"Muddling, Jack, my boy, muddling! And a truly artistic muddle have we made. It's been a game of 'General Post' with the books. The dictionaries have taken the atlases' place, the Greek grammars have deposed the Latins, and--"

"Hist!" interrupted Jack. "I smell Pepper! We must whistle to Ethel."

And without waiting for permission he did so.

"Ethel" was posted down the long pa.s.sage by the school entrance, with instructions to turn the key back when he heard the signal. The sound of unlocking was drowned in the hubbub without, and, turning, he fled noiselessly up the pa.s.sage and into the school-room, at the identical moment in which two others made their appearance there--namely Mr.

Peace, through the opposite door, and Norman Hallett outside the window!

"Now, then, where is everybody?" cried the fussy little master, seeing less than a dozen boys a.s.sembled for work. Then his eye fell on Hallett's pale, angry face peering through the gla.s.s. "Why, Hallett outside? What's the meaning of this? What's the meaning of this?"

"Do you think perhaps they didn't hear the bell, sir?" suggested Simmons. "They've been making rather a noise outside."

Mr. Peace was not deceived by the boy's demureness.

"You want your ears boxed, you rogue!" he began; but at that moment in surged a torrent of rather frightened, very wrathful boys, who had been unprofitably spending the last half-minute in striving with penknives to force the lock of the already unfastened door.

However, the rudiments of school honour forbade their furnishing the master with an account of the occurrence, and they had to content themselves with breathing dark threats to those day-boys who crossed their path in the frantic rush to the book-room.

At sight of that rush a few of the milder spirits, such as Hughes and Frere, held their breath in dreadful foreboding, while the unconscious Mr. Peace roared:

"Now, then, how long do you mean to stay in there? The clock's on the strike. I mark every boy who isn't in his place when it stops! Do you hear me? Do you hear me, I say?"

"No," responded Cadbury, without thinking. Then, poking his head out, "What are we to do, sir, please? We can't find our books. Everything is changed. It's worse than a spring cleaning. Won't you look and see, sir?"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

Before the invitation could be answered, there was an impatient knock of authority in the school-room--a rap of knuckles upon a desk--and everyone knew what that meant. Mr. West had entered, and was being kept waiting.

With what books they had managed to grab--some the right ones, many the wrong--the boarders slunk red-faced to their places, there to realize their luck, and perchance to discover their mistakes. Cadbury had no book at all. Green found himself hugging Toppin's _Little Reader_ instead of _Elementary Physics_; and Hallett might make what use he could of the March Hare's _English Conversation_ when he came to open it.

The pages of the masters' registers fairly bristled with black marks that unhappy morning. Grey was for bringing the enemy to book, and reporting his evil devices, but his elders quashed the proposal.

"You silly duffer! As if we couldn't deal with them ourselves. Wait till lunch. There's a rod in pickle for them, and they know it."

Yes, the day-boys had a suspicion that there was a lively time approaching, but so set-up were they by their recent victory that they quite looked forward to it.

Jack was less happy. He read the resolve in the boarders' faces, and knew that they saw no joke in that morning's events. And he wondered where the war would end. It seemed the final upset of all those little efforts towards harmony and good-temper to which he had given himself from the hour of his arrival at Brincliffe.

Among the junior scholars sat a dark-complexioned boy with very white teeth. It was the March Hare. To-day there was a queer gleam in his eyes, and a flush of carmine in his sallow cheeks. His _English Conversation_ was not to be found when wanted, and the fact called down upon him a sharp rebuke from a master, but his face expressed no regret.

"There must have been a ringleader in this," remarked another boarder in his hearing during a momentary absence of the master. "I wish to goodness we knew who it was!"

"A reng-lidder?" repeated the March Hare. "I don' know zat word. But if you mean ze boy who done ze much most--ze baddest of all ze bads--ah, I know him! Yes, I mark him long, long time. An' I wait."

"What d'ye mean, Harey? Who is it?"

"Nev-er mat-ter," said the March Hare mysteriously; and at that point Mr. Anderson re-entered the room.

On went the hands of the clock. At one minute to eleven all was peaceful and orderly. At eleven the masters departed for the usual brief interval. At one minute past eleven all was war and tumult!

