So Mrs Brown gave him a penny which he pocketed carefully as the nucleus of the eight and six.
Then he began to wander disconsolately round the grounds again. A small tent bearing the legend ‘Crystal Gazer’ attracted his attention. He looked at it with interest for some time, then turned to a bystander.
‘What’s a Crystal Gazer?’ he asked.
‘A sort of fortune teller,’ answered the bystander absently.
A sort of fortune teller . . . perhaps a fortune teller might tell him how to get eight and six. . . . William went off to find his mother. She was serving at a stall. He assumed his pathetic expression and wistful voice again.
‘Mother, please,’ he said. ‘May I have my crystal gazed?’
But Mrs Brown was busy and the effect of William’s pathetic expression and wistful voice was beginning to wear off.
‘No dear,’ she said very firmly. ‘I don’t believe in it. I think it very wrong to meddle with the future.’
William walked back to the tent deeply interested. The fact that his mother considered it wrong invested it with a sort of glamour in his eyes, and ‘meddling with the future’ sounded vaguely exciting. The tent was not opened yet, but was due to open in ten minutes. Already a queue of prospective clients was lined up before the doorway. William wandered round to the back of the tent. He had forgotten even the eight and six in a consuming curiosity about the crystal gazing. The back of the tent was quite deserted. Cautiously William descended to his hands and knees, held up the canvas and peeped underneath. Inside the tent was the young man with projecting teeth and a girl whom William recognised as the young man’s sister. The young man was just giving her a paper.
‘She doesn’t know you’re going to do it, does she?’ the young man was saying.
‘No. And I shall be wearing this veil. It quite hides my face.’
‘Well, just say to her what’s on this paper, will you?’
‘All right.’ The girl put the paper on the table and said, ‘Now do get out. I’ve got to start.’
The young man got out and after a few minutes the queue began to enter one by one. William lay on the ground and listened beneath the canvas flap. He found it rather dull. When it was a girl the crystal gazer saw either a dark man or a fair man in the crystal and when it was a man the crystal gazer saw either a dark girl or a fair girl in the crystal. . . .
WILLIAM LAY ON THE GROUND AND LISTENED.
It was so dull that William was just going to abandon his post of eavesdropping when Ethel entered. He saw the crystal gazer move the paper on her table, concealed from Ethel by a book, so that she could read it.
‘I see someone,’ she read impressively from the paper, ‘whose life is closely bound up with yours. At present you do not appreciate him. You are harsh and cold to him. But he has great qualities which you have not yet discovered. He is a far nobler character than you think.’
‘I SEE SOMEONE,’ THE CRYSTAL GAZER SAID IMPRESSIVELY, ‘WHOSE LIFE IS CLOSELY BOUND UP WITH YOURS.’
‘WHO IS HE?’ SAID ETHEL, WITH INTEREST.
‘Who is he?’ said Ethel, with interest.
‘I will show you how to tell who he is,’ said the crystal gazer. ‘I can see him here. He is giving you a present. I can even see the time. It is just five minutes after you leave this tent. I see him again. He is sitting next to you at tea. I see him again. He is meeting you on your way home. He asks you a question. Let me tell you that the happiness of your whole life depends upon your saying “yes”. That is all I have to tell.’
Looking deeply impressed Ethel left the tent by the front.
Looking equally impressed William left the tent by the back.
It was exactly five minutes after Ethel left the tent when William, carrying a penny bag of monkey nuts, met the young man carrying a five-shilling bunch of roses and wearing a fatuous smile.
‘You lookin’ for Ethel?’ said William.
‘Yes.’
‘She’s right over the other end by the gate,’ said William.
The young man hastened off towards the gate.
William went to his mother’s stall where Ethel was helping and handed her the bag of monkey nuts.
‘Here’s a little present for you, Ethel,’ he said.
Suspiciously Ethel opened it. Ordinarily she would have accepted it either as a deliberate insult or as a feeble attempt to buy her silence about the hose pipe and the strawberries. But she looked at the clock. It was just five minutes after her departure from the crystal gazer’s tent. . . .
