Chapter Eighteen.
Dick conspires to defeat the ends of Justice.
Dick, on quitting the Captain’s levée, retired in anything but exalted spirits to Cresswell’s study.
He didn’t care to face the Den that evening. Not that he was afraid of Rule 5, or cared a snap what anybody there had to say about his conduct. But he wasn’t sure himself whether he had made a mistake or not. He hated being in a corner. He had no natural antipathy to doing what was right, but he didn’t like being pinned down to it. He didn’t go to the levée because he was desperately in love with law and order, and it was a shame for any one to suppose he had. He went because he knew Heathcote was waiting to see what he did. And now, after all, Heathcote had deserted his colours and not gone.
It was enough to make any one testy, and Aspinall, had he known it, would have been less surprised than he was to have his head almost snapped off as the two fellow-fags sat at work in their senior’s study that evening.
“Can’t you do your work without groaning like that?” said Dick, when the small boy, for about the fiftieth time, stumbled over his hexameters.
“I beg your pardon,” said Aspinall, “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”
“Who said you did?” retorted poor Dick, longing for a quarrel with some one. “What’s the use of flaring up like that?”
“I didn’t mean—I’m sorry if I—”
“There you go. Why can’t you swear straight out instead of mumbling? I can’t hear what you say.”
“I beg your pardon, Dick.”
“Shut up, and get on with your work, and don’t make such a noise.”
After that the wretched Aspinall hardly dared dip his pen in the ink, or turn over a page, for fear of disturbing his badger companion. It was a relief when presently Cresswell entered and gave him a chance of escape.
“Well, youngster,” said the senior, when he and Dick were left alone, “I’m glad you had the sense to turn up at the levée.”
“I’m sorry I did,” said Dick, shortly.
Cresswell knew his man too well to be taken aback by the contradiction.
“Yes? Is the Den going to lick you for it?”
“I’d like to see them try,” said Dick, half viciously.
“So would I,” said the senior, laughing.
“Mansfield will be trying to make out I’ve promised to back him up,” said Dick.
Cresswell laughed.
“By Jove! he will be cut up when he finds you aren’t. He’ll resign.”
Dick coloured up, and looked a little foolish. “I didn’t mean that,” he said.
“No very dreadful thing if you did back him up, eh?” said the monitor, casually. “It might disgust some of your friends in the Den, but you aren’t obliged to toady to them.”
“Rather not,” said Dick.
“Besides, a fellow may sometimes do what’s right and not be an utter cad. Perhaps you don’t think so, though. You’d cut a nobler figure, wouldn’t you, dragging down your chums from one row to another, than by anything so paltry as doing right because it is right? I quite understand that feeling.”
“Why do you talk to me like that?” said Dick, feeling a sting in every word of the senior’s speech. “You think I went to the levée to please myself. I didn’t.”
“And is that why you are sorry you went? Don’t make yourself out worse than you are, Dick. You’ve done a plucky thing for once in a way, and got yourself into a row with the Den, and I really don’t see that you have very much to reproach yourself with.”
“I don’t care a farthing for the Den,” said Dick.
“But you do for yourself. If I were you, I wouldn’t let myself be floored by one reverse. Stick to your man, and you’ll get him out of the hands of the Philistines after all.”
This little talk did Dick good, and cleared his mind. It put things in a new light. It recalled the Ghost’s letter, and brought up in array once more the better resolutions that appeal had awakened. What was the use of his setting up as an example to his friends, when he was little better than a rowdy himself? Yes; Dick Richardson must be looked to. How, and by whom?
“Dominat qui in se dominatur,” said Dick to himself, as he went off to bed, and closed a very uncomfortable and critical day.
When he went to call Cresswell next morning he found him already up and dressed.
“Ah, youngster, before you to-day! Have you forgotten it’s a holiday?”
“So it is,” said Dick, who, in his troubles, had actually overlooked the fact.
“What do you say to coming with Freckleton and me for a day’s fishing in the Bay? Winter has given us leave if we keep inside the Sprit Rock, and I expect he’d let you come if I asked him.”
“I’d like it frightfully,” said Dick, glowing with pleasure at the invitation.
“All right. Set to work with the sandwiches. Make as many as the potted meat will allow, and get the matron to boil half-a-dozen eggs hard. I’ll see Winter after chapel about you, and if it’s all square we’ll start directly after breakfast.”
Dick went into raptures over the making of those sandwiches. Fishing was one of his great weaknesses, and a day of it, in such lovely weather as this, and in such distinguished company, was a treat out of the ordinary. The one drawback was that neither Heathcote nor Coote was in it. That, however, could not be helped; and he decided that, under the circumstances, it would be kindest not to tell them about it or raise their regrets.
