Mr Sefton did not immediately repair to the big schoolroom. When he
did, however, the half-dozen delinquents were at work on their
imposition. He strolled round apparently aimlessly, then peered into
the fifth form room, where sat Haviland, writing his.
Haviland was not at first aware of the master's presence. An ugly frown
was on his face, for he was in fact beginning the extra two hundred
lines of which we have made mention. It was a half-holiday, and a
lovely afternoon, and but for this he would have been out and away over
field and down. He felt that he had been treated unfairly, and it was
with no amiable expression of countenance that he looked up, and with
something of a start became aware of the master's presence.
"Sit still, Haviland," said the latter kindly, strolling over to the
desks. "Have you nearly done your imposition?"
"I've done it quite, sir, but you can always reckon on having to do a
third of it over again when it's for the Doctor," he added with intense
bitterness.
"Look here, you mustn't talk like that," rejoined Mr Sefton briskly,
but there was a kindliness underlying his sharp tones which the other's
ear was quick to perceive. They were great friends these two, and many
an informal chat had they had together. It involved no favouritism
either. Let Haviland break any rule, accidentally or not, within Mr
Sefton's jurisdiction, and the imposition entailed was not one line
shorter than that set to anybody else under like circumstances, as he
had reason to know by experience. Yet that made no difference in his
regard for this particular master.
"Well, it's hard luck all the same, sir," he now replied. "However,
this time I've got off cheap with only a couple of hundred over again.
But it has done me out of this afternoon."
Mr Sefton had hoisted himself on to one of the long desks and sat
swinging his legs and his stick.
"What d'you think?" he said. "I've caught half a dozen fellows bathing
just now. The new boy Anthony was among 'em. And he'd nearly drowned
Jarnley--the beggar! What d'you think of that?"
"What, sir? Nearly drowned him?"
"I should think so," pursued the master, chuckling with glee. "Jarnley
lay there gasping like a newly caught fish. It seems he'd been trying
to duck Cetchy, and Cetchy ducked him instead. Nearly drowned him too.
Ha--ha!"
Haviland roared too.
"That chap'll be able to take care of himself, I believe, sir," he said.
"I need hardly have smacked Jarnley's head for bullying him the other
day."
"I know you did," said the other dryly, causing Haviland to stop short
with a half grin, as he reflected how precious little went on in the
school that Sefton didn't know.
"Well, he's got four hundred lines to get through now," went on the
latter. "I let Cetchy off with a hundred."
"I expect the other fellows made him go with them, sir," said Haviland.
"And he's hardly been here a week yet."
"If I let him off them, the other fellows'll take it out of him," said
Mr Sefton, who understood the drift of this remark.
"They'll do that anyhow, sir. But I've a notion they'll tire of it
before long."
So Anthony was called and made to give his version of the incident,
which he did in such manner as to convulse both master and prefect--and,
to his great delight, the imposition was remitted altogether.
"He's no end of an amusing chap that, sir," said Haviland when the
African boy had gone out. "He has all sorts of yarns about Zululand--
can remember about the war too. He's in my dormitory, you know, sir,
and he yarns away by the hour--"
The speaker broke off short and somewhat confusedly--as a certain
comical twinkle in Mr Sefton's eyes reminded him how guilelessly he was
giving himself away: for talking in the dormitories after a certain
time, and that rather brief, was strictly forbidden. Mr Sefton,
secretly enjoying his confusion, coughed dryly, but made no remark.
After all, _he_ was not Haviland's dormitory master.
"What a big fellow you're getting, Haviland!" he said presently. "I
suppose you'll be leaving us soon?"
"I hope not, sir, at least not for another couple of terms. Then I
expect I'll have to."
"You're not eager to, then?" eyeing him curiously.
"Not in the least."
"H'm! What are they going to make of you when you do leave?"
The young fellow's face clouded.
"Goodness only knows, sir. I suppose I'll have to go out and split
rails in the bush, or something about as inviting, or as paying."
"Well, I don't know that you'll be doing such a bad thing in that,
Haviland," rejoined Mr Sefton, "if by `splitting rails' you mean
launching out into some form of colonial life. But whatever it is
you've got to throw yourself into it heart and soul, but I should think
you'd do that from what I've seen of you here. At any rate, life and
its chances are all in front of you instead of half behind you, and
you've got to determine not to make a mess of it, as so many fellows do.
Well, I didn't come in here to preach you a sermon, so get along with
your lines and start clear again." And the kind-hearted disciplinarian
swung himself off the desk and departed, and with him nearly all the
rankling bitterness which had been corroding Haviland's mind. The
latter scribbled away with a will, and at length threw down his pen with
an ejaculation of relief.
Even then he could not go out until the lines had been shown up. The
next best thing was to look out, and so he climbed up to sit in the open
window. The fair English landscape stretched away green and golden in
the afternoon sunlight. The shrill screech of swifts wheeling overhead
mingled with the twittering of the many sparrows which rendered the
creepers clinging to the wall of the school buildings untidy with their
nests. Then the clear song of larks soaring above mead and fallow, and
farther afield the glad note of the cuckoo from some adjoining copse.
Boys were passing by twos and threes, and now and then a master going
for his afternoon stroll. Haviland, gazing out from his perch in the
window, found himself thinking over Mr Sefton's words. He supposed he
should soon be leaving all this, but didn't want to. He liked the
school: he liked the masters, except the Head perhaps, who seemed for no
reason at all to have a "down" on him. He liked the freedom allowed by
the rules outside school hours, and thoroughly appreciated his own post
of authority, and the substantial privileges it carried with it. A
voice from outside hailed him.
"Hi--Haviland! Done your impos yet?"
"Yes."
