Very strange thoughts came over me during those days and I got more and
more undecided as to what was right to do. There was my duty to
Andrews, who, in a vague sort of way, had got the right to win the
geography prize, and there was my duty to my father, who paid Dr.
Dunstan a lot of money for letting me come to Merivale and naturally
expected me to do my best; which I always did do, I’m sure. Then there
was my duty to Dr. Dunstan; and to deceive him deliberately about my
knowledge of geography was, of course, a very wrong thing to do. And,
greatest of all, there was my own conscience, which is the ’still small
voice’ of the Bible. Besides, I’d been very careful to say that Andrews
should have the geography prize, not that he should win it. No chap
ever tried harder than me to do the right thing, and what made it so
difficult was that my conscience and my duty to everybody but Andrews
was on one side, while the stupid affair with Andrews was on the other
side. Of course a blood oath is all nonsense if you are a Christian,
and not in the least binding to a religious person. In fact, only
savages believe in it at all. Therefore, as far as that went, I did not
feel in the least bound to Andrews. If I had not been coming back the
next term, I should have seen my way clearer very likely; but I was; and
so was Andrews.
Somehow I couldn’t decide till the actual day of the geography exam.,
and then, strangely enough, the paper seemed simply to have been made
for me. I knew the answer to everything, and question No. 6 gave me a
chance of saying some jolly good and peculiar things about Spain and the
Holy Inquisition not generally known at all. Probably not a soul at
Merivale but the Doctor and me knew them.
Somehow I felt it would be mean and wicked to pretend not to know all
these things. My conscience simply cried out to me to do the paper as
well as possible and leave the result in Higher Hands, because if
Providence meant Andrews to win, he would win. So I did my best, as I
usually do; and when the result was put up it was found that I had
beaten Andrews by one hundred and ten marks, and Andrews was a long way
ahead of everybody else.
Naturally Andrews, not understanding what it is to have such delicate
feelings as me, was a good bit annoyed; but I was ready for him, and
though I did not tell of my secret struggles to do right, which he would
not have understood, I did explain that I had acted from proper motives.
I said—
"I promised that you should have the geography prize, not that you
should win it. You shall have it, and the minute I get it on prize day,
I shall hand it over to you."
But Andrews did not fall in with this, and I felt, somehow, that he
wouldn’t. He said several revengeful things about next term; but he may
be dead before then, and anyway, much will happen in the holidays to
make him forget this affair, or take a better view of it.
I only mention the thing, in fact, to show how hard it is to make chaps
understand you if you always try to do right as much as you can. I
should clearly like to leave Merivale, but there seems to be no chance
of it at present.
My father often says, rather unkindly, that nobody ever wanted honour
and truth and decency and manliness licked into them worse than I do;
but my mother, who always understands me much better than him, says that
many of the best and most famous men in the world have looked back to
their school-days with hatred and loathing; and so I must no doubt be
one of them; because nobody ever hated boys and masters and school in
general worse than me. It will be very different when I get away from
them all and go into the world; because there I shall meet plenty of
nice people who think the same as I do.
*’CHERRY RIPE’*
*No. VIII*
*’CHERRY RIPE’*
*I*
This is an awful rum story about the extraordinary cunning of a man
generally known as ’Cherry Ripe,’ from selling cherries; and to tell it
right I must first explain about our cricket ground and a wood and a
field. After the cricket ground comes a narrow wood, well known as the
place for fights, and also wood-pigeons’ nests, which breed there in
great quantities. It is a long and narrow wood, and then comes a field,
also long but not so narrow. This field is a very up-and-down field,
with hollows in it, and at the bottom, in one corner, a drinking-place
for cows has been arranged, where yellow irises grow in summer, and
where most of our tame frogs come from. There is a clump of trees in
this field, and a hawk once built in them; but Freckles found the nest
and took the eggs, so the hawk did not build there again. After the
up-and-down field there comes an old, rather broken wall, and inside the
wall is the orchard and nursery garden of Cherry Ripe.
