William The Conqueror

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘Is he keeping the Jones’s maids on?’

  ‘No. They’ve gone on holiday. He’s got his old nurse, they say, to look after him. Deaf and very old, but a good worker. He’s come here to be quiet. He’s writing something or other. Well, I really must go, dear—’

  Evidently they were coming to the door. William and Ginger flew with haste, but not without sound, up to William’s bedroom. As the echoes died away they heard Mrs Brown’s plaintive but resigned voice ejaculate the two words, ‘Those boys!’

  Upstairs in William’s bedroom William turned to Ginger with a meaning look. ‘Writing something,’ he repeated. ‘Old nurse! That’s all they know – Huh!’

  The Outlaws met in the old barn. They discussed the affair in all its bearings. They went over again the previous history of Dmitritch as related in ‘Hunted by the Reds’; they wondered where the noble Paulovitch was now, and what had happened to the fair princess.

  ‘I bet he’s somewhere round here,’ said Ginger earnestly. ‘I bet he’d never leave old Dimtritch to do his dastardly deeds without tryin’ to stop him. I bet he wrote that book to let people know – people like us what had the sense to see it mus’ be real, an’ I bet he’s somewhere round here doggin’ old Dimtritch an’ tryin’ to catch him an’—’

  ‘Gentlemen,’ said a voice at the open door of the barn. ‘You are right in everything. I am Paulovitch, and I am here trying to foil the old villain once more.’

  The Outlaws gasped. A tall young man stood framed in the sunlight of the open door smiling at them. Certainly such might well be Paulovitch. But surprise had deprived the Outlaws of their usually so ready speech. The young man came into the barn and stood looking down at them.

  ‘I was resting there by the hedge outside,’ he said simply, ‘and I heard everything you said. It is all quite true. I knew that I had found some trusty friends at last.’

  ‘You – you’re Paulovitch,’ gasped William.

  The young man bowed.

  ‘That is my name,’ he said.

  ‘You – you wrote the book?’ gasped William again.

  ‘I wrote the book,’ said the young man.

  ‘An’ did he imprison the princess like what you said?’ said William.

  ‘Yes,’ said the young man.

  ‘An’ – an’ you rescued her?’ gasped Douglas.

  ‘Alas, no!’ said the young man. ‘The attempt was unsuccessful. For the purposes of the book I pretended that I had rescued her. In reality he still holds her captive.’

  ‘N-n-n-not at “The Limes”?’ stammered Henry, quivering with excitement.

  ‘Yes,’ said the young man, ‘at “The Limes”. I’m going to try to rescue her tonight.’

  The Outlaws thrilled visibly.

  ‘C-c-can we help?’ squeaked Henry almost hysterical with excitement.

  ‘Yes,’ said the young man. ‘I think you can help quite a lot.’

  Mr Finchley was sitting alone in his study. It was his old nurse’s day out, and Mr Finchley was guarding the house. He never left the house unguarded. He was guarding it quite comfortably with a pipe and whisky and soda and a pile of foolscap paper.

  Suddenly there came a violent knock at the door. Mr Finchley groaned and cursed softly to himself. Then he went to answer the door.

  Four boys stood on the doorstep. Curious. And only the other day four boys had suddenly appeared, first looking at him over a hedge and later fleeing down the road behind him. Four boys seemed to be haunting him. Most curious!

  ‘May we speak to you?’ said one of them in a deep voice.

  ‘Er – yes, I suppose so,’ said Mr Finchley without much enthusiasm. ‘Come in, come in!’

  They trooped into the hall. Suddenly Mr Finchley felt rather touched. He found generally that his crooked nose and cross-eyes put children off. On the whole he was not sorry that this should be so, but he felt rather touched that these children had sought him out of their own accord.

  ‘We want to show you something in Mr Jones’s back garden, if you don’t mind,’ said William, the expression of his freckled face stern and forbidding.

  Most curious children. However— ‘All right,’ he said. ‘All right – come on.’

  He closed the door very carefully and shuffled with them down the hall and out at the other door into the back garden.

