"What county are we in?" asked Paul.
The man told him, and it was not our county.
"Then we've walked right into another shire," Paul exclaimed. "_What_ a
way we've come! That's why you don't know father."
"What about your people?" asked the man. "Won't they wonder where you
are?"
"They'll _wonder_," said Paul, "and they won't be best pleased, but they
won't send out search-parties till evening because I've done it before."
"Oh, you're given to wandering, are you? Don't you think I'd better take
you home in the motor?"
"And Thor?" Paul asked anxiously. "He mustn't run with it. Motors go
too fast for dogs. Father says so."
"And Thor," said the man. "He can come inside with us."
They had coffee, which pleased Paul greatly, and he confided to his
friend that he had never had a cup all to himself before, only the sugar
at the bottom of other people's cups if he could get at them before they
were cleared away.
Motors were something of a novelty then, and Paul thought it very
exciting to go in one. Thor was suspicious and refused to go in before
his master, but followed him obediently when Paul got in first.
"We can't have a motor," he remarked, as they slid down the drive, "it
would break Button's heart, father says, and we're very fond of horses,
though I like the dogs best myself. Did your coachman mind very much?"
"My coachman got so frail and ill he couldn't drive any more, and it
would have broken _his_ heart to have any one else drive his horses, so
I had to get a motor, because I'm such a long way from the station. He
didn't mind that so much."
"It's the same reason really," said Paul. "Did he get better?"
"He'll never be any better, but I think he's pretty comfortable."
Paul was certain he was.
After all it wasn't such a very long way by the road, though it was in
another county. The motor stopped at the drive gate, Paul and Thor
descended, for, despite entreaties, this hospitable man refused to come
up to the house.
"You'll let me know when you've found the printing thing that spells
right, won't you?" Paul called out at parting.
"I most certainly will," the man called back, "and if you find it first
I expect you to tell me."
* * * * *
Paul's family did not share the reticence of his late host. He was
catechised at long length, and would assuredly have been punished but
for father's intervention. Father, who refused to be anxious or excited
when his younger son played the prodigal, seemed rather to sympathise
with his wandering propensities. "As if anything could happen to the
boy, with that great dog always at his heels," he said scornfully, when,
before lunch, we had all suggested the manifold disasters that might
have befallen Paul. "It's no use expecting a boy to stay in the grounds
for ever. Let him go out and tramp the country occasionally, and when
he comes back take no notice, and he'll soon tire of it. Paul likes to
make a sensation. It would be quite flat and tame if we were none of us
the least concerned as to where he has been. You may be sure he'll fall
on his feet whatever way he goes--he's that sort."
All very well for father, who was the least inquisitive man on earth,
but Fiammetta and I were bursting with curiosity, and I noticed mother
hovered near during Paul's recital of his adventures.
Just at bed-time he discovered that he had left his "chuncheon" behind.
He remembered that it "stuck into him rather" as he sat talking to the
man who wrote plays just before lunch, and he had slipped it out of the
string round his waist and laid it at the back of his chair.
"You'll never see it again," said Fiammetta. "Somebody's sure to throw
it away."
Paul looked sad. Then his face brightened--"I don't think so," he said.
"Nothing's ever throwed away out of that room.
"How do you know?" asked mother.
"He hasn't got a missus," Paul said, "anybody could see that. He does
_exactly_ what he likes. No one tidies his things. He hasn't got one."
"Perhaps he'll throw it away himself," Fiammetta persisted.
"I don't believe it," cried Paul, on the verge of tears. "He wouldn't
do such a thing. He's not that kind of person."
"You'll never see that old truncheon again," Fiammetta remarked with a
superior finality that drove Paul to make reprisals.
He stoutly maintained his belief in his friend, but he was plainly
anxious, for he knew that he could never find his way again to that
other county. He had wandered there, haphazard, across fields, and
never noticed the roads on the return journey--he was so busy talking to
his friend. He added a petition to his prayers that the beloved
"chuncheon" might be restored to him, and "so," as Mr. Pepys would say,
"to bed."
Next morning his faith was justified. It arrived by post, in a neat
parcel sealed at each end, and inside, printed by the little piano, "I
hope you were not worried about it. I found the weapon when I got
back."
"There," said Paul, "didn't I say so? I _knew_ he wasn't a
throwing-away sort of man."
*XIX*
*A MISFIT*
Ronnie left the beach and climbed the steep slope till he reached the
summit, where rough grass and stones edged golden cornfields that
stretched inland as far as the eye could see.
No one noticed that he had gone. Miss Biddle, the holiday governess,
sat reading in the shade of the cliff, absorbed in _The Blue Necklace_.
His cousins, Cedric and Githa, both older than he, were building an
elaborate sand-castle, according to a diagram spread on the sand, and
held in place by stones laid on the four corners.
When he reached the top he turned his back upon the beach, and sat down
on a big stone, elbows on knees, and hands clasped under the sharp
little chin that rested on them. The yellow cornfields became blurred
and dim as he gazed, for Ronnie was lonely and dreadfully homesick.
Everybody he cared for seemed so far away--even Uncle Gerald, the kind
and understanding, was shooting in Scotland, and seemed as remote as
father and mother in India.
The big tears brimmed over and fell. Then everything grew clear again.
