Meanwhile, the college boys, after driving Mr. Ketch nearly wild with their jokes and ridicule touching the mystery of the keys, were scared by the sudden appearance of the head-master. They decamped as fast as their legs could carry them, bringing themselves to an anchor at a safe distance, under shade of the friendly elm trees. Bywater stuck his back against one, and his laughter came forth in peals. Some of the rest tried to stop it, whispering caution.
“It’s of no good talking, you fellows! I can’t keep it in; I shall burst if I try. I have been at bursting point ever since I twitched the keys out of his hands in the cloisters, and threw the rusty ones down. You see I was right—that it was best for one of us to go in without our boots, and to wait. If half a dozen had gone, we should never have got away unheard.”
“I pretty nearly burst when I saw the bishop come out, instead of Ketch,” cried Tod Yorke. “Burst with fright.”
“So did a few more of us,” said Galloway. “I say, will there be a row?”
“Goodness knows! He is a kind old chap is the bishop. Better for it to have been him than the dean.”
“What was it Ketch said, about Jenkins seeing a glowworm?”
“Oh!” shrieked Bywater, holding his sides, “that was the best of all! I had taken a lucifer out of my pocket, playing with it, while they went round to the south gate, and it suddenly struck fire. I threw it over to the burial-ground: and that soft Jenkins took it for a glowworm.”
“It’s a stunning go!” emphatically concluded Mr. Tod Yorke. “The best we have had this half, yet.”
“Hush—sh—sh—sh!” whispered the boys under their breath. “There goes the master.”