Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/188

 partitions, and an unceremonious hand had Jan by the shoulder.

"Get up, will you? It's a case of burglars! All the chaps are getting up to go for them; but you can hide between the sheets if you like it better."

And Crabtree retreated to his corner as Jan swung his feet to the ground. He was still quite dazed; he asked whether anybody had told Heriot.

"Heriot's away, you fool!" Joyce reminded him in a stage whisper.

"That's why they've come," explained Bingley, in suppressed excitement. "They've seen his governor's death in the papers. I'll bet you it's a London gang."

Bingley was more than ever the precocious expert in matters criminal. He had seen a man condemned in the Easter holidays. But this was the night of Bingley's life.

Sounds of breakage came from Joyce's 'tish. "I'm not going down unarmed," said he. "Who wants a rung of my towel rail?" Crabtree and Bingley were supplied in the darkness. "None left for you, Rutter; take a boot to heave at their heads."

"I'll take my jug," said Jan, emptying it into his basin; "it'll do more damage."

"Come on, you chaps!" urged Crabtree. "He'll have got the Spook by this time."

Instinctively Jan guessed that the pronoun stood for old Mother Sprawson, and he was right. It was that born leader of boys and men who had alarmed the dormitories before going through into the private part to summon the Spook from his slumbers; but where the thieves were now, what damage they had done, or who had discovered their presence in the house, Jan had no idea as he accompanied the others down the leaden stairs. Here there was