to be
+alarming. The green turf, the white tents, the flash of pennoned lances,
+the gleam of armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic&mdash;it was
+just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and
+when the trumpeters stopped for breath the children could hear the
+cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices.</p>
+
+<p>A trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat, which now seemed very
+much narrower than at first, and blew the longest and loudest blast they
+had yet heard. When the blaring noise had died away, a man who was with
+the trumpeter shouted&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_193" id="Page_193">[Pg 193]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What ho, within there!" and his voice came plainly to the garrison in
+the <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'gatehouse'">gate-house</ins>.</p>
+
+<p>"Hullo there!" Robert bellowed back at once.</p>
+
+<p>"In the name of our Lord the King, and of our good lord and trusty
+leader Sir Wulfric de Talbot, we summon this castle to surrender&mdash;on
+pain of fire and sword and no quarter. Do ye surrender?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>No</i>" bawled Robert; "of course we don't! Never, <i>Never, NEVER</i>!"</p>
+
+<p>The man answered back&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Then your fate be on your own heads."</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer," said Robert in a fierce whisper. "Cheer to show them we aren't
+afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip,
+hip, hooray! Again&mdash;Hip, hip, hooray! One more&mdash;Hip, hip, hooray!" The
+cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent
+them strength and depth.</p>
+
+<p>There was another shout from the camp across the moat&mdash;and then the
+beleaguered fortress felt that the attack had indeed begun.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_194" id="Page_194">[Pg 194]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was getting rather dark in the room above the great gate, and Jane
+took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset <i>couldn't</i> be
+far off now.</p>
+
+<p>"The moat is dreadfully thin," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"But they can't get into the castle even if they do swim over," said
+Robert. And as he spoke he heard feet on the stair outside&mdash;heavy feet
+and the clang of steel. No one breathed for a moment. The steel and the
+feet went on up the turret stairs. Then Robert sprang softly to the
+door. He pulled off his shoes.</p>
+
+<p>"Wait here," he whispered, and stole quickly and softly after the boots
+and the spur-clank. He peeped into the upper room. The man was
+there&mdash;and it was Jakin, all dripping with moat-water, and he was
+fiddling about with the machinery which Robert felt sure worked the
+drawbridge. Robert banged the door suddenly, and turned the great key in
+the lock, just as Jakin sprang to the inside of the door. Then he tore
+downstairs and into the little turret at the foot of the tower where the
+biggest window was.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_195" id="Page_195">[Pg 195]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We ought to have defended <i>this</i>!" he cried to the others as they
+followed him. He was just in time. Another man had swum over, and his
+fingers were on the window-ledge. Robert never knew how the man had
+managed to climb up out of the water. But he saw the clinging fingers,
+and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from
+the floor. The man fell with a splash into the moat-water. In another
+moment Robert was outside the little room, had banged its door and was
+shooting home the enormous bolts, and calling to Cyril to lend a hand.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 203px;"><a name="man" id="man"></a>
+<img src="images/29.png" width="203" height="400" alt="The man fell with a splash into the moat-water" title="The man fell with a splash into the moat-water" />
+<span class="caption">The man fell with a splash into the moat-water</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then they stood in the arched gate-house, breathing hard and looking at
+each other.</p>
+
+<p>Jane's mouth was open.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheer up, Jenny," said Robert,&mdash;"it won't last much longer."</p>
+
+<p>There was a creaking above, and something rattled and shook. The
+pavement they stood on seemed to tremble. Then a crash told them that
+the drawbridge had been lowered to its place.</p>
+
+<p>"That's that beast Jakin," said Robert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_196" id="Page_196">[Pg 196]</a></span> "There's still the portcullis;
+I'm almost certain that's worked from lower down."</p>
+
+<p>And now the drawbridge rang and echoed hollowly to the hoofs of horses
+and the tramp of armed men.</p>
+
+<p>"Up&mdash;quick!" cried Robert,&mdash;"let's drop things on them."</p>
+
+<p>Even the girls were feeling almost brave now. They followed Robert
+quickly, and under his directions began to drop stones out through the
+long narrow windows. There was a confused noise below, and some groans.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" said Anthea, putting down the stone she was just going to
+drop out, "I'm afraid we've hurt somebody!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert caught up the stone in a fury.</p>
+
+<p>"I should hope we <i>had</i>!" he said; "I'd give something for a jolly good
+boiling kettle of lead. Surrender, indeed!"</p>
+
+<p>And now came more tramping and a pause, and then the thundering thump of
+the battering-ram. And the little room was almost pitch dark.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_197" id="Page_197">[Pg 197]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"We've held it," cried Robert, "we <i>won't</i> surrender! The sun <i>must</i> set
+in a minute. Here&mdash;they're all jawing underneath again. Pity there's no
+time to get more stones! Here, pour that water down on them. It's no
+good, of course, but they'll hate it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh dear!" said Jane, "don't you think we'd better surrender?"</p>
+
+<p>"Never!" said Robert; "we'll have a parley if you like, but we'll never
+surrender. Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up&mdash;you just see if I
+don't. I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says."</p>
+
+<p>"Let's wave a handkerchief and ask for a parley," Jane pleaded. "I don't
+believe the sun's going to set to-night at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Give them the water first&mdash;the brutes!" said the bloodthirsty Robert.
+So Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole, and poured. They
+heard a splash below, but no one below seemed to have felt it. And again
+the ram battered the great door. Anthea paused.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 333px;"><a name="tilted" id="tilted"></a>
+<img src="images/30.png" width="333" height="400" alt="Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole" title="Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole" />
+<span class="caption">Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"How idiotic," said Robert, lying flat on the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_198" id="Page_198">[Pg 198]</a></span>floor and putting one eye
+to the lead-hole. "Of course the holes go straight down into the
+gate-house&mdash;that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the
+portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot." He crawled
+on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and,
+taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.</p>
+
+<p>And as he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the
+trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for
+ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the
+little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when
+the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the
+big front bedroom of their own house&mdash;the house with the ornamental
+nightmare iron-top to the roof.</p>
+
+<p>They all crowded to the window and looked out. The moat and the tents
+and the besieging force were all gone&mdash;and there was the garden with its
+tangle of dahlias and mari<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_199" id="Page_199">[Pg 199]</a></span>golds and asters and later roses, and the
+spiky iron railings and the quiet white road.</p>
+
+<p>Everyone drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"And that's all right!" said Robert. "I told you so! And, I say, we
+didn't surrender, did we?"</p>
+
+<p>"Aren't you glad now I wished for a castle?" asked Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"I think I am <i>now</i>," said Anthea slowly. "But I wouldn't wish for it
+again, I think, Squirrel dear!"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it was simply splendid!" said Jane unexpectedly. "I wasn't
+frightened a bit."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I say!" Cyril was beginning, but Anthea stopped him.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," she said, "it's just come into my head. This is the very
+first thing we've wished for that hasn't got us into a row. And there
+hasn't been the least little scrap of a row about this. Nobody's raging
+downstairs, we're safe and sound, we've had an awfully jolly day&mdash;at
+least, not jolly exactly, but you know what I mean. And we know now how
+brave Robert is&mdash;and Cyril too, of course,"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_200" id="Page_200">[Pg 200]</a></span> she added hastily, "and
+Jane as well. And we haven't got into a row with a single grown-up."</p>
+
+<p>The door was opened suddenly and fiercely.</p>
+
+<p>"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Martha, and
+they could tell by her voice that she was very angry indeed. "I thought
+you couldn't last through the day without getting up to some mischief! A
+person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be
+emptying the water jug on their heads! Off you go to bed, the lot of
+you, and try to get up better children in the morning. Now then&mdash;don't
+let me have to tell you twice. If I find any of you not in bed in ten
+minutes I'll let you know it, that's all! A new cap, and everything!"</p>
+
+<p>She flounced out amid a disregarded chorus of regrets and apologies. The
+children were very sorry, but really it was not their faults.</p>
+
+<p>You can't help it if you are pouring water on a besieging foe, and your
+castle suddenly changes into your house&mdash;and everything <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_201" id="Page_201">[Pg 201]</a></span>changes with it
+except the water, and that happens to fall on somebody else's clean cap.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know why the water didn't change into nothing, though," said
+Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Why should it?" asked Robert. "Water's water all the world over."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect the castle well was the same as ours in the stable-yard," said
+Jane. And that was really the case.</p>
+
+<p>"I thought we couldn't get through a wish-day without a row," said
+Cyril; "it was much too good to be true. Come on, Bobs, my military
+hero. If we lick into bed sharp she won't be so furious, and perhaps
+she'll bring us up some supper. I'm jolly hungry! Good-night, kids."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-night. I hope the castle won't come creeping back in the night,"
+said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it won't," said Anthea briskly, "but Martha will&mdash;not in the
+night, but in a minute. Here, turn round, I'll get that knot out of your
+pinafore strings."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it have been degrading for Sir Wulfric de Talbot," said Jane
+dreamily, "if <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_202" id="Page_202">[Pg 202]</a></span>he could have known that half the besieged garrison wore
+pinafores?"</p>
+
+<p>"And the other half knickerbockers. Yes&mdash;frightfully. Do stand
+still&mdash;you're only tightening the knot," said Anthea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_203" id="Page_203">[Pg 203]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER VIII</h2>
+
+<h3>BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY</h3>
+
+
+<p>"Look here," said Cyril. "I've got an idea."</p>
+
+<p>"Does it hurt much?" said Robert sympathetically.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be a jackanape! I'm not humbugging."</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, Bobs!" said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>"Silence for the Squirrel's oration," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril balanced himself on the edge of the water-butt in the backyard,
+where they all happened to be, and spoke.</p>
+
+<p>"Friends, Romans, countrymen&mdash;and women&mdash;we found a Sammyadd. We have
+had wishes. We've had wings, and being beautiful as the day&mdash;ugh!&mdash;that
+was pretty jolly beastly if you like&mdash;and wealth and castles, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_204" id="Page_204">[Pg 204]</a></span>and that
+rotten gipsy business with the Lamb. But we're no forrarder. We haven't
+really got anything worth having for our wishes."</p>
+
+<p>"We've had things happening," said Robert; "that's always something."</p>
+
+<p>"It's not enough, unless they're the right things," said Cyril firmly.
+"Now I've been thinking"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Not really?" whispered Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"In the silent what's-its-names of the night. It's like suddenly being
+asked something out of history&mdash;the date of the Conquest or something;
+you know it all right all the time, but when you're asked it all goes
+out of your head. Ladies and gentlemen, you know jolly well that when
+we're all rotting about in the usual way heaps of things keep cropping
+up, and then real earnest wishes come into the heads of the beholder"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Hear, hear!" said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"&mdash;of the beholder, however, stupid he is," Cyril went on. "Why, even
+Robert might happen to think of a really useful wish if he didn't injure
+his poor little brains trying so <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_205" id="Page_205">[Pg 205]</a></span>hard to think.&mdash;Shut up, Bobs, I tell
+you!&mdash;You'll have the whole show over."</p>
+
+<p>A struggle on the edge of a water-butt is exciting but damp. When it was
+over, and the boys were partially dried, Anthea said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"It really was you began it, Bobs. Now honour is satisfied, do let
+Squirrel go on. We're wasting the whole morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," said Cyril, still wringing the water out of the tails of
+his jacket, "I'll call it pax if Bobs will."</p>
+
+<p>"Pax then," said Robert sulkily. "But I've got a lump as big as a
+cricket ball over my eye."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea patiently offered a dust-coloured handkerchief, and Robert bathed
+his wounds in silence. "Now, Squirrel," she said.</p>
+
+<p>"Well then&mdash;let's just play bandits, or forts, or soldiers, or any of
+the old games. We're dead sure to think of something if we try not to.
+You always do."</p>
+
+<p>The others consented. Bandits was hastily chosen for the game. "It's as
+good as anything else," said Jane gloomily. It must be <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_206" id="Page_206">[Pg 206]</a></span>owned that
+Robert was at first but a half-hearted bandit, but when Anthea had
+borrowed from Martha the red-spotted handkerchief in which the keeper
+had brought her mushrooms that morning, and had tied up Robert's head
+with it so that he could be the wounded hero who had saved the bandit
+captain's life the day before, he cheered up wonderfully. All were soon
+armed. Bows and arrows slung on the back look well; and umbrellas and
+cricket stumps through the belt give a fine impression of the wearer's
+being armed to the teeth. The white cotton hats that men wear in the
+country nowadays have a very brigandish effect when a few turkey's
+feathers are stuck in them. The Lamb's mail-cart was covered with a
+red-and-blue checked table-cloth, and made an admirable baggage-wagon.
+The Lamb asleep inside it was not at all in the way. So the banditti set
+out along the road that led to the sand-pit.</p>
+
+<p>"We ought to be near the Sammyadd," said Cyril, "in case we think of
+anything suddenly."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_207" id="Page_207">[Pg 207]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It is all very well to make up your minds to play bandit&mdash;or chess, or
+ping-pong, or any other agreeable game&mdash;but it is not easy to do it with
+spirit when all the wonderful wishes you can think of, or can't think
+of, are waiting for you round the corner. The game was dragging a
+little, and some of the bandits were beginning to feel that the others
+were disagreeable things, and were saying so candidly, when the baker's
+boy came along the road with loaves in a basket. The opportunity was not
+one to be lost.</p>
+
+<p>"Stand and deliver!" cried Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Your money or your life!" said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>And they stood on each side of the baker's boy. Unfortunately, he did
+not seem to enter into the spirit of the thing at all. He was a baker's
+boy of an unusually large size. He merely said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Chuck it now, d'ye hear!" and pushed the bandits aside most
+disrespectfully.</p>
+
+<p>Then Robert lassoed him with Jane's skipping-rope, and instead of going
+round his shoulders, as Robert intended, it went round <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_208" id="Page_208">[Pg 208]</a></span>his feet and
+tripped him up. The basket was upset, the beautiful new loaves went
+bumping and bouncing all over the dusty chalky road. The girls ran to
+pick them up, and all in a moment Robert and the baker's boy were
+fighting it out, man to man, with Cyril to see fair play, and the
+skipping-rope twisting round their legs like an interesting snake that
+wished to be a peace-maker. It did not succeed; indeed the way the
+boxwood handles sprang up and hit the fighters on the shins and ankles
+was not at all peace-making. I know this is the second fight&mdash;or
+contest&mdash;in this chapter, but I can't help it. It was that sort of day.
+You know yourself there are days when rows seem to keep on happening,
+quite without your meaning them to. If I were a writer of tales of
+adventure such as those which used to appear in <i>The Boys of England</i>
+when I was young of course I should be able to describe the fight, but I
+cannot do it. I never can see what happens during a fight, even when it
+is only dogs. Also, if I had been one of these <i>Boys of England</i>
+writers, Robert would have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_209" id="Page_209">[Pg 209]</a></span>got the best of it. But I am like George
+Washington&mdash;I cannot tell a lie, even about a cherry-tree, much less
+about a fight, and I cannot conceal from you that Robert was badly
+beaten, for the second time that day. The baker's boy blacked his other
+eye, and being ignorant of the first rules of fair play and gentlemanly
+behaviour, he also pulled Robert's hair, and kicked him on the knee.
+Robert always used to say he could have licked the baker if it hadn't
+been for the girls. But I am not sure. Anyway, what happened was this,
+and very painful it was to self-respecting boys.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="pulled" id="pulled"></a>
+<img src="images/31.png" width="400" height="295" alt="He pulled Robert&#39;s hair" title="He pulled Robert&#39;s hair" />
+<span class="caption">He pulled Robert&#39;s hair</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Cyril was just tearing off his coat so as to help his brother in proper
+style, when Jane threw her arms round his legs and began to cry and ask
+him not to go and be beaten too. That "too" was very nice for Robert, as
+you can imagine&mdash;but it was nothing to what he felt when Anthea rushed
+in between him and the baker's boy, and caught that unfair and degraded
+fighter round the waist, imploring him not to fight any more.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_210" id="Page_210">[Pg 210]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't hurt my brother any more!" she said in floods of tears. "He
+didn't mean it&mdash;it's only play. And I'm sure he's very sorry."</p>
+
+<p>You see how unfair this was to Robert. Because, if the baker's boy had
+had any right and chivalrous instincts, and had yielded to Anthea's
+pleading and accepted her despicable apology, Robert could not, in
+honour, have done anything to him at any future time. But Robert's
+fears, if he had any, were soon dispelled. Chivalry was a stranger to
+the breast of the baker's boy. He pushed Anthea away very roughly, and
+he chased Robert with kicks and unpleasant conversation right down the
+road to the sand-pit, and there, with one last kick, he landed him in a
+heap of sand.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll larn you, you young varmint!" he said, and went off to pick up his
+loaves and go about his business. Cyril, impeded by Jane, could do
+nothing without hurting her, for she clung round his legs with the
+strength of despair. The baker's boy went off red and damp about <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_211" id="Page_211">[Pg 211]</a></span>the
+face; abusive to the last, he called them a pack of silly idiots, and
+disappeared round the corner. Then Jane's grasp loosened. Cyril turned
+away in silent dignity to follow Robert, and the girls followed him,
+weeping without restraint.</p>
+
+<p>It was not a happy party that flung itself down in the sand beside the
+sobbing Robert. For Robert was sobbing&mdash;mostly with rage. Though of
+course I know that a really heroic boy is always dry-eyed after a fight.
+But then he always wins, which had not been the case with Robert.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril was angry with Jane; Robert was furious with Anthea; the girls
+were miserable; and not one of the four was pleased with the baker's
+boy. There was, as French writers say, "a silence full of emotion."</p>
+
+<p>Then Robert dug his toes and his hands into the sand and wriggled in his
+rage. "He'd better wait till I'm grown up&mdash;the cowardly brute! Beast!&mdash;I
+hate him! But I'll pay him out. Just because he's bigger than me."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_212" id="Page_212">[Pg 212]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You began," said Jane incautiously.</p>
+
+<p>"I know I did, silly&mdash;but I was only jollying&mdash;and he kicked me&mdash;look
+here"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Robert tore down a stocking and showed a purple bruise touched up with
+red.</p>
+
+<p>"I only wish I was bigger than him, that's all."</p>
+
+<p>He dug his fingers in the sand, and sprang up, for his hand had touched
+something furry. It was the Psammead, of course&mdash;"On the look-out to
+make sillies of them as usual," as Cyril remarked later. And of course
+the next moment Robert's wish was granted, and he was bigger than the
+baker's boy. Oh, but much, much bigger! He was bigger than the big
+policeman who used to be at the crossing at the Mansion House years
+ago,&mdash;the one who was so kind in helping old ladies over the
+crossing,&mdash;and he was the biggest man <i>I</i> have ever seen, as well as the
+kindest. No one had a foot-rule in its pocket, so Robert could not be
+measured&mdash;but he was taller than your father would be if he stood on
+your mother's head, which I am sure he would never be un<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_213" id="Page_213">[Pg 213]</a></span>kind enough to
+do. He must have been ten or eleven feet high, and as broad as a boy of
+that height ought to be. His suit had fortunately grown too, and now he
+stood up in it&mdash;with one of his enormous stockings turned down to show
+the gigantic bruise on his vast leg. Immense tears of fury still stood
+on his flushed giant face. He looked so surprised, and he was so large
+to be wearing a turned down collar outside of his jacket that the others
+could not help laughing.</p>
+
+<p>"The Sammyadd's done us again," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 331px;"><a name="done" id="done"></a>
+<img src="images/32.png" width="331" height="400" alt="&quot;The Sammyadd&#39;s done us again,&quot; said Cyril" title="&quot;The Sammyadd&#39;s done us again,&quot; said Cyril" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;The Sammyadd&#39;s done us again,&quot; said Cyril</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Not us&mdash;<i>me</i>," said Robert. "If you'd got any decent feeling you'd try
+to make it make you the same size. You've no idea how silly it feels,"
+he added thoughtlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"And I don't want to; I can jolly well see how silly it looks," Cyril
+was beginning; but Anthea said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, <i>don't</i>! I don't know what's the matter with you boys to-day. Look
+here, Squirrel, let's play fair. It is hateful for poor old Bobs, all
+alone up there. Let's ask the Sammyadd <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_214" id="Page_214">[Pg 214]</a></span>for another wish, and, if it
+will, I do really think we ought all to be made the same size."</p>
+
+<p>The others agreed, but not gaily; but when they found the Psammead, it
+wouldn't.</p>
+
+<p>"Not I," it said crossly, rubbing its face with its feet. "He's a rude
+violent boy, and it'll do him good to be the wrong size for a bit. What
+did he want to come digging me out with his nasty wet hands for? He
+nearly touched me! He's a perfect savage. A boy of the Stone Age would
+have had more sense."</p>
+
+<p>Robert's hands had indeed been wet&mdash;with tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Go away and leave me in peace, do," the Psammead went on. "I can't
+think why you don't wish for something sensible&mdash;something to eat or
+drink, or good manners, or good tempers. Go along with you, do!"</p>
+
+<p>It almost snarled as it shook its whiskers, and turned a sulky brown
+back on them. The most hopeful felt that further parley was vain.</p>
+
+<p>They turned again to the colossal Robert.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_215" id="Page_215">[Pg 215]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"What ever shall we do?" they said; and they all said it.</p>
+
+<p>"First," said Robert grimly, "I'm going to reason with that baker's boy.
+I shall catch him at the end of the road."</p>
+
+<p>"Don't hit a chap smaller than yourself, old man," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Do I look like hitting him?" said Robert scornfully. "Why, I should
+<i>kill</i> him. But I'll give him something to remember. Wait till I pull up
+my stocking." He pulled up his stocking, which was as large as a small
+bolster-case, and strode off. His strides were six or seven feet long,
+so that it was quite easy for him to be at the bottom of the hill, ready
+to meet the baker's boy when he came down swinging the empty basket to
+meet his master's cart, which had been leaving bread at the cottages
+along the road.</p>
+
+<p>Robert crouched behind a haystack in the farmyard, that is at the
+corner, and when he heard the boy come whistling along he jumped out at
+him and caught him by the collar.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_216" id="Page_216">[Pg 216]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Now," he said, and his voice was about four times its usual size, just
+as his body was four times its, "I'm going to teach you to kick boys
+smaller than you."</p>
+
+<p>He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on the top of the haystack,
+which was about sixteen feet from the ground, and then he sat down on
+the roof of the barn and told the baker's boy exactly what he thought of
+him. I don't think the boy heard it all&mdash;he was in a sort of trance of
+terror. When Robert had said everything he could think of, and some
+things twice over, he shook the boy and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 336px;"><a name="lifted" id="lifted"></a>
+<img src="images/33.png" width="336" height="400" alt="He lifted up the baker&#39;s boy and set him on top of the haystack" title="e lifted up the baker&#39;s boy and set him on top of the haystack" />
+<span class="caption">He lifted up the baker&#39;s boy and set him on top of the haystack</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"And now get down the best way you can," and left him.</p>
+
+<p>I don't know how the baker's boy got down, but I do know that he missed
+the cart and got into the very hottest of hot water when he turned up at
+last at the bakehouse. I am sorry for him, but after all, it was quite
+right that he should be taught that boys mustn't use their feet when
+they fight, but their fists. Of course the water he got into only became
+hot<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_217" id="Page_217">[Pg 217]</a></span>ter when he tried to tell his master about the boy he had licked
+and the giant as high as a church, because no one could possibly believe
+such a tale as that. Next day the tale was believed&mdash;but that was too
+late to be of any use to the baker's boy.</p>
+
+<p>When Robert rejoined the others he found them in the garden. Anthea had
+thoughtfully asked Martha to let them have dinner out there&mdash;because the
+dining-room was rather small, and it would have been so awkward to have
+a brother the size of Robert in there. The Lamb, who had slept
+peacefully during the whole stormy morning, was now found to be
+sneezing, and Martha said he had a cold and would be better indoors.</p>
+
+<p>"And really it's just as well," said Cyril, "for I don't believe he'd
+ever have stopped screaming if he'd once seen you, the awful size you
+are!"</p>
+
+<p>Robert was indeed what a draper would call an "out-size" in boys. He
+found himself able to step right over the iron gate in the front
+garden.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_218" id="Page_218">[Pg 218]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Martha brought out the dinner&mdash;it was cold veal and baked potatoes, with
+sago pudding and stewed plums to follow.</p>
+
+<p>She of course did not notice that Robert was anything but the usual
+size, and she gave him as much meat and potatoes as usual and no more.
+You have no idea how small your usual helping of dinner looks when you
+are many times your proper size. Robert groaned, and asked for more
+bread. But Martha would not go on giving more bread for ever. She was in
+a hurry, because the keeper intended to call on his way to Benenhurst
+Fair, and she wished to be smartly dressed before he came.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish <i>we</i> were going to the Fair," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"You can't go anywhere that size," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Why not?" said Robert. "They have giants at fairs, much bigger ones
+than me."</p>
+
+<p>"Not much, they don't," Cyril was beginning, when Jane screamed "Oh!"
+with such loud suddenness that they all thumped her on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_219" id="Page_219">[Pg 219]</a></span>the back and
+asked whether she had swallowed a plum-stone.</p>
+
+<p>"No," she said, breathless from being thumped, "it's&mdash;it's not a
+plum-stone. It's an idea. Let's take Robert to the Fair, and get them to
+give us money for showing him! Then we really <i>shall</i> get something out
+of the old Sammyadd at last!"</p>
+
+<p>"Take me, indeed!" said Robert indignantly. "Much more likely me take
+you!"</p>
+
+<p>And so it turned out. The idea appealed irresistibly to everyone but
+Robert, and even he was brought round by Anthea's suggestion that he
+should have a double share of any money they might make. There was a
+little old pony-cart in the coach-house&mdash;the kind that is called a
+governess-cart. It seemed desirable to get to the Fair as quickly as
+possible, so Robert&mdash;who could now take enormous steps and so go very
+fast indeed&mdash;consented to wheel the others in this. It was as easy to
+him now as wheeling the Lamb in the mail-cart had been in the morning.
+The Lamb's cold prevented his being of the party.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_220" id="Page_220">[Pg 220]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant.
+Everyone enjoyed the journey except Robert and the few people they
+passed on the way. These mostly went into what looked like some kind of
+standing-up fits by the roadside, as Anthea said. Just outside
+Benenhurst, Robert hid in a barn, and the others went on to the Fair.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="strange" id="strange"></a>
+<img src="images/34.png" width="400" height="339" alt="It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant" title="It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant" />
+<span class="caption">It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>There were some swings, and a hooting-tooting blaring merry-go-round,
+and a shooting-gallery and Aunt Sallies. Resisting an impulse to win a
+cocoanut,&mdash;or at least to attempt the enterprise,&mdash;Cyril went up to the
+woman who was loading little guns before the array of glass bottles on
+strings against a sheet of canvas.</p>
+
+<p>"Here you are, little gentleman!" she said. "Penny a shot!"</p>
+
+<p>"No, thank you," said Cyril, "we are here on business, not on pleasure.
+Who's the master?"</p>
+
+<p>"The what?"</p>
+
+<p>"The master&mdash;the head&mdash;the boss of the show."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_221" id="Page_221">[Pg 221]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Over there," she said, pointing to a stout man in a dirty linen jacket
+who was sleeping in the sun; "but I don't advise you to wake him sudden.
+His temper's contrairy, especially these hot days. Better have a shot
+while you're waiting."</p>
+
+<p>"It's rather important," said Cyril. "It'll be very profitable to him. I
+think he'll be sorry if we take it away."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, if it's money in his pocket," said the woman. "No kid now? What is
+it?"</p>
+
+<p>"It's a <i>giant</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You <i>are</i> kidding?"</p>
+
+<p>"Come along and see," said Anthea.</p>
+
+<p>The woman looked doubtfully at them, then she called to a ragged little
+girl in striped stockings and a dingy white petticoat that came below
+her brown frock, and leaving her in charge of the "shooting-gallery" she
+turned to Anthea and said, "Well, hurry up! But if you <i>are</i> kidding,
+you'd best say so. I'm as mild as milk myself, but my Bill he's a fair
+terror and"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Anthea led the way to the barn. "It really<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_222" id="Page_222">[Pg 222]</a></span> <i>is</i> a giant," she said.
+"He's a giant little boy&mdash;in a suit like my brother's there. And we
+didn't bring him up to the Fair because people do stare so, and they
+seem to go into kind of standing-up fits when they see him. And we
+thought perhaps you'd like to show him and get pennies; and if you like
+to pay us something, you can&mdash;only, it'll have to be rather a lot,
+because we promised him he should have a double share of whatever we
+made."</p>
+
+<p>The woman murmured something indistinct, of which the children could
+only hear the words, "Swelp me!" "balmy," and "crumpet," which conveyed
+no definite idea to their minds.</p>
+
+<p>She had taken Anthea's hand, and was holding it very firmly; and Anthea
+could not help wondering what would happen if Robert should have
+wandered off or turned his proper size during the interval. But she knew
+that the Psammead's gifts really did last till sunset, however
+inconvenient their lasting might be; and she did not think, somehow,
+that Robert <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_223" id="Page_223">[Pg 223]</a></span>would care to go out alone while he was that size.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the barn and Cyril called "Robert!" there was a stir
+among the loose hay, and Robert began to come out. His hand and arm came
+first&mdash;then a foot and leg. When the woman saw the hand she said "My!"
+but when she saw the foot she said "Upon my word!" and when, by slow and
+heavy degrees, the whole of Robert's enormous bulk was at last
+disclosed, she drew a long breath and began to say many things, compared
+with which "balmy" and "crumpet" seemed quite ordinary. She dropped into
+understandable English at last.</p>
+
+<p>"What'll you take for him?" she said excitedly. "Anything in reason.
+We'd have a special van built&mdash;leastways, I know where there's a
+second-hand one would do up handsome&mdash;what a baby elephant had, as died.
+What'll you take? He's soft, ain't he? Them giants mostly is&mdash;but I
+never see&mdash;no, never! What'll you take? Down on the nail. We'll treat
+him like a king, and give him first-rate <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_224" id="Page_224">[Pg 224]</a></span>grub and a doss fit for a
+bloomin' dook. He must be dotty or he wouldn't need you kids to cart him
+about. What'll you take for him?"</p>
+
+<p>"They won't take anything," said Robert sternly. "I'm no more soft than
+you are&mdash;not so much, I shouldn't wonder. I'll come and be a show for
+to-day if you'll give me,"&mdash;he hesitated at the enormous price he was
+about to ask,&mdash;"if you'll give me fifteen shillings."</p>
+
+<p>"Done," said the woman, so quickly that Robert felt he had been unfair
+to himself, and wished he had asked thirty. "Come on now&mdash;and see my
+Bill&mdash;and we'll fix a price for the season. I dessay you might get as
+much as two pounds a week reg'lar. Come on&mdash;and make yourself as small
+as you can for gracious' sake!"</p>
+
+<p>This was not very small, and a crowd gathered quickly, so that it was at
+the head of an enthusiastic procession that Robert entered the trampled
+meadow where the Fair was held, and passed over the stubby yellow dusty
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_225" id="Page_225">[Pg 225]</a></span>grass to the door of the biggest tent. He crept in, and the woman went
+to call her Bill. He was the big sleeping man, and he did not seem at
+all pleased at being awakened. Cyril, watching through a slit in the
+tent, saw him scowl and shake a heavy fist and a sleepy head. Then the
+woman went on speaking very fast. Cyril heard "Strewth," and "biggest
+draw you ever, so help me!" and he began to share Robert's feeling that
+fifteen shillings was indeed far too little. Bill slouched up to the
+tent and entered. When he beheld the magnificent proportions of Robert
+he said but little,&mdash;"Strike me pink!" were the only words the children
+could afterwards remember,&mdash;but he produced fifteen shillings, mainly in
+sixpences and coppers, and handed it to Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"We'll fix up about what you're to draw when the show's over to-night,"
+he said with hoarse heartiness. "Lor' love a duck! you'll be that happy
+with us you'll never want to leave us. Can you do a song now&mdash;or a bit
+of a breakdown?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_226" id="Page_226">[Pg 226]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Not to-day," said Robert, rejecting the idea of trying to sing "As once
+in May," a favourite of his mother's, and the only song he could think
+of at the moment.</p>
+
+<p>"Get Levi and clear them bloomin' photos out. Clear the tent. Stick out
+a curtain or suthink," the man went on. "Lor', what a pity we ain't got
+no tights his size! But we'll have 'em before the week's out. Young man,
+your fortune's made. It's a good thing you came to me, and not to some
+chaps as I could tell you on. I've known blokes as beat their giants,
+and starved 'em too; so I'll tell you straight, you're in luck this day
+if you never was afore. 'Cos I'm a lamb, I am&mdash;and I don't deceive you."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not afraid of anyone beating me," said Robert, looking down on the
+"lamb." Robert was crouched on his knees, because the tent was not big
+enough for him to stand upright in, but even in that position he could
+still look down on most people. "But I'm awfully hungry&mdash;I wish you'd
+get me something to eat."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_227" id="Page_227">[Pg 227]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Here, 'Becca," said the hoarse Bill. "Get him some grub&mdash;the best
+you've got, mind!" Another whisper followed, of which the children only
+heard, "Down in black and white&mdash;first thing to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>Then the woman went to get the food&mdash;it was only bread and cheese when
+it came, but it was delightful to the large and empty Robert; and the
+man went to post sentinels round the tent, to give the alarm if Robert
+should attempt to escape with his fifteen shillings.</p>
+
+<p>"As if we weren't honest," said Anthea indignantly when the meaning of
+the sentinels dawned on her.</p>
+
+<p>Then began a very strange and wonderful afternoon.</p>
+
+<p>Bill was a man who knew his business. In a very little while, the
+photographic views, the spyglasses you look at them through so that they
+really seem rather real, and the lights you see them by, were all packed
+away. A curtain&mdash;it was an old red-and-black carpet really&mdash;was run
+across the tent. Robert was concealed behind, and Bill was standing on a
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_228" id="Page_228">[Pg 228]</a></span>trestle-table outside the tent making a speech. It was rather a good
+speech. It began by saying that the giant it was his privilege to
+introduce to the public that day was the eldest son of the Emperor of
+San Francisco, compelled through an unfortunate love affair with the
+Duchess of the Fiji Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in
+England&mdash;the land of liberty&mdash;where freedom was the right of every man,
+no matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first
+twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for threepence
+apiece. "After that," said Bill, "the price is riz, and I don't
+undertake to say what it won't be riz to. So now's yer time."</p>
+
+<p>A young man with his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the first to
+come forward. For this occasion his was the princely attitude&mdash;no
+expense spared&mdash;money no object. His girl wished to see the giant? Well,
+she should see the giant, even though seeing the giant cost threepence
+each and the other entertainments were all penny ones.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_229" id="Page_229">[Pg 229]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The flap of the tent was raised&mdash;the couple entered. Next moment a wild
+shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill slapped his leg.
+"That's done the trick!" he whispered to 'Becca. It was indeed a
+splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert.</p>
+
+<p>When the young girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was
+round the tent.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 295px;"><a name="when" id="when"></a>
+<img src="images/35.png" width="295" height="400" alt="When the girl came out she was pale and trembling" title="When the girl came out she was pale and trembling" />
+<span class="caption">When the girl came out she was pale and trembling</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"What was it like?" asked a farm-hand.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh!&mdash;horrid!&mdash;you wouldn't believe," she said. "It's as big as a barn,
+and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I wouldn't ha' missed
+seeing it for anything."</p>
+
+<p>The fierceness was only caused by Robert's trying not to laugh. But the
+desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was more inclined
+to cry than laugh, and more inclined to sleep than either. For, by ones
+and twos and threes, people kept coming in all the afternoon, and Robert
+had to shake hands with those who wished it, and to allow himself to be
+punched and pulled and patted and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_230" id="Page_230">[Pg 230]</a></span>thumped, so that people might make
+sure he was really real.</p>
+
+<p>The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were very
+bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way of earning
+money that could have been invented. And only fifteen shillings! Bill
+had taken four times that already, for the news of the giant had spread,
+and trades-people in carts, and gentlepeople in carriages, came from far
+and near. One gentleman with an eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose
+in his buttonhole, offered Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a
+week to appear at the Crystal Palace. Robert had to say "No."</p>
+
+<p>"I can't," he said regretfully. "It's no use promising what you can't
+do."</p>
+
+<p>"Ah, poor fellow, bound for a term of years, I suppose! Well, here's my
+card; when your time's up come to me."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 318px;"><a name="time" id="time"></a>
+<img src="images/36.png" width="318" height="400" alt="&quot;When your time&#39;s up come to me&quot;" title="&quot;When your time&#39;s up come to me&quot;" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;When your time&#39;s up come to me&quot;</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I will&mdash;if I'm the same size then," said Robert truthfully.</p>
+
+<p>"If you grow a bit, so much the better," said the gentleman.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_231" id="Page_231">[Pg 231]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When he had gone, Robert beckoned Cyril and said&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Tell them I must and will have a rest. And I want my tea."</p>
+
+<p>Tea was provided, and a paper hastily pinned on the tent. It said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class='center'>
+CLOSED FOR HALF AN HOUR<br />
+WHILE THE GIANT GETS HIS TEA<br />
+</div>
+
+<p>Then there was a hurried council.</p>
+
+<p>"How am I to get away?" said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"I've been thinking about it all the afternoon."</p>
+
+<p>"Why, walk out when the sun sets and you're your right size. They can't
+do anything to us."</p>
+
+<p>Robert opened his eyes. "Why, they'd nearly kill us," he said, "when
+they saw me get my right size. No, we must think of some other way. We
+<i>must</i> be alone when the sun sets."</p>
+
+<p>"I know," said Cyril briskly, and he went to the door, outside which
+Bill was smoking a clay pipe and talking in a low voice to 'Becca.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_232" id="Page_232">[Pg 232]</a></span>
+Cyril heard him say&mdash;"Good as havin' a fortune left you."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Cyril, "you can let people come in again in a minute.
+He's nearly finished tea. But he <i>must</i> be left alone when the sun sets.
+He's very queer at that time of day, and if he's worried I won't answer
+for the consequences."</p>
+
+<p>"Why&mdash;what comes over him?" asked Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know; it's&mdash;it's sort of a <i>change</i>," said Cyril candidly. "He
+isn't at all like himself&mdash;you'd hardly know him. He's very queer
+indeed. Someone'll get hurt if he's not alone about sunset." This was
+true.</p>
+
+<p>"He'll pull round for the evening, I s'pose?"</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes&mdash;half an hour after sunset he'll be quite himself again."</p>
+
+<p>"Best humour him," said the woman.</p>
+
+<p>And so, at what Cyril judged was about half an hour before sunset, the
+tent was again closed "whilst the giant gets his supper."</p>
+
+<p>The crowd was very merry about the giant's meals and their coming so
+close together.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, he can pick a bit," Bill owned. "You <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_233" id="Page_233">[Pg 233]</a></span>see he has to eat hearty,
+being the size he is."</p>
+
+<p>Inside the tent the four children breathlessly arranged a plan of
+retreat.</p>
+
+<p>"You go <i>now</i>," said Cyril to the girls, "and get along home as fast as
+you can. Oh, never mind the pony-cart; we'll get that to-morrow. Robert
+and I are dressed the same. We'll manage somehow, like Sydney Carton
+did. Only, you girls <i>must</i> get out, or it's all no go. We can run, but
+you can't&mdash;whatever you may think. No, Jane, it's no good Robert going
+out and knocking people down. The police would follow him till he turned
+his proper size, and then arrest him like a shot. Go you must! If you
+don't, I'll never speak to you again. It was you got us into this mess
+really, hanging round people's legs the way you did this morning. <i>Go</i>,
+I tell you!"</p>
+
+<p>And Jane and Anthea went.</p>
+
+<p>"We're going home," they said to Bill. "We're leaving the giant with
+you. Be kind to him." And that, as Anthea said afterwards, was very
+deceitful, but what were they to do?<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_234" id="Page_234">[Pg 234]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>When they had gone, Cyril went to Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said, "he wants some ears of corn&mdash;there's some in the
+next field but one. I'll just run and get it. Oh, and he says can't you
+loop up the tent at the back a bit? He says he's stifling for a breath
+of air. I'll see no one peeps in at him. I'll cover him up, and he can
+take a nap while I go for the corn. He <i>will</i> have it&mdash;there's no
+holding him when he gets like this."</p>
+
+<p>The giant was made comfortable with a heap of sacks and an old
+tarpaulin. The curtain was looped up, and the brothers were left alone.
+They matured their plan in whispers. Outside, the merry-go-round blared
+out its comic tunes, screaming now and then to attract public notice.</p>
+
+<p>Half a minute after the sun had set, a boy came out past Bill.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm off for the corn," he said, and mingled quickly with the crowd.</p>
+
+<p>At the same instant a boy came out of the back of the tent past 'Becca,
+posted there as sentinel.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_235" id="Page_235">[Pg 235]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'm off after the corn," said this boy also. And he, too, moved away
+quietly and was lost in the crowd. The front-door boy was Cyril; the
+back-door was Robert&mdash;now, since sunset, once more his proper size. They
+walked quickly through the field, along the road, where Robert caught
+Cyril up. Then they ran. They were home as soon as the girls were, for
+it was a long way, and they ran most of it. It was indeed a <i>very</i> long
+way, as they found when they had to go and drag the pony-cart home next
+morning, with no enormous Robert to wheel them in it as if it were a
+mail-cart, and they were babies and he was their gigantic nursemaid.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>I cannot possibly tell you what Bill and 'Becca said when they found
+that the giant had gone. For one thing, I do not know.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_236" id="Page_236">[Pg 236]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER IX</h2>
+
+<h3>GROWN UP</h3>
+
+
+<p>Cyril had once pointed out that ordinary life is full of occasions on
+which a wish would be most useful. And this thought filled his mind when
+he happened to wake early on the morning after the morning after Robert
+had wished to be bigger than the baker's boy, and had been it. The day
+that lay between these two days had been occupied entirely by getting
+the governess-cart home from Benenhurst.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril dressed hastily; he did not take a bath, because tin baths are so
+noisy, and he had no wish to rouse Robert, and he slipped off alone, as
+Anthea had once done, and ran through the dewy morning to the sand-pit.
+He dug up the Psammead very carefully and kindly, and began the
+conversation by asking it whether <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_237" id="Page_237">[Pg 237]</a></span>it still felt any ill effects from
+the contact with the tears of Robert the day before yesterday. The
+Psammead was in good temper. It replied politely.</p>
+
+<p>"And now, what can I do for you?" it said. "I suppose you've come here
+so early to ask for something for yourself&mdash;something your brothers and
+sisters aren't to know about, eh? Now, do be persuaded for your own
+good! Ask for a good fat Megatherium and have done with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Thank you&mdash;not to-day, I think," said Cyril cautiously. "What I really
+wanted to say was&mdash;you know how you're always wishing for things when
+you're playing at anything?"</p>
+
+<p>"I seldom play," said the Psammead coldly.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, you know what I mean," Cyril went on impatiently. "What I want to
+say is: won't you let us have our wish just when we think of it, and
+just where we happen to be? So that we don't have to come and disturb
+you again," added the crafty Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"It'll only end in your wishing for some<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_238" id="Page_238">[Pg 238]</a></span>thing you don't really want, as
+you did about the castle," said the Psammead, stretching its brown arms
+and yawning. "It's always the same since people left off eating really
+wholesome things. However, have it your own way. Good-bye."</p>
+
+<p>"Good-bye," said Cyril politely.</p>
+
+<p>"I'll tell you what," said the Psammead suddenly, shooting out its long
+snail's eyes,&mdash;"I'm getting tired of you&mdash;all of you. You have no more
+sense than so many oysters. Go along with you!"</p>
+
+<p>And Cyril went.</p>
+
+<p>"What an awful long time babies <i>stay</i> babies," said Cyril after the
+Lamb had taken his watch out of his pocket while he wasn't noticing, and
+with coos and clucks of naughty rapture had opened the case and used the
+whole thing as a garden spade, and when even immersion in a wash basin
+had failed to wash the mould from the works and make the watch go again.
+Cyril had said several things in the heat of the moment; but now he was
+calmer, and had even consented to carry the Lamb part <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_239" id="Page_239">[Pg 239]</a></span>of the way to
+the woods. Cyril had persuaded the others to agree to his plan, and not
+to wish for anything more till they really did wish it. Meantime it
+seemed good to go to the woods for nuts, and on the mossy grass under a
+sweet chestnut tree the five were sitting. The Lamb was pulling up the
+moss by fat handfuls, and Cyril was gloomily contemplating the ruins of
+his watch.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="opened" id="opened"></a>
+<img src="images/37.png" width="400" height="380" alt="He opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden spade" title="He opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden spade" />
+<span class="caption">He opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden spade</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"He does grow," said Anthea. "Doesn't 'oo, precious?"</p>
+
+<p>"Me grow," said the Lamb cheerfully&mdash;"me grow big boy, have guns' an'
+mouses&mdash;an'&mdash;an'"&mdash;&mdash; Imagination or vocabulary gave out here. But
+anyway it was the longest speech the Lamb had ever made, and it charmed
+everyone, even Cyril, who tumbled the Lamb over and rolled him in the
+moss to the music of delighted squeals.</p>
+
+<p>"I suppose he'll be grown up some day," Anthea was saying, dreamily
+looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight
+chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling gaily with
+Cyril, thrust <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_240" id="Page_240">[Pg 240]</a></span>a stout-shod little foot against his brother's chest;
+there was a crack!&mdash;the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father's
+second-best Waterbury watch, which Cyril had borrowed without leave.</p>
+
+<p>"Grow up some day!" said Cyril bitterly, plumping the Lamb down on the
+grass. "I daresay he will&mdash;when nobody wants him to. I wish to goodness
+he would"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Oh</i>, take care!" cried Anthea in an agony of apprehension. But it was
+too late&mdash;like music to a song her words and Cyril's came out together&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>Anthea&mdash;"Oh, take care!"</p>
+
+<p>Cyril&mdash;"Grow up now!"</p>
+
+<p>The faithful Psammead was true to its promise, and there, before the
+horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters, the Lamb suddenly and
+violently grew up. It was the most terrible moment. The change was not
+so sudden as the wish-changes usually were. The Baby's face changed
+first. It grew thinner and larger, lines came in the forehead, the eyes
+grew more deep-set and darker in colour, the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_241" id="Page_241">[Pg 241]</a></span>mouth grew longer and
+thinner; most terrible of all, a little dark mustache appeared on the
+lip of one who was still&mdash;except as to the face&mdash;a two-year-old baby in
+a linen smock and white open-work socks.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, I wish it wouldn't! Oh, I wish it wouldn't! You boys might wish as
+well!"</p>
+
+<p>They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to dismay the most
+heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that they felt quite giddy
+and almost lost consciousness; but the wishing was quite vain, for, when
+the wood ceased to whirl round, their dazed eyes were riveted at once by
+the spectacle of a very proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw
+hat&mdash;a young man who wore the same little black mustache which just
+before they had actually seen growing upon the Baby's lip. This, then,
+was the Lamb&mdash;grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The
+grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself
+against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat over
+his eyes. He was evi<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_242" id="Page_242">[Pg 242]</a></span>dently weary. He was going to sleep. The Lamb&mdash;the
+original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to sleep at odd times
+and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in the grey flannel suit and
+the pale green necktie like the other Lamb? or had his mind grown up
+together with his body?</p>
+
+<p>That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held among
+the yellowing brake-fern a few yards from the sleeper, debated eagerly.</p>
+
+<p>"Whichever it is, it'll be just as awful," said Anthea. "If his inside
+senses are grown up too, he won't stand our looking after him; and if
+he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do
+anything? And it'll be getting on for dinner-time in a minute."</p>
+
+<p>"And we haven't got any nuts," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh bother nuts!" said Robert, "but dinner's different&mdash;I didn't have
+half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn't we tie him to the tree and go
+home to our dinner and come back afterwards?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_243" id="Page_243">[Pg 243]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the Lamb!"
