Uncle George—the youngest—was distinctly more promising. He accompanied us cheerily round the establishment—suffered himself to be introduced to each of the cows—held out the right hand of fellowship to the pig—and even hinted that a pair of pink-eyed Himalayan rabbits might arrive—unexpectedly—from town some day. We were just considering whether in this fertile soil an apparently accidental remark on the solid qualities of guinea-pigs or ferrets might haply blossom and bring forth fruit, when our governess appeared on the scene. Uncle George’s manner at once underwent a complete and contemptible change. His interest in rational topics seemed, ‘like a fountain’s sickening pulse,’ to flag and ebb away; and though Miss Smedley’s ostensible purpose was to take Selina for her usual walk, I can vouch for it that Selina spent her morning ratting, along with the keeper’s boy and me; while if Miss Smedley walked with any one, it would appear to have been with Uncle George.
But, despicable as his conduct had been, he underwent no hasty condemnation. The defection was discussed in all its bearings, but it seemed sadly clear at last that this uncle must possess some innate badness of character and fondness for low company. We who from daily experience knew Miss Smedley like a book—were we not only too well aware that she had neither accomplishments nor charms—no characteristic, in fact, but an inbred viciousness of temper and disposition? True, she knew the dates of the English kings by heart; but how could that profit Uncle George, who, having passed into the army, had ascended beyond the need of useful information? Our bows and arrows, on the other hand, had been freely placed at his disposal; and a soldier should not have hesitated in his choice a moment. No: Uncle George had fallen from grace, and was unanimously damned. And the non-arrival of the Himalayan rabbits was only another nail in his coffin. Uncles, therefore, were just then a heavy and lifeless market, and there was little inclination to deal. Still it was agreed that Uncle William, who had just returned from India, should have as fair a trial as the others; more especially as romantic possibilities might well be embodied in one who had held the gorgeous East in fee.
Selina had kicked my shins—like the girl she is!—during a scuffle in the passage, and I was still rubbing them with one hand when I found that the uncle-on-approbation was half-heartedly shaking the other. A florid, elderly man, quite unmistakably nervous, he let drop one grimy paw after another, and, turning very red, with an awkward simulation of heartiness, ‘Well, h’are y’all?’ he said, ‘Glad to see me, eh?’ As we could hardly, in justice, be expected to have formed an opinion on him at that early stage, we could but look at each other in silence; which scarce served to relieve the tension of the situation. Indeed, the cloud never really lifted during his stay. In talking things over later, some one put forward the suggestion that he must at some time or other have committed a stupendous crime. But I could not bring myself to believe that the man, though evidently unhappy, was really guilty of anything; and I caught him once or twice looking at us with evident kindliness, though, seeing himself observed, he blushed and turned away his head.
When at last the atmosphere was clear of his depressing influence, we met despondently in the potato-cellar—all of us, that is, but Harold, who had been told off to accompany his relative to the station; and the feeling was unanimous, that, as an uncle, William could not be allowed to pass. Selina roundly declared him a beast, pointing out that he had not even got us a half-holiday; and, indeed, there seemed little to do but to pass sentence. We were about to put it to the vote, when Harold appeared on the scene; his red face, round eyes, and mysterious demeanour, hinting at awful portents. Speechless he stood a space: then, slowly drawing his hand from the pocket of his knickerbockers, he displayed on a dirty palm one—two—three—four half-crowns! We could but gaze—tranced, breathless, mute. Never had any of us seen, in the aggregate, so much bullion before. Then Harold told his tale.
‘I took the old fellow to the station,’ he said, ‘and as we went along I told him all about the stationmaster’s family, and how I had seen the porter kissing our housemaid, and what a nice fellow he was, with no airs or affectation about him, and anything I thought would be of interest; but he didn’t seem to pay much attention, but walked along puffing his cigar, and once I thought—I’m not certain, but I thought—I heard him say, “Well, thank God, that’s over!” When we got to the station he stopped suddenly, and said, “Hold on a minute!” Then he shoved these into my hand in a frightened sort of way, and said, “Look here, youngster! These are for you and the other kids. Buy what you like—make little beasts of yourselves—only don’t tell the old people, mind! Now cut away home!” So I cut.’
A solemn hush fell on the assembly, broken first by the small Charlotte. ‘I didn’t know,’ she observed dreamily, ‘that there were such good men anywhere in the world. I hope he’ll die tonight, for then he’ll go straight to heaven!’ But the repentant Selina bewailed herself with tears and sobs, refusing to be comforted; for that in her haste she had called this white-souled relative a beast.
‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do,’ said Edward, the master-mind, rising—as he always did—to the situation: ‘We’ll christen the piebald pig after him—the one that hasn’t got a name yet. And that’ll show we’re sorry for our mistake!’
‘I—I christened that pig this morning,’ Harold guiltily confessed; ‘I christened it after the curate. I’m very sorry—but he came and bowled to me last night, after you others had all been sent to bed early—and somehow I felt I had to do it!’
‘Oh, but that doesn’t count,’ said Edward hastily; ‘because we weren’t all there. We’ll take that christening off, and call it Uncle William. And you can save up the curate for the next litter!’
