William The Outlaw

by Richmal Crompton

  ‘Why Scotland?’ said the artist mildly.

  ‘’Cause that’s part of his madness,’ explained William.

  ‘Well, there’s only one girl on the premises,’ said the artist, ‘and that’s my daughter . . . been in quarantine for mumps . . . just out of it today . . . and I don’t suppose he’ll see her . . . so that’s all right.’

  ‘You’ll give me the money, won’t you?’ said William. ‘’Cause – ’cause I keep his money for him. . . . See?’

  ‘We’ll talk about that later,’ said the man, ‘if he comes and when he comes. Are you his keeper, by the way?’

  ‘Well,’ said William guardedly, ‘I sort of am and I’m sort of not.’

  But just then he heard the sound of the opening of the front gate and discreetly retired again through the open window.

  Robert walked up the garden path, his face stern and set with resolve. Robert was a voracious reader of romantic fiction and had often longed for something like this to happen to him. Its only drawback in his eye was that he hadn’t enough money to take the heroine of the drama to Scotland, but he could not imagine the hero of a story being baffled by a little thing like that. They always seemed to have enough money to take the heroine anywhere. But the first thing to do was to rescue her. Then he’d pawn something or other, pawn his Charles the First costume perhaps . . . but then he’d have nothing to go to Scotland in . . . though in any case one couldn’t travel to Scotland wearing a Charles the First costume. It was all very baffling . . . but the first thing to do was to rescue her. She might have some jewels or heirlooms that they could pawn. Heroines in books always had jewels and heirlooms. . . .

  ‘Oh, there you are. . . . Come in.’

  The voice came from one of the open French windows. It was the madman standing at one end of the room at an easel. He evidently thought he was an artist just as the girl had warned him. Hastily Robert flung his overcoat over a garden seat and entered in all the glory of his Charles the First costume.

  ‘Good evening,’ said the artist. ‘You’ve come to sit for me?’

  Robert assumed the simpering expression of one who humours a madman.

  ‘Oh, yes,’ he said, ‘I’ve come to sit for you.’

  Certainly the effect of the simper superimposed upon the stern set expression of resolve would have justified anyone regarding Robert in his bizarre costume as mentally though not dangerously deranged. The artist posed him appropriately and then proceeded to test the sanity or insanity of his sitter.

  ‘Well,’ he said, ‘how’s Charles the First today?’

  Robert went paler and gathered his forces together. At all costs he must humour him.

  ‘His Majesty,’ he said solemnly, ‘seems of a truth well today.’

  Rather good that, he thought.

  The artist looked at him keenly . . . but the pallid earnestness of Robert’s expression beneath the humouring simper convinced him . . . it was true . . . he was potty. Well, he must just humour him . . . he had to get those sketches off today . . . and he didn’t look dangerous.

  ‘I’m glad to hear that,’ he said, and added with a burst of inspiration, ‘gadzooks.’

  For a minute or two he worked in silence. Then – he found the pose he had chosen rather difficult, and for a few seconds he stood frowning at Robert meditatively. The artist’s bushy eyebrows made him look very ferocious when he frowned. Robert began to tremble. The man might fly at him or something. He must say something about Charles the First to soothe him . . . at once . . . What a pity he knew so little about Charles the First . . . except that he was executed . . . or was he executed? . . . Better avoid that part of it perhaps, especially as presumably he was supposed to be still alive. . . . He didn’t even know whom Charles the First had married. He might, of course, have been a bachelor. . . . He must say something quickly. . . . The man’s stare was growing positively murderous. . . . With a ghastly smile he said:

  ‘King Charles’s – er – wife – was looking well this morning.’

  The man’s ferocious stare vanished. Robert heaved a sigh of relief and furtively wiped his brow.

  ‘Er – yes, wasn’t she?’ said the artist, who’d moved a little to one side and so got a better view of his sitter, ‘do you mind turning a little more this way?’ and added as an afterthought, ‘prithee, gadzooks!’

