The Master of the Shell Part 40

At length, by mutual consent, they got off and began viciously to shove the machine up the hill.

"They'll all be there already," said Arthur, looking at his watch.

"We've been two hours."

"I wish I'd walked with them," said Dig.

"Pity you didn't," growled Arthur, "you aren't very lively company."

"Anyhow, I've done my share of the f.a.g. You and Marky may bring the beast home."

This altercation might have proceeded to painful lengths, had not a diversion occurred in their arrival at the crest of the hill.

Any ordinary traveller would have stood and admired the beautiful view-- the finest, it was said, in the county. But Arthur and Dig were in no humour for artistic raptures. The sight of the abbey towers peeping cut in the valley among the trees, and of the silver river which curled past it, suggested to them no thoughts of historic grandeur--no meditations on the pathetic beauty of ruin. It made them smell oysters and hear the popping of lemonade corks, and reminded them they had still two long miles to go before lunch.

"Get on, sharp," said Arthur, climbing into his saddle, "it won't take us long to go down the hill."

It didn't! They did the distance, a mile and a half, in about three minutes. The brake came to grief the moment they started, and they had nothing for it but to hold on and let her fly. As to attempting to control the speed with their feet, they were thankful enough to get those members up on the rest out of reach of the treadles, which plunged up and down like the pistons of a steam-engine. Luckily there was nothing on the road; luckily, too, the ruts which had broken the ground on the other side were for the most part absent on this. Once or twice the machine lurched ominously, and they thought all was up, and once or twice a stone or obstacle ahead promised to terminate finally their headlong career. But the gallant tandem cleared them all, and her pa.s.sengers clutched on to their handles like grim death; and between them they did the distance in some seconds under the record, and ran a clean half-mile on the level at the foot of the hill before they could bring one of the most famous runs of the season to a standstill. Thanks to this rapid performance they were only about a quarter of an hour after the pedestrians at the abbey.

"Well, here you are," said Railsford; "you came by Gra.s.sen, I suppose?

Rather rough riding, wasn't it?"

"We came by Maiden Hill after all," said Arthur. "It _was_ rather rough."

"Did you walk down, then?"

"No, we rode it. We came down in pretty good time. There's something the matter with the brake, so we had to let her go."

Possibly Railsford had a better notion of the narrow escape of the two hare-brained young guests of the club than they had themselves. They forgot all about it the moment they saw a hamper being carried in the direction of the river and heard Mr Roe announce that they might as well have lunch now, and explore the abbey afterwards.

"Hear, hear," whispered Dig to his friend. "Eh?"

"Rather," said Arthur.

And they were invaluable in spreading the repast and hastening the moment when Mr Roe at last announced that they were all ready to begin.

It was rather an imposing company. The doctor was there, and his niece, and Messrs. Roe, Grover, Railsford, and one or two other masters.

Smedley also was present, very attentive to Miss Violet; and Clipstone was there, as well as our friends Ainger, Barnworth, and Stafford. And all the learned luminaries of the Fifth were there, too, and one or two scientists from the Fourth. Arthur and Dig had rarely been in such good company, and had certainly never before realised how naturalists can eat. It was a splendid spread, and the two chums, snugly entrenched behind a rampart of hampers, drowned their sorrows and laid their dust in lemonade, and recruited their minds and bodies with oysters and cold beef, and rolls and jam tarts, till the profession of a naturalist seemed to them to be one of the most glorious in all this glorious world.

"Now," said Mr Roe, who was president of the club and host, "let us go and see the abbey. I have put together a few notes on its history and architecture, which I thought might be useful. Let us go first to the Saxon crypt, which is unquestionably the oldest portion of the structure."

"Oh, lag all that," said Dig to his friend. "Are you going to hear all that rot?"

"Not if I know it," replied Arthur. "We'd better lie low, and help wash up the plates, and when they're gone we can go for a spin up the big window."

So, when Mr Roe, having collected his little audience round him, began to descant with glowing countenance on the preciousness of some fragments of a reputed Druidical font lately dug up in the crypt, two naturalists, who should have been hanging on his lips, were busy polishing up the plates and the remnants of the repast, at the water's edge, and watching their chance for a "spin" up the ruined arch of the great window. That window in its day must have been one of the finest abbey windows in England. It still stood erect, covered with ivy, while all around it walls, towers, and roof had crumbled into dust. Some of the slender stone framework still dropped gracefully from the Gothic arch, and at the apex of all there still adhered a foot or two of the st.u.r.dy masonry of the old belfry.

