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Burr Junior, by George Manville Fenn.
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I thought that it was unusual for Manville Fenn to set a novel in a
boys' boarding school, since I had become used to exotic settings in
Malaysia, or South America, for his tension-filled novels. Here he
certainly does not disappoint if it's tension and suspense you are
expecting of him. The last few chapters, in particular, are extremely
nail-biting, but the book is quite hard to put down at any point.
It is Burr who is telling the story, and from his first day at the
school he is friendly with Mercer, who is not good at his school work,
but who knows a great deal about natural history, and imparts it to
Burr, and of course to the readers as well. There is a gang of other
boys who are inclined to bully, and at first they make life misery for
Burr and Mercer--but this is soon got over.
Other important figures are Hopley, the gamekeeper; his daughter Polly;
the school Cook; Lomax, the school drill-sergeant; Magglin, a
ne'er-do-well and poacher; Dr Browne, the headmaster, and Mrs Browne;
Rebble and Hasnip, ushers at the school; Burr's mother, and his uncle,
Colonel Seaborough; and the local big landowner, General Sir Hawkhurst
Rye.
It was a very enjoyable book to transcribe, and I am sure you will enjoy
it.
NH
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BURR JUNIOR, BY GEORGE MANVILLE FENN.
CHAPTER ONE.
"There'll be such a game directly. Just listen to old Dicksee."
I was very low-spirited, but, as the bright, good-looking lad at my side
nudged me with his elbow, I turned from casting my eyes round the great
bare oak-panelled room, with its long desks, to the kind of pulpit at
the lower end, facing a bigger and more important-looking erection at
the upper end, standing upon a broad dais raised a foot above the rest
of the room. For this had been the banqueting hall of Meade Place, in
the good old times of James the First, when its owner little thought it
would ever be the schoolroom of Dr Browne's "Boarding Establishment for
Gentlemen's Sons." In fact, there was a broad opening now, with a
sliding door, right through the thick wall into the kitchen, so my
companion told me, and that I should see the shoulders of mutton slip
through there at dinner-time.
So I looked at the lower pulpit, in which sat Mr Rebble, one of the
ushers, a lank, pale-faced, haggard man, with a dotting of freckles,
light eyebrows, and pale red hair which stood up straight like that upon
a clothes-brush.
He was resting his elbows on the desk and wiping his hands one over the
other, as if the air was water and he had a piece of soap between his
palms. By him was a boy with a book, reading in a highly-pitched voice
which did not seem to fit him, being, like his clothes, too small for
such a big fellow, with his broad face and forehead all wrinkled up into
puckers with the exertion of reading.
"Tchish! tchish! Silence!" said Mr Rebble, giving three stamps on the
floor. "Now go on, Dicksee."
"I say, do listen," said the boy by my side. "He isn't well, and I gave
him a dose this morning."
"You did?" I said. "You hit him?"
"No, no," said the boy, laughing. "I often do though--a miserable
sneak. I gave him a dose of medicine. He had been eating too many of
Polly Hopley's cakes. My father is a doctor!" he added importantly.
"Oh!" I said.
"I say, do listen. Did you ever hear such a whine?"
As he spoke, I heard the big, stoutly-built boy give a tremendous sniff,
and then go on reading.
"I love Penny Lope--Penny Lope is loved by me."
"Pen-el-o-pe!" cried the usher angrily, as he snatched the book from the
boy's hands, closed it, and boxed his ears with it, right and left, over
and over again. "You _dumkopf_!" he shouted; "you muddy-brained ass!
you'll never learn anything. You're more trouble than all the rest of
the boys put together. There, be off to your seat, and write that piece
out twenty-five times, and then learn it by heart."
"Ow, ow, ow! sniff, sniff, snork!"
"Silence, sir, or I'll make the imposition fifty times!"
The howl subsided into a series of subdued sniffs as the big fellow went
back to his place, amidst the humming noise made by some fifty boys,
who, under the pretence of studying their lessons, kept up
conversations, played at odd or even for marbles, or flicked peas at
each other across the school.
"Old Reb wouldn't dare to hit him like that if the Doctor was here."
"Your father?" I said.
"No, no--old Swish! Doctor Browne."
_Flick-tip_.
A pea struck my companion on the ear, and dropped on the floor.
"All right, Burr," said my neighbour; "did that with a pea-shooter. I
owe you one."
"I didn't do it!" I whispered eagerly.
"Of course you didn't. It was that long, thin boy yonder. His name's
Burr too. He'll be Burr major now, and you'll be Burr junior."
"Oh!" I said, feeling much relieved.
"You'll have to lick him. Regular old bully. Your name's Frank, isn't
it?"
"Yes."
"His name's Eliezer. We call him Eely, because he's such a lanky, thin,
snaky chap. I say, his father's a tailor in Cork Street, he's got such
lots of clothes in his box. He has a bob-tail coat and black kersey
sit-upon-'ems, and a vesky with glass buttons, and all covered with
embroidery. Such a dandy!--What's your father?"
I did not answer for a few moments, and he looked at me sharply.
"Dead," I said in a low voice.
"Oh!" said my companion softly too. "I didn't know."
"He was shot--out in India--Chillianwallah," I said.--"Died of his
wounds."
"Oh, I am sorry! I wish my father had been there."
"Why?"
"He'd have cured him. There's nobody like him for wounds. But, I say,
Chillian what's its name?"
"Chillianwallah," I said.
"Why, what a game! That's where old Lomax was. I remember now."
"Is Lomax one of the boys," I asked wonderingly.
"Yah! no. You saw him last night, when you came in the fly. That big
chap who lives at the lodge, and helped lift down your box. He had a
shot through him, and nearly had his head cut off with a tully
something. He'll tell you. He has a pension, and is our drill-master,
and teaches boys riding."
This was interesting, and I felt a desire to know old Lomax.
"What's your mother?" said my companion, breaking in upon my musing.
"A lady," I said proudly.
"So's mine. She's the nicest and best and--" At that moment I heard a
loud, deep-throated cough, which was followed by a shuffling and
stamping, as I saw all the boys rise in their places.
"Get up--get up," whispered my neighbour. "The Doctor."
I rose in my place, and saw the tall, stout, clerical-looking gentleman
I had seen when I reached Meade Place on the previous night, enter by
the middle door, and look gravely and smilingly round.
"Good morning, gentlemen," he said. "Good morning, Mr Rebble;" and
then he marched solemnly to the pulpit on the dais, took his place,
waved his hand, there was a repetition of the rustling and shuffling as
the boys reseated themselves, and then the humming murmur of the school
recommenced.
"I say, how old are you?" whispered my companion.
"Sixteen--nearly," I replied.
"Well, that is rum. So am I. So's lots of fellows here. Where did you
go to school before?"
"Nowhere. Had a private tutor at home."
"Well, you must be a muff."
"Why?"
"To give up a private tutor all to yourself to come to school here."
"Obliged to. Uncle said I should grow into a--"
I stopped short.
"Well, what?"
"Less talking there," said Mr Rebble.
"Mind your own business," muttered my neighbour. "What did he say you'd
grow into?"
"A milksop; and that I must come and rough it among other boys."
"Ha! ha! what a game! You will have to rough it too, here. I say,
who's uncle?"
"My uncle, Colonel Seaborough."
"What's he?--a soldier too?"
"Yes; and I'm going to be a soldier by and by."
"Well, you are a lucky one! Wish I had an uncle who said I should be a
soldier. I shall have to be a doctor, I suppose."
Just then, the tall, thin boy pointed out to me a few minutes before as
Burr major, came across in a bending, undulating way, with an open book
in his hand, glanced up and down to see that the Doctor and his
lieutenant were both occupied, and then slipped into the seat at our
long desk on the other side of my neighbour, who did not give him time
to speak, but began rapidly,--
"I say, this new chap says he'll give you such a leathering if you shoot
peas at him."
"Eh? Like to see him begin," said the fresh comer, with a contemptuous
look at me. "I say, Senna T, you're in for it."
"What for?"
"Old Dicksee says you gave him some stuff last night, and it's made him
so bad he can't learn his lessons. He's going to tell the Doctor."
"Gammon! What do you want?"
"Less talking there," said Mr Rebble sharply.
"Hark at old Reb!" whispered the new-comer. "I say, we're going to have
a holiday to-day, ain't we?"
"No such luck."
"Oh, but we must! I've written this out. You'll sign, won't you?"
My neighbour snatched a document consisting of about half a dozen lines,
and pushed it back.
"He'll keep us in if we do."
"Not he. I know he wants to drive over to Hastings with the girls.
Sign, there's a good chap."
"But you haven't signed."
"No. I shall put my name last."
"Yah! Can't catch old birds with chaff, Eely."
"If you call me Eely again, I'll punch your head."
"You sign first, and I'll put my name next."
"Shan't! and if you don't put your name at once, I'll tear up the paper.
I don't want a holiday; it was all for you boys."
"Thank-ye," said my neighbour derisively.
"Just you wait till we're out in the field, Jalap, and I'll serve you
out for this."
"Burr junior," said a rich, deep, unctuous voice, which seemed to roll
through the school, and there was a dead silence.
"Here, you!--get up. Go on."
"Burr junior!" came in a louder, deeper voice.
"He means you," whispered my neighbour.
"Say _Adsum_," whispered the tall, thin boy, and, on the impulse given,
I repeated the Latin word feebly.
"Go up to him," whispered my neighbour, and, pulling my legs out from
between the form and the desk, I walked up through the centre opening
between the two rows of desks, conscious of tittering and whispering,
two or three words reaching my ears, such as "cane," "pickle," "catch it
certain."
Then, feeling hot and confused, I found myself on the dais in front of
the desk, where the Doctor was looking searchingly at me through his
gold-rimmed spectacles. Then, turning himself round, he slowly and
ponderously crossed one leg over the other, and waved his hand.
"Come to the side," he said, and feeling more conscious up there on the
dais, I moved round, and he took my hand.
"I am glad to welcome you among us, Frank, to join in our curriculum of
study, and I hope you will do us all credit. Er--rum! Let me see.
Burr--Frank Burr. We have another Burr here, who has stuck among us for
some years."
The Doctor paused and looked round with a very fat smile, in the midst
of a peculiar silence, till Mr Rebble at the other end said loudly,--
"Ha! ha! Excellent!" and there was now a loud burst of laughter.
I thought that I should not like Mr Rebble, but I saw that the Doctor
liked his appreciation of his joke, for he smiled pleasantly, and
continued,--
"Let me see. I think we have a pleasant little custom here, not more
honoured in the breach than in the observance. Eh, Mr Rebble?"
"Certainly, sir, certainly," said that gentleman, and the Doctor frowned
at his leg, as he smoothed it down. But his face cleared directly.
"Er--rum!" he continued, clearing his voice. "Of having a brief
cessation from our studies upon the advent of a new boy. Young
gentlemen, you may close your books for to-day."
There was a hearty cheer at this, and the Doctor rose, thrust his hand
into his breast beside his white shirt-frill, then, waving the other
majestically, he turned to me as the cheering ceased.
"Burr junior," he said, "you can return to your seat."
I stepped back, forgetting all about the dais, and fell rather heavily,
but sprang up again, scarlet with mortification.
"Not hurt? No? That's right," said the Doctor; and amid a chorus of
"Thank you, sir! thank you, sir!" he marched slowly out of the great
room, closely followed by Mr Rebble, while I stood, shaken by my fall,
and half dazed by the uproar.
CHAPTER TWO.
How strange it all seemed! I had ridden down the previous day by the
Hastings coach, which had left me with my big box at the old inn at
Middlehurst. Here the fly had been ordered to take me the remaining ten
miles on to the school, where I had arrived just at dusk, and, after a
supper of bread and milk, I was shown my bed, one of six in a large
room, and made the acquaintance of Mercer, who, after pretty well
peppering me with questions, allowed me to go to sleep in peace, till
the bell rang at six, when I sprang out of bed, confused and puzzled at
finding myself there instead of at home. Then, as the reality forced
itself upon me, and I was scowled at by five sleepy boys, all in the
ill-humoured state caused by being obliged to get up before they
pleased, I hurriedly dressed, thinking that I could never settle down to
such a life as that, and wondering what my uncle and my mother would say
if I started off, went straight back, and told them I did not mean to
stop at school.
Everything looked cheerless and miserable, for there was a thick fog
outside, one which had been wafted over from the sea, so that there was
no temptation to go out, and, in spite of my low spirits, I was hungry
enough to make me long for breakfast.
This was laid for us in the schoolroom, to which the boys flocked, as
the big bell on the top of the building rang out again, and here I found
that there were two long tables, as I supposed, till I was warned about
being careful, when I found that they were not tables, but the double
school-desks with the lids of the boys' lockers propped up horizontal.
"And if you don't mind, down they come, and your breakfast goes outside
instead of in," said Mercer.
Milk and water and bread and butter, but they were good and plentiful,
and though I was disappointed at first, and began thinking of the hot
coffee at home, I made a better breakfast than I had expected; and in
due course, after a walk round the big building, of which I could see
nothing for the chilly fog, the bell rang again, and I had to hurry back
into the schoolroom, taking a seat pointed out for me by Mercer, with
the result related in the last chapter.
"Here, come along!" cried my new friend: "What a game! You are a good
chap. I wish a new boy would come every day. Hooray! old Rebble's off.
Bet sixpence he goes down to the river bottom-fishing. He never
catches anything. Goes and sits in his spectacles, blinking at his
float, and the roach come and give it a bob and are off again long
before he strikes. Hi yi yi yi!" he shouted; "here we are again!" and,
jumping on to the form and from there to the desk, he bent down, took
lightly hold of the sides, threw up his heels, and stood on his head.
"Here, look at old Mercer!" cried a boy.
"Bravo, Senna T!" cried another.
A dictionary flew across the room, struck the amateur acrobat in the
back, and fell on the floor, but not much more quickly than my new
friend went over backwards, the blow having made him overbalance so that
his feet came with a crash on the desk, the ink flew out of two little
leaden wells, and the performer rolled off on to the form, and then to
the floor, with a crash.
"Here!" he cried, springing up. "Who did that? Give me that book. Oh,
I know!" he cried, snatching the little fat dictionary, and turning over
the leaves quickly. "`Eely-hezer Burr.' Thanky, I wanted some paper.
I'm all over ink. What a jolly mess!"
As he spoke, he tore out three or four leaves, and began to wipe the ink
off his jacket.
"I say, Burr," cried the big boy who had read about Penelope, "Mercer's
tearing up your dictionary."
"You mind your own business!" cried Mercer, tearing out some more
leaves, and then throwing the book at the tale-teller just as the tall,
thin boy, who bore the same name as I, came striding up with his face
flushed and fists doubled, to plant three or four vigorous blows in
Mercer's chest and back.
"How dare you tear my book?" he cried. "Here, you, fat Dicksee, bring
it here."
"Thought you meant me to use it," cried Mercer, taking the blows
good-humouredly enough. "Oh, I say, don't! you hurt!"
"Mischievous beggar!" said my senior taking the book and marching off.
"Go on! Ask your father to buy you a new one," cried Mercer derisively,
as he applied a piece of blotting-paper to one leg of his trousers.
"Hiss! Goose!"
"Do you wish me to come back and thrash you, Tom Mercer," said the tall
boy, with a lordly manner.
"No, sir, thank-ye, sir; please don't, and I'll never do so no more,
sir."
"Miserable beggar," said Burr major. "Here, Dicksee, come down the
field and bowl for me. Bring five or six little uns to field."
"Yah! Tailor!" said Mercer, as his bully marched out.
"I'll tell him what you said," cried Dicksee.
"Hullo, Penny loaf! you there? Yes, you'd better tell him. Just you
come to me for some physic, and you'll see how I'll serve you."
"Don't ketch me taking any of your stuff again," cried the big, fat,
sneering-looking fellow. "I'll tell him, and you'll see."
"Go and tell him then," said Mercer contemptuously. "So he is a tailor,
and his father's a tailor. Why, I saw his name on a brass plate in Cork
Street."
"So's your father got his name on a brass plate," sneered Dicksee.
"Well, what of that? My father's a professional gentleman. Here, come
on, Burr, and I'll show you round. Hooray! the sun's come through the
mist. Where's your cap? All right. You'll have to get a square
trencher by next Sunday. This way."
He led me out into the big playground, and turned.
"Ain't a bad house, is it? Some big lord used to live here, and Magglin
says his father says it was empty for years, and it was sold cheap at
last to the Doctor, who only used to have four boys at first."
"Who's Magglin?"
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mercer; "he calls himself a gardener because he comes
here to help dig, but I know: he's a poacher, that's what he is. You
ask Hopley."
"But I don't know Hopley," I said, laughing.
"You soon will. He's General Rye's keeper. I buy birds off him to
stuff."
"What, geese?" I said, as I recalled that my companion spoke about a
goose just before.
"Geese? no. Magpies and jays and hawks. I stuff 'em with tow; I'll
show you how. Old Hopley says Magglin's a rank poacher, and first time
he catches him on their grounds he'll pull him up before his master, you
know. General's a magistrate. But he won't catch him. Magg's too
artful. I say, got any money?"
"Yes, I have some," I said.
"That's right. Don't you spend it. You save up same as I am. Magg's
got a gun I want to buy of him. He says he won't sell it, but I know
better. He will when we offer him enough. I did offer him ten
shillings, but he laughed at me. I say!"
"Yes."
"It's such a beauty. Single barrel, with a flint lock, so that it never
wants no caps, and it comes out of the stock quite easy, and the barrel
unscrews in the middle, and the ramrod too, so that you can put it all
in your pocket, and nobody knows that you're carrying a gun."
"But what's the good of a gun here at school?"
"What? Oh, you don't know because it's all new to you. Why, there are
hares in the fields, and pheasants in the coppices, and partridges in
the hop-gardens, and the rabbits swarm in the hill-sides down toward the
sea."
"But you don't shoot!"
"Not much, because I have no gun, only a pistol, and it don't carry
straight. I did nearly hit a rabbit, though, with it."
"But can you get away shooting?"
"Can I? Should think I can. We have all sorts of fun down here. Can
you fish?"
"I went once," I said, "on the river."
"But you didn't catch anything," said Mercer, grinning.
"No," I said; "I don't think I had a bite."
"Not you. Just you wait a bit, I'll take you fishing. There's the
river where old Rebble goes, and the mill-pond where old Martin gives me
leave, and a big old hammer pond out in the middle of General Rye's
woods where nobody gives me leave, but I go. It's full of great carp
and tench and eels big as boa-constrictors."
"Oh, come!" I said.
"I didn't say big boa-constrictors, did I? there's little ones, I
daresay. Here we are. That's Magglin--didn't know he was here to-day."
He pointed out a rough, shambling-looking young man down the great
kitchen garden into which he had led me. This gentleman was in his
coat, and he was apparently busy doing nothing with a hoe, upon which he
rested himself, and took off a very ragged fur cap to wipe his brow as
we came up, saluting us with a broad grin.
"Hallo, Magg! you here? This is the new boy, Burr."
"Nay," said the man in a harsh, saw-sharpening voice, "think I don't
know better than that? That aren't Master Burr."
"No, not that one. This is the new one. This is Burr junior."
"Oh, I see," said the man. "Mornin', Mr Burr juner. Hope I see you
well, sir?"
"Oh, he's all right," said Mercer. "Give him a penny to buy a screw of
tobacco, Frank."
I gave the required coin, and Mr Magglin spat on it, spun it in the
air, caught it, and placed it in his pocket.
"Thank-ye," he said.
"Got any birds for me?"
"Nay, nary one; but I knows of a beauty you'd give your ears to get."
"What is it?" cried Mercer eagerly.
"All bootiful green, with a head as red as carrots."
"Get out! Gammon! Think I don't know better than that? He means a
parrot he's seen in its cage."
"Nay, I don't," said the man. "I mean a big woodpecker down in Squire
Hawkus Rye's woods."
"Oh, Magg: get it for me!"
"Nay, I dunno as I can. Old Hopley's on the look-out for me, and if I
was to shoot that there bird, he'd swear it was a fezzan."
"Perhaps it is," said Mercer, laughing.
"Nay, not it, my lad," said the man, with a sly-looking smile. "If it
was a fezzan I shouldn't bring it to you."
"Why not? I should like to stuff it."
"Daresay you would, my lad, but if I did that, somebody would stuff me."
"Ha, ha!" laughed Mercer. "You'd look well in a glass case, Magg."
"Shouldn't look well in prison," said the man, laughing. "Why, what'd
become o' the Doctor's taters?"
"Oh, bother the taters. I say, what about that gun, Magg?"
"What about what gun?" said the man softly, as he gave a sharp glance
round.
"Get out! You know."
"Whish!" said the man. "Don't you get thinking about no guns. I
wouldn't ha' showed it to you if I'd known. Why, if folks knew I had a
gun, there'd be no end of bother, so don't you say nothing about it
again."
"Well, then, sell it to me. Burr here's going to join me."
The man gave me a quick glance, and shook his head. "I don't sell
guns," he said.
"Then will you shoot that woodpecker for me?"
"Nay, I mustn't shoot, they'd say I was a poacher. I'll try and get it
for you, though, only it'll be a shilling."
"Can't afford more than ninepence, Magg."
"Ninepence it is then; I don't want to be hard on a young gentleman."
"But if it's all knocked to pieces and covered with blood, I shall only
give you sixpence."
"Oh, this'll be all right, sir."
"When shall you shoot it?"
"Ha'n't I told you I aren't going to shoot it?"
"How will you get it, then?"
"Put some salt on its tail," said the man grinning. "Get out! Here, I
say, could we catch some tench in the mill-pond to-day?"
"Mebbe yes, mebbe no."
"Well, we're going to try. You have some worms ready for me--a
penn'orth."
"Tuppence, sir."
"A penny. Why, you've just had a penny for nothing."
"All right, master. Going?"
"Yes, I'm showing him round," said Mercer. "Come along, Burry, we'll go
and see old Lomax now."
He led the way out of the kitchen garden, and round by a field where the
Doctor's Alderney cows were grazing, then through a shrubbery to the
back of the thatched cottage I had dimly seen as the fly drove by the
previous night.
"Left, right! Three quarters half face. As you never were. Left
counter-jumper march! Halt stare at pease!"
All this was shouted by Mercer as we approached the cottage door, and
had the effect of bringing out a stiff-looking, sturdy, middle-aged man
with a short pipe in his mouth, which he removed, carried one hand to
his forehead in a salute, and then stood stiff and erect before us,
looking sharply at me.
"Mornin', gentlemen," he said.
"Morning," cried Mercer. "'Tention! Parade for introductions. This is
Field-Marshal Commander-in-Chief Drill-master and Riding-master Lomax.
This is Burr junior, new boy, come to see you. I say, Lom, he's going
to be a soldier. His father was a soldier in India. He was killed at
what's-its-name?--Chilly winegar."
"Eh?" cried the old soldier. "Glad to see you, sir. Shake hands, and
welcome to your new quarters. Come inside."
"No, not now, I'm showing him round. We'll come another time, and bring
you some tobacco, and you shall tell us the story about the fight with
the Indian rajahs."
"To be sure I will, lads. Where are you going now?"
"Going? Let's see. Oh, I know. We'll go to Polly Hopley's."
"Ah, I suppose so. You boys are always going to Polly Hopley's.
Good-bye."
He shook hands with us, then drew himself up and saluted us
ceremoniously, and, as I glanced back, I could see him still standing
upright in his erect, military fashion.
"You'll like old As-you-were," said Mercer, as we went on, now along the
road. "The Doctor got hold of him cheap, and he does all sorts of
things. Cuts and nails the trees, and goes messages to the town. He's
a splendid chap to get things for you."
"But may we go right away like this?" I said, as I saw we were now far
from the grounds.
"Oh yes, to-day. He's very strict at other times, and we have to get
leave when we want to go out, but this is free day, and I want to show
you everything because you're new. Nobody showed me anything. I had to
find it all out, and I was so jolly miserable at first that I made up my
mind to run away and go back home."
"But you did not?" I said eagerly, for, though I felt better now in the
interest of meeting fresh people and learning something about the place,
I could fully appreciate his words.
"No, I didn't," he said thoughtfully. "You see, I knew I must come to
school, and if I ran away from this one, if I hadn't been sent back, I
should have been sent back to another one, and there would have been
whackings at home, and they would have hurt my mother, who always hated
to see me have it, though I always deserved it: father said so. Then
there would have been whackings here, and they'd have hurt me, so I made
up my mind to stay."
"That was wise," I said, laughing.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied, wrinkling up his face; "the cane only
hurts you outside, and it soon goes off, but being miserable hurts you
inside, and lasts ever so long. I say, don't you be miserable about
coming away from home. You'll soon get over it, and there's lots of
things to see. Look there," he cried, stopping at the edge of the road,
"you can see the sea here. The doctor will give us leave to go some
day, and we shall bathe. There it is. Don't look far off, does it? but
it's six miles. But we've got a bathing pool, too. See those woods?"
"Yes," I said, as I gazed over the beautiful expanse of hill and dale,
with a valley sweeping right away to the glittering sea.
"Those are the General's, where the pheasants are, and if you look
between those fir-trees you can just get a peep of the hammer pond where
the big eels are."
"Yes, I can see the water shining in the sun," I said eagerly.
"Yes, that's it; and those fields where you see the tall poles dotted
over in threes and fours are--I say, did you ever see hops?"
"Yes, often," I said; "great, long, tight, round sacks piled-up on
waggons."
"Yes, that's how they go to market. I mean growing?"
"No."
"Those are hops, then, climbing up the poles. That's where the
partridges get. Oh, I say, I wish old Magg would sell us that gun.
We'd go halves in buying it, and I'd play fair; you should shoot just as
often as I did."
"But he will not sell it," I said.
"Oh, he will some day, when he wants some money."
"And what would Doctor Browne do if he knew?"
"Smug it!" said Mercer, with a comical look, "when he knew. Look! see
that open ground there with the clump of fir-trees and the long slope of
sand going down to that hollow place!"
"Yes."
"Rabbits, and blackberries. Such fine ones when they're ripe! And just
beyond there, at the sandy patch at the edge of the wood, snakes!--big
ones, too. I'm going to catch one and stuff it."
"But can you?"
"I should think so--badly, you know, but I'm getting better. I had to
find all this out that I'm telling you, but perhaps you don't care about
it, and want to go back to the cricket-field?"
"No, no," I cried; "I do like it."
"That's right. If we went back we should only have to bowl for old
Eely. Everybody has to bowl for him, and he thinks he's such a dabster
with the bat, but he's a regular muff. Never carried the bat out in his
life. Like hedgehogs?"
"Well, I don't know," I said. "They're so prickly."
"Yes; but they can't help it, poor things. There's lots about here.
Wish we could find one now, we'd take it back and hide it in old Eely's
bed. I don't know though, it wouldn't be much fun now, because he'd
know directly that I did it. I say, you never saw a dog with a
hedgehog. Did you?"
"No," I said.
"It's the finest of fun. Piggy rolls himself up tight like a ball, and
Nip,--that's Magg's dog, you know,--he tries to open him, and pricks his
nose, and dances round him and barks, but it's no good, piggy knows
better than to open out. I've had three. Magg gets them for me. He
told me for sixpence how he got them."
"And how's that?" I said, eager to become a master in all this
woodcraft.
"Why, you catch a hedgehog first."
"Yes," I said, "but how?"
Mercer looked at me, and rubbed his ear.
"Oh, that is only the first one," he said hurriedly.
"But you must know how to catch the first one first."
"Oh, I say, don't argue like that. It is like doing propositions in
Euclid. You have to begin with one hedgehog, that's an axiom. Then you
take him in your pocket."
"Doesn't it prick?" I said.
"Oh, I don't know. How you keep interrupting! And you go out at night
when it's full moon, and then go and sit down on a felled tree right in
the middle of an open place in the wood. You get a bit of stick, a
rough bit, and take hold of piggy's foot and rub his hind leg with the
stick."
"But suppose he curls up," I said.
"Oh, bother! Don't! How am I to tell you? You mustn't let him curl
up. You rub his hind leg with the stick, and then he begins to sing."
"Oh, come!" I said, bursting out laughing.
"Well, squeal, then, ever so loud, and the louder he squeals, the harder
you must rub."
"But it hurts him."
"Oh, not much. What's a hedgehog that he isn't to be hurt a bit! Boys
get hurt pretty tidy here when the Doctor's cross. Well, as soon as he
squeals out, all the hedgehogs who hear him come running to see what's
the matter, and you get as many as you like, and put 'em in a hutch, but
you mustn't keep live things here, only on the sly. I had so many, the
Doctor put a stop to all the boys keeping things, rabbits, and white
mice, and all. That's why I stuff."
"What is?"
"Because you can keep frogs, and jays, and polecats, and snakes, and
anything, and they don't want to be fed."
"What a nice cottage!" I said suddenly, as we came upon a red-brick,
red-tiled place, nearly all over ivy.
"Yes, that's Polly Hopley's--and hi! there goes old Hopley."
A man in a closely fitting cap and brown velveteen jacket, who was going
down the road, faced round, took a gun from off his shoulder and placed
it under his arm.
He was a big, burly, black-whiskered man, with brown face and dark eyes,
and he showed his white teeth as he came slowly to meet us.
"Well, Master Mercer?" he said. "Why ain't you joggryfing?"
"Whole holiday. New boy. This is him. Burr junior, this is Bob
Hopley, General's keeper. Chuck your cap up in the air, and he'll make
it full of shot-holes. He never misses."
"Oh yes, I do," said the keeper, shaking his head; "and don't you do as
he says. Charge of powder and shot's too good to be wasted."
"Oh, all right. I say, got anything for me?"
"No, not yet. I did knock over a hawk, but I cut his head off."
"What for? With your knife?"
"No-o-o! Shot. You shall have the next. Don't want a howl, I s'pose?"
"Yes, yes, a white one. Do shoot one for me, there's a good chap."
"Well, p'raps I may. I know where there's a nest."
"Do you? Oh, where?" cried Mercer. "I want to see one, so does he--
this chap here."
"Well, it's in the pigeon-cote up agen Dawson's oast-house, only he
won't have 'em touched."
"What a shame!"
"Says they kills the young rats and mice. Like to go and see it?"
"Yes."
"Well, I'm going round by Rigg's Spinney, and I'll meet you at the farm
gates. Jem Roff'll let you go up if I ask him."
"How long will you be?"
"Hour! Don't forget!"
"Just as if we should!" cried Mercer, as the keeper shouldered his gun
again and marched off. "It's rather awkward, though."
"What is?" I said.
"Being friends with Magglin and Bob Hopley too, because they hate each
other awfully. But then, you see, it means natural history, don't it?"
He looked at me as if he meant me to say it, so I said, "Yes."
"An hour. What shall we do for an hour? 'Tisn't long enough to go to
the hammer pond, nor yet to hunt snakes, because we should get so
interested that we should forget to come back. But, I say, would you
rather go back to the school field, where the other chaps are, or come
back and pick out your garden? We've all got gardens. Or have a game
at rounders, or--"
"No, no no," I said. "I like all this. It's all new to me. I was
never in the country like this before."
"Then you do like it?"
"Of course."
"That's right. Then you will not mind old Rebble's impositions, and the
Doctor being disagreeable, and going at us, nor the boys pitching into
you, as they all do--the big ones--when the Doctor's pitched into them.
Why, you don't look so miserable now as you did."
"Don't I?"
"No. It's awful coming away from home, I know, and I do get so tired of
learning so many things. You do have to try so much to get to know
anything at all. Now, let's see what shall we do for an hour?"
"Go for a walk," I suggested.
"Oh, that's no good, without you're going to do something. I know;
we'll go back and make Magg lend us his ferret, and then we'll try for a
rabbit."
"Very well," I said eagerly.
"No, that wouldn't do, because his ferret's such a beggar."
"Is he?" I said.
"Yes; he goes into a hole in a bank and comes out somewhere else, far
enough off, and you can't find him, or else he goes in and finds a
rabbit, and eats him, and then curls up for a sleep, and you waiting all
the time. That wouldn't do; there isn't time enough. You want all day
for that, and we've only got an hour. Wish I hadn't said we'd go and
see the owls."
"Shall we sit down and wait?" I suggested.
"No, no. I can't wait. I never could. It's horrid having to wait.
Here, I know. It's lunch-time, and we're here. Let's go into Polly
Hopley's and eat cakes and drink ginger-beer till it's time to go."
"Very well," I said, willingly enough, for walking had made me thirsty.
"I haven't got any money, but Polly will trust me."
"I've got some," I ventured to observe.
"Ah, but you mustn't spend that. You've got to help pay for the gun.
Come on.--Here, Polly, two bottles of ginger-beer, and sixpenn'orth of
bis--I say, got any fresh gingerbread?"
This was to a stoutish, dark-eyed woman of about one-and-twenty, as we
entered the cottage, in one of whose windows there was a shelf with a
row of bottles of sweets and a glass jar of biscuits.
"Yes, sir, quite new--fresh from Hastings," said the girl eagerly. And
she produced a box full of brown, shiny-topped squares.
"Was it some of this old Dicksee had yesterday?" said Mercer.
"Yes, sir. I opened the fresh box for him, and he had four tuppenny
bits."
"Then we will not," said my companion sharply. "Let's have biscuits
instead."
The biscuits were placed before us, and the keeper's daughter then took
a couple of tied-down stone bottles from a shelf.
"I say," cried Mercer, "I didn't introduce you. Burr junior, this is
Polly Hopley. Polly, this is--"
"Yes, sir, I know. I heard you tell father," said the woman quickly, as
she cut the string.
_Pop_!
Out came the opal-looking, bubbling liquid into a grey mug covered with
stripes, and then _Pop_! again, and a mug was filled for my companion,
ready for us to nod at each other and take a deep draught of the
delicious brewing--that carefully home-made ginger-beer of fifty years
ago--so mildly effervescent that it could be preserved in a stone
bottle, and its cork held with a string. A very different beverage to
the steam-engine-made water fireworks, all wind, fizzle, cayenne pepper,
and bang, that is sold now under the name.
"Polly makes this herself on purpose for us," said Mercer importantly.
"We boys drink it all."
"And don't always pay for it," said Polly sharply.
I saw Mercer's face change, and I recalled what he had said about
credit.
"Why--er--" he began.
"Oh, I don't mean you, sir, and I won't mention any names, but I think
young gen'lemen as drinks our ginger-beer ought to pay, and father says
so too."
I glanced at Mercer, whose face was now scarlet, and, seeing that he was
thinking about what he had said respecting credit, I quietly slipped my
hand into my pocket and got hold of a shilling.
"It is beautiful ginger-beer," I said, after another draught.
"Beautiful," said Mercer dismally, but he gave quite a start and then
his eyes shone brightly as he glanced at me gratefully, for I had handed
the shilling to the keeper's daughter, who took it to a jug on the
chimney-piece, dropped it in, and then shook out some half-pence from a
cracked glass and gave me my change.
"Here, put your biscuits in your pocket, Burr," cried Mercer, "and we'll
go on now."
Saying which, he set the example, finished his ginger-beer, and made the
keeper's daughter smile by declaring it was better than ever.
"Glad you like it, sir; and of course you know I didn't mean you, as
I've trusted before, and will again, because you always pay."
"Thank-ye. I know whom you mean," he replied. "Come on."
As soon as we were out of sight of the cottage, Mercer laid an arm on my
shoulder.
"I can't say what I want to," he said quickly, "but I liked that, and I
won't ever forget it. If ever old Eely hits you, I'll go at him, see if
I don't, and I don't care how hard he knocks me about, and if ever I can
do anything for you, to save you from a caning, I will, or from any
other trouble. You see if I don't. I like you, Burr junior, that I do,
and--and do come along, or we shall be late."
CHAPTER THREE.
"What a fuss about nothing!" I thought to myself, as we went on, down a
beautiful lane, with tempting-looking woods on either side, and
fox-gloves on the banks, and other wild-flowers full of attractions to
me as a town boy. There was a delicious scent, too, in the air, which I
had yet to learn was from the young shoots of the fir-trees, growing
warm in the sunshine.
I had made no boy friendships up to then, and, as I glanced sideways at
the pleasant, frank face of the lad walking quickly by me, just at a
time when I had been oppressed by the loneliness of my position, fresh
from home and among strangers, a strong feeling of liking for him began
to spring up, and with it forgetfulness of the misery I had suffered.
"Hi! look! there he goes," cried Mercer just then, and he pointed up
into an oak tree.
"What is it?" I said excitedly.
"He's gone now; wait a minute, and you'll soon see another. There he
is--listen."
He held up his hand, and I stood all attention, but there was no sound
for a few minutes. Then from out of the woods came plainly.
_Chop chop, chop chop_.
"I can't see him," I said. "Some one's cutting down a tree."
Mercer burst into a roar of laughter.
"Oh, I say, you are a Cockney!" he cried. "Cutting down a tree! Why,
you don't seem to know anything about the country."
"Well," I rejoined rather warmly, "that isn't my fault. I've always
lived in London."
"Among the fogs and blacks. Never mind, you'll soon learn it all. I
did. Wish I could learn my Latin and mathicks half as fast. That isn't
anybody cutting wood; it's a squirrel."
"A squirrel?"
"Yes; there he goes. He's coming this way. You watch him. He's cross,
because he sees us. There, what did I say?"
I looked in the direction he pointed out, and saw the leaves moving.
Then there was a rustle, and the little brown and white animal leaped
from bough to bough, till I saw it plainly on a great grey and green
mossy bough of a beech tree, not thirty feet away, where it stood
twisting and jerking its beautiful feathery tail from side to side, and
then, as if scolding us, it began to make the sounds I had before
heard--_Chop, chop, chop, chop_, wonderfully like the blows of an axe
falling on wood.
"Wonder whether I could hit him," cried Mercer, picking up a stone.
"No, no, don't! I want to look at him."
"There's lots about here, and they get no end of the nuts in the autumn.
But come along."
We soon left the squirrel behind, and Mercer stopped again, in a shady
part of the lane.
"Hear that," he said, as a loud _chizz chizz chizz_ came from a dry
sandy spot, where the sun shone strongly.
"Yes, and I know what it is," I cried triumphantly. "That's a cricket
escaped from the kitchen fireplace."
Mercer laughed.
"It's a cricket," he said, "but it's a field one. You don't know what
that is, though," he continued, as a queer sound saluted my ears,--a
low, dull whirring, rising and falling, sometimes nearer, sometimes
distant, till it died right away.
"Now then, what is it?" he cried.
"Knife-grinder," I said; "you'll hear the blade screech on the stone
directly."
"Wrong. That's Dame Durden with her spinning-wheel."
"Ah, well, I knew it was a wheel sound. Is there a cottage in there?"
"No," he said, laughing again; "it's a bird."
"Nonsense!"
"It is. It is a night-jar. They make that noise in their throats, and
you can see them of a night, flying round and round the trees, like
great swallows, catching the moths."
I looked hard at him.
"I say!"
"Yes; what?"
"Don't you begin cramming me, because, if you do, I shall try a few
London tales on you."
Mercer laughed.
"There's an old unbeliever for you. I'm not joking you; I never do that
sort of thing. It is a bird really."
"Show it to me then."
"I can't. He's sitting somewhere on a big branch, long way up, and you
can't find them because they look so like the bark of the tree, and you
don't know where the sound comes from. They're just like the
corn-crakes."
"I've read about corn-crakes," I said.
"Well, there's plenty here. You wait till night, and I'll open our
bedroom window, and you can hear them craking away down in the meadows.
You never can tell whereabouts they are, though, and you very seldom see
them. They're light brown birds."
We were walking on now, and twice over he stopped, smiling at me, so
that I could listen to the night-jars, making their whirring noise in
the wood.
"Now, was I cramming you?" he said.
"No, and I will not doubt you again. Why, what a lot you know about
country things!"
"Not I. That's nothing. You soon pick up all that. Ever hear a
nightingale?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Then you haven't. You'll hear them to-night, if it's fine, singing
away in the copses, and answering one another for miles round."
"Why, this must be a beautiful place, then?"
"I should think it is--it's lovely. I don't mean the school; I hate
that, and the way they bore you over the lessons, and the more stupid
you are, the harder they are upon you. I'm always catching it. 'Tain't
my fault I'm so stupid."
