Cecil's knight

Front matter

SUPREME COUNCIL, 33°

Southern Jurisdiction, U.S.A.

Washington, D.C.

CHAPTER I. “ Sir Lancelot, as became a noble knight

Was gracious to all ladies.

For manners are not idle, but the fruit Of loyal nature, and of noble mind.”

— Tennyson’s Guinevere.

HHHE afternoon sun shone brightly on the large playground belonging to the grammar school of West Warren.

The scholars were very proud of that playground, and it certainly was a pleasant place. Most of it was bright and sunny, but two or three great trees, on the side nearest the street, gave refreshing shade, and benches were placed around their trunks, which seldom lacked occupants.

Some of the boys, at their teacher’s suggestion, had brought suitable earth, and made tiny flowerbeds, for which the girls had supplied seeds and plants, and the needed care. They had been wisely placed close to the wall, as much out of the way

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of harm as possible ; but even there, though no one would wilfully have injured them, accidents so often happened to them, that it had been found needful to protect them by a kind of rough fence, made of shingles and bits of board, driven obliquely into the earth, so that they formed a rude roof over them.

Grass grew around the borders wherever it could get a chance, but it might as well have tried to grow in the middle of Broadway, as in the middle of this playground. The earth was trodden down hard and firm under the ceaseless impact of so many feet, and for a wide space there was no vestige of the green carpet which had once covered it. Children and grass do not grow together, and it was only another instance of the “ survival of the fittest.”

At this hour the playground was empty, and it lay basking in the warm sunshine as if it rejoiced in the interval of restful quiet. But the interval was not a long one.

There had been a continuous murmur of voices from the schoolhouse, occasionally varied by the louder tones of some extra zealous pupil, but it ceased now. The tinkle of a bell was heard, and in a moment, as if by magic, the quiet playground was transformed into something which resembled an ant-heap, whose inhabitants have just been disturbed, except that the ants’ activity is noiseless, — to human ears, at least, — while every

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tongue in this assembly was in exercise, contributing its quota to the deafening noise.

“ Where’s Louis Thorne ? ” one of the boys exclaimed, after a vain search among the swarm for his particular friend. “Has anybody seen him? He can’t have gone home.”

“ Not he,” another answered. “ He stayed behind, at Miss Rawson’s desk. Didn’t you see him? He is mooning away over that sum about the interest at three and a half per cent for three months, that none of us could make come right, and Miss Rawson said she would explain it to us after school, if we wanted to stop. Catch me staying in for that! I get explanations enough in school hours, without going in for extras. Come along now, Harry, and see the ball game.”

“ Not yet,” Harry said. “ Go along, and I’ll come directly. I’m going to wait for Louis.”

“ Oh, bother ! ” John returned. “ He knows the way, I guess, and he’s big enough to go alone.”

“ So are you,” said Harry.

“ Barnum ought to get you two fellows to show off for Siamese twins,” John went on. “Here’s your other half coming now. I hope you have got your money matters all settled, young man. Why need you puzzle yourself about interest, I should like to know? You haven’t any money to lend, and are not likely to have any.”

“ How long is it since you set up for a prophet ? ” inquired Harry, before Louis could speak.

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“ My father says money earned sticks better than money given. You and I are nothing but objects of charity anyway, for every penny in our pockets was given to us, but Louis earns honestly all he has. He is the only independent one in the crowd. I dare say he will be able to buy you out, ten years from now.”

“ Yes, that’s likely, isn’t it ? ” John said scornfully.

“May want to borrow, if I can’t lend,” Louis remarked, quite undisturbed, “ and I should want to know how to reckon interest for one as much as the other. Might get cheated, you know. Thanks to Miss Rawson, I’m ready for either, as far as that goes.”

“ Then you’re all right,” John said ; “ I’m glad to hear it. Now, if you’ve got that off your mind, and are sure you feel quite easy, come along, and see the Jacksons beat the Millville men. Here’s Harry wouldn’t stir a step till you came, and we have lost all the first of it already.”

“ Oh, that’s too bad,” Louis said, “ for I can’t go ; I wish — no, there’s no use in wishing ; I can’t go, Harry, though it was good of you to wait for me. But how happens it that they play to-day? I thought that match was put off. They said Tom Jackson had hurt his hand, and couldn’t play.”

