 Chapter 3, Part 1 of Bilby, A Holiday. Never had the gracious eastward face of shots looked more beautiful than it did on the morning of the Lord Chancellor's visit. It glowed as translucent as amber lit by flames. Its two towers were pillars of pale gold. It looked over its slopes and parapets upon a great valley of mist-barred freshness, through which the distant river shone like a snake of light. The southwest facade was still in the shadow, and the ivy hung from it darkly greener than the greenest green. The stained glass windows of the old chapel reflected the sunrise as though lamps were burning inside. Along the terrace, a pensive peacock trailed his sheathed splendors through the dew. Amidst the ivy was a fuss of birds, and presently there was pushed out from amidst the ivy at the foot of the eastward tower a little brownish buff thing that seemed as natural there as a squirrel or rabbit. It was a head, a ruffled human head. It remained still for a moment, contemplating the calm spaciousness of terrace and garden and countryside. Then it emerged further and rotated and surveyed the house above it. Its expression was one of alert caution. Its natural freshness and innocence were a little marred by an enormous transverse smudge. A bar sinister of smut, and the elfin delicacy of the left ear was festooned with a cobweb. Probably a genuine antique. It was the face of Bilby. He was considering the advisability of leaving shunts for good. Presently his decision was made. His hands and shoulders appeared following his head, and then a dusty but undamaged Bilby was running swiftly towards the corner of the shrubbery. He crouched, lest at any moment that pursuing pack of butlers should see him and give tongue. In another moment, he was hidden from the house altogether, and rustling his way through a thicket of budding redondra after those dirty passages, the morning air was wonderfully sweet, but just a triple hungry. Grazing deer saw Bilby fly across the park, stared at him for a time, with great gentle, unintelligent eyes, and went on feeding. They saw him stop ever and again. He was snatching at mushrooms that he devoured forthwith as he sped on. On the edge of the beech woods, he paused and glanced back at shunts. Then his eyes rested for a moment on the clump of trees, through which one saw a scrap of the head gardener's cottage, a bit of the garden wall. A physiognomist might have detected a certain lack of self-confidence in Bilby's eyes, but his spirit was not to be quelled, slowly, joylessly, perhaps, but with a grave determination. He raised his hand in the prehistoric gesture of the hand and face by which youth, since ever there was youth, has asserted the integrity of its soul against established and predominant things. Catch me, said Bilby. Bilby left shunts about half past four in the morning. He went westward because he liked the company of his shadow and was amused at first by its vast length. By half past eight, he had covered ten miles, and he was rather bored by his shadow. He had eaten nine raw mushrooms, two green apples, and a quantity of unripe blackberries. None of these things seemed quite at home in him, and he had discovered himself to be wearing slippers. They were stout carpet slippers, but still they were slippers, and the road was telling on them. At the ninth mile, the left one began to give on the outer seam. He got over a style into a path that ran through the corner of a wood, and there he met a smell of frying bacon that turned his very soul to gastric juice. He stopped short and sniffed the air, and the air itself was sizzling. Oh, crikey, said Bilby, manifestly to the spirit of the world. This is a bit too strong. I wasn't thinking much before. Then he saw something bright and yellow and bulky just over the hedge. From this, it was the sound of frying came. He went to the hedge, making no effort to conceal himself. Outside a great yellow caravan with dainty little windows stood a largest dark woman in a deer stalker hat. A short brown skirt, a large white apron, and spattered ashes, among other things. Frying bacon and potatoes in a frying pan. She was very red in the face, and the frying pan was spitting at her as frying pans do at a timid cook. Quite mechanically, Bilby scrambled through the hedge and drew nearer this divine smell. The woman scrutinized him for a moment, and then blinking and averting her face went on with her cookery. Bilby came quite close to her and remained, noting the bits of potato that swam above in the pan, the jolly curling of the rashes, the dancing of the bubbles, the hemming splash and splutter of the happy fat. If it should ever fall to my lot to be cooked. May I be fried in potatoes and butter. May I be fried with potatoes and good butter made from the milk of the cow. God send I am spared boiling, the prison of the pot, the rattling lid, the evil darkness, the greasy water. I suppose, said the lady prodding with her fork at the bacon, I suppose you call yourself a boy. Yes, Miss, said Bilby. Have you ever fried? I could, Miss. Like this? Better. Just lay hold of this handle, for it's scorching the skin off my face I am. She seemed to thank for a moment and added, entirely. In silence Bilby grasped that exquisite smell by the handle. He took the fork from her hand and put his hungry eager nose over the seething mess. It wasn't only bacon, there were onions. Onions giving it an edge. It cut to the quick of appetite. He would have wept with intensity of his sensations. A voice almost as delicious as the smell came out of the caravan window behind Bilby's head. Judy cried the voice. Here, I mean, it's here I am, said the lady and the deerstocker. Judy, you didn't take my stockings for your own by any chance. The lady and the deerstocker gave way to a delighted horror. Shhh, mavernine, she cried. She was one of that large class of amiable women who are more Irish than they need be. There's a boy here. There was, indeed, an almost obsequiously industrious and obliging boy. An hour later he was no longer a boy, but the boy. And three friendly women were regarding him with a merited approval. He had done the frying, renewed a wanting fire with a remarkable skill and dispatch, re-boiled a neglected kettle in the shortest possible time, laid almost without direction a simple meal very exactly set out the camp stools, and cleaned the frying pan marvelously. Hardly had they taken their portions of that appetizing savouriness. Then he had whipped off with that implement, gone behind the caravan, busied himself there, and returned with the pan, glittering bright, himself with possible brighter, one cheek, indeed, shown with an animated glow. But wasn't there some of the bacon and stuff left? Asked the lady in the deerstocker. I didn't think it was wanted, Miss, said Bilby, so I cleared it up. He met understanding in her eye. He questioned her expression. Maint I wash up for you, Miss? He asked to relieve the tension. He washed up swiftly and cleanly. He had never been able to wash up to Mr. Mergelson's satisfaction before, but now he did everything Mr. Mergelson had ever told him. He asked where to put the things away, and he put them away. Then he asked politely if there was anything else he could do for them. Questioned, he said he liked doing things. You haven't, said the lady in the deerstocker. A taste for cleaning boots? Bilby declared he had. Surely, said a voice that Bilby adored, Tissan Angel from heaven. He had a taste for cleaning boots. This was an extraordinary thing for Bilby to say, but a great change had come to him in the last half hour. He was violently anxious to do things. Any sort of things, several things for a particular person, he was in love. The owner of the beautiful voice had come out of the caravan. She had stood for a moment in the doorway before descending the steps to the ground, and the soul of Bilby had bowed down before her in instant submission. Never had he seen anything so lovely. Her straight, slender body was she than a blue, fair hair. A little tinged with red, poured gloriously back from her broad forehead, and she had the sweetest eyes in the world. One hand lifted her dress from her feet. The other rested on the lentil of the caravan door. She looked at him and smiled. So for two years she looked and smiled with her footlights to the Bilby in mankind. She had smiled now on her entrance out of habit. She took the effect upon Bilby as a foregone conclusion. Then she had looked to make sure that everything was ready before she descended. How good it smells, Judy, she had said. I've had a helper, said the woman who wore spats. That time the blue-eyed lady had smiled at him quite definitely. The third member of the party had appeared unobserved. The irredations of the beautiful lady had obscured her. Bilby discovered her about she was bare-headed, she wore a simple gray dress with a Norfolk jacket, and she had a pretty clear white profile under black hair. She answered to the name of Winnie. The beautiful lady was Madeline. They made little obscure jokes with each other and praised the morning ardently. This is the best place of all, said Madeline. All night, said Winnie, not a single mosquito. None of these three ladies made any attempt to conceal the sincerity of their hunger or their appreciation of Bilby's assistance. How good a thing is appreciation. Here he was doing with joy and pride and eager excellence the very services he had done so badly under the cuffings of Murgleson and Thomas. And now Bilby, having been regarded with approval for some moments