William—The Fourth by Richmal Crompton - HTML preview

 

CHAPTER XIV

A DRESS REHEARSAL

IT was Saturday, but despite that glorious fact, William, standing at the dining-room window and surveying the world at large, could not for the moment think of anything to do.

From the window he saw the figure of his father, who sat peacefully on the lawn reading a newspaper. William was not fond of his own society. He liked company of any sort. He went out to the lawn and stood by his father’s chair.

“You’ve not got much hair right on the top of your head, father,” he said pleasantly and conversationally.

There was no answer.

“I said you’d not got much hair on the top of your head,” repeated William in a louder tone.

“I heard you,” said his father coldly.

“Oh,” said William, sitting down on the ground. There was silence for a minute, then William said in friendly tones:

“I only said it again ’cause I thought you didn’t hear the first time. I thought you’d have said, ‘Oh,’ or ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’ or something if you’d heard.”

There was no answer, and again after a long silence, William spoke.

“I didn’t mind you not sayin’ ‘Oh,’ or ‘Yes,’ or ‘No,’” he said, “only that was what made me say it again, ’cause with you not sayin’ it I thought you’d not heard.”

Mr. Brown arose and moved his chair several feet away. William, on whom hints were wasted, followed.

“I was readin’ a tale yesterday,” he said, “about a man wot’s legs got bit off by sharks——”

Mr. Brown groaned.

“William,” he said politely, “pray don’t let me keep you from your friends.”

“Oh, no, that’s quite all right,” said William. “Well—p’raps Ginger is lookin’ for me. Well, I’ll finish about the man an’ the sharks after tea. You’ll be here then, won’t you?”

“Please, don’t trouble,” said Mr. Brown with sarcasm that was entirely lost on his son.

“Oh, it’s not a trouble,” said William as he strolled off, “I like talkin’ to people.”

*****

Ginger was strolling disconsolately down the road looking for William. His face brightened when he saw William in the distance.

“Hello, William.”

“Hello, Ginger.”

In accordance with their usual ceremonial greeting, they punched each other and wrestled with each other till they rolled on to the ground. Then they began to walk along the road together.

“I’ve not got to stop with you long,” said Ginger gloomily; “my mother’s got an ole Sale of Work in her garden, an’ she wants me to help.”

“Huh!” said William scornfully, “you helpin’ at a Sale of Work! You. Huh!”

“She’s goin’ to give me five shillings,” went on Ginger coldly.

William slightly modified his tone. “Well, I never said you can’t help, did I?” he said in a more friendly voice.

“She said I needn’t go for about half an hour. Wot’ll we do? Dig for hidden treasure?”

Two months ago William and his friends had been fired with the idea of digging for hidden treasure. From various books they had read (“Ralph the Reckless,” “Hunted to Death,” “The Quest of Captain Terrible,” etc.), they had gathered that the earth is chockful of buried treasure if only one takes the trouble to dig deep enough.

They had resolved to dig every inch of their native village, collect all the treasure they found, and with it buy a desert island on which they proposed to spend the rest of their lives unhampered by parents and schoolmasters.

They had decided to begin with the uncultivated part of Ginger’s back garden, and to buy further land for excavation with the treasure they found in the back garden.

Their schemes were not narrow. They had decided to purchase and to pull down all the houses in the village as their treasure grew and more and more land was required for digging.

But they had dug unsuccessfully for two months in Ginger’s back garden and were beginning to lose heart. They had not realised that digging was such hard work, or that ten feet square of perfectly good land would yield so little treasure. Conscientiously they carried on the search, but it had lost its first fine careless rapture, and they were glad of any excuse for avoiding it.

“Dig in your back garden with all those Sale of Work people messin’ about interruptin’ and gettin’ in the way?” said William sternly. “Not much!”

“All right,” said Ginger relieved. “I only s’gested it. Well, shall we hunt for smugglers?”

*****

There was a cave in the hillside just beneath the road, and though the village in which William and Ginger lived was more than a hundred miles inland, William and Ginger were ever hopeful of finding a smuggler or, at any rate, traces of a smuggler, in the cave. They searched it carefully every day.