She threw a bewildered glance at William’s expressionless face and received the bag with a confused murmur. It was certainly curious, a present just five minutes after leaving the tent . . . someone she didn’t appreciate. The young man did not find her till ten minutes afterwards and she was still puzzling so deeply over her mysterious present from William at the exact minute foretold by the crystal gazer that she hardly noticed the roses at all – merely murmured ‘thanks’ and put them on the side table and went on thinking about William presenting her with a bag of monkey nuts at the exact minute foretold by the crystal gazer.
The young man was on the look-out when Ethel and Mrs Brown went to the tea tent. He accompanied them, walking on the other side of Ethel, talking, and smiling amicably. William walked behind. They entered the tea tent. They approached the row of chairs. They began to sit down on three chairs, Mrs Brown at one end, Ethel in the middle and – it wasn’t till the young man was in the act of sitting down that he saw that William was on the seat. William was sitting between Ethel and him. Ethel was staring at William in amazement. William was gazing in front of him unperturbed and sphinxlike, as though in a trance. The young man asked William to change placed with him. William refused. He said that he’d better sit there so that he could pass things to his sister and his mother and Mrs Brown said that that was very nice of him, and thought how William’s manners were improving, and that she must remember to tell his father.
Ethel was very silent. She continued to gaze at William with mingled amazement and bewilderment and anxiety. The fortune teller had said ‘he’ – William had given her a present and here he was sitting next to her at tea – most curious, She was so silent that the young man finally gave up all attempts to entertain her and contented himself with glaring balefully at William. William continued to gaze blankly in front of him as if unaware of their presence and to make a very good tea.
People were going home now. Mrs Brown was staying to help dismantle the stalls but Ethel had set off home by herself. She was going the short cut home across the fields. She climbed over a stile. She saw the young man at the other end of the field standing by the further stile obviously waiting for her. She walked demurely and daintily towards him. Then suddenly as if he had sprung up from a ditch (which as a matter of fact he had) William appeared.
‘Please, Ethel,’ he said meekly, ‘will you give me eight and six?’
She stared at him open-mouthed with amazement at the request – the cheek of it! And then her thoughts travelled suddenly back to the crystal gazer . . . ‘meet on your way home’ . . . ‘request’ . . . ‘happiness of your whole life depends upon your saying yes.’
Ethel was superstitious. Dreadful things might happen to her if she refused and yet – eight and six. Still – no, she daren’t refuse. Anything might happen to her if she refused. . . . Furiously she opened her purse . . . eight and six – it would only leave her a pound till the end of the month.
Angrily she flung the coins at William and walked on. She felt so angry that when she reached the young man at the further stile she walked straight past him without looking at him or answering him when he spoke to her. . . .
Mr Brown sat in his chair in the drawing-room holding his head. On one side of him was Ethel and on the other side the ladies from next door. Ethel was feeling especially bitter at the thought of the eight and six. She had long ago repented of giving it to William. She’d never go to a crystal gazer again. She’
d been an absolute idiot. It was all rubbish . . . making her give William eight and six. . . . She felt she could almost kill William. But as she couldn’t do that she contented herself with expatiating on his horticultural failures.
‘He hadn’t touched the bed with it,’ she was saying.
‘It deluged us,’ said the ladies from next door.
‘He’d pulled up everything,’ said Ethel.
‘Came over in a perfect fountain and deluged us,’ said the ladies next door.
‘And he simply ate every one – every single one in the bed,’ said Ethel, ‘there wasn’t one left.’
‘Must have been done deliberately,’ said the ladies next door, ‘it absolutely deluged us.’
Mr Brown removed his head from his hands.
‘Where is he?’ he groaned.
But no one knew where he was.
He was a matter of fact at the other end of the village. He was swaggering up to the Outlaws with the brand new eight and six stumps under his arm. The Outlaws were gaping at him stupefied with amazement and admiration.
