King of Ranleigh: A School Story

"Then there's traffic. Besides, we've got to eat."

Yes, they had to do that, without a shadow of doubt. Seventy miles, with sundry delays – which, however, were not likely, oh, certainly not! – meant four hours on the road. A fellow couldn't hold out all that time. Impossible!

"We'd have a blow-out before starting," declared Clive, his eyes on the machine he and his chum had been so diligently building. "Then we'd be off before nine. We'd get a real good feed at one. By then we'd be in London. That means we'd have to go to rather a swagger sort of place. I say, that's a bit awkward. How's the cash-box going?"

There wasn't a cash-box. Hugh was the treasurer, and he slowly and somewhat sadly counted out three shillings and fourpence halfpenny. Not a big sum, perhaps, but nearing the end of the holidays, and after considerable expenditure already on their ambitious project it was certainly a triumph of management.

"Bit short," said Hugh. "But it'll do. We must fill up well before we start, and take things in our pockets. I dare say we'll be able to find a place where you can get a feed for a shilling. Perhaps they'd take two for less. Things like that are easy to arrange in London."

"Easy. But I was thinking of the return journey. There's a lamp wanted."

"And numbers, and a licence," said Hugh, aghast at the thought which had never previously occurred to either of them. "My eye, that's a deuce of a job. The police would be on to us."

Clive's was one of those jovial, optimistic natures which overrides all difficulties. "Hang the police! We'll chance it. We'll stick up a number of some sort. I'll ink one out on cardboard this evening. As for a lamp, there's the gardener's. I'll borrow it. It'll do, hanging on in front. It'll make us go slow, of course, but all the better. It'll be a joke to be kept late on the road and have everyone in fits about us. But we can't move to-morrow. It'll have to be the next day."

Ruefully Hugh agreed to the plan, for he would have loved to proceed with the finishing of the car now so nearly ready. He sighed as he looked at the framework at the end of the shop, with its somewhat flimsy front axle and bicycle wheels, its borrowed back axle, its steering gear, a complication of steel wires about a drum mounted on a raked tubing, and surmounted by a cast-iron wheel at one time adorning the overhead shaft which drove the lathe. What thought that gear had cost them! What a triumph its construction had been, and how well it seemed to act now that it was duly assembled and mounted on the wooden chassis of the car! Only the engine needed now to be lifted into position, a chain run from it to the sprocket on the back axle till a few days ago part and parcel of his father's tricycle. There was the mere matter of a lever or two to control the engine, that strip of cardboard, with a number inked upon it, and they would be off. His imagination whirled him to the giddy heights of enjoyment as he thought of the trip before them.

"But that cad's got to be dealt with," he agreed. "Right! What's the particular movement?"

"A trap," interjected Bert. "A man-catcher. Go easy with the saw-edge of the concern and the spring, or you'll break his legs. We don't want that, even if he is a bounder. You'd have thought, considering Clive was the owner of the spinney only a year ago, a fellow would have been ashamed to order him off what had been his own property. But there's no counting on what cads'll do, or won't do. He threatened to throw us out. He's big, though only fifteen, they say. But if we tackled him together we'd make mincemeat of him."

"Better make a fool of him, though," said Clive. "You come along with me now to the spinney. We'll fix the thing so as to make as big an ass of this Rawlings as possible. We'll rig a trap that'll hold him tight, and yet not hurt him. It's near twelve now. By two hours after lunch we'll have it finished. It'll be ready and working by to-morrow morning."

They shut off the engine destined on the morrow to be lifted into their motor-car and provide the propelling force, and shutting the shop went on their way to the spinney. And the same hour found them hard at work upon another contrivance, conceived by Clive's inventive brain, and prepared for the purpose of lowering the pride and dignity of one who had given them mortal offence. Rawlings, the fifteen-year-old son of the pompous new-comer to the parish of Potters Camp, little dreamed of the consequences of his loftiness and of his churlish treatment of Clive Darrell.

CHAPTER II

A BOOBY TRAP

"Five feet and a bit," announced Bert Seymour with gusto, measuring the depth of the pit which he and Hugh and Clive had been digging in the centre of the path leading down the much-discussed spinney. "Two feet either way, and a precious job to dig it on that account. Jolly well too narrow."

"For working in, rather," agreed his brother. "But about right size for a trap. A bit big, if anything. Top edges nicely sloped off, so as to give nothing for a fellow to cling on to."

"And a good foot of sticky clay pudding at the bottom," grinned Clive. "That'll hold him like bird-lime. It'll be bad for his boots and his pants. But, then, it can't be helped. He shouldn't be such a cad. It'll help to teach him manners. I say, do you think a foot of pudding's enough? Suppose we make it two. It'd make things certain."