“ Nonsense ! ” John retorted politely ; “ I guess the world isn’t going to stand still, just because

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Tom Jackson’s thumb is broken. There’s plenty more men lying round loose. They’re thick as blackberries, and jump at the chance. Will Adams takes Tom’s place. But don’t stand here talking; come along with us. It’s ridiculous to say you can’t go, when we know you can if you choose. Your mother won’t say anything, and your father — ”

“ That’s enough,” Louis interrupted hastily, in a put-an-end-to-it tone. “ You had better stop there ! I can’t go, I tell you. Have it that I don’t choose to go, if you like it any better. It amounts to the same thing. And I’m sure I don’t know what you call ‘standing here talking.’ I should say that we had been making pretty good time towards that ball ground. You will be there now in five minutes, . if you run half as fast as you did when Mr. Leavitt’s dog was after you.”

John shook his fisi at him in jesting menace.

“I’ll talk to you when I come back, young man ! ” he said. “ Come, Harry.”

And off he ran, at the top of his speed.

“ I wish you could come,” Harry stayed to say. “ You don’t have any fun nowadays.”

“ Not so bad as that,” Louis said as cheerfully as he could. “ I shall make up for it by and by. Don’t waste your time here pitying me, but catch up with John, and give the Jacksons an extra cheer, — a good loud one, — and charge it to my account.”

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“ All right ! ” Harry said, and he followed John, while Louis pursued his solitary way.

He felt rather disconsolate, notwithstanding his brave words. When he turned the next corner, the sound of distant shouts reached his ears, and he could even see the black dots moving over the field, which he knew a nearer approach would resolve into the redoubtable Jacksons and the Millville nine. He had all a boy’s natural longing for that game, and Conscience had a hard struggle with Inclination, to keep his feet from carrying him in that direction.

“ It does seem rather hard, as Harry said, that I can’t have even that little bit of fun,” he said to himself, as he walked slowly on. “ I don’t believe there is another boy in school who couldn’t go, if he wanted to. It seems to be. all play for the rest, and all work for me, and I think it is pretty hard lines.”

Discontent is a plant of wonderfully rapid growth, and requires very little culture. It comes up like Jonah’s gourd. It was a rare thing for it to get a chance to grow at all in Louis’ garden, the ground was so preoccupied with other things. But this little seed had found lodgment, and had sprung up, and was sending its tiny roots around in all directions, in search of nourishment.

Louis summoned up and put in array before himself every unpleasant thing in his lot that he could call to mind, from the unattainable ball

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game to the one great trial of his life, and came to the natural conclusion that he was a very illused individual.

It was a most unusual frame of mind for the bright, merry boy, but clouds hide the sun sometimes from every one.

His usual brisk step had changed to a slow walk, and he even found an odd kind of satisfaction in the long list of troubles which he was able to count up. That many of them were trifles, which, in a better mood, he would laugh at, made no difference. Through blue glasses everything looks blue.

He went moodily along, noticing nothing, until he turned the last corner, and saw his mother watching for him. She was standing at the door, knitting busily, while she looked up the street. Her skilful fingers were so used to their work, that the needles seemed to fly of their own accord, with no attention from her. A quick revulsion of feeling came over Louis as he looked at her.

“ What a fool I am ! ” he said half aloud. “ Not a fellow in school has got a mother like mine. If they had, they would be glad enough of a chance to work for her. I wonder where her chance for ball games or any other fun comes in ! She would enjoy some other things as much as I should that, but she never gets them. The dear little mother ! If anybody has a hard time, I am sure she does, but nobody ever yet saw her sulk-

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ing over it ; and just look at me ! With such a mother as I have got, it is a pity if I can’t behave better than this. I’m glad she didn’t see me coming along here, growling like a bear. She gives me credit for more sense.”

The very sight of her had cleared the clouds out of his sky. He broke into his usual merry whistle, for which his little sister, from her sick bed, always listened when it was time for him to come from school; and he quickened his steps into a run which presently brought him to his mother’s side.

“ Here we are again ! ” he said ; and under the influence of his repentant thoughts he gave her a rough boyish caress.

He did not often do such a thing; he did it with a kind of shy awkwardness now; but it brought a little color to her cheek, and made her heart glad.

Mothers may be very sure of their boys’ love, but none the less is a little token of it, now and then, welcome to them.

“ What brings you out here ? ” he went on. “Were you looking for me? Isn’t it cooler in the house ? ”

“ There’s not much difference,” she said. “ The air seems very sultry anywhere. Yes, I was watching for you. You are a little later than usual, or perhaps it only seems so because I have been looking for you.”