As William said, “’S’only likely the reely cunnin’ ones wouldn’t stay sittin’ in their caves by the sea all the time. They’d know folks’d be on the look out for ’em there. They’d bring their things here where no one’d expect ’em. Why, with a fine cave like this there’s sure to be smugglers.”

When tired of hunting for smugglers, or traces of smugglers, they adopted the characters of smugglers themselves, and carried their treasure (consisting of stones) up the hillside to conceal it in the cave, or fled for their lives to the cave with imaginary soldiers in pursuit. From the cover of the cave, Bill, the smuggler, often covered the entire hillside with the dead bodies of soldiers. In these frays the gallant smugglers never received even the slightest scratch.

With ever fresh hope they searched the cave again. Ginger found a stone that he said had not been there yesterday, and must have been left as a kind of signal, but William said that he distinctly recognised it as having been there yesterday, and the matter dropped.

After a brief and indecisive discussion as to how they should spend the five shillings that Ginger’s mother had said she would give him, they occupied themselves in crawling laboriously on their stomachs in and out of the cave so as to be unperceived by the soldiers who were on the watch above and below.

At last, Ginger, moved not so much by his conscience as by fears of forfeiting his five shillings, set off sadly homewards, and William set off along the road in the opposite direction.

He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets, dragging his shoes in the dust in a manner which his mother frequently informed him brought the toes through in no time.

*****

When he came to the school he stopped, attracted by the noise that came through the open window of the schoolroom. They were preparing for a dress rehearsal of the “Pageant of Ancient Britain,” which was to be performed the next month. William, who was not in the caste, looked with interest through the window. Ancient Britons in various stages of skins and woad and grease paint stood about the room or leap-frogged over each other’s backs or wrestled with each other in corners. William espied a particular enemy at the other end of the room. He put his head through the window.

“Hello, Monkey Brand,” he called in his strident, devastating voice.

Miss Carter, mistress of the Second Form, raised herself wearily from arranging the skin of an infant Ancient Briton.

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she began testily, then, her voice sinking into hopelessness, “Oh, it’s William Brown.”

William, ignoring her, put his fingers to his lips and, still gazing belligerently at his enemy, emitted a deafening whistle. Miss Carter put her hands to her ears.

“William!” she said irritably.

William wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

“Beg pardon,” he said mechanically and without feeling, as he withdrew his head and prepared to retire.

“Oh, one minute, William. What are you doing just now?”

William inserted his untidy head in the window again.

“Me?” he said. “Nothin’. Jus’ nothin’.”

“Well, I wish you’d come and be an Ancient Briton just for the dress rehearsal—it won’t be long, but so many of them can’t come this afternoon, and it’s so difficult to arrange how they’re to stand with only three-quarters of them there. You needn’t be made up, but just put this skin on.”

She held up a small skin carelessly in her hand. William looked round the room with his sternest and most disapproving scowl.

“Have I gotter come in with all those boys all over the place an’ change with all those boys botherin’ me all the time so’s I don’t know wot I’m doin’ an’——”

Miss Carter was in a bad temper. She threw the skin irritably at William through the window.

“Oh, change where you like,” she snapped, “if you’ll be back here in five minutes.”

William took the skin eagerly.

“Oh, yes, I will,” he promised.

Then he rolled up the skin and stuffed it under his arm. It instantly changed into a bale of precious but vague contraband material.

Glancing sternly round for soldiers, William crept cautiously and silently down to his cave. There he drew a sigh of relief, placed his gun in a corner and changed into the skin. Once clad in the skin, his ordinary clothes became the precious but vague contraband material. He crept to the entrance, glanced furtively around, then wrapped his clothes into a bundle and looked around for some place of concealment. On the ground at the further end of the cave was a large piece of paper in which he and Ginger had once brought their lunch.

Still with many furtive glances around, he wrapped up his clothes and concealed the bundle on a shelf of rock in the corner of the cave. Then he took up his gun, shot two soldiers who were just creeping towards the entrance of the cave, walked to the doorway, shot again at a crowd of soldiers who fled in panic terror at his approach. Then, resplendent in his skin and drunk with heroism and triumph, he swaggered up the hillside and into the school.

