William the Bad Read online

  ‘Are you sure it was coming this way?’ said Montmorency through chattering teeth.

  ‘What rubbish!’ said the damosel spiritedly, ‘I don’t believe a word of it.’

  ‘I don’t either,’ said the boy, ‘but I thought I’d just come along and look.’

  ‘Well, you’ve looked,’ said the damsel, ‘and you haven’t found it, have you? So you might as well go back where you came from.’

  ‘Yes, all right, I will,’ said the boy with disarming humility, and added, ‘they said it might have got up a tree, but I don’t think it could possibly have done that. They couldn’t climb trees—great big snakes like that.’

  With that he vanished up the river bank.

  ‘How perfectly ridiculous,’ said the damosel—then to Montmorency, ‘what were we talking about? I’ve quite forgotten.’

  But Montmorency was gazing about him distractedly.

  ‘They can climb trees—those big snakes,’ he said, ‘I’ve seen them in pictures. Coiled round tree trunks. Great big ones.’

  ‘Don’t be so absurd . . . Well, anyway, you’ve only to look at these tree trunks to see that there aren’t any snakes coiled round them, haven’t you?’

  ‘Yes, but of course when they’re pictured as coiled round trees it means that they’re in the act of climbing them. Th—this one may actually have c-climbed. It m-may actually be in the b-branches ab-b-bove our heads.’

  ‘What rubbish! What were we talking about when that awful boy came? I’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Then they d-dart down through the branches you know and—and—and bite you. And there’s n-n-n-n-no cure.’

  ‘I do wish you’d stop gibbering. There aren’t any snakes like that in England.’

  ‘There are. In Zoos and shows and things. And they escape and r-roam the countryside.’

  ‘All right. Would you like to go home?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I—then, of course, I wouldn’t,’ he said unhappily. ‘I—I’ll stay with you.’

  ‘I remember what we were talking about. You were saying that you always wanted to get to know me. You were saying that I reminded you of something.’

  Montmorency forgot the snake and threw her a soulful glance.

  ‘Of course you did—you do. You remind me of—of—’

  He stopped—the soulful look died away from his face and his teeth began to chatter again. A slight rustling came from the tree above.

  ‘D-did you hear that?’ he chattered.

  ‘What?’ said the damosel sharply.

  ‘A—a sort of r-rustling noise in the tree.’

  ‘Of course. Birds rustle in trees. I do wish you’d stop making stupid interruptions like that. You were just going to tell me what I reminded you of . . .’

  ‘Oh yes, of course. You may think it silly and poetical, but I can’t help it. I am poetical. Well, whenever I saw you it flashed into my mind that you were just like—’

  At a given signal from William, who was concealed in the tree, Ginger, who was concealed in the undergrowth, shot out a hand, nipped Montmorency’s ankle very neatly between two sharp nails, and withdrew as swiftly into the undergrowth.

  Montmorency uttered a piercing scream.

  ‘A snake!’ he yelled.

  ‘A snake?’ said the damosel angrily, ‘in what way, pray, do I resemble a snake?’

  ‘I mean I’m bitten by a snake,’ screamed Montmorency who was struggling wildly with the suspender that suspended his multi-coloured sock. ‘I distinctly felt the fangs penetrate the skin.’ He uttered a hollow moan. ‘I’m dying.’

  ‘You don’t look much like it,’ said the damosel unsympathetically.

  Montmorency had torn down his multi-coloured sock and now disclosed the faint red impress of Ginger’s nail. He pointed to it with another scream of horror.

  ‘Look! Its fang! The mark of its fang!’

  The damosel looked at it without much interest.

  ‘Doesn’t seem to have gone through the skin anyway, whatever it is,’ she said coldly.

  ‘B-but it d-did,’ he chattered. ‘I f-felt it, I f-felt it most distinctly. And—and in any case the—the most d-deadly ones p-poison without going through the skin.’

  He began to tie himself up into knots, rolling over and over in striking acrobatic postures on the grass.

  ‘What on earth are you doing?’ said the damosel.

  ‘I’m t-trying to g-get to it to s-suck the p-poison out,’ panted Montmorency.

