The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith

CHAPTER XXI

THE RETURN FROM THE BASTILE

HE

 stepped down easily and lightly among the sheep. They rose without surprise or disorder, still with strict attention to business continuing to munch at the grass they had plucked as they lay, for all the world as if a famous adventure-seeking general had been only the harmless but boresome shepherd who came to drive them out to pastures new. For all the surprise they showed they might have been accustomed from their fleeciest infancy to small, dirty, scratched, bruised, infinitely tattered imps of imperial descent arriving suddenly out of unexplored secret passages in ancient fortresses.

The great commander's first instinct was to rush for home and so make sure that Cook Mary the Second had done enough kidneys for breakfast. His second idea, and one more worthy of his military reputation, was carefully to conceal the entrance to the doorway, by which he had emerged from the passage he had so wonderfully discovered. No one knew how soon the knowledge might prove useful to him. As a matter of attack and defence the underground passage was certainly not to be neglected.

Then Hugh John drove the sheep before him out of the fallen tower. As he did so one of them coughed, stretching its neck and holding its head near the ground. He now knew the origin of the sound which had – no, not frightened him (of course not!), but slightly surprised him the evening before.

And, lo! there, immediately in front of him as he emerged, was the Edam Water, sliding and rippling on under its willows, the slim, silvery-grey leaves showing their white under-sides just as usual. There, across the river, were the cattle, standing already knee-deep in the shallows, their tails nervy and switchy on the alert for the morning's crop of flies. There was Mike going to drive them in to be milked. Yonder in the far distance was a black speck which must be Peter polishing straps and buckles hung on a pin by the stable door.

"Horrid beasts every one of them!" said Hugh John indignantly to himself, "going on all as comfortable as you please, just as if I had not been pining in a dungeon cell for years and years."

Then setting his cramped wet legs in motion, General Napoleon commenced a masterly retreat in the direction of home. He dashed for the stepping-stones, but he was in too much of a hurry to make sure of hitting them. He slipped from the first and went above the knee into the clear cool Edam Water. After that he simply floundered through, and presently emerged dripping on the other side. Along the woodland paths he scurried and scampered. He dashed across glades, scattering the rabbits and kicking up the dew in the joy of recovered freedom. He climbed a stone dyke into the home park, because he had no time to go round by the stile. He brought half of the fence down in his haste, scraping his knee as he did so. But so excited was he that he scarcely felt the additional bruise.

He ran up the steps. The front door was standing wide open, with the disreputable and tell-tale air of a reveller who has been out all night in evening dress. All doors have this look which have not been decently shut and locked during the dark hours. There was no one in the hall – no one in the dining-room – no one in the schoolroom, where the children's tea of the night before had never been cleared away. Hugh John noticed that his own place had been set, and the clean cup and plate and the burnished unused knife struck him as infinitely pathetic.

But he was hungry, and had no time to waste on mere feelings. His inner man was too insistent. He knew well where the pantry was (trust him for that!), and he went towards it at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He wished he had remembered to add a petition to his prayer that it might be unlocked. But it was now too late for this, so he must just trust in an unjogged Providence and take his chances.

The gods were favourable. They had evidently agreed that for one small boy he had suffered enough for that day. The pantry was unlocked. There was a lovely beefsteak pie standing on a shelf. Hugh John lifted it off, set it on the candle box, ungratefully throwing Sambo Soulis on the floor in order to make elbow room, and then with a knife and fork he proceeded to demolish the pie. The knife and fork he first put his hands on had obviously been used. But did General Napoleon stop to go to the schoolroom for clean ones? No – several thousand times no! Those who can, for a single moment, entertain such thoughts, are very far from having yet made the acquaintance of General Smith. Why, he did not even wait to say grace – though he usually repeated half-a-dozen the first thing in the morning, so as to have the job well over for the day. It is all right to say grace, but it is such a fag to have to remember before every meal. So Hugh John went into the wholesale business.

