POUNCER
‘Wherefore hast thou left me now?’
――_Shelley._
The circus was but a sorry affair――a poor travelling show, with a few
lean horses, a troup of performing dogs, a sick monkey in a cage,
and several dubious specimens of humanity decked out in tinsel and
colour,――yet the news that after all they were not to go to see it
was received in a dead silence of disappointment. Later on, in the
shrubbery, it was discussed freely enough, Jim inveighing noisily
against the evil of not fulfilling promises that had been definitely
made. He preached open defiance and gained nothing thereby save a
gloomy threat from Edward that if he didn’t shut up his head would be
smacked. Grif alone accepted the new decree with equanimity.
He had been in the town with grandpapa when the miserable procession
had gone by to a hollow merriment of drums and cymbals, and had
listened to grandpapa’s angry condemnation of a civilization that
permitted such barbarities to exist. The sight of those scared,
half-starved, professional brothers of Pouncer had in fact quite
extinguished Grif’s own enthusiasm for the circus, and he had suggested,
as an immediate remedy, that grandpapa should buy up all the quadrupedal
members of it, and establish them in comfort at the Glebe for the rest
of their lives.
“It’s all very well for you not to want to go,” Jim pointed out
indignantly. “You’ve seen it already――at least, you’ve seen some of it.”
Grif admitted that he had, while Edward and Palmer conversed in
undertones.
“Perhaps they’ll stay over the week-end,” suggested the optimistic Ann,
“and then we’ll be able to see them in church.”
This remark was received with derision, and poor Ann retired from the
council feeling hurt, for, after all, she wanted to go to the circus
quite as much as any of the boys.
Thus it came and passed, Johnnie’s mixed and meagre description of them
being the only glimpse they were vouchsafed of its mysterious glories.
There had been songs and riding and the performing dogs and a kind of
Wild West play with a lot of firing off of guns, but it hadn’t been
much good, and the sick monkey had failed to get through its tricks
even when stimulated by a whip. Some of the spectators had expressed
their dissatisfaction openly at the second performance, and the show
was moving on that day, Johnnie said, probably to the next town.
This was Johnnie’s report, and Grif had forgotten all about it when,
on coming out on to the croquet-lawn after dinner, he found Ann there
alone and in tears.
“What’s up?” he asked, putting his hands on her shoulders. “Where is
everybody?”
“They’ve gone to see the circus off,” said Ann, wiping her eyes.
“And they promised before dinner I might come, and then they said I
mightn’t, because they would maybe have to run to catch up with it.”
Ann could pour out her troubles to Grif, though she would never have
dreamed of doing so to her other brothers or to Barbara. But Grif was
different from them; he was somehow always nicest when other people
weren’t nice at all. Every one knew that――even Jim, who had rarely any
troubles that could not be cured by a few minutes’ passionate brawling
with the Fates.
“Is Barbara with them?” Grif asked consolingly.
“No; she says circuses are vulgar: she’s going to pay visits with Aunt
Caroline.”
“Well, let’s play a game of something.”
“It’s too hot,” said Ann, whose heart was with Palmer and Edward and
Jim, racing along a dusty road in pursuit of fugitive mountebanks.
“We’ll play jacks, if you like; it’s not too hot for that. Or I’ll read
you the _Arabian Nights_. I’m in the middle of a story, but I can tell
you the beginning.”
Ann tugged at her pig-tail. All traces of grief had vanished from her
plump and ruddy countenance. “I saw a man with earrings round at the
back of the house just before dinner. I’m sure he was a circus man.”
“What was he doing?”
“Nothing. I told Edward and Jim about him, and they said he couldn’t be
a circus man, because the circus was leaving. If he wasn’t, then he was
a birate. He looked just like one.”
“What would a pirate be doing here? Besides, there aren’t any pirates
now――at least there are only a few. He may have been a Lascar.”
“What’s a Lascar?” inquired Ann, with sudden interest.
“He’s a kind of sailor――one that wears earrings and gets up mutinies.
No captain will take a Lascar on his ship unless he’s short-handed and
has to.”
“I’d rather like to be in a mutiny,” Ann said.
“You mightn’t like it if you got marooned――put on a desert island and
left there.”
“I _would_ like it. When I grow up I’m going to live on an island
anyway.”
“You’re on an island now,” Grif reminded her.
“I mean a quite small island,” pursued Ann, reflectively. “One that you
can see all round.”
“If it’s so small as that there’ll be nobody there.”
“There’ll be a coast-guard station there. I like coast-guards. And I’ll
ask Balmer to come and stay with me: and maybe you――now and then. But
I won’t have any ladies: I’ll have nothing but boys and men: and I’ll
be their queen and send them to berform tasks; and then when they come
back they’ll kneel down and kiss my hand, and I’ll think of something
else for them to do.”
“I’m afraid I’ll not be able to come to your island even if you _do_
ask me,” said Grif apologetically. “I’ll probably be in Arabia.”
Ann felt her island growing very small indeed. She wished she had
thought of Arabia.
