THE GOSPEL OF DASHT-MEAN.
It was on the day preceding a great review near the Border town of
Edam, that Hugh John Picton Smith first became a soldier and a
Napoleon. His father's house was connected by a short avenue with a
great main road along which king and beggar had for a thousand years
gone posting to town. Now the once celebrated highway lies deserted,
for along the heights to the east run certain bars of metal, shining
and parallel, over which rush all who can pay the cost of a
third-class ticket--a roar like thunder preceding them, white steam
and sulphurous reek wreathing after them. The great highway beneath is
abandoned to the harmless impecunious bicyclist, and on the North Road
the sweeping cloud dust has it all its own way.
But Hugh John loved the great thoroughfare, deserted though it was. To
his mind there could be no loneliness upon its eye-taking stretches,
for who knew but out of the dust there might come with a clatter Mr.
Dick Turpin, late of York and Tyburn; Robert the Bruce, charging south
into England with his Galloway garrons, to obtain some fresh English
beef wherewithal to feed his scurvy Scots; or (best of all) his
Majesty King George's mail-coach Highflyer, the picture of which,
coloured and blazoned, hung in his father's workroom.
People told him that all these great folks were long since dead. But
Hugh John knew better than to believe any "rot" grown-ups might choose
to palm off on him. What did grown-ups know anyway? They were rich, of
course. Unlimited shillings were at their command; and as for
pennies--well, all the pennies in the world lived in their breeches'
pockets. But what use did they make of these god-like gifts? Did you
ever meet them at the tuck-shop down in the town buying fourteen
cheese-cakes for a shilling, as any sensible person would? Did they
play with "real-real trains," drawn by locomotives of shining brass?
No! they preferred either one lump of sugar or none at all in their
tea. This showed how much they knew about what was good for them.
So if such persons informed him that Robert the Bruce had been dead
some time, or showed him the rope with which Turpin was hung, coiled
on a pedestal in a horrid dull museum (free on Saturdays, 10 to 4),
Hugh John Picton looked and nodded, for he was an intelligent boy.
If you didn't nod sometimes as if you were taking it all in, they
would explain it all over again to you--with abominable dates and
additional particulars, which they would even ask you afterwards if
you remembered.
[Illustration: "MR. DICK TURPIN, LATE OF YORK AND TYBURN."]
For many years Hugh John had gone every day down to the porter's lodge
at the end of the avenue, and though old Betty the rheumaticky warder
was not allowed to let him out, he stared happily enough through the
bars. It was a white gate of strong wood, lovely to swing on if you
happened to be there when it was opened for a carriageful of
calling-folk in the afternoon, or for Hugh John's father when he went
out a-riding.
But you had to hide pretty quick behind the laurels, and rush out in
that strictly limited period before old Betty found her key, and yet
after the tail of Agincourt, his father's great grey horse, had
switched round the corner. If you were the least late, Betty would get
ahead of you, and the gates of Paradise would be shut. If you were a
moment too soon, it was just as bad--or even worse. For then the voice
of "He-whom-it-was-decidedly-most-healthy-to-obey" would sound up the
road, commanding instant return to the Sandheap or the High Garden.
So on these occasions Hugh John mostly brought Sir Toady Lion with
him--otherwise Arthur George the Sturdy, and at yet other times
variously denominated Prince Murat, the Old Guard, the mob that was
scattered with the whiff of grapeshot, and (generally) the whole
Grand Army of the First Empire. Toady Lion (his own first effort at
the name of his favourite hero Richard Coeur-de-Lion) had his
orders, and with guile and blandishments held Betty in check till the
last frisk of Agincourt's tail had disappeared round the corner. Then
Hugh John developed his plans of assault, and was soon swinging on the
gate.
"Out of the way with you, Betty," he would cry, "or you will get
hurt--sure."
For the white gate shut of itself, and you had only to push it open,
jump on, check it at the proper place on the return journey, and with
your foot shove off again to have scores and scores of lovely swings.
