"give me back my tin of biscuits, i tell you! you've pinched my cakes, chocolates, apples, bananas, everything. cads, thieves, pirates!"
"peace, thou scurvy knave! dost dare to speak slightingly of the great robin hood and his merry men? have a care, thou pestiferous squirm, lest i order thy foul tongue to be torn from its roots by red-hot pincers."
"oh, stop your high-falutin' rot and give me back my grub. if you don't——"
"well, caitiff, what then?"
"as sure as my name's peter mawdster i'll report the whole boiling of you to the captain of the school!"
"yah! sneak! hound! soapless squirm! down with him, merry men! slug the crawling viper!"
"hold, merry men!" it was the shrill voice of robin, raised high in command. "soil not your honest hands with the watery blood of this rapscallion. spread yourselves around, so that there may be no escape for him from the depths of this noble forest. i would have speech with him—words of serious import indeed!"
hugely enjoying the sport, the merry men drew round peter mawdster a cordon that it would have been hopeless to attempt to break.
"now, mawdster, black-handed imp of the printing press, slimiest of squirms," began robin, "venture to ope thy sloppy mouth during this speech o' mine, and my trusty fellows shall immediately stuff it full of holly leaves and clay, which will please thee less than the greasy provender which has made thee fat and scant of breath. know now the two charges that are laid against thee—firstly, that thou didst carry to school a disgustingly hoggish hoard of costly viands, which, rather than share with thy dormitory in the time-honoured foxenby fashion, thou didst bring into the shrubbery and endeavour to conceal there, like a dirty overfed dog with a surplus bone."
"i didn't!" denied peter. "if you'd only waited i was going to ask everybody to share."
hoots of derision from his captors greeted this assertion.
"villain! thou liest in thy teeth! make not thy odious crime worse by perjury, or thou shalt fare ill at our hands. if he speaks again before i've finished, merry men, bung up his mealy mouth!"
"ay, ay, worthy leader!" shouted the gleeful band.
"thou hearest, toad of a squirm? silence, on thy life! charge number two against thee is that thou didst, of malice aforethought, bring to foxenby a garbled story about its honoured captain—to wit, that at ye royal and ancient sign of ye anvil inn, in ye historic and flyblown borough of moston, he did single out and do grievous bodily harm to a gaping, flabby, half-baked clodhopper who could make no show of resistance.
"now," continued robin, getting a fresh breath hurriedly, "think well how thou answerest my questions, as whatever thou lettest slip from thy bloated lips may be used in evidence against thee. didst thou, or didst thou not, witness the encounter between forge and the chawbacon?"
"i—i—here, give me my grub and let me go, you fellows!" was the wildly evasive reply.
"stand ready with the clay, my merry men! answer my question without further ado. wert thou present at the fight?"
"no; i wasn't."
"then thy foul slander was the fruit of thy own squirming and villainous imagination?"
"if i wasn't, somebody else was," quavered peter. "gimme my prog!"
"silence in court—i mean cease thy gluttonous wailing after venison pasty. by my halidom, humble-pie is fitter fare for such carrion as thou. for the last time, from whom didst thou glean the details of the fistic bout?"
"my father saw it, if you must know."
"thy father, eh? scullion and knave and thrice dirty dog! who and what is thy sire that his word should be taken before that of a gentleman of foxenby? didst, then, thy low-born father vow to thee that forge made a punching-ball of a crackpot yokel who could not defend himself?"
"yes, he did—and don't you call my father names, either, robin!"
"but i shall call him names, thou caitiff, and to his face if i get the chance. he is a liar and a knave, and by the shaven crown of friar tuck i swear that, should he ever defile foxenby with his obnoxious presence, i and my merry men will split his mean carcass with arrows. what say ye, merry men?"
"ay, ay, robin hood," was the joyful chorus.
"i tell ye, merry men," went on robin, who was most thoroughly enjoying himself in the imaginary limelight, "that the doughty opponent of our captain was none other than the notorious juddy stockgill, a six-foot-high horseman, four stones heavier (more or less) than forge to start with. forge caught this hefty horseman torturing fluffy jim, the village idiot, and forthwith dotted him one on the beak—that is, i should say, forge valiantly took the—side of the downtrodden and the oppressed, and with his trusty quarterstaff—i mean to say, his good right arm—laid the tyrant low!"
"bravo! three cheers for forge of foxenby!" cried the delighted merry men.
"gimme me my biscuits and things, and let's be going," whined peter, ungrammatically and fearfully.
"the fat-producing provender, scoundrel, with which thou camest boastfully back to school, is easy enough of access to one of thy elegant figure and nimbleness of foot. if thou so delightest in eating, thou wilt gladly climb for thy food. thou wilt find it dangling from the topmost bough of yonder sycamore tree, whither the forest nymphs, disgusted by thy swinish greed, spirited it."
peter gave a scream of baffled rage as, looking up, he saw that his basket of eatables had actually been tied high up in the sycamore tree. stout as he was, sluggish with over-feeding during the christmas holidays, the task of climbing that high tree, slippery with hoar-frost, was quite beyond him. stung to reckless fury by his impotence, he first of all showed robin his teeth in an ugly snarl. then he set up such a hullabaloo of weeping as might have been heard a mile away.
