Part 8

“‘Without,’ sire,” answered the seer.

[Sidenote: VAIN SOOTHE SAYING.]

“Then, for pity’s sake, let us have with, if it will save us from being compassed with so many points. I feel pricked all over.”

Your Majesty shall be obeyed, Although in sooth I am afraid, A pointless rhyme is not the thing To lay before so great a king. You fain would know why herald’s nose By aid of fingers longer grows, And why by slap upon his mug He makes a hollow sound like “jug.” Methinks he by these signs would say, ’Twas well he stayed so long away. By sound of cork he first would tell, How waiting long, you waited well. Fired by desire for subjects’ weal, You ran about with plates of veal And ham, hot kidneys, bottled stout; In short, you wildly flew about, The slave of all, though monarch great, Good lesson in the cares of state. He next the royal attention draws, To all the tips on nose and paws, By which he plainly means to in dicate how ’twould have been a sin Had he by quick return to you Deprived you of the tips you drew, While you were waiting on your p- eople drawing corks and serving tea. Indeed he’d say, by him your pop ularity is now tip-top. He therefore claims a pardon free. The seer hath spoken.

[Sidenote: WHINES FROM LOW SPIRITS.]

“Fiddle-dee-dee!” cried the king; “to such defence I cannot listen. It may be with rhyme, but is certainly without reason. If it comes to anything it comes to this, that he kept me waiting so long in order that I might get tips, eh? That is seeking to give the king the sack. I would be mad ere I accepted such a mumm sham penitence. I declare it brand’ed as a shabbily-concocted whine; so turn from it, and laugh it to scorn. He shall have his mead. Summon the headsman, and let him whisk it off.”

The executioner at once appeared, set his block in front of the throne, felt the edge of his axe, advanced to the herald, and began to drag him forward.

“Friend,” said the herald (he had turned quaker at the sight of the block), “why dost thou draw this way?”

“Because my business is funny cuts,” said the executioner, giving him a sudden pull.

“Don’t ketch me up so if thou art a Jack in the box wood way; thou shouldst not put such hard lines on a fellow.”

“I call you rather knave than fellow,” replied the executioner, getting somewhat surly, “I don’t need you to tell me how to make the cuts on my block.”

[Sidenote: HEADS OR TAILS.]

The boys began to feel rather uncomfortable at the idea of seeing a head cut off. They were somewhat relieved, however, to notice that the executioner and attendants, on getting the herald to the block, did not apply his neck to it, but made him sit down. They then began searching among the many trouser-legs that hung behind him, and were so long at this operation that Jaques, who, being a schoolboy, had an impression of his own as to what they were after, suddenly exclaimed—

“Instead of fumbling that way, why don’t you take dow——”

But care-taker Norval stopped Jaques’ mouth with his hand before he could get anything unmentionable out.

“We can’t find them, your Majesty,” said the executioner.

“Nonsense!” replied the king; “Darwin has put it in a book, and therefore there must be. Besides, the Family Herald has lots of tales; and what a Family Herald has, surely a Royal Herald can have too!”

[Sidenote: TAIL-KETCHING.]

At last they found them—two very small swallow tails indeed—one of which was duly chopped off, but the other spared, as the king had forgiven half the fault; and the executioner, taking his stand on the form used at Charles the 1st’s execution, lifted up the tail and solemnly said, “This is the end of a cratur.”

[Sidenote: ONE LEFT ON, THE OTHER RIGHT OFF.]

The herald looked very disconsolate, and the executioner, clapping him on the shoulder as he sat on the block, said to him—

“How do you feel now, old boy?”

“No thanks to you for axing; your chop’s a very cruel kind of cut let’s say no more about it.”

“Pooh, my good fellow! you’re not so badly off; you’ve one all right.”

“No, I’ve one left—it’s the right one that’s gone.”

“Well, well, but you don’t need to have it left so; they’ll right you at any retail place in no time.”

“Enough of chops, and cutlets, and tails,” suddenly shouted the king; “now for the royal stakes—is that course ready?”

