PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
Saturday morning dawned calm and clear after heavy rain on the hills,
with a Sabbath-like peace in the air. The smoke of Edam rose straight
up into the firmament from a hundred chimneys, and the Lias Coal Mine
contributed a yet taller pillar to the skies, which bushed out at the
top till it resembled an umbrella with a thick handle. Hugh John had
been very early astir, and one of his first visits had been to the
gipsy camp, where he found Billy Blythe with several others all clad
in their tumbling tights, practising their great Bounding Brothers'
act.
"Hello," cried Hugh John jovially, "at it already?"
"The mornin's the best time for suppling the jints!" answered Billy
sententiously; "ask Lepronia Lovell, there. She should know with all
them tin pans going clitter-clatter on her back."
"I'll be thankin' ye, Billy Blythe, to kape a tight holt on the slack
o' that whopper jaw of yours. It will be better for you at supper-time
than jeerin' at a stranger girl, that is arnin' her bite o' bread
daycent. And that's a deal more than ye can do, aye, or anny wan like
ye!"
And with these brave words, Lepronia Lovell went jingling away.
The Bounding Brothers threw themselves into knots, spun themselves
into parti-coloured tops, turned double and treble somersaults, built
human pyramids, and generally behaved as if they had no bones in any
permanent positions throughout their entire bodies. Hugh John stood by
in wonder and admiration.
"Are you afraid?" cried Billy from where he stood, arching his
shoulders and swaying a little, as one of the supporters of the
pyramid. "No?--then take off your boots." Hugh John instantly stood in
his stocking soles.
"Up with him!" And before he knew it, he was far aloft, with his feet
on the shoulders of the highest pair, who supported him with their
right and left hands respectively. From his elevated perch he could
see the enemy's flag flaunting defiance from the topmost battlements
of the castle.
As soon as he reached the ground he mentioned what he had seen to
Billy Blythe.
"We'll have it low and mean enough this night as ever was, before the
edge o' dark!" said Billy, with a grim nod of his head.
* * * * *
The rains of the night had swelled the ford so that the
stepping-stones were almost impracticable--indeed, entirely so for the
short brown legs of Sir Toady Lion. This circumstance added greatly to
the strength of the enemy's position, and gave the Smoutchies a
decided advantage.
"They can't be at the castle all the time," said Billy; "why not let
my mates and me go in before they get there? Then we could easily keep
every one of them out."
This suggestion much distressed General Smith, who endeavoured to
explain the terms of his contract to the gipsy lad. He showed him that
it would not be fair to attack the Smoutchies except on Saturday,
because at any other time they could not have all their forces in the
field.
Billy thought with some reason that this was simple folly. But in time
he was convinced of the wisdom of not "making two blazes of the same
wasps' byke," as he expressed it.
"Do for them once out and out, and be done with it!" was his final
advice.
Hugh John could not keep from thinking how stale and unprofitable it
would be when all the Smoutchies had been finally "done for," and when
he did not waken to new problems of warfare every morning.
According to the final arrangements the main attack was to be
developed from the broadest part of the castle island below the
stepping-stones. There were two boats belonging to the house of Windy
Standard, lying in a boat-house by the little pier on the way to
Oaklands. For security these were attached by a couple of padlocks to
a strong double staple, which had been driven right through the solid
floor of the landing-stage.
The padlocks were new, and the whole appeared impregnable to the
simple minds of the children, and even to Mike and Peter Greg. But
Billy smiled as he looked at them.
"Why, opening them's as easy as falling off a stool when you're
asleep. Gimme a hairpin."
But neither Prissy nor Cissy Carter had yet attained to the dignity of
having their hair done up, so neither carried such a thing about with
them. Business was thus at a standstill, when Hugh John called to
Prissy, "Go and ask Jane Housemaid to give us one."
"A good thick 'un!" called Billy Blythe after her.
