William The Outlaw

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘It’s more than an hour and a half,’ she said pathetically, ‘since I had any nourishment at all. The effect on my nervous system will be serious. My nerves are in such a condition that I must have nourishment every hour, every hour at least. Go and get me a glass of milk at once, boy.’

  William obligingly went downstairs and looked for some milk. He couldn’t find any. At last he came upon a bowl of some milky-looking liquid. Much relieved he filled a glass with it and took it upstairs to the golden-haired lady. She received it with a suffering expression and closing her eyes took a dainty sip. Then her suffering expression changed to one of fury and she flung the glass of liquid at William’s head. It missed William’s head and emptied itself over a Venus de Milo by the door, the glass, miraculously unbroken, encaging the beauty’s head and shoulders. William watched this phenomenon with delight.

  ‘You little fiend!’ screamed the lady, ‘it’s starch!’

  ‘Starch,’ said William. ‘Fancy! An’ it looked jus’ like milk. But I say, it’s funny about that glass stayin’ on the stachoo like that. I bet you couldn’t have done that if you’d tried!’

  The lady had returned to her expression of patient suffering. She spoke with closed eyes and in a voice so faint that William could hardly hear it.

  ‘I must have some nourishment at once. I’ve had nothing – nothing – since my breakfast at nine and now it’s nearly eleven. And for my breakfast I only had a few eggs. Go and make me some cocoa at once . . . at once.’

  William went downstairs again and looked for some cocoa. He found a cupboard with various tins and in one tin he found a brown powder which might quite well be cocoa, though there was no label on it. Ever hopeful, he mixed some with water in a cup and took it up to the lady. Again she assumed her suffering expression, closed her eyes and sipped it daintily. Again her suffering expression changed to one of fury, again she flung the cup at William and again she missed him. This time the cup hit a bust of William Shakespeare. Though the impact broke the cup the bottom of it rested hat-wise at a rakish angle upon the immortal bard’s head, giving him a rather debauched appearance while the dark liquid streamed down his smug countenance.

  ‘It’s knife powder,’ screamed the lady hysterically. ‘Oh, you murderous little brute. It’s knife powder! This will be the death of me. I’ll never get over this as long as I live – never, never, NEVER!’

  William stood expectant, awaiting the inevitable attack of hysterics. But it did not come. The lady’s eyes had wandered to the window and there they stayed, growing wider and wider and rounder and rounder and wider, while her mouth slowly opened to its fullest extent. She pointed with a trembling hand.

  ‘Look!’ she said. ‘The river’s flooding.’

  William looked. The part of the garden which could be seen from the window was completely under water. Then – and not till then – did William remember the hose pipe which he had left playing at full force in the back yard. He gazed in silent horror.

  ‘I always said so,’ panted the lady hysterically, ‘I said so. I said so to Dr Morlan. I said “I couldn’t live in a house in a valley. There’d be floods and my nerves couldn’t stand them,” and he said that the river couldn’t possibly flood this house and it can and I might have known he was lying and oh my poor nerves, what shall I do, what shall I do?’

  William gazed around the room as if in search of inspiration. He met the gaze of Venus de Milo soaked in milk and leering through her enclosing glass; he met the gaze of William Shakespeare soaked in water and knife powder and wearing his broken cup jauntily. Neither afforded him inspiration.

  ‘It rises as I watch it – inch by inch,’ shrilled the lady, ‘inch by inch! It’s terrible . . . we’re marooned . . . Oh, it’s horrible. There isn’t even a life belt in the house.’

  William was conscious of a great relief at her explanation of the spreading sheet of water. It would for the present at any rate divert guilt from him.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed looking out with her upon the water-covered garden. ‘That’s what I bet it is – it’s the river rising.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she screamed, ‘you must have known. Why, now I come to think of it, you were dripping wet when you first came into the room.’

  ‘Well,’ said William with a burst of inspiration, ‘I din’ want to give you a sudden shock – what I thought it might give you tellin’ you you was macarooned—’

  ‘Oh, don’t talk,’ she said. ‘Go down at once and see if you can find any hope of rescue.’

