The Golden Age | Page 9

sort of way; and said, `Look here, youngster! These are for you and the other kids. Buy what you like--make little beasts of yourselves--only don't tell the old people, mind! Now cut away home!' So I cut."
A solemn hush fell on the assembly, broken first by the small Charlotte. "I didn't know," she observed dreamily, "that there were such good men anywhere in the world. I hope he'll die to- night, for then he'll go straight to heaven!" But the repentant Selina bewailed herself with tears and sobs, refusing to be comforted; for that in her haste she had called this white-souled relative a beast.
"I'll tell you what we'll do," said Edward, the master-mind, rising--as he always did--to the situation: "We'll christen the piebald pig after him--the one that hasn't got a name yet. And that'll show we're sorry for our mistake!"
"I--I christened that pig this morning," Harold guiltily confessed; "I christened it after the curate. I'm very sorry-- but he came and bow'ed to me last night, after you others had all been sent to bed early--and somehow I felt I HAD to do it!"
"Oh, but that doesn't count," said Edward hastily; "because we weren't all there. We'll take that christening off, and call it Uncle William. And you can save up the curate for the next litter!"
And the motion being agreed to without a division, the House went into Committee of Supply.

ALARUMS AND EXCURSIONS
"Let's pretend," suggested Harold, "that we're Cavaliers and Roundheads; and YOU be a Roundhead!"
"O bother," I replied drowsily, "we pretended that yesterday; and it's not my turn to be a Roundhead, anyhow." The fact is, I was lazy, and the call to arms fell on indifferent ears. We three younger ones were stretched at length in the orchard. The sun was hot, the season merry June, and never (I thought) had there been such wealth and riot of buttercups throughout the lush grass. Green-and-gold was the dominant key that day. Instead of active "pretence" with its shouts and perspiration, how much better--I held--to lie at ease and pretend to one's self, in green and golden fancies, slipping the husk and passing, a careless lounger, through a sleepy imaginary world all gold and green! But the persistent Harold was not to be fobbed of.
"Well, then," he began afresh, "let's pretend we're Knights of the Round Table; and (with a rush) _I'll_ be Lancelot!"
"I won't play unless I'm Lancelot," I said. I didn't mean it really, but the game of Knights always began with this particular contest.
"O PLEASE," implored Harold. "You know when Edward's here I never get a chance of being Lancelot. I haven't been Lancelot for weeks!"
Then I yielded gracefully. "All right," I said. "I'll be Tristram."
"O, but you can't," cried Harold again.
"Charlotte has always been Tristram. She won't play unless she's allowed to be Tristram! Be somebody else this time."
Charlotte said nothing, but breathed hard, looking straight before her. The peerless hunter and harper was her special hero of romance, and rather than see the part in less appreciative hands, she would even have returned sadly to the stuffy schoolroom.
"I don't care," I said: "I'll be anything. I'll be Sir Kay. Come on!"
Then once more in this country's story the mail-clad knights paced through the greenwood shaw, questing adventure, redressing wrong; and bandits, five to one, broke and fled discomfited to their caves. Once again were damsels rescued, dragons disembowelled, and giants, in every corner of the orchard, deprived of their already superfluous number of heads; while Palamides the Saracen waited for us by the well, and Sir Breuse Saunce Pite vanished in craven flight before the skilled spear that was his terror and his bane. Once more the lists were dight in Camelot, and all was gay with shimmer of silk and gold; the earth shook with thunder of horses, ash-staves flew in splinters; and the firmament rang to the clash of sword on helm. The varying fortune of the day swung doubtful--now on this side, now on that; till at last Lancelot, grim and great, thrusting through the press, unhorsed Sir Tristram (an easy task), and bestrode her, threatening doom; while the Cornish knight, forgetting hard- won fame of old, cried piteously, "You're hurting me, I tell you! and you're tearing my frock!" Then it happed that Sir Kay, hurtling to the rescue, stopped short in his stride, catching sight suddenly, through apple-boughs, of a gleam of scarlet afar off; while the confused tramp of many horses, mingled with talk and laughter, was borne to our ears.
"What is it?" inquired Tristram, sitting up and shaking out her curls; while Lancelot forsook the clanging lists and trotted nimbly to the hedge.
I stood spell-bound for a moment longer, and then, with a cry of "Soldiers!" I was off to the hedge, Charlotte picking herself