I looked at him sharply, for he seemed to me to be crammed full of
knowledge.
"The Doctor told me one day I was a miserable young idiot, and that I
thought about nothing but birds and butterflies. Can't help it. I like
to. I say, we'll go egging as soon as we've seen the owls. Wonder
whether I can get an owl's egg for my collection. I've got two
night-jars'."
"Out of the nest?"
"They don't make any nest; I found them just as they were laid on some
chips, where they were cutting down and trimming young trees for
hop-poles. Such beauties! But come along. Yes, he said I was a young
idiot, but father don't mind my wanting to collect things. He likes
natural history, and mamma collects plants, and names them. She can
tell you the names of all the flowers you pass by, and--whisht--snake!"
"Where? Where?"
"Only gone across here," said my companion, pointing to a winding track
in the dusty road, showing where the reptile must have crossed from one
side to the other.
"Which way did he go?" I said; "let's hunt him."
"No good," said my companion quietly. "He's off down some hole long
enough ago. Never mind him; I can show you plenty of snakes in the
woods, and adders too."
"They sting, don't they?" I said.
"No."
"They do. Adders or vipers are poisonous."
"Yes, but they don't sting; they bite. They've got poisoned fangs. You
can see an adder along here sometimes. Perhaps we shall see one to-day,
warming himself in the sun."
But we did not, for a few minutes later we approached a swing gate, just
as the keeper came round a curve in the opposite direction.
"Here you are, then," he said, "just right. Farmer Dawson's gone off to
market, and so we shan't have to ask leave. Come on, and let's see if
we can find Jem Roff."
He pushed open the gate, and we went along a cart track for some
distance, and then on through one of the hop-gardens, with its tall
poles draped with the climbing rough-leaved vines, some of which had
reached over and joined hands with their fellows, to make loops and
festoons, all beautiful to my town-bred eyes, as was the glimpse I
caught of a long, low old English farmhouse and garden, with a row of
bee-hives, as we went round a great yard surrounded by buildings--
stables, barns, sheds, and cow-houses, with at one corner four tall
towers, looking like blunt steeples with the tops cut off to accommodate
as many large wooden cowls.
"What are they?" I asked.
"Oast-houses."
"What?"
"Oast-houses, where they dry the hops over a fire on horse-hair sheets,"
said Mercer. "Look! that's the pigeon-cote," he continued, pointing to
three rows of holes cut in the woodwork which connected the brick
towers. "The owl's nest's in one of those."
Just then a middle-aged man, with a very broad smile upon his face, and
a fork in his hand, came up.
"Here, Jem," said the keeper, "the young gentlemen want to see the owl's
nest."
The smile departed from the man's face, which he wiped all over with one
hand, as he frowned and shook his head.
"Nay, nay," he said. "The master's very 'tickler 'bout them howls.
Why, if I was to kill one, he'd 'most kill me."
"The young gents won't hurt 'em, Jem."
"Nay, but they'd be wanting to take eggs, or young ones, or suthin'."
"Well, I should like one egg," said Mercer.
"Ah, I thowt so! Nay, you mustn't goo."
"Oh yes, let us go," said Mercer. "There, I won't touch an egg."
"An' you won't touch the birds?"
"No."
"Nor him neither."
"Oh, I won't touch them," I said eagerly.
"You see the master says they do no end of good, killing the mice and
young rats."
"And I say they do no end of mischief, killing the young partridges and
fezzans and hares," said the keeper. "Better not let me get a sight o'
one down our woods."
The man wiped his face again with his hand, and looked at us both
attentively.
"Young master here said he'd stooff a magpie for me if you shot one, Bob
Hopley."
"So I will," said Mercer, "if Mr Hopley shoots one for you."
"That's a bargain then," said the man, rummaging in his pocket, after
sticking the fork in the ground. "Here, this way," he continued, as he
drew out a bright key. "Coming, Bob?"
"No, I don't want to see owls, 'less they're nailed on my shed door."
He seated himself on the edge of a great hay-rack, and we followed the
farmer's man through a door into the dark interior of one of the
oast-houses, where we looked up to see the light coming in through the
opening at the side of the cowl, and then followed Jem up some steps
into a broad loft, at one corner of which was a short ladder leading up
to a trap-door in the floor overhead.
"Mind your heads, young gents, ceiling's pretty low."
We had already found that out by having our caps scraped by a rough beam
under which we passed.
"Now then, go up the ladder and push the trap-door open gently, so as
not to frighten 'em. Turn the door right over, and let it down by the
staple so as it lies on the floor. 'Tain't dark; plenty o' light comes
through the pigeon-holes."
"Haven't you got any pigeons now, Jem Roff?"
"No, nor don't want none. Up wi' ye, and let me get back to my work."
Mercer needed no further invitation, and, followed closely by me, he
crossed to the corner where the ladder stood, climbed up, thrust the
trap-door over, and disappeared--head--shoulders--body--legs.
Then I climbed too, and found myself in a dirty, garret-like place, lit
by the rays falling through about a score of pigeon-holes.
For a few moments the place was dim, and I could hardly make out
anything, but very soon after my eyes grew accustomed to the half light,
and I was ready to join in Mercer's admiration as he cried,--"Isn't he a
beauty!"
For we were looking where, in one corner, sitting bolt upright, with his
eyes half closed, there was a fine young owl, just fully fledged and fit
to fly, while nothing could be more beautiful than his snow-white,
flossy breast, and the buff colour of his back, all dotted over with
grey, and beautifully-formed dots.
"Oh, shouldn't I like him to stuff!" cried Mercer. "He'll never look so
clean and beautiful again."
"But what's that?" I cried, pointing at a hideous-looking goblin-like
creature, with a great head, whose bare skin was tufted with patches of
white down. Its eyes were enormous, but nearly covered by a
nasty-looking skin, which seemed to be stretched over them. Projecting
beneath was an ugly great beak, and its nearly naked body, beneath the
toppling head and weak neck, was swollen and bloated up as if it would
crack at a touch. Altogether it was as disgusting a looking object as
it was possible to imagine.
"That's his young brother," cried Mercer, laughing.
"Young nonsense! It must be a very, very old owl that has lost all its
feathers."
"Not it. That chap's somewhere about a fortnight old; and look there,
you can see an egg in the nest, too. Shouldn't I like it!"
"Then it's the nest belonging to three pairs of owls?" I said.
"No. That's the way they do--hatch one egg at a time. They all belong
to the same pair."
I felt a little incredulous, but my attention was taken up then by a
semicircle of little animals arranged about two feet from the
nesting-place.
"Why, they're all big mice," I said.
"No; nearly all young rats," said Mercer, counting. "Twenty-two," he
cried, "and all fresh. Why, they must have been caught last night.
That's a fine mouse," he cried, taking one up by its tail.
"Why, that must be a young rat," I said. "That little one's a mouse."
"No; this is a field mouse. Look at his long tail and long ears. The
rats have got shorter, thicker tails, and look thicker altogether."
"Now then, are you young gents a-coming down?" shouted Jem.
"Yes. All right. Directly. Oh, isn't that fellow a beauty!" he
continued, throwing down the mouse he had lifted back into its place in
the owls' larder. "I say, don't the old ones keep up a good supply!"
A second summons from the man made us prepare to descend, the full-grown
owl making no effort to escape, but blinking at us, and making a soft,
hissing noise. The goblin-looking younger one, however, gaped widely,
and seemed to tumble over backwards from the weight of its head. It was
so deplorable and old-looking a creature that it seemed impossible that
it could ever grow into a soft, thickly feathered bird like the other,
and I said so.
"Oh, but it will," said Mercer; "all birds that I know of, except ducks
and chickens and geese, are horridly ugly till they are fledged. Young
thrushes and rooks are nasty-looking, big-eyed, naked things at first.
There: you go on down."
I descended through the trap-door, and he followed, the man looking at
us searchingly, as if he had not much faith in our honesty when face to
face with such temptations as owls' eggs, but his look was only
momentary, and he took it for granted that we had kept our word.
"Where are the old birds, Jem?" said my companion.
"Oh, right away somewhere in the woods, asleep. Want to see them?"
"Of course."
"Then you must come at night, and you'll see these young ones sitting at
one of the holes giving a hiss now and then for the old birds to come
and feed them, and every now and then one of them flies up."
"Yes, I know," said Mercer, "so still and softly that you can't hear the
wings. But I should like that egg."
"Then you had better ask the master, and see what he says."
"Well, my lads," cried Hopley, in his bluff, deep voice, "seen the
owls?"
"Yes; and now, I say, Bob Hopley, you'll let us go through the big
beech-wood, and round by the hammer pond?"
"What for?" said the keeper.
"It's holiday to-day, and I want to show this chap, our new boy, round."
"What! to teach him mischief like you know?"
"Get out. I don't do any mischief. You might let us go."
"Not my wood, it's master's."
"Well, he wouldn't mind."
"And I've got young fezzans in coops all about the place."
"Well, we don't want the pheasants."
"I should think not, indeed; and just you look here: I see you've got
that chap Magglin up at work in your garden again; you just tell him
from me that if ever I see him in our woods, I'll give him a peppering
with small shot."
"You carry your impudent messages yourself, or tell the Doctor," said
Mercer sharply.
"What?" cried the keeper, scowling at us.
"I say, you take your impudent messages yourself. You know you daren't
shoot at him."
"Oh, daren't I? I'll let him see."
"It's against the law, and your master's a magistrate. You know you
daren't. What would he say?"
The keeper raised his gun with both hands, breathed on the mottled
walnut-wood stock, and began to polish it with the sleeve of his
velveteen jacket. Then he looked furtively at Jem Roff, then at me, and
lastly at Mercer, before letting the gun fall in the hollow of his arm,
and taking off his cap to give his head a scratch, while a grim smile
began to play about his lips.
"You've got me there, youngster," he said slowly, and Jem began to
chuckle.
"Of course I have," said Mercer confidently. "Besides, what's that got
to do with me?"
"Why, he's a friend of yours."
"That I'm sure he's not. He's a nasty, mean beggar, who makes me pay
ever so much for everything he does for me. You ask him," continued
Mercer, giving his head a side wag at me, "if only this morning he
didn't make me give him twopence for a pen'orth of worms."
"Yes, that he did," I said, coming to my companion's help.
"Humph!" grunted the keeper. "Well, youngsters, never you mind that,
you pay him, and keep him at a distance. He's no good to nobody, and I
wonder at Doctor Browne, as teaches young gents to be gents, should keep
such a bad un about his place. He's a rank poacher, that's what he is,
and there ain't nothing worse than a poacher, is there, Jem Roff?"
"Thief," said that gentleman.
"Thief? I don't know so much about that. Thieves don't go thieving
with loaded guns to shoot keepers, do they?"
"Well, no," said Jem.
"Of course they don't, so that's what I say--there aren't nothing worse
than a poacher, and don't you young gents have anything to do with him,
or, as sure as you stand there, he'll get you into some scrape."
"Who's going to have anything to do with him?" cried Mercer pettishly.
"Why, you are, sir."
"I only buy a bird of him, sometimes, to stuff."
"Yes, birds he's shot on our grounds, I'll be bound, or else trapped
ones."
"Well, they're no good, and you never shoot anything for me. P'r'aps he
is a bad one, but if I pay him, he is civil. He wouldn't refuse to let
two fellows go through the big woods."
"Thought you was going fishing."
"Not till this evening, after tea."
"Where are you going?"
"Down by the mill."
"Wouldn't like to try after a big carp, I s'pose, or one of our old
perch?"
"Wouldn't like!" cried Mercer excitedly.
"No, I thought you wouldn't," said the keeper. "There, I must be off."
"Oh, I say, Bob Hopley, do give us leave."
"What leave?"
"To have an hour or two in the hammer pond. There's a good chap, do!"
"The master mightn't like it. Not as he ever said I wasn't to let any
one fish."
"Then let's go."
"No, my lads, I'm not going to give you leave," said the keeper, with a
twinkle in his eyes; "but there's a couple o' rods and lines all right,
under the thatch of the boat-house."
"Yes, Bob, but what about bait?"
"Oh, I don't know 'bout bait. P'r'aps there's some big worms in the
moss in that old tin pot in the corner."
"Oh, Bob!" cried Mercer excitedly, while I felt my heart beat heavily.
"Yes, now I come to think of it, there is some worms in that tin pot, as
I got to try for an eel or two."
"Then we may go?"
"Nay, nay, don't you be in a hurry. It won't do. Why, if I was to let
you two go, you might catch some fish, a big carp, or a perch, or one of
they big eels."
"Yes, of course we might."
"And if you did, you'd go right back to the school and tell young
Magglin, and he'd be setting night lines by the score all over the
pond."
"No; honour! We'll never say a word to him!" we cried.
"Then you'll tell all your schoolmates, and that big long hop-pole chap,
what's his name?"
"Burr major," said Mercer eagerly.
"And that big fat-faced boy?"
"Dicksee?"
"Yes, that's him, and I'll give him Dicksee if he chucks stones at my
Polly's hens. We shall be having 'em lay eggs with the shells broke."
"Oh, nonsense, Bob! We won't tell."
"And them two, and all the others coming and wanting leave to go fishing
too."
"No, no, I tell you," cried Mercer, but the keeper, with a malicious
twinkle in his eyes, kept on without heeding him.
"And half of 'em'll be falling in, and t'other half tumble after 'em to
pull 'em out, and the whole school getting drowned, and then, what would
the Doctor say?"
"I say, Jem Roff, just hark at him!" cried Mercer impatiently.
"Oh, if you don't want to hear me talk, I can keep my mouth shut. Good
morning."
He nodded shortly, and, shouldering his gun, marched off.
"Oh, I say, isn't he provoking? and he never gave us leave.--Bob!"
No answer.
"Bob Hopley!"
But the keeper strode on without turning his head, and Mercer stood
wrinkling up his forehead, the picture of despair.
"And there are such lots of fish in that pond," he cried, "and I did
want to show my friend here, Jem Roff."
"Well, why don't you go, then? He's only teasing you."
"Think so," cried my companion, brightening up.
"Why, didn't he tell you where the rods and lines were, and the worms?
You go on and fish. I should."
"You would, Jem?"
"Of course."
"But there won't be time before dinner now," said Mercer thoughtfully.
"I say, are you hungry?"
"Not very," I said, "and I've got some biscuits left."
"Then come on," cried Mercer. "Don't tell him weave gone, Jem, and I
will stuff that mag for you splendidly, see if I don't."
"I shan't see him, my lad. There, off you go."
"Yes: come on!" cried Mercer excitedly; "and--I say, Jem, lend us a
basket."
"What for?"
"To put the fish in?"
"You go and ketch 'em first, lad, and by and by I'll come round that way
with one under my arm, and you might give a fellow an eel, if you get
one."
"You shall have all the eels, Jem."
"Thank-ye. Then look here! you bait one line with the biggest worms you
can find, and do you know the penstock?"
"What, down in the deep corner, under the trees?"
"Yes; it's ten foot deep there. You fish right on the bottom, in that
corner, and you'll have some sport."
"Hallo!" cried Mercer, laughing. "I say, Burr, junior, hark at him.
How does he know? I say, Jem, how many eels have you caught there, eh?"
"You go and begin," said the man, with a dry laugh. "I won't forget
about the basket."
"Nor I about the eels. Come on," cried Mercer. "Here, look sharp;
let's run!"
He caught hold of my hand, raced me through the hop-garden, and out into
the lane.
"Now, down here," he said, as we reached a stile. "We can get across
this field, and then into the woods, and--quick, do as I do!"
As he spoke, he dropped down on his knees, and began hunting about at
the bottom of the hedge, while I made clumsy efforts to do the same.
"What is it?" I said eagerly.
"Pretend it's a snake. Can't you see?"
"No."
"There's Eely Burr and old Dicksee coming down the lane, and they'll
want to come too. Hist! don't look. Lie down; p'r'aps they haven't
seen us, and they'll go by."
"But it's all stinging nettles," I said.
"What of that? Here, this way; they won't sting if you go down hard."
And, throwing himself into a great bed of the venomous weeds, he lay
perfectly still, and I was obliged to follow suit, but not without
suffering two or three stings.
CHAPTER FOUR.
DOWN BY THE PENSTOCK.
It seemed a long time before we heard anything, but at last there were
steps and voices which soon became plain, and, to my surprise, I found
that they were talking about me.
"Oh, he can't fight, Dicksy," said one voice, which I recognised as the
tall boy's--my namesake. "Those London chaps are all talk and no do. I
shall give him a licking first chance, just to tame him down, and then
you'd better have a go at him."
"You think he can't fight, then?"
"Tchah! not he. You can lick him with one hand."
"Then I will," said Dicksee. "I wonder where he went."
"Off with that old Senna T-pot," said Burr major scornfully. "He's
taken him with him to pick snails and frogs--an idiot! I hate that
chap, Dicksy, he's a beast."
"Yes, that he is."
"You can't shake hands with him, because you never know what he's
touched last. I think the Doctor ought to be more particular about the
sort of boys he--mumble--hum--hum hum hum!"
The buzzing of a humble-bee, and then silence.
"Ck!"
"Eh?"
"Ck!" ejaculated Mercer, uttering a stifled laugh. "Oh, I say, what a
game, and us hearing every word. Thinks the Doctor ought to be more
particular what sort of boys he has in the school. I suppose that's
meant for me. Well, my father is a gentleman, and could set his to make
him a pair of trousers if he liked. Can't shake hands with me, can't
he? Well, who wants him to? I wish I could fight, I'd make him smell
my hands--my fists. He'd know then what they'd touched. But he can
fight, and licked me horrid. Lie still yet, or they'll see us get up; I
thought they were in the cricket-field. Tired, I suppose. Such a fuss
about making your hands a bit dirty. Daresay I keep 'em as clean as he
does his. I say, got stung?"
"A little," I said.
"Never mind; dock's the thing to cure that. All right. Gone. Now
then, over the stile, and do as I do."
He crept over the stile, and into the field, and began to run down
beside the hedge in a stooping position, while I followed suit, and we
did not rise up till we gained the shelter of the trees.
"There we are! This is the beginning of the woods. Oh, it's such a
place!"
"You've been before, then?" I said, as we began to wind in and out
among large beech-trees, whose smooth grey trunks were spotted with
creamy and green moss.
"Lots of times. I go everywhere when I can get away. It's a famous
place here for moths. There's old Dame Durden again. This way--now
down here; we shall soon be there."
I followed him for about a quarter of an hour through the dim, mossy
glades of the grand old wood, till all at once it grew lighter, and we
stepped out beside a broad sheet of water dotted with lilies and patches
of rush and reed, while about fifty yards farther along the bank of the
broad pool there was a roughly-thatched boat-house, with a mossy old
punt moored to one of the posts by a rusty chain.
"Now, then, what do you think of this, eh?" said Mercer.
I looked round at the smooth sheet of water glistening in the bright
sunshine, completely shut in by giant old trees whose great branches
hung down over the sides and even dipped their ends and seemed to be
repeated in the mirror-like surface. Here I could see silvery
lily-blossoms, and there others of gold floating like cups amongst the
broad round leaves, and, turning from the beautiful picture to my
companion, I could only say two words:
"It's glorious!"
"I should think it is," he cried. "We two are going to have no end of
fun together. You don't mind the other boys bullying you, and old Reb
snarling and finding fault, and the Doctor boxing your ears with your
books, when you've got places like this to come to. Hi! look at the old
moorhen, there, with her young ones," and he pointed to a
curious-looking bird swimming about and flicking its black and white
tail, as it went in and out among the rushes growing in the water, with
six little sooty-looking, downy young ones swimming after it. "Ever see
one of them before?"
"No," I said. "There's another over there too."
"No, it isn't; that's a bald coot. It's got a white shield on the top
of its head, and the moorhen's got a red one like sealing-wax. Hi! look
at that!"
For all of a sudden there was a rush and splash close to the reeds, and
the moorhen and five young ones went through the water with a dash to
hide among the reeds.
"Know what that was?"
"They saw us, and were frightened. Or did some one throw a big stone?"
"There's no one to throw big stones here. That was Mr Jack."
"Well, did he throw stones?" I said wonderingly.
"No! What a fellow you are! A jack--a pike--a big fish--took one of
the young moorhens for his dinner."
"Why, I thought pike lived on fish," I cried.
"They live on anything. I've seen them swallow young ducks and
water-rats and frogs--anything they can get. We'll come and set a
trimmer for that gentleman some day."
"I suppose I'm very stupid," I said; "but I've always lived in London,
and have very seldom been in the country. I don't know anything about
birds and fish."
"You soon will. There's always something to see here. Herons come
sometimes, but they don't stop, because it's too deep for them to wade
except in one place; and there's a hawk's nest over yonder in an old
fir-tree, but Bob Hopley shot the old birds, and you can see 'em nailed
up against his lodge. There was a magpie's nest, too, up in a big elm
tree not far off; but never mind them now. Let's catch some--Hist! look
there. See 'em?"
"No," I said, looking down into the water where he pointed.
"Come here. Lie down flat, and slowly peep over the bank through that
grass. Go softly, or you'll frighten them off. Then look down."
I did as he told me, and as I looked down into the clear, deep water,
that looked almost black from its depth, I could see quite a shoal of
fish, with their sides barred with dark stripes, sailing slowly about
between me and the dead leaves and rotten branches which strewed the
bottom of the pool.
"See 'em?"
"Yes," I whispered; "perch, aren't they?"
"Why, I thought you knew nothing about fish."
"I've seen pictures of them in books," I said, "of course."
"Yes, perch, all but that black, soft-looking chap close to the bottom.
He's a tench. But come on, and let's get the rods."
He led the way to the boat-house, a green strip of coarse grass about
five feet wide leading to the rough building, and Mercer looked
longingly at the boat, which was half full of water.
"We'll try her some day," he said; "but she seems very leaky. Here we
are."
As he spoke, he took a couple of rough-looking, unjointed rods from
where they were laid across some pegs driven into the side of the
building just below the thatch eaves.
"All right," he said, examining the stout, strong silk lines twisted
lightly about them, and the hooks stuck in pieces of cork which were
bound on to the butts of the rods. "Now, then, come for the worms."
He leaned the rods up against the roof of the boat-house, and led me
into the open-sided building, where, as described by the keeper, we
found an old watering-pot half full of moss, and in this damp moss, and
below it, an abundance of fresh, lively-looking worms.
"All right. Now for some fish. This way. Take your rod, I'll carry
the pot. That's where we're going."
He pointed to where the pool narrowed, and ran up among the trees almost
to a point, where I could see some woodwork, and a post standing up in
the middle, with a series of holes pierced through it, and as we walked
round by the grassy margin which led to the spot,--
"There, that's the place," cried Mercer. "That's the penstock."
"And what's a penstock."
"Don't you see. They pull up that post, and poke a peg in one of those
holes, and that keeps it open, so as the water can run out down that
gully behind there through the wood. It's to empty the pond. There
used to be hundreds of years ago a great forge there, and the water
turned a wheel to work the big hammers when they used to dig iron here,
and melt it with charcoal. But never mind that, I want to catch some
fish. Now, then, walk out along that woodwork. There's just room for
us both on the top of the penstock, and we'll fish from there. Mind how
you go, for it's precious deep."
It looked ugly, and the old oak beams and piles were moist, and nearly
covered with moss; but I stepped out, and reached the little platform
through which the upright post ran, and turned round to look for my
companion, who was by my side directly after.
"There," he said; "there isn't too much room."
"Shall I go and fish from the bank?" I said.
"Oh no, we'll manage. Don't talk loud, only whisper, and don't move
about. I don't believe that fishes can hear all the same. There," he
added, as he baited my hook, "that's old Magglin's way. Let's see, are
you deep enough. Yes, that will do. Throw in."
I dropped in my line, Mercer followed suit, and then, in the midst of
the profound stillness of the lonely place, we stood on our little
square platform, leaning against the post, watching the white tops of
the cork floats, and waiting.
"As you've been fishing before, you know what to do," whispered Mercer;
"only don't be in a hurry, give 'em plenty of time, and don't strike
till they take your float right down."
Half an hour passed away, and my attention began to be drawn from my
float to watch the birds that sailed over the pool, or the swallows that
skimmed it in search of flies.
"Not deep enough," said Mercer suddenly, and, taking out his line, he
adjusted the float higher up, and I followed his example.
Then we began to fish again; but with no better result, and I looked
round at Mercer.
"Oh, it's no use to be in a hurry," he said. "Sometimes they won't
bite, and then you have to wait till they will. But look, something's
at mine."
I looked at his float, which had given a slight bob, and then another;
but that was all.
"Off again. Didn't want worms," he said; "wants paste."
There was another long pause.
"Not deep enough," said Mercer again. "Ought to have plumbed the
depth."
He altered his float, and I did the same, and we compared them to see
that they were about alike, and the fishing went on, till my companion
decided that we ought to have fresh worms, and selected a fine fresh one
for my hook, and one for his own before throwing the old ones out into
the water.
"Well, now," he cried, "look at that!"
I was already looking, for before the old baits had gone down many
inches, we saw them both seized by largish fish, which seemed to dart
out of some lilies a short distance to our left.
"What are you going to do?" I said.
"Wait a minute and I'll show you," he whispered, laughing, and after
attaching the bait, he brought down the floats till they were only about
a foot away from the hooks. "Now then, do as I do. Throw your line out
as near as you can to those floating leaves."
He threw his own very cleverly, so that the bait dropped into the water
with hardly a splash, and I followed his example.
"Too far," he said, as my bait dropped on to a lily leaf, but the weight
of the shot drew it slowly off the dark green leaf, and it glided into
the water.
"I've got a bite," said Mercer, in an excited whisper. "Hi, look out!
Strike! strike!" he cried, for at that moment the white top of my float
descended suddenly, rose again and then began to glide in a sloping
direction along the edge of the lily bed.
I gave the rod a sharp, upward motion, and a thrill ran up my arm, as I
felt the line tighten, and a curious tugging commence.
"Hurrah! you've got him. Don't let him go into the weeds, or you'll
lose it. Keep your rod up, and you'll have the gentleman."
I heard all his instructions, but in the flurry of holding my first fish
I did nothing but what, as the rod and line were both strong, was for
the best. That is to say, I held my rod with both hands, and kept it
nearly upright, while the fish I had hooked darted here and there, and
tried vainly to make a dive down for the bottom.
"It's all right," said Mercer breathlessly. "It's a big one, and you
must have him. Don't hurry."
"Is it very big?" I whispered excitedly.
"I think it is--over a pound, I should say. Let him get tired, or he'll
break away. Ah, it's of no use, you're caught fast, old gentleman,
whatever you are. It's a big carp or a tench. I think it's a carp,
it's so strong."
The struggle went on for fully five minutes before the fish gave in.
"Now we've got to land it," said Mercer. "Can't do it here, or he'll
break away. I know. Give me your rod to hold. That's it. Now you go
back, and I'll pass it to you."
He laid his own tackle down, and I walked carefully along the narrow
woodwork, back to the shore, while he drew the fish round, and then
reached toward me, till I could catch hold of the rod and feel the fish
still feebly struggling.
The next minute Mercer was by my side, the fish was drawn in close up
amongst the sedge growing on the bank. My companion went down flat,
reached a hand into the water, and scooped out my capture, which lay now
flapping feebly in all the glory of its golden scale armour, a short,
thick, broad-backed carp.
"There," cried Mercer, "didn't I tell you this was a grand place? Why,
it must be a two-pounder;" and I stood gloating over the vividly-bright
colour of my capture, while Mercer knelt down, took out the hook, and
finally deposited the fish in a hollow, and covered it with fern fronds.
"Look! look!" I cried just then.
"Oh, bother! Why, there's one on," said Mercer. "Here, give me your
rod;" and he stepped quickly out on to the penstock, and made a cast
with my line, trying to throw it over the top part of his own rod, which
was slowly sailing away, floating on the water with a curious motion
going on at the end, which kept diving down, as if something was trying
to draw it under water.
It was all plain enough: a fish had hooked itself, and at the first tug,
the light bamboo rod had glided off the penstock, to act as a big, long
float, for the cork was deep down somewhere out of sight.
I followed on to the penstock, and stood by as cast after cast was made,
always cleverly over the rod, but the hook glided back on being drawn
without taking hold.
It was plain enough that in a few minutes the rod would be drawn out of
reach, when Mercer made a more lucky cast, for in drawing back, the hook
had caught a part of the other line, and directly after there was a
steady tightening.
"Hah!" ejaculated Mercer, and he drew in steadily till his own rod was
within reach, and I lay down, leaned out as far as I could, and strained
to reach it.
"Take care. Hold tight. It's horrid deep here. Mind, or you'll be
in."
But I was holding tightly by part of the woodwork, and, after a few more
efforts, I touched the butt of the rod with the tips of my fingers,
pushing it away, for it to rise again right into my hand, and I rose
with it, safe.
"Give it to me. Take yours," cried Mercer, when the exchange was made,
and I saw his face light up as he began to play a good-sized fish, but
with my hook still attached to his line.
"It's a big one," he panted, as the struggle went on, with, the fish
fighting now to reach the water-lilies, but without success. "That
wouldn't do," he cried. "If he once got in there, he'd wind the weeds
about the line, and break away."
So, by steady force, the fish was led back, and again I went ashore
first, took Mercer's rod, and held it while he scooped out, and threw
high our second capture, which proved to be another carp, nearly, but
not quite so big as mine.
We were soon fishing again from our old place, but without the slightest
success now, the struggles with our golden prisoners having apparently
scared away all the other fish.
"This won't do," said Mercer at last; "we shall have to try somewhere
else. Here, I forgot all about Jem Roff; and look at 'em."
"Look at what?"
"Why, the eels. Can't you see them?"
"No."
"Why, look at those bubbles coming up. That's eels at work stirring up
the mud at the bottom, or coming out of their holes. We'll soon talk to
them."
His way of talking to the eels was to raise the floats so high, that,
after trying several times, it became evident that he had adjusted the
depth so that the bait touched the ground, and the floats lay half over
on their sides.
"Now then," he said, after examining the worms, "we ought to catch old
Jem's supper pretty soon. Throw in there, near me."
I did as I was told, and the patient waiting began again, with changes
of baits and moves in fresh positions, but without result, and I was
beginning to get rather tired and hungry, when my companion said
dolefully,--
"Don't seem to bite. They won't begin till it's nearly dusk, and we
shall have to go back before very long, for we must have some tea.
Wonder whether cook'll give us some meat? I know: we'll get some eggs
of Polly Hopley; she'll boil 'em for us, and we'll take 'em back."
We fished for another hour.
"It's no good," said Mercer; "I'm very sorry. I wanted you to catch a
big eel, and then you'd want to come again, and now you won't care about
it."
"Oh yes, I shall," I said. "It was worth coming too, even if we didn't
catch any more fish."
"You think so? Look! you've got him!"
For my float was bobbing gently, and moving slowly away.
"No, no, don't strike. Yes--let him have it. That's an eel biting, and
he will not leave it. You'll see."
The gentle bob, bob, bob of the float went on as it glided slowly away
foot after foot, till I could bear the excitement no longer, and I
turned my eyes to my companion as if to say, "Do let me strike now--
strike gently."
"Yes," he cried, "he must have got it;" and I struck gently, and felt
directly as if the hook was in a stump or a dead branch at the bottom of
the pool.
"It isn't a fish," I said, looking at Mercer.
"What is it then?" he replied, laughing. "It's an eel."
"But it don't move or run about."
"You wait a minute. It's an eel, and a big one."
My acquaintance with eels so far had been upon the slabs at the
fishmonger's shops, or in pieces browned and garnished with fried
parsley, and my line remained so tight and still that I still doubted my
companion's words.
"He has got his tail in a hole, or twined about a stump."
"But don't you think the hook's in a stump?"
"I never knew a stump bite at a worm, and run away with your float.
There, he's loose now. Keep him up, and don't let him go down low
again."
I heard his words, but felt that all I could do was to let the eel go
where it liked. For it started the fight by swinging its head rapidly
from side to side in a succession of sharp jerks, and then began to make
the line and the top of the rod quiver, as it worked its way backward,
trying to descend to the bottom, while my efforts were, of course,
directed towards pulling it to the top.
"That's right; you've got him fast," said Mercer. "It's of no use to
try and play him, he'll keep on like that for long enough. Give me the
rod while you get back to the bank. Then you must pull him out quickly,
right up on to the grass, and put your foot upon him. Not afraid of
eels, are you?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Because the big ones will bite--hard."
I handed the rod, and walked back along the woodwork that was like the
isthmus of our tiny wooden peninsula, and as soon as I was ashore,
Mercer left his rod again, and handed me mine, following directly after,
as I felt the snaky-looking creature writhing and undulating at the end
of the line, sending quite a galvanic thrill up my arms the while.
"Now then," said Mercer, "pull steady; and when it is near the top, run
it right out on to the grass."
I tried to obey his orders; but when I saw the creature keeping up its
rapid serpentine motion, I felt disposed to let it go down again into
its watery depths. I did not, however, but gradually swept the point of
my rod round, drawing my prisoner nearly to the bank, and then with one
good swing drew it right out on to the grass, where, in an instant, it
tied itself right up in a knot, with the line twisted about it.
"Oh my, what a mess!" cried Mercer, coming to my help. "Ugh! you nasty,
slimy wretch! Mind, or he'll be off back into the--Ah, would you?"
He seized the line, and drew the eel farther from the water's edge,
waiting his opportunity, which came directly, for the fish rapidly
untwined itself, plunged its head amongst the grass, and began to make
its way like a snake when its course was checked by Mercer's foot
planted firmly behind its head.
"Ugh! how cruel!" I said.
"Serve him right. He's grown to be as big as this by catching and
eating all the poor little fish that went near him. He's good to eat
too, and what a big one! Why, he must be over a pound. Oh my, what a
mess!" he continued. "He has swallowed the hook right down, and there's
no getting it out till he's dead. Here, give me your handkerchief, I'll
use mine when I catch one."
I took out my handkerchief, and by his directions spread it upon the
grass, when he raised his foot, lifted up the line, and the fish again
twisted itself into a knot.
"That's the way," he said. "Now then, I'll drop him gently on to the
handkerchief, and you take the cross corners and tie them over him
tight, and then the other two. Ready?"
"Yes," I said, feeling no little repugnance to the slimy creature, but
getting first one knot and then the other fast over the big round
writhing fish, and this done to my companion's satisfaction, he whipped
out his knife and cut the line.
"There," he said, "we mustn't lose sight of him, or he'll eat his way
out if he don't find another way through the folds. No; I think he's
safe. I'll hang him here."
"Here" was the rugged stump of a small branch of one of the nearest
trees.
"Now," he said, "I'll try and catch one too before we go, and we shan't
have done so very badly."
"But you've cut my hook off," I said. "How am I to fish?"
"You'll have to watch me, for I haven't another hook. Come along. We
mustn't stop much longer, or we shan't be back to tea. Stand your rod
up against that tree."
He was already half-way back to the penstock and caught up his rod, but
no fish had attacked it this time, and we stood side by side once more,
leaning against the post, watching his float, as he tried first in one
place, then in another, without success.
"We shall have to give it up and go," he said at last. "We must get
back to tea. We'll give the carp to Polly Hopley, she likes fish, and
the eel too."
"Look! a bite," I whispered, for I distinctly saw a slight quivering of
the top of the float.
"No," he said despondently. "I did that, shaking the top of the rod.
I'm not so lucky as you. Yes, it is. Hooray!"
For the faint quiver was repeated, then there were one or two little
bobs, then others, and at last the float began to dance slowly away
toward the shore.
"He has got it, and is going to take it to his hole," whispered Mercer.
"But he don't go here to-night. He's going into the frying-pan, I
think. Hah! Got him!"
For he now struck sharply, and the rod bent tremendously. There was no
steady, motionless pull here, but a fierce shaking of the head and a
hard, vibratory tugging at the line.
"Bigger than yours," he cried. "A thumper! My, how he pulls! Ah,
would you? No, you don't, my fine fellow. He wants to get to the bank,
I suppose, but he's coming out here into deep water, where there's
nothing to twist about, and he's not going ashore till I go first."
Just then the eel made a rush first in one direction, then in another,
but with a heavy pressure kept up, and the rod bending nearly double.
Then it made a rush for the shore, and Mercer raised the point of his
rod and stepped back, while I uttered a cry, for the rod had struck me
sharply on the ear.
But it was not at the blow, but at the tremendous splash, for, forgetful
in his excitement of where he stood, Mercer's step was off the narrow
penstock right into the deep water, and as I clung to the post with one
hand, I was looking down into the huge bubbling ring he had made, to see
first the rod come up, then Mercer's hand, and then his face, close to
his floating cap, but quite a dozen feet away from where I stood.
I was too much startled to move for a few moments, while Mercer beat the
water with his hands frantically for a bit, and then went under again,
but rose and called to me hoarsely,--
"Help!"
"Swim!" I shouted. "Swim!" But he only gazed at me wildly, and I saw
him go down again.
For an instant or two I stood as if turned to stone, then a thought
struck me, and I ran along the woodwork to where I had left my rod, and,
without thinking of the danger and the narrowness of the path, I ran
back again in time to see Mercer rise again, beating the water
frantically.
"Here, quick!" I shouted. "Catch hold;" and I held out the thin bamboo
pole to him, but it did not reach within a couple of yards of where he
was beating the water.
But it had its effect upon him. It was a chance for life, and in a
curious laboured way he struck out now to swim, but came on very slowly,
being hampered in some way by his own rod.
"Oh, try, try, try!" I shouted, and I saw him set his teeth and swim on
desperately till one hand closed upon the thin bamboo, and then the
other caught hold.
"Tight! Hold tight," I shouted, and, dropping on my knees, I began to
draw the rod through my hands slowly, as if it was a rope, my eyes
feeling as if they were starting as I saw his wild pallid face and set
teeth, for I was in momentary dread that he would let go.
It seemed long enough before I had drawn him within reach and snatched
at one of his wrists, then at the other, drawing myself back so as to
get him closer. Then I got tight hold of his jacket collar, and, as I
did so, my knees glided away from me back over the other side of the
penstock, and a curious sickening sensation came over me. The water and
Mercer's white face were blurred and swimming before me, and I was fast
losing consciousness, but the faintness was not much more than
momentary, and the sickening sensation began to wear away as rapidly as
it came, as I fully realised the fact that I was half off the little
platform, with my legs in the water, but holding my companion all the
time with a desperate clutch, while he clung as tightly to my wrists.
Then I tried to speak, but at first no words came, and it was all like
some terrible dream.
At last, though, the power of utterance came, and I cried loudly, in a
voice which did not seem like mine,--
"I've got you safe. Now climb out."
He did not move, only gazed wildly in my eyes till he seemed to irritate
me.
"Do you hear, you coward?" I half screamed; "climb out on to here. Do
you want me to fall right in?"
Still he did not reply, and I shouted at him again in my despairing
rage, for a curious sensation of weakness crept through me, and the
horrible thought came that sooner or later I must let him go.
"Do you hear? Don't play the fool. Climb out."
"Can't," he said in a husky whisper. "I tried--hard."
"Try again."
In obedience to my fierce order, he made an effort, splashing the water
a little, but ceased directly, and gazed at me wildly still.
"Can't. Line--round my legs."
His words sent a flash of light through me, for they explained his
miserable attempts to swim, and I realised that the stout silk line had
been twisted about him by the eel in its efforts to escape.
"Try again," I said in a voice as husky as his own. "_You must_."
He struggled feebly, but gave up at once.
"I can't," he groaned. "No strength."
The poor fellow seemed paralysed, save that I could feel his hands
grasping me with a clutch that did not relax for a moment, as I lay
there on my chest, thinking what I must do. It was evident that I
should get no help from him: for the shock of the accident, and his
discovery that he was fast bound and helpless, had completely unnerved
him, and it was plain to me that before long his desperate clutch would
relax, and, when I could hold him no longer, he would sink back and
drown before my eyes.
I looked despairingly round, but only to see deep water, and the bank so
near and yet so far, for it was out of reach.
At last my mind was made up. I would get my knees on the penstock
again, and then by main force drag him out, at all events into a sitting
position, where I could hold him against the post while he recovered
sufficiently to walk to the shore.
