12 Mike Read online

  “I want none of your charity,” said Mr. Spence loftily. “You don’t seem to realise that I’m the best off of you all. I’ve got two in my form. It’s no good offering me your Pickersgills. I simply haven’t room for them.”

  “What does it all mean?” exclaimed Mr. Appleby.

  “If you ask me,” said Mr. Seymour, “I should say that it meant that the school, holding the sensible view that first thoughts are best, have ignored the head’s change of mind, and are taking their holiday as per original programme.”

  “They surely cannot–-!”

  “Well, where are they then?”

  “Do you seriously mean that the entire school has—has rebelled?”

  “‘Nay, sire,’” quoted Mr. Spence, “‘a revolution!’”

  “I never heard of such a thing!”

  “We’re making history,” said Mr. Seymour.

  “It will be rather interesting,” said Mr. Spence, “to see how the head will deal with a situation like this. One can rely on him to do the statesman-like thing, but I’m bound to say I shouldn’t care to be in his place. It seems to me these boys hold all the cards. You can’t expel a whole school. There’s safety in numbers. The thing is colossal.”

  “It is deplorable,” said Mr. Wain, with austerity. “Exceedingly so.”

  “I try to think so,” said Mr. Spence, “but it’s a struggle. There’s a Napoleonic touch about the business that appeals to one. Disorder on a small scale is bad, but this is immense. I’ve never heard of anything like it at any public school. When I was at Winchester, my last year there, there was pretty nearly a revolution because the captain of cricket was expelled on the eve of the Eton match. I remember making inflammatory speeches myself on that occasion. But we stopped on the right side of the line. We were satisfied with growling. But this–-!”

  Mr. Seymour got up.

  “It’s an ill wind,” he said. “With any luck we ought to get the day off, and it’s ideal weather for a holiday. The head can hardly ask us to sit indoors, teaching nobody. If I have to stew in my form-room all day, instructing Pickersgill II., I shall make things exceedingly sultry for that youth. He will wish that the Pickersgill progeny had stopped short at his elder brother. He will not value life. In the meantime, as it’s already ten past, hadn’t we better be going up to Hall to see what the orders of the day are?”

  “Look at Shields,” said Mr. Spence. “He might be posing for a statue to be called ‘Despair!’ He reminds me of Macduff. Macbeth, Act iv., somewhere near the end. ‘What, all my pretty chickens, at one fell swoop?’ That’s what Shields is saying to himself.”

  “It’s all very well to make a joke of it, Spence,” said Mr. Shields querulously, “but it is most disturbing. Most.”

  “Exceedingly,” agreed Mr. Wain.

  The bereaved company of masters walked on up the stairs that led to the Great Hall.

  CHAPTER XI

  THE CONCLUSION OF THE PICNIC

  If the form-rooms had been lonely, the Great Hall was doubly, trebly, so. It was a vast room, stretching from side to side of the middle block, and its ceiling soared up into a distant dome. At one end was a dais and an organ, and at intervals down the room stood long tables. The panels were covered with the names of Wrykynians who had won scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, and of Old Wrykynians who had taken first in Mods or Greats, or achieved any other recognised success, such as a place in the Indian Civil Service list. A silent testimony, these panels, to the work the school had done in the world.

  Nobody knew exactly how many the Hall could hold, when packed to its fullest capacity. The six hundred odd boys at the school seemed to leave large gaps unfilled.

  This morning there was a mere handful, and the place looked worse than empty.

  The Sixth Form were there, and the school prefects. The Great Picnic had not affected their numbers. The Sixth stood by their table in a solid group. The other tables were occupied by ones and twos. A buzz of conversation was going on, which did not cease when the masters filed into the room and took their places. Every one realised by this time that the biggest row in Wrykyn history was well under way; and the thing had to be discussed.

  In the Masters’ library Mr. Wain and Mr. Shields, the spokesmen of the Common Room, were breaking the news to the headmaster.

