"EXIT TYRANNUS"
The eventful day had arrived at last, the day which, when first
named, had seemed--like all golden dates that promise anything
definite--so immeasurably remote. When it was first announced, a
fortnight before, that Miss Smedley was really going, the
resultant ecstasies had occupied a full week, during which we
blindly revelled in the contemplation and discussion of her past
tyrannies, crimes, malignities; in recalling to each other this
or that insult, dishonour, or physical assault, sullenly endured
at a time when deliverance was not even a small star on the
horizon; and in mapping out the golden days to come, with special
new troubles of their own, no doubt, since this is but a work-a-
day world, but at least free from one familiar scourge. The time
that remained had been taken up by the planning of practical
expressions of the popular sentiment. Under Edward's masterly
direction, arrangements had been made for a flag to be run
up over the hen-house at the very moment when the fly, with Miss
Smedley's boxes on top and the grim oppressor herself inside,
began to move off down the drive. Three brass cannons, set on
the brow of the sunk-fence, were to proclaim our deathless
sentiments in the ears of the retreating foe: the dogs were to
wear ribbons, and later--but this depended on our powers of
evasiveness and dissimulation--there might be a small bonfire,
with a cracker or two, if the public funds could bear the
unwonted strain.
I was awakened by Harold digging me in the ribs, and "She's going
to-day!" was the morning hymn that scattered the clouds of sleep.
Strange to say, it was with no corresponding jubilation of
spirits that I slowly realised the momentous fact. Indeed, as I
dressed, a dull disagreeable feeling that I could not define grew
within me--something like a physical bruise. Harold was
evidently feeling it too, for after repeating "She's going to-
day!" in a tone more befitting the Litany, he looked hard in my
face for direction as to how the situation was to be taken. But
I crossly bade him look sharp and say his prayers and not
bother me. What could this gloom portend, that on a day of days
like the present seemed to hang my heavens with black?
Down at last and out in the sun, we found Edward before us,
swinging on a gate, and chanting a farm-yard ditty in which all
the beasts appear in due order, jargoning in their several
tongues, and every verse begins with the couplet--
"Now, my lads, come with me,
Out in the morning early!"
The fateful exodus of the day had evidently slipped his memory
entirely. I touched him on the shoulder. "She's going to-day!"
I said. Edward's carol subsided like a water-tap turned off.
"So she is!" he replied, and got down at once off the gate: and
we returned to the house without another word.
At breakfast Miss Smedley behaved in a most mean and uncalled-for
manner. The right divine of governesses to govern wrong includes
no right to cry. In thus usurping the prerogative of their
victims, they ignore the rules of the ring, and hit below
the belt. Charlotte was crying, of course; but that counted for
nothing. Charlotte even cried when the pigs' noses were ringed
in due season; thereby evoking the cheery contempt of the
operators, who asserted they liked it, and doubtless knew. But
when the cloud-compeller, her bolts laid aside, resorted to
tears, mutinous humanity had a right to feel aggrieved, and
placed in a false and difficult position. What would the Romans
have done, supposing Hannibal had cried? History has not even
considered the possibility. Rules and precedents should be
strictly observed on both sides; when they are violated, the
other party is justified in feeling injured.
There were no lessons that morning, naturally--another grievance!
The fitness of things required that we should have struggled to
the last in a confused medley of moods and tenses, and parted for
ever, flushed with hatred, over the dismembered corpse of the
multiplication table. But this thing was not to be; and I was
free to stroll by myself through the garden, and combat, as best
I might, this growing feeling of depression. It was a wrong
system altogether, I thought, this going of people one had
got used to. Things ought always to continue as they had been.
Change there must be, of course; pigs, for instance, came and
went with disturbing frequency--
"Fired their ringing shot and passed,
Hotly charged and sank at last,"--
but Nature had ordered it so, and in requital had provided for
rapid successors. Did you come to love a pig, and he was taken
from you, grief was quickly assuaged in the delight of selection
from the new litter. But now, when it was no question of a
peerless pig, but only of a governess, Nature seemed helpless,
and the future held no litter of oblivion. Things might be
better, or they might be worse, but they would never be the same;
and the innate conservatism of youth asks neither poverty nor
riches, but only immunity from change.
Edward slouched up alongside of me presently, with a hang-dog
look on him, as if he had been caught stealing jam. "What a lark
it'll be when she's really gone!" he observed, with a swagger
obviously assumed.
"Grand fun!" I replied, dolorously; and conversation flagged.
We reached the hen-house, and contemplated the banner of freedom
lying ready to flaunt the breezes at the supreme moment.
"Shall you run it up," I asked, "when the fly starts, or--or wait
a little till it's out of sight?"
Edward gazed around him dubiously. "We're going to have some
rain, I think," he said; "and--and it's a new flag. It would be
a pity to spoil it. P'raps I won't run it up at all."
Harold came round the corner like a bison pursued by Indians.
"I've polished up the cannons," he cried, "and they look grand!
Mayn't I load 'em now?"
"You leave 'em alone," said Edward, severely, "or you'll be
blowing yourself up" (consideration for others was not usually
Edward's strong point). "Don't touch the gunpowder till you're
told, or you'll get your head smacked."
Harold fell behind, limp, squashed, obedient. "She wants me to
write to her," he began, presently. "Says she doesn't mind the
spelling, it I'll only write. Fancy her saying that!"
"Oh, shut up, will you?" said Edward, savagely; and once
more we were silent, with only our thoughts for sorry company.
"Let's go off to the copse," I suggested timidly, feeling that
something had to be done to relieve the tension, "and cut more
new bows and arrows."
"She gave me a knife my last birthday," said Edward, moodily,
never budging. "It wasn't much of a knife--but I wish I hadn't
lost it."
"When my legs used to ache," I said, "she sat up half the night,
rubbing stuff on them. I forgot all about that till this
morning."
"There's the fly!" cried Harold suddenly. "I can hear it
scrunching on the gravel."
Then for the first time we turned and stared one another in the
face.
. . . . .
The fly and its contents had finally disappeared through the
gate: the rumble of its wheels had died away; and no flag floated
defiantly in the sun, no cannons proclaimed the passing of a
dynasty. From out the frosted cake of our existence Fate had cut
an irreplaceable segment; turn which way we would, the void was
present. We sneaked off in different directions, mutually
undesirous of company; and it seemed borne in upon me that I
ought to go and dig my garden right over, from end to end. It
didn't actually want digging; on the other hand, no amount of
digging could affect it, for good or for evil; so I worked
steadily, strenuously, under the hot sun, stifling thought in
action. At the end of an hour or so, I was joined by Edward.
"I've been chopping up wood," he explained, in a guilty sort of
way, though nobody had called on him to account for his doings.
"What for?" I inquired, stupidly. "There's piles and piles of it
chopped up already."
"I know," said Edward; "but there's no harm in having a bit over.
You never can tell what may happen. But what have you been doing
all this digging for?"
"You said it was going to rain," I explained, hastily; "so I
thought I'd get the digging done before it came. Good gardeners
always tell you that's the right thing to do."
"It did look like rain at one time," Edward admitted; "but it's
passed off now. Very queer weather we're having. I suppose
that's why I've felt so funny all day."
"Yes, I suppose it's the weather," I replied. "_I've_ been
feeling funny too."
The weather had nothing to do with it, as we well knew. But we
would both have died rather than have admitted the real
reason.
