CHAPTER XIV
WILLIAM GETS WRECKED
Williamlaid aside "Robinson Crusoe" with a sigh. His dreams of pirate-king and robber-chief vanished. The desire of his heart now was to be shipwrecked on a desert island. He surveyed his garden and the next garden and the fields beyond with an impatient scowl. He felt bitterly that it was just his luck to live in an over-populated world with ready-made houses and where everything one could possibly need could be purchased at the shop round the corner....
Yet he felt that within reach there must be a desert island, or at any rate some spot which a very little imagination could transform into a desert island. He decided to set out on a voyage. He filled his pockets with biscuits and pieces of string. String was always useful.
He went into the morning-room where his mother and grown-up sister sat. He felt strongly that a mariner just about to be shipwrecked ought to bid a fond farewell to his family.
"Good-bye," he said in a deep voice, "'case I'm not back."
"I wish you'd remember to wipe your boots when you come into the house," said his mother patiently.
"You'd better be back if you want any tea," said Ethel.
William felt that they lacked every quality that the family of a shipwrecked mariner should possess. Not for the first time he washed his hands of them in disgust.
"All right," he said. "Don't blame me if—if you're sorry when it's too late."
With this cryptic remark he left them.
To a casual observer William looked only a small boy walking slowly down a road, frowning, with his hands in his pockets. He was really an intrepid mariner sailing across an uncharted sea.
"Hello, William."
William had a weak spot in his heart for Joan. He rather liked her dimples and dark curls. In his softer moments he had contemplated Joan actually reigning by his side as pirate-queen or robber-chieftainess. Now he felt that her presence might enliven a somewhat lonely voyage.
"I'm an explorer," he said, "sailin' along an' lookin' for new lands."
"Oh, William," Joan pleaded, "may I come with you?"
He considered the matter with a judicial frown.
"All right," he said at last. "Will you come in my ship or will you have a ship of your own?"
"I'd rather come in your ship, please."
"All right," he said. "Well, you'reinmy ship. Come on."
She walked along by his side. The best part of Joan was that she asked very few questions.
"We're probably goin' to come to a desert island, soon," said William. "Ispeckwe shall come to adesert island soon if we got through these icebergs all right. There's a pretty awful wind blowin', isn't there—lashin' the sails an' tackin' an' all that an' no land in sight an' all these whales an' things all about?"
"Yes, William," said Joan obediently.
"You'd better be chief mate," William advised. "I'll be skipper. You don't see any land in sight, do you, mate?"
Joan gazed at the road before them, the hedges around them, the cow's head above the hedge, and the figure of the Vicar in the distance.
"No, Will—I mean skipper," she said.
William heaved a sigh of relief. For a minute he had thought she was going to fail him.
They proceeded in silence for a time.
"The mast's gone now," said William, "all crashin' down on the deck before the terrible hurricane wot sweeps all before it. I thought it was goin' to crash on your brave head, mate."
"Yes, Will—I mean skipper," said Joan.
She was quite satisfactory. She entered into the spirit of a thing and had the additional advantage of not demanding a prominentrôle.
The Vicar had come up to them. He looked at William with disapproval.
"Fine day, young man," he said breezily.
"Awful," said William gruffly, "blowin' an' hurricanin' an' lashin' at everything. Come on, mate."
They left the Vicar staring after them.
"I wonder," he said to the landscape, "whether that boy is deficient or merely impudent?"
He was still wondering when they vanished from sight. They reached the river.
"The waves is lashin' up at us," said William, surveying the placid stream. "I don't think this ole boat will stick together much longer if we don' see a bit of land soon. I'm jus' drenched through—spite of my tauparlings—an' almost perishin, of hunger 'cause the provisions was swep' overboard, aren't you, mate?"
"Yes, Will—I mean skipper," said Joan, raising blue eyes alight with admiration.
The path now turned inland. This part of the river was private, and the back garden of a large house swept down to the river's bank.