After chapel he made straight for Cresswell’s study and waited with some anxiety the result of his senior’s application to the Head Master.
In due time Cresswell returned.
“All serene,” said he. “He didn’t much fancy it, I think; but I undertook to be responsible for you.”
It occurred to Dick that he didn’t see why he couldn’t be responsible for himself; but he was too anxious not to mar the expedition, to raise any protest on behalf of his own independence.
“Take this can,” said Cresswell, “and go down as quick as you can to Green’s, next door to the ‘Dolphin,’ and tell him to fill it with worms for me, and bring them down to the beach. We’re going to have Tug’s boat, and we’ll be there in half-an-hour, so look alive.”
Dick, rather thankful to be able to get off unobserved, hurried off on his savoury errand. He had scarcely once gone down town since the affair of Tom White’s boat, and certainly not since the alarming paragraphs in the Observer had taken to appearing. But he comforted himself with the reflection that Tom was at present on the high seas, and that no one else appeared to have any suspicion which would connect him (Dick) with the mysterious lad who had been seen on the Strand on the eventful night last June.
For all that, he dawdled not a moment longer than he could help. Green had the worms ready.
“So you’re going for a day’s sport, are you?” said he. “It’s a good day, too, and the whiting ought to be plentiful off the rock.”
“I hope they will,” said Dick.
“They’ve been let alone the last week or two,” said the bait merchant, “since our chaps have been out in the deep, so you’ve a fair chance.”
“When will the boats be back?” asked Dick, rather nervously.
“We should have seen some of them this morning, but the wind’s dropped. Maybe it will be afternoon before they come in.”
“It’s always a great day when they come in, isn’t it?” asked the boy.
“Depends on the catch. When it’s a bad catch no one cares to see them back.”
Dick tried hard to keep down his next question, but it had a sort of fascination for him, and he could not smother it.
“I suppose,” said he in the most careless tones he could assume, “Tom White’s not likely to come back in a hurry?”
Green laughed. He was no friend of the double-dealing mariner.
“Not if he knows who’s a-going to be down on the beach to welcome him. But, bless you, how’s he to know? The sooner he comes home and gets his right lodgings, the better, so say I. What do you say, young squire?”
The “young squire” did not exactly know what to say, and took up his can of worms to depart, with something like precipitation.
He found Cresswell and Freckleton waiting for him down at the boat. Until this moment he had never seen the Templeton Hermit, except occasionally at a distance; and he glanced with some curiosity at the face of the fellow who had beaten Pledge for the Bishop’s Scholarship. He didn’t altogether dislike him. The stolid face and bright black eyes of the Hermit made him a little uncomfortable, but there was an occasional twitch at the corners of his mouth, and a music, when he chose to use it, in his voice, which reconciled the junior to his presence, and even interested him in the disposal of his new patron’s good graces.
It didn’t take long to get “all aboard.” The precious worms were safely deposited in the hold, the three lines were stowed away under the seat, and the basket containing the sandwiches and hard-boiled eggs added ballast to the bows. Cresswell, who had an idea of doing things comfortably, had brought his ulster and made Freckleton bring his. The latter had armed himself also with a Shakespeare in case the fish didn’t bite; and three towels, knowingly produced by the whipper-in, added a further pleasant suggestion for whiling away a dull half-hour.
The calmness of the day and the absence of any sign of wind induced the party to vote the mast and sails a useless encumbrance, and they were accordingly left ashore, and a spare pair of oars taken in their place. The irony of fate left it to Dick’s lot to see the anchor was in proper trim and firmly secured—a task which he discharged with almost vicious solemnity.
“What time does the tide turn, Joe?” asked Cresswell of the boatman as they ran the boat down to the water.
“Half-past two about, mister. Yer’ll need to bring her in close ashore and give the Fiddle-sand a wide berth while the tide flows.”
“All right. Shove her off, Joe.”
They had a glorious day. The sea had scarcely a ripple, and the sky scarcely a cloud. The fish seemed to vie with one another in falling upon the bait. The view of Templeton from the sea was perfect, and the sharp outline of the Sprit Rock above them was grandeur itself.
Dick, as he lolled over the side of the boat, slowly hauling up his line and speculating whether he had got two fish on each hook or only one, felt supremely at peace with himself and all the world. The sandwiches had been delicious, Cresswell and Freckleton had treated him like a lord, the pile of fish on the floor of the boat was worthy of a professional crew, the light breeze was just enough to keep the sun in his place, and the sofa he had made for himself with Freckleton’s ulster in the bows was like a feather bed. Dick loved the world and everything in it, and when Cresswell said, “Walk into those sandwiches, young ’un,” he really thought life the sweetest task in which mortal can engage.
