The Happy Warrior Part 22

"Cater-_ess_," bawls the chorus, thoroughly enjoying itself.

"_Not_ so loud! Masculine, Murder-_er_. Feminine?"

"Murder-_ess_," howls the chorus, recklessly delighted.

"Good boys! Now be careful! Prosecutor? Take time over it.

Masculine, Prosecut-_or_. Feminine?"

"Prosecutr-_ess_!" thunders the chorus, plunging to destruction on the swing of the thing; and "Oh, you _stu_-pids! you _stu_-pids!" cries Miss Purdie. "You intol-er-able _stu_-pids!" and the unhappy chorus hangs its head and cowers beneath the little storm it has let loose.

Delightfully appreciative, though, Miss Purdie, when the "break" of ten minutes comes and when the boys gorge plum-cake and milk and make her positively quiver with recitals of the terrible gallops on the pony; and delightfully concerned, too, when, as happens once or twice, Rollo is discovered to have a headache and is made to lie on the sofa in a rug and with a hot-water bottle, while the lessons are continued with Percival in fierce whispers and hissed "_stu_-pids." Delightfully inconsequent, moreover, Miss Purdie, who at the end of an especially exasperating morning, when Hunt is heard with the pony outside the gate, will suddenly cry: "Well, _go_ away then, you thorough little _stu_-pids; _go_ away!" and will drive them to the door and then at once will go into ecstatics over the pony and hurry Percival in for sugar, and quake with terror while the pony nibbles it from her hand, and stand and wave at her gate while they go flying down the road, one in the saddle, the other gasping behind.

Delightfully appreciative, Miss Purdie, and they learn to love her for all their terrible fear of her.

Percival, Miss Purdie finds, is the more affectionate--also the more troublesome. Rollo takes his cue from Percival and acts accordingly.

"You are the ringleader!" cries Miss Purdie, stabbing a forefinger at Percival on the fearful morrow of the day on which truant was played--whose morning had seen Miss Purdie running between her house and her gate like a distressed hen abandoned by her chickens; whose afternoon had seen the alarm communicated to Burdon Old Manor and to "Post Offic"; and whose evening had discovered the disconsolate return to the village of two travel-stained and weary figures. "_You_ are the ringleader in everything, and I don't know whether you ought to be more ashamed or _you_"--and she turns from the ringleader to stab her finger at the ring, as represented by Rollo--"or _you_, for allowing yourself to be led away by one so much younger."

"I've told you," protests Percival, "I've told you again and again we got lost; so I should like to know what you think of that?"

"_Don't_ use that _abom_-inable phrase, sir! If you hadn't gone off--tempted Rollo to go off--you wouldn't have got lost, would you?"

Percival beams at her in his disarming manner. "Well, you see, we saw a fox and went after it and kept on seeing it and _then_ found we were lost; so I should like--"

"_Don't_ argue. I tell you, you are the _ring_-leader!"

She pauses and glares. "I should like to tell you," says the ringleader, still beaming, "about a very funny thing we saw. We saw--"

"_Stand_ in the corner!" cries Miss Purdie. "_Stand_ in the corner!

You are incorrigible!" and she turns to Rollo with "Geography, sir!" in a voice that causes him to tremble.

III

Certainly Percival is the leader. He has the instinct of leaders.h.i.+p.

It is to be noted in the carriage and in the demeanour of his vigorous young person. A st.u.r.dy way of standing he has: squarely, with his round chin up, his head thrown back, his knees always braced, his arms never hanging limply but always slightly flexed at the elbows as though alert for action, his eyes widely opened, his gaze upwards and about him with the challenging air of one who expects entertainments to arise and would be quick to greet them. He is rarely still; he is rarely silent. A brisk way of movement he has; a high young voice; a compelling laugh with a clear note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!" as though the matter that tickles him tickles him with the boniest knuckles wherever he is ticklish. He has the instinct of leaders.h.i.+p. When he is with Rollo and an affair arises, he does not suggest a plan of action; he immediately acts. On their rambles, when an obstacle or an emergency is discovered, it instantly arouses in him a reflex action by which vigorously, and without estimate of its difficulties, it is attacked.

"You are so thoughtless, Percival, so thoughtless!" Aunt Maggie cries when he explains a mired and dripping state with "I jumped the ditch and found I couldn't jump."

"Well, but I wanted to get across, you see," Percival explains.

"If you had looked first you would have seen you couldn't get across."

"Well, but I _did_ get across!"

"You didn't; you fell in, you stupid little boy."

"But I got _across_," beams Percival; and Aunt Maggie undoes her scolding by kissing him. She has marked this impetuous and determined spirit in him; and she knows it for the "I hold" spirit that is his by right of birth; one day he will present it to Lady Burdon.

He had the instinct of leaders.h.i.+p. At first, in the excursions with Rollo, he unconsciously expected in Rollo a spirit equal to and similar with his own. At first, when he ran suddenly, or suddenly took a great jump, or set off at a quick trot towards some distant excitement, he expected to find Rollo at his side and was surprised to turn and find him hanging back, timid or tired. Very shortly he accepted the difference between them and emphasized that he was leader. It became natural to him that, with the action of starting to run or of storming a stout hedge, he should give to Rollo a hand that would aid him along or pull him through. It became natural, when a difficult place was reached, to release the hand with a little confident movement that implied "Stay;" to rush the obstacle; somehow to scramble to the further side, and then turn and cry directions and encouragement, ending always with "I'll catch you, you know; you'll be all right."

