Part 4 (1/2)

”And when I looked up again they had taken away p-p-poor Donald,”

Priscilla went on spasmodically between her tears, ”and I think they killed him because he belonged to you, and--they said he had no business there! Oh, they were such horrid cruel boys, and much bigger than us. And I can't bear that Don should have his throat cut. I was promised that he should never be sold for mutton, but only clipped for wool. And he had such a pretty throat to hang daisy-chains on, and was such a dear, dear thing.”

”I don't think they would dare to kill him,” said Mr. Smith gravely; ”besides, they could not lift him over the gate. I will send at once and see. In fact I will go myself!”

There was only anger against the enemy now, and no thought of chastis.e.m.e.nt of his own in the heart of Mr. Picton Smith. He was rising to reach out his hand to his riding-whip, when General Napoleon Smith, who, like most great makers of history, had taken little part in the telling of it, created a diversion which put all thought of immediate action out of his father's head. He had been standing up, shoulders squared, arms dressed to his side, head erect, as he had seen Sergeant Steel do when he spoke to his Colonel. Once or twice he had swayed slightly, but the heart of the Buonapartes, which beat bravely in his bosom, brought him up again all standing. Nevertheless he grew even whiter and whiter, till, all in a moment, he gave a little lurch forward, checked himself, and again looked straight before him. Then he sobbed out once suddenly and helplessly, said ”I couldn't help getting beaten, father--there were too many of them!”

and fell over all of a piece on the hearthrug.

At which his father's face grew very still and angry as he gathered the great General gently in his arms and carried him upstairs to his own little white cot.

CHAPTER VII.

THE POOR WOUNDED HUSSAR.

It is small wonder that Mr. Picton Smith was full of anger. His castle had been invaded and desecrated, his authority as proprietor defied, his children insulted and abused. As a magistrate he felt bound to take notice both of the outrage and of the theft of his property. As a father he could not easily forget the plight in which his three children had appeared before him.

But in his schemes of vengeance he reckoned without that distinguished military officer, General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith. For this soldier had been promoted on his bed of sickness. He had read somewhere that in his profession (as in most others) success quite often bred envy and neglect, but that to the unsuccessful, promotion and honour were sometimes awarded as a sort of consolation sweepstakes. So, having been entirely routed and plundered by the enemy, it came to Hugh John in the watches of the night--when, as he put it, ”his head was hurting like fun” that it was time for him to take the final step in his own advancement.

So on the next morning he announced the change in his name and style to his army as it filed in to visit him. The army was on the whole quite agreeable.

”But I'm afraid I shall never remember all that, Mr.

General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith!” said Priscilla.

”Well, you'd better!” returned the wounded hero, as truculently as he could for the bandages and the sticking-plaster, in which he was swathed after the fas.h.i.+on of an Egyptian mummy partially unwrapped.

”What a funny smell!” piped Toady Lion. ”Do field-marshals _all_ smell like that?”

”Get out, silly!” retorted the wounded officer. ”Don't you know that's the stuff they rub on the wounded when they have fought bravely?

That's arnicay!”

”And what do they yub on them when they don't fight bravely?”

persisted Toady Lion, who had had enough of fighting, and who in his heart was resolved that the next time he would ”yun away” as hard as he could, a state of mind not unusual after the _zip-zip_ of bullets is heard for the first time.

”First of all they catch them and kick them for being cowards. Then they shoot at them till they are dead; and may the Lord have mercy on their souls! Amen!” said General Smith, mixing things for the information and encouragement of Sir Toady Lion.

Presently the children were called out to go and play, and the wounded hero was left alone. His head ached so that he could not read. Indeed, in any case he could not, for the room was darkened with the intention of s.h.i.+elding his damaged eyes from the light. General Napoleon could only watch the flies buzzing round and round, and wish in vain that he had a fly-flapper at the end of a pole in order to ”plop” them, as he used to do all over the house in the happy days before Janet Sheepshanks discovered what made the walls and windows so horrid with dead and dying insects.

”Yes; the squashy ones _were_ rather streaky!” had been the words in which Hugh John admitted his guilt, after the pole and leathern flapper were taken from him and burned in the washhouse fire.

Thus in the semi-darkness Hugh John lay watching the flies with the stealthy intentness of a Red Indian scalper on the trail. It was sad to lie idly in bed, so bewrapped and swathed that (as he mournfully remarked), ”if one of the brutes were to settle on your nose, you could only wait for him to crawl up, and then s.n.a.t.c.h at him with your left eyelid.”

Suddenly the disabled hero bethought himself of something. First, after listening intently so as to be quite sure that ”the children”

were outside the bounds of the house, the wounded general raised himself on his elbow. But the effort hurt him so much that involuntarily he said ”Outch!” and sank back again on the pillow.

”Crikey, but don't I smell just!” he muttered, when, after one breath of purer air, he sank back into the pool of arnica vapour. ”I suppose I'll have to howl out for Janet. What a swot!”