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"He is aiming at it," returned Bywater. "There never would have been a word said about our playing there, but for him. If the dean shuts us out, it will be Ketch's doings. The college boys have played in the cloisters since the school was founded." "He would keep you out of the cloisters; so, by way of retaliation, you lock him into them an uncomfortable place of abode for a night, Bywater."
"Be you going to stop there all night?" he called out, when he had gone a few paces, half turning round to speak. At that moment a somewhat startling incident occurred. The keys were whisked out of Mr. Ketch's hand, and fell, or appeared to fall, with a clatter on the flags at his feet. He turned his anger upon Jenkins. "Now then, you senseless calf! What did you do that for?"
A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, a bare hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly was only belonging to her husband. I wish I could apply it to myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me.
The master was not at home. He had gone to a dinner-party. The other masters lived at a distance, and Ketch's old legs were aching. What was he to do? Make his complaint to some one, he was determined upon. The new senior, Huntley, lived too far off for his lumbago; so he turned his steps to the next senior's, Tom Channing, and demanded to see him.
The lawyers are the cleverest men, the ministers are the most learned, and the doctors are the most sensible. The lawyers are a picked lot, "first scholars" and the like, but their business is as unsympathetic as Jack Ketch's. There is nothing humanizing in their relations with their fellow-creatures. They go for the side that retains them.
A man may be capable, as Jack Ketch's wife said of his servant, of a plain piece of work, of a bare hanging; but to make a malefactor die sweetly was only belonging to her husband. I wish I could apply it to myself, if the reader would be kind enough to think it belongs to me. The character of Zimri in my 'Absalom' is, in my opinion, worth the whole poem.
Cynically severe was he over everything he read, as you know it was in the nature of Mr. Ketch to be. As the three-quarters past six chimed out from the cathedral clock, his door was suddenly opened, and a voice called out, "Beer!" Mr. Ketch's ale had arrived. But the arrival did not give that gentleman pleasure, and he started up in what, but for the respect we bear him, we might call a fury.
The master's sympathies, nay, his lively fears, were strongly awakened, and he could not leave the affair in this stage, late though the hour was. They arrived, to find Tom pummelling at Ketch's door. But to pummel was one thing, and to arouse Mr. Ketch was another. Mr. Ketch chose to remain deaf. "I'll try the window," said Tom, "He must hear; his bed is close at hand."
In the midst of it, Tom Channing breathed freely; Ketch's preferring the complaint, did away with the unpleasantness he had feared might arise, through having been forced to disclose it to the master. "I should be sorry to have displeasure visited upon the boys," resumed Hamish.
The breeze had almost died out, and after sailing for some two miles in nearly a straight course, the boat was thrown over, two men got into it, and, fastening a rope to the ketch's bow, proceeded to tow her along, the captain taking the helm. To Cyril's surprise, they turned off almost at right angles to the course they had before been following, and made straight for the opposite shore.
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