William The Conqueror (8 page)

Henry and Douglas departed. Douglas’s dressing-gown, made by a thrifty mother with a view to Douglas’s further growth, was slightly too big and tripped him over every few steps.
Henry’s was made of bath towelling and was rather conspicuous in design. They made their way slowly across a field and into a neighbouring wood.

St Ginger encircled the reluctant Jumble with his arms, and St William stood up to preach.

‘Dearly beloved Jumble—’ he began.

‘Brother Jumble,’ corrected St Ginger, with triumph. He liked to catch the founder of the order tripping.

Jumble, under the delusion that something was expected of him, sat up and begged.

‘Dearly beloved Brother Jumble,’ repeated William. He stopped and cleared his throat in the manner of all speakers who are not sure what to say next.

Jumble, impatient of the other saint’s encircling arms, tried another trick, that of standing on his head. Standing on his head was the title given to the performance by Jumble’s
owner. In reality it consisted of rubbing the top of his head on the ground. None of his legs left the ground, but William always called it ‘Jumble standing on his head’, and was
inordinately proud of it.

ST WILLIAM STOOD UP TO PREACH TO THE RELUCTANT JUMBLE. ‘DEARLY BELOVED JUMBLE,’ HE BEGAN.

‘I thought you was preachin’ to him, not talkin’ about him,’ said St Ginger, sternly. Ginger, who was not allowed to possess a dog, tired occasionally of hearing William
sing the praises of his.

‘Oh, yes,’ said St William with less enthusiasm. ‘I’ll start all over again. Dearly beloved Brother Jumble – I say, what did that St Francis
say
to the
animals?’

‘Dunno,’ said St Ginger vaguely, ‘I s’pect he jus’ told ’em to – well, to do good an’ that sort of thing.’

‘Dearly beloved Brother Jumble,’ said William again, ‘you mus’ – do good an – an’ stop chasin’ cats. Why,’ he said proudly,
‘there’s not a cat in this village that doesn’t run when it sees Jumble comin’. I bet he’s the best dog for chasin’ cats anywhere round
this
part of
England. I bet—’

Jumble, seizing his moment for escape, tore himself from St Ginger’s unwary arms, and leapt up ecstatically at William.

‘Good old Jumble,’ said the saint affectionately. ‘Good old boy!’

At this point the other two saints returned.

‘Well, did you find any birds?’ said St William.

‘There was heaps of birds,’ said St Douglas in an exasperated tone of voice, ‘but the minute I started preachin’ they all flew off. They din’ seem to know how to
act
with saints. They din’ seem to know they’d got to sit on our arms an’ things. Made us feel
mad –
anyway, we gotter thrush’s egg and Henry – I
mean St Henry – jus’ wanted one of those—’

‘Well,’ said St William rather sternly, ‘I don’ think it’s the right thing for saints to do – to go preachin’ to birds an’ then takin’ their
eggs – I mean their brother eggs.’

‘There was
lots
more,’ said Henry. ‘They
like
you jus’ takin’ one. It makes it less trouble for ’em hatchin’ ’em out.’

‘Well, anyway,’ said William, ‘let’s get on with this animal business. P’raps the tame ones’ll be better. Let’s go across to Jenks’ farm an’
try on them.’

They crept rather cautiously into the farmyard. The feud between Farmer Jenks and the Outlaws was one of long standing. He would probably not realise that the Williamcans were a saintly
organisation whose every action was inspired by a love of mankind. He would probably imagine that they were still the old unregenerate Outlaws.

‘I’ll do brother cows,’ said St William, ‘an’ St Ginger do brother pigs, and St Douglas do brother goats, an’ St Henry do sister hens.’

They approached their various audiences. Ginger leant over the pigsty. Then he turned to William, who was already striking an attitude before his congregation of cows, and said: ‘I say,
what’ve I gotter
say
to ’em?’

WILLIAM WAS ALREADY STRIKING AN ATTITUDE BEFORE HIS CONGREGATION OF COWS.

Farmer Jenks appeared, and, seeing his old enemies, the Outlaws, actually within his precincts, he uttered a yell of fury and darted down upon them. The saints fled swiftly, St Douglas holding
up his too flowing robe as he went. Brother goat had given St Douglas a good start and he reached the farm first.

‘Well,’ said St William, panting, ‘I’ve
finished
with preachin’ to animals. They must have changed a good bit since
his
time. That’s all
I
can say.’

‘Well, what’ll we do
now
?’ said St Ginger.

‘I should almost think it’s time for dinner,’ said William. ‘Must be after two, I should think.’

No one knew the time. Henry possessed a watch which had been given to him by a great-uncle. Though it may possibly have had some value as an antique, it had not gone for over twenty years.
Henry, however, always wore it, and generally remembered to move its hands to a correct position whenever he passed a clock. This took a great deal of time and trouble, but Henry was proud of his
watch and liked it to be as nearly right as possible. He consulted it now. He had put it right by his family’s hall clock as he came out after breakfast, so its fingers stood at half-past
nine. He returned it to his pocket hastily before the others could see the position of the fingers.

