The Surprising Adventures of Sir Toady Lion with Those of General Napoleon Smith

At this moment Mr. Burnham himself came out of the vestry just in time to hear the boy's frank expression of opinion.

"Never mind, Toady Lion," he said genially, "the truth is, I was a little tired myself to-day. I promise not to keep you quite so long next Sunday morning. You must remind me if I transgress. Nobody will, if you don't, Toady Lion."

"Doan know what 'twansguess' is – but shall call out loud if you goes on too long – telling out sermons and textises and fings."

As they walked along the High Street of Edam, Prissy glanced reverently at the Provost.

"Oh, I wish I could have been a peacemaker too, like him," she sighed, "and then Mr. Burnham might have preached about me. Perhaps I will when I grow up."

For next to Saint Catherine of Siena, the Provost was her ideal of a peacemaker.

As they walked homeward, Mr. Burnham came and touched Prissy on the shoulder.

"Money cannot buy love," he said, somewhat sententiously, "but you, my dear, win it by loving actions."

He turned to Toady Lion, who was trotting along somewhat sulkily, holding his sister's hand, and grumbling because he was not allowed to chase butterflies on Sunday.

"Arthur George," said Mr. Burnham, "if anybody was to give you a piece of money and say, 'Will you love me for half-a-crown,' you couldn't do it, could you?"

"Could just, though!" contradicted Toady Lion flatly, kicking at the stones on the highway.

"Oh no," his instructor suavely explained, "if it were a bad person who asked you to love him, you wouldn't love him for half-a-crown, surely!"

Toady Lion turned the matter over.

"Well," he said, speaking slowly as if he were thinking hard between the words, "it might have to be five sillin's if he was very bad!"

CHAPTER XXXVI

HUGH JOHN'S WAY-GOING

THE secret which had oppressed society after the return of Mr. Picton Smith from London, being revealed, was that Hugh John and Sammy Carter were both to go to school. For a while it appeared as if the foundations of the world had been undercut – the famous fellowship of noble knights disbanded, Prissy and Cissy, ministering angel and wild tomboy, alike abandoned to the tender mercies of mere governesses.

Strangest of all to Prissy was the indubitable fact that Hugh John wanted to go. At the very first mention of school he promptly forgot all about his noblest military ambitions, and began oiling his cricket bat and kicking his football all over the green. Mr. Burnham was anxious about his pupil's Latin and more than doubtful about his Vulgar Fractions; but the General himself was chiefly bent on improving his round arm bowling, and getting that break from the left down to a fine point.

Every member of the household was more or less disturbed by the coming exodus – except Sir Toady Lion. On the last fateful morning that self-contained youth maundered about as usual among his pets, carrying to and fro saucers of milk, dandelion leaves cut small, and other dainties – though Hugh John's boxes were standing corded and labelled in the hall, though Prissy was crying herself sick on her bed, and though there was even a dry hard lump high up in the great hero's own manly throat.

His father was giving his parting instructions to his eldest son.

"Work hard, my boy," he said. "Tell the truth, never tell tales, nor yet listen to them. Mind your own business. Don't fight, if you can help it; but if you have to, be sure you get home with your left before the other fellow. Practise your bowling, the batting will practise itself. And when you play golf, keep your eye on the ball."

"I'll try to play up, father," said Hugh John, "and anyway I won't be 'dasht-mean'!"

His father was satisfied.

Then it was Prissy who came to say good-bye. She had made all sorts of good resolutions, but in less than half a minute she was bawling undisguisedly on the hero's neck. And as for the hero – well, we will not say what he was doing, something most particularly unheroic at any rate.

Janet Sheepshanks hovered in the background, saying all the time, "For shame, Miss Priscilla, think shame o' yoursel' – garring the laddie greet like that when he's gaun awa'!"

But even Janet herself was observed to blow her own nose very often, and to offer Hugh John the small garden hoe instead of the neatly wrapped new silk umbrella she had bought for him out of her own money.

And all the while Sir Toady Lion kept on carrying milk and fresh lettuce leaves to his stupid lop-eared rabbits. Yet it was by no means insensibility which kept him thus busied. He was only playing his usual lone hand.

Yet even Toady Lion was not without his own proper sense of the importance of the occasion.

"There's a funny fing 'at you wants to see at the stile behind the stable," he remarked casually to Hugh John, as he went past the front door with an armful of hay for bedding, "but I promised not to tell w'at it is."

Immediately Hugh John slunk out, ran off in an entirely different direction, circled about the "office houses," reached the stile behind the stable – and there, with her eyes very big, and her underlip quivering strangely, he discovered Cissy Carter.

He stopped short and looked at her. The pressure of having to say farewell, or of making a stated speech of any kind, weighed heavily upon him. The two looked at each other like young wild animals – or as if they were children who had never been introduced, which is the same thing.

"Hugh John Picton, you don't care!" sobbed Cissy at last. "And I don't care either!" she added haughtily, commanding herself after a pathetic little pause.

"I do, I do," answered Hugh John vehemently, "only every fellow has to. Sammy is going too, you know!"

"Oh, I don't care a button for Sammy!" was Cissy's most unsisterly speech.

Hugh John tried to think of something to say. Cissy was now sobbing quietly and persistently, and that did not seem to help him.

"Say, don't now, Ciss! Stop it, or you'll make me cry too!"

"You don't care! You don't love me a bit! You know you don't!"

"I do – I do," protested the hero, in despair, "there – there —now you can't say I don't care."

"But you'll be so different when you come back, and you'll have lost your half of the crooked sixpence."

"I won't, for true, Cissy – and I shan't ever look at another girl nor play horses with them even if they ask me ever so."

"You will, I know you will!"

A rumble of wheels, a shout from the front door – "Hugh John – wherever can that boy have got to?"

"Good-bye, Ciss, I must go. Oh hang it, don't go making a fellow cry. Well, I will say it then, 'I love you, Ciss!' There – will that satisfy you?"

Something lit on the end of Cissy's nose, which was very red and wet with the tears that had run down it. There was a clatter of feet, and the Lord of Creation had departed. Cissy sank down behind the stone wall, a slim bundle of limp woe, done up in blue serge trimmed with scarlet.

The servants were gathered in the hall. Several of the maids were already wet-eyed, for Hugh John had "the way with him" that made all women want to "mother" him. Besides, he had no mother of his own.

"Good-bye, Master Hugh!" they said, and sniffed as they said it.

"Good-bye, everybody," cried the hero, "soon be back again, you know." He said this very loudly to show that he did not care. He was going down the steps with Prissy's fingers clutched in his, and every one was smiling. All went merry as a marriage bell – never had been seen so jovial a way-going.

"Ugh – ugh – ugh!" somebody in the hall suddenly sobbed out from among the white caps of the maids.

"Go upstairs instantly, Jane. Don't disgrace yourself!" cried Janet Sheepshanks sharply, stamping her foot. For the sound of Jane's sudden and shameful collapse sent the other maids' aprons furtively up to their eyes.

And Janet Sheepshanks had no apron. Not that she needed one – of course not.