CHAPTER X
THE GREAT PICNIC
Morning school at Wrykyn started at nine o'clock. At that hour therewas a call-over in each of the form-rooms. After call-over the formsproceeded to the Great Hall for prayers.
A strangely desolate feeling was in the air at nine o'clock on theFriday morning. Sit in the grounds of a public school any afternoon inthe summer holidays, and you will get exactly the same sensation ofbeing alone in the world as came to the dozen or so day-boys whobicycled through the gates that morning. Wrykyn was a boarding-schoolfor the most part, but it had its leaven of day-boys. The majority ofthese lived in the town, and walked to school. A few, however, whosehomes were farther away, came on bicycles. One plutocrat did thejourney in a motor-car, rather to the scandal of the authorities, who,though unable to interfere, looked askance when compelled by thewarning toot of the horn to skip from road to pavement. A form-masterhas the strongest objection to being made to skip like a young ram bya boy to whom he has only the day before given a hundred lines forshuffling his feet in form.
It seemed curious to these cyclists that there should be nobody about.Punctuality is the politeness of princes, but it was not a leadingcharacteristic of the school; and at three minutes to nine, as ageneral rule, you might see the gravel in front of the buildingsfreely dotted with sprinters, trying to get in in time to answer theirnames.
It was curious that there should be nobody about to-day. A wave ofreform could scarcely have swept through the houses during the night.
And yet--where was everybody?
Time only deepened the mystery. The form-rooms, like the gravel, wereempty.
The cyclists looked at one another in astonishment. What could itmean?
It was an occasion on which sane people wonder if their brains are notplaying them some unaccountable trick.
"I say," said Willoughby, of the Lower Fifth, to Brown, the only otheroccupant of the form-room, "the old man _did_ stop the holidayto-day, didn't he?"
"Just what I was going to ask you," said Brown. "It's jolly rum. Idistinctly remember him giving it out in hall that it was going to bestopped because of the O.W.'s day row."
"So do I. I can't make it out. Where _is_ everybody?"
"They can't _all_ be late."
"Somebody would have turned up by now. Why, it's just striking."
"Perhaps he sent another notice round the houses late last night,saying it was on again all right. I say, what a swindle if he did.Some one might have let us know. I should have got up an hour later."
"So should I."
"Hullo, here _is_ somebody."
It was the master of the Lower Fifth, Mr. Spence. He walked brisklyinto the room, as was his habit. Seeing the obvious void, he stoppedin his stride, and looked puzzled.
"Willoughby. Brown. Are you the only two here? Where is everybody?"
"Please, sir, we don't know. We were just wondering."
"Have you seen nobody?"
"No, sir."
"We were just wondering, sir, if the holiday had been put on again,after all."
"I've heard nothing about it. I should have received some sort ofintimation if it had been."
"Yes, sir."
"Do you mean to say that you have seen _nobody_, Brown?"
"Only about a dozen fellows, sir. The usual lot who come on bikes,sir."
"None of the boarders?"
"No, sir. Not a single one."
"This is extraordinary."
Mr. Spence pondered.
"Well," he said, "you two fellows had better go along up to Hall. Ishall go to the Common Room and make inquiries. Perhaps, as you say,there is a holiday to-day, and the notice was not brought to me."
Mr. Spence told himself, as he walked to the Common Room, thatthis might be a possible solution of the difficulty. He was not ahouse-master, and lived by himself in rooms in the town. It wasjust conceivable that they might have forgotten to tell him of thechange in the arrangements.
But in the Common Room the same perplexity reigned. Half a dozenmasters were seated round the room, and a few more were standing. Andthey were all very puzzled.
A brisk conversation was going on. Several voices hailed Mr. Spence ashe entered.
"Hullo, Spence. Are you alone in the world too?"
"Any of your boys turned up, Spence?"
"You in the same condition as we are, Spence?"
Mr. Spence seated himself on the table.
"Haven't any of your fellows turned up, either?" he said.