  The headmaster was a man who rarely betrayed emotion in his public capacity. He heard Mr. Shields’s rambling remarks, punctuated by Mr. Wain’s “Exceedinglys,” to an end. Then he gathered up his cap and gown.

  “You say that the whole school is absent?” he remarked quietly.

  Mr. Shields, in a long-winded flow of words, replied that that was what he did say.

  “Ah!” said the headmaster.

  There was a silence.

  “‘M!” said the headmaster.

  There was another silence.

  “Ye—e—s!” said the headmaster.

  He then led the way into the Hall.

  Conversation ceased abruptly as he entered. The school, like an audience at a theatre when the hero has just appeared on the stage, felt that the serious interest of the drama had begun. There was a dead silence at every table as he strode up the room and on to the dais.

  There was something Titanic in his calmness. Every eye was on his face as he passed up the Hall, but not a sign of perturbation could the school read. To judge from his expression, he might have been unaware of the emptiness around him.

  The master who looked after the music of the school, and incidentally accompanied the hymn with which prayers at Wrykyn opened, was waiting, puzzled, at the foot of the dais. It seemed improbable that things would go on as usual, and he did not know whether he was expected to be at the organ, or not. The headmaster’s placid face reassured him. He went to his post.

  The hymn began. It was a long hymn, and one which the school liked for its swing and noise. As a rule, when it was sung, the Hall re-echoed. To-day, the thin sound of the voices had quite an uncanny effect. The organ boomed through the deserted room.

  The school, or the remnants of it, waited impatiently while the prefect whose turn it was to read stammered nervously through the lesson. They were anxious to get on to what the Head was going to say at the end of prayers. At last it was over. The school waited, all ears.

  The headmaster bent down from the dais and called to Firby-Smith, who was standing in his place with the Sixth.

  The Gazeka, blushing warmly, stepped forward.

  “Bring me a school list, Firby-Smith,” said the headmaster.

  The Gazeka was wearing a pair of very squeaky boots that morning. They sounded deafening as he walked out of the room.

  The school waited.

  Presently a distant squeaking was heard, and Firby-Smith returned, bearing a large sheet of paper.

  The headmaster thanked him, and spread it out on the reading-desk.

  Then, calmly, as if it were an occurrence of every day, he began to call the roll.

  “Abney.”

  No answer.

  “Adams.”

  No answer.

  “Allenby.”

  “Here, sir,” from a table at the end of the room. Allenby was a prefect, in the Science Sixth.

  The headmaster made a mark against his name with a pencil.

  “Arkwright.”

  No answer.

  He began to call the names more rapidly.

  “Arlington. Arthur. Ashe. Aston.”

  “Here, sir,” in a shrill treble from the rider in motorcars.

  The headmaster made another tick.

  The list came to an end after what seemed to the school an unconscionable time, and he rolled up the paper again, and stepped to the edge of the dais.

  “All boys not in the Sixth Form,” he said, “will go to their form-rooms and get their books and writing-materials, and return to the Hall.”

  (“Good work,” murmured Mr. Seymour to himself. “Looks as if we should get that holiday after all.”)

  “The Six
th Form will go to their form-room as usual. I should like to speak to the masters for a moment.”

  He nodded dismissal to the school.

  The masters collected on the daďs.

  “I find that I shall not require your services to-day,” said the headmaster. “If you will kindly set the boys in your forms some work that will keep them occupied, I will look after them here. It is a lovely day,” he added, with a smile, “and I am sure you will all enjoy yourselves a great deal more in the open air.”

  “That,” said Mr. Seymour to Mr. Spence, as they went downstairs, “is what I call a genuine sportsman.”

  “My opinion neatly expressed,” said Mr. Spence. “Come on the river. Or shall we put up a net, and have a knock?”

  “River, I think. Meet you at the boat-house.”

  “All right. Don’t be long.”