[Sidenote: RACY ENTREES.]

“Yes, your Majesty,” said the Secretary of Steak; “the entries are just over, and so the beef-eaters can come on now.” They soon got through the removes necessary, and the game course cleared; whereupon the king’s and queen’s suites were set in their places, including the cream of society, and a following which was quite the cheese.

“Now,” said the king, “every man shall have his desert. Go on with the heats,”—heats being apparently the Blunderland substitute for ices.

[Sidenote: VERY DISTONGUEE.]

This injunction made the officials warm to their work, so that all was quickly ready, and the competitors came running up to take their places. They were a funny-looking set altogether. There was a fast young gentleman, who looked as if he had not been in bed all night, but had just come out of a bandbox. There was a scarlet-runner, who was the pink of condition; a post-runner, who of course was clad in a mail suit; a fore-runner, who went sometimes on his fore legs, and sometimes on his four legs; and an old woman, who said she would warrant her tongue to go faster, and to run on longer, than anybody on the ground. A solemn discussion arose among the judges, upon the question whether a tongue could be allowed to enter for the race; and it was at last decided that it must not, as the race was a flat one, while the old woman’s tongue was more than usually sharp.

The aged dame was very angry at this, her much-despised member going on at such a rate, that she, when told to hold it, excused herself on the ground that it was going too fast to be caught up without a stretch of imagination, which, at her age, was quite beyond her powers. So, as her tongue could not be stopped, the police took a homœopathic process, and simply ordered her and the offender to “move on;” whereupon, with female contradiction, she did the very opposite, and moved off.

“That woman’s tongue is equal to any two,” said the clerk of the course; “so, if a couple more would like to come forward and take its place, they may do so.”

[Sidenote: A PAIR OF SCREWS.]

Thus invited, Norval and Jaques stepped out. Their appearance, with their coils wound round them, was that of a pair of screws, and this led the other competitors to look on them with contempt, apparently thinking that such well-hooped casks could never run.

But the boys paid no attention to the sneers. They intended to run for the sport of it—to win if possible, and to take it cheerfully if they could not; which is the proper spirit for all boys, young or old, when they are going in for a contest.

[Sidenote: ELONGATED PROJECTILE.]

[Sidenote: OVERREACHING.]

On the start taking place, the fore-runner was soon left behind, the post-runner found his mail suit rather heavy, the scarlet-runner proved to be only a creeper, and there were none left except the fast young man and the two boys. At first Norval and Jaques with their young legs got a good start, as the fast youth, not having been in bed, had forgotten to wind up his watch, and being unaccustomed to get on without tick, had to stop till he got it wound. But as the race was a long one, he soon made up for lost time, and it looked as if the boys would get the worst of it, for at the third round of the course, Jaques was many yards behind, and his brother also losing ground; when, to the surprise of everybody, Norval suddenly shouted “Neck or nothing!” uncoiled his neck, and collared his opponent by shooting it out to the winning-post. This feat was received with deafening cheers, which were redoubled when Jaques, taking the hint, threw his long arms out over the head of the fast young man, and vaulting on his hands, flew over him, far past the winning-post, and got in a second before him.

[Sidenote: LOUD YET DISALLOWED.]

The fast young man lodged a protest, maintaining, in a style even louder than the style of his trousers, that Norval had won by neck-romantic arts; and that Jaques, instead of going on foot, had taken a fly, and so cabalistically over-reached him by craft. After the judges had looked very wise for ever so long—in fact, as long as Norval’s neck itself—they decided that the neck being a neck, it did not matter whether it was romantic or not; and as it could not be alleged that Jaques had used any other craft than handicraft, his using feats of arms for feats of feet was quite allowable, he having only availed himself of his own handy capacity; and that as to his taking a fly, it was not a handsome thing to call it cabalistic, and an argument that only a for weal or woe begone growler would think it fair to take his hackneyed stand on. Norval was therefore declared first, and Jaques second, amid loud applause; and the fast young man, with his views dissipated, went off a bad third.

