Haviland's Chum. Mitford Bertram

Wood

      “What a rum chap Haviland is!” said Laughton, the captain of the school, as from the window of the prefects’ room, he, with three or four others, stood watching the subject of the remark, rapidly receding into distance, for it was a half-holiday afternoon. “He and Cetchy have become quite thick.”

      “I expect he finds him useful at egg-hunting,” said Medlicott.

      “Yes – and how about it being wrong form for us to go about with juniors?” struck in Langley, a small prefect who had attained to that dignity by reason of much “sapping,” but was physically too weak to sustain it adequately. “Haviland’s never tired of jamming that down our throats, but he doesn’t practise what he preaches. Eh?”

      “Well, Corbould major’ll be a prefect himself next term,” said Medlicott.

      “Yes, but how about the nigger, Medlicott? A nigger into the bargain. Haviland’s chum! I don’t know how Haviland can stick him,” rejoined the other spitefully, for he loved not Haviland.

      “I wish he’d chuck that confounded egg-hunting, at any rate for this term,” said Laughton. “He’ll get himself reduced as sure as fate. Nick’s watching him like a cat does a mouse. He’s got a down on him for some reason or other – don’t know what it can be – and the very next row Haviland gets into he’ll reduce him. That’s an absolute cert.”

      “Haviland did say he’d chuck it,” replied Medlicott. “But what’s he to do? He’s a fellow who doesn’t care for games – swears cricket’s slow, and football always makes him want to hit somebody.”

      “He’s a rum card,” rejoined Laughton. “Well, I’m going round to the East field to do some bowling. I expect Clay’ll be there. Coming, Medlicott?”

      “No. I don’t care about bowling to Clay. He expects you to keep at it all the time just because he’s a master. Never will bowl to you. I bar.”

      The two under discussion were speeding along – Haviland jubilant over having obtained leave from call-over – thus being able to get very far afield. He fancied Mr Sefton, the master of the week, had eyed him rather curiously in granting it, but what did that matter? He had the whole afternoon before him.

      As they proceeded, he was instructing the other in various landmarks, and other features of the country.

      “Think you could find your way back all right, Cetchy?” he said, when they had proceeded some distance, “if you were left alone, I mean?”

      “Find way? Left alone? What do you mean?”

      “Why sometimes, if you get chevvied by a keeper it’s good strategy to separate, and get back round about. It boggles the enemy and at worst gives one of you a chance.”

      “Find way – ha!” chuckled Anthony. “Well, rather. All that tree – hill over there – plenty church steeple. Fellows who can’t find way here must be thundering big fools.”

      “Quite right. I hope we shan’t be put to it to-day, but it has saved both of us before. Though as a rule, Cetchy, I never go out with another fellow, except Corbould now and then. Much rather be alone – besides, when there are two fellows together they get jawing at the wrong time. Remember that, Cetchy. Once you’re off the road don’t say a word more than you can help – and only that in a whisper.”

      The other nodded.

      “I know,” he said.

      “One time I had an awful narrow squeak,” pursued Haviland. “It was in Needham’s Copse, the very place Finch and Harris were swished for going through. There’s a dry ditch just inside where you can nearly always find a nightingale’s nest. I’d just taken one, and was starting to get back, when I heard something and dropped down like a shot to listen. Would you believe it, Cetchy, there was a beast of a keeper with a brown retriever dog squatting against the hedge on the other side! It was higher than where I was lying, and I could see them against the sky, but they couldn’t see me, and fortunately the hedge was pretty thick. The wonder was the dog didn’t sniff me out, but he didn’t. It was lively, I can tell you, for nearly an hour I had to squat there hardly able to breathe for fear of being heard. At last they cleared out and so did I. I was late for call-over of course, but Clay – it was his week – only gave me a hundred lines – said I looked so jolly dirty that I must have been running hard. He’s a good chap, Clay, and a bit of a sportsman, although he is such a peppery devil. Well, Cetchy, you see if there had been two of us, one would have been bound to make a row, and then – what with the dog we couldn’t have got clear. That would have meant a swishing, for I wasn’t a prefect then.”

      With similar narratives did Haviland beguile the way and instruct his companion, therein however strictly practising what he preached, in that he kept them for such times as they should be upon the Queen’s highway, or pursuing a legitimate path.

      So far, they had found plenty of spoil, but mostly of the commoner sorts and not worth taking – at least not from Haviland’s point of view – all of whose instincts as a sportsman were against wanton destruction.

      “Why don’t you begin collecting, Cetchy?” he said, as, seated on a stile, they were taking a rest and a look round. “I should have thought it was just the sort of thing you’d take to kindly.”

      “Yes. I think I will.”

      “That’s right. We’ll start you with all we take to-day, except one or two of the better sorts, and those we’ll halve. What have we got already? Five butcher-bird’s, four nightingale’s, and five bullfinch’s, but I believe those are too hard-set to be any good. Hallo!” looking up, “I believe that was a drop of rain.”

      The sky, which was cloudy when they started, had now become overcast, and a few large drops fell around them. Little enough they minded that though.

      “Are you afraid of ghosts, Cetchy?” said Haviland.

      “Ghosts? No – why?”

      “See that wood over there? Well, that’s Hangman’s Wood, and we’re going through that. It’s one of the very best nesting grounds in the whole country – it’s too far away, you see, for our fellows to get at unless they get leave from call-over, which they precious seldom can.”

      He pointed to a line of dark wood about three-quarters of a mile away, of irregular shape and some fifty acres in extent. It seemed to have been laid out at different times, for about a third of it was a larch plantation, the lighter green of which presented a marked contrast to the dark firs which constituted the bulk of the larger portion.

      “It’s haunted,” he went on. “Years and years ago they found a man hanging from a bough right in the middle of it. The chap was one of the keepers, but they never could make out exactly whether he had scragged himself, or whether it was done by some fellows he’d caught poaching. Anyway the yarn goes that they hung two or three on suspicion, and it’s quite likely, for in those days they managed things pretty much as they seem to do in your country, eh, Cetchy – hang a chap first and try him afterwards?”

      “That’s what Nick does,” said the Zulu boy with a grin.

      Haviland laughed.

      “By Jove, you’re right, Cetchy. You’ve taken the length of Nick’s foot and no mistake. Well, you see now why they call the place Hangman’s Wood, but that isn’t all. They say the chap walks – his ghost, you know – just as they found him hanging – all black in the face, with his eyes starting out of his head, and round his neck a bit of the rope that hung him. By the way, that would be a nice sort of thing for us to meet stalking down the sides of the wood when we were in there, eh, Cetchy?”

      The other made no reply. Wide-eyed, he was taking in every word of the story. Haviland went on.

      “It sounds like a lot of humbug, but the fact remains that more than one of the keepers has met with a mortal scare in that very place, and I’ve even heard of one chucking up his billet rather than go into the wood anywhere near dusk even, and the rum thing about it too is that it never gets poached: and you’d think if there was a safe place to poach that’d be