William in Trouble (26 page)

‘Yes,’ said William indignantly, ‘fancy sayin’ he thought I’d better not come. Why, I should think I’m ’s good at waitin’ ’s anybody else in
the world – why, when I start singin’ you c’n hear me at the other end of the village.’

This statement, being unassailable, passed unchallenged.

‘Do you know where we’re goin’?’ continued William.

‘He said beginnin’ up Well Lane,’ said Douglas.

‘My Uncle George lives in Well Lane,’ said Ginger thoughtfully, ‘the one what’s givin’ me
Kings an
’
Queens of England.
’

There was a short silence. In that silence the thought came to all three Outlaws that the expedition might have even vaster possibilities than at first they had imagined.

‘
Then
, where we goin’?’ said William.

‘Jus’ up the village street,’ said Douglas.

‘My Uncle Charles,’ said William thoughtfully, ‘the one what’s givin’ me the penknife you can’t do any harm with, lives right away from the
village.’

‘So does my Aunt Jane – the one what’s givin’ me the ole green tie.’

William’s face assumed its expression of daring leadership.

‘Well,’ he said, ‘we’ll jus’ have to do what we can.’

Many, many times before Christmas Eve arrived did Mr Solomon bitterly regret the impulse on which he had suggested his party of waits. He would have liked to cancel the arrangement altogether,
but he lacked the courage.

He held several practices in which his party of full-voiced but unmelodious musicians roared ‘Good King Wenceslas’ and ‘The First Noel’, making up in volume for what they
lacked in tone and technique. During these practices he watched the Outlaws apprehensively. His apprehensions increased as time went on, for the Outlaws were behaving like creatures from another
and a higher world.

They were docile and obedient and respectful. And this was not normal in the Outlaws. Normally they would by now have tired of the whole thing. Normally they would be clustered in the back row
cracking nuts and throwing the shells at friends or foes. But they were not. They were standing in the front row wearing saintly expressions (as far, that is, as the expressions of the Outlaws
could convey the idea of saintliness), singing ‘Good King Wenceslas Looked Out’ with strident conscientiousness.

Mr Solomon would have been relieved to see them cracking nuts or deliberately introducing discords into the melody (they introduced discords, it is true, but unconsciously). He began to have a
horrible suspicion that they were forming some secret plan.

The prospective waits assembled with Mr Solomon at the end of the village at nightfall. Mr Solomon was intensely nervous. It had taken all his better self to resist the
temptation to put the whole thing off on the fictitious excuse of sudden illness. He held a lantern in his hand and a large tin of sweets under his arm. He had bought the large tin of sweets last
night on the spur of the moment. He had a vague hope that it might prove useful in some crisis.

He raised the lantern and examined the little crowd of faces around him. He looked as though he were counting them. In reality he was anxiously ascertaining whether the Outlaws were there.
He’d been clinging all day to the hope that the Outlaws mightn’t be there. After all, he had thought hopefully, there was quite a lot of measles about. Or they might have forgotten. But
his heart sank. There they were, standing in the very centre of the group. He sighed. Probably there were hundreds of boys all over the world coming out in rashes at that moment, and yet here were
these boys as bloomingly healthy as they’d ever been. Life was full of irony.

‘Well, here we are,’ he said in that voice of rather painful brightness that he always used with the young. ‘Here we all are – All got your best voices, eh? Now
we’ll go down Well Lane first.’

‘Uncle George,’ whispered Ginger.

‘Go straight down the lane,’ said Mr Solomon, ‘till you get to the Laurels, and then turn in and we’ll begin with “The First Noel”.’

Obediently the little troupe set off towards Well Lane. It was as quiet and good and orderly as a Sunday School superintendent’s heart could wish, and yet the Sunday School
superintendent’s heart was not quite light. He could not help remembering the proverbial order of sequence of the calm and the storm.

He’d have felt, of course, quite happy if the Outlaws hadn’t been there.

He had, however, taken quite a lot of trouble over the itinerary. He meant only to pay half-a-dozen visits, and to sing only one carol at each. It was not likely that they would receive any
encores. The whole thing ought to be over in an hour. He hoped it would be, anyway.

He had already prepared the householders who were to be honoured by a visit from his waits, and though not enthusiastic they were ready to receive the visitants in a Christmas spirit of good
will. He meant to risk no unchristian reception by paying unexpected visits. Though he was well-meaning rather than musical still he had a vague suspicion that the performance of his choir left a
good deal to be desired.

The Misses Perkins lived at the Laurels, and they had assured Mr Solomon that they would love – simply
love – to
hear the dear little boys sing Christmas carols, and so would
Muffy. (Muffy was the Misses Perkins’ cat.) The visit to the Misses Perkins, anyway, ought to go off nicely. Fortunately, the Misses Perkins were slightly deaf.

Everything seemed to be going off very nicely so far. The waits were walking quietly and sedately down the road, not shouting or fighting as boys so often did. Mr Solomon’s spirits rose.
It was really after all a very beautiful idea – and they were really after all very nice boys. He could see William and Ginger and Douglas walking decorously and silently together. Marvellous
how even such boys as those yielded to the Christmas spirit.

They were walking at the head, leading the little troupe; they were turning obediently in at the gate of the Laurels. The young man took out his tuning fork and followed, smiling proudly.

Then the light of his lantern shone upon the gate as he entered and – it wasn’t the Laurels.

