Soldiers of the Queen Part 10

It was a broiling day, and the children spent the greater part of the afternoon reading under the shade of some trees in the garden. They were just sitting down to tea when their cousin reappeared, covered with dust, and looking very hot and tired. He refused to say what he had been doing, and in answer to a fire of questions as to where he had been he replied evasively, "Oh, only along the road for a walk."

"Look sharp!" said Valentine, bolting his last mouthful of cake, "we're going to have one more game of croquet. Come on, you girls, and help me to put up the hoops."

Jack, who in the course of his travels had acquired a prodigious thirst, lingered behind to drink a fourth cup of tea.

"You silly boy," said his aunt, "where have you been?"

"To Melchester."

"To Melchester! You don't mean to say you've walked there and back in this blazing sun?"

"Yes, I have. I wanted to get something."

"What?"

The boy rose from his chair, and came round to the head of the table.

"That's it," he said, producing a little screw of tissue paper from his pocket. "It's for you. It's only a cheap, common thing, but I hadn't any more money."

The paper was unrolled, and out came a little silver locket.

"I didn't want the others to see--you mustn't ever let any one know.

There's a bit of my hair inside."

"Now, then, don't stay there guzzling tea all night!" came Valentine's voice through the open window.

"But, my dear boy, whatever made you spend your money in giving me such a pretty present?"

"I want," answered the boy, speaking as though half ashamed of the request he was making--"I want you to wear it when you wear the brooch; stick it somewhere on your chain. I should like, don't you know, to feel I'm one of your family."

"So you are," answered Queen Mab, kissing him. "So you are, and always will be--my own boy Jack!"

CHAPTER VII.

STRIFE IN THE UPPER FOURTH.

"'You are exceedingly ugly,' said the wild ducks."--_The Ugly Duckling_.

School was a great change after Brenlands. The rooms seemed barer, the desks more inky, and the bread and b.u.t.ter a good eighth of an inch thicker than they had been at the close of the previous term; but by the end of the first week our two friends had settled to work, and things were going on much the same as usual.

Considerable alterations had been made in the composition of the Upper Fourth. Most of the occupants of the front row of benches had got their remove, while a number of boys from the lower division, of whom Valentine was one, had come up to join Mr. Rowlands' cla.s.s. The Long Dormitory was also changed, and Jack now found himself in Number Eight, sleeping in a bed next to that of his cousin.

Being thus so much thrown together, both in and out of school, it was only natural that the friends.h.i.+p which they had formed in the holidays should be still more firmly established. Only one thing acted as a drag upon it, and that was the fact of Jack's still finding a strong counter-attraction in the society of Garston, Rosher, and Teal.

The quartette began the term badly by being largely responsible for a disturbance which occurred in the dining-hall, when a clockwork frog was suddenly discovered disporting itself in Pilson's teacup; and it is probable that Jack would have continued to distinguish himself as a black sheep, in company with his three unruly cla.s.smates, had it not been for an unforeseen occurrence which caused him to make a change in his choice of friends.

As not unfrequently happens, the few original members of the Upper Fourth who had not been called upon to "come up higher" still clung to their old position at the bottom of the cla.s.s, while the front benches were filled by their more industrious schoolfellows who had earned promotion. This state of affairs was not altogether pleasing to some of the old hands. In Garston's opinion, the ideal Form was one which would have no top, and where everybody would be bottom; and when the first week's "order" was read out, he remarked, concerning those new-comers who had won the posts of honour, that it was "like their blessed cheek," and that some of them wanted a licking. Teal was entirely at one with his chum in this opinion, and showed his approval of the latter's sentiments by laying violent hands upon the person of Hollis, the head boy, making a playful pretence of wringing his neck, and then kicking his bundle of books down a flight of stairs. Hollis, a weakly, short-sighted youth, threatened to complain to Mr. Rowlands; which course of action, as may be supposed, did not tend to increase his popularity with his new cla.s.smates.

The very next morning the dogs of war broke loose. The boys were construing the portion of Virgil which had been set them overnight.

Garston, who came last, had floundered about for a few moments among the closing lines, giving vent to a few incoherent sputterings, and every one was impatiently awaiting the first tinkle of the bell.

"Yes, Garston," said Mr. Rowlands, "that's certainly up to your usual form--quite a brilliant display; I'll give you naught. Let me see: I set the lesson to the end of the page, and told you to go further if you could; has any one done any more?"

"I have, sir," said Hollis; "shall I go on?"

The master nodded, Hollis proceeded, and Valentine, who stood second, also followed in turn with a continuation of the translation. He had only got through a couple of lines when the bell rang, and the cla.s.s was dismissed. Hardly had the door closed behind them, when Rosher and Teal charged along the pa.s.sage and seized hold of Valentine and Hollis.

The other boys crowded round in a circle.

"Look here, my good chap," said Teal, "in future you'll have to drop that; d'you hear?"

"Drop what?"

"Why, doing more work than what's set."

"But why shouldn't I?" said Hollis. "There's no harm in it; he didn't give us any marks."

"You young fool! don't you see that if you do more than what's set, he'll think we can all do the same, and make the lessons longer."

"Of course he will!" added several voices.

"Just you mind what you're up to," continued Teal, "or you'll get what you won't like."

"Pa.s.s on there! What are you waiting for?" cried Mr. Rowlands, appearing in the doorway of his cla.s.sroom, and the gathering dispersed.

The following morning, as fate would have it, nearly the same thing happened again, only this time during the hour devoted to algebra.

"Has any one had time to do any of the next set of examples?" asked Mr.

Rowlands. "If so, let him hold up his hand."

Only two boys held up their hands--Hollis and Valentine. There were murmurs of discontent at the back of the room, and several fists were shaken ominously.

Jack had not troubled to side with either party--it mattered very little to him whether the lessons were long or short, as he only did as much as he felt inclined--but, if anything, his sympathies lay with his less industrious comrades, who, he considered, had very good ground for feeling aggrieved with Hollis and his cousin.

"Look here, Val," he said, when they met at the close of morning school, "what d'you want to go and work so beastly hard for?"

"I don't."

"No, perhaps you don't, because you're clever; but you're always doing more than you're obliged to, and the other chaps don't like it, because they say it'll make Rowlands set longer pieces."

"Oh, that's all rubbis.h.!.+ It's simply because they're waxy with us for getting above them in cla.s.s. I don't see why I should take my orders from Rosher and Teal, and only do what they like; and I don't intend to either."

"All right, my boy," answered Jack, carelessly. "Do what you like, only look out for squalls."

The latter piece of advice was not at all unnecessary; for soon after this, as the giver was strolling across the gravel playground, he heard his name called, and looking round saw his cousin hurrying after him with a sc.r.a.p of paper in his hand.