Years of Plenty Part 5

Spots looked baffled. The row had been tremendous, yet here everybody was calm and quiet. It must have been Randall's, but they were still at their supper. It was amazing, it was a miracle. To save his face he returned to his study.

Meanwhile it was ascertained that, after some confusion, Toffee Randall had continued his speech: then they heard the long-drawn, surging roar of "Auld Lang Syne." It took Randall's twenty minutes to finish "Auld Lang Syne."

"The swine," said Neave. He said it often, but he said it beautifully, with a whining drawl of contempt. "Just wait till they get to their dormies."

So they waited, and presently the pandemonium began. Randall's were discovering that not a bed had escaped, not a jug remained. As they looked out of their windows on to the gym roof they realised the full meaning of the battle-cry and the crash that had startled them at their supper.

"Water, water everywhere," cried Cullen in ecstasy as he heard the tumult rising in the neighbouring house. Randall's, flushed rather with insolence than the weak claret-cup of their supper, bellowed in their dormitories and shouted from their windows: after all none but Berney's could have done the deed. It was sheer joy for Berney's as they listened: wisely they made no answer and Randall's cried aloud in vain.

Again Spots came into the lower dormy. "What are Randall's shouting about?" he asked.

"Joy of life," said Neave. "The swine."

"Well they needn't yell at us."

"They've got no manners, Leopard."

Spots advised his dormy to take no notice of the creatures and again went out.

Shortly before midnight Mr Randall rang at Mr Berney's front door and demanded an interview with the master of the house. Berney came down in his dressing-gown: he was very tired and his eyes ached. He was promptly informed by his raging neighbour that his house had disgraced itself, and he listened to a strange story of soaked beds and broken pitchers. "Must have been your boys," Randall ended fiercely. "The jugs couldn't be thrown on to my gym except from your dormitories.

There has been an invasion. It's scandalous."

"But what evidence have you?" asked Berney, who hated Randall as only one housemaster can hate another.

"It's obvious, man, obvious. Jealousy. Footer cup. My boys were at supper when the crash was heard: and your boys shouted, I heard them.

Besides, would my people soak their beds? I demand an inquiry. I shall go to Foskett. Your boys shall be kept back a day."

This roused Berney, whose nerves were already strained with fatigue and worry.

"I entirely decline," he said sharply, "to board my boys for an extra day to please you. I shall put the matter in the hands of my prefects.

If that doesn't satisfy you, go to Foskett by all means. You won't get much out of him at this time of night: he's probably more tired than I am. If my prefects find that my boys----"

"There's no 'if,'" said Randall.

"If they find that we're responsible," Berney continued icily, "the jugs shall be paid for and the guilty punished. Good-night." And he led Randall to the door.

Randall was renowned for his temper and his powers of self-expression in school. But now he was sublimely speechless.

Berney held a nocturnal consultation with his form prefects. They all smiled as the tale was told. Spots even roared with laughter.

"Er, Leopard," said Berney, "this is--er--a serious matter," and then he broke down and laughed himself. He and Randall had never hit it off. Spots told Berney of the suspicious innocence of the lower dormitory. Moore had been on duty all the evening in the upper room so that its inhabitants were certainly not guilty. The prefects marched in a body to the lower dormy. "Look here, you chaps," said Spots, "it's all up about this jug business. It was done here. Who are the culprits?"

Simultaneously every boy left his cubicle and said: 'Guilty.' It was a triumph of organisation. Neave had foreseen that detection was inevitable and had determined that, up to the very end, the dormy should display its solidarity.

"Well," said Spots, "you'd better all come down to the pre's room."

So shortly before one o'clock eighteen boys in dressing-gowns, led by Cullen and Neave in garments of great colour and splendour, went down to the prefects' common-room. There was just room for all.

Neave had to tell the whole story: he told it simply and well, duly emphasising the Biblical aspect.

"Berney has left the matter with the prefect," said Moore, who was suffering tortures from a half-thwarted desire to laugh.

