Mike at Wrykyn (9 page)

“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 of intimation 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 the Hall. I shall go to the
Common Room and make inquiries. Perhaps, as you say, there is a holiday today,
and the notice was not brought to me.”

Mr.
Spence told himself, as he walked to the Common Room, that this might be a
possible solution of the difficulty. He was not a house-master, and lived by
himself in rooms in the town. It was just conceivable that they might have
forgotten to tell him of the change in the arrangements.

But in
the Common Room the same perplexity reigned. Half a dozen masters were seated
round the room, and a few more were standing. And they were all very puzzled.

A brisk
conversation was going on. Several voices hailed Mr. Spence as he 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 this abode of sin,” said
Mr. Seymour, “it was on the distinct understanding that there was going to
be
a Lower Fourth. Yet I go into my form-room this morning, and what do I
find? Simply Emptiness, and Pickersgill II whistling ‘The Lost Chord’ all flat.
I consider I have been hardly treated.”

“I have
no complaint to make against Brown and Willoughby, as individuals,” said Mr.
Spence; “but, considered as a form, I call them short 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 I became 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 to look on the
thing as a huge jest.

“We had
better teach ourselves,” said Mr. Seymour. “Spence, do a hundred 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 men and true, graduates of our Universities, and,
as far as I can see, if we divide up the boys who have come to school this
morning on fair share-and-share-alike lines, it will work out at about
two-thirds of a boy each. Spence, will you take a third of Pickersgill II?”

“I want
none of your charity,” said Mr. Spence loftily. “You don’t seem to realize that
I’m the best off of you all. I’ve got two in my form. It’s no good offering me
your Pickersgills. I simply haven’t room for them.”

“What
does it all mean?” exclaimed Mr. Appleby. “If you ask me,” said Mr. Seymour, “I
should say that it meant that the school, holding the sensible view that first
thoughts are best, have ignored the head’s change of mind, and are taking their
holiday as 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 head will deal
with a situation like this. One can rely on him to do the statesmanlike thing,
but I’m bound to say I shouldn’t care to be in his place. It seems to me these
boys hold all the cards. You can’t expel a whole school. There’s safety in
numbers. The thing is colossal.”

“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 a Napoleonic touch
about the business that appeals to one. Disorder on a small scale is bad, but
this is immense. I’ve never heard of anything like it at any public school.
When I was at Winchester, my last year there, there was pretty nearly a
revolution because the captain of cricket was expelled on the eve of the Eton
match. I remember making inflammatory speeches myself on that occasion. But we
stopped on the right 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 day off, and it’s
ideal weather for a holiday. The head can hardly ask us to sit indoors,
teaching nobody. If I have to stew in my form-room all day, instructing
Pickersgill II, I shall make things exceedingly sultry for that youth. He will
wish that the Pickersgill progeny had stopped short at his elder brother. He
will not value life. In the meantime, as it’s already ten past, hadn’t we better
be going up to the Hall to see what the orders of the day
are?”

“Look
at Shields,” said Mr. Spence. “He might be posing for a statue to be called
‘Despair!’ He reminds me of Macduff.
Macbeth,
Act IV, somewhere near the
end. ‘What, all my pretty chickens, at one fell swoop?’ That’s what Shields is
saying to himself.”

“It’s
all very well to make a joke of it, Spence,” said Mr. Shields querulously, “but
it is most disturbing.

Most.”

“Exceedingly,”
agreed Mr. Wain.

The
bereaved company of masters walked on up the stairs that led to the Great Hall.

CHAPTER
XI

THE CONCLUSION OF THE PICNIC

IF the form-rooms had been
lonely, the Great Hall was doubly, trebly, so. It was a vast room, stretching
from side to side of the middle block, and its ceiling soared up into a distant
dome. At one end was a dais and an organ, and at intervals down the room stood
long tables. The panels were covered with the names of Wrykynians who had won
scholarships at Oxford and Cambridge, and of Old Wrykynians who had taken
firsts in Mods or Greats, or achieved any other recognized success, such as a
place in the Indian Civil Service list. A silent testimony, these panels, to
the work the school had done in the world.

Nobody
knew exactly how many the Hall could hold, when packed to its fullest capacity.
The six hundred odd boys at the school seemed to leave large gaps unfilled.

This
morning there was a mere handful, and the place hooked worse than empty.

The
Sixth Form were there, and the school prefects. The Great Picnic had not
affected their numbers. The Sixth stood by their table in a solid group. The
other tables were occupied by ones and twos. A buzz of conversation was going
on, which did not cease when the masters filed into the room and took their
places. Everyone realized by this time that the biggest row in Wrykyn history
was well under way; and the thing had to be discussed.

