BEFORE THE INQUISITION.
With this excursion into the natural history of the Smoutchy Boy,
which perhaps ought to have come somewhat earlier in the history, we
continue the tale of the adventures of General Napoleon Smith.
Beaten down by numbers, the hero lay on the ground at the corner of
the butcher's parks. Nipper Donnan stood over him and held him down
with his foot. They were just the right ages for bully and bullied.
Hugh John Smith was twelve, slim, and straight as an arrow; Nipper
Donnan sixteen, short, hard, and thick set, with large solid hands and
prominent knuckles.
"Got you at last, young prig! Now I'll do you to rights!" remarked
Nipper, genially kicking Hugh John in the ribs with his hobnailed
boots.
Hugh John said not a word, for he had fought till there was no more
breath left in him anywhere.
"Sulky, hey?" said Nipper, with another kick in a more tender spot.
Hugh John winced. "Ah, lads, I thought that would wake the young swell
up. Oh, our father is the owner of this property, is he? So nice! He
owns the town, does he? Nasty pauper he is! Too poor to keep a proper
carriage, but thinks us all dirt under his feet. Yaw, yaw, we aw-w so
fine, we aw-w, we a-aw!"
And Nipper Donnan imitated, amid the mean obsequious laughter of his
fighting tail, the erect carriage of his father's enemy, Mr. Picton
Smith, as he was accustomed to stride somewhat haughtily down the High
Street of Edam.
Then he came back and kicked Hugh John again.
"You wouldn't dare to do this if my father were here!" said General
Napoleon, now sitting up on his elbow.
"_Your_ father, I'll show you!" shouted furiously Nipper the Tyrant.
"Who asked you to come here anyway to meddle with us? Who invited you
into our parks? What business have you in our castle? Fetch him along,
boys; we'll show him something that neither he nor his father know
anything about. They and the likes of them used to shut up people in
the castle dungeons, so they say. We are just the boys to give 'em a
taste of what it is like theirselves."
"Hooray," shouted the Smoutchy fighting tail; "fetch him along, lads!"
So with no gentle hands Hugh John was seized and hurried away. He was
touched up with ironbound clogs in the rear, his arms were pinched
underneath where the skin is tender, as well as nearly dragged from
their sockets. A useless red cravat was thrust into his mouth by way
of a gag--useless, for the prisoner would sooner have died than have
uttered one solitary cry.
And all the time Hugh John was saying over and over to himself the
confession of his faith:
"I'm glad I didn't tell--I'm glad I wasn't 'dasht-mean.' I'm a
soldier. The Scots Greys saluted me; and these fellows _shan't_ make
me cry."
And they didn't. For the spirit of many generations of stalwart Smiths
and fighting Pictons was in him, and perhaps also a spark from the
ancestral anvil of the first Smith had put iron into his boyish blood.
So all through the scene which followed--the slow mock trial, the
small ingenious tortures, pulling back middle fingers, hanging up by
thumbs to a beam with his toes just touching the ground, tying a
string about his head and tightening it with a twisted stick--Hugh
John never cried a tear, which was the bitterest drop in the cup of
Nipper Donnan.
They removed the gag in order that they might question him.
"Say this is not your father's castle, and we'll let you down!" cried
Nipper.
"It _is_ my father's and nobody else's! And when it is mine, I shan't
let one of you beasts come near it."
The Smoutchies tried another tack.
"Promise you won't tell on us if we let you go!"
"I shan't promise; I will tell every one of your names to the
policeman, and get you put in jail--so there! My father has gone to
London to see the Queen, and have you all put into prison--yes, and
whipped with a cat-o'-nine-tails as soon as ever he comes back!"
answered Hugh John, shamelessly belying both his father and his own
intentions.
But he comforted himself and excused the lie, by saying to himself,
"It is none of their business whether I tell on them or not. They
shan't think that I don't tell because I am afraid of them!"
And the great heart of the hero (aged twelve) stood high and unshaken.
At last even Nipper Donnan tired of the cruel sport. It was no great
fun when the victim could not be made to cry or appeal for mercy. And
even the fighting tail grew vaguely restive, perhaps becoming
indistinctly conscious, in spite of their blind admiration for their
chief, that by comparison with the steadfast defiance and upright mien
of their solitary victim, the slouching, black-pipe-smoking
smoutchiness of Nipper Donnan did not appear the truly heroic figure.
"Let's put him in the dungeon, and leave him there! I can come and
let him out after, and then kick the beggar home the way he came! That
will learn him to let us alone for ever and ever!"
The fighting tail shouted agreement, and Hugh John was promptly haled
to the mouth of the prison-house; a rope was rove about his waist, his
hands were tied behind his back, and he was lowered down into the
ancient dungeon of the Castle of Windy Standard. This place of
confinement had last been used a hundred and fifty years ago for the
stragglers of the Bonny Prince's army after the retreat northward. The
dungeon was bottle-necked above, and spread out beneath into a
circular vault of thirty or forty feet in diameter. Its depth was
about twelve feet; and as the boys had not rope enough to lower their
prisoner all the way, they had perforce to let Hugh John drop, and he
lighted on his feet, taking of course the rope with him.
"Come on, lads," cried Nipper Donnan, "let's go and have a smoke at
the Black Sheds, and then go up to the Market Hill to see the shows.
The proud swine will do well enough down there till his father comes
back from London with the cat-o'-nine-tails!"
He looked over the edge and spat into the dungeon.
"That for you!" he cried. "Will ye say now that the castle is your
father's, and that we have no right here!"
Hugh John tried to give the required information as to ownership, but
it was choked in the folds of the red cravat. Nipper went on
tauntingly, all unchallenged.
[Illustration: "'WILL YE SAY NOW THAT THE CASTLE IS YOUR FATHER'S, AND
THAT WE HAVE NO RIGHT HERE!' SAID NIPPER DONNAN."]
"There's ethers (adders) down there--and weasels and whopper rats that
eat off your fingers and toes. Yes, and my father saw a black beast
like an otter, but as big as a calf, run in there out of the Edam
Water; and they'll bite ye and stang ye and suck your blood! And we
are never coming back no more, so ye'll die of starvation besides."
With this pleasing speech by way of farewell and benediction, Nipper
Donnan drew off his forces, and Hugh John was left alone.