This lighted hope in every breast, and they went on exploring the castle. But though it was the most perfect and delightful castle you can possibly imagine, and furnished in the most complete and beautiful manner, neither food nor men-at-arms were to be found in it.
"If you'd only thought of wishing to be besieged in a castle thoroughly garrisoned and provisioned!" said Jane reproachfully.
"You can't think of everything, you know," said Anthea. "I should think it must be nearly dinner-time by now."
It wasn't; but they hung about watching the strange movements of the servants in the middle of the courtyard, because, of course, they couldn't be sure where the dining-room of the invisible house was. Presently they saw Martha carrying an invisible tray across the courtyard, for it seemed that, by the most fortunate accident, the dining-room of the house and the banqueting-hall of the castle were in the same place. But oh, how their hearts sank when they perceived that the tray was invisible!
They waited in wretched silence while Martha went through the form of carving an unseen leg of mutton and serving invisible greens and potatoes with a spoon that no one could see. When she had left the room, the children looked at the empty table, and then at each other.
"This is worse than anything," said Robert, who had not till now been particularly keen on his dinner.
"I'm not so very hungry," said Anthea, trying to make the best of things, as usual.
Cyril tightened his belt ostentatiously. Jane burst into tears.
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, goosegirl?" 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 molasses 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 nobody 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 shivers 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 polishing their shields. 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.
"You see you don't know how long it's been besieged," said Cyril darkly; "perhaps most of the brave defenders were killed early in the siege and all the provisions eaten, and now there are only a few intrepid survivors,—that's us, and we are going to defend it to the death."
"How do you begin—defending to the death, I mean?" asked Anthea.
"We ought to be heavily armed—and then shoot at them when they advance to the attack."
"They used to pour boiling lead down on besiegers when they got too close," said Anthea. "Father showed me the holes on purpose for pouring it down through at Bodiam Castle. And there are holes like it in the gate-tower here."
"I think I'm glad it's only a game; it is only a game, isn't it?" said Jane.
But no one answered.
The children found plenty of strange weapons in the castle, and if they were armed at all it was soon plain that they would be, as Cyril said, "armed heavily"—for these swords and lances and crossbows were far too weighty even for Cyril's manly strength; and as for the longbows, none of the children could even begin to bend them. The daggers were better; but Jane hoped that the besiegers would not come close enough for daggers to be of any use.
"Never mind, we can hurl them like javelins," said Cyril, "or drop them on people's heads. I say—there are lots of stones on the other side of the courtyard. If we took some of those up? Just to drop on their heads if they were to try swimming the moat."
So a heap of stones grew apace, up in the room above the gate; and another heap, a shiny spiky dangerous-looking heap, of daggers and knives.
As Anthea was crossing the courtyard for more stones, a sudden and valuable idea came to her.
She went to Martha and said, "May we have just biscuits for tea? We're going to play at besieged castles, and we'd like the biscuits to provision the garrison. Put mine in my pocket, please, my hands are so dirty. And I'll tell the others to fetch theirs."
This was indeed a happy thought, for now with four generous handfuls of air, which turned to biscuits as Martha crammed it into their