"Hold on, Tom Drift, we'll help you if we can."
Instantly the crowd took up the name.
"Tom Drift! Yah! Souse Tom Drift! Roll Tom Drift in the mud! Yah!
Tom Drift!"
And sure enough Tom Drift would have suffered the penalty prepared for
him, despite Charlie's attempt at rescue, had not help come at that
moment from a most unexpected quarter.
It will be remembered that Joe Halliday and his friend Walcot had
planned a long walk on this holiday to Whitstone Woods, some ten miles
beyond Gurley.
This plan they had duly carried out, and were now making the best of
their way back to Randlebury along the crowded highway, when the sudden
cry of a schoolfellow's name startled them.
"Tom Drift! Yah! Beggarly schoolboy!"
"I say, Joe, that's one of our fellows! What's happening?"
Joe accosted a passer-by.
"What's going on?" he inquired.
"They're only going to souse a young chap in the river."
"What for?"
"I don't know; 'cause he don't think the same as old Shuffle, the three-
card chap."
"We must do something, Joe," said Walcot.
"I wish it were any other chap; but come on, we're in for it now," said
Joe.
And with that these two broad-shouldered, tall fellows dashed into the
thick of the fray.
Tom's bearers were now at the bridge, which was a low one, and were
turning down towards the water's edge, when a new cry arrested them.
"Now, Randlebury! Put it on, Randlebury! Who backs up Randlebury?"
It was the old familiar cry of the football field, and at the sound of
the well-known voices, Charlie's heart leapt for joy.
"I do!" he shouted, with all his might. "Here you are, Randlebury!"
And Jim's gruff voice took up the cry too.
A panic set in among the blackguards. To them it seemed that the school
was come in force to rescue their comrade, for on either side the cry
rose, and fighting towards them they could, see at any rate two stalwart
figures, who, they concluded, were but the leaders of following force.
One of the men was hardy enough to turn at bay at the moment Walcot had
cleared his way at last up to the front. Big bully though he was, he
was no match for the well-conditioned, active athlete who faced him, and
Walcot punished him in a manner that made him glad enough to take to his
heels as fast as he could.
This exploit turned the day. Dropping Tom--how and where they did not
stay to consider--they followed their retreating companion with all the
speed they were capable of, and left the enemy without another blow
masters of the situation.
But if, as a victory, this charge of the Randlebury boys had been
successful, as a rescue it had failed; for Tom Drift, being literally
dropped from the shoulders of his executioners, had fallen first on to
the parapet of the bridge, and then with a heavy shock into the stony
stream beneath. When Walcot, Joe, Charlie, and Jim among them, went to
pull him out, he was senseless. At first they thought him merely
stunned by the fall (the stream was only a few inches deep), but
presently when they began to lift him, they found that his right arm, on
which he had fallen, was broken.
Bandaging the limb as well as they could, and bathing his forehead with
water, they succeeded in restoring Tom to consciousness, and then,
between them, carried him as gently as possible to the nearest house,
when they managed, with some difficulty, to get a vehicle to convey them
the rest of their journey. It was a sad, silent journey. To Tom, the
pain caused by every jolt was excruciating. They did their best to ease
him, holding him lying across their knees, while Jim drove along the
level footpath; but by the time the school was reached the sufferer was
again insensible, and so he remained till the surgeon had set his arm.
Thus ended the eventful holiday.
Before Charlie went to bed, the doctor sent for him to his study, and
there required to know the true history of that day's doings. And
Charlie told him all. I need hardly say that, according to his version,
the case against the four culprits was far lighter than had their
impeachment been in other hands. He took to himself whatever blame he
could, and dwelt as little as possible on the plot that had been laid to
get him to Gurley, and on the means which had been used to keep him when
once there. He finished up with a very warm and pathetic appeal for Tom
Drift.
"Don't, please, expel Tom Drift," he said, in all the boldness of
generosity; "he was led on by the others, sir, and he's punished badly
enough as it is. Oh! sir, if you'd seen his mother cry, when she only
spoke of him, you couldn't do it."
"You must leave that to me," said the doctor sternly, "I hope I shall do
nothing that is unjust or unkind. And now go to bed, and thank God for
the care He has taken of you to-day."
And Charlie went.
Tom Drift was not expelled. For weeks he lay ill, and during that time
no nurse was more devoted, and no companion more constant, than Charlie
Newcome. A friendship sprang up between the two, strangely in contrast
with the old footing on which they had stood. No longer was Tom the
vain, hectoring patron, but the docile penitent, over whose spirit
Charlie's character began from that time to exercise an influence which,
if in the time to come it could always have worked as it did now, would
have gone far to save Tom Drift from many a bitter fall and experience.
When Tom, a week before the Christmas holidays, left the sick-room and
took his place once more in his class, Gus, Margetson, and Shadbolt were
no longer inmates of Randlebury School.