Follow My leader Part 36

"Ah! no doubt. They've had quiet times under easy-going old Saturn, and don't fancy the prospect of Jove, with his thunderbolts, ruling in his stead. Eh?"

"If I could be sure of fellows being as fond of me as they are of you, I should--well, I should get something I don't expect," said Mansfield.

"Don't be too sure, old man," said Ponty. "But, I say, will you take a hint from a failure like me?" added the old captain, digging deep into his pockets, and looking a trifle nervous.

"Rather. I'd only be too thankful," said Mansfield.

"Go easy with them at first. Only have one hand in an iron glove. Keep the other for some of those juniors who may turn out all right, if they get a little encouragement and aren't snuffed out all at once. You'll have plenty of work for the iron hand with one or two hornet's nests we know of. Give the little chaps a chance."

This was dear old Ponty's last will and testament. Templeton looked back upon him after he had gone, as an easy-going, good-natured, let- alone, loveable fellow; but it didn't know all of what it owed him.

The examinations came at length. The new boys having been the last to come, were naturally the first to be examined; and once more the portraits in the long hall looked down upon Basil Richardson and Georgie Heathcote, gnawing at the ends of their pens, and gazing at the ceiling for an inspiration.

It was rather a sad spectacle for those portraits. Possibly they barely recognised in the reckless, jaunty, fair boy, and his baffled, almost wrathful companion, the Heathcote and Richardson who four months ago had sat there, fresh, and simple, and rosy, with the world of Templeton before them.

It had not been a good term for either. Thank heaven, as they sat there, they had honesty enough left to know it, and hope enough left to feel there might still be a chance. They were not to jump by one leap into the perfect schoolboy; still, with honesty and hope left, who shall say they had lost all?

As to their immediate care, the examination--their last lingering expectation of getting their remove slowly vanished before those ruthless questions, all of which they knew they ought to know, but many of which they discovered they knew nothing about.

Other boys, like Aspinall, who, with all his tears and terrors, had struggled through the term more of a hero than either of his doughty protectors, found the time only too short to answer all they had to answer; and our two dejected ones, as they looked round, and saw the fluency of every one else, felt themselves, like sediment, gradually sinking to their level. As long as the stir of term life had lasted, they had imagined themselves as well up, even better than most of their contemporaries; but now they began to find out it was not so.

The suspense, if they felt any, was not long. Two days after the examination, at the time when the Sixth and Fifth were pa.s.sing through their ordeal, the new boys' list came out.

Aspinall was first, and got his well-deserved remove, with a compliment from the Doctor into the bargain, which made his pale face glow with pleasure. d.i.c.k, with a st.u.r.dy effort to look cheerful, waved his congratulations across the Hall, and then settled down to hear the almost interminable string of names before his or Georgie's broke the monotony.

In their own minds, and in the modesty of their own self-abas.e.m.e.nt, they had fixed on the twentieth place, or thereabouts, for Heathcote, and about the twenty-fifth for d.i.c.k. Alas! the singles grew into the teens, and the teens into the twenties, and the twenties into the thirties before the break came. After eighteen every one knew that the removes were exhausted, and that the list which followed was, if not a list of reproach, at any rate one neither of honour nor profit.

"31--Richardson," read the Doctor, making a pause on the announcement which cut the penitent d.i.c.k to the quick; "32--Fox; 33--Sumpter; 34-- Whiles; 35--Heathcote; 36--Hooker, junior. That is all."

Poor Heathcote! He had buoyed himself up to the last. He had reminded himself that he was not a prig or a saint, that he didn't go in for conduct that "paid," that he called a spade a spade, and that he didn't profess to be what he wasn't; and yet all this failed to place him higher than last but one of thirty-six boys, among whom, only four months ago, he stood fifteenth! Even d.i.c.k had beaten him now, although d.i.c.k himself had fallen ten places down the list.

The two friends had a dreary walk round the deserted Fields that afternoon.

