Chapter Seven.
The Ghost
The next moment Haviland burst into a fit of smothered laughter.
“It’s only a hen pheasant, Cetchy,” he whispered, “but she made such a row getting up right under our feet just as we were talking about the ghost. It quite gave me the jumps.”
“She’s got nest too,” said the other, who had been peering into the undergrowth. “Look, nine, ten eggs! That’s good?”
“Yes, but you can’t take them. Never meddle with game eggs.”
“How I make collection if I not take eggs?”
This was pertinent, and Haviland was nonplussed, but only for a moment.
“I’ve got some extra specimens I’ll give you,” he answered. “Come on, leave these, and let the bird come back.”
The other looked somewhat wistfully at the smooth olive-hued eggs lying there temptingly in their shallow bowl of dry leaves and grass. Then he turned away.
“We’ll find plenty of others,” said Haviland. “Last time I was here I took a nest of blackcap’s, and the eggs were quite pink instead of brown. That’s awfully rare. We’ll see if there are any more in the same place.”
Round the cover they went, then across it, then back again, all with a regular system, and soon their collecting boxes were filled – including some good sorts.
“There! Big bird go away up there,” whispered Anthony pointing upward.
They were standing under a clump of dark firs. Over their tops Haviland glimpsed the quick arrowy flight.
“A sparrow-hawk, by Jingo!” he said. “Sure to have a nest here too.”
A keen and careful search revealed this, though it was hidden away so snugly in the fir-top, that it might have been passed by a hundred times. The Zulu boy begged to be allowed to go up.
“I think not this time, Cetchy,” decided Haviland. “It’s an easy climb, but then you haven’t had enough practice in stowing the eggs, and these are too good to get smashed.”
It was not everything to get up the tree: half the point was to do so as noiselessly as possible, both of which feats were easy enough to so experienced a climber as Haviland. He was soon in the fir-top, the loose untidy pile of sticks just over his head; another hoist – and then – most exciting moment of all, the smooth warm touch of the eggs. The while the parent bird, darting to and fro in the air, came nearer and nearer his head with each swoop. But for this he cared nothing.
“Look, Cetchy,” he whispered delightedly as he stood once more on terra firma and exhibited the bluish-white treasures with their rich sepia blotches. “Three of them, and awfully good specimens. Couple days later there’d have been four or five, still three’s better than none. You shall have these two to start your collection with, and I’ll stick to this one with the markings at the wrong end. What’s the row?”
For the Zulu boy had made a sign for silence, and was standing in an attitude of intense listening.
“Somebody coming,” he whispered. “One man.”
Haviland’s nerves thrilled. But listen as he would his practised ear could hear nothing.
“Quick, hide,” breathed the other, pointing to a thick patch of bramble and fern about a dozen yards away, and not a moment too early was the warning uttered, for scarcely had they reached it and crouched flat to the earth, when a man appeared coming through the wood. Peering from their hiding-place, they made out that he was clad in the velveteen suit and leather leggings of a keeper, and, moreover, he carried a gun.
He was looking upward all the time, otherwise he could not have failed to see them, and to Haviland, at any rate, the reason of this was plain. He had sighted the sparrow-hawk, and was warily stalking her, hence the noiselessness of his approach. The situation was becoming intensely exciting. The keeper was coming straight for their hiding-place, still, however, looking upward. If he discovered them, they must make a dash for it that moment, Haviland explained in a whisper scarcely above a breath. The gun didn’t count, he daren’t fire at them in any event.
Suddenly the man stopped. Up went the gun, then it was as quickly lowered. He had sighted the flight of the hawk above the tree tops, but the chance was not good enough. And he had sighted something else, the nest to wit. The bird was sure to come back to it, and so give him a much better chance. Accordingly he squatted down among the undergrowth, his gun held ready, barely twenty yards from the concealed pair, but with his back to them.
That sparrow-hawk, however, was no fool of a bird. She seemed possessed of a fine faculty for discrimination, and manifestly knew the difference between a brace of egg-collecting schoolboys, and a ruthless, death-dealing gamekeeper, and although at intervals she swooped overhead it was always out of range, but still the latter sat there with a patience that was admirable, save to the pair whom all unconsciously it menaced with grave consequences.
For, as time fled, these loomed nearer and nearer. As it was, they would need all their time to get back, and were they late for evening chapel, especially after being granted leave from calling-over, it was a dead certainty that the Doctor himself would have something to say in the matter, at any rate in Haviland’s case. And still that abominable keeper lurked there, showing no sign whatever of moving within the next half-hour, in which event it mattered little if he did not move at all. A thin, penetrating drizzle had begun to fall, which bade fair to wet them to the skin, but for this they cared nothing, neither apparently did their enemy, who furthermore was partly sheltered beneath a great fir. Haviland grew desperate.
