The Burning Spear: Being the Experiences of Mr. John Lavender in the Time of War

The eldest of the little girls withdrew a thumb.

“What d’yer want?”

“The door,” said Mr. Lavender.

“Second on the right.”

“Goodbye,” said Mr. Lavender.

The little girls did not answer. And he went out thinking, “These children are really wonderful! What devotion one sees! And yet the country is not yet fully roused!”

II

THE VALET

Joe Petty stood contemplating the car which, purchased some fifteen years before had not been used since the war began. Birds had nested in its hair. It smelled of mould inside; it creaked from rust. “The Guv’nor must be cracked,” he thought, “to think we can get anywhere in this old geyser. Well, well, it’s summer; if we break down it won’t break my ‘eart. Government job – better than diggin’ or drillin’. Good old Guv!” So musing, he lit his pipe and examined the recesses beneath the driver’s seat. “A bottle or three,” he thought, “in case our patriotism should get us stuck a bit off the beaten; a loaf or two, some ‘oney in a pot, and a good old ‘am.

“A life on the rollin’ road – ’ ‘Ow they can give ‘im the job I can’t think!” His soliloquy was here interrupted by the approach of his wife, bearing a valise.

“Don’t you wish you was comin’, old girl?” he remarked to her lightly.

“I do not; I’m glad to be shut of you. Keep his feet dry. What have you got under there?”

Joe Petty winked.

“What a lumbering great thing it looks!” said Mrs. Petty, gazing upwards.

“Ah!” returned her husband thoughtfully, we’ll ‘ave the population round us without advertisement. And taking the heads of two small boys who had come up, he knocked them together in an absent-minded fashion.

“Well,” said Mrs. Petty, “I can’t waste time. Here’s his extra set of teeth. Don’t lose them. Have you got your own toothbrush? Use it, and behave yourself. Let me have a line. And don’t let him get excited.” She tapped her forehead.

“Go away, you boys; shoo!”

The boys, now six in number, raised a slight cheer; for at that moment Mr. Lavender, in a broad-brimmed grey felt hat and a holland dust-coat, came out through his garden-gate carrying a pile of newspapers and pamphlets so large that his feet, legs, and hat alone were visible.

“Open the door, Joe!” he said, and stumbled into the body of the vehicle. A shrill cheer rose from the eight boys, who could see him through the further window. Taking this for an augury Of success, Mr. Lavender removed his hat, and putting his head through the window, thus addressed the ten boys:

“I thank you. The occasion is one which I shall ever remember. The Government has charged me with the great task of rousing our country in days which demand of each of us the utmost exertions. I am proud to feel that I have here, on the very threshold of my task, an audience of bright young spirits, each one of whom in this democratic country has in him perhaps the makings of a General or even of a Prime Minister. Let it be your earnest endeavour, boys – ”

At this moment a piece of indiarubber rebounded from Mr. Lavender’s forehead, and he recoiled into the body of the car.

“Are you right, sir?” said Joe, looking in; and without waiting for reply he started the engine. The car moved out amid a volley of stones, balls, cheers, and other missiles from the fifteen boys who pursued it with frenzy. Swaying slightly from side to side, with billowing bag, it gathered speed, and, turning a corner, took road for the country. Mr. Lavender, somewhat dazed, for the indiarubber had been hard, sat gazing through the little back window at the great city he was leaving. His lips moved, expressing unconsciously the sentiments of innumerable Lord Mayors: “Greatest City in the world, Queen of Commerce, whose full heart I can still hear beating behind me, in mingled pride and regret I leave you. With the most sacred gratitude I lay down my office. I go to other work, whose – Joe!”

“Sir?”

“Do you see that?”

“I see your ‘ead, that’s all, sir.”

“We seem to be followed by a little column of dust, which keeps ever at the same distance in the middle of the road. Do you think it can be an augury.”

“No; I should think it’s a dog.”

“In that case, hold hard!” said Mr. Lavender, who had a weakness for dog’s. Joe slackened the car’s pace, and leaned his head round the corner. The column of dust approached rapidly.

“It is a dog,” said Mr. Lavender, “it’s Blink.”

The female sheep-dog, almost flat with the ground from speed, emerged from the dust, wild with hair and anxiety, white on the cheeks and chest and top of the head, and grey in the body and the very little tail, and passed them like a streak of lightning.

“Get on!” cried Mr. Lavender, excited; “follow her she’s trying to catch us up!”

Joe urged on the car, which responded gallantly, swaying from side to side, while the gas-bag bellied and shook; but the faster it went the faster the sheep-dog flew in front of it.

“This is dreadful!” said Mr. Lavender in anguish, leaning far out. “Blink! Blink!”

His cries were drowned in the roar of the car.

“Damn the brute!” muttered Joe, “at this rate she’ll be over the edge in ‘alf a mo’. Wherever does she think we are?”

“Blink! Blink!” wailed Mr. Lavender. “Get on, Joe, get on! She’s gaining on us!”

“Well I never see anything like this,” said Joe, “chasin’ wot’s chasing you! Hi! Hi!”

Urged on by their shouts and the noise of the pursuing car, the poor dog redoubled her efforts to rejoin her master, and Mr. Lavender, Joe, and the car, which had begun to emit the most lamentable creaks and odours, redoubled theirs.

“I shall bust her up,” said Joe.

“I care not!” cried Mr. Lavender. “I must recover the dog.”

They flashed through the outskirts of the Garden City. “Stop her, stop her!” called Mr. Lavender to such of the astonished inhabitants as they had already left behind. “This is a nightmare, Joe!”

“‘It’s a blinkin’ day-dream,” returned Joe, forcing the car to an expiring spurt.

“If she gets to that ‘ill before we ketch ‘er, we’re done; the old geyser can’t ‘alf crawl up ‘ills.”

“We’re gaining,” shrieked Mr. Lavender; “I can see her tongue.”

As though it heard his voice, the car leaped forward and stopped with a sudden and most formidable jerk; the door burst open, and Mr. Lavender fell out upon his sheep-dog.

Fortunately they were in the only bed of nettles in that part of the world, and its softness and that of Blink assuaged the severity of his fall, yet it was some minutes before he regained the full measure of his faculties. He came to himself sitting on a milestone, with his dog on her hind legs between his knees, licking his face clean, and panting down his throat.

“Joe,” he said; “where are you?”

The voice of Joe replied from underneath the car: “Here sir. She’s popped.”

“Do you mean that our journey is arrested?”

“Ah! We’re in irons. You may as well walk ‘ome, sir. It ain’t two miles.