THE VENGEANCE.
By the time the girl reached the servants' hall they were seated at
supper. A loud, confused exclamation arose when she entered. No one made
room for her; all stared with unfriendly eyes. A page, who entered the
next minute by another door, came to her side.
"Where do _you_ come from, hussy?" shouted the butler, and knocked his
fist on the table with a loud clang.
He had gone to fetch wine, had found the stair door broken open and the
cellar-door locked, and had turned and fled. Amongst his fellows,
however, he had now regained what courage could be called his.
"From the cellar," she replied. "The messenger broke open the door, and
sent me to you again."
"The messenger! Pooh! What messenger?"
"The same who sent me before to tell you to repent."
"What! will you go fooling it still? Haven't you had enough of it?"
cried the butler in a rage, and starting to his feet, drew near
threateningly.
"I must do as I am told," said the girl.
"Then why _don't_ you do as _I_ tell you, and hold your tongue?" said
the butler. "Who wants your preachments? If anybody here has anything to
repent of, isn't that enough--and more than enough for him--but you must
come bothering about, and stirring up, till not a drop of quiet will
settle inside him? You come along with me, young woman; we'll see if we
can't find a lock somewhere in the house that'll hold you in!"
"Hands off, Mr. Butler!" said the page, and stepped between.
"Oh, ho!" cried the butler, and pointed his fat finger at him. "That's
you, is it, my fine fellow? So it's you that's up to her tricks, is it?"
The youth did not answer, only stood with flashing eyes fixed on him,
until, growing angrier and angrier, but not daring a step nearer, he
burst out with rude but quavering authority,--
"Leave the house, both of you! Be off, or I'll have Mr. Steward to talk
to you. Threaten your masters, indeed! Out of the house with you, and
show us the way you tell us of!"
Two or three of the footmen got up and ranged themselves behind the
butler.
"Don't say _I_ threaten you, Mr. Butler," expostulated the girl from
behind the page. "The messenger said I was to tell you again, and give
you one chance more."
"Did the _messenger_ mention me in particular?" asked the butler,
looking the page unsteadily in the face.
"No, sir," answered the girl.
"I thought not! I should like to hear him!"
"Then hear him now," said Curdie, who that moment entered at the
opposite corner of the hall. "I speak of the butler in particular when I
say that I know more evil of him than of any of the rest. He will not
let either his own conscience or my messenger speak to him: I therefore
now speak myself. I proclaim him a villain, and a traitor to his majesty
the king.--But what better is any one of you who cares only for himself,
eats, drinks, takes good money, and gives vile service in return,
stealing and wasting the king's property, and making of the palace,
which ought to be an example of order and sobriety, a disgrace to the
country?"
For a moment all stood astonished into silence by this bold speech
from a stranger. True, they saw by his mattock over his shoulder
that he was nothing but a miner boy, yet for a moment the truth told
notwithstanding. Then a great roaring laugh burst from the biggest of
the footmen as he came shouldering his way through the crowd towards
Curdie.
"Yes, I'm right," he cried; "I thought as much! This _messenger_,
forsooth, is nothing but a gallows-bird--a fellow the city marshal was
going to hang, but unfortunately put it off till he should be starved
enough to save rope and be throttled with a pack-thread. He broke
prison, and here he is preaching!"
As he spoke, he stretched out his great hand to lay hold of him. Curdie
caught it in his left hand, and heaved his mattock with the other.
Finding, however, nothing worse than an ox-hoof, he restrained himself,
stepped back a pace or two, shifted his mattock to his left hand, and
struck him a little smart blow on the shoulder. His arm dropped by his
side, he gave a roar, and drew back.
His fellows came crowding upon Curdie. Some called to the dogs; others
swore; the women screamed; the footmen and pages got round him in a
half-circle, which he kept from closing by swinging his mattock, and
here and there threatening a blow.
"Whoever confesses to having done anything wrong in this house, however
small, however great, and means to do better, let him come to this
corner of the room," he cried.
None moved but the page, who went towards him skirting the wall. When
they caught sight of him, the crowd broke into a hiss of derision.
"There! see! Look at the sinner! He confesses! actually confesses! Come,
what is it you stole? The barefaced hypocrite! There's your sort to set
up for reproving other people! Where's the other now?"
