Jeremy’s knee, and put an advertisement about Albert in the “Missing”
Column of _The People_. A good many Alberts turned up, and every night
he brought them along to Jeremy for inspection, but they were all the
wrong ones. At last Jeremy got tired of them, and told Lionel that he
had had a dream about Albert dying in foreign waters. When he heard
this Lionel borrowed his own handkerchief from Jeremy to blow his nose,
and next day he laid a Cross of Immortelles on the Albert Memorial. It
was all he could do now. There was a pleased paragraph about it in the
_Morning Post_.
But Gypsy was a little put out. He told Jeremy that he did think he
might have drowned somebody else’s brother; and then he crossed the
road and had his brown boots blacked.
Soon Lionel began to make little _Rendezvous_ with the different
Moonshiners, noting the times in his engagement book, so that before
long they knew exactly where to expect him at each half-hour through
the night.
Rose and Lily, Lupin and Nemophila, were able to slack off a bit, and
resume their dancing round the Piccadilly Cupid, which is the way the
Flower-Girls like to spend their nights. All except Violet, who still
haunted the purple shadows, and murmured fragments of song which Lionel
vainly tried to recapture over breakfast. He would turn up at the
_Rendezvous_ with little gifts--a bottle of Asthma Cure for Mrs. Green,
or a picture postcard of Mr. Matheson Lang as Shylock for Tonio. How
could they help being fond of him?
Every day brought tokens of their affection to the Winchester Mews,
N.W. 3; but Lionel never knew who it was that left plumcakes and
violets and balloons at his door; or why one morning a floral arch was
erected at the narrow entrance to the Mews with GOD BLESS OUR LIONEL
done in red and white roses set in smilax.
He only knew that even a London Policeman’s life can become a lovely
thing.
[Illustration: GYPSY AND GINGER’S FRIENDS]
12: THE PENNY PIPER
The last days of July had been so hot that the pavements steamed all
night with the memory of them. In the early mornings Ginger would
wake in a thin haze that was itself like the last thin veil between
sleep and consciousness. One Monday morning as she stretched her arms,
she half-opened her eyes upon London breathing forth its mists, and
half-opened her ears to the lost sounds of bleating sheep. Ginger at
once became six years old again.
Every Monday morning when she was six, sheep had shuffled under her
window along the misty street. And as soon as the unseen sheep had
passed with an unseen dog and an unseen shepherd, an unseen piper had
followed with a little tune upon a penny whistle. This was all a part
of being six years old, and she never wondered about it then; but
whenever she thought of it afterwards she wondered why any piper should
play his tune so early in the morning, when even the housemaids were
not yet on the doorsteps to throw him pennies. Listening to the sheep
go by, she now wondered all this over again. While she was wondering,
the last sheep bleated itself into the distance, and at the same
instant a penny whistle began piping in the mist. It was the tune she
had always, and only heard when she was six.
She lifted herself on one elbow, and saw Gypsy lifting himself on his.
They looked at each other, and she saw that he was exactly eight years
old.
“Did you ever see him?” asked Ginger in a whisper.
Gypsy shook his head. “Did you?”
Ginger shook hers. “I always longed to.”
“I wonder if there’s any way of catching him?” whispered Gypsy; and
reaching stealthily for the pillar-box, he shook out a dozen coppers.
Then he picked out the gold ones which were the fine-weather pennies
(he himself was always given brown pennies), and span one through the
haze in the direction of the tune. They heard it ring on the road, and
the tune stopped, and a moment later mended its broken bar. Gypsy sent
a second penny not quite so far, and in the pause they heard three soft
steps come their way. The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth pennies fell
shorter still, and the seventh penny was so close that a form stood up
like a shadow on the mist. Even then they couldn’t see the Piper very
distinctly; but he was tall and thin, and Gypsy said he had the silver
hair of a very old man, and Ginger said he had the blue eyes of the
youngest babies.
