The Hero of Garside School Part 75

bl.u.s.tered Parfitt.

"Silence, sir!" came the stern voice of the master. "Have the courtesy to hear me to the end. I have but little more to add, and then I shall be only too pleased to hear anything you may have to say in your defence. The way in which the information was used was so ingenious that it would have been quite impossible to declare that the writer of this essay was the culprit. I was quite certain of it in my own mind, but it needed additional proof. How to get it was the next point. In consultation with Mr. Travers here, a speedy decision was come to. It was of the utmost importance that the innocent should be cleared; the guilty punished. A locksmith was called in on the next half-holiday.

Parfitt's box was opened, its contents examined. At the bottom we discovered the missing notes. The pages from the Black Book, as being useless, had been destroyed. The same fate would doubtless have followed my notes, so soon as the result of the compet.i.tion was known. I took the notes from the box. A facsimile was put in their place. Here are the originals."

He held up the notes. All heads were eagerly craned forward to look at them.

"These are the originals," repeated the master, when the sensation caused by their production had abated. "I doubt not the facsimiles to which I have referred will still be found in Parfitt's box. What I suggest, therefore, is that he hand over his key to Hasluck, the head of this Form, that the porter should then bring the box to this room, and that it be opened in the presence of all of you. We shall then see if the facsimiles are still there."

Not a word fell from Parfitt's lips in answer to this appeal. At that moment he was pa.s.sing through one of the most terrible ordeals a boy can pa.s.s through. The silence in the room became painful.

"I hope it won't be needful to call in the locksmith again, Parfitt,"

said the master. Then in a burst of agony came from the wretched boy's lips:

"You needn't open the box. I--I did it."

He dropped to the form, and covered his ashen face with his hands. Then came the master's voice again, with the solemnity of a judge p.r.o.nouncing sentence:

"I did not wish to go through this ignominy, Parfitt, before the whole school. That is the reason I confined the inquiry to your Form and this room. Everything has been done to spare your feelings, though I cannot help saying that you do not seem to have cared very much for the feelings of others. I am sorry to say that the sentence you wished pa.s.sed on Percival must be pa.s.sed on yourself. You can no longer remain a scholar at Garside."

Parfitt knew well enough what that meant--it was a sentence of expulsion. He staggered to his feet, and was about to pa.s.s out without a word, when the voice of Paul brought him to a standstill.

"I do not mind what has been said against me--indeed, I don't!"

exclaimed Paul; "we've all made mistakes; so please don't go so far with Parfitt. Don't expel him. Give him another chance!"

Parfitt could scarcely believe his ears. The boy whom he had sought to expel was taking his part--pleading that he might remain.

"It is generous of you to plead for him, but after what has happened, how is it possible for him to remain?" said the master.

Paul scarcely knew how to answer; but as he stood nonplussed a mist rose in the room, and as the mist cleared he saw a garden, with a delicate-faced boy, lying in an invalid chair, as though asleep. A little wren had perched itself upon his shoulder.

"Let him stay for--for Hibbert's sake," came in a gulp.

The master turned his head for a moment. When he once more faced the boys, the hard light had vanished from the blinking eyes, and a softer light shone there.

"What has happened has not gone beyond this room. The facts, so far, have not been disclosed to the whole school," he said. "It may not, perhaps, be necessary. I will see what can be done in consultation with my colleagues. I trust it may be possible for us to respond to Percival's generous appeal. Attention! Half-turn! March!"

And the boys filed slowly from the cla.s.s-room.

Vacation at last!

To Paul the term through which he had pa.s.sed was the most memorable in his school life, as it was, perhaps, the most memorable in the history of the school. He spent a week with the good mother whom he loved, and who so loved him. He sat again in the old church with her, and heard again the vicar's fervent voice in the Litany:

"From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death."

In the days gone by he used to wonder how it was that his mother's hand used to tremble in his when those solemn words echoed in the church. Now he understood, as he knelt once more by her dear side--none better. The last term at Garside had taught him a lesson which would never be erased from his mind so long as life lasted.

