Chapter Sixteen.
Gunpowder Treason.
One result of my boating excursion was that Crofter ceased to frequent his fellow-seniors’ studies. There was no declaration of war, or, indeed, any formal breaking off of relations. But Crofter had sense enough of his own dignity to feel that he had been slighted by Tempest: and Tempest and his friends had no inclination to heal the trouble, or assume an attitude of friendliness they did not feel.
As for me, I found it very hard to steer an even course between the competing parties. Crofter nodded and spoke to me just as usual, and was evidently amused by my panic lest these pacific overtures should be observed or misconstrued by Tempest. Tempest, on the other hand, did not refer again to the subject, but took a little more pains than before to look after me and help me in my work. And an evening or two later, much to my surprise, when I went as usual to “tidy up” in Pridgin’s room while Tempest was there too, my lord and master said abruptly,—
“Let my things alone, kid. Tempest appreciates a mess in his place more than I do, so I’ve swopped you for Trimble.”
“What?” said I, in tones of mingled amazement and pleasure. “Am I—”
“You’re to go and fetch my blazer,” said Tempest, “that I left on the parallel bars in the gymnasium this afternoon. Look alive, or I shall stick to Trimble.”
I really began to think there must be something unusually desirable about me, that fellows should be so anxious to possess me. The Philosophers had with one accord sought me for president. Pridgin had wanted me. Crofter had wanted me. Even Redwood had wanted me. And now here was old Tempest putting in his claim! He should have me—I would not be so selfish as to deprive him of the coveted privilege.
In a somewhat “tilted” condition I went off on my errand, not even delaying to announce the great news to my fellow-Philosophers. It was a dark evening, and the gymnasium was some way off. But I knew the way by this time. I had daily walked past the area door and glanced down at the dangerous guy where it lay with its lolling tongue under the grating, to assure myself of its welfare. It was all right up till now, and in two days it would be off my hands.
The square was empty as I crossed it, and, to my satisfaction, I found the gymnasium door unlocked. I groped my way to the corner where the parallel bars stood, and there found the blazer, which I carried off in triumph.
As I emerged from the door and came down the steps, I became aware of two points of light in front of me, and a voice out of the darkness, which caused me to jump almost out of my skin,—
“Who is that?”
It was Mr Jarman’s voice—and I could just discern his shadowy form accompanied by that of Mr Selkirk standing before me. The two masters were evidently taking an after-dinner turn with their cigars, and had heard my footsteps.
“Jones iv., sir; I came to fetch Tempest’s blazer.”
“Who gave you leave?”
“Tempest, sir.”
“Take the blazer back where you found it, and tell Tempest if he leaves his things in the gymnasium he must fetch them at proper hours. This is the third time I have had to speak to you, Jones iv. You must attend an extra drill to-morrow, and learn fifty lines by heart. This constant irregularity must be stopped.”
So saying, he took his companion’s arm and strolled off.
I returned dismally into the dark gymnasium and flung the blazer on to the nearest seat; and then hurried back to report the result of my mission to Tempest.
As I guessed, our poor guy downstairs was likely to be nowhere in the explosion which this last insult called forth.
With clenched teeth Tempest sprang from his seat and snatched his cap.
“It’s awfully dark,” said I; “if you’re going, you’d better take some matches.”
“Fetch me some,” said he, with a harsh, dry voice. I fled off, and returned with a box of fusees, which the Philosophers had laid in for the approaching celebration of Guy Fawkes’ Day.
Tempest snatched them from my hand and strode off. I wished he had let me go with him. I heard his footsteps swing heavily across the quadrangle, as if challenging the notice of the enemy. Whether the enemy heard or answered the challenge I could not say. The steps died away into silence, and I listened in vain for further sign.
Presently I returned to the faggery, where the Philosophers were just preparing to obey the summons to bed.
Hurriedly I recited the event of the evening, and for once was honoured with their rapt and excited attention.
“My eye, what a shame we can’t go out and see the fun!” cried Langrish.
