Bobby tried to dodge away, but the bully caught him by the arm, and, partly to show off, commenced such an excruciating twist that the tears started to his victim"s eyes, though he did not utter a sound. It was too much for Peggy. She looked carefully round to see that no one was near, flung down her books with a bang on the pavement, and--simply went for Jones minor.
The a.s.sault was so utterly unexpected that he rolled over like a ninepin. Peggy might be small for her age, but she was strong and muscular, and she had the spirit of a Coeur de Lion and the courage of a Joan of Arc. Her method of boxing was certainly not scientific, but she set to work to punish Jones minor according to her own ideas of warfare. With two well-directed blows she nearly closed his eyes before he had time even to see his a.s.sailant. She punched his head, tweaked his ears, and hammered into the soft portions of his body until he roared for mercy, for, like all bullies, he was a coward at heart, and had a vague impression that some very superior force must suddenly have descended upon him.
"Have you had enough?" said Peggy at last, with her foot on her foe"s chest, and her fist at his swollen nose.
"Yes, thanky!" faltered the snivelling Jones.
"Then swear on your honour, if you have any, that you"ll never lay a finger on my brother again. If you"ll promise that faithfully, we"ll neither of us tell, but if you break your word, I"ll let all Warford know that you"ve been knocked down and thrashed by a girl!"
"Hooray! hooray!" cried two voices, and two tall boys in Grammar School caps came clambering over the palings from the cricket-field, whence they had been the delighted but unseen witnesses of the encounter.
"By Jove! you"re a girl worth knowing!" said the taller boy. "The way you rolled him flat was the funniest sight I"ve seen for many a year!
Get up, Jones, you sneaking, drivelling cur!"--kicking the prostrate form of that fallen hero. "And if ever I catch you at any of your tricks with Vaughan again I"ll settle you myself, I promise you, though I don"t know whether I could have done it any better than this, after all!"
glancing with an eye of admiration at the victorious Peggy, who, with split gloves, scarlet cheeks, and wild-flying curls, stood panting after the contest.
"Golly! if you were _my_ sister, I"d be proud of you!" he continued, while the other boy picked up her hat from the roadway, and collected her scattered school-books. "I like a girl with pluck, and you"ve got enough for ten of "em. I say, Vaughan, I"ll try you to f.a.g for me, if you like. You"re a good runner, I hear, and no b.u.t.ter-fingers. You can begin to-morrow."
"And _he_ is the Captain of the school eleven!" said Bobby afterwards, who would have felt it scarcely so great an honour to be noticed by the Prince of Wales. "There isn"t a boy in my cla.s.s who isn"t yearning to be Farrar"s f.a.g. They"ll be just wild with envy! Peggy, you"re about the biggest trump on the face of the earth, and I"ll never forget this day if I live to be a hundred!"
Jones minor found he also had good reason to remember the occasion, for as Farrar and Henderson felt no obligation to observe secrecy, his life at Warford Grammar School was for some time a burden to him. Constant references as to his fondness for female society, offers to see him home to protect him on the way, tender inquiries as to the state of his eyes and the condition of his ears, filled him with confusion, while large portraits of Jones in the clutches of an imaginary Amazon, executed with schoolboy talent and vigour, adorned the walls of the playground and the palings of the cricket-field.
Peggy"s onslaught really seemed to have done some good in the school, for the attention of the older and better boys being called to the subject of bullying, a stand was made, and public opinion ran high against it, so that for a time, at any rate, the little boys had peace, and Bobby was able to return daily by the ordinary high-road, instead of seeking the shelter of side-paths and back alleys.
Bobby"s letter to Archie on the subject of the encounter, though hardly a model of orthography, was as stirring as the ballad of Chevy Chase.
"She lade the villin flat on the erth, and I just wish you cud have seen her punch his hed," he wrote. "She nocked him about like a pottatoe.