"I b'lieve—Ib'lieve," said William, "that I see an island—Ib'lievethat at last I see an island jus' as this ole boat is goin' to crash to pieces against a towerin' rock.There!It's crashed to pieces against a towering rock. My goodness! We're in the icy water now! Well, you catch hold of an ole splinter or somethin' an' I'll catch hold of somethin' else, an' we'll jus' make for that ole island with all our might an' main—spite of the rain an' wind lashin' at our faces——"
With set, grim expression he began to struggle through the garden hedge.
"Come on, mate," he called, holding the bushes aside for her, "here's the island at last. Now we'll lie down on the sand an' sleep an' then I'll go an' get the things wot will be washed up from the wreck."
The part of the garden where they found themselves was out of sight of the house. There was a summer-house by the river and near that a clothes-line with a table-cloth hung out to dry.
They sat down on the bank of the river.
"Nice to rest, isn't it," said William, "after all that strugglin' against the fierce wind an' rain?"
"Yes, Will—I mean skipper."
"You go on restin,'" said William, kindly, "an' I'll go an' try to find things washed up by the wreck."
******
He crept towards the back of the house. There was no one to be seen. The door stood slightly ajar. Cautiously William peered within. He saw a comfortable kitchen, empty save for the presence of a grey cat washing its face on the hearthrug. It suspended operations for a moment, surveyed William coldly and disapprovingly, and then returned to its ablutions.
William's glance fell eagerly on a box of matches on the table and a saucepan in the sink. He waited in the shadow of the doorway. There was no sound in the house. At last, on tiptoe, his brows drawn together, his tongue projecting from his mouth, his eye fixed on the door, his freckled countenance purple and scowling, his hair standing on end, he crept across the room. Returning the cat's haughty stare, he seized the matches, the saucepan and two cups, and fled down to the river, where his chief mate was sitting on the grass, idly throwing stones into the water.
"Look what I've found washed up from the wreck," he said proudly. "Now we'll build a fire an' soon I expect we'll find a native savage an' some wild animals."
"Not—nottoowild, William," said the chief mate.
"All right," said the skipper, "not too wild, butanyway it doesn't matter 'cause you've got me an' there's nothing much I can't kill. Now, after the night on the open sea, we'd better make breakfast." With indescribable joy they collected twigs, made a fire, filled the saucepan with water from the river, and put it on to boil. When the water was warm, William poured it into two cups and broke his biscuits into them. The water was smoked and the biscuits grimy from their sojourn in William's pockets, but to the shipwrecked mariners the draught was as of nectar and ambrosia. Both drained their cups.
"That was grand, wasn't it, mate? I think you oughter say, 'Aye, aye, sir.'"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"Well, now, I'd better build us a house out of logs an' things, an' you go and see if you can find anything washed up from the wreck."
"Oh, William—I mean skipper!"
"You won't mind—there's no one there but a cat."
With mingled apprehension and excitement, Joan stole off to the house.
William, left alone, turned to the summer-house, and in his imagination made it vanish into thin air. Then he went through a ferocious and strenuous pantomime of cutting down trees and piling up logs, and finally beheld the completed summer-house with the proud eye of a creator. Then he opened the door and entered.
A ragged, unkempt man rose from the seat rubbing his eyes. A black bag was on the floor.
William and the man stared at each other, neither of them flinching.
"You're jus' wot I wanted to find," said Williamat last with excitement and friendliness in his voice; "I jus' wanted a native savage."
"Oh, yer did, did yer?" said the man. "Glad I'll do fer yer arl right. An' 'oo may you be if I may be so bold as to arsk?"
"We're shipwrecked," said William, "shipwrecked on a desert island. I've jus' built a hut, an' my chief mate's gone to find things washed up from the wreck, an' you'll do for the native savage. Do you mind bein' called Friday?"
"Not at all, young gent," said the man, "not at all. 'Erbert 'Ammond is my name, but call me Friday, Saturdayan'Sunday, if so you've a mind." (He ran his eye speculatively over William.) "But it seems funny to see a shipwrecked sailor in clothes like them. You'd 'ave thought they'd 'ave all got tore to pieces in the wreck, like."
