‘Very well, sir,’ said Fox, glancing at me.
‘Take him with you, then, and tell the rest. It is as a favour to myself that I put it, Fox.’
‘That is quite enough, sir.’
Fox took me to Mrs Elder, and had a talk with the rest before I saw them. Some twenty years after, Fox and I had it out. I gave him a full explanation, for by that time I could smile over the affair. But what does the object matter?—an apple, or a thousand pounds? It is but the peg on which the act hangs. The act is everything.
To the honour of my school-fellows I record that not one of them ever let fall a hint in the direction of the mystery. Neither did Mr or Mrs Elder once allude to it. If possible they were kinder than before.
CHAPTER X. I BUILD CASTLES.
My companions had soon found out, and I think the discovery had something to do with the kindness they always showed me, that I was a good hand at spinning a yarn: the nautical phrase had got naturalized in the school. We had no chance, if we would have taken it, of spending any part of school-hours in such a pastime; but it formed an unfailing amusement when weather or humour interfered with bodily exercises. Nor were we debarred from the pleasure after we had retired for the night,—only, as we were parted in three rooms, I could not have a large audience then. I well remember, however, one occasion on which it was otherwise. The report of a super-excellent invention having gone abroad, one by one they came creeping into my room, after I and my companion were in bed, until we lay three in each bed, all being present but Fox. At the very heart of the climax, when a spectre was appearing and disappearing momently with the drawing in and sending out of his breath, so that you could not tell the one moment where he might show himself the next, Mr Elder walked into the room with his chamber-candle in his hand, straightway illuminating six countenances pale with terror—for I took my full share of whatever emotion I roused in the rest. But instead of laying a general interdict on the custom, he only said,
‘Come, come, boys! it’s time you were asleep. Go to your rooms directly.’
‘Please, sir,’ faltered one—Moberly by name—the dullest and most honourable boy, to my thinking, amongst us, ‘mayn’t I stay where I am? Cumbermede has put me all in a shiver.’