No boy could look up to that lofty platform, standing out clear against the grey sky, without feeling his feet tingle. Certainly Arthur and Dig were not proof against its fascination.

The first part of the climb, up the tumbled walls and along the ivy- covered b.u.t.tresses, was easy enough. The few sparrows and swallows bustling out from the ivy at their approach had often been similarly disturbed before. But when they reached the point where the great arch, freeing itself, as it were, of its old supports, sprung in one clear sweep skyward, their difficulties began. The treacherous stones more than once crumbled under their feet, and had it not been for the sustaining ivy, they would have come down with a run too.

"You see," said Mr Roe to his admiring audience below, "the work of dissolution is still rapidly going on. These stones have fallen from the great arch since we came here."

"Regular jerry-builders they must have had in those days," growled Dig, scrambling up the last few yards; "did you ever see such rotten walls?"

Arthur confessed he hadn't; but having gained the top, he forgave the builders. Rarely had Dig and he been so pleased with themselves and one another. It was a genuine feat of climbing, of which very few could boast; and peril and achievement bind friends together as no mortar ever binds bricks.

"That window," said Mr Roe, looking up from below, "is considered inaccessible. It is said to be haunted; but the truth is, I believe, that it is infested by owls."

Here a faint "boo-hoo!" from above bore sudden and striking testimony to the truth of the master's observations.

"Hullo!" said Arthur, peering over, "they're going. Look sharp down, Dig, or we'll be left."

Dig obeyed. It was much more difficult getting down than getting up.

Still, by dint of clinging tight hold of the ivy and feeling every step, he managed to descend the perilous arch and get on to the comparatively safe footing of the b.u.t.tress.

"You cut on," shouted Arthur from above, "I'll be down in a second.

Don't wait--I have found an owl's nest up here; and I'm going to collar a young 'un for each of us. Don't tell them. If Railsford asks where I am, tell him I'm walking home. You can go with him on the tandem. I'll be home as soon as you."

At the same moment a shout from below of "Herapath!" "Oakshott!" still further hastened Dig's descent to _terra firma_.

"Come on," said Railsford, who was already seated on the tricycle, "it's coming on to rain. Where's Herapath?"

"Oh, he's walking home. He told me to tell you so. We've been scrambling about. Can I come in the tandem?"

"If he's not coming you can. Has he gone on, then?"

"No--he was just getting a--a specimen," said Dig, hopping up on the saddle, and resolving that Marky should do all the work. "He says he'd sooner walk."

"Dear me! here comes the rain," said Railsford, turning up his collar, "we'd better go on. He'll get wet, whichever way he comes home."

So they departed--as also did Mr Roe and the doctor and all the others.

"There's an owl again," said Mr Roe, looking back at the big window.

He was wrong. The shout he heard was from Arthur; not this time in sport, but in grim earnest. For, having abandoned the idea of capturing the owls, he had started to descend the arch. He had safely accomplished half the distance when a ledge of mortar gave way under him and left him hanging by his arms to the ivy. He felt in vain with his feet for some support, but could find none. Dig's previous descent had knocked away most of the little ledges by which they had come up.

Finally, by a desperate effort, he pulled himself up a few inches by the ivy and managed to get a footing again. But there he stuck. He could not go down further; and to go up would bring him no nearer Grandcourt than he was at present. So it was Arthur shouted; and everyone thought him an owl, and left him there in the rain to spend a pleasant evening on the top of the great window of Wellham Abbey.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE HAUNTED WINDOW.

"Let me see," said the doctor, as he and Railsford met once during the day, "I have two of your boys to see this evening. One, a prefect. Was it necessary to send him up?"

"It was, sir. If I saw the slightest prospect of dealing properly with him myself I would have done so. He is an enemy to the order of our house, and, as you know, our house just now cannot afford to have more enemies than it has."

"Your enemies are those of your own house," said the doctor sternly. "I had expected long before this that it would have been possible to restore it to the ordinary rights of Grandcourt. An impenetrable mystery is a bad thing for a school."