in disgust and tantalizing undertones, was called upon to explain himself. Boy, said the lady and the deerstalker, who was evidently the leader and still more evidently the spokeswoman of the party, come here. Yes, Miss, he put down the boot he was cleaning on the caravan's step. In the first place, know by these presents I am a married woman. Yes, Miss, and Miss is not a seemly mode of address for me. No, Miss, I mean Bilby hung for a moment. And by the happiest of accidents, a scrap of his instruction at chance came up in his mind. No, he said, your ladyship, a great light shone on the spokeswoman's face. Not yet, my child, she said. Not yet. He hasn't done his duty by me. I am a simple mom. Bilby was intelligently silent. Say, yes, mom? Yes, mom, said Bilby, and everybody laughed very agreeably. And now, said the lady, taking pleasure in his words, know by these presents, by the by, what is your name? Bilby scarcely hesitated. Thick maltrivers, mom, he said and almost added, the dauntless daredevil of the Diamondfields horse, which was the second title. Dick will do, said the lady, who was called Judy, and added suddenly and very amusingly you may keep the rest. These were the sort of people Bilby liked, the right sort. Well, Dick, we want to know, have you ever been in service? It was sudden, but Bilby was equal to it. Only for a day or two, miss. I mean, mom? Just to be useful. Were you useful? Bilby tried to think whether he had been and could recall nothing but the face of Thomas with the fork hanging from it. I did my best, mom, he said impartially. And all that is over? Yes, mom. And you're at home again and out of employment? Yes, mom. Do you live near here? No, least ways, not very far. With your father. Stepfather, mom, I'm a norfin'. Well, how would you like to come with us for a few days and help with things, seven and six pence a week? Bilby's face was eloquent. Would your stepfather object? Bilby considered. I don't think he would, he said. You'd better go round and ask him. I suppose, yes, he said. And get a few things. Things, mom? Collars and things. You'd needn't bring a great box for such a little while. Yes, mom. He hovered rather undecidedly. Better run along now. Our man and horse will be coming presently. We shan't be able to wait for you long. Bilby assumed a sudden briskness and departed. At the gate of the field he hesitated, almost imperceptibly, and then directed his face to the sabbath stillness of the village. Perplexity corrugated his features. The stepfather's permission presented no difficulties, but it was more difficult about the luggage. A voice called after him. Yes, mom, he said attentive and hopeful. Perhaps, somehow, they wouldn't want luggage. You'll want boots? You'll have to walk by the caravan, you know. You'll want some good stout boots. All right, mom, he said with a sorrowful break in his voice. He waited a few moments, but nothing more came. He went on, very slowly. He had forgotten about the boots. That defeated him. It is hard to be refused admission to paradise for the want of a handbag and a pair of walking boots. Bilby was by no means certain that he was going back to the caravan. He wanted to do so quite painfully, but he'd just look a fool going back without boots and nothing on earth would reconcile him to the idea of looking a fool in the eyes of that beautiful woman in blue. Dick, he whispered to himself despondently, dare devil dick, a more miserable looking face you never set eyes on. It's all up with your little schemes, dick, my boy. You must get a bag, and nothing on earth will get you a bag. He paid little heed to the village through which he wandered. He knew there were no bags there, a chance rather than any volation of his own guided him on a sunny side path that led to the nearly dry bed of a little riverland, and there he sat down on some weedy grass under a group of willows. It was an entire place that needed all the sunshine of the morning to be tolerable. One of those places where stinging nettles take heart and people throw old kettles, broken gallipets, jaded gravel, grass cuttings, rusty rubbish, old boots. For a time, Bilby's eyes rested on the objects with an entire lack of interest. Then he was reminded of his not so very remote childhood when he had found an old boot and made it into a castle. Presently he got up and walked across to the rubbish heap and surveyed its treasures with a quickened intelligence. He picked up a widowed boot and weighed it in his hand. He dropped it abruptly, turned about, and hurried back into the village street. He had ideas, two ideas, one for the luggage and one for the boots. If only he could manage it. Hope beat his great opinions in the heart of Bilby. Sunday the shops were shut. Yes, that was a fresh obstacle. He had forgotten that. The public house stood bashfully open, the shy, uninviting openness of Sunday morning before closing time. But public houses alas, at all hours were forbidden to little boys. And besides, he wasn't likely to get what he wanted in a public house. He wanted a shop, a general shop. And here before him was the general shop and its door ajar. His desire carried him over the threshold. The sabbatical shutters made the place dark and cool and the smell of bacon and cheese and chandeliers. The very spirit of grocery, calm and unhurried, was cool and sabbatical, too. As if it sat there for the day in its best clothes. Any pleasant woman was talking over the counter to a thin and worried one who carried a bundle. Their intercourse had a flavor of emergency and they both stopped abruptly at the appearance of Bilby. His desire, his craving was now so great that it had altogether subdued the natural weariness of his appearance. He looked meek, he looked good. He was swimming in propitiation and tender with respect. He produced an effect of being much smaller. He had got nice eyes. His movements were refined and his manners perfect. Not doing business today, my boy, said the pleasant woman. Oh, please him, he said from his heart. Sunday, you know. Oh, please him, if you could just give me a knold sheet of paper, please. What for, asked the pleasant woman, just to wrap something up him. She reflected and natural goodness had its way with her. A nice big bit, said the woman. Please him, would you like it brown? Oh, please him. And you got some string? Only cottony stuff, said Bilby, disemboweling a trouser pocket. With knots, but I had to say I can manage. You'd better have a bit of good string with it, my dear, said the pleasant woman, whose generosity was now fairly on the run. Then you can do your parcel up and nice and tidy. The white horse was already in the shafts of the caravan. And William, a deaf and clumsy man of uncertain age and a vast, sharp nosiness, was lifting in the basket of breakfast gear and grumbling in undertones at the wickedness and unfairness of traveling on Sunday when Bilby returned to gladden the three waiting women. Ah, said the inconspicuous lady. I knew he'd come. Look at his poor little precious parcel, said the actress. Regarded as luggage, it was rather pitiful. A knobby, brown paper parcel about the size to be perfectly frank of a tin can. Two old boots and some grass very carefully folded and tied up and carried gingerly. But the lady and the deerstocker began and then paused. Dick, she said, as he came nearer. Where's your boots? Oh, please, mom, said the dauntless one. They was away being mended. My stepfather thought, perhaps, you wouldn't mind if I didn't have boots. He said perhaps I might be able to get some more boots out of my salary. The lady and the deerstocker looked alarmingly uncertain and Bilby controlled infinite distresses. Haven't you got a mother, Dick? Asked the beautiful voice suddenly, its owner abounded in such spasmodic curiosities. She, last year, matricide is a painful business at any time. And just as you see, in spite of every effort you have made, the jolliest lark in the world slipping out over your reach and the sweet voice so sorry for him, so sorry, Bilby suddenly veiled his face with his elbow and gave way to honorable tears. A simultaneous desire to make him happy helped him to forget his loss. Possessed three women. That'll be alright, Dick, said the lady and the deerstocker, patting his shoulder. We'll get you some boots tomorrow, and today you must sit up beside William and spare your feet. You'll have to go to the ends with him. It's wonderful, the elasticity of youth, said the inconspicuous lady five minutes later. To see that boy now, you'll never imagine he had a sorrow in the world. Now get up there, said the lady who was the leader. We shall walk across the fields and join you later. You understand where you are to wait for us, William. She came nearer and shouted, You understand, William? William nodded ambiguously. Into full, he said, The lady's departed. You'll be alright, Dick, cried the actress kindly. He sat up where he had been put, to look as orphaned Dick as possible after all that had occurred. End of chapter 3 Part 1 Chapter 3 B.L.B., A Holiday This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Rita Butros. B.L.B., A Holiday by H.G. Wells Chapter 3 The Wanderers Part 2 Sub Chapter 7 Do you know the wind on the heath? Have you lived the gypsy life? Have you spoken, wanderers yourselves, with Romani chi and Romani chal on the windswept moors at home or abroad? Have you tramped the broad highways and, at close of day, pitched your tent near a running stream and cooked your supper by starlight over a fire of pinewood? Do you know the