Smith?" she said, suddenly turning to him.
"No," grunted Hugh John, "but I"ve seen the Drury Lane pantomime. It was prime!"
The next moment he was sorry he had said it. But the truth slipped out before he knew. For so little was Hugh John used to the society of grown-up big girls, that he did not know any better than to tell them the truth.
"Ah, yes!" commented Cissy Carter condescendingly, "I used quite to like going to pantomimes when I was a child!"
A slight and elegant young man, with a curling moustache turned up at the ends, came towards them down the bank. He had grey-and-white striped trousers on, a dark cutaway coat, and a smart straw hat set on the back of his head. He wore gloves and walked with a pretty cane.
Hugh John loathed him on sight.
"Good-evening, Courtenay," said Cissy familiarly, "this is my friend, Prissy Smith, of whom you have heard me speak; and this is her brother just home from school!"
("What a beast! I hate him! Calls that a moustache, I daresay. Ha, ha!
he should just see Ashwell Major"s. And I can lick Ashwell Major with one hand!")
"Aw," said the young man with the cane, superciliously stroking his maligned upper lip, "the preparatory school, I daresay--Lord, was at one once myself--beastly hole!"
("I don"t doubt it, you look it," was Hugh John"s mental note.) Aloud he said, "Saint Salvator"s is a ripping place. We beat Glen Fetto by an innings and ninety-one!"
Mr. Courtenay Carling took no notice. He was talking earnestly and confidentially to his cousin. Hugh John had had enough of this.
"Come on, Priss," he said roughly, "let"s go home."
Prissy was nothing loath. She was just aching to get him by himself, so that she might begin to burn incense at his manly shrine. She had had stacks of it ready, and the match laid for weeks and weeks.
"Good-night," said Cissy frigidly. Hugh John took hold of her dainty gloved fingers as gingerly as if each had been a stinging nettle, and dropped them as quickly. Mr. Courtenay Carling paused in his conversation just long enough to say over his shoulder, "Ah--ta-ta--got lots of pets to run round and see, I s"pose--rabbits and guinea-pigs; used to keep "em myself, you know, beastly things, ta-ta!"
And with Cissy by his side he moved off, alternately twirling his moustache and glancing approvingly down at her. Cissy on her part never once looked round, but kept poking her parasol into the plants at the side of the road, as determinedly as if it had been the old pike manufactured by the exiled king O"Donowitch. Such treatment could not have been at all good for such a miracle of silk and lace and cane; but somehow its owner did not seem to mind.
"What an awful brute!" burst out Hugh John, as soon as Prissy and he were clear.
"Oh, how _can_ you say so!" said Prissy, much surprised; "why, every one thinks him so nice. He has such lots of money, and is going to stand for Parliament--that is, if his uncle would only die, or have something happen to him!"
Her brother snorted, as if to convey his contempt for "everybody"s"
opinion on such a matter; but Prissy was too happy to care for aught save the fact that once more her dear Hugh John was safe at home.
"Do you know," she said lovingly, "I could not sleep last night for thinking of your coming! It is so splendid. There"s the loveliest lot of roses being planted in the new potting house, and I"ve got a pearl necklace to show you--such a beauty--and----"
Thus she rattled on, joyously ticking off all the things she had to show him. She ran a little ahead to look at him, then ran as quickly back to hug him. "Oh, you dear!" she exclaimed. And all the while the heart of the former valiant soldier sank deep and ever deeper into the split-new cricketing shoes he had been so proud of when he sallied forth to meet Cissy Carter by the stile.
"Come on," she cried presently, picking up her skirts. "I"m so excited I don"t know what to do. I can"t keep quiet. I believe I can race you yet, for all you"re so big and have won a silver cricket bat. How I shall love to see it! Come on, Hugh John, I"ll race you to the gipsy camp for a pound of candy!"
But Hugh John did not want to race. He did not want _not_ to race. He did not want ever to do anything any more--only to fade away and die.
His heart was cold and dead within him. He felt that he would never know happiness again. But he could not bear to disappoint Prissy the first night. Besides, he could easily enough beat her--he was sure of that. So he smiled indulgently and nodded acquiescence. He had not told her that he had won the school mile handicap from scratch.
They started, and Hugh John began to run scientifically, as he had been taught to do at school, keeping a little behind Prissy, ready to spurt at the last and win by a neck. Doubtless this would have answered splendidly, only that Prissy ran so fast. She did not know anything about scientific sprinting, but she could run like the wind.
So by the time they reached the Partan Burn she had completely outcla.s.sed Hugh John. With her skirts held high in her hand over she flew like a bird; but her brother, jumping the least bit too soon, went splash into the shallows, sending the water ten feet into the air.
Like a shot Prissy was back, and reached a hand down to the vanquished scientific athlete.
"Oh, I"m so sorry, Hugh John," she said; "I ought to have told you it had been widened. Don"t let"s race any more. I think I must have started too soon, and you"d have beaten me anyway. Here"s the gipsy camp."
The world-weary exile looked about him. He had thought that at least it might be some manly pleasure to see Billy Blythe once more, and try a round with the Bounding Brothers. After all, what did it matter about girls? He had a twelve-bladed knife in his pocket which he intended for Billy, and he knew a trick of boxing--a feint with the right, and then an upward blow with the left, which he knew would interest his friend.
But the tents were gone. The place where they had stood was green and unenc.u.mbered. Only an aged crone or two moved slowly about among the small thatched cottages. To one of these Hugh John addressed himself.