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“ I think it is a little late,” Louis said. “ Did you want me for anything ? ”

“ Mr. Lawrence wanted you,” she replied. “ He stopped at the gate, as he was driving by, to ask if» you would go and help to get in his hay. He thought Harry would be with you, and he was going to tell him to hurry home, and go to work. Where is he ? ”

“ On the ball-ground,” Louis said.

“ Well, it can’t be helped then,” Mrs. Thorne said ; “ but he wanted both of you, for he is short of hands. I promised to send you as soon as you came. He says there is a shower coming up, and he wants the hay under cover before it gets here. You are to take your rake. I’ll get it for you, while you change your jacket.”

“ Oh, I can’t stop for that,” Louis said, feeling the importance of being wanted in a hurry. “ I shall have it off two minutes after I get there, and I’ll take good care of it; but the rain won’t wait for jackets. I’ll get the rake.”

“ How lucky it was that I didn’t go with the boys,” he reflected, as he hastened off to the hay-field. “I should have lost this chance if I had. I knew the hoe wanted me, but I didn’t know the rake did, or I would have hurried home, instead of dawdling along, pitying myself, in such a perfectly ridiculous way. One thing is sure — I won’t be caught doing that thing again. I wish Harry had come with me, for his father will be dis-

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pleased. That cloud must be made of ink, and I guess he was right about the shower’s coming. How fast it moves ! ”

He found a busy scene at the hay-field. Mr. Lawrence had a heavy crop in what he called “ first-class shape for the barn,” and he was straining every nerve to get it in before the shower should come. His powerful horses drew the great loads to the barn, and came back with the empty wagons at a most inspiring pace. They really seemed to enter fully into the spirit of the thing.

The men in the field were kept busy, filling the carts with hay, pitching up great forkfuls which threatened to cover up the man who was stationed on top of the load to receive it, and who had all he could do to keep his head above it, and to place it so that it should not slide off. Some of it did reach the ground again, in spite of his efforts, and Louis and his rake were kept busy.

He enjoyed it hugely. The race with the rain was as exciting, in its way, as the ball game. Everybody was working at the top of his speed, warned by the muttering thunder, and the few large drops which began to fall, that the time was short ; and when, by dint of urging his willing horses to a rapid trot, Mr. Lawrence drove the last heaped-up load under shelter, just as the rain began to come down in earnest, there was a general cheer, in which Louis’ boyish treble joined heartily with the heavier voices of the men.

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Margaret, by Mr. Lawrence’s directions, brought out a large pitcher of “switchel,” — a cool compound of molasses, vinegar, ginger, and water, — for their refreshment, and they stood around in the large barn, drinking it, cooling off after their exertions, discussing their victory, and laughing over the comic incidents of their hurry, which they could not stop to notice when they happened.

Louis thought it was very pleasant there, breathing the perfume of the sweet hay, listening to the rush of the rain without, and its continuous patter on the roof, resting after the violent exertions he had been making, and enjoying the merry talk that was going on around him.

“ How perfectly soaked Harry and the rest of them must be getting ! ” he thought. “ I do hope the Jacksons had time to beat before the deluge came.”

He stood in the wide door- way, and watched the descending streams, with a delightful sense of shelter and comfort.

“ There, I believe the worst of it is over,” one of the men said after a while, coming to the door to look round.

“ Yes,” Louis agreed. “ It doesn’t stop raining yet, but I can almost see blue sky.”

“ Don’t count your chickens before they are hatched,” said another. “ There’s a pretty black cloud over there, that may have something to say about it.”

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“There will be a lull, anyway, before it gets ready to say anything,” the first speaker replied ; “and before it takes the floor for an oration, I believe I shall make a dash for home.”

In fact, in a few minutes the rain did almost cease, and the men improved the opportunity to set forth.

“ Stop a minute, Louis,” Mr. Lawrence said, as he was going with them. “ You are going off without your pay. You have worked like a hero to-day, and here’s your money. And you had better take this old umbrella. You have farther to go than the others, and you may get caught, for I agree with Jack that it is going to rain again. I can’t say much for the beauty of the thing; but you are not a dude, and won’t mind the looks. It may be useful, if it isn’t ornamental. Bring it back safe, next time you come over, for it was my grandmother’s, and the old lady thought a great deal of it, though it has fallen from its high estate now, and I keep it out here, for use in an emergency.”

“ Thank you, sir,” Louis said. “ I will bring it back to-morrow.”

