Unknown (27 page)

“ 'TwTould be in me wone field,'” he began, “this here Lake Village if all had their rights. Grand-dad sold 'un to Lawyer Beere's father and Lawyer Beere's father sold 'un to Mr. Crow up at Elms, and Mr. Crow, they say, is goin' to turn sheep out and make it a visitors' field. HeVe a-brought one party here already this season and so have Mr. Barter. Other folks say he be going to turn this wold field into one of they landings for airboats. If this be true 'twill be terrible disturbing for them old ghosties in Lake Village.”

“Have you ever seed one of they funny men's ghosties, Mr, Twig?” enquired Sis.

“Don't interrupt, Sis!” cried Nelly. “Number One ain't begun his story yet! His story ain't about Mr. Crow.”

“It ain't about any of the like of us,” echoed Captain Jackie, taking the cue from his lieutenant. “ Tis about they old men theyselves.”

“Be I telling this 'ere tale or be ye telling this 'ere tale?” said Abel Twig. It dawned upon him rather sadly that his listeners envisaged the ancient heroes of Lake Village as so many feeble replicas of Number One.

“Bert be a good boy, Bert be!” ejaculated irrelevantly the owner of that name.

“When I tell this 'ere tale to Bumboggle,” said Mr. Twig, “Bumboggle do prick his girt ears and say nothink.”

There was a complete silence among the Alley Gang at this, and Old Twig went on.

“ Twas years and years afore King Arthur that they Ancient British funny men lived in Lake Milage. Them furmv uen were terrible feared of beasties in they days, beasties as biz- as mv house.”

“Your house baint as big as my mumiruVs be.” interrupted Jackie.

“Number One's house be a very nice house,” threw in Si.-, evidently feeling for a second as if Mr. Twig were a larger edition of Bert.

“Were it afore your grand-dad sold thik field that they Ancient Britons lived in they reed-houses?”

Nelly looked with astonishment at her gallant captain when he made this unintelligent remark. She began to recognise, as many romantic young women have been forced to do before, that high military achievement is compatible with very crude historical perspective.

But Mr. Twig was rather pleased than otherwise at this reference to his grandfather's hasty disposal of landed property.

“ 'Twere a little while afore poor old Grand-dad's days” he said, “that they Ancient British lived.”

“Bert's got pins and needles,” said Sis. “He be waggling wf his foot.”

“Sit ride-a-cock on Number One's knee!” rejoined Old Twig, placing the little boy upon one of his thin legs.

Seated solemn and erect, without moving an eyelid, Bert contemplated the countenance of his host while Sis began rubbing the child's instep.

A faint smile flickered over the little boy's face.

“Bert be pee-ing his trowsies,” cried Sis with concern.

“No, I baint,” retorted the infant indignantly.

“Why did yer look like that then?” argued his sister.

The child got very red and said nothing.

“You be,” the girl reiterated.

“I baint,” shrilled the youngster. And driven by the injustice of the world to break his own rule of politeness—“He be like Guy Fawkes!” he brought out, while the corners of his mouth went down.

It was an unusual event for Bert to smile; it was no less than a historic event for him to show signs of tears. Sis lifted him from the old man's knee, took him upon her own little lap and hugged him against her sturdy frame.

“There was one of they funny men in them times,” went on the old man hurriedly, “who killed a girt beastie wi' a flint arrow. Thik beastie was called Giant What's-his-name on account of his name bein' so hard to say; but when the funny man killed it he took ofi all its skin and made a fire and his sister, who was his wife too, cooked thik girt beastie.”

Bert lifted up his head at this exciting point.

“Sis be Bert's wife,” he remarked with intense gravity.

Sis slapped him sharply and turned reproachfully to Mr. Twig.

“Those times baint our times,” she protested.

“I wish I lived in those times!” cried Nelly with flashing eyes. “I'd have helped Jackie to shoot thik girt beast. I'd have carried a bundle of they ilinties!”

“My grand-dad's field what he sold to wold Lawyer Beere baint the only field he had. Yon field, over thik dyke, were his'n, and it be mine today.”

Into this chorus of boastings it was natural enough that Captain Jackie should fling his contribution.

“When Mr. Barter do fly from this here Lake Village 'twon't be with any ghosty, 'twill be wi' I!”

The whole robber band regarded their leader with wondering awe.

