III
Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leadership. It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous young person. A sturdy way of standing he has: squarely, with his round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leadership. When he is with Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked. "You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch and found I couldn't jump."
"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains.
"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across."
"Well, but Ididget across!"
"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy."
"But I gotacross," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon.
He had the instinct of leadership. At first, in the excursions with Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement, ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right."
And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons, Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took it.
THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN
I
The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the London season was ended.
The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him ardently along the hours.
The years were passing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days to form a stately chain of sunshine through the warmer months.
Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew lustily; lissom of limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him.
"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him," stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face) to lay a passage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie.
"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!"
"I know, I know; but she tries toruleme, Aunt Maggie!"
"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows. Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!"
"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big, Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in too tightly."
Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie, fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the sum abeastlysum—the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! Abeastlysum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing and winding up, "but he is such asweet. So lovable! So merry!"
"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie.
"Ofcourse, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's somanly!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like amanlyboy!"
Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to "Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise books. "He wantsLatin," said Miss Purdie. "He wantsalgebra. He wantsEuclid!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wantsLatin! He wantsalgebra! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how I shall miss them!"
She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by repeating very fiercely: "He wantsLatin!"
II
Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon—and completed—all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie, for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with lethargic ways and pronounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr. Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes me. Eh, Percival?"
Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr. Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted.
Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the tricycle.
The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a clock—"twiddling" Percival called it—when the machine was to be deflected from a straight passage. Percival's legs were too short for the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious pushing, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat, and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival—legs dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat—and anguished entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd onlyworkwhen we get near the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not have this awfulpushing!"
"Well, kindly do not pushme," says Mr. Purdie, very hot.
Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr. Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill; Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!"
It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr. Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle.
"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!"
Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly in my eye!"
"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously.
The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened.
"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!"
They whizzed!
Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone. His hair fluttered in the rushing wind. His face was crimson with excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!"
Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of new alarm.
"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!"
"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner coming!"
"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!"
"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr. Purdie, twiddle!"
Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts. "Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, and poised itself above them.
Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of laughter—then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from Percival.
In muffled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are not killed. Where are you, Percival?"
Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't knowwhereI am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't know."
"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please."
Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm practically standing on my head, you know."
"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly unpleasant—a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to do something. The odour here is most noisome."
"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?"
"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot."
A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter.
In muffled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?"
"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out, though."
Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little boy! Pull me out!"
"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!"
"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell."
"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are simplytight!"
Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then."
The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking.
"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down with leaves."
"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please."
"Is the fly still in your eye?"
"I don't know where the fly is."
"Your trousers are awfully torn."
"Be silent, please. I am dazed."
He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's regard.
"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see."
Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with laughing!"
"I was only afraid for you, Percival."
"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!"
Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it. "Were you laughing all the way down?"
"Anybody would laugh at a whizz like that."
The plump tutor has a close acquaintance with one person who would not. The remark pricks him and he finds a comforting answer. "Only very silly people laugh at danger."
"Well, I didn't know it was danger," said Percival; and Mr. Purdie first looks at him thoughtfully and then gives one of his shrill, absurd chuckles.
III
Happy, happy time! There were the visits to Mr. Hannaford, always made on a whole holiday because an early start was necessary, where the little 'orse farm was progressing famously and where Percival was made quite extraordinarily welcome. Terrible leg-and-cane cracks would announce in which quarter of the farm Mr. Hannaford was to be found, and Percival would discover Mr. Hannaford watching a little circus 'orse at exercise, or watching the builders at work in the brick stables that were slowly displacing the line of sheds, and watching all the time to the accompaniment of bellowing instructions punctuated by leg-and-cane cracks of astounding volume.
Percival would plant himself squarely by Mr. Hannaford's side in Mr. Hannaford's position—legs apart, head thrown back—and would eagerly follow the proceedings until Mr. Hannaford suddenly would observe him and would cry in a voice the whole farm might hear: "Why, it's the little Pocket Marvel! Bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't! However long a you been there, little master?"
Percival, beaming all over his face and putting his small hand into the tremendous shake of Mr. Hannaford's shoulder of mutton fist: "Only about ten minutes, thank you, Mr. Hannaford. Don't you mind me, you know. I like watching."