“Arabia’s far better than an island,” Grif went on. “You can’t go out
to take a walk there without something happening――some queer kind of
thing. And there are deserts that nobody has ever crossed since the
beginning of the world, except Solomon. That’s where the demons and the
efrits live. After riding on a camel through the desert for days and
days you come to a bronze statue of a knight on horseback. Then you get
down and push him round on his pedestal and he points with his lance to
show you what way you’re to go. And you come at last to a city where
everything is silent and asleep, and you walk through the streets, but
you see no one, and you go into a palace and across marble courts with
fountains playing, but still there is no one. At last you reach a door
that is just a little open, and through the door you hear the sound
of a boy reading out of the _Koran_. He is kept there a prisoner by a
female efrit, and you help him to escape, because that is your destiny
and nobody else could do it. Both of you get on an ebony horse, and
it flies up into the air, and very soon you see a black cloud, like a
thunder cloud, coming after you. But the boy knows that this is really
the female efrit, and she comes frightfully fast, and just when she is
over your head she lets a big stone drop on the horse and breaks it,
and you are falling down into the sea when a roc catches you and brings
you to its nest. When the roc flies away next morning you climb down a
cliff and find a door leading underground, and you come to beautiful
gardens where the plants talk, and there are big dogs like Pouncer,
only far bigger, with eyes like mill-wheels.... Where _is_ Pouncer? Did
Edward and Palmer take him?”
“No.... There they go!”
This last remark was called forth by the resplendent apparition of Aunt
Caroline and Barbara, who had come out of the house and were walking
down the drive.
“She told me she _loved_ paying visits,” Ann said, despondently, as she
gazed after her sister. “How can anybody love sitting on a chair and
not talking except when they’re asked a question?”
Grif stretched himself on his back, with all his limbs outspread. “I
expect she likes the cakes and things.”
“She says it isn’t for that. And when I asked her what it _was_ for,
she said I was too young to understand. I think she’s awful when she
gets into a grown-up mood.”
“Girls are always like that――at least, they get that way sooner or
later.”
“I won’t ever. I hate wearing my best dress, and I hate wearing gloves,
and I hate sitting in drawing-rooms.”
“You’ll get to like it some day. That’s the difference between girls
and boys. All girls go the same way. It’s a kind of disease. Edward’s
nearly as bad, though he isn’t a girl. I mean, he likes dressing
himself up and putting grease on his hair and going out to parties
where there’s dancing.”
“I _hate_ dancing,” said Ann. “So does Balmer. I _love_ Balmer. He’s
the nicest boy I ever saw.”
After a minute she added, “You’re nice too.”
“Master Grif, have you seen Pouncer? Other days he does be looking for
his dinner long before it’s ready, and to-day he hasn’t come for it at
all.”
The speaker was Hannah, and her words had an electrical effect on Grif.
Instantly there flashed upon his mind a vision of the man with the
earrings. What had he wanted? Why should he have come prowling about
the house?
He turned to Ann. “Where was the man you saw this morning? Where was he
going to?”
“He was in the wood, and he wasn’t going anywhere. I was under the
ash-tree, playing Jonah in his bower, and I saw him through the
branches. But when I came out to have a better look he wasn’t there.”
The search that followed was rapid and thorough――a search in which
Bridget and Hannah and Ann all joined――but no Pouncer was to be found.
Then, without saying a word to anyone, bareheaded and in his slippers,
and with his breath rising painfully in his throat, Grif rushed down
the drive and out on to the road.
As he ran towards the town he _knew_ Pouncer had been stolen. His face
had lost its colour, and was strained and woebegone, but he had no time
for lamentations, he must catch the circus and get Pouncer back. Just
outside the town he passed the field where the booth had been pitched.
It was bare now, littered with torn papers and rubbish, and the grass
was trampled down. Only two or three children were playing near it;
there was no sign of his brothers; and Grif ran on to the town.
He stopped at the first shop he reached――a butcher’s――to ask which way
the circus had gone. The big red-faced butcher was standing at his
door taking the air, and Grif was so breathless and incoherent that
his question had to be repeated several times before the butcher was
able to grasp it. Even then his answer, being mingled with hostile
criticisms of the show and of the performers, came with provoking
slowness. “They’ll likely be stopping at Rathcarragh,” he at length
surmised, “if they get that far without being jailed.” He was dwelling
on the improbability of this when he became aware that Grif was no
longer with him, and, in astonishment, watched him scudding on down the
street. He entered his shop to communicate the tidings to his wife, and
Grif tore on at full speed.
For he had heard the whistle of an engine, and now saw a white trail of
smoke thinly outspread against the sky.
Could he do it? His legs were giving under him, and once he fell and
cut his stocking and his knee. But he did not stop. Though his heart
seemed bursting, and everything swam before his eyes, he ran on; while
the white road seem to tilt up steeply in front of him in an impossible
hill.
He could hear the shrill, rending noise of escaping steam now, and the
slamming of doors. Another second or two and he staggered into the
station. The train had not yet started, but the guard was waving his
flag. Grif sprang at the door of the nearest carriage, which happened
to be empty, tugged the handle round, and scrambled in.
