Follow My leader Part 19

"Is there anything else?" he asked as the chapel bell began to toll.

"No, that's all just now. You can come and clear up after breakfast, and if you've got nothing to do after morning school, you can come and take a bat down at the nets, while I bowl."

At the very least Heathcote had expected to be horrified, when this terrible ogre did speak, by a broadside of bad language; and he felt quite bewildered as he recalled the brief conversation and detected in it not a single word which could offend anybody. On the contrary, everything had been most proper and considerate, and the last invitation coming from a first eleven man to his new f.a.g was quite gratuitously friendly.

"I don't think he's so bad," he remarked to d.i.c.k, as they went from chapel to breakfast.

"All I know is," said d.i.c.k, "Cresswell was asking me if it was my chum who had been drawn by Pledge, and when I told him, he told me I might say to you, from him, that you had better be careful not to get too chummy with the 'spider;' and the less you hang about his study the better. I don't think Cresswell would say a thing like that unless he meant it."

"I dare say not," said Heathcote. "But I wish to goodness some one would say what it all means. I can't make it out."

After breakfast he repaired to his lord's study, and cleared the table.

"Well," said Pledge. "What about cricket?"

"Thanks, awfully," said the f.a.g, "I'd like it."

"All serene. Come here as soon as school is up." Which Heathcote did, and was girt hand and foot with pads, and led by his senior down into the fields, where for an hour he stood gallantly at the wickets, swiping heroically at every ball, and re-erecting his stumps about once an over, as often as they were overturned by the desolating fire of the crack bowler of Templeton.

A few stragglers came up and watched the practice; but Heathcote had the natural modesty to know that their curiosity did not extend to his batting, gallant as it was. Indeed, they almost ignored the existence of a bat anywhere, and even failed to be amused by the gradual demoralisation of the f.a.g who wielded it, under the sense of the eyes that were upon him.

"Pledge is on his form this term," said Cresswell, one of the onlookers, to his friend Cartwright.

"Tremendously," said Cartwright. "Grandcourt won't stand up to it, if it's like that on match day. Who's the kid at the wicket?"

"His new f.a.g--poor little beggar!"

"It's a pity. Poor Forbes was just like him a couple of years ago."

"Never mind," said Cresswell, "Mansfield has got his eyes open, and I fancy he'll be down in that quarter when he's captain. Old Ponty won't do it. He's worse than ever. Won't even come to practice, till he's finished 'Pickwick,' he says."

And the two friends strolled off rather despondently.

In due time Heathcote was allowed to divest himself of his armour, and accompany his senior indoors.

"You didn't make a bad stand, youngster," said Pledge, as they walked across the field, "especially at the end. Have you done much cricket?"

"Not much," said Heathcote, blushing at the compliment.

"You should stick to it. You'll get plenty of chance this term."

"And yet," said Heathcote to himself, "this is the fellow everybody tells me is a beast to be fought shy of, and not trusted for a minute."

He was almost tempted to interrogate Pledge point-blank on what it all meant; but his shyness prevented him.

Nothing occurred during the day to solve the mystery. There was comparatively little to be done in the way of f.a.gging; and what little there was, was amply compensated for by the help Pledge gave him in his Latin composition in the evening.

Later on, while Pledge was away somewhere, Heathcote was putting the books away on to the shelves, and generally tidying up the study, when the door partly opened, and a small round missive was tossed on to the floor of the room.

Heathcote regarded the intruder in a startled way, as if it had been some infernal machine; but presently took courage to advance and take the missive in his hand. It was a small round cardboard box, about the size of a tennis ball, which, much to his surprise, bore his own name, printed in pen and ink, on the outside. He opened it nervously, and found a note inside, also addressed to himself, which ran thus:--

"Heathcote.--This is from a friend. You are in peril. Don't believe anything Pledge tells you. Suspect everything he does. He will try to make a blackguard of you. You had much better break with him, refuse to f.a.g for him and take the consequences, than become his friend. Be warned in time.--Junius."

This extraordinary epistle, all printed in an unrecognisable hand, set Heathcote's heart beating and his colour coming and going in a manner quite new to him. Who was this "Junius," and what was this conspiracy to terrify him? "Suspect everything he does." A pretty piece of advice, certainly, to anybody. For instance, what villainy could be concealed in his bowling for an hour at the wickets, or rescuing young Aspinall from his tormentors? "He will try to make a blackguard of you." Supposing Junius was right, would it not be warning enough to fight shy of him when he began to try? Heathcote had reached this stage in his meditations when he heard Pledge approaching. He hurriedly crushed the letter away into his pocket, and returned to the bookcase.

"Hullo, young fellow," said Pledge, entering. "Putting things straight?

Thanks. What about your Latin verses? Not done, as usual, I suppose.

Let's have a look. I'll do them for you, and you can fetch them in the morning. Good-night."

Heathcote retired, utterly puzzled. He could believe a good deal that he was told, but it took hard persuasion to make him believe that a senior who could do his Latin verses for him could be his worst enemy.

CHAPTER NINE.

A LITERARY GHOST.

For two whole days Heathcote let "Junius's" letter burn holes in his pocket, not knowing what to think of it, or what to do with it. For him to take d.i.c.k into his confidence was, however, a mere matter of time, for Heathcote's nature was not one which could hold a secret for many days together, and his loyalty to his "leader" was such that whenever the secret had to come out, d.i.c.k's was the bosom that had to receive it.

"It's rum," said the latter, after having read the mysterious doc.u.ment twice through. "I don't like it, Georgie."

"The thing is, I can't imagine who wrote it. You didn't, did you?"

d.i.c.k laughed.

"Rather not. I don't see the good of hole-in-the-corner ways of doing things like that."

"Do you think Cresswell wrote it? He's about the only senior that knows me, except Pledge."

"I don't fancy he did; it's not his style," said d.i.c.k, who seemed quite to have taken the whipper-in under his wing.

"He might know. I wonder, d.i.c.k, if you'd mind trying to find out? It maybe a trick, you know, after all."

"Don't look like it," said d.i.c.k, glancing again at the letter. "It's too like what everybody says about _him_."

"That's the worst of it. He's hardly said a word to me since I've been his f.a.g, and certainly nothing bad; and he writes my Latin verses for me, too. I fancy fellows are down on him too much."

"Well," said d.i.c.k, "I'll try and pump Cresswell; but I _wish_ to goodness, Georgie, you weren't that beast's f.a.g."

Every conversation he had on the subject, no matter with whom, ended in some such e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n, till Heathcote got quite used to it, and even ceased to be disturbed by it.

Indeed, he was half disappointed, after all the warning and sympathy he had received, to find no call made upon his virtue, and no opportunity of making a n.o.ble stand against the wiles of the "spider." He would rather have enjoyed a mild pa.s.sage of arms in defence of his uprightness; and it was a little like a "sell" to find Pledge turn out, after all, so uninterestingly like everybody else.

d.i.c.k duly took an opportunity of consulting Cresswell on his friend's behalf.

"I say, Cresswell," said he, one morning, as the senior and his f.a.g walked back from the "Tub."

"Who was Forbes?"