hard roe had become a changed man. in a single crowded minute he had thrown up the part of napoleon defeated which for a short while he had acted with very tolerable ability, and had assumed instead the character of a criminal barrister making his way to the law courts with secret and sensational evidence up his sleeve. his gown was ballooning proudly behind him, the tails of it kept aloft by the pace at which he moved. his hands were no longer gripping one at the other behind his back. instead his arms were swinging vigorously from the shoulders as if to assist in propelling him to morley’s before rouse could return. his lips were parted, and such hair as he had was rustling upon his head like meadow grass before the breaking of a storm.
the bee-line which he was making took him, first, past the rugby posts—mere symbols of a departed game—and here he struck the broad pathway along the outskirts of the playing fields. where the way branched into two he came to seymour’s, and he would have passed that tall house at his best speed, cutting the night air like a land yacht, had not a sudden clamour of excited voices, raised in consummate confusion, floated down to him from an upstairs window and distracted his attention. so he stopped and he looked and he listened.
the bright light in a window immediately above him, evidently that of a study, indicated without doubt the source of the commotion. for a little 244while he stood, his head thrown back, peering curiously towards it. there was no law against a light in a senior’s study at nine o’clock, but there could be no excuse for such disorder as was evidenced by those so wildly contesting voices.
at last he made up his mind. enthusiasm prompted him to hasten upon his way, but allegiance to the dogma of unexpectedness was too strong. he glanced round him once, then fixed the front door with protuberant eyes, lifted the latch and went in. if mr seymour was out visiting some colleague, the occasion called for action on his own part. it might well be that this most memorable evening would grant him an all-round victory over the school on points.
he could not have chosen a more sensational moment to appear.
as he reached the bottom of the stairs a young man came dancing down. it may be that those who had been watching and who would have followed had peeped over the banisters in time and had withdrawn to make good their escape, but this one young man was in that condition in which loneliness is as nothing. he was singing raucously, and his manner of descent was like that of a low comedian on a sliding staircase. his hair was tangled and his countenance was flushed to fever heat.
the head had drawn back as if in preparation for a suitably sudden appearance from the wings, but instead he slowly drew himself now to his full height. as if at one touch of a magic wand hard roe suddenly ceased to look merely a silly old man. he was transformed into a lonely monarch in a terrible predicament. his rather grim face suddenly aged to that of a man who has faced all weathers and seen all things. the look that came into his eyes whilst he watched was not now merely one of anger or contempt; 245all thoughts had fled from his mind and left him cold and stricken, and his stare was testimony to the power of unexpectedness.
the young man was his son.
time passed on leaden wings.
his son had stumbled once on the bottom stair and had swung forward towards the wall. as he righted himself hard roe moved out of the shadows to meet him, and they came face to face. at first the young man did not seem to comprehend the grim reality of it. he just stood swaying upon his heels and smiling at the old man kindly. next he broke into cackling laughter.
“i can’t help it,” he confessed. “i’m—i’m drunk.”
hard roe threw out his hand and clutched him by the shoulder.
“stand up! you are my son.”
roe made a belated attempt to look apologetic.
the head laid his other hand alongside the first and shook him savagely.
“where have you been? why are you like this?”
he was speaking through clenched teeth and his arms were trembling with the force of his passion. but there came only an unresponsive silence. if there is one particular phase of drunkenness at which one may best appreciate the beastliness of it, then it is at that moment when one perceives the subject looking around him as if in search of a convenient spot in which to be sick.
the head removed his hands and they fell weightily to his sides. he began to jerk words incredulously at his son, as if his power of speech was somehow dislocated.
“you understand—you understand. you are the headmaster’s son. you are captain of football. you came as an example to them. i——”
his passion slowly subsided. he began to grow 246hard and isolated, impregnable. once he heard a hurried scuffling upstairs as if someone were hiding away all traces of carousal and vanishing quickly from the scene. now the whole house was very still. he had an implicit belief that even if the banisters were not lined with the heads of inquisitive boys, at least every member of the house was listening at an open door, and he knew that they would be wondering what hard roe would do at this, the crisis of his life. he knew that he must not hesitate. he gave his son a final shaking.
“have you no explanation at all?” he begged. “have you nothing whatever to say to me?”
the boy could find no proper answer. his eyes were closing sleepily. he had propped himself against the banisters. the final exhilaration that had sent him downstairs in that eccentric dance had deserted him, and a feeling of giddy biliousness had come in its place. he shook his head with a comical slantwise motion.
above the many conflicting emotions in his mind now the head remembered his reputation. throughout his life, whenever he had been in doubt, facing two roads, he had taken always that way which he felt he would not be expected to take. now the unexpected had, in its turn, come upon him with a rush. once again two ways lay open to him, and he knew now that the way which would be the unexpected way would be a way that was terribly hard, albeit absolutely just.
he suddenly tilted up his chin. a glare of dour pugnacity had settled upon his features as if in token of decision. then at last he spoke, and his voice was resolute and even.
