William in Trouble (2 page)

‘That’s right, my men!’ he called lustily and cheerily. ‘Dig away there. Ahoy there! Tally ho! Dig away there.’

Ginger threw up a piece of pot. William seized on it and examined it closely.

‘This, ladies and gen’l’men,’ he said in his best showroom manner, ‘is part of an ole Roman teapot, prob’ly the very one what King Julius Cæsar drank
out of when he was in England.’

‘He wasn’t a king,’ objected one of his audience.

William looked at him crushingly.

‘’Scuse
me
,’ he said with withering politeness, ‘Julius Cæsar was one of the seven hills – I mean seven kings – of Rome, an’ if you think
he wasn’t – you can jus’ come an’ fight me for it.’

The objector looked at William. He’d fought William before.

‘All right,’ he said pacifically. ‘He was, if you like.’

Ginger had thrown up a halfpenny now. William took it up and rubbed the earth away with his handkerchief (it did not make any appreciable difference to the colour of his handkerchief) and made a
pretence of examining it with great interest.

‘Ladies an’ gen’l’men,’ he said. ‘This – why – I really believe it
is
!’

There was a gasp of interest and suspense.

‘Yes, I b’lieve it
is
,’ he repeated. William knew how to hold his audience’s interest.

‘Yes, it
certainly
is.’

‘What?’ said a boy.

‘Kin’ly don’ interrupt,’ said William sternly. ‘Ladies an’ gen’l’men, this coin is actually the one what Balbus used to buy stuff to build his
wall with.’

‘How d’you know?’

‘
You
wun’t know,’ said William condescendingly, ‘
you
wun’t know if you looked at it all day, but I know because I know about that sort of thing. Why
d’you think I’m doin’ diggin’ here if I don’ know about that sort of thing? That man over there he
thinks
he’s got where the ole Romans were – but
he’s not. It’s here where the old Romans were, where I am.’

Gradually the other spectators had left the scene of the Roman villa and wandered over to where William was holding forth. The fifth halfpenny had just been discovered, and William was holding
it up still covered with mud for the admiration of his audience.

‘This coin, ladies an’ gen’l’men,’ he said, ‘is a very valu’ble one. It’s far more valu’ble than any
he’s
found,’ he
jerked his head in the direction of the other now deserted excavator. ‘
He’s
only findin’ very ord’nery things. This coin is the mos’ valu’ble old Roman
coin what it’s possible to find. It’s part of what the Roman parliament useter give to the Roman king for pocket money, like what the parliament gives the king pocket money today, like
what Mr Bunker said they did in the history lesson.

‘This, ladies an’ gen’l’men,’ he went on impressively, ‘is off the top of the wall what Balbus built.’

This information was lustily cheered by members of the class that was engaged in turning the account of Balbus’ solitary exploit into Balbus’ native tongue.

But William felt that the imminent approach of tea-time and the paucity of his material made a temporary suspension of proceedings necessary.

‘Ladies an’ gen’l’men,’ he said, ‘this show will now close down for tea. These,’ he paused while he mentally chased the errant word
‘excavations.’ ‘These execrations,’ he finally brought out, ‘will begin again at 6 p.m. prompt.’

The crowd melted away. The little old man, Professor Porson, who was in charge of the excavations, was watching curiously. When William and his friends had finally departed, he came over to
William’s hole and looked about it but, finding nothing of interest, he returned to his own.

William did not spend the time before the opening of his ‘show’ in idleness. He and the other Outlaws might have been seen in the interval carrying down baskets full of various
objects, which they concealed in the soil of their hole. There was little time, and the presence of a suspicious family at home gave little opportunity for the collection of very numerous or very
interesting ‘finds,’ but they did what they could. William found time in the interval for a hasty glance at his Latin book.

At six o’clock a large audience had assembled round William’s hole and William began operations.

Ginger first of all unearthed an old sardine tin which he handed up to William. William wiped away the mud with his long-suffering handkerchief, then made a pretence of careful examination. This
pretence had gained greatly in dramatic force since before tea. He placed upon his nose a pair of blue glasses which the doctor had once ordered Ginger’s mother to wear, and which Ginger had
long ago appropriated to his own use, and approached the tin closely to them, making exclamations of interest and surprise as he examined it. The audience watched breathlessly.