How, where, with whom the conflict commenced it is impossible to say.

There was no warning, no formal outbreak--only in a moment the quiet room became a battle-field, filled with a seething crowd of furious, struggling lads.

An odd feature of the battle was its comparative silence. It was to everyone's interest to avoid attracting attention, and the sound of blows was louder than the sound of voices.

Here, Bacon was felled by Trevelyan; there, Vickers by Mason. The result was the same in either case. The fallen arose undaunted and without a word; only a look of keener determination settled on each face.

There was scarcely time for rallying, but, as far as was possible, the day-boys closed in together to resist the attack of their more numerous foes. Hughes and poor Frere both found themselves forced into battle, w.i.l.l.y-nilly. Jack, whose natural instinct was to side with the weaker party, found neutrality impossible, and the part he had chosen very hard. The day-boys were prepared for his vagaries, but the boarders were perplexed and bewildered by his conduct. Was he partisan or traitor? One moment they saw him pressing his handkerchief to Green's bleeding nose; the next he was forcing a way for plucky Simmons to reach his friends: now he must needs shut Toppin up in the book-room for safety--against his will, of course; then he was heard imparting to the tearful Frere a few hints on self-defence.

Very soon there was no doubt in which direction the tide of victory was flowing. Numbers began to tell, and the day-boys were being forced steadily backwards towards the wall, away from the cla.s.s-rooms, where they had hoped, if necessary, to be able to entrench themselves.

A foolish idea of making use of the long table suggested itself to Mason. A tug and a shove, and they had pulled it round to shield them.

"You lunatics! You're giving them twenty fresh chances at once!" cried Jack desperately. "They can squeeze you into surrendering directly!"

"I believe he's right!" muttered Bacon, and they strove to get free again.

But it was not easy to rid themselves of the table when once they were ranked behind it. The boarders saw their opportunity, and a last fierce combat began.

Something--Jack never knew what it was--suddenly impelled him to dive under the table.

"Oh, Jack, we don't fight underground!" exclaimed Cadbury mockingly; but Jack paid no heed.

Cadbury was wrong; there was a very definite attack being made beneath cover of the table, where it was least suspected. An attack, too, of a kind that would have been thought impossible.

It was very dark under there, but Jack was at once certain that he was not the only hider from the light. A small, lithe figure was wriggling along the floor in front of him, pa.s.sing one pair of legs after another, but scanning each in turn.

Jack's hand was almost upon it. The words "This isn't fair play!" were bursting from his lips, when the figure ceased to crawl. It was opposite a pair of ribbed brown stockings clothing two st.u.r.dy legs, when it stopped, and drew something forth from somewhere about its person.

At sight of this, a chill of horror seemed to freeze Jack, and for the moment he was struck dumb. Stiffly he put forward a hand which seized, as in a grip of iron, the thin right arm of the figure before him. It was the arm of the March Hare, and in its hand was an open penknife.

The sudden clutch was wholly unexpected, and the knife dropped. With his other hand Jack picked it up. As he did so, the March Hare uttered a cry. It was neither loud nor long, but there was something so startling in it that the commotion of the fight ceased suddenly, and in the midst of a strange stillness Jack emerged, dragging his captive by one hand, and holding the open penknife in the other.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

If a white flag had been raised, the battle could not have ended more abruptly. For a few seconds nothing was heard but quick, short breaths on all sides. Presently Hallett's voice, hoa.r.s.e and low, asked:

"What does it mean, Brady?"

Jack, white to the lips, pointed from the Hare to Armitage, then to the spot where he had found him. The Hare was shivering and sobbing.

"Hallett--I hear you say knifes--war wiz knifes! I on'y go to ze Toppeen-drowner. I not wasn' going to hurt--on'y to preeck! I never hol'

knife no more! I promise! I swear!"--here he crossed himself rapidly--"I promise 'gain! I--"

But at this point the English language failed the Hare, who sank upon his knees, wringing his hands and gesticulating wildly, as he gabbled, n.o.body knew what, in Italian.

Hallett, meanwhile, was looking grave and stern as the boys had never seen him. There was not a trace of the fiery tyrant they knew so well.

He was face to face with a hard duty, and it awed him.