  MONTMORENCY POINTED TO THE MARK WITH A SCREAM OF HORROR. ‘LOOK!’ HE SHRIEKED. ‘ITS FANG! THE MARK OF ITS FANG!’

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ said the damosel. ‘It stands to reason that you can’t. No one can suck the backs of their ankles. It’s impossible. It makes you look so silly too. I wish you’d stop.’

  ‘Can’t you do anything?’ wailed Montmorency sitting up to take breath. ‘I thought you’d done a V.A.D. course.’

  ‘Well, snakes didn’t come into it, or if they did I wasn’t there that night. What are you doing now?’

  Montmorency, still panting, was tearing up handfuls of grass and rubbing his ankle with them.

  ‘They say there’s healing in n-natural herbs,’ he chattered. ‘They say—’ then he uttered another scream of terror.

  ‘What on earth—?’

  ‘It’s getting worse. The poison’s beginning to work. It’s—it’s agony!’

  ‘Well, I should think so. You’ve just rubbed a handful of nettles into it.’

  ‘My whole leg’s swelling. Can’t you see it?’

  ‘No, it looks to me just the same size as it always was.’

  Montmorency lay down upon the grass full length and spoke in a faint voice.

  ‘I’m dying,’ he said, ‘I’m dying from the feet up. I can feel the poison creeping up to my heart. It—it’s nearly there now . . .’

  William in the bushes began to feel rather nonplussed. The scene wasn’t working out as he’d meant it to work out. He’d meant Montmorency to leap to his feet in mortal terror at the snake bite and rush wildly away, leaving the field clear for his client. And he wasn’t doing. Moreover the damosel wasn’t really angry. She was only amused. William hastily began to lay his plans afresh. William possessed an elder sister who was both beautiful and temperamental, and he had made an exhaustive study of feminine psychology as exemplified by Ethel. He knew that whereas she would be as likely as not to extend her favour to a murderer or a robber or a forger or an anarchist if she met one, she would never as long as the world lasted forgive anyone who had ever put her into a humiliating or ridiculous position. And so William lightly descended from his tree, crept quietly away for a few yards, and then reappeared, sauntering along the bank whistling. He stopped by Montmorency’s prostrate form and said innocently:

  ‘What’s the matter with him?’

  Montmorency opened his eyes to explain.

  ‘I’ve been bitten,’ he said, ‘by that snake you told me about.’

  ‘Have you?’ said William. ‘That’s funny. They were talking about what you ought to do for snake bites.’

  ‘Who were?’

  ‘The men what were saying about a snake being on the bank.’

  ‘What did they say?’ said Montmorency faintly.

  ‘Oh, they didn’t really know, of course,’ said William vaguely, ‘but one was saying that when he lived in the countries where snakes live the natives used to have a way that sounds funny, but he said that the queer thing was that none of the natives that did it when they’d been bit ever died of it.’

  Montmorency sat up and removed some dead leaves from his hair.

  ‘You’d better tell me quickly,’ he said, ‘because it’s a matter of minutes now. It’s about an inch off my heart. I’m not sure that it isn’t too late . . .’

  ‘Well,’ said William, ‘it sounds so silly but it’s what this man I’m telling you about said they did. It’s all because of the circulation. It sends the blood ro
und circulating in a special sort of way and that sort of kills the poison.’

  ‘What does?’ said Montmorency.

  ‘Hopping,’ said William. ‘They hop. They hop for about a mile without stopping. And that sort of sends the blood round circulating in a special sort of way.’

  Montmorency leapt to his feet.

  ‘I’ll try it,’ he said, ‘I’ll try it quickly before it’s too late.’

  ‘But there’s jus’ one other thing,’ said William, ‘they have to have their heads covered right up so as to keep their brains warm. Otherwise the poison sort of goes into their brains.’

  Montmorency stared about him wildly. He was bare-headed and William was bare-headed, but the damosel’s hat lay on the bank beside her. It was a pretty hat with a pompom at one side. Frenziedly Montmorency seized it, pulled it upon his head and scrambling up the river bank began to hop down the road to the village. By chance he wore the hat quite correctly, pulled closely down over his eyes, the pompom projecting over one ear.

  FRENZIEDLY, MONTMORENCY PULLED THE HAT UPON HIS HEAD, AND BEGAN TO HOP DOWN THE ROAD.