“We shall have to make a run for it, Cetchy,” he breathed. “Look,” showing his watch. “If the beast doesn’t make a move in five minutes, we must run and chance it. I’ll give the word.”
The hand of the watch moved slowly on – one minute – two – three – four. Haviland replaced it in his pocket, and drew a long breath: but before he could give the word, his companion touched him and whispered.
“No run. He run. I make him.”
“What?”
“I make him run. I flighten him. I ghost. You’ll see.”
For a great idea had occurred to Mpukuza, christened Anthony, named by Saint Kirwin’s “Cetchy” – and exactly one minute and as rapid a metamorphosis in his personal appearance was all he needed to put it into execution.
Darker and darker had grown the lowering skies, and now the wind began to moan dismally through the tree trunks. Anything more drear and depressing than the brooding gloom of the haunted wood could hardly be imagined. The keeper, however, was of the dogged order of rustic, and doubtless lacking in imagination, for he remained patiently at his self-appointed post. Then, suddenly, he started to his feet and faced quickly round.
A sight met his gaze, transfixing him with terror, seeming to turn him to stone. Reared above the undergrowth, an awful head, covered with dust, and bristling with brambles – a black face with lolling, swollen tongue, and huge eyeballs protruding from their sockets rolling their vivid whites in most hideous fashion – yes, and there, round the neck, a strand of cord, while from the throat of this horrifying apparition there proceeded the most hollow, half-strangled moan that ever curdled mortal blood. For a moment the appalled keeper stood with livid countenance, and his knees knocking together – then with a wild hoarse cry, and dropping his gun – he turned and fled away down the ride of the wood as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Come, Haviland, we’ll go now,” chuckled the ghost, dropping down into the undergrowth again. But Haviland made no reply, being powerless alike for speech or movement. He lay there gasping, choking back with superhuman effort the scarcely repressible roars of laughter that he dared not let out.
“Come quick. We be off,” urged the Zulu boy. “Praps he come back.”
“Not he,” gurgled Haviland faintly. “Oh Cetchy, that’s about the most deadly thing I ever saw in my life. Oh, it’ll be the death of me.” Then recovering himself with a mighty effort:
“Come along, Cetchy. You’re right, by Jingo! We’ll have to put our best leg forward as it is. Oh, but we mustn’t think about this or it’ll kill me again.”
Cautiously and in silence, and ever keeping a bright look-out lest mayhap their dupe should recover from his scare and return, they made their way out of the haunted wood, then across country at a hard swinging trot, and the far-away roofs of Saint Kirwin’s seemed painfully remote.
“I say, Cetchy,” said Haviland as they sat beneath a hedge for a brief but necessary breather. “Supposing the chap had let off his gun at you? Eh? We never thought of that.”
“He not shoot – he too much funk.”
“So he was. I dare say, too, he thought it wasn’t any good firing at a ghost. No, I mustn’t start laughing again. Come along.”
And indeed they needed to make the most of their time, for the bell was already ringing during the last five minutes of their run. However, they got through by a narrow shave.
After chapel, as he was walking across the quadrangle, a scurry of feet and a rustle of long garments behind him caused Haviland to turn. He beheld Mr Sefton.
“Did you find lots of eggs this afternoon, Haviland?” said the master, who was still in his canonicals and square cap.
“Yes, sir. A grand lot. Thanks so much for giving us leave.”
“Are you teaching Cetchy bird-nesting?”
“Yes, sir. He wants to collect. He’s a good hand at finding them too.”
“Ah! Don’t get him into mischief. Eh? And keep out of it yourself. D’you hear? Keep out of it yourself.”
There was a warning note underlying the quaint, dry quizzical tone which was not lost upon the hearer. He was wondering how much Sefton suspected, but at the same time was thinking how dearly he would have liked to tell Sefton the joke about the ghost, but that of course he dared not. Yet Sefton would have appreciated it so keenly – no one more so. But he only answered:
“I’ll try to, sir. Yes, we had a real ripping afternoon – thanks to you.”
“Ha!” With which enigmatical ejaculation the master nodded and went his way.
That evening, in the dormitory, Haviland being in hall at supper with the other prefects off duty, Anthony was relating, in his quaint racy English, the exciting events of the afternoon, all except the ghost episode, which he had been strictly enjoined to keep to himself. Those who were collectors were thrilled with envy.
