A Crippled Knight
MISS GUBBINS had a difficult time for those first few weeks in the old
house, and she longed for the advent of the master. Mrs. Peck ruled
the household with a rod of iron. The old butler, Smythe by name, was
her abject slave. He was a kind old man, and took a great fancy to the
children, but his kindness was shown only in Mrs. Peck's absence. He
would call them into his pantry, and give them all kinds of dainties
such as children love, but let but the silk dress of Mrs. Peck rustle
by, and he would drive them out in surly fright, muttering as he did
so: "Away with you, ye young plagues, a-comin' and a-worryin' round and
a-drivin' a body nearly crazy!"
Mrs. Peck did not like children, and made no secret of her dislike to
them. Perhaps, if they had been more docile and respectful to her, she
would not have been so hard on them. As it was, there was perpetual
contention between them, and Miss Gubbins could not keep the peace.
Miss Gubbins herself was preoccupied and absorbed. The old house
appealed to her poetic feelings, and she would wander through the empty
rooms saying to herself:
"We have gone back a century here. No reminders of the prosaic age in
which we live, except the post and newspapers."
And with her poetry books in hand she dreamed away her days, only
subject to rude awakenings by the incivility and neglect of the
housekeeper, and the mischief and scrapes of her pupils.
Donald and Claud were enjoying themselves as they had never done
before, and their imaginations were busy from morning to night planning
tournaments and games of all kinds. There were as many resources
indoors as out of doors, and most of the servants enjoyed hearing the
merry shouts and laughter echoing through the house.
The old coachman, Mills, declared sourly that they had "destroyed his
peace of mind for evermore"; but there was cause for such a speech
after he was fetched out by the young groom to see each of the boys
mounted on one of the fat old carriage-horses, with long poles in their
hands, and tearing up the smooth gravel drive in front of the house by
charging one another in the orthodox knightly fashion.
"We're King Arthur's knights, Mills; stand out of the way, or we'll
ride you down!"
And it was some time before Mills could rescue his beloved horses from
the hands of such fiery young warriors.
One afternoon Miss Gubbins was lying down with a bad headache, and
the children had the schoolroom to themselves. Donald and Gypsy were
perched on the top of the large square table, and Claud was seated on
the old window-seat, making a boat out of a piece of wood, and watching
the other two furtively, and rather disconsolately.
The table was a desert island, Donald was Robinson Crusoe, and Gypsy
his man Friday; the carpet had turned into a raging sea, chairs and
stools were crocodiles and fish of all sorts, and with a hooked
walking-stick Donald was hoisting various articles on to the island.
"I'll be a cannibal king, and come across to you in a boat," suggested
Claud presently.
"We don't want you; there's no room on the table for three," said
Donald. "You wouldn't be Friday, and Gypsy makes a much better Friday,
because she does what she is told."
"I don't want to get on your old island," said Claud crossly. Then
after a minute, very persuasively:
"I could make a lovely earthquake under the table; you could be swaying
and falling and clinging hold of the rocks—"
"We don't want an earthquake. Now, Friday, my gun; lie down; let me put
my foot on you to take aim. I see a bear on a crocodile's back."
Claud hacked away at his piece of wood with a clouded brow. At last he
jumped up.
"This is a stupid old house!" he announced. "I wish we were back at the
sea; we always had heaps of children to play with there, and I shall go
out and see if there aren't any about here. I shall find some one to
play with."
He took up his straw hat and marched off; the other two were so
engrossed in their game that they did not notice his disappearance.
When tea-time came, and Miss Gubbins came out of her room, refreshed
by her rest, no Claud was to be found. She was not alarmed, and it was
not till it was nearly the children's bedtime that she began to make
inquiries.
"He's run away," suggested Gypsy cheerfully. "He said he liked the
seaside best; p'raps he's gone back there."
"Have you been quarrelling again?"
"No; but we didn't want him, and he went away to play by himself."
Miss Gubbins went downstairs out into the garden and round the stables
with a worried face. When she asked Mills if he had seen him, the old
man gave an indignant snort.
"Seed him! 'Tis the only blessed time in my life when I don't see any
of 'em; but such times is rare indeed! 'Afore five o'clock in the
mornin' they're always shoutin' and a tearin' round, and just where you
last expec's to see 'em, there they'll sure to be. And if my 'pinion is
axed, he's most likely took up by the perleece for robbin' orchards, or
climbin' over gen'lemen's garden-walls, to pick whatever he can lay his
hands on, and sauce and mock his elders and betters, if they do but say
a rummonstratin' word!"
Then Miss Gubbins went through the grounds and out into the high road
down to the little village, about a mile distant, Donald and Gypsy
following her, and making anything but reassuring suggestions.
"He had a boat he was making. He's found the sea somewhere, and tumbled
in and got drowned!"