In the
masters’ library Mr. Wain and Mr. Shields, the spokesmen of the Common Room,
were breaking the news to the headmaster.

The
headmaster was a man who rarely betrayed emotion in his public capacity. He
heard Mr. Shields’s rambling remarks, punctuated by Mr. Wain’s “Exceedinglys,”
to an end. Then he gathered up his cap and gown.

“You
say that the whole school is absent?” he remarked quietly.

Mr.
Shields, in a long-winded flow of words, replied that that was what he did say.

“Ah!” said
the headmaster.

There
was a silence.

“‘M!“
said the headmaster.

There
was another silence.

“Ye—e—s
!” said the headmaster.

He them
led the way into the Hall.

Conversation
ceased abruptly as he entered. The school, like an audience at a theatre when
the hero has just appeared on the stage, felt that the serious interest of the
drama had begun. There was a dead silence at every table as he strode up the
room and on to the dais.

There
was something titanic in his calmness. Every eye was on his face as he passed
up the Hall, but not a sign of perturbation could the school read. To judge
from his expression, he might have been unaware of the emptiness around him.

The
master who looked after the music of the school, and incidentally accompanied
the hymn with which prayers at Wrykyn opened, was waiting, puzzled, at the foot
of the dais. It seemed improbable that things would go on as usual, and he did
not know whether he was expected to be at the organ, or not. The headmaster’s
placid face reassured him. He went to his post.

The
hymn began. It was a long hymn, and one which the school liked for its swing
and noise. As a rule, when it was sung, the Hall re-echoed. Today, the thin
sound of the voices had quite an uncanny effect. The organ boomed through the
deserted room.

The
school, or the remnants of it, waited impatiently while the prefect whose turn
it was to read stammered nervously through the lesson. They were anxious to get
on to what the Head was going to say at the end of prayers. At last it was
over. The school waited, all ears.

The
headmaster bent down from the dais and called to Firby-Smith, who was standing
in his place with the Sixth.

The
Gazeka, blushing warmly, stepped forward. “Bring me a school list,
Firby-Smith,” said the headmaster.

The
Gazeka was wearing a pair of very squeaky shoes that morning. They sounded
deafening as he walked out of the room.

The
school waited.

Presently
a distant squeaking was heard, and Firby-Smith returned, bearing a large sheet
of paper.

The
headmaster thanked him, and spread it out on the reading-desk.

Then,
calmly, as if it were an occurrence of every day, he began to call the roll.

“Abney.”

No
answer.

“Adams.”

No
answer.

“Allenby.”

“Here,
sir,” from a table at the end of the room. Allenby was a prefect, in the
Science Sixth.

The
headmaster made a mark against his name with a pencil.

“Arkwright.”

No
answer.

He
began to call the names more rapidly. “Arlington. Arthur. Ashe. Aston.”

“Here,
sir,” in a shrill treble from the rider in motorcars.

The
headmaster made another tick.

The
list came to an end after what seemed to the school an unconscionable time, and
he rolled up the paper again, and stepped to the edge of the dais.

“All
boys not in the Sixth Form,” he said, “will go to their form-rooms and get
their books and writing materials, and return to the Hall.”

(“ Good
work,” murmured Mr. Seymour to himself. “Looks as if we should get that holiday
after all.”)

“The
Sixth Form will go to their form-room as usual. I should like to speak to the
masters for a moment.”

He
nodded dismissal to the school.

The
masters collected on the dais.

“I find
that I shall not require your services today,” said the headmaster. “If you
will kindly set the boys in your forms some work that will keep them occupied,
I will look after them here. It is a lovely day,” he added, with a smile, “and
I am sure you will all enjoy yourselves a great deal more in the open air.”

“That,”
said Mr. Seymour to Mr. Spence, as they went downstairs, “is what I call a
genuine sportsman.”

“My
opinion neatly expressed,” said Mr. Spence. “Come on the river. Or shall we put
up a net, and have a knock?”

“River,
I think. Meet you at the boat-house.”

“All
right. Don’t be long.”

“If
every day were run on these lines, school-mastering wouldn’t be such a bad
profession. I wonder if one could persuade one’s form to run amuck as a regular
thing.”

“Pity
one can’t. It seems to me the ideal state of things. Ensures the greatest
happiness of the greatest number.”

“I say!
Suppose the school has gone up the river, too, and we meet them! What shall we
do?”