he said fiercely. 'They'll hear you!'
'They're not here yet--we shall know when they come, by the
signalling--let's all keep quite quiet for a minute or two.'
There was a breathless interval of silence. At last Jack said: 'I hear
something--a sort of low grunting noise, like pigs.'
'Perhaps it is the pigs at the farm,' suggested Guy.
'Indians can imitate all kinds of birds, I know,' reasoned Jack, not
directly to the point, perhaps, but he was getting excited.
Tinling felt a dull rage against the other two. How dared they pretend
not to be afraid? It was all swagger--he knew that very well. Various
unpleasant recollections began to rise in his mind. He remembered how
that Indian spy had stalked the settler's cabin at Earl's Court. He
could see him now, stealing over the sand, then listening with his ear
to the ground, and turning to beckon on the ambushed warriors. He even
remembered the way the yellow and red striped blinds of the log hut
flapped in the wind, and how the horse that was hobbled outside raised
his head from his hay, and pricked his ears uneasily, as the foe came
gliding nearer and nearer. Then their way of fighting--he had thought it
rather comic _then_--they hopped and pranced about like so many lively
frogs, but the butchery would not be rendered any more agreeable by
being accompanied by laughable gestures! And there was an almost naked
light-yellow savage, whom he recalled dancing the war dance--he tried
not to think of all this, but it came vividly before him.
'S-s-h--_Cave_!' cried Guy, suddenly, as he looked through the loophole;
'I can see just the top of one's head and feathers among the currant
bushes. I'll touch him up in a second.'
He raised his tiny spring pistol, and was just aiming, when Tinling,
almost beside himself, darted on him, and struck it out of his hand.
'What are you doing now?' he said, through his teeth. 'What is the good
of _irritating_ them?'
'Why, they _are_ irritated,' said Guy, 'or they wouldn't come.'
'If they are,' retorted Clarence, raising his voice, 'whose doing was
it? You can't say I had anything to do with putting up those defiances!
Haven't I always said I respected Red men? They've got feelings like us.
When you go and insult them, of course they get annoyed--who wouldn't, I
should like to know? I honour a chief like Yellow Vulture myself, and I
don't care if he hears me say so. I say I honour him!'
His voice rose almost to a scream as he concluded.
'I say, Tinling, I do believe you're in a funk!' said Guy, after a
moment of wondering silence.
'If you are, say so, and we shall know what to do,' added Jack, feeling
in his pocket. 'Are you?'
'Feel his hands,' suggested Guy.
'Look here,' said Clarence, dashing aside the obstacles before the door,
'I'm not going to stay here to be treated in this way. If it hadn't been
for your foolery in sticking up the notices we should have been friends
with the Indians now. I don't want to quarrel with any Bogallala. And
you have the cheek to ask me if I'm in a funk, and to want to feel my
hands. Well, it just serves you right--I'm going.'
'Well, go then; who wants you?' said Guy.
But softer-hearted Jack said, 'Clarence, you mustn't. You'll be safe in
here; but out there----'
But the General had already vanished. He was crouching outside in the
shadow of the stockade. He could not bear being penned up any longer; he
must at least have a run for his life.
Had the enemy heard him declare his innocence? If so, it did not seem to
have softened them. They were still crouching--silent, hidden,
relentless--behind the currant bushes, their scouts signalling to one
another, for no _real_ grasshopper ever made so much noise as that. He
must make a bolt for it, and take his chance of their arrows missing
him. Over the open space of grey-green grass he scuttled, and actually
succeeded in reaching the friendly shadow of the holly hedge unharmed;
but that was probably because they felt so certain of cutting him off at
their pleasure.
On tiptoe and trembling went the General along the narrow paths, green
with damp, and latticed by the shadows which branches cast in the sickly
moonlight, until--just when he was almost clear of the gloom--his knees
bent under him; for there, at the end of the walk, against the starry
sky, stood a towering figure, with bristling feather head-dress, and
tomahawk poised.
'Oh, please, sir, don't!' he faltered, and shut his eyes, expecting the
Indian to bound upon him. But when he opened his eyes again, the savage
was gone! He must have slipped behind a ragged old yew which had once
been clipped and trimmed to look like a chess-king.