Peggy is awful strong wen her blud is up, and she sez she wuld do it agen to save my Life. Jones minor stopt at home two days arfter. He cudunt stand the jeers of the other boys, and they still give it him badly. Farrar is jolly good to me now. I like f.a.gging for him better than enything. Peggy won"t tork about wot she has done at all. She sez she is rather ashamed of it now, and that you wuld think her a bigger tomboy than ever; but all the boys at skule call her a brick, and so do I, and if she comes to see the bote race at Easter they mean to chear her."
Archie wrote back at once to congratulate the heroine, and Peggy treasured the letter for days, until the new pet lamb accidentally chewed it up. It ran thus:
"MY DEAR PEGGY, "I think it was just elegant of you, and I won"t call you t..b.y any more if you don"t like it. Instead I will christen you Ta-ka-pun-ka, which in the language of the Chincowawas means "Girl-afraid-of-nothing," for you are as good as one of our Indian braves. I only wish you had taken his scalp, but I suppose you hadn"t time. When I come back at Easter I will teach you to box, and then you will be ready for anybody, only please don"t tackle me. I shall have to be careful how I quarrel with you now. If I am home in time for the boat-race I shall come and cheer, too. I am longing to get back to Gorswen. Bobby never said if the water-wheel was all right. I hope no one has touched it while I have been away. Why don"t you write and tell me about it, and about Sky Cottage, too? I shall have heaps of school news for you when I come home, and I have thought of several fresh things we can make; but I shan"t tell you what they are till I see you, so curb your curiosity until the holidays.
"Hoping p.r.i.c.kles, and the rabbits, and all the other pets are well, "Your affectionate friend, "ARCHIE FORSTER."
CHAPTER XX
GORSWEN FAIR
"Come, let us go while we are in our prime, And take the harmless folly of the time."
Easter was here at last, and down at the Willows Archie had come home like the breath of spring, Miss Forster declaring that he did her more good than all her medicine bottles, and that his lively ways would make her almost her usual self again, while at the Abbey he had a royal welcome. It was funny to see how the young American citizen was merging into the British public schoolboy, for Archie was losing his Western accent, which only cropped out now and then when he was excited, and cricket and football were beginning to replace Indians and grizzlies in his conversation; but he was totally unspoilt by his new life, and as jolly and hearty as ever.
The weather seemed to have conspired in his favour, for the biting March winds and cutting hail-storms gave way to genial sunshine and April showers. The hedgerows had burst into tender green, and the banks were spangled with st.i.tchwort and celandine stars. There had been quite a spell of sickness in Gorswen at the end of the winter, for many of the picturesque cottages were dark, unwholesome places inside, and lay low on the damp fields by the river; but the invalids crept out now into the sunlight, and the mild breezes blew roses into wan cheeks and brightness into dull eyes, bringing back health, that most priceless of gifts, to the village--to all, indeed, but the Rector, who had been sick-nurse, doctor"s a.s.sistant, family friend and chaplain combined during the epidemic, and now that the strain was over broke down so utterly that the physician insisted upon a complete rest and change of air, ordering him off immediately to the high meadows of the Alps. He went unwillingly.
"I would rather worry on, Peggy," he said, "till I can take that last long holiday of all. It is better to wear out than rust out, any day.
Still, our bodies were not given us to abuse, so you see I am obeying orders, like a good soldier."
The village seemed strangely empty without Mr. Howell. Everyone had become so accustomed to claim his help and sympathy upon every occasion as a matter of course that it was only when he was gone they realized how much they valued him, for many of our blessings are hardly appreciated until we have lost them. The curate did his best, but as the old dames remarked: "He be a nice gentleman, and means well, for sure; but what can a young lad like that have to say to we?"
So they dusted their best chairs for him, and agreed with all his remarks about the weather or the Prayer Book, but kept their doubts and difficulties for the tried old friend who had stood the test of years.
Most of the people had made haste to get well for Easter, for to the good folk of Gorswen that festival meant but one event--the great fair of the borders, which had been held in the village every Easter Tuesday within the memory of even that wonderful person, the oldest inhabitant.
