Chapter Five.
“Haviland’s chum.”
When Haviland expressed his belief, in conversation with Mr Sefton, that the Zulu boy would prove able to take care of himself, he uttered a prediction which events seemed likely to bear out.
When three or four of the fellows who sat next to him in chapel conceived the brilliant idea of putting a large conical rose thorn—point uppermost of course—on the exact spot where that dark-skinned youth was destined to sit down on rising from his knees, they hardly foresaw the result, as three or four heads were quickly and furtively turned in anticipation of some fun. They were not disappointed either—for Simonds minor, the actual setter of the trap, shot up from his seat like a cork from a soda-water bottle, smothering an exclamation expressive of wild surprise and something else, while the descendant of generations of fighting savages sat tight in his, a rapt expression of innocence and unconcern upon his dark countenance. Nor did the fun end there, for the prefect in charge of that particular row, subsequently and at preparation time sent for Simonds minor, and cuffed him soundly for kicking up a disturbance in chapel, though this was a phase of the humour which, while appealing keenly to the spectators, failed to amuse Simonds minor in the very least. He vowed vengeance, not on his then executioner, but on Anthony.
Under a like vow, it will be remembered, was Jarnley. Not as before, however, did he propose to make things unpleasant for his destined victim. This time it should be on dry land, and when he got his opportunity he promised to make the very best of it, in which he was seconded by his following—who connected somehow the magnitude of the impos, given them by “that beast Sefton,” with the presence of “Cetchy” in their midst. So the party, having completed their said impos, spent the next few days, each armed with a concealed and supple willow switch, stalking their quarry during his wanderings afield; but here again the primitive instincts of the scion of a barbarian line rendered it impossible for them to surprise him, and as to catching him in open pursuit, they might as well have tried to run down a bird in the air. He would simply waltz away without an effort, and laugh at them: wherein he was filling Jarnley and Co.’s cup of wrath very full. But an event was destined to occur which should cause it to brim over.
One afternoon, owing to the noxious exhalations arising from a presumably poisoned rat within the wainscoting common to the third and fourth form rooms, both those classes were ordered to the big schoolroom, and allotted desk work to fill in the time.
Now the rows of lockers were arranged in tiers all down one half of the long room, leaving the other half open, with its big desk in the centre dominating the whole. Ill chance indeed was it that located Anthony’s form in the row beneath, and himself immediately in front of, his sworn foe.
Now Jarnley began to taste the sweets of revenge. More than one kick, hard and surreptitious, nearly sent the victim clean off the form, and the bright idea which occurred to Jarnley, of fixing a pin to the toe of his boot had to be abandoned, for the cogent reason that neither he nor any of his immediate neighbourhood could produce the pin. Meanwhile the master in charge lounged in the big desk, blissfully reading.
“Look here, Cetchy,” whispered Jarnley, having varied the entertainment with a few tweaks of his victim’s wool. “Turn round, d’you hear: put your finger on that.”
“That” being a penholder held across the top of one of the inkwells let into the desk.
“Put it on, d’you hear. I’ll let you off any more if you do. No—press hard.”
For Anthony had begun to obey orders, but gingerly. Once more was Jarnley digging his own grave, so to say. The black finger was now held down upon the round penholder, and of course what followed was a foregone conclusion. Its support suddenly withdrawn, knuckle deep went that unlucky digit into the well, but with such force that a very fountain of ink squirted upward, to splash down, a long running smudge, right across the sheet of foolscap which Jarnley had just covered, thereby rendering utterly useless the results of nearly half an hour’s work. This was too much. Reaching forward, the bully gripped the perpetrator of this outrage by the wool where it ended over the nape of the neck, and literally plucked out a wisp thereof.
“I’ll kill you for this, you black devil,” he said, in a snarling whisper.
But the reply was as startling as it was unexpected. Maddened by the acute pain, all the savage within him aroused, and utterly regardless of consequences, the Zulu boy swung round his arm like a flail, hitting Jarnley full across the face with a smack that resounded through the room, producing a dead and pin-dropping silence, as every head came round to see what had happened.
“What’s all this?” cried the furious voice of the master in charge, looking quickly up. “Come out, you two boys. Come out at once.”
Then, as the two delinquents stood up to come out of their places, a titter rippled through the whole room, for Jarnley’s red and half scared, half furious countenance was further ornamented by a great black smear where his smiter’s inky hand had fallen.
Now the Reverend Richard Clay was hot of temper, and his method under such circumstances as these short and effectual, viz.: to chastise the offenders first and institute enquiry afterwards, or not at all. Even during the time taken by these two to leave their places and stand before him, he had flung open the lid of the great desk, and jerked forth the cane always kept there; a long supple, well-hardened cane, well burnt at the end.
“Fighting during school time, were you?” he said. “Hold up your coat.”
“Please sir, he shied a lot of ink over my work,” explained Jarnley in desperation. Anthony the while said nothing.
“I don’t care if he did,” was the uncompromising reply. “Stand up and hold up your coat.”
This Jarnley had no alternative but to do, and as Mr Clay did nothing by halves the patient was soon dancing on one foot at a time.
“No, no, I haven’t done yet,” said the master, in response to a muttered and spasmodic appeal for quarter. “I’ll teach you to make a disturbance in schooltime when I’m in charge. There! Stand still.”