It was very pretty, the corn billowing in golden waves under the soft
wind; but its beauty did not cheer him. Rather did he remember dismally
that last time he sat beside it insects, that he decided must be
singularly silent and stealthy mosquitoes, came out and bit him so that
he was all over itching lumps afterwards. All the same, he didn't move:
he was too miserable. Moreover he had that morning come to the
conclusion that something must be done. He had no idea what. But ideas
come with reflection. So, after a sniff or two, he unclasped his hands,
polished his nose with his sleeve, and then sat very still, going over
in his mind all the time since he came Home, to try to discover why
there should be what he called "a kind-of-a-ness" over everything.
He was quite fair. He recognised that it was partly his own fault for
getting fever in the cold weather. Then, too, fate had conspired
against him, for the Friths were coming Home in the middle of May. If
they hadn't been sailing then, there would have been nobody to send him
with. He had been coming for good next hot weather, when he would be
seven, with mother and baby-brother. They were coming then for certain.
But a whole year, to a child, seems an interminable, abysmal space, that
no hopes can bridge.
He had known all along that he was to go to Aunt Hildegarde till mother
came back--Aunt Hildegarde, who lived in a place called Golder's Green.
He knew that there was an Uncle Edward and two cousins, in fact he
faintly remembered having seen them last time he came Home; but as he
was only three then his impressions were somewhat hazy.
Perhaps if he had come straight to these relatives he might have shaken
down better, but the Fates had settled otherwise. Just as the P. & O.
reached Marseilles, Cedric and Githa got measles, and Aunt Hildegarde,
who was most conscientious, decided that she couldn't possibly allow
Ronnie to run the risk of infection. She therefore appealed to Uncle
Gerald to take him till all danger was past.
This, had Ronnie known it, was asking a good deal; for Uncle Gerald, who
was his father's uncle, was an elderly bachelor of fairly fixed habits.
Nevertheless, as he was fond of Ronnie's parents, and there really
seemed to be nobody else, he agreed to take the little boy till such
time as the nursery at Golder's Green was ready to receive him. He even
came up himself to Charing Cross to meet the P. & O. express, and took
over Ronnie from kind Mrs. Frith, who, with three children of her own to
look after, had yet found room in her heart to love Ronnie quite a lot.
As he sat there in the sunshine gazing at the golden waves, he thought
of the blue green waves that washed around the big home-bound steamer,
and in remembering the voyage, unconsciously compared his aunt and Mrs.
Frith, wondering why it was Aunt Hildegarde made you "feel so
different." Mrs. Frith was often hasty--four children and an ayah in
the Red Sea are enough to put an edge on the smoothest temper--but she
was always fair even in her hastiness. And she judged the exasperating
conduct of Ronnie with precisely the same amount of irritation as she
brought to bear on that of her own offspring. Aunt Hildegarde kept a
quite separate compartment in her mind for the consideration of Ronnie.
He was conscious of this and resented it. Then memory swung back to
Uncle Gerald--Uncle Gerald coming down the drive in a cloud of dogs.
As he thought of the dogs the big tears welled up again and rolled down
his cheeks. Everything about that first day in England seemed to stand
out before him in a series of pictures like those he had once seen at a
theatre in India. There was all the bustle and rushing at Charing
Cross. Uncle Gerald, tall, with closely-trimmed grey beard, and kind
keen eyes under his broad forehead--such a lot of forehead Uncle Gerald
had. Ronnie even remembered hearing Mrs. Frith say, "Oh, he's a dear
little soul, very talkative and officious, but quite affectionate;
cheerful too--which is a great matter with children, don't you think?"
Then there was a scramble for luggage. Ronnie's little cabin trunk was
disentangled. He was embraced by all the Frith family and ayah, and,
hand in hand with this tall, unknown Uncle Gerald, hurried down the big
station to a taxi-cab. They drove across London to another
station--Paddington it was called, where they had tea--and into the
train again for another journey. Then, in the slowly fading spring
light, a long drive in a motor through green country lanes till they
turned into some big gates and drove up to a house whence issued a most
tremendous barking and yapping. The door was opened and four dogs rushed
out--long-bodied, rough-haired West Highland terriers, their colour
ranging from almost black to lightish grey--who jumped all over Uncle
Gerald with noisy manifestations of delight, sniffed curiously at
Ronnie, and as he was not in the least afraid of them, took him into
favour at once and jumped on him--Collum and Puddock and Mona their
mother, and frisky, cheeky little Rannoch, who was no relation to any of
them, and took the greatest liberties with all three.
All Uncle Gerald's servants had been with him for untold ages, and all
were elderly excepting the housemaid, who had only been there a short
ten years, and occasionally was still spoken of as "that new girl." Her
name was Grace, and she came from somewhere near Perth, and it was to
her care that Ronnie was entrusted for such matters as bathing and
dressing and hair-brushing.
Before he slept that night he knew all about Grace, and decided that she
was a person to be cultivated. But he felt that about all of them. His
coming into that silent (save for the dogs), regular house was something
of an adventure. The household rose to it, and the loquacious,
inquisitive, lively little boy never even knocked at their hearts, but
walked straight in and took possession. He decided that England was a
nice place: a bit cold, perhaps, when one got up in the morning, but
very pretty and full of interesting things to do. He gardened with the
three gardeners, wasting hours of their time, and starting endless
horticultural experiments which were wholly without result. He cleaned
the motor with Robinson and got so wet that Grace, looking out of the
pantry window, caught him and changed all his clothes, which he thought
very unnecessary. It was her one fault--she was always so suspicious of
damp.
