The Happy Warrior Part 23

Ah, these were the happy days. Happy, happy time! There was fun in alarming Mr. Purdie during their walks by taking him across fields that had fierce cows; by climbing trees with the plump tutor imploring beneath; by pretending to go out of depth when bathing in Fir-Tree Pool, with the plump tutor beseeching from the bank like an agitated hen that has hatched ducklings. There was particular fun in the tricycle.

The tricycle was an immense affair of remote construction, having the steering-wheel attached by a bar behind and manipulated by handles on either side of the seat that required almost as much winding as a clock--"twiddling" Percival called it--when the machine was to be deflected from a straight pa.s.sage. Percival's legs were too short for the treadles, Mr. Purdie's too soft for propulsion up even the gentlest incline. Tricycle excursions took, therefore, the form of laborious pus.h.i.+ng, with inordinate perspiration on the part of Mr. Purdie, until the brow of a hill was gained, when Percival would balance upon the steering wheel bar, Mr. Purdie in considerable trepidation on the seat, and away they would go with delighted shoutings from Percival--legs dangling, hands clutching the plump tutor's coat--and anguished entreaties of "Steady! steady! Don't touch my arms! Don't touch my arms!" from Mr. Purdie, back-pedalling tremendously, clutching at the brake, winding at the handles. Then the laborious ascent of the next slope, Mr. Purdie dripping at every pore, Percival crimson in the face and carrying on a long argument: "If you'd only _work_ when we get near the bottom and not use that rotten brake, we'd get halfway up and not have this awful _pus.h.i.+ng_!"

"Well, kindly do not push _me_," says Mr. Purdie, very hot.

Happy, happy time! Disaster came on the day on which there entered Mr.

Purdie's eye the fly that he always dreaded. Mr. Purdie in the seat was back-pedalling with immense caution down Five Furlong Hill; Percival on the steering bar behind was peering ahead round the plump tutor's ample girth and at intervals urging: "Now let her go!"

It was the fly that let her go. Whack! came the fly into Mr. Purdie's eye. "Whoa!" cried Mr. Purdie. "Bother! dear me! Whoa!" Up went Mr.

Purdie's knees in the twitch of pain; up came his hand to his tortured eye; round went the released pedals; forward shot the tricycle.

"Hurrah!" cried Percival. "Well done! Ripping of you!"

Mr. Purdie, between agony of his eye and terror for his safety, gave a shrill cry of dismay; took a grab at the brake and a grab back at his eye; received two terrible blows on the backs of his legs that fumbled wildly for the whizzing treadles, and barked out: "Brake! Brake! Fly in my eye!"

"Which eye?" Percival shouted, enjoying the speed enormously.

The alarmed tutor bundled his words in a heap the better to get them out and arrest the catastrophe that threatened.

"Catchabrakeandontbesilly! Catchabrakeabekilled!"

They whizzed!

Percival bawled: "We don't want the brake! I can't reach the brake! I like it! We're simply whizzing! Mind your legs!" His cap was gone.

His hair fluttered in the rus.h.i.+ng wind. His face was crimson with excited glee. His clear laughter on its strong note of "Ha! Ha! Ha!"

rose high above the rattling of all the machine's vitals and the cries of the agonised bearer of the fly. He clung tightly to the podgy waist and shouted: "Ha! Ha! Ha! We're whizzing! We're whizzing!"

Mr. Purdie took another six hammers on his legs and struck a note of new alarm.

"I'm blind, you know! I can't see! I can't steer!"

"A straight road!" Percival bawled. "Look out, though! A corner coming!"

"How can I look out? Draggle your legs on the ground!"

"Twiddle to the left!" Percival bellowed. "Ha! Ha! Ha! Twiddle, Mr.

Purdie, twiddle!"

Mr. Purdie twiddled frantically; the tricycle outraced his efforts.

"Look out for yourself!" from Percival, and with a loud and exceeding bitter cry from Mr. Purdie, the machine plunged at the hedge, planted Mr. Purdie very firmly into the midst, shot Percival firmly on top of him, took a violent somersault across the ditch that skirted the hedge, and poised itself above them.

Mr. Purdie's last despairing cry cut sharply across Percival's peals of laughter--then the crash. The fluttering beat of wings as a cloud of chaffinches, terrified by this amazing avalanche, burst from the floor of the wood beyond the hedge, then peal on peal of laughter again from Percival.

In m.u.f.fled tones from the depth of the hedge: "It is a miracle we are not killed. Where are you, Percival?"

Percival checked his mirth sufficiently to reply: "Well, I don't know _where_ I am! My head is down here, but where my legs are I don't know."

"One of them is under me and hurting me terribly. Move, please."

Between the peals of laughter: "I can't move, Mr. Purdie. I'm practically standing on my head, you know."

"I don't know anything about it. My face is almost in something highly unpleasant--a dead bird, I think. Please stop that laughter and try to do something. The odour here is most noisome."

"Well, but I can't stop laughing. Did you see us shoot?"

"Please try to control yourself. I did not see us shoot."

A mighty effort causes Percival's head and shoulders to come up with a jerk; Mr. Purdie feels the weight of pupil and tricycle removed from his back, and there follows another crash and further yells of laughter.

In m.u.f.fled agony from the hedge: "Now what has happened?"

"Well, I'm bothered if I haven't fallen again! I've fallen out, though."

Out of the depths: "Percival! Percival! Don't be such a silly little boy! Pull me out!"

"Well, I'm all mixed up in this awful trike, you know. Now, I'm up!"

"Pray pull me, then. I am retching with this noisome smell."

"Well, there's nothing to pull!" cries Percival, plunging round the tremendous stern that sticks out of the hedge. "Your trousers are simply _tight_!"

Out of the depths: "Tch! Tch! Push me sideways, then."

The mammoth stern is pushed sideways and hauled backways, and presently begins to rise, and presently the stout tutor is ponderously disgorged from the hedge, and staggers forth with grunts and moans, and collapses on the roadside, feet in ditch, very bedraggled and unfortunate looking.

"Don't think I'm laughing at you," Percival says. "I'm really very sorry for you. But you're not hurt, you know. Let me rub you down with leaves."

"I am terribly shaken. Do not touch me for a few minutes, please."

"Is the fly still in your eye?"

"I don't know where the fly is."

"Your trousers are awfully torn."

"Be silent, please. I am dazed."

He remains dazed when at last they begin to trudge home, the wrecked tricycle left for a cart. But at the top of the hill that plunged them to disaster, the infectious spurts of laughter at his side challenge his self-esteem and he sets out to sound his reputation in Percival's regard.

"I think I steered rather well, considering I couldn't see."

Percival is always generous: "Splendidly! Oh, dear, I'm aching with laughing!"

"I was only afraid for you, Percival."

"We whizzed, you know! We simply whizzed!"

Mr. Purdie glances back down the hill and shudders to have whizzed it.