William in Trouble (16 page)

But, strange to say, Hubert had his following. Hubert had endless pecuniary resources. Hubert’s pockets were always full of sweets, and his larder at home was always full of rich and
unhealthy-looking pastries. And there were boys who were willing to swallow Hubert, so to speak, for the sake of these things.

So by the end of the week the various small hockey groups had resolved themselves into two large rival teams – William’s and Hubert’s. Hubert’s hockey was of a less
violent nature than William’s, but the Hubert Laneites were unexpectedly keen. They played in the field behind Hubert’s house. Occasionally they hung over the stile leading to the
Outlaws’ field and hurled insults and abuse at the Outlaws, turning to flee to the near and safe refuge of the Lane homestead when the Outlaws started in pursuit.

Yet nothing might have happened if it hadn’t been for Mrs Lane. Mrs Lane was notoriously lacking in any sort of sense. Mrs Lane had always refused to acknowledge the existence of the
Outlaws v. Laneites feud. She was always meeting William’s mother and saying: ‘Our little boys are
such
friends, Mrs Brown, you
must
come in and have tea with me
sometime.’ Or she would meet William in the village and pat his head and say: ‘You’re one of my little boy’s school friends, dear, aren’t you?’ She was fat and
smiling and placid and incredibly stupid. So it was really Mrs Lane who brought about the whole thing by stopping Mrs Brown in the village and saying smilingly: ‘Our little boys are
such
friends, aren’t they? And they’re both
so
keen on this wonderful new game, aren’t they? And they’ve both got teams, haven’t they? Don’t you
think it would be a
sweet
idea for their teams to have a match against each other?’

Mrs Brown didn’t, but she didn’t say so.

‘And you
must
come in and have tea with me sometime,’ went on Mrs Lane, ‘because our little boys are
such
friends.’

And even then nothing might have come of it, but Mr Lane happened to come along at that moment, and his wife said: ‘I’ve just been saying to Mrs Brown that it would be such a
sweet
idea if Huby’s and Willie’s hockey teams could have a
match
against each other.’

Now, Mr Lane, as I have said, was only a more odious edition of his son. But he imagined himself a fine sporting fellow whom all boys adore, and he happened to be in a good temper. So he rubbed
his hands and gave a great booming laugh and said, ‘
Splendid! A
top-hole idea! Huby shall write the challenge tonight.’

And Huby did. Or rather, Huby’s father did.

The Outlaws received the challenge with mixed feelings. They welcomed the thought of a scrap with the Laneites. But not a scrap organised and presided over by Mr Lane, who would be sure to write
letters of complaint to all their fathers if they happened to lay hands upon Hubert’s sacred person, except with the utmost tenderness and respect.

William, with the help of the other Outlaws, answered the challenge.

Mr Lane (whose good temper still continued) was delighted with this. ‘Ha, ha!’ he said, ‘a most unconventional answer to a challenge, to be sure. Our good William’s
composition and orthography are no great credit to him. I must speak to his schoolmaster about them when I meet
him.
’

But Mrs Lane was getting quite worked up about it.

‘You shall have a lovely tea afterwards, Huby, darling, like they do after
real
matches. I’ll give you a
lovely
tea for both teams – for both your team and
Willie’s in the shed. You’ll like that, won’t you?’

Hubert mumbled ungraciously that it would be ‘all right.’ It always broke Hubert’s heart to have to give of his larder’s treasures, of his cakes with glorious icing and
cream insides, to any but his very boonest of companions, and the thought of the Outlaws consuming these treasured delicacies was gall and wormwood to him.

The Outlaws practised hard for the match. They decided to make the best of the brief hour of contest and to ignore entirely the presence of Mr Lane. He might, they decided, write to their
fathers as much as he liked afterwards. They were going to make the most of it while it lasted. They were going to jolly well lick the Hubert Laneites to a fizzle.

