MIXED INSTRUCTIONS
WITH the first days of January the twins’ programme may be said to have
got fairly into its stride. It worked smoothly enough. An alarum-clock,
placed on an empty kerosene-tin between their beds, shrieked a wild
summons at five every morning—on the first occasion each twin had dived
to seize and silence it, with the result that their heads had banged
together with sufficient violence to banish sleep very effectually.
After that, they put the kerosene-tin near the foot of the beds, a plan
that had the additional advantage of making them leap from their pillows
without any chance of yielding to the temptation, familiar to us all, of
“just one minute more.” Then came a quick cold shower and a hurried
dressing, after which one twin attacked the drawing-room and the other
the dining-room; it was a point of honour to have both rooms done before
early morning tea, always ready in the kitchen soon after six. They had
had visions of taking in their mother’s morning cup; but they soon
realized that this was a privilege too dear to Sarah’s heart to be
deputed to anyone. Therefore the twins contented themselves with taking
their own tea very cheerfully in the kitchen with Sarah, who imagined
that she concealed, under a grumpy manner, the fact that she delighted
in their presence.
Billy and Rex used to appear in the kitchen also, demanding nourishment.
Rex had willingly agreed to the plan of learning to milk and to use an
axe. He never attempted to hint that he cared either for cows or for
chopping; but it had very soon become evident that he was keenly anxious
to be as strong as other boys of his age, and he welcomed any chance of
developing his muscles. They would hurriedly swallow cups of weak tea,
and, their hands full of scones, trot off to the paddock near the house,
where the three milkers, which were all that the drought had left of Mr.
Weston’s herd, awaited them. It was never hard to yard the milkers, for
there was scarcely anything left for them to eat in the paddock. Down by
the river there was still some dry, stick-like grass, on which they
browsed for forms’ sake during the day; but green feed welcomed them at
milking-times—lucerne, from the little patch that was irrigated through
the efforts of a windmill which brought from the spring enough water for
household purposes, and a little extra. The cows needed no bell to
summon them when the hours for lucerne drew near.
The girls’ room had two long windows, opening upon the verandah where
their beds were placed. It was a cheery place, with little to indicate
that it was used as anything but a sitting-room: the stained floor
boasted a couple of good rugs, easily moved when necessary, and there
was an old sofa, disreputable, but astonishingly comfortable when once
you had learned to accommodate your person to the places where its
springs were broken. Two or three inviting chairs were scattered about;
there was a business-like writing-table with the drawers on the east
sacred to Jo, and the western ones Jean’s property. A rather good
Japanese screen hid the dressing-table—not that the twins had much use
for a dressing-table, since their bobbed curls demanded little more than
hard brushing, and their frocks were of the type that is easiest to slip
on hastily. Tennis-racquets and hockey-sticks were displayed upon the
wall, and there were many school photographs, as well as those of the
home-folk. A long, low cupboard ran along one wall. To its kindly
recesses was due the fact that the twins’ room was nearly always tidy.
“It’s a mercy we’ve got it!” Jean would say, tossing old shoes, or
battered hats, or half-soiled aprons into its capacious interior. “And
Mother’s such a brick—she never dreams of looking inside it!”
“Mother’s an awfully understanding person,” Jo would answer. “She says
if it weren’t for Sarah she wouldn’t have any reputation for tidiness
herself!”
For Mother never failed to understand. Perhaps it was because her own
gay youth was not so very far behind her; perhaps because of her great
love for these cheery, curly-haired twins, with their merry faces. She
knew—somehow—when the famous programme did not seem to run smoothly:
when the housework developed unexpected difficulties, or the teaching
faculty seemed suddenly deficient. Then she would make an appearance, as
if accidentally, and things would smooth out. Her sovereign prescription
on these occasions was open air. Generally, she would take over the
small boys, and the twins would find themselves suddenly despatched on
an errand to the township, or, best of all, sent out in the paddocks
with their father. For though Emu Plains might be scorched and bare, and
the stock weak and starved, so that riding out on the run had lost
something of its joy, it still remained the chief of all pleasures.