I waited a few moments, and then began, but to my horror found that my
feet glided over the slimy, rotten woodwork of the piles beneath the
water, and that I could get no hold anywhere. If I could have had my
hands free for a few moments, it would have been easy enough, but I
dared not let go of him, and, after a brief and weakening struggle, I
gave up, and hung over panting, with for the only result the feeling
that the water was now farther up my legs than before.
I soon got my breath again, and made a fresh effort, but with a worse
result, and this was repeated till a chilly sensation of dread ran
through me, and I felt half stunned at the horror of my position.
Then I recovered a little. "Mercer," I said, "do you feel rested now?"
He did not speak, only looked at me in a curious, half vacant way, and I
shivered, for this was, I felt sure, the first step toward his losing
consciousness and loosening his hold.
"I say," I cried, "don't give up like that. You've got to climb up on
to these boards. I'm going to help you, but I can't unless you help me
too."
There was no reply, only the same fixed stare in his dilated eyes, and
in my horror I looked wildly round at the place I had thought so
beautiful, but which was now all terrible to me, and felt how utterly we
were away from help.
I began again, twining my legs now about the nearest post, and this
enabled me to hold on, but I could get up no farther. I tried, though,
to drag Mercer on to the woodwork, but my position crippled me, and I
should have required double the muscular power I possessed.
I believe I made other trials, but a curious sensation of weakness and
confusion was coming over me, as I uttered one after the other my loud
cries for help.
It was horrible, and yet it seemed ridiculous that we two lads could not
struggle up there into safety; but though I thought so then, I have
often felt since that in my cramped position I was loaded down, as it
were, with my companion's weight.
The end seemed to be coming fast. I had no dread for myself, since I
felt that, once free of Mercer's tight clutch and the hold I had upon
him, I could grasp the far edge of the woodwork, draw myself farther up,
and sit and rest. But before I could do this I knew that he would have
sunk away from me, and in a confused fashion I began to wonder whether I
should hear him scream out as he was drowning, or whether he would sink
down gently without a sound.
I shouted again, but my voice sounded weak, and as if it did not
penetrate the trees which closed us in, and now it seemed to be all
over, for the horrible sense of faintness was returning fast, and I made
one more desperate effort before I felt that I too was going to sink
back into the black water; and in that wild last fit of energy I uttered
what was quite a shriek, and then felt half choked by the spasm of joy
that seemed to rise into my throat.
For from quite close at hand there came quite a cheery,--
"Hillo!"
"Here--quick--help!" I gasped; and then I was silent, and hearing a
loud ejaculation, as I felt the wood of the penstock tremble.
"All right. Hold tight, lad," said a familiar voice, and a hand grasped
my collar. "I've got you, and I've got him too. Here, can you climb
out?"
"If--if you can hold him," I said.
"I can hold him, and give you a help too. That's the way--get tight
hold of the edge, draw yourself up. Well done. Now sit down, and put
your arm round the post."
I had been conscious of a strong hand grasping my waistband and giving
me a drag up, and now I was sitting trembling and holding tightly by the
post.
"Now then, Master Mercer, don't stare like that, lad. I've got you
safe. There, out you come. My word, you're wet! Stop a moment,
though; you'd better try and get ashore before I pull him right out.
There ain't room for three of us. Can you manage it now?"
"Yes," I said, standing up with my teeth chattering.
"Sure? Don't tumble in."
"I can do it," I said, and, trembling the while as if cold, I walked
dripping along the woodwork to the shore, where I sank down on the grass
as if my legs had suddenly given way, and crouched there watching, as I
saw the man from the farm, Jem Roff, with his arm round Mercer, whom he
had lifted right out, bring him streaming with water to the shore, and
the fishing-rod behind, while, as he lowered him on to the grass, there
was a horrible writhe from something wet close to me, which made me
start away.
"What have you two chaps been at?" cried Roff wonderingly. "The line's
all twissen round his legs,--and hold hard a minute till I get my knife.
I must have that eel."
CHAPTER FIVE.
"He's a two and a half pounder, he is," said Jem Roff as, after a bit of
a struggle, he got tight hold of the writhing monster. "My word," he
continued, holding it down, "he's a strong un! Here, you just slip your
hand into my jacket pocket and get out my knife. Open it, will you?"
I followed out his instructions, and handed him the opened knife, when
with one clever cut he divided the eel's backbone, and its writhings
almost ceased.
"There," continued Jem, taking hold of the line, "let's get you off.
What a tangle! why, it's reg'lar twissen all about your ankles. I must
break it. Why, it's tough as--look ye here," he continued, tugging at
the plaited silk, "it's strong enough to hold a whale. I shall have to
cut it. Bob Hopley won't mind."
_Snick_, and the line was divided, the eel thrown down, and Jem began to
untwine the line from about Mercer's legs, as the poor fellow, looking
terribly white and scared, now sat up on the grass, looking dolefully
from one to the other.
"My heye! you do look like a drownded rat, master," said Jem, chuckling.
"Lucky I come, warn't it?"
I looked angrily at the man, for he seemed horribly unfeeling, and then,
turning to Mercer,--
"How are you now?" I said.
"Very wet," he replied feebly.
"Raw, haw!" laughed Jem. "There, get up, you're clear now. Couldn't
swim a bit like that."
"No," said Mercer, getting up shivering, and shaking the water from his
hair.
"Worse disasters at sea, lads. Here, come on along o' me. Let's put
the rods back again;" and, taking the one he had dragged ashore with
Mercer, he whipped the line round the other and pulled it ashore, swung
the lines round both, and trotted with them to the boat-house, where he
laid them on the pegs, and then came back to where we stood, so utterly
upset that neither of us had spoken a word.
"Now then," cried Jem, taking hold of the scrap of line to which the eel
was attached and twisting it round his finger. "This all you caught?"
"No," I said helplessly; "there's an eel in that handkerchief hanging on
the tree."
Jem dropped the big eel again and trotted to the tree.
"Big as t'other?" he said. "Raw, haw! Here's the hankerchy, but
there's no eel. Look ye here, he's worked a hole through and gone. You
didn't kill him first?"
"It must be down there," I said.
"Down here!" said Jem contemptuously; "he's found his way back to the
water again. Eels goos through the grass like snakes. Ketch anything
else?"
"Two carp," I said. "Here they are."
"Ah, that's better, and all alive, oh! I'll carry 'em. Come along."
He thrust a twig of willow through the gills of the fish, and led the
way through the woods, and across some fields to a cottage, where a
woman came to the door.
"Here, missus," he said, "pitch some more wood on the fire. Young
squire here stepped into the pond."
"Oh, a mercy me!" cried the woman. "Pore dear, he do look bad."
"Not he. All right again direckly. You let him warm himself, and I'll
run up to the schoolhouse and fetch him some dry clothes."
"No," cried Mercer, rousing himself now. "We'll both run up, and get in
without any one seeing us, and go and change our things."
"Ay, that'll be best," said Jem; "and, if I was you, I'd start at once.
Run all the way, and it'll warm you up."
"Yes. Thank you for coming and helping us," said Mercer, who had now
quite found his tongue.
"Oh, that's all right," said the man jocularly. "That's a fine eel, but
don't fish for 'em that way again. Going in after 'em ain't the best
way; you see they're quicker, and more used to the water than you are."
Mercer shuddered.
"Come along, Burr," he said feebly.
"Wait a minute. Here's your eel and the carp. Where's that there rush
basket, missus?"
"Oh, we don't want the fish," said Mercer, with a shiver. "Come along,
Burr."
He hurried out of the cottage, and into a lane. "Keep listening," he
said. "If you hear any one, we'll go across the fields."
"There's some one coming now," I said.
"Oh dear! it's old Rebble. He hasn't seen us. This way."
He stooped down, and ran to a gate, crept through, and then, leading the
way, he walked fast along by the side of a hedge till we had crossed one
field, and then began to trot, seeming to get stronger every minute,
while I followed, with my wet trousers clinging to my legs, and the
water going "suck suck" in my boots.
We crossed two or three fields, and then Mercer drew up, panting, and
with the natural colour coming back into his face.
"We'll walk now," he said, "and go right round, and slip in through the
garden. Perhaps we can get in and up to our room without being seen."
"Yes, do," I said, looking dolefully at my wet legs, and my jacket all
covered with green from the penstock. "Feel better now?"
"Yes, I'm getting all right. I say, didn't I seem like a horrid
coward?"
"I don't think so," I said. "It was enough to frighten anybody."
Mercer was silent for a few minutes. Then he began again.
"I never felt like that before. I was going to swim, but the eel had
gone about my legs, and as soon as I felt the line round them, and that
horrid great thing twining it all over me, I tried hard to kick it off;
but you haven't got much strength in the water, and then, as I felt that
I couldn't get my legs clear, I came over all queer, and so horribly
frightened that I couldn't do anything. It was just like having a dream
in the night, after eating too much cake."
"It was very horrible," I said, with a shiver at the recollection,
though I was beginning to feel warm.
"Yes, wasn't it? I say, don't go and think me a coward, there's a good
chap."
"I was not going to think you a coward," I said. "It isn't likely."
"But I must have seemed like one, because I can swim ever so far, but
when I found myself like that, all the strength went out of me.--I say!"
"Yes?" I said, for he remained silent, and trudged on, looking hard at
the ground.
"I did like you for paying at Polly Hopley's, and I said I'd do anything
for you, but I can't tell you what I feel now, for your helping me."
"Don't wish you to tell me," I replied. "Come along. I want to get on
some dry things."
"But--"
"Hold your tongue," I said. "There's some one coming."
He looked sharply in the indicated direction, and a shout saluted us.
"It's some of the boys," he whispered. "Come on." He led the way to a
hedge, forced his way through, and I followed, and once more he led me
along at a trot, with the great house right before us among the trees,
and then, striking off to the right, he went through field after field,
and then through a gate, and along by the side of a deep ditch, to stop
short all at once, as a man started out of the hollow, and tried to hide
a small gun.
"Why, Magglin," cried Mercer, "you're after rabbits."
"Nay, nay; rats. They comes after the taters. Been fishing?"
"Come on," whispered Mercer, and he ran along by the hedge, turning once
more to the left, and at last pulling up in a clump of fir-trees, on the
north side of the big house.
"Now then," he said, "I daresay the Doctor hasn't come back, and the
ladies are sure to be with him. We'll creep in by the front door and
get up-stairs. Keep close to me."
He paused for a few minutes to get breath, and then started off, through
the shrubbery, across the lawn, and in at the front door.
The hall was empty, and he sprang up the well-carpeted staircase,
reached the first floor, ran lightly along a passage, and through a
baize door, which separated the Doctor's part of the house from the
boys' dormitories.
"All right!" he whispered, as he held the baize door for me to pass
through; "nobody saw us, and the boys will not be up here."
He led the way down a long passage to another staircase, ran up, and I
recognised the floor where our bed room was, when, just as we were
making a rush for it, a door opened, and the big fat boy Dicksee came
out, stared, and then burst into a roar of laughter.
"Oh, here's a game!" he shouted. "Old Senna's been diving after
podnoddles, and giving the new chap lessons."
Mercer rushed at him so savagely that Dicksee stepped back, and the next
minute we had reached our room, rushed in, and banged the door.
"Oh, isn't he a beast?" cried my companion, panting, and looking all
aglow now. "He'll go and tell the boys, but we mustn't say where we've
been."
Half an hour after, we went down, dressed in our other suits, feeling
very little the worse for our adventure, and just as we reached the big
schoolroom, the big clock up in the turret chimed.
"Why, we're in good time for tea after all," said Mercer. "They always
have it late on holidays. Quarter of an hour to wait. Let's go and
walk down to the boys' gardens."
He led the way out and across the playground to a gate in the hedge,
through which we passed, to come plump on the Doctor, three ladies, and
Mr Rebble, who carried a creel by the strap, and had a rod over his
shoulder.
"So you've had no sport, Mr Rebble?" the Doctor was saying.
"No, sir, none. The wind was in the wrong quarter again."
"Aha!" said the Doctor, as he caught sight of us; "our new young friend,
Burr junior. My dears, this is our new student. Burr junior, my wife
and daughters."
We both took off our caps.
"Friends already, eh?" said the Doctor. "History repeats itself, the
modern based upon the classic. Quite a young Pylades and Orestes.
Well, Burr, have you made acquaintance with all your schoolfellows?"
I turned scarlet, and was at a loss as to what to say. But there was no
occasion for me to feel troubled--the Doctor did not want an answer. He
nodded pleasantly, the ladies bowed and passed on with him, while Mercer
hurried me away.
"What a game!" he said; "and you've only made friends with one. I say,
poor old Reb's been fishing all day again for roach, and never caught
one. He never does. I wish he'd had the ducking instead of me."
"Nonsense!" I said. "You don't."
"Oh, but I just do," he said. "I say, let's go round and see cook."
"What for?"
"To ask her to dry our clothes for us. This way." He ran off, and I
followed him, to pass through a gate into a paved yard, across which was
a sloping-roofed building, at the side of the long schoolroom.
Mercer tapped at a door, and a sharp voice shouted,--
"Come in!"
"Mustn't. Forbidden," said Mercer to me, and he knocked again.
"Don't want any!" shouted the same voice, and a big, sour-looking,
dark-faced woman came to the door.
"Oh, it's you, is it, Master Mercer? What do you want?"
"I say, Cookie, this is the new boy."
"Nice pair of you, I'll be bound," she said roughly.
"We've been out, and had an accident, and tumbled into a pond."
"Serve you both right. Wonder you weren't both drowned," she said
sharply.
"Don't tell anybody," continued Mercer, in no wise alarmed. "We nearly
were, only Jem Roff at Dawson's farm came and pulled us out."
"Oh, my dear bairns," cried the woman, with her face and voice changing,
"what would your poor mammas have said?"
"It's all right, though," said Mercer, "only our things are soaked. Do
have 'em down and dried for us by the morning."
"Why, of course I will, my dears."
"And, Cookie, we haven't had any dinner, and it's only bread and butter
and milk and water."
"Yes; coming," cried the woman, as a door was heard to open, and a voice
to call.
"Go along," she said. "They're calling for the bread and butter. You
look under your pillows when you go to bed."
"It's all right," said Mercer. "Come along. She came from our town,
and knows our people. My father set her brother-in-law's leg once,
after he'd tumbled off a hay stack. Isn't she a gruff one when she
likes! This way. Let's get in our places now."
We went in to tea, which was only tea for Mr Rebble, who had a small
black pot to himself, and a tiny jug of cream; but the bread and butter
and milk and water were delicious, and I had made so good a meal that I
had forgotten all about our visit to the cook till we had been in bed
some time. I was just dozing off to sleep, when I was roused up by
Mercer's hand laid across my mouth.
"Don't speak," he whispered; "the others are asleep. Boiled beef
sandwiches in a paper bag, and two jam puffs."
"What?" I whispered. "Where?"
"Here--in my fist. They were tucked under my pillow. Now, then, pitch
in."
I sat up in bed, and Mercer sat up in his. It was so dark that we could
hardly see each other, but the darkness was no hindrance to our eating,
and the next minute there was a sound which may be best expressed as
ruminating, varied by the faint rustle made by a hand gliding into a
paper bag, followed after a long interval by a faint sigh, and--
"Good-night."
"Good-night."
"Think we shall catch cold?"
"I hope not."
"If we do, I've got some capital stuff in a bottle to cure colds, and
I'll give you some."
"Thank you," I said, and there was a pause.
"Are you asleep?" I said after a time, during which I had lain thinking
about our experience of the day.
"No."
"What are you thinking about?"
"I was wondering whether Mr and Mrs Jem Roff ate all that eel."
Mercer did not say any more just then, and I seemed to glide back into
the cottage, where Mrs Roff was frying eel in a pan over the fire, and
just as they had asked me to supper, and I was taking my place, a big
bell began to ring, and Mercer shouted,--
"Now, Burr junior, time to get up."
I started and looked round, to see that the sunshine was flooding the
room, and that the occupants of the other beds were sitting up grinding
their knuckles into their eyes, and yawning as if in chorus.
CHAPTER SIX.
We were none the worse for our adventure at the pond, and I very soon
settled down to my school life, finding it, as life is, a mixture of
pleasure and pain, joy and sorrow, all just as intense to the boy fifty
or sixty years ago as it is now that schools are conducted upon very
different principles, and a much higher grade of education is taught.
Perhaps a great deal of the teaching at Meade Place would be looked upon
now as lax; but in those days the Doctor's school bore a very high
character for the boys it had turned out, many of whom had gone into the
East India Company's Service, and the principal drawing-room was
decorated with presents sent to him by old pupils, Indian jars and
cabinets, brass lotahs and trays, specimens of weapons from Delhi, and
ivory carvings; while from pupils who had gone to China and Japan, came
bronzes, porcelain, screens, and lacquer of the most beautiful kind.
Neither were the ladies forgotten, Mrs Browne and her daughters being
well furnished with Indian scarves, muslin, and Canton crape shawls.
It was, of course, on account of his connection with so many officers
that my uncle had chosen this school as the one most likely to prepare
me for my future career.
When I first went down, Mr Rebble was the only assistant the doctor
had; but I soon learned that the French master came twice a week from
Rye, that the other usher had left to go into partnership with a friend
in a school at Lewes, and that another was coming in a few days.
The Doctor was one of my informants, for, after passing me through a
general examination as to my capabilities, he told me that I was in a
most hopeless state of ignorance, and that as soon as the assistant
master, Mr Hasnip, arrived, I should have to go under his special
charge.
"For we can't have boys like you, Burr junior," he said smiling. "I
don't know what would become of my establishment if many were as
backward as you."
"I'm very sorry, sir," I said humbly.
"I am glad you are," he said; "for that means repentance for neglected
opportunities, and, of course, a stern determination to make up for lost
time."
"Yes, sir, I'll try," I said.
"That's right, and try hard. Your English is very weak; your Latin
terribly deficient; your writing execrable; and your mathematics
absolutely hopeless. There, go back to your place and work hard, my
boy--work hard."
I descended from the dais, with the eyes of the whole school upon me,
and, as I walked between the two rows of forms, I could hear whispered
remarks intended for me, and it was with a feeling of despair that I
reseated myself, opened my desk and took out my Latin grammar, to begin
turning over the leaves, looking hopelessly at the declensions and
conjugations, with the exceptions and notes.
"What's the matter?" whispered Mercer, who just then returned from Mr
Rebble's end, where he had made one of a class in Euclid.
"Doctor says I'm so terribly behindhand that he is ashamed of me."
"Gammon!"
"What?"
"I said, gammon. You're right enough. Forwarder than I am, and I've
been here two years."
"Oh no," I said.
"Yes, you are. Don't contradict; 'tisn't gentlemanly. He said your
English was weak?"
"How did you know?"
"Your Latin terribly deficient?"
"I say!" I cried, staring.
"Your writing execrable?"
"Mercer!"
"And your mathematics absolutely hopeless?"
"But you were at the other end of the room when he said that," I cried
aghast.
"Of course; I was being wigged by old Rebble because I couldn't go
through the forty-seventh of Book One; and I can't, and I feel as if I
never shall."
"I think I could," I said.
"Of course you could; nearly every chap in the school can but me. I can
learn some things easily enough; but I can't remember all about those
angles and squares, and all the rest of them."
"You soon will if you try," I whispered. "But how did you know the
doctor said all that to me?"
"Because he says it to every new boy. He said it to me, and made me so
miserable that I nearly ran away and if I hadn't had a very big cake in
my box, that I brought with me, I believe I should have broken my
heart."
"But I am very ignorant," I said, after a pause for thought, during
which my companion's words had rather a comforting effect.
"So's everybody. I'm awfully ignorant. What would be the good of
coming here if we weren't all behind? Oh, how I wish things could be
turned round!"
"Turned round?" I said wonderingly.
"Yes, so that I could know all the books of Euclid by heart, and have
old Rebble obliged to come and stand before me, and feel as if all he
had learned had run out of his head like water out of a sponge."
"Never mind," I said; "let's work and learn."
"You'll have to, my lad."
"Less talking there," said Mr Rebble.
"Oh, very well," whispered Mercer, and then he went on half aloud, but
indistinctly, repeating the problem in Euclid over which he had broken
down.
I glanced at Mr Rebble, and saw that he was watching us both intently,
and I bent over my Latin grammar, and began learning the feminine nouns
which ended in "us," while Mercer half turned his head towards me.
"A little less noise at your end of the school, Mr Rebble, if you
please," said the Doctor blandly.
"Yes, sir," said Mr Rebble, and then, in a low, severe voice, "Mercer,
Burr junior, come up."
Mercer threw his leg over the form, and I followed his example,
involuntarily glancing across at my namesake, who made a grimace, and
gave himself a writhe, as if suggesting that I should have a cut from
the cane after being reported to the Doctor, and I knew that he was
watching us both as we went up to the usher's desk.
"Close up, both of you," said Mr Rebble sternly, but in a low voice, so
that his words should not reach the Doctor.
We moved closer.
"Now, sir," he said sternly, "I called for silence twice, and you,
Mercer, and you, Burr junior, both kept on speaking. I distinctly saw
your lips moving--both of you. Now, sir, I insist upon your repeating
the words you said as I caught your eye."
"Subtending the right angle, sir," said Mercer promptly.
"And you, sir?" continued Mr Rebble, turning to me.
"_Idus, quercus, ficus, manus_, sir," I replied innocently.
"That will do. Go back to your places, and if I do catch you talking
again in school hours--"
"Please, sir, that wasn't talking," said Mercer in expostulation.
"Silence, sir. I say, if I do catch you talking, I shall report you to
the Doctor. That will do."
We went demurely enough back to our places, and this summons had the
effect upon me of making me feel more ill-used than before. As I once
more went on with my Latin, I was conscious that Mercer was writing
something on his slate, and when it was done, he wetted his hand, and
gave me a nudge, for me to read what he had written.
"He don't like you, because we're friends. He don't like me. Yah! Who
don't know how to fish?"
I had barely read this, when Mercer's hand rapidly obliterated the
words, and only just in time, for Mr Rebble left his desk and came
slowly by us, glancing over our shoulders as he passed, but Mercer was
safe, for he had rapidly formed a right-angled triangle on his slate,
and was carefully finishing a capital A, as the usher passed on up to
the Doctor's end.
Those mornings glided away, and so slowly that it seemed as if the
mid-day bell would never ring, but its sonorous tones rang through the
place at last, and, hanging back, so as not to be called upon to form
part of those who would have to go and field for Burr major and another
of the bigger lads, Mercer and I waited our time, one day when I had
been there about a fortnight, and then slipped off to the stable-yard,
and then up into one of the lofts, which the boys were allowed to use as
a kind of workshop.
"What do you want to come here for?" I said, as we ascended the rough
ladder, and stood in the dimly lighted place.
"I'll show you directly," he said. "Don't you know what I've got up
here?"
"No."
"My museum."
I looked around, but nothing was visible but some willow chips, and a
half-formed cricket bat which Dicksee was making, by the help of a
spokeshave he had borrowed at the wheelwright's, and which promised to
be as clumsy a stump defender as ever was held in two hands.
"Well," I said, "where is it?"
"Here," said Mercer triumphantly, as he led the way to where an old
corn-bin stood beneath one of the windows, the lid securely held down by
a padlock whose key my companion brought out of his pocket.
"Never mind the old Latin and Euclid. I'll let you come and help me
here sometimes, and if old Burr major or Dicksee interferes, you'll have
to help me, for I wouldn't have my things spoiled for ever so much."
"Oh, I'll help you," I said, and I waited with some curiosity while he
opened the lock, and, after hanging it on a nail, slowly raised the lid,
and I looked in to see a strange assortment of odds and ends. What
seemed to be dead birds were mixed up with tow, feathers, wire, a file,
a pair of cutting pincers, and a flat pomatum pot, on which was printed
the word "poison."
"What's that for?" I said wonderingly.
"Oh, that's soap," he said.
"No, no, that--the poison."
"Soap, I tell you. Take off the lid."
I hesitated for a moment, and then raised the lid, to see that the box
was half full of a creamy-looking paste, which exhaled an aromatic
odour.
"Is that soap?" I said.
"Yes, to brush over the skins of things I want to preserve. Don't touch
it. You have to wash your hands ever so many times when you've been
using it. Look, that's a starling I began to stuff, but it don't look
much like a bird, does it?"
"Looks more like a pincushion," I said. "What's the cotton for?"
"Oh, that's to keep the wings in their places till they're dry. You
wind cotton over them, and that holds their feathers down, but I didn't
get this one right."
"He's too big and fat," I said.
"Yes, I stuffed him too much; but I'm going to try and do another."
The starling was laid down, and a jay picked up.
"That's another one I tried," he said sadly, "but it never would look
like a bird. They're ever so much handsomer than that out in the
woods."
"I suppose,"--I said, and then quickly--"Are they?"
"Yes, you know they are," said Mercer dolefully. "These are horrid. I
know exactly how I want them to look, but they will not come so."
"They will in time," I said, to cheer him, for his failures seemed to
make him despondent.
"No," he said, "I'm afraid not. Birds are beautiful things,--starlings
are and jays,--and nobody can say that those are beautiful. Regular old
Guy Fawkes's of birds, aren't they?"
"You mustn't ask me," I replied evasively. "I'm no judge. But what's
this horrid thing?"
"Frog. Better not touch it. I never could get on with that. It's more
like a toad than a frog. It's too full of sand."
"Sand! Why, it's quite light."
"I mean, was too full of sand; it's emptied out now. I told you that's
how you stuff reptiles, skin 'em, and fill 'em full of sand till they're
dry, and then pour it out."
"Oh yes, I remember; but that one is too stout."
"Yes," said Mercer, "that's the worst of it; they will come so if you
don't mind. The skins stretch so, and then they come humpy."
"And what's that?" I asked. "Looks like a fur sausage."
"You get out with your fur sausages. See if you could do it better.
That's a stoat."
I burst out laughing now, and he looked at me in a disconsolate way, and
then smiled sadly.
"Yes, it is a beast after all," he said. "My father has got a book
about anatomy, but I never thought anything about that sort of thing
till I tried to stuff little animals. You see they haven't got any
feathers to hide their shape, and they've got so much shape. A bird's
only like an egg, with a head, and two wings on the side, so that if you
make up a ball of tow like an egg, and pull the skin over it, you can't
be so very far wrong; but an animal wants curves here and hollows there,
and nicely rounded hind legs, and his head lifted up gracefully, and
that--Ugh! the wretch! I'll burn it first chance. I won't try any more
animals."
"A squirrel looks nice stuffed," I observed, as I recalled one I had
seen in a glass case, having a nut in its fore paws, and with its tail
curved up over its back.
"Does it?" said Mercer dolefully; "mine don't."
"You have stuffed squirrels?" I said.
He nodded sadly.
"Two," he replied. "I didn't skin the first properly, and it smelt so
horrid that I buried it."
"And the second one?"
"Oh, that didn't look anything like a squirrel. It was more like a
short, fat puppy when I had finished, only you knew it was a squirrel by
its tail.--What say?"
"I didn't speak," I said, as he looked up sharply from where he had been
leaning down into the old corn-bin.
"I thought you said something. There, that's all I shall show you
to-day," he went on disconsolately. "I never knew they were so bad till
I brought you up to see them."
"Oh, they're not so very bad," I said, trying to console him by my
interest in his works.
"Yes, they are. Horrible! I did mean to have a glass case for some of
them, and ornament them with dried moss and grass, but I'm afraid that
the more you tried to ornament these, the worse they'd look."
This sounded so perfectly true that I could not say a word in
contradiction; and I stood staring at him, quite at a loss for words,
and he was staring at me, when there was a shout and a rush along the
loft floor, and I saw Burr major and Dicksee coming toward us fast, and
half a dozen more boys crowding up through the trap-door into the place.
"Caught you then!" cried Burr major. "Come along, boys, old Senna's
going to show us his museum and his doctor's shop."
Mercer banged down the lid of the corn-bin, and was struggling hard to
get the hasp over the staple and the padlock on, when Burr major seized
him and dragged him away.
"No, no," roared Mercer. "Here, Burr junior, catch hold." He threw the
padlock to me, but the key dropped out, and one of the boys pounced upon
it, while Dicksee threw his arms round me and held me tight.
"No, you don't," he cried.
"That's right," said Burr major. "Hold him, boys. The artful beggars
had sneaked up here to have a tuck-in. We'll eat it all for them."
"There's nothing in the box--there's nothing there!" cried Mercer,
struggling vainly, but only to be dragged down on the floor.
"Here, two of you, come and sit on him," said Burr major. "Hold that
other beggar tight, Dicksee. Keep quiet, will you, or I will chuck you
down the stairs."
By that time, under our tyrant's orders, two boys had come to Dicksee's
help, and had seized me by a wrist each, so that I was helpless.
"Now then," continued Burr major, "we'll just see what my gentleman
keeps locked up here. He's always sneaking up after something."
"You let that box alone," shouted Mercer, after an ineffective struggle
to get free.
"Shan't. You're not going to do just as you like, Physic," said Burr
major, and he threw up the lid, looked in, and then uttered a
contemptuous "Pah!"
"What a mess!" he cried. "Look here, Dicksee."
The latter crossed to him eagerly, and I stood there a prisoner, but
burning with indignation and an intense desire to hit some one.
"I'll tell the Doctor," cried Mercer. "It's a shame!"
"Oh, is it? You'd better tell tales--do. Oh, I say, boys, lookye here.
This is a rumtummikos incomprehensibus. What a beast!"
He had taken hold of the unfortunate stoat by the tail and held it out
amidst roars of laughter. "We'll have a fire and burn him. What's
next?"
He dived down into the great chest, and brought out the starling.
"Here you are, boys," he cried again. "This is the speckled pecker, or
measly short-tail."
Another roar of laughter.
"And here's the blue-winged cockatooral-looral-looral."
The boys shouted again, and I saw Mercer heave up in his rage, and
nearly send the boys off who were sitting upon him, while I wished I had
strength enough to send our tormentors flying.
"Hallo! here we are then," cried Burr major. "I knew it. They were
going to have a tuck-out. Look, boys, they meant to have `toad in the
hole' for supper, and here's the toad."
This was as he held out the bloated skin of the unfortunate frog.
"Hooray!" shouted the boys, who were looking on with rapturous delight,
and the more we struggled to get free, the greater their enjoyment
seemed.
"You coward!--you brute!" panted Mercer. "How would you like your box
turned out?"
"Ever so. Come and do it and you'll see.--Oh!"
This last was with quite a shout.
"What is it?" cried the boys who held us. "Let's look, Burr."
"You take it out if you dare," cried Mercer, who, however, as he told me
afterwards, had not the least idea what was coming next.
"Oh yes, I'll take it out," said Burr major.
"You coward! you miserable old Eely tailor!"
"Hold your tongue, will you!" cried Burr major, turning sharply round
and giving Mercer a savage kick as he lay on his back, with one boy
sitting on his chest, another on his legs.
"Brute!" cried Mercer, setting his teeth and trying hard not to let the
tears come.
"You great long coward!" I cried; "you wouldn't dare to do that if he
were not down."
"You hold your row," he cried, and as I stood thus held, I received a
sharp, back-handed blow on the mouth, which made my lip bleed.
"Bring it out, Dicksee."
The latter wanted no second telling, but dived down into poor Mercer's
treasure-chest, and brought out the pot of preserving paste.
"There!" cried Burr major, taking up the pot with a face wrinkled up
with disgust; "now we've found him out. See this, boys. Poison!"
"Oh!" chorused the little party of his parasites.
"That's the way he does it. He's worse than a witch. This is what he
keeps to give to the fellows, and pretends it's physic, same as his
nasty old father uses."
"I don't, boys--it isn't true; and my father's a gentleman, not an old
snip."
"Do you want me to kick you again?" said Burr major savagely.
"Yes, if you dare," cried Mercer defiantly.
"Just you wait a bit, my lad, till I'm done. Yes, boys, that's it
Dicksee, he gave you some of that, and it made you so ill the other
day."
"Then we'll show it to the Doctor," cried Dicksee.
"I didn't!" cried Mercer. "That's to preserve with."
"Yes, that's it," cried Burr major--"to preserve with. Do you hear,
boys? He keeps that to put in jam."
There was a shout at this, and I saw Mercer writhe in his impotence.
"Tell you what, we'll rout out the whole lot, and take them down in the
stable-yard and burn them."
"You let them alone," cried Mercer frantically, as Burr major scraped
out a double handful of the hoarded treasures and threw them on the
floor.
"Hold him down tight, or I shall hurt him," said Burr major
contemptuously.
But his words came too late, for Mercer made a sudden heave, which threw
the boy on his chest off sidewise, sprang up into a sitting position,
and hit out at the boy on his legs, who howled on receiving a crack on
the ear; and this so roused me to action that I too wrested myself free
and followed suit. I flew at Dicksee, and struck him full in the
breast, sending him in his surprise down in a sitting position, just as
Mercer struck our tyrant a sounding smack on the cheek.
Burr major staggered back and held his hand to his face.
"Oh, that's it, is it?" he said with a snarl. "All right, boys, Senna
Tea wants me to boil him up again."
"You stand by me, Burr junior, won't you?" cried Mercer, who looked now
as if he were a little startled at his daring.
"Yes," I said desperately, though I felt horribly afraid.
"Oh no, you don't," said Burr major, taking off his jacket; "I don't
want to knock your silly head off. You wait till I've thrashed Master
Physic, and then old Dicksee shall give you your dose."
I saw Dicksee look at him with rather a startled aspect, but Burr major
took no notice beyond giving him a contemptuous glance, as he neatly
folded up his jacket, and then removed his waistcoat.
"Here, Bill Ducie, go down and shut the stable door, and lock it
inside," continued Burr major in a lofty tone; "we don't want to be
interrupted before we've polished off these two beggars."
The boy ran down, and it sounded very formidable to hear the door bang
and the rusty lock turned.
"Now then, off with that coat, sir," said Burr major, as he began
rolling up his shirt over his thin white arms. "I'm not going to wait
all day. The bell will ring for dinner directly. Hold my clothes, one
of you; I don't want them dirty."
I saw Mercer set his teeth as he pulled off his jacket and vest, and he
pitched them both into the big bin, looking very stubborn and determined
the while.
"Here, Dicksee, you come and second me, I'll second you afterward. You
new boy, you'd better second old Senna. Pah! how physicky he smells!"
I had the vaguest notions of what I had to do, but I imitated Dicksee as
well as I could, as the boys stood on one side breathless with
excitement, and Burr major and Mercer faced each other with their fists
clenched.
Then there was a due amount of sparring, followed by a few blows given
and taken, and Burr major drew back and sat down on Dicksee's knee,
Mercer taking his place on mine.
"Did he hurt you much?" I whispered.
"Horrid," was whispered back, "and I can't half get to hit at him."
Then some one shouted, and they fought again, with the result that my
blood seemed to boil as poor Mercer came staggering back.
"Had enough?" said Burr major in lofty tones.
For answer Mercer flew at him, and there was another long, fierce round,
which seemed to consist in Mercer's adversary driving him about the
place, knocking him about just as much as he liked, and ending by
sending him staggering back, so that he would have fallen all in a heap
had I not caught him in my arms.
"Had enough, Doctor?" cried Burr major contemptuously, and as I
supported Mercer he uttered a low sob of misery.
"Yes, he's done. Now, Dicksee, I'll second you.--Off with your togs and
polish him off till his face shines. Now then, look sharp, Senna,
you've got to back your chap."
I heard Mercer grind his teeth, and I felt giddy with excitement as he
whispered to me,--
"Don't be afraid of him, he's a coward. Take off your things, and you
try hard if you can't lick him."
"Must I fight?" I said.
"Now then, you sir, off with that jacket," cried Burr major, "or he'll
give you the coward's blow."
This roused me, and I stripped for the battle, feeling very nervous and
uncomfortable, while Mercer drew a long breath, mastered the pain he was
in, and, after throwing my jacket and waistcoat in the bin with his own,
began to whisper his instructions to me.
"Now then, off you go," said Burr major. "Be smart, Dicksee, the bell
will go directly."
Dicksee made a savage run at me as I put up my arms, there were a few
blows, all of which came to my share, and there was a roar of laughter
as the round ended in a struggle, and I went down, with Dicksee on me,
and my head giving a stunning rap on the boards.
"Don't let him wrestle with you," whispered Mercer excitedly, as he
helped me up, and I sat upon his knee, feeling very dizzy and half blind
with rage.
"There," shouted Burr major, "finish the beggar this time, Dicky!"
I have some recollection of our encountering again, and feeling blow
after blow on my face, on my ear, chest, and shoulders; and our going
down once more in another wrestling match.
"Never mind," whispered Mercer; "you're doing splendidly."
"Am I?" I gasped.
"Yes; only keep him off more, and hit straight out like he does."
"Now then," cried Burr major again, "I want to go and wash my hands.
Come along, new boy, and lay your nose against old Dicksy's left, and
your left eye against his right, and then he'll smooth your cheeks over
and lay you on the boards, and by that time I think you'll be about
cooked."
"Don't let him lick you," whispered Mercer imploringly. "Do give it him
this time. Hit him on the nose always, he don't like that."
"There!" roared Burr major, as, giddy and confused, I was swinging my
arms about, hitting nothing half the time, and never getting one blow
home with any force to signify, and at last, after a few minutes of
burning rage and confusion, during which I had received quite a shower
of blows, I found myself, giddy and panting, seated upon the floor,
listening to Burr major's voice.
"That's enough, Dicky; that'll do the beggars no end of good, and make
'em behave themselves when they meet gentlemen. Come on, boys. Here,
you two, go and wash yourselves, and make yourselves right. The bell
will ring directly, and if old Reb sees you've been fighting, he'll
report you both to the Doctor, and you'll get no end of punishment."
This seemed the unkindest cut of all, and as soon as the boys had gone
racing down into the yard, where Dicksee gave vent to a loud
"Cock-a-doodle-doo," I slowly rose to my feet and faced Mercer, who was
gazing straight before him.
"I say," I panted, for I was breathless still, "did I win?"
"You? No," he cried savagely. "You can't fight any more than I can,
and the brutes have beaten us both. Here, let's look at you. Oh, you
ain't much marked, only your nose bleeds a bit. That's where you ought
to have hit him."
"I did try to," I said despondently; "but he wouldn't let me."
"Never mind, put on your things. I say, are my eyes swollen?"
"One of them's puffed up a bit, and your lip's cut like mine is."
"Never mind. Come and have a wash."
"Shan't you lock up your museum?"
"Not now. I don't care for it after what they've done. Yes, I do; I'll
come up afterwards," he continued, rapidly replacing the pot of
preserving paste. "Come along, and try and look as if nothing was the
matter."
I followed him as soon as we had put on our clothes, and then we hurried
to the row of basins and towels, barely completing our ablutions when
the bell rang, and not looking so very much the worse.
"Never mind, old chap," whispered Mercer, as we went into the schoolroom
to dinner, with the boys all watching us and making remarks; "wait a
bit, and we'll have revenge."
"How?" I said, as with a horrifying rapidity the pot of poison came
into my mind.
"Never you mind;" he whispered tragically. "Bitter revenge! Only you
wait."
There was a tapping on the end table just then, and all the boys rose.
Then the Doctor's deep, bland voice uttered the word,--
"Grace!"
CHAPTER SEVEN.
I ate that dinner very uneasily. For one thing, I had no appetite,
having had enough before I took my place. For another, I was worried by
the furtive grins and whispers of the boys near me, the news of the
fight having run like lightning through the school. Then I was in a
constant state of dread lest my appearance should be noticed by either
Mr Rebble, the Doctor, or the new assistant master, who was dining on
the principal's left, for the Doctor made our dinner his lunch and of
course had his late. I had not had a chance to look in a glass, and, as
my face ached and felt tight, I imagined terrible black eyes, a horribly
swollen nose, and that my top lip was puffed out to a large size. In
fact, I felt that I must be in that state; and as I glanced at Mercer, I
was surprised to see that he hardly showed a mark. Lastly, I could not
get on with my dinner, because my mouth would not open and shut
properly, while every attempt to move my lower jaw sidewise gave me
intense pain.
I was in hopes that this was not noticed, and to get over the difficulty
of being seen with my plate of meat untouched, I furtively slipped two
slices, a potato, and a piece of bread under the table, where I knew
that the two cats would be foraging according to their custom.
I thought the act was not noticed, but the boy on my right had been
keenly watching me.