And he laid it on—to the bitter end; and with such muscle and will that the bully could not repress one or two short howls as he received the final strokes. But the Zulu boy, whose turn now came, and who received the same unsparing allowance, took it without movement or sound.
“Go back to your seats, you two,” commanded Mr Clay. “If any one else wants a dose of the same medicine, he knows how to get it,” he added grimly, locking up the cane again.
“Oh, wait till I get you outside, you black beast,” whispered the bully as they got back to their seats. “I’ll only skin you alive—that’s what I’ll do.”
“Come out again, Jarnley,” rang out Mr Clay’s clear, sharp voice. “Were you talking?” he queried, as the bully stood before him, having gone very pale over the prospect of a repetition of what he had just undergone.
“Yes, sir,” he faltered, simply not daring to lie.
“I know you were,” and again quickly the cane was drawn forth from its accustomed dwelling place. Then, as Jarnley was beginning to whine for mercy, the master as quickly replaced it.
“I’ll try another plan this time,” he said. “There’s nothing like variety.” The room grinned—“You’ll do seven hundred and fifty lines for talking in school hours, and you’re gated till they’re done.” The room was disappointed, for it was looking forward to another execution, moreover the bulk of it hated Jarnley. It consoled itself, however, by looking forward to something else, viz.: what was going to happen after school, and the smaller boys did not in the least envy Anthony.
The latter, for his part, knew what a thrashing was in store for him should he fail to make good his escape; wherefore the moment the word to dismiss was uttered, he affected a strategic movement which should enable him to gain the door under convoy of the retiring master, while not seeming to do so by design. Even in this he would hardly have succeeded, but that a simultaneous rush for the door interposed a crowd between him and his pursuers, and again his luck was in the ascendant, and he escaped, leaving Jarnley and Co. to wreak their vengeance on some of the smaller boys for getting in their way.
Anthony had been put into Haviland’s dormitory, which contained ten other boys, and was a room at the end of a much larger one containing forty. This also was under Haviland’s jurisdiction, being kept in order by three other prefects. At night he was left entirely in peace, beyond a slight practical joke or two at first, for the others were not big enough to bully him, what time their ruler was perforce out of the room. Besides, they rather liked him, for, as we have heard so unguardedly divulged, he would tell them wonderful tales of his own country—for he was old enough to just remember some of the incidents of the war, and could describe with all the verve and fire of the native gift of narrative, the appearance of the terrible impis, shield- and spear-armed as they went forth to battle, the thunder of the war-song, and the grim and imposing battle array. He could tell, too, of vengeful and bleeding warriors, returning sorely wounded, of sudden panic flights of women and children—himself among them—and once indeed, albeit at some distance, he had seen the King. But on the subject of his parentage he was very reticent. His father was a valiant and skilled fighter—so too, had been all his ancestors—but he had fallen in the war. He himself had been educated by a missionary, and sent over to England to be further educated and eventually to be trained as a missionary himself, to aid in evangelising his own people; although with true native reticence he had refrained from owning that he had no taste for any such career. His forefathers had all been warriors, and he only desired to follow in their steps. Later on he imparted this to Haviland, but with all the others he kept up a certain reserve.
To Haviland, indeed, the African boy had attached himself in doglike fashion, ever since that potentate had interfered to rescue him from Jarnley; yet his motive in so doing was not that of self-preservation, for no word did he utter to his quondam protector that he was still a particular object of spite to Jarnley and his following. At first Haviland was bored thereby, then became interested, a change mainly brought about by a diffident entreaty to be allowed to see his collection of eggs, and also to be allowed to accompany him during the process of adding to it. This was granted, and Haviland was amazed at the extent of the Zulu boy’s knowledge of everything to do with the bird and animal life of the fields and woods, although totally different from that of his own country. So he was graciously pleased to throw over him the wing of his patronage, and the beginning of this strange friendship was destined to lead to some very startling experiences indeed before it should end.
But the school regarded it with partly amused, partly contemptuous wonder, and in like spirit Anthony became known as “Haviland’s chum.”
Chapter Six.
The Haunted Wood.
“What a rum chap Haviland is!” said Laughton, the captain of the school, as from the window of the prefects’ room, he, with three or four others, stood watching the subject of the remark, rapidly receding into distance, for it was a half-holiday afternoon. “He and Cetchy have become quite thick.”
“I expect he finds him useful at egg-hunting,” said Medlicott.
“Yes—and how about it being wrong form for us to go about with juniors?” struck in Langley, a small prefect who had attained to that dignity by reason of much “sapping,” but was physically too weak to sustain it adequately. “Haviland’s never tired of jamming that down our throats, but he doesn’t practise what he preaches. Eh?”
“Well, Corbould major’ll be a prefect himself next term,” said Medlicott.
“Yes, but how about the nigger, Medlicott? A nigger into the bargain. Haviland’s chum! I don’t know how Haviland can stick him,” rejoined the other spitefully, for he loved not Haviland.
“I wish he’d chuck that confounded egg-hunting, at any rate for this term,” said Laughton. “He’ll get himself reduced as sure as fate. Nick’s watching him like a cat does a mouse. He’s got a down on him for some reason or other—don’t know what it can be—and the very next row Haviland gets into he’ll reduce him. That’s an absolute cert.”
