Plymborough was out in street and road excepting those who lived on the
line of route and had windows that looked down upon the coming
procession, which was to be timed to reach the town, after a long march
from Duncombe, at noon precisely.
Small things please country people, and there was not much work being
done that day. It was an excuse for a holiday, as eagerly seized upon
by the townsfolk, old and young, as by the young gentlemen of Dr
Bewley's establishment.
But that was not all. The villages near Plymborough were many, and the
people for miles round flocked into the place to see the procession and
stop afterwards about the market-place to visit the exhibition of beasts
and listen to the band.
The day was gloriously fine, and all promised a famous harvest of
sixpences for the great Ramball himself, a man as punctual in his
appointments as he was in the feeding of his beasts, this being carried
out regularly at certain times, but, unfortunately for the animals, in
uncertain quantities dependent upon the supplies.
Dr Bewley's boys took their places along the forms quite an hour before
noon, this punctuality having something to do with getting the best
places, as they put it, though--as the forms were in a line under the
brick wall, which was low enough with their help for the shortest boy to
see over, and the procession would pass close beneath--it was hard to
see any difference in the positions, or why the form reserved for the
masters was any better than that at the extreme end.
But certainly the masters' form was considered the best from the fact
that it stood first, while the nearest end of the next form was taken up
in spite of his declaration by Slegge, whose greatest admirers got as
close to him as they could or as he would allow.
"Let's go and stand with them," said Singh, as they crossed over to the
wall.
"Oh, I don't know," replied his companion. "I vote we go right to the
other end along with the juniors."
"Very well," said Singh with a laugh; "but they'll say it's because
we're afraid."
"Yes," replied Glyn coolly; "but let them. I don't think we are." And
leading the way, he made for the last form, which they had all to
themselves, and stood there quietly looking down at the crowd below and
along the Duncombe road, which was pretty well lined with people
standing about or seated in cart or chaise waiting for the coming sight.
The masters were not in such a hurry, and they remained in the house
talking together, so that they were not present to see the skylarking
and listen to the banter going on, a good deal of which was set going by
Slegge, who was in a high state of glee, and scattered a great deal of
chaff, to the great delight of his parasites, who eagerly conveyed
insulting messages from their chief to the two new pupils at the other
end of the line--at least, they bore those that were not too offensive;
others that seemed likely to produce some form of resentment from the
lads they attacked were sent on by the youngest boys.
All this palled after a time, and a certain amount of whispering
beginning close at hand, Slegge asked sharply what the whisperers were
talking about, when silence ensued, no one present daring to repeat the
remark which Burney had made, which was to the effect that old Slegge
had said that he was not going to stoop to see the miserable procession,
but all the same he had taken the best place.
The consequence was that Slegge guessed pretty correctly that something
was being whispered dealing with him, and he was just growing fiercely
insistent and threatening what he would do if somebody did not confess,
when the masters came upon the scene and took their places; while
directly after there was a loud cheer, for from out of the distance came
the faintly heard throbbing of a drum.
Everything else was now forgotten. Eyes and ears were strained, and
minutes elapsed before the pulsations caused by the beating of two balls
upon the tightly stretched skin began to grow nearer, and Mr Rampson
commenced a discussion to fill up the time by throwing quotations from
the old Roman authors at his fellow-tutors and the older boys.
It was a favourable moment for calling a drum a tympanum and giving
descriptions of the different forms, curves, and lengths of the various
trumpets used by the Roman soldiery in their warlike processions, all of
which Slegge voted bosh, and intimated his opinion to the next boy that
old Rampson had better go to the other end of the forms and pour it out
on the two new fellows.
At last, though, the pulsations of the well-belaboured drum came nearer
and were mingled with the mournfully plaintive notes of the wind
instruments being blown by the band, the performers seated in a tall
triumphal car decorated in scarlet and gold, and ornamented by a gilt
carving meant to represent the giant anaconda of South America embracing
and crushing the twenty bandsmen of Ramball's show, gentlemen who, by
the way, wore a richly worsted-embroidered uniform of scarlet baize, the
braid being yellow ochre of the deepest dye.
The carving round the car was either a two-headed anaconda or a
combination of two performing an evolution in twists about the
musicians, tying them up apparently, from the spectators' point of view,
in horrible knots and giving them a terrible aspect of suffering, the
apparent pressure of the serpents' folds causing their faces and cheeks
to swell out in an appalling way, and their eyes to start from their
sockets, while their sufferings seemed to produce wails, shrieks, and
cries for help or mercy, mingled with groans, as the men worked hard
with a perfect battery of old-fashioned key-bugles, supported by
ophicleide and bassoon.
