CHAPTER XXXII.
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
Saturday morning dawned calm and clear after heavy rain on the hills,with a Sabbath-like peace in the air. The smoke of Edam rose straightup into the firmament from a hundred chimneys, and the Lias Coal Minecontributed a yet taller pillar to the skies, which bushed out at thetop till it resembled an umbrella with a thick handle. Hugh John hadbeen very early astir, and one of his first visits had been to thegipsy camp, where he found Billy Blythe with several others all cladin their tumbling tights, practising their great Bounding Brothers'act.
"Hello," cried Hugh John jovially, "at it already?"
"The mornin's the best time for suppling the jints!" answered Billysententiously; "ask Lepronia Lovell, there. She should know with allthem tin pans going clitter-clatter on her back."
"I'll be thankin' ye, Billy Blythe, to kape a tight holt on the slacko' that whopper jaw of yours. It will be better for you at supper-timethan jeerin' at a stranger girl, that is arnin' her bite o' breaddaycent. And that's a deal more than ye can do, aye, or anny wan likeye!"
And with these brave words, Lepronia Lovell went jingling away.
The Bounding Brothers threw themselves into knots, spun themselvesinto parti-coloured tops, turned double and treble somersaults, builthuman pyramids, and generally behaved as if they had no bones in anypermanent positions throughout their entire bodies. Hugh John stood byin wonder and admiration.
"Are you afraid?" cried Billy from where he stood, arching hisshoulders and swaying a little, as one of the supporters of thepyramid. "No?--then take off your boots." Hugh John instantly stood inhis stocking soles.
"Up with him!" And before he knew it, he was far aloft, with his feeton the shoulders of the highest pair, who supported him with theirright and left hands respectively. From his elevated perch he couldsee the enemy's flag flaunting defiance from the topmost battlementsof the castle.
As soon as he reached the ground he mentioned what he had seen toBilly Blythe.
"We'll have it low and mean enough this night as ever was, before theedge o' dark!" said Billy, with a grim nod of his head.
* * * * *
The rains of the night had swelled the ford so that thestepping-stones were almost impracticable--indeed, entirely so for theshort brown legs of Sir Toady Lion. This circumstance added greatly tothe strength of the enemy's position, and gave the Smoutchies adecided advantage.
"They can't be at the castle all the time," said Billy; "why not letmy mates and me go in before they get there? Then we could easily keepevery one of them out."
This suggestion much distressed General Smith, who endeavoured toexplain the terms of his contract to the gipsy lad. He showed him thatit would not be fair to attack the Smoutchies except on Saturday,because at any other time they could not have all their forces in thefield.
Billy thought with some reason that this was simple folly. But in timehe was convinced of the wisdom of not "making two blazes of the samewasps' byke," as he expressed it.
"Do for them once out and out, and be done with it!" was his finaladvice.
Hugh John could not keep from thinking how stale and unprofitable itwould be when all the Smoutchies had been finally "done for," and whenhe did not waken to new problems of warfare every morning.
According to the final arrangements the main attack was to bedeveloped from the broadest part of the castle island below thestepping-stones. There were two boats belonging to the house of WindyStandard, lying in a boat-house by the little pier on the way toOaklands. For security these were attached by a couple of padlocks toa strong double staple, which had been driven right through the solidfloor of the landing-stage.
The padlocks were new, and the whole appeared impregnable to thesimple minds of the children, and even to Mike and Peter Greg. ButBilly smiled as he looked at them.
"Why, opening them's as easy as falling off a stool when you'reasleep. Gimme a hairpin."
But neither Prissy nor Cissy Carter had yet attained to the dignity ofhaving their hair done up, so neither carried such a thing about withthem. Business was thus at a standstill, when Hugh John called toPrissy, "Go and ask Jane Housemaid to give us one."
"A good thick 'un!" called Billy Blythe after her.
The swift-footed Dian of Windy Standard had only been away a minute ortwo before she came flying back like the wind.
"She-won't-give-us-any-unless-we-tell-her-what-it-is-for!" she panted,all in one long word.
"Rats!" said Hugh John contemptuously, "ask her where she was lastFriday week at eleven o'clock at night!"
The Divine Huntress flitted away again on winged feet, and in a tricewas back with three hairpins, still glossy from their recent task ofsupporting the well-oiled hair of Jane Housemaid.
With quick supple hand Billy twisted the wire this way and that, triedthe padlock once, and then deftly bent the ductile metal again with apair of small pincers. The wards clicked promptly back, and lo! thepadlock was hanging by its curved tongue. The other was stiffer withrust, but was opened in the same way. The besiegers were thus inpossession of two fine transports in which to convey their army to thescene of conflict.
It was the plan of the General that the men under Billy Blythe shouldfill the larger of the two boats, and drop secretly down the leftchannel till they were close under the walls of the castle. The enemy,being previously alarmed by the beating of drums and the musketry fireon the land side, would never expect to be taken in the rear, andprobably would not have a single soldier stationed there.
Indeed, towards the Edam Water, the walls of the keep rose thirty orforty feet into the air without an aperture wide enough to thrust anarm through. So that the need of defence on that side was not veryapparent to the most careful captain. But at the south-west corner,one of the flanking turrets had been overthrown, though there stillremained several steps of a descent into the water. But so high wasthe river on this occasion, that it lapped against the masonry of theouter defences. To this point then, apparently impregnable, theformidable division under Billy Blythe was to make its way.
There was nothing very martial about the appearance of these sons ofthe tent and caravan.
The Bounding Brothers wore their trick dresses, and as for the rest,they were simply and comprehensively arrayed in shirt and trousers.Not a weapon, not a sash, not a stick, sword, nor gun broke theharmonious simplicity of the gipsy army.
Yet it was evident that they knew something which gave them secretconfidence, for all the time they were in a state of high glee, onlypartially suppressed by the authority of their leader, and by thenecessity for care in manning the boat with so large a crew. Therewere fourteen who were to adventure forth under Billy's pennon.
To the former assailants of the Black Sheds there had been added astout and willing soldier from the gardens of Windy Standard,--a boynamed Gregory (or more popularly Gregory's Mixture), together with aforester lad, who was called Craw-bogle Tam from his former occupationof scaring the crows out of the corn. Sammy Carter had been cashieredsome time ago by the Commander-in-chief, but nevertheless he appearedwith three cousins all armed with dog-whips, which Sammy assured HughJohn were the deadliest of weapons at close quarters. Altogether itwas a formidable array.
The boat for the attack on the land side was so full that thereremained no room for Toady Lion. That young gentleman promptly satdown on the landing-stage, and sent up a howl which in a few momentswould certainly have brought down Janet Sheepshanks and all thecurbing powers from the house, had he not been committed to the careof Prissy, with public instructions to get him some toffy and aprivate order to take him into the town, and keep him there till thestruggle was over.
Prissy went off with Sir Toady Lion, both in high glee.
"I'se going round by the white bwidge--so long, everybody! I'll be atthe castle as soon as you!" he cried as he departed.
Hugh John sighed a sigh of relief when he saw them safely off themuster-ground. Cissy, however, was comi
ng on board as soon as ever theboat was ready to start. She had been posted to watch the movements ofthe household of Windy Standard, and would report at the last moment.
"All right," she cried from her watch-tower among the whins, "Prissyand Toady Lion are round the corner, and Janet Sheepshanks has justgone into the high garden to get parsley."
"Up anchors," cried Hugh John solemnly, "the hour has come!"
Mike and Billy tossed the padlock chains into the bottom of the boatsand pushed off. There were no anchors, but the mistake was permissibleto a simple soldier like General Napoleon Smith.