CHAPTER XXXI.
PRISSY'S PICNIC.
But just at this moment an important personage stalked through thegreat broken-down doorway by which kings and princes most magnificenthad once entered the ancient Castle of the Lorraines. He stood amoment or two on the threshold behind Nosie Cuthbertson, silentlycontemplating his courageous doings.
Presently a little stifled cry escaped from Prissy, caused by one ofNosie's refinements in torture, which consisted in separating herfingers and pulling two in one direction and two in the other. Nosiewas a youth of parts and promise, who had already proceeded somedistance on his way to the gallows.
But the Important Personage, who was no other than Nipper Donnanhimself, did not long remain quiescent. He advanced suddenly, seizedNosie Cuthbertson by the scruff of the neck, kicked him several timesseverely, tweaked his ear till it looked as if it had been constructedof the best india-rubber, and then ended by tumbling him into themoat, where he disappeared as noiselessly as if he had fallen intogreen syrup.
"Now, what's all this?" cried the lordly Nipper, whose doings amonghis own no man dared to question, for reasons connected with health.At the first sight of him Bob Hetherington had quietly shouldered hismusket, and begun pacing up and down with his nose in the air, as ifhe had never so much as dreamed of going near Prissy's basket.
"What's all this, I say--you?" demanded his captain.
"I don't know any bloomin' thing about it----" began Bob, with whomignorance, if not honesty, was certainly the best policy.
"Salute!" roared his officer; "don't you know enough to salute whenyou speak to me? Want to get knocked endways?"
Sulkily Bob Hetherington obeyed.
"Well?" said Nipper Donnan, somewhat appeased by the appearance ofNosie Cuthbertson as he scrambled up the bank, with the green scum ofduckweed clinging all over him. He was shaking his head and mutteringanathemas, declaring what his father would do to Nipper Donnan, whenwithin his heart he knew that first of all something very painfulwould be done to himself by that able-bodied relative as soon as everhe showed face at home.
"This girl she come to the drawbridge and hollered--that's all Iknow!" said the sentry, disassociating himself from any trouble ascompletely as possible. Bob felt that under the circumstances it wasvery distinctly folly to be wise. "I don't know what she hollered, butNosie he runs an' begins twisting her arm, and then the girl shebegins to holler again!"
"I didn't mean to," said Prissy tremulously, "but he _was_ hurting sodreadfully."
"Come here, you!" shouted Nipper to the retiring Nosie. Whereupon thatyoung gentleman, hearing the dreadful voice of his chief officer, andbeing at the time on the right side of the moat, did not pause torespond, but promptly took to his heels in the direction of the town.
"Run after him and bring him back, two of you fellows! Don't dare comeback without him!" cried Nipper, and at his word two big boys detachedthemselves from the doorposts in which the guard was kept, and dashedafter the deserter.
"Oh, don't hurt him--perhaps he didn't mean it!" cried the universallysympathetic Prissy. "He didn't hurt me much after all, and it is quitebetter now anyway."
Nipper Donnan could, as we know, be as cruel as anybody, but he likedto keep both the theory and practice of terror in his own hands.Besides, some possible far-off fragrance from another life stirred inhim when he saw the slim girlish figure of Prissy Smith, clad all inwhite with a large sun-bonnet edged with pale green, standing on thebank and appealing to him with eyes different from any he had everseen. He wanted, he knew not why, to kick Nosie Cuthbertson--kick himmuch harder than he had done before he saw whom he was tormenting. Hehad never particularly noticed any one's eyes before. He had thoughtvaguely that every one had the same kind of eyes.
"THE RETURN OF THE TWO SWIFT FOOTMEN."]
"Well, what do you want?" he said gruffly. For with Nipper and hisclass emotion or shamefacedness of any kind always in the firstinstance produces additional dourness.
Prissy smiled upon him--a glad, confident smile. She was the daughterof one war chief, the sister of another, and she knew that it isalways best and simplest to treat only with principals.
"You know that I didn't come to spy or find out anything, don't you?"she said; "only I was so sorry to think you were fighting with eachother, when the Bible tells us to love one another. Why can't we allbe nice together? I'm sure Hugh John would if you would----"
"Gammon--this is our castle," said Nipper Donnan sullenly, "my fatherhe says so. Everybody says so. Your father has no right to it."
"Well, but--" replied Prissy, with woman's gentle wit avoiding alldiscussion of the bone of contention, "I'm sure you would let us comehere and have picnics and things. And you could come too, and play atsoldiers and marching and drills--all without fighting to hurt."
