We all know how adventures, aspirations, longings that seem quite reasonable and attainable in the evening light are absurdly impossible in the morning cold. Jeremy next morning, as he ran round the football ground, felt that he could not have heard Stokesley aright. It was the kind of story that the dormitory tale-teller retailed before people dropped off to sleep. Stokesley was just inventing; he could not have meant a word of it. Nevertheless, later in the day, Raikes took him into a corner of the playground and whispered dramatically:

“We’re going to do it. It’s all settled.”

“Oh!” gasped Jeremy.

“It’s to be next Sunday. You’re right about not coming. You’re too young.” Raikes sounded very old indeed as he said this. “You swear you won’t tell a living soul?”

“Of course I won’t.”

“You’ll swear by God Almighty?”

“I swear by God Almighty.”

“Never to breathe a word to any boy, master or animal?”

“Never to breathe a word to any boy, master or animal.”

“You’re a good sort, Stocky. Somehow, one can trust you—and one can’t most of them. They’ll be on to you after we’re gone, you know!”

“I don’t care.”

“They’ll try to get it out of you.”

“I don’t care. They shan’t.”

“In any way they can. Perhaps they’ll stop your football.”

Jeremy drew a deep breath. “I don’t care,” he repeated slowly.

“We’ll have a great time,” Raikes said, as though addressing his reluctant half. “We’ll come back ever so rich in a year or two, and then won’t you wish you’d come with us!”

What Jeremy did wish was that they had told him nothing about it. Oh, how he wished it! Why had they dragged him in? Suppose they did stop his football? Oh, but they couldn’t! It wasn’t his fault that he’d heard about it.

“Look here, Raikes,” he said, “don’t you tell me any more. I don’t want to know anything about it.... Then they can’t come on me afterwards.”

“That’s sound,” said Raikes. “All right; we won’t.”

The days, then, that intervened before Sunday could have only one motive. It seemed incredible to Jeremy that the two conspirators should appear now so ordinary; they should have had in some way a flaring mark, a scarlet letter, to set them aside from the rest of mankind. Not at all. They followed their accustomed duties, ate their meals, did their impositions, played their games just as they had always done.

Even at night, when they were left alone in the dormitory, they spoke very little about it. Jeremy was outside it now, and although they trusted him, “one never knew,” and they were not going to give anything away.

The great Sunday came, a day of blazing autumnal gold, enough breeze to stir the leaves and send them like ragged scraps of brown paper lazily through the air. The Sunday bells came like challenges to guilty consciences upon the misty sky. Jeremy did not see the two of them after breakfast. Indeed, in the strange way that these terrific events have of suddenly slipping for half an hour from one’s consciousness, during morning chapel he forgot about the whole affair, and stared half asleep through the long chapel window out into the purple field, wondering about a thousand little things—some lines he had to write, a pot of jam that he was going to open that night at tea for the first time, and how Hamlet was in Polchester and what, just then, he would be doing.

He went his accustomed Sunday walk with Riley, and it was only when they were hurrying back over the leaf-thickened paths towards a sun like a red orange that he suddenly remembered. Why, at this very moment they would be making for the station! He stopped in the path.

“By gum!” he said.

“What is it?” asked Riley. “Been stung by a bee?”

“No; just thought of something.”

“You do look queer!”

“It’s nothing.” He moved on. It seemed impossible that the woods should stay just as they were, unmoved by this great event, hanging like old coloured tapestry with their thin dead leaves between the black poles of trees. Unmoved! No one knew. No one but himself.

The great moment came. When in chapel, looking across to the other side, he saw that their places were empty. Nothing much in that for the ordinary world—fellows were often late for chapel—but for him it meant everything. The deed was positively accomplished. They must be actually at this moment in the train, and he was the only creature in the whole school who knew where they were.

Call-over followed chapel. He heard the names called. “Stokesley!” and then, more impatiently, after a little pause, “Stokesley!” again. Then “Raikes!” and, after a moment, “Raikes!” again. Nothing, after that, happened for an hour. Then call-over once more at supper. Raikes and Stokesley again called and again absent.

Five minutes after supper the school sergeant came for him.

“Mr. Thompson to see you in his study at once!”

Jeremy went.

Thompson was walking about, and very worried he looked. He had been talking to the matron, and wheeled round when Jeremy came in.

“Ah, Cole.... Leave us for a moment, matron, please.”

They were alone. Jeremy felt terribly small, shrivelled to nothing at all. He shuffled his feet and looked anywhere but at Thompson’s anxious eyes. He liked Thompson, and was aware, with a sudden flash, that this was more than a mere game—that it might be desperately serious for someone.

“Come here, Cole. I want you to keep this to yourself. Not to say a word to anyone, do you understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Good. It seems that Stokesley and Raikes have run away. They were neither at chapel nor at supper. Some of their things are missing. Now, you’re the only other boy in their dormitory. Do you know anything at all about this?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing?”

“No, sir.”

“They said nothing at all to you about this going?”

“No, sir.”

“Gave you no idea that they were thinking of it?”

“No, sir.”

Thompson paused, looked out of the window, walked up and down the room a little, then said:

“I make it a rule always to believe what any boy tells me. I’ve never found you untruthful, Cole. I don’t say that you’re not telling the truth now, but I know what your boys’ code is. You mustn’t sneak about another boy whatever happens. That’s a code that has something to be said for it. It happens to have nothing to be said for it just now. You’re young, and I don’t expect you realize what this means. It involves many people beside themselves—their fathers and mothers and everyone in this school. You may be doing a very serious thing that will affect many people’s lives if you don’t tell me what you know. Do you realize that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, then, did they say nothing at all about going away?”

“No, sir.”

“Nothing at all to you?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well. You may go.”

Jeremy went. Outside he found the school in a ferment. Everyone knew. Stokesley and Raikes had run away. He was surrounded by a mob. They pressed in upon him from every side—big boys, little boys, old boys, young boys—everyone.

“Stocky! Where have they gone to? What did Thompson say to you? Did he whack you? Is he going to? Is it true that they’ve stolen a lot of the matron’s money? What did they tell you? ... Oh, rot! Of course you know? Where have they gone to, Stocky? We’ll give you the most awful hiding if you don’t say. Come on, Stocky, out with it! When did they go? Just before chapel? Is Thompson awfully sick?”

But Jeremy stood his ground. He knew nothing at all. Nothing at all. They had said nothing to him.