The marvellous land of Snergs
“Not a bit,” said Gorbo. “As a matter of fact you’d look rather sweet.
Come Sylvia, I’ll lift you up.”
Before Sir Percival could make any further objection he found that
Sylvia had been hoisted up and placed in front of him. The saddle was a
roomy one and well padded, so it made quite a comfortable seat for her.
“Catch hold of his belt,” said Gorbo. “Then you’ll be quite safe. Now
then, Joe.”
Joe, as a circus-trained boy should, took a run and a flying leap on to
the horse’s crupper, where he sat at his ease.
“I say,” said Sir Percival peevishly, “aren’t you rather taking
liberties with me?”
“I beg your pardon?” replied Gorbo, who was busy with Sylvia, making a
comfortable pair of stirrups for her out of some odd bits of straps on
the saddle.
“I said, ‘Aren’t you rather taking liberties with me?’”
“No, not a bit. Are you quite comfortable, Sylvia?”
“Yes, it’s lovely,” replied Sylvia.
“And you, Joe?”
“I’m fine. This is a _real_ adventure!”
“I hope this is not incommoding you at all,” said Gorbo politely,
struck with a sudden idea.
“Oh, no,” replied Sir Percival with bitter irony. He couldn’t hold his
lance properly and he had to reach right round Sylvia to handle the
reins. “Who _would_ be incommoded by a little thing like this?” Then
his visor fell down again and he roared angrily, though in a muffled
way. But Sylvia’s handy little fingers soon propped it open again,
and she asked Gorbo to find a little bit of stick and sharpen it with
his knife. Then she deftly wedged the stick between the visor and the
helmet.
“There,” she said, patting his steel-cased cheek, “now it will keep up
nicely. But what you really need is some large hooks and eyes.” She had
seen, with the unerring instinct of childhood, that not only was Sir
Percival’s heart pure but that his head was rather soft.
His perhaps excusable irritation was soothed by this attention, and he
smiled at her.
“If any enemies come,” she explained, “all you have to do is to pull
out this bit of stick and there you are, ready for battle.”
Sir Percival was aroused at the mention of battle. “If any caitiffs
should oppress you, little golden-haired maid,” he said proudly,
“I will show you how great a man with his hands is Sir Percival.
Evil-doers shake at the mention of my name.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Sylvia, giggling. The child was actually
trying on with this belted knight the same ways that had tempted Joe
to such flagrant acts of folly and disobedience, and to which their
present position might be directly traced. Minx.
“I suppose you can’t find room for this little dog?” said Gorbo,
holding up Tiger.
“No,” replied Sir Percival with stern decision. “I draw the line at
little dogs.” He then shook the reins and the big white horse started
off at a quick comfortable walk.
SIR PERCIVAL’S JOB
Sir Percival seemed to have settled down to inconvenience and (I must
own) grotesque appearance due to his having children fore and aft of
him on the saddle, and he was quite ready to talk about himself. He was
out looking for adventures because he had become enamoured of a young
lady, and she had told him that if he would go forth as a knight-errant
for one year and conquer a reasonable number of knights and caitiffs
and slay some dragons and the like, she would have something to say
to him, but she did not say what. So far he had not conquered anybody
because he hadn’t met anybody who would fight, and as for dragons he
really believed they had all left the country. One man, a miller, had
told him where there was a dragon, but it turned out that the ribald
fellow meant his own wife, who used to go for him with ferocity, and
probably with plenty of reason. But he told them he had now great
hopes, for he was on his way to a castle he had heard about as being
likely--though he didn’t know whose it was--for in a castle there were
always knights, and knights were always spoiling for a fight. This
was very good news to Gorbo because he worked it out that in a castle
there was always something to eat, and the children were delighted when
he told them this, for the sun was now getting high and they had had
nothing to eat since last night’s turnips.
In time they came to nice wooded country, which was a pleasant change
from the rather bare plain. Then they caught sight of battlemented
towers peeping above the tree-tops, and a little later they halted
by the outer wall of a small cosy castle, all alone by itself. There
seemed to be nobody about, inside or outside, and everything was very
peaceful and sunny and still. And hanging on the outer gate was a
slug-horn like the one outside the Dark Tower that Childe Roland came
to.
THE MYSTERIOUS CASTLE
“I am going to wind this horn,” said Sir Percival to Gorbo (he meant,
to blow it). “And if you will oblige me by pretending to be my squire,
I shall think it very nice of you.”
“Yes, I’ll be your squire,” replied Gorbo, quite interested. He lifted
Sylvia down to get her out of the way in case battle should take place
suddenly. “I’d like to--Jump down, Joe--I’ll tell them you’ll take on
any six of them and----”
“Not so brisk, please,” said the knight. “What I want you to do is to
say that I am the famed Sir Percival and--and so on and so forth. Give
them the idea that I am something of a terror. Don’t know what fear is,
and that sort of thing. You see I don’t want to injure anybody if it
can be avoided, and if any knight prefers to give in without fighting,
why, let him do so by all means and save needless bloodshed. Do you get
the idea?”
“Yes, I think so. Hot stuff, as it were. Now blow hard.”
Sir Percival blew at the small end of the slug-horn and a long
melancholy note came out of the other end. Then there was silence for
a time; but at length they heard the sound of slow shuffling footsteps
coming to the gate.
