CHAPTER 6

Robertson Ay’s Story

“STEP ALONG, PLEASE!” said Mary Poppins, pushing the perambulator, with the Twins at one end of it and Annabel at the other, towards her favourite seat in the Park.

It was a green one, quite near the Lake, and she chose it because she could bend sideways, every now and again, and see her own reflection in the water. The sight of her face gleaming between two water-lilies always gave her a pleasant feeling of satisfaction and contentment.

Michael trudged behind.

“We’re always stepping along,” he grumbled to Jane in a whisper, taking care that Mary Poppins did not hear him, “but we never seem to get anywhere.”

Mary Poppins turned round and glared at him.

“Put your hat on straight!”

Michael tilted his hat over his eyes. It had “H.M.S. Trumpeter” printed on the band and he thought it suited him very well.

But Mary Poppins was looking with contempt at them both.

“Humph!” she said. “You two look a picture, I must say! Stravaiging along like a couple of tortoises and no polish on your shoes.”

“Well, it’s Robertson Ay’s Half-day,” said Jane. “I suppose he didn’t have time to do them before he went out.”

“Tch, tch! Lazy, idle, Good-for-nothing—that’s what he is. Always was and always will be!” Mary Poppins said, savagely pushing the perambulator up against her own green seat.

She lifted out the Twins, and tucked the shawl tightly around Annabel. She glanced at her sunlit reflection in the Lake and smiled in a superior way, straightening the new bow of ribbon at her neck. Then she took her bag of knitting from the perambulator.

“How do you know he’s always been idle?” asked Jane. “Did you know Robertson Ay before you came here?”

“Ask no questions and you’ll be told no lies!” said Mary Poppins priggishly, as she began to cast on stitches for a woollen vest for John.

“She never tells us anything!” Michael grumbled.

“I know!” sighed Jane.

But very soon they forgot about Robertson Ay and began to play Mr.-and-Mrs.-Banks-and-Their-Two-Children. Then they became Red Indians with John and Barbara for Squaws. And after that they changed into Tight-Rope-Walkers with the back of the green seat for a rope.

“Mind my hat—if you please!” said Mary Poppins. It was a brown one with a pigeon’s feather stuck into the ribbon.

Michael went carefully, foot over foot, along the back of the seat. When he got to the end he took off his hat and waved it.

“Jane,” he cried, “I’m the King of the Castle and you’re the——”

“Stop, Michael!” she interrupted and pointed across the Lake. “Look over there!”

Along the path at the edge of the Lake came a tall, slim figure, curiously dressed. He wore stockings of red striped with yellow, a red-and-yellow tunic scalloped at the edges, and on his head was a large-brimmed red-and-yellow hat with a high peaked crown.

Jane and Michael watched with interest as he came towards them, moving with a lazy swaggering step, his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his eyes.

He was whistling loudly and as he drew nearer they saw that the peaks of his tunic, and the brim of his hat, were edged with little bells that jingled musically as he moved. He was the strangest person they had ever seen and yet—there was something about him that seemed familiar.

“I think I’ve seen him before,” said Jane, frowning and trying to remember.

“So have I. But I can’t think where.” Michael balanced on the back of the seat and stared.

Whistling and jingling, the curious figure slouched up to Mary Poppins and leaned against the perambulator.

“Day, Mary!” he said, putting a finger lazily to the brim of his hat. “And how are you keeping?”

Mary Poppins looked up from her knitting.

“None the better for your asking,” she said, with a loud sniff.

Jane and Michael could not see the man’s face for the brim of his hat was well pulled down, but from the way the bells jingled they knew he was laughing.

“Busy as usual, I see!” he remarked, glancing at the knitting. “But then, you always were, even at Court. If you weren’t dusting the Throne you’d be making the King’s bed, and if you weren’t doing that you were polishing the Crown Jewels. I never knew such a one for work!”

“Well, it’s more than anyone could say for you,” said Mary Poppins crossly.

“Ah,” laughed the Stranger, “that’s just where you’re wrong! I’m always busy. Doing nothing takes a great deal of time! All the time, in fact!”

Mary Poppins pursed up her lips and made no reply.

The Stranger gave an amused chuckle. “Well, I must be getting along.” He said. “See you again some day!”