He penetrated to the kitchen, and discussed its small resemblance to an
Indian kitchen with Mrs. Robinson, who was Robinson's wife. He was very
fond of telling them about India, and thoroughly enjoyed their
respectful astonishment at some of his tallest stories, and when he
wasn't telling things himself he asked questions. All day long he asked
questions, so that, when he was safe in bed and asleep, Uncle Gerald
would take down large heavy tomes from the book-cases and prime himself
with useful knowledge for the morrow.
Into every corner of that big old Cotswold house did Ronnie poke his
inquisitive curly head, and the more he saw of it the better he liked
it. It was such a kind, welcoming sort of house. Of course, sometimes
he wanted his mother pretty badly, and then he sought Uncle Gerald, who
seemed to know exactly what was wrong, and no matter what he was doing
would find time for a homesick little boy; and by the charm of his
conversation, and sometimes without any conversation at all, would so
steep Ronnie in an atmosphere of warm friendship that the curious ache
would depart, leaving no remembrance of it.
And now, as he sat looking into the forest of corn, there came to his
mind a piece of poetry that he had learned to please Uncle Gerald. It
was a very great adventure that led to the learning of these verses, and
Ronnie thrilled with the remembrance. One night early in that June, one
never-to-be-forgotten night, Uncle Gerald came into his room and woke
him up, made Grace put on his clothes, and then wrapped him up in a
blanket and carried him out to the back of the house where there was a
little copse.
The dogs were not allowed to come.
It was a brilliant moonlight night--almost like a night in India, except
that it was nothing like so warm. The copse looked very black against
the sky, but they didn't go into it; they stayed outside just beside the
wire fence, and some way off he could see the servants standing in a
group.
"I felt I must wake you," Uncle Gerald whispered, just as though he were
at a concert and feared to disturb the artists; "it's the first of the
nightingales--listen!"
Ronnie held his breath and listened with all his might; but at first all
he could hear was a soft, whispering sort of note that seemed to say
Tio, Tio, Tio, Tio, Tio, Tio, Tio, Tio, Tik!
He pressed his cheek against Uncle Gerald's and yawned. The soft note
changed to a full-throated song, full of trills and cascades and
roulades and occasional odd chuckles. He supposed it was very wonderful
(though he infinitely preferred Robinson's whistling of "The Sailor's
Star"), but he was not so much interested in the nightingales as in the
night. It was so big and mysterious and scented and silvery out in that
moonshine, so warm and safe in Uncle Gerald's arms. It was such _fun_ to
be out so late, and to hear nightingales like a grown-up person.
Ronnie's little soul was flooded with an immense content.
They listened for what seemed to him a very long time, and he was nearly
falling asleep again when Uncle Gerald said suddenly, still in that
hushed, concerty sort of voice, "There! isn't that fine? But I must
take you home to bed." And as they went back Uncle Gerald repeated some
poetry to himself. Ronnie didn't understand it in the least, but next
day asked his uncle to "tell again that bit about fairy lands for
lawns."
Uncle Gerald laughed and said it wasn't quite that, but he "told it
again," and then suggested that it would be nice if Ronnie, having heard
one, learned what a poet called Keats had said about a nightingale: and
Ronnie, who had a quick ear and retentive memory, learned two long
verses--the end of the poem, Uncle Gerald said, and used to repeat them
to his uncle to their mutual pride and satisfaction.
And now as he sat beside this cornfield there sounded in his head the
lines--
"Perhaps the self-same song that found a path
Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home,
She stood in tears among the alien corn;
* * * * *
Forlorn! the very word is like a bell...."
That was just what Ronnie was. He spared no pity for Ruth, though he
knew all about her--for Uncle Gerald had told him. At all events _she_
had not had to go and live with an aunt at Golder's Green, and with
odious, priggish, plump cousins, who made fun of the way he talked, and
took no interest whatever in India.
He detested Golder's Green. The house seemed so small and pokey, and
the garden so prim, after the great rooms in India and Uncle Gerald's
kindly, wandering old house and big friendly garden. The trim roads and
jumbled, pretty little houses weighed upon him with a deadly weight of
depression, though he couldn't have told why. There were no dogs
either, only a large aloof cat called "Ra," that Aunt Hildegarde used to
enthrone on a cushion, placed on a kind of pillar, while she and
visiting ladies, attired in straight, sad-coloured garments, sandals,
and digitated socks, sat round about upon the floor and enthused upon
his wondrous beauty and wisdom. Ronnie would have liked Ra, if he might
have stroked and cuddled him, but the children were not allowed to touch
him, as he was supposed to be fierce and resentful of such attentions.
Ronnie was always in trouble, always doing or, even more often, saying
what he ought not. Seeing ladies who wore veils on their heads, and had
bare feet and sandals, he asked if they were ayahs; on being told
hastily "of course not," he suggested that they were Parsi ladies, and
was severely snubbed in consequence.