  William went downstairs again. He waded out to the hose pipe and wrestled again with the tap beneath the gushing water. In vain. He waded into a neighbouring shed and found three or four panic-stricken hens. He captured two and took them up to the lady’s room, flinging them in carelessly.

  ‘Rescued ’em,’ he said with quiet pride, and then went down for the others. The mingled sounds of the squeaking and terrified flight of hens and the lady’s screams pursued him down the stairs. He caught the other two hens and brought them up, too, carelessly flinging them in to join the chaos. Then he went down for further investigations. In another shed he found a puppy who had climbed into a box to escape the water and there was engaged in trying to catch a spider on the wall. William rescued the puppy, and took it upstairs to join the lady’s menagerie.

  ‘Rescued this, too,’ he said as he deposited it inside.

  It promptly began to chase the hens. There ensued a scene of wild confusion as the hens, with piercing squawks, flew over chairs and tables, pursued by the puppy.

  Even the lady seemed to feel that hysterics would have no chance of competing with this uproar, so she began to chase the puppy. William returned to the deluge in which he was beginning to find an irresistible fascination. He had read a story not long ago in which a flood figured largely and in which the hero had rescued children and animals from the passing torrent and had taken them to a place of safety at the top of a house. In William’s mind the law of association was a strong one. As he gazed upon the surging stream he became the rescuer hero of the story and began to look round for something else to rescue. There appeared to be no more livestock to be rescued from the sheds. He waded down to the road, which also was now partially under water, and looked up and down. A small pig had wandered out of a neighbouring farm and was standing contemplating the flooded road with interest and surprise. The hero rescuer of William’s story had rescued a pig. Without a moment’s hesitation William waded up to the pig, seized it firmly round the middle before it could escape, and staggered through the deluge with it and into the house. Though small it showed more resistance than William had expected. It wriggled and squeaked and kicked in all directions. Panting, William staggered upstairs with it. He flung open the door and deposited the pig on the threshold.

  ‘Here’s somethin’ else I’ve rescued,’ he said proudly.

  The lady was showing unexpected capabilities in dealing with the situation. She had taken the china out of the china cabinet and had put the hens into it. They were staring through the glass doors in stupid amazement and one of them had just complicated matters by laying an egg.

  The lady was just disputing the possession of a table runner with the spirited puppy who thought she was having a game with it. The puppy had already completely dismembered a hassock, a mat and two cushions. Traces of them lay about the room. Venus and Shakespeare, still wearing their rakish head adornments, were gazing at the scene through runnels of starch and liquid knife-powder. Miss Polliter received the new refugee in a business-like fashion. She had evidently finally decided that this was no occasion for the display of nervous systems. She seemed, in fact, exhilarated and stimulated.

  ‘Put him down here,’ she said. ‘That’s quite right, my boy. Go and rescue anything else you can. This is a noble work, indeed.’

  The puppy charged the pig and the pig charged the china cabinet. There came the sound of the breaking of glass. The egg rolled out and the puppy fell upon it with wild
delight. The hens began to fly about the room in panic again.

  ‘HERE’S SOMETHIN’ ELSE I’VE RESCUED,’ SAID WILLIAM, PROUDLY.

  William hastily shut the door and went downstairs to continue his work of rescuing. He had by this time almost persuaded himself that the flood was of natural origin and that he was performing heroic deeds of valour in rescuing its victims. Again he looked up and down the road. He felt that he had done his duty by the animal creation and he would have welcomed a rescuable human being. Suddenly he saw two infants from the Infants School coming hand in hand down the road. They stared in amazement at the flood that barred their progress. Then with a touching faith in their power over the forces of nature and an innate love of paddling, they walked serenely into the midst of the stream. When they reached the middle, however, panic overcame them. The smaller one sat down and roared and the larger one stood on tip-toe and screamed. William at once plunged into the stream and ‘rescued’ them. They were stalwart infants but he managed to get one tucked under each arm and carried them roaring lustily and dripping copiously up to Miss Polliter’s room. Again Miss Polliter had restored as if by magic a certain amount of order. She had cooped up the hens by an ingenious arrangement of the fireguard and she had put the pig in the coal-scuttle, leaving him an airhole through which he was determinedly squeezing his snout as if in the hope of ultimately squeezing the rest of him. The puppy had dealt thoroughly with the table runner while Miss Polliter was engaged on the hens and pig, and was now seeing whether he could pull down window curtains or not.

