"That young Ronnie's caught a chill," said he—"I thought he would. It'll keep him at home for another day or two, so the ill wind may blow old Coplestone a bit of good. I'm feeling a bit anxious about him, Gilly; wild horses won't drag him from this haunted hill! Just at this moment, however, he's on his way to Richmond to see if he can get Ronnie the new Wisden; and I'm sneaking up to town because I know it's not to be had nearer. I was wondering if you could make time to look him up while we're gone?"
I made it there and then at the risk of my place; it was not so often that I had Ronnie to myself. But at the very gate I ceased to think about the child. A Pickford van was delivering something at the house. At a glance I knew it for a six-gallon jar of whisky—to see poor Coplestone some little way into the Easter term.
Ronnie lay hot and dry in his bed, but brown and bright as he had looked upon the ice, and sizzling with the exuberance of a welcome that warmed my heart. He told me, of course, that it was "awful rot" losing the last day like this; but, on the other hand, he seemed delighted with his room—he always was delighted with something—and professed himself rather glad of an opportunity of appreciating it as it deserved. Indeed, there was not a lazy bone in his little body, and I doubt if he had spent an unnecessary minute in his bedroom all the holidays. But they really were delightful quarters, those two adjoining rooms for which no paper in our stock had been good enough. Both were now radiant in a sky-blue self-colour that transported one to the tropics, and certainly looked better than I thought it would when I had the trouble of procuring it.
In the bedroom the blue was only broken by some simple white furniture, by a row of books over the bed, and by groups of the little eleven in which Ronnie already had a place, and photographs of his father at one or two stages of his great career. I was still exploring when an eager summons brought me to the bedside.
"Let's play cricket!" cried Ronnie—"do you mind? With a pack of cards—my own invention! Everything up to six counts properly; all over six count singles, except the picture cards, and most of them get you out. King and queen are caught and bowled, but the old knave's Mr. Extras!"
"Capital, Ronnie!" said I. "Shall it be single wicket between us two, or the next test-match with Australia?"
Ronnie was all for the test, and really the rules worked very well. You shuffled after the fall of every wicket, and you never knew your luck. Tom Richardson, the last man in for England, made sixty-two, while some who shall be nameless went down like ninepins in the van. In the next test (at Lord's) we elaborated the laws to admit of stumping, running out, getting leg-before and even hitting wicket. But the red kings and queens still meant a catch or what Ronnie called "a row in your timber yard." And so the afternoon wore on, until I had to mend the fire and light the gas; and then somehow the cards seemed only cards, and we put them away for that season.
I forget why it was that Ronnie suddenly wanted his knife. I rather think that he was deliberately rallying his possessions about him in philosophic preparation for a lengthy campaign between the sheets. In any case there was no finding that knife, but something much more interesting came to light instead.
I was conducting the search under directions from the bed, but I was out of sight behind the screen when I kicked up the corner of loose carpet and detected the loosened board. Here, thought I, was a secret repository where the missing possession might have been left by mistake; there were the actual marks of a blade upon the floor. "This looks a likely place," I said; but I did not specify the place I meant, and the next moment I had discovered neither knife nor pencil, but the soiled, unframed photograph of a lovely lady.
There it had lain under the movable bit of board, which had made a certain noise in the moving. That same second Ronnie bounded out of bed, and I to my feet to chase him back again.