THE TRIPLE ALLIANCE
ITS TRIALS AND TRIUMPHS
By HAROLD AVERY
CONTENTS.
Chapter.
I. A NEW BOY,
II. THE PHILISTINES,
III. DISCOMFITURE OF THE PHILISTINES,
IV. THE SUPPER CLUB,
V. CATCHING A TARTAR,
VI. GUNPOWDER PLOT,
VII. RONLEIGH COLLEGE,
VIII. THIRD FORM ORATORY,
IX. A HOLIDAY ADVENTURE,
X. A SCREW LOOSE IN THE SIXTH,
XI. SHADOWS OF COMING EVENTS,
XII. THE WRAXBY MATCH,
XIII. THE ELECTIONS,
XIV. A PASSAGE OF ARMS,
XV. THE READING-ROOM RIOT,
XVI. THE CIPHER LETTER,
XVII. DIGGORY READS THE CIPHER,
XVIII. A SECRET SOCIETY,
XIX. A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS,
XX. SOWING THE WIND,
XXI. REAPING THE WHIRLWIND,
XXII. WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN?
CHAPTER I.
A NEW BOY.
"What's your name?"
"Diggory Trevanock."
The whole class exploded.
"Now, then," said Mr. Blake, looking up from his mark-book with a broad
grin on his own face--"now, then, there's nothing to laugh at.--Look
here," he added, turning to the new boy, "how d'you spell it?"
Instead of being at all annoyed or disconcerted at the mirth of his
class-mates, the youngster seemed rather to enjoy the joke, and
immediately rattled out a semi-humorous reply to the master's
question,--
"D I G, dig; G O R Y, gory--Diggory: T R E, tre; VAN, van; O C K,
ock--Trevanock." Then turning round, he smiled complacently at the
occupants of the desks behind, as much as to say: "There, I've done
all I can to amuse you, and I hope you're satisfied."
This incident, one of the little pleasantries occasionally permitted by
a class master, and which, like a judge's jokes in court, are always
welcomed as a momentary relief from the depressing monotony of the
serious business in hand--this little incident, I say, happened in the
second class of a small preparatory school, situated on the outskirts of
the market town of Chatford, and intended, according to the wording of a
standing advertisement in the _Denfordshire Chronicle_, "for the sons of
gentlemen."
This establishment, which bore the somewhat suggestive name of "The
Birches," was owned and presided over by Mr. Welsby, who, with an
unmarried daughter, Miss Eleanor, acting as housekeeper, and his
nephew, Mr. Blake, performing the duties of assistant-master, undertook
the preliminary education of about a dozen juveniles whose ages ranged
between ten and fourteen.
On the previous evening, returning from the Christmas holidays, exactly
twelve had mustered round the big table in the dining-room; no new
faces had appeared, and Fred Acton, a big, strong youngster of fourteen
and a half, was undisputed cock of the walk.
The school was divided into two classes. The first, containing the five
elder scholars, went to sit at the feet of Mr. Welsby himself; while the
second remained behind in what was known as the schoolroom, and received
instruction from Mr. Blake.
It was while thus occupied on the first morning of the term that the
lower division were surprised by the sudden appearance of a new boy.
Miss Eleanor brought him into the room, and after a few moments'
whispered conversation with her cousin, smiled round the class and then
withdrew. Every one worshipped Miss Eleanor; but that's neither here
nor there. A moment later Mr. Blake put the question which stands
at the commencement of this chapter.
The new-comer's answer made a favourable impression on the minds of his
companions, and as soon as the morning's work was over, they set about
the task of mutual introduction in a far more friendly manner than was
customary on these occasions. He was a wiry little chap, with bright
eyes, for ever on the twinkle, and black hair pasted down upon his head,
so as not to show the slightest vestige of curl, while the sharp,
mischievous look on his face, and the quick, comical movements of his
body, suggested something between a terrier and a monkey.