He was half through the pie before he looked about for something to drink. Lemonade, if it could be found, would meet the case. Hugh John felt this keenly, and, lo! the friendly Fates, with a smile, had planted a whole case of it at his feet. He knocked in the patent stopper with the handle of his knife (all things must yield to military necessity), and, after the first draught, what more was there left to live for – except a second bottle and the rest of the pie?

He was just doing his best to live up to the nice cool jelly, which melted in a kind of lingering chill of delight down his throat, when Janet Sheepshanks appeared in the doorway. Wearily and disheartenedly, she had come in to prepare for a breakfast which no one in all Windy Standard would eat. Something curious about the feeling of the house had struck her as she entered. She had gone from room to room, divided between hope and apprehension, and, lo! there before her, in her own ravished pantry, tuck-full of beefsteak pie and lemonade, sat the boy for whom they were even then dragging the deepest pools of the Edam.

"Oh, thank the Lord, laddie!" cried Janet, clasping her hands in devout thankfulness, "that He hath spared ye to your widowed faither – and to me, your auld unworthy nurse!"

The tears were running down her cheeks. Somehow her face had quite suddenly grown grey and worn. She looked years older than she had done yesterday. Hugh John paused and looked at her marvelling. He had a heavily laden fork half-way to his mouth. He wondered what all the fuss was about.

"Do get me some mustard, Janet," he said, swinging his wet legs; "and where on earth have you put the pickles?"

In the cross-examination which naturally followed, Hugh John kept his own counsel, like the prudent warrior he was. He left Janet and the others to suppose that, in trying to escape from his foes, he had "fallen" into the castle dungeon, and none of the household servants knew enough of the topography of the ancient stronghold to know that, if he had done so, he would probably have broken his neck. He said nothing about Nipper Donnan or any of the band by name. Simply and truthfully he designated them as "some bad boys," which certainly was in no way overstating the case.

Perhaps if his father had been at home he could not have hoodwinked his questioners so easily and completely. Mr. Picton Smith would certainly have gone deeper into the business than Janet Sheepshanks, who alternately slapped and scolded, petted and spoilt our hero all day long.

For some time Hugh John smelt of Araby the Blest and Spicy Ind; for he had ointments and liniments, rags and plasters innumerable scattered over his person in all directions.

He borrowed a cigarette (it was a very old and dry one) from the mantelpiece of his father's workroom, and retired to the shelter of the elm-tree to hold his court and take private evidence upon the events of yesterday.

As he went across the yard Black Donald ran bleating to him, and playfully butted at his leg.

Hugh John stopped in astonishment.

"Who found him?" he asked.

Sir Toady Lion proudly stepped forward. He had a garden rake in his hand, with which the moment before he had been poking Donald in the ribs, and making his life a burden to him generally.

He began to speak, but Hugh John stopped him.

"Salute, you little beast!" he said sternly.

Slowly Toady Lion's hand went up. He did not object to salute, but he had a vague sense that, as a matter of personal dignity, not even a general had a right to speak to a private thus – much less to a commissariat sergeant. However, what he had to say was so triumphant and overpowering that he waived the point and touched his forehead in due form.

"

I

 did – nobody but me. I d'livered him, all by mineself. I cutted the rope and d'livered Donald. Yes, I did – Prissy will tell 'oo. I wented into the Black Sheds all alone-y – and d'livered him!"

His words came tumbling over each other in his haste. But he laid strong emphasis upon the word "delivered," which he had just learned from Prissy. He meant to use it very often all that day, because it was a good word, and nobody knew the meaning of it except Quite-Grown-Ups.

General Napoleon Smith put on his most field-marshalish expression, and summoned Sir Toady Lion to approach.

He tapped him on the shoulder and said in a grand voice, "I create you General of the Comm'sariat for distinguished conduct in the field. From this time forth you can keep the key of the biscuit box, but I know just how many are in. So mind out!"

This was good, and Toady Lion was duly grateful; but he wished his good fortune put into a more concrete form.

"Can I have the biggest and nicerest saucer of the scrapings of the preserving-pan to-night?"

Hugh John considered a moment. An impulse of generosity swept over him.

