Part 22

“Did we decide how the Frenchman was to bring his prisoner from France to our sea-coast, and then on to this place?” George asked, beginning to have a just appreciation of the difficulties that lay before them.

“It will be safe to leave all that for my cousin to arrange,” Will said proudly. “He will make everything clear in the letter, I’m sure.”

“Of course he will,” Steve said promptly. “Now, I say, boys, there is one thing that puzzles me: this place is worth exploring and I should like nothing better than to ransack it again; but why have we never been here before?”

“Exactly;” chimed in the Sage, as another doubt arose in his mind. “Charley, if this place is really so worthless, and if it is free to all, why haven’t we been in the habit of coming here often, to fool away our time?”

Charley reflected a moment, and then said, boldly, “Well, if we look at it as a play-house, it’s too far gone for that; and if we look at it as a heap of romantic and interesting ruins, it isn’t gone far enough,--not destroyed or broken down enough, for that;--so why should we want to come here, except on account of our plot? There’s nothing else to draw us; and ten to one we should never have thought of coming here at all, if it hadn’t been for the plot. And as for being a place worth keeping up, I don’t know about that; but the man it belongs to doesn’t seem to think it is. Why, boys, we can have it all to ourselves; it will be just the place for our prison.”

“Well,” said Steve, “by the time we get it cleaned, and scoured, and, tinkered, and made respectable and ship-shape, we shall all be good housekeepers, and housemaids, and masons, and carpenters, and tinkers, and--and--. Boys,” suddenly, “we needn’t stand here staring in at this window, when we haven’t been through the garden yet.”

The yard, or garden, was then viewed, as suggested; and certainly it did not seem as though care or labor had been bestowed on it for many years. It was overrun with a growth of luxuriant weeds and thistles; and Charles,--the head plotter till Henry should arrive,--after escaping, by a hair’s breadth, from being swallowed up in an out-of-the-way and only partially covered old well, concluded that they had had glory enough for one day, and proposed that they should go home.

So the heroic four turned their faces homewards, and jogged on, plotting and exultant.

That night one of them was troubled with fitful and uneasy dreams, in which he saw Marmaduke struggle manfully with frightful monsters, fashioned of old clothes and villains; whilst hideous French whales soared overhead, winked their wicked eyes, and swore they would catch every boy and dismember him in the deserted and spectre-peopled house.

When the dreamer of this dream awoke, he muttered: “Well, this is a presentiment; but, to prove that presentiments are humbugs, I’ll go through with this plot of ours, if--”

Further comment is needless.

It is cruel in a romancer to anticipate, but sometimes it is necessary in order to make both ends meet. In this case, it is justifiable; therefore it may be said that as soon as the holidays began, frequent journeys were made to ‘Nobody’s House,’ and the sound of the hammer and the saw, together with strains of popular airs, rang out in its deserted chambers. The plotters worked with a will, and with the utmost disregard for the noxious vermin which abounded in their midst, and which they did not attempt to exterminate. Their efforts were rewarded; for the house was so transformed that the ghosts, who, in their heart of heart, they fancied inhabited it, would have failed to recognize it.

In the upper story a dangerous place was found, where a person might fall through the floor. This was marked out and avoided.

In this world everything proves useful one day or another; and this house, after lying idle all these years, after being a nuisance to its owner, a by-word in the community and a reproach to it, was at last to prove of the greatest usefulness to these boys and to the writer of this history.

It is now in order to return and chronicle the events that took place before the holidays opened.

_Chapter XXX._

THE BLUNDERER AT WORK AGAIN.

Will was now at work on a very learned dissertation on “Philosophical Ingenuity.” That is the name he gave it,--but the name had nothing in common with the subject, “Socialism” would have been quite as appropriate,--and according to his views, he handled it in a graphic, original, and striking manner; and he was firmly convinced that he should make a very good thing of it.

Poor boy, it was too bad, after all the pains he took.

What was too bad?

This. The same evening on which he wrote out his composition for the last time, he sat up late and wrote to his cousin Henry, inviting him to come and pay them a visit in the holidays.

