قراءة كتاب Glyn Severn's Schooldays
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“Tell these beggars they had better not keep me waiting much longer!”
“All right!” shouted back Burney; and then to the two lads, “There, you hear. Come on at once, and as you are new chaps I won’t tell on you. You had better come, or he’ll pay you out by keeping you on bowling so that you can’t go and see the show.”
“Yes,” said Glyn quietly. “Go back and tell him what Singh said.”
“What!” cried Burney, staring with wonder. “Tell the captain he’s to bowl for himself?”
“Yes,” said Glyn coolly, “as long as he likes.—Come along, Singh;” and, throwing his arm over his Indian companion’s shoulder, the two lads fell into military step and marched slowly towards the Doctor’s mansion-like house.
“I am afraid it means a fight, Singh,” said Glyn quietly. “Well, I dare say we can get over it. I am not going to knuckle down to that fellow. Are you?”
“Am I?” cried the boy, flashing a fierce look at his English companion. “What do you think?”
Glyn laughed softly and merrily.
“Shall I tell you?” he said.
“Yes, of course,” cried the Indian boy hotly.
“Well, I think you will.”
“What!”
“When you can’t lift hand or foot, and your eyes are closing up so as you can hardly see.”
“And I won’t give up then!” cried the boy passionately.
“Well, don’t get into a wax about it, old chap,” said Glyn in a dry, slow way. “I don’t suppose you’ll have to, for the big chuckle-headed bully will have to lick me first, and I dare say I can manage to tire him so that you can easily lick him in turn.”
“You are not going to fight him,” cried Singh hotly.
“Yes, I am.”
“You are not. He insulted my dead father. A mahout indeed!”
“So he did mine,” said Glyn. “A shabby half-pay military officer indeed! I’ll make him look shabby before I have done.”
“Now, look here,” cried Singh, “don’t be a beast, Glynny, and make me more angry than I am. I am bad enough as it is.”
“So am I, so don’t you get putting on the Indian tyrant. Recollect you are in England now. This is my job, and I know if father were here he’d say I was to have the first go in. He’s such a big fellow that I believe he’ll lick me easily. But, as I said before, I shall pretty well tire him out, and then you being the reserve, he’ll come at you, and then he’ll find out his mistake. And I say, Singhy, old chap, I do hope that my eyes won’t be so closed that I can’t see. Now then, come up to our room. It’s a holiday, and the rules won’t count to-day. Come on, and we’ll talk it over.”
“But—” began Singh.
“Now, don’t be obstinate. You promised father you’d try and give way to me over English matters. Now, didn’t you?”
“Well,” said the lad hesitatingly, “I suppose I did.”
“Come on, then. You see war’s begun, and we have got to settle our plan of campaign.”
The young Maharajah nodded his head and smiled.
“Yes,” he said, “come up to our room. We ought to dress, oughtn’t we, to see the procession? I say, I don’t know how it is, I always like fighting against any one who tries to bully. I am not sorry that war has begun.”
“Neither am I,” said the English lad quietly, “for things have been very unpleasant ever since we came here, and when we’ve got this over perhaps we shall be at peace.”
Chapter Three.
The Prince’s Regalia.
The bedroom shared by Glyn Severn and Singh was one of a series, small and particularly comfortable, in the new annexe the Doctor had built expressly for lecture-room and dormitories when his establishment began to increase.
The comfortably furnished room just sufficed for two narrow beds and the customary furniture; and as soon as the two lads had entered, Singh hurried to his chest of drawers, unlocked one, took out a second bunch of keys to that he carried in his pocket, and was then crossing to a sea-going portmanteau standing in one corner, when Glyn, who was looking very thoughtful and abstracted, followed, and as Singh knelt down and threw open the travelling-case, laid his hand upon the lad’s shoulder. “What are you going to do?” he said shortly. “Only look out two or three things that there’s not room for in the drawer.”
“What for?”
“Why, to dress for the procession.”
“Stuff and nonsense! You are quite right as you are,” cried Glyn half-mockingly. “You must learn to remember that you are in England, where nobody dresses up except soldiers. Why, what were you going to do?”
“I was going to put on a white suit and belt.”
“Nonsense!” cried Glyn. “This isn’t India, but Devonshire. Why, if you were to come down dressed like that the boys would all laugh at you, and the crowd out in the road shout and cheer.”
“Well, of course,” said Singh; “they’d see I was a prince.”
“Oh, what a rum fellow you are!” cried Glyn, gripping his companion’s shoulders and laughingly shaking him to and fro. “I thought that I had made you understand that now we are over here you were to dress just the same as an English boy. Why, don’t you know that when we had a king in England he used to dress just like any ordinary gentleman, only sometimes he would wear a star on his breast.”
“Oh, but surely,” began Singh, in a disappointed tone, “he must have—”
“Yes, yes, yes; sometimes,” cried Glyn. “I know what you mean. On state occasions, or when he went to review troops, he would wear grand robes or a field-marshal’s uniform.”
“But didn’t he wear his crown?”
“No,” cried Glyn, bursting out laughing. “That’s only put on for a little while when he’s made king.”
“What does he do with it, then, at other times?”
“Nothing,” cried Glyn merrily. “It’s kept shut up in a glass case at the Tower, for people to go and see.”
“England seems a queer place,” said Singh quietly.
“Very,” cried Glyn drily. “You never want those Indian clothes, and you ought to have done as I told you—left them behind.”
“But the Colonel didn’t say so,” replied the boy warmly. “He said that some day he might take me with him to Court. It was when I asked him for the emeralds.”
“What do you mean—the belt?” said Glyn quickly.
“Yes.”
“You never told me that you had got them.”
“No; the Colonel said that I was not to make a fuss about them nor show them to people, but keep them locked up in the case. Here they are,” cried the boy; and, thrusting down one hand, he drew from beneath some folded garments a small flat scarlet morocco case, which he opened by pressing a spring, and drew out from where it lay neatly doubled, a gold-embroidered waistbelt of some soft yellow leather, whose fastening was formed of a gold clasp covered by a large flat emerald, two others of similar shape being arranged so that when the belt was fastened round the waist they lay on either side. It was a magnificent piece of ornamentation, but barbaric, and such as would be worn by an Indian prince.
Apparently it was of great value, for the largest glittering green stone was fully two inches in length and an inch and a half wide, the others being about half the size, and all three engraved with lines of large Arabic characters, so that either stone could have been utilised as a gigantic seal.
“I don’t see why one shouldn’t wear a thing like this,” said Singh. “My father always used to wear it out at home wherever he went, even when he wore nothing else but a long white muslin robe. On grand Court days he would be covered with jewels, and his turban was full of diamonds.”
“Yes,” said Glyn drily and with a half-contemptuous smile upon his lips; “but that