“I'll be there to wave to 5ee!” cried Nelly. “And I'll throw sum-mat at 'ee, maybe, for luck!”

“Will you fly above your mother's chimney, Jackie?” enquired Sis.

“Sis be Bert's airship,” remarked the wide-eyed infant, glancing obstinately at his sister in full expectation of being slapped again.

But it was old Twig, not Sis, who broke up this happy colloquy. He suddenly clapped his hand to his head and beat on his hard skull.

“Oh, the duck-a-duck!” he cried. “In sense! Out foolishness!” And still beating his old pate he set himself to run with shambling gait into Backwear Hut and up the single flight of stairs.

“Be ott! Be off! B'off! Quick! Quick! If ye love Old Twig the price of a bright penny, be off! Out of here! Afore they come!”

These remarks were addressed to the robber band from the upper window of Back wear Hut, out of which the old man's withered neck and grizzled head protruded.

It was clear that Captain Jackie was seized with panic—the bravest are subject to such emotions once or twice in their lives— for forgetting entirely about his little army he scrambled at top speed over the railings and bolted up the road in the opposite direction from the town. It was then that the heart of the band's fiery lieutenant was torn in two; for while both fear and love urged her to follow Jackie, an impulse in her girl's breast stronger than fear and love constrained her to help Sis get Bert out of the shed and over the railings. Then, however, she waited not a second, but followed her lord on flying feet!

Poor Sis! The stolid little lass suffered a most evil moment, as under the eyes of the frantic old man leaning out of the window she tried in vain to get the panic-stricken Bert to mount upon her back. Desperately she propped him up upon the lowest bar of the railings and, turning round, clutched wildly at his legs. Each time she seized his legs he toppled back against the railings. In vain she lost her temper. In vain she slapped him. The panic of Jackie and Nelly, the old man's frightened voice out of the window, her own unusual agitation, quite broke down the philosophy of Bert. The little boy, for the first time since he was two years old, burst into a howl of desolate crying.

Two events now occurred simultaneously, while Sis, on her knees by the blubbering child, soothed him with words and car resses. The old man withdrew from the window, stumbled downstairs and rushed into the road. At the same moment two extremely neat young ladies, both in elegant black, one with a blue ribbon round her neck, and the other with a pink ribbon, advancing side by side from the direction of the town, arrived at Mr. Twig's gate.

They surveyed the sobbing Bert, who was making up for the rarity of his departure from philosophic calm by his difficulty in regaining it, with aloof distaste. This was the sort of thing that both Louie and Lily Rogers—for such they were—had become handmaidens to escapv> The mere sight of Sis and Bert brought back vividly to their minds their own early experiences. They edged away from the little girl and the little boy and one of them began fumbling rather nervously with the dilapidated latch of the still more dilapidated gate. This gate had not, as a matter of fact, been opened for years—perhaps not since the death of Mr. Twig's grand-dad—and it became apparent to Louie, for in Miss Drew's absence no human creature addressed her or thought of her as “Rogers,” that whatever entrance or exit Uncle Abel may have possessed this rusty gate was not it.

Meanwhile Uncle Abel himself, full of the most obsequious apologies, had appeared upon the scene and was now hovering like the bewildered physician at Dunsinane, between the mental trouble of one claimant on his attention and the physical impasse of the other.

“ 'Tis here, my dears! 5Tis here I steps over,” he cried, waving to his dainty nieces to follow him and hurrying along the edge of his domain till he reached a place where the top rail was nonexistent. “Here's the place, my precious ducks, 'tis only to lift your pretty skirts a trifle so's not to get rust on 'en. 'Tis here, 'tis here, my sweethearts! Up she goes, and over the hurdle I Here! 'Tis here I goes in and out!”

But the two elegant creatures—for they were really good-hearted girls—had both of them by this time drifted up to where Sis knelt by the prostrate Bert. The philosopher's sobs were over, but his deep shame remained; and this emotion, as often happens with wise men who have been unwise, displayed itself in irrational anger towards his nearest and dearest. Bert, lying on his face in the grass, kicked obstreperously every time Sis touched him. Matters were further complicated at this moment by the return of Jackie and Nelly. Nelly in a moment jerked Bert upon his feet; and once in a perpendicular position the child's interest in the surprising scene around him made him forget his disgrace.

“Who are these children, Uncle?” enquired Louie of Mr. Twig.

“Hadn't you better be taking that little boy home to his mother, child?” said Lily to Sis.