"He's climbed a tree to get a rook's nest, and fallen down and broken
both his legs!"
"He's lost his way in a wood, and got caught in a trap!"
And so on, till Miss Gubbins hushed them rather sharply. Only one
person in the village seemed to have seen him, and that was the baker's
wife.
"The little fair-haired chap? Yes; I seed him a trottin' through the
street this afternoon, and he were a talkin' to hisself like mad. He
went straight along the road, and he hasn't come back to my knowledge."
"That's Claud!" exclaimed Donald. "He always talks to himself when he
isn't pleased. Come on, Gubby, we shall find him."
It was getting dark now, and Miss Gubbins was most uneasy. Not one of
the servants had offered to search for her missing pupil, and she felt
helpless and hopeless. At length, coming towards them along the dusty
road, they spied a cart, and as it came nearer, a little form in it
jumped up, and throwing up his arms shouted out:
"Hulloo, Gubby! Here I am! And I've had such fun."
It was Claud. The good-natured baker, coming back very late from his
round, had overtaken a little tired, dusty figure plodding along, and
recognising who it was, had lifted him into his cart and brought him
back.
When Miss Gubbins found him safe and well she almost cried, the relief
was so great, and Donald and Gypsy danced round him in the greatest
excitement.
"Where have you been? What have you seen? Did you lose yourself? Mrs.
Peck said she hoped you had, to give you a lesson. Tell us what you've
been doing!"
But Claud, revelling in his importance now, pursed up his mouth and
refused to say a word till he had got home and had had a good supper.
Then his tongue was unloosed.
"I went out for a walk to find some children," he said, "and I peeped
into three gardens on the road, and I asked a gardener about them,
and he said no gentlefolk's children—that's what he called them—lived
nearer than a white house high up on a hill that he showed me, and he
said there were two there, only they were away from home; and then I
left him, and I saw a farm across some fields, and I thought I'd like
to go and see the inside of it. And when I got up, one side of the
house was all a dirty yard, with pigs and fowls and cows, and the other
side was a jolly garden with a lot of grass and apple trees at the
bottom, and there was a window opening right out on the grass, and when
I got up, I saw—guess!"
"A lovely tea-table with cakes and buns, and a nice little girl in the
middle of it," suggested Gypsy.
"Two cross old ladies with a cat and a dog," guessed Donald.
"You're both wrong. It was a man, and he was on a sofa, and over his
legs was a lovely wolf-skin, with a wolf's head, and tongue, and teeth
showing, and long claws to his feet, and no one else was in the room
except the man, and he was drawing a picture, an awfully funny one. And
when he saw me, he said,—
"'Halloo, youngster, have you dropped from the moon?'
"And so then I pretended I had, and then he laughed out, and told me
to come in, for he said he was longing for some one to talk to. And I
told him I was wanting some one to play with, and he said he knew some
lovely games, and he taught me one on paper, about a fox and a goose.
I'll show you to-morrow."
Claud stopped for breath, and Donald eagerly demanded, "Did he give you
anything to eat?"
"Yes; a huge slice of cake out of a cupboard. He said he had an old
aunt who loved him so much, and spoilt him so much, and talked, and
wrapped him up so much, that he was obliged to run away from her every
summer, because if he didn't, he would turn into a stuffed old image
that could only nod and smile, with nothing to think about but kittens'
illnesses, and flannel petticoats for old women! He was very funny, and
I liked him."
"And what else?" asked Gypsy. "Did he shoot the wolf that was over his
legs? And what was he lying on a sofa for?"
"He's got something the matter with his legs, and he can't walk. He
got lost on a mountain in the rain, and he was very ill, and he's a
cripple, he says. He didn't seem to mind; he is staying there because
his nurse lives there. I asked him if he was a nursery boy when he was
little, and he said yes, and fancy! He had a father and mother and four
brothers and sisters, and now they're all dead!"
"Who killed them?" asked Gypsy quickly.
"God did, I suppose," was Claud's reply. Then after a pause he went on,
"I told him I would come and see him again. He can tell lovely stories,
and I think he likes some one to listen to them. He has a chair on
wheels, and he wheels himself out on the grass, and he says he feels
like an old cow sometimes, because he has nothing to do but to munch
his food, look up at the blue sky, and move round and round inside a
small field, and to-day is always the same as yesterday, and to-morrow
will be like to-day. I told him our days were never the same, and then
he listened, and I talked, and when I was tired it was nearly dark, and
so I came away."
"And now you are going to bed," said Miss Gubbins, "and you must never
run away again without telling me where you're going."
Claud went off to bed obediently, but when Donald was half asleep, an
hour later, he was awakened by his brother's call—
"Donald, look here; a man without legs can never be a knight, can he?
Not a knight like King Arthur's?"
Donald rubbed his eyes.
