"What do you mean by it? Get out of this!"
The speaker was a big boy, whom Heathcote, in the midst of his bewilderment, recognised as having seen at the Fifth-form table in Hall.
"What"s the matter?" faltered the new boy.
"The matter! you impudent young beggar. Come, get out of this. I"ll teach you to play larks with me. Get out of my bed."
Heathcote promptly obeyed.
"I didn"t know--I was told it was where I was to sleep," he said.
"Shut up, and don"t tell lies," said the senior, taking off his slipper and pa.s.sing his hand down the sole of it.
"Really I didn"t do it on purpose," pleaded Heathcote. "I was told to do it."
The case was evidently not one for argument. As Heathcote turned round, the silence of the night hour was broken for some moments by the echoes of that slipper-sole.
It was no use objecting--still less resisting. So Heathcote bore it like a man, and occupied his leisure moments during the ceremony in chalking up a long score against his friend the junior.
"Now, make my bed," said the executioner when the transaction was complete.
The boy obeyed in silence--wonderfully warm despite the lightness of his attire. His comfort would have been complete had that junior only been there to help him. The Fifth-form boy insisted on the bed being made from the very beginning--including the turning of the mattress and the shaking of each several sheet and blanket--so that the process was a lengthy one, and, but for the occasional consolations of the slipper, might have become chilly also.
"Now, clear out," said the owner of the apartment.
"Where am I to go?" asked Heathcote, beginning to feel rather forlorn.
"Out of here!" repeated the senior.
"I don"t--"
The senior took up the slipper again.
"Please may I take my clothes?" said Heathcote.
"Are you going or not?"
"Please give me my trou--"
He was on the other side of the door before the second syllable came, and the click of the latch told him that after all he might save his breath.
Heathcote was in a predicament. The corridor was dark, and draughty, and he was far from home; what was he to do? "Three courses," as the wise man says, "were open to him." Either he might camp out where he was, and by the aid of door-mats and carpet extemporise a bed till the morning; or he might commence a demonstration against the door from which he had just been ejected till somebody came and saw him into his rights--or, failing his rights, into his trousers; or he might commence a house-to-house canva.s.s, up one side of the corridor and down the other, in hopes of finding either an empty chamber or one tenanted by a friend.
There was a good deal to be said for each, though on the whole he personally inclined to the last course. Indeed he went so far as to grope his way to the end of the pa.s.sage with a view to starting fair, when a sound of footsteps and a white flutter ahead sent his heart to his mouth, and made him shiver with something more than the evening breeze.
He stood where he was, rooted to the spot, and listened. An awful silence seemed to fall upon the place. Had he hit on the Templeton ghost?--on the disembodied spirit of some luckless martyr to the ferocity of a last century bully? Or, was it an ambuscade prepared for himself? or, was it some companion in--
Yes! there was a sob, and Heathcote"s soul rejoiced as he recognised it.
"Is that you, young "un?" he said in a deep whisper.
The footsteps suddenly ceased, the white flutter stopped, and next moment there rose a shriek in the still night air which made all Westover"s jump in its sleep, and opened, as if by magic, half the doors in the long corridor. Aspinall had seen a ghost!
Amid all the airily-clad forms that hovered out to learn the cause of the disturbance, Heathcote felt comforted. His one regret was that he was unable to recognise his friend the junior, in whose debt he was in nocturnal garb; but he recognised d.i.c.k to his great delight, and hurriedly explained to him as well as to about fifty other enquirers, the circ.u.mstances--that is, so much of them as seemed worth repet.i.tion.
Between them they contrived to rea.s.sure the terrified Aspinall, who, it turned out, had been the victim of a similar trick to that played on Heathcote.
"Where are you sleeping?" said the latter to d.i.c.k.
"The old place. Where ever did you get to?"
"I"ll tell you. Has any one got my bed there?"
"No. Come on--here, Aspinall, catch hold--look sharp out of the pa.s.sage. Are you coming, too, Heathcote?"
To his astonishment, Heathcote darted suddenly from his side and dived in at an open door. Before his friend could guess what he meant, he returned with a bundle of clothes in his arms, and a triumphant smile on his face.
"Hurrah!" said he. "Got "em at last!"
"Whose are they?" asked d.i.c.k.
"Mine, my boy. By Jove, I _am_ glad to get them again."
"_Cave_ there! Westover!" called some one near him. And, as if by magic, the pa.s.sage was empty in a moment, our heroes being the last to scuttle into their dormitory, with Aspinall between them.
d.i.c.k lay awake for some time that night. He was excited, and considered, on the whole, he had made a fair start at Templeton. He had won the new boys" race, and he was the whipper-in-elect of the Templeton Harriers. Fellows respected him; possibly a good many of them feared him. Certainly, they let him alone.
"For all that," meditated he, "it won"t do to get c.o.c.ked up by it.
Father said I was to be on my guard against fellows who flattered me, so I must keep my eyes open, or some one will be trying to make a fool of me. If Cresswell"s a nice fellow, I"ll have a talk with him to-morrow about young Aspinall, and see if we can"t do anything to give him a leg up, poor young beggar. I wonder if I"m an a.s.s to accept the whipping-in so easily? Any how, I suppose I can resign if it"s too much grind.
Heigho! I"m sleepy."
CHAPTER SIX.
HOW OUR HEROES BEGIN TO FEEL AT HOME.
Heathcote awoke early the next morning with his friend the junior seriously on his mind. One or two fellows were already dressing themselves in flannels as he roused himself, amongst others the young hero who had threatened to fight him the evening before.
"Hallo!" said that young gentleman, in a friendly tone, as if nothing but the most cordial courtesies had pa.s.sed between them, "coming down to bathe?"
"All serene," said Heathcote, not, however, without his suspicions. If any one had told him it was a fine morning, he would, in his present state of mind, have suspected the words as part of a deep-laid scheme to fool him. But, he reflected, he had not much to fear from this mock- heroic junior, and as long as he kept him in sight no great harm could happen.
"Come on, then," said the boy, whose name, by the way, was Gosse; "we shall only just have time to do it before chapel."
"Wait a second, till I tell d.i.c.k. He"d like to come, too," said Heathcote.
"What"s the use of waking him when he"s f.a.gged? Besides, he"s got to wash and dress his baby, and give him his bottle, so he wouldn"t have time. Aren"t you ready?"