+said Cyril in scornful misery. "And it'll be just the same if we go back
+with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it's my doing; don't rub it
+in! I know I'm a beast, and not fit to live; you can take that for
+settled, and say no more about it. The question is, what are we going to
+do?"</p>
+
+<p>"Let's wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and get
+something to eat at a baker's shop," said Robert hopefully.</p>
+
+<p>"Take him?" repeated Cyril. "Yes&mdash;do! It's all my fault&mdash;I don't deny
+that&mdash;but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to
+take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he's
+grown up he's a demon&mdash;simply. I can see it. Look at his mouth."</p>
+
+<p>"Well then," said Robert, "let's wake him up and see what <i>he'll</i> do.
+Perhaps <i>he'll</i> take <i>us</i> to Maidstone and stand treat. He ought to have
+a lot of money in the pockets of those <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_244" id="Page_244">[Pg 244]</a></span>extra-special pants. We <i>must</i>
+have dinner, anyway."</p>
+
+<p>They drew lots with little bits of brake fern. It fell to Jane's lot to
+waken the grown-up Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle. He
+said "Bother the flies!" twice, and then opened his eyes.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 254px;"><a name="did" id="did"></a>
+<img src="images/38.png" width="254" height="400" alt="She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle" title="She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle" />
+<span class="caption">She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Hullo, kiddies!" he said in a languid tone, "still here? What's the
+giddy hour? You'll be late for your grub!"</p>
+
+<p>"I know we shall," said Robert bitterly.</p>
+
+<p>"Then cut along home," said the grown-up Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"What about your grub, though?" asked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how far is it to the station, do you think? I've a sort of a notion
+that I'll run up to town and have some lunch at the club."</p>
+
+<p>Blank misery fell like a pall on the four others. The
+Lamb&mdash;alone&mdash;unattended&mdash;would go to town and have lunch at a club!
+Perhaps he would also have tea there. Perhaps sunset would come upon him
+amid the <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_245" id="Page_245">[Pg 245]</a></span>dazzling luxury of club-land, and a helpless cross sleepy
+baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters, and would wail
+miserably for "Panty" from the depths of a club arm-chair! The picture
+moved Anthea almost to tears.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh no, Lamb ducky, you mustn't do that!" she cried incautiously.</p>
+
+<p>The grown-up Lamb frowned. "My dear Anthea," he said, "how often am I to
+tell you that my name is Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux?&mdash;any of my
+baptismal names are free to my little brothers and sisters, but <i>not</i>
+'Lamb'&mdash;a relic of foolishness and far-off childhood."</p>
+
+<p>This was awful. He was their elder brother now, was he? Well of course
+he was, if he was grown-up&mdash;since they weren't. Thus, in whispers,
+Anthea and Robert.</p>
+
+<p>But the almost daily adventures resulting from the Psammead's wishes
+were making the children wise beyond their years.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear Hilary," said Anthea, and the others choked at the name, "you know
+father didn't <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_246" id="Page_246">[Pg 246]</a></span>wish you to go to London. He wouldn't like us to be left
+alone without you to take care of us. Oh, deceitful thing that I am!"
+she added to herself.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Cyril, "if you're our elder brother, why not behave as
+sich and take us over to Maidstone and give us a jolly good blow-out,
+and we'll go on the river afterwards?"</p>
+
+<p>"I'm infinitely obliged to you," said the Lamb courteously, "but I
+should prefer solitude. Go home to your lunch&mdash;I mean your dinner.
+Perhaps I may look in about tea-time&mdash;or I may not be home till after
+you are in your beds."</p>
+
+<p>Their beds! Speaking glances flashed between the wretched four. Much bed
+there would be for them if they went home without the Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>"We promised mother not to lose sight of you if we took you out," Jane
+said before the others could stop her.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Jane," said the grown-up Lamb, putting his hands in his
+pockets and <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_247" id="Page_247">[Pg 247]</a></span>looking down at her, "little girls should be seen and not
+heard. You kids must learn not to make yourselves a nuisance. Run along
+home now&mdash;and perhaps, if you're good, I'll give you each a penny
+to-morrow."</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Cyril, in the best "man to man" tone at his command,
+"where are you going, old man? You might let Bobs and me come with
+you&mdash;even if you don't want the girls."</p>
+
+<p>This was really rather noble of Cyril, for he never did care much about
+being seen in public with the Lamb, who of course after sunset would be
+a baby again.</p>
+
+<p>The "man to man" tone succeeded.</p>
+
+<p>"I shall run over to Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily,
+fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown&mdash;and
+perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the
+machine&mdash;now, can I? Run along home, like good children."</p>
+
+<p>The position was desperate. Robert exchanged a despairing look with
+Cyril. An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_248" id="Page_248">[Pg 248]</a></span>thea detached a pin from her waistband, a pin whose withdrawal
+left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice, and handed it furtively to
+Robert&mdash;with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning. Robert
+slipped away to the road. There, sure enough, stood a bicycle&mdash;a
+beautiful new one. Of course Robert understood at once that if the Lamb
+was grown up he <i>must</i> have a bicycle.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="sure" id="sure"></a>
+<img src="images/39.png" width="400" height="361" alt="There, sure enough, stood a bicycle" title="There, sure enough, stood a bicycle" />
+<span class="caption">There, sure enough, stood a bicycle</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>This had always been one of Robert's own reasons for wishing to be
+grown-up. He hastily began to use the pin&mdash;eleven punctures in the back
+tyre, seven in the front. He would have made the total twenty-two but
+for the rustling of the yellow hazel-leaves, which warned him of the
+approach of the others. He hastily leaned a hand on each wheel, and was
+rewarded by the "whish" of the what was left of air escaping from
+eighteen neat pin-holes.</p>
+
+<p>"Your bike's run down," said Robert, wondering how he could so soon have
+learned to deceive.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_249" id="Page_249">[Pg 249]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"So it is," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"It's a puncture," said Anthea, stooping down, and standing up again
+with a thorn which she had got ready for the purpose.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here."</p>
+
+<p>The grown-up Lamb (or Hilary, as I suppose one must now call him) fixed
+his pump and blew up the tyre. The punctured state of it was soon
+evident.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 271px;"><a name="punctured" id="punctured"></a>
+<img src="images/40.png" width="271" height="400" alt="The punctured state of it was soon evident" title="The punctured state of it was soon evident" />
+<span class="caption">The punctured state of it was soon evident</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"I suppose there's a cottage somewhere near&mdash;where one could get a pail
+of water?" said the Lamb.</p>
+
+<p>There was; and when the number of punctures had been made manifest, it
+was felt to be a special blessing that the cottage provided "teas for
+cyclists." It provided an odd sort of tea-and-hammy meal for the Lamb
+and his brothers. This was paid for out of the fifteen shillings which
+had been earned by Robert when he was a giant&mdash;for the Lamb, it
+appeared, had unfortunately no money about him. This was a great
+disappointment for the others; but it is a thing that will happen, even
+to the most grown-up of us.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_250" id="Page_250">[Pg 250]</a></span> However, Robert had enough to eat, and that
+was something. Quietly but persistently the miserable four took it in
+turns to try and persuade the Lamb (or St. Maur) to spend the rest of
+the day in the woods. There was not very much of the day left by the
+time he had mended the eighteenth puncture. He looked up from the
+completed work with a sigh of relief, and suddenly put his tie straight.</p>
+
+<p>"There's a lady coming," he said briskly,&mdash;"for goodness' sake, get out
+of the way. Go home&mdash;hide&mdash;vanish somehow! I can't be seen with a pack
+of dirty kids." His brothers and sisters were indeed rather dirty,
+because, earlier in the day, the Lamb, in his infant state, had
+sprinkled a good deal of garden soil over them. The grown-up Lamb's
+voice was so tyrant-like, as Jane said afterwards, that they actually
+retreated to the back garden, and left him with his little mustache and
+his flannel suit to meet alone the young lady, who now came up the front
+garden wheeling a bicycle.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_251" id="Page_251">[Pg 251]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>The woman of the house came out, and the young lady spoke to her,&mdash;the
+Lamb raised his hat as she passed him,&mdash;and the children could not hear
+what she said, though they were craning round the corner and listening
+with all their ears. They felt it to be "perfectly fair," as Robert
+said, "with that wretched Lamb in that condition."</p>
+
+<p>When the Lamb spoke, in a languid voice heavy with politeness, they
+heard well enough.</p>
+
+<p>"A puncture?" he was saying. "Can I not be of any assistance? If you
+could allow me&mdash;&mdash;?"</p>
+
+<p>There was a stifled explosion of laughter and the grown-up Lamb
+(otherwise Devereux) turned the tail of an angry eye in its direction.</p>
+
+<p>"You're very kind," said the lady, looking at the Lamb. She looked
+rather shy, but, as the boys put it, there didn't seem to be any
+nonsense about her.</p>
+
+<p>"But oh," whispered Cyril, "I should have thought he'd had enough
+bicycle-mending <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_252" id="Page_252">[Pg 252]</a></span>for one day&mdash;and if she only knew that really and truly
+he's only a whiny-piny, silly little baby!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's <i>not</i>," Anthea murmured angrily. "He's a dear&mdash;if people only let
+him alone. It's our own precious Lamb still, whatever silly idiots may
+turn him into&mdash;isn't he, Pussy?"</p>
+
+<p>Jane doubtfully supposed so.</p>
+
+<p>Now, the Lamb&mdash;whom I must try to remember to call St. Maur&mdash;was
+examining the lady's bicycle and talking to her with a very grown-up
+manner indeed. No one could possibly have supposed, to see and hear him,
+that only that very morning he had been a chubby child of two years
+breaking other people's Waterbury watches. Devereux (as he ought to be
+called for the future) took out a gold watch when he had mended the
+lady's bicycle, and all the hidden onlookers said "Oh!"&mdash;because it
+seemed so unfair that the Baby, who had only that morning destroyed two
+cheap but honest watches, should now, in the grown-upness to which
+Cyril's folly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_253" id="Page_253">[Pg 253]</a></span>had raised him, have a real gold watch&mdash;with a chain and
+seals!</p>
+
+<p>Hilary (as I will now term him) withered his brothers and sisters with a
+glance, and then said to the lady&mdash;with whom he seemed to be quite
+friendly&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"If you will allow me, I will ride with you as far as the Cross Roads;
+it is getting late, and there are tramps about."</p>
+
+<p>No one will ever know what answer the young lady intended to give to
+this gallant offer, for, directly Anthea heard it made, she rushed out,
+knocking against a swill pail, which overflowed in a turbid stream, and
+caught the Lamb (I suppose I ought to say Hilary) by the arm. The others
+followed, and in an instant the four dirty children were visible beyond
+disguise.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't let him," said Anthea to the lady, and she spoke with intense
+earnestness; "he's not fit to go with anyone!"</p>
+
+<p>"Go away, little girl!" said St. Maur (as we will now call him) in a
+terrible voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Go home at once!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_254" id="Page_254">[Pg 254]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"You'd much better not have anything to do with him," the now reckless
+Anthea went on. "He doesn't know who he is. He's something very
+different from what you think he is."</p>
+
+<p>"What do you mean?" asked the lady, not unnaturally, while Devereux (as
+I must term the grown-up Lamb) tried vainly to push Anthea away. The
+others backed her up, and she stood solid as a rock.</p>
+
+<p>"You just let him go with you," said Anthea, "you'll soon see what I
+mean! How would you like to suddenly see a poor little helpless baby
+spinning along downhill beside you with its feet up on a bicycle it had
+lost control of?"</p>
+
+<p>The lady had turned rather pale.</p>
+
+<p>"Who are these very dirty children?" she asked the grown-up Lamb
+(sometimes called St. Maur in these pages).</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," he lied miserably.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Lamb! how <i>can</i> you?" cried Jane,&mdash;"when you know perfectly well
+you're our own little baby brother that we're so fond of.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_255" id="Page_255">[Pg 255]</a></span> We're his big
+brothers and sisters," she explained, turning to the lady, who with
+trembling hands was now turning her bicycle towards the gate, "and we've
+got to take care of him. And we must get him home before sunset, or I
+don't know whatever will become of us. You see, he's sort of under a
+spell&mdash;enchanted&mdash;you know what I mean!"</p>
+
+<p>Again and again the Lamb (Devereux, I mean) had tried to stop Jane's
+eloquence, but Robert and Cyril held him, one by each leg, and no proper
+explanation was possible. The lady rode hastily away, and electrified
+her relatives at dinner by telling them of her escape from a family of
+dangerous lunatics. "The little girl's eyes were simply those of a
+maniac. I can't think how she came to be at large," she said.</p>
+
+<p>When her bicycle had whizzed away down the road, Cyril spoke gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Hilary, old chap," he said, "you must have had a sunstroke or
+something. And the things you've been saying to that lady! Why, if we
+were to tell you the things you've said <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_256" id="Page_256">[Pg 256]</a></span>when you are yourself again,
+say to-morrow morning, you wouldn't ever understand them&mdash;let alone
+believe them! You trust to me, old chap, and come home now, and if
+you're not yourself in the morning we'll ask the milkman to ask the
+doctor to come."</p>
+
+<p>The poor grown-up Lamb (St. Maur was really one of his Christian names)
+seemed now too bewildered to resist.</p>
+
+<p>"Since you seem all to be as mad as the whole worshipful company of
+hatters," he said bitterly, "I suppose I <i>had</i> better take you home. But
+you're not to suppose I shall pass this over. I shall have something to
+say to you all to-morrow morning."</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, you will, my Lamb," said Anthea under her breath, "but it won't be
+at all the sort of thing you think it's going to be."</p>
+
+<p>In her heart she could hear the pretty, soft little loving voice of the
+baby Lamb&mdash;so different from the affected tones of the dreadful grown-up
+Lamb (one of whose names was Devereux)&mdash;saying, "Me love Panty&mdash;wants to
+come to own Panty."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_257" id="Page_257">[Pg 257]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, let's go home, for goodness' sake," she said. "You shall say
+whatever you like in the morning&mdash;if you can," she added in a whisper.</p>
+
+<p>It was a gloomy party that went home through the soft evening. During
+Anthea's remarks Robert had again made play with the pin and the bicycle
+tyre, and the Lamb (whom they had to call St. Maur or Devereux or
+Hilary) seemed really at last to have had his fill of bicycle-mending.
+So the machine was wheeled.</p>
+
+<p>The sun was just on the point of setting when they arrived at the White
+House. The four elder children would have liked to linger in the lane
+till the complete sunsetting turned the grown-up Lamb (whose Christian
+names I will not further weary you by repeating) into their own dear
+tiresome baby brother. But he, in his grown-upness, insisted on going
+on, and thus he was met in the front garden by Martha.</p>
+
+<p>Now you remember that, as a special favour, the Psammead had arranged
+that the servants <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_258" id="Page_258">[Pg 258]</a></span>in the house should never notice any change brought
+about by the wishes of the children. Therefore Martha merely saw the
+usual party, with the baby Lamb, about whom she had been desperately
+anxious all the afternoon, trotting beside Anthea, on fat baby legs,
+while the children, of course, still saw the grown-up Lamb (never mind
+what names he was christened by), and Martha rushed at him and caught
+him in her arms, exclaiming&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Come to his own Martha, then&mdash;a precious poppet!"</p>
+
+<p>The grown-up Lamb (whose names shall now be buried in oblivion)
+struggled furiously. An expression of intense horror and annoyance was
+seen on his face. But Martha was stronger than he. She lifted him up and
+carried him into the house. None of the children will ever forget that
+picture. The neat grey-flannel-suited grown-up young man with the green
+necktie and the little black mustache&mdash;fortunately, he was slightly
+built, and not tall&mdash;struggling in the sturdy arms <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_259" id="Page_259">[Pg 259]</a></span>of Martha, who
+bore him away helpless, imploring him, as she went, to be a good boy
+now, and come and have his nice bremmink! Fortunately, the sun set as
+they reached the doorstep, the bicycle disappeared, and Martha was seen
+to carry into the house the real live darling sleepy two-year-old Lamb.
+The grown-up Lamb (nameless henceforth) was gone for ever.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 299px;"><a name="grown" id="grown"></a>
+<img src="images/41.png" width="299" height="400" alt="The grown-up Lamb struggled" title="The grown-up Lamb struggled" />
+<span class="caption">The grown-up Lamb struggled</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"For ever," said Cyril, "because, as soon as ever the Lamb's old enough
+to be bullied, we must jolly well begin to bully him, for his own
+sake&mdash;so that he mayn't grow up like <i>that</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"You shan't bully him," said Anthea stoutly,&mdash;"not if I can stop it."</p>
+
+<p>"We must tame him by kindness," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"You see," said Robert, "if he grows up in the usual way, there'll be
+plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing to-day
+was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to improve him at
+all."</p>
+
+<p>"He doesn't want any improving," said An<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_260" id="Page_260">[Pg 260]</a></span>thea as the voice of the Lamb
+came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in her heart
+that afternoon&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Me loves Panty&mdash;wants to come to own Panty!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_261" id="Page_261">[Pg 261]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER X</h2>
+
+<h3>SCALPS</h3>
+
+
+<p>Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not been
+reading <i>The Last of the Mohicans</i>. The story was running in his head at
+breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said dreamily, "I wish
+there were Red Indians in England&mdash;not big ones, you know, but little
+ones, just about the right size for us to fight."</p>
+
+<p>Everyone disagreed with him at the time and no one attached any
+importance to the incident. But when they went down to the sand-pit to
+ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with Queen Victoria's
+head on, to prevent mistakes&mdash;which they had always felt to be a really
+reasonable wish that must turn out well&mdash;they found out that they had
+done it again! For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy,
+said&mdash;<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_262" id="Page_262">[Pg 262]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish."</p>
+
+<p>"I didn't know it," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you remember yesterday?" said the Sand-fairy, still more
+disagreeably. "You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever you
+happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got it."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, have we?" said Robert. "What is it?"</p>
+
+<p>"So you've forgotten?" said the Psammead, beginning to burrow. "Never
+mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it! A nice thing
+you've let yourselves in for!"</p>
+
+<p>"We always do somehow," said Jane sadly.</p>
+
+<p>And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having
+wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not
+stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was
+trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and
+everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was
+most agitating; they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_263" id="Page_263">[Pg 263]</a></span>knew from what the Psammead had said, that they
+must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they
+spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till
+nearly dinner-time that Jane tumbled over <i>The Last of the
+Mohicans</i>,&mdash;which had of course, been left face downwards on the
+floor,&mdash;and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly
+said, "I know!" and sat down flat on the carpet.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for&mdash;Cyril&mdash;at
+breakfast, don't you remember? He said, 'I wish there were Red Indians
+in England,'&mdash;and now there are, and they're going about scalping people
+all over the country, as likely as not."</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham," said Jane
+soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really
+hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't you believe it!" said Anthea. "The Sammyadd said we'd let
+ourselves in for a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_264" id="Page_264">[Pg 264]</a></span>nice thing. That means they'll come <i>here</i>. And
+suppose they scalped the Lamb!"</p>
+
+<p>"Perhaps the scalping would come right again at sunset," said Jane; but
+she did not speak so hopefully as usual.</p>
+
+<p>"Not it!" said Anthea. "The things that grow out of the wishes don't go.
+Look at the fifteen shillings! Pussy, I'm going to break something, and
+you must let me have every penny of money you've got. The Indians will
+come <i>here</i>, don't you see? That Spiteful Psammead as good as said so.
+You see what my plan is? Come on!"</p>
+
+<p>Jane did not see at all. But she followed her sister meekly into
+mother's bedroom.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea lifted down the heavy water-jug&mdash;it had a pattern of storks and
+long grasses on it, which Anthea never forgot. She carried it into the
+dressing-room, and carefully emptied the water out of it into the bath.
+Then she took the jug back into the bedroom and dropped it on the floor.
+You know how a jug always breaks if you happen to drop it by accident.
+If you happen to drop it on <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_265" id="Page_265">[Pg 265]</a></span>purpose, it is quite different. Anthea
+dropped that jug three times, and it was as unbroken as ever. So at last
+she had to take her father's boot-tree and break the jug with that in
+cold blood. It was heartless work.</p>
+
+<p>Next she broke open the missionary-box with the poker. Jane told her
+that it was wrong, of course, but Anthea shut her lips very tight and
+then said&mdash;</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 347px;"><a name="broke" id="broke"></a>
+<img src="images/42.png" width="347" height="400" alt="She broke open the missionary-box with the poker." title="She broke open the missionary-box with the poker." />
+<span class="caption">She broke open the missionary-box with the poker.</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly&mdash;it's a matter of life and death."</p>
+
+<p>There was not very much in the missionary-box,&mdash;only
+seven-and-fourpence,&mdash;but the girls between them had nearly four
+shillings. This made over eleven shillings, as you will easily see.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea tied up the money in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. "Come
+on, Jane!" she said, and ran down to the farm. She knew that the farmer
+was going into Rochester that afternoon. In fact it had been arranged
+that he was to take the four children with him. They had planned this in
+the happy hour when they believed that they <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_266" id="Page_266">[Pg 266]</a></span>we're going to get that
+hundred pounds, in two-shilling pieces, out of the Psammead. They had
+arranged to pay the farmer two shillings each for the ride. Now Anthea
+hastily explained to him that they could not go, but would he take
+Martha and the Baby instead? He agreed, but he was not pleased to get
+only half-a-crown instead of eight shillings.</p>
+
+<p>Then the girls ran home again. Anthea was agitated, but not flurried.
+When she came to think it over afterwards, she could not help seeing
+that she had acted with the most far-seeing promptitude, just like a
+born general. She fetched a little box from her corner drawer, and went
+to find Martha, who was laying the cloth and not in the best of tempers.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," said Anthea. "I've broken the water jug in mother's room."</p>
+
+<p>"Just like you&mdash;always up to some mischief," said Martha, dumping down a
+salt-cellar with a bang.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be cross, Martha dear," said Anthea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_267" id="Page_267">[Pg 267]</a></span> "I've got enough money to
+pay for a new one&mdash;if only you'll be a dear and go and buy it for us.
+Your cousins keep a china-shop, don't they? And I would like you to get
+it to-day, in case mother comes home to-morrow. You know she said she
+might perhaps."</p>
+
+<p>"But you're all going into town yourselves," said Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"We can't afford to, if we get the new jug," said Anthea; "but we'll pay
+for you to go, if you'll take the Lamb. And I say, Martha, look
+here&mdash;I'll give you my Liberty box, if you'll go. Look, it's most
+awfully pretty&mdash;all inlaid with real silver and ivory and ebony, like
+King Solomon's temple."</p>
+
+<p>"I see," said Martha,&mdash;"no, I don't want your box, miss. What you want
+is to get the precious Lamb off your hands for the afternoon. Don't you
+go for to think I don't see through you!"</p>
+
+<p>This was so true that Anthea longed to deny it at once. Martha had no
+business to know so much. But she held her tongue.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_268" id="Page_268">[Pg 268]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Martha set down the bread with a bang that made it jump off its
+trencher.</p>
+
+<p>"I <i>do</i> want the jug got," said Anthea softly. "You <i>will</i> go, won't
+you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Well, just for this once, I don't mind; but mind you don't get into
+none of your outrageous mischief while I'm gone&mdash;that's all!"</p>
+
+<p>"He's going earlier than he thought," said Anthea eagerly. "You'd better
+hurry and get dressed. Do put on that lovely purple frock, Martha, and
+the hat with the pink cornflowers, and the yellow-lace collar. Jane'll
+finish laying the cloth, and I'll wash the Lamb and get him ready."</p>
+
+<p>As she washed the unwilling Lamb and hurried him into his best clothes,
+Anthea peeped out of the window from time to time; so far all was
+well&mdash;she could see no Red Indians. When with a rush and a scurry and
+some deepening of the damask of Martha's complexion she and the Lamb had
+been got off, Anthea drew a deep breath.</p>
+
+<p>"<i>He's</i> safe!" she said, and, to Jane's horror, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_269" id="Page_269">[Pg 269]</a></span>flung herself down on
+the floor and burst into floods of tears. Jane did not understand at all
+how a person could be so brave and like a general, and then suddenly
+give way and go flat like an air-balloon when you prick it. It is better
+not to go flat, of course, but you will observe that Anthea did not give
+way till her aim was accomplished. She had got the dear Lamb out of
+danger&mdash;she felt certain that the Red Indians would be round the White
+House or nowhere&mdash;the farmer's cart would not come back till after
+sunset, so she could afford to cry a little. It was partly with joy that
+she cried, because she had done what she meant to do. She cried for
+about three minutes, while Jane hugged her miserably and said at
+five-second intervals, "Don't cry, Panther dear!"</p>
+
+<p>Then she jumped up, rubbed her eyes hard with the corner of her
+pinafore, so that they kept red for the rest of the day, and started to
+tell the boys. But just at that moment cook rang the dinner-bell, and
+nothing could be said till they had been helped to minced <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_270" id="Page_270">[Pg 270]</a></span>beef. Then
+cook left the room, and Anthea told her tale. But it is a mistake to
+tell a thrilling tale when people are eating minced beef and boiled
+potatoes. There seemed somehow to be something about the food that made
+the idea of Red Indians seem flat and unbelievable. The boys actually
+laughed, and called Anthea a little silly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Cyril, "I'm almost sure it was before I said that, that Jane
+said she wished it would be a fine day."</p>
+
+<p>"It wasn't," said Jane briefly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, if it was Indians," Cyril went on,&mdash;"salt, please, and mustard&mdash;I
+must have something to make this mush go down,&mdash;if it was Indians,
+they'd have been infesting the place long before this&mdash;you know they
+would. I believe it's the fine day."</p>
+
+<p>"Then why did the Sammyadd say we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing?"
+asked Anthea. She was feeling very cross. She knew she had acted with
+nobility and discretion, and after that it was very hard to be called a
+little silly, especially when she had the weight of a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_271" id="Page_271">[Pg 271]</a></span>burglared
+missionary-box and about seven-and-fourpence, mostly in coppers, lying
+like lead upon her conscience.</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, during which cook took away the mincy plates and
+brought in the pudding. As soon as she had retired, Cyril began again.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I don't mean to say," he admitted, "that it wasn't a good
+thing to get Martha and the Lamb out of the way for the afternoon; but
+as for Red Indians&mdash;why, you know jolly well the wishes always come that
+very minute. If there was going to be Red Indians, they'd be here now."</p>
+
+<p>"I expect they are," said Anthea; "they're lurking amid the undergrowth,
+for anything you know. I do think you're most unkind."</p>
+
+<p>"Indians almost always <i>do</i> lurk, really, though, don't they?" put in
+Jane, anxious for peace.</p>
+
+<p>"No, they don't," said Cyril tartly. "And I'm not unkind, I'm only
+truthful. And I say it was utter rot breaking the water-jug; and as for
+the missionary-box, I believe it's a <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_272" id="Page_272">[Pg 272]</a></span>treason-crime, and I shouldn't
+wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to split"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>"Shut up, can't you?" said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he felt
+in his heart that if there <i>should</i> be Indians they would be entirely
+his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And trying not to
+believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is
+as bad for the temper as anything I know.</p>
+
+<p>"It's simply idiotic," he said, "talking about Indians, when you can see
+for yourself that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look what a fine day it
+is&mdash;&mdash;<i>OH!</i>&mdash;"</p>
+
+<p>He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the
+day&mdash;the others turned too&mdash;and a frozen silence caught at Cyril, and
+none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there, peering
+round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the Virginia
+creeper, was a face&mdash;a brown face, with a long nose and a tight mouth
+and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in coloured <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_273" id="Page_273">[Pg 273]</a></span>patches. It
+had long black hair, and in the hair were feathers!</p>
+
+<p>Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was
+growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was
+broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a
+girl.</p>
+
+<p>"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"</p>
+
+<p>The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their
+portions in a <i>Spectator</i> of the week before the week before last, they
+hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to
+reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.</p>
+
+<p>"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom.
+"Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"</p>
+
+<p>No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
+windows.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_274" id="Page_274">[Pg 274]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well," said Robert, "what are we to do?"</p>
+
+<p>"The only thing I can think of," said Anthea, who was now generally
+admitted to be the heroine of the day, "is&mdash;if we dressed up as like
+Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went out. They
+might think we were the powerful leaders of a large neighbouring tribe,
+and&mdash;and not do anything to us, you know, for fear of awful vengeance."</p>
+
+<p>"But Eliza, and the cook?" said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"You forget&mdash;they can't notice anything," said Robert. "They wouldn't
+notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped or roasted at
+a slow fire."</p>
+
+<p>"But would they come right at sunset?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
+noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it escaped
+your attention at the time," said Cyril. "I think Anthea's right, but we
+shall want a most awful lot of feathers."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll go down to the hen-house," said Robert. "There's one of the
+turkeys in there&mdash;it's not <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_275" id="Page_275">[Pg 275]</a></span>very well. I could cut its feathers without
+it minding much. It's very bad&mdash;doesn't seem to care what happens to it.
+Get me the cutting-out scissors."</p>
+
+<p>Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in the
+poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back&mdash;pale, but with
+many feathers.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," he said, "this is jolly serious. I cut off the feathers,
+and when I turned to come out there was an Indian squinting at me from
+under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the feathers and yelled, and
+got away before he could get the coop off top of himself. Panther, get
+the coloured blankets off our beds, and look slippy, can't you?"</p>
+
+<p>It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourself with blankets
+and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children
+happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico
+that had been bought to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this
+into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_276" id="Page_276">[Pg 276]</a></span>the
+amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck
+turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black
+hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit.</p>
+
+<p>"But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour.
+We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the
+colour of putty."</p>
+
+<p>"I'm not," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"The real Indians outside seem to be brownish," said Robert hastily. "I
+think we ought to be really <i>red</i>&mdash;it's sort of superior to have a red
+skin, if you are one."</p>
+
+<p>The red ochre cook uses for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about the
+reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a saucer with
+milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor. Then they
+carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it, till they were
+quite as red as any Red Indian need be&mdash;if not redder.</p>
+
+<p>They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met Eliza
+in the passage, <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_277" id="Page_277">[Pg 277]</a></span>and she screamed aloud. This unsolicited testimonial
+pleased them very much. Hastily telling her not to be a goose, and that
+it was only a game, the four blanketed, feathered, really and truly
+Redskins went boldly out to meet the foe. I say boldly. That is because
+I wish to be polite. At any rate, they went.</p>
+
+<p>Along the hedge dividing the wilderness from the garden was a row of
+dark heads, all highly feathered.</p>
+
+<p>"It's our only chance," whispered Anthea. "Much better than to wait for
+their blood-freezing attack. We must pretend like mad. Like that game of
+cards where you pretend you've got aces when you haven't. Fluffing they
+call it, I think. Now then. Whoop!"</p>
+
+<p>With four wild war-whoops&mdash;or as near them as white children could be
+expected to go without any previous practice&mdash;they rushed through the
+gate and struck four war-like attitudes in face of the line of Red
+Indians. These were all about the same height, and that height was
+Cyril's.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_278" id="Page_278">[Pg 278]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I hope to goodness they can talk English," said Cyril through his
+attitude.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea knew they could, though she never knew how she came to know it.
+She had a white towel tied to a walking-stick. This was a flag of truce,
+and she waved it, in the hope that the Indians would know what it was.
+Apparently they did&mdash;for one who was browner than the others stepped
+forward.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said in excellent English. "I am Golden Eagle,
+of the mighty tribe of Rock-dwellers."</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 368px;"><a name="ye" id="ye"></a>
+<img src="images/43.png" width="368" height="397" alt="&quot;Ye seek a pow-wow?&quot; he said" title="&quot;Ye seek a pow-wow?&quot; he said" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;Ye seek a pow-wow?&quot; he said</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"And I," said Anthea, with a sudden inspiration, "am the Black
+Panther&mdash;chief of the&mdash;the&mdash;the&mdash;Mazawattee tribe. My brothers&mdash;I don't
+mean&mdash;yes, I do&mdash;the tribe&mdash;I mean the Mazawattees&mdash;are in ambush below
+the brow of yonder hill."</p>
+
+<p>"And what mighty warriors be these?" asked Golden Eagle, turning to the
+others.</p>
+
+<p>Cyril said he was the great chief Squirrel, of the Moning Congo tribe,
+and, seeing that Jane was sucking her thumb and could evidently think of
+no name for herself, he added,<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_279" id="Page_279">[Pg 279]</a></span> "This great warrior is Wild Cat&mdash;Pussy
+Ferox we call it in this land&mdash;leader of the vast Phiteezi tribe."</p>
+
+<p>"And thou, valorous Redskin?" Golden Eagle inquired suddenly of Robert,
+who, taken unawares, could only reply that he was Bobs&mdash;leader of the
+Cape Mounted Police.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," said Black Panther, "our tribes, if we just whistle them up,
+will far outnumber your puny forces; so resistance is useless. Return,
+therefore, to your land, O brother, and smoke pipes of peace in your
+wampums with your squaws and your medicine-men, and dress yourselves in
+the gayest wigwams, and eat happily of the juicy fresh-caught
+moccasins."</p>
+
+<p>"You've got it all wrong," murmured Cyril angrily. But Golden Eagle only
+looked inquiringly at her.</p>
+
+<p>"Thy customs are other than ours, O Black Panther," he said. "Bring up
+thy tribe, that we may hold pow-wow in state before them, as becomes
+great chiefs."</p>
+
+<p>"We'll bring them up right enough," said<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_280" id="Page_280">[Pg 280]</a></span> Anthea, "with their bows and
+arrows, and tomahawks and scalping-knives, and everything you can think
+of, if you don't look sharp and go."</p>
+
+<p>She spoke bravely enough, but the hearts of all the children were
+beating furiously, and their breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.
+For the little real Red Indians were closing up round them&mdash;coming
+nearer and nearer with angry murmurs&mdash;so that they were the centre of a
+crowd of dark cruel faces.</p>
+
+<p>"It's no go," whispered Robert. "I knew it wouldn't be. We must make a
+bolt for the Psammead. It might help us. If it doesn't&mdash;well, I suppose
+we shall come alive again at sunset. I wonder if scalping hurts as much
+as they say."</p>
+
+<p>"I'll wave the flag again," said Anthea. "If they stand back, we'll run
+for it."</p>
+
+<p>She waved the towel, and the chief commanded his followers to stand
+back. Then, charging wildly at the place where the line of Indians was
+thinnest, the four children <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_281" id="Page_281">[Pg 281]</a></span>started to run. Their first rush knocked
+down some half-dozen Indians, over whose blanketed bodies the children
+leaped, and made straight for the sand-pit. This was no time for the
+safe easy way by which carts go down&mdash;right over the edge of the
+sand-pit they went, among the yellow and pale purple flowers and dried
+grasses, past the little bank martins' little front doors, skipping,
+clinging, bounding, stumbling, sprawling, and finally rolling.</p>
+
+<p>Yellow Eagle and his followers came up with them just at the very spot
+where they had seen the Psammead that morning.</p>
+
+<p>Breathless and beaten, the wretched children now awaited their fate.
+Sharp knives and axes gleamed round them, but worse than these was the
+cruel light in the eyes of Golden Eagle and his followers.</p>
+
+<p>"Ye have lied to us, O Black Panther of the Mazawattees&mdash;and thou, too,
+Squirrel of the Moning Congos. These also, Pussy Ferox of the Phiteezi,
+and Bobs of the Cape Mounted Police,&mdash;these also have lied to us, if not
+with their tongues, yet by their silence. Ye have <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_282" id="Page_282">[Pg 282]</a></span>lied under the cover
+of the Truce-flag of the Pale-face. Ye have no followers. Your tribes
+are far away&mdash;following the hunting trail. What shall be their doom?" he
+concluded, turning with a bitter smile to the other Red Indians.</p>
+
+<p>"Build we the fire!" shouted his followers; and at once a dozen ready
+volunteers started to look for fuel. The four children, each held
+between two strong little Indians, cast despairing glances round them.
+Oh, if they could only see the Psammead!</p>
+
+<p>"Do you mean to scalp us first and then roast us?" asked Anthea
+desperately.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course!" Redskin opened his eyes at her. "It's always done."</p>
+
+<p>The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on the
+ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening silence.</p>
+
+<p>Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for
+firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been
+able to find a single stick of <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_283" id="Page_283">[Pg 283]</a></span>wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a
+matter of fact, in that part of Kent.</p>
+
+<p>The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan of
+terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them. Next
+moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its eyes and
+tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of the knife. It
+did not come. Next moment they were released, and fell in a trembling
+heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They only felt strangely cool!
+Wild war-whoops rang in their ears. When they ventured to open their
+eyes they saw four of their foes dancing round them with wild leaps and
+screams, and each of the four brandished in his hand a scalp of long
+flowing black hair. They put their hands to their heads&mdash;their own
+scalps were safe! The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the
+children. But they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black
+calico ringlets!</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 327px;"><a name="bright" id="bright"></a>
+<img src="images/44.png" width="327" height="400" alt="Bright knives were being brandished all about them" title="Bright knives were being brandished all about them" />
+<span class="caption">Bright knives were being brandished all about them</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_284" id="Page_284">[Pg 284]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their
+ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors&mdash;without
+struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the
+conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly
+won!"</p>
+
+<p>"They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't," said
+Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and hands on to
+his hair.</p>
+
+<p>"Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we," the chant went on,&mdash;"but
+there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the flames. Yet is
+the slow fire the correct thing. O strange unnatural country, wherein a
+man may find no wood to burn his enemy!&mdash;Ah for the boundless forests of
+my native land, where the great trees for thousands of miles grow but to
+furnish firewood wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in
+our native forest once more!"</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all round
+the four chil<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_285" id="Page_285">[Pg 285]</a></span>dren instead of the dusky figures. For every single
+Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word. The Psammead
+must have been there all the time. And it had given the Indian chief his
+wish.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long grasses on
+it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.</p>
+
+<p>"My cousin, she gave me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd one
+what the basin of had got smashed."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Martha, you are a dear!" sighed Anthea, throwing her arms round
+her.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes," giggled Martha, "you'd better make the most of me while you've
+got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she comes back."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, Martha, we haven't been so <i>very</i> horrid to you, have we?" asked
+Anthea, aghast.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, it isn't that, miss." Martha giggled more than ever. "I'm a-goin'
+to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been a-proposin' to me
+off and on ever since you come <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_286" id="Page_286">[Pg 286]</a></span>home from the clergyman's where you got
+locked up on the church-tower. And to-day I said the word an' made him a
+happy man."</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and
+pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was very
+glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day whether
+breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging matter!<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_287" id="Page_287">[Pg 287]</a></span></p>
+
+
+
+<hr style="width: 65%;" />
+<h2>CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)</h2>
+
+<h3>THE LAST WISH</h3>
+
+
+<p>Of course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last)
+chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be
+the last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of
+getting anything out of the Psammead, or Sand-fairy.</p>
+
+<p>But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy
+visions, and, whereas on the other days they had often found it
+extremely difficult to think of anything really nice to wish for, their
+brains were now full of the most beautiful and sensible ideas. "This,"
+as Jane remarked afterwards, "is always the way." Everyone was up extra
+early that morning, and these plans were hopefully discussed in the
+garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_288" id="Page_288">[Pg 288]</a></span>pounds in modern
+florins was still first favourite, but there were others that ran it
+close&mdash;the chief of these being the "pony-each" idea. This had a great
+advantage. You could wish for a pony each during the morning, ride it
+all day, have it vanish at sunset, and wish it back again next day.
+Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at breakfast two
+things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was
+better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A
+cheer arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the
+before-breakfast wish-ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the
+wish of the day must be something to please mother and not to please
+themselves.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder what she <i>would</i> like," pondered Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"She'd like us all to be good," said Jane primly.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes&mdash;but that's so dull for us," Cyril rejoined; "and besides, I should
+hope we could be that without sand-fairies to help us. No; <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_289" id="Page_289">[Pg 289]</a></span>it must be
+something splendid, that we couldn't possibly get without wishing for."</p>
+
+<p>"Look out," said Anthea in a warning voice; "don't forget yesterday.
+Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen to be when we
+say 'I wish.' Don't let's let ourselves in for anything silly&mdash;to-day of
+all days."</p>
+
+<p>"All right," said Cyril. "You needn't talk so much."</p>
+
+<p>Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the
+tea-pot&mdash;and a face full of importance for the children.</p>
+
+<p>"A blessing we're all alive to eat our breakfast!" she said darkly.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, whatever's happened?" everybody asked.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, nothing," said Martha, "only it seems nobody's safe from being
+murdered in their beds nowadays."</p>
+
+<p>"Why," said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and
+legs and out at her toes, "<i>has</i> anyone been murdered in their beds?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_290" id="Page_290">[Pg 290]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Well&mdash;not exactly," said Martha; "but they might just as well. There's
+been burglars over at <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'Peasemarch'">Peasemarsh</ins> Place&mdash;Beale's just told me&mdash;and
+they've took every single one of Lady Chittenden's diamonds and jewels
+and things, and she's a-goin out of one fainting fit into another, with
+hardly time to say 'Oh, my diamonds!' in between. And Lord Chittenden's
+away in London."</p>
+
+<p>"Lady Chittenden," said Anthea; "we've seen her. She wears a
+red-and-white dress, and she has no children of her own and can't abide
+other folkses'."</p>
+
+<p>"That's her," said Martha. "Well, she's put all her trust in riches, and
+you see how she's served. They say the diamonds and things was worth
+thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river&mdash;whatever that
+is&mdash;and no end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But
+there, I mustn't stand talking and all the place to clean down afore
+your ma comes home."</p>
+
+<p>"I don't see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said
+Anthea when<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_291" id="Page_291">[Pg 291]</a></span> Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I
+thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels&mdash;the
+topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were
+engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with
+great-grandpapa's hair in it,&mdash;that's about all."</p>
+
+<p>"When I'm grown up I'll buy mother no end of diamonds," said Robert, "if
+she wants them. I shall make so much money exploring in Africa I shan't
+know what to do with it."</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it be jolly," said Jane dreamily, "if mother could find all
+these lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?"</p>
+
+<p>"<i>Ti&mdash;aras</i>," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"Ti&mdash;aras, then,&mdash;and rings and everything in her room when she came
+home. I wish she would"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>The others gazed at her in horror.</p>
+
+<p>"Well, she <i>will</i>," said Robert; "you've wished, my good Jane&mdash;and our
+only chance <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_292" id="Page_292">[Pg 292]</a></span>now is to find the Psammead, and if it's in a good temper
+it <i>may</i> take back the wish and give us another. If not&mdash;well&mdash;goodness
+knows what we're in for!&mdash;the police of course, and&mdash;&mdash; Don't cry,
+silly! We'll stand by you. Father says we need never to be afraid if we
+don't do anything wrong and always speak the truth."</p>
+
+<p>But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how
+convincing the truth about the Psammead had been once before when told
+to the police.</p>
+
+<p>It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found.
+Nor the jewels, though every one of the children searched the mother's
+room again and again.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course," Robert said, "<i>we</i> couldn't find them. It'll be mother
+who'll do that. Perhaps she'll think they've been in the house for years
+and years, and never know they are the stolen ones at all."</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes!" Cyril was very scornful; "then mother will be a receiver of
+stolen goods, and you know jolly well what <i>that's</i> worse than."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_293" id="Page_293">[Pg 293]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>Another and exhaustive search of the sand-pit failed to reveal the
+Psammead, so the children went back to the house slowly and sadly.</p>
+
+<p>"I don't care," said Anthea stoutly, "we'll tell mother the truth, and
+she'll give back the jewels&mdash;and make everything all right."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you think so?" said Cyril slowly. "Do you think she'll believe us?
+Could anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they'd seen it? She'll
+think we're pretending. Or else she'll think we're raving mad, and then
+we shall be sent to the mad-house. How would you like it?"&mdash;he turned
+suddenly on the miserable Jane,&mdash;"how would you like it, to be shut up
+in an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick
+straws in your hair all day, and listen to the howlings and ravings of
+the other maniacs? Make up your minds to it, all of you. It's no use
+telling mother."</p>
+
+<p>"But it's true," said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course it is, but it's not true enough for grown-up people to
+believe it," said Anthea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_294" id="Page_294">[Pg 294]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Cyril's right. Let's put flowers in all the vases, and try not to think
+about the diamonds. After all, everything has come right in the end all
+the other times."</p>
+
+<p>So they filled all the pots they could find with flowers&mdash;asters and
+zinnias, and loose-leaved late red roses from the wall of the
+stableyard, till the house was a perfect bower.</p>
+
+<p>And almost as soon as dinner was cleared away mother arrived, and was
+clasped in eight loving arms. It was very difficult indeed not to tell
+her all about the Psammead at once, because they had got into the habit
+of telling her everything. But they did succeed in not telling her.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 226px;"><a name="clasped" id="clasped"></a>
+<img src="images/45.png" width="226" height="400" alt="She was clasped in eight loving arms" title="She was clasped in eight loving arms" />
+<span class="caption">She was clasped in eight loving arms</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Mother, on her side, had plenty to tell them&mdash;about Granny, and Granny's
+pigeons, and Auntie Emma's lame tame donkey. She was very delighted with
+the flowery-boweryness of the house; and everything seemed so natural
+and pleasant, now that she was home again, that the children almost
+thought they must have dreamed the Psammead.</p>
+
+<p>But, when mother moved towards the stairs <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_295" id="Page_295">[Pg 295]</a></span>to go up to her bedroom and
+take off her bonnet, the eight arms clung round her just as if she only
+had two children, one the Lamb and the other an octopus.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't go up, mummy darling," said Anthea; "let me take your things up
+for you."</p>
+
+<p>"Or I will," said Cyril.</p>
+
+<p>"We want you to come and look at the rose-tree," said Robert.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, don't go up!" said Jane helplessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Nonsense, dears," said mother briskly, "I'm not such an old woman yet
+that I can't take my bonnet off in the proper place. Besides I must wash
+these black hands of mine."</p>
+
+<p>So up she went, and the children, following her, exchanged glances of
+gloomy foreboding.</p>
+
+<p>Mother took off her bonnet,&mdash;it was a very pretty hat, really, with
+white roses in it,&mdash;and when she had taken it off she went to the
+dressing-table to do her pretty hair.</p>
+
+<p>On the table between the ring-stand and the pin-cushion lay a green
+leather case. Mother opened it.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_296" id="Page_296">[Pg 296]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Oh, how lovely!" she cried. It was a ring, a large pearl with shining
+many-lighted diamonds set round it. "Wherever did this come from?"
+mother asked, trying it on her wedding finger, which it fitted
+beautifully. "However did it come here?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know," said each of the children truthfully.</p>
+
+<p>"Father must have told Martha to put it here," mother said. "I'll run
+down and ask her."</p>
+
+<p>"Let me look at it," said Anthea, who knew Martha would not be able to
+see the ring. But when Martha was asked, of course she denied putting
+the ring there, and so did Eliza and cook.</p>
+
+<p>Mother came back to her bedroom, very much interested and pleased about
+the ring. But, when she opened the dressing-table drawer and found a
+long case containing an almost priceless diamond necklace, she was more
+interested still, though not so pleased. In the wardrobe, when she went
+to put away her "bonnet," she found a tiara and several <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_297" id="Page_297">[Pg 297]</a></span>brooches, and
+the rest of the jewellery turned up in various parts of the room during
+the next half-hour. The children looked more and more uncomfortable, and
+now Jane began to sniff.</p>
+
+<p>Mother looked at her gravely.</p>
+
+<p>"Jane," she said, "I am sure you know something about this. Now think
+before you speak, and tell me the truth."</p>
+
+<p>"We found a Fairy," said Jane obediently.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 329px;"><a name="found" id="found"></a>
+<img src="images/46.png" width="329" height="400" alt="&quot;We found a Fairy,&quot; said Jane obediently" title="&quot;We found a Fairy,&quot; said Jane obediently" />
+<span class="caption">&quot;We found a Fairy,&quot; said Jane obediently</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>"No nonsense, please," said her mother sharply.</p>
+
+<p>"Don't be silly, Jane," Cyril interrupted. Then he went on desperately.
