William the Good

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘Well!’ said the picnic party, giving inadequate expression to its feelings.

  ‘He seemed to me all afternoon,’ said the girl with red hair, darkly, ‘like a man with something on his mind.’

  ‘Fancy him being able to run like that,’ said the youngest guest admiringly, ‘when he’s just eaten two dozen iced cakes and a pound of biscuits. I couldn’t.’

  ‘Hush, dear,’ said her mother absently.

  ‘There was something about a murder in this morning’s paper,’ said the girl with red hair. ‘I shouldn’t be a bit surprised if he did it.’

  ‘Surely not,’ objected someone.

  ‘Well, why should a policeman come for him and he run off like this? Most of these murders in the papers are done by quite ordinary people living quite ordinary lives, you know. He must be one of them. I expect he’ll have caught him by now. He’ll be hung of course.’

  ALL ALONG BY THE RIVER BANK WENT CLARENCE, AND BEHIND HIM IN HOT PURSUIT CAME THE POLICEMAN.

  ‘Well, he’ll have had a jolly good tuck-in first,’ said the youngest guest.

  ‘Hush, dear,’ said her mother. ‘Of course it may not be an actual murder. It may be merely robbing a bank or forging a will or something.’

  ‘I’ve always wanted to know a criminal,’ said the girl with red hair, heaving a sigh of content, ‘and I’ve thought he seemed queer all the afternoon. He’s been muttering to himself into the bushes and behaving most peculiarly all the time.’

  ‘Well, if you don’t mind,’ said the youngest guest’s mother, ‘I’ll take girlie home. One doesn’t want to be mixed up in this sort of thing – as a witness or jury or anything – and one never knows who a murderer will murder next. They say that it sort of grows on them. If he’s overpowered the policeman – and criminals have the strength of ten men – or is that lunatics? – he may be coming back here in search of fresh victims. He’s probably got homicidal mania – breaking out in spasms, you know.’

  She collected the youngest guest and drifted away.

  ‘I think I’ll go too,’ said the girl with red hair. ‘I don’t believe in running unnecessary risks and one does hear of such things in the papers. I could tell the minute I set eyes on him that he wasn’t normal.’

  Gradually the other guests followed her example, and when Clarence finally returned panting and breathless, only Miss Holding was left by the river bank among the ruins of the feast. Or rather only Miss Holding was apparently left, for William and Ginger had returned to their leafy shelter and were watching with interest to see what turn events would take.

  ‘Well!’ said Miss Holding, as Clarence, holding on to his sides with both hands, came panting up to her and sank on the river bank by her side. ‘What in the world—?

  ‘A mistake,’ gasped Clarence, ‘he’d heard – that a man – had had his – pocket picked – thought it – was me – mistake.’

  ‘But why on earth did you run away?’ said Miss Holding.

  ‘I – I don’t know,’ panted Clarence.

  ‘I remember once reading about a man who did that,’ said Miss Holding. ‘He’d had an awful dream about a policeman coming for him and the next day he took to his heels as soon as he set eyes on one.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Clarence, eagerly accepting the explanation, ‘that was what happened to me. I had a most terrible dream about a policeman last night and as soon as I saw this one coming up to me my – my dream sort of – came over me again and I – I just ran away. Force of association!’

  Miss Holding laughed.

  ‘Well, I think I can squeeze you out another cup of tea to refresh you and there’s a lot of plain cake left in spite of the mysterious disappearance of the iced ones.’

  Clarence lay back on the river bank and smoked cigarettes and drank tea and ate plain cake. Then, refreshed and invigorated, he began to talk again. He began to talk about himself.

  He began to tell her all about his past life – what noble and heroic things he had done and what a noble and heroic character he was. Miss Holding was kind to him. She led him on. The listeners’ spirits fell. This was not how they had meant their vengeance to end – in this pleasant conversation on the river bank. All they seemed to have done was to have cleared the stage for Clarence’s courtship.

  And it was quite evident that Clarence had completely forgotten his victim who now lay (presumably) in the throes of concussion. They were full of virtuous horror at the thought. Then they turned and looked at each other – Ginger with the serene, trusting face of one who knows that his leader will evolve some plan, and William with that ferocious scowl which in William betokened deep thought. Then suddenly the scowl cleared and there flashed across his freckled face the light that betokened inspiration.