It was a kind of central pivot for the year to turn on, and "five years come fair-day," or "the last fair-day but one agone," was the general method of calculating time amongst the villagers. Everybody put on something new for the fair, and to have appeared on that occasion in a last year"s hat would have been an offence against public taste, or a confession of abject poverty scarcely removed above pauperism. Cousins to the ninth and tenth degree turned up for the fair, distant relations from remote districts or former inhabitants who had left the neighbourhood and "got on" in other places availed themselves of cheap excursions, and visited their early home, partly for the holiday, and partly for the sake of meeting everyone else.
The wave of excitement which spread over the village as Easter drew near could scarcely fail to send its ripples up to the Abbey. Nancy"s evenings for some time past had been absorbed in the construction of a bright heliotrope gown with gilt b.u.t.tons, and she had walked into Warford on her day out, and spent a month"s wages upon a hat, which was such a marvellous erection of flowers and feathers combined with lace, chiffon, and ribbons, that it was calculated to leave her rivals, like the Queen of Sheba, with no more spirit in them.
"Which fair-day only comes onst a year, so folks may as well do their best," she observed, as she tried it on before the kitchen mirror. "And I had heard as that Sally Pearson has got a hat all the way from Shrewsbury. A squint-eyed baggage she be, too, who"d ne"er look aught, whatever she might clap on her head. Tell me truly now, Miss Peggy dear, does it suit me or not?"
Knowing that Nancy was capable of starting immediately for Warford to change the article in question for one yet more costly, Peggy hastened to answer in the affirmative, and Bobby likewise a.s.suring her that it would "take the cake, and no mistake," it was carefully folded up again in its sheets of white tissue-paper, and put by until the great day should arrive.
Nor was Nancy the only one who indulged in a little innocent vanity, for Joe, too, had been so fastidious in his choice of a red-and-blue spotted necktie and a walking-stick with an ivory handle that the children began to suspect the blacksmith"s rosy-cheeked daughter must be at the bottom of it; and even David had taken a long-tailed coat and a beaver hat out of the retirement of some mysterious bandboxes and had been quite snappy and particular with Mrs. David on the subject of the proper starching and ironing of his Sunday shirt.
As early as Monday morning, caravans began to arrive from all parts of the country, and encamp on the piece of green common opposite the mill.
Tired-looking men in dirty shirt-sleeves were soon busy setting up swings and merry-go-rounds, theatres and shooting-galleries, while the arrival of a travelling menagerie was the occasion for the collecting of a whole crowd of small yokels, who studied the outside of the waggons with breathless delight.
"Hey, Billee! do "ee hear the lion roar?"
"Lion! That be a jacka.s.s brayin", thee fule!"
"Jacka.s.s theeself! Don"t I know a moke from a wild beast? I tell "ee "tis within the tent!"
"Here be the fat woman arrivin", and it do take four horses to drag her, for sure!"
"And the wild man from Borneo. Ay, if he be like his picture outside, I"ll ne"er venture in reach of him!"
"Thee"s not got the penny, may be!"
"Hain"t I? Say that agin, and I"ll let "ee know!"
"Way back there, ye young rascals! there"s the giant and the dwarf a-comin"!"
And the youngsters scattered, to leave the green free, and to feast their imaginations upon the gaudy representations of the various attractions which adorned the sides of the yellow caravans that crept slowly up the dusty road from Warford. This, however, was only to be the pleasure part of the fair. Early on Tuesday morning the real business of the day started, for then the shepherds began to bring down their flocks of sheep from the surrounding mountains, the cattle-drovers came with their sleek cows and long-horned young bullocks, and whole herds of rough little Welsh ponies were driven with much noise and shouting from the high moorlands over the border.