Needless to say his real name was not ’Cherry Ripe’ but Jenkins—not any
relation to the Jenkins at Merivale, though chaps who wanted to rot
Jenkins always pretended that Cherry Ripe was his father, which much
annoyed Jenkins. Because this Cherry Ripe was a fierce and a common
man, and had been known to be dismissed with a caution for ill-treating
a horse, and was no friend to us either.
He made his living by fruit and vegetables; and at the right season of
the year sold cherries, of which he had many fine trees in his nursery
garden. He also had apples and pears and gooseberries in great
abundance. He also laid out large pieces of his nursery garden in
spring flowers for market, and he grew onions and turnips and rhubarb,
and many other uninteresting things.
We naturally went there to see how it looked from time to time, and he
chased us a good deal over the field; but, when we were once in the
wood, he was of course powerless. In fact, he never caught anybody in
fair hunting except Chilvers, who was once down by the pond collecting
waterman beetles in his shoe, having nothing else to do it with. But
Chilvers had never been in the nursery garden in his life, and told
Cherry Ripe so. Only he refused to believe Chilvers, and said that he
was trespassing just as much in the field as he would have been in the
orchard. Which, in its paltry way, was true. Chilvers then offered him
a penny and an Indian coin for twelve waterman beetles; and all he did
was to say "No cheek!" and box Chilvers on the ear and tell him to be
off. So he made a bitter enemy of Chilvers.
This Cherry Ripe was old and ugly. He never seemed to shave, and yet
his beard never seemed to grow. What there was looked a mangy grey
streaked with brown. He wore an old hat that had once been black, but
was now rather inclined to turn green, and he had glittering eyes, one
of which watered. He had also a curious way of lifting up and down his
eyebrows, which young Smythe said showed a bad disposition, and was
common to gorillas. He had been heard to laugh when picking apples with
his daughters. But he never laughed at us, and when we took to calling
him ’Cherry Ripe,’ he hated us, and often shook his fist at us from a
distance.
So we then felt something had to be done against him to score off him.
When this was decided upon, Steggles and Methuen and Pedlar and
myself—me being Weston minor—and Chilvers went into committee, as it is
called, and in fact we had a regular meeting. Many others wanted to
join, but we felt five was enough, and we all had a jolly special
private good reason for going into committee against Cherry Ripe.
Chilvers of course had been licked by Cherry Ripe, because to box one’s
ears is the same as licking one in a very insulting manner. Pedlar also
had been insulted, and a good deal hurried twice by Cherry Ripe, when he
found him catapulting quite harmlessly in his orchard in December, when
of course there was nothing to take but vegetables; and Methuen and
Steggles once meeting Cherry Ripe going the rounds with his cart and
fruit and scales for weighing things, had politely stopped him and asked
to buy two pennyworth of pears. And Cherry Ripe had the frightful
impertinence to say that "No chap wearing them hats" should have so much
as a spring onion of his growing, which was not only turning away
business, but cheeking the school colours openly. So it seemed about
time to do something, and we accordingly did. I may say that I had no
particular grudge against Cherry Ripe, but I was well known at being
better at wall-climbing than any chap who ever came to Merivale.
Climbing had always been my strong point, and, as I was also going to be
a missionary later in life, I kept it up, because you never know—not if
you are a missionary.
The committee merely decided that as the cherry season was now near, we
had better wait for it, and then, at the first opportunity, make a
’Jameson raid.’ This is a particular sort of raid invented by the great
Dr. Jameson of South Africa, and it consists of doing something so
suddenly that nobody is ready. A Jameson raid is useless if the other
side is prepared; it is also useless if you are not prepared yourself.
The great thing is to be first, and also an important point is to commit
the raid where and when it will be least expected. Therefore we gave it
out, hoping that it would somehow get to Cherry Ripe, that we meant to
make a raid on his young apples on Wednesday, being a half-holiday;
whereas the truth was we were going to have a dash at his cherries on
the Saturday. There was a cricket match on that day, and Steggles
arranged details.
I won’t say much about what happened, because the thing failed even more
fearfully than Dr. Jameson’s affair long ago. We were deceived in a
most peculiar manner, owing to the deliberate cunning of Cherry Ripe;
and afterwards, talking it over while we wrote two thousand Latin lines
each, we came to the conclusion that there was a traitor at work.
