George Heathcote celebrated the early hours of his holiday by "sleeping
in," until the boom of the Chapel bell shot him headlong out of bed into
his garments.
Coote, who had not yet mastered the art of venturing into Chapel alone,
grew more and more pale as the hand of the clock crawled on, and the
desperate alternative loomed before him, either of sharing his
unpunctual friend's fate, or else of facing the exploit of walking
unaided into his stall in the presence of gazing Templeton.
He had almost made up his heroic mind to the latter course, when a
sound, as of coals being shot into a cellar, broke the stillness of the
morning air; and next moment, Heathcote descended the stairs at the rate
of five steps a second.
"Come on, you idiot; put it on!" he cried, as he reached Coote, and
swept him forward towards the Chapel.
It was a close shave. Swinstead was shutting the door as Heathcote got
his first foot in, and, but that the usher was unprepared for the
desperate assault of the two juniors, and lost a second in looking to
see what was the matter, Coote would have scored his first bad mark, and
Heathcote's name would have figured, for the fifth or sixth time that
term, on the monitor's black list.
As the latter young gentleman had nothing but his trousers, slippers,
and coat on over his nightshirt, he deemed it prudent to bolt as soon as
chapel was over, so as to elude the vigilant eyes of the authorities.
He, therefore, saw nothing of Dick as he came out; and Dick, as we have
seen, had too much on hand, just then, to see him.
At length, however, when the toilet was complete, and the glorious
liberty from lessons began to swell our heroes' breasts, Heathcote's
thoughts turned to Dick.
"Where's old Dick?" said he to Coote; "did you see him at breakfast?"
"Yes; he was at the other table. But I didn't see where he went
afterwards."
Heathcote didn't like it. Dick had done him a bad turn yesterday over
that levee business, and the least he could have done to-day would have
been to find him out and make things jolly again.
But, instead of that, he had vanished, and left it to Heathcote to find
him out. "Go and see where he is," said he to Coote.
The meek Coote obeyed, and took a cursory trot round the School Fields
in search of his leader. No Dick was there, and no one had seen him.
Heathcote's face grew longer as he heard the report. It was getting
serious. Dick was not only ill-treating him; he was cutting him.
He went off to Cresswell's study, as a last chance. The study was
empty; and even the caps were gone from the pegs. Base desertion!
As he left the study he met Pledge.
"Ah, youngster! Going to grind all to-day?"
"I was looking for Dick."
"Oh! David looking for Jonathan. Poor chap! Johnny has given you the
slip this time."
"Where has he gone?" asked Heathcote, trying to appear indifferent.
"The saintly youth has gone for a day's fishing in the Bay, with the
dearly-beloved Cresswell and the reverend Freckleton. They have got him
an exeat from the Doctor, they have bought him lines and bait, they have
filled his pockets with good things. So you see piety pays after all,
Georgie. What a pity you are not pious, too! You wouldn't be left so
lonely if you were."
Heathcote was too hard hit to reply; and Pledge was kind enough not to
attempt any further consolation.
It had been coming to this for weeks past. Georgie had refused to
believe it as long as he could. He had stuck to his chum, and borne all
the rebuffs which had rewarded him, patiently. He had even made excuses
for Dick, and tried to think that their friendship was as strong as
ever.
But now he saw that all the time Dick had been falling away and cutting
himself adrift. This was why he left the "Select Sociables" the moment
Heathcote joined them. This was why he went to the levee as soon as he
saw Heathcote was not going. And this was why he had hidden out of the
way this morning, for fear Heathcote should find out where he was going,
and want to come too.
Georgie laughed bitterly to himself, as he made the discovery. As if he
cared for fishing, or boating, or sandwiches! As if he cared about
being cooped up in a tarry boat the livelong day, with a couple of such
fellows as Cresswell and Freckleton! As if he couldn't enjoy himself
alone or with Coote--poor young Coote, who had come to Templeton
believing Dick to be his friend, whereas Dick, in his eagerness to toady
to the "saints," would let him go to the dogs, if it wasn't that he,
Heathcote, was there to befriend him.
So Heathcote went forth defiant, with Coote at his heels, resolved to
let Templeton see he could enjoy himself without Dick.
He laughed extravagantly at nothing; he feigned to delight himself in
the company of every idler he came across; he scorned loudly such stupid
sport as fishing, or tennis, or fives.
He meant to make his mark. And then Dick, when he came back, would
gnash his teeth with _envy_ and wish woe to the hour when he was fool
enough to desert his noblest friend!
"Tell you what'll be a lark, Coote," said Heathcote, as the two strode
on, arm in arm, followed by a small crowd of juniors, who, seeing they
were "on the swagger," hoped to be in the sport as spectators. "Tell
you what; we'll have a walk round the roofs. I know where we can get
up. We can get nearly all round the Quad. Won't it be a spree?"
