Chapter X: Mixed Instructions

WITH the first days of January the twins’ programme may be said to have got fairly into its stride. It worked smoothly enough. An alarum-clock, placed on an empty kerosene-tin between their beds, shrieked a wild summons at five every morning—on the first occasion each twin had dived to seize and silence it, with the result that their heads had banged together with sufficient violence to banish sleep very effectually. After that, they put the kerosene-tin near the foot of the beds, a plan that had the additional advantage of making them leap from their pillows without any chance of yielding to the temptation, familiar to us all, of “just one minute more.” Then came a quick cold shower and a hurried dressing, after which one twin attacked the drawing-room and the other the dining-room; it was a point of honour to have both rooms done before early morning tea, always ready in the kitchen soon after six. They had had visions of taking in their mother’s morning cup; but they soon realized that this was a privilege too dear to Sarah’s heart to be deputed to anyone. Therefore the twins contented themselves with taking their own tea very cheerfully in the kitchen with Sarah, who imagined that she concealed, under a grumpy manner, the fact that she delighted in their presence.

Billy and Rex used to appear in the kitchen also, demanding nourishment. Rex had willingly agreed to the plan of learning to milk and to use an axe. He never attempted to hint that he cared either for cows or for chopping; but it had very soon become evident that he was keenly anxious to be as strong as other boys of his age, and he welcomed any chance of developing his muscles. They would hurriedly swallow cups of weak tea, and, their hands full of scones, trot off to the paddock near the house, where the three milkers, which were all that the drought had left of Mr. Weston’s herd, awaited them. It was never hard to yard the milkers, for there was scarcely anything left for them to eat in the paddock. Down by the river there was still some dry, stick-like grass, on which they browsed for forms’ sake during the day; but green feed welcomed them at milking-times—lucerne, from the little patch that was irrigated through the efforts of a windmill which brought from the spring enough water for household purposes, and a little extra. The cows needed no bell to summon them when the hours for lucerne drew near.

The girls’ room had two long windows, opening upon the verandah where their beds were placed. It was a cheery place, with little to indicate that it was used as anything but a sitting-room: the stained floor boasted a couple of good rugs, easily moved when necessary, and there was an old sofa, disreputable, but astonishingly comfortable when once you had learned to accommodate your person to the places where its springs were broken. Two or three inviting chairs were scattered about; there was a business-like writing-table with the drawers on the east sacred to Jo, and the western ones Jean’s property. A rather good Japanese screen hid the dressing-table—not that the twins had much use for a dressing-table, since their bobbed curls demanded little more than hard brushing, and their frocks were of the type that is easiest to slip on hastily. Tennis-racquets and hockey-sticks were displayed upon the wall, and there were many school photographs, as well as those of the home-folk. A long, low cupboard ran along one wall. To its kindly recesses was due the fact that the twins’ room was nearly always tidy. “It’s a mercy we’ve got it!” Jean would say, tossing old shoes, or battered hats, or half-soiled aprons into its capacious interior. “And Mother’s such a brick—she never dreams of looking inside it!”

“Mother’s an awfully understanding person,” Jo would answer. “She says if it weren’t for Sarah she wouldn’t have any reputation for tidiness herself!”

For Mother never failed to understand. Perhaps it was because her own gay youth was not so very far behind her; perhaps because of her great love for these cheery, curly-haired twins, with their merry faces. She knew—somehow—when the famous programme did not seem to run smoothly: when the housework developed unexpected difficulties, or the teaching faculty seemed suddenly deficient. Then she would make an appearance, as if accidentally, and things would smooth out. Her sovereign prescription on these occasions was open air. Generally, she would take over the small boys, and the twins would find themselves suddenly despatched on an errand to the township, or, best of all, sent out in the paddocks with their father. For though Emu Plains might be scorched and bare, and the stock weak and starved, so that riding out on the run had lost something of its joy, it still remained the chief of all pleasures.

