The Happy Warrior Part 1

The Happy Warrior.

by A. S. M. Hutchinson.

BOOK ONE

A NICE, SHORT BOOK, ILl.u.s.tRATING THE ELEMENTS OF CHANCE

CHAPTER I

A PAGE OF THE PEERAGE

I

This life we stumble through, or strut through, or through which we creep and whine, or through which we dance and whistle, is built upon hazard--and that is why it is such a very wobbling affair, made up of tricks and chances; hence its miseries, but hence also its spice; hence its tragedies, and hence also its romance. A dog I know--ill.u.s.trating the point--pa.s.sed from its gate into the village street one morning, and merely to ease the itch of a momentary fit of temper, or merely to indulge a prankish whim, put a firm bite into a plump leg. Mark, now, the hazard foundation of this chancey life. A dozen commonplace legs were offered the dog; it might have tasted the lot and procured no more pother than the pa.s.sing of a few s.h.i.+llings, the solatium of a pair of trousers or so. One leg was as good as another to the dog; yet it chanced upon the vicar's (whose back was turned), enjoyed its bite, jerked from the devout but startled man an amazingly coa.r.s.e expression, and hence arose alarums and excursions, a village set by the ears, family feuds, a budding betrothal crushed by parental strife (one party owning the dog and the other calling the vicar Father) and the genesis of a dead set against the vicar's curate (who hit at the dog and struck the priest) that ended in the unfortunate young man having to leave the village.

But all that is by the way, and is only offered to your notice because commonplace examples are usually the most striking ill.u.s.trations. It is introduced to excuse the starting of this story with its least and worst character. He figures but occasionally on these pages; yet by this chance and by that he comes to play a vital part as the story draws to an end; he comes, in fact, to close it: and therefore, out of his place, he shall be the first to occupy your attention.

Egbert Hunt his name.

II

Miller's Field, Hertfords.h.i.+re, an outer suburb of London and within the c.o.c.kney tw.a.n.g, was put into a proper commotion by the news that had brought a t.i.tle into its midst--had left a peerage as casually as the morning milk at its desirable residence "Hillside," where Mr. and Mrs.

Letham (Lord and Lady Burdon as suddenly and completely as Monday becomes Tuesday) made their home. The commotion chattered and clacked in every household and in every chance meeting in the streets; but it swirled most violently about Hillside and in Hillside, and its brunt--if his own statement may be accepted--pressed most heavily upon Egbert Hunt.

Egbert, morose, a pallid and stoutish boy of fourteen years, const.i.tuted the male staff at Hillside. This boy toiled sullenly at a diversity of tasks, knives, boots, coals, windows: any soul-corroding duties of such character, throughout the earlier hours of the day. In the afternoon he fitted himself into a tight page-boy's suit that had been procured through the advertis.e.m.e.nt columns of the "Lady," and that, on the very day of its arrival, had been shorn of much of the glory it first possessed in Egbert's eyes.

Sunning himself proudly down the village street, the lad had been greeted with a howl of "Marbles!" by the ribald companions he thought to impress.

"Marbles! They're b.u.t.tons, yer silly toads!" the indignant Egbert had cried.

"Wot O! Marbles!" they jeered, and two of the round silver b.u.t.tons were wrenched off in the distressing affair that followed.

Egbert carried them home in his pocket. The incident augmented the hostile and suspicious air with which, from his childhood upwards, he regarded the world. For this att.i.tude the accident attending his birth was primarily responsible. When he presented this morose disposition to his mother's friends, Mrs. Hunt, in her softer moods, would instruct them that his sourness--as she termed it--was due to the sudden and unexpected discharge of a cannon during her visit to a circus, when Egbert was but eight months on the road to this vale of tears. The cannon had hastened his arrival (she never knew, so she said, how she managed to get home) and the abruptness, she was convinced, was responsible for his glum demeanor. By a dark process of reasoning, wherein were combined retribution to the clown who had fired the cannon and recompense to the child it had unduly impelled into the world, she had named the boy Egbert, this being the t.i.tle by which the clown was announced on the circus programme.

