William in Trouble (13 page)

Douglas triumphantly carried the parrot, scolding angrily, in his cage beneath its baize cover.

William carried his box of insects and Whitey in his box.

Ginger, whose face and hands were by this time a maze of scratches, still carried with true British determination the still furious Rameses.

Henry carried beneath his coat the clockwork monkey which he had taken from his little sister’s toy box after her departure to bed. As regards tomorrow he was hoping for the best. Perhaps
she wouldn’t remember it. He might be able to replace it in her toy box before she thought of it. Not that he had much real hope. She had a notoriously awkward memory.

Jumble followed jauntily behind. Jumble seemed to think that he was to take part in the show, though he had been sent home six or seven times. When Jumble was sent home he retired to the ditch
till the Outlaws had proceeded some way and, he hoped, forgotten about him (Jumble was as great an optimist as his master), then he emerged from the ditch and followed again, keeping a discreet
distance.

He had smelt Whitey, and was anxious that the acquaintance should not end with the sense of smell.

He had heard Rameses, and at the sound his heart had kindled with the lust of battle.

He had seen Monk, and though Monk lacked smell and sound to stir his appetite, still the sight of Monk had intrigued him, and he meant at the earliest opportunity to investigate Monk further.
Jumble quivered to the tip of his nondescript tail with expectation.

Douglas carried his mother’s dressing-gown over his arm. It had proved more frilly than William thought compatible with his dignity, but it was better than nothing. Ginger carried his
father’s top hat on his head.

They entered the gate of Rose Mount School very cautiously and made their way under cover of the bushes towards the kitchen window. William peeped through the kitchen window while the others
stood in the shadow and watched him. A very old woman was asleep in a chair by the fire. Fate had favoured the Outlaws. The caretaker and his wife had gone away for a short holiday, leaving the
caretaker’s wife’s mother in charge. She was a very cheering sight as she sat there sleeping by the fire. She looked stout and well established and as though she would sleep for a long
time yet. She looked, too, as though she’d be rather deaf when she did wake up. She looked a satisfactory sort of caretaker altogether.

Immensely cheered by the sight of her the Outlaws walked round to the front of the house. Opening the drawing-room window with the help of Ginger’s penknife, they entered as silently as
they could and began to dispose their circus performers about the room.

Douglas’s aunt’s parrot called out, ‘Stop it!’ in a loud voice, and then uttered a harsh ironic laugh. Rameses was silent for the time being. He had either fallen asleep
or was quietly planning some devilry. Whitey was audibly employed in trying to eat a way through his box. Jumble sat down on the hearth-rug and began to scratch himself. Henry thoughtlessly put
Monk down in his immediate vicinity and Jumble stopped scratching himself, seized Monk by one ear, and sent him hurtling across the room into the glass door of a bookcase, then sat down wagging his
tail. He looked upon himself obviously at that moment as a super-dog, a cave-dog, a hero, a conqueror. At this shock Monk’s works began to function with a little growling sound, and Jumble
flung himself to the attack once more. William caught him just in time and Henry rescued Monk from the debris of the glass door of the bookcase.

‘Wish you’d keep your dog a bit quieter,’ said Henry with indignation.

‘Well, I
like
that,’ rejoined William with equal indignation. ‘You go sticking that thing down next to a brave dog like Jumble an’ expect him not to fight it. I
bet
some
dogs would be frightened of it, too – an ugly-looking thing with a face like that. I bet
some
dogs would’ve jus’ ran off as fast as they could. I bet not
many
dogs would’ve gone for it like that. I bet Jumble’s about the
bravest
dog in the world. You all oughter be
proud
of knowin’ a dog like
Jumble—’

Jumble endorsed these sentiments by a short sharp bark.

‘Oh, stop it, stop it,
stop
it!’ said the parrot irascibly beneath his cover.

‘Well, hadn’t we better start
doin
’ somethin’?’ said Douglas mildly.

‘All right,’ said William, still holding Jumble. Jumble was watching with a gleaming eye the excrescence in Henry’s coat that represented the vanished Monk.

‘All right. ’Sno good having a rehearsal because prob’ly someone’d go makin’ a noise an’ wake her. An’ we don’
need
a rehearsal.
We’ve had a sort of rehearsal an’ it’s no use rehearsin’ an’ rehearsin’ an’
rehearsin
’ an’ gettin’ everyone tired before we
start. I votes we jus’ hide the things away somewhere so’s we can find ’em again for the circus tomorrow, ’cause if we take ’em all home again I bet we’ll lose
’em or someone’ll take ’em off us or
somethin’ll
happen. Seems to me it’s safer to leave ’em here now we’ve got ’em here. Hide ’em
somewhere safe, you know, where
she
won’t find ’em.

