Part 17

"What will happen?" said Wee Willie Winkie, who firmly believed that his father was omnipotent.

"I shall get into trouble," said Coppy, playing his trump card with an appealing look at the holder of the ace.

"Ven I won't," said Wee Willie Winkie, briefly. "But my faver says it's un-man-ly to be always kissing, and I didn't fink _you'd_ do vat, Coppy."

"I'm not always kissing, old chap. It's only now and then, and when you're bigger you'll do it too. Your father meant it's not good for little boys."

"Ah!" said Wee Willie Winkie, now fully enlightened. "It's like ve sputter-brush?"

"Exactly," said Coppy, gravely.

"But I don't fink I'll ever want to kiss big girls, nor no one, 'cept my muvver. And I _must_ vat, you know."

There was a long pause, broken by Wee Willie Winkie.

"Are you fond of vis big girl, Coppy?"

"Awfully!" said Coppy.

"Fonder van you are of Bell or ve Butcha--or me?"

"It's in a different way," said Coppy. "You see, one of these days Miss Allardyce will belong to me, but you'll grow up and command the Regiment and--all sorts of things. It's quite different, you see."

"Very well," said Wee Willie Winkie, rising. "If you're fond of ve big girl, I won't tell any one. I must go now."

Coppy rose and escorted his small guest to the door, adding: "You're the best of little fellows, Winkie. I tell you what. In thirty days from now you can tell if you like--tell any one you like."

Thus the secret of the Brandis-Allardyce engagement was dependent on a little child's word. Coppy, who knew Wee Willie Winkie's idea of truth, was at ease, for he felt that he would not break promises. Wee Willie Winkie betrayed a special and unusual interest in Miss Allardyce, and, slowly revolving round that embarrassed young lady, was used to regard her gravely with unwinking eye. He was trying to discover why Coppy should have kissed her. She was not half so nice as his own mother. On the other hand, she was Coppy's property, and would in time belong to him. Therefore it behooved him to treat her with as much respect as Coppy's big sword or shiny pistol.

The idea that he shared a great secret in common with Coppy kept Wee Willie Winkie unusually virtuous for three weeks. Then the Old Adam broke out, and he made what he called a "campfire" at the bottom of the garden. How could he have foreseen that the flying sparks would have lighted the Colonel's little hayrick and consumed a week's store for the horses? Sudden and swift was the punishment--deprivation of the good-conduct badge and, most sorrowful of all, two days' confinement to barracks--the house and veranda--coupled with the withdrawal of the light of his father's countenance.

He took the sentence like the man he strove to be, drew himself up with a quivering under-lip, saluted, and, once clear of the room, ran to weep bitterly in his nursery--called by him "my quarters." Coppy came in the afternoon and attempted to console the culprit.

"I'm under awwest," said Wee Willie Winkie, mournfully, "and I didn't ought to speak to you."

Very early the next morning he climbed on to the roof of the house--that was not forbidden--and beheld Miss Allardyce going for a ride.

"Where are you going?" cried Wee Willie Winkie.

"Across the river," she answered, and trotted forward.

Now the cantonment in which the 195th lay was bounded on the north by a river--dry in the winter. From his earliest years, Wee Willie Winkie had been forbidden to go across the river, and had noted that even Coppy--the almost almighty Coppy--had never set foot beyond it. Wee Willie Winkie had once been read to, out of a big blue book, the history of the Princess and the Goblins--a most wonderful tale of a land where the Goblins were always warring with the children of men until they were defeated by one Curdie. Ever since that date it seemed to him that the bare black and purple hills across the river were inhabited by Goblins, and, in truth, every one had said that there lived the Bad Men. Even in his own house the lower halves of the windows were covered with green paper on account of the Bad Men who might, if allowed clear view, fire into peaceful drawing-rooms and comfortable bedrooms. Certainly, beyond the river, which was the end of all the Earth, lived the Bad Men. And here was Major Allardyce's big girl, Coppy's property, preparing to venture into their borders! What would Coppy say if anything happened to her? If the Goblins ran off with her as they did with Curdie's Princess? She must at all hazards be turned back.