  ‘I’ll just go down to the river and wash this cup,’ Miss Holding was saying. ‘No, don’t move. As a matter of fact I’d much rather wash it myself. I never let anyone else wash my picnic cups. They don’t do them properly.’

  Clarence, nothing loth, remained on the bank in the sunshine while Miss Holding went down to the water. Then – just as Clarence’s thoughts were happily flitting round the attractive figure that he imagined himself to be cutting – suddenly that awful boy’s face appeared through the bushes again making horrible grimaces. The smile dropped from Clarence’s face.

  ‘Go away!’ he hissed, putting out a hand to push William’s face back into the bushes.

  ‘I’ve just come from him,’ said William. ‘He’s ever so much worse.’

  ‘It’s not my fault,’ hissed Clarence.

  ‘I know it isn’t,’ said William sympathetically. ‘I keep tellin’ ’em it wasn’t really your fault an’ that you didn’t run over him on purpose, but they won’t listen to me. His father’s out lookin’ for you now. He’s an awful man with cross-eyes an’ very long arms. He says he’s going to wring your neck.’

  Clarence went pale, but at that moment Miss Holding returned from washing up the cup, and Clarence, relieved at the sudden disappearance of William’s face, made an effort to entertain her again. He told her about the time he had made a century at cricket at his prep school, but somehow, despite the fact that she was obviously impressed, he couldn’t put any real zest into the narrative. Cross-eyed and with very long arms.

  Meanwhile William and Ginger were creeping silently away from the bushes. It was not for nothing that the Outlaws played Red Indians nearly every day. Not even the cracking of a twig betrayed their passage.

  Outside on the main road they looked cautiously up and down to see if the policeman (who was presumably thirsting for their blood) was anywhere in sight. To their relief he wasn’t, and to their still greater relief the cross-eyed man was. He was still sitting on the seat outside the Staff of Life, contemplating the road crossways with his ferocious smile. William assumed his guileless expression again and they approached him.

  ‘Please, sir,’ began William politely, ‘would you like a few cakes?’

  The man glared at him and at Ginger simultaneously, and smiled his ferocious smile.

  ‘Wouldn’t mind,’ he admitted, condescendingly.

  ‘Well,’ went on William, ‘there’s a gentleman an’ a lady havin’ a picnic down on the river bank jus’ behind those bushes, an’ the gentleman told me to find someone what’d like the cakes what’s left over an’ send ’em to him to fetch ’em.’

  The man rose slowly.

  ‘Well – I don’t mind,’ he said, and set off towards the river bank.

  Clarence had passed on from the story of the century he had made at his prep school and was telling her about the time when he’d put a drawing-pin on a master’s chair at his public school.

  Miss Holding seemed very much interested. Everything seemed to be going very nicely. His spirits were gradually rising. He didn’t believe that he’d really hurt the boy or that his father was out looking for him. ‘Cross-eyed and long arms’ – it was ridiculous. He wouldn’t be surprised if that wretched boy had made up the whole thing.


  Then suddenly he stopped short. His eyes bulged and his mouth dropped open. A man with cross-eyes and long arms and a ferocious smile was coming down the river bank, towards him. It was true. It was the boy’s father coming to wring his neck.

  With a yell of terror as loud and shrill as a factory siren Clarence leapt to his feet, leapt over the bushes and rushed down the road. He did not stop running till he reached home.

  The cross-eyed man and Miss Holding stood gazing after his retreating figure. Then the cross-eyed man turned, and looking simultaneously at Miss Holding and the bushes said with dispassionate interest:

  ‘’As somethin’ stung him?’

  ‘I don’t know what’s happened to him,’ said Miss Holding.

  ‘Well,’ said the cross-eyed man, abandoning all attempts to solve the mystery of Clarence’s flight, ‘they told me that if I came along ’ere they’d give me some cake.’

  ‘You can have all that’s left,’ said Miss Holding, ‘but who told you?’

  One of the cross-eyed man’s eyes had espied a movement in the neighbouring bushes. He dived into it and emerged holding William by his collar.