dreamless sleep of the wanderer at peace with himself and all the world? For most of us, the answer to these questions of the amateur camping club is in the negative. Yet, every year, the call of the road, the Barovian glamour draws away a certain small number of the imaginative from the grosser comforts of a complex civilization, takes them out into tents and caravans and intimate communion with nature. And, incidentally, with various ingenious appliances designed to meet the needs of cooking in a breeze, it is an adventure to which high spirits and great expectations must be brought. It is an experience in proximity which few friendships survive and, altogether, very great fun. The life of breezy freedom resolves itself in practice chiefly into washing up and an anxious search for permission to camp. One learns how rich and fruitful our world can be in bystanders and how easy it is to forget essential groceries. The heart of the joy of it lies in its perfect detachment. There you are in the morning sunlight under the trees that overhang the road, going wither you will. Everything you need, you have. Your van creaks along at your side. You are outside inns, outside houses, a home, a community, an imperium in imperial. At any moment you may draw out of the traffic upon the wayside grass and say, here, until the owner catches us at it, is home. At any time, subject to the complacence of William and your being able to find him, you may in span and go onward. The world is all before you. You taste the complete yet leisurely insouciance of the snail. And two of those three ladies had other satisfactions to supplement their pleasures. They both adored Madeline Phillips. She was not only perfectly sweet and lovely, but she was known to be so. She had that most potent charm for women, prestige. They had got her all to themselves. They could show now how false is the old idea that there is no friendship or conversation among women. They were full of wit and pretty things for one another and snatches of song in between. And they were free too from their men folk. They were doing without them. Dr. Bowles, the husband of the lady in the deer stalker was away in Ireland. And Mr. Gage, the lord of the inconspicuous woman was golfing at sandwich. And Madeline Phillips as it was understood was only too glad to shake herself free from the crowd of admirers that hovered about her like wasps about honey. Yet after three days each one had thoughts about the need of helpfulness and more particularly about washing up that were better left unspoken, that were indeed conspicuously unspoken beneath their merry give and take, like a black river flowing beneath a bridge of ivory. And each of them had a curious feeling in the midst of all this fresh free behavior as though the others were not listening sufficiently, as though something of the effect of them was being wasted. Madeline's smiles became rarer at times she was almost impassive, and Judy preserved nearly all her wit and verbal fireworks for the times when they passed through villages. Mrs. Gage was less visibly affected. She had thoughts of writing a book about it all, telling in the gayest, most provocative way, full of the quietest, quaintest humor just how jolly they had been. Menfolk would read it. This kept a little thin smile upon her lips. As an audience William was tough stuff. He pretended deafness. He never looked. He did not want to look. He seemed always to be holding his nose in front of his face to prevent his observation as men prey into their hats at church. But once Judy Bowles overheard a phrase or so in his private soliloquy, pack a woman, William was saying, dreaded petticoats, dang'em. For a fact, he just fell short of saying it to them. But his manner said it. You begin to see how acceptable an addition was young Bilby to this company. He was not only helpful, immensely helpful in things material, a vigorous and at first a careful washer up, an energetic boot polisher, a most serviceable cleaner and tidier of things. But he was also able to leave and support. Undisguisedly, he thought the caravan the loveliest thing going, and its three mistresses the most wonderful of people. His alert eyes followed them about full of an unstinted admiration and interest. He pricked his ears when Judy opened her mouth. He handed things to Mrs. Gage. He made no secret about Madeline. When she spoke to him, he lost his breath. He reddened and was embarrassed. They went across the fields saying that he was the luckiest of finds. It was fortunate his people had been so ready to spare him. Judy said boys were a race very cruelly maligned. See how willing he was. Mrs. Gage said there was something elfin about Bilby's little face. Madeline smiled at the thought of artlessness. She knew quite clearly that he'd die for her. Sub Chapter 8 There was a little pause as the ladies moved away. Then Williams spat and spoke in a note of irrational bitterness. Brasted, Voolery, said William, and then loudly and fiercely, came up you'd runt you. At these words the white horse started into a convulsive roller redistribution of its feet. The caravans strained and quivered into motion and Bilby's wanderings as a caravanner began. For a time Williams spoke no more and Bilby scarcely regarded him. The light of strange fortunes and deep enthusiasm was in Bilby's eyes. One thing, said William, they don't have the sense to lock anything up, whatever. Bilby's attention was recalled to the existence of his companion. William's face was one of those faces that give one at first the impression of a solitary and very conceited nose. The other features are entirely subordinated to that salient effect. One sees them later. His eyes were small and uneven. His mouth apparently toothless, thin-lipped and crumpled with the upper lip falling over the other in a manner suggestive of a meager firmness mixed with appetite. When he spoke he made a faint slobbering sound. Every think, he said, behind there. He became confidential. I've been in there. I larked about with their things. They got some chocolate, he said lusciously. He did not seem to expect any reply from Bilby. We're going far before we meet him, asked Bilby. William's deafness became apparent. His mind was preoccupied by other ideas. One wicked eye came close to Bilby's face. We're going to have a bit of chocolate, he said, in a wet, desirous voice. He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the door. You'll get it, said William, with reassuring nods and the mouth much pursed and very oblique. Bilby shook his head. It's in a little drawer under her place where she sleeps. Bilby's head shake became more emphatic. Yes, I tell you, said William. No, said Bilby. Chocolate, I tell you, said William, and ran the tongue of appetite round the rim of his toothless mouth. He was thinking of a large lump of it. Go on, said William. Nobody won't see you. Go it, said William. You're afraid, said William. Here I'll go, said William, losing self-control. You just owed these reins. Bilby took the reins. William got out and opened the door of the caravan. Then Bilby realized his moral responsibility and leaving and touched William firmly by his baggy nether garments. They were elderly garments much sat upon. Don't be a fool, said William, struggling. League on my slack. Something partially gave way and William's head came round to deal with Bilby. What you mean, pull in my clothes, orf me? That, he investigated, took me an hour to sew up. Steal, shouted Bilby into the ear of William. Nobody asked you to steal, nor you either, said Bilby. The caravan bumped heavily against a low-garden wall, skidded a little, and came to rest. William sat down suddenly. The white horse, after a period of confusion with its legs, tried the flavor of some overhanging lilac branches and was content. Give me those reins, said William. You be the breastedest young wool. Sit near, said William presently, chew on our teeth when we might be eaten chocolate. I ain't got no use for you, said William, bloat if I have. Then the thought of his injuries returned to him. I'd make you sew him up yourself, darned if I won't, only you go running the breasted needle into the ears by the feel of it. Mornin' an hour. God dope done tool. All I got. I'll give you something new, little bees, before I done with ya. I wouldn't steal or chocolates, said young Bilby, not if I was starving. Ay, shouted William. Steal, shouted Bilby. I'll steal ye, for I done with ye, said William, tearing my clothes for me. Y'all, the runt, we don't want you to stop and listen, come up, I tell ya. Sub Chapter 8 They found the ladies rather it seemed by accident than design, waiting upon a sandy common rich with purple heather, and bordered by woods of fur and spruce. They had been waiting some time, and it was clear that the sight of the yellow caravan relieved an accumulated anxiety. Bilby rejoiced to see them. His soul glowed with the pride of chocolate-resisted and William overcome. He resolved to distinguish himself over the preparation of the mid-day meal. It was a pleasant little island of green they chose for their mid-day pitch, a little patch of emerald turf amidst the purple, a patch already doomed to removal, as a pile of rolled-up turfs witnessed. This pile and a little bank of heather and bramble promised shelter from the breeze and down the hill a hundred yards away was a spring and a built-up pool. This spot lay perhaps fifty yards away from the high road, and one reached it along the ruddy track which had been made by the turf cutters. And overhead