AFTERWARDS
But Wheeler's first observation brought them back to _terra firma_
with a plunge.
"It's my belief that fellow's a howling madman."
They cast a look over their shoulder to see if the fellow thus
referred to was within hearing of this courteous speech, and then,
with one accord, they made for the entrance to Washington Villa, not
pausing till they stood clear of its precincts on the road outside.
Then Wheeler made another observation.
"This is a jolly lark!"
Ellis and Griffin laughed, but Bailey held his peace. A thought struck
Griffin.
"I say, I wonder what old Mother Fletcher'll say? She'll send herself
into fits! Fancy its being eleven o'clock! Did you ever hear of such a
set-out in all your lives? And I've no more idea of where we are than
the man in the moon."
"I know," said Bailey. He began to trudge on a few feet in front of
them.
It still rained--a steady, soaking drizzle--and a haze which hung
about the air made the night darker than it need have done. Griffin
and Wheeler, minus caps, were wholly at the mercy of the weather.
"I shouldn't be surprised," muttered Griffin, "if I didn't catch a
death of cold after this."
And, indeed, such was a quite possible consummation of the evening's
pleasure. The boys trudged on, following Bailey's lead. But Wheeler's
feelings could only find relief by venting themselves in speech.
"Did you ever hear anything like that chap? I never did, never! Fancy
his going on with all that stuff about running away. I should like to
catch myself at it,--running away! He's about the biggest liar ever I
heard!"
"And didn't he snap me up!" said Griffin. "Did you ever see anything
like it? How was I to know where the beastly place was? I don't
believe there is such a place."
"He's cracked!" decided Ellis. Then, despite the rain, the young
gentleman began snapping his fingers and cutting capers in the middle
of the muddy road. "He's cracked! cracked! Oh lor', I never had such a
spree in all my life!"
Then the three young gentlemen put their hands to their sides and
roared with laughter, stamping about the road to save themselves from
choking. But Bailey trudged steadily on in front.
"And didn't he give us a blow-out!"
A shout of laughter. "Ho, ho, ho! ha, ha, ha!"
"And didn't he tell some busters!"
Another chorus, as before.
"I wonder if he ever did run away himself, as he said he did?" This
remark came from Ellis, and his friends checked their laughter to
consider it. They then for the first time discovered that Bailey was
leaving them in the rear.
"You're a nice sort of fellow," shouted Ellis after him. "Let's catch
him up! What's his little game, I wonder? Let's catch him up!"
They scampered after him along the road, soon catching him, for
Bertie, who was not hurrying himself, was only a few yards in advance.
Ellis slipped his arm through his.
"I say, Bailey, do you think he ever ran away from school himself?"
"What's it got to do with me?" was Bertie's reply.
"Whatever made him go on at you like that? He must have taken you for
a ninny to think you were going to swallow all he said! Fancy you
running away! I think I see you at it! Running away to Huffham's and
back is about your style. Why didn't you ask him for a tip? He seemed
to be so uncommon fond of you that if I'd been you I'd have asked for
one. You might have said if he made it large enough you'd run away;
and so you might have done--to old Mother Huffham's and back." And
Ellis nudged him in the side and laughed. But Bailey held his peace.
Wheeler gave the conversation a different turn.
"How are you fellows going to get in?" He referred to their effecting
an entrance into Mecklemburg House.
"Knock at the door, of course, and pull the bell, and dance a
break-down on the steps, and make a shindy generally, so as to let
'em know we've come." These suggestions came from Griffin. Wheeler
took up the parable.
"And tell old Mother Fletcher to let us have something hot for supper,
and to look alive and get it, and make it tripe and onions, with a
glass of stout to follow. I just fancy what she'd say."
"And tell her," continued Griffin, "that we've been paying a visit to
a nice, kind gentleman, who happens to be raving mad."
"And she'd be pleased to hear that he advised us all to run away, and
waste no time about it. Where did he advise us to go to? The land of
golden dreams? Oh, my crikey, don't I see her face!"
Bailey made a remark of a practical kind.
"We can get in fast enough, there are always plenty of windows open."
It is not impossible that the young gentleman had made an entrance
into Mecklemburg House by some such way before.