*****

As an Ancient Briton, he was not an unqualified success, and more than once Miss Carter regretted her casual invitation. William considered the rehearsal as disappointing as the rehearsal considered him—just standin’ about an’ singin’ an’ talkin’—no fightin’ nor shoutin’ nor nothin’. He was glad he wasn’t a Nanshunt Briton, if that’s all the poor things could do.

However, at last it was over, and he crept again furtively down the hillside to his private dressing-room. Ginger was standing near the cave entrance.

“What’ve you been doing all this time?” he began; then, as his gaze took in William’s costume, his mouth opened.

“Crumbs!” he said.

“I’m a Nanshunt Briton,” said William, airily. “They jus’ wanted me to go an’ be a Nanshunt Briton up at the school an’——”

“Well,” interrupted Ginger excitedly, “while you’ve been away I’ve found ’em at last.”

“What?” said William.

“Smugglers!” said Ginger excitedly. “Smugglers’ things.”

“Golly!” said William, equally thrilled. “Where?”

“In the cave—when I came to look for you, an’ I cun’t find you, an’ I looked round the cave again, an’ I found ’em.”

A sudden fear chilled William’s enthusiasm.

“What were they?”

“Clothes an’ things. I thought I wun’t look at ’em prop’ly till you came. They was wrapped up in that ole paper we brought our food in last week.”

The Ancient Briton looked at him sternly and accusingly.

“Yes—well, they were my clothes wot I’d changed out of, that’s what they were. You’re jus’ a bit too clever takin’ people’s clothes for smugglers’ things. Anyway, I’m jus’ gettin’ cold with only a skin on, so jus’ please give me those smugglers’ things, so’s I can put ’em on.”

Ginger’s jaw dropped.

“I—I took ’em home. I didn’t want to leave ’em about here case someone else found ’em. I hid ’em behind a tree in our garden.”

The Ancient Briton’s gaze became still more stern.

“Well, p’raps you’d kin’ly gettem for me out of your garden ’fore I die of cold, dressed in only a skin. I should think the Anshunt Britons all died of cold if they felt like wot I feel like. You’re jus’ a bit too clever with other people’s smugglers’ things; an’ s’pose Miss Carter comes down for her skin an’ wot d’you think I’ll look like then, dressed in nothin’?”

“All right,” said Ginger. “I’ll gettem. I won’t be a minute. If you will leave your clothes all about the cave lookin’ exactly like smugglers’ things——”

He was gone, and William sat shivering in a corner of the cave, dressed in his Ancient Briton costume. The glamour of the cave was gone. William felt that he definitely disliked smugglers. The only people he disliked more than he disliked smugglers were Ancient Britons, for whom he now felt a profound scorn and loathing.

In about ten minutes’ time Ginger returned. He was empty handed, and there was a look of consternation on his face.

“William,” he said meekly, “I’m awfully sorry. It’s been sold. They thought it was meant for the rummage stall, an’ they’ve took it an’ sold it.”

William was speechless with indignation.

“Well,” he said at last, “you’ve gone an’ sold all my clothes—an’ now what do you think’s goin’ to happen to me? That’s jus’ wot I’d like to know, ’f you don’ mind tellin’ me. Wot’s goin’ to happen to me? P’raps as you’ve sold all my clothes, you’ll kin’ly tell me wot’s goin’ to happen to me, gettin’ colder an’ colder. P’raps you’d like me to freeze to death. How’m I goin’ to get home, an’ if I don’t get home how’m I goin’ to get anythin’ to eat, and if I don’t get anythin’ to eat, how’m I goin’ to live? I’m dyin’ of cold now. Well, I only hope you’ll be sorry then—then, when prob’ly you’ll be bein’ hung for murderin’ me.” William returned to earth from his flights of fancy. “Well, now, p’raps you’ll kin’ly get my clothes back.”

