"EXIT TYRANNUS" The Golden Age | ||
"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
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
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 —
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
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
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;
"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
"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.
"EXIT TYRANNUS" The Golden Age | ||