"God bless our table,Bless our food;And make us stable,Brave and good."
"God bless our table,Bless our food;And make us stable,Brave and good."
After all was over Prissy left the Castle of Windy Standard, without indeed obtaining any pledge from the chief of the army of occupation, but not without having done some good. And she went forth with dignity too. For not only did the robber chieftain provide her with an escort, but he ordered the ramparts to be manned, and a general salute to be fired in her honour.
Prissy waved her hand vigorously, and had already proceeded a little way towards the stepping-stones, when she stopped, laid down her basket, and ran back to the postern gate. She took her little tortoise-shell card-case out of her pocket.
"Oh, I was nearly forgetting—how dreadfullyrude of me!" she said, and forthwith pulled out a card on which she had previously written very neatly:
Miss Priscilla SmithAt Home Every Day
Miss Priscilla Smith
At Home Every Day
She laid it on the stones, and tripped away. "I'm sorry I have not my brother's card to leave also," she said, looking up at the brigand chief, who had been watching her curiously from a window.
"Oh," said Nipper Donnan, "we shall be pleased to see him if he drops in on Saturday—or any other time."
Then he waited till the trim white figure was some distance from the gateway before he took his cap from his head and waved it in the air.
"Three proper cheers for the little lady!" he cried.
And the grim old walls of the Castle of Windy Standard never echoed to a heartier shout than that with which the Smoutchy boys sped Miss Priscilla Smith, the daughter of their arch enemy, upon her homeward way.
Prissy poised herself on tiptoe at the entrance of the copse, and blew them a dainty collective kiss from her fingers.
"Thank you so much," she cried, "you are very kind. Come and see me soon—and be sure you stop to tea."
And with that she tripped swiftly away homeward with an empty basket and a happy heart.
That night in her little room before she went to sleep she read over her favourite text, "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God."
"Oh dear," she said, "I should so like to be one some day."
PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.
SATURDAYmorning dawned calm and clear after heavy rain on the hills, with a Sabbath-like peace in the air. The smoke of Edam rose straight up into the firmament from a hundred chimneys, and the Lias Coal Mine contributed a yet taller pillar to the skies, which bushed out at the top till it resembled an umbrella with a thick handle. Hugh John had been very early astir, and one of his first visits had been to the gipsy camp, where he found Billy Blythe with several others all clad in their tumbling tights, practising their great Bounding Brothers' act.
"Hello," cried Hugh John jovially, "at it already?"
"The mornin's the best time for suppling the jints!" answered Billy sententiously; "ask Lepronia Lovell, there. She should know with all them tin pans going clitter-clatter on her back."
"I'll be thankin' ye, Billy Blythe, to kape a tight holt on the slack o' that whopper jaw of yours. It will be better for you at supper-time than jeerin' at a stranger girl, that is arnin' her bite o' bread daycent. And that's a deal more than ye can do, aye, or anny wan like ye!"
And with these brave words, Lepronia Lovell went jingling away.
The Bounding Brothers threw themselves into knots, spun themselves into parti-coloured tops, turned double and treble somersaults, built human pyramids, and generally behaved as if they had no bones in any permanent positions throughout their entire bodies. Hugh John stood by in wonder and admiration.
"Are you afraid?" cried Billy from where he stood, arching his shoulders and swaying a little, as one of the supporters of the pyramid. "No?—then take off your boots." Hugh John instantly stood in his stocking soles.
"Up with him!" And before he knew it, he was far aloft, with his feet on the shoulders of the highest pair, who supported him with their right and left hands respectively. From his elevated perch he could see the enemy's flag flaunting defiance from the topmost battlements of the castle.
As soon as he reached the ground he mentioned what he had seen to Billy Blythe.
"We'll have it low and mean enough this nightas ever was, before the edge o' dark!" said Billy, with a grim nod of his head.
The rains of the night had swelled the ford so that the stepping-stones were almost impracticable—indeed, entirely so for the short brown legs of Sir Toady Lion. This circumstance added greatly to the strength of the enemy's position, and gave the Smoutchies a decided advantage.
"They can't be at the castle all the time," said Billy; "why not let my mates and me go in before they get there? Then we could easily keep every one of them out."
This suggestion much distressed General Smith, who endeavoured to explain the terms of his contract to the gipsy lad. He showed him that it would not be fair to attack the Smoutchies except on Saturday, because at any other time they could not have all their forces in the field.
Billy thought with some reason that this was simple folly. But in time he was convinced of the wisdom of not "making two blazes of the same wasps' byke," as he expressed it.
