King of Ranleigh: A School Story

"Can't! The brute's got the bit between her teeth badly," shrieked Clive. "I can't quite reach the throttle, and till I do she'll go plugging ahead. She runs like a demon."

"Top hole!" gurgled Hugh, whom it took a lot to frighten. "Ain't she got pace? But she'd be better if she didn't rush so much from side to side. Look out! There's a cart coming our way."

He set his teeth, endeavoured to make his figure adhere to the top of that egg box which did duty as a seat, and braced himself for the encounter. For encounter it seemed there was to be. The wondrous car which he and Clive had called into being romped towards the unsuspecting cart. It waltzed merrily from side to side of the road, seeming to take an uncanny delight in racing within hair's breadth of the ditch on either hand. It mounted the rough footpath with impunity, careless of the law and of possible policemen, its springless axles bending and bumping. It actually appeared to sight that approaching cart itself, and as if filled with fiendish delight at its unaccustomed freedom, and filled with knowledge of the helplessness of its inventors, it sped toward the vehicle, pirouetted before it, skidded badly, removing in the space of a bare five seconds one of the Rector's expensive back tyres, and then, mounting the pathway again with startling abruptness, it pitched its nose into the air, shuddered with positive glee, and having thrown its drivers into the ditch subsided into match-wood and scrap-iron. Those back wheels and their axle, borrowed for this memorable occasion, had the appearance rather of a couple of inverted umbrellas with the sticks tied together. The framework was torn asunder, and only the engine remained in recognisable condition.

As Clive and Hugh picked themselves up from the ditch and surveyed the wreck, with the driver of the cart and Bert giggling beside them, there came a horrid shout from behind them.

"Eh? What's that?" demanded the baker, for he it was who had so wonderfully escaped annihilation.

"Someone in trouble," said Bert. "Calling for help. Let's go."

"You ass!" grinned Hugh, gripping him by the sleeve. "Can't you guess? It's that Rawlings cad. We've bagged him."

"It's someone as is in trouble," exclaimed the worthy baker, not hearing the above. "Wonder if it's that Mr. Rawlings?"

"Young Rawlings?" asked Clive, with a horrible presentiment of coming trouble.

"Mr. Rawlings," came the emphatic answer. "Him who's bought the house. I seed him walking to the path through the spinney. He's been away up to Lunnon."

Clive and his fellow conspirators looked at one another painfully. Then they regarded the wreck of the motor. That was bad enough. Admission must be made to the Rector, and his axle and back wheels brought for inspection. Common honesty demanded that of them. It wouldn't be playing the game to borrow and smash and then hide their guilt in some underhand manner. And here was an addition.

"I'm a-going to see what's up," declared the baker. "You young gents had best come along too."

They couldn't very well hang back, and had perforce to visit the scene of their late labours. And there was the fat Mr. Rawlings, imprisoned in a pit which needed no adhesive clay pudding to hold him. For this London gentleman was of portly structure, and the narrow pit held him as if his fat figure had been poured into it. He could hardly shout. Even breathing was difficult, while his rage and mortification made him dangerously purple. Then, when at length the efforts of the four had released him, and he sat at the side of the pit besmirched with clay from head to foot, his rage was almost appalling.

"You little hounds!" he stuttered. "You did it. Don't tell me you didn't. I know you did. I'll set the police on you. You were trespassing. This is my property. I'll send Albert down to give you a hiding, and he'll be glad to do it. I'll – I'll – " His breath was gone by now, and he sat back gasping. But his anger did not subside, and Clive's prediction of coming evil was speedily realised.

"I shall send you off to school," said his mother. "You ought to have gone long ago. I really do consider your conduct to have been disgraceful."

"A piece of unmitigated mischief, and not of a harmless character," growled the Rector, who was given to choosing long words where possible. "Unmitigated mischief, Bert and Hugh. First you have the temerity to carry out something approaching a theft, a common and nefarious business. Then you implicate a respected neighbour in a catastrophe which might have terminated in his entire and total undoing. Bert, bend over."

Dear! Dear! It was a painful and humiliating week which followed. Young Rawlings up at the house giggled secretly at his father's discomfiture. But he threatened openly when he happened to come across Clive one morning. As for the three conspirators, they were not allowed to see one another, nor to communicate.

"You'll go on Wednesday," said the Rector. "I've written about you."

That was ominous. "We'll catch it hot," said Hugh. "I don't care. I'm jolly glad to be going. A chap ought to go to a big school, not stick always at home. There'll be a workshop. That'll be ripping."

"And cricket. That's better. Wish Clive were coming to the same school. Old Tom tells me he's led a dog's life these last few days."

Clive's existence had been wretched. He was glad, delighted in fact, when the day for departure arrived, and he took his place in the train for Ranleigh.

"That cad travelling too," he said, seeing Rawlings entering a distant carriage. "Glad he's going to some other place than Ranleigh."

He saluted his mother, waved to Old Tom, and sank back on his seat as the train started. If Bert and Hugh were glad to go to a public school, so also was Clive. He had longed to see life outside the village of Potters Camp with an intense longing. And here he was on his way. What would it be like? Was there bullying? Would he have to fag? and what sort of a place was Ranleigh?