Then Betty would go up the avenue and shout for her husband, who was
the aforesaid crusty old gardener. She would have laid down her life
for Toady Lion, but by no means even a part of it for Hugh John, which
was unfair. Old Betty had once been upset by the slam of the gate on a
windy day, and so was easily intimidated by the shouts of the horseman
and the appalling motion of his white five-barred charger.
Such bliss, however, was transient, and might have to be expiated in
various ways--at best with a slap from the hand of Betty (which was as
good as nothing at all), at worst, by a visit to father's
workroom--which could not be thought upon without a certain sense of
solemnity, as if Sunday had turned up once too often in the middle of
the week.
But upon this great day of which I have to tell, Hugh John had been
honourably digging all the morning in the sand-hole. He had on his
red coat, which was his most secret pride, and he was devising a
still more elaborate system of fortification. Bastion and trench,
scarp and counter-scarp, lunette and ravelenta (a good word), Hugh
John had made them all, and he was now besieging his own creation with
the latest thing in artillery, calling "Boom!" when he fired off his
cannon, and "Bang-whack!" as often as the projectile hit the wall and
brought down a foot of the noble fortification, lately so laboriously
constructed and so tenderly patted into shape.
Suddenly there came a sound which always made the heart of Hugh John
beat in his side. It was the low thrilling reverberation of the drum.
He had only time to dash for his cap, which he had filled with sand
and old nails in order to "be a bomb-shell"; empty it, put it on his
head, gird on his London sword-with-the-gold-hilt, and fly.
As he ran down the avenue the shrill fifes kept stinging his ears and
making him feel as if needles were running up and down his back. It
was at this point that Hugh John had a great struggle with himself.
Priscilla and Toady Lion were playing at "House" and "Tea-parties"
under the weeping elm on the front lawn. It was a debasing taste,
certainly, but after all blood was thicker than water. And--well, he
could not bear that they should miss the soldiers. But then, on the
other hand, if he went back the troops might be past before he reached
the gate, and Betty, he knew well, would not let him out to run after
them, and the park wall was high.
In this desperate strait Hugh John called all the resources of
religion to his aid.
"It would," he said, "be dasht-mean to go off without telling them."
Hugh John did not know exactly what "dasht-mean" meant. But he had
heard his cousin Fred (who was grown up, had been a year at school,
and wore a tall hat on Sundays) tell how all the fellows said that it
was better to die-and-rot than to be "dasht-mean"; and also how those
who in spite of warnings proved themselves "dasht-mean" were sent to a
place called Coventry--which from all accounts seemed to be a
"dasht-mean" locality.
So Hugh John resolved that he would never get sent there, and whenever
a little thing tugged down in his stomach and told him "not to," Hugh
John said, "Hang it! I won't be dasht-mean."--And wasn't.
Grown-ups call these things conscience and religion; but this is how
it felt to Hugh John, and it answered just as well--or even better.
So when the stinging surge of distant pipes sent the wild blood
coursing through his veins, and he felt his face grow cold and prickly
all over, Napoleon Smith started to run down the avenue. He could not
help it. He must see the soldiers or die. But all the same _Tug-tug_
went the little string remorselessly in his stomach.
"I must see them. I must--I must!" he cried, arguing with himself and
trying to drown the inner voice.
"_Tug-tug-tug!_" went the string, worse than that which he once put
round his toe and hung out of the window, for Tom Cannon the
under-keeper to wake him with at five in the morning to go
rabbit-ferreting.
Hugh John turned towards the house and the weeping elm.
"It's a blooming shame," he said, "and they won't care anyway. But I
_can't_ be dasht-mean!"
And so he ran with all his might back to the weeping elm, and with a
warning cry set Prissy and Sir Toady Lion on the alert. Then with
anxious tumultuous heart, and legs almost as invisible as the
twinkling spokes of a bicycle, so quickly did they pass one another,
Hugh John fairly flung himself in the direction of the White Gate.