The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Part 58

The other prefects followed suit, and gave in their allegiance to the new clubs. Curiosity was alive to see what att.i.tude Brinkman and Dangle would adopt. For a while it seemed as if they would take no part; but at length, when Yorke was about to put the motion, Brinkman rose and said, "I made up my mind when I came here I'd have no more to do with the clubs. But Yorke's `Bury the hatchet' gives a fellow a chance. If you mean that," (Yes, yes), "if this is a fresh start, here's my name!"

(Loud cheers.) "You needn't cheer. I didn't mean to give it--but now I have, I--I--won't shirk it," and he sat down hurriedly.

Then Dangle rose, with a sneer on his face.

"This sort of thing is infectious. I can't feel quite so sure as some of you about burying the hatchet; but, not to be peculiar, you may put me down--"

"And I can tell you at once, and before all these fellows," said Yorke, rising hotly, and interrupting, "that we won't have you! And that brings me to the other business--and that's about Rollitt. We can't bury the hatchet so easily, as far as he is concerned. For he is still absent, and no one knows what has become of him. I'm not going to say a word to make little of Fisher's major's mistake. It was bad enough, in all conscience, for Rollitt. But it was only a mistake. But what do you fellows say of the cad who deliberately gets up a story about him; and, even when he finds out there is not a shadow of truth in it, repeats it in a worse form than before? There are some here who believed the first report and joined in the suspicions. That was hardly to be wondered at. But every one of them had the decency, as soon as the money was found, to admit that they had been wrong, and to regret their unfair suspicion of a Fellsgarth fellow. All but one--this cad here!

Only last night, you fellows, he wrote the letter I hold in my hand. I mean to read it to you, and I hope you won't forget it in a hurry."

"You shan't read it; it wasn't to you!" said Dangle, making a rush at the paper; "give it back!"

"You shall have it back," said Yorke in a warmer temper than any one had seen him in before, "when I've read it. Stop, and listen to it.

It'll do you good."

"Read away!" sneered Dangle, giving up the contest. "It's the truth."

Yorke read, and as he proceeded, shame and anger rose to boiling-point in the audience, so that towards the end the reader's voice was almost drowned in the hisses.

"There," said the captain, crumpling up the paper in his hand and flinging it at the writer's feet, "there's your letter; and until you apologise to the whole school you have insulted, you needn't expect we'll bury the hatchet!"

Dangle scowled round and tried to swagger.

"Is that all the business?" he sneered.

"No!" shouted some voices. "He ought to be kicked."

"Wait a bit," cried Wally, excitedly, standing on a form, "there's Rollitt's governor just come. Some of our chaps have gone to fetch him.

He'll--"

Here the door opened, and, escorted by half a dozen of the juniors, Mr Rollitt, looking more bewildered than ever, walked in.

He looked apologetically from one side to the other, saying, "Thank'ee kindly," and "No offence, young gents," until he found himself at the end of the Hall among the prefects.

Then Yorke got up again, still hot with temper, and a dead silence ensued. Dangle smiled at first. But his face gradually blanched as he looked round and found his retreat cut off, and guessed what was coming.

"Mr Rollitt," said Yorke, "we are your son's schoolfellows. A great wrong has been done him. He has been suspected of being a thief, and has run away. We all now know that he's not a thief; and we are ashamed that he has ever been suspected. We hope he will come back, so that we may tell him so. But there is one fellow here who still says your son is a thief, although he knows as well as we do he isn't. What shall we do to him?"

Mr Rollitt looked up and down, casting a glance first at his young protectors at the end of the Hall, then scanning the benches before him, then running his eye along the row of prefects, and finally taking the measure of Yorke as he stood and waited for an answer.

Then suddenly the question seemed to come home.

"My son Alf a thief? There's one of 'em says that, is there? My son Alf a thief? Do to him! Why, I'll tell you. Just keep him till my son Alf comes back, and make him go and say it to his face. That's what _I_ should do to him, young gents."

"That's what we will do," said Yorke. "The meeting is over."

And amid the excitement that ensued, the rush to put down names for the new club, the cheers and hootings and hand-shakings of old enemies, Mr Rollitt was carried off in triumph by his nine hosts to high tea in Wally Wheatfield's room.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

THE WATCH-TOWER.