CHAPTER III

OFF TO RANLEIGH

Going to school arouses a variety of emotions. In the case of Clive they were decidedly confused and jumbled, happiness, however, at the prospect before him predominating. For residence for a high-spirited lad at home, tied to a somewhat doting mother's apron-strings, is somewhat dull, and hardly conducive to good results, while the absence of a father had not improved matters. Indeed, it may be agreed without debate that the incident of that wonderful motor-car contrived by Clive and Hugh and the ingenious trap they had set for Rawlings had not been entirely mischievous. For here was Clive about to be launched on the schoolboy world, while Hugh and Bert, having listened to a long and verbose lecture from their father, hitherto their tutor at home, had entered a train and gone off likewise.

"What'll this Ranleigh be like?" Clive asked himself again and again. From taking an interest in passing scenery, he soon began to look forward to another stop with eagerness. For at each station there were boys. Some big, some small; some jolly and whistling, others glum and thoughtful. Not that glumness was the order of the whole day. For at one station Clive observed with some amusement one youngster under the escort of a fond father and mother. The lad had much ado to keep the tears back as the train departed, while his mother wept openly into a handkerchief of diminutive proportions. Within a minute, however, there came shouts of laughter from the next carriage into which this hopeful youngster had stepped, and peering in at the next station, Clive found the lad as merry as a cricket. He was beginning to wish that he could join them.

"I say," he began, somewhat lamely, "going to Ranleigh?"

A fat youth, with a greasy, pallid face, pushed his head out of the window and surveyed Clive as if he were an inferior beetle.

"Who on earth are you?" he asked, with some acerbity. "Who invited you to speak? that's what I want to know. Jolly cheek, I call it!"

Clive was taken aback rather considerably. This was not the sort of treatment to which he was accustomed. His gorge rose at it.

"Cheek yourself! Who are you, then?"

It seemed for a moment as if the fat youth would have an apoplectic seizure. His pallid face became suffused a dull purplish red. His neck swelled in fat folds over his collar. If looks could have killed, Clive would certainly have been slain on the spot. But the engine shrieked just then, while someone within the carriage seized the tails of the fat youth, who disappeared precipitately.

"Come in, Trendall," he heard a voice shout. "One would think you were a king, never to be spoken to. But who is he? My word, I got a glimpse of his phiz, and he looked as if he'd hammer you with pleasure."

Another mile on this almost endless journey and the train again panted into a station. Clive hung out of the window, and then became aware of the fact that two individuals were approaching his carriage, while from the one next door the youthful Trendall glared at him. Rawlings was one of those approaching. He descended with majestic step from his own compartment and hailed a porter.

"Hi! Portar!" he called. "Carry these things along heear. Someone's wanted to keep ordar."

Tall for his age, decidedly podgy, and with a cast of countenance which was not too attractive, Rawlings just lacked that brisk, clean appearance belonging to young men who go to our public schools. Despite expensive and well-fitting clothes, an immaculate tie and hat, and socks of most becoming pattern, the fellow did not look a gentleman. His air was pompous. His manner of addressing the porter ludicrous. He stepped up to Clive's compartment, nodded grandly to Trendall, and pulled the door open.

"He-e-ear, portar."

The magnificent one proffered a tip without looking at it, and Clive noticed that the man took it with alacrity.

"All fer me, sir?" he grinned.

"Of course! I'm not a pauper."

Rawlings waved him away magnificently, flopped on to a seat, taking the far corner, arranged his feet on the one opposite, and then began to take close scrutiny of our friend Clive. Meanwhile, another individual had entered the compartment. He was a tall, broad-shouldered, shambling youth, of decidedly foreign appearance, with clothes which spoke of a French provincial city. He stooped a little, was slow and ungainly in his movements, while his powerful shoulders were bent forward. But the face was striking and taking.

"Pardon," he said politely, lifting his hat as he entered. "This is for Ranleigh, is it not so?"

Rawlings regarded him stonily. "The cheek!" he muttered. "Is one to answer every bally foreigner? I'm not a portar!"

He thrust his hands deep into his pockets and glared at the intruder. For the new-comer was an intruder. Rawlings had made his way to this compartment with a view to discussing certain matters with Clive, and letting that young gentleman thoroughly understand who was the master. But that last movement was his undoing for the moment. The fingers deep in one pocket struck upon certain loose cash, and withdrawing the same, Rawlings was at once stricken with a terrible discovery. He had had certain silver coins there before, and twopence in coppers. Those he had intended to present to the porter. But they were still there, while two half-crowns were missing. In fact, in his lordliness he had presented the grinning fellow with five shillings! No wonder the man smirked and touched his hat. That had pleased Rawlings at the time. Now, as the train swung out of the station, he dashed to the window.

"Hi! Hi! Portar!" he bellowed. "Hi! You come back with those half-crowns. It was a mistake."

But the whistle drowned the sound of his voice, while the porter, half hidden behind a barrow, waved a farewell to him. Rawlings threw himself back in his seat with a growl of anger.

"You're going to Ranleigh, aren't you?" he demanded fiercely of Clive.

"Yes."

"Then just you look out for squalls. What dormitory are you in?"