“there is one law in this school, and i show no favour. it was you that i brought here as an example to a school which knew no discipline. now it is as an example that i shall have to send you away. 247you are expelled. to-morrow you leave this school in disgrace.”
he stopped.
in all the house there was not one solitary creak. the silence was absolutely cold and merciless. and then at last a footstep sounded in the portico. mr seymour was coming in. the head turned and looked at him with a lofty dignity. it was as if he wanted the position to be perfectly clear to the other before he spoke. then when mr seymour had looked dazedly first at the boy and then at the head, hard roe spoke up.
“please have this boy taken to bed at once,” he said gently. “i have expelled him. to-morrow he will leave the school.”
he moved to the open door and, reaching it, passed out, whilst mr seymour still stood looking fixedly at the boy as if he could not believe his eyes.
he went out into the dark with his head a little bowed and his hands tight clasped again behind his gown. so he made his way slowly back towards the distant school, and now the night seemed very chill. there was no longer any attraction in seeking rouse. rouse was saved. hard roe’s part at harley was played. the last act was done.
it might very well have ended in his son leaving with him, proudly and almost in disdain. that could not be now. had he allowed his boy to stay on to the end of term and then to leave quietly whilst he expelled rouse, the name of roe would have stood for ever in disrepute. it was his duty to do all in his power to save that name. however keenly the school disliked his character, they would know now that he had at least been true to it at the crisis of his life. his prophecy would perhaps come true.
it might, after all, be the outstanding boldness of his last act by which the school would ever afterwards remember him. he had very nearly forgotten 248how badly he had wanted that to be so a short while back.
at last the head passed through the old oak door again and back into his own room. then it was as though the veil of night fell gently over the confines of the school. here and there, in the haunts of the privileged, lights still glittered for an hour or so, showing that some were still up and about in harley; but in the houses and the body of the school they vanished one by one, as if the gusty wind were scurrying on its rounds and looking in at windows to blow them out.
a full hour passed before the figure of one who was weary and inordinately cold appeared with decided caution at the little gate beside the school pavilion and, climbing over, began to trudge disappointedly along the line of trees right round the outskirts of the playing fields towards morley’s. it was rouse, and he had both hands rammed into his trouser pockets and the collar of his coat turned up around his neck. there was an atmosphere about the school that was unusually lonely, and he felt it. his errand had proved utterly fruitless. he had no particular idea how he was going to get in again. he missed the company of terence. his intention to keep in the shadows was taking him a long way round and he was in no mood to enjoy the walk. altogether things were rotten. at last he came to morley’s and stopped to look up for a moment at the forbidding walls. then he moved with a kind of ill-humoured curiosity to the hall window. there came back to him the memory of a night of long ago when he and terence had as youngsters crouched below that selfsame window to find themselves locked out, and how at last a small boy had tiptoed down the stairs to their rescue, had opened the window without a word and let them in, and had then gone peaceably 249to bed. that small boy had been henry hope.
rouse gazed at the window now with the affection of an old friend. terence must surely have made some plan to effect his entry without his having to ring the front-door bell. his hand reached out and passed cautiously across the window-pane. then he seized the framework and tried it gingerly. without a moment’s delay there came the sound of a gentle movement within, and he perceived a long arm reaching towards him behind the glass. next the window was slowly raised and a tousled head of hair was thrust out into the night. rouse raised himself on to his toes and inclined his body forward.
it was terence, and he spoke in a hoarse whisper.
“don’t make too much row. has anybody seen you? have you had any luck?”
rouse levered himself on to the window-sill and poised there miserably for a moment before he answered, and even then he did not speak. he just shook his head dismally and scrambled in. and then he sneezed.
terence seized him in a steely grip and thrust a handkerchief violently into his face. but rouse freed himself vexedly, listened a moment for any sign of alarm, and then proceeded, in the time-honoured manner of all who keep late hours, to remove his boots.
he turned once before beginning to climb the staircase and looked thoughtfully through the darkness at the shape that was terence.
“you have not,” said he softly, “such a thing as a hot drink concealed about your person, i presume?”
terence slowly lowered the window and secured it with the latch. when he turned he shook his head regretfully.
“thank you,” whispered rouse. “that’s all i wanted to know.”
