WILLIAM GETS WRECKED
WILLIAM laid aside "Robinson Crusoe" with a sigh. His dreams of
pirate-king and robber-chief vanished. The desire of his heart now was
to be shipwrecked on a desert island. He surveyed his garden and the
next garden and the fields beyond with an impatient scowl. He felt
bitterly that it was just his luck to live in an over-populated world
with ready-made houses and where everything one could possibly need
could be purchased at the shop round the corner....
Yet he felt that within reach there must be a desert island, or at any
rate some spot which a very little imagination could transform into a
desert island. He decided to set out on a voyage. He filled his pockets
with biscuits and pieces of string. String was always useful.
He went into the morning-room where his mother and grown-up sister sat.
He felt strongly that a mariner just about to be shipwrecked ought to
bid a fond farewell to his family.
"Good-bye," he said in a deep voice, "'case I'm not back."
"I wish you'd remember to wipe your boots when you come into the
house," said his mother patiently.
"You'd better be back if you want any tea," said Ethel.
William felt that they lacked every quality that the family of a
shipwrecked mariner should possess. Not for the first time he washed
his hands of them in disgust.
"All right," he said. "Don't blame me if--if you're sorry when it's too
late."
With this cryptic remark he left them.
To a casual observer William looked only a small boy walking slowly
down a road, frowning, with his hands in his pockets. He was really an
intrepid mariner sailing across an uncharted sea.
"Hello, William."
William had a weak spot in his heart for Joan. He rather liked her
dimples and dark curls. In his softer moments he had contemplated Joan
actually reigning by his side as pirate-queen or robber-chieftainess.
Now he felt that her presence might enliven a somewhat lonely voyage.
"I'm an explorer," he said, "sailin' along an' lookin' for new lands."
"Oh, William," Joan pleaded, "may I come with you?"
He considered the matter with a judicial frown.
"All right," he said at last. "Will you come in my ship or will you
have a ship of your own?"
"I'd rather come in your ship, please."
"All right," he said. "Well, you're _in_ my ship. Come on."
She walked along by his side. The best part of Joan was that she asked
very few questions.
"We're probably goin' to come to a desert island, soon," said William.
"I _speck_ we shall come to a desert island soon if we got through
these icebergs all right. There's a pretty awful wind blowin', isn't
there--lashin' the sails an' tackin' an' all that an' no land in sight
an' all these whales an' things all about?"
"Yes, William," said Joan obediently.
"You'd better be chief mate," William advised. "I'll be skipper. You
don't see any land in sight, do you, mate?"
Joan gazed at the road before them, the hedges around them, the cow's
head above the hedge, and the figure of the Vicar in the distance.
"No, Will--I mean skipper," she said.
William heaved a sigh of relief. For a minute he had thought she was
going to fail him.
They proceeded in silence for a time.
"The mast's gone now," said William, "all crashin' down on the deck
before the terrible hurricane wot sweeps all before it. I thought it
was goin' to crash on your brave head, mate."
"Yes, Will--I mean skipper," said Joan.
She was quite satisfactory. She entered into the spirit of a thing and
had the additional advantage of not demanding a prominent _rôle_.
The Vicar had come up to them. He looked at William with disapproval.
"Fine day, young man," he said breezily.
"Awful," said William gruffly, "blowin' an' hurricanin' an' lashin' at
everything. Come on, mate."
They left the Vicar staring after them.
"I wonder," he said to the landscape, "whether that boy is deficient or
merely impudent?"
He was still wondering when they vanished from sight. They reached the
river.
"The waves is lashin' up at us," said William, surveying the placid
stream. "I don't think this ole boat will stick together much longer if
we don' see a bit of land soon. I'm jus' drenched through--spite of my
tauparlings--an' almost perishin, of hunger 'cause the provisions was
swep' overboard, aren't you, mate?"
"Yes, Will--I mean skipper," said Joan, raising blue eyes alight with
admiration.
The path now turned inland. This part of the river was private, and the
back garden of a large house swept down to the river's bank.