"It's easy enough to get in," said Ellis, "but what are we to say in
the morning? It'll take about a week to dry my things, and about a
month to get the mud off."
"I shouldn't be surprised if old Shane got sacked," chuckled Wheeler.
"It will be jolly hard lines if he does," said Ellis.
"Oh, what's the odds? he shouldn't have let us go!" Which remark of
Wheeler's was pretty good, considering the circumstances under which
Mr. Shane's permission had been obtained.
Just then Bailey stopped, and began to peer about him in the night.
"Have you lost your way?" asked Ellis. "That'll be the best joke of
all if you have. Fancy camping out a night like this! We shan't quite
be drowned by the morning, but just about almost."
"I'm going to cut across this field," said Bailey. "It's ever so far
round by the road, but we shall get there in less than no time if we
go this way."
The suggestion tickled Ellis.
"Fancy cutting across fields on a night like this! Oh, my gracious!
what will old Mother Fletcher say?"
Bailey climbed over a gate, and the others clambered after him. It
might be the shortest cut, but it was emphatically the dirtiest.
"Why, if they haven't been ploughing it!" cried Griffin, before they
had taken half a dozen steps.
Apparently they had, and very recently too. The furrows were wide and
deep, the soil seemed to be a stiffish clay; walking was exercise of
the most hazardous kind. There was an exclamation from some one; but
as it appeared that Griffin had only fallen forward on to his nose,
his friends were too much occupied with their own proceedings to pay
much heed.
"I have lost my shoe!" declared Wheeler, immediately after. "Oh, I'm
stuck in the mud; I believe I'm planted in this beastly field."
"Never mind your shoe, since you've lost your hat already," said
Ellis, with ready sympathy. "You might as well leave all the rest of
your things behind you, for all the use they'll be after this little
spree is over."
"I don't know what Bailey calls a short cut," grumbled Griffin. "At
the rate I'm going it'll take me about a couple of hours to do a
hundred yards."
"We shall be home with the milk," said Ellis.
"I've lost my other shoe!" cried Wheeler.
"No, have you really, though?"
"I believe I have, but I don't know whether I have or whether I
haven't; all I know is, I've got about a hundred pounds of mud
sticking to my feet. I wish Bailey was at Jericho with his short
cuts!"
"This is nicer than that old lunatic," sang out Dick Ellis. "Don't I
wish old Mother Fletcher could see us now."
"I don't know what you call nice," said Griffin. "You'd call it nice
if you had your eyes and nose and mouth bunged up. I'm down again!"
"You needn't pull me with you," remonstrated Ellis.
But Griffin did. Feeling that he was going, he made a frantic clutch
at Ellis, who was just in front of him, and the two friends embraced
each other on the treacherous ground. Ellis' tone underwent a sudden
change.
"I'll pay you out for this!"
"I couldn't help it," protested Griffin.
"Couldn't help it! What do you mean, you couldn't help it? Do you mean
to say you couldn't help catching hold of me, and dragging me down
into this beastly ditch?"
"It isn't a ditch; it's a furrow."
"I don't know what you call a furrow. I know I'm sopping wet, and
where my hat's gone to I don't know."
"What's it matter about your hat? I've lost mine ever so long ago! I
wish I'd stopped at home, and never bothered old Shane to let me out.
I know whoever else calls this a spree, I don't; spree indeed!"
When they had regained their feet, and were cool enough to look about
them, they found that the others were out of sight, and apparently out
of hearing too.
"Blessed if this isn't a go! If they haven't been and gone and left
us. Hollo!" Ellis put his hand to his mouth, that his voice might
carry further; but no answer came. "Ba-a-ailey! Ba-a-ailey!" But from
Bailey came no sign. "This is a pretty state of things! wherever have
they gone? If this is a game they think they're having, it's the
meanest thing of which I ever heard, and I'll be even with them, mark
my words. Which way did they go?"
"How should I know? I don't even know which way we came. How's a
fellow to know anything when he can't see his hand before his face in
a place like this? It's my belief it's one of Bailey's little games."
"Ba-a-ailey!" Ellis gave another view-halloo. In vain, only silence
answered. "Well, this is a go! If it hadn't been for you I shouldn't
have been in this hole."