Naturally we thought of Fowle, but Fowle knew nothing; besides, he was
in the hospital at the time with something the matter with his knee.
To go back, I must explain that all went well until we got on the top of
Cherry Ripe’s wall. Then what should we see but Cherry Ripe up a cherry
tree and his daughters down below! They were a long way off, and we saw
at a glance that it would take Cherry Ripe about a year to climb down
from his tree, even if he saw us. As for his daughters, seeing our ages
were fifteen and upwards, except Chilvers, who was certainly only
thirteen, but could run faster than his sister, who was seventeen, we
did not fear them.
As Cherry Ripe was picking cherries, we went for the green gooseberries.
I dropped down first in a very stealthy manner, that Freckles had taught
me before he went home to Australia; then Pedlar and Methuen dropped,
and then Chilvers. He fell rather awkwardly and smashed off a large
purple cabbage, and was glad of it.
But Steggles stopped on the wall, for some private reason. He said
afterwards, when taxed with treachery, that it wasn’t so in the least;
but that from the very beginning he had had a curious feeling when he
woke up that day. It is the feeling you get when you wake up on a day
that you are going to be flogged; and you have the same feeling, only
far, far worse, on the day when you are going to be hung. All criminals
know this. Steggles certainly shouted "Cave!" as soon as the horrible
moment came; but when he did finally drop off the wall, it was on the
other side. In fact, he escaped and left us to our fate. Nothing could
be done to Steggles, but we never felt the same to him again.
What happened was this. We were just eating a few gooseberries rather
fast, before settling down steadily to fill our pockets, when Steggles
gave the alarm. But it was too late. Suddenly there sprang up from
their hiding-places no less than three men—the youngest not less than
twenty years old; and the eldest was Cherry Ripe himself. This so much
horrified us, as we had seen him at the top of a high cherry tree two
hundred yards away only a second before, that we lost our instinct of
self-preservation and fell a prey to the enemy. We were all caught, in
fact, except Steggles, and we were then marched down to Cherry Ripe’s
house, and then along the road, and so back to Merivale. His hateful
daughters stood and sniggered at us as we were taken past them; and then
we saw that the whole thing was a mean plot, and, in fact, a swizz. A
swizz is a chouse, and a chouse is the same as a sell. It was a
scarecrow in the tree and not Cherry Ripe at all! The scarecrow wore
his green hat, and his daughters pretended to be talking to him. As
Peters said afterwards, Sherlock Holmes himself would have been almost
deceived by such a deadly plot. Afterwards we found, curiously enough,
that we had collected exactly thirteen gooseberries before the crash
came, which shows that thirteen is an unlucky number, whatever
scientific people may say against it.
Cherry Ripe brought us back to Merivale, and came to the front door and
asked to see the Doctor. He gave his name as ’Mr. Jenkins, of the
Merivale and District Fruit Farm,’ and said it in a very grand tone of
voice, as if he was somebody. But the Doctor, little knowing what was
going to happen, sent out to tell Mr. Jenkins to walk in. Pedlar said he
thought that the Doctor probably hoped Cherry Ripe had come with an
advantageous offer to supply Merivale with green stuff at low prices;
but of course this was not so.
Dr. Dunstan received us in his study, and he was much surprised to see
Chilvers appear after Cherry Ripe, and still more surprised to see the
rest of us come behind.
"And what may be the meaning of this deputation?" said the Doctor.
"Perhaps you, Methuen, will explain."
But Cherry Ripe said that he had come to do the explaining. Certainly
he told the truth, but he told it in a beastly mean way.
He said—
"There’s times when a man has got to stand up for his rights,
mister"—meaning the Doctor—"and this is one of ’em. These here young
rips be always driving my life out of me, and an example must be made.
