Mildred Arkell Volume Iii Part 8

"When you locked Arkell in, what did you do with the key?"

"I took it to Hunt's, sir."

"And gave it to Hunt?"

"Yes, sir. That is," added Lewis, thinking it might be as well to be correct, "I pushed it into the kitchen, where Hunt was."

"And broke Dame Hunt's saucer," retorted Mr. Wilberforce. "When did you have the key again. Speak up, sir?"

"I didn't have it again, sir," returned Lewis. "The key I took from the hook, next morning, would not fit into the lock, and I took it back.

Hunt said it was the right key, and George Prattleton said it was the key; but I am sure it was not, although George Prattleton called me a fool for thinking so."

The master revolved all this in his mind, and thought it very strange.

He was determined to come to the bottom of it, and despatched Vaughan to Arkell's house to fetch him. The two boys came back together, and Mr.

Wilberforce, without circ.u.mlocution, addressed the latter.

"When this worthy companion of yours," waving his hand contemptuously towards Lewis, "locked you in the church, how did you get out?"

Henry Arkell glanced at Lewis, and hesitated in his answer. "I can't tell, sir."

"You can't tell!" exclaimed Mr. Wilberforce. "Did you walk out of it in your sleep? Did you get down from a window?--or through the locked door?

How did you get out, I ask?"

Before there was time for any reply, the master's servant entered, and said the Rev. Mr. Prattleton was waiting to speak to the master immediately. Mr. Wilberforce, leaving the study door open, went into the opposite room. Mr. Prattleton, who stood there, came forward eagerly.

"Wilberforce, a thought has struck me, and I came in to suggest it. When the boy pa.s.sed the night in the church, did he get playing with the register?"

"He would not do it; Arkell would not," spoke the master, in the first flush of thought.

"Not mischievously; but he may have got fingering anything he could lay his hands upon--and it is the most natural thing he would do, to while away the long hours. A spark may have fallen on the leaf, and----"

"How could he get a light?--or find the key of the safe?" interrupted Mr. Wilberforce.

"Schoolboys can ferret out anything, and he may have found its hiding-place. As to a light, half the boys keep matches in their pockets."

Mr. Wilberforce mused upon the suggestion till it grew into a probability. He called in Arkell, and shut the door.

"Now," said he, confronting him, "will you speak the truth to me, or will you not?"

"I have hitherto spoken the truth to you, sir," answered Arkell, in a tone of pain.

"Well; I believe you have: it would be bad for you now, if you had not.

It is about that register, you know," added Mr. Wilberforce, speaking slowly, and staring at him.

There was but one candle on the table, and Henry Arkell pulled out his handkerchief and rubbed it over his face: between the handkerchief and the dim light, the master failed to detect any signs of emotion.

"Did you get fingering the register-book in St. James's, the night you were in the church?"

"No, sir, that I did not," he readily answered.

"Had you a light in the church?"

"You boys have a propensity for concealing matches in your clothes, in defiance of the risk you run," interrupted Mr. Prattleton. "Had you any that night?"

"I had no matches, and I had no light," replied Henry. "None of the boys keep matches about them except those who"--smoke, was the ominous word which had all but escaped his lips--"who are careless."

"Pray what did you do with yourself all the time?" resumed the master.

"I played the organ for a long while, and then I lay down on the singers' seat, and went to sleep."

"Now comes the point: how did you get out?"

"I can't say anything about it, sir, except that I found the door open towards morning, and I walked out."

"You must have been dreaming, and fancied it," said the master.

"No, sir, I was awake. The door was open, and I went out."

"Is that the best tale you have got to tell?"

"It is all I can tell, sir. I did get out that way."

"You may go home for the present," said Mr. Wilberforce, in anger.

"Are you satisfied?" asked Mr. Prattleton, as Arkell retired.

"I am satisfied that he is innocent as to the register; but not as to how he escaped from the church. Allowing it to be as he says--and I have always found him so strictly truthful--that he found the door open in the middle of the night, how did it come open? Who opened it? For what purpose?"

"It is an incomprehensible affair altogether," said the Rev. Mr.

Prattleton. "Let us sit down and talk it over."

As Arkell left the room, Lewis, senior, appeared at the opposite door, propelling forth the fire-tongs, a note held between them.

"This is for you," cried he, rudely, to Arkell, who took the note. Lewis flung the tongs back in their place. "My hands shouldn't soil themselves by touching yours," said he.

When Arkell got out, he opened the letter under a gas-lamp, and read it as well as he could for the blots. The penmans.h.i.+p was Lewis, junior's.

"Mr. ARKELL,--Has you have chozen to peech to the master, like a retch has you ar, we give you notise that from this nite you will find the skool has hot has the Inphernal Regeons, a deal to hot for you. And my brother don't care a phether for the oisting he is to get, for he'll serve you worce. And if you show this dockiment to any sole, you'l be a dowble-died sneek, and we will thresh your life out of you, and then duck you in the rivor."

Henry Arkell tore the paper to bits, and ran home, laughing at the spelling. But it was a very fair specimen of the orthography of Westerbury collegiate school.

CHAPTER IV.

a.s.sIZE SAt.u.r.dAY.