The barbarous babes

IT all started because Humphrey and me generally play together, and we generally play at torturing games. Sometimes we let the little ones, Violet and Ted, come in too, but they spoil things rather, because Teddy is so tiny and Violet doesn’t properly enjoy even the loveliest tortures. We have promised Mother, though, that we will try not to be selfish, so we pretend we don’t mind their playing with us—much.

I generally make up the tortures because I’m the eldest. My name is Molly, and I’m the only one that has to use two figures for their age; I’m ten. Even Humphrey is a good lot younger than me; he’s only nine, and people don’t think he’s as old as that, because he’s very backward. It isn’t so much that he can’t think of clever things, but he had an illness when he was a baby and that makes lessons harder for him than for other people, ’specially long division. He simply can’t do that; if they try and make him, he sits and cries, and he has the most peculiar way of crying of any one I ever saw. He doesn’t make any noise nor wrinkle up his face, but the tears come dripping down slowly with a plop. Sometimes he catches them in his mouth, but if he doesn’t, he always licks them up afterwards, because he says they are good for the digestion. He is going to be a doctor, so that makes him have ideas like that. Once he invented a most beautiful red ink, only it made holes right through his copy-book, and you couldn’t use the same pen twice, so he had to turn it into a medicine instead.

Though Humphrey can write, he can’t read yet, and that’s another peculiar thing, because with most people it’s the other way. That’s partly why it’s always me that invents the games. I read a nice tortury book, and then tell him about it, and we pretend it through. We did enjoy The Tower of London, but the Pirates of Algiers was almost better.

One day we were having a lovely time over this; Humphrey had worked rusty screws into my chest, and had clamped an iron band with spikes round my head, and then he was lashing me with a waxed thong, when all of a sudden he stopped.

“It isn’t any fun,” he said, “because by now you must be dead.”

I told him I wasn’t, and that in the book they lashed the slaves for hours, and he must go on.

He said, “Well, if I’m the torturer, I ought to be allowed to choose the tortures, and I’m a very enervating torturer.” I don’t know exactly what he meant, because he’s fond of using long words that make grown-up people laugh, and then getting sulky. But I was surprised when he went on solemnly, “Slave, go and put your head in the meal-barrel.”

Of course he meant that I was really to do it, because if one is able to do a thing there’s no use in just pretending it; but a nice rage Fräulein would have been in. She’s our governess and I expect she’d have given me extra practising for a week. If there’s one thing I loathe it’s the piano, especially now that Fräulein comes and sits beside me. She used to be in the other room, which is warmer, and just shout out every now and then, “Zu schnell, ein, zwei, drei, vier,” so I could read the book on my lap quite comfortably. The music sounded just the same, and you could shut up your knees quickly if you heard any one coming, but somehow Fräulein discovered it. Well, thinking of the extra practising I should have to do, I said to Humphrey rather crossly, “You’re really too stupid to play with.” Then I walked to the other end of the room.

I forget if I said that all this happened one Sunday when Mother and Father had gone up to town for a lunch party. (Mother hates being away from us like that, especially on a Sunday, but they had to go.) Fräulein had been getting the little ones ready for church, but now they came down and we started almost directly. It was such a lovely day that we took the short cut through the woods; I found some wild roses, quite pink ones, and the paths were all mossy and quiet. I stopped wanting to be cross; woods always do make one feel gooder somehow. It is all so silent and lovely.

In church it was very nice too. We had a most splendid sounding psalm, and “Onward Christian Soldiers,” which is my favourite hymn, and we didn’t stay for the sermon. By the time we got out I was perfectly aching with goodness; I wanted to go away at once and bind up wounded soldiers and things like that.

I was going along planning it all, and how nobly I’d catch fever from a poor drummer-boy and lie beautiful in death with wreaths all around me, when suddenly I remembered what Mother once said about people thinking they’d do great deeds and passing by the duties that are on their path. So, as Humphrey was dawdling behind, because he was cross, I waited for him and asked him if I should tell him some story. This doesn’t sound much but really it was awfully hard, because you don’t know how horrid Humphrey looks when he is sulky. Besides, the little ones are always bothering me to tell them stories, so I get rather sick of it, and Mother said that they must give me a holiday and not even ask me to on Sundays.