  ‘OH!’ EXCLAIMED THE GIRL, ‘OH, THE FOOL!’

  The story of how Montmorency Perrivale hopped through the village, his face set and staring under a lady’s fashionable hat, followed by a gaping crowd, has now grown into a local legend. The children who formed the gaping crowd will probably describe the sight to their great-great-grandchildren, though no description could really do it justice.

  The damosel, bewildered and annoyed, followed for a short distance, then, as the applause of the spectators grew louder, retreated to the river bank.

  It was then that William approached the young man and said:

  ‘He’s gone now. You’d better go’n’ talk to her.’

  William only stayed for a few minutes to make sure of the success of his scheme. The damosel was sobbing.

  ‘And it’s a practically new one, and it cost two guineas, and I’ll never be able to wear it again, and, anyway, everyone knows it’s mine, and they’ll never stop teasing me about it, and it wasn’t a snake bite at all—I saw it and I’m sure it wasn’t. I couldn’t see anything. He rubbed nettles into it and, of course, it hurt and I’d like to kill that boy and I’ll never speak to him again, and people’ll tease me about it for the rest of my life because I’d shown nearly everyone that hat and they all know it’s mine. I wish I’d never been born and . . .’

  ‘He’s a fat-headed chump,’ said the young man gathering her into his arms.

  ‘Yes, he is,’ sobbed the damosel, allowing herself to be gathered. ‘I hate him, and I’m so sorry I said all those hateful things to you yesterday . . . I didn’t mean any of them . . .’

  At this point William and Ginger, satisfied, crept away.

  They found the barn empty and the treasurer and secretary engaged in a rough-and-tumble scuffle in the next field. They explained that as no one had brought any other wrongs to be righted, they’d thought that they’d better keep in practice by having a few jousts.

  ‘Well, we’ve got to write it up,’ said William, assuming his air of authority, ‘we’ve got to write it up before we forget. ’S no good rightin’ wrongs if it isn’t put into a book. Come on Douglas. I’ll tell you what to put an’ you put it.’

  The knights returned to the barn and resumed their seats about the square table. Douglas took out his book and waited. William cleared his throat and began to dictate.

  ‘Well, this knight came complainin’ of his damosel being took off him by a false knight, so King William and Merl set off to get her back for him. It was a shilling wrong. Well, the false knight was scared of snakes so Merl the magician turned himself into a snake and—’

  ‘If you think,’ said the secretary coldly, ‘that I c’n write as fast as people talk you’re jolly well mistaken. There’s no one in the world can do that, let me tell you. If you want someone that’ll write as fast as people talk s’pose you get your ole Merl the magician . . . I s’pose he’ll start turnin’ into pen nibs an’—’

  Merlin was preparing to avenge personally the slighting tone of this reference when the village clock was heard to strike. The knights listened and counted in silence . . . Five. Then:

  ‘Tea-time,’ they said joyfully, ‘come on. Let’s go home to tea. We can go on rightin’ wrongs afterwards.’

  CHAPTER 2

  WILLIAM AND THE LITTLE GIRL

  ‘I think,’ said William, ‘that when I grow up I’m prob’ly goin’ to turn into one of those people that talk.’

  ‘You’re one of them now,’ said Ginger dispassionately.

  ‘But I don’t get paid for it,’ objected William. ‘Grown-ups get paid for it.’

  ‘I bet they don’t,’ said Ginger indignantly. ‘Why, my father talks all day nearly, an’ no one pays him. I bet they’d pay him to stop if it would be any good.’

  ‘Well, that’s jus’ ’cause he doesn’t do it in the right way,’ protested William. ‘If he did it in the right way he’d get paid for it. You’re gotter be on a platform in a big room an’ then folks come an’ sit in rows an’ pay money to listen to you talk. They don’ interrupt or argue or anythin’ like that. They jus’ sit an’ listen to you. An’ pay money.’

  ‘Oh, leckcherers,’ said Henry, who was generally agreed to be the best informed of the Outlaws.

  ‘Yes, them,’ said William, ‘I’m goin’ to be one of them. I bet I can talk as well as anyone.’

  ‘They’ve gotter go on for hours,’ said Henry.