Clarence Tinling tottered on through the shrubbery, which was full of
terrors. Warriors, stealthy and cruel, lurked behind every rustling
laurel; far away on the lawn he saw their spears through the tall pampas
grass; he heard them chirping, clucking, and grunting in every direction
as they lay in wait for him, until at last he gained the broad gravel
path, at the end of which--oh, how far away they seemed!--were the
three lighted windows of the drawing-room. He could see the interior
quite plainly, and the group round the piano where the shaded lamp made
a spot of brilliant colour. What were they all doing? Were they huddled
together, waiting, watching in an agony of suspense? Nothing of the
kind: it will be scarcely credited, perhaps, but this heartless domestic
circle were positively passing the time with music, as if nothing were
happening!
If only he could reach that bright drawing-room before the rush came! He
felt that there were lithe forms stealing along behind the flower-beds.
He dared not run, but dragged his heavy feet along the gravel; and then,
all at once, from the rhododendron bushes rose a wild, unearthly yell.
He could bear it no longer; he would make one last effort, even if they
tomahawked him on the very verandah.
Somehow--he never knew how--he found himself in the midst of that quiet
musical party, wild with terror, scarcely able to speak.
'The Red Indians!' he gasped. 'Don't let them get me! Save me--hide me
somewhere!' and he remembered afterwards that he made a mad endeavour to
get inside the piano.
He was instantly surrounded by the astonished family. 'My dear
Clarence,' said Mrs. Jolliffe, 'you're perfectly safe--you've been
frightening yourself with your own game. There are no Indians here.'
Another howl from the shrubbery seemed to contradict her. 'There,
didn't you hear that?' he cried. 'Oh, you won't believe me till it's too
late! There are hundreds of them round the stockade. They may have
scalped Jack and Guy by this time!'
'And why ain't you being scalped too?' inquired Uncle Lambert.
'I'm sure you needn't talk!' he retorted; 'you weren't any more anxious
to fight than I am.'
'But isn't that different? I thought you had fought them before, and
conquered?'
'Then you thought wrong! Those--those weren't real Indians--I made them
up, then!'
'Now we've got it!' said Uncle Lambert. 'Well, Master Clarence, you've
made your little confession, and now it's my turn--_I_ made Yellow
Vulture up!'
'Are you sure--really sure--on your honour?' he asked eagerly.
'Honest Injun!' said Lambert. 'You see, I began to think the military
business was getting rather overdone; the army, like Wordsworth's world,
was "too much with us," and it occurred to me to see whether the
General's courage would stand an outside test--so I composed that little
challenge. Yes, you see before you the only Wah Na Sa Pash Boo--no
others are genuine!'
Tinling felt that those girls were laughing at him; they had probably
been in the secret for some time; but he could not care much just
then--the relief was so delicious!
'It was too bad of you, Lambert,' said Mrs. Jolliffe. 'He was really
horribly frightened, and there are those other two down in the stockade
all alone--you might have thought of that--they will be half out of
their minds by this time!'
'My dear Cecilia,' was the reply,'don't be uneasy, I _did_ think of it.
The moment they begin to feel at all uncomfortable they have directions
to open a certain packet which explains the whole thing. If the gallant
General had not been in quite such a hurry, he would have spared himself
this unpleasant experience.'
'Let's all go down, and see how they're getting on,' said Hazel.
'I know this,' said the General sullenly, 'they were in quite as big a
funk as I was!'
'Then why didn't they run in, and ask to be hidden too?' inquired
Hilary.
'Why? Because they didn't dare!' retorted Tinling, boldly.
'You know,' he remarked to Cecily, as they were going down together
through the warm darkness, 'it's not fair of your uncle to play these
tricks on fellows.'
'Perhaps it isn't quite,' said Cecily, impartially; 'but then he didn't
_begin_, did he?'
'Ahoy!' shouted Uncle Lambert, as they neared the stockade, and he was
answered by a ringing cheer from the fortress.
'Come on--we ain't afraid of you! Don't skulk there--see what you'll
get!' And a volley of peas, corks, and small shot flew about their ears.
Lambert Jolliffe ran forward: 'Hi, stop that! spare our lives!' he
cried, laughing. 'Jack, you young rascal, put down that confounded
popgun--can't you see we're not Red Indians?'