He brushed a finger along the bells of his hat and sauntered lazily away, whistling as he went.

Jane and Michael watched until he was out of sight.

“The Dirty Rascal!”

Mary Poppins’ voice rapped out behind them, and they turned to find that she, too, was staring after the Stranger.

“Who was that man, Mary Poppins?” asked Michael, bouncing excitedly up and down on the seat.

“I’ve just told you,” she snapped. “You said you were the King of the Castle—and you’re not, not by any means! But that’s the Dirty Rascal.”

“You mean the one in the Nursery Rhyme?” demanded Jane breathlessly.

“But Nursery Rhymes aren’t true, are they?” protested Michael, “And if they are, who is the King of the Castle.”

“Hush!” said Jane, laying her hand on his arm.

Mary Poppins had put down her knitting and was gazing out across the Lake with a far-away look in her eyes.

Jane and Michael sat very still hoping, if they made no sound, she would tell them the whole story. The Twins huddled together at one end of the perambulator, solemnly staring at Mary Poppins. Annabel, at the other end, was sound asleep.

“The King of the Castle,” began Mary Poppins, folding her hands over her ball of wool and gazing right through the children as though they were not there. “The King of the Castle lived in a country so far away that most people have never heard of it. Think as far as you can, and it’s even further than that; think as high as you can, and it’s higher than that; think as deep as you can, and it’s even deeper.”

“And,” she said, “if I were to tell you how rich he was we’d be sitting here till next year and still be only half-way through the list of his treasures. He was enormously, preposterously, extravagantly rich. In fact, there was only one thing in the whole world that he did not possess.”

“And that thing was wisdom.”

And so Mary Poppins went on——

His land was full of gold mines, his people were polite and prosperous and generally splenderiferous. He had a good wife and four fat children—or perhaps it was five. He never could remember the exact number because his memory was so bad.

His Castle was made of silver and granite and his coffers were full of gold and the diamonds in his crown were as big as duck’s eggs.

He had many marvellous cities and sailing-ships at sea. And for his right-hand-man he had a Lord High Chancellor who knew exactly What was What and What was Not and advised the King accordingly.

But the King had no wisdom. He was utterly and absolutely foolish and, what was more, he knew it! Indeed, he could hardly help knowing it, for everybody, from the Queen and the Lord High Chancellor downwards, was constantly reminding him of the fact. Even bus-conductors and engine-drivers and the people who served in shops could hardly refrain from letting the King know they knew he had no wisdom. They didn’t dislike him, they merely felt a contempt for him.

It was not the King’s fault that he was so stupid. He had tried and tried to learn wisdom ever since he was a boy. But, in the middle of his lessons, even when he was grown up, he would suddenly burst into tears and, wiping his eyes on his ermine train, would cry——

“I know I shall never be any good at it—never! So why nag at me?”

But still his teachers continued to make the effort. Professors came from all over the world to try to teach the King of the Castle something—even if it was only Twice-Times-Two or C-A-T cat. But none of them had the slightest effect on him.

Then the Queen had an idea.

“Let us,” she said to the Lord High Chancellor, “offer a reward to the Professor who can teach the King a little wisdom! And if, at the end of a month, he has not succeeded, his head shall be cut off and spiked on the Castle gates as a warning to other Professors of what will happen if they fail.”

And, as most of them were rather poor and the reward was a large money-prize, the Professors kept on coming and failing and losing hope, and also their heads. And the spikes of the Castle gates became rather crowded.

Things went from bad to worse. And at last the Queen said to the King——

“Ethelbert,” (That was the King’s private name) “I really think you had better leave the government of the Kingdom to me and the Lord High Chancellor, as we both know a good deal about everything!”

“But that wouldn’t be fair!” said the King, protesting. “After all, it’s my Kingdom!”

However, he gave in at last because he knew she was cleverer than he. But he so much resented being ordered about in his own Castle and having to use the bent sceptre because he always chewed the knob of the best one, that he went on receiving the Professors and trying to learn wisdom and weeping when he found he couldn’t. He wept for their sakes as well as his own for it made him unhappy to see their heads on the gate.

Each new Professor arrived full of hope and assurance and began with some question that the last had not asked.