The house was still. Wee Willie Winkie reflected for a moment on the very terrible wrath of his father; and then--broke his arrest! It was a crime unspeakable. The low sun threw his shadow, very large and very black, on the trim garden-paths, as he went down to the stables and ordered his pony. It seemed to him in the hush of the dawn that all the big world had been bidden to stand still and look at Wee Willie Winkie guilty of mutiny. The drowsy groom handed him his mount, and, since the one great sin made all others insignificant, Wee Willie Winkie said that he was going to ride over to Coppy Sahib, and went out at a foot-pace, stepping on the soft mould of the flower-borders.

The devastating track of the pony's feet was the last misdeed that cut him off from all sympathy of Humanity. He turned into the road, leaned forward, and rode as fast as the pony could put foot to the ground in the direction of the river.

But the liveliest of twelve-two ponies can do little against the long canter of a Waler. Miss Allardyce was far ahead, had passed through the crops, beyond the Police-post, when all the guards were asleep, and her mount was scattering the pebbles of the river bed as Wee Willie Winkie left the cantonment and British India behind him. Bowed forward and still flogging, Wee Willie Winkie shot into Afghan territory, and could just see Miss Allardyce a black speck, flickering across the stony plain. The reason of her wandering was simple enough. Coppy, in a tone of too-hastily-assumed authority, had told her overnight that she must not ride out by the river. And she had gone to prove her own spirit and teach Coppy a lesson.

Almost at the foot of the inhospitable hills, Wee Willie Winkie saw the Waler blunder and come down heavily. Miss Allardyce struggled clear, but her ankle had been severely twisted, and she could not stand. Having thus demonstrated her spirit, she wept copiously, and was surprised by the apparition of a white, wide-eyed child in khaki, on a nearly spent pony.

"Are you badly, badly hurted?" shouted Wee Willie Winkie, as soon as he was within range. "You didn't ought to be here."

"I don't know," said Miss Allardyce, ruefully, ignoring the reproof. "Good gracious, child, what are _you_ doing here?"

"You said you was going acwoss ve wiver," panted Wee Willie Winkie, throwing himself off his pony. "And nobody--not even Coppy--must go acwoss ve wiver, and I came after you ever so hard, but you wouldn't stop, and now you've hurted yourself, and Coppy will be angwy wiv me, and--I've bwoken my awwest! I've bwoken my awwest!"

The future Colonel of the 195th sat down and sobbed. In spite of the pain in her ankle the girl was moved.

"Have you ridden all the way from cantonments, little man? What for?"

"You belonged to Coppy. Coppy told me so!" wailed Wee Willie Winkie, disconsolately. "I saw him kissing you, and he said he was fonder of you van Bell or ve Butcha or me. And so I came. You must get up and come back. You didn't ought to be here. Vis is a bad place, and I've bwoken my awwest."

"I can't move, Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, with a groan. "I've hurt my foot. What shall I do?"

She showed a readiness to weep afresh, which steadied Wee Willie Winkie, who had been brought up to believe that tears were the depth of unmanliness. Still, when one is as great a sinner as Wee Willie Winkie, even a man may be permitted to break down.

"Winkie," said Miss Allardyce, "when you've rested a little, ride back and tell them to send out something to carry me back in. It hurts fearfully."

The child sat still for a little time and Miss Allardyce closed her eyes; the pain was nearly making her faint. She was roused by Wee Willie Winkie tying up the reins on his pony's neck and setting it free with a vicious cut of his whip that made it whicker. The little animal headed toward the cantonments.

"Oh, Winkie! What are you doing?"

"Hush!" said Wee Willie Winkie. "Vere's a man coming--one of ve Bad Men. I must stay wiv you. My faver says a man must _always_ look after a girl. Jack will go home, and ven vey'll come and look for us. Vat's why I let him go."