"Yes," said William, eagerly, "they did."
"One would 'ave expected to see you—well, p'raps dressed in a sail or something." His eye narrowed, and he pointed to the ragged tablecloth fluttering in the breeze. "That 'ud do fine for a sail."
William's eyes were alight with enthusiasm.
"Yes—itwould," he said, "fine."
"If I was you an' bein' shipwrecked," said the man, deftly taking the table-cloth from the line, "I'd nip into that there summer-house, an' take off that ordinary-like suit an' rig up myself in this here sail ... then you'd feel like as if youwasshipwrecked, eh?"
He threw the table-cloth into the summer-house, and William, all excitement, followed. Friday lay on the bank by the river, smoked a foul pipe and winked at the landscape.
Soon William emerged proudly wearing the table-cloth in the fashion of a Roman toga.
"That," said Friday, "looks a bit of orlright—if I was you I'd go an' show it to the hother one wots lookin' at the wreck. I'll stay an' look hafter that there suit of yours so's no one runs off with it."
As William swaggered slowly towards the house, Friday rose, spat into the river, winked at the tree and went into the summer-house again.
Joan was sitting on the step of the house with the cat on her knee.
"Will—I mean skipper," she said, "it's a lovely pussy." Then, "Oh, goodness—William!"
Her tone hovered between horror and admiration.
William stepped jauntily up to her. One corner of the table-cloth trailed on the ground behind him.
"It's a sail," he said, proudly. "I got all my clothes dashed off me in the wreck, an' I'm wearing a sail wot got washed up by the waves. It does jolly well, doesn't it?"
Joan clapped her hands.
"Oh, an' I've found a native savage," went on William, "an' he doesn't mind bein' called Friday——"
"Oh, howlovely!An' the pussy will do for a native wild animal. Oh,William—we've got simplyeverything, haven't we?"
They went happily down to the river.
There William sustained the first shock of that momentous afternoon. Many more were to follow. The native savage had disappeared. Search in the summer-house revealed the fact that William's clothes had also disappeared.
William's jaw dropped.
"Stole'em!" He ejaculated.
Joan's eyes opened wide. The possibilities of the situation were beginning to dawn on both of them.
"William—how'll you get home?"
William's expression was one of pure horror.
"Mean olething!" he said. "Simplystole'em."
"William—what'll your mother say?"
They stared at each other in consternation, William clutched the table-cloth tightly round his neck.
At this moment a loud, angry voice came from the house. They fled precipitately to the summer-house. Isolated phrases reached them.
"Careless girl ... gossiping in the grocer's shop ...anyonemight have come in ... not even locked the back door.... Heaven knows——"
Then they heard the violent slamming of the back-door. Both felt that the time had come for the adventure to end. The desert island had lost its charm. It must be after tea-time. The sun was already setting. In normal circumstances, they would have crept quietly from the garden and returned to their respective homes. But circumstances were not normal. Between William's pants and vest and the world at large was—not his usual long-suffering cloth suit—but a trailing and in certain places inadequate table-cloth. William's freckled face, with its expression of indignant horror, in its frame of wild, carrotty hair, had a curious, unexpected appearance at the top of the long white robe.
"Oh, let's go home," said Joan, with a suspicion of tears in her voice.
William looked at her desperately.
"I can't go home likethis," he said, hoarse with emotion. "I can't go through the village wearin' a table-cloth. Everybody'd be laughing at me. No one's ever done it before—not walked through the village in a table-cloth—it'd make me ridic'l'us for the rest of my life."
He sat down, staring despondently in front of him.
"Oh, William, what will you do?"
"I'll stay here till midnight—till everyone else is in bed, an' I'll go home then. You'd better be gettin' home now."
"Oh, William—I couldn't, William. I'll go an' get you something from our house. I'll get you some of Daddy's clothes. Oh, William!"
William, deeply touched, could only stare at her and mutter gratefully. "Thanks—thanks, he's bigger'n me, but they'll do—anything'lldo."
