Chapter Six.
Our Plot and its Results.
“Now, mind,” said Tom, after a pause in our giggling, “we won’t tell any one else about it!”
“No,” I agreed; “it will be all the more fun to keep it to ourselves, and, besides, there will be less chance of our being found out.”
True to our compact, not a word of our conspiracy was breathed to a soul in the school; and the eventful day approached at last, if not “big with the fate of Caesar and of Rome,” pregnant with a plan for astonishing our master, and celebrating the anniversary of the Gunpowder Plot in a manner never known before in the traditions of the establishment—although, perhaps, perfectly in keeping with the idea of the original iconoclast, whose memory we intended to do honour to in fitting manner.
When Dr Hellyer awoke to the knowledge of the fact that the Fifth of November fell this year on a Sunday, had he generously made allowance for the patriotic feelings of his pupils, and allowed them to have their usual annual firework demonstration on the Saturday prior, which happened to be a half-holiday, the matter might have been harmoniously arranged, and Tom and I been persuaded at the last moment to abandon our daring enterprise—possibly, that is, though I doubt it much.
But, no. Dr Hellyer grasped the chance afforded him by the fortuitous cycle of dates as a splendid opportunity for putting down what had been a yearly bête noir to him; and so, he rushed madly on to his fate.
After dinner in the refectory, on the third of the month—two days beforehand, so as to give them clear notice of his intentions, in order not be accused of taking them unawares, and causing them to lay out their savings uselessly—just as the boys were going to rush out of the room for their usual hour’s relaxation before afternoon school, he detained them, with a wave of his well-known fat arm and the sound of his rolling accents.
“Boys,” he cried, “wait a moment! I have—ah—determined that—ah—as Guy Fawkes’ day this year—ah—will be next Sunday, when—ah—of course—ah—you will be unable with any regard for the solemn associations—ah—of the—ah—Sabbath, be—ah—able to celebrate it in your usual fashion—ah—that—ah—you must—ah—postpone—ah—your—ah bonfire—ah—till next year.”
A loud murmur ran round the room at this, an expression of popular opinion which I had never heard previously in the school.
The master, however, was equal to the occasion.
“Silence!” he roared out at the pitch of his voice, making the ceiling ring again, dropping his “Ahs” and drowning the sibillation of the malcontents by sheer dint of making a superior amount of noise. “Any boy I catch hissing, or otherwise expressing disapproval of my orders, had better look out, that’s all! There will be no celebration of Guy Fawkes’ day here, do you hear me! No, neither this year, nor next year, nor any year again, so long as I am master of this school! You can disperse now; but, mark my words, any one found letting off a squib or cracker, or discovered to be in the possession of gunpowder, or other explosive compound, will have to render an account to me. Boys, you’re dismissed!”
Bless you, when Dr Hellyer ceased speaking there was a silence that could almost be felt, and we all sneaked out of the room with corresponding quietude—adjourning to the playground as if we were going to attend a funeral instead of going out for diversion!
But, it was a silence that meant mischief, a quietude that was next door to hatching a mutiny; and, when we had got outside, there was a general howl of indignation that the Doctor could not have helped hearing, although the door communicating with the house was closed and he was still in the refectory in front, while we were at the rear of the establishment.
Of course, as was natural at such a crisis, the boys grouped themselves into little coteries, considering what should be done in such an unlooked-for emergency. Even Slodgers, the sneak, pretended to be as angry as anybody, desiring to have revenge for the deprivation of our annual gala show; but Tom and I kept aloof from all, and held our own counsel, much to the disgust of Slodgers, as we could easily see, for the cur wanted to hear what we might suggest so that he could go and report to Dr Hellyer.
We were too wary birds for Slodgers, however; we were not going to be caught, like young pigeons, with his chaff—no, we knew better than that!
We agreed with the mass of our schoolfellows that the Doctor’s arbitrary proclamation was an act of unmitigated tyranny and a “jolly shame;” but, beyond that, Slodgers could get nothing out of us, although we listened cordially to all the others had to say, and regulated our procedure accordingly.