‘Why,’ he said at last, ‘this is the very tin what the Roman wolf drank out of.’

‘What wolf?’ demanded a small boy at the back.

William looked at him in horror through his blue spectacles.

‘You meanter to say,’ he said, ‘that you’ve never heard of the Roman wolf – the one what sucked Romus an’ Remus?’

It may here be remarked that all William’s knowledge of the animal in question had been gleaned hastily from his illustrated Latin book before tea.

‘Who was
they
?’ piped the stubbornly illiterate small boy.

‘Well!’ said William in a tone that expressed horror and surprise at the revelation of such depths of ignorance. ‘Fancy not knowing ’bout Romus an’ Remus. Romus
an’ Remus was – they was – they was two Romans an’ they went out walkin’ in a wood an’ they met a wolf an’ – an’ it sucked
’em.’

‘Why’d it stick ’em?’ said the small boy.

‘Wolfs don’t suck folk,’ said a boy in front, ‘you’re thinkin’ of bears huggin’ folks.’

‘I’m
not
,’ said the excavator pugnaciously. ‘You ever met an ole Roman wolf?’

The objector had to admit that he had not had this experience.

‘Well then,’ said William triumphantly, ‘how do you know how they useter go on? I tell you that all ole Roman wolfs useter
suck
folks. It
says
so in the book.
It’s just like dogs
lickin
’ folks to show that they’re pleased. Well, this tin is the tin what the wolf what sucked Romus an’ Remus useter drink out
of—’

Henry with his little wooden spade had unearthed a small dish. William carefully wiped it and examined it, adjusting his blue spectacles with a flourish and uttering the while his dramatic
exclamations of surprised interest. Any member of William’s household would have recognised the soap-dish from William’s bedroom, but, fortunately for William, no members of his
household were there.

‘Why, this is the basin where Julia washed the sailors’ hands,’ he said at last.

There was a murmur of pleased recognition. That came in Exercise II. Most of them had got so far.

‘There’s a bit o’ soap still left in,’ said William, holding up a fragment of coal tar soap for inspection, ‘so that
proves
it.’

Then he hastily passed on before anyone could challenge his deduction.

Douglas was holding up a piece of wood.

‘Part of an ole Roman mensa,’ said William with an air of conscious scholarship which was both deprecating and proud.

Next came the gem of the collection, a battered, once white cloth goose with a broken yellow beak, which Henry had taken, together with the spade, from his furiously protesting small sister.

William rubbed this drooping creature with his earth-sodden handkerchief, and gave a well-simulated start of amazement.

‘Why, this,’ he said, ‘is one of the geese what woke the Capitol.’ He held it up. Its head drooped limply on to one side, ‘dead now, o’ course,’ he
added.

The boys in front demanded to handle the body, and were sternly refused.

‘’Course not,’ said William. ‘You don’ know how to hold the things. It’d drop into dust ’f you caught hold of it. Don’ you remember in that
Tootman’s tomb the things dropped into dust? You’ve gotter be very careful. I know how to hold it so’s it won’t drop into dust an’ you don’t.’

‘Why’d it wake the Capitol?’ piped the small boy at the back.

William had merely read the title of the story in his book, but as the story itself was in the Latin language, he had not been able to make himself further acquainted with it. But William was
never at a loss.

‘’Cause it was time for him to get up, of course,’ he said crushingly.

The next ‘discoveries’ followed thick and fast – a Roman hatpin, a Roman pipe, a Roman toasting fork and a Roman tennis ball. Upon all of these the excavator held forth
eloquently with great
empressement
if little accuracy. The audience was warming to the game. Each ‘discovery’ was cheered loudly and the account of the excavator challenged at
every detail. The excavator liked that. His eloquence thrived on contradiction. He proved conclusively that the little figure of the Lincoln Imp upon the hatpin was the figure of one of the Roman
gods, ‘Joppiter or Minevus or one of ’em – or I don’ say it isn’t Romus or Remus or the wolf.’

‘Or the goose,’ put in the small boy at the back.

‘Yes,’ said William kindly, ‘I don’ say it isn’t the goose.’

