William in Trouble

by Richmal Crompton

  There was a rush to the packing-case. There were screams of surprise and excitement as the treasure-trove was discovered. There was a general scrimmage for the cakes. Someone rescued them from the general scrimmage and carried them to the table where they were handed round.

  Hubert Lane and Bertie Franks watched in silence, their mouths hanging open in dismay, their eyes almost dropping out with surprise and horror. Gradually the clamour subsided. Everyone looked at William and at Monk with deep though mystified respect.

  ‘I say,’ said a small boy as distinctly as he could through a large mouthful of cream bun. ‘I say, can it do anythin’ else?’

  ‘’Course it can,’ said William. ‘Look at that other packing-case over there.’

  In silence they all turned to look at the other packing-case. There was a thrill of tense expectancy about them. The only movement was the movement of lips and the mechanical journeys of laden hands to mouths, for not once did the late combatants cease in their hearty consumption of the newly discovered treasure. The plates of buns stood scorned and neglected. One had even been knocked on to the floor and no one had troubled to pick them up.

  WILLIAM MADE MONK DESCRIBE A CIRCLE WITH ITS ARM. ‘NOW,’ SAID WILLIAM, ‘MONK’S BEWITCHED THAT CASE SO’S IT’S FULL OF LOVELY CAKES.’

  ‘That’s jus’ an’ ole empty box, isn’t it, Hubert?’ said William.

  Hubert gulped.

  ‘Y-y-y-y-y-yes,’ he spluttered. William made Monk wave his other arm.

  ‘Well,’ he announced, ‘now he’s bewitched it so’s it’s full of lovely bottles of ginger-beer.’

  There was a rush to the box and cries of excitement as the guests discovered the secret hoard. They cheered loudly. They grabbed at the bottles. They drank from them without troubling to fetch their glasses. There were bottles for all and to spare. They wallowed gloriously in heavenly ginger-beer. Hubert and Bertie watched in silence. They had turned rather yellow and their eyes were still starting out of their heads. They didn’t know what to make of it all.

  THEY ALL WATCHED WITH INTEREST, EYES STARING, MOUTHS STILL MECHANICALLY EATING BUN.

  Again the clamour gradually subsided and everyone looked at William and Monk.

  They were replete with sugar cakes and lemonade. They were gloriously happy. They were eager for more.

  ‘What else can he do, William?’ they said.

  ‘He can do anythin’ I tell him to,’ said William.

  ‘Tell him to do somethin’ else.’

  ‘All right,’ said William obligingly. ‘Who’d like a nice new penknife?’

  ‘I would,’ yelled a dozen voices excitedly.

  ‘Well, you’ve not got one in your pocket to give to anybody, have you, Hubert?’ said William.

  Hubert went from yellow to green.

  ‘No, I’ve not,’ he spat out viciously.

  ‘No,’ said William to the others, ‘he’s not got one in his pocket. Now, who’d like a nice new magnifying glass?’

  ‘I would,’ screamed the entire company.

  ‘Bertie hasn’t got one in his pocket now, have you, Bertie?’

  ‘N-n-n-no,’ said Bertie, glaring round at them all fiercely, ‘I tell you I haven’t.’

  William made Monk describe circles in the air with both his arms.

  ‘He says,’ said William solemnly, ‘that though they haven’t got them in their pockets now – if you take them and dip their heads three times in the rain tub – Hubert’s and Bertie’s – you’ll find ’em in their pockets when you’ve finished – a penknife in Hubert’s and a magnifying glass in Bertie’s, but you mustn’t look first, and you must duck ’em three times, or you won’t find them.’

  With a yell of terror Hubert turned and ran from the shed. He was followed closely by Bertie, who was followed closely by a yelling, excited crowd consisting of both Hubert Laneites and Outlaw supporters who had forgotten even the remains of the cakes and ginger-beer in their frenzied thirst for penknives and magnifying glasses.

  They caught Hubert and Bertie most conveniently just at the rain tub.