He watched her anxiously through the dusty little window of the summer-house as she crept to the hole in the hedge and disappeared. Then he heaved a deep sigh, drew his covering around him, sat down on the summer-house seat and waited.
He was not left in peace for long. The voice which had first broken in upon their desert island sounded again—this time nearer. It was evidently walking round the garden with a sympathetic friend.
"And that wicked girl went to the grocer's and stayed there thewholeafternoon—it's that young man they've got now—it's always the young men, my dear—that's the worst of girls—and she left the houseentirelyunguarded, my dear—didn'tevenlock the door—and I came back and—yes, my dear,allthe silver gone from the dining-room—some thief had been in and—oh, yes, I'vetelephoned the police—and good gracious, the wretch has even taken the table-cloth we had hanging up in the back garden! Did youever?"
"Have you—have you looked in the summer-house? He may be hiding there."
William grew hot and cold, and took up his position immediately behind the door.
"No, my dear and I'm not going to. I don't think it's fair to my friends and relations—I'm not thinking of myself. But—suppose he were there. He's sure to have a revolver. I'd make a fine target for his revolver, silhouetted against the light."
"Y-yes. But couldn't we get pokers and dash in and stun him before he's time to move?"
William, pressing himself and his table-cloth tightly into the corner behind the door, was aware of a curious sinking feeling in his inside. Some people, he decided, hadn't any hearts at all.
"I don't think so—we might so easily kill him by mistake."
"Well, then, at any rate we can lock the door and keep him there till the police come."
A cold perspiration broke out over William.
"The lock won't work. Do you know, my dear, I'd rather go further away just in case thereisanyone there. Suppose we go indoors?"
The voices died away in the distance. The tenseness of William's form relaxed. His fixed look of horror and apprehension faded. He ran his fingers through his hair.
"Crumbs!" he whispered.
It seemed hours before the door opened and Joan staggered in with a bundle.
"Quick, William darling," she whispered. "Putthem on, an' we'll go home. No one saw me getting them. I'm 'fraid they'll be a bit big, but we can turn things up."
A WOMAN CAME OUT, SAW WILLIAM, AND GAVE A PIERCINGSCREAM OF MIRTH. TWO SMALL CHILDREN FOLLOWEDAND JOINED IN THE SHRIEKS OF MERRIMENT.
A WOMAN CAME OUT, SAW WILLIAM, AND GAVE A PIERCINGSCREAM OF MIRTH. TWO SMALL CHILDREN FOLLOWEDAND JOINED IN THE SHRIEKS OF MERRIMENT.
WILLIAM CERTAINLY LOOKED VERY QUEER. JOANHADN'T REALISED THAT THE SUIT WOULD BEQUITESO MUCH TOO BIG.
WILLIAM CERTAINLY LOOKED VERY QUEER. JOANHADN'T REALISED THAT THE SUIT WOULD BEQUITESO MUCH TOO BIG.
Her fear was justified. Mr. James Clive, her father, was six-foot-six in height. On William, his coat nearly touched the ground. His trousers, though rolled up bulkily at the ends till they could be rolled up no more, considerably impeded William's progress.
"Oh, William, they'll do," she whispered at last. "They are a bit big, but they'll do."
William, in Mr. Clive's clothes, would have made his fortune on a music-hall stage. Strong men would have wept tears at the sight, but Joan's loyalty was such that only affectionate concern was in the glance she turned on him. William's face was set and determined. He thought that the end of his troubles was in sight, as he rolled the table-cloth into a ball and put it beneath his arm.
"They—they may be able to track us if we leave it here," he whispered. "'Sides, someone's stole my clothes an' I'm jolly well goin' to steal someone's table-cloth."
The curious couple walked down the road. Joan kept throwing little anxious glances at her companion. He certainly looked very queer. She hadn't realised that the suit would bequiteso much too big. So far they had not passed a house. Now they were passing a roadside cottage.
A man came out of the cottage and stared at William open-mouthed. Then he leant against the wall, put his hands to his sides and emitted guffaw on guffaw. William merely threw him a murderous glance and proceeded on his way with as much dignity as his trousers allowed him.