  As soon as they had gone down the little garden path to the right Henry murmured that he had dropped his handkerchief in the hall and ran back. In the hall he cautiously opened the front door, then hastily returned to the others. He had seen Paulovitch crouching in the shadow of the laurels waiting for the opening of the door. It would not be long now before he had his princess again. Mr Finchley was beginning to feel irritable. He’d had a splendid idea for the next chapter and this would entirely put it out of his head. He began to feel distinctly annoyed.

  ‘Well, well, well, well!’ he said. ‘What is it? What is it?’

  ‘We just want to show you somethin’ down at the bottom of the garden,’ said William.

  He spoke with excessive politeness and Mr Finchley was softened. Funny things, children, and, anyway, he might get some copy out of them. He always found a difficulty with any child characters he had to introduce into his books. It might be worth it. It certainly might be worth it. Not that these were normal children, he thought moodily – far from it. They were most – most strange children. Still, he was growing interested, in spite of himself. After all, anything might happen. It might be the beginning of a real adventure. He’d never had a real adventure. The greatest romance in his life had been the collecting of old English spoons. He had a valuable and almost unique collection of them. He’d brought them away with him for safety. He kept them in a safe in his study. He gloated over them every night. He loved them. Oh, bother these boys!

  He wanted to get back to his spoons and his writing. That splendid idea he’d had for the next chapter had evaporated already. He knew it would. Oh, bother these boys –

  ‘Now, come, come!’ he said, trying to speak breezily, but firmly. ‘I’m rather a busy man, you know. I can’t waste all the afternoon.’

  ‘We know you’re a busy man,’ said William meaningly, ‘we know all about that!’

  Curious the way he said it, thought Mr Finchley.

  He felt suddenly apprehensive. There was something strange about them. He hoped – he hoped they weren’t – dangerous or anything.

  ‘It’s this we want to show you,’ said William.

  They had arrived at an empty pigsty that stood at the farther end of Mr Jones’s back garden.

  Mr Finchley stared at it in amazement, his apprehension growing stronger each moment.

  ‘Er – what?’ he stammered.

  ‘Jus’ go in an’ you’ll find somethin’ interestin’,’ said William.

  Mr Finchley had not the slightest intention of going in. But he was taken unawares. One of the terrible boys suddenly opened the gate and another of the terrible boys suddenly pushed him in. Then they banged to the gate, bolted it and stood in a row glaring at him over the wall.

  There was no doubt at all in Mr Finchley’s mind now. He was in the presence of four youthful lunatics. Quite possible. There must be an institution for youthful lunatics in the neighbourhood from which these had escaped. He must be very careful. They were probably endowed with lunatic strength as they were certainly endowed with lunatic cunning.

  He smiled at them uneasily over the pigsty door in an attempt to propitiate them. It would, of course, be fatal to anger them. They probably had weapons concealed about them even now.

  ‘You’re Dimtritch, aren’t you?’ said William sternly.

  Mad. Hopelessly, ravingly mad. He must humour them, of course. ‘Er – yes,’ he said looking round for an unguarded spot in the pigsty wall.

  ‘An’ you know Paulovitch,’ went on William.

  ‘Y – yes,’ said Mr Finchley. ‘Very well. Very well, indeed.’

  ‘An’ you’ve taken the princess priso
ner, haven’t you?’ said William sternly.

  ‘Er – yes,’ admitted Mr Finchley.

  His eye picked out a nice unguarded spot in the wall and he made for it and scrambled up, only to be pushed down by a combined attack of the four young lunatics.

  ‘Well, he’s rescued the princess now,’ said William triumphantly, ‘rescued her – so there!’

  THE MAN SMILED AT THEM UNEASILY OVER THE PIGSTY DOOR. ‘YOU’RE DIMTRITCH, AREN’T YOU?’ SAID WILLIAM.

  ‘Really?’ said Mr Finchley, feigning great interest in the communication. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William. ‘He’s foiled you an’ rescued her an’ – an’ you’d better be careful an’—’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Mr Finchley. He attacked another likely spot in the wall as he spoke, climbed over, successfully eluded his captors and sprinted up the garden path more nimbly than he had ever sprinted anywhere in his life before. The four youthful lunatics pursued him equally nimbly into the house.