But it was not often that the programme failed to work. After early tea the twins made a triumphal progress from one room to another, sweeping and dusting. They generally sang, too, loudly and cheerily, what their voices lacked being made up in enthusiasm. They swept verandahs, and made beds, and trimmed lamps, and gathered what flowers the drought had spared, which were not many. The work, like the songs, was made into a duet, so far as was possible, for the twins hated to work apart. When they dusted a room together they did it in a kind of drill, each taking one half—the work calculated so that they finished at the same moment. They swept the wide verandah, that ran round three sides of the house, in a concerted movement, beginning at opposite ends and making a race of it until they met in the middle, at the steps leading down from the front door. This lent great excitement to the job, and Mr. Weston had even been known to appear near the finish, to cheer on the panting combatants.

Most of the housework was done before breakfast, and then odd jobs took up the time until nine o’clock, when Rex and Billy were supposed to be in readiness on the verandah, with scrubbed hands and faces, and persons displaying as little dust as possible, considering that the persons were those of small boys. Rex had, by this time, undergone his riding-lessons, and his appearance was fairly certain, since Mr. Weston used to dismiss him at five minutes to nine, telling him to hurry up and get ready for school. But Billy was a will-o’-the-wisp creature, and rules and regulations meant little to him. He was never openly defiant: he was merely oblivious of time and space, when engaged in any of the thousand-and-one “ploys” in which his soul delighted; and against that bland armour of forgetfulness the twins’ wrath fell blunted. “I never really _meant_ not to be there,” he used to say, with wide, innocent eyes, after an indignant twin, wailing his name disconsolately, had run him to earth in the orchard, or the stables, or on the river-bank. “It isn’t truly nine yet, is it?” When assured in pungent tones that it was long after nine, he would exclaim, “My word, I must hurry up, then!”—and would take to his heels; so that when his teacher, heated in more ways than one, arrived on the verandah, it was to find him awaiting her, washed and brushed, and with a disarming twinkle in his eye. The pursuing twin invariably twinkled in response.

“He’s awful, of course,” they would say. “But we were young, once, ourselves!”

Rex, so far, committed no breaches of discipline. When alone with Billy there were signs that his polish was, after all, merely skin-deep, and was even wearing off in places; but with the other members of the family he maintained a calm correctness of demeanour that the twins found almost painful. He drilled painstakingly, in a solid fashion; the twins sighed over his heavy movements, even while they rebuked Billy, who loved to prance through his “physical jerks” like the light-footed elf he was. To lessons Rex brought a dull hatred that somewhat astonished the twins, since it was evident from the first that he was by no means deficient in brains. Only when he dealt with figures was he at all happy, and as Jean put it, resentfully, “he just wallows in sums.” Jean herself having a constitutional dislike to adding even two and two, mathematics were always left to her twin, so that her share of the lessons was rather wearying.

“There must be a reason for it,” she puzzled, one day. “I wonder if he had very frowsy governesses.”

“We’ll ask him,” Jo declared.

They did, and the boy’s heavy eyes kindled as he was gradually induced to describe his former lessons. His governess had been one of the old school, severe and correct; she exacted absolute stillness and obedience, and led the weary feet of her small pupil along the dullest paths of old-fashioned learning. He used to learn by heart long passages of heavy history and geography books and repeat them to her with very little idea of their meaning. In the same way he would learn poetry, and repeat it, parrot-fashion. All lessons were beastly, he said, but poetry was not quite so beastly as others, because it had rhymes, and was not quite so hard to learn. But it never meant anything. You could tell a story better without worrying about rhymes, if that was all you wanted.

“But poetry’s gorgeous!” expostulated Billy, open-eyed.

“Aw, what’s gorgeous?” Rex demanded. “I never saw any sense in it.”

“But it is. Look at fighting yarns like ‘Horatius,’ and things like that!”

“Oh, I know that ‘Horatius’ thing. It’s one of the worst,” declared Rex, loftily—“there’s such miles of it.”

“Say a bit, Rex,” said Jean.

It was lesson-time, and they were all in the schoolroom. Rex began at once, obediently.

“But the Consul’s brow was sad.
And the Consul’s speech was low,
And darkly looked he at the wall,
And darkly at the foe.

“‘Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge
What hope to save the town?’”

He said it in a queer, lifeless, sing-song voice, with not the smallest shade of expression. The end of each line was a recognized stopping-place, where he halted heavily. It was evident that the brave old lines conveyed nothing to him. Jo shuddered.

“Hold on!” she said. “Why did you begin there, Rex?”

“That’s where it began in my book.”