"Ah, and I've got something for you to watch," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Now you come over here with me. Got that little lordship with you?"
"Not come back yet," Percival would reply, capering along, tremendously happy. "How are you going along, Mr. Hannaford? Properly?"
"Properly to rights! Look at that now!" And with a terrible leg-and-cane crack Mr. Hannaford would pause before the new stables and call Percival's attention to some new feature that had arisen since his last visit. "Names on the doors, d'you see? 'Crocker's' on that door, 'Maddox's' on this door. Do a deal in little 'orses with Crocker's circus; take your gross profit; set aside share of expenses; set aside wear and tear; set aside emergency fund; take your net profit; build your stable; call it Crocker's. Same with Maddox: deal, gross, share, wear, emergency, net, stable—call it Maddox! What d'you think of that for a notion?"
"Why, I call it jolly fine, Mr. Hannaford," Percival replies. "I call that a proper notion. Reminds you how you did it, doesn't it?"
"Why, that's just exactly what it does do!" cries Mr. Hannaford, enormously delighted. "Just the very notion of it, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't! Now you come along over here." And Mr. Hannaford would leg-and-cane crack, and Percival would trot and chatter, over to another marvel, where a similar performance would be gone through, owner and spectator tremendously happy, and both profoundly serious.
Mr. Hannaford would usually propose lunch after this. Mr. Hannaford permitted no women in his establishment; but the long, low-roofed dining-room in the old farmhouse was kept at a shining cleanliness, and the meal was invitingly cooked, by a one-armed man of astoundingly fierce appearance and astonishingly mild disposition, who answered to the names of Ob and Diah accordingly as Mr. Hannaford preferred the former or latter half of the Obadiah to which the one-armed man was entitled, and who had left the greater part of his missing arm in the lion's cage he had attended when travelling with Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus.
Three places were always set at the table when Percival visited. One for Mr. Hannaford at one end, one at the other end for brother Stingo—"in case," as Mr. Hannaford would say—and one on Mr. Hannaford's right for Percival. There was a tremendous silver tankard of ale for Mr. Hannaford, a similar tankard for Percival—requiring both hands and containing milk—and always, when Mr. Hannaford raised the dish-cover, there developed from the cloud of steam a plump chicken which Mr. Hannaford called chickunand Percival chickingand which they both fell upon with quite remarkable appetites.
"Well, it's a most astonishing thing to me," Percival would say when the cover went up, and the chicken settled out of the steam. "Most amazing! You know I like chicking better than anything, and every time I come you just happen to have chicking for dinner! Most amazing to me, you know!"
And Mr. Hannaford would lay down the carving knife and fork and stare at the chicken and say: "Well, it is a chickun again, so it is, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!" and would give a tremendous wink at Ob in order to enjoy with him the joke arising from the fact that directly Percival was sighted on the farm a messenger was sent to Ob to prepare the meal that Percival liked best.
Then they would eat away, and pull away at the colossal tankards, and Percival would always make a point of saying: "Stingo not home?"
A long pull at the tankard and a heavy sigh from Mr. Hannaford: "Not just yet, little master. Still restless, I'm afraid. Still restless."
And Percival, in the old phrase and with the air of a grandfather: "Well, he'll settle down, you know. He'll settle down."
"Why, that's just what I say!" Mr. Hannaford would exclaim, immensely comforted. "Settle down—of course he will! Just what I'm always telling him, bless my eighteen stun proper if it ain't!"
Always the same jolly lunch, always the same mingled seriousness and jolly fun, always the same jokes. Percival did not know that much of it was carefully planned by Mr. Hannaford that he might enjoy the fullest relish of the Pocket Marvel's visit. There was the great chicken joke, there was also the killing joke for the production of which by Percival Mr. Hannaford would dawdle lunch to an inordinate length.
At length it would come: "Nothing I can have a ride on, I suppose, Mr. Hannaford?" Percival would say with careful carelessness.
"Never a norse fit for it," Mr. Hannaford would reply, equally off-hand.
A heavy sigh from Percival: "Oh, dear! Sure, I suppose?"
"Certain! Got a little brown 'orse—but there, you'd never ride him."
"I bet I would! I bet I would!"
Mr. Hannaford, looking terribly fierce and in a very violent voice: "Bet you wouldn't!"