  ‘She’s gone,’ shouted William. ‘He’s taken her away all right.’

  They followed him into the study. The safe door hung open, and the safe was empty.

  ‘My spoons,’ screamed Mr Finchley in dismay. ‘Someone’s taken my spoons!’

  The young man was caught before he reached London. He was carrying the professor’s spoons in a leather bag. At his trial he made quite a racy story of his coup. William and his friends were addressed as Dmitritch and Paulovitch for many weeks afterwards. They went about morose and bitter.

  William said that that’s what came of trying to help people, and Henry said it was enough to turn you into a communal yourself.

  Very gradually the memory of the affair faded and the Outlaws again held up their manly heads. But if you want really to annoy William and the others you’ve only to mention Dmitritch or Paulovitch or the princess.

  CHAPTER 8

  THE SUNDAY-SCHOOL TREAT

  WILLIAM was going to the village Sunday-school treat. He had been attending the village Sunday school under protest for the last year, and his enforced attendance had qualified him for an invitation to the annual treat.

  The year before William had attended a superior Sunday school for the sons of gentlefolk held by one Miss Lomas at her home. Since her nervous breakdown, however (which occurred shortly after William joined her class), he had, with the majority of her scholars, joined the village Sunday school. The smile with which the Vicar received the intimation that William was to return to the fold had been a mirthles one.

  He had enjoyed William’s short-lived removal to the more rarefied atmosphere of Miss Lomas’s Sunday school for the sons of gentlefolk. William himself, though philosophical, was little better pleased. He endured Sunday school in the same spirit in which he endured clean collars and having his hair brushed. He knew that he went there because his father said that he might as well go into an asylum straight off if he couldn’t get a little peace from that boy on Sunday afternoons.

  William looked forward to the treat with mixed feelings. On the one hand, his friends (known as the Outlaws) would be there. That would make for mirth and freedom. On the other hand, his grown-up sister Ethel would be there, and that would not make for mirth and freedom. Ethel always made it her duty to keep a stern eye upon her younger brother.

  Ethel was to help with the tea, not because she had any official connection with the Sunday school, but because she was in the transitory state of falling back on the curate. Between her more exciting flirtations Ethel always fell back on the curate. He was a pale, dreamy youth with a long neck who proposed to Ethel several times during each of the falling back periods, but without much real hope. As a matter of fact, he had grave and quite justifiable doubts as to her suitability for the position of clergyman’s wife. She was too pretty for one thing. Still, he proposed regularly and indulged in a certain half-pleasurable mournfulness each time she rejected him.

  William allowed himself to be washed and brushed and put into his best suit, his mind fixed hopefully upon the treat to come. He had heard that there were to be races and coconut shies and a roundabout. It was not so much upon these lawful pleasures that his mind was set as upon such lawless ones as were likely to offer themselves to him in the company of his beloved Outlaws.

  There was Ethel, of course . . . He considered her presence at a Sunday-school treat as little short of an outrage. But he looked confidently to the curate to occupy most of her time. William always kept a wary eye upon his pretty sister’s ‘affaires’. He had on more than one occasion found a knowledge of them useful.

  He did not walk with Ethel to the field where the treat was to be held. He always avoided walking with Ethel. She objected to any interesting mode of progression such as leaping along with a stick or crawling through the hole in the hedge or dragging one’s feet through the dead leaves.

  So William, spick and span and shining with cleanliness and neatness, set off alone some time after Ethel. He walked along the top of the fence by the side of the ditch. It was a difficult balancing feat and more than once proved too much for him. However, he picked himself up from the muddy ditch and climbed up for another attempt.

  When the fence came to an end he walked along in the ditch by the side of the hedge. Neither was that an easy feat, as the bottom of the ditch was full of water and he had to walk with one foot halfway up either bank. Occasionally he slipped. He very cleverly cut off a long corner by road, climbing through a hole in the hedge and walking across a ploughed field.

