Part 18 (1/2)

CHAPTER XXV.

LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM.

Cissy found our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special pet.i.tion that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head.

”With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!”

”Oh, surely not so bad as that,” said Cissy, very properly scandalised.

”She would, indeed,” said Hugh John, nodding his head vehemently; ”she's good no end, our Prissy is. And never s.h.i.+rks prayers, nor forgets altogether, nor even says them in bed. I believe she'd get up on a frosty night and say them without a fire--she would, I'm telling you. And she doats on these nasty Smoutchies. She'd just love to have been tortured. She'd have regularly spread herself on forgiving them too, our Priss would.”

”I wouldn't have forgived them,” cried the piping voice of Toady Lion, suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form was ”scrubbery”), with his arms full of the new bra.s.s cannons; ”I wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their heads.”

”Go 'way, little pig!” cried Cissy indignantly.

”Toady Lion isn't a little pig,” said Hugh John, with dignity; ”he is my brother.”

”But he kept all the cannons to himself,” remonstrated Cissy.

”'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't grow good all at once,” said Hugh John, with more Christian charity than might have been expected of him.

”You've been growing good yourself,” said Cissy, thrusting out her upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment; ”I'd better go home.”

”I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy,” cried Hugh John, ”but anyway you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig.”

”I like being little pig,” said Toady Lion impa.s.sively; ”little piggie goes '_Grunt-grunt!_'”

And he ill.u.s.trated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up through his nostrils in various keys. ”Little pigs is nice,” he repeated at the end of this performance.

Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to not give in now.

”Good little boy”--she said tauntingly--”it is such a mother's pet! It will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then----!”

Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was doubled. It was drawn back.

”Yes,” cried Cissy, ”hit a girl! Any boy can beat you. But you can hit a girl! Hit hard, brave soldier!”

Hugh John's hand dropped as if struck by lightning.

”I never did!” he said; ”I fought ten of them at once and never even cried when they--when they----”

And the erstwhile dauntless warrior showed unmistakable signs of being perilously near a descent into the vale of tears.

”When they what?” queried Cissy softly, suddenly beginning to be sorry.

”Well, when they tortured me,” said Hugh John.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ”'HIT HARD, BRAVE SOLDIER.'”]