William The Conqueror (21 page)

‘William thayth,’ lisped Violet Elizabeth placidly, ‘that you make thauth out of black-beetleth.’

Mr Bott turned a red and ferocious eye upon William. ‘Tho we thought that perhapth you’d like a thnake, too.’

‘WHAT!’ boomed Mr Bott.

He looked as if he were going to burst with fury. Mrs Bott wondered whether to have hysterics now or wait till later. She decided to wait till later. Lady Markham pinched herself to see whether
she was awake, and found rather to her surprise, that she was.

‘We thought,’ continued Violet Elizabeth unabashed, ‘that a thnake might do ath well. Ith a nithe thnake. Ith athleep now.’

She took off the lid of the box and peeped in. But the snake was apparently no longer asleep. With a strong untwisting of its coils it came out upon the carpet. It was of the grass-snake
variety, but rather unusually large in size and unusually light in colour, and for that reason had been collected by its collector, the naturalist.

Mr Bott leapt upon the grand piano.

‘Send for the gamekeepers!’ he shouted. ‘Tell them to bring their guns.’

Higgs stepped forward, took up the snake and dropped it out of the window.

VIOLET ELIZABETH TOOK OFF THE LID OF THE BOX, BUT THE SNAKE WAS NO LONGER ASLEEP. IT CAME OUT UPON THE CARPET.

‘Oh, you wicked woman!’ she sobbed. ‘Why did you steal my pearls?’

Of course there were explanations. There were explanations between Mrs Bott and Lady Markham, between the Outlaws and Lady Markham, between Higgs and Mr Bott, between Violet
Elizabeth and everyone, and (later and far less pleasant) between the Outlaws and their respective parents. But explanations are wearisome things and best left to the imagination. As William said:
‘’Straordinary how some people in this world like to make a fuss over every
single
little thing!’

MR BOTT LEAPT UPON THE GRAND PIANO. ‘SEND FOR THE GAMEKEEPERS!’ HE SHOUTED. ‘TELL THEM TO BRING THEIR GUNS!’

CHAPTER 10

I
T was the curate, a well-meaning but misguided young man, who in a quite justifiable attempt to enliven the atmosphere of Sunday school, gave on
the spur of the moment a stirring lesson on the history of the Crusades. The curate was very young, and only discovered when he had actually launched into the subject that his knowledge of it was
less wide than he had imagined. So his account of the great movement was perhaps slightly bewildering to the uninitiated.

But what he lacked in knowledge he made up in enthusiasm. Even William, Douglas and Ginger (who with Henry, were known as the Outlaws, and who attended Sunday school under protest in order that
their parents’ Sabbath afternoon calm might be as undisturbed and the Sabbath afternoon calm of the Vicar and curate as disturbed as possible) caught the enthusiasm. They caught it late, it
is true. They were only weaned from their interest in the race between Ginger’s tortoise and Douglas’s tortoise when the curate was well into his subject, and partly because of that,
and partly because the curate’s knowledge contained some startling gaps, the impression the Outlaws gleaned was more inspiring than accurate.

They certainly found the main fact inspiring enough. It seemed to put religion in an entirely new light. That meekness and humility and turning the other cheek generally enjoined by their
religious teachers had never been really acceptable to the Outlaws. But thus spreading religion by an array of banners and swords and spears and coats of mail, this marching upon unbelievers with
all the glorious panoply of war, was quite another matter.

Henry (who had not been to Sunday school) met them afterwards, and, to the best of their ability, they imparted to him what they had heard.

‘Jus’ all joined together and
fought
’em an’ made ’em join religion,’ said William.

‘Went about jus’ fightin’ anyone what worshipped idols,’ added Douglas.

‘An’ people
lettem
’cause they was doin’ it for religion,’ contributed Ginger with a certain wistful envy.

‘Jus’
fightin
’ everyone what didn’t belong to religion,’ put in William, to make the idea yet clearer.

‘But what I can’t understand,’ said Ginger slowly, ‘was how they
could
fight folks prop’ly goin’ about with their legs crossed.’

‘They didn’t
fight
with their legs crossed,’ explained William earnestly, ‘they only went cross-legged after they died.’

There was silence while this stupendous idea sank slowly into the listening Henry’s brain. Then:

‘Gosh!’ he ejaculated, impressed.

‘It’s true,’ said William, ‘’cause he told us it in Sunday school.’

Any small excitement at this time would have diverted the Outlaws’ interest from the subject of the Crusaders, but no excitement of any sort took place. School life was unusually dull.
Home life was unusually dull. Nothing happened. Life flowed on with a calm and almost unbearable monotony. Even the ordinary school feuds seemed to be temporarily in abeyance. There were no enemies
to fight, no coups to plan, no insults to avenge. Lessons were duller than ever. Worst of all, their ordinary games of Red Indians, robbers, and pirates seemed to have palled. The Outlaws were
bored. And all the time, like the lump of leaven in the parable, the idea of the Crusaders was silently at work in their minds.

It was William who first broached the subject as they sat rather moodily in the disused barn where they held all their meetings. They had made abortive attempts to play Red Indians, robber
chiefs and pirates, and had given them up because obviously their hearts were not in them.

Suddenly William remarked tentatively: ‘I suppose there isn’t any folks worshippin’ idols left nowadays, is there?’

Sudden interest gleamed in every face.

‘I daresay there is if only you
knew
,’ said Ginger darkly. ‘They do it in secret, of course, ’cause they know they’d get hung if the Vicar found
’em.’

