Chapter Twenty Two.
The Haunted Window.
“Let me see,” said the doctor, as he and Railsford met once during the day, “I have two of your boys to see this evening. One, a prefect. Was it necessary to send him up?”
“It was, sir. If I saw the slightest prospect of dealing properly with him myself I would have done so. He is an enemy to the order of our house, and, as you know, our house just now cannot afford to have more enemies than it has.”
“Your enemies are those of your own house,” said the doctor sternly. “I had expected long before this that it would have been possible to restore it to the ordinary rights of Grandcourt. An impenetrable mystery is a bad thing for a school.”
“It is,” said Railsford, feeling uncomfortable. And here the conservation ended.
Railsford had not been long in his room that evening when Sir Digby Oakshott knocked at the door and entered with a long face.
“Please, sir, have you seen anything of Herapath?” said he. “He’s not turned up.”
“What—are you sure?”
“I’ve asked them all. All the others have come. I expect he’ll get pretty drenched if he’s lost his way.”
“He can’t have lost the way—it’s too simple. What was he doing at the abbey when you last saw him?”
“Going after owls,” said Dig.
“Where?”
“On the big window. We got to the top, you know; and I came down as soon as I saw you all starting; and he shouted that he would be down in a second, and was going to walk home; and we weren’t to wait. I say, I wonder if he’s got stuck up there, or come a cropper?”
Dig’s face was pale as the thought flashed across his mind. Railsford was not a bit less concerned.
“Go quickly and see if Mr Roe has sent away his trap, and, if not, keep it. If it has gone, go to Jason’s and get one directly, Oakshott.”
In five minutes the baronet returned.
“I can’t get a trap anywhere,” said he dismally, “but I’ve got Jason to send a horse.”
“That will do,” said Railsford, hurrying down.
“Will it do?” groaned Dig. “I can’t go too! Oh, Mr Railsford,” shouted he, as the master was jumping into the saddle, “what road shall you come back by?”
“Maiden Hill,” said the master, digging his heels into the horse’s side.
With a heavy heart Digby watched him start, and then putting on his cap determinedly, followed him on foot into the night and rain.
“I shall do it in two hours and a half,” said he to himself, “if I trot part of the way. What a cad I was to leave him up there!”
It was not till bed-time at Railsford’s that fellows generally became aware that the master and two of the boys were missing. Railsford and Oakshott had both been seen in the school after their return from the picnic. Railsford had, of course, depended on the boy to explain his sudden absence, and Dig had been too miserable and excited to think of telling anybody as he started on his weary tramp.
The first inquiry for the missing ones came from the doctor, who, after his interview with Felgate, sent a messenger over to the Master of the Shell to request his presence in the head-master’s study at once. The messenger returned to report that Mr Railsford was not in, and no one knew where he was gone. Then, the hue and cry being once raised, it appeared that Arthur and Dig’s study was also empty and that its owners were nowhere to be found.
Presently the school gatekeeper reported that on coming up from the town just now he had seen Mr Railsford galloping on one of Jason’s horses in the direction of the London road! And Munger, who had been out of bounds, reported in private (because the disclosure might get him into trouble if it came to the ears of the authorities) that just as he was sneaking in at the gate he met Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet, sneaking out.
The doctor, who might never have heard of the affair, had he not chanced to want to see Railsford particularly that evening, walked over to the house about bed-time and interviewed Ainger.
“Have you the slightest idea what it all means?” asked the head-master.
“Not the slightest, sir,” said Ainger shortly. If he had had, he would have spoken long ago, as the doctor knew—or should have known.
“No one is to stay up,” said the doctor, “and I wish you to take charge of the order of the house in Mr Railsford’s absence, Ainger. Circumstances have occurred which may make it necessary to remove Felgate to another house, meanwhile he has forfeited his prefecture here.”
And the doctor went away, leaving the captain of Railsford’s with a new perplexity piled up on all the others.
Whereupon Ainger sent his house to bed; and threatened them with all sorts of penalties if lights were not out and all quiet by 9.30. It was a sleepless night for a good many in Grandcourt. Mr Roe and Grover sat up together in the rooms of the former, anxious and perplexed about their missing friend. Mr Bickers walked about his room too, and wondered if his game was to slip through his fingers after all. And Felgate lay awake and laughed to himself in the conviction that to him belonged the glory of hunting the scoundrel from Grandcourt. And Maple, Simson, Tilbury, and Dimsdale, in the Shell dormitory lay awake too, and strained their ears at every sound in the court below, and wondered ruefully what had become of their two missing comrades.