“Haviland did say he’d chuck it,” replied Medlicott. “But what’s he to do? He’s a fellow who doesn’t care for games—swears cricket’s slow, and football always makes him want to hit somebody.”
“He’s a rum card,” rejoined Laughton. “Well, I’m going round to the East field to do some bowling. I expect Clay’ll be there. Coming, Medlicott?”
“No. I don’t care about bowling to Clay. He expects you to keep at it all the time just because he’s a master. Never will bowl to you. I bar.”
The two under discussion were speeding along—Haviland jubilant over having obtained leave from call-over—thus being able to get very far afield. He fancied Mr Sefton, the master of the week, had eyed him rather curiously in granting it, but what did that matter? He had the whole afternoon before him.
As they proceeded, he was instructing the other in various landmarks, and other features of the country.
“Think you could find your way back all right, Cetchy?” he said, when they had proceeded some distance, “if you were left alone, I mean?”
“Find way? Left alone? What do you mean?”
“Why sometimes, if you get chevvied by a keeper it’s good strategy to separate, and get back round about. It boggles the enemy and at worst gives one of you a chance.”
“Find way—ha!” chuckled Anthony. “Well, rather. All that tree—hill over there—plenty church steeple. Fellows who can’t find way here must be thundering big fools.”
“Quite right. I hope we shan’t be put to it to-day, but it has saved both of us before. Though as a rule, Cetchy, I never go out with another fellow, except Corbould now and then. Much rather be alone—besides, when there are two fellows together they get jawing at the wrong time. Remember that, Cetchy. Once you’re off the road don’t say a word more than you can help—and only that in a whisper.”
The other nodded.
“I know,” he said.
“One time I had an awful narrow squeak,” pursued Haviland. “It was in Needham’s Copse, the very place Finch and Harris were swished for going through. There’s a dry ditch just inside where you can nearly always find a nightingale’s nest. I’d just taken one, and was starting to get back, when I heard something and dropped down like a shot to listen. Would you believe it, Cetchy, there was a beast of a keeper with a brown retriever dog squatting against the hedge on the other side! It was higher than where I was lying, and I could see them against the sky, but they couldn’t see me, and fortunately the hedge was pretty thick. The wonder was the dog didn’t sniff me out, but he didn’t. It was lively, I can tell you, for nearly an hour I had to squat there hardly able to breathe for fear of being heard. At last they cleared out and so did I. I was late for call-over of course, but Clay—it was his week—only gave me a hundred lines—said I looked so jolly dirty that I must have been running hard. He’s a good chap, Clay, and a bit of a sportsman, although he is such a peppery devil. Well, Cetchy, you see if there had been two of us, one would have been bound to make a row, and then—what with the dog we couldn’t have got clear. That would have meant a swishing, for I wasn’t a prefect then.”
With similar narratives did Haviland beguile the way and instruct his companion, therein however strictly practising what he preached, in that he kept them for such times as they should be upon the Queen’s highway, or pursuing a legitimate path.
So far, they had found plenty of spoil, but mostly of the commoner sorts and not worth taking—at least not from Haviland’s point of view—all of whose instincts as a sportsman were against wanton destruction.
“Why don’t you begin collecting, Cetchy?” he said, as, seated on a stile, they were taking a rest and a look round. “I should have thought it was just the sort of thing you’d take to kindly.”
“Yes. I think I will.”
“That’s right. We’ll start you with all we take to-day, except one or two of the better sorts, and those we’ll halve. What have we got already? Five butcher-bird’s, four nightingale’s, and five bullfinch’s, but I believe those are too hard-set to be any good. Hallo!” looking up, “I believe that was a drop of rain.”
The sky, which was cloudy when they started, had now become overcast, and a few large drops fell around them. Little enough they minded that though.
“Are you afraid of ghosts, Cetchy?” said Haviland.
“Ghosts? No—why?”
“See that wood over there? Well, that’s Hangman’s Wood, and we’re going through that. It’s one of the very best nesting grounds in the whole country—it’s too far away, you see, for our fellows to get at unless they get leave from call-over, which they precious seldom can.”
He pointed to a line of dark wood about three-quarters of a mile away, of irregular shape and some fifty acres in extent. It seemed to have been laid out at different times, for about a third of it was a larch plantation, the lighter green of which presented a marked contrast to the dark firs which constituted the bulk of the larger portion.
“It’s haunted,” he went on. “Years and years ago they found a man hanging from a bough right in the middle of it. The chap was one of the keepers, but they never could make out exactly whether he had scragged himself, or whether it was done by some fellows he’d caught poaching. Anyway the yarn goes that they hung two or three on suspicion, and it’s quite likely, for in those days they managed things pretty much as they seem to do in your country, eh, Cetchy—hang a chap first and try him afterwards?”
“That’s what Nick does,” said the Zulu boy with a grin.
Haviland laughed.
“By Jove, you’re right, Cetchy. You’ve taken the length of Nick’s foot and no mistake. Well, you see now why they call the place Hangman’s Wood, but that isn’t all. They say the chap walks—his ghost, you know—just as they found him hanging—all black in the face, with his eyes starting out of his head, and round his neck a bit of the rope that hung him. By the way, that would be a nice sort of thing for us to meet stalking down the sides of the wood when we were in there, eh, Cetchy?”
