Dido and Pa (28 page)

Standing on his platform, delirious with joy and success, waving his baton, controlling his players despite the snow and wintry wind, Mr. Twite was probably the happiest man in London.

Yet gradually the crowd began to trickle away. The hour was late, the cold was severe and growing more so; by now the grand coaches of the gentry at the king's ball had all rolled off homeward. In the king's palace the lights began to dim and go out, all but the two that always stayed burning above the royal standard, which, fluttering
red and white on the pole, showed that the king was in residence.

If they only knew what I know, thought Mr. Twite, watching the crowd.

He had not observed the margrave escorted to his carriage by four burly Scotsmen.

As the crowd in the palace yard dispersed, it seemed to reform again. Some people went away, but others came. The ones who left were all adults, and the ones who came were all children. Little by little the whole of the huge area was filling up with children.

Must be all the lollpoops in London, thought Mr. Twite. I read somewhere there was ten thousand of them, and now I believe it. And they're all here, a-listening to my music. Very nice, to be sure! but not very remunerative.

But what the deuce! Eisengrim and I, between us, have got the king of England in our pocket. And I have got Eisengrim in
my
pocket.

For a long time the children thronging around Mr. Twite appeared to enjoy the music every bit as much as their elders had done: dancing, jumping, singing, clapping, and shouting.

After a while, though, there came a change. And this change followed a whisper, which started on the outskirts of the crowd and spread inward and sideways with the speed of sparks through stubble.

D'you know what he did? That music feller—let 'is own daughter be scrabbled by the margrave.

'E did? How?

Eisengrim sent an ice boat with them two bad ones on board—Boletus and Morel. They picked up Dido Twite and Wally Greenaway and took 'em down to Deptford where the ice is thin—dropped 'em in and drowned 'em like a brace of kittens.

How d'you know?

A message come to Wally, telling what they planned, and he told his dad, and his dad told my dad, and my dad told my mum, and my mum told Mrs. Watkins, and Mrs. Watkins told Peggy Watkins, and Peggy Watkins told me.

Cor!

D'you know what that feller as calls hisself Bredalbane
did?
He drowned his own daughter. The one as is called Died o' Fright. Friend o' Wally Greenaway. He took and drowned the pair of them at Deptford. With his own hands.

That chap what's conducting the music—know what he did? He took and drowned
his own daughter.

As the whispers ran through the crowd, Mr. Twite started to feel uncomfortable. Something was wrong, but he did not know what. His musicians, too, were beginning to look tired and nervous.

"Time to stop, guvnor," they told him. "We've just about played ourselves to a standstill."

"Oh, very well. Very well," conceded Mr. Twite. "But I wish to see you tomorrow, at Cinnamon Court, in the rehearsal room, at nine sharp. We are going to be very busy from now on!" He waved them good-bye, and they hurried thankfully away.

Mr. Twite was about to follow them, but somebody
stood in his path, and then somebody else jostled him. And a third person tripped him up.

"Now, what is all this?" said Mr. Twite impatiently. "Let me past, if you please. I am the master of the king's music. I am not to be justled and hostled by a parcel of lollpoops."

And he tried to sing with an air of nonchalance:

"
Oh, riddle me riddle me rassity,
And hey ding a dong ding a ding,
I am known for my sense and sagacity
And the beautiful songs that I—
"

A stone flew, and hit him in the mouth.

"Come, come, now!" said Mr. Twite, wiping away mud, and possibly a tooth. "I will say nothing opprobrious on this occasion because—But—"

Another stone flew, and then several more. Mr. Twite began to run. He raced into the park, followed by the whole crowd of children. They yelled and flung objects—anything they could pick up—eggs, oranges, shoes. Mr. Twite ran desperately across the park toward the river; but the storm of stones, shoes, and other articles became fiercer and fiercer. At last, under it, he crumpled and fell to the ground.

At the sight of his fall, the children halted. They looked at him doubtfully from a distance. He still stirred feebly and moaned.

"Come out of it," suggested a boy called Handkerchief Harry. "We'd best leave him be. He ain't much hurt—I don't think. He'll pick hisself up, soon as we're gone. We don't
want the beaks arter us, saying we done him in. We never. He's just a bit dazed, like."

