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The problem of the bed at the end of the lawn occupied his complete

attention for more than a quarter of an hour, at the end of which

period he discovered that his pipe had gone out.

 

He was just feeling for his matches to relight it when Wyatt dropped

with a slight thud into his favourite herbaceous border.

 

The surprise, and the agony of feeling that large boots were trampling

among his treasures kept him transfixed for just the length of time

necessary for Wyatt to cross the garden and climb the opposite wall.

As he dropped into the lane, Mr. Appleby recovered himself

sufficiently to emit a sort of strangled croak, but the sound was too

slight to reach Wyatt. That reveller was walking down the Wrykyn road

before Mr. Appleby had left his chair.

 

It is an interesting point that it was the gardener rather than the

schoolmaster in Mr. Appleby that first awoke to action. It was not the

idea of a boy breaking out of his house at night that occurred to him

first as particularly heinous; it was the fact that the boy had broken

out via his herbaceous border. In four strides he was on the

scene of the outrage, examining, on hands and knees, with the aid of

the moonlight, the extent of the damage done.

 

As far as he could see, it was not serious. By a happy accident

Wyatt’s boots had gone home to right and left of precious plants but

not on them. With a sigh of relief Mr. Appleby smoothed over the

cavities, and rose to his feet.

 

At this point it began to strike him that the episode affected him as

a schoolmaster also.

 

In that startled moment when Wyatt had suddenly crossed his line of

vision, he had recognised him. The moon had shone full on his face as

he left the flowerbed. There was no doubt in his mind as to the

identity of the intruder.

 

He paused, wondering how he should act. It was not an easy question.

There was nothing of the spy about Mr. Appleby. He went his way

openly, liked and respected by boys and masters. He always played the

game. The difficulty here was to say exactly what the game was.

Sentiment, of course, bade him forget the episode, treat it as if it

had never happened. That was the simple way out of the difficulty.

There was nothing unsporting about Mr. Appleby. He knew that there

were times when a master might, without blame, close his eyes or look

the other way. If he had met Wyatt out of bounds in the daytime, and

it had been possible to convey the impression that he had not seen

him, he would have done so. To be out of bounds is not a particularly

deadly sin. A master must check it if it occurs too frequently, but he

may use his discretion.

 

Breaking out at night, however, was a different thing altogether. It

was on another plane. There are times when a master must waive

sentiment, and remember that he is in a position of trust, and owes a

duty directly to his headmaster, and indirectly, through the

headmaster, to the parents. He receives a salary for doing this duty,

and, if he feels that sentiment is too strong for him, he should

resign in favour of some one of tougher fibre.

 

This was the conclusion to which Mr. Appleby came over his relighted

pipe. He could not let the matter rest where it was.

 

In ordinary circumstances it would have been his duty to report the

affair to the headmaster but in the present case he thought that a

slightly different course might be pursued. He would lay the whole

thing before Mr. Wain, and leave him to deal with it as he thought

best. It was one of the few cases where it was possible for an

assistant master to fulfil his duty to a parent directly, instead of

through the agency of the headmaster.

 

*

 

Knocking out the ashes of his pipe against a tree, he folded his

deck-chair and went into the house. The examination papers were

spread invitingly on the table, but they would have to wait. He

turned down his lamp, and walked round to Wain’s.

 

There was a light in one of the ground-floor windows. He tapped on the

window, and the sound of a chair being pushed back told him that he

had been heard. The blind shot up, and he had a view of a room

littered with books and papers, in the middle of which stood Mr. Wain,

like a sea-beast among rocks.

 

Mr. Wain recognised his visitor and opened the window. Mr. Appleby

could not help feeling how like Wain it was to work on a warm summer’s

night in a hermetically sealed room. There was always something queer

and eccentric about Wyatt’s step-father.

 

“Can I have a word with you, Wain?” he said.

 

“Appleby! Is there anything the matter? I was startled when you

tapped. Exceedingly so.”

 

“Sorry,” said Mr. Appleby. “Wouldn’t have disturbed you, only it’s

something important. I’ll climb in through here, shall I? No need to

unlock the door.” And, greatly to Mr. Wain’s surprise and rather to

his disapproval, Mr. Appleby vaulted on to the window-sill, and

squeezed through into the room.

CHAPTER XXIV

CAUGHT

 

“Got some rather bad news for you, I’m afraid,” began Mr. Appleby.

“I’ll smoke, if you don’t mind. About Wyatt.”

 

“James!”

 

“I was sitting in my garden a few minutes ago, having a pipe before

finishing the rest of my papers, and Wyatt dropped from the wall on to

my herbaceous border.”

 

Mr. Appleby said this with a tinge of bitterness. The thing still

rankled.

 

“James! In your garden! Impossible. Why, it is not a quarter of an

hour since I left him in his dormitory.”