"Try me, then! Only try me!"
And Mr. Hannaford would bounce up and seize his cane, and they would rush off, and the saddle would be put on the little brown 'orse, and Percival would mount him and gallop him and cry "You see! You see!" And Mr. Hannaford would pretend huge amazement and declare that Percival was a proper little Pocket Marvel, bless his eighteen stun proper if he wasn't.
Once or twice Stingo would be there, and then the jolly fun would be jollier than ever; and in the evening Mr. Hannaford's gig with the big black mare would come around and the brothers would labour up into the seat and Percival would squeeze in between them and they would let him drive and he would pop the mare along at a lashing speed and there would be the highest good-fellowship. He would be set down at the top of Five Furlong Hill—nothing would induce Mr. Hannaford to come into the village where women might be met. "Well, good night, Mr. Hannaford; good night, Mr. Stingo. Thank you most awfully for all your kindness to me. I hope I'll come again soon."
The brothers would usually wait until he reached the turning to the village; setting up, the one a husky shout, and the other a terrible bellow, in reply to the faint "Good night!" that came to them through the dusk.
"I never in all my life took to nothing, not even a little 'orse, like I have to that little master," Mr. Hannaford would say. "Never seen such a proper one, never."
And Stingo, with painful huskiness: "Ought to ha' been a little lordship!"
"Why, that's just exactly what I say," Mr. Hannaford would reply, enormously pleased. "Bless my eighteen stun proper if it isn't!"
IV
Happy, happy time! There were the visits to mild old Mr. Amber in the library at Burdon Old Manor. Strongest contrast, the delights here, to those enjoyed among the little 'orses. Strongest contrast, mild old Mr. Amber with his stooping shoulders and his gentle ways, to tremendous Mr. Hannaford with his lusty back and his vigorous habits.
But the same eager welcome: "Well, well, Master Percival, this is indeed a pleasant surprise! And we are just sitting down to our tea—and I declare Mrs. Ferris has sent us some strawberry jam! Now if that isn't too fortunate I don't know what is!"
"Well, it's awfully jolly," Percival agrees. "Mrs. Ferris makes very nice strawberry jam, doesn't she?"
In the act of pouring tea, mild old Mr. Amber sets down the pot and emphasises with his glasses. "My dear sir—my dear Percival, she makes the very best strawberry jam! Mrs. Ferris has made that strawberry jam for forty years—to our certain knowledge, for-ty years."
Percival's rounded eyes show his appreciation of this consistent industry. "Must have made a lot," is his comment.
"Tons," says Mr. Amber. "My dear sir—my dear Percival, I should say—tons." He stabs the glasses at his listener. "And every berry, sir, every single berry, wet season or dry, from our own gardens!"
It always comes back to that with Mr. Amber. The old Manor, the House of Burdon, is his world and his life, and he is mightily jealous you shall know their quality.
There is generally a little interlude of this kind in the course of the visit. Its effect stays for a few minutes, Mr. Amber slowly repeating to himself "every berry—every single berry, sir," in the tone of one impressively warning against any challenge of his statement; and then he simmers down and recollects that his visitor is the Percival who occupies a large portion of his heart. He likes to take Percival's hand. He likes to feel that warm young grasp within his own chilly old palm. He likes to lead the boy and feel those sturdy young fingers twitch to the excitement of what tales he can tell or what treasures he can show.
"Now what have we got to show you in our shelves this evening? Nothing much, we fear. Oh, yes, we have, though! Those folios—we've rearranged them so as to fill the ninth and tenth in this tier. That was your suggestion, wasn't it? I agree, you know, I quite agree. It's an improvement."
"Keeps them stiffer," says Percival, head on one side, rather proud.
"Just exactly what it does! Keeps them stiffer. Lessens the strain. We ought to have thought of that, Percival. We reproach ourselves there, you know."
There is a tinge of the self-reproach in his voice, and Percival hastens with: "Of course you would have done it yourself, as you said, but you get into your ways, don't you?"
"Well, we do," agrees Mr. Amber, very comforted. "That's just what it is—we get into our ways."
At other times when Percival comes to the library, there is no answer to his knock on the door. He turns the handle very gently; pokes in his head very quietly; peers all about the apartment; cannot see Mr. Amber; enters very cautiously; and presently espies him perched high aloft on one of the wheeled book-ladders, sitting cross-legged, catalogue on knee, pencil in hand, brow puckered in mental labour.