“I vote,” said Batson, one of the big boys like Tom and I were now, “that we buy our fireworks on Saturday, in spite of what Old Growler has declared, and if he does not allow us to let them off in the evening, why we’ll have ‘a grand pyrotechnic display,’ as the newspapers say, at night in the dormitories.”
“Hear, hear!” shouted all the fellows in rapturous enthusiasm at such a bold idea; and even Tom and I wondered whether this plan would not be better than ours. But it was only for a moment. Reflection told us that the Doctor would certainly hear of our doings in time, through Slodgers, to nip the brilliant design in the bud ere it could be matured; so, while the majority of the boys devoted all their spare cash on the Saturday afternoon, when some of us were allowed to go into the town, in the purchase of squibs and crackers, and Roman candles, we declined all share in the enterprise on the plea of having no money—an excuse readily recognised, as the finances of most of the pupils were known to be not in a flourishing condition.
While Batson and his confrères took advantage of the half-holiday to go out to buy these fireworks, Tom and I remained indoors, he on the plea of indisposition and I for the ostensible purpose of writing out an imposition; but we both utilised the time thus afforded us by artfully removing the store of combustibles we had already secreted in our lockers, bringing them down-stairs, and placing them for safety and concealment in the cellar below, where our boxes were kept.
It was a timely precaution.
Slodgers had evidently played the sneak as usual, although keeping up the semblance all the while of being one of the prime movers in the pyrotechnic display suggested by Batson. Indeed, he went so far as to buy and bring home a shilling’s-worth of detonating powder to aid the contemplated feu de joie; but, no sooner had the boys got in and gone up-stairs to arrange their clothes for Sunday, as was our custom before tea-time every Saturday afternoon, than Dr Hellyer, accompanied by Smiley and the Cobbler, and the old woman, who had the keenest eye of the lot for the detection of contraband stores, came round to the dormitories on an exploring and searching expedition. There was a grand exposé of the conspiracy, of course, at once; for, the contents of all the lockers were turned out and the newly-purchased fireworks confiscated to the last cracker!
“Ah—you can’t deceive me!” exclaimed the Doctor, as he departed triumphantly, his arms and those of his assistants loaded with the spoils of their raid, “I told you I would not have any fireworks in my school this year, and shall keep my word, as you see! You have only to thank yourselves—ah—for wasting your money! But, for disobeying my orders the boys will all stop in next week on both half-holidays;” and, so concluding his parting address, with a triumphant grin on his huge round face, he went out, leaving the baffled conspirators in agonies of rage, swearing vengeance against the unknown spy who had betrayed their preparations.
Tom and I were jubilant, however. Nothing could have worked better for the end we had in view; as, after this failure of Batson, the surprise we intended for the Doctor would be all the more unexpected and correspondingly successful.
It was a sad night, though, for the other fellows.
When Sunday morning came, the boys got up grumbling, moody, defiant, and almost inclined to weep over their frustrated efforts; while Tom and I were so jolly that we could have sung aloud.
We always breakfasted later on this day of the week, and after the meal was done generally lounged about the room while the old woman was clearing up, waiting till it was time for us to assemble for what we styled our “church parade;” but, this morning, the boys seemed out of sorts, and went back again up-stairs after they had finished, leaving only Tom and myself in the refectory, while the old woman was removing the breakfast things and putting on a clean table-cloth for dinner. She quitted the apartment as soon as she had swept up the fireplace, placing enough coal on the fire to last till the afternoon, and otherwise completing her arrangements—then going down to the kitchen, from which we knew she would not emerge until we came back from church again, when it would be time to sound the gong for dinner—which meal was also an hour later on Sundays than on week days; and, being generally of a more sumptuous description, it required extra cooking.
This was the opportunity Tom and I had waited for all along, in pursuance of our plan; so, long ere the old woman had reached her sanctum below, we were at work, having taken advantage of the time we were washing in the lavatory before breakfast to put our fireworks and combustible matter in our pockets, whence we now quickly proceeded to extract the explosive agents, and deposit them in certain fixed positions we had arranged beforehand after much consultation.
