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The Slowcoach

E >> E. V. Lucas >> The Slowcoach




"Yes, my lady," said Simpkins; and Hester and Gregory at once began to look
at her with round eyes, for they had never before met anyone who was
titled--I mean to speak to, although they had seen the Lord Mayor (who is
of course a baronet) in his carriage only last November 9.

"And, Simpkins," said Aunt May, "take Mr. What is your name?" she asked
Gregory.

"Gregory Bruce Avory," said he.

"Take Mr. Bruce Avory to the Pink Room, and get him some hot water."

"Yes, my lady," said Simpkins, and Gregory grew another inch all over.

And then Aunt May led the others upstairs.

Gregory finished his washing first, and walked to the dining-room, which
opened on to the lawn, and was very bright and sweet-smelling. The walls
were covered with pictures, and there were roses in blue bowls wherever a
place could be found for them.

By the wall, in a row, were five round baskets, and directly Aunt May came
in the five black spaniels, who were with her, went each to his basket, and
lay there quietly, with his head resting on the edge and his eyes fixed on
his mistress. Their names were Mars, Saturn, Orion, Mercury, and Jupiter;
and from time to time Aunt May called one to her and gave it a little piece
of food, while the others glittered with expectation.

"Now," said Aunt May, "let's get on with our eatin', for I'm sure you're
all hungry, and I know I am. Patricia dear, do you think you can eat solid
things, or shall we get something else?"

Patricia, however, declared that she could eat anything.

"Mr. Bruce Avory," said Aunt May, "you're drinkin' nothing. Would you
rather have lemonade or barley-water?"

Poor Gregory! he knew what he wanted--lemonade--but he didn't know whether
he ought to address Aunt May as "My Lady " or "Your Ladyship " or "Lady
Rusper." He had tried to get a moment with Hester to ask about it, but
without success.

"If she was only our aunt!" he thought, and then said, without using any
name at all, that he would like lemonade.

Lady Rusper made them tell her the story all through once again, "right
from the beginnin'," as she called it; and just as Hester had got to the
end of her part of it a boy arrived leading Marshall, and Patricia leaped
up and rushed across the lawn to fondle her pony. Then she dashed back for
a piece of sugar, and was off again. The boy said that the blacksmith, who
was also a farrier, had seen Marshall, and declared he was quite sound; but
Snelgrove was done for completely, and the trap was too badly smashed ever
to be much use.

"Put Marshall in the stable," said Aunt May, "and have the trap brought here."

At the news about Snelgrove Patricia began to cry again.

"Well," said Aunt May, "we must see what can be done. I dare say there are
more ponies in the world. But I suppose we shall all be driven to motors
before long. It's a great shame. I spend most of my time detestin' the
things; but they've got to come. And now," she said to Hester, "tell me all
about your home and your caravan;" and Hester again told the story, saying
"Lady Rusper" with an ease that made Gregory gasp.

After lunch they all went to the stables, where, in a loose-box,
beautifully snug in the straw, lay another black spaniel, Venus, with three
puppies ("Oh, the darlings!" cried Hester) snuggling to her.

"Do you think your mother would let you keep a spaniel?" Aunt May asked.

"Oh, yes, now we've got Diogenes as a start," she answered.

"Very well, then," said Aunt May, "if you'd like one of these, you shall
have it directly it's old enough to be sent away--as a memory of to-day,
and as a thankofferin', too. Which would you like," she added, "Psyche,
Cicero, or Circe? This is Cicero, this is Circe, and this is Psyche."

"Why do all their names begin with 'S'?" Gregory asked; and it was not till
he told Janet about it that he understood why it was that everyone had
laughed so.

"And if you may keep two," Aunt May went on, speaking to Gregory, "I shall
send you one of the next litter. Vesta is going to have puppies soon. You
must write and let me know. And now, if your man has finished, I expect
you'd like to be gettin' on, or the others will be nervous about you."

And so, after Hester had chosen Circe, they all said very affectionate
farewells, and the Slowcoach rumbled forth again.

Meanwhile, what of Janet and Robert and Mary and Jack and Horace? They had
had no adventures at all--nothing but scenery and a pleasant picnic.

Robert had been rightly told about the summit of Bredon Hill, for there the
grass is as short as on the South Downs, and there is a deep fosse in which
to shelter from the wind.

The hill at this western point ends suddenly, at a kind of precipice, and
you look right over the valley of the Avon and the Severn to the Malverns.
Just below on the south-west is Tewkesbury, where the Severn and the Avon
meet, after that becoming the Severn only all the way to Bristol and the
sea. In the far south-west rises the point of the Sugar Loaf at
Abergavenny, and the blue distance is Wales-- the country of King Arthur
and Malory.