Not one man but two or three had appeared from behind the rocks of the hills, and the heart of Wee Willie Winkie sank within him, for just in this manner were the Goblins wont to steal out and vex Curdie's soul. Thus had they played in Curdie's garden, he had seen the picture, and thus had they frightened the Princess's nurse. He heard them talking to each other, and recognized with joy the bastard Pushto that he had picked up from one of his father's grooms lately dismissed. People who spoke that tongue could not be the Bad Men. They were only natives after all.

They came up to the boulders on which Miss Allardyce's horse had blundered.

Then rose from the rock Wee Willie Winkie, child of the Dominant Race, aged six and three-quarters, and said briefly and emphatically "_Jao!_" The pony had crossed the river-bed.

The men laughed, and laughter from natives was the one thing Wee Willie Winkie could not tolerate. He asked them what they wanted and why they did not depart. Other men with most evil faces and crooked-stocked guns crept out of the shadows of the hills, till, soon, Wee Willie Winkie was face to face with an audience some twenty strong. Miss Allardyce screamed.

"Who are you?" said one of the men.

"I am the Colonel Sahib's son, and my order is that you go at once. You black men are frightening the Miss Sahib. One of you must run into cantonments and take the news that Miss Sahib has hurt herself, and that the Colonel's son is here with her."

"Put our feet into the trap?" was the laughing reply. "Hear this boy's speech!"

"Say that I sent you--I, the Colonel's son. They will give you money."

"What is the use of this talk? Take up the child and the girl, and we can at least ask for the ransom. Ours are the villages on the heights," said a voice in the background.

These _were_ the Bad Men--worse than Goblins--and it needed all Wee Willie Winkie's training to prevent him from bursting into tears. But he felt that to cry before a native, excepting only his mother's _ayah_, would be an infamy greater than any mutiny. Moreover, he as future Colonel of the 195th, had that grim regiment at his back.

"Are you going to carry us away?" said Wee Willie Winkie, very blanched and uncomfortable.

"Yes, my little _Sahib Bahadur_," said the tallest of the men, "and eat you afterward."

"That is child's talk," said Wee Willie Winkie. "Men do not eat men."

A yell of laughter interrupted him, but he went on firmly,--"And if you do carry us away, I tell you that all my regiment will come up in a day and kill you all without leaving one. Who will take my message to the Colonel Sahib?"

Speech in any vernacular--and Wee Willie Winkie had a colloquial acquaintance with three--was easy to the boy who could not yet manage his "r's" and "th's" aright.

Another man joined the conference, crying: "O foolish men! What this babe says is true. He is the heart's heart of those white troops. For the sake of peace let them go both, for if he be taken, the regiment will break loose and gut the valley. _Our_ villages are in the valley, and we shall not escape. That regiment are devils. They broke Khoda Yar's breast-bone with kicks when he tried to take the rifles; and if we touch this child they will fire and rape and plunder for a month, till nothing remains. Better to send a man back to take the message and get a reward. I say that this child is their God, and that they will spare none of us, nor our women, if we harm him."

It was Din Mahommed, the dismissed groom of the Colonel, who made the diversion, and an angry and heated discussion followed. Wee Willie Winkie standing over Miss Allardyce, waited the upshot. Surely his "wegiment," his own "wegiment," would not desert him if they knew of his extremity.

* * * * *

The riderless pony brought the news to the 195th, though there had been consternation in the Colonel's household for an hour before. The little beast came in through the parade ground in front of the main barracks, where the men were settling down to play Spoil-five till the afternoon. Devlin, the Color Sergeant of E Company, glanced at the empty saddle and tumbled through the barrack-rooms, kicking up each Room Corporal as he passed. "Up, ye beggars! There's something happened to the Colonel's son," he shouted.

"He couldn't fall off! S'elp me, 'e _couldn't_ fall off," blubbered a drummer-boy. "Go an' hunt acrost the river. He's over there if he's anywhere, an' maybe those Pathans have got 'im. For the love o' Gawd don't look for 'im in the nullahs! Let's go over the river."

