Ever such a lot of children whom I don't know have written to me to say
how glad they were that I made father take me with him on his cycle such
splendid long journeys. Because, you see, _their_ fathers read the book,
and had a little seat fitted for them! On the other hand, I suppose
parents write and abuse my father for putting such ideas into their
little girls' heads. In fact, I know they do. Here is a true story. One
irate old fellow wrote to say that "Sir Toady" was quite unfit to
associate with clean and properly brought up children! And he put down
the references, too, where Toadums had misbehaved, like you find them on
the margin of a Bible! How he had sat down in the dusty road at page
some-number-or-other, where he had omitted to blow his nose, how he had
fought, and thrown mud, and generally broken every law laid down for the
good conduct of little boys in the olden times--just exactly what Sir
Toady used to do! As if father was responsible for all that! Well, he
_was_, in the old gentleman's opinion. For he ended with: "If only your
little rascal of a hero were _my_ son, sir----!"
This amused my brother Toadums for quite a long time, and one day he
sneaked the letter, and wrote himself to the old gentleman to say how
that he had reformed, and now always went about with two
pocket-handkerchiefs; also how, at school, he had founded the "Admiral
Benbow Toilet Club," to which the annual subscription was five
shillings.
Further, he expressed a willingness to propose the old gentleman's name
at the next meeting, and in the meantime he suggested sending on the
money! Yes--and would you believe it?--he actually got the five
shillings, along with a very nice letter from the old gentleman, couched
in a sort of Better-Late-than-Never strain. So Toady Lion, who can be
honest when he tries very hard, wrote and asked the old chap whether he
would prefer to have the brilliantine supplied by the club in bottle, or
like paint in a squeezable tube. But the old gentleman replied that,
being completely bald, Sir Toady had better consider himself as a new
returned prodigal, and use the five shillings "to kill the fatted
calf"! So we killed him, and the noise we made on the top of Low-Hill
was spread abroad over three counties. A "gamey" came to tell us that we
were trespassing. But we feasted him on the old man's five shillings,
while Hugh John explained that there was no such thing as trespass, and
Sir Toady, getting hold of the keeper's double-barrel, practiced on
bowlders till he nearly slew a stray pointer dog! Then, after braying
ourselves hoarse, we had fights, rebellions, revolutions, cabals, which
always ended in pushing each other into pitfalls and peat-bogs. We
tripped in knotted heather as we chased downhill, skirmishing and
yelling. Even Hugh John forgot himself, and all returned home, sated
with the slaughter of the old gentleman's fatted calf, tired to death,
not a shout left in any of us, but, as it were, stained with mud and
crime!
Ordinarily now Sir Toady has grown too old for the "sins and faults of
youth" already set down against him. But sometimes he relapses--and then
he has it bad. He does not say "roo" for "you" any more, but sometimes
the house is afflicted for days with an exhibition of what Hugh John
calls "Royal Naval Manners." Usually this occurs at table when father
is absent, because Toady has a quite real respect for the Fifth
Commandment, a respect gained at an early age, and ever since retained.
But on this journey there were a good many opportunities. You see, we
did not go to bed at the usual time. We got up when we liked, and I
often had to say the prayers for the entire family. Because the boys
shirked most shamefully, and the Maid was so sleepy with driving in the
open air all day that she often would be found sound asleep on her knees
when not carefully looked after.
"The spirit was willing, though the flesh was weak!" said our good old
Doctor of the parish of "Dulce Cor." "I wish all my own prayers had as
good a chance of being heard as this little sleeping child's!" After
this Toady Lion declared that he would always say his prayers in the
same way--_asleep_!
Well, of course you could not imagine--nobody could--the new and
peculiar wickedness devised by Sir Toady. It was simply _bound_ to be a
success. Besides which, it was perfectly safe; after what Mr. Massa had
told up at the Communion Stones of Iron-gray, The Powers-That-Be could
not say a word. Oh, the beautiful thing it is to have a friend of your
youth with a good memory, and, above all, communicative and frank with
your own children! Oh, I know that there are people who will say, with
some outside show of reason, "Well, just be perfectly good when you are
young, and then you don't need to fear the frankest of your intimate
friends!"
This, of course, is rank nonsense, and nothing but! For that kind of
very immaculate young person does not make the best sort of father or
mother when the time comes. They don't know anything. They are not up to
things, and get "taken the loan of," as the boys say in that rude but
expressive speech of theirs. But it is not accounted healthy to "monkey"
with ours, who generally can tell beforehand when you are going to do a
thing, and after it is done (if you get the chance) will tell you--what
very likely you didn't know before--_why_ you did it. If, in spite of
all, you get into scrapes, The Powers-That-Be usually sympathize. But
(and this is the awkward part) they remember the remedy that proved
effectual in former and more personal cases. That remedy is applied,
and, generally speaking, the same result follows. With this experience
we shall all make excellent heads of families, and shall hire ourselves
out--if we do not happen to have any of our own! Only, we are glad that
we came into the world too early to be part of Hugh John's family. His
methods are altogether too Spartan. And we tell him that the plain
English for the name of his favorite hero, Brutus (the one who cut his
children's heads off), was just simply Brute!
To return to Sir Toady, we were at the time at the little seaside
village of the Scaur. Mark Hill is behind it, and Rough Island in front.
