The Wouldbegoods by E. Nesbit Page A

bounds, like the good work in missionary magazines.
    For, down below us, in the tower where the man whose beard grew down to his toes after he was dead was buried, there was a noise – a loud noise. And it was like a door being banged and bolts fastened. We tumbled over each other to get back into the open sunshine on the top of the tower, and Alice’s hand got jammed between the edge of the doorway and H.O.’s boot; it was bruised black and blue, and another part bled, but she did not notice it till long after.
    We looked at each other, and Oswald said in a firm voice (at least, I hope it was) –
    ‘What was that?’
    ‘He
has
waked up,’ Alice said. ‘Oh, I know he has. Of course there is a door for him to get out by when he wakes. He’ll come up here. I know he will.’
    Dicky said, and his voice was not at all firm (I noticed that at the time), ‘It doesn’t matter, if he’s
alive
.’
    ‘Unless he’s come to life a raving lunatic,’ Noel said, and we all stood with our eyes on the doorway of the turret – and held our breath to hear.
    But there was no more noise.
    Then Oswald said – and nobody ever put it in the Golden Deed book, though they own that it was brave and noble of him – he said –
    ‘Perhaps it was only the wind blowing one of the doors to. I’ll go down and see, if you will, Dick.’
    Dicky only said –
    ‘The wind doesn’t shoot bolts.’
    ‘A bolt from the blue,’ said Denny to himself, looking up at the sky. His father is a sub-editor. He had gone very red, and he was holding on to Alice’s hand. Suddenly he stood up quite straight and said –
    ‘I’m not afraid. I’ll go and see.’
    This
was afterwards put in the Golden Deed book. It ended in Oswald and Dicky and Denny going. Denny went first because he said he would rather – and Oswald understood this and let him. If Oswald had pushed first it would have been like Sir Lancelot refusing to let a young knight win his spurs. Oswald took good care to go second himself, though. The others never understood this. You don’t expect it from girls; but I did think Father would have understood without Oswald telling him, which of course he never could.
    We all went slowly.
    At the bottom of the turret stairs we stopped short. Because the door there was bolted fast and would not yield to shoves, however desperate and united.
    Only now somehow we felt that Mr Richard Ravenal was all right and quiet, but that someone had done itfor a lark, or perhaps not known about anyone being up there. So we rushed up, and Oswald told the others in a few hasty but well-chosen words, and we all leaned over between the battlements, and shouted, ‘Hi! You there!’
    Then from under the arches of the quite-downstairs part of the tower a figure came forth – and it was the sailor who had had our milk sixpence. He looked up and he spoke to us. He did not speak loud, but he spoke loud enough for us to hear every word quite plainly. He said –
    ‘Drop that.’
    Oswald said, ‘Drop what?’
    He said, ‘That row.’
    Oswald said, ‘Why?’
    He said, ‘Because if you don’t I’ll come up and make you, and pretty quick too, so I tell you.’
    Dicky said, ‘Did you bolt the door?’
    The man said, ‘I did so, my young cock.’
    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, itis as good to be clever as it is to be good. But Oswald would never demean