“What are six and seven, Your Majesty?” enquired a young and handsome Professor who had come from a great distance.

And the King, trying his hardest, thought for a moment. Then he leant forward eagerly and answered——

“Why, twelve, of course!”

“Tch, tch, tch!” said the Lord High Chancellor, standing behind the King’s Chair.

The Professor groaned.

“Six and seven are thirteen, Your Majesty!”

“Oh, I’m so sorry! Try another question, please, Professor! I am sure I shall get the next one right.”

“Well, then, what are five and eight?”

“Um—er—let me see! Don’t tell me, it’s just at the tip of my tongue. Yes! Five and eight are eleven!”

“Tch, tch, tch!” said the Lord High Chancellor.

“THIRTEEN,” cried the young Professor hopelessly.

“But, my dear fellow, you just said that six and seven were thirteen, so how can five and eight be? There aren’t two thirteens, surely?”

But the young Professor only shook his head and loosened his collar and went dejectedly away with the Executioner.

“Is there more than one thirteen, then?” asked the King nervously.

The Lord High Chancellor turned away in disgust.

“I’m sorry,” said the King to himself. “I liked his face so much. It’s a pity it has to go on the gate.”

And after that he worked very hard at his Arithmetic, hoping that when the next Professor came, he would be able to give the right answers.

He would sit at the top of the Castle steps, just by the draw-bridge, with a book of Multiplication Tables on his knees, saying them over to himself. And while he was looking at the book everything went well but when he shut his eyes and tried to remember them everything went wrong.

“Seven ones are seven, seven twos are thirty-three, seven threes are forty-five—” he began one day. And when he found he was wrong he threw the book away in disgust and buried his head in his cloak.

“It’s no good, it’s no good! I shall never be wise!” he cried in despair.

Then, because he could not go on weeping for ever, he wiped his eyes and leant back in his golden chair. And as he did that he gave a little start of surprise. For a stranger had pushed past the sentry at the gate and was walking up the path that led to the Castle.

“Hullo,” said the King, “who are you?” For he had no memory for faces.

“Well, if it comes to that,” replied the Stranger, “Who are you?”

“I’m the King of the Castle,” said the King, picking up the bent sceptre and trying to look important.

“And I’m the Dirty Rascal,” was the reply.

The King opened his eyes wide with astonishment.

“Are you really, though? That’s interesting! I’m very pleased to meet you. Do you know seven times seven?”

“No. Why should I?”

At that the King gave a great cry of delight and, running down the steps, embraced the Stranger.

“At last, at last!” cried the King, “I have found a friend. You shall live with me! What is mine shall be yours! We shall spend our lives together!”

“But, Ethelbert,” protested the Queen, “this is only a Common Person. You cannot have him here.”

“Your Majesty,” said the Lord High Chancellor, sternly, “IT WOULD NOT DO.”

But for once the King defied him.

“It will do very nicely!” he said royally. “Who is King here—you or I?” “Well, of course, in a manner of speaking, you are, as it were, Your Majesty, but——”

“Very well. Put this man in cap and bells and he can be my Fool!”

“Fool!” cried the Queen, wringing her hands. “Do we need any more of these?”

But the King did not answer. He flung his arm round the Stranger’s neck and the two went dancing to the Castle door.

“You first!” said the King politely.

“No, you!” said the Stranger.

“Both together, then!” said the King generously, and they went in side by side.

And from that day the King made no attempt to learn his lessons. He made a pile of all his books and burnt them in the courtyard while he and his new friend danced round it singing—

“Is that the only song you can sing?” asked the Fool one day.

“Yes, I’m afraid it is!” said the King, rather sadly. “Do you know any others?”

“Oh, dear, yes!” said the Fool. And he sang sweetly.

and

and

“Lovely!” cried the King, clapping his hands. “Now, listen! I’ve just thought of one myself! It goes like this—

“H’m,” said the Fool. “Not bad!”

“Wait a minute!” said the King. “I’ve thought of another! And I think it’s a better one. Listen, carefully!”

And he sang—

“Bravo!” cried the Fool. “Let’s sing it together!”

And he and the King went dancing through the Castle chanting the King’s two songs, one after the other, to a very special tune.