The other made no reply. Wide-eyed, he was taking in every word of the story. Haviland went on.
“It sounds like a lot of humbug, but the fact remains that more than one of the keepers has met with a mortal scare in that very place, and I’ve even heard of one chucking up his billet rather than go into the wood anywhere near dusk even, and the rum thing about it too is that it never gets poached: and you’d think if there was a safe place to poach that’d be it. Yet it doesn’t. Come on now. I got a lot out of it the season before last, and we ought to get something good to-day.”
Keeping well under cover of the hedges the two moved quickly along. Then, as they neared the wood, with a “whirr” that made both start, away went a cock-pheasant from the hedge-row they were following—springing right from under their feet. Another and another, and yet another winging away in straight powerful flight, uttering a loud alarmed cackle, and below, the white scuts of rabbits scampering for the burrows in the dry ditch which skirted the covert.
“Confound those beastly birds! What a row they kick up!” whispered Haviland wrathfully as he watched the brilliantly plumaged cocks disappearing among the dark tree tops in front. “Come along, though. I expect it’s all right.”
“There you are,” he went on disgustedly, as they stood in the ride formed by the enclosing hedge of the first line of trees. “‘Trespassers will be prosecuted with the utmost rigour of the law.’ Nice free country this, eh, Cetchy?”
The notice board, nailed some seven or eight feet from the ground, stared them in the face. But Haviland was used to such.
Cautiously, noiselessly, they stole in and out among the trees, one eye and ear keenly alert for that which they sought, the other for indication of possible human, and therefore hostile, presence. The shower had ceased, but the odour of newly watered herbage hung moist upon the air, mingling with the scent of the firs, and the fungus-like exhalations of rotten and mouldering wood. A semi-twilight prevailed, the effect of the heavy foliage, and the cloud-veiled and lowering sky—and the ghostly silence was emphasised rather than disturbed every now and then by the sudden flap-flap of a wood-pigeon’s wings, or the stealthy rustle in the undergrowth as a rabbit or pheasant scuttled away.
“Look, Cetchy,” whispered Haviland. “This is the place where they found the chap hanging.”
Right in the heart of the wood they were, and at this spot two ridges intersected each other. A great oak limb reached across this point like a huge natural gallows beam.
“The fellow who found him,” went on Haviland, pointing at this, “did so by accident. He was coming along the ride here in the dark, and the chap’s legs—the chap who was hanging, you know—sort of kicked him in the face as he walked underneath that bough. Then he looked up and saw what it was. Ugh! I say, Cetchy, supposing that sort of thing was to happen to you or me! Think we’d get in a funk, eh?”
The Zulu boy, coming of a race which is intensely susceptible to superstitious fears, shook his head, and muttered something in his own tongue. The drear and dismal aspect of the place and its gruesome legend impressed him. He did not like it at all, but would not own as much. If Haviland, to whom he looked up as something of a god, was not afraid, why should he be? Haviland, moved by some spirit of mischief, went on, sinking his voice to a still more impressive whisper:
“Supposing we were to see the ghost now, Cetchy, looking just as they say it walks—black in the face, and with its eyes and tongue all bulging out of its head, and the bit of rope dangling from its neck! Think we should get in a beastly funk, eh? There, just coming out from under those dark firs—can’t you imagine it?”
For answer the other started violently, and uttered a scared ejaculation. Even Haviland’s nerves were not entirely proof against the interruption, coming when it did. Something had happened to startle them both.
Chapter Seven.
The Ghost.
The next moment Haviland burst into a fit of smothered laughter.
“It’s only a hen pheasant, Cetchy,” he whispered, “but she made such a row getting up right under our feet just as we were talking about the ghost. It quite gave me the jumps.”
“She’s got nest too,” said the other, who had been peering into the undergrowth. “Look, nine, ten eggs! That’s good?”
“Yes, but you can’t take them. Never meddle with game eggs.”
“How I make collection if I not take eggs?”
This was pertinent, and Haviland was nonplussed, but only for a moment.
“I’ve got some extra specimens I’ll give you,” he answered. “Come on, leave these, and let the bird come back.”
The other looked somewhat wistfully at the smooth olive-hued eggs lying there temptingly in their shallow bowl of dry leaves and grass. Then he turned away.
“We’ll find plenty of others,” said Haviland. “Last time I was here I took a nest of blackcap’s, and the eggs were quite pink instead of brown. That’s awfully rare. We’ll see if there are any more in the same place.”
Round the cover they went, then across it, then back again, all with a regular system, and soon their collecting boxes were filled—including some good sorts.
“There! Big bird go away up there,” whispered Anthony pointing upward.
They were standing under a clump of dark firs. Over their tops Haviland glimpsed the quick arrowy flight.
“A sparrow-hawk, by Jingo!” he said. “Sure to have a nest here too.”
A keen and careful search revealed this, though it was hidden away so snugly in the fir-top, that it might have been passed by a hundred times. The Zulu boy begged to be allowed to go up.
“I think not this time, Cetchy,” decided Haviland. “It’s an easy climb, but then you haven’t had enough practice in stowing the eggs, and these are too good to get smashed.”