When this boy (Will) gave Stephen gunpowder instead of fire crackers, and again when he loaded Henry’s pistols with wads, his mistakes were glossed over, and he himself was laughed at, rather than blamed. But _now_ the truth must be made known; he cannot be excused any longer. Right over his eyes, where the phrenologists locate order, there was a depression.

There, the secret is out, and the writer’s conscience is easy.

Boys, it is hard to have to deal with a hero who is not a paragon; but you must be indulgent, and we will do our best.

After finishing and directing the letter to his cousin, Will went to bed and slept peacefully, little dreaming of the thunderbolt which would soon burst over his head, and which he himself had prepared.

Next morning he found his writing materials strewn over his table in great confusion, and in a lazy, listless manner he set to work to put them to rights.

In order to keep his composition, or “essay,” perfectly clean, he intended to put it into an old envelope. Alas, poor boy, he made a blunder, as usual; and mistaking the composition for the letter, he thrust it into the envelope directed to Henry, which he sealed on the spot, and stowed away in his pocket. Then he put the letter into the old envelope and put it carefully away in his satchel.

Not one boy in fifty could possibly have made so egregious a blunder, but nothing else could be expected from Will.

On this eventful day, the “essays,” as Teacher Meadows saw fit to call them, were to be read, and the prize was to be delivered over to the “successful competitor.”

Full of his expected triumph, Will set out for school. He _knew_ that _his_ composition was good, and he could judge what the _others_’ would be. He was a little uneasy about George and Charles, but as for the rest--pshaw! the rest couldn’t write!

He imagined he saw his schoolmates watching him as he went home that evening with about the biggest book ever printed. He even heard their disappointed tones, and saw their sullen and envious looks, as he passed through the streets.

And that old lady who often cast admiring glances towards him--she would call next day and say, “Well, Mrs. Lawrence, your boy is just the smartest boy in the whole village.”

In a day or so Stephen would drop in and let him know what was said about it by the villagers in general, the schoolboys in particular.

And when his uncle and aunt heard the news, they would certainly be overjoyed, and send him (just what he wanted, of course) a monkey! As soon as it could be done, his father would buy him a little gun.

Full of these dreams, he went on, stopping at the post office to send, as he supposed, his letter to Henry.

Time wore away, and the hour for the “essays” to be read, came at last. Teacher Meadows took his seat, and they were laid on the desk before him. Good man, he himself would read them all, lest the “composers” should not do themselves justice.

Only a dozen or so had competed for the prize, but all these had done their best, and the handwriting was so plain that it was a pleasure to read it.

A few of the competitors’ parents and “well-wishers” were present, “to see justice done to all,” as they pleasantly put it. But they served only to increase the master’s pompousness and self-esteem, and the “essayists’” bashfulness and inquietude; while they themselves were surely neither very much instructed nor very much delighted.

In fact, the truth was probably forced home to the more intelligent of the audience, that schoolboys and schoolgirls who would soar to the pinnacle of fame by attempting to write beyond their capabilities, generally find themselves floundering about in the slough of ignominious failure.

Mr. Meadows certainly read the different compositions with great care and earnestness, and took as much pains with the worthless ones as with the tolerably good ones.

By some chance, Will’s was the last to be read, and dead silence was observed till it was finished.

Whenever a new idea had struck the boy, he had set it down without the slightest regard to consecutiveness; and if the same idea was afterwards seen in a different light, he had promptly expressed his views, though in the midst of a paragraph.

A mere handful of words had been sufficient for him on this occasion, and these were repeated with unwearied persistency. A schoolboy writing a letter excels in repetition, at least.

If either Mr. or Mrs. Lawrence had reviewed it for him it would not have been so incomprehensible.