"There's sense in Mott yet," said Devlin. "E Company, double out to the river--sharp!"

So E Company, in its shirt-sleeves mainly, doubled for the dear life, and in the rear toiled the perspiring Sergeant, adjuring it to double yet faster. The cantonment was alive with the men of the 195th hunting for Wee Willie Winkie, and the Colonel finally overtook E Company, far too exhausted to swear, struggling in the pebbles of the river-bed.

Up the hill under which Wee Willie Winkie's Bad Men were discussing the wisdom of carrying off the child and the girl, a look-out fired two shots.

"What have I said?" shouted Din Mahommed. "There is the warning! The _pulton_ are out already and are coming across the plain! Get away! Let us not be seen with the boy!"

The men waited for an instant, and then, as another shot was fired, withdrew into the hills, silently as they had appeared.

"The wegiment is coming," said Wee Willie Winkie, confidently, to Miss Allardyce, "and it's all wight. Don't cwy!"

He needed the advice himself, for ten minutes later, when his father came up, he was weeping bitterly with his head in Miss Allardyce's lap.

And the men of the 195th carried him home with shouts and rejoicings; and Coppy, who had ridden a horse into a lather, met him, and, to his intense disgust, kissed him openly in the presence of the men.

But there was balm for his dignity. His father assured him that not only would the breaking of arrest be condoned, but that the good-conduct badge would be restored as soon as his mother could sew it on his blouse-sleeve. Miss Allardyce had told the Colonel a story that made him proud of his son.

"She belonged to you, Coppy," said Wee Willie Winkie, indicating Miss Allardyce with a grimy forefinger. "I _knew_ she didn't ought to go acwoss ve wiver, and I knew ve wegiment would come to me if I sent Jack home."

"You're a hero, Winkie," said Coppy--"a _pukka_ hero!"

"I don't know what vat means," said Wee Willie Winkie, "but you mustn't call me Winkie any no more. I'm Percival Will'am Will'ams."

And in this manner did Wee Willie Winkie enter into his manhood.

NOTES

WASHINGTON IRVING

Washington Irving, the son of a Scotch merchant, was born in New York, April 3, 1783. As his health was delicate his education was desultory, and at sixteen he began to study law but without much seriousness. He spent most of the time in reading, being in this way really self-educated. His health continuing a matter of concern, he took many excursions up the state to the woods, with much physical benefit. In many of the up-state towns he mingled in society to such a degree that he was in danger of becoming a mere society man. However, all the time he was doing some writing, a part of which appeared in _The Morning Chronicle_ when he was but nineteen.

In 1804, his health continuing poor, it was decided to send him to Europe. There he stayed nearly two years, visiting France, England, and Italy, being everywhere received by society and meeting the best people, as he was a remarkably agreeable young man. The trip completely restored his health.

On his return to America in 1806, he again plunged into society, giving, however, a hint of his future occupation in _Salmagundi_, a semi-monthly periodical of short duration, on the model of _The Spectator_, written in conjunction with two of his brothers in 1807-1808. In the meantime he had been admitted to the bar. In 1809 appeared "The Knickerbocker History of New York," a piece of humor and satire which made him famous. At this time occurred the death of his fiancee, a loss from which he never recovered. At the beginning of the War of 1812 he served for four months on the staff of the Governor of New York.

In 1815 he went again to Europe, this time on the business of his brothers' firm, to which he had been admitted, and he stayed there seventeen years. The firm failing in 1818, he turned to literature and began the publication in 1819 of "The Sketch-Book," a collection of sketches and narratives in the manner of _The Spectator_. This book definitely established him as an author, being received both in America and in England with delight. Besides being successful financially it gave him an introduction to literary society. "Bracebridge Hall" and "The Tales of a Traveller" appeared soon after, in 1822 and 1824 respectively. Irving himself had been for years much of a traveller, both from inclination and from the demands of his health.