"uh, bu-bu-bu-bub-bub-oo!" he blubbered. "you know i can't reach it up there, you cads. i'm not strong. (oh, bub-bub-oo!) my father's doctor says i haven't to c-c-climb trees. i've to have plenty of rich and sustaining f-f-food, and i'm hungry now. gimme my biscuits, bub-bub-bub-oo!"
"bub-bub-bub-oo!" the merry men mocked him, by common consent. "gimme my biscuits, bub-bub-bub—ooo!"
what cursed spite was it that turned dick forge's footsteps in the direction of the shrubbery just then? every good reason was his to be conveniently deaf on that side to-day. no kudos could be derived from stopping yet another of the constantly recurring demonstrations of robin hood and his merry men. they were his only friends in the school just now, and as such were surely entitled to as much rope as he could discreetly allow them. yet here he was, urged on to an unpopular action by that stern inner monitor which we know by the name of duty.
"now then, you chaps, what's this bedlam about?" he demanded. "playing at wild beasts escaping from a menagerie, eh? there's a howling wolf amongst you, at any rate. why," he exclaimed, as the cordon of merry men parted to admit him, "it's young mawdster again!"
peter ceased blubbering as suddenly as he began. "yes, forge, it's me," he said. "they've slung all my grub up there in the sycamore tree. make 'em fetch it down for me!"
"whom do you think you're talking to, mawdster? keep your paws off my coat-sleeve, if you please. why are you always sneaking about in here, making disturbances? cut off out of it!"
"shan't!" replied peter, as bold as brass. he was even looking rather pleased with himself now. "i'm not leaving this shrubbery till they've fetched my grub out of that tree. and you'll make 'em do it, forge!"
the merry men stared in amazement at this defiantly impertinent squirm. was his brain, never of average power, softening at last?
"cheeky little monkey," said dick. "you're not of my house, or i'd give you the lamming of a lifetime. report yourself at once to harwood for insolence. i'll see him myself about you."
quite unawed, cocksure of the weapon he held in reserve, peter coolly held his ground.
"no, you won't, forge," he declared. "you'll either send robin arkness up the tree for my food, or fetch it down yourself!"
so brazen an outrage to the dignity of a school captain could not be tolerated for a moment. forgetting foxenby etiquette, which had no precedent for a prefect of one house visiting summary justice on a boy of another, dick raised his hand to cuff peter soundly. but the squirm was too quick for him.
"lay a finger on me, forge, and i'll tell my father! yes, i will, and then he'll come straight to the school and tell old wykeham how you cheated him out of every penny of the money he spent on your rotten rooke's house rag!"
disgusting little vulgarian! full well he knew, and vastly did he enjoy, the sensational effect of this revelation amongst the captain's stanchest supporters. they were clearly staggered by it; he could see them exchanging quick and questioning glances, and the success of his verbal boomerang emboldened him still more.
"i will now have my biscuits and things, forge, if you please," he smilingly demanded.
pale with suppressed emotion—anger and chagrin, heart-sinking and mortification—dick came then to a deliberate decision. not as captain of foxenby, but as plain dick forge, grossly insulted in public, would he act.
"you will get what i give you, mawdster," he quietly said. "and you're not likely to smack your lips over it, either. turn round!"
"shan't! if you touch me, i'll tell my father!"
dick beckoned then to robin hood, who ran forward with alacrity.
"arkness, just you and flenton swing mawdster round and hold him tightly for a minute," he ordered.
oh, what a great day this was for robin hood and his merry men! kicking and scratching and struggling in vain, the stout and oily squirm was manoeuvred by robin and flenton into a position lending itself admirably to corporal punishment. dick's stick, selected from the sycamore, fell like a flail where it would hurt the most and show the least. for sixty seconds or so he spared neither his strength nor peter's feelings.
feverishly happy, the merry men skipped like frolicsome lambs. here was rich entertainment indeed—the captain of foxenby, in defiance of school traditions, giving a slimy squirm a first-class whacking in the full glare of publicity!
grimly finishing his task, dick threw away the stick, which one of the merry men fastened on as a souvenir of the occasion.
"that will do. release him, you fellows. now, mawdster, will you go back to your house at once, or shall i boot you there?"
mawdster hobbled away, too genuinely sore for noisy sobbing this time, but turning once to shake his fist in ludicrous fury at the captain.
"you'll pay for this, forge. mark my words!" he called back.
and dick, as he marched away with his hands deep in his trousers pockets, quite believed that he would have to pay for this public vindication of his dignity—pay to the bitter utmost in pitiless exposure and disgrace.