  The four Outlaws walked happily homewards. They still bore the dust and wounds of the afternoon’s conflict, but they were gloriously happy. They were surfeited with cakes and ginger-beer and triumph over their enemies. Over the fence that bordered the Lane mansion they could see that excitement and turmoil still reigned. The boy who first ducked Hubert had found in his pocket the prophesied penknife. The boy who first ducked Bertie had found in his pocket the prophesied magnifying glass. And every other boy was struggling for a chance to duck Bertie or Hubert in hopes that the magic process would produce yet more penknives and magnifying glasses in their pockets. Bertie and Hubert were being ducked and ducked again.

  Belief in Monk’s powers and lust for penknives and magnifying glasses had temporarily overshadowed all more humane feelings. The yells of Hubert Lane and Bertie Franks rose unavailing to the heavens. Evidently the Lane domestic staff had decided to turn a deaf ear to all that went on that afternoon.

  The Outlaws had with commendable foresight withdrawn before any crisis should arise (for example, the return of the parent Lanes) in which Monk’s vaunted magical powers should prove useless.

  They walked jauntily. Henry carried the magic Monk openly and in triumph upon his shoulder. They munched cream cakes (of which they had taken a large supply before making their unostentatious exit). Occasionally, one of them would chuckle – deep, mirthful, reminiscent chuckles – as he thought over the events of the afternoon.

  ‘I say, William,’ said Henry at length, ‘what made you think of it?’

  William dug his unspeakably dirty hands into his pockets and elevated his unspeakably snub nose. ‘Oh jus’ nat’ral cleverness,’ he said with a swagger.

  CHAPTER 7

  WILLIAM AMONG THE POETS

  THE Outlaws were crouching behind a bush in the wood, watching Robert, William’s seventeen-year-old brother.

  Robert was evidently unaware of his audience. He held a book in his hand from which as he walked he read aloud in an impassioned tone of voice, gesticulating eloquently with his free arm. Often he stood still in order to read and gesticulate to better effect. ‘Oh, Love,’ he said in a deep, thrilling voice, striking an attitude before an oak tree.

  ‘Oh Love,

  Oh, Life,

  Oh, all the world to me,

  My heart beats to thy beats—’

  Still reading, he began to walk on, with long fierce strides.

  ‘Oh, soul of mine—’

  He tripped over a bramble and fell ungracefully to the ground. An irrepressible snigger arose from the bush behind which the Outlaws were concealed. Robert picked himself up and looked around suspiciously. But the Outlaws had withdrawn just in time. No human being was in sight and Robert, reassured, strode on again. For one dreadful moment he had thought that those little wretches were following him. Meanwhile the ‘little wretches’ were creeping in his wake from bush to bush, watching his every movement.

  Robert, as the result of a short attack of influenza, during which he had been thrown on his own resources, had ‘discovered’ poetry. He had finished all the available novels of adventure and so was thrown back upon a book of poetry, lent to him by his sister Ethel, and had been surprised and delighted by its possibilities. It was glorious to read out aloud and he thought must be fairly easy to write. At present he was confining himself to the reading of it.

  As soon as he recovered from the attack of influenza he began to take long solitary walks in the woods, reading aloud as he went with appropriate gestures. At least, he thought that they were solitary walks.

  He did not know that the Outlaws, always curious as to Robert’s activities, had begun to follow him on his poetic expeditions, and found the spectacle of absorbing interest.

  Yesterday had been especially interesting. Yesterday Robert, feeling a sudden misgiving as to his appearance (he certainly looked extremely healthy, despite the influenza, and not over int
ellectual) had ‘borrowed’ a pair of his father’s horn-rimmed spectacles. He was intensely pleased with the air of intelligence they imparted to his countenance, but this advantage was counterbalanced by the fact that they were a little too big and he had to hold them on all the time. The Outlaws, however, thoroughly enjoyed it. The sight of Robert holding out a book with one hand, holding on his spectacles with the other, reading aloud as he walked and stumbling over briars at intervals had been a diverting one.

  Robert was turning round. The Outlaws promptly dodged behind their bush. Robert, after colliding with a tree, turned on his tracks and came past them, still reading.

  ‘My bleeding heart,’ he read, ‘is racked with pains untold—’

  The Outlaws’ heads, popping up from their place of concealment as soon as he had passed, gazed after him with interest. They ‘scouted’ him to the end of the wood. Nothing particularly thrilling happened, except that, with eyes still fixed on his book, he walked through a stream that he evidently hadn’t meant to walk through, because he said: ‘Thy face is like a star to me – Oh, damn!’ and the ‘Oh, damn!’ presumably wasn’t part of the poem.