"Fighting is the best fun!" snarled Nipper; "besides, 'twasn't us thatbegun it."
"Then," answered Prissy, "wouldn't it be all the nicer of you if youwere to stop first?"
But this Nipper Donnan could not be expected to understand. Adiversion was caused at this moment by the return of the two swiftfootmen, with the culprit Nosie between them, doing the frog's march,and having his own experiences as to what arm-twisting meant.
"Cast him into the deepest dungeon beneath the castle moat!" thunderedthe brigand chief.
"Can't," said the elder of the two captors, one Joe Craig, the son ofthe Carlisle carrier; "can't--we couldn't get him out again if wedid!"
"Well then,"--returned the great chief, swiftly deciding upon analternative plan, as if he had thought about it from the first, "chuckhim down anywhere on the stones, and get Fat Sandy to sit on him."
"HYDRAULIC PRESSURE."]
Joe Craig obediently saluted, and presently sundry moans and sounds ofexhausted breath indicated that Nosie Cuthbertson was being subjectedto hydraulic pressure by the unseen tormentor whom Nipper Donnan hadcalled Fat Sandy. Prissy felt that nothing she could say would forthe present lessen Master Nosie's griefs, so she went on to accomplishher purpose by other means.
"If you please, Mr. Captain," she said politely, "I thought you wouldlike to taste our nice sheep's-head-pie. Janet makes it all out of herown head. Besides, there are some dee-licious fruits which I havebrought you; and if you will let me come in, I will make you somelovely tea?"
Nipper Donnan considered, and at last shook his head.
"I don't know," he said, "'tisn't regular. How do we know that youaren't a spy?"
"You could bind my eyes with a napkin, and----"
"That's the thing!" cried several of Nipper's followers, who scentedsomething to eat, and who knew that the commissariat was the weakpoint in the defences of the Castle of Windy Standard under theConsulship of Donnan.
"Well," said the chief, "that's according to rule. Here, TimothyTracy, tell us if that is all right."
Whereupon uprose Timothy Tracy, a long lank boy with yellowish hairand dull lack-lustre eyes, out of a niche in the wall and unfolded anumber of "The Wild Boys of New York." He rustled the flaccid,ill-conditioned leaves and found the place.
"'Then Bendigo Bill went to the gateway of the stockade to interviewthe emissary of the besiegers. With keen unerring eyes he examinedhis credentials, and finding them correct, he took from the breast ofhis fringed buckskin hunting-dress a handkerchief of fine Indian silk,and with it he swathed the eyes of the ambassador. Then taking theenvoy by the hand he led him past the impregnable defences of theComanche Cowboys into the presence of their haughty chief, who wasseated with the fair Luluja beside him, holding her delicate hand, andinhaling the fragrance of a choice Havanna cigar through his nobleaquiline nose.'
"That's all it says," said Timothy Tracy, succinctly, and straightwaycurled himself up again to resume his own story at the place where hehad left it off.
"Well, that's all pretty straight and easy. Nobody can say fairer northat," meditated Bob Hetherington.
"Shut up!" said his chief; "who asked for your oar? I'll knock thebloomin' n
ut off you if you don't watch out. Blindfold the emissary ofthe enemy, and bring her before me into the inner court."
And with this peremptory command, Nipper Donnan disappeared.
But the order was more easily given than obeyed. For not only couldthe entire array of the Comanche Cowboys produce nothing evendistantly resembling Indian silk (which at any rate was a counsel ofperfection), but what was worse, their pockets were equally destituteof common domestic linen. Indeed the proceedings would have fallenthrough at this point had not the ambassadress offered her own. Thiswas knotted round her brows by Joe Craig, with the best intentions inthe world.
Immediately after completing the arrangement, he stepped in front ofPrissy and said, thrusting his fist below her nose, "Tell me if yousee anything--mind, true as 'Hope-you-may-Die!'"
"I do see something, something very dirty," said Prissy, "but I can'tquite tell what it is."
"She _can_ see, boys," cried Joe indignantly, "it's my hand."
Every boy recognised the description, and the handkerchief was oncemore adjusted with greater care and precision than before, so that itwas only by the sense of smell that Prissy could judge of theproximity of Joe Craig's fingers.
"Please let me carry my basket myself--I've got my best chinatea-service in it--and then I will be sure that it won't get broken."
A licentious soldiery was about to object, but a stern command issuedunexpectedly from one of the arrow-slits through which their chief hadbeen on the watch.
"Give the girl the basket! Do you hear--you?"