Coote looked as delighted as he could, and said he hoped they wouldn't
be caught, or there might be a row.
"Bless you, no one's about to-day. Come on. Nobody's done it since
Fitch fell off a year ago, and he only got half round."
Coote was inwardly most reluctant to deprive the late Master Fitch of
his hard-earned laurels, and even hinted as much. But Heathcote was in
no humour for paltering. He was playing a high game, and Coote must
play, too.
So they gave their followers the slip, and dodged their way back to the
Quad, and made for the first staircase next to the Great Gate. Up here
they crept, hurriedly and stealthily. One or two boys met them on the
way, but Georgie swaggered past them, as though bound to pay an ordinary
morning call on some occupant of the top floor. The top floor of all
was dedicated to the use of the maids, who at that hour of the day were
too much occupied elsewhere in making beds and filling jugs, to be at
all inconvenient.
Heathcote, who, considering he had never made the expedition before, was
wonderfully well up in the geography of the place, piloted Coote up a
sort of ladder which ended in a trap-door in the ceiling of the garret.
"I know it's up here," he said. "Raggles told me it was the way Fitch
got up."
"Oh!" said Coote, hanging tight on to the ladder with both arms, and
trusting that, whichever way they ascended, they might select a
different mode of descent from that adopted by the unfortunate Fitch.
Horrors! The trap-door was padlocked!
Joy! The padlock was not locked!
They opened the flap, and scrambled into a cavernous space between the
ceiling and the roof, from which, to Coote's relief, there seemed no
exit, except by the door at which they entered.
Heathcote, however, was not to be put off, and scrambled round the place
on his hands and knees, in search of the hole in the roof, which he
knew, on Raggles' authority, was there.
It was there, at the very end of the gable: a little manhole, just big
enough to let a small body through to clear the gutter, and no more.
"Hurrah, old man!" shouted Heathcote, in a whisper, to his follower, who
still lingered at the trap-door. "I've got it. Shut that door down,
and crawl over here. Mind you keep on the rafters, or you'll drop
through."
"Hurrah!" said Coote, pensively, as he proceeded to obey.
In two minutes they were out upon the roof, and enjoying a wonderful
bird's-eye view of Templeton and the coast beyond.
A moderately broad gutter ran round the roof on the inside of the
Quadrangle, with a low stone parapet at the edge. Along this the two
boys crawled slowly and cautiously, until they had reached about the
middle of their side of the Quadrangle.
It was dizzy work, looking down from their eminence; but glorious. Even
Coote, now the venture had been made, and no relics of the late Master
Fitch had appeared, began to enjoy himself.
"What a pity Dick isn't here!" said he.
"Rather! Won't he look blue when he hears of it?" said Heathcote.
"Hullo! there are some of the fellows in the Quad. There's Pauncefote,
isn't it? I vote we yell."
"Perhaps somebody would hear. Hadn't we better chuck a stone."
Heathcote detached a piece of plaster from the gutter, and pitched it
neatly down within an inch of the head of the unsuspecting Pauncefote.
That hero started, and looked first at the stone, then at the sky.
Finally his eyes met Georgie's triumphant face beaming over the parapet,
side by side with the rosy countenance of Coote.
It was enough. In another two minutes the Den knew what was going on,
and Georgie and Coote were the heroes of the hour.
Moved by a desire to afford their spectators an entertainment worthy of
their applause, they proceeded to make the round of the Quadrangle at a
smart, though not always steady, pace; for their attention was so much
divided between the gutter before them and the upturned faces below
them, that they were once or twice decidedly close on the heels of the
luckless Fitch.
Once, when they came to a comparatively broad landing, they varied the
entertainment by swarming a little way up the tiles and sliding
gracefully down again, regardless of tailors' bills; and when the
spectators got tired of that, they treated them to a little horse-play
by pelting them with bits of plaster, and finally with Coote's hat.
Even the highest class of entertainment cannot thrill for ever, and
after a quarter of an hour of this edifying exhibition, the Den found
they had had enough of it, and began to saunter off, much to the
amazement of the two performers.
"May as well cut down," said Heathcote, when at length the Quad was
deserted, and nothing seemed likely to be gained by remaining.
Coote was quite ready to obey. He had enjoyed his outing pretty well,
but was rather tired of standing with one foot in front of the other,
and keeping his eyes on Georgie.
He was nearest to the trap-door and had already crouched through it when
Heathcote, perceiving that one of the Den had come back for another
look, decided, in the kindness of his heart, to take one last turn round
before retiring.
He had accomplished half his journey, and was glancing down rather
anxiously to see if the boy was enjoying it, when a second-floor window
on the opposite side suddenly opened and Mansfield looked out.