"Do for them once out and out, and be done with it!" was his final advice.
Hugh John could not keep from thinking how stale and unprofitable it would be when all the Smoutchies had been finally "done for," and when he did not waken to new problems of warfare every morning.
According to the final arrangements the main attack was to be developed from the broadest partof the castle island below the stepping-stones. There were two boats belonging to the house of Windy Standard, lying in a boat-house by the little pier on the way to Oaklands. For security these were attached by a couple of padlocks to a strong double staple, which had been driven right through the solid floor of the landing-stage.
The padlocks were new, and the whole appeared impregnable to the simple minds of the children, and even to Mike and Peter Greg. But Billy smiled as he looked at them.
"Why, opening them's as easy as falling off a stool when you're asleep. Gimme a hairpin."
But neither Prissy nor Cissy Carter had yet attained to the dignity of having their hair done up, so neither carried such a thing about with them. Business was thus at a standstill, when Hugh John called to Prissy, "Go and ask Jane Housemaid to give us one."
"A good thick 'un!" called Billy Blythe after her.
The swift-footed Dian of Windy Standard had only been away a minute or two before she came flying back like the wind.
"She-won't-give-us-any-unless-we-tell-her-what-it-is-for!" she panted, all in one long word.
"Rats!" said Hugh John contemptuously, "ask her where she was last Friday week at eleven o'clock at night!"
The Divine Huntress flitted away again on winged feet, and in a trice was back with three hairpins, still glossy from their recent task of supporting the well-oiled hair of Jane Housemaid.
With quick supple hand Billy twisted the wire this way and that, tried the padlock once, and then deftly bent the ductile metal again with a pair of small pincers. The wards clicked promptly back, and lo! the padlock was hanging by its curved tongue. The other was stiffer with rust, but was opened in the same way. The besiegers were thus in possession of two fine transports in which to convey their army to the scene of conflict.
It was the plan of the General that the men under Billy Blythe should fill the larger of the two boats, and drop secretly down the left channel till they were close under the walls of the castle. The enemy, being previously alarmed by the beating of drums and the musketry fire on the land side, would never expect to be taken in the rear, and probably would not have a single soldier stationed there.
Indeed, towards the Edam Water, the walls of the keep rose thirty or forty feet into the air without an aperture wide enough to thrust an arm through. So that the need of defence on that side was not very apparent to the most careful captain. But at the south-west corner, one of the flanking turrets had been overthrown, though there still remained several steps of a descent into the water. But so high was the river on this occasion, that it lapped against the masonry of the outer defences. To this point then, apparently impregnable, the formidable division under Billy Blythe was to make its way.
There was nothing very martial about the appearance of these sons of the tent and caravan.The Bounding Brothers wore their trick dresses, and as for the rest, they were simply and comprehensively arrayed in shirt and trousers. Not a weapon, not a sash, not a stick, sword, nor gun broke the harmonious simplicity of the gipsy army.
Yet it was evident that they knew something which gave them secret confidence, for all the time they were in a state of high glee, only partially suppressed by the authority of their leader, and by the necessity for care in manning the boat with so large a crew. There were fourteen who were to adventure forth under Billy's pennon.
To the former assailants of the Black Sheds there had been added a stout and willing soldier from the gardens of Windy Standard,—a boy named Gregory (or more popularly Gregory's Mixture), together with a forester lad, who was called Craw-bogle Tam from his former occupation of scaring the crows out of the corn. Sammy Carter had been cashiered some time ago by the Commander-in-chief, but nevertheless he appeared with three cousins all armed with dog-whips, which Sammy assured Hugh John were the deadliest of weapons at close quarters. Altogether it was a formidable array.
The boat for the attack on the land side was so full that there remained no room for Toady Lion. That young gentleman promptly sat down on the landing-stage, and sent up a howl which in a few moments would certainly have brought down Janet Sheepshanks and all the curbing powers from the house, had he not been committed to the care of Prissy, with public instructions to get himsome toffy and a private order to take him into the town, and keep him there till the struggle was over.
Prissy went off with Sir Toady Lion, both in high glee.
"I'se going round by the white bwidge—so long, everybody! I'll be at the castle as soon as you!" he cried as he departed.
Hugh John sighed a sigh of relief when he saw them safely off the muster-ground. Cissy, however, was coming on board as soon as ever the boat was ready to start. She had been posted to watch the movements of the household of Windy Standard, and would report at the last moment.
"All right," she cried from her watch-tower among the whins, "Prissy and Toady Lion are round the corner, and Janet Sheepshanks has just gone into the high garden to get parsley."