“I hope he makes jelly of him,” said Trimble. “I’m jolly glad I’m his fag.”
This brought on a crisis I had rather feared.
“You’re not,” said I. “Pridgin has swopped me for you.”
“What!” screamed Trimble, taking a running kick at my shins.
“I didn’t do it. Shut up. Trim! that’s my leg you’re kicking. It was Pridgin. Go and kick him,” said I.
But Trim was in no mood to listen to reason.
“I always said you were a sneak,” snarled he; “now I know it. Come and kick the beast, you fellows. It’s all a low dodge. Kick him, I say.”
The company showed every disposition to respond to the appeal.
“Look here,” said I, “it’s not my fault—but if you kick me, I’ll tell him about your precious guy, and you can look after him yourself; I shan’t. There!”
This rather fetched them. As custodian of that illicit effigy I had my uses, and they hardly cared to dispense with me. So Trimble was ordered not to make an ass of himself, and the discussion went back to Tempest and his blazer.
“I tell you what,” said Warminster. “I vote we hang about a bit and cheer him when he comes in. There’s no one to lag us for not going to bed, and we may as well stay and back him up.”
With which patriotic resolve we resumed our seats and occupied the interval with auditing the accounts of the club—a painful and tedious operation which gave rise to much dispute and recrimination, particularly when it was discovered that on paper we were 25 shillings to the good, whereas in the treasurer’s pocket we were 6 shillings to the bad.
The treasurer had a bad quarter of an hour of it, till it was discovered that the auditors had accidentally forgotten to carry the total of one column to the top of the next, an oversight which nearly brought about the dissolution of the club, so fierce was the storm which raged over it.
More than half an hour was spent over these proceedings, and we began to wonder why Tempest had not come back. It was certain he must have been stopped by somebody, or he would have been back in ten minutes. Had he and Jarman had an encounter? Was Mr Jarman at that moment begging for quarter? or was our man answering for his riot to the head master?
Half an hour passed, three-quarters, an hour. Then, just as we were giving him up, hurried footsteps came across the quadrangle, and Tempest, with pale face and disordered guise, carrying his blazer on his arm, entered and passed rapidly to his room. His countenance was too forbidding for us to venture on our promised cheer. Something unusual had happened. How we longed to know what it was!
I was thrust forward to follow him to his study, on the chance of ascertaining, and was on the point of obeying, when a terrific sound broke the silence of the night, and sent us back with white, rigid faces in a heap into the faggery.
The sound proceeded from the direction of the gymnasium—first of all, a dull, spasmodic thunder; then a fierce burst, followed almost immediately by two tremendous reports which shook us to the soles of our boots.
It reminded me of that fearful night at Dangerfield, when Tempest—
I clung on to Langrish, who was next to me, in mute despair, and Langrish in turn embraced Trimble.
“Those,” gasped the voice of Coxhead, “were the—ginger—beer—bottles. What—shall—we—do?”
“Cut to bed sharp!” said the resolute though quavering voice of Warminster, “and lie low.”
“There won’t be much of him left,” whispered Trimble, “that’s one good thing,” as we huddled off our clothes in the dark in the dormitory.
It was a gleam of comfort, certainly. Effigies of that kind, when they do go off, leave few marks of identity behind them.
“Who let it off?” I ventured to ask. “No one knew about it except us.”
“Look out! There’s somebody coming!”
It was Mr Sharpe, who looked in, candle in hand, to see if any one had been disturbed by the noise. But every one was sleeping peacefully, blissfully unconscious that anything had happened.
“Narrow shave that,” said Langrish, when the master had retired.
“I say,” said Trimble. “I wonder if Tempest—”
Here he pulled up, but a muffled whistle of dismay took up his meaning.
“If he did, he must have found it out by himself. I never said a word to him,” said I.
“You were bound to make a mess of it,” said Coxhead. “Why ever couldn’t you stick the thing where nobody could find it?”
“So I did; it was leaning up against the cellar wall; no one could possibly get at it.”
