The Channings. Henry Wood

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I,” returned Hamish, with his usual gay laugh. “I am going to draw in my expenses, and settle down into a miser.”

      “Moonshine!” cried Roland.

      “Is it moonshine, though? It is just a little bit of serious fact, Yorke. When lord chancellors turn against us and dash our hopes, we can’t go on as though the exchequer had no bottom to it.”

      “It will cost you nothing to come to Cator’s. He is expecting one or two fellows, and has laid in a prime lot of Manillas.”

      “Evening visiting costs a great deal, one way or another,” returned Hamish, “and I intend to drop most of mine for the present. You needn’t stare so, Yorke.”

      “I am staring at you. Drop evening visiting! Any one, dropping that, may expect to be in a lunatic asylum in six months.”

      “What a prospect for me!” laughed Hamish.

      “Will you come to Cator’s?”

      “No, thank you.”

      “Then you are a muff!” retorted Roland, as he went on.

      It was dusk when they reached the cathedral.

      “I wonder whether the cloisters are still open!” Arthur exclaimed.

      “It will not take a minute to ascertain,” said Hamish. “If not, we must go round.”

      They found the cloisters still unclosed, and passed in. Gloomy and sombre were they at that evening hour. So sombre that, in proceeding along the west quadrangle, the two young men positively started, when some dark figure glided from within a niche, and stood in their way.

      “Whose ghost are you?” cried Hamish.

      A short covert whistle of surprise answered him. “You here!” cried the figure, in a tone of excessive disappointment. “What brings you in the cloisters so late?”

      Hamish dextrously wound him towards what little light was cast from the graveyard, and discerned the features of Hurst. Half a dozen more figures brought themselves out of the niches—Stephen Bywater, young Galloway, Tod Yorke, Harrison, Hall, and Berkeley.

      “Let me alone, Mr. Hamish Channing. Hush! Don’t make a row.”

      “What mischief is going on, Hurst?” asked Hamish.

      “Well, whatever it may have been, it strikes me you have stopped it,” was Hurst’s reply. “I say, wasn’t there the Boundaries for you to go through, without coming bothering into the cloisters?”

      “I am sorry to have spoiled sport,” laughed Hamish. “I should not have liked it done to me when I was a college boy. Let us know what the treason was.”

      “You won’t tell!”

      “No; if it is nothing very bad. Honour bright.”

      “Stop a bit, Hurst,” hastily interposed Bywater. “There’s no knowing what he may think ‘very bad.’ Give generals, not particulars. Here the fellow comes, I do believe!”

      “It was only a trick we were going to play old Ketch,” whispered Hurst. “Come out quickly; better that he should not hear us, or it may spoil sport for another time. Gently, boys!”

      Hurst and the rest stole round the cloisters, and out at the south door. Hamish and Arthur followed, more leisurely, and less silently. Ketch came up.

      “Who’s this here, a-haunting the cloisters at this time o’ night? Who be you, I ask?”

      “The cloisters are free until they are closed, Ketch,” cried Hamish.

      “Nobody haven’t no right to pass through ‘em at this hour, except the clergy theirselves,” grumbled the porter. “We shall have them boys a-playing in ‘em at dark, next.”

      “You should close them earlier, if you want to keep them empty,” returned Hamish. “Why don’t you close them at three in the afternoon?”

      The porter growled. He knew that he did not dare to close them before dusk, almost dark, and he knew that Hamish knew it too; and therefore he looked upon the remark as a quiet bit of sarcasm. “I wish the dean ‘ud give me leave to shut them boys out of ‘em,” he exclaimed. “It ‘ud be a jovial day for me!”

      Hamish and Arthur passed out, wishing him good night. He did not reply to it, but banged the gate on their heels, locked it, and turned to retrace his steps through the cloisters. The college boys, who had hidden themselves from his view, came forward again.

      “He has got off scot-free to-night, but perhaps he won’t do so to-morrow,” cried Bywater.

      “Were you going to set upon him?” asked Arthur.

      “We were not going to put a finger upon him; I give you my word, we were not,” said Hurst.

      “What, then, were you going to do?”

      But the boys would not be caught. “It might stop fun, you know, Mr. Hamish. You might get telling your brother Tom; and Tom might let it out to Gaunt; and Gaunt might turn crusty and forbid it. We were going to serve the fellow out; but not to touch him or to hurt him; and that’s enough.”

      “As you please,” said Hamish. “He is a surly old fellow.”

      “He is an old brute! he’s a dog in a kennel! he deserves hanging!” burst from the throng of boys.

      “What do you think he went and did this afternoon?” added Hurst to the two Channings. “He sneaked up to the dean with a wretched complaint of us boys, which hadn’t a word of truth in it; not a syllable, I assure you. He did it only because Gaunt had put him in a temper at one o’clock. The dean did not listen to him, that’s one good thing. How jolly he’d have been, just at this moment, if you two had not come up! Wouldn’t he, boys?”

      The boys burst into a laugh; roar upon roar, peal upon peal; shrieking and holding their sides, till the very Boundaries echoed again. Laughing is infectious, and Hamish and Arthur shrieked out with them, not knowing in the least what they were laughing at.

      But Arthur was heavy at heart in the midst of it. “Do you owe much money, Hamish?” he inquired, after they had left the boys, and were walking soberly along, under the quiet elm-trees.

      “More than I can pay, old fellow, just at present,” was the answer.

      “But is it much, Hamish?”

      “No, it is not much, taking it in the abstract. Quite a trifling sum.”

      Arthur caught at the word “trifling;” it seemed to dissipate his fears. Had he been alarming himself for nothing! “Is it ten pounds, Hamish?”

      “Ten pounds!” repeated Hamish, in a tone of mockery. “That would be little indeed.”

      “Is it fifty?”

      “I dare say it may be. A pound here and a pound there, and a few pounds elsewhere—yes, taking it altogether, I expect it would be fifty.”

      “And how much more?” thought Arthur to himself. “You said it СКАЧАТЬ