+"Look here, mother, we've never seen the things before, but Lady
+Chittenden at Peasmarsh Place lost all her jewellery by wicked burglars
+last night. Could this possibly be it?"</p>
+
+<p>All drew a deep breath. They were saved.</p>
+
+<p>"But how could they have put it here? And why should they?" asked
+mother, not unreasonably. "Surely it would have been easier and safer to
+make off with it?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_298" id="Page_298">[Pg 298]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Suppose," said Cyril, "they thought it better to wait for&mdash;for
+sunset&mdash;nightfall, I mean, before they went off with it. No one but us
+knew that you were coming back to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"I must send for the police at once," said mother distractedly. "Oh, how
+I wish daddy were here!"</p>
+
+<p>"Wouldn't it be better to wait till he <i>does</i> come?" asked Robert,
+knowing that his father would not be home before sunset.</p>
+
+<p>"No, no; I can't wait a minute with all this on my mind," cried mother.
+"All this" was the heap of jewel-cases on the bed. They put them all in
+the wardrobe, and mother locked it. Then mother called Martha.</p>
+
+<p>"Martha," she said, "has any stranger been into my room since I've been
+away? Now, answer me truthfully."</p>
+
+<p>"No, mum," answered Martha; "leastways, what I mean to say"&mdash;</p>
+
+<p>She stopped.</p>
+
+<p>"Come," said her mistress kindly, "I see someone has. You must tell me
+at once.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_299" id="Page_299">[Pg 299]</a></span> Don't be frightened. I'm sure <i>you</i> haven't done anything
+wrong."</p>
+
+<p>Martha burst into heavy sobs.</p>
+
+<p>"I was a-goin' to give you warning this very day, mum, to leave at the
+end of my month, so I was,&mdash;on account of me being going to make a
+respectable young man happy. A gamekeeper he is by trade, mum&mdash;and I
+wouldn't deceive you&mdash;of the name of Beale. And it's as true as I stand
+here, it was your coming home in such a hurry, and no warning given, out
+of the kindness of his heart it was, as he says, 'Martha, my beauty,' he
+says,&mdash;which I ain't, and never was, but you know how them men will go
+on,&mdash;'I can't see you a-toiling and a-moiling and not lend a 'elping
+'and; which mine is a strong arm, and it's yours Martha, my dear,' says
+he. And so he helped me a-cleanin' of the windows&mdash;but outside, mum, the
+whole time, and me in; if I never say another breathing word it's gospel
+truth."</p>
+
+<p>"Were you with him the whole time?" asked her mistress.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_300" id="Page_300">[Pg 300]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"Him outside and me in, I was," said Martha; "except for fetching up a
+fresh pail and the leather that that slut of a Eliza'd hidden away
+behind the mangle."</p>
+
+<p>"That will do," said the children's mother. "I am not pleased with you,
+Martha, but you have spoken the truth, and that counts for something."</p>
+
+<p>When Martha had gone, the children clung round their mother.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh, mummy darling," cried Anthea, "it isn't Beale's fault, it isn't
+really! He's a great dear; he is, truly and honourably, and as honest as
+the day. Don't let the police take him, mummy! Oh, don't, don't, don't!"</p>
+
+<p>It was truly awful. Here was an innocent man accused of robbery through
+that silly wish of Jane's, and it was absolutely useless to tell the
+truth. All longed to, but they thought of the straws in the hair and the
+shrieks of the other frantic maniacs, and they could not do it.</p>
+
+<p>"Is there a cart hereabouts?" asked the mother feverishly. "A trap of
+any sort? I <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_301" id="Page_301">[Pg 301]</a></span>must drive in to Rochester and tell the police at once."</p>
+
+<p>All the children sobbed, "There's a cart at the farm, but, oh, don't
+go!&mdash;don't go!&mdash;oh, don't go!&mdash;wait till daddy comes home!"</p>
+
+<p>Mother took not the faintest notice. When she had set her mind on a
+thing she always went straight through with it; she was rather like
+Anthea in this respect.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here, Cyril," she said, sticking on her hat with long sharp
+violet-headed pins, "I leave you in charge. Stay in the dressing-room.
+You can pretend to be swimming boats in the bath, or something. Say I
+gave you leave. But stay there, with the door on the landing open; I've
+locked the other. And don't let anyone go into my room. Remember, no one
+knows the jewels are there except me, and all of you, and the wicked
+thieves who put them there. Robert, you stay in the garden and watch the
+windows. If anyone tries to get in you must run and tell the two farm
+men that I'll send up to wait in the kitchen. I'll tell them there are
+dangerous <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_302" id="Page_302">[Pg 302]</a></span>characters about&mdash;that's true enough. Now remember, I trust
+you both. But I don't think they'll try it till after dark, so you're
+quite safe. Good-bye, darlings."</p>
+
+<p>And she locked her bedroom door and went off with the key in her pocket.</p>
+
+<p>The children could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in
+which she had acted. They thought how useful she would have been in
+organising escape from some of the tight places in which they had found
+themselves of late in consequence of their ill-timed wishes.</p>
+
+<p>"She's a born general," said Cyril,&mdash;"but <i>I</i> don't know what's going to
+happen to us. Even if the girls were to hunt for that old Sammyadd and
+find it, and get it to take the jewels away again, mother would only
+think we hadn't looked out properly and let the burglars sneak in and
+get them&mdash;or else the police will think <i>we've</i> got them&mdash;or else that
+she's been fooling them. Oh, it's a pretty decent average ghastly mess
+this time, and no mistake!"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_303" id="Page_303">[Pg 303]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>He savagely made a paper boat and began to float it in the bath, as he
+had been told to do.</p>
+
+<p>Robert went into the garden and sat down on the worn yellow grass, with
+his miserable head between his helpless hands.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea and Jane whispered together in the passage downstairs, where the
+cocoanut matting was&mdash;with the hole in it that you always caught your
+foot in if you were not careful. Martha's voice could be heard in the
+kitchen,&mdash;grumbling loud and long.</p>
+
+<p>"It's simply quite too dreadfully awful," said Anthea. "How do you know
+all the diamonds are there, too? If they aren't, the police will think
+mother and father have got them, and that they've only given up some of
+them for a kind of desperate blind. And they'll be put in prison, and we
+shall be branded outcasts, the children of felons. And it won't be at
+all nice for father and mother either," she added, by a candid
+after-thought.</p>
+
+<p>"But what can we <i>do</i>?" asked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Nothing&mdash;at least we might look for the<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_304" id="Page_304">[Pg 304]</a></span> Psammead again. It's a very,
+<i>very</i> hot day. He may have come out to warm that whisker of his."</p>
+
+<p>"He won't give us any more beastly wishes to-day," said Jane flatly. "He
+gets crosser and crosser every time we see him. I believe he hates
+having to give wishes."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea had been shaking her head gloomily&mdash;now she stopped shaking it so
+suddenly that it really looked as though she were pricking up her ears.</p>
+
+<p>"What is it?" asked Jane. "Oh, have you thought of something?"</p>
+
+<p>"Our one chance," cried Anthea dramatically; "the last lone-lorn forlorn
+hope. Come on."</p>
+
+<p>At a brisk trot she led the way to the sand-pit. Oh, joy!&mdash;there was the
+Psammead, basking in a golden sandy hollow and preening its whiskers
+happily in the glowing afternoon sun. The moment it saw them it whisked
+round and began to burrow&mdash;it evidently preferred its own company to
+theirs. But Anthea was too quick for it. She caught it by <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_305" id="Page_305">[Pg 305]</a></span>its furry
+shoulders gently but firmly, and held it.</p>
+
+<p>"Here&mdash;none of that!" said the Psammead. "Leave go of me, will you?"</p>
+
+<p>But Anthea held him fast.</p>
+
+<p>"Dear kind darling Sammyadd," she said breathlessly.</p>
+
+<p>"Oh yes&mdash;it's all very well," it said; "you want another wish, I expect.
+But I can't keep on slaving from morning till night giving people their
+wishes. I must have <i>some</i> time to myself."</p>
+
+<p>"Do you hate giving wishes?" asked Anthea gently, and her voice trembled
+with excitement.</p>
+
+<p>"Of course I do," it said. "Leave go of me or I'll bite!&mdash;I really
+will&mdash;I mean it. Oh, well, if you choose to risk it."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea risked it and held on.</p>
+
+<p>"Look here," she said, "don't bite me&mdash;listen to reason. If you'll only
+do what we want to-day, we'll never ask you for another wish as long as
+we live."</p>
+
+<p>The Psammead was much moved.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_306" id="Page_306">[Pg 306]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I'd do anything," it said in a tearful voice. "I'd almost burst myself
+to give you one wish after another, as long as I held out, if you'd only
+never, never ask me to do it after to-day. If you knew how I hate to
+blow myself out with other people's wishes, and how frightened I am
+always that I shall strain a muscle or something. And then to wake up
+every morning and know you've <i>got</i> to do it. You don't know what it
+is&mdash;you don't know what it is, you don't!" Its voice cracked with
+emotion, and the last "don't" was a squeak.</p>
+
+<p>Anthea set it down gently on the sand.</p>
+
+<p>"It's all over now," she said soothingly. "We promise faithfully never
+to ask for another wish after to-day."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, go ahead," said the Psammead; "let's get it over."</p>
+
+<p>"How many can you do?"</p>
+
+<p>"I don't know&mdash;as long as I can hold out."</p>
+
+<p>"Well, first, I wish Lady Chittenden may find she's never lost her
+jewels."</p>
+
+<p>The Psammead blew itself out, collapsed, and said, "Done."<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_307" id="Page_307">[Pg 307]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Anthea more slowly, "mother mayn't get to the police."</p>
+
+<p>"Done," said the creature after the proper interval.</p>
+
+<p>"I wish," said Jane suddenly, "mother could forget all about the
+diamonds."</p>
+
+<p>"Done," said the Psammead; but its voice was weaker.</p>
+
+<p>"Would you like to rest a little?" asked Anthea considerately.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please," said the Psammead; "and, before we go any further, will
+you wish something for me?"</p>
+
+<p>"Can't you do wishes for yourself?"</p>
+
+<p>"Of course not," it said; "we were always expected to give each other
+our wishes&mdash;not that we had any to speak of in the good old Megatherium
+days. Just wish, will you, that you may never be able, any of you, to
+tell anyone a word about <i>Me</i>."</p>
+
+<p>"Why?" asked Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Why, don't you see, if you told grown-ups I should have no peace of my
+life. They'd get hold of me, and they wouldn't wish silly <span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_308" id="Page_308">[Pg 308]</a></span>things like
+you do, but real earnest things; and the scientific people would hit on
+some way of making things last after sunset, as likely as not; and
+they'd ask for a graduated income-tax, and old-age pensions, and manhood
+suffrage, and free secondary education, and dull things like that; and
+get them, and keep them, and the whole world would be turned
+topsy-turvy. Do wish it! Quick!"</p>
+
+<p>Anthea repeated the Psammead's wish, and it blew itself out to a larger
+size than they had yet seen it attain.</p>
+
+<p>"And now," it said as it collapsed, "can I do anything more for you?"</p>
+
+<p>"Just one thing; and I think that clears everything up, doesn't it,
+Jane? I wish Martha to forget about the diamond ring, and mother to
+forget about the keeper cleaning the windows."</p>
+
+<p>"It's like the 'Brass Bottle,'" said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, I'm glad we read that or I should never have thought of it."</p>
+
+<p>"Now," said the Psammead faintly, "I'm almost worn out. Is there
+anything else?"<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_309" id="Page_309">[Pg 309]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"No; only thank you kindly for all you've done for us, and I hope you'll
+have a good long sleep, and I hope we shall see you again some day."</p>
+
+<p>"Is that a wish?" it said in a weak voice.</p>
+
+<p>"Yes, please," said the two girls together.</p>
+
+<div class="figcenter" style="width: 400px;"><a name="it" id="it"></a>
+<img src="images/47.png" width="400" height="373" alt="It burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last" title="It burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last" />
+<span class="caption">It burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last</span>
+</div>
+
+<p>Then for the last time in this story they saw the Psammead blow itself
+out and collapse suddenly. It nodded to them, blinked its long snail's
+eyes, burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last, and
+the sand closed over it.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<p>"I hope we've done right?" said Jane.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we have," said Anthea. "Come on home and tell the boys."</p>
+
+<p>Anthea found Cyril glooming over his paper boats, and told him. Jane
+told Robert. The two tales were only just ended when mother walked in,
+hot and dusty. She explained that as she was being driven into Rochester
+to buy the girls' autumn school-dresses the axle had broken, and but for
+the narrowness of the lane and the high soft hedges she would have been
+<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_310" id="Page_310">[Pg 310]</a></span>thrown out. As it was, she was not hurt, but she had had to walk home.
+"And oh, my dearest dear chicks," she said, "I am simply dying for a cup
+of tea! Do run and see if the water boils!"</p>
+
+<p>"So you see it's all right," Jane whispered. "She doesn't remember."</p>
+
+<p>"No more does Martha," said Anthea, who had been to ask after the state
+of the kettle.</p>
+
+<p>As the servants sat at their tea, Beale the gamekeeper dropped in. He
+brought the welcome news that Lady Chittenden's diamonds had not been
+lost at all. Lord Chittenden had taken them to be re-set and cleaned,
+and the maid who knew about it had gone for a holiday. So that was all
+right.</p>
+
+<p>"I wonder if we ever shall see the Psammead again," said Jane wistfully
+as they walked in the garden, while mother was putting the Lamb to bed.</p>
+
+<p>"I'm sure we shall," said Cyril, "if you really wished it."</p>
+
+<p>"We've promised never to ask it for another wish," said Anthea.<span class='pagenum'><a name="Page_311" id="Page_311">[Pg 311]</a></span></p>
+
+<p>"I never want to," said Robert earnestly.</p>
+
+<p>They did see it again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not
+in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was
+in a&mdash;&mdash; But I must say no more.</p>
+
+<hr style='width: 45%;' />
+
+<div class='tnote'><b>Transcriber's notes:</b>
+
+<p>Varied hyphenation retained where a majority could not be found.</p>
+
+<p>Page 116, extraneous " removed. "better. What"</p>
+
+<p>Page 179, Quotation mark added. "...Anthea said. "It's creepy..."</p>
+
+<p>The remaining corrections made are indicated by dotted lines under the corrections.
+Scroll the mouse over the word and the original text will <ins title="Transcriber's Note: original reads 'apprear'">appear</ins>.</p></div>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
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@@ -0,0 +1,7015 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Five Children and It
+
+Author: E. Nesbit
+
+Illustrator: H.R. Millar
+
+Release Date: December 15, 2005 [EBook #17314]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FIVE CHILDREN AND IT ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Jason Isbell and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by the
+Library of Congress)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Psammead]
+
+
+
+
+FIVE CHILDREN
+   AND IT
+
+BY
+E. NESBIT
+
+AUTHOR OF "THE TREASURE-SEEKERS,"
+"THE WOULD-BE-GOODS," ETC.
+
+
+_ILLUSTRATED_
+
+
+[Illustration]
+
+
+     NEW YORK
+DODD, MEAD & COMPANY
+
+1905
+
+
+
+ COPYRIGHT, 1905, BY
+DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY
+
+_Published October, 1905_
+
+
+
+
+          _TO_
+
+          JOHN BLAND
+
+
+          _My Lamb, you are so very small,
+          You have not learned to read at all;
+          Yet never a printed book withstands
+          The urgence of your dimpled hands.
+          So, though this book is for yourself,
+          Let mother keep it on the shelf
+          Till you can read. O days that pass,
+          That day will come too soon, alas!_
+
+
+
+
+NOTE
+
+
+Parts of this story have appeared in the _Strand Magazine_ under the
+title of
+
+          "THE PSAMMEAD."
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+CHAPTER                            PAGE
+
+   I BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY            1
+
+  II GOLDEN GUINEAS                 36
+
+ III BEING WANTED                   70
+
+  IV WINGS                         108
+
+   V NO WINGS                      141
+
+  VI A CASTLE AND NO DINNER        159
+
+ VII A SIEGE AND BED               183
+
+VIII BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY   203
+
+  IX GROWN UP                      236
+
+   X SCALPS                        261
+
+  XI THE LAST WISH                 287
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+The Psammead                                          _Frontispiece_
+
+That First Glorious Rush Round the Garden         _Facing page_    2
+
+Cyril Had Nipped His Finger in the Door of a Hutch   "     "       4
+
+Anthea Suddenly Screamed, "It's Alive!"              "     "      12
+
+The Baby Did Not Know Them!                          "     "      28
+
+Martha Emptied a Toilet-jug of Cold Water Over Him   "     "      32
+
+The Rain Fell in Slow Drops on to Anthea's Face      "     "      36
+
+He Staggered, and Had to Sit Down Again in a Hurry   "     "      50
+
+Mr. Beale Snatched the Coin, Bit It, and Put It in
+  His Pocket                                         "     "       58
+
+They Had Run Into Martha and the Baby                "     "       64
+
+He Said, "Now Then!" to the Policeman and Mr.
+  Peasemarsh                                         "     "       66
+
+The Lucky Children Hurriedly Started for the Gravel
+  Pit                                                "     "       78
+
+"Poof, poof, poofy," He Said, and Made a Grab        "     "       86
+
+At Double-quick Time Ran the Twinkling Legs of the
+  Lamb's Brothers and Sisters                        "      "      88
+
+The Next Minute the Two Were Fighting                "      "      90
+
+He Snatched the Baby from Anthea                     "      "      94
+
+He Consented to Let the Two Gypsy Women Feed Him     "      "      98
+
+The Sand-fairy Blew Himself Out                      "      "     122
+
+They Flew Over Rochester                             "      "     126
+
+The Farmer Sat Down on the Grass, Suddenly and
+  Heavily                                            "      "     128
+
+Everyone Now Turned Out His Pockets                  "      "     132
+
+These Were the Necessaries of Life                   "      "     134
+
+The Children Were Fast Asleep                        "      "     138
+
+The Keeper Spoke Deep-Chested Words through the
+  Keyhole                                            "      "     150
+
+There the Castle Stood, Black and Stately            "      "     164
+
+Robert Was Dragged Forthwith--by the Reluctant Ear   "      "     166
+
+He Wiped Away a Manly Tear                           "      "     168
+
+"Oh, Do, Do, Do, _Do_!" Said Robert                  "      "     174
+
+The Man Fell with a Splash Into the Moat-water       "      "     196
+
+Anthea Tilted the Pot over the Nearest Leadhole      "      "     198
+
+He Pulled Robert's Hair                              "      "     210
+
+"The Sammyadd's Done Us Again," Said Cyril           "      "     214
+
+He Lifted Up the Baker's Boy and Set Him on Top of
+  the Haystack                                       "      "     216
+
+It Was a Strange Sensation Being Wheeled in a
+  Pony-carriage by a Giant                           "      "     220
+
+When the Girl Came Out She Was Pale and Trembling    "      "     228
+
+"When Your Time's Up Come to Me"                     "      "     230
+
+He Opened the Case and Used the Whole Thing as a
+  Garden Spade                                       "      "     238
+
+She Did It Gently by Tickling His Nose with a Twig of
+    Honeysuckle                                      "      "     244
+
+There, Sure Enough, Stood a Bicycle                  "      "     248
+
+The Punctured State of It Was Soon Evident           "      "     250
+
+The Grown-up Lamb Struggled                          "      "     258
+
+She Broke Open the Missionary Box with the Poker     "      "     266
+
+"Ye Seek a Pow-wow?" He Said                         "      "     278
+
+Bright Knives Were Being Brandished All about Them   "      "     284
+
+She Was Clasped in Eight Loving Arms                 "      "     294
+
+"We Found a Fairy," Said Jane, Obediently            "      "     298
+
+It Burrowed, and Disappeared, Scratching Fiercely
+  to the Last                                        "      "     308
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+BEAUTIFUL AS THE DAY
+
+
+The house was three miles from the station, but, before the dusty hired
+hack had rattled along for five minutes, the children began to put their
+heads out of the carriage window and say, "Aren't we nearly there?" And
+every time they passed a house, which was not very often, they all said,
+"Oh, _is_ this it?" But it never was, till they reached the very top of
+the hill, just past the chalk-quarry and before you come to the
+gravel-pit. And then there was a white house with a green garden and an
+orchard beyond, and mother said, "Here we are!"
+
+"How white the house is," said Robert.
+
+"And look at the roses," said Anthea.
+
+"And the plums," said Jane.
+
+"It is rather decent," Cyril admitted.
+
+The Baby said, "Wanty go walky;" and the hack stopped with a last rattle
+and jolt.
+
+Everyone got its legs kicked or its feet trodden on in the scramble to
+get out of the carriage that very minute, but no one seemed to mind.
+Mother, curiously enough, was in no hurry to get out; and even when she
+had come down slowly and by the step, and with no jump at all, she
+seemed to wish to see the boxes carried in, and even to pay the driver,
+instead of joining in that first glorious rush round the garden and
+orchard and the thorny, thistly, briery, brambly wilderness beyond the
+broken gate and the dry fountain at the side of the house. But the
+children were wiser, for once. It was not really a pretty house at all;
+it was quite ordinary, and mother thought it was rather inconvenient,
+and was quite annoyed at there being no shelves, to speak of, and hardly
+a cupboard in the place. Father used to say that the iron-work on the
+roof and coping was like an architect's nightmare. But the house was
+deep in the country, with no other house in sight, and the children had
+been in London for two years, without so much as once going to the
+seaside even for a day by an excursion train, and so the White House
+seemed to them a sort of Fairy Palace set down in an Earthly Paradise.
+For London is like prison for children, especially if their relations
+are not rich.
+
+[Illustration: That first glorious rush round the garden]
+
+Of course there are the shops and theatres, and entertainments and
+things, but if your people are rather poor you don't get taken to the
+theatres, and you can't buy things out of the shops; and London has none
+of those nice things that children may play with without hurting the
+things or themselves--such as trees and sand and woods and waters. And
+nearly everything in London is the wrong sort of shape--all straight
+lines and flat streets, instead of being all sorts of odd shapes, like
+things are in the country. Trees are all different, as you know, and I
+am sure some tiresome person must have told you that there are no two
+blades of grass exactly alike. But in streets, where the blades of grass
+don't grow, everything is like everything else. This is why many
+children who live in the towns are so extremely naughty. They do not
+know what is the matter with them, and no more do their fathers and
+mothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, tutors, governesses, and nurses; but I
+know. And so do you, now. Children in the country are naughty sometimes,
+too, but that is for quite different reasons.
+
+The children had explored the gardens and the outhouses thoroughly
+before they were caught and cleaned for tea, and they saw quite well
+that they were certain to be happy at the White House. They thought so
+from the first moment, but when they found the back of the house covered
+with jasmine, all in white flower, and smelling like a bottle of the
+most expensive perfume that is ever given for a birthday present; and
+when they had seen the lawn, all green and smooth, and quite different
+from the brown grass in the gardens at Camden Town; and when they found
+the stable with a loft over it and some old hay still left, they were
+almost certain; and when Robert had found the broken swing and tumbled
+out of it and got a bump on his head the size of an egg, and Cyril had
+nipped his finger in the door of a hutch that seemed made to keep
+rabbits in, if you ever had any, they had no longer any doubts
+whatever.
+
+[Illustration: Cyril had nipped his finger in the door of a hutch]
+
+The best part of it all was that there were no rules about not going to
+places and not doing things. In London almost everything is labelled
+"You mustn't touch," and though the label is invisible it's just as bad,
+because you know it's there, or if you don't you very soon get told.
+
+The White House was on the edge of a hill, with a wood behind it--and
+the chalk-quarry on one side and the gravel-pit on the other. Down at
+the bottom of the hill was a level plain, with queer-shaped white
+buildings where people burnt lime, and a big red brewery and other
+houses; and when the big chimneys were smoking and the sun was setting,
+the valley looked as if it was filled with golden mist, and the
+limekilns and hop-drying houses glimmered and glittered till they were
+like an enchanted city out of the _Arabian Nights_.
+
+Now that I have begun to tell you about the place, I feel that I could
+go on and make this into a most interesting story about all the
+ordinary things that the children did,--just the kind of things you do
+yourself, you know, and you would believe every word of it; and when I
+told about the children's being tiresome, as you are sometimes, your
+aunts would perhaps write in the margin of the story with a pencil, "How
+true!" or "How like life!" and you would see it and would very likely be
+annoyed. So I will only tell you the really astonishing things that
+happened, and you may leave the book about quite safely, for no aunts
+and uncles either are likely to write "How true!" on the edge of the
+story. Grown-up people find it very difficult to believe really
+wonderful things, unless they have what they call proof. But children
+will believe almost anything, and grown-ups know this. That is why they
+tell you that the earth is round like an orange, when you can see
+perfectly well that it is flat and lumpy; and why they say that the
+earth goes round the sun, when you can see for yourself any day that the
+sun gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night like a good sun as
+it is, and the earth knows its place, and lies as still as a mouse. Yet
+I daresay you believe all that about the earth and the sun, and if so
+you will find it quite easy to believe that before Anthea and Cyril and
+the others had been a week in the country they had found a fairy. At
+least they called it that, because that was what it called itself; and
+of course it knew best, but it was not at all like any fairy you ever
+saw or heard of or read about.
+
+It was at the gravel-pits. Father had to go away suddenly on business,
+and mother had gone away to stay with Granny, who was not very well.
+They both went in a great hurry, and when they were gone the house
+seemed dreadfully quiet and empty, and the children wandered from one
+room to another and looked at the bits of paper and string on the floors
+left over from the packing, and not yet cleared up, and wished they had
+something to do. It was Cyril who said--
+
+"I say, let's take our spades and dig in the gravel-pits. We can pretend
+it's seaside."
+
+"Father says it was once," Anthea said; "he says there are shells there
+thousands of years old."
+
+So they went. Of course they had been to the edge of the gravel-pit and
+looked over, but they had not gone down into it for fear father should
+say they mustn't play there, and it was the same with the chalk-quarry.
+The gravel-pit is not really dangerous if you don't try to climb down
+the edges, but go the slow safe way round by the road, as if you were a
+cart.
+
+Each of the children carried its own spade, and took it in turns to
+carry the Lamb. He was the baby, and they called him that because "Baa"
+was the first thing he ever said. They called Anthea "Panther," which
+seems silly when you read it, but when you say it it sounds a little
+like her name.
+
+The gravel-pit is very large and wide, with grass growing round the
+edges at the top, and dry stringy wildflowers, purple and yellow. It is
+like a giant's washbowl. And there are mounds of gravel, and holes in
+the sides of the bowl where gravel has been taken out, and high up in
+the steep sides there are the little holes that are the little front
+doors of the little bank-martins' little houses.
+
+The children built a castle, of course, but castle-building is rather
+poor fun when you have no hope of the swishing tide ever coming in to
+fill up the moat and wash away the drawbridge, and, at the happy last,
+to wet everybody up to the waist at least.
+
+Cyril wanted to dig out a cave to play smugglers in, but the others
+thought it might bury them alive, so it ended in all spades going to
+work to dig a hole through the castle to Australia. These children, you
+see, believed that the world was round, and that on the other side the
+little Australian boys and girls were really walking wrong way up, like
+flies on the ceiling, with their heads hanging down into the air.
+
+The children dug and they dug and they dug, and their hands got sandy
+and hot and red, and their faces got damp and shiny. The Lamb had tried
+to eat the sand, and had cried so hard when he found that it was not,
+as he had supposed, brown sugar, that he was now tired out, and was
+lying asleep in a warm fat bunch in the middle of the half-finished
+castle. This left his brothers and sisters free to work really hard, and
+the hole that was to come out in Australia soon grew so deep that Jane,
+who was called Pussy for short, begged the others to stop.
+
+"Suppose the bottom of the hole gave way suddenly," said she, "and you
+tumbled out among the little Australians, all the sand would get in
+their eyes."
+
+"Yes," said Robert; "and they would hate us, and throw stones at us, and
+not let us see the kangaroos, or opossums, or bluegums, or Emu Brand
+birds, or anything."
+
+Cyril and Anthea knew that Australia was not quite so near as all that,
+but they agreed to stop using the spades and to go on with their hands.
+This was quite easy, because the sand at the bottom of the hole was very
+soft and fine and dry, like sea-sand. And there were little shells in
+it.
+
+"Fancy it having been wet sea here once, all sloppy and shiny," said
+Jane, "with fishes and conger-eels and coral and mermaids."
+
+"And masts of ships and wrecked Spanish treasure. I wish we could find a
+gold doubloon, or something," Cyril said.
+
+"How did the sea get carried away?" Robert asked.
+
+"Not in a pail, silly," said his brother.
+
+"Father says the earth got too hot underneath, as you do in bed
+sometimes, so it just hunched up its shoulders, and the sea had to slip
+off, like the blankets do us, and the shoulder was left sticking out,
+and turned into dry land. Let's go and look for shells; I think that
+little cave looks likely, and I see something sticking out there like a
+bit of wrecked ship's anchor, and it's beastly hot in the Australian
+hole."
+
+The others agreed, but Anthea went on digging. She always liked to
+finish a thing when she had once begun it. She felt it would be a
+disgrace to leave that hole without getting through to Australia.
+
+The cave was disappointing, because there were no shells, and the
+wrecked ship's anchor turned out to be only the broken end of a pick-axe
+handle, and the cave party were just making up their minds that sand
+makes you thirstier when it is not by the seaside, and someone had
+suggested that they all go home for lemonade, when Anthea suddenly
+screamed--
+
+"Cyril! Come here! Oh, come quick--It's alive! It'll get away! Quick!"
+
+They all hurried back.
+
+"It's a rat, I shouldn't wonder," said Robert. "Father says they infest
+old places--and this must be pretty old if the sea was here thousands of
+years ago"--
+
+"Perhaps it is a snake," said Jane, shuddering.
+
+"Let's look," said Cyril, jumping into the hole. "I'm not afraid of
+snakes. I like them. If it is a snake I'll tame it, and it will follow
+me everywhere, and I'll let it sleep round my neck at night."
+
+"No, you won't," said Robert firmly. He shared Cyril's bedroom. "But
+you may if it's a rat."
+
+[Illustration: Anthea suddenly screamed, "It's alive!"]
+
+"Oh, don't be silly!" said Anthea; "it's not a rat, it's _much_ bigger.
+And it's not a snake. It's got feet; I saw them; and fur! No--not the
+spade. You'll hurt it! Dig with your hands."
+
+"And let _it_ hurt _me_ instead! That's so likely, isn't it?" said
+Cyril, seizing a spade.
+
+"Oh, don't!" said Anthea. "Squirrel, _don't_. I--it sounds silly, but it
+said something. It really and truly did"--
+
+"What?"
+
+"It said, 'You let me alone.'"
+
+But Cyril merely observed that his sister must have gone off her head,
+and he and Robert dug with spades while Anthea sat on the edge of the
+hole, jumping up and down with hotness and anxiety. They dug carefully,
+and presently everyone could see that there really was something moving
+in the bottom of the Australian hole.
+
+Then Anthea cried out, "_I'm_ not afraid. Let me dig," and fell on her
+knees and began to scratch like a dog does when he has suddenly
+remembered where it was that he buried his bone.
+
+"Oh, I felt fur," she cried, half laughing and half crying. "I did
+indeed! I did!" when suddenly a dry husky voice in the sand made them
+all jump back, and their hearts jumped nearly as fast as they did.
+
+"Let me alone," it said. And now everyone heard the voice and looked at
+the others to see if they had heard it too.
+
+"But we want to see you," said Robert bravely.
+
+"I wish you'd come out," said Anthea, also taking courage.
+
+"Oh, well--if that's your wish," the voice said, and the sand stirred
+and spun and scattered, and something brown and furry and fat came
+rolling out into the hole, and the sand fell off it, and it sat there
+yawning and rubbing the ends of its eyes with its hands.
+
+"I believe I must have dropped asleep," it said, stretching itself.
+
+The children stood round the hole in a ring, looking at the creature
+they had found. It was worth looking at. Its eyes were on long horns
+like a snail's eyes, and it could move them in and out like telescopes;
+it had ears like a bat's ears, and its tubby body was shaped like a
+spider's and covered with thick soft fur; its legs and arms were furry
+too, and it had hands and feet like a monkey's.
+
+"What on earth is it?" Jane said. "Shall we take it home?"
+
+The thing turned its long eyes to look at her, and said--
+
+"Does she always talk nonsense, or is it only the rubbish on her head
+that makes her silly?"
+
+It looked scornfully at Jane's hat as it spoke.
+
+"She doesn't mean to be silly," Anthea said gently; "we none of us do,
+whatever you may think! Don't be frightened; we don't want to hurt you,
+you know."
+
+"Hurt _me_!" it said. "_Me_ frightened? Upon my word! Why, you talk as
+if I were nobody in particular." All its fur stood out like a cat's when
+it is going to fight.
+
+"Well," said Anthea, still kindly, "perhaps if we knew who you are in
+particular we could think of something to say that wouldn't make you
+angry. Everything we've said so far seems to have done so. Who are you?
+And don't get angry! Because really we don't know."
+
+"You don't know?" it said. "Well, I knew the world had
+changed--but--well, really--Do you mean to tell me seriously you don't
+know a Psammead when you see one?"
+
+"A Sammyadd? That's Greek to me."
+
+"So it is to everyone," said the creature sharply. "Well, in plain
+English, then, a _Sand-fairy_. Don't you know a Sand-fairy when you see
+one?"
+
+It looked so grieved and hurt that Jane hastened to say, "Of course I
+see you are, _now_. It's quite plain now one comes to look at you."
+
+"You came to look at me, several sentences ago," it said crossly,
+beginning to curl up again in the sand.
+
+"Oh--don't go away again! Do talk some more," Robert cried. "I didn't
+know you were a Sand-fairy, but I knew directly I saw you that you were
+much the wonderfullest thing I'd ever seen."
+
+The Sand-fairy seemed a shade less disagreeable after this.
+
+"It isn't talking I mind," it said, "as long as you're reasonably civil.
+But I'm not going to make polite conversation for you. If you talk
+nicely to me, perhaps I'll answer you, and perhaps I won't. Now say
+something."
+
+Of course no one could think of anything to say, but at last Robert
+thought of "How long have you lived here?" and he said it at once.
+
+"Oh, ages--several thousand years," replied the Psammead.
+
+"Tell us about it. Do."
+
+"It's all in books."
+
+"_You_ aren't!" Jane said. "Oh, tell us everything you can about
+yourself! We don't know anything about you, and you _are_ so nice."
+
+The Sand-fairy smoothed his long rat-like whiskers and smiled between
+them.
+
+"Do please tell!" said the children all together.
+
+It is wonderful how quickly you get used to things, even the most
+astonishing. Five minutes before, the children had had no more idea than
+you had that there was such a thing as a Sand-fairy in the world, and
+now they were talking to it as though they had known it all their lives.
+
+It drew its eyes in and said--
+
+"How very sunny it is--quite like old times! Where do you get your
+Megatheriums from now?"
+
+"What?" said the children all at once. It is very difficult always to
+remember that "what" is not polite, especially in moments of surprise or
+agitation.
+
+"Are Pterodactyls plentiful now?" the Sand-fairy went on.
+
+The children were unable to reply.
+
+"What do you have for breakfast?" the Fairy said impatiently, "and who
+gives it to you?"
+
+"Eggs and bacon, and bread and milk, and porridge and things.
+Mother gives it to us. What are Mega-what's-its-names and
+Ptero-what-do-you-call-thems? And does anyone have them for breakfast?"
+
+"Why, almost everyone had Pterodactyl for breakfast in my time!
+Pterodactyls were something like crocodiles and something like birds--I
+believe they were very good grilled. You see, it was like this: of
+course there were heaps of Sand-fairies then, and in the morning early
+you went out and hunted for them, and when you'd found one it gave you
+your wish. People used to send their little boys down to the seashore in
+the morning before breakfast to get the day's wishes, and very often the
+eldest boy in the family would be told to wish for a Megatherium, ready
+jointed for cooking. It was as big as an elephant, you see, so there was
+a good deal of meat on it. And if they wanted fish, the Ichthyosaurus
+was asked for,--he was twenty to forty feet long, so there was plenty of
+him. And for poultry there was the Plesiosaurus; there were nice
+pickings on that too. Then the other children could wish for other
+things. But when people had dinner-parties it was nearly always
+Megatheriums; and Ichthyosaurus, because his fins were a great delicacy
+and his tail made soup."
+
+"There must have been heaps and heaps of cold meat left over," said
+Anthea, who meant to be a good housekeeper some day.
+
+"Oh no," said the Psammead, "that would never have done. Why, of course
+at sunset what was left over turned into stone. You find the stone bones
+of the Megatherium and things all over the place even now, they tell
+me."
+
+"Who tell you?" asked Cyril; but the Sand-fairy frowned and began to dig
+very fast with its furry hands.
+
+"Oh, don't go!" they all cried; "tell us more about when it was
+Megatheriums for breakfast! Was the world like this then?"
+
+It stopped digging.
+
+"Not a bit," it said; "it was nearly all sand where I lived, and coal
+grew on trees, and the periwinkles were as big as tea-trays--you find
+them now; they're turned into stone. We Sand-fairies used to live on the
+seashore, and the children used to come with their little flint-spades
+and flint-pails and make castles for us to live in. That's thousands of
+years ago, but I hear that children still build castles on the sand.
+It's difficult to break yourself of a habit."
+
+"But why did you stop living in the castles?" asked Robert.
+
+"It's a sad story," said the Psammead gloomily. "It was because they
+_would_ build moats to the castles, and the nasty wet bubbling sea used
+to come in, and of course as soon as a Sand-fairy got wet it caught
+cold, and generally died. And so there got to be fewer and fewer, and,
+whenever you found a fairy and had a wish, you used to wish for a
+Megatherium, and eat twice as much as you wanted, because it might be
+weeks before you got another wish."
+
+"And did _you_ get wet?" Robert inquired.
+
+The Sand-fairy shuddered. "Only once," it said; "the end of the twelfth
+hair of my top left whisker--I feel the place still in damp weather. It
+was only once, but it was quite enough for me. I went away as soon as
+the sun had dried my poor dear whisker. I scurried away to the back of
+the beach, and dug myself a house deep in warm dry sand, and there I've
+been ever since. And the sea changed its lodgings afterwards. And now
+I'm not going to tell you another thing."
+
+"Just one more, please," said the children. "Can you give wishes now?"
+
+"Of course," said it; "didn't I give you yours a few minutes ago? You
+said, 'I wish you'd come out,' and I did."
+
+"Oh, please, mayn't we have another?"
+
+"Yes, but be quick about it. I'm tired of you."
+
+I daresay you have often thought what you would do if you had three
+wishes given you, and have despised the old man and his wife in the
+black-pudding story, and felt certain that if you had the chance you
+could think of three really useful wishes without a moment's hesitation.
+These children had often talked this matter over, but, now the chance
+had suddenly come to them, they could not make up their minds.
+
+"Quick," said the Sand-fairy crossly. No one could think of anything,
+only Anthea did manage to remember a private wish of her own and Jane's
+which they had never told the boys. She knew the boys would not care
+about it--but still it was better than nothing.
+
+"I wish we were all as beautiful as the day," she said in a great hurry.
+
+The children looked at each other, but each could see that the others
+were not any better-looking than usual. The Psammead pushed out his long
+eyes, and seemed to be holding its breath and swelling itself out till
+it was twice as fat and furry as before. Suddenly it let its breath go
+in a long sigh.
+
+"I'm really afraid I can't manage it," it said apologetically; "I must
+be out of practice."
+
+The children were horribly disappointed.
+
+"Oh, _do_ try again!" they said.
+
+"Well," said the Sand-fairy, "the fact is, I was keeping back a little
+strength to give the rest of you your wishes with. If you'll be
+contented with one wish a day among the lot of you I daresay I can
+screw myself up to it. Do you agree to that?"
+
+"Yes, oh yes!" said Jane and Anthea. The boys nodded. They did not
+believe the Sand-fairy could do it. You can always make girls believe
+things much easier than you can boys.
+
+It stretched out its eyes farther than ever, and swelled and swelled and
+swelled.
+
+"I do hope it won't hurt itself," said Anthea.
+
+"Or crack its skin," Robert said anxiously.
+
+Everyone was very much relieved when the Sand-fairy, after getting so
+big that it almost filled up the hole in the sand, suddenly let out its
+breath and went back to its proper size.
+
+"That's all right," it said, panting heavily. "It'll come easier
+to-morrow."
+
+"Did it hurt much?" said Anthea.
+
+"Only my poor whisker, thank you," said he, "but you're a kind and
+thoughtful child. Good day."
+
+It scratched suddenly and fiercely with its hands and feet, and
+disappeared in the sand.
+
+Then the children looked at each other, and each child suddenly found
+itself alone with three perfect strangers, all radiantly beautiful.
+
+They stood for some moments in silence. Each thought that its brothers
+and sisters had wandered off, and that these strange children had stolen
+up unnoticed while it was watching the swelling form of the Sand-fairy.
+Anthea spoke first--
+
+"Excuse me," she said very politely to Jane, who now had enormous blue
+eyes and a cloud of russet hair, "but have you seen two little boys and
+a little girl anywhere about?"
+
+"I was just going to ask you that," said Jane. And then Cyril cried--
+
+"Why, it's _you_! I know the hole in your pinafore! You _are_ Jane,
+aren't you? And you're the Panther; I can see your dirty handkerchief
+that you forgot to change after you'd cut your thumb! The wish _has_
+come off, after all. I say, am I as handsome as you are?"
+
+"If you're Cyril, I liked you much better as you were before," said
+Anthea decidedly. "You look like the picture of the young chorister,
+with your golden hair; you'll die young, I shouldn't wonder. And if
+that's Robert, he's like an Italian organ-grinder. His hair's all
+black."
+
+"You two girls are like Christmas cards, then--that's all--silly
+Christmas cards," said Robert angrily. "And Jane's hair is simply
+carrots."
+
+It was indeed of that Venetian tint so much admired by artists.
+
+"Well, it's no use finding fault with each other," said Anthea; "let's
+get the Lamb and lug it home to dinner. The servants will admire us most
+awfully, you'll see."
+
+Baby was just waking up when they got to him, and not one of the
+children but was relieved to find that he at least was not as beautiful
+as the day, but just the same as usual.
+
+"I suppose he's too young to have wishes naturally," said Jane. "We
+shall have to mention him specially next time."
+
+Anthea ran forward and held out her arms.
+
+"Come, then," she said.
+
+The Baby looked at her disapprovingly, and put a sandy pink thumb in his
+mouth. Anthea was his favourite sister.
+
+"Come, then," she said.
+
+"G'way 'long!" said the Baby.
+
+"Come to own Pussy," said Jane.
+
+"Wants my Panty," said the Lamb dismally, and his lip trembled.
+
+"Here, come on, Veteran," said Robert, "come and have a yidey on Yobby's
+back."
+
+"Yah, narky narky boy," howled the Baby, giving way altogether. Then the
+children knew the worst. _The Baby did not know them!_
+
+[Illustration: The baby did not know them!]
+
+They looked at each other in despair, and it was terrible to each, in
+this dire emergency, to meet only the beautiful eyes of perfect
+strangers, instead of the merry, friendly, commonplace, twinkling, jolly
+little eyes of its own brothers and sisters.
+
+"This is most truly awful," said Cyril when he had tried to lift up the
+Lamb, and the Lamb had scratched like a cat and bellowed like a bull!
+"We've got to _make friends_ with him! I can't carry him home screaming
+like that. Fancy having to make friends with our own baby!--it's too
+silly."
+
+That, however, was exactly what they had to do. It took over an hour,
+and the task was not rendered any easier by the fact that the Lamb was
+by this time as hungry as a lion and as thirsty as a desert.
+
+At last he consented to allow these strangers to carry him home by
+turns, but as he refused to hold on to such new acquaintances he was a
+dead weight, and most exhausting.
+
+"Thank goodness, we're home!" said Jane, staggering through the iron
+gate to where Martha, the nursemaid, stood at the front door shading her
+eyes with her hand and looking out anxiously. "Here! Do take Baby!"
+
+Martha snatched the Baby from her arms.
+
+"Thanks be, _he's_ safe back," she said. "Where are the others, and
+whoever to goodness gracious are all of you?"
+
+"We're _us_, of course," said Robert.
+
+"And who's Us, when you're at home?" asked Martha scornfully.
+
+"I tell you it's _us_, only we're beautiful as the day," said Cyril.
+"I'm Cyril, and these are the others, and we're jolly hungry. Let us in,
+and don't be a silly idiot."
+
+Martha merely dratted Cyril's impudence and tried to shut the door in
+his face.
+
+"I know we _look_ different, but I'm Anthea, and we're so tired, and
+it's long past dinner-time."
+
+"Then go home to your dinners, whoever you are; and if our children put
+you up to this play-acting you can tell them from me they'll catch it,
+so they know what to expect!" With that she did bang the door. Cyril
+rang the bell violently. No answer. Presently cook put her head out of a
+bedroom window and said--
+
+"If you don't take yourselves off, and that precious sharp, I'll go and
+fetch the police." And she slammed down the window.
+
+"It's no good," said Anthea. "Oh, do, do come away before we get sent to
+prison!"
+
+The boys said it was nonsense, and the law of England couldn't put you
+in prison for just being as beautiful as the day, but all the same they
+followed the others out into the lane.
+
+"We shall be our proper selves after sunset, I suppose," said Jane.
+
+"I don't know," Cyril said sadly; "it mayn't be like that now--things
+have changed a good deal since Megatherium times."
+
+"Oh," cried Anthea suddenly, "perhaps we shall turn into stone at
+sunset, like the Megatheriums did, so that there mayn't be any of us
+left over for the next day."
+
+She began to cry, so did Jane. Even the boys turned pale. No one had the
+heart to say anything.
+
+It was a horrible afternoon. There was no house near where the children
+could beg a crust of bread or even a glass of water. They were afraid to
+go to the village, because they had seen Martha go down there with a
+basket, and there was a local constable. True, they were all as
+beautiful as the day, but that is a poor comfort when you are as hungry
+as a hunter and as thirsty as a sponge.
+
+Three times they tried in vain to get the servants in the White House to
+let them in and listen to their tale. And then Robert went alone, hoping
+to be able to climb in at one of the back windows and so open the door
+to the others. But all the windows were out of reach, and Martha emptied
+a toilet-jug of cold water over him from a top window, and said--
+
+"Go along with you, you nasty little Eye-talian monkey."
+
+It came at last to their sitting down in a row under the hedge, with
+their feet in a dry ditch, waiting for sunset, and wondering whether,
+when the sun _did_ set, they would turn into stone, or only into their
+own old natural selves; and each of them still felt lonely and among
+strangers, and tried not to look at the others, for, though their voices
+were their own, their faces were so radiantly beautiful as to be quite
+irritating to look at.
+
+"I don't believe we _shall_ turn to stone," said Robert, breaking a long
+miserable silence, "because the Sand-fairy said he'd give us another
+wish to-morrow, and he couldn't if we were stone, could he?"
+
+The others said "No," but they weren't at all comforted.
+
+Another silence, longer and more miserable, was broken by Cyril's
+suddenly saying, "I don't want to frighten you girls, but I believe it's
+beginning with me already. My foot's quite dead. I'm turning to stone, I
+know I am, and so will you in a minute."
+
+"Never mind," said Robert kindly, "perhaps you'll be the only stone one,
+and the rest of us will be all right, and we'll cherish your statue and
+hang garlands on it."
+
+But when it turned out that Cyril's foot had only gone to sleep through
+his sitting too long with it under him, and when it came to life in an
+agony of pins and needles, the others were quite cross.
