The Triple Alliance | Page 2

Welsby had been a widower for many years; he was a grave, scholarly man, who spent most of his spare time in his own library. Mr. Blake was supposed to take charge out of school hours; he was, as every one said, "a jolly fellow," and the fact that his popularity extended far and wide among a large circle of friends and acquaintances, caused him to have a good many irons in the fire of one sort and another. During their hours of leisure, therefore, the Birchites were left pretty much to their own devices, or more often to those of Master Fred Acton, who liked, as has already been stated, to assume the office of bellwether to the little flock.
At the time when our story commences the ground was covered with snow; but Acton was equal to the occasion, and as soon as dinner was over, ordered all hands to come outside and make a slide.
The garden was on a steep slope, along the bottom of which ran the brick wall bounding one side of the playground; a straight, steep path lay between this and the house, and the youthful dux, with his usual disregard of life and limb, insisted on choosing this as the scene of operations.
"What!" he cried, in answer to a feeble protest on the part of Mugford, "make it on level ground? Of course not, when we've got this jolly hill to go down; not if I know it. We'll open the door at the bottom, and go right on into the playground."
"But how if any one goes a bit crooked, and runs up against the bricks?"
"Well, they'll get pretty well smashed, or he will. You must go straight; that's half the fun of the thing--it'll make it all the more exciting. Come on and begin to tread down the snow."
Without daring to show any outward signs of reluctance, but with feelings very much akin to those of men digging their own graves before being shot, the company set about putting this fearful project into execution. In about half an hour the slide was in good working order, and then the fun began.
Mugford, and one or two others whose prudence exceeded their valour, made a point of sitting down before they had gone many yards, preferring to take the fall in a milder form than it would have assumed at a later period in the journey. To the bolder spirits, however, every trip was like leading a forlorn hope, none expecting to return from the enterprise unscathed. The pace was terrific: on nearing the playground wall, all the events of a lifetime might have flashed across the memory as at the last gasp of a drowning man; and if fortunate enough to whiz through the doorway, and pull up "all standing" on the level stretch beyond, it was to draw a deep breath, and regard the successful performance of the feat as an escape from catastrophe which was nothing short of miraculous. The unevenness of the ground made it almost impossible to steer a straight course. A boy might be half-way down the path, when suddenly he felt himself beginning to turn round; an agonized look spread over his face; he made one frantic attempt to keep, as it were, "head to the sea;" there was an awful moment when house, garden, sky, and playground wall spun round and round; and then the little group of onlookers, their hearts hardened by their own sufferings, burst into a roar of laughter; while Acton slapped his leg, crying, "He's over! What a stunning lark! Who's next?"
At the end of an hour and a half most of the company were temporarily disabled, and even their chief had not escaped scot free.
"Now then for a regular spanker!" he cried, rushing at the slide. A "spanker" it certainly was: six yards from the commencement his legs flew from under him, he soared into the air like a bird, and did not touch the ground again until he sat down heavily within twenty paces of the bottom of the slope.
One might have supposed that this catastrophe would have somewhat damped the sufferer's ardour; but instead of that he only seemed fired with a fresh desire to break his neck.
He hobbled up the hill, and pausing for a moment at the top to take breath, suddenly exclaimed, "Look here, I'm going down it on skates."
Every one stood aghast at this rash determination; but Acton hurried off into the house, and soon returned with the skates. He sat down on a bank, and was proceeding to put them on, when he discovered that, by some oversight, he had brought out the wrong pair. "Bother it! these aren't mine, they're too short; whose are they?"
"I think they're mine," faltered Mugford.
"Well, put 'em on."
"But I