“WELL,” SAID WILLIAM STERNLY, “YOU’VE GONE
 AND SOLD ALL MY CLOTHES—AN’ NOW WHAT DO YOU
 THINK’S GOING TO HAPPEN TO ME? HOW’M I GOIN’
 TO GET HOME?”

“How can I?” said Ginger, with the air of one goaded beyond endurance.

“Well, you can go an’ find out who bought ’em, I suppose—only you needn’t tell ’em whose they was.”

Again Ginger departed, and again the Ancient Briton sat shivering and gazing sternly and accusingly around the cave.

After a short interval Ginger appeared again, breathless with running.

“Mr. Groves bought it, William, from Wayside Cottage. I dunno how I’m to get ’em back, though, William.”

William sighed.

“I’d better come with you,” he said wearily. “’Sides, I shall prob’ly get froze into a glacier or something if I stay in here any more.”

The Ancient Briton gazed furtively around from the cave door, without that bravado and swagger generally displayed by Bill the Smuggler. The coast was clear. The two boys crept out.

“When I get to the road, I’ll crawl on my stomach in the ditch like as if I were a smuggler, then no one’ll see me.”

Ginger walked dejectedly along the road, while the Ancient Briton made a slow and very conspicuous progress in the ditch beside him—ejaculating irascibly as he went:

“Well, I’ve jus’ done with smugglers an’ with Anshunt Britons. I’ll never look at another smuggler or a Nanshunt Briton while I live—’n if you hadn’t been so jolly clever runnin’ off with other people’s clothes, an’ sellin’ ’em, I shouldn’t be crawlin’ along an’ scratchin’ myself, an’ cuttin’ myself, an’ eatin’ mud. Now,” in a voice of pure wonder, “how did Anshunt Britons get about? I don’t know—all shiverin’ with cold an’ scratchin’ themselves an’ cuttin’ themselves——”

Wayside Cottage was, fortunately for the Ancient Briton, on the outskirts of the village. The front door was conveniently open. There was a small garden in front, and a longer garden behind, with a little corrugated iron building at the end.

“Come on,” said William. “Let’s go an’ get ’em back.”

“Are you goin’ to ask him for ’em?” said Ginger.

“No, I’m not. I don’t want everyone in this village talking about it,” said William sternly. “I jus’ want to get ’em back quietly an’ put ’em on an’ no one know anything about it. I don’t want anyone talkin’ about it.”

No one was about. They gazed at the stairs from the open doorway. “They’ll be upstairs,” said William in a hoarse whisper; “clothes are always upstairs. Now, come very quietly. Creep upstairs.”

Ginger followed him loyally, fearfully, reluctantly, and they went upstairs. Every time Ginger hit a stair rod, or made a stair creak, William turned round with a stern and resonant “Sh!” At last they reached the landing. William cautiously opened the door and peeped within. It was a bedroom, and it was empty.

“Come on,” whispered William, with the cheerfulness of the born optimist. “They’re sure to be here.”

They entered and closed the door.

“Now,” said William, “we’ll look in all the drawers and then we’ll look in the wardrobe.”

They began to open the drawers one by one. Suddenly Ginger said “Hush!”

There was the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs. They drew nearer the door.

“Crumbs!” gasped William. “Under the bed—quick!”

As they disappeared under the bed the door opened and a little old gentleman came in. He looked round at the open drawers and frowned.

“How curious!” he said as he shut them; “how very curious!”

Then he hummed to himself, straightened his collar at the glass, took a few little dancing steps round the room, and then stood irresolute, his hand on his chin.

“Now what did I come up for?” he said. “What did I come up for? Ah! A handkerchief.”

WILLIAM DASHED FOR THE
 DOORWAY, UPSETTING THE OLD
 GENTLEMAN ON HIS WAY.

All might have been well had not the Ancient Briton at this moment succumbed to the united effects of cold and dust, and emitted a resounding sneeze.

“Bless my soul!” said the old gentleman. “Bless my——”

He dived beneath the bed, and, seizing hold of William’s bare and muddy foot, he pulled. But William had firm hold of the further leg of the bed, and the old gentleman, exerting his utmost strength, only succeeded in pulling the bed across the room with William still firmly attached to it. But this treatment infuriated William.