"Can't you eat your dinner?" he whispered.
There was no other course open save making a paltry excuse, so I said
gruffly,--
"Never mind, old chap," he said, to my surprise. "Lots of us laugh at
you, but--. I say, don't tell 'em I said so."
"I don't sneak and tell tales," I said morosely.
"No, of course you wouldn't. I was going to say lots of us laugh at
you, but lots of us wish you and Senna Tea had given those two bullies
an awful licking."
"Thank-ye," I said, for these words were quite cheering, and I glanced
at Mercer, who was fiddling his dinner about, and cutting the
pink-looking cold boiled beef up in very small squares.
"Can't you get on?" I whispered.
"No. 'Tain't likely; but just you wait."
"What for?"
"Never mind!"
The dinner went on, with the clattering of knives and forks upon plates,
and, the meat being ended, the pudding came along, round, stodgy slices,
with glittering bits of yellow suet in it, and here and there a raisin,
or plum, as we called it, playing at bo-peep with those on the other
side,--"Spotted Dog," we used to call it,--and I got on a little better,
for it was nice and warm and sweet, from the facts that the Doctor never
stinted us boys in our food, and that, while the cook always said she
hated all boys, she contrived to make our dinners tasty and good.
"Try the pudding," I whispered to Mercer.
"Shan't. I should like to shy it bang in old Burr major's face."
"Oh, never mind."
"But I do mind; but just you wait!"
"Well, I am waiting," I said. "Why don't you tell me what you mean?"
Mercer was silent.
"I say!"
"Well?"
"You're not going to give him anything nasty, are you?"
"Yes."
"Oh!"
"You wait and see!"
"But you mustn't; it wouldn't do."
"Wouldn't it? Ah, just you wait. We'll make 'em sorry for this."
"I'm not going to do anything nasty," I said sturdily.
"Yes, you are; you're going to do as I do. We're mates, and you've got
to help me as I helped you."
I thought of the pot marked "poison;" of Dicksee being bad through
taking something Mercer had given him; and a curious sensation of
sickness came over me, and I left half my pudding, just as Mercer took
up his fork, chopped his disk up into eight pieces, and began to bolt
them fiercely.
"Eat your pudding," he said, noticing that I had left off.
"Can't. I've had enough."
"You must. I want you to grow strong. I shall give you some tonic
stuff my father prescribes for people."
I looked at him in horror, but he was glaring at the last piece of
pudding on his fork.
"Just you wait!" he said gloomily.
"I will not help him in anything I think wrong," I said to myself; and a
few minutes after, Mercer leaned towards me.
"Look!" he whispered; "there's Eely Burr and Fathead grinning at us.
Wait a bit! They don't know what a horrible revenge we're going to have
on them."
"But if it's _we_," I said, "you ought to tell me what the revenge is
going to be."
"I'll tell you some time," he whispered. "Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps
to-night.--You wait!"
"Oh, how I do hate being treated like that!" I thought to myself, and I
was about to beg of him to tell me then, and to try to persuade him not
to, do anything foolish, when the Doctor tapped the table with the
handle of his cheese-knife, grace was said, and we all adjourned to the
play-field for the half-hour at our disposal before we resumed our
studies.
I had no further opportunity for speaking to Mercer that afternoon, for,
when we returned to the schoolroom, the Doctor made us a speech, in
which he said he, "regretted deeply to find."--Here he stopped to blow
his nose, and I turned hot, cold, and then wet, as I felt that we two
would be publicly reproved and perhaps punished for fighting.
"That," continued the Doctor, "many of the boys had been going back in
minor subjects."
I breathed more freely at this.
Mr Hasnip, whom he now publicly presented to us, was an Oxford
gentleman, who would take our weak points in hand, strengthen them, and
help him, the Doctor, to maintain the high position his establishment
had held for so many years.
Of course we all looked very hard at the new usher, who was a pale,
yellowish-looking man, with eyes hidden by smoked glasses, which enabled
him to see without being seen, and he now smiled at us as if he were
going to bite, and was nicknamed Parsnip by Mercer on the instant.
"He'll be a teaser," whispered Mercer. "Going to strengthen our weak
parts, is he? Wish he could strengthen mine in the way I want. I
suppose we shall be turned over to him. Can't be worse than old Reb."
Mercer was right; we two were the first boys turned over to the new
usher, and this was fortunate for us, for he knew nothing about our
personal appearance; and the swellings that did come on, and which would
have been noticed directly by Mr Rebble, passed unheeded by him.
I was very glad when tea-time came, for my head was so confused that Mr
Hasnip was quite right in telling me I was a very stupid boy, for I was
that afternoon--very.
But the meal-time did come, and as soon as tea was over, instead of
going into the play-field with the others, I sat down alone, sore,
aching, and disconsolate, to try and master some of the things Mr
Hasnip had said I was behindhand in.
I had just taken up my book, with my head feeling more hazy than ever,
and the shouts of the boys floating in at the open window, when Mercer
came in hurriedly.
"Here, put that book away," he said quickly.
"What for? I don't want to come out."
"But you must. I've been and put away my specimens, and that settled
it. Come along."
"But why must I come out? I don't want to play, and the other fellows
will only laugh at us."
"No, they will not. They're not going to see us. Come along.
Revenge!"
I got up and took my cap unwillingly, but, as we got out in the soft
evening air, I began to think that perhaps I could keep him back if he
were going to do anything wrong, so I walked on by his side with more
alacrity.
"Going for a walk?" I said, as I found that he avoided the play-field.
"No. You wait and you'll see."
"Well, you needn't be so disagreeable with me," I said gruffly.
"I'm not, only I ache and burn, and I'm full of it. Come on."
To my surprise, he led me down to the lodge cottage, where the big,
soldierly-looking fellow was enjoying his evening pipe in his
neatly-kept little garden.
"Evening, young gents," he said, saluting us. "When do you two begin
your drill?"
"I don't know, Lomax. When the new master's done thumping Latin and
Euclid into us."
"Humph! Well, gentlemen, I hear that the Romans were very fine
soldiers, and Euclid's all about angles and squares, isn't it?"
"Yes."
"Well, they're right enough in infantry formation--squares are, and the
angles in fortification, which is a thing I don't know much about,
having been in the cavalry; but when you are ready, so am I, and I'll
set you up and make men of you as your fa--" he glanced at me and pulled
himself up short--"as your people shall be proud of."
"That's right, Lom, and I'll bring you some prime tobacco soon as I can.
I say, you can fight, can't you?"
"Well," he said, smiling and drawing himself up, "they used to say I
could once upon a time. There's my old sword hanging up over the
chimney-piece, and if it could speak--"
"Yes, yes, I know, and you've been wounded," cried Mercer hastily; "but
I don't mean with swords and pistols, I mean with your fists."
"Oh, I see. Boxing."
"Yes," cried Mercer eagerly.
And I was still so dull and confused by the knocking about I had
received, that I had not a glimmer of what he was aiming at.
"Yes; boxing. I want you to teach us."
"Yes, I was a dabster at it when I was in the ---th. We had no end of
it, and we lads used to have a regular subscription round to buy new
gloves. Oh yes, I gave lessons to the officers regularly. Long time
since I've had the gloves on, but I could handle my fists as well as
ever, I daresay."
"Then you'll teach us?"
"Teach you? No, no, my lads. Infantry drill; clubs and dumb-bells;
singlestick and foil; riding with a military seat; but--use of the
gloves! Oh dear no! What do you think the Doctor would say?"
"But he won't know, Lom, and we'll pay you, honour bright."
"I know you would, Master Mercer; and if this young gent, whose father
was in the cavalry--"
"Yes, at Chilly--" began Mercer.
"Wallah, sir," said Lomax severely. "If he says he'll pay me, of course
he would. But no, sir, no. Besides, we've got no gloves, and
boxing-gloves--two pairs--cost money."
"Of course. I know they would, but we'd buy them, or you should for us,
and then we could come here now and then, and you could teach us in your
room, and nobody would know."
"No, sir, no," said the sergeant, shaking his head.
"I say, Lom, look at us both," said Mercer. "See anything?"
"Well, yes, I do, plain, my lads. You two don't want any teaching.
You've got swelled lips, and mousy eyes rising, and your noses are a bit
puffy. You have both been fighting."
"Yes, Lom, and see how we've been knocked about."
"Well, boys who will fight must take what they get and not grumble."
"But we didn't want to fight. They made us."
"Why, I thought you two were such friends and mates already. Bah! lads,
you shouldn't fight without there's good reason."
"But we didn't fight," cried Mercer angrily.
"Why, just look at you both! your faces say it as plain as your lips."
"But I mean not together. Eely Burr and big Dicksee came and thrashed
us. They would not leave us alone."
"Oh, come: that's bullying," said Lomax, shaking his head, "and it isn't
a fair match; they're a good two years older than you, and used to
fighting, and you ain't."
"No," said Mercer excitedly; "and it's cruel and cowardly. I'm not a
bit afraid of him, and Burr junior wasn't of his man, and we did the
best we could, but they knocked us about just as they liked, and hit us
where they pleased, and we couldn't hurt them a bit."
"No, you wouldn't be able of course," said the old sergeant
thoughtfully, taking our arms and feeling our muscles. "Well, it was
very plucky of you both to stand up and face 'em, that's all I can say.
Is that why you want to learn to use your fists?"
"Yes, and as soon as we can both box well, we want to give them both
such lickings!" cried Mercer eagerly.
The old sergeant began to laugh in a quiet way, and wiped the tears out
of his eyes.
"Then you want to learn on the sly, and astonish 'em some day?"
"Yes, yes," I said eagerly, for I was as excited as my companion, whose
idea of revenge, now it was explained, seemed to me to be glorious.
"Well, it is tempting," said the sergeant thoughtfully.
"And you'll teach us?"
"And his father fought at Chillianwallah! Yes, it is tempting. You
ought to be able to take your own part if big cowards tackle you."
"Yes, Lom. Then do teach us."
"No. What would the Doctor say?"
"He never should know. We'd never tell, either of us, would we, Burr?"
"Never!" I cried.
"I believe you, boys, that I do," said the old man; "and it was never
forbidden. Never even mentioned," he continued thoughtfully. "I should
like to oblige an old soldier's son."
"And I mean to be an army surgeon," said Mercer.
"And you couldn't do better, my lad."
"Then you'll teach us?" cried Mercer, and I hung upon his answer, with
the spirit of retaliation strong within me now.
"Do you know what it means, my lads? Deal of knocking about."
"We don't care how much, do we, Burr?"
"No," I cried excitedly. "You may knock me down hundreds of times, if
you'll teach me how to knock you down."
"But the gloves will cost about a pound."
"A pound!" said Mercer in dismay. Then a happy thought struck him.
"We shall have to give up buying Magglin's gun for the present," he
whispered to me. Then aloud--
"All right Lom. If we bring you the money, will you buy the gloves?"
"Yes, my lads, I will; and good ones."
"And you will teach us?"
"I'll teach you," said the sergeant, "for the sake of helping to make a
strong man of the son of a brave officer, who died for his country.
There!"
"Hooray!" cried Mercer; "and how much will you charge for the lessons,
Lom? because you must make it a little more, as we shall have to go tick
for a bit, because of paying so much for the gloves."
"How much?" said the sergeant thoughtfully. "Let me see. First and
foremost, your words of honour that you'll never tell a soul I taught
you how to fight, for it might lead to unpleasantness."
"On my honour, I'll never tell!" cried Mercer.
"And on my honour I never will!" I said excitedly.
"Right, then, so far," said Lomax. "Now about those gloves. If I
recollect right, they're eight-and-six a pair, and two pairs are
seventeen shillings."
"And the carriage," said Mercer.
"Stop a bit. I think, being an old soldier, and teaching, the makers'll
take something off for me. I know they'll send 'em down carriage paid,
and Jem Roff'll get 'em for me from the cross when the waggon goes in.
Got your money?"
"I've got half a sovereign," said Mercer.
"I've got seven shillings," I said.
"Hand over then," said the sergeant, and we lightened our purses
tremendously.
"That's right," said Lomax. "Now about the pay for the lessons. I want
that in advance."
"Oh!" we both ejaculated in dismay.
"We can't pay now, Lom," said Mercer, "but we will."
"Yes, you can."
"But how?"
"Give me your fists, both of you, in a hearty soldier's grip, my lads.
That's my pay in advance, and if in less than six months you two don't
give those two bullies a big dressing down, why, I'm a Dutchman."
"Oh, Lom!"
"Oh, thank you!" I cried.
"Thank you, my lads, and God bless you both. Fighting's generally bad,
but it's good sometimes. There, be off, both of you, and I'll write a
letter for those gloves to-night."
We left him with our hearts beating high.
"I don't mind my face swelling a bit now," said Mercer.
"I should like to begin learning to-morrow," I said, and then we were
both silent for a few minutes, till Mercer turned round with a queer
laugh on his swollen face.
"I say," he cried, with a chuckle, "I wonder whether old Dicksee will
cry cock-a-doodle-doo next time when we've done."
"Let's wait and see," said I; and that night I dreamed that I was a
wind-mill, and that every time my sails, which were just the same as
arms, went round, they came down bang on Dicksee's head, and made him
yell.
I woke up after that dream, to find it was broad daylight, and crept out
of bed to look at my face in the glass, and shrank away aghast, for my
lip was more swollen, and there was a nasty dark look under my eye.
CHAPTER EIGHT.
I stood gazing into the little looking-glass with my spirits sinking
down and down in that dreary way in which they will drop with a boy who
wakes up in the morning with some trouble resting upon his shoulders
like so much lead.
I was more stiff and sore, too, at first waking, and all this combined
to make me feel so miserable, that I began to think about home and my
mother, and what would be the consequences if I were to dress quickly,
slip out, and go back.
She would be so glad to see me again, I thought, that she would not be
cross; and when I told her how miserable I was at the school, she would
pity me, and it would be all right again.
I was so elated by the prospect, and--young impostor that I was--so glad
of the excuse which the marks upon my face would form to a doting
mother, that I began to dress quickly, and had got as far as I could
without beginning to splash in the water and rattle the little white jug
and basin, when the great obstacle to my evasion came before me with
crushing power, and I sat on my bed gazing blankly before me.
For a terrible question had come for an answer, and it was this:
"What will uncle say?"
And as I sat on the edge of my bed, his handsome, clearly-cut face, with
the closely-cropped white hair and great grey moustache, was there
before me, looking at me with a contemptuous sneer, which seemed to say,
"You miserable, despicable young coward! Is this the way you fulfil
your promise of trying to be a man, worthy of your poor father, who was
a brave soldier and a gentleman? Out upon you for a miserable young
sneak!"
That all came up wonderfully real before me, and I felt the skin of my
forehead wrinkle up and tighten other parts of my face, while I groaned
to myself, as if apologising to my uncle,--
"But I can't stop here, I am so miserable, and I shall be horribly
punished for what I could not help. The boys say the Doctor is very
severe, sometimes."
There was my uncle's stern face still, just as I had conjured it up, and
he was frowning.
He will be horribly angry with me, I thought, and it would make poor
mamma so unhappy, and--
"I can't go, and I won't go," I said, half aloud. "I don't care if the
Doctor cuts me to pieces; and I won't tell how I got the marks, for, if
I do, all the boys will think I am a sneak."
"Fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup! High up--high
up--high up! Fine morning--fine morning--fine morning!"
The notes of a thrush, sounding exactly like that, with the help of a
little imagination; and I rose, went to the window, gazed out, and there
was the sun, looking like a great globe of orange, lighting up the mists
in the hollows, and making everything look so glorious, that I began to
feel a little better.
Turning round to look at my schoolfellows asleep in their little narrow
beds, all in exceedingly ungraceful attitudes, and looking towzley and
queer, I saw that, as I held the blind on one side, the sunlight shone
full on Mercer, and I hurt myself directly by bursting out into a silent
fit of laughter, which drew my bruised face into pain-producing puckers.
But it was impossible to help it, all the same, for Mercer's phiz
looked so comic.
The swelling about his eyes had gone down, and there were only very
faint marks beneath them, but his mouth was twisted all on one side, and
his nose looked nearly twice as big as usual.
He's worse than I am, I thought, as I stood gazing at him, and this
brought up our visit to the lodge the previous evening, and a grim
feeling of satisfaction began to make me glow, as I dwelt upon Mercer's
plans, and in imagination I saw myself about to be possessed of a
powerful talisman, which would enable me to retaliate on my enemies, and
be always one who could protect the weak from the oppressor. And as I
stood thinking all this, I turned again to look out of the window, where
the lovely landscape of the Sussex weald lay stretched out before me,
and listened to the birds bursting forth into their full morning song,
as the sun literally cut up the mists, which rose and dispersed just as
the last of the mental mists were rising fast from about me. There was
the glorious country, with all its attractions for a town boy, and close
by me lay Mercer, who seemed to me quite a profound sage in his
knowledge of all around, and I felt that, after all, I had got too much
budding manliness in me to give up like a coward, who would run away at
the first trouble he had to meet.
I was a natural boy once again, and, going back to Mercer's bedside, I
began to think that there was no fun in seeing him sleeping away there
while I was wide awake; so, stealing softly to his little wash-stand, I
took the towel, dipped one corner carefully in the jug, and then, with a
big drop ready to fall, I held it close to his nose, squeezed it a
little, and the drop fell.
The effect was instantaneous.
Mercer gave a spring which made his bed creak, and sat up staring at me.
"What are you doing?" he said. "Why can't you be quiet? Has the bell
rung?"
"I don't know," I said. "I haven't heard it."
"Why--why, it's ever so early yet, and you're half dressed. Oh, how my
nose burns! I say, is it swelled?"
"Horribly!" I said.
He leaped out of bed, ran to the glass, stared in, and looked round
again at me.
"Oh my!" he ejaculated, as he gazed at me wildly; "there's no getting
out of this. Bathing won't take a nose like that down. It ought to
have on a big linseed meal poultice."
"But you couldn't breathe with a thing like that on."
"Oh yes, you could," he said, with the voice of authority. "You get two
big swan quills, and cut them, and put one up each nostril, and then put
on your plaster. That's how my father does."
"But you couldn't go about like that."
"No, you lie in bed on your back, and whistle every time you breathe."
I laughed.
"Ah, it's all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor's
desk this morning, and he'll want to know about the fighting."
"Well, we must tell him, I suppose," I said. "They began on us."
"No," said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did
when I woke; "that wouldn't do here. The fellows never tell on each
other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It's precious hard to be
licked, and then punished after, when you couldn't help it, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "Then you won't tell about Burr major and Dicksee."
"Oh no. Never do. We shall have to take it and grin and bear it,
whether it's the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it'll mean ever
so much keeping in. I wouldn't care if it had been a month or two ago."
"What difference would that have made?"
"Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it's so fine, I want for us to
go and collect things, and I'm not going to be beaten over that
stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I
try to stuff one, and then you'll see. We'll be on the watch next time,
so that old Eely shan't catch us, and--ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh
my!" he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to
and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the
air.
"What are you laughing about?" I said, feeling glad to see that he too
was getting rid of the depression.
"Wait a bit," he whispered. "Won't we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how
it does hurt!" he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and
speaking in a snuffling tone. "I shall aim straight at old Eely's snub
all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so
mad, for he's as proud of himself as a peacock, and thinks he's
handsome. What do you think he does?"
"I don't know," I said.
"Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning--musk. Oh, he is a dandy!
But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn't it a lot for two pairs of
gloves? And, I say!"
"Yes."
"He's an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he's had his
licking,--two lickings, for you shall give him one too,--I'll tell you
what we'll always say to him."
"Well?"
"We'll say, `What sized gloves do you take?'"
"But he will not know anything about the gloves," I said, interrupting a
laugh. "We shan't have gloves on then."
"No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind.
Let's dress, and go and look at the gardens--perhaps there may be some
good butterflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook's down, I'll
beg some hot water to bathe my nose."
But Mercer did not put in a petition for the hot water. "It's no good,"
he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed.
"It's like physic; we've got to take it, so we may as well face it all
out and get it over."
Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what
was to come.
It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr
Rebble came by with the new assistant master.
"Bless me! Good gracious! Look, Mr Hasnip. Did you ever see such a
nose? No, no, Mercer: sit up, sir."
Poor Mercer had ducked down to hide his bulbous organ, but he had to sit
up while Mr Hasnip brought his smoke-tinted spectacles to bear upon it.
"Terrible!" he said. "The boy must have been fighting."
"Yes; and here's the other culprit," cried Mr Rebble. "Look at this
boy's eye and mouth. Have you two boys been fighting?"
"Yes, sir," I said in a low voice.
"Disgraceful! Well, the Doctor must know of it, and he will punish you
both severely."
The two masters moved off to their table, and a buzz of excitement ran
through the nearest boys, while, as I looked up, I could see Burr major
standing up in his place and looking over toward us.
"I say," whispered Mercer, "here's a game; they think we two have been
fighting together like old Lom did. Let 'em think so. Don't you say a
word."
"But it will be so dishonest," I expostulated.
"No, it won't. If they ask you who you fought with, you must say
nothing."
"Not tell them?"
"No. The Doctor will say you are stubborn and obstinate, and threaten
to expel you; but he don't mean it, and you've got to hold your tongue,
as I told you before. We never split on each other here."
"Will the Doctor know, do you think?" I asked, as we went on with our
breakfast.
"Sure to. Old Reb's safe to go and tell him directly he comes."
I soon heard that this opinion was shared, for one of the bigger boys
came over from his seat near Burr major.
"I say," he said, "Reb's sure to tell the Doctor about you two. Shall
you say that you had a round with big Burr and old Fatsee?"
"Did Eely tell you to come and ask?" said Mercer, glancing toward where
Burr major was anxiously watching in our direction.
"Never you mind. Are you going to tell?"
"What is it to you?"
"A good deal. You tell, and half a dozen of us mean to wallop you two,
and you won't like that."
"Oh, I shouldn't mind, and Burr junior wouldn't. I know old Squirmy
sent you to ask because--there, look at him--he's all in a fiddle for
fear the Doctor should punish him--a great coward!--for knocking smaller
boys about."
"Look here," whispered the ambassador, "don't you be quite so saucy."
"Shall if I like. You go and tell old Eely, old slimy Snip, that I'm
not like his chosen friend Dicksee, a miserable, tale-telling sneak. I
shan't let out about Burr major being such a coward, and Burr here won't
tell about fat-headed Dicksee, so now you can go."
"And you'd better keep to it," said the boy, looking at me fiercely; but
I did not feel afraid, for Mercer's project about the gloves had sent a
glow through me, and, as he said, our time would come.
But I felt anything but comfortable an hour later, when I was back in
school, after the breakfast had been cleared, for I could see that the
boys had their eyes upon us, and were whispering, and I knew it related
to the punishment to come.
The worst moments were when the Doctor entered and took his place in his
pulpit amidst a suppressed rustle, and I set my teeth as I stood up, and
shrank down again at the earliest opportunity, feeling as if the
Doctor's eye was fixed upon me, and, as it happened, just as I was
wishing he would speak, and, as I felt it, put me out of my misery, he
uttered one of his tremendous coughs, which had far more effect in
producing silence than Mr Rebble's words.
"Thomas Mercer, Burr junior," he said loudly, "come up here."
"I wish I had run away this morning," was my first thought, but it was
gone directly, and I was glad I had not, as I walked as firmly as I
could, side by side with my brother offender, right up to the front of
the Doctor's desk, where he sat frowning upon us like a judge without
his wig and gown.
"Hah!" he ejaculated in his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us
searchingly. "No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of
rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have been
fighting?"
"Yes, sir."
"Yes, sir."
"I am glad that you have frankness enough to own to it. You, Mercer,
knew better; but you, sir, had to learn that you have broken one of the
most rigid rules of my establishment. I object to fighting, as savage,
brutal, and cruel, and I will not allow it here. Mr Rebble, give these
boys heavy impositions, and you will both of you stop in and study every
day for a fortnight under Mr Hasnip's directions. Some principals
would have administered the cane or the birch, but I object to those
instruments as being, like fighting, savage, brutal, and cruel, only to
be used as a last resource, when ordinary punishments suitable for
gentlemen fail. I presume that you make no defence?" He continued
rolling out his words in a broad volume of sound. "You own that you
have both been fighting? Silence is a full answer. Return to your
places."
I heard Mercer utter a low sigh, and my breast felt overcharged as we
went back to our desks, where we were no sooner seated than Mercer
whispered,--
"Never mind, old chap! we'll help one another; and he never asked who we
had been fighting with, so we didn't get extra punishment for being
stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!"
Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the
world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost
exactly the same when we grew up to be men.
"I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do," I thought, as the clock at
last told that the morning's studies were nearly at an end, and I was
still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, Dicksee, and the
other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first
whispered,--
"Lucky for you two that you didn't tell. My! I shouldn't have liked to
be you, if you had."
"Go and scent your handkerchief," said Mercer angrily. "I'd tell if I
liked."
"If they weren't here, I'd punch your ugly head," whispered Eely, and
they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom,
with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual
custom, still in his desk at the other.
"Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior," he said. "Or no--Mercer can
keep his seat."
I rose with Mercer, who resumed his place.
"Burr junior," said the Doctor, rolling out his words slowly, as if they
were so precious that they ought to make a proper impression, "I
sentenced you to a certain series of punishments, to endure for fourteen
days; but you are new, untrained, and have been so unfortunate as to
receive such education as you possess by private tuition. Under these
circumstances, you are wanting in social knowledge, especially of the
kind bearing upon your conduct to your fellow-workers in a school like
this. In consequence, I shall make a point of looking over this your
first offence, and exonerating you. That will do."
I murmured my thanks, and remained in my place.
"Well," said the Doctor, as Mr Hasnip coughed to take my attention,
"why are you waiting?"
"For Mercer, sir."
"But I have not excused him. He is not a new boy; and besides, I am
sure you would like him to be punished."
"No, no!" I said eagerly; "and I don't want to be let off if he is
not."
"Hum! Hah!" ejaculated the Doctor, looking at me benevolently through
his spectacles. "Well--er--er--yes--I like that. Mercer, you are
excused too. That will do."
"Thank you, sir; thank you, sir," cried Mercer joyfully; and we both
bowed and hurried away to the loft, Mr Rebble shaking his head at us as
we passed his desk, and Mr Hasnip, as I thought, looking sadly
disappointed as far as I could judge, though I could not see his eyes.
On reaching the loft, Mercer was in such a state of exultation that he
relieved his feelings by standing upon his head on the corn-bin; but I
did not feel so glad, for I had not spoken out, and the Doctor had been
acting under a misconception, and I said so.
"Oh, never mind," cried Mercer, speaking with his heels in the air. "We
couldn't explain, and it don't matter. Oh, I say, won't old Eely be
pleased that we've got off!"
I did not answer, for I still felt that I should like to go and tell the
Doctor frankly everything that had passed.
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.
CHAPTER TEN.
That evening after tea, while Mercer and I were down by the gardens,
where I found that somebody had been dancing a jig on my newly-raked
beds, we heard a good deal of chattering and laughing over in the
play-field, and Burr major's voice dominating all the others so queerly
that I laughed.
"I say, isn't it rum!" said Mercer, joining in. "I hope we shan't be
like that by and by. Hodson is sometimes. There, hark!"
I listened, and Burr major was speaking sharply in a highly-pitched
voice, that was all squeak, and then it descended suddenly into a gruff
bass like a man's.
"Do you know what old Reb said he was one day?" said Mercer, wiping his
eyes, for a chance to laugh at his tyrant always afforded him the most
profound satisfaction.
"No. A dandy?"
"A hobbledehoy! and he looks it, don't he? It did make him so savage
when he heard, and he said he wasn't half such a hobbledehoy as old Reb
was, and Dicksee said he'd go and tell."
"And did he?"
"Did he? You know how my nose was swelled up."
"Of course."
"Well, that was nothing to Dicksee's. His is a nose that a tap will
swell up, and when old Eely regularly hammered till it was soft, it
looked dreadful, and when he said he'd go straight to the Doctor, Eely
hammered him again till he went down on his knees and begged Eely's
pardon, and promised to say it was done by a cricket-ball. I say, hark!
they've got something over there. Let's go and see."
We went down along the hedge to the gate, and as soon as we passed
through we could see Burr major standing up tall and thin in the midst
of a group of boys, to whom he was showing something, and, our curiosity
being excited, we strolled up to the group, to find that a general
inspection was going on of a little bright new silver watch which Burr
major had received in a box along with some new clothes that day from
his father in London.
The great tall, thin fellow was giving himself the most ridiculous airs,
and talking in a haughty condescending way to the boys about him, just
as if watches were the commonest things in the world to him.
"Then, you know," he was saying, as we drew nigh, "you press on that
little round place very lightly with your nail, and the back flies
open--see."
He pressed the spring, the back opened, showing the polished interior of
the case, and then shut it with a snap two or three times, the case
flashing in the evening light; and as I glanced at Mercer, I quite
wondered to see the eager look of interest and longing he directed at
that watch.
"I say, how do you wind it up?" cried a small boy.
"Why, you just push the key in that little hole, and turn it a few times
so. Oh, I forgot--I did wind it up before."
"Why, you wound it up six times," said Dicksee, with a sneer.
"Well, it's my own watch, isn't it, stupid? I can wind it up a hundred
times if I like," cried Burr major contemptuously.
"I say, how much did it cost?" said Hodson.
"How should I know? I'm not going to ask my father how much a thing
costs when he gives me a present. Lot of money--ten or fifteen pounds,
I daresay."
"Yah! Silver watches don't cost so much as that," sneered Dicksee.
"Look here, Dicky," cried Burr major, "you're getting too cheeky. I
shall have to take you down a peg or two."
"Oh, never mind old Fatsides," cried another boy. "Here, Burr, old
chap, show us the works."
"Oh, nonsense, boys! I'm going to put it away now," said Burr major,
opening and shutting the back, so as to make a loud snapping noise.
"I say, I should have a gold chain if I were you, Burr," said another
boy.
"No, I don't think I shall," said the big fellow nonchalantly; "not for
school. Silver would be good enough when a fellow's playing cricket or
football."
"Oh, I say, do show us the works!" said the boy who had spoken before.
"Oh, very well. What young noodles you are! Any one would think you
had never seen a watch before. You see this is one of the best class of
watches, and you open the glass by pressing your nail in there. That's
it, you see; and then you stick your nail on that little steel thing,
and then it comes open--so. Here, keep back, some of you. Breathing on
the works spoils a watch."
"Oh, what a beauty!" rose in chorus, and I saw Mercer press forward with
his eyes dilated, and an intense look of longing in his countenance, as
he gazed at the bright yellow works, and the tiny wheel swinging to and
fro upon its hair-spring.
"Yes, it's a good watch," said Burr major, in a voice full of careless
indifference. "Not the same make as my father's. His is gold, of
course, and when you open it, there's a cap fits right over the top--
just over there. His is a repeater, and when you touch a spring, it
strikes the quarters and the hours."
Mercer looked on as if fascinated.
"Like a clock," said Hodson.
"Of course it does like a clock," said Burr major contemptuously. "It's
jewelled, too, in ever so many holes. It cost a hundred guineas, I
think, without the chain."
"Oh!" rose in chorus.
"Is that jewelled in lots of holes?" said one of the boys.
"Of course it is. My father wouldn't send me a watch without it was."
"I can't see any holes," said one.
"And I don't see any jewels," said another.
"Where are they, then?" said Hodson.
"The other side, of course."
"Then what's the good of them?"
"Makes a watch more valuable," said Burr major haughtily. "There, don't
crowd in so. I'm going to put it away now."
"What jewels are they?" said a boy. "Pearls?"
"Diamonds," said Mercer, with his eyes fixed on the watch, "to make hard
points for the wheels to swing upon, because diamonds won't wear."
"Oh, hark at him!" cried Burr major. "Old Senna knows all about it.
Hardly ever saw a watch before in his life."
"Haven't I?" cried Mercer. "Why, my father has a beauty, with second
hands--a stop watch."
"Ha, ha, ha!" cried Burr major, closing his new present with a loud
snap. "A stop watch! that's an old one that won't go, boys. Poor old
Mercer!--poor old Senna Tea! Did your father buy it cheap?"
There was a roar of laughter at this, for the boys always laughed at
Burr major's jokes.
"No; I know," said Hodson. "One of old Senna's patients that he killed,
left it him in his will."
I saw Mercer turn scarlet.
"Did you ever take it to pieces, and stuff it again, Senna?" and there
was another roar of laughter.
"He did, I know, and that's why it won't go."
"Come along," whispered Mercer to me, for, now that the watch had
disappeared in its owner's pocket, the attraction which had held my
companion there seemed to have gone, and we began to walk away.
"There they go," cried Burr major; "pair of 'em. Burr junior's getting
on nicely with his stuffing. I say, young un, how many doses of physic
has he made you take?"
"Come away," whispered Mercer; "let's go back to the gardens. If I stop
here, I shall fly out at him, and get knocked about again."
"Ah! Oh! Go home!" was shouted, Burr major starting the cry, and his
followers taking it up in chorus till we had passed through the gate,
when Mercer clenched his fists, and gave both feet a stamp.
"And him to have a watch like that!" he cried; "and I've longed for one
ever since I was ten. Oh, I do hate that chap! Shouldn't you have
liked to hit him?"
"No," I said. "I felt all the time as if I should have liked to kick
him."
"Oh, I felt that too. But, I say, shouldn't you like a watch the same
as his?"
"Yes," I said, "of course. Perhaps we shall have watches some day."
"Let's save up and buy one between us, and you have it one week, and me
the other."
"But you wanted to save up and buy the gun that takes to pieces, so that
we could go shooting."
"Yes, so I did," said Mercer--"so I do. But I should like that watch."
"Perhaps he'll get tired of it soon," I said, "and want to sell it."
"No; he isn't that sort of fellow. He always sticks to his things, and
you never know him give anything away. But, I say, it is a beautiful
watch, isn't it?"
"Yes; so new and bright. It was going, too."
"Wish he'd lose it when he was jumping or playing cricket, and I could
find it."
"But you couldn't keep it, if you did find it. You'd know it was his."
"But perhaps I mightn't know he'd lost it, and it was his. Then I might
keep it, mightn't I?"
I burst out laughing at him.
"Why, you've taken quite a fancy to that watch, Tom," I said, and he
looked at me with his forehead all puckered up.
"Yes, I suppose so," he said dreamily. "I felt as if I'd give
everything I have got to have it."
"Stuffed birds, and the frog, and the ferret, and the boxing-gloves?" I
said merrily.
"No, no, no! that I wouldn't. There, I'm not going to think about it
any more. I say, the gloves--to-morrow morning. Oh!"
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
"I say, isn't it time to get up?"
It was a low whisper in my ear, and I started into full wakefulness, to
find it was dark, and that Mercer was sitting on the edge of my bed,
while the other boys were snoring.
"What time is it?" was my first and natural question.
"I don't know. If I'd got old Eely's watch, I could have had it under
my pillow, and seen directly."
"No, you couldn't," I said grumpily, for I was sleepy and cross; "it's
too dark."
"Well, I could have run my finger over the hands, and told by the touch.
You see, I should have held the watch perfectly upright, and then the
twelve would have been by the handle, and I could have told directly."
"But you haven't got a watch, and so you don't know."
"No," he said, with a sigh, "I haven't got that watch. Old Eely's got
it--a nasty, consequential, bully dandy."
"Do go and lie down again," I said. "I am so sleepy!"
"What for? It's time to get up."
"It can't be; see how dark it is."
"Oh, that's only because it's a dark morning. Get up and dress, and
don't be so grumpy because I've woke you up."
"But I haven't had sleep enough," I grumbled, "and I don't believe it's
twelve o'clock yet. Look at the stars shining."
"Well, they always do shine, don't they? What's that got to do with
it?"
"But it isn't daylight, and we were not to go to Lomax till five."
"By the time we're washed and dressed, the sun will be up, and then
there won't be any waiting."
"Hark!" I said, for the turret clock, below the big bell, chimed.
One, two--three, four--five, six--seven, eight.
Then a long pause.
"Five o'clock," whispered Mercer.
_Chang_!
We waited as the stroke of the striking hammer rang out loudly, and we
could hear the vibration of the bell quivering in the air.
"Well, go on, stupid," said Mercer at last.
"Go on indeed!" I said angrily. "What's the good of coming and
disturbing a fellow like this? It's only one o'clock."
"Don't believe it. That clock's wrong. Now, if I had had a watch--"
"Bother the watch!--bother the clock!--bother you!" I cried. "If you
don't be off, I'll give you bolster."
"Oh, very well," he said. "But I couldn't sleep. It must be four,
though. I'll go and lie down for a bit longer."
He stole back to his bed, and, with a sigh of relief, I sank back into a
delicious nap, from which my tormentor roused me twice more, to declare
it must be time to get up; but there was not a faint gleam of light yet
at the window, and I resolutely refused to rise, sending my companion
back to bed, and going off again, to wake at last with the sun shining
brilliantly in by the curtain. This time I jumped up, with the full
impression upon me that I had overslept myself; while there lay Mercer
on his back, with his mouth wide-open, and giving vent every now and
then to a guttural snore.
And now we shall be too late, I thought, as I hurried on my trousers,
slipped out of the dormitory door, to run down to the end of the
passage, where I could look out and see the sun shining brightly on the
gold letters of the clock face, where, to my great delight, the hands
pointed to half-past four.
Plenty of time, and I went back and roused up Mercer, who started into
wakefulness, looking quite guilty.
"All right!" he said. "I only just shut my eyes. What's o'clock?"
"Time you were dressed," I whispered. "Don't talk loud, or you'll wake
the others."
We washed and dressed with wonderful celerity, and then crept out and
down-stairs, to open one of the schoolroom windows, jump out, and close
it after us. Then, in the delicious fresh morning, with the trees all
dewy, we started off to go through the shrubbery, and were half-way to
the lodge, when Mercer caught me by the arm.
"Look!" he said. "Magglin!" and there, going across one of the fields
beyond the road, was that individual, with the pockets of his jacket
seeming to be sticking out; and the same idea struck us both.
"He's been poaching!"
But he passed out of sight directly, and we hurried on down to the
lodge, to find Lomax standing at the door smoking his morning pipe.
"Five minutes before your time," he said. "That's a good sign. You
both want to learn, so you'll learn quickly. Wait a minute, I've just
done my bad habit. I learned that years ago, and it's hard to break
oneself of it. There, that'll do," he continued, lifting up one foot,
and bending down, so as to knock the ashes out of his pipe by tapping
the bowl on his heel. "Come along! I've cleared the decks for you."
In fact, as we entered the room, we found that the table and chairs had
been taken out, and the little square of carpet and hearthrug rolled up
together and stood in a corner, while on the window sill lay the two
pairs of boxing-gloves, like four hugely swollen giants' hands, and they
looked so ridiculous that we both laughed.
"'Tention!" cried Lomax, shutting and bolting the door. "Business! You
can laugh after. Now then, put them on."
We readily obeyed, and as each glove was put on, Lomax tied them
securely in their places by the stout strings at the wrists, and once
more our comical aspect was too much for us, and we laughed more
uproariously than before.
"'Tention, I say, boys. Silence! Now then, I don't do so in drilling
you, but the best way to teach a man anything is by letting him go his
own way, and then correcting his mistakes. Now, are you ready, both of
you, and done with your nonsense?"
"Yes, we are quite serious now," I said.
"Then, to begin with, you, Master Burr, stand up before me, and hit me
hard in the chest."
"But it will hurt you," I said.
"You do as I tell you. Hit me in the chest as hard as you can."
I stood up in front of him, and punched him with the soft glove just
below his chin.
"Do you call that hard? Try again."
I struck him again.
"Better," he said; "but it wouldn't have killed a blue-bottle. Now you,
Master Mercer."
"I'll hit you hard, then, if you will not mind."
"Tchah! just as if you could hurt me! Go on."
Mercer flew at him and struck with all his might.
"Better," said Lomax; "that might have killed a blue-bottle. But it is
just as I thought; you're both wrong."
"Wrong?" we echoed.
"Of course you are. So those two gave you both a good thrashing, eh?"
"Yes," I said bitterly.
"Of course they would if you behaved like that. What are those hanging
down by your sides?"
"Arms," I said wonderingly.