The letter ran as follows:

DEAR HENRY,--I am going to write to you all about us boys and our doings, and tell you all about a great plot that all of us are going to have. I received your letter of last month safe and sound, and I expect you expected to hear from me right off. But, Henry, I’ve had all sorts of things to do, and just now we boys are trying for a prize. I expect it will be a beauty. I would not write till it’s all over, but we boys want me to write to you right off to come down and help us in a plot we’ve got made up to impose on one of our number. I’ve been puzzling over my essay for the prize for nearly three weeks or more (the boys here don’t know that) or I should have written before; and so, just to please them, I’m sitting up late and writing to-night instead of day after to-morrow.

They expect it will be the most tremendous fun that ever was, and of course it will. I’m rather tired of playing tricks, but they say this isn’t playing tricks at all. In your last letter you asked me if the boys were the same rum old poligars that they used to be. I don’t know what that means, Henry, but I guess the boys are just the same--only worse. Well, Henry, I guess I’ll try and give you a better idea of them than I did when I was with you. You know all their names; so first there is Charley. He is a capital good sort of a fellow, and he often helps me. But he is a very queer sort of a fellow, and he thinks it’s tremendous big fun to use big words when he talks with us--well, so do the others. It seems natural for George to use them, but I don’t know why Steve does. I expect he thinks it’s tremendous big fun too.

Stephen is a great fellow to play tricks. My father says if he lives, and keeps on at this rate, he and the law will meet with violence some of these days.

But I hope Stephen will never get into such trouble. He makes us laugh more than all the other boys put together, and I expect when you come down and we get fairly started rescuing the captive, we’ll laugh ourselves sick in bed. Marmaduke, he’s the one, is not to see you till in the haunted house.

Charley likes to have me tell him stories about the demon. Marmaduke--he’s the next one to tell about. We boys are not very well satisfied with the way we get on in French. We haven’t a genuine Frenchman for a master, as you have. We all like Mr. Meadows, but he has not the knack of making us understand French, though he is a splendid teacher in other things. But the boys all say that Marmaduke is satisfied.

Because he can write “A red-haired sailor dressed in blue says the physician’s house is burnt,” “The king’s palace is built on the river,” “The neighbor’s wicked little boy has stolen the carpenter’s hammer,” and so on, he thinks he and the French language understand each other. Mr. Meadows himself isn’t satisfied with the Method he uses. One boy here says the reason he doesn’t get a better one is because he studied it when he was a boy, and, etc., etc. But that is a very mean thing to say, eh, Henry? and I don’t believe it a bit. That’s the reason we want you to come, to write us a good letter in French. George is a nice boy. He always says, look here, boys, when he has something on his mind. He reads a great deal, but it doesn’t spoil him from being a boy a bit. Ask him what he reads, and he’ll say, Oh, anything from an almanac to an unabridged dictionary, and I expect that is so. Marmaduke is just the wildest boy in his notions that I ever saw. The boys mean to take advantage of this, and delude him. But I have explained all that. Jim always, generally, goes with us, and he is the most first-rate coward that I ever saw. We’ve shut him out this time. But he is a nice fine boy in lots of things.

In reading over what I’ve written I’m afraid I haven’t explained our plot at all, Henry; but it’s too long to explain now, because I’m tired, Henry, and I expect to see you soon, Henry, and then I can explain it better than I could in writing. Perhaps I’ve written too much about the boys, but you know just how much I think of them. They are all good fellows and we would do almost anything for each other. We don’t care much for the other boys here, only ourselves. I can tell you this much about our plot, we pretend to rescue a prisoner out of an old house. George calls it the necropolis, and Charley the scare-crow’s factory; but Stephen has a better name--at least, it sounds better. He calls it the Wigwam of the Seven Sleepers. Last time I forgot to ask you to excuse my writing, so I might as well now, this time. I’m too tired to write any more this time, and my letter is pretty long, anyway. Don’t wait to write again, but come as soon as possible next week, for our plot will come off as soon as possible.

I am, I was, and I always mean to be,

YOUR SLEEPY COUSIN WILL.

_Chapter XXXI._

WILL MENDS HIS WAYS.

