William Again (12 page)

Sam was considering the idea.

‘Let’s ’ave ’im,’ he said, pointing at the boy who was still sitting on the fence and spitting proudly at intervals. ‘ ’E’s errand boy at the
grocer’s, he is, an’ ’e’s offen round ’ere. ’E’s called Halbert, ’e is.’

Albert was approached, and expressed himself willing to join.

‘I don’t mind b’longing,’ he said, with a sigh of deep feeling. ‘I wouldn’t mind
murderin’
of ’im sometimes, when ’e tells me to get
out of ’is garding scornful like. I would ’a’ murdered ’im long ago if it ’adn’t been for my poor ole mother.’

Even William was startled.

‘You needn’t
murder
him,’ he said, hastily. ‘He’s only gotter be paid out.’

The Secret Society of Vengeance met for the first time the next afternoon, in an old barn on the hillside.

Albert had brought a friend of the name of Leopold to swell their numbers. Leopold wore a tweed cap, many sizes too large for him, pulled down over his eyes. It gave him a daredevil air. He
announced, in a husky voice, that he ‘din’ care nuffin’ fer no one, so there!’

William looked round at his small band with a proud heart. Though he had not forgotten the aims of his secret society, it was the fact of its existence that really thrilled him.

‘Now we’ve gotter take a sacred an’ solemn oath,’ he said, ‘an’ sign it in our blood, an’ get a secret password an’ a secret sign an’ a
secret langwidge.’

Leopold created a diversion by announcing, briefly and gruffly, that no one was going to sign nothing in his blood. When threatened with ejection by William, and taunted with cowardice by Sam,
he flung himself upon them in dramatic fury. They moved hastily aside in opposite directions, and his outstretched fist came heavily in contact with a nail in the barn door. As an adequate supply
of blood seemed to be promptly assured, he lost his anger and became unbearably conceited, parading his bleeding fist and commenting on some people he knew who would have made a fuss and no mistake
over a little thing like that. He didn’t mind a little thing like that – he’d – well, anyway, hurry up with that oath, or it would be drying up.

William had found in his pocket a grimy piece of paper and the stump of a pencil, and was writing with a set, purposeful expression.

‘Now listen,’ he said at last. ‘This is wot I’ve wrote: “We, wot our names are sined in blood under this riting, take an oath to revenge to the deth any member of
this serciety wot is treated unfair. This is a Secret Serciety. The punishment for anyone wot does not revenge anyone else, or wot tells about the Serciety, is not to be spoke to or played with by
any of the other people in the Serciety for ever till deth.”’

The signatures were the next difficulty. Leopold signed his with a scornful pride that was beginning to make him unpopular. William, feeling that his reputation as founder of the society was at
stake, took out a battered penknife, made a slight incision with a dramatic gesture, and signed his name beneath Leopold’s. Albert said he wasn’t going to cut his finger, ’cause
he was afraid of bleedin’ to death, an’ then he wouldn’t be able to support his poor ole mother when he was a man. He’d got some red paint at home and he was going to fetch
that. He wouldn’t take a minute. He repeated that he wouldn’t mind cuttin’ off his head if it wasn’t for his poor ole mother. Leopold’s airs were becoming
insufferable. He ejaculated, ‘Ho, yuss!’ at intervals during Albert’s speech, but the rest of the society seem to be agreed to ignore him for the present. Sam, with an exaggerated
expression of agony, manfully endured, had been coaxing a two days’ old scratch, and had just completed his signature when Albert returned with the red paint.

When the document was complete, William folded it up and put it in his pocket.

‘Now,’ he said, assuming a businesslike attitude, ‘we’ve gotter think of a secret password.’

Leopold darkly suggested ‘ ’ell’, but it was felt that, though sinister, it was too indefinite. Albert, after deep thought, brought forward the proposal: ‘Hengland
hex-pects’. This was felt to be, on the whole, too lofty, and finally Sam’s suggestion of ‘Down wiv tyrants!’ was accepted.

William (proposed and seconded by himself) was elected President, and the others (also on his proposal and seconding) were elected secretaries.

A whistle of penetrating and inharmonious tone was originated by William as a secret sign of danger, at which the whole society was to rally. Further, a member of the society, on meeting another
member, was to cross the thumb and first finger and to utter darkly the words ‘Outlaw – Brother!’ Finally, each member raised his right hand, uttered slowly and solemnly the fatal words
‘Down wiv tyrants – till death!’ and the meeting dispersed.