"Eh, master--Billy Blythe--why, he be "listed for a sodger--a corp"ral they say he be, and may be sergeant by this time, shouldn"t wonder. Eh, dearie, and the Boundin" Brothers--oh! ye mean the joompin" lads. They"re off wi" a circus in Ireland. Nowt left but me and my owd mon! Thank ye, sir, you be a gentleman born, as anybody can see without the crossin" o" the hand."
Sadly Hugh John moved away, a still more blighted being. He left Prissy at the white lodge-gate in order that she might go home to meet Mr. Picton Smith on his return from the county town, where he had been judging the horses at an agricultural show. He would take a walk through the town, he said to himself, and perhaps he might meet some of his old enemies. He felt that above everything he would enjoy a sharp tussle. After all what save valour was worth living for? Wait till he was a soldier, and came back in uniform with a sword by his side and the scar of a wound on his forehead--would Cissy Carter despise him then? He would show her! In the meantime he had learned certain tricks of fence which he would rather like to prove on the countenances of his former foes.
So with renewed hope in his heart he took his way through the town of Edam. The lamps were just being lighted, and Hugh John lounged along through the early dusk with his hands in his pockets, looking out for a cause of offence. Presently he came upon a brilliantly lighted building, into which young men and women were entering singly and in pairs.
A hanging lamp shone down upon a noticeboard. He had nothing better to do. He stopped and read--
+--------------------------------------------------------+Edam Mutual Improvement Society._SEASON_ 18--_Hon. President._--Rev. Mr. BURNHAM._Hon. Vice-President._--Mr. N. DONNAN._Hon. Sec. and Treasurer._--Mr. NATHANIEL CUTHBERTSON.DEBATE TO-NIGHT._Subject._--"Is the Pen mightier than the Sword?"_Affirmative._--Mr. N. DONNAN._Negative._--Mr. BURNHAM.--------------------ALL ARE CORDIALLY INVITED._Bring your Hymn-books._+--------------------------------------------------------+
Hugh John did not accept the invitation, perhaps because he had no hymn-book. He only waited outside to hear Mr. N. Donnan"s opening sentence. It ran thus: "All ages of the world"s history have borne testimony to the fact that peace is preferable to war, right to might, and the sweet still voice of Reason to the savage compulsions of brutal Force."
"Oh, hang!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Hugh John, doubling his fist; "did you ever hear such rot? I wish I could jolly well fetch Nipper Donnan one on the n.o.b!"
And he sauntered on till he came to the burying-ground of Edam"s ancient abbey. He wandered aimlessly up the short avenue, stood at the gate a while, then kicked it open and went in. He clambered about among the graves, stumbling over the gra.s.sy mounds till he came to the tombs of his ancestors. At least they were not quite his ancestors, but the principle was the same. "There"s nothing exclusive about me. I"ll adopt them," said Hugh John to himself, as many another distinguished person had done before him. They were in fact the tombs of the Lorraines, the ancient possessors and original architects of the Castle of Windy Standard, which he had spilt his best blood to defend. Well, it was to attack. But no matter.
He sat down and looked at the defaced and battered tombs in silence.
Mighty thoughts coursed through his brain. His heart was filled full to the brim with the sadness of mortality. Tears of hopeless resignation stood in his eyes. It was the end, the solemn end of all.
Soon he, too, like them, would be lying low and quiet. He began to be conscious of a general fatal weakness of the system, a hollowness of the chest (or stomach), which showed that the end was near.
Ah, they would be sorry then--_she_ would be sorry! And after morning service in church, they would come and stand by his grave and say--_she_ would say, "He was young, but he lived n.o.bly, though, alas!
there was none to appreciate him. Ah, would that he were again alive!"
Then they (she) would weep, yes, weep bitterly, and fling themselves (herself) upon the cold, cold ground. But all in vain. He (Hugh John Picton Smith, late hero) would lie still in death under that green sod and never say a word. No, not even if he could. Like Brer Fox, he would lie low. At this point Hugh John was so moved that he put his face down into his hands and sobbed.
A heavy clod of earth whizzed through the air and impacted itself with a thud upon the mourner"s cheek, filling his ear with mud and sand, and informing him at the same instant that it carried a stone concealed somewhere about its person.
For though Nipper Donnan was now Vice-President of a Mutual Improvement a.s.sociation, and at that moment spreading himself in a peroration upon the advantages of universal goody-goodiness, he had, happily for society and Hugh John, left exceedingly capable successors. The eternal Smoutchy was still very much alive, and still an amateur of clods in the town of Edam.
That sod worked a complete and sudden cure in Hugh John.
He rose like a shot. Few and short were the prayers he said, but what these pet.i.tions lacked in length they made up for in fervency. He pursued his a.s.sailant down the Mill Brae, clamoured after him round the Town-yards, finally cornered him at the Spital Port, punched his head soundly--and felt better.
So that night the unfortunate young martyr to the flouts and scorns of love, instead of occupying a clay-cold bier with his (adopted) ancestors in Edam Abbey graveyard, ate an excellent supper in the new house of Windy Standard, with three helpings of round-of-beef and vegetables to match. Then with an empty heart, but a full stomach, he betook himself upstairs to his room, where presently Toady Lion came to worship, and Prissy dropped in to see that all was well. She had spread prettily worked covers of pink silk over his brushes and combs, an arrangement which the hero contemplated with disgust.
He seized them, gathered them into a knot, and flung them into a corner.
"Oh, Hugh John!" cried Prissy, "how could you? And they took such a long time to do!"
And there were the premonitions of April showers in the sensitive barometer of Priscilla"s eyes.
The brother was touched--as much, that is, as it is in the nature of a brother to be. But in the interests of discipline he could not give way too completely.
"All right, Prissy," he said, "it was no end good of you. But really, you know, a fellow couldn"t be expected to put up with these things.