+
+"Giving us such a fright for nothing!" said Anthea.
+
+[Illustration: Martha emptied a toilet-jug of cold water over him]
+
+The third and miserablest silence of all was broken by Jane. She
+said--
+
+"If we _do_ come out of this all right, we'll ask the Sammyadd to make
+it so that the servants don't notice anything different, no matter what
+wishes we have."
+
+The others only grunted. They were too wretched even to make good
+resolutions.
+
+At last hunger and fright and crossness and tiredness--four very nasty
+things--all joined together to bring one nice thing, and that was sleep.
+The children lay asleep in a row, with their beautiful eyes shut and
+their beautiful mouths open. Anthea woke first. The sun had set, and the
+twilight was coming on.
+
+Anthea pinched herself very hard, to make sure, and when she found she
+could still feel pinching she decided that she was not stone, and then
+she pinched the others. They, also, were soft.
+
+"Wake up," she said, almost in tears for joy; "it's all right, we're not
+stone. And oh, Cyril, how nice and ugly you do look, with your old
+freckles and your brown hair and your little eyes. And so do you all!"
+she added, so that they might not feel jealous.
+
+When they got home they were very much scolded by Martha, who told them
+about the strange children.
+
+"A good-looking lot, I must say, but that impudent."
+
+"I know," said Robert, who knew by experience how hopeless it would be
+to try to explain things to Martha.
+
+"And where on earth have you been all this time, you naughty little
+things, you?"
+
+"In the lane."
+
+"Why didn't you come home hours ago?"
+
+"We couldn't because of _them_," said Anthea.
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The children who were as beautiful as the day. They kept us there till
+after sunset. We couldn't come back till they'd gone. You don't know how
+we hated them! Oh, do, do give us some supper--we are so hungry."
+
+"Hungry! I should think so," said Martha angrily; "out all day like
+this. Well, I hope it'll be a lesson to you not to go picking up with
+strange children--down here after measles, as likely as not! Now mind,
+if you see them again, don't you speak to them--not one word nor so
+much as a look--but come straight away and tell me. I'll spoil their
+beauty for them!"
+
+"If ever we _do_ see them again we'll tell you," Anthea said; and
+Robert, fixing his eyes fondly on the cold beef that was being brought
+in on a tray by cook, added in heartfelt undertones--
+
+"And we'll take jolly good care we never _do_ see them again."
+
+And they never have.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+GOLDEN GUINEAS
+
+
+Anthea woke in the morning from a very real sort of dream, in which she
+was walking in the Zoological Gardens on a pouring wet day without an
+umbrella. The animals seemed desperately unhappy because of the rain,
+and were all growling gloomily. When she awoke, both the growling and
+the rain went on just the same. The growling was the heavy regular
+breathing of her sister Jane, who had a slight cold and was still
+asleep. The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face from the wet
+corner of a bath-towel out of which her brother Robert was gently
+squeezing the water, to wake her up, as he now explained.
+
+"Oh, drop it!" she said rather crossly; so he did, for he was not a
+brutal brother, though very ingenious in apple-pie beds, booby-traps,
+original methods of awakening sleeping relatives, and the other
+little accomplishments which make home happy.
+
+[Illustration: The rain fell in slow drops on to Anthea's face]
+
+"I had such a funny dream," Anthea began.
+
+"So did I," said Jane, wakening suddenly and without warning. "I dreamed
+we found a Sand-fairy in the gravel-pits, and it said it was a Sammyadd,
+and we might have a new wish every day, and"----
+
+"But that's what _I_ dreamed," said Robert; "I was just going to tell
+you,--and we had the first wish directly it said so. And I dreamed you
+girls were donkeys enough to ask for us all to be beautiful as day, and
+we jolly well were, and it was perfectly beastly."
+
+"But _can_ different people all dream the same thing?" said Anthea,
+sitting up in bed, "because I dreamed all that as well as about the Zoo
+and the rain; and Baby didn't know us in my dream, and the servants shut
+us out of the house because the radiantness of our beauty was such a
+complete disguise, and"----
+
+The voice of the eldest brother sounded from across the landing.
+
+"Come on, Robert," it said, "you'll be late for breakfast again--unless
+you mean to shirk your bath as you did on Tuesday."
+
+"I say, come here a second," Robert replied; "I didn't shirk it; I had
+it after brekker in father's dressing-room because ours was emptied
+away."
+
+Cyril appeared in the doorway, partially clothed.
+
+"Look here," said Anthea, "we've all had such an odd dream. We've all
+dreamed we found a Sand-fairy."
+
+Her voice died away before Cyril's contemptuous glance.
+
+"Dream?" he said; "you little sillies, it's _true_. I tell you it all
+happened. That's why I'm so keen on being down early. We'll go up there
+directly after brekker, and have another wish. Only we'll make up our
+minds, solid, before we go, what it is we do want, and no one must ask
+for anything unless the others agree first. No more peerless beauties
+for this child, thank you. Not if I know it!"
+
+The other three dressed, with their mouths open. If all that dream about
+the Sand-fairy was real, this real dressing seemed very like a dream,
+the girls thought. Jane felt that Cyril was right, but Anthea was not
+sure, till after they had seen Martha and heard her full and plain
+reminders about their naughty conduct the day before. Then Anthea was
+sure.
+
+"Because," said she, "servants never dream anything but the things in
+the Dream-book, like snakes and oysters and going to a wedding--that
+means a funeral, and snakes are a false female friend, and oysters are
+babies."
+
+"Talking of babies," said Cyril, "where's the Lamb?"
+
+"Martha's going to take him to Rochester to see her cousins. Mother said
+she might. She's dressing him now," said Jane, "in his very best coat
+and hat. Bread-and-butter, please."
+
+"She seems to like taking him too," said Robert in a tone of wonder.
+
+"Servants _do_ like taking babies to see their relations," Cyril said;
+"I've noticed it before--especially in their best clothes."
+
+"I expect they pretend they're their own babies, and that they're not
+servants at all, but married to noble dukes of high degree, and they say
+the babies are the little dukes and duchesses," Jane suggested dreamily,
+taking more marmalade. "I expect that's what Martha'll say to her
+cousin. She'll enjoy herself most frightfully."
+
+"She won't enjoy herself most frightfully carrying our infant duke to
+Rochester," said Robert; "not if she's anything like me--she won't."
+
+"Fancy walking to Rochester with the Lamb on your back!" said Cyril in
+full agreement.
+
+"She's gone by the carrier's cart," said Jane. "Let's see them off, then
+we shall have done a polite and kindly act, and we shall be quite sure
+we've got rid of them for the day."
+
+So they did.
+
+Martha wore her Sunday dress of two shades of purple, so tight in the
+chest that it made her stoop, and her blue hat with the pink
+cornflowers and white ribbon. She had a yellow-lace collar with a green
+bow. And the Lamb had indeed his very best cream-colored silk coat and
+hat. It was a smart party that the carrier's cart picked up at the Cross
+Roads. When its white tilt and red wheels had slowly vanished in a swirl
+of chalk-dust--
+
+"And now for the Sammyadd!" said Cyril, and off they went.
+
+As they went they decided on the wish they would ask for. Although they
+were all in a great hurry they did not try to climb down the sides of
+the gravel-pit, but went round by the safe lower road, as if they had
+been carts.
+
+They had made a ring of stones round the place where the Sand-fairy had
+disappeared, so they easily found the spot. The sun was burning and
+bright, and the sky was deep blue--without a cloud. The sand was very
+hot to touch.
+
+"Oh--suppose it was only a dream, after all," Robert said as the boys
+uncovered their spades from the sand-heap where they had buried them
+and began to dig.
+
+"Suppose you were a sensible chap," said Cyril; "one's quite as likely
+as the other!"
+
+"Suppose you kept a civil tongue in your head," Robert snapped.
+
+"Suppose we girls take a turn," said Jane, laughing. "You boys seem to
+be getting very warm."
+
+"Suppose you don't come putting your silly oar in," said Robert, who was
+now warm indeed.
+
+"We won't," said Anthea quickly. "Robert dear, don't be so grumpy--we
+won't say a word, you shall be the one to speak to the Fairy and tell
+him what we've decided to wish for. You'll say it much better than we
+shall."
+
+"Suppose you drop being a little humbug," said Robert, but not crossly.
+"Look out--dig with your hands, now!"
+
+So they did, and presently uncovered the spider-shaped brown hairy body,
+long arms and legs, bat's ears and snail's eyes of the Sand-fairy
+himself. Everyone drew a deep breath of satisfaction, for now of course
+it couldn't have been a dream.
+
+The Psammead sat up and shook the sand out of its fur.
+
+"How's your left whisker this morning?" said Anthea politely.
+
+"Nothing to boast of," said it; "it had rather a restless night. But
+thank you for asking."
+
+"I say," said Robert, "do you feel up to giving wishes to-day, because
+we very much want an extra besides the regular one? The extra's a very
+little one," he added reassuringly.
+
+"Humph!" said the Sand-fairy. (If you read this story aloud, please
+pronounce "humph" exactly as it is spelt, for that is how he said it.)
+"Humph! Do you know, until I heard you being disagreeable to each other
+just over my head, and so loud too, I really quite thought I had dreamed
+you all. I do have very odd dreams sometimes."
+
+"Do you?" Jane hurried to say, so as to get away from the subject of
+disagreeableness. "I wish," she added politely, "you'd tell us about
+your dreams--they must be awfully interesting"--
+
+"Is that the day's wish?" said the Sand-fairy, yawning.
+
+Cyril muttered something about "just like a girl," and the rest stood
+silent. If they said "Yes," then good-bye to the other wishes they had
+decided to ask for. If they said "No," it would be very rude, and they
+had all been taught manners, and had learned a little too, which is not
+at all the same thing. A sigh of relief broke from all lips when the
+Sand-fairy said--
+
+"If I do, I shan't have strength to give you a second wish; not even
+good tempers, or common-sense, or manners, or little things like that."
+
+"We don't want you to put yourself out at all about _these_ things, we
+can manage them quite well ourselves," said Cyril eagerly; while the
+others looked guiltily at each other, and wished the Fairy would not
+keep all on about good tempers, but give them one good scolding if it
+wanted to, and then have done with it.
+
+"Well," said the Psammead, putting out his long snail's eyes so suddenly
+that one of them nearly went into the round boy's eye of Robert, "let's
+have the little wish first."
+
+"We don't want the servants to notice the gifts you give us."
+
+"Are kind enough to give us," said Anthea in a whisper.
+
+"Are kind enough to give us, I mean," said Robert.
+
+The Fairy swelled himself out a bit, let his breath go, and said--
+
+"I've done _that_ for you--it was quite easy. People don't notice things
+much, anyway. What's the next wish?"
+
+"We want," said Robert slowly, "to be rich beyond the dreams of
+something or other."
+
+"Avarice," said Jane.
+
+"So it is," said the Fairy unexpectedly. "But it won't do you much good,
+that's one comfort," it muttered to itself. "Come--I can't go beyond
+dreams, you know! How much do you want, and will you have it in gold or
+notes?"
+
+"Gold, please--and millions of it"--
+
+"This gravel-pit full be enough?" said the Fairy in an off-hand manner.
+
+"Oh _yes_"--
+
+"Then go out before I begin, or you'll be buried alive in it."
+
+It made its skinny arms so long, and waved them so frighteningly, that
+the children ran as hard as they could towards the road by which carts
+used to come to the gravel-pits. Only Anthea had presence of mind enough
+to shout a timid "Good-morning, I hope your whisker will be better
+to-morrow," as she ran.
+
+On the road they turned and looked back, and they had to shut their
+eyes, and open them very slowly, a little bit at a time, because the
+sight was too dazzling for their eyes to be able to bear. It was
+something like trying to look at the sun at high noon on Midsummer Day.
+For the whole of the sand-pit was full, right up to the very top, with
+new shining gold pieces, and all the little bank-martins' little front
+doors were covered out of sight. Where the road for carts wound into the
+gravel-pit the gold lay in heaps like stones lie by the roadside, and a
+great bank of shining gold shelved down from where it lay flat and
+smooth between the tall sides of the gravel-pit. And all the gleaming
+heaps was minted gold. And on the sides and edges of these countless
+coins the mid-day sun shone and sparkled, and glowed and gleamed till
+the quarry looked like the mouth of a smelting furnace, or one of the
+fairy halls that you see sometimes in the sky at sunset.
+
+The children stood with their mouths open, and no one said a word.
+
+At last Robert stooped and picked up one of the loose coins from the
+edge of the heap by the cart-road, and looked at it. He looked on both
+sides. Then he said in a low voice, quite different to his own, "It's
+not sovereigns."
+
+"It's gold, anyway," said Cyril. And now they all began to talk at once.
+They all picked up the golden treasure by handfuls and let it run
+through their fingers like water, and the chink it made as it fell was
+wonderful music. At first they quite forgot to think of spending the
+money, it was so nice to play with. Jane sat down between two heaps of
+the gold, and Robert began to bury her, as you bury your father in sand
+when you are at the seaside and he has gone to sleep on the beach with
+his newspaper over his face. But Jane was not half buried before she
+cried out, "Oh stop, it's too heavy! It hurts!"
+
+Robert said "Bosh!" and went on.
+
+"Let me out, I tell you," cried Jane, and was taken out, very white, and
+trembling a little.
+
+"You've no idea what it's like," said she; "it's like stones on you--or
+like chains."
+
+"Look here," Cyril said, "if this is to do us any good, it's no good our
+staying gasping at it like this. Let's fill our pockets and go and buy
+things. Don't you forget, it won't last after sunset. I wish we'd asked
+the Sammyadd why things don't turn to stone. Perhaps this will. I'll
+tell you what, there's a pony and cart in the village."
+
+"Do you want to buy that?" asked Jane.
+
+"No, silly,--we'll _hire_ it. And then we'll go to Rochester and buy
+heaps and heaps of things. Look here, let's each take as much as we can
+carry. But it's not sovereigns. They've got a man's head on one side and
+a thing like the ace of spades on the other. Fill your pockets with it,
+I tell you, and come along. You can talk as we go--if you _must_ talk."
+
+Cyril sat down and began to fill his pockets.
+
+"You made fun of me for getting father to have nine pockets in my suit,"
+said he, "but now you see!"
+
+They did. For when Cyril had filled his nine pockets and his
+handkerchief and the space between himself and his shirt front with the
+gold coins, he had to stand up. But he staggered, and had to sit down
+again in a hurry.
+
+"Throw out some of the cargo," said Robert. "You'll sink the ship, old
+chap. That comes of nine pockets."
+
+And Cyril had to do so.
+
+Then they set off to walk to the village. It was more than a mile, and
+the road was very dusty indeed, and the sun seemed to get hotter and
+hotter, and the gold in their pockets got heavier and heavier.
+
+It was Jane who said, "I don't see how we're to spend it all. There must
+be thousands of pounds among the lot of us. I'm going to leave some of
+mine behind this stump in the hedge. And directly we get to the village
+we'll buy some biscuits; I know it's long past dinner-time." She took
+out a handful or two of gold and hid it in the hollows of an old
+hornbeam. "How round and yellow they are," she said. "Don't you wish
+they were made of gingerbread and we were going to eat them?"
+
+"Well, they're not, and we're not," said Cyril. "Come on!"
+
+But they came on heavily and wearily. Before they reached the village,
+more than one stump in the hedge concealed its little hoard of hidden
+treasure. Yet they reached the village with about twelve hundred guineas
+in their pockets. But in spite of this inside wealth they looked
+quite ordinary outside, and no one would have thought they could have
+more than a half-crown each at the outside. The haze of heat, the blue
+of the wood smoke, made a sort of dim misty cloud over the red roofs of
+the village. The four sat down heavily on the first bench to which they
+came. It happened to be outside the Blue Boar Inn.
+
+[Illustration: He staggered, and had to sit down again in a hurry]
+
+It was decided that Cyril should go into the Blue Boar and ask for
+ginger-beer, because, as Anthea said, "It was not wrong for men to go
+into beer-saloons, only for children. And Cyril is nearer being a man
+than us, because he is the eldest." So he went. The others sat in the
+sun and waited.
+
+"Oh, how hot it is!" said Robert. "Dogs put their tongues out when
+they're hot; I wonder if it would cool us at all to put out ours?"
+
+"We might try," Jane said; and they all put their tongues out as far as
+ever they could go, so that it quite stretched their throats, but it
+only seemed to make them thirstier than ever, besides annoying everyone
+who went by. So they took their tongues in again, just as Cyril came
+back with ginger-beer.
+
+"I had to pay for it out of my own money, though, that I was going to
+buy rabbits with," he said. "They wouldn't change the gold. And when I
+pulled out a handful the man just laughed and said it was card-counters.
+And I got some sponge-cakes too, out of a glass jar on the bar-counter.
+And some biscuits with caraways in."
+
+The sponge-cakes were both soft and dry and the biscuits were dry too,
+and yet soft, which biscuits ought not to be. But the ginger-beer made
+up for everything.
+
+"It's my turn now to try to buy something with the money," Anthea said;
+"I'm next eldest. Where is the pony-cart kept?"
+
+It was at The Chequers, and Anthea went in the back way to the yard,
+because they all knew that little girls ought not to go into the bars of
+beer-saloons. She came out, as she herself said, "pleased but not
+proud."
+
+"He'll be ready in a brace of shakes, he says," she remarked, "and he's
+to have one sovereign--or whatever it is--to drive us into Rochester and
+back, besides waiting there till we've got everything we want. I think I
+managed very well."
+
+"You think yourself jolly clever, I daresay," said Cyril moodily. "How
+did you do it?"
+
+"I wasn't jolly clever enough to go taking handfuls of money out of my
+pocket, to make it seem cheap, anyway," she retorted. "I just found a
+young man doing something to a horse's legs with a sponge and a pail.
+And I held out one sovereign, and I said--'Do you know what this is?' He
+said 'No,' and he'd call his father. And the old man came, and he said
+it was a spade guinea; and he said was it my own to do as I liked with,
+and I said 'Yes'; and I asked about the pony-cart, and I said he could
+have the guinea if he'd drive us into Rochester. And his name is S.
+Crispin. And he said, 'Right oh.'"
+
+It was a new sensation to be driven in a smart pony-trap along pretty
+country roads; it was very pleasant too (which is not always the case
+with new sensations), quite apart from the beautiful plans of spending
+the money which each child made as they went along, silently of course
+and quite to itself, for they felt it would never have done to let the
+old innkeeper hear them talk in the affluent sort of way in which they
+were thinking. The old man put them down by the bridge at their request.
+
+"If you were going to buy a carriage and horses, where would you go?"
+asked Cyril, as if he were only asking for the sake of something to say.
+
+"Billy Peasemarsh, at the Saracen's Head," said the old man promptly.
+"Though all forbid I should recommend any man where it's a question of
+horses, no more than I'd take anybody else's recommending if I was
+a-buying one. But if your pa's thinking of a rig of any sort, there
+ain't a straighter man in Rochester, nor civiller spoken, than Billy,
+though I says it."
+
+"Thank you," said Cyril. "The Saracen's Head."
+
+And now the children began to see one of the laws of nature turn upside
+down and stand on its head like an acrobat. Any grown-up person would
+tell you that money is hard to get and easy to spend. But the fairy
+money had been easy to get, and spending it was not only hard, it was
+almost impossible. The trades-people of Rochester seemed to shrink, to a
+trades-person, from the glittering fairy gold ("furrin money" they
+called it, for the most part).
+
+To begin with, Anthea, who had had the misfortune to sit on her hat
+earlier in the day, wished to buy another. She chose a very beautiful
+one, trimmed with pink roses and the blue breasts of peacocks. It was
+marked in the window, "Paris Model, three guineas."
+
+"I'm glad," she said, "because it says guineas, and not sovereigns,
+which we haven't got."
+
+But when she took three of the spade guineas in her hand, which was by
+this time rather dirty owing to her not having put on gloves before
+going to the gravel-pit, the black-silk young lady in the shop looked
+very hard at her, and went and whispered something to an older and
+uglier lady, also in black silk, and then they gave her back the money
+and said it was not current coin.
+
+"It's good money," said Anthea, "and it's my own."
+
+"I daresay," said the lady, "but it's not the kind of money that's
+fashionable now, and we don't care about taking it."
+
+"I believe they think we've stolen it," said Anthea, rejoining the
+others in the street; "if we had gloves they wouldn't think we were so
+dishonest. It's my hands being so dirty fills their minds with doubts."
+
+So they chose a humble shop, and the girls bought cotton gloves, the
+kind at a shilling, but when they offered a guinea the woman looked at
+it through her spectacles and said she had no change; so the gloves had
+to be paid for out of Cyril's money with which he meant to buy rabbits
+and so had the green imitation crocodile-skin purse at nine-pence which
+had been bought at the same time. They tried several more shops, the
+kinds where you buy toys and perfume and silk handkerchiefs and books,
+and fancy boxes of stationery, and photographs of objects of interest in
+the vicinity. But nobody cared to change a guinea that day in Rochester,
+and as they went from shop to shop they got dirtier and dirtier, and
+their hair got more and more untidy, and Jane slipped and fell down on a
+part of the road where a water cart had just gone by. Also they got very
+hungry, but they found no one would give them anything to eat for their
+guineas.
+
+After trying two baker shops in vain, they became so hungry, perhaps
+from the smell of the cake in the shops, as Cyril suggested, that they
+formed a plan of campaign in whispers and carried it out in desperation.
+They marched into a third baker shop,--Beale was his name,--and before
+the people behind the counter could interfere each child had seized
+three new penny buns, clapped the three together between its dirty
+hands, and taken a big bite out of the triple sandwich. Then they stood
+at bay, with the twelve buns in their hands and their mouths very full
+indeed. The shocked baker's man bounded round the corner.
+
+"Here," said Cyril, speaking as distinctly as he could, and holding out
+the guinea he got ready before entering the shops, "pay yourself out of
+that."
+
+Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his pocket.
+
+[Illustration: Mr. Beale snatched the coin, bit it, and put it in his
+pocket]
+
+"Off you go," he said, brief and stern like the man in the song.
+
+"But the change?" said Anthea, who had a saving mind.
+
+"Change!" said the man, "I'll change you! Hout you goes; and you may
+think yourselves lucky I don't send for the police to find out where you
+got it!"
+
+In the Gardens of the Castle the millionaires finished the buns, and
+though the curranty softness of these were delicious, and acted like a
+charm in raising the spirits of the party, yet even the stoutest heart
+quailed at the thought of venturing to sound Mr. Billy Peasemarsh at the
+Saracen's Head on the subject of a horse and carriage. The boys would
+have given up the idea, but Jane was always a hopeful child, and Anthea
+generally an obstinate one, and their earnestness prevailed.
+
+The whole party, by this time indescribably dirty, therefore betook
+itself to the Saracen's Head. The yard-method of attack having been
+successful at The Chequers, was tried again here. Mr. Peasemarsh was in
+the yard, and Robert opened the business in these terms--
+
+"They tell me you have a lot of horses and carriages to sell." It had
+been agreed that Robert should be spokesman, because in books it is
+always gentlemen who buy horses, and not ladies, and Cyril had had his
+go at the Blue Boar.
+
+"They tell you true, young man," said Mr. Peasemarsh. He was a long lean
+man, with very blue eyes and a tight mouth and narrow lips.
+
+"We should like to buy some, please," said Robert politely.
+
+"I daresay you would."
+
+"Will you show us a few, please? To choose from."
+
+"Who are you a-kiddin of?" inquired Mr. Billy Peasemarsh. "Was you sent
+here of a message?"
+
+"I tell you," said Robert, "we want to buy some horses and carriages,
+and a man told us you were straight and civil spoken, but I shouldn't
+wonder if he was mistaken"--
+
+"Upon my sacred!" said Mr. Peasemarsh. "Shall I trot the whole stable
+out for your Honor's worship to see? Or shall I send round to the
+Bishop's to see if he's a nag or two to dispose of?"
+
+"Please do," said Robert, "if it's not too much trouble. It would be
+very kind of you."
+
+Mr. Peasemarsh put his hands in his pockets and laughed, and they did
+not like the way he did it. Then he shouted "Willum!"
+
+A stooping ostler appeared in a stable door.
+
+"Here, Willum, come and look at this 'ere young dook! Wants to buy the
+whole stud, lock, stock, and bar'l. And ain't got tuppence in his
+pocket to bless hisself with, I'll go bail!"
+
+Willum's eyes followed his master's pointing thumb with contemptuous
+interest.
+
+"Do 'e, for sure?" he said.
+
+But Robert spoke, though both the girls were now pulling at his jacket
+and begging him to "come along." He spoke, and he was very angry; he
+said--
+
+"I'm not a young duke, and I never pretended to be. And as for
+tuppence--what do you call this?" And before the others could stop him
+he had pulled out two fat handfuls of shining guineas, and held them out
+for Mr. Peasemarsh to look at. He did look. He snatched one up in his
+finger and thumb. He bit it, and Jane expected him to say, "The best
+horse in my stables is at your service." But the others knew better.
+Still it was a blow, even to the most desponding, when he said shortly--
+
+"Willum, shut the yard doors;" and Willum grinned and went to shut them.
+
+"Good-afternoon," said Robert hastily; "we shan't buy any horses now,
+whatever you say, and I hope it'll be a lesson to you." He had seen a
+little side gate open, and was moving towards it as he spoke. But Billy
+Peasemarsh put himself in the way.
+
+"Not so fast, you young off-scouring!" he said. "Willum, fetch the
+pleece."
+
+Willum went. The children stood huddled together like frightened sheep,
+and Mr. Peasemarsh spoke to them till the pleece arrived. He said many
+things. Among other things he said--
+
+"Nice lot you are, aren't you, coming tempting honest men with your
+guineas!"
+
+"They _are_ our guineas," said Cyril boldly.
+
+"Oh, of course we don't know all about that, no more we don't--oh
+no--course not! And dragging little gells into it, too. 'Ere--I'll let
+the gells go if you'll come along to the pleece quiet."
+
+"We won't be let go," said Jane heroically; "not without the boys. It's
+our money just as much as theirs, you wicked old man."
+
+"Where'd you get it, then?" said the man, softening slightly, which was
+not at all what the boys expected when Jane began to call names.
+
+Jane cast a silent glance of agony at the others.
+
+"Lost your tongue, eh? Got it fast enough when it's for calling names
+with. Come, speak up! Where'd you get it?"
+
+"Out of the gravel-pit," said truthful Jane.
+
+"Next article," said the man.
+
+"I tell you we did," Jane said. "There's a fairy there--all over brown
+fur--with ears like a bat's and eyes like a snail's, and he gives you a
+wish a day, and they all come true."
+
+"Touched in the head, eh?" said the man in a low voice; "all the more
+shame to you boys dragging the poor afflicted child into your sinful
+burglaries."
+
+"She's not mad; it's true," said Anthea; "there _is_ a fairy. If I ever
+see him again I'll wish for something for you; at least I would if
+vengeance wasn't wicked--so there!"
+
+"Lor' lumme," said Billy Peasemarsh, "if there ain't another on 'em!"
+
+And now Willum came back, with a spiteful grin on his face, and at his
+back a policeman, with whom Mr. Peasemarsh spoke long in a hoarse
+earnest whisper.
+
+"I daresay you're right," said the policeman at last. "Anyway, I'll take
+'em up on a charge of unlawful possession, pending inquiries. And the
+magistrate will deal with the case. Send the afflicted ones to a home,
+as likely as not, and the boys to a reformatory. Now then, come along,
+youngsters! No use making a fuss. You bring the gells along, Mr.
+Peasemarsh, sir, and I'll shepherd the boys."
+
+Speechless with rage and horror, the four children were driven along the
+streets of Rochester. Tears of anger and shame blinded them, so that
+when Robert ran right into a passer-by he did not recognise her till a
+well-known voice said, "Well, if ever I did! Oh, Master Robert, whatever
+have you been a-doing of now?" And another voice, quite as well known,
+said, "Panty; want go own Panty!"
+
+They had run into Martha and the Baby!
+
+[Illustration: They had run into Martha and the baby]
+
+Martha behaved admirably. She refused to believe a word of the
+policeman's story, or of Mr. Peasemarsh's either, even when they made
+Robert turn out his pockets in an archway and show the guineas.
+
+"I don't see nothing," she said. "You've gone out of your senses, you
+two! There ain't any gold there--only the poor child's hands, all over
+dirt, and like the very chimbley. Oh that I should ever see the day!"
+
+And the children thought this very noble of Martha, even if rather
+wicked, till they remembered how the Fairy had promised that the
+servants should never notice any of the fairy gifts. So of course Martha
+couldn't see the gold, and so was only speaking the truth, and that was
+quite right, of course, but not extra noble.
+
+It was getting dusk when they reached the police-station. The policeman
+told his tale to an inspector, who sat in a large bare room with a thing
+like a clumsy nursery-fender at one end to put prisoners in. Robert
+wondered whether it was a cell or a dock.
+
+"Produce the coins, officer," said the inspector.
+
+"Turn out your pockets," said the constable.
+
+Cyril desperately plunged his hands in his pockets, stood still a
+moment, and then began to laugh--an odd sort of laugh that hurt, and
+that felt much more like crying. His pockets were empty. So were the
+pockets of the others. For of course at sunset all the fairy gold had
+vanished away.
+
+"Turn out your pockets, and stop that noise," said the inspector.
+
+Cyril turned out his pockets, every one of the nine which enriched his
+suit. And every pocket was empty.
+
+"Well!" said the inspector.
+
+"I don't know how they done it--artful little beggars! They walked in
+front of me the 'ole way, so as for me to keep my eye on them and not to
+attract a crowd and obstruct the traffic."
+
+"It's very remarkable," said the inspector, frowning.
+
+"If you've done a-browbeating of the innocent children," said Martha,
+"I'll hire a private carriage and we'll drive home to their papa's
+mansion. You'll hear about this again, young man!--I told you they
+hadn't got any gold, when you were pretending to see it in their poor
+helpless hands. It's early in the day for a constable on duty not to be
+able to trust his own eyes. As to the other one, the less said the
+better; he keeps the Saracen's Head, and he knows best what his liquor's
+like."
+
+[Illustration: He said, "Now then!" to the policeman and Mr. Peasemarsh]
+
+"Take them away, for goodness' sake," said the inspector crossly. But as
+they left the police-station he said, "Now then!" to the policeman and
+Mr. Peasemarsh, and he said it twenty times as crossly as he had spoken
+to Martha.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Martha was as good as her word. She took them home in a very grand
+carriage, because the carrier's cart was gone, and, though she had stood
+by them so nobly with the police, she was so angry with them as soon as
+they were alone for "trapesing into Rochester by themselves," that none
+of them dared to mention the old man with the pony-cart from the
+village who was waiting for them in Rochester. And so, after one day of
+boundless wealth, the children found themselves sent to bed in deep
+disgrace, and only enriched by two pairs of cotton gloves, dirty inside
+because of the state of the hands they had been put on to cover, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and twelve penny buns, long since
+digested.
+
+The thing that troubled them most was the fear that the old gentleman's
+guinea might have disappeared at sunset with all the rest, so they went
+down to the village next day to apologise for not meeting him in
+Rochester, and to _see_. They found him very friendly. The guinea had
+not disappeared, and he had bored a hole in it and hung it on his
+watch-chain. As for the guinea the baker took, the children felt they
+_could_ not care whether it had vanished or not, which was not perhaps
+very honest, but on the other hand was not wholly unnatural. But
+afterwards this preyed on Anthea's mind, and at last she secretly sent
+twelve postage stamps by post to "Mr. Beale, Baker, Rochester." Inside
+she wrote, "To pay for the buns." I hope the guinea did disappear, for
+that baker was really not at all a nice man, and, besides, penny buns
+are seven for sixpence in all really respectable shops.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+BEING WANTED
+
+
+The morning after the children had been the possessors of boundless
+wealth, and had been unable to buy anything really useful or enjoyable
+with it, except two pairs of cotton gloves, twelve penny buns, an
+imitation crocodile-skin purse, and a ride in a pony-cart, they awoke
+without any of the enthusiastic happiness which they had felt on the
+previous day when they remembered how they had had the luck to find a
+Psammead, or Sand-fairy, and to receive its promise to grant them a new
+wish every day. For now they had had two wishes, Beauty and Wealth, and
+neither had exactly made them happy. But the happening of strange
+things, even if they are not completely pleasant things, is more amusing
+than those times when nothing happens but meals, and they are not always
+completely pleasant, especially on the days when it is cold mutton or
+hash.
+
+There was no chance of talking things over before breakfast, because
+everyone overslept itself, as it happened, and it needed a vigorous and
+determined struggle to get dressed so as to be only ten minutes late for
+breakfast. During this meal some efforts were made to deal with the
+question of the Psammead in an impartial spirit, but it is very
+difficult to discuss anything thoroughly and at the same time to attend
+faithfully to your baby brother's breakfast needs. The Baby was
+particularly lively that morning. He not only wriggled his body through
+the bar of his high chair, and hung by his head, choking and purple, but
+he seized a tablespoon with desperate suddenness, hit Cyril heavily on
+the head with it, and then cried because it was taken away from him. He
+put his fat fist in his bread-and-milk, and demanded "nam," which was
+only allowed for tea. He sang, he put his feet on the table--he
+clamoured to "go walky." The conversation was something like this--
+
+"Look here--about that Sand-fairy---- Look out!--he'll have the milk
+over."
+
+Milk removed to a safe distance.
+
+"Yes--about that Fairy---- No, Lamb dear, give Panther the narky poon."
+
+Then Cyril tried. "Nothing we've had yet has turned out---- He nearly
+had the mustard that time!"
+
+"I wonder whether we'd better wish---- Hullo!--you've done it now, my
+boy!" And in a flash of glass and pink baby-paws, the bowl of golden
+carp in the middle of the table rolled on its side and poured a flood of
+mixed water and gold-fish into the Baby's lap and into the laps of the
+others.
+
+Everyone was almost as much upset as the gold-fish; the Lamb only
+remaining calm. When the pool on the floor had been mopped up, and the
+leaping, gasping gold-fish had been collected and put back in the water,
+the Baby was taken away to be entirely re-dressed by Martha, and most of
+the others had to change completely. The pinafores and jackets that had
+been bathed in gold-fish-and-water were hung out to dry, and then it
+turned out that Jane must either mend the dress she had torn the day
+before or appear all day in her best petticoat. It was white and soft
+and frilly, and trimmed with lace, and very, very pretty, quite as
+pretty as a frock, if not more so. Only it was _not_ a frock, and
+Martha's word was law. She wouldn't let Jane wear her best frock, and
+she refused to listen for a moment to Robert's suggestion that Jane
+should wear her best petticoat and call it a dress.
+
+"It's not respectable," she said. And when people say that, it's no use
+anyone's saying anything. You'll find this out for yourselves some day.
+
+So there was nothing for it but for Jane to mend her frock. The hole had
+been torn the day before when she happened to tumble down in the High
+Street of Rochester, just where a water-cart had passed on its silvery
+way. She had grazed her knee, and her stocking was much more than
+grazed, and her dress was cut by the same stone which had attended to
+the knee and the stocking. Of course the others were not such sneaks as
+to abandon a comrade in misfortune, so they all sat on the grass-plot
+round the sun-dial, and Jane darned away for dear life. The Lamb was
+still in the hands of Martha having its clothes changed, so conversation
+was possible.
+
+Anthea and Robert timidly tried to conceal their inmost thought, which
+was that the Psammead was not to be trusted; but Cyril said--
+
+"Speak out--say what you've got to say--I hate hinting, and 'don't
+know,' and sneakish ways like that."
+
+So then Robert said, as in honour bound, "Sneak yourself--Anthea and me
+weren't so gold-fishy as you two were, so we got changed quicker, and
+we've had time to think it over, and if you ask me"--
+
+"I didn't ask you," said Jane, biting off a needleful of thread as she
+had always been strictly forbidden to do. (Perhaps you don't know that
+if you bite off ends of cotton and swallow them they wind tight round
+your heart and kill you? My nurse told me this, and she told me also
+about the earth going round the sun. Now what is one to believe--what
+with nurses and science?)
+
+"I don't care who asks or who doesn't," said Robert, "but Anthea and I
+think the Sammyadd is a spiteful brute. If it can give us our wishes I
+suppose it can give itself its own, and I feel almost sure it wishes
+every time that our wishes shan't do us any good. Let's let the tiresome
+beast alone, and just go and have a jolly good game of forts, on our
+own, in the chalk-pit."
+
+(You will remember that the happily-situated house where these children
+were spending their holidays lay between a chalk-quarry and a
+gravel-pit.)
+
+Cyril and Jane were more hopeful--they generally were.
+
+"I don't think the Sammyadd does it on purpose," Cyril said; "and, after
+all, it _was_ silly to wish for boundless wealth. Fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces would have been much more sensible. And wishing to
+be beautiful as the day was simply donkeyish. I don't want to be
+disagreeable, but it _was_. We must try to find a really useful wish,
+and wish it."
+
+Jane dropped her work and said--
+
+"I think so too, it's too silly to have a chance like this and not use
+it. I never heard of anyone else outside a book who had such a chance;
+there must be simply heaps of things we could wish for that wouldn't
+turn out Dead Sea fish, like these two things have. Do let's think hard
+and wish something nice, so that we can have a real jolly day--what
+there is left of it."
+
+Jane darned away again like mad, for time was indeed getting on, and
+everyone began to talk at once. If you had been there you could not
+possibly have made head or tail of the talk, but these children were
+used to talking "by fours," as soldiers march, and each of them could
+say what it had to say quite comfortably, and listen to the agreeable
+sound of its own voice, and at the same time have three-quarters of two
+sharp ears to spare for listening to what the others said. That is an
+easy example in multiplication of vulgar fractions, but, as I daresay
+you can't do even that, I won't ask you to tell me whether 3/4 x 2 =
+1-1/2, but I will ask you to believe me that this was the amount of ear
+each child was able to lend to the others. Lending ears was common in
+Roman times, as we learn from Shakespeare; but I fear I am getting too
+instructive.
+
+When the frock was darned, the start for the gravel-pit was delayed by
+Martha's insisting on everybody's washing its hands--which was nonsense,
+because nobody had been doing anything at all, except Jane, and how can
+you get dirty doing nothing? That is a difficult question, and I cannot
+answer it on paper. In real life I could very soon show you--or you me,
+which is much more likely.
+
+During the conversation in which the six ears were lent (there were four
+children, so _that_ sum comes right), it had been decided that fifty
+pounds in two-shilling pieces was the right wish to have. And the lucky
+children, who could have anything in the wide world by just wishing for
+it, hurriedly started for the gravel-pit to express their wishes to the
+Psammead. Martha caught them at the gate, and insisted on their taking
+the Baby with them.
+
+[Illustration: The lucky children ... hurriedly started for the gravel
+pit]
+
+"Not want him indeed! Why, everybody 'ud want him, a duck! with all
+their hearts they would; and you know you promised your ma to take him
+out every blessed day," said Martha.
+
+"I know we did," said Robert in gloom, "but I wish the Lamb wasn't quite
+so young and small. It would be much better fun taking him out."
+
+"He'll mend of his youngness with time," said Martha; "and as for
+smallness, I don't think you'd fancy carrying of him any more, however
+big he was. Besides he can walk a bit, bless his precious fat legs, a
+ducky! He feels the benefit of the new-laid air, so he does, a pet!"
+
+With this and a kiss, she plumped the Lamb into Anthea's arms, and went
+back to make new pinafores on the sewing-machine. She was a rapid
+performer on this instrument.
+
+The Lamb laughed with pleasure, and said, "Walky wif Panty," and rode on
+Robert's back with yells of joy, and tried to feed Jane with stones,
+and altogether made himself so agreeable that nobody could long be sorry
+that he was of the party.
+
+The enthusiastic Jane even suggested that they should devote a week's
+wishes to assuring the Baby's future, by asking such gifts for him as
+the good fairies give to Infant Princes in proper fairy-tales, but
+Anthea soberly reminded her that as the Sand-fairy's wishes only lasted
+till sunset they could not ensure any benefit to the Baby's later years;
+and Jane owned that it would be better to wish for fifty pounds in
+two-shilling pieces, and buy the Lamb a three-pound fifteen
+rocking-horse, like those in the big stores, with a part of the money.
+
+It was settled that, as soon as they had wished for the money and got
+it, they would get Mr. Crispin to drive them into Rochester again,
+taking Martha with them if they could not get out of taking her. And
+they would make a list of things they really wanted before they started.
+Full of high hopes and excellent resolutions, they went round the safe
+slow cart-road to the gravel-pits, and as they went in between the
+mounds of gravel a sudden thought came to them, and would have turned
+their ruddy cheeks pale if they had been children in a book. Being real
+live children, it only made them stop and look at each other with rather
+blank and silly expressions. For now they remembered that yesterday,
+when they had asked the Psammead for boundless wealth, and it was
+getting ready to fill the quarry with the minted gold of bright
+guineas--millions of them--it had told the children to run along outside
+the quarry for fear they should be buried alive in the heavy splendid
+treasure. And they had run. And so it happened that they had not had
+time to mark the spot where the Psammead was, with a ring of stones, as
+before. And it was this thought that put such silly expressions on their
+faces.
+
+"Never mind," said the hopeful Jane, "we'll soon find him."
+
+But this, though easily said, was hard in the doing. They looked and
+they looked, and, though they found their seaside spades, nowhere could
+they find the Sand-fairy.
+
+At last they had to sit down and rest--not at all because they were
+weary or disheartened, of course, but because the Lamb insisted on being
+put down, and you cannot look very carefully after anything you may have
+happened to lose in the sand if you have an active baby to look after at
+the same time. Get someone to drop your best knife in the sand next time
+you go to the seashore and then take your baby brother with you when you
+go to look for it, and you will see that I am right.
+
+The Lamb, as Martha had said, was feeling the benefit of the country
+air, and he was as frisky as a sandhopper. The elder ones longed to go
+on talking about the new wishes they would have when (or if) they found
+the Psammead again. But the Lamb wished to enjoy himself.
+
+He watched his opportunity and threw a handful of sand into Anthea's
+face, and then suddenly burrowed his own head in the sand and waved his
+fat legs in the air. Then of course the sand got into his eyes, as it
+had into Anthea's, and he howled.
+
+The thoughtful Robert had brought one solid brown bottle of ginger-beer
+with him, relying on a thirst that had never yet failed him. This had to
+be uncorked hurriedly--it was the only wet thing within reach, and it
+was necessary to wash the sand out of the Lamb's eyes somehow. Of course
+the ginger hurt horribly, and he howled more than ever. And, amid his
+anguish of kicking, the bottle was upset and the beautiful ginger-beer
+frothed out into the sand and was lost for ever.
+
+It was then that Robert, usually a very patient brother, so far forgot
+himself as to say--
+
+"Anybody would want him, indeed! Only they don't; Martha doesn't, not
+really, or she'd jolly well keep him with her. He's a little nuisance,
+that's what he is. It's too bad. I only wish everybody _did_ want him
+with all their hearts; we might get some peace in our lives."
+
+The Lamb stopped howling now, because Jane had suddenly remembered that
+there is only one safe way of taking things out of little children's
+eyes, and that is with your own soft wet tongue. It is quite easy if you
+love the Baby as much as you ought to do.
+
+Then there was a little silence. Robert was not proud of himself for
+having been so cross, and the others were not proud of him either. You
+often notice that sort of silence when someone has said something it
+ought not to--and everyone else holds its tongue and waits for the one
+who oughtn't to have said it is sorry.
+
+The silence was broken by a sigh--a breath suddenly let out. The
+children's heads turned as if there had been a string tied to each nose,
+and somebody had pulled all the strings at once.
+
+And everyone saw the Sand-fairy sitting quite close to them, with the
+expression which it used as a smile on its hairy face.
+
+"Good-morning," it said; "I did that quite easily! Everyone wants him
+now."
+
+"It doesn't matter," said Robert sulkily, because he knew he had been
+behaving rather like a pig. "No matter who wants him--there's no one
+here to--anyhow."
+
+"Ingratitude," said the Psammead, "is a dreadful vice."
+
+"We're not ungrateful," Jane made haste to say, "but we didn't _really_
+want that wish. Robert only just said it. Can't you take it back and
+give us a new one?"
+
+"No--I can't," the Sand-fairy said shortly; "chopping and changing--it's
+not business. You ought to be careful what you _do_ wish. There was a
+little boy once, he'd wished for a Plesiosaurus instead of an
+Ichthyosaurus, because he was too lazy to remember the easy names of
+everyday things, and his father had been very vexed with him, and had
+made him go to bed before tea-time, and wouldn't let him go out in the
+nice flint boat along with the other children,--it was the annual
+school-treat next day,--and he came and flung himself down near me on
+the morning of the treat, and he kicked his little prehistoric legs
+about and said he wished he was dead. And of course then he was."
+
+"How awful! said the children all together.
+
+"Only till sunset, of course," the Psammead said; "still it was quite
+enough for his father and mother. And he caught it when he woke up--I
+tell you. He didn't turn to stone--I forget why--but there must have
+been some reason. They didn't know being dead is only being asleep, and
+you're bound to wake up somewhere or other, either where you go to sleep
+or in some better place. You may be sure he caught it, giving them such
+a turn. Why, he wasn't allowed to taste Megatherium for a month after
+that. Nothing but oysters and periwinkles, and common things like that."
+
+All the children were quite crushed by this terrible tale. They looked
+at the Psammead in horror. Suddenly the Lamb perceived that something
+brown and furry was near him.
+
+"Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab.
+
+[Illustration: "Poof, poof, poofy," he said, and made a grab]
+
+"It's not a pussy," Anthea was beginning, when the Sand-fairy leaped
+back.
+
+"Oh, my left whisker!" it said; "don't let him touch me. He's wet."
+
+Its fur stood on end with horror--and indeed a good deal of the
+ginger-beer had been spilt on the blue smock of the Lamb.
+
+The Psammead dug with its hands and feet, and vanished in an instant and
+a whirl of sand.
+
+The children marked the spot with a ring of stones.
+
+"We may as well get along home," said Robert. "I'll say I'm sorry; but
+anyway if it's no good it's no harm, and we know where the sandy thing
+is for to-morrow."
+
+The others were noble. No one reproached Robert at all. Cyril picked up
+the Lamb, who was now quite himself again, and off they went by the safe
+cart-road.
+
+The cart-road from the gravel-pits joins the road almost directly.
+
+At the gate into the road the party stopped to shift the Lamb from
+Cyril's back to Robert's. And as they paused a very smart open carriage
+came in sight, with a coachman and a groom on the box, and inside the
+carriage a lady--very grand indeed, with a dress all white lace and
+red ribbons and a parasol all red and white--and a white fluffy dog on
+her lap with a red ribbon round its neck. She looked at the children,
+and particularly at the Baby, and she smiled at him. The children were
+used to this, for the Lamb was, as all the servants said, a "very taking
+child." So they waved their hands politely to the lady and expected her
+to drive on. But she did not. Instead she made the coachman stop. And
+she beckoned to Cyril, and when he went up to the carriage she said--
+
+"What a dear darling duck of a baby! Oh, I _should_ so like to adopt it!
+Do you think its mother would mind?"
+
+"She'd mind very much indeed," said Anthea shortly.
+
+"Oh, but I should bring it up in luxury, you know. I am Lady Chittenden.
+You must have seen my photograph in the illustrated papers. They call me
+a Beauty, you know, but of course that's all nonsense. Anyway"--
+
+She opened the carriage door and jumped out. She had the wonderfullest
+red high-heeled shoes with silver buckles. "Let me hold him a minute,"
+she said. And she took the Lamb and held him very awkwardly, as if she
+was not used to babies.
+
+Then suddenly she jumped into the carriage with the Lamb in her arms and
+slammed the door, and said, "Drive on!"
+
+The Lamb roared, the little white dog barked, and the coachman
+hesitated.
+
+"Drive on, I tell you!" cried the lady; and the coachman did, for, as he
+said afterwards, it was as much as his place was worth not to.
