esolved to sink or
swim together.

CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.

THE HERMIT COMES OUT OF HIS CELL.

Mansfield never flattered himself that Templeton would right itself by a
single turn of his hand, nor did he flatter himself that Templeton would
ever love Jupiter as they had loved the old Saturn who had preceded him.
And in neither expectation was he out of his reckoning.

After a week or two the sole result of the new _regime_ seemed to be
that the bad lot had plunged further into their evil ways. The "Select
Sociables" had increased the number of their members to thirty, and made
it an indispensable qualification for every candidate that he should
have suffered punishment at the hands of the masters or monitors. It
got to be known that it was war to the knife, and fellows flocked to the
post of danger and begged to be admitted to the club.

All this Mansfield saw, but it did not disconcert him. He was glad to
see a clear line being drawn, which made it impossible for any but the
practised hypocrites to hang out false colours and pretend to be what
they were not. It was half the battle to the Captain to know exactly
who were friends and who were enemies.

He may sometimes have thought, with a passing sigh, of the affection
which everybody, good and bad, had had for dear old Ponty, and wished he
could expect as much. But he dashed the thought aside as folly. His
duty was to make war on rebels, not to win them over by blandishments.

So he set his face like steel to the work, and made the name of monitor
a caution in Templeton. And, it is fair to say, he was well backed up.
Cresswell, Cartwright, Swinstead, and others of their sort rallied round
him, and, at the risk of their own popularity, and sometimes against
their better judgment, took up the rule of iron. Even the hermit
Freckleton came out of his den now and then on the side of justice.

The cad Bull, who had neither the wit nor the temper to play a double
part, threw up his monitorship in disgust and went over to the enemy,
carrying with him one or two of the empty heads of the Fifth. Pledge
alone looked on the whole revolution as a joke.

But even Pledge found it hard to make a case against the new rulers;
for, if their severity was great, their justice was still greater. If
they spared no one else, neither did they spare themselves. There was
something almost ferociously honest and upright about Mansfield, and his
lieutenants soon caught his spi