Part 14

Luncheon that day was a terrible meal for him. Uncle Lambert (though he was too great a coward to go near the fight himself) seemed very anxious that the defenders should be in good condition. 'Give yourself a chance, General,' he would say; 'another slice of this roly-poly pudding may just turn the scale between you and Yellow Vulture. Look at the army--they're victualling for a regular siege!'

But Clarence was quite unable to follow their example; he was annoyed with them for what he considered was 'showing off'--though he might have reflected that to consume three helpings of jam-and-suet in rapid succession was an almost impossible form of bravado.

The rest of the afternoon he spent in trying to lower the army's confidence by telling all the gruesome stories of Indian warfare he could think of; but he frightened himself a great deal more than them, and at last had to abandon the attempt in despair.

For Jack and Guy had no nerves to speak of; they were eager to clear their tarnished reputation, and the possibility of harm coming to them did not seem to present itself. They had formed rather a poor opinion of Buffalo Bill's Indians, whose yell turned out to be very little more than short yelps, and who ran away directly a Cowboy showed his nose. Hadn't Clarence defeated them with ease already? What Clarence had done alone they surely could do together, and then they had an unbounded belief in the impregnable character of their stockade.

Tinling found that he could not undeceive them without exposing himself, which he would still rather die than do, and he roamed about the grounds, making a little mental calculation whenever a clock struck in the heavy afternoon stillness: 'In so many hours from this I shall be fighting hand-to-hand with real Indians!'

Then at tea-time he thought (for the first time) the smell of cake quite detestable, and he hardly knew how he forced himself to sit quietly on his chair.

'General Tinling,' said Uncle Lambert, 'before you, so to speak, "go to the front" and occupy the post of danger, will you oblige me by drawing up the troops before the verandah? I should like, though unable to accompany you myself, to say a few words of farewell.'

Clarence sulkily acquiesced, and Lambert Jolliffe addressed the army: 'Soldiers,' he said, 'a great responsibility rests upon you this day. You are expected solemnly and earnestly to strive your utmost _not_ to

Let the red man dance By _our_ red cedar tree,

to quote (with a trifling variation) from Tennyson's "Maud." For myself, I have no fears of the result. Under the leadership of your veteran General, victory must infallibly crown your arms. We peaceful civilians shall rest secure in the absolute confidence such protection inspires, and be the first to welcome your triumphant return. Should your hearts fail you at any moment, I have already instructed you how to act. To the Commander himself I should consider the mere suggestion an impertinence. Go, then, devoted spirits, where Glory leads, and endeavour to avoid the indignity of scalping--if only for the sake of appearances. Soldiers, I have done. May the God of Battles (I need hardly explain to scholars that I refer to Mars) keep his eye on you!'

Hazel and Hilary were also on the verandah, and used their handkerchiefs freely--but principally to conceal their mouths. 'They'll be sorry they laughed by-and-by;' thought Clarence; 'they'll wish they had cried just a little, perhaps!'--a reflection the pathos of which very nearly made him cry himself, as he marched down to the stockade, feeling distinctly unwell.

Before he entered the fort he tore down the fatal notices. 'What's the good of that?' asked Guy.

'Well, the Indians have seen 'em,' said the General.

'But they'll think we want to back out of it,' objected Jack.

'Let them think!' was the bold retort.

Inside the fort Jack and Guy set to work in the highest spirits to barricade the entrance with wheelbarrows and an old mowing-machine; then they lit the lantern, and polished their guns, sharpened their swords, and looked to the springs of their pistols for about the hundredth time.

'I say, this would jolly well pepper a Red Indian, wouldn't it!' cried Guy, showing a pistol, the tiny barrel of which was constructed to discharge swanshot with a steel watch-spring.

'I tell you what,' said Jack, with the air of a trapper, 'I shall reserve my peas till I've fired away all the corks, and take a deliberate aim each time.'

It was impossible to persuade them that these missiles would not be accepted as deadly by savages, who of course would know no better; and again, had not the first victory been won by these simple means?

So General Tinling held his peace, and the western sky slowly changed from crocus to green, and from green to deep violet, and the evening star lighted its steady golden fire, the grasshoppers set up a louder chirp, a bat executed complicated figures overhead, and the boys unconsciously began to speak in whispers.

'It's getting too dark to see much with this telescope,' said Jack, 'I wish we had a night-glass. The Indians ought to be here by this time--they said "sunset," didn't they? If I _was_ a Red Indian I would be punctual! When do you suppose they'll come, Clarence--soon?'

'How on earth do I know?' snapped the General from within the tent.

'Well, you needn't get in a bait over it. How did they come on the first time--did they crawl along like snakes till they were quite near, and then give a yell and rush at the stockade?'

'I forget what they did--don't bother me!'