‘Said I’d get the money,’ said William airily, ‘so I – jus’ got it. Thought I might as well get the things an’ bring ’em along with me. Here they are.’
It was a moment worth living for.
William felt that he really didn’t care what happened to him after that.
CHAPTER 5
WILLIAM – THE AVENGER
THE Outlaws had noticed and disliked him long before the unforgivable outrage took place.
He had a toothbrush moustache, a receding chin, an objectionable high-pitched laugh and a still more objectionable swagger. He admired himself immensely.
Somehow the Outlaws sensed trouble from him as soon as they saw him, even before they had found out anything about him. The Outlaws, of course, always made it their business to find out all about any strangers who appeared in the village. His name, they discovered, was Clarence Bergson, and he was staying at the Holdings’, who were renting the Hall.
Now this was unfortunate because William liked the Holdings, or rather William liked Miss Holding, and for Miss Holding’s sake accepted Mr and Mrs Holding – large and pompous and dignified, and disapproving of all small boys.
William admired Miss Holding because she was very young and very, very pretty and had a twinkle in her eye and a nice smile. He admired her in fact so much that when first he heard that Clarence Bergson was a friend of hers and staying at the Hall, he had been quite willing to overlook the receding chin and the high-pitched laughter and the objectionable swagger.
Clarence, however, rushed on to his doom. He began by kicking William’s dog, Jumble, in the village street. Technically, of course, he had some justification, because Jumble made what appeared to be an entirely unprovoked attack on him, barking furiously and pretending to bite his plus-fours. In reality, it was not unprovoked. They were very loud plus-fours, and Jumble, although generally of the meekest and mildest disposition possible, could not endure loud plus-fours. He always barked at them and pretended to bite them. They roused him to fury. Jumble perhaps looked upon himself as the sartorial censor of the village. Anyway, on the day on which Clarence appeared in a pair of green and mauve plus-fours (very green and very mauve) with red tabs, Jumble, after one glance at them, made his usual feint of attacking them, barking in shrill disapprobation till Clarence’s foot sent him flying into the ditch.
The Outlaws met to consider what reprisals should be taken to avenge this insult to William’s dog. It was William, curiously enough, who minimised the whole affair.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I don’t like him, but – but I guess we’d better let him alone. You see, Jumble did bark at his trousers, an’ – well, anyway, I guess we’d better let him alone.’
The Outlaws were disappointed. William’s attitude was felt to be unworthy of a leader with a reputation for avenging to the full any insult offered to him or his dog or to a member of his band. Ginger had a dark suspicion of the shameful truth. He had long been troubled by a secret suspicion that William admired Miss Holding – William, the leader, the scornful despiser of all women. The suspicion had depressed him very much.
The meeting broke up gloomily. William was aware that his prestige was dimmed, but he clung to his decision. Clarence, as guest and friend of Miss Holding, must not be harmed. Little did Clarence think, as he swaggered about the village with his receding chin and high-pitched laugh and general objectionableness, how narrowly he had been saved. Meeting William in the village he did not even recognise him as the master of the dog whom he had kicked into the ditch. And, not knowing how narrowly he had escaped retribution, he proceeded to rush on madly to his doom.
The Outlaws – William and Ginger and Douglas and Henry – were playing at Red Indians. They were playing at Red Indians in one of Farmer Jenks’ fields. They were doing this because to play the game in Farmer Jenks’ field lent it a certain excitement which it would otherwise have lacked.
Farmer Jenks hated the Outlaws with that bitter hatred which the landowner always bears to the habitual trespasser, and pursued them determinedly but unavailingly, whenever he caught sight of them. Therefore, Farmer Jenks, all unknown to himself, took an important part in the game. He represented a hostile tribe of especially ferocious redskins. However much the normal activities of the Red Indians as enacted by the Outlaws should pall, there was always the stimulating knowledge that at any minute the hostile tribe, as enacted by Farmer Jenks, might appear upon the scene, and this knowledge gave to the whole affair the spice of danger and excitement without which the Outlaws found life so barren. The game this afternoon was proceeding rather flatly.
