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

Equally in vain was Sammy Carter's humorously false information that he had better run, for here was Janet coming up the road with an awful biggy stick.

"Don't care for Janet," reiterated Toady Lion. "I wants Victowya Cyoss – I wants it now!"

So there upon the roadside, at the very outset of the campaign, Sir Toady Lion was decorated with the much coveted "For Valour" cross.

And he would be a bold man who would say that he did not deserve it.

CHAPTER XIV

THE BATTLE OF THE BLACK SHEDS

THIS much being settled, the army of Windy Standard advanced upon the enemy's entrenchments.

Prissy was the only soldier in the force with any religious convictions of a practical kind. On this occasion she actually wanted to send a mission to the foe with an offer of peace, on condition of their giving up Donald to his rightful owners. She instanced as an example of the kind of thing she meant, the verses about turning the other cheek. But General Napoleon had his answer ready.

"Well," he said, "that's all right. That's in the Bible, so I s'pose you have got to believe it. But I was looking at it last Sunday in sermon time, and it doesn't say what you are to do after you turn the other cheek. So yesterday I tried it on Tommy Pratt to see how it worked, and he hit me on the other cheek like winking, and made my eyes water. So then I took off my coat, and, Jove! – didn't I just give him Billy-O! Texts aren't so bad. They are mostly all right, if you only read on a bit!"

"But," said Prissy, "perhaps you forgot that a soft answer turneth away wrath?"

"Don't, nother," contradicted Sir Toady Lion, whose pronunciation of "wrath" and "horse" was identical, and who persistently misunderstood the Scriptural statement which Janet Sheepshanks had once made him learn without explanation. "Tried soft answer on big horse in the farm-yard, yesterday, and he didn't turn away a little bit, but comed right on, and tried to eat me all up!"

Toady Lion always had at least one word in italics in each sentence.

Prissy looked towards her ally and fellow-private for assistance.

"Love your – " suggested Sammy, giving her a new cue. Prissy thanked him with a look.

"Well," she said, "at least you won't deny that it says in the New Testament that you are to love your enemies!"

"I don't yike the New Test'ment," commented Toady Lion in his shrill high pipe, which cuts through all other conversation as easily as a sharp knife cleaves a bar of soap; "ain't never nobody killed dead in the New Test'ment!"

"Hush, Arthur George," said Prissy in a shocked voice, "you must not speak like that about the New Testament. It says 'Love your enemies!' 'Do good to them that hate you!' Now then!"

Hugh John turned away with a disgusted look on his face.

"Oh," he said, "of course, if you were to go on like that, there would never be any soldiers, nor bloody wars, nor nothing nice!"

Which of course would be absurd.

During this discussion the two Generals of Division had been wholly silent. To them the New Testament was considerably outside the sphere of practical politics. Peter Greg indeed had one which he had got from his mother on his birthday with his name on the first page; and Mike, who was of the contrary persuasion as to the advisability of circulating the Written Word in the vulgar tongue, could always provoke a fight by threatening to burn it, to which Peter Greg invariably replied by a hasty and ungenerous expression of hope as to the future welfare of the head of the Catholic religion.

But all this was purely academical discussion. Neither of them knew nor cared one jot about the matter. Prissy alone was genuinely distressed, and so affected was she that two big tears of woe trickled down her cheeks. These she wiped off with her pinafore, turning away her eyes so that Hugh John might not see them. There was, however, no great danger of this, for that warrior preoccupied himself with shouting "Right-left, Right-left," as if he were materially assisting the success of the expedition by doing so.

At the entrance to the pastures tenanted by butcher Donnan, the army divided into its two divisions under their several commanders. The Commander-in-Chief placed himself between the wings as a central division all by himself. It was Peter Greg who first reached the door, and with his stout cudgel knocked off the padlock. He had already entered in triumph, and was about to be followed by his soldiery, when a loud shout was heard from the edge of the park.

"Here they are – go at them! Give them fits, boys! We'll learn them to come sneaking into our field."

And over the stone dikes, from the direction of the town of Edam, came an overpowering force of the enemy led by Nipper Donnan. They seemed to arrive from all parts at once, and with sticks and stones they advanced upon the slender array of the forces of Windy Standard. Their rude language, their threatening gestures, and their loud shouts intimidated but did not daunt the assailants. Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith called on his men to do or die; and everyone resolved that that was just what they were there for – all except Prissy, who promptly pulled up her skirts and went down the meadow towards the stepping-stones like a jenny-spinner driven by the wind, and Sir Toady Lion, who, finding an opening in the hedge about his size in holes, crept quietly through and was immediately followed by Cæsar, the "potwalloping" Newfoundland pup.

The struggle which raged around those who remained staunch to the colours was grim and deadly. General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith threw himself into the thickest of the fray, and the cry, "A Smith for Merry England," alternated with the ringing "Scotland for ever!" which had so often carried terror into the hearts of the foe. Prince Michael O'Donowitch performed prodigies of valour, and personally "downed" three of the enemy with his national weapon. Peter Greg fought a pitched battle with Nipper Donnan, in which double-jointed words were as freely used as tightly clenched fists. Cissy Carter "progged" at least half-a-dozen of the enemy with her pike, before it was wrested from her by the united efforts of several town lads who were not going to stand being punched by a girl. Sammy Carter stood well out of the heady fray, and contented himself with stinging up the enemy with his vengeful catapult till they howled again.

But the struggle of the many against the few, the strong against the weak, could only end in one way. In ten minutes the forces of law and disorder were scattered to the four quarters of heaven, and the standard that had streamed so rarely on the braes of Edam was in the hands of the exulting foe.