"I b'lieve--I _b'lieve_," said William, "that I see an island--I
_b'lieve_ that at last I see an island jus' as this ole boat is goin'
to crash to pieces against a towerin' rock. _There!_ It's crashed to
pieces against a towering rock. My goodness! We're in the icy water
now! Well, you catch hold of an ole splinter or somethin' an' I'll
catch hold of somethin' else, an' we'll jus' make for that ole island
with all our might an' main--spite of the rain an' wind lashin' at our
faces----"
With set, grim expression he began to struggle through the garden hedge.
"Come on, mate," he called, holding the bushes aside for her, "here's
the island at last. Now we'll lie down on the sand an' sleep an' then
I'll go an' get the things wot will be washed up from the wreck."
The part of the garden where they found themselves was out of sight
of the house. There was a summer-house by the river and near that a
clothes-line with a table-cloth hung out to dry.
They sat down on the bank of the river.
"Nice to rest, isn't it," said William, "after all that strugglin'
against the fierce wind an' rain?"
"Yes, Will--I mean skipper."
"You go on restin,'" said William, kindly, "an' I'll go an' try to find
things washed up by the wreck."
* * * * *
He crept towards the back of the house. There was no one to be seen.
The door stood slightly ajar. Cautiously William peered within. He
saw a comfortable kitchen, empty save for the presence of a grey cat
washing its face on the hearthrug. It suspended operations for a
moment, surveyed William coldly and disapprovingly, and then returned
to its ablutions.
William's glance fell eagerly on a box of matches on the table and a
saucepan in the sink. He waited in the shadow of the doorway. There was
no sound in the house. At last, on tiptoe, his brows drawn together,
his tongue projecting from his mouth, his eye fixed on the door, his
freckled countenance purple and scowling, his hair standing on end, he
crept across the room. Returning the cat's haughty stare, he seized the
matches, the saucepan and two cups, and fled down to the river, where
his chief mate was sitting on the grass, idly throwing stones into the
water.
"Look what I've found washed up from the wreck," he said proudly. "Now
we'll build a fire an' soon I expect we'll find a native savage an'
some wild animals."
"Not--not _too_ wild, William," said the chief mate.
"All right," said the skipper, "not too wild, but anyway it doesn't
matter 'cause you've got me an' there's nothing much I can't kill.
Now, after the night on the open sea, we'd better make breakfast."
With indescribable joy they collected twigs, made a fire, filled the
saucepan with water from the river, and put it on to boil. When the
water was warm, William poured it into two cups and broke his biscuits
into them. The water was smoked and the biscuits grimy from their
sojourn in William's pockets, but to the shipwrecked mariners the
draught was as of nectar and ambrosia. Both drained their cups.
"That was grand, wasn't it, mate? I think you oughter say, 'Aye, aye,
sir.'"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Well, now, I'd better build us a house out of logs an' things, an' you
go and see if you can find anything washed up from the wreck."
"Oh, William--I mean skipper!"
"You won't mind--there's no one there but a cat."
With mingled apprehension and excitement, Joan stole off to the house.
William, left alone, turned to the summer-house, and in his imagination
made it vanish into thin air. Then he went through a ferocious and
strenuous pantomime of cutting down trees and piling up logs, and
finally beheld the completed summer-house with the proud eye of a
creator. Then he opened the door and entered.
A ragged, unkempt man rose from the seat rubbing his eyes. A black bag
was on the floor.
William and the man stared at each other, neither of them flinching.
"You're jus' wot I wanted to find," said William at last with
excitement and friendliness in his voice; "I jus' wanted a native
savage."
"Oh, yer did, did yer?" said the man. "Glad I'll do fer yer arl right.
An' 'oo may you be if I may be so bold as to arsk?"
"We're shipwrecked," said William, "shipwrecked on a desert island.
I've jus' built a hut, an' my chief mate's gone to find things washed
up from the wreck, an' you'll do for the native savage. Do you mind
bein' called Friday?"
"Not at all, young gent," said the man, "not at all. 'Erbert 'Ammond
is my name, but call me Friday, Saturday _an'_ Sunday, if so you've a
mind." (He ran his eye speculatively over William.) "But it seems funny
to see a shipwrecked sailor in clothes like them. You'd 'ave thought
they'd 'ave all got tore to pieces in the wreck, like."