Everyone agreed. Without wasting a moment, the crowd of lollpoops took themselves off, disappearing speedily along alleys and narrow streets, drifting rapidly eastward toward the part of London they had come from. In five minutes the park was empty, except for Mr. Twite.

But the wolves had come across the river, at Charing Cross and Lambeth, at Westminster and Millbank; roaming and sniffing, they scoured around Victoria and Pimlico, along the Strand, up Whitehall, and across St. James's Park. They found Mr. Twite lying among the missiles that had stunned him, and they quite soon finished off what the children had begun.

Wally and Dido, running from the wolves across Blackheath Waste, had several times to fight a rearguard action against their attackers, using what weapons came to hand—fence posts and branches and rocks.

"Murder!" panted Dido, warding off a snarling beast with a shrewd thrust from a holly-spike. "I've never known the wolves so umbrageous as this. I reckon it's scanty pickings where they come from. They seem half starved."

"Keep it up," gasped Wally. "Don't weaken! I see a light over thataway."

"
I
thought Simon—
puff
—and his mates—
puff
—were supposed to have cleared all the wolves outa this part o' the country? All they seem to have done is
aggravated
them."

"Maybe some more came over from France," suggested
Wally, dealing a hurried thwack at a large gray beast which was on the point of leaping at Dido from behind. "This way—get closer to me! Now—a quick dash over the open space. That looks like a house—or a shed."

"Thanks be!" panted Dido. "Maybe it's where—my sis lives—must be—somewhere hereabouts—that Simon said she—"

The door of the building opened. Light poured out. A voice called anxiously, "Come this way—
quick!
We have guns—but we daren't fire in case of hitting you—"

"
Sophie!
" shouted Dido in delight. "Lawk-a-mussy, am I glad to hear your voice!"

Ten seconds later she and Wally tumbled over the threshold, with half a dozen wolves snapping at their heels. Sophie discharged her musket among the wolves and slammed the door in their faces.

Inside it took Dido's dazzled eyes several minutes to adjust to the light. (When Simon brought Sophie to stay with Penny, he had forethoughtfully also brought a supply of lamp oil, coal, flour, dried meat, books, and other supplies—enough to last several weeks—as well as several new teacups.) When their eyes stopped streaming, Dido and Wally saw a comfortable interior with beds, curtains, hangings, and a blazing fire.

In one of the beds lay Mr. van Doon.

"Croopus," said Dido. "What's
he
doing here?" Then she saw her sister, Penny. "Wotcher, Penny? How's tricks? I'm right pleased to see you."

"Well, Dido! How are you?" Penny said rather stiffly. But little Is rushed to Dido and hugged her about the knees.

"Dido! Poor Mr. van Doon is proper poorly! Those chaps was a-going to kill him and I undid 'im and we run and run, and it give 'im a pain. Will 'e be all right?"

"Well I'm blest," said Dido. "How in turkey's name did
you
come to be on the spot?"

"I just followed," said the Slut simply. "When 'e left Bart's, I followed. And when 'e got into the king's coach, I watched my chance and hid in the boot. And when they stopped, I got out. And it was a good thing I did, for they was goin' to knock 'im on the head and bury 'im."

Wally and Dido stared at each other.

"Lord a'mighty!" said Wally. "So much for his nabs saying he was a-going to ship the king off to some island. He never had no sich intention."

"We might 'a' guessed," said Dido. "Him and my pa's just about as crooked as a pair o' croquet hoops."

The Slut began to cry.

"Now what's to do?" said Dido. "You saved the feller, didn't you? You done real well for a little 'un. He'll be all rug, don't you fret, with Sophie and my sister, Penny, a-caring for him."

But the Slut continued to sob bitterly. "It's Figgin. My cat Figgin! There's nobody to feed him, the house is empty, and all those wolves about—what'll he do?"

"Oh,
scrape
it!" began Dido. But then she looked at little Is more gently and said, "Don't take on so! That cat's as
shrewd as he can hold together. He fetched you grub, didn't he? He went down the chimney of Cinnamon Court and saved Sophie?
He
won't be nobbled by no wolf, don't you worry. It's ducats to dumplings you'll get back and find him a-waiting for you."