“You are a lucky beggar, Cetchy,” sighed Smithson minor. “I wish to goodness Haviland would take me with him once or twice – that’s all.”
“Ha! Take you!”
“Yes. Why not?” bristling up.
“You no good. You can’t run.”
“Look here, Cetchy. I’ll smack your head if you talk like that to me.”
“Smack my head! You can’t do it.”
“Oh, can’t I?” retorted Smithson minor jumping out of bed. The other said nothing. He simply followed suit, and stood waiting. This was not in the least what Smithson expected, and now he remembered, when too late, the Zulu boy’s summary retaliation on Jarnley, and how sturdily and unmovedly he had taken the caning it involved, what time Jarnley had howled. He remembered, too, the hard, wiry training the other was in and – hesitated. But it was too late to draw back, and so he rushed on his enemy, hitting out right and left; and at first Anthony seemed to be getting the worst of it, for, in common with his race, he had no idea how to use his fists, nor had he been long enough at Saint Kirwin’s to have learnt, and the scuffle was enlivened by the encouraging though stifled adjurations of the spectators.
“Go it, Smithson! Now then, Cetchy! Ah! He’s got it! Shut up, you fellows. We’ll have Medlicott in directly if you kick up such a row,” and so forth. But just then, Anthony, who, if he hadn’t science, assuredly had all the fierce fighting valour of his race, woke up to a mighty effort, and dashing out with both hands and hurling himself forward at the same time, landed his adversary full in the face, and down went Smithson minor, and with him two other fellows who were pressing him too close behind. In the midst of which shindy the door opened, and in walked Haviland.
“What’s all this about?” he cried, turning the gas full up and revealing the whole scene of disorder – the panting combatants and the now sheepish-looking spectators, some of whom were making desperate efforts to appear as if they had never left their beds. “Come here, Smithson. What d’you mean by it, eh?”
Smithson, who recognised in this formula a certain preamble to condign punishment, thought he might as well try to say something for himself.
“Please, Haviland, he cheeked me,” he faltered.
“Cheeked you, did he? I wonder you haven’t had Sefton up here with his cane, and of course that wouldn’t have meant a thousand lines for me for not keeping order, would it?”
“He tell me he smack my head,” cut in Anthony. “I tell him he can’t do it. Then he try. Ha!”
The room tittered. Haviland was mollified.
“Did he do it?” he said.
“No fear. I knock him over. Then you come in.” And the speaker stood with his head in the air, and the light of battle in his eyes, albeit one of them was rather swollen, looking for all the world a youthful reproduction of one of his warrior sires.
“Well, I know jolly well that Cetchy didn’t begin the row,” pronounced Haviland, throwing down his square cap, and beginning to take off his coat and vest with a yawn. “Get into bed, Smithson. If I hear anything about this to-morrow from Sefton, I’ll sock your head off. If not, I’ll let you off this time. Now shut up, you fellows. No more talking.”
There was no need to repeat the order. Silence prevailed in that dormitory forthwith.
Chapter Eight.
Jarnley again
If the practical joke played upon the keeper in Hangman’s Wood ever transpired in the immediate neighbourhood of that ill-omened locality, the tidings thereof did not reach as far as Saint Kirwin’s – nor had its perpetrators any opportunity of revisiting the place, by reason of the distance, and the difficulty of so soon again obtaining leave from call-over. But other coverts were levied upon in like fashion, all, or nearly all, we regret to say, under equally forbidden conditions.
The summer term proved exceptionally fine, and Haviland and other collectors revelled in the bright and glowing weather. If at times illicit, the long breezy rambles over field and down were fraught with all that was healthful and wholesome, in the splendid air, the beautiful surroundings of the fairest of English landscapes, the hardening of the young frame into the most perfect training, the excitement of a certain amount of ever present risk, and the absorbing pursuit of a favourite hobby. And then the cool plunge into the swimming pool at the close of the long summer’s day. There was plenty of cricket too, and some exceptionally good matches in which Saint Kirwin’s kept up its name quite well.
“Can’t think why you don’t go in for cricket, Haviland,” observed Laughton, in the prefects room one whole holiday as he was getting ready for one of the matches aforesaid, and in which he figured in the school eleven as a bowler of no mean repute. “You ought to, you know. It’s due to your position.”
“No, thanks, Laughton. You don’t catch me wasting a splendid day like this shying a ball at three silly sticks.”
“Well, you could go in for batting. From what little I’ve seen you do in that line, with a little practice you’d make a very fair bat indeed.”
