Follow My leader Part 6

They pulled up at a door which appeared to belong to a bell of imposing magnitude, which the cabman, alighting, proceeded to pull with an energy that awoke the echoes of that solemn square, and made our two heroes draw their breath short and sharp.

"Hop out, young gentlemen," said the cabman, helping his pa.s.sengers and their luggage out. "It's a busy time, and I'm in a hurry. A s.h.i.+lling each, and sixpence a piece for the traps; that's two and three makes five, and leave the driver to you."

Considering the distance they had come, it seemed rather a long price, and Heathcote ventured very mildly to ask--

"The other man at the station said two s.h.i.+llings."

"Bah!" said the cabman in tones of unfeigned disgust, "you are green ones after all! He'd have charged a bob a piece for the traps, and landed you up to eight bob, and stood no nonsense too about it. Come, settle up, young gentlemen, please. The Templeton boys I'm used to always fork out like gentlemen."

d.i.c.k took out his purse, and produced five-and-sixpence, which he gave the driver, just as the door opened and the school matron presented herself.

"Is that your cab?" said she, pointing to the receding hansom.

"Yes, ma'am."

"How much did he charge you?"

"Five s.h.i.+llings, ma'am."

The lady uttered an exclamation of mingled wrath and contempt. "It's double his right fare. Run quick, and you'll catch him."

Heathcote started to run, shouting meekly, and waving his hand to the man to stop.

But the man good-humouredly declined the invitation, raising his hat gallantly to the lady, and putting his tongue into his cheek, as he touched the horse up into a trot, and rattled out of the square.

Heathcote returned rather sheepishly, and the two friends followed the lady indoors feeling that their entry into Templeton had been anything but triumphant.

"The idea!" said the matron, partly to herself and partly to the boys, "of his landing you and all your luggage on the pavement like that, and then going off, before I came. He knew well enough I should have seen he only got his right fare. The wretch!"

The boys did not know at the time, but they discovered it afterwards, that Mrs Partlett, the matron, had a standing feud with all the cabmen of Templeton, whose delight it was to enjoy themselves at her expense--a pastime they could not more effectively achieve than by fleecing her young charges, so to speak, under her very nose.

"Now," said she, when presently she had recovered her equanimity, "if you'll unlock these things, you can go and take a walk round the Quadrangle and look about you, while I unpack. The bell will ring for new boys' tea in half an hour."

They obeyed, and took a melancholy, but interested stroll round the great court. They read all the Latin mottoes, and were horrified to find one or two which they could not translate.

Fancy a Templeton boy not being able to understand his own mottoes!

They read the names on the different masters' doors; and dwelt with special reverence on the door-plate of Mr Westover, in whose house they were to reside. They deciphered the carvings on the great gate, and shuddered as they saw the name of one "Joe Bolt" cut rude and deep across the forehead of the cherub who stood sentinel at the chapel portal.

All was wonder in that strange walk. The wonder of untasted proprietors.h.i.+p. It was _their_ school, _their_ quadrangle, _their_ chapel, _their_ elm-trees; and yet they scarcely liked to inspect them too closely, or behave themselves towards them too familiarly.

One or two boys were taking solitary strolls, like themselves. They were new boys too--nearly all of them afflicted with the same uneasiness, some more, some less.

It was amusing to see the way these new boys held themselves one to another as they crossed and pa.s.sed one another in that afternoon's promenade. There was no falling into one another's arms in bursts of mutual sympathy. There was no forced gaiety and indifference, as though one would say "I don't think much of the place after all." No. With blunt English pride, each boy bridled up a bit as a stranger drew near, and looked straight in front of him, till the coast was clear.

At length the bell above the matron's door began to toll, and there was a general movement among the stragglers in its direction.

About twenty boys, mostly of our heroes' age, a.s.sembled in the tea room.

Their small band looked almost lost in that great hall, as they cl.u.s.tered, of one accord, for warmth and comfort, at one end of the long table.

The matron entered and said grace, and then proceeded to pour out tea for her hungry family, while the boys themselves, at her injunction, pa.s.sed round the bread-and-b.u.t.ter and eggs.

A meal is one of the most civilising inst.i.tutions going; and d.i.c.k, after two cups of Templeton tea, and several cubic inches of Templeton bread- and-b.u.t.ter, 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.

Apart from a friendly motive, it seemed to d.i.c.k it would be good practice to begin talking to a youth of this unalarming aspect. He therefore enquired, "Are you a new boy?"

The boy started to hear himself addressed; then looking shyly up in the speaker's face, and divining that no mischief lurked there, he replied--

"Yes."

d.i.c.k took another gulp of tea, and continued, "Where do you live--in London?"

"No--I live in Devons.h.i.+re."

d.i.c.k returned to his meal again, and exchanged some sentences with Heathcote before he resumed.

"What school were you at before?"

"I wasn't at any--I had lessons at home."

"A tutor?"

The boy blushed very much, and looked appealingly at d.i.c.k, as though to beg him to receive the disclosure he was about to make kindly.

"No--my mother taught me."

d.i.c.k did receive it kindly. That is, he didn't laugh. He felt sorry for the boy and what was in store for him when the news got abroad. He also felt much less reserved in continuing the conversation.

"Heathcote here and I were at Mountjoy; so we're pretty well used to kicking about," said he, patronisingly. "I suppose you didn't go in for the entrance exam, then?"

"Yes, I did," said the boy.

"Poor chap," thought d.i.c.k, "fancy a fellow who's never left his mammy's ap.r.o.n-strings going in for an exam. How did you get on?" he added, turning to his companion.

"Pretty well, I think," said the boy shyly.

"I was twenty-first out of thirty-six," said d.i.c.k, "and Heathcote here was fifteenth--where were you?"

Again the boy made a mute appeal for toleration, as he replied, "I was first."

d.i.c.k put down his cup, and stared at him.

"Go on!" said he.

"It was down on the list so," said the boy with an apologetic air.

"They sent one with the names printed."

d.i.c.k made a desperate onslaught on the bread-and-b.u.t.ter, regarding his neighbour out of the corners of his eyes from time to time, quite at a loss to make him out.