"Then why do you treat 'em as if they were wind-mill sails, and swing
'em round that fashion?"
"Then you ought to hit straight out," I said, "and not swing your arms
round?"
"Of course," said our instructor; "but that isn't all. You both hit at
me with your right glove."
"Of course. The right arm's the stronger."
"Exactly, my lad; so keep it to use as a shield."
"But you want to beat a boy when you fight him," I said.
"To be sure you do, and to beat him you must be strong and able to hold
out, and to do this you must be ready to keep him first of all from
injuring you. It's self-defence, so you keep your best arm to keep the
enemy from making your nose swelled like yours was, Master Mercer, and
from sticking his fist in your eye like Master Dicksee did in yours,
Master Burr. And that isn't all. If you are keeping him from hurting
you, he goes on getting tired and more tired, and then your turn comes,
and you can thrash him."
"I see," cried Mercer.
"No, you don't; you're only getting a peep yet."
"But mustn't you ever hit with your right fist?"
"Oh yes, at proper times. Wait: I'll tell you when."
"But shall we begin fighting now?" I said eagerly.
"No, not till you know what you're going to do. Now look here, boys; I
daresay some people would teach you very differently to what I do, but
you've asked me, and I shall teach you my way. Some people let those
they teach put the gloves on and begin knocking each other about, but
that's all waste of time. I want everything you do with your right or
your left to be for some reason. Those two boys can't fight, but they
thrashed you two because I can see you swung your arms about anyhow, and
while you were coming round with one of your wind-mill swings, they hit
straight out and you had it. Do you see?"
"Not quite," I said.
"Then look here. See that round table turned up in the corner?"
"Yes."
"Suppose, then, two flies started from the edge to get to the opposite
edge, and one went round and the other right across straight, which
would get there first?"
"Oh, I know that," said Mercer, rubbing his nose with the back of his
glove; "the one that went across the diameter ever so much sooner than
the one that went half round the circumference."
"Yes," I said; "the chord is shorter than the arc."
"Never mind about your fine way of putting it," said Lomax. "I see you
understand, and that's what I mean. The enemy would diameter you while
you tried to circumference him."
The serjeant laughed at his ready adoption of our words, and we laughed
too, but he cried "'Tention!" again, and now made us stand face to face
on guard, manipulating us and walking round till he had us exactly to
his taste, when he suddenly remembered something, and, taking a piece of
chalk from his pocket, he drew a line between us, and then raised our
hands with their huge gloves to the pitch he considered correct.
"There you are, boys," he said; "that couldn't be better. Now, bear in
mind what I said; self-defence is the thing you've got to aim at, just
as a general manages his regiments and fences with them till the proper
time comes, and then he lets them go. Now, to begin with, you must be
the enemy, Master Mercer, and Master Burr here's got to thrash you."
"Oh!" cried Mercer.
"Well, your turn will come next. Now then. Ready?"
"Yes," we cried.
"Then you, Mercer, hit him in the chest."
"And what shall I do?"
"Don't let him. You've got your right ready, haven't you? Now then,
off!"
We were both terribly excited, and I was on my guard as Mercer hit at me
with his soft glove, and I caught the blow on my right arm.
"Good!" cried Lomax; "bravo! well stopped. But that's all you did,
because you didn't know any better. If you had known better, Master
Mercer would be sitting on the floor."
"What ought I to have done, then?" I said.
"You wait and I'll show you. Now, Mercer, hit at him again. Hit this
time. That's a boxing-glove you've got on."
"Well, I know it is."
"Oh, I thought you fancied it was a snowball that you were going to
throw at him."
I burst out laughing.
"Silence! 'Tention! Now then, again. Wait a minute. Now, look here,
Burr: as he hits at you, stop it with your right arm as you did before,
and just at the same moment you push your left arm out full length, and
lean forward straight at his face. Don't hit at him, only keep your
left out straight and lean forward suddenly--like this."
He showed me what he meant, and I balanced myself on my legs, and
imitated him as well as I could, to get the swing forward he wished, and
we prepared for the next encounter.
"I'm going to hit straight out this time, Frank, so look out."
"Oh yes, he'll look out," cried Lomax. "Now, then, take it on your
right arm, my lad. Off with you."
Mercer struck out at me awkwardly, and, as I received the blow at my
chest full on my forearm, I bent forward sharply, not striking, but
giving what seemed to me to be a push with my stiffened left arm
straight at Mercer's face, when, to my great astonishment, he went down
on the floor and sat there staring at me holding the soft glove up
against his nose.
"What did you do that for?" he cried angrily. "He said I was to hit,
not you."
"Because I told him," said Lomax, patting me on the shoulder. "Bravo,
bravo! That was science against brute force, my lad; I thought it would
astonish you."
"But he hit ever so hard," cried Mercer, "and it took me off my guard,
because it was I who was to hit."
"And so you did, my lad, as hard as you could unscientifically, while he
only just threw himself forward scientifically, and there you are on the
ground."
"But he hit so hard."
"Oh no. He just held his arm right, and threw the weight of his body
behind it."
"Here, let's change sides," cried Mercer. "I want to try that."
"Right," said Lomax, and the proceedings were reversed, with the effect
that, after I had struck at my adversary, I realised that I had thrown
my head forward just as he had thrust out his rigid left arm, backed by
the whole weight of his body, and I in my turn went down sitting, almost
as much astounded as Mercer had been.
"Oh," he cried excitedly, "that's grand! I wish I had known that when
old Eely was giving it to me t'other day. Why, I feel as if I could go
and lick him now."
"I daresay you do," cried Lomax laughing. "Now, let's have that over
again. I want you both to see that a swing round blow, or even a
straight out blow, is nothing to one like that, for you see you've got
the weight of the body and the speed at which you are both moving to
give it force. Why, in a charge, when the men were at full gallop with
swords or lances extended, we had--But never mind about that," he added
quickly. "Now do you see what I mean?"
"Yes," we cried, and we went through the attack and defence over and
over again, till the blows grew so vigorous that I began to feel as if I
should like to hit harder.
"That will do," said Lomax suddenly. "You are both getting warm, and
it's half-past six."
"Nonsense!" I cried.
"It is, my lad; there goes the bell. Now then, let me untie those
gloves. That's your first lesson. What do you think of it?"
"Think of it?" cried Mercer. "I think old Eely Burr had better mind
what he's up to, or he'll find he has made a mistake."
"Hah!" said Lomax, "don't you get too puffed up, my lad. You wait, for
you don't know anything at all yet. That's just the thin end of the
wedge, but still I think you've learned something. That's it," he
continued, drawing off the gloves. "By and by you'll have to fight
against me, and I shall show you a few things that will startle you.
But are you satisfied?"
"Why, it's glorious!" I cried.
"What? to learn to fight with your fists?" said the old sergeant grimly.
"No, but to feel that you need not let everybody bully you."
"Why, you're getting as swollen up as Master Mercer here," said Lomax,
laughing. "There; when is it to be--to-morrow morning?"
"Yes, every morning," said Mercer, and the door was unbolted, and we
went out, feeling quite hot enough, with the sun shining brightly on the
newly dew-washed leaves.
"You'll spoil everything," I said, "if you begin to show that you can
fight before we are quite ready."
"Oh, but I'm not going to," he replied; "I'll be as quiet as can be, and
let old Eely say and do what he likes for the present. I feel as if I
can bear it now. Don't you? There, come along up into the loft, and
let's see if we can find our ferret. It does seem hard to lose that
directly. Just, too, as one finds one has been cheated by old Magglin.
I wish he'd sell that gun. I say, I'll make him show it to you. It is
such a handy little thing."
I felt that it would be very interesting to go out, as Mercer proposed,
shooting specimens, which he would afterwards show me how to skin and
preserve; but I could not help thinking that it would take a rather
large supply of pocket-money to pay for all the things my companion
wanted, especially if his wants included guns and watches.
We went right up to the loft, and a search was made, and the floor
stamped upon, and the boards tapped. But there was no sign of the
ferret, and we gave up the search at last in despair, as it was rapidly
approaching the time when the bell would ring for breakfast, and we had
our lessons to look up ready for Mr Hasnip, who now had us, as he
called it, thoroughly in hand.
We both smiled and looked at one another as we crossed the yard, for
Burr major and Dicksee had come past together, the latter listening
attentively to his companion's words.
"Oh, I say, Burr, if they only knew!" whispered Mercer, with a chuckle.
"They little think that we've been--Oh, I say, look; he's taking out his
watch to see if it's right by the big clock. Frank, I say: I do wish I
had a watch like that!"
I looked at him wonderingly once more, for that watch had completely
fascinated him, and till breakfast-time he could talk of nothing else.
"Think your uncle would give you a watch if you asked him?" he said.
"I shouldn't like to ask him, because--well, I'm rather afraid of him."
"What, isn't he kind to you?"
"Yes, I think so," I said; "but he's a severe-looking sort of man, and
very particular, and I don't think he'd consider it right for me to have
a watch while I am at school."
"That's what my father said when I was home for last holidays. I wanted
a watch then, but not half so bad as I feel to want one now. I say!"
"Well?"
"I wonder how much old Eely's father gave for that one. I don't think
it could have cost a very great deal."
I shook my head, for I had not the least idea, and then I found myself
watching Burr major, who was still comparing his watch with the great
clock.
"I won't think about it any more," said Mercer suddenly.
"Think of what?" I said wonderingly.
"That watch. It worries me. I was dreaming about it all last night,
and wishing that I'd got it somehow, and that it was mine. And it
isn't, and never can be, can it?"
"No," I said, and we walked into the big room, for the breakfast-bell
began to ring, and very welcome it sounded to us, after being up so
early, and indulging in such violent exercise.
"Here comes Eely," whispered Mercer, "and old Dicksee too. I say: that
punch with the left! Oh my!"
CHAPTER TWELVE.
Those were busy times at Meade Place, for Mr Hasnip worked me hard; Mr
Rebble harassed me a little whenever he had a chance; and every now and
then the Doctor made a sudden unexpected attack upon me with questions
uttered in the severest of tones.
All this meant long hours of what the masters called "private study" and
the boys "private worry;" while in addition there were the lessons we
inflicted upon ourselves, for we never once failed of being at the lodge
by five o'clock on those summer mornings, to be scolded, punched, and
generally knocked about by our instructor.
Join to these, other lessons in the art of skinning and preserving
birds, given by Mercer up in the loft; compulsory games at cricket, as
they were called, but which were really hours of toil, fielding for Burr
major, Hodson, and Dicksee; sundry expeditions after specimens, visits
to Bob Hopley, bathing, fishing, and excursions and incursions
generally, and it will be seen that neither Mercer nor I had much spare
time.
A busy life is after all the happiest, and, though my lessons often
worried and puzzled me, I was perfectly content, and my friendly
relations with Mercer rapidly grew more firm.
"I say," he cried one morning, after Lomax had grumbled at us a little
less than usual respecting our execution of several of the bits of
guarding and hitting he put us through--"I say, don't you think we are
perfect yet?"
The serjeant opened his eyes wide, and then burst into a hearty laugh.
"Well," he said, "you will grow into a man some day, and when you do, I
daresay you will be a bit modest, for of all the cocksparrowy chaps I
ever did meet, you are about the most impudent."
"Thank-ye," said Mercer, and he went off in dudgeon, while Lomax gave me
a comical look.
"That's the way to talk to him," he said. "If you don't, he'll grow up
so conceited he'll want extra buttons on his jacket to keep him from
swelling out too much."
"Now, Burr, are you coming?" shouted Mercer.
"Yes. Good morning," I said to Lomax, and I hurried out.
"I thought we should have learned long before this," said my companion,
as we strolled leisurely back. "I don't seem to get on a bit further,
and I certainly don't feel as if I could fight. Do you?"
"No," I said frankly.
"You see, it wants testing or proving, same as you do a sum. Shall we
have a fall out with them and try?"
"No," I cried excitedly. "That wouldn't do. They might lick us. We
ought to try with some one else first."
"But who is there? If we had a fight with some other boys, Eely and
Dicksee would know, and we should have no chance to fight them then. I
know. Let you and I fall out and have a set to."
I whistled, and put my hands in my pockets.
"Wouldn't that do?" he said.
"No, not at all. It wouldn't be real, and--"
"Hold your tongue. Here's Magglin."
"Morning, young gents," said the man coming up in his nasty, watchful,
furtive way, looking first behind him, and then dodging to right and
left to look behind us, to see if any one was coming.
"Morning.--Hi! look out! Keeper!" cried Mercer.
"Eh? Where? where?" whispered Magglin huskily.
"Down in the woods," cried Mercer laughingly. "Look at him, Burr; he
has been up to some games, or he wouldn't be so frightened."
"Get out!" growled the gipsy-looking fellow sourly. "Doctor don't teach
you to behave like that, I know."
"Nor the gardener don't teach you to try and cheat people with ferrets."
"Well, I like that," cried Magglin in an ill-used tone. "I sells you
for a mate of mine--"
"No, you didn't, it was for yourself, Magg."
"As good a farret as ever run along a hole."
"As bad a one as ever stopped in and wouldn't come out again."
"And you turn like that on a fellow."
"You're a cheat, Magg, and you took us in. That was your old ferret you
sold me, and I wish I'd never paid you a shilling."
"Nay, not you. It's a good farret, and you've only paid me four
shillin' out of them five."
"And I don't think I shall pay you any more."
"Nay, you must. Gents can't break their words."
"But they can break blackguards' heads, Magg."
"I ain't a blackguard, and I sold you the ferret fair and square. It
weren't my fault you let it run down a hole in the loft."
"When it proved directly that it was your old one, for there it stops."
"I shouldn't pay him the other shilling till he got it out, Tom," I
said.
"I don't mean to. How many times have you been to look for it, Magg?"
"How many times? I didn't count. Every morn when I come to work have I
gone down on my chestie in that there loft, watching o' them rat-holes."
"Yes, and you've never caught him. Four shillings did I pay you for
that ferret--"
"And a shillin' more to pay," said Magglin, grinning. "And only once
have I seen his nasty ugly little pink nose since, when he poked it out
of a hole and slipped back again.
"But then see how he must have kept down the rats," said the man.
"Bother the rats. I want my ferret." Mercer turned sharply round to
me.
"I say," he whispered, "he's a blackguard and a cheat. We wanted to
practise. Let's both pitch into him."
I naturally enough laughed at the idea, and, looking round at the under
gardener, I saw that he was watching us with his rat-like eyes.
"I say," he whispered, with an accompaniment of nods and winks, "I was
lying wait for you two."
"We're not rabbits, Magg," I said.
"Who said you was?" he cried, with a sharp look round behind him.
"Nor yet hares, Magg," cried Mercer.
"Now look ye here," said the fellow appealingly, "it's too bad on you
two chuckin' things in a man's face like that now. Ain't I always
getting a honest living? You talk like that, and somebody'll be
thinkin' I go porching."
"So you do," said Mercer.
"What, porch?"
"Yes. I know. Bob Hopley says so too."
"Only hark at him," cried Magglin, "talking like that! Why, Bob
Hopley's a chap as must do something to show for his wage, and he'd take
any man's character away. He hate me, he do."
"Yes, and you hate him, Magg," I said.
The fellow turned on me sharply, but a curiously ugly smile began to
make curves like parentheses at the corners of his lips, and he showed
his teeth directly after.
"Well, I ain't so very fond of him," he said. "But look here, there
ain't no harm in a rabbid, and I was looking out for you two to ast if
you'd like to meet me, just by accident like, somewheers down to this
side o' High Pines, where the sandhills is. There's a wonderful lot o'
rabbids there just now."
"Yes, but when?" cried Mercer. "I want a rabbit or two to skin and
stuff."
"And you'd gie me the rabbids to eat."
"Of course. When do you mean?"
"I thowt as to-night'd do, 'bout seven, when they're beginning to lope
about."
"And you'd shoot some with that little gun of yours?"
"Whisht! Who's got a gun? Nonsense!"
"Ah, we know," cried Mercer.
"But I mean farreting."
"Wouldn't do," said Mercer decisively. "Bob Hopley would be sure to
come."
"Nay, he's going to Hastings to-day, and won't be back till ten
o'clock."
"How do you know?"
"Little birds out in the woods tells me."
"Magpies, eh?" I said. "Oh, I know."
"Then we'll come," cried Mercer. "But, I say, let us each have a shot
with the little gun."
"Nay, I'm a gardener, and ain't got no guns. I meant farreting."
"But you know I've lost the ferret," cried Mercer. "You can't go
ferreting without ferrets."
Magglin was standing before us with a curious, furtive smile on his
face, and his hands deep down in his pockets, and as Mercer finished
speaking, he slowly raised one hand, so that we saw peering out over the
top of his jacket pocket the sharp buff hairy head of a ferret, and we
both uttered a cry of joy.
"Why, you've got one!" said Mercer. "Why--yes--it is. It's my ferret."
"Yes," said Magglin. "I nipped him this morning. He was out running
about the loft, and I got hold of him at once. He's eaten all the rats
he could catch, and he was out smelling about, and trying to get into
that old corn-bin, so as to have a feed on your stuffed things."
"Lucky he didn't," cried Mercer. "Oh, you are a good chap, and I'll
give you the other shilling as soon as I can."
"Ay, do, master, for that chap I knows wants it badly."
"Come along, and let's shut it up safely," said Mercer.
"S'pose you let me take care of him in the tool-shed. I'll put him
where he can't get out, and I shall have him ready when you come."
"Very well then," cried Mercer, "you keep him. At the High Pines, then,
at seven o'clock."
"That's it, sir," said Magglin, securing the ferret in his pocket.
"Ah, good morning," said a voice; and we two turned sharply, to find
that Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip, who were out early for a constitutional,
had come up behind us quietly.
"Good morning, sir.--Good morning, sir," we said, and Magglin touched
his cap and went off down the garden.
"Very good, Mercer. Very good, Burr junior," said Mr Hasnip blandly,
as he brought his dark spectacles to bear upon us. "I like to see this,
and I wish the other boys would be as industrious, and get up these
lovely mornings. Been making plans with the gardener about your little
gardens, I see. That's right--that's right. But, as I was saying,
Rebble," he continued, turning away, "Galileo's opinion, when combined
with that of Kepler and Copernicus, is all buzz-buzz-buzz--"
So the latter part of his speech sounded to us, as they went on toward
the bottom of the garden.
"All buzz buzz buzz," whispered Mercer; "and that's what lots of others
of those old folks' opinions sound like to me--all buzz buzz buzz in my
poor head. I say, wasn't it lucky they didn't see the ferret?"
"They think we were speaking to him about gardening."
"Yes. What a game! We must go down to our gardens now, and pretend we
got up early to work."
"I shan't," I said shortly. "I hate being so deceptive, and I wish you
wouldn't be, Tom."
"Well, it don't sound nice, does it?" he replied thoughtfully. "But
it's so easy."
"Perhaps we had better not go after the rabbits."
"Oh, but we must now. Don't you sneak back. I shall go, and nobody
will know."
I felt doubtful, but I ended by promising.
"I say," cried Mercer suddenly, "what time is it? Oh, I do wish I had a
watch! You can't see the clock from here, but my clock inside says it's
breakfast-time."
"Let's go and see, then," I said, and we went toward the schoolroom.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
That was a most unfortunate day for me in school, for, as happens
sometimes, I was wrong over one of my lessons, and was sent down, and it
seemed to upset all the others, so that it was just like setting up a
row of dominoes, then you touch one and it sends all the rest over.
Scold, find fault, grumble,--Mr Hasnip was just as if his breakfast had
not agreed with him because he got up too early; and at last I was back
in my seat, with my face burning, my head aching, and a general feeling
of misery troubling me, which was made the worse by the keen enjoyment
Burr major and his parasites found in triumphing over me, and coming by
my place every now and then to whisper--"Poor fellow, then!--turned
back--going to be caned," and the like, till I ground my teeth, clenched
my fists, and sat there bent over the exercises before me, seeing
nothing but the interior of Lomax's cottage, and listening to his
instructions how to stop that blow and retort with another, till in
imagination I could fancy myself thrashing my enemies, and making for
myself a lasting peace.
"Never mind, old chap," whispered Mercer. "Rabbits to-night, and some
day such a licking for old Eely and Dicksee."
The thoughts of the expedition that night were comforting, and I tried
to think of the High Pines and the sandy slope with the holes where I
had often seen the rabbits pop in and out, but my head ached all the
same; and in spite of our half-hour in the play-field before dinner, I
had no appetite. During the afternoon, when my time came to go up to
Mr Hasnip's desk, I felt more stupid than ever, and on casting my eyes
sideways in search of a flying thought, there was Mr Rebble watching me
intently.
This made me more confused, and my next answer more blundering, so that
I was at last sent back to my desk in greater disgrace than ever, to
find Mercer, who was always constructing something, boring the edge of
his desk with a penknife, so as to make powder holes for a slate pencil
cannon.
"Catching it again?" he said.
"Yes," I replied dolefully.
"Didn't say you were to stop in and study, did he?"
"No, he didn't say that."
"Oh, that's all right, then."
"But it isn't all right. He scolded me horribly."
"Pooh! what of that? Every boy gets scolded. Never mind. I say, I
daresay we shall get a whole lot of rabbits. How would it be to ask
cook to make us a rabbit pie of two of them."
"Nonsense!"
"Oh, would it be? We could keep it up in the bin, and go and have jolly
feeds."
"Keep it up there, along with that poison stuff and nasty-smelling
skins! Ugh!"
"Well, it would be queer perhaps. I didn't think of that."
"Mr Rebble's looking at you two," whispered the boy nearest, and we
hurriedly went on with our work, but not for long. Mercer was too full
of the coming expedition, and soon began whispering again.
"But how are we to get away?" I said. "Some one is sure to see us."
"Oh, that's easy enough," he whispered. "There's going to be a bit of a
match to-night."
"But suppose they want us to field?"
"Then they'll want, for they will not be able to find us. You leave it
to me."
That was a long, dreary afternoon, and tea-time seemed as if it would
never arrive. When it did come round, though, with the cool air of
evening my headache began to go off, and as I grew better, the
excitement of the coming expedition, and the thoughts of how we were
going to elude the notice of the other boys, completed the cure.
We had half an hour's walk before us, to reach the High Pines by seven,
so that, as it grew near the time I began to be anxious.
We were in the schoolroom, deep in private study, and as Mercer studied,
he kept on turning his eyes to gaze round the room, repeating his
lessons all the while, so that he would not have looked particular if
any one had been watching us, but no one was visible. Every now and
then the voices of the boys in the play-field floated toward us, and we
sat in momentary expectation of being seen by one of the bigger fellows,
and ordered off into the field by our tyrants; but the moments still
glided by, and at last Mercer thrust his book into his desk.
"Now, then," he said in a low voice, "we must make a run for it, or old
Magg will think we are not coming."
"Which way are you going?" I asked.
"Right out through the garden, and by the back of the lodge. You follow
me, and, whatever you do, don't look back, as if you were afraid of
being seen."
It was risky work, I knew, but there was nothing to be gained by
hesitating, and it seemed to me that the very boldness of our attempt
helped us to a successful issue, for we went on, hearing voices from the
field, and once that of the Doctor, as he was walking up and down the
lawn with one of the ladies, whose light dress was seen for a few
moments through the trees. Then we were out in the road, walking fast
towards the General's woods, and soon after we passed into a field,
reached a copse, and Mercer uttered a faint "Hurrah!"
"I was expecting to hear some one shout after us every minute," he
cried, as we now hurried steadily along. "Oh dear, how you do fancy
things at a time like this!"
The evening was now delightful, and the fresh, sweet scent of the grass
we crushed beneath our feet was supplemented every now and then by that
of the abundant field camomile.
"Look out!" said Mercer; "there he goes. Isn't he early? I say, I
wonder whether that's one of old Dawson's owls."
For, as we passed along by the edge of the wood, a great white-breasted
bird flew by, and went softly along by the side of the trees, till it
disappeared far ahead.
"There's a rabbit," I said, as I caught sight of the white tuft of fur
which so often betrays the presence of the little creatures, and
directly after a sharp _rap, rap_--the warning given by them of danger--
was heard ahead, and a dozen ran rushing out of the field into the
shelter of the wood.
"Look at them, how they swarm!" cried Mercer. "Why we might catch a
hundred, and no one would be a bit the worse for it. Here, make haste,
or I shall be shouting at them, and we ought to be quiet now."
"Close there, aren't we?" I said.
"Yes; just through that next patch, and we shall be there."
"And suppose Magg hasn't come?"
"Why, we'll catch some without him."
"Without the ferret?"
"Oh, how stupid I am!" cried Mercer, and he went on, now in silence,
through some stunted firs, in and out by patches of gorse, with the
character of the ground quite changed, and then up a hilly slope crowned
with spruce trees, round which we skirted, to stop at last, breathless,
at the bottom of the slope facing south, with the dark green,
straight-stemmed trees above us; and Mercer gave his foot an angry stamp
as he looked round at the deserted place, where the pine branches glowed
of a ruddy bronze in the sunset light, and cried,--
"Oh, what a jolly shame!"
"Not here?" I said.
"No; and it's a nasty, mean trick to drag us all this way. I wish I had
kept the ferret instead of trusting him."
"What's to be done?"
"Oh, nothing," he replied despondently. "It's always the way, when I've
made up my mind for a bit of fun, something happens to stop it."
"Let's wait," I said. "He may come yet."
"Wait? Why, it'll be too dark to see to do anything in less than an
hour. Oh, won't I pay him out for--"
"There he is," I whispered, for I had just caught sight of a figure
lying down by a patch of furze; and we started off at a dog-trot, and
soon reached the spot.
"Why, I thought you hadn't come, Magg," cried Mercer excitedly.
"That's what I was thinking," said the man. "There, chuck yourselves
down; if you stand up like that, somebody may see you."
I did not like this, for it was going in for more hiding and
secretiveness, but all the same it was fascinating, and, dropping on our
knees in the short, wiry grass, we waited for our instructor in the art
of ferreting rabbits to begin.
"Well," I said, as we stared at him, and he stared back at us, "aren't
you going to begin?"
"No," he said coolly.
"Then what's the good of our coming?"
"Oh, do begin, Magg! We shall soon have to run back. Where's old
longbody?"
"Yonder," said Magglin coolly, nodding his head at the slope just above
us.
"Not loose?"
"Yes, he's loose."
"But--"
"Why, can't you see, lad? and do be quiet, or the rabbits won't bolt. I
put him in one of the holes ten minutes ago."
A flush of excitement seemed to run through me now, as I noted that
every here and there were places in the turfy bank where the sandy soil
had been scraped out, and the next moment I saw what had escaped me
before, that every hole I could see was covered with a fine net.
Mercer had seen it too, and I saw him rub his hands softly as if
delighted with the promise of sport, but another ten minutes passed, and
the rabbits made no sign of being anxious to rush out and be caught, and
I began to grow impatient.
"Hadn't you better try another place?" I whispered, but the man held up
his hand, drew his knees under him, and crouched in an attitude that was
almost doglike in its animal aspect.
Then there was a rushing noise just above us, and Magglin scrambled
forward and dashed his hands down upon a rabbit which came bounding out
of a hole and rolled down the slope, tangled in the net.
The next minute it had received a chop on the back of the neck, ceased
struggling, been transferred to Magglin's pocket, and the net was spread
over the hole again.
"That's a bad farret, ain't it, Master Mercer?" said Magglin, showing
his teeth. "You'd best sell un back to me; I should be glad on it for
five shillings."
"Hush! I thought I heard one, Magg," whispered Mercer, ignoring the
remark. "I say, let me catch the next."
"Either of you may if you can," he replied; and we waited again for some
time.
"Try some fresh place," whispered Mercer.
"Nay; they all run one into another; the ground under here's like the
rat-holes up at the old house. There goes one."
For a rabbit bolted from a hole higher up, turned on seeing us, and
darted up toward the pines.
"Farret's working beautifully," said Magglin.
"How many holes have you covered?" I asked.
"'Bout four-and-twenty, and all my nets. You young gents ought to pay
me for the use of them."
"Here's one!" cried Mercer, making a leap in a similar fashion to that
of the under gardener, and he too caught an unfortunate rabbit, whose
rush had been right into one of the little loose nets, in which it was
tangled directly.
"Here, let me kill un for you," said Magglin.
"No; I know now. I can do it," said Mercer. Then I sprang to my feet,
and my first impulse was to run, my second to stand fast, for how he got
up to us so close from behind without being seen was a mystery to me;
but there, just in the midst of the confusion and excitement of
capturing the second rabbit, was Bob Hopley, the keeper, his big, sturdy
form seeming to tower above us, and, caught, as we were in this
nefarious act, filling me with dread.
"Got you this time then," he said gruffly.
"There, what did I say?" cried Magglin, in a sharp, acid voice that
sounded almost like a woman's. "I told you that you oughtn't to be
catching them rabbids, and now you see what trouble you're in."
"Oh, you told 'em so, did you, my lad?" said the keeper in a deep, angry
voice, and he seemed like a great mastiff growling at a common-looking
cur. "Then I 'spose it's their ferret in yon burrows, eh? there it is!"
he continued, as the buff-looking, snaky animal now came out of one of
the holes close by us, and Mercer stooped and picked it up as it made
for the dead rabbit.
"Oh yes, it's their farret, 'tarn't mine," said Magglin quickly.
"Yes, it's my ferret, Mr Hopley," Mercer said dolefully.
"And their nets, eh? Here, you stand still. You try to run away, and
I'll send a charge o' small shot after you, and that can run faster than
you can."
"More'n you dare do, big Bob Hopley," cried Magglin, backing away up the
hill; and I thought how cowardly the man's nature must be, for him to
propose this expedition and then sneak away from us like that. But
almost at the same moment I saw a tall, stern gentleman appear from
among the pine trees toward which Magglin was backing, for the keeper
had presented his gun, evidently to take the labourer's attention, as I
saw that, if matters went on in the way in which they were going, our
companion would back right up into the new-comer's arms.
"You stop, will you!" cried the keeper.
"You stop yourself," cried Magglin. "You've got them as belongs to the
ferret and was rabbiting. Good-night."
"Will you stop, or am I to shoot?" cried Hopley.
"Yah!" came back; and as the keeper dropped his gun into the hollow of
his arm with a grim smile on his face, there was a loud _thwack_ and a
startled, "Oh!" for the tall gentleman had stood still, Magglin had
reached him, and a stick fell heavily across the poacher's shoulders.
"You scoundrel!" he roared, making a snatch at Magglin's collar, but the
man was too slippery. He dropped on his knees, rolled down the slope a
few yards, sprang up, and dashed off.
"Don't matter, Sir Hawkus!" shouted the keeper. "I know my gentleman,
and can send him a summons. Now, young gents, you've got in for it this
time. Bad company's done for you."
"Oh, Bob," whispered Mercer, "let us go this time! let's run."
"Nay, here's Sir Hawkus coming; and here's some one else too," he
continued, as I saw two figures come trotting up by the way we had
reached the slope, to get to us nearly as soon as the tall,
stern-looking gentleman.
"Who are these?" he cried. "Boys from the Doctor's school? You young
dogs, you!" he shouted, shaking his cane. "Who are you?"
"Two of our pupils, Sir Hawkhurst," said Mr Rebble, panting and out of
breath. "You wretched boys, has it come to this?"
Mercer looked at the speaker, then at Mr Hasnip's smoked spectacles,
and then at me, as General Sir Hawkhurst Rye from the Hall, a gentleman
of whom I had often heard, but whom I had never seen, exclaimed,--
"Well, they are caught red-handed. Rabbits, poaching engines--and
what's that?"
"A ferret, sir," said Mercer humbly.
"Humph, yes. Now, Mr Schoolmaster, what's it to be? Do you take these
boys now, to bring them up before me and another magistrate to-morrow,
or shall I have them marched off by my keeper to the lock-up?"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
Those were terrible moments, and I remember wishing that it would
suddenly turn into darkest night, as we two lads stood there, shrinking
from the eyes of those four men, at whom I glanced in turn, and they all
impressed me differently. The general's mouth was pursed up, and his
walking cane, which, I perfectly recollect was a thick malacca with an
ivory head, shook in his hand as if he was eager to lay it across our
backs. Bob Hopley stood with his arms crossed over his gun, looking, as
I thought, hurt, pained, and as if we had committed a most terrible
crime. But there was no pain or trouble, as it seemed to me, in either
Mr Rebble's or Mr Hasnip's face. It struck me that they were on the
whole pleased and satisfied in having found us out in a deed that would
give them an opportunity to punish us with heavy impositions.
All these thoughts had passed rapidly through my mind as I stood waiting
to hear Mr Rebble's response to the General's question.
"I will take charge of the boys, sir," he said importantly; "and I shall
lay the matter at once before the notice of Doctor Browne."
"Hang Doctor Browne!" said the General fiercely. "I want to know what
he meant by bringing his confounded school and setting it up close under
my nose. What did he mean? Eh?"
"I am Doctor Browne's assistant master, Sir Hawkhurst," replied Mr
Rebble, with dignity, "and I cannot answer for his reasons."
"Humph! You can't, eh? You there in the dark barnacles," cried the
General, turning upon Mr Hasnip, "what have you to say?"
"That the boys must be severely punished, sir," said Mr Hasnip, who
looked quite startled.
"Punished! I should think so indeed. If I were not a magistrate, I'd
give the wretched young poachers a severe trouncing. How dare you,
eh?--how dare you, I say, come trespassing on my grounds and poaching my
rabbits?"
The only answer that I could find was, "I'm very sorry, sir. I did not
think; and I'll never do so any more;" but it seemed so ridiculous as I
thought it, that I held my tongue.
"Pretty scoundrels, 'pon my word!" cried the General. "Gentlemen's
sons, eh? nice gentlemen's sons. They've both got poacher written in
their face, and I can see what the end will be--transportation, or hung
for killing a keeper. That's it, eh, Hopley?"
"Well, sir," said Bob, giving us each a pitying look, "I wouldn't go
quite so far as that."
"No, because you are an easy-going fool. You let people rob me right
and left, and you'd stand still and let the young scoundrels shoot you.
There, take them away, the pair of them. You two, I mean--you
pedagogues. I'll come and see the Doctor myself to-morrow morning, and
I'll have those two fellows flogged--soundly flogged. Do you hear, you
boys?--flogged. How many rabbits have you got?"
"Only this one, sir," I said.
"What? You dare to tell me only one?"
"There was another, only Magglin put it in his pocket."
"Got a dozen hid somewhere," cried the General. "Where have you hid
them, you dog? Stuffed in some burrow, I suppose. Where are they,
sir?"
"I told you," I said sharply, for his doubt of my word made me feel hot
and angry. "We only caught those two. I shouldn't tell you a lie,
sir."
"Humph! Oh!" cried the old gentleman, looking at me searchingly, "you
wouldn't tell a lie about it, wouldn't you?"
"Of course not," I replied; "and we did not mean any harm, sir. We
thought it would be good fun to come and catch some rabbits."
"Oh, you did? Then I suppose it would be good fun to bring guns and
come and shoot my pheasants. Perhaps you'd like to do that, eh?"
"I should," said Mercer innocently.
"What!" roared the old gentleman. "Here, you two, take 'em both into
scholastic custody, and tell Dr Browne I'm coming in the morning to put
a stop to this sort of thing once and for all. Hopley, where's that
ferret?"
"Pocket, Sir Hawkus," said the keeper bluntly.
"`_In--my--pocket_,' sir!" cried the old gentleman angrily. "I pay you
wages, sir, as my servant, and I've a right to proper answers. Let's
see the ferret."
The keeper took it out of the big pocket inside his velveteen jacket,
and held it up, twisting and writhing to get free and down into one of
the rabbit-holes.
"Throw it down and shoot it," said the General.
"No, sir, please don't do that!" cried Mercer excitedly, "It's such a
good ferret--please don't kill the poor thing!"
The General looked at him sharply.
"Not kill it?"
"No, sir. Please let it go."
"To live on my rabbits, eh? There, put it in your pocket. And now, you
be off with you, and if I don't have your skins well loosened to-morrow,
I'll--You'll see."
He marched off in one direction, while our guard took us in the other,
talking at us all the time.
"Disgraceful!" Mr Rebble said. "The Doctor will be nearly
heart-broken about such a stigma upon his establishment. I don't know
what he'll say."
"They will be expelled, I presume," said Mr Hasnip softly. "It is very
sad to see such wickedness in those so young."
"I'm afraid so," replied Mr Rebble; and they kept up a cheerful
conversation of this kind till we reached the school, where we were at
once ordered up to our dormitory, and dropped down upon the sides of our
beds to sit looking at each other.
"I say, you've done it now," said Mercer at last; "and I did think we
were going to have such fun."
"Fun!" I said; "it's dreadful!"
"It was capital fun till they all came and spoiled it for us. I
wouldn't care about being expelled--at least not so much, only my father
will be so disappointed."
This made me think of my mother, and of what my uncle would say if I
were dismissed from the school in disgrace; and I shivered, for this was
the most terrible part of all.
"I tell you what," said Mercer, "we're in for it, and no mistake; and we
didn't do it to steal. We only wanted a bit of sport and some rabbits
to stuff. Let's tell the doctor we're very sorry, and ask him to flog
us. It would be too bad to expel us in disgrace. What do you say?"
"They may flog me," I said sadly; "but I couldn't go home again in
disgrace like that."
"Of course not; and it's too bad to call it poaching. I'm sorry we
went, though, now."
"Yes," I said, "I'm sorry enough;" and we sat there, miserable enough,
waiting till the other boys came up, and it was time to go to bed.
We had not begun to undress, when the door was opened, and three heads
were thrust in, and to our disgust, as we looked up, we saw that they
belonged to our three principal tormentors, who began at us in a jeering
way.
"Hallo, poachers!" said Burr major; "where are the rabbits?"
"I say," cried Hodson, "you fellows are going to be expelled. Leave us
the stuffed guys, Senna."
"He won't," cried Dicksee; "he'll want the skins to make a jacket--a
beggar!"
"You're a set of miserable cowards," I said indignantly, "or you
wouldn't come and jump upon us now we are down."
"You give me any of your cheek, Burr junior, and I'll make you smell
fist for your supper."
"Pst! Some one coming!" whispered Hodson, and the three scuffled away,
for there were footsteps on the stairs, and directly after Mr Rebble
appeared.
"Mercer, Burr junior," he said harshly, "Doctor Browne requests that you
will not come down till he sends for you in the morning. As for you,
young gentlemen, you will take no notice of the door being fastened; I
shall be up here in time to let you out. Good-night."
He went out, and closed and locked the door, and we heard him take out
the key and go down the stairs.
"Well, that's a rum one!" cried Mercer. "I say, Burr, old Rebble made
an Irish bull, or something like it. How can we go down if the door's
locked?"
"It's because they're afraid we shall run away," I said bitterly. "They
needn't have thought that."
And somehow that first part of our punishment seemed to be the most
bitter of all. It kept me awake for hours, growing more and more
low-spirited; and, to make me worse, as I lay there listening to the
loud breathing of the boys, Mercer having gone off like the rest, as if
nothing was the matter, I could hear an owl come sailing about the
place, now close at hand, and now right away in the distance, evidently
in Sir Hawkhurst's old park, where, no doubt, it had a home in one of
the great hollow beeches. Every now and then it uttered its mournful
_hoi, hoi, hoi, hoi_! sounding exactly like some one calling for help,
and at times so real that I was ready to awaken Mercer and ask him if he
thought it was a bird; but just as I had determined to do so, he spoke
half drowsily from his pillow.
"Hear the old owl," he said. "That's the one I told you about the other
night. It isn't the same kind as we saw in old Dawson's oast-house.
They screech. Get out, you old mouser! I want to sleep."
The owl kept on with its hooting; but Mercer had what he wanted, for he
dropped asleep directly, and I must have followed his example
immediately after, for the next thing I remember is feeling something
warm on my face, which produced an intense desire to sneeze--so it
seemed, till I opened my eyes, to find that the blind had been drawn,
and Mercer was tickling my nose with the end of a piece of top string
twisted up fine.
"Be quiet. Don't!" I cried angrily, as I sat up. "Hallo! where are
the other fellows?"
"Dressed and gone down ever so long ago. Didn't you hear the bell?"
"No; I've been very sound asleep," I said, beginning to dress hurriedly.