And in this manner Prissy entered the castle, guarded on either sideby soldiers with fixed (wooden) bayonets. And at the inner and outerports, the convoy was halted and asked for the pass-word.
"_Death!_" cried Joe Craig, at the pitch of his voice.
"_Vengeance!_" replied the sentry. "Pass, '_Death_'!"
At last Prissy felt the grass beneath her feet, and the handkerchiefbeing slipped from her eyes, she found herself within the courtyard ofthe castle. The captain of the band sat before her with a red sashtied tightly about his waist. By his side swung a butcher's steel,almost as long and twice as dangerous as a sword.
Prissy began her mission at once, to allow Captain Donnan no time toorder her out again, or to put her into a dungeon, as he had done withHugh John.
"I think we had better have tea first," she said. "Have you got amatch-box?"
She could not have taken a better line. Nipper Donnan stepped downfrom his high horse at once. He put his hand into his pocket. "I haveonly fusees," he said grandly, "but perhaps they will do. You seeregular smokers never use anything else."
"Oh yes, they will do perfectly," returned Prissy sweetly, "it is justto light the spirit-lamp. See how nicely it fits in. Isn't it abeauty? I got that from father on my birthday. Wasn't it nice of him?"
Nipper Donnan grunted. He never found any marked difference betweenhis birthday and any other day. Nevertheless he stood by and assistedat the making of the tea, a process which interested him greatly.
"I shall need some more fresh spring water for so many cups," saidPrissy, "I only brought the full of the kettle with me."
The chief slightly waved a haughty hand, which instantly impelled JoeCraig forward as if moved by a spring. "Bring some fresh water fromthe well!" he commanded.
Joe Craig took the tin dipper, and was marching off. Prissy lookeddistressed.
"What is it?" said the robber chief. Now Prissy did not want to berude, but she had her feelings.
"Oh, please, Mr. Captain," she said, "his hands--I think he hasperhaps been working----"
Nipper Donnan had no fine scruples, but he respected them in such anunknown quantity as this dainty little lady with the green trimmedsun-bonnet and the widely-opened eyes.
"Tracy, fetch the water, you lazy jaundiced toad!" he commanded. Thesallow student rose unwillingly, and moved off with his face stillbent upon the thrilling pages of "The Wild Boys of New York," which heheld folded small in his hand for convenience of perusal.
Presently the tea being made, the white cloth was laid on the grass,and the entire company of the Smoutchy Boys crowded about, alwaysexcepting the sentinels at the east and west doors, who being on dutycould not immediately participate. The sheep's-head-pie, the bread,the butter, the fruits were all set out in order, and the wholepresented such an appearance as the inside of the Castle of WindyStandard had never seen through all its generations.
Prissy conducted herself precisely as if she had been dispensingafternoon tea to callers in the drawing-room, as, since her lastbirthday, her father had occasionally permitted her to do.
"Do you take sugar?" she asked, delicately poising a piece in thedolls' sugar-tongs, and smiling her most politefully conventionalsmile at Nipper Donnan.
The brigand chief had never been asked such a question before, and hadno answer of the usual kind at hand. But he replied for all that.
"_Rather!_" he cried in a burst, "if the grocer's not lookin'!"
"I mean in your tea! Do you take sugar in your tea?"
Prissy was still smiling.
Nipper appeared to acquiesce. Two knobs of sugar were dropped in. Thewhipped cream out of the wide-mouthed bottle was spooned delicately onthe top, and with a yet more charming smile the cup was passed to him.He held it between his finger and thumb, as an inquiring naturalistholds a rare beetle. Then he put it down on a low fragment of wall andlooked at it.
"One lump or two?" queried Prissy again, graciously transferring herattentions to Joe Craig.
"Eh, what?" ejaculated that warrior. Prissy repeated her question.
"As many as I can get!" cried the boy.
So one by one the brigands were served, and the subdued look whichrests upon a Sunday-school picnic at the hour of refreshment settleddown upon them. The Smoutchy boy is bad and bold, but he does not likeyou to see him in the act of eating. His instinct is to get behind awall, or into the thick of a copse and do it there. A similar feelingsends the sparrow with a larger crumb than the others into theseclusion of his nest among the ivy.
Nevertheless the bread and jam, the raisins, and the sheep's-head-piedisappeared 'like snow off a dyke.' The wonder of the thimbleful cups,continually replenished, grew more and more surprising; and, winkingslyly at each other the Smoutchies passed them in with a touch oftheir caps to be filled and refilled again and again. Prissy kept thekettle beside her, out of which she poured the water brought byTimothy Tracy as she wanted it. The golden colour of the teadegenerated, but so long as a few drops of milk remained to mask thefraud from their eyes, the Smoutchies drank the warm water with equalrelish.