But his gentle voice was neither young nor old as he said kindly, “What
am I to do with seven pennies, children?”
“Spend them?” suggested Gypsy.
“That’s so difficult,” said the Piper.
“Spin them?” suggested Ginger.
“Ah, that’s easy,” said the Piper. And he sat down cross-legged a
little way off on the pavement, and span one of the seven gold pennies.
While it span he sang a song that began and ended with the penny.
“The fountain is dry,
The fountain is dry!
Let down your rain,
Blue sky, blue sky,
Or a child’s blue eye
Must let its rain
To fill his fountain
Up again.”
“What a nice song,” said Ginger. “Do spin another.”
So the Piper span the second penny and sang.
“The night will never stay,
The night will still go by,
Though with a million stars
You pin it to the sky,
Though you bind it with the blowing wind
And buckle it with the moon,
The night will slip away
Like sorrow or a tune.”
The last note met the plop of the penny on the pavement.
“How do you manage it?” asked Gypsy.
“It manages itself,” said the Piper. “None of my songs lasts longer
than the spin of a coin.” He span the third penny so badly that it only
made a very little song, like this:
“The tide in the river,
The tide in the river,
The tide in the river runs deep.
I saw a shiver
Pass over the river
As the tide turned in its sleep.”
“Have you just come up the river?” asked Ginger.
“No,” said the Piper. “I have just come from a chickory field under
Graffham. The Sussex chicory is as blue now as it will be, and the
raspberries are ripening on the Downs.”
“Don’t!” implored Ginger, sitting up, “How could you bear to come to
town?”
“I follow the sheep,” said the Piper, and span the fourth penny. While
it turned he sang:
“As I was going through No Man’s Land
I saw an old man counting sand,
I saw a woman sauntering by
With wings on her head that could not fly,
After that I saw a child
Who from birth had never smiled.
These riddles are hard to understand,
They could only happen in No Man’s Land.”
“Have all those riddles got answers?” asked Ginger.
“I think so,” said the Piper, “but they’re harder to find in the city
than in the country. They grow best in the grass, like men and flowers.
The grass is mown now, and Sussex smells hay and hears corn.”
He twisted his fifth penny, and sang while it hummed:
“If I had a lady
I’d give her pretty things,
Cowslip balls and daisy chains
And green grass rings.
I’d cut a fork of hazel
To find hidden wells,
And turn about we’d crack the nuts
And sail the nut-shells.
We’d love at first sight,
And marry on the spot,
I and the lady
That I haven’t got.”
“Gypsy!” cried Ginger. “I can’t bear it any longer. Let’s go and live
in a hut in a wood.”
“If you want a nice hut,” said the Piper, “I know where there is one on
the banks of a Southdown river, with martins under the thatch.”
“But the Blacksmith’s Son lives in it,” wailed Ginger, “with Lizzie
Hooker.”
“It was empty,” said the Piper, “when I saw it last.”
“How long ago was that?” asked Gypsy hopefully.
“A hundred and sixty years, I think,” said the Piper, “so I ought to be
moving on, children.”
Before he rose he span his sixth penny, and while it twirled he moved
away and sang as he went:
“I can pipe a song for that,
And a song for this;
You may pay me with an old straw hat,
A crust or a kiss.
I haven’t any use for pounds
And little use for pence,
While I whistle bits of rounds
Sitting on a fence.
You’ll learn them in a minute,
And forget them in a day,
And remember them in fifty years
When I come your way.”
His voice died with the penny. And very far away they heard him once
more pipe his Monday tune.
“Oh dear,” said Ginger restlessly, “I wish he’d told us what _that_
tune was about. But I’m determined to remember every one of his other
songs to-morrow morning.” (As a matter of fact she forgot them all,
like the dreams we determine to remember in the middle of the night.)
“There’s one of the songs he forgot himself,” and Gypsy, picking up the
seventh penny and spinning it. And while it span the distant piping
seemed to turn to singing, but it was now such a long way off that I am
not sure if Gypsy and Ginger got the words right.
