King of Ranleigh: A School Story

by F. S. Brereton

CHAPTER XIX

A MONSTROUS ACCUSATION

It was a terrible moment for Clive. In the midst of his own vexation and chagrin at the failure he had made, and at the knowledge that he had just missed laying hands on the criminal who had been setting fire to the school, to be pounced upon of a sudden, gripped with suffocating firmness and shaken like a dog, was disconcerting, to say the least of it. It was positively maddening.

"Let go, you fool! Clear off, and let me go on with the business," he cried in tones of anger. "Do you hear? Let go."

Clive was no saint. He had as many faults as the average fellow, and perhaps more than some. But they were honest faults, faults seen in the light of open day. Not the low, mean ones affected by some fellows behind the scenes, to their own shame and the abhorrence of all right-thinking people. Clive had never been one of those fellows who sadly upset the discipline and more of a school. He was a rock to lean on where questions of principle and honour were concerned. The Head knew it. Old B. knew it better still perhaps. The masters and the school thought quite well of our hero. But he had a temper, and showed it now. He struggled and fought like a madman. But still those iron fingers gripped his neck.

"At last!" he heard in the deep, cross tones of Mr. Axim. "At last the wretch who has troubled us so long is run to earth. Stir an inch, sir, and I'll deal sternly with you. There'll be no trifling, I can assure you. Though you are a Ranleigh prefect, and not yet a man, you can expect the roughest handling."

That was Mr. Axim all over. He was, perhaps, the most unpopular of all the masters. In fact, we may state that Ranleigh had seldom been so unlucky. Mr. Axim seemed indeed to have been born with a natural antipathy for boys, and it was ill luck that he should have come to Ranleigh, or, for the matter of that, to any school. To him boys were unnatural animals. He was ever suspicious of them. Their overflowing fun and humour he could not understand, while boyish forgetfulness and want of care were, in his eyes, unpardonable offences. Was it fate, too, which had made him Clive's one particular bête noire, almost a persecutor? For friendship between them had never existed. The merry, light-hearted Clive, so serious when it came to mechanics, so studious when he was interested, was with this Mr. Axim a sulky dunce, unable to grip even simple rudiments. But then driving never agreed with our hero. A little sympathy, a little human friendship, and he was your best supporter, ready to "swat," as the boys termed it, ready to work his fingers almost to the bone so that he might give satisfaction. With Mr. Axim he had, in his earlier days at Ranleigh, been for ever in trouble, and since then the two had avoided one another as far as possible, each unmistakably disliking the other.

"At last, and the Head's pet prefect!" said Mr. Axim, laughing satirically, and with an air of triumph in his voice. "Let us see what he has to say to this capture. Pet prefect indeed! Pet hypocrite, I think. And to think that I warned him of you! To think that the one who did so nobly in putting out our first fire should have set it going. Ha! ha! I suspected the game. You should have thought of me, Darrell, when you went into this scoundrelly business."

Clive was too astounded to make any reply, and if he had wished, the grip compressing his neck behind made speaking almost impossible. His wits were whirling. He felt inclined to shout, or to break out into hysterical laughter. It was bad enough to have missed the man he was after, when he and his friends had taken so much trouble. And now, to be accused of the deed himself, to be told that he had been caught red-handed, was half maddening, half ludicrous. Had it been anyone else but Mr. Axim, Clive would have explained. But this master's obvious triumph, his satire and biting sarcasm kept our hero's lips silent.

"So," said Mr. Axim, as if gathering his ideas and thinking the matter out, "so, returning from a pleasant evening in the village we accidently discover Darrell as the much-wanted incendiary. Good! We now proceed to disillusionise the Head. We will ring this bell and awake him."