Edith Nesbit: Children's Books Collection (Illustrated Edition). Эдит Несбит

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      Dora and Alice answered the door before any one had time to knock, and the author has reason to believe their hearts were beating wildly.

      "How much?" said the gentleman shortly.

      Alice and Dora were so surprised by his suddenness that they could only reply—

      "Er—er——"

      "Just so," said the gentleman briskly as Oswald stepped modestly forward and said—

      "Won't you come inside?"

      "The very thing," said he, and came in.

      We showed him into the dining-room and asked him to excuse us a minute, and then held a breathless council outside the door.

      "It depends how many rooms he wants," said Dora.

      "Let's say so much a room," said Dicky, "and extra if he wants Mrs. Beale to wait on him."

      So we decided to do this. We thought a pound a room seemed fair.

      And we went back.

      "How many rooms do you want?" Oswald asked.

      "All the room there is," said the gentleman.

      "They are a pound each," said Oswald, "and extra for Mrs. Beale."

      "How much altogether?"

      Oswald thought a minute and then said "Nine rooms is nine pounds, and two pounds a week for Mrs. Beale, because she is a widow."

       "HOW MUCH?" SAID THE GENTLEMAN SHORTLY.

      "Done!" said the gentleman. "I'll go and fetch my portmanteaus."

      He bounced up and out and got into his carriage and drove away. It was not till he was finally gone quite beyond recall that Alice suddenly said—

      "But if he has all the rooms where are we to sleep?"

      "He must be awfully rich," said H.O., "wanting all those rooms."

      "Well, he can't sleep in more than one at once," said Dicky, "however rich he is. We might wait till he was bedded down and then sleep in the rooms he didn't want."

      But Oswald was firm. He knew that if the man paid for the rooms he must have them to himself.

      "He won't sleep in the kitchen," said Dora; "couldn't we sleep there?"

      But we all said we couldn't and wouldn't.

      Then Alice suddenly said—

      "I know! The Mill. There are heaps and heaps of fishing-nets there, and we could each take a blanket like Indians and creep over under cover of the night after the Beale has gone, and get back before she comes in the morning."

      It seemed a sporting thing to do, and we agreed. Only Dora said she thought it would be draughty.

      Of course we went over to the Mill at once to lay our plans and prepare for the silent watches of the night.

      There are three stories to a windmill, besides the ground-floor. The first floor is pretty empty; the next is nearly full of millstones and machinery, and the one above is where the corn runs down from on to the millstones.

      We settled to let the girls have the first floor, which was covered with heaps of nets, and we would pig in with the millstones on the floor above.

      We had just secretly got out the last of the six blankets from the house and got it into the Mill disguised in a clothes-basket, when we heard wheels, and there was the gentleman back again. He had only got one portmanteau after all, and that was a very little one.

      Mrs. Beale was bobbing at him in the doorway when we got up. Of course we had told her he had rented rooms, but we had not said how many, for fear she should ask where we were going to sleep, and we had a feeling that but few grown-ups would like our sleeping in a mill, however much we were living the higher life by sacrificing ourselves to get money for Miss Sandal.

      The gentleman ordered sheep's-head and trotters for dinner, and when he found he could not have that he said—

      "Gammon and spinach!"

      But there was not any spinach in the village, so he had to fall back on eggs and bacon. Mrs. Beale cooked it, and when he had fallen back on it she washed up and went home. And we were left. We could hear the gentleman singing to himself, something about woulding he was a bird that he might fly to thee.

      Then we got the lanterns that you take when you go "up street" on a dark night, and we crept over to the Mill. It was much darker than we expected.

      We decided to keep our clothes on, partly for warmness and partly in case of any sudden alarm or the fishermen wanting their nets in the middle of the night, which sometimes happens if the tide is favourable.

      We let the girls keep the lantern, and we went up with a bit of candle Dicky had saved, and tried to get comfortable among the millstones and machinery, but it was not easy, and Oswald, for one, was not sorry when he heard the voice of Dora calling in trembling tones from the floor below.

      "Oswald! Dicky!" said the voice, "I wish one of you would come down a sec."

      Oswald flew to the assistance of his distressed sister.

      "It's only that we're a little bit uncomfortable," she whispered. "I didn't want to yell it out because of Noël and H.O. I don't want to frighten them, but I can't help feeling that if anything popped out of the dark at us I should die. Can't you all come down here? The nets are quite comfortable, and I do wish you would."

      Alice said she was not frightened, but suppose there were rats, which are said to infest old buildings, especially mills?

      So we consented to come down, and we told Noël and H.O. to come down because it was more comfy, and it is easier to settle yourself for the night among fishing-nets than among machinery. There was a rustling now and then among the heap of broken chairs and jack-planes and baskets and spades and hoes and bits of the spars of ships at the far end of our sleeping apartment, but Dicky and Oswald resolutely said it was the wind or else jackdaws making their nests, though, of course, they knew this is not done at night.

      Sleeping in a mill was not nearly the fun we had thought it would be—somehow. For one thing, it was horrid not having a pillow, and the fishing-nets were so stiff you could not bunch them up properly to make one. And unless you have been born and bred a Red Indian you do not know how to manage your blanket so as to make it keep out the draughts. And when we had put out the light Oswald more than once felt as though earwigs and spiders were walking on his face in the dark, but when we struck a match there was nothing there.

      And empty mills do creak and rustle and move about in a very odd way. Oswald was not afraid, but he did think we might as well have slept in the kitchen, because the gentleman could not have wanted to use that when he was asleep. You see, we thought then that he would sleep all night like other people.

      We got to sleep at last, and in the night the girls edged up to their bold brothers, so that when the morning sun "shone in bars СКАЧАТЬ