“All right,” said Haviland, feeling dubious but desperate, as he climbed down from the window.
It required some intrepidity to invade the redoubtable Head in his private quarters, instead of waiting until he appeared officially in public; however, as Corbould had divined, the great Panjandrum happened to be in high good humour, and was graciously pleased to accept the uttermost farthing, and release the prisoner then and there.
Half an hour later two enthusiastic collectors might have been seen, speeding along a narrow lane at a good swinging, staying trot. A quick glance all round, then over a stile and along a dry ditch skirting a long high hedge. Another quick look round, and both were in a small hazel copse. On the further side of this, in a field just outside it, stood a barn. This was their objective.
Now, before leaving cover, they reconnoitred carefully and exhaustively. The farmhouse to which the barn belonged stood but two fields off, and they could distinctly hear the cackling of the fowls around it – and in another direction they could see men working in the fields at no great distance. Needless to say, the pair were engaged in an act of flagrant trespass.
“That’s all right so far,” whispered Corbould major, as they stood within the gloom of the interior, feebly illuminated by streaks of light through the chinks. “There’s the nest, up there, in that corner, and you’ll have to give me a hoist up to the beam from the other end. We can’t take it from this because there’s a hen squatting on a lot of eggs right underneath, and she’ll kick up such a beastly row if we disturb her.”
A warning “cluck-cluck” proceeding from the fowl in question had already caused Haviland something of a start. However, they were careful not to alarm her, and she sat on. Meanwhile, Corbould had reached the beam, and with some difficulty had drawn himself up and was now creeping along it.
Haviland’s heart was pulsating with excitement as he stood there in the semi-gloom, watching his companion’s progress, for the adventure was a bold one, and the penalty of detection condign. Now a weird hissing arose from the dark corner overhead, as Corbould, worming his way along the beam, drew nearer and nearer to it, and then, and then, to him above and to him below, it seemed that there came a hissing as of a thousand serpents, a whirlwind of flapping wings, a gasp, a heavy fall, a crash, and he who had been aloft on yonder beam now lay sprawling beneath it, while the hen, which had saved itself as though by a miracle, was dashing round and round the barn, uttering raucous shrieks of terror.
“You ass! You’ve done it now!” exclaimed Haviland, horror-stricken, as he surveyed his chum, who, half-stupefied, was picking himself up gingerly. And he had. For what he had “done” was to lose his hold and tumble right slap on top of the sitting hen, or rather where that nimble fowl had been a moment before, namely on the nest of eggs; and these being in a state of semi-incubation, it followed that the whole back of his jacket and trousers was in the most nauseous mess imaginable.
This was too much for Haviland, and, the peril of the situation notwithstanding, he laughed himself into a condition that was abjectly helpless.
“Shut up, Haviland, and don’t be an ass, for heaven’s sake! We must get out of this!” cried Corbould. “Scrag that beastly fowl. It’s giving away the whole show!” And indeed such was likely to be the result, for what with the owl hissing like a fury overhead, and the hen yelling below, it seemed that the din should be heard for miles.
A hedge stake, deftly shied, silenced the latter, and this first act of stern self-preservation accomplished, the second followed, viz.: to slip cautiously forth, and make themselves remarkably scarce. This they succeeded in doing. Luck favoured them, miraculously as it seemed, and, having put a respectable distance between themselves and the scene of the adventure, they made for a safe hiding-place where they could decide on the next move, for it was manifestly impossible for Corbould to show up in that state.
Snugly ensconced in a dry ditch, well overhung with brambles, they soon regained wind after their exertions and excitement. But Haviland, lying on the ground, laughed till he cried.
“If you could only have seen yourself, Corbould,” he stuttered between each paroxysm, “rising like Phoenix from the ashes! And that infernal fowl waltzing round and round the barn squawking like mad, and the jolly owl flapping and hissing up top there! O Lord, you’d have died!”
“We didn’t get the eggs, though. Wouldn’t have minded if we’d got the eggs.”
“Well, we won’t get them now, for I don’t suppose either of us’ll be such asses as to go near the place again this season after the to-do there’ll be when old Siggles discovers the smash up. It’s a pity to have done all that damage though, gets us a rottener name than ever.”
“It couldn’t. These beasts of farmers, it doesn’t hurt them if we hunt for nests. Yet they’re worse than the keepers. They have some excuse, the brutes.”
“How on earth were you such an ass as to come that cropper, Corbould?” said the other, going off into a paroxysm again.
“Oh, it’s all jolly fine, but what’d you have done with that beastly owl flapping around your ears and trying to peck your eyes out? But I say. What are we going to do about this?” showing the horrible mess his clothes were in.
Both looked blank for a few moments. Then Haviland brightened.
“Eureka!” he cried. “We’ll plaster you up with dry mud, and it you’re asked, you can swear you had a fall on your back. You did too, so that’ll be no lie.”
The idea was a good one. By dint of rubbing in handfuls of dry earth, every trace of the eggs, half-incubated as they were, was hidden. But as far as further disturbance at the hands of these two counted for anything the owl was allowed to hatch out its brood in peace. Not for any consideration would they have attempted further interference with it that season.
Chapter Five.
“Haviland’s chum.”
When Haviland expressed his belief, in conversation with Mr Sefton, that the Zulu boy would prove able to take care of himself, he uttered a prediction which events seemed likely to bear out.
When three or four of the fellows who sat next to him in chapel conceived the brilliant idea of putting a large conical rose thorn – point uppermost of course – on the exact spot where that dark-skinned youth was destined to sit down on rising from his knees, they hardly foresaw the result, as three or four heads were quickly and furtively turned in anticipation of some fun. They were not disappointed either – for Simonds minor, the actual setter of the trap, shot up from his seat like a cork from a soda-water bottle, smothering an exclamation expressive of wild surprise and something else, while the descendant of generations of fighting savages sat tight in his, a rapt expression of innocence and unconcern upon his dark countenance. Nor did the fun end there, for the prefect in charge of that particular row, subsequently and at preparation time sent for Simonds minor, and cuffed him soundly for kicking up a disturbance in chapel, though this was a phase of the humour which, while appealing keenly to the spectators, failed to amuse Simonds minor in the very least. He vowed vengeance, not on his then executioner, but on Anthony.
Under a like vow, it will be remembered, was Jarnley. Not as before, however, did he propose to make things unpleasant for his destined victim. This time it should be on dry land, and when he got his opportunity he promised to make the very best of it, in which he was seconded by his following – who connected somehow the magnitude of the impos, given them by “that beast Sefton,” with the presence of “Cetchy” in their midst. So the party, having completed their said impos, spent the next few days, each armed with a concealed and supple willow switch, stalking their quarry during his wanderings afield; but here again the primitive instincts of the scion of a barbarian line rendered it impossible for them to surprise him, and as to catching him in open pursuit, they might as well have tried to run down a bird in the air. He would simply waltz away without an effort, and laugh at them: wherein he was filling Jarnley and Co.’s cup of wrath very full. But an event was destined to occur which should cause it to brim over.
One afternoon, owing to the noxious exhalations arising from