I was half in a mind to send for a policeman; but I thought as I’d give
’em one more chance for their parents’ sakes, so brought ’em to you,
because no doubt you be paid very well for larning ’em their lessons and
keeping ’em out of mischief. I’ve two things against ’em, and one is
that they bawl ’Cherry Ripe’ after me morning, noon, and night, and take
sights at me, and do many other rude things; and the other is that now,
this minute, I’ve catched ’em red-handed in my gooseberry-bed, tucking
down my fruit for all they were worth. That’s trespass and it’s also
theft, and I don’t want no more of it."
"Thank you," said the Doctor. "You have stated your case with a
lucidity and force that does you no little credit, Mr. Jenkins. Now the
accused and the accuser may freely speak, whilst I, as arbiter between
them, reserve the last word, and I fear the last action also." His eyes
roamed over to the corner where the canes were kept. Then he went on—
"Your indictment consists of three articles, and we will take them in
your own order. You submit that these youths have insulted you, have
trespassed on your private property, and have stolen your goods. Now,
boy Pedlar, have you or have you not, at any time and in any public
place, addressed Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm,
as ’Cherry Ripe’?"
"Yes, sir," said Pedlar.
"Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
"Yes, sir."
The Doctor seemed disappointed, and Cherry Ripe smiled with a grim and
scornful smile.
"To accost an honest purveyor of the fruits of the earth with words
which, in the nature of his calling, it is necessary that he should
himself loudly repeat at intervals—to do this is a senseless and
offensive act," said the Doctor. "Nothing can be said in favour of it.
No earthly benefit—not even the meretricious semblance of benefit—can
accrue to the boy who bawls ’Cherry Ripe!’ after somebody else. The
operation shows a lack of mental balance that may make us fear for the
sanity of the performer, and regard the probable course of his future
with dismay and the liveliest foreboding. But now we are faced with
accusations of a very different character. It is asserted that you four
boys have gone out of bounds, and disobeyed me; that you have trespassed
on another’s private property, and so made of no account the laws of
man; and, lastly, that you have taken fruit that did not belong to
you—that you have broken the eighth Commandment, and thus shattered the
sacred edict of your Maker!"
The Doctor worked this up, as only he can, till we saw what an immense
number of laws we had broken all at once—like you do when you begin to
play golf—and, of course, it was a very solemn moment for everybody.
Even Cherry Ripe looked rather frightened. The Doctor rolled it out,
and shook his finger at Cherry Ripe as much as at us. Then came the
questions.
"Is this infamous imputation true, Edgar Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you, Harold Pedlar?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
Chilvers, like a little fool, tried to hedge against the future.
"Yes, and I’m very sorry, sir," he said.
The Doctor looked at us as if we were some new sort of animals, and he
didn’t know how we had got in. He gave a tremendous snort, and took off
his glasses. Then he turned to Cherry Ripe.
"To attempt any analysis of my personal emotions at this juncture would
be vain," he said. "In these cases introspection may well be left for a
subsequent occasion. For the moment justice cries with trumpet tongue.
And be under no apprehension, Jenkins, that justice will miscarry on
this occasion. As an agriculturist——"
Here the Doctor forgot us, and talked like anything to Cherry Ripe about
growing vegetables, and Ceres and Pomona and Horace and Virgil, and
other well-known people out of school books. He fairly terrified Cherry
Ripe, I believe. Anyway, Cherry Ripe kept creeping nearer and nearer to
the door. Then, at last, he got in a word.
"Don’t be too hard on ’em this time, your honour. Just one, two, and
another on the place that’s made for it."
"Pardon me," answered the Doctor, raising his hand. "You now trench on
my prerogative, Jenkins. The question of what is to follow may very
well be left with the preceptor of these fallen boys. Have no fear for
that. And to plead for leniency before the breaking of a Commandment is
to admit a personal laxity of view that I, for one, am bound to
deplore."
Cherry Ripe had now reached the door, and I believe he thought that if
he stopped another moment the Doctor would cane him too. So he began to
clear out. But first he said—
"Well, good-evening, all!" Then he hooked it—rather thankfully. And we
wished we could.
We got four on each hand, and two thousand lines each, and to stop in
for two half-holidays. So that, as Methuen very truly remarked, was
first blood for Cherry Ripe.