Most painful were the shrieking, strident cries produced by a pair of
clarinets, and altogether there came from out of the knots of the
serpents a hideous chaos of sound, drawn onward by a team of six horses,
and received with wild cheers by the crowd, for it was really the new
triumphal march freshly down from town, but in which the bandsmen were
not perfect as regarded their parts.
"Is that music or the roarings and cries of some of the beasts?"
whispered Singh.
There was a burst of laughter from the boys who heard the native remark,
which made Singh turn round upon them angrily; but at a touch from Glyn
he smiled good-humouredly, and then laughed aloud.
"Well, it was a stupid thing to say," he cried. "Of course it's the
music."
"I say, Singh," burst in Glyn, and he nodded towards the huge drum that
was suspended at the back in the highest part of the car, hung, as it
were, between the curling tails of the two gilt serpents. "I say," he
cried, "wouldn't that astonish the people at Dour? What would they say
to that for a tom-tom?"
"Ah!" cried Singh, "I'll buy one like that, and take it back with us
when we go home."
"No, I say, don't," cried Glyn. "They make noise enough there as it
is."
"Noise!" echoed Singh. "They don't call that noise."
As they were speaking the great six-horse car rumbled slowly by, with
the drummer beating hard and the buglers and trombonists blowing their
best; while the crowd, taking up the cheer started by the boys, sent it
echoing along towards the main street, where, coming slowly along, and
stretching as far as eye could reach, there was a long line of caravans,
all exceedingly plain and of a uniform yellow colour, with the names of
their contents painted on them in black letters.
The place of honour was given to the king of beasts, for the first of
the cars bore the word "Lions;" but probably his majesty was asleep, for
not so much as a muttering purr on a large scale came from the narrow
grating at the top.
Tigers followed; the next car held leopards, each carriage being of the
same uniform level, with the black letters; and, coming slowly after
them, were about two score, kept a good distance apart so as to lengthen
the line as much as possible.
But at first there was nothing else to see, and Singh turned impatiently
to his companion, and said: "When does the procession begin?"
"Why, that's the procession," said a small boy close to him, taking the
answer upon himself. "The wild beasts are inside. Didn't you know?"
And then he proceeded to display his own knowledge. "They draw all the
vans up in a square," he began excitedly, "out there in the home-field
behind the `King's Arms,' and then they open the sides of the vans,
which are like great shutters on hinges at the top and bottom, so that
when they are opened one shutter falls down and covers the wheels, and
the other is pulled up, leaving the side all iron bars. Don't you see?
Then, instead of being vans, they are turned into dens and cages."
"Is that so?" said Singh quietly.
"Oh, I suppose so," replied Glyn. "I have never seen one of these
affairs; but it seems a very reasonable way for building up a place all
dens and cages in very short time."
"Oh, look here!" cried another of the boys. "Here's a game! Look at
that nigger!"
Singh started as if he had been stung, and was about to turn furiously
upon the boy, under the impression that he was the nigger in question;
but at the same moment he caught sight of a full-blooded, woolly-headed
West Coast African leading a very large camel by a rope, the great
ungainly beast mincing and blinking as it gently put down, one after the
other, its soft, spongy feet, which seemed to spread out on the
gravelled road, while their high-shouldered owner kept on turning its
bird-like head from side to side, muttering and whining discontentedly,
as if objecting to be seen by such an elongated crowd, and murmuring
against being made the one visible object of the show.
The camel was not an attractive creature, for, in addition to its
natural peculiarities of shape, it was the time of year for shedding its
long hairy coat, and this was hanging in ragged ungainly locks and
flakes all along its flanks and about its loping, unhealthy-looking
hump.
This was something to look at, and the excited boys shouted, cheered,
and gave forth remark after remark such as must have been painful to the
dignity of the melancholy-looking beast, which kept on turning its
half-closed, plaintive-looking eyes at the noisy groups, wincing and
seeming to protest against the unkindly and insulting remarks.
"Oh, I say, isn't he a beauty?" cried one.
"Yes; it's just like a four-legged bird," shouted another.
"That's right. They've caught Sindbad's roc and clipped his wings."
"Cut them right off," said Glyn laughingly, joining in the mirth. "Poor
fellow, look how he's moulting!"
There was a burst of laughter at this, and as it ceased another boy
shouted:
"Ought its hump to wobble like that, and hang over all on one side?"
"That isn't its hump," cried Burney; "that's its cistern in which it
carries its drinking-water. Don't you know they can go for days without
wanting any more? Can't you see it's empty now?"
"Poor camel!" said one of the boys.