“Why not? the area door’s open.”
“No, it ain’t. I locked it, and hid the key,” said I, triumphantly, “for fear of accident, under the scraper.”
“Good old Sarah—that’s lucky. But what about the grating in the gymnasium floor? Couldn’t you twig it through that?”
“Not unless you were looking for it. And if you could, you couldn’t get at it.”
“Well,” said Trimble, rather brutally, “I hope it’s all right, for your sake. Fellows who keep guys must take the consequences. It would have been much safer if you’d kept it under your bed.”
“You may keep the next,” growled I. “I’ve done with it.”
Considering the probable condition of the luckless effigy at that moment, nobody was inclined to contradict me; and the Philosophers relapsed into gloomy silence, and eventually fell asleep.
I was probably the last to reach that blissful stage. For hours I lay awake, a prey to the most dismal reflections. To do myself justice, my own peril afflicted me at the time—perhaps because I did not realise it—less than Tempest’s. Whether he had blown up the guy or not, things would be sure to look black against him, and my recollection of the episode of Hector’s death told me he would come out of it badly. How, if he had done it, he had contrived to get at the explosives, I could not fathom. I was sure, even with his grudge against Jarman, he was not the sort of fellow to take a revenge that was either mean or dastardly; and yet—and yet—and yet—
When with one accord we woke next morning it needed no special intimation to be aware that something had happened at Low Heath. Masters and school attendants were talking in groups in the quadrangle. Boys were flitting across in the direction of the gymnasium; and seniors in twos and threes were deferring their morning dip and hovering about in serious confabulation.
“Something up?” said Trimble, with ill-concealed artlessness. “I wonder what it is?”
“Looks like a row of some sort,” said Langrish. “What are all the chaps going across to the gym. for, I wonder?”
“Let’s go and see,” said Coxhead.
“We needn’t all go together,” said Warminster, significantly. So one by one, casually, and at studied distances from our comrades, the Philosophers dropped into the crowd and made for the scene of last night’s accident.
I felt terribly nervous. Suppose some one had been killed, or suppose the gymnasium had been burnt, and suspicion fell on any one, what a fix it would be!
In my distress I met Dicky Brown, full of news.
“Hullo, Jones, I say, have you heard? Some chap’s been trying to blow up the gym. in the night, and there’s a row and a half on. The front door is smashed, and the floor all knocked to bits. Come and have a look.”
“Any one killed or hurt?”
“I’ve not heard. Didn’t you hear the noise?”
“Yes. Our chaps heard a row in the night.”
“We could hear it at our place,” said Brown. “They say the chap’s known who did it, too.”
“Who?”
“How do I know? Some chap who’s been extra drilled, most likely.”
“There’s plenty of them,” suggested I.
“Well, yes. They say a lot of gunpowder had been stowed in the lumber room just under the door. There, do you see?”
We had reached the scene of the tragedy, and I was able to judge of the mischief which had been done. The door was broken, but whether by the explosion or ordinary violence it was hard to say. The floor and grating over the lumber room were broken away, and one or two windows were smashed. That was all. My first feeling was one of relief that the damage was so slight. I had pictured the whole building a wreck, and a row of mangled remains on stretchers all round. Compared with that, our poor guy had really made a very slight disturbance. Of him I was thankful to be able to observe no trace, except one tan boot and a fragment of a ginger-beer bottle in the area. That indeed was bad enough, but, I argued, the lumber room was full of old cast-off shoes and bottles, and these would probably be set down as fragments of the rubbish displaced by the explosion.
Brown, however, and others to whom I spoke, failed to share my view of the slightness of the damage.
“If the fellow’s found, it will be a case of the police court for him.”
The blood left my face as I heard the awful words. It had never occurred to me yet that the matter was one of more than school concern. Visions of penal servitude and a broken-hearted mother swam before my eyes. Oh, why had I ever left the tranquil seclusion of Fallowfield for this awful place?