"I wish I'd never bothered old Shane to let me out!"
"Bother old Shane, and bother you too! I don't know where I am any
more than Adam."
"I'm sure I don't."
"It's no good standing here like a couple of moon-struck donkeys. I
sink in the mud every time I put my foot to the ground; we shall be
over head and heels by the time the morning comes. I'm going straight
ahead; it must bring us somewhere, and it seems to me it don't much
matter where."
Minus his hat, not improved in person by his contact with the ground,
nor in temper by the desertion of his friends, Dick Ellis renewed his
journeying. Griffin found some difficulty in keeping up with him. How
many times they lost their footing during the next few minutes it
would be bootless to recount. Over mud, through mire, uphill,
downhill, they staggered wildly.
"I wonder how large this field is," observed Ellis, after about ten
minutes of this sort of work. "It seems to me we've gone about six
miles."
"It seems to me we've gone sixty," groaned his friend.
"Talk about short cuts! Fancy bringing a fellow into the middle of a
ploughed field on a pitch-dark, rainy night, and leaving him to find
his way alone! I say, Ellis, supposing we lose our way?"
"Supposing we lose our way!" shouted Dick. "I guess we've lost it!
What an ass you are! What do you think we're doing here, if we haven't
lost our way? Do you think I'd stop in a place like this if I knew a
way of getting out of it?" Just then he emphasized his remarks by
sitting down in the mud, and remaining seated where he was. "I can't
get up; I believe I'm stuck, and here I'll stick; and in the morning
they'll find me dead: you mark my words, and see if they don't."
The terror of the situation moved Griffin almost to tears.
"Let's shout," he said.
"What's the good of shouting?"
"I don't know," said Griffin.
"Then what an ass you are!" With difficulty Ellis staggered to his
feet. "It's my belief I've got about an acre of land fastened to the
seat of my breeches. I should like to know how I'm to walk and carry
that about."
They staggered on. A few yards further on they heard the sound of
wheels upon a road.
"There's the road!" cried Griffin, rapture in his voice. The sound
gave him courage. He quickened his pace, and hastened on. Suddenly
there was a splash, a cry of terror, then all was silence.
"What's the matter?" cried Ellis, startled he scarcely knew at what.
There was no reply. "Griffin, where are you? What's the matter?"
There was a sound as of a splashing of water, and a stifled voice
exclaimed,--
"Help! I am drowning! He-elp!"
Ellis pulled up short, and only just in time, for the ground seemed
all at once to come to an end. He stood on the edge of a declivity,
and in front of him was he knew not what. It was so dark, he could not
see his hand in front of him. There was only the sound as of some one
struggling in water, and faint cries for help. For an instant his legs
seemed to refuse their office, his knees gave way from under him, and
his tongue clave to the roof of his mouth. Then he became conscious of
wheels moving along a road which was close at hand. The sound gave him
courage, and he shouted with the full force of his lungs,--
"Help! help!"
To his intense satisfaction, an immediate answer was returned.
"Hollo!" a gruff voice replied; "who's that a-calling?"
"I!--here!--in the field! There's some one drowning."
"Hold hard! I'll bring you a light."
A moment's pause; then in front of him a light was seen dimly
approaching through the night. Never before had a light been so
heartily welcome to Master Richard Ellis.
"Where are you?"
"Here! Take care where you're coming; there's a pond, or something,
just in front of you."
The new-comer approached, keeping a wary eye upon the ground as he
advanced. Ellis saw it was a carter, and that he carried an
old-fashioned round lantern in his hand, with a lighted candle stuck
in the socket. The carter held the lantern above his head, standing
still, and peering through the night. The man was visible to the boy,
but the boy, shrouded in the blackness of the night, was invisible to
the man.
"Where are you?" he asked, seeing nothing in the gloom.
"Never mind me; Griffin's drowning in a pond, or something."
The splashing continued.
"I'm drowning! He-elp!"
The carter stooped forward, so that the light fell on the ground. Then
Ellis perceived that between the man and himself was a little pond,
into which the over-anxious Griffin had managed to fall.