“ 'Tis Grannie,” replied Sis. “Mother be dead and buried.”

Abel Twig was now scrutinising with sly interest a paper bag carried by Lily. The girls were accustomed to bring him some casual token of Mr. Weatherwax's activity and it presented itself very strongly to his mind that here was a providential chance of getting rid of the children.

So he spoke up. “They be good children, they be, my rosebuds. 'Twere the sight of such good children, walking quietly along road, while their decent mothers cleaned house, that made Uncle Abel call 'em in. But now be time for ye all”—he turned to Sis as being the one among the group who was most grown-up—“to begin traipsin' home-along.”

He gave Lily, who carried the paper bag, a little twitch of the sleeve and pulled her a few steps aside.

“Have 'ee brought some o' they sweet apples what old Weath-erwax do keep so long in hayloft?” he whispered craftily. “If 'ee have brought they, I be terrible thirsty for 'en. Me stummick be watering to get me teeth into 'en—them nice little firm sweet fruities. Poor old Uncle have a girt fancy to taste, now and quick, what his pretty nieces have brought to he in thik little bag.”

“Of course, Uncle Abel,” said Lily sweetly. “You shall have them at once. There! I haven't had my kiss yet,” and she touched his bristly cheeks with her lips. "Of course they are all for you!

Eat them, keep them, cook them------ They're yours entirely!

Louie and I brought them for you with our love."

She gladly enough handed the paper bag over to him and smoothed out with her cream-coloured, neatly gloved fingers the ruffled front of her black dress.

Once in possession of this great bag of Hesperidean fruit the astute owner of Backwear Hut felt himself to be master of the situation. He took out five beautiful apples, one by one, and began munching with hurried bites, though not without difficulty, for his teeth were few, the first of these. The other four with a cunning leer he handed over to Captain Jackie.

“These apples,” he said, “what these young ladies have brought be the cause why them funny men, what I tell 'ee of, called our town Avallonia which be ancient British for orchard.” Here the wily old man addressed himself to Lieutenant Nelly. “Ye be a robber band, ye be, same as they fierce invaders what plundered poor old King Avallach. These apples be rich plunder. Robber bands do march, robber bands do, slow and quiet, carrying their plunder, till they be round thik corner of road; then they do eat what they've taken from frightened natives!”

He had said quite enough. Without a second's hesitation, in the most resolute order and in profound silence, the four children went off hand in hand along the footpath hy the roadside in the direction of home.

Louie and Lily, now safely inside the railings, watched with wonder the surprising exhibition of discipline in this well-executed retreat. When the four were near the twist of the road which would take them out of sight, they saw Jackie turn and give one hurried glance round. He then began running. He was followed by Nelly first, then by Sis who carried Bert like a bundle of something precious and heavy, hugged against her body.

As if ashamed of their prolonged observation of this ragamuffin crewT, Louie and Lily now devoted themselves to being as ladylike and patronising as they could to their eccentric uncle. They were, however, so attached to the old man that it was not long before they were unburdening their bosoms of a thousand intimate troubles, triumphs and grievances. It appeared they were due in an hour's time to take tea with Emma, the confidential servant of Tilly Crow; and much that they had to relate had to do with the Philip Crow establishment.

Uncle Abel on his part had a good deal to say about the recent experiences of his ancient crony and ally, Old Jones, in his ward in the hospital. To an^hing concerning the hospital both the girls lent a curious ear, Louie being especially interested in the culinary economies, which were notoriously generous in this institution, wrhile Lily kept enquiring about the bed-covers, the linen-chests, the nurses' caps, the doctors' white coats, the slippery floors; and whether it was from Miss Bibby Fell's daffodil-beds, or Mrs. Crow's conservatory, or Mayor Wollop's greenhouse, that the best gifts of flowers were received.

“Emma says that poor Mrs. Crow is very concerned about fill this flying,” observed Louie.

“Yes,” threw in Lily, who being the younger was more roman tic than the buxom cook and if possible more ladylike, “yes, tnima says that the mistress cries her poor self to sleep night after night thinking of all the money they're spending.”

“But they be rich, baint they?” commented Number One, thinking to himself, “I be a wonderful comfortable man—I be! I baint one for envying they rich.” And full of complacency the old man surveyed the tops of the budding willow trees, the brown and white back of the cow Betsy and these two gracious visitors seated side by side on his kitchen chairs.