“ Is he to carry the umbrella, or is the umbrella to carry him?” asked one of the men, who had stopped to brush some of the dust off, and draw on his coat. “ Hard to tell which is the biggest ! If the wind blows in this style, and you spread all that sail, Louis, you will go up like a balloon ! ”

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“ Don’t I wish I could ? It would be great fun,” Louis said, “ if one could only steer.”

But he started, carrying the unwieldy thing tightly furled. It was raining only a little then ; but it seemed that the lull in the storm was only for the purpose of allowing the clouds to gather up their forces, for soon the torrents began to fall again. Louis trudged on, splashing through the puddles with his bare feet, and rather enjoying the whole thing.

For a considerable distance he had the street and the rain to himself, but at length he saw a lady, who had ju&t come from a side street, standing on the sidewalk, very imperfectly shielded from the rain by a small parasol, and looking anxiously up and down the street. She evidently wanted to cross to the other side, but the heavy shower had filled the gutter until the water was too deep to be stepped into, and too wide to be jumped over.

Why, as true as you live, it’s Miss Huntington ! ” Louis exclaimed, and he ran to join her.

Through all the rush of the storm she heard the “ slap, slap ” of the boy’s bare feet on the sidewalk, and turned a laughing face to greet him.

“ Did you bring a boat, by any chance, Louis,” she said merrily. “ I’m afraid I don’t know how to swim ! My education in that line has been neglected, and now these two great rivers roll between me and the other sidewalk, where I must go. Can your ingenuity suggest anything? ”

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Louis took a view of the situation. It seemed hopeless at first. Then his eyes brightened.

“ Just wait a minute, please, and hold this for me,” he said, giving her the big umbrella.

“Wait for these rivers to flow by, or to dry up?” she laughed, looking down at the yellow depths at her feet. “ I really don’t see that I can do anything but wait, unless I go back.”

But without staying to hear her reply, Louis was off, going back on the road by which he came.

“ How the boy can run ! ” she commented, as he disappeared from sight. “And how little those bare feet care whether they step on land or water! He gets over the ground as if a policeman was after him, or a circus was in front of him. Where can he be going ? ”

Presently he came in sight again. His rate of speed was lessened somewhat, for he carried a board in his arms. It had suddenly occurred to him that he had seen carpenters at work at Mr. White’s, as he passed, and he had hastened thither, and readily obtained a loan of the board.

“ There ! ” he said, coming up, panting. “ I can’t carry you across, and I can’t bring a boat, but I can build a bridge, so that you will go over dry shod ; ” and he triumphantly laid the board across the gutter, and offered his hand to steady her through the transit ; then, picking it up, he crossed the street with her, and bridged the other gutter in the same way.

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“I’m very much obliged to you, Sir Walter,” Miss Cecil said, when she was safely on the other side.

“ I’m sure you are very welcome,” he returned, with instinctive politeness. “I’m only too glad of a chance to do anything for you. You won’t need to cross the street again, if you are only going home, so I’ll put our bridge up here by this tree until to-morrow, — it will do just as well to carry it back then, — if you will let me hold my umbrella over you. That little thing of yours is no good in this downpour, though it is rather prettier to look at than this.”

“ I shall be very glad,” she replied cordially. “ I ought not to have started, but I thought the shower was over, and I was anxious to get home. This 4 little thing,’ that you despise so much, was only meant for sunshine. It does its duty then perfectly, though it finds the rain too much for it. If you will take it for a minute, I will try my skill with that mighty machine of yours,” she added, for he was wrestling valiantly with the long-unused spring, which refused to respond to his efforts.

44 Oh, you couldn’t do anything with it,” he said, with a little masculine superiority. 44 It is as stiff as — There she comes ! ” as the rebellious spring unexpectedly surrendered; and in another moment the despised sunshade was closed, and the two were walking under complete shelter, while the rain poured unheeded around them.

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“ I feel as if I was under a cathedral roof ! ” Miss Cecil said, looking up at the vast expanse of faded green over her head.

“It is like carrying a tent,” Louis responded. “ Mr. Lawrence only said it was his grandmother’s, hut I think it must have come over in the Mayflower ! ”

“ Do you know that the first man who carried an umbrella in England was laughed at ? ” Miss Huntington asked. “ The people thought it was very unmanly to be afraid of rain, and they ridiculed him unmercifully. Indeed, I am not sure that they did not go beyond ridicule ; I think I have read that they stoned him.”