was the glorious sky of an English summer, with great clouds like sunlit white-sailed ships, the constable sky. The white horse was hobbled and turned out to pasture among the heather, and William was sent off to get congenial provender at the nearest public house. William shouted Mrs. Bowles as he departed, shouting confidentially into his ear, and said, hey, said William, mend your clothes. Yah, he did that, said William viciously, with a movement of self-protection, and so went. Nobody watched him go. Almost sternly they set to work upon the luncheon preparation as William receded. William, Mrs. Bowles remarked as she bustled with the patent cooker, putting it up and collapsed. William takes offence. Sometimes I think he takes offence almost too often. Did you have any difficulty with him, Dick? It wasn't anything, Miss, said Bilby meekly. Bilby was wonderful with the fire-lighting, and except that he cracked a plate in warming it, quite admirable as a cook. He burnt his fingers twice, and liked doing it. He ate his portion of distinctive modesty on the other side of the caravan, and he washed up, as Mr. Merkelson had always instructed him to do. Mrs. Bowles showed him how to clean knives and forks by sticking them into the turf. A little to his surprise, these ladies lit and smoked cigarettes. They sat about and talked perplexingly. Clever stuff. Then he had to get water from the neighboring building and boil the kettle for an early tea. Madeleine produced a charmingly bound little book and read in it. The other two profess themselves anxious for the view from a neighboring hill. They produced their sensible spiked walking sticks, such as one does not see in England. They seemed full of energy. You go, Madeleine had said, while I and Dick stay here enough today. So Bealby, happy to the pitch of ecstasy, first explored the wonderful interior of the caravan. There was a dresser, a stove, let down chairs and tables and all manner of things, and then nursed the kettle to the singing stage on the patent cooker, while the beautiful lady reclined close at hand on a rug. Dick she said, he had forgotten who was Dick. Dick, he remembered his personality with a start. Yes, miss, he knelt up with a handful of twigs in his hand and regarded her. Well, Dick, she said. He remained in flush adoration. There was a little pause and the lady smiled at him, an unaffected smile. What are you going to be, Dick, when you grow up? I don't know, miss, I've wondered. What would you be? Something abroad, something so that you could see things. A soldier or a sailor, miss? A sailor sees nothing but the sea. I'd rather be a sailor than a common soldier, miss. You'd like to be an officer? Yes, miss, only one of my very best friends is an officer. She said, a little irreverently it seemed to be'll be. I'd be an officer like a shot, said be'll be, if I add or for chance, miss. Officers nowadays, she said, have to be very brave, able men. I know, miss, said be'll be modestly. The fire required attention for a little while. The lady turned over on her elbow. What do you think you are likely to be, Dick, she asked. He didn't know. What sort of man is your stepfather? Be'll be looked at her. He isn't much, he said. What is he? Be'll be hadn't the slightest intention of being the son of a gardener. He's a law-writer. What in that village? He's as to stay there for his health, miss, he said. Every summer his health is very pre-pre-cocious, miss. He fed his fire with a few judiciously administered twigs. What was your own father, Dick? With that, she opened a secret door in Be'll be's imagination. All stepchildren have those dreams. With him, they were so frequent and vivid that they had long since become a kind of second truth. He colored a little and answered with scarcely an interval for reflection. He passed as mal-traverse, he said. Wasn't that his name? I don't rightly know, miss. There was always something kept for me. My mother used to say, Artie, she used to say, there's things that someday you must know, things that concern you. Things about your father. But poor as we are now in struggling, not yet. Someday you shall know truly who you are. That was how she said it, miss. And she died before she told you? He had almost forgotten that he had killed his mother in a dream. Yes, miss, he said. She smiled at him and something in her smile made him blush hotly. For a moment he could have believed she understood. And indeed she did understand and it amused her to find this boy doing what she herself had done at times, what indeed she felt it was still in her to do. She felt that most delicate over-imaginative person for another. But her next question dispelled his doubt of her, though it left him red and hot. She asked it with a convincing simplicity. Have you any idea, Dick? Have you any guess or suspicion? I mean who it is you really are? I wish I had, miss, he said. I suppose it doesn't matter really, but one can't help wondering. How often he had wondered in his lonely wanderings through that dear city of daydreams where all the people one knows look out of windows as one passes and the roads are paved with pride. How often had he decided and changed and decided again. Now suddenly a realization of intrusion shattered this conversation. A third person stood over the little encampment smiling mysteriously and waving a clique in a slow, hierotic manner through the air. De licious little corn said the newcomer in tones of benediction. He met their inquiring eyes with a luxurious smile. Licious, he said, and remained swaying insecurely and failing to express some imperfectly apprehended deep meaning by short peculiar movements of the clique. He was obviously a golfer astray from some adjacent course and he had lunched. Mighty join you, he said, and then very distinctly in a full large voice Miss Madeline Phillips. There are the penalties of a public and popular life. He's drunk, the lady whispered. Get him to go away, Dick. I can't endure drunken men. She stood up and Bilby stood up. He advanced in front of her slowly with his nose in the air extraordinarily like a small terrier smelling at a strange dog. I said, Mighty join you, the golfer repeated. His voice was richly excessive. He was a big heavy man with a short cropped mustache, a great deal of neck and doulap and a solemn expression. Up there in Jesus myself, he remarked. He tried to indicate himself by waving his hand towards himself but finally abandoned the attempt as impossible. My good social tradition, he said. Bilby had a disconcerting sense of retreating foot steps behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw Miss Phillips standing at the foot of the steps up to the fastnesses of the caravan. Dick, she cried with a sharp note of alarming in her voice, get rid of that man. A moment after Bilby heard the door shut and a sound of a key in its lock. He concealed his true feelings by putting his arms akimbo, sticking his legs wider apart and contemplating the task before him with his head a little on one side. He was upheld by the thought that the yellow caravan had a window looking upon him. The newcomer seemed to consider the ceremony of introduction completed. I don't care or golf, he said, almost vain gloriously. He waved his clique to express his preference. Nature, he said, with a satisfaction that bordered on fatuity. He prepared to come down from the little turfy crest on which he stood to the encampment. Air, said Bilby, this is private. The golfer indicated by solemn movements of the clique that this was understood but that other considerations overrode it. You, you got to go, cried Bilby, in a breathless squeak. You'll get out of here. The golfer waved an arm as who should say you do not understand but I forgive you and continue to advance higher. And then, Bilby, at the end of his tact commenced hostilities. He did so because he felt he had to do something and he did not know what else to do. One nothing but friendly conversation such as customary will of appeal, the golfer was saying, and then a large fragment of turf hit him in the neck, burst all about him and stopped him abruptly. He was too astonished for words. He was not only greatly surprised but he chose to appear even more surprised than he was. In spite of the brown-black mold upon his cheek and brow and a slight displacement of his cap, he achieved a sort of dignity. He came slowly to a focus upon Bilby who stood by the turf pile grasping a second missile. The clique was extended sceptor-wise. Replace the divot. You go off, said Bilby. I'll chuck it if you don't. I tell you fair. Replace the divot, roared the golfer again in a voice of extraordinary power. You, you go, said Bilby. Am I to ask you? Third time, respect. Roars, replace the divot. It struck him fully in the face. He seemed to emerge through the mold. He was blinking but still dignified. Thou was intentional, he said. He seemed to gather himself together. Then suddenly and with a surprising nimbleness he discharged himself at Bilby. He came with astonishing swiftness. He got within a foot of him. Well, it was for Bilby that he had learned to dodge the village playground. He went down under the golfer's arm and away round the end of the stack. And the golfer with his force spent in concussion remained for a time clinging to the turf pile and apparently trying to remember how he got there. Then he was reminded of recent occurrences by a shrill small voice from the other side of the stack. You go away, said the voice. Can't you see you're annoying a lady? You go