  At the edge of the wood he put the book into his pocket, shed his air of poetic intensity, and set off to walk home in a normal fashion.

  When his figure had finally disappeared, the Outlaws emerged from behind the bush.

  ‘He was quite good today, wasn’t he?’ said William, with the air of one who has staged the show.

  As a matter of fact it was William who had introduced the Outlaws to the highly-diverting entertainment of Robert Reading Poetry to Himself in the Wood.

  ‘All right,’ said Ginger critically, ‘but not so funny as when he had the specs.’

  ‘Well, p’raps he’ll bring ’em again tomorrow,’ said William hopefully.

  But Robert didn’t. He didn’t go to the woods at all the next day. The Outlaws hung about the Brown homestead ready and eager for their daily entertainment, but Robert seemed disinclined to provide it. Robert, instead of pocketing his little book of poetry and sallying forth to the woods, sat by the morning-room fire reading the newspaper, unaware of the four anxious faces watching him covertly through the window.

  Finally William said: ‘Well, he’s not goin’ to go out actin’ funny today – so let’s go’n play Red Indians.’

  So they went and played Red Indians.

  But somehow the zest was gone out of Red Indians. Instead of being Red Indians they kept wondering what Robert was doing and whether they were missing anything. Finally, William, throwing away the single hen’s feather that represented his status as Chief of a Thousand Braves, said: ‘I wonder if he’s jus’ goin’ out later or if he’s doin’ it in a diff’rent place?’

  And Ginger said gloomily: ‘F’r all we know, he’s carryin’ on funnier than ever an’ we’re missin’ it all.’

  So the Outlaws stopped being Red Indians and returned to the pursuit of Robert.

  They peeped in cautiously through the morning-room window, where they had last seen Robert, but Robert was not there.

  ‘Told you so!’ said Ginger, gloomily. ‘He’s gone off bein’ funny somewhere without us.’

  At this minute Mrs Brown came into the room. She saw her son and her son’s friends clustered round the open window, and said mildly to William:

  ‘What do you want, dear?’

  ‘We’re looking for Robert,’ said William.

  ‘What do you want him for, dear?’ said Mrs Brown.

  Mrs Brown was always pleased to see any sign of friendship between her two sons. Sometimes she thought that dear William did not admire and respect his elder brother as he should, and that dear Robert did not love and cherish his little brother as he should. Still, Mrs Brown always hoped for the best.

  ‘What do you want him for, dear?’ she said again.

  William was silent a minute. He couldn’t tell his mother that he wanted to watch Robert’s moments of poetic ecstasy with unholy glee. So he said:

  ‘I – I-er-I thought I’d sort of like to have a talk with him.’

  Mrs Brown beamed. She’d always known that sooner or later dear Robert would inspire that love and admiration in William that an elder brother should inspire in a younger one.

  ‘He’s just gone to see one of his friends – Hector, I think it was, dear,’ she said. ‘Go there after him. I’m sure he’d be so glad to have a little talk with you.’

  Even Mrs Brown didn’t really, in her heart of hearts, believe this last statement, but as I have said, Mrs Brown lived in a permanent state of hoping for the best.

  The Outlaws set off together for Hector’s house. Ginger, who was Hector’s younger brother, led the way.

  ‘He can’t be carryin’ on funny there,’ said Ginger, gloomily. ‘He’ll only be talkin’ or playin’ tennis or doin’ somethin’ ordinary.’

  But the Outlaws wanted to make quite sure. They had stalked and enjoyed Robert the Poet for so many days that they were loth to let him go. They wanted to make quite sure that he had relinquished his career of (involuntary) public entertainer. A cautious reconnoitring of the outside of the house revealed no trace of either Robert or Hector.

  Their four bullet heads peered furtively over the window sill of each downstairs window; but drawing-room, dining-room, morning-room, were empty.

  Then Henry said: ‘I b’lieve I can hear someone talkin’ in the summer-house.’

  So the Outlaws crept in single file to the back of the summer-house, where there was a convenient window.

