by Ellen Wood
“When was this?” asked Mr. Wilberforce.
“It was the very day, sir, after our cat’s chaney saucer was done for; and that was done for the day after the grand audit dinner at the deanery. Master Henry Arkell, after going into the church to practise, couldn’t be contented to bring the key back and hang it up, like a Christian, but must dash it on to the kitchen floor, where it split the cat’s chaney saucer to pieces, and scattered the milk, a-frighting the cat, who had just got her nose in it, a’most into fits, and my missis too. Well, sir, when I opened my shutters the next morning, who should be a standing at the gate but Arkell, so I fetched him in to see the damage he had done; and it was while he was in the kitchen, a-counting the pieces, that Lewis came to the door.”
“But this must have been early morning,” cried Mr. Wilberforce.
“Somewhere about half after six, sir: it was half moonlight and half twilight. I remember what a bright clear morning it was for November.”
“Why, at that hour both Lewis and Arkell must have been in their beds, asleep, at my house.”
“Law, sir, who can answer for schoolboys, especially them big college gents? When they ought to be a-bed, they’re up; and when they ought to be up, they’re a-bed. They was both at my house that morning.”
Mr. Wilberforce could not make much of the tale, except that two of his boarders were out when he had deemed them safe in bed; and he left the church. It was dusk then. As he was striding along, in an irascible mood, he met Henry Arkell. He touched his cap to the master, and was passing on.
“Not so fast, Mr. Arkell. I want a word with you.”
Arkell stopped and stood before Mr. Wilberforce, his truthful eye and open countenance raised fearlessly.
“I gave you credit for behaving honourably, and as a gentleman ought, during the time you were residing in my house, but I find I was deceived. Who gave you leave, pray, to sneak out of it at early morning, when everybody else was in bed?”
“I never did, sir,” replied Henry.
“Take care, Arkell. If there’s one fault I punish more than another, it is a falsehood; and that you know. I say that you did sneak out of my house at untoward and improper hours.”
“Indeed, sir, I never did,” he replied with respectful earnestness.
The master raised his forefinger, and shook it at his pupil. “You were down at Hunt’s one morning last November, by half-past six, perhaps earlier; you must have gone down by moonlight —— Ah, I see,” added the master, in an altered tone, for a change flashed over Henry Arkell’s features, “conscience is accusing you of the falsehood.”
“No, sir, I told no falsehood. I don’t deny that I was at Hunt’s one morning.”
“Then how can you deny that you stole out of my house to get there? Perhaps you will explain, sir.”
What was Henry Arkell to do? Explain, in the full sense of the word, he could not; but explain, in a degree, he must, for Mr. Wilberforce was not one to be trifled with. He was a perfectly ingenuous boy, both in manner and character, and Mr. Wilberforce had hitherto known him for a truthful one: indeed, he put more faith in Arkell than in all the rest of the thirty-nine king’s scholars.
“Perhaps you will dare to tell me that you stopped out all night, instead of sneaking out in the morning?” pursued the master.
“Yes, sir, I did; but it was not my fault: I was kept out.”
“Where were you, and who kept you out?”
“Oh, sir, if you would be so kind as not to press me — for indeed I cannot tell. I was kept out, and I could not help myself.”
“I never heard so impudent an avowal from any boy in my life,” proceeded Mr. Wilberforce, when he recovered his astonishment. “What was the nature of the mischief you were in? Come; I will know it.”
“I was not in any mischief, sir. If I might tell the truth, you would say that I was not.’”
“This is most extraordinary behaviour,” returned the master. “What reason have you for not telling the truth?”
“Because — because — well, sir, the reason is, that I could not speak without getting others into trouble. Indeed, sir,” he earnestly added, “though I did stop out from your house all night, I did no wrong; I was in no mischief, and it was no fault of mine.”
Strange perhaps to say, the master believed him: from his long experience of the boy, he could believe nothing but good of Harry Arkell, and if ever words bore the stamp of truth, his did now.
“I am in a hurry at present,” said the master, “but don’t flatter yourself this matter will rest.”
Henry touched his cap again, and the master strode on to the residence of the Reverend Mr. Prattleton, and entered it without ceremony. Mr. Prattleton was seated with his two sons, and with George.
“Send the boys away for a minute, will you?” cried the master to his brother clergyman.
The boys went away, exceedingly glad to be sent. “You can go on with your Greek in the other room,” said their father. But to that suggestion they were conveniently deaf, preferring to take an evening gallop through some of the more obscure streets, where they knocked furiously at all the doors, and pulled out a few of the bell-wires.
“An unpleasant affair has happened, Prattleton,” began the master. “The register at St. James’s has been robbed.”
“The register robbed!” echoed Mr. Prattleton. “Not the book taken?”
“Not the book itself. A leaf has been taken out of it.”
“How?”
“We must endeavour to find out how. Hunt protests that nobody has had access to it but ourselves, save in his presence.”
“I do not suppose they have,” returned Mr. Prattleton. “How could they? When was it taken?”