To the north-west is the smoke of Worcester, and immediately beneath the
hill, winding shiningly about, is the Avon, running by Bredon village and
the Combertons and Pershore, past Cropthorne (where Mr. MacAngus was
perhaps even now painting) and Wood Norton (where the Duke of Orleans, who
ought, Hester held, to be King of France to-day, lives) to Evesham, and the
weir where they had rowed about, and so on to Stratford.

Robert's maps, fortified by what he had picked up from the old man last
night, told them all these things, and told them also, more or less, what
the "coloured counties" were that they could see; for of course Mary wanted
to know that: Warwickshire, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire, Worcestershire,
Herefordshire, Monmouthshire. After lunch Mary sang the beautiful Bredon
Hill song to them; and so they descended to the level ground and to Kink
and Hester and Gregory, little expecting to find them with such exciting
things to tell.

>From Beckford to Oxenton the great story lasted, eked out with questions
and answers as it proceeded. Thus, Horace wanted to know why Kink had not
sprung to the horses' heads and checked them in their wild career.

"We couldn't see them," said Gregory; "they were coming up behind, and we
were sitting in front."

Horace was dissatisfied.

"What frightened them?" Jack wanted to know; but Gregory could not say.
Patricia had not explained.

"Fancy not knowing what frightened them!" said Jack.

The fact was that both Jack and Horace were a little overtired, and perhaps
a little jealous of the eventfulness of the Slowcoach's day.

They had been talking so hard that they had not noticed the sky; and the
splashing of raindrops was the first knowledge they had that a storm was
coming. It was nearly seven, and suddenly they all knew that they were very
tired and hungry and rather chilly. Kink stopped Moses and suggested
camping at once.

"Where?" said Robert.

"Here," said Kink. "Under these trees. There'll be a downpour soon: better
get your supper at once."

They therefore did not make any effort to find a farm, but instantly
unpacked. Hitherto everything had gone smoothly, but this was a bad
evening. Nothing seemed to be in its place, and Hester, whose duty it was
to get enough dry wood, had forgotten all about it, and by the time a new
bundle could be brought it was damp. Then the matches blew out, and then,
when at last the fire was alight, the wind scattered the flames so that
there was no heat under the pot for more than a moment at a time. This
often happens when you are on caravan excursions.

Mary had arranged for a stew, but she soon discovered that there was no
chance of its being done for hours unless it could be moved into the
Slowcoach and cooked over the Beatrice stove; but when they got Beatrice
out, she was found to be empty, and no more oil was in the can.

"Who is the Keeper of the Oil?" Mary asked severely.

"I am," said Jack.

"Then where is it?" they asked.

"I had it filled at Stratford," said Jack. "Why," he exclaimed, "there's a
hole in it! It's all run away! How ghastly! It will be all over
everything."

And so it was; and the worst of it was that it had leaked into the
biscuits, too. Janet came to the rescue. "We must make it a tongue and
banana meal," she said.

"I hate bananas," said Gregory.

"Now, Horace," said Janet, "where's the tin-opener?"

How is it that everything goes wrong at once? Horace had to hunt for the
tinopener for twenty minutes, and turn the whole place upside down before
he could find it, and then it was too late.

Meanwhile the rain was steadily falling, and Kink and Robert were busy
getting up the tents before the ground underneath was too wet. Robert was
the only happy one. A few difficulties seemed to him to make the expedition
more real.

He came dripping into the Slowcoach and asked for his supper; but Horace
was still hunting for the tin-opener.

"Never mind about it," said Robert. "I'll open the thing with the hammer
and a knife. But what you want, Horace, is system."

"No; what I want is food," said Horace. "I'm dying."

"So am I," said Gregory.

"Well, eat a crust to go on with," said Janet. "There's the bread."

"I hate crusts," said Gregory.

"Surely crusts are better than dying of starvation," said Mary.

"No," said Gregory, who was prepared to be thoroughly unpleasant. "No, I'd
much rather die. I think I shall go to bed."

"Yes," said Robert, "do. People who can't stand a little hunger are no good
in caravans."

"Janet," said Gregory, "how can I go to bed with my boots on?"

"Then take them off," said Janet.

"There's a knot," said Gregory.

"Well, you must wait," said Janet. "I can't leave what I'm doing."

"I hate waiting," said Gregory.

Robert, however, became suddenly very stern. He advanced on Gregory with a
knife in his hand, and, swooping on the boot, cut both laces. "There," he
said, "get into bed, and you must buy some more laces at Cheltenham."

