"When I was out in Colorado, at Denver City, there was a boy came along, just about your age; he came along from away down East. He was English; he'd got himself stowed away, and he'd made his way to the promised land. He took a spade one day, and he marked out a claim, and that boy he worked it, he did, and it turned up trumps; there wasn't any dirt to dig, because pretty nearly all that his spade turned up was virgin silver. He sold that claim for 10,000 dollars, money down, and he went on and prospered. That boy is now a man; he owns, I daresay, half a dozen silver mines, and he's so rich, – ah, he's so rich he doesn't know how rich he is. Now why shouldn't you have been that boy?"
Mr. Bankes paused for a reply, but his listeners furnished none. Griffin was on the point of suggesting that Bailey was not that boy because he wasn't; but he refrained, thinking that perhaps that was not quite the sort of answer that was wanted.
"I knew another boy when I was going up from the coast to Kimberley, Griqualand West. Do you boys know where that is?"
This sudden plunge into geographical examination took his guests aback; they did not know where Griqualand West was; perhaps they had been equally misty as to the whereabouts of Denver City, Colorado.
"It's in South Africa. Ah, that's the way to learn geography, to travel about and see the places, – pitch your books into the fire!"
"And is the other place in South Africa?" queried Griffin.
Mr. Bankes gave him a look the like of which he had never received from Mr. Fletcher; a look of thunder, as though he would have liked to pick him up, then and there, and pitch him after the books into the fire.
"Denver City, Colorado, in South Africa?" he roared. "Why, you leather-headed noodle, where were you at school? If I were the man who taught you, I'd flog you from here to Dublin with a cat-o'-nine-tails, rather than I'd let you expose your ignorance like that!"
The sudden advent among them of an explosive bomb might have created a little more astonishment than this speech, but not much. Griffin felt that he had better abstain from questioning, and let his host run on.
"Denver City is in the United States of America, in the land of the stars and bars, as every idiot knows! As I was saying, before that young gentleman wrote himself down donkey-and he looks it, every inch of him! – as I was saying, when I was going up from the coast to Kimberley, there was a boy who used to do odd jobs for me; he hadn't sixpenny-worth of clothes upon his back! I lost sight of him; five years afterwards I met him again. It was like a tale out of the Arabian Nights, I tell you! That ragged boy that was, when I saw him again five years afterwards, he reckoned to cover what any half-dozen men might have put down, and double it afterwards. And look at the life he'd led! It's no good my talking about it here, you'd hardly believe me if I told you half the things he'd done. Don't you believe any of your adventure books. There aren't half the adventures crowded into any book which that lad had seen. Yes, a life of adventure was the life for him, and he'd had it, too!"
Mr. Bankes returned to his post of vantage in front of the fire. In his excitement he had smoked his pipe to premature ashes; he refilled and lighted it. Then he addressed himself to Bailey, marking time as he went on by beating the palm of his right hand against his left.
"I say, don't let a day be wasted-days lost are not recovered; now's your time, and now's your opportunity; don't let the week's end find you huggermuggering in that old school. Go out into the world! learn to be a man! Try your courage! Put your powers to the test! Search for the golden land! Let a life of adventure be the life for you! As for you," Mr. Bankes turned with ominous suddenness towards Charlie Griffin, "I don't say that to you; what I say to you is this: write home to your mother for a good supply of flannel petticoats, and wrap yourself up warm, and let your hair grow long, and take care of your complexion. You're a beauty boy, one of the sort who didn't ought to be trusted out after dark alone, and who's sure to have a fit if he sees the moon!"
It is a question if this sudden change of subject made Griffin or his friends the more uncomfortable. Thinking that Mr. Bankes intended a joke, and that it would be ungrateful not to laugh, Ellis attempted a snigger; but a sudden gleam from his host's eyes in his direction brought his mirth to an untimely ending.
"What are you laughing at?" asked Mr. Bankes. Ellis kept silence, being most unwilling to confess that he did not know. Mr. Bankes addressed himself again to Bailey.
"It is you I am advising to do as I did, to try a fall with the world and to back yourself to win, not such things as those."
Under this heading he included Bertie's three friends, with an eloquent wave of his hand in their direction.
"It wants a boy to make a man, not a farthing sugar stick! You'll have cause to bless this evening all your life, and to bless me, too, if you take the tip I've given you. Don't you listen to those who talk to you about the hardships you will meet. What's life without hardships, I should like to know; it's hardships make the man! I'm not advising you to wrap yourself up in cotton-wool; leave cotton-wool to mutton-headed dummies;" this with a significant glance in the direction of Bailey's friends. "Rather I tell you this, you back yourself to fight, and fight it out, and fight to win, and win you will! Run away to-night, to-morrow, I don't care when, so long as it's within the week. There's nothing like striking the iron while it's hot, and set the clock a-going which will never stop until it strikes the hour of victory won and fortune made! A life of adventure's the life for me, and it's the life for you, and the sooner you begin it the longer it will last and the sweeter it will be."
There was something in Mr. Bankes' tone and manner, when he chose to put it there, which, in the eyes of his present audience, at any rate, had all the effect of natural eloquence. His excitement excited them, and almost he persuaded them to believe in the reality of his golden dreams. Bailey, indeed, sat silent, spellbound. Mr. Bankes, by no means a bad judge of character, had not mistaken the metal of which the boy was made, and every stroke he struck, struck home. As was not unnatural, Mr. Bankes' eloquence had a very much more mixed effect on Bailey's friends. Their host gave a sudden turn to their thoughts by taking out his watch.
"Eleven o'clock! whew-w-w!" This was a whistle. "They'll think you've run away already! Ha! ha! ha! I'm not going to have you boys sleep here, so the sooner you go the better. Now then, out you go!"
His guests sprang to their feet as he made a movement as though he would turn them out with as much precipitation as he had lifted them into the trap. And, indeed, the manner of their departure was not much more ceremonious. Before they quite knew what was happening, he had hustled them into the hall; the hall-door was open; they were the other side of it, and Mr. Bankes, standing on the doorstep, was ordering them off his premises.
"Now then, clear out of this! The dogs will be loose in half a second; you'd better make tracks before they take it into their heads to try their teeth upon your legs."
The door was shut, and they were left standing in the night, endeavouring to realize whether their adventure of the night had been actual fact, or whether they had only dreamed it.
Chapter VI
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.