asked.
"No! Nobody don't live 'ere, mate," said Mr. Beale. "It's a ruin, this is. Only howls and rats lives in ruins."
"Did any one ever live in it?"
"I shouldn't wonder," said Mr. Beale indifferently. "Yes, course they must 'ave, come to think of it. But you learned all that at school. It's what they call 'ist'ry."
Dickie, after some reflection, said, "D'jever 'ear of Here Ward?"
"I knowed a Jake Ward wunst."
"Here Ward the Wake. He ain't a bloke you'd know —'e's in 'istry. Tell you if you like."
The tale of Hereward the Wake lasted till the jolting perambulator came to anchor in a hollow place among thick furze bushes. The bare, thick stems of the furze held it up like a roof over their heads as they sat. It was like a little furze house.
Next morning Mr. Beale shaved, a thing he had not done since they left London. Dickie held the mug and the soap. It was great fun, and, afterwards, Mr. Beale looked quite different. That was great fun too. And he got quite a different set of clothes out of his bundles, and put them on. And that was the greatest fun of all.
"Now, then," he said, "we're a-goin' to lay low 'ere all d'y, we are. And then come evening we're a-goin' to 'ave our beano. That red'eaded chap wot you never see 'e'll lift you up to a window what's got bars to it, and you'll creep through, you being so little, and you'll go soft's a mouse the way I'll show you, and undo the side-door. There's a key and a chain and a bottom bolt. The top bolt's cut through, and all the others is oiled. That won't frighten you, will it?"
"No," said Dickie. "What should it frighten me for?"
"Well, it's like this," said Mr. Beale a little embarrassed. "Suppose you was to get pinched?"
"What 'ud pinch me? A dawg?"
"There won't be no dawg. A man, or a lady, or somebody in the 'ouse. Supposen they was to nab you – what 'ud you say?"
Dickie was watching his face carefully.
"Whatever you tells me to say," he said.
The man slapped his leg gently.
"If that ain't the nipper all over! Well, if they was to nab you, you just say what I tells you to. And then, first chance you get, you slip away from 'em and go to the station. An' if they comes arter you, you say you're a-goin' to your father at Dover. And first chance you get you slip off, and you come to that 'ouse where you and me slep' at Gravesend. I've got the dibs for yer ticket done up in this 'ere belt I'm a-goin' to put on you. But don't you let on to any one it's Gravesend you're a-coming to. See?"
"An' if I don't get pinched?"
"Then you just opens the door and me and that redheaded bloke we comes in."
"What for?" asked Dickie.
"To look for some tools 'e mislaid there a year ago when 'e was on a plumbing job – and they won't let 'im 'ave them back, not by fair means, they won't. That's what for."
"Rats!" said Dickie briefly. "I ain't a baby. It's burgling, that's what it is."
"You'll a jolly sight too fond of calling names," said Beale anxiously. "Never mind what it is. You be a good boy, matey, and do what you're told. That's what you do. You know 'ow to stick it on if you're pinched. If you ain't you just lay low till we comes out with the.. the plumber's tools. See?"
"And if I'm nabbed, what is it I am to say?"
"You must let on as a strange chap collared you on the road, a strange chap with a black beard and a red 'ankercher, and give you a licking if you didn't go and climb in at the window. Say you lost your father in the town, and this chap said he knew where 'e was, and if you see me you don't know me. Nor yet that redheaded chap wot you never see." He looked down at the small, earnest face turned up to his own. "You are a little nipper," he said affectionately. "I don't know as I ever noticed before quite wot a little 'un you was. Think you can stick it? You shan't go without you wants to, matey. There!"
"It's splendid!" said Dickie; "it is an adventure for a bold knight. I shall feel like Here Ward when he dressed in the potter's clothes and went to see King William."
He spoke in the book voice.
"There you go," said Mr. Beale, "but don't you go and talk to 'em like that if they pinches you; they'd never let you loose again. Think they'd got a marquis in disguise, so they would."
Dickie thought all day about this great adventure. He did not tell Mr. Beale so, but he was very proud of being so trusted. If you come to think of it, burgling must be a very exciting profession. And Dickie had no idea that it was wrong. It seemed to him a wholly delightful and sporting amusement.
While he was exploring the fox-runs among the thick stems of the grass Mr. Beale lay at full length and pondered.
"I don't more'n 'arf like it," he said to himself. "Ho yuss. I know that's wot I got him for – all right. But 'e's such a jolly little nipper. I wouldn't like anything to 'appen to 'im, so I wouldn't."
Dickie took his boots off and went to sleep as usual, and in the middle of the night Mr. Beale woke him up and said, "It's time."
There was no moon that night, and it was very, very dark. Mr. Beale carried Dickie on his back for what seemed a very long way along dark roads, under dark trees, and over dark meadows. A dark bush divided itself into two parts and one part came surprisingly towards them. It turned out to be the red-whiskered man, and presently from a ditch another man came. And they all climbed a chill, damp park-fence, and crept along among trees and shrubs along the inside of a high park wall. Dickie, still on Mr. Beale's shoulders, was astonished to find how quietly this big, clumsy-looking man could move.
Through openings in the trees and bushes Dickie could see the wide park, like a spread shadow, dotted with trees that were like shadows too. And on the other side of it the white face of a great house showed only a little paler than the trees about it. There were no lights in the house.
They got quite close to it before the shelter of the trees ended, for a little wood lay between the wall and the house.
Dickie's heart was beating very fast. Quite soon, now, his part in the adventure would begin.
"'Ere – catch 'old," Mr. Beale was saying, and the red-whiskered man took Dickie in his arms, and went forward. The other two crouched in the wood.
Dickie felt himself lifted, and caught at the window-sill with his hands. It was a damp night and smelled of earth and dead leaves. The window-sill was of stone, very cold. Dickie knew exactly what to do. Mr. Beale had explained it over and over again all day. He settled himself on the broad window-ledge and held on to the iron window-bars while the red-whiskered man took out a pane of glass, with treacle and a handkerchief, so that there should be no noise of breaking or falling glass. Then Dickie put his hand through and unfastened the window, which opened like a cupboard door. Then he put his feet through the narrow space between two bars and slid through. He hung inside with his hands holding the bars, till his foot found the table that he had been told to expect just below, and he got from that to the floor.
"Now I must remember exactly which way to go," he told himself. But he did not need to remember what he had been told. For quite certainly, and most oddly, he knew exactly where the door was, and when he had crept to it and got it open he found that he now knew quite well which way to turn and what passages to go along