A chestnut tree represented a tent. The Indians Eagle Eye, Red Hand, Lion Heart and Swiftfoot (otherwise William, Ginger, Douglas and Henry) were engaged in various pursuits. Eagle Eye was out killing wild animals for supper, Red Hand was climbing a tree so as to be on the look-out for enemies, Lion Heart was examining the ‘spoor’ near the tent, and had just announced the recent passage of a herd of elephants and of hundreds of lions and tigers. Swiftfoot had gone out to collect twigs for a fire, but had soon tired of the pastime and was practising cartwheels by himself in a corner of the field.
Suddenly from Ginger’s vantage ground came the shrill cry, ‘The Black Hearts,’ and the stout purple-faced form of Farmer Jenks was seen bearing down upon them in the distance, while Ginger himself was seen to shin down the tree trunk with almost incredible rapidity.
At once Eagle Eye leapt from his slaughter of wild animals, Lion Heart from his examinations of ‘spoor’, and Swiftfoot from his cartwheels, and they set off across the field in headlong flight, two in either direction. They always split up into parties when fleeing from Farmer Jenks.
Farmer Jenks, of course, could not bear the thought that any of his quarry should elude him, and those fatal few moments during which he stood in the middle wondering which to follow, generally just enabled the Outlaws to escape. They would have escaped this time, too, if it hadn’t been for Clarence.
Farmer Jenks stood hesitating as usual for those few fatal seconds in the middle of the field, then decided to pursue Douglas and Henry, who (despite Henry’s tribal name) were slightly less fleet of foot than William and Ginger. And as I have said he would not have caught them if it hadn’t been for Clarence.
Clarence happened to be passing down the road at the moment and witnessed the rout of the braves by the Black Hearts. Clarence was highly amused by the spectacle and decided to play a little joke on them on his own account.
So he stood at the stile, which was their only means of exit, and caught them. He then handed over Douglas to the perspiring and purple-faced Farmer Jenks and held the wriggling Henry till Farmer Jenks had quite finished with Douglas. Then he handed him Henry. And all the while he stood by, laughing his high-pitched laugh.
Farmer Jenks was, as matter of fact, too breathless to do himself full justice in the chastisement of his captures, but he did the best he co
uld and then went panting and grunting back to his desecrated territory. Clarence, still laughing his high-pitched laugh, walked down the road. Douglas and Henry slowly and painfully rejoined William and Ginger in the old barn which was their usual meeting-place.
‘Well!’ began Douglas, in a tone of great bitterness and anguish.
‘Yes,’ said William grimly, ‘we saw. We jolly well saw.’
‘Comes of lettin’ him off when he kicked Jumble,’ went on Henry gloomily.
The silence that followed showed that the Outlaws considered this last outrage to be due solely to William’s unwarrantable clemency on the former occasion. It was clear that even William himself felt guilty.
‘Well,’ he said sternly, ‘we jolly well won’t let him off this time.’
‘What’ll we do to him?’ said Henry as he sat down uneasily. (Douglas more wisely did not attempt sitting down.) ‘I’d like to push him off a high precipice into the sea.’
‘Well, you can’t,’ said Douglas the literal, ‘because there aren’t any precipices here an’ there isn’t any sea. I’d like to kill him, shootin’ arrows into him, same as they did Saint Someone or other in a picture.’
‘Well, that’s silly,’ said William impatiently, ‘you’d only get hung for murd’rin’ him. Besides, you can’t do anything! He saw you an’ he’d know you by now. You leave this to me an’ Ginger. We’ll avenge you all right. Don’t you worry. We’ll jolly well avenge you. But you leave it all to us, ’cause he knows you, an’ he don’t know us. We were too far off for him to see us prop’ly.’
‘What’ll you do?’ said Douglas in the tone of one who thirsts for blood.
But William was a good tactician, forming no plans till he had surveyed the enemy’s territory.
‘We’ve gotter look round a bit first,’ he said. ‘You jus’ leave it all to Ginger an’ me.’
William the Good Page 10