Quiet, sleepy Gorswen seemed completely transformed. The village street from end to end was an impa.s.sable block of charging bullocks, kicking ponies, barking collies, and bawling drovers, which overflowed past the Rectory and up to the Willows on the one hand, and nearly as far as the Abbey gates on the other. Having tried in vain to edge a way through the press, Peggy and Bobby tacked round by the fields, and scrambling over a garden wall, found a temporary refuge in the churchyard, which stood some height above the level of the road, and where, from the vantage-ground of a convenient tombstone, they found they had an excellent view of the fair below. The noise was deafening. Animals were lowing, bellowing, bleating, whinnying, or squeaking in every note of the octave; c.o.c.ks crew, ducks quacked, dogs barked, and men talked and shouted in Welsh and English till a chance comer might have imagined himself in pandemonium. A cartful of little pigs drawn up beneath the wall rent the air with their cries, and not the least funny incident was to watch a stout farmer"s wife, despairing of driving her bargain through the crowd, wrap her squealing purchase in her mantle, and carry him off in her arms, like "Alice" with the d.u.c.h.ess"s baby. Most of the cows had been sold first thing, and were being driven away with much forcible language on the part of their drovers, and it was now the turn of the cart-horses, beautiful glossy creatures with tails tied up with straw and manes plaited with ribbons as if for May-day. By good luck their paces were tried just under the churchyard, so the children got all the fun of the bargaining.
"There"s Jimmy Fowler selling his Black Bess," cried Peggy, nearly falling over the wall in her excitement. "See that tall Welshman feeling her knees and looking at her teeth. _Aren"t_ they quarrelling over the price? Oh, he"s taken her, for they"ve both clapped their hands over it!
What a lot of sovereigns he"s counting into Jimmy"s hand! Now he"s leading her away. I hope she"s got a good home; she"s such a gentle old thing!"
"Here come the ponies!" shouted Bobby, as a wild stampede round the inn-corner proclaimed the advent of one of the princ.i.p.al features of the fair.
It was a good thing that the children were in a place of safety, for anyone down in the roadway below stood a very fair chance of being trampled to death by the frightened, plunging herd which surged up the street, scattering the spectators like leaves before a storm. Utterly wild and unbroken, the little rough-coated things showed their disapproval of this their first taste of civilization by every means in their power, rearing, bucking, and kicking to the best of their ability. Bargaining in that throng was no easy matter, but their owners would dash in, seize a pony by the mane and tail, and by sheer force drag it away from its companions, the very small size of the animals rendering practicable what would have been impossible with a larger breed. Dealers had come from all parts of England and Wales, for Gorswen Fair was noted for its ponies, and a good deal of money changed hands that day. It made Peggy quite sad to think that the little creatures were mostly bought for the mines, and that, once broken and trained, they would never see daylight again, but spend their lives drawing trucks up and down the low galleries underground, having said good-bye to their native moorlands for ever.
Across the road, in the broad square by the inn, the sheep were huddled in pens, each flock watched by its own clever collie, who seemed to think it a cardinal virtue to get up a free fight with every other dog in the fair. Barking, biting, and snarling, the combatants had continually to be seized by the tails, forcibly separated, and kicked yelping back to their duties, where they stood with bristling ears, growling at each other through the hurdles, and showing their teeth like a pack of wolves. But the buying and selling were over at last, and the live-stock having been conveyed away, Gorswen turned its attention to the side of pleasure. Small booths sprang up like magic under the church wall, and cheap-jacks and travelling hucksters began to proclaim their wares. The thrifty village housewives were doing a thriving business in tea and ginger-pop, for a cattle fair is thirsty work, and the inn was filled to overflowing. All the little gardens were set out with chairs and tables, and the rattle of cups and the flying of corks made a brisk accompaniment to the buzz of conversation. The crowd which surged along the main street was a laughing, merry-making crowd, indulging in a flow of broad chaff and humour, and bandying jokes with friends and strangers alike.
The children had returned after dinner to their point of vantage on the churchyard wall, and found as much amus.e.m.e.nt in the sight below as in the livelier scenes of the morning.