A second foot of the sticky puddled clay was therefore added, and Hugh tested its adhesiveness with a long stake he had discovered in the forest.

"It'll hold him like wax, till he hollers for someone to help him," he announced, with radiant face. "Of course, we ain't likely to hear him for a goodish time, are we? and there's no one else who'll be about. Old Tom knows what we're up to, of course, but he's a clever bird. He'll be out of the way, or deaf or something. Tom don't like the Rawlings."

That was true enough. If Clive and his chums had suffered from the loftiness and condescension of the new-comers to Potters Camp, Old Tom, Mrs. Darrell's gardener, had likewise suffered. He'd been used to quality.

"The folks up at the house was different to that," he had assured his cronies in the village. "The old master'd never have thought of passing without a nod and a smile, and most like he'd have pulled up his hoss and had a chat about things in general. As for being proud, why he'd have his hand out to shake whenever he came back home after a holiday; while he'd come to the wedding of his gardener's daughter, and it was a five-pound note, all clean and crisp, that he'd slipped into her fingers. He was quality. These here Rawlings ain't the same product. They're jest commoners. And I'll tell yer more," observed Tom, dragging his clay from between a pair of fangless gums and looking round at the company slyly and cautiously.

"More?" ejaculated one of his cronies, encouragingly. "More, Tom? Then let's have it. We don't hold by new-comers."

"Then here it is. But no splitting, mind you. No going about and telling others. Else the whole of Potters Camp and the neighbourhood'll have it before evening."

He lifted an admonitory finger, and glanced sternly at his audience, a collection of village gossips of the type usually to be met with. There was Tom himself, tanned by exposure, his rugged face wreathed by a pair of white whiskers of antique fashion. A bent but powerful figure was his, while in spite of his stooping shoulders he stood half a head above his companions. Then there was the publican himself, rubicund and round and prosperous, his teeth gripping the stem of a favourite pipe. Mrs. Piper also, the said publican's helpful wife, ensconced behind the bar, clattering glasses and bottles and yet managing to hear all that was of interest. Joe Swingler, groom at the Rectory, fondly imagined by his employer never to frequent such a place as a public-house, was in a corner, jauntily dressed, the fit of his gaiters being the despair of Jack Plant, the bailiff's son. But the latter could at least display a suit to attract the fancy of all in the village. There was enough material in his riding-breeches to accommodate two of his size, while the cut of his jacket was ultra-fashionable. The slit at the back extended so high, and the tails were so long, that one wondered whether the garment were actually divided into two portions. For the rest of the audience, they were shepherds, pig men – for Potters Camp prided itself on its pigs, while there was even a small bacon factory – cattle men, carters and agricultural labourers, and all, without exception, agog to hear news of the Rawlings. That caution which Old Tom had given was as certain to have its effect as if he had gone upon the house-tops and called therefrom the news he was about to give to his audience on the promise of their secrecy. It was certain, in fact, that within a short hour every inhabitant of Potters Camp of adult age would be possessed of the information.

"It ain't to go further, mind that!" repeated Tom, wrinkling his face and glaring round. "It's a secret; but it's got truth behind it, so I tell ye. I ain't so sure that these here Rawlings come by the house and the park in a square sort of way. You take it from me, I ain't so sure. There was queer doings afore the old master died. He got to runnin' up to Lunnon, which ain't no good for anyone, least of all for a squire as has things to see to in the country. There was letters to this man Rawlings. I knows that, 'cos I posted 'em, as I always posted all the letters from the house. Then the master dies, and this here Rawlings come down and takes the place and starts ordering people about."

"And he ain't got it fair?" asked one of the hearers.

"I ain't a-going to say that," nodded Tom cautiously. "But I kin think as I like. You can't go and stop a man thinking, can yer? No. I thought not. You can't. So I thinks what I like, and thinkin' with me's precious nigh knowing."

The old fellow gave the company generally the benefit of a knowing wink, and lapsed into silence. But from that moment all who had heard him speaking thought as he thought, and were as equally certain. Such is the unstable foundation of tales which at times go the round of the country. Not that Tom was altogether wrong. There were others who might have said more, others in the city of London. But Tom did not know that, nor any of his audience. But the conversation at least gives one the impression that if Clive and his chums were not enamoured of the new-comers, Tom was even less so.

"It'll come to blows atween that ere son of Rawlings and Master Clive and his friends," he observed to the company present. "There's been words already, and ef Master Clive's like his father – which he is – why, it's 'look out' fer this here Albert Rawlings."

