Half-Past Bedtime Part 21

There were a few children round him, some of them with nurses, but the people on the esplanade were taking very little notice of him; and by the time that Cuthbert and Doris reached him, he had stopped somersaulting and was wiping his forehead. Standing near him, dressed like a gipsy, was a woman, who was evidently his wife, and sitting on the sand was a queer-looking boy about fourteen who seemed to be their son. The clown was dressed in a baggy sort of smock, tied round his ankles with pink ribbon, and his face was white, with a crimson diamond painted on the middle of each cheek. His lips had been coloured to make them seem smiling, and he wore a wig of carroty hair, but his eyes were tired, and underneath his wig they could see some of his own hair, which was quite grey.

Then his wife brought a little box round, but none of the children seemed to have any pennies, and the two or three grown-up people who had been watching the performance turned aside without giving anything.

Cuthbert and Doris heard one of them say that it was a rotten show and not worth a farthing; and then the old clown began to sing a song about a cheese that climbed out of the window. Some of the nurses laughed a little, but the children didn't understand it, and Cuthbert and Doris thought it rather stupid, but the woman had noticed them and brought them the box, and they each put a penny in it, though they didn't much want to. Then the old clown and his wife pretended to have a quarrel, and she kept knocking him down with an umbrella; but what interested them most was the queer-looking boy, who kept laughing to himself and playing with his fingers. Once or twice he got up and went straying among the audience, and they could see his mother watching him rather anxiously; and presently he came and talked to them and told them that he was a moon-boy and that his name was Albert Hezekiah.

It was now nearly seven, and the tide was coming in, and there was n.o.body left to watch the old clown, so his wife stopped hitting him with the umbrella and helped him on with a shabby blue overcoat. Then they emptied the pennies out of the box, and the old clown counted them in the palm of his hand.

"Ten and a half," he said, "not much of a catch, old lady," and then they looked round for Albert Hezekiah.

He was still talking to Cuthbert and Doris, and the old clown and his wife came up to them. The woman spoke to Doris.

"Don't you be frightened," she said, and the old clown tapped his forehead.

"He's a little bit touched," he said, "that's all, my dear. But he's a good lad and he's quite harmless."

Then they said good-night, and the moon-boy shook hands with them and told them that he liked them, because they had nice faces; and two or three times during the next few days they saw him playing about near his father and mother. Then one day they saw him alone, and he told them that his father was ill in bed, and that his mother had sent for the doctor, and that they had no money to pay the rent with. It seemed rather funny to think of a clown being ill, but Doris and Cuthbert each gave him sixpence, and he ran off singing, and they didn't see him again till the last day of their holiday.

This was a bright hot day, and they had bathed in the morning, and then Mrs Bodkin had cut them some sandwiches, and they had had their lunch on the top of Capstan Beacon, which was a high hill about five miles away.

Then they had walked inland and had tea at a little village; and it was toward dusk, just as they were reaching the town, that they saw the moon-boy in the middle of a group of boys on a piece of waste land near the gas-works. He was waving his arms and looking rather bewildered, and the other boys were mocking him and singing a sort of song, "Loony, loony, moon-boy; loony, loony, loo"; and when they came nearer they saw that he was crying, and that one of the bigger boys was throwing stones at him.

Doris was so angry that she could hardly speak, but she caught hold of the boy who was throwing stones, and when he tried to hit her she slapped his face and told him that he was the biggest coward that she had ever seen. Then he tried to hit her again, but Cuthbert jumped in front of her, and after a minute or two Cuthbert knocked him down; and then the other boys ran away, after throwing stones at them and calling them names.

"Little beasts," said Doris, "look what they've done," and Cuthbert saw that they had cut the moon-boy's cheek. So Doris took out her handkerchief and stopped the bleeding, and then they both took the moon-boy home. He was so excited at first that he lost the way, but at last he stopped in front of a little house; and in a back room they found the old clown, sitting up in bed and trying to shave himself. His wife was at the fireplace, frying some fish; and when they heard what had happened to their son, they shook hands with Cuthbert and Doris and thanked them over and over again.

"Luck's against us, you see," said the old clown. "We're getting past work, and the people won't laugh at us. And this here boy of ours is all that we have, and there's n.o.body else to look after him."