The swift-footed Dian of Windy Standard had only been away a minute or
two before she came flying back like the wind.
"She-won't-give-us-any-unless-we-tell-her-what-it-is-for!" she panted,
all in one long word.
"Rats!" said Hugh John contemptuously, "ask her where she was last
Friday week at eleven o'clock at night!"
The Divine Huntress flitted away again on winged feet, and in a trice
was back with three hairpins, still glossy from their recent task of
supporting the well-oiled hair of Jane Housemaid.
With quick supple hand Billy twisted the wire this way and that, tried
the padlock once, and then deftly bent the ductile metal again with a
pair of small pincers. The wards clicked promptly back, and lo! the
padlock was hanging by its curved tongue. The other was stiffer with
rust, but was opened in the same way. The besiegers were thus in
possession of two fine transports in which to convey their army to the
scene of conflict.
It was the plan of the General that the men under Billy Blythe should
fill the larger of the two boats, and drop secretly down the left
channel till they were close under the walls of the castle. The enemy,
being previously alarmed by the beating of drums and the musketry fire
on the land side, would never expect to be taken in the rear, and
probably would not have a single soldier stationed there.
Indeed, towards the Edam Water, the walls of the keep rose thirty or
forty feet into the air without an aperture wide enough to thrust an
arm through. So that the need of defence on that side was not very
apparent to the most careful captain. But at the south-west corner,
one of the flanking turrets had been overthrown, though there still
remained several steps of a descent into the water. But so high was
the river on this occasion, that it lapped against the masonry of the
outer defences. To this point then, apparently impregnable, the
formidable division under Billy Blythe was to make its way.
There was nothing very martial about the appearance of these sons of
the tent and caravan.
The Bounding Brothers wore their trick dresses, and as for the rest,
they were simply and comprehensively arrayed in shirt and trousers.
Not a weapon, not a sash, not a stick, sword, nor gun broke the
harmonious simplicity of the gipsy army.
Yet it was evident that they knew something which gave them secret
confidence, for all the time they were in a state of high glee, only
partially suppressed by the authority of their leader, and by the
necessity for care in manning the boat with so large a crew. There
were fourteen who were to adventure forth under Billy's pennon.
To the former assailants of the Black Sheds there had been added a
stout and willing soldier from the gardens of Windy Standard,--a boy
named Gregory (or more popularly Gregory's Mixture), together with a
forester lad, who was called Craw-bogle Tam from his former occupation
of scaring the crows out of the corn. Sammy Carter had been cashiered
some time ago by the Commander-in-chief, but nevertheless he appeared
with three cousins all armed with dog-whips, which Sammy assured Hugh
John were the deadliest of weapons at close quarters. Altogether it
was a formidable array.
The boat for the attack on the land side was so full that there
remained no room for Toady Lion. That young gentleman promptly sat
down on the landing-stage, and sent up a howl which in a few moments
would certainly have brought down Janet Sheepshanks and all the
curbing powers from the house, had he not been committed to the care
of Prissy, with public instructions to get him some toffy and a
private order to take him into the town, and keep him there till the
struggle was over.
Prissy went off with Sir Toady Lion, both in high glee.
"I'se going round by the white bwidge--so long, everybody! I'll be at
the castle as soon as you!" he cried as he departed.
Hugh John sighed a sigh of relief when he saw them safely off the
muster-ground. Cissy, however, was coming on board as soon as ever the
boat was ready to start. She had been posted to watch the movements of
the household of Windy Standard, and would report at the last moment.
"All right," she cried from her watch-tower among the whins, "Prissy
and Toady Lion are round the corner, and Janet Sheepshanks has just
gone into the high garden to get parsley."
"Up anchors," cried Hugh John solemnly, "the hour has come!"
Mike and Billy tossed the padlock chains into the bottom of the boats
and pushed off. There were no anchors, but the mistake was permissible
to a simple soldier like General Napoleon Smith.