+
+The four children looked at each other, and then with one accord they
+rushed after the carriage and held on behind. Down the dusty road went
+the smart carriage, and after it, at double-quick time, ran the
+twinkling legs of the Lamb's brothers and sisters.
+
+[Illustration: At double-quick time, ran the twinkling legs of the
+Lamb's brothers and sisters]
+
+The Lamb howled louder and louder, but presently his howls changed by
+slow degrees to hiccupy gurgles, and then all was still, and they knew
+he had gone to sleep.
+
+The carriage went on, and the eight feet that twinkled through the
+dust were growing quite stiff and tired before the carriage stopped at
+the lodge of a grand park. The children crouched down behind the
+carriage, and the lady got out. She looked at the Baby as it lay on the
+carriage seat, and hesitated.
+
+"The darling--I won't disturb it," she said, and went into the lodge to
+talk to the woman there about a setting of eggs that had not turned out
+well.
+
+The coachman and footman sprang from the box and bent over the sleeping
+Lamb.
+
+"Fine boy--wish he was mine," said the coachman.
+
+"He wouldn't favour _you_ much," said the groom sourly; "too 'andsome."
+
+The coachman pretended not to hear. He said--
+
+"Wonder at her now--I do really! Hates kids. Got none of her own, and
+can't abide other folkses'."
+
+The children, crouched in the white dust under the carriage, exchanged
+uncomfortable glances.
+
+"Tell you what," the coachman went on firmly, "blowed if I don't hide
+the little nipper in the hedge and tell her his brothers took 'im! Then
+I'll come back for him afterwards."
+
+"No, you don't," said the footman. "I've took to that kid so as never
+was. If anyone's to have him, it's me--so there!"
+
+"Stop your talk!" the coachman rejoined. "You don't want no kids, and,
+if you did, one kid's the same as another to you. But I'm a married man
+and a judge of breed. I knows a firstrate yearling when I sees him. I'm
+a-goin' to 'ave him, an' least said soonest mended."
+
+"I should 'a' thought," said the footman sneeringly, "you'd a'most
+enough. What with Alfred, an' Albert, an' Louise, an' Victor Stanley,
+and Helena Beatrice, and another"--
+
+The coachman hit the footman in the chin--the footman hit the coachman
+in the waist-coat--the next minute the two were fighting here and there,
+in and out, up and down, and all over everywhere, and the little dog
+jumped on the box of the carriage and began barking like mad.
+
+[Illustration: The next minute the two were fighting]
+
+Cyril, still crouching in the dust, waddled on bent legs to the side of
+the carriage farthest from the battlefield. He unfastened the door of
+the carriage--the two men were far too much occupied with their quarrel
+to notice anything--took the Lamb in his arms, and, still stooping,
+carried the sleeping baby a dozen yards along the road to where a stile
+led into a wood. The others followed, and there among the hazels and
+young oaks and sweet chestnuts, covered by high strong-scented
+brake-fern, they all lay hidden till the angry voices of the men were
+hushed at the angry voice of the red-and-white lady, and, after a long
+and anxious search, the carriage at last drove away.
+
+"My only hat!" said Cyril, drawing a deep breath as the sound of wheels
+at last died away. "Everyone _does_ want him now--and no mistake! That
+Sammyadd has done us again! Tricky brute! For any sake, let's get the
+kid safe home."
+
+So they peeped out, and finding on the right hand only lonely white
+road, and nothing but lonely white road on the left, they took courage,
+and the road, Anthea carrying the sleeping Lamb.
+
+Adventures dogged their footsteps. A boy with a bundle of faggots on his
+back dropped his bundle by the roadside and asked to look at the Baby,
+and then offered to carry him; but Anthea was not to be caught that way
+twice. They all walked on, but the boy followed, and Cyril and Robert
+couldn't make him go away till they had more than once invited him to
+smell their fists. Afterwards a little girl in a blue-and-white checked
+pinafore actually followed them for a quarter of a mile crying for "the
+precious Baby," and then she was only got rid of by threats of tying her
+to a tree in the wood with all their pocket handkerchiefs. "So that
+bears can come and eat you as soon as it gets dark," said Cyril
+severely. Then she went off crying. It presently seemed wise, to the
+brothers and sisters of the Baby who was wanted by everyone, to hide in
+the hedge whenever they saw anyone coming, and thus they managed to
+prevent the Lamb from arousing the inconvenient affection of a milkman,
+a stone-breaker, and a man who drove a cart with a paraffin barrel at
+the back of it. They were nearly home when the worst thing of all
+happened. Turning a corner suddenly they came upon two vans, a tent, and
+a company of gipsies encamped by the side of the road. The vans were
+hung all round with wicker chairs and cradles, and flower-stands and
+feather brushes. A lot of ragged children were industriously making
+dust-pies in the road, two men lay on the grass smoking, and three women
+were doing the family washing in an old red watering-can with the top
+broken off.
+
+In a moment every gipsy, men, women, and children, surrounded Anthea and
+the Baby.
+
+"Let me hold him, little lady," said one of the gipsy women, who had a
+mahogany-coloured face and dust-coloured hair; "I won't hurt a hair of
+his head, the little picture!"
+
+"I'd rather not," said Anthea.
+
+"Let _me_ have him," said the other woman, whose face was also of the
+hue of mahogany, and her hair jet-black, in greasy curls. "I've nineteen
+of my own, so I have"--
+
+"No," said Anthea bravely, but her heart beat so that it nearly choked
+her.
+
+Then one of the men pushed forward.
+
+"Swelp me if it ain't!" he cried, "my own long-lost cheild! Have he a
+strawberry mark on his left ear? No? Then he's my own babby, stolen from
+me in hinnocent hinfancy. 'And 'im over--and we'll not 'ave the law on
+yer this time."
+
+He snatched the Baby from Anthea, who turned scarlet and burst into
+tears of pure rage.
+
+[Illustration: He snatched the baby from Anthea]
+
+The others were standing quite still; this was much the most terrible
+thing that had ever happened to them. Even being taken up by the police
+in Rochester was nothing to this. Cyril was quite white, and his hands
+trembled a little, but he made a sign to the others to shut up. He was
+silent a minute, thinking hard. Then he said--
+
+"We don't want to keep him if he's yours. But you see he's used to us.
+You shall have him if you want him"--
+
+"No, no!" cried Anthea,--and Cyril glared at her.
+
+"Of course we want him," said the women, trying to get the Baby out of
+the man's arms. The Lamb howled loudly.
+
+"Oh, he's hurt!" shrieked Anthea; and Cyril, in a savage undertone, bade
+her "stop it!"
+
+"You trust to me," he whispered. "Look here," he went on, "he's awfully
+tiresome with people he doesn't know very well. Suppose we stay here a
+bit till he gets used to you, and then when it's bedtime I give you my
+word of honour we'll go away and let you keep him if you want to. And
+then when we're gone you can decide which of you is to have him, as you
+all want him so much."
+
+"That's fair enough," said the man who was holding the Baby, trying to
+loosen the red neckerchief which the Lamb had caught hold of and drawn
+round his mahogany throat so tight that he could hardly breathe. The
+gipsies whispered together, and Cyril took the chance to whisper too. He
+said, "Sunset! we'll get away then."
+
+And then his brothers and sisters were filled with wonder and admiration
+at his having been so clever as to remember this.
+
+"Oh, do let him come to us!" said Jane. "See, we'll sit down here and
+take care of him for you till he gets used to you."
+
+"What about dinner?" said Robert suddenly. The others looked at him with
+scorn. "Fancy bothering about your beastly dinner when your br--I mean
+when the Baby"--Jane whispered hotly. Robert carefully winked at her and
+went on--
+
+"You won't mind my just running home to get our dinner?" he said to the
+gipsy; "I can bring it out here in a basket."
+
+His brothers and sisters felt themselves very noble and despised him.
+They did not know his thoughtful secret intention. But the gipsies did
+in a minute.
+
+"Oh yes!" they said; "and then fetch the police with a pack of lies
+about it being your baby instead of ours! D'jever catch a weasel
+asleep?" they asked.
+
+"If you're hungry you can pick a bit along of us," said the light-haired
+gipsy-woman, not unkindly. "Here Levi, that blessed kid'll howl all his
+buttons off. Give him to the little lady, and let's see if they can't
+get him used to us a bit."
+
+So the Lamb was handed back; but the gipsies crowded so closely that he
+could not possibly stop howling. Then the man with the red handkerchief
+said--
+
+"Here, Pharaoh, make up the fire; and you girls see to the pot. Give the
+kid a chanst." So the gipsies, very much against their will, went off to
+their work, and the children and the Lamb were left sitting on the
+grass.
+
+"He'll be all right at sunset," Jane whispered. "But, oh, it is awful!
+Suppose they are frightfully angry when they come to their senses! They
+might beat us, or leave us tied to trees, or something."
+
+"No, they won't," Anthea said ("Oh, my Lamb, don't cry any more, it's
+all right, Panty's got oo, duckie"); "they aren't unkind people, or they
+wouldn't be going to give us any dinner."
+
+"Dinner?" said Robert; "I won't touch their nasty dinner. It would choke
+me!"
+
+The others thought so too then. But when the dinner was ready--it turned
+out to be supper, and happened between four and five--they were all glad
+enough to take what they could get. It was boiled rabbit, with onions,
+and some bird rather like a chicken, but stringier about its legs and
+with a stronger taste. The Lamb had bread soaked in hot water and brown
+sugar sprinkled on the top. He liked this very much, and consented to
+let the two gipsy women feed him with it, as he sat on Anthea's lap. All
+that long hot afternoon Robert and Cyril and Anthea and Jane had to keep
+the Lamb amused and happy, while the gipsies looked eagerly on. By the
+time the shadows grew long and black across the meadows he had really
+"taken to" the woman with the light hair, and even consented to kiss
+his hand to the children, and to stand up and bow, with his hand on his
+chest--"like a gentleman"--to the two men. The whole gipsy camp was in
+raptures with him, and his brothers and sisters could not help taking
+some pleasure in showing off his accomplishments to an audience so
+interested and enthusiastic. But they longed for sunset.
+
+[Illustration: He consented to let the two gypsy women feed him]
+
+"We're getting into the habit of longing for sunset," Cyril whispered.
+"How I do wish we could wish something really sensible, that would be of
+some use, so that we should be quite sorry when sunset came."
+
+The shadows got longer and longer, and at last there were no separate
+shadows any more, but one soft glowing shadow over everything; for the
+sun was out of sight--behind the hill--but he had not really set yet.
+The people who make the laws about lighting bicycle lamps are the people
+who decide when the sun sets; she has to do it too, to the minute, or
+they would know the reason why!
+
+But the gipsies were getting impatient.
+
+"Now, young uns," the red-handkerchief man said, "it's time you were
+laying of your heads on your pillowses--so it is! The kid's all right
+and friendly with us now--so you just hand him over and get home like
+you said."
+
+The women and children came crowding round the Lamb, arms were held out,
+fingers snapped invitingly, friendly faces beaming with admiring smiles;
+but all failed to tempt the loyal Lamb. He clung with arms and legs to
+Jane, who happened to be holding him, and uttered the gloomiest roar of
+the whole day.
+
+"It's no good," the woman said, "hand the little poppet over, miss.
+We'll soon quiet him."
+
+And still the sun would not set.
+
+"Tell her about how to put him to bed," whispered Cyril; "anything to
+gain time--and be ready to bolt when the sun really does make up its
+silly old mind to set."
+
+"Yes, I'll hand him over in just one minute," Anthea began, talking very
+fast,--"but do let me just tell you he has a warm bath every night and
+cold in the morning, and he has a crockery rabbit to go into the warm
+bath with him, and little Samuel saying his prayers in white china on a
+red cushion for the cold bath; and he hates you to wash his ears, but
+you must; and if you let the soap get into his eyes, the Lamb"--
+
+"Lamb kyes," said he--he had stopped roaring to listen.
+
+The woman laughed. "As if I hadn't never bath'd a babby!" she said.
+"Come--give us a hold of him. Come to 'Melia, my precious"--
+
+"G'way, ugsie!" replied the Lamb at once.
+
+"Yes, but," Anthea went on, "about his meals; you really _must_ let me
+tell you he has an apple or banana every morning, and bread and milk for
+breakfast, and an egg for his tea sometimes, and"--
+
+"I've brought up ten," said the black ringleted woman, "besides the
+others. Come, miss, 'and 'im over--I can't bear it no longer. I just
+must give him a hug."
+
+"We ain't settled yet whose he's to be, Esther," said one of the men.
+
+"It won't be you, Esther, with seven of 'em at your tail a'ready."
+
+"I ain't so sure of that," said Esther's husband.
+
+"And ain't I nobody, to have a say neither?" said the husband of 'Melia.
+
+Zillah, the girl, said, "An' me? I'm a single girl--and no one but 'im
+to look after--I ought to have him."
+
+"Hold your tongue!"
+
+"Shut your mouth!"
+
+"Don't you show me no more of your imperence!"
+
+Everyone was getting very angry. The dark gipsy faces were frowning and
+anxious-looking. Suddenly a change swept over them, as if some invisible
+sponge had wiped away these cross and anxious expressions, and left only
+a blank.
+
+The children saw that the sun really _had_ set. But they were afraid to
+move. And the gipsies were feeling so muddled because of the invisible
+sponge that had washed all the feelings of the last few hours out of
+their hearts, that they could not say a word.
+
+The children hardly dared to breathe. Suppose the gipsies, when they
+recovered speech, should be furious to think how silly they had been all
+day?
+
+It was an awkward moment. Suddenly Anthea, greatly daring, held out the
+Lamb to the red-handkerchief man.
+
+"Here he is!" she said.
+
+The man drew back. "I shouldn't like to deprive you, miss," he said
+hoarsely.
+
+"Anyone who likes can have my share of him," said the other man.
+
+"After all, I've got enough of my own," said Esther.
+
+"He's a nice little chap, though," said Amelia. She was the only one who
+now looked affectionately at the whimpering Lamb.
+
+Zillah said, "If I don't think I must have had a touch of the sun. _I_
+don't want him."
+
+"Then shall we take him away?" said Anthea.
+
+"Well--suppose you do," said Pharaoh heartily, "and we'll say no more
+about it!"
+
+And with great haste all the gipsies began to be busy about their tents
+for the night. All but Amelia. She went with the children as far as the
+bend in the road--and there she said--
+
+"Let me give him a kiss, miss,--I don't know what made us go for to
+behave so silly. Us gipsies don't steal babies, whatever they may tell
+you when you're naughty. We've enough of our own, mostly. But I've lost
+all mine."
+
+She leaned towards the Lamb; and he, looking in her eyes, unexpectedly
+put up a grubby soft paw and stroked her face.
+
+"Poor, poor!" said the Lamb. And he let the gipsy woman kiss him, and,
+what is more, he kissed her brown cheek in return--a very nice kiss, as
+all his kisses are, and not a wet one like some babies give. The gipsy
+woman moved her finger about on his forehead as if she had been writing
+something there, and the same with his chest and his hands and his
+feet; then she said--
+
+"May he be brave, and have the strong head to think with, and the strong
+heart to love with, and the strong arms to work with, and the strong
+feet to travel with, and always come safe home to his own." Then she
+said something in a strange language no one could understand, and
+suddenly added--
+
+"Well, I must be saying 'so long'--and glad to have made your
+acquaintance." And she turned and went back to her home--the tent by the
+grassy roadside.
+
+The children looked after her till she was out of sight. Then Robert
+said, "How silly of her! Even sunset didn't put _her_ right. What rot
+she talked!"
+
+"Well," said Cyril, "if you ask me, I think it was rather decent of
+her"--
+
+"Decent?" said Anthea; "it was very nice indeed of her. I think she's a
+dear"--
+
+"She's just too frightfully nice for anything," said Jane.
+
+And they went home--very late for tea and unspeakably late for dinner.
+Martha scolded, of course. But the Lamb was safe.
+
+"I say--it turned out we wanted the Lamb as much as anyone," said
+Robert, later.
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But do you feel different about it now the sun's set?"
+
+"_No_," said all the others together.
+
+"Then it's lasted over sunset with us."
+
+"No, it hasn't," Cyril explained. "The wish didn't do anything to _us_.
+We always wanted him with all our hearts when we were our proper selves,
+only we were all pigs this morning; especially you, Robert." Robert bore
+this much with a strange calm.
+
+"I certainly _thought_ I didn't want him this morning," said he.
+"Perhaps I _was_ a pig. But everything looked so different when we
+thought we were going to lose him."
+
+And that, my dear children, is the moral of this chapter. I did not mean
+it to have a moral, but morals are nasty forward beings, and will keep
+putting in their oars where they are not wanted. And since the moral has
+crept in, quite against my wishes, you might as well think of it next
+time you feel piggy yourself and want to get rid of any of your brothers
+and sisters. I hope this doesn't often happen, but I daresay it has
+happened sometimes, even to you!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+WINGS
+
+
+The next day was very wet--too wet to go out, and far too wet to think
+of disturbing a Sand-fairy so sensitive to water that he still, after
+thousands of years, felt the pain of once having his left whisker
+wetted. It was a long day, and it was not till the afternoon that all
+the children suddenly decided to write letters to their mother. It was
+Robert who had the misfortune to upset the ink well--an unusually deep
+and full one--straight into that part of Anthea's desk where she had
+long pretended that an arrangement of mucilage and cardboard painted
+with Indian ink was a secret drawer. It was not exactly Robert's fault;
+it was only his misfortune that he chanced to be lifting the ink across
+the desk just at the moment when Anthea had got it open, and that that
+same moment should have been the one chosen by the Lamb to get under
+the table and break his squeaking bird. There was a sharp convenient
+wire inside the bird, and of course the Lamb ran the wire into Robert's
+leg at once; and so, without anyone's meaning to do it the secret drawer
+was flooded with ink. At the same time a stream was poured over Anthea's
+half-finished letter.
+
+So that her letter was something like this--
+
+          "DARLING MOTHER,--I hope you are quite well, and I
+          hope Granny is better. The other day we...."
+
+Then came a flood of ink, and at the bottom these words in pencil--
+
+          "It was not me upset the ink, but it took such a
+          time clearing up, so no more as it is
+          post-time.--From your loving daughter     "ANTHEA."
+
+Robert's letter had not even been begun. He had been drawing a ship on
+the blotting paper while he was trying to think of what to say. And of
+course after the ink was upset he had to help Anthea to clean out her
+desk, and he promised to make her another secret drawer, better than
+the other. And she said, "Well, make it now." So it was post-time and
+his letter wasn't done. And the secret drawer wasn't done either.
+
+Cyril wrote a long letter, very fast, and then went to set a trap for
+slugs that he had read about in the _Home-made Gardener_, and when it
+was post-time the letter could not be found, and it was never found.
+Perhaps the slugs ate it.
+
+Jane's letter was the only one that went. She meant to tell her mother
+all about the Psammead,--in fact they had all meant to do this,--but she
+spent so long thinking how to spell the word that there was no time to
+tell the story properly, and it is useless to tell a story unless you
+_do_ tell it properly, so she had to be contented with this--
+
+          "MY DEAR MOTHER DEAR,--We are all as good as we
+          can, like you told us to, and the Lamb has a
+          little cold, but Martha says it is nothing, only
+          he upset the gold-fish into himself yesterday
+          morning. When we were up at the sand-pit the other
+          day we went round by the safe way where carts go,
+          and we found  a"--
+
+Half an hour went by before Jane felt quite sure that they could none of
+them spell Psammead. And they could not find it in the dictionary
+either, though they looked. Then Jane hastily finished her letter--
+
+          "We found a strange thing, but it is nearly
+          post-time, so no more at present from your little
+          girl,
+
+                                                   "JANE.
+
+          "P.S.--If you could have a wish come true what
+          would you have?"
+
+Then the postman was heard blowing his horn, and Robert rushed out in
+the rain to stop his cart and give him the letters. And that was how it
+happened that, though all the children meant to tell their mother about
+the Sand-fairy, somehow or other she never got to know. There were other
+reasons why she never got to know, but these come later.
+
+The next day Uncle Richard came and took them all to Maidstone in a
+wagonette--all except the Lamb. Uncle Richard was the very best kind of
+uncle. He bought them toys at Maidstone. He took them into a shop and
+let them all choose exactly what they wanted, without any restrictions
+about price, and no nonsense about things being instructive. It is very
+wise to let children choose exactly what they like, because they are
+very foolish and inexperienced, and sometimes they will choose a really
+instructive thing without meaning to do so. This happened to Robert, who
+chose, at the last moment, and in a great hurry, a box with pictures on
+it of winged bulls with men's heads and winged men with eagles' heads.
+He thought there would be animals inside, the same as on the box. When
+he got it home it was a Sunday puzzle about ancient Nineveh! The others
+chose in haste, and were happy at leisure. Cyril had a model engine, and
+the girls had two dolls, as well as a china tea-set with forget-me-nots
+on it, to be "between them." The boys' "between them" was bow and arrow.
+
+Then Uncle Richard took them on the beautiful Medway in a boat, and then
+they all had tea at a beautiful confectioner's and when they reached
+home it was far too late to have any wishes that day.
+
+They did not tell Uncle Richard anything about the Psammead. I do not
+know why. And they do not know why. But I daresay you can guess.
+
+The day after Uncle Richard had behaved so handsomely was a very hot day
+indeed. The people who decide what the weather is to be, and put its
+orders down for it in the newspapers every morning, said afterwards that
+it was the hottest day there had been for years. They had ordered it to
+be "warmer--some showers," and warmer it certainly was. In fact it was
+so busy being warmer that it had no time to attend to the order about
+showers, so there weren't any.
+
+Have you ever been up at five o'clock on a fine summer morning? It is
+very beautiful. The sunlight is pinky and yellowy, and all the grass and
+trees are covered with dew-diamonds. And all the shadows go the opposite
+way to the way they do in the evening, which is very interesting and
+makes you feel as though you were in a new other world.
+
+Anthea woke at five. She had made herself wake, and I must tell you how
+it is done, even if it keeps you waiting for the story to go on.
+
+You get into bed at night, and lie down quite flat on your little back,
+with your hands straight down by your sides. Then you say "I _must_ wake
+up at five" (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine, or whatever the time
+is that you want), and as you say it you push your chin down on your
+chest and then whack your head back on the pillow. And you do this as
+many times as there are ones in the time you want to wake up at. (It is
+quite an easy sum.) Of course everything depends on your really wanting
+to get up at five (or six, or seven, or eight, or nine); if you don't
+really want to, it's all of no use. But if you do--well, try it and see.
+Of course in this, as in doing Latin proses or getting into mischief,
+practice makes perfect.
+
+Anthea was quite perfect.
+
+At the very moment when she opened her eyes she heard the black-and-gold
+clock down in the dining-room strike eleven. So she knew it was three
+minutes to five. The black-and-gold clock always struck wrong, but it
+was all right when you knew what it meant. It was like a person talking
+a foreign language. If you know the language it is just as easy to
+understand as English. And Anthea knew the clock language. She was very
+sleepy, but she jumped out of bed and put her face and hands into a
+basin of cold water. This is a fairy charm that prevents your wanting to
+get back into bed again. Then she dressed, and folded up her night
+dress. She did not tumble it together by the sleeves, but folded it by
+the seams from the hem, and that will show you the kind of
+well-brought-up little girl she was.
+
+Then she took her shoes in her hand and crept softly down the stairs.
+She opened the dining-room window and climbed out. It would have been
+just as easy to go out by the door, but the window was more romantic,
+and less likely to be noticed by Martha.
+
+"I will always get up at five," she said to herself. "It was quite too
+awfully pretty for anything."
+
+Her heart was beating very fast, for she was carrying out a plan quite
+her own. She could not be sure that it was a good plan, but she was
+quite sure that it would not be any better if she were to tell the
+others about it. And she had a feeling that, right or wrong, she would
+rather go through with it alone. She put on her shoes under the iron
+verandah, on the red-and-yellow shining tiles, and then she ran straight
+to the sand-pit, and found the Psammead's place, and dug it out; it was
+very cross indeed.
+
+"It's too bad," it said, fluffing up its fur as pigeons do their
+feathers at Christmas time. "The weather's arctic, and it's the middle
+of the night."
+
+"I'm so sorry," said Anthea gently, and she took off her white pinafore
+and covered the Sand-fairy up with it, all but its head, its bat's ears,
+and its eyes that were like a snail's eyes.
+
+"Thank you," it said, "that's better. What's the wish this morning?"
+
+"I don't know," she said; "that's just it. You see we've been very
+unlucky, so far. I wanted to talk to you about it. But--would you mind
+not giving me any wishes till after breakfast? It's so hard to talk to
+anyone if they jump out at you with wishes you don't really want!"
+
+"You shouldn't say you wish for things if you don't wish for them. In
+the old days people almost always knew whether it was Megatherium or
+Ichthyosaurus they really wanted for dinner."
+
+"I'll try not to do so," said Anthea, "but I do wish"--
+
+"Look out!" said the Psammead in a warning voice, and it began to blow
+itself out.
+
+"Oh, this isn't a magic wish--it's just--I should be so glad if you'd
+not swell yourself out and nearly burst to give me anything just now.
+Wait till the others are here."
+
+"Well, well," it said indulgently, but it shivered.
+
+"Would you," asked Anthea kindly--"would you like to come and sit on my
+lap? You'd be warmer, and I could turn the skirt of my frock up around
+you. I'd be very careful."
+
+Anthea had never expected that it would, but it did.
+
+"Thank you," it said; "you really are rather thoughtful." It crept on to
+her lap and snuggled down, and she put her arms round it with a rather
+frightened gentleness. "Now then!" it said.
+
+"Well then," said Anthea, "everything we have wished has turned out
+rather horrid. I wish you would advise us. You are so old, you must be
+very wise."
+
+"I was always generous from a child," said the Sand-fairy. "I've spent
+the whole of my waking hours in giving. But one thing I won't
+give--that's advice."
+
+"You see," Anthea went on, "it's such a wonderful thing--such a
+splendid, glorious chance. It's so good and kind and dear of you to give
+us our wishes, and it seems such a pity it should all be wasted just
+because we are too silly to know what to wish for."
+
+Anthea had meant to say that--and she had not wanted to say it before
+the others. It's one thing to say you're silly, and quite another to
+say that other people are.
+
+"Child," said the Sand-fairy sleepily, "I can only advise you to think
+before you speak"--
+
+"But I thought you never gave advice."
+
+"That piece doesn't count," it said. "You'll never take it! Besides,
+it's not original. It's in all the copy-books."
+
+"But won't you just say if you think wings would be a silly wish?"
+
+"Wings?" it said. "I should think you might do worse. Only, take care
+you aren't flying high at sunset. There was a little Ninevite boy I
+heard of once. He was one of King Sennacherib's sons, and a traveller
+brought him a Psammead. He used to keep it in a box of sand on the
+palace terrace. It was a dreadful degradation for one of us, of course;
+still the boy _was_ the Assyrian King's son. And one day he wished for
+wings and got them. But he forgot that they would turn into stone at
+sunset, and when they did he fell on to one of the winged lions at the
+top of his father's great staircase; and what with _his_ stone wings
+and the lion's stone wings--well it's not a very pretty story! But I
+believe the boy enjoyed himself very much till then."
+
+"Tell me," said Anthea, "why don't our wishes turn into stone now? Why
+do they just vanish?"
+
+"_Autre temps autres moeurs_," said the creature.
+
+"Is that the Ninevite language?" asked Anthea, who had learned no
+foreign language at school except French.
+
+"What I mean is," the Psammead went on, "that in the old days people
+wished for good solid everyday gifts,--Mammoths and Pterodactyls and
+things,--and those could be turned into stone as easy as not. But people
+wish such high-flying fanciful things nowadays. How are you going to
+turn being beautiful as the day, or being wanted by everybody, into
+stone? You see it can't be done. And it would never do to have two
+rules, so they simply vanish. If being beautiful as the day _could_ be
+turned into stone it would last an awfully long time, you know--much
+longer than you would. Just look at the Greek statues. It's just as
+well as it is. Good-bye. I _am_ so sleepy."
+
+It jumped off her lap--dug frantically, and vanished.
+
+Anthea was late for breakfast. It was Robert who quietly poured a
+spoonful of molasses down the Lamb's frock, so that he had to be taken
+away and washed thoroughly directly after breakfast. And it was of
+course a very naughty thing to do; yet it served two purposes--it
+delighted the Lamb, who loved above all things to be completely sticky,
+and it engaged Martha's attention so that the others could slip away to
+the sand-pit without the Lamb.
+
+They did it, and in the lane Anthea, breathless from the hurry of that
+slipping, panted out--
+
+"I want to propose we take turns to wish. Only, nobody's to have a wish
+if the others don't think it's a nice wish. Do you agree?"
+
+"Who's to have first wish?" asked Robert cautiously.
+
+"Me, if you don't mind," said Anthea apologetically. "And I've thought
+about it--and it's _wings_."
+
+There was a silence. The others rather wanted to find fault, but it was
+hard, because the word "wings" raised a flutter of joyous excitement in
+every breast.
+
+"Not so dusty," said Cyril generously; and Robert added, "Really,
+Panther, you're not quite such a fool as you look."
+
+Jane said, "I think it would be perfectly lovely. It's like a bright
+dream of delirium."
+
+They found the Sand-fairy easily. Anthea said--
+
+"I wish we all had beautiful wings to fly with."
+
+The Sand-fairy blew himself out, and next moment each child felt a funny
+feeling, half heaviness and half lightness, on its shoulders. The
+Psammead put its head on one side and turned its snail eyes from one
+side to the other.
+
+[Illustration: The Sand-fairy blew himself out]
+
+"Not so bad," it said dreamily. "But really, Robert, you're not quite
+such an angel as you look." Robert almost blushed.
+
+The wings were very big, and more beautiful than you can possibly
+imagine--for they were soft and smooth, and every feather lay neatly in
+its place. And the feathers were of the most lovely mixed changing
+colors, like the rainbow, or iridescent glass, or the beautiful scum
+that sometimes floats on water that is not at all nice to drink.
+
+"Oh--but how can we fly?" Jane said, standing anxiously first on one
+foot and then on the other.
+
+"Look out!" said Cyril; "you're treading on my wing."
+
+"Does it hurt?" asked Anthea with interest; but no one answered, for
+Robert had spread his wings and jumped up, and now he was slowly rising
+in the air. He looked very awkward in his knickerbocker suit--his boots
+in particular hung helplessly, and seemed much larger than when he was
+standing in them. But the others cared but little how he looked,--or how
+they looked, for that matter. For now they all spread out their wings
+and rose in the air. Of course you all know what flying feels like,
+because everyone has dreamed about flying, and is seems so beautifully
+easy--only, you can never remember how you did it; and as a rule you
+have to do it without wings, in your dreams, which is more clever and
+uncommon, but not so easy to remember the rule for. Now the four
+children rose flapping from the ground, and you can't think how good the
+air felt as it ran against their faces. Their wings were tremendously
+wide when they were spread out, and they had to fly quite a long way
+apart so as not to get in each other's way. But little things like this
+are easily learned.
+
+All the words in the English Dictionary, and in the Greek Lexicon as
+well, are, I find, of no use at all to tell you exactly what it feels
+like to be flying, so I will not try. But I will say that to look _down_
+on the fields and woods instead of _along_ at them, is something like
+looking at a beautiful live map, where, instead of silly colors on
+paper, you have real moving sunny woods and green fields laid out one
+after the other. As Cyril said, and I can't think where he got hold of
+such a strange expression, "It does you a fair treat!" It was most
+wonderful and more like real magic than any wish the children had had
+yet. They flapped and flew and sailed on their great rainbow wings,
+between green earth and blue sky; and they flew over Rochester and then
+swerved round towards Maidstone, and presently they all began to feel
+extremely hungry. Curiously enough, this happened when they were flying
+rather low, and just as they were crossing an orchard where some early
+plums shone red and ripe.
+
+[Illustration: They flew over Rochester]
+
+They paused on their wings. I cannot explain to you how this is done,
+but it is something like treading water when you are swimming, and hawks
+do it extremely well.
+
+"Yes, I daresay," said Cyril, though no one had spoken. "But stealing is
+stealing even if you've got wings."
+
+"Do you really think so?" said Jane briskly. "If you've got wings you're
+a bird, and no one minds birds breaking the commandments. At least,
+they may _mind_, but the birds always do it, and no one scolds them or
+sends them to prison."
+
+It was not so easy to perch on a plum-tree as you might think, because
+the rainbow wings were so _very_ large; but somehow they all managed to
+do it, and the plums were certainly very sweet and juicy.
+
+Fortunately, it was not till they had all had quite as many plums as
+were good for them that they saw a stout man, who looked exactly as
+though he owned the plum-trees, come hurrying through the orchard gate
+with a thick stick, and with one accord they disentangled their wings
+from the plum-laden branches and began to fly.
+
+The man stopped short, with his mouth open. For he had seen the boughs
+of his trees moving and twitching, and he had said to himself, "Them
+young varmint--at it again!" And he had come out at once, for the lads
+of the village had taught him in past seasons that plums want looking
+after. But when he saw the rainbow wings flutter up out of the
+plum-tree he felt that he must have gone quite mad, and he did not like
+the feeling at all. And when Anthea looked down and saw his mouth go
+slowly open, and stay so, and his face become green and mauve in
+patches, she called out--
+
+"Don't be frightened," and felt hastily in her pocket for a
+threepenny-bit with a hole in it, which she had meant to hang on a
+ribbon round her neck, for luck. She hovered round the unfortunate
+plum-owner, and said, "We have had some of your plums; we thought it
+wasn't stealing, but now I am not so sure. So here's some money to pay
+for them."
+
+She swooped down toward the terror-stricken grower of plums, and slipped
+the coin into the pocket of his jacket, and in a few flaps she had
+rejoined the others.
+
+The farmer sat down on the grass, suddenly and heavily.
+
+[Illustration: The farmer sat down on the grass suddenly and heavily]
+
+"Well--I'm blessed!" he said. "This here is what they call delusions, I
+suppose. But this here threepenny"--he had pulled it out and bitten
+it,--"_that's_ real enough. Well, from this day forth I'll be a better
+man. It's the kind of thing to sober a chap for life, this is. I'm glad
+it was only wings, though. I'd rather see the birds as aren't there, and
+couldn't be, even if they pretend to talk, than some things as I could
+name."
+
+He got up slowly and heavily, and went indoors, and he was so nice to
+his wife that day that she felt quite happy, and said to herself, "Law,
+whatever have a-come to the man!" and smartened herself up and put a
+blue ribbon bow at the place where her collar fastened on, and looked so
+pretty that he was kinder than ever. So perhaps the winged children
+really did do one good thing that day. If so, it was the only one; for
+really there is nothing like wings for getting you into trouble. But, on
+the other hand, if you are in trouble, there is nothing like wings for
+getting you out of it.
+
+This was the case in the matter of the fierce dog who sprang out at them
+when they had folded up their wings as small as possible and were going
+up to a farm door to ask for a crust of bread and cheese, for in
+spite of the plums they were soon just as hungry as ever again.
+
+Now there is no doubt whatever that, if the four had been ordinary
+wingless children, that black and fierce dog would have had a good bite
+out of the brown-stockinged leg of Robert, who was the nearest. But at
+its first growl there was a flutter of wings, and the dog was left to
+strain at his chain and stand on his hind-legs as if he were trying to
+fly too.
+
+They tried several other farms, but at those where there were no dogs
+the people were far too frightened to do anything but scream; and at
+last, when it was nearly four o'clock, and their wings were getting
+miserably stiff and tired, they alighted on a church-tower and held a
+council of war.
+
+"We can't possibly fly all the way home without dinner _or_ tea," said
+Robert with desperate decision.
+
+"And nobody will give us any dinner, or even lunch, let alone tea," said
+Cyril.
+
+"Perhaps the clergyman here might," suggested Anthea. "He must know all
+about angels"--
+
+"Anybody could see we're not that," said Jane. "Look at Robert's boots
+and Squirrel's plaid necktie."
+
+"Well," said Cyril firmly, "if the country you're in won't _sell_
+provisions, you _take_ them. In wars I mean. I'm quite certain you do.
+And even in other stories no good brother would allow his little sisters
+to starve in the midst of plenty."
+
+"Plenty?" repeated Robert hungrily; and the others looked vaguely round
+the bare leads of the church-tower, and murmured, "In the midst of?"
+
+"Yes," said Cyril impressively. "There is a larder window at the side of
+the clergyman's house, and I saw things to eat inside--custard pudding
+and cold chicken and tongue--and pies--and jam. It's rather a high
+window--but with wings"--
+
+"How clever of you!" said Jane.
+
+"Not at all," said Cyril modestly; "any born general--Napoleon or the
+Duke of Marlborough--would have seen it just the same as I did."
+
+"It seems very wrong," said Anthea.
+
+"Nonsense," said Cyril. "What was it Sir Philip Sidney said when the
+soldier wouldn't give him a drink?--'My necessity is greater than his.'"
+
+"We'll club together our money, though, and leave it to pay for the
+things, won't we?" Anthea was persuasive, and very nearly in tears,
+because it is most trying to feel enormously hungry and unspeakably
+sinful at one and the same time.
+
+"Some of it," was the cautious reply.
+
+Everyone now turned out its pockets on the lead roof of the tower, where
+visitors for the last hundred and fifty years had cut their own and
+their sweethearts' initials with penknives in the soft lead. There was
+five-and-seven-pence halfpenny altogether, and even the upright Anthea
+admitted that that was too much to pay for four people's dinners. Robert
+said he thought eighteenpence.
+
+[Illustration: Every one now turned out his pockets]
+
+And half-a-crown was finally agreed to be "handsome."
+
+So Anthea wrote on the back of her last term's report, which happened to
+be in her pocket, and from which she first tore her own name and that of
+the school, the following letter:--
+
+          "DEAR REVEREND CLERGYMAN,--We are very hungry
+          indeed because of having to fly all day, and we
+          think it is not stealing when you are starving to
+          death. We are afraid to ask you for fear you
+          should say 'No,' because of course you know about
+          angels, but you would not think we were angels. We
+          will only take the necessities of life, and no
+          pudding or pie, to show you it is not grediness
+          but true starvation that makes us make your larder
+          stand and deliver. But we are not highwaymen by
+          trade."
+
+"Cut it short," said the others with one accord. And Anthea hastily
+added--
+
+          "Our intentions are quite honourable if you only
+          knew. And here is half-a-crown to show we are
+          sinseer and grateful.
+
+          "Thank you for your kind hospitality.
+
+                                          "FROM US FOUR."
+
+The half-crown was wrapped in this letter, and all the children felt
+that when the clergyman had read it he would understand everything, as
+well as anyone could who had not even seen the wings.
+
+"Now," said Cyril, "of course there's some risk; we'd better fly
+straight down the other side of the tower and then flutter low across
+the churchyard and in through the shrubbery. There doesn't seem to be
+anyone about. But you never know. The window looks out into the
+shrubbery. It is embowered in foliage, like a window in a story. I'll go
+in and get the things. Robert and Anthea can take them as I hand them
+out through the window; and Jane can keep watch,--her eyes are
+sharp,--and whistle if she sees anyone about. Shut up, Robert! she can
+whistle quite well enough for that, anyway. It ought not to be a very
+good whistle--it'll sound more natural and birdlike. Now then--off we
+go!"
+
+I cannot pretend that stealing is right. I can only say that on this
+occasion it did not look like stealing to the hungry four, but appeared
+in the light of a fair and reasonable business transaction. They had
+never happened to learn that a tongue,--hardly cut into,--a chicken and
+a half, a loaf of bread, and a syphon of soda-water cannot be bought in
+the stores for half-a-crown. These were the necessaries of life, which
+Cyril handed out of the larder window when, quite unobserved and without
+hindrance or adventure, he had led the others to that happy spot. He
+felt that to refrain from jam, apple pie, cake, and mixed candied peel,
+was a really heroic act--and I agree with him. He was also proud of not
+taking the custard pudding,--and there I think he was wrong,--because if
+he had taken it there would have been a difficulty about returning the
+dish; no one, however starving, has a right to steal china pie-dishes
+with little pink flowers on them. The soda-water syphon was different.
+They could not do without something to drink, and as the maker's name
+was on it they felt sure it would be returned to him wherever they might
+leave it. If they had time they would take it back themselves. The
+man appeared to live in Rochester, which would not be much out of their
+way home.
+
+[Illustration: These were the necessaries of life]
+
+Everything was carried up to the top of the tower, and laid down on a
+sheet of kitchen paper which Cyril had found on the top shelf of the
+larder. As he unfolded it, Anthea said, "I don't think _that's_ a
+necessity of life."
+
+"Yes, it is," said he. "We must put the things down somewhere to cut
+them up; and I heard father say the other day people got diseases from
+germans in rain-water. Now there must be lots of rain-water here,--and
+when it dries up the germans are left, and they'd get into the things,
+and we should all die of scarlet fever."
+
+"What are germans?"
+
+"Little waggly things you see with microscopes," said Cyril, with a
+scientific air. "They give you every illness you can think of. I'm sure
+the paper was a necessary, just as much as the bread and meat and water.
+Now then! Oh, I'm hungry!"
+
+I do not wish to describe the picnic party on the top of the tower. You
+can imagine well enough what it is like to carve a chicken and a tongue
+with a knife that has only one blade and that snapped off short about
+half-way down. But it was done. Eating with your fingers is greasy and
+difficult--and paper dishes soon get to look very spotty and horrid. But
+one thing you _can't_ imagine, and that is how soda-water behaves when
+you try to drink it straight out of a syphon--especially a quite full
+one. But if imagination will not help you, experience will, and you can
+easily try it for yourself if you can get a grown-up to give you the
+syphon. If you want to have a really thorough experience, put the tube
+in your mouth and press the handle very suddenly and very hard. You had
+better do it when you are alone--and out of doors is best for this
+experiment.
+
+However you eat them, tongue and chicken and new bread are very good
+things, and no one minds being sprinkled a little with soda-water on a
+really fine hot day. So that everyone enjoyed the dinner very much
+indeed, and everyone ate as much as it possibly could: first, because it
+was extremely hungry; and secondly, because, as I said, tongue and
+chicken and new bread are very nice.
+
+Now, I daresay you will have noticed that if you have to wait for your
+dinner till long after the proper time, and then eat a great deal more
+dinner than usual, and sit in the hot sun on the top of a
+church-tower--or even anywhere else--you become soon and strangely
+sleepy. Now Anthea and Jane and Cyril and Robert were very like you in
+many ways, and when they had eaten all they could, and drunk all there
+was, they became sleepy, strangely and soon--especially Anthea, because
+she had gotten up so early.
+
+[Illustration: The children were fast asleep]
+
+One by one they left off talking and leaned back, and before it was a
+quarter of an hour after dinner they had all curled round and tucked
+themselves up under their large soft warm wings and were fast asleep.
+And the sun was sinking slowly in the west. (I must say it was in the
+west, because it is usual in books to say so, for fear careless people
+should think it was setting in the east. In point of fact, it was not
+exactly in the west either--but that's near enough.) The sun, I repeat,
+was sinking slowly in the west, and the children slept warmly and
+happily on--for wings are cosier than eider-down quilts to sleep under.
+The shadow of the church-tower fell across the churchyard, and across
+the Vicarage, and across the field beyond; and presently there were no
+more shadows, and the sun had set, and the wings were gone. And still
+the children slept. But not for long. Twilight is very beautiful, but it
+is chilly; and you know, however sleepy you are, you wake up soon enough
+if your brother or sister happens to be up first and pulls your blankets
+off you. The four wingless children shivered and woke. And there they
+were,--on the top of a church-tower in the dusky twilight, with blue
+stars coming out by ones and twos and tens and twenties over their
+heads,--miles away from home, with three shillings and three-halfpence
+in their pockets, and a doubtful act about the necessities of life to
+be accounted for if anyone found them with the soda-water syphon.
+
+They looked at each other. Cyril spoke first, picking up the syphon--
+
+"We'd better get along down and get rid of this beastly thing. It's dark
+enough to leave it on the clergyman's doorstep, I should think. Come
+on."
+
+There was a little turret at the corner of the tower, and the little
+turret had a door in it. They had noticed this when they were eating,
+but had not explored it, as you would have done in their place. Because,
+of course, when you have wings and can explore the whole sky, doors seem
+hardly worth exploring.
+
+Now they turned towards it.
+
+"Of course," said Cyril "this is the way down."
+
+It was. But the door was locked on the inside!
+
+And the world was growing darker and darker. And they were miles from
+home. And there was the soda-water syphon.
+
+I shall not tell you whether anyone cried, nor, if so, how many cried,
+nor who cried. You will be better employed in making up your minds what
+you would have done if you had been in their place.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+NO WINGS
+
+
+Whether anyone cried or not, there was certainly an interval during
+which none of the party was quite itself. When they grew calmer, Anthea
+put her handkerchief in her pocket and her arm round Jane, and said--
+
+"It can't be for more than one night. We can signal with our
+handkerchiefs in the morning. They'll be dry then. And someone will come
+up and let us out"--
+
+"And find the syphon," said Cyril gloomily; "and we shall be sent to
+prison for stealing"--
+
+"You said it wasn't stealing. You said you were sure it wasn't."
+
+"I'm not sure _now_" said Cyril shortly.
+
+"Let's throw the thing away among the trees," said Robert, "then no one
+can do anything to us."
+
+"Oh yes,"--Cyril's laugh was not a light-hearted one,--"and hit some
+chap on the head, and be murderers as well as--as the other thing."
+
+"But we can't stay up here all night," said Jane; "and I want my tea."
+
+"You _can't_ want your tea," said Robert; "you've only just had your
+dinner."
+
+"But I _do_ want it," she said; "especially when you begin talking about
+stopping up here all night. Oh, Panther--I want to go home! I want to go
+home!"
+
+"Hush, hush," Anthea said. "Don't, dear. It'll be all right, somehow.
+Don't, don't"--
+
+"Let her cry," said Robert desperately; "if she howls loud enough,
+someone may hear and come and let us out."
+
+"And see the soda-water thing," said Anthea swiftly. "Robert, don't be a
+brute. Oh, Jane, do try to be a man! It's just the same for all of us."
+
+Jane did try to "be a man"--and reduced her howls to sniffs.
+
+There was a pause. Then Cyril said slowly, "Look here. We must risk that
+syphon. I'll button it up inside my jacket--perhaps no one will notice
+it. You others keep well in front of me. There are lights in the
+clergyman's house. They've not gone to bed yet. We must just yell as
+loud as ever we can. Now all scream when I say three. Robert, you do the
+yell like a railway engine, and I'll do the coo-ee like father's. The
+girls can do as they please. One, two, three!"
+
+A four-fold yell rent the silent peace of the evening, and a maid at one
+of the Vicarage windows paused with her hand on the blind-cord.
+
+"One, two, three!" Another yell, piercing and complex, startled the owls
+and starlings to a flutter of feathers in the belfry below. The maid
+flew from the Vicarage window and ran down the Vicarage stairs and into
+the Vicarage kitchen, and fainted as soon as she had explained to the
+man-servant and the cook and the cook's cousin that she had seen a
+ghost. It was quite untrue, of course, but I suppose the girl's nerves
+were a little upset by the yelling.
+
+"One, two, three!" The Vicar was on his doorstep by this time, and there
+was no mistaking the yell that greeted him.
+
+"Goodness me," he said to his wife, "my dear, someone's being murdered
+in the church! Give me my hat and a thick stick, and tell Andrew to come
+after me. I expect it's the lunatic who stole the tongue."
+
+The children had seen the flash of light when the Vicar opened his front
+door. They had seen his dark form on his doorstep, and they had paused
+for breath, and also to see what he would do.
+
+When he turned back for his hat, Cyril said hastily--
+
+"He thinks he only fancied he heard something. You don't half yell! Now!
+One, two, three!"