  Robert and Hector were in the summer-house, but they were not alone. With them were Douglas’s brother George, Jameson Jameson (a faithful satellite of Robert’s), and – Oswald Franks. The eyes of the Outlaws dilated with horror when they fell upon Oswald Franks. Oswald Franks was the elder brother of Bertie Franks, and Bertie Franks was one of the Outlaws’ sworn foes.

  Oswald, beneath a very superior manner, was quite as bad as Bertie. He, too, was fat and pale, and cowardly and greedy. But he talked very well, chiefly on art and literature, and William had had a horrible suspicion for some time that Robert admired him. That a brother of his should admire – admire – a brother of Bertie Franks! William ground his teeth at the thought. And now Oswald Franks sat with Robert and his friends, as one of them. William glared furiously at the unconscious Robert. The only redeeming feature of the situation was that quite evidently Robert and not Oswald was directing proceedings. He was standing up and making what appeared to be quite an impassioned speech.

  The Outlaws strained their ears to catch Robert’s words.

  ‘And so I think,’ Robert was saying, ‘that we ought to form a Society, a – er – a sort of Society to study it an’ to write it – poetry, I mean. For all we know, some of us may turn out to be famous poets. It’s all a – a sort of matter of practice – just like motor-driving. What I mean to say is that when you’re sort of beginning to drive it all seems very difficult – changing the gears and steering and that sort of thing – but when you’ve done it a few times it sort of comes easier till you can drive as well as anyone – well,’ added Robert, remembering an unpremeditated meeting between his runabout and a lamp-post the week before, ‘well, nearly as well.

  ‘Well, what I mean is that it’s probably the same with poetry. If we make a rule that each member of the Society’s got to make up a poem every week, well, it’ll begin to come easier an’ easier, just like driving a motor does, till we’re all just as good at it as anyone could be and – and probably some of us’ll turn out to be famous poets. If you’re interested, that is, and I don’t see how anyone can help being interested in poetry. It’s so – noble. It makes you sort of feel you want to live a better life.

  ‘I’ve been reading a lot lately and that’s what it did to me. I feel I’m quite a different sort of man now to what I was before I began to read poetry. Of course we all did poetry for exams at school, but it didn’t have that effect upon us because we were too young to want to be noble �
�� or else it was the wrong sort of poetry. The right sort of poetry’s uplifting. It sort of uplifts you. Well, what I’m trying to say is that I propose that we young (I don’t mean really young of course), that us—’

  Robert stopped for a moment, frowning. He was searching desperately for a word. Then his brow cleared; he had found it: ‘We devotees of poetry should form a band of poets like Keats and Shelley and Wordsworth and Shakespeare and the others – and meet to read poetry and write poetry.’

  He sat down blushing, suddenly overwhelmed by the force of his own eloquence.

  The others were obviously impressed.

  ‘I don’t mind poetry,’ admitted Jameson Jameson. ‘I’d just as soon do poetry as anything, because it’s such rotten weather and one gets tired of hanging round the house. I once,’ he ended modestly, ‘nearly got a prize for a limerick.’

  Then Oswald Franks arose and began to hold forth on the Art of Poetry in a manner that completely eclipsed both Robert and Jameson Jameson. Certainly Oswald could talk. Not even his bitterest enemy could deny that. He could have talked both hind legs off the proverbial donkey. He held forth glibly on Poetry in all its branches. Nothing that he said was very original, but he possessed the supreme gift of saying it with an air. He ended by saying that they ought to do the thing in a proper sort of way and make a sort of society of it and as Robert had thought of it, Robert ought to be President. He added that he himself would be quite willing to combine the offices of Secretary, Treasurer and Vice-President. The others, he added, would be the members of the Society. Though as I have remarked before, Oswald had nothing startlingly novel to say, still his way of saying it was rather effective. He spoke with an air of weighty knowledge.

  Before the others quite realised what they were doing they had elected Robert as President and Oswald Franks as Secretary and Treasurer and Vice-President, and themselves as members of the Society.

  ‘I now propose,’ went on Oswald, who was carrying all before him, ‘that we have a meeting this time next week and each write a poem before that and meet somewhere and read our poems and decide which is the best, and that we give a sort of prize to the one who writes the best one.’