"I hate Cheltenham," said Gregory. But he said no more; he saw that Robert
was cross.

When, a little later, Janet took a plate of tongue over to his bunk, he was
fast asleep. The others had a dismal, grumpy meal, and they were glad when
the washing-up was done and it was bedtime. But no one had a good night.
The rain dropped from the trees on to the Slowcoach's roof with loud thuds,
and at midnight the thunder and lightning began, and Janet got up and
splashed out in the wet to the tent to ask Robert if they ought not to move
from under the trees. Robert had been lying awake thinking the same thing,
but Kink had gone off with Moses to the nearest farm, and the Slowcoach was
far too heavy to move without the horse. Diogenes whimpered on his chain.
If he could have spoken, he would have said, like Gregory, "I hate
thunder."

"Perhaps it won't get very near us," said Robert. "We must chance it, anyway."

But neither he nor Janet had any sleep until it was nearly time to get up,
when the sun began to shine again, and the miseries of the evening and
night before were forgotten.

Hester, however, had slept all through it, and had dreamed that ponies were
running away with her towards a country entirely peopled by black spaniels
and governed by a grey queen in top-boots.

As for Gregory, his dream was that he was Lord Bruce.



CHAPTER 17

THE ADVENTURE OF THE LOST BABY

They entered Cheltenham at about half-past eleven, and were having lunch on
the top of Leckhampton Hill, on the other side of it, by half-past one.
Robert had not allowed any stop in Cheltenham except for shopping. "We
don't want towns," he said, "except historic ones."

"But this is historic," said Jack; "Jessop was at school here."

The pull up Leckhampton Hill was very stiff, and they were all glad to take
lunch easily, and since Robert had arranged a short day--only three or four
miles more, to a very nice-looking spot on the other side of Birdlip--they
rested with clear consciences; and, as it happened, rested again in the
Birdlip Hotel, where they had tea in the garden overlooking the Severn
Valley on the top of just such a precipice as Bredon.

It was half-past three before they started again on their next five miles,
and they had done about three of them, and had just passed Teddington, when
Gregory, who was walking with Kink beside Moses, suddenly dashed ahead
towards a bundle which was lying in the middle of the road.

He bent down over it, and then began to shriek for the others to come too.

"What is it?" cried Jack, as they raced up.

"It's a baby!" Gregory said, wild with excitement. "A real baby!"

Janet, who had been behind, sprang forward as she heard these remarkable
words, and easily reached the bundle first.

"So it is," she exclaimed, picking it tenderly up and opening the wraps
round its face.

It was a swarthy mite, very tightly bound into its clothes.

"What an extraordinary thing!" said Mary. "Fancy finding a baby on the road!"

"It has probably been abandoned," said Hester. "Very likely it is of noble
birth, and was stolen by gipsies and stained brown, and now they are afraid
of pursuit and have left it."

"How could it be of noble birth?" Gregory asked. "Look how hideous it is!"

"Looks have nothing to do with high lineage," said Hester. "There have been
very ugly kings."

"It isn't hideous," said Janet. "It's a perfect darling. But what are we to
do with it?"

"If it's a boy," said Gregory, "let's keep it and make it into a long-stop.
We want one badly." (Gregory, as I have said, hated fielding.)

"Let's adopt it," said Hester. "Mother often says how she wishes we were
still babies."

"Don't let's adopt it if it's a girl," said Gregory.

"It doesn't matter what a baby is," said Hester,--"whether it's a boy or a
girl. The important thing is that it's a baby. When it gets too big, we can
let it go."

"I'm dreadfully afraid," said Janet, "that we shall have to try to find out
whose it is and give it back now."

"Well," said Mary, "we needn't try too hard, need we?"

"How are you going to try, anyway?" Jack asked, with some scorn. "You can't
stop everyone you see and say, 'Have you lost a baby?' This old man just
coming along, for instance."

"Wouldn't a good way," said Robert, "be to write a little placard:

FOUND, A BABY.

Inquire Within.

and stick it on the caravan?"

They liked that idea, but Janet suggested that it would be best to ask Kink
first.

"There's only one thing to do," said Kink, "and that is to hand it over to
the police at the next place we come to."

"Police again!" said Horace. "You're always talking of the police."

"Well," said Kink, "that's what they're for. And if you think a moment or
two, you'll all see what a trouble a baby would be. We shall reach Oxenton
in a little while, and we can leave the baby there."

But, as it happened, they had no need to, for there suddenly appeared
before them a caravan covered with baskets which was being urged towards
them by a young woman who tugged at the horse's head in a kind of frenzy.
As she drew nearer they could hear that she was wailing.

