The Cock-House at Fellsgarth Part 54

A grim silence greeted the question. Fellows tried to go on with their meal. But somehow Ramshaw had destroyed every one's appet.i.te.

"Nonsense!" said Yorke. "He took food with him. You forget that."

"That looks as if he'd gone off the beaten track somewhere," said Fullerton.

"It does--and Hawk's Pike is as likely a place as any other," said Yorke.

"Whew! there was frost on it the other night," some one said. "I wish the doctor would let us go out and look for him. We've a much better chance of finding him than police and guides."

Here the signal was given to rise, and every one dispersed. Yorke stayed--one of the last. As he went out he caught sight of a solitary figure walking moodily ahead, with hands dug in pockets and head down, the picture of dejection.

Yorke could hardly recognise in this back view his old rival and enemy, Clapperton. Yet he it was. A few weeks ago, and he always marched to and from his house in the boisterous company of friends and admirers.

Now he was left alone.

A flush of something like shame mounted to the captain's cheeks. He had no love for this fellow. He owed him little grat.i.tude. And yet the sight of him thus solitary, cut off from the stream, stirred him.

Did he not try, in his humble way, to follow in the footsteps of One Who said, "Love your enemies, do good to them that hate you"? And was not this an opportunity for putting that faith of his to the test of practice?

He quickened his pace, and overtook Clapperton. The Modern senior wheeled round half-savagely.

"Clapperton," said the captain, "we've been enemies all this term. I've thought harshly of you, and you've thought harshly of me. Why shouldn't we be friends?"

"What!" almost growled Clapperton; "are you making a fool of me?"

"No--but we've tried hating one another long enough. Let's try being friends for a change."

They stood facing one another; the one serene, honest, inviting; the other dejected and doubting. But as their eyes met the fires kindled again in Clapperton's face, and the cloud swept off his brow. He pulled his hand from his pocket and held it out.

"Done with you, Yorke. You're the last fellow in Fellsgarth I expected to call friend just now."

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE VOYAGE OF THE c.o.c.k-HOUSE.

Yorke was roused before daybreak next morning by a voice at his bedside.

"Is that you, Yorke?"

The voice was Mr Stratton's. The captain bounded to his feet at once.

"What is it, sir? Has he been found?"

"No," said the master; "no news. Every place has been searched where he would be likely to be, except the mountain. It seems a very off-chance that he has gone up there; still, it is possible. He has been on it once or twice before. I am going there now. Would you care to come too?"

The captain gratefully acquiesced. For a week he had been chafing at the doctor's orders that no boy should go beyond the bounds. His request to be allowed to undertake this very expedition had been twice refused already.

"The doctor has given you an _exeat_ if you wish to go," said Mr Stratton. "We are to take a guide, and it is quite understood we may be late in getting back. I shall be glad of your company."

Yorke was ready in ten minutes--thankful at last to be allowed to do something, yet secretly doubting if anything would come of this forlorn quest.

Apart from Rollitt, however, good did come of it to Fellsgarth. For during the long walk master and boy got to understand one another better than ever before. With a common ambition for the welfare of the School, and a common trouble at the dissensions which had split it up during the present term, they also discovered a common hope for better times ahead.

They discussed all sorts of plans, and exchanged confidences about all sorts of difficulties. And all the while they felt drawn close to one another, exchanging the ordinary relations of master and boy for those of friend and friend.

Some of my readers may say that Mr Stratton must have been a very foolish master to give himself away to a boy, or that Yorke must have been a very presuming boy to talk so familiarly to a master. Who cares what they were, if they and Fellsgarth were the better for that morning's walk?

"In many ways," said Mr Stratton, "a head boy has as much responsibility for the good of a school as a head-master--always more than an a.s.sistant master. You could wreck the School in a week if you chose; and it is in your hands to pull it together more than any of us masters, however much we should like to do it. And you'll do it, old fellow!"

And so they turned up the lane that led round to the back of the mountain.

The news that Mr Stratton and the captain had gone up Hawk's Pike to look for Rollitt soon spread through Fellsgarth that morning. The souls of our friends the juniors were seriously stirred by it.

Their promise--or shall we say threat?--to organise a search-party up the mountain on their own account had been lost sight of somewhat in the exciting distractions of the last twenty-four hours; but now that they found the ground cut from under their feet they were very indignant.

Secretly, no doubt, they were a little relieved to find that they had been forestalled in the perilous venture of a winter ascent of the formidable pike they had such good cause to remember.

It was a mean trick of Yorke's to "chowse" them out of the credit, they protested. Now he would get all the glory, and they would get none.

"I tell you what," said Percy. "It's my notion Rollitt's not gone up the mountain at all. It's just a dodge of those two to get a jolly good spree for themselves. Pooh! They'll get lost. We shall have to go and look for them, most likely."

"And then," said Lickford, "somebody will have to come and look for us."

"And Rollitt's not here to do it," said Fisher minor.

This cast the company back on to their original subject.

"It's my notion," said Wally, "he's got on the island in the middle of the lake, like Robinson Crusoe."

"Rather a lark," said Ashby, "to get up a search-party and go and look for him there."

The idea took wonderfully. To-day was "Founder's Day," a whole holiday.

They would certainly go and look for Rollitt on the island.

The preparations disclosed an odd conception on the part of the explorers of the serious nature of their quest. Their stated object was to rescue a lost schoolfellow. Why, therefore, did they decide to take nine pennyworth of brandy-b.a.l.l.s, a football, a pair of boxing-gloves, and other articles of luxury not usually held to be necessary to the equipment of a relief expedition?

As regards food, they possessed too keen a recollection of the straits they had been put to up the mountain a few weeks ago to neglect that important consideration now.

Naturally, ham and Abernethys were the victuals selected. Had not Rollitt made these cla.s.sical as the staff of life during voluntary exile from school?

They were compelled to put up with a very small sample of the former.

Lickford had been bequeathed a bone by his senior yesterday, to which adhered a few fragments of a once small ham. Possibly it might, with careful carving, furnish nine small slices.

It was better than nothing. They would make up for its deficiency by a double lot of Abernethys.

So they trooped off to the shop.

According to their own rules, this establishment was only open between 11 and 12 in the morning, and not at all on holidays.