"Shall we be late? Oh!"
"What's the matter?"
"I'd forgotten," I said; for the whole trouble of the previous evening
had now come back with a rush.
"Good job, too," said Mercer. "That's why I didn't wake you. Wish I
was asleep now, and could forget all about it. I say, it ain't nice, is
it?"
I shook my head mournfully.
"It's always the way," continued my companion, "one never does have a
bit of fun without being upset after it somehow. We went fishing, and
nearly got drowned; I bought the ferret, and we lost it; we went in for
lessons in boxing, and I never grumbled much, but oh, how sore and stiff
and bruised I've often been afterwards. And now, when we go for just an
hour to try the ferret, we get caught like this. There's no real fun in
life without trouble afterwards."
"One always feels so before breakfast," I said, as dolefully as Mercer
now, and I hurriedly finished dressing. Then we went to the window, and
stood looking out, and thinking how beautiful everything appeared in the
morning sunshine.
"I say, Tom," I said at last, "don't you wish you were down-stairs
finishing your lessons, ready for after breakfast?"
"Ah, that I do!" he cried; "and I never felt so before."
"That's through being locked up like in prison," I said philosophically.
"Yes, it's horrid. I say, the old Doctor won't expel us, will he?"
"I hope not," I said.
"But he will old Magglin. You see if he don't."
"Well, I'm not sorry for him," I said; "he has behaved like a sneak."
"Yes; trying to put it all on to us."
We relapsed into silence for some time. We had opened the window, and
were looking out at the mists floating away over the woods, and the
distant sea shining like frosted silver.
"Oh, I do wish it was a wet, cloudy morning!" I said at last.
"Why?"
"Because everything looks so beautiful, and makes you long to be out of
doors."
We relapsed into silence again, with our punishment growing more painful
every moment, till our thoughts were chased away by the ringing of the
breakfast-bell.
"Ah, at last!" cried Mercer, and he turned to listen for footsteps.
"I say," he cried crossly, "ain't they going to let us go down to
breakfast?"
"No; we're prisoners," I said bitterly.
"Yes; but they don't starve prisoners to death," cried Mercer; "and I
want something to eat."
In spite of my misery, I too felt very hungry, for we had gone through a
great deal since our evening meal on the previous day, and I was
standing watching my companion as he marched up and down the bedroom
like an animal in a cage, when we heard steps on the stairs.
"Here's breakfast," cried Mercer joyfully, but his face changed as the
door was opened, and Mr Rebble appeared, followed by one of the maids
bearing a tray, which she set down on a little table and went away,
leaving Mr Rebble looking at us grimly, but with the suggestion of a
sneering laugh at the corners of his cleanly-shaven lips.
We both glanced at the tray, which bore a jug and two mugs and a plate
with a couple of big hunches of bread. Then Mercer looked up half
reproachfully at Mr Rebble, who was moving toward the door.
"They've forgotten the butter, sir," he said.
"No, my boy, no," replied the usher; "butter is a luxury reserved for
the good. The Doctor will send for you both by and by."
He went out and locked the door, while we stood listening till the steps
had died away.
"It's a jolly shame!" cried Mercer. "I'm not going to stop here and eat
dry bread."
"Never mind," I said; "I don't mind for once;" and, taking one of the
pieces of bread, I lifted the jug to fill a mug, but set it down again
without pouring any out.
"What's the matter?"
"Look," I said.
Mercer darted to the table, looked into the jug, poured out a little of
its contents, and set the vessel down, speechless for the moment with
rage.
"Water!" he cried at last, and dashing to the table again, he ran with
it to the window, and threw both jug and contents flying out into the
shrubbery below.
"Oh!" he ejaculated, directly after; "I didn't know you were there."
I ran to the window now, and looked down to see the cook's red face
gazing up at us.
"Eh? what say?" said Mercer, leaning out.
"Hush! be quiet. All at breakfast. Got any string?"
"Yes. Oh, I know," cried Mercer joyfully, and he ran to his box and
from the bottom dragged out a stick of kite string, whose end he rapidly
lowered down to where cook stood, holding something under her apron.
This proved to be a little basket with a cross handle when she whisked
her apron off, and, quickly tying the end of the string to it, she stood
watching till the basket had reached our hands, and then hurried away
round the end of the house.
"Oh, isn't she a good one!" cried Mercer, tearing open the lid, after
snapping the string and pitching the ball quickly into the box. "Look
here; four eggs, bread and butter--lots, and a bottle of milk--no," he
continued, taking out the cork and smelling, "it's coffee. Hooray!"
"What's that in the bit of curl paper?" and I pointed to something
twisted up.
"Salt," cried Mercer, "for the eggs. Come on, eat as fast as you can."
I took a piece of bread and butter, and he another, eating away as he
poured out two mugfuls of what proved to be delicious coffee.
"Who says we haven't got any friends?" cried Mercer, with his mouth
full. "What lots of butter. 'Tis good. I say, wonder what old Rebble
would say if he knew! Have an egg."
"No spoons."
"Bet a penny they're hard ones."
So it proved, and we cracked them well all over, peeled off the shells,
which for secrecy we thrust into our pockets, and then, dipping the eggs
into the salt, we soon finished one each, with the corresponding
proportion of bread and butter. Then the other two followed, the last
slice of bread and butter disappeared, and the wine-bottle was drained.
It was an abundant supply, but at our age the time consumed over the
meal was not lengthy, and we then busied ourselves in rinsing out the
bottle, which was hidden in my box, after being carefully wiped on a
towel, the basket was placed in Mercer's, and as soon as the last sign
of our banquet had disappeared, we looked at the two hunches of bread,
of which mine alone had been tasted, and burst into a laugh.
"I don't want any--do you?" said Mercer, and I shook my head. "Oh, I do
feel so much better! I can take the Doctor's licking now, and hope it
will come soon."
"I don't," I said.
"Why not? It's like nasty physic. Of course you don't like it, but the
sooner you've swallowed it down, the sooner it's gone, and you haven't
got to think any more about it. That's what I feel about my licking."
"Hist! here's some one coming."
Mercer turned sharply round and listened.
"Old Reb," he whispered, and we went and stood together near the window
as the steps came nearer; the key was turned, and Mr Rebble appeared,
glanced at the tray with its almost untouched bread, and then smiled
maliciously.
"Ho, ho! Proud stomached, eh? Oh, very well, only I warn you both you
get nothing more to eat until that bread is finished. Now, then, young
gentlemen, this way please."
He held the door open, and then led us into a small room at the end of
the passage used for spare boxes and lumber. Here we were locked in and
left, and as soon as we were alone Mercer burst into a fit of laughter.
"Oh, what a game!" he panted, wiping the tears from his eyes. "I say,
though, he never missed the water-jug. What's the matter?"
"Matter!" I cried; "it's a shame to lock us up here like two prisoners
in this old lumber-room."
"Oh, never mind! it's only old Reb's nasty petty way. I don't believe
the Doctor knows. He isn't petty; he scolds you and canes you if you've
done anything he don't like, but as soon as you've had your punishment,
it's all over, and he forgets what's past. I say!"
"Well?"
"He will not expel us; I'm not afraid of that."
In about half an hour, we heard Mr Rebble's steps again.
"Now then, the physic's ready," whispered Mercer. "Don't you cry out.
It hurts a good deal, and the Doctor hits precious hard, but the pain
soon goes off, and it will only please old Rebble if you seem to mind."
Just then the door was opened, and our gaoler appeared again.
"This way," he said shortly, and we went out into the passage once more,
while my heart began to flutter, and I wondered whether I could bear a
caning without showing that I suffered, and, to be frank, I very much
doubted my power in what would be to me quite a new experience. I set
my teeth though, and mentally vowed I would try and bear it manfully.
It was all waste energy, for Mr Rebble threw open the door of our
dormitory again, drew back for us to enter, and said, with a nasty
malicious laugh, as if he enjoyed punishing us,--
"Not a morsel of anything till that bread is eaten."
Then the door was closed, sharply locked, the key withdrawn, and his
steps died away.
"What a take in!" grumbled Mercer, as we looked round the neat, clean
bedroom, and realised that we had only been locked up in the other place
while the maids came to make the beds. "I was all screwed up tight, and
would have taken my caning without so much as a squeak. Couldn't you?"
"I don't know," I said, "but I felt ready to go on with it, and now I
suppose we shall have to wait."
To our great disgust, we did have to wait hour after hour. We heard the
fellows go out from school, and their voices came ringing through the
clear summer air, and then we heard them come in to dinner; but we were
not called down, nothing was sent up to us, and, though we kept watch at
the window looking down into the shrubbery, there was no sign of the
cook, and the kite string remained unused.
"But she's sure to come some time," said Mercer. "She won't let old Reb
starve us. Hi! look there. Old Lomax. There he goes."
Sure enough, the old sergeant marched down the road, and we watched till
he was out of sight, but he did not see us.
"I wonder what he thought when we did not go for our lesson this
morning," I said.
"Oh, he had heard of it, safe," cried Mercer. "Hark, there they go out
from dinner. I say, I'm getting tired of this. They must have us down
soon."
But quite an hour passed away, and we stood sadly looking out at the
beautiful view, which never looked more attractive, and we were trying
to make out where the hammer pond lay among the trees, when I suddenly
nipped Mercer's arm, and we began to watch a light cart, driven by a
grey-haired gentleman, with a groom in livery with a cockade in his hat
seated by his side, and a big dark fellow in velveteen behind.
"Is he coming here?" whispered Mercer, as we drew back from the window.
We knew he must be, and, peering from behind the white window-curtains,
we saw the great fiery-looking roan horse turn at a rapid trot through
the open gates, then the wheels of the light, cart seemed to be pulled
up at the front entrance, where we saw the groom spring down, and heard
the jangle of the big front door bell.
Then we sat down on our chairs by the heads of our beds and waited, and
not long, for we soon heard steps on the stairs.
"It's coming now," said Mercer, drawing a long breath.
"Yes, it's coming now," I echoed softly, as a curious sensation of dread
ran through me, and directly after the door was unlocked, and Mr Rebble
appeared.
"Now, young gentlemen," he said, with a perfectly satisfied air, "the
Doctor will see you both in his room."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
We followed him, and as we turned through the baize door so as to go
down the front staircase, Mercer and I managed to exchange a grip of the
hand.
Directly after, we caught sight of the great roan horse at the door
champing its bit, and sending flakes of foam flying over its glossy
coat, and I noticed even then that one white spot fell on the groom's
dark brown coat.
Then, once more drawing a deep breath, we walked in together through the
door Mr Rebble threw open, and closed behind us, when, as if through a
mist, I saw the Doctor sitting at a writing-table, looking very stern
and portly, the General, grey, fierce, and rather red-faced, seated a
little way to the Doctor's right, with his malacca cane between his
legs, and his hands, in their bright brown gloves, resting on the ivory
handle, so that his arms and elbows stood out squarely; while again on
his right, about a couple of yards away, stood big, dark, and
burly-looking Bob Hopley, in his best brown velveteen jacket.
"Er-rum!" coughed the Doctor as the door was closed, and we looked
sharply round at the stern faces before us, Bob Hopley favouring us with
a solemn wink, which I interpreted to mean, "I forgive you, my lads."
Then the Doctor spoke.
"Stand there, Thomas Mercer and Frank Burr. That will do. Now, Sir
Hawkhurst, will you have the goodness to repeat the charge in their
presence."
The old officer faced fiercely round on the Doctor.
"Hang it all, sir!" he cried; "am I the magistrate, or are you?"
"You are the magistrate, sir," said the Doctor gravely, "but I am the
master. The distinction is slight, but I allow no one to stand between
me and my boys. Unless you are going to proceed legally against them to
punish I must request you to let me be their judge."
"Beg pardon, beg pardon," said the General sharply, "Old soldier, sir--
been much in India, and the climate made me hot. Go on!"
I glanced at him quickly as I heard him mention India, and he caught my
eye, and shook his fist at me fiercely.
"You young dog!" he roared; "how dare you come after my rabbits!"
"Excuse me," said the Doctor.
"Yes, yes, of course. Well, Doctor Browne, my keeper and I were out
taking a look round at the young pheasants in their coops last evening,
when we took these confounded young dogs red-handed, ferreting rabbits
with that scoundrelly poaching vagabond you have taken into your
service, when nobody else would give him a job."
"Ah, yes," said the Doctor blandly, "you complained of my employing that
man, Sir Hawkhurst. The fact is, he came to me, saying that he had been
cruelly misjudged, that he was half starved, and begged me to give him a
job. I did so, to give him another chance. Of course, after this, and
the fact that my gardener gives him a very bad character and seems much
dissatisfied, I shall not employ him again."
"And very wisely," said the old officer. "Well, sir, that's all I've
got to say. That is my evidence."
"Thank you," said the Doctor magisterially. "And you, my good man, were
with your master, and saw the boys--my boys--engaged there?"
"Yes, sir," said Bob Hopley, touching the black curls over his forehead.
"Rabbit and ferret produced."
As he spoke, he pulled out of one big pocket the dead rabbit, and out of
the other the twining and writhing ferret, at which the Doctor gazed
with interest through his gold spectacles.
"Singular animal!" said the Doctor, "specially designed by nature for
threading its way through the narrow labyrinthine burrows of the rabbit
and the rat."
"Confound it all, sir!" said the General--"I beg pardon, I beg pardon."
During the last few minutes the wheels of a carriage had been heard on
the gravel drive, and the dog-cart had been driven aside. Then the big
bell had clanged, and all had been silent again. For the moment, I had
wondered whether it was a parish constable come for us, but the next I
had forgotten all about it, till one of the maids entered, with a couple
of cards on a tray, which she went round and handed to the Doctor.
"Bless me!" he exclaimed, flushing, as the General made an impatient
gesture, and relieved his feelings by shaking his fist at us both, while
Bob Hopley began to smooth the ferret with his great brown, hairy hand.
"Well, sir?" said the General.
"Excuse me," said the Doctor. "A most curious coincidence. Two
visitors."
"No, sir, no visitors now; business, if you please. Those two boys--"
"Excuse me," said the Doctor blandly. "The two visitors are the
relatives of one of these boys."
Mercer gave quite a start, and I pitied him.
Poor Tom's father and mother, I said mentally, and then I gave a start
too, for the General said fiercely,--
"By George! then they couldn't have come better. Show them in, and I'll
have a word or two with the boy's father."
The Doctor made a sign; the maid withdrew; and I pressed a little closer
to Mercer, and pinched his arm.
"I'll take my share," I whispered quietly, as the door was opened. The
Doctor and the General both rose, as there was the rustle of silk, and I
uttered quite a sob as I was clasped in my mother's arms.
"My dearest boy," she cried, as she kissed me fondly, while I shrank
away, for my stern-looking, military uncle came in with her.
"Why, Charley!" roared the General.
"What, Hawk!" cried my uncle boisterously, and the two old officers
grasped each other's hands, and stood shaking them heartily.
"Why, my dear old man," cried the General, "this is a surprise!"
"Surprise! I should think it is," cried my uncle. "I am delighted.
Like old times, eh?"
"Hah!" ejaculated the General, chuckling, and looking now transformed
into a very genial old gentleman, while the Doctor stood softly stroking
his shirt-frill and smiling benignantly.
"But one moment," cried my uncle. "My sister--poor old Frank Burr's
wife."
"Dear, dear, bless me!" cried the General, advancing with courtly,
chivalric respect to shake hands with my mother. "My dear madam," he
said softly, "it is an honour. I knew your poor husband well."
As he dropped my mother's hand, she bent her head, and her veil sank
down, while the General's eyes fell upon me, and the transformation was
comic.
"Here," he whispered to my uncle, as I looked from one to the other, and
saw the Doctor smiling blandly. "This--this boy--not--Frank Burr's--"
"Yes," said my uncle, nodding to me. "Pupil here. Send him into the
service by and by."
"Bless my soul!--Oh dear me!--Here--I--that is--" stammered the General,
looking from one to the other, till his eyes lit on Bob Hopley, when he
flushed up angrily.
"How dare you, sir! How dare you stand there, with that rabbit and that
wretched ferret! Don't you see that there are ladies present, sir.
'Tention! Put them away. Dress!"
"Here, stop," said my uncle sharply, as he looked round, "We have
interrupted some business."
"No, no, no, no, my dear boy!--nothing, nothing!" cried the General.
"Mere trifle."
"Trifle, eh?" said my uncle, drawing himself up, and looking the fierce
colonel of dragoons. "Frank!"
"Yes, uncle," I said shrinkingly.
"You are in some scrape."
"Yes, uncle."
"What have you been doing?"
"Oh, Charles, pray--pray--" cried my mother.
"Hush," he said, holding up his hand. "Now, sir, speak out."
"Really, my dear Charley--" cried the General.
"Allow me, please, sir," said my uncle; and I caught sight of the Doctor
raising his hand and making a sign to my mother, as he placed a chair
for her, an act of politeness needed, for she was turning faint. "Now,
sir, speak out--the simple facts, please. What have you been doing?"
"Rabbiting with a ferret, uncle, us two, and this gentleman and Bob
Hopley came and caught us."
"Rabbiting--poaching?"
"Yes, yes, yes," cried the General. "A mere nothing, my dear madam.
The boys were certainly on my grounds watching a poaching scoundrel, and
I--yes, I thought I'd say a word to the Doctor. Bad company for him, a
poacher--eh, my dear Charley?"
"Yes, rather," said my uncle dryly.
"And now," said the General, "Doctor Browne here--my neighbour--will
tell them not to do so any more--eh, Doctor, eh?"
"Certainly," said the Doctor. "I'm sure it will not occur again."
"No, no, of course not," said the General. "Hopley, you can go. Stop!
that ferret belongs to the boys, I think."
"To you, Frank?" said my uncle.
"No, uncle, it's his," I said. "But I was helping to use it."
"Hah! that's better," said my uncle sharply.
"I bought the ferret," said Mercer, speaking for the first time, "but I
don't want it. I'll give it to you, Bob."
"Yes, yes, very wise of you, my lad. There, go now, Hopley," said the
General.
The keeper touched his forehead, and gave a look all round, then winked
solemnly at Mercer and me, and left the room.
"Hah!" said the General; "then that little bit of business is settled,
Doctor, eh? Just a word or two."
"A few admonitions, my dear sir," said the Doctor blandly. "And now, if
you will excuse me for a while, I will retire with Mercer here."
Tom gave me a look so full of appeal, that I ran across to the Doctor.
"Don't punish him, sir!" I said imploringly. "We were both alike."
"What's that, Frank?" said my uncle.
"I asked the Doctor not to punish Tom Mercer, uncle."
"No, no, no: of course not!" cried the General; "I endorse that appeal.
Here, you sir, come to me. Gentlemen don't do such things as that; and
now we all know better, I've got some capital fishing in my ponds and
lakes, and I shall be happy to see you two at any time. There, shake
hands."
Tom jumped at him, and it was pleasant to see how delighted he looked as
he turned and shot a grateful glance at the General before the door
closed on him and the Doctor.
Then the two old officers began chatting eagerly together about past
times, while I sat by my mother as she held my hand, and I told her the
history of my escapade, which was hardly finished when my uncle said,--
"I'm sorry to come down and find you in disgrace, Frank. Not the
conduct of one who means to be an officer and a gentleman by and by."
"No, no: don't say any more," said the General. "The boy behaved very
well. Liked a bit of sport; all boys do. He shall have a bit of
rabbiting now and then."
"Then I shall say no more," said my uncle. "Try and be like your name,
my boy, and you will find me ready to forgive your scrapes; but you must
always be a gentleman."
"Amen to that," said the General, rising. "And now, my dear Mrs Burr,
I will not say good-bye, but _au revoir_. Seaborough here tells me you
are both going to stay in Hastings for a few days. I shall drive over
and see you. Good-bye."
He showed the same courtly respect to her again, and was rising to go
when the Doctor re-entered, and they parted the best of friends.
"No, no, no," cried the General, as the Doctor was coming out with him,
"stay with your visitors. Odd meeting, wasn't it? Here, you, Frank
Burr, come and see me off. Good-day, Doctor, good-day. You and I must
be better neighbours."
"I shall be proud," said the Doctor, and then I went to the cart with
the General, who stood holding my hand at the step, and I could feel a
coin therein.
"For you two boys," he said. "There, good-bye, Frank Burr. You must
grow up into a brave gentleman like your father. A thorough soldier,
sir. God bless you, my boy! Good-bye."
He took the reins and got in, the groom left the horse's head and
mounted beside him, and as the cart was driven off, and I stood there
with a sovereign in my hand, Bob Hopley, who was in his place behind,
gave me another solemn wink, while, after noticing the hired carriage in
which my mother and my uncle had driven over from Hastings, I went back
into the room and stayed with them, and afterwards went to show them the
building and grounds.
An hour after, they were gone, while I hurried off to find Mercer and
show him the sovereign.
"Well," he said, "that's all right. But, I say, don't some things turn
out rum! What are you going to do with all that money?"
"Half's yours," I said.
"Oh, is it? Well, let's make a bank. It'll do to pay old Lomax and
lots of things."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
My mother and my uncle came over to see me twice during their stay at
Hastings, and during one of the visits my uncle spoke to the Doctor
about the drill-master, and, after expressing a wish that I should pay
attention to that part of my studies, with fencing, asked if this
instructor had been in the foot or horse.
"Oh, he was in the cavalry, uncle," I said.
"Good; then, if Doctor Browne does not object, I should like him to give
you a few preliminary lessons in riding, so as to get a military seat
while you are young, boy."
The Doctor expressed his willingness, but he said with a slight cough,--
"Would not a horse be necessary, or a pony?"
"Well, yes," said my uncle dryly, "I think it would, sir; but that
difficulty will be got over. Sir Hawkhurst Rye has offered the boy the
use of a stout cob. One of the grooms will bring it over two or three
times a week; and, if you would allow me, I should like to have a few
words with the old sergeant."
The Doctor was perfectly agreeable; and when they were going, I had the
pleasure--for it was a pleasure--of taking them down to Lomax's little,
neatly-kept place, where the old sergeant stood ready to draw himself up
and salute, with his eyes lighting up, and a proud look of satisfaction
in his hard face.
My uncle took him aside, and they remained talking together, while my
mother walked up and down with me, holding my hand through her arm, and
eagerly whispering her hopes--that I would be very careful, that I would
not run into any danger with the riding, and, above all, mind not to do
anything my uncle would not like.
Of course I promised with the full intention of performing, and soon
after my uncle marched back with Lomax--they did not seem to walk.
Everything had apparently gone off satisfactorily, and after plenty of
advice from my uncle, he handed my mother into the carriage, followed
and they were driven off.
I stood watching the carriage till it was out of sight, and then turned
to Lomax, who was standing as upright as if he were on parade, till he
caught my eye, and then he gave himself a jerk, thrust one hand into his
pocket, and gave the place a slap.
"You're a lucky one," he said, "to have an uncle like that, sir. Hah!
there's nothing like a soldier."
"How am I lucky?" I said rather sourly, for I was low-spirited from the
parting I had just gone through.
"Lucky to have a fine old officer like that to want me to make a man of
you, and teach you everything you ought to know to become an officer and
a gentleman."
"Oh, bother!" I said. "Look here, Lomax; you're to teach me riding.
Can you?"
"Can I?" he said, with a little laugh; "wait till the horse comes round,
and I'll show you, my boy."
"I can ride, you know," I said; "but not military fashion."
"You? you ride, sir?" said the old soldier scornfully. "Rubbish! Don't
talk to me. I know how you ride--like a sack of wool with two legs.
Knees up to your chin and your nose parting the horse's mane all down
his neck."
"Oh, nonsense, Lom!"
"Fact, sir, fact. Think I don't know? A civilian rides, sir, like a
monkey, bumping himself up and down, and waggling his elbows out like a
young chicken learning to fly. There, you be easy, and I'll teach you
how to ride same as I did how to fight."
"But I don't know that you have taught me how to fight. I haven't tried
yet."
Lomax chuckled.
"Wait a bit," he said. "You don't want to fight. It's like being a
soldier--a British soldier, sir. He don't want to fight, and he will
not if he can help it. He always hangs back because he knows that he
can fight. But when he does--well, I'm sorry for the other side."
"Then you think I could lick Eely if he knocked me about, or big
Dicksee?"
"No, I don't think anything about it, my boy. You wait. Don't fight if
you can help it, but if you're obliged to, recollect all I've shown you,
and let him have it."
I did not feel in any hurry, and when I talked to Tom Mercer about what
I had said to Lomax, he agreed with me that he felt a little nervous
about his powers, and said that he should like to try a small boy or two
first; but I said no, that would not do; it would be cowardly.
"So it would," said Mercer; "besides, it would let the cat out of the
bag, wouldn't it? Look here, I know: we ought to have a quiet set to up
in the loft some day."
"But that would only be boxing," I said.
"Why not make a fight of it?" suggested Mercer.
"But we couldn't fight without there was a genuine quarrel."
"Let's quarrel, then."
"What about?"
"Oh, I don't know. Anything. You call me a fool, and I'll hit you, and
then you go at me again, and we should know then what we could do."
"Get out!" I said. "I shan't call you a fool; but if I did, you
wouldn't be such a beast as to hit me, and if you did, I should be so
sorry that I shouldn't hit you again. That wouldn't do."
Tom Mercer scratched his head.
"No," he said dryly, "that wouldn't do. It seems precious rum, though."
"What does?"
"That I shouldn't care to hit you. I feel as if I couldn't hit a fellow
who saved my life."
"Look here," I said angrily, "you're always trying to bring up that
stupid nonsense about the holding you up on the penstock. If you do it
again, I will hit you."
"Boo! Not you. You're afraid," cried Mercer derisively. "Who pulled
the chap out of the water when he was half drowned, and saved him?
Who--"
I clapped my hand over his mouth.
"Won't do, Tom," I said. "It's all sham. We can't fight. I daresay
old Lom's right, though."
"What do you mean?"
"That we shall be able to knock Eely and Dicksee into the middle of next
week."
"But it seems to me as if they must feel that we have been learning, or
else they would have been sure to have done something before now."
"Never mind," I said, "let's wait. We don't want to fight, as Lom says,
but if we're obliged to, we've got to do it well."
The occasion for trying our ability did not come off, though it was very
near it several times; but as I grew more confident, the less I felt
disposed to try, and Mercer always confessed it was the same with him,
though the cock of the school and his miserable toady, Dicksee often led
us a sad life.
One morning, soon after the last visit of Uncle Seaborough, Lomax came
to the schoolroom door, just as Mr Hasnip was giving me a terrible
bullying about the results of a problem in algebra, on to which he had
hurried me before I had more than the faintest idea of the meaning of
the rules I had been struggling through.
I suppose I was very stupid, but it was terribly confusing to me for the
most part. I grasped very well the fact that a plus quantity killed a
minus quantity if they were of equal value, and that a little figure two
by the side of a letter meant its square, and I somehow blundered
through some simple equations, but when Mr Hasnip lit a scholastic fire
under me, and began to force on bigger mathematical flowers from my
unhappy soil in the Doctor's scholastic hothouse, I began to feel as if
I were blighted, and as if quadratic equations were instruments of
torture to destroy boys' brains.
On that particular morning, I was, what fat Dicksee called, "catching
it," and I was listening gloomily to my teacher's attempts at being
witty at my expense.
"How a boy can be so stupid," he said, "is more than I can grasp. It is
perfect child's play, and yet you have gone on getting the problem into
a hopeless tangle--a ridiculous tangle. You have made a surd perfectly
absurd, and--"
"Mr Hasnip!" came from the other end of the great room. Mr Hasnip
looked up.
"The drill-master is here. The horse has arrived for Burr junior's
riding lesson. Can you excuse him?"
"Certainly, sir," and Mr Hasnip looked at me, showing his teeth in a
hungry kind of smile, as if a nice morsel were being snatched from him,
and I stood with my heart beating, and the warm blood tingling in my
cheeks, conscious that all the boys were looking at me.
"Here, take your book, Burr junior," said my tutor. "Very glad to go, I
daresay. Now aren't you?"
I looked up at him, but made no reply.
"Do you hear me, sir?"
"Yes, sir."
"I said, `Aren't you glad to go?'"
"Yes, sir."
"Of course. There, be off. You'll never learn anything. You are the
stupidest boy I ever taught."
My cheeks burned, and as I turned to go, there was fat Dicksee grinning
at me in so provoking a way, that if we had been alone, I should in my
vexation have tried one of Lomax's blows upon his round, smooth face.
But as it was, I went back to my place, where Mercer was seated, with
his hands clasped and thrust down between his knees, his back up, and
his head down over his book, apparently grinding up his Euclid, upon
which he kept his eyes fixed.
"Oh ho!" he whispered; "here you are. Without exception, sir, the
stupidest boy I ever taught."
"I'll punch your head by and by, Tom, if you're not quiet," I said.
"Who made the surd absurd?"
"Did you hear what I said?"
"Yes. Oh, you lucky beggar! Who are you, I should like to know, to be
having your riding lessons?"
"Less talking there, Burr junior."
This from Mr Rebble, and I went out, passing close to Burr major, who
looked me up and down contemptuously, as he took out his watch, and said
to the nearest boy,--
"Rank favouritism! if there's much more of it, I shall leave the
school."
But I forgot all this directly, as I stepped out, where I found Lomax
standing up as stiff as a ramrod, and with a walking cane thrust under
his arms and behind his back, trussing him like a chicken, so as to
throw out his chest.
He saluted me in military fashion.
"Mornin', sir. Your trooper's waiting. Looks a nice, clever little
fellow."
"Trooper?" I faltered in a disappointed tone. "What do you mean? I
thought it was the horse come."
"So it is."
"But trooper?"
"Of course. Well, charger, then. Officers' horses are chargers; men's
horses, troopers."
"Oh!" I cried, brightening up, but with a feeling of nervousness and
excitement making my heart beat more heavily still. "Where is it?"
"Paddock!" said Lomax shortly, and without the slightest disposition to
be conversational. In fact, he became more military every moment, and
marched along by me, delivering cuts at nothing with his cane, as if he
were angry with the air.
Then all at once he glanced at me, looking me up and down.
"Humph! No straps to your overalls," he said snappishly.
"Overalls?"
"Well, trousers, sir. They'll be crawling all up your legs. Get some
buttons put on by next time."
He turned into the field devoted to the Doctor's cows and to the junior
boys' football, and there I saw the General's groom holding a fiery,
untamed-looking steed, as it seemed to me, arching its neck and
snorting, as it stood champing its bit till the white foam flew from its
mouth.
The groom touched his hat to me as we came up.
"Master's compliments, sir, and as he wants me," he said, "would you
mind riding the cob back to the house?"
"Oh yes, of course," I said, glancing at the fierce-looking animal, and
mentally asking myself whether he would allow me to ride him home.
"Is--is he quiet?"
"Quiet, sir! why, he's like a lamb. Bit playful sometimes, but no more
vice in him than there is in an oyster. Mornin', sir."
The man touched his hat and went off, leaving Lomax and me with the
horse, which looked enormous then.
Lomax strode round the animal, examining it, and making remarks as he
went on.
"Very well groomed," he said. "Saw your old friend Magglin before
breakfast. Good legs. Like to get taken on again, he says. Tail wants
topping--too long. Lucky for him he didn't get before the magistrates.
Doctor won't have him again. Very nice little nag, but too small for
service. I told him that all he was fit for was to enlist; some sharp
drill-sergeant might knock him into shape in time. He's no use as he
is. Now, then, ready?"
"Yes," I said shrinkingly, "I suppose so."
"That's right," cried Lomax, and, lifting up the flap of the saddle, he
busied himself, as I supposed, tightening the girths, but all at once
they dropped to the ground, and, with the rein over his arm, Lomax
lifted off the saddle and placed it upon the hedge.
"Now then," he cried, "come along and I'll give you a leg up."
"But you've taken the saddle off."
"Of course I have. I'm going to teach you how to ride."
"Without a saddle or stirrups?"
"Of course. A man wants to feel at home on a horses, so does a boy.
Now then, I'll give you a leg up."
I was like wax in his hands. On lifting one leg as he bade me, the next
moment I was sent flying, to come down on the horse's back astride, but
so much over to the right that I had to fling myself forward and clutch
the mane.
"Bravo! Well done!" cried Lomax sarcastically.
"I'm all right now," I cried.
"All right! Here, come down, sir. Do you know what would have happened
if that had been some horses?"
"No," I said, dismounting clumsily.
"Well, then, I'll tell you. They'd either have sent you flying over
their heads, or bolted."
"I'm very sorry," I faltered.
"Sorry! I should think you are. Got up like a tailor, sir, and you've
come down like one. Bah! It's horrible."
"Well, but you've got to teach me better," I cried.
"True. Good lad. So I have. Now then, give me your leg. That's it.
Steady. Up you go."
"That's better," I cried, settling myself into my place.
"Better! No, it isn't. It's not so bad only, sir. Now, then, sit up
so that a line dropped from your temple would go down by your heel.
Better. Get your fork well open."
"What?"
"Sit close down on the horse's back, then. No, no, you don't want to
scratch your ear."
"Well, I know, that," I said, laughing.
"Then what did you cock up your knee that way for? Let your legs hang
down. That's better. Toes up and heels well down."
"What for, Lomax?"
"Don't ask questions. Do as I tell you. Well, there you're right.
Toes up so that they just rest in the stirrups."
"But I haven't got any stirrups."
"Then act as if you had."
"But why don't you let me have some?"
"Silence in the ranks, sir. Now then, keep your balance. Advance at a
walk."
The horse started.
"Halt!" shouted Lomax, and the horse pulled up so short that I went
forward.
"What are you doing, sir? You don't want to look into the horse's
ears."
"I wasn't trying to," I said sharply.
"What were you going to do, then?--whisper to him to stop?"
"I say, don't tease me, Lom," I said appealingly; "you know I couldn't
help it."
"Right, my lad, I know. But 'tention; this won't do. I've got to teach
you to ride with a good military seat, and we're not friends now.
You're a private, and I'm your riding-master."
"Yes, but one minute, Lom--"
"Sergeant Lomax, sir."
"Yes, Sergeant Lomax. I say, do let me have a saddle."
"What for, sir?"
"It's so much more comfortable."
"A soldier, sir, is a man who scorns comfort and takes things as they
come. You've got to learn to ride."
"Of course. Then where's the saddle?"
"When you can ride well without a saddle, you shall have one. Now: no
more talking. 'Tention! By your right--March!"
The horse started off without my influencing him in the slightest
degree, but before we had got ten yards, the sergeant's stern, "Halt!"
rang out again, and the horse stopped as suddenly as before, but I was
aware of it this time, and gripped him hard with my knees.
"Good. Well done. But you went too far forward. Take a good hold with
your knees. And that's not the way to hold your reins. Look here, one
rein--no, no, not the curb--the snaffle--that's it now--one rein outside
your little finger and one in, and the rest of the rein through your
hand, between your forefinger and thumb. Good. Now pick up the curb
rein off your horse's neck and let it rest lightly in your hand."
"What for?"
"Don't ask questions. Because it's right. Ready for use if the horse
pulls too much or bolts."
"Is he likely to pull too much or bolt?"
"Don't ask questions. No, he isn't. Soldiers generally ride on the
curb, but a horse like this don't want it. He has been ridden with
cavalry, too. Now then, once more at a walk--March!"
The horse started again, with his soft, warm back feeling terribly
slippery, but I sat quite stiffly upright, and he walked straight up the
paddock, and seemed as if he were going to leap the hedge, making me
wonder which side I should fall; but just as we were close up, the
sergeant's voice rang out,--
"Right wheel!"
The horse turned to the right instantly, and had gone a dozen yards when
the sergeant shouted again, "Right wheel!" and directly after,
"Forward!" with the result that we were now facing him, and went slowly
down the paddock, till the sergeant shouted, "Halt!" just as I was
beginning to feel a little more comfortable, and not as if I must slide
off right or left at any moment.
"Well, that's pretty fair, sir," cried Lomax, as the horse stopped
short. "Chest out more, back hollow. Keep your knees well in. Capital
horse for you to learn on. Knows all his work. Well, we won't waste
time walking. You shall do that now at a trot."
"Without a sad--"
"'Tention. No talking in the ranks."
The horse didn't want to be turned, but came round quickly, almost on a
pivot, very much disturbing my equilibrium again; but by gripping
tightly with my legs I managed to hold on, and looked anxiously at
Lomax.
"Ah," he shouted, "eyes straight for the horse's ears! Now then, you
will sit firm, elbows close to your sides. 'Tention! The squadron will
advance at a walk. Forward--tr-r-r-ot!"
The horse had only walked a few paces when the second order came, and he
broke directly into a trot, which sent me bumping up and down, now a
little inclined to the right, then more to the left, then my balance was
gone. I made a desperate effort to save myself, and then, perfectly
certain that the horse would trample me to death beneath his feet, down
I went on my back, and began to scramble up, with my mount stock still
beside me.
"Not hurt a bit!" cried Lomax, running up and handing me my cap, which
had come off.
"No," I said, beginning to feel myself all over; "I don't think anything
is broken."
"And I'm sure there isn't," cried Lomax. "Now then, I'll give you a leg
up."
"Am I to get up again--now?" I faltered.
"Without you want to say you haven't pluck enough to learn to ride."
"No," I said; "I haven't pluck enough to say that."
"Not you. Up you go. There. Now that is better. Stick on this time."
"I could if I had stirrups," I said, "and a saddle."
"No, you couldn't, sir, so don't talk nonsense. You've just learnt the
finest thing a lad who wants to ride can learn--the thing that gives him
plenty of confidence."
"What's that?" I asked; "that it's very hard to keep on?"
"No; that it's very easy to come off and roll on the ground without
hurting yourself a bit. Off you go again. Forward--trot!"
The horse snorted and went on, shaking me almost to pieces, and
sometimes I was nearly off on one side, sometimes nearly off on the
other, but I kept on.
"Right wheel!" came from the other end of the field, then, "Right
wheel!" again. "Forward!" and the horse was taking me--for I had
nothing whatever to do with him--back toward where the sergeant stood.
I kept my balance pretty well, but my trousers were running up my legs,
and I felt as if everything belonging to me was shaken up. Then once
more my balance was gone, and off I went on to my back, and over and
over a few yards from the sergeant, who ran up, the horse once more
stopping short by my side.
"Bravo!" cried Lomax, as I sat up. "You're getting on."
"I thought I was getting off," I said dolefully.
"Rubbish, sir; improving fast. Here, up with you again. It's all
strange to you at first, but you've got to grow to that horse's back,
till it's like one animal--horse and man. You've got to learn to grip
him till you feel as if you can't tumble off."
"But I never shall," I cried.
"Don't tell me. I'll make you. Now then; there you are. Now you just
trot down to the bottom and back without coming off like a sack of
shavings. Never mind the reins. Let him have his head, and you put all
your sperrit into your knees. Keep your position and preserve your
balance."
"I know I shall fall again soon."
"Very well, then, fall. But I don't believe you will. Now then, once
more."
He gave the order, the horse walked a few steps, then at the second
order broke into a trot, and, to my utter astonishment, as I drove my
knees into the warm soft sides, away we went, wheeled to the right, then
to the right again, and trotted back to the sergeant, who shouted,--
"Halt! Bravo! There, what did I say? Make much of your horse."
The lesson was kept on for fully two hours, and then, to make up, I
suppose, for a good deal of bullying, my instructor was loud in his
praise, and, opening the gate after replacing the saddle, he signed to
me to mount, but I tried and could not, for my legs felt stiff and
stretched, my back ached, and there was a peculiar sensation of soreness
about the knees.
"Shall I trot him back?" said Lomax.
"If you would, please," I said. "I do feel so stiff."
"I will, my lad. To-morrow morning same time; and I'll get some of that
stiffness out of you."
"Thank you," I said rather dolefully; and then I could not help watching
the old dragoon with a feeling of envy as he placed one foot in the
stirrup, drew himself up till he stood upright, then deliberately threw
the right leg over the horse's back, slowly dropped into his place as
upright as a dart, and trotted steadily out into the road and away out
of sight, while, after closing the gate, I began to retrace my steps in
the direction of the school, just as the boys came trooping out for
their regular run till the room was ventilated, and the cloth laid for
dinner.
"Oh, I say, it's rank favouritism!" came from the middle of a group. "I
shall speak to the Doctor about it."