But it was not often that the programme failed to work. After early tea
the twins made a triumphal progress from one room to another, sweeping
and dusting. They generally sang, too, loudly and cheerily, what their
voices lacked being made up in enthusiasm. They swept verandahs, and
made beds, and trimmed lamps, and gathered what flowers the drought had
spared, which were not many. The work, like the songs, was made into a
duet, so far as was possible, for the twins hated to work apart. When
they dusted a room together they did it in a kind of drill, each taking
one half—the work calculated so that they finished at the same moment.
They swept the wide verandah, that ran round three sides of the house,
in a concerted movement, beginning at opposite ends and making a race of
it until they met in the middle, at the steps leading down from the
front door. This lent great excitement to the job, and Mr. Weston had
even been known to appear near the finish, to cheer on the panting
combatants.
Most of the housework was done before breakfast, and then odd jobs took
up the time until nine o’clock, when Rex and Billy were supposed to be
in readiness on the verandah, with scrubbed hands and faces, and persons
displaying as little dust as possible, considering that the persons were
those of small boys. Rex had, by this time, undergone his
riding-lessons, and his appearance was fairly certain, since Mr. Weston
used to dismiss him at five minutes to nine, telling him to hurry up and
get ready for school. But Billy was a will-o’-the-wisp creature, and
rules and regulations meant little to him. He was never openly defiant:
he was merely oblivious of time and space, when engaged in any of the
thousand-and-one “ploys” in which his soul delighted; and against that
bland armour of forgetfulness the twins’ wrath fell blunted. “I never
really _meant_ not to be there,” he used to say, with wide, innocent
eyes, after an indignant twin, wailing his name disconsolately, had run
him to earth in the orchard, or the stables, or on the river-bank. “It
isn’t truly nine yet, is it?” When assured in pungent tones that it was
long after nine, he would exclaim, “My word, I must hurry up,
then!”—and would take to his heels; so that when his teacher, heated in
more ways than one, arrived on the verandah, it was to find him awaiting
her, washed and brushed, and with a disarming twinkle in his eye. The
pursuing twin invariably twinkled in response.
“He’s awful, of course,” they would say. “But we were young, once,
ourselves!”
Rex, so far, committed no breaches of discipline. When alone with Billy
there were signs that his polish was, after all, merely skin-deep, and
was even wearing off in places; but with the other members of the family
he maintained a calm correctness of demeanour that the twins found
almost painful. He drilled painstakingly, in a solid fashion; the twins
sighed over his heavy movements, even while they rebuked Billy, who
loved to prance through his “physical jerks” like the light-footed elf
he was. To lessons Rex brought a dull hatred that somewhat astonished
the twins, since it was evident from the first that he was by no means
deficient in brains. Only when he dealt with figures was he at all
happy, and as Jean put it, resentfully, “he just wallows in sums.” Jean
herself having a constitutional dislike to adding even two and two,
mathematics were always left to her twin, so that her share of the
lessons was rather wearying.
“There must be a reason for it,” she puzzled, one day. “I wonder if he
had very frowsy governesses.”
“We’ll ask him,” Jo declared.
They did, and the boy’s heavy eyes kindled as he was gradually induced
to describe his former lessons. His governess had been one of the old
school, severe and correct; she exacted absolute stillness and
obedience, and led the weary feet of her small pupil along the dullest
paths of old-fashioned learning. He used to learn by heart long passages
of heavy history and geography books and repeat them to her with very
little idea of their meaning. In the same way he would learn poetry, and
repeat it, parrot-fashion. All lessons were beastly, he said, but poetry
was not quite so beastly as others, because it had rhymes, and was not
quite so hard to learn. But it never meant anything. You could tell a
story better without worrying about rhymes, if that was all you wanted.
“But poetry’s gorgeous!” expostulated Billy, open-eyed.
“Aw, what’s gorgeous?” Rex demanded. “I never saw any sense in it.”
“But it is. Look at fighting yarns like ‘Horatius,’ and things like
that!”
“Oh, I know that ‘Horatius’ thing. It’s one of the worst,” declared Rex,
loftily—“there’s such miles of it.”
“Say a bit, Rex,” said Jean.
It was lesson-time, and they were all in the schoolroom. Rex began at
once, obediently.
“But the Consul’s brow was sad.
And the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.
“‘Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge
What hope to save the town?’”
