"That's your sort, is it?" he asked grimly. "Don't you let me hear you say another word against Sturton or this scheme he's started. And look here, Rawlings. I noticed you skulking last dormitory run. You'll lead our fellows to-morrow, and I'll be with you."
Thereafter Rawlings kept very much to himself. He hated Harper, hated the exercise he was bound to take, and loathed Ranleigh. But, then, that was because he was too arrogant and selfish for his fellows. If he were disgusted, and if Harper's open contempt of him galled, there were plenty of others at Ranleigh who loved the place, who gloried in the improvement which Sturton had wrought, and who awaited the final test with eagerness and no little assurance.
"We'll lick those Parkland fellows hollow," declared Masters, as he lay in bed one evening.
"If we can," ejaculated Susanne, with caution.
"If we can!" cried Masters indignantly, sitting up promptly. "There's a thing to say! Why, even Sturton says we've a chance, and that's something."
It was a great deal, in fact. Sturton had taken pains to ascertain the fighting strength of Parkland. Against that he weighed the prowess of his own team. And, though unusually reserved in such matters, the admission had been dragged from him that Ranleigh had a chance. That chance the following Saturday was to see made absolutely certain or dashed aside. Ranleigh awaited the day with a curious mixture of fear and eagerness.
CHAPTER XV
STURTON'S POLICY IS VINDICATED
The great day at length arrived, the day on which Ranleigh was to rise to the giddy heights of success, or to fall once more beneath the hitherto superior attack of Parkland boys. A cold wintry sun peeped in at the dormer windows of the dormitories as the boys were rising, and set them cheering. They started the noise in West, actually in West Dormitory, where Norman, in place of scowling severely upon the delinquents, even encouraged them. The cheering was taken up in all the four South Dormitories, so loudly too, that the Head, still abed in his own house close adjacent, turned out in a violent hurry.