The Talking Horse Part 22

'He may be a jolly boy--at school,' was all that even the tolerant Cecily could find to urge in his favour.

'I believe,' said Hazel, 'that they're not nearly so mad about him as they were--didn't you notice about the tennis just now?'

'He bullies them--that's what it is,' explained Hilary; 'only with talking, I mean, of course, but he talks such a lot, and he will have his own way, and, if they say anything, he reminds them he's a visitor, and ought to be humoured. I wish it was any use getting Uncle Lambert to speak to him--but he's so stupid!'

'Is he, though?' said a lazy voice from behind the cedar.

'Oh, Uncle Lambkin!' cried Hilary, 'I didn't know you were there!'

'Don't apologise,' was the answer. 'I know it must be a trial to have an uncle on the verge of imbecility--but bear with me. I am at least harmless.'

'Of course we know you're really rather clever,' said Hazel, 'but you _are_ stupid about some things--you never interfere, whatever people do!'

'Don't I, really?' said their uncle, as he disposed himself on his back, and tilted his hat over his nose; 'you do surprise me! What a mistake for a man to make, who has come down for perfect quiet! Whom shall I begin to interfere with?'

'Well, you might snub that horrid Tinling boy, instead of encouraging him, as you always do!'

'Encourage him! He's got a fine flow of martial enthusiasm, and a good supply of military terms, and I listen when he gives me long accounts of thrilling engagements, when he came out uncommonly strong--and the enemy, so far as I can gather, never came out at all. I'm pa.s.sive, because I can't help myself; and then he amuses me in his way--that's all.'

'Do you believe he's brave, uncle?'

'I only know that I saw him kill two wasps with his teaspoon,' was the reply. 'They don't award the Victoria Cross for it--but it's a thing I couldn't have done myself.'

'I should hope not!' exclaimed Hilary; 'but everybody knows you're a coward,' she added (she did not intend this remark to be taken seriously), 'and you're awfully lazy. Still, there are some things you might do!'

'If that means fielding long-leg till tea-time, I respectfully disagree.

Irreverent girls, have you never been taught that a digesting uncle is a very solemn and sacred thing?'

'Now you are going to be idiotic again! But as to cricket--why, you must know that we never get a game now! And next summer I shall be too old to play!'

'I _never_ mean to be too old for cricket,' said Hilary, with conviction; 'but we've had none for weeks, uncle, positive weeks!'

'Quite right, too!' observed Uncle Lambert, sleepily. 'Not a game for girls--only spoil your hands--do you think I want a set of nieces with paws like so many glovers' signs?'

'That's utter nonsense,' said Hazel, calmly, 'because we always play in gloves. Mother makes us. At least, when we did play. Now the boys will only play soldiers, and, if they do happen to be inclined for a set at tennis, Clarence comes up and orders them off as pickets or outposts, or something!'

'But he's not Bismarck or Boulanger, is he? I always understood this was a free country.'

'You know what Guy and Jack are--they can't bear their visitor to think he isn't welcome.'

'Well, they seem to have made him feel very much at home--but it isn't my business; if they choose to declare the house in a state of siege, and turn the garden into a seat of war, I can't help it--I'd rather they wouldn't, but it's your mother's affair, not mine!'

And he closed the discussion by lighting a cigarette, and relapsing into a contented silence.

Uncle Lambert was short and stout, with a round red face, a heavy auburn moustache, and little green eyes which never seemed to notice anything.

His nieces were fond of him, though they often wished he would pay them the occasional compliment of talking sensibly; but he never did, and he spent all his time at The Gables in elaborately doing nothing at all.

Clarence Tinling had gone off in a decided huff--so much so indeed that he left his devoted army to carry out their rather misty manoeuvres without any help from him. He was beginning to find a falling-off in their docility of late, which was no doubt owing to their sisters; it was excessively annoying to him that those girls should be so difficult to convince of the protective value of a fortress, and especially that they should decline to take his own superior nerve and courage for granted. And the worst of it was, nothing but some imminent danger was ever likely to convince them, such were their prejudice and narrow-mindedness.

Later that afternoon the family a.s.sembled for tea in the cool, shady dining-room; Mrs. Jolliffe, with a gentle anxiety on her usually placid face, sat at the head (Colonel Jolliffe was away shooting in the North just then). 'Where are all the boys?' she said, looking round the table.

'Why don't they come in?'

'It's no use asking us, mother,' said Hilary, 'we see so very little of them ever.'

'Very likely they are washing their hands,' said her mother.

'So _like_ them!' murmured Uncle Lambert in confidence to his tea-cake.

'But here's the n.o.ble General, at all events. Well, Field Marshal, what have you done with the Standing Army?'

Tinling addressed himself to his hostess. 'Oh, Mrs. Jolliffe, I'm so sorry I was late, but I had just to run round to the stables for a minute. Oh, the other two? They're on duty--they're guarding the camp.

In fact, I can't stay here very long myself.'

'But the poor dear boys must have their tea!' cried Mrs. Jolliffe.

'Well, you know,' said their veteran officer, as he helped himself to the marmalade, 'I don't think a little roughing it is at all a bad thing for them--teaches them that a soldier's life is not all jam.'

'No,' said Hazel, 'the General seems to get most of that.'

All Clarence said was: 'I'll trouble one of you girls for the tea-cake.'

'I don't think it's fair that the poor army should "rough," as you call it, while you stuff, Clarence,' said Hazel, indignantly. 'Mustn't they come in to tea, mother? It is such nonsense!'

'Yes, dear, run and call them in,' said Mrs. Jolliffe. 'I can't let my boys go without their meals, Clarence, it's so bad for them.'

'It's not discipline,' said the chief; 'still, if they must come, you had better take them this permit from me.' And he scribbled a line on a sc.r.a.p of paper, which he handed to Hazel, who received it with the utmost disdain.

Hazel crossed the lawn and over a little rustic bridge to the kitchen garden and hothouses, beyond which was the paddock, where the fortress had been erected. It was a very imposing construction, built, with some help from the village carpenter, of portions of some disused fencing.

The stockade had loopholes in it, and above the top she could see a fluttering flag and the point of a tent. Jack was perched up on a kind of look-out, and Guy was pacing solemnly before the covered entrance with a musket of very mild aspect over his shoulder.

'Who goes there?' he called out, some time after recognising her.

Hazel vouchsafed no direct reply to this challenge. 'You're to come in to tea _directly_,' she announced in her most peremptory tone.

'Advance, and give the countersign,' said the sentinel.

'Don't be a donkey!' returned Hazel, tossing back her long brown hair impatiently.

Guy levelled his firearm. It is exasperating when a sister can't enter into the spirit of the thing better than that. Who ever heard of a sentry being told, on challenging, 'not to be a donkey'? 'My orders are to fire on all suspicious persons,' he informed her.

Hazel stopped both her ears. 'No, Guy, please--it makes me jump so.'

'There's no cap on,' said he.

'Then there's a ramrod, or a pea, or something horrid,' she objected; 'do turn it the other way.'

'Hazel's all right, Guy,' said Jack, in rebuke of this excessive zeal; 'we can let her pa.s.s.'

'As if I wanted to pa.s.s!' exclaimed Hazel. 'I only came to bring you back to tea; and if you're afraid to go without leave, there's a permission from Clarence for you.'