Alice said--and Oswald wished to goodness she had held her tongue,
because he saw right enough the man was not friendly--"Oh, do come and
let us out--do, please."
While she was saying it Oswald suddenly saw that he did not want the man
to come up. So he scurried down the stairs because he thought he had
seen something on the door on the top side, and sure enough there were
two bolts, and he shot them into their sockets. This bold act was not
put in the Golden Deed book, because when Alice wanted to, the others
said it was not _good_ of Oswald to think of this, but only _clever_. I
think sometimes, in moments of danger and disaster, it is as good to be
clever as it is to be good. But Oswald would never demean himself to
argue about this.
When he got back the man was still standing staring up. Alice said:
"Oh, Oswald, he says he won't let us out unless we give him all our
money. And we might be here for days and days and all night as well. No
one knows where we are to come and look for us. Oh, do let's give it him
_all_."
She thought the lion of the English nation, which does not know when it
is beaten, would be ramping in her brother's breast. But Oswald kept
calm. He said:
"All right," and he made the others turn out their pockets. Denny had a
bad shilling, with a head on both sides, and three halfpence. H. O. had
a halfpenny. Noel had a French penny, which is only good for chocolate
machines at railway stations. Dicky had tenpence halfpenny, and Oswald
had a two-shilling piece of his own that he was saving up to buy a gun
with. Oswald tied the whole lot up in his handkerchief, and looking over
the battlements, he said:
"You are an ungrateful beast. We gave you sixpence freely of our own
will."
The man did look a little bit ashamed, but he mumbled something about
having his living to get.
Then Oswald said:
"Here you are. Catch!" and he flung down the handkerchief with the money
in it.
The man muffed the catch--butter-fingered idiot!--but he picked up the
handkerchief and undid it, and when he saw what was in it he swore
dreadfully. The cad!
"Look here," he called out, "this won't do, young shaver. I want those
there shiners I see in your pus! Chuck 'em along!"
Then Oswald laughed. He said:
"I shall know you again anywhere, and you'll be put in prison for this.
Here are the _shiners_." And he was so angry he chucked down purse and
all. The shiners were not real ones, but only card-counters that looked
like sovereigns on one side. Oswald used to carry them in his purse so
as to look affluent. He does not do this now.
When the man had seen what was in the purse he disappeared under the
tower, and Oswald was glad of what he had done about the bolts--and he
hoped they were as strong as the ones on the other side of the door.
They were.
We heard the man kicking and pounding at the door, and I am not ashamed
to say that we were all holding on to each other very tight. I am proud,
however, to relate that nobody screamed or cried.
After what appeared to be long years, the banging stopped, and presently
we saw the brute going away among the trees.
Then Alice did cry, and I do not blame her.
Then Oswald said:
"It's no use. Even if he's undone the door, he may be in ambush. We must
hold on here till somebody comes."
Then Alice said, speaking chokily because she had not quite done crying:
"Let's wave a flag."
By the most fortunate accident she had on one of her Sunday petticoats,
though it was Monday. This petticoat is white. She tore it out at the
gathers, and we tied it to Denny's stick, and took turns to wave it. We
had laughed at his carrying a stick before, but we were very sorry now
that we had done so.
And the tin dish the Lent pie was baked in we polished with our
handkerchiefs, and moved it about in the sun so that the sun might
strike on it and signal our distress to some of the outlying farms.
This was perhaps the most dreadful adventure that had then ever happened
to us. Even Alice had now stopped thinking of Mr. Richard Ravenal, and
thought only of the lurker in ambush.
We all felt our desperate situation keenly. I must say Denny behaved
like anything but a white mouse. When it was the others' turn to wave,
he sat on the leads of the tower and held Alice's and Noel's hands, and
said poetry to them--yards and yards of it. By some strange fatality it
seemed to comfort them. It wouldn't have me.
He said "The Battle of the Baltic," and "Gray's Elegy," right through,
though I think he got wrong in places, and the "Revenge," and Macaulay's
thing about Lars Porsena and the Nine Gods. And when it was his turn he
waved like a man.
I will try not to call him a white mouse any more. He was a brick that
day, and no mouse.
The sun was low in the heavens, and we were sick of waving and very
hungry, when we saw a cart in the road below. We waved like mad, and
shouted, and Denny screamed exactly like a railway whistle, a thing none
of us had known before that he could do.
[Illustration: "DENNY HELD ALICE'S AND NOEL'S HANDS"]
And the cart stopped. And presently we saw a figure with a white beard
among the trees. It was our pig-man.
We bellowed the awful truth to him, and when he had taken it in--he
thought at first we were kidding--he came up and let us out.
He had got the pig; luckily it was a very small one--and we were not
particular. Denny and Alice sat on the front of the cart with the
pig-man, and the rest of us got in with the pig, and the man drove us
right home. You may think we talked it over on the way. Not us. We went
to sleep, among the pig, and before long the pig-man stopped and got us
to make room for Alice and Denny. There was a net over the cart. I never
was so sleepy in my life, though it was not more than bedtime.
Generally, after anything exciting, you are punished--but this could not
be, because we had only gone for a walk, exactly as we were told.
There was a new rule made, though. No walks, except on the high-roads,
and we were always to take Pincher, and either Lady, the deer-hound, or
Martha, the bull-dog. We generally hate rules, but we did not mind this
one.
Father gave Denny a gold pencil-case because he was first to go down
into the tower. Oswald does not grudge Denny this, though some might
think he deserved at least a silver one.
But Oswald is above such paltry jealousies.