And the motion being agreed to without a division, the House went into Committee of Supply.
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
‘Let’s pretend,’ suggested Harold, ‘that we’re Cavaliers and Roundheads; and you be a Roundhead!’
‘O bother,’ I replied drowsily, ‘we pretended that yesterday; and it’s not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow.’ The fact is, I was lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active ‘pretence’ with its shouts and its perspiration, how much better—I held—to lie at ease and pretend to one’s self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off.
‘Well then,’ he began afresh, ‘let’s pretend we’re Knights of the Round Table; and (with a rush) I’ll be Lancelot!’
‘I won’t play unless I’m Lancelot,’ I said. I didn’t mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.
‘O please,’ implored Harold. ‘You know when Edward’s here I never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven’t been Lancelot for weeks!’
Then I yielded gracefully. ‘All right,’ I said. ‘I’ll be Tristram.’
‘O, but you can’t,’ cried Harold again. ‘Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won’t play unless she’s allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time.’
Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would have gone back in tears to the stuffy schoolroom.
‘I don’t care,’ I said: ‘I’ll be anything. I’ll be Sir Kay. Come on!’
Then once more in this country’s story the mail-clad knights paced through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing wrong; and bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to their caves. Once more were damsels rescued, dragons disembowelled, a
nd giants, in every corner of the orchard, deprived of their already superfluous number of heads; while Palomides the Saracen waited for us by the well, and Sir Breuse Saunce Pité vanished in craven flight before the skilled spear that was his terror and his bane. Once more the lists were dight in Camelot, and all was gay with shimmer of silk and gold; the earth shook with thunder of hooves, ash-staves flew in splinters, and the firmament rang to the clash of sword on helm. The varying fortune of the day swung doubtful—now on this side, now on that; till at last Lancelot, grim and great, thrusting through the press, unhorsed Sir Tristram (an easy task), and bestrode her, threatening doom; while the Cornish knight, forgetting hard-won fame of old, cried piteously, ‘You’re hurting me, I tell you! and you’re tearing my frock!’ Then it happed that Sir Kay, hurtling to the rescue, stopped short in his stride, catching sight suddenly, through apple-boughs, of a gleam of scarlet afar off; while the confused tramp of many horses, mingled with talk and laughter, was borne to the ears of his fellow-champions and himself.
‘What is it?’ inquired Tristram, sitting up and shaking out her curls; while Lancelot forsook the clanging lists and trotted nimbly to the boundary-hedge.
I stood spell-bound for a moment longer, and then, with a cry of ‘Soldiers!’ I was off to the hedge, Sir Tristram picking herself up and scurrying after us.
Down the road they came, two and two, at an easy walk; scarlet flamed in the eye, bits jingled and saddles squeaked delightfully; while the men, in a halo of dust, smoked their short clays like the heroes they were. In a swirl of intoxicating glory the troop clinked and clattered by, while we shouted and waved, jumping up and down, and the big jolly horsemen acknowledged the salute with easy condescension. The moment they were past we were through the hedge and after them. Soldiers were not the common stuff of everyday life. There had been nothing like this since the winter before last, when on a certain afternoon—bare of leaf and monochromatic in its hue of sodden fallow and frost-nipt copse—suddenly the hounds had burst through the fence with their mellow cry, and all the paddock was for the minute reverberant of thudding hoof and dotted with glancing red. But this was better, since it could only mean that blows and bloodshed were in the air.
‘Is there going to be a battle?’ panted Harold, hardly able to keep up for excitement.
‘Of course there is,’ I replied. ‘We’re just in time. Come on!’
Perhaps I ought to have known better; and yet—? The pigs and poultry, with whom we chiefly consorted, could instruct us little concerning the peace that lapped in these latter days our seagirt realm. In the schoolroom we were just now dallying with the Wars of the Roses; and did not legends of the country-side inform us how cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed hard in their tracks.
‘Won’t Edward be sorry,’ puffed Harold, ‘that he’s begun that beastly Latin?’
It did, indeed, seem hard. Edward, the most martial spirit of us all, was drearily conjugating amo (of all verbs!) between four walls, while Selina, who ever thrilled ecstatic to a red coat, was struggling with the uncouth German tongue. ‘Age,’ I reflected, ‘carries its penalties.’
It was a grievous disappointment to us that the troop passed through the village unmolested. Every cottage, I pointed out to my companions, ought to have been loopholed, and strongly held. But no opposition was offered to the soldiers who, indeed, conducted themselves with a recklessness and a want of precaution that seemed simply criminal.
At the last cottage a transitory gleam of common sense flickered across me, and, turning on Charlotte, I sternly ordered her back. The small maiden, docile but exceedingly dolorous, dragged reluctant feet homewards, heavy at heart that she was to behold no stout fellows slain that day; but Harold and I held steadily on, expecting every instant to see the environing hedges crackle and spit forth the leaden death.
‘Will they be Indians?’ asked my brother (meaning the enemy) ‘or Roundheads, or what?’
I reflected. Harold always required direct straightforward answers—not faltering suppositions.