The next race was a blindfold one. The competitors having their eyes tied up at the winning-post, were led back to the scratch, and started; the rule being that, if any one wandered to the side of the course and fouled the ropes, or went beyond the post without touching it, he was out of the race. Now Ranulf, who came forward to run, kept wondering to himself what he should do to win.

“You see,” he said, speaking to himself, “I’ve not got anything but a nose; and how can a long nose help me to see? and it’s the blindfolding that is the bother. If I only had an eye at the tip, that would be jolly, only it wouldn’t be fair not to tell them to tie it up too. What _am_ I to do?”

[Sidenote: A SWEET IDEA.]

[Sidenote: BACKER STOPPER.]

Now Ranulf had still some of Victoria’s sweetmeats in his pocket, and Ranulf was a boy; so it fell out that when he felt perplexed and did not know where to turn, he, as a matter of course, thrust his hands into his pockets, and it followed naturally that the sweetmeats got into his hand, and that his hand set off on a journey to his mouth. They had a most delicious perfume, so strong that though Ranulf’s nose was wound round him so many times, the scent got through it into his head in a jiffy, or rather in a sniffy. The moment this happened, he began to rub his head very hard, as if something had struck him. He was struck, as it so happened; and although it was only by an idea, it had got so firmly into his head that it must have struck him pretty forcibly. He immediately set himself to work it out. When the competitors were ready to start, Ranulf shot his nose out up the course, sniffing for the first thing he had noticed lying on the side of it that could be discovered by smelling. It looked so funny to see this projection waving about, like some dozens of those long wooden serpents that they have at the toy-shops put end to end, that the whole crowd set up a tremendous shout of laughter. One man, however, did not seem to like it at all. He was the backer of another competitor, and rushed up in a very forward manner (particularly for a backer), shouting—

“I object; it’s not fair!”

[Sidenote: ANTITIPATHY.]

Upon this the umpires were at once summoned; and after being told what the matter was, one of them addressed the backer, and said—

“We understand you have some objection to this gentleman’s nose; state your proposition.”[10]

“He’s got his nose out in front of him; it’s not the correct tip.”

The referees again looked very wise, pursing up their mouths, as if the words that were to come from them were gold; and after comparing notes, one of them solemnly said—

“While it seems to the referees that it is scarcely their province to sit upon long noses, these not being matters of course, we think we are justified in holding that a gentleman who wishes to follow his own nose, and trust to his own tip, instead of getting a tip from anybody else, is entitled to do so.”

The backer at this got very excited, and shouted, “Nay, nay, but you surely won’t go so far——”

“Sir,” said the referee, sternly, “this is a foot-race, so you need not mount your high horse, neighing at us in that way. The referees have carefully considered the length of the gentleman’s nose, and, long as it is, their opinion goes that length. So let there be an end of it.”

The backer, seeing he could make nothing of it, marched off, muttering, “End of it, indeed! it’s _no_ end of a nose that fellow’s got. There’s one comfort, it can’t be called a straight tip.”

[Sidenote: SCENTENTIOUS.]

All this wrangling had served Ranulf’s purpose, for it gave him time to con over his lesson. And a very funny lesson it was. He had observed all the smelly things on the sides of the course that the people in taking their refreshments had thrown on the grass inside the ropes; so his lesson went thus:—

Right side, Peppermint-drop. Left side, Ginger-beer bottle. Right side, Cigar-end. Left side, Skin of onion. Right side, Orange-peel. Left side, Nosegay.

[Sidenote: NASAL TACTICS.]

The winning-post was opposite the place where the ladies and gentlemen sat, and of course they did not throw orange-peel, or anything of that kind, about. Ranulf had been greatly puzzled how to find his way there; but, luckily, a lady had put a splendid nosegay on one of the posts, and Ranulf, in going forward to be blindfolded, had a good sniff of it, so that he was sure he would find it all right.

