"Oh, all serene," said the secretary. "We'll start again."
"Owing to the asinine mulishness of S--H, and three between--"
"No--that won't do," said I, fiercely.
"Owing to the asinine mulishness of--" here the speaker pointed at me
with his thumb--"of the asinine mule in the chair--"
I was weak enough to let this pass, and the applause with which it was
received quite carried the secretary off his feet. When he got on them
again he resumed,--
"Jarman's guy was mulled all through. Even Trimble couldn't have made a
bigger mess of it."
Here Trimble mildly interposed, but Langrish, who had hooked one arm
through a ring in the side of the vessel, and had a firm grip with his
feet up against a rib in front of him, was inflexible.
"A bigger mess of it," he repeated, when at last he was free to proceed.
"It was stuck just under the grating of the gym., and was neatly blown
up by Jarman at 8:15 on November 2. The cost of the fireworks was four-
and-six, which the asinine mule, as it was his fault, is going to hand
over to the club, or know the reason why."
I said I would know the reason why. Whereupon a long Socratic argument
ensued.
"Do you mean to say it wasn't your fault?" demanded Langrish.
"I couldn't tell Jarman would drop his cigar down."
"But if you'd tried you couldn't have stuck him in a better place."
"That's what I thought. What have you got to growl at?"
"You offered to put it in a safe place."
"No, I didn't. I didn't want to have it at all."
"But you did have it; you can't deny that."
"No--but--"
"Hold on. And you stuck it there under the grating."
"Well, and if I did--"
"And that's how Jarman's cigar got on to it."
"Yes--but--"
"And that's how it blew up, wasn't it? You haven't the cheek to say
that wasn't the way it blew up?"
"Of course it was; only--"
"Therefore, if you hadn't stuck it there it wouldn't have blown up. You
can't deny that?"
"I don't say that. What I say--"
"Therefore, it was you who blew it up; and it's you've got to pay for
the fireworks, Q.E.D.; and if you don't shut up, young Sarah, you'll get
your face washed."
I felt I was the victim of a very one-sided argument, but the popular
verdict was so manifestly in favour of the secretary, that I was
constrained to allow the point to pass.
"--reason why," resumed Langrish. "There was a bit of a row, and the
doctor and some of the chaps were had up before the beak. We got on all
serene till a howling chimpanzee whose name is Sarah--"
"There you are again," said I. "I'll pay you now."
"What are you talking about? I never mentioned you--did I, you chaps?"
"Rather not," chimed in the Philosophers assembled.
"Of course," said Langrish, "if whenever you hear of a howling
chimpanzee you think you're being referred to, we can't help it, can
we?"
The cheers which greeted this unanswerable proposition convinced me I
had given myself away for once.
"--howling chimpanzee, whose name's Sarah, put in his oar and spoilt the
whole thing."
"If it hadn't been for me," protested I, "you'd none of you have been
there at all."
"The magistrate," proceeded Langrish, not heeding the interruption,
"treated him with the contempt he deserved, and gave him a caution which
he'll remember to the end of his days."
"I don't remember it now," I growled.
"Turn him out for interrupting," shouted the secretary.
"You'd better not try," snarled I, preparing to contest my seat. But
Langrish, eager to continue, went on,--
"The rest of us pulled Tempest through easy. If Trim hadn't dropped his
'h's,' and--"
Here there was a real row. Trim rose majestic and outraged, and hurled
himself on the secretary; and for a quarter of an hour at least, any
casual passer-by glancing at the apparently empty barge in mid-stream,
would have come to the conclusion that it was swaying from side to side
rather more violently than the force of the current seemed to warrant.
Trimble's "h's" took a long time to avenge, and by the time it was done
most of us were pretty much the colour of the coal-dust in which we had
searched for them.
Langrish was about to proceed with his luckless minutes when Warminster,
who had happened to peep above board for the sake of fresh air,
exclaimed,--
"Hullo, we're adrift!"
Instantly all hands were on board, and we discovered that our gallant
barge, probably during the last argument, had slipped her boathook at
the stern, and that the rope which held our prow had evidently been
slipped for us by a couple of youths wearing the town-boy ribbon, whom
we could descry at that moment strolling innocently up the towing-path,
apparently heedless of our existence.
The great lumbering barge was going down stream side on, about half-way
between either bank, at the breakneck speed of a mile an hour. We had
lost our boathook, and had nothing whatever to navigate our craft with.
Worst of all, at the end of the long reach, coming to meet us, we could
see another barge, towed by a horse, which could certainly never pass up
in safety.
We were in for it, and had evidently nothing to do but peer, with our
grimy faces over the gunwale, at our impending doom. About a hundred
yards off the men in charge of the opposition barge became aware of our
presence, and a hurried interchange of polite observations took place
between the skipper at the helm and the driver on the tow-path, the
result of which was that their tow-rope was cast off and hauled ashore;
and man and horse, accompanied by a dangerous-looking dog, advanced at a
quick pace to meet us.
The rope was hurriedly gathered up in a coil and thrown across our bows,
and we were invited to hitch the loop at the end over the hook on our
front thwart. The horse was then put in motion, and the downward career
of our ark suffered an abrupt check, as we found ourselves rudely lugged
in towards the bank.