“Nothing to-day, thank you kindly,” said a weak and quavering voice.
“Open, varlet!” cried Sir Percival angrily. “What discourtesy is this
to keep a champion waiting at your gate? Open, I say, lest I believe
that the knights of this castle fear to meet me.”
“Save you, good sir!” replied the quavering voice, “here are no
knights, none at all, nor indeed anybody but me and my old dame Margery
who look after the castle while the family are away visiting cousins,
though we should be glad if they had taken us too for a change of air
would do us both good who have been in this same castle until we are
sick and tired of the shape of it, to say nothing of the damp which has
settled in old Margery’s bones so that she goes ever doubled up and----”
“Look here,” interrupted Gorbo, putting his hands to his mouth and
shouting through the keyhole, “this is the valiant Sir Percival, who
has slain so many knights that he has forgotten how many, to say
nothing of dragons and such like. And I am his valiant squire, Gorbo,
who is famed for a big appetite, and we have with us two children and
a little dog who are also hungry, and the question is whether you are
going to be a sport and give us something to eat or whether you are
simply going to drive us into smashing up this castle.”
“Nay, be not rash, good squire,” replied the voice. “I’ll open the gate
and let you in, for my master hath bidden me give food and drink to
wayfarers that need it and especially to those who are liable to damage
his stronghold if it be denied them.”
The door opened, and to their astonishment there appeared before
them, not a doddering old henchman, but a pert young man dressed in
the brilliant and fantastic costume of a jester, with one leg of his
tights red and the other yellow, and who seemed, from his immoderate
laughter, to be having the time of his life.
“Ha, ha!” he cried, joyously, leaping out and slapping Sir Percival on
the nose with a bladder tied to the end of a stick. “Did I not befool
thee, thou pumpkin face? Even now your jaw is dropped and your eyes
goggle with wonder and you have a general resemblance (saving your
presence) to a parboiled codfish. Laugh, thou jingling hundredweight
of ill-fitting harness”--hitting him again--“and grant this to be a
pleasing jest.”
SIR PERCIVAL’S ANNOYANCE
Sir Percival recovered from his astonishment and prepared to do what
seemed the only fitting thing to in a case like this. He heaved up his
lance to smite this gay young man to the earth.
“For shame!” The young man had dexterously leapt out of the way and
crouched down with Sylvia and Joe caught to his bosom. “Would you
strike a child?”
“Malapert insect!” said Sir Percival. “Unhand those young ones that I
may cudgel you.”
“Listen to reason!” bellowed the other, now grovelling on the earth.
“This castle is deserted, and I alone know where the larder is. Without
my help you will go away an hungered!”
“There is something in that,” said Sir Percival, lowering his lance.
“There is a whole lot in it,” shouted Gorbo. “Don’t hit the poor man!”
The jester bounded up like a tennis ball and flew at Gorbo, enfolding
him in his arms. “By this kiss” (kissing him daintily on the top of his
head) “I swear eternal friendship.”
“Lead on, thou nimble loon,” said Sir Percival. “I pardon you if you
will take us to the larder without delay.”
The jester turned swiftly to the children. “You see yonder door,” he
said, pointing to a small open door in the main building of the castle,
“I’ll give you a start of half-way and race you there. Are you ready?
_Go!_”
Sylvia and Joe went off at top speed, and when they were half-way the
jester gave a shrill whoop and flew after them, catching up with them
just as they reached the door.
THE CASTLE KITCHEN
“This is glorious!” cried the jester, taking a hand of each and leading
them into a large comfortable kitchen. Then he turned and looked
anxiously at the top of the open door. “No, there’s no time to make a
booby-trap. Come along and put on aprons.”
Sylvia and Joe, both highly delighted with these joyous happenings,
were soon dressed in little aprons and caps made out of napkins and
busily helping their new friend. He sliced up a ham and got two large
frying-pans going, while they put stools round a big table in the
middle of the floor and laid plates and mugs and so on.
“Do you think forty eggs will be enough?” asked the young man.
“I think it will be almost more than enough,” replied Sylvia, doing a
quick sum in her head. “It will be eight each.”
“I’ll make it fifty then,” said the strange being, breaking them thick
and fast into the frying-pans.
A heavy clanging sound without indicated that Sir Percival was coming;
he and Gorbo had been attending to the horse, supplying it with hay and
so forth. As the knight entered the door, the jester turned with an egg
poised ready to throw at his head. But he hesitated; then broke it into
the pan instead. “I dare not,” he said to Joe. “_What_ a pity!”
Gorbo paused as he came in and stood sniffing the delicious smell. He
went across to the jester. “Bend low towards me,” he said. And when the
other had done so Gorbo kissed him on the top of _his_ head. “I also
swear a friendship. What are you going to give us to drink?”
“I have here,” replied the other, making a flying leap over the table
to a rough sideboard, “both milk for these little ones and beer for us
men. Kindly pledge me,” he added, filling up two mugs.
While these two sportsmen were clinking their mugs and gossiping,
Sylvia, standing on a stool by the stove, was dripping hot butter on
the eggs to give them a choice flavour, and Joe was on another stool
pronging out the slices of ham and laying them on a hot dish. They were
very happy, because this was a really superior adventure, with food
and cheerful things taking place. The castle, too, judging from the