"There ain't no water there," said the carter. "Where are you? Come
out of it. There ain't enough water to drown a cat."
Griffin, perceiving that the fact was as the carter stated, proceeded
to betake himself to what was, in comparison, dry land. But though not
drowned, a more pitiable sight could scarcely be presented. He had
fallen head-foremost into the filthy pool; the water was trickling
down his head and face, and his countenance was plastered with an
unsavoury coating of green slime.
"What are you? a boy?" inquired the carter. "Well, you're a pretty
sight, anyhow!"
For answer Griffin burst into tears. Ellis, who had by this time found
his way round the pond, joined in the criticism of his friend.
"Well, I am blessed!" In spite of his own plight, he was almost moved
to mirth. "Won't old Mother Fletcher take it out of you! I wouldn't be
in your shoes for a pound."
"Who's she? and who are you?" asked the carter.
"Have you ever heard of Mecklemburg House?"
"What, the school? Be you from the school? Well, you're a pretty
couple, the pair of you. What little game are you up to now--running
away? Won't they lay it into you!" The carter grinned; he was not
aware that corporal punishment was interdicted at Mecklemburg House,
and already seemed to see the "laying in" in his mind's eye.
"We--weren't running--away!" wept Griffin. "We've lost our way."
"Lost your way! Well, I never! That's a good one!" The carter seemed
to doubt the statement.
"We have lost our way," said Ellis.
"Look here! for a couple of pins I'll take you by the scruff of your
necks and walk you back myself, if you come any of your games on me."
From his tone and manner the carter seemed to be indignant. Griffin
stared--as well as he could through his tears and the slime--and Ellis
stared, being both at a loss to understand his indignation.
"Coming with your tales to me, telling me you've lost your way, with
the school just across the road."
His hearers stared still more.
"You don't mean it?" Ellis said. "Why, if--I don't believe--why, if
this isn't old Palmer's field, which he was only ploughing yesterday,
and if you haven't tumbled into old Palmer's pond! Well, if we aren't
a couple of beauties!"
Griffin stared at Ellis, and the carter stared at both of them. The
fact was beginning to dawn upon these young gentlemen, the startling
fact, that they had been all the time in a country with every inch of
which they were acquainted, and that it was only the darkness which
had confused them. As the carter had said, Palmer's field--which was
the name by which it was known to the boys--was right in front of
Mecklemburg House, and, in consequence, the school, instead of being,
as they supposed, a mile or so away, was just across the road. When
they had fully realized this fact, the young gentlemen gave a
simultaneous yell of satisfaction, and without wasting any time in
compliments and thanks, dashed through the open gate, and out of
sight, leaving the carter to the enjoyment of his own society.
"Well," was the comment of that worthy, when he perceived the full
measure of ingratitude which was entailed by this unlooked-for flight,
"if I ever helps another being out of a ditch I'll let him know. Not
even the price of half a pint!" Then he shouted after them, "I hope
the schoolmeaster'll tan the hide from off you. I would if I were
him."
Possibly the expression of this pious wish in some degree relieved his
feelings, for he followed the boys, though at a much more decorous
pace, through the gate. When he reached the road, he stopped for a
moment and looked around him, but there were no signs of any one in
sight--the birds had flown. So, muttering beneath his breath what were
probably not blessings, he returned to his charge, a huge vehicle,
drawn by four perspiring horses, and which was loaded with market
produce. Climbing up to his seat, he started his horses and continued
his journey through the night. But though he was not aware of it, the
young gentlemen who had treated him with such ingratitude had not come
to the end of their adventure.
The front gate of Mecklemburg House stood wide open, and they
unhesitatingly dashed inside. But no sooner were they in the
grass-grown courtyard than a thought struck Griffin.
"I wonder if Bailey and Wheeler have come back?"
"I don't know, and I don't care," said Ellis.
But the interchange of speech brought them back to the sense of their
situation.
"How are you going to get in?" asked Griffin.
"Through the schoolroom window; it's always open," replied his friend.
But this always was a rule liable to exceptions, for on this occasion
the particular window referred to happened to be shut. However, to
understand all that was to follow, it is necessary to bring this
chapter to an end.