Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated) (824 page)

They shinned up the loft-stanchions without a word; found a boot-heel which they were bidden to take for guide, and squeezed desperately through a hole in darkness, to be hauled out by Corkran.

“Have you got your caps? Did you give ‘em your names and numbers?”

“Yes. No.”

“That’s all right. Drop down here. Don’t stop to jaw. Over the cart — through that window, and bunk! Get
out
!”

De Vitré needed no more. They heard him squeak as he dropped among the nettles, and through the roof-chinks they watched four slight figures disappear into the rain. Tom and Abraham, from byre and pig-pen, exhorted the cattle to keep quiet.

“By gum!” said Beetle; “that
was
stalky. How did you think of it?”

“It was the only thing to do. Anybody could have seen that.”

“Hadn’t we better bunk, too, now?” said McTurk uneasily.

“Why?
We
’re all right.
We
haven’t done anything. I want to hear what old Vidley will say. Stop tweakin’, Turkey. Let ‘em cool’ off. Golly! how that heifer danced! I swear I didn’t know cows could be so lively. We’re only just in time.”

“My Hat! Here’s Vidley — and Toowey,” said Beetle, as the two farmers strode into the yard.

“Gloats! oh, gloats! Fids! oh, fids! Hefty fids and gloats to us!” said Corkran.

These words, in their vocabulary, expressed the supreme of delight. “Gloats “implied more or less of personal triumph, “fids “was felicity in the abstract, and the boys were tasting both that day. Last joy of all, they had had the pleasure of Mr. Vidley’s acquaintance, albeit he did not love them. Toowey was more of a stranger; his orchards lying over-near to the public road.

Tom and Abraham together told a tale of stolen cattle maddened by overdriving; of cows sure to die in calving, and of milk that would never return; that made Mr. Vidley swear for three consecutive minutes in the speech of north Devon.

“‘Tes tu bad. ‘Tes tu bad,” said Toowey, consolingly; “let’s ‘ope they ‘aven’t took no great ‘arm. They be wonderful wild, though.”

“‘Tes all well for yeou, Toowey, that sells them dom Collegers seventy quart a week.”

“Eighty,” Toowey replied, with the meek triumph of one who has underbidden his neighbour on public tender; “but that’s no odds to me. Yeou’m free to leather ‘em saame as if they was yeour own sons. On my barn-floor shall ‘ee leather ‘em.”

“Generous old swine!” said Beetle. “De Vitré ought to have stayed for this.”

“They’m all safe an’ to rights,” said the officious Abraham, producing the key. “Rackon us’ll come in an’ hold ‘em for yeou. Hey! The cows are fair ragin’ still. Us’ll have to run for it.”

The barn being next to the shed, the boys could not see that stately entry. But they heard. “Gone an’ hided in the hay. Aie! They’m proper afraid,” cried Abraham.

“Rout un out! Rout un out!” roared Vidley, rattling a stick impatiently on the root-cutter.

“Oh, my Aunt!” said Corkran, standing on one foot.

“Shut the door. Shut the door, I tal ‘ee. Rackon us can find un in the dark. Us don’t want un boltin’ like rabbits under our elbows.” The big barn door closed with a clang.

“My Gum!” said Corkran, which was always his War oath in time of action. He dropped down and was gone for perhaps twenty seconds.

“And
that’s
all right,” he said, returning at a gentle saunter.

“Hwatt?” McTurk almost shrieked, for Corkran, in the shed below, waved a large key.

“Stalks! Frabjous Stalks! Bottled ‘em! all four!” was the reply, and Beetle fell on his bosom. “Yiss. They’m so’s to say, like, locked up. If you’re goin’ to laugh, Beetle, I shall have to kick you again.”

“But I must!” Beetle was blackening with suppressed mirth.

“You won’t do it. here, then.” He thrust the already limp. Beetle through the cart shed window. It sobered him; one cannot laugh on a bed of nettles. Then Corkran stepped on his prostrate carcass, and McTurk followed, just as Beetle would have risen; so he was upset, and the nettles painted on his cheek a likeness of hideous eruptions.

“‘Thought that ‘ud cure you,” said Corkran, with a sniff.