He said it in a queer, lifeless, sing-song voice, with not the smallest
shade of expression. The end of each line was a recognized
stopping-place, where he halted heavily. It was evident that the brave
old lines conveyed nothing to him. Jo shuddered.
“Hold on!” she said. “Why did you begin there, Rex?”
“That’s where it began in my book.”
“And don’t you know anything of the part that goes before?”
“No. Is there any?”
“But there’s lots, and it’s the jolliest lines!” cried Billy excitedly.
“All about the Etruscan Army marching, and coming down on Rome, and all
that. Didn’t you never have it?”
“No,” said Rex. “Thank goodness, I didn’t. I reckon I had quite enough.”
“Well—!” said the twins explosively. They looked at each other in
bewilderment. “Horatius” had been part of their lives since they were
very small people.
“Jo,” said Jean, “let’s have the ‘Horatius’ play.”
“And no lessons?”
Jean nodded.
“It isn’t wasting time, if we can make him see it.” She turned to the
bewildered small boy. “Rex, you like stories?”
“Rather!”
“Well, that’s a simply ripping story, if you get it the right way. Will
you try and forget that you know a bit of it, and that you don’t like
it? and we’ll make a game of it for school this morning.”
“But you _can’t_ make that stuff into a game!”
“Can’t we!” laughed Jean. “Billy, you’ve got all your soldiers, haven’t
you?”
“Rather!” gasped Billy. “D’you really mean to get them? And no lessons?”
“Really and truly!” laughed Jean. “And bring any blocks you’ve got.
Clear the table, and we’ll go back to Ancient Rome!”
She darted to the store-room, returning presently with half-a-dozen
packets of matches.
“Must be careful of these, because they’ve got to go back,” she said,
stripping off the paper wrappings. “I know Billy hasn’t enough blocks
left, now. Come along, Rex, and we’ll build Rome.”
They built it at one end of the table, a wobbly oblong, enclosed by
strong matchbox walls. There were turrets and towers here and there,
made of cotton-reels. Without, ran the Tiber, a noble river of yellow
ribbon, wide, and doubtless deep. A bridge spanned it—a high-walled
bridge, long and narrow. From the bridge you came out upon a wide plain,
the rest of the table: it was easy to see it was a plain, because it was
flat, and there were trees on it, and cattle, contributed by an ancient
Noah’s Ark. It was all workmanlike and comprehensible, and something
like interest kindled in Rex’s eye.
“Atlas, please, Billy,” Jean said. “You know, the Ancient History
Atlas.”
She showed them the scene of the story.
“Now you’ve got to get that in your head, Rex, and remember it’s all
real.” Rapidly she sketched the story of the downfall of the Tarquins.
“They’d been kings of Rome, but they were absolute wasters, and at last
the Romans were just fed up with them, and they kicked them out. Served
them jolly well right, too; the Romans were terribly proud, and the
Tarquins weren’t fit to have in a decent city. And they cleared out to a
place called Clusium—here it is—and asked Lars Porsena, the Etruscan
king, for help.”
“Was he a swine, too?” asked Rex.
“No, I don’t think so. But he was fierce and warlike, and all those old
States were jealous of Rome, because she was so powerful. They were all
anxious for a chance to take her down.”
“Who’s ‘her’?” queried Rex.
“Oh, they spoke of Rome as ‘she.’ Well, you can just imagine this mouldy
Tarquin crowd coming to Lars Porsena and telling him all sorts of yarns
about the way the Romans had treated them, and saying what a great man
he was, and that they were jolly well sure he’d never see them in a
hole. I don’t suppose Lars Porsena believed half they said, but he was
quite willing to have a war. All those chiefs were. They reckoned
fighting was the only game fit for a man.”
“So it is,” quoth Billy, in martial tones.
“And Lars Porsena was awfully keen on his army. He was the biggest man
of that part of the country, and he could command all the fighting men
from ever so many cities. And he sent his messengers everywhere to
muster them all at Clusium. And they came, as hard as they could
pelt—armies and armies of them, until he had ten thousand cavalry and
eighty thousand infantry. Just you picture that, young Rex—all in
glittering armour, and with splendid flags, and simply gorgeous horses.”
“Whew-w!” whistled Rex. “But this isn’t really ‘Horatius,’ is it?”
