Jackanapes | Page 2

used for
strange purposes. A political meeting was held on it with the village
Cobbler in the chair, and a speaker who came by stage coach from the
town, where they had wrecked the bakers' shops, and discussed the
price of bread. He came a second time, by stage, but the people had
heard something about him in the meanwhile, and they did not keep
him on the Green. They took him to the pond and tried to make him
swim, which he could not do, and the whole affair was very disturbing
to all quiet and peaceable fowls. After which another man came, and
preached sermons on the Green, and a great many people went to hear
him; for those were "trying times," and folk ran hither and thither for
comfort. And then what did they do but drill the ploughboys on the
Green, to get them ready to fight the French, and teach them the
goose-step! However, that came to an end at last, for Bony was sent to
St. Helena, and the ploughboys were sent back to the plough.
Everybody lived in fear of Bony in those days, especially the naughty
children, who were kept in order during the day by threats of, "Bony
shall have you," and who had nightmares about him in the dark. They
thought he was an Ogre in a cocked hat. The Grey Goose thought he
was a fox, and that all the men of England were going out in red coats
to hunt him. It was no use to argue the point, for she had a very small

head, and when one idea got into it there was no room for another.
Besides, the Grey Goose never saw Bony, nor did the children, which
rather spoilt the terror of him, so that the Black Captain became more
effective as a Bogy with hardened offenders. The Grey Goose
remembered his coming to the place perfectly. What he came for she
did not pretend to know. It was all part and parcel of the war and bad
times. He was called the Black Captain, partly because of himself, and
partly because of his wonderful black mare. Strange stories were afloat
of how far and how fast that mare could go, when her master's hand
was on her mane and he whispered in her ear. Indeed, some people
thought we might reckon ourselves very lucky if we were not out of the
frying-pan into the fire, and had not got a certain well-known
Gentleman of the Road to protect us against the French. But that, of
course, made him none the less useful to the Johnson's Nurse, when the
little Miss Johnsons were naughty.
"You leave off crying this minnit, Miss Jane, or I'll give you right away
to that horrid wicked officer. Jemima! just look out o' the windy, if you
please, and see if the Black Cap'n's a-com-ing with his horse to carry
away Miss Jane."
And there, sure enough, the Black Captain strode by, with his sword
clattering as if it did not know whose head to cut off first. But he did
not call for Miss Jane that time. He went on to the Green, where he
came so suddenly upon the eldest Master Johnson, sitting in a puddle
on purpose, in his new nankeen skeleton suit, that the young gentleman
thought judgment had overtaken him at last, and abandoned himself to
the howlings of despair. His howls were redoubled when he was
clutched from behind and swung over the Black Captain's shoulder, but
in five minutes his tears were stanched, and he was playing with the
officer's accoutrements. All of which the Grey Goose saw with her own
eyes, and heard afterwards that that bad boy had been whining to go
back to the Black Captain ever since, which showed how hardened he
was, and that nobody but Bonaparte himself could be expected to do
him any good.
But those were "trying times." It was bad enough when the pickle of a

large and respectable family cried for the Black Captain; when it came
to the little Miss Jessamine crying for him, one felt that the sooner the
French landed and had done with it the better.
The big Miss Jessamine's objection to him was that he was a soldier,
and this prejudice was shared by all the Green. "A soldier," as the
speaker from the town had observed, "is a bloodthirsty, unsettled sort
of a rascal; that the peaceable, home-loving, bread-winning citizen can
never conscientiously look on as a brother, till he has beaten his sword
into a ploughshare, and his spear into a pruning-hook."
On the other hand there was some truth in what the Postman (an old
soldier) said in reply; that the sword has to cut a