  ‘PUT HIM DOWN HERE,’ MISS POLLITER SAID. ‘THIS IS A NOBLE WORK, INDEED.’

  William deposited his dripping, roaring infants.

  ‘Some more I’ve rescued,’ he said succinctly.

  Miss Polliter turned to him a face which was bright with interest and enterprise.

  ‘Splendid, dear boy,’ she said happily, ‘splendid. . . . I’ll soon have them warmed and dried – or wait – is the flood rising?’

  William said it was.

  ‘Well, then, the best thing would be to go to the very top of the house where we shall be safer than here!’

  Determinedly she picked up the infants, went out on to the landing and mounted the attic stairs. William followed holding the puppy who managed during the journey to tear off and (presumably – as they were never seen again) swallow his pocket flap and three buttons from his coat. Then Miss Polliter returned for the pig and William followed with a hen. The pig was very recalcitrant and Miss Polliter said ‘Naughty,’ to him quite sternly once or twice. Then they returned for the other hens. One hen escaped and in the intoxication of sudden liberty flew squawking loudly out of a skylight.

  In the attic bedroom where Miss Polliter now assembled her little company of refugees she lit the gas fire and started her great task of organisation.

  ‘I’ll dry these dear children first,’ she said. ‘Now go down, dear boy, and see if there is anyone else in need of your aid.’

  William went downstairs slowly. Something of his rapture and excitement was leaving him. Cold reality was placing its icy grip upon his heart. He began to wonder what would happen to him when they discovered the nature and cause of his ‘flood,’ and whether the state to which the refugees were reducing the house would also be laid to his charge. He waded out to the hose pipe and had another fruitless struggle with the tap. Then he looked despondently up and down the road. The ‘flood’ was spreading visibly, but there was no one in sight. He returned slowly and thoughtfully to Miss Polliter.

  Miss Polliter looked brisk and happy. She had apparently forgotten both her nervous system and its need of perpetual nourishment. She was having a game with the infants who were now partially dried and crowing with delight. She had managed to drive the hens into a corner of the room and had secured them there by a chest of drawers. She had tied the pig by a piece of string to the wash-hand-stand and it was now lying down quite placidly, engaged in eating the carpet. One hen had escaped from its ‘coop’ and was running round a table pursued by or pursuing (it was impossible to say which) the puppy. Miss Polliter was playing pat-a-cake with the drying infants and seemed to be enjoying it as much as the infants. She greeted William gaily.

  ‘Don’t look so sad, dear boy,’ she said. ‘I think that even though the river continues to rise all night we shall be safe here – quite safe here – and I daresay you can find something for these dear children to eat when they get hungry. I don’t need anything. I’m quite all right. I can easily go without anything till morning. Now do one more thing for me, dear boy. Go down to my room on the lower floor and see the time. Dr Morlan said that he would be home by six.’

  Still more slowly, still more thoughtfully, William descended to her room on the lower floor and saw the time. It was five minutes to six. Dr Morlan might arrive then at any minute. William considered the situation from every angle. To depart now as unostentatiously as possible seemed to him a far, far better thing than to wait and face Dr Morlan’s wrath. The hose pipe was damaged, the garden was flooded. Miss Polliter’s room was like a battlefield after a battle, strange infants and a pig were disporting themselves about the house, a destructive puppy had wreaked its will upon every cushion and curtain and chair within reach (it had found that it could pull down window curtains).

  William very quietly slipped out of the front door and crept down the drive. The flood seemed to be concentrating itself upon the back of the house. The front was still more or less dry. William crept across the field to the stile that led to the main road. Here his progress was barred by a group of three who stood talking by the stile. There was a tall pompous-looking man with a beard, a small woman and an elderly man.