And when they were tired of singing they fell together in a heap in the main corridor and there went to sleep.

“He gets worse and worse!” said the Queen to the Lord High Chancellor, “What are we to do?”

“I have just heard,” replied the Lord High Chancellor, “that the wisest man in the kingdom, the Chief of all the Professors, is coming to-morrow. Perhaps he will help us!”

And the next day the Chief Professor arrived, walking smartly up the path to the Castle carrying a little black bag. It was raining slightly but the whole court had gathered at the top of the steps to welcome him.

“Has he got his wisdom in that little bag, do you think?” whispered the King. But the Fool, who was playing knuckle-bones beside the throne, only smiled and went on tossing.

“Now, if Your Majesty pleases,” said the Chief Professor, in a business-like voice, “let us take Arithmetic first. Can Your Majesty answer this? If two Men and a Boy were wheeling a Barrow over a Clover-field in the middle of February, how many Legs would they have between them?”

The King gazed at him for a moment, rubbing his sceptre against his cheek.

The Fool tossed a knuckle-bone and caught it neatly on the back of his wrist.

“Does it matter?” said the King, smiling pleasantly.

The Chief Professor started violently and looked at the King in astonishment.

“As a matter of fact,” he said quietly, “it doesn’t. But I will ask your Majesty another question. How deep is the sea?”

“Deep enough to sail a ship on.”

Again the Chief Professor started and his long beard quivered. He was smiling.

“What is the difference, Majesty, between a star and a stone, a bird and a man?”

“No difference at all, Professor. A stone is a star that shines not. A man is a bird without wings.”

The Chief Professor drew nearer, and gazed wonderingly at the King.

“What is the best thing in the world?” he asked quietly.

“Doing nothing,” answered the King, waving his bent sceptre.

“Oh, dear, oh dear!” wailed the Queen. “THIS IS DREADFUL!”

“Tch! Tch! Tch!” said the Lord High Chancellor.

But the Chief Professor ran up the steps and stood by the King’s throne.

“Who taught you these things, Majesty?” he demanded.

The King pointed with his sceptre to the Fool, who was throwing up his knuckle-bones.

“Him,” said the King, ungrammatically.

The Chief Professor raised his bushy eyebrows. The Fool looked up at him and smiled. He tossed a knuckle-bone and the Professor, bending forward, caught it on the back of his hand.

“Ha!” he cried. “I know you! Even in that cap and bells, I know the Dirty Rascal!”

“Ha, ha!” laughed the Fool.

“What else did he teach you, Majesty?” The Chief Professor turned again to the King.

“To sing,” answered the King.

And he stood up and sang—

“Very true,” said the Chief Professor. “What else?”

The King sang again, in a pleasant, quavering voice—

“So it does,” remarked the Chief Professor. “Any more?”

“Oh gracious, yes!” said the King, delighted at his success. “There’s this one—

“Or perhaps, Professor, you’d prefer—

The Chief Professor clapped his hands. “There’s one more,” said the King, “if you’d care to hear it.”

“Please sing it, Sire!”

And the King cocked his head at the Fool and smiled wickedly and sang—

At the end of the song the Chief Professor gave a loud laugh and fell at the King’s feet.

“Oh, King,” he said, “live for ever! You have no need of me!”

And without another word he ran down the steps and took off his overcoat, coat and waistcoat. Then he flung himself down upon the grass and called for a plate of Strawberries-and-Cream and a large glass of Beer.

“Tch, tch, tch!” said the horrified Lord High Chancellor. For now all the courtiers were rushing down the steps and taking off their coats and rolling in the rainy grass.

“Strawberries and Beer! Strawberries and Beer!” they shouted thirstily.

“Give him the prize!” said the Chief Professor, sucking his beer through a straw, and nodding in the direction of the Fool.

“Pooh!” said the Fool. “I don’t want it. What would I do with it?”

And he scrambled to his feet, put his knuckle-bones in his pocket and strolled off down the path.

“Hi, where are you going?” cried the King anxiously.

“Oh, anywhere, everywhere!” said the Fool airily, sauntering on down the path.

“Wait for me, wait for me!” called the King stumbling over his train as he hurried down the steps.

“Ethelbert! What are you doing? You forget yourself!” cried the Queen angrily.