He proved too, from the presence of a pipe among his other ‘discoveries’, that smoking, far from having been discovered by Sir Walter Scott, as the small boy insisted, had been one
of the favourite pastimes of Julius Cæsar during his residence in England. An empty match box, lying not far from the other discoveries, said by the excavator upon examination, to be
‘mos’ cert’nly ole Roman,’ was admitted by most of those present to be conclusive proof of this.

The ‘discoveries’ might have gone on indefinitely had not Farmer Jenks appeared upon the scene. The sight of the Outlaws had that effect upon Farmer Jenks that the proverbial
‘red rag’ is supposed to have upon the proverbial bull. When the Outlaws weren’t climbing his fences, they were treading down his meadowland, or walking through his corn or
climbing his trees or birds’ nesting in his woods. They didn’t seem to be able to live without trespassing on his land.

Farmer Jenks spent a good deal of time and energy chasing the Outlaws. On this occasion he first saw a crowd of boys (he hated boys) on the public path that bordered his ploughed field. He then
noticed that the crowd was distinctly encroaching upon his ploughed land. Finally he saw ‘that boy’ (thus always in his mind he designated William) and the rest of them actually digging
up his field. He rushed at them with a yell of fury.

The chief excavator, with great presence of mind, caught up the basket in which his ‘finds’ had been placed, jumped across the ditch, and scrambled through a hole in the hedge. The
others followed.

Farmer Jenks had outgrown the youthful slimness of his earlier days. Even the occasional physical exercise which the pursuit of the Outlaws gave him had done little to keep down his weight. He
was just in time to seize the smallest boy (who was the last to attempt the hole in the hedge) by the scruff of his neck.

The smallest boy, though of inconsiderable stature, possessed well-developed teeth which, with a quick twist of his neck, he planted firmly in Farmer Jenks’ detaining hand. Farmer Jenks
released him with a yell, and the small boy, smiling sweetly to himself, scraped through the hole and trotted as quickly as he could after the others, who were already disappearing in the
distance.

Farmer Jenks turned wrathfully and began to kick back the earth into the hole.

William reached home breathless, but, on the whole, satisfied with his afternoon. He’d given them a better show than that ole man with the white beard, anyway. He
didn’t seem to know how to make things
interesting.
Fancy digging up nothing but bits of ole pot and dirty ole halfpennies. Anyone’d get tired of watching that all day.

William carried the basket containing his ‘finds’ up to his bedroom, and there amused himself by taking them out one by one and holding forth to an imaginary audience. He thought of
a lot more things to say. He wished he could do it all over again. He could do it heaps better. He heard his father come in with a visitor and stopped a dramatic account of the meeting of Romus and
Remus and the wolf in the wood to go and lean over the banisters to see who it was. Crumbs! it was the little old man with the white beard.

He returned very slowly to his bedroom. He did not continue the account of the meeting of Romus and Remus with the wolf. Instead, he tried to express to an imaginary accuser the fact that
p’raps he
might
have shot the catapult by mistake. Yes, he remembered distinctly holding it in his hand, and he admitted that it
might
have gone off by mistake when he
wasn’t looking. They did sometimes. He was very sorry if he hit anyone, very sorry indeed. He remembered when it went off by mistake hoping that it hadn’t hit anyone, because he always
tried to be very careful with it and hold it so that if it went off by mistake it wouldn’t hit anyone.

William practised in his looking-glass for a few minutes the sort of face that went with the foregoing sentiments, and having achieved a look of blank imbecility which he fondly imagined to
express concern and contrition, he went downstairs, his features still carefully composed.

Determining to get the worst over at once, he entered the drawing-room where his father sat conversing with the visitor. William sat down by the door and stared at the visitor. On his entrance
into the room his features had, unknown to himself, taken on an expression of pugnacious fury, and the ferocious glare which he turned on the innocent old man would have reduced any of
William’s own followers to instant subjection. The old man, however, met it blandly enough.

‘Is that the little boy?’ he asked. ‘Come nearer, my little fellow,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid I can hardly see you over there. I’m so near-sighted that I
can hardly see across a room.’

William’s expression softened. He liked old men who were so near-sighted that they could hardly see across a room. It meant that they were so near-sighted that they could hardly see across
a field at the end of which a small boy might stand with a catapult which had a habit of going off by mistake.