‘They won’t be Indians,’ I replied at last; ‘nor yet Roundheads. There haven’t been any Roundheads seen about here for a long time. They’ll be Frenchmen.’
Harold’s face fell. ‘All right,’ he said: ‘Frenchmen’ll do; but I did hope they’d be Indians.’
‘If they were going to be Indians,’ I explained, ‘I—I don’t think I’d go on. Because when Indians take you prisoner they scalp you first, and then burn you at the stake. But Frenchmen don’t do that sort of thing.’
‘Are you quite sure?’ asked Harold doubtfully.
‘Quite,’ I replied. ‘Frenchmen only shut you up in a thing called the Bastille; and then you get a file sent in to you in a loaf of bread, and saw the bars through, and slide down a rope, and they all fire at you—but they don’t hit you—and you run down to the seashore as hard as you can, and swim off to a British frigate, and there you are!’
Harold brightened up again. The programme was rather attractive. ‘If they try to take us prisoner,’ he said, ‘we—we won’t run, will we?’
Meanwhile, the craven foe was a long time showing himself; and we were reaching strange outland country, uncivilised, wherein lions might be expected to prowl at nightfall. I had a stitch in my side, and both Harold’s stockings had come down. Just as I was beginning to have gloomy doubts of the proverbial courage of Frenchmen, the officer called out something, the men closed up, and, breaking into a trot, the troops—already far ahead—vanished out of our sight. With a sinking at the heart, I began to suspect we had been fooled.
‘Are they charging?’ cried Harold, very weary, but rallying gamely.
‘I think not,’ I replied doubtfully. ‘When there’s going to be a charge, the officer always makes a speech, and then they draw their swords and the trumpets blow, and—but let’s try a short cut. We may catch them up yet.’
So we struck across the fields and into another road, and pounded down that, and then over more fields, panting, down-hearted, yet hoping for the best. The sun went in, and a thin drizzle began to fall; we were muddy, breathless, almost dead-beat; but we blundered on, till at last we struck a road more brutally, more callously unfamiliar than any road I ever looked upon. Not a hint nor a sign of friendly direction or assistance on the dogged white face of it! There was no longer any disguising it: we were hopelessly lost. The small rain continued steadily, the evening began to come on. Really there are moments when a fellow is justified in crying; and I would have cried too, if Harold had not been there. That right-minded child regarded an elder brother as a veritable god; and I could see that he felt himself as secure as if a whole Brigade of Guards had hedged him round with protecting bayonets. But I dreaded sore lest he should begin again with his questions.
As I gazed in dumb appeal on the face of unresponsive nature, the sound of nearing wheels sent a pulse of hope through my being: increasing to rapture as I recognised in the approaching vehicle the familiar carriage of the old doctor. If ever a god emerged from a machine, it was when this heaven-sent friend, recognising us, stopped and jumped out with a cheery hail. Harold rushed up to him at once. ‘Have you been there?’ he cried. ‘Was it a jolly fight? who beat? were there many people killed?’
The doctor appeared puzzled. I briefly explained the situation.
‘I see,’ said the doctor, looking grave and twisting his face this way and that. ‘Well, the fact is, there isn’t going to be any battle today. It’s been put off, on account of the change in the weather. You will have due notice of the renewal of hostilities. And now you’d better jump in and I’ll drive you home. You’ve been running a fine rig! Why, you might have both been taken and shot as spies!’
This special
danger had never even occurred to us. The thrill of it accentuated the cosy homelike feeling of the cushions we nestled into as we rolled homewards. The doctor beguiled the journey with blood-curdling narratives of personal adventure in the tented field, he having followed the profession of arms (so it seemed) in every quarter of the globe. Time, the destroyer of all things beautiful, subsequently revealed the baselessness of these legends; but what of that? There are higher things than truth; and we were almost reconciled, by the time we were put down at our gate, to the fact that the battle had been postponed.
THE FINDING OF THE PRINCESS
It was the day I was promoted to a toothbrush. The girls, irrespective of age, had been thus distinguished some time before; why, we boys could never rightly understand, except that it was part and parcel of a system of studied favouritism on behalf of creatures both physically inferior and (as was shown by a fondness for tale-bearing) of weaker mental fibre to us boys. It was not that we yearned after these strange instruments in themselves. Edward, indeed, applied his to the scrubbing-out of his squirrel’s cage, and for personal use, when a superior eye was grim on him, borrowed Harold’s or mine, indifferently. But the nimbus of distinction that clung to them—that we coveted exceedingly. What more, indeed, was there to ascend to, before the remote, but still possible, razor and strop?
Perhaps the exaltation had mounted to my head; or nature and the perfect morning joined to hint at disaffection. Anyhow, having breakfasted, and triumphantly repeated the collect I had broken down in the last Sunday—’twas one without rhythm or alliteration: a most objectionable collect—having achieved thus much, the small natural man in me rebelled, and I vowed, as I straddled and spat about the stable-yard in feeble imitation of the coachman, that lessons might go to the Inventor of them. It was only geography that morning, any way: and the practical thing was worth any quantity of bookish theoric. As for me, I was going on my travels, and imports and exports, populations and capitals, might very well wait while I explored the breathing coloured world outside.