  “If every day were run on these lines, schoolmastering wouldn’t be such a bad profession. I wonder if one could persuade one’s form to run amuck as a regular thing.”

  “Pity one can’t. It seems to me the ideal state of things. Ensures the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”

  “I say! Suppose the school has gone up the river, too, and we meet them! What shall we do?”

  “Thank them,” said Mr. Spence, “most kindly. They’ve done us well.”

  The school had not gone up the river. They had marched in a solid body, with the school band at their head playing Sousa, in the direction of Worfield, a market town of some importance, distant about five miles. Of what they did and what the natives thought of it all, no very distinct records remain. The thing is a tradition on the countryside now, an event colossal and heroic, to be talked about in the tap-room of the village inn during the long winter evenings. The papers got hold of it, but were curiously misled as to the nature of the demonstration. This was the fault of the reporter on the staff of the Worfield Intelligencer and Farmers’ Guide, who saw in the thing a legitimate “march-out,” and, questioning a straggler as to the reason for the expedition and gathering foggily that the restoration to health of the Eminent Person was at the bottom of it, said so in his paper. And two days later, at about the time when Retribution had got seriously to work, the Daily Mail reprinted the account, with comments and elaborations, and headed it “Loyal Schoolboys.” The writer said that great credit was due to the headmaster of Wrykyn for his ingenuity in devising and organising so novel a thanksgiving celebration. And there was the usual conversation between “a rosy-cheeked lad of some sixteen summers” and “our representative,” in which the rosy-cheeked one spoke most kindly of the headmaster, who seemed to be a warm personal friend of his.

  The remarkable thing about the Great Picnic was its orderliness. Considering that five hundred and fifty boys were ranging the country in a compact mass, there was wonderfully little damage done to property. Wyatt’s genius did not stop short at organising the march. In addition, he arranged a system of officers which effectually controlled the animal spirits of the rank and file. The prompt and decisive way in which rioters were dealt with during the earlier stages of the business proved a wholesome lesson to others who would have wished to have gone and done likewise. A spirit of martial law reigned over the Great Picnic. And towards the end of the day fatigue kept the rowdy-minded quiet.

  At Worfield the expedition lunched. It was not a market-day, fortunately, or the confusion in the narrow streets would have been hopeless. On ordinary days Worfield was more or less deserted. It is astonishing that the resources of the little town were equal to satisfying the needs of the picnickers. They descended on the place like an army of locusts.

  Wyatt, as generalissimo of the expedition, walked into the “Grasshopper and Ant,” the leading inn of the town.

  “Anything I can do for you, sir?” inquired the landlord politely.

  “Yes, please,” said Wyatt, “I want lunch for five hundred and fifty.”

  That was the supreme moment in mine host’s life. It was his big subject of conversation ever afterwards. He always told that as his best story, and he always ended with the words, “You could ha’ knocked me down with a feather!”

  The first shock over, the staff of the “Grasshopper and Ant” bustled about. Other inns were called upon for help. Private citizens rallied round with bread, jam, and apples. And the army lunched sumptuously.

  In the early afternoon they rested, and as evening began to fall, the march home was started.

  At the school, net practice was just coming to an end when, faintly, as the garrison of Lucknow heard the first skirl of the pipes of the relieving force, those on the grounds heard the strains of the school band and a murmur of many voices. Presently the sounds grew more distinct, and up the Wrykyn road came marching the vanguard of the column, singing the school song. They looked weary but cheerful.

  As the army drew near to the school, it melted away little by little, each house claiming its representatives. At the school gates only a handful were left.

  Bob Jackson, walking back to Donaldson’s, met Wyatt at the gate, and gazed at him, speechless.

  “Hullo,” said Wyatt, “been to the nets? I wonder if there’s time for a ginger-beer before the shop shuts.”