But the maid had left the room, and they let the page pass, for he
looked dangerous to stop. Curdie had just put him betwixt him and the
wall, behind the door, when in rushed the butler with the huge kitchen
poker, the point of which he had blown red-hot in the fire, followed by
the cook with his longest spit. Through the crowd, which scattered right
and left before them, they came down upon Curdie. Uttering a shrill
whistle, he caught the poker a blow with his mattock, knocking the point
to the ground, while the page behind him started forward, and seizing
the point of the spit, held on to it with both hands, the cook kicking
him furiously.
Ere the butler could raise the poker again, or the cook recover the
spit, with a roar to terrify the dead, Lina dashed into the room, her
eyes flaming like candles. She went straight at the butler. He was down
in a moment, and she on the top of him, wagging her tail over him like a
lioness.
"Don't kill him, Lina," said Curdie.
"Oh, Mr. Miner!" cried the butler.
"Put your foot on his mouth, Lina," said Curdie. "The truth Fear tells
is not much better than her lies."
The rest of the creatures now came stalking, rolling, leaping, gliding,
hobbling into the room, and each as he came took the next place along
the wall, until, solemn and grotesque, all stood ranged, awaiting
orders.
And now some of the culprits were stealing to the doors nearest them.
Curdie whispered the two creatures next him. Off went Ballbody, rolling
and bounding through the crowd like a spent cannon shot, and when the
foremost reached the door to the corridor, there he lay at the foot of
it grinning; to the other door scuttled a scorpion, as big as a huge
crab. The rest stood so still that some began to think they were only
boys dressed up to look awful; they persuaded themselves they were only
another part of the housemaid and page's vengeful contrivance, and their
evil spirits began to rise again. Meantime Curdie had, with a second
sharp blow from the hammer of his mattock, disabled the cook, so that he
yielded the spit with a groan. He now turned to the avengers.
"Go at them," he said.
The whole nine-and-forty obeyed at once, each for himself, and after his
own fashion. A scene of confusion and terror followed. The crowd
scattered like a dance of flies. The creatures had been instructed not
to hurt much, but to hunt incessantly, until every one had rushed
from the house. The women shrieked, and ran hither and thither through
the hall, pursued each by her own horror, and snapped at by every other
in passing. If one threw herself down in hysterical despair, she was
instantly poked or clawed or nibbled up again. Though they were quite as
frightened at first, the men did not run so fast; and by-and-by some of
them, finding they were only glared at, and followed, and pushed, began
to summon up courage once more, and with courage came impudence. The
tapir had the big footman in charge: the fellow stood stock-still, and
let the beast come up to him, then put out his finger and playfully
patted his nose. The tapir gave the nose a little twist, and the finger
lay on the floor. Then indeed the footman ran, and did more than run,
but nobody heeded his cries. Gradually the avengers grew more severe,
and the terrors of the imagination were fast yielding to those of
sensuous experience, when a page, perceiving one of the doors no longer
guarded, sprang at it, and ran out. Another and another followed. Not a
beast went after, until, one by one, they were every one gone from the
hall, and the whole menie in the kitchen. There they were beginning to
congratulate themselves that all was over, when in came the creatures
trooping after them, and the second act of their terror and pain began.
They were flung about in all directions; their clothes were torn from
them; they were pinched and scratched any and everywhere; Ballbody kept
rolling up them and over them, confining his attentions to no one in
particular; the scorpion kept grabbing at their legs with his huge
pincers; a three-foot centipede kept screwing up their bodies, nipping
as he went; varied as numerous were their woes. Nor was it long before
the last of them had fled from the kitchen to the sculleries. But
thither also they were followed, and there again they were hunted about.
They were bespattered with the dirt of their own neglect; they were
soused in the stinking water that had boiled greens; they were smeared
with rancid dripping; their faces were rubbed in maggots: I dare not
tell all that was done to them. At last they got the door into a
back-yard open, and rushed out. Then first they knew that the wind was
howling and the rain falling in sheets. But there was no rest for them
even there. Thither also were they followed by the inexorable avengers,
and the only door here was a door out of the palace: out every soul of
them was driven, and left, some standing, some lying, some crawling, to
the farther buffeting of the waterspouts and whirlwinds ranging every
street of the city. The door was flung to behind them, and they heard it
locked and bolted and barred against them.
[Illustration: "_A scene of confusion and terror followed: the crowd
scattered like a dance of flies._"]