The King of the School, or, Who will Win? — page 143: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE KING OF THE SCHOOL; OR, WHO WILL WIN? x.0ad, and get into Ballsbury by that way. | 8 they lumbered along painfully across the furze-covered plain, then through a turnip field. As they emerged from it into another miry lane, they heard a faint “halloo!” some distance from them. _ Freddy answered the cry. A few minutes afterwards Crawley emerged into the road and limped up to them. The youth was in a terrible pickle. In forcing his way through some of the quickset hedges, with whichthe face | cf nature was in that region adorned, he had torn his trousers and jacket in a most dreadful manner. Moreover, in crossing some stiff clay land he had lost a shoe (serve him right, the young fop, for not wearing thick boots like the others), and, having suffered two or three tumbles, was plentifully plastered with Mother Earth from head to foot. Ali this he explained as Webber and the professor came up, and I am in duty bound to say that the sight of his forlorn schoolfellow cheered Freddy in no small degree. It was a treat to see some one several degrees more wretched than himself. Crawley also cheered up; being no longer alone in those huge, gloomy fields his spirit rose, and, as Freddy seemed to have forgotten their late disagreements, they walked along as jauntily as the state of the road and their wearied limbs would per- mit. So they trudged along till at last they came into the turnpike road, Then they paused, quite bewildered, for they had lost sight of Ursa Major, and did not exactly know in what part of the heavens to find him. Consequently, having missed their bearings as well as their great bear, they stood bewildered on the edge of the turnpike road, not knowing whether they ought to turn to the right hand or to the leit. 137 _ Their indecision was soon at an end, however. A rattle of wheels and horses’ hoofs was heard, then a light was seen. “The ‘ wheelbarrow,’ by Jove!” ex- claimed Freddy. The “‘ wheelbarrow,” was the epithet contemptuously applied to a lumbering old two-horse coach that ran every day between Ballsbury and a town some fifteen miles distant. As it strolled along the two boys screwed themselves, and made a run to catch hold of it behind. Freddy succeeded in so doing; but Crawley being less fortunate, had another tumble. Half-an-hour later Webber reached Lexicon College just five minutes before the gates were closed. | Crawley was, at that moment, fully a mile away. | The gallant hare and the other hounds had been home some time, and, stiff and tired with their day’s run, were sitting round the tables dis- cussing the various incidents of the chase. “ Ah, here comes Freddy; now we’re all in,” exclaimed the Earl of Pem- bridge, as the young joker entered the hall, “It looks as though he had been too tired to walk, and had rolled home,” observed Everton. “A nice crusty roll he is too. Won't even speak to us.” | ‘‘Where is your human kindness ?” groaned Freddy. A poor fellow comes in half-dead, and instead of sympa- thising with him you only perpetrate puns of the vilest description. How- ever, if Iam ina pickle, Crawley is in a worse.” “ Crawley!” exclaimed half-a-dozen of the boys. “Yes. I left him limping along with only one shoe.” Freddy then ascended to his bed- room, changed his clothes, and got down again just as the supper-bell rang. At that meal the head of each torm EO DOC EO mn