And with trumpets and with banners
As becomes gintale good manners.—THACKERAY.
A telegram from Sir Jasper brought the good news that Fergus’s name was high on the Winchester roll, and that he was sure of entering college after the holidays. Gillian alone was allowed to go up to the station with her uncle Reginald to meet the travellers, lest the whole family should be too demonstrative in their welcome. And at the same time there emerged from the train not only Captain Armytage, but also Lancelot Underwood and his little boy. All the rest of his family were gone to Stoneborough to delight the hearts of Dr. May and his daughter Ethel.
Gillian was in such training that she durst not embrace her brother when he tumbled out of the carriage, though she could hardly keep her feet from dancing, but she only demurely said—
“Mamma and all of them are at Aunt Jane’s.”
“Come then,” said Sir Jasper to Captain Armytage, for which Gillian was not grateful, or thought herself not, for she made a wry face.
There was a good deal of luggage—theatrical appliances to be sent to the pavilion.
“This may as well go too,” said Captain Armytage.
“Oh! oh! It is the buccaneer’s sword!” cried little Felix. “How lovely! Last time we only had Uncle Jack’s, and this is ever so much longer!”
“Do let me draw it!” cried Fergus.
“Not here, my boy, or they would think a conspiracy was breaking out. Ha!” as a sudden blare of trumpets broke out as they reached the station gate.
“Oh, is it for him?” cried Felix, who had been instructed in Fergus’s triumph.
“See, the conquering hero comes,
Sound the trumpets, beat the drums!”
said the General.
Fergus actually coloured crimson, but the colour was deepened as he muttered “Bosh!” while two piebald ponies, drawing the drummers and trumpeters in fantastic raiment, preceded an elephant shrouded in scarlet and gold trappings, with two or three figures making contortions on his back, and followed by a crowned and sceptred dame in blue, white, and gold, perched aloft on a car drawn by four steeds in glittering caparisons.
“Will you mount it, Fergus?” asked his uncle. “You did not expect such a demonstration.”
Fergus bit his lip. It was hard to be teased instead of exalted; but Fely and he were absorbed in the pink broadsides that the lady in the car was scattering.
CIRCUS—THIS NIGHT—ROTHERWOOD PARK.
The Sepoy’s Revenge!
Thrilling Incidents!
Sagacious Elephant!
Dance of Arab Coursers!!
Acrobatic Feats!! &c., &c.
“Oh, daddy! daddy! do take me to see it!”
“Father, I should like to see it very much indeed,” were the exclamations of the two little boys. “You know I have never seen any acrobatic feats.”
“A long word enough to please you,” said Uncle Reginald. “He deserves something. I’ll take you, master.”
“I should think this was not of the first quality,” said Sir Jasper.
“Never mind. Novelty is the charm that one can have only once in one’s life,” said the General.
“Some of those van fellows are very decent folk,” said Lancelot. “I have seen a great deal of them at Bexley Fair times. You would be astonished to know how grateful they are for a little treatment as if they were not out of humanity’s reach.”
Gillian was trying to make Fergus tell her what his questions had been, and how he had answered them.
“I declare, Gill, you are as bad as some of the boys’ horrid governors. There was one whose father walked him up and down and wouldn’t let him play cricket, and went over all the old questions with him. I should never have got in, if papa hadn’t had more sense than to badger me out of my life.”
At the gate between the copper beeches the Underwoods and Merrifields parted, with an engagement to meet at the circus on the part of the boys and their conductors.
Fergus was greeted with open-mouthed, open-armed delight by all the assembled multitude, very little checked by the presence of Captain Armytage. Only Lady Merrifield did not say much, but there was a dew in her eyes as she held fast the little active fingers, and whispered—
“My good industrious boy.”
Sir Jasper, in his grand and gracious manner, turned to his sister-in-law, saying—
“We could not but come first to you, Jane, for it is to you that he is indebted, as we all are, primarily for his success.”