"Yes, poor, and no mistake! Why, it's all in rags," cried Burney, and
the unhappy-looking beast went mincing on, to be followed by another van
labelled "Birds." Then came one labelled ominously and in very large
letters, "Serpents;" those next in succession containing antelopes,
nylghaus, crocodiles, eagles, rhinoceroses, zebras, monkeys,
orang-outangs, chimpanzees, rib-nosed baboons, and so on, and so on,
cage after cage, den after den, a procession of so many painted yellow
vans drawn by very unsatisfactory-looking horses, till, as the last one
came into sight far on the right, it was observed by the boys as they
stood leaning their elbows on the wall that there was something special
being kept for the finale, for the crowd was closing in behind and
coming on surrounding this last van.
"Oh, I shall be so glad when it's all over," said Singh. "I would have
said let's go away ever so long ago, only the Doctor might think it
disagreeable after he had given us leave to see."
"Yes, it would have looked bad," replied Glyn. "It seems to me such a
shame," he continued, "getting us all here to see a procession of wild
beasts, and all we have seen is a camel."
"But don't you see--" began Singh.
"Of course; I said so. I have seen a camel. But if the man let the
people see all his wild beasts they wouldn't pay to go into his show."
"Oh," cried Singh, "that's it. I never thought of that. Of course.
But what are the people all crowding up for behind that last van?"
"Because it's the end," said the small boy who had spoken before.
"No; but there's something they can see, for they are all pressing close
up, and the boys are stooping down to look underneath."
"Yes, and there's a man with a whip trying to keep them back."
That was all plain enough to view as the great van, drawn by four stout
cart-horses, came nearer, with the whip-armed carter who walked by their
side varying his position to cross round by the back, making-believe to
use his whip and keep the boys from getting too close.
"Well, they can see something," said Glyn, as the great vehicle came
nearly abreast; and as it did the lad gripped his companion by the
shoulder.
"Look, look!" he cried. "My word, it is queer!"
"What is?" said Singh excitedly.
"Two pairs of giants' trousers walking underneath the van. There, can't
you see? Oh, isn't it comic. And they don't fit."
"Nonsense," cried Singh excitedly. "It's a big elephant underneath
there, and he's so heavy he has broken through the bottom of the wagon."
It certainly gave a stranger that impression; but the young Indian was
not right. It was only the showman's ingenious device to convey his
huge attraction from town to town unseen save just so much as would whet
the spectator's curiosity and make him wish to see more.
"Dear me," said a rich, unctuous voice just behind the lads; and the
boys started round at the familiar tones, to see the benignant-looking
Doctor blinking through his gold-rimmed spectacles and commenting upon
the spectacle for the benefit of his younger pupils. "You see, my dear
lads," he began, "a monstrous animal like that must weigh tons, and
would be too heavy for the horses to--"
The Doctor's words were drowned by the roar of laughter that arose from
behind the wall, for Glyn's comment had been taken up quickly, and ran
from end to end of the line, with the result that, like a chorus
dominating their laughter, the boys joined in one insane shout of:
"Trousers! trousers!"
The next moment it was over the wall and running through the crowd, who
caught it up and began to yell out the name of the familiar object of
attire, staid elderly men holding their sides and laughing, boys
shrieking with delight and pointing under the van at the two pairs of
huge pillar-like legs with the loose skin hanging about them like some
specimen of giant frieze, till, as the van moved on, the driver grew
frantic and began to smack his whip; while, to add to the tumult, there
arose from within a peculiar hoarse trumpeting roar that can only be put
into print by the words: _Phoomp! phoomp! phoomp_!
"Ha!" cried Singh excitedly, and he gripped at Glyn's arm so sharply
that he made him wince. "Hark at him! Hark at him!" he whispered
hoarsely in the boy's ear. "The jungle! the jungle! Why, it must be a
big bull elephant. Oh, we must go and see him to-night!"
Singh saw him the next minute; for, startled by the terrific roar behind
them, and probably knowing well the power of the utterer, the four
draught horses began to suffer from panic. One began to rear and
plunge, and before the driver, who was close to the hind wheels, could
force his way through the crowd and seize its rein, it made a dash for
the sidewalk farthest from the Doctor's wall. Like gregarious beasts,
its companions went with it; the front of the van was wrenched round and
the off fore-wheel ascended the path, while at the same moment, as the
furious trumpeting continued, there was a crash, one side of the van was
heaved up as if by an internal earthquake, and the next moment, amidst
the noise of splintering wood, the plunging of horses, and the
elephant's deafening roar, the great yellow vehicle lay over on its
side, and the monstrous beast, fully ten feet high, stood panting and
trumpeting with uplifted trunk by the side of the ruins, glaring round
as if seeking which enemy to charge.