"Come back, Master Hugh!" she cried, as he pa.s.sed through and stood on the roadside, just as the head of the column, marching easily, turned the corner of the White Road and came dancing and undulating towards him. Hugh John's heart danced also. It was still going fast with running so far; but at sight of the soldiers it took a new movement, just like little waves on a lake when they jabble in the wind, so nice and funny when you feel it--tickly too--down at the bottom of your throat.

The first who came were soldiers in a dark uniform with very stern, bearded officers, who attended finely to discipline, for they were about to enter the little town of Edam, which lay just below the white gates of Windy Standard.

So intently they marched that no one cast a glance at Hugh John standing with his drawn sword, giving the salute which his friend Sergeant Steel had taught him as each company pa.s.sed. Not that Hugh John cared, or even knew that they did not see him. They were the crack volunteer regiment of the Grey City beyond the hills, and their standard of efficiency was something tremendous.

Then came red-coats crowned with helmets, red-coats tipped with Glengarry bonnets, and one or two bra.s.s bands of scattering volunteer regiments. Hugh John saluted them all. No one paid the least attention to him. He did not indeed expect any one to notice him--a small dusty boy with a sword too big for him standing at the end of the road under the shadow of the elms. Why should these glorious creations deign to notice him--shining blades, shouldered arms, flashing bayonets, white pipe-clayed belts? Were they not as G.o.ds, knowing good and evil?

But all the same he saluted every one of them impartially as they came, and the regiments swung past unregarding, dust-choked, and thirsty.

Then at last came the pipes and the waving tartans. Something cracked in Hugh John's throat, and he gave a little cry, so that his old nurse, Janet Sheepshanks, anxious for his welfare, came to take him away. But he struck at her--his own dear Janet--and fled from her grasp to the other side of the road, where he was both safer and nearer to the soldiers. Swinging step, waving plumes, all in review order on came the famous regiment, every man stepping out with a trained elasticity which went to the boy's heart. Thus and not otherwise the Black Watch followed their pipers. Hugh John gave a long sigh when they had pa.s.sed, and the pipes dulled down the dusky glade.

Then came more volunteers, and yet more and more. Would they never end? And ever the sword of Hugh John Picton flashed to the salute, and his small arm waxed weary as it rose and fell.

Then happened the most astonishing thing in the world, the greatest event of Hugh John's life. For there came to his ear a new sound, the clatter of cavalry hoofs. A bugle rang out, and Hugh John's eyes watched with straining eagerness the white dust rise and swirl behind the columns. Perhaps--who knows?--this was his reward for not being dasht-mean! But now Hugh John had forgotten Prissy and Toady Lion, father and nurse alike, heaven, earth--and everything else. There was no past for him. He was the soldier of all time. His dusty red coat and his flashing sword were the salute of the universal spirit of man to the G.o.d of war--also other fine things of which I have no time to write.

For the n.o.ble grey horses, whose predecessors Napoleon had watched so wistfully at Waterloo, came trampling along, tossing their heads with an obvious sense of their own worth as a spectacle. Hugh John paled to the lips at sight of them, but drew himself more erect than ever.

He had seen foot-soldiers and volunteers before, but never anything like this.

On they came, a fine young fellow leading them, sitting carelessly on the n.o.blest charger of all. Perhaps he was kindly by nature. Perhaps he had a letter from his sweetheart in his breastpocket. Perhaps--but it does not matter, at any rate he was young and happy, as he sat erect, leading the "finest troop in the finest regiment in the world."

He saw the small dusty boy in the red coat under the elm-trees. He marked his pale twitching face, his flashing eye, his erect carriage, his soldierly port. The fate of Hugh John stood on tiptoe. He had never seen any being so glorious as this. He could scarce command himself to salute. But though he trembled in every limb, and his under lip "wickered" strangely, the hand which held the sword was steady, and went through the beautiful movements of the military salute which Sergeant Steel of the Welsh Fusiliers had taught him, with exactness and decorum.

The young officer smiled. His own hand moved to the response almost involuntarily, as if Hugh John had been one of his own troopers.

The boy's heart stood still. Could this thing be? A real soldier had saluted him!

But there was something more marvellous yet to come. A sweet spring of good deeds welled up in that young officer's breast. Heaven speed him (as doubtless it will) in his wooing, and make him ere his time a general, with the Victoria Cross upon his breast. But though (as I hope) he rise to be Commander-in-Chief, he will never do a prettier action than that day, when the small grimy boy stood under the elm-trees at the end of the avenue of Windy Standard. This is what he did. He turned about in his saddle.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "IT COULD NOT HAVE BEEN BETTER DONE FOR A FIELD-MARSHAL."]