“That is the greatest compliment I ever had, Jasper,” she answered, smiling but almost tearful, and laughing it off. “I feel ready to mount yonder elephant lady’s triumphal car.”
The General refrained from any more teasing of Fergus on his first impression; and at seven that evening the younger Merrifield boys with their uncle, and the two from St. Andrew’s Rock with Lance, set off in high spirits.
They re-appeared much sooner than they were expected at Beechcroft Cottage, where the Underwoods were spending the long twilight evening.
“A low concern!” was the General’s verdict.
“We fled simultaneously from the concluding ballet,” said Lance. “There had been quite as much as we could bear for ingenuous youth.”
“We stood the Sepoy’s Death Song,” said the General, “but the poster of the Bleeding Bride was enough for us.”
“They had only one elephant!” cried Adrian.
“A regular swindle,” said Wilfred.
“No lions!” added Fely, “nothing to see but that poor old elephant! I wish he would have turned round and spouted water at them, as that one did to the tailor.”
“Water would be uncommonly good for them,” said the General, laughing, “they are not much acquainted therewith.”
“And such an atmosphere!” said Lance.
“I see it on your forehead, poor boy,” said Geraldine.
“I should like to set on the Society against cruelty to animals,” said the General; “I saw galls on the horses’ necks, and they were all half starved.”
“Then to see the poor old elephant pretend to be drunk!” added Fergus, “stagger about, and led off by the policeman, drunk and disorderly!”
“Was that being drunk?” asked Adrian, with wide-open eyes. “It was like Campbell that day.” Everybody laughed.
Wilfred did so now.
“You green kid, you.”
“Happy verdure,” said the General, “to be unaware that some people can laugh when they ought to weep.”
“Weep!” exclaimed Wilfred, “every time one sees a fellow screwy in the street.”
“Perhaps the angels do,” murmured Clement.
“Come, Master Wilfred, you have expressed your opinions sufficiently to-night,” said the General. “Suppose you and Fergus walk home together. A nasty low place as ever I saw. I have a mind to tell the Mayor about it.”
Gerald said—
“Is not that making yourself very unpopular?”
“That is no great matter,” said the General, rather surprised.
“I should have thought it better to refine the people’s tastes than to thwart their present ones.”
“The improper must be stopped before the taste for the proper can be promoted,” said Clement.
“With all the opposition and ill-blood that you cause?” said Gerald. “Why, if I were an errand-boy, the suppression would send me direct to the circus. Would it not do the same by you, Uncle Lance?”
“Discouragement might, prohibition would prevent wholly, and I should be thankful,” said Lance.
“Ah! you are of the old loyal nature,” said Gerald. “You of the old school can never see things by modern lights.”
“I am thankful to say—not,” responded Reginald Mohun, in a tone that made some laugh, and Gerald sigh in Anna’s ear—
“Happy those who see only one side of a question.”
There was another great day for the boys, namely, the speech or closing day at the school, when Fergus was the undoubted hero, and was so exalted that his parents thought it would be very bad for him, and were chiefly consoled by his strong and genuine dislike to having to declaim with Clement Varley the quarrel of Brutus and Cassius. He insisted on always calling the former “Old Brute,” and all the efforts of mother and aunt never got him beyond the dogged repetition of a lesson learnt by heart, whereas little Varley threw himself into the part with spirit that gained all the applause. Fergus carried off a pile of prizes too, but despised them. “Stupid old poetry!” said he, “what should I do with that? Do let me change it, father, for the Handbook of Paleontology, or something worth having.”
Adrian had three prizes too, filling Anna with infinite delight. He was not to go home immediately on the break-up of the school, but was to wait for his sisters, who were coming in a few days more with Lady Travis Underwood to the bazaar and masque, so that he would go home with them.
Neither the prospect nor the company of little Fely greatly reconciled him to the delay, but his mother could not believe that her darling could travel alone, and his only satisfaction was in helping Fergus to arrange his spare specimens for sale.
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