Dr. Jolliffe's Boys Part 11

"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Saurin; "perhaps not. Awful liars those keeper chaps, no doubt. We shall know all about it in time, I suppose."

"It would not be bad fun if one got a fair price for the game one took,"

said Griffiths. "But the risk and difficulty of selling it would be so great that one would be certain to be robbed."

"What an a.s.s Tom Bowling was to give himself up; it would have been all right if he had sat still."

"I don't know that. He had already been caught breaking out of college, don't you see, and they would have been certain to put this and that together."

"Who would?"

"Old Jolliffe."

"Not a bit of it. I twigged his face when Buller stood up, and he looked as vexed as possible. _He'd_ never have told."

"I am not sure of that, and I think Buller was right not to risk it."

"Fussy old chap, Lord Woodruff!"

"Not a bad sort altogether, I believe, if you rub him the right way."

"No more am I; give me everything I want, and never thwart me, and I am the easiest fellow to live with in the world."

That is a sample of the way the matter was discussed and commented upon.

But the most astonished of the whole school, and the only one who could not trust himself to make any remark at all in public, was Edwards. For the second time that day he had to watch his opportunity for a private conference with Saurin, and when he found it he opened on him eagerly.

"What a chap you are! And so you had a regular fight with keepers, and nearly did for one; and all you said this morning was that the whole thing was a failure and a sell. And even when we talked about gamekeepers catching poachers, and the poachers resisting, you kept it all dark."

"Why, it was a serious thing to talk about, you see," said Saurin.

"Well, I think you might have trusted me at all events," replied Edwards somewhat reproachfully.

"Trust you! My dear fellow I would trust you with my life," said Saurin. "But I thought it better to keep Marriner's attack on this keeper secret for your sake. There was sure to be a row, and in case of the inquiry coming in this direction, and your being questioned, it would be so much jollier for you to be able to say that you knew nothing about it. Whereas, if I had entered into all the details, it would have bothered you. For, to tell the truth, I feared the man was killed; now he is not hurt much, I don't care."

"They would not have got anything out of me," said Edwards.

"Perhaps not," replied Saurin. "But those lawyers are awful fellows when they get you into the witness-box, and make you say pretty nearly what they like. I had much rather have nothing to tell them myself if I were to be put in such a position, and I thought you would feel the same."

"You are right, so I do," said Edwards. "What a fellow you are, Saurin, you think of everything!"

"It is different, now that they have got hold of that a.s.s, Buller; what a joke it all is, isn't it?"

"Yes," replied Edwards, in a tone of hesitation, however, as if he did not quite see the humour of it. "Rather rough upon Buller, though, don't you think?"

"Not a bit of it; he has got off his flogging."

"But suppose he comes in for something worse?"

"How should he? They cannot prove that he was in the coppice when he was about three miles in the opposite direction, you know. Now, if I were once suspected, they would find out that I constantly went to Slam's, who finds agents to sell the game for all the poachers round, and some of the keepers too, if the truth were known, and that I had been seen in Marriner's company; who is considered to make a regular income out of Lord Woodruff's pheasants, and they would have some grounds to go upon. But Buller is all right."

But though he spoke like this to quiet Edwards, Saurin did not care whether Buller got into serious trouble or not. He was a friend of Crawley's, had seconded him in the fight, and given him advice which contributed as much as anything else to Saurin's defeat. If he were expelled and sent to prison it would not break his (Saurin's) heart.

The only fear was that if Edwards blabbed--and he was so weak that he could not be absolutely trusted--fellows would think it horribly mean to let Buller be punished unjustly, for what he himself had done. And on this account, and this account only, he hoped that Buller would get off.

Mr Elliot, the magistrate, lived at Penredding, the village where Mr Rabbits had gone to lecture, and thither Tom Buller was driven in a close fly, the doctor accompanying him. Lord Woodruff, who had come to Weston on horseback, rode over separately. Mr Elliot was a man of good common sense, though his opinions were not quite so weighty as his person, which declined to rise in one scale when fifteen stone was in the other. He was a just man also, though perhaps he was less dilatory in attending to the wishes of a member of one of the great county families than he might be in the case of a mere n.o.body. If a rich man and a poor one had a dispute, he considered that the presumption was in favour of the former, but he did not allow this prejudice to influence him one iota in the teeth of direct evidence.

Just after the fly had left Weston some snow flakes began to fall.

"Ah!" thought Tom, "it may snow as hard as it pleases now. I have had a good turn at any rate. I was not able to do the outside edge when the frost set in, and now I can cut an eight. I wish, though, I could keep my balance in the second curl of those threes. I must practise going backwards, and stick to that next time I have a chance."

