Tom, d.i.c.k and Harry.

by Talbot Baines Reed.

CHAPTER ONE.

WHO SHOT THE DOG?

A shot! a yell! silence!

Such, as soon as I could collect myself sufficiently to form an idea at all, were my midnight sensations as I sat up in my bed, with my chin on my knees, my hair on end, my body bedewed with cold perspiration, and my limbs trembling from the tips of my fingers to the points of my toes.

I had been peacefully dreaming--something about an automatic machine into which you might drop a Latin exercise and get it back faultlessly construed and written out. I had, in fact, got to the point of attempting nefariously to avail myself of its services. I had folded up the fiendish exercise on the pa.s.sive subjunctive which Plummer had set us overnight, and was in the very act of consigning it to the mechanical crib, when the shot and the yell projected me, all of a heap, out of dreamland into the waking world.

At first I was convinced it must have been the sound of my exercise falling into the machine, and Plummer's howl of indignation at finding himself circ.u.mvented.

No! Machine and all had vanished, but the noises rang on in my waking ears.

Was it thunder and storm? No. The pale moonlight poured in a gentle flood through the window, and not a leaf stirred in the elms without.

Was it one of the fellows fallen out of bed? No. On every hand reigned peaceful slumber. There was d.i.c.ky Brown in the next bed, flat on his back, open-mouthed, snoring monotonously, like a m.u.f.fled police rattle.

There was Graham minor on the other side, serenely wheezing up and down the scale, like a kettle simmering on the hob. There opposite, among the big boys, lay Faulkner, with the moonshine on his pale face, his arms above his head, smirking even in his sleep. And there was Parkin just beyond, with the sheet half throttling him, as usual, sprawling diagonally across his bed, and a bare foot sticking out at the end. And here lay--

Hullo! My eyes opened and my teeth chattered faster. Where _was_ Tempest? His bed was next to Parkin's, but it was empty. In the moonlight and in the midst of my fright I could see his shirt and waistcoat still dangling on the bed-post, while the coat and trousers and slippers were gone. The bed itself was tumbled, and had evidently been lain in; but the sleeper had apparently risen hurriedly, partly dressed himself, and gone out.

If only I could have got my tongue loose from the roof of the mouth to which it was cleaving, I should have yelled aloud at this awful discovery. As it was I yelled silently. For of all terrors upon earth, sleep-walking was the one I dreaded the most. Not that I had ever walked myself, or, indeed, enjoyed the embarra.s.sing friendship of any one who did. But I had read the books and knew all about it. I would sooner have faced a dozen ghosts than a somnambulist.

I had no doubt in my mind that the Dux's empty bed was to be accounted for in this uncanny manner, and that the shot and yell were intimately connected with his mysterious disappearance. Now I thought of it, he had not been himself for some time. For a whole week he had not licked me. Ever since he had got his entrance scholarship at Low Heath he had been queerer than ever. He had not broken any rule of importance; he had been on almost friendly terms with Faulkner; he had even ceased to plot the a.s.sa.s.sination of Plummer. He was evidently in a low state, and suffering from unusual nervous excitement, thus violently to interrupt the usual tenor of his way; and, as I knew, such a state lends itself readily to the grisly practice of somnambulism.

What was to be done? Yell? I couldn't do it for the life of me. Get up and look for him? Wild horses could not have dragged a toe of me out of bed. Stay where I was till the unearthly truant returned? No, thank you. At the bare notion my rigid muscles relaxed, my erect hair lay down, and I collapsed, a limp heap, on to the pillow, with every available sheet and blanket drawn over my tightly closed eyes.

And yet, in my unimpa.s.sioned moments, I do not think I was a notorious coward. I had stood up to Faulkner's round-arms without pads, and actually blocked one of them once, and that was more than some of the fellows could say, I could take my header into the pool from the same step as Parkin. And once I had not run away from Hector when he broke loose from his kennel. Even now, but for the dim recollection of that awful automatic machine, I might have pulled myself together sufficiently to strike a light and jog my next-bed neighbour into wakefulness.

But somehow my nerves had suffered a shock, and since there was no one near to witness my poltroonery, and as, moreover, the night was chilly enough to warrant reasonable precautions against cold, I preferred on the whole to keep my head under the clothes, and drop for a season, so to speak, below the surface of human affairs.

But existence below the sheets, when prolonged for several minutes, is apt to pall upon a body, and in due time I had to face the problem whether, after all, the vague terrors without were not preferable to the certain asphyxia within.

I had put my nose cautiously outside for the purpose of considering the point, when my eyes, thus uncovered, chanced to fasten on the door.

As they did so paralysis once more seized my frame; for, at that precise moment, the door softly opened, and a figure, tall, pale, and familiar, glided noiselessly into the dormitory.

It was Tempest. He stood for a moment with the moonlight on him, and glanced nervously round. Then, apparently satisfied that slumber reigned supreme, he stepped cautiously to his deserted couch. My eyes followed him as the eyes of the fascinated dove follow the serpent. I saw him divest himself of his semi-toilet, and then solemnly wind up his watch, after which he slipped beneath the clothes, and all was silent.

