Chapter 9

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_ CHAPTER NINE.

Mercer was terribly exercised in mind about Magglin's gun, and his having to give that up for the sake of his revenge, but a letter from home containing five shillings revived his hopes, and it was put aside as a nest-egg, so that the amount might be raised at last, though what the amount was we had no idea.

Our injuries soon became better, and were forgotten, as the days went rapidly by, while I grew so much at home that the arrival of a new pupil made me feel quite one of the old boys. I had my patch of garden given me, and took great pride in digging and planting it, and as soon as my interest was noticed by my namesake, he coolly walked across it twice, laughing at me contemptuously the while, as if he knew that I dared not retaliate.

And all this time I worked hard with my lessons, with more or less success, I suppose, for Mr Hasnip, who was a kind of encyclopaedia, and seemed to know everything, did not scold me and box my ears with the book he held every day.

We did not have another fishing trip, for the keeper met us one day and informed us that we owed him two shillings for damage done to his lines, and this debt I undertook to repay as soon as I obtained some more money from home. But we had several afternoons in the woods, and brought back treasures which were safely deposited in Mercer's box, ready for examination at some future time.

Some people would not have called them treasures, though they were looked upon as such by Mercer, who was exceedingly proud of a snake-skin which he found in a patch of dwarf furze, and of a great snail shell that was nearly white, and had belonged to one of the molluscs used by the Romans for their soup.

Among other things was an enormous frog, which was kept alive in some fresh damp moss stuffed into a fig drum, into which a certain number of unfortunate flies were thrust every day through a hole, filled directly after by a peg. Whether those flies were eaten by the frog, or whether they got out again, I never knew, but Mercer had perfect faith in their being consumed.

Just about this time, too, my chosen companion got in debt.

It was in this wise. We went down the garden one day, talking very earnestly about how long it was before the gloves needed for our lessons came down, wondering, too, that we had never been able to catch sight of the old sergeant, when Mercer suddenly became aware of the fact that Magglin, who was hoeing weeds, was also making mysterious signs to us to go round to his side of the garden; and when we reached him he whispered to my companion, after looking cautiously round to see that we were not observed,--

"You don't want to buy a ferret, do you, Master Mercer?"

"Yes," cried the latter eagerly; "I do want a ferret to hunt the rats in the stable. No, I don't," he said sadly; "I haven't got any money."

"You not got no money!" said the gipsy-looking fellow. "Oh, I like that, and you a gentleman."

"How much is it?" said Mercer.

"Oh, only five shillin'. It's like giving it away, only a chap I know wants some money, and he ast me to see if any of the young gents would like to buy it."

"'Tisn't your old ferret, then?"

"Oh no, sir; I got rid o' that long enough ago, because I thought people would say I kep' it to catch rabbids. They are so disagreeable. But this is an out and outer to catch rabbids," he whispered.

"But five shillings is such a lot of money for a ferret, Magg."

"Lot! Well, there! It's giving of it away. Why, if I wanted such a thing, and had the chance to get such a good one as this, I'd give ten shillin' for it."

"But is it a good one, Magg?"

"Splendid. You come and look at it. I've got it in the tool-house in a watering-pot."

"Let's go and see it, Frank," cried Mercer, and we followed the slouching-looking fellow into the tool-shed, where a watering-pot stood, with a piece of slate over the half open top and a piece of brick laid on that.

"There!" cried Magglin, removing the cover and taking out a sandy-coloured snaky-looking animal, with sharp nose and pink eyes, one which writhed about almost like an eel.

"Why, it's your old one, Magg, that you had in the hedge that day."

"Nay, not it. It's something like it, but this is an ever so much better one. Why, don't you recollect? That one used to get in the holes and wouldn't come out again for hours and hours."

"Oh yes, I recollect, and how cold it was. This is it."

"Why, don't I keep telling of you it ain't. This is a hever so much better one as I've got to sell for a chap for five shillin': but if you don't want to buy it, you needn't keep finding fault with it. I dessay Mr Big Burr will buy it. It's a beauty--ain't yer?"

"But I do want to buy it," said Mercer, watching the man as he stroked and caressed the thin creature, "but I haven't got any money to spare."

"That don't matter. If you like to buy the ferret, I dessay the chap'll wait and take a shillin' one time and a shillin' another, till it's all paid off."

"Oh," cried Mercer, "if he'll sell it like that I'll have it; but you're sure it's not your old one?"

"Sartain as sartain. That's a ferret as'll do anybody credit."

"But will it hunt rabbits up into holes, and stop sucking their blood?"

"Oh, I don't know nothing about rabbids," said Magglin. "It won't do so with me; 'tis yours then."

"Will it bite?" I asked.

"Rats, sir. You try him, he's as tame as a kitten. But I must get back to my work. Where'll you have it?"

"I want it up in my box--the old corn-bin up in the loft, Magg. Will you take it and put it in if I give you the key?"

"Course I will, sir."

"And bring me back the key?"

"Course I will, sir."

"I don't like to take it myself, because one of the fellows might see me, and they'd want to know what I'd got."

"All right, sir, I'll take it; and am I to put it in the box?"

"No. I forgot. It would eat the skins and things."

"That he would and no mistake," said Magglin, grinning hugely. "Shall I leave him in the can? There is a stone in the spout so as he can't squeeze his way out, for he'll go through any hole a'most."