away. Naish, noy, anyone? Peace, well, world. But this was subterfuge. He meant to catch that boy. Suddenly and rather brilliantly he turned the flank of the turf pile and only a couple of loose turfs at the foot of the heap upset his calculations. He found himself on all fours on ground from which it was difficult to rise. But he did not lose heart. Boy, yep, scow, he said and became for a second rush a nimble quadruped. Again he got quite astonishingly near to Bilby and then in an instant was on his feet and running across the encampment after him. He succeeded in kicking over the kettle and the patent cooker without any injury to himself or loss of pace and succumbed only to the sharp turn behind the end of the caravan and the steps. He hadn't somehow thought of the steps. So he went down rather heavily. But now the spirit of a fine man was roused. Regardless of the scream from inside that had followed his collapse he was up and in pursuit almost instantly. Bilby only escaped the swiftness of his rush by jumping the shafts and going away across the front of the caravan to the turf pile again. The golfer tried to jump the shafts too but he was not equal to that. He did in a manner jump but it was almost as much diving as jumping and there was something in it almost like the curved vetting of a great horse. When Bilby turned at the crash the golfer was already on all fours again and trying very busily to crawl out between the shaft and the front wheel. He would have been more successful in doing this if he had not begun by putting his arm through the wheel. As it was he was trying to do too much. He was trying to crawl out at two points at once and getting very rapidly annoyed the caravan was shifting slowly forward. It was manifest to Bilby that getting this man to go was likely to be a much more lengthy business than he had supposed. He surveyed the situation for a moment and then realizing the entanglement of his opponent he seized a camp stool by one leg went round by the steps and attacked the prostrate enemy from the rear with effectual conclusive fury. He hammered. Steady on young man said a voice and he was seized from behind. He turned to discover himself in the grip of a second golfer. Another Bilby fought in a fury of fear. He bit an arm rather too tweety to feel much and got in a couple of shinners alas that they were only slipper shinners before he was overpowered. A cuffed, crumpled, disarmed and panting Bilby found himself watching the careful extraction of the first golfer from the front wheel. Two friends assisted that gentleman with a reproachful gentleness and his repeated statements that he was all right seemed to reassure them greatly. Altogether there were now four golfers in the field counting the pioneer. He was after this devil of a boy said the one who held Bilby. Yes, but how did he get here ask the man who was gripping Bilby? Feel better now? said the third helping the first comer to his uncertain feet. Let me have your clique, oh, man you won't want your clique. Across the heather lifting their heads a little came Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Gage returning from their walk. They were wondering whoever their visitors could be. And then like music after a dispute came Madeleine Phillips a beautiful blue-robed thing coming slowly with a kind of wonder on her face out of the caravan and down the steps. Instinctively everybody turned to her. The drunkard with a gesture released himself from his supporter and stood erect. His cap was replaced upon him obliquely. His clique had been secured. I heard a noise said Madeleine lifting her pretty chin and speaking in her sweetest tones. She looked her inquiries. She surveyed the three sober men with a practiced eye. She chose the tallest a fair serious looking young man standing conveniently at the drunkard's elbow. Will you please take your friend indicating the offender with her beautiful white hand. Simly he said in a slightly subdued voice Simly quarreling. Everybody tried for a moment to understand him. Look here old man you've got no business here said the fair young man you'd better come back to the clubhouse. The drunken man stuck to his statement. Simly quarreling he said a little louder. Simly said a little bright-eyed man with a very cheerful yellow vest. I think he's apologizing I hope so. The drunken man nodded his head that among other matters. The tall young man took his arm but he insisted on his point. Simly quarreling he said with emphasis if done want me to quarre. No tome. Not at. Not a tome. Orny way saying not tome. No wish true. No wish tall. Well then you see you'd better come away. I ask you are you a tome? Miss Pips? He appealed to Miss Phillips. If you'd answer him said the tall young man. No sir she said with great dignity and the pretty chin higher than ever I am not at home. Nothing more to say than said the drunken man and with a sudden stoicism he turned away. Come he said submitting to support. Simly orny arf nun quarre he said generally and permitted himself to be led off. Orny friendly quarre. For some time he was audible as he receded explaining in a rather condescending voice the extreme social correctness of his behaviour. Just for a moment or so there was a slight tussle due to his desire to return and leave cards. He was afterwards seen to be distributing a small handful of visiting cards amidst the heather with his free arm rather in the manner of a paper chase but much more gracefully. Then decently and in order he was taken out of sight. Sub Chapter 10 Bilby had been un ostentatiously released by his captor as soon as Miss Phillips appeared and the two remaining golfers now addressed themselves to the three ladies in regret and explanation. The man who had held Bilby was an aquiline grey-clad person with a cascade moustache and wrinkled eyes and for some obscure reason he seemed to be amused. The little man in the yellow vest however was quite earnest and serious enough to make up for him. He was one of those little fresh-coloured men whose faces stick forward openly. He had open projecting eyes and open mouth his cheeks were frank to the pitch of ostentation. His cap was thrust back from his exceptionally open head. He had a chest and a stomach. There too he held out. He would have held out anything. His legs leaned forward from the feet. It was evidently impossible for a man of his nature to be anything but clean-shaved. Our fault entirely he said ought to have looked after him can't say how sorry and ashamed we are. Can't say how sorry we are to cause you any inconvenience. Of course said Mrs. Bowles our boy servant ought not to have pelted him. He didn't exactly pelt him dear said Madeline. Well anyhow our friend ought not to have been off his chain. It was our affair to look after him and we didn't. You see the open young man went on with the air of lucid explanation he's our worst player and he got round in a hundred and twenty-seven and beat somebody and it's upset him. It's not a bit of good disguising that we've been letting him drink we have. To begin with we encouraged him. We oughtn't to have let him go but he thought a walk alone might do him good and some of us were a bit off him fed up rather. You see he'd been singing on singing. He went on to propitiations anything the club can do to show how we regret if you would like to pitch later on in our rough beyond the pine woods you'd find it safe and secluded custodian most civil man get you water or anything you wanted especially after all that has happened Bilby took no further part in these concluding weaknesses. He had a curious feeling in his mind that perhaps he had not managed this affair quite so well as he might have done he ought to have been more tactful like, more persuasive he was a fool to have started chucking well well he picked up the overturned kettle and went off down the hill to get water what had she thought of him and this time one can at least boil kettles sub chapter 11 one consequence of this little incident of the rejoicing golfer was that the three ladies were no longer content to dismiss William and Bilby at nightfall and sleep unprotected in the caravan and this time their pitch was a lonely one with only the golf club house within call were inclined even to distrust the golf club so it was decided to his great satisfaction that Bilby should have a certain sleeping sack Mrs. Bowles had brought with her and that he should sleep therein between the wheels this sleeping sack was to have been a great feature of the expedition but when it came to the test Judy could not use it she had not anticipated that feeling of extreme publicity the open air gives one at first it was like having all the world in one's bedroom every night she had relapsed into the caravan Bilby did not mind what they did with him so long as it meant sleeping he had had a long day of it he undressed sketchily and wriggled into the nice woolly bag and lay for a moment listening to the soft bumpings that were going on overhead she was there he had the instinctive confidence of our sex in women and here were three of them he had a vague idea of getting out of his bag again and kissing the underside of the van that held this dear beautiful creature he didn't such a lot of things had happened that day and the day before he had been going without intermission now for endless hours he thought of trees roads dew wet grass frying pans pursuing packs of gigantic butlers hopelessly at fault no doubt they were hunting now chinks and crannies tackless missiles flying bursting missiles it was vain to