Part 13 (1/2)
”Our Father Witch-Charta-Nevin” (this he considered a Christian name and surname, curious but quite authoritative), ”help me to get out of this beastly hole. Help me to lick Nipper Donnan till he can't stand, and bust Sammy Carter for running away. For we are all miserable sinners. G.o.d bless father and Prissy, Arthur George (I wonder where the little beast went to--guess he sneaked--just wait!), Janet Sheepshanks, Mary Jane Housemaid, and everybody about the house and down at the stables, except Bella Murdoch, that is a clash-bag and a tell-tale-t.i.t. And make me a good boy. For Jesus' sake. Aymen.”
That the last pet.i.tion was by no means a superfluous one every reader of this history will agree. Hugh John very carefully said ”Ay-men”
now, because he had said ”A-men” in the morning. He noticed that his father always said ”Ay-men” very solemnly at the end of a prayer, while Prissy, who liked going to church even on week days (a low dodge!), insisted upon ”A-men.” So Hugh John used ”Ay-men” and ”A-men”
time about, just to show that there was no ill-feeling. Thus early in life does the leaven of Gallio (who ”cared for none of these things”) begin to show itself. Hugh John was obviously going to be a very p.r.o.nounced Broad Churchman.
The prayer did the captive General much good. He was not now nearly so much afraid of the beasts. The hole did not seem to yawn so black beneath him; and though he kept his ear on the c.o.c.k for anything that might come at him up the stairs, he could with some tolerable composure sit still and wait for the morning. He decided that so soon as it was even a little light, he would try again and find out if he could not remove the rubbish from the further door.
The midsummer morn was not long in coming--shorter far indeed to Hugh John than to the anxious hearts that were scattered broadcast over the face of the country seeking for him. Scarcely had the boy sat down to wait for the daylight when his head sank on his breast. Presently he swayed gently to the side, and turning over with a contented little murmur, he curled himself up like a tired puppy and went fast asleep.
When he awoke, a fresher pink radiance than that of eventide filled the aperture above his head--the glow of the wide, sweet, blushful dawn which flooded all the eastern sky outside the tall grey walls of the Castle of Windy Standard.
Hugh John rose, stretched himself, yawned, and looked about him in surprise. There was no Toady Lion in a little white s.h.i.+p on four iron legs, moored safe alongside him; no open door through into Prissy's room; no birch-tree outside the window, glimmering purest white and delicatest pink in the morning light--nothing, in short, that had greeted his waking eyes every morning of his life hitherto.
But there were compensations. He was a prisoner. He had endured a night in a dungeon. His hair would almost certainly have turned pure white, or at least streaky. What boy of his age had ever done these things since the little Dauphin, about whom he was so sorry, and over whose fate he had shed such bitter tears? Had Sammy Carter? Hugh John smiled a sarcastic and derisive smile. Sammy Carter indeed! He would just like to see Sammy Carter try it once! _He_ would have been dead by this time, if he had had to go through the tenth of what he (Hugh John) had undergone. Had Mike or Peter? They were big and strong. They smoked pipes. But they had never been tortured, never shut up in a dungeon with wild beasts in the next compartment, and no hasp on the door.
The staircase--the secret pa.s.sage! Hugh John's heart fluttered wildly.
He might even yet get back in time for breakfast. There would be porridge--and egg-and-bacon--oh! crikey, yes, and it was kidney morning. Hugh John's mouth watered. There was no need of the cool fluid in the sh.e.l.l of limestone now! Could there indeed be such dainties in the world? It did not seem possible. And yet that very morning--he meant the morning before--no, surely it must have been in some other life infinitely remote, he had grumbled because he had not had cream instead of milk to his porridge, and because the bacon was not previously crisp enough. He felt that if ever he were privileged to taste as good bacon again, he would become religious like Prissy--or take some such extreme measure as that.
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”OVER THE CLOSELY PACKED WOOLLY BACKS HE SAW A STRETCH OF RIPPLED RIVER.”]