'What, is it you, uncle?' said Guy, in a rather crestfallen tone. 'Where
are the Red Indians then?'
'They had to go up to town to see their dentist. But do you mean to say
you haven't opened my envelope after all?'
'I thought you told us it was only in case we got frightened?' said
Jack.
'What does the General say to _that_?' cried Lambert--but Clarence
Tinling was nowhere to be found. He had slipped off to his bedroom, and
the next morning he announced at breakfast that he 'thought his people
would be wanting him at home.'
So the army was disbanded, for there was a general disarmament, and on
the afternoon after Tinling's departure the entire Jolliffe family
engaged in a grand cricket match, when lazy Uncle Lambert came out
unexpectedly strong as an overhand bowler.
_SHUT OUT_
It is towards the end of an afternoon in December, and Wilfred Rolleston
is walking along a crowded London street with his face turned westward.
A few moments ago and he was scarcely conscious of where he was or where
he meant to go: he was walking on mechanically in a heavy stupor,
through which there stole a haunting sense of degradation and despair
that tortured him dully. And suddenly, as if by magic, this has
vanished: he seems to himself to have waked from a miserable day dream
to the buoyant consciousness of youth and hope. Temperaments which are
subject to fits of heavy and causeless depression have their
compensations sometimes in the reaction which follows; the infesting
cares, as in Longfellow's poem, 'fold their tents, like the Arabs, and
as silently steal away,' and with their retreat comes an exquisite
exhilaration which more equable dispositions can never experience.
Is this so with Rolleston now? He only knows that the cloud has lifted
from his brain, and that in the clear sunshine which bursts upon him now
he can look his sorrows in the face and know that there is nothing so
terrible in them after all.
It is true that he is not happy at the big City day school which he has
just left. How should he be? He is dull and crabbed and uncouth, and
knows too well that he is an object of general dislike; no one there
cares to associate with him, and he makes no attempt to overcome their
prejudices, being perfectly aware that they are different from him, and
hating them for it, but hating himself, perhaps, the most.
And though all his evenings are spent at home there is little rest for
him even there, for the work for the next day must be prepared; and he
sits over it till late, sometimes with desperate efforts to master the
difficulties, but more often staring at the page before him with eyes
that are almost wilfully vacant.
All this has been and is enough in itself to account for the gloomy
state into which he had sunk. But--and how could he have forgotten
it?--it is over for the present.
To-night he will not have to sit up struggling with the tasks which will
only cover him with fresh disgrace on the morrow; for a whole month he
need not think of them, nor of the classes in which the hand of everyone
is against him. For the holidays have begun; to-day has been the last of
the term. Is there no reason for joy and thankfulness in that? What a
fool he has been to let those black thoughts gain such a hold over him!
Slowly, more as if it had all happened a long time ago instead of quite
recently, the incidents of the morning come back to him, vivid and clear
once more--morning chapel and the Doctor's sermon, and afterwards the
pretence of work and relaxed discipline in the class rooms, when the
results of the examinations had been read out, with the names of the
boys who had gained prizes and their remove to the form above. He had
come out last of course, but no one expected anything else from him; a
laugh had gone round the desks when his humble total closed the list,
and he had joined in it to show them he didn't care. And then the class
had been dismissed, and there had been friendly good-byes, arrangements
for walking home in company or for meeting during the holidays--for all
but him; he had gone out alone--and the dull blankness had come over him
from which he has only just recovered.
But, for the present at all events, he has got rid of it completely; he
is going home, where at least he is not despised, where he will find a
sanctuary from gibes and jostlings and impositions; and the longer he
thinks of this the higher his spirits rise, and he steps briskly, with a
kind of exultation, until the people he passes in the streets turn and
look at him, struck by his expression. 'They can see how jolly I'm
feeling,' he thinks with a smile.
The dusk is falling, and the shops he passes are brilliant with lights
and decorations, but he does not stop to look at any of them; his mind
is busy with settling how he shall employ himself on this the first
evening of his liberty, the first for so long on which he could feel his
own master.
At first he decides to read. Is there not some book he had begun and
meant to finish, so many days ago now that he has even forgotten what it
was all about, and only remembers that it was exciting?
