Soldiers of the Queen Part 14

"He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day; But now"--

continued the reciter with a great amount of pathos,

--"I often wish the night Had bawn my breath away!"

"So do I," mumbled Paterson. "Let's have another song."

"I remembah, I remembah, The roses, red and white--"

"Go on, Bossy," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the irrepressible Dorris; "you don't remember it at all, you're simply making it up as you go along."

A general disturbance followed this last interruption--the audience laughed, the president vainly endeavoured to restore order, and Boswell-Jones sat down in a rage, and refused to continue his oration.

"A song, a song!" cried several voices. "Jack Fenleigh, you know something; come on, let's have it."

Jack had a good voice, and with Mead extracting fearful groans and growls out of the harmonium, he started off on the first verse of "The Mermaid," a song which he was destined in after years to sing under strangely different circ.u.mstances:--

"Oh, 'twas in the broad Atlantic, 'mid the equinoctial gales, That a gay young tar fell overboard, among the sharks and whales; And down he went like a streak of light, so quickly down went he, Until he came to a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea."

Then the audience took up the chorus, and yelled,--

"Rule, Britannia! Bri--tann--ia rules the waves!

And Bri--tons never, never, ne--ver shall be Mar--ri--ed to a mer--mai--ed At the bottom of the deep blue sea!"

The song was received with great enthusiasm, and the performers might have been kept repeating the last chorus until break of day on the following morning, it Tinkleby had not suddenly jumped up, crying, "I say, you chaps, it's five-and-twenty past seven. We shall be late for lock-up."

Every one sprang to his feet. Dorris was the first to reach the door, and being of a playful disposition caught up a bundle of coats and blazers and bolted with them under his arm. A moment later certain of the peaceful citizens of Melchester were astonished at the sight of a dozen or more young gentlemen tearing madly down the street in their s.h.i.+rt-sleeves. And so ended the third annual supper of the Fifth Form Literary Society.

CHAPTER IX.

"GUARD TURN OUT!"

"He felt for them as he had never felt for any other bird in the world.

He was not envious ... but wished to be as lovely as they."--_The Ugly Duckling_.

"It is jolly to be here at Brenlands again," said Jack, as he sat dangling his legs from the kitchen table, and munching one of the sweet pods of the peas which his aunt was sh.e.l.ling. "I've been looking forward to it ever since last summer."

"Yes, and a pretty fuss I had to get you to accept my first invitation," answered Queen Mab; "I thought you were never going to condescend to favour us with your company. However, I've got you all here again, and it _is_ jolly; and what's more, you managed to turn up at the proper time yesterday instead of coming half a day late, as you did last year, you rascal!"

The boy laughed. "Oh, well! you may put that down to Val," he answered. "He's quite taken me in hand lately, and has been in an awful funk for fear I should get into another row just before the holidays. You know those penny toys you get with a little thing like a pair of bellows under them that squeaks--well, I got a bird the other day and pulled off the stand, and stuck it in my shoe so that I could make a noise with it when I walked. Whenever I moved about in cla.s.s, old Ward used to beseech me with tears in his eyes to wear another pair of boots. I used to come squeaking into a.s.semblies a bit late on purpose, and send all the fellows into fits. It was a fearful joke; but poor old Val got quite huffy about it, and kept saying I should be found out, and that there was no sense in my 'monkey tricks,' as he called them."

"So they are," answered Queen Mab, smiling in spite of herself. "I should have thought you were old enough to find some more sensible amus.e.m.e.nt than putting pieces of penny toys in your boots. You may laugh at Valentine if you like, but I can tell you this, he's very fond of you, and that's the reason why he doesn't like to see you in trouble."

"I know he is," returned the boy briskly. "He's a brick; and I like him better than any other chap in the school."

