"Oh, crumbs!" said William and retreated hastily. He sat down on his bed to wait till the coast was clear. Soon came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.
"Oh, William," said his mother, as she entered his room, "Mrs. Butler"s come with her baby to spend the afternoon, and we"d arranged to go out till tea-time with the baby, but she"s got such a headache, I"m insisting on her lying down for the afternoon in the drawing-room. But she"s so worried about the baby not getting out this nice afternoon."
"Oh!" said William, without interest.
"Well, cook"s out and Emma has to get the tea and answer the door, and Ethel"s away, and I told Mrs. Butler I was _sure_ you wouldn"t mind taking the baby out for a bit in the perambulator!"
William stared at her, speechless. The Medusa"s cla.s.sic expression of horror was as nothing to William"s at that moment. Then he moistened his lips and spoke in a hoa.r.s.e voice.
"_Me?_" he said. "_Me?_ _Me_ take a baby out in a pram?"
"Well, dear," said his mother deprecatingly, "I know it"s your half holiday, but you"d be out of doors getting the fresh air, which is the great thing. It"s a nice baby and a nice pram and not heavy to push, and Mrs. Butler would be _so_ grateful to you."
"Yes, I should think she"d be that," said William bitterly. "She"d have a right to be that if I took the baby out in a pram."
"Now, William, I"m sure you"d like to help, and I"m sure you wouldn"t like your father to hear that you wouldn"t even do a little thing like that for poor Mrs. Butler. And she"s got such a headache."
"_A little thing like that!_" repeated William out of the bitterness of his soul.
But the Fates were closing round him. He was aware that he would know no peace till he had done the horrible thing demanded of him. Sorrowfully and reluctantly he bowed to the inevitable.
"All right," he muttered, "I"ll be down in a minute."
He heard them fussing over the baby in the hall. Then he heard his elder brother"s voice.
"You surely don"t mean to say, mother," Robert was saying with the crushing superiority of eighteen, "that you"re going to trust that child to--William."
"Well," said William"s mother, "someone has to take him out. It"s such a lovely afternoon. I"m sure it"s very kind of William, on his half-holiday, too. And she"s got _such_ a headache."
"Well, of course," said Robert in the voice of one who washes his hands of all further responsibility, "you know William as well as I do."
"Oh, dear!" sighed William"s mother. "And everything so nicely settled, Robert, and you must come and find fault with it all. If you don"t want William to take him out, will you take him out yourself?"
Robert retreated hastily to the dining-room and continued the conversation from a distance.
"I don"t want to take him out myself--thanks very much, all the same!
All I say is--you know William as well as I do. I"m not finding fault with anything. I simply am stating a fact."
Then William came downstairs.
"Here he is, dear, all ready for you, and you needn"t go far away--just up and down the road, if you like, but stay out till tea-time. He"s a dear little baby, isn"t he? And isn"t it a nice w.i.l.l.y-Billy den, to take it out a nice ta-ta, while it"s mummy goes bye-byes, den?"
William blushed for pure shame.
He pushed the pram down to the end of the road and round the corner. In comparison with William"s feelings, the feelings of some of the early martyrs must have been pure bliss. A nice way for an Outlaw to spend the afternoon! He dreaded to meet any of his brother-outlaws, yet, irresistibly and as a magnet, their meeting-place attracted him. He wheeled the pram off the road and down the country lane towards the field which held their sacred barn. He stopped at the stile that led into the field and gazed wistfully across to the barn in the distance.
The infant sat and sucked its thumb and stared at him. Finally it began to converse.
"Blab--blab--blab--blab--blub--blub--blub!"
"Oh, you shut up!" said William crushingly.
Annoyed at the prolonged halt, it seized its pram cover, pulled it off its hooks, and threw it into the road. While William was picking it up, it threw the pillow on to his head. Then it chuckled. William began to conceive an active dislike of it. Suddenly the Great Idea came to him.
His face cleared. He took a piece of string from his pocket and tied the pram carefully to the railings. Then, lifting the baby cautiously and gingerly out, he climbed the stile with it and set off across the fields towards the barn. He held the baby to his chest with both arms clasped tightly round its waist. Its feet dangled in the air. It occupied the time by kicking William in the stomach, pulling his hair, and putting its fingers in his eyes.
"It beats me," panted William to himself, "what people see in babies!
Scratchin" an" kickin" and blindin" folks and pullin" their hair all out!"
When he entered the barn he was greeted by a sudden silence.
"Look here!" began one outlaw in righteous indignation.
"It"s a kidnap," said William, triumphantly. "We"ll get a ransom on it."
They gazed at him in awed admiration. This was surely the cream of outlawry. He set the infant on the ground, where it toddled for a few steps and sat down suddenly and violently. It then stared fixedly at the tallest boy present and smiled seraphically.
"Dad--dad--dad--dad--dad!"
Douglas, the tallest boy, grinned sheepishly. "It thinks I"m its father," he explained complacently to the company.
"Well," said Henry, who was William"s rival for the leadership of the Outlaws, "What do we do first? That"s the question."
"In books," said the outlaw called Ginger, "they write a note to its people and say they want a ransom."
"We won"t do that--not just yet," said William hastily.
"Well, it"s not much sense holdin" somethin" up to ransom and not tellin" the folks that they"ve got to pay nor nothin", is it?" said Ginger with the final air of a man whose logic is una.s.sailable.
"N----oo," said William. "But----" with a gleam of hope--"who"s got a paper and pencil? I"m simply statin" a fact. Who"s got a paper and pencil?"
No one spoke.
"Oh, yes!" went on William in triumph. "Go on! Write a note. Write a note without paper and pencil, and we"ll all watch. Huh!"
"Well," said Ginger sulkily, "I don"t s"pose they had paper and pencils in outlaw days. They weren"t invented. They wrote on--on--on leaves or something," he ended vaguely.
"Well, go on. Write on leaves," said William still more triumphant.
"We"re not stoppin" you are we? I"m simply statin" a fact. Write on leaves."
They were interrupted by a yell of pain from Douglas. Flattered by the parental relations so promptly established by the baby, he had ventured to make its further acquaintance. With vague memories of his mother"s treatment of infants, he had inserted a finger in its mouth. The infant happened to possess four front teeth, two upper and two lower, and they closed like a vice upon Douglas" finger. He was now examining the marks.
"Look! Right deep down! See it? Wotcher think of that! Nearly to the bone! Pretty savage baby you"ve brought along," he said to William.
"I jolly well know that," said William feelingly. "It"s your own fault for touching it. It"s all right if you leave it alone. Just don"t touch it, that"s all. Anyway, it"s mine, and I never said you could go fooling about with it, did I? It wouldn"t bite _me_, I bet!"
"Well, what about the ransom?" persisted Henry.
"Someone can go and tell its people and bring back the ransom,"
suggested Ginger.