Well, Humphrey was certainly very nice; he caught hold of my hand. “Molly,” he said very slowly, and wagging his head like he always does; “Molly, it would be a gweat welief onto my mind to know if Lady Flowence Gwendoline escaped fwom the wobber’s cave, but I’m going to wait till to-mowow.” It’s horrid for him not being able to say his “r’s” properly, when he’s nearly nine and a quarter, and Ted who is only five can talk as if he were grown up. Humph minds so much though, that we pretend not to notice it. Any way I don’t believe it’s a bit of good his putting rubber bands round his tongue, to curl it to the right shape, like we found him in bed one night. He’s been happier, though, since Mother told him we all had our bundles of affliction to carry, and that not being able to say his “r’s” was in his bundle. And if it were heavy, Mother said, he mustn’t grumble, but just step out more bravely. I’m sure, though, it isn’t a bit heavier than having hair that will get untidy, and to stand still and not get impatient while it’s being brushed, is a very difficult sort of stepping out.

All this time Humphrey had been squeezing my hand harder and harder, and now he said, “I’ve thought of a lovely new torture that I know you’ll like. I thought of it all myself in church. It’s cutting off your head and tying it onto a wampant horse and then dancing.”

I didn’t know what to say, because of course he was thinking of Salome, whom we’d had the second lesson about, and Mother doesn’t like us acting things out of the Bible, but just then we saw a bush of burs. We always like to have burs, because they’re so convenient to put in one another’s hair and down people’s backs and nice tortury things of that sort; these, though, grew right in the middle of a bed of nettles. “Disagweable things,” said Humphrey.

But when I saw the nettles I remembered more than ever about the duties on one’s path, and how I’d promised Mother to try and be unselfish, and I thought perhaps this would make up for some of the times I hadn’t been. Besides, I thought how astonished Humphrey would be at my bravery. So I just pretended that I was the Black Prince scaling the walls of Calais, and I dashed into the stinging-nettles. I forgot, though, that the Prince had got his armour on, and we’d gone into summer stockings that day, at least the other three wear socks, but, of course, I’m too old. But by thinking I was Joan of Arc as well, I got the burs, and when I came out Humphrey was so astonished, he couldn’t say anything at all, particularly when I gave them all to him. I didn’t keep a single one.

My legs were hurting dreadfully, so I pulled down my stockings to look, and there were a lot of great white lumps; that was rather nice, because sometimes things are horrid, like earache, with nothing to show for it and all waste. So I sent Humphrey for some dock leaves, but he couldn’t find any, though when you aren’t wanting them, you are always seeing them. He said that if you rubbed on the milk of dandelions with a dead mole’s paw, it would do just as well, but then we hadn’t got a mole, except the one we are trying to tame on the tennis lawn, and he isn’t dead.

Poor Humphrey looked quite unhappy when I told him this. He was quiet for a long time, and then he said, “I’ll go on lashing you with waxed thongs if you like.” I did think that nice of him. Generally if we quarrel, you might cut him up into little bits before he’d say he was wrong.

So I thanked him but I said it didn’t matter, because we must hurry home. On Sundays we have tart for dinner, and if Mother’s at home there is generally cream, and even if Fräulein is stingy about that, I didn’t want to miss the tart, particularly as I knew that it was raspberry. I forgot to explain that if we are late for meals, we don’t have any pudding, at least at breakfast or tea it’s jam, unless there is a very good reason why we couldn’t help it. I dare say if I’d shown Fräulein my lumps on my legs she’d have excused me, but, of course, I wasn’t going to do that; I should have liked the little ones to have seen them though before they went down. They were very large lumps.

It was when we were going along that I had the Great Idea. I was thinking about the tortures, because I knew Humphrey would want to do Salome, unless I could tell him of something else. “We’ll be Christian martyrs,” I said suddenly. “You shall be burnt.”