It was not everything to get up the tree: half the point was to do so as noiselessly as possible, both of which feats were easy enough to so experienced a climber as Haviland. He was soon in the fir-top, the loose untidy pile of sticks just over his head; another hoist—and then—most exciting moment of all, the smooth warm touch of the eggs. The while the parent bird, darting to and fro in the air, came nearer and nearer his head with each swoop. But for this he cared nothing.
“Look, Cetchy,” he whispered delightedly as he stood once more on terra firma and exhibited the bluish-white treasures with their rich sepia blotches. “Three of them, and awfully good specimens. Couple days later there’d have been four or five, still three’s better than none. You shall have these two to start your collection with, and I’ll stick to this one with the markings at the wrong end. What’s the row?”
For the Zulu boy had made a sign for silence, and was standing in an attitude of intense listening.
“Somebody coming,” he whispered. “One man.”
Haviland’s nerves thrilled. But listen as he would his practised ear could hear nothing.
“Quick, hide,” breathed the other, pointing to a thick patch of bramble and fern about a dozen yards away, and not a moment too early was the warning uttered, for scarcely had they reached it and crouched flat to the earth, when a man appeared coming through the wood. Peering from their hiding-place, they made out that he was clad in the velveteen suit and leather leggings of a keeper, and, moreover, he carried a gun.
He was looking upward all the time, otherwise he could not have failed to see them, and to Haviland, at any rate, the reason of this was plain. He had sighted the sparrow-hawk, and was warily stalking her, hence the noiselessness of his approach. The situation was becoming intensely exciting. The keeper was coming straight for their hiding-place, still, however, looking upward. If he discovered them, they must make a dash for it that moment, Haviland explained in a whisper scarcely above a breath. The gun didn’t count, he daren’t fire at them in any event.
Suddenly the man stopped. Up went the gun, then it was as quickly lowered. He had sighted the flight of the hawk above the tree tops, but the chance was not good enough. And he had sighted something else, the nest to wit. The bird was sure to come back to it, and so give him a much better chance. Accordingly he squatted down among the undergrowth, his gun held ready, barely twenty yards from the concealed pair, but with his back to them.
That sparrow-hawk, however, was no fool of a bird. She seemed possessed of a fine faculty for discrimination, and manifestly knew the difference between a brace of egg-collecting schoolboys, and a ruthless, death-dealing gamekeeper, and although at intervals she swooped overhead it was always out of range, but still the latter sat there with a patience that was admirable, save to the pair whom all unconsciously it menaced with grave consequences.
For, as time fled, these loomed nearer and nearer. As it was, they would need all their time to get back, and were they late for evening chapel, especially after being granted leave from calling-over, it was a dead certainty that the Doctor himself would have something to say in the matter, at any rate in Haviland’s case. And still that abominable keeper lurked there, showing no sign whatever of moving within the next half-hour, in which event it mattered little if he did not move at all. A thin, penetrating drizzle had begun to fall, which bade fair to wet them to the skin, but for this they cared nothing, neither apparently did their enemy, who furthermore was partly sheltered beneath a great fir. Haviland grew desperate.
“We shall have to make a run for it, Cetchy,” he breathed. “Look,” showing his watch. “If the beast doesn’t make a move in five minutes, we must run and chance it. I’ll give the word.”
The hand of the watch moved slowly on—one minute—two—three—four. Haviland replaced it in his pocket, and drew a long breath: but before he could give the word, his companion touched him and whispered.
“No run. He run. I make him.”
“What?”
“I make him run. I flighten him. I ghost. You’ll see.”
For a great idea had occurred to Mpukuza, christened Anthony, named by Saint Kirwin’s “Cetchy”—and exactly one minute and as rapid a metamorphosis in his personal appearance was all he needed to put it into execution.
Darker and darker had grown the lowering skies, and now the wind began to moan dismally through the tree trunks. Anything more drear and depressing than the brooding gloom of the haunted wood could hardly be imagined. The keeper, however, was of the dogged order of rustic, and doubtless lacking in imagination, for he remained patiently at his self-appointed post. Then, suddenly, he started to his feet and faced quickly round.
A sight met his gaze, transfixing him with terror, seeming to turn him to stone. Reared above the undergrowth, an awful head, covered with dust, and bristling with brambles—a black face with lolling, swollen tongue, and huge eyeballs protruding from their sockets rolling their vivid whites in most hideous fashion—yes, and there, round the neck, a strand of cord, while from the throat of this horrifying apparition there proceeded the most hollow, half-strangled moan that ever curdled mortal blood. For a moment the appalled keeper stood with livid countenance, and his knees knocking together—then with a wild hoarse cry, and dropping his gun—he turned and fled away down the ride of the wood as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Come, Haviland, we’ll go now,” chuckled the ghost, dropping down into the undergrowth again. But Haviland made no reply, being powerless alike for speech or movement. He lay there gasping, choking back with superhuman effort the scarcely repressible roars of laughter that he dared not let out.
“Come quick. We be off,” urged the Zulu boy. “Praps he come back.”
“Not he,” gurgled Haviland faintly. “Oh Cetchy, that’s about the most deadly thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, it’ll be the death of me.” Then recovering himself with a mighty effort:
“Come along, Cetchy. You’re right, by Jingo! We’ll have to put our best leg forward as it is. Oh, but we mustn’t think about this or it’ll kill me again.”
Cautiously and in silence, and ever keeping a bright look-out lest mayhap their dupe should recover from his scare and return, they made their way out of the haunted wood, then across country at a hard swinging trot, and the far-away roofs of Saint Kirwin’s seemed painfully remote.
“I say, Cetchy,” said Haviland as they sat beneath a hedge for a brief but necessary breather. “Supposing the chap had let off his gun at you? Eh? We never thought of that.”
“He not shoot—he too much funk.”
“So he was. I dare say, too, he thought it wasn’t any good firing at a ghost. No, I mustn’t start laughing again. Come along.”
And indeed they needed to make the most of their time, for the bell was already ringing during the last five minutes of their run. However, they got through by a narrow shave.
After chapel, as he was walking across the quadrangle, a scurry of feet and a rustle of long garments behind him caused Haviland to turn. He beheld Mr Sefton.
“Did you find lots of eggs this afternoon, Haviland?” said the master, who was still in his canonicals and square cap.
“Yes, sir. A grand lot. Thanks so much for giving us leave.”
“Are you teaching Cetchy bird-nesting?”
“Yes, sir. He wants to collect. He’s a good hand at finding them too.”
“Ah! Don’t get him into mischief. Eh? And keep out of it yourself. D’you hear? Keep out of it yourself.”
There was a warning note underlying the quaint, dry quizzical tone which was not lost upon the hearer. He was wondering how much Sefton suspected, but at the same time was thinking how dearly he would have liked to tell Sefton the joke about the ghost, but that of course he dared not. Yet Sefton would have appreciated it so keenly—no one more so. But he only answered:
“I’ll try to, sir. Yes, we had a real ripping afternoon—thanks to you.”
“Ha!” With which enigmatical ejaculation the master nodded and went his way.
That evening, in the dormitory, Haviland being in hall at supper with the other prefects off duty, Anthony was relating, in his quaint racy English, the exciting events of the afternoon, all except the ghost episode, which he had been strictly enjoined to keep to himself. Those who were collectors were thrilled with envy.
“You are a lucky beggar, Cetchy,” sighed Smithson minor. “I wish to goodness Haviland would take me with him once or twice—that’s all.”
“Ha! Take you!”
“Yes. Why not?” bristling up.
“You no good. You can’t run.”
“Look here, Cetchy. I’ll smack your head if you talk like that to me.”
“Smack my head! You can’t do it.”
“Oh, can’t I?” retorted Smithson minor jumping out of bed. The other said nothing. He simply followed suit, and stood waiting. This was not in the least what Smithson expected, and now he remembered, when too late, the Zulu boy’s summary retaliation on Jarnley, and how sturdily and unmovedly he had taken the caning it involved, what time Jarnley had howled. He remembered, too, the hard, wiry training the other was in and—hesitated. But it was too late to draw back, and so he rushed on his enemy, hitting out right and left; and at first Anthony seemed to be getting the worst of it, for, in common with his race, he had no idea how to use his fists, nor had he been long enough at Saint Kirwin’s to have learnt, and the scuffle was enlivened by the encouraging though stifled adjurations of the spectators.
“Go it, Smithson! Now then, Cetchy! Ah! He’s got it! Shut up, you fellows. We’ll have Medlicott in directly if you kick up such a row,” and so forth. But just then, Anthony, who, if he hadn’t science, assuredly had all the fierce fighting valour of his race, woke up to a mighty effort, and dashing out with both hands and hurling himself forward at the same time, landed his adversary full in the face, and down went Smithson minor, and with him two other fellows who were pressing him too close behind. In the midst of which shindy the door opened, and in walked Haviland.
“What’s all this about?” he cried, turning the gas full up and revealing the whole scene of disorder—the panting combatants and the now sheepish-looking spectators, some of whom were making desperate efforts to appear as if they had never left their beds. “Come here, Smithson. What d’you mean by it, eh?”
Smithson, who recognised in this formula a certain preamble to condign punishment, thought he might as well try to say something for himself.
“Please, Haviland, he cheeked me,” he faltered.
“Cheeked you, did he? I wonder you haven’t had Sefton up here with his cane, and of course that wouldn’t have meant a thousand lines for me for not keeping order, would it?”
“He tell me he smack my head,” cut in Anthony. “I tell him he can’t do it. Then he try. Ha!”
The room tittered. Haviland was mollified.
“Did he do it?” he said.
“No fear. I knock him over. Then you come in.” And the speaker stood with his head in the air, and the light of battle in his eyes, albeit one of them was rather swollen, looking for all the world a youthful reproduction of one of his warrior sires.
“Well, I know jolly well that Cetchy didn’t begin the row,” pronounced Haviland, throwing down his square cap, and beginning to take off his coat and vest with a yawn. “Get into bed, Smithson. If I hear anything about this to-morrow from Sefton, I’ll sock your head off. If not, I’ll let you off this time. Now shut up, you fellows. No more talking.”
There was no need to repeat the order. Silence prevailed in that dormitory forthwith.
Chapter Eight.
Jarnley again.