There was never very much going on in the way of regular sports or
pastimes at The Birches; the smallness of numbers made it difficult to
attempt proper games of cricket or football, and the boys were forced to
content themselves with such substitutes as prisoner's base, cross tag,
etc., or in carrying out the projects of Fred Acton, who was constantly
making suggestions for the employment of their time, and compelling
everybody to conform to his wishes.
Mr. Welsby had been a widower for many years; he was a grave, scholarly
man, who spent most of his spare time in his own library. Mr. Blake was
supposed to take charge out of school hours; he was, as every one said,
"a jolly fellow," and the fact that his popularity extended far and wide
among a large circle of friends and acquaintances, caused him to have a
good many irons in the fire of one sort and another. During their hours
of leisure, therefore, the Birchites were left pretty much to their own
devices, or more often to those of Master Fred Acton, who liked, as has
already been stated, to assume the office of bellwether to the little
flock.
At the time when our story commences the ground was covered with snow;
but Acton was equal to the occasion, and as soon as dinner was over,
ordered all hands to come outside and make a slide.
The garden was on a steep slope, along the bottom of which ran the brick
wall bounding one side of the playground; a straight, steep path lay
between this and the house, and the youthful dux, with his usual
disregard of life and limb, insisted on choosing this as the scene of
operations.
"What!" he cried, in answer to a feeble protest on the part of Mugford,
"make it on level ground? Of course not, when we've got this jolly hill
to go down; not if I know it. We'll open the door at the bottom, and go
right on into the playground."
"But how if any one goes a bit crooked, and runs up against the bricks?"
"Well, they'll get pretty well smashed, or he will. You must go
straight; that's half the fun of the thing--it'll make it all the more
exciting. Come on and begin to tread down the snow."
Without daring to show any outward signs of reluctance, but with
feelings very much akin to those of men digging their own graves before
being shot, the company set about putting this fearful project into
execution. In about half an hour the slide was in good working order,
and then the fun began.
Mugford, and one or two others whose prudence exceeded their valour,
made a point of sitting down before they had gone many yards, preferring
to take the fall in a milder form than it would have assumed at a later
period in the journey. To the bolder spirits, however, every trip was
like leading a forlorn hope, none expecting to return from the
enterprise unscathed. The pace was terrific: on nearing the playground
wall, all the events of a lifetime might have flashed across the memory
as at the last gasp of a drowning man; and if fortunate enough to whiz
through the doorway, and pull up "all standing" on the level stretch
beyond, it was to draw a deep breath, and regard the successful
performance of the feat as an escape from catastrophe which was nothing
short of miraculous. The unevenness of the ground made it almost
impossible to steer a straight course. A boy might be half-way down the
path, when suddenly he felt himself beginning to turn round; an agonized
look spread over his face; he made one frantic attempt to keep, as it
were, "head to the sea;" there was an awful moment when house, garden,
sky, and playground wall spun round and round; and then the little group
of onlookers, their hearts hardened by their own sufferings, burst into
a roar of laughter; while Acton slapped his leg, crying, "He's over!
What a stunning lark! Who's next?"
At the end of an hour and a half most of the company were temporarily
disabled, and even their chief had not escaped scot free.
"Now then for a regular spanker!" he cried, rushing at the slide.
A "spanker" it certainly was: six yards from the commencement his legs
flew from under him, he soared into the air like a bird, and did not
touch the ground again until he sat down heavily within twenty paces of
the bottom of the slope.
One might have supposed that this catastrophe would have somewhat damped
the sufferer's ardour; but instead of that he only seemed fired with a
fresh desire to break his neck.
He hobbled up the hill, and pausing for a moment at the top to take
breath, suddenly exclaimed, "Look here, I'm going down it on skates."
Every one stood aghast at this rash determination; but Acton hurried off
into the house, and soon returned with the skates. He sat down on a
bank, and was proceeding to put them on, when he discovered that,
by some oversight, he had brought out the wrong pair. "Bother it! these
aren't mine, they're too short; whose are they?"
"I think they're mine," faltered Mugford.
"Well, put 'em on."