  Robert obediently turned a little that way and for a few minutes all was well. The artist sketched in silence. Robert was beginning to feel a little less nervous. He gazed round the studio. . . . Where was SHE, he wondered?. . . Perhaps already preparing to fly with him to her aunt’s in Scotland. . . . He hoped that she’d remember to bring along a few heirlooms to pawn, but then he thought with dismay that he’d never pawned anything in his life and didn’t know how one set about it. That was awful. He couldn’t help admitting that he seemed rather inadequate for the glorious rôle which Fate had thrust upon him. Then he comforted himself by the thought that every hero had to start, had to do the thing for the first time. It would probably be all right.

  The artist became suddenly doubtful about the pose again. He didn’t think it was quite natural. Once more he gazed frowningly at the sitter and once more the perspiration stood out on Robert’s brow. He must say something else about Charles the First at once. He searched feverishly in his mind for something else to say about Charles the First. He wished he’d tried harder with his history when he was at school. It was awful knowing nothing, nothing about Charles the First. He couldn’t even remember what he looked like though he knew that there’d been pictures of all the kings and queens in his history book. By Jove, that was an idea.

  ‘King Charles,’ he said, ‘had his picture painted . . . the one in the history b— I mean just had his picture painted. It turned out quite a good likeness, I believe.’

  ‘Did it?’ said the artist, ‘could you move your head a bit to the right?’ and added, ‘grammercy. You a friend of His Majesty’s, I suppose?’

  Robert grew yet paler. It was a most awkward question. If he said he was it might arouse this madman to frenzy, and if he said that he wasn’t it might equally rouse this madman to frenzy. . . . The whole thing was terrible, being alone with a madman like this. . . . He almost wished he’d never come . . . not quite, of course . . . he still remembered the vision of beauty he’d seen at the upstairs window. . . . He coughed again and said, ‘Well – er – are you?’

  ‘I?’ said the artist, ‘I’m one of his most intimate friends. We were discussing you only the other day. Ods bodkin – or is that Elizabethan? – you’ve got a difficult profile – grammercy.’

  He seemed harmless enough, poor fellow, thought the artist – you could see at a glance that the poor chap was a bit wanting – gaping and staring like that all the time . . . quite young, too . . . very sad . . . poor fellow . . . and quite harmless.

  Robert was just going to make some reply when the door opened and the artist’s daughter entered.

  Robert blushed to a dull beetroot shade and made signs intended to convey to her that he had got her letter and would rescue her from her father at once and take her to her aunt in Scotland. Then the artist turned round. The artist’s daughter was staring at her would-be rescuer in amazement. She had to, of course, thought Robert, with her father watching. He’d better be a bit more careful, too.

  ‘You’ve got a sitter, Daddy?’ she said.

  ‘Yes, dear,’ he said, ‘a gentleman of Charles the First’s court.’

  She went to her father’s easel and looked at the sketch, whispering:

  ‘What an extraordinary person, Daddy.’

  ‘Yes, dear,’ whispered her father, ‘a bit potty, but absolutely harmless. I’m a bit vague as to where he comes from. He was brought here by a boy and will, I suppose, be fetched. He imagines that he’s living in Charles the First’s time. That’s why he’s dressed like that . . . they have to humour him . . . but harmless . . . quite harmless. I’ve not quite finished with him, but I want some more paper. Don�
��t let him go till I come back, will you . . . humour him . . . he’s quite harmless.’

  He vanished into the next room.

  Robert spoke in a hoarse whisper.

  ‘You sent me that note, didn’t you?’

  She began the process of humouring him.

  ‘Er – yes,’ she replied fearfully.

  ‘I’ll rescue you,’ he hissed, ‘be ready. . . . As soon as he’s finished drawing me. . . . We’ll be at your aunt’s in Scotland before morning.’

  ‘One minute,’ she said fearfully and joined her father in the inner room.

  ‘Daddy,’ she said, ‘he’s absolutely mad. He says that he’s going to rescue me and take me to my aunt’s in Scotland.’

  ‘Oh, yes, I remember,’ said the artist, ‘that’s one of his obsessions. They told me that. But he’s harmless. Humour him. I simply must get that Charles I costume in four poses.’

  She returned to the studio.

  ‘You’re ready to come?’ said Robert.

  ‘Er – yes,’ she said.

  ‘How shall we escape?’

  ‘Oh – er – quite easily,’ she said, watching him guardedly and backing towards the door.