At last the race began, and a very queer business it was; for the runners, in trying to avoid coming against the ropes, wandered about in the most extraordinary fashion. But Ranulf’s performance was quite irresistible, and it would have cured the worst fit of sulks in all the world just to see him for a minute, stretching out his nose, and working it from side to side, like an elephant’s trunk. He first found the peppermint-drop, up to which he rushed, winding up his nose on the ground like a coil of rope in a ship, then throwing it out again he found the ginger-beer bottle, and so on. He was rather put out by coming upon orange-peel just after passing the cigar-end; and when this happened, the puzzled look of his nose, as it caught scent of the peel at the wrong place, made the crowd roar again. The truth was, that some one in the crowd was throwing orange-peel; but, fortunately, a piece hit him on the nose, so that he guessed what was wrong, and with a bold sweep caught scent of the onion-skin from afar, and on he went, winning easily by a nose. The ladies were so delighted with this performance, that they all wanted to kiss him at once, and for a couple of minutes his nose was in great requisition.

[Sidenote: WINNING A PONY.]

In the distribution of prizes, Norval was made merry as a cricket by the gift of a golden bat; Jaques being declared entitled to an armful of toys, was able to claim enough to fill a bazaar by the aid of his long arms; and Ranulf, whose greatest delight was horses, rejoiced in a real Lilliputian pony of 25 pounds, the proper figure for a pony gained at races. When the prize distribution was over, the boys were led to the king’s table, on which an elegant feast was spread.

While they were enjoying it, there was a sudden flutter, and every eye turned one way.

[Sidenote: BIG MAN—BIG FRIGHT—BIG WORDS.]

“Oh, here he comes! here’s Blunderbore!” was the cry that rose on all sides.

“Blunderbore?” said Ranulf, turning rather pale; “that’s the giant with the awful teeth and the big club. I thought Jack had killed him. Oh dear, what shall we do?”

Norval did not feel quite comfortable either, but, seeing little Ranulf’s pale face, he forgot himself, and, trying to cheer him, said as bravely as he could—

“Never mind, Ranny; you know with my long neck I can make myself as big as he is, and I will brandish my bat as a club—perhaps that will frighten him.” He was not very confident of this, but put on as much appearance of being at ease as he could, so as to encourage his little brother.

“It’s Jaques’ business to kill him,” said Ranulf, solemnly. “It’s a good thing he has got long enough arms.”

Jaques did not seem to see it, and the whole three were anything but comfortable in their minds.

[Sidenote: A GREAT BORE.]

It was somewhat reassuring, however, to notice that the news of the arrival of Blunderbore appeared to distress none of the rest of the company. The ladies were all looking through their opera-glasses, with faces which showed that he had no terrors for them. The gentlemen seemed, on the whole, to be rather disgusted, as the announcement of the giant’s approach appeared to throw them entirely into the shade so far as the fair sex were concerned, and they looked at one another with glances of pique and contempt, as the ladies twittered away in eager conversation—eyes sparkling, lips smiling, and that curious buzz that always heralds a great arrival running through the whole assemblage.

[Sidenote: HE STOOPS TO CONQUER.]

“Any room for me?” said a voice (which, though evidently kept as mild as possible, made a sound very like the Westminster chimes striking the first quarter), as a face about three yards long, below a three-cornered cocked-hat, made its appearance under the fern-leaf fringe of the tent of flowers. Blunderbore had been compelled to stoop down so low in order to look in that his face was level with his knees, and as it was very round, the effect was ludicrously like a circular clock on pillars. The moment the face became visible, all strange and unpleasant thoughts began to fade from the boys’ minds, for it was the picture of jolly good-nature. His eyes, the balls of which were larger than a Christmas plum-pudding, fastened themselves specially on Ranulf, and putting out a vast hand, he shook a forefinger as large as a bolster at him, saying—

“Now, I know you are expecting me to say Fe-fo-fum, something about grinding bones, and all that.”

“Y-e-e-e-e-s, sir,” said Ranulf, half frightened, but only half; for the jolly face was so good-humoured that it was almost impossible to be afraid.

[Sidenote: INVITING A LARGE PARTY.]

“Well,” said Blunderbore, taking him up on his vast hand, “giants in Blunderland don’t talk rubbish of that kind, and they are not such geese as to grind bones when they want to make bread.”