At the end of the week he went to Redmead, in response to the invitation which Mr. Walter Moncrief had sent him in that letter to Garside which had caused him such heart-burning. Stanley was there to meet him. The old friendship between them was resumed. The clouds had pa.s.sed away, leaving them the better, the stronger--they were once more in the sunshine.

Mr. Moncrief had learnt all that had happened at Garside. Harry entertained them at tea-time with his and Plunger's adventures as members of the Mystic Order of Beetles, and his sister nearly had a fit of apoplexy as he described Plunger crawling on hands and knees round the ring while the Mystic Brethren proceeded to initiate him as "a brother."

Stanley was the only one who was not infected with Connie's mirth. He remained so serious amid the general merriment that Harry suddenly brought down his hand upon his shoulder and in a tragic voice declaimed the incantation which had made so remarkable an impression upon Plunger:

"Beetles of the Mystic Band, Wind we round thee hand in hand,"

and so on.

"No, we're not going to send Stan to the Realms of Creepy-Crawley,"

smiled Connie, putting her arm through her cousin's with an air of possession as Harry ended:

"We don't mind Mr. Plunger going there. He'd be quite at home; but not Stan."

Stanley smiled, but soon relapsed into his former gravity.

"A penny for your thoughts, Stan!" said Mrs. Moncrief.

"Oh, I was only thinking of one of the Beetles--Wyndham. I was wondering whether we should see anything of him during the vac."

"Would you like to meet him?" asked Mr. Moncrief.

"Very much."

Paul said nothing; but he felt a keen sense of gratification at the words that fell from Stanley. It showed that all animosity towards Wyndham had completely vanished, and that he was anxious to meet him again, not as an enemy, but on a footing of friendship.

Mr. Moncrief was absent for a good part of the next day. On the day following he announced that he was going to take them for a drive in the wagonette. They were, of course, anxious to know where.

"Well, Harry has asked me once or twice whether we couldn't travel over some of the ground over which Paul travelled on the night when he broke in upon us here at the end of his last vacation. I think this is the most favourable opportunity we shall have to carry out his suggestion, if you're all agreeable."

Of course they were agreeable. So, early the next morning, the wagonette came to the door, and the little party, in the best of spirits, started on the drive.

No contrast could have been greater than the contrast between that morning of bright sunshine and the night when Paul started from Redmead with Mr. Moncrief. On that never-to-be-forgotten night danger seemed to be lurking in every hedgerow. The shadows lay thickly across their pathway, and the sight of home had never been so dear to Paul as when he at length came in sight of it that night. How different it all seemed in the bright sunshine!

By an indirect route they came to the common over which Paul had ridden on Falcon. They stopped at the spot where Zuker and his confederate had seized Falcon's bridle. Then they turned back, and paused once more where the brave horse had staggered and fallen. Paul had not seen the place since, and as they reached it, he lived once again through the incidents of those few terrible moments when the life-blood of Falcon was slowly oozing away. He could see it lying there; he could see the crimson stream running from its flank, the look of pathos in its eyes as it turned to him.

"I think we will drive on," said Mr. Moncrief gently. "We owe a good deal to Falcon, so I mean to have a little memorial to his memory some day--to the memory of a n.o.ble horse. There are some animals, it seems to me, who are as much ent.i.tled to it as human beings."

A great surprise was in store for them when they reached the well down which Paul had hidden from his pursuers. Wyndham was standing there, just as he had stood on the night when he had covered Paul's retreat!

Then it turned out that Mr. Moncrief had arranged this little surprise on the previous day; that he had visited Wyndham, and appointed to meet him at the well. To the delight of the boys, the arrangement went still further--Wyndham was to return with them, and spend a few days at Redmead.

Stanley was one of the first to give him a hearty greeting.

"You must be my friend as well as Paul's," he said earnestly, as he shook him by the hand.

"There's no one, I suppose, who would like to repeat Paul's experience in the well?" smiled Mr. Moncrief, when the excitement of the meeting had cooled down.

The invitation, it is unnecessary to say, was "declined with thanks."