Dig, as he ploughed his way footsore and weary through the rain and mud of Maiden Hill, down which he had shot at such a glorious pace not twelve hours before, thought wistfully once or twice of that warm dry bed in the dormitory and the friendly voices of his allies there assembled. But he would never return there without old Arthur! In the times of their prosperity and security those two boys had often quarrelled, often neglected one another, often forgotten all about one another; and a casual onlooker might have said, “They are not friends—they are no more to one another than any other two boys in the school.”
Ah, but if the critic could have looked into Dig’s heavy heart as he floundered through the mud that night he would have told a different tale. Often enough our friend seems to us like an ordinary friend. We have our little tiffs and our little reconciliations; we have our mutual jokes and our time-honoured arguments. We say good-bye with unruffled spirits, and meet again with an unimpassioned nod. But now and again the testing time comes. The storm breaks over our heads, the thunder rolls round us. Then the grip of our hands tightens, we find that, we are not friends, but brothers; and the lightning flash reveals to us, what we never suspected before, that there is something in the world dearer to us even than life; and as our hearts sink we envy those happy people, who, by their simple trust in their Saviour and in the all-pervading Goodness, are able to face with courage both Life and Death.
Dig stumbled on, dead beat, losing heart, at every step, and stopping sometimes to take breath with a gasp which sounded ominously like a sob. The long hill seemed interminable; there was no glimmer of a light anywhere to cheer him; no clatter of a horse’s hoofs to ring hope into his heart. All was black, and wet, and dreary. What if he should find the abbey deserted, and have to walk home—alone! He had nearly reached the ruin when he stumbled against two men conversing in the middle of the road. To his inexpressible relief one of them was Railsford.
“Mr Railsford!” gasped the boy, springing upon the master with a suddenness which made both men start, “is that you? Where’s Arthur? Have you found him?”
“He’s all right—he’s on the top of the window still, and we can’t get him down till daylight. I’m just arranging with Farmer White to bring a ladder.”
Dig made a dash in the direction of the abbey gate.
“Where are you going?” said Railsford.
“I’m going to hop up beside him,” shouted Dig, almost beside himself with relief.
The master caught him firmly by the arm.
“If you think of such a thing, Oakshott, I shall get Farmer White here to cart you straight back to Grandcourt.”
This terrible threat sobered Dig at once. He waited impatiently till the two men had made their arrangements, and then, with beating heart, accompanied the master to the ruin.
“He is safe up where he is,” said the latter, “and says he has room to sit down and a back of ivy to lean against. But he must be half drowned and frozen. It will do him good to know you are here. Now stay where you are, while I get on the wall and shout to him. He cannot hear us down here.” Dig waited, and listened to the master scrambling up the ivy and feeling his way on his hands and knees along the wall to the bottom of the arch.
Then he heard him shout—
“Arthur, are you there, all right?”
And his heart leapt as a shrill reply came back from the heights.
“Oakshott is here with me,” shouted the master.
It was all a mistake about not being able to hear from the level ground. Dig heard the “Hallo! what cheer, Dig?” as plainly as he heard Railsford himself.
“What cheer?” he howled in reply. “Keep up your pecker, old man.”
“Rather!” yelled Arthur.
Then Dig begged and besought Railsford to allow him to mount at least to where the latter stood, and the master made him happy by consenting. From this point it was easy to carry on a talk; and there in the rain through the dark watches of the night those three had one of the most profitable conversations they had ever enjoyed. A yokel who chanced to pass, hearing those weird, celestial voices, took to his heels and ran a mile straight off, and reported with ashy face and trembling lips that a ghost had appeared on the arch of the abbey as he passed, and called to him thrice, and had shrieked with demoniacal laughter as he hurried from the accursed place.
Towards dawn the rain ceased, and the three watchers, despite all their efforts, became drowsy. When Farmer White and two of his men arrived on the scene with a long ladder and a rope, they had to stand and shout from below for a minute or so before Railsford started into wakefulness and remembered where he was. As for Dig, he lay with his cheek buried in the wet ivy, sleeping as soundly as if he had been in the dormitory at school.
