CHAPTER XXV.

LOVE'S (VERY) YOUNG DREAM.

Cissy found our hero in a sad state of depression. Prissy had gone off to evening service, and had promised to introduce a special pet.i.tion that he might beat the Smoutchy boys; but Gen'l Smith shook his head.

"With Prissy you can't never tell. Like as not she may go and pray that Nipper Donnan may get converted, or die and go to heaven, or something like that. She'd do it like winking, without a thought for how I should feel! That's the sort of girl our Priss is!"

"Oh, surely not so bad as that," said Cissy, very properly scandalised.

"She would, indeed," said Hugh John, nodding his head vehemently; "she's good no end, our Prissy is. And never shirks prayers, nor forgets altogether, nor even says them in bed. I believe she'd get up on a frosty night and say them without a fire--she would, I'm telling you. And she doats on these nasty Smoutchies. She'd just love to have been tortured. She'd have regularly spread herself on forgiving them too, our Priss would."

"I wouldn't have forgived them," cried the piping voice of Toady Lion, suddenly appearing through the shrubbery (his own more excellent form was "scrubbery"), with his arms full of the new bra.s.s cannons; "I wouldn't have forgived them a bit. I'd have cutted off all their heads."

"Go 'way, little pig!" cried Cissy indignantly.

"Toady Lion isn't a little pig," said Hugh John, with dignity; "he is my brother."

"But he kept all the cannons to himself," remonstrated Cissy.

"'Course he did; why shouldn't he? He's only a little boy, and can't grow good all at once," said Hugh John, with more Christian charity than might have been expected of him.

"You've been growing good yourself," said Cissy, thrusting out her upper lip with an expression of bitter reproach and disappointment; "I'd better go home."

"I'll hit you if you say that, Cissy," cried Hugh John, "but anyway you shan't call Toady Lion a little pig."

"I like being little pig," said Toady Lion impa.s.sively; "little piggie goes '_Grunt-grunt!_'"

And he ill.u.s.trated the peculiarities of piglings by pulling the air up through his nostrils in various keys. "Little pigs is nice," he repeated at the end of this performance.

Cissy was very angry. Things appeared to be particularly horrid that afternoon. She had started out to help everybody, and had only managed to quarrel with them. Even her own familiar Hugh John had lifted up his heel against her. It was the last straw. But she was resolved to not give in now.

"Good little boy"--she said tauntingly--"it is such a mother's pet! It will be good then, and go and ask Nipper's pardon, and send back Donald to make nice mutton pies; it shall then----!"

Hugh John made a rush at this point. There was a wild scurry of flight, and the gravel flew every way. Cissy was captured behind the stable, and Hugh John was about to administer punishment. His hand was doubled. It was drawn back.

"Yes," cried Cissy, "hit a girl! Any boy can beat you. But you can hit a girl! Hit hard, brave soldier!"

Hugh John's hand dropped as if struck by lightning.

"I never did!" he said; "I fought ten of them at once and never even cried when they--when they----"

And the erstwhile dauntless warrior showed unmistakable signs of being perilously near a descent into the vale of tears.

"When they what?" queried Cissy softly, suddenly beginning to be sorry.

"Well, when they tortured me," said Hugh John.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'HIT HARD, BRAVE SOLDIER.'"]

Cissy went up suddenly and kissed him. It was only a peck which reached land at the top corner of his ear; but it made Hugh John crimson hotly, and fend Cissy off with his elbow as if she had been a big boy about to strike.

"There, now," she said, "I've done it. I promised I would, and what's more, I'll say it out loud--'I love you!' There! And if you don't mind and behave, I'll tell people. I will, now then. But all the same, I'm sorry I was a beast to you."

"Well, don't do it again," said Hugh John, somewhat mollified, slightly dropping the point of his defensive elbow. "Anybody might have seen you, and then what would they think?"

"All right," said Cissy soothingly, "I won't any more."

"Say 'Hope-you-may-die!'"

Cissy promptly hoped she might come to an early grave in the event of again betraying, even in private, the exuberance of her young affection.

"Now, Hugh John," said Cissy, when peace had been restored in this manner, and they were wandering amicably across the back meadow where they could not be seen from the house windows, taking alternate sucks at a stick of brown toffee with crumbs stuck firmly on it, the property of Cissy, "I've something to tell you. I've found the allies for you; and we can whop the Smoutchies and take the castle now--any time."

The eyes of General Napoleon Smith glistened.

"If that's true," he said, "you can kiss me again--no, not now," he added hastily, moving off a little, "but after, when it's all over, you know. There's a good place behind the barn. You can do it there if you like."

"Will _you_ say 'I love you, Cissy'?"

But this was more than Hugh John had bargained for. He asked time for consideration.

"It won't be till the Smoutchy boys are beaten and the castle ours for good," pleaded Cissy.

Hugh John felt that it was a great price to pay, but after all he did want dreadfully to beat the Smoutchy boys.

"Well, I'll try," he said, "but you must say, 'Hope-you'll-die and double-die,' if you ever tell!"

Again Cissy took the required oath.

"Well?" said he expectantly, his mind altogether on the campaign.

Cissy told him all about the gipsy encampment and the history of the meeting with Billy Blythe. Hugh John nodded. Of course he knew all about that, but would they join? Were they not rather on the side of the Smoutchies? They looked as if they would be.

"Oh, you can't never tell a bit beforehand," said Cissy eagerly. "They just hate the town boys; and Bill Blythe says that Nipper Donnan's father said, that when the town got the castle they would soon clear the gipsies off your common--for that goes with the castle."

Hugh John nodded again more thoughtfully. There was certainly something in that. He had heard his father say as much to his lawyer when he himself was curled up on the sofa, pretending to read Froissart's "Chronicles," but really listening as hard as ever he could.

"You are a brick," he cried, "you are indeed, Cissy. Come on, let's go at once and see Billy Blythe."

And he took her hand. She held back a moment. They were safe behind the great ivy bush at the back of the stables.

"Couldn't you say it now?" she whispered, with a soft light in her eyes; "I wish you could. Try."

Hugh John's face darkened. He unshipped his elbow from his side to be ready for action.

"Well, I won't ask you till after," she said regretfully. "'Tain't fair, I know; but--" she looked at him again yet more wistfully, still holding him by the hand which had last pa.s.sed over the mutual joint-stock candy-stick; "don't you think you could do the other--just once?"