Mercer was terribly exercised in mind about Magglin's gun, and his
having to give that up for the sake of his revenge, but a letter from
home containing five shillings revived his hopes, and it was put aside
as a nest-egg, so that the amount might be raised at last, though what
the amount was we had no idea.
Our injuries soon became better, and were forgotten, as the days went
rapidly by, while I grew so much at home that the arrival of a new pupil
made me feel quite one of the old boys. I had my patch of garden given
me, and took great pride in digging and planting it, and as soon as my
interest was noticed by my namesake, he coolly walked across it twice,
laughing at me contemptuously the while, as if he knew that I dared not
retaliate.
And all this time I worked hard with my lessons, with more or less
success, I suppose, for Mr Hasnip, who was a kind of encyclopaedia, and
seemed to know everything, did not scold me and box my ears with the
book he held every day.
We did not have another fishing trip, for the keeper met us one day and
informed us that we owed him two shillings for damage done to his lines,
and this debt I undertook to repay as soon as I obtained some more money
from home. But we had several afternoons in the woods, and brought back
treasures which were safely deposited in Mercer's box, ready for
examination at some future time.
Some people would not have called them treasures, though they were
looked upon as such by Mercer, who was exceedingly proud of a snake-skin
which he found in a patch of dwarf furze, and of a great snail shell
that was nearly white, and had belonged to one of the molluscs used by
the Romans for their soup.
Among other things was an enormous frog, which was kept alive in some
fresh damp moss stuffed into a fig drum, into which a certain number of
unfortunate flies were thrust every day through a hole, filled directly
after by a peg. Whether those flies were eaten by the frog, or whether
they got out again, I never knew, but Mercer had perfect faith in their
being consumed.
Just about this time, too, my chosen companion got in debt.
It was in this wise. We went down the garden one day, talking very
earnestly about how long it was before the gloves needed for our lessons
came down, wondering, too, that we had never been able to catch sight of
the old sergeant, when Mercer suddenly became aware of the fact that
Magglin, who was hoeing weeds, was also making mysterious signs to us to
go round to his side of the garden; and when we reached him he whispered
to my companion, after looking cautiously round to see that we were not
observed,--
"You don't want to buy a ferret, do you, Master Mercer?"
"Yes," cried the latter eagerly; "I do want a ferret to hunt the rats in
the stable. No, I don't," he said sadly; "I haven't got any money."
"You not got no money!" said the gipsy-looking fellow. "Oh, I like
that, and you a gentleman."
"How much is it?" said Mercer.
"Oh, only five shillin'. It's like giving it away, only a chap I know
wants some money, and he ast me to see if any of the young gents would
like to buy it."
"'Tisn't your old ferret, then?"
"Oh no, sir; I got rid o' that long enough ago, because I thought people
would say I kep' it to catch rabbids. They are so disagreeable. But
this is an out and outer to catch rabbids," he whispered.
"But five shillings is such a lot of money for a ferret, Magg."
"Lot! Well, there! It's giving of it away. Why, if I wanted such a
thing, and had the chance to get such a good one as this, I'd give ten
shillin' for it."
"But is it a good one, Magg?"
"Splendid. You come and look at it. I've got it in the tool-house in a
watering-pot."
"Let's go and see it, Frank," cried Mercer, and we followed the
slouching-looking fellow into the tool-shed, where a watering-pot stood,
with a piece of slate over the half open top and a piece of brick laid
on that.
"There!" cried Magglin, removing the cover and taking out a
sandy-coloured snaky-looking animal, with sharp nose and pink eyes, one
which writhed about almost like an eel.
"Why, it's your old one, Magg, that you had in the hedge that day."
"Nay, not it. It's something like it, but this is an ever so much
better one. Why, don't you recollect? That one used to get in the
holes and wouldn't come out again for hours and hours."
"Oh yes, I recollect, and how cold it was. This is it."
"Why, don't I keep telling of you it ain't. This is a hever so much
better one as I've got to sell for a chap for five shillin': but if you
don't want to buy it, you needn't keep finding fault with it. I dessay
Mr Big Burr will buy it. It's a beauty--ain't yer?"
"But I do want to buy it," said Mercer, watching the man as he stroked
and caressed the thin creature, "but I haven't got any money to spare."
"That don't matter. If you like to buy the ferret, I dessay the chap'll
wait and take a shillin' one time and a shillin' another, till it's all
paid off."
"Oh," cried Mercer, "if he'll sell it like that I'll have it; but you're
sure it's not your old one?"
"Sartain as sartain. That's a ferret as'll do anybody credit."
"But will it hunt rabbits up into holes, and stop sucking their blood?"
"Oh, I don't know nothing about rabbids," said Magglin. "It won't do so
with me; 'tis yours then."
"Will it bite?" I asked.
"Rats, sir. You try him, he's as tame as a kitten. But I must get back
to my work. Where'll you have it?"
"I want it up in my box--the old corn-bin up in the loft, Magg. Will
you take it and put it in if I give you the key?"
"Course I will, sir."
"And bring me back the key?"
"Course I will, sir."
"I don't like to take it myself, because one of the fellows might see
me, and they'd want to know what I'd got."
"All right, sir, I'll take it; and am I to put it in the box?"
"No. I forgot. It would eat the skins and things."
"That he would and no mistake," said Magglin, grinning hugely. "Shall I
leave him in the can? There is a stone in the spout so as he can't
squeeze his way out, for he'll go through any hole a'most."
"Yes; put it right up in the dark corner at the far end."