He was slow and clumsy over the little handicrafts his cousins practised
with such skill and industry, and when Cedric and Githa irritated him
beyond bearing he tried to beat them, which caused a frightful commotion
and filled the whole household with consternation.
His aunt and uncle were not like Uncle Gerald in the matter of answering
questions. To be sure, they told him all sorts of things he didn't
particularly want to know, or knew already; but they refused to answer
questions. They held his cousins up to him as models, a fatal thing to
do, and they made no allowance for a lonely little boy suddenly
transported to an entirely new environment. They were cold, too, sniffy
and uninterested in all he had to say about Uncle Gerald, and this he
resented extremely. He could not know that they were a centre of light
and leading in the most superior set in Golder's Green, and that there
existed between them and Uncle Gerald the deep-seated, never-expressed,
hearty dislike of the _poseur_ for the simple and sincere.
Had he but known it, Uncle Gerald took care that he never came across
them more often than the very remote connection warranted. But Aunt
Hildegarde was mother's only sister, and she seemed the natural guardian
for Ronnie, and Uncle Gerald never interfered in other people's
concerns. But he had his doubts, and his heart was sore for the frank,
talkative little boy when he left him.
Nobody was actively unkind. He had plenty to eat, a nice room which he
shared with Cedric, who was destined for a school all fads and
flannel-shirts, and already could make his own bed and empty his
washing-basin--matters wherein Ronnie was hopelessly ignorant, and
showed no aptitude when Cedric tried to teach him. That was the
mischief: Cedric and Githa were always teaching, and let him know it;
and it roused every evil disposition in Ronnie; so that he was rapidly
becoming a sort of Ishmael both in feeling and in fact.
Then Miss Biddle brought them to the seaside, while aunt and uncle went
for a walking tour in Wales.
The soft wind blew a cloud over the sun. Ronnie shivered and arose from
his stone. Cedric and Githa were still absorbed in their plan. Miss
Biddle was breathlessly following the fortunes of "The Hon. Jane."
Ronnie, wilfully disobedient, decided to go for a walk by himself along
the edge of the cornfield. No ideas had come to him except the
omnipresent determination to go back to Uncle Gerald till mother should
come Home.
But how?
He was sensible and sophisticated enough to know he couldn't walk there,
and that he hadn't enough money to go by train. He had, to be precise,
exactly one penny in the world; the weekly penny given to each of them
every Monday by Miss Biddle on behalf of Uncle Edward. He couldn't
write, and he knew that it would both distress and annoy his aunt if she
heard that he was unhappy in her house. She would never _see_ he was
unhappy; he was sure of that. She would only see that he was
"unpleasant."
He stumped along, picking his way through the stones and thistles, big
with an entirely vague purpose, when suddenly he came upon a man
sitting, as he himself had been sitting a few minutes ago, on a big
stone; only this man had a blotting-pad upon his knees and was writing
very fast. He wore a panama hat tilted almost over his nose to shelter
his eyes, big round spectacles with tortoise-shell rims, and as he
finished a sheet he laid it on a pile of others that, like Cedric's
plan, were kept from blowing away by the stones laid upon them. Ronnie
watched him breathlessly. How fast he wrote! Uncle Gerald could write
like that, and daddie ... and thinking of daddie there came into his
mind the picture of a busy Eastern street, and the likhne-wala
(letter-writer) sitting on the curbstone in the sunshine ready to write
letters for those who could not write themselves ... if they could pay
him.
"Was this man a likhne-wala?
He looked like a sahib, but then so did Robinson, and he was Uncle
Gerald's _gharri-wallah_.
Ronnie drew a little nearer. If this man was a likhne-wala, would
he--oh, would he--write a letter for _one_ anna?
Ronnie felt it was a very small sum to offer, but the man looked kind,
and he could write so fast. It wouldn't take him long.
Perhaps if he was approached very politely.... Ronnie crept a bit
nearer and the man looked up and saw him.
The little boy joined his hands, and touching his forehead bowed his
body, as he had seen men in India bow when they came before his father
to ask for something.
"Sahib," he said earnestly, "could you write a letter for one anna?"
"Hullo, shrimp!" said the man. "Have you sprung right out of the Shiny
into here?"
"I know it's very little monies," Ronnie continued apologetically,
"_very_ little monies, but I do want that letter wrote, so badly. I've
truly got one anna; here it is."
The man held out his hand, and Ronnie laid the penny on his palm.
The man closed his hand upon it.
"Now," he said, "what shall I write?"
He took a fresh sheet of paper and looked at Ronnie, and the little boy
saw that the eyes behind the round glasses were bright and kind.
"Dear Uncle Gerald," Ronnie began. "Please come. I do not like it here.
I want to come back to you. It is forlorn here, not fairylands----"
"Eh, what's that?" asked the man. "You dictate very fast. 'Not
fairylands'? Yes?"
"I am mizzabel," Ronnie continued. "Please come quickly and take me
away. Cejic and Githa do not like me. They are so pompshus----"
"What's that?" asked the man.
"I do not like them," Ronnie went on. "I like the dogs much better; kiss
them all on their foreheads for me, not their noses, they are too wet,
especially Rannoch. Please come quick. I am so mizzable. Your loving
Ronnie.... That's all, thank you."
"Mizzable, eh?" the man repeated. "Is it indiscreet to ask why?"