“And don’t you know anything of the part that goes before?”

“No. Is there any?”

“But there’s lots, and it’s the jolliest lines!” cried Billy excitedly. “All about the Etruscan Army marching, and coming down on Rome, and all that. Didn’t you never have it?”

“No,” said Rex. “Thank goodness, I didn’t. I reckon I had quite enough.”

“Well—!” said the twins explosively. They looked at each other in bewilderment. “Horatius” had been part of their lives since they were very small people.

“Jo,” said Jean, “let’s have the ‘Horatius’ play.”

“And no lessons?”

Jean nodded.

“It isn’t wasting time, if we can make him see it.” She turned to the bewildered small boy. “Rex, you like stories?”

“Rather!”

“Well, that’s a simply ripping story, if you get it the right way. Will you try and forget that you know a bit of it, and that you don’t like it? and we’ll make a game of it for school this morning.”

“But you _can’t_ make that stuff into a game!”

“Can’t we!” laughed Jean. “Billy, you’ve got all your soldiers, haven’t you?”

“Rather!” gasped Billy. “D’you really mean to get them? And no lessons?”

“Really and truly!” laughed Jean. “And bring any blocks you’ve got. Clear the table, and we’ll go back to Ancient Rome!”

She darted to the store-room, returning presently with half-a-dozen packets of matches.

“Must be careful of these, because they’ve got to go back,” she said, stripping off the paper wrappings. “I know Billy hasn’t enough blocks left, now. Come along, Rex, and we’ll build Rome.”

They built it at one end of the table, a wobbly oblong, enclosed by strong matchbox walls. There were turrets and towers here and there, made of cotton-reels. Without, ran the Tiber, a noble river of yellow ribbon, wide, and doubtless deep. A bridge spanned it—a high-walled bridge, long and narrow. From the bridge you came out upon a wide plain, the rest of the table: it was easy to see it was a plain, because it was flat, and there were trees on it, and cattle, contributed by an ancient Noah’s Ark. It was all workmanlike and comprehensible, and something like interest kindled in Rex’s eye.

“Atlas, please, Billy,” Jean said. “You know, the Ancient History Atlas.”

She showed them the scene of the story.

“Now you’ve got to get that in your head, Rex, and remember it’s all real.” Rapidly she sketched the story of the downfall of the Tarquins.

“They’d been kings of Rome, but they were absolute wasters, and at last the Romans were just fed up with them, and they kicked them out. Served them jolly well right, too; the Romans were terribly proud, and the Tarquins weren’t fit to have in a decent city. And they cleared out to a place called Clusium—here it is—and asked Lars Porsena, the Etruscan king, for help.”

“Was he a swine, too?” asked Rex.

“No, I don’t think so. But he was fierce and warlike, and all those old States were jealous of Rome, because she was so powerful. They were all anxious for a chance to take her down.”

“Who’s ‘her’?” queried Rex.

“Oh, they spoke of Rome as ‘she.’ Well, you can just imagine this mouldy Tarquin crowd coming to Lars Porsena and telling him all sorts of yarns about the way the Romans had treated them, and saying what a great man he was, and that they were jolly well sure he’d never see them in a hole. I don’t suppose Lars Porsena believed half they said, but he was quite willing to have a war. All those chiefs were. They reckoned fighting was the only game fit for a man.”

“So it is,” quoth Billy, in martial tones.

“And Lars Porsena was awfully keen on his army. He was the biggest man of that part of the country, and he could command all the fighting men from ever so many cities. And he sent his messengers everywhere to muster them all at Clusium. And they came, as hard as they could pelt—armies and armies of them, until he had ten thousand cavalry and eighty thousand infantry. Just you picture that, young Rex—all in glittering armour, and with splendid flags, and simply gorgeous horses.”

“Whew-w!” whistled Rex. “But this isn’t really ‘Horatius,’ is it?”

“Yes, of course it is. It’s the only ‘Horatius.’ Just you forget that you ever learned it as a lesson—it’s a fighting yarn, and old Macaulay told it in a top-hole way. You’ve got to listen to it all presently; Jo must read it, ’cause she reads better than I do, and it’s just all music.”

“It’s not music when I say it,” Rex said, with a grin.

