Follow My leader Part 52

Mansfield never flattered himself that Templeton would right itself by a single turn of his hand, nor did he flatter himself that Templeton would ever love Jupiter as they had loved the old Saturn who had preceded him.

And in neither expectation was he out of his reckoning.

After a week or two the sole result of the new _regime_ seemed to be that the bad lot had plunged further into their evil ways. The "Select Sociables" had increased the number of their members to thirty, and made it an indispensable qualification for every candidate that he should have suffered punishment at the hands of the masters or monitors. It got to be known that it was war to the knife, and fellows flocked to the post of danger and begged to be admitted to the club.

All this Mansfield saw, but it did not disconcert him. He was glad to see a clear line being drawn, which made it impossible for any but the practised hypocrites to hang out false colours and pretend to be what they were not. It was half the battle to the Captain to know exactly who were friends and who were enemies.

He may sometimes have thought, with a pa.s.sing sigh, of the affection which everybody, good and bad, had had for dear old Ponty, and wished he could expect as much. But he dashed the thought aside as folly. His duty was to make war on rebels, not to win them over by blandishments.

So he set his face like steel to the work, and made the name of monitor a caution in Templeton. And, it is fair to say, he was well backed up.

Cresswell, Cartwright, Swinstead, and others of their sort rallied round him, and, at the risk of their own popularity, and sometimes against their better judgment, took up the rule of iron. Even the hermit Freckleton came out of his den now and then on the side of justice.

The cad Bull, who had neither the wit nor the temper to play a double part, threw up his monitorship in disgust and went over to the enemy, carrying with him one or two of the empty heads of the Fifth. Pledge alone looked on the whole revolution as a joke.

But even Pledge found it hard to make a case against the new rulers; for, if their severity was great, their justice was still greater. If they spared no one else, neither did they spare themselves. There was something almost ferociously honest and upright about Mansfield, and his lieutenants soon caught his spirit and made it impossible for anyone, even for Pledge, to point at them and say that either fear or favour moved them.

It was probably on this very account that Pledge deemed it well to treat the new state of things as a comedy, and not with serious attention.

A monitors' meeting was summoned for the morning after Pledge's call on Mr Webster, and he attended it with a pleasant smile on his face, as one who was always glad to come and see how his schoolfellows amused themselves.

The rest of the meeting was grim and serious.

"It's time we did something to put down this Club," said Mansfield.

"They are drawing in all sorts of fellows now, and the longer we put it off the worse it will be."

"What shall we do?" asked Freckleton.

"I think we ought to be able to do it without going to Winter about it,"

said Cresswell.

"Would it do to start an opposition club?" suggested Swinstead.

"Or make it penal for any fellow to belong to it," said Cartwright.

"Or send a deputation," said Pledge, laughing, "and ask them please not to put the Sixth in such an awkward fix!"

"You see," said the captain, ignoring, as he usually did, Pledge's sarcasms, "whatever we do, some are sure to be irreconcilable. I would like to give any who wish a chance of coming out, and then we shall know what to do with the rest. Does anyone know when they meet?"

"I believe there's a meeting this evening," said Cartwright; "at least, my f.a.g Coote told me a couple of days ago that he had a particular engagement this evening, and was sorry he couldn't say what it was, for he'd promised never to speak of the Club to anyone, least of all to a monitor."

There was a general smile at the expense of the artless Coote, and then Mansfield said:--

"Well, one of us had better go there and give them a caution. Will you go, Freckleton?"

"I?" exclaimed the Hermit, aghast.

"Yes, please, old man," said the Captain; "you'd do it better than anyone."

"Wouldn't you like me to go?" asked Pledge.

"There's one other thing I want to speak about," said Mansfield.

"There's been a lot of breaking bounds lately among the juniors. I caught your f.a.g yesterday, Cresswell, and gave him lines. Your f.a.g too, Pledge, I have seen several times lately going out without leave."

"Dear me! how shocking!" said Pledge.

"If monitors don't see that their own f.a.gs keep the rules," said Mansfield, "there's not much chance of getting the school generally to keep them. In your case, Pledge, I happen to know you yourself gave Heathcote leave to go out more than once this term. I'm going to put a stop to that."

"Are you really?" said Pledge.

"Yes," said Mansfield, flashing with his eyes, but otherwise cool.

Whereupon the meeting broke up.

Freckleton had by no means a congenial task before him.

All this term he had been unable to settle down in his hermit's cell.

Mansfield had always been bringing him out for this and that special duty, till he was becoming quite a public character; and, unfortunately for him, he had done the few services for which he had been told off so well, that Mansfield had no notion whatever of letting him crawl back to obscurity.

The Captain knew what he was about in selecting the Hermit to open the campaign against the "Select Sociables." A secret lawless society in a school is like a secret lawless society in a country--a pest to be dealt with carefully. Mansfield knew well enough that he himself was not the man to do it; nor was the downright Cresswell, nor the hot-headed Cartwright. It needed the wisdom of the serpent as well as the paw of the lion to do it, and if anyone was likely to succeed, it was Freckleton.

For Freckleton, hermit as he was, seemed to know more about every fellow in Templeton than anyone else. Where and when he made their acquaintance, no one knew and no one inquired. But certain it was no one knew the weak points of this boy and the good points of that better than he. And, as we have seen already, he was a "dark" man; hardly anyone knew him. They knew he had won the Bishop's Scholarship and was reputed prodigiously learned. For the rest, except that he was harmless and kindly, fellows hardly seemed to know him at all. The "Select Sociables" were in full congress. They had inst.i.tuted a fine of a penny for non-attendance, which had worked wonders. And to-night every member was in his place, except only Heathcote and Coote, who, as the reader knows, had something else to think of just then.

The behaviour of these two young gentlemen was giving the club some uneasiness. They were not alive to their duties as "Sociables." And they had got into the abominable habit of obeying monitors and a.s.sociating with questionable characters, such as Richardson, Aspinall, and the like.

A motion had just been pa.s.sed calling upon the two delinquents to appear at the next meeting and answer for their conduct, when the door opened and Freckleton entered.

"Good evening, gentlemen," said he. "I'm not sure if I'm a member, but I hope I don't intrude."

The "Sociables" stared at him, half in anger, half in bewilderment, as he helped himself to a chair and sat down with his back to the door.

"The fact is," said he with a weary look, "I've lived such a retired life here, I hardly know where to find fellows I want. I've been hunting high and low for half a dozen fellows with brains in their heads, and someone told me if I came here I should find plenty."

There was a t.i.tter not unmingled with a few frowns, as the Hermit spread himself comfortably on his chair and looked round him.

"It's as hard to find a fellow with brains nowadays as it was for Diogenes to find an honest man, once. You know who Diogenes was, don't you, Gossy?" added he, turning suddenly on that young bravo.

Gosse blushed crimson at finding himself so unexpectedly singled out; and faltered out that he had forgotten.

"Forgotten?" said Freckleton, joining in the general laugh at Gosse's expense; "and you knew so well once! Ask Bull; he knows; he's in the Sixth, and _very_ clever. Why, Bull (I hope he's not present)--"

Another laugh. For Bull sat in his place the size of life, with his bloated face almost as red as Gosse's.

"Bull actually found the Sixth so dull and unintellectual that he left us, in order to cultivate the acquaintance of Culver, and fellows of culture and scholarship like him. It was a great loss to us. We've hardly had an idea in the Sixth since Bull left."

This double hit greatly delighted the majority of the "Sociables;"

scarcely less so than Bull's red cheeks, and the gape with which Culver received the reference to himself.

"You're not wanted here," Bull exclaimed; "get out!"