*II*
Of course, this was merely the beginning of the great anti-Cherry Ripe
feeling, and next term we were planning a deadly revenge with regard to
Cherry Ripe’s Kentish cobnuts, which were remarkably fine, when a great
assistant came to our aid in the shape of Trelawny. This was that
Trelawny who had such a terrible end in the matter of the protest of the
wing dormitory. But many things happened first. He was fourteen, and a
fighter from the beginning. All his relations were also fighters, and
poetry had been made about one, who was condemned to death for
magnificent fighting in historic times. This Trelawny, by the most
curious accident, proved to know an immense deal about Cherry Ripe. And
it came out that Trelawny’s father, who was a retired soldier and only a
colonel, though Trelawny said that if justice had been done he would be
a general at least, actually owned miles of land about Merivale,
including Cherry Ripe’s nursery garden and the field.
"The beggar merely rents it from my father for so many pounds a year,"
said Trelawny. "Why, if I said a word to my father, I could have the
man turned out altogether, and his daughters and everybody. I’ll jolly
soon teach him!"
This was a pretty good score for us, and we soon arranged to show Cherry
Ripe that things were changed. Trelawny took to strolling about in
Cherry Ripe’s field as if it belonged to him; and, of course, as I
pointed out to Trelawny, when his father died, though I hoped it would
not be for ten years at least—still he had to—and when he did, the field
and the orchard and everything would actually be Trelawny’s own, to do
what he liked with. He said it was so; and he said that he should jolly
soon clear Cherry Ripe out, and build almshouses for old soldiers broken
in the wars, when he came to have the ground. He wouldn’t take nuts or
anything. He said that was paltry; but he had a fixed idea that he
ought to be perfectly free of the place, and he went on strolling about
in it till at last Cherry Ripe surprised him down at the pond in the
field. I was there, too, but Cherry Ripe didn’t recognize me, which, no
doubt, was lucky.
He seemed to have something on his mind, for he didn’t get into a bate,
but merely said—
"Now, you boys, you slope off to your playground—can’t have you messing
about here."
"Perhaps you don’t know who you’re talking to, Mr. Jenkins," said
Trelawny in a frightfully grand tone of voice.
Then Cherry Ripe jumped.
"Lord, the sauce of your nippers now-a-days! Why can’t your old
gentleman over there teach you manners as well as figures and all the
rest of it?"
Clearly he meant no less a person than Dr. Dunstan.
"My name is Trelawny," began Trelawny.
"A very fine name too," said Cherry Ripe. "Take care you never bring no
discredit on it, there’s a good boy."
"My father is your landlord," said Trelawny. "And I’ll thank you not to
call me ’boy’!"
Cherry Ripe was by no means so much struck by this as you might have
expected.
"You’re the Colonel’s young shaver—eh? Well, I hope you’ll turn out as
sensible a man—though I do wish me and him saw alike on the subject of a
new tomato house. However, everybody’s a right to his own opinion."
Trelawny was fuming, like a train wanting to start.
"You don’t seem to understand," he said, "that this very field we’re in
at this moment will be mine before long!"
"The Colonel’s not ailing, I hope?" said Cherry Ripe very civilly.
I could now see that Mr. Jenkins was laughing at Trelawny, but, luckily,
Trelawny did not see this, or he might have taken some very desperate
step.
"And I want to say further," went on Trelawny, not answering about his
father, "that as this land will be mine sooner or later, I have a
perfect right to walk on it when and where I choose."
"Agreed," said Cherry Ripe; "and as I’m renting the land, and don’t like
rude little boys poking about where they’ve no business, I’ve got a
perfect right to pull their ears for ’em when I catches ’em. So that’s
settled. Now we know where we are. Be off with you both, or I’ll begin
this minute!"
Trelawny was as furious as a grown man. He turned a sort of colour like
stewed fruit; but, of course, we had to go. There was nothing else we
could do—for the moment.
"I shall write to my father about this, and you’ll soon find out you
can’t insult your own landlord’s son with impunity," Trelawny shouted,
as we got through the hedge back into our wood.
"Can’t do better. And tell him what I said," answered Cherry Ripe.