This apparition nearly sent Georgie headlong over the parapet. He saved
himself by dropping on his hands and knees. He wasn't sure whether the
Captain had seen him or not. If he had, he was in for it. If he had
not, why on earth did he stand there at the window?
Georgie's performance ended in a humiliating wriggle back along the
gutter to the trap-door. He dared not show so much as his "whisker"
above the parapet, and as the parapet was only high enough to conceal
him as he lay full length on his face, the return journey was both
painful and tedious.
At last he reached the door where the faithful Coote anxiously awaited
him, wondering what had kept him, and not sure whether the peculiar
manner in which he advanced to the door was to be regarded as a joke or
a feat of agility.
As Heathcote did not gratify his curiosity on this point, he received
the hero with a smile of mingled humour and admiration, and then
followed him in his precipitate descent to the lower world.
At the bottom of the staircase, Duffield was comfortably lounging.
"Hullo, kids!" he said, "you've got down then? What a mess you're in!
Mansfield wants you, Heathcote."
And the messenger departed, whistling a cheery tune, and dribbling
Coote's cap, after the straightest rules of the Association, across the
Quad before him.
Heathcote's face lengthened. This was the triumphal reception which was
to greet him on his return to earth, the mention of which was to set
Dick's teeth gnashing!
He walked sulkily to Mansfield's study, and knew his fate almost before
he entered the room.
The Captain was stern and cutting. He wasted few words in inquiry,
still fewer in expostulation.
"You're one of the boys it's no use talking to," he said, almost
scornfully. "You'll be glad to hear I'm not going to talk to you. I'm
going to thrash you."
And that beautiful holiday morning George Heathcote was thrashed in a
manner which hurt and startled him.
He fled from the Captain's presence, sore both in body and mind. But,
strange to say, his chief wrath was reserved not for the Captain, but
for Dick. His mind, once poisoned, contrived to connect Dick with every
calamity that came upon him. And it enraged him to think that at this
moment, while he was smarting under the penalty of a straightforward
honest breach of rules, inflicted by a senior whose chief quarrel with
him was that he had had the pluck to stay away from levee, Dick was
reaping the benefit of his toadyism and basking in the sunshine of the
powers that were.
Pledge, as might be expected, did nothing to discourage this feeling.
He was not a bit surprised. He had expected it, and he knew equally
well it was but the beginning of a settled programme. Heathcote had
better not keep up the contest. He had better knuckle under at once, as
Dick had done, and enjoy a quiet time. Or, if he must break rules, let
him remember that fellows could lie, and cheat, and sneak in Templeton,
and never once be interfered with by the holy monitors; but when once
they took to walking on the roofs--why, where could they expect to go to
when they descended to such a depth of wickedness as that?
Heathcote spend a miserable afternoon, letting his misfortune and
Pledge's words rankle in his breast till he hated the very name of Dick
and goodness.
In due time the three fishers returned that evening tired with their
hard day's work, and bronzed with the sun and breeze.
Dick looked serious and anxious as he followed his seniors into the
Quadrangle, carrying the ulsters and the empty luncheon basket.
"Ah," thought Heathcote, as he watched him from a retired nook, "he's
ashamed of himself. He well may be."
The two seniors turned in at Westover's door, leaving Dick to continue
his walk alone.
Now was Heathcote's time. Emerging from his corner he put his hands
carelessly in his pockets and advanced to meet his former friend,
whistling a jaunty tune.
He was half afraid Dick might not see him, but Dick had a quick eye for
a friend, and hailed him half across the Quadrangle.
"Hullo, Georgie, old man!" said he, running up. "So awfully sorry you
couldn't come on our spree too. What's the matter?"
What, indeed? Georgie, with an elaborate air of unconsciousness either
of the voice or the presence of his comrade, walked on looking straight
in front of him and whistling more jauntily than ever.
Dick stood for a moment aghast. He would fain have believed his chum
had either not seen him or was joking. But a sinking at his heart told
him otherwise, and a rush of anger told him that whatever the reason
might be it was an unjust one.
So he checked his inclination to pursue his friend and demand an
explanation there and then, and strolled on, whistling himself.
Heathcote pursued his dignified walk until he concluded he might safely
stop whistling and venture to peep round.
When he did so he was dismayed to see Dick walking arm in arm across the
Quadrangle with Coote, laughing at some narration which that pliable
young gentleman was giving.
Poor Georgie! This was the hardest blow of all. If Dick had appeared
crushed, if he had even looked hurt, or said one word of regret,
Georgie's heart would have been comforted and his wrath abated.
But to have his elaborate demonstration of rebuke ignored and quietly
passed by in favour of Coote was too much! Georgie could not bear it.
Pledge and all Pledge's sophistry vanished in a moment with the loss of
his friend.
If Dick would only give him another chance!