"Yes, you can," he said nobly. Then a cross wave of caution caused him to add – "that is, if it isn't rasps!"

Now the children of the house of Windy Standard were permitted to clean out the boiling-pan in the fruit-preserving season with worn horn spoons, in order not to scratch the copper or crack the enamel. And rasp was Hugh John's favourite.

"Huh," said Toady Lion, turning up a contemptuous nose. "Thank 'oo for nuffin! I like wasps just as much as 'oo, Hugh John Picton Smiff!"

"Don't answer me back, sir!" – Hugh John was using his father's words and manner.

"Sall if I like," said Toady Lion, beginning to whimper. "Sall go and tell Janet Sheepshanks, and she'll give me yots of wasps! Not scrapin's neither, but weal-weal wasps – so there!"

"Toady Lion, I shall degrade you to the ranks. You are a little pig and a disgrace to the army."

"Don't care, I wants wasps – and I d'livered Donald," reiterated the Disgrace of the Army.

Hugh John once more felt the difficulty of arguing with Toady Lion. He was altogether too young to be logical. So he said, "Toady Lion, you little ass, stop snivelling – and I'll give you a bone button and the half of a knife."

"Let's see them," said Toady Lion, cautiously uncovering one eye by lifting up the edge of the covering palm. His commanding officer produced the articles of peace, and Toady Lion examined them carefully, still with one eye. They proved satisfactory.

"All yight!" said he, "I won't cry no more – but I wants three saucers full of the wasps too!"

CHAPTER XXII

MUTINY IN THE CAMP

HUGH

 John was holding his court under the weeping-elm, and was being visited in detail by his army. The Carters had come over, and, after a vigorous engagement and pursuit, he had even forgiven Sammy for his lack of hardihood in not resisting to the death at the great battle of the Black Sheds.

"But it hurts so confoundedly," argued Sammy; "if it didn't, I shouldn't mind getting killed a bit!"

"Look at me," said Hugh John; "I'm all over peels and I don't complain."

"Oh! I dare say – it's all very well for you," retorted Sammy, "you like to fight, and it was you that began the fuss, but I only fight because you'd jolly-well-hammer me if I didn't!"

"Course I would," agreed his officer, "don't you know that's what generals are for?"

"Well," concluded Sammy Carter, summing the matter up philosophically, "'tain't my castle anyway."

The review was over. In the safe quiet of the elm-tree shelter General Napoleon might have been seen taking his well-earned repose. He was surrounded by his entire following – except, of course, the two Generals of Division, who were engaged in sweeping out the stable-yard. But these were considered socially supernumerary at any rate, except (a somewhat important exception) when there was fighting to be done.

"I don't see that we've done so very much to make a brag about anyhow," began Sammy Carter.

General Smith dexterously caught him on the ear with a young turnip, which in company with several friends had wandered in of its own accord from the nearest field on the home farm.

"I should say

you

 didn't do much!" he sneered pointedly; "you hooked it as hard as you could after the first skirmish. Why, you haven't got a single sore place about you to show for it."

"Yes, I have!" retorted Sammy in high indignation.

"Well, let's see it then!" commanded his general in a kindlier tone.

"Can't – ladies present!" said Sammy succinctly, into the retreating rear-guard of whose division the triumphant enemy had charged with the pike snatched from his sister's hands.

"All

my

 wounds are in front.

I

 fought and died with my face to the foe!" said Hugh John in his noblest manner.

"And I d'livered Donald!" contributed Toady Lion complacently.

"Oh,

that

 ain't anything," sneered Sammy Carter, who was not in a good humour. His tone roused General Napoleon, who had the strong family feelings of all the Buonapartes.

"Shut up, Sammy, or I'll come and kick you. None of us did anything except Toady Lion. You ran away, and I got taken prisoner. Toady Lion is the only man among us!"

"I runned away too – at first," confessed the candid Toady Lion, who felt that he had so much real credit that he did not need to take a grain more than he deserved. "But I comed back quick – and I d'livered Donald out of prison, anyway – I did!"

