"Yes," replied Fisher"s voice from the rear.
He seemed so near that they started on again.
But after another five minutes, Ashby, who was last but one, shouted again.
"Where are you, Fisher minor?"
There was no answer.
"Wait a bit, you fellows. Fisher minor"s behind."
But no answer came from that direction either.
"Here"s a go," said Ashby to himself. "That kid Fisher"s gone lame, and he"ll be lost if I don"t wait for him."
So he dismally turned back, shouting and whistling as he went.
The clouds all round grew duller and heavier in the fading light, and the wind-blown rain struck keenly on the wanderer"s cheek.
"That kid," said Ashby to himself, as he st.u.r.dily tramped through the marsh, "ought not to have come. He"s not up to it."
But despite all his shouting and whistling and cooeying, not a sound came out of the mist but the wind and the driving of the rain.
Still Ashby could not bring himself to leave the "kid" in the lurch.
Even if he did not find him it would be better to--
"Ah! what was that?"
He clapped his hands to his mouth and shouted against the wind with all his might.
His voice was flung back in his face; but with it there came the feeble sound of a "coo-ey" somewhere near.
Ashby sprang to it like a drowning man to a straw. If it was only a lost sheep it would be some company. For ten minutes he beat round, shouting all the time, and once or twice fancying he heard an answer.
Then suddenly he came upon a great boulder, against which leaned Fisher minor, whimpering and shivering.
"Here you are!" said Ashby, joyously. "Thank G.o.d for it! I gave you up for lost. The others are gone on. Come on. Hang on my arm, old hoss."
"I can"t; I"m too f.a.gged to go on. I"m awfully sleepy, Ashby. You go on; I"ll come presently."
Ashby"s reply was prompt and vigorous. He took his fellow-junior by the arm and began to march him down the slope as fast, almost faster than his weary legs would carry him.
And as they started, the last of the light died out of the mist, and left them in blank darkness.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
ROLLITT MAKES A RECORD FOR FELLSGARTH.
The Modern seniors had slept on soundly that morning, secure of their prey. The military operations of the preceding evening, although they resulted in the night of the besieged, had not tended to the glory of the besiegers. Indeed, when the door had at last been broken in and it was discovered that the birds had flown, a t.i.tter had gone round at the expense of Messrs. Clapperton, Dangle, and Brinkman, which had been particularly riling to those gentlemen.
When in the morning the birds were found to have flown once more, the position of the seniors became positively painful. Fullerton, as usual, did not salve the wound.
"I should say--not that it matters much to me--that that scores another to the rebels," said he. "How very naughty of them not to stay and be whopped, to be sure!"
"The young cads!" growled Clapperton, who had the grace to be perfectly aware that he had been made ridiculous. "I don"t envy them when I get hold of them."
"No more do I," said Fullerton, "with their door off its hinges. It will be very draughty."
"Do shut up. Why don"t you go and join the enemy at once, if you"re so fond of them?" said Dangle.
"Well," said Clapperton, "they will keep; but we must have it out with Corder now. It"s no use simply cutting him; he"ll have to be taught that he can"t defy the house for nothing. Go and tell him to come, Brinkman."
But Corder"s back was against the wall, literally and metaphorically.
To Brinkman"s demand (almost the first voice he had heard speaking to him for a week) he returned a curt refusal.
"Well, I"ll make you come," said Brinkman. Whereupon Corder retreated behind his table and invited the interloper to begin.
To dodge round and round a study table after a nimble boy is not a very dignified operation for a prefect, particularly when the object of his chase is a prefect too; and Brinkman presently abandoned the quest and went off, breathing threatenings and slaughter, for reinforcements.
So did Corder. Less sensitive than his junior fellow-martyrs, he marched straight across to Yorke"s study. The captain was away, but in the adjoining room he found Fisher major and Denton, poring over their endless accounts.
"You two," said Corder, "you"re prefects. You"re wanted over on the other side to stop bullying."
"Who"s being bullied?"
"I am. I"ve been cut dead for a week. I"m sick of it. Now they"re going to lick me. I"d take my chance against them one at a time, but I can"t tackle three of them."
"Is it for playing in the match?"
"Yes, that and going to the meeting. Nothing else. I"d go to twenty a day, if I had the chance, to spite them."
"Who are bullying you?"
"Clapperton, Brinkman, and Dangle, of course."
"I tell you what," said Denton, "we couldn"t go over. We"ve no authority. But there"s nothing to prevent you staying here and letting them fetch you. Then we can interfere."
"All serene," said Corder; "I hope they will come. I say, I wish you"d let me wait here and hear you fellows talk. I"ve not had a word spoken to me for a week. I can tell you it"s no joke. I laughed at it at first, and thought it would be nice rather than otherwise. But after two days, you chaps, it gets to be decidedly slow; you begin to wonder if it isn"t worth caving in. But that would be _such_ a howling come down, when all you"ve done is to do what you had a right to do--or rather what you"re bound to do--play up for the School."
"And jolly well you played too," said Usher.
"It was a lucky turn. You know I was so awfully glad to be in the fifteen, and felt I could do anything. Of course the lucky thing was my getting past their forwards, and then--" And then Corder bunched into a delighted account of the never-to-be-forgotten match, during which the cloud pa.s.sed away from his face, the light came back to his eyes, and the spirit into his voice.
"What business have they to stop me," said he, "or bully me for it?"