"But when?" demanded the Slut tearfully.

This was no easy question to answer.

For six days the blizzard raged without abating; more and more wolves found their way onto the heights of Kent. It was unsafe for the inmates of Penelope's barn even to step outside the door. When they fetched snow to be melted down for water (since the well had frozen), they went in pairs, one with a pail, the other with a gun. But they were running short of ammunition; Simon, when he brought the supplies, had not reckoned on such a long visit. Nor on so many guests.

"One biscuit and one carrot a day from now on!" announced Penny one evening, looking grimly at the depleted larder.

"Not for Mr. van Doon!" wailed the Slut. "He's too poorly. He can have my carrot."

Penny's hard face softened a little as she looked from the anxious Slut to the ailing Dutchman.

"I am indeed grieved that I give you this trouble, Miss Penelope," he said weakly.

"
You
can't help it, mister. I know that. Here, Is, you boil up Mr. van Doon's carrot in a teacupful of water. He can take it easier that way."

The Slut busied herself with cookery. Dido and Wally were sharpening spikes and hardening their points in the fire for defense against wolves when the bullets ran out. Sophie, always skillful with her needle, was at work helping Penny cut out and stuff more animals—seals, badgers, raccoons.

Presently the Slut, having served van Doon his frugal meal, squatted down by his bedside and sang to him in a threadlike but tuneful little voice, while Penny absently joined in, supplying an alto part.

"
Rum and rhubarb and raisins,
" sang the Slut:

"
Is good when you're under the weather,
Rum and rhubarb and raisins.
Taken singly or all together.
"

"I was a-going to say that little Is could come and stay with my dad, when we get outa here," Wally murmured to Dido, as they sat and whittled. "If she got nowhere else to go. But maybe..." He looked at Penelope busily sewing by van Doon's couch and the Slut, cross-legged beside her.

"Penny allus was fond of cats," said Dido thoughtfully.

During the night after the tunnel ceremony the margrave of Nordmarck suffered from such a fearful series of spasmatic attacks that Dr. Finster, having bled him, drenched him by means of a clyster, attempted cautery, applied a cataplasm and nine or ten leeches, was next proposing to go on and try lithotomy or dririmancy, when there came a violent knocking at the bedroom door.

"Do not disturb his excellency when he is in such an evil case!" angrily shouted Dr. Finster, who had not been at the palace reception and knew nothing of the margrave's disgrace. He himself had been out attending a meeting of the Royal Society and had arrived home very late, to witness his master's collapse.

"He has to be out of this house by dawn," replied one of the officers of the King's Household.

"Who the deuce are you? Are you mad? Leave my master in peace!" exclaimed Finster, flinging open the door. "Go away! Take yourselves off! I cannot imagine by whose leave
you are here, but you must be able to see that his excellency is a seriously ill man, he is in no—"

"We are here by order of his majesty King Richard."

Finster gazed at them in utter astonishment. He had no notion of the turn events had taken.

But he knew his business as a doctor, and said severely:

"King Richard or no, what you say is quite out of the question. Look at the man! He lies at death's door. See for yourselves!"

The margrave was indeed a ghastly spectacle as he reclined against his heap of silk pillows—his face waxen, streaked with sweat, his lips blue, his eyes sunken. The sheets were dabbled with blood where Dr. Finster's phlebotomy had gone a little wild; there were burned holes in the pillowcases where the red-hot iron had slipped; leeches crawled about looking for their pond, and various green, black, and yellow splashes showed where medicinal drafts had missed their mark. Dr. Finster was at his wits' end.

"You his doctor?" one of the officers said. "Well, fetch the bloke back to life. And make haste about it. He has to be oot o' the country before sunup."

Here the margrave, roused by the voices, murmured, "Bring me my chapel-master. Music—music—that is what I need."

"Well, for Fingal's sake, let the chapel-master be fetched if that is what the mon needs! Where is he?"

That was the problem. Bredalbane had already been
sought through the whole mansion, but he was not to be found; the porter had not seen him come in.

His players were roused from their beds; they came yawning, glum, and startled, and Finster savagely demanded of them where their leader had got to. "He has no right to absent himself at such a time as this!"