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Burr Junior, a novel by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 12 |
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_ CHAPTER TWELVE. Those were busy times at Meade Place, for Mr Hasnip worked me hard; Mr Rebble harassed me a little whenever he had a chance; and every now and then the Doctor made a sudden unexpected attack upon me with questions uttered in the severest of tones. All this meant long hours of what the masters called "private study" and the boys "private worry;" while in addition there were the lessons we inflicted upon ourselves, for we never once failed of being at the lodge by five o'clock on those summer mornings, to be scolded, punched, and generally knocked about by our instructor. Join to these, other lessons in the art of skinning and preserving birds, given by Mercer up in the loft; compulsory games at cricket, as they were called, but which were really hours of toil, fielding for Burr major, Hodson, and Dicksee; sundry expeditions after specimens, visits to Bob Hopley, bathing, fishing, and excursions and incursions generally, and it will be seen that neither Mercer nor I had much spare time. A busy life is after all the happiest, and, though my lessons often worried and puzzled me, I was perfectly content, and my friendly relations with Mercer rapidly grew more firm. "I say," he cried one morning, after Lomax had grumbled at us a little less than usual respecting our execution of several of the bits of guarding and hitting he put us through--"I say, don't you think we are perfect yet?" The serjeant opened his eyes wide, and then burst into a hearty laugh. "Well," he said, "you will grow into a man some day, and when you do, I daresay you will be a bit modest, for of all the cocksparrowy chaps I ever did meet, you are about the most impudent." "Thank-ye," said Mercer, and he went off in dudgeon, while Lomax gave me a comical look. "That's the way to talk to him," he said. "If you don't, he'll grow up so conceited he'll want extra buttons on his jacket to keep him from swelling out too much." "Now, Burr, are you coming?" shouted Mercer. "Yes. Good morning," I said to Lomax, and I hurried out. "I thought we should have learned long before this," said my companion, as we strolled leisurely back. "I don't seem to get on a bit further, and I certainly don't feel as if I could fight. Do you?" "No," I said frankly. "You see, it wants testing or proving, same as you do a sum. Shall we have a fall out with them and try?" "No," I cried excitedly. "That wouldn't do. They might lick us. We ought to try with some one else first." "But who is there? If we had a fight with some other boys, Eely and Dicksee would know, and we should have no chance to fight them then. I know. Let you and I fall out and have a set to." I whistled, and put my hands in my pockets. "Wouldn't that do?" he said. "No, not at all. It wouldn't be real, and--" "Hold your tongue. Here's Magglin." "Morning, young gents," said the man coming up in his nasty, watchful, furtive way, looking first behind him, and then dodging to right and left to look behind us, to see if any one was coming. "Morning.--Hi! look out! Keeper!" cried Mercer. "Eh? Where? where?" whispered Magglin huskily. "Down in the woods," cried Mercer laughingly. "Look at him, Burr; he has been up to some games, or he wouldn't be so frightened." "Get out!" growled the gipsy-looking fellow sourly. "Doctor don't teach you to behave like that, I know." "Nor the gardener don't teach you to try and cheat people with ferrets." "Well, I like that," cried Magglin in an ill-used tone. "I sells you for a mate of mine--" "No, you didn't, it was for yourself, Magg." "As good a farret as ever run along a hole." "As bad a one as ever stopped in and wouldn't come out again." "And you turn like that on a fellow." "You're a cheat, Magg, and you took us in. That was your old ferret you sold me, and I wish I'd never paid you a shilling." "Nay, not you. It's a good farret, and you've only paid me four shillin' out of them five." "And I don't think I shall pay you any more." "Nay, you must. Gents can't break their words." "But they can break blackguards' heads, Magg." "I ain't a blackguard, and I sold you the ferret fair and square. It weren't my fault you let it run down a hole in the loft." "When it proved directly that it was your old one, for there it stops." "I shouldn't pay him the other shilling till he got it out, Tom," I said. "I don't mean to. How many times have you been to look for it, Magg?" "How many times? I didn't count. Every morn when I come to work have I gone down on my chestie in that there loft, watching o' them rat-holes." "Yes, and you've never caught him. Four shillings did I pay you for that ferret--" "And a shillin' more to pay," said Magglin, grinning. "And only once have I seen his nasty ugly little pink nose since, when he poked it out of a hole and slipped back again. "But then see how he must have kept down the rats," said the man. "Bother the rats. I want my ferret." Mercer turned sharply round to me. "I say," he whispered, "he's a blackguard and a cheat. We wanted to practise. Let's both pitch into him." I naturally enough laughed