‘You’ve got to prove damage ’fore you can prosecute for anything! ’Can’t prosecute for trespass,’ said M‘Turk, whose father held many acres in Ireland. ‘That’s all rot!’
‘’Glad of that, ’cause this looks like what we wanted. Not straight across, Beetle, you blind lunatic!* Any one could spot us half a mile off. This way; and furl up your beastly butterfly—net.’
Beetle disconnected the ring, thrust the net into a pocket, shut up the handle to a two-foot stave, and slid the cane-ring round his waist. Stalky led inland to the wood, which was, perhaps, a quarter of a mile from the sea, and reached the fringe of the brambles.
‘ Now we can get straight down through the furze, and never show up all,’ said the tactician. ‘Beetle, go ahead and explore. Snf! Snf! Beastly stink of fox somewhere!’
On all fours, save when he clung to his spectacles, Beetle wormed into the gorse, and presently announced between grunts of pain that he had found a very fair fox—track. This was well for Beetle, since Stalky pinched him a tergo* Down that tunnel they crawled. It was evidently a highway for the inhabitants of the combe; and, to their inexpressible joy, ended, at the very edge of the cliff, in a few square feet of dry turf walled and roofed with impenetrable gorse.
‘By gum! There isn’t a single thing to do except lie down,’ said Stalky, returning a knife to his pocket. ‘Look here!’
He parted the tough stems before him, and it was as a window opened on a far view of Lundy, and the deep sea sluggishly nosing the pebbles a couple of hundred feet below. They could hear young jackdaws squawking on the ledges, the hiss and jabber of a nest of hawks somewhere out of sight; and, with great deliberation, Stalky spat on to the back of a young rabbit sunning himself far down where only a cliff-rabbit could have found foot-hold. Great gray and black gulls screamed against the jackdaws; the heavy-scented acres of bloom round them were alive with low-nesting birds, singing or silent as the shadow of the wheeling hawks passed and returned; and on the naked turf across the combe rabbits thumped and frolicked.
‘Whew! What a place! Talk of natural history; this is it,’ said Stalky, filling himself a pipe. ‘Isn’t it scrumptious? Good old sea!’ He spat again approvingly, and was silent.
M‘Turk and Beetle had taken out their books and were lying on their stomachs, chin in hand. The sea snorted and gurgled; the birds, scattered for the moment by these new animals, returned to their businesses, and the boys read on in the rich, warm sleepy silence.
‘Hullo, here’s a keeper,’ said Stalky, shutting Handley Cross* cautiously, and peering through the jungle. A man with a gun appeared on the sky-line to the east. ‘Confound him, he’s going to sit down!’
‘He’d swear we were poachin’ too,’ said Beetle. ‘What’s the good of pheasants’ eggs? They’re always addled.’
‘’Might as well get up to the wood, I think,’ said Stalky. ‘We don’t want G. M. Dabney, Col., J.P., to be bothered about us so soon. Up the wuzzy and keep quiet! He may have followed us, you know.’
Beetle was already far up the tunnel. They heard him gasp indescribably: there was the crash of a heavy body leaping through the furze.
‘Aie! yeou little red rascal. I see yeou!’ The keeper threw the gun to his shoulder, and fired both barrels in their direction. The pellets dusted the dry stems round them as a big fox plunged between Stalky’s legs and ran over the cliff-edge.
They said nothing till they reached the wood, torn, dishevelled, hot, but unseen.
‘Narrow squeak,’ said Stalky. ‘I’ll swear some of the pellets went through my hair.’
‘Did you see him?’ said Beetle. ‘I almost put my hand on him. Wasn’t he a wopper! Didn’t he stink! Hullo, Turkey, what’s the matter? Are you hit?’
M‘Turk’s lean face had turned pearly white; his mouth, generally half open, was tight shut, and his eyes blazed. They had never seen him like this save once, in a sad time of civil war.
‘Do you know that that was just as bad as murder?’ he said, in a grating voice, as he brushed prickles from his head.
‘Well, he didn’t hit us,’ said Stalky. ‘I think it was rather a lark. Here, where are you going?’
‘I’m going up to the house, if there is one,’ said M‘Turk, pushing through the hollies. ‘I am going to tell this Colonel Dabney.’
‘Are you crazy? He’ll swear it served us jolly well right. He’ll report us. It’ll be a public lickin’. Oh, Turkey, don’t be as ass! Think of us!’