"Come with me after call-over. I've got a good thing. Owl's nest.
Must have two to get at it."
The speaker was one Corbould major, a most enthusiastic egg-hunter, and,
though not a prefect, a great friend of Haviland's by reason of being a
brother sportsman.
"Can't. I'm gated. Won't be able to take the lines up to Nick till
to-morrow."
"Why not try him in his study now? He's there, for I saw him go in--and
he's in a good humour, for he was grinning and cracking jokes with
Laughton and Medlicott. Try him, any way."
"All right," said Haviland, feeling dubious but desperate, as he climbed
down from the window.
It required some intrepidity to invade the redoubtable Head in his
private quarters, instead of waiting until he appeared officially in
public; however, as Corbould had divined, the great Panjandrum happened
to be in high good humour, and was graciously pleased to accept the
uttermost farthing, and release the prisoner then and there.
Half an hour later two enthusiastic collectors might have been seen,
speeding along a narrow lane at a good swinging, staying trot. A quick
glance all round, then over a stile and along a dry ditch skirting a
long high hedge. Another quick look round, and both were in a small
hazel copse. On the further side of this, in a field just outside it,
stood a barn. This was their objective.
Now, before leaving cover, they reconnoitred carefully and exhaustively.
The farmhouse to which the barn belonged stood but two fields off, and
they could distinctly hear the cackling of the fowls around it--and in
another direction they could see men working in the fields at no great
distance. Needless to say, the pair were engaged in an act of flagrant
trespass.
"That's all right so far," whispered Corbould major, as they stood
within the gloom of the interior, feebly illuminated by streaks of light
through the chinks. "There's the nest, up there, in that corner, and
you'll have to give me a hoist up to the beam from the other end. We
can't take it from this because there's a hen squatting on a lot of eggs
right underneath, and she'll kick up such a beastly row if we disturb
her."
A warning "cluck-cluck" proceeding from the fowl in question had already
caused Haviland something of a start. However, they were careful not to
alarm her, and she sat on. Meanwhile, Corbould had reached the beam,
and with some difficulty had drawn himself up and was now creeping along
it.
Haviland's heart was pulsating with excitement as he stood there in the
semi-gloom, watching his companion's progress, for the adventure was a
bold one, and the penalty of detection condign. Now a weird hissing
arose from the dark corner overhead, as Corbould, worming his way along
the beam, drew nearer and nearer to it, and then, and then, to him above
and to him below, it seemed that there came a hissing as of a thousand
serpents, a whirlwind of flapping wings, a gasp, a heavy fall, a crash,
and he who had been aloft on yonder beam now lay sprawling beneath it,
while the hen, which had saved itself as though by a miracle, was
dashing round and round the barn, uttering raucous shrieks of terror.
"You ass! You've done it now!" exclaimed Haviland, horror-stricken, as
he surveyed his chum, who, half-stupefied, was picking himself up
gingerly. And he had. For what he had "done" was to lose his hold and
tumble right slap on top of the sitting hen, or rather where that nimble
fowl had been a moment before, namely on the nest of eggs; and these
being in a state of semi-incubation, it followed that the whole back of
his jacket and trousers was in the most nauseous mess imaginable.
This was too much for Haviland, and, the peril of the situation
notwithstanding, he laughed himself into a condition that was abjectly
helpless.
"Shut up, Haviland, and don't be an ass, for heaven's sake! We must get
out of this!" cried Corbould. "Scrag that beastly fowl. It's giving
away the whole show!" And indeed such was likely to be the result, for
what with the owl hissing like a fury overhead, and the hen yelling
below, it seemed that the din should be heard for miles.
A hedge stake, deftly shied, silenced the latter, and this first act of
stern self-preservation accomplished, the second followed, viz.: to slip
cautiously forth, and make themselves remarkably scarce. This they
succeeded in doing. Luck favoured them, miraculously as it seemed, and,
having put a respectable distance between themselves and the scene of
the adventure, they made for a safe hiding-place where they could decide
on the next move, for it was manifestly impossible for Corbould to show
up in that state.
Snugly ensconced in a dry ditch, well overhung with brambles, they soon
regained wind after their exertions and excitement. But Haviland, lying
on the ground, laughed till he cried.
"If you could only have seen yourself, Corbould," he stuttered between
each paroxysm, "rising like Phoenix from the ashes! And that infernal
fowl waltzing round and round the barn squawking like mad, and the jolly
owl flapping and hissing up top there! O Lord, you'd have died!"
"We didn't get the eggs, though. Wouldn't have minded if we'd got the
eggs."
"Well, we won't get them now, for I don't suppose either of us'll be
such asses as to go near the place again this season after the to-do
there'll be when old Siggles discovers the smash up. It's a pity to
have done all that damage though, gets us a rottener name than ever."
"It couldn't. These beasts of farmers, it doesn't hurt them if we hunt
for nests. Yet they're worse than the keepers. _They_ have some
excuse, the brutes."
"How on earth were you such an ass as to come that cropper, Corbould?"
said the other, going off into a paroxysm again.
"Oh, it's all jolly fine, but what'd you have done with that beastly owl
flapping around your ears and trying to peck your eyes out? But I say.
What are we going to do about this?" showing the horrible mess his
clothes were in.
Both looked blank for a few moments. Then Haviland brightened.
"Eureka!" he cried. "We'll plaster you up with dry mud, and it you're
asked, you can swear you had a fall on your back. You did too, so
that'll be no lie."
The idea was a good one. By dint of rubbing in handfuls of dry earth,
every trace of the eggs, half-incubated as they were, was hidden. But
as far as further disturbance at the hands of these two counted for
anything the owl was allowed to hatch out its brood in peace. Not for
any consideration would they have attempted further interference with it
that season.