"When I accepted the honourable post of Lower Fourth master in thisabode of sin," said Mr. Seymour, "it was on the distinct understandingthat there was going to be a Lower Fourth. Yet I go into my form-roomthis morning, and what do I find? Simply Emptiness, and Pickersgill II.whistling 'The Church Parade,' all flat. I consider I have been hardlytreated."
"I have no complaint to make against Brown and Willoughby, asindividuals," said Mr. Spence; "but, considered as a form, I call themshort measure."
"I confess that I am entirely at a loss," said Mr. Shields precisely."I have never been confronted with a situation like this since Ibecame a schoolmaster."
"It is most mysterious," agreed Mr. Wain, plucking at his beard."Exceedingly so."
The younger masters, notably Mr. Spence and Mr. Seymour, had begun tolook on the thing as a huge jest.
"We had better teach ourselves," said Mr. Seymour. "Spence, do ahundred lines for laughing in form."
The door burst open.
"Hullo, here's another scholastic Little Bo-Peep," said Mr. Seymour."Well, Appleby, have you lost your sheep, too?"
"You don't mean to tell me----" began Mr. Appleby.
"I do," said Mr. Seymour. "Here we are, fifteen of us, all good menand true, graduates of our Universities, and, as far as I can see, ifwe divide up the boys who have come to school this morning on fairshare-and-share-alike lines, it will work out at about two-thirds of aboy each. Spence, will you take a third of Pickersgill II.?"
"I want none of your charity," said Mr. Spence loftily. "You don'tseem to realise that I'm the best off of you all. I've got two in myform. It's no good offering me your Pickersgills. I simply haven'troom for them."
"What does it all mean?" exclaimed Mr. Appleby.
"If you ask me," said Mr. Seymour, "I should say that it meant thatthe school, holding the sensible view that first thoughts are best,have ignored the head's change of mind, and are taking their holidayas per original programme."
"They surely cannot----!"
"Well, where are they then?"
"Do you seriously mean that the entire school has--has_rebelled_?"
"'Nay, sire,'" quoted Mr. Spence, "'a revolution!'"
"I never heard of such a thing!"
"We're making history," said Mr. Seymour.
"It will be rather interesting," said Mr. Spence, "to see how the headwill deal with a situation like this. One can rely on him to do thestatesman-like thing, but I'm bound to say I shouldn't care to be inhis place. It seems to me these boys hold all the cards. You can'texpel a whole school. There's safety in numbers. The thing iscolossal."
"It is deplorable," said Mr. Wain, with austerity. "Exceedingly so."
"I try to think so," said Mr. Spence, "but it's a struggle. There's aNapoleonic touch about the business that appeals to one. Disorder on asmall scale is bad, but this is immense. I've never heard of anythinglike it at any public school. When I was at Winchester, my last yearthere, there was pretty nearly a revolution because the captain ofcricket was expelled on the eve of the Eton match. I remember makinginflammatory speeches myself on that occasion. But we stopped on theright side of the line. We were satisfied with growling. But this----!"
Mr. Seymour got up.
"It's an ill wind," he said. "With any luck we ought to get the dayoff, and it's ideal weather for a holiday. The head can hardly ask usto sit indoors, teaching nobody. If I have to stew in my form-room allday, instructing Pickersgill II., I shall make things exceedinglysultry for t
hat youth. He will wish that the Pickersgill progeny hadstopped short at his elder brother. He will not value life. In themeantime, as it's already ten past, hadn't we better be going up toHall to see what the orders of the day _are_?"
"Look at Shields," said Mr. Spence. "He might be posing for a statueto be called 'Despair!' He reminds me of Macduff. _Macbeth_, Activ., somewhere near the end. 'What, all my pretty chickens, at onefell swoop?' That's what Shields is saying to himself."
"It's all very well to make a joke of it, Spence," said Mr. Shieldsquerulously, "but it is most disturbing. Most."
"Exceedingly," agreed Mr. Wain.
The bereaved company of masters walked on up the stairs that led tothe Great Hall.
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