He was safe; the train was already moving out from the platform: then
everything grew suddenly dark, and his head dropped back against the
cushion.
When he recovered they were rushing through a sun-scorched landscape
of meadows and farmlands. He wet his handkerchief and wiped the dirt
out of his cut knee. Fortunately it was not bleeding much; and he
turned down his stockings, and brushed the dust off his knickerbockers.
He looked eagerly out of the windows on both sides, but could see no
sign of a road. The time went by with almost unendurable slowness. They
tore through a small station, and he began to fear that the train might
not stop at Rathcarragh after all, or that perhaps they had already
passed it, for he had not been able to read the name of the place they
had left behind. They seemed to have been travelling for miles and
miles, for hours and hours, when the engine whistled, and he felt that
they were slowing down.
The train drew in at a platform, and before it stopped Grif jumped
out. He had no ticket, but luckily he had enough money to pay for one,
though it left him destitute. As he made his way through the streets of
the town he looked out for a poster of the circus, but saw none. It was
market day, and there were a good many people about. Nobody, however,
took any notice of a rather forlorn-looking little boy in slippers,
who eagerly scanned every wall where there was a bill pasted up. A few
minutes’ walking brought him to the edge of the town. Beyond this
there were only detached houses and gardens; and then the open country.
Grif did not know what to do.
There was a public-house near, and he went in to make inquiries, but
nobody had heard anything about a circus. The man in charge was quite
friendly, however, so friendly indeed that Grif told him his whole
story, and became, in an atmosphere heavy with the fumes of stout and
whisky, the centre of a small group of solemn listeners, whose fishy
eyes and thickened utterance suggested that a considerable amount of
refreshment had already been given and taken. When Grif’s tale was
finished, and the rather fuddled sympathy of the audience had been
expressed, the potman produced some biscuits and cheese, and insisted
that he should fill his pockets. He was also able to point out the road
by which the circus would arrive if it were coming, and where Grif
might watch for it. He began to give his own version of the affair to
three or four new customers who had drifted in, and in the midst of it
Grif made his escape.
He followed the road the man had pointed out, though no longer very
hopefully. He felt now that it would have been wiser to have waited
at home, trusting to grandpapa and the police. Unfortunately he had
come too far to turn back, nor had he any money to pay for a second
railway-ticket. He walked on and on, under a blazing sun, which lay
upon the wide expanse of fields and meadows like the heavy breath of a
furnace. There seemed to be no air, and the white road, with its thick
carpet of dust, dazzled his eyes. The heat of the sun upon his bare
head, the strong glare reflected from the earth, seemed to enter into
his brain in a burning blinding light. His feet began to drag a little,
his slippers were filled with dust, but he trudged on bravely, though
his weariness added to his depression, and he would have liked to have
lain down by the roadside and cried.
With his thin leather slippers he was but poorly shod for a tramp like
this, and his feet began to ache, till at last each step he took caused
him pain. Only the thought that every moment of delay might increase
Pouncer’s danger kept him up, lent him a kind of nervous strength
to continue plodding on. The town he had left behind him had long
since dropped out of sight. Whichever way he turned now the landscape
presented the same monotonous, dazzling aspect. The tall green corn and
barley stood motionless in the fields; the cows were lying down in such
shade as they could find; the birds were silent and hidden: only an
insect life hummed and thridded and buzzed in the hedgerows. He felt
very thirsty, but he had not passed a cottage for some time, nor passed
a stream. And the glittering light seemed to bend and quiver before his
tired eyes, weaving strange patterns, casting reflected, shimmering
flames, as if from the burnished roofs of a city of mirage.
Two hours must have gone by; he had climbed hills and descended
valleys; yet no sign of the travelling circus appeared. The heat
was no longer so intense; the glare had decreased; the sun was
sinking――casting longer and longer shadows. He reached at last a
little copse of beech-trees, and heard the sound of running water. He
scrambled through the hedge. He could rest for a while here, and still
watch the road; nothing could pass without his hearing it and seeing
it. He bent down to the stream and drank from his cupped hands, and
splashed the cold water over his aching head. It brought him instant
refreshment, but, more even than the water, the shadow was delicious as
some healing balm. Leaning against the bank he closed his eyes for a
moment the better to enjoy it, and a delicious darkness, like a cool,
sweet-scented oil, caressed his sun-scorched nerves.
When he awoke it was quite dark and he knew he must have slept for
many hours. It took him but an instant to realize his situation, and
with its hopelessness he broke down and cried. He had slept through
those hours when he should have been watching. What use to look for the
circus now?
He would never find it:――never, never. And Pouncer must have passed
with it! He would not understand; he would know only that he had been
deserted――left to these cruel men who would certainly ill-treat him.
Perhaps he had felt that Grif was near, and had barked, while his
master had slept on in brutal unconsciousness. A passion of grief and
remorse shook his slight frame as he lay sobbing, his face buried in
his arms. Above him the night wind whispered in the dim trees――remote,
yet strangely gentle. Moonlight chequered the dark grass with pools of
milky pallor. A dead silence, save for this rustling leafy murmur, was
over everything.