‘I bet
she’s
woke up already what with all the noise you’ve all been makin’,’ said Douglas severely.

William opened the door very silently and listened. No sound came from the kitchen regions except a faint snore. The caretaker’s mother-in-law still slept.

‘’S all right!’ he hissed as he returned and closed the door.

‘Well, where shall we hide ’em?’ said Henry, looking round the drawing-room. ‘Doesn’t look to me as if there
was
much place to hide ’em – not
where she wun’t find ’em – dustin’ an’ such like an’ she’ll chuck ’em away or else stick to ’em an’
then
where’ll our circus
be?’

‘Oh, my hair!’ chuckled the parrot derisively.

‘I’ve got an idea,’ said Douglas suddenly.

They looked at him expectantly. Jumble had been put down upon the ground again, and, temporarily forgetting the elusive Monk, was occupied in tearing bits off the hearthrug and eating them.

‘I votes,’ said Douglas solemnly, ‘that we hide one thing in each room an’ then even s’pose she finds one she’s not likely to find ’em all.’

The deep, almost Machiavelli-like cunning of this suggestion won the admiration of the Outlaws.

‘
Jolly
good,’ said William approvingly. ‘Yes, we’ll do that. Let’s start with this room. What’ll we hide here?’

‘Let’s hide your insects,’ said Ginger.

They approached the box which William had inadvertently left open. It was empty.

‘They’ve hid themselves,’ said William, as though pleased at the sign of the intelligence from his exhibits. ‘’S ’all right. I can find ’em again
tomorrow. Or, anyway, I can c’lect some more. What shall we hide next? I bet we won’t find it easy to hide that ole parrrot. It takes up such a lot of room. She’s sure to find it
wherever we put it – specially if it keeps on talkin’ and carryin’ on the way it does.’

‘Well, you
wanted
a talkin’ one, didn’t you?’ said Douglas with spirit. ‘What’s the good of one that can’t talk for a circus? You
wanted
a
talkin’ one an’ then you grumble ’cause it talks.’

‘I’m not grumblin’,’ said William distantly. ‘I’m only statin’ a fact. I’m only sayin’ that it’s a pity it can’t talk when
it’s in a circus an’ not when it’s not.’

The parrot sniggered and murmured, ‘Oh, my hair! Stop it!’

‘I b’lieve,’ said Henry impressively, ‘that there’s a cellar. Well, if we put him in a cellar she prob’ly won’t hear him when he talks an’ she
prob’ly won’t find him ’cause she prob’ly won’t go down into the cellar, so it’ll prob’ly be all right.’

This idea appealed to the Outlaws chiefly because of the opportunity it afforded of investigating the cellars. The Outlaws loved cellars.

‘All right,’ they said, ‘let’s go ’n’ see.’

On tiptoe, led by William, they crept into the hall. William held Jumble under his coat and the box containing Whitey under his arm. Henry held Monk under his coat. Ginger carried the still
quiescent Rameses in his basket and wore his father’s hat on his head, and Douglas carried the cage containing the parrot and his mother’s dressing-gown over his other arm.

There was a door under the stairs. They opened it. There were steps. Yes, most certainly cellars. Very cautiously the little procession crept down. Glorious cellars, enormous cellars, heavenly
vistas of cellars opening out of each other. They explored blissfully for some time for sheer love of exploration. Then William recalled them sternly to the business of the day.

‘Let’s find a nice dark corner for the parrot,’ he said, ‘so’s he’ll go to sleep an’ not start talkin’ all over the place.’

They found a nice dark corner. Douglas had brought a plentiful supply of parrot food in his pocket and he poured this into the parrot’s dish. The parrot gave a deep sigh and then burst
into a peal of high-pitched ironic laughter. Douglas surveyed his mother’s wrap.

‘Might as well leave this here, too,’ he said, throwing it upon a derelict clothes horse that stood near. It hung down in graceful folds.

‘Looks almost ’s good ’s a ghost,’ said William, admiring the effect. ‘Put the hat on it too.’

But Ginger was enjoying wearing the hat and did not wish to give it up just yet. He rather fancied himself in it. He wished that he were to wear it instead of William.

‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘we don’t want to put too many things in one place. We want to have
some
things left if she starts nosing round down here. Let’s go
an’ have a look round upstairs.’

Leaving the parrot, who was still laughing sardonically to himself, the Outlaws, considerably lightened of their burdens, crept up to the hall again. The caretaker’s wife’s
mother’s snores still reverberated gently through the house.

‘Upstairs!’ hissed William. His eye gleamed with the light of the explorer. To William life was one long glorious Romance. Upstairs, however, proved, on the whole, disappointing. It
seemed to consist solely of dormitories and mistresses’ bedrooms. The only excitement was half a dozen Italian stamps on the window-sill of one of the dormitories. They turned out, however,
to be ‘pricked’ and useless for collections.

‘Well, anyway,’ said Henry, putting them on one side with disgust, ‘we can leave Monk here.’

‘Let’s see him walk,’ said Ginger with sudden interest.

William buttoned Jumble firmly up inside his coat (a proceeding to which Jumble objected, but to which he was quite accustomed), and Henry turned the key which wound up the works of Monk. To the
Outlaws’ great delight Monk walked across the room till he came to a chair which barred his progress. He then perforce stopped, but was obviously willing and anxious to continue as soon as
the chair was removed.

Henry was just going to remove it when Jumble, who had caught sight of his enemy through a buttonhole, made a spasmodic effort to escape, and bursting asunder William’s one remaining
button, flung himself from William’s grasp. He was captured in the nick of time by Ginger and returned to William’s bosom barking furiously and making frenzied efforts to escape.

William, smothering Jumble’s outburst as best he could, took him from the room, followed by the other Outlaws, leaving Monk still embracing the obstructing chair. Jumble, who really knew
quite well that they were uninvited guests in the house and that he ought to be silent, but had been temporarily overcome by his feelings, nuzzled his head apologetically under William’s
shoulder. They leant over the balusters listening fearfully. No sound came from below but the faint ghostlike echoes of distant snores.

‘Better not go back to that room,’ whispered Henry, ‘we’ll leave Monk there. I bet it’s quite a good hiding place. I bet she won’t go lookin’ there.
What’s that room?’

Ginger opened the door cautiously.

‘It’s a box-room,’ he said. ‘I’ll leave this ole hat here. It’s a good hiding place for it.’

Douglas had followed him. William and Henry were investigating a room at the other end of the landing.

Douglas looked round the room critically. His gaze wandered round floor and wall and ceiling, and rested finally on the top of the door. He chuckled.

‘I bet I could do a trick there,’ he said. ‘You go out a minute and don’t look and come in when I tell you.’

Ginger went out.

‘Come on!’ said Douglas in a hoarse whisper after a few minutes. Ginger returned to the door. It was open a few inches. He opened it further. The top hat dropped upon him from above,
appearing to extinguish him. Douglas gave an exultant chuckle at the result of his trick.

‘It balances jus’ above the door,’ he explained, ‘let’s do it on ole William.’

He climbed on to a box, balanced the hat again, then, managing to squeeze himself through the narrow aperture, went with Ginger to look for William.

William was in a linen cupboard making perilous experiments with a lift that evidently descended to the kitchen regions. In the excitement of this Douglas and Ginger forgot the hat. It was only
fear of waking the sleeping woman below that prevented William from essaying the descent into the nether regions in person. Instead, they sent Rameses and Whitey in their respective receptacles
half-way up and down the lift till sudden movements in Rameses’ basket showed that he had awakened again to a sense of his grievances.

‘P’raps we’d better be goin’,’ said William reluctantly, and they took box and basket under their arms again and crept downstairs. They went into a large study at
the bottom of the stairs. The walls were lined with books. William looked around him without enthusiasm.

‘Dull-looking place,’ he commented. Then his eye fell upon a large wooden box upon the desk in the window. He opened it. It contained a few papers.

‘It’s a nice place for Whitey,’ he said, ‘plenty of room an’ a nice big keyhole for air. We’ll make it nice an’ comfy for him an’ he’ll be
all right till tomorrow.’

He spread his handkerchief at the bottom in an attempt to ensure Whitey’s comfort in his place of confinement. The other Outlaws added theirs. Finally Whitey was laid on the top of this,
and after biting William’s finger during the process, settled down to an ungrateful but wholesale destruction of his bedding. They could hear the muffled tearing of handkerchiefs as they shut
the box.