"But I don't want to."
"But I say you must!"
"Oh! please, Acton, I really can't, I--"
"Shut up! Look here, some one's got to go down that slide on skates, so
just put 'em on."
It was at this moment that Diggory Trevanock stepped forward, and
remarked in a casual manner that if Mugford didn't wish to do it, but
would lend him the skates, he himself would go down the slide.
His companions stared at him in astonishment, coupled with which was a
feeling of regret: he was a nice little chap, and they had already begun
to like him, and did not wish to see him dashed to pieces against the
playground wall before their very eyes. Acton, however, had decreed
that "some one had got to go down that slide on skates," and it seemed
only meet and right that if a victim had to be sacrificed it should be a
new boy rather than an old stager.
"Bravo!" cried the dux; "here's one chap at least who's no funk.
Put 'em on sharp; the bell 'll ring in a minute."
Several willing hands were stretched out to assist in arming Diggory for
the enterprise, and in a few moments he was assisted to the top of the
slide.
"All right," he said; "let go!"
The spectators held their breath, hardly daring to watch what would
happen. But fortune favours the brave. The adventurous juvenile rushed
down the path, shot like an arrow through the doorway, and the next
instant was seen ploughing up the snow in the playground, and eventually
disappearing head first into the middle of a big drift.
His companions all rushed down in a body to haul him out of the snow.
Acton smacked him on the back, and called him a trump; while Jack Vance
presented him on the spot with a mince-pie, which had been slightly
damaged in one of the donor's many tumbles, but was, as he remarked,
"just as good as new for eating."
From that moment until the day he left there was never a more popular
boy at The Birches than Diggory Trevanock.
"I say," remarked Mugford, as they met a short time later in the
cloak-room, "that was awfully good of you to go down the slide instead
of me; what ever made you do it?"
"Well," answered the other calmly, "I thought it would save me a lot of
bother if I showed you fellows at once that I wasn't a muff. I don't
mind telling you I was in rather a funk when it came to the start; but
I'd said I'd do it, and of course I couldn't draw back."
The numerous stirring events which happened at The Birches during the
next three terms, and which it will be my pleasing duty to chronicle in
subsequent chapters, gave the boys plenty of opportunity of testing the
character of their new companion, or, in plainer English, of finding out
the stuff he was made of; and whatever his other faults may have been,
this at least is certain, that no one ever found occasion to charge
Diggory Trevanock with being either a muff or a coward.
One might have thought that the slide episode would have afforded
excitement enough for a new boy's first day at school; yet before it
closed he was destined to be mixed up in an adventure of a still
more thrilling character.
The Birches was an old house, and though its outward appearance was
modern enough, the interior impressed even youthful minds with a feeling
of reverence for its age. The heavy timbers, the queer shape of some of
the bedrooms and attics, the narrow, crooked passages, and the little
unexpected flights of stairs, were all things belonging to a bygone age,
of which the pupils were secretly proud, and which caused them to
remember the place, and think of it at the time, as being in some way
different from an ordinary school.
"I say, Diggy," exclaimed Jack Vance, addressing the new boy by the
friendly abbreviation, which seemed by mutual consent to have been
bestowed upon him in recognition of his daring exploit--"I say, Diggy,
you're in my bedroom: there's you, and me, and Mugford. Mug's an awful
chump, but he's a good-natured old duffer, and you and I'll do the
fighting."
"What do you mean?"
"Why, sometimes when Blake is out spending the evening, and old Welsby
is shut up in his library, the different rooms make raids on one
another. It began the term before last. Blake had been teaching us all
about how the Crusaders used to go out every now and then and make war
in Palestine, and so the fellows on the west side of the house called
themselves the Crusaders, and we were Infidels, and they'd come over and
rag us, and we should drive them back. Miss Eleanor came up one night,
and caught us in the middle of a battle. O Diggy, she is a trump!