 

“He’s not there now.”

 

“You astound me, Appleby. I am astonished.”

 

“So was I.”

 

“How is such a thing possible? His window is heavily barred.”

 

“Bars can be removed.”

 

“You must have been mistaken.”

 

“Possibly,” said Mr. Appleby, a little nettled. Gaping astonishment is

always apt to be irritating. “Let’s leave it at that, then. Sorry to

have disturbed you.”

 

“No, sit down, Appleby. Dear me, this is most extraordinary.

Exceedingly so. You are certain it was James?”

 

“Perfectly. It’s like daylight out of doors.”

 

Mr. Wain drummed on the table with his fingers.

 

“What shall I do?”

 

Mr. Appleby offered no suggestion.

 

“I ought to report it to the headmaster. That is certainly the course

I should pursue.”

 

“I don’t see why. It isn’t like an ordinary case. You’re the parent.

You can deal with the thing directly. If you come to think of it, a

headmaster’s only a sort of middleman between boys and parents. He

plays substitute for the parent in his absence. I don’t see why you

should drag in the master at all here.”

 

“There is certainly something in what you say,” said Mr. Wain on

reflection.

 

“A good deal. Tackle the boy when he comes in, and have it out with

him. Remember that it must mean expulsion if you report him to the

headmaster. He would have no choice. Everybody who has ever broken out

of his house here and been caught has been expelled. I should strongly

advise you to deal with the thing yourself.”

 

“I will. Yes. You are quite right, Appleby. That is a very good idea

of yours. You are not going?”

 

“Must. Got a pile of examination papers to look over. Good-night.”

 

“Good-night.”

 

Mr. Appleby made his way out of the window and through the gate into

his own territory in a pensive frame of mind. He was wondering what

would happen. He had taken the only possible course, and, if only Wain

kept his head and did not let the matter get through officially to the

headmaster, things might not be so bad for Wyatt after all. He hoped

they would not. He liked Wyatt. It would be a thousand pities, he

felt, if he were to be expelled. What would Wain do? What would

he do in a similar case? It was difficult to say. Probably talk

violently for as long as he could keep it up, and then consider the

episode closed. He doubted whether Wain would have the common sense to

do this. Altogether it was very painful and disturbing, and he was

taking a rather gloomy view of the assistant master’s lot as he sat

down to finish off the rest of his examination papers. It was not all

roses, the life of an assistant master at a public school. He had

continually to be sinking his own individual sympathies in the claims

of his duty. Mr. Appleby was the last man who would willingly have

reported a boy for enjoying a midnight ramble. But he was the last man

to shirk the duty of reporting him, merely because it was one

decidedly not to his taste.

 

Mr. Wain sat on for some minutes after his companion had left,

pondering over the news he had heard. Even now he clung to the idea

that Appleby had made some extraordinary mistake. Gradually he began

to convince himself of this. He had seen Wyatt actually in bed a

quarter of an hour before—not asleep, it was true, but apparently on

the verge of dropping off. And the bars across the window had looked

so solid…. Could Appleby have been dreaming? Something of the kind

might easily have happened. He had been working hard, and the night

was warm….

 

Then it occurred to him that he could easily prove or disprove the

truth of his colleague’s statement by going to the dormitory and

seeing if Wyatt were there or not. If he had gone out, he would hardly

have returned yet.

 

He took a candle, and walked quietly upstairs.

 

Arrived at his step-son’s dormitory, he turned the door-handle softly

and went in. The light of the candle fell on both beds. Mike was

there, asleep. He grunted, and turned over with his face to the wall

as the light shone on his eyes. But the other bed was empty. Appleby

had been right.

 

If further proof had been needed, one of the bars was missing from the

window. The moon shone in through the empty space.

 

The housemaster sat down quietly on the vacant bed. He blew the

candle out, and waited there in the semi-darkness, thinking. For years

he and Wyatt had lived in a state of armed neutrality, broken by

various small encounters. Lately, by silent but mutual agreement, they

had kept out of each other’s way as much as possible, and it had

become rare for the housemaster to have to find fault officially with

his step-son. But there had never been anything even remotely

approaching friendship between them. Mr. Wain was not a man who

inspired affection readily, least of all in those many years younger

than himself. Nor did he easily grow fond of others. Wyatt he had

regarded, from the moment when the threads of their lives became

entangled, as a complete nuisance.

 

It was not, therefore, a sorrowful, so much as an exasperated, vigil

that he kept in the dormitory. There was nothing of the sorrowing

father about his frame of mind. He was the housemaster about to deal

with a mutineer, and nothing else.

 

This breaking-out, he reflected wrathfully, was the last straw.

Wyatt’s presence had been a nervous inconvenience to him for years.

The time had come to put

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