Sammy Carter evidently had a sharp retort ready on the tip of his tongue, but he knew well the price he would have to pay for uttering it. Hugh John's eye was upon him, his right hand was closing on a bigger turnip – so Sammy forbore. But he kicked his feet more discontentedly than ever into the turf.

"Well," he said, changing the venue of the argument, "I don't think much of your old castle anyway. My father could have twice as good a castle if he liked – "

"Oh, 'course he could" – Hugh John's voice was distinctly ironical – "he might plant it on a peaty soil, and grow it from seed in two years; or perhaps he would like a cutting off ours!"

Mr. Davenant Carter was a distinguished agriculturist and florist.

"Don't you speak against my father!" cried Sammy Carter, glowering at General Napoleon in a way in which privates do not often look at their Commanders-in-Chief.

"Who's touching your father?" the latter said, a little more soothingly. "See here, Sammy, you've got your coat on wrong side out to-day. Go home and sleep on it. 'Tisn't my fault if you did run away, and got home before your sister – with a blue place on your back."

Sammy Carter flung out from under the shelter of the elm and went in search of Prissy, from whom in all his moods he was sure of comfort and understanding. He was a somewhat delicate boy, and generally speaking hated quarrelling as much as she did; but he had a clever tongue, which often brought him into trouble, and, like most other humorists, he did not at all relish a jest at his own expense.

As he went, he was pursued and stung by the brutally unrefined taunts of Hugh John.

"Yes, go on to Prissy; I think she has a spare doll. Go and play at 'house'! It's all you're good for!"

Thus encouraged by their general, the rest of the company – that is, Cissy and Sir Toady Lion, joined in singing a certain stirring and irritating refrain popular among the youth of Bordershire.

"Lassie-boy, lassie-boy, fie for shame!

Coward's your nature, and Jennie's your name!"

Sammy Carter stood poised for flight with his eyes blazing with anger.

"You think a lot of your old tumble-down castle; but the town boys have got it in spite of you; and what's more, they've a flag flying on it with 'Down with Smith!' on it. I saw it. Hooray for the town boys!"

And with this Parthian arrow he disappeared at full speed down the avenue.

For a moment Hugh John was paralysed. He tried to pooh-pooh the matter, but he could not but admit that it might very well be true; so he instantly despatched Toady Lion for Prissy, who, as we know, was the fleetest runner of them all. Upon her reporting for duty, the General sent her to bring back word if the state of affairs was as reported.

It was. A large red flag was flying, with the inscription in white upon it, "Down with Smith!" while above the inscription there was what looked like a rude attempt at a death's head and crossbones. Hugh John knew this ensign in a moment. Once upon a time, in his wild youth, he had served under it as a pirate on the high seas; but of this he now uttered no word.

It was in such moments that the true qualities of the born leader came out in General Napoleon Smith. Instantly he dismissed his attendants, put his finger to his forehead, and sat down to draw a map of the campaign in the genuine Napoleonic manner.

At last, after quite a while, he rapped upon the table.

"I have it," he cried, "we must find an ally." The problem was solved.

CHAPTER XXIII

CISSY CARTER, BOYS' GIRL

NOW

 Prissy Smith was a girls' girl, while Cissy Carter was a boys' girl. That was mainly the difference between them. Not that Prissy did not love boys' play upon occasion, for which indeed her fleetness of foot particularly fitted her. Also if Hugh John teased her she never cried nor told on him, but waited till he was looking the other way and then gave him something for himself on the ear. But on the whole she was a girls' girl, and her idea of the way to fight was slapping her dolls when they were naughty.

Now, Mr. Picton Smith said that most religion was summed up in two maxims, "Don't tell lies," and "Don't tell tales." To these Hugh John added a third, at least equal in canonicity, "Don't be dasht-mean." In these you have briefly comprehended all the Law and the Prophets of the house of Windy Standard.