"Yes," said William, eagerly, "they did."
"One would 'ave expected to see you--well, p'raps dressed in a sail or
something." His eye narrowed, and he pointed to the ragged tablecloth
fluttering in the breeze. "That 'ud do fine for a sail."
William's eyes were alight with enthusiasm.
"Yes--it _would_," he said, "fine."
"If I was you an' bein' shipwrecked," said the man, deftly taking the
table-cloth from the line, "I'd nip into that there summer-house, an'
take off that ordinary-like suit an' rig up myself in this here sail
... then you'd feel like as if you _was_ shipwrecked, eh?"
He threw the table-cloth into the summer-house, and William, all
excitement, followed. Friday lay on the bank by the river, smoked a
foul pipe and winked at the landscape.
Soon William emerged proudly wearing the table-cloth in the fashion of
a Roman toga.
"That," said Friday, "looks a bit of orl _right_--if I was you I'd go
an' show it to the hother one wots lookin' at the wreck. I'll stay an'
look hafter that there suit of yours so's no one runs off with it."
As William swaggered slowly towards the house, Friday rose, spat into
the river, winked at the tree and went into the summer-house again.
Joan was sitting on the step of the house with the cat on her knee.
"Will--I mean skipper," she said, "it's a lovely pussy." Then, "Oh,
goodness--_William!_"
Her tone hovered between horror and admiration.
William stepped jauntily up to her. One corner of the table-cloth
trailed on the ground behind him.
"It's a sail," he said, proudly. "I got all my clothes dashed off me in
the wreck, an' I'm wearing a sail wot got washed up by the waves. It
does jolly well, doesn't it?"
Joan clapped her hands.
"Oh, an' I've found a native savage," went on William, "an' he doesn't
mind bein' called Friday----"
"Oh, how _lovely!_ An' the pussy will do for a native wild animal. Oh,
_William_--we've got simply _everything_, haven't we?"
They went happily down to the river.
There William sustained the first shock of that momentous afternoon.
Many more were to follow. The native savage had disappeared. Search
in the summer-house revealed the fact that William's clothes had also
disappeared.
William's jaw dropped.
"_Stole_ 'em!" He ejaculated.
Joan's eyes opened wide. The possibilities of the situation were
beginning to dawn on both of them.
"_William_--how'll you get home?"
William's expression was one of pure horror.
"Mean ole _thing!_" he said. "Simply _stole_ 'em."
"_William_--what'll your mother say?"
They stared at each other in consternation, William clutched the
table-cloth tightly round his neck.
At this moment a loud, angry voice came from the house. They fled
precipitately to the summer-house. Isolated phrases reached them.
"Careless girl ... gossiping in the grocer's shop ... _anyone_ might
have come in ... not even locked the back door.... Heaven knows----"
Then they heard the violent slamming of the back-door. Both felt that
the time had come for the adventure to end. The desert island had lost
its charm. It must be after tea-time. The sun was already setting. In
normal circumstances, they would have crept quietly from the garden and
returned to their respective homes. But circumstances were not normal.
Between William's pants and vest and the world at large was--not his
usual long-suffering cloth suit--but a trailing and in certain places
inadequate table-cloth. William's freckled face, with its expression of
indignant horror, in its frame of wild, carrotty hair, had a curious,
unexpected appearance at the top of the long white robe.
"Oh, let's go home," said Joan, with a suspicion of tears in her voice.
William looked at her desperately.
"I can't go home like _this_," he said, hoarse with emotion. "I can't
go through the village wearin' a table-cloth. Everybody'd be laughing
at me. No one's ever done it before--not walked through the village in
a table-cloth--it'd make me ridic'l'us for the rest of my life."
He sat down, staring despondently in front of him.
"Oh, William, what will you do?"
"I'll stay here till midnight--till everyone else is in bed, an' I'll
go home then. You'd better be gettin' home now."
"Oh, William--I couldn't, William. I'll go an' get you something from
our house. I'll get you some of Daddy's clothes. Oh, William!"
William, deeply touched, could only stare at her and mutter gratefully.
"Thanks--thanks, he's bigger'n me, but they'll do--_anything'll_ do."