Some one answered this, but I did not hear the words, and I hobbled to
the door, and went up to my room, wondering how any one could be envious
of the sensations I was experiencing then.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
"How are your sore knees?" said Mercer one morning soon after my long
first lesson in riding.
"Oh, dreadful!" I cried. "They get a little better, and then the
riding makes them bad again."
"But why don't he let you have a saddle?"
"He does now," I said--"that is, he did yesterday; but it's worse riding
on a saddle, it's so slippery, and he will not let me have any
stirrups."
"When are you going again?"
"To-day, I suppose. The Doctor says I'm to get on as fast as possible,
and make up with my other studies afterwards."
"Wish I was going to learn to ride."
"You wouldn't much like it if you had to," I replied. "Oh, I don't
know. It looks very nice to see you going along. But, I say, it does
make Burr major so wild. I heard him tell Dicksee he should make his
father send him a horse, and Dicksee said he ought to, and I laughed."
"Did he hear you?"
"Yes, and gave me such a clip on the head with a cricket stump. Feel
here."
I placed my hand where he suggested, and there was a good-sized lump.
"What a shame!" I cried indignantly. "Didn't you hit him again?"
"No; I only put it down. We're going to pay it all back some day."
"Yes; but when?" I cried.
Mercer shook his head.
"I say," he continued, "I saw old Magglin this morning before
breakfast."
"What was he doing here?"
"Dunno. Wanted to see me, I suppose, and borrow a shilling."
"Did you lend him one?"
"Yes; I felt obliged to."
Just then Burr major came by us, and looked us both over sharply.
"Haven't you two got any lessons to get ready?" he said.
"Yes," I replied.
"Then go in and get them ready before I report you both to Mr Hasnip.
Do you hear?"
"Yes," I said; "but I'm going to have my riding lesson."
"Your riding lesson!" he sneered; "you're always going to have your
riding lesson. I never saw such a school as it's getting to be. It's
shameful! I shall go and ask Mr Hasnip if we boys are to be kept
always at work, while you and Tom Mercer are idling about and enjoying
yourselves."
"All right," said Mercer oracularly, in a whisper to me, as Burr major
walked off importantly for a few yards, attended by his satellites, and
then stopped, drew out his watch with a flourish, looked at it, and put
it back with an air that he intended to be graceful.
"Look here, you, Tom Mercer--do you hear, Jollop? You're not going to
have riding lessons. I give you five minutes to get back to your work,
and if you are not there then--you'll see."
"All right," said Mercer again; and then, as Burr major was out of
hearing, "Any one would think he was the Doctor. Oh, I should like
to--" he continued, grinding his teeth. "Think we could, Frank?"
"I don't know," I said hesitatingly; "but when he talks like that, it
makes me feel horribly mad, and as if I should like to try."
"Never mind. Wait a bit; the revolution isn't ripe yet," said Mercer
darkly. "Wish I'd got a watch like that."
I was very angry, but my companion's sudden change from thoughts of
revenge to covetousness seemed exceedingly droll.
"What are you laughing at?" he said.
"At you about the watch."
"Well, I can't help it, Frank. That watch seems always staring at me
with its round white face, and holding out its hands to me. I dream of
it of a night, and I'm always longing for it of a day. You can't tell
how bad it makes me feel sometimes."
"You shouldn't think about it, Tom."
"I can't help it. I don't want to, but the thoughts will come,
dreadfully. I say," he whispered darkly, "I don't wonder at chaps
stealing sometimes, if they feel like I do."
"What nonsense!" I cried: "I say, here's Eely coming back."
"Is he?" said Mercer sharply. "Then I'm off in."
"Why, you're never going to be such a coward as to be bullied into
obeying his orders."
"Oh yes, I am," replied my companion. "Time isn't ripe yet. But when
it is--oh!"
He gave vent to that exclamation with peculiar force, though it was only
a low hiss, and I followed him with my eyes, half disposed to think that
Tom Mercer would prove a rotten reed to lean upon if I wanted his
support in a struggle against our tyrant; though, truth to tell, as Burr
came rolling along with half a dozen boys about, all ready at a word
from him to rush at me, I did not feel at all confident of being able to
resist his authority, and I began to move off.
"Hullo!" he cried. "Here's the gallant horseman, boys. Let's go and
see him ride."
"Yah! he can't ride," cried Dicksee; "he'll tumble off."
"Not he," said Burr major. "Old Lom ties his ankles together under the
horse. But he does look an awful fool when he's on board. I say, Burr
junior, you don't think you can ride, do you?"
"No," I said quietly.
"And you never will. I say, boys, what an ugly beggar he grows! I know
why he's learning riding."
"Do you? Why?" cried Dicksee.
"They're going to make a groom of him."
The blood flushed up in my face, and I began to feel as if the time must
be getting ripe.
"Why, he was bragging about going to be a soldier!" cried another boy.
"Him! A soldier! Ha, ha, ha!" cried Burr major. "They wouldn't even
have a big-eared-looking fellow like that for a parchment-whopper."
"He said a horse soldier."
"Horse sneak," said Burr major scornfully. "A soldier! Ho, ho, ho!
Ha, ha, ha! I say, boys--a soldier!"
He burst into a yell of laughter, all forced, of course, and his
satellites roared too, some of them, to curry favour, beginning to dance
about him, and look eagerly in his face, as if for orders.
Of course it was very absurd to mind, but I could not help it, and
tingled all over.
"Oh, I wish Mercer was here!" I thought to myself.
"The time must be ripe;" and I suppose my face showed something of what
I felt, for Burr major cried,--
"Look at the puppy, boys; he looks as if he wanted to bite. Did you
ever see such an impudent beggar? I don't believe his name's Burr at
all. It's only a bit of a show-off."
At that moment there was a hail from the paddock, and the school bell
rang for the first lesson.
"There, groom, you're wanted," said Burr major sneeringly. "Go on and
learn to ride, and mind you don't hurt yourself."
"Yah! Go on, ugly!" cried Dicksee, and the boys roared.
"Do you hear, sham sodger? Be off, and don't stand staring like that,"
cried Burr major again. "I told you to go."
"Go yourself," I retorted, now thoroughly roused, and feeling reckless.
"Go in to school and learn your lessons, and mind the Doctor don't cane
you."
"What?" cried the tall, thin fellow, flushing up, as he advanced upon me
menacingly, while the bell was rapidly getting toward its last
strokes,--"what's that you say?"
"Go in and get to your lessons, and take that fat-faced booby with you."
"Well!" cried Burr, "of all!" and he looked astounded.
"That's it, is it? Cheeking me because you know I can't stop now. But
all right, I shan't forget it. If I do, Dicksee, you remind me after
lessons that I've got to warm Jollop and this groom boy. The Doctor's
been spoiling them both lately, and they want taking down."
"All in, all in, to begin!" was shouted from the doors.
"Oh yes, we're coming soon," said Burr major, throwing up his head.
"Wait a bit, you, sir, and I'll teach you to insult your seniors."
"All in, all in!"
"Here, Dicksee, go and hit that fellow on the mouth for shouting."
"All in, all in!" came again, directed at our group.
"Coming," cried Burr major. Then to me: "After morning studies, you
sir. I don't suppose I shall forget."
"If you do, I shan't, bully," I said, and he turned upon me more
astonished than ever, and then burst into a fit of derisive laughter.
"He's mad," he cried. "Here, boys, Senna's been gammoning him into
taking some of his physic, and he don't know what he's saying."
"Dicksee--Burr major. Come, boys."
Mr Rebble was standing in the schoolhouse doorway, and all but Burr
major ran off. He took out his watch, and walked away importantly after
the others, while I felt a peculiar nervous thrill run through me, and
began wondering whether I had been too bold, as I went off hurriedly now
to where Lomax was waiting with the horse.
"I don't care," I said; "he may thrash me, but I won't be bullied like
that, and insulted, without a try."
"Come, young gentleman," cried the sergeant. "I began to think you were
going to shirk it."
"Not I, Lom," I cried, and, feeling peculiarly excited, I went up to the
horse's head and patted him, while the sergeant removed the stirrups.
Then he gave me a leg up, and I was hoisted into my seat, and went
through my lesson--walk, trot, and gallop, with the saddle seeming less
slippery, and without coming off once.
The sergeant, I noticed, was very severe, and barked and shouted at me
and the horse, keeping us doing the same things over and over again, and
growing more exacting as we went on. But I hardly noticed him, for my
head was all in a whirl, and I was thinking about after lessons, and
what would happen then. So occupied was I with my thoughts that I never
once felt nervous, but as if all I had to do was to sit still and let
the horse obey the orders.
Lomax finished me off with a canter round the paddock, which was taken
at a pretty good pace, and very easy the horse's pace was, but I was
thinking of Burr major's sneering face all the time, and his long arms
and bony white hands. Then about Mercer, and what he would say--what he
would do.
"Are we both to have a good thrashing?" I asked myself, as the horse
cantered on, and, "Right wheel--left wheel--forward!" rang in my ears.
"Are we to be made more uncomfortable than ever?" I thought; "and shall
we forget all about what old Lom taught us?"
My arms did not move, my left hand held the reins on a level with my
imaginary waist-belt, about which the sergeant talked, and my right hand
hung steadily down just by my leg, but all the time I was on guard, and
keenly on the watch for blows from those white bony hands that seemed to
be flourished before me. Then I fancied concussions and dizziness, and
felt blows, and rolled over upon the grass, but not off the horse, for
it was all fancy; and I was just seeing in my mind's eye poor Tom Mercer
going down before a heavy blow from Dicksee's fat fist, when there rang
out the word, "Halt!" and the horse stopped short.
Lomax strode up in his stiff military fashion, and patted the cob on the
neck.
"Well?" he said sharply. "What am I to say to you now?"
"I--I don't know," I faltered. "Shall we go through it again."
"No, no let the trooper breathe a bit. He has been kept at it pretty
tightly. Well, how do you feel--stiff?"
"No," I said, flushing a little, full of a feeling of regret for my
neglect in my lesson.
"Bit sore about the knees, eh?"
"Oh yes, my knees keep very sore," I faltered.
"Of course they do. Never so hard worked before. Soon get better. Let
me see, this makes just a month you've been at it, eh?"
"Yes, this is the end of the fourth week."
"Then don't you think I deserve a bit of credit?"
"Oh yes!" I cried eagerly. "You have taken great pains over me, Lom.
I wish I had not been so stupid."
"So do I," he said drily. "Saddle feel very slippery this morning?"
"Oh no, I didn't notice it," I replied.
"Didn't long for the stirrups?"
"I didn't think about them."
"Felt as if you belonged to the horse now, eh, and could let yourself go
with him?"
"Oh yes," I said.
"Well, then, all I've got to say, my boy, is, `Brayvo!' You went
through it all wonderfully this morning, and quite astonished me.
Seemed as if you and the horse were one, and you never showed the white
feather once. Why, in another two or three months your uncle shall be
proud of you."
"Then I went through my lesson well?" I said.
"Splendidly, boy, splendidly. Couldn't have done better. Now, trot the
nag down home. Stop, you shall have the stirrups."
"No, not to-day, Lomax," I said. "I've got an--an engagement to keep.
Please take him down yourself."
"Right. I will. Hah! we've been longer than I thought, for the boys
are coming out of school. Then down you come, and good morning."
I leaped off the horse, not feeling a bit stiff. Lomax replaced the
stirrups, mounted, and went off again in the upright, steady way I had
before admired, while I stood there listening to the shouting of the
boys, and thinking of the thrashing I was bound to receive.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
I had not been standing in the field many minutes, shut in by the hedge,
and trying to rouse myself to go, before I heard a familiar voice
calling me, and I answered with a feeling of relief, for anything was
better than that sensation of shrinking expectancy, and, drawing a deep
breath, I prepared myself for the plunge.
"Oh, here you are!" cried Mercer, running up to me excitedly. "I say,
here's a go! You've got to come up into the loft directly."
"The loft!" I said, feeling that here was something fresh. "What for?"
"Eely wants us. He sent Dicksee to me to say that we were to go to him
directly."
"Do you know what for?" I said huskily.
"Yes, Dicksee told me. He said he was going to punch our heads for
being cheeky. But I say, Frank, we're not obliged to go, are we?"
I was silent for a few moments, and then said, with an effort,--
"Yes, I suppose we must."
"But he isn't everybody."
"If we don't go, they'll come and fetch us."
"But you're not going to let him punch your head, are you?"
"I suppose so," I said dismally, for my anger had faded away, and I was
quite cool.
"But I'm sick of being knocked about."
"So am I."
"Then don't let's have it. The time isn't anything like ripe, I know,
and I don't believe a bit in being able to fight, but--"
"But what?" I said, after a pause.
"I don't know. I hate fighting."
"So do I, Tom," I said dismally. "I wish they'd leave us alone."
"I wish they only would."
"But why does Burr major want us to go into the loft? Why couldn't he
come here?"
"Because he thinks he can lick us quietly up there, with only a few of
his chaps with him, and two to be scouts. Oh dear me, school ain't
nice!"
"Come on, Tom," I said, "and let's get it over."
"What? do you mean to go?"
"Yes," I said gloomily, "I suppose so."
"And do you mean to fight?"
"If I'm obliged. You may just as well have a few cracks at him as take
it all for nothing. You'll come?"
"Oh, all right, but we shall get an awful licking," said Tom huskily.
"I can't fight a bit. It's all gammon--that poking out your left arm
and fending with your right. I like to hit out with my right arm."
"I don't like hitting out at all," I said gloomily.
"But shall you try?"
"I don't know, Tom," I replied in a desponding tone. "Oh, I do wish
boys wouldn't be such beasts! Come on."
"All boys ain't," said Mercer, as we moved off toward the yard. "Oh,
don't I wish the time had been quite ripe, and we could have astonished
'em! It's always the way. I make such jolly plans, and think they're
going to turn out all right, but they don't. Never mind. I never told
you what I've got saved up in my box ready in case of accidents."
"No," I said; "what is it?"
"Some of the stuff my father uses for bruises. I bought some--leastwise
I got Lom to buy some for me at the chemist's when he went into the
town."
"What is it?" I said carelessly, for I did not feel eager to know.
"Arnica. It's in a bottle, and you soak rags in it, and--"
"Here they are," greeted us in chorus, and we were literally taken into
custody by about a dozen boys, who hurried us round to the back, where
Burr major, Dicksee, Hodson, Stewart, and three more were waiting like
so many conspirators.
I may as well own to it; my heart sank, and I felt as if I were going
out to execution, or at the least to be severely punished, for Burr
major was laughing and chatting to the boys about him, and turned
sneeringly to us as we came up.
"Oh, here they are, then," he cried contemptuously. "Bring them up,
boys;" and he turned off, entered the old stable, and went up the worn
steps into the loft, while we were dragged and pushed unnecessarily till
we were up at the top, to find Burr major seated on the big bin,
swinging one leg about carelessly--acting as if he were judge and we
were two criminals brought up before him.
"Two of you keep the lower door and give notice if any one's coming,"
said Burr major sharply.
"Oh," cried one of the boys, "don't send us down, please. We shan't see
none of the fun."
Nice fun for us, I thought, and then wondered whether it would hurt
much.
"All right, then," cried Burr major. "I don't want to be hard. You can
keep a look-out from the window." Then, turning sharply,--
"Now, you two," he cried, "what have you got to say for yourselves?"
"Nothing," I said.
"More have I," cried Mercer defiantly.
"Oh, very well," said Burr major. "More cheeky than ever. What shall I
do, boys? give 'em stick or let 'em stand up and take it?"
"A fight, a fight!" rose in chorus.
"All right. I'll dress the groom boy, and Dicksee shall give the other
chap his dose."
A curious sensation of trouble and bewilderment came over me, as I gave
a quick glance round at the bare loft, with its cob-webbed windows and
eager little crowd of boys, all expectant and flushed with desire for
the scene.
"Ah, look out! he's going to bolt," shouted Hodson.
"I wasn't," I cried indignantly.
"He'd better," said Burr major, coolly taking off his jacket and
beginning to fold it up and lay it on the bin. "Now then, major-general
of cavalry, off with your duds. I won't keep you long. Just time
before dinner."
"But I say," cried Dicksee, "we ain't going to fight both together?"
"No," said Burr major; "you shall dress Jollop down first, and I'll
second you."
"No; you do yours first."
"Do as I tell you," cried Burr sharply, "and don't waste time. I shall
have to wash after thrashing that dirty groom."
I gave him an angry glance in return for his insult, and then turned to
Tom Mercer, who was standing with his brow all wrinkled up, slowly
taking off his jacket, which he threw over a beam, and turning up his
shirt sleeves above his sharp elbows.
"I'm going to get such a licking," he whispered.
"No, no; do win!" I whispered back.
"Can't. He's so soft you can't hurt him. He's just like a big football
that you mustn't kick."
"His head isn't soft," I whispered; "hit that."
"Now then, ready!" cried Burr, and we faced round, to find Dicksee with
his sleeves rolled up, and Burr patting him on the shoulder and giving
him instructions.
"Now, then, young Mercer, come up to the scratch," cried Burr. "Stand
back, you boys, and make a better ring."
Then a shuffling of feet, a few suppressed sounds of excitement, and the
boys who were to look out turned from the windows.
"Remember old Lom," I said, feeling very nervous and doubtful as I
whispered to my principal. Then the boys were opposite to each other,
Dicksee throwing his head about, dancing from leg to leg, and feinting a
rush in, while Mercer stood well balanced on his legs, his brow
wrinkled, and his fists up in the attitude we had been taught.
"Now, Dicksy, give it up. Go in at him. Look sharp!"
"All right; wait a moment," cried the boy, dancing and dodging about as
if to avoid blows that had not been struck at him.
"Go it, Fatty, go it!" shouted the boys.
"Hush! not so much row," cried Burr. "Go on, Fatty. Now then."
"All right; wait--"
But Burr would not wait, for he gave his principal a heavy thrust,
sending him forward right on to Tom, who contented himself with
thrusting his antagonist back.
"Oh, I say, that ain't fair," cried Dicksee. "You wouldn't like it
yourself. You spoiled my plans."
"Go on, then, and finish him off; I want my turn." Then there was a
burst of eager incitements, and, unable to defer the attack any longer,
seeing, too, that Mercer did not mean to begin, Dicksee gave a final
dance, which included a dodge to right and left, and then he rushed in
at Mercer, who seemed just to shoot his left shoulder forward with his
arm extended, when there was a dull sound, and Dicksee seated himself
very suddenly on the floor.
"Hallo! slip?" cried Burr, helping him up,--rather a heavy job,--while a
look of perfect astonishment was in the fat face.
"Yes--boards--awkward," he babbled. "Ca-ca-can't we go on the grass?"
"No, no. Go in again."
"Eh?" said Dicksee, with his hand to his face.
"Well done, Tom!" I whispered; "that's it."
"It was right, wasn't it?" he said.
There was no time for more. Incited, almost driven by his second,
Dicksee came on again, aimed a blow or two wildly, and was sent down
again by Mercer almost without an effort.
And now the wind of favour began to change, so that in the next round
boys shouted encouragement to Mercer.
"Hold that row!" cried Burr savagely; "do you want the Doctor to hear?
Now, Dicksee, give it him this time."
I must do the fat fellow the credit of saying that he now came on
fiercely, swinging his arms wildly, and striking out with all his might,
but not one blow took effect, and I had the satisfaction of seeing the
triumph of Lomax's instructions, gaining confidence all the while, as
Tom delivered a blow here and a blow there, and then one which sent his
antagonist down to bump his head upon the boards.
There was quite a little burst of cheers now.
"Will you stop that row!" cried Burr fiercely. "Silence! You,
Dicksee," he whispered, as he helped his principal up, "if you don't go
in and lick him, I'll lick you."
"Tom," I was whispering, "you're sure to win."
"Am I?" he said stolidly; "but I don't like knocking him about--he can't
fight at all."
"Serve him right; he'll remember it in future. Now then. Ready!"
The pair were facing each other again, and the encounter which followed
was a little longer, but it ended in Mercer giving his adversary a sharp
blow on the cheek, and directly after another on the nose, and Dicksee
again seemed to sit down suddenly as if to wipe it, a duty which had
certainly become necessary.
"Silence!" cried Burr major, as a burst of cheers followed this last
round, for it was seen that the fat lad did not intend to get up again.
"Dicksee isn't well to-day; I believe old Jollop has given him
something." Then in a whisper, as he half-dragged his principal back,
"You beggar!" he said; "I'll serve you out for this."
"Hooray!" cried a small boy at the window; "old Senna has licked--"
"Will you mind and watch that window," cried Burr. "It's all right,
boys; I shall have to dress Jollop down as soon as I've done the groom.
Here, Hodson, you must second me."
"Oh, Tom," I whispered, with my heart beating, "I wish I could fight
like you!"
"So you can," he replied; "better. Look out, he's ready. Take it
coolly; never mind his show. I wish I was going at him instead of you.
I'm nice and warm now."
"I wish you were," I said.
"No, you don't."
The next minute I was facing my tall adversary, who looked down at me
contemptuously, after a smiling glance round at the boys, which seemed
to say,--"Now you shall see."
There was a faint cheer at this, followed by a smothered howl, which
drew attention to Dicksee, who was now rocking himself to and fro as if
in pain.
Then there was what seemed to me a peculiarly ominous kind of silence,
and I felt shocked and frightened, not so much of my adversary as at
myself. The feeling was mingled with shame, for I began to think that I
must be a terrible coward, and I found myself wondering what my uncle
would say if he knew how unfit I was to be trained to become a soldier.
These thoughts were momentary, long as they take to describe, and I
began to wonder whether it would be best to apologise to Burr major, and
ask him to let me off, but as I thought that, I felt that I could not,
and that I would sooner he half killed me. This brought up thoughts of
my mother's sweet, gentle face, and how she would suffer if she knew
what was going on.
Lastly, I began to think I must fight, and that I had better prepare to
take care of myself, for Burr major deliberately threw himself into a
graceful attitude and addressed me.
"Now, you young sniveller," he said haughtily, "you have brought this on
yourself. I am going to give you a lesson that will teach you to behave
yourself in future, and you too, Senna Tea. You're fond of physic; you
shall have such a dose. Mind, you boys, that old Jollop doesn't sneak
off."
"All right!" rose in chorus; "he shan't go."
"Mind he don't lick you, Eely," cried one of the boys at the window.
"Mind Tommy Wilson don't sneak off either," said Burr major. "All
right, Tommy, I can't fight you, but I can stretch those ugly great ears
for you."
"Ow how! ow how!" cried the little fellow, sparring a peculiar yelling
noise, but indulging in a broad grin to his nearest companion. "Oh, my
poor ears! I say, Burr junior, you lick him, and then you can take care
of me."
I did not speak, for my antagonist had begun sparring at me, making
feints and trying to throw me off my guard, but, as if by instinct now,
I dropped into the positions and practice Mercer and I had been learning
so long, and, as I thought, without avail; but I did begin to find out
that it had been good advice to stand on my guard and to let my
adversary show-off and tire himself.
I felt very cool, and not so much alarmed now, when the first blow came,
intended for my lips, but which I easily stopped, and so I did another
and another, the round ending by Burr major making a fierce dash at me,
over-reaching himself, and going down without my having delivered one
blow.
"How slippery these boards are!" said Burr, jumping up.
"That's right!" whispered Mercer; "keep on as quiet as that, and wait
your time."
Then we began again, and I felt very much disinclined to hit out hard,
as I felt that I could have done, for fear of hurting my antagonist--for
the feeling of animosity and the memory of the insults, blows, and
annoyance from which I had suffered had faded away. But all at once, as
we stood eyeing each other, Burr's fist came sharply in contact with my
lips, there was a dull pain, a sensation of a tooth being loosened, a
nasty faint salt taste in my mouth, followed by a short struggle, and I
was thrown heavily.
Burr major walked back and sat down on his second's knee, smiling round
at the cheering boys, who began to crowd round him, while, as I rose,
feeling painful throbbings in one elbow and arm, I was drawn down on
Mercer's knee, and he whispered,--
"Never mind. Don't get excited over it. Be quite cool. Now then, he's
ready again."
So was I, for there was a buzzing in my temples and a hot feeling in my
throat as I once more stood up before my adversary, who was still
smiling contemptuously as he began sparring and then dashed forward, but
stopped suddenly, and stood back, shaking his head, while I tightened my
hand and saw the blood start from one of my knuckles.
"Go on, Burr. Give it him. He's nearly done. Go on, go on!" was
chorused on all sides; and, looking very vicious now, Burr came at me
with his fists wide apart, and then he rushed at me as if he meant
mischief, but to his great surprise as much as to mine, he seemed to run
his nose right on to my left fist, and dropped down on the floor.
He was up again, though, directly, amid a buzz of excitement, and I felt
that now he was going to avenge himself thoroughly, but, as I struck out
with my left exactly as Lomax had instructed me, somehow Burr major went
down again.
It almost puzzled me. I could hardly believe it, but it was forced upon
me, and the blows which I seemed to deliver at the right time in the
most effortless of ways, had a terrible effect, my antagonist going down
three times to my once.
And now some of the tide began to set in my direction--the tide of
popularity. First of all, little Wilson took heart and gave me a cheer,
then he began to grow excited, and to cry in an eager whisper,--
"Well done, Burr junior! Hooray! That's it. Give it him. Hooray!
down again."
Burr major got up, looking fierce as well as confused, and sat panting
on his second's knee; and as I sat on mine, Tom Mercer gave me a hug.
"Splendid!" he whispered. "Hooray for old Lom! You'll beat him if you
keep quiet. You boys, hold that row."
There was a hush directly, and we two faced each other once more.
The confident contempt for me had gone now, and there was no laughing
looking round at the boys for their approval, but, pale, excited, and
with marks beginning to show in an ugly way, Burr major seemed to be
prepared to do his best to crush me by a fierce attack.
For my part, I had been so much hurt that it was as if the shrinking was
all knocked out of me, and I was no less eager to begin than he. But we
stood facing each other now, with the hum of excitement that greeted our
coming forward hushed once more to silence.
I could feel that I might now commence the attack, but my master's
lessons all came clear and vivid before me, and knowing that, as the
weaker, it was my duty to act on the defensive, I waited, while we
watched each other cautiously, my adversary evidently expecting that I
should begin.
But, as I did not, he attacked again, and, though I managed to give him
several telling blows, he closed with me before I could avoid him, and
in the tussle which followed I went down heavily, my head coming in
violent contact with the floor.
Everything passed away then for a few moments except sparks dancing
before my eyes, but I was conscious directly of Mercer's voice, as he
whispered to me excitedly,--
"Oh, don't let him lick you, Frank!--don't let him lick you, pray!"
"No," I panted, with my breath coming rather short, "he isn't going to,
but I'm so giddy."
"Had enough of it?" cried Burr major, and the giddiness passed away
directly as I rose and faced him.
Satisfied by the result of his last manoeuvre, he tried it again, but
this time I was prepared, and, stepping on one side, I gave him, or
rather my fist of itself seemed to give him, a stinging blow on the ear,
which had so staggering an effect that, as he swung round and came on
again, I was able to follow up my blow with three or four more, and the
poor fellow went down crash.
It was his turn to look dazed and heavy now, and quite half the boys
crowded round, giving me advice, bidding me, "go it," and working
themselves up to a tremendous pitch of excitement.
Then we were facing each other again, with all pity and compunction
gone, and, after receiving one or two blows, I forgot everything but the
fact that there was something before me that I must hit, and hit it I
did, my deliveries, as it happened, being quite in accordance with
Lomax's teaching, which somehow came natural to me; and then I found
myself standing over Burr major who was seated on the floor, and with
half a dozen boys all wanting to shake hands with me at once.
"Here, I say, Burr major," cried one of his chief parasites, "ain't you
going to lick old Senna now?"
I felt sorry for him, for he looked around dazed and despairing, but my
blood was up again directly, as I saw the miserable cur of a fellow who
had spoken go closer, double his fist, and shake it so close to Burr
major's face that he tapped his nose.
"Serve you right!" he cried. "Always knocking other people about. How
do you like it now?"
"You let him alone," I cried hotly.
"I shan't. Mind your own--"
"Business," I suppose he meant to say, but my fists had grown so excited
by the fight that one of them flew out, and sent the miserable cur
staggering against Mercer's chest.
Then I stood upon my guard, but the boy only held his hand to his face,
while the others set up a cheer, and I turned to Burr major, who was
still seated on the floor.
"I'm very sorry, Burr," I said apologetically. "I didn't want to knock
you about so much. You'll shake hands, won't you?"
He looked up at me with rather an ugly expression upon his face, but he
made no movement to take my hand, only turned away.
"Help me up, Stewart," he said huskily. "I want to go to my room and
wash, and--"
"What is the meaning of all this, pray?" said a cold, harsh voice, and
we all looked round to see Mr Rebble's white face just above the
trap-door.
"Burr Major and Burr Junior been having it out, sir," cried half a dozen
voices at once, and the colour began to burn in my cheeks as I met the
usher's eye.
CHAPTER NINETEEN.
Mr Rebble stepped up into the loft, closely followed by Mr Hasnip, who
stared from one to the other with a peculiar smile upon his lip.
"Fighting, eh?" said Mr Rebble. "Disgraceful! Why, Dicksee and Dean
have been fighting too, and--yes--Mercer."
"Yes, sir," cried little Wilson. "Mercer and Dicksee had theirs first,
then Burr major and Burr junior. Bill Dean hasn't been fighting. It
was only that Burr junior gave him a wipe."
I felt as if I were the chief offender, and as I heard these words, I
longed not to deliver wipes, but to have a good wash.
"Disgraceful!" exclaimed Mr Rebble. "Who began it? You, I suppose,
Burr."
My first instinct was to disclaim this excitedly, but I thought it would
be cowardly, so I held my tongue, leaving it to Burr major to answer.
To my surprise, though, he remained silent, and little Wilson squeaked
out,--
"No, sir, please, sir, it wasn't Burr junior, sir. Eely Burr sent for
Burr and Mercer to come and be licked; but," added the boy, with a
malicious grin, "he hasn't licked them yet."
"Disgraceful! disgraceful!" cried Mr Rebble. "Well, the Doctor will
decide what is to be done. Quick, boys, the dinner bell will.--Ah,
there it goes!"
There was a hurried rush off at this, the boys being only too glad to
get beyond hearing of the usher's scolding, and we who were left
hurriedly scrambled on our jackets in a shamefaced way.
"This matter will have to be thoroughly investigated," said Mr Rebble;
"but be quick now and make yourselves presentable. I shudder at what
the Doctor would say if he saw you all in this condition. Come,
Hasnip."
They both descended like pantomime demons through the trap, and we
followed, Burr major going first, with his brow knit and his bruised
face looking sulky and sour, while Dicksee turned to give Tom Mercer a
savagely vindictive look which was not pleasant to see.
"Won't you shake hands?" I said, as my adversary was about to descend.
He gave me a quick look, but made no answer. Hodson however, spoke as
we reached the stable.
"Why, Burr," he said, "I didn't know that you could fight like that."
"No," I said, "and I did not know either."
Then we hurried in and ran up to our room, where I was glad to get soap
and towel to my bruised face.
"Oh, you are lucky, Tom!" I panted, as I hurriedly bent over the basin,
fully expecting to be reported for coming up to the dormitory out of
hours. "Why, you don't show a bit."
"Nor you neither," he replied.
"Oh!" I gasped, as I looked in the glass.
"Well, not so very much," he said.
"But--but I don't hardly know myself," I said despondently. "What a
face!"
"Well, it does look rather like a muffin," he cried.
"Ah, you may laugh," I said. "My eyes are just like they were when I
was stung by a bee, and my lip's cut inside, and this tooth is loose,
and--Oh dear, it's all growing worse!"
"Yes, it's sure to go on getting worse for a day or two, and then it
will begin to get better. Ready?"
"Ready! No," I cried, as I listened to his poor consolation. "I'm
getting horrid. I daren't go down."
"You must--you must. Come and face it out before you get worse."
"But I don't seem to have got a face," I cried, glaring out of two slits
at my reflection in the glass. "It's just as if some one had been
sitting on it for a week. Oh, you ugly brute!"
"So are you."
"I meant myself, of course, Tom."
"Never mind, never mind. Hooray! hooray!" he cried, dancing round the
room and snapping his fingers; "we've licked 'em--we've licked 'em! and
you're cock of the school. Hooray! hooray!"
"But I half wish I hadn't won now," I said.
"You will not to-morrow. Oh dear! poor old Eely! didn't he squirm! Oh,
I say! I wish I had given it to old Dicksee ten times as much."
I couldn't help laughing, but it hurt horribly, and I was serious again
directly.
"I say," I said painfully, "old Lom did teach us well!"
"Teach us! It was splendid. I feel as if I could go down and fight the
Doctor."
"Do you?" I said dolefully. "I feel as if he is going to fight us."
"Not he; come on. You can't afford to be afraid of anything now."
"Hadn't I better stop?" I suggested, with another look in the glass.
"No; you must come. If you don't, the Doctor is sure to send for you,
and that will make it worse. I say!"
"Well?"
"People who fight used to take the spoils of the vanquished. I wish I
could have taken old Dicksee's four-bladed knife, with the lancet and
corkscrew to it, and you could have taken old Eely's watch."
"I don't want his watch," I said snappishly.
"I do, and I'd have changed with you. Come on."
We ran down-stairs, and, feeling very nervous, hurried to the
schoolroom, from whose open windows came the clatter of knives and
forks.
Fortunately for us, we had to enter at the opposite end to where the
Doctor would be seated, nominally taking his meal with us, and of course
the ushers knew that we must be late, so with heads bent down we hurried
in, conscious that every eye was upon us, and that the temporary
cessation of the rattle on the plates was due to the boys leaving off
eating to stare at our injuries.
I saw both Mr Rebble and Mr Hasnip look up and frown as they caught
sight of my damaged face, and I was congratulating myself on escaping
the Doctor's eye, when he looked up, frowned, and went on with his
lunch.
"It's all right," whispered Mercer, scuffling into his place beside me,
the boys around, to my great surprise, seeming to look at my marks with
quite respectful eyes, and evidently as a conqueror's honours or
laurels, when there was a sharp tapping on the table from the Doctor's
knife-handle.
Profound silence ensued, Mercer just gripping my knee and whispering,--
"Oh, crikey!"
"Mr Rebble," said the doctor in deep tones.
"Sir?"
"To the commercial man punctuality is the soul of business; to the
gentleman it is the soul of honour; and to the scholastic pupil it is
the soul of er--er--the soul of er--er--er--duty. Be good enough to see
that Mercer and Burr junior have impositions. Er--rum! Er--rum!" The
Doctor finished by coughing in a peculiar way, and the clatter of knives
and forks began again.
"He don't know yet about the fights," I whispered; "and, I say, look!"
"What's the matter?"
"Eely hasn't come down yet."
"Fatty has. I say, just look at his eyes."
"Horrid!" I whispered. "He looks fatter than ever. But Eely--oh, I
hope he isn't very bad!"
"I hope he is," said Mercer maliciously. "He's been fagging me these
three years. I know he's twice as bad as you, and serve him right."
We began our dinners, but Mercer's appetite was as bad as mine. The
salt made my mouth smart, and every bite hurt my loose tooth. But there
were congratulatory smiles from all round whenever I looked up, and
every boy who could reach me with his foot gave me a friendly kick under
the table, Mercer coming in for his share. In fact, I found that I had
suddenly become the most popular boy in the school, though I did not at
all appreciate the honour then.
"Look: there's Eely," whispered Mercer, as a tall thin figure now
appeared at the door, then suddenly grew shorter by the lad bending down
as low as possible, and creeping toward his place by Stewart and
Dicksee.
But it was all in vain, the clatter of the knives and forks ceased, and
the boys watched him, and whispered, drawing the Doctor's attention to
the bent figure; and once more, after fixing his gold eyeglasses on the
bridge of his nose by the hinge, and watching till my late adversary had
crept into his place, he tapped the table with his knife-handle loudly.
"Young gentlemen," he rolled out in sonorous tones, "have the goodness
to button up your pockets, and to be on the _qui vive_. I just saw the
door darkened by a sinister-looking figure, which crept in as if to
commit a burglary, a petty larceny, a scholastic form of shop-lifting,
or some crime of that kind, so be upon your guard. Did any one else see
the figure?"
There was a pause, then Dicksee spoke with a malicious grin upon his fat
face.
"Please, sir, I did. It was Burr major."
"Dear me! Indeed? Mr Burr, have the goodness to stand up and explain
this extraordinary conduct."
Oh, poor old Eely! I thought sympathetically, as poor Burr major stood
up, hanging his head, and looking much shorter than usual, and I
heartily wished that Mercer had punished Dicksee more.
"Dear me! Burr major, what is the er--er--eh? I beg your pardon, Mr
Rebble."
The Doctor bent toward his first lieutenant with great dignity, and the
latter said a few words in a low tone.
"Dear me! Indeed? Oh, I see!" said the Doctor. "Burr major, you can
sit down. You will come to my room directly after dinner, and--er--er--
what names did you say Mr Rebble?"
"Oh dear! It's coming, Frank," whispered Mercer.
"Exactly!" said the Doctor, after a conference in a low tone with Mr
Rebble. "I see. Er--rum! Dicksee, Hodson."
"Please, sir, I wasn't fighting," cried Hodson excitedly.
Mr Rebble whispered to the Doctor.
"An accessory, it seems, Hodson," said the Doctor. "You will come to my
room directly after dinner, with Mercer and Burr junior. I have not
heard the names of the other boys who were present," continued the
Doctor.
"Please, sir, Wilson was one," cried Dicksee.
"Thank you, Dicksee," said the Doctor drily, as he fixed him with his
glittering glasses; "I am obliged to you. History repeats itself.
There has always been one in every confederation ready to betray his
fellows to save his own skin. I am afraid, Dicksee, that your skin will
not be safe. Were you present, Wilson?"
"Yes, sir," said the little fellow.
"Fighting?"
"No, sir, I wasn't fighting; but--"
"But?" said the Doctor; "well, what?"
"Please, sir, I couldn't help liking it."
"Humph!" ejaculated the Doctor. "Well, you need not come this time. To
resume, I do not know the names of the boys who were present, and I do
not want to know. Dicksee was in too great a hurry. Now proceed with
your dinner."
The meal went on, but my face felt more stiff, and my appetite was
decidedly worse.
I was longing to go and do as a dog would under the circumstances,--go
and curl up somewhere out of sight till I got better, for my head ached,
so did my heart; my face throbbed and felt stiff; and altogether I was,
like Mercer, as "miserable as mizzer,"--so he put it,--when the Doctor
tapped the table again, we all rose, grace was said, and the words of
doom came rolling through the place:
"In a quarter of an hour's time, young gentlemen."
Then the Doctor marched sedately out of the room, the masters followed,
and the boys trooped into the ground, and we had to go too, feeling
doleful in the extreme, but that did give way to a sense of pride, for
there was a rush made for us directly; and as I was surrounded by a
crowd, all eagerly congratulating me on my conquest, there was poor Burr
major almost alone on the other side of the ground, dejected, deposed.
Not quite alone, for Hodson and Wilson both went and stood by his side.
It may appear strange, but, of course excepting Mercer, I felt as if I
liked those two boys at that moment better than any one in the school,
for, young as I was, I could not help thinking that if ever Burr major
and I had another encounter, and I were to be beaten, they would all
turn from me as quickly as they came over to my side.
I was soon tired of hearing the same praise over and over again, and
being asked to show this one and that one how I managed to hit out so
well. But Mercer and I had a quiet understanding that we would keep our
own counsel about the matter, and let any one who wanted to learn how to
box think it out for himself.
I was not kept waiting long to muse over my position, and be stared at
by all the boys, who took the greatest interest in my swellings, cuts,
and marks, for Mr Rebble came to the door, and shouted,--
"Now, young gentlemen, the Doctor is waiting." I felt a curious shiver
run through me, as I glanced round for Tom Mercer.
He was close at hand, ready to whisper,--
"It don't matter what he says, Frank; he can't undo what we have done,
and old Eely will never dare to tackle you again."
"Or you."
"Oh, I didn't say that. Come on."
We went up to where Mr Rebble was standing, and found that Mr Hasnip
was there too.
