The Channings. Henry Wood

for wishing to see the solution of the affair—thronged into the lodge. “There’s the nail, my lord, and there—”

      Ketch stopped, dumbfounded. On the nail, hanging by the string, as quietly as if they had hung for ages, were the cloister keys. Ketch rubbed his eyes, and stared, and rubbed again. The bishop smiled.

      “I told you, Ketch, I thought you must be mistaken, in supposing you brought the proper keys out.”

      Ketch burst into a wail of anger and deprecation. He had took out the right keys, and Jenkins could bear him out in the assertion. Some wicked trick had been played upon him, and the keys brought back during his absence and hung up on their hook! He’d lay his life it was the college boys!

      The bishop turned his eyes on those young gentlemen. But nothing could be more innocent than their countenances, as they stood before him in their trenchers. Rather too innocent, perhaps: and the bishop’s eyes twinkled, and a half-smile crossed his lips; but he made no sign. Well would it be if all the clergy were as sweet-tempered as that Bishop of Helstonleigh!

      “Well, Ketch, take care of your keys for the future,” was all he said, as he walked away. “Good night, boys.”

      “Good night to your lordship,” replied the boys, once more raising their trenchers; and the crowd, outside, respectfully saluted their prelate, who returned it in kind.

      “What are you waiting for, Thorpe?” the bishop demanded, when he found the sexton was still at the great gates, holding them about an inch open.

      “For Jenkins, my lord,” was the reply. “Ketch said he was also locked in.”

      “Certainly he was,” replied the bishop. “Has he not come forth?”

      “That he has not, my lord. I have let nobody whatever out except your lordship and the porter. I have called out to him, but he does not answer, and does not come.”

      “He went up into the organ-loft in search of a candle and matches,” remarked the bishop. “You had better go after him, Thorpe. He may not know that the doors are open.”

      The bishop left, crossing over to the palace. Thorpe, calling one of the old bedesmen, some of whom had then come up, left him in charge of the gate, and did as he was ordered. He descended the steps, passed through the wide doors, and groped his way in the dark towards the choir.

      “Jenkins!”

      There was no answer.

      “Jenkins!” he called out again.

      Still there was no answer: except the sound of the sexton’s own voice as it echoed in the silence of the large edifice.

      “Well, this is an odd go!” exclaimed Thorpe, as he leaned against a pillar and surveyed the darkness of the cathedral. “He can’t have melted away into a ghost, or dropped down into the crypt among the coffins. Jenkins, I say!”

      With a word of impatience at the continued silence, the sexton returned to the entrance gates. All that could be done was to get a light and search for him.

      They procured a lantern, Ketch ungraciously supplying it; and the sexton, taking two or three of the spectators with him, proceeded to the search. “He has gone to sleep in the organ-loft, that is what he has done,” cried Thorpe, making known what the bishop had said.

      Alas! Jenkins had not gone to sleep. At the foot of the steps, leading to the organ-loft, they came upon him. He was lying there insensible, blood oozing from a wound in the forehead. How had it come about? What had caused it?

      Meanwhile, the college boys, after driving Mr. Ketch nearly wild with their jokes and ridicule touching the mystery of the keys, were scared by the sudden appearance of the head-master. They decamped as fast as their legs could carry them, bringing themselves to an anchor at a safe distance, under shade of the friendly elm trees. Bywater stuck his back against one, and his laughter came forth in peals. Some of the rest tried to stop it, whispering caution.

      “It’s of no good talking, you fellows! I can’t keep it in; I shall burst if I try. I have been at bursting point ever since I twitched the keys out of his hands in the cloisters, and threw the rusty ones down. You see I was right—that it was best for one of us to go in without our boots, and to wait. If half a dozen had gone, we should never have got away unheard.”

      “I pretty nearly burst when I saw the bishop come out, instead of Ketch,” cried Tod Yorke. “Burst with fright.”

      “So did a few more of us,” said Galloway. “I say, will there be a row?”

      “Goodness knows! He is a kind old chap is the bishop. Better for it to have been him than the dean.”

      “What was it Ketch said, about Jenkins seeing a glowworm?”

      “Oh!” shrieked Bywater, holding his sides, “that was the best of all! I had taken a lucifer out of my pocket, playing with it, while they went round to the south gate, and it suddenly struck fire. I threw it over to the burial-ground: and that soft Jenkins took it for a glowworm.”

      “It’s a stunning go!” emphatically concluded Mr. Tod Yorke. “The best we have had this half, yet.”

      “Hush—sh—sh—sh!” whispered the boys under their breath. “There goes the master.”

      CHAPTER XIII. – MAD NANCE

      Mr. Galloway was in his office. Mr. Galloway was fuming and fretting at the non-arrival of his clerk, Mr. Jenkins. Mr. Jenkins was a punctual man; in fact, more than punctual: his proper time for arriving at the office was half-past nine; but the cathedral clock had rarely struck the quarter-past before Mr. Jenkins would be at his post. Almost any other morning it would not have mattered a straw to Mr. Galloway whether Jenkins was a little after or a little before his time; but on this particular morning he had especial need of him, and had come himself to the office unusually early.

      One-two, three-four! chimed the quarters of the cathedral. “There it goes—half-past nine!” ejaculated Mr. Galloway. “What does Jenkins mean by it? He knew he was wanted early.”

      A sharp knock at the office door, and there entered a little dark woman, in a black bonnet and a beard. She was Mr. Jenkins’s better half, and had the reputation for being considerably the grey mare.

      “Good morning, Mr. Galloway. A pretty kettle of fish, this is!”

      “What’s the matter now?” asked Mr. Galloway, surprised at the address. “Where’s Jenkins?”

      “Jenkins is in bed with his head plastered up. He’s the greatest booby living, and would positively have come here all the same, but I told him I’d strap him down with cords if he attempted it. A pretty object he’d have looked, staggering through the streets, with his head big enough for two, and held together with white plaster!”

      “What has he done to his head?” wondered Mr. Galloway.

      “Good gracious! have you not heard?” exclaimed the lady, whose mode of speech was rarely overburdened with polite words, though she meant no disrespect by it. “He got locked up in the cloisters last night with old Ketch and the bishop.”

      Mr. Galloway stared at her. He had been dining, the previous evening, with some friends at the other end of the town, and knew nothing of the occurrence. Had he been within hearing when the college bell tolled out at night, he would have run to ascertain the cause as eagerly as any schoolboy. “Locked up in the cloisters with old Ketch and the bishop!” he repeated, in amazement. “I do not understand.”

      Mrs. Jenkins proceeded to enlighten him. She gave the explanation of the strange affair of the keys, as it had been given to her by the unlucky Joe. While telling it, Arthur Channing entered, and, almost immediately afterwards, Roland Yorke.

      “The bishop, of all people!” uttered Mr. Galloway. “What an untoward thing for his lordship!”

      “No more untoward for him than for others,” retorted the lady. “It just serves Jenkins right. What business had he to go dancing through the cloisters with old Ketch and his keys?”

      “But how