The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Part 53

And in a minute, when the sound of the kicking had ceased, and Clapperton had apparently retired once more to his work, he crept out into the lobby, followed stealthily by the whole band.

As they pa.s.sed the head of the stairs, whose voice should they hear below, inquiring of a middle-boy if Clapperton was in the house, but the doctor's?

"Yes, sir; shall I tell him you want him?" said the boy.

"No, I'll go up to his room," said the head-master.

"Whew!" said Wally, "what a go! and the door's locked on the outside!"

"I'll go and turn it quietly," said Percy, "if you back up in case he flies out."

But the precaution was not needed. Percy, who luckily had just taken off his boots, slipped up silently to the door, and the others from their lurking-place saw him quietly turn the key and then walk back, evidently unheard by the prisoner within.

He pa.s.sed the stair-head just before the doctor came up, and to their great relief ran into the arms of his friends unchallenged.

The doctor, indeed, was too pre-occupied to dream that, as he went to Clapperton's study, nine small heads were craning out of a door at the end of the pa.s.sage, watching his every step.

"I say," whispered Ashby, in tones of horror, "suppose Clap thinks it's one of us, and goes for him!"

"My eye, what a go!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Cash.

They saw the stately figure stand a moment at the door and turn the handle.

Next moment he reeled back with an exclamation of amazement, nearly felled to the ground by a bulky dictionary hurled at his head!

The nine lurkers fairly embraced one another in horror at the sight of this awful outrage; and when, a moment after, they saw the doctor gather himself together and return to the charge, this time closing the door behind him, they did not envy the unlucky Clapperton the awkward five minutes in store for him.

How the two arranged matters no one could say. But as no sounds of violence issued, and the doctor did not summon any one to fetch his cane, they concluded Clapperton had offered a sufficiently humble apology for his mistake.

"Hold on, now," said Wally, after three minutes had pa.s.sed; "I'll try it now--it's my only chance. You Cla.s.sic kids be ready to cut home with me as soon as I come back."

So, starting at a run like one who had come a long distance and expected to find the senior alone, he dashed unceremoniously into Clapperton's study, of course not appearing to notice the distinguished company present, crying--

"I say, Clapperton. Hooray! The money's found. Rollitt's no thief.

Ain't you glad! Oh, the doctor! I beg your pardon, sir."

The next moment he, D'Arcy, Ashby, and Fisher minor were descending the stairs three steps at a time on the way back to Mr Wakefield's as fast as their legs would carry them, and with all the righteous satisfaction of men who had done their duty at all costs.

"I reckon," said Wally, "he pretty well knows about it now--and if he don't, the doctor will rub it in."

The unfortunate Clapperton, indeed, required no one to "rub in" the fact that he had made a mess of things.

The doctor did not attempt to do it. He merely carried the news of the finding of the money, and desired Clapperton, as the head of the house, to make it known as widely as possible.

"I say nothing now of the cruel wrong which has been inflicted by hasty suspicion on Rollitt. That shadow is still on the School. But the worst shadow, that a Fellsgarth boy was a thief, is happily removed, and I wish every boy in this house to hear of it at the earliest possible moment."

And the doctor went, leaving Clapperton to gulp down the bitter pill as best he could.

Why should he have the job to do? He had not been the first to start the suspicions. Dangle had done that--Dangle, with whom he had fought.

Why should not Dangle be called upon to put it right? Unluckily, Dangle was not the captain of Forder's. He was not as responsible in starting the rumour as Clapperton, in his position, had been in adopting it.

It was more than he could bring himself to, to summon the house and announce the news publicly. If Dangle and Brinkman had been with him still, the three of them together might have brazened it out. But his colleagues were sulking in their own quarters, and whatever had to be done must be done singlehanded.

He therefore sat down in no very happy frame of mind and wrote out the following curt notice for the house-boards.--

"Notice.

"The head-master wishes it to be known that the Club money supposed to be missing has been found by the treasurer.

"Geo. Clapperton."

