08 The White Feather

“If you row for about half an hour without exerting yourself—and I can trust you not to do that—and then look to your left, you’ll see a certain hostelry, if it hasn’t moved since I was last there. It’s called the ‘Blue Boar’. We will have tea there, and then I’ll pull gently back, and that will end the programme.”

“Except being caught in the town by half the masters,” said Linton. “Still, I’m not grumbling. This had to be done. Ready?”

“Not just yet,” said Dunstable, looking past Linton and up the landing-stage. “Wait just one second. Here are some friends of ours.”

Linton looked over his shoulder.

“Albert!” he cried.

“And the who struck me divers blows in sundry places. Ah, they’ve sighted us.”

“What are you going to do? We can’t have another scrap with them.”

“Far from it,” said Dunstable gently. “Hullo, Albert. And my friend in the moth-eaten bowler! This is well met.”

“You come out here,” said Albert, pausing on the brink.

“Why?” asked Dunstable.

“You see what you’ll get.”

“But we don’t want to see what we’ll get. You’ve got such a narrow mind, Albert—may I call you Bertie? You seem to think that nobody has any pleasures except vulgar brawls. We are going to row up river, and think beautiful thoughts.”

Albert was measuring with his eye the distance between the boat and landing-stage. It was not far. A sudden spring….

“If you want a fight, go up to the school and ask for Mr Drummond. He’s the gentlemen who sent you to hospital last time. Any time you’re passing, I’m sure he’d—”

Albert leaped.

But Linton had had him under observation, and, as he sprung, pushed vigorously with his oar. The gap between boat and shore widened in an instant, and Albert, failing to obtain a foothold on the boat, fell back, with a splash that sent a cascade over his friend and the boatman, into three feet of muddy water. By the time he had scrambled out, his enemies were moving pensively up-stream.

The boatman was annoyed.

“Makin’ me wet and spoilin’ my paint—what yer mean by it?”

“Me and my friend here we want a boat,” said Albert, ignoring the main issue.

“Want a boat! Then you’ll not get a boat. Spoil my cushions, too, would you? What next, I wonder! You go to Smith and ask him for a boat. Perhaps he ain’t so particular about having his cushions —”

“Orl right,” said Albert, “orl right.”

Mr Smith proved more complaisant, and a quarter of an hour after Dunstable and Linton had disappeared, Albert and his friend were on the water. Moist outside, Albert burned with a desire for Revenge. He meant to follow his men till he found them. It almost seemed as if there would be a repetition of the naval battle which had caused the town to be put out of bounds. Albert was a quick-tempered youth, and he had swallowed fully a pint of Severn water.

Dunstable and Linton sat for some time in the oak parlour of the “Blue Boar”. It was late when they went out. As they reached the water’s edge Linton uttered a cry of consternation.

“What’s up?” asked Dunstable. “I wish you wouldn’t do that so suddenly. It gives me a start. Do you feel bad?”

“Great Scott! it’s gone.”

“The pain?”

“Our boat. I tied it up to this post.”

“You can’t have done. What’s that boat over there! That looks like ours.”

“No, it isn’t. That was there when we came. I noticed it. I tied ours up here, to this post.”

“This is a shade awkward,” said Dunstable thoughtfully. “You must have tied it up jolly rottenly. It must have slipped away and gone down-stream. This is where we find ourselves in the cart. Right among the ribstons, by Jove. I feel like that Frenchman in the story, who lost his glasses just as he got to the top of the mountain, and missed the view. Altogezzer I do not vish I ‘ad kom.”

“I’m certain I tied it up all right. And—why, look! here’s the rope still on the pole, just as I left it.”

For the first time Dunstable seemed interested.

“This is getting mysterious. Did we hire a rowing-boat or a submarine? There’s something on the end of this rope. Give it a tug, and see. There, didn’t you feel it?”

“I do believe,” said Linton in an awed voice, “the thing’s sunk.”

They pulled at the rope together. The waters heaved and broke, and up came the nose of the boat, to sink back with a splash as they loosened their hold.

“There are more things in Heaven and Earth—” said Dunstable, wiping his hands. “If you ask me, I should say an enemy hath done this. A boat doesn’t sink of its own accord.”

“Albert!” said Linton. “The blackguard must have followed us up and done it while we were at tea.”