"Up anchors," cried Hugh John solemnly, "the hour has come!"
Mike and Billy tossed the padlock chains into the bottom of the boats and pushed off. There were no anchors, but the mistake was permissible to a simple soldier like General Napoleon Smith.
TOADY LION'S SECOND LONE HAND.
EDAMWater ran swiftly, surging and pushing southward on its way to the sea. It was brown and drumly with a wrack of twigs and leaves, snatched from the low branches of the hazels and alders which fringed its banks. It fretted and elbowed, frothing like yeast about the landing-place from which the two boat-loads were to set out for the attack.
General Napoleon Smith, equipped with sword and sash, sat in the stern of the first, in order to steer, while Prince Michael O'Donowitch stood on the jetty and held the boat's head. The others satstill in their places till the General gave the word. The eager soldiery vented their feelings in a great shout. Cissy Carter took her place with a flying leap just as the rope was cast off, and the fateful voyage began.
At first there was little to be done save in the way of keeping the vessel's head straight, for the Edam Water, swirling and brown with the mountain rains, hurried her towards the island with almost too great speed. With a rush they passed the wide gap between the unsubmerged stones of the causeway, at which point the boldest held his breath. The beach of pebbles was immediately beyond. But they were not to be allowed to land without a struggle; for there, directly on their front, appeared the massed forces of the enemy, occupying the high bluff behind, and prepared to prevent the disembarkation by a desperate fusillade of stones and turf.
It was in this hour of peril that the soldierly qualities of the leader again came out most strongly.
He kept the boat's head straight for the shore, as if he had been going to beach her, till she was within a dozen yards; then with a quick stroke of his steering oar he turned her right for the willow copses which fringed the island on the eastern side. The water had risen, so that these were sunk to half their height in the quick-running flood, and their leaves sucked under with the force of the current. But behind there was a quiet backwater into which Hugh John ran his vessel head on till she slanted with a gentle heave up on the green turf.
"Overboard every man!" he cried, and showed the example himself by dashing into the water up to the knees, carrying the blue ensign of his cause. The enemy had not expected this rapid flank movement, and waited only till the invaders had formed in battle array to retreat upon the castle, fearful perhaps of being cut off from their stronghold.
General-Field-Marshal Smith addressed his army.
"Soldiers," he said, "we've got to fight, and it's dead earnest this time, mind you. We're going to lick the Smoutchies, so that they will stay licked a long time. Now, come on!"
This brief address was considered on all hands to be a model effort, and worthy of the imitation of all generals in the face of the enemy. The most vulnerable part of the castle from the landward side was undoubtedly the great doorway—an open arch of some six feet wide, which, however, had to be approached under a galling cross fire from the ports at either side and from the lintel above.
"It's no use wasting time," cried the General; "follow me to the door."
And with his sword in his hand he darted valiantly up the steep incline which led to the castle. Cissy Carter charged at his left shoulder also sword in hand, while Mike and Peter, with Gregory's Mixture and the Craw Bogle, were scarcely a step behind.
Stones and mortar hailed down upon the devoted band; sticks and clods of turf struck themon their shoulders and arms. But with their teeth clenched and their heads bent low, the storming party rushed undauntedly upon their foes.
The Smoutchies had built a breast-work of driftwood in front of the great entrance, but it was so flimsy that Mike and his companions kicked it away in a moment—yet not before General Smith, light as a young goat, had overleaped it and launched himself solitary on the foe. Then, with the way clear, it was cut and thrust from start to finish.
First among the assailants General Smith crossed swords with the great Nipper Donnan himself. But his reserves had not yet come up, and so he was beaten down by three cracks on the head received from different quarters at the same time. But like Witherington in the ballad, he still fought upon his knees; and while Prince Michael and Gregory's Mixture held the enemy at bay with their stout sticks, the stricken Hugh John kept well down among their legs, and used his sword from underneath with damaging effect.
"Give them the point—cold steel!" he cried.
"Cowld steel it is!" shouted Prince Michael, as he brought down his blackthorn upon the right ear of Nipper Donnan.
"Cauld steel—tak' you that!" cried Peter Greg the Scot as he let out with his left, and knocked Nosey Cuthbert over backwarks into the hall of the castle.
Thus raged in front the heady fight; and thus with their faces to the foe and their weapons in their hands, we leave the vanguard of the army ofWindy Standard, in order that for a little we may follow the fortunes of the other divisions.
Yes, divisions is the word, that is to say Billy Blythe's gipsy division and—Sir Toady Lion.