Now, what I am going to relate I would much rather not tell about, as it concerns what I consider a very shameful episode in my life. The only thing I can urge in extenuation of my conduct is the lax manner in which my earlier life was looked after in my uncle’s house, where my worse passions were allowed full play, without that judicious control which parental guidance would perhaps have exercised on my inherent disposition for giving vent to temper, with no thought whatever of the consequences of any hare-brained act I might commit. I narrate, therefore, the circumstances that led to my running away from school, merely because my mad and wicked attempt to injure Dr Hellyer is a portion of my life-history, and I wish to describe all that happened to me truthfully, without glossing over a single incident to my discredit. I thus hope that no boy reading this will, on the strength of my example, be prompted to do evil, with the malicious idea of “paying off a grudge.” I may add that I entirely take all the blame to myself, for, had it not been for me, Tom Larkyns, I am sure, would have had no hand in the matter; and you will see later on, if you proceed with my story, how, through the wonderful workings of Providence, I was almost subjected to the same terrible fate I had been the means of preparing for our schoolmaster; although, fortunately, the evil design I and Tom planned only reverted on our own heads. Our diabolical scheme was more than a thoughtless one. It might, besides, jeopardising the life of Dr Hellyer, have set fire to the house, when, perhaps, many of our schoolfellows might have been burnt to death.
The first thing Dr Hellyer always did on entering the refectory when he returned from church was, as we well knew, to walk up to the fireplace, where he would give the bars a thorough raking out with the poker and then heap a large shovelful of coals on from the adjacent scuttle. In this receptacle, Tom and I now carefully placed about a quarter of a pound of gunpowder with some squibs, the latter blackened over like the shining Wallsend knobs, so as to escape detection; and then, such was our fiendish plan, we concealed under the cushion of the Doctor’s armchair a packet of crackers, connected with a long tiny thread of a fuse leading midway under the centre of the broad table, so that it could not be seen or interfered with by the boys’ feet as they sat at dinner, along the floor to the end of the form where we usually sat, near the entrance to the apartment.
“I shall manage to light this fuse somehow or other,” Tom said, assuming the control of this infernal machine; and then, after going into the hall to get our caps, giving another look round the room when we came back, to see whether our preparations were noticeable, we awaited Dr Hellyer’s summons to proceed to church—with calm satisfaction at the so far successful issue of our calculations.
During our processional walk we were both in high glee at the grand “blowing up” that would happen on our return—a sort of “Roland for an Oliver” in return for the many different sorts of blowings up we had received at Dr Hellyer’s hands at one time and another. I was all the more excited, too, for I had made up my mind to attempt another exploit of which I had not even warned Tom, but which would probably throw his sublime conception into the shade.
I had, in my visits to the different coasting craft in the harbour, been presented by a fisherman with a lot of very small fish-hooks. These I had in the morning attached by thin pieces of thread to several fire crackers, which I intended for my own personal satisfaction to present to the Doctor, although in a way he would not relish or dream of.
If there was one thing more than another that Dr Hellyer esteemed I think I have already sufficiently pointed out it was his dignity—to the glory of which the archdeacon’s hat he always wore on Sundays eminently contributed; and, as may be believed, he venerated this head-covering accordingly.
It was against this hat I contemplated taking especial proceedings now.
Being held to be an outlaw to all ordinary discipline, the Doctor, to have me under his own eye, made me walk close behind him in the procession formed for our march to and from church. Tom and some three or four other unruly members were also similarly distinguished; and, as walking two-and-two abreast we made such a long string, that the masters behind could not see what was going on in front, we usually had a good deal of fun in the rear of the Doctor, without, of course, his perceiving it, or the teachers betraying us.
Watching my chance, soon after we came out of church on this eventful occasion, I dexterously managed to fasten the fish-hooks with the crackers attached not only to different points of the master’s garments, but also to his hat; and, the scrunching of our feet on the gravel pathway from the village deadening the sound I made in scratching the match I used, I contrived to light the crackers before any one, save the boys immediately alongside of me, perceived what I was doing.