Mr French became thoughtful. The morning after he kept William in he found (with painful consequences) a hornet in his boot. The evening after he had showered on William his
choicest sarcasms he found the back tyre of his bicycle punctured. After another conflict with William, he found various indispensable things missing from his bag when he arrived at school, though
he could have sworn he had put them in. He found them later in the greenhouse.

On another occasion he found that a little soot had been put in his hat and had reposed on his head as he paid a call and (all unconscious of his appearance) had tried to charm his
headmaster’s daughter. It was incredible, but— He pondered deeply over the matter and always came to the same conclusion. It was incredible, but— He tried ignoring William, and
the curious, inexplicable annoyances ceased. It was certainly incredible, but— He left it at that.

The aims of the society widened. When Mr Beal, the squire of the villlage, chased William in person out of his orchard, with the help of dogs, sticks, and stones, he found the next morning in
his orchard, in full view of the road, a scarecrow bearing a curious resemblance to himself and wearing a suit of his old clothes . . .

When the Rev. Cuthbert Pugh called William ‘a nasty, dirty little boy, and, I am sure, a great trial to his dear mother’, he discovered, the next morning, horrid little gargoyle-like
faces outlined in white paint on all his trees – most unpleasant – and conspicuous – and unclerical.

It was altogether a successful secret society. It achieved its aims. It gave William back his self-respect, which Mr French had considerably impaired. The secretaries, Sam, Albert and Leopold,
seemed to take delight in avenging the insults heaped by an unsympathetic world on their President. It was pure joy to William to meet any of them in the streets or lanes, cross his finger and
thumb and utter darkly the words ‘Outlaw – Brother!’

So far all was well . . .

Then Ginger, Henry and Douglas, recovered from chicken-pox, came back to school. The peaceful and inoffensive Mr Cremer returned to his own form room, and Mr French retired to
his own fifth form. Mr French was not sorry to go. He went with one last speculative look at William, and with the final thought that it was incredible, but—

Life held once more games and walks and daring adventures with Ginger, Henry and Douglas. William lost his sense of grievance. He realised from his friends’ accounts of their illness that
he had not missed much. Gradually the once thrilling thought of his secret society ceased to thrill him. At first he took delight in uttering the mysterious password when he was with Ginger, Henry
or Douglas, but he became bored with it himself, even before it got on their nerves, and they took active physical measures to get it off their nerves.

‘All right,’ agreed William, picking himself out of the ditch and removing the dead leaves from his hair and mouth. ‘I won’t say it again, but I jolly well won’t
tell you
why
I uster say it. It’s a deadly secret an’ I guess you can’t guess wot it means.’

‘Yes, an’ I guess we jolly well don’t want to,’ returned Ginger.

It was the next week that William called a final meeting of the secret society to announce its dissolution. As the members appeared, he realised how intensely he disliked them, Leopold
especially. He hated Leopold now. He hated his large cap and little eyes and projecting teeth. He looked at him coldly and critically as he made his speech.

‘The Serciety’s gotter stop now, ’cause I’ve gotter lot of other things to do an’ we’re making a bridge over the stream in the field, an’ I’ve not
got time for secret sercieties, an’ I don’t want revenging any more ’cause he’s gone now, an’ so we’ll stop it.’

‘Wot about “till deth”?’ said Leopold, hoarsely.

‘Things is changed since then,’ said William.

‘Ho, yuss!’ said Leopold, scathingly.

William’s dislike of Leopold increased.

‘Anyway I made it,’ he said aggressively, ‘so I can stop it.’

‘Orl right,’ said Sam. ‘You can pay us off an’ stop it.’

‘Pay you off?’ repeated William, aghast.

‘Yuss,’ agreed Albert. ‘You pay us off an’ we’ll stop it.’

‘Ho, yuss!’ said Leopold.

‘I’ve not got anything to pay you off with,’ said William, desperately. ‘You don’t be
paid
for bein’ in a secret serciety I told you you didn’t.
You jus’
b’long.’

‘Well,’ said Sam, as if astounded by the depravity of human nature, ‘an’ us workin’ for you—’

‘Riskin’ our lives for you,’ put in Leopold, pathetically.

‘To be treated like this ’ere,’ ended Albert, sadly.

