The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales | Page 4

sad he is when he is taken at his word!
At last I could stand it no longer, and I determined to run away from
the school and make my way home as fast as I might. At the very last
moment, however, I had the good fortune to win the praise and
admiration of every one, from the headmaster downwards, and to find
my school life made very pleasant and easy to me. And all this came of
my falling by accident out of a second-floor window.
This was how it happened. One evening I had been kicked by Ned
Barton, who was the bully of the school; and this injury coming on the
top of all my other grievances, caused my little cup to overflow. I
vowed that night, as I buried my tear-stained face beneath the blankets,
that the next morning would either find me at West Inch or well on the
way to it. Our dormitory was on the second floor, but I was a famous
climber, and had a fine head for heights. I used to think little, young as

I was, of swinging myself with a rope round my thigh off the West Inch
gable, and that stood three-and-fifty feet above the ground. There was
not much fear then but that I could make my way out of Birtwhistle's
dormitory. I waited a weary while until the coughing and tossing had
died away, and there was no sound of wakefulness from the long line of
wooden cots; then I very softly rose, slipped on my clothes, took my
shoes in my hand, and walked tiptoe to the window. I opened the
casement and looked out. Underneath me lay the garden, and close by
my hand was the stout branch of a pear tree. An active lad could ask no
better ladder. Once in the garden I had but a five-foot wall to get over,
and then there was nothing but distance between me and home. I took a
firm grip of a branch with one hand, placed my knee upon another one,
and was about to swing myself out of the window, when in a moment I
was as silent and as still as though I had been turned to stone.
There was a face looking at me from over the coping of the wall. A
chill of fear struck to my heart at its whiteness and its stillness. The
moon shimmered upon it, and the eyeballs moved slowly from side to
side, though I was hid from them behind the screen of the pear tree.
Then in a jerky fashion this white face ascended, until the neck,
shoulders, waist, and knees of a man became visible. He sat himself
down on the top of the wall, and with a great heave he pulled up after
him a boy about my own size, who caught his breath from time to time
as though to choke down a sob. The man gave him a shake, with a few
rough whispered words, and then the two dropped together down into
the garden. I was still standing balanced with one foot upon the bough
and one upon the casement, not daring to budge for fear of attracting
their attention, for I could hear them moving stealthily about in the long
shadow of the house. Suddenly, from immediately beneath my feet, I
heard a low grating noise and the sharp tinkle of falling glass.
"That's done it," said the man's eager whisper. "There is room for you."
"But the edge is all jagged!" cried the other in a weak quaver.
The fellow burst out into an oath that made my skin pringle.
"In with you, you cub," he snarled, "or--"

I could not see what he did, but there was a short, quick gasp of pain.
"I'll go! I'll go!" cried the little lad.
But I heard no more, for my head suddenly swam, my heel shot off the
branch, I gave a dreadful yell, and came down, with my ninety-five
pounds of weight, right upon the bent back of the burglar. If you ask
me, I can only say that to this day I am not quite certain whether it was
an accident or whether I designed it. It may be that while I was thinking
of doing it Chance settled the matter for me. The fellow was stooping
with his head forward thrusting the boy through a tiny window, when I
came down upon him just where the neck joins the spine. He gave a
kind of whistling cry, dropped upon his face, and rolled three times
over, drumming on the grass with his heels. His little companion
flashed off in the moonlight, and was over the wall in a trice. As for me,
I sat yelling at