Then he seemed to forget us, and stood quite still looking into the
pond. Evidently he had other things on his mind besides Trelawny; but
Trelawny didn’t think so, and believed that Jenkins was standing like
that in a frightful funk to think of the dangerous thing he’d done.
"However, it’s too late now; I shall write to my father next Sunday,"
said Trelawny; and he did, and he got a letter back.
We were rather keen to hear what his father was going to do about it,
and expected he would read it out to us. But he tore the letter up
small, and chucked it away, and merely said he was surprised to find his
father didn’t agree with him.
"But I’ll make it clear that the man ought to be sacked when I go home,"
said Trelawny.
Funnily enough, though he’d torn this letter up so small and flung it
scornfully away, we found out afterwards what was in it; because Peters,
who hoped to be a detective of crime when he grew up, always collected
anything with writing on it to decipher mysteries; and it was him who
found out what Johnson’s pet name at home was, and how many sisters West
had, and other things not generally known. He said if a letter was once
torn up and flung away, that it was public property for a detective; and
so when Trelawny had gone, Peters collected the bits of his letter, and
pieced it together after taking frightful trouble. It was a
detective-like thing but not a sportsmanlike thing to do, and Trelawny,
when he came to hear of it, challenged Peters. In fact, they fought,
and Peters was badly licked. Still, the letter certainly was rather
curious, considering it came from Trelawny’s own father.
It read like this—
"DEAR TEDDY,
"I’ve got your letter, and I’ve dropped a line to Jenkins, directing him
to give you and any of your friends a real good hiding every time he
catches you on his ground.
"Your affectionate father,
"TRELOAR TRELAWNY."
Of course, the thing couldn’t be allowed to stop there. We were all on
Trelawny’s side, though his father wasn’t. In fact, Pedlar and Methuen
and me were rather vexed with Trelawny’s father; and we told Trelawny
so; and he said he was too. He said—
"We’ll be revenged next term, as it is too late this. We must all think
of a heavy score against Jenkins"—he never called Cherry Ripe anything
but Jenkins for some reason—"and the best idea is the one we’ll carry
out."
And everybody interested in the matter quite agreed; but Steggles did
not come into it, because Trelawny utterly barred Steggles from the
first.
*III*
Next term the great idea of how to crush Cherry Ripe came to me out of
the Bible. I let everybody speak first, and then, as nobody had said
anything like as good, I said—
"We will do what the enemy did in the New Testament, and sow tares in
his ground."
Everybody thought the idea fine but jolly difficult, and Chilvers asked—
"What are tares?"
I said I wasn’t exactly sure, and Methuen said it was a sort of grass,
and Trelawny said it was a parable. Anyhow, we didn’t know where to buy
them. Finally we decided not to ask for tares, but some sort of seed
that would grow quickly, and get a deep hold of the ground, and ruin
anything else for yards round. Unfortunately we didn’t know much about
wild things in general, and we asked Tomkins, who is our champion
botanist, and he said "Willow herb." But there were no seeds about at
that time of the year, it being February, and so Trelawny said—
"We will confide in Batson, who is well known to be the son of a
greengrocer and seedsman."
But it happened that Batson, who was the gardener’s boy at Dunstan’s,
was leaving to better himself. However, there was just time before he
went, and we let him into our secret score against Cherry Ripe, and gave
him two shillings with which to buy some seed of some vigorous growing
thing to sow in Cherry Ripe’s nursery garden and choke his vegetables
when they came up. Batson said that he would do his best. He said it
might have to be grass seed or clover, but he promised it should be a
good choking thing.
Certainly it looked hopeful, because he soon brought a bag of seeds and
said they were a kind of clover that, if once sown, could not be got out
of the ground again without ploughing. Then came the question of the
time, and we decided that next Saturday was the day. There happened to
be a big game at football, but not a little one, so we were all free
excepting Methuen, who kept goal for the first.
All went well, and when the match began to get exciting owing to hands
being given against Bray in our ’twenty-five,’ Trelawny and Pedlar and
Chilvers and I went into the wood unseen and got to the Cherry Ripe side
of it. Chaps had been in his field a good deal lately, hunting for a
very beautiful red fungus that was to be found in the hedges, on dead
sticks, and Cherry Ripe had been a good deal worried by them.
