Follow My leader Part 1

Follow My leader.

by Talbot Baines Reed.

CHAPTER ONE.

THE BOYS OF TEMPLETON.

HOW OUR HEROES ENTER UPON MORE THAN ONE CAREER.

On a raw, damp morning in early spring, a rather forlorn group of three youngsters might have been seen on the doorstep of Mountjoy Preparatory School, casting nervous glances up and down the drive, and looking anything but a picture of the life and spirits they really represented.

That they were bound on an important journey was very evident. They were m.u.f.fled up in ulsters, and wore gloves and top hats--a vanity no Mountjoy boy ever succ.u.mbed to, except under dire necessity. Yet it was clear they were not homeward bound, for no trunks enc.u.mbered the lobby, and no suggestion of _Dulce Domum_ betrayed itself in their dismal features. Nor had they been expelled, for though their looks might favour the supposition, they talked about the hour they should get back that evening, and wondered if Mrs Ashford would have supper ready for them in her own parlour. And it was equally plain that, whatever their destination might be, they were not starting on a truant's expedition, for the said Mrs Ashford presently came out and handed them each a small parcel of sandwiches, and enjoined on them most particularly to keep well b.u.t.toned up, and not let their feet get wet.

"It will be a cold drive for you, boys," said she; "I've told Tom to put up at Markridge, so you will have a mile walk to warm you up before you get to Templeton."

A waggonette appeared at the end of the drive, and began to approach them.

"Ah, there's the trap; I'll tell Mr Ashford--"

Mr Ashford appeared just as the vehicle reached the door.

"Well, boys, ready for the road? Good bye, and good luck. Don't forget whose son Edward the Fifth was, Coote. Keep your heads and you'll get on all right. I trust you not to get into mischief on the way. All right, Tom."

During this short harangue the three boys hoisted themselves, one by one, into the waggonette, and bade a subdued farewell to their preceptor, who stood on the doorstep, waving to them cheerily, until they turned a corner and found themselves actually on the road to Templeton.

Not to keep the reader further in suspense as to the purpose of this important expedition, our three young gentlemen, having severally attained the responsible age of fourteen summers, and having severally absorbed into their systems as much of the scholastic pabulum of Mountjoy House as that preparatory inst.i.tution was in the habit of dispensing to boys destined for a higher sphere, were this morning on their way, in awe and trembling, to the examination hall of Templeton school, there to submit themselves to an ordeal which would decide whether or not they were worthy to emerge from their probationary state and take their rank among the public schoolboys of the land.

Such being the case, it is little wonder they looked fidgety as they caught their last glimpse of Mr Ashford, and realised that before they came in sight of Mountjoy again a crisis in the lives of each of them would have come and gone.

"Whose son was he?" said Coote, appealingly, in about five minutes.

His voice sounded quite startling, after the long, solemn silence which had gone before.

His two companions stared at him, afterwards at one another; then one of them said--

"I forget."

"Whose son was he?" said Coote, turning with an air of desperation to the other.

"Richard the Third's," said the latter.

Coote mused, and inwardly repeated a string of names.

"Doesn't sound right," said he. "Are you sure, d.i.c.k?"

"Who else could it be?" said the young gentleman addressed as d.i.c.k, whose real name was Richardson.

"Hanged if I know," said the unhappy Coote, proceeding to write an R and a 3 on his thumb-nail with a pencil. "It doesn't look right I believe because your own name's Richardson, you think everybody else is Richard's son too."

And the perpetrator of this very mild joke bent his head over his learned thumb-nail, and frowned.

It was a point of honour at Mountjoy always to punish a joke summarily, whether good, bad, or indifferent. For a short time, consequently, the paternity of Edward the Fifth was lost sight of, as was also Coote himself, in the performance of the duty which devolved on Richardson and his companion.

This matter of business being at last satisfactorily settled, and Tom, the driver, who had considerately pulled up by the road-side during the "negotiations," being ordered to "forge ahead," the party returned to its former att.i.tude of gloomy antic.i.p.ation.

"It's a precious rum thing," said Richardson, "neither you nor Heathcote can remember a simple question like that. I'd almost forgot it, myself."

"I know I shan't remember anything when the time comes," said Heathcote.

"I said my Latin Syntax over to Ashford, without a mistake, yesterday, and I've forgotten every word of it now."

"What I funk is the _viva voce_ Latin prose," said Coote. "I say, d.i.c.k, what's the gender of 'Amnis, a river?'"

d.i.c.k looked knowing, and laughed.

"None of your jokes," said he, "you don't catch me that way--'Amnis,' a city, is neuter."

Coote's face lengthened, as he made a further note on his other thumb- nail.

"I could have sworn it was a river," said he. "I say, whatever shall I do? I don't know how I shall get through it."

"Through what--the river?" said Heathcote. "Bless you, you'll get through swimmingly."

There was a moment's pause. Richardson looked at Coote; Coote looked at Richardson, and between them they thought they saw a joke.

Tom pulled up by the road-side once more, while Heathcote arranged with his creditors on the floor of the waggonette. When, at length, the order to proceed was given, that trusty Jehu ventured on a mild expostulation. "Look'ee here, young gem'an," said he, touching his hat.

"You've got to get to Templeton by ten o'clock, and it's past nine now.

I guess you'd better save up them larks for when you're coming home."

"None of your cheek, Tom," said Richardson, "or we'll have you down here, and pay you out, my boy. Put it on, can't you? Why don't you whip the beast up?"

The prospect of coming down to be paid out by his vivacious pa.s.sengers was sufficiently alarming to Tom to induce him to take their admonition seriously to heart; and for the rest of the journey, although several times business transactions were taking place on the floor of the vehicle, the plodding horse held on its course, and Markridge duly hove in sight.

With the approaching end of the journey, the boys once more became serious and uncomfortable.

"I say," said Coote, in a whisper, as if Dr Winter, at Templeton, a mile away, were within hearing, "do tell me whose son he was. I'm certain he wasn't Richard the Third's. Don't be a cad, d.i.c.k; you might tell a fellow. I'd tell you, if I knew."

"I've told you one father," said d.i.c.k, sternly, "and he didn't have more. If you want another, stick down Edward the Sixth."

Coote's face brightened, as he produced his pencil and cleaned his largest unoccupied nail.

"That sounds more--, Oh, but, I say, how can Edward the Sixth be Edward the Fifth's father? Besides, he had no family and-- Oh, what a howling howler I shall come!"

His friends regarded him sympathetically, and a.s.sisted him to dismount.

"We shall have to step out," said Richardson; "it's five-and-twenty to ten, and it's a good mile. Look here, Tom; you've got to come and fetch us at the school, do you hear? We're not going to f.a.g back here after the exam."

"My orders was to wait here till you pick me up, young gentlemen," said Tom, grinning. "Mind what you're up to in them 'saminations."