For once more Toady Lion was playing a lone hand.
So soon as Prissy and he had been left behind, we regret to be obliged to report that the behaviour of the distinguished knight left much to be desired.
"Don't be bad, Toady Lion," said his sister, gently taking him by the hand; "come and look at nice picture-books."
"Will be bad," growled Toady Lion, stamping his little foot in impotent wrath; "doan want t' look at pitchur-books—want to go and fight! And I will go too, so there!"
And in his fiery indignation he even kicked at his sister Prissy, and threw stones after the boat in which the expedition had sailed. The gipsy division, which was to wait till they heard the noise of battle roll up from the castle island before cutting loose, took pity on Sir Toady Lion, and but for the special nature of the service required of them, they would, I think, have taken him with them.
"That's a rare well-plucked little 'un!" cried Joe Baillie. "See how he shuts his fists, and cuts up rough!"
"A little man!" said the leader encouragingly; "walks into his sister's shins, don't he, the little codger!"
"Let me go wif you, please," pleaded Toady Lion; "I'll kill you unless!—Kill you every one!" And his voice was full of bloodshed.
"Last time 'twas me that d'livered Donald, when they all runned away or got took prisoner; and now they won't even take me wif them!"
Billy regretfully shook his head. It would not do to be cumbered with small boys in the desperate mission on which they were going. The hope was forlorn enough as it was.
"Wait till we come back, little 'un," he said kindly; "run away and play with your sister."
Toady Lion stamped on the ground more fiercely than ever.
"Shan't stop and play wif a girl. If you don't let me come, I shall kill you."
And with sentiments even more discreditable, he pursued their boat as long as he could reach it with volleys of stones, to the great delight of the gipsy boys, who stimulated him to yet more desperate exertions with cries of "Well fielded!" "Chuck her in hard!" "Hit him with a big one!" While some of those in the stern pretended to stand shaking in deadly fear, and implored Toady Lion to spare them because they were orphans.
"Shan't spare none—shall kill 'oo every one!" cried the angry Toady Lion, lugging at a bigger stone than all, which he could not lift above three inches from the ground.
"Will smass 'oo with this, Billy Blythe—bad Billy!" he exclaimed, as he wrestled with the boulder.
"Oh, spare me—think of my family, Toady Lion, my pore wife and childer," pleaded Billy hypocritically.
"'Oo should have finked of 'oo fambly sooner!" cried Toady Lion, staggering to the water's edge with the great stone.
But at this moment the noise of the crying of those warring for the mastery came faintly up from the castle island. The rope that had been passed through the ring on the landing-stage and held ready in the hand of Billy Blythe, was loosened, and the second part of the besieging expedition went down with the rushing spate which reddened Edam Water. And as they fell away Billy stood up and called for three cheers for "little Toady Lion, the best man of the lot."
But Toady Lion stood on the shore and fairly bellowed with impotent rage, and the sound of his crying, "I'll kill 'oo! I'll kill 'oo dead!" roused Janet Sheepshanks, who was taking advantage of her master's absence to carry out a complete house-cleaning. She left the blanket-washing to see what was the matter. But Toady Lion, angry as he was, had sense enough to know that if Janet got him, he would be superintended all the morning. So with real alacrity he slipped aside into the "scrubbery," and there lay hidden till Janet, anxious that her maids should not scamp their house-work, was compelled to hurry back to the laundry to see that the blankets were properly washed.
After this there was but one thing to do, and so the second division, under Sir Toady Lion,did it. He resolved to turn the enemy's flank, and attack him with reinforcements from an entirely unexpected quarter. So, leaving Prissy to her own devices, he took to his heels, and his fat legs carried him rapidly in the direction of the town of Edam. Difficulties there were of course, such as the barrier of the white lodge gate, where old Betty lay in wait for him.
But Toady Lion circumnavigated Betty by going to the lodge-door and shouting with all his might, "Betty, come quick, p'raps they's some soldiers comin' down the road—maybe Tom's comin', 'oo come and look."
"Sodjers—where?—what?" cried old Betty, waking up hastily from her doze, and fumbling in her pocket for the gate-key.
Toady Lion was at her elbow when she undid the latch. Toady Lion charged past her with a yell. Toady Lion it was who from the safe middle of the highway made the preposterous explanation, "Oh no, they isn't no soldiers. 'Tis only a silly old fish-man wif a tin trumpet."
"Come back, sir, or I'll tell your father! Come back at once!" cried old Betty.
