"Gawd Almighty!" Bindle"s exclamation was not concerned with the man"s remark, but with something he extracted from the bath. "Well, I"m blowed," he muttered.
""Ere, Lizzie," he called out.
Mrs. Bindle appeared at the entrance of the tent. Bindle held up an elastic-sided boot from which marmalade fell solemnly and reluctantly.
Then the flood-gates of Mrs. Bindle"s wrath burst apart, and she poured down upon Bindle"s head a deluge of reproach. He and he alone was responsible for all the disasters that had befallen them. He had done it on purpose because she wanted a holiday. He wasn"t a husband, he was a blasphemer, an atheist, a c.u.mberer of the earth, and all that was evil.
She was interrupted in her tirade by the approach of a little man with a round, bald, shiny head and a worried expression of countenance.
"D"yer know "ow to milk a cow, mate?" he enquired of Bindle, apparently quite unconscious that he had precipitated himself into the midst of a domestic scene.
"Do I know "ow to wot?" demanded Bindle, eyeing the man as if he had asked a most unusual question.
"There"s a bloomin" cow over there and n.o.body can"t milk "er, an" the bishop"s gone, and we wants our tea."
Bindle scratched his head through his cap, then, turning towards the tent into which Mrs. Bindle had once more disappeared, he called out:
"Hi, Lizzie, jer know "ow to milk a cow?"
"Don"t be beastly," came the reply from the tent.
"It ain"t one of them cows," he called back, "it"s a milk cow, an"
"ere"s a cove wot wants "is tea."
Mrs. Bindle appeared at the entrance of the tent, and surveyed the group of three men.
"How did you manage yesterday?" she demanded practically.
"A girl come over from the farm, missis," said the little man, "and she didn"t "arf make it milk."
"Hold your tongue," snapped Mrs. Bindle.
The man gazed at her in surprise.
"Why don"t you get the same girl?" asked Mrs. Bindle.
"She says she"s too busy. I "ad a try myself," said the man, "only it was a washout."
"I"ll "ave a look at "er," Bindle announced, and the three men moved off across the meadow, picking their way among the tents with their piles of bedding, blankets, and other impedimenta outside. All were getting ready for the night.
When Bindle reached Daisy, he found the problem had been solved by one of Mr. Timkins" farm-hands, who was busily at work, watched by an interested group of campers.
During the next half-hour, Bindle strolled about among the tents learning many things, foremost among which was that "the whole ruddy camp was a washout." The commissariat had failed badly, and the nearest drink was a mile away at The Trowel and Turtle. A great many things were said about the bishop and the organisers of the camp.
When he returned to the tent, he found Mrs. Bindle engaged in boiling water in a petrol-tin over a scout-fire. With the providence of a good housewife she had brought with her emergency supplies, and Bindle was soon enjoying a meal comprised of kipper, tea and bread and margarine.
When he had finished, he announced himself ready to face the terrors of the night.
"I can"t say as I likes it," he remarked, as he stood at the entrance to the tent, struggling to undo his collar. "Seems to me sort o" draughty."
"That"s right, go on," cried Mrs. Bindle, as she pushed past him. "What did you expect?"
"Well, since you asks me, I"m like those coves in religion wot expects nothink; but gets an "ell of a lot."
"Don"t blaspheme. It"s Sunday to-morrow," was the rejoinder; but Bindle had strolled away to commune with the man with a stubbly chin and pessimistic soul.
"Do yer sleep well, mate?" he enquired, conversationally.
"Crikey! sleep is it? There ain"t no blinkin" sleep in this "ere ruddy camp."
"Wot"s up?" enquired Bindle.
"Up!" was the lugubrious response. "Awake all last night, I was."
"Wot was you doin"?" queried Bindle with interest.
"Scratchin"!" was the savage retort.
"Scratchin"! Who was you scratchin"?"
"Who was I scratchin"? Who the "ell should I be scratchin" but myself?"
he demanded, his apathy momentarily falling from him. "I"d like to know where they got that blinkin" straw from wot they give us to lie on. I done a bit o" scratchin" in the trenches; but last night I "adn"t enough fingers, d.a.m.n "em."
Bindle whistled.
"Then," continued the man with gloomy gusto, "there"s them ruddy chickens in the mornin", a-crowin" their guts out. Not a wink o" sleep after three for anybody," he added, with all the hatred of the c.o.c.kney for farmyard sounds. "Oh! it"s an "oliday, all right," he added with scathing sarcasm, "only it ain"t ours."
"Seems like it," said Bindle drily, as he turned on his heel and made for his own tent.
That night, he realised to the full the iniquities of the man who had supplied the straw for the mattresses. By the sounds that came from the other side of the tent-pole, he gathered that Mrs. Bindle was similarly troubled.
Towards dawn, Bindle began to doze, just as the c.o.c.ks were announcing the coming of the sun. If the man with the stubbly chin were right in his diagnosis, the birds, like Prometheus, had, during the night, renewed their missing organisms.
"Well, I"m blowed!" muttered Bindle. "Ole six-foot-o"-melancholy wasn"t swinging the lead neither. "Oly ointment! I never "eard such a row in all my puff. There ain"t no doubt but wot Mrs. Bindle"s gettin" a country "oliday," and with that he rose and proceeded to draw on his trousers, deciding that it was folly to attempt further to seek sleep.
Outside the tent, he came across Patrol-leader Smithers.
"Mornin" Foch," said Bindle.
"Smithers," said the lad. "Patrol-leader Smithers of the Bear Patrol."
"My mistake," said Bindle; "but you an" Foch is jest as like as two peas. You don"t "appen to "ave seen a stray c.o.c.k about, do you?"
"A c.o.c.k," repeated the boy.
"Yes!" said Bindle, tilting his head on one side with the air of one listening intently, whilst from all sides came the brazen blare of ecstatic chanticleers. "I thought I "eard one just now."
"They"re Farmer Timkins" fowls," said Patrol-leader Smithers gravely.