"I can't make it out," said Heathcote. "I knew I hadn't done well, but I expected to be higher than that. I wonder if Winter's got a spite against me."

"More likely got one against me. Did you hear the way he read out my name?"

"Yes; he may have been surprised you came out so high."

"It's nothing to joke about," said d.i.c.k. "We've both made a mess of it."

"I really thought I'd done my lessons pretty steadily," said Heathcote, loth to part with the idea that there must be a mistake somewhere.

"You mean Pledge did them for you. I tell you what, old man--I've had enough of this sort of mess. I don't like it."

"No more do I," said Heathcote, very truly.

"I mean to get my remove at Christmas, if I get brain-fever over it."

"Rather; so do I," said Heathcote.

"I shall have a go in at the irregular verbs during the holidays."

"Eh--will you?" asked Georgie, beginning to stagger a little at the new programme. "All serene; so will I."

"We might begin to-night, perhaps."

"Awfully sorry--I've an engagement to-night," said Heathcote.

"Where?"

This was the first occasion on which d.i.c.k had asked this very awkward question. It was the wind-up supper of the "Select Sociables" for the present term, and to Heathcote one of the chief attractions of the prospect had been that d.i.c.k, being a member, would be there too. He was, therefore, startled somewhat at the inquiry.

"Oh, you know. We don't talk about it," said he.

"So it seems," said d.i.c.k; "but it happens I don't know."

"Don't you? Then the fellows must have told me a cram."

"What fellows?"

"Why, do you mean to say you don't know, d.i.c.k?"

"How should I?"

"Haven't they asked you, too? Aren't you a-- I mean, don't you know?"

At this particular moment, Cresswell came across the Quadrangle with a bundle of books in his hands, which he told d.i.c.k to take to his study.

And before d.i.c.k had time to perform his task and return to the Quad, Braider had pounced on Heathcote, and borne him away, in hot haste, to the orgy of the "Select Sociables," where he spent a very unprofitable evening in trying to square his conscience with all he saw and heard, and in trying to ascertain from every member of the Club he could get hold of, why d.i.c.k wasn't there, too. He was not released without a renewal of his promise of secrecy, and spent a very uncomfortable half- hour in the dormitory that evening, trying, as best he could, to parry the questions of his friend, into whose head it had never entered that the "Select Sociables," after ejecting him, should dream of such a thing as electing Heathcote. They might have quarrelled over the mystery, had not the approaching holidays, and an opportune note from Coote, announcing that he had just sc.r.a.ped through the pa.s.s examination for "second chances," and would be at Templeton after the recess, driven all other thoughts, for the time being, out of their heads. And the few remaining days of the term were devoted, not to irregular verbs, but to the devising of glorious schemes of welcome to old Coote, and antic.i.p.ations of the joys of their reformed triple alliance.

The great result day found Templeton, as it always did, in the chaos of packing up. At the summons of the great bell, to come and hear the lists read in the Hall, fellows dropped collars and coats, rackets and rods, boots and bookstand rushed for a front seat.

Every one turned up to the summer list--even the housekeepers and the school porter. The masters were there in caps and gowns, and the Sixth, in solemn array, occupied the benches on the dais. The rest of the Hall was left to the first comers; and, as all Templeton, on this occasion, arrived first in a body, the scene was usually animated.

Dr Winter read the list himself, and every name rang through the Hall, being followed with cheers which made all the more striking the silence with which the next name was listened for.

"The Bishop's Scholarship has been won by Freckleton," said the Doctor.

Amazement, as well as approval, mingled with the applause which followed this most unexpected announcement.

"Which _is_ Freckleton?" asked d.i.c.k of Swinstead, who sat in front.

"That dark fellow, talking to Mansfield."

"Silence! Pledge was second, and within a few marks. Cartwright was third."

"How pleased Winter must have been to find those marks the right way!"

whispered Pledge, with the red spots on his cheeks, to Bull. "It's a funny thing that Freckleton should be a nephew of Winter's and yet just get the scholarship, isn't it? So very unusual, eh?"