He watched her anxiously through the dusty little window of the
summer-house as she crept to the hole in the hedge and disappeared.
Then he heaved a deep sigh, drew his covering around him, sat down on
the summer-house seat and waited.
He was not left in peace for long. The voice which had first broken
in upon their desert island sounded again--this time nearer. It was
evidently walking round the garden with a sympathetic friend.
"And that wicked girl went to the grocer's and stayed there the
_whole_ afternoon--it's that young man they've got now--it's always
the young men, my dear--that's the worst of girls--and she left the
house _entirely_ unguarded, my dear--didn't _even_ lock the door--and
I came back and--yes, my dear, _all_ the silver gone from the
dining-room--some thief had been in and--oh, yes, I've telephoned the
police--and good gracious, the wretch has even taken the table-cloth we
had hanging up in the back garden! Did you _ever_?"
"Have you--have you looked in the summer-house? He may be hiding there."
William grew hot and cold, and took up his position immediately behind
the door.
"No, my dear and I'm not going to. I don't think it's fair to my
friends and relations--I'm not thinking of myself. But--suppose he were
there. He's sure to have a revolver. I'd make a fine target for his
revolver, silhouetted against the light."
"Y-yes. But couldn't we get pokers and dash in and stun him before he's
time to move?"
William, pressing himself and his table-cloth tightly into the corner
behind the door, was aware of a curious sinking feeling in his inside.
Some people, he decided, hadn't any hearts at all.
"I don't think so--we might so easily kill him by mistake."
"Well, then, at any rate we can lock the door and keep him there till
the police come."
A cold perspiration broke out over William.
"The lock won't work. Do you know, my dear, I'd rather go further away
just in case there _is_ anyone there. Suppose we go indoors?"
The voices died away in the distance. The tenseness of William's form
relaxed. His fixed look of horror and apprehension faded. He ran his
fingers through his hair.
"_Crumbs!_" he whispered.
It seemed hours before the door opened and Joan staggered in with a
bundle.
"Quick, William darling," she whispered. "Put them on, an' we'll go
home. No one saw me getting them. I'm 'fraid they'll be a bit big, but
we can turn things up."
[Illustration: A WOMAN CAME OUT, SAW WILLIAM, AND GAVE A PIERCING
SCREAM OF MIRTH. TWO SMALL CHILDREN FOLLOWED AND JOINED IN THE SHRIEKS
OF MERRIMENT.]
[Illustration: WILLIAM CERTAINLY LOOKED VERY QUEER. JOAN HADN'T
REALISED THAT THE SUIT WOULD BE _QUITE_ SO MUCH TOO BIG.]
Her fear was justified. Mr. James Clive, her father, was six-foot-six
in height. On William, his coat nearly touched the ground. His
trousers, though rolled up bulkily at the ends till they could be
rolled up no more, considerably impeded William's progress.
"Oh, William, they'll do," she whispered at last. "They are a bit big,
but they'll do."
William, in Mr. Clive's clothes, would have made his fortune on a
music-hall stage. Strong men would have wept tears at the sight, but
Joan's loyalty was such that only affectionate concern was in the
glance she turned on him. William's face was set and determined. He
thought that the end of his troubles was in sight, as he rolled the
table-cloth into a ball and put it beneath his arm.
"They--they may be able to track us if we leave it here," he whispered.
"'Sides, someone's stole my clothes an' I'm jolly well goin' to steal
someone's table-cloth."
The curious couple walked down the road. Joan kept throwing little
anxious glances at her companion. He certainly looked very queer. She
hadn't realised that the suit would be _quite_ so much too big. So far
they had not passed a house. Now they were passing a roadside cottage.
A man came out of the cottage and stared at William open-mouthed. Then
he leant against the wall, put his hands to his sides and emitted
guffaw on guffaw. William merely threw him a murderous glance and
proceeded on his way with as much dignity as his trousers allowed him.
"Missus?" called the man, wiping his eyes.
A woman came out, saw William, gave a piercing scream of mirth, and
leant helplessly against the wall with the man. Two small children
followed and joined in the shrieks of merriment that to William seemed
to fill the entire world. Joan put her hand to that part of the long
sleeve where she judged William's hand might be, and gave a sympathetic
squeeze. Yet even Joan's heart sank at the thought of the journey
through the village that lay before them.
