The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith

So it came about that none approached the castle all that afternoon; for the boys of Nipper's band were afraid to venture upon the castle island in the absence of their redoubtable chief, while the servants of Windy Standard House sought for the vanished in quite other directions, being led astray by the innocent assertions of Toady Lion, who had last seen Hugh John defending himself gallantly against overwhelming numbers in the corner of the field nearest to the town, and at least half a mile as the crow flies from the castle on the island.

CHAPTER XX

THE SECRET PASSAGE

FOR a full hour Hugh John sat on the top step of the stairs, or went back and forward between these and the narrow circular opening so high above his head, which was now filled with a sort of ruddy haze, the sign that the sun was setting comfortably and sedately outside, behind the smooth green hills in which the Cheviots broke down into the Solway Marshes. It was not so much that the boy dared not descend into the secret passage. Rather he did not wish to confront the blankness of disappointment. The steps might lead nowhere at all. They might drop off suddenly into the depths of a well.

To prove to himself that he was quite calm, and also that he was in no hurry, Hugh John ate the third of his bread-squares and drank the water which had meantime collected in the stone shell. Heroes always refreshed themselves thus before an adventure.

"'None knoweth when our lips shall touch the blessed bread again!' This prog's too hanged dry for anything!" – that was what Hugh John said, quoting (partly) from the "Life and Death of Arthur the King."

Then feeling that mere poetry was off and that the time for action had definitely come, he tied to his rope a large fallen stone which lay in a corner, and crawling over the shell to the head of the steps, he threw it down. It did not go far, appearing to catch in some projection. He tried again with a like result. He pulled it up. The stone was dry. The opening was not, then, a well with water at the bottom.

So Hugh John cautiously put his foot upon the threshold of the secret passage, and commenced the perilous descent. He clutched the edge of the top step as he let himself down. It was cold, wet, and clammy, but the stones beneath seemed secure enough. So he continued to descend till he found himself in a narrow staircase which went down and down, gradually twisting to the left away from the light. His heart beat fast, and there was a curious heavy feeling about his nostrils, which doubtless came from the damp mists of a confined place so close to the river.

The adventurous General had descended quite a long way when he came to a level stone-flagged passage. He advanced twenty yards along it, and then put out his hands. He found himself in a narrow cell, dripping with wet and ankle deep in mud. The cell was so small, that by making a couple of steps Hugh John could feel it from side to side. At the farther end of it there was evidently a door or passage of some sort, but it was blocked up with fallen stones and rubbish; yet through it came the strangest muffled noises. Something coughed like a man in pain. There was also a noise as of the feet of animals moving about stealthily and restlessly, and he seemed even to hear voices speaking.

A wild unreasoning fear suddenly filled the boy's heart. He turned and fled, stumbling hastily up the stairs by which he had so cautiously descended. The thought of the black beast, great as a calf, of which Nipper Donnan had spoken, came upon him and almost mastered him. Yet all the time he knew that Nipper had only said it to frighten him. But it was now dark night, even in the upper dungeon. He was alone in a haunted castle, and, as the gloaming settled down, Hugh John cordially agreed with Sir David Brewster, who is reputed to have said, "I do not believe in ghosts, but I am afraid of them."

In spite of all his gallantry of the day, and the resolutions he had made that his prison record should be strictly according to rule, Hugh John's sudden panic took complete hold of him. He sat down under the opening of the dungeon, and for the first time cried bitter tears, excusing himself on the ground that there was no one there to see him, and anyway he could easily leave that part out when he came to write his journal. About this time he also slipped in a surreptitious prayer. He thought that at least it could do no harm. Prissy had induced him to try this method sometimes, but mostly he was afraid to let her know about it afterwards, because it made Prissy so unbearably conceited. But after all this was in a dungeon, and many very respectable prisoners quite regularly said their prayers, as any one may see for themselves in the books.

"You see," said Hugh John, explanatorily afterwards, "it's very easy for them. They have nothing else to do. They haven't to wash, and take baths, and comb their hair, and be ordered about! It's easy to be good when you're leading a natural life."

This was Hugh John's prayer, and a model for any soldier's pocket-book.

"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. God 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-tit. And make me a good boy. For Jesus' sake. Aymen."

That the last petition 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 pronounced 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 cock 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 ship 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 passage! 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 shell 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.

Hugh John had no appetite 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 shell, 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 snatch. 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, shivering 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 mass 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 débris 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 grass 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 passages 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 passage 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 passage 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 polishing 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 dyke 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, scraping his knee as he did so. But so excited was he that he scarcely felt the additional bruise.