If the practical joke played upon the keeper in Hangman’s Wood ever transpired in the immediate neighbourhood of that ill-omened locality, the tidings thereof did not reach as far as Saint Kirwin’s—nor had its perpetrators any opportunity of revisiting the place, by reason of the distance, and the difficulty of so soon again obtaining leave from call-over. But other coverts were levied upon in like fashion, all, or nearly all, we regret to say, under equally forbidden conditions.
The summer term proved exceptionally fine, and Haviland and other collectors revelled in the bright and glowing weather. If at times illicit, the long breezy rambles over field and down were fraught with all that was healthful and wholesome, in the splendid air, the beautiful surroundings of the fairest of English landscapes, the hardening of the young frame into the most perfect training, the excitement of a certain amount of ever present risk, and the absorbing pursuit of a favourite hobby. And then the cool plunge into the swimming pool at the close of the long summer’s day. There was plenty of cricket too, and some exceptionally good matches in which Saint Kirwin’s kept up its name quite well.
“Can’t think why you don’t go in for cricket, Haviland,” observed Laughton, in the prefects room one whole holiday as he was getting ready for one of the matches aforesaid, and in which he figured in the school eleven as a bowler of no mean repute. “You ought to, you know. It’s due to your position.”
“No, thanks, Laughton. You don’t catch me wasting a splendid day like this shying a ball at three silly sticks.”
“Well, you could go in for batting. From what little I’ve seen you do in that line, with a little practice you’d make a very fair bat indeed.”
“Oh, yes. Get bowled first ball, and spend the rest of the day fielding out. I’d as soon be doing an impos.”
And the speaker finished some arrangement of cotton wool and cardboard boxes, and stowing the same into his side pockets tightened the strap wherewith he was girded, and nodding to Laughton started off there and then upon his favourite pursuit—but alone.
After him from the third form room windows gazed a pair of wistful eyes. Mpukuza, otherwise Anthony, had conceived a hero-worship for the other, nearly akin to that felt by some of the old indunas of his race for their king. To accompany Haviland on one of these rambles had become for him something to live for. He would have “broken his gates” and cheerfully welcomed the inevitable swishing thereby incurred, rather than forego one such, and of late the occasions on which Haviland had been graciously pleased to command his attendance had been growing more and more rare—partly due to the unwritten code which was against a prefect fraternising much with a junior unless the latter were about his own age and size. So he gazed wistfully after his hero, and in the expressive idiom of his race “his heart was sore.”
“Hallo, Cetchy! Not gated, are you? Come out bird-nesting.” The voice was that of Smithson minor.
Since their little scrimmage in the dormitory the two had become very friendly, and had been out together several times.
“All right.”
“Thought you were gated when I saw Haviland go out alone,” went on Smithson as they started. “Hallo! There’s Clay! Quick. We’ll dodge him. I’ve got an impos to do for him. I’m not gated, but if he saw me he might want to know why I’m not doing it.”
Having successfully dodged the master they struck across some fields. But alack and alas! in escaping one possible danger they were destined to run straight into the jaws of another and a more certain. At the crossing of a stile there was a rush of big fellows who had been lying in wait on the other side, and in a trice they were pounced upon and collared by Jarnley and his gang.
“Got you at last, have I, Cetchy?” snarled that worthy, fairly grinning with delight. “Oh, I’ve a long score to pay off on your black hide, haven’t I? and I’m going to begin now,” tweaking the other savagely by the ear with one hand though holding him firmly by the collar with the other. “You would get me tanned by Clay, would you?”
“I was tanned too,” protested the victim.
“And now you’ll be tanned again. What Clay gave you—gave us—is nothing to what we are going to give you now. And the seven hundred lines, and the lines Sefton gave us all but let you off.”
“Shut up, Perkins, you beastly bully!” yelped Smithson minor, who was undergoing his share of trial in the little matter of a twisted arm and a fistic punch or two thereon. “I’ll report you to Haviland if you don’t leave us alone.”
“Oh, you’d sneak, would you? Take that—and that”—emphasising the expostulation with a couple of sounding smacks on the head.
“Come on, you fellows,” said Jarnley. “Don’t let him go, but we’ll deal with Cetchy first. Oh, yes, my black snowball, my woolly-pated beauty—I told you I’d skin you alive, didn’t I? I told you I’d rip the black hide off you, and now I’m going to do it. Now then, spread-eagle him over the steps of that stile. Oh, yes. We’ve been keeping these for you many a long day, my noble snowball,” producing a thick but supple willow switch, and one of the others, of whom there were just half a dozen, producing one likewise.
It was then or never. The victim, well aware of what a savage thrashing would be inflicted upon him, should he fail, made one last effort. Before the others had time to seize him he struck his heel down sharply on to Jarnley’s toes, crushing them into the ground, at the same time sending his elbow back with all his force. It caught the bully fair in the pit of the stomach, and with a howl, promptly strangled in a gasp, Jarnley partially relaxed his hold. In a trice the Zulu boy had wrenched himself free, and, deftly ducking between two of the others who sprang at him, was off like a shot.
Jarnley was beside himself with rage.
“You asses!” he shouted gaspingly as he recovered his wind. “All this time we’ve been looking out for him, and now, just as we’ve got him, you let him get away.”
“It strikes me it was you who let him get away,” retorted Perkins. “Well, we’ll take it out of this little beast instead.”