But she might shake her head and nod with her nut-cracker chin till the black beads on her lace "kep" tinkled. All was in vain. Toady Lion was out of reach far down the dusty main road along which the Scots Greys had come the day that Hugh John became a soldier. Toady Lion was a born pioneer, and usually got what he wanted, first of all by dint of knowing exactly what he did want, and then "fighting it out onthat line if it took all summer"—or even winter too.
The road to the town of Edam wound underneath trees great and tall, which hummed with bees and gnats that day as Toady Lion sped along, his bare feet "plapping" pleasantly in the white hot dust. He was furtively crying all the time—not from sorrow but with sheer indignation. He hated all his kind. He was going to desert to the Smoutchies. He would be a Comanche Cowboy if they would have him, since his brother and Cissy Carter had turned against him. Nobody loved him, and he was glad of it. Prissy—oh! yes, but Prissy did not count. She loved everybody and everything, even stitching and dollies, and putting on white thread gloves when you went into town. So he ran on, evading the hay waggons and red farm-carts without looking at them, till in a trice he had crossed Edam Bridge and entered the town—in the glaring streets and upon the hot pavement of which the sunshine was sleeping, and which on Saturday forenoon had more than its usual aspect of enjoying a perpetual siesta.
The leading chemist was standing at his door, wondering if the rustic who passed in such a hurry could actually be on the point of entering the shop of his hated rival. The linen-draper at the corner under the town clock was divided between keeping an eye on his apprentices to see that they did not spar with yard sticks, and mentally criticising the ludicrous and meretricious window-dressing of his next-door neighbour.None of them cared at all for the small dusty boy with the tear-furrowed countenance who kept on trotting so steadily through the town, turned confidently up the High Street, and finally dodged into the path which led past the Black Sheds to the wooden bridge which joined the castle island to the butcher's parks. As he crossed the grass Toady Lion heard a wrathful voice from somewhere calling loudly, "Nipper! Nipper-r-r-r! Oh, wait till I catch you!"
For it chanced that this day the leading butcher in Edam was without the services of both his younger assistants—his son Nipper and his message boy, Tommy Pratt. Mr. Donnan had a new cane in his hand, and he was making it whistle through the air in a most unpleasant and suggestive manner.
"Get away out of my field, little boy—where are you going? What are you doing there?"
The question was put at short range now, for all unwittingly Sir Toady Lion had almost run into butcher Donnan's arms.
"Please I finks I'se going to Mist'r Burnham's house," explained Toady Lion readily but somewhat unaccurately; "I'se keepin' off the grass—and I didn't know it was your grass anyway, please, sir."
At the same time Toady Lion saluted because he also was a soldier, and Mr. Donnan, who in his untempered youth had passed several years in the ranks of Her Majesty's line, mechanically returned the courtesy.
"Why, little shaver," he said not unkindly,"this isn't the way to Mr. Burnham's house. There it is over among the trees. But, hello, talk of the—ahem—why, here comes Mr. Burnham himself."
Toady Lion clapped his hands and ran as fast as he could in the direction of the clergyman. Mr. Burnham was very tall, very soldierly, very stiff, and his well-fitting black coat and corded silk waistcoat were the admiration of the ladies of the neighbourhood. He was never seen out of doors without the glossiest of tall hats, and it was whispered that he had his trousers made tight about the calves on purpose to look like a dean. It was also understood in well-informed circles that he was writing a book on the eastward position—after which there would be no such thing as the Low Church. Nevertheless an upright, good, and, above all, kindly heart beat under the immaculate silk M. B. waistcoat; also strong capable arms were attached to the armholes of the coat which fitted its owner without a wrinkle. Indeed, Mr. Burnham had a blue jacket of a dark shade in which he had once upon a time rowed a famous race. It hung now in a glass cabinet, and was to the clergyman what Sambo Soulis was to General-Field-Marshal Smith.
But as we know, the fear of man dwelt not in Sir Toady Lion, and certainly not fear of his clergyman. He trotted up to him and said, "I wants to go to the castle. You come."
Now hitherto Mr. Burnham had always seen Sir Toady Lion as he came, with shining face and liberally plastered hair, from under the tender mercies of Janet Sheepshanks—with her partingmonition to behave (and perhaps something else) still ringing in his ear.
So that it is no wonder that he did not for the moment recognise in the tear-stained, dust-caked face of the barefooted imp who addressed him so unceremoniously, the features of the son of his most prominent parishioner. He gazed down in mildly bewildered surprise, whereupon Toady Lion took him familiarly by the hand and reiterated his request, with an aplomb which had all the finality of a royal invitation.
