William The Outlaw by Richmal Crompton Read Free Book Online Page A

distance.
    ‘They don’t know it’s him ,’ said Joan in a thrilled whisper.
    Maria behaved quite well till they got to the hill. Then her familiar devil returned to her. She did not kick or bite. She ran. She ran at top speed up the steep hill, dragging the panting,
gasping Vicar’s wife after her at the end of the cord. Maria’s neck seemed to be made of iron. The weight of the Vicar’s wife did not seem to trouble it at all. The picture cord,
too, must have been pretty strong. The Vicar’s wife did not let go. With dogged British determination she clung to her end of the cord. She lost her footing, her hat came off, she gasped and
panted and gurgled and choked and sputtered. She dropped her bag. But she did not let go her end of the picture cord. Behind her – far behind her – ran her little crowd of followers,
clucking in dismayed horror. Mrs Hopkins picked up the Vicar’s wife’s hat and Mrs Gerald Fitzgerald her bag.
    At the top of the hill Maria stopped abruptly and reassumed her air of weary patience. The Vicar’s wife sat down in the dust by her side, gasping but still undaunted, holding on to the end
of the cord. The others arrived and the Vicar’s wife, still sitting in the road, put on her hat and wiped the dust out of her eyes.
    ‘What happened?’ panted Mrs Hopkins. ‘Did it – bolt or something?’
    But the Vicar’s wife was past speech.
    ‘Poor creature!’ said Mrs Gerald Fitzgerald in an effort to restore the atmosphere, ‘poor dumb creature.’
    She put out her hand to stroke Maria and Maria very neatly bit her elbow.
    The Vicar’s wife arose from the dust and wearily but determinedly led Maria through the gate on to the Vicarage lawn. The Outlaws came cautiously up the hill and watched proceedings
through the Vicarage gate.
    The members of the local Anti-vivisection Society stood round Maria and gazed at her. A close observer might have noticed that their glances held less affection and pity than they had held a
short time before.
    ‘It doesn’t seem at all – er – cowed ,’ said Mrs Hopkins at last. ‘It seems quite – er as – fresh. . . . And it hasn’t any wounds or anything.’
    ‘Sometimes,’ said Mrs Gerald Fitzgerald, ‘they just use them for diseases. They just inject disease germs into them.’
    ‘Do you mean,’ said Mrs Hopkins, turning pale, ‘that it may be infected with a deadly disease?’
    ‘ Quite possibly,’ said Mrs Gerald Fitzgerald.
    They looked at the Vicar’s wife for advice and help. And again the Vicar’s wife showed her capacities for dealing with a crisis. Though still dusty and shaken from her inglorious
career up the hill at Maria’s heels she took command of affairs once more.
    ‘One minute,’ she said, and disappeared into the house.
    The members of the Anti-vivisection Society stood timorously in the porch, eyes fixed apprehensively upon Maria who stood motionless in the middle of the lawn looking as if butter would not melt
in her mouth.
    And the Outlaws still watched proceedings with interest through the Vicarage gate.
    Then the Vicar’s wife came out staggering beneath the weight of a large pail.
    ‘Disinfectant,’ she explained shortly to her audience.
    She approached Maria who was still standing in maiden meditation fancy free on the lawn, and with a sudden swift movement threw over her the entire pail of carbolic solution, soaking her from
head to foot. Then Maria went mad. She leapt, she kicked, she reared. Dripping with carbolic she dashed round the lawn. She trampled over the flower beds. She broke two dozen flower pots and
destroyed their contents. She kicked the greenhouse door in. She put her back hoof through the Vicar’s study window. She tried to climb an apple tree. She wrecked the summer-house. . . .
    The members of the local Anti-vivisection Society withdrew into the Vicarage and bolted all the doors. Mrs Gerald Fitzgerald, after explaining that she wasn’t used to this sort of thing,
went into