And yet, he thinks, he won't read to-night--not on the very first night
of the holidays. Quite lately--yesterday or the day before--his mother
had spoken to him, gently but very seriously, about what she called the
morose and savage fits which would bring misery upon him if he did not
set himself earnestly to overcome them.
And there were times, he knew, when it seemed as if a demon possessed
him and drove him to wound even those who loved him and whom he
loved--times when their affection only roused in him some hideous spirit
of sullen contradiction.
He feels softened now somehow, and has a new longing for the love he has
so often harshly repulsed. He _will_ overcome this sulkiness of his; he
will begin this very evening; as soon as he gets home he will tell his
mother that he is sorry, that he does love her really, only that when
these fits come on him he hardly knows what he says or does.
And she will forgive him, only too gladly; and his mind will be quite at
ease again. No, not quite; there is still something he must do before
that: he has a vague recollection of a long-standing coolness between
himself and his younger brother, Lionel. They never have got on very
well together; Lionel is so different--much cleverer even already, for
one thing; better looking too, and better tempered. Whatever they
quarrelled about Wilfred is very sure that he was the offender; Lionel
never begins that kind of thing. But he will put himself in the right at
once, and ask Lionel to make friends again; he will consent readily
enough--he always does.
And then he has a bright idea: he will take his brother some little
present to prove that he really wishes to behave decently for the
future. What shall he buy?
He finds himself near a large toy shop at the time, and in the window
are displayed several regiments of brightly coloured tin warriors--the
very thing! Lionel is still young enough to delight in them.
Feeling in his pockets, Rolleston discovers more loose silver than he
had thought he possessed, and so he goes into the shop and asks for one
of the boxes of soldiers. He is served by one of two neatly dressed
female assistants, who stare and giggle at one another at his first
words, finding it odd, perhaps, that a fellow of his age should buy
toys--as if, he thinks indignantly, they couldn't see that it was not
for _himself_ he wanted the things.
But he goes on, feeling happier after his purchase. They will see now
that he is not so bad after all. It is long since he has felt such a
craving to be thought well of by somebody.
A little farther on he comes to a row of people, mostly women and
tradesmen's boys, standing on the curb stone opposite a man who is
seated in a little wooden box on wheels drawn up close to the pavement.
He is paralytic and blind, with a pinched white face framed in an
old-fashioned fur cap with big ear lappets; he seems to be preaching or
reading, and Rolleston stops idly enough to listen for a few moments,
the women making room for him with alacrity, and the boys staring
curiously round at the new arrival with a grin.
He hardly pays much attention to this; he is listening to the poem which
the man in the box is reciting with a nasal and metallic snuffle in his
voice:
There's a harp _and_ a crown,
For you and _for_ me,
Hanging on the boughs
Of that Christmas tree!
He hears, and then hurries on again, repeating the stanza mechanically
to himself, without seeing anything particularly ludicrous about it. The
words have reminded him of that Christmas party at the Gordons', next
door. Did not Ethel Gordon ask him particularly to come, and did he not
refuse her sullenly? What a brute he was to treat her like that! If she
were to ask him again, he thinks he would not say no, though he does
hate parties.
Ethel is a dear girl, and never seems to think him good-for-nothing, as
most people do. Perhaps it is sham though--no, he can't think that when
he remembers how patiently and kindly she has borne with his senseless
fits of temper and tried to laugh away his gloom.
Not every girl as pretty as Ethel is would care to notice him, and
persist in it in spite of everything; yet he has sulked with her of
late. Was it because she had favoured Lionel? He is ashamed to think
that this may have been the reason.
Never mind, that is all over now; he will start clear with everybody. He
will ask Ethel, too, to forgive him. Is there nothing he can do to
please her? Yes some time ago she had asked him to draw something for
her. (He detests drawing lessons, but he has rather a taste for drawing
things out of his own head.) He had told her, not too civilly, that he
had work enough without doing drawings for girls. He will paint her
something to-night as a surprise; he will begin as soon as tea is
cleared away; it will be more sociable than reading a book.
And then already he sees a vision of the warm little panelled room, and
himself getting out his colour-box and sitting down to paint by
lamp-light--for any light does for his kind of colouring--while his
mother sits opposite and Lionel watches the picture growing under his
hand.
