said, 'and as we went along I told him all about the stationmaster's family, and how I had seen the porter kissing our housemaid, and what a nice fellow he was, with no airs or affectation about him, and anything I thought would be of interest; but he didn't seem to pay much attention, but walked along puffing his cigar, and once I thought – I'm not certain, but I thought– I heard him say, "Well, thank God, that's over!" When we got to the station he stopped suddenly, and said, "Hold on a minute!" Then he shoved these into my hand in a frightened sort of way, and said, "Look here, youngster! These are for you and the other kids. Buy what you like – make little beasts of yourselves – only don't tell the old people, mind! Now cut away home!" So I cut.'
A solemn hush fell on the assembly, broken first by the small Charlotte. 'I didn't know,' she observed dreamily, 'that there were such good men anywhere in the world. I hope he'll die to-night, for then he'll go straight to heaven!' But the repentant Selina bewailed herself with tears and sobs, refusing to be comforted; for that in her haste she had called this white-souled relative a beast.
'I'll tell you what we'll do,' said Edward, the master-mind, rising – as he always did – to the situation: 'We'll christen the piebald pig after him – the one that hasn't got a name yet. And that'll show we're sorry for our mistake!'
'I – I christened that pig this morning,' Harold guiltily confessed; 'I christened it after the curate. I'm very sorry – but he came and bowled to me last night, after you others had all been sent to bed early – and somehow I felt I had to do it!'
'Oh, but that doesn't count,' said Edward hastily; 'because we weren't all there. We'll take that christening off, and call it Uncle William. And you can save up the curate for the next litter!'
And the motion being agreed to without a division, the House went into Committee of Supply.
ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
'LET'S pretend,' suggested Harold, 'that we're Cavaliers and Roundheads; and you be a Roundhead!'
'O bother,' I replied drowsily, 'we pretended that yesterday; and it's not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow.' The fact is, I was lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active 'pretence' with its shouts and its perspiration, how much better – I held – to lie at ease and pretend to one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed off.
'Well then,' he began afresh, 'let's pretend we're Knights of the Round Table; and (with a rush) I'll be Lancelot!'
'I won't play unless I'm Lancelot,' I said. I didn't mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.
'O please,' implored Harold. 'You know when Edward's here I never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!'
Then I yielded gracefully. 'All right,' I said. 'I'll be Tristram.'
'O, but you can't,' cried Harold again. 'Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time.'
Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would have gone back in tears to the stuffy schoolroom.
'I don't care,' I said: 'I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!'
Then once more in this country's story the mail-clad knights paced through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing wrong; and bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to their caves. Once more were damsels rescued, dragons disembowelled, and giants, in every corner of the orchard, deprived of their already superfluous number of heads; while Palomides the Saracen waited for us by the well, and Sir Breuse Saunce Pité vanished in craven flight before the skilled spear that was his terror and his bane. Once more the lists were dight in Camelot, and all was gay with shimmer of silk and gold; the earth shook with thunder of hooves, ash-staves flew in splinters, and the firmament rang to the clash of sword on helm. The varying fortune of the day swung doubtful – now on this side, now on that; till at last Lancelot, grim and great, thrusting through the press, unhorsed Sir Tristram (an easy task), and bestrode her, threatening doom; while the Cornish knight, forgetting hard-won fame of old, cried piteously, 'You're hurting me, I tell you! and you're tearing my frock!' Then it happed that Sir Kay, hurtling to the rescue, stopped short in his stride, catching sight suddenly, through apple-boughs, of a gleam of scarlet afar off; while the confused tramp of many horses, mingled with talk and laughter, was borne to the ears of his fellow-champions and himself.
'What is it?' inquired Tristram, sitting up and shaking out her curls; while Lancelot forsook the clanging lists and trotted nimbly to the boundary-hedge.
I stood spell-bound for a moment longer, and then, with a cry of 'Soldiers!' I was off to the hedge, Sir Tristram picking herself up and scurrying after us.
Down the road they came, two and two, at an easy walk; scarlet flamed in the eye, bits jingled and saddles squeaked delightfully; while the men, in a halo of dust, smoked their short clays like the heroes they were. In a swirl of intoxicating glory the troop clinked and clattered by, while we shouted and waved, jumping up and down, and the big jolly horsemen acknowledged the salute with easy condescension. The moment they were past we were through the hedge and after them. Soldiers were not the common stuff of everyday life. There had been nothing like this since the winter before last, when on a certain afternoon – bare of leaf and monochromatic in its hue of sodden fallow and frost-nipt copse – suddenly the hounds had burst through the fence with their mellow cry, and all the paddock was for the minute reverberant of thudding hoof and dotted with glancing red. But this was better, since it could only mean that blows and bloodshed were in the air.
'Is there going to be a battle?' panted Harold, hardly able to keep up for excitement.
'Of course there is,' I replied. 'We're just in time. Come on!'
Perhaps I ought to have known better; and yet – ? The pigs and poultry, with whom we chiefly consorted, could instruct us little concerning the peace that lapped in these latter days our seagirt realm. In the schoolroom we were just now dallying with the Wars of the Roses; and did not legends of the country-side inform us how cavaliers had once galloped up and down these very lanes from their quarters in the village? Here, now, were soldiers unmistakable; and if their business was not fighting, what was it? Sniffing the joy of battle, we followed hard in their tracks.
'Won't Edward be sorry,' puffed Harold, 'that he's begun that beastly Latin?'
It did, indeed, seem hard. Edward, the most martial spirit of us all, was drearily conjugating amo (of all verbs!) between four walls; while Selina, who ever thrilled ecstatic to a red coat, was struggling with the uncouth German tongue. 'Age,' I reflected, 'carries its penalties.'
It was a grievous disappointment to us that the troop passed through the village unmolested. Every cottage, I pointed out to my companions, ought to have been loopholed, and strongly held. But no opposition was offered to the soldiers: who, indeed, conducted themselves with a recklessness and a want of precaution that seemed simply criminal.
At the last cottage a transitory gleam of common sense flickered across me, and, turning on Charlotte, I sternly ordered her back. The small maiden, docile but exceedingly dolorous, dragged reluctant feet homewards, heavy at heart that she was to behold no stout fellows slain that day; but Harold