  CHAPTER XII

  MIKE GETS HIS CHANCE

  The headmaster was quite bland and business-like about it all. There were no impassioned addresses from the dais. He did not tell the school that it ought to be ashamed of itself. Nor did he say that he should never have thought it of them. Prayers on the Saturday morning were marked by no unusual features. There was, indeed, a stir of excitement when he came to the edge of the dais, and cleared his throat as a preliminary to making an announcement. Now for it, thought the school.

  This was the announcement.

  “There has been an outbreak of chicken-pox in the town. All streets except the High Street will in consequence be out of bounds till further notice.”

  He then gave the nod of dismissal.

  The school streamed downstairs, marvelling.

  The less astute of the picnickers, unmindful of the homely proverb about hallooing before leaving the wood, were openly exulting. It seemed plain to them that the headmaster, baffled by the magnitude of the thing, had resolved to pursue the safe course of ignoring it altogether. To lie low is always a shrewd piece of tactics, and there seemed no reason why the Head should not have decided on it in the present instance.

  Neville-Smith was among these premature rejoicers.

  “I say,” he chuckled, overtaking Wyatt in the cloisters, “this is all right, isn’t it! He’s funked it. I thought he would. Finds the job too big to tackle.”

  Wyatt was damping.

  “My dear chap,” he said, “it’s not over yet by a long chalk. It hasn’t started yet.”

  “What do you mean? Why didn’t he say anything about it in Hall, then?”

  “Why should he? Have you ever had tick at a shop?”

  “Of course I have. What do you mean? Why?”

  “Well, they didn’t send in the bill right away. But it came all right.”

  “Do you think he’s going to do something, then?”

  “Rather. You wait.”

  Wyatt was right.

  Between ten and eleven on Wednesdays and Saturdays old Bates, the school sergeant, used to copy out the names of those who were in extra lesson, and post them outside the school shop. The school inspected the list during the quarter to eleven interval.

  To-day, rushing to the shop for its midday bun, the school was aware of a vast sheet of paper where usually there was but a small one. They surged round it. Buns were forgotten. What was it?

  Then the meaning of the notice flashed upon them. The headmaster had acted. This bloated document was the extra lesson list, swollen with names as a stream swells with rain. It was a comprehensive document. It left out little.

  “The following boys will go in to extra lesson this afternoon and next Wednesday,” it began. And “the following boys” numbered four hu
ndred.

  “Bates must have got writer’s cramp,” said Clowes, as he read the huge scroll.

  Wyatt met Mike after school, as they went back to the house.

  “Seen the ‘extra’ list?” he remarked. “None of the kids are in it, I notice. Only the bigger fellows. Rather a good thing. I’m glad you got off.”

  “Thanks,” said Mike, who was walking a little stiffly. “I don’t know what you call getting off. It seems to me you’re the chaps who got off.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “We got tanned,” said Mike ruefully.

  “What!”

  “Yes. Everybody below the Upper Fourth.”

  Wyatt roared with laughter.

  “By Gad,” he said, “he is an old sportsman. I never saw such a man. He lowers all records.”

  “Glad you think it funny. You wouldn’t have if you’d been me. I was one of the first to get it. He was quite fresh.”

  “Sting?”

  “Should think it did.”

  “Well, buck up. Don’t break down.”

  “I’m not breaking down,” said Mike indignantly.

  “All right, I thought you weren’t. Anyhow, you’re better off than I am.”

  “An extra’s nothing much,” said Mike.

  “It is when it happens to come on the same day as the M.C.C. match.”

  “Oh, by Jove! I forgot. That’s next Wednesday, isn’t it? You won’t be able to play!”

  “No.”

  “I say, what rot!”

  “It is, rather. Still, nobody can say I didn’t ask for it. If one goes out of one’s way to beg and beseech the Old Man to put one in extra, it would be a little rough on him to curse him when he does it.”

  “I should be awfully sick, if it were me.”

  “Well, it isn’t you, so you’re all right. You’ll probably get my place in the team.”

  Mike smiled dutifully at what he supposed to be a humorous sally.