‘Yes,’ he said, with the air of an oracle, ‘it’s about dinner-time.’ Though they all knew that Henry’s watch had never gone, yet it had a certain
prestige.

‘Well, we’ve gotter
buy
our dinner,’ said William. ‘S’pose two of us goes down to the village, an’ buys it now with the two shillings we got for
sellin’ our fathers’ things. We’ve gotter buy all our meals now like what
they
did.’

FARMER JENKS UTTERED A YELL OF FURY AND BORE DOWN UPON THE OUTLAWS. DOUGLAS FLED SWIFTLY.

‘We beg from folks after that,’ said Ginger, who was the only one who had paid much attention to the story of the life of St Francis.

‘Well, I bet they won’t give us much if
I
know ’em,’ said William bitterly. ‘I bet both folks
an
’ animals must’ve been nicer in those
times.’

It was decided that Douglas and Henry should go down to the village to purchase provisions for the meal. It was decided also that they should go in their dressing-gowns.

‘
They
always did,’ said Ginger firmly, ‘and folks may’s well get used to us goin’ about like that.’

‘Oh, yes!’ said Douglas bitterly. ‘’S easy to talk like that when you’re not goin’ down to the shop.’

Mr Moss, the proprietor of the village sweet-shop, held his sides with laughter when he saw them.

‘Well, I never!’ he said. ‘Well, I never! What boys you are for a joke, to be sure!’

‘It’s not a joke,’ said Henry. ‘We’re Williamcans.’

Douglas had caught sight of the clock on the desk behind the counter.

‘I say!’ he said. ‘It’s only eleven o’clock.’

Henry took out his watch.

‘Oh, yes,’ he said, as if he had made a mistake when he looked at it before.

For their midday meal the two saints purchased a large bag of chocolate creams, another of bull’s-eyes, and, to form the more solid part of the meal, four cream buns.

Ginger and William and Jumble were sitting comfortably in the old barn when the two emissaries returned.

‘
We’ve
had a nice time!’ exploded St Henry. ‘All the boys in the place runnin’ after us an’ shoutin’ at us.’

‘You should’ve just stood still an’
preached
to ’em,’ said the founder of the order calmly.

‘
Preached
to ’em!’ repeated Henry. ‘They wun’t have listened. They was shoutin’ an’ throwin’ things an’ running at us.’

‘What’d you do?’

‘Run,’ said the gallant saint simply. ‘An’ Douglas has tore his robe, an’ I’ve fallen in the mud in mine.’

‘Well, they’ve gotter last you all the rest of your life,’ said St William, ‘so you oughter take more care of ’em,’ and added with more interest,
‘what’ve you got for dinner?’

They displayed their purchases and their choice was warmly and unanimously approved by the saints.

‘Wish we’d thought of something to drink,’ said Henry.

But William, with a smile of pride, brought out from his pocket a bottle of dark liquid.

‘I
thought
of that,’ he said, holding it out with a flourish, ‘have a drink of brother lik’rice water.’

Not to be outdone, Douglas took up one of the bags.

‘An’ have a sister cream bun,’ he said loudly.

When they had eaten and drunk to repletion they rested for a short time from their labours. William had meant to fill in time by preaching to Jumble, but decided instead to put Jumble through
his tricks.

‘I s’pose they
know
now at home that we’ve gone for good,’ said Henry with a sigh.

Ginger looked out of the little window anxiously.

‘Yes. I only hope to goodness they won’t come an’ try to fetch us back,’ he said.

But he need not have troubled. Each family thought that the missing member was having lunch with one of the others, and felt no anxiety, only a great relief. And none of the notes upon the
mantelpieces had been found.

‘What’ll we do
now
?’ said William, rousing himself at last.

‘
They
built a church,’ said Ginger.

‘Crumbs!’ said William, taken aback. ‘Well, we can’t do that, can we?’

‘Oh, I dunno,’ said Ginger vaguely, ‘jus’ keep on putting stones on each other. It was quite a little church.’

‘Well, it’d take us more’n quite a little time.’

‘Yes, but we’ve gotter do
something
’stead of goin’ to school, an’ we may’s well do that.’

‘’S almost as bad as goin’ to school,’ said William gloomily. ‘An’ where’d they get the stones?’

‘They jus’ found ’em lying about.’

‘Well, come on,’ said William, rising with a resigned air and gathering the folds of his dressing-gown about him, ‘let’s see ’f we can find any lyin’
about.’

They wandered down the road. They still wore their dressing-gowns, but they wore them with a sheepish air and went cautiously and furtively. Already their affection for their saintly garb was
waning. Fortunately, the road was deserted. They looked up and down, then St Ginger gave a yell of triumph and pointed up the road. The road was being mended, and there lay by the roadside, among
other materials, a little heap of wooden bricks. Moreover, the bricks were unguarded and unattended.