"_Attention, men, draw swords!_" he cried, and his voice rang like a trumpet, so grand it was--at least so Hugh John thought.

There came a glitter of unanimous steel as the swords flashed into line. The horses tossed their heads at the stirring sound, and jingled their accoutrements as the men gathered their bridle reins up in their left hands.

"_Eyes right! Carry swords!_" came again the sharp command.

And every blade made an arc of glittering light as it came to the salute. It could not have been better done for a field-marshal.

No fuller cup of joy was ever drunk by mortal. The tears welled up in Hugh John's eyes as he stood there in the pride of the honour done to him. To be knighted was nothing to this. He had been acknowledged as a soldier by the greatest soldier there. Hugh John did not doubt that this glorious being was he who had led the Greys in the charge at Waterloo. Who else could have done that thing?

He was no longer a little dusty boy. He stood there glorified, enn.o.bled. The world was almost too full.

"_Eyes front! Slope swords!_" rang the words once more.

The pageant pa.s.sed by. Only the far drum-throb came back as he stood speechless and motionless, till his father rode up on his way home, and seeing the boy asked him what he was doing there. Then for all reply a little clicking hitch came suddenly in his throat. He wanted to laugh, but somehow instead the tears ran down his cheeks, and he gasped out a word or two which sounded like somebody else's voice.

"I'm not hurt, father," he said, "I'm not crying. It was only that the Scots Greys saluted me. And I _can't_ help it, father. It goes _tick-tick_ in my throat, and I can't keep it back. But I'm not crying, father! I'm not indeed!"

Then the stern man gathered the great soldier up and set him across his saddle--for Hugh John was alone, the others having long ago gone back with Janet Sheepshanks. And his father did not say anything, but let him sit in front with the famous sword in his hands which had brought about such strange things. And even thus rode our hero home--Hugh John Picton no more, but rather General Napoleon Smith; nor shall his rank be questioned on any army roster of strong unblenching hearts.

But late that night Hugh John stole down the hushed avenue, his bare feet pattering through the dust which the dew was making cool. He climbed the gate and stood under the elm, with the wind flapping his white nightgown like a battle flag. Then clasping his hands, he took the solemn binding oath of his religion, "_The Scots Greys saluted me.

May I die-and-rot if ever I am dasht-mean again!_"

CHAPTER IV.

CASTLE PERILOUS.

In one corner of the property of Hugh John's father stood an ancient castle--somewhat doubtfully of it, however, for it was claimed as public property by the adjoining abbey town, now much decayed and fallen from its high estate, but desirous of a new lease of life as a tourist and manufacturing centre. The castle and the abbey had for centuries been jealous neighbours, treacherous friends, embattled enemies according to the fluctuating power of those who possessed them. The lord of the castle harried the abbot and his brethren. The abbot promptly retaliated by launching, in the name of the Church, the dread ban of excommunication against the freebooter. The castle represented feudal rights, the abbey popular and ecclesiastical authority.

And so it was still. Mr. Picton Smith had, indeed, only bought the property a few years before the birth of our hero; but, among other enc.u.mbrances, he had taken over a lawsuit with the town concerning the castle, which for years had been dragging its slow length along. Edam Abbey was a show-place of world-wide repute, and the shillings of the tourist const.i.tuted a very important item in the finances of the overburdened munic.i.p.ality. If the Council and magistrates of the good town of Edam could add the Castle of Windy Standard to their attractions, the resultant additional sixpence a head would go far towards making up the ancient rental of the town parks, which now let for exactly half of their former value.

But Mr. Picton Smith was not minded thus tamely to hand over an ancient fortress, secured to him by deed and charter. He declared at once that he would resist the claims of the town by every means in his power. He would, however, refuse right-of-way to no respectable sightseer. The painter, all unchallenged, might set up his easel there, the poet meditate, even the casual wanderer in search of the picturesque and romantic, have free access to these gloomy and desolate halls. The townspeople would be at liberty to conduct their friends and visitors thither. But Mr. Smith was resolved that the ancient fortalice of the Windy Standard should not be made a vulgar show. Sandwich papers and ginger-beer bottles would not be permitted to profane the green sward of the courtyard, across which had so often ridden all the chivalry of the dead Lorraines.

"Those who want sixpenny shows will find plenty at Edam Fair," was Mr.

Picton Smith's ultimatum. And when he had once committed himself, like most of his stalwart name, Mr. Smith had the reputation of being very set in his mind.

But in spite of this the town a.s.serted its right-of-way through the courtyard. A footpath was said to have pa.s.sed that way by which persons might go to and fro to kirk and market.

"I have no doubt a footpath pa.s.sed through my dining-room a few centuries ago," said Mr. Smith, "but that does not compel me to keep my front and back doors open for all the rabble of Edam to come and go at their pleasure."