'I suppose they'll all have tomahawks,' said Guy. 'Clarence, does scalping hurt?'

There was a slight convulsion inside the tent, but no answer.

'I wonder if the Bogallala torture prisoners,' Jack observed; 'I don't think I could stand _that_.'

The General came to the tent-door at this: 'Can't you fellows shut up?' he said fiercely. 'They'll hear you!'

'They're not here yet--we shall know when they come, by the signalling--let's all keep quite quiet for a minute or two.'

There was a breathless interval of silence. At last Jack said: 'I hear something--a sort of low grunting noise, like pigs.'

'Perhaps it is the pigs at the farm,' suggested Guy.

'Indians can imitate all kinds of birds, I know,' reasoned Jack, not directly to the point, perhaps, but he was getting excited.

Tinling felt a dull rage against the other two. How dared they pretend not to be afraid? It was all swagger--he knew that very well. Various unpleasant recollections began to rise in his mind. He remembered how that Indian spy had stalked the settler's cabin at Earl's Court. He could see him now, stealing over the sand, then listening with his ear to the ground, and turning to beckon on the ambushed warriors. He even remembered the way the yellow and red striped blinds of the log hut flapped in the wind, and how the horse that was hobbled outside raised his head from his hay, and pricked his ears uneasily, as the foe came gliding nearer and nearer. Then their way of fighting--he had thought it rather comic _then_--they hopped and pranced about like so many lively frogs, but the butchery would not be rendered any more agreeable by being accompanied by laughable gestures! And there was an almost naked light-yellow savage, whom he recalled dancing the war dance--he tried not to think of all this, but it came vividly before him.

'S-s-h--_Cave_!' cried Guy, suddenly, as he looked through the loophole; 'I can see just the top of one's head and feathers among the currant bushes. I'll touch him up in a second.'

He raised his tiny spring pistol, and was just aiming, when Tinling, almost beside himself, darted on him, and struck it out of his hand. 'What are you doing now?' he said, through his teeth. 'What is the good of _irritating_ them?'

'Why, they _are_ irritated,' said Guy, 'or they wouldn't come.'

'If they are,' retorted Clarence, raising his voice, 'whose doing was it? You can't say I had anything to do with putting up those defiances! Haven't I always said I respected Red men? They've got feelings like us. When you go and insult them, of course they get annoyed--who wouldn't, I should like to know? I honour a chief like Yellow Vulture myself, and I don't care if he hears me say so. I say I honour him!'

His voice rose almost to a scream as he concluded.

'I say, Tinling, I do believe you're in a funk!' said Guy, after a moment of wondering silence.

'If you are, say so, and we shall know what to do,' added Jack, feeling in his pocket. 'Are you?'

'Feel his hands,' suggested Guy.

'Look here,' said Clarence, dashing aside the obstacles before the door, 'I'm not going to stay here to be treated in this way. If it hadn't been for your foolery in sticking up the notices we should have been friends with the Indians now. I don't want to quarrel with any Bogallala. And you have the cheek to ask me if I'm in a funk, and to want to feel my hands. Well, it just serves you right--I'm going.'

'Well, go then; who wants you?' said Guy.

But softer-hearted Jack said, 'Clarence, you mustn't. You'll be safe in here; but out there----'

But the General had already vanished. He was crouching outside in the shadow of the stockade. He could not bear being penned up any longer; he must at least have a run for his life.

Had the enemy heard him declare his innocence? If so, it did not seem to have softened them. They were still crouching--silent, hidden, relentless--behind the currant bushes, their scouts signalling to one another, for no _real_ grasshopper ever made so much noise as that. He must make a bolt for it, and take his chance of their arrows missing him. Over the open space of grey-green grass he scuttled, and actually succeeded in reaching the friendly shadow of the holly hedge unharmed; but that was probably because they felt so certain of cutting him off at their pleasure.

On tiptoe and trembling went the General along the narrow paths, green with damp, and latticed by the shadows which branches cast in the sickly moonlight, until--just when he was almost clear of the gloom--his knees bent under him; for there, at the end of the walk, against the starry sky, stood a towering figure, with bristling feather head-dress, and tomahawk poised.

'Oh, please, sir, don't!' he faltered, and shut his eyes, expecting the Indian to bound upon him. But when he opened his eyes again, the savage was gone! He must have slipped behind a ragged old yew which had once been clipped and trimmed to look like a chess-king.

Clarence Tinling tottered on through the shrubbery, which was full of terrors. Warriors, stealthy and cruel, lurked behind every rustling laurel; far away on the lawn he saw their spears through the tall pampas grass; he heard them chirping, clucking, and grunting in every direction as they lay in wait for him, until at last he gained the broad gravel path, at the end of which--oh, how far away they seemed!--were the three lighted windows of the drawing-room. He could see the interior quite plainly, and the group round the piano where the shaded lamp made a spot of brilliant colour. What were they all doing? Were they huddled together, waiting, watching in an agony of suspense? Nothing of the kind: it will be scarcely credited, perhaps, but this heartless domestic circle were positively passing the time with music, as if nothing were happening!