This ungracious doc.u.ment he copied out three times, and taking advantage of every one being in his study for preparation, affixed with his own hand on the notice boards at the house-door and on each landing.

"There!" said he, with a sneer of disgust, as he returned to his own room, "let them make the most of that."

An hour later the dormitory bell sounded, and he could hear the scuffling of feet on the lobby outside, and the clamour of voices as boys hustled one another in front of the boards. Evidently the majority regarded the announcement in a jocular manner; and when a distant shout of laughter came up from the pa.s.sage below, and down from the landing above, it was clear that Forders did not take the matter very much to heart.

"It was ridiculous, when you come to think of it," soliloquised Clapperton, "that a blundering a.s.s like Fisher major should have brought the School into such a precious mess."

The noise gradually died away as fellows one by one dropped of to bed.

Clapperton waited till they were gone before he followed. As he pa.s.sed the notice board he glanced at the doc.u.ment which had lately cost him so much pain. It was still there; but not as he left it. A sentence had been squeezed in between his own words and his signature at the bottom of the sheet, which, as it was a fair imitation of his back-sloped handwriting, had all the appearance of forming part of his manifesto.

Clapperton gasped with fury as he read the amended notice:--

"Notice.

"The head-master wishes it to be known that, the Club money supposed to be missing has been found by the treasurer, and that I am a beast and a sneak to have accused Rollitt of stealing it.

"Geo. Clapperton."

He tore the paper from the board, and stamped on it in his rage. Then he went downstairs to look at the notice on the school-door. It read precisely like the other, the imitation being perhaps better. He stayed only to tear this down, and proceeded to the other landing, where the same insult confronted him.

Who the author might be he was free to guess.

As he lay awake that night, tossing and turning, he racked his brain to devise some retribution.

And yet, his more sensible self told him, hadn't he been leading up to this all the term? What had he done to make the fellows respect, much more like, him? He had bullied, and swaggered, and set himself against the good of the School. The fellows who followed him only did so in the hope of getting something--either fun or advantage--out of the agitation. They didn't care twopence about Clapperton, and were ready enough to drop him as soon as ever it suited their turn. The one or two things he could do well, and for which anybody respected him--as, for instance, football--he had deliberately shut himself off from, leaving his authority to depend only on the very qualities he had least cause to be proud of.

It was easy enough to say that Brinkman and Dangle cut even a poorer figure over this wretched business than he. But who troubled their heads about Brinkman and Dangle? The former had already been snuffed out hopelessly, and dared not show his face. Dangle, as everybody knew, had a personal grudge against Rollitt, and was unhampered by scruples as to how he scored. But he--Clapperton--he had always tried to pose as a decent sort of fellow, with some kind of interest in the good of the School and some sort of notion about common honour and decency. Ugh!

this was what had come of it! As he lay awake that night, the sound of the laughter round the notice boards and the "Ain't you glad?" of the juniors dinned in his ears, sometimes infuriating, sometimes humiliating him; but in either case mockingly reminding him that Clapperton's greatest enemy in Fellsgarth was the captain of the Modern side.

Next morning brought no news of the missing boy, and a vague feeling of anxiety spread through the School. Boys remembered how proud and sensitive Rollitt had been, and how dreadful was the accusation against him. Suppose he had done something desperate? He had cared little enough for danger when all went well. Would he be likely to care more, now that the School was in league against him, pointing to him as a thief, and hounding him out of its society?

All sorts of dreadful possibilities occurred both to masters and boys; and all the while a feeling of fierce resentment was growing against the fellows whose accusations had been the cause of all the mischief.

Dangle, as he crossed the Green to cla.s.s, was hooted all the way.

Brinkman was followed about with derisive cheers, and cries of "Look out! Corder's coming"; and Clapperton, when he appeared, was silently cut. Fellows went out of the way to avoid him; and the chair on either side of him was left vacant in Hall.

"Did you hear," said Ramshaw to his neighbour at the prefects' table at dinner-time, "that they've begun to drag the lake to-day?"