And as the weeks went on, the complement of this hardy spirit became natural to Rollo. Percival put out the hand of aid; the hand that desired aid was always ready. Rollo's hand acquired the habit of relying on Percival for physical support; his mind came to depend on Percival for moral benefit. However they were employed, he took his note from his leader. If Percival chose to be idle at their lessons, Rollo also would be inattentive and mischievous. On the days when Percival was immense in his promises to work hard, Rollo would sedulously apply himself. Percival led; he followed. Percival called the tune; Rollo danced to it. Percival stretched the hand; Rollo took it.

CHAPTER V

THE WORLD AS SHOWMAN: ALL THE JOLLY FUN

I

The stay at Burdon Old Manor came to an end; it had been so productive of health and happiness in Rollo, he became, as years went on, so much more and more devoted to Percival, that it was made the beginning of regular visits. The Manor continued to doze for the most part under the care of Mrs. Housekeeper Ferris, with Mr. Librarian Amber's library the only room that had no dust sheets about the furniture; but there were periodic openings: always a visit at Easter before the London season began, always a visit in August reaching into October when the London season was ended.

The visits marked the fullest times of Percival's life, as they marked the happiest of Rollo's; but life was steadily and joyously filled for Percival in these days, and he with a zest for it that carried him ardently along the hours.

The years were pa.s.sing; he grew apace. It was a period, the villagers told one another, of rare proper weather: the winters hard with all the little hamlets tethered along Plowman's Ridge sometimes cut off for days together by heavy falls of snow; the springs most gentle and most radiant, escaping with a laugh from Winter's bondage and laughing down the lanes and up the hedgerows and through the fields, where every mother, from earth that mothered all, was fruitful of her kind; the summers glorious, with splendid days joining hands with splendid days to form a stately chain of suns.h.i.+ne through the warmer months.

Rare proper weather with the energy of its period in every hour, and Percival that energy's embodiment. He grew properly, the villagers said, and knew without a second glance what figure it was that went scudding along the Down in the young mornings, and knew without a second thought whose voice came singing to them as they stooped in their fields or trudged behind their herds. He grew l.u.s.tily; lissom of limb, as might be seen; eager and finely turned of face, having an air and a wide eye that caused chance tourists to turn and look again; very big of spirit, as those knew who had the handling of him.

"He's getting that independent there's no doing a thing with him,"

stormed Honor one day, coming with Percival (both very red in the face) to lay a pa.s.sage of arms for arbitrament before Aunt Maggie.

"Oh, Percival! And Honor is so kind to you!"

"I know, I know; but she tries to _rule_ me, Aunt Maggie!"

"And ruling you want," Honor cried, "as your Aunt Maggie well knows.

Spare the pickle and spoil the rod!"

"You've got it wrong!" said Percival with scornful triumph, and after he had stalked away, his head thrown up in an action that Aunt Maggie well remembered in Roly, she sought to placate Honor with thoughts that were frequently coming to her in those days. "He is getting big, Honor. I think we forget how he is growing. We mustn't keep him in too tightly."

Then there was Miss Purdie. "To my face!" cried Miss Purdie, fluttering into "Post Offic" one afternoon, "to my face he called the sum a _beastly_ sum--the sum, mind you, I had set him myself! A _beastly_ sum!" and then completely spoilt the horror of it by sighing and winding up, "but he is such a _sweet_. So lovable! So merry!"

"He's growing, you see," joined Aunt Maggie.

"Of _course_, he is," agreed Miss Purdie. "It's just his spirit. He's so _manly_!" and she gave herself a little shake and said: "Oh, I like a _manly_ boy!"

Still, the truculence of character that had brought her warring down to "Post Offic" remained to be settled. Moreover, the boy's mind was developing outside the range of Miss Purdie's primers and exercise books. "He wants _Latin_," said Miss Purdie. "He wants _algebra_. He wants _Euclid_!" and the ladies decided that his tuition had better be handed over to Miss Purdie's brother, who could supply these correctives. They shook hands on it and agreed that Mr. Purdie should take over the duties on the morrow. On the doorstep Miss Purdie repeated the necessity with terrible emphasis: "He wants _Latin_! He wants _algebra_! But I shall miss our lessons together! Oh, dear, how I shall miss them!"

She hurried home with little sniffs which she strove to check by repeating very fiercely: "He wants _Latin_!"

II

Percival took up with immense zest the new freedom from petticoat control and the new regimen of lessons. He liked the new subjects; and it was notable in him that he carried into the exercise of his tasks the same quickness and determination with which he entered upon--and completed--all pleasanter affairs that came to his hand. Mr. Purdie, for his part, was enchanted. Mr. Purdie was plump and soft, with lethargic ways and p.r.o.nounced timidity of character. In his youth Mr.

Purdie had been called to the Bar. A very small legacy came to him thereafter, and his lymphatic nature led him at once to abandon town life, to go to sloth at his ease with his sister at Burdon village. He was vastly attracted by Percival. Very shortly after their introduction as master and pupil, he came to Aunt Maggie with the suggestion that Percival might spend with him some leisure as well as the school-hours. "A boy can be taught in his play as well as his work," he announced in his pompous manner. "At Percival's age, and as he grows, there are things in which only a man can guide him." He gave one of his shrill, absurd chuckles: "And I think Master Percival likes me. Eh, Percival?"

Percival eyed him doubtfully. He could not see stout and soft Mr.

Purdie contributing much entertainment to his rambles. "Well, if you bring your tricycle, we might have some fun," he admitted.