“Sometime since the beginning of November. And there’ll be a tremendous stir over it, as sure as that we are sitting here: it was wanted for — for — some trial at the next assizes,” concluded the master, recollecting that Mr. Fauntleroy had cautioned him still not to speak of it. “Fauntleroy’s people went to-day to take a copy of it, and found it gone; so Fauntleroy came on to me.”
“You are sure it is gone?” continued Mr. Prattleton. “An entry is so easily overlooked.”
“I am sure it is not in the book now: and I read it there last November.”
“Well, this is an awkward thing. Have you no suspicion? — no clue?”
“Not any. Hunt was telling a tale —— By the way,” added Mr. Wilberforce, turning to George Prattleton, who had moved himself to a polite distance, as if not caring to hear, “you were mixed up in that. He says, that last November you and Lewis had some secret between you, about the church. Lewis went down to his house one morning by moonlight, got the key by stratagem, and brought it back, saying it was the wrong one: and you then went to the church with him, and both of you were agitated. What was it all about? What did he want in the church?”
“Oh — something had been left there, I think he said, when one of the college boys had gone in to practise. That was nothing, Mr. Wilberforce. We did not go into the church, after all.”
George Prattleton spoke with eagerness, and then hastened from the room, but not before Mr. Wilberforce had caught a glimpse of his countenance.
“What is the matter with George?” whispered he.
Mr. Prattleton turned, and looked at the door by which he had gone out. “With George?” he repeated: “nothing that I know of. Why?”
“He turned as pale as my cravat: just as Hunt describes him to have been when he went into the church with Lewis. I shall begin to think there is a mystery in this.”
“But not one that touches the register,” said Mr. Prattleton. “I’ll tell you what that mystery was, but you must not bring in me as your informant; and don’t punish the boy, now it’s over, Wilberforce; though it was a disgraceful and dangerous act. It seems that young Arkell — what a nice lad that is! but he comes of a good stock — went into St. James’s one evening to practise, and Lewis, who owed him a grudge, stole after him and
locked him in, and took back the key to Hunt’s, where he broke some heirloom of the dame’s, in the shape of a china saucer, Hunt and his wife taking it to be Arkell. Arkell was locked in the church all night.”
“Locked in the church all night!” repeated the amazed Sir. Wilberforce. “Why the fright might have turned him — turned him — stone blind!”
“It might have turned him stone dead,” rejoined Mr. Prattleton. “Lewis, it appears, got terrified for the consequences, and as soon as your servants were up, he went to Hunt’s to get the key and let Arkell out. Hunt would not give it him, and Lewis appealed to George. That’s what has sent George out of the room, pale, as you call it; he was afraid lest you should question him too closely, and he passed his word to Lewis not to betray him.”
“What a villanous rascal!” uttered the master. “I never liked Lewis, but I would not have given him credit for this. Did George tell you?”
“Not he; he is not aware I know it. Lewis, some days afterwards, imparted the exploit to my boy, Joe. Joe, in his turn, imparted it to his brother, under a formidable injunction of secrecy, and I happened to overhear them, and became as wise as they were.”
“You ought to have told me this,” remarked Mr. Wilberforce, his countenance bearing its most severe expression.
“Had one of my own boys been guilty of it, I would have brought him to you and had him punished in the face of the school; but as no harm had come of it, I did not care to inform against Lewis: though I don’t excuse him; it was a dastardly action.”
“Well, this explains what Lewis wanted in the church, but it brings us no nearer the affair of the register. I think I shall offer a reward for the discovery.”
Mr. Wilberforce proceeded home, and into the study where his boarders were assembled, some half dozen of the head boys. One of them, a great tall fellow, stood on his head on a table, his feet touching the wall. “Who’s that?” uttered the master. “Is that the way you prepare your lessons, sir?”
Down clattered the head and the feet, and the gentleman stood upright on the floor. It was Lewis senior. Mr. Wilberforce took a seat, and the boys held their breath: they saw something was wrong.
“Vaughan.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Did you lock Henry Arkell up in St. James’s Church, and compel him to pass a night there?”
Mr. Vaughan opened all the eyes he possessed.
“I, sir! I have not locked him up, sir. I don’t think Arkell is locked up,” added Vaughan, in the confusion of his ideas. “I saw him talking to you, sir, just now, in Wage-street.”
Lewis pricked up his ears, which had turned of a fiery red; then Arkell had been locked in! Mr. Wilberforce sharply seized upon Vaughan’s words.
“What brought you in Wage-street, pray?”
“If you please, sir,” coughed Vaughan, feeling he had betrayed himself, “I only went out for an exercise book. I finished mine last night, sir, and forgot it till I went to do my Latin just now. I didn’t stop anywhere a minute, sir; I ran there and back as quick as lightning. Here’s the book, sir.”
Believing as much of this as he chose, Mr. Wilberforce did not pursue the subject. “Then which of you gentlemen was it who did shut up Arkell?” asked he, gazing round. “Lewis, senior, what is the matter with you, that you are skulking behind? Did you do it?”
Lewis saw that all was up. “That canting hound has been peaching at last,” quoth he to himself. “I laid a bet with Prattleton he’d do it.”