  ‘Well, I bet I could go on for hours,’ said William. ‘I’ve never had a chance. People always start int’ruptin’ me or arguin’ with me or tellin’ me to shut up as soon as I begin. I bet I could go on as long as anyone if they’d let me. If they started carryin’ on like that with a real leckcherer they’d get chucked out. They always have a policeman there to chuck people out that start arguin’ before the leckcherer’s finished, I bet it would be more fun bein’ a leckcherer than a robber or a chimney-sweep after all.’

  There was a slight regret in William’s voice as he thus relinquished two of his favourite careers. Then his voice hardened again into determination as he said, ‘Yes, it would be more fun. Lots more fun. Rows an’ rows of ’em all havin’ to listen to you for hours an’ gettin’ chucked out if they started arguin’.’ Again his resolution seemed to waver. ‘I don’ know that it wouldn’t be better fun bein’ the policeman that chucks ’em out, though. But still,’ his determination returned, ‘it’d be jolly dull bein’ the policeman if no one started arguin’. An’ I ’speck that you could come an’ help a bit if you were the leckcherer. I bet I could chuck people that started arguin’ out an’ go on talkin’ at the same time. I bet I won’t have a policeman at all in my leckchers. I’ll talk an’ chuck ’em out. Yes. That’s what I’m goin’ to be. I’m goin’ to be a leckcherer.’

  The Outlaws were accustomed to the frequent changes of William’s future career, but they took each one quite seriously.

  ‘How d’you start?’ said Ginger. ‘D’you have to pass examinations or anythin’ for it?’

  ‘No,’ said William, ‘you jus’ start talkin’ an’ shuttin’ up everyone that starts arguin’ with you an’ then after a few years you find that you’ve turned into a leckcherer an’ folks pay money to come an’ listen to you talkin’ an’ watch other folks get chucked out.’

  ‘When do you start?’ said Douglas, with rising interest. ‘You can’t start before you leave school, can you?’

  ‘You can start practisin’,’ said William, ‘you can start talkin’ an’ shuttin’ up people that int’rupt. That’s how they all start. You can start ’s young as you like. You’ve only gotter have a strong voice. I’ve gotter jolly strong voice. An’ you’ve gotter be able to shut up folks that keep int’ruptin’. That depends on how big they are, of course. You’ve gotter be careful who you start practisin’ on. When you’ve grown up, of course, it’s all right. An’, anyway, there’s the policeman to h
elp. I bet mine’s about the worst family anyone could have what’s goin’ to be a leckcherer. I bet that not many leckcherers had families like mine when they were young. They never even let me finish a sentence hardly. They start shuttin’ me up before I’ve started to speak. But I bet I’ll turn out a better leckcherer with havin’ had to work so hard to get started. I bet by the time I’ve finished, I’ll have a voice you can hear miles off (you can hear it a good way off now), and I’ll be able to shut anyone that starts arguin’ up without any policeman at all.’

  William was so carried away by his own eloquence that he saw himself standing on a platform, filling a crowded hall with his stentorian voice, desisting only to indulge in occasional hand-to-hand struggles with interrupters. Ginger broke into this pleasant picture by saying:

  ‘What’ll you talk about? You’ve gotter have somethin’ to talk about, haven’t you?’

  ‘You can talk about anythin’,’ said William, rather irritably, for William always disliked being brought down to earth, ‘it doesn’t matter what you talk about so long as you keep on talkin’ an’ chuckin’ people that start arguin’ out. I know ’cause I went to one once with an aunt. There wasn’t a single word in it that anyone could understand, but nobody seemed to mind. No one even started arguin’ or int’ruptin’. An’ they all paid money to listen. Well, it seems to me a jolly easy way of gettin’ money.’

  ‘Why doesn’t everyone get money that way, then?’ said Henry.

  ‘’Cause everyone can’t talk,’ said William firmly. ‘It’s a sort of gift, same as bein’ able to do sums an’ Latin an’ such-like. Everyone’s not got it. Some people can do one thing an’ other people can do other things. I can’t do sums an’ Latin an’ such-like, but I can talk. I expect that the ones who can do sums an’ Latin can’t talk, so they’d be the ones that’d pay to come and listen.’