Mike Read online

  CHAPTER XLIV

  AND FULFILS IT

  Mike started on his ride to Lower Borlock with mixed feelings. It ispleasant to be out on a fine night in summer, but the pleasure is to acertain extent modified when one feels that to be detected will meanexpulsion.

  Mike did not want to be expelled, for many reasons. Now that he hadgrown used to the place he was enjoying himself at Sedleigh to acertain extent. He still harboured a feeling of resentment against theschool in general and Adair in particular, but it was pleasant inOutwood's now that he had got to know some of the members of thehouse, and he liked playing cricket for Lower Borlock; also, he wasfairly certain that his father would not let him go to Cambridge if hewere expelled from Sedleigh. Mr. Jackson was easy-going with hisfamily, but occasionally his foot came down like a steam-hammer, aswitness the Wrykyn school report affair.

  So Mike pedalled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job donewithout delay.

  Psmith had yielded up the key, but his inquiries as to why it wasneeded had been embarrassing. Mike's statement that he wanted to getup early and have a ride had been received by Psmith, with whom earlyrising was not a hobby, with honest amazement and a flood of adviceand warning on the subject.

  "One of the Georges," said Psmith, "I forget which, once said that acertain number of hours' sleep a day--I cannot recall for the momenthow many--made a man something, which for the time being has slippedmy memory. However, there you are. I've given you the main idea of thething; and a German doctor says that early rising causes insanity.Still, if you're bent on it----" After which he had handed over thekey.

  Mike wished he could have taken Psmith into his confidence. Probablyhe would have volunteered to come, too; Mike would have been glad of acompanion.

  It did not take him long to reach Lower Borlock. The "White Boar"stood at the far end of the village, by the cricket field. He rodepast the church--standing out black and mysterious against the lightsky--and the rows of silent cottages, until he came to the inn.

  The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out--it wassome time past eleven.

  The advantage an inn has over a private house, from the point of viewof the person who wants to get into it when it has been locked up, isthat a nocturnal visit is not so unexpected in the case of the former.Preparations have been made to meet such an emergency. Where with aprivate house you would probably have to wander round heaving rocksand end by climbing up a water-spout, when you want to get into an innyou simply ring the night-bell, which, communicating with the boots'room, has that hard-worked menial up and doing in no time.

  After Mike had waited for a few minutes there was a rattling of chainsand a shooting of bolts and the door opened.

  "Yes, sir?" said the boots, appearing in his shirt-sleeves. "Why,'ullo! Mr. Jackson, sir!"

  Mike was well known to all dwellers in Lower Borlock, his scores beingthe chief topic of conversation when the day's labours were over.

  "I want to see Mr. Barley, Jack."

  "He's bin in bed this half-hour back, Mr. Jackson."

  "I must see him. Can you get him down?"

  The boots looked doubtful. "Roust the guv'nor outer bed?" he said.

  Mike quite admitted the gravity of the task. The landlord of the"White Boar" was one of those men who need a beauty sleep.

  "I wish you would--it's a thing that can't wait. I've got some moneyto give to him."

  "Oh, if it's _that_--" said the boots.

  Five minutes later mine host appeared in person, looking more thanusually portly in a check dressing-gown and red bedroom slippers ofthe _Dreadnought_ type.

  "You can pop off, Jack."

  Exit boots to his slumbers once more.

  "Well, Mr. Jackson, what's it all about?"

  "Jellicoe asked me to come and bring you the money."

  "The money? What money?"

  "What he owes you; the five pounds, of course."

  "The five--" Mr. Barley stared open-mouthed at Mike for a moment;then he broke into a roar of laughter which shook the sporting printson the wall and drew barks from dogs in some distant part of thehouse. He staggered about laughing and coughing till Mike began toexpect a fit of some kind. Then he collapsed into a chair, whichcreaked under him, and wiped his eyes.

  "Oh dear!" he said, "oh dear! the five pounds!"

