Read the paragraphs below and answer the questions.
It was a half-holiday and William was in his bedroom making careful preparations for the afternoon. On the mantel-piece stood in readiness half a cake (the result of a successful raid on the larder) and a bottle of liquorice water. This beverage was made by shaking up a piece of liquorice in water. It was much patronised by the band of Outlaws to which William belonged and which met secretly every half-holiday in a disused barn about a quarter of a mile from William's house.
So far the Outlaws had limited their activities to wrestling matches, adventure seeking, and culinary operations. The week before, they had cooked two sausages which William had taken from the larder on cook's night out and had conveyed to the barn beneath his shirt and next his skin. Perhaps ‘cooked’ is too euphemistic a term. To be quite accurate, they had held the sausages over a smoking fire till completely blackened, and then consumed the charred remains with the utmost relish.
William put the bottle of liquorice water in one pocket and the half cake in another and was preparing to leave the house in his usual stealthy fashion — through the bathroom window, down the scullery roof, and down the water-pipe hand over hand to the back garden. Even when unencumbered by the presence of a purloined half cake, William infinitely preferred this mode of exit to the simpler one of walking out of the front-door.
1. How is liquorice water made?
2. Did the Outlaws enjoy the sausages they cooked?
3. Why does William prefer to leave through the bathroom window rather than the front door?
As he came out on to the landing, however, he heard the sound of the opening and shutting of the hall door and of exuberant greetings in the hall.
“Oh! I'm so glad you've come, dear. And is this the baby! The duck! Well, den, how's 'oo, den? Go—o—oo.”
This was William's mother.
“Oh, crumbs!” said William and retreated hastily. He sat down on his bed to wait till the coast was clear. Soon came the sound of footsteps ascending the stairs.
“Oh, William,” said his mother, as she entered his room, “Mrs. Butler's come with her baby to spend the afternoon, and we'd arranged to go out till tea-time with the baby, but she's got such a headache, I'm insisting on her lying down for the afternoon in the drawing-room. But she's so worried about the baby not getting out this nice afternoon.”
“Oh!” said William, without interest.
“Well, cook's out and Emma has to get the tea and answer the door, and Ethel's away, and I told Mrs. Butler I was sure you wouldn't mind taking the baby out for a bit in the perambulator!”
William stared at her, speechless. The Medusa's classic expression of horror was as nothing to William's at that moment. Then he moistened his lips and spoke in a hoarse voice.
“Me?” he said. “Me? Me take a baby out in a pram?”
“Well, dear,” said his mother deprecatingly, “I know it's your half holiday, but you'd be out of doors getting the fresh air, which is the great thing. It's a nice baby and a nice pram and not heavy to push, and Mrs. Butler would be so grateful to you.”
“Yes, I should think she'd be that,” said William bitterly. “She'd have a right to be that if I took the baby out in a pram.”
“Now, William, I'm sure you'd like to help, and I'm sure you wouldn't like your father to hear that you wouldn't even do a little thing like that for poor Mrs. Butler. And she's got such a headache.”
“A little thing like that!” repeated William out of the bitterness of his soul.
4. How does William react when he hears the visitor arrive?
5. What does the reference to Medusa tell us about William's reaction?
6. Why does William eventually agree to take the baby out?
7. How does William's mother persuade him to take the baby?
But the Fates were closing round him. He was aware that he would know no peace till he had done the horrible thing demanded of him. Sorrowfully and reluctantly he bowed to the inevitable.
“All right,” he muttered, “I'll be down in a minute.”
He heard them fussing over the baby in the hall. Then he heard his elder brother's voice.
“Here he is, dear, all ready for you, and you needn't go far away — just up and down the road, if you like, but stay out till tea-time. He's a dear little baby, isn't he? And isn't it a nice Willy-Billy den, to take it out a nice ta-ta, while its mummy goes bye-byes, den?”
William blushed for pure shame.
He pushed the pram down to the end of the road and round the corner. In comparison with William's feelings, the feelings of some of the early martyrs must have been pure bliss. A nice way for an Outlaw to spend the afternoon! He dreaded to meet any of his brother-outlaws, yet, irresistibly and as a magnet, their meeting-place attracted him.
He wheeled the pram off the road and down the country lane towards the field which held their sacred barn. He stopped at the stile that led into the field and gazed wistfully across to the barn in the distance.
The infant sat and sucked its thumb and stared at him. Finally it began to converse.
“Blab—blab—blab—blab—blub—blub—blub!”
“Oh, you shut up!” said William crushingly.
Annoyed at the prolonged halt, it seized its pram cover, pulled it off its hooks, and threw it into the road. While William was picking it up, it threw the pillow on to his head. Then it chuckled. William began to conceive an active dislike of it.
Suddenly the Great Idea came to him. His face cleared. He took a piece of string from his pocket and tied the pram carefully to the railings. Then, lifting the baby cautiously and gingerly out, he climbed the stile with it and set off across the fields towards the barn. He held the baby to his chest with both arms clasped tightly round its waist. Its feet dangled in the air. It occupied the time by kicking William in the stomach, pulling his hair, and putting its fingers in his eyes.
“It beats me,” panted William to himself, “what people see in babies! Scratchin' an' kickin' an' blindin' folks and pullin' their hair all out!”
When he entered the barn he was greeted by a sudden silence.
“Look here!” began one outlaw in righteous indignation.
“It's a kidnap,” said William, triumphantly. “We'll get a ransom on it.”
They gazed at him in awed admiration. This was surely the cream of outlawry.
8. What does the comparison to early martyrs tell us about William's feelings?
9. What simile is used to describe how William is drawn to the barn?
10. Why does the baby throw things out of the pram?
11. Why is 'Great Idea' written with capital letters?
12. How do the Outlaws first react when William brings a baby into the barn?
13. What does 'the cream of outlawry' mean?