‘You fool!’ said M‘Turk, turning savagely. ‘D’you suppose I’m thinkin’ of us. It’s the keeper.’
‘He’s cracked,’ said Beetle miserably, as they followed. Indeed, this was a new Turkey—a haughty, angular, nose-lifted Turkey—whom they accompanied through a shrubbery on to a lawn, where a white-whiskered old gentleman with a cleek was alternately putting and blaspheming vigorously.
‘Are you Colonel Dabney?’ M‘Turk began in this new creaking voice of his.
‘I—I am, and’—his eyes travelled up and down the boy—‘who—what the devil d’you want? Ye’ve been disturbing my pheasants. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye needn’t laugh at it. [M‘Turk’s not too lovely features had twisted themselves into a horrible sneer at the word ‘pheasant.’] You’ve been bird’s-nesting. You needn’t hide your hat. I can see that you belong to the College. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye do! Your name and number at once, sir. Ye want to speak to me—Eh? You saw my notice-boards? ’Must have. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye did! Damnable! Oh, damnable!’
He choked with emotion. M‘Turk’s heel tapped the lawn and he stuttered a little—two sure signs that he was losing his temper. But why should he, the offender, be angry?
‘Lo-look here, sir. Do—do you shoot foxes? Because, if you don’t, your keeper does. We’ve seen him! I do-don’t care what you call us—but it’s an awful thing. It’s the ruin of good feelin’ among neighbours. A ma-man ought to say once and for all how he stands about preservin’. It’s worse than murder, because there’s no legal remedy.’ M‘Turk was quoting confusedly from his father, while the old gentleman made noises in his throat.
‘Do you know who I am?’ he gurgled at last; Stalky and Beetle quaking.
‘No, sorr, nor do I care if ye belonged to the Castle* itself. Answer me now, as one gentleman to another. Do ye shoot foxes or do ye not?’
And four years before Stalky and Beetle had carefully kicked M‘Turk out of his Irish dialect! Assuredly he had gone mad or taken a sunstroke, and as assuredly he would be slain—once by the old gentleman and once by the Head. A public licking for the three was the least they could expect. Yet—if their eyes and ears were to be trusted—the old gentleman had collapsed. It might be a lull before the storm, but—
‘I do not.’ He was still gurgling.
‘Then you must sack your keeper. He’s not fit to live in the same country with a God—fearin’ fox. An’ a vixen, too—at this time o’ year!’
‘Did ye come up on purpose to tell me this?’
‘Of course I did, ye silly man,’ with a stamp of the foot. ‘Would you not have done as much for me if you’d seen that thing happen on my land, now?’
Forgotten—forgotten was the College and the decency due to elders! M‘Turk was treading again the barren purple mountains of the rainy West coast, where in his holidays he was viceroy of four thousand naked acres, only son of a three-hundred-year-old house, lord of a crazy fishing-boat, and the idol of his father’s shiftless tenantry. It was the landed man speaking to his equal—deep calling to deep*—and the old gentleman acknowledged the cry.
‘I apologise,’ said he. ‘I apologise unreservedly—to you, and to the Old Country. Now, will you be good enough to tell me your story?’
‘We were in your combe,’ M‘Turk began, and he told his tale alternately as a schoolboy, and, when the iniquity of the thing overcame him, as an indignant squire; concluding: ‘So you see he must be in the habit of it. I—we—one never wants to accuse a neighbour’s man; but I too
k the liberty in this case—’
‘I see. Quite so. For a reason ye had. Infamous—oh, infamous!’ The two had fallen into step beside each other on the lawn, and Colonel Dabney was talking as one man to another. ‘This comes of promoting a fisherman—a fisherman—from his lobster-pots. It’s enough to ruin the reputation of an archangel. Don’t attempt to deny it. It is! Your father has brought you up well. He has. I’d much like the pleasure of his acquaintance. Very much, indeed. And these young gentlemen? English they are. Don’t attempt to deny it. They came up with you, too? Extraordinary! Extraordinary, now! In the present state of education I shouldn’t have thought any three boys would be well enough grounded… . But out of the mouths of—* No—no! Not that by any odds. Don’t attempt to deny it. Ye’re not! Sherry always catches me under the liver, but—beer, now? Eh? What d’you say to beer, and something to eat? It’s long since I was a boy—abominable nuisances; but exceptions prove the rule. And a vixen, too!’