And forthwith he locked his lodge gates and bought the largest mastiff he could obtain. The castle stood on an island rather more than a mile long, a little below the mansion house. A wooden bridge led over the deeper, narrower, and more rapid branch of the Edam River from the direction of the abbey and town. Across the broader and shallower branch there could be traced, from the house of Windy Standard, the remains of an ancient causeway. This, in the place where the stream was to be crossed, had become a series of stepping-stones over which Hugh John and Priscilla could go at a run (without falling in and wetting themselves more than once in three or four times), but which still const.i.tuted an impregnable barrier to the short fat legs of Toady Lion--who usually stood on the sh.o.r.e and proclaimed his woes to the world at large till somebody carried him over and deposited him on the castle island.

Affairs were in this unsettled condition when, at twelve years of age, Hugh John ceased to be Hugh John, and became, without, however, losing his usual surname of Smith, one of the august and imperial race of the Buonapartes.

It was a clear June evening, the kind of night when the whole landscape seems to have been newly swept, washed down, and generally spring-cleaned. All nature spoke peace to Janet Sheepshanks, housekeeper, nurse, and general responsible female head of the house of Windy Standard, when a procession came towards her across the stepping-stones over the broad Edam water from the direction of the castle island. Never had such a disreputable sight presented itself to the eyes of Janet Sheepshanks. At once douce and severe, sharp-tongued and covertly affectionate, she represented the authority of a father who was frequently absent from them, and the memory of a dead mother which remained to the three children in widely different degrees. To Priscilla her mother was a loving being, gracious alike by the tender sympathy of her voice and by the magic of a touch which healed all childish troubles with the kiss of peace upon the place "to make it well." To Hugh John she had been a confidant to whom he could rush, eager and dishevelled, with the tale of the glorious defeat of some tin enemy (for even in those prehistoric days Hugh John had been a soldier), and who, smoothing back his ruffled hair, was prepared to join as eagerly as himself in all his tiny triumphs. But to Toady Lion, though he hushed the shrill persistence of his treble to a reverent murmur when he talked of "muvver," she was only an imagination, fostered mostly by Priscilla--his notion of motherhood being taken from his rough-handed loving Janet Sheepshanks; while the tomb in the village churchyard was a place to which he had no desire to accompany his mother, and from whose gloomy precincts he sought to escape as soon as possible.

CHAPTER V.

THE DECLARATION OF WAR.

But, meanwhile, Janet Sheepshanks stands at the end of the stepping-stones, and Janet is hardly a person to keep waiting anywhere near the house of Windy Standard.

Over the stepping-stones came as leader Priscilla Smith, her head thrown back, straining in every nerve with the excitement of carrying Sir Toady Lion, whose scratched legs and shoeless feet dangled over the stream. Immediately beneath her, and wading above the knee in the rush of the water, there staggered through the shallows Hugh John, supporting his sister with voice and hand--or, as he would have said, "boosting her up" whenever she swayed riverward with her burden, pushing her behind when she hesitated, and running before to offer his back as an additional stepping-stone when the s.p.a.ces were wide between the boulders.

Janet Sheepshanks waited grimly for her charges on the bank, and her eyes seemed to deceive her, words to fail her, as the children came nearer. Never had such a sight been seen near the decent house of Windy Standard. Miss Priscilla and her pinafore were represented by a ragged tinkler's la.s.s with a still more ragged frill about her neck.

Her cheeks and hands were as variously scratched as if she had fallen into a whole thicket of brambles. Her face, too, was pale, and the tatooed places showed bright scarlet against the whiteness of her skin. She had lost a shoe, and her dress was ripped to the knee by a great ragged triangular tear, which flapped wet about her ankles as she walked.

Sir Toady Lion was somewhat less damaged, but still showed manifold signs of rough usage. His lace collar, the pride of Janet Sheepshanks'

heart, was torn nearly off his shoulders, and now hung jagged and unsightly down his back. Several b.u.t.tons of his well-ordered tunic were gone, and as to his person he was mud as far above the knees as could be seen without turning him upside down.

But Hugh John--words are vain to describe the plight of Hugh John. One eye was closed, and began to be discoloured, taking on above the cheekbone the shot green and purple of a half-ripe plum. His lip was cut, and a thin thread of scarlet stealing down his brow told of a broken head. What remained of his garments presented a ruin more complete, if less respectable, than the ancient castle of the Windy Standard. Neither shoe nor shoe-string, neither stocking nor collar, remained intact upon him. On his bare legs were the marks of cruel kicks, and for ease of transport he carried the _debris_ of his jacket under his arm. He had not the remotest idea where his cap had gone to.