Then Percival closes the door behind him, so that there shall be scarcely the faintest click, and gives a tiny cough and says: "Very busy, Mr. Amber?"
"'M-'m," says Mr. Amber, wagging his head, waving the pencil and frowning horribly. "'M-'m!"
Percival tiptoes with enormous caution to the other ladder; wheels it to a shelf where he has found entertainment; selects his book; perches himself; and for an hour or more the two, each on his ladder, the child and the man, the lissom young form and the withered old figure, sit high among the books, entranced among the worlds that books discover.
"'M-'m!" says Mr. Amber at intervals, frantically waving.
"Only coughed," explains Percival. "Only that choking, you know. It—"
"'M-'m! 'M-'m!" and they bury themselves again.
That is the usual course. Once or twice there have been conversations across the room from the tops of the ladders. Percival has looked up from his book to find Mr. Amber turned towards him and regarding him with eyes that do not appear to see his smile of greeting. "Mr. Amber, is there anything funny about me that you look at me so?"
Mr. Amber will start as though he had been dreaming. "Funny? Eh? Why, no, Percival; nothing funny at all."
"If it is my boots, they are quite clean. I gave them twelve wipes each, like you told me."
"It's not your boots."
Silence between them.
"Funny us two sitting up here like this, like two mountains in the sea. Rather jolly, isn't it?"
"It recalls to me," says Mr. Amber, "another little boy who used to sit up there just as you sit.... In this dim light ... there are ways you have, Percival..."
Silence again. Twilight gathering in the corners of the vast room. A moth softly thudding the window-pane. There is something in the atmosphere that seems to hold Percival. At "Post Offic" he likes the lamps to be lit when dusk draws down; here there is a feeling of gentleness about him, with curious half-thoughts and with half-familiar gropings and stretchings of the shadows. "Thinking without thinking, as if I was in some one else who was thinking," he has described it to Aunt Maggie.
"Your voice, too," says Mr. Amber suddenly.
Percival knows what is in Mr. Amber's mind. "Thinking of your young lordship, aren't you, Mr. Amber?"
"He used to sit there," Mr. Amber replies. "In this dim light ... seeing you there..."
Silence again. Twilight wreathing from the corners across the ceiling; shadows grouping and moving in new fantasies; soft thuddings of the moth as though a shadow beat to enter.
Percival stretches a hand, and against the window's light perceives a shadow he has watched drift caressingly about his fingers.
Mr. Amber, little above a whisper, peering through the gloom: "Why do you stretch your hand so, my lord?"
"I'm touching a shadow that's come right up to me;" and then Percival realises the last words, and laughs and says: "You called me 'my lord!'—you did really, Mr. Amber!"
"God bless me!" says Mr. Amber, shaking himself—"God bless me, we are getting the shadows in our brains. Come down and watch me light the lamps."
V
Happy, happy time! Best of all when the family is at the Old Manor and when the friendship with Rollo can be taken up where it was left, to be deepened and to be discovered more than ever fruitful of delights. The boys are older now. Childish games are done with; very serious talks (so they believe) take the place of the chatter and the "pretending" of earlier days: they discuss affairs, mostly arising from adventures in the books they read; there has been a general election, and they agree that the Liberals are awful rotters; there has been one of the little wars, and they kindle together to the glory of British arms and wish they might be Young Buglers and be thanked by the general before the whole regiment like the heroes of Mr. Henty's books.
Percival calls the tune, starts the discussions, constructs the adventures. Rollo follows the lead, leaning on the quicker mind just as he relies on the stronger arm and the speedier foot when they are on their rambles together. It is Rollo who throws the acorn that hits the stout farm boy driving a milk cart beneath them, as they perch in a tree. It is Percival who scrambles down responsive to the insults of the enraged boy, and takes a most fearful battering that the stout boy's stout arms are able to inflict.
"I ought to have fought him," Rollo says half-tearfully, with shamed and shuddering glances at the bloody handkerchief held to the suffering nose, the lumped forehead and the blackened eye. "He said the one that hit him. It was my shot."