Prince Michael was wounded on the nose to the effusion of blood, General Peter Greg was a fugitive with a price on his head, and, most terrible of all – Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith was taken prisoner.

But Sir Toady Lion was neither among the slain, nor yet among the wounded or the captives. What then of Toady Lion?

CHAPTER XV

TOADY LION PLAYS A FIRST LONE HAND

SIR Toady Lion had played a lone hand.

We left him sitting behind the hedge, secure as the gods above the turmoil of battle. But he could not be content to stay there. He thought of Richard Cœur-de-Lion, his great namesake and hero; and though he wanted to do nothing rash, he was resolved to justify the ginger-beer label Victoria Cross which he wore so proudly on his breast. So he waited till the forces of the town had swept those of Windy Standard from the field. He saw on the edge of the wood Hugh John, resisting manfully to the death, and striking out in all directions. But Toady Lion knew that he had no clear call to such very active exertions.

Cautiously he returned through his hole in the hedge, and crawling round the opposite side of the Black Sheds, he entered the door which Peter Greg had forced with his cudgel, before he had been interrupted by the arrival of the enemy. Toady Lion ran through a slippery byre in which calves had been standing, and came to an inner division with a low door and a causewayed floor like a pig-pen. He opened this gate by kicking up the hasp with the toe of his boot, and found himself at once in the inmost sanctuary.

And there, right before him, with a calf's halter of rope about his neck, all healthy and alive, was Donald, his own dear, black, pet lamb Donald, who gave a little bleat of pure delight upon seeing him, and pulled vigorously at the rope to get loose.

"Quiet now, Donald! Or they will come back. Stand still, 'oo horrid little beast 'oo, till I get the rope off!"

And so, easing the noose gradually, Toady Lion slipped it over Donald's head and he was free.

Then, very cautiously, his deliverer put his head round the door to see that the coast was clear. Not a soul was to be seen anywhere on the pastures; so Toady Lion slid out and made for the gap in the hedge, sure that Donald would follow him. Donald did follow, but, as luck would have it, no sooner was he through than Cæsar, who had been scraping for imaginary rabbits at the other side of the field, came barking and rushing about over the grass like a runaway traction engine.

Now Donald hated big dogs – they rugged and tugged his wool so; as soon therefore as he saw Cæsar he took down the lea towards the island as hard as he could go. He thundered across the wooden bridge, breaking through the fleeing forces of Windy Standard, which were scattered athwart the castle island. He sprinted over the short turf by the orchard, Cæsar lying off thirty yards on his flank. At the shallows by the stepping-stones Donald sheepfully took the water, and was not long in swimming to the other side, the Edam being hardly deep enough anywhere at this point to take him off his feet. In a minute more he was delightedly nuzzling his wet nose into the hand of Janet Sheepshanks, on the terrace of Windy Standard House.

"Wi beast, whaur hae ye come frae? – I declare I am that glad to see ye!"

But had she known the price which had been paid for Donald's liberty, her rejoicing would quickly have given place to sorrow. It was mid-afternoon on the day of battle and defeat when Toady Lion straggled home, so wet and dirty that he could only be slapped, bathed and sent to bed – which, in the absence of his father, was felt to be an utterly inadequate punishment.

Prissy had long ago fled home with a terrible tale of battle, murder, and sudden death. But she knew nothing of her brother Hugh John, though she had nerved herself to go back to the Black Sheds, suffering grinding agonies of fear and apprehension the while, as also of reproach for deserting him in his hour of need. Mike and Peter were quietly at work in the stable, in momentary dread of being called upon to give evidence.

The Carters, Sammy and Cissy, had run straight home, and were at that moment undoubtedly smelling of arnica and slimy with vaseline. But there was no trace of the Commander-in-Chief anywhere. General-Field-Marshal Napoleon Smith had vanished from the face of the earth.

Tea-time came and went. He had been known to be absent from tea. Supper-time arrived and overpassed, and then the whole house grew anxious. Ten o'clock came, and in the clear northern twilight all the household were scattered over the countryside seeking for him. Midnight, and no Hugh John! Where could he be? Drowned in the Edam Water – killed by a chance blow in the great battle – or simply hiding from fear of punishment and afraid to venture home? It must have been some stranger entirely unacquainted with General Napoleon Smith who advocated the last explanation. The inmates of Windy Standard cherished no such foolish hopes.

The sun rose soon after two on as glorious a summer morning as ever shone upon the hills of the Border. As his beams overshot Brown Gattonside to the east they fell on Janet Sheepshanks. Her decent white cap was green-moulded with the moss of the woods; the drip of waterside caves had grimed it, the cobwebs of murky outhouses festooned it. Her abundant grey hair hung down in untended witch locks. She had not shut an eye nor lain down all night.

Now she leaned her head on her hands and sobbed aloud.

"Oh, the bonny laddie! Whatever will I say to his faither when he comes hame? His auldest son and the aipple o' his e'e! My certie, if the ill-set loon were to come up the road the noo, I wad thresh the very skin aff his banes! To think that he should bide awa' like this. Oh, the dear, dear lamb that he is; and will thae auld e'en never mair rest on his bonnie face? Cauld, cauld noo it looks up frae the bottom o' some pool in the Edam Water!"

And Janet Sheepshanks, like one of the mothers in Ramah, lifted up her voice and wept with the weeping which will not be comforted; for oft-times bairns' play brings that which is not bairns' play to those who love them.

CHAPTER XVI

THE SMOUTCHY BOYS