When tired of hunting for smugglers, or traces of smugglers, they adopted the characters of smugglers themselves, and carried their treasure (consisting of stones) up the hillside to conceal it in the cave, or fled for their lives to the cave with imaginary soldiers in pursuit. From the cover of the cave, Bill, the smuggler, often covered the entire hillside with the dead bodies of soldiers. In these frays the gallant smugglers never received even the slightest scratch.
With ever fresh hope they searched the cave again. Ginger found a stone that he said had not been there yesterday, and must have been left as a kind of signal, but William said that he distinctly recognised it as having been there yesterday, and the matter dropped.
After a brief and indecisive discussion as to how they should spend the five shillings that Ginger’s mother had said she would give him, they occupied themselves in crawling laboriously on their stomachs in and out of the cave so as to be unperceived by the soldiers who were on the watch above and below.
At last, Ginger, moved not so much by his conscience as by fears of forfeiting his five shillings, set off sadly homewards, and William set off along the road in the opposite direction.
He walked slowly, his hands in his pockets, dragging his shoes in the dust in a manner which his mother frequently informed him brought the toes through in no time.
*****
When he came to the school he stopped, attracted by the noise that came through the open window of the schoolroom. They were preparing for a dress rehearsal of the “Pageant of Ancient Britain,” which was to be performed the next month. William, who was not in the caste, looked with interest through the window. Ancient Britons in various stages of skins and woad and grease paint stood about the room or leap-frogged over each other’s backs or wrestled with each other in corners. William espied a particular enemy at the other end of the room. He put his head through the window.
“Hello, Monkey Brand,” he called in his strident, devastating voice.
Miss Carter, mistress of the Second Form, raised herself wearily from arranging the skin of an infant Ancient Briton.
“I wish you wouldn’t,” she began testily, then, her voice sinking into hopelessness, “Oh, it’s William Brown.”