Page:Hornung - Fathers of Men.djvu/32

 On the walls hung portraits of the great composers, which Jan afterwards found to be house prizes in part-singing competitions discontinued before his time; at the moment, however, he took no kind of interest in them, and but very little in the two challenge cups under the clock. What did attract him was the line of open windows, looking like solid blocks of sunlight and fresh air. On the sill of one a figure in print was busy with her wash-leather, and she accosted Jan cheerily.

"You are down early, sir!"

"I always am," remarked Jan, looking for a door into the open air.

"You're not like most of the gentlemen, then," the maid returned, in her cheerful Cockney voice. "They leaves it to the last moment, and then they 'as to fly. You should 'ear 'em come down them stairs!"

"Is there no way out?" inquired Jan.

"You mean into the quad?"

"That's the quad, is it? Then I do."

"Well, there's the door, just outside this door; but Morgan, 'e keeps the key o' that, and I don't think 'e's come yet."

"Then I'm going through that window," announced the new boy, calmly; and carried out his intention without a moment's hesitation.

Had his object been to run away on his very first morning, before his house-master was astir, as the maid seemed to fear by the way she leant out of her window to watch him, the next step would have taxed all Jan's resources.

Heriot's quad was a gravel plot very distinctively enclosed, on the left by the walls of buildings otherwise unconnected with the house, on the right by the boys' studies. At the further extremity were twin gables over