“I do not, my dear!” The King called back. “On the contrary, I am remembering myself for the first time!”

He hurried down the path, caught up with the Fool, and embraced him.

“Ethelbert!” called the Queen again.

The King took no notice.

The rain had ceased but there was still a watery brightness in the air. And presently a rainbow streamed out of the sun and curved in a great arc down to the Castle path.

“I thought we might take this road,” said the Fool, pointing.

“What? The rainbow? Is it solid enough? Will it hold us?”

“Try!”

The King looked at the rainbow and its shimmering stripes of violet, blue and green, and yellow and orange and red. Then he looked at the Fool.

“All right, I’m willing!” he said. “Come on!” He stepped up to the coloured path.

“It holds!” cried the King, delightedly. And he ran swiftly up the Rainbow, his train gathered in his hand.

“I’m the King of the Castle!” he sang triumphantly.

“And I’m the Dirty Rascal!” called the Fool, running after him.

“But—it’s impossible!” said the Lord High Chancellor, gasping.

The Chief Professor laughed and swallowed another strawberry.

“How can anything that truly happens be impossible?” he enquired.

“But it is! It must be! It’s against all the Laws!” The face of the Lord High Chancellor was purple with anger.

A cry burst from the Queen.

“Oh, Ethelbert, come back!” she implored. “I don’t mind how foolish you are if you’ll only come back!”

The King glanced down over his shoulder and shook his head. The Fool laughed loudly. Up and up they went together, steadily climbing the rainbow.

Something curved and shining fell at the Queen’s feet. It was the bent sceptre. A moment later it was followed by the King’s crown.

She stretched out her arms imploringly.

But the King’s only answer was a song, sung in his high, quavering voice—

The Fool, with a contemptuous flick of his hand, tossed her down a knuckle-bone. Then he gave the King a little push, and urged him onwards. The King picked up his train and ran, and the Fool pounded at his heels. On and on they went up the bright, coloured path until a cloud passed between them and the earth and the watching Queen saw them no longer.

The echo of the King’s song came floating back. She heard the last thin thread of it after the King himself had disappeared.

“Tch, tch, TCH!” said the Lord High Chancellor. “Such things are simply NOT DONE!”

But the Queen sat down upon the empty throne and wept.

“Aie!” she cried softly, behind the screen of her hands. “My King is gone and I am very desolate and nothing will ever be the same again!”

Meanwhile, the King and the Fool had reached the top of the rainbow.

“What a climb!” said the King, sitting down and wrapping his cloak about him. “I think I shall sit here for a bit—perhaps for a long time. You go on!”

“You won’t be lonely?” the Fool enquired.

“Oh, dear, no. Why should I be? It is very quiet and pleasant up here. And I can always think—or, better still, go to sleep.” And as he said that he stretched himself out upon the rainbow with his cloak under his head.

The Fool bent down and kissed him.

“Good-bye, then, King,” he said softly. “For you no longer have any need of me.”

He left the King quietly sleeping and went whistling down the other side of the rainbow.

And from there he went wandering the world again, as he had done in the days before he met the King, singing and whistling and taking no thought for anything but the immediate moment.

Sometimes he took service with other Kings and high people, and sometimes he went among ordinary men living in small streets or lanes. Sometimes he would be wearing gorgeous livery and sometimes clothes as poor as any one ever stood up in. But no matter where he went he brought good fortune and great luck to the house that roofed him——

Mary Poppins ceased speaking. For a moment her hands lay still in her lap and her eyes gazed out un-seeingly across the Lake.

Then she sighed and gave her shoulders a little shake and stood up.

“Now then!” she said briskly, “Best Feet Forward! And off home!”

She turned to find Jane’s eyes fixed steadily upon her.

“You’ll know me next time, I hope!” she remarked tartly. “And you, Michael, get down off that seat at once! Do you want to break your neck and give me the trouble of calling a Policeman?”

She strapped the Twins into the perambulator and pushed it in front of her with a quick impatient movement.

Jane and Michael fell into step behind.

“I wonder where the King of the Castle went when the rainbow disappeared?” said Michael thoughtfully.

“He went with it, I suppose, wherever it goes,” said Jane. “But what I wonder is—what happened to the Rascal?”

