Follow My leader Part 46

The two seniors turned in at Westover's door, leaving d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k might not see him, but d.i.c.k 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.

d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 d.i.c.k 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 pa.s.sed 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 d.i.c.k would only give him another chance!

CHAPTER TWENTY.

HOW COOTE COMES OUT AS A SUSPICIOUS CHARACTER.

It would have been well for Heathcote if he had acted on the impulse of the moment, and made it up with d.i.c.k that same evening.

d.i.c.k had come back from his boating expedition better disposed towards his lieutenant than he had been for a long time. He had come determined to befriend him, and rescue him from his enemies, and set him up upon his feet. He had come, reproaching himself with his former neglect, and convinced that Georgie's fate was in his hands for good or evil; and that being so, he had determined to make a good job of his friend and turn him out a credit to Templeton.

But in all this modest programme it had never occurred to him that Georgie would be anything but delighted to be taken in hand and made a good job of.

Therefore, when in the fulness of his benevolence he had found his friend out immediately on his return, and been repulsed for his pains, d.i.c.k felt "gravelled."

All his nice little plan of campaign fell through. It was no use routing the Den, and putting Pledge and the "Sociables" to shame, when Georgie wouldn't be made a good job of. And so d.i.c.k, with some dismay and considerable loss to his self-conceit, had to order a retreat and consider whether the war was worth going on with under the circ.u.mstances.

He therefore did not meet Heathcote half-way, and curled himself up into bed, sorely perplexed, sorely crest-fallen, and sorely out of love with the world at large.

No news spreads so fast as the news of a quarrel, and before school was well launched next morning the noise of a "row" between d.i.c.k and Heathcote ran through Templeton from end to end.

The Den heard it, and hoped there would be a fight. The "Select Sociables" heard it, and voted it a good job. The Fourth and Fifth heard it, and said, "Young idiots!" The Sixth heard it, and shook their heads.

Pledge, however, regarded the matter with complacency.

"So it's a row, is it?" said he, as his _protege_ wandered disconsolately into his study after morning school. "Pistols for two, coffee for four, and all that sort of thing, eh?"

"He cuts me dead," said Heathcote.

"And you break your heart? Of course you do. I knew you couldn't get on without him."

"I don't break my heart at all!" said Heathcote, savagely.

"No; you look as if you were going to hang yourself! How glad he'll be to see dear Georgie sorrowing for his sins! If you'll take my advice, you'll go out next time you see him and lie down at his feet and ask him kindly to tread upon you."

"I'm not going to bother about him!" said Heathcote, miserably. "If he wants to make up, he'll have to come and ask me himself."

"And, of course, you'll fall on his neck, and weep, and say, 'Oh! yes, I loved you always.' Very pretty! Seriously, youngster--don't make a donkey of yourself! As long as it pays him to cut you, he will cut you, and when it pays him better to be friends, he'll want to be friends.

Don't make yourself too cheap. You're better than a dirty halfpenny, to be played pitch and toss with."

These words sank deep in the boy's disturbed mind, and drove away any lingering desire for an immediate reconciliation.

Day after day the two old chums met and cut one another dead, and the spectacle of the "split" became a part of every-day life at Templeton.

At the end of a week fellows almost forgot that David and Jonathan had ever been on speaking terms.

Then an unlooked-for incident caused a diversion and upset the calculations of everybody.

Coote had, of all interested parties, least relished the falling-out of his two old comrades. It had not only pained him as a friend, but, personally, it had caused him the greatest discomfort.

For he found himself in the position of an animated buffer between the two. When Heathcote wanted to show off to d.i.c.k that he was not breaking his heart on his account, he got possession of Coote, and lavished untoward affection on that tender youth. And when d.i.c.k wanted to exhibit to Heathcote that he was not pining in solitude for want of an adherent, he attached Coote to his person and treated him like his own brother.

And Coote, when Heathcote had him, was all for Heathcote, and eloquent on the abominable sins of piety and inconstancy. And when he was with d.i.c.k he was all for d.i.c.k, and discoursed no less eloquently on the wickedness of deceit and poorness of spirit. Sometimes his bad memory, and the quick transitions of allegiance through which he was called upon to pa.s.s, made him forget his _role_, and condole with d.i.c.k on Heathcote's piety, or with Heathcote on d.i.c.k's poverty of spirit; and sometimes, when, in the company of the one, he happened to meet the other, he quite lost his head and made an a.s.s of himself to both.

This course of double dissimulation at the end of a week began to lose its charms, and Coote, with all his good nature and desire to make things pleasant for everybody, began to get tired of his two friends and long for a breath of freedom.

So he took an early morning stroll along the cliffs one morning, finis.h.i.+ng up with Mr Webster's shop in the High Street.

The gossiping Templeton stationer had suffered somewhat in temper since the reader saw him last, three months ago. The young gentry for whom he catered were not the "apples of his eyes" they had been. Not that he was at open war with them, but he had a grievance.

He didn't complain of the liberties they sometimes took with his shop-- making it a general house of call and discussion forum. That was good for trade, and Mr Webster didn't object to anything that was good for trade. Nor did the occasional horse-play, and even fighting, that took place on his premises now and then sour his milk of human kindness more than was natural. But when it came to abusing, not himself, but his goods, with the result that a good many of the latter, in the course of a term, came to be damaged, and some, he had reason to suppose, pilfered, then Mr Webster thought it time to make a stand and a.s.sert himself. He was, therefore, more brusque and less obsequious to the junior portion of Templeton this term than he had been last.

So, when Coote, in the artlessness of his nature, feigned an earnest desire to know the price of an elegant ormolu inkpot, and modestly inquired it, the tradesman eyed him sharply and replied--

"Ten s.h.i.+llings. Do you want to buy it?"

Coote was one of those individuals who cannot say "no" to a shopman.

Though nothing was further from his mind than putting his sadly reduced pocket-money into an ormolu inkpot, his tender heart could not bear to dash the stationer's hopes too rudely. He said he couldn't quite make up his mind, and would just look round, if he might.

Mr Webster had got tired of the young Templeton gentlemen "looking round." He knew what it meant, generally. The springs of all his inkpots got critically tested, pencils got twisted in and out till they refused to twist again, desks got ransacked, and their contents mixed in glorious and hopeless confusion, photographs got thumbed, books got dog- eared; and the sole profit to the honest merchant was the healthy exercise of putting everything tidy after his visitors had left, and the satisfaction of expressing his feelings in language strictly selected from the dictionary.

He was, therefore, by no means elated at Coote's proposal, and might have vetoed it, had not an important customer, in the shape of the Rev.

Mr Westworth, the curate, entered at that moment, and diverted his attention. But even the reverend gentleman's conversation was unable entirely to engross the honest bookseller, who kept a restless corner of one eye on the boy's movements, while, with the rest of his features, he smiled deferentially at his customer.

Coote, meanwhile, unaware of the suspicion with which he was being regarded, enjoyed a pleasant five minutes in turning Mr Webster's stock of writing materials inside out. Being of a susceptible nature, he fell in love with a great many things in the course of his investigations, and the ormolu inkpot was several times eclipsed. What took his fancy most was a pretty chased silver penholder and pencil, which shut up into the compa.s.s of a date-stone, and yet, when open, was large and firm enough to write out the whole of Virgil at a sitting.