Nothing could possibly be more delightful. At every low tide, for two or
three hours we could walk on a long pebbly trail which led seaward, the
wash of the tides coming from two directions round the pleasant green
shoulders of the Isle, epauletted with purple heather, and buttoned down
the front with white sheep. What dainty coves! What pleasing,
friendly-featured lambs with shiny black noses and goggle eyes! How tame
the very gulls had become from never being shot at! There never was such
a place as Rough Island for us, or, indeed, any children. Away to the
right you could see Isle Rathan, certainly more famous in romance. But
to go there you had to get kind Captain Cassidy to take you in his
boat. And generally it ended (because the Captain is a busy man) in your
staying with his wife, and seeing--and being the better for seeing--how
the threatening of blindness at once sweetens and strengthens the life
of a delicate woman. But to Rough Island we could go by ourselves, so be
that we returned with the first flowing of the tide. There is a certain
Black Skerry to the south which, when covered, announces to all
concerned that haste of the hastiest kind had better be made. Of course
we called it Signal Rock. But one fine September forenoon, when the
light was mellow and gracious even on the rough slopes of the Island of
our choice, Sir Toady set us all (that is, all the children) searching
in sheltered coves and little pebbly bays for "leg-o'-mutton"
shells--just, he said, what father used to do. It was the bottom of the
"neaps," when the water does not go very far out--which, of course,
every shore child would have known by instinct. But we were landward
bred, and such distinctions as to the ebbing and flowing of salt water
were too fine for us! But Sir Toady had had converse with the
instructed. He had profited thereby. And so no one will be surprised
that, by dint of keeping our backs to the Signal Rock, our noses
pointing down, and our eyes well employed in the search for
"legs-o'-mutton," we did not discover the treachery of Sir Toady till
the Rock was covered, and there was no hope of return! None, that is,
for most of us. But Sir Toady, already singing his song of triumph, had
reckoned without his Hugh John!
That austere stickler for "The Proper-Thing-To-Do-You-Know" made one
dash for the rapidly covering causeway, over which the tawny Solway
water was already lapping and curling in little oozy whorls, like a very
soap-suddy pot coming to the boil. He had only time to shout, "You, Sis,
stay where you are! Take care of the Maid. I will make it all right with
The-Folk-Over-There!"
And at first Toady Lion had laughed, thinking that for once the
immaculate Hugh John would be caught along with the rest of us. He did
not laugh, however, at all when he saw his elder brother take his watch
out of his pocket and place it in his cap. He shouted out, "It's all
right, Hugh John; Mr. Massa told me at Iron-gray that he and father
often did it--spent ''Tween-Tides' on the Island. He will know all
about it. Come back, you fool, you'll be drowned!"
But our Old Ironsides only shouted back over his shoulder that father
and Mr. Massa had not passed their words to be in for lunch, and that
_he_ had!
"If the People are anxious Over-Yonder, they can come and fetch us off
in a boat. We can say that we forgot!"
But by this time Hugh John had made his first dash into the wimpling
line of creamy chocolate, like a steamer's wake, which marked the
causeway to the land. His last will and testimony came to us in the
command to "Stay where we were!" And in the final far-heard rider that,
"when he got him," he would quicken Sir Toady's uncertain memory by one
of the most complete fraternal "hidings" on record.
All the same, as we watched him plod along, the tides sweeping in from
both sides upon him, and the struggle swaying him now to one side and
now to the other in the effort to keep his feet, Sir Toady burst into a
kind of roar (which he now says is a "way they have in the Navy" for
long-distance signaling, but which sounded to us very much like a
howl). "Come back, Hugh John," he cried, "and I'll take the best
'whaling' you can give me _now_!"
But out in the brown pother the struggle went on. Hugh John never so
much as turned his head. We stood white and gasping, all pretty close
together, I can tell you. And once when we saw him swept from his feet
and only recovered his balance with an effort--though my heart was in my
throat, I said out loud to comfort the others, "Well, anyway, he has
taken the school medal for swimming. He has it on him now!"
Then Sir Toady turned on me a face of scorn and anger. He pointed to the
gush and swirl of the currents of Solway over the bank of pebbles. "Swim
in that!" he cried, "no, he can't! No, nor nobody can. I tell you one of
the best swimmers in Scotland was drowned over there in Balcary, within
sight of his own house, and a man in a boat within stonethrow!"
But for all that, Toady himself pulled off his coat and waistcoat, and
made him ready to go to the rescue (oh, how vainly!). So that in the
long run the Maid and I had to hold him down on the beach, half weeping,
half desperate, calling on Hugh John, his Hugh John, to come back and
slay him upon the spot. As if he was _his_ Hugh John, any more than
anybody else's Hugh John--and the two of them fighting like cat and dog
nine-tenths of the time! But at times, when his elder brother is in
danger or ill, Sir Toady is like that. Janet Sheepshanks speaks yet
about his face when he came back from Crusoeing-it with Dinky and Saucy
Easedale--all drawn and haggard and white it was. Well, it was like that
now. I declare, he turned and struck at us every time that Hugh John
stumbled, or looked like being carried away.
"See here, Sis," he gasped, "you let a fellow go, or I'll kill you. I
will, mind--if anything happens to My Hugh John--I'll kill you for
holding me back like this."
But at this very moment we began to see the lank figure of Hugh John
rising higher out of the swirling scum. Presently he scrambled out on
the steep beach of pebbles, all dripping. Then he gave himself a shake
like a retriever dog, shook his fist at the distant Sir Toady, now
sparsely equipped in fluttering linen: "Wait till I get you, you young
beast! Just you wait!"
That was what he was saying as plain as print. But Sir Toady, completely
reassured, only heaved a long sigh, murmuring, "That's all right!" And
went on calmly putting on his clothes, and laughing at the Maid and me
for having been frightened. He actually had the cheek to ask us what we
had been crying about!