They were fed on the terrace by a gray-haired housekeeper. Stalky and Beetle merely ate, but M‘Turk with bright eyes continued a free and lofty discourse; and ever the old gentleman treated him as a brother.
‘My dear man, of course ye can come again. Did I not say exceptions prove the rule? The lower combe? Man, dear, anywhere ye please, so long as you do not disurb my pheasants. The two are not incompatible. Don’t attempt to deny it. They’re not! I’ll never allow another gun, though. Come and go as ye please. I’ll not see you, and ye needn’t see me. Ye’ve been well brought up. Another glass of beer, now? I tell you a fisherman he was and a fisherman he shall be tonight again. He shall! ’Wish I could drown him. I’ll convoy you to the Lodge. My people are not precisely—ah—broke to boy, but they’ll know you again.’
He dismissed them with many compliments by the high Lodge gate in the split—oak park palings and they stood still; even Stalky, who had played second, not to say a dumb, fiddle, regarding M‘Turk as one from another world. The two glasses of strong home-brewed had brought a melancholy upon the boy, for, slowly strolling with his hands in his pockets, he crooned:—
‘Oh, Paddy dear, and did ye hear the news that’s goin’ round?’*
Under other circumstances Stalky and Beetle would have fallen upon him, for that song was barred utterly—anathema— the sin of witchcraft. But seeing what he had wrought, they danced round him in silence, waiting till it pleased him to touch earth.
The tea-bell rang when they were still half a mile from College. M‘Turk shivered and came out of dreams. The glory of his holiday estate had left him. He was a Colleger of the College, speaking English once more.
‘Turkey, it was immense!’ said Stalky generously. ‘I didn’t know you had it in you. You’ve got us a hut for the rest of the term, where we simply can’t be collared. Fids! Fids! Oh, fids! I gloat! Hear me gloat!’
They spun wildly on their heels, jodelling after the accepted manner of a ‘gloat,’ which is not unremotely allied to the primitive man’s song of triumph, and dropped down the hill by the path from the gasometer just in time to meet their House—master, who had spent the afternoon watching their abandoned hut in the ‘wuzzy.’
Unluckily, all Mr. Prout’s imagination leaned to the darker side of life, and he looked on those young-eyed cherubims* most sourly. Boys that he understood attended House—matches and could be accounted for at any moment. But he had heard M‘Turk openly deride cricket—even House-matches; Beetle’s views on the honour of the House he knew were incendiary; and he could never tell when the soft and smiling Stalky was laughing at him. Consequently—since human nature is what it is—those boys had been doing wrong somewhere. He hoped it was nothing very serious, but …
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ Stalky, still on his heels, whirled like a dancing dervish to the dining—hall.
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ Beetle spun behind him with outstretched arms.
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ M‘Turk’s voice cracked.
Now was there or was there not a distinct flavour of beer as they shot past Mr. Prout?
He was unlucky in that his conscience as a House-master impelled him to consult his associates. Had he taken his pipe and his troubles to Little Hartopp’s rooms he would, perhaps, have been saved confusion, for Hartopp believed in boys, and knew something about them. His fate led him to King a fellow House-master, no friend of his, but a zealous hater of Stalky & Co.
‘Ah—haa!’ said King, rubbing his hands when the tale was told. ‘Curious! Now my House never dream of doing these things.’
‘But you see I’ve no proof, exactly.’
‘Proof? With the egregious Beetle! As if one wanted it? I suppose it is not impossible for the Sergeant to supply it? Foxy is considered at least a match for any evasive boy in my House. Of course they were smoking and drinking somewhere. That type of boy always does. They think it manly.’
‘But they’ve no following in the school, and they are distinctly—er—brutal to their juniors,’ said Prout, who had from a distance seen Beetle return, with interest, his butterfly-net to a tearful fag.
‘Ah! They consider themselves superior to ordinary delights. Self-sufficient little animals! There’s something in M‘Turk’s Hibernian sneer that would make me a little annoyed. And they are so careful to avoid all overt acts, too. It’s sheer calculated insolence. I am strongly opposed, as you know, to interfering with another man’s House; but they need a lesson, Prout. They need a sharp lesson, if only to bring down their overweening self-conceit. Were I you, I should devote myself for a week to their little performances. Boys of that order—I may flatter myself, but I think I know boys—don’t join the Bug—hunters for love. Tell the Sergeant to keep his eye open; and, of course, in my peregrinations I may casually keep mine open too.’