Hugh John had no appet.i.te for the ”poison squares” now. He tried one, and it seemed to be composed in equal parts of sawdust and the medicament called ”Rough-on-rats!” He tried the water in the sh.e.l.l, and that was somewhat better; but just to think of tea from the urn--soft ivory cream floating on the top, curded a little but light as blown sea-foam! Ah, he could wait no longer. The life of a prisoner was all very well, but he could not even get materials with which to write up his diary till he got home. For this purpose it was necessary that he should immediately make his escape. Also it was kidney morning, and if he did not hurry that little wretch Toady Lion would have eaten up every s.n.a.t.c.h. He resolved to lose no time.
So with eager steps he descended the steep wet stairs into the little stone chamber, which smelt fearfully damp and clammy, just as if all the snails in the world had been crawling there.
”I bet the poor chap down here had toothache,” said Hugh John, s.h.i.+vering as he went forward to attack the pile of fallen stones in front of the arched doorway. For an hour he worked most manfully, pulling out such as he could manage to loosen, and tossing others aside. Thus he gradually undercut the ma.s.s which blocked up the door, till, with a warning creak or two the whole pitched forward and inward, giving the daring pioneer just time to leap aside before it came toppling into the narrow cell, which it more than half filled. As soon as the avalanche had settled, Hugh John staggered over the top of the fallen stones and broken _debris_ to the small door. As his head came on a level with the opening he saw a strange sight. He looked into a little ruined turret, the floor of which was of smoothest green sward--or, rather, which would have been of green sward had it not been thickly covered with sheep, all lying placidly shoulder to shoulder, and composedly drawing in the morning air through their nostrils as if no such word as ”mutton” existed in the vocabularies of any language.
Beyond and over the closely packed woolly backs he saw a stretch of rippled river, faceted with diamond and ruby points, where the rising sun just touched the tips of the little chill wavelets which were fretted by the wind of morning, that gust of cooler air which the dawn pushes before it round the world. Hugh John was free!
CHAPTER XXI.
THE RETURN FROM THE BASTILE.
He stepped down easily and lightly among the sheep. They rose without surprise or disorder, still with strict attention to business continuing to munch at the gra.s.s they had plucked as they lay, for all the world as if a famous adventure-seeking general had been only the harmless but boresome shepherd who came to drive them out to pastures new. For all the surprise they showed they might have been accustomed from their fleeciest infancy to small, dirty, scratched, bruised, infinitely tattered imps of imperial descent arriving suddenly out of unexplored secret pa.s.sages in ancient fortresses.
The great commander's first instinct was to rush for home and so make sure that Cook Mary the Second had done enough kidneys for breakfast.
His second idea, and one more worthy of his military reputation, was carefully to conceal the entrance to the doorway, by which he had emerged from the pa.s.sage he had so wonderfully discovered. No one knew how soon the knowledge might prove useful to him. As a matter of attack and defence the underground pa.s.sage was certainly not to be neglected.
Then Hugh John drove the sheep before him out of the fallen tower. As he did so one of them coughed, stretching its neck and holding its head near the ground. He now knew the origin of the sound which had--no, not frightened him (of course not!), but slightly surprised him the evening before.
And, lo! there, immediately in front of him as he emerged, was the Edam Water, sliding and rippling on under its willows, the slim, silvery-grey leaves showing their white under-sides just as usual.
There, across the river, were the cattle, standing already knee-deep in the shallows, their tails nervy and switchy on the alert for the morning's crop of flies. There was Mike going to drive them in to be milked. Yonder in the far distance was a black speck which must be Peter polis.h.i.+ng straps and buckles hung on a pin by the stable door.
”Horrid beasts every one of them!” said Hugh John indignantly to himself, ”going on all as comfortable as you please, just as if I had not been pining in a dungeon cell for years and years.”
Then setting his cramped wet legs in motion, General Napoleon commenced a masterly retreat in the direction of home. He dashed for the stepping-stones, but he was in too much of a hurry to make sure of hitting them. He slipped from the first and went above the knee into the clear cool Edam Water. After that he simply floundered through, and presently emerged dripping on the other side. Along the woodland paths he scurried and scampered. He dashed across glades, scattering the rabbits and kicking up the dew in the joy of recovered freedom. He climbed a stone d.y.k.e into the home park, because he had no time to go round by the stile. He brought half of the fence down in his haste, sc.r.a.ping his knee as he did so. But so excited was he that he scarcely felt the additional bruise.