Her husband looked at her, not quite catching the meaning of her words.

"Still out now?"

"Yes, still out now. Bailey, Griffin, Wheeler and Ellis went out this afternoon, in all the rain and fog, with Mr. Shane's permission; and out they've stopped, for they're not back yet."

"Not back yet! Jane, you cannot mean it. Why, it's nearly midnight."

Mr. Fletcher looked at his venerable silver watch, which had come to him, with the rest of his possessions, from his father. "What's that?"

Husband and wife listened. The silence which reigned without had been broken by a crash from the schoolroom, a crash which bore a strong family resemblance to the sound made by the upsetting of a form.

"It's those boys!" said Mrs. Fletcher. "They're getting through the window."

She hurried off to see, her husband following closely after. All the lights were out; save the sitting-room which they had left, all the house was dark. She called to him to bring the lamp. Returning, he s.n.a.t.c.hed it from the table and went after her again.

They entered the schoolroom, Mr. Fletcher acting as lamp-bearer.

Directly the door was opened they were conscious of a strong current of air within the room. Mrs. Fletcher went swiftly forward, picking her way among the desks and forms, and the cause of the noise they had heard and the draught they felt was soon apparent. The furthest window was wide open. In front of it a form was overturned upon the floor, a form which some one effecting a burglarious entrance through the window in the dark had unwittingly turned over. The lady's quick eye caught sight of a figure crouching behind a neighbouring desk. It did not take her long to drag a young gentleman out by the collar of his coat.

"Well--upon--my--word!"

Her astonishment was genuine, and excusable; few more disreputable figures ever greeted a lady's eye.

"Is this Bailey?"

It was Bailey. Perhaps at that moment Bailey rather wished it wasn't; but the surprise of his sudden capture had bereft him of the power of speech, and he was unable to deny his ident.i.ty. The lady did nothing else but stare. Suddenly somebody else made his appearance at the window, a head rose above the window-sill, and a meek, modest voice inquired,--

"Please, ma'am, may I come in?"

The new-comer was Edward Wheeler. The lady's astonishment redoubled.

"Well--I--never!"

Taking this exclamation to convey permission, Wheeler gradually raised himself the necessary height, and finally, after a few convulsive plunges to prevent himself from slipping back again, scrambled through the window and stood upon the floor. Wheeler presented a companion picture to his friend. As he had lost his hat at an early hour of the evening, he, perhaps, in some slight details, bore away the palm from Bailey. Mrs. Fletcher stared at them both in blank amazement; in all her experience of boys she never had seen anything quite equal to these two. Mr. Fletcher, lamp in hand, came up to join in the inspection.

"Where have you boys been?" he asked.

"Out to tea," said Bailey.

Mrs. Fletcher sniffed disdainfully.

"Out to tea! Don't tell me that! I should think you've been out to tea in a ditch!"

Mr. Fletcher carried on the examination.

"How dare you tell me you've been to tea! Where have you boys been?"

"We have been out to tea," said Bailey.

"And where, sir, have you been having tea, that you come back at this hour, and in such a plight as that?"

"Washington Villa," answered Bailey.

"Washington Villa! And where's Washington Villa? But never mind that, I shall have something to say to you in the morning. Where are those other boys? Where are Griffin and Ellis?"

"They're coming," muttered Bailey.

Just then they came. While Mr. Fletcher hesitated, in doubt what to do or say, a voice, unmistakably Ellis', was heard without.

"Is that you, Bailey? Won't I pay you out for this, you cad! We might have got drowned for all you cared. Here's Griffin got half-drowned as it is."

Thrusting her head out of the window, Mrs. Fletcher replied to the wanderer; a reply, doubtless, as unexpected as undesired.

"If Mr. Fletcher did as I wished him, he'd give each of you boys a good round flogging before you went to bed, a lot of disobedient, ungrateful, untruthful, and untrustworthy scamps!"

Possibly this was enough for Ellis, for he subsided and was heard no more, but a sound of weeping arose. It was the grief of Charlie Griffin. Placing the lamp upon a desk, Mr. Fletcher put his head out of the window beside his wife's.

"I'm not going to open the hall door for you at this time of night.

Your friends came through the window, and you can follow your friends."

They followed their friends, Ellis coming first; Griffin, with not unnatural bashfulness, preferring to keep in the background. Mrs.

Fletcher's uplifted hands and cry of astonishment greeted Ellis, who was indeed a notable example of the possibilities of dirt as applied to the person, but Griffin's entry was followed by the silence of petrified amazement.

His friends' attempts at disfigurement were altogether unsuccessful as compared to the success which had attended his. They were dandies compared to him. It was difficult at a first glance to realize that he was a boy, or indeed a human being of any kind. He was covered with a combination of weeds, green slime, particoloured filth, and yellow clay; the water dripped from the more prominent portions of his frame; his clothes were glued to his limbs; he was hatless; his face and hair were plastered with the aforesaid slime; and, to crown it all, he was convulsed with a sorrow which lay too deep for words.

"Griffin!" was all that the headmaster's wife could gasp. "Charlie Griffin!"

"Where have you been?" asked Mr. Fletcher.

"I've been in the pond," gasped Griffin, half choked with mud and tears.

"In the pond? What pond?"

"Pa-almer's po-ond!"

"Palmer's pond! What were you doing in there? What I'm to do with you boys is more than I can say!" Mr. Fletcher sighed. "There's one thing, I shan't have to do with you much longer." This was muttered half beneath his breath. "What are we to do with them, my dear?" This was a question to his wife.

"Don't ask me; I don't know what we're to do with them. I should think that boy"--here she pointed an accusatory finger at Griffin--"had better go back to Palmer's pond. He appears to be fond of it, and it's the only place he's fit for." Griffin was moved to wilder tears. "He had better take his things off where he stands, and throw them out into the yard; they'll never be good for anything again, and he shan't go upstairs with them on. And all four of them"--this with sudden vivacity which turned attention away from Griffin--"must have a bath before they think of going to bed between my sheets. A pretty state of things to have to get baths ready at this time of night!"

"Griffin, you had better take off your things," said Mr. Fletcher mildly, when his wife had finished. "I don't know what your father will say when he hears of the way in which you treat your clothing."

Mrs. Fletcher returned to her sitting-room, and Griffin unrobed himself, flinging each separate article of clothing into the yard as he took it off. Then a procession, headed by Mr. Fletcher, started for the bath-room. After a few moments' contact with clean, cold water, the young gentlemen, presenting a more respectable appearance, were escorted to their bedroom, Mr. Fletcher remaining while they put themselves to bed. Having a.s.sured himself that they actually were between the sheets, "I will speak to you in the morning," he said, and disappeared.

When the boys had satisfied themselves that he was out of hearing, their tongues began to wag. Griffin was still whimpering.

"It's all through you, Bailey, I got into this row."

Something suspiciously like a chuckle was the only answer which came from Bailey's bed.

"I say, did you really tumble into Palmer's pond?" inquired Wheeler.