recall he stared for a few seconds through the wheel spokes at the dancing crackling fire of pine cones which had been his last duty to replenish stared and blinked much as a little dog might do and then he had slipped away altogether into the world of dreams sub-chapter 12 in the morning he was extraordinarily hard to wake is it after sleeping all day he'd be cried Judy Bowles who was always at her most Irish time end of Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Bill B. A Holiday this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Rita Butros Bill B. A Holiday by H. G. Wells Chapter 4 The Unobtrusive Parting Part 1 sub-chapter 1 Monday was a happy day for Bill B. The caravan did 17 miles and came to rest at last in a sloping field outside a cheerful little village set about a green on which was a long tent professing to be a theatre at the first stopping place that possessed a general shop Mrs. Bowles bought Bill B. a pair of boots then she had a bright idea got any pocket money dick she asked she gave him half a crown that is to say she gave him 2 shillings and 6 pence or 5 6 pence or 30 pennies according as you choose to look at it in one large undivided shining coin even if he had not been in love here surely was incentive to a generous nature to help and do distinguished services he dashed about doing things the little accident on Sunday had warned him to be careful of the plates and the only flaw upon a perfect day's service was the dropping of an egg on its way to the frying pan for supper it remained where it fell and there presently he gave it a quiet burial there was nothing else to be done with it all day long at intervals Miss Phillips smiled at him and made him do little services for her and in the evening after the custom of her great profession when it keeps holiday she insisted on going to the play she said it would be the loveliest fun she went with Mrs. Bowles because Mrs. Gage wanted to sit quietly in the caravan and write down a few little things while they were still fresh in her mind and it wasn't in the part of Madeleine Phillips not to insist that both William and Bilby must go to she gave them each a shilling though the prices were six pence three pence two pence and a penny and Bilby saw his first real play it was called Brothers in Blood or The Gentleman Ranker there was a poster which was only very slightly justified by the performance of a man in khaki with a bandaged head proposing to sell his life dearly over a fallen comrade one went to the play through an open and damaged field gate and a cross trampled turf outside the tent were two paraffin flares illuminating the poster and a small cluster of the impecunious young within on grass that was worn and bleached were benches, a gathering audience a piano played by an offhand lady and a drop scene displaying the Grand Canal Venice the Grand Canal was infested by a crowded multitude of zealous and excessive reflections of the palaces above by peculiar crescent black boats floating entirely out of water and having no reflections at all the offhand lady gave a broad impression of the wedding march in Lowengren and the back seats assisted by a sort of gastric vocalization called humming and by whistling between the teeth Madeleine Phillips evidently found it tremendous fun even before the curtain rose and then illusion the scenery was ridiculous it waved about the actors and actresses were surely the most pitiful of their tribe and every invention in the play impossible but the imagination of Bilby like the loving kindness of God made no difficulties it rose and met and embraced and gave life all these things it was a confused story in the play everybody was more or less somebody else all the way through and it got more confused in Bilby's mind but it was clear from the outset that there was vile work of foot nets spread and sweet simple people wronged and never were sweet and simple people quite so sweet and simple a brother who was weak and wicked and the rightful brother who was vindictively almost viciously good and there was an ingrained villain who was a baronet a man who wore a frock coat and a silk hat and carried gloves and a stick in every scene and upon all occasions that sort of man he looked as scant always there was a dear simple girl with a vast sweet smile who was loved according to their natures by the wrongful and the rightful brother and a large wicked red clad lip-biting woman whose passions made the crazy little stage quiver there was a comic butler very different stuff from old Merkelson who wore an evening coat and plaid trousers and nearly choked Bilby why weren't all butlers like that? funny and there were constant denunciations always there were denunciations going on or denunciations impending that took Bilby particularly never surely in all the world were bad people so steadily and thoroughly scolded and told what everybody hissed them Bilby hissed them and when they were told what they thought and yet they kept on with their wickedness to the very curtain they retired a scant to the end foiled but pursuing a time will come they said there was a moment in the distresses of the heroine when Bilby dashed aside a tear and then at last most wonderfully it all came right the company lined up and hoped that Bilby was satisfied Bilby wished he had more hands his heart seemed to fill his body oh prime prime and out he came into the sympathetic night but he was no longer a trivial Bilby his soul was purged he was a strong and silent man ready to explode into generous repartee or nerve himself for high endeavor he slipped off in the opposite direction from the caravan because he wanted to be alone for a time and feel he did not want to jar upon a sphere of glorious illusion that had blown up in his mind like a bubble he was quite sure that he had been wronged not to be wronged is to forego the first privilege of goodness he had been deeply wronged by a plot all those butlers were in the plot or why should they have chased him he was much older than he really was it had been kept from him and in truth he was a rightful heir Earl Shantz he whispered and indeed why not and Madeleine too had been wronged she had been reduced to wander in this uncomfortable caravan this gypsy queen she had been brought to it by villains the same villains who had wronged Bilby out he went into the night the kindly consenting summer night where there was nothing to be seen or heard that will contradict these delicious wonderful persuasions he was so full of these dreams that he strayed far away along the dark country lanes and had at last the utmost difficulty in finding his way back to the caravan and when ultimately he got back after hours and hours of heroic existence it did not even seem that they had missed him it did not seem that he had been away half an hour sub chapter 2 Tuesday was not so happy a day for Bilby as Monday it's shadows began when Mrs. Bowles asked him in a friendly tone when it was clean color day he was unready with his answer and don't you ever use a hair brush dick she asked I'm sure now there's one in your parcel I do use it sometimes mom he admitted and I've never detected you with a toothbrush yet though that perhaps is extreme and dick soap I think you'd better be letting me give you a break of soap I'd be very much obliged mom I hardly dare hint dick at a queen handkerchief such things are known if you wouldn't mind when I've got the breakfast things done mom the thing worried him all through breakfast he had not expected personalities for Mrs. Bowles more particularly personalities of this kind he felt he had to think hard he affected modesty after he had cleared away breakfast and carried off his little bundle to a point in the stream which was masked from the encampment by Willows with him he also brought that cake of soap he began by washing his handkerchief which was bad policy because that left him no dry towel but his jacket he ought he perceived to have secured a dish cloth or a newspaper this he must remember on the next occasion he did over his hands and the more exposed parts of his face with soap and jacket then he took off and examined his collar it certainly was pretty bad why cried Mrs. Bowles when he returned that's still the same collar they all seem to have got crumpled mum said bilby they all as dirty I had some blacking in my parcel said bilby and it got loose mum I'll have to get another collar when we come to a shop it was a financial sacrifice but it was the only way and when they came to the shop bilby secured a very nice collar indeed high with pointed turn down corners so that it cut his neck all round jabbed him under the chin gave him a proud upcast carriage of the head that led to his treading upon and very completely destroying a stray plate while preparing lunch but it was more of a man's collar he felt than anything he had ever worn before and it cost six pence half penny six D and a half I should have mentioned that while washing up the breakfast things he already broken the handle off one of the breakfast cups both these accidents deepened the cloud upon his day and then there was the trouble of William William having meditated upon the differences between them for a day had now invented an activity as bilby sat beside him behind the white horse he was suddenly and frightfully pinched and wanted to yell chocolate said William through his teeth and very very savagely now then after William had done that twice bilby preferred to walk beside the caravan there upon William whipped up the white horse and broke