Rumours, too, of the glorious tea to be provided by Mrs Lane had reached them and still further exalted their spirits. The Outlaws were not proud. They would not refuse iced cakes because they
came from the (metaphorically) gilded larder of the opulent Lanes. Rather would they consume them with might and main in order that fewer might fall to the Laneites’ share.

And now Henry’s sister’s walking toy monkey comes into the story again.

Henry’s sister loved the monkey very dearly (out of pure contrariness, Henry considered), and wept bitterly whenever she was deprived of it. And she had been deprived of it last week,
when, without asking her or anyone’s permission, Henry had taken Monk to form part of a circus organised by William. Henry had been sternly reprimanded by his father for this offence, and on
the very day before the hockey match he committed it again.

William was giving a repeat performance of his circus, and Monk as one of the star turns simply had to be present, so Henry had taken Monk again, hoping that his small and tyrannical sister
would not notice its absence. But the small and tyrannical sister
had
noticed Monk’s absence and had sobbed bitterly all the afternoon. . . .

Henry’s mother’s tender heart had been touched by the small sister’s grief and hardened against Henry. Henry’s mother was really very nice, but she took her duty as
Henry’s mother rather too seriously. She had read that afternoon an article on the upbringing of children which said that the punishment should fit the crime. The writer said: ‘If a
child has taken some article which he has been forbidden to take, then he must be made to carry the article about with him for a whole day, or more, whatever he is doing and however embarrassing
its presence may prove.’

Henry’s mother wasn’t
quite
sure that it was a rule that would work, but she thought that perhaps it was worth trying, especially as the small sister had transferred her
affections to a teddy bear, and Monk, owing to his desertion, was temporarily out of favour.

‘Henry,’ she said, ‘you’ve taken Monk again when you were told not to, so you must carry him about with you all day – or, if you’d rather, I’ll tell
your father when he comes home tonight and he can deal with it.’

Henry wouldn’t rather. Henry didn’t like his father’s methods of ‘dealing’ with things at all.

‘All right,’ he said obligingly. ‘I’ll take Monk round with me tomorrow.’

Henry thought that he could easily conceal Monk beneath his coat, and that, even were Monk’s presence discovered, Monk’s accomplishmeats would prove an asset rather than a liability.
And so it came about that Henry set off for the great hockey match with Monk buttoned up under his coat. He was feeling now more apprehensive about Monk than he had done at first because halfway
through the morning Monk’s works had suddenly refused to function. Monk would not walk now, however much you wound him up. Monk was therefore no longer a performing animal. He was openly and
unashamedly a toy monkey, and as such derogatory to Henry’s dignity.

Henry was aware that should the Laneites spy Monk they would make the most of him. They would use him as a handle against Henry and the other Outlaws. They would jeer at him openly and
unmercifully. They would make themselves a nuisance about it for weeks.

But Henry was a sportsman. Having undertaken to carry Monk about with him for the whole day, he was going to do it.

The Outlaws met together very early before the match. They had been considerably cheered that morning by the information that both Mr and Mrs Lane would be away from home. Mr Lane had tired of
the whole idea and gone off to play golf and Mrs Lane had gone to visit a sick friend.

All the Outlaws carried walking-sticks, and Henry carried Monk buttoned closely under his coat. The Outlaws, who knew the story of Monk, tactfully refrained from any allusion to it. The Hubert
Laneites had not yet appeared.

‘I say,’ said Ginger, slashing carelessly on all sides with his stick, ‘they say she’s giving a
scrummy
tea.’

‘I saw ’em,’ corroborated Douglas eagerly, ‘carryin’ trays of things down to the shed from the house. It looked
jolly
fine, I can tell you.’

‘What’ll we do till they come?’ said Henry, trying to compress the excrescence that was Monk into a less noticeable shape beneath his coat.

‘Practise,’ said Ginger, still slashing wildly and with evident enjoyment.

‘We’ve not got a ball,’ said Douglas, ‘
they’re
bringing the ball.’