+
+It was certainly a whole yell this time, and the Vicar's wife flung her
+arms round her husband and screamed a feeble echo of it.
+
+"You shan't go!" she said, "not alone. Jessie!"--the maid unfainted and
+came out of the kitchen,--"send Andrew at once. There's a dangerous
+lunatic in the church, and he must go immediately and catch him."
+
+"I expect he _will_ catch it too," said Jessie to herself as she went
+through the kitchen door. "Here, Andrew," she said, "there's someone
+screaming like mad in the church, and the missus says you're to go along
+and catch it."
+
+"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew in low firm tones. To his master he
+merely said, "Yis sir."
+
+"You heard those screams?"
+
+"I did think I noticed a sort of something," said Andrew.
+
+"Well, come on, then," said the Vicar. "My dear, I _must_ go!" He pushed
+her gently into the sitting-room, banged the door, and rushed out,
+dragging Andrew by the arm.
+
+A volley of yells greeted them. Then as it died into silence Andrew
+shouted, "Hullo, you there! Did you call?"
+
+"Yes," shouted four far-away voices.
+
+"They seem to be in the air," said the Vicar. "Very remarkable."
+
+"Where are you?" shouted Andrew; and Cyril replied in his deepest
+voice, very slow and loud--
+
+"CHURCH! TOWER! TOP!"
+
+"Come down, then!" said Andrew; and the same voice replied--
+
+"_Can't! Door locked!_"
+
+"My goodness!" said the Vicar. "Andrew, fetch the stable lantern.
+Perhaps it would be as well to fetch another man from the village."
+
+"With the rest of the gang about, very likely. No, sir; if this 'ere
+ain't a trap--well, may I never! There's cook's cousin at the back door
+now. He's a keeper, sir, and used to dealing with vicious characters.
+And he's got his gun, sir."
+
+"Hullo there!" shouted Cyril from the church-tower; "come up and let us
+out."
+
+"We're a-coming," said Andrew. "I'm a-going to get a policeman and a
+gun."
+
+"Andrew, Andrew," said the Vicar, "that's not the truth."
+
+"It's near enough, sir, for the likes of them."
+
+So Andrew fetched the lantern and the cook's cousin; and the Vicar's
+wife begged them all to be very careful.
+
+They went across the churchyard--it was quite dark now--and as they went
+they talked. The Vicar was certain a lunatic was on the
+church-tower--the one who had written the mad letter, and taken the cold
+tongue and things. Andrew thought it was a "trap"; the cook's cousin
+alone was calm. "Great cry, little wool," said he; "dangerous chaps is
+quieter." He was not at all afraid. But then he had a gun. That was why
+he was asked to lead the way up the worn, steep, dark steps of the
+church-tower. He did lead the way, with the lantern in one hand and the
+gun in the other. Andrew went next. He pretended afterwards that this
+was because he was braver than his master, but really it was because he
+thought of traps and he did not like the idea of being behind the others
+for fear someone should come softly up behind him and catch hold of his
+legs in the dark. They went on and on, and round and round the little
+corkscrew staircase--then through the bell-ringers' loft, where the
+bell-ropes hung with soft furry ends like giant caterpillars--then up
+another stair into the belfry, where the big quiet bells are--and then
+on up a ladder with broad steps--and then up a little stone stair. And
+at the top of that there was a little door. And the door was bolted on
+the stair side.
+
+The cook's cousin, who was a gamekeeper, kicked at the door, and said--
+
+"Hullo, you there!"
+
+The children were holding on to each other on the other side of the
+door, and trembling with anxiousness--and very hoarse with their howls.
+They could hardly speak, but Cyril managed to reply huskily--
+
+"Hullo, you there!"
+
+"How did you get up there?"
+
+It was no use saying "We flew up," so Cyril said--
+
+"We got up--and then we found the door was locked and we couldn't get
+down. Let us out--do."
+
+"How many of you are there?" asked the keeper.
+
+"Only four," said Cyril.
+
+"Are you armed?"
+
+"Are we what?"
+
+"I've got my gun handy--so you'd best not try any tricks," said the
+keeper. "If we open the door, will you promise to come quietly down, and
+no nonsense?"
+
+"Yes--oh YES!" said all the children together.
+
+"Bless me," said the Vicar, "surely that was a female voice?"
+
+"Shall I open the door, sir?" said the keeper. Andrew went down a few
+steps, "to leave room for the others" he said afterwards.
+
+"Yes," said the Vicar, "open the door. Remember," he said through the
+keyhole, "we have come to release you. You will keep your promise to
+refrain from violence?"
+
+"How this bolt do stick," said the keeper; "anyone 'ud think it hadn't
+been drawed for half a year." As a matter of fact it hadn't.
+
+When all the bolts were drawn, the keeper spoke deep-chested words
+through the keyhole.
+
+[Illustration: The keeper spoke deep-chested words through the keyhole]
+
+"I don't open," said he, "till you've gone over to the other side of the
+tower. And if one of you comes at me I fire. Now!"
+
+"We're all over on the other side," said the voices.
+
+The keeper felt pleased with himself, and owned himself a bold man when
+he threw open that door, and, stepping out into the leads, flashed the
+full light of the stable lantern on the group of desperadoes standing
+against the parapet on the other side of the tower.
+
+He lowered his gun, and he nearly dropped the lantern.
+
+"So help me," he cried, "if they ain't a pack of kiddies!"
+
+The Vicar now advanced.
+
+"How did you come here?" he asked severely. "Tell me at once."
+
+"Oh, take us down," said Jane, catching at his coat, "and we'll tell you
+anything you like. You won't believe us, but it doesn't matter. Oh, take
+us down!"
+
+The others crowded round him, with the same entreaty. All but Cyril.
+He had enough to do with the soda-water syphon, which would keep
+slipping down under his jacket. It needed both hands to keep it steady
+in its place.
+
+But he said, standing as far out of the lantern light as possible--
+
+"Please do take us down."
+
+So they were taken down. It is no joke to go down a strange church-tower
+in the dark, but the keeper helped them--only, Cyril had to be
+independent because of the soda-water syphon. It would keep trying to
+get away. Half-way down the ladder it all but escaped. Cyril just caught
+it by its spout, and as nearly as possible lost his footing. He was
+trembling and pale when at last they reached the bottom of the winding
+stair and stepped out on to the stones of the church-porch.
+
+Then suddenly the keeper caught Cyril and Robert each by an arm.
+
+"You bring along the gells, sir," said he; "you and Andrew can manage
+them."
+
+"Let go!" said Cyril; "we aren't running away. We haven't hurt your old
+church. Leave go!"
+
+"You just come along," said the keeper; and Cyril dared not oppose him
+with violence, because just then the syphon began to slip again.
+
+So they were marched into the Vicarage study, and the Vicar's wife came
+rushing in.
+
+"Oh, William, _are_ you safe?" she cried.
+
+Robert hastened to allay her anxiety.
+
+"Yes," he said, "he's quite safe. We haven't hurt them at all. And
+please, we're very late, and they'll be anxious at home. Could you send
+us home in your carriage?"
+
+"Or perhaps there's a hotel near where we could get a carriage," said
+Anthea. "Martha will be very anxious as it is."
+
+The Vicar had sunk into a chair, overcome by emotion and amazement.
+
+Cyril had also sat down, and was leaning forward with his elbows on his
+knees because of the soda-water syphon.
+
+"But how did you come to be locked up in the church-tower?" asked the
+Vicar.
+
+"We went up," said Robert slowly, "and we were tired, and we all went to
+sleep, and when we woke up we found the door was locked, so we yelled."
+
+"I should think you did!" said the Vicar's wife. "Frightening everybody
+out of their wits like this! You ought to be ashamed of yourselves."
+
+"We _are_," said Jane gently.
+
+"But who locked the door?" asked the Vicar.
+
+"I don't know at all," said Robert, with perfect truth. "Do please send
+us home."
+
+"Well, really," said the Vicar, "I suppose we'd better. Andrew, put the
+horse to, and you can take them home."
+
+"Not alone, I don't," said Andrew to himself.
+
+And the Vicar went on, "let this be a lesson to you"---- He went on
+talking, and the children listened miserably. But the keeper was not
+listening. He was looking at the unfortunate Cyril. He knew all about
+poachers, of course, so he knew how people look when they're hiding
+something. The Vicar had just got to the part about trying to grow up
+to be a blessing to your parents, and not a trouble and disgrace, when
+the keeper suddenly said--
+
+"Arst him what he's got there under his jacket;" and Cyril knew that
+concealment was at an end. So he stood up, and squared his shoulders and
+tried to look noble, like the boys in books that no one can look in the
+face of and doubt that they come of brave and noble families, and will
+be faithful to the death, and he pulled out the syphon and said--
+
+"Well, there you are, then."
+
+There was silence. Cyril went on--there was nothing else for it--
+
+"Yes, we took this out of your larder, and some chicken and tongue and
+bread. We were very hungry, and we didn't take the custard or jam. We
+only took bread and meat and water,--and we couldn't help its being soda
+kind,--just the necessaries of life; and we left half-a-crown to pay for
+it, and we left a letter. And we're very sorry. And my father will pay a
+fine and anything you like, but don't send us to prison. Mother would
+be so vexed. You know what you said about not being a disgrace. Well,
+don't you go and do it to us--that's all! We're as sorry as we can be.
+There!"
+
+"However did you get up to the larder window?" said Mrs. Vicar.
+
+"I can't tell you that," said Cyril firmly.
+
+"Is this the whole truth you've been telling me?" asked the clergyman.
+
+"No," answered Jane suddenly; "it's all true, but it's not the whole
+truth. We can't tell you that. It's no good asking. Oh, do forgive us
+and take us home!" She ran to the Vicar's wife and threw her arms round
+her. The Vicar's wife put her arms round Jane, and the keeper whispered
+behind his hand to the Vicar--
+
+"They're all right, sir--I expect it's a pal they're standing by.
+Someone put 'em up to it, and they won't peach. Game little kids."
+
+"Tell me," said the Vicar kindly, "are you screening someone else? Had
+anyone else anything to do with this?"
+
+"Yes," said Anthea, thinking of the Psammead; "but it wasn't their
+fault."
+
+"Very well, my dears," said the Vicar, "then let's say no more about it.
+Only just tell us why you wrote such an odd letter."
+
+"I don't know," said Cyril. "You see, Anthea wrote it in such a hurry,
+and it really didn't seem like stealing then. But afterwards, when we
+found we couldn't get down off the church-tower, it seemed just exactly
+like it. We are all very sorry"--
+
+"Say no more about it," said the Vicar's wife; "but another time just
+think before you take other people's tongues. Now--some cake and milk
+before you go home?"
+
+When Andrew came to say that the horse was put to, and was he expected
+to be led alone into the trap that he had plainly seen from the first,
+he found the children eating cake and drinking milk and laughing at the
+Vicar's jokes. Jane was sitting on the Vicar's wife's lap.
+
+So you see they got off better than they deserved.
+
+The gamekeeper, who was the cook's cousin, asked leave to drive home
+with them, and Andrew was only too glad to have someone to protect him
+from that trap he was so certain of.
+
+When the wagonette reached their own house, between the chalk-quarry and
+the gravel-pit, the children were very sleepy, but they felt that they
+and the keeper were friends for life.
+
+Andrew dumped the children down at the iron gate without a word.
+
+"You get along home," said the Vicarage cook's cousin, who was a
+gamekeeper. "I'll get me home on shanks' mare."
+
+So Andrew had to drive off alone, which he did not like at all, and it
+was the keeper that was cousin to the Vicarage cook who went with the
+children to the door, and, when they had been swept to bed in a
+whirlwind of reproaches, remained to explain to Martha and the cook and
+the housemaid exactly what had happened. He explained so well that
+Martha was quite amicable the next morning.
+
+After that he often used to come over and see Martha, and in the
+end--but that is another story, as dear Mr. Kipling says.
+
+Martha was obliged to stick to what she had said the night before about
+keeping the children indoors the next day for a punishment. But she
+wasn't at all ugly about it, and agreed to let Robert go out for half an
+hour to get something he particularly wanted.
+
+This, of course, was the day's wish.
+
+Robert rushed to the gravel-pit, found the Psammead, and presently
+wished for--
+
+But that, too, is another story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+A CASTLE AND NO DINNER
+
+
+The others were to be kept in as a punishment for the misfortunes of the
+day before. Of course Martha thought it was naughtiness, and not
+misfortune--so you must not blame her. She only thought she was doing
+her duty. You know, grown-up people often say they do not like to punish
+you, and that they only do it for your own good, and that it hurts them
+as much as it hurts you--and this is really very often the truth.
+
+Martha certainly hated having to punish the children quite as much as
+they hated to be punished. For one thing, she knew what a noise there
+would be in the house all day. And she had other reasons.
+
+"I declare," she said to the cook, "it seems almost a shame keeping of
+them indoors this lovely day; but they are that audacious, they'll be
+walking in with their heads knocked off some of these days, if I don't
+put my foot down. You make them a cake for tea to-morrow, dear. And
+we'll have Baby along of us soon as we've got a bit forrard with our
+work. Then they can have a good romp with him, out of the way. Now,
+Eliza, come, get on with them beds. Here's ten o'clock nearly, and no
+rabbits caught!"
+
+People say that in Kent when they mean "and no work done."
+
+So all the others were kept in, but Robert, as I have said, was allowed
+to go out for half an hour to get something they all wanted. And that,
+of course, was the day's wish.
+
+He had no difficulty in finding the Sand-fairy, for the day was already
+so hot that it had actually, for the first time, come out of its own
+accord, and was sitting in a sort of pool of soft sand, stretching
+itself, and trimming its whiskers, and turning its snail's eyes round
+and round.
+
+"Ha!" it said when its left eye saw Robert; "I've been looking for you.
+Where are the rest of you? Not smashed themselves up with those wings,
+I hope?"
+
+"No," said Robert; "but the wings got us into a row, just like all the
+wishes always do. So the others are kept indoors, and I was only let out
+for half an hour--to get the wish. So please let me wish as quickly as I
+can."
+
+"Wish away," said the Psammead, twisting itself round in the sand. But
+Robert couldn't wish away. He forgot all the things he had been thinking
+about, and nothing would come into his head but little things for
+himself, like candy, a foreign stamp album, or a knife with three blades
+and a corkscrew. He sat down to think better of things the others would
+not have cared for--such as a football, or a pair of leg-guards, or to
+be able to lick Simpkins Minor thoroughly when he went back to school.
+
+"Well," said the Psammead at last, "you'd better hurry up with that wish
+of yours. Time flies."
+
+"I know it does," said Robert. "_I_ can't think what to wish for. I wish
+you could give one of the others their wish without their having to
+come here to ask for it. Oh, _don't_!"
+
+But it was too late. The Psammead had blown itself out to about three
+times its proper size, and now it collapsed like a pricked bubble, and
+with a deep sigh leaned back against the edge of the sand-pool, quite
+faint with the effort.
+
+"There!" it said in a weak voice; "it was tremendously hard--but I did
+it. Run along home, or they're sure to wish for something silly before
+you get there."
+
+They were--quite sure; Robert felt this, and as he ran home his mind was
+deeply occupied with the sort of wishes he might find they had wished in
+his absence. They might wish for rabbits, or white mice, or chocolate,
+or a fine day to-morrow, or even--and that was most likely--someone
+might have said, "I do wish to goodness Robert would hurry up." Well, he
+_was_ hurrying up, and so they would have had their wish, and the day
+would be wasted. Then he tried to think what they could wish
+for--something that would be amusing indoors. That had been his own
+difficulty from the beginning. So few things are amusing indoors when
+the sun is shining outside and you mayn't go out, however much you want
+to do so.
+
+Robert was running as fast as he could, but when he turned the corner
+that ought to have brought him within sight of the architect's
+nightmare--the ornamental iron-work on the top of the house--he opened
+his eyes so wide that he had to drop into a walk; for you cannot run
+with your eyes wide open. Then suddenly he stopped short, for there was
+no house to be seen. The front garden railings were gone too, and where
+the house had stood--Robert rubbed his eyes and looked again. Yes, the
+others _had_ wished,--there was no doubt about it,--and they must have
+wished that they lived in a castle; for there the castle stood, black
+and stately, and very tall and broad, with battlements and lancet
+windows, and eight great towers; and, where the garden and the orchard
+had been, there were white things dotted like mushrooms. Robert walked
+slowly on, and as he got nearer he saw that these were tents, and men in
+armor were walking about among the tents--crowds and crowds of them.
+
+[Illustration: There the castle stood, black and stately]
+
+"Oh!" said Robert fervently. "They _have_! They've wished for a castle,
+and it's being besieged! It's just like that Sand-fairy! I wish we'd
+never seen the beastly thing!"
+
+At the little window above the great gateway, across the moat that now
+lay where the garden had been but half an hour ago, someone was waving
+something pale dust-colored. Robert thought it was one of Cyril's
+handkerchiefs. They had never been white since the day when he had upset
+the bottle of "Combined Toning and Fixing Solution" into the drawer
+where they were. Robert waved back, and immediately felt that he had
+been unwise. For this signal had been seen by the besieging force, and
+two men in steel-caps were coming towards him. They had high brown boots
+on their long legs, and they came towards him with such great strides
+that Robert remembered the shortness of his own legs and did not run
+away. He knew it would be useless to himself, and he feared it might be
+irritating to the foe. So he stood still--and the two men seemed quite
+pleased with him.
+
+"By my halidom," said one, "a brave varlet this!"
+
+Robert felt pleased at being _called_ brave, and somehow it made him
+_feel_ brave. He passed over the "varlet." It was the way people talked
+in historical romances for the young, he knew, and it was evidently not
+meant for rudeness. He only hoped he would be able to understand what
+they said to him. He had not been always able quite to follow the
+conversations in the historical romances for the young.
+
+"His garb is strange," said the other. "Some outlandish treachery,
+belike."
+
+"Say, lad, what brings thee hither?"
+
+Robert knew this meant, "Now then, youngster, what are you up to here,
+eh?"--so he said--
+
+"If you please, I want to go home."
+
+"Go, then!" said the man in the longest boots; "none hindereth, and
+nought lets us to follow. Zooks!" he added in a cautious undertone, "I
+misdoubt me but he beareth tidings to the besieged."
+
+"Where dwellest thou, young knave?" inquired the man with the largest
+steel-cap.
+
+"Over there," said Robert; and directly he had said it he knew he ought
+to have said "Yonder!"
+
+"Ha--sayest so?" rejoined the longest boots. "Come hither, boy. This is
+matter for our leader."
+
+And to the leader Robert was dragged forthwith--by the reluctant ear.
+
+[Illustration: Robert was dragged forthwith--by the reluctant ear]
+
+The leader was the most glorious creature Robert had ever seen. He was
+exactly like the pictures Robert had so often admired in the historical
+romances. He had armor, and a helmet, and a horse, and a crest, and
+feathers, and a shield and a lance and a sword. His armor and his
+weapons were all, I am almost sure, of quite different periods. The
+shield was thirteenth century, while the sword was of the pattern
+used in the Peninsular War. The cuirass was of the time of Charles I.,
+and the helmet dated from the Second Crusade. The arms on the shield
+were very grand--three red running lions on a blue ground. The tents
+were of the latest brand approved of by our modern War Office, and the
+whole appearance of camp, army, and leader might have been a shock to
+some. But Robert was dumb with admiration, and it all seemed to him
+perfectly correct, because he knew no more of heraldry or archaeology
+than the gifted artists who usually drew the pictures for the historical
+romances. The scene was indeed "exactly like a picture." He admired it
+all so much that he felt braver than ever.
+
+"Come hither, lad," said the glorious leader, when the men in
+Cromwellian steel-caps had said a few low eager words. And he took off
+his helmet, because he could not see properly with it on. He had a kind
+face, and long fair hair. "Have no fear; thou shalt take no scathe," he
+said.
+
+Robert was glad of that. He wondered what "scathe" was, and if it was
+nastier than the medicine which he had to take sometimes.
+
+"Unfold thy tale without alarm," said the leader kindly. "Whence comest
+thou, and what is thine intent?"
+
+"My what?" said Robert.
+
+"What seekest thou to accomplish? What is thine errand, that thou
+wanderest here alone among these rough men-at-arms? Poor child, thy
+mother's heart aches for thee e'en now, I'll warrant me."
+
+"I don't think so," said Robert; "you see, she doesn't know I'm out."
+
+[Illustration: He wiped away a manly tear]
+
+The leader wiped away a manly tear, exactly as a leader in a historical
+romance would have done, and said--
+
+"Fear not to speak the truth, my child; thou hast nought to fear from
+Wulfric de Talbot."
+
+Robert had a wild feeling that this glorious leader of the besieging
+party--being himself part of a wish--would be able to understand better
+than Martha, or the gipsies, or the policeman in Rochester, or the
+clergyman of yesterday, the true tale of the wishes and the Psammead.
+The only difficulty was that he knew he could never remember enough
+"quothas" and "beshrew me's," and things like that, to make his talk
+sound like the talk of a boy in a historical romance. However, he began
+boldly enough, with a sentence straight out of _Ralph de Courcy; or, The
+Boy Crusader_. He said--
+
+"Grammercy for thy courtesy, fair sir knight. The fact is, it's like
+this--and I hope you're not in a hurry, because the story's rather a
+breather. Father and mother are away, and when we went down playing in
+the sand-pits we found a Psammead."
+
+"I cry thee mercy! A Sammyadd?" said the knight.
+
+"Yes, a sort of--of fairy, or enchanter--yes, that's it, an enchanter;
+and he said we could have a wish every day, and we wished first to be
+beautiful."
+
+"Thy wish was scarce granted," muttered one of the men-at-arms, looking
+at Robert, who went on as if he had not heard, though he thought the
+remark very rude indeed.
+
+"And then we wished for money--treasure, you know; but we couldn't spend
+it. And yesterday we wished for wings, and we got them, and we had a
+ripping time to begin with"--
+
+"Thy speech is strange and uncouth," said Sir Wulfric de Talbot. "Repeat
+thy words--what hadst thou?"
+
+"A ripping--I mean a jolly--no--we were contented with our lot--that's
+what I mean; only, after we got into an awful fix."
+
+"What is a fix? A fray, mayhap?"
+
+"No--not a fray. A--a--a tight place."
+
+"A dungeon? Alas for thy youthful fettered limbs!" said the knight, with
+polite sympathy.
+
+"It wasn't a dungeon. We just--just encountered undeserved misfortunes,"
+Robert explained, "and to-day we are punished by not being allowed to go
+out. That's where I live,"--he pointed to the castle. "The others are in
+there, and they're not allowed to go out. It's all the Psammead's--I
+mean the enchanter's fault. I wish we'd never seen him."
+
+"He is an enchanter of might?"
+
+"Oh yes--of might and main. Rather!"
+
+"And thou deemest that it is the spells of the enchanter whom thou hast
+angered that have lent strength to the besieging party," said the
+gallant leader; "but know thou that Wulfric de Talbot needs no
+enchanter's aid to lead his followers to victory."
+
+"No, I'm sure you don't," said Robert, with hasty courtesy; "of course
+not--you wouldn't, you know. But, all the same, it's partly his fault,
+but we're most to blame. You couldn't have done anything if it hadn't
+been for us."
+
+"How now, bold boy?" asked Sir Wulfric haughtily. "Thy speech is dark,
+and eke scarce courteous. Unravel me this riddle!"
+
+"Oh," said Robert desperately, "of course you don't know it, but you're
+not _real_ at all. You're only here because the others must have been
+idiots enough to wish for a castle--and when the sun sets you'll just
+vanish away, and it'll be all right."
+
+The captain and the men-at-arms exchanged glances at first pitying, and
+then sterner, as the longest-booted man said, "Beware, my noble lord;
+the urchin doth but feign madness to escape from our clutches. Shall we
+not bind him?"
+
+"I'm no more mad than you are," said Robert angrily, "perhaps not so
+much--Only, I was an idiot to think you'd understand anything. Let me
+go--I haven't done anything to you."
+
+"Whither?" asked the knight, who seemed to have believed all the
+enchanter story till it came to his own share in it. "Whither wouldst
+thou wend?"
+
+"Home, of course." Robert pointed to the castle.
+
+"To carry news of succor? Nay!"
+
+"All right, then," said Robert, struck by a sudden idea; "then let me go
+somewhere else." His mind sought eagerly among the memories of the
+historical romance.
+
+"Sir Wulfric de Talbot," he said slowly, "should think foul scorn to--to
+keep a chap--I mean one who has done him no hurt--when he wants to cut
+off quietly--I mean to depart without violence."
+
+"This to my face! Beshrew thee for a knave!" replied Sir Wulfric. But
+the appeal seemed to have gone home. "Yet thou sayest sooth," he added
+thoughtfully. "Go where thou wilt," he added nobly, "thou art free.
+Wulfric de Talbot warreth not with babes, and Jakin here shall bear thee
+company."
+
+"All right," said Robert wildly. "Jakin will enjoy himself, I think.
+Come on, Jakin. Sir Wulfric, I salute thee."
+
+He saluted after the modern military manner, and set off running to the
+sand-pit, Jakin's long boots keeping up easily.
+
+He found the Fairy. He dug it up, he woke it up, he implored it to give
+him one more wish.
+
+"I've done two to-day already," it grumbled, "and one was as stiff a bit
+of work as ever I did."
+
+"Oh, do, do, do, do, _do_!" said Robert, while Jakin looked on with an
+expression of open-mouthed horror at the strange beast that talked, and
+gazed with its snail's eyes at him.
+
+[Illustration: "Oh, do, do, _do_!" said Robert]
+
+"Well, what is it?" snapped the Psammead, with cross sleepiness.
+
+"I wish I was with the others," said Robert. And the Psammead began to
+swell. Robert never thought of wishing the castle and the siege away. Of
+course he knew they had all come out of a wish, but swords and daggers
+and pikes and lances seemed much too real to be wished away. Robert lost
+consciousness for an instant. When he opened his eyes the others were
+crowding round him.
+
+"We never heard you come in," they said. "How awfully jolly of you to
+wish it to give us our wish!"
+
+"Of course we understood that was what you'd done."
+
+"But you ought to have told us. Suppose we'd wished something silly."
+
+"Silly?" said Robert, very crossly indeed. "How much sillier could you
+have been, I'd like to know? You nearly settled _me_--I can tell
+you."
+
+Then he told his story, and the others admitted that it certainly had
+been rough on him. But they praised his courage and cleverness so much
+that he presently got back his lost temper, and felt braver than ever,
+and consented to be captain of the besieged force.
+
+"We haven't done anything yet," said Anthea comfortably; "we waited for
+you. We're going to shoot at them through these little loopholes with
+the bow and arrows uncle gave you, and you shall have first shot."
+
+"I don't think I would," said Robert cautiously; "you don't know what
+they're like near to. They've got _real_ bows and arrows--an awful
+length--and swords and pikes and daggers, and all sorts of sharp things.
+They're all quite, quite real. It's not just a--a picture, or a vision
+or anything; they can _hurt us_--or kill us even, I shouldn't wonder. I
+can feel my ear all sore yet. Look here--have you explored the castle?
+Because I think we'd better let them alone as long as they let us alone.
+I heard that Jakin man say they weren't going to attack till just
+before sundown. We can be getting ready for the attack. Are there any
+soldiers in the castle to defend it?"
+
+"We don't know," said Cyril. "You see, directly I'd wished we were in a
+besieged castle, everything seemed to go upside down, and when it came
+straight we looked out of the window, and saw the camp and things and
+you--and of course we kept on looking at everything. Isn't this room
+jolly? It's as real as real!"
+
+It was. It was square, with stone walls four feet thick, and great beams
+for ceiling. A low door at the corner led to a flight of steps, up and
+down. The children went down; they found themselves in a great arched
+gate-house--the enormous doors were shut and barred. There was a window
+in a little room at the bottom of the round turret up which the stair
+wound, rather larger than the other windows, and looking through it they
+saw that the drawbridge was up and the portcullis down; the moat looked
+very wide and deep. Opposite the great door that led to the moat was
+another great door, with a little door in it. The children went through
+this, and found themselves in a big courtyard, with the great grey walls
+of the castle rising dark and heavy on all four sides.
+
+Near the middle of the courtyard stood Martha, moving her right hand
+backwards and forwards in the air. The cook was stooping down and moving
+her hands, also in a very curious way. But the oddest and at the same
+time most terrible thing was the Lamb, who was sitting on nothing, about
+three feet from the ground, laughing happily.
+
+The children ran towards him. Just as Anthea was reaching out her arms
+to take him, Martha said crossly, "Let him alone--do, miss, when he _is_
+good."
+
+"But what's he _doing_?" said Anthea.
+
+"Doing? Why, a-setting in his high chair as good as gold, a precious,
+watching me doing of the ironing. Get along with you, do--my iron's cold
+again."
+
+She went towards the cook, and seemed to poke an invisible fire with an
+unseen poker--the cook seemed to be putting an unseen dish into an
+invisible oven.
+
+"Run along with you, do," she said; "I'm behindhand as it is. You won't
+get no dinner if you come a-hindering of me like this. Come, off you
+goes, or I'll pin a discloth to some of your tails."
+
+"You're _sure_ the Lamb's all right?" asked Jane anxiously.
+
+"Right as ninepence, if you don't come unsettling of him. I thought
+you'd like to be rid of him for to-day; but take him, if you want him,
+for gracious' sake."
+
+"No, no," they said, and hastened away. They would have to defend the
+castle presently, and the Lamb was safer even suspended in mid air in an
+invisible kitchen than in the guard-room of the besieged castle. They
+went through the first doorway they came to, and sat down helplessly on
+a wooden bench that ran along the room inside.
+
+"How awful!" said Anthea and Jane together; and Jane added, "I feel as
+if I was in a lunatic asylum."
+
+"What does it mean?" Anthea said. "It's creepy; I don't like it. I wish
+we'd wished for something plain--a rocking-horse, or a donkey, or
+something."
+
+"It's no use wishing _now_," said Robert bitterly; and Cyril said--
+
+"Do be quiet; I want to think."
+
+He buried his face in his hands, and the others looked about them. They
+were in a long room with an arched roof. There were wooden tables along
+it, and one across at the end of the room, on a sort of raised platform.
+The room was very dim and dark. The floor was strewn with dry things
+like sticks, and they did not smell nice.
+
+Cyril sat up suddenly and said--
+
+"Look here--it's all right. I think it's like this. You know, we wished
+that the servants shouldn't notice any difference when we got wishes.
+And nothing happens to the Lamb unless we specially wish it to. So of
+course they don't notice the castle or anything. But then the castle is
+on the same place where our house was--is, I mean--and the servants have
+to go on being in the house, or else they _would_ notice. But you can't
+have a castle mixed up with our house--and so _we_ can't see the house,
+because we see the castle; and they can't see the castle, because they
+go on seeing the house; and so"--
+
+"Oh, _don't_," said Jane; "you make my head go all swimmy, like being on
+a roundabout. It doesn't matter! Only, I hope we shall be able to see
+our dinner, that's all--because if it's invisible it'll be unfeelable as
+well, and then we can't eat it! I _know_ it will, because I tried to
+feel if I could feel the Lamb's chair and there was nothing under him at
+all but air. And we can't eat air, and I feel just as if I hadn't had
+any breakfast for years and years."
+
+"It's no use thinking about it," said Anthea. "Let's go on exploring.
+Perhaps we might find something to eat."
+
+This lighted hope in every breast, and they went on exploring the
+castle. But though it was the most perfect and delightful castle you can
+possibly imagine, and furnished in the most complete and beautiful
+manner, neither food nor men-at-arms were to be found in it.
+
+"If you'd only thought of wishing to be besieged in a castle thoroughly
+garrisoned and provisioned!" said Jane reproachfully.
+
+"You can't think of everything, you know," said Anthea. "I should think
+it must be nearly dinner-time by now."
+
+It wasn't; but they hung about watching the strange movements of the
+servants in the middle of the courtyard, because, of course, they
+couldn't be sure where the dining-room of the invisible house was.
+Presently they saw Martha carrying an invisible tray across the
+courtyard, for it seemed that, by the most fortunate accident, the
+dining-room of the house and the banqueting-hall of the castle were in
+the same place. But oh, how their hearts sank when they perceived that
+the tray _was_ invisible!
+
+They waited in wretched silence while Martha went through the form of
+carving an unseen leg of mutton and serving invisible greens and
+potatoes with a spoon that no one could see. When she had left the room,
+the children looked at the empty table, and then at each other.
+
+"This is worse than anything," said Robert, who had not till now been
+particularly keen on his dinner.
+
+"I'm not so very hungry," said Anthea, trying to make the best of
+things, as usual.
+
+Cyril tightened his belt ostentatiously. Jane burst into tears.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+A SIEGE AND BED
+
+
+The children were sitting in the gloomy banqueting-hall, at the end of
+one of the long bare wooden tables. There was now no hope. Martha had
+brought in the dinner, and the dinner was invisible, and unfeelable too;
+for, when they rubbed their hands along the table, they knew but too
+well that for them there was nothing there _but_ table.
+
+Suddenly Cyril felt in his pocket.
+
+"Right, _oh_!" he cried. "Look here! Biscuits."
+
+Somewhat broken and crumbled, certainly, but still biscuits. Three whole
+ones, and a generous handful of crumbs and fragments.
+
+"I got them this morning--cook--and I'd quite forgotten," he explained
+as he divided them with scrupulous fairness into four heaps.
+
+They were eaten in a happy silence, though they had an odd taste,
+because they had been in Cyril's pocket all the morning with a hank of
+tarred twine, some green fir-cones, and a ball of cobbler's wax.
+
+"Yes, but look here, Squirrel," said Robert; "you're so clever at
+explaining about invisibleness and all that. How is it the biscuits are
+here, and all the bread and meat and things have disappeared?"
+
+"I don't know," said Cyril after a pause, "unless it's because _we_ had
+them. Nothing about _us_ has changed. Everything's in my pocket all
+right."
+
+"Then if we _had_ the mutton it would be real," said Robert. "Oh, don't
+I wish we could find it!"
+
+"But we can't find it. I suppose it isn't ours till we've got it in our
+mouths."
+
+"Or in our pockets," said Jane, thinking of the biscuits.
+
+"Who puts mutton in their pockets, goose-girl?" said Cyril. "But I
+know--at any rate, I'll try it!"
+
+He leaned over the table with his face about an inch from it, and kept
+opening and shutting his mouth as if he were taking bites out of air.
+
+"It's no good," said Robert in deep dejection. "You'll only---- Hullo!"
+
+Cyril stood up with a grin of triumph, holding a square piece of bread
+in his mouth. It was quite real. Everyone saw it. It is true that,
+directly he bit a piece off, the rest vanished; but it was all right,
+because he knew he had it in his hand though he could neither see nor
+feel it. He took another bite from the air between his fingers, and it
+turned into bread as he bit. The next moment all the others were
+following his example, and opening and shutting their mouths an inch or
+so from the bare-looking table. Robert captured a slice of mutton,
+and--but I think I will draw a veil over the rest of this painful scene.
+It is enough to say that they all had enough mutton, and that when
+Martha came to change the plates she said she had never seen such a mess
+in all her born days.
+
+The pudding was, fortunately, a plain suet one, and in answer to
+Martha's questions the children all with one accord said that they would
+_not_ have molasses on it--nor jam, nor sugar--"Just plain, please,"
+they said. Martha said, "Well, I never--what next, I wonder!" and went
+away.
+
+Then ensued another scene on which I will not dwell, for nobody looks
+nice picking up slices of suet pudding from the table in its mouth, like
+a dog.
+
+The great thing, after all, was that they had had dinner; and now
+everyone felt more courage to prepare for the attack that was to be
+delivered before sunset. Robert, as captain, insisted on climbing to the
+top of one of the towers to reconnoitre, so up they all went. And now
+they could see all round the castle, and could see, too, that beyond the
+moat, on every side, tents of the besieging party were pitched. Rather
+uncomfortable shivers ran down the children's backs as they saw that all
+the men were very busy cleaning or sharpening their arms, re-stringing
+their bows, and polishing their shields. A large party came along the
+road, with horses dragging along the great trunk of a tree; and Cyril
+felt quite pale, because he knew this was for a battering-ram.
+
+"What a good thing we've got a moat," he said; "and what a good thing
+the drawbridge is up--I should never have known how to work it."
+
+"Of course it would be up in a besieged castle."
+
+"You'd think there ought to have been soldiers in it, wouldn't you?"
+said Robert.
+
+"You see you don't know how long it's been besieged," said Cyril darkly;
+"perhaps most of the brave defenders were killed early in the siege and
+all the provisions eaten, and now there are only a few intrepid
+survivors,--that's us, and we are going to defend it to the death."
+
+"How do you begin--defending to the death, I mean?" asked Anthea.
+
+"We ought to be heavily armed--and then shoot at them when they advance
+to the attack."
+
+"They used to pour boiling lead down on besiegers when they got too
+close," said Anthea. "Father showed me the holes on purpose for pouring
+it down through at Bodiam Castle. And there are holes like it in the
+gate-tower here."
+
+"I think I'm glad it's only a game; it _is_ only a game, isn't it?" said
+Jane.
+
+But no one answered.
+
+The children found plenty of strange weapons in the castle, and if they
+were armed at all it was soon plain that they would be, as Cyril said,
+"armed heavily"--for these swords and lances and crossbows were far too
+weighty even for Cyril's manly strength; and as for the longbows, none
+of the children could even begin to bend them. The daggers were better;
+but Jane hoped that the besiegers would not come close enough for
+daggers to be of any use.
+
+"Never mind, we can hurl them like javelins," said Cyril, "or drop them
+on people's heads. I say--there are lots of stones on the other side of
+the courtyard. If we took some of those up? Just to drop on their heads
+if they were to try swimming the moat."
+
+So a heap of stones grew apace, up in the room above the gate; and
+another heap, a shiny spiky dangerous-looking heap, of daggers and
+knives.
+
+As Anthea was crossing the courtyard for more stones, a sudden and
+valuable idea came to her.
+
+She went to Martha and said, "May we have just biscuits for tea? We're
+going to play at besieged castles, and we'd like the biscuits to
+provision the garrison. Put mine in my pocket, please, my hands are so
+dirty. And I'll tell the others to fetch theirs."
+
+This was indeed a happy thought, for now with four generous handfuls of
+air, which turned to biscuits as Martha crammed it into their pockets,
+the garrison was well provisioned till sundown.
+
+They brought up some iron pots of cold water to pour on the besiegers
+instead of hot lead, with which the castle did not seem to be provided.
+
+The afternoon passed with wonderful quickness. It was very exciting; but
+none of them, except Robert, could feel all the time that this was real
+deadly dangerous work. To the others, who had only seen the camp and the
+besiegers from a distance, the whole thing seemed half a game of
+make-believe, and half a splendidly distinct and perfectly safe dream.
+But it was only now and then that Robert could feel this.
+
+When it seemed to be tea-time the biscuits were eaten, with water from
+the deep well in the courtyard, drunk out of horns. Cyril insisted on
+putting by eight of the biscuits, in case anyone should feel faint in
+stress of battle.
+
+Just as he was putting away the reserve biscuits in a sort of little
+stone cupboard without a door, a sudden sound made him drop three. It
+was the loud fierce cry of a trumpet.
+
+"You see it _is_ real," said Robert, "and they are going to attack."
+
+All rushed to the narrow windows.
+
+"Yes," said Robert, "they're all coming out of their tents and moving
+about like ants. There's that Jakin dancing about where the bridge
+joins on. I wish he could see me put my tongue out at him! Yah!"
+
+The others were far too pale to wish to put their tongues out at
+anybody. They looked at Robert with surprised respect. Anthea said--
+
+"You really _are_ brave, Robert."
+
+"Rot!" Cyril's pallor turned to redness now, all in a minute. "He's been
+getting ready to be brave all the afternoon. And I wasn't ready, that's
+all. I shall be braver than he is in half a jiffy."
+
+"Oh dear!" said Jane, "what does it matter which of you is the bravest?
+I think Cyril was a perfect silly to wish for a castle, and I don't want
+to play."
+
+"It _isn't_"--Robert was beginning sternly, but Anthea interrupted--
+
+"Oh yes, you do," she said coaxingly; "it's a very nice game, really,
+because they can't possibly get in, and if they do the women and
+children are always spared by civilised armies."
+
+"But are you quite, quite sure they _are_ civilised?" asked Jane,
+panting. "They seem to be such a long time ago."
+
+"Of course they are." Anthea pointed cheerfully through the narrow
+window. "Why, look at the little flags on their lances, how bright they
+are--and how fine the leader is! Look, that's him--isn't it, Robert?--on
+the gray horse."
+
+Jane consented to look, and the scene was almost too pretty to be
+alarming. The green turf, the white tents, the flash of pennoned lances,
+the gleam of armour, and the bright colours of scarf and tunic--it was
+just like a splendid coloured picture. The trumpets were sounding, and
+when the trumpeters stopped for breath the children could hear the
+cling-clang of armour and the murmur of voices.
+
+A trumpeter came forward to the edge of the moat, which now seemed very
+much narrower than at first, and blew the longest and loudest blast they
+had yet heard. When the blaring noise had died away, a man who was with
+the trumpeter shouted--
+
+"What ho, within there!" and his voice came plainly to the garrison in
+the gate-house.
+
+"Hullo there!" Robert bellowed back at once.
+
+"In the name of our Lord the King, and of our good lord and trusty
+leader Sir Wulfric de Talbot, we summon this castle to surrender--on
+pain of fire and sword and no quarter. Do ye surrender?"
+
+"_No_" bawled Robert; "of course we don't! Never, _Never, NEVER_!"
+
+The man answered back--
+
+"Then your fate be on your own heads."
+
+"Cheer," said Robert in a fierce whisper. "Cheer to show them we aren't
+afraid, and rattle the daggers to make more noise. One, two, three! Hip,
+hip, hooray! Again--Hip, hip, hooray! One more--Hip, hip, hooray!" The
+cheers were rather high and weak, but the rattle of the daggers lent
+them strength and depth.
+
+There was another shout from the camp across the moat--and then the
+beleaguered fortress felt that the attack had indeed begun.
+
+It was getting rather dark in the room above the great gate, and Jane
+took a very little courage as she remembered that sunset _couldn't_ be
+far off now.
+
+"The moat is dreadfully thin," said Anthea.
+
+"But they can't get into the castle even if they do swim over," said
+Robert. And as he spoke he heard feet on the stair outside--heavy feet
+and the clang of steel. No one breathed for a moment. The steel and the
+feet went on up the turret stairs. Then Robert sprang softly to the
+door. He pulled off his shoes.
+
+"Wait here," he whispered, and stole quickly and softly after the boots
+and the spur-clank. He peeped into the upper room. The man was
+there--and it was Jakin, all dripping with moat-water, and he was
+fiddling about with the machinery which Robert felt sure worked the
+drawbridge. Robert banged the door suddenly, and turned the great key in
+the lock, just as Jakin sprang to the inside of the door. Then he tore
+downstairs and into the little turret at the foot of the tower where the
+biggest window was.
+
+"We ought to have defended _this_!" he cried to the others as they
+followed him. He was just in time. Another man had swum over, and his
+fingers were on the window-ledge. Robert never knew how the man had
+managed to climb up out of the water. But he saw the clinging fingers,
+and hit them as hard as he could with an iron bar that he caught up from
+the floor. The man fell with a splash into the moat-water. In another
+moment Robert was outside the little room, had banged its door and was
+shooting home the enormous bolts, and calling to Cyril to lend a hand.
+
+[Illustration: The man fell with a splash into the moat-water]
+
+Then they stood in the arched gate-house, breathing hard and looking at
+each other.
+
+Jane's mouth was open.
+
+"Cheer up, Jenny," said Robert,--"it won't last much longer."
+
+There was a creaking above, and something rattled and shook. The
+pavement they stood on seemed to tremble. Then a crash told them that
+the drawbridge had been lowered to its place.
+
+"That's that beast Jakin," said Robert. "There's still the portcullis;
+I'm almost certain that's worked from lower down."
+
+And now the drawbridge rang and echoed hollowly to the hoofs of horses
+and the tramp of armed men.
+
+"Up--quick!" cried Robert,--"let's drop things on them."
+
+Even the girls were feeling almost brave now. They followed Robert
+quickly, and under his directions began to drop stones out through the
+long narrow windows. There was a confused noise below, and some groans.
+
+"Oh dear!" said Anthea, putting down the stone she was just going to
+drop out, "I'm afraid we've hurt somebody!"
+
+Robert caught up the stone in a fury.
+
+"I should hope we _had_!" he said; "I'd give something for a jolly good
+boiling kettle of lead. Surrender, indeed!"
+
+And now came more tramping and a pause, and then the thundering thump of
+the battering-ram. And the little room was almost pitch dark.
+
+"We've held it," cried Robert, "we _won't_ surrender! The sun _must_ set
+in a minute. Here--they're all jawing underneath again. Pity there's no
+time to get more stones! Here, pour that water down on them. It's no
+good, of course, but they'll hate it."
+
+"Oh dear!" said Jane, "don't you think we'd better surrender?"
+
+"Never!" said Robert; "we'll have a parley if you like, but we'll never
+surrender. Oh, I'll be a soldier when I grow up--you just see if I
+don't. I won't go into the Civil Service, whatever anyone says."
+
+"Let's wave a handkerchief and ask for a parley," Jane pleaded. "I don't
+believe the sun's going to set to-night at all."
+
+"Give them the water first--the brutes!" said the bloodthirsty Robert.
+So Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole, and poured. They
+heard a splash below, but no one below seemed to have felt it. And again
+the ram battered the great door. Anthea paused.
+
+[Illustration: Anthea tilted the pot over the nearest lead-hole]
+
+"How idiotic," said Robert, lying flat on the floor and putting one eye
+to the lead-hole. "Of course the holes go straight down into the
+gate-house--that's for when the enemy has got past the door and the
+portcullis, and almost all is lost. Here, hand me the pot." He crawled
+on to the three-cornered window-ledge in the middle of the wall, and,
+taking the pot from Anthea, poured the water out through the arrow-slit.
+
+And as he began to pour, the noise of the battering-ram and the
+trampling of the foe and the shouts of "Surrender!" and "De Talbot for
+ever!" all suddenly stopped and went out like the snuff of a candle; the
+little dark room seemed to whirl round and turn topsy-turvy, and when
+the children came to themselves there they were, safe and sound, in the
+big front bedroom of their own house--the house with the ornamental
+nightmare iron-top to the roof.
+
+They all crowded to the window and looked out. The moat and the tents
+and the besieging force were all gone--and there was the garden with its
+tangle of dahlias and marigolds and asters and later roses, and the
+spiky iron railings and the quiet white road.
+
+Everyone drew a deep breath.
+
+"And that's all right!" said Robert. "I told you so! And, I say, we
+didn't surrender, did we?"
+
+"Aren't you glad now I wished for a castle?" asked Cyril.
+
+"I think I am _now_," said Anthea slowly. "But I wouldn't wish for it
+again, I think, Squirrel dear!"
+
+"Oh, it was simply splendid!" said Jane unexpectedly. "I wasn't
+frightened a bit."
+
+"Oh, I say!" Cyril was beginning, but Anthea stopped him.
+
+"Look here," she said, "it's just come into my head. This is the very
+first thing we've wished for that hasn't got us into a row. And there
+hasn't been the least little scrap of a row about this. Nobody's raging
+downstairs, we're safe and sound, we've had an awfully jolly day--at
+least, not jolly exactly, but you know what I mean. And we know now how
+brave Robert is--and Cyril too, of course," she added hastily, "and
+Jane as well. And we haven't got into a row with a single grown-up."
+
+The door was opened suddenly and fiercely.
+
+"You ought to be ashamed of yourselves," said the voice of Martha, and
+they could tell by her voice that she was very angry indeed. "I thought
+you couldn't last through the day without getting up to some mischief! A
+person can't take a breath of air on the front doorstep but you must be
+emptying the water jug on their heads! Off you go to bed, the lot of
+you, and try to get up better children in the morning. Now then--don't
+let me have to tell you twice. If I find any of you not in bed in ten
+minutes I'll let you know it, that's all! A new cap, and everything!"