Mary Poppins had wheeled the perambulator into the Elm Walk. And as the children turned the corner, Michael caught Jane’s hand.

“There he is!” he cried excitedly, pointing down the Elm Walk to the Park Gates.

A tall slim figure, curiously dressed in red-and-yellow, was swaggering towards the entrance. He stood for a moment, looking up and down Cherry Tree Lane, and whistling. Then he slouched across to the opposite pavement and swung himself lazily over one of the garden fences.

“It’s ours!” said Jane, recognising it by the brick that had always been missing. “He’s gone into our garden. Run, Michael. Let’s catch up with him!”

They ran at a gallop after Mary Poppins and the perambulator.

“Now then, now then! No horse-play, please!” said Mary Poppins, grabbing Michael’s arm firmly as he rushed by.

“But we want——” he began, squirming.

“What did I say?” she demanded, glaring at him so fiercely that he dared not disobey. “Walk beside me, please, like a Christian. And Jane, you can help me push the pram!”

Unwillingly Jane fell into step beside her.

As a rule, Mary Poppins allowed nobody to push the perambulator except herself. But to-day it seemed to Jane that she was purposely preventing them from running ahead. For here was Mary Poppins, who usually walked so quickly that it was difficult to keep up with her, going at a snail’s pace down the Elm Walk, pausing every few minutes to gaze about her, and standing for at least a minute in front of a basket of litter.

At last, after what seemed to them like hours, they came to the Park Gates. She kept them beside her until they reached the gate of Number Seventeen. Then they broke from her and went flying through the garden.

They darted behind the lilac tree. Not there! They searched among the rhododendrons and looked in the glasshouse, the tool-shed and the water-butt. They even peered into a circle of hose-piping. The Dirty Rascal was nowhere to be seen!

There was only one other person in the garden and that was Robertson Ay. He was sound asleep in the middle of the lawn with his cheek against the knives of the lawn-mower.

“We’ve missed him!” said Michael. “He must have taken a short-cut and gone out by the back way. Now we’ll never see him again.”

He turned back to the lawn-mower.

Jane was standing beside it, looking down affectionately at Robertson Ay. His old felt hat was pulled over his face, its crown crushed and dented into a curving peak.

“I wonder if he had a good Half-day!” said Michael, whispering so as not to disturb him.

But, small as the whisper was, Robertson Ay must have heard it. For he suddenly stirred in his sleep and settled himself more comfortably against the lawnmower. And as he moved there was a faint, jingling sound as though, near at hand, small bells were softly ringing.

With a start, Jane lifted her head and glanced at Michael.

“Did you hear?” she whispered.

He nodded, staring.

Robertson Ay moved again and muttered in his sleep. They bent to listen.

“Black and white cow,” he murmured indistinctly. “Sat up in a tree… mumble, mumble, mumble… it couldn’t be me! Hum…!”

Across his sleeping body Jane and Michael gazed at each other with wondering eyes.

“Humph! Well to be him, I must say!”

Mary Poppins had come up behind them and she too was staring down at Robertson Ay. “The lazy, idle, Good-for-Nothing!” she said crossly.

But she couldn’t really have been as cross as she sounded for she took her handkerchief out of her pocket and slipped it between Robertson Ay’s cheek and the lawn-mower.

“He’ll have a clean face, anyway, when he wakes up, That’ll surprise him!” she said tartly.

But Jane and Michael noticed how careful she had been not to wake Robertson Ay and how soft her eyes were when she turned away.

They tip-toed after her, nodding wisely to one another. Each knew that the other understood.

Mary Poppins trundled the perambulator up the steps and into the hall. The front door shut with a quiet little click.

Outside in the garden Robertson Ay slept on.

That night when Jane and Michael went to say good-night to him, Mr. Banks was in a towering rage. He was dressing to go out to dinner and he couldn’t find his best stud.

“Well, by all that’s lively, here it is!” he cried suddenly. “In a tin of stove-blacking—of all things! on my dressing-table. That Robertson Ay’s doing. I’ll sack that fellow one of these days. He’s nothing but a dirty rascal!”

And he could not understand why Jane and Michael, when he said that, burst into such peals of joyous laughter…