They’d made a mistake. It wasn’t the Laurels. It was the Cedars.

Mr Solomon, of course, could not know that the Outlaws had passed the Laurels and entered the Cedars deliberately because Ginger’s Uncle George lived at the Cedars.

‘Come back!’ called Mr Solomon’s thin voice through the night, ‘it’s the wrong house! Come back!’

But already the waits had burst violently into ‘The First Noel’. It was a pity that they did not wait for the note from Mr Solomon, who had his tuning fork already in his hand.

It was a pity that they did not begin all together, and that having begun each at a separate moment each should cling so tenaciously to his own time and interpretation. It was a great pity that
they did not know the words.

It was the greatest pity of all that they possessed the voices they did possess. But there is no denying their zest. There is no denying that each one put all the power and energy he possessed
into his rendering of the carol. The resulting sound was diabolical. Diabolical is a strong word, but it is hardly strong enough. The English language does not really possess a word strong enough
to describe the effect of these waits’ rendering of ‘The First Noel’.

After one minute of it, Uncle George’s window was flung up and Uncle George’s purple face was thrust out.

‘Go away, you young devils!’ he sputtered. ‘How
dare
you come here kicking up that infernal din? Go a-
way
, I say!’

Mr Solomon’s voice in the rear kept up its shrill but ineffective plaint.

‘Come away, boys – it’s the wrong house. I said the Laurels – the Misses Perkins and Muffy will be wondering wherever we are – quietly, boys – don’t
shout
so – and you’ve got the wrong note—’

But nobody heard him. The uproar continued to be deafening. The other waits realised that the Outlaws were for some reason or other determined to make as much noise as possible and gladly gave
their assistance. They found the process exhilarating. They began to think that the whole affair was going to be more interesting than they had thought it would be. Joyfully they yelled and yelled
and yelled. Above them the purple-faced figure of Uncle George gesticulated and uttered words which were (fortunately, perhaps) drowned by the inferno of sound below.

Then suddenly silence came. Abruptly the Outlaws had stopped singing and the others at once stopped too, waiting developments. It was, of course, Uncle George’s chance, and the immediate
development was a flood of eloquence from Uncle George, to which the waits listened with joyful interest and at which Mr Solomon grew pale.

‘Pardon me, sir,’ gasped Mr Solomon, at last recovering, ‘Quite a mistake – boys mistook house – visit meant for friends of ours – no offence intended, I
assure you.’

But so breathless was he that only the two boys nearest him heard him, and no one heeded him. For to the amazement of all of them (except Ginger and Douglas), William spoke up firmly from the
foreground.

‘GO AWAY, YOU YOUNG DEVILS!’ HE SPLUTTERED. ‘HOW DARE YOU COME KICKING UP THAT DIN.’

‘Please, sir, we’re c’lectin’ books for our library. Please, sir, can you give us a book for our lib’ry?’

Mr Solomon gaped in open-mouthed amazement at this statement. He tried to utter some protest, but could only stutter.

MR SOLOMON’S VOICE IN THE REAR KEPT UP ITS SHRILL PLAINT. ‘COME AWAY, BOYS! IT’S THE WRONG HOUSE!’

Uncle George, however, could do more than stutter. He answered the question in the negative with such strength, and at such length, that the waits’ admiration of him became a sort of
ecstasy. William answered the refusal by bursting with amazing promptitude and discord into ‘Good King Wenceslas’.

The Outlaws followed his lead. The rest of the waits joined in, most of them showing their conservative spirits by clinging still to ‘The First Noel.’ Not that it mattered much. No
listener could have told what any of them was singing. Words and tune were lost in a tornado of unmelodious sound. Each wait tasted the rapture of exerting the utmost force of his lungs, and trying
to drown his neighbour’s effort.

In front of them Uncle George hung out of his bedroom window gesticulating violently, his complexion changing from purple to black.

Behind them Mr Solomon clung to the gatepost of the Cedars moaning softly and mopping his brow.

A second time the waits stopped suddenly at a signal from William. The nightmare sound died away and there followed a silence broken only by the moans of Mr Solomon and sputtering from Uncle
George, in which could be recognised the oft-returning words ‘the police.’

But something of Uncle George’s first fine careless frenzy was gone. There was something broken about him, as there would indeed have been something broken about anyone who had listened to
the ghastly sound. Again William spoke up brightly.

‘Please c’n you give us a book for our lib’ry? We’re collectin’ books for our lib’ry. We want a book for boys – ’bout history, please. If
you’ve got one to give us. For our lib’ry please.’

In the background, Mr Solomon, still clinging to the gatepost, moaned. ‘I assure you, sir – mistake – wrong house—’

With admirable promptness and a force that was amazing considering the energy that he must have already expended, William burst with sudden unexpected violence into ‘Fight the Good
Fight’, which Mr Solomon had been teaching them the Sunday before. It was taken up by the others, each, as before, striking out an entirely independent line in his rendering of it. It was the
last straw. Uncle George was beaten.

With an expression of agony he clapped his hands over his ears and staggered backwards. Then he reappeared, and
The Kings and Queens of England
hit William a smart blow on the side of his
head, and fell on to the gravel at his feet. William picked it up and signalled that the hymn should cease. A moment later the waits had gone. There only remained Mr Solomon clinging to the
gatepost, stupefied by the terrible events he had just lived through, and Uncle George sputtering at the open window.