"Don't bother!"
"Well, but just say. Would Arthur have had a cripple man, however brave
he was?"
"Of course he wouldn't."
"Then my friend can't play that with us. I wish he could."
"Gubby said one of them got tired, and turned monk,"' murmured Donald.
"Don't you remember?"
"Yes, I know; it was the one who told the story of Galahad. What was
his name? Oh, I know, Sir Perceval. And that's what I shall call my
friend. He wouldn't tell me his name—at least, he said was 'Bob Bogus.'
That's what he puts at the bottom of his pictures—the funny ones I told
you about. He sends them to 'Punch.' But that isn't his real name, and
Sir Perceval is much nicer."
A grunt was Donald's only response, and Claud turned over on his
pillow, seeing further conversation was useless. But as he, too,
drifted into dreamland, he murmured, "A legless knight could be brave,
I am sure."
It was not long before Claud visited his friend again. He slipped away
quietly from the others at play, and confided in Miss Gubbins alone
where he was going.
"You see, Gubby, I don't want them to come with me. He's my friend, not
theirs, and Donald doesn't think much of him because his legs are all
wrong."
"I don't know whether you ought to visit strangers so," said Miss
Gubbins, hesitating. "Still, your brother will be here soon, and he can
settle questions of that kind. Only don't come home late. You must be
in time for tea."
Away trotted Claud. It was not very far, now he knew the way. He crept
round to the front of the house facing the apple orchard, and there he
saw, to his delight, the wheeled chair under the shade of an apple-tree.
Claud marched up with a radiant face.
"Good afternoon, Sir Perceval," he said, holding out his hand.
His friend started, and glanced up surprised at his new title. He was
quite a young man, and rather a handsome one. His was a face that knew
how to suffer and be strong, and perhaps the weary, sad look about his
blue eyes was the only indication that he had known trouble. There was
no sadness in tone or look as he exclaimed—
"Since when have I been knighted, may I ask?"
"Oh, I've knighted you myself. Gubby read us and told us about Sir
Perceval, who left King Arthur and went into a monk's house to be quiet
and good; at least the others were just as good, I'm sure, only I
thought you'd do to be him, because you can't ride in tournaments."
"Thanks. I will answer to my name. May I prove worthy of it! When does
the next tournament come off? Tell me some news of King Arthur's Court.
I have been so long away from it that I've forgotten the manners and
customs of it."
"We've been looking busily for the Holy Thing," said Claud, settling
himself down on the grass and gazing up at the newly-made knight with
shining eyes. "You saw it, didn't you, as well as Galahad? Only you
weren't quite good enough to be caught away like he was."
The young man looked at the little speaker rather thoughtfully.
"Oh—ah, the Holy Grail, I remember; though it is years since I read it.
Yes, you're right, though you don't know how near I was to being caught
away a year or so ago. As you say, I 'wasn't quite good enough!'"
Then Claud relapsed into everyday talk.
"Yes, and there's Gypsy actually, who is always in mischief quite as
bad as Donald and me, she pretends and sticks to it that she really
did—honour bright—see the Holy Thing in a strange kind of church room
in our house very early in the morning! And she says the room has
disappeared. As girl would be good enough to see it!"
"I think a girl was the first one to see it. Wasn't it Sir Perceval's
sister, the nun?"
"Oh, well, she was a grown-up person. Not a creature like Gypsy!"
"And what is this despised Gypsy like? A nutbrown maid?"
"No, she isn't brown; her hair is like mine, and always untidy, and she
has only just given up wearing socks, and she's never still a minute."
"Poor little maiden! Do you think you are more to catch sight of it
than she is?"
"I'm not very good myself," said Claud reflectively. "I don't think any
of us are. Don and I try to be knights whenever we get a chance, and
now we're in a proper kind of castle we feel much more like them. Then
you see the Ogre will be coming back soon, and all kinds of things will
happen. He is our grown-up brother—we call him the Ogre because he has
a great moustache, which he pulls when he is angry, and he is a big,
tall man, and I think he means to be very cruel to us when he comes
back. At least we pretend he is going to be. It's more fun, you see!"
"We'll hope he won't disappoint you."
They chatted on, and when Claud left his friend an hour after, he said
by way of farewell:
"I dare say I'll come and see you pretty often. I suppose you can't
ever come and see us? Gubby would ask you to tea, if you could get up
the stairs."
"Thanks, but I'm afraid my old legs couldn't do it. I tell them
sometimes they've done their best to make me a decrepit old man, but
I've got a little friend who won't let them have all their own way. He
keeps them from worrying me."
"Who is he?"
"Ah, well, he has a variety of names. He is a little companion of mine,
and helps me to do my sketches. Good-bye, and bring that little sister
of yours to see me next time you come."
"Good-bye, Sir Perceval."