+
+She flounced out amid a disregarded chorus of regrets and apologies. The
+children were very sorry, but really it was not their faults.
+
+You can't help it if you are pouring water on a besieging foe, and your
+castle suddenly changes into your house--and everything changes with it
+except the water, and that happens to fall on somebody else's clean cap.
+
+"I don't know why the water didn't change into nothing, though," said
+Cyril.
+
+"Why should it?" asked Robert. "Water's water all the world over."
+
+"I expect the castle well was the same as ours in the stable-yard," said
+Jane. And that was really the case.
+
+"I thought we couldn't get through a wish-day without a row," said
+Cyril; "it was much too good to be true. Come on, Bobs, my military
+hero. If we lick into bed sharp she won't be so furious, and perhaps
+she'll bring us up some supper. I'm jolly hungry! Good-night, kids."
+
+"Good-night. I hope the castle won't come creeping back in the night,"
+said Jane.
+
+"Of course it won't," said Anthea briskly, "but Martha will--not in the
+night, but in a minute. Here, turn round, I'll get that knot out of your
+pinafore strings."
+
+"Wouldn't it have been degrading for Sir Wulfric de Talbot," said Jane
+dreamily, "if he could have known that half the besieged garrison wore
+pinafores?"
+
+"And the other half knickerbockers. Yes--frightfully. Do stand
+still--you're only tightening the knot," said Anthea.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+BIGGER THAN THE BAKER'S BOY
+
+
+"Look here," said Cyril. "I've got an idea."
+
+"Does it hurt much?" said Robert sympathetically.
+
+"Don't be a jackanape! I'm not humbugging."
+
+"Shut up, Bobs!" said Anthea.
+
+"Silence for the Squirrel's oration," said Robert.
+
+Cyril balanced himself on the edge of the water-butt in the backyard,
+where they all happened to be, and spoke.
+
+"Friends, Romans, countrymen--and women--we found a Sammyadd. We have
+had wishes. We've had wings, and being beautiful as the day--ugh!--that
+was pretty jolly beastly if you like--and wealth and castles, and that
+rotten gipsy business with the Lamb. But we're no forrarder. We haven't
+really got anything worth having for our wishes."
+
+"We've had things happening," said Robert; "that's always something."
+
+"It's not enough, unless they're the right things," said Cyril firmly.
+"Now I've been thinking"--
+
+"Not really?" whispered Robert.
+
+"In the silent what's-its-names of the night. It's like suddenly being
+asked something out of history--the date of the Conquest or something;
+you know it all right all the time, but when you're asked it all goes
+out of your head. Ladies and gentlemen, you know jolly well that when
+we're all rotting about in the usual way heaps of things keep cropping
+up, and then real earnest wishes come into the heads of the beholder"--
+
+"Hear, hear!" said Robert.
+
+"--of the beholder, however, stupid he is," Cyril went on. "Why, even
+Robert might happen to think of a really useful wish if he didn't injure
+his poor little brains trying so hard to think.--Shut up, Bobs, I tell
+you!--You'll have the whole show over."
+
+A struggle on the edge of a water-butt is exciting but damp. When it was
+over, and the boys were partially dried, Anthea said--
+
+"It really was you began it, Bobs. Now honour is satisfied, do let
+Squirrel go on. We're wasting the whole morning."
+
+"Well then," said Cyril, still wringing the water out of the tails of
+his jacket, "I'll call it pax if Bobs will."
+
+"Pax then," said Robert sulkily. "But I've got a lump as big as a
+cricket ball over my eye."
+
+Anthea patiently offered a dust-coloured handkerchief, and Robert bathed
+his wounds in silence. "Now, Squirrel," she said.
+
+"Well then--let's just play bandits, or forts, or soldiers, or any of
+the old games. We're dead sure to think of something if we try not to.
+You always do."
+
+The others consented. Bandits was hastily chosen for the game. "It's as
+good as anything else," said Jane gloomily. It must be owned that
+Robert was at first but a half-hearted bandit, but when Anthea had
+borrowed from Martha the red-spotted handkerchief in which the keeper
+had brought her mushrooms that morning, and had tied up Robert's head
+with it so that he could be the wounded hero who had saved the bandit
+captain's life the day before, he cheered up wonderfully. All were soon
+armed. Bows and arrows slung on the back look well; and umbrellas and
+cricket stumps through the belt give a fine impression of the wearer's
+being armed to the teeth. The white cotton hats that men wear in the
+country nowadays have a very brigandish effect when a few turkey's
+feathers are stuck in them. The Lamb's mail-cart was covered with a
+red-and-blue checked table-cloth, and made an admirable baggage-wagon.
+The Lamb asleep inside it was not at all in the way. So the banditti set
+out along the road that led to the sand-pit.
+
+"We ought to be near the Sammyadd," said Cyril, "in case we think of
+anything suddenly."
+
+It is all very well to make up your minds to play bandit--or chess, or
+ping-pong, or any other agreeable game--but it is not easy to do it with
+spirit when all the wonderful wishes you can think of, or can't think
+of, are waiting for you round the corner. The game was dragging a
+little, and some of the bandits were beginning to feel that the others
+were disagreeable things, and were saying so candidly, when the baker's
+boy came along the road with loaves in a basket. The opportunity was not
+one to be lost.
+
+"Stand and deliver!" cried Cyril.
+
+"Your money or your life!" said Robert.
+
+And they stood on each side of the baker's boy. Unfortunately, he did
+not seem to enter into the spirit of the thing at all. He was a baker's
+boy of an unusually large size. He merely said--
+
+"Chuck it now, d'ye hear!" and pushed the bandits aside most
+disrespectfully.
+
+Then Robert lassoed him with Jane's skipping-rope, and instead of going
+round his shoulders, as Robert intended, it went round his feet and
+tripped him up. The basket was upset, the beautiful new loaves went
+bumping and bouncing all over the dusty chalky road. The girls ran to
+pick them up, and all in a moment Robert and the baker's boy were
+fighting it out, man to man, with Cyril to see fair play, and the
+skipping-rope twisting round their legs like an interesting snake that
+wished to be a peace-maker. It did not succeed; indeed the way the
+boxwood handles sprang up and hit the fighters on the shins and ankles
+was not at all peace-making. I know this is the second fight--or
+contest--in this chapter, but I can't help it. It was that sort of day.
+You know yourself there are days when rows seem to keep on happening,
+quite without your meaning them to. If I were a writer of tales of
+adventure such as those which used to appear in _The Boys of England_
+when I was young of course I should be able to describe the fight, but I
+cannot do it. I never can see what happens during a fight, even when it
+is only dogs. Also, if I had been one of these _Boys of England_
+writers, Robert would have got the best of it. But I am like George
+Washington--I cannot tell a lie, even about a cherry-tree, much less
+about a fight, and I cannot conceal from you that Robert was badly
+beaten, for the second time that day. The baker's boy blacked his other
+eye, and being ignorant of the first rules of fair play and gentlemanly
+behaviour, he also pulled Robert's hair, and kicked him on the knee.
+Robert always used to say he could have licked the baker if it hadn't
+been for the girls. But I am not sure. Anyway, what happened was this,
+and very painful it was to self-respecting boys.
+
+[Illustration: He pulled Robert's hair]
+
+Cyril was just tearing off his coat so as to help his brother in proper
+style, when Jane threw her arms round his legs and began to cry and ask
+him not to go and be beaten too. That "too" was very nice for Robert, as
+you can imagine--but it was nothing to what he felt when Anthea rushed
+in between him and the baker's boy, and caught that unfair and degraded
+fighter round the waist, imploring him not to fight any more.
+
+"Oh, don't hurt my brother any more!" she said in floods of tears. "He
+didn't mean it--it's only play. And I'm sure he's very sorry."
+
+You see how unfair this was to Robert. Because, if the baker's boy had
+had any right and chivalrous instincts, and had yielded to Anthea's
+pleading and accepted her despicable apology, Robert could not, in
+honour, have done anything to him at any future time. But Robert's
+fears, if he had any, were soon dispelled. Chivalry was a stranger to
+the breast of the baker's boy. He pushed Anthea away very roughly, and
+he chased Robert with kicks and unpleasant conversation right down the
+road to the sand-pit, and there, with one last kick, he landed him in a
+heap of sand.
+
+"I'll larn you, you young varmint!" he said, and went off to pick up his
+loaves and go about his business. Cyril, impeded by Jane, could do
+nothing without hurting her, for she clung round his legs with the
+strength of despair. The baker's boy went off red and damp about the
+face; abusive to the last, he called them a pack of silly idiots, and
+disappeared round the corner. Then Jane's grasp loosened. Cyril turned
+away in silent dignity to follow Robert, and the girls followed him,
+weeping without restraint.
+
+It was not a happy party that flung itself down in the sand beside the
+sobbing Robert. For Robert was sobbing--mostly with rage. Though of
+course I know that a really heroic boy is always dry-eyed after a fight.
+But then he always wins, which had not been the case with Robert.
+
+Cyril was angry with Jane; Robert was furious with Anthea; the girls
+were miserable; and not one of the four was pleased with the baker's
+boy. There was, as French writers say, "a silence full of emotion."
+
+Then Robert dug his toes and his hands into the sand and wriggled in his
+rage. "He'd better wait till I'm grown up--the cowardly brute! Beast!--I
+hate him! But I'll pay him out. Just because he's bigger than me."
+
+"You began," said Jane incautiously.
+
+"I know I did, silly--but I was only jollying--and he kicked me--look
+here"--
+
+Robert tore down a stocking and showed a purple bruise touched up with
+red.
+
+"I only wish I was bigger than him, that's all."
+
+He dug his fingers in the sand, and sprang up, for his hand had touched
+something furry. It was the Psammead, of course--"On the look-out to
+make sillies of them as usual," as Cyril remarked later. And of course
+the next moment Robert's wish was granted, and he was bigger than the
+baker's boy. Oh, but much, much bigger! He was bigger than the big
+policeman who used to be at the crossing at the Mansion House years
+ago,--the one who was so kind in helping old ladies over the
+crossing,--and he was the biggest man _I_ have ever seen, as well as the
+kindest. No one had a foot-rule in its pocket, so Robert could not be
+measured--but he was taller than your father would be if he stood on
+your mother's head, which I am sure he would never be unkind enough to
+do. He must have been ten or eleven feet high, and as broad as a boy of
+that height ought to be. His suit had fortunately grown too, and now he
+stood up in it--with one of his enormous stockings turned down to show
+the gigantic bruise on his vast leg. Immense tears of fury still stood
+on his flushed giant face. He looked so surprised, and he was so large
+to be wearing a turned down collar outside of his jacket that the others
+could not help laughing.
+
+"The Sammyadd's done us again," said Cyril.
+
+[Illustration: "The Sammyadd's done us again," said Cyril]
+
+"Not us--_me_," said Robert. "If you'd got any decent feeling you'd try
+to make it make you the same size. You've no idea how silly it feels,"
+he added thoughtlessly.
+
+"And I don't want to; I can jolly well see how silly it looks," Cyril
+was beginning; but Anthea said--
+
+"Oh, _don't_! I don't know what's the matter with you boys to-day. Look
+here, Squirrel, let's play fair. It is hateful for poor old Bobs, all
+alone up there. Let's ask the Sammyadd for another wish, and, if it
+will, I do really think we ought all to be made the same size."
+
+The others agreed, but not gaily; but when they found the Psammead, it
+wouldn't.
+
+"Not I," it said crossly, rubbing its face with its feet. "He's a rude
+violent boy, and it'll do him good to be the wrong size for a bit. What
+did he want to come digging me out with his nasty wet hands for? He
+nearly touched me! He's a perfect savage. A boy of the Stone Age would
+have had more sense."
+
+Robert's hands had indeed been wet--with tears.
+
+"Go away and leave me in peace, do," the Psammead went on. "I can't
+think why you don't wish for something sensible--something to eat or
+drink, or good manners, or good tempers. Go along with you, do!"
+
+It almost snarled as it shook its whiskers, and turned a sulky brown
+back on them. The most hopeful felt that further parley was vain.
+
+They turned again to the colossal Robert.
+
+"What ever shall we do?" they said; and they all said it.
+
+"First," said Robert grimly, "I'm going to reason with that baker's boy.
+I shall catch him at the end of the road."
+
+"Don't hit a chap smaller than yourself, old man," said Cyril.
+
+"Do I look like hitting him?" said Robert scornfully. "Why, I should
+_kill_ him. But I'll give him something to remember. Wait till I pull up
+my stocking." He pulled up his stocking, which was as large as a small
+bolster-case, and strode off. His strides were six or seven feet long,
+so that it was quite easy for him to be at the bottom of the hill, ready
+to meet the baker's boy when he came down swinging the empty basket to
+meet his master's cart, which had been leaving bread at the cottages
+along the road.
+
+Robert crouched behind a haystack in the farmyard, that is at the
+corner, and when he heard the boy come whistling along he jumped out at
+him and caught him by the collar.
+
+"Now," he said, and his voice was about four times its usual size, just
+as his body was four times its, "I'm going to teach you to kick boys
+smaller than you."
+
+He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on the top of the haystack,
+which was about sixteen feet from the ground, and then he sat down on
+the roof of the barn and told the baker's boy exactly what he thought of
+him. I don't think the boy heard it all--he was in a sort of trance of
+terror. When Robert had said everything he could think of, and some
+things twice over, he shook the boy and said--
+
+[Illustration: He lifted up the baker's boy and set him on top of the
+haystack]
+
+"And now get down the best way you can," and left him.
+
+I don't know how the baker's boy got down, but I do know that he missed
+the cart and got into the very hottest of hot water when he turned up at
+last at the bakehouse. I am sorry for him, but after all, it was quite
+right that he should be taught that boys mustn't use their feet when
+they fight, but their fists. Of course the water he got into only became
+hotter when he tried to tell his master about the boy he had licked
+and the giant as high as a church, because no one could possibly believe
+such a tale as that. Next day the tale was believed--but that was too
+late to be of any use to the baker's boy.
+
+When Robert rejoined the others he found them in the garden. Anthea had
+thoughtfully asked Martha to let them have dinner out there--because the
+dining-room was rather small, and it would have been so awkward to have
+a brother the size of Robert in there. The Lamb, who had slept
+peacefully during the whole stormy morning, was now found to be
+sneezing, and Martha said he had a cold and would be better indoors.
+
+"And really it's just as well," said Cyril, "for I don't believe he'd
+ever have stopped screaming if he'd once seen you, the awful size you
+are!"
+
+Robert was indeed what a draper would call an "out-size" in boys. He
+found himself able to step right over the iron gate in the front
+garden.
+
+Martha brought out the dinner--it was cold veal and baked potatoes, with
+sago pudding and stewed plums to follow.
+
+She of course did not notice that Robert was anything but the usual
+size, and she gave him as much meat and potatoes as usual and no more.
+You have no idea how small your usual helping of dinner looks when you
+are many times your proper size. Robert groaned, and asked for more
+bread. But Martha would not go on giving more bread for ever. She was in
+a hurry, because the keeper intended to call on his way to Benenhurst
+Fair, and she wished to be smartly dressed before he came.
+
+"I wish _we_ were going to the Fair," said Robert.
+
+"You can't go anywhere that size," said Cyril.
+
+"Why not?" said Robert. "They have giants at fairs, much bigger ones
+than me."
+
+"Not much, they don't," Cyril was beginning, when Jane screamed "Oh!"
+with such loud suddenness that they all thumped her on the back and
+asked whether she had swallowed a plum-stone.
+
+"No," she said, breathless from being thumped, "it's--it's not a
+plum-stone. It's an idea. Let's take Robert to the Fair, and get them to
+give us money for showing him! Then we really _shall_ get something out
+of the old Sammyadd at last!"
+
+"Take me, indeed!" said Robert indignantly. "Much more likely me take
+you!"
+
+And so it turned out. The idea appealed irresistibly to everyone but
+Robert, and even he was brought round by Anthea's suggestion that he
+should have a double share of any money they might make. There was a
+little old pony-cart in the coach-house--the kind that is called a
+governess-cart. It seemed desirable to get to the Fair as quickly as
+possible, so Robert--who could now take enormous steps and so go very
+fast indeed--consented to wheel the others in this. It was as easy to
+him now as wheeling the Lamb in the mail-cart had been in the morning.
+The Lamb's cold prevented his being of the party.
+
+It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a pony-carriage by a giant.
+Everyone enjoyed the journey except Robert and the few people they
+passed on the way. These mostly went into what looked like some kind of
+standing-up fits by the roadside, as Anthea said. Just outside
+Benenhurst, Robert hid in a barn, and the others went on to the Fair.
+
+[Illustration: It was a strange sensation being wheeled in a
+pony-carriage by a giant]
+
+There were some swings, and a hooting-tooting blaring merry-go-round,
+and a shooting-gallery and Aunt Sallies. Resisting an impulse to win a
+cocoanut,--or at least to attempt the enterprise,--Cyril went up to the
+woman who was loading little guns before the array of glass bottles on
+strings against a sheet of canvas.
+
+"Here you are, little gentleman!" she said. "Penny a shot!"
+
+"No, thank you," said Cyril, "we are here on business, not on pleasure.
+Who's the master?"
+
+"The what?"
+
+"The master--the head--the boss of the show."
+
+"Over there," she said, pointing to a stout man in a dirty linen jacket
+who was sleeping in the sun; "but I don't advise you to wake him sudden.
+His temper's contrairy, especially these hot days. Better have a shot
+while you're waiting."
+
+"It's rather important," said Cyril. "It'll be very profitable to him. I
+think he'll be sorry if we take it away."
+
+"Oh, if it's money in his pocket," said the woman. "No kid now? What is
+it?"
+
+"It's a _giant_."
+
+"You _are_ kidding?"
+
+"Come along and see," said Anthea.
+
+The woman looked doubtfully at them, then she called to a ragged little
+girl in striped stockings and a dingy white petticoat that came below
+her brown frock, and leaving her in charge of the "shooting-gallery" she
+turned to Anthea and said, "Well, hurry up! But if you _are_ kidding,
+you'd best say so. I'm as mild as milk myself, but my Bill he's a fair
+terror and"--
+
+Anthea led the way to the barn. "It really _is_ a giant," she said.
+"He's a giant little boy--in a suit like my brother's there. And we
+didn't bring him up to the Fair because people do stare so, and they
+seem to go into kind of standing-up fits when they see him. And we
+thought perhaps you'd like to show him and get pennies; and if you like
+to pay us something, you can--only, it'll have to be rather a lot,
+because we promised him he should have a double share of whatever we
+made."
+
+The woman murmured something indistinct, of which the children could
+only hear the words, "Swelp me!" "balmy," and "crumpet," which conveyed
+no definite idea to their minds.
+
+She had taken Anthea's hand, and was holding it very firmly; and Anthea
+could not help wondering what would happen if Robert should have
+wandered off or turned his proper size during the interval. But she knew
+that the Psammead's gifts really did last till sunset, however
+inconvenient their lasting might be; and she did not think, somehow,
+that Robert would care to go out alone while he was that size.
+
+When they reached the barn and Cyril called "Robert!" there was a stir
+among the loose hay, and Robert began to come out. His hand and arm came
+first--then a foot and leg. When the woman saw the hand she said "My!"
+but when she saw the foot she said "Upon my word!" and when, by slow and
+heavy degrees, the whole of Robert's enormous bulk was at last
+disclosed, she drew a long breath and began to say many things, compared
+with which "balmy" and "crumpet" seemed quite ordinary. She dropped into
+understandable English at last.
+
+"What'll you take for him?" she said excitedly. "Anything in reason.
+We'd have a special van built--leastways, I know where there's a
+second-hand one would do up handsome--what a baby elephant had, as died.
+What'll you take? He's soft, ain't he? Them giants mostly is--but I
+never see--no, never! What'll you take? Down on the nail. We'll treat
+him like a king, and give him first-rate grub and a doss fit for a
+bloomin' dook. He must be dotty or he wouldn't need you kids to cart him
+about. What'll you take for him?"
+
+"They won't take anything," said Robert sternly. "I'm no more soft than
+you are--not so much, I shouldn't wonder. I'll come and be a show for
+to-day if you'll give me,"--he hesitated at the enormous price he was
+about to ask,--"if you'll give me fifteen shillings."
+
+"Done," said the woman, so quickly that Robert felt he had been unfair
+to himself, and wished he had asked thirty. "Come on now--and see my
+Bill--and we'll fix a price for the season. I dessay you might get as
+much as two pounds a week reg'lar. Come on--and make yourself as small
+as you can for gracious' sake!"
+
+This was not very small, and a crowd gathered quickly, so that it was at
+the head of an enthusiastic procession that Robert entered the trampled
+meadow where the Fair was held, and passed over the stubby yellow dusty
+grass to the door of the biggest tent. He crept in, and the woman went
+to call her Bill. He was the big sleeping man, and he did not seem at
+all pleased at being awakened. Cyril, watching through a slit in the
+tent, saw him scowl and shake a heavy fist and a sleepy head. Then the
+woman went on speaking very fast. Cyril heard "Strewth," and "biggest
+draw you ever, so help me!" and he began to share Robert's feeling that
+fifteen shillings was indeed far too little. Bill slouched up to the
+tent and entered. When he beheld the magnificent proportions of Robert
+he said but little,--"Strike me pink!" were the only words the children
+could afterwards remember,--but he produced fifteen shillings, mainly in
+sixpences and coppers, and handed it to Robert.
+
+"We'll fix up about what you're to draw when the show's over to-night,"
+he said with hoarse heartiness. "Lor' love a duck! you'll be that happy
+with us you'll never want to leave us. Can you do a song now--or a bit
+of a breakdown?"
+
+"Not to-day," said Robert, rejecting the idea of trying to sing "As once
+in May," a favourite of his mother's, and the only song he could think
+of at the moment.
+
+"Get Levi and clear them bloomin' photos out. Clear the tent. Stick out
+a curtain or suthink," the man went on. "Lor', what a pity we ain't got
+no tights his size! But we'll have 'em before the week's out. Young man,
+your fortune's made. It's a good thing you came to me, and not to some
+chaps as I could tell you on. I've known blokes as beat their giants,
+and starved 'em too; so I'll tell you straight, you're in luck this day
+if you never was afore. 'Cos I'm a lamb, I am--and I don't deceive you."
+
+"I'm not afraid of anyone beating me," said Robert, looking down on the
+"lamb." Robert was crouched on his knees, because the tent was not big
+enough for him to stand upright in, but even in that position he could
+still look down on most people. "But I'm awfully hungry--I wish you'd
+get me something to eat."
+
+"Here, 'Becca," said the hoarse Bill. "Get him some grub--the best
+you've got, mind!" Another whisper followed, of which the children only
+heard, "Down in black and white--first thing to-morrow."
+
+Then the woman went to get the food--it was only bread and cheese when
+it came, but it was delightful to the large and empty Robert; and the
+man went to post sentinels round the tent, to give the alarm if Robert
+should attempt to escape with his fifteen shillings.
+
+"As if we weren't honest," said Anthea indignantly when the meaning of
+the sentinels dawned on her.
+
+Then began a very strange and wonderful afternoon.
+
+Bill was a man who knew his business. In a very little while, the
+photographic views, the spyglasses you look at them through so that they
+really seem rather real, and the lights you see them by, were all packed
+away. A curtain--it was an old red-and-black carpet really--was run
+across the tent. Robert was concealed behind, and Bill was standing on a
+trestle-table outside the tent making a speech. It was rather a good
+speech. It began by saying that the giant it was his privilege to
+introduce to the public that day was the eldest son of the Emperor of
+San Francisco, compelled through an unfortunate love affair with the
+Duchess of the Fiji Islands to leave his own country and take refuge in
+England--the land of liberty--where freedom was the right of every man,
+no matter how big he was. It ended by the announcement that the first
+twenty who came to the tent door should see the giant for threepence
+apiece. "After that," said Bill, "the price is riz, and I don't
+undertake to say what it won't be riz to. So now's yer time."
+
+A young man with his sweetheart on her afternoon out was the first to
+come forward. For this occasion his was the princely attitude--no
+expense spared--money no object. His girl wished to see the giant? Well,
+she should see the giant, even though seeing the giant cost threepence
+each and the other entertainments were all penny ones.
+
+The flap of the tent was raised--the couple entered. Next moment a wild
+shriek from the girl thrilled through all present. Bill slapped his leg.
+"That's done the trick!" he whispered to 'Becca. It was indeed a
+splendid advertisement of the charms of Robert.
+
+When the young girl came out she was pale and trembling, and a crowd was
+round the tent.
+
+[Illustration: When the girl came out she was pale and trembling]
+
+"What was it like?" asked a farm-hand.
+
+"Oh!--horrid!--you wouldn't believe," she said. "It's as big as a barn,
+and that fierce. It froze the blood in my bones. I wouldn't ha' missed
+seeing it for anything."
+
+The fierceness was only caused by Robert's trying not to laugh. But the
+desire to do that soon left him, and before sunset he was more inclined
+to cry than laugh, and more inclined to sleep than either. For, by ones
+and twos and threes, people kept coming in all the afternoon, and Robert
+had to shake hands with those who wished it, and to allow himself to be
+punched and pulled and patted and thumped, so that people might make
+sure he was really real.
+
+The other children sat on a bench and watched and waited, and were very
+bored indeed. It seemed to them that this was the hardest way of earning
+money that could have been invented. And only fifteen shillings! Bill
+had taken four times that already, for the news of the giant had spread,
+and trades-people in carts, and gentlepeople in carriages, came from far
+and near. One gentleman with an eyeglass, and a very large yellow rose
+in his buttonhole, offered Robert, in an obliging whisper, ten pounds a
+week to appear at the Crystal Palace. Robert had to say "No."
+
+"I can't," he said regretfully. "It's no use promising what you can't
+do."
+
+"Ah, poor fellow, bound for a term of years, I suppose! Well, here's my
+card; when your time's up come to me."
+
+[Illustration: "When your time's up come to me"]
+
+"I will--if I'm the same size then," said Robert truthfully.
+
+"If you grow a bit, so much the better," said the gentleman.
+
+When he had gone, Robert beckoned Cyril and said--
+
+"Tell them I must and will have a rest. And I want my tea."
+
+Tea was provided, and a paper hastily pinned on the tent. It said--
+
+            CLOSED FOR HALF AN HOUR
+          WHILE THE GIANT GETS HIS TEA
+
+Then there was a hurried council.
+
+"How am I to get away?" said Robert.
+
+"I've been thinking about it all the afternoon."
+
+"Why, walk out when the sun sets and you're your right size. They can't
+do anything to us."
+
+Robert opened his eyes. "Why, they'd nearly kill us," he said, "when
+they saw me get my right size. No, we must think of some other way. We
+_must_ be alone when the sun sets."
+
+"I know," said Cyril briskly, and he went to the door, outside which
+Bill was smoking a clay pipe and talking in a low voice to 'Becca.
+Cyril heard him say--"Good as havin' a fortune left you."
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, "you can let people come in again in a minute.
+He's nearly finished tea. But he _must_ be left alone when the sun sets.
+He's very queer at that time of day, and if he's worried I won't answer
+for the consequences."
+
+"Why--what comes over him?" asked Bill.
+
+"I don't know; it's--it's sort of a _change_," said Cyril candidly. "He
+isn't at all like himself--you'd hardly know him. He's very queer
+indeed. Someone'll get hurt if he's not alone about sunset." This was
+true.
+
+"He'll pull round for the evening, I s'pose?"
+
+"Oh yes--half an hour after sunset he'll be quite himself again."
+
+"Best humour him," said the woman.
+
+And so, at what Cyril judged was about half an hour before sunset, the
+tent was again closed "whilst the giant gets his supper."
+
+The crowd was very merry about the giant's meals and their coming so
+close together.
+
+"Well, he can pick a bit," Bill owned. "You see he has to eat hearty,
+being the size he is."
+
+Inside the tent the four children breathlessly arranged a plan of
+retreat.
+
+"You go _now_," said Cyril to the girls, "and get along home as fast as
+you can. Oh, never mind the pony-cart; we'll get that to-morrow. Robert
+and I are dressed the same. We'll manage somehow, like Sydney Carton
+did. Only, you girls _must_ get out, or it's all no go. We can run, but
+you can't--whatever you may think. No, Jane, it's no good Robert going
+out and knocking people down. The police would follow him till he turned
+his proper size, and then arrest him like a shot. Go you must! If you
+don't, I'll never speak to you again. It was you got us into this mess
+really, hanging round people's legs the way you did this morning. _Go_,
+I tell you!"
+
+And Jane and Anthea went.
+
+"We're going home," they said to Bill. "We're leaving the giant with
+you. Be kind to him." And that, as Anthea said afterwards, was very
+deceitful, but what were they to do?
+
+When they had gone, Cyril went to Bill.
+
+"Look here," he said, "he wants some ears of corn--there's some in the
+next field but one. I'll just run and get it. Oh, and he says can't you
+loop up the tent at the back a bit? He says he's stifling for a breath
+of air. I'll see no one peeps in at him. I'll cover him up, and he can
+take a nap while I go for the corn. He _will_ have it--there's no
+holding him when he gets like this."
+
+The giant was made comfortable with a heap of sacks and an old
+tarpaulin. The curtain was looped up, and the brothers were left alone.
+They matured their plan in whispers. Outside, the merry-go-round blared
+out its comic tunes, screaming now and then to attract public notice.
+
+Half a minute after the sun had set, a boy came out past Bill.
+
+"I'm off for the corn," he said, and mingled quickly with the crowd.
+
+At the same instant a boy came out of the back of the tent past 'Becca,
+posted there as sentinel.
+
+"I'm off after the corn," said this boy also. And he, too, moved away
+quietly and was lost in the crowd. The front-door boy was Cyril; the
+back-door was Robert--now, since sunset, once more his proper size. They
+walked quickly through the field, along the road, where Robert caught
+Cyril up. Then they ran. They were home as soon as the girls were, for
+it was a long way, and they ran most of it. It was indeed a _very_ long
+way, as they found when they had to go and drag the pony-cart home next
+morning, with no enormous Robert to wheel them in it as if it were a
+mail-cart, and they were babies and he was their gigantic nursemaid.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+I cannot possibly tell you what Bill and 'Becca said when they found
+that the giant had gone. For one thing, I do not know.
+
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+GROWN UP
+
+
+Cyril had once pointed out that ordinary life is full of occasions on
+which a wish would be most useful. And this thought filled his mind when
+he happened to wake early on the morning after the morning after Robert
+had wished to be bigger than the baker's boy, and had been it. The day
+that lay between these two days had been occupied entirely by getting
+the governess-cart home from Benenhurst.
+
+Cyril dressed hastily; he did not take a bath, because tin baths are so
+noisy, and he had no wish to rouse Robert, and he slipped off alone, as
+Anthea had once done, and ran through the dewy morning to the sand-pit.
+He dug up the Psammead very carefully and kindly, and began the
+conversation by asking it whether it still felt any ill effects from
+the contact with the tears of Robert the day before yesterday. The
+Psammead was in good temper. It replied politely.
+
+"And now, what can I do for you?" it said. "I suppose you've come here
+so early to ask for something for yourself--something your brothers and
+sisters aren't to know about, eh? Now, do be persuaded for your own
+good! Ask for a good fat Megatherium and have done with it."
+
+"Thank you--not to-day, I think," said Cyril cautiously. "What I really
+wanted to say was--you know how you're always wishing for things when
+you're playing at anything?"
+
+"I seldom play," said the Psammead coldly.
+
+"Well, you know what I mean," Cyril went on impatiently. "What I want to
+say is: won't you let us have our wish just when we think of it, and
+just where we happen to be? So that we don't have to come and disturb
+you again," added the crafty Cyril.
+
+"It'll only end in your wishing for something you don't really want, as
+you did about the castle," said the Psammead, stretching its brown arms
+and yawning. "It's always the same since people left off eating really
+wholesome things. However, have it your own way. Good-bye."
+
+"Good-bye," said Cyril politely.
+
+"I'll tell you what," said the Psammead suddenly, shooting out its long
+snail's eyes,--"I'm getting tired of you--all of you. You have no more
+sense than so many oysters. Go along with you!"
+
+And Cyril went.
+
+"What an awful long time babies _stay_ babies," said Cyril after the
+Lamb had taken his watch out of his pocket while he wasn't noticing, and
+with coos and clucks of naughty rapture had opened the case and used the
+whole thing as a garden spade, and when even immersion in a wash basin
+had failed to wash the mould from the works and make the watch go again.
+Cyril had said several things in the heat of the moment; but now he was
+calmer, and had even consented to carry the Lamb part of the way to
+the woods. Cyril had persuaded the others to agree to his plan, and not
+to wish for anything more till they really did wish it. Meantime it
+seemed good to go to the woods for nuts, and on the mossy grass under a
+sweet chestnut tree the five were sitting. The Lamb was pulling up the
+moss by fat handfuls, and Cyril was gloomily contemplating the ruins of
+his watch.
+
+[Illustration: He opened the case and used the whole thing as a garden
+spade]
+
+"He does grow," said Anthea. "Doesn't 'oo, precious?"
+
+"Me grow," said the Lamb cheerfully--"me grow big boy, have guns' an'
+mouses--an'--an'"---- Imagination or vocabulary gave out here. But
+anyway it was the longest speech the Lamb had ever made, and it charmed
+everyone, even Cyril, who tumbled the Lamb over and rolled him in the
+moss to the music of delighted squeals.
+
+"I suppose he'll be grown up some day," Anthea was saying, dreamily
+looking up at the blue of the sky that showed between the long straight
+chestnut-leaves. But at that moment the Lamb, struggling gaily with
+Cyril, thrust a stout-shod little foot against his brother's chest;
+there was a crack!--the innocent Lamb had broken the glass of father's
+second-best Waterbury watch, which Cyril had borrowed without leave.
+
+"Grow up some day!" said Cyril bitterly, plumping the Lamb down on the
+grass. "I daresay he will--when nobody wants him to. I wish to goodness
+he would"--
+
+"_Oh_, take care!" cried Anthea in an agony of apprehension. But it was
+too late--like music to a song her words and Cyril's came out together--
+
+Anthea--"Oh, take care!"
+
+Cyril--"Grow up now!"
+
+The faithful Psammead was true to its promise, and there, before the
+horrified eyes of its brothers and sisters, the Lamb suddenly and
+violently grew up. It was the most terrible moment. The change was not
+so sudden as the wish-changes usually were. The Baby's face changed
+first. It grew thinner and larger, lines came in the forehead, the eyes
+grew more deep-set and darker in colour, the mouth grew longer and
+thinner; most terrible of all, a little dark mustache appeared on the
+lip of one who was still--except as to the face--a two-year-old baby in
+a linen smock and white open-work socks.
+
+"Oh, I wish it wouldn't! Oh, I wish it wouldn't! You boys might wish as
+well!"
+
+They all wished hard, for the sight was enough to dismay the most
+heartless. They all wished so hard, indeed, that they felt quite giddy
+and almost lost consciousness; but the wishing was quite vain, for, when
+the wood ceased to whirl round, their dazed eyes were riveted at once by
+the spectacle of a very proper-looking young man in flannels and a straw
+hat--a young man who wore the same little black mustache which just
+before they had actually seen growing upon the Baby's lip. This, then,
+was the Lamb--grown up! Their own Lamb! It was a terrible moment. The
+grown-up Lamb moved gracefully across the moss and settled himself
+against the trunk of the sweet chestnut. He tilted the straw hat over
+his eyes. He was evidently weary. He was going to sleep. The Lamb--the
+original little tiresome beloved Lamb often went to sleep at odd times
+and in unexpected places. Was this new Lamb in the grey flannel suit and
+the pale green necktie like the other Lamb? or had his mind grown up
+together with his body?
+
+That was the question which the others, in a hurried council held among
+the yellowing brake-fern a few yards from the sleeper, debated eagerly.
+
+"Whichever it is, it'll be just as awful," said Anthea. "If his inside
+senses are grown up too, he won't stand our looking after him; and if
+he's still a baby inside of him how on earth are we to get him to do
+anything? And it'll be getting on for dinner-time in a minute."
+
+"And we haven't got any nuts," said Jane.
+
+"Oh bother nuts!" said Robert, "but dinner's different--I didn't have
+half enough dinner yesterday. Couldn't we tie him to the tree and go
+home to our dinner and come back afterwards?"
+
+"A fat lot of dinner we should get if we went back without the Lamb!"
+said Cyril in scornful misery. "And it'll be just the same if we go back
+with him in the state he is now. Yes, I know it's my doing; don't rub it
+in! I know I'm a beast, and not fit to live; you can take that for
+settled, and say no more about it. The question is, what are we going to
+do?"
+
+"Let's wake him up, and take him into Rochester or Maidstone and get
+something to eat at a baker's shop," said Robert hopefully.
+
+"Take him?" repeated Cyril. "Yes--do! It's all my fault--I don't deny
+that--but you'll find you've got your work cut out for you if you try to
+take that young man anywhere. The Lamb always was spoilt, but now he's
+grown up he's a demon--simply. I can see it. Look at his mouth."
+
+"Well then," said Robert, "let's wake him up and see what _he'll_ do.
+Perhaps _he'll_ take _us_ to Maidstone and stand treat. He ought to have
+a lot of money in the pockets of those extra-special pants. We _must_
+have dinner, anyway."
+
+They drew lots with little bits of brake fern. It fell to Jane's lot to
+waken the grown-up Lamb.
+
+She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of honeysuckle. He
+said "Bother the flies!" twice, and then opened his eyes.
+
+[Illustration: She did it gently by tickling his nose with a twig of
+honeysuckle]
+
+"Hullo, kiddies!" he said in a languid tone, "still here? What's the
+giddy hour? You'll be late for your grub!"
+
+"I know we shall," said Robert bitterly.
+
+"Then cut along home," said the grown-up Lamb.
+
+"What about your grub, though?" asked Jane.
+
+"Oh, how far is it to the station, do you think? I've a sort of a notion
+that I'll run up to town and have some lunch at the club."
+
+Blank misery fell like a pall on the four others. The
+Lamb--alone--unattended--would go to town and have lunch at a club!
+Perhaps he would also have tea there. Perhaps sunset would come upon him
+amid the dazzling luxury of club-land, and a helpless cross sleepy
+baby would find itself alone amid unsympathetic waiters, and would wail
+miserably for "Panty" from the depths of a club arm-chair! The picture
+moved Anthea almost to tears.
+
+"Oh no, Lamb ducky, you mustn't do that!" she cried incautiously.
+
+The grown-up Lamb frowned. "My dear Anthea," he said, "how often am I to
+tell you that my name is Hilary or St. Maur or Devereux?--any of my
+baptismal names are free to my little brothers and sisters, but _not_
+'Lamb'--a relic of foolishness and far-off childhood."
+
+This was awful. He was their elder brother now, was he? Well of course
+he was, if he was grown-up--since they weren't. Thus, in whispers,
+Anthea and Robert.
+
+But the almost daily adventures resulting from the Psammead's wishes
+were making the children wise beyond their years.
+
+"Dear Hilary," said Anthea, and the others choked at the name, "you know
+father didn't wish you to go to London. He wouldn't like us to be left
+alone without you to take care of us. Oh, deceitful thing that I am!"
+she added to herself.
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, "if you're our elder brother, why not behave as
+sich and take us over to Maidstone and give us a jolly good blow-out,
+and we'll go on the river afterwards?"
+
+"I'm infinitely obliged to you," said the Lamb courteously, "but I
+should prefer solitude. Go home to your lunch--I mean your dinner.
+Perhaps I may look in about tea-time--or I may not be home till after
+you are in your beds."
+
+Their beds! Speaking glances flashed between the wretched four. Much bed
+there would be for them if they went home without the Lamb.
+
+"We promised mother not to lose sight of you if we took you out," Jane
+said before the others could stop her.
+
+"Look here, Jane," said the grown-up Lamb, putting his hands in his
+pockets and looking down at her, "little girls should be seen and not
+heard. You kids must learn not to make yourselves a nuisance. Run along
+home now--and perhaps, if you're good, I'll give you each a penny
+to-morrow."
+
+"Look here," said Cyril, in the best "man to man" tone at his command,
+"where are you going, old man? You might let Bobs and me come with
+you--even if you don't want the girls."
+
+This was really rather noble of Cyril, for he never did care much about
+being seen in public with the Lamb, who of course after sunset would be
+a baby again.
+
+The "man to man" tone succeeded.
+
+"I shall run over to Maidstone on my bike," said the new Lamb airily,
+fingering the little black mustache. "I can lunch at The Crown--and
+perhaps I'll have a pull on the river; but I can't take you all on the
+machine--now, can I? Run along home, like good children."
+
+The position was desperate. Robert exchanged a despairing look with
+Cyril. Anthea detached a pin from her waistband, a pin whose withdrawal
+left a gaping chasm between skirt and bodice, and handed it furtively to
+Robert--with a grimace of the darkest and deepest meaning. Robert
+slipped away to the road. There, sure enough, stood a bicycle--a
+beautiful new one. Of course Robert understood at once that if the Lamb
+was grown up he _must_ have a bicycle.
+
+[Illustration: There, sure enough, stood a bicycle]
+
+This had always been one of Robert's own reasons for wishing to be
+grown-up. He hastily began to use the pin--eleven punctures in the back
+tyre, seven in the front. He would have made the total twenty-two but
+for the rustling of the yellow hazel-leaves, which warned him of the
+approach of the others. He hastily leaned a hand on each wheel, and was
+rewarded by the "whish" of the what was left of air escaping from
+eighteen neat pin-holes.
+
+"Your bike's run down," said Robert, wondering how he could so soon have
+learned to deceive.
+
+"So it is," said Cyril.
+
+"It's a puncture," said Anthea, stooping down, and standing up again
+with a thorn which she had got ready for the purpose.
+
+"Look here."
+
+The grown-up Lamb (or Hilary, as I suppose one must now call him) fixed
+his pump and blew up the tyre. The punctured state of it was soon
+evident.
+
+[Illustration: The punctured state of it was soon evident]
+
+"I suppose there's a cottage somewhere near--where one could get a pail
+of water?" said the Lamb.
+
+There was; and when the number of punctures had been made manifest, it
+was felt to be a special blessing that the cottage provided "teas for
+cyclists." It provided an odd sort of tea-and-hammy meal for the Lamb
+and his brothers. This was paid for out of the fifteen shillings which
+had been earned by Robert when he was a giant--for the Lamb, it
+appeared, had unfortunately no money about him. This was a great
+disappointment for the others; but it is a thing that will happen, even
+to the most grown-up of us. However, Robert had enough to eat, and that
+was something. Quietly but persistently the miserable four took it in
+turns to try and persuade the Lamb (or St. Maur) to spend the rest of
+the day in the woods. There was not very much of the day left by the
+time he had mended the eighteenth puncture. He looked up from the
+completed work with a sigh of relief, and suddenly put his tie straight.
+
+"There's a lady coming," he said briskly,--"for goodness' sake, get out
+of the way. Go home--hide--vanish somehow! I can't be seen with a pack
+of dirty kids." His brothers and sisters were indeed rather dirty,
+because, earlier in the day, the Lamb, in his infant state, had
+sprinkled a good deal of garden soil over them. The grown-up Lamb's
+voice was so tyrant-like, as Jane said afterwards, that they actually
+retreated to the back garden, and left him with his little mustache and
+his flannel suit to meet alone the young lady, who now came up the front
+garden wheeling a bicycle.
+
+The woman of the house came out, and the young lady spoke to her,--the
+Lamb raised his hat as she passed him,--and the children could not hear
+what she said, though they were craning round the corner and listening
+with all their ears. They felt it to be "perfectly fair," as Robert
+said, "with that wretched Lamb in that condition."
+
+When the Lamb spoke, in a languid voice heavy with politeness, they
+heard well enough.
+
+"A puncture?" he was saying. "Can I not be of any assistance? If you
+could allow me----?"
+
+There was a stifled explosion of laughter and the grown-up Lamb
+(otherwise Devereux) turned the tail of an angry eye in its direction.
+
+"You're very kind," said the lady, looking at the Lamb. She looked
+rather shy, but, as the boys put it, there didn't seem to be any
+nonsense about her.
+
+"But oh," whispered Cyril, "I should have thought he'd had enough
+bicycle-mending for one day--and if she only knew that really and truly
+he's only a whiny-piny, silly little baby!"
+
+"He's _not_," Anthea murmured angrily. "He's a dear--if people only let
+him alone. It's our own precious Lamb still, whatever silly idiots may
+turn him into--isn't he, Pussy?"
+
+Jane doubtfully supposed so.
+
+Now, the Lamb--whom I must try to remember to call St. Maur--was
+examining the lady's bicycle and talking to her with a very grown-up
+manner indeed. No one could possibly have supposed, to see and hear him,
+that only that very morning he had been a chubby child of two years
+breaking other people's Waterbury watches. Devereux (as he ought to be
+called for the future) took out a gold watch when he had mended the
+lady's bicycle, and all the hidden onlookers said "Oh!"--because it
+seemed so unfair that the Baby, who had only that morning destroyed two
+cheap but honest watches, should now, in the grown-upness to which
+Cyril's folly had raised him, have a real gold watch--with a chain and
+seals!
+
+Hilary (as I will now term him) withered his brothers and sisters with a
+glance, and then said to the lady--with whom he seemed to be quite
+friendly--
+
+"If you will allow me, I will ride with you as far as the Cross Roads;
+it is getting late, and there are tramps about."
+
+No one will ever know what answer the young lady intended to give to
+this gallant offer, for, directly Anthea heard it made, she rushed out,
+knocking against a swill pail, which overflowed in a turbid stream, and
+caught the Lamb (I suppose I ought to say Hilary) by the arm. The others
+followed, and in an instant the four dirty children were visible beyond
+disguise.
+
+"Don't let him," said Anthea to the lady, and she spoke with intense
+earnestness; "he's not fit to go with anyone!"
+
+"Go away, little girl!" said St. Maur (as we will now call him) in a
+terrible voice.
+
+"Go home at once!"
+
+"You'd much better not have anything to do with him," the now reckless
+Anthea went on. "He doesn't know who he is. He's something very
+different from what you think he is."
+
+"What do you mean?" asked the lady, not unnaturally, while Devereux (as
+I must term the grown-up Lamb) tried vainly to push Anthea away. The
+others backed her up, and she stood solid as a rock.
+
+"You just let him go with you," said Anthea, "you'll soon see what I
+mean! How would you like to suddenly see a poor little helpless baby
+spinning along downhill beside you with its feet up on a bicycle it had
+lost control of?"
+
+The lady had turned rather pale.
+
+"Who are these very dirty children?" she asked the grown-up Lamb
+(sometimes called St. Maur in these pages).
+
+"I don't know," he lied miserably.
+
+"Oh, Lamb! how _can_ you?" cried Jane,--"when you know perfectly well
+you're our own little baby brother that we're so fond of. We're his big
+brothers and sisters," she explained, turning to the lady, who with
+trembling hands was now turning her bicycle towards the gate, "and we've
+got to take care of him. And we must get him home before sunset, or I
+don't know whatever will become of us. You see, he's sort of under a
+spell--enchanted--you know what I mean!"
+
+Again and again the Lamb (Devereux, I mean) had tried to stop Jane's
+eloquence, but Robert and Cyril held him, one by each leg, and no proper
+explanation was possible. The lady rode hastily away, and electrified
+her relatives at dinner by telling them of her escape from a family of
+dangerous lunatics. "The little girl's eyes were simply those of a
+maniac. I can't think how she came to be at large," she said.
+
+When her bicycle had whizzed away down the road, Cyril spoke gravely.