“Oh, did you hear the sheep go by
Upon a Monday morning?
Did you hear the sheep go by
Without a sign of warning?
Did you hear the sheep go by?
They bleated through the London mist
With plaintive sounds and muffled,
They bleated through the London mist,
They shuffled and they scuffled
Bleating through the London mist.
They came from meadows fresh and green
Which they had cropped together,
They came from meadows fresh and green
And they were going whither?
They came from meadows fresh and green.”
[Illustration: GYPSY AND GINGER RETIRE FROM BUSINESS]
When Ginger said she couldn’t bear it any more, she meant it. She had
lived in London well over two months now, and that was longer than she
had ever lived anywhere else in her life. She had a terror of falling
into grooves and never being able to climb out again. Besides, August
was upon them, and London in August is no place for anybody. So Ginger
said to Gypsy,
“We must be off.”
“How?” asked Gypsy.
“By the first train from the nearest station,” said Ginger positively.
Gypsy looked at the Trafalgar Tube and said, “Shall we go to the
Elephant and Castle, or to Edgeware Road?”
Ginger shed three tears and said, “If I don’t smell hay and hear corn
to-day, I shall die.”
Gypsy shook the pillar-box gravely. He shook it to the extent of
fivepence halfpenny.
“How did the halfpenny get in?” he said sternly. “Has somebody been
cheating?”
“No,” said Ginger, “that was given me last Sunday by a poor child
under twelve. What’s the matter with you? Children under twelve are
half-price for everything, aren’t they?”
“Did you say a poor child?” asked Gypsy.
“Yes,” said Ginger. “I gave it sixpence change. It was so extremely
under twelve, you see. It said it would come again to ask the weather
next Sunday and bring its cousins.”
“Well, it’s going to be disappointed,” said Gypsy. “Though how we’re
to take tickets to hay and corn on fivepence halfpenny, I don’t quite
know. We shall have to walk; unless we stay over to-morrow and put in a
really hard day’s work and earn our fares. What do you say to that?”
“Oh yes,” said Ginger, “and then we can give a party to-night and say
good-bye to everybody.”
So they settled down to put in a really hard day’s work. The day helped
them a lot. It was a sultry, many-minded day; it did a variety of
things with heavy heatwaves to begin with, and then it muttered in the
distance, and shed a few big drops, and slacked off for a bit; then
it rolled up a lot of dark blue clouds, and then a lot of black ones.
Mr. Morley came over from his hotel to say that it was so dark in the
Reading Room that the visitors couldn’t read, and he wanted Gypsy’s
advice about turning on the electric light. Gypsy, half in and half out
of his door, looked at the sky and said:
“I think you’d better turn it on.”
Mr. Morley thanked him, and tipped him half-a-crown (they do it
handsomely at Morley’s).
“Can I have it in pennies?” asked Gypsy.
“Certainly,” said Mr. Morley. He counted thirty pennies into Gypsy’s
hand, and crossed the road.
Then quite suddenly a blue cloud hit a black one, and Gypsy leapt out
of his door as far as he could go, and the hail came down like peas and
rattled in a box by the theatre-men. So Gypsy called “Hi! hi!” very
loudly, and Mr. Morley, who had just got under the portico, came out
and crossed the road again.
“Yes?” said Mr. Morley.
“I _know_ you’d better turn it on,” said Gypsy.
“Thank you very much,” said Mr. Morley, and gave Gypsy five shillings.
“Can I have it in pennies?” shouted Gypsy. (He had to shout because of
the thunder.)
