The Jolliest Term on Record Part 21

"You blithering idiot!" flared Githa, holding down the lid of her desk, and pus.h.i.+ng Lena away with her elbow.

"Now that's equivalent to a.s.saulting the police! I must trouble you to show me the inside of this. Will someone please help me?"

Novie Bates and Jess Howard, giggling their hardest, came to Lena's aid.

The three easily pulled Githa aside and flung open the desk. Within were several paper bags, into which Lena, on a plea of "ex officio", insisted on peeping.

"h.e.l.lo! What have we got here? Bread-and-b.u.t.ter! Sc.r.a.ps of meat and potatoes! Cake! By the Muses, you're having a good old feast! Do you come and refresh during recreation?"

Githa's flush of colour had faded. Her cheeks were drab again as the fungus to which Gwethyn had originally compared them. Her dark eyes were inscrutable.

"It's no business of yours if I do," she parried.

"Oh, certainly not! Munch away as hard as you please, if you like. It doesn't affect us. We'd willingly spread honey on the bread-and-b.u.t.ter if it would sweeten your temper."

"There, Lena, let her alone!" pleaded Jess, who thought the teasing had gone far enough. "If you weren't so touchy, Githa, n.o.body'd trouble to bother about you. It's your own fault if you get ragged! Don't be absurd; we're not going to run away with your precious parcels. You needn't stand guarding them like an old hen cackling over its eggs."

"Go and have a picnic with them in the garden!" jeered Lena. "Tell Mother Franklin she doesn't give you enough at dinner-time, and you have to bring extra supplies to school. She'd not refuse you a second helping if you asked. Some people have big appet.i.tes. It's a silly secret to make such a fuss about."

"I call it greedy!" scoffed Novie.

On that very same afternoon, between four and five o'clock, Katrine and Gwethyn were walking together in the orchard. The two often liked to have a private chat; though Gwethyn chummed with Rose Randall, Katrine had not made any special friends.h.i.+p among the Sixth, and mostly counted upon her sister for company. They had kept their adventure at the Grange to themselves, and they talked of it now as they sauntered between the apple-trees.

"It's a quaint old house," said Katrine. "We didn't half examine it when we were there. I should like to look again at that panelling in the library, and take a rough pencil sketch of it. I believe it's just what I want for one of my pictures. Shall we scoot and go across the fields?"

"Yes, by all means, if you'll guarantee we'll not get locked up! Mr.

Freeman mightn't be handy a second time."

"Oh, we'll be very careful, and inspect all the door-k.n.o.bs before we venture into the rooms! Come along; it will be rather sport!"

Needless to say, Gwethyn acquiesced. The mere fun of dodging the school authorities and paying a second surrept.i.tious visit to the old Grange appealed to her; she did not care very much about the artistic merits of the panels or wish to sketch them. So again the girls climbed the fence and manoeuvred across the fields under cover of the hedges.

"It looks as if a bicycle had been here lately," said Katrine, examining some tracks on the gravel as she opened the gate. "Perhaps we shan't have the place to ourselves to-day."

"Keep a look-out, then. We can soon scoot if necessary."

Observing due caution, they entered the house by the same window as on a former occasion. Very softly they stole down the pa.s.sage past the dining-room. The library door stood ajar, and Katrine pushed it open.

She stopped with an exclamation of surprise. On some upturned boxes at the far end of the room sat Githa and a boy, who was eating something hastily out of a paper bag. At the sight of strangers he jumped up with a wild, hunted look on his face, and unlatching the French window, disappeared into the garden in the s.p.a.ce of a few seconds. Githa had also sprung to her feet.

"Katrine! Gwethyn! Are you alone, or is Miss Aubrey or anyone with you?"

she faltered.

"All serene! We're quite by ourselves!"

Githa ran promptly to the window.

"Right-o!" she called. "Come back, Ceddie!"

The boy did not reply, and after waiting a little, Githa turned again to her friends.

"You've plumped upon my secret, so I may as well tell you. I know you won't give me away?"