What shall he draw? He gets quite absorbed in thinking over this; his
own tastes run in a gory direction, but perhaps Ethel, being a girl, may
not care for battles or desperate duels. A compromise strikes him; he
will draw a pirate ship: that will be first rate, with the black flag
flying on the mainmast, and the pirate captain on the poop scouring the
ocean with a big glass in search of merchantmen; all about the deck and
rigging he can put the crew, with red caps, and belts stuck full of
pistols and daggers.
And on the right there shall be a bit of the pirate island, with a mast
and another black flag--he knows he will enjoy picking out the skull and
cross-bones in thick Chinese white--and then, if there is room, he will
add a cannon, and perhaps a palm tree. A pirate island always has palm
trees.
He is so full of this projected picture of his that he is quite
surprised to find that he is very near the square where he lives; but
here, just in front of him, at the end of the narrow lane, is the
public-house with the coach and four engraved on the ground glass of the
lower part of the window, and above it the bottles full of coloured
water.
And here is the greengrocer's. How long is it since it was a
barber's?--surely a very little time. And there is the bootmaker's, with
its outside display of dangling shoes, and the row of naked gas jets
blown to pale blue specks and whistling red tongues by turns as a gust
sweeps across them.
This is his home, this little dingy, old-fashioned red-brick house at an
angle of the square, with a small paved space railed in before it. He
pushes open the old gate with the iron arch above, where an oil-lamp
used to hang, and hurries up to the door with the heavy shell-shaped
porch, impatient to get to the warmth and light which await him within.
The bell has got out of order, for only a faint jangle comes from below
as he rings; he waits a little and then pulls the handle again, more
sharply this time, and still no one comes.
When Betty does think proper to come up and open the door he will tell
her that it is too bad keeping a fellow standing out here, in the fog
and cold, all this time.... She is coming at last--no, it was fancy; it
seems as if Betty had slipped out for something, and perhaps the cook is
upstairs, and his mother may be dozing by the fire, as she has begun to
do of late.
Losing all patience, he gropes for the knocker, and, groping in vain,
begins to hammer with bare fists on the door, louder and louder, until
he is interrupted by a rough voice from the railings behind him.
'Now then, what are you up to there, eh?' says the voice, which belongs
to a burly policeman who has stopped suspiciously on the pavement.
'Why,' says Rolleston, 'I want to get in, and I can't make them hear me.
I wish you'd try what you can do, will you?'
The policeman comes slowly in to the gate. 'I dessay,' he says
jocularly. 'Is there anythink else? Come, suppose you move on.'
A curious kind of dread of he knows not what begins to creep over
Wilfred at this.
'Move on?' he cries, '_why_ should I move on? This is my house; don't
you see? I live here.'
'Now look 'ere, my joker, I don't want a job over this,' says the
constable, stolidly. 'You'll bring a crowd round in another minute if
you keep on that 'ammering.'
'Mind your own business,' says the other with growing excitement.
'That's what you'll make me do if you don't look out,' is the retort.
'Will you move on before I make you?'
'But, I say,' protests Rolleston, 'I'm not joking; I give you my word
I'm not. I do live here. Why, I've just come back from school, and I
can't get in.'
'Pretty school _you_ come from!' growls the policeman; ''andles on to
_your_ lesson books, if _I_ knows anything. 'Ere, out you go!'
Rolleston's fear increases. 'I won't! I won't!' he cries frantically,
and rushing back to the door beats upon it wildly. On the other side of
it are love and shelter, and it will not open to him. He is cold and
hungry and tired after his walk; why do they keep him out like this?
'Mother!' he calls hoarsely. 'Can't you hear me, mother? It's Wilfred;
let me in!'
The other takes him, not roughly, by the shoulder. 'Now you take my
advice,' he says. 'You ain't quite yourself; you're making a mistake. I
don't want to get you in trouble if you don't force me to it. Drop this
'ere tomfool game and go home quiet to wherever it is you _do_ live.'
'I tell you I live here, you fool!' shrieks Wilfred, in deadly terror
lest he should be forced away before the door is opened.
'And I tell you you don't do nothing of the sort,' says the policeman,
beginning to lose his temper. 'No one don't live 'ere, nor ain't done
not since I've bin on the beat. Use your eyes if you're not too far
gone.'