Blake asked her next day before us all which boys had been out on the
landing, because he meant to punish them; and she laughed, and said:
'I'm sure I can't tell you. Why, when I saw they were all in their
night-shirts, I shut my eyes at once!' Of course it was all an excuse
for not giving us away. She doesn't mind seeing chaps in their
night-shirts when they're ill, we all know that; and once or twice
when for some reason or other she told us on the quiet that there
mustn't be any disturbance that evening, no one ever went crusading--
Acton would have licked them if they had. Acton's going to propose to
Miss Eleanor some day, he told us so, and--"
"But what about the bedrooms?" interrupted Diggory; "have you given up
having crusades?"
"Yes, but we have other things instead. We call our rooms by different
names, and it's all against all; one lot come and make a raid on you,
and then you go and pay them out. This term Kennedy and Jacobs sleep in
the room above ours, and next to the big attic. They're always reading
sea stories, and they call their room the 'Main-top,' because it's so
high up. Then at the end of the passage are Acton, Shaw, and Morris,
and they're the 'House of Lords;' and next to them is the 'Dogs' Home,'
where all the other fellows are put."
A few hours later Diggory and his two room-mates were standing at the
foot of their beds and discussing the formation of a few simple rules
for conducting a race in undressing, the last man to put the candle out.
"You needn't bother to race," said Mugford; "I'll do it--I'm sure to be
the last."
"No, you aren't," answered Vance. "We'll give you coat and waistcoat
start; it'll be good fun--"
At this moment the door was suddenly flung open, two half-dressed
figures sprang into the room, and discharged a couple of snowballs
point-blank at its occupants. One of the missiles struck Diggory on the
shoulder, and the other struck Mugford fair and square on the side of
the head, the fragments flying all over the floor. There was a subdued
yell of triumph, the door was slammed to with a bang, and the muffled
sound of stockinged feet thudding up the neighbouring staircase showed
that the enemy were in full retreat.
"It's those confounded Main-top men!" cried Jack Vance; "I will pay them
out. I wonder where the fellows got the snow from?"
"Oh, I expect they opened the window and took it off the ledge,"
answered Diggory. "Look here--let's sweep it up into this piece of
paper before it melts."
This having been done, the three friends hastily threw off their clothes
and scrambled into bed, forgetting all about the proposed race in their
eagerness to form some plan for an immediate retaliation on the
occupants of the "Main-top."
"I wonder if they'll hear anything of the ghost again this term?" said
Mugford,
"What ghost?" asked Diggory.
"Oh, it's nothing really," answered Vance; "only somebody said once
that the house is haunted, and Kennedy and Jacobs say the ghost must be
in the big attic next their room. They hear such queer noises sometimes
that they both go under the bed-clothes."
"Do they always do that?"
"Yes, so they say, whenever there is a row."
"Well, then," said Diggory, "I'll tell you what we'll do: we'll go very
quietly up into that attic, and groan and knock on the wall until you
think they've both got their heads well under the clothes, and then
we'll rush in and bag their pillows, or drag them out of bed, or
something of that sort. You aren't afraid to go into the attic, are
you?" he continued, seeing that the others hesitated. "Why, of course
there are no such things as ghosts. Or, look here, I'll go in, and
you can wait outside."
"N--no, I don't mind," answered Vance; "and it'll be an awful lark
catching them with their heads under the clothes."
"All right, then, let's do it; though I suppose we'd better wait till
every one's in bed."
The last suggestion was agreed upon, and the three friends lay talking
in an undertone until the sound of footsteps and the gleam of a candle
above the door announced the fact that Mr. Blake was retiring to rest.
"He's always last," said Vance; "we must give him time to undress, and
then we'll start."
A quarter of an hour later the three boys, in semi-undress, were
creeping in single file up the narrow staircase.
"Be careful," whispered Vance; "there are several loose boards, and they
crack like anything."
The small landing was reached in safety, and the moon, shining faintly
through a little skylight formed of a single pane of glass, enabled them
to distinguish the outline of two doors.
