Читать книгу Sonia: Between Two Worlds - Stephen McKenna - Страница 7

"Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed

Murmured like a noontide bee,

Shall I nestle near thy side?

Would'st thou me? And I replied,

No, not thee!"

O'Rane read the lines aloud, dipped his pen in the ink and began writing.

"Of course, if you want me to make you...." said Sinclair menacingly.

There was a moment's pause, both boys rose from their seats, Sinclair took a step forward, they closed. What immediately followed is not clear, but, when Draycott indignantly flung his door open and advanced into Hall, he found Sinclair sprawling on the floor and gasping out, "You're breaking my arm, damn you!" while O'Rane sat on the small of his back and twisted his arm every time the words "Damn you!" passed his lips.

"Are you lag, Sinclair?" Draycott asked, artistically dispassionate. "Take this cup down and wash it."

Sinclair rose and obeyed; O'Rane returned to his interrupted copy of verses, and that same evening after prayers both were thrashed for the comprehensive offense of "ragging."

"I hope they make it hot for that young swine," Loring remarked, as he flung his cane into the corner. Many years had gone by since a member of the Team had been thrashed, but the case could not be overlooked. Feeling ran high in the studies, and a good deal higher in Hall. We could hear the Democracy working itself into a frenzy of indignation and sympathy, and the lights in Middle Dormitory had not been turned out for more than five minutes when Loring's prayer began to be answered.

We had adjourned to Tom Dainton's Spartan study—two uninhabitable chairs and a pair of boxing-gloves—and were still discussing the enormity of O'Rane's offence when a sound of scuffling made itself heard above. Then there came a thud, renewed scuffling, two more thuds, some angry voices, a fourth thud, a sharp cry—and sudden silence.

Loring leapt to his feet with anxiety in his grey eyes.

"Hope to God they haven't killed him!" he exclaimed.

We bounded up the stairs to Middle Dormitory. As our footsteps rang out on the stone floor of the passage, bare feet pattered over bare boards, and a dozen spring-mattresses creaked uneasily as their tenants leapt back into bed.

"What's all this row about?" Loring demanded, as he flung open the door.

The moonlight, flooding in through the uncurtained windows, showed us fifteen boys in bed, driven thither by an instinct older and stronger than chivalry; the sixteenth stood with his head bent over a basin, blood flowing freely from a cut on his forehead.

Loring picked his way through a jungle of scattered clothes and overturned chairs.

"What's happened, Palmer?" he asked.

"I knocked my head against the chest of drawers," was the strictly truthful answer. "It's only a scratch."

"Ragging, I suppose? Why were you out of bed after Lights Out?"

Palmer preserved a discreet silence.

"Anybody else been out of bed?" Loring demanded of the twilit room.

"Say, Loring, I guess this is my funeral," drawled O'Rane in answer. "I opened up his durned head for him."

"I was in it too," said Sinclair.

"So was I."

"So was I."

Loring turned to Palmer. "Put on a dressing-gown and go down to the matron's room. You other fellows—anyone who's been out of bed, put on his trousers and come down to my study. O'Rane and Sinclair, you stay where you are."

On the wholesale execution that followed there is no need to dwell. Castigation in bulk, for some obscure reason, was always known as a 'Regatta' at Melton, and, as Regattas went, this was celebrated on a lavish scale.

"Now I suppose I shall have to show that little beast up to Matheson," said Loring, when all was over. "And I hope Matheson'll give it to him tight. Life's not safe in the same house with him."

There was a knock at the door, and one of our late victims entered in tweed trousers, felt slippers, and pyjama jacket. The bitterness of death was past, and he smiled cheerfully.

"I say, Loring, you know, it wasn't altogether O'Rane's fault. I started it."

Loring looked at the speaker with cold surprise.

"So far as I remember, you've been dealt with."

"Yes, but I didn't want to get him into a row with Matheson. We were about ten to one."

"You seem to have come off second-best," suggested Draycott.

"I know. He's got some filthy Japanese trick. He'd take on half the school as soon as look at them. Palmer doesn't want a row on his account."

Loring meditated with his hands in his pockets. "Well, you go off to bed now, Venables," he said. "And when you get there, stay there. Good night."

There the matter ended for a time. After first Roll Call next day, Palmer embarked on a long and patient explanation of his bandaged head. He had been walking quietly down the middle of the dormitory when he caught his foot in the cord of someone else's dressing-gown. Pitching forward and trying to recover his balance.... Matheson shook an uncomprehending head and hurried away to Chapel.

Public opinion in Hall rose tempestuously within measurable distance of assassination point.