The next house they had to pass was the house where Joan lived. To her
consternation, Joan saw a figure in a black dress and white apron at
the gate. It was too late to turn to flee.
"Well, I never, Miss Joan. Your mother says you're to come in at once.
She's in a terrible state over you--where _'ave_ you been?"
"I _must_ go home with William," pleaded Joan.
"That you must not," said the housemaid, taking her hand. "Your mother
said I was to find you and tell you to come in immediate. You've 'ad
no tea nor nothin'. As for you," she turned a devastatingly scornful
eye upon William, "dressin' up an' thinkin' you're so funny--well, you
won't get _me_ laughin' at you--you oughter be ashamed of yourself."
With a contemptuous sniff she led away the reluctant Joan. William
continued his pilgrimage alone. He went slowly. He went slowly for
two reasons. One was that the thought of the journey down the village
street filled even William's heart with apprehension.
The other was that his trousers were coming unrolled and his hands were
so far up the long sleeves of the coat that he could not extricate
them. He was glad that dusk was at last falling. He was aware that a
tall figure was approaching from the opposite direction. He shrank into
the shadow of the hedge, and hoped that it would pass without observing
him. It did not. It stood in front of him, barring his way, and slowly
adjusted a monocle. With a sinking heart, William looked up into the
face of Joan's father.
"Excuse me, young man," said that gentleman, "but either you and I
patronise the same tailor and have had identical ideas this spring as
to style and material, or--or," his hand descended firmly and held the
back of William's neck, "_or_ you are wearing a suit of my clothes, in
which case I must ask you to come home with me and take them off."
He began to impel William gently back towards his house.
"If you'd jus' let me _explain_," said William, pathetically.
"Explanations," said Mr. Clive, transferring his hold from William's
neck to the collar of his coat, "are tedious, unsatisfactory things.
Why trouble yourself with them? I merely ask of you, as one gentleman
of another, that you will return to me the garments that you seem to
have absentmindedly appropriated."
Even William's spirits were crushed by the repeated blows of fate. He
did not speak again till he was face to face with his captor in the
library of Joan's house, but with Joan nowhere to be seen. He was pale
and stern.
"But I've _nothin'_ else to wear," he said, "_nothin'_. You don' want
me to go all the way home in _nothin'_?"
"What," said Mr. Clive, "were you wearing before you purloined my suit?"
"I was wearin' a table-cloth, but----"
"Then I suppose you can go on wearing a table-cloth."
"But--but you don't want me to go through the village in a
_table-cloth?_" said William in frenzied despair.
"You can go through the village in a table-napkin for all I care,"
said Mr. Clive, heartlessly. "I paid twelve guineas for this suit only
last week, and I'm not going to have it mucked up any more. It'll take
about six years in a press to take these creases out, anyway. I don't
know what mischievous business you've been engaged in to-day, but I can
guess who got hold of this suit for you, and I'll have a few words with
Miss Joan on the subject this evening."
William glared at him savagely.
"Nothin' to do with Joan," he said. "I got it myself." He divested
himself of the suit, shook out his table-cloth and wrapped it round
him, scowling darkly.
"Well," he said, slowly and bitterly, "if you don't mind me goin'
through the village in _this_----"
"I don't mind at all," said Mr. Clive pleasantly, "not at all. Allow me
to see you to the door. Good-night, William."
Ho closed the door and went to the library window. There he watched the
white-clad figure disappear down the drive. "That young man's progress
through the village," he said aloud, "ought to be worth watching."
William set out once more on his adventurous journey. At the thought of
the village street his knees felt quite definitely unsteady. Never to
William had his home seemed so near and yet so unattainable. Suddenly
he thought of the path over the fields and through the churchyard. It
would bring him out a good way beyond his home, but it would avoid that
nightmare of the village street.