250next moment he was making his way nimbly upstairs. terence looked round him once, then followed after. the warmth of a bed had become a strangely appealing thought.
for two hours harley had slumbered. the last good-nights had all been said. the last lights had been snuffed. only the great clock over the school, vigilantly marking time like the ghost of some soldier of the king, was still awake and looking far out into the country, when a car came droning down the highroad, branched along the fork that led past the playing fields and stopped beside the school pavilion. there was a moment’s muttered conversation, then out of the car stepped toby nicholson. he turned once to the small figure wrapped in rugs that was still reclining in a corner.
“you understand?” he said. “wait here till i’ve spied out the lie of the land. then i’ll come back and fetch you. i may be some little time, but you must wait.”
bobbie nodded his head obediently, and toby turned and scrambled over the narrow gate into the school grounds. off he set along the line of the trees, stepping, had he but known it, almost in the very footprints that rouse had left in his tracks. he went swiftly, and at times, with a furtive glance around him, he left the shadows and slipped across the open to cut a corner. at last he came to seymour’s and here he stopped, just as rouse had stopped at morley’s, and glanced up at the windows. everywhere the blinds were drawn. there was not one solitary light. he had expected as much, and now he had to come swiftly to a decision. by hook or by crook he intended to get into the house and rouse mr seymour. there were several ways and means. he could ring the bell or batter upon the door with his clenched fists until he was answered. he could 251throw stones at windows. these methods would, however, necessarily excite undue commotion, and this toby determined to avoid. since nothing much could be accomplished before morning by those within, there existed the alternative, of course, of camping out under the trees until the first greyness of the dawn broke through the night, and surreptitiously slipping bobbie into the house at the first opening of the door, if necessary with the connivance of a servant. on a winter’s night this solution was, however, emphatically inconvenient. there remained, therefore, the only really sound means of entry, that of the break-in. without any great hesitation toby decided upon this latter. he had once committed a burglary for the benefit of the cinema, and he saw no valid reason why he should not break into mr seymour’s bedroom for the benefit of the school. he cast an inquisitive eye at the window behind which mr seymour would be sleeping, and considered the question of the ascent. mr seymour was a quiet, rather faded gentleman who affected a hat-guard all the year round and who looked upon school life from the scholarly rather than the magisterial standpoint. above all, he hated to be bothered.
somewhere within him toby cherished a distinct affection for this old-fashioned gentleman, and he was aware that this was reciprocated. to how great an extent, however, this esteem would be affected by his entering the gentleman’s room by the window at one a.m. he did not care to surmise. he made a brief inspection, then secured a firm hold on the drain-pipe, collected a bunch of ivy in the other hand, and commenced to climb. at first his progress was slow. by skilful work he nevertheless rose foot by foot until he at last reached a window on the first floor parallel with mr seymour’s own. he swung on to this window-ledge and gravely considered 252the prospect of his being able to move sideways across the face of the wall. so far as he could see there was only one practicable route. he must climb to the story next above, make use of the attic window-ledge, and swing from here to the window immediately above his destination. from here he could drop from his hands and land neatly and daintily, like the falling petal of a flower, upon mr seymour’s window-sill. this he did with delightful grace.
five minutes later the blade of his pocket-knife was moving gently between the upper and lower halves of the window, and after a moment’s work he had pushed the catch carefully aside. he paused then for a moment, like the look-out in the crow’s nest of a ship, to gaze down and take in the surrounding view. for the first time in his life he was clinging to the wall of a house in the loneliest hour of the night and about to break into a gentleman’s apartment. he sighed happily as a man will who delights in new experiences, turned inwards and slowly raised the lower half of the window. then he stepped into the room and sat down on the inner window-ledge. the blast of cold air which his entry had introduced had an almost immediate effect in a noise of pronounced discontent from the recesses of the room. as his eyes grew used to the dark he dimly perceived a long arm reaching a bunch of blanket and drawing it gratefully about the pillow. toby collected himself for discovery. the terrifying thought flashed through his mind that he might possibly have come to the wrong room. supposing that by some freak of fate mr seymour chanced to have changed his quarters during the last few days? he cast a hurried glance at his only means of escape, then steeled himself for the worst and spoke:
“mr seymour.”
at first there was no reply. it was difficult to 253know, however, whether this was because mr seymour was not yet awake or whether he was endeavouring to decide what to say in reply. at last toby repeated his salutation.
mr seymour woke in a sudden convulsion of uncertainty, shuddered a great many times, and spoke.
“what?” said he. “oh, please—for goodness’ sake do shut that door.”
toby considerately closed the window.