“Yes, of course it is. It’s the only ‘Horatius.’ Just you forget that
you ever learned it as a lesson—it’s a fighting yarn, and old Macaulay
told it in a top-hole way. You’ve got to listen to it all presently; Jo
must read it, ’cause she reads better than I do, and it’s just all
music.”
“It’s not music when I say it,” Rex said, with a grin.
“No, ’cause you say it as if you were a lump of dough, and you come down
with a ‘wop’ at the end of each line. You don’t make any sense of it.
You listen to Jo—and when she comes to the name of any place, I’ll show
it to you on the atlas. Well, Lars Porsena mustered all his
crowd—ninety thousand—and then he consulted his tame prophets, and
asked them what he’d better do. There were thirty of them, and they were
very tame—they always said what they were wanted to say. They knew the
king wanted horribly to go to fight Rome, so they told him it was all
right, and he must go ahead and bring all the spoils of Rome back with
him. So off they went, and as soon as they got to the Roman country they
began to burn villages and kill the people. Now you read, Jo.”
Jo read well, and her clear young voice made the most of the singing
words. The other three heads bent over the atlas, following up the story
of the great muster and then of the fierce swoop on Rome. Rex was
politely interested, at first. Then the story caught him, and his eyes
kindled; he sat up, staring at Jo.
“And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come:
And louder still, and still more loud.
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.
The trampling and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears.
Far to left and far to right.
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright.
The long array of spears!”
“My word!” gasped Rex. “Wouldn’t you have given something to see it!”
“We’ll make it,” said Jean, delightedly. “Have a rest, Jo, and we’ll get
the soldiers.”
Billy had played with soldiers since he was a very small boy, and it had
been a hobby of his family’s to keep him supplied with fresh regiments.
Out they came from their boxes: horse, foot, and artillery;
ambulance-waggons, ammunition carts, and all the paraphernalia of
battle.
“We can’t make it correctly, of course,” Jo said. “They didn’t have our
weapons, and we don’t have their armour. But we can make a gorgeous and
glittersome march; and you can just imagine that it’s all ancient
Etruscan, just as you’ve got to imagine that that yellow ribbon is the
Tiber, all muddy and foaming with flood-water, and that the match-boxes
are really the great stone walls of Rome.”
Beyond doubt, it was a noble march. They headed across the plain towards
Rome: Cavalry in the lead. Horse Guards and Life Guards, Lancers and
Dragoons. They were brave with bright paint and glittering cuirasses,
and with waving scarlet pennons. Then came guns, with teams of six
horses, their officers galloping alongside; and there were machine-guns
and other artillery, cunningly drawn by means of attaching a cavalryman
to each with a scrap of flower-wire. It was hugely realistic. Then the
“four-score thousand” came marching in solid formation: Highlanders and
Fusiliers, men in khaki and men in scarlet coats, with banners here and
there. There were officers standing in the empty ambulance-waggons,
directing the march. Aeroplanes taxied on either side, loaded with men;
the carts were full of bundles that were certainly ammunition and food.
One mounted officer carried a splendid silken Union Jack, and near it a
tiny model of a motor bore a seated soldier—once the driver of an
ambulance-waggon. On one side of the car rode a Lifeguardsman; on the
other, a rather undersized Cavalryman, one from a boxful which Billy, in
his secret heart, despised, since neither in general splendour nor in
correctness of detail did they come up to most of his army.
“Who are those fellows?” Rex asked; and Billy answered him, from the
poem.
“‘Fast by the royal standard,
O’erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium
Sat in his ivory car——’
an’ that’s Mamilius an’ False Sextus on his right an’ left. Doesn’t
False Sextus look a mean little toad? I wish Lars Porsena looked
prouder—but that driver is the only one I’ve got that’s made to sit
down.”
“We’ll gild his helmet,” said Jo. “That will make him look awfully
proud.” She produced gold paint from a cupboard, and endowed the
Etruscan leader with a helmet of pure gold, to the immense delight of
the small boys.
“They laid waste all the country as they came,” Jean said. “You can see
the cattle clearing out.” She withdrew the Noah’s Ark cows to the
friendly shelter of the trees. “But it will avail them nothing—see,
there are a couple of cavalrymen galloping out on the wing to head them
off. They’ll be steak before night!” she added, gloomily. “Now we’ll fix
Rome—you can just imagine how anxious the people are there.”