“Certainly,” shouted Mr. Morley, turning up his coat-collar a little
too late, because ribbons of rain were already running down his neck
from the guttering round his top hat. It took him a long time to count
sixty pennies into Gypsy’s hands, which got very full; then Mr. Morley
wasn’t certain he’d given him enough, and thought they’d better count
them again to make sure. So they did, holding the pennies in their
mouths or under their armpits, or between their knees, as they got
them counted; and then Gypsy lifted his arm by mistake, to wipe the
rain out of his eyes, and dropped a shillingsworth. They rolled and
splashed about Trafalgar Square, which could now be paddled in. Gypsy
wasn’t allowed to leave his post, so Mr. Morley knelt down on his
beautifully-pressed trousers, and crawled about the Square, finding the
shilling one by one. It took him some time, because he could hardly
see for the water tumbling off his beautifully-ironed silk hat, and for
the lightning making him start and say “Oh!” just as he was about to
pick a penny up. But at last he brought them all back to Gypsy.
“So sorry to have troubled you,” said Gypsy.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Morley, because the Morley Hotel manners are
faultless. Then he went back to the Hotel, and changed his boots, and
turned on the light in the Reading-Room. And then the sun came out.
So he had to cross the Square again, and he found Ginger outside the
Weatherhouse looking as nice as mixed ice-cream in a lovely summer
smock.
“What delightful weather,” said Ginger. “Why have you got the Hotel
lights on?”
“Would you turn them out if you were I?” asked Mr. Morley, for his
grammar was as faultless as his manners.
“I would indeed,” said Ginger sunnily; “seldom have I seen so blue a
sky.”
Mr. Morley tipped her handsomely (the information apart, her smile was
worth it), lifted his hat to her, and fled.
“How fast he’s going,” said Gypsy, from the very back of the
Weatherhouse. “What did he give you, darling?”
“A half-sovereign!” gasped Ginger. “A real old-fashioned
half-sovereign!”
“No wonder he’s running,” said Gypsy. “But we must get it changed
somehow.”
“Oh, must we?” pleaded Ginger.
“Think of the Pillar-Box,” said Ginger firmly. So they bought an
evening newspaper which they didn’t want, and told the Evening Newsboy
to let the children know there’d be a party in the Square during the
small hours. Then they put the pennies in the Pillar-Box. They had had
several other customers that day, and the Pound was nearly reached.
At ten minutes to seven an old lady in a black bonnet and corkscrew
curls stepped up to ask the weather.
“Set fair, madam,” said Ginger.
“How much will that be?” said the old lady.
“One penny, madam,” said Ginger.
The old lady paid her penny. She was the Weatherhouse’s last customer.
When they posted her penny the Pillar-Box burst.
“Hurrah!” } { Gypsy.
} cried {
“Hurrah!” } { Ginger.
The theatre crowd that evening found the Weatherhouse shutters up, and
a placard outside saying:
THESE PREMISES ARE CLOSED.
GYPSY AND GINGER ARE RETIRING
FROM BUSINESS.
[Illustration: GYPSY AND GINGER GIVE A PARTY]
People who have only seen London on Coronation Day, or Lord Mayor’s
Show Day, or on the day when the Ambassador of Calamiane is given the
Freedom of the City, do not really know of what she is capable in the
way of festival. All these occasions are foreseen and dress-rehearsed.
The costume is provided in advance, and it is trusted that the spirit,
as well as the body, may inhabit it on the day. But when the time comes
it is usually about some business of its own; for in spite of the
newspapers the spirit is not the body’s house-dog. It doesn’t come when
it’s whistled for. Its breed is tameless.
But when it springs out of its wilds it does in an hour what Committees
cannot do in six months. Only those who saw Trafalgar Square on the
night of Gypsy and Ginger’s party know what the spirit of London can do
in an hour.
The Evening Newsboy spread the rumour of the party with the swiftness
and ubiquity of evening news. He had the newsboy’s art of subdividing
a single rumour into a flight of swallows. Before midnight every slum
in the city knew there was to be a party amongst the fountains of
Trafalgar Square.
Gypsy and Ginger sat on the floor of the Weatherhouse making staircases
of their two-hundred-and-forty pennies, and consulted how to spend them
to the best advantage. They had quite forgotten their intention of
spending them on railway tickets to Sussex.