“may i switch on the light?” he inquired. “shall i fall over anything?”
“whatever is it?” sighed mr seymour. “put on the light, yes. really, i—— who is it wants me? i——”
toby stumbled across the room, cannoned violently into the bed and, reaching the switch, at last flooded the room with light. as he did so he explained himself briefly:
“it’s me—nicholson.”
mr seymour peered at him dazedly.
“nicholson? why, yes, i see it is. but how very odd. do you know, i quite thought you’d gone away. quite. i must have been dreaming. how very strange.”
toby approached and sat down pleasantly on the bed.
“i did go away,” he confessed. “but you know how a felon always returns to the scene of his crime. as a matter of fact, i have just come in through the window.”
he paused a moment as if to allow this information to sink well in. mr seymour took the news oddly. he just sat up in bed and looked as if he were about to weep.
“what time is it?” he demanded. “dear me, how troublesome a night! it seems only a few minutes ago that i was having a boy put to bed. whatever is it now?”
254toby leaned over him.
“were all your boys present to-night?” he inquired. “was anybody reported missing?”
the other grew visibly perplexed.
“really, i can hardly say. so much has been happening to-night. no doubt you have not yet heard——”
toby waved the point aside.
“i may have done you a good turn. i hope so, anyway. one of the youngsters in your house has been bullied into getting whisky for someone amongst your seniors, and at last he’s kicked. so this evening he ran away.”
“good gracious me!” exclaimed the other, “who’s run away? why, only this evening i have had——”
“fortunately,” said toby, pressing on hastily, “i came across him myself and i have been able to lead him back to the fold. it may be in time for you to take this matter of the whisky in hand yourself before anything comes out about it.”
mr seymour rose a little farther out of his bed and pointed at toby excitedly. he was suddenly very wide awake.
“you say this boy ran away? i am not surprised. this evening a boy was found in this house drunk, and he was expelled.”
“expelled?” repeated toby, cocking one eyebrow in surprise. “by the head, do you mean?”
“yes.”
“who was the boy?”
“it was his own son,” said mr seymour, and drawing himself completely out of bed he began to feel for his slippers. suddenly he looked up with a jerk.
toby was still staring at him thoughtfully.
“he found his own son drunk?”
“yes.”
“and nobody else?”
255“apparently not,” said mr seymour. he stood up. “nicholson,” he demanded, “who is this boy? and,” he added, “how on earth did you get into this house?”
“his name is carr,” said toby. “and i came in via the window. i crawled up the wall.”
mr seymour approached the window, looked at it incredulously, then opened the lower half and peered out.
“it is a nasty drop,” he declared.
toby moved to the window and stood beside him.
“yes,” said he. “it looks worse from here. nevertheless that is how i got in. those pieces of cloth you see there hanging on nails amongst the ivy are pieces of my trousers. in other words, you have been burgled.”
“but why on earth didn’t you ring the bell?”
toby tapped him upon the shoulder.
“the boy who ran away is outside in a car. i thought you would rather we got him in without attracting attention.”
“but, goodness me,” said the other, “a number of boys in the house will know that he was out. what will be the excuse?”
“the other boys in the house,” said toby, “know a great deal more about what’s been going on than you do. you can bet your life on that. and after this evening’s little entertainment there won’t be many who won’t understand the truth. my advice to you is to let him come in and go to bed without a word. you yourself need know nothing about it.”
mr seymour was looking at him dubiously.
“the reason i say this,” toby explained, “is that it means a lot to the school if we can come through this term without the spirit having been knocked out of any single boy by the head’s idea of 256justice. it won’t be quite so satisfactory if this youngster should be found out. it’s the last lap, too, seymour. in another ten days term will be over.”
he paused.
“there will be another term following after,” said mr seymour gloomily.
toby nodded his head.
“yes,” he admitted; “but it will not be quite the same. next term the grey man is coming back.”
he smiled. mr seymour gazed at him with open mouth.
“are you sure?”
“i saw him yesterday,” said toby. “but it is better that the school as a whole should not know just yet. if one thing rather than another would send harley completely off its head just now it would be the rumour that the headmaster was defeated and that the grey man was coming back. well, we must play fair. there is something about the head that at times makes him almost likeable in his loneliness. now the only ally that he had has let him down and the head’s done the right thing by expelling him. there will be hard days coming for the head, and, after all, you and i are masters and have a master’s point of view. i fancy the head knows his fate already, but i think that we ought to respect his position to the end. it’s up to us to let him break the news when he feels ready. don’t you think so?”
mr seymour nodded his head.