“Oh, yes. Get bowled first ball, and spend the rest of the day fielding out. I’d as soon be doing an impos.”
And the speaker finished some arrangement of cotton wool and cardboard boxes, and stowing the same into his side pockets tightened the strap wherewith he was girded, and nodding to Laughton started off there and then upon his favourite pursuit – but alone.
After him from the third form room windows gazed a pair of wistful eyes. Mpukuza, otherwise Anthony, had conceived a hero-worship for the other, nearly akin to that felt by some of the old indunas of his race for their king. To accompany Haviland on one of these rambles had become for him something to live for. He would have “broken his gates” and cheerfully welcomed the inevitable swishing thereby incurred, rather than forego one such, and of late the occasions on which Haviland had been graciously pleased to command his attendance had been growing more and more rare – partly due to the unwritten code which was against a prefect fraternising much with a junior unless the latter were about his own age and size. So he gazed wistfully after his hero, and in the expressive idiom of his race “his heart was sore.”
“Hallo, Cetchy! Not gated, are you? Come out bird-nesting.” The voice was that of Smithson minor.
Since their little scrimmage in the dormitory the two had become very friendly, and had been out together several times.
“All right.”
“Thought you were gated when I saw Haviland go out alone,” went on Smithson as they started. “Hallo! There’s Clay! Quick. We’ll dodge him. I’ve got an impos to do for him. I’m not gated, but if he saw me he might want to know why I’m not doing it.”
Having successfully dodged the master they struck across some fields. But alack and alas! in escaping one possible danger they were destined to run straight into the jaws of another and a more certain. At the crossing of a stile there was a rush of big fellows who had been lying in wait on the other side, and in a trice they were pounced upon and collared by Jarnley and his gang.
“Got you at last, have I, Cetchy?” snarled that worthy, fairly grinning with delight. “Oh, I’ve a long score to pay off on your black hide, haven’t I? and I’m going to begin now,” tweaking the other savagely by the ear with one hand though holding him firmly by the collar with the other. “You would get me tanned by Clay, would you?”
“I was tanned too,” protested the victim.
“And now you’ll be tanned again. What Clay gave you – gave us – is nothing to what we are going to give you now. And the seven hundred lines, and the lines Sefton gave us all but let you off.”
“Shut up, Perkins, you beastly bully!” yelped Smithson minor, who was undergoing his share of trial in the little matter of a twisted arm and a fistic punch or two thereon. “I’ll report you to Haviland if you don’t leave us alone.”
“Oh, you’d sneak, would you? Take that – and that” – emphasising the expostulation with a couple of sounding smacks on the head.
“Come on, you fellows,” said Jarnley. “Don’t let him go, but we’ll deal with Cetchy first. Oh, yes, my black snowball, my woolly-pated beauty – I told you I’d skin you alive, didn’t I? I told you I’d rip the black hide off you, and now I’m going to do it. Now then, spread-eagle him over the steps of that stile. Oh, yes. We’ve been keeping these for you many a long day, my noble snowball,” producing a thick but supple willow switch, and one of the others, of whom there were just half a dozen, producing one likewise.
It was then or never. The victim, well aware of what a savage thrashing would be inflicted upon him, should he fail, made one last effort. Before the others had time to seize him he struck his heel down sharply on to Jarnley’s toes, crushing them into the ground, at the same time sending his elbow back with all his force. It caught the bully fair in the pit of the stomach, and with a howl, promptly strangled in a gasp, Jarnley partially relaxed his hold. In a trice the Zulu boy had wrenched himself free, and, deftly ducking between two of the others who sprang at him, was off like a shot.
Jarnley was beside himself with rage.
“You asses!” he shouted gaspingly as he recovered his wind. “All this time we’ve been looking out for him, and now, just as we’ve got him, you let him get away.”
“It strikes me it was you who let him get away,” retorted Perkins. “Well, we’ll take it out of this little beast instead.”
Poor Smithson minor howled for mercy, but he howled in vain. They pulled him down over the stile step, the switches were uplifted and ready when —
“Whack! Whack!” came a couple of stones. “Whack – whack – whack!” came three more, flung hard too, and with a terrible precision. One struck Perkins on the hand, causing him to dance and swear all his fingers were broken. Another hit Jarnley on the shoulder, while two more found their billet in violent contact with another of the bullies – and there, in a gap in the hedge some little distance off, stood the one who had escaped, grinning in mingled vindictiveness and glee. Other stones followed, hurled with the same unerring precision. To proceed with their congenial work under that terrible bombardment was impossible – and so, leaving one in charge of Smithson, the gang started in pursuit of the Zulu boy.
