CHAPTER XII.

AN ADVENTURE.

It all came from Peggy's forgetting her handkerchief. That was nothing remarkable. Rapidly though our heroine was developing, there was still plenty of the old Peggy left; and when she looked up at Miss Russell with a certain imploring gaze, the Princ.i.p.al was apt to say, without waiting for anything further: "Yes, Peggy, you may; but do try to remember it next time!"

But this time it was well that Peggy had not remembered it. She stumbled across the long dining-room quite in her own way, stubbing her toe against a soph.o.m.ore's chair, and sending the soph.o.m.ore's spoon clattering to the ground. Stooping, in confusion, to pick it up, with muttered apologies, she encountered the soph.o.m.ore's head bent down for the same purpose, and some mutual star-gazing ensued. Finally she did manage to get out of the room, after cannoning against the door and taking most of the skin off her nose, and made her way up-stairs ruefully, rubbing the places that hurt most, and wondering where in her anatomy lay the "clumsy bone" that her father always talked about. "And it isn't there all the time!" said poor Peggy. "Sometimes I don't fall into anything for days, and then, all at once, it's like this!"

Shaking her head dolefully, she reached her own room, got the handkerchief, remembered with a great effort to shut the drawer, and came out into the corridor again--to come face to face with a man emerging from the opposite room.

The opposite room was Vanity Fair; and the man's hands were full of trinkets and knickknacks, and his pockets bulged in a suspicious way. He cast a wild glance over Peggy's shoulder at the open door of her room and the fire-escape beyond; evidently he had entered by that way, and counted on the dinner-hour's keeping every one below stairs till he got safe away. Now, however, baffled in this, he turned down the corridor with some degree of composure.

"Stop!" said Peggy. "Who are you, and what are you doing here?"

"I'm the plumber, miss," said the man, still walking away.

"Put down those things!" cried Peggy. "Do you hear? or I'll call the police!"

Apparently the man did not hear, or else did not fancy the idea suggested to him, for he began to run down the long corridor as fast as he could go.

So it came to pa.s.s that the school, waiting peacefully for its pudding, heard a sound of hasty feet scurrying down the stairs. Then, all in a rush, came past the door the flying figure of a man, with Peggy Montfort in hot pursuit.

"Stop thief!" Peggy shouted it once, and then prudently saved her breath. The man fumbled for an instant at the front door, gave it up, darted into Miss Russell's study. Crash went a window; he was out, with Peggy at his heels, and away across the lawn.

"Stop thief!" the cry rang through the school; and, lo! in the twinkling of an eye there was no school there. The long dining-room was emptied as if by magic; the front door flew open, and out streamed the seventy maidens, all crying "Stop thief!" all running their very best to come up with the flying pair.

There were some good runners at Pentland School; but after the first few minutes of running together, jostling and pushing, two girls drew rapidly away from the rest, and soon left them far behind. Gertrude Merryweather and Grace Wolfe had long been friendly rivals in what they called the royal sport of running. Perhaps neither of them was sorry of this opportunity for a "good spurt." Certainly it was a pretty sight, the two tall, graceful creatures, lithe and long-limbed as young greyhounds, speeding over the ground, their arms held close at their sides, their eyes flashing, youth and strength seeming to radiate from them as they ran. Now one drew ahead a little, now the other; but for the most part they kept side by side, for both were running their best, not only for the joy and honour of the thing, but because it was necessary to arrive, to help Peggy and catch the thief.

The thief was evidently not a trained athlete, but he was doing his best. He had cut himself a good deal in smashing the window, and had thrown away part of his booty, hoping that his relentless pursuer might be content, and might stop to pick up the brooches and belt-buckles that lay at her feet; but Peggy never looked at them, and held on straight after him, gaining, undoubtedly gaining. The man doubled back across the lawn, hoping to reach the gate and safety; but Peggy headed him off as quietly and coolly as if he were an unruly steer in the home stock-yard.

Again he doubled, and again the girl was running in a diagonal to cut off his approach to the wished-for retreat. But now he caught sight of the two tall avengers bearing down upon him, and the school in full cry behind. He made a desperate spurt and reached the gate; it was half open, and as he rushed through he slammed it behind him with a hoa.r.s.e shout of defiance. But much Peggy cared for gates! She was over in an instant, and at his heels again. And realising this, the rascal suddenly changed his tactics. He stopped short, and, turning on Peggy a villainous face, bade her with an oath, "Come on, and see what she would get for it!"

