The Clean Heart

by A. S. M. Hutchinson

"But, loony," said Mr. Puddlebox when the farmer was again mastered, "we are best out of this, for such a battle I could by no means fight again."

"Well, I don't care," said Mr. Wriford. "I don't care a dash what happens or who comes. Still, we'd better go. First we must tie this chap up and then clean ourselves. My man's all right in there. There's no window where he is—only a grating round the top. I'll find something to fix this one with if you can hold his legs."

This Mr. Puddlebox, by kneeling upon the nightshirt's arms and stretching over them to his legs, was able to do, and Mr. Wriford, voyaging the dishevelled room, gave presently a gleeful laugh and presented himself before Mr. Puddlebox with a wooden box and with information that made Mr. Puddlebox laugh also and the nightshirt, unable to shout, to express his personal view in new and tremendous struggles.

"Nails," said Mr. Wriford, "and a hammer. We'll nail him down;" and very methodically, working along each side of each extended arm, and down each border of the nightshirt pulled taut across his person, proceeded to attach the yellow-toothed gentleman to the floor more literally and more closely than any occupier, unless similarly fastened, can ever have been attached to his boyhood's home.

"There!" said Mr. Wriford, stepping back and regarding his handiwork, which was indeed very creditably performed, with conscionable satisfaction. "There you are, my boy, as tight as a sardine lid, and if you utter a sound you'll get one through your head as well."

This, however, was a contingency which the nightshirt, thanks to the cap in his mouth, was in no great danger of arousing, and leaving him to enjoy the flavour of his gag and his unique metallic bordering, which from the hue of his countenance and the flame of his eyes he appeared indisposed to do, there now followed on the part of Mr. Wriford and Mr. Puddlebox a very welcome and a highly necessary adjustment of their toilets. It was performed by Mr. Puddlebox with his mouth prodigiously distended with a meal collected from the kitchen, and by Mr. Wriford, as he cooled, with astonished reflection upon the extraordinary escapades which he had now added to his exploits of the previous day. "Well, this is a most extraordinary state of affairs for me," reflected Mr. Wriford, much as he had reflected earlier in the morning. "Most extraordinary, I'm dashed if it isn't! I've pretty well killed a chap and drowned him in milk; and I've slung a chap into a pond and then nailed him down by his nightshirt. Well, I'm doing things at last; and I don't care a dash what happens; and I don't care a dash what comes next."

III

Now this cogitation took place in an upper room whither Mr. Wriford had repaired in quest of soap and brushes, and what came next came at once and came very quickly, being first reported by Mr. Puddlebox, who at this point rushed up-stairs to announce as rapidly as his distended mouth would permit: "Loony, there's a cart come up to the door with four men in it—hulkers!" and next illustrated by a loud knocking responsive to which there immediately arose from the imprisoned corduroy a great shouting and from the gagged and nailed-down nightshirt a muffled blaring as of a cow restrained from its calf.

Very much quicker than might be supposed, and while Mr. Puddlebox and Mr. Wriford stared one upon the other in irresolute concern, these sounds blended into an enormous hullabaloo below stairs which spoke of the entry by the window of the new arrivals, of the release from his gag of the nailed-down nightshirt and from his milky gaol of the imprisoned corduroy, and finally of wild and threatening search which now came pouring very alarmingly up the stairs.

Mr. Wriford locked the door, Mr. Puddlebox opened the window, and immediately their door was first rattled with cries of "Here they are!" and then assailed by propulsion against it of very violent bodies.