Cresswell and Freckleton were scarcely more proof against the luxury of the morning. They chatted in a sort of sleepy undertone, as if they knew all Nature was taking a nap and didn’t want to be disturbed.
“How did you think old Jupiter got through levée?” asked Cresswell.
“Well, for those who wish him well,” said the Hermit.
“Ah, he’s an uphill job before him, and I fancy he knows it. If he ever is down in the mouth, I think he was so last night after it was all over.”
“I thought so too,” said Freckleton; “that is, I shouldn’t call it down in the mouth. He had headache; that’s about the same thing.”
“He’s staked high. No one else would have dared to challenge the whole school in the way he did,” said Cresswell, dropping his voice, but still, in the quiet air, not quite beyond Dick’s hearing.
“It answered; it brought the right fellows to the front.”
“And shut the wrong fellows hopelessly out?”
“I hope not. Many of them are only fools. They think it’s plucky to defy the powers that be, and quite forget it’s pluckier to defy themselves.”
“That’s a neat way of putting it, old man!”
“There’s a big bite this time!” said the Hermit.
So there was—three fish on two hooks, and it was some time before the diversion was disposed of.
“It’s a pity every one can’t be made to see he’s his own worst enemy; it would simplify matters awfully. If a youngster got it into his head that it wanted more pluck to go against himself than all the Templeton rules put together, we should get some surprises!”
“No chance of that, I’m afraid, while there are fellows like Pledge, who make it a business to drag youngsters down.”
“You may say so. I should say there’s not a youngster in Templeton in greater peril at this moment than Pledge’s fag, and the worst of it is there is no one to help him.”
Dick suddenly felt his sofa uncomfortable. The boards underneath cramped him; the sun, too, for some reason or other, became too hot, and the breeze fidgeted him; the last sandwich he had eaten had had too much mustard in it; he was getting fagged of fishing.
Although the talk of the two seniors had not been intended for his ears, it had been impossible for him to avoid overhearing it, even if he had tried, which he had not, and the Hermit’s last words had stung him to the quick and spoilt his enjoyment.
“What’s the matter, youngster?” asked Cresswell. “Getting sea-sick?”
“No,” replied Dick, trying to compose himself.
“What do you say to a header?”
Dick was stripped in half a minute. Anything for a change. And what change more delightful than a plunge in the lovely green sea?
The seniors smiled at his hurry, as they proceeded in a more leisurely fashion to follow his example.
“Don’t wait for us; over you go,” said Cresswell, “and tell old Neptune we are coming.”
Dick waited for no further invitation, and sprang from the gunwale. They watched the spreading circles that tracked his dive, and marked the white shining streak as it darted past, under the water.
“He’ll be a shark, before long,” said Cresswell. “Look at the distance he’s dived.”
“He has to thank the tide for part of this, though,” said Freckleton, looking at his watch. “Why, it’s—”
An exclamation from Cresswell stopped him. Dick had reappeared, but he was twenty yards at least astern of the boat, and drifting back every moment.
At first he did not seem to be aware of it; but, treading water, waved one hand exultantly to celebrate his long dive.
But when he began to swim, leisurely at first, but harder presently, he suddenly realised his position, and saw that instead of making way back to the boat, he was losing distance at every stroke.
Some of my readers may have been in a similar position, and know the horror of helplessness which, for a moment, comes over the swimmer at such a time. Dick was not given to panic, still less fear, but, for all that, the minute which ensued was one of the most terrible in his life.
At certain times of the tide, the current between the Sprit Rock and the long Fiddle-Sandbank rushed like a mill-race. The boys knew this; they had been reminded of it at starting. But the morning had passed so quickly that, until Dick had taken his header, and they saw him swept astern, it had never occurred
to one of them that it could possibly be three o’clock. Freckleton was the first to see the danger, and almost as soon as Dick appeared above water, he flung off his coat and boots, and saying to Cresswell, “Come quick with the boat,” plunged into the water.
He was soon at Dick’s side; not to support him, for the boy was able to do that for himself, but to encourage him to keep cool, and not waste his strength in endeavouring to stem the tide. And Dick had sense enough to take the advice, and tread water quietly till the boat should come.
It seemed a long time coming. The anchor was fast in the bottom, and it wanted all Cresswell’s strength to get it up. Indeed he would have been tempted to simplify matters by cutting the cord, had he had a knife at hand.
By the time it was free, the boys were almost a quarter of a mile away, and getting weary. But once free, their suspense was not prolonged. Cresswell bore quickly down upon them, and picked them up; and rarely did three friends breathe more freely than when they all stood once more on the floor of their boat.
There was no speech-making or wringing of hands, no bragging, no compliments. They knew one another too well for that, and dressed in silence, much as if the adventure had been an ordinary incident of an ordinary bathe.