"It must be her baby," said Janet, holding the bundle up; but the woman did
not see it, and Janet told Jack to run on quickly and meet her, and tell
her that they had the baby and it was not hurt.

Jack did so, and the woman left the horse to be cared for by the man and
boy who walked behind, and ran to Janet, and seized the bundle from her,
and hugged it so tightly that the baby, for the first time, uttered a
little cry.

"Where did you find it?" the gipsy woman asked; and Janet told her the story.

"It must have rolled out of the van while I was in front with the horse,"
said the gipsy. "We didn't miss it. We've had to come back three miles at
least."

By this time the two caravans had met, and the man was brought up by the
woman and told the story, and they all expressed their gratitude to Janet
for nursing the child so kindly.

"Bless your pretty heart!" the gipsy woman said again and again, while her
husband asked if there was anything that they could do for her and her
party.

"I don't think so," said Janet. "We liked to take care of it, of course."

The gipsy man asked a number of questions about the Slowcoach, and then
suggested that he should show them a good place to camp, and make their
fire for them, and he added: "I'll tell you what--you all come and have
supper with us. I'll bet you've talked about playing at gipsies often
enough; well, we'll get a real gipsy supper--a slap-up one. What's the
time?"

He looked at the sun. "Nearly five. Well, we'll have supper at half-past
seven, and we'll do you proud. Will you come?"

Janet considered.

"Of course, Janet," said Robert.

"Why don't you say yes?" said Gregory.

Hester shrank a little towards the Slowcoach, and Janet went to talk to Kink.

She came back and thanked the gipsy, but said that they would not all come,
but the boys would gladly do so.

"I'm sorry you won't be there," said the man. "But we'll give the young
gents a square meal--and tasty, too! Something to relish! What do you say,
now," he asked Gregory, "to a hedgehog? I don't expect you've ever eaten
that."

"Hedgehog!" said Gregory. "No, but I've always wanted to." And, in fact, he
had been thinking of nothing else for the last five minutes.

"You shall have it," said the man. "Baked or stewed?"

"Which is best?" Gregory asked.

"Stewed," said the man. "But if you'd like it baked--Or, I'll tell you.
We'll have one of each. We got two to-day. This shall be a banquet."

The gipsies really were very grateful folk. The boy got wood for them; the
man made their fire--much better than it had ever been made before--and lit
it without any paper, and with only one match.

It was at last arranged that they should all share the same supper,
although the woman should sit with the girls and the boys with the man. And
so they did; and they found the hedgehog very good, especially the baked
one, which had been enclosed in a mould of clay and pushed right into the
middle of the fire. It tasted a little like pork, only more delicate.

"When you invited us to come to supper," Robert said, "you asked what the
time was, and then looked at the sun and said it was nearly five. And it
was--almost exactly. How do you do that?"

"Ah," said the gipsy, "I can't explain. There it is. I know by the sun, but
I can't teach you, because you must live out of doors and never have a
clock, or it's no good."

"And can you tell it when there's no sun?" Robert asked.

"Pretty well," said the man.

"How lucky you are!" said Horace.

"Well, I don't know," said the man. "What about rain? When it's raining
hard, and we're huddling in the van and can't
get any dry sticks for the fire, and our feet are soaked, what are you
doing? Why, you're all snug in your houses, with a real roof over you."

"I'd much rather live in a caravan than a house," said Horace.

The man laughed. "You're a young gent out for a spree," he said. "You don't
count. You wonder at me," he continued, "being able to tell the time by the
skies. But I dare say there's one, at any rate, of you who can find a train
in that thing they call Bradshaw, isn't there?"

"I can," said Robert.

"Well, there you are," said the gipsy. "What's luck? Nothing. Everyone's
got a little. No one's got much."

"Oh, but the millionaires?" said Horace.

"Millionaires!" said the gipsy. "Why, you don't think they're lucky, do you?"

"I always have done so," said Horace.

"Go on!" said the gipsy. "Why, we're luckier than what they are. We've got
enough to eat and drink,--and no one wants more,--and along with it no rent
and taxes, no servants, no tall hats, no offices, no motor-cars, no fear of
thieves. Millionaires have no rest at all. No sitting under a tree by the
fire smoking a pipe."

"And no hedgehogs," said Gregory.

"No--no hedgehogs. Nothing but butcher's meat that costs its weight in
gold. Take my advice, young gents," said the gipsy, "and never envy
anybody."

