Part 19 (1/2)
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 mola.s.ses 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 n.o.body 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 s.h.i.+vers 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 polis.h.i.+ng their s.h.i.+elds. 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.