The Outlaws brightened visibly.

‘Well, let’s keep a look-out,’ said Henry; ‘let’s look round in church on Sunday an’ see who isn’t there an’ then go an’ see what
they’re doin’ instead.’

Full of new ardour, the Outlaws went home and spent a good deal of time collecting weapons. Ginger tried to make a coat of mail out of an old fire-guard, but after tearing his coat in two places
gave it up. William polished up his one-and-sixpenny pistol and lent his airgun to Henry, whose only weapon was a poker which, though probably more efficacious as a weapon of offence than either
the pistol or the airgun, certainly had an unprofessional appearance.

The congregation at church next Sunday was disconcerted by four separate small boys, each with his family near the front of the church, who spent the entire service (when they were not being
forcibly tweaked into position by the nearest member of their families) turning round and fixing every member of the congregation severally with what appeared to be a baleful stare. As a matter of
fact, it was only a stare of concentration while the Outlaws memorised those inhabitants of the village who attended church and were, therefore, outside the sphere of their prospective activities.
The recipients of the stares (especially if they had any personal knowledge of the Outlaws) felt apprehensive. Had they known the truth they would have felt only relief.

‘William,’ said Mrs Brown on the way home, ‘I felt simply
ashamed
of you. Turning round and staring at people all the time. I don’t know
what
the Vicar
thought.’

‘Well, if he knew
why
,’ said William enigmatically, ‘he’d feel
glad.
’

‘And I don’t know what your father would have said if he’d been there,’ went on Mrs Brown severely.

His father! That was an idea – his father seldom went to church. It might be a good plan to begin on his father. But on second thoughts William decided that it mightn’t. It might
annoy his father, and William had a wholesome awe of his father – not from any vague speculation as to what his father might do if annoyed, but from actual painful knowledge of what his
father could do and had done when annoyed. He decided that after all it might be wiser to begin operations outside his family circle.

The Crusade, however, did not move very fast at the beginning. The first step had been the collecting of their armour, and that had been in its own way enjoyable. The second step had been a
marking down of the non-attenders at church, and that had held a certain interest, though the list had turned out to be an unexpectedly large one.

‘We can’t fight all those,’ William had said, slightly depressed. ‘They’d conquer us first battle.’

‘Yes,’ said Ginger hopefully, ‘but we’d attack ’em one by one – singly, you know, before they’ve time to warn each other.’

But Ginger’s optimism failed to communicate itself to the others, though Henry tried to lighten the atmosphere of gloom by saying:

‘Well, we’ve got some jolly fine weapons, anyway.’

‘Yes, but not enough to conquer half the village,’ said William irritably. ‘I think it’s simply disgraceful, the amount of – of disbelievers there is.’

‘It’s
un
believers he called ’em, William,’ said Henry with an annoying air of knowledge.

‘Well, it’s
dis
believers
I
call ’em,’ said William crushingly, and then, turning his mind temporarily to fresh woods and pastures new. ‘Let’s go
an’ collect conkers, anyway.’

But the next day things brightened. It was Henry who brought the news.

‘I say,’ he said breathlessly as he joined them, ‘General Moult’s got an idol. I heard someone talkin’ about it. It’s an Injun idol an’ he keeps it in
his drawing-room.’

The Crusaders’ spirits rose. ‘
Good!
’ said William, the leader, in a business-like tone of voice. ‘That’ll do to begin on, then.’

They held a parade. William drilled them for a few minutes. The drilling was not an entire success, owing to the divergence of opinion as to the relative positions of right and left, and each
order entailed several minutes’ argument on the subject. But their equipment was a subject for justifiable pride. Ginger had returned to his attempts to make a coat of mail, and had this time
partially succeeded. He had found an old meat safe and discovered that it was quite possible to encase the upper part of his person in it. It hampered his movements considerably, but he affirmed
that it would probably save his life by keeping bullets and spears from his more vital parts. William had his pistol, Henry had William’s airgun, Ginger had his coat of mail, and Douglas had
a murderous-looking gardening fork.

‘What about a banner?’ said Henry suddenly.

A banner, they all agreed, was an absolute necessity, and a further meeting was arranged for the designing and fashioning of a banner. After some discussion they decided that the legend should
be ‘Down with Idols’, and William was to bring the material for it. He arrived, proudly bearing a broom-handle, a large square of white cardboard, and a blue pencil.

Their first difficulty was the spelling of the word ‘idols’. It was Henry who came to the rescue.

‘It’s I-D-Y-L-S,’ he said. ‘I know, ’cause my mother’s gotter book called “Idyls of the King,” and it’s spelt that way on the
back.’

‘Gosh!’ said William deeply shocked. ‘Does the king worship ’em?’

Then slowly and laboriously he printed the words ‘Down with Idyls’ upon the white cardboard, nailed it upon the broom-handle, and decided that the time was ripe for action.

The Outlaws, for all their bravery, were not devoid of the virtue of caution. General Moult was very large in the body and short in the temper, and William, who drew up their plan of action,
decided that the idol must be removed in its owner’s absence and that on this occasion a pitched battle must, if possible, be avoided.

At two o’clock that afternoon General Moult might have been observed setting forth in the direction of the golf links. At quarter past two the Crusaders might have been observed setting
off in the direction of General Moult’s house. They carried their panoply of war as unobtrusively as possible. William held his banner downwards so that its legend might not be read by the
passer-by. The others carried their weapons in a drooping, furtive manner. They did not wish to be overpowered by possible enemies before they had gained their object.