I lay there, moving not a muscle, till the breathing of the truant grew long and heavy, and finally settled down to the regular cadence of sleep. Then I breathed once more myself; my staring eyes gradually drooped; my mind wandered over a large variety of topics, and finally relapsed into the happy condition of thinking of nothing at all.

When I awoke next morning, in obedience to the summons of the bell, the first thing I was aware of was that Tempest was complacently whistling a popular air as he performed his toilet.

"Poor Dux!" thought I, "he little dreams what a terrible night he has had. Good morning, Dux," I said deferentially.

Tempest went on brushing his hair till he had finished his tune, and then honoured me with a glance and a nod.

Something in my appearance must have attracted his attention, for he looked at me again, and said, "What makes you look so jolly fishy, eh, youngster?"

"Oh," said I, a little flattered to have my looks remarked upon, "I had a nightmare or something."

"Comes of eating such a supper as you did," replied the Dux.

"Wouldn't he open his eyes," thought I, "if I told him what the nightmare was! But I won't do it."

I therefore relapsed into my toilet, and, as time was nearly up, left the unconscious sleep-walker to finish his in silence.

Dr Plummer's "select young gentlemen" only numbered thirty, all told-- chiefly sons of the trading community, who received at the establishment at Hampstead all the advantages of a good commercial education, combined with some of the elegances of a high-cla.s.s preparatory school. Tipton's father, who was an extensive draper in an adjoining suburb, was rather fond, I believe, of telling his friends that he had a boy at Dangerfield College. It sounded well, especially when it was possible to add that "my boy and his particular chum, young Tempest, son of the late Colonel Tempest, you know, of the Guards, did this and that together, and might perhaps spend their next holidays together at Tempest Hall, in Lincolnshire, if he could spare the boy from home," and so on.

It was an awful fascination for some of us to speculate what the "Dux"

would have to say if he could hear this sort of talk. We trembled for Tipton's father, and his shop, and the whole neighbourhood in which he flourished.

Tempest's presence at the "College" did, however, add quite a little prestige to the place. No one seemed to suppose that it had anything to do with the fact that the terms were exceptionally moderate, and that his gallant father had left very slender means behind him. Even Dr Plummer had a habit, so people said, of dragging his aristocratic head pupil's name into his conversation with possible clients, while we boys mingled a little awe with the esteem in which we held our broad-backed and well-dressed comrade.

Within the last few weeks especially the school had had reason to be proud of him. He had taken an exhibition at Low Heath, one of the crack public schools, and was going up there at Midsummer. This was an event in the annals of Plummer's which had never happened before and in all probability would never happen again.

To do the Dux justice, he set no special store by himself. He believed in the Tempests as a race, but did not care a snap whether anybody else believed in them or not. Any boy who liked him he usually liked back, and showed his affection, as he did in my case, by frequent lickings.

Boys he did not like he left severely alone, and there were a good many such at Dangerfield.

As to the exhibition, that had been entirely his own idea. He had not said a word about it to Plummer or any of us, and it was not till after he had got it, and Plummer in the fulness of his heart gave us a holiday in celebration of the event, that we had any of us known that the Dux had been in for it.

The second bell had already sounded before I had completed my toilet, the finishing touches of which, consequently, I was left to add in solitude.

When I descended to the refectory I was struck at once by an unusual air of gloom and mystery about the place. Something unpleasant must have occurred, but what it was n.o.body appeared exactly to know, unless it was the princ.i.p.al himself. Dr Plummer was just about to make a communication when I made my belated entry.

"Jones," said he, as much in sorrow as in anger, "this is not the first time this term that you have been late."

It certainly was not.

"What is the reason?"

"Please, sir," said I, stammering out my stereotyped excuse, "I think I can't have heard the first bell."

"Perhaps the first six sums of compound proportion written out ten times will enable you to hear it more distinctly in future. We will try it, if you please, Jones."

Then turning sternly to the a.s.sembled school, he said, "I was about to say something to you, boys, when this disturbance interrupted me. A shameful act has been done by some one in the night, in which I sincerely hope no one here has had a hand. The dog has been killed."

A whistle of consternation went round the room. What? Hector killed?-- Hector the collie--the beast--the brute--the sneak--the traitor--the arch-enemy of every boy at Plummer's? Hector, who was reported to be worth thirty guineas? Hector, the darling of Mrs P. and the young P.'s? Hector of the teeth, and the snarl, and the snap, the incorruptible, the sleepless, the unforgiving?

What miscreant hero had dared perform this sacrilegious exploit?

"Perish Hector!" had been an immemorial war-cry at Plummer's; but Hector had never yet perished. No one had been found daring enough to bell the cat--that is, to shoot the dog. To what scoundrel was Dangerfield College now indebted for this inestimable blessing?

Dead silence followed the doctor's announcement. Boys' faces were studies as they stood there rent in twain by delight at the news and horror at the inevitable doom of the culprit.

"I repeat," said the head master, "Hector was found this morning shot in his kennel. Does any boy here know anything about it?"