Talbot Baines Reed

“ Time did not appear to have endowed our heroes yet with confidence or elegance in the art of ascending the Templeton platform. Dick still retained a painful recollection of his legs, and Heathcote was torn asunder by the cruel vagaries of his high collar, which would not keep on the button, but insisted on heeling over, choker and all, at critical moments to one side. Aspinall made a more respectable show, for he was too nervous to bestow a thought on his dress, or to notice the curious eyes turned upon him from remote corners. ”

“ The sandwiches had been delicious, Cresswell and Freckleton had treated him like a lord, the pile of fish on the floor of the boat was worthy of a professional crew, the light breeze was just enough to keep the sun in his place, and the sofa he had made for himself with Freckleton’s ulster in the bows was like a feather bed. Dick loved the world and everything in it, and when Cresswell said, “Walk into those sandwiches, young ’un,” he really thought life the sweetest task in which mortal can engage. ”

“ And woe to that small boy if an hour later the other side caught him by the other arm and begged the favour of his vote for their man! Nothing short of perjury would keep his arm in its socket. Nor was it once or twice only that the youth of Templeton would be made to forswear itself over the election of post fag. Several times a day the same luckless voter might be made to yield up his promise, until, at the end of a week, he would become too confused and weary to recollect for which side his word of honour had last been given. ”

“ When any one told him a thing, he usually believed it straight off. If any one professed to be anything, he usually assumed it was so. The small knot of boys at Templeton who called themselves religious, who said their prayers steadily, who refused to do what their conscience would not allow, who tried to do good in some way or other to their fellows, these Heathcote had readily believed were Christians, and more than once he had wished he belonged to their set.
But, somehow, Pledge’s influence gave him altogether different ideas on these points. ”

“ Wrangham tried hard to look unconcerned, but as the eyes of the Club turned round in his direction, the tell-tale roses came on his cadaverous cheeks and mounted to his forehead.
“The ‘too-too’ Wrangham, who loves lilies because they are pure, and calls teapots ‘consummate’ because—well, I don’t exactly know why—he couldn’t have put his one idea so neatly—”
“Look here, Freckleton,” said Spokes, feeling it due to the dignity of the Club to put an end to this scene; “this is a private meeting. You’ve no right to be here. Nobody wants you.” ”

“ For some days previously our heroes had been carefully looking up their wardrobes in anticipation of the show. Dick, on the very evening of Elections, had put aside his whitest shirt, and Heathcote had even gone to the expense of a lofty masher collar, and had forgotten all about the ghost in his excitement over the washing of a choker which would come out limp, though he personally devoted a cupful of starch to its strengthening. ”

“ Popularity turned his head, and laid him open to dangers twice as bad as those he had cleared. The more fellows cheered him, the more he craved their cheers; the more he craved their cheers, the more willing a slave he became.
“It strikes me, youngster,” said Cresswell one day, when the term had turned the corner, and the Grandcourt match was beginning to loom very near in the future, “it strikes me you’re not doing much good up here. You’re always fooling about with those precious juniors of yours, instead of sticking to cricket and tennis and your books. ”

“ Then fell there a silence on the Den, like to the silence of a kennel of dogs when the whip of the master cracks! The word “hanged” died half-uttered on the lips of Heathcote, and Dick slipped aghast from his eminence. The tongue of Coote clave to the roof of his mouth, and even Gosse’s heart turned to stone in the midst of a “swop.” Never did condemned criminals stand more still, or wax-works more dumb.
Mansfield closed the door behind him, and marched straight to the top of the room, where stood Dick’s vacant chair. ”

“ The pleasant village of Grandcourt was startled that evening, as the shades of night fell, by the sight of two small boys trotting hard down the High Street, side by side, some three hundred yards in advance of the coach which carried the conquering heroes of Templeton; like eastern couriers who run before the chaise of the great man. ”

“ And just when the poor scared things, having escaped one terrible swoop of her hand, take breath, she comes down remorselessly with the other hand, and dashes away hope and breath at a blow.
And so it fared with our unlucky heroes. No sooner had they escaped the fangs of Mr Webster, than they found themselves writhing in the clutches of a new terror, twice as bad and twice as awkward.
In the first flush of escape, Dick had crammed the Templeton Observer, which he had paid sixpence for in celebration of the finding of the pencil, into his pocket, and never given it another thought. ”

“ For him Gosse holds the sponge, and bids him hit low, and walk his foeman over the tapes.
And now a score of officious voices cry out “A ring!” and the surging waves fall back, as when a whirlpool opens in mid-ocean.
Tall amid the crowding juniors stalks Birket, at sight of whom Dick’s heart rejoices, and Gosse’s countenance falls. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The knowing ones look anxiously to where the solid Culver squares, and take cheer; for he is flushed and eager, and his lips are open as he walks into the fray. And Heathcote calls loud upon his hero, and Birket bids him straight “go in and win.” Gosse yet again bids the solid one “hit low!” and the unknowing ones cry “two to one on Culver.”
The heroes meet, and Culver, gathering up his might, makes feint at Basil’s head. Up goes the wary arm of Basil, which marking, Culver smites hard and low, a villain thrust hard on the hero’s belt. Whereat Gosse cries aloud “bravo!” ”