“It is the most wicked and cowardly action that I believe ever disgraced the college school,” continued Mr. Wilberforce, “and it depends upon how you meet it, Lewis, whether or not I shall expel you. Equivocate to me now, if you dare. Had it come to my knowledge at the time, you should have been flogged till you could not stand, and ignominiously expelled. Flogged you will be, as it is. Do you know, sir, that he might have died through it?”
Lewis hung his head, wishing Arkell had died; and then he could not have told the master.
“I think the best punishment will be, to lock you up in St. James’s all the night, and see how you will like it,” continued Mr. Wilberforce.
Lewis wondered whether he was serious; and the perspiration ran down him at the thought. “He was not locked in all night,” he said, sullenly, by way of propitiating the master. “When we went to open the church, he was gone.”
“Gone! What do you mean now?”
“He had got out somehow, sir, for Hunt said he had just seen him, and when I ran back to morning school, he was in the college hall. Mr. George Prattleton advised me not to make a stir, to know how he had got out, but to let it drop.”
As Lewis spoke, Mr. Wilberforce suddenly remembered that Hunt said Henry Arkell was in his kitchen, when Lewis came, frightened, and thumping for the key. It occurred to him now, for the first time, to wonder how that could have been.
“When you locked Arkell in, what did you do with the key?”
“I took it to Hunt’s, sir.”
“And gave it to Hunt?”
“Yes, sir. That is,” added Lewis, thinking it might be as well to be correct, “I pushed it into the kitchen, where Hunt was.”
“And broke Dame Hunt’s saucer,” retorted Mr. Wilberforce. “When did you have the key again. Speak up, sir?”
“I didn’t have it again, sir,” returned Lewis. “The key I took from the hook, next morning, would not fit into the lock, and I took it back. Hunt said it was the right key, and George Prattleton said it was the key; but I am sure it was not, although George Prattleton called me a fool for thinking so.”
The master revolved all this in his mind, and thought it very strange. He was determined to come to the bottom of it, and despatched Vaughan to Arkell’s house to fetch him. The two boys came back together, and Mr. Wilberforce, without circumlocution, addressed the latter.
“When this worthy companion of yours,” waving his hand contemptuously towards Lewis, “locked you in the church, how did you get out?”
Henry Arkell glanced at Lewis, and hesitated in his answer. “I can’t tell, sir.”
“You can’t tell!” exclaimed Mr. Wilberforce. “Did you walk out of it in your sleep? Did you get down from a window? — or through the locked door? How did you get out, I ask?”
Before there was time for any reply, the master’s servant entered, and said the Rev. Mr. Prattleton was waiting to speak to the master immediately. Mr. Wilberforce, leaving the study door open, went into the opposite room. Mr. Prattleton, who stood there, came forward eagerly.
“Wilberforce, a thought has struck me, and I came in to suggest it. When the boy passed the night in the church, did he get playing with the register?”
“He would not do it; Arkell would not,” spoke the master, in the first flush of thought.
“Not mischievously; but he may have got fingering anything he could lay his hands upon — and it is the most natural thing he would do, to while away the long hours. A spark may have fallen on the leaf, and — —”
“How could he get a light? — or find the key of the safe?” interrupted Mr. Wilberforce.
“Schoolboys can ferret out anything, and he may have found its hiding-place. As to a light, half the boys keep matches in their pockets.”
Mr. Wilberforce mused upon the suggestion till it grew into a probability. He called in Arkell, and shut the door.
“Now,” said he, confronting him, “will you speak the truth to me, or will you not?”
“I have hitherto spoken the truth to you, sir,” answered Arkell, in a tone of pain.
“Well; I believe you have: it would be bad for you now, if you had not. It is about that register, you know,” added Mr. Wilberforce, speaking slowly, and staring at him.
There was but one candle on the table, and Henry Arkell pulled out his handkerchief and rubbed it over his face: between the handkerchief and the dim light, the master failed to detect any signs of emotion.
“Did you get fingering the register-book in St. James’s,
the night you were in the church?”
“No, sir, that I did not,” he readily answered.
“Had you a light in the church?”
“You boys have a propensity for concealing matches in your clothes, in defiance of the risk you run,” interrupted Mr. Prattleton. “Had you any that night?”
“I had no matches, and I had no light,” replied Henry. “None of the boys keep matches about them except those who” — smoke, was the ominous word which had all but escaped his lips— “who are careless.”
“Pray what did you do with yourself all the time?” resumed the master.
“I played the organ for a long while, and then I lay down on the singers’ seat, and went to sleep.”
“Now comes the point: how did you get out?”
“I can’t say anything about it, sir, except that I found the door open towards morning, and I walked out.”
“You must have been dreaming, and fancied it,” said the master.
“No, sir, I was awake. The door was open, and I went out.”
“Is that the best tale you have got to tell?”
“It is all I can tell, sir. I did get out that way.”
“You may go home for the present,” said Mr. Wilberforce, in anger.
“Are you satisfied?” asked Mr. Prattleton, as Arkell retired.
“I am satisfied that he is innocent as to the register; but not as to how he escaped from the church. Allowing it to be as he says — and I have always found him so strictly truthful — that he found the door open in the middle of the night, how did it come open? Who opened it? For what purpose?”