“ Did he give in, and shut it up ? ” Louis asked, much interested.

“ If he had, perhaps we might have been out in the rain now,” she said, “instead of having the shelter of this spacious canopy. No; anything that is really useful is sure to make its way in the world, in spite of ridicule or abuse. Merit tells in the end. But I don’t know whether it was possible to shut that first specimen. I am inclined to think it wasn’t. I have seen pictures of it, and in comparison with them, this heirloom of Mr. Lawrence’s is a model of convenience and elegance.”

“Well, if it could be shut, the more they laughed, the more I would not shut it,” Louis averred. “What business was it of theirs, anyway? I don’t believe in being laughed out of things.”

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“ Is that so ? I’m glad to hear it,” Miss Cecil said, with a half-smile. “ But when you overtook me, why were you walking in the rain with a closed umbrella in your hand ? ”

“Oh — well — ” he said, “I don’t mind rain^ And then it is too big for one. You see I have opened it now that there are two to walk under it.”

“ Yes, I see ; of course you will give me your moral support, if we should happen to meet any of my friends, so that I need not mind if they laugh at this extensive green dome ? ” Miss Cecil suggested, with a mischievous look.

He tried to keep a grave face, but did not succeed.

“On second thoughts, I believe I won’t say anything more about the Englishman,” he said. “ How do you always know what a fellow is thinking? Can’t we talk about something else? Why did you call me Sir Walter, a little while ago?” .

“ I suppose I was thinking of another Englishman,” she said. “You have heard of Queen Elizabeth? She came to a muddy place in the road one day, and while she hesitated about putting her foot in the mire, Sir Walter Raleigh took off his rich cloak, and threw it down for her to step on, so that she might go over dry shod. I dare say she stood looking for the best place to step, just as I was doing when you came to my relief.”

“ But I had no cloak for you,” Louis said, “ and even Sir Walter’s would not have helped you over those gutters.”

“Certainly not,” Miss Huntington said. “Your bridge answered the purpose much better. The nineteenth century uses more sensible means than the sixteenth, but I think the knightly spirit was the same in Sir Walter Raleigh and in Louis Thorne.”

“ You speak as if it was a good thing,” he said, laughing, “ so I am glad I had it, though I’m sure I don’t know what it is. I must own that all I thought of was that you wanted to get across the street.”

“ Exactly,” she replied, “ and then your first impulse was to help me to do it. Don’t you know that helping ladies in distress, or, indeed, any one who was in trouble, was just what the knights of old made it their business to do ? ”

“Well,’* he said, with a shy boyish gallantry that was pleasant to see, “ if they liked it as much as I do, they must have had a pleasant life ! I think I should like to be a knight.”

“ Ah, but it cost them a good deal sometimes,” she responded; “and that was not all they did. They went about the world, redressing wrongs, defending the weak against the oppression of the strong. They were gentle and courteous to women, whether they were of high or low degree ; they were tender and reverent to those whom

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God had afflicted ; and when the trumpet sounded for battle, the knight who was so gentle and courteous in his lady’s bower, showed that he could be brave and fearless in fight.”

Louis drew a long breath.

“ There’s plenty of room in the world for such a knight now,” Miss Cecil said, with full understanding of his thought, “ and plenty of work for him to do. The lance he lays in rest may not be of ash and iron, and his enemies do not appear in bodily shape before him ; but weapon and foe are just as real as they were in the olden time, and I think they are harder to conquer. The battle is no child’s play.”

“ I suppose I know what you mean,” Louis said, “ if it is the kind of fight you were telling us of two or three weeks ago, in Sunday-school; but, for my part, I’d rather fight an enemy that I can see and touch. I should know when he was on his back then, and there would be some comfort in trying to put him there. All the enemies of the kind you mean, that I ever had anything to do with, are sure to pop up again as good as new, when I think I have killed them as dead as Julius Csesar. They seem to have as many lives as a cat.”

Miss Cecil smiled at his earnestness.

“ But what kind of a knight do you think that would be,” she asked, “ who wanted to select his own opponents, instead of being ready to meet all

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comers, and who always took care to pick out some feeble fellow whom he was sure of beating ? I fancy you would be one of the first to call out,

‘ Shame on you ! Take one of your own size ! ’ Don't you see that the harder the fight is, the greater the victory is ? ”

Miss Huntington had her eyes bent on the ground instead of looking at Louis, as she talked, for some care was needed to pick her way safely among the puddles, so she was startled when his response came in the shape of a shout.