It was no easy task to get Arthur down from his dizzy perch. In the first place, he was so sound asleep that it was impossible to rouse him from below; consequently he could give no assistance in his own rescue. The ladder was far too short to reach within a quarter of the distance of where he was; and for a long time it seemed as if the ropes might as well have been left at home.
At length, however, by a combined effort the ladder was hoisted on to the top of the wall, and so elevated it reached a point on the arch above the place where the stones had given way. The difficulty was to secure it on the narrow ledge in any way so that it could be ascended safely. When, finally, by dint of careful adjustment and rigid holding at the bottom, it was pronounced reasonably safe, Dig was most eager to volunteer the ascent, urging that he was the lightest weight, and that the four men could do more good in holding the ladder.
“The lad’s right,” said the farmer; “let him go up.”
Railsford was forced to consent. It would have been obviously risky for a heavy man to ascend that rickety ladder. Dig rarely felt so proud and happy as when he skipped lightly up the rungs and reached the ivy-covered masonry of the arch.
It was not a difficult climb to the top, and it was as well it was not, for in his eagerness he forgot the admonitions of caution he had received below, and scrambled up as recklessly as if he had been ascending a London tramcar. His heart beat as at last he came upon his dear old friend.
Arthur sat sound asleep, his hands behind his head, his legs hanging over the edge of the arch, and his back propped in the angle formed by the junction of the window and the fragment of the old roof. Lucky for him was that natural armchair; for without it, at the first fall of sleep, he would undoubtedly have rolled from his perch into the depths below. Dig approached him gently and discreetly.
“Nearly time to get up, old chappie,” said he, laying his hand on the sleeper’s arm to prevent any sudden start.
That “nearly” was a stroke of genius. Had he incautiously announced that the chapel-bell had begun to ring, or that he would be late for call-over, the result might have been fatal.
As it was, Arthur opened his eyes lazily and yawned—
“All serene. Why, hullo, I say! Is that you, Dig, old man?”
“Yes, rather! Sit steady; we’ve got a ladder and ropes, and Marky’s just down there. How are you?”
Arthur rubbed his eyes, and his teeth chattered.
“Pretty cold and stiff, old man. How jolly of you to come! You see, the mortar or something slipped, and I couldn’t get up or down. I yelled, but you’d gone.
At last I managed to get up again, and there I’ve stuck. How are we going down now?”
“They’ve got the ladder up just below us, if you can manage to get down so far.”
Arthur began to move his stiff limbs one by one, by way of judging what he could do.
Dig, meanwhile, shouted down that he was safe up, and Arthur was all right.
“Not time for another try at the owls,” said the latter, getting one foot up and trying to rise.
“Owls be hanged,” said Dig, helping his friend gingerly to his feet.
“I feel like a poker,” said Arthur. “Shouldn’t care to run a mile just now.”
“Nobody wants you to. What you’ve got to do is to dig hold of the ivy with your hands and let yourself down. I’ll go first and take care of your feet.”
“Awfully brickish of you, Dig,” said Arthur. “I’m sorry I’m such a lout. I feel as if my joints want oiling.”
“Come on,” said Dig.
The descent was slow, and for poor Arthur painful; but, thanks to the ivy and Dig’s steady steering, it was in due time accomplished safely, and the top of the ladder reached.
“Now, then, one at a time,” shouted the farmer.
“He can’t go alone,” called Dig; “he’s too stiff. Won’t it bear both of us?”
The unanimous opinion below was that it would not. Even Dig’s weight as he went up had been as much as they could manage.
Finally Railsford suggested that a rope should be thrown up, which Dig could tie round Arthur’s body, and so support him from above as he came down.
The plan was a good one, and Arthur contrived by its help to lower himself down the steps into the arms of his rescuers.
Dig was not long in following; and five minutes later the party was standing, safe and sound and thankful, on the greensward of the abbey floor. The farmer insisted on taking them all to his house, and comforting their souls and bodies with a hot breakfast in front of a blazing fire. After which he ordered out his trap and drove them himself up to Grandcourt.