Humphrey stood still in the middle of the road with his mouth open, like he does when he’s pleased. “When?” he asked at last.

“After dinner,” I said. “Being Sunday makes it all the better. You shall be Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper and tied to a stake and burnt.”

It really is a convenient thing that Fräulein likes a nap on Sunday; we got rid of the little ones too because it was such a very great secret that we thought Mother wouldn’t mind. Then Humphrey and I crept silently up to the orchard; we are allowed there always, but it seemed to make it nicer to creep. Humphrey brought his dark lantern, but you can’t light it because it drops to pieces, and I believe he was thinking of Guy Fawkes, but he said I couldn’t be sure that Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper didn’t have a lantern too.

Our orchard is a very nice place; generally the washing is hung there, but, of course, there isn’t any out on Sundays. So we collected a lot of twigs and things and piled them round a clothes-prop, and I stuck in all the burs to prick the martyr’s feet. Then I poured paraffin over it all. I forgot to say that I had brought the can up out of the scullery. When it was all ready I tied Humphrey to the post with some of the clothes-line.

He looked lovely, he really did, just like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper. I took off the sailor hat and told him to shut his eyes and say his prayers, while I hit him with things—not hard, of course, that would be horribly mean when he was all tied up, but just pretence. And I kept asking him if he would abjure his faith, because I was Bloody Mary, but he wouldn’t, and then I hit him again. Only in the middle he sneezed and I had to get out his pocket-handkerchief, which spoilt it rather. I don’t know what Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper did if he wanted to blow his nose.

Well, after some time Humphrey said that he was uncomfortable and must be burnt quick. So I asked him once more if he’d abjure, and then I said in awful tones, “Minion, fire the faggots.”

Of course, I had to be the minion myself, because Humphrey’s hands were tied. We’d brought up a box of matches and I struck one; and now comes the dreadful part. I don’t know how it happened, for I threw the match down quite a long way off; it must have been the paraffin or something, for suddenly the flame ran along the grass and it all began really to blaze.

For the first second we were both so frightened, we didn’t do anything; then Humphrey screamed. I rushed forward and tried to pull him out, but I couldn’t, and I tried to push away the twigs and things, but they only seemed to burn more than ever. All this time I was screaming too in the most curious way and shaking all over though it was so hot. I was just going to run and fetch Mother, because I’d forgotten she was out to lunch, when suddenly the clothes-prop came out of the ground, and Humphrey stumbled forward. When he’d got out of the fire he fell down on his face and wouldn’t speak, so I was more frightened than ever.

They carried Humphrey down to the house, for, of course, I went and fetched Fräulein. He wasn’t crying, he was quite still, which seemed worse. I wanted to go for the doctor, but Fräulein told me I’d done quite enough harm and I’d better keep out of the way. So I went up to the box-room and cried. My only comfort was that my hands were hurting a lot, because they were burnt too, though I hadn’t felt it before. Still I couldn’t pretend to be Casabianca like Humphrey might have, I could only think I was a murderer and going to be hanged, and there wasn’t much comfort even in that.

I don’t know how long I stopped there, but I didn’t have any tea nor supper either, and I cried so that my face felt quite stiff. At last, as it was getting dark, Mother came in. She didn’t see me, but she said my name softly; that made me feel dreadful. So I just sobbed out, “Is he dead like Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper?”

But suddenly Mother took me up in her arms. “Oh, no, no, my poor little girl,” she said. “He isn’t very badly burnt, he only fainted.” Then she carried me downstairs, just as if I were one of the little ones, and when she saw my hands she quite cried out. She put oil and cotton-wool on to them, and it was lovely, and she brought me some soup and helped me to undress. I felt much happier.

First of all, though, I went in to see Humphrey. He was in bed, and he didn’t look very different. Directly he saw me, he called out, “Do you know that you’ve got seven skins? The doctor told me so; and I’m playing that I’m a wounded fireman in the hospital, but it’s no fun without you.”

I don’t think Latimer-Ridley-and-Hooper could have said anything nicer.