“Come in, Blunderbore; we will make room for you,” came in a surging ripple from hundreds of fair lips, while, with many a rustle of silk and velvet, they cleared a large space on one side of the amphitheatre, the seats of which rose in tiers one above the other.

[Sidenote: BEETLE-CRUSHERS.]

[Sidenote: A GREAT SWELL.]

“Well, but your ceiling is so low. However, perhaps old Blunderbore can cure that for you,” said the giant, as, pushing his head in below the _ombrelle_ of flowers, he placed his forefinger in the centre of the white lily at the top, and, apparently without an effort, raised the canopy aloft. Showers of diamond drops fell thick and fast from between the fern-leaves as the gorgeous ceiling rose, faster and ever faster, till at every leaf there stood a glassy pillar, glittering and sparkling with wondrous lustre, and in a twinkling the bower became a crystal floral palace, to which that of Covent Garden is but a dingy, dull, depressing dungeon. Blunderbore then made his way through the crowd with great care, of which there was much need, his feet being nearly as big as the dingies of a ship of the line, and seated himself on the side of the hall that had been vacated for his accommodation. He certainly was very unlike the old kind of Blunderbore, from the top of his three-cornered hat down to the red heels of his buckled shoes. A magnificent single-breasted coat and long flap-waistcoat, with golden stripes, separated by lines of rich maroon-coloured velvet, took the place of the short armless blouse, and the great belt with a buckle like a wicket-gate, that are supposed generally to be the orthodox costume of gentlemen more than eight feet high. And instead of the gnarled club or grievous crab-tree cudgel of the story-books, our Blunderbore carried a most elegant cane with a golden top. It is true that the cane was as thick as an ordinary lamp-post, but still it looked quite neat and tiny, appearing slight enough in Blunderbore’s vast hand to suit the most foppish taste. His breeches were of yellow satin, below which were stockings of silk of the same colour, and his curly hair was of a golden tint. Altogether, he made a most presentable-looking giant, and seemed to be a special favourite with the ladies, to whom, as he sat down, he kissed his hand right gallantly. This done, he produced from his waistcoat-pocket a snuff-box, larger than a full-sized trunk, and took a pinch out of it, giving his hand an elegant shake—in fact, quite _à la_ Cox-comme il faut of the last century, sending a shower of snuff from his fingers like the stream from the rose of a watering-pot. This, the boys expected, would set every one sneezing; but such snuff was not likely to get into any one’s nostril by accident, the particles being as large as ordinary peas, and no one seemed inclined intentionally to make his nose a _pis aller_ for what the giant threw away. As what remained between his fingers would have stuffed an ordinary pillow, it proved that Blunderbore was anything but a bad fellow at a pinch, and completely allayed the fears of our little men, so that they were not the least alarmed when he gave a terrific sneeze, like a squall of a north-easterly gale—a perfect Blunder Boreas.

[Sidenote: NOTES ON DEMAND.]

“Now, then,” said he, “what can I do to promote the harmony of the meeting?”

“Give us some music; let’s have a Monstre Concert,” was the cry that rose on every side.

“All right,” said Blunderbore; “will you have the Jolly Waggoner?”

“No, no! no Wagner, please; we don’t want the music of the future; no promissory notes for us.[11]

“Well, I daresay you are right,” replied Blunderbore; “the music of the future is no pastime. What do you say to a present of Chopin Morceaux?”

“The very thing,” arose in a shout of delight from every side.

“All right, then; here goes,” said the giant; “and I am sure you will admit that I give you admirable concerted pieces.”

[Sidenote: 60 TO 1.]

The ladies seemed to know what was going to happen, for about 60 of them at once clustered round Blunderbore.

“Are you ready?” said the giant.

“Yes,” rippled in feminine tones all around him.

[Sidenote: AN ORGANIC CHANGE.]

[Sidenote: A VIGOROUS BREAKDOWN.]

[Sidenote: NO STRINGS NO CHORDS.]

[Sidenote: HARPEGGIO.]