‘Well, I tell you what I’m goin’ to do,’ said William. ‘I’m goin’ to go down to their shed an’ have a look at what they’ve got for
tea.’

‘An’ we’ll all come, too,’ sang Ginger with a joyous slash.

‘No, you’d better not,’ said William, ‘they’d see us if a lot of us went. An’ you’d better stay here ’case they come.’

The Outlaws accepted William’s decision as final. Douglas found a suitably-sized stone, and he and Ginger fell upon it with their sticks and an engrossing game of hockey for two ensued.
Henry was still wrestling with Monk.

William cautiously approached the wall which surrounded the Lane back garden.

He hoisted himself up, dropped silently into the garden and remained for a moment crouching behind a bush. Then he raised his head and looked around him. The coast was clear. The garden was
empty. The shed stood only a few yards from him. There was a small window high up in the back of it. He cautiously advanced, hoisted himself up into a tree and looked through the window.

It was a fairly large shed. A table had been laid in the middle of it. The sight of the table made William’s mouth water. Cakes – sugar cakes, cream cakes, meringues, eclairs,
glorious cakes, the very poetry of cakes, plate upon plate of them. Hubert’s mother had, indeed, provided with a generous hand. She evidently gauged everyone’s appetite by
Hubert’s.

HE HOISTED HIMSELF UP INTO A TREE AND LOOKED DOWN THROUGH THE WINDOW. THE SIGHT MADE WILLIAM’S MOUTH WATER.

There were plates of plainer cakes, too, of wholesome-looking buns and scones, but they were ordinary cakes, cakes one can have at home any day, the very prose of cakes. They failed to thrill.
William guessed that the majority of them would be left after the feast. At one end of the table stood glasses and innumerable bottles of ginger-beer – a noble profusion of bottles. There
were a few old packing-cases in one corner of the shed and some old plant pots at the other. Otherwise the shed was empty of furniture. But it was not empty of human beings.

Hubert Lane himself, rather paler than ever, stood by the table and with him his faithful friend and lieutenant Bertie Franks. Like Hubert, Bertie Franks ate too much and cried when hurt and was
very careful of his clothes and told his father whenever anyone annoyed him. They were looking greedily and gloatingly at the plates of cake. A corner of the window frame was broken and through it
William could hear what they said.

‘An’ they’ll gobble ’em all up,’ Hubert was saying plaintively, ‘an’ there’ll be
nothin
’ left afterwards.’

‘Greedy pigs!’ agreed Bertie mournfully, ‘jus’ think of
them
eating up all our nice cakes—’ then he brightened, ‘I say, Huby, your father
an’ mother’s not coming after all, are they?’

‘No,’ said Hubert.

‘Well –
well
, I’ve got an idea.’

‘What?’ said Hubert still gloomily.

‘Well, let’s hide ’em – all the nice ones. Let’s jus’ leave the buns an’ scones. There’ll be enough an’ they’ll never know an’
we can have them afterwards.’

A light broke over Hubert’s mournful face. He beamed. He smiled from ear to ear.

‘I say, what a jolly good idea, Bertie. Where shall we put ’em? We can’t carry ’em back to the house.’

‘No.’ Bertie frowned and looked about him. His eye fell upon the packing-case.

‘In here,’ he said, ‘we can turn ’em over sideways an’ put the stuff in an’ no one’ll know and then afterwards,’ his little eyes gleamed,
‘we can have a
jolly
good tuck in – jus’ you an’ me.’

They carried the platefuls of cakes from the table to the packing-case, putting the top of the packing-case to the side and finally moving it close to the wall of the shed. Upon the table was
left only a few plates of plain buns and scones. ‘Quite enough for ’em, too,’ said Hubert scornfully.

‘Quite,’ agreed Bertie. Then his glance fell upon the bottles of ginger-beer. ‘An’ jus’ think of ’em guzzlin’ down those too.’ Then once more he
brightened. ‘I say, we can hide those, too – you’re
sure
your mother an’ father won’t be here, Huby?’