The situation was an awkward one, for not only was the skipper of the
opposition barge landed, and awaiting us with an uncomplimentary
eagerness on the bank, but the driver, whip in hand, was standing beside
him, and the dog, showing his teeth, beside him.
"Kotched yer, are we?" said the former, with a deplorable profuseness of
unnecessary verbiage, as he jumped on board. "We tho't as much. Lend
me that there whip, Bill."
"You tip 'em over, Tom; I'll make 'em jump."
Escape was impossible. Our exits were in the hands of the enemy. We
made one feeble attempt to temporise.
"We're sorry," said I, in my capacity as spokesman. "We didn't know it
was your boat, really."
"You knows it now," said the proprietor. "Over you go, or I'll 'elp
yer."
What! was it a case of being pitched overboard? We looked round
desperately for hope, but there was none. We might by a concerted
action have tackled one man, but the other on the bank, with the whip
and the dog, was a formidable second line to carry. It needed all our
philosophy to sustain us in the emergency.
"Come, wake up," shouted the man. "'Ere, Tike, come!"
Whereupon, to our terror, the dog leapt up on to the barge, and jumped
yapping in our midst.
"T'other side, if _you_ please," said the bargee, as I prepared dismally
to take my header on the near side. "Wake 'im up, Tike!"
I needed no waking up; and giving myself up for lost, bounded to the
other side of the barge, and made a floundering jump overboard. Luckily
for us the Low Heathens could swim to a man, and if all that we were in
for was to swim round that hideous barge and get ashore, we should have
been easily out of it. But we had yet to reckon with the man and the
whip, who in his turn made every preparation to reckon with us.
I was the first to taste his mettle. He had me twice before I could get
clear, and I seem to feel it as I write. One by one the luckless and
dripping Philosophers ran the gauntlet of that fatal debarkation, which
was by no means alleviated by the opprobrious hilarity of our two
castigators and the delighted yappings of Tike.
At last it was all over, and, dripping and smarting, we collected our
shattered forces a quarter of a mile down the towing-path, and hastily
agreed that as a meeting-place for Philosophers a barge was not a
desirable place. It was further agreed, that if we could catch the day
boys who were the source of all our woes (for if our barge had not been
let adrift, we could have sheered off in time), we would do to them as
we had been done by.
By good or ill luck, we had scarcely arrived at this important decision
when a defiant shout from a little hill among the trees close by
apprised us that we were not the only occupants of the river bank; and
worse still, that whoever the strangers were, they must have been
witnesses of our recent misfortunes--a certainty which made us feel
anything but friendly.
"Who are they?" said Langrish.
"Suppose it's those Urbans," said Coxhead. "I heard they were going to
excavate somewhere this way."
"I vote we go and see," said Trimble, who was evidently smarting not a
little.
So we went and saw, and it was even as Coxhead had surmised; for as we
approached, shouts of--
"Who got licked with a whip?"
"What's the price of beauty?"
"Why don't you dry your clothes?" fell on our ears.
"Yah--we dare you to come down and have your noses pulled!" shouted we.
"We dare you to come up and have your hair curled!" shouted they.
We accepted the invitation, and stormed the hill. The battle was short
and sharp. We were fifteen to ten, and had a grievance. I found myself
engaged with Dicky Brown, who, though he did himself credit, was
hampered by a satchelful of stones, which he fondly hoped might turn out
to be fossils, on his back. I grieve to say I made mincemeat of Dicky
on this occasion. In a few minutes the hill was ours, and the enemy in
full retreat.
We remained a short time to celebrate our victory, and then adjourned to
the school, a little solaced in our spirits.
The day's troubles, however, were not over, for at the door of Sharpe's
house, reinforced by half a dozen recruits, stalked the Urbans,
thirsting for reprisals, and longing to wipe out scores.
Then ensued a notable battle. We failed to dislodge the enemy by a
forward attack, and for some time it seemed as if our flank movements
would be equally unsuccessful. At length, by a great effort, we
succeeded in cutting off a few of them from the main body, and were
applying ourselves to the task of annihilating the rest when Tempest
appeared on the scene.
He looked fagged and harassed, and was evidently not much interested in
our battle. A row was now too common a thing in Sharpe's to be an
event, and he allowed it to proceed with complete unconcern.
Just, however, as he was turning to enter the house, Mr Jarman came up.
It was almost the first time we had met officially since our encounter
in the magistrate's room, and as with one accord we ceased hostilities
and stared at him, one or two of the more audacious of our party
indulged in a low hiss.
"Come in, you fellows, at once," said Tempest, turning on his heel.
"Wait, you boys," said Mr Jarman, taking out his pencil. "Wait,
Tempest."
But Tempest did not wait, nor did we, but made a deliberate rush into
our house, and in less than a minute were safely stowed away in our
several studies, secure from all immediate arrest.
It was an act of open rebellion such as Sharpe's had not yet ventured
on. There was no excuse that any of us had not heard the order. We
had, and had disobeyed it. And in the present instance Tempest had
headed us. What would be the consequence?
We were not destined to know till next morning, when a notice appeared
on the board stating that Mr Sharpe's house having been reported for
riotous conduct and disobedience to orders, the head master would meet
the boys in the hall at eleven o'clock.