  ‘This ’ere nipper,’ he said.

  The cross-eyed man had departed with his booty.

  William and Ginger sat on the river bank on either side of Miss Holding.

  ‘It’s a pity we gave him all the buns and plain cake,’ said Miss Holding, ‘because I’m sure you’d have liked some.’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said William politely, and added with perfect truth, ‘we – we’ve sort of had enough.’ A gleam of intelligence shone in Miss Holding’s eyes.

  ‘How long have you been in that bush?’ she said.

  ‘Quite a long time,’ said William, ‘on and off.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Miss Holding, ‘you accounted for the two dozen iced cakes and the pound of biscuits.’

  William assumed his guileless expression.

  ‘Well,’ he admitted, ‘Mr Bergson did kin’ly give us something to eat.’

  ‘Suppose,’ said Miss Holding, ‘that you tell me all about it.’ So they told her.

  At the end she dried her eyes and said: ‘It’s perfectly priceless and the best part of it all is that I’m sure it will make him go home.’

  ‘IT’S A PITY WE GAVE HIM ALL THE BUNS,’ SAID MISS HOLDING, ‘BECAUSE I’M SURE YOU WOULD HAVE LIKED SOME.’

  And it did.

  They had a lovely journey home packed into Miss Holding’s two-seater, and the first person they saw in the village was Mrs Holding.

  ‘Whatever’s happened to Clarence?’ said Mrs Holding.

  ‘What has?’ said Miss Holding.

  ‘He came home in a most peculiar condition,’ went on Mrs Holding. ‘He said he’d been running all the way. And he took the first train back to town and wants his things sent on after him. He told me not to give his address to anyone.’

  ‘I’m so glad,’ said Miss Holding serenely, ‘because I was getting bored even with pulling his leg.’

  ‘But what happened?’ said her mother.

  ‘He just got up and ran home, didn’t he, children?’ said Miss Holding dreamily. ‘I should think that he suffers from spasmodic insanity. These two little boys have been such a help to me this afternoon, mother. Come and let’s find somewhere to have an ice cream, children.’

  William hesitated.

  ‘We oughter g’n’ tell Douglas and Henry that we’ve avenged them first,’ he said.

  ‘Good,’ said Miss Holding. ‘Go and find them and bring them along too, and we’ll all go and have ices somewhere.’

  And as William remarked blissfully that evening, it was one of the jolliest vengeances they’d ever had.

  CHAPTER 6

  PARROTS FOR ETHEL

  THE Outlaws were depressed. Ordinary pursuits had lost their charms. They neither ran nor leapt nor played Red Indians nor ranged the countryside nor carried on guerrilla warfare with the neighbouring farmers. Instead they held meetings in each other’s back gardens, in each other’s shrubberies and summer-houses and tool sheds, eloquently discoursing on the gravity of the situation, but finding no remedy for it.

  The cause of the whole trouble was the fatal attractiveness of William’s sister Ethel. Not that William or any of his friends actually admitted the fatal attractiveness. Ethel was to them an ordinary disagreeable ‘grown up’ with a haughty manner and impossible standards of cleanliness, who happened also to possess a combination of red hair and blue eyes that had a strange and unaccountable effect upon adult members of the opposite sex. They cherished always a stern and bitter contempt for Ethel’s admirers. And now Douglas’s brother George and Ginger’s brother Hector had joined the number. It is impossible to describe the shame and horror the Outlaws felt at this. That any member of any family of theirs should stoop to the supreme indignity of admiring Ethel. . . . William felt as deeply outraged as any of them. He felt that the infatuation of Douglas’s brother and Ginger’s brother for his sister exposed the whole body of Outlaws to the scorn of their friends and the laughter of their foes.