"I don't know exactly myself," said Ronnie. "It just _is_."
"Ah," said the man. "I know that; that's the very worst kind. Long
since you came Home?"
"Oh, very long," Ronnie answered sadly. "Ages and ages."
"Hm-m-m!" said the man. "With relations?"
"Yes, but Uncle Gerald's a relation too, you know, only he's a nice
one--oh, a 'dorable relation."
"How is it you're here and not with him then?" asked the man.
"It was arranged," Ronnie said solemnly. "_I_ didn't do it."
"I see," said the man. "'It was an order.' And what will the parents
out in the Shiny say?"
Ronnie looked grave. "I b'lieve they'd like it," he said, after a
moment's thought. "_They_ 'dore Uncle Gerald too."
"Hm-m-m! Seems a popular person," said the man. "What's his name?"
"Same as daddie's and mine."
"Yes, and yours?"
"Ronald Forsyth Hardy."
"Then he's Gerald Hardy, I suppose? And where is he at present?"
"Scotland," said Ronnie promptly.
"But that's a bit vague. What part of Scotland?"
"Oh, they're sure to know him there; he goes every year; he told me so."
"Were you there with him?"
"No, I was in his own bungalow. He went to Scotland after I left."
"Can you remember the name of his bungalow?"
"Yes: Longhope."
"Any station?"
"There _is_ a station, but it's very far off, and I don't remember its
name. Won't my letter get to him?" the little boy asked anxiously.
The man looked through his bright spectacles right into Ronnie's large
brown eyes. He noticed that the child was very thin, and that he hunched
his shoulders and drooped his head.
The man laid his writing-pad upon the ground and lifted Ronnie on to his
knee.
"Old chap," he said, "you've got the blues, and you're a bit of a
misfit. That's what's the matter with you. But it won't last. Believe
me, it won't last. I'll do my best to find this Uncle Gerald of yours.
I'm going to town this afternoon, and I'll look him up in Burke."
"Oh, he's not in Burke," Ronnie declared positively. "He's in Scotland;
he's wrote to me from there."
"All right," said the man. "I'll try and get the letter to him somehow.
But you mustn't expect too much. It may not be over-easy for Uncle
Gerald to do anything, and it takes a deuce of a time for letters to get
to Scotland."
"Longer than to Burke?"
"Hark!" said the man. "Isn't that some one calling?"
"It's for me," exclaimed Ronnie, jumping off his knee. "I expect it's
time to go to dinner. You won't forget? You do promise? You won't
tell them?" For he saw Miss Biddle and Cedric and Githa arrive
breathlessly at the top of the slope.
"Honest Injun," said the man. "But it'll take a good week. Then you'll
hear _some_thing, if Uncle Gerald's the man I take him for."
They shook hands. Miss Biddle and his cousins were quite close, and he
turned to meet them. Their questions and reproaches passed over his
head lightly. He didn't care. He had _done_ something at last, and he
believed in the likhne-wala.
"How long is a week?" he asked, when the enormity of his conduct had
been thoroughly threshed out.
"Seven days, of course. You _are_ an ignorant little boy," said Githa.
* * * * *
As it happened, Uncle Gerald _was_ in Burke, so the likhne-wala found
his home address, and Ronnie's letter reached him three days later, when
he came back from a long day on the moors. There was another letter
also, from the likhne-wala, and in it he used the very phrase he had
used to Ronnie. "I fear," he said, "the little chap is a misfit, and
it's a painful game to play when one is a kiddy. He looked peaked and
thin and timid, and he ought to be such a jolly little chap."
He said a great many other things, did the likhne-wala, and the name he
signed at the end of his letter was one well known to Uncle Gerald as
the author of certain books he knew and cared for.
* * * * *
The week dragged on. It rained a lot and the days were long for Ronnie
in the seaside lodgings. He kept count of the days, though, and at last
it reached the sixth day from the time he met the likhne-wala, and no
answer had come to his letter. Yet he never doubted him. He was
convinced that somehow or other his letter would reach Uncle Gerald.
It was on Monday he had met the likhne-wala, and on Saturday evening
after tea it cleared up and they went out to the sands. They were to
return to Golder's Green next week, and Ronnie dreaded it unspeakably,
for he felt that if nothing happened before he did that, then he was
indeed abandoned and forlorn. Cedric and Githa would not let him dig
with them because his methods were too erratic. Miss Biddle had
finished _The Blue Necklace_, and started on _Love is a Snare_, and
found it equally enthralling.
Ronnie was digging by himself, a lonely little figure apart from the
rest, and talking to himself as he worked. He had built a bungalow, and
had just flattened out the compound round about it, and was beginning on
the servants' quarters, when he looked up to see a solitary figure
coming across the ribbed and glistening sand. The tide was out, and
there seemed miles of beach between him and the sea. They had had their
tea extra early, and the beach was almost deserted, for it was just five
o'clock. Ronnie watched the distant figure, and his heart seemed to
jump up and turn over, for there was something dear and familiar about
it, and yet ... he didn't dare to hope.
Then suddenly his long sight told him there was no mistake. It was, it
_was_ the Uncle Gerald of his hopes and dreams! He started to run, and
the figure made the glad assurance doubly sure by taking off its hat and
waving it. Then Ronnie saw the dear, tall forehead, that, as he once
pointed out to his uncle, "went right over to the back"; after that
there could be no mistake.