"Missus?" called the man, wiping his eyes.
A woman came out, saw William, gave a piercing scream of mirth, and leant helplessly against the wall with the man. Two small children followed and joined in the shrieks of merriment that to William seemed to fill the entire world. Joan put her hand to that part of the long sleeve where she judged William's hand might be, and gave a sympathetic squeeze. Yet even Joan's heart sank at the thought of the journey through the village that lay before them.
The next house they had to pass was the house where Joan lived. To her consternation, Joan saw a figure in a black dress and white apron at the gate. It was too late to turn to flee.
"Well, I never, Miss Joan. Your mother says you're to come in at once. She's in a terrible state over you—where'aveyou been?"
"Imustgo home with William," pleaded Joan.
"That you must not," said the housemaid, taking her hand. "Your mother said I was to find you and tell you to come in immediate. You've 'ad no tea nor nothin'. As for you," she turned a devastatingly scornful eye upon William, "dressin' up an' thinkin' you're so funny—well, you won't getmelaughin' at you—you oughter be ashamed of yourself."
With a contemptuous sniff she led away the reluctant Joan. William continued his pilgrimage alone. He went slowly. He went slowly for two reasons. One was that the thought of the journey down the village street filled even William's heart with apprehension.
The other was that his trousers were coming unrolled and his hands were so far up the longsleeves of the coat that he could not extricate them. He was glad that dusk was at last falling. He was aware that a tall figure was approaching from the opposite direction. He shrank into the shadow of the hedge, and hoped that it would pass without observing him. It did not. It stood in front of him, barring his way, and slowly adjusted a monocle. With a sinking heart, William looked up into the face of Joan's father.
"Excuse me, young man," said that gentleman, "but either you and I patronise the same tailor and have had identical ideas this spring as to style and material, or—or," his hand descended firmly and held the back of William's neck, "oryou are wearing a suit of my clothes, in which case I must ask you to come home with me and take them off."
He began to impel William gently back towards his house.
"If you'd jus' let meexplain," said William, pathetically.
"Explanations," said Mr. Clive, transferring his hold from William's neck to the collar of his coat, "are tedious, unsatisfactory things. Why trouble yourself with them? I merely ask of you, as one gentleman of another, that you will return to me the garments that you seem to have absentmindedly appropriated."
Even William's spirits were crushed by the repeated blows of fate. He did not speak again till he was face to face with his captor in the library of Joan's house, but with Joan nowhere to be seen. He was pale and stern.
"But I'venothin'else to wear," he said, "nothin'. You don' want me to go all the way home innothin'?"
"What," said Mr. Clive, "were you wearing before you purloined my suit?"
"I was wearin' a table-cloth, but——"
"Then I suppose you can go on wearing a table-cloth."
"But—but you don't want me to go through the village in atable-cloth?" said William in frenzied despair.
"You can go through the village in a table-napkin for all I care," said Mr. Clive, heartlessly. "I paid twelve guineas for this suit only last week, and I'm not going to have it mucked up any more. It'll take about six years in a press to take these creases out, anyway. I don't know what mischievous business you've been engaged in to-day, but I can guess who got hold of this suit for you, and I'll have a few words with Miss Joan on the subject this evening."
William glared at him savagely.
"Nothin' to do with Joan," he said. "I got it myself." He divested himself of the suit, shook out his table-cloth and wrapped it round him, scowling darkly.
"Well," he said, slowly and bitterly, "if you don't mind me goin' through the village inthis——"
"I don't mind at all," said Mr. Clive pleasantly, "not at all. Allow me to see you to the door. Good-night, William."
Ho closed the door and went to the library window. There he watched the white-clad figure disappear down the drive. "That young man's progress through the village," he said aloud, "ought to be worth watching."
William set out once more on his adventurous journey. At the thought of the village street hisknees felt quite definitely unsteady. Never to William had his home seemed so near and yet so unattainable. Suddenly he thought of the path over the fields and through the churchyard. It would bring him out a good way beyond his home, but it would avoid that nightmare of the village street.