"Besides it's so much better for your nerves, you know!" said Prissy,putting her action upon a hygienic basis.
At first the boys had been inclined to snatch the viands from thetable-cloth, and there was one footprint on the further edge. But theiron hand of Nipper Donnan knocked two or three intruders sprawling,and after that the eatables were distributed as patiently and exactlyas at a Lord Mayor's banquet.
"Please will you let that boy get up?--I think he must have been satupon quite long enough now," said Prissy, who could not bear to listento the uneasy groaning of the oppressed prisoner.
The chief granted the boon. The sitter and his victim came in andwere regaled amicably from one plate. "Pieces" and full cups of teawere despatched to the distant sentinels, and finally the wholecompany was in the midst of washing up, when Prissy, who had beenkneeling on the grass wiping saucers one by one, suddenly rose to herfeet with a little cry.
"Oh, it is so dreadful--I _quite_ forgot!"
The Smoutchies stood open-mouthed, some holding dishes, some withbelated pieces of pie, some only with their hands in their pockets,but all waiting eagerly for the revelation of the dreadful thing whichtheir hostess had forgotten.
"Why, we forgot to say grace!" she cried--"well, anyway I am glad Iremembered in time. We can say it now. Who is the youngest?"
The boys all looked guiltily at each other. Priss
y picked out a smallboy of stunted aspect, but whose face was old and wizened. He had justput a piece of tobacco into his mouth to take away the taste of thetea.
"You say it, little boy," she said pointedly, and shut her eyes forhim to begin.
The boy gasped, glanced once at his chief, and made a bolt for thedoor, through which he had fled before the sentinels had time to stophim. At the clatter Prissy opened her eyes.
"What is the matter with that boy? Couldn't he say grace? Didn't heremember the beginning? Well, you say it then----"
Nipper Donnan shook his head. He had a fine natural contempt for allreligious services in the abstract, but when one was brought beforehim as a ceremony, his sense of discipline told him that it mustsomehow be valuable.
"Better say it yourself," he suggested.
Whereat Prissy devoutly clasped her hands and shut her eyes.
There was a smart smack and something fell over. Prissy opened hereyes, and saw a boy sprawling on the grass.
"Right," said Nipper Donnan cheerfully, "go ahead--Joe Craig laughed.I'll teach him to laugh except when I tell him to."
So Prissy again proceeded with a grace of her own composition:
"_God bless our table, Bless our food; And make us stable, Brave and good._"
After all was over Prissy left the Castle of Windy Standard, withoutindeed obtaining any pledge from the chief of the army of occupation,but not without having done some good. And she went forth with dignitytoo. For not only did the robber chieftain provide her with an escort,but he ordered the ramparts to be manned, and a general salute to befired in her honour.
Prissy waved her hand vigorously, and had already proceeded a littleway towards the stepping-stones, when she stopped, laid down herbasket, and ran back to the postern gate. She took her littletortoise-shell card-case out of her pocket.
"Oh, I was nearly forgetting--how dreadfully rude of me!" she said,and forthwith pulled out a card on which she had previously writtenvery neatly:
+---------------------------------------+ | | | _Miss Priscilla Smith_ | | | |_At Home Every Day_ | +---------------------------------------+
She laid it on the stones, and tripped away. "I'm sorry I have not mybrother's card to leave also," she said, looking up at the brigandchief, who had been watching her curiously from a window.
"Oh," said Nipper Donnan, "we shall be pleased to see him if he dropsin on Saturday--or any other time."
Then he waited till the trim white figure was some distance from thegateway before he took his cap from his head and waved it in the air.
"Three proper cheers for the little lady!" he cried.
And the grim old walls of the Castle of Windy Standard never echoed toa heartier shout than that with which the Smoutchy boys sped MissPriscilla Smith, the daughter of their arch enemy, upon her homewardway.
Prissy poised herself on tiptoe at the entrance of the copse, and blewthem a dainty collective kiss from her fingers.
"Thank you so much," she cried, "you are very kind. Come and see mesoon--and be sure you stop to tea."
And with that she tripped swiftly away homeward with an empty basketand a happy heart.
That night in her little room before she went to sleep she read overher favourite text, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall becalled the children of God."
"Oh dear," she said, "I should so like to be one some day."