Beyond and over the closely packed woolly backs he saw a stretch of rippled river, faceted with diamond and ruby points, where the rising sun just touched the tips of the little chill wavelets which were fretted by the wind of morning, that gust of cooler air which the dawn pushes before it round the world. Hugh John was free!
CHAPTER XXI THE RETURN FROM THE BASTILE
HEThe great commander's first instinct was to rush for home and so make sure that Cook Mary the Second had done enough kidneys for breakfast. His second idea, and one more worthy of his military reputation, was carefully to conceal the entrance to the doorway, by which he had emerged from the passage he had so wonderfully discovered. No one knew how soon the knowledge might prove useful to him. As a matter of attack and defence the underground passage was certainly not to be neglected.
Then Hugh John drove the sheep before him out of the fallen tower. As he did so one of them coughed, stretching its neck and holding its head near the ground. He now knew the origin of the sound which had no, not frightened him (of course not!), but slightly surprised him the evening before.
And, lo! there, immediately in front of him as he emerged, was the Edam Water, sliding and rippling on under its willows, the slim, silvery-grey leaves showing their white under-sides just as usual. There, across the river, were the cattle, standing already knee-deep in the shallows, their tails nervy and switchy on the alert for the morning's crop of flies. There was Mike going to drive them in to be milked. Yonder in the far distance was a black speck which must be Peter polishing straps and buckles hung on a pin by the stable door.
"Horrid beasts every one of them!" said Hugh John indignantly to himself, "going on all as comfortable as you please, just as if I had not been pining in a dungeon cell for years and years."
Then setting his cramped wet legs in motion, General Napoleon commenced a masterly retreat in the direction of home. He dashed for the stepping-stones, but he was in too much of a hurry to make sure of hitting them. He slipped from the first and went above the knee into the clear cool Edam Water. After that he simply floundered through, and presently emerged dripping on the other side. Along the woodland paths he scurried and scampered. He dashed across glades,
scattering the rabbits and kicking up the dew in the joy of recovered freedom. He climbed a stone dyke into the home park, because he had no time to go round by the stile. He brought half of the fence down in his haste, scraping his knee as he did so. But so excited was he that he scarcely felt the additional bruise.
He ran up the steps. The front door was standing wide open, with the disreputable and tell-tale air of a reveller who has been out all night in evening dress. All doors have this look which have not been decently shut and locked during the dark hours. There was no one in the hall no one in the dining-room no one in the schoolroom, where the children's tea of the night before had never been cleared away. Hugh John noticed that his own place had been set, and the clean cup and plate and the burnished unused knife struck him as infinitely pathetic.
But he was hungry, and had no time to waste on mere feelings. His inner man was too insistent. He knew well where the pantry was (trust him for that!), and he went towards it at the rate of twenty miles an hour. He wished he had remembered to add a petition to his prayer that it might be unlocked. But it was now too late for this, so he must just trust in an unjogged Providence and take his chances.
The gods were favourable. They had evidently agreed that for one small boy he had suffered enough for that day. The pantry was unlocked. There was a lovely beefsteak pie standing on a shelf. Hugh John lifted it off, set it on the candle box, ungratefully throwing Sambo Soulis on the floor in order to make elbow room, and then with a knife and fork he proceeded to demolish the pie. The knife and fork he first put his hands on had obviously been used. But did General Napoleon stop to go to the schoolroom for clean ones? No several thousand times no! Those who can, for a single moment, entertain such thoughts, are very far from having yet made the acquaintance of General Smith. Why, he did not even wait to say grace though he usually repeated half-a-dozen the first thing in the morning, so as to have the job well over for the day. It is all right to say grace, but it is such a fag to have to remember before every meal. So Hugh John went into the wholesale business.
He was half through the pie before he looked about for something to drink. Lemonade, if it could be found, would meet the case. Hugh John felt this keenly, and, lo! the friendly Fates, with a smile, had planted a whole case of it at his feet. He knocked in the patent stopper with the handle of his knife (all things must yield to military necessity), and, after the first draught, what more was there left to live for except a second bottle and the rest of the pie?