The first getting-up bell was ringing as they drove into the quadrangle, and at the sound of the wheels half a dozen anxious watchers darted out to welcome their return. Still more shouted down greetings from the dormitory window, and Arthur and Dig, had they been in the mood for lionising, might have had their heads turned by the excitement which their reappearance seemed to produce. But they were neither of them in a mood for anything but going to bed. For, after the excitement of the night and morning, a reaction had set in, and their heads ached and their bodies were done out. They even resisted Railsford’s recommendation of a hot bath, and took possession of the dormitory and curled themselves up to sleep, leaving Fate or anyone else to explain their absence for the next few hours to the authorities below.
As for Railsford, after seeing his young charges stowed away in their berths, he shook himself together, took his cold bath, and walked over to breakfast with Grover, none the worse for the fatigues and exposure of that eventful night.
“Have you seen the doctor yet?” inquired Grover, when the meal was over. “I suppose not. He was asking for you particularly last night.”
“What for, do you know?”
“I don’t. I was wondering if you did, for I imagine from his manner it is something important.”
“Oh, I know; I had to report one of my prefects yesterday for gambling. No doubt it is in connection with that.”
“Perhaps. You know it seems a great pity you and Bickers hit it so badly. Bickers seems to have a preposterous notion in his head that you are in some way responsible for what happened to him last term. He even wanted to bring the matter up in the last session of masters in your absence; and when we stopped it he promised to return to it at the next.”
“Oh, Bickers!” said Railsford scornfully. “I am really tired of him, Grover. It’s the greatest pity he wasn’t allowed to say what he had to say at that meeting. He will never be happy till he has it off his mind; and it surely wouldn’t be necessary for me to take any notice of his rhodomontades.”
“I’m glad you are so little concerned about them. I was afraid they might be worrying you.”
Railsford smiled.
“I’ve plenty in my own house to do that, thanks. No, all I ask is to keep the peace with Bickers, and have nothing to do with him. He may then say anything he likes. Well, I suppose I had better go over to the doctor’s now and report myself.”
The doctor received Railsford coldly, and required a full account of the strange adventures of the preceding night. Railsford felt a little hurt at his evident want of sympathy in his story, and was beginning to look out for a chance of escaping, when Doctor Ponsford said—
“I wanted to see you last night about Felgate, your prefect. I had a very unsatisfactory interview with him. He appears to lack principle, and, as you said, not to recognise his responsibility in the house. He tried to shift the blame for this gambling business wholly upon Mills—who, by the way, I flogged—and could not be brought to see that there was anything wrong in his conduct or unbecoming in a senior boy. I think it may be well to remove him next term, either into my house or Mr Roe’s; meanwhile he understands that he does not retain his prefecture in yours.”
“I am thankful for such an arrangement,” said Railsford.
“That, however, is only part of what I had to say to you. Before he left he brought a most extraordinary charge against you which I should certainly have disregarded, had it not coincided strangely with a similar charge made elsewhere. I only repeat it to you in order to give you an opportunity of repudiating it. It had relation to the outrage which was committed on Mr Bickers last term, for which your house still lies in disgrace. He stated that you knew more about that mystery than anyone else at Grandcourt, and, indeed, gave me the impression, from the language he used, that he actually considers you yourself were the perpetrator of the outrage. That, of course, is the mere wild talk of a revengeful ill-doer.”
Railsford laughed a short uneasy laugh. Had the doctor worded the question in slightly different form, it might have been difficult to answer it as decisively as he could now.
“It is; and if he were here to hear me I would say that it is as absolutely and wickedly false as emphatically as I say it to you, sir. I am sorry indeed that you should have thought it necessary to put the question.”
“There is never anything lost,” said the doctor drily, “by giving the calumniated person an opportunity of denying a charge of this sort, however preposterous. I am myself perfectly satisfied to take your word that you neither had any part in the affair yourself nor have you any knowledge as to who the culprits are.”
Railsford coloured and bit his lips. The doctor had now put the question in the very form which he had dreaded. If he could only have held his peace the matter would be at an end, perhaps never to revive again. But could he, an honest man, hold his peace?
“Excuse me,” said he, in undisguised confusion; “what I said was that the imputation that I had anything to do with the outrage myself was utterly and entirely false.”
“Which,” said the doctor incisively, “is tantamount to admitting that the imputation that you are sheltering the real culprits is well-founded.”
“At the risk of being grievously misunderstood, Doctor Ponsford,” replied Railsford slowly and nervously, yet firmly, “I must decline to answer that question.”
“Very well, sir,” said the doctor briskly; “this conversation is at an end—for the present.”