  ‘Oh, yes, we’ve quite settled in now,’ the tall, pompous-looking man was saying. ‘We’ve got a resident patient with us – a Miss Polliter who is a chronic nervous case. We are rather uneasy at having to leave her all today with only the cook and house-boy. Unfortunately our housemaid left us suddenly yesterday but we trust that things will have gone all right. An aunt of mine was reported to be seriously ill and we had to hurry to her to be in time but unfortunately – ahem – I mean fortunately – we found that she had taken a turn for the better so we returned as soon as we could.’

  ‘Of course,’ said the woman, ‘we’d have been back ever so much earlier if it hadn’t been for that affair at the cave.’

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said the doctor, ‘very tragic affair, very tragic indeed. Some poor boy . . . there were a lot of people there trying to recover the body and they wanted to have a doctor in the unlikely case of the boy being still alive when they got him out. I assured them that it was very unlikely that he would be alive and that I had to get back to my own patient . . . and it would only be a matter of a few minutes to send for me. . . . The poor mother was distraught.’

  ‘What had happened?’ said the other man.

  ‘Some rash child had crawled into an opening in the rock and had not come out. He must have been suffocated. His friends waited for over an hour before they notified the parents and I am afraid that it is too late now. They have repeatedly called to him but there is no response. As I told them, there are frequently poisonous gases in the fissures of the rock and the poor child must have succumbed to them. So far all attempts to recover the body have been unsuccessful. They have just sent for men with pickaxes.’

  William’s heart was sinking lower and lower. Crumbs! He’d quite forgotten the cave part of it. Crumbs! He’d quite forgotten that he’d left the Outlaws in the cave waiting for him. The house-boy and the cook and the silver cleaning and the hose pipe and the flood and Miss Polliter and the hens and the pig and the puppy and the infants had completely driven the cave and the Outlaws out of his head. Crumbs, wouldn’t everybody be mad!

  For William had learnt by experience that with a strange perversity parents who had mourned their children as lost or dead are generally for some reason best known to themselves intensely irritated to find that they have been alive
and well and near them all the time. William had little hopes of being received by his parents with the joy and affection that should be given to one miraculously restored to them from the fissures of the rock. And just as he stood pondering his next step the doctor turned and saw him. He stared at him for a few minutes, then said, ‘Do you want me, my boy? Anything wrong? You’re the new house-boy, aren’t you?’

  William realised that he was still wearing the overalls which the house-boy had given him. He gaped at the doctor and blinked nervously, wondering whether it wouldn’t be wiser to be the new house-boy as the doctor evidently thought he was. The doctor turned to his wife.

  ‘Er – it is the new house-boy, dear, isn’t it?’ he said.

  ‘I think so,’ said his wife doubtfully. ‘He only came this morning, you know, and Cook engaged him, and I hardly had time to look at him, but I think he is – Yes, he’s wearing our overalls. What’s your name, boy?’

  William was on the point of saying ‘William Brown’, then stopped himself. He mustn’t be William Brown. William Brown was presumably lost in the bowels of the earth. And he didn’t know the house-boy’s name. So he gaped again and said:

  ‘I don’t know.’

  There came a gleam into the doctor’s eye.

  ‘What do you mean, my boy?’ he said. ‘Do you mean that you’ve lost your memory?’

  ‘Yes,’ said William, relieved at the simplicity of the explanation, and the fact that it relieved him of all further responsibility. ‘Yes, I’ve lost my memory.’

  ‘Do you mean you don’t remember anything?’ said the doctor sharply.

  ‘Yes,’ said William happily, ‘I don’ remember anythin’.’

  ‘Not where you live or anything?’

  ‘No,’ said William very firmly, ‘not where I live nor anything.’

  The other man, feeling evidently that he could contribute little illumination to the problem, moved on, leaving the doctor and his wife staring at William. They held a whispered consultation. Then the doctor turned to William and said suddenly: