Vane reached the rectory gate and turned in with his brains in the air,
dashing here and there like a dragon-fly, skimming after the fashion of
a swallow, flying steadily, bumble-bee-fashion, and flopping faintly as
the butterfly did whose wings were so much out of proportion to the size
of its body. Either way would do, he thought, or better still, if he
could fly by a wide-spread membrane stretched upon steel or whalebone
ribs or fingers like a bat. Why not? he mused. There could be no
reason; and he was beginning to wonder why he had never thought of
making some flying machine before, when he was brought back to earth
from his imaginary soarings by a voice saying,--
"Hullo! here's old Weathercock!" and this was followed by a laugh which
brought the colour into his cheeks.
"I don't care," he thought. "Let him laugh. Better be a weathercock
and change about, than be always sticking fast. Uncle says we can't
help learning something for one's trouble."
By this time he was at the porch, which he entered just as the footman
was carrying out the breakfast things.
"Rector isn't in the study then, Joseph?" said Vane.
"No, sir; just coming in out of the garden. Young gents is in there
together."
Vane felt disposed to wait and go in with the rector, but, feeling that
it would be cowardly, he walked straight in at the study door to find
Distin, Gilmore, and Macey seated at the table, all hard at work, but
apparently not over their studies.
"Why, gracious!" cried Macey.
"Alive?" said Gilmore.
"Used to it," sneered Distin. "That sort of creature takes a deal of
killing."
"What's the matter?" said Vane, good-humouredly, taking a seat.
"Why," said Gilmore, "we were all thinking of writing to our tailors to
send us suits of mourning out of respect for you--believe it or not as
you please."
"Thankye," said Vane quietly. "Then I will not believe it, because
Distin wouldn't order black if I were drowned."
"Who said a word about drowned? I said poisoned," cried Gilmore.
"Not a word about it. But why?"
"Because you went home and ate those toadstools."
"Wrong," said Vane quietly, "I haven't eaten them yet."
"Then three cheers for the tailors; there's a chance for them yet,"
cried Macey.
"Why didn't you eat them?" asked Gilmore. "Afraid?"
"I don't think so. They'll be ready by dinner time, will you come?"
Grimaces followed, as Vane quietly opened his books, and glanced round
the rector's room with its handsome book-cases all well filled,
chimney-piece ornamented with classic looking bronzes; and the whole
place with its subdued lights and heavily curtained windows suggestive
of repose for the mind and uninterrupted thought and study.
Books and newly-written papers lay on the table, ready for application,
but the rector's pupils did not seem to care about work in their tutor's
absence, for Macey, who was in the act of handing round a tin box when
Vane entered, now passed it on to the latter.
"Lay hold, old chap," he said. Vane opened it, and took out a piece of
crisp dark brown stickiness generally known as "jumble," and transferred
it to his mouth, while four lower jaws were now seen at work, giving the
pupils the aspect of being members of that portion of the quadrupedal
animal kingdom known as ruminants.
"Worst of this stuff is," said Macey, "that you get your teeth stuck
together. Oh, I say, Gil, what hooks! A whole dozen?"
Gilmore nodded as he opened a ring of fine silkworm gut, and began to
examine the points and backs of the twelve bright blue steel hooks at
the ends of the gut lengths, and the carefully-tied loops at the other.
"Where did you buy them?" continued Macey, as he gloated over the bright
hookah.
No answer.
"Where did you buy them, Gil?" said Macey again.
"Cuoz--duoz--ooze."
"What!" cried Macey; and Distin and Vane both looked wonderingly at
their fellow-pupil, who had made a peculiar incoherent guttural noise,
faintly represented by the above words.
Then Vane began to laugh.
"What's the matter, Gil?" he said.
Gilmore gave his neck a peculiar writhe, and his jaws a wrench.
"I wish you fellows wouldn't bother," he cried. "You, Macey, ought to
know better: you give a chap that stickjaw stuff of yours, and then
worry him to speak. Come by post, I said. From London."
Distin gave vent to a contemptuous sniff, and it was seen that he was
busily spreading tobacco on thin pieces of paper, and rolling them up
into cigarettes with the nonchalant air of one used to such feats of
dexterity, though, truth to tell, he fumbled over the task; and as he
noticed that Vane was observing him with a quiet look of good-humoured
contempt, his fingers grew hot and moist, and he nervously blundered
over his task.
"Well," he said with a vicious twang in his tones, "what are you staring
at?"
"You," replied Vane, with his hand holding open a Greek Lexicon.
"Then mind your lessons, schoolboy," retorted Distin sharply. "Did you
never see a gentleman roll a cigarette before?"
"No," said Vane quietly, and then, feeling a little nettled by the
other's tone, he continued, "and I can't see one now."
Distin half rose from the table, crushing a partly formed cigarette in
his hand.
"Did you mean that for another insult, sir?" he cried in a loud, angry
voice.
"Oh, I say, Distie," said Gilmore, rising too, and catching his arm,
"don't be such a pepper-pot. Old Weathercock didn't mean any harm."