  The possibility of it had hitherto never even occurred to them. Douglas’s brother George and Ginger’s brother Hector, though objectionable in every other way as only elder brothers can be, had at least been satisfactory in that, almost as much as the Outlaws themselves, they held the female sex in scorn. It was Ethel’s influenza that seemed to have made the difference. Ethel had withdrawn from public life for a term of fourteen days or so with the high temperature, the streaming eyes and the settled pessimism which, taken together, constitute influenza. Evidently the sudden absence of Ethel’s familiar figure from the lanes and roads of her native village awoke strange feelings in the breast of George and Hector, and the emergence of Ethel from her sick room at the end of the fortnight with, as it seemed by contrast with her absence, redoubled beauty, completed their enslavement. They abandoned their old manner of cold indifference to her. They smiled at her ingratiatingly, they bought new ties and new socks, they waited at spots that it was probable that Ethel would pass. Their old friendship with each other cooled. When waiting at the same spot for a word or a glance from Ethel they affected not to see each other. They passed each other in the village street with no other recognition than a scornful curl of the lip. They no longer discussed the football results with each other. In the privacy of their home circle they naturally vented all the bitterness of the pangs of love upon their younger brothers.

  The Outlaws had met in the summer-house of William’s garden. Henry was away staying with an aunt and only the three deeply involved parties – William, Douglas and Ginger – were present.

  ‘People laughin’ at ’em,’ said Douglas bitterly. ‘I know they are from somethin’ someone said to me yesterday. S’nice for me,’ he added with an air of impersonal bitterness, ‘s’nice for me havin’ a brother what everyone’s laughin’ at.’

  ‘’S jus’ as bad for me,’ retorted Ginger. ‘An’ ’s not only that. It’s makin’ Hector crabbier an’ crabbier at home.’

  This reminded Douglas of his latest grievance.

  ‘Took it off me,’ he said fiercely, ‘took it off me and threw it away. An’ it was new too. ’S no good at all now. Threw it into the ditch an’ it’s full of mud now an’ won’t play anyway whatever I do. It’s ru’ned. An’ it was the best mouth-organ I’ve ever had. It made a noise you could hear for miles and miles. And he took it off me ’n’ threw it away. An’ I wasn’t makin’ much noise. I was only practisin’ – practisin’ jus’ outside his room. Well, I din’ know he was makin’ up po’try about Ethel. He needn’t ’ve come out roarin’ mad at me like that. I bet I’ve got’s much right to practise my mouth-organ as he’s got writin’ po’try to Ethel.’

  ‘Jus’ ’xactly what Hector did to me ’n my trumpet last night,’ said Ginger, torn between impersonal interest in the coincidence and a personal sense of grievance at the memory of his wrongs. ‘Came out ravin’ mad at me jus’ ’cause I was sitt
in’ on the top of the stairs practisin’ a trumpet. Came ravin’ mad out of his room an’ took it off me an’ broke it. D’lib’rately broke it. I bet he he was writin’ po’try ’bout Ethel too.’ He threw William a cold glance. ‘Seems to me,’ he said, ‘a pity some people can’t stop their sisters going’ about the world makin’ all this mis’ry. Breakin’ people’s trumpets an’ throwin’ people’s mouth-organs away.’

  ‘Ethel din’t break your trumpets an’ throw your mouth-organs away,’ said William with spirit. ‘Pity some people can’t stop their brothers actin’ so stupid whenever they see a girl.’

  ‘They don’t,’ retorted Ginger, ‘they’ve never done it before. They’ve always acted to girls same as we do – till this set-out with Ethel,’ he ended gloomily.

  ‘Well,’ said William with odious complacency, ‘that only proves that Ethel’s nicer ’n all the other girls.’

  Their attitude seemed to be inexplicably deteriorating from a common, lofty scorn of the work of the blind god to a partisanship each of his particular family.

  ‘Oh, it does, does it?’ said Ginger aggressively.

  But William was not to be drawn into personal combat on behalf of Ethel. He was, as a matter of fact, a little bored with the whole proceedings. He disapproved of the situation no less than he had always disapproved of it, but meeting in summer-houses and tool sheds and discoursing on it did not seem to make it any better and meanwhile the days of the holidays were slipping by wasted. Moreover, the day before an uncle of William’s had taken him up to London, and so William was taking for the time being a broader perspective of life than his friends.

  ‘Never mind,’ he said pacifically. ‘There’s other things to do than keep talkin’ about it an’ there’s other people in the world ’sides Ethel an’ your ole George an’ Hector.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Douglas bitterly, ‘you’d say that if it was your mouth-organ, wun’t you?’