If only he could reach that bright drawing-room before the rush came! He felt that there were lithe forms stealing along behind the flower-beds. He dared not run, but dragged his heavy feet along the gravel; and then, all at once, from the rhododendron bushes rose a wild, unearthly yell. He could bear it no longer; he would make one last effort, even if they tomahawked him on the very verandah.

Somehow--he never knew how--he found himself in the midst of that quiet musical party, wild with terror, scarcely able to speak.

'The Red Indians!' he gasped. 'Don't let them get me! Save me--hide me somewhere!' and he remembered afterwards that he made a mad endeavour to get inside the piano.

He was instantly surrounded by the astonished family. 'My dear Clarence,' said Mrs. Jolliffe, 'you're perfectly safe--you've been frightening yourself with your own game. There are no Indians here.'

Another howl from the shrubbery seemed to contradict her. 'There, didn't you hear that?' he cried. 'Oh, you won't believe me till it's too late! There are hundreds of them round the stockade. They may have scalped Jack and Guy by this time!'

'And why ain't you being scalped too?' inquired Uncle Lambert.

'I'm sure you needn't talk!' he retorted; 'you weren't any more anxious to fight than I am.'

'But isn't that different? I thought you had fought them before, and conquered?'

'Then you thought wrong! Those--those weren't real Indians--I made them up, then!'

'Now we've got it!' said Uncle Lambert. 'Well, Master Clarence, you've made your little confession, and now it's my turn--_I_ made Yellow Vulture up!'

'Are you sure--really sure--on your honour?' he asked eagerly.

'Honest Injun!' said Lambert. 'You see, I began to think the military business was getting rather overdone; the army, like Wordsworth's world, was "too much with us," and it occurred to me to see whether the General's courage would stand an outside test--so I composed that little challenge. Yes, you see before you the only Wah Na Sa Pash Boo--no others are genuine!'

Tinling felt that those girls were laughing at him; they had probably been in the secret for some time; but he could not care much just then--the relief was so delicious!

'It was too bad of you, Lambert,' said Mrs. Jolliffe. 'He was really horribly frightened, and there are those other two down in the stockade all alone--you might have thought of that--they will be half out of their minds by this time!'

'My dear Cecilia,' was the reply,'don't be uneasy, I _did_ think of it. The moment they begin to feel at all uncomfortable they have directions to open a certain packet which explains the whole thing. If the gallant General had not been in quite such a hurry, he would have spared himself this unpleasant experience.'

'Let's all go down, and see how they're getting on,' said Hazel.

'I know this,' said the General sullenly, 'they were in quite as big a funk as I was!'

'Then why didn't they run in, and ask to be hidden too?' inquired Hilary.

'Why? Because they didn't dare!' retorted Tinling, boldly.

'You know,' he remarked to Cecily, as they were going down together through the warm darkness, 'it's not fair of your uncle to play these tricks on fellows.'

'Perhaps it isn't quite,' said Cecily, impartially; 'but then he didn't _begin_, did he?'

'Ahoy!' shouted Uncle Lambert, as they neared the stockade, and he was answered by a ringing cheer from the fortress.

'Come on--we ain't afraid of you! Don't skulk there--see what you'll get!' And a volley of peas, corks, and small shot flew about their ears.

Lambert Jolliffe ran forward: 'Hi, stop that! spare our lives!' he cried, laughing. 'Jack, you young rascal, put down that confounded popgun--can't you see we're not Red Indians?'

'What, is it you, uncle?' said Guy, in a rather crestfallen tone. 'Where are the Red Indians then?'

'They had to go up to town to see their dentist. But do you mean to say you haven't opened my envelope after all?'

'I thought you told us it was only in case we got frightened?' said Jack.

'What does the General say to _that_?' cried Lambert--but Clarence Tinling was nowhere to be found. He had slipped off to his bedroom, and the next morning he announced at breakfast that he 'thought his people would be wanting him at home.'

So the army was disbanded, for there was a general disarmament, and on the afternoon after Tinling's departure the entire Jolliffe family engaged in a grand cricket match, when lazy Uncle Lambert came out unexpectedly strong as an overhand bowler.

_SHUT OUT_

It is towards the end of an afternoon in December, and Wilfred Rolleston is walking along a crowded London street with his face turned westward. A few moments ago and he was scarcely conscious of where he was or where he meant to go: he was walking on mechanically in a heavy stupor, through which there stole a haunting sense of degradation and despair that tortured him dully. And suddenly, as if by magic, this has vanished: he seems to himself to have waked from a miserable day dream to the buoyant consciousness of youth and hope. Temperaments which are subject to fits of heavy and causeless depression have their compensations sometimes in the reaction which follows; the infesting cares, as in Longfellow's poem, 'fold their tents, like the Arabs, and as silently steal away,' and with their retreat comes an exquisite exhilaration which more equable dispositions can never experience.