Wally's study--he always liked to call it a "study," but his friends preferred to call it a den--could comfortably accommodate six. The juniors had frequently to own that nine, the normal size of the party, was a jam. When, in addition to that, a big, brawny man was thrown in, it came to be a serious question as to how the four walls would sustain the strain.

Wally, however, was determined to manage somehow. He indignantly rejected Percy's offer to his more s.p.a.cious apartment over the way. No.

He had captured the lion--he and D'Arcy--and they would entertain him in their own den.

After all, it was not so bad. It only meant letting the fire out and putting one chair in the fender, and shoving the other end of the table (which had been doubled in length by the addition of the table out of a neighbouring room, that was within four inches of the same height) close up against the door, which it was just possible to shut. As, however, the door opened outwards, it was necessary for the gentleman occupying the foot of the table to sit out in the pa.s.sage, much to the inconvenience of the casual pa.s.sers-by.

To a shy man like Mr Rollitt, it was a difficult position to find himself the honoured guest of nine young gentlemen like these.

"Thank'ee kindly, young masters," said he, when Ashby relieved him of his hat and Fisher minor of his bag, and Percy undermined him with a chair, and Cottle handed him the _Boy's Own Paper_, and Cash came in with a ha.s.sock, and D'Arcy put a railway rug over his knees.

Wally, whose ideas of hospitality were of the old school, deemed it expedient, while tea was being served, to engage his guest on the subject of the weather.

"Rather finer the last few days than it was the other week when it rained?" said he. "Rollitt's having fine weather for his trip."

This was an artful way of introducing the topic of the hour.

"Thank you kindly, yes. He's bound to be somewheres, is my Alf,"

replied Mr Rollitt.

"It's all right; we're backing him up. He made a ripping run for the School against Rendlesham. He bashed the ball through the scrimmage, you know, and then nipped it up right under their noses and ran it through. They couldn't collar him, he bowled 'em over right and left, and danced on 'em, and landed the touch clean behind the post."

"He meant no harm, young gents, didn't my Alf. He ain't often wiolent, he ain't. There's no offence, I hope?" said the father, quite overwhelmed by this alarming recital.

"No; it was a jolly good run. You ought to have seen it; I and my lot were up the oak, you know; we could have tucked you in. My young brother Percy and his Modern cads--k-i-d-s (I never can p.r.o.nounce it)-- were on the steps."

"Oh," said the poor guest, feeling he ought to reciprocate the civility of his entertainers. "Steps is nice things to be on when you ain't got nowheres else."

"Tea!" shouted Fisher minor, who with Ashby had been busily charging the table.

It was now the turn of the hosts to be shy. At this late period of the term funds had run low, and extras were at a premium. A busy hour had been spent during the forenoon in both houses collecting outstanding debts, contracting loans at the point of the sword, and laying out the contents of the common purse at the shop in delicacies suitable to the occasion. Abernethys and ham, of course, figured prominently. The cake and jam was rather a "scratch lot," as they mostly consisted of "outsides" and "pot-ends" collected from various sources and amalgamated into one stock. But, to compensate for this, Wally had managed to get round the matron, and by representing to her the delicate nature of the entertainment, wheedled her out of a pot of "extra special" tea, and a small jug of cream. For the rest, there were the relics of the "c.o.c.k- House" commissariat, a cocoa-nut, generously contributed by Fisher major, and the usual allowance of bread and b.u.t.ter.

The princ.i.p.al delicacy of the feast, however, was contributed by a fair lady, and to Percy belonged the honour and glory of its acquisition.

On his way from Hall he had run flop into the arms of Mrs Stratton, who was carrying in her hands a small basket of hothouse grapes.

"I'm awfully sorry, I say, Mrs Stratton," said the culprit, as the basket and its contents fell to the ground. "So am I," said Mrs Stratton. "There's two bunches out of three not bashed," said Percy, on his knees picking up the ruin. "I say, Mrs Stratton, if you'd let me pay for the other I can give you twopence a week, beginning next week.

I'd rather, you know."

Mrs Stratton laughed pleasantly. It was always a satisfaction, she told her husband, to come into collision with a junior. He always got the best of it.

"No, thank you, Wheatfield. But I tell you what you must do."

"All serene, Mrs Stratton," said Percy submissively, preparing himself for a hundred lines at least.