William The Conqueror (6 page)

‘Puss! Puss! Puss!’ he said through the darkness.

There was no response.

‘Good dog!’ he panted. ‘Rats! Cats! Fetch ’em out! Come for a walk! On trust! Where’s that bone? Good dog, then! Good dog!’

There was no response.

Something fairly large, not a cat or a dog, banged against the summer-house. Could it be a donkey or a sheep or a cow? Oh,
couldn’t
it be a donkey or a sheep or a cow? He peered
anxiously over the edge of the roof.

‘Hee-haw!’ he greeted the unknown with eager propitiation in his voice. ‘Ba-a-a-a! Moo-oo-oo!’

For answer there came through the darkness a low growl. It certainly wasn’t a cat or a dog or a donkey or a cow. It was certainly a leopard. He’d never heard a leopard’s voice
before (for the matter of that he had never seen a leopard before), but there was no doubt that this was a leopard’s voice. Through the darkness came the sound of teeth chattering. They
weren’t the leopard’s. Then the man on the summer-house began to think out plans. He leant over the edge and gave a ferocious growl. The growl that answered his through the darkness
made his blood curdle.

‘Oh-h-h-h-h!’ he moaned. ‘Oh-h-h! My holy aunt!’

The Thing was prowling round and round the summer-house. Mr Falkner saw himself suddenly as he might be in the morning light – a mass of whitened bones – or did the creatures eat you
bones and all? The tears rolled down his fat cheeks at the thought.

Soon he realised that all was silent. Perhaps the creature had gone away again. He waited for what seemed hours. Still silence. Surely now he might creep back to the house. He lowered one foot
cautiously from the roof. Then he gave a yell. Something had grabbed at it in the darkness. He wrenched it free and cowered on his roof rubbing it.

‘Oh-h-h-h-h!’ he moaned. ‘Oh-h-h-h! My holy aunt!’

The agony of that night will live for ever in the memory of the leopard hunter. Most terrible was the moment when the leopard tried to clamber up the summer-house.

Sometimes there was silence for so long that the weary watchman almost fell asleep (he had given up all thoughts of escape), but no sooner did he doze than the creature below would arouse him by
growls and bumps or threatening sniffs.

Mr Falkner was cold and miserable. Every bone in his body ached. And the creature would not let him rest. It growled on one side of his roof and drove him to the other. Then it growled on the
other side and drove him back again. Many times did his moaning ‘Oh-h-h-h-h-h!’ fall upon the midnight air.

Mr Falkner had had no idea before that a night was so long. It was an eternity. He dared not strike a match to look at his watch in case the creature should spring. But he was sure that it was
longer than any other night had ever been. It was a phenomenon. It was like a month of nights. But at last the first faint rays of dawn appeared. They grew less faint. Mr Falkner’s pallid,
anxious, dishevelled countenance peered over the edge of his roof. He could hear no sound.

Then he saw it – saw it unmistakably – a leopard’s head among the bushes. With a sudden spasm of desperate courage he took his gun, shut his eyes and fired. And he hit it. By a
miracle he hit it. He saw it roll over among the bushes. Then all was still. He waited. After about half an hour he descended cautiously from his perch. He dared not approach his ‘bag’.
He had heard terrible stories of the ferocity of wild animals in their death throes.

THEN MR FALKNER SAW, UNMISTAKABLY, A LEOPARD’S HEAD AMONG THE BUSHES. HE TOOK HIS GUN.

They all met at breakfast. Both Mr Falkner and William looked as though they had spent sleepless nights. But Mr Falkner, though pale, was his usual debonair self.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Mr Falkner carelessly, ‘I got the brute. Found him in your garden, too. Came upon him face to face in the path. He gathered to spring. I just stood and looked
at him. Simply looked. He turned and began to slink away. Then I raised me rifle and fired – just as I told you. Perfectly simple with a sportsman of my calibre. Lucky it was I who met him.
You’ll find the body somewhere in the garden.’

They all trooped out. It might have been noticed that the leopard hunter kept modestly in the rear.

‘Just over there by those bushes, I believe,’ he said airily.

Mr Brown strode into the bushes and pulled out – the leopard skin rug. There was certainly a new bullet hole in its head. The gallant sportsman began to splutter inarticulately.

‘
What?
’ began Mr Brown.

William, wearing his most sphinx-like expression, stepped forward.

‘I thought it smelt a bit kind of stuffy, an’ so I brought it out here las’ night to be in the fresh air a bit, like what it is in spring cleanin’s an’
that.’

The gallant sportsman was still gibbering.

‘B-but I
heard
it – I—’

William turned his inscrutable countenance to him.

‘I’ ’fraid p’raps it was me you heard,’ he said. ‘I can’t sleep, so I got up an’ jus’ played about the garden a bit – jus’ to
make me sleep better – fresh air an’ exercise like what they say makes you sleep – I was playin’ mos’ly round the summer-house—’

Mr Falkner looked sharply at William, but William’s face was a blank.

‘Er – excuse me a minute,’ murmured Mr Falkner, and quietly went indoors.

The gardener came past.

‘Did you hear anything about a leopard escaping from the circus at Offord?’ said Mr Brown to him.

‘There ain’t no circus at Offord,’ replied the gardener gloomily as he passed on. ‘There ain’t no circus anywheres round here.’

Mr Brown turned to William.

‘Who told you about this leopard?’ he said sternly.

‘Ginger,’ said William unblinkingly.

‘Who told him?’

‘He’s not quite sure,’ said William, in the voice of one repeating a lesson. ‘He’s forgot. He thinks p’raps it was someone in the village.’