As soon as possible I edged quietly out of the crowd, and made my way dismally back to Sharpe’s, where I met not a few of our fellows, all eager for news.
I was too sick to give them much information, and sent them to inspect for themselves while I made my way dismally to Tempest’s room.
He was up, reading.
“Hullo, youngster,” said he, “what’s all the row about? What was that noise in the quad, last night? were some of your lot fooling about with fireworks?”
“Don’t you know?” gasped I, fairly taken aback with the question. “Why, some one’s been trying to blow up the gymnasium!”
“What!” he exclaimed. “Why, I was there, not long before the noise. Who’s done it?”
“That’s what nobody knows. I’m afraid there’ll be a row about it.”
“Any fool could tell that,” said Tempest, with troubled face.
“I wish you hadn’t been there,” said I; “they may think it was you.”
“Let them,” said he, with a laugh which was anything but merry. I was longing to hear what had happened to him last night, but he did not volunteer any information, and I did not care to question him.
Horribly uneasy, I was about to seek the questionable consolations of my comrades, when the school messenger entered with a long face.
“Master Tempest, the head master wants to see you at once.”
“All right,” said Tempest.
“He said I was to bring you.”
“If you want to carry me, you may,” said Tempest, with a short laugh; “if not, wait a moment and I’ll come. Jones, tell Pridgin I want to speak to him—wait, I’ll go to him.”
The school messenger looked as if he felt it his duty to take the senior at his word. Had Tempest been a smaller boy, he might have done so. As it was, he repeated,—
“At once, please, sir.”
Tempest took no notice, but went across the passage to his friend’s room.
When he reappeared in a minute or two, Pridgin was with him, and without taking further notice of the messenger’s presence the two walked arm-in-arm out of the house and across the quadrangle.
The news of the summons spread like wildfire. The Philosophers, when in due time they mustered in the faggery after their inspection of the scene of the outrage, were not slow in taking in the seriousness of the situation.
“Of course he’s suspected. It’s all your fault, you ass, for being such a muff and letting Jarman catch you. You can’t do a thing without making a mess of it.”
“How could I help it?” I pleaded.
“Couldn’t you have fetched his blazer for him without running into that cad’s way?”
“What I can’t make out,” said Langrish, “is how Tempest knew about the guy and was able to let it off.”
“I don’t believe he did,” said I. “I’m sure he didn’t.”
“You’d believe anything. Things like that don’t go off by themselves, do they?”
I was bound to admit they did not, but persisted in my belief that Tempest had nothing to do with it.
But the logic of the Philosophers was irresistible.
“Didn’t we see him go over and come back? and didn’t it blow up the moment he got into the house?” said Trimble.
“And didn’t he go over on purpose to have it out with Jarman?” said Coxhead.
“And hadn’t he got his blazer with him when he came back?—so he must have been in the gym.,” said Warminster.
“Who else was likely to do it?” said Langrish. “I suppose you’ll try to make out Jarman tried to blow himself up?”
“I never said so. All I said was that I’m positive Tempest never did it.”
“And all we say is that you’re about as big an ass as you look, and that’s saving a good deal,” chimed in the Philosophers.
How long the wrangle might have gone on I cannot say. For just then the school messenger appeared on the scene once more—this time in quest of me.
“Young Master Jones iv., you’re to go to the head master at once.”
“What for?” said I, feeling a cold shudder go down my spine.
“Ask a policeman,” replied the ribald official. “You’ve had a short time and a merry one, my young gentleman; but it’s over at last.”
“But I never—”
“Sharp’s the word!” interrupted he.
“You’d better cut,” said the Philosophers. “We’ll give you a lift if we can.”
It was poor consolation, but such as it was I valued it. Never a criminal walked to the gallows with as heavy a heart as I followed the school messenger across the quadrangle and past the fated gymnasium to the head master’s study.
There I found four people waiting to see me. Tempest looking very sullen, the head master looking very grave, Mr Jarman looking very vicious, and a policeman looking very cheerful.