records and made all the crockery sing together and forced the pace until he was spoken to by Mrs. Bowles it was upon a bilby thus depressed and worried that the rumor of impending menfolk came it began after the party had stopped for letters at a village post office there were not only letters but a telegram that Mrs. Bowles read with her spats far apart and her head on one side you'd like to know about it she said waggishly to Miss Phillips and you just shant went into her letters you've got some news said Mrs. Gage I have that said Mrs. Bowles and not a word more could they get from her I'll keep my news no longer said Mrs. Bowles lighting her cigarette after lunch as bilby hovered about clearing away the banana skins and such like vestiges of dessert tomorrow night as ever is if so be we get to Winthrop Barry there'll be men among us but Tom's not coming said Mrs. Gage he asked him to tell me to tell you and you've kept it these two hours Judy for your own good and peace of mind but now the mother is out come they will your man and my man pretending to a pity because they can't do without us but like the self-indulgent monsters they are they must need stop at some grand hotel red lake he calls it the royal on the hill above Winthrop Sutbury the royal the very name describes it can't you see the lounge girls with its white cane chairs and saddle-backs no other hotel it seems is good enough for them and we if you please are asked to go in and have the words of decency and let the caravan rest for a bit Tim promised me I should run wild as long as I chose said Mrs. Gage looking anything but wild there after thinking we've had enough of it said Mrs. Bowles it sounds like that sure I'd go on like this forever said Judy tis the man and the house and all of it that oppresses me vans for women not go to Winthrop Sutbury said Madeleine the first word of sense billby had heard ah said Mrs. Bowles archly who knows but what there'll be a man for you some sort of man anyhow billby thought that a most improper remark I want no man ah why do you say ah like that because I mean ah like that meaning just that Miss Phillips eyed Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Bowles eyed Miss Phillips Judy she said you've got something up your sleeve where it's perfectly comfortable said Mrs. Bowles and then quite maddeningly she remarked will you be after washing up presently Dick and looked at him with a roguish quiet over her cigarette it was necessary to disabuse her mind at once of the idea that he had been listening he took up the last few plates and went off to the washing place by the stream all the rest of that conversation had to be lost except that as he came back for the Hudson's soap he heard Miss Phillips say keep your old man I'll just console myself with Dick my dears making such a mystery to which Mrs. Bowles replied darkly she little knows a kind of consolation was to be got from that but what was it she little knew sub chapter 3 the men folk when they came were nothing so terrific to the site as Bilby had expected and thank heaven there were only two of them and each assigned something he perceived was said about someone else he couldn't quite catch what but if there was to have been someone else at any rate there now wasn't Professor Bowles was animated and Mr. Gage was gracefully cold they kissed their wives but not offensively and there was a chattering pause while Bilby walked on beside the caravan they were on the bare road that runs along the high ridge above Winthorpe, Sudbury and the men had walked to meet them in one hotel or other Bilby wasn't clear about that by the golf links Judy was the life and soul of the encounter and all for asking the men what they meant by intruding upon three independent women who sure alive could very well do without them Professor Bowles took her pretty calmly and seemed on the hull to admire her Professor Bowles was a compact little man wearing spectacles with alternative glasses partly curved, partly flat he was hairy and dressed in that sort of soft, tweedy stuff that rables out he seemed to have been sitting among thorns and baggy knickerbockers with straps and very thick stockings and very sensible open air in fact quite mountainous boots and yet though he was short and stout and active he had a kind of authority about him and it was clear that for all her persuasiveness his wife merely ran over him like a creeper without making any great difference to him I found, he said the perfect place for your encampment she had been making suggestions and presently he left the ladies and came hurrying after the caravan to take control he was evidently a very controlling person here you get down, he said to William that poor beast got enough to pull without you and when William mumbled he said, hey in such a shout that William forever after held his peace where do you come from you boy you? he asked suddenly and Bilby looked to Mrs. Bowles to explain great silly collar you've got the officer interrupting her reply boy like this ought to wear a wool shirt dirty too take it off boy it's choking you don't you feel it then he went on to make trouble about the tackle William had rigged to contain the white horse this harness makes me sick said Professor Bowles it's worse than Italy ah he cried and suddenly darted off across the turf scrabbling in elegantly and very rapidly with peculiar motions of the head and neck as he brought first the flat and then the curved surface of his glasses into play finally he dived into the turf remained scrabbling on all fours for a moment or so became almost still for the fraction of a minute and then got up and returned to his wife holding in an exquisite manner something that struggled between his finger and his thumb that's the third today he said triumphantly they swarm here it's a migration then he resumed his penetrating criticism of the caravan outfit that boy he said suddenly with his glasses oblique hasn't taken off his collar yet Bilby revealed the modest secrets of his neck and pocketed the collar Mr. Giege did not appear to observe Bilby he was a man of the super aquiline type with a nose like a rudder he held his face as if it was a hatchet in a procession and walked with the dignity of a man of honor you could see at once he was a man of honor inflexibly invincibly he was a man of honor you felt that anywhere in a fire in an earthquake in a railway accident when other people would be running about and doing things he would have remained a man of honor it was his pride rather than his vanity to be mistaken for Sir Edward Gray he now walked along with Miss Phillips and his wife behind the disputing bulls and discoursed in deep sonorous tones about the healthiness of healthy places a stifling feeling one had in towns when there was no air sub chapter 4 the professor was remarkably active when at last the point he had chosen for the encampment was reached Bilby was told to look alive twice and William was assigned to his genus and species the man's an absolute idiot was the way the professor put it William just shot a glance at him over his nose the place certainly commanded a wonderful view it was a turfy bank protected from the north and south by bushes of view and the beach bordered edge of a chalk pit it was close beside the road a road which went steeply down the hill into Winthorpe Sutbury with that intrepid decision peculiar to the hill roads of England it looked indeed as though you could throw the rinse of your teacups into the Winthorpe Sutbury street as if you could jump and impale yourself upon the church spire the hills bellied out east and west and carried hangers and then swept round to the west in a long level succession of projections a perspective that merged at last with the general horizon of hilly bluenesses amidst which Professor Bowles insisted upon a sapphire glimpse of sea the channel said Professor Bowles as though that made it easier for them only Mr. Gage refused to see even that mitigated version of the sea there was something perhaps bluish and level but he was evidently not going to admit it was sea until he paddled in it and tested it in every way known to him good lord cried the Professor what's the man doing now Williams stopped the struggles and confidential discouragements he was bestowing upon the white horse and waited for a more definite reproach putting the caravan alongside to the sun do you think it will ever get cool again and think of the blaze of the sunset through the glass of that door Williams spluttered if I put him tether away go running down till like said William imbecile cried the Professor put something under the wheels here he careered about and produced great grey fragments of a perished yew tree now then he said head up hill William did his best oh not like that are you will be assisted with obsequious enthusiasm it was some time before the caravan was adjusted to the complete satisfaction of the Professor but at last it was done and the end door gapped at the whole prospect of the wheel with the steps hanging out idiotically like a tongue the hind wheels were stayed up very cleverly by lumps of chalk and chunks living and dead and certainly the effect of it was all together taller and better and then the preparations for the midday cooking began the Professor was full of acute ideas about camping and cooking and gave Bilby a lively but instructive time there was no stream handy but William was sent off to the hotel to fetch a garden water cart the Professor with infinite foresight had arranged should be ready the gauges