Everything favoured me.
Presently, whiz—crack—and the Doctor’s coat tails flew up as if by magic, swaying to and fro in the air, although there was no wind; and the fellows, smelling a “rat” as well as the burnt powder, began to titter.
“What is that?” said the Doctor, sternly, turning round and confronting us with an even more majestic deportment than usual.
Of course, nobody answered; but, the crack, crack, cracking continued, and in another minute, with a bang, off went Dr Hellyer’s hat!
Nor was that all. Putting up his hand, with a frantic clutch, to save his headgear from falling into the mire, it being a drizzling, mizzling, dirty November day, our worthy preceptor pulled away what we had always imagined to be a magnificent head of hair, but what turned out now, alas for human fallibility, only to be a wig!
This was a discovery with a vengeance; and, as might have been expected, all the boys, as if with one accord, shouted with laughter.
Dr Hellyer was speechless with indignation. He was mad with pain as well, for in clutching at his hat he had got one of my fish-hooks deeply imbedded in the palm of his hand—a sort of just retaliation, I thought it, for all he had made me suffer from his cruel “pandies.”
He guessed who was the offender at once, as he caught me laughing when he turned round, with the end of the smouldering match still held between my fingers.
“Oh—ah! It is you, is it?” he gasped out, giving me a ponderous slap on one side of my face with the big broad hand that was uninjured, which made me reel and tumble down; but a second blow, a backhander on the opposite side of my head, brought me up again, “all standing.” Still, although I felt these gentle taps, I could not help grinning, which, of course, increased his rage, if that were possible.
He certainly presented a most comical spectacle, dancing there before us, first on one leg and then on the other, his bulky frame swaying to and fro, like that of an elephant performing a jig, with the crackers exploding every instant, and his bald head surrounded apparently with a halo of smoke like a “nimbus.” The boys fairly shrieked with laughter, and even Smiley and the Cobbler had to turn their heads aside, to hide their irrepressible grins. As for myself, I confess that at the moment of perpetrating the cruel joke, I felt that I wouldn’t have missed the sight for anything. I was really extremely proud of my achievement, although conscious that I should have to pay dearly bye-and-bye for my freak in the way of “pandies” and forced abstention from food; but I little thought of the stern Nemesis at a later period of my life Providence had in store for me.
In a little time the crackers had all expended their force; when the Doctor, jamming down the wig and his somewhat crushed and dirty hat over his fuming brows, with a defiant glare at the lot of us, resumed his march homeward—taking the precaution of clutching hold of my arm with a policeman-like grip, as if he were afraid of my giving him the slip before he had pandied the satisfaction he clearly intended to have out of my unhappy body. But he need not have been thus alarmed on the score of any attempted flight on my part, at least then; for I was quite as anxious to reach the school as he was to get me there. Much as I had enjoyed this cracker scene, which I had brought about on my own account, I was longing to see the denouement of the deeply-planned plot, the details of which Tom and I had so carefully arranged before starting for church. My little venture was nothing in comparison with what this would be, I thought.
My ambition was soon gratified.
Our little contretemps on the way had somewhat delayed dinner, which was already on the table on out arrival; so, without wasting any more time, Dr Hellyer marched us all in before him, still holding on to me until he had reached the top of the refectory, where, ordering me to stand up in front of his armchair, he proceeded as usual to poke the fire and then shovel on coals.
Bang!
In a second, there was a great glare, and then an explosion, which brought down a quantity of soot from the old-fashioned open chimney, covering me all over and making me look like a young sweep, as I was standing right in front of the fireplace, and came in for the full benefit of it. I was not at all frightened, however, as, of course, I had expected a somewhat similar result as soon as the coals went on.
Not so the Doctor, though. With a deep objurgation, he sank back into his armchair, as if completely overcome.