“’F you’d kin’ly stop draggin’ me about on my stomach——” he began, then emerged, stern and dusty, and arranging his skimpy and dishevelled skin.

“You—you—you thief!” said the old man.

“I’m not a thief,” said William, “I’m a Nanshunt——”

But the old man made a dash at him and William dodged and fled out of the doorway. Ginger was already half-way downstairs. The old man was delayed, first by the door, which William banged in his face, and secondly by the fact that he slipped on the top stair and rolled down to the bottom.

There he sat up, looked for his spectacles, found them, adjusted them and gazed round the hall, still seated on the hall mat. The two boys were nowhere to be seen. Muttering “Dear! Dear!” and “Bless my soul! Let me see, what was it I wanted?—Ah, a handkerchief!” the old man began to ascend the stairs.

*****

But William and Ginger had not gone out of the front door. A group of Ginger’s mother’s friends could be plainly seen passing the little gateway, and in panic William and Ginger had dashed out of the back door into the little garden, and into the corrugated iron building. A lady, dressed in an artist’s smock, a paint brush in her hand, looked up from an easel.

THE OLD GENTLEMAN LANDED ON TOP OF THE CANVAS
 AND SAT THERE MURMURING, “OH, DEAR! OH, DEAR!”

“Please don’t come in quite so roughly,” she said disapprovingly. “I don’t like rough little boys.” She looked William up and down, and her disapproval seemed to deepen. “Well,” she said stiffly, “it doesn’t seem to me quite the costume. I should have thought the Vicar—— However, you’d better stay now you’ve come. Is the other little boy your friend? He must sit down quite quietly and not disturb us. You may just look at the picture first for a treat.” Bewildered, but ready to oblige her, William wandered round and looked at it. It seemed to consist of a chaos of snow and polar bears.

“It’s to be called The Frozen North,” she said proudly. “Now you must stand in the attitude of one drawing a sleigh—so—no, the expression more gentle, please. I must say I do not care for the costume, but the Vicar must know——”

“I’m a Nanshunt——” began William, then decided to take the line of least resistance and be the Frozen North. The lady painted in silence for some time, occasionally looking at William’s rather mangy skin, and saying disapprovingly: “No, I must say—I do not—but, of course, the Vicar——”

Just as the charm of novelty was disappearing from the procedure, and he was devising means of escape, another lady came in.

“Busy, dear?” she said, then she adjusted her lorgnettes, and she, too, looked disapprovingly at William.

“My dear!” she said. “Isn’t that rather—— Well, of course, I know you artists are—well, Bohemian and all that, but——”

The artist looked worried.

“My dear,” she said, “I showed the Vicar the picture yesterday, and he said that he had a child’s Esquimo costume, and he’d find a boy to fit in and send it round for a model. But—I’d an idea that the esquimos dressed more—er—more completely than that, hadn’t you?”

“I’m a Nanshunt——” began William, and stopped again.

“You remember Mrs. Parks asking for money to buy clothes for her boy?” went on the artist as she painted. “Well, I got John to go to that Sale of Work this afternoon and get a suit from the rummage stall, and he got quite a good suit, and I’ve just sent it round to her. Do stand still, little boy—You know, dear, I wish I felt happier about this—er—costume. Yet I feel I ought not to criticise and even in my mind, anything the dear Vicar——”

“Well, I’ll be quite frank,” said the visitor. “I don’t care for it—and I do think that artists can’t be too careful—any suggestion of the nude is so—well, don’t you agree with me? I’m surprised at the Vicar.”

The artist held out half a crown to William.

“You may go,” she said coldly. “Take the costume back to the Vicar, and I don’t think I shall require you again.”

At that moment the little old man came in. He started as his eye fell on William and Ginger.

“The thief!” he said excitedly. “The thief! Catch him, catch him, catch him!”

William dashed to the doorway, upsetting the old man and a wet canvas on his way. The old man landed on top of the canvas and sat there murmuring, “Oh, dear, oh dear, what a day!” and looking for his glasses.