Teacher Meadows read this remarkable letter as though uncertain whether he were asleep or awake. It would be difficult to describe the effect on the “audience.” They were not particularly emotional people, but this letter seemed to affect them strongly.

Poor Will! his cup of sorrow was full! The first words told him the mistake he had made, and he listened, with the anguish of despair, while Teacher Meadows read on remorselessly to the end. He could neither creep under his seat nor steal out of the apartment. He knew that every eye was fixed upon him--oh, what would people think! Once, when the letter was nearly finished, he ventured to glance towards some of his school-mates; but their faces were so full of anger, astonishment, and horror, that he hastily looked in another direction.

But in the midst of all this suffering, there was one consolation--his parents were unable to be present. He knew how grieved they would feel, and so he rejoiced at their absence, and bore his misery as patiently as he could.

And yet he was tortured almost beyond endurance. Oh, why had he written so freely about his school-fellows in this letter? Why had he written so disrespectfully about Mr. Meadows, who was always so kind to him?

Teacher Meadows, who scarcely ever spoke unkindly to his pupils, now said to the hero, in a constrained and harsh voice: “I cannot understand how any boy could think such a subject--say, rather, _want_ of subject--and so free an expression of his views, could possibly win him the prize.”

In a low and faltering voice, Will said something about “a great mistake.”

“Oh, a _mistake_,” said Mr. Meadows. Then he added sarcastically: “That is too bad; for if your friend Henry had received this letter, he would have had a _very_ vivid idea of your comrades’ characteristics and of your teacher’s incapacity.”

Then, remembering that others were present, he checked himself, and said more mildly, “Will, I am disappointed in you; I had formed a much better opinion of you. There, let it pass; I shall say no more about it.”

Poor boy, he was certainly to be pitied! Censure was to him intolerable; and censure before all these people! Truly, he was being punished for his carelessness.

After all, he had not said anything so very wicked about either teacher or school-fellows; and perhaps an impartial judge would have decided that, all things considered, the writer of such a letter deserved the prize. But Mr. Meadows’ judgment was biassed; he felt insulted; and he thought otherwise.

“But,” chuckles the astute reader, “surely Marmaduke could not be duped after that!” We beg your pardon, gentle reader; but if you think that, you are not skilled in the art of writing stories.

Marmaduke, also, was unable to attend school that day; and if you read the letter carefully once more, you will perceive that it is so vague and incoherent that no one except the four in the plot could make anything out of it. Those who heard it would not perceive that any great danger menaced Marmaduke; and even if they should warn him to be on his guard, he would hardly connect this letter with the one he was to receive in due time. No; Marmaduke would be as unsuspicious as ever, no matter how much he might be warned.

And thus it happened that Will’s muddled wits preserved the plot.

But the other boys! Ah, they had reason to feel aggrieved and insulted!

All except George were indignant at poor foolish Will. Mr. Meadows had decided that the odds were in favor of George, and, much to the chagrin of four ink-loving youths who _knew_ they would win, he bore away the prize. He was a philosopher, but not a stoic, and now supreme content played over his visage. In fact, he felt so joyous and exultant that he could laugh at Will’s blunder.

Not so, the others. Out of sight and hearing of the people, they pounced on Will, (figuratively speaking,) and glared at him with the most ferocious and horrible expression of countenance that they could put on.

Even good-natured Charles was vexed to be thus openly criticized, and he said sullenly, “Well, Will, I guess you needn’t call our plot mean after this.”

Will heaved a sigh, but said nothing.

“Look here, boys,” the winner of the prize interposed; “suppose that one of us had been asked by a cousin a long way off to give an opinion of his school-fellows, would it have been as mild and as sincere as the one Will gave? I know that a great many boys would have said far meaner things than Will did; for, when a boy comes to speak of his school-fellows, he will hardly ever say a word in their praise. I’ve often wondered why it is,” musingly, “and I think sometimes a boy is a blockhead, anyway. Well, perhaps it isn’t so; perhaps I’m mistaken. Come, Charley; be just to poor Will.”