  On reaching the treat field the first person he saw was Ethel talking to the curate by the gate. As her eyes fell upon him they dilated with horror. Ethel had left at home a small boy, clean and tidy and arrayed in his best. There met her gaze now a creature whose cap nestled crookedly among spiky dishevelled locks, whose roseate face was streaked with mud, whose collar was awry and begrimed with muddy fingermarks, whose nether limbs were encased in mud up to the knees, who slashed on all sides as he walked with a muddy stick salvaged from the ditch.

  ‘What on earth have you been doing?’ she said severely.

  William’s eyes opened innocently.

  ‘Me?’ he said, surprised and indignant. ‘Do you mean me? Nothin’. Jus’ comin’ here. Same as anyone else. I’ve jus’ come straight here. I’ve not done anythin’.’

  Ethel turned angrily on her heel and walked away, followed by her enamoured curate.

  William walked on whistling to himself and slashing gaily with his stick. Every boy knows that there are few sensations more delightful than the sensation of slashing with a stick. But occasionally a slash goes further than you mean it to. A stout gentleman, who had come to help with the races, gave a yell and seized William by the shoulders.

  ‘Look here, my little man,’ he said, trying without success to sound more pleasant than he felt. ‘Look here, my little chap, don’t go about hitting people’s ankles like that. Let me have your stick, my little man. It’s dangerous, you know, in these crowds.’

  William, seeing that resistance would be useless, surrendered his stick and walked on, his hands in his pockets, whistling.

  Miss Lomas, who had risen from the bed of her nervous breakdown for the first time in order to ‘watch the dear little children enjoying themselves,’ heard the sound of William’s whistling and hastily retired again. Mere words cannot do justice to William’s whistle. It suggested the violent squeaking of a slate pencil drawn forcibly across a slate.

  He made his way across the field, his whistle opening a way for him through the crowds as by magic, and at the farther end of we field met the other Outlaws, Henry, Douglas and Ginger, with a whoop of joy. All had set out from home in a condition of spotless cleanliness, and all had in a remarkably short time managed to return to their normal and dishevelled condition.

  An impromptu wrestling match (which was merely an expression of joy at reunion) was completing the transformation when the ringing of a bell summoned them to the middle of the field. There stood the f
at gentleman surrounded by a crowd of boys. He saw William and gave him an apprehensive and sickly smile. He didn’t like the look of William at all. There was a certain absence of meekness and conformity about William’s expression that he felt boded no good.

  Besides, there was the memory of that stick. He was already half regretting that he’d offered to help at all.

  ‘Fall in for the first race, little boys,’ he said. ‘We’ll have ten in the first heat.’

  He put William among the first ten. He thought he’d like to get William over. He was the sort of man who goes to the dentist at once if he feels a twinge of toothache. He arranged the ten in a nice straight row. William crouched in correct position, hands on the ground, and looked about him.

  ‘Ready!’ said the stout gentleman. William suddenly noticed his next-door neighbour. It was Hubert Lane – a school-fellow and a mortal enemy. Between William and his friends and Hubert Lane and his friends raged a deadly feud.

  ‘Steady!’ said the fat gentleman.

  Slowly and deliberately Hubert Lane put out his tongue at William.

  ‘Go!’ said the fat gentleman.

  To his surprise the line did not move forward as he had expected. Instead the boy – that boy, the boy he disliked, the boy who looked so untidy and possessed that fiendish whistle and had hit him on the ankle – hurled himself suddenly upon his next-door neighbour and a general scrimmage ensued. All the other competitors joined the fray. Apparently half were on that boy’s side and half on the other.

  More and more boys joined in from among the bystanders till every boy present was engaged in the combat on one side or the other, and the racecourse was a bedlam of fighting, shouting, scrimmaging boys. The fat gentleman rang his bell frienziedly, and finally ran almost in tears to find someone in authority to quell the riot. He found the curate first.

  The curate was standing with Ethel near the entrance gate. He was flattering himself that he was getting on with her better than he had ever got on before when the fat man came up.