‘Well, you’d better go and tell Mr Falkner that you’re sorry you made a mistake.’

William went slowly indoors. But Mr Falkner had gone. He had found a train just going up to Town, and he had accompanied it. He had left a note to say that he had been called suddenly to Town
and would they kindly send his things after him.

‘Dear me! What a pity!’ said Mr Brown, looking as if he had suddenly discovered the elixir of perpetual youth. ‘You can’t apologise after all, William. Well, never
mind.’ He slipped a half-crown into William’s hand and went off, his face wreathed in smiles.

It was two hours later. The Outlaws sat on the floor in their beloved old barn. In the midst of them were large paper bags of bullseyes, liquorice lumps, barley sugar and chocolate cigars. The
half-crown had been well expended. The Outlaws were munching happily.

‘What sort’ve a noise did you make?’ Ginger was saying as he puffed out imaginary smoke from his chocolate cigar.

William emitted a blood-curdling growl.

‘An’ what did he say?’

‘Oh-h-h-h-h-h! Oh-h-h-h! My holy aunt!’

It was an excellent imitation of the leopard hunter’s quavering moan.

‘An’ what did he do?’

William rose.

‘You come round to our summer-house an’ I’ll show you. Ginger be me growlin’ an’ I’ll be him carryin’ on. Come along.’

They collected the bags and strode off happily with their leader.

CHAPTER 4

I
F you go far enough back it was Mr Strong, William’s form master, who was responsible for the whole thing. Mr Strong set, for homework, more
French than it was convenient for William to learn. It happened that someone had presented William with an electric motor, and the things one can do with an electric motor are endless.

Who would waste the precious hours of a summer evening over French verbs with an electric motor simply crying out to be experimented on? Certainly not William.

It wasn’t as if there was any
sense
in French verbs. They had been deliberately invented by someone with a grudge against the race of boys – someone probably who’d
slipped on a concealed slide or got in the way of a snowball or foolishly come within the danger zone of a catapult. Anyway, whoever it was had devised a mean form of revenge by inventing French
verbs and, somehow or other, persuading schoolmasters to adopt them as one of their choicest tortures.

‘Well, I never
will
wanter use ’em,’ said William to his mother when she brought forward the time-honoured argument. ‘I don’t wanter talk to
any
French folks, an’ if they wanter talk to me they can learn English. English’s’s easy’s easy to talk. It’s
silly
havin’ other langwidges. I don’ see
why all the other countries shun’t learn English ’stead of us learnin’ other langwidges with no
sense
in ’em. English’s
sense.
’

This speech convinced him yet more firmly of the foolishness of wasting his precious hours of leisure on such futile study, so he devoted all his time and energy to the electric motor. There was
some
sense
in the electric motor. William spent a very happy evening.

In the morning, however, things somehow seemed different. He lay in bed and considered the matter. There was no doubt that Mr Strong could make himself extremely disagreeable over French
verbs.

William remembered that he had threatened to make himself more disagreeable than usual if William did not know them ‘next time’. This was ‘next time’ and William did not
know them. William had not even attempted to learn them. The threats of Mr Strong had seemed feeble, purposeless, contemptible things last night when the electric motor threw its glamour over the
whole world. This morning they didn’t. They seemed suddenly much more real than the electric motor.

But surely it was possible to circumvent them. William was not the boy to give in weakly to any fate. He heard his mother’s door opening, and, assuming an expression of intense suffering,
called weakly, ‘Mother.’ Mrs Brown entered the room fully dressed.

‘Aren’t you up yet, William?’ she said. ‘Be quick or you’ll be late for school.’

William intensified yet further his expression of suffering.

‘I don’ think I feel quite well enough to go to school this morning, mother, dear,’ he said faintly.

Mrs Brown looked distressed. He had employed the ruse countless times before, but it never failed of its effect upon Mrs Brown. The only drawback was that Mr Brown, who was still about the
house, was of a less trustful and compassionate nature.

Mrs Brown smoothed his pillow. ‘Poor little boy,’ she said tenderly, ‘where is the pain?’

‘All over,’ said William, playing for safety.

‘Dear! dear!’ said Mrs Brown, much perturbed, as she left the room. ‘I’ll just go and fetch the thermometer.’

William disliked the thermometer. It was a soulless, unsympathetic thing. Sometimes, of course, a hot-water bottle, judiciously placed, would enlist its help, but that was not always easy to
arrange.

To William’s dismay his father entered the room with the thermometer.

‘Well, William,’ he said cheerfully, ‘I hear you’re too ill to go to school. That’s a great pity, isn’t it. I’m sure it’s a great grief to
you?’

William turned up his eyes. ‘Yes, father,’ he said dutifully and suspiciously.

‘Now where exactly is the pain and what sort of pain is it?’

William knew from experience that descriptions of non-existent pains are full of pitfalls. By a masterstroke he avoided them.

‘It hurts me to talk,’ he said.

‘What sort of pain does it hurt you with?’ said his father brutally.

William made some inarticulate noises, then closed his eyes with a moan of agony.

‘I’ll just step round and fetch the doctor,’ said Mr Brown, still quite cheerful.

The doctor lived next door. William considered this a great mistake. He disliked the close proximity of doctors. They were equally annoying in real and imaginary diseases.

William made little brave reassuring noises to inform his father that he’d rather the doctor wasn’t troubled and it was all right, and please no one was to bother about him, and
he’d just stay in bed and probably be all right by the afternoon. But his father had already gone.