+
+"Hilary, old chap," he said, "you must have had a sunstroke or
+something. And the things you've been saying to that lady! Why, if we
+were to tell you the things you've said when you are yourself again,
+say to-morrow morning, you wouldn't ever understand them--let alone
+believe them! You trust to me, old chap, and come home now, and if
+you're not yourself in the morning we'll ask the milkman to ask the
+doctor to come."
+
+The poor grown-up Lamb (St. Maur was really one of his Christian names)
+seemed now too bewildered to resist.
+
+"Since you seem all to be as mad as the whole worshipful company of
+hatters," he said bitterly, "I suppose I _had_ better take you home. But
+you're not to suppose I shall pass this over. I shall have something to
+say to you all to-morrow morning."
+
+"Yes, you will, my Lamb," said Anthea under her breath, "but it won't be
+at all the sort of thing you think it's going to be."
+
+In her heart she could hear the pretty, soft little loving voice of the
+baby Lamb--so different from the affected tones of the dreadful grown-up
+Lamb (one of whose names was Devereux)--saying, "Me love Panty--wants to
+come to own Panty."
+
+"Oh, let's go home, for goodness' sake," she said. "You shall say
+whatever you like in the morning--if you can," she added in a whisper.
+
+It was a gloomy party that went home through the soft evening. During
+Anthea's remarks Robert had again made play with the pin and the bicycle
+tyre, and the Lamb (whom they had to call St. Maur or Devereux or
+Hilary) seemed really at last to have had his fill of bicycle-mending.
+So the machine was wheeled.
+
+The sun was just on the point of setting when they arrived at the White
+House. The four elder children would have liked to linger in the lane
+till the complete sunsetting turned the grown-up Lamb (whose Christian
+names I will not further weary you by repeating) into their own dear
+tiresome baby brother. But he, in his grown-upness, insisted on going
+on, and thus he was met in the front garden by Martha.
+
+Now you remember that, as a special favour, the Psammead had arranged
+that the servants in the house should never notice any change brought
+about by the wishes of the children. Therefore Martha merely saw the
+usual party, with the baby Lamb, about whom she had been desperately
+anxious all the afternoon, trotting beside Anthea, on fat baby legs,
+while the children, of course, still saw the grown-up Lamb (never mind
+what names he was christened by), and Martha rushed at him and caught
+him in her arms, exclaiming--
+
+"Come to his own Martha, then--a precious poppet!"
+
+The grown-up Lamb (whose names shall now be buried in oblivion)
+struggled furiously. An expression of intense horror and annoyance was
+seen on his face. But Martha was stronger than he. She lifted him up and
+carried him into the house. None of the children will ever forget that
+picture. The neat grey-flannel-suited grown-up young man with the green
+necktie and the little black mustache--fortunately, he was slightly
+built, and not tall--struggling in the sturdy arms of Martha, who
+bore him away helpless, imploring him, as she went, to be a good boy
+now, and come and have his nice bremmink! Fortunately, the sun set as
+they reached the doorstep, the bicycle disappeared, and Martha was seen
+to carry into the house the real live darling sleepy two-year-old Lamb.
+The grown-up Lamb (nameless henceforth) was gone for ever.
+
+[Illustration: The grown-up Lamb struggled]
+
+"For ever," said Cyril, "because, as soon as ever the Lamb's old enough
+to be bullied, we must jolly well begin to bully him, for his own
+sake--so that he mayn't grow up like _that_."
+
+"You shan't bully him," said Anthea stoutly,--"not if I can stop it."
+
+"We must tame him by kindness," said Jane.
+
+"You see," said Robert, "if he grows up in the usual way, there'll be
+plenty of time to correct him as he goes along. The awful thing to-day
+was his growing up so suddenly. There was no time to improve him at
+all."
+
+"He doesn't want any improving," said Anthea as the voice of the Lamb
+came cooing through the open door, just as she had heard it in her heart
+that afternoon--
+
+"Me loves Panty--wants to come to own Panty!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+SCALPS
+
+
+Probably the day would have been a greater success if Cyril had not been
+reading _The Last of the Mohicans_. The story was running in his head at
+breakfast, and as he took his third cup of tea he said dreamily, "I wish
+there were Red Indians in England--not big ones, you know, but little
+ones, just about the right size for us to fight."
+
+Everyone disagreed with him at the time and no one attached any
+importance to the incident. But when they went down to the sand-pit to
+ask for a hundred pounds in two-shilling pieces with Queen Victoria's
+head on, to prevent mistakes--which they had always felt to be a really
+reasonable wish that must turn out well--they found out that they had
+done it again! For the Psammead, which was very cross and sleepy,
+said--
+
+"Oh, don't bother me. You've had your wish."
+
+"I didn't know it," said Cyril.
+
+"Don't you remember yesterday?" said the Sand-fairy, still more
+disagreeably. "You asked me to let you have your wishes wherever you
+happened to be, and you wished this morning, and you've got it."
+
+"Oh, have we?" said Robert. "What is it?"
+
+"So you've forgotten?" said the Psammead, beginning to burrow. "Never
+mind; you'll know soon enough. And I wish you joy of it! A nice thing
+you've let yourselves in for!"
+
+"We always do somehow," said Jane sadly.
+
+And now the odd thing was that no one could remember anyone's having
+wished for anything that morning. The wish about the Red Indians had not
+stuck in anyone's head. It was a most anxious morning. Everyone was
+trying to remember what had been wished for, and no one could, and
+everyone kept expecting something awful to happen every minute. It was
+most agitating; they knew from what the Psammead had said, that they
+must have wished for something more than usually undesirable, and they
+spent several hours in most agonizing uncertainty. It was not till
+nearly dinner-time that Jane tumbled over _The Last of the
+Mohicans_,--which had of course, been left face downwards on the
+floor,--and when Anthea had picked her and the book up she suddenly
+said, "I know!" and sat down flat on the carpet.
+
+"Oh, Pussy, how awful! It was Indians he wished for--Cyril--at
+breakfast, don't you remember? He said, 'I wish there were Red Indians
+in England,'--and now there are, and they're going about scalping people
+all over the country, as likely as not."
+
+"Perhaps they're only in Northumberland and Durham," said Jane
+soothingly. It was almost impossible to believe that it could really
+hurt people much to be scalped so far away as that.
+
+"Don't you believe it!" said Anthea. "The Sammyadd said we'd let
+ourselves in for a nice thing. That means they'll come _here_. And
+suppose they scalped the Lamb!"
+
+"Perhaps the scalping would come right again at sunset," said Jane; but
+she did not speak so hopefully as usual.
+
+"Not it!" said Anthea. "The things that grow out of the wishes don't go.
+Look at the fifteen shillings! Pussy, I'm going to break something, and
+you must let me have every penny of money you've got. The Indians will
+come _here_, don't you see? That Spiteful Psammead as good as said so.
+You see what my plan is? Come on!"
+
+Jane did not see at all. But she followed her sister meekly into
+mother's bedroom.
+
+Anthea lifted down the heavy water-jug--it had a pattern of storks and
+long grasses on it, which Anthea never forgot. She carried it into the
+dressing-room, and carefully emptied the water out of it into the bath.
+Then she took the jug back into the bedroom and dropped it on the floor.
+You know how a jug always breaks if you happen to drop it by accident.
+If you happen to drop it on purpose, it is quite different. Anthea
+dropped that jug three times, and it was as unbroken as ever. So at last
+she had to take her father's boot-tree and break the jug with that in
+cold blood. It was heartless work.
+
+Next she broke open the missionary-box with the poker. Jane told her
+that it was wrong, of course, but Anthea shut her lips very tight and
+then said--
+
+[Illustration: She broke open the missionary-box with the poker.]
+
+"Don't be silly--it's a matter of life and death."
+
+There was not very much in the missionary-box,--only
+seven-and-fourpence,--but the girls between them had nearly four
+shillings. This made over eleven shillings, as you will easily see.
+
+Anthea tied up the money in a corner of her pocket-handkerchief. "Come
+on, Jane!" she said, and ran down to the farm. She knew that the farmer
+was going into Rochester that afternoon. In fact it had been arranged
+that he was to take the four children with him. They had planned this in
+the happy hour when they believed that they we're going to get that
+hundred pounds, in two-shilling pieces, out of the Psammead. They had
+arranged to pay the farmer two shillings each for the ride. Now Anthea
+hastily explained to him that they could not go, but would he take
+Martha and the Baby instead? He agreed, but he was not pleased to get
+only half-a-crown instead of eight shillings.
+
+Then the girls ran home again. Anthea was agitated, but not flurried.
+When she came to think it over afterwards, she could not help seeing
+that she had acted with the most far-seeing promptitude, just like a
+born general. She fetched a little box from her corner drawer, and went
+to find Martha, who was laying the cloth and not in the best of tempers.
+
+"Look here," said Anthea. "I've broken the water jug in mother's room."
+
+"Just like you--always up to some mischief," said Martha, dumping down a
+salt-cellar with a bang.
+
+"Don't be cross, Martha dear," said Anthea. "I've got enough money to
+pay for a new one--if only you'll be a dear and go and buy it for us.
+Your cousins keep a china-shop, don't they? And I would like you to get
+it to-day, in case mother comes home to-morrow. You know she said she
+might perhaps."
+
+"But you're all going into town yourselves," said Martha.
+
+"We can't afford to, if we get the new jug," said Anthea; "but we'll pay
+for you to go, if you'll take the Lamb. And I say, Martha, look
+here--I'll give you my Liberty box, if you'll go. Look, it's most
+awfully pretty--all inlaid with real silver and ivory and ebony, like
+King Solomon's temple."
+
+"I see," said Martha,--"no, I don't want your box, miss. What you want
+is to get the precious Lamb off your hands for the afternoon. Don't you
+go for to think I don't see through you!"
+
+This was so true that Anthea longed to deny it at once. Martha had no
+business to know so much. But she held her tongue.
+
+Martha set down the bread with a bang that made it jump off its
+trencher.
+
+"I _do_ want the jug got," said Anthea softly. "You _will_ go, won't
+you?"
+
+"Well, just for this once, I don't mind; but mind you don't get into
+none of your outrageous mischief while I'm gone--that's all!"
+
+"He's going earlier than he thought," said Anthea eagerly. "You'd better
+hurry and get dressed. Do put on that lovely purple frock, Martha, and
+the hat with the pink cornflowers, and the yellow-lace collar. Jane'll
+finish laying the cloth, and I'll wash the Lamb and get him ready."
+
+As she washed the unwilling Lamb and hurried him into his best clothes,
+Anthea peeped out of the window from time to time; so far all was
+well--she could see no Red Indians. When with a rush and a scurry and
+some deepening of the damask of Martha's complexion she and the Lamb had
+been got off, Anthea drew a deep breath.
+
+"_He's_ safe!" she said, and, to Jane's horror, flung herself down on
+the floor and burst into floods of tears. Jane did not understand at all
+how a person could be so brave and like a general, and then suddenly
+give way and go flat like an air-balloon when you prick it. It is better
+not to go flat, of course, but you will observe that Anthea did not give
+way till her aim was accomplished. She had got the dear Lamb out of
+danger--she felt certain that the Red Indians would be round the White
+House or nowhere--the farmer's cart would not come back till after
+sunset, so she could afford to cry a little. It was partly with joy that
+she cried, because she had done what she meant to do. She cried for
+about three minutes, while Jane hugged her miserably and said at
+five-second intervals, "Don't cry, Panther dear!"
+
+Then she jumped up, rubbed her eyes hard with the corner of her
+pinafore, so that they kept red for the rest of the day, and started to
+tell the boys. But just at that moment cook rang the dinner-bell, and
+nothing could be said till they had been helped to minced beef. Then
+cook left the room, and Anthea told her tale. But it is a mistake to
+tell a thrilling tale when people are eating minced beef and boiled
+potatoes. There seemed somehow to be something about the food that made
+the idea of Red Indians seem flat and unbelievable. The boys actually
+laughed, and called Anthea a little silly.
+
+"Why," said Cyril, "I'm almost sure it was before I said that, that Jane
+said she wished it would be a fine day."
+
+"It wasn't," said Jane briefly.
+
+"Why, if it was Indians," Cyril went on,--"salt, please, and mustard--I
+must have something to make this mush go down,--if it was Indians,
+they'd have been infesting the place long before this--you know they
+would. I believe it's the fine day."
+
+"Then why did the Sammyadd say we'd let ourselves in for a nice thing?"
+asked Anthea. She was feeling very cross. She knew she had acted with
+nobility and discretion, and after that it was very hard to be called a
+little silly, especially when she had the weight of a burglared
+missionary-box and about seven-and-fourpence, mostly in coppers, lying
+like lead upon her conscience.
+
+There was a silence, during which cook took away the mincy plates and
+brought in the pudding. As soon as she had retired, Cyril began again.
+
+"Of course I don't mean to say," he admitted, "that it wasn't a good
+thing to get Martha and the Lamb out of the way for the afternoon; but
+as for Red Indians--why, you know jolly well the wishes always come that
+very minute. If there was going to be Red Indians, they'd be here now."
+
+"I expect they are," said Anthea; "they're lurking amid the undergrowth,
+for anything you know. I do think you're most unkind."
+
+"Indians almost always _do_ lurk, really, though, don't they?" put in
+Jane, anxious for peace.
+
+"No, they don't," said Cyril tartly. "And I'm not unkind, I'm only
+truthful. And I say it was utter rot breaking the water-jug; and as for
+the missionary-box, I believe it's a treason-crime, and I shouldn't
+wonder if you could be hanged for it, if any of us was to split"--
+
+"Shut up, can't you?" said Robert; but Cyril couldn't. You see, he felt
+in his heart that if there _should_ be Indians they would be entirely
+his own fault, so he did not wish to believe in them. And trying not to
+believe things when in your heart you are almost sure they are true, is
+as bad for the temper as anything I know.
+
+"It's simply idiotic," he said, "talking about Indians, when you can see
+for yourself that it's Jane who's got her wish. Look what a fine day it
+is----_OH!_--"
+
+He had turned towards the window to point out the fineness of the
+day--the others turned too--and a frozen silence caught at Cyril, and
+none of the others felt at all like breaking it. For there, peering
+round the corner of the window, among the red leaves of the Virginia
+creeper, was a face--a brown face, with a long nose and a tight mouth
+and very bright eyes. And the face was painted in coloured patches. It
+had long black hair, and in the hair were feathers!
+
+Every child's mouth in the room opened, and stayed open. The pudding was
+growing white and cold on their plates. No one could move.
+
+Suddenly the feathered head was cautiously withdrawn, and the spell was
+broken. I am sorry to say that Anthea's first words were very like a
+girl.
+
+"There, now!" she said. "I told you so!"
+
+The pudding had now definitely ceased to charm. Hastily wrapping their
+portions in a _Spectator_ of the week before the week before last, they
+hid them behind the crinkled paper stove-ornament, and fled upstairs to
+reconnoitre and to hold a hurried council.
+
+"Pax," said Cyril handsomely when they reached their mother's bedroom.
+"Panther, I'm sorry if I was a brute."
+
+"All right," said Anthea; "but you see now!"
+
+No further trace of Indians, however, could be discerned from the
+windows.
+
+"Well," said Robert, "what are we to do?"
+
+"The only thing I can think of," said Anthea, who was now generally
+admitted to be the heroine of the day, "is--if we dressed up as like
+Indians as we can, and looked out of the windows, or even went out. They
+might think we were the powerful leaders of a large neighbouring tribe,
+and--and not do anything to us, you know, for fear of awful vengeance."
+
+"But Eliza, and the cook?" said Jane.
+
+"You forget--they can't notice anything," said Robert. "They wouldn't
+notice anything out of the way, even if they were scalped or roasted at
+a slow fire."
+
+"But would they come right at sunset?"
+
+"Of course. You can't be really scalped or burned to death without
+noticing it, and you'd be sure to notice it next day, even if it escaped
+your attention at the time," said Cyril. "I think Anthea's right, but we
+shall want a most awful lot of feathers."
+
+"I'll go down to the hen-house," said Robert. "There's one of the
+turkeys in there--it's not very well. I could cut its feathers without
+it minding much. It's very bad--doesn't seem to care what happens to it.
+Get me the cutting-out scissors."
+
+Earnest reconnoitring convinced them all that no Indians were in the
+poultry-yard. Robert went. In five minutes he came back--pale, but with
+many feathers.
+
+"Look here," he said, "this is jolly serious. I cut off the feathers,
+and when I turned to come out there was an Indian squinting at me from
+under the old hen-coop. I just brandished the feathers and yelled, and
+got away before he could get the coop off top of himself. Panther, get
+the coloured blankets off our beds, and look slippy, can't you?"
+
+It is wonderful how like an Indian you can make yourself with blankets
+and feathers and coloured scarves. Of course none of the children
+happened to have long black hair, but there was a lot of black calico
+that had been bought to cover school-books with. They cut strips of this
+into a sort of fine fringe, and fastened it round their heads with the
+amber-coloured ribbons off the girls' Sunday dresses. Then they stuck
+turkeys' feathers in the ribbons. The calico looked very like long black
+hair, especially when the strips began to curl up a bit.
+
+"But our faces," said Anthea, "they're not at all the right colour.
+We're all rather pale, and I'm sure I don't know why, but Cyril is the
+colour of putty."
+
+"I'm not," said Cyril.
+
+"The real Indians outside seem to be brownish," said Robert hastily. "I
+think we ought to be really _red_--it's sort of superior to have a red
+skin, if you are one."
+
+The red ochre cook uses for the kitchen bricks seemed to be about the
+reddest thing in the house. The children mixed some in a saucer with
+milk, as they had seen cook do for the kitchen floor. Then they
+carefully painted each other's faces and hands with it, till they were
+quite as red as any Red Indian need be--if not redder.
+
+They knew at once that they must look very terrible when they met Eliza
+in the passage, and she screamed aloud. This unsolicited testimonial
+pleased them very much. Hastily telling her not to be a goose, and that
+it was only a game, the four blanketed, feathered, really and truly
+Redskins went boldly out to meet the foe. I say boldly. That is because
+I wish to be polite. At any rate, they went.
+
+Along the hedge dividing the wilderness from the garden was a row of
+dark heads, all highly feathered.
+
+"It's our only chance," whispered Anthea. "Much better than to wait for
+their blood-freezing attack. We must pretend like mad. Like that game of
+cards where you pretend you've got aces when you haven't. Fluffing they
+call it, I think. Now then. Whoop!"
+
+With four wild war-whoops--or as near them as white children could be
+expected to go without any previous practice--they rushed through the
+gate and struck four war-like attitudes in face of the line of Red
+Indians. These were all about the same height, and that height was
+Cyril's.
+
+"I hope to goodness they can talk English," said Cyril through his
+attitude.
+
+Anthea knew they could, though she never knew how she came to know it.
+She had a white towel tied to a walking-stick. This was a flag of truce,
+and she waved it, in the hope that the Indians would know what it was.
+Apparently they did--for one who was browner than the others stepped
+forward.
+
+"Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said in excellent English. "I am Golden Eagle,
+of the mighty tribe of Rock-dwellers."
+
+[Illustration: "Ye seek a pow-wow?" he said]
+
+"And I," said Anthea, with a sudden inspiration, "am the Black
+Panther--chief of the--the--the--Mazawattee tribe. My brothers--I don't
+mean--yes, I do--the tribe--I mean the Mazawattees--are in ambush below
+the brow of yonder hill."
+
+"And what mighty warriors be these?" asked Golden Eagle, turning to the
+others.
+
+Cyril said he was the great chief Squirrel, of the Moning Congo tribe,
+and, seeing that Jane was sucking her thumb and could evidently think of
+no name for herself, he added, "This great warrior is Wild Cat--Pussy
+Ferox we call it in this land--leader of the vast Phiteezi tribe."
+
+"And thou, valorous Redskin?" Golden Eagle inquired suddenly of Robert,
+who, taken unawares, could only reply that he was Bobs--leader of the
+Cape Mounted Police.
+
+"And now," said Black Panther, "our tribes, if we just whistle them up,
+will far outnumber your puny forces; so resistance is useless. Return,
+therefore, to your land, O brother, and smoke pipes of peace in your
+wampums with your squaws and your medicine-men, and dress yourselves in
+the gayest wigwams, and eat happily of the juicy fresh-caught
+moccasins."
+
+"You've got it all wrong," murmured Cyril angrily. But Golden Eagle only
+looked inquiringly at her.
+
+"Thy customs are other than ours, O Black Panther," he said. "Bring up
+thy tribe, that we may hold pow-wow in state before them, as becomes
+great chiefs."
+
+"We'll bring them up right enough," said Anthea, "with their bows and
+arrows, and tomahawks and scalping-knives, and everything you can think
+of, if you don't look sharp and go."
+
+She spoke bravely enough, but the hearts of all the children were
+beating furiously, and their breath came in shorter and shorter gasps.
+For the little real Red Indians were closing up round them--coming
+nearer and nearer with angry murmurs--so that they were the centre of a
+crowd of dark cruel faces.
+
+"It's no go," whispered Robert. "I knew it wouldn't be. We must make a
+bolt for the Psammead. It might help us. If it doesn't--well, I suppose
+we shall come alive again at sunset. I wonder if scalping hurts as much
+as they say."
+
+"I'll wave the flag again," said Anthea. "If they stand back, we'll run
+for it."
+
+She waved the towel, and the chief commanded his followers to stand
+back. Then, charging wildly at the place where the line of Indians was
+thinnest, the four children started to run. Their first rush knocked
+down some half-dozen Indians, over whose blanketed bodies the children
+leaped, and made straight for the sand-pit. This was no time for the
+safe easy way by which carts go down--right over the edge of the
+sand-pit they went, among the yellow and pale purple flowers and dried
+grasses, past the little bank martins' little front doors, skipping,
+clinging, bounding, stumbling, sprawling, and finally rolling.
+
+Yellow Eagle and his followers came up with them just at the very spot
+where they had seen the Psammead that morning.
+
+Breathless and beaten, the wretched children now awaited their fate.
+Sharp knives and axes gleamed round them, but worse than these was the
+cruel light in the eyes of Golden Eagle and his followers.
+
+"Ye have lied to us, O Black Panther of the Mazawattees--and thou, too,
+Squirrel of the Moning Congos. These also, Pussy Ferox of the Phiteezi,
+and Bobs of the Cape Mounted Police,--these also have lied to us, if not
+with their tongues, yet by their silence. Ye have lied under the cover
+of the Truce-flag of the Pale-face. Ye have no followers. Your tribes
+are far away--following the hunting trail. What shall be their doom?" he
+concluded, turning with a bitter smile to the other Red Indians.
+
+"Build we the fire!" shouted his followers; and at once a dozen ready
+volunteers started to look for fuel. The four children, each held
+between two strong little Indians, cast despairing glances round them.
+Oh, if they could only see the Psammead!
+
+"Do you mean to scalp us first and then roast us?" asked Anthea
+desperately.
+
+"Of course!" Redskin opened his eyes at her. "It's always done."
+
+The Indians had formed a ring round the children, and now sat on the
+ground gazing at their captives. There was a threatening silence.
+
+Then slowly, by twos and threes, the Indians who had gone to look for
+firewood came back, and they came back empty-handed. They had not been
+able to find a single stick of wood for a fire! No one ever can, as a
+matter of fact, in that part of Kent.
+
+The children drew a deep breath of relief, but it ended in a moan of
+terror. For bright knives were being brandished all about them. Next
+moment each child was seized by an Indian; each closed its eyes and
+tried not to scream. They waited for the sharp agony of the knife. It
+did not come. Next moment they were released, and fell in a trembling
+heap. Their heads did not hurt at all. They only felt strangely cool!
+Wild war-whoops rang in their ears. When they ventured to open their
+eyes they saw four of their foes dancing round them with wild leaps and
+screams, and each of the four brandished in his hand a scalp of long
+flowing black hair. They put their hands to their heads--their own
+scalps were safe! The poor untutored savages had indeed scalped the
+children. But they had only, so to speak, scalped them of the black
+calico ringlets!
+
+[Illustration: Bright knives were being brandished all about them]
+
+The children fell into each other's arms, sobbing and laughing.
+
+"Their scalps are ours," chanted the chief; "ill-rooted were their
+ill-fated hairs! They came off in the hands of the victors--without
+struggle, without resistance, they yielded their scalps to the
+conquering Rock-dwellers! Oh, how little a thing is a scalp so lightly
+won!"
+
+"They'll take our real ones in a minute; you see if they don't," said
+Robert, trying to rub some of the red ochre off his face and hands on to
+his hair.
+
+"Cheated of our just and fiery revenge are we," the chant went on,--"but
+there are other torments than the scalping-knife and the flames. Yet is
+the slow fire the correct thing. O strange unnatural country, wherein a
+man may find no wood to burn his enemy!--Ah for the boundless forests of
+my native land, where the great trees for thousands of miles grow but to
+furnish firewood wherewithal to burn our foes. Ah, would we were but in
+our native forest once more!"
+
+Suddenly like a flash of lightning, the golden gravel shone all round
+the four children instead of the dusky figures. For every single
+Indian had vanished on the instant at their leader's word. The Psammead
+must have been there all the time. And it had given the Indian chief his
+wish.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Martha brought home a jug with a pattern of storks and long grasses on
+it. Also she brought back all Anthea's money.
+
+"My cousin, she gave me the jug for luck; she said it was an odd one
+what the basin of had got smashed."
+
+"Oh, Martha, you are a dear!" sighed Anthea, throwing her arms round
+her.
+
+"Yes," giggled Martha, "you'd better make the most of me while you've
+got me. I shall give your ma notice directly minute she comes back."
+
+"Oh, Martha, we haven't been so _very_ horrid to you, have we?" asked
+Anthea, aghast.
+
+"Oh, it isn't that, miss." Martha giggled more than ever. "I'm a-goin'
+to be married. It's Beale the gamekeeper. He's been a-proposin' to me
+off and on ever since you come home from the clergyman's where you got
+locked up on the church-tower. And to-day I said the word an' made him a
+happy man."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Anthea put the seven-and-fourpence back in the missionary-box, and
+pasted paper over the place where the poker had broken it. She was very
+glad to be able to do this, and she does not know to this day whether
+breaking open a missionary-box is or is not a hanging matter!
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI (AND LAST)
+
+THE LAST WISH
+
+
+Of course you, who see above that this is the eleventh (and last)
+chapter, know very well that the day of which this chapter tells must be
+the last on which Cyril, Anthea, Robert, and Jane will have a chance of
+getting anything out of the Psammead, or Sand-fairy.
+
+But the children themselves did not know this. They were full of rosy
+visions, and, whereas on the other days they had often found it
+extremely difficult to think of anything really nice to wish for, their
+brains were now full of the most beautiful and sensible ideas. "This,"
+as Jane remarked afterwards, "is always the way." Everyone was up extra
+early that morning, and these plans were hopefully discussed in the
+garden before breakfast. The old idea of one hundred pounds in modern
+florins was still first favourite, but there were others that ran it
+close--the chief of these being the "pony-each" idea. This had a great
+advantage. You could wish for a pony each during the morning, ride it
+all day, have it vanish at sunset, and wish it back again next day.
+Which would be an economy of litter and stabling. But at breakfast two
+things happened. First, there was a letter from mother. Granny was
+better, and mother and father hoped to be home that very afternoon. A
+cheer arose. And of course this news at once scattered all the
+before-breakfast wish-ideas. For everyone saw quite plainly that the
+wish of the day must be something to please mother and not to please
+themselves.
+
+"I wonder what she _would_ like," pondered Cyril.
+
+"She'd like us all to be good," said Jane primly.
+
+"Yes--but that's so dull for us," Cyril rejoined; "and besides, I should
+hope we could be that without sand-fairies to help us. No; it must be
+something splendid, that we couldn't possibly get without wishing for."
+
+"Look out," said Anthea in a warning voice; "don't forget yesterday.
+Remember, we get our wishes now just wherever we happen to be when we
+say 'I wish.' Don't let's let ourselves in for anything silly--to-day of
+all days."
+
+"All right," said Cyril. "You needn't talk so much."
+
+Just then Martha came in with a jug full of hot water for the
+tea-pot--and a face full of importance for the children.
+
+"A blessing we're all alive to eat our breakfast!" she said darkly.
+
+"Why, whatever's happened?" everybody asked.
+
+"Oh, nothing," said Martha, "only it seems nobody's safe from being
+murdered in their beds nowadays."
+
+"Why," said Jane as an agreeable thrill of horror ran down her back and
+legs and out at her toes, "_has_ anyone been murdered in their beds?"
+
+"Well--not exactly," said Martha; "but they might just as well. There's
+been burglars over at Peasemarsh Place--Beale's just told me--and
+they've took every single one of Lady Chittenden's diamonds and jewels
+and things, and she's a-goin out of one fainting fit into another, with
+hardly time to say 'Oh, my diamonds!' in between. And Lord Chittenden's
+away in London."
+
+"Lady Chittenden," said Anthea; "we've seen her. She wears a
+red-and-white dress, and she has no children of her own and can't abide
+other folkses'."
+
+"That's her," said Martha. "Well, she's put all her trust in riches, and
+you see how she's served. They say the diamonds and things was worth
+thousands of pounds. There was a necklace and a river--whatever that
+is--and no end of bracelets; and a tarrer and ever so many rings. But
+there, I mustn't stand talking and all the place to clean down afore
+your ma comes home."
+
+"I don't see why she should ever have had such lots of diamonds," said
+Anthea when Martha had flounced off. "She was not at all a nice lady, I
+thought. And mother hasn't any diamonds, and hardly any jewels--the
+topaz necklace, and the sapphire ring daddy gave her when they were
+engaged, and the garnet star, and the little pearl brooch with
+great-grandpapa's hair in it,--that's about all."
+
+"When I'm grown up I'll buy mother no end of diamonds," said Robert, "if
+she wants them. I shall make so much money exploring in Africa I shan't
+know what to do with it."
+
+"Wouldn't it be jolly," said Jane dreamily, "if mother could find all
+these lovely things, necklaces and rivers of diamonds and tarrers?"
+
+"_Ti--aras_," said Cyril.
+
+"Ti--aras, then,--and rings and everything in her room when she came
+home. I wish she would"--
+
+The others gazed at her in horror.
+
+"Well, she _will_," said Robert; "you've wished, my good Jane--and our
+only chance now is to find the Psammead, and if it's in a good temper
+it _may_ take back the wish and give us another. If not--well--goodness
+knows what we're in for!--the police of course, and---- Don't cry,
+silly! We'll stand by you. Father says we need never to be afraid if we
+don't do anything wrong and always speak the truth."
+
+But Cyril and Anthea exchanged gloomy glances. They remembered how
+convincing the truth about the Psammead had been once before when told
+to the police.
+
+It was a day of misfortunes. Of course the Psammead could not be found.
+Nor the jewels, though every one of the children searched the mother's
+room again and again.
+
+"Of course," Robert said, "_we_ couldn't find them. It'll be mother
+who'll do that. Perhaps she'll think they've been in the house for years
+and years, and never know they are the stolen ones at all."
+
+"Oh yes!" Cyril was very scornful; "then mother will be a receiver of
+stolen goods, and you know jolly well what _that's_ worse than."
+
+Another and exhaustive search of the sand-pit failed to reveal the
+Psammead, so the children went back to the house slowly and sadly.
+
+"I don't care," said Anthea stoutly, "we'll tell mother the truth, and
+she'll give back the jewels--and make everything all right."
+
+"Do you think so?" said Cyril slowly. "Do you think she'll believe us?
+Could anyone believe about a Sammyadd unless they'd seen it? She'll
+think we're pretending. Or else she'll think we're raving mad, and then
+we shall be sent to the mad-house. How would you like it?"--he turned
+suddenly on the miserable Jane,--"how would you like it, to be shut up
+in an iron cage with bars and padded walls, and nothing to do but stick
+straws in your hair all day, and listen to the howlings and ravings of
+the other maniacs? Make up your minds to it, all of you. It's no use
+telling mother."
+
+"But it's true," said Jane.
+
+"Of course it is, but it's not true enough for grown-up people to
+believe it," said Anthea.
+
+"Cyril's right. Let's put flowers in all the vases, and try not to think
+about the diamonds. After all, everything has come right in the end all
+the other times."
+
+So they filled all the pots they could find with flowers--asters and
+zinnias, and loose-leaved late red roses from the wall of the
+stableyard, till the house was a perfect bower.
+
+And almost as soon as dinner was cleared away mother arrived, and was
+clasped in eight loving arms. It was very difficult indeed not to tell
+her all about the Psammead at once, because they had got into the habit
+of telling her everything. But they did succeed in not telling her.
+
+[Illustration: She was clasped in eight loving arms]
+
+Mother, on her side, had plenty to tell them--about Granny, and Granny's
+pigeons, and Auntie Emma's lame tame donkey. She was very delighted with
+the flowery-boweryness of the house; and everything seemed so natural
+and pleasant, now that she was home again, that the children almost
+thought they must have dreamed the Psammead.
+
+But, when mother moved towards the stairs to go up to her bedroom and
+take off her bonnet, the eight arms clung round her just as if she only
+had two children, one the Lamb and the other an octopus.
+
+"Don't go up, mummy darling," said Anthea; "let me take your things up
+for you."
+
+"Or I will," said Cyril.
+
+"We want you to come and look at the rose-tree," said Robert.
+
+"Oh, don't go up!" said Jane helplessly.
+
+"Nonsense, dears," said mother briskly, "I'm not such an old woman yet
+that I can't take my bonnet off in the proper place. Besides I must wash
+these black hands of mine."
+
+So up she went, and the children, following her, exchanged glances of
+gloomy foreboding.
+
+Mother took off her bonnet,--it was a very pretty hat, really, with
+white roses in it,--and when she had taken it off she went to the
+dressing-table to do her pretty hair.
+
+On the table between the ring-stand and the pin-cushion lay a green
+leather case. Mother opened it.
+
+"Oh, how lovely!" she cried. It was a ring, a large pearl with shining
+many-lighted diamonds set round it. "Wherever did this come from?"
+mother asked, trying it on her wedding finger, which it fitted
+beautifully. "However did it come here?"
+
+"I don't know," said each of the children truthfully.
+
+"Father must have told Martha to put it here," mother said. "I'll run
+down and ask her."
+
+"Let me look at it," said Anthea, who knew Martha would not be able to
+see the ring. But when Martha was asked, of course she denied putting
+the ring there, and so did Eliza and cook.
+
+Mother came back to her bedroom, very much interested and pleased about
+the ring. But, when she opened the dressing-table drawer and found a
+long case containing an almost priceless diamond necklace, she was more
+interested still, though not so pleased. In the wardrobe, when she went
+to put away her "bonnet," she found a tiara and several brooches, and
+the rest of the jewellery turned up in various parts of the room during
+the next half-hour. The children looked more and more uncomfortable, and
+now Jane began to sniff.
+
+Mother looked at her gravely.
+
+"Jane," she said, "I am sure you know something about this. Now think
+before you speak, and tell me the truth."
+
+"We found a Fairy," said Jane obediently.
+
+[Illustration: "We found a Fairy," said Jane obediently]
+
+"No nonsense, please," said her mother sharply.
+
+"Don't be silly, Jane," Cyril interrupted. Then he went on desperately.
+"Look here, mother, we've never seen the things before, but Lady
+Chittenden at Peasmarsh Place lost all her jewellery by wicked burglars
+last night. Could this possibly be it?"
+
+All drew a deep breath. They were saved.
+
+"But how could they have put it here? And why should they?" asked
+mother, not unreasonably. "Surely it would have been easier and safer to
+make off with it?"
+
+"Suppose," said Cyril, "they thought it better to wait for--for
+sunset--nightfall, I mean, before they went off with it. No one but us
+knew that you were coming back to-day."
+
+"I must send for the police at once," said mother distractedly. "Oh, how
+I wish daddy were here!"
+
+"Wouldn't it be better to wait till he _does_ come?" asked Robert,
+knowing that his father would not be home before sunset.
+
+"No, no; I can't wait a minute with all this on my mind," cried mother.
+"All this" was the heap of jewel-cases on the bed. They put them all in
+the wardrobe, and mother locked it. Then mother called Martha.
+
+"Martha," she said, "has any stranger been into my room since I've been
+away? Now, answer me truthfully."
+
+"No, mum," answered Martha; "leastways, what I mean to say"--
+
+She stopped.
+
+"Come," said her mistress kindly, "I see someone has. You must tell me
+at once. Don't be frightened. I'm sure _you_ haven't done anything
+wrong."
+
+Martha burst into heavy sobs.
+
+"I was a-goin' to give you warning this very day, mum, to leave at the
+end of my month, so I was,--on account of me being going to make a
+respectable young man happy. A gamekeeper he is by trade, mum--and I
+wouldn't deceive you--of the name of Beale. And it's as true as I stand
+here, it was your coming home in such a hurry, and no warning given, out
+of the kindness of his heart it was, as he says, 'Martha, my beauty,' he
+says,--which I ain't, and never was, but you know how them men will go
+on,--'I can't see you a-toiling and a-moiling and not lend a 'elping
+'and; which mine is a strong arm, and it's yours Martha, my dear,' says
+he. And so he helped me a-cleanin' of the windows--but outside, mum, the
+whole time, and me in; if I never say another breathing word it's gospel
+truth."
+
+"Were you with him the whole time?" asked her mistress.
+
+"Him outside and me in, I was," said Martha; "except for fetching up a
+fresh pail and the leather that that slut of a Eliza'd hidden away
+behind the mangle."
+
+"That will do," said the children's mother. "I am not pleased with you,
+Martha, but you have spoken the truth, and that counts for something."
+
+When Martha had gone, the children clung round their mother.
+
+"Oh, mummy darling," cried Anthea, "it isn't Beale's fault, it isn't
+really! He's a great dear; he is, truly and honourably, and as honest as
+the day. Don't let the police take him, mummy! Oh, don't, don't, don't!"
+
+It was truly awful. Here was an innocent man accused of robbery through
+that silly wish of Jane's, and it was absolutely useless to tell the
+truth. All longed to, but they thought of the straws in the hair and the
+shrieks of the other frantic maniacs, and they could not do it.
+
+"Is there a cart hereabouts?" asked the mother feverishly. "A trap of
+any sort? I must drive in to Rochester and tell the police at once."
+
+All the children sobbed, "There's a cart at the farm, but, oh, don't
+go!--don't go!--oh, don't go!--wait till daddy comes home!"
+
+Mother took not the faintest notice. When she had set her mind on a
+thing she always went straight through with it; she was rather like
+Anthea in this respect.
+
+"Look here, Cyril," she said, sticking on her hat with long sharp
+violet-headed pins, "I leave you in charge. Stay in the dressing-room.
+You can pretend to be swimming boats in the bath, or something. Say I
+gave you leave. But stay there, with the door on the landing open; I've
+locked the other. And don't let anyone go into my room. Remember, no one
+knows the jewels are there except me, and all of you, and the wicked
+thieves who put them there. Robert, you stay in the garden and watch the
+windows. If anyone tries to get in you must run and tell the two farm
+men that I'll send up to wait in the kitchen. I'll tell them there are
+dangerous characters about--that's true enough. Now remember, I trust
+you both. But I don't think they'll try it till after dark, so you're
+quite safe. Good-bye, darlings."
+
+And she locked her bedroom door and went off with the key in her pocket.
+
+The children could not help admiring the dashing and decided way in
+which she had acted. They thought how useful she would have been in
+organising escape from some of the tight places in which they had found
+themselves of late in consequence of their ill-timed wishes.
+
+"She's a born general," said Cyril,--"but _I_ don't know what's going to
+happen to us. Even if the girls were to hunt for that old Sammyadd and
+find it, and get it to take the jewels away again, mother would only
+think we hadn't looked out properly and let the burglars sneak in and
+get them--or else the police will think _we've_ got them--or else that
+she's been fooling them. Oh, it's a pretty decent average ghastly mess
+this time, and no mistake!"
+
+He savagely made a paper boat and began to float it in the bath, as he
+had been told to do.
+
+Robert went into the garden and sat down on the worn yellow grass, with
+his miserable head between his helpless hands.
+
+Anthea and Jane whispered together in the passage downstairs, where the
+cocoanut matting was--with the hole in it that you always caught your
+foot in if you were not careful. Martha's voice could be heard in the
+kitchen,--grumbling loud and long.
+
+"It's simply quite too dreadfully awful," said Anthea. "How do you know
+all the diamonds are there, too? If they aren't, the police will think
+mother and father have got them, and that they've only given up some of
+them for a kind of desperate blind. And they'll be put in prison, and we
+shall be branded outcasts, the children of felons. And it won't be at
+all nice for father and mother either," she added, by a candid
+after-thought.
+
+"But what can we _do_?" asked Jane.
+
+"Nothing--at least we might look for the Psammead again. It's a very,
+_very_ hot day. He may have come out to warm that whisker of his."
+
+"He won't give us any more beastly wishes to-day," said Jane flatly. "He
+gets crosser and crosser every time we see him. I believe he hates
+having to give wishes."
+
+Anthea had been shaking her head gloomily--now she stopped shaking it so
+suddenly that it really looked as though she were pricking up her ears.
+
+"What is it?" asked Jane. "Oh, have you thought of something?"
+
+"Our one chance," cried Anthea dramatically; "the last lone-lorn forlorn
+hope. Come on."
+
+At a brisk trot she led the way to the sand-pit. Oh, joy!--there was the
+Psammead, basking in a golden sandy hollow and preening its whiskers
+happily in the glowing afternoon sun. The moment it saw them it whisked
+round and began to burrow--it evidently preferred its own company to
+theirs. But Anthea was too quick for it. She caught it by its furry
+shoulders gently but firmly, and held it.
+
+"Here--none of that!" said the Psammead. "Leave go of me, will you?"
+
+But Anthea held him fast.
+
+"Dear kind darling Sammyadd," she said breathlessly.
+
+"Oh yes--it's all very well," it said; "you want another wish, I expect.
+But I can't keep on slaving from morning till night giving people their
+wishes. I must have _some_ time to myself."
+
+"Do you hate giving wishes?" asked Anthea gently, and her voice trembled
+with excitement.
+
+"Of course I do," it said. "Leave go of me or I'll bite!--I really
+will--I mean it. Oh, well, if you choose to risk it."
+
+Anthea risked it and held on.
+
+"Look here," she said, "don't bite me--listen to reason. If you'll only
+do what we want to-day, we'll never ask you for another wish as long as
+we live."
+
+The Psammead was much moved.
+
+"I'd do anything," it said in a tearful voice. "I'd almost burst myself
+to give you one wish after another, as long as I held out, if you'd only
+never, never ask me to do it after to-day. If you knew how I hate to
+blow myself out with other people's wishes, and how frightened I am
+always that I shall strain a muscle or something. And then to wake up
+every morning and know you've _got_ to do it. You don't know what it
+is--you don't know what it is, you don't!" Its voice cracked with
+emotion, and the last "don't" was a squeak.
+
+Anthea set it down gently on the sand.
+
+"It's all over now," she said soothingly. "We promise faithfully never
+to ask for another wish after to-day."
+
+"Well, go ahead," said the Psammead; "let's get it over."
+
+"How many can you do?"
+
+"I don't know--as long as I can hold out."
+
+"Well, first, I wish Lady Chittenden may find she's never lost her
+jewels."
+
+The Psammead blew itself out, collapsed, and said, "Done."
+
+"I wish," said Anthea more slowly, "mother mayn't get to the police."
+
+"Done," said the creature after the proper interval.
+
+"I wish," said Jane suddenly, "mother could forget all about the
+diamonds."
+
+"Done," said the Psammead; but its voice was weaker.
+
+"Would you like to rest a little?" asked Anthea considerately.
+
+"Yes, please," said the Psammead; "and, before we go any further, will
+you wish something for me?"
+
+"Can't you do wishes for yourself?"
+
+"Of course not," it said; "we were always expected to give each other
+our wishes--not that we had any to speak of in the good old Megatherium
+days. Just wish, will you, that you may never be able, any of you, to
+tell anyone a word about _Me_."
+
+"Why?" asked Jane.
+
+"Why, don't you see, if you told grown-ups I should have no peace of my
+life. They'd get hold of me, and they wouldn't wish silly things like
+you do, but real earnest things; and the scientific people would hit on
+some way of making things last after sunset, as likely as not; and
+they'd ask for a graduated income-tax, and old-age pensions, and manhood
+suffrage, and free secondary education, and dull things like that; and
+get them, and keep them, and the whole world would be turned
+topsy-turvy. Do wish it! Quick!"
+
+Anthea repeated the Psammead's wish, and it blew itself out to a larger
+size than they had yet seen it attain.
+
+"And now," it said as it collapsed, "can I do anything more for you?"
+
+"Just one thing; and I think that clears everything up, doesn't it,
+Jane? I wish Martha to forget about the diamond ring, and mother to
+forget about the keeper cleaning the windows."
+
+"It's like the 'Brass Bottle,'" said Jane.
+
+"Yes, I'm glad we read that or I should never have thought of it."
+
+"Now," said the Psammead faintly, "I'm almost worn out. Is there
+anything else?"
+
+"No; only thank you kindly for all you've done for us, and I hope you'll
+have a good long sleep, and I hope we shall see you again some day."
+
+"Is that a wish?" it said in a weak voice.
+
+"Yes, please," said the two girls together.
+
+[Illustration: It burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the
+last]
+
+Then for the last time in this story they saw the Psammead blow itself
+out and collapse suddenly. It nodded to them, blinked its long snail's
+eyes, burrowed, and disappeared, scratching fiercely to the last, and
+the sand closed over it.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"I hope we've done right?" said Jane.
+
+"I'm sure we have," said Anthea. "Come on home and tell the boys."
+
+Anthea found Cyril glooming over his paper boats, and told him. Jane
+told Robert. The two tales were only just ended when mother walked in,
+hot and dusty. She explained that as she was being driven into Rochester
+to buy the girls' autumn school-dresses the axle had broken, and but for
+the narrowness of the lane and the high soft hedges she would have been
+thrown out. As it was, she was not hurt, but she had had to walk home.
+"And oh, my dearest dear chicks," she said, "I am simply dying for a cup
+of tea! Do run and see if the water boils!"
+
+"So you see it's all right," Jane whispered. "She doesn't remember."
+
+"No more does Martha," said Anthea, who had been to ask after the state
+of the kettle.
+
+As the servants sat at their tea, Beale the gamekeeper dropped in. He
+brought the welcome news that Lady Chittenden's diamonds had not been
+lost at all. Lord Chittenden had taken them to be re-set and cleaned,
+and the maid who knew about it had gone for a holiday. So that was all
+right.
+
+"I wonder if we ever shall see the Psammead again," said Jane wistfully
+as they walked in the garden, while mother was putting the Lamb to bed.
+
+"I'm sure we shall," said Cyril, "if you really wished it."
+
+"We've promised never to ask it for another wish," said Anthea.
+
+"I never want to," said Robert earnestly.
+
+They did see it again, of course, but not in this story. And it was not
+in a sand-pit either, but in a very, very, very different place. It was
+in a---- But I must say no more.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Transcriber's notes:
+
+Varied hyphenation retained where a majority could not be found.
+Exceptions noted.
+
+Page 60, "Peasemarch" changed to "Peasemarsh" to conform to rest of
+text. "Billy Peasemarsh."
+
+Page 111, "hasily" changed to "hastily" in "Jane hastily finished".
+
+Page 116, extraneous " removed. "better. What"
+
+Page 179, Quotation mark added. "...Anthea said. "It's creepy..."
+
+Page 193, "gatehouse" changed to "gate-house" to conform to rest of
+text, "in the gate-house."
+
+Page 290, "Peasmarsh" changed to "Peasemarsh" in "at Peasemarsh Place",
+also on page 297, "Peasemarsh Place".
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Five Children and It, by E. Nesbit
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author	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:50:49 -0700
committer	Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org>	2025-10-15 04:50:49 -0700
commit	696696dfd89feffe87edd6232929deeb35481c9b (patch)
tree	8c1702e728ef3a9a1626d0f4e2978c6787a8cf29