He ran up the steps. The front door was standing wide open, with the disreputable and tell-tale air of a reveller who has been out all night in evening dress. All doors have this look which have not been decently shut and locked during the dark hours. There was no one in the hall – no one in the dining-room – no one in the schoolroom, where the children's tea of the night before had never been cleared away. Hugh John noticed that his own place had been set, and the clean cup and plate and the burnished unused knife struck him as infinitely pathetic.

But he was hungry, and had no time to waste on mere feelings. His inner man was too insistent. He knew well where the pantry was (trust him for that!), and he went towards it at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He wished he had remembered to add a petition to his prayer that it might be unlocked. But it was now too late for this, so he must just trust in an unjogged Providence and take his chances.

The gods were favourable. They had evidently agreed that for one small boy he had suffered enough for that day. The pantry was unlocked. There was a lovely beefsteak pie standing on a shelf. Hugh John lifted it off, set it on the candle box, ungratefully throwing Sambo Soulis on the floor in order to make elbow room, and then with a knife and fork he proceeded to demolish the pie. The knife and fork he first put his hands on had obviously been used. But did General Napoleon stop to go to the schoolroom for clean ones? No – several thousand times no! Those who can, for a single moment, entertain such thoughts, are very far from having yet made the acquaintance of General Smith. Why, he did not even wait to say grace – though he usually repeated half-a-dozen the first thing in the morning, so as to have the job well over for the day. It is all right to say grace, but it is such a fag to have to remember before every meal. So Hugh John went into the wholesale business.

He was half through the pie before he looked about for something to drink. Lemonade, if it could be found, would meet the case. Hugh John felt this keenly, and, lo! the friendly Fates, with a smile, had planted a whole case of it at his feet. He knocked in the patent stopper with the handle of his knife (all things must yield to military necessity), and, after the first draught, what more was there left to live for – except a second bottle and the rest of the pie?

He was just doing his best to live up to the nice cool jelly, which melted in a kind of lingering chill of delight down his throat, when Janet Sheepshanks appeared in the doorway. Wearily and disheartenedly, she had come in to prepare for a breakfast which no one in all Windy Standard would eat. Something curious about the feeling of the house had struck her as she entered. She had gone from room to room, divided between hope and apprehension, and, lo! there before her, in her own ravished pantry, tuck-full of beefsteak pie and lemonade, sat the boy for whom they were even then dragging the deepest pools of the Edam.

"Oh, thank the Lord, laddie!" cried Janet, clasping her hands in devout thankfulness, "that He hath spared ye to your widowed faither – and to me, your auld unworthy nurse!"

The tears were running down her cheeks. Somehow her face had quite suddenly grown grey and worn. She looked years older than she had done yesterday. Hugh John paused and looked at her marvelling. He had a heavily laden fork half-way to his mouth. He wondered what all the fuss was about.

"Do get me some mustard, Janet," he said, swinging his wet legs; "and where on earth have you put the pickles?"

In the cross-examination which naturally followed, Hugh John kept his own counsel, like the prudent warrior he was. He left Janet and the others to suppose that, in trying to escape from his foes, he had "fallen" into the castle dungeon, and none of the household servants knew enough of the topography of the ancient stronghold to know that, if he had done so, he would probably have broken his neck. He said nothing about Nipper Donnan or any of the band by name. Simply and truthfully he designated them as "some bad boys," which certainly was in no way overstating the case.

Perhaps if his father had been at home he could not have hoodwinked his questioners so easily and completely. Mr. Picton Smith would certainly have gone deeper into the business than Janet Sheepshanks, who alternately slapped and scolded, petted and spoilt our hero all day long.

For some time Hugh John smelt of Araby the Blest and Spicy Ind; for he had ointments and liniments, rags and plasters innumerable scattered over his person in all directions.

He borrowed a cigarette (it was a very old and dry one) from the mantelpiece of his father's workroom, and retired to the shelter of the elm-tree to hold his court and take private evidence upon the events of yesterday.

As he went across the yard Black Donald ran bleating to him, and playfully butted at his leg.

Hugh John stopped in astonishment.

"Who found him?" he asked.

Sir Toady Lion proudly stepped forward. He had a garden rake in his hand, with which the moment before he had been poking Donald in the ribs, and making his life a burden to him generally.

He began to speak, but Hugh John stopped him.

"Salute, you little beast!" he said sternly.