“No, ’cause you say it as if you were a lump of dough, and you come down with a ‘wop’ at the end of each line. You don’t make any sense of it. You listen to Jo—and when she comes to the name of any place, I’ll show it to you on the atlas. Well, Lars Porsena mustered all his crowd—ninety thousand—and then he consulted his tame prophets, and asked them what he’d better do. There were thirty of them, and they were very tame—they always said what they were wanted to say. They knew the king wanted horribly to go to fight Rome, so they told him it was all right, and he must go ahead and bring all the spoils of Rome back with him. So off they went, and as soon as they got to the Roman country they began to burn villages and kill the people. Now you read, Jo.”

Jo read well, and her clear young voice made the most of the singing words. The other three heads bent over the atlas, following up the story of the great muster and then of the fierce swoop on Rome. Rex was politely interested, at first. Then the story caught him, and his eyes kindled; he sat up, staring at Jo.

“And nearer fast and nearer
Doth the red whirlwind come:
And louder still, and still more loud.
From underneath that rolling cloud,
Is heard the trumpets’ war-note proud.
The trampling and the hum.
And plainly and more plainly
Now through the gloom appears.
Far to left and far to right.
In broken gleams of dark-blue light,
The long array of helmets bright.
The long array of spears!”

“My word!” gasped Rex. “Wouldn’t you have given something to see it!”

“We’ll make it,” said Jean, delightedly. “Have a rest, Jo, and we’ll get the soldiers.”

Billy had played with soldiers since he was a very small boy, and it had been a hobby of his family’s to keep him supplied with fresh regiments. Out they came from their boxes: horse, foot, and artillery; ambulance-waggons, ammunition carts, and all the paraphernalia of battle.

“We can’t make it correctly, of course,” Jo said. “They didn’t have our weapons, and we don’t have their armour. But we can make a gorgeous and glittersome march; and you can just imagine that it’s all ancient Etruscan, just as you’ve got to imagine that that yellow ribbon is the Tiber, all muddy and foaming with flood-water, and that the match-boxes are really the great stone walls of Rome.”

Beyond doubt, it was a noble march. They headed across the plain towards Rome: Cavalry in the lead. Horse Guards and Life Guards, Lancers and Dragoons. They were brave with bright paint and glittering cuirasses, and with waving scarlet pennons. Then came guns, with teams of six horses, their officers galloping alongside; and there were machine-guns and other artillery, cunningly drawn by means of attaching a cavalryman to each with a scrap of flower-wire. It was hugely realistic. Then the “four-score thousand” came marching in solid formation: Highlanders and Fusiliers, men in khaki and men in scarlet coats, with banners here and there. There were officers standing in the empty ambulance-waggons, directing the march. Aeroplanes taxied on either side, loaded with men; the carts were full of bundles that were certainly ammunition and food. One mounted officer carried a splendid silken Union Jack, and near it a tiny model of a motor bore a seated soldier—once the driver of an ambulance-waggon. On one side of the car rode a Lifeguardsman; on the other, a rather undersized Cavalryman, one from a boxful which Billy, in his secret heart, despised, since neither in general splendour nor in correctness of detail did they come up to most of his army.

“Who are those fellows?” Rex asked; and Billy answered him, from the poem.

“‘Fast by the royal standard,
O’erlooking all the war,
Lars Porsena of Clusium
Sat in his ivory car——’

an’ that’s Mamilius an’ False Sextus on his right an’ left. Doesn’t False Sextus look a mean little toad? I wish Lars Porsena looked prouder—but that driver is the only one I’ve got that’s made to sit down.”

“We’ll gild his helmet,” said Jo. “That will make him look awfully proud.” She produced gold paint from a cupboard, and endowed the Etruscan leader with a helmet of pure gold, to the immense delight of the small boys.

“They laid waste all the country as they came,” Jean said. “You can see the cattle clearing out.” She withdrew the Noah’s Ark cows to the friendly shelter of the trees. “But it will avail them nothing—see, there are a couple of cavalrymen galloping out on the wing to head them off. They’ll be steak before night!” she added, gloomily. “Now we’ll fix Rome—you can just imagine how anxious the people are there.”

