“Enough! yes, to be sure it will. I don’t know what you are at.”
“Nothing, nothing,” said Fisher, “here, write upon this, then,” said Fisher, putting a piece of paper into Archer’s hand, upon which Archer wrote his orders. “Away, away!” cried he.
Away went Fisher. He returned; but not until a considerable time afterwards. They were at supper when he returned. “Fisher always comes in at supper-time,” observed one of the Greybeards, carelessly.
“Well, and would you have him come in after supper-time?” said Townsend, who always supplied his party with ready wit.
“I’ve got the candles,” whispered Fisher as he passed by Archer to his place.
“And the tinder-box?” said Archer.
“Yes; I got back from my Aunt Barbara under pretence that I must study for repetition day an hour later to-night. So I got leave. Was not that clever?”
A dunce always thinks it clever to cheat even by sober lies. How Mr. Fisher procured the candles and the tinder box without money, and without credit, we shall discover further on.
Archer and his associates had agreed to stay the last in the schoolroom; and as soon as the Greybeards were gone out to bed, he, as the signal, was to shut and lock one door, Townsend the other. A third conspirator was to strike a light, in case they should not be able to secure a candle. A fourth was to take charge of the candle as soon as lighted; and all the rest were to run to their bars, which were secreted in a room; then to fix them to the common fastening bars of the window, in the manner in which they had been previously instructed by the manager. Thus each had his part assigned, and each was warned that the success of the whole depended upon their order and punctuality.
Order and punctuality, it appears, are necessary even in a Barring Out; and even rebellion must have its laws.