‘But – wot d’you want?’ said the President, wildly. ‘I’ve not
got
any money left this week, an’ next week’s an’ the week’s
after’s goin’ to pay for an ole clock bein’ mended wot I was jus’ lookin’ at an’ I put it back all right, ’cept how was I to know there was too many wheels
in it? An’ I tell you you don’t be
paid
for bein’ in a secret serciety – no one is – they jus’ – they jus’
b’long
. . . I keep
tellin’
you . . . you don’t
understand.
’

‘Wot about “till deth”?’ put in Leopold again in his sepulchral tones.

‘Orl right,’ said Sam, ‘we’ll jus’ go an’ tell ole Frenchy an’ Mr Beal an’ Mr Pugh an’ your father that we did all those things, but you put
us up to them an’ made us do ’em.’ He gazed at William dispassionately. ‘I’m sorry for
you. You’ll
catch it.’

William’s freckled countenance was full of horror and amazement. He passed a grimy hand through his already wild hair.

‘But – but it’s not
right.
You don’t understand. It’s a serciety. You did the things ’cause you
b’longed.
You can’t go an’ tell of
them afterwards. You – you don’t understand.’

‘We won’t tell of them if you’ll pay us off,’ said Sam.

‘Wot about “till deth”?’ said Leopold triumphantly, with an air of bringing forward an irrefutable argument.

William took refuge in sarcasm.

‘I
b’lieve
I’ve told you,’ he said, with a passable imitation of Mr French’s manner, ‘that I’ve no money. I shall be very glad to
make
some money for you out of nothing if you’ll show me how. Oh, yes! If you can show someone wot’s not got any money how to
make
some money out of nothing, I’ll make some for
you – as much as you like. Oh, yes! I hope,’ he ended, remembering one of Mr French’s favourite phrases, ‘that I make myself quite clear.’

They gazed at him in unwilling admiration of his eloquence. Sam brought them back to the matter in hand.

‘It needn’t be money,’ he said. ‘All we say is we oughter get something for all the trouble an’ danger we’ve took for you. Something to eat would do –
something nice an’ big.’

‘Yes, an’ how am I to
get
it?’ demanded William, indignantly. ‘D’you want me to
starve?
D’you think my folks would look on an’ watch me
starve to death givin’ my food to you – jus’ ’cause you went an’ put an ole scarecrow in someone’s garden? D’you think that’s a good reason for one person
to starve to death, ’cause another person put a scarecrow in another person’s garden?’

They were aware that in rhetoric William soared far beyond them.

‘Well, we’ll go home with you,’ said Sam, ignoring the argument.

‘Either you jus’ give us something nice an’ big to eat or we’ll tell your father.’

William, though rather pale, laughed scornfully.

‘Yes, you jus’ come home with me,’ he said. ‘I guess you’ve not seen our dog, have you? Nearly as big as a horse. I guess there won’t be much of you left when
our dog sees you. Huh!’

With what was meant to be a sinister laugh he turned on his heel and strolled off. With sinking heart he saw that they were accompanying him, Leopold and his projecting teeth walking by his
side, Sam and Albert behind. With a slight swagger and humming airily to himself, but with apprehension at his heart, William slowly wended his homeward way.

At the gate stood Jumble, his dog, small and friendly and rapturously glad to see them all. Jumble was no snob. Having assured William of his lifelong devotion and ecstatic joy at seeing him
again, he went on to extend a tempestuous welcome to Sam, Albert and Leopold. William looked at him with affectionate sorrow. Though he adored Jumble, he thought he’d ask for a bloodhound for
his next birthday present – a really savage one that would recognise his enemies at a glance. He walked, still with his careless swagger, but with his heart sinking lower at every step, round to
the side door. Sam, Albert and Leopold still accompanied him.

‘Now,’ whispered Sam, ‘you go and get us something real slap-up to eat, or we’ll tell your father what you made us do.’

William entered the side door and shut it firmly.

He went first to the kitchen. Cook was lifting a large pie out of the oven. His gloomy expression lifted.

‘Wot’s that for, Cook?’ he enquired, politely.

‘For some people as is coming to supper tonight, an’ none of your business, Master William.’

There was no love lost between William and Cook. William wandered casually over to the larder door and opened it gently. Cook wheeled sharply round.

‘Please come away from that door and go out of my kitchen, Master William. Your tea’s laid in the dining-room.’

William uttered his famous scornful laugh.