Queen Mab went on sh.e.l.ling her peas, and Jack remained perched on the end of the table, quite content to continue watching her nimble fingers and sweet, restful face. It certainly was jolly to be back again at Brenlands. He was no longer the ugly duckling; Helen and Barbara were like sisters, and he got on with them swimmingly; all kinds of splendid projects were on the carpet, and there were plenty of long summer days to look forward to in which to carry them out. To be a careless dog of a schoolboy, ready for anything in the way of larks and excitement, and paying precious little attention to one's books or conduct record, might be a fascinating sort of existence; yet somehow it was not altogether unpleasant, once in a way, to become for a time a member of a more civilized and refined society, where gentler treatment encouraged gentler manners, where hearts were thought of as well as heads, where there was no black list, and where no one would have made a boast of being on it, had such a thing existed.

This year the mimic war operations were of a more advanced kind than had ever been attempted before. A fortress built of clay and pebbles was mined and blown up; and there still being some powder left, Jack successfully performed the feat of blowing himself up, and in doing so sustained the loss of an eyebrow. In order that this catastrophe should not alarm Queen Mab, the missing hair was replaced by burnt cork; but Jack, forgetting what had happened, sponged his face and rushed down to tea, where Barbara, after regarding him for a few moments in silence, leaned across the table and remarked, with a wise shake of her head, "Yes, I see--you've been shaving."

But what proved a source of endless delight to the two boys was an old, military bell-tent which Queen Mab had bought for their special use and amus.e.m.e.nt. They pitched it on a corner of the lawn, and were always repairing thither to read, and talk, and hold councils of war. It was delightful to speculate as to what doughty warriors might have been sheltered beneath it; and to imagine that sundry small rents and patches must be the result of the enemy's fire, and not due to the wear and tear of ordinary encampments.

Not satisfied with living in it by day, they determined to pa.s.s a night there also, and would not rest content until their aunt had given them permission to try the experiment.

"All we want," said Valentine, "is a mackintosh to spread on the ground, and a few rugs and sofa cus.h.i.+ons, and a candle and a box of matches."

"Very well, you can have plenty of those," answered Queen Mab; "perhaps some day you won't be so well off, Valentine."

She spoke lightly enough, and with no foreshadowing of a visionary picture, often to haunt her mind in the days to come, of men lying silently under a clear, starlit sky, with belts on, rifles by their sides, and bayonets ready fixed.

The two boys prepared to put their project into immediate execution; and in connection with this their first but by no means last experience of a night under canvas, they were destined to fall in with a little adventure which must be recorded.

Shortly before the commencement of the holidays a lot of strawberries had been stolen from the garden, and Queen Mab feared lest a similar fate should overtake a fine show of pears which were just getting ripe.

"Well, good-night," she said, as she prepared to close the door on the two adventurers; "if you're cold, and want to come in, throw some pebbles up at my window."

"Oh, we shan't want to come in," answered Jack stoutly. "If you hear any one coming to steal the fruit, you shout, 'Guard turn out!' and we'll nab 'em."

The boys settled down like old campaigners. "Awful joke, isn't it?"

said Jack.

"Yes, prime!" answered Valentine; "soldiering must be jolly."

Half an hour pa.s.sed.

"I say," murmured Valentine, "this ground seems precious hard!"

"Yes," answered his companion. "I've tried lying on it every way, and I believe my bones are coming through my skin."

A long pause, and then, "I say, don't you think it's nearly morning?"

"Oh, no! the church clock has only just struck one."

The darkness seemed to lengthen out into that of a polar winter instead of a single night. At length the canvas walls began to grow grey with dawn, and Jack awoke with a s.h.i.+ver, wondering whether he had really been asleep or not.

"It's beastly cold," he muttered.

"Yes," answered Valentine. "I thought it was never going to get light.

Look here, I'm determined I _will_ sleep! What's the good of my being a soldier if I can't sleep in a tent?"

He turned over on his face, and had just dropped off into a doze, when he was awakened by Jack, who had reached over and was shaking his arm.