Now and again words spoken in a hollow tone drifted through the night and reached Terence in snatches. Occasionally he answered, but it was evident that one of those moods was upon Rouse in which he loved to maintain a rambling monologue, content to speak his changing thoughts or to register opinions as they came to him without requiring any answer at all.
Most of the boys had travelled by train, but many had returned as they had come, by trap or bicycle; some were walking, however, and it was for this latter reason that Rouse and Terence had elected to walk too.
“We shall lose half the fun,” Rouse had affirmed, “if we do this thing in too great comfort. Let’s have the satisfaction of knowing that, as some of the kids have had to walk, we’ve walked too. It’s only sporting.”
He was talking again now. Terence pricked his ears politely.
“It is not,” he was saying, “until you have wheeled one of these infernal machines for about twelve miles without getting a ride even down a bit of a hill that you properly understand why they are called push-bikes.”
Terence turned to look at him.
Rouse was plodding a little in rear. It was pouring with rain and his overcoat was soaked and shining; rain was even dripping from his very ears. 189Yet the night was cheerfully illumined by his smile. Terence, who had a handbag in one hand and the other in his pocket, nodded ahead.
“We’re nearly there. You see those lights? That’s Harley!”
He stepped out with new hope. One might have imagined that he had no care in all the world.
Rouse’s response came in a sober monotone:
“You are quite right. That one red light, shining all alone, is the end of the Headmaster’s cigar, I think. He will be waiting up for us with a tray of cold supper. May heaven reward his kindly nature.”
They walked on for another mile in contemplative silence. For a time Terence took a turn at wheeling the bicycle. At last the cottage from which they had borrowed it was reached, and it was gratefully returned with the price of a new back tyre.
Twenty minutes later they finally came to Harley’s gates. In the distance they could just distinguish a group of youngsters who had been walking ahead of them making their way stealthily across to Mainwright’s house.
They turned, and behind them they could hear the steady tread of another couple who had been plodding along behind change suddenly to a cautious softness.
Rouse looked round him quizzically. At last he returned his gaze to Terence. “Nick,” said he, “it would be well to rise on the toes.” Next moment he was leading the way with a mysterious and ghostly tread along the gravel path towards Morley’s. “It is the last lap,” said he. “I wonder if we are going to secure a cigar or nuts.”
Terence made no immediate reply. He was looking watchfully towards the Headmaster’s room. But the blinds were drawn and only a dim light could be seen within.
They moved across the open. The rain was still 190beating down relentlessly upon them. Little pools of water were spreading across the football ground. There was a melancholy mist about the distant houses. They were dog-tired. Whilst they went, their heads bowed a little to the downpour, Rouse spoke no further word, not, however, because he was wondering in his heart what was to be the outcome of that great game, but curiously enough because his mind was busily planning how he could manage to get another hot bath before he went to bed.
When, therefore, right outside Morley’s, a figure came suddenly towards them, Rouse looked up with a start. Then he stopped. It was impossible to mistake the build of that young man. It was Christopher Woolf Roe. Instinctively the captain of cricket and the captain of football drew near to one another and waited for him to speak. They had not long to wait. He stopped in front of them and looked at Rouse.
“The Headmaster would like to speak to you,” he said.
Rouse eyed him good-humouredly.
“Did the Headmaster give you a note?”
“No, he didn’t. He said you were to go to his room directly you came in and wait there till he came back.”
Rouse shook his head sadly.
“I wonder if he knows that in my present condition I shall leave a pool of water wherever I stand?” said he. “It seems such a pity to spoil his carpet, doesn’t it? Besides, I shall sneeze so. And sneezing always makes him cross.”
Roe looked him slowly up and down with his pig-like eyes.
“The fact is,” said he, with ill-concealed delight, “you’re in for it.”
“If you mean to imply,” said Rouse, “that the 191Head is getting up a raffle, let me say that you are mistaken. I shall not be in for it.”
There was a moment’s pause.
“All right,” said Roe at last. “I’ve told you, haven’t I?”
He moved haughtily away, his duty done. Rouse and Terence looked thoughtfully after him.
“I think I’ll go along,” said Rouse, in a low voice. “When he sees how wet I am he’ll cut it short.”
“I’ll come along too.”
Rouse laid a restraining hand upon his shoulder. “No. Leave things alone for now. I’ll go and see what he’s got to say. There’ll be plenty of time for you afterwards. Go in and see if you can’t bag me a hot bath! And,” he added over his shoulder as he was moving off, “somewhere in my study there’s a tin of sardines. It would be a rather pleasing thought if you bust it open so that we can give them a decent burial on a slice of bread.”
Terence made no answer: he just stood hesitantly where Rouse had left him watching as he went to meet his doom.
And now the way across the sodden football ground seemed very long. Only now that he was alone, and going backward instead of forward, did Rouse thoroughly realise the ache that was in his legs. Each footstep became a dragging effort.
It suddenly struck him that this would never do. Roe would be watching him. Very likely the Head was peeping out from behind his curtains. He would look to them as if he were going guiltily to the scaffold. He assumed an extravagant jauntiness after that. On the gravel path he met the group of enthusiasts who had been walking behind him all the way from Rainhurst, and he stopped and curveted humorously before them, his overcoat shining like oilskin, raindrops flying like spray from his sleeves and trouser legs.
192“The performing sea-lion,” said he. “My next will be Sir Henry Irving.” He suddenly whipped his bowler hat from his head, dented it with one blow of his clenched fist and pulled it far down over his ears. Then he stood before them with folded arms. “Fifty faces under one hat—Napoleon!” His hands flew to the battered bowler and twisted it round with wild movements. “Charlie Chaplin!” Again he bounded about. His hat received another violent buffet. He faced them again. “A Nun!” Then he pulled it to one side and declared “Father Christmas!” Finally he made one swift gesture and struck another pose. “The Head Man of Harley,” said he. “Hard Roe.”
So far as it could be, it was lifelike. The hat was perched well forward over his forehead and his mouth was drawn down into a scowl. One knee was bent a little and his hands were clasped behind imaginary coat-tails.
For perhaps two seconds he held the pose. Then a thunderous roar reached him from almost immediately above his head. It was the voice of the Head, and the noise shaped itself at last into the word: &ldqu............