Just William - Richmal Crompton (have you read this book .TXT) 📗

was away about a quarter of an hour. When she returned the game was in full swing, but it was not “Here we go round the mulberry-bush.” There was a screaming, struggling crowd of children in the Village Hall. Benches were overturned and several chairs broken. With yells and whoops, and blows and struggles, the Tamers tried to tame; with growls and snarls and bites and struggles the animals tried not to be tamed. Gone was all listlessness and all boredom. And William, his tie hanging in shreds, his coat torn, his head cut, and his voice hoarse, led the fray as a Tamer.

“Come on, you!”

“I’ll get you!”

“Gr-r-r-r-r!”

“Go it, men! Catch ’em, beat ’em, knife ’em, kill ’em.”

The spirited roarings and bellowing of the animals was almost bloodcurdling.

Above it all Mrs. de Vere Carter coaxed and expostulated and wrung her hands.

“Respectful and reposeful,” “happy and good,” “laddies dear,” and “Willy” floated unheeded over the tide of battle.

Then somebody (reports afterwards differed as to who it was) rushed out of the door into the field and there the battle was fought to a finish. From there the Band of Hope (undismissed) reluctantly separated to its various homes, battered and bruised, but blissfully happy.

Mrs. Brown was anxiously awaiting William’s return.

When she saw him she gasped and sat down weakly on a hall chair.

“William!”

“I’ve not,” said William quickly, looking at her out of a fast-closing eye, “I’ve not been playing at either of them⁠—not those what you said I’d not to.”

“Then⁠—what⁠—?”

“It was⁠—it was⁠—‘Tamers an’ Crocerdiles,’ an’ we played it at the Band of Hope!”

VIII The Outlaws

It was a half-holiday and William was in his bedroom making careful preparations for the afternoon. On the mantelpiece stood in readiness half a cake (the result of a successful raid on the larder) and a bottle of licorice water. This beverage was made by shaking up a piece of licorice in water. It was much patronised by the band of Outlaws to which William belonged and which met secretly every half-holiday in a disused barn about a quarter of a mile from William’s house.

So far the Outlaws had limited their activities to wrestling matches, adventure seeking, and culinary operations. The week before, they had cooked two sausages which William had taken from the larder on cook’s night out and had conveyed to the barn beneath his shirt and next his skin. Perhaps “cooked” is too euphemistic a term. To be quite accurate, they had held the sausages over a smoking fire till completely blackened, and then consumed the charred remains with the utmost relish.

William put the bottle of licorice water in one pocket and the half cake in another and was preparing to leave the house in his usual stealthy fashion⁠—through the bathroom window, down the scullery roof, and down the water-pipe hand over hand to the back garden. Even when unencumbered by the presence of a purloined half cake, William infinitely preferred this mode of exit to the simpler one of walking out of the front-door. As he came out on to the landing, however, he heard the sound of the opening and shutting of the hall door and of exuberant greetings in the hall.

“Oh! I’m so glad you’ve come, dear. And is this the baby! The duck! Well, den, how’s ’oo, den? Go⁠—o⁠—oo.”

This was William’s mother.

“Oh, crumbs!” said William and retreated hastily. He sat down on his bed to wait till the coast was clear. Soon came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.

“Oh, William,” said his mother, as she entered his room, “Mrs. Butler’s come with her baby to spend the afternoon, and we’d arranged to go out till teatime with the baby, but she’s got such a headache, I’m insisting on her lying down for the afternoon in the drawing-room. But she’s so worried about the baby not getting out this nice afternoon.”

“Oh!” said William, without interest.

“Well, cook’s out and Emma has to get the tea and answer the door, and Ethel’s away, and I told Mrs. Butler I was sure you wouldn’t mind taking the baby out for a bit in the perambulator!”

William stared at her, speechless. The Medusa’s classic expression of horror was as nothing to William’s at that moment. Then he moistened his lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.

“Me?” he said. “Me? Me take a baby out in a pram?”

“Well, dear,” said his mother deprecatingly, “I know it’s your half holiday, but you’d be out of doors getting the fresh air, which is the great thing. It’s a nice baby and a nice pram and not heavy to push, and Mrs. Butler would be so grateful to you.”

“Yes, I should think she’d be that,” said William bitterly. “She’d have a right to be that if I took the baby out in a pram.”

“Now, William, I’m sure you’d like to help, and I’m sure you wouldn’t like your father to hear that you wouldn’t even do a little thing like that for poor Mrs. Butler. And she’s got such a headache.”

“A little thing like that!” repeated William out of the bitterness of his soul.

But the Fates were closing round him. He was aware that he would know no peace till he had done the horrible thing demanded of him. Sorrowfully and reluctantly he bowed to the inevitable.

“All right,” he muttered, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

He heard them fussing over the baby in the hall. Then he heard his elder brother’s voice.

“You surely don’t mean to say, mother,” Robert was saying with the crushing superiority of eighteen, “that you’re going to trust that child to⁠—William.”

“Well,” said William’s mother, “someone has to take him out. It’s such a lovely afternoon. I’m sure it’s very kind of William, on his half-holiday, too. And she’s got such a headache.”

“Well, of course,” said Robert in the voice of one who washes his hands of all further responsibility, “you know William as well as I do.”

“Oh, dear!” sighed William’s mother. “And everything so nicely settled, Robert, and you must come and find fault with it