held aloof from these preparations they were unassuming people Miss Phillips concentrated her attention upon the wheel it seemed to Bilby a little discontentedly as if it was unworthy of her and Mrs. Bowles hovered smoking cigarettes over her husband's activities acting great amusement you see it pleases me to get himself busy she said you'll end a camper yet darling and us in the hotel the Professor answered nothing but seemed to plunge deeper into practicality under the urgency of Professor Bowles Bilby stumbled and broke a glass jar of marmalade over some fried potatoes but otherwise did well as a cook's assistant these things were a little interrupted by the Professor going off to catch a cricket but whether it was the right sort of cricket or not he failed to get it and then there were three loud reports for a moment Bilby thought the mad butlers from Shantz were upon him with firearms Captain Douglas arrived and got off his motor bicycle and left it by the roadside his machine accounted for those were the early days of motor bicycles it also accounted for a black smudge under one of his bright little eyes he was fair and flushed dressed in oil-skins and a helmet-shaped cap and great gauntlets that made him in spite of the smudge look strange and brave and handsome like a crusader only that he was clad in oil-skin and not steel his mustache was smaller than those crusaders wore and when he came across the turf to the encampment Mrs. Bowles and Mrs. Gage both set up a cry of ah ah and Miss Phillips turned an accusing face upon those two ladies Bilby knelt with a bunch of knives and forks in his hand laying the cloth for lunch and when he saw Captain Douglas approaching Miss Phillips clearly that that lady had already forgotten her lowly adorer and his little heart was smitten with desolation this man was arrayed like a chivalrous gaunt and Howe was a poor Bilby whose very collar his one little circlet of manhood had been reft from him Howe was he to compete with this tremendousness in that hour the ambition for mechanism the passion for leather and oil-skin was sown in Bilby's heart I told you not to come near me for a month said Madeleine but her face was radiant these motor bicycles very difficult to control said Captain Douglas and all the little golden white hairs upon his sunlit cheek glittered in the sun and besides said Mrs. Bowles it's all nonsense the professor was in a state of arrested administration the three others were frankly audience to a clearly understood scene you ought to be in France I'm not in France I sent you into exile for a month and she held out a hand for the captain to kiss he kissed it some day somewhere it was written in the book of destiny Bilby should also kiss hands it was a lovely thing to do month it's been years said the captain years and years then you ought to have come back before she replied and the captain had no answer ready sub chapter 5 when William arrived with the water cart he brought also further proofs of the professor's organizing ability he brought various bottles of wine red burgundy and sparkling hoc two bottles of cider and peculiar and meritorious waters he brought tin things for hors d'oeuvres he brought some luscious pairs when he had a moment with Bilby behind the caravan he repeated thrice in tones of hopeless sorrow they'll eat them all I know they'll eat them all and then plumbing a deeper deep of woe if they don't they'll count them odd goggles of bagum here's a bag or he is it was the brightest of luncheons that was eaten that day in the sunshine and spaciousness above Winthorpe Sutbury everyone was gay and even the love torn Bilby who might well have sunk into depression and lethargy was galvanized into an activity that was almost cheerful by flashes from the professor's glasses they talked of this and that Bilby hadn't much time to attend though the laughter that followed various sallies from Judy Bowles was very tantalizing and it had come to the pairs before his attention wasn't so much caught as felled by the word chants it was as if the sky had suddenly changed to vermilion all these people were talking of chants went there, said Captain Douglas in perfect good faith wanted to fill up Lucy's little party one doesn't go to chants nowadays for idle pleasure and then I get ordered out of the house absolutely told to go this man had been at chants that was on Sunday morning said Mrs. Gage King said Mrs. Bowles suddenly we were almost within sight of chants this man had been at chants even at the time when Bilby was there early on Sunday morning told to go I was fairly flabbergasted what the deuce is a man to do where's he to go Sunday one doesn't go to places Sunday morning there I'd been sleeping like a lamb all night and suddenly in came Laxton and said look here you know he said you've got to oblige me and pack your bag and go now why said I because you've driven the lord chancellor stark staring mad but how asked the professor almost angrily how I don't see it why should he ask you to go I don't know cried Captain Douglas yes but said the professor against the unreasonableness of mankind I'd had a word or two with him in the train nothing to speak of about occupying two corner seats always strikes me as a cad strict but on my honor I didn't rub it in and then he got it into his head we were laughing at him at dinner we were a bit but only the sort of thing one says about anyone way he works his eyebrows and all that and then he thought I was ragging him I don't rag people got it so strongly he made a row that night said I'd made a ghost slap him on his back hang it what can you say to a thing like that in my room all the time you suffer for the sins of your brother said Mrs. Bowles heavens cried the captain I never thought of that perhaps he mistook me he reflected for a moment and continued his narrative then in the night you know he heard noises they always do said the professor not in confirmation couldn't sleep a sure sign said the professor and finally he sellied out in the early morning caught the butler in one of the secret passages how did the butler get into the secret passage going round I suppose part of his duties anyway he gave the poor beggar an awful doing awful, brutal, black eye all that sort of thing man much too respectful to hit back finally declared I'd been getting up a kind of rag squaring the servants to help and so forth laxed and I fancy half believed it awkward thing you know having it said about you you ragged the Lord Chancellor makes a man seem a sort of mischievous idiot injures a man then going away you see seems a kind of admission why did you go Lucy said the captain compactly hysterics chance would have burst he added if I hadn't gone Madeleine was helpful but you'll have to do something further she said what is one to do squealed the captain the sooner you get the Lord Chancellor certified a lunatic said the professor soundly the better for your professional prospects he went on pretty bad after I'd gone you've heard two letters I picked him up at Wheatley post office this morning you know he hadn't done with that butler he got out of his place and scruffed the poor devil at lunch shook him like a rat she says said the man wasn't giving him anything to drink nice story eh anyhow he's scruffed him until things got broken I had it all from mini tambour you know used to be mini flax he shot a propitiating glance at Madeleine used to be neighbors of ours you know in the old time half the people she says didn't know what was happening thought the butler was apoplectic and that old magarage was helping him stand up taking off his collar it was Laxton thought of saying it was a fit told everybody she says had to tell him something I suppose but she saw better and she thinks a good many others did Laxton ran him both out of the room nice scene for chants eh thundering awkward for poor Lucy not the sort of thing the county expected has her both ways can't go to a house where the Lord Chancellor goes mad one alternative can't go to a house where the butler has fits that's the other see the dilemma I've got a letter from Lucy too it's here he struggled see sheets pencil no joke for a man to read that and she writes worse than any decent self-respecting illiterate woman has a right to do quivers like writing in a train can't read half of it but she's got something about a boy on her mind mad about a boy have I taken away a boy they've lost a boy took him in my luggage I suppose he better write to the Lord Chancellor likely is not he met him in some odd corner and flew at him smashed him to atoms dispersed him anyhow they've lost a boy he protested to the world I can't go hunting lost boys for Lucy I've done enough coming away as I did Mrs. Bowles held out an arresting cigarette what sort of boy was lost she asked I don't know some little beast of a boy I dare say she'd only imagined it whole thing been too much for her read that over again said Mrs. Bowles about losing a boy we found one that little chap we found that boy she glanced over her shoulder but Bilby was nowhere to be seen on Sunday morning near Schantz he strayed into us like a lost kitten but I thought you said you knew his father Judy objected the professor didn't verify said Mrs. Bowles shortly and then to Captain Douglas read over again what Lady Laxton says about him sub chapter 6 Captain Douglas struggled with the difficulties of his cousin's handwriting everybody drew together over the fragments of the dessert with an eager curiosity and helped to weigh Lady Laxton's rather disheveled phrases