The visitor pursued the two of them half-heartedly to the gate, and then returned to help in the work of separating the old gentleman from the wet canvas.

*****

William and Ginger sat in a neighbouring ditch and looked at each other breathlessly.

“Parks,” said Ginger, “that’s the shop at the end of the village.”

“Yes,” said William, “an’ I’m jus’ about sick of crawlin’ in ditches, an’ what’s wrong with it I’d like to know,” he went on, looking down indignantly at his limp skin, “it’s all right—not as clothes—but as a kind of dress-up thing it’s all right—as good as that ole pinnyfore she was wearing, an’ I jolly nearly said so—an’ ‘thief,’ too. Well, I wun’t go inside that house again, not if—not if—not if they asked me—Anyway,” his expression softened, “anyway, I got half a crown,” his expression grew bitter once more, “half a crown, an’ not even a pocket to put it in. Come on to Parks’.”

William returned to the ditch. They only passed a little girl and her small brother.

“Look, Algy,” said the little girl, “look at ’im. ’E’s a loony an’ the other’s ’is keeper. ’E thinks ’e’s a frog, prob’ly, an’ that’s why ’e goes in ditches, an’ doesn’t wear no clothes.”

William straightened himself.

“I’m a Nanshunt——” he began, but at sight of his red and muddy face, surmounted by its crest of muddy hair, the little girl fled screaming.

“Come on, Algy, ’e’ll get yer an’ eat yer if yer don’t——”

Algy’s screams reinforced hers, and William disconsolately returned to the ditch as the screams, still lusty, faded into the distance.

“I’m jus’ getting a bit sick of this,” muttered the Ancient Briton.

*****

They reached Parks’. William lay concealed behind the hedge, and Ginger wandered round the shop, reconnoitring.

“Go in!” goaded William, in a hoarse whisper from the hedge. “Go in an’ gettem. Say you’ll fetch a policeman—make ’em give ’em you—fight ’em—take ’em—you lettem go—I can’t stand this much longer. I’m cold an’ I’m wet. I feel as if I’d been a Nanshunt Briton for years an’ years—hurry up—Are-you-goin’-to-get-me-my-clothes?”

“Oh, shut up!” said Ginger miserably. “I’m doin’ all I can.”

“Doin’ all you can, are you? Well, you’re not doin’ much but walkin’ round an’ round the shop. D’you think ’f you go on walkin’ round and round the shop my clothes’ll come out of themselves—come walkin’ out to you? ’Cause if you think that——”

“Shut up.”

At this moment a small boy walked out of the shop.

“Hallo!” said Ginger, with a fatuous smile of friendship.

“Hallo!” said the boy, ungraciously.

Ginger moistened his lips and repeated the fatuous smile.

“Have you got any new clothes to-day?”

The boy gave a fairly good imitation of the fatuous smile.

“No,” he said, “have you? Don’t go spoilin’ your fice for me. It’s bee-utiful, but don’t waste it on me.”

Then, whistling, he prepared to walk away from Ginger down the road. Desperately Ginger stopped him.

“I’ll—I’ll—I’ll give you,” he swallowed, then, with an effort, made the nobler offer. “I’ll give you five shillings if——”

“Yus?” said the boy suddenly, “if——?”

“If you’ll give me those clothes the lady wot paints sent you to-day.”

“Gimme the five shillings then.”

“I won’t give you the money till you give me the clothes.”

“Oh, won’t you? Well, I won’t give you the clothes till you give me the money.”

They stared hostilely at each other.

“Get my clothes,” said the irate voice from the ditch. “Punch him—do anythin’ to him. Get—my—clothes.”

The boy looked round with interest into the ditch.

“Look at ’im!” he shrieked mirthfully. “Look at ’im. Nakid—jus’ dressed in a muff—Oh! look at ’im.”

William arose with murder in his face. Ginger hastily pressed the five shillings into the boy’s hand.

“Gettem quick,” he said.

The boy retreated to the shop and closed the door except for a small crack. Through that crack he shouted, “We din’ want no narsty, mangy, mouldy, cast-off clothes from no one. We gived ’em to Johnsons up the village.”

Th