"Take me to the castle on the island. I 'ants to go there!"
"And who may you be, little boy?"
"Don't 'oo know? 'Oo knows me when 'oo comes to tea at our house!" cried Toady Lion reproachfully. "I'se Mist'r Smiff's little boy; and I 'ants to go to the castle."
"Why do you want to go to the castle island?" asked Mr. Burnham.
"To find my bruvver Hugh John," said Toady Lion instantly.
The butcher had come up and stood listening silently, after having, with a certain hereditary respect for the cloth, respectfully saluted Mr. Burnham.
"This little boy wants to go on the island to find his brother," said the clergyman; "I suppose I may pass through your field with him?"
"Certainly! The path is over at the other side of the field. But I don't know but what I'll come along with you. I've lost my son and my message-boy too. It is possible they may be at the castle."There is some dust being kicked up among the boys. I can't get my rascals to attend to business at all this last week or two."
And Mr. Donnan again caused his cane to whistle through the air in a way that turned Toady Lion cold, and made him glad that he was "Mr. Smift's little boy," and neither the son nor yet the errand-boy of the butcher of Edam.
Presently the three came to the wooden bridge, and from it they could see the flag flying over the battlements of the castle, and a swarming press of black figures swaying this way and that across the bright green turf in front.
"Hurrah—yonder they'se fightin'. Come on, Mist'r Burnham, we'll be in time yet!" shouted Toady Lion. "They saided that I couldn't come; and I've comed!"
Suddenly a far-off burst of cheering came to them down the wind. Black dots swarmed on the perilous battlements of the castle. Other black dots were unceremoniously pitched off the lower ramparts into the ditch below. The red and white flag of jacobin rebellion was pulled under, and a clamorous crowd of disturbed jackdaws rose from the turrets and hung squalling and circling over the ancient and lofty walls.
The conflict had indeed joined in earnest. The embattled foes were in the death grips; and, fearful lest he should arrive too late, Toady Lion hurried forward his reinforcements, crying, "Come on both of you! Come on, quick!" Butcher Donnan broke into a run, while Mr. Burnham, forgetting all about his silk waistcoat, clapped histall hat on the back of his head and started forward at his best speed, Toady Lion hanging manfully on to the long skirts of his coat, as the Highlanders had clung to the cavalry stirrups at Balaclava till they were borne into the very floodtide of battle.
There were now two trump-cards in the lone hand.
THE CROWNING MERCY.
WEmust now take up the story of the third division of the great expedition, the plan and execution of which so fully reflects the military genius of our distinguished hero; for though this part was carried out by Billy Blythe, the credit of the design, as well as the discovery of the means of carrying it out, were wholly due to General Napoleon Smith.
When the second boat swept loose and the futile anger of Sir Toady Lion had ceased to excite the laughter of the crew, the gipsy lads settled down to watching the rush of the Edam Water as it swept them along. They had, to begin with, an easier task than the first boat expedition. No enemy opposed their landing. No dangerous concealedstepping-stones had to be negotiated on the route they were to follow. Leaving all to the action of the current, they swept through the entrance to the wider branch, and presently ranged up alongside the deserted water-front of the ancient defences. They let the castle drop a little behind, and then rowed up into the eddy made by the corner of the fallen tower, where, on the morning of his deliverance, Hugh John had disturbed the slumbering sheep by so unexpectedly emerging from the secret passage.
Billy stepped on shore to choose a great stone for an anchor, and presently pulled the whole expedition alongside the fallen masonry, so that they were able to disembark as upon a pier.
The Bounding Brothers immediately threw several somersaults just to let off steam, till Billy cuffed them into something like seriousness.
"Hark to 'em," whispered Charlie Lee; "ain't they pitching it into them slick, over there on the other side. It's surely about our time to go at it."
"Just you shut up and wait," hissed Billy Blythe under his breath. "That's all your job just now."
And here, in the safe shelter of the ruined tower, the fourteen listened to the roar of battle surging, now high, now low, in heady fluctuations, turbulent bursts, and yet more eloquent silences from the other side of the keep.
They could distinguish, clear above all, the voice of General Smith, encouraging on his men in the purest and most vigorous Saxon.
"Go at them, boys! They're giving in. Sammy Carter, you sneak, I'll smash you, if you don'tcharge! Go it, Mike! Wire in, boys! Hike them out like Billy-O!"
And the Bounding Brothers, in their itching desire to take part, rubbed themselves down as if they had been horses, and softly squared up to each other, selecting the tenderest spots and hitting lightly, but with most wondrous accuracy, upon breast or chin.