‘Ti-ra-la-la-i-tu! I gloat! Hear me!’ far down the corridor.
‘Disgusting!’ said King. ‘Where do they pick up these obscene noises? One sharp lesson is what they want.’
The boys did not concern themselves with lessons for the next few days. They had all Colonel Dabney’s estate to play with, and they explored it with the stealth of Red Indians and the accuracy of burglars. They could enter either by the Lodge-gates on the upper road—they were careful to ingratiate themselves with the Lodge-keeper and his wife—drop down into the combe, and return along the cliffs; or they could begin at the combe, and climb up into the road.
They were careful not to cross the Colonel’s path—he had served his turn, and they would not out—wear their welcome—nor did they show up on the sky-line when they could move in cover. The shelter of the gorse by the cliff—edge was their chosen retreat. Beetle christened it the Pleasant Isle of Aves,* for the peace and the shelter of it; and here, pipes and tobacco once cachéd in a convenient ledge an arm’s length down the cliff, their position was legally unassailable.
For, observe, Colonel Dabney had not invited them to enter his house. Therefore, they did not need to ask specific leave to go visiting; and school rules were strict on that point. He had merely thrown open his grounds to them; and, since they were lawful Bug-hunters, their extended bounds ran up to his notice-boards in the combe and his Lodge-gates on the hill.
They were amazed at their own virtue.
‘And even if it wasn’t,’ said Stalky, flat on his back, staring into the blue. ‘Even suppose we were miles out of bounds, no one could get at us through this wuzzy, unless he knew the tunnel. Isn’t this better than lyin’ up just behind the Coll.—in a blue funk every time we had a smoke? Isn’t your Uncle Stalky—?’
‘No,’ said Beetle—he was stretched at the edge of the cliff thoughtfully spitting. ‘We’ve got to thank Turkey for this. Turkey is the Great Man. Turkey, dear, you’re distressing Heffles.’
‘Gloomy old ass!’ said M‘Turk, deep in a book.
‘They’ve got us under suspicion,’ said Stalky. ‘Hoophats is so suspicious somehow; and Foxy always makes every stalk he does a sort of—s
ort of——’
‘Scalp,’ said Beetle. ‘Foxy’s a giddy Chingangook.’*
‘Poor Foxy,’ said Stalky. ‘He’s goin’ to catch us one of these days. ’Said to me in the gym last night, “I’ve got my eye on you, Mister Corkran. I’m only warning you for your good.” Then I said, “Well, you jolly well take it off again, or you’ll get into trouble. I’m only warnin’ you for your good.” Foxy was wrath.’
‘Yes, but it’s only fair sport for Foxy,’ said Beetle. ‘It’s Hefflelinga that has the evil mind. ’Shouldn’t wonder if he thought we got tight.’
‘I never got squiffy but once—that was in the holidays,’ said Stalky reflectively; ‘an’ it made me horrid sick. ’Pon my sacred Sam, though, it’s enough to drive a man to drink, havin’ an animal like Hoof for House—master.’
‘If we attended the matches an’ yelled, “Well hit, sir,” an’ stood on one leg an’ grinned every time Heffy said, “So ho, my sons. Is it thus?” an’ said, “Yes, sir,” an’ “No, sir,” an’ “Oh, sir,” an’ “Please, sir,” like a lot o’ filthy fa—ags, Heffy ’ud think no end of us,” said M‘Turk, with a sneer.
‘’Too late to begin that.’
‘It’s all right. The Hefflelinga means well. But he is an ass. And we show him that we think he’s an ass. An’ so Heffy don’t love us. ’Told me last night after prayers that he was in loco parentis,’* Beetle grunted.
‘The deuce he did!’ cried Stalky. ‘That means he’s maturin’ something unusual dam’ mean. ’Last time he told me that he gave me three hundred lines for dancin’ the cachuca* in Number Ten dormitory. Loco parentis, by gum? But what’s the odds, as long as you’re ’appy?* We’re all right.’
They were, and their very rightness puzzled Prout, King, and the Sergeant. Boys with bad consciences show it. They slink out past the Fives Court in haste, and smile nervously when questioned. They return, disordered, in bare time to save a call-over. They nod and wink and giggle one to the other, scattering at the approach of a master. But Stalky and his allies had long outlived these manifestations of youth. They strolled forth unconcernedly, and returned, in excellent shape, after a light refreshment of strawberries and cream at the Lodge.
The Complete Stalky & Co Page 7