Then came the first surprise of that day. There was a huge board stuck
up in the field facing our wood with these remarkable words on it—
+−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−+
| |
| DANGER! |
| BEWARE OF THE BULL! |
| |
+−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−−+
Our first step was to get back into the hedge. The field seemed to be
quite empty, but there are many hollows in it, and a bull might easily
have been sitting down quite near us. Or it might have been hidden in
the cluster of trees in the middle. One thing was clear. It was not at
the pond.
Trelawny said—
"This man is worth fighting. I’m glad he’s got a bull, because it makes
more strategy necessary for us."
And Pedlar said—
"And I’m glad too."
But I was not glad, and so I didn’t say so; and as for Chilvers, he went
further and openly said that he thought a bull altered everything.
It was about a hundred and fifty yards across the field from the wood to
Cherry Ripe’s wall, and it is well known that a bull can run three times
as fast as a man and five times as fast as a boy.
I reminded Trelawny of this, and he said—
"I know all that; it is a question of strategy."
And I said—
"Yes, but strategy won’t alter facts."
He thought a bit and said—
"You chaps stop here and I’ll reconnoitre."
But Pedlar, who was nearly six months older than Trelawny, said he ought
to reconnoitre too. Finally they both went to reconnoitre in different
directions and came back in five minutes. Neither had seen the bull.
"There’s no bull!" said Trelawny. "It’s a subterfuge. Come on."
"Wait," said Chilvers. "I have a feeling it’s not a subterfuge.
Something tells me there is a bull."
Trelawny said it was cowardice, and Chilvers said it was a presentiment.
Anyway, no time could be lost, and Chilvers was firm, so we left him.
He was half inclined to come, but said that an uncle of his had once
been gored by a buffalo, or some such thing, in America, and somehow he
felt that this particular adventure would not suit him, though he would
have feared nothing else. Of course Trelawny explained that this was no
excuse, even if true. But though white and very worried, Chilvers was
firm. He refused to follow, so we went alone.
We made a detour of the trees in the middle of the field and crept
forward in Indian file. Fifty yards from the wall Pedlar whispered that
he saw something red in a hollow, which might easily be a bull’s back;
so Trelawny said "Sprint!" and we threw off caution to the winds and
sprinted. So we got to the wall in safety, and, as if to reward us for
the effort, what should we see on the other side but a beautiful bit of
ground all prepared for seeds! It was smoothed and arranged, and little
narrow trenches had been drawn in it about an inch deep—evidently for
seeds. It was frightful luck and playing into the hands of the enemy as
Trelawny said. He instantly gave the word and we dropped. There was
not a soul in sight—only a spade and two rakes, where the man who had
been working had left them.
"A commander always seizes any chance the enemy offer," said Trelawny.
"Pour the seed pretty thick along the drills and everywhere else, then
take the rakes and rake it all over until everything is quite smooth!"
So all Cherry Ripe’s arrangements for planting seed were used by us to
sow a particularly deadly sort of clover. We worked jolly hard, and in
about five minutes the thing was done by me and Pedlar while Trelawny
mounted guard.
Then the exciting work began and Trelawny shouted—
"Take cover! They’re coming!"
But there was no cover, and so we all got back the way we had come, and
just as Cherry Ripe and a man ran up from another part of the garden we
reached the top of the wall and prepared to leap down. But luckily we
didn’t. In fact, even as it was we only just saved Pedlar and lugged
him back in time.
The bull had arrived!
He was there, not more than twenty yards from the wall, and he was a
whacker. He had an enormous body and head, and his forehead was curly,
and his eyes fierce, and his horns rather short but very thick. A
copper ring was in his nose, and his hoofs turned up rather curiously,
like Turkish slippers. There was some hay flung down in front of him,
and he was smelling it. He was evidently a large and fierce bull, and
him being on one side of the wall and Cherry Ripe on the other made it a
very tricky position for us on the top.
Trelawny said—
"This is critical!"