“Listen to the orator!” mockingly observed a defeated competitor [not one of the six]. “He talks as though he made it a business to study a ‘school-fellow’s’ habits!”

“The prize has made an oracle and a hero of him,” chimed in another, who probably felt that there was more or less truth in the Sage’s remarks.

“What’s the name of his prize, anyway?” queried still another defeated one, with considerable interest in his tones, but not deigning to glance towards the victor.

“Oh, it’s some mighty _good_ book, I suppose;” answered the first speaker. “In fact, so _good_, that it’s _bad_!”

The four inky-fingered youths who _knew_ they would win, thought this so comical that they laughed derisively.

George’s eyes flashed fire and his blood boiled, but he said, as calmly as he could, “I’ve often noticed that boys that guess at things hardly ever hit the mark. Now, your ideas about this prize are very wild; for it’s about a midshipman’s cruise round the world.”

The four defeated ones scowled at him, and one of them said, as he turned to go, “Well, boys, we might as well be off, for these fellows don’t care for us, they say.”

And they strode away, leaving the four plotters together.

It may not be pertinent to the subject to picture here so dark a side of life, but now the reader will understand why the six avoided the society of the other boys of the village, and clung to each other. Poor fellows, with all their faults, they were free from such jealous passions.

As soon as they found themselves alone, George said eagerly, “Come, Charles, don’t be too hard on Will.”

“Well, George, I don’t know but that you’re right in what you said,” Charles admitted; “but it was very unpleasant for us, and what will people think?”

“Pshaw! what do we care about that!” the Sage exclaimed contemptuously, hugging the prize to his bosom. “After all, I don’t know but that Will said more in favor of us than against us; and wasn’t it worse for him than for us? If he can bear it, _we_ can.”

“George is quite right,” Stephen declared. “Will is more to be pitied than all of us put together.”

“I don’t want anybody’s pity,” Will said sourly.

“Marmaduke and Jim got it the worst,” said Steve. “The only thing that troubles me at all, is that our plot is spoiled;” in a doleful tone.

“Spoiled! How is it spoiled?” the Sage inquired. “Marmaduke wasn’t there to hear the letter, and no one else could make any sense out of it.--I--I mean,” he added quickly, “no one would know what it meant.”

“Well, how are we to patch it up again?” Charles asked uneasily.

“I think we had all better make up friends with Will this minute, and get him to write to his cousin again,” George said, smiling brightly.

Charles and Stephen were of the same opinion, but poor Will was in a bad humour, and he said sullenly, “I won’t write to him any more; so that you needn’t make up with me on that account.”

The boys were appalled. George’s words had revived hope in their breast, but now it seemed that their darling scheme must fail; for, without Henry to write the letter and help them forward, it would be only a humdrum affair; and unless Will would send for him, he perhaps would not come--or, if he should come, he would spend all his time with Will, and have nothing to do with them. Consequently, the three crowded round Will, made him so sensible of his own importance, and played their parts so well, that he finally smiled, relented, and promised to do any thing they wished.

“And you will write soon, won’t you?” Charles asked eagerly.

“Yes; I’ll write as soon as I can;” Will returned. “Say, boys,” anxiously, “do any of you know what Mr. Meadows did with my--my letter?”

“Yes; he kept it for a witness against you;” wickedly and promptly answered quick-witted Stephen.

“Jim is the next one for us to deal with,” said George; “and,” sighing profoundly, “there’s the rub!”

Then Charles, who had been reading a novel of the “intensely interesting” sort, said jocosely, “Perhaps we can buy his silence.”

“As the nervous old gentleman said when he gave a nickel to a little boy to stop his noise,” Steve subjoined.

“He will have to be soothed and let into our councils,” the Sage observed, “and perhaps it will be just as well, because we shall need more than five to manage our plot, and ‘the more, the merrier,’ you know.”

“I know something, too; I know that ‘too many cooks spoil the pudding,’” said Steve, in a tone of melancholy foreboding.

“Stephen Goodfellow, we are not cooks!” Charles retorted.