William climbed over the stile and set off over the fields. It was nearly dark anyway. He could see no one near.... He climbed the second stile that led into the churchyard, and began to walk forward. Suddenly a woman who had been standing with her back to him, reading one of the gravestones, turned, stared at him with open mouth and eyes, gave a scream that made the hair on William's head stand upright, and shot off like an arrow from a bow, falling head over heels over the opposite stile, picking herself up and running with deafening screams in the direction of the village. William, feeling slightly shaken, sat down behind a tombstone to recover.
Several people passed, but William's nerve had gone. He dared not emerge from his damp and gloomy refuge. At last he heard the sound of many cheerful voices, as if seven or eight people were coming together through the churchyard. His spirits rose. He would tell them his plight. Seven or eight people all together would not be afraid of him.... He rose from behind his tombstone and with eight wild yells eight young women made for the horizon. All but one. She tripped over a stone and crouched with her head on her hands where she fell. With a thrill of joy William recognised his mother's housemaid. His troubles were at an end. She would fetch him his overcoat.
"Ellen,"—he began.
"OO-ow-ow-ow!" yelled Ellen.
With a shriek more piercing than he had yet heard, Ellen fled from William's sight.
******
"I don't know where William is," said Mrs. Brown to her husband. "He wasn't in to tea."
"Don't worry yourself about him unduly," said her husband. "There was a rumour rife in the village as I came from the station to the effect that William had been seen walking in the direction of the village over an hour ago wearing a suit of clothes of abnormal size."
Mrs. Brown sat down suddenly.
"Abnormal size? But he was wearing his ordinary suit at lunch."
"I can't explain it," said her husband. "I merely repeat the rumour."
"An hour ago—then why isn't he home?"
"I can't say," said her husband callously, opening the evening paper.
At this point an unearthly yell broke the silence of the house, and Ellen rushed into the room, flinging herself beneath the table.
"It's come after me," she screamed. "It's at the side-door—Oh lor! Oh lor!—it's there, all white an' all. Oh, don't let it get me—I don't want to die—I'll repent—I'll—Oh lor! Oh lor!"
Mr. Brown laid down his paper with a sigh.
"What is it?" he said wearily.
"Oh lor! Oh lor!" sobbed Ellen, beneath the table.
A figure appeared in the doorway—a wild figure, with a fierce, indignant, aggrieved expression and hair that stood up round its face, a figure thatclutched a ragged table-cloth round it with certain enraged dignity.
"It—it—it's William," said Mrs. Brown.
******
"But they wasstoleoff me," said William wildly.
"So I gathered from your account," said Mr. Brown, politely.
"Well, is it fair to 'speck me to pay for things wot was stole off me?"
"I have already remarked that if I observed in you any sudden growth of such virtues as cleanliness, tidiness, obedience, silence, modesty—er—and the rest, I might myself contribute a little towards the waistcoat, say, or the collar and tie. We will now consider the discussion closed."
"It's ever so long past your bedtime, William," said Mrs. Brown. "Do go to bed. I simply can't bear to see you wearing that dreadful thing any longer."
With a glance of sorrowful anger at his parents William drew his table-cloth about him and prepared to depart. He felt injured, infuriated, ill-treated, and weary. His self-esteem was cruelly hurt. Screams of laughter came from the next room where his grown-up brother and sister were relating his adventures to a friend.
The telephone-bell rang.
"William, someone wants to speak to you."
He took the receiver unsmilingly.
"William, Daddy said I could ring you up to say good-night to you. I was so sorry I couldn't go home with you. William, I don't think you looked a bit funny in those things—I think you lookednicein the tablecloth and it wasn't your fault—and you were awfully brave about it—and wasn'titfun—the desert island part?—Ididenjoy it—we'll play a game like that again soon, won't we?—Good-night, William darling."
"Good-night."
William hung up the receiver and went upstairs to bed. He held his untidy carrotty head erect. On his freckled face was a softened expression—nearly as good as a smile—he wore his table-cloth with an almost jaunty air.
He was himself again.
The End.