Cissy Carter, however, was a tom-boy: you could not get over that. There was no other word for her. She never played with girls if she could better herself. She despised dolls; she hated botany and the piano. Her governess had a hard but lively time of it, and had it not been for her brother Sammy coaching her in short cuts to knowledge, she would have been left far behind in the exact sciences of spelling and the multiplication-table. As it was, between a tendency to scramble for scraps of information and the run of a pretty wide library, Cissy knew more than any one gave her credit for.

On one memorable occasion it was Cissy's duty to take her grandmother for a walk. Now the Dowager Mrs. Davenant Carter was the dearest and most fairy-like old lady in the world, and Cissy was very proud to walk into Edam with her. For her grandmother had not forgotten how good confections tasted to girls of thirteen, and there was quite a nice shop in the High Street. Their rose-drops especially were almost as good as doing-what-you-were-told-not-to, and their peppermints for use in church had quite the force of a religious observance.

But Mrs. Davenant Carter had a weak eye, and whenever she went out, she put a large green shade over it. So one day it happened that Cissy was walking abroad with her grandmother, with a vision of rose-drop-shop in the offing. As they were passing one of the villas nearest to their house, a certain rude boy, Wedgwood Baker the name of him, seeing the lame old lady tripping by on her stick like a fairy godmother, called out loudly "Go it, old blind patch!"

He was sorry the minute after, for in one moment Cissy Carter had pulled off her white thread gloves, climbed the fence, and had landed what Hugh John would have called "One, two, three – and a tiger" upon the person of Master Wedgwood Baker.

I do not say that all Cissy Carter's blows were strictly according to Queensberry rules. But at any rate the ungallant youth was promptly doubled up, and retreated yelling into the house, as it were falling back upon his reserves.

That same evening the card of Mrs. Baker, Laurel Villa, Edam, was brought to the diningtable of Mrs. Davenant Carter.

"The lady declines to come in, m'am. She says she must see you immediately at the door," said the scandalised housemaid.

Cissy's mother went into the hall with the card in her hand, and a look of gentle surprised inquiry on her face. There, on the doorstep was Mrs. Baker, with a young and hopeful but sadly damaged Wedgwood tagging behind her, like a weak-minded punt in tow of an ancient threedecker.

The injured lady began at once a voluble complaint.

"Look at him, madam. That is the handiwork of your daughter. The poor boy was quietly digging in the garden, cultivating a few unpretending flowers, when your daughter, madam, suddenly flew at him over the railings and struck him on the face so furiously that, if I had not come to the rescue, the dear boy might have lost the use of both his eyes. But most happily I heard the disturbance and went out and stopped her."

"Dear me, this is

very

 sad," faltered little Mrs. Carter; "I'm sure I don't know what can have come over Cissy. Are you sure there is no mistake?"

"Mistake! No, indeed, madam, there is no mistake, I saw her with my own eyes – a great girl twice Wedgwood's size."

At this point Mr. Davenant Carter came to the door with his table-napkin in his hand.

"What's this – what's this?" he demanded in his quick way – "Cissy and your son been fighting?"

"No indeed, sir," said the complainant indignantly; "this dear boy never so much as lifted a hand to her. Ah, here she comes – the very – ahem, young lady herself."

All ignorant of the trouble in store for her, Cissy came whistling through the laurels with half-a-dozen dogs at her heels. At sight of her Mrs. Baker bridled and perked her chin with indignation till all her black bugles clashed and twinkled.

"Come here, Cissy," said her father sternly. "Did you strike this boy to-day in front of his mother's gate?"

"Yes, I did," quoth the undaunted Cissy, "and what's more, I'll do it again, and give him twice as much, if he ever dares to call

my

 grandmother 'Old Blind Patch' again – I don't care if he is two years and three months older than me!"

"Did you call names at my mother?" demanded Cissy's father, towering up very big, and looking remarkably stern.

Master Wedgwood had no denial ready; but he had his best boots on and he looked very hard at them.

"Come, Wedgwood dear, tell them that you did not call names. You know you could not!"

"I never called nobody names. It was her that hit me!" snivelled Wedgwood.

"Now, you hear," said his mother, as if that settled the question.

"Oh, you little liar! Wait till I ca