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... AND FULFILLS 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 a certainextent. He still harbored a feeling of resentment against the school ingeneral and Adair in particular, but it was pleasant in Outwood's nowthat he had got to know some of the members of the house, and he likedplaying cricket for Lower Borlock; also, he was fairly certain that hisfather would not let him go to Cambridge if he were expelled fromSedleigh. Mr. Jackson was easygoing with his family, but occasionallyhis foot came down like a steam hammer, as witness the Wrykynschool-report affair.
So Mike pedaled along rapidly, being wishful to get the job done withoutdelay.
Psmith had yielded up the key, but his inquiries as to why it was neededhad been embarrassing. Mike's statement that he wanted to get up earlyand have a ride had been received by Psmith, with whom early rising wasnot a hobby, with honest amazement and a flood of advice and warning onthe 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 moment howmany--made a man something, which for the time being has slipped mymemory. 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 the key.
Mike wished he could have taken Psmith into his confidence. Probably hewould 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 atthe far end of the village, by the cricket field. He rode past thechurch--standing out black and mysterious against the light sky--and therows of silent cottages, until he came to the inn.
The place was shut, of course, and all the lights were out--it wassometime past eleven.
The advantage an inn has over a private house, from the point of view ofthe person who wants to get into it when it has been locked up, is thata 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 around heaving rocks andend by climbing up a waterspout, when you want to get into an inn yousimply 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, 'ello!Mr. Jackson, sir!"
Mike was well known to all dwellers in Lower Borlock, his scores beingthe chief topic of conversation when the day's labors 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 WhiteBoar 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 money togive 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.
"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 openmouthed at Mike for a moment; then hebroke into a roar of laughter which shook the sporting prints on thewall and drew barks from dogs in some distant part of the house. Hestaggered about laughing and coughing till Mike began to expect a fit ofsome kind. Then he collapsed into a chair, which creaked under him, andwiped his eyes.
"Oh dear!" he said, "Oh dear! The five pounds!"
Mike was not always abreast of the rustic idea of humor, and now he feltparticularly fogged. For the life of him he could not see what there wasto amuse anyone so much in the fact that a person who owed five poundswas ready to pay it back. It was an occasion for rejoicing, perhaps, butrather 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; when thiswas finished he handed the letter to Mike, who was waiting patiently 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, butit 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you how many beans make five;it 'ud do a lot more good if they'd teach you to come in when it rained;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 andJohn 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, always upto it, she is--she got hold of my old hat and had it in bits before youcould say knife. John upset a china vase in one of the bedrooms chasinga mouse, and they got on the coffee-room table and ate half a coldchicken what had been left there. So I says to myself, 'I'll have a gamewith Mr. Jellicoe over this,' and I sits down and writes off saying thelittle dogs have eaten a valuable hat and a chicken and what not, andthe damage'll be five pounds, and will he kindly remit same by Saturdaynight at the latest or I write to his headmaster. Love us!" Mr. Barleyslapped his thigh, "he took it all in, every word--and here's the fivepounds in cash in this envelope here! I haven't had such a laugh sincewe got old Tom Raxley out of bed at twelve of a winter's night bytelling him his house was afire."
It is not always easy to appreciate a joke of the practical order if onehas been made even merely part victim of it. Mike, as he reflected thathe had been dragged out of his house in the middle of the night, incontravention of all school rules and discipline, simply in order tosatisfy Mr. Barley's sense of humor, was more inclined to be abusivethan mirthful. Running risks is all very well when they are necessary,or if one chooses to run them for one's own amusement, but to be placedin a dangerous position, a position imperiling one's chance of going tothe 'Varsity, is another matter altogether.
But it is impossible to abuse the Barley type of man. Barley's enjoymentof the whole thing was so honest and childlike. Probably it had givenhim the happiest quarter of an hour he had known for years, since, infact, the affair of old Tom Raxley. It would have been cruel to dampthe man.
So Mike laughed perfunctorily, took back the envelope with the fivepounds, accepted a ginger beer and a plateful of biscuits, and rode offon his return journey.
* * * * *
Mention has been made above of the difference which exists betweengetting into an inn after lockup and into a private house. Mike was tofind this out for himself.
His first act on arriving at Sedleigh was t
o replace his bicycle in theshed. This he accomplished with success. It was pitch-dark in the shed,and as he wheeled his machine in, his foot touched something on thefloor. Without waiting to discover what this might be, he leaned hisbicycle against the wall, went out, and locked the door, after which heran across to Outwood's.
Fortune had favored his undertaking by decreeing that a stout drainpipeshould pass up the wall within a few inches of his and Psmith's study.On the first day of term, it may be remembered he had wrenched away thewooden bar which bisected the window frame, thus rendering exit andentrance almost as simple as they had been for Wyatt during Mike's firstterm at Wrykyn.
He proceeded to scale this water pipe.
He had got about halfway up when a voice from somewhere below cried,"Who's that?"
Mike and Psmith Page 15