William the Good by Richmal Crompton Page A

along. Well, certainly it was a bit more exciting than paper. He took it very carefully up the stairs, then knelt over the little opening where he could see Miss Gwladwyn
down below. He was only just in time. She was already saying:
    ‘How cold it is! Heaven, wilt thou show me no pity?’
    Then slowly and with a beautiful gesture of despair she raised her face towards the ceiling to receive full and square the entire contents of a bucket of water. William tried conscientiously to
do it slowly, but it was a heavy bucket and he had to empty it all at once. He considered that he was rather clever in hitting her face so exactly. For a moment the audience enjoyed the spectacle
of Miss Gwladwyn sitting on the floor, dripping wet and gasping and spluttering. Then Mr Fleuster had the presence of mind to draw the curtain. After which he deliberately walked across to the
dripping, spluttering, gasping Miss Gwladwyn and asked her to marry him. For five years he’d been trying to propose to a dignified and very correctly dressed and mannered Miss Gwladwyn, and
he’d never had the courage, but as soon as he saw her gasping, spluttering, dripping on the floor like that he knew that now was the moment or never. And Miss Gwladwyn, still gasping,
spluttering, dripping, said, ‘Yes.’
    Then the entire cast began to look for William. Somehow it never occurred to them to blame Miss Gwladwyn’s guileless nephew. They knew by instinct who was responsible for the calamity.
William, realising also by instinct that he had made a mistake, slipped out into the darkness.

    SLOWLY, WITH A BEAUTIFUL GESTURE OF DESPAIR, MISS GWLADWYN LOOKED UPWARD AT THE CEILING – TO RECEIVE FULL AND SQUARE IN HER FACE, THE CONTENTS OF WILLIAM’S BUCKET OF
WATER.
    He was stopped by a tall form that blocked his way.
    ‘Ha!’ said the tall man. ‘Going already? I realised, of course, the last scene must be the grande finale. I had meant to present this to you at the end, but pray accept it
now.’
    He went away chuckling, and William found himself clasping the most magnificent football he had ever seen in his life.
    And that was not all.
    For the next day there arrived a magnificent cinematograph for the Literary Society, sent by Sir Giles Hampton with a little note telling them that their little play had completely cured his
nervous breakdown, that it would be a precious memory to him all the rest of his life, and that he was going back to London cheered and invigorated.
    And that was not all.
    There arrived for William some weeks later a ticket for a box at a London theatre.
    William went, accompanied by his mother.
    He came back and told his friends about it.
    He said he’d seen a play called Macbeth , but he didn’t think much of it, and he could have made a better storm himself.

CHAPTER 3
WILLIAM AND THE ARCHERS
    W ILLIAM and Ginger and Douglas (Henry was staying with an aunt) were engaged on their usual Monday morning pastime. A stream ran through the centre
of the village, and flowed under the road at a point where the village worthies used to collect on fine Sunday afternoons and evenings to discuss local affairs, or to stand leaning against the
railings gazing silently in front of them, deep, presumably, in thought, till bedtime. This little space by the railings was on Monday morning thickly covered with the matches with which the
village worthies had lit their pipes or cigarettes. Ginger and William and Douglas carefully collected the matches. Then Ginger stood at one side of the road and put the matches into the stream,
where it entered the large pipe which guided it beneath the road, and William stood at the other side with a little heap of stones and tried to hit the matches as they came out. Douglas stood by
and acted as umpire. ‘Got it!’ ‘Missed it!’ he sang out blithely at intervals. Occasionally the game was held up by a dispute between William and Douglas as to whether some
particular throw had been a hit or a miss.