Percival, in terrible fury, muffled from behind the handkerchief: "How could you fight him? Dash those great clodhopping arms of his! A mile long! I'll have another go at him, I swear I will."
It is Rollo who cries: "Percival, it will kill us!" when the ram they have annoyed comes with a fourth shattering crash against the boards of the pigsty to which they have fled for safety. It is Percival who cries: "Run, when he sees us!" whips over the palisade, springs across the field, and takes the tail-end of an appalling batter as he hurls himself through the far gate.
"How ever could you dare?" Rollo asks, joining him in the road. "Has he hurt you frightfully?"
"How could you have escaped?" says Percival, limping. "He'd have got you in that sty. I knew I could beat him. Dash the brute, it stings! There's the kind of stick I want! I'll teach him manners!"
It is Rollo who gives an appealing look at Percival when Lord Burdon starts them in a race for sixpence. It is Percival who whispers as they run: "We'll make it a dead heat."
"It was awfully decent of you, Percival," Rollo exclaims, as they go to spend the prize at Mrs. Minnifie's sweet shop.
"Oh, it's rotten beating one another when people are looking on," Percival replies. "I vote for lemonade as well, don't you?"
It is the spirit between them that had its first evidence on the day when the visit was made to Mr. Hannaford to purchase the little black 'orse. Then Rollo hung back while Percival jumped to ride; then Percival brought him forward, encouraging him, to taste the fun. So now, as the years sunder their natures more sharply, and as affection more strongly bridges the gulf, the more sharply does the one lead, the other follow; the more naturally does the one support, the other rely.
Everybody notices it: Aunt Maggie, who only smiles; Lady Burdon, who says: "Rollo, Percival's a regular little father to you, it seems to me. Don't let him rule you, you know. Remember what you are, Rollo mine." Even Egbert Hunt notices it. Mr. Hunt is still attached to Rollo's person. Sick yedaches trouble him less frequently; but his hatred of tyrangs has deepened with the increasing tenure of his servitude. He spends less of his wages on vegules; much of it on socialistic literature of an inflammatory nature; but he never forgets the sympathy of Percival in the vegule days, and he is strongly joined with all those who, meeting the boy, have a note stirred by his sunny nature.
"Always does me good to see you," Mr. Hunt says one day. "Something about you. He'll never be a slave who works for you."
"Well, who's going to work for me?" Percival inquires.
"The point!" says Mr. Hunt with impressive gloom. "The very point." He fumbles in his pocket and produces thumbed papers, just as he fumbled and produced vegules at an earlier day. "It's in the lowlier"—he consults a paper—"in the lowlier strata that you find the men a man can follow, but the men that can't lead owing to the heel of the tyrang. It's the Bloodsuckers we got to serve." He indicates the paper: "Bloodsuckers, they call 'em here."
"Silly rot," says Percival.
"Ah, you're young," Mr. Hunt returns. "You're young. You'll learn different when they begin to sap your blood for you. You're a higher strata than me, Master Percival. Benificent influence of education, you've had. But you're under the Bloodsuckers. Squeeze you out like an orindge, they will, and throw yer away. Me one day, you another." He indicated the paper again. "There's a strong bit here called 'Squeezed Orindges.' Makes yer boil."
"I'm boiling already," says Percival. "It's a jolly hot day. If you don't like being what you are, I wonder you don't be something else."
"No good," Mr. Hunt tells him. "Out of one tyrang's heel and under another. We've got to suffer and endure, us orindges, until the day when they are swept away like chaff before the wind."
Percival is rather interested: "Well, who's going to sweep them? and sweep whom?"
"Ah!" says Mr. Hunt darkly. "Who? Makes yer boil."
"Well, I shouldn't worry, Hunt," says Percival, in the old "Have you got one of your poor sick yedaches?" tone. "I shouldn't, really. I feel angry sometimes, but you've only got to have a game of something, you know. There's Rollo! Come on down and help us to build that raft on Fir-Tree Pool. We'll have a jolly time. Rollo! Hunt's going to help us, so we can get that big plank down now! Come on, Hunt!"
He bounds away towards Rollo, and Mr. Hunt, watching before he starts to follow, says: "Ah, pity there's not more like you! You ought to ha' been one of them." He scowls horribly in the direction of Lady Burdon, who is waving to the boys from the door. "One o' them, you ought to ha' been. Makes yer boil!"
