And at that touch a most odd feeling came to Dickie—the last feeling he would have expected—a feeling of pride mixed with a feeling of shame. Pride in his own cleverness, and another kind of pride that made that cleverness seem shameful. He had a feeling, very queer and very strong, that he, Dickie, was not the sort of person to open doors for the letting in of burglars. He felt as you would feel if you suddenly found your hands covered with filth, not good honest dirt, but slimy filth, and would not understand how you could have let it get there.
He caught at the third shape that brushed by him.
“Father,” he whispered, “don’t do it. Go back, and I’ll fasten it all up again. Oh! don’t, father.”
“Shut your mug!” whispered the red-whiskered man. Dickie knew his voice even in that velvet-black darkness. “Shut your mug, or I’ll give you what for!”
“Don’t, father,” said Dickie, and said it all the more for that threat.
“I can’t go back on my pals, matey,” said Mr. Beale; “you see that, don’t yer?”
Dickie did see. The adventure was begun: it was impossible to stop. It was helped and had to be eaten, as they say in Norfolk. He crouched behind the open door, and heard the soft pad-pad of the three men’s feet on the stones of the passage grow fainter and fainter. They had woolen socks over their boots, which made their footsteps sound no louder than those of padded pussy-feet. Then the soft rustle-pad died away, and it was perfectly quiet, perfectly dark. Dickie was tired; it was long past his proper bedtime, and the exertion of being so extra clever had been very tiring. He was almost asleep when a crack like thunder brought him stark, staring awake—there was a noise of feet on the stairs, boots, a blundering, hurried rush. People came rushing past him. There was another sharp thunder sound and a flash like lightning, only much smaller. Someone tripped and fell; there was a clatter like pails, and something hard and smooth hit him on the knee. Then another hurried presence dashed past him into the quiet night. Another—No! there was a woman’s voice.
“Edward, you shan’t! Let them go! You shan’t—no!”
And suddenly there was a light that made one wink and blink. A tall lady in white, carrying a lamp, swept down the stairs and caught at a man who sprang into being out of the darkness into the lamplight.
“Take the lamp,” she said, and thrust it on him. Then with unbelievable quickness she bolted and chained the door, locked it, and, turning, saw Dickie.
“What’s this?” she said. “Oh, Edward, quick—here’s one of them! … Why—it’s a child—”
Some more people were coming down the stairs, with candles and excited voices. Their clothes were oddly bright. Dickie had never seen dressing-gowns before. They moved in a very odd way, and then began to go round and round like tops.
The next thing that Dickie remembers is being in a room that seemed full of people and lights and wonderful furniture, with someone holding a glass to his lips, a little glass, that smelled of public-houses, very nasty.
“No!” said Dickie, turning away his head.
“Better?” asked a lady; and Dickie was astonished to find that he was on her lap.
“Yes, thank you,” he said, and tried to sit up, but lay back again because that was so much more pleasant. He had had no idea that anyone’s lap could be so comfortable.
“Now, young man,” said a stern voice that was not a lady’s, “just you tell us how you came here, and who put you up to it.”
“I got in,” said Dickie feebly, “through the butler’s pantry window,” and as he said it he wondered how he had known that it was the butler’s pantry. It is certain that no one had told him.
“What for?” asked the voice, which Dickie now perceived came from a gentleman in rumpled hair and a very loose pink flannel suit, with cordy things on it such as soldiers have.
“To let—” Dickie stopped. This was the moment he had been so carefully prepared for. He must think what he was saying.
“Yes,” said the lady gently, “it’s all right—poor little chap, don’t be frightened—nobody wants to hurt you!”
“I’m not frightened,” said Dickie—“not now.”
“To let—?” reminded the lady, persuasively.
“To let the man in.”
“What man?”
“I dunno.”
“There were three or four of them,” said the gentleman in pink; “four or five—”
“What man, dear?” the lady asked again.
“The man as said ’e knew w’ere my farver was,” said Dickie, remembering what he had been told to say; “so I went along of ’im, an’ then in the wood ’e said ’e’d give me a dressing down if I didn’t get through the winder and open the door; ’e said ’e’d left some tools ’ere and you wouldn’t let ’im ’ave them.”
“You see,” said the lady, “the child didn’t know. He’s perfectly innocent.” And she kissed Dickie’s hair very softly and kindly.
Dickie did not understand then why he suddenly felt as though he were going to choke. His head felt as though it were going to burst. His ears grew very hot, and his hands and feet very cold.
“I know’d right enough,” he said suddenly and hoarsely; “an’ I needn’t agone if I ’adn’t wanted to.”
“He’s feverish,” said the lady, “he doesn’t know what he’s saying. Look how flushed he is.”
“I wanted to,” said Dickie; “I thought it ’ud be a lark. And it was too.”
He expected to be shaken and put down.
