My friend turned and stole softly from the room. If some one could have told us that we should see each other again before the year was out, we might have spent the night in guessing, and yet have remained without the remotest idea as to how, when, and where that extraordinary meeting was to take place.
CHAPTER VIII.
MY JOURNEY BEGINS.
It was certainly a bitter pill for me to swallow watching the boys start for home on the Wednesday and Thursday mornings, and what made the punishment seem all the harder was saying good-bye to Miles. Had it not been for that hare-brained antic, I might at least have travelled with him on the coach as far as Tod's Corner, and so enjoyed his companionship a few hours longer. A school, after the boys have gone home for the holidays, is a very desolate place. I had my meals at the headmaster's table, but, being in disgrace, ate them in solemn silence, and was glad enough when the ordeal was over, and I was free once more to go where I liked.
At length, on the Thursday afternoon, I found myself sitting at one of the long rows of desks in the empty schoolroom. The unusual quiet seemed to weigh on my spirits; and though I tried to cheer myself with the thought that only a few hours now remained before I should be on the way home, yet a certain gloomy foreboding as of impending trouble seemed to weigh on my mind. What could it be? After all, the loss of one day did not much matter, and I felt sure that when I explained the full circumstances of the case to my parents, they would take a lenient view of my foolish midnight escapade. Sitting idly mending an old quill pen which I had found on the floor, my thoughts turned once more to Miles and his uncertain future, and from this I came to recalling the incidents of my visit to Coverthorne.
What could be the explanation of that strange noise in the so-called haunted room? Of course, there were no such things as ghosts, and yet—and yet I myself had beaten a hasty retreat when left alone with those unearthly sounds, the origin of which it was impossible to trace. The very recollection of the experience made me turn and glance uneasily up and down the long room, as though I half expected to find myself sharing its solitude with some black bogey of a nursemaid's tale. The next instant I laughed at my own foolishness, and rising to my feet began to move about, for the room was cold.
The place had not been swept since the boys' departure. The floor was littered with torn paper, fragments of broken slates, and other rubbish which had been thrown about in the process of packing up. Some light-hearted youth, who had come into possession of a piece of chalk, had covered the blackboard with his scrawlings. Wandering aimlessly up the room, I came to a halt; then, hardly conscious of what I was doing, I opened one of the desks, and glanced down carelessly at its interior.
What good reason I afterwards had to remember that apparently purposeless' action! The books and other boyish possessions had been removed, and nothing remained but a mass of waste paper and other odds and ends, such as lay strewn about on the floor. I stirred this up with my hand. As I did so, my fingers came in contact with something hard, and I drew forth a small, oblong metal box, made, if I remember rightly, of pewter.
The desk had been occupied by a boy named Talbot, who was leaving these holidays, and so had taken his books with him. The object which I held in my hand, and which he had evidently overlooked, was a tinder-box, or rather a box containing tinder, flint, and steel, and little chips of wood tipped with sulphur. The so-called "lucifer" matches, I may remark, did not come into use until some years later. I stood for a moment undecided what to do with my find. Left in the desk it was certain to be discovered and carried off, either by one of the servants or the charwoman who cleaned the room. Talbot had a younger brother who would be returning after Christmas. I might restore the box to him; and with this intention I slipped it into my pocket.