"You'll have to pay for the jugs next term. Randall wants you to be kept back, but Berney wouldn't hear it. Anyhow, it's been a grave breach of discipline" (here he saw the impenetrable solemnity of Neave's face and almost broke down), "grave breach of discipline. Yes.

You're to have four each."

Martin sighed with relief, for he had expected eight. They were taken to the house gym, where s.p.a.ce was ample, and with all four prefects at work the business was soon over. They were even allowed to keep on their dressing-gowns. Never had swiping been so farcical or so inefficient. When they were all back in their cubicles Spots came in.

"I'd have given a great deal," he said, "not to have been a pre to-night. It seems to me that we have scored off Randall's.

Gentlemen, I congratulate you, and I sincerely hope that no one has been hurt by our recent ministration."

They a.s.sured him that they had not suffered. And then, because they were all going away very early the next morning, it was decided, with Spots's permission, to abandon sleep. Gideon had to make a speech and offer thanks for the public revenge: and stories were told interminably.

Martin, as he lay half asleep, came to the conclusion that life's burden was exquisite. It wasn't only that the holidays began to-morrow: the night's achievement had been perfect. There is something essentially satisfying to human nature in the lavish destruction of property: with joy we watch the havoc wrought by the cinema comedian or the pantomime knockabout, and with joy the patron of fairs smashes the bottles in a rifle-range. Martin revelled in the thought that forty pitchers lay shattered and shimmering on the zinc roof below him. And now, more than ever, he felt the pleasures of comradeship. Randall's had been humiliated: Berney's had triumphed.

It was for him far the most significant fact of his first term that he had taken part in an enterprise worthy to be recounted for ever in Berney's. He was proud of his dormy, for it had worked as one man.

Above all, he was proud of Neave, the contriver, the leader of men.

Even now he was saying:

"We've put it across them, the swine."

Then Spots said: "For Gideon and the Lord. It was a great notion. Who thought of it?"

"Young Leigh gave the name," said Neave.

"Good for you, Leigh," shouted Spots. "You're keeping up the reputation of the Leopard's den."

Naturally that seemed to Martin the supreme moment of the whole superb affair.

VI

At one o'clock in the afternoon of December the twentieth a motor car left Tavistock station and tore fiercely westward until it reached the excellent village of Cherton Widger. Then it panted up an abrupt hill and, pa.s.sing a lodge, ran up a short drive to The Steading, a square low-roofed house surrounded by irreproachable lawns that sloped away to the coverts. The chauffeur descended and carried on to the steps a portmanteau and a corded play-box. Martin, looking uncouthly smart in a new overcoat (with a strap behind) and a bowler hat, stood rather nervously by the door. He had come home for the holidays.

In the hall he met his aunt. He kissed her: or rather she kissed him.

His uncle burst out of his study and shook hands with him: his cousin Margaret, aged fifteen, also appeared and shyly shook hands. It seemed that his cousin Robert, aged seventeen, would not escape from Rugby till to-morrow. Everybody began to ask him questions which he mechanically answered.

"You must have left Elfrey very early," said his aunt.

"About seven."

"And in December too! Had you got to?"

"No; but everybody does."

These well-meaning people did not realise that you do not stay at school after term has ended. Though you perish with cold and lack of sleep, the first possible train is the only train. Martin had secured an hour's sleep, breakfasted at six, and caught his train at seven.

All the way to Exeter he had smoked. About this smoking he had felt afraid, for here was another new experience: but everyone else in the carriage had smoked and there was no escape. One of the boys had dealt in cigars, another produced a pipe which he cleaned extensively and smoked but little. Martin had kept with the majority to cigarettes and had laboured to disguise the swift nervous action of the novice beneath the languid air of the connoisseur. One thing at any rate was certain: he had not been sick. By the time he reached Exeter he was feeling a little queer, but with a supreme effort he had staved off a disaster which would have been fatal to his reputation. And now he was intensely hungry and found cold chicken and ham a very pleasant subst.i.tute for the 'roast or boiled' with which the board of Berney's was laden. It was heavenly to sit once more in a comfortable chair in a fire-warmed room and to have chicken and fresh bread and lemonade.