"Yes; put it right up in the dark corner at the far end."

"Right, sir. And you owe me five shillin'."

"No, it's to your friend."

"All the same, sir. Thank-ye."

"I'm afraid he has cheated me," said Mercer thoughtfully, as we walked away. "Now I come to recollect, his old ferret had a bit nipped out of the top of its little ear like that has, and Magg said a rat bit it out one day."

"If he has cheated you, I wouldn't pay for it," I said.

"I don't know how it is," continued Mercer thoughtfully, "but it seems to me as if people like to cheat schoolboys. We never did two shillings worth of damage to those fishing lines--and I've got a horrible thought, Burr!"

"What is it?" I said.

"Why, it's all that time since we gave old Lom the money, and for the first week he was always winking and laying his finger up against the side of his nose every time he saw us, and now we can't ever see him at all."

"Oh!" I ejaculated. "No. Impossible! He's an old soldier, and he couldn't cheat us like that."

"Well, if he has, I'll tell the Doctor, and have him punished."

"You couldn't tell," I said dolefully.

"No, I forgot that. Well, let's go and see if he's at home now. Why, he hasn't done any drilling this week! Why's that?"

I shook my head, feeling horrified at the idea of such a fine-looking, frank old soldier being guilty of a piece of trickery, and I said so, but declared that I would not believe it.

"I don't want to, but people do cheat us. Even Polly Hopley charges us double for lots of the things we have."

By this time we had reached the lodge, but the door was shut, and Mercer looked at me very gloomily.

"There's all our money gone," he said; "and I'll never trust anybody again. I wish I hadn't bought that ferret. You see if it don't cheat us too, and run away. This makes eight times we've come to look for old Lom, and he must be--What?"

"Look," I said eagerly. "I knew he couldn't do such a thing. There he is in that cart."

Sure enough, there was the sergeant; and then as the cart drew nearer, it was pulled up, and the old man leaped down, thanked the farmer for giving him a lift, and walked toward his cottage, carrying a big long carpet-bag.

"Ah, Mr Lomax!" I cried, as I hurried towards him, but he laid his finger to the side of his nose, nodded, frowned, unlocked his door and went in.

"There, that's how he always goes on now," said Mercer spitefully. "It was all gammon, and he never meant to teach us, and we shan't be able to serve those two out. Come on."

We were moving off disconsolately, I with quite a feeling of pain in my breast, when a voice said, "Hi!" and, looking round, there was the sergeant beckoning to us.

My heart seemed to leap again, and I hurried back.

"How are you both?" he said, putting his hand in his pocket and taking out a flat steel tobacco-box which opened with a spring. "I had to go up to town more than a week ago to an inspection and about my pension, and while I was up I thought I'd go and see my sisters, and then I thought I'd go and see about those--you know what."

"And did you?" I cried eagerly.

"Wait a moment," he said, taking out four shillings and handing them to us--two to each. "I did write about them, and they asked so much that I wrote to another place, and they were dear too; and then, as I had to go up, I went to a place I remembered, and saw the man, and told him what I wanted, and he brought out two pairs of his best, which had been in the shop three years, and got faded to look at, but he said they were better than ever, and he let me have 'em for thirteen shillings."

"Oh, Lom!" cried Mercer excitedly. "But when are they coming down?"

"They are down. Didn't you see?"

"No, I didn't see."

"They were in the carpet-bag," I cried. "Oh, do let's look!"

"No, not to-day, my lads. They're all right, and if you like to get up to-morrow morning and come to me at five o'clock, I'll give you your first lesson. Now I must go and report myself to the Doctor, or he'll be drumming me out of the regiment for not doing my work."

He saluted us and marched off, while we went round to the back and made our way to the stables and up into the loft, for Mercer to have a peep at the ferret, which tried hard to get out. Then, closing the slate down close, he spun round, cut a caper, struck an attitude, and began sparring and dancing round me in the most absurd manner.

"Oh, only wait!" he cried, pausing to take breath. "I do feel so glad! But, I say, we mustn't have that ferret there. I know. I'll put it in the bin, watering-pot and all, or it'll either get out, or some of the boys'll come and look, and let it go."

"But you haven't got the key."

"I forgot. I didn't get it from old Magg, again. Let's go and find him. No, it's all right. He has put it in the padlock."

The bin was thrown open; but the pot was not placed therein, for Mercer remembered a box with a lid, which, as he expressed it, lived in there, and it was emptied and brought forth.

"Just make him a splendid little hutch!" he cried, "Here, come along, Sandy."

He thrust his hand into the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of Mercer's hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards, one evidently made by a rat.

"Oh!" ejaculated Mercer dolefully. "There goes five shillings down that hole. What an unlucky beggar I am!"

"Oh, he'll soon come out again," I said.

"Not he; and that's the worst of you, Burr--you will make the best of things so. He won't come out--he'll live down there hunting the rats; and I'm sure now that we shall never get him again, for it is the one Magg used to have, and he has tricked me. I know it by that bit out of its ear. It is his ferret."

"Well, you haven't paid him for it," I said, laughing. "And if he has cheated you, I wouldn't pay."

"But I said I would," replied Mercer, shaking his head; "and one must keep one's promises, even with cheats. But never mind; old Lom's got the gloves, and if Magg gives me any of his nonsense, I'll thrash him, too, eh?"

"Tea!" I cried, for just then the bell began to ring. _

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