Beetle rubbed his face desperately with dockleaves, and said nothing. All desire to laugh had gone from him. They entered the lane.

Then a clamour broke from the barn — a compound noise of horse-like kicks, shaking of doorpanels, and various yells.

“They’ve found it out,” said Corkran. “How strange!” He sniffed again.

“Let ‘em,” said Beetle. “No one can hear ‘em. Come on up to Coll.”

“What a brute you are, Beetle! You only think of your beastly self. Those cows want milkin’. Poor dears! Hear ‘em low,” said McTurk.

“Go back and milk ‘em yourself, then.” Beetle danced with pain. “We shall miss Callover, hangin’ about like this; an’ I’ve got two black marks this week already.”

“Then you’ll have fatigue-drill on Monday,” said Corkran. “‘Come to think of it, I’ve got two black marks
aussi
. Hm! This is serious. This is hefty serious.”

“I told you,” said Beetle, with vindictive triumph. “An’ we want to go out after that hawk’s nest on Monday. We shall be swottin’ dum-bells, though.
All
your fault. If we’d bunked with De Vitré at first —  — ”

Corkran paused between the hedgerows. “Hold on a shake an’ don’t burble. Keep your eye on Uncle. Do you know, I believe some one’s shut up in that barn. I think we ought to go and see.”

“Don’t be a giddy idiot. Come on up to Coll.” But Corkran took no notice of Beetle.

He retraced his steps to the head of the lane, and, lifting up his voice, cried as in bewilderment, “Hullo? Who’s there? What’s that row about? Who are you?”

“Oh, Peter!” said Beetle, skipping, and forgetting his anguish in this new development.

“Hoi! Hoi! ‘Ere! Let us out!” The answers came muffled and hollow from the black bulk of the barn, with renewed thunders on the door.

“Now play up,” said Corkran. “Turkey, you keep the cows busy. ‘Member that we’ve just discovered ‘em.
We
don’t know anything. Be polite, Beetle.”

They picked their way over the muck and held speech through a crack by the door-hinge. Three more genuinely surprised boys the steady rain never fell upon. And they were so difficult to enlighten. They had to be told again and again by the captives within.

“We’ve been ‘ere for hours an’ hours.” That was Toowey. “An’ the cows to milk, an’ all.” That was Vidley. “The door she blewed against us an’ jammed herself.” That was Abraham.

“Yes, we can see that. It’s jammed on this side,” said Corkran. “How careless you chaps are!”

“Oppen un. Oppen un. Bash her oppen with a rock, young gen’elmen! The cows are milkheated an’ ragin’. Haven’t you boys no sense?”

Seeing that McTurk from time to time tweaked the cattle into renewed caperings, it was quite possible that the boys had some knowledge of a sort. But Mr. Vidley was rude. They told him so through the door, professing only now to recognize his voice.

“Humour un if ‘e can. I paid seven-an’-six for the padlock,” said Toowey. “Niver mind
him
. ‘Tes only old Vidley.”

“Be yeou gwaine to stay a prisoneer an’ captive for the sake of a lock, Toowey? I’m shaamed of ‘ee. Rowt un oppen, young gen’elmen! ‘Twas a God’s own mercy yeou heard us, Toowey, yeou’m a borned miser.”

“It’ll be a long job,” said Corkran. “Look here. It’s near our call-over. If we stay to help you we’ll miss it. We’ve come miles out of our way already — after you.”

“Tell yeour master, then, what keeped ‘ee — an arrand o’ mercy, laike. I’ll tal un to when I bring the milk to-morrow,” said Toowey.

“That’s no good,” said Corkran; “we may be licked twice over by then. You’ll have to give us a letter.” McTurk, backed against the barnwall, was firing steadily and accurately into the brown of the herd.

“Yiss, yiss. Come down to my house. My missus shall write ‘ee a beauty, young gen’elmen. She makes out the bills. I’ll give ‘ee just such a letter o’ racommendation as I’d give to my own son, if only yeou can humour the lock!”

“Niver mind the lock,” Vidley wailed. “Let me get to me pore cows, ‘fore they’m dead.”

They went to work with ostentatious rattlings and wrenchings, and a good deal of the by-play that Corkran always loved. At last — the noise of unlocking was covered by some fancy hammering with a young boulder — the door swung open and the captives marched out.