The words had not left his lips, when a ludicrous change came over the man's face. He uttered a wild yell, and fell headlong, almost at Peggy's feet. When Peggy saw this, she knew what to do; and when Grace and Gertrude came flying up a moment after, they found her sitting quietly on the rascal's head, and telling Colney Hatch to go for the police.

Colney had been watching the evolutions of a new and extremely interesting spider. The spider had made her web in the hedge beside the road; and Colney, as soon as morning recitations were over, had hastened thither, and sat down under the hedge to watch, undisturbed by thoughts of dinner or of any other known thing. So watching, it came to pa.s.s that she heard the sound of rushing feet so close that it actually did disturb her; and looked up to see an extremely ill-looking fellow in full flight, hotly pursued by Peggy Montfort. When he turned to bay, it was within a foot of the spot where Colney sat under the hedge; and without more ado Colney stretched out her long, lean hand, and, grabbing the fellow by the ankles, "tripped up his heels, and he fell on his nose."

Presently up came the school, panting and breathless; with them Miss Cortlandt, who had been saying to herself that if she ever let herself get out of practice in running again she would know the reason why.

Finally, up came William the ch.o.r.e-man from one direction (for Miss Russell had gone straight to the kitchen and given the alarm there), and the next-door neighbour from the other; whereupon Constable Peggy got up from her uneasy seat, and handed over her prize to the tender mercies of his own s.e.x.

"Git up, ye varmint!" said William, stirring the prostrate figure with his foot. "Git up, and say what ye've got to say for yerself."

The man got up, bewildered, and shaking his head as if he expected it to come off.

"She 'most killed me!" he spluttered. "I ain't got no breath left in my body."

"Small loss if ye hain't!" retorted William. "What's he ben doin', gals?" William never _would_ say "young ladies," which distressed Miss Russell; but he was _so_ valuable, as she said.

"Stealing!" said Peggy, briefly. "I met him coming out of one of the rooms."

"I snum!" said William. "You're a nice kind o' harmonium, ben't ye? Tu'n out yer pockets!"

"She sot down on my head!" muttered the man. "Somethin' come up out o'

the ground at me and knocked me down, and then she sot down on my head.

I'm 'most killed, I tell ye!"

"Well, who cares if ye be?" replied William, with some irritation. "It's a pity she didn't finish the job, that's all I've got to say. Tu'n out yer pockets, will ye?"

The man obeyed unwillingly, still muttering; and out came a ma.s.s of lockets, pins, and chains, enough, in spite of those he had thrown away, to furnish half the girls in the school.

After searching to see the surrender was complete, William adjured the next-door neighbour, a stout and silent person named Simpson, who had been standing by, to "take t'other arm, and we'll walk him down to the lock-up jest as easy!" The thief begged and prayed, and, finding that useless, took to cursing and swearing; whereupon William and Mr. Simpson marched him off in short order, and all three disappeared around the turn leading to the High Street.

The school was left standing in the road, still panting with haste and excitement. They had been silent during William's colloquy with the man, but now the strings of their tongues were loosened, and the flood of speech broke loose.

"My dear!"

"My _dear_! I never was so excited in my life, were you?"

"Where did he come from?"

"Who saw him first?"

"Why, Peggy Montfort, of course! Didn't you see her?"

"No; I just ran, because every one else was--"

"Perfectly distracted! I never heard of such a thing."

"He was in the closet--"

"No; he was on the stairs--"

"Just getting out of the window--"

"With just her bare hands, I tell you. Just took a--"

"Pair of earrings, nothing else in the world."

"But who was he--where did he come from? What does Peggy say about it?"

"Girls! _girls_!" cried Miss Cortlandt. "Will you please be silent for a moment? Peggy has not had a chance to say a word yet, and I for one want to hear her story. Have you got your breath yet, Peggy? because we all want to hear, very much indeed."

"There isn't much to tell," said Peggy, blushing. "I went up to get my handkerchief,--I had forgotten it,--and as I was coming out of my room, this fellow was just coming out of the other room."

"What other room? Whose was it?" cried a dozen voices.

"Why, Van--I mean No. 17, Miss Vincent and Miss Varnham's room."

"Oh! oh!" a shrill scream was heard; and Viola Vincent pushed her way through the crowd of girls, and threw herself upon Peggy.