"Excepting one," said the moon-boy, and the old clown began to laugh.

"That's one of his crazes," he said. "He says that he has a friend who comes and talks to him once a week."

"Out of the sea," said the boy. "He comes out of the sea. I never see him except by the sea."

"Nor there either," said his mother, "if the truth was known." But when Cuthbert and Doris said good-bye the moon-boy followed them into the street and began speaking to them in a whisper.

"I tell you what," he said. "If you'll meet me to-night at ten o'clock just by the lighthouse I'll show him to you, if you'll promise not to laugh. Because if you laugh, he won't come."

For a moment they hesitated because they were pretty sure that Uncle Joe wouldn't allow it; but then they decided that they needn't ask him, as he would be sure to be playing chess with Colonel Stookley. So they promised to be there, though they thought it very likely that the moon-boy wouldn't come; and just before ten they were on the little path that led from the town toward the lighthouse.

This was about a mile from the end of the esplanade, under a great cliff called Gannet Head, and at low tide it was possible to reach the lighthouse by climbing over some fifty yards of rocks. But the tide was high to-night, and the little path that slanted down across the face of the cliff came to an end upon a slab of rock not more than a foot above the water. There was no moon, but the stars were so bright that the air was full of a sort of sparkle; and the sea was so still that the water beneath them hardly seemed to rise and fall. _Clup, clup_ it went, with a lazy sort of sticky sound, like a piece of gum-paper flapping against a post, and then slowly becoming unstuck again before doing it all once more.

At first they could see n.o.body, but as they stood looking about them they heard a soft whistle a little farther on; and there was the moon-boy, with his arms round his knees, squatting on another ledge of rock. This was broader and flatter than the one at the bottom of the path, and a little higher above the water; and Cuthbert and Doris were soon sitting beside him and wondering what was going to happen.

"Where's your friend?" asked Cuthbert.

The moon-boy touched his lips.

"_H'shh_," he said. "He'll be here in a minute. He was here half an hour ago, and I told him all about you."

"But where's he gone?" said Doris.

The moon-boy shook his head.

"I don't know," he said. "He might be anywhere. He spends his life pulling children out of the water. But n.o.body ever sees him except me."

Doris suddenly felt her heart beginning to beat quicker.

"Why, I believe I know him!" she said. "Is he a saint?"

The moon-boy nodded.

"Yes, he's a patron saint," he said. "He's the patron saint of water."

"Then I do know him," said Doris. "At least, I've heard of him, and I've met his brother, St Uncus."

"This one's St William," said the moon-boy, "but he's generally known as Fat Bill."

And then they heard a pant, and there, sitting beside them, was an enormous man with a red face. Like his brother, he was nearly bald, but he was about seven times as large, and he had blue eyes and a double chin, and there was a big landing-net in his right hand.

"Good evening," he said, "pleased to meet you. I've heard about the girl of you from my brother Uncus. And the boy of you I saw last year, pulling a little nipper out of a stream."

Cuthbert blushed.

"That was young Liz," he said, "Beardy Ned's kid, but it was quite easy."

"Maybe it was," said Fat Bill, "but, as it happened, you really helped to save two nippers. You see, there was a kid, just at the same moment, fell into a lagoon off Hotoneeta."

"What's Hotoneeta?" asked Cuthbert.

"Bit of an island," he said, "a hundred miles south of the equator."

He cleared his throat.

"Well, I couldn't save 'em both, because I was pulling a boy out of Lake Windermere; and I was just going for Liz when I saw that you were after her, so that I was able to land Blossom-blossom just in time."

"Was that her name?" asked Doris.

Fat Bill nodded.

"That's the English of it," he said. "But her people are savages."

Then he disappeared for a moment, and there was nothing but the starlight and the _clup, clup_ of the water; and it was while he was gone that there came into Doris's mind a wild but just possible idea.

She turned to Cuthbert.

"I tell you what," she said. "Why shouldn't he take us to Hotoneeta? I expect he could somehow, if he really wanted to; and you _did_ help to save Blossom-blossom."

Cuthbert considered.

"Well, of course he _might_," he said, and then Fat Bill was sitting beside them again.