The latter chuckled, for he knew that not one of them could get any nearer to him than he chose, when it came to running. He sprang down into the road again, quickly shovelled up a double handful of stones, and loped on. Then he turned, just as the pursuers came within easy range, and opened fire again. It was too much. With dire threats they beat a retreat. They would get hold of him again sooner or later, they declared, and that time he would not get off at any price. At all of which the Zulu boy chuckled and laughed, hurling abusive epithets at them in his quaint English.
The while poor Smithson, in the grasp of the big fellow who custodied him, was having a bad time, in the shape of a slight forestalment of what he might expect when the others returned. But for him, too, came relief – rescue, and it came in the shape of a couple of prefects who appeared in sight, sauntering along the field-path towards them.
“You’d better let me go,” he said, “or I’ll call out to Street and Cluer.”
The other saw the force of this, and, with a threat and a sly cuff, acted upon it, and slunk away to give the alarm to the rest. Half an hour later Smithson and Anthony were forgathering under a hedge, talking over their escape.
“Well, you are no end of a brick, Cetchy,” said the former. “Why, they’ll make you cock chief of your tribe one of these days, I should think.”
“Ha – ha – ha!” chuckled the other. “Jarnley hurt more’n we hurt. All of ’em hurt. Ha – ha – ha!”
“Well, you got me out of it with those beasts. I say, Cetchy, old chap, I’m expecting a hamper next week, and won’t we have a blow out then!” he added, in a burst of gratitude and admiration.
“Hamper? What’s that?”
“Why, a basket of tuck. Grub, you know, from home. No end of good things.”
“Ha! All right,” said the other with a jolly laugh.
That day Haviland was making the most of his time and his solitary ramble. His collecting boxes were fairly well filled; among other specimens he had hit upon a grasshopper warbler’s nest, whose existence he suspected, containing five eggs, beautifully fresh and thus easily blown, likewise a sedge-warbler’s, hung cuplike, among the bulrushes of a reedy pond. The spoils of two wheatears, extracted with some difficulty from a deep burrow on the slope of Sidbury Down, had also fallen to his lot, and now, stretched on the springy turf on the summit of that eminence, he was enjoying a well-earned rest, thoroughly contented with himself and all the world. And what a view lay outstretched beneath and around – a fair, rolling champaign, green meadow and darker wood – here and there the shining surface of a pond: farm buildings too, picturesque with their red roofs and yellow corn-stacks, nestling among hanging elms noisy with the cawing of restless rooks, and the shrill whimsical chatter of jackdaws. The bark of a sheepdog, and the glad melodious shout of the cuckoo here and there, were borne upward on the still air – and far away over this beautiful landscape the brown high-pitched roofs of Saint Kirwin’s, conveying a sort of monastic suggestion in its surroundings of field and wood.
Haviland had been making the most of his day – therefore this was his fourth expedition, and it was now late afternoon. His watch marked ten minutes past five, and chapel was at six. There was plenty of time, but he thought he would take it easy going back. So, having allowed himself another five minutes’ rest, he took a final look around, and started to come down.
He had nearly reached the bottom of the slope when he stopped short, with an exclamation of unbounded amazement and unmistakable dismay. He stood listening, motionless, intent. Only the sound of a bell, pealing out with startling plainness through the sleepy afternoon air. Great heavens! It was the chapel bell at Saint Kirwin’s.
No. It couldn’t be! Why, it wasn’t nearly time. Chapel was at six – not half-past five. Eagerly, almost convulsively, he jerked forth his watch. Still the hands marked ten minutes past five.
He groaned aloud. The game was up. Not by any possibility could he now be in time for chapel. The bell always rang for a quarter of an hour, and he knew – none better – that exactly double that period of time was required to cover the distance between where he stood and the school gates, and that at a sharp run all the way. By a wellnigh superhuman effort it might possibly be done in twenty-five minutes, but not one second less, and here he was with something under a quarter of an hour to do it in. He was in despair.
For being late for chapel was one of the most heinous offences he could commit. The only chance for him was if for any reason the Doctor should happen to be absent himself. In that event the best he could expect was a stiff imposition from the master of the week. Should however the Head be there, as was nearly always the case – why then it would mean certain suspension for him at any rate.
He glared at the offending watch, and shook it savagely. It ticked feebly for a few seconds, then hopelessly stopped once more. A pretty trick it had played him, and he felt inclined to hurl it into the first pond he should pass, as he sped along at a hard steady run: for every minute he was late would, if possible, render his case worse.