"Won't we punch them! Oh no!" whispered Charlie Lee.
But from the way that he said it, he hardly seemed to mean what he said.
Just then came a tremendous and long continued gust of cheering from the defenders of the castle, which meant that they had cleared their front of the assailants. The sound of General Smith's voice waxed gradually fainter, as if he were being carried away against his will by the tide of retreat. Still at intervals he could be heard, encouraging, reproving, exhorting, but without the same glad confident ring in his tones.
Flags of red and white were waved from the ramparts; pistols (charged with powder only) were fired from embrasures, and the Smoutchies rent their throats in arrogant jubilation. They thought that the great assault had failed.
But behind them in the turret, all unbeknown, the Bounding Brothers silently patted one another with their knuckles as if desirous of practising affectionate greetings for the Smoutchies.
Perhaps they were; and then, again, perhaps they weren't.
"Now's our time," cried Billy Blythe; "come on, boys. Now for it!"
And with both hands and feet he began to remove certain flag-stones and recently heaped updébrisfrom the mouth of a narrow passage, the same by which Hugh John had made his escape. His men stood around in astonishment and slowly dawning admiration, as they realised that their attack was to be a surprise, the most complete and famous in history, and also one strictly devised and carried out on the best models. Though the rank and file did not know quite so much about that as their Commander-in-Chief, who was sure in his heart that Froissart would have been glad to write about his crowning mercy.
It is one of the proofs of the genuine nobility of Hugh John's nature, and also of his consummate generalship, that he put the carrying out of the finalcoupof his great scheme into other hands, consenting himself to take the hard knocks, to be mauled and defeated, in order that the rout of the enemy might be the more complete.
The rubbish being at last sufficiently cleared, Billy bent his head and dipped down the steps. Charlie Lee followed, and the fourteen were on their way. Silently and cautiously, as if he had been relieving a hen-roost of its superfluous inhabitants, Billy crept along, testing the foothold at every step. He came to the stairway up to the dungeon, pausing a moment, to listen. There was a great pow-wow overhead. The Smoutchies were in the seventh heaven of jubilation over the repulse of the enemy.
Suddenly somebody in the passage sneezed.
Billy turned to Charlie Lee. "If that man does that again, burke him!" he whispered.
Then with a firm step he mounted the final ascent of the secret stair. His head hit hard against the roof at the top. He had not remembered how Hugh John had told him that the exit was under the lowest part of the bottle dungeon.
"Bless that roof!" he muttered piously—more piously, perhaps, than could have been expected of him, considering his upbringing.
"If Billy Blythe says that again, burke him!" said a carefully disguised gruff voice from the back—evidently that of the late sneezer.
"Silence—or by the Lord I'll slay you!" returned Billy, in a hissing whisper.
There was the silence of the grave behind. Billy Blythe made himself much respected for the moral rectitude and true worth of his character.
One by one the fourteen stepped clear of the damp stairs, and stood in the wide circuit of the dungeon.
But the narrow circular exit of the cell was still twelve feet above them. How were they to reach it? The walls were smooth as the inside of the bottle from which the prison-house took its name, curving in at the top, without foothold or niches in their smooth surface, so that no climber could ascend more than a few feet.
The Bounding Brothers stepped to the front, and with a hitch of their shoulders, stood waiting.
"Ready!" said Billy.
In a moment Charlie Lee was balancing himselfon the third storey of the fraternal pyramid. He could just look over the edge of the platform on which the mouth of the dungeon was placed. He ducked down sharply.
"THE LIVING CHAIN."
"They are all at their windows, yelling like fun," he whispered, with the white, eager look of battle on his face.
"Up, and at 'em!" said Billy, as if he had been the Great Duke.
And at his word the Bounding Brothers arched their shoulders to receive the weight of the coming climbers. One after another the remaining eleven scrambled up, swift and silent as cats; and with Charlie Lee at their head, lay prone on the dungeon platform, waiting the word of command. Close as herrings in a barrel they crouched, their arms outstretched before them, and their chins sunk low on the masonry.
Billy crept along till his head lay over the edge of the bottle dungeon. He extended his arms down. The highest Bounding Brother grasped them. His mate at the foot cast loose from the floor and swarmed up as on a ladder. The living chain swayed and dangled; but though his wrists ached as if they would part from their sockets, Billy never flinched; and finally, with Charlie Lee stretched across the hollow of his knees to keep all taut behind, by mere leverage of muscle he drew up the last brother upon the dungeon platform.