“Which do you think the children would like best?” asked Gypsy.
“Presents or supper?”
“Presents _and_ supper,” said Ginger.
“It won’t run to both, darling. The guests will come in their
thousands.”
“But think of a whole pound.”
“I know, but all the same,” said Gypsy. He was really the practical one
of the two. “If we decided on presents, a lot could be done with beads
and marbles.”
“If they had supper, we could give them farthing buns,” said Ginger.
“For a pound you can get a thousand farthing buns, more or less, I’m
never sure which. But if there are thousands of children--.”
“What about a Conjuror?” suggested Gypsy. “You ought to be able to buy
quite a good Conjuror for a pound?”
“No,” said Ginger, “we can be our own conjurors. And I want the
children to have something that will really go round without giving
out, and I’ve thought of what it is.”
“Well?” said Gypsy.
“Sherbert,” said Ginger. “Packets and packets of it. In the fountains.”
“In one fountain,” said Gypsy, catching on with enthusiasm, “and
lemonade crystals in the other.”
They went out to spend their pound. While they were absent, the
Piccadilly Flower-Girls came and got to work. In a few minutes the
Square was a garden of roses. Roses red and white, yellow and pink,
garlanded the stone balustrades opposite the National Gallery and
wreathed the basins of the fountains; arches of roses bloomed up the
steps; the Weatherhouse was smothered in Crimson Ramblers; Dorothy
Perkins climbed from the foot of the Nelson Column to the top of
Nelson’s head, the base was mounded deep in moss, and every lion
crouched in a temple of standards. Their work was barely accomplished
when Mrs. Green arrived buried in balloons. They were gas balloons of
every colour, and each was anchored with a fairy lamp, so that when
she let them go they hung in chains and patterns of light fifteen feet
in air. The other Moonlighters were now appearing in full force. The
Punch-and-Judy Man set up his theatre between the fountains, Tonio’s
striped and painted Hokey-Pokey booth was established in one corner,
the Strawberry Girl had her great fruit-baskets in another. Jeremy,
with an assortment of his brightest wares, turned the Weatherhouse
into a Penny Toyshop. The Organ-Man and his barrel-organ took the
middle of the Square, where there was plenty of room for dancing. The
Muffin-and-Crumpet Man walked round and round and round ringing his
bell. They told him that for once he was out of season, but the Night
Watchman said that the moon was blue to-night, so that anything could
happen for once.
By the time Gypsy and Ginger returned, laden with packets of Sherbert
and Lemonade Powder, the party was ready.
“Oh!” cried Ginger.
She dropped her parcels and dashed from attraction to attraction; flew
one of Jeremy’s windmills round the Square, tasted a strawberry, ate
half a hokey-pokey, rang the muffin-bell in Toby’s ear, stuck a rose in
her smock, and seizing Gypsy’s hands danced him three times round the
barrel-organ.
Then they all turned their attention to the fountains, and just as
the sherbert got really fizzing the Evening Newsboy appeared with the
children.
Not many parties begin in full swing, but Gypsy’s and Ginger’s did. The
moment the children of London saw Trafalgar Square, a dream of balloons
and roses under the blue moon, they began to laugh; and for two hours,
whether they were dancing to the organ music as only London Children
can dance: or watching Punch thwack Judy as only Punch can thwack: or
eating crumpets, and strawberries, and free ice-creams: or besieging
the Weatherhouse for Jeremy’s free toys, or lying on their stomachs
over the fountains with their faces in the sherbert: or playing
Touch-Stone with Lily, Rose and Jessamine around the Column: they never
stopped laughing. When the Taxi-Man appeared astride of Snow-Flame, and
put him through his loveliest circus-tricks below the fairy lights,
their laughter was louder than ever. And when Gypsy, inspired by the
sound of it, painted this sign in luminuous paint on the National
Gallery:
THERE IS NO TRUTH IN THE RUMOUR
THAT CHILDREN’S PARTIES WILL BE HELD IN
TRAFALGAR SQUARE ONCE A WEEK
their laughter was so loud that it was heard from Land’s End to John o’
Groats. It was so loud that it was heard by the Policeman in the Strand.
