Miranda was thirteen years old, and she lived in the next house. She was
Peter's best friend. They had soon discovered that their ideas as to a
good game were similar, and for many years they had played inseparably.
Already Mrs. Paragon and Mrs. Smith had decided to open a way through
the wall that divided the two gardens.
To-day this breach in the wall had been filled in by Miranda with
packing-cases and an old chair. Miranda stood beside her defences of the
breach with sword and shield on the summit of a wall less than nine
inches across.
At the wall's foot was Peter. He was his favourite hero--Shakespeare's
fifth Henry.
"How yet resolves the governor of the town?
This is the latest parle we will admit."
The moment had come for Miranda to descend from the wall and deliver the
keys of the city. But Miranda this morning refused the usual programme.
Peter, hearing that the text of Shakespeare would not on this occasion
be followed, resolved that none of the horrors of war should be spared.
He came to the attack with a battering-ram.
"Saint George! Saint George!" he shouted, and the ram rushed forward.
"France! France!" Miranda screamed, and unexpectedly emptied a pail of
cold water upon Peter's head.
Peter left the ram and swiftly retreated.
Both parties were by this time lost to respect of consequences. Into
Peter's mind there suddenly intruded Shakespeare's vision of himself.
"... And at his heels,
Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword, and fire
Crouch for employment."
Fire! Obviously this was the retort.
Nothing in the world burns so fiercely as a well-dried bundle of straw.
Within half a minute of the match there was literally a roar of flame,
ascending into the crevices of Miranda's breach. She rushed into the
smoke, swayed, and leaped blindly into her father's marrow-bed.
Her father's marrows had been tenderly nursed to the threshold of
perfection. It was a portion of his routine to come into the garden
after breakfast to inspect, feel, weigh in his hands, and liberally to
discourse upon marrows. But nothing at that moment could sober Miranda.
She did not care.
Peter was for the moment awed into inaction by a fire which burned more
rapidly than he had intended; but he climbed at last upon the wall, saw
Miranda prone among the marrows, and, surging with conquest, leaped
furiously upon her.
Peter was more complicated than Miranda. Miranda did not yet know that
she had ruined her father's marrows. She was mercifully made to feel and
to know one thing at a time; and at this moment she felt that the only
thing in the world that mattered was to kill Peter.
But Peter realised in mid-air that he, too, would soon be standing amid
extended ruins of the marrow-bed. His moment of indecision was fatal.
Spreading his legs, to avoid a particularly fine vegetable, he fell
headlong. Miranda was swiftly upon him, and they rolled among the shoots
and blossoms. Peter forgot his scruples. He drew the dagger at his belt,
and stabbed.
Triumph was stillborn. He felt himself suddenly lifted from the
marrow-bed, and was next aware of some vigorous blows indelicately
placed.
Mrs. Smith had returned from marketing, and looked for her daughter. The
fire was not difficult to perceive; it was roaring to heaven. Nor was
Miranda easily overlooked, for she was in her death-agony.
Miranda calmly stood by, waiting until Mrs. Smith was free to deal with
her. Miranda was always sensible. Her turn would come.
Mrs. Smith suddenly dropped Peter into the marrows, and turned the
garden hose upon Peter's fire. Peter, scrambling to his feet, watched
her with dry, contemptuous eyes. The fire was furiously crackling,
shooting up spark and flame. It was beautiful and splendid. Peter found
himself wondering in his humiliation how Mrs. Smith could so callously
extinguish it.
"I never saw such children," said Mrs. Smith. "I don't know what your
father will say, Miranda."
Mrs. Smith was a hard-working wife. She had no time for thought or
imagination. She dealt with Miranda, and children generally, by rote.
"Mischief" was something that children loved, for which they were
punished. It was recognised as the sort of thing serious people avoided.
"I don't know what your father will say, Miranda." The phrase was
automatic with Mrs. Smith. Miranda knew that her father would say less
than her mother.
"It was my fire," said Peter, smouldering wickedly; "and they are my
marrows."
"I wasn't talking to you," said Mrs. Smith; "you'd better go away."
At this point Mrs. Paragon appeared above the wall.
"Peter," she said, "you might have burned the house down."
How different, Peter thought, was his mother from Mrs. Smith. His mother
understood. Obviously it was wrong to burn the house down. He saw the
point. His mother hadn't any theories about mischief.
Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Paragon exchanged some sentiments on the waywardness
of children, and the fire being quenched, Miranda was kept indoors for
the rest of the day. Peter wistfully wandered between meals about the
scene of his morning's adventure. He was burning with a sense of wrong.
He admitted his fault. He had imperilled the house, and he had helped to
destroy his neighbour's marrows. But he felt that Mrs. Smith's view of
things was perverse, and that his humiliation had been out of all
proportion to his offence. At the thought of Miranda's imprisonment he
savagely flushed.
Peter ended the day in a softer mood. In the evening he had seen Mr.
Smith inspecting the ruins of his marrow bed. He knew exactly what Mr.
Smith was feeling. He remembered how he himself had felt when Mrs. Smith
had made him destroy a platform he had built in the chestnut tree at the
foot of the garden.
Peter dashed through the gap in the wall. Mr. Smith, a kind little man
with the temperament of an angel, looked him sorrowfully in the face.
Peter's contrition was manifest and perfectly understood.
"Bit of a mess, eh!" said Mr. Smith with an affectation that it did not
matter.
"I'm sorry," said Peter. "It's a shame. I'm awfully sorry."
"That's all right," said Mr. Smith. Then he added cheerfully: "Your
father will put it right."
Mr. Smith, as a gardener, was the pupil of Mr. Paragon. But though he
had complete confidence in his instructor, his belief that anyone would
ever be able to make anything of the mangled vegetation between them was
obviously pretended for Peter's sake; and Peter knew this as well as he.
Peter brushed away the necessary tears, and was about to obey an impulse
to grip Mr. Smith's hand in sympathy, when Mrs. Smith called her husband
sharply to supper.
Peter watched him disappear into the house with a sudden conviction that
life was difficult. Already he heard the voice, thin and penetrating, of
Mrs. Smith, raised in a discourse upon mischief.
Peter went in to his mother to tell her that he had apologised to Mr.
Smith. He knew it would please her, and he also knew that his father,
when he came home, would treat him with justice and understanding.