The fourteen lay looking over upon the unconscious enemy. The level of the floor of the keep was six feet below. The Smoutchies to a man were at their posts.
With a nudge of his elbow Billy intimated that it was not yet time for the final assault. He listened with one ear turned towards the great open gateway, till he heard again the rallying shout of General Napoleon Smith.
"Now then! Ready all! Double-quick! Char-r-r-ge!"
With a shout the first land division, once repulsed, came the second time at the foe. The Smoutchies crowded to the gateway, deserting their windows in order to repel the determined assault delivered by Hugh John and his merry men.
"Now!" said Billy Blythe softly, standing up on the dungeon platform.
He glanced about him. Every Bounding Brother and baresark man of the gipsy camp had the same smile on his face, the boxer's smile when he gives or takes punishment.
Down leaped Billy Blythe, and straight over the floor of the keep for the great gateway he dashed. One, two—one, two! went his fists. The thirteen followed him, and such was the energy of their charge that the Smoutchies, taken completely by surprise, tumbled off their platforms by companies, fell over the broken steps by platoons, and even threw themselves in their panic into the arms of Hugh John and his corps, who were coming on at the double in front.
Never was there such a rout known in history. The isolated Smoutchies who had been left in the castle dropped from window and tower at the peril of their necks in order that they might have a chance of reaching the ground in safety. Thenthey gathered themselves up and fled helter-skelter for the bridge which led towards the town of Edam.
But what completed their demoralisation was that at this psychological moment the third division under Sir Toady Lion came into action. Mr. Burnham, with his coat-tails flying, caught first one and then another, and whelmed them on the turf, while the valiant butcher of Edam, having secured his own offspring firmly by the collar, caused his cane to descend upon that hero's back and limbs till the air was filled with the resultant music. And the more loudly Nipper howled, the faster and faster the Smoutchies fled, while the shillelahs of the two generals, and the fists of the Bounding Brothers, wrought havoc in their rear. The flight became a rout. The bridge was covered with the fugitives.
The forces of Windy Standard took all the prisoners they wanted, and butcher Donnan took his son, who for many days had reason to remember the circumstance. He was a changed Smoutchy from that day.
The camp of the enemy, with all his artillery, arms, and military stores, fell into the hands of the triumphant besiegers.
At the intercession of Mr. Burnham the prisoners were conditionally released, under parole never to fight again in the same war—nor for the future to meddle with the Castle of Windy Standard, the property, as Hugh John insisted on putting it, of Mr. Picton Smith, Esq., J. P.
But Mr. Burnham did what was perhaps moreefficacious than any oaths. He went round to all the parents, guardians, teachers, and employers of the Smoutchy army. He represented the state of the case to them, and the danger of getting into trouble with a man so determined and powerful as Mr. Picton Smith.
The fists of the Bounding Brothers, the sword of General Napoleon, the teeth and nails of Sir Toady Lion (who systematically harassed the rear of the fleeing enemy) were as nothing to the several interviews which awaited the unfortunate Smoutchies at their homes and places of business or learning that evening, and on the succeeding Monday morning. Their torture of General Smith was amply avenged.
The victorious army remained in possession of the field, damaged but happy. Their triumph had not been achieved without wounds and bruises manifold. So Mr. Burnham sent for half-a-crown's worth of sticking-plaster, and another half-crown's worth of ripe gooseberries.
Whereupon the three divisions with one voice cheered Mr. Burnham, and Toady Lion put his hand on the sacred silk waistcoat, and said in his most peculiar Toady-leonine grammar, "'Oo is a bwick. Us likes 'oo!"
Which Mr. Burnham felt was, at the very least, equivalent to the thanks of Parliament for distinguished service.
It was a very happy, a very hungry, a very sticky, and a very patchy army which approached the house of Windy Standard at six o'clock that night, and was promptly sent supperless to bed.Hugh John parted with Cissy at the stepping-stones. Her eyes dwelt proudly and happily upon him.
"You fought splendidly," she said.
"We all fought splendidly," replied Hugh John, with a nod of approval which went straight to Cissy's heart, so that the tears sprang into her eyes.
"Oh, youarea nice thing, Hugh John!" she cried impulsively, reaching out her hands to clasp his arm.
"No, I'm not!" said Hugh John, startled and apprehensive. Then without waiting for more he turned hastily away.
But all the same Cissy Carter was very happy that night as she went homeward, and did not speak or even listen when Sammy addressed her several times by the way upon the dangers of war and the folly of love.