  Mike was not always abreast of the rustic idea of humour, andnow he felt particularly fogged. For the life of him he couldnot see what there was to amuse any one so much in the fact thata person who owed five pounds was ready to pay it back. It was anoccasion for rejoicing, perhaps, but rather for a solemn, thankful,eyes-raised-to-heaven kind of rejoicing.

  "What's up?" he asked.

  "Five pounds!"

  "You might tell us the joke."

  Mr. Barley opened the letter, read it, and had another attack; whenthis was finished he handed the letter to Mike, who was waitingpatiently by, hoping for light, and requested him to read it.

  "Dear, dear!" chuckled Mr. Barley, "five pounds! They may teach youyoung gentlemen to talk Latin and Greek and what not at your school,but it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you how many beans makefive; it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you to come in when itrained, it 'ud do----"

  Mike was reading the letter.

  "DEAR MR. BARLEY," it ran.--"I send the L5, which I could not get before. I hope it is in time, because I don't want you to write to the headmaster. I am sorry Jane and John ate your wife's hat and the chicken and broke the vase."

  There was some more to the same effect; it was signed "T. G.Jellicoe."

  "What on earth's it all about?" said Mike, finishing this curiousdocument.

  Mr. Barley slapped his leg. "Why, Mr. Jellicoe keeps two dogs here; Ikeep 'em for him till the young gentlemen go home for their holidays.Aberdeen terriers, they are, and as sharp as mustard. Mischief! Ibelieve you, but, love us! they don't do no harm! Bite up an old shoesometimes and such sort of things. The other day, last Wednesday itwere, about 'ar parse five, Jane--she's the worst of the two, alwaysup to it, she is--she got hold of my old hat and had it in bits beforeyou could say knife. John upset a china vase in one of the bedroomschasing a mouse, and they got on the coffee-room table and ate half acold chicken what had been left there. So I says to myself, 'I'll havea game with Mr. Jellicoe over this,' and I sits down and writes offsaying the little dogs have eaten a valuable hat and a chicken andwhat not, and the damage'll be five pounds, and will he kindly remitsame by Saturday night at the latest or I write to his headmaster.Love us!" Mr. Barley slapped his thigh, "he took it all in, everyword--and here's the five pounds in cash in this envelope here! Ihaven't had such a laugh since we got old Tom Raxley out of bed attwelve of a winter's night by telling him his house was a-fire."

  It is not always easy to appreciate a joke of the practical order ifone has been made even merely part victim of it. Mike, as he reflectedthat he had been dragged out of his house in the middle of the night,in contravention of all school rules and discipline, simply in orderto satisfy Mr. Barley's sense of humour, was more inclined to beabusive than mirthful. Running risks is all very well when they arenecessary, or if one chooses to run them for one's own amusement, butto be placed in a dangerous position, a position imperilling one'schance of going to the 'Varsity, is another matter altogether.

  But it is impossible to abuse the Barley type of man. Barley'senjoyment of the whole thing was so honest and child-like. Probably ithad given him the happiest quarter of an hour he had known for years,since, in fact, the affair of old Tom Raxley. It would have been cruelto damp the man.

  So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the fivepounds, accepted a stone ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, androde off on his return journey.

  * * * * *

  Mention has been made above of the difference which exists betweengetting into an inn after lock-up and into a private house. Mike wasto find this out for himself.

  Hi
s first act on arriving at Sedleigh was to replace his bicycle inthe shed. This he accomplished with success. It was pitch-dark in theshed, and as he wheeled his machine in, his foot touched something onthe floor. Without waiting to discover what this might be, he leanedhis bicycle against the wall, went out, and locked the door, afterwhich he ran across to Outwood's.

  Fortune had favoured his undertaking by decreeing that a stoutdrain-pipe should pass up the wall within a few inches of his andPsmith's study. On the first day of term, it may be remembered hehad wrenched away the wooden bar which bisected the window-frame,thus rendering exit and entrance almost as simple as they had beenfor Wyatt during Mike's first term at Wrykyn.

  He proceeded to scale this water-pipe.

  He had got about half-way up when a voice from somewhere below cried,"Who's that?"