"I never thought you would come," he said, safe in the shelter of those
kind arms, "and if you did I always thought all the dogs would be bound
to come too."
The likhne-wala was quite right when he said it would not be "over-easy"
for Uncle Gerald.
It wasn't.
It required a deal of diplomacy, and only Uncle Gerald's charm and tact
carried the matter through without a serious breach between the Golder's
Green relations and Ronnie's parents. It cost a small fortune in
cables, too.
But in the end it was managed, and Ronnie went back to Longhope, where
he fitted so uncommonly well.
"I must say," said Uncle Gerald, "you've a nice taste in amanuenses."
"What's that?" asked Ronnie.
"Well, I believe you call it a likhne-wala," said Uncle Gerald. "Both
are long, rather clumsy names, and there's not much to choose between
them."
"He was a nice likhne-wala," said Ronnie; "and very cheap."
*XX*
*THE CONTAGION OF HONOUR*
It's a far cry from cantonments in a town in Northern India to a village
in the Cotswolds, and events had moved so fast in the last four months
that for a while Robin felt rather breathless and bewildered.
He was not yet six years old, but he had been through the Suez Canal six
times.
The first times he couldn't remember at all, the second two passages
only faintly, but the last two were vivid and epoch-making.
They came so close together, too.
Had any one just then asked Robin to define war, he would have tried to
explain that it meant continual departure from where you happened to be,
separation and loss, that through it all--like the refrain of a marching
tune--there sounded stanzas of joyous excitement; but these passed
quickly, leaving silence and desolation for those left behind.
Of one thing he was certain: war meant movement. No grown-up person
could keep in one place for any length of time when there was war. In
April, when the hot weather set in, he and mummy and ayah and Jean went
to the hills, as usual; but daddy stayed in cantonments. Long before
the hot weather was over they all went back. There was much bustle and
activity, and the Sikhs all looked very cheerful indeed.
Then came more moves.
Daddy went first this time, and took the regiment with him; but he
wasn't going Home.
Mummy and the children went next, leaving a weeping ayah at the new
Alexandra Dock in Bombay.
The voyage was long and wearisome in a very crowded boat, where there
were many other children and anxious-looking mummies, but no sahibs--no
sahibs at all.
When they arrived in England, they all came to live with grandfather and
Aunt Monica at the Vicarage, and, though this was very different from
India, and not nearly so gay and cheerful, it was quite bearable till
mummy went too.
That was a wholly unexpected blow. Soldiers' children, especially the
children of soldiers serving abroad, early realise that a mysterious
power called "the Service" may at any moment snatch daddy away. It may
be that he has to go where they cannot follow, or that he has to stay
and they have to go. In any case, it means separation.
But mummies are different. They belong--most of all when children are
quite small.
Yet Robin's mother had gone.
As he pottered up and down the rather wet path that Saturday afternoon,
he was remembering a conversation he had heard in the verandah just
before the regiment left India. He was building a temple on the floor
with his bricks, and mummy was very rapidly turning the heel of a sock
while Major Booth talked to her. Major Booth was their doctor, and a
very good doctor too.
"It's frightful waste, you know," Major Booth said, in a grumbling
voice, "for you to go and rust in a remote village doing nursemaid to a
couple of kids."
"You see, they happen to be my kids," mummy answered quietly.
"That's no argument just now," he retorted. "They are healthy, jolly
kids; they've got a competent aunt--you told me so yourself. They'll be
perfectly well cared for whether you are there or not--and you're
wanted, I tell you."
Mummy gave a little gasp. "Oh, man!" she cried, "why do you dangle the
unattainable before my eyes? You know I'm just dying to go ... but I've
taken on another job ... and there are plenty without me. I won't butt
in----"
"Will you go if you're asked for?"
"If I'm asked for!" Mummy repeated the words scornfully. "Of course I'd
go."
Robin looked up from his temple.
"Go where?" he asked. "Can I come, too?"
"Don't you worry, sonny dear," mummy said, and her voice sounded flat
and tired. "I don't for one moment suppose they'll want me. I only wish
they would. 'That's all shove be'ind me--long ago and far away,'" she
quoted, while Major Booth shook his head in violent dissent.
They talked of other things that did not particularly interest Robin
till he went away, but as Major Booth ran down the verandah steps he had
called out: "Mind, it's a bandabost! You come if you're asked for."
Robin remembered that very distinctly.
When they had been four weeks at the Vicarage, when they were just
settling down to the quiet life there, the summons came.
It seems that Robin's mummy, before there was any Robin or Jean or even
daddy, had been a particularly first-class surgical nurse, and not only
that, but an Army nurse. She never talked about it, but Major Booth had
discovered it soon after she came to India with daddy. They were out in
camp, and there was a bad accident to one of the soldiers, and mummy
just took charge and helped Major Booth as only a skilful nurse can
help.
After that, if sudden illness or accidents occurred where no trained
nurses were handy, people rather got into the way of sending for mummy
to lend a hand.
And now they had sent for her to nurse wounded soldiers at a base
hospital.
