This was made by no one less than Dick, who, having taken in with a quick eye the position of affairs, saw that Templeton demanded his services, cost him what they might. He, therefore, summoned Heathcote to back him up, and taking an overcoat from the pile, cast it adroitly over the head of the town boy just as he had edged Hooker on to the very margin of the step. This, of course, settled the business. Duffield got back his foot, and Hooker got his arm once more over the door. The former raised a cry of “Cad hanging on!” The latter shouted, “Whip behind!” The occupants of coach six yelled, “Chuck him over!” And putting one thing with another, the town boy decided that he would be more comfortable on the pavement than where he was. So he dropped off, leaving his hat behind him, which trophy was immediately seized and passed aloft, amid universal triumph, and displayed proudly on the top of a bat, on coach five, until the cavalcade was clear of the town.
“Who scragged that fellow?” asked Hooker, as soon as the campaign was over, looking up and down.
“I don’t know,” said Duffield. “Is there any one inside?”
Dick, who had been gradually trying to edge back to his retreat, deemed it prudent to make a clean breast of it at once, while the two “step” men owed him their thanks.
“I say, Hooker,” said he, putting up his head behind the pile of wraps in a manner that made the gentleman addressed almost fall off with fright, “don’t say anything—I scragged him. Heathcote and I wanted so awfully to see the match. Keep it dark, I say.”
Hooker put his head into the window, and whistled.
“You’ll get in a frightful row,” said he, consolingly; “never mind, I’ll say nothing. Cover up, and don’t let the chaps see you.”
They took his advice as cheerfully as they could, and even endured pleasantly the occasional pea-shooter practice with which, by way of enlivening their solitude, he was good enough to favour them.
They had an anxious drive on the whole. For besides Hooker’s pea-shooter and the dismal prophecies he kept calling in to them of the terrible fate that awaited them on their return to Templeton, they found the dust and heat very trying. All that, however, was as nothing to the panic produced by a sudden rumour of a shower, and the possible descent of the whole of coach five into the interior. Happily for them Jupiter Pluvius changed his mind at the last moment, and sheered off. But the two minutes they spent in expecting him were calculated considerably to curtail the natural life of both.
It was hard lines, too, to hear all the festivities going on above and be able to take no part in them. They dared not even sit up for fear of becoming visible to the occupants of the box-seat of coach six, who had a full view of their interior. So they lay low for two mortal hours, and by the time Grandcourt was reached discovered that their dusty heads and limbs ached not a little.