Follow My Leader: The Boys of Templeton

by Talbot Baines Reed

“Gentlemen,” he began; but a fresh storm arose, and drowned his voice.

The uproar continued till Mansfield called for order, and said—

“I think in ordinary decency you ought to treat everybody fairly on a day like this. It will do you no harm, and it will be more worthy of Templeton.”

“Gentlemen,” said Pledge, “thank you for being ordinarily decent, although it wouldn’t break my heart if you didn’t hear me. It’s not as easy as you may suppose to stand up single-handed against a school full of howling enemies. It’s easy for you to howl when everybody howls on your side. Suppose you change places with me, and try to speak when everybody’s howling against you. However, I don’t complain. Somebody must be on the losing side, and as all of you take care to be on the winning. I’ll do without you.”

Pledge certainly knew his audience. He had hit them cleverly on a weak point—the point of chivalry; and had he been content to rest where he was, he might even yet have saved a following for himself in Templeton. But he went on—

“Our three young friends have told you a pretty story, which has highly amused you. It amused me too. They told you I had a spite against them. I must say it’s the first I’ve heard of it. As a rule Sixth-form fellows don’t waste much time in plotting against boys in the Third; but Richardson evidently thinks he and his friends are considerably more important than other boys of their age and brains. Suppose I were to tell you that, instead of my having a spite against any one, somebody has, for the last year, had a spite against me, and that somebody is the holy Captain of Templeton? Suppose I told you that he dared not show it openly, but made use of my wretched fag and his friends to tell tales, and trump up stories about me? Suppose I told you he and his fellow-monitors resorted to a mean dodge to get me to resign my monitorship, and then got up this precious Club in order to soft-soap their own toadies for helping them to do it? What has Mansfield done for Templeton, I should like to know? Hasn’t he done more harm than good by his hectoring manner and his favouritism and fussiness? Isn’t he one of the most unpopular fellows in Templeton? Didn’t he all but get ignominiously left out of his own wonderful Club? And what do you think of him when he gets up here and tries to pass as a model of justice, when as likely as not, he has pre-arranged the whole affair, and told every one what part he is to play in the farce?”

He sat down amid a dead silence, conscious he had overdone it. A little less, and he might have convinced some that what he said was true; but when he talked such palpable nonsense as that of the Captain having arranged the whole scene which Pledge himself had got up, the meeting took his whole tirade for what it was worth, and received it in mocking silence.

Freckleton, to the relief of everybody, got up and said—

“I did think we might be spared quite such a ridiculous speech as that to which we have just listened. However, I have nothing to say about its comic side. What I want to say is this. It is perfectly true Mansfield had a spite against Pledge. So had I; so had Cresswell. So had eleven out of twelve of all the other monitors. And I’ll tell you why. When a fellow deliberately sets himself to corrupt juniors entrusted to his care, as he corrupted young Forbes (howls), when he sets himself to upset every vestige of order and good form in Templeton; when he tells lies of everybody, and never tells the same lie correctly twice running (laughter); when he cudgels his brains how he may make mischief between friends (cheers from the ‘Firm’), and get the credit of being the only friend of the very fellows he tries to ruin; then, I say, it’s no wonder if Mansfield, and you, and everybody has a spite against him. I don’t say much for the Templetonian that hasn’t. I don’t mean the spite which would lead any one to kick him. Thank goodness, we can let him know what we think without wearing out our shoe-leather (laughter). He talks in noble strain about being single-handed, and on the losing side. Thank goodness he is single-handed, and on the losing side! Thank goodness, too, he is lonely, and finds no one ready to keep him company in his low ways! He talks about Mansfield,” continued the speaker, waxing unexpectedly warm. “Gentlemen, if you knew Mansfield as well as I do, you would be as angry as I am to hear the lies this miserable cad tells. Mansfield, gentlemen, would, I know, risk his life for the good of Templeton. He may not be popular. He’s told me, often and often, he knows he isn’t. But, I say to him, and I think you will say too, ‘Go on, old man,’ (cheers). ‘You’ve done more good to Templeton in a term than other Captains have done in a year; and if the only thing you had ever done had been to rid us of the cad, Pledge, you would have done the school a service that any one might be proud of,’ (loud cheers). There, I’ve used hard words, I know, and almost lost my temper, but it’s best to speak out sometimes. Pledge has heard what I’ve said, and I shouldn’t say anything different behind his back.”

The Hermit sat down amidst a roar of applause, in which the Sixth joined as heartily as any. The effect of his simple, straightforward speech was immediately apparent when Mansfield rose to dismiss the assembly.