“Hurry up, Mister Toowey,” said Corkran; “we ought to be getting back. Will you give us that note, please?”

“Some of yeou young gentlemen was drivin’ my cattle off the Burrowses,” said Vidley. “I give ‘ee fair warnin’, I’ll tell yeour masters. I know
yeou
!” He glared at Corkran with malignant recognition.

McTurk looked him over from head to foot. “Oh, it’s only old Vidley. Drunk again, I suppose. Well, we can’t help that. Come on,
Mister
Toowey. We’ll go to your house.”

“Drunk, am I? I’ll drunk ‘ee! How do I know yeou bain’t the same lot? Abram!, did ‘ee take their names an’ numbers?”

“What
is
he ravin’ about?” said Beetle. “Can’t you see that if we’d taken your beastly cattle we shouldn’t be hanging round your beastly barn. ‘Pon my Sam, you Burrows guv’nors haven’t any sense —  — ”

“Let alone gratitude,” said Corkran. “I suppose he
was
drunk, Mister Toowey; an’ you locked him in the barn to get sober. Shockin’! Oh, shockin’!”

Vidley denied the charge in language that the boys’ mothers would have wept to hear.

“Well, go and look after your cows, then,” said McTurk. “Don’t stand there cursin’ us because we’ve been kind enough to help you out of a scrape. Why on earth weren’t your cows milked before?
You
’re no farmer. It’s long past milkin’. No wonder they’re half crazy. ‘Disreputable old bog-trotter, you are. Brush your hair, sir. . . . I
beg
your pardon, Mister Toowey. ‘Hope we’re not keeping you.”

They left Vidley dancing on the muck-heap, amid the cows, and devoted themselves to propitiating Mr. Toowey on their way to his house. Exercise had made them hungry; hunger is the mother of good manners; and they won golden opinions from Mrs. Toowey.

.     .     .     .     .

“Three-quarters of an hour late for Call-over, and fifteen minutes late for Lock-up,” said Foxy, the school Sergeant, crisply. He was waiting for them at the head of the corridor. “Report to your housemaster, please — an’ a nice mess you’re in, young gentlemen.”

“Quite right, Foxy. Strict attention to dooty does it,” said Corkran. “Now where, if we asked you, would you say that his honour Mister Prout might, at this moment of time, be found prouting — eh?”

“In ‘is study — as usual, Mister Corkran. He took Call-over.”

“Hurrah! Luck’s with us all the way. Don’t blub, Foxy. I’m afraid you don’t catch us this time.”

.     .     .     .     .

“We went up to change, sir, before comin’ to you. That made us a little late, sir. We weren’t really very late. We were detained — by a —  — ”

“An errand of mercy,” said Beetle, and they laid Mrs. Toowey’s laboriously written note before him. “We thought you’d prefer a letter, sir. Toowey got himself locked into a barn, and we heard him shouting — it’s Toowey who brings the Coll. milk, sir — and we went to let him out.”

“There were ever so many cows waiting to be milked,” said McTurk; “and of course, he couldn’t get at them, sir. They said the door had jammed. There’s his note, sir.”

Mr. Prout read it over thrice. It was perfectly unimpeachable; but it said nothing of a large tea supplied by Mrs. Toowey.

“Well, I don’t like your getting mixed up with farmers and potwallopers. Of course you will not pay any more — er — visits to the Tooweys,” said he.

“Of course not, sir. It was really on account of the cows, sir,” replied McTurk, glowing with philanthropy.

“And you came straight back?”

“We ran nearly all the way from the Cattle-gate,” said Corkran, carefully developing the unessential. “That’s one mile, sir. Of course, we had to get the note from Toowey first.”

“But it was because we went to change — we were rather wet, sir — that we were
really
late. After we’d reported ourselves to the Sergeant, sir, and he knew we were in Coll., we didn’t like to come to your study all dirty.” Sweeter than honey was the voice of Beetle.

“Very good. Don’t let it happen again.” Their housemaster learned to know them better in later years.

They entered — not to say swaggered — into Number Nine form-room, where De Vitré, Orrin, Parsons, and Howlett, before the fire, were still telling their adventures to admiring associates. The four rose as one boy.