In 1826 Irving went to Spain to write his "Life and Voyages of Columbus," which appeared in 1828. This residence in Spain, which lasted till September, 1829, was a fruitful one, as Spanish subjects appealed to his imagination. Besides the "Columbus," he wrote "The Conquest of Granada," "The Companions of Columbus," and "The Alhambra." These books were financially profitable in addition to being literary successes. Throughout these years he enjoyed, as usual, the pleasures of charming society. His stay in Spain was terminated by his unexpected appointment as Secretary of Legation to the Court of St. James.

Returning to England, he was received with honors, the Royal Society of Literature awarding him in 1830 one of the two annual medals and the University of Oxford making him an honorary D.C.L. In 1831 he resigned and the next year returned to America.

America greeted him with enthusiasm. After an extended tour of the South and West he settled at Tarrytown, on the Hudson, a few miles north of New York, to enjoy the domestic life afforded by numerous relatives, and to do the writing which was more than ever necessary for the support of the relatives who had become dependent on him. At Sunnyside, as his place was named, he resolutely devoted himself to literary work, after declining several offers of public office. He was a regular contributor to _The Knickerbocker Magazine_ at an annual salary, and he wrote several volumes, not now much read, while working on more ambitious literary projects.

In 1842 he received the unexpected and unsolicited honor of appointment as Minister to Spain. For four years he continued in office, performing his duties with tact and discretion. In 1846 he returned finally to his home, where he devoted his last days to a long-contemplated "Life of Washington," a task almost beyond his powers. On the 28th of November, 1850, he died, honored as no American man of letters had ever been.

REFERENCES

BIOGRAPHY: WARNER: Washington Irving. BOYNTON: Washington Irving.

CRITISCM: HOWELLS: My Literary Passions. THACKERAY: Nil Nisi Bonum (Roundabout Papers). RICHARDSON: American Literature.

NOTES TO "RIP VAN WINKLE"

This story appeared with four other papers in the first number of "The Sketch-Book," which was published in America in May, 1819, as the work of one Geoffrey Crayon.

PAGE 1. DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER: the supposed author of "The Knickerbocker History of New York." All this prefatory matter is merely to carry out the pretence, as do the Note and Postscript at the end.

2. PETER STUYVESANT: last Dutch governor of New York, born in Holland in 1592, died in New York in 1672. A man of short temper and with a wooden leg from the knee. FORT CHRISTINA: built by the Swedes on the Delaware River near the present city of Wilmington. There was no fighting.

15. FEDERAL OR DEMOCRAT: the two political parties after the close of the Revolutionary War. TORY: name applied to all followers of the king during the war.

16. STONY POINT: this promontory on the west bank of the Hudson was captured by the British, and later recaptured by the Americans under General Anthony Wayne. ANTONY'S NOSE: a bold cliff, in the shape of a nose, on the east bank of the river. The name is now usually spelled with an _h_.

18. HENDRICK HUDSON: really Henry Hudson, an Englishman in the employ of the Dutch East India Company. He was on a voyage to discover a north-east passage, when he explored the river which bears his name. The _Half Moon_ was the name of his boat.

EDGAR ALLAN POE

Edgar Allan Poe, the child of poor travelling actors, was born in Boston, January 19, 1809. Left an orphan in his third year, he was taken into the family of Mr. John Allan of Richmond, who gave him his name. Soon he became a great pet of his foster-parents, who rather spoiled him. In 1815 the Allans went to England, where the boy was in school at Stoke Newington, a suburb of London, till June, 1820, when the family returned to Richmond. His education was continued in private schools and by the aid of tutors till he entered the University of Virginia, February 14, 1826. At the University he developed a passion for drink and gambling, which led Mr. Allan to place him in his own counting-room at the end of the session in December, though he had done extremely well in some of his studies. Not liking the irksomeness of this occupation, Poe left to make his own way.