Coote looked as delighted as he could, and said he hoped they wouldn"t be caught, or there might be a row.
"Bless you, no one"s about to-day. Come on. n.o.body"s done it since Fitch fell off a year ago, and he only got half round."
Coote was inwardly most reluctant to deprive the late Master Fitch of his hard-earned laurels, and even hinted as much. But Heathcote was in no humour for paltering. He was playing a high game, and Coote must play, too.
So they gave their followers the slip, and dodged their way back to the Quad, and made for the first staircase next to the Great Gate. Up here they crept, hurriedly and stealthily. One or two boys met them on the way, but Georgie swaggered past them, as though bound to pay an ordinary morning call on some occupant of the top floor. The top floor of all was dedicated to the use of the maids, who at that hour of the day were too much occupied elsewhere in making beds and filling jugs, to be at all inconvenient.
Heathcote, who, considering he had never made the expedition before, was wonderfully well up in the geography of the place, piloted Coote up a sort of ladder which ended in a trap-door in the ceiling of the garret.
"I know it"s up here," he said. "Raggles told me it was the way Fitch got up."
"Oh!" said Coote, hanging tight on to the ladder with both arms, and trusting that, whichever way they ascended, they might select a different mode of descent from that adopted by the unfortunate Fitch.
Horrors! The trap-door was padlocked!
Joy! The padlock was not locked!
They opened the flap, and scrambled into a cavernous s.p.a.ce between the ceiling and the roof, from which, to Coote"s relief, there seemed no exit, except by the door at which they entered.
Heathcote, however, was not to be put off, and scrambled round the place on his hands and knees, in search of the hole in the roof, which he knew, on Raggles" authority, was there.
It was there, at the very end of the gable: a little manhole, just big enough to let a small body through to clear the gutter, and no more.
"Hurrah, old man!" shouted Heathcote, in a whisper, to his follower, who still lingered at the trap-door. "I"ve got it. Shut that door down, and crawl over here. Mind you keep on the rafters, or you"ll drop through."
"Hurrah!" said Coote, pensively, as he proceeded to obey.
In two minutes they were out upon the roof, and enjoying a wonderful bird"s-eye view of Templeton and the coast beyond.
A moderately broad gutter ran round the roof on the inside of the Quadrangle, with a low stone parapet at the edge. Along this the two boys crawled slowly and cautiously, until they had reached about the middle of their side of the Quadrangle.
It was dizzy work, looking down from their eminence; but glorious. Even Coote, now the venture had been made, and no relics of the late Master Fitch had appeared, began to enjoy himself.
"What a pity d.i.c.k isn"t here!" said he.
"Rather! Won"t he look blue when he hears of it?" said Heathcote.
"Hullo! there are some of the fellows in the Quad. There"s Pauncefote, isn"t it? I vote we yell."
"Perhaps somebody would hear. Hadn"t we better chuck a stone."
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.
It was enough. In another two minutes the Den knew what was going on, and Georgie and Coote were the heroes of the hour.
Moved by a desire to afford their spectators an entertainment worthy of their applause, they proceeded to make the round of the Quadrangle at a smart, though not always steady, pace; for their attention was so much divided between the gutter before them and the upturned faces below them, that they were once or twice decidedly close on the heels of the luckless Fitch.
Once, when they came to a comparatively broad landing, they varied the entertainment by swarming a little way up the tiles and sliding gracefully down again, regardless of tailors" bills; and when the spectators got tired of that, they treated them to a little horse-play by pelting them with bits of plaster, and finally with Coote"s hat.
Even the highest cla.s.s of entertainment cannot thrill for ever, and after a quarter of an hour of this edifying exhibition, the Den found they had had enough of it, and began to saunter off, much to the amazement of the two performers.
"May as well cut down," said Heathcote, when at length the Quad was deserted, and nothing seemed likely to be gained by remaining.
Coote was quite ready to obey. He had enjoyed his outing pretty well, but was rather tired of standing with one foot in front of the other, and keeping his eyes on Georgie.
He was nearest to the trap-door and had already crouched through it when Heathcote, perceiving that one of the Den had come back for another look, decided, in the kindness of his heart, to take one last turn round before retiring.
He had accomplished half his journey, and was glancing down rather anxiously to see if the boy was enjoying it, when a second-floor window on the opposite side suddenly opened and Mansfield looked out.
This apparition nearly sent Georgie headlong over the parapet. He saved himself by dropping on his hands and knees. He wasn"t sure whether the Captain had seen him or not. If he had, he was in for it. If he had not, why on earth did he stand there at the window?
Georgie"s performance ended in a humiliating wriggle back along the gutter to the trap-door. He dared not show so much as his "whisker"
above the parapet, and as the parapet was only high enough to conceal him as he lay full length on his face, the return journey was both painful and tedious.
At last he reached the door where the faithful Coote anxiously awaited him, wondering what had kept him, and not sure whether the peculiar manner in which he advanced to the door was to be regarded as a joke or a feat of agility.
As Heathcote did not gratify his curiosity on this point, he received the hero with a smile of mingled humour and admiration, and then followed him in his precipitate descent to the lower world.
At the bottom of the staircase, Duffield was comfortably lounging.
"Hullo, kids!" he said, "you"ve got down then? What a mess you"re in!
Mansfield wants you, Heathcote."
And the messenger departed, whistling a cheery tune, and dribbling Coote"s cap, after the straightest rules of the a.s.sociation, across the Quad before him.
Heathcote"s face lengthened. This was the triumphal reception which was to greet him on his return to earth, the mention of which was to set d.i.c.k"s teeth gnashing!
He walked sulkily to Mansfield"s study, and knew his fate almost before he entered the room.
The Captain was stern and cutting. He wasted few words in inquiry, still fewer in expostulation.
"You"re one of the boys it"s no use talking to," he said, almost scornfully. "You"ll be glad to hear I"m not going to talk to you. I"m going to thrash you."
And that beautiful holiday morning George Heathcote was thrashed in a manner which hurt and startled him.
He fled from the Captain"s presence, sore both in body and mind. But, strange to say, his chief wrath was reserved not for the Captain, but for d.i.c.k. His mind, once poisoned, contrived to connect d.i.c.k with every calamity that came upon him. And it enraged him to think that at this moment, while he was smarting under the penalty of a straightforward honest breach of rules, inflicted by a senior whose chief quarrel with him was that he had had the pluck to stay away from levee, d.i.c.k was reaping the benefit of his toadyism and basking in the sunshine of the powers that were.
Pledge, as might be expected, did nothing to discourage this feeling.
He was not a bit surprised. He had expected it, and he knew equally well it was but the beginning of a settled programme. Heathcote had better not keep up the contest. He had better knuckle under at once, as d.i.c.k had done, and enjoy a quiet time. Or, if he must break rules, let him remember that fellows could lie, and cheat, and sneak in Templeton, and never once be interfered with by the holy monitors; but when once they took to walking on the roofs--why, where could they expect to go to when they descended to such a depth of wickedness as that?
Heathcote spend a miserable afternoon, letting his misfortune and Pledge"s words rankle in his breast till he hated the very name of d.i.c.k 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.
d.i.c.k 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."