She explained this to Robin the night before she left, as he sat on her
knee all ready for bed in front of the nursery fire. He remembered the
feel of the nursery fender, the warm wire bars, as he pressed his feet
against them.
Mummy did not deny that she was immensely proud and glad to go--it was
such an honour to be allowed to do anything--but she hated leaving Robin
and Jean. Still, in war we must all give up something. He had to give up
his daddy and his mummy--"a good deal for a little boy," she added.
Would he be good and try to please Aunt Monica and the new nurse, and
encourage Jean to be good, and not fret, and try to help all he could?
Just then Robin felt so solemn and exalted that it seemed he could give
up anything to help the poor wounded soldiers, and so he said. And
after his prayers, mummy tucked him into bed and kissed him, and
whispered the things mummies do whisper at such times. Her eyes tasted
salt when he kissed them, dragging her head down with his two arms that
he might do it--mummy was so tall--and the next day she went away.
She had been gone five whole weeks, and Christmas was not far off, and
that Friday afternoon Robin wanted her most desperately, for somehow
everything had gone wrong.
It began with digging trenches.
Now to dig a trench properly, as in war, you must lie on your tummy and
throw the earth up in front of you; if you stood up, the enemy would pot
you--that's an understood thing.
But they didn't seem to realise this at the Vicarage. For when Robin
essayed to do it in his own garden--a nice large plot at the far end of
the kitchen garden that grandfather had given him for his very own--he
naturally got what nurse called "all over mould," and she was far from
pleased, the less so in that Jean, coming with nurse to find him,
immediately flung herself face downwards in the adjacent carrot-bed in
imitation of her brother.
Jean was pretty, and every one fell in love with her at first sight; but
Robin was what nurse called a "very or'nary child," and visiting
strangers showed no inclination to make a fuss of him.
Grandfather was a very old gentleman, and Aunt Monica was always busy
with parish work. Robin had heard his father say that she was "as good
as three curates" to grandfather. Therefore did he find himself wishing
that she had been, less capable, for, he reasoned, if Aunt Monica was
equal to three curates now, and a visiting curate whom Robin liked
exceedingly was still necessary--had she been rather less efficient, two
visiting curates might have been required. Or, better still, the present
one might have been permanent. And this, from Robin's point of view,
was most desirable.
The visiting curate came every Sunday to intone the service, read the
lessons, help in the Sunday-school, and take the children's service in
the afternoon, and he always lunched at the Vicarage.
He was tall, with a cheerful red face and broad shoulders, which made a
most comfortable seat for little boys. Moreover, he was a most
accomplished person. He could waggle his ears without moving his head,
and move his hair up and down without disarranging a muscle of his face.
He could shut one eye--"shut flat," Robin called it, "no wrinkles"--and
stare at you with the other, and he could wink each eye in succession,
in a fashion that conveyed infinite possibilities of merriment. And all
these things he contrived to do at the solemn Sunday luncheon when
neither grandfather nor Aunt Monica happened to be looking.
Then there was Pollard.
Pollard was the gardener. He was not a gifted being like the curate.
By no stretch of imagination could he be regarded as entertaining. He
was a stocky, silent young man, whose conversation consisted mainly of
"Yes, Mazter Robin"; "Noa, little gentleman"; or, "I don't 'old with it
myself, young zur," when Robin solicited his opinions about the war and
kindred subjects.
Yet there was something in his bearing that subtly conveyed to the
lonely little boy the fact that in Pollard he had a friend, and a rather
admiring friend at that, and Robin followed him about like a small dog.
Yes, Pollard was a comfort.
He spied him now wheeling a barrow loaded with what Pollard himself
called "dong," with a spade resting on the top of the heap.
"Wait for me, Pollard--wait for me!" called the clear little voice. The
man stopped, and when Robin caught him up, they went together to the
flower-garden, where Pollard was preparing the ground for a hedge of
sweet peas next year.
Here Robin was thrilled to perceive that Pollard started to dig a
trench. He was a capital digger, throwing up great spadefuls of soil,
and the trench was beautifully even.
"They'd like you to help them in Belgium," Robin exclaimed admiringly,
"you're so strong--only you couldn't do it that way."
Pollard rested on his spade. "Well, there now, Mazter Robin," he
exclaimed, "be you agoin' to teach Oi to dig at this time o' day?"
"Not standing up like that," Robin continued, as though he had not
heard--"not to begin with. You'd get shot directly. Can you do it as
well lying down?"
"Lyin' down!" Pollard repeated. "Lyin' down! 'Ooever 'eard o' diggin'
lyin' down?"
"Soldiers do," Robin answered. "They have to. I can a little, too,
only the soil here sticks to one so."
"Do you mean as they lays flat on their backs and scrabbles sideways
with a trowel?" asked Pollard, fairly puzzled.
"No, no," exclaimed Robin, "front ways, of course. I could show you in
a minute if nurse wasn't so cross. You throw it up in front of you so's
to hide you, and when the hill in front's high enough, and your hole is
deep enough, then you can stand up, stooping, and dig your way. I've
got one in my garden, not a good one, 'cos nurse stopped me, but you
should see soldiers do it!"
And just then nurse came to look for Robin, and took him indoors because
it was getting dark.
