Suddenly the boy, whoever he was, sprang from his bed, and seizing the lucifers, struck a light.
It was Hawkesbury! I had almost guessed it. I felt Jack"s hand tighten on my arm as the sudden glare fell full upon us, and Hawkesbury"s voice cried, "Oh, you fellows, what a start you gave me! I couldn"t make out what the talking was. I thought it must be thieves!"
At the same moment the dormitory door opened, and a new glare lit up the scene. It was Miss Henniker in her dressing-gown, with a candle.
"What, talking? Who was talking?" she said, overhearing Hawkesbury"s last exclamation.
It was a queer picture that moment, and I can recall it even now.
Hawkesbury standing in his night-shirt in the middle of the room. I, as lightly clad, crouching transfixed beside my friend"s bed, who was sitting up with his hand on my arm. And the Henniker there at the door, in her yellow-and-black dressing-gown and curl-papers, holding her candle above her head, and looking from one to the other.
"Who was talking?" she demanded again, turning to Hawkesbury.
Hawkesbury, smiling, returned to his bed, as he replied, "Oh, nothing.
I think I must have been dreaming, and woke in a fright."
But as he spoke his eyes turned to us two, and Miss Henniker"s followed naturally. Then the whole truth dawned upon her.
I rose from my knees and walked sheepishly back to my bed.
"What are you doing out of your bed, sir?" demanded she.
It was little use delaying matters by a parley, so I replied, bluntly, "Talking to Smith."
"And I," added the loyal Smith, "was talking to Batchelor!"
"Silence!" cried the Griffin. "Batchelor, dress immediately, and follow me!"
I did as I was bid, mechanically--that is, I slipped on my knickerbockers and slippers--and found myself in a couple of minutes, thus airily attired, following Miss Henniker, like a ghost, down the long pa.s.sage. She led the way, not, as I expected, to the parlour, or to Mr Ladislaw"s room, but conducted me upstairs and ushered me into a small and perfectly empty garret.
"Remain here, Batchelor!" said she, sternly.
The next moment she was gone, locking the door behind her, and I was left shivering, and in total darkness, to spend the remainder of the night in these unexpected quarters.
My first sensation was one of utter and uncontrollable rage. I was tempted to fling myself against the door, to shout, to roar until some one should come to release me. Then as suddenly came over me the miserable certainty that I was helpless, and that anything I did would be but labour lost, and injure no one but myself. And, Smith, too! It was all up with our precious secret parleys; perhaps we should not even be allowed to see one another any more. In my misery I sat down on the floor in a corner of my dungeon and felt as if I would not much care if the house were to fall about my ears and bury me in the ruins. Cheerful reflection this for a youth of my tender years!
As I sat, shivering and brooding over my hard fate, I heard footsteps ascending the stairs. When you are sitting alone in an empty room, at the dead of night, this is never a very fascinating sound, and I did not much enjoy it.
And as I listened I could make out that the footsteps belonged to two people. Perhaps I was going to be murdered, I reflected, like Prince Arthur, or the two boys in the Tower! At the same moment a streak of light glimmered through the crack of the door, and I heard a voice say, "Come this way, Smith."
So Smith, too, was going to be locked up for the night. My heart bounded as for an instant it occurred to me it would be in my dungeon!
No such good fortune! They pa.s.sed my door. At any rate, my chum should know where I was, so I proceeded to make a demonstration against my door and beseech, in the most piteous way, to be released. Of course, it was no use, but that did not matter; I never expected it would.
I listened hard to the retreating footsteps, which stopped at the end of the pa.s.sage. Then a door opened and shut again, a key turned, one pair of steps again returned past my door, and as I peeped through the keyhole I had a vague idea of a yellow-and-black gown, and knew that the Henniker had gone back to her place.
If only Smith had been shut up next door to me I might have been able to shout to him so that he could hear, but what chance was there when three or four rooms at least divided us? After all, except that he was near me, and knew where I was, things were not much better than they had been before. So I sat down again in my corner and sulkily watched the first glimmers of dawn peep in at the little window. It must be about 3 a.m., I thought. And that meant four good hours before any chance of a release came. And as it was, my feet were pretty nearly dead with cold, and a thin nightgown is not much covering for a fellow"s body and arms.
It rather pleased me to think the adventure might end fatally, and that at my inquest Miss Henniker might be brought in guilty of manslaughter.
It must be breezy, for those leaves have been tapping away at my window the last minute or so pretty hard. Bother the leaves! And yet, when you come to think of it, you do not often hear leaves tap as hard as that! My window will be smashed in if they keep it up at that rate. So I get up lazily and approach the scene of action.
I nearly screamed as I did so, for there, close up against the window, was a face! I was so taken aback that it took me a good minute to recover my wits and perceive that the apparition was none other than my faithful friend Jack Smith, and that the tapping I had been giving the leaves such credit for had been his eager attempts to attract my attention.
I sprang to the window, jubilant, and opened it.
"Oh, Jack! hurrah! However did you get here?"
"Oh, you have _spotted_ me at last, have you?" said he, with a grim smile. "I"ve been here five or ten minutes."
"You have!" exclaimed I.
"Yes. My window opened on to this ledge, too; so I didn"t see why I shouldn"t come."
"You might have fallen and killed yourself. But I say, Jack, won"t you come in? Even if we do get caught things can"t be much worse than they are."
"I know that--so I think you"d better come out."
"What for?" exclaimed I, in astonishment.
"To get away--anywhere," said he.
In a moment I was up on the window-sill, scrambling out on to the ledge beside him. The fresh morning breeze blew on my face as I did so, and a glorious sense of freedom took hold of both our drooping spirits. We needed no words. Only let us get free!
"Come along," said Jack, crawling along the narrow ledge which ran round the top of the house.
"How shall we get down?" I asked.
"That"s what I want to find out," said Jack. "Isn"t there a water-pipe or something in front?"
Carefully we made our perilous journey round the side of the house towards the front. Smith leaned over and peered down.
"Yes," said he, "there"s a water-pipe we could easily slide down, if we could only get at it. Look!"
I looked over too. The ground seemed a long way below, and I felt a trifle nervous at the prospect of trying to reach it by such unorthodox means as a water-pipe, even could we get at that pipe. But the ledge on which we were overhung the side of the house, and the pipe began under it, just below where we stood.
"We must try, anyhow," said Jack, desperately. "I"ll go first; catch hold of my hands, Fred."
And he was actually going to attempt to scramble over and round under the ledge, when he suddenly paused, and cried, "Hold hard. I do believe this bit of ledge is loose!"
So it was. It shook as we stood upon it.
"We might be able to move it," said Jack.
So we knelt down and with all our might tugged away at the stone that divided us from our water-pipe. It was obstinate at first, but by dint of perseverance it yielded to pressure at last, and we were able triumphantly to lift it from its place.
It was easy enough now reaching the pipe. But here a new peril arose.
Sliding down water-pipes is an acquired art, and not nearly as easy as it seems. Jack, who volunteered to make the first descent, looked a little blue as he found the pipe was so close to the wall that he couldn"t get his hands round, much less his feet.
"You"ll have to grip it hard with your ankles and elbows," he said, beginning to slide down an inch or two; "and go slow, whatever you do."
It was nervous work watching him, and still more nervous work when at length I braced myself up to the effort and proceeded to embrace the slender pipe. How I ever managed to get to the bottom I can"t say. I remember reflecting about half way down that this would be good daily exercise for the Henniker, and the mere thought of her almost sent me headlong to the bottom.