Snake and Sword Part 12

"I'll go straight to y'r Grandfer the noo, and if ye'r not flayed alive! Aye! I'll gang the noo to Himself----"

"_Wi' fower an twanty men, an' five an' thairrty pipers_," suggested Dam in tuneful song.

Mr. Alastair Kenneth MacIlwraith did what he rarely did--swore violently.

"_Do you think at your age it is right_?" quoted the wicked boy ...

the exceedingly bad and reprehensible boy.

The maddened gardener turned and strode to the house with all his imperfections on his head and face and neck.

Taking no denial from b.u.t.terson, he forced his way into the presence of his master and clamoured for instant retributive justice--or the acceptance of his resignation forthwith, and him twanty-twa years in the ane place.

"Grandfather," roused from slumber, gouty, liverish, ferociously angry, sent for Dam, Sergeant Havlan, and Sergeant Havlan's cane.

"What's the meaning of this, Sir," he roared as Dam, cool, smiling, friendly ever, entered the Sanctum. "What the Devil d'ye mean by it, eh? Wreckin' my orchid-houses, a.s.saultin' my servants, waking me up, annoying ME! Seven days C.B.[15] and bread and water, on each count.

What d'ye mean by it, ye young hound? Eh? Answer me before I have ye flogged to death to teach ye better manners! Guilty or Not Guilty? and I'll take your word for it."

"The missile, describing a parabola, struck its subjective with fearful impact, Sir," replied the bad boy imperturbably, misquoting from his latest fiction (and calling it a "parry-bowler," to "Grandfather's" considerable and very natural mystification).

"_What?_" roared that gentleman, sitting bolt upright in astonishment and wrath.

"No. It's _ob_jective," corrected Dam. "Yes. With fearful impact.

Fearful also were the words of the Mon Sandy."

"Grandfather" flushed and smiled a little wryly.

"You'd favour _me_ with pleasantries too, would you? I'll reciprocate to the best of my poor ability," he remarked silkily, and his mouth set in the unpleasant Stukeley grimness, while a little muscular pulse beat beneath his cheek-bone.

"A dozen of the very best, if you please, Sergeant," he added, turning to Sergeant Havlan.

"Coat off, Sir," remarked that worthy, nothing loath, to the boy who could touch him almost as he would with the foil.

Dam removed his Eton jacket, folded his arms, turned his back to the smiter and a.s.sumed a scientific arrangement of the shoulders with tense muscles and coyly withdrawn bones. He had been there before....

The dozen were indeed of the Sergeant's best and he was a master. The boy turned not a hair, though he turned a little pale.... His mouth grew extraordinarily like that of his grandfather and a little muscular pulse beat beneath his cheek-bone.

"And what do you think of _my_ pleasantries, my young friend?"

inquired Grandfather. "Feeling at all witty _now_?"

"Havlan is failing a bit, Sir," was the cool reply. "I have noticed it at fencing too--Getting old--or beer perhaps. I scarcely felt him and so did not see or feel the point of your joke."

"Grandfather's" flush deepened and his smile broadened crookedly. "Try and do yourself justice, Havlan," he said. "'Nother dozen. 'Tother way."

Sergeant Havlan changed sides and endeavoured to surpa.s.s himself. It was a remarkably sound dozen.

He mopped his brow.

The bad boy did not move, gave no sign, but retained his rigid, slightly hunched att.i.tude, as though he had not counted the second dozen and expected another stroke.

"Let that be a lesson to you to curb your d.a.m.ned tongue," said "Grandfather," his anger evaporating, his pride in the stiff-necked, defiant young rogue increasing.

The boy changed not the rigid, slightly hunched att.i.tude.

"Be pleased to wreck no more of my orchid-houses and to exercise your great wit on your equals and juniors," he added.

Dam budged not an inch and relaxed not a muscle.

"You may go," said "Grandfather".... "Well--what are you waiting for?"

"I was waiting for Sergeant Havlan to _begin_," was the reply. "I thought I was to have a second dozen."

With blazing eyes, bristling moustache, swollen veins and bared teeth, "Grandfather" rose from his chair. Resting on one stick he struck and struck and struck at the boy with the other, pa.s.sion feeding on its own pa.s.sionate acts, and growing to madness--until, as the head gardener and Sergeant rushed forward to intervene, Dam fell to the ground, stunned by an unintentional blow on the head.

"Grandfather" stood trembling.... "_Quite_ a Stukeley," observed he.

"Oblige me by flinging his carcase down the stairs."

"'Angry Stookly's mad Stookly' is about right, mate, wot?" observed the Sergeant to the gardener, quoting an ancient local saying, as they carried Dam to his room after dispatching a groom for Dr. Jones of Monksmead.

"Dammy Darling," whispered a broken and tear-stained voice outside Dam's locked and keyless door the next morning, "are you dead yet?"

"Nit," was the prompt reply, "but I'm starving to death, fast."

"I am so glad," was the sobbed answer, "for I've got some flat food to push under the door."

"Shove it under," said Dam. "Good little beast!"

"I didn't know anything about the fearful fraca.s.s until tea-time,"

continued Lucille, "and then I went straight to Grumper and confessed, and he sent me to bed on an empty stummick and I laid upon it, the bed I mean, and howled all night, or part of it anyhow. I howled for your sake, not for the empty stummick. I thought my howls would break or at least soften his hard heart, but I don't think he heard them. I'm sure he didn't, in fact, or I should not have been allowed to howl so loud and long.... Did he blame you with anger as well as injustice?"

"With a stick," was the reply. "What about that grub?"

"I told him you were an innocent unborn babe and that Justice had had a mis-carriage, but he only grinned and said you had got C.B. and dry bread for insilence in the Orderly Room. What is 'insilence'?"

"Pulling Havlan's leg, I s'pose," opined Dam. "What about that _grub_?

There comes a time when you are too hungry to eat and then you die.

I--"

"Here it is," squealed Lucille, "don't go and die after all my trouble. I've got some thin ice-wafer biscuits, sulphur tablets, thin cheese, a slit-up apple and three sardines. They'll all come under the door--though the sardines may get a bit out of shape. I'll come after lessons and suck some brandy-b.a.l.l.s here and breathe through the key-hole to comfort you. I could blow them through the key-hole when they are small too."

"Thanks," acknowledged Dam gratefully, "and if you could tie some up and a sausage and a tart or two and some bread-and-jam and some chicken and cake and toffee and things in a handkerchief, and climb on to the porch with Grumper's longest fishing-rod, you might be able to relieve the besieged garrison a lot. If the silly Haddock were any good he could fire sweets up with a catapult."

"I'd try that too," announced Lucille, "but I'd break the windows. I feel I shall never have the heart to throw a stone or anything again.

My heart is broken," and the penitent sinner groaned in deep travail of soul.

"Have you eaten everything, Darling? How do you feel?" she suddenly asked.

"Yes. Hungrier than ever," was the reply. "I like sulphur tablets with sardines. Wonder when they'll bring that beastly dry bread?"

"If there's a sulphur tablet left I could eat one myself," said Lucille. "They are good for the inside and I have wept mine sore."