Pollard continued to dig thoughtfully. From time to time he paused,
leant upon his spade and scratched his head. By the time he had
prepared the ground for the sweet peas it was just about dark, but
before he went home he visited Robin's garden. Here he tried digging a
trench in military fashion, and exceedingly hard work he found it.
* * * * *
From time to time precious letters came to Robin--from daddy in the
trenches (how he longed to see _those_ trenches!), and from mother in
her hospital. Aunt Monica was very kind about those letters; she read
them aloud over and over again, till Robin knew them by heart and
imparted their contents to Pollard, who always appeared much edified,
though he was a man of few words.
On the end of a barn that he passed every day between his mother's
cottage and the Vicarage, there were posters which declared in flaming,
foot-long letters that his "King and Country" needed him, and adjuring
him to join the Army NOW for the war, and so on.
Hitherto, Pollard had regarded the war entirely from the outside.
"Soldierin' bain't for the likes of me," he said, and his mother quite
agreed with him. Some was "fond of a bit of soldiering" even in peace;
and it was quite natural and suitable that such should join the
"Tarriers." For them, of course, the call to arms was imperative, and
Pollard took it for granted that they should obey and march away, and be
seen no more. He was quite content that they should do so. But, with
regard to himself, such a course seemed neither sensible nor feasible.
"What'd I do with a gun, let alone a bay'nit?" he would inquire
facetiously. "I shouldn't know which end to catch 'old on 'im. What
good 'ud a' be?"
Lately, though, there had stirred in his mind a tiny, creeping doubt as
to whether it was quite justifiable to remain in this state of
ignorance. Much talk with Robin, or rather much listening to the talk
of Robin, had opened new vistas of possibility to Pollard. He realised
in a dim, kindly way that the child was homesick and lonely, and longing
for his parents; yet the little boy never wished they had not gone. The
Major's letters, too, repeated word for word by his little son, so
simple and plain in their language, yet told heroic things of the doings
of his men, and these men Pollard knew were "poor Injuns"--"blackies" he
had called them, till Robin, indignantly denied that they were anything
of the sort.
It began to dawn upon Pollard that the heathen in his blindness, who had
crossed the seas to fight for old England, was perhaps doing more to
uphold her honour than certain young Englishmen who _could_ go, and
remained peacefully at home. He had inquired of Robin as to their
worship of "wood and stone," but Robin could throw no light upon this,
declaring, indeed, that his father's Sikhs "were very religious men,
very religious, indeed." So there was another illusion gone.
Pollard became more and more uncomfortable and uncertain. The red
posters seemed to reproach him, but the trench finished him altogether.
As he walked home that night as much "all over mould" as Robin had been
earlier in the day, the good, clean smell of the wet earth in his
nostrils seemed to go to his head like wine, for he kept on muttering to
himself: "There be summat as I can do, any'ow."
The thought that a man who could dig might be of use "over there" was
positively staggering in its intensity.
* * * * *
Robin was allowed to sit up half an hour later on a Saturday evening,
and during that half-hour Aunt Monica read to him or played spillikins
with him, or helped him to stick in his little flags on the big map
mummy had given him before she left.
That evening they did the map, for there were a lot of new flags to
stick in for Russia. When nurse came for him, as they climbed the broad
staircase together, she said in quite an excited voice: "You have done
it this time, Master Robin; Pollard's gone for a soldier."
"Gone!" Robin exclaimed aghast, "and never said good-bye, nor anything!"
"Well, not exactly gone; but 'e's 'listed in the 'Gloucesters--did it
this afternoon over to Cissister. An' it's all you; he says so."
"Me!" cried Robin--by this time they were in the nursery. "I never sent
him. I like him. I don't want him to go."
"Well, anyway, he's been and done it this afternoon, and his mother's in
the kitchen this minute in a fine takin'. And it's all along of you and
your talk, she says."
Robin pondered. "Of course, he's right to go," he said slowly; "but,
truly, I never asked him to."
"I don't know who'll do the garden," nurse said, still in the same
thrilled, impressive voice, "or what Vicar'll say, or Miss Rivers."
"Will Aunt Monica be angry?" Robin asked, vaguely troubled. It was bad
enough to lose Pollard, but if everybody blamed _him_ for it ... and
just then who should come into the nursery but grandfather himself.
He came very slowly, for he was an old, old gentleman.
Robin was standing by the fire with nothing on but his vest and his
stockings.
When grandfather reached the hearthrug, he held out his hand.
"Grandson," he said, solemnly, "I congratulate you. You've managed to
do what none of the rest of us could do. You've roused a spark of
patriotism in Pollard. Aunt Monica and I are proud of you."
It was very wonderful to shake hands with grandfather like that, and to
have him there looking down at one so kindly through his gold-rimmed
glasses. Robin was not at all sure what it all meant, except that
grandfather and Aunt Monica were not angry, neither with Pollard nor
with him. But he did connect Pollard's sudden action with all he had
told him about daddy and mummy and the Sikhs.
"I suppose," he said thoughtfully, "he kind of caught it."
_Printed by Hazell, Watson & Viney, Ld.,
London and Aylesbury, England._
* * * * * * * *
Telegrams:
GUIDEBOOK, PICCY, LONDON."
50a ALBEMARLE STREET,
LONDON, W.1
April, 1915.
*MURRAY'S
IMPERIAL LIBRARY*