Poor Smithson minor howled for mercy, but he howled in vain. They pulled him down over the stile step, the switches were uplifted and ready when—
“Whack! Whack!” came a couple of stones. “Whack—whack—whack!” came three more, flung hard too, and with a terrible precision. One struck Perkins on the hand, causing him to dance and swear all his fingers were broken. Another hit Jarnley on the shoulder, while two more found their billet in violent contact with another of the bullies—and there, in a gap in the hedge some little distance off, stood the one who had escaped, grinning in mingled vindictiveness and glee. Other stones followed, hurled with the same unerring precision. To proceed with their congenial work under that terrible bombardment was impossible—and so, leaving one in charge of Smithson, the gang started in pursuit of the Zulu boy.
The latter chuckled, for he knew that not one of them could get any nearer to him than he chose, when it came to running. He sprang down into the road again, quickly shovelled up a double handful of stones, and loped on. Then he turned, just as the pursuers came within easy range, and opened fire again. It was too much. With dire threats they beat a retreat. They would get hold of him again sooner or later, they declared, and that time he would not get off at any price. At all of which the Zulu boy chuckled and laughed, hurling abusive epithets at them in his quaint English.
The while poor Smithson, in the grasp of the big fellow who custodied him, was having a bad time, in the shape of a slight forestalment of what he might expect when the others returned. But for him, too, came relief—rescue, and it came in the shape of a couple of prefects who appeared in sight, sauntering along the field-path towards them.
“You’d better let me go,” he said, “or I’ll call out to Street and Cluer.”
The other saw the force of this, and, with a threat and a sly cuff, acted upon it, and slunk away to give the alarm to the rest. Half an hour later Smithson and Anthony were forgathering under a hedge, talking over their escape.
“Well, you are no end of a brick, Cetchy,” said the former. “Why, they’ll make you cock chief of your tribe one of these days, I should think.”
“Ha—ha—ha!” chuckled the other. “Jarnley hurt more’n we hurt. All of ’em hurt. Ha—ha—ha!”
“Well, you got me out of it with those beasts. I say, Cetchy, old chap, I’m expecting a hamper next week, and won’t we have a blow out then!” he added, in a burst of gratitude and admiration.
“Hamper? What’s that?”
“Why, a basket of tuck. Grub, you know, from home. No end of good things.”
“Ha! All right,” said the other with a jolly laugh.
That day Haviland was making the most of his time and his solitary ramble. His collecting boxes were fairly well filled; among other specimens he had hit upon a grasshopper warbler’s nest, whose existence he suspected, containing five eggs, beautifully fresh and thus easily blown, likewise a sedge-warbler’s, hung cuplike, among the bulrushes of a reedy pond. The spoils of two wheatears, extracted with some difficulty from a deep burrow on the slope of Sidbury Down, had also fallen to his lot, and now, stretched on the springy turf on the summit of that eminence, he was enjoying a well-earned rest, thoroughly contented with himself and all the world. And what a view lay outstretched beneath and around—a fair, rolling champaign, green meadow and darker wood—here and there the shining surface of a pond: farm buildings too, picturesque with their red roofs and yellow corn-stacks, nestling among hanging elms noisy with the cawing of restless rooks, and the shrill whimsical chatter of jackdaws. The bark of a sheepdog, and the glad melodious shout of the cuckoo here and there, were borne upward on the still air—and far away over this beautiful landscape the brown high-pitched roofs of Saint Kirwin’s, conveying a sort of monastic suggestion in its surroundings of field and wood.
Haviland had been making the most of his day—therefore this was his fourth expedition, and it was now late afternoon. His watch marked ten minutes past five, and chapel was at six. There was plenty of time, but he thought he would take it easy going back. So, having allowed himself another five minutes’ rest, he took a final look around, and started to come down.
He had nearly reached the bottom of the slope when he stopped short, with an exclamation of unbounded amazement and unmistakable dismay. He stood listening, motionless, intent. Only the sound of a bell, pealing out with startling plainness through the sleepy afternoon air. Great heavens! It was the chapel bell at Saint Kirwin’s.
No. It couldn’t be! Why, it wasn’t nearly time. Chapel was at six—not half-past five. Eagerly, almost convulsively, he jerked forth his watch. Still the hands marked ten minutes past five.
He groaned aloud. The game was up. Not by any possibility could he now be in time for chapel. The bell always rang for a quarter of an hour, and he knew—none better—that exactly double that period of time was required to cover the distance between where he stood and the school gates, and that at a sharp run all the way. By a wellnigh superhuman effort it might possibly be done in twenty-five minutes, but not one second less, and here he was with something under a quarter of an hour to do it in. He was in despair.
For being late for chapel was one of the most heinous offences he could commit. The only chance for him was if for any reason the Doctor should happen to be absent himself. In that event the best he could expect was a stiff imposition from the master of the week. Should however the Head be there, as was nearly always the case—why then it would mean certain suspension for him at any rate.
He glared at the offending watch, and shook it savagely. It ticked feebly for a few seconds, then hopelessly stopped once more. A pretty trick it had played him, and he felt inclined to hurl it into the first pond he should pass, as he sped along at a hard steady run: for every minute he was late would, if possible, render his case worse.