“it makes a difference,” said he. “i had always rather looked upon you as an old boy pure and simple, nicholson. but i see now that there is a little of something else in your composition as well. if you will go out and fetch this boy i will see that he gets in by the front door.”
257toby held out his hand.
“i hope you’ll forgive me getting in by the window,” he said. “it was the only way. i’ll go out by the door now, though, and leave it unbolted for carr. i shall see you again soon.”
“you will be coming back?”
“i am starting again next term,” said toby. “see you then.”
with morning sensation came like a dust-storm to sweep harley in its whirl and leave her spinning. the whole of roe’s own house, of course, knew overnight. those who had been asleep were violently awakened to be told. and in the morning the members of seymour’s spread out fanwise and ran through the other houses before their breakfast, carrying the news.
at morning prayers there was some kind of hope that the head would make an announcement revoking his selection of a football captain, and perhaps even acknowledging the claims of rouse, but instead he came in without an indication of any kind that anything was untoward and faced them. his eyes roamed round the sea of their upturned faces. he noticed rouse in the forefront, but rouse did not look his way. next his eyes turned upon the rebels of the sixth lined up beneath his dais, each in a most devout and learned attitude, and finally he turned to pointon and jerked his head at him. so pointon’s voice broke the silence at last as he began to read.
when, later, the moment came for the head to walk down the aisle between them, his gown majestically swinging, and to pass through the open doors before their shuffling dismissal to their classes could begin, he walked with a quick and irritable step, and it was not until he had reached the quiet of his own room that he remembered one saving thought in his bitter sorrow. they did not yet know that he 258himself would, at the end of term, leave them in triumphant possession of their own unwritten laws.
one master and one boy were, as we know, in the secret, but the boy had honourably promised not to speak of it to anyone in the school, not even to rouse or terence or henry hope.
“it is not your secret,” toby had said. “you have stumbled upon it, and so it is not yours to tell.”
in seymour’s they had looked at bobbie curiously in the morning, and a great many boys of his own age had gathered about him to satisfy their curiosity by asking questions. but he had smiled at them and shaken his head.
“i went out for someone and i was late back,” was all he would say; “but i got in all right.”
for the rest, he let their imagination carry them where it would. rouse came upon him and he too would have begun to question, but bobbie gave him a note from toby and this appeared to afford him wholesome satisfaction.
for a little while those who knew that roe had found a friend in coles wondered what part he had played in roe’s downfall, and indeed curiosity as to which other boys from somewhere behind the scenes had really been responsible for his own son’s defection troubled the head himself; but the awe in which he held his father effectually prevented roe from turning king’s evidence. he went quietly, with abashed mien, intensely annoyed with his father for ever having fetched him from wilton to become a puppet at harley. afterwards hard roe seemed almost to forget the incident, for he asked no questions of anybody in the school. it may well be that in certain respects his sense of pride was satisfied by the certainty that his iron justice would live in the memory of the boys he would leave at harley long after he had gone, and that for this reason he preferred to 259leave things entirely as they were. by digging deeper into the mystery and dragging to light whatever other miscreants there were in seymour’s he would seem to be finding excuses for his son by sweeping away a handful of other boys as bad as he on the grounds that they had led him astray, when his one expulsion would have all the effect that was necessary in curing the evil by making an example of the chief wrong-doer.
he had a distaste for excuses of any kind. his son should have been strong enough to stand alone. instead he had sinned, and he could not pardon his son for drinking whisky on the grounds that another boy had given it to him.
coles lived in considerable anxiety during those last long days, because he was unaware of the head’s real attitude and quite uncertain whether, before he left, roe had given him away.
he had bobbie before him and extracted an oath of secrecy.
“if you breathe so much as a word of this,” he had said, “i’ll tell your secret too, and all the school shall know that a low professional pug has sent his brat to a school for the sons of gentlemen. not only that. if you let me down i’ll see that your life here is a never-ending nightmare. are you going to promise?”
“i don’t see any need to promise,” said bobbie, “but i’ll do so if you like.”
coles shook his fist angrily.
“i shall hold you to it,” he declared. “one word, and you’ll wish you’d been born dumb.”
bobbie turned and left him. after all, there was nobody he would need to tell—now.
the last few days of term passed slowly. the most sensational thing that could have come about had happened. that which followed was only aftermath. to the last day they did not know how 260completely they had won the long fight, nor guess that when hard roe stood in the great hall and spoke to them of their christmas holidays in a quiet and unemotional voice he was in reality bidding them good-bye.
he had not altogether the bearing of a man who had failed. it was rather that of a man who knew that he would leave his mark.