Is this so with Rolleston now? He only knows that the cloud has lifted from his brain, and that in the clear sunshine which bursts upon him now he can look his sorrows in the face and know that there is nothing so terrible in them after all.

It is true that he is not happy at the big City day school which he has just left. How should he be? He is dull and crabbed and uncouth, and knows too well that he is an object of general dislike; no one there cares to associate with him, and he makes no attempt to overcome their prejudices, being perfectly aware that they are different from him, and hating them for it, but hating himself, perhaps, the most.

And though all his evenings are spent at home there is little rest for him even there, for the work for the next day must be prepared; and he sits over it till late, sometimes with desperate efforts to master the difficulties, but more often staring at the page before him with eyes that are almost wilfully vacant.

All this has been and is enough in itself to account for the gloomy state into which he had sunk. But--and how could he have forgotten it?--it is over for the present.

To-night he will not have to sit up struggling with the tasks which will only cover him with fresh disgrace on the morrow; for a whole month he need not think of them, nor of the classes in which the hand of everyone is against him. For the holidays have begun; to-day has been the last of the term. Is there no reason for joy and thankfulness in that? What a fool he has been to let those black thoughts gain such a hold over him!

Slowly, more as if it had all happened a long time ago instead of quite recently, the incidents of the morning come back to him, vivid and clear once more--morning chapel and the Doctor's sermon, and afterwards the pretence of work and relaxed discipline in the class rooms, when the results of the examinations had been read out, with the names of the boys who had gained prizes and their remove to the form above. He had come out last of course, but no one expected anything else from him; a laugh had gone round the desks when his humble total closed the list, and he had joined in it to show them he didn't care. And then the class had been dismissed, and there had been friendly good-byes, arrangements for walking home in company or for meeting during the holidays--for all but him; he had gone out alone--and the dull blankness had come over him from which he has only just recovered.

But, for the present at all events, he has got rid of it completely; he is going home, where at least he is not despised, where he will find a sanctuary from gibes and jostlings and impositions; and the longer he thinks of this the higher his spirits rise, and he steps briskly, with a kind of exultation, until the people he passes in the streets turn and look at him, struck by his expression. 'They can see how jolly I'm feeling,' he thinks with a smile.

The dusk is falling, and the shops he passes are brilliant with lights and decorations, but he does not stop to look at any of them; his mind is busy with settling how he shall employ himself on this the first evening of his liberty, the first for so long on which he could feel his own master.

At first he decides to read. Is there not some book he had begun and meant to finish, so many days ago now that he has even forgotten what it was all about, and only remembers that it was exciting?

And yet, he thinks, he won't read to-night--not on the very first night of the holidays. Quite lately--yesterday or the day before--his mother had spoken to him, gently but very seriously, about what she called the morose and savage fits which would bring misery upon him if he did not set himself earnestly to overcome them.

And there were times, he knew, when it seemed as if a demon possessed him and drove him to wound even those who loved him and whom he loved--times when their affection only roused in him some hideous spirit of sullen contradiction.

He feels softened now somehow, and has a new longing for the love he has so often harshly repulsed. He _will_ overcome this sulkiness of his; he will begin this very evening; as soon as he gets home he will tell his mother that he is sorry, that he does love her really, only that when these fits come on him he hardly knows what he says or does.

And she will forgive him, only too gladly; and his mind will be quite at ease again. No, not quite; there is still something he must do before that: he has a vague recollection of a long-standing coolness between himself and his younger brother, Lionel. They never have got on very well together; Lionel is so different--much cleverer even already, for one thing; better looking too, and better tempered. Whatever they quarrelled about Wilfred is very sure that he was the offender; Lionel never begins that kind of thing. But he will put himself in the right at once, and ask Lionel to make friends again; he will consent readily enough--he always does.

And then he has a bright idea: he will take his brother some little present to prove that he really wishes to behave decently for the future. What shall he buy?

He finds himself near a large toy shop at the time, and in the window are displayed several regiments of brightly coloured tin warriors--the very thing! Lionel is still young enough to delight in them.

Feeling in his pockets, Rolleston discovers more loose silver than he had thought he possessed, and so he goes into the shop and asks for one of the boxes of soldiers. He is served by one of two neatly dressed female assistants, who stare and giggle at one another at his first words, finding it odd, perhaps, that a fellow of his age should buy toys--as if, he thinks indignantly, they couldn't see that it was not for _himself_ he wanted the things.