William climbed over the stile and set off over the fields. It was
nearly dark anyway. He could see no one near.... He climbed the second
stile that led into the churchyard, and began to walk forward. Suddenly
a woman who had been standing with her back to him, reading one of the
gravestones, turned, stared at him with open mouth and eyes, gave a
scream that made the hair on William's head stand upright, and shot off
like an arrow from a bow, falling head over heels over the opposite
stile, picking herself up and running with deafening screams in the
direction of the village. William, feeling slightly shaken, sat down
behind a tombstone to recover.
Several people passed, but William's nerve had gone. He dared not
emerge from his damp and gloomy refuge. At last he heard the sound
of many cheerful voices, as if seven or eight people were coming
together through the churchyard. His spirits rose. He would tell them
his plight. Seven or eight people all together would not be afraid of
him.... He rose from behind his tombstone and with eight wild yells
eight young women made for the horizon. All but one. She tripped over
a stone and crouched with her head on her hands where she fell. With a
thrill of joy William recognised his mother's housemaid. His troubles
were at an end. She would fetch him his overcoat.
"Ellen,"--he began.
"OO-_ow-ow-ow!_" yelled Ellen.
With a shriek more piercing than he had yet heard, Ellen fled from
William's sight.
* * * * *
"I don't know where William is," said Mrs. Brown to her husband. "He
wasn't in to tea."
"Don't worry yourself about him unduly," said her husband. "There was
a rumour rife in the village as I came from the station to the effect
that William had been seen walking in the direction of the village over
an hour ago wearing a suit of clothes of abnormal size."
Mrs. Brown sat down suddenly.
"Abnormal size? But he was wearing his ordinary suit at lunch."
"I can't explain it," said her husband. "I merely repeat the rumour."
"An hour ago--then why isn't he home?"
"I can't say," said her husband callously, opening the evening paper.
At this point an unearthly yell broke the silence of the house, and
Ellen rushed into the room, flinging herself beneath the table.
"It's come after me," she screamed. "It's at the side-door--Oh lor! Oh
lor!--it's there, all white an' all. Oh, don't let it get me--I don't
want to die--I'll repent--I'll--Oh lor! Oh lor!"
Mr. Brown laid down his paper with a sigh.
"What is it?" he said wearily.
"Oh lor! Oh lor!" sobbed Ellen, beneath the table.
A figure appeared in the doorway--a wild figure, with a fierce,
indignant, aggrieved expression and hair that stood up round its face,
a figure that clutched a ragged table-cloth round it with certain
enraged dignity.
"It--it--it's William," said Mrs. Brown.
* * * * *
"But they was _stole_ off me," said William wildly.
"So I gathered from your account," said Mr. Brown, politely.
"Well, is it fair to 'speck me to pay for things wot was stole off me?"
"I have already remarked that if I observed in you any sudden growth
of such virtues as cleanliness, tidiness, obedience, silence,
modesty--er--and the rest, I might myself contribute a little towards
the waistcoat, say, or the collar and tie. We will now consider the
discussion closed."
"It's ever so long past your bedtime, William," said Mrs. Brown. "Do go
to bed. I simply can't bear to see you wearing that dreadful thing any
longer."
With a glance of sorrowful anger at his parents William drew his
table-cloth about him and prepared to depart. He felt injured,
infuriated, ill-treated, and weary. His self-esteem was cruelly hurt.
Screams of laughter came from the next room where his grown-up brother
and sister were relating his adventures to a friend.
The telephone-bell rang.
"William, someone wants to speak to you."
He took the receiver unsmilingly.
"William, Daddy said I could ring you up to say good-night to you.
I was so sorry I couldn't go home with you. William, I don't think
you looked a bit funny in those things--I think you looked _nice_ in
the tablecloth and it wasn't your fault--and you were awfully brave
about it--and wasn't it _fun_--the desert island part?--I _did_ enjoy
it--we'll play a game like that again soon, won't we?--Good-night,
William darling."
"Good-night."
William hung up the receiver and went upstairs to bed. He held his
untidy carrotty head erect. On his freckled face was a softened
expression--nearly as good as a smile--he wore his table-cloth with an
almost jaunty air.
He was himself again.
THE END.
Transcriber's Notes:
Italics are shown thus: _sloping_.
Small capitals have been capitalised.
Variations in spelling and hyphenation are retained.
Punctuation has been retained as published.