This was Tom’s opportunity, and he quickly took advantage of it. Glancing slily down under the table, I could see him in the distance stoop beneath it and apply a match to the end of the fuse, which being a dry one at once ignited, the spluttering flame running along like a streak of lightning along the floor and up the leg of the chair on which Dr Hellyer was sitting—too instantaneously to be detected by any one not specially looking out for it, like myself.
Poof—crack—bang, went off another explosion; and up bounced Old Hellyer, as if a catapult had been applied below his seat.
You never saw such a commotion as now ensued. Tom and I were the only ones who preserved their composure out of the whole lot in the room, although Dr Hellyer soon showed that, if startled at first, he had not quite lost his senses.
He rushed at me at once, quite certain that as I had perpetrated the former attack on his sacred person while on the way from church, I must likewise be guilty of this second attempt to make a Guy Fawkes of him; and, striking out savagely, he felled me with a weighty blow from his great fist, sending me rolling along under the table, and causing me to see many more stars than an active astronomer could count in the same space of time—but I’m sure he had sufficient justification to have treated me even worse!
“You young ruffian!” he exclaimed as he knocked me down, his passion getting the better both of his scholastic judgment and academical dignity, and he would probably have proceeded to further extremities had not Tom Larkyns started up.
“Oh, please don’t punish Leigh, sir,” I heard him cry out as I lay on the floor, just within reach of the Doctor’s thick club-soled boots, with which I believe he was just going to operate on me in “Lancashire fashion,” as fighting men say. “Please, sir, don’t hurt Leigh—it was I who did it!”
At this interruption, which seemed to recall him to himself, the master regained his composure in an instant.
“Get up, boy!” he said to me, gruffly, spurning me away with his foot, and then, as soon as I was once more in a perpendicular position, he ordered me, sooty as I was, to go and stand up alongside of Tom.
“Brothers in arms, hey?” chuckled our incensed pedagogue, pondering over the most aggravating form of torture which he could administer to us in retaliation for what we had made his person and dignity suffer. “I’ll make you sick of each other’s companionship before I’ve done with you! Stand up there together now, you pair of young desperadoes, while the rest of the boys have dinner, which your diabolical conduct has so long delayed. Mr Smallpage, say grace, please.”
“Smiley” thereupon performed the Doctor’s usual function; then the fellows were helped round to roast mutton and Yorkshire pudding—Tom and I, both hungry as usual, you may be sure—having the gratification of smelling without being allowed to taste.
This was Dr Hellyer’s very practical first stage of punishment; he always commenced with starving us for any offence against his laws and ordinances, and then wound up his trilogy of penance with a proportionate number of “pandies” and solitary confinement.
After dinner the other boys were dismissed, but Tom and I remained still standing there; Dr Hellyer the while seated in his armchair watching us grimly as if taking pleasure in our sufferings, and without uttering a word to either of us.
The afternoon progressed, and the fellows came trooping in to tea at six, the old woman first arriving; to lay the cloth and put on the china teapot and tin mugs. We, however, had to pass through the same ordeal as at dinner; there was none for us, for still the Doctor sat there in the armchair by the fire, looking in the dancing gleams of light like some old wizard or magician weaving a charm of spells which was to turn us into stone where we stood, if that process should not be rendered unnecessary by our being frozen beforehand from cramp through remaining so long in the one position.
When the bed gong sounded, we heard the boys trooping up-stairs; and then Dr Hellyer rose at last.
“Martin Leigh and Thomas Larkyns,” he rolled out in his very deepest voice, making the ceiling of the refectory ring as usual. “I intend to expel you from my school. I shall write to your friends in the morning; and, in the meantime, you will be confined here until they come to remove you!”
He then left the room, locking the door behind him, when the single jet of light from one burner went out suddenly with a jump, showing that he had turned the gas off at the main, and that we should not have a cheering beam to illumine our solitary vigil throughout the weary night.
A little bit of fire was still flickering in the grate, however, and, by this feeble light Tom and I looked at each other in desperation.
We were in a hobble, and no mistake!
What was to be done?