He blew his whistle.
In a trice the London Police were on the alert.
[Illustration: GYPSY AND GINGER MOVE ON]
When the Policeman on the Strand Beat blew his whistle, it was heard
by every Policeman on every confine of London. But it was not heard in
Trafalgar Square, because the party was by this time at its height. And
while the Moonshiners sang and danced and rioted with the children,
the policemen were answering the summons from Ealing to Barking, and
from Crowdon to Crouch End. Through the silent streets they streamed
in hundreds, like blue fire streaming noiselessly around a Christmas
Pudding. From all points of the compass they converged on Trafalgar
Square.
Before they knew it, the Moonshiners were encircled.
It was the Night Watchman who gave the alarm, too late. Even he had
been caught napping for once. He had been competing at Catherine Wheels
with the Evening Newsboy when he ought to have been keeping an eye on
the night. But now, as the foe advanced in massed formation through
Pall Mall and Whitehall, the Strand and St. Martin’s Lane, he scented
them like a hound and cried: “The Police!”
Dead silence fell upon Trafalgar Square. Only the ex-Professor made
any demonstration, and that was a mute one. Meekly, yet carelessly, he
bowed to right and left.
“What are we going to do?” whispered Ginger.
The Moonshiners drew together and consulted. The Taxi-Man was for
defying the foe, but Ginger said,
“Think of the children.”
The Piccadilly Flower-Girls were for diddling the foe, but
“There aren’t enough of you,” said Gypsy.
“P’raps if we kep as still as mice,” said Rags, “they’d jest go away
and not notice.”
But the Night Watchman looked at the thousands of children and roses
and balloons, and at the luminous sign on the National Gallery, and
said,
“Don’t count on it. The London Police have eyes like lynxes.”
“All right,” said Gypsy cheerfully.
We’re discovered. We’re trapped. But _you_ shan’t suffer--it’s all me
and Ginger” (he couldn’t be bothered with grammar at the moment), “and
I’m going to tell them so. Come along, darling.”
And passing his arm around Ginger’s waist he leaped with her to the
head of the Lion who looks towards St. James’s, and stood exposed to
the gaze of the London Police.
The Strand Policeman advanced, and pointed with his truncheon to the
legend on the National Gallery.
Gypsy gazed steadily down into his questioning eyes, and prepared to
confess. As he opened his lips, the Strand Policeman saw a vision of
rapid promotion, and Gypsy saw another of Six Months’ Hard.
But before he had uttered the first word of his confession, a sharp
command rang out upon the night.
“Move on!” it said.
It was the voice of Lionel. And out of the mossy bank of the Nelson
Column, the form of Lionel rose. Gypsy and Ginger nearly fell off the
Lion.
“Move on!” said Lionel sternly.
“Where to?” whispered Ginger.
“Where would you like to?” whispered Lionel.
“S-S-Sussex!” stammered Ginger.
“Get _down_ orf that Lion!” thundered Lionel, and he shook his
truncheon truculently at Gypsy and Ginger. “Can’t you see you’re
obstructing traffic?” He cast an eye over the crowd of children and
Moonshiners. “Get along ’ome,” he said to them briefly. “Move on!” he
said to Gypsy and Ginger, still more briefly.
This time Gypsy and Ginger quite fell off the Lion. With Lionel at
their backs they moved on. A way melted for them like magic through the
serried ranks of the London Police. The Police made no protest. One of
them had the matter well in hand; they heard from his lips the sacred
formula which is the motor power of the Police and the Solar Systems.
“Move on!” said Lionel at punctuated intervals. “Move on! Move on!”