of the school was busy making out the bills. The treatment at Sandycombe was at least as firm as kind, and the Head was known to have an unpleasantly heavy hand. Nobody heard them, however, and in another minute or two they were crawling about the dark passage where Charley, the boy of all work, had laid out a long row of boots. Niven, it was characteristic, took the first pair that seemed to fit him, while Appleby went up and down the row on his hands and knees, until his comrade fancied he would never be ready. Then Niven shoved up a window.
"Get through while I hold it. There isn't any sash-weight," he said.
"Then who's going to hold it for you?" said Appleby. "There'll be no duck catching if it comes down with a bang."
Niven growled disgustedly. "Your turn! I never thought of that," he said.
"Then," said Appleby, "it's a good thing I did. Put this piece of stick under it."
It was done, and they dropped into a flower bed, slipped through the garden behind the hollies, across a quaggy field, and came out into the road just beyond the village. It was drizzling, and a bitter wind drove a thin white mist past them. Niven stood still a moment ankle-deep in mud, and glanced back towards the lights of the village blinking through the haze.
"It doesn't look quite so nice now, but we had better go on," he said.
Appleby said nothing, but laughed a little as he plodded on into the rain and mist, and, though the plan was Niven's, this was typical of him. Appleby was not very brilliant at either work or play, but he usually did what he took in hand with a slow thoroughness that occasionally carried him further than his comrade's cleverness. He was also slow to begin a friendship or make a quarrel, but those who drove him into the latter usually regretted it, and his friends were good. Nobody but Niven knew anything about his relations, while it was but once in the term, somebody sent him a few shillings for pocket money. Niven on the contrary could do almost anything he wanted well, and came back each term with several hampers and a big handful of silver in his pocket.
"It's beastly cold, and one of these boots is coming off. I'm not sure it's my own," he said. "It would be a good joke for the other fellow if I lost it."
"It wouldn't be for me," said Appleby dryly. "If I lost mine I would have to go home with you in my stockings, but we'll have to get on faster than we're doing."
They could scarcely see the hedgerows, and the mud got deeper. Now and then a half-seen tree shook big drops down on them as they went by, and there way a doleful crying of wild fowl from a marsh not far away. The drizzle also beat into their eyes, and Niven, who felt distinctly sorry he had ever heard about the duck, presently stopped altogether with his feet in a pool.
"We could still go back, Tom," he said.
"No," said Appleby dryly. "I don't think we could, though because I could manage it myself there's nothing to stop you if you wanted to."
There was not much mirth in Niven's laugh. "I'm not very anxious, if you put it like that," he said.
They went on again, getting rapidly wetter, until Niven fell down as they clambered over a dripping stile. "We're a pair of splay-footed asses, Tom," he said.
Appleby nodded. "Still, we'd be bigger ones if we did nothing after all this. I wouldn't sit there in the mud," he said.
Niven scrambled to his feet, and presently they crawled through a hedge into a rutted lane with the lighted window of a cottage close in front of them, and the radiance shone upon them as they stopped to glance up and down. Appleby stood square and resolute with decision in his face, and he was short and thick, with long arms and broad shoulders. Niven shivered a little, and leaned forwards turning his head this way and that with quick, nervous movements. He was lithe and light, with a graceful suppleness that was not seen in his companion.
"Tom," he said softly, "there aren't any stones. Still, I could heave a lump of stiff mud through the window, and that would fetch him."
Appleby shook his head. "There are tiles yonder, and they would do as well," he said. "You see, we are entitled to the duck, but Jimmy's window is another thing. Give me a minute, and then begin."
He slipped away into the gloom of a hedge, and it was evidently high time, for a dog commenced growling. Niven felt very lonely as he stood still in the rain, but the depression only lasted a moment or two, and in another minute he had flung a big tile upon the roof. When the second went banging and rattling down the slates he raised a high-pitched howl.
"Jimmy, come out," he said. "Come out, you shuttle-toed clay stamper, and be a man."
He was not kept waiting long. The door swung open and a man stood out black against the light in the opening. He was peering into the darkness, and apparently grasped a good-sized stick, but when another tile crashed against the low roof above his head he saw the object deriding him in the mud.
"Ellen, loose the dog," he said as he sprang forward.
Niven promptly darted up the lane, but there were two things he had not counted on, and one of them was the dog, for Jimmy had not kept one when they last passed his cottage. The other was even more embarrassing, for while Niven could run tolerably well on turf in cricket shoes the deep sticky mud was different, and one of the boots which were somebody else's would slip up and down his foot. Still because Jimmy was not far behind him, he did all he could, and was disgusted to find that a tileworks labourer could run almost as well as he did. Indeed, for the first Five minutes he had a horrible suspicion that Jimmy was running better, but presently it became evident that the splashing thud of heavy boots grew no louder, and he saw that he was at least maintaining his lead. Still, he could not shake off the pursuer, and while he held on with clenched hands and laboured breath an unfortunate thing happened. One foot sank deep in a rut, Niven staggered, blundered through another stride, and then rolled over in the grass under a tall hedge. That was bad, but it was worse to find that he had now only a stocking upon one foot. Jimmy was also unpleasantly close, and Niven, seeing he could not escape by flight, rolled a little further beneath the hedge.
Then he lay very still while the man came floundering down the road, and held his breath when he stopped as if to listen close beside him.
"The young varmint has made for the hedge gap," gasped the man. "If I cut across to the stile I might ketch him."
He went on, and when his footsteps could no longer be heard Niven crawled out and felt in the puddles for the boot. It was not to be found, and rising with a groan he worked round towards the back of the cottage. The dog was growling all the time, and he could hear a woman's voice as well as a rattle of chain, but presently he saw a dark object gliding along beneath a hedge. When he came up with it he noticed that Appleby had something in his hand.
"I've got it," he said.
Niven looked at the object he held up. "It's very quiet," he said.
"Of course!" said Appleby. "You wouldn't make much noise without your head. Killing anything is beastly, but there was a billhook handy. We've no time for talking now. It's a good big dog."
They crossed a field, and Niven's shoeless foot did not greatly embarrass him until they crawled through a hedge into recent ploughing, while as they plodded over it the growling of the dog drew nearer.
"Come on!" gasped Appleby. "She has got him loose at last."
The beast was close at hand when another hedge rose up blackly against the sky before them, and Niven swung off a little towards an oak that grew out of it.
"It's a horrible brute, but it can't climb a tree. I'm going for the oak," he said.
Appleby