Now it was a very different matter, when lying warm and snug in bed, to
talk about acting the ghost, from what it was, when standing shivering
in the cold and darkness, to put the project into execution. During the
period of waiting the conversation had turned on haunted houses, and no
one seemed particularly anxious to claim as it were the post of honour,
and be the first to enter the big attic.
"Go on!" whispered Mugford, nudging Vance.
"Go on!" repeated the latter, giving Diggory's arm a gentle push.
The new boy had certainly undertaken to play the part of the ghost, and
there was no excuse for his backing out of it at the last moment.
"All right," he muttered, "I'll go."
Just then a terrible thing happened. Diggory clutched the door-knob as
though it were the handle of a galvanic battery, while Mugford and Vance
seized each other by the arm and literally gasped for breath.
The stillness had been broken by a slight sound, as of something falling
inside the attic, and this was followed a moment later by a shrill,
unearthly scream.
For five seconds the three companions stood petrified with horror, not
daring to move; then followed another scream, if anything more horrible
than the last, and accompanied this time by the clanking rattle of a
chain being dragged across the floor.
That was enough. Talk about a _sauve qui peut_! the wonder is that any
one survived the stampede which followed. The youngsters turned and
flew down the stairs at break-neck speed, and hardly had they started
when the door of the "Main-top" was flung open, and its two occupants
rushed down after them. As though to ensure the retreat being nothing
less than a regular rout, Mugford, who was leading, missed his footing
on the last step, causing every one to fall over him in turn, until all
five boys were sprawling together in a mixed heap upon the floor.
Freeing themselves with some little difficulty from the general
entanglement, they rose to their feet, and after surveying each other
for a moment in silence, gave vent to a simultaneous ejaculation of
"_The ghost_!"
"What were you fellows doing up there?" asked Kennedy.
"Why, we came up to have a joke with you," answered Vance; "but just
when we got up to the landing, it--it made that noise!"
There was the sound of the key turning in the lock of Mr. Blake's door.
"_Cave_!" whispered Mugford.
"Tell him about it," added Vance; and giving Diggory a push, they all
three darted into their room just as the master emerged from his,
arrayed in dressing-gown and slippers.
"Now, then," exclaimed the latter, holding his candle above his head,
and peering down the passage, "what's the meaning of this disturbance?
I thought the whole house was falling down.--Come here, you two, and
explain yourselves!"
"Please, sir," answered Kennedy and Jacobs in one breath, "it's the
ghost!"
"The ghost! What ghost? What d'you mean?"
The two "Main-top" men began a hasty account of the cause of their
sudden fright, taking care, however, to make no mention of the three
hostile visitors who had shared in the surprise.
Mr. Blake listened to their story in silence, then all at once he burst
out laughing, and without a word turned on his heel and went quickly
upstairs. He entered the attic, and in about half a minute they heard
him coming back.
"Ha, ha! I've got your ghost; I've been trying to lay him for some time
past."
The jingle of a chain was distinctly audible; Mr. Blake was evidently
bringing the spectre down in his arms! Diggory and Vance could no
longer restrain their curiosity; they hopped out of bed and glanced
round the corner of the door. The master held in his hand a rusty old
gin, the iron jaws of which were tightly closed upon the body of an
enormous rat.
"There's a monster for you!" he said; "I think it's the biggest I ever
saw. He'd carried the trap, chain and all, right across the room, but
that finished him; he was as dead as a stone when I picked him up.
Now get back to bed; I should think you're both nearly frozen."
Diggory and Jack Vance followed the advice given to Kennedy and Jacobs,
and did so rather sheepishly. They felt they had been making tools of
themselves; yet it would never have done to own to such a thing.
"What a lark!" said the new boy, after a few moments' silence.
"Wasn't it!" returned Jack Vance; "it's the best joke I've had for a
long time. But we didn't pay those fellows out for throwing those
snowballs; we must do it some other night. And now we three must swear
to be friends, and stand by each other against all the world, and
whatever happens. What shall we call our room?"
"I know," answered Diggory: "we'll call it 'The Triple Alliance!'"