JAPHRA AND IMA AND SNOW-WHITE-AND-ROSE-RED
I
And there were three new friends who contributed to this happy, happy time and who came vitally to contribute to later years. There were Japhra and Ima, who lived in a yellow caravan that was sometimes attached to that Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus with which Mr. Hannaford traded in little 'orses; and there was Dora, whose mother was that Mrs. Espart of Abbey Royal at Upabbot over the Ridge who—as Miss Oxford had told Lady Burdon—did not send her little girl to lessons with Miss Purdie because of the post-office little boy.
Percival first met Japhra and Ima on a day not long after the end of Rollo's first visit, when—his playmate gone—he was temporarily a little lonely. He came upon them by Fir-Tree Pool, stepped through the belt of trees that surround the pool and halted in much delight at the entrancing sight his eyes gave him.
Here was a yellow caravan with little curtained windows, a thing most pregnant of mysteries to eight-years-old. A big white horse, unharnessed from the van, was cropping the turf. There was an iron pot hanging above a jolly fire of sticks. On the steps of the van a girl of about Percival's own age sat knitting. She was olive of face, with long, black hair; her legs were bare and they looked very long, Percival thought. By the fire, astride of a felled tree trunk, was a little man with a very brown face that was marked like a sailor's with many puckered little lines. He had a tight-lipped mouth with a short pipe that seemed a natural part of it, and he wore a long jacket and had a high hat of some rough, brown fur. He was reading a book; and as Percival stood watching, he put a finger to mark his place and looked up slowly as though he had known Percival was there but wished to read to a certain point before interrupting himself.
He looked up and Percival noticed that his eyes, set in that brown, puckered face, were uncommonly bright. "Welcome, little master," said he. "All the luck!"
"Hullo!" said Percival. "Excuse me staring. This is funny to me, you know."
"Quiet, though," said the little man, his eyes twinkling; "and that's the best thing in life."
Percival came up to him, vastly attracted. "Do you live in that van?"
"That's where I live, little master—Ima and I."
Percival stared at the girl on the steps, who stared back at him and then smiled. "Ima? That's a funny name," he said.
"Maybe she's a funny girl," said the little man, twinkling more than ever.
Percival took it quite seriously. "Well, her legs are long," he said appraisingly.
"They can run, though, little master," said the girl. She had a curiously soft voice, Percival noticed. But he was rather puzzled with it all and remained serious. "Is your name funny, too?" he asked the little man.
The little man's tight lips were stretched in what Percival came to know for his most advanced sign of amusement. He opened his lips very slightly when he spoke, and the short pipe that seemed to grow there did not appear at all to incommode his speech. "Why, try it for thyself," said the little man,—"Japhra."
"Well, I've not heard it before, you know," said Percival politely. "You don't mind my asking questions, do you?" he added. "This is rather funny to me, you know."
"Why, I'm a questioner myself, little master," the little man assured him. "I'm questioning always. I go through life seeking an answer."
"What for?" asked Percival.
"Why, that's the question, little master," said the little man. "What for? Who knows?"
Percival regarded him with the same puzzled air that he sometimes gave to Aunt Maggie. "Well, if you don't mind," he said, "what are you, then?"
Far from minding, Japhra seemed to like it. Twinkling away: "Why, that's another question I ask and cannot answer," said he. "What is any man? One thing to one man and one thing to another—a riddle to himself, little master. But I can unriddle thee this much: Wintertime I am a tinker that mends folks' pots and pans; Springtimes I am Punch-and-Judy-man that makes the children laugh; Summertimes I am a fighter that fights in the booths. I have been prize-fighter that fights with the knuckle; cattleman over the sea; jockey, and wrestler, and miner, and preacher once, and questioner since I was thy size; there's unriddling for thee."
"It's a good lot," said Percival gravely. "What are you just now, please?"
"Or a bad lot," said Japhra. "Who knows?—and there's the question again! No escape from it." He looked solemn for a moment and then twinkled again. "Just now a fighter, little master. To-morrow I join Boss Maddox's circus for the summer with my boxing booth."
"Boss Maddox!" cried Percival. "Why, Mr. Stingo goes with Maddox's circus. Do you know Mr. Stingo?"