The story became a popular joke against the lad; to shout "Bang!" at Egbert from behind concealment became a favourite sport of his grosser companions. It rankled him sorely. For one so young he was unnaturally embittered; his digestion, moreover, was defective.

III

Upon the evening of the day on which his employers, Mr. and Mrs.

Letham, had been miraculously elevated to the style and t.i.tle of Lord and Lady Burdon, Egbert's hostility towards the world was at its height. From half-past three onwards, callers followed one another, or pa.s.sed one another, over the Hillside threshold. Egbert was bone-tired. It was close upon seven when kindly Mrs. Archer, the doctor's wife, addressing him as he showed her out, inquired in her gentle way after his mother and pa.s.sed down the path with a "Well, good night, Egbert!"

"Good night, mum," Egbert muttered. He added in a lower but more devout key, "An' I yope ter Gawd yer the last of um."

The cool air invited him to the gate and he leaned wearily over it, his bitterness of spirit increased by a boy who, spying him, cried, "Bang!"

as he pa.s.sed, "Bang!" in retort to Egbert's tongue thrust out in hatred and contempt across the gate, and "Bang! bang!" again, as the gathering evening took him in her trailing cloak.

Egbert drew in his tongue with a groan of misery and hate, of indigestion and of weariness. An approaching footstep along the road caused him to thrust it out again and to keep it extended, armed lest the newcomer should be one of the bangers who irked his young life.

It chanced to be his father, returning from work in the fields. Mr.

Hunt paused opposite his son and gazed for a few moments at the outstretched tongue. At some pain to himself Egbert pressed it to further extension: the boy was a little short-sighted and in the gloom did not recognise his parent.

"Tongue sore?" Mr. Hunt inquired, after a s.p.a.ce.

Recognising the voice, Egbert restored the member to his mouth.

"Comes of tellin' a lie, so I've 'eard," said Mr. Hunt.

Considerable sympathy was in his tone; but Egbert gave no more attention to this view of retributive justice than he had vouchsafed to the question preceding it.

Father and son--neither greatly given to words when together--continued to regard each other solemnly across the gate. Presently Egbert jerked his head back at the house. "Heard about it?" he inquired.

The news had long since permeated the village. Mr. Hunt said, "Ah!"

and taking a step forward, gazed earnestly at the house, first on one side of Egbert's head and then on the other. His air was that of a man who, the inmates suddenly having reached the peerage, rather expected to see a coronet suspended from the roof or a scarlet robe fluttering from a window; and as he stepped back he said, "Ah!" again, in a tone that committed him, as a result of his observations, neither to complete surprise nor complete satisfaction.

"Ah!" said Mr. Hunt, and s.h.i.+fted the spade he carried from his left hand to his right and waited.

"Goin' to take me with 'em when they move to the 'Ouse o' Lords,"

Egbert announced. "Told me so, dinner time."

Mr. Hunt put the spade before him, and leaning on it gazed profoundly at his son. "Ah! You'll wear one of them wing things side of yer 'at, that's what you'll wear," he informed him. "Tall 'at."

"c.o.c.katoos they call um, don't they?" Egbert inquired.

"That's right. Side of yer 'at," his father replied. "Tall 'at."

Egbert appeared to ponder gloomily on the prospect. It was the habit of this boy's sombre mind to suspect a hidden indignity in each change thrust into his life. Seeking it in the c.o.c.katoos, he presently found it.

"Make me a Guy-forx again, I suppose," he said. "Same as these 'ere b.u.t.tons."

Mr. Hunt took a step forward, and peering over the gate gazed down at his son's b.u.t.tons with considerable concern.

The inspection finished, "Different in the 'Ouse o' Lords," he consoled. "Expec' they'll all wear them wing things side of their 'ats there. Call 'em same as they call you, that's what you can do. Tall 'ats."

But this boy's pessimism was incurable. "I'll have the biggest, you'll find," Egbert responded. "Else they'll give me two an' make a Guy-forx of me that way."

Mr. Hunt mentally visualised c.o.c.kades the size of albatross wings on each side of his son's hat. The picture made him unable to deny the slightly outre effect that would be produced, and he began to move away.

"Comin' in to see your mother to-night, I suppose?" he asked.

Egbert grunted.

"Tongue still sore?"