That pit so craftily constructed would have made Tom even more emphatic. For when all was ready, and Clive and his accomplices had completed their work to their own satisfaction, even they could hardly say where the pit existed.

"Of course," observed Hugh, with that grin to which his friends were accustomed – "of course, if we were actually setting the proper sort of trap we'd have to bait it, eh, and put sharpened stakes in it to kill the game. But it isn't necessary here, eh?"

"To bait? – not a bit. This is a booby trap," laughed Bert. "It's meant for an ass, and an ass is the one that'll fall into it."

It came as a shock, rather, to this lanky young hero that he himself was trapped within the minute. For Bert was not too observant. That dreamy eye was not meant for close watching, while here it wanted the eye of a hawk to detect the presence of a pit. For Clive had been very thorough. To the covering of reeds and light sticks laid across the pit mouth had been added a thick sprinkling of leaves which were most bewildering. Bert's description of the trap as a booby one carried him away into a whirl of delight, during which he strutted aimlessly along the path. And in an instant he was immersed. There was the sound of rending reeds, his lanky figure disappeared as if by magic, and only the top of his cap remained in view, frantically bobbing.

"Hi! Here! What's this?" he shouted, roused to a pitch of indignation.

"Booby trap. Well caught!" cried Clive, dancing with delight at this unexpected demonstration of the successful working of his invention.

"And done without baiting," gibed Hugh, shaking with laughter. "Now, Bert, you've spoiled the thing. Come along out. Don't stop hiding in there."

That was an impossibility. Two feet of glutinous clay adhered to the boy's boots and trousers and refused to be shaken off. He raised one leg with an effort, gripped the sloping side of his prison, and endeavoured to raise the other limb. The result was that he was dragged back into the depths promptly.

"Well, it's a beauty," he grinned at last, beginning to relish the fun of the scene himself. "Regularly tested the trap, eh? and been badly had myself. But lend a hand. This stuff'd stick old Rawlings himself, let alone his son. And it's beautifully hidden. I was never more surprised in my life."

"Then it'll be ten times more of a jar to the fellow we're after," gurgled Clive. "My! You do look a beauty! And what a mess you've got into!"

Bert was smothered in sticky clay from the knees downward, and had need to stand in the stream adjacent and wash his boots and clothing. Meanwhile Clive and Hugh completed their repairs to the covering of the pit, scattered leaves about till the surroundings looked quite natural, and having concluded matters to their satisfaction passed out of the spinney.

To-morrow, they promised themselves retaliation. "And it's not been such a long job as I thought," said Clive, as he put Old Tom's garden tools back into the shed from which they had been taken. "Supposing we tackle the car again. She'd be ready, perhaps, by the morning."

But tea was of almost equal importance. Hugh and his brother therefore partook of Mrs. Darrell's hospitality, the state of Bert's trousers and boots being skilfully concealed by that young gentleman by the simple expedient of standing well in the background. But he left a stain here and there. Peering through her spectacles on the following morning, Clive's mother was astonished to find red lines of clay on the chintz cover of one of her chairs.

And then the workshop claimed the three young fellows.

"Ready for dropping the engine in," declared Clive, surveying the skeleton of his motor. "By the way, we've forgotten seats, haven't we?"

"That's a nuisance!" admitted Hugh. "But we'll not let that bother us. We'll fix it by nailing boards across. I know. We'll get a box and make that fast. That's what all the garage people do. A shop body, you know. Smart! Eh? I rather think so."

Behold them, then, struggling with the sheer legs erected over the petrol engine so nicely fitted in the workshop. Watch the pulley contrivance secured to those legs above and the rope passing about it. The slipping of the legs of this improvised crane was a distinct nuisance at first, and made the lifting of the engine difficult, if not impossible. But an iron peg driven in between the tiles of the floor put an end to the trouble, while, once the bolts of the engine had been freed, Bert and Hugh were easily able to haul the engine clear of its foundation.

"Hoist!" shouted Clive, "and stand clear. I'll shove the chassis beneath the engine. Then lower gently. I don't want to have my fingers pinched off, remember that; so slack an inch at a time, and be ready to haul again."

Oh, the triumph of this final achievement! That engine went into position with the docility of a lamb. The chassis framework might have been its intended resting-place from the very commencement. It bedded down on the wooden frame snugly, hugging the timber. The bolt holes matched beautifully with those bored by Clive perhaps a week before, calling shouts of approval from his comrades. And when the hoisting rope was thrown off, and the sheer legs removed, there the engine was in position.

"And the wheels don't even feel the weight. Look. See if they do," cried Clive.