"None better," said Japhra. "I am of Stingo's crowd, as we say. Dost thou?"
"I know him very well," Percival declared. "I know his brother best. They call me a Pocket Marvel, you know; so I should like to know what you think of that?"
"Why, I think that's what thou art," said Japhra. "A rare one. There were fairies at thy christening, little master."
"What for?" asked Percival and asked it so seriously that Japhra twinkled anew and replied: "Why, there's the question again. What for? Why that sunny face they have given thee? and those fine limbs? and that straight back? What for? There's some purpose in it, little master."
He looked strangely at Percival as though behind his twinkling he indeed questioned these matters and found, as he had said, a question in all he saw. But when he saw how mystified he held Percival, he stopped his searching look and asked: "Any more questions, little master?"
He had kept his finger on the open page of his book all this time; and Percival pointed and said: "Well, what are you reading, if you please?" and was told "Robinson Crusoe."
"Why, I'm reading that!" cried Percival in much delight.
"Then thou art reading one of the only three books a man wants," said Japhra. "There's 'Pilgrim's Progress'—"
"I've read that too! In Mr. Amber's library—"
"And there's the Bible."
"And that as well!" cried Percival.
"Why," said Japhra—not twinkling now, but grave—"why, then, thou hast read the beginning and end of wisdom. Crusoe and Pilgrim and Bible—those are the books for a man. I read them and read them and always read them new. They are the books for a questioner, and thou art that amain. And they are the books for a fighter, and that is thy part. I have unriddled thee so far, little master. I know the fighting type. Mark me when the years come. A fighter, thou."
He placed a blade of grass in "Robinson Crusoe" and put the volume beneath his arm. He got up and took Percival's small hand in his horny fist. "Come thou and see my van, little master," said he. "We are friends—thou and I and Ima here." And then he twinkled again. "And why? What brought thee whom the fairies attended and that has read the books and is the fighting type? What brought thee here? Why, there's the question again!"
It was the beginning of Percival's chiefest friendship of them all. In the rare proper seasons that followed one another through this the happy, happy time, the van came more and more frequently Lethamwards. Summertimes it was away with Stingo's crowd in Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus. But Wintertimes it would come tinkering, and sometimes remain a week or more snow-bound, and Springtimes Punch-and-Judying through the Burdon hamlets; and these were happy, happy times indeed. There was all Japhra's lore, all his dimly understood "questioning" to hear; and all his stories of his strange and varied life; and all his reading aloud from his three books, who could read them and put a meaning into them as none other could. And there was the boxing to learn, with Percival a very apt and eager pupil and Japhra insistent that it was a proper game—the only proper game for a man. And once every summer there was the visit of Maddox's Monster Menagerie and Royal Circus to Great Letham, where Percival,—introduced by Japhra, sponsored by Stingo,—was made enormously welcome by rough, odd van folk who were of "Stingo's crowd." He learnt the sharp and growing difference between Stingo's crowd and Boss Maddox's men. Boss Maddox was boss and of increasing wealth and weight: attracting showmen to his following from many parts of the country and incorporating them in his business, but unable to win the allegiance of the little knot of independents who called Stingo "Boss," and hating them for it. Rough, odd men who made an immense deal of Percival and had rough, odd names: Old Four-Eyes, who wore spectacles and had a Mermaid and a Mummified Man; Old One-Eye, whose left eye was gone and had a Wild West Rifle Range; Old 'Ave One, who was given to drink ("'Ave one, mate?") and had the Ring 'em where Yer Like—A Prize fer All; and the rest of them. Percival never mixed with the Maddox crowd but once, when he boxed, and to the immense delight of Japhra and all the Stingo men, defeated, a red-haired, skinny youth of his own age, whom Boss Maddox was introducing to the public as the Boy Wonder Pugilist. "Looks like a fox to me," Percival said aloud, when he first saw the Boy Wonder. The Boy Wonder heard, and the men who stood about heard and laughed; there certainly was a foxy look about the Juvenile Wonder's cunning face with its red head. The Wonder furiously resented the remark and the laughter; expressed a desire to shut Percival's mouth; succeeded in shutting one of his eyes, but was certainly beaten.
He became Percival's first enemy—and chance set aside the first enemy for further use.