"Then we'll let you off this time. Tony, hold Billy! Shall I help you down, Mr. Hockheimer? You're rather stiff, I expect."

"I can manage myself," growled the German sulkily, as he descended with a thud.

"We've made up the fence, so we shall have to let you out through our yard," observed David. "By the by, you dropped a saw and an axe into the brook. I'll fish them out to-morrow by daylight and throw them over into your field. I call that Christian charity. I might have commandeered them or let them stop in the stream and rust away. Dear me, you're _very_ wet! I hope you won't catch cold!"

Mr. Hockheimer made no reply, but stumped after the boys up the field and through the stable-yard. David held the gate open for him most courteously, and he pa.s.sed through into the road. Then he turned and shook his fist.

"You shall pay for this some day!" he muttered. "I don't forget!"

"Neither do I," returned David. "Good-night, Mr. Hockheimer!"

As the boys came back round the side of the barn they met Avelyn and Pamela, who had run up from the field. The two girls had kept hidden among the bushes, but had seen and heard most of what was going on.

"You don't think he saw me?" asked Pamela. "I believe he'd kill me if he knew I'd told."

"I don't believe he could possibly see you, not even from up in the tree. It was getting so dark," David a.s.sured her.

"He has an awful temper!" shivered Pamela.

"Oh, Dave, you did bait him!" said Avelyn with a chuckle. "I didn't know you could be so sarcastic. I nearly died trying not to laugh out loud.

How did you think of it all?"

"It came on the spur of the moment," admitted David modestly. "I've rather an idea I'd like to be a barrister when I grow up, if the war's over."

"I'd like to be a detective and snap the handcuffs on criminals,"

declared Tony, giving Billy his last honey-drop as a reward of virtue.

CHAPTER VII

Miss Hopkins

Though Avelyn, as a weekly boarder, was not quite in the innermost heart of the Silverside clique, she was nevertheless considered one of the elect. Her room-mates rubbed it into her that she _was_ a boarder, and as such must be very thankful for her privileges. On the whole, they treated her rather well. They included her as much as they could in what fun was going on, helped her to plait her hair, showed her their private treasures, and shared their occasional boxes of chocolate impartially round the dormitory. Avelyn felt that she was living two lives: one began at nine o'clock on Monday morning, and lasted till four on Friday, and the other occupied the intervening time. Each circled independently in its own orbit. The school life was quite fascinating and absorbing, especially now she was getting used to it. It was jolly to sit on the beds in the dormitory and compare experiences with the other girls. They generally had something interesting to talk about, especially Irma Ridley. Irma had an inventive mind, and a keen appet.i.te for romance. She read every novel she could get hold of, though only a very few, and those of a strictly cla.s.sical character, were allowed in the Silverside library. She had a good memory, was an excellent raconteuse, and would sit in the gloaming and tell thrilling tales to anybody who was prepared to listen. To her room-mates she supplied the place of a monthly magazine of fiction. It was Irma who first started the rumour about Miss Hopkins. The girls were dressing for supper when she made her amazing statement.

"Do you know," she remarked, pausing with her hairbrush in her hand, "I verily believe that Hopscotch either already is, or is just about to be--engaged!"

If Cupid himself had darted in through the window, bow and arrows in hand, the occupants of the Cowslip Room could not have been more electrified.

"What!"

"Hopscotch?"

"You're ragging!"

"It's the limit!"

Miss Hopkins, the mathematics mistress, had never struck the school as a likely subject for romance. She was middle-aged, nippy, determined, brusque, and a disciplinarian. There was a slight burr in her speech, acquired north of the Tweed, and she had a habit of saying, "Come, come, girrls!" She had never yet been seen without her pince-nez, and it was a tradition that she slept in them. In the minds of her pupils she was indissolubly intertwined with decimals, equations, and problems of geometry. They connected her with triangles, not hearts, though of course there was no telling where the little blind G.o.d might suddenly elect to shoot.

"I'm not ragging!" declared Irma earnestly. "I tell you I really mean it. What's more, I've seen him!"

"When?"

"Where?"

Irma enjoyed an audience. She sat down on Janet's bed with the pleasant consciousness that she had gripped her listeners.

"I went into the study this afternoon to fetch Miss Kennedy's fountain-pen, and I found Hopscotch there--alone with a gentleman. I'm afraid I surprised them."

"Did they look embarra.s.sed?"

"Well, they both stopped talking, and stared at me while I hunted about for the pen. _I_ felt embarra.s.sed!"

"What's he like?"

"Middle-aged, with a moustache that's growing grey--not bad-looking on the whole."

"It would be very suitable," decided the others.

They were trying to readjust their mental att.i.tude towards Miss Hopkins, and transfer her from the mathematical plane to the sentimental. To do so required a wrench, but it was decidedly thrilling. They all suddenly began to remember symptoms of incipient romance on the part of the mistress.

"She wears a locket on her watch-chain. It's probably got his photo inside," decided Ethelberga.

"And she always s.n.a.t.c.hes up her letters in a frantic hurry," added Janet sagely.

"Has she known him long?" asked Avelyn.

Irma nodded doubtfully.

"I should think it's probably quite an old affair. They may have been boy and girl together."

"Perhaps they've been separated for years and years, and have only just cleared up their misunderstandings," suggested Laura.

"Was he holding her hand?" asked Janet.

"N--no, I can't say he was holding her hand; but then, you see, I'd knocked at the door first, and she'd said 'Come in!'"

"That would give them time," agreed Janet.

A silence followed, and the girls looked pensively at one another. The atmosphere seemed charged with romance. The ringing of the first bell for supper brought them back with a disagreeable thud to reality. They had not yet changed their dresses, and a wild scramble ensued. Whether a mistress in the bonds of Cupid would overlook such details as unpunctuality was an experiment too risky to be tried. They pa.s.sed on their information in the course of the evening, and by 11.30 next morning even the day girls had digested the news.

Miss Hopkins could not understand the changed att.i.tude which the school suddenly adopted towards her. There was an undercurrent of something inexplicable. The girls gazed at her in form with a kind of tender interest. If she toyed with the locket on her watch-chain, they visibly thrilled. Once, when she dropped a letter from her pocket, Irma, who picked it up, actually blushed as she handed it back. When the twelve gates of Jerusalem were mentioned in the Scripture lesson, Laura Talbot asked whether a jasper stone was ever used as an engagement ring in Hebrew times. Being a practical, sensible sort of person, Miss Hopkins decided that the war--that national bond of union--was bringing her into closer touch with her pupils. The girls, meanwhile, were discussing a possible wedding present, and wondering who would be her successor as mathematical mistress.

Several of them were already beginning to work little good-bye souvenirs for her. They hustled them out of the way in a hurry if she chanced to come into the room. For at least a fortnight nothing happened, and speculations were rife.

"Why doesn't she wear an engagement ring?" asked Mona Bardsley.