“ Then arose great cheers and counter-cheers, not unmixed with yells, as the cavalcade drove off in style, followed by Templeton in full cry as far as the great gate, where they parted company, amid shouts that brought all the town to its windows.
Once clear of the school, our heroes breathed more freely in more senses than one. As long as Hooker kept guard of the lower step, and Duffield’s legs swayed about on the other, they were unable to do more than quietly push back the coats and put their heads out. ”

“ It got hotter rapidly; for two of the Templeton police appeared on the scene and looked hard at the front public bench. Then the solicitors’ seats filled up, and the magistrates’ clerk bustled in to his table. And before these alarming arrivals had well brought the perspiration to our heroes’ brows, the appearance of two magistrates on the bench sent up the temperature to tropical.
“Order in the court!” cried the usher.
Whereupon Duffield, in his excitement, dropped a chocolate on the floor and turned pale as if expecting immediate sentence of death. ”

“ Like a brave man, the good father expanded his appetite, and, regardless of consequences, took a little of everything. The “Firm” took a great deal of everything, and never was a more jovial meal.
Coote’s cup seemed to be always on the road to or from the pot, and Georgie was for ever mistaking the dish of tea-cake for his own private plate; while Dick, bolder than any of them, insisted on giving his parent ocular demonstration of the wholesomeness of each several dish, until that good gentleman began to think it was a good thing he was not a daily visitor at Templeton. ”

“ How stunning the picnics would be!”
“Young ass!” said Dick, “the grub’s all you think about. Even if you got on the list, it doesn’t follow you’d be elected.”
“It would be something, though, to get on the list,” said Georgie. “It makes a fellow feel so small to be out of it. Think of that howling young Gosse being on!”
“Yes, and Raggles!” said Coote.
“Look here, I say,” exclaimed Dick, suddenly stopping short in his walk, his face lighting up with the brilliancy of the inspiration, “what asses we are! There’s the first Harrier hunt of the season to-morrow. Of course, we’ll go and run through!” ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ As a rule Sixth-form fellows don’t waste much time in plotting against boys in the Third; but Richardson evidently thinks he and his friends are considerably more important than other boys of their age and brains. Suppose I were to tell you that, instead of my having a spite against any one, somebody has, for the last year, had a spite against me, and that somebody is the holy Captain of Templeton? Suppose I told you that he dared not show it openly, but made use of my wretched fag and his friends to tell tales, and trump up stories about me? ”

“ A meal is one of the most civilising institutions going; and Dick, after two cups of Templeton tea, and several cubic inches of Templeton bread-and-butter, felt amiably inclined towards his left-hand neighbour, a little timorous-looking boy, who blushed when anybody looked at him, and nearly fainted when he heard his own voice answering Mrs Partlett’s enquiry whether he wanted another cup. ”

“ As long as the stir of term life had lasted, they had imagined themselves as well up, even better than most of their contemporaries; but now they began to find out it was not so.
The suspense, if they felt any, was not long. Two days after the examination, at the time when the Sixth and Fifth were passing through their ordeal, the new boys’ list came out.
Aspinall was first, and got his well-deserved remove, with a compliment from the Doctor into the bargain, which made his pale face glow with pleasure. ”

“ The bills faced them wherever they went, and once, as they passed the boat-house with a crowd of other fellows, they received a shock by seeing Tom White himself sitting and smoking on a bench, and looking contemplatingly out to sea.
“There’s Tom White,” said one of the group. “I say,” shouted he, “have you found your boat, Tom?”
Tom looked up and scanned the group. Our heroes’ hearts were in their boots as his eyes met theirs. But to their relief he did not know them. A half-tipsy man on a dark night is not a good hand at remembering faces. ”

“ Dick,—Don’t be a fool. You were a fine fellow when you came. What are you now? Don’t let fellows lead you astray. You can be a fine fellow without being a bad one. Let the ‘Sociables’ alone. They’ll teach you to be a cad. If you don’t care for yourself, think of Heathcote, who only needs your encouragement to make a worse failure than he has made already. Save him from Pledge. Then you’ll be a fine fellow, with a vengeance. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He wasn’t sorry to get back to Templeton, for he was fond of the old place, and the summer term was always the jolliest of the year. There was cricket coming on, and lawn tennis, and the long evening runs, and the early morning dips. And there was plenty of work ahead in the schools too, and the prospect of an exhibition at Midsummer, if only Freckleton gave him the chance.
Altogether the Sixth-form athlete was in a contented frame of mind, as he emptied his portmanteau and tossed his belongings into their respective quarters. ”

“ How our heroes fall out and yet remain friends.
Mountjoy House had a narrow escape that afternoon of losing three of its most promising pupils.
The boys themselves by no means realised the peril of their situation. Indeed, after the first alarm, and finding that, by clinging tightly to the rail of the box-seat, they could support themselves on their feet on the floor of the swinging vehicle, Heathcote and Coote began almost to enjoy it, and were rather sorry one or two of the Templeton boys were not at hand to see how Mountjoy did things. ”