And Cherry Ripe said—
"Hullo, my brave chap, how d’you find your future property is looking?
I hope you’re pretty well satisfied?"
Trelawny said—
"This is a case for a parley."
But Cherry Ripe did all the parleying. We sat down on the wall, which
was easier and safer than standing on it. We sat with our faces to
Cherry Ripe and our backs to the bull.
"This is an ambuscade in a way," said Trelawny. "In fact, we are rather
scored off. In war we should be shot. Not that it would matter, as we
have done our work.
"Now, my young shavers," began Cherry Ripe, "I see you’ve been very busy
down here on your own account, so perhaps you’ll just step off that wall
and do a bit of work for me. You can take your choice. Either we’ll
all go straight along to your old gentleman, and see what he’ll say and
do about it, or you can step down here—all three of you—and set to work
over a bit of weeding. Take your choice and be quick."
"We’ll confer," said Trelawny.
Which we did do; and Pedlar and I thought one thing and Trelawny thought
another. He said that it would be far more dignified to go back and
suffer from Dr. Dunstan as an equal; but Pedlar and I had done that
before, and we didn’t care in the least about the dignity. We said that
to do a bit of weeding for Cherry Ripe would be mere child’s play to
four on each hand and perhaps more, not to mention a few thousand lines
chucked in, and a couple of half-holidays gone.
So Trelawny said—
"I’m out-voted in the conference."
Then he got down and we got down also.
Cherry Ripe seemed rather pleased at what we had decided to do, because
I don’t think he wanted to have another talk with the Doctor any more
than we did. But he certainly had arranged rather a big job for us.
"You’ve got to pick it clean, mind you—roots and all," he said. Then he
divided the bit of land into three with sticks, and it seemed to us that
we had to weed about as much as a cricket pitch each.
"You shall have the biggest job, young master," he said to Trelawny.
"And that’s only right and fair, because you’re such a big man and take
such big views."
Trelawny did not answer, but he was evidently in a very proud frame of
mind. He seemed determined to show Cherry Ripe something, if it was
only how to weed.
We worked jolly hard, and Cherry Ripe kept us at it. Then in the
distance went up three cheers, and we knew the match was over; and, from
the sound of the cheers, it looked as if we’d won, because after a match
we always cheer the enemy, and we always cheer him heartier if we’ve
beat him—not intentionally, but still the sound is different.
"Now you can all nip back," said Cherry Ripe. "Better go the way you
came—through the wood."
"And be killed by your bull, I suppose," said Pedlar. "Not likely!"
"We have accepted your terms," said Trelawny, "and if you are an
honourable foe, you’ll let us out by the gate."
"Better go through the wood," answered Cherry Ripe. "It’s a lot
shorter, and as to the old bull, you needn’t mind him. He’s my
daughter’s pet. He wouldn’t hurt a daddy-long-legs, much less a nice
young chap like you. Tame isn’t the word for him. A pet lamb’s fierce
to him. Come on. I’ll go as far as the wood with you if you’re
frightened."
All this was true. And when we got back into the field, Cherry Ripe
scratched the bull’s curly head and the bull almost purred. It was the
mildest and humblest sort of a bull you ever saw, though so huge; and to
see such an enormous and happy bull so close was rather interesting in
its way. In fact, we all gave it a pat, just to be able to say in after
life that we had patted a monstrous bull.
"My youngest daughter often sits on his back," said Cherry Ripe. "This
here bull has got a heart of gold, I do assure you."
"Another strategy," said Trelawny to me. "Certainly the man’s cunning is
frightful. I think I shall tell him about the seed—just to show him
we’ve scored a bit too."
I advised not, but Trelawny was so stung by the way we’d been defeated
all round by the wretched Cherry Ripe, that, as we were leaving him, he
said—
"It may interest you to know that we’ve sowed that patch of your beastly
ground under the wall with weeds of the deadliest sort. In fact, you’ll
never get them out again. So that’s one for us, anyway."
"Well done!" said Cherry Ripe. "Where did you get the seed from?"
"That’s our business," answered Trelawny. "Anyway, you’ll find it out presently." |
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