  ‘You trust me?’ said Robert ardently.

  ‘Er – yes,’ she said.

  The artist returned.

  ‘One more,’ he said, ‘sitting there, please, and holding out one arm – thus – gadzooks – prithee—’

  He opened a door in his bureau and stood stooping over it, his back to Robert. The opportunity of thus catching the oppressor of his beloved bending was too much for Robert. He leapt upon his back calling out to the girl.

  ‘Get your things on – quick . . . I’ll tie him up.’

  ‘Good heavens!’ said the artist, ‘the blighter’s turned dangerous.’

  The artist was stronger than he looked and he soon had Robert neatly trussed. Then he turned to Gloria.

  ‘A boy brought him,’ he said, ‘go and see if you can find him outside.’

  But there were no boys outside.

  The Outlaws, who had watched events through the French window till now, were hurrying homewards to establish alibis.

  Yet on the way they called at the house of the little girl with the auburn curls. They had undertaken a responsibility to her and they meant to see it through. She was not sitting on the doorstep so, summoning courage by degrees, they knocked at the door. A woman opened it. Inside the kitchen sat a man eating a pork-pie at a table. The little girl was nursing a doll by the fire.

  ROBERT BLUSHED AND MADE SIGNS INTENDED TO CONVEY TO HER THAT HE HAD GOT HER LETTER AND WOULD RESCUE HER.

  The Outlaws entered sheepishly. William was spokesman.

  ‘WHAT AN EXTRAORDINARY PERSON, DADDY,’ WHISPERED THE GIRL.

  ‘This your father?’ he said to the little girl.

  ‘Yes,’ said the little girl.

  ‘Well, we’ve sort of got him work,’ said William, ‘what I mean to say is that someone went to be drawed for him in these things an’ we’re goin’ to try jolly hard to get the money from the man what drawed it tomorrow, an’ – an’ we’ll give it him an’—’

  The man laid down his knife and fork, swallowed a large mouthful of pork-pie unmasticated, and said:

  ‘Wot cher mean?’

  ‘Well,’ explained William, ‘she told us ’bout you bein’ out of work—’

  ‘Me out of work,’ said the man indignantly.

  ‘Oh, they are such stupid boys,’ burst out the little girl. ‘I was havin’ a nice little game all to myself pretendin’ to be a little girl in a book wiv a daddy out of work an’ they came interferin’ – an’ then I was pretendin’ to be a little girl in a book wiv a daddy what was ill an’ they came again interferin’—’

  ‘Weren’t you ill?’ stammered William.

  ‘Me?’ roared the man, ‘never been ill in my life.’

  ‘W-weren’t you out of work?’ said William.

  ‘Me!’ roared the man again, ‘never been out of work in my life.’

  ‘They kept interferin’ with my games—’ said the little girl.

  ‘You interfere with ’er games again—’ said the man threateningly, ‘an’ I’ll—’

  Bewildered, the Outlaws crept away.

  CHAPTER 9

  WILLIAM’S BUSY DAY

  WILLIAM and the Outlaws strode along the road engaged in a lusty but inharmonious outburst of Community singing. It was the first real day of spring. The buds were bursting, the birds were singing (more harmoniously than the Outlaws) and there was a fresh invigorating breeze. The Outlaws were going fishing. They held over their shoulders their home-made rods and they carried jam-jars with string handles. They were going to fish the stream in the valley. The jamjars were to receive the minnows and other small water creatures which they might catch; but the Outlaws, despite all the lessons of experience were still hopeful of catching one day a trout or even a salmon in the stream. They were quite certain, though they had never seen any, that mighty water beasts haunted the place.

  ‘Under the big stones,’ said William, ‘why, I bet there’s all sorts of things. There’s room for great big fish right under the stones.’

  ‘Well, once we turned ’em over an’ there weren’t any,’ Douglas the literal reminded him.

  William’s faith, however, was not to be lightly shaken.

  ‘Oh, they sort of dart about,’ he explained vaguely, ‘by the time you’ve turned up one stone to see if they’re there they’ve darted off to the next an’ when you turn over the next they’ve darted back to the first without you seein’ ’em, but they’re there all the time really. I bet they are. An’ I bet I catch a great big whopper – a salmon or somethin’ – this afternoon.’