“It strikes me,” said Cresswell, who still had the oars out, “it will take us all our time to get back. Are you ready to take an oar, old man?”
Short as the time had been—indeed the whole incident had not occupied much more than five minutes—the boat was about a mile below her old moorings, and still in the rush of the current.
It was little the two rowers could do to keep her head up, much less to make any way; and finally it became clear that if they were to get back to Templeton at all that day, they must either anchor where they were, for six hours, with the risk of their rope not holding in the Race, or else let the current take them out to the open, and then make a long row back outside the Sprit, and clear of the Fiddle Bank.
They decided on the latter, and somewhat gloomily rested on their oars, and watched the backward sweep of the boat on the tide seaward.
The square tower of Templeton had become a mere speck on the coast-line, before they felt the tide under them relax, and knew they were out of the Race.
Then they manned their oars, and began their long pull home. Fortunately the water still remained quiet, and the breeze did not freshen. But after about a mile had been made, and the Sprit Rock seemed only midway between them and the shore, a peril still more serious overtook them. The sky became overcast, and a sea mist, springing from nowhere, came down on the breeze, blotting out first the horizon, then the rock, and finally the coast, and leaving them virtually blindfolded in mid-ocean.
“We may as well anchor, and wait till it clears,” said Cresswell.
“I think we might go on slowly,” said Freckleton. “If we keep the breeze on our left, and Dick looks sharp out in front, we are bound to come either on the Sprit or the shore. Try it for a bit.”
So they tried; rowing gingerly, and steering by the breeze on their cheeks, while Dick, ahead, strained his eyes into the soaking mist.
They may have made another mile, and still the mist wrapped them round. They had no idea where, they were. They might be close to the Rock, or they might have drifted down the coast, or they might be coming on to the Race again.
Still, anything seemed better than lying idle, and they paddled steadily on, hoping against hope for a single glimpse of daylight through the veil.
Suddenly Dick held his hand above his head, and shouted—
“Easy! Hold hard!”
And they could just see a dark object ahead on the water.
It couldn’t be the rock, for it was too small; and they could hardly imagine it to be part of the pier, or a boat on the beach.
They shouted; and, in a moment, an answer came, “Ahoy, there!” and they knew they had come upon a fishing-boat at anchor.
“It’s one of the fleet, waiting to get in. We’d better go alongside, and wait with them,” said Freckleton.
So Dick shouted to say they were coming, and they rowed carefully alongside.
The first sight that met Dick’s astonished eyes, as he reached across to seize the gunwale of the friendly boat, was Tom White, sitting comfortably smoking in the stern.
“Good day, young gentlemen,” said that worthy. “Can’t keep away from us, can’t yer?”
“Hullo, Tom! We’ve lost our way in the mist,” said Cresswell. “Where are we?”
“Reckon you’re in the bay, and a swim to the pierhead.”
“So near! We made sure we were outside the Sprit. How long have you been here?”
“Come here when the tide turned, we did,” said Tom, “with a boat full, and no mistake. Say, young gentlemen, you ain’t forgot the poor mariner that lost his boat, have yer? It’s cruel hard to lose your living and have to begin afresh.”
“If you mean you want a shilling for piloting us ashore,” said Cresswell, “here you are. Will you take us, or will your mate?”
Dick grew uncomfortable, and, under pretence of wanting to examine some of the fish on the floor of the lugger, he scrambled up the side, and got in.
“Come back, Dick; do you hear?” called Cresswell. “We must go back if one of those fellows will run us in. Will you come, Tom?”
Visions of the bar-parlour of the “Dolphin” hovered before Tom’s mind as he looked down at the speaker and the shilling that lay in his hand.
He was just about to consent, when he felt his arm nudged by Dick, who was crouching down over the fish at his feet.
“Tom White,” said the boy, looking up nervously, “don’t go ashore. They are going to arrest you for pawning that boat that didn’t belong to you. Tell your mate to see us ashore. There’s another shilling for you!”
Tom took his pipe out of his mouth and gaped at the boy. Then he slowly pocketed the shilling. Then he relieved himself of an oath. Then he called his mate—
“Jerry, see the squires ashore.”
With fluttering heart Dick scrambled back into the boat, followed by the hulking Jerry, who, in a very few minutes, ran them comfortably on to the beach, and made an end of all their perils for that day.
They reached Templeton just in time for call over; and no one knew, as they walked into Chapel that evening, through what adventures they had passed since they left Templeton in the morning.
Early next morning Dick could not resist the temptation of going down to call on Mr Green.
“Well, did the boats all come in?” he inquired.
“All, bar Tom White’s. And they do say it will be long enough before any one sees him in these parts again. He’s got wind somehow. It’s wonderful the way news travels on water—so it is.”