Part 26 (2/2)

”Oh dear,” she said, ”I should so like to be one some day.”

CHAPTER x.x.xII.

PLAN OF CAMPAIGN.

Sat.u.r.day morning 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.

”h.e.l.lo,” cried Hugh John jovially, ”at it already?”

”The mornin's the best time for suppling the jints!” answered Billy sententiously; ”ask Lep.r.o.nia Lovell, there. She should know with all them tin pans going c.l.i.tter-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, Lep.r.o.nia 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 night as 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 circ.u.mstance 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 Sat.u.r.day, 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 part of 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.

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