at the idea, and, looking round at the under gardener, I saw that he was watching us with his rat-like eyes. "I say," he whispered, with an accompaniment of nods and winks, "I was lying wait for you two." "We're not rabbits, Magg," I said. "Who said you was?" he cried, with a sharp look round behind him. "Nor yet hares, Magg," cried Mercer. "Now look ye here," said the fellow appealingly, "it's too bad on you two chuckin' things in a man's face like that now. Ain't I always getting a honest living? You talk like that, and somebody'll be thinkin' I go porching." "So you do," said Mercer. "What, porch?" "Yes. I know. Bob Hopley says so too." "Only hark at him," cried Magglin, "talking like that! Why, Bob Hopley's a chap as must do something to show for his wage, and he'd take any man's character away. He hate me, he do." "Yes, and you hate him, Magg," I said. The fellow turned on me sharply, but a curiously ugly smile began to make curves like parentheses at the corners of his lips, and he showed his teeth directly after. "Well, I ain't so very fond of him," he said. "But look here, there ain't no harm in a rabbid, and I was looking out for you two to ast if you'd like to meet me, just by accident like, somewheers down to this side o' High Pines, where the sandhills is. There's a wonderful lot o' rabbids there just now." "Yes, but when?" cried Mercer. "I want a rabbit or two to skin and stuff." "And you'd gie me the rabbids to eat." "Of course. When do you mean?" "I thowt as to-night'd do, 'bout seven, when they're beginning to lope about." "And you'd shoot some with that little gun of yours?" "Whisht! Who's got a gun? Nonsense!" "Ah, we know," cried Mercer. "But I mean farreting." "Wouldn't do," said Mercer decisively. "Bob Hopley would be sure to come." "Nay, he's going to Hastings to-day, and won't be back till ten o'clock." "How do you know?" "Little birds out in the woods tells me." "Magpies, eh?" I said. "Oh, I know." "Then we'll come," cried Mercer. "But, I say, let us each have a shot with the little gun." "Nay, I'm a gardener, and ain't got no guns. I meant farreting." "But you know I've lost the ferret," cried Mercer. "You can't go ferreting without ferrets." Magglin was standing before us with a curious, furtive smile on his face, and his hands deep down in his pockets, and as Mercer finished speaking, he slowly raised one hand, so that we saw peering out over the top of his jacket pocket the sharp buff hairy head of a ferret, and we both uttered a cry of joy. "Why, you've got one!" said Mercer. "Why--yes--it is. It's my ferret." "Yes," said Magglin. "I nipped him this morning. He was out running about the loft, and I got hold of him at once. He's eaten all the rats he could catch, and he was out smelling about, and trying to get into that old corn-bin, so as to have a feed on your stuffed things." "Lucky he didn't," cried Mercer. "Oh, you are a good chap, and I'll give you the other shilling as soon as I can." "Ay, do, master, for that chap I knows wants it badly." "Come along, and let's shut it up safely," said Mercer. "S'pose you let me take care of him in the tool-shed. I'll put him where he can't get out, and I shall have him ready when you come." "Very well then," cried Mercer, "you keep him. At the High Pines, then, at seven o'clock." "That's it, sir," said Magglin, securing the ferret in his pocket. "Ah, good morning," said a voice; and we two turned sharply, to find that Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip, who were out early for a constitutional, had come up behind us quietly. "Good morning, sir.--Good morning, sir," we said, and Magglin touched his cap and went off down the garden. "Very good, Mercer. Very good, Burr junior," said Mr Hasnip blandly, as he brought his dark spectacles to bear upon us. "I like to see this, and I wish the other boys would be as industrious, and get up these lovely mornings. Been making plans with the gardener about your little gardens, I see. That's right--that's right. But, as I was saying, Rebble," he continued, turning away, "Galileo's opinion, when combined with that of Kepler and Copernicus, is all buzz-buzz-buzz--" So the latter part of his speech sounded to us, as they went on toward the bottom of the garden. "All buzz buzz buzz," whispered Mercer; "and that's what lots of others of those old folks' opinions sound like to me--all buzz buzz buzz in my poor head. I say, wasn't it lucky they didn't see the ferret?" "They think we were speaking to him about gardening." "Yes. What a game! We must go down to our gardens now, and pretend we got up early to work." "I shan't," I said shortly. "I hate being so deceptive, and I wish you wouldn't be, Tom." "Well, it don't sound nice, does it?" he replied thoughtfully. "But it's so easy." "Perhaps we had better not go after the rabbits." "Oh, but we must now. Don't you sneak back. I shall go, and nobody will know." I felt doubtful, but I ended by promising. "I say," cried Mercer suddenly, "what time is it? Oh, I do wish I had a watch! You can't see the clock from here, but my clock inside says it's breakfast-time." "Let's go and see, then," I said, and we went toward the schoolroom. _ |
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