Dr Jolliffe, who saw that he was absorbed in reflection, thought that he was dwelling upon the serious nature of the position, in which he found himself, and would have been amused if he could have read the real subject of his meditations. But he could not do that, so he read the proof-sheets of his new treatise on the digamma. The snow fell thicker, and by the time they reached Penredding the country was covered with a white sheet.

Mr Elliot, who had been warned of their coming, was ready to receive them, and Lord Woodruff came forward with an inspector of rural police, and told his story, which was written down by a clerk and read over.

Then the whole party set out on their travels again and drove to the cottage of the wounded gamekeeper, where they were received by a young woman, who had been crying her eyes red, and to the folds of whose dress two little children clung, hiding their faces therein, but stealing shy glances now and then at the quality, and the awful representative of the law, who had come to visit them.

"The doctor has told us that it would do your husband no harm to say before me what he has already told Lord Woodruff," said Mr Elliot to her. "I was rejoiced to hear that he is doing so well. It was a most shameful, brutal, and cowardly attack, and we are most anxious that the offender should be brought to justice."

"Yes, sir," said the woman. "Doctor thinks it may quiet him like to have his dispositions took, and then he may go to sleep."

"Exactly. Will you be so kind as to tell him that we are here?"

She pushed the children into an inner room, ran up-stairs, and presently reappeared, asking them to walk up. Bradley was in bed, propped with pillows. A handkerchief was tied round his head, and his face was pale from loss of blood. Either from that cause, or on account of the shock to the nervous system, he was also very weak.

"How do you feel now, Bradley?" asked Lord Woodruff gently, going to the bed-head.

"Rayther queer as yet, my lord," was the reply.

"No doubt. But you have a good hard head, and there is nothing serious the matter, the doctor says. But it may be some days before it will be prudent for you to go out, so, as we want to get on the traces of the fellow who struck you at once, Mr Elliot has kindly come over to take your deposition here, instead of waiting till you were fit to go to Penredding."

When Tom Buller saw the woman and children, and then afterwards their strong bread-earner reduced to such a condition, he indeed felt heartily glad that there was no truth in the accusation against him. To have had any part in bringing about such a scene of family distress would have been too much for him.

The wounded man told his story clearly enough, and then Tom Buller was told to stand in the light where he could see him clearly.

"Noa," said the wounded man, "I could not say who it wor. There was a bright moon, but the boy was in the shadow, and I got no clear look at his face; but he wor one of the Weston young gentlemen, I am sartin of that. A bit bigger than him, I should say, but I couldn't say for sure.

He wor a strong un, I know that."

When all this was written down, back they went to Penredding again, slower now, for the snow was getting deep, and a.s.sembled once more in Mr Elliot's study, where Buller was warned against criminating himself, and then allowed to speak. He had been out that night, but in a contrary direction, skating; no one had seen him, and he had no witnesses.

"There is hardly any case," said Mr Elliot. "The boy owns that he was out the night of the a.s.sault, and the gamekeeper swears he was struggling with a boy, whom he thinks was rather bigger. But there are no marks of any struggle having taken place upon the lad. There may be reason for suspicion, but nothing more."

"Exactly; and I do not ask for a committal, but only for a remand, to give the police an opportunity of collecting further evidence," said Lord Woodruff.

"And I do not oppose the remand," said Dr Jolliffe. "I am perfectly convinced of the boy's complete innocence; but in his interest I should like the matter to be gone into further, now the accusation has once been made."

"Very good; this day week, then. And I will take your bail for his appearance, Dr Jolliffe."

And it being so arranged, everybody went home through the snow; and the police took up a wrong scent altogether, that, namely, of the gang that had been taking game in another part of the preserves earlier in the night, and to which it was somewhat naturally supposed the other two belonged. And one of them was traced, and a reward, together with impunity, was offered to him if he would turn queen's evidence, and say who had struck down the keeper. But the man, of course, could tell nothing about it.

As for Tom Buller, he went back to his lessons as usual, and was a hero.

It was something novel to have a fellow out of prison on bail at Weston, and the boys racked their brains for some evidence in his favour. His flogging was put off _sine die_, for the doctor felt it unjust to deal with his case scholastically while the question of his punishment by the laws of the country was still pending. The only boy who thought of anything practical was Smith, "Old Algebra," as they called him. He went up privately to Mr Rabbits one day and said, "I beg your pardon, sir, but might I speak to you for a moment?"