She manned the walls of Rome with soldiers—a detachment of Seaforth
Highlanders, made in a lying-down position, firing rifles towards the
advancing Etruscans. Within the city walls were massed the casualties of
five years—all the damaged and legless warriors resulting from natural
accidents since Billy had first taken to military operations. Billy
never had the heart to throw away what he termed a “wounded”; and when
they were packed together, supporting each other’s tottering forms, they
made an imposing enough crowd in the streets of Rome. Jo read on as they
placed the men in position; and the little boy who had known in
“Horatius” only the dullest of dull lessons felt something of the tense
anxiety of the doomed city at the steady march of the Etruscan hordes.
“Get Horatius and his mates—quick, Jean!” cried Billy.
Jean brought three tall Guardsmen from a box and placed them on the
bridge. They were officers, each with his sword at the “carry”: stiffly
standing at attention they stared before them, looking loftily at the
advancing hosts.
“Aren’t they dauntless!” breathed Billy. “Come on, Jean—here’s the
Fathers and the Commons!”
These were kneeling riflemen—Jean placed them at the foot of the slope
leading up to the main bridge, where they might easily be supposed to be
working for their lives. Jo read:
“And Fathers mixed with Commons
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above
And loosed the props below.”
“Now the chiefs spurring, Jean!”
Jean took out the last three soldiers. They were Scots Greys, survivors
of a well-loved set. Two of the chargers had wooden legs, deftly placed
in position by Mr. Weston; but, though mended, they were still gallant
and debonair, and they pranced out in front of the advancing army gaily,
even as Aunus, Seius and Picus had pranced in the brave days of old.
“Now you’ve got them all, Rex,” Jean said. “Is it still dull?”
“Dull!” uttered Rex. “Why, you’d never think they were only toys—just
wee little bits of lead and paint! They look so awful real. My word, I
wouldn’t ’ve like to ’ve been in Rome!”
Jo read slowly:
“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold,
Came, flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,
Where stood the dauntless three.”
She stopped. Rex looked up at her with shining eyes.
“Oh, go on!” he begged—“go on! That’s never the stuff I used to say!”
Jo read on, putting all her heart into her task. It had somehow become
the most important thing in the world, for the moment, that this little
lad, who seemed to have missed so much, should get the same joy from the
poem that they had had. She wanted intensely that he should see it as
clearly as did Billy, who knelt on his chair beside the table, staring
at the soldiers. Billy knew every word of the story, but it was always
new to him.
And there was soon no doubt that Rex was ensnared. There came to Jo the
feeling dear above all others to the preacher and the actor—the
knowledge that the audience is caught and held. She felt him thrill to
the words: she knew, when she reached some verse more than usually
musical, that every line went home to him. He ceased to look at the
glittering array on the table; it had served its purpose in fixing the
scene for ever in his brain, but she felt his great eyes upon her all
the time. It was as though she were reading to Rex, and to Rex alone,
knowing that in reading she was giving him a precious possession that
could never be taken away from him.
They followed the fighting for the bridge, Billy’s eyes ecstatic over
the downfall of Astur; they heard the destroyed bridge crash into the
flooded Tiber and sweep away with the torrent, leaving Horatius alone to
face the taunts of his enemies. Jo heard Rex draw his breath sharply as
the Roman turned his back upon the invitation to surrender, looking
across the swollen river to the dear glimpse of his home. Her voice grew
low.
“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,
Take thou in charge this day!”
She felt her lips unsteady. Even to her it was more real than ever
before. She had a sudden vision of the wife who waited in that white
porch for her fighting man, holding his baby to her heart. There was
tense silence in the room. Then she steadied herself, and the story drew
to its triumphant close.
Billy straightened himself with a jerk that shook the table and sent the
Etruscan army into a heap. But the matchbox walls of Rome, although they
quivered, stood firm and steadfast.
“Well!” said Rex, with a great sigh. “If that’s poetry, I want it every
day!” He raised pleading eyes to Jo. “If you aren’t tired, would it
bother you awfully to read it all over again?”