His parents had thoughtlessly christened him Hildebrand, a name which,
as you see, is entirely unsuitable for school use. His friends called
him Brandy, and that was bad enough, though it had a sort of
pirate-smuggler sound, too. But the boys who did not like him called him
Hilda, and this was indeed hard to bear. In vain he told them that his
name was James as well. It was not true, and they would not have
believed it if it had been.
He had not many friends, because he was not a very nice boy. He was not
very brave, except when he was in a rage, which is a poor sort of
courage, anyhow; and when the boys used to call him. 'Cowardy custard'
and other unpleasing names, he used to try to show off to them, and make
them admire him by telling them stories of the wild boars he had killed,
and the Red Indians he had fought, and of how he had been down Niagara
in an open boat, and been shipwrecked on the high seas. They were not
bad stories, and the boys would not have minded listening to them, but
Hildebrand wanted to have his stories not only listened to, but
believed, which is quite another pair of shoes.
He had one friend who always liked his stories, and believed them almost
all. This was his little sister. But he was simply horrid to her. He
never would lend her a any of his toys, and he called her 'Kiddie,'
which she hated, instead of Ethel, which happened to be her name.
All this is rather dull, and exactly like many boys of your
acquaintance, no doubt. But what happened to Hildebrand does not,
fortunately or unfortunately, happen to everybody; I dare say it has
never happened to you. It began on the day when Hildebrand was making a
catapult, and Billson Minor came up to him in the playground and said:
'Much use it'll be to you when you've made it. You can't hit a haystack
a yard off!'
'Can't I?' said Hildebrand. 'You just see! I hit a swallow on the wing
last summer, and when we had a house in Thibet I shot a llama dead with
one bullet. He was twenty-five feet long.'
Billson laughed, and asked a boy who was passing if he'd ever been out
llama-shooting, and, if so, what his bag was. The other boy said:
'Oh, I see--little Hilda gassing again!'
Billson said:
'Gassing! Lying I call it!'
'Liar yourself!' said Hildebrand, who was now so angry that his fingers
trembled too much for him to be able to go on splicing the catapult.
'Oh, run away and play,' said Billson wearily. 'Go home to nurse, Hilda
darling, and tell her to put your hair in curl-papers!'
Then Hildebrand's rage turned into a sort of courage, and he hit out at
Billson, who, of course, hit back, and there was a fight. The other boy
held their coats and saw fair; and Hildebrand was badly beaten, because
Billson was older and bigger and a better fighter, so he went home,
crying with fury and pain. He went up into his own bedroom and bolted
the door, and wildly wished that he was a Red Indian, and that taking
scalps was not forbidden in Clapham. Billson's, he reflected gloomily,
would have been a sandy-coloured scalp, and a nice beginning to a
scalp-album.
Presently he stopped crying, and let his little sister in. She had been
crying, too, outside the door, ever since he came home and pushed past
her on the stairs. She pitied his bruised face, and said it was a shame
of Billson Minor to hit a boy littler than he was.
'I'm not so very little,' said Hildebrand; 'and you know how brave I am.
Why, it was only last week that I was the chief of the mighty tribe of
Moccasins, who waged war against Bill Billson, the Vulture-faced
Redskin----'
He told the story to its gory end, and Ethel liked it very much, and
hoped it wasn't wrong to make up such things. She couldn't quite believe
it all.
Then she went down, and Hildebrand had to wash his face for dinner; and
when he looked at the boy in the looking-glass and saw the black eye
Billson Minor had given him, and the cut lip from the same giver, he
clenched his fist and said:
'I wish I could make things true by saying them. Wouldn't I bung up old
Billson's peepers, that's all?'
'Well, you can if you like,' said the boy in the glass, whom Hildebrand
had thought was his own reflection.
'What?' said he, with his mouth open. He was horribly startled.
'You can if you like,' said the looking-glass boy again. 'I'll give you
your wish. Will you have it?'
'Is this a fairy-tale?' asked Hildebrand cautiously.
'Yes,' said the boy.
Hildebrand had never expected to be allowed to take part in a
fairy-tale, and at first he could hardly believe in such luck.
'Do you mean to say,' he said, 'that if I say I found a pot of gold in
the garden yesterday I did find a pot of gold?'
'No; you'll find it to-morrow. The thing works backwards, you see, like
all looking-glass things. You know your "Alice," I suppose? There's only
one condition: you won't be able to see yourself in the looking-glass
any more!'
'Who wants to,' said Hildebrand.
'And things you say to _yourself_ don't count.'
'There's always Ethel,' said Ethel's brother.
'You accept, then?' said the boy in the glass.
'Rather!'
'Right' And with that the looking-glass boy vanished, and Hildebrand was
left staring at the mirror, which now reflected only the wash-hand-stand
and the chest of drawers, and part of the picture of Lord Roberts pinned
against the wall. You have no idea how odd and unpleasant it is to look
at a glass and see everything reflected as usual, except yourself,
though you are right in front of it. Hildebrand felt as if he must have
vanished as well as the looking-glass boy. But he was reassured when he
looked down at his hands. They were still there, and still extremely
dirty. The second bell had rung, and he washed them hastily and went
down.
'How untidy your hair is!' said his mother; 'and oh, Hildebrand, what a
disagreeable expression, dear! and look at your eye! You've been
fighting again.'
'I couldn't help it,' said our hero sulkily; 'he called names. Anyway, I
gave him an awful licking. He's worse than I am. Potatoes, please.'
Next day Hildebrand had forgotten the words he had said at dinner. And
when Billson asked him if one licking was enough, and whether he,
Billson, was a liar or not, Hildebrand said:
'You can lick me and make me anything you like, but you _are_, all the
same, just as much as me,' and he began to cry.
And Billson called him schoolgirl and slapped his face--because Billson
knew nothing of the promise of the looking-glass boy, that whatever
Hildebrand said had happened should happen.
It was a dreadful fight, and when it was over Hildebrand could hardly
walk home. He was much more hurt than he had been the day before. But
Billson Minor had to be carried home. Only he was all right again next
day, and Hildebrand wasn't, so he did not get much out of this affair,
except glory, and the comfort of knowing that Billson and the other boys
would now be jolly careful how they called him anything but Pilkings,
which was his father's and his mother's name, and therefore his as well.
He had to stay in bed the next day, and his father punished him for
fighting, so he consoled himself by telling Ethel how he had found a pot
of gold in the cellar the day before, after digging in the hard earth
for hours, till his hands were all bleeding, and how he had hidden it
under his bed.
'Do let me see, Hildy dear,' she said, trying hard to believe him.