Meanwhile the others were very happy by the Slowcoach fire. The gipsy
woman, hugging her baby, kept as close to Janet as if she were a spaniel.
Their name was Lee, she said, and they made baskets. They lived at Reading
in the winter and were on the road all the rest of the year. The young boy
was her brother. His name was Keziah. Her husband's name was Jasper. The
baby's was Rhoda.

Hester was very anxious to ask questions about kidnapping, but she did not
quite like to, and was, in fact, silent.

The gipsy woman noticed it after a while, and remarked upon it. "That
little dark one there," she said; "why doesn't she speak?"

Janet said something about Hester being naturally quiet and thoughtful.

"Oh, no," said the woman, "I know what it is: she's frightened of me. She's
heard stories about the gipsies stealing children and staining their faces
with walnut juice; haven't you, dearie?"

Hester admitted it.

"There," said the woman, laughing triumphantly. "But don't be frightened,
dearie," she added. "That's only stories. And even if it ever did happen,
it couldn't again, what with railway trains and telegraphs and telephones
and motor-cars and newspapers. How could we help being found out? Why," she
continued, "so far from stealing children, there was a boy running away
from school once who offered us a pound to let him join our caravan and
stain his face and go with us to Bristol, where he could get on to a ship
as a stowaway, as he called it; but Jasper wouldn't let him. I wanted to;
but Jasper was dead against it. 'No,' he said, 'gipsies have a bad enough
time as it is, without getting into trouble helping boys to run away from
school.' That shows what we are, dearie," she added to Hester, with a
smile.

"And don't you ever tell fortunes?" Hester asked.

"I won't say I've never done that," the gypsy said.

"Won't you tell mine?" Hester asked. "I've got a sixpence."

"Just cross my hand with it," said the woman, "but don't give it to me. I
couldn't take money from any of you."

So Hester, with her heart beating very fast, crossed the gipsy's hand with
the sixpence, and the gipsy held both hers and peered at them very hard
while Janet nursed the baby.

"This," said the gipsy at last, "is a very remarkable hand. I see stories
and people reading them. I see a dark gentleman and a gentleman of middling
colour."

"Yes," said Hester. "Can't you tell me anything more about them?"

"Well," said the gipsy, "I can't, because they are only little boys just
now. But I see a beautiful wedding. White satin. Flowers. Bridesmaids."

The gipsy stopped, and Hester drew her hand back. It was terribly romantic
and exciting.

Before the woman said good night and went to her caravan, Hester took her
sixpence to Kink and asked him to bore a hole in it. And then she threaded
it on a piece of string and tied it round the baby's neck.

The gipsy woman was very grateful. "A beautiful wedding," she said again.
"Such flowers! Music, too."

"Wasn't it wonderful?" Hester said to Janet before they went to sleep.

"What?" Janet asked.

"The gipsy knowing I was fond of writing."

"No," said Janet, "it wasn't wonderful at all. There was a great ink stain
on your finger."



CHAPTER 18

THE ADVENTURE OF THE OLD IRISHWOMAN

When they awoke the next morning the gipsies had gone--nothing remained of
them but the burnt circle on the ground which any encampment makes and a
little rubbish; but at the mouth of the boys' tent lay a bundle of sticks
and two rabbits.

Kink looked at the rabbits with a narrow eye. "Better hurry up and get them
eaten," he said, "or one of those policemen that Master Campbell is so fond
of may be asking awkward questions. And it wouldn't be a bad thing," Kink
added, "to have a good look round and see if there's anything missing."

"Oh, Kink," said Janet, "how horrid you are to be so suspicious! And after
all their gratitude, too!"

"Yes," said Kink; "but gipsies is gipsies. They were gipsies before they
were grateful, and I reckon they'll be gipsies after."

But in spite of his examination he found no signs of any theft.

They were away soon after breakfast, which seemed a little flat at first
after the excitement of last night. But they soon lost that feeling in
hunger. It was a very windy day, with showers now and then; but it was
bracing too, especially on this very high road, hundreds of feet above the
sea-level.

Robert pointed out how straight it was, and told them it was made by the
Romans eighteen hundred years ago, and it ran right through Cirencester
(which they called Corinium) to Speen (which they called Spinae). Its name
was then Ermin Street. And it amused the children to imagine they too were
Romans clanking along this fine highway.

It was after lunch that they came upon an old woman--sitting beside the
road just beyond Tredington. Long before they reached her they heard her
moaning and groaning.

"What is it?" Janet asked.

The old woman moaned and groaned.

"Are you ill?" Janet asked.

The old woman groaned and moaned.

"Kinky," said Janet, "come and see if we can help her."

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