"Mind your own business," said Distin, fiercely wrenching his arm free.
"That is my business--to sit on you when you go off like a firework,"
said Gilmore merrily. "I say, does your father grow much ginger on his
plantation?"
"I was speaking to the doctor's boy, and I'll thank you to be silent,"
cried Distin.
"Oh, I say, don't, don't, don't!" cried Macey, apostrophising all three.
"What's the good of kicking up rows about nothing! Here, Distie," he
continued, holding out his box; "have some more jumble."
Distin waved the tin box away majestically, and turned to Vane.
"I said, sir, goo--gloo--goog--"
He stepped from his place to the window in a rage, for his voice had
suddenly become most peculiar; and as the others saw him thrust a white
finger into his mouth and tear out something which he tried to throw
away but which refused to be cast off, they burst into a simultaneous
roar of laughter, which increased as they saw the angry lad suck his
finger, and wipe it impatiently on his handkerchief.
"Don't you give me any of your filthy stuff again, you. Macey," he
cried.
"All right," said the culprit, wiping the tears out of his eyes, and
taking the tin box from his pocket. "Have a bit more?"
Distin struck the tin box up furiously, sending it flying open, as it
performed an arc in the air, and distributing fragments of the
hard-baked saccharine sweet.
"Oh, I say!" cried Macey, hastily stooping to gather up the pieces.
"Here, help, Gil, or we shall have Syme in to find out one of them by
sitting on it."
"Look here, sir," cried Distin, across the table to Vane, who sat, as
last comer, between him and the door, "I said did you mean that as an
insult?"
"Oh, rubbish!" replied Vane, a little warmly now; "don't talk in that
manner, as if you were somebody very big, and going to fight a duel."
"I asked you, sir, if you meant that remark as an insult," cried Distin,
"and you evade answering, in the meanest and most shuffling way. I was
under the impression when I came down to Greythorpe it was to read with
English gentlemen, and I find--"
"Never mind what you find," said Vane; "I'll tell you what you do."
"Oh, you will condescend to tell me that," sneered Distin. "Pray what
do I do?"
"Don't tell him, Lee," said Gilmore; "and stop it, both of you. Mr
Syme will be here directly, and we don't want him to hear us squabbling
over such a piece of idiotic nonsense."
"And you call my resenting an insult of the most grave nature a piece of
idiocy, do you, Mr Gilmore?"
"No, Mr Distin; but I call the beginning of this silly row a piece of
idiocy."
"Of course you fellows will hang together," said Distin, with a
contemptuous look. "I might have known that you were not fit to trust
as a friend."
"Look here, Dis," said Gilmore, in a low, angry voice, "don't you talk
to me like that."
"And pray why, sir?" said Distin, in a tone full of contempt.
"Because I'm not Vane, sir, and--"
"I say, old chaps, don't, please don't," cried Macey, earnestly. "Look
here; I've got a tip from home by this morning's post, and I'll be a
good feed to set all square. Come: that's enough." Then, imitating the
rector's thick, unctuous voice, "Hum--ha!--silence, gentlemen, if you
please."
"Silence yourself, buffoon!" retorted Distin, sharply, and poor Macey
sank down in his chair, startled, or assuming to be.
"No, Mr Gilmore," said Distin, haughtily, "you are not Vane Lee, you
said, and--and what?"
"I'll tell you," cried the lad, with his brow lowering. "I will not sit
still and let you bully me. He may not think it worth his while to hit
out at a foreign-bred fellow who snaps and snarls like an angry dog, but
I do; and if you speak to me again as you did just now, I'll show you
how English-bred fellows behave. I'll punch your head."
"No, you will not, Gil," said Vane, half rising in his seat. "I don't
want to quarrel, but if there must be one, it's mine. So look here,
Distin: you've done everything you could for months past to put me out
of temper."
"He--aw!--he--aw!" cried Macey, in parliamentary style.
"Be quiet, jackass," cried Distin; and Macey began to lower himself, in
much dread, under the table.
"I say," continued Vane, "you have done everything you could to put me
out of temper, and I've put up with it patiently, and behaved like a
coward."
"He--aw, he--aw!" said Macey again; and Vane shook his fist at him
good-humouredly.
"Amen. That's all, then," cried Macey; and then, imitating the rector
again, "Now, gentlemen, let us resume our studies."
"Be quiet, Aleck," said Gilmore, angrily; "I--"
He did not go on, for he saw Distin's hand stealing toward a heavy
dictionary, and, at that moment, Vane said firmly:--
"I felt it was time to show you that I am not quite a coward. I did
mean it as an insult, as you call it. What then?"
"That!" cried Distin, hurling the dictionary he had picked up with all
his might at his fellow-pupil, across the table, but without effect.
Vane, like most manly British lads, knew how to take care of himself,
and a quick movement to one side was sufficient to allow the big book to
pass close to his ear, and strike with a heavy bang against the door
panel just as the handle rattled, and a loud "Hum--ha!" told that the
rector was coming into the room for the morning's reading.