She manned the walls of Rome with soldiers—a detachment of Seaforth Highlanders, made in a lying-down position, firing rifles towards the advancing Etruscans. Within the city walls were massed the casualties of five years—all the damaged and legless warriors resulting from natural accidents since Billy had first taken to military operations. Billy never had the heart to throw away what he termed a “wounded”; and when they were packed together, supporting each other’s tottering forms, they made an imposing enough crowd in the streets of Rome. Jo read on as they placed the men in position; and the little boy who had known in “Horatius” only the dullest of dull lessons felt something of the tense anxiety of the doomed city at the steady march of the Etruscan hordes.

“Get Horatius and his mates—quick, Jean!” cried Billy.

Jean brought three tall Guardsmen from a box and placed them on the bridge. They were officers, each with his sword at the “carry”: stiffly standing at attention they stared before them, looking loftily at the advancing hosts.

“Aren’t they dauntless!” breathed Billy. “Come on, Jean—here’s the Fathers and the Commons!”

These were kneeling riflemen—Jean placed them at the foot of the slope leading up to the main bridge, where they might easily be supposed to be working for their lives. Jo read:

“And Fathers mixed with Commons
Seized hatchet, bar, and crow,
And smote upon the planks above
And loosed the props below.”

“Now the chiefs spurring, Jean!”

Jean took out the last three soldiers. They were Scots Greys, survivors of a well-loved set. Two of the chargers had wooden legs, deftly placed in position by Mr. Weston; but, though mended, they were still gallant and debonair, and they pranced out in front of the advancing army gaily, even as Aunus, Seius and Picus had pranced in the brave days of old.

“Now you’ve got them all, Rex,” Jean said. “Is it still dull?”

“Dull!” uttered Rex. “Why, you’d never think they were only toys—just wee little bits of lead and paint! They look so awful real. My word, I wouldn’t ’ve like to ’ve been in Rome!”

Jo read slowly:

“Meanwhile the Tuscan army,
Right glorious to behold,
Came, flashing back the noonday light,
Rank behind rank, like surges bright
Of a broad sea of gold.
Four hundred trumpets sounded
A peal of warlike glee,
As that great host, with measured tread,
And spears advanced, and ensigns spread,
Rolled slowly towards the bridge’s head,
Where stood the dauntless three.”

She stopped. Rex looked up at her with shining eyes.

“Oh, go on!” he begged—“go on! That’s never the stuff I used to say!”

Jo read on, putting all her heart into her task. It had somehow become the most important thing in the world, for the moment, that this little lad, who seemed to have missed so much, should get the same joy from the poem that they had had. She wanted intensely that he should see it as clearly as did Billy, who knelt on his chair beside the table, staring at the soldiers. Billy knew every word of the story, but it was always new to him.

And there was soon no doubt that Rex was ensnared. There came to Jo the feeling dear above all others to the preacher and the actor—the knowledge that the audience is caught and held. She felt him thrill to the words: she knew, when she reached some verse more than usually musical, that every line went home to him. He ceased to look at the glittering array on the table; it had served its purpose in fixing the scene for ever in his brain, but she felt his great eyes upon her all the time. It was as though she were reading to Rex, and to Rex alone, knowing that in reading she was giving him a precious possession that could never be taken away from him.

They followed the fighting for the bridge, Billy’s eyes ecstatic over the downfall of Astur; they heard the destroyed bridge crash into the flooded Tiber and sweep away with the torrent, leaving Horatius alone to face the taunts of his enemies. Jo heard Rex draw his breath sharply as the Roman turned his back upon the invitation to surrender, looking across the swollen river to the dear glimpse of his home. Her voice grew low.

“Oh, Tiber! Father Tiber!
To whom the Romans pray,
A Roman’s life, a Roman’s arms,
Take thou in charge this day!”

She felt her lips unsteady. Even to her it was more real than ever before. She had a sudden vision of the wife who waited in that white porch for her fighting man, holding his baby to her heart. There was tense silence in the room. Then she steadied herself, and the story drew to its triumphant close.

Billy straightened himself with a jerk that shook the table and sent the Etruscan army into a heap. But the matchbox walls of Rome, although they quivered, stood firm and steadfast.

“Well!” said Rex, with a great sigh. “If that’s poetry, I want it every day!” He raised pleading eyes to Jo. “If you aren’t tired, would it bother you awfully to read it all over again?”