  ‘Huh!’ said Ginger, ‘I’ll give you sixpence if you catch a salmon.’

  ‘A’ right,’ said William hopefully, ‘an’ don’t you forget. Don’t start pretendin’ you said tuppence same as you did about me seein’ the water rat.’

  This started a heated argument which lasted till they reached what was known locally as the cave.

  The cave lay just outside the village and was believed by some people to be natural and by others to be part of old excavations.

  The Outlaws believed it to be the present haunt of smugglers. They believed that smugglers held nightly meetings there. The fact of its distance from the sea did not shake their faith in this theory. As William said, ‘I bet they have their meetin’s here ’cause folk won’t suspect ’em of bein’ here. Folks keep on the lookout for ’em by the sea an’ they trick ’em by comin’ out here an’ havin’ their meetin’s here where nobody’s on the lookout for ’em.’

  For the hundredth time they explored the cave, hoping to find some proof of the smugglers’ visits in the shape of a forgotten bottle of rum or one of the lurid handkerchiefs which they knew to be the correct smuggler’s headgear, or even a piece of paper containing a note of the smugglers’ latest exploit or a map of the district. For the hundredth time they searched in vain and ended by gazing up at a small slit in the rock just above their heads. They had noticed it before but had not given it serious consideration. Now William gazed at it frowningly and said, ‘I bet I could get through that and I bet that it leads down a passage an’ that,’ his imagination as ever running away with him, ‘an’ that at the end of a passage there’s a big place where they hold their meetin’s an’ I bet they’re there now – all of ’em – holdin’ a meetin’.’

  He stood on tiptoe and put his ear to the aperture. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I b’lieve I can hear ’em talkin’.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ said Douglas, who was not of an imaginative turn of mind. ‘I want to catch some minnows an’ I bet there aren’t any smugglers there, anyway.’

  William was annoyed by this interruption, but, arguing strenuously, proving the presence of smugglers in the cave to his own entire satisfaction, he led his band out of the cave and on to the high road again.

  The subject of smugglers
soon languished. They were passing a large barrack-like house which had been in the process of building for the best part of a year. It was finished at last. Curtains now hung at the windows and there were signs of habitation – a line of clothes flapping in the breeze in the back garden and the fleeting glimpse of a woman at one of the windows. A very high wall surrounded the garden.

  ‘Wonder what it is,’ said Henry speculatively, ‘looks to me like a prison.’

  ‘P’raps it’s a lunatic asylum,’ said Ginger, ‘why’s it got a high wall round it like that if it’s not a lunatic asylum?’

  Discussing the matter animatedly they wandered on to the stream.

  ‘Now catch your salmon,’ challenged Ginger.

  ‘All right. I bet I will,’ said William doggedly.

  For a short time they fished in silence.

  Then William gave a cry of triumph. His hook had caught something beneath one of the big stones.

  ‘There!’ he said, ‘I’ve got one. I told you so.’

  ‘Bet it’s not a salmon,’ said Ginger but with a certain excitement in his voice.

  ‘I bet it is,’ said William, ‘if it’s not a salmon I – I—’ with a sudden burst of inspiration, ‘I’ll go through that hole in the cave – so there!’

  He tugged harder.

  His ‘catch’ came out.

  It was an old boot.

  They escorted him back to the cave. The hole looked far too small for one of William’s solid bulk. They stood below and stared at it speculatively.

  ‘You’ve got to,’ said Ginger, ‘you said you would.’

  ‘Oh, all right,’ said William with a swagger which was far from expressing his real feelings, ‘I bet I can easy get through that little hole an’ I bet I’ll find a big place full of smugglers or smuggled stuff inside. Give me a shove . . . that’s it. . . . Oo,’ irritably, ‘don’t shove so hard . . . You nearly pushed my head off my neck . . . Go on – go on. . . . Oo, I say, I’m getting through quite easy . . . it’s all dark . . . it’s a sort of passage. . . .’ William had miraculously scraped himself through the small aperture. Two large boots was all of him which was now visible to the Outlaws. Those, too, disappeared, as William began to crawl down the passage. It was mercifully a little wider after the actual opening. His voice reached them faintly.