"Right, sir. And you owe me five shillin'."
"No, it's to your friend."
"All the same, sir. Thank-ye."
"I'm afraid he has cheated me," said Mercer thoughtfully, as we walked
away. "Now I come to recollect, his old ferret had a bit nipped out of
the top of its little ear like that has, and Magg said a rat bit it out
one day."
"If he has cheated you, I wouldn't pay for it," I said.
"I don't know how it is," continued Mercer thoughtfully, "but it seems
to me as if people like to cheat schoolboys. We never did two shillings
worth of damage to those fishing lines--and I've got a horrible thought,
Burr!"
"What is it?" I said.
"Why, it's all that time since we gave old Lom the money, and for the
first week he was always winking and laying his finger up against the
side of his nose every time he saw us, and now we can't ever see him at
all."
"Oh!" I ejaculated. "No. Impossible! He's an old soldier, and he
couldn't cheat us like that."
"Well, if he has, I'll tell the Doctor, and have him punished."
"You couldn't tell," I said dolefully.
"No, I forgot that. Well, let's go and see if he's at home now. Why,
he hasn't done any drilling this week! Why's that?"
I shook my head, feeling horrified at the idea of such a fine-looking,
frank old soldier being guilty of a piece of trickery, and I said so,
but declared that I would not believe it.
"I don't want to, but people do cheat us. Even Polly Hopley charges us
double for lots of the things we have."
By this time we had reached the lodge, but the door was shut, and Mercer
looked at me very gloomily.
"There's all our money gone," he said; "and I'll never trust anybody
again. I wish I hadn't bought that ferret. You see if it don't cheat
us too, and run away. This makes eight times we've come to look for old
Lom, and he must be--What?"
"Look," I said eagerly. "I knew he couldn't do such a thing. There he
is in that cart."
Sure enough, there was the sergeant; and then as the cart drew nearer,
it was pulled up, and the old man leaped down, thanked the farmer for
giving him a lift, and walked toward his cottage, carrying a big long
carpet-bag.
"Ah, Mr Lomax!" I cried, as I hurried towards him, but he laid his
finger to the side of his nose, nodded, frowned, unlocked his door and
went in.
"There, that's how he always goes on now," said Mercer spitefully. "It
was all gammon, and he never meant to teach us, and we shan't be able to
serve those two out. Come on."
We were moving off disconsolately, I with quite a feeling of pain in my
breast, when a voice said, "Hi!" and, looking round, there was the
sergeant beckoning to us.
My heart seemed to leap again, and I hurried back.
"How are you both?" he said, putting his hand in his pocket and taking
out a flat steel tobacco-box which opened with a spring. "I had to go
up to town more than a week ago to an inspection and about my pension,
and while I was up I thought I'd go and see my sisters, and then I
thought I'd go and see about those--you know what."
"And did you?" I cried eagerly.
"Wait a moment," he said, taking out four shillings and handing them to
us--two to each. "I did write about them, and they asked so much that I
wrote to another place, and they were dear too; and then, as I had to go
up, I went to a place I remembered, and saw the man, and told him what I
wanted, and he brought out two pairs of his best, which had been in the
shop three years, and got faded to look at, but he said they were better
than ever, and he let me have 'em for thirteen shillings."
"Oh, Lom!" cried Mercer excitedly. "But when are they coming down?"
"They are down. Didn't you see?"
"No, I didn't see."
"They were in the carpet-bag," I cried. "Oh, do let's look!"
"No, not to-day, my lads. They're all right, and if you like to get up
to-morrow morning and come to me at five o'clock, I'll give you your
first lesson. Now I must go and report myself to the Doctor, or he'll
be drumming me out of the regiment for not doing my work."
He saluted us and marched off, while we went round to the back and made
our way to the stables and up into the loft, for Mercer to have a peep
at the ferret, which tried hard to get out. Then, closing the slate
down close, he spun round, cut a caper, struck an attitude, and began
sparring and dancing round me in the most absurd manner.
"Oh, only wait!" he cried, pausing to take breath. "I do feel so glad!
But, I say, we mustn't have that ferret there. I know. I'll put it in
the bin, watering-pot and all, or it'll either get out, or some of the
boys'll come and look, and let it go."
"But you haven't got the key."
"I forgot. I didn't get it from old Magg, again. Let's go and find
him. No, it's all right. He has put it in the padlock."
The bin was thrown open; but the pot was not placed therein, for Mercer
remembered a box with a lid, which, as he expressed it, lived in there,
and it was emptied and brought forth.
"Just make him a splendid little hutch!" he cried, "Here, come along,
Sandy."
He thrust his hand into the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about
to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of
Mercer's hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I
saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards,
one evidently made by a rat.
"Oh!" ejaculated Mercer dolefully. "There goes five shillings down that
hole. What an unlucky beggar I am!"
"Oh, he'll soon come out again," I said.
"Not he; and that's the worst of you, Burr--you will make the best of
things so. He won't come out--he'll live down there hunting the rats;
and I'm sure now that we shall never get him again, for it is the one
Magg used to have, and he has tricked me. I know it by that bit out of
its ear. It is his ferret."
"Well, you haven't paid him for it," I said, laughing. "And if he has
cheated you, I wouldn't pay."
"But I said I would," replied Mercer, shaking his head; "and one must
keep one's promises, even with cheats. But never mind; old Lom's got
the gloves, and if Magg gives me any of his nonsense, I'll thrash him,
too, eh?"
"Tea!" I cried, for just then the bell began to ring.