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 a presumably poisoned rat within the wainscoting common to the third and fourth form rooms, both those classes were ordered to the big schoolroom, and allotted desk work to fill in the time.
Now the rows of lockers were arranged in tiers all down one half of the long room, leaving the other half open, with its big desk in the centre dominating the whole. Ill chance indeed was it that located Anthony’s form in the row beneath, and himself immediately in front of, his sworn foe.
Now Jarnley began to taste the sweets of revenge. More than one kick, hard and surreptitious, nearly sent the victim clean off the form, and the bright idea which occurred to Jarnley, of fixing a pin to the toe of his boot had to be abandoned, for the cogent reason that neither he nor any of his immediate neighbourhood could produce the pin. Meanwhile the master in charge lounged in the big desk, blissfully reading.
“Look here, Cetchy,” whispered Jarnley, having varied the entertainment with a few tweaks of his victim’s wool. “Turn round, d’you hear: put your finger on that.”
“That” being a penholder held across the top of one of the inkwells let into the desk.
“Put it on, d’you hear. I’ll let you off any more if you do. No – press hard.”
For Anthony had begun to obey orders, but gingerly. Once more was Jarnley digging his own grave, so to say. The black finger was now held down upon the round penholder, and of course what followed was a foregone conclusion. Its support suddenly withdrawn, knuckle deep went that unlucky digit into the well, but with such force that a very fountain of ink squirted upward, to splash down, a long running smudge, right across the sheet of foolscap which Jarnley had just covered, thereby rendering utterly useless the results of nearly half an hour’s work. This was too much. Reaching forward, the bully gripped the perpetrator of this outrage by the wool where it ended over the nape of the neck, and literally plucked out a wisp thereof.
“I’ll kill you for this, you black devil,” he said, in a snarling whisper.
But the reply was as startling as it was unexpected. Maddened by the acute pain, all the savage within him aroused, and utterly regardless of consequences, the Zulu boy swung round his arm like a flail, hitting Jarnley full across the face with a smack that resounded through the room, producing a dead and pin-dropping silence, as every head came round to see what had happened.
“What’s all this?” cried the furious voice of the master in charge, looking quickly up. “Come out, you two boys. Come out at once.”
Then, as the two delinquents stood up to come out of their places, a titter rippled through the whole room, for Jarnley’s red and half scared, half furious countenance was further ornamented by a great black smear where his smiter’s inky hand had fallen.
Now the Reverend Richard Clay was hot of temper, and his method under such circumstances as these short and effectual, viz.: to chastise the offenders first and institute enquiry afterwards, or not at all. Even during the time taken by these two to leave their places and stand before him, he had flung open the lid of the great desk, and jerked forth the cane always kept there; a long supple, well-hardened cane, well burnt at the end.
“Fighting during school time, were you?” he said. “Hold up your coat.”
“Please sir, he shied a lot of ink over my work,” explained Jarnley in desperation. Anthony the while said nothing.
“I don’t care if he did,” was the uncompromising reply. “Stand up and hold up your coat.”
This Jarnley had no alternative but to do, and as Mr Clay did nothing by halves the patient was soon dancing on one foot at a time.
“No, no, I haven’t done yet,” said the master, in response to a muttered and spasmodic appeal for quarter. “I’ll teach you to make a disturbance in schooltime when I’m in charge. There! Stand still.”
And he laid it on – to the bitter end; and with such muscle and will that the bully could not repress one or two short howls as he received the final strokes. But the Zulu boy, whose turn now came, and who received the same unsparing allowance, took it without movement or sound.
“Go back to your seats, you two,” commanded Mr Clay.