"We'd be burnt at the stake first!" protested Gwethyn.

"Well, I dare say you guess that was my brother. Poor old Ceddie! He's been in fearful trouble, and he's run away from school. He always said he would, and now he's done it at last. I told you Mr. Hawkins was a beast. He caught Ceddie smoking a cigarette, and said he meant to make an example of him. He was just white with pa.s.sion. He hauled Ceddie into the big cla.s.sroom, and made the janitor hold him over a chair, and then thrashed him simply brutally, before all the school. He gave him seventeen strokes. Ceddie didn't care so much about the pain--he bore it like a Stoic; but it was such an indignity to be caned like that--a tall fellow of sixteen, before all those little boys! He took the first opportunity and bolted that very evening. He says he'd rather die than go back to school. I'll try and get him to come in and speak to you."

Githa ran into the garden and apparently used her powers of persuasion successfully, for after a short time she came back accompanied by her brother, whom she introduced to her friends. Cedric was rather a nice-looking lad, painfully shy, however, and much oppressed by the awkwardness of the situation. He did not seem disposed to talk to the visitors, and stood with his hands in his pockets looking out of the window, and whistling softly. As their presence only seemed to embarra.s.s him, Katrine and Gwethyn had the tact to go away. Githa walked with them down the pa.s.sage.

"He's been here three days," she confided. "He knew there'd be a frightful hue-and-cry after him, so he's lying low until it's over. Of course we daren't let Uncle know where he is. There's ever such a hullabaloo going on about it all at home, but I look absolutely stolid and don't breathe a word. I come every day and bring him food, and he sleeps on some straw in the attic. He'd rather do that than be sent back to old Hawkins's tender mercies."

"Does your uncle know how he was thrashed?"

"I'm not sure. Probably Mr. Hawkins only told his own side of the story.

I daren't ask anything. I'm so afraid of letting out the secret."

"But he can't stay here for ever!"

"No, he's just waiting until things blow over; then he'll do a bolt at night, and walk to Settlefield and try and enlist. He's wild to join the army."

"But he's too young!" gasped Katrine.

"He's very tall for his age, and of course he'd pretend he was eighteen."

Katrine was aghast at such a plan. It seemed pre-doomed to failure.

Cedric might be tall, but his boyish figure and youthful face would proclaim to any recruiting sergeant that he was below the age for enlistment. She stated her opinion emphatically, and urged Githa to persuade him to give up so foolish a notion.

"Oh dear! Whatever are we to do then?" sighed the worried little Toadstool. "We'd both counted on his getting into the army. I'm at my wits' end. I suppose he'll have to tramp to Liverpool, and get on a s.h.i.+p as a cabin-boy or a stoker, and work his pa.s.sage to America. Perhaps he'll find Uncle Frank there."

"I'm afraid that would be worse still," said Katrine gently. "Couldn't you trust your Uncle Wilfred? Perhaps if he really heard Cedric's side of the case, he would take him away from this school, and see about fitting him for what he's to be in the future. After all, he's his guardian."

"And a very harsh one! No, I daren't tell Uncle Wilfred. Ceddie must try to get to America. Other boys have run away and made their own fortunes."

"But how many have done the opposite?" urged Katrine. "Don't let him throw away his life like this! Have you no friend you could ask to help him?"

Githa shook her head forlornly.

"n.o.body cares to bother about us."

"I wish Father and Mother were in England!" said Gwethyn.

"Oh, how I wish they were!" exclaimed Githa, with a flash of hope on her face that faded as suddenly as it arose. "But what's the use of wis.h.i.+ng, when we know they're in Australia?"

The suggestion had given Katrine an idea, however.

"Would you trust your secret to Mr. Freeman?" she asked. "He's one of the kindest men I know, and perhaps he'd be able to think of some way out of the matter. I needn't tell him that Cedric is hiding at the Grange" (as Githa hesitated); "I'd simply state the facts of the case, and ask for his advice."

"Oh! Dare we trust him? He wouldn't let Mr. Hawkins get hold of Ceddie?"

"I promise he wouldn't."