As we went in, Mr Hasnip came close to my side. "Nice object you look
for a gentleman's son, sir! Going to be a soldier, eh?"
"Yes, sir!"
"Then keep your fighting for the enemy, not for your schoolfellows."
Then in a lower voice--"Gave him a thorough good thrashing, didn't you?"
he said.
"Yes, sir: I suppose so."
"Humph! serve him right. He wanted his comb cut. Getting insufferable
with his conceit!--By the way, you needn't tell any of your
schoolfellows I said that, for, of course, you had no business to
fight."
"I didn't want to, sir, but Burr major made us fight. He sent a lot of
the boys to bring us into the loft, `to take the conceit out of us,' he
said."
"And you took the conceit out of him instead, eh? Well, I daresay he
wishes he had not sent for you now."
"I'm afraid he does."
"Yes. Well, here we are. I'm a terrible tartar to you over your
lessons, but I'm not angry with you. Had some fights too, when I was
your age. Now then, speak up like a man."
The door was thrown open, and we had to walk in, the two ushers standing
on either side of the door, like policemen dealing with culprits, and
then ranging us before the Doctor's table, behind which he sat, leaning
back in his great leather-covered chair.
"Er--rum!" he coughed. "Sit down, Mr Rebble--take a chair, Mr Hasnip.
Let me see," he continued, adjusting his gold-rimmed eyeglasses. "Burr
major, Burr junior,--humph! ought to be Burr minor,--Natural History
Mercer who loves poaching the General's rabbits, Dicksee, and Hodson."
The Doctor looked severe, but not very, as he inspected us all.
"Hah!" he ejaculated at last; "four as disreputable-looking fellows as
it would be possible to find in the lowest town in Sussex. Aren't you
ashamed of yourselves?"
"No answer, eh?" said the Doctor, after a pause. "Well, Hodson, you are
not like these four. You did not fight, I suppose."
"No, sir. I was Burr major's second."
"That's almost as bad as the fighting. Come, you shall speak out. Who
was in the wrong?"
"Please, sir, I'd rather not give an opinion."
"Please, sir, I know!" cried Dicksee.
"Thank you. I would rather take some other boy's opinion," cried the
Doctor sarcastically. "Your eyes don't look as if you can see clearly.
There, it is plain enough to me that you were all in the wrong, and I
feel greatly annoyed to find my young gentlemen conducting themselves
like the disreputable low boys who frequent the fairs and racecourses of
the county. Look at yourselves. Did you ever see such a ghastly sight?
Burr major, your face is horrible. As for you, Dicksee, I am ashamed
of you. Suppose any of your relatives presented themselves at this
moment, and wanted to see you. What could I say? There, actually, as I
speak, I can hear wheels coming up the road, and, as they are light
wheels, they must either be those of visitors, or of the butcher's
cart--I--er--mean some trade-person's cart, which is not likely at this
time of day. Fighting, young gentlemen, is a brutal practice, dating
back to the very earliest ages of mankind, and no doubt imitated from
the wild beasts whom they saw around them. Whereas you live in these
later days, in the midst of civilisation in its highest, most cultivated
forms, so that there is no excuse whatever for your acts."
The Doctor coughed, and the two ushers looked at each other and nodded
their approval.
"Look at yourselves," continued the Doctor; and we all turned sharply to
gaze in a small circular mirror at the end of the library.
"No, no," said the Doctor blandly, "I did not mean at your bodily
disfigurations in the glass, but at the mental blurs in your natures.
I--There, boys!" he cried suddenly; "I am not in the vein to moralise in
this way, so I must speak plainly. I am ashamed of you, and, occupying
as I do toward you the temporary position of parent, I honestly declare
that if I did my duty by you, I should get a cane or a rod, and flog you
all severely, but--"
"May I come in?" said a pleasant voice, and the door was slightly
opened.
"Yes, my dear. No! engaged. What is it?"
"That lady and gentleman have driven over from Rye about their sons,"
said Mrs Doctor, coming right in; "and--Oh, my dears! what have you
been doing?"
"There, there, Matilda!" cried the Doctor hastily. "Go back! I'll come
in a few minutes;" and he hurried the pleasant old lady out of the room,
before turning to us.
"There! you see," he cried,--"you see the effect your appearance has
upon one who always takes the greatest of interest in you, and, er--Mr
Rebble, I feel disposed to be lenient this time, as the boys have pretty
well punished themselves. I leave it to you. Moderate impositions.
There, go at once and shut yourselves up in your dormitories. No, more
fighting, mind, or I shall be as severe as the sternest tyrant you read
of in your classic studies."
He hurried out of the library, and the ushers took us all into custody
again, and led us out into the playground.
"There!" said Mr Rebble; "you heard the Doctor's orders. Go to your
rooms. Not you, Hodson. Come to my desk, and I'll set your imposition
at once. Nice and easily you have got off. You can come down to-morrow
morning, I suppose."
The two masters went off with Hodson, and we four made our way to the
back staircase so hurriedly, that we nearly wedged ourselves at the
foot, with the result that we were once more face to face, Mercer and I
against Burr major and Dicksee, as in the fight.
I felt shocked now and more sorry than ever for Burr major, as I fully
realised how terribly I had knocked him about. My hand twitched, and I
was about to raise it, and offer to shake hands, or say something about
being sorry; but he checked it at once by giving me a virulent look, and
saying,--
"Wait a bit; I'll pay you out for all this," and, thrusting me aside, he
sent me staggering against the wall, and rushed up-stairs, but only to
trip and fall sprawling.
"Serve you right," cried Dicksee. "Yah!" Then, turning to us, he held
out his hand. "Here, I'll be friends with you both."
CHAPTER TWENTY.
Nearly a week had gone by before I saw Lomax, and of course there had
been no more riding lessons. Mr Rebble had given us our impositions,
and we had taken our punishment patiently enough, for, as the smarting
and pain went off, we could not help feeling proud and satisfied. The
boys had all turned wonderfully friendly, and I was evidently a great
authority. In fact, I had completely succeeded to Burr major's throne
in the boys' estimation, while he went about the place almost alone,
Hodson being the only fellow who tried to associate with him.
As for the Doctor, he never alluded to the encounter again.
The week, then, had passed, and Mercer and I had nearly grown
respectable again, when one night, as we were going to bed, my companion
turned to me.
"I say," he whispered, "let's get up early to-morrow morning, and go and
see old Lom."
I shook my head.
"I've had lessons enough in boxing," I said; "I don't want to fight any
more."
"I didn't mean a lesson," said Mercer. "I want to go and tell him all
about how we got on."
I agreed that I should like to do that; and I awoke at sunrise, roused
Mercer, and, leaving the other boys sleeping, we started for the lodge.
"Oh, I say, what a lovely morning!" cried Mercer. "Look at the dew on
the leaves; it's all colours like a rainbow. When are we going fishing
again? and I want some birds to stuff; and to go rabbiting, and
collecting, and all sorts, and we seem to have done nothing lately."
"Hallo, Magglin!" I cried, as we turned a corner, and came suddenly
upon that individual, looking as if he had just come from the big yard.
"Why, what are you doing here?" said Mercer.
"No sir; on'y wish I was. Just came up to see if the gardener's about,
and he'd give me a job."
"You know he wouldn't," I said. "The Doctor will not have you about the
place again."
"And it's very hard," he whined. "Everybody's agen me, and takes
'vantage of me, even young gents as owes me money and won't pay."
"Why, who owes you money, Magg?"
"You do, sir; four shillin', which I wouldn't ask you for, but--"
"I don't, Magg; I paid you everything I owed you," cried Mercer.
"Oh no, sir; don't you go for to say that which you know aren't true.
It's four shillin', and I wouldn't have asked you, only I'm that hungry
as never was."
"But I don't owe you anything; do I, Frank?"
"No; he paid you," I said.
"Oh, sir! Master Burr junior knows as it's wicked to tell a lie. I
likes mates to stick up for one another, but it ain't right to get a
trampling down of the pore. Do pay me, Master Tom Mercer. It's four
shillin'."
"I don't owe you a penny, Magg; and you're a cheat."
"Nay, sir, that I aren't. Well, pay me two on it, and I'll go on
trusting you the rest."
"But I'm sure I paid you everything I owed you, Magg."
"Oh no, sir. That's the way with you young gents. You forgets, that's
what you does. I've lost lots o' money through the Doctor's boys; and
it's very hard on a pore fellow who's trying his best to get a honest
living, but as every one's agen."
"Ah, that's all gammon, Magg!" cried Mercer. "See how you left us in
the lurch over our ferreting."
"I was obliged to, sir; every one's agen me so. Nobody believes in me.
Do pay me the two shillin', sir."
"I won't. It's all humbug, and you don't deserve it," cried Mercer.
"There, hark at him, Master Burr junior! Aren't he hard on a pore
fellow, who was always doing him kindnesses? Look at the times I've sat
up o' nights to ketch him rats and mice or mouldy-warps. Didn't I climb
and get you two squirls, and dig out the snake from the big bank for
you?"
"Yes; and cut his tail off with the spade," cried Mercer. "You spoiled
him."
"Well, I couldn't help that, sir; and I must go now, 'fore the gardener
comes along."
"Why, you said you wanted to see him."
"So I did, sir; but I don't think I will. Everybody's so agen me now.
Pay me the two shillin' you owe me."
"I won't. I don't owe you a penny."
"Then pay a shilling of it now, sir. I wouldn't ask you, sir, but I am
so hungry, sir."
"Let's give him a shilling, Tom," I said; "I'll be half."
"Oh, very well," cried Mercer; and as I was banker that time, I placed a
shilling in the man's very dirty hand.
"Thank-ye, sir," he said. "Then that makes three left, but I won't ask
you for them to-day."
"That's the worst of getting in debt," said Mercer, "and not keeping
account of it. I know I've bought things of him, and he has made me pay
for 'em over and over again. I wonder what he was doing about here so
soon."
We watched Magglin go off in a furtive way, with his head down and his
back bent, so that people should not see him above the hedge, and then
turned along down the path, with the gilt hands and figures of the clock
looking quite orange in the morning sun. In a few minutes after, we
could smell tobacco smoke, and found Lomax bending his stiff back over
one of the beds in his garden, which he was busily digging.
"Ah! Mornin', young gentlemen," he shouted. "Come for a quiet lesson?"
"Not this morning, Lomax," cried Mercer.
"Going for a walk, then?"
"Only as far as here," I replied, looking at him merrily.
"Eh? What? Why, hallo!" he cried. "I didn't know. They said you were
under punishment for something, but I didn't know what. Why, yes: both
of you. Look at your eyes. You've been fighting!"
I nodded, and Mercer laughed.
"We've come to tell you all about it."
Lomax drove his spade down into the ground and left it standing in the
bed.
"Here, come along," he cried excitedly, and he led the way into the
lodge, placed chairs for us, and re-lit his pipe, before standing
smoking with his back to the fire. "Now then," he cried, "let's have
it."
We described our encounter, and the old soldier laughed and chuckled
with satisfaction.
"Yes, that's it," he cried, as we came to an end, first one and then the
other carrying on the thread of the narration to the conclusion.
"That's science; that is just the same as with a well-drilled regiment,
which can beat a mob of fifty times its size. Well, I'm glad you won,
and were such good pupils. Shows you remembered all I taught you. Now
take my advice, both of you. Don't you fight again till you are
regularly obliged."
"Not going to," I said.
"That's right, boy. You'll be like a man now who has got a blunderbuss
in his house. Thieves all about know that he has got one, and so they
leave him alone. Well when are you going to have another riding
lesson?"
"Let's begin again at once," I said; and he promised to send or go down
to the General's, to ask the groom to bring up the horse in the morning.
"I'll go myself if I can," said Lomax, "and ride him up pretty quickly.
He'll have had such a rest that he'll be quite skittish."
All this being settled, and it being yet early, we had time for a walk,
and the discovery of sundry objects, which Mercer looked upon as
treasures, and carefully placed in boxes and pieces of paper.
The first was an unhappy-looking stag beetle which seemed to have been
in the wars, for one of its horns was gone, while not a dozen yards
farther on we came upon a dissipated cockchafer, with a dent in his
horny case, and upon both of these Mercer pounced with delight,
transferring them to a flat tin paste-blacking box, inside which we
could hear them scratching to get out.
The next thing to attract his attention was a fat worm, which, after a
crawl in the cool, dewy night, had lost his way back to his hole, and
was now crawling slowly by the roadside, with more sand sticking to him
than could have been comfortable.
"Oh, what a big one!" cried Mercer. "I say, I must have him."
"For a bait for an eel or carp?" I said.
"No. To preserve."
"Let the poor thing be," I cried, and, thrusting a piece of stick under
the worm, I sent it flying amongst the wet grass.
"Ugh! you cruel wretch!" cried Mercer.
"Come, that's nice," I said. "Better than letting you put it in a box,
and carrying it in your hot pocket to kill."
"I shouldn't kill it, I should keep it in a pot of earth."
"Which would dry up, and the poor thing would crawl out and be trodden
upon. Come along."
But he would not come along, for Tom Mercer was a true naturalist at
heart, and found interest in hundreds of things I should have passed
over. For instance, that morning, as we strolled a little way along the
lane, we stopped to peer over the gate into a newly ploughed field at
some round-looking birds which rose directly with a loud whirr, and then
went skimming along, to glide over the hedge at the bottom and
disappear.
"Partridges," cried Mercer. "Daresay they've got a nest somewhere not
far from here. Oh, I do wish we had bought Magglin's gun. It is such a
handy one. You see we could keep it up in the loft, and take it to
pieces and bring it out without any one knowing, and shoot our own birds
to stuff."
"Mustn't shoot partridges. They're game," I said.
"Oh, I don't know," he replied. "We shouldn't want them to eat, only to
stuff, and--Hallo, look there! I haven't found one of those for ever so
long."
He climbed over the gate, and picked up something cream-coloured from
the hollow between two furrows.
"What is it?" I said, as he came back.
"Worm-eater," and he opened his hand.
"Why, it's a slug," I said. "Throw the nasty slimy thing away."
"'Tisn't slimy," he said, as I looked on with disgust at him poking the
long-shaped creamy creature with one finger, as it lay in the palm of
his left hand. "You feel it. Quite cool and dry."
"I'm not going to touch the nasty thing," I cried. "And what do you
mean by a worm-eater?"
"Mean he's one. See how long and thin he is. That's so that he can
creep down the worm-holes and catch the worms and eat 'em."
"Nonsense! Slugs live on lettuces and cabbages, and other green
things."
"These don't," said Mercer quietly; "they live on worms."
"How do you know?"
"Because my father told me, and I've kept 'em in boxes and fed 'em with
worms."
"Well, throw it away, and come along; we ought to be getting back now."
"Yes, so as to have time to go up to the museum first," he replied, but
he did not throw away his last find. That was tucked into a pill-box,
with the promise that I should see it eat a live worm that night.
We turned back and took the side lane which would lead us round by the
keeper's cottage.
"Let's see what Bob has got stuck up on the barn side," said Mercer. "I
daresay there'll be something fresh. He always says he'll save me all
the good things he shoots, but he forgets and nails them on. Come on
through the wood."
"But we shall get our feet so wet," I said, as Mercer jumped the ditch.
"That we won't. It will be drier here."
I followed him, and, knowing his way well, Mercer took me by a short cut
among the trees, which brought us just to the back of the keeper's
cottage, where dozens of the supposed enemies of the game were gibbeted.
Jays, hawks, owls, little falcons, shrikes, weasels, stoats, and
polecats.
"There," said Mercer, pointing, "look at that beautiful fresh jay. He
might have let me--"
Mercer stopped short, for we heard Polly Hopley's voice speaking loudly,
evidently at the front of the cottage.
"I don't want it, and I won't have it. Give it to some one else."
"No, I shan't," said a harsh voice, which we knew at once as Magglin's.
"I bought it o' porpos for you, and you've got to wear it."
"Then I shan't, and if you come talking to me again like that, I shall
tell father."
"No, you won't."
"Indeed and I shall, and the sooner you go the better. He isn't far
off."
"Yes, he is," said Magglin, "and won't be back for hours."
"How do you know?"
"Because I watched him."
"Yes, that's what you poaching chaps always do, watch the keeper till
he's out of the way," said Polly sharply.
"Don't call me a poacher, Polly."
"Yes, I shall; and that's what you are."
"Come away," I whispered; "don't let's stop listening."
"We can't help it, without going all the way back."
"Poachers always make the best keepers, Polly, and I'm going to be a
keeper now, and marry you."
"Are you, indeed?" said the girl indignantly. "That you just aren't,
and if you ever dare to call me Polly again, I'll throw a bucket o'
water over you."
"Not you," said Magglin. "I say, do have it. It's real gold."
"I don't care if it's real silver!" cried Polly. "I've got brooches of
my own, thank you, and I'll trouble you to go."
"'Tarn't good enough for you, I suppose. Well, I'll bring you something
better."
_Bang_.
The cottage door was closed violently. Then we heard footsteps, which
ceased after a minute, and we went on out toward the lane.
"Make haste!" I said; "it must be getting late."
"Ah," said Mercer, "if I'd got a watch like old Eely's, we could tell
the time."
"And as you haven't, we must guess it," I said. "Look!"
Mercer turned at my words, for he was looking back to see if Polly
Hopley was visible at the cottage door, the news we had heard of her
father being away robbing us of any desire to call.
There, about fifty yards away, with his back to us, was Magglin, rubbing
something on his sleeve. Then he breathed upon it, and gave it another
rub, before holding it up in the sunshine, and we could see that it was
bright and yellow, possibly a brooch.
The next minute the poacher had leaped into the wood and passed among
the trees.
"Oh, what a game!" said Mercer, as we walked away. "If Bob Hopley
knows, he'll lick old Magglin with a ramrod. There, come on."
We reached the school in good time, only two or three of the boys being
about, and spent the next half-hour turning over Mercer's
melancholy-looking specimens of the taxidermist's art, one of the most
wretched being a half finished rabbit, all skin and tow.
"Well, I would burn that," I said. "It does look a brute."
"Burn it? I should think not," he cried indignantly. "It looks queer,
because it isn't finished. I'm going to make a natural history scene of
that in a glass case. That's to be a rabbit just caught by a weasel,
and I shall have the weasel holding on by the back of its neck, and the
rabbit squealing."
"Where's your weasel?"
"Oh, I shall get Magglin or Bob Hopley to shoot me one some day. Wish
I'd got a gun of my own!"
"You're always wishing for guns and watches, or something else you
haven't got," I said, laughing.
"Well, that's quite natural, isn't it?" cried Mercer good-humouredly.
"I always feel like that, and it does seem a shame that old Eely should
have tail coats and white waistcoats and watches, and I shouldn't. But,
I say, Frank, he can't fight, can he?"
"No," I said, "but don't talk about it. I hate thinking of it now."
"I don't," said Mercer. "I shall always think about it when I come up
here, and feel as I did then, punching poor old Dicksee's big fat head.
I say, won't it do him good and make him civil? Look here," he
continued, making a bound and pointing to a knot on the rough floor
boards, "that's the exact spot where his head came down whop."
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
We boys used to think the days at old Browne's very long and tedious,
and often enough feel a mortal hatred of Euclid as a tyrant who had
invented geometry for the sake of driving boys mad. What distaste, too,
we had for all the old Romans who had bequeathed their language to us;
just as if English wasn't ten times better, Mercer used to say.
"Bother their old declensions and conjugations!" he would cry. "What's
the good of them all? I call it a stupid language to have no proper
prepositions and articles and the rest of it: tucking i's, a's, and e's
at the end of words instead."
But what days they were after all--days that never more return! The
Doctor was pretty stern at times, and gave us little rest. Mr Rebble
seemed to be always lying in wait to puzzle us with questions, and Mr
Hasnip appeared to think that we never had enough to learn; while the
German and French masters, who came over twice a week from Hastings,
both seemed to have been born with the idea that there was nothing of
the slightest consequence in the way of our studies but the tongues they
taught. And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our
neglect and stupidity!
"_Ach, dumkopf_!" the German master would cry wrathfully; while the
French master had a way of screwing up his eyes, wrinkling his face, and
grinding his teeth at our pronunciation.
I'm afraid we hated them all, in complete ignorance of the other side of
the case, and the constant unwearying application they gave to a set of
reckless young rascals, who construed Latin with their lips and the game
that was to be played that afternoon with their brains.
I confess it. I must have been very stupid in some things, sharp as I
was in others, and I have often thought since that Mr Rebble's
irritability was due to the constant trouble we gave him; that Mr
Hasnip was at heart a thorough gentleman; and as for "Old Browne," as we
called him, he was a ripe scholar and a genuine loveable old Englishman,
with the health and welfare of his boys thoroughly at heart.
We thought nothing of it. A boy's nature does not grasp all these
things. To us it was a matter of course that, if we were ill, Mrs
Doctor should have us shut up in another part of the house, and, with
her two daughters, risk infection, and nurse us back to health. I could
not see then, but I can now, what patient devotion was given to us. Of
course I could not see it, for I was a happy, thoughtless boy, living my
golden days, when to breathe and move was a genuine pleasure, and the
clouds and troubles that shut off a bit of life's sunshine only made the
light the brighter when it came again!
Ah! it's a grand thing to be a boy, with all your life before you, and
if any young sceptic who reads these words, and does not skip them
because he thinks they are prosy preaching, doubts what I say, let him
wait. It is the simple truth, and I am satisfied, for I know that he
will alter his tune later on.
In spite, then, of the many troubles I had to go through, with the
weariness of much of the learning, it was a delightful life I led, and
though a little dumpy at leaving home after the holidays, I had
forgotten my low spirits long before I got back to the Doctor's, and was
looking forward longingly to seeing old faces, wondering what the new
ones would be like, and eager to renew my friendly relations with Tom
Mercer, Lomax, Bob Hopley, and Cook, and to give them the little
presents I was taking back.
These were mere trifles, but they went a long way with the recipients.
Tom Mercer declared that the blade of the knife I gave him was the best
bit of steel he ever saw. It wasn't: for, unless the edge was
constantly renewed, there never was such a knife to cut.
Lomax's gift was more satisfactory, for my uncle got it for me with a
grim smile, as he thought, I know, of his old soldiering days. It was a
quarter of a pound of very choice Virginia tobacco, and it delighted the
old sergeant so, that I thought he would have hugged me. I don't know
how long that lasted, but I am sure he hoarded some of it up for nearly
a year, and he would call my attention to its "glorious scent," as he
called it, though to me it was very nasty indeed.
Bob Hopley's present was a red and orange silk kerchief, which he wore
proudly on Sundays, and Cook's was in a small box prepared by my
mother--a cap with wonderful flowers and ribbons, which obtained for Tom
Mercer and me endless little supper snacks as tokens of the woman's
delight and gratitude.
So, as time sped on, I had grown so accustomed to the life at "Old
Browne's," that I felt little objection, as I have said, to returning
after the Christmas holidays; though the weather was bad and there was a
long while to wait before there could be much pleasure in out-door
sports. But the spring came at last with its pear and apple blossom,
the hops began to run up the poles, May and June succeeded, and glided
on so that I could hardly believe it when the midsummer holidays came
without my feeling that I had advanced much in the past six months.
I suppose I had, for I had worked hard, and the letter I bore home from
the Doctor quite satisfied my mother who afterwards informed me in
confidence that my uncle was greatly pleased.
Six weeks' holidays were before me, but, before they were at an end, I
was beginning to get weary, and longing for the day to come when my new
things were brought home ready to try on, pack up, and return to school.
To my studies and interviews with the masters?
Oh, no! nothing of the kind; but to where there were woods and ponds,
and the General's cob for my riding lessons, and the cricket-field.
I'm afraid my mother must have thought me careless and unloving. I hope
I was not, in my eagerness to get back to Tom Mercer, who made my school
life most interesting by his quaintness. For I was always ready to
enter into his projects, some of which were as amusing as they were new.
I had seen little of my uncle when I was home last, but he wrote to me
twice--stern, military-toned letters, each of which was quite a despatch
in itself. In these he laid down the law to me, giving me the best of
advice, but it was all very Spartan-like. He insisted above all things
upon my recollecting that I was to be a soldier, and that a soldier was
always a gentleman and a man of honour, and each time he finished his
letter in these words,--
"Never tell a lie, Frank; never do a dirty action; keep yourself smart
and clean; and, by the way, I send you a sovereign to spend in trash."
"Only wish I had such an uncle," Tom Mercer used to say. "My father
would send me money if he could spare it, but he says his patients won't
pay. They're civil enough when they're ill, but when he has wound up
their clocks, and set them going again, they're as disagreeable as can
be if he wants his bill."
This was after I had gone back from the midsummer holidays.
"Did you ask him for money, then?"
"Yes, and he said that if he wrote at midsummer and asked for payment,
the farmers told him they'd pay after harvest, and if he wanted it after
harvest, they said they'd pay at. Christmas, and when Christmas came,
they told him to wait till midsummer. Oh, won't I serve 'em out if ever
I'm a doctor!"
"What would you do?" I said.
"Give 'em such a dose!"
"Not you, Tom."
"Oh, won't I! I don't care, though; father gave me a crown and mamma
half a one."
"And enough too. What a fellow you are to grumble!"
"That I'm not. I wanted 'em to buy me a watch."
"Get out! What a fellow you are! Next time the chaps want a nickname
for you, I shall call you Watchman."
"All right! I don't mind; but I shan't be happy till I have a watch."
"That's what you used to say about Magglin's take-to-pieces gun, but you
never got it, and you've been happy enough without."
"Oh, have I?" said Mercer. "You don't know. I used to long for that
gun."
Two or three days afterwards, in one of our strolls, when we were both
coming back laden with odds and ends for the museum up in the loft,
Mercer proposed that we should cross a field and get into the lower
lane, so as to call at Polly Hopley's to get something to eat.
I was nothing loth, and we struck off across country, got into the lane
about a couple of hundred yards from the keeper's lodge, and then
suddenly stopped short.
"Hush!" I said, as shouts and cries reached our ears.
"There's something the matter," cried Mercer. "Come on."
We set off at a run, and as we passed a bend in the lane, we came full
in sight of the keeper's cottage, and saw him in the middle of the road,
holding a rough-looking figure by the collar, keeping it down upon its
knees, while he vigorously used a stick upon the object's back, in spite
of cries and protestations, till there was a sudden wrench, and whoever
it was dragged himself away and ran down the lane, Polly Hopley standing
at the cottage door laughing, while her father wiped his brow with the
sleeve of his coat.
"Hullo, young gents!" he cried. "You were just too late to see the
fun."
"Saw some of it, Bob," I said. "But who was it?"
"Didn't you see, sir?"
"I did," cried Mercer. "It was old Magglin."
"Yes, and I'll Magglin him!" cried Bob wrathfully.
"What's he been doing?" I said. "Poaching?"
"Eh? Yes, sir, poaching, that's what he's been up to," said Bob, with a
side glance at Polly, who threw her apron over her face, burst out
laughing, and ran into the cottage. "He've been told over and over
again to keep away, but it's no good, so I've started this here hazel
saplin' for him and I've been beating his carpet for him nicely. I
don't think he'll come any more."
"What does he come poaching after, Bob--the sweets?" said Mercer.
"Um! Yes, the sweets," said Bob drily; "and he ain't going to have 'em.
A lazy, poaching, dishonest scoundrel, that's what he is. I did think
we'd got rid of him lots o' times, but he's like a bad shilling, he
always comes back. Well, never mind him, sir. When are you coming to
have a day's fishing? Sir Orkus told me only t'other day you was to be
looked after if you come."
"Oh, some day soon," I said. "We've got a big cricket match coming on
first."
"Ay? Well, I must come and see that, young gents. I used to be fond of
bowling myself."
We shook hands with the keeper, and then went into the cottage to buy a
couple of Polly's turnovers, and found her looking very red-faced and
shy, but she was businesslike enough over taking the money, and we went
off browsing down the lane upon Polly's pastry and blackberry jam.
"Magg wants to marry Polly," I said oracularly. "Don't you remember
that day when we went round by the back, and heard her ordering him
off?"
"Yes, I remember," said Mercer, with his mouth full. "I was thinking
about it. I don't wonder at Bob whacking him. Polly's too good for
such a miserable, shuffling, cheating fellow as he is. I hate him now.
I used to like him, though I didn't like him. I liked him because he
was so clever at getting snakes and hedgehogs and weasels. He always
knew where to find lizards. But he's a cheat. You pay him, and then he
says you didn't, and keeps on worrying you for more money. I'll never
buy anything of him again."
"That's what you always say, Tom," I replied, "and next time he has a
good bird or anything, you buy it."
"Well, I've done with him this time. Look: there he is."
For about fifty yards away there was Magglin, long-haired and
dirty-looking, seated on the bank, with his elbows on his knees and his
face buried in his hands.
But he was so quick of ear, that, though we were walking along the
grassy margin of the road, he heard us coming, and started up fierce and
excited of aspect, but only to soften down and touch his cap, with a
servile grin upon his face.
"Hullo, Mr Mercer, sir," he whined; "looking for me?"
"No," said my companion. "Why should I look for you?"
"Thought you wanted to pay me that shilling you owe me, sir."
"I don't owe you a shilling."
"Oh yes, you do, sir. Don't he, Mr Burr junior?"
"No," I said; "and if you ever have the impudence to say so again, I'll
tell Bob Hopley to give you another thrashing."
The gipsy-looking fellow's dark eyes flashed.
"He'd better touch me again," he cried fiercely. "He'd better touch me
again. Did you two see?"
"Yes, we saw," said Mercer. "I say, he did make you cry chy-ike."
"He'd better touch me again."
"He will," I said, "if you go hanging about after Polly Hopley."
"What, did he tell you that?"
"No," I said, "we knew well enough. Bob Hopley didn't say a word. Only
called it poaching."
Magglin's manner changed directly, and in a snivelling, whining way he
began,--
"Well, I can't help it, young gen'lemen. I'm 'bliged to go there, and
nothing I can do's good enough for her. If I give her anything, she
chucks it at me, because it aren't good enough."
"I should think not, indeed," said Mercer. "What decent girl's going to
listen to such a ragged scaramouche as you are?"
"Well, I can't help it, young gen'lemen."
"Yes, you can. Go to work like a man, and grow respectable," I said.
"I should be ashamed to idle about as you do."
"Why, aren't you two always idling about?"
"No. We do our work first," I said.
"I say, Magg, here comes Bob Hopley!" cried Mercer mischievously.
The poacher gave a quick glance up the lane in the direction from which
we had come, caught sight of the keeper's velveteen coat, and shot into
the copse and was gone.
"I don't wonder at Bob thrashing him," I said.
"No," replied Mercer, as we went on. "I shall never deal with him
again. If I want a bird or anything, I shall ask Bob Hopley. He's a
man, he is. If you give him anything, he says, `Thank-ye,' and if you
don't, he never seems to mind. He knows boys haven't always got any
money. I wish Magglin would go right away."
The conversation turned then upon the coming cricket match; after which
we dropped in upon Lomax, and talked to him about boxing, and I pleased
him very much by telling him how satisfied my uncle had been at the way
I had learned to ride a horse; when, with his eyes twinkling, the old
soldier took a letter from his chimney-piece, and opened it to show me
my uncle's words, thanking him for the way he, an old soldier, had
trained the son of a soldier, and enclosing a five-pound note.
"For a rainy day, Master Burr," he said. "I've clapped that in the
bank."
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
If there was any one thing I dearly loved, it was a good game--a regular
well-fought struggle--at cricket. Oddly enough, I used to like to be on
the losing side, with the eleven who were so far behind that their fight
was becoming desperate, and every effort had to be made to steal a run
here and another there, slowly building up the score, with the
excitement gradually increasing, and the weaker side growing stronger
and more hopeful hour by hour, till, perhaps, by the clever batting of
one boy, who has got well to work, and who, full of confidence, sets at
defiance the best efforts in every change of bowler, the score is lifted
right up to the winning-point, and he comes back to the tent with the
bat over his shoulder, amidst the cheers of all the lookers-on.
I suppose I got on well with my education at Doctor Browne's. I know I
got on well at cricket, for whenever a match was made up for some
holiday, I was in so much request that both sides were eager to have me.
The Doctor had promised us a holiday to play the boys of a school at
Hastings. They were to come over on an omnibus, and a tent was to be
set up in our field, where, after the game, a high tea was to be
provided for the visitors before they returned to Hastings in the
evening.
I need hardly say that the day was looked forward to with the greatest
eagerness, and that plans were made to give our visitors a thorough good
thrashing.
Burr major, as captain of the eleven, rather unwillingly, I'm afraid,
but for the sake of the credit of the school, selected Mercer and me for
the match. I was to be wicket-keeper, and Mercer, from his clever and
enduring running, and power to cover so much ground, was made long field
off.
Burr major and Stewart were to bowl, with Dicksee as a change when
necessary, for he had a peculiar knack and twist in handling a ball, and
could puzzle good players by sending in an innocent-looking,
slowly-pitched ball, which looked as if it was going wide, and, when it
had put the batsman off his guard, and induced him to change his
position, so as to send the ball flying out of the field, it would
suddenly curl round and go right into the wicket.
All went well. We practised every evening, and again for an hour before
breakfast each morning, and, as I warmed up to my task, I easily stopped
all Stewart's or Burr major's swiftest balls, and got to know how to
deal with what Mercer called "old Dicksee's jerry sneaks." The tent
came from Hastings the day before, and was set up ready, and the next
day was to be the match.
But, as Burns says, "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men gang aft
a-gley." So it was here; our plans went very much "a-gley," for I awoke
on the morning of the match with a headache, which I knew would
completely upset me for the day.
I did not know then, but I know now, that it was Polly Hopley's fault,
and that her turnovers and cake were far too rich to be eaten in
quantity by two boys sitting up in bed, and going to sleep directly
after, in spite of the crumbs and scales of crust. I just remember that
I had a bad night, full of unpleasant dreams, all connected with the
cricket match in some way. Now I was being horribly beaten; now I was
running after the ball, which went on and on, far away into space, and
would not be overtaken, and it was still bounding away when I awoke with
a start. Then I fell asleep again, and lay bound and helpless, as it
seemed to me, with Burr major taking advantage of my position to come
and triumph over me, which he did at first by sitting on my chest, and
then springing up to go through a kind of war-dance upon me, while I
stared up at him helplessly.
Then Dicksee came with his face all swollen up, as it was after the
fight, but he was grinning derisively at me, and while Burr major seemed
to hold me down by keeping one foot pressed on my chest, Dicksee knelt
by my side, and began to beat my head with a cricket bat.
_Bang, bang! bang, bang_! Blows that fell with the regularity of the
beats of a pendulum, and it seemed to me that he beat me into a state of
insensibility, for both Burr major and he faded from my eyesight, though
the blows of the bat were still falling upon my head when I awoke in the
morning; that is to say, they seemed to be falling, and it was some
minutes before I fully understood that I was suffering from a bad
bilious headache.
"Now then, why don't you jump up?" said Mercer, as I lay with my eyes
shut, and at this I got up slowly, began to dress, and then, feeling too
giddy to stand, sat down by my bed.
"What's the matter?" cried Mercer.
"So ill. Head's so bad."
"Oh, that will be all right when you've had your breakfast. Mine aches
too. Look sharp. It's ever so late."
I tried to look sharp, but I'm afraid I looked very blunt, and it took
me a long time to get dressed and down-stairs, and out in the fresh
morning air, where I walked up and down a bit, and then suffered myself
to be led into the play-field to see what a splendid tent had been
raised, with its canvas back close up to the hedge which separated the
Doctor's grounds from the farm, with the intervening dry ditch, which
always seemed to be full of the biggest stinging nettles I ever saw.
It was a glorious morning, the turf was short and beautifully level, the
boys having joined hands the previous night to drag the great roller
well over it. But the sunshine, the blue sky, and the delicious green
of the hedges and trees were all nothing to me then, and I let Mercer
chatter on about the chances of the other side, which, as far as I was
concerned, promised to be excellent.
The breakfast-bell rang, and we went in, but that morning meal did not
fulfil Mercer's prophecy and carry off my ailment, for I could not touch
a bit.
"Oh, you are a fellow!" cried my comrade. "Well; perhaps you are right.
My father says it's best not to eat and drink when you have a bad
headache. But look sharp and get well; the chaps will be over in good
time."
By and by the news reached the captain of our eleven, and he came to me
all smiles and civility, for all Burr major's ideas of revenge seemed to
have died out, as I thought, because I never presumed upon my victory.
"Oh, I say, Burr junior," he cried, "this won't do! You must look sharp
and get well."
"I want to," I replied dolefully; "but I'm afraid I shan't be able to
play."
"But you must. If you don't, they'll be sure to beat us, and that would
be horrid."
"You mustn't let them beat you," I said, wishing all the while that he
would go, for my head throbbed more than ever, and varied it with a
sensation as of hot molten lead running round inside my forehead in a
way that was agonising.
"But what are we to do for a wicket-keeper?"
"You must take my place," I said feebly. "You are the best
wicket-keeper we have."
"No," he cried frankly, "you are; but I think I'm the best bowler."
"Well, you will be obliged to keep wicket to-day," I said, with a groan.
"I shall never be able to stir, I'm sure."
"Well, you do look precious mouldy," he cried. "It's a nuisance, and no
mistake. I suppose we must make shift, then?"
"Yes; let Dicksee and Hodson bowl all the time."
"And I can put Senna on now and then for an over or two."
"I can't bowl well enough," said Mercer.
"Oh yes, you can when you like," said Burr major. "And, I say," he
cried, taking out his watch, "it's getting close to the time."
Mercer's eyes glistened as the watch was examined, and it seemed to me
that my companion sighed as the watch was replaced.
Just then Hodson came up.
"How is he?"
"Too bad to play, he says. Isn't it beastly?"
"Do you mean it, Burr junior?"
"Yes," I said. "I'm very, very queer. I couldn't play."
"You ain't shamming, are you?"
"Look at me and see," I replied faintly, and directly after I felt a
cool hand laid on my burning forehead.
"There's no gammon about it," said Hodson. "We must do the best we can.
Look sharp, Senna."
"Yes," said Burr major; "he'll have to take a turn at the bowling."
"I shan't play if Frank Burr don't," said Mercer stoutly.
"What?" cried the two boys together.
"You must put some one else on instead of me; I've got a headache too."
"Oh, I say," cried Hodson, and he and Burr both tried hard to shake
Mercer's sudden resolution. I too tried, but it was of no use; he grew
more stubborn every minute; and after Burr major had again referred to
his watch, the two lads went off together, disappointed and vexed.
"You might have gone and played with them, Tom," I said.
"I know that," he replied; "but I wasn't going without you. I'm going
to stop and talk."
"No, no, don't," I said. "I only want to be quiet till--Oh, my head, my
head!"
"Why, Burr junior, what's this?" cried Mr Hasnip, coming up and
speaking cheerily. "Bad headache? not going to play?"
"No, sir, I feel too ill."
"Oh, come, this is a bad job. Hi, Rebble!"
The latter gentleman came up.
"Here's Burr junior queer. Does he want a doctor, do you think?"
Mr Rebble looked at me attentively for a few moments, and then said
quietly,--
"No; only a bilious headache, I should say. Go and lie down for an hour
or two, my lad, and perhaps it will pass off."
I gladly crawled up to our dormitory, took off my jacket and boots, and
lay down on the bed, when I seemed to drop at once into a doze, from
which I started to find Mercer seated by the window looking out.
"Better?" he said, as I stirred.
"Better! No; I feel very ill. But what are you doing here?"
"Come to sit with you," he said stolidly.
Just then there was a burst of cheering, and the crunching noise made by
wheels.
"Here they are," cried Mercer excitedly. "Oh, I say, I do wish you were
better! I should like to lick those Hastings chaps."
"Then why don't you go?" I said pettishly. "Go and bowl."
"Shan't, without you," was the only reply I could get, and I lay turning
my head from side to side, trying to find a cool spot on the pillow, to
hear every now and then a shout from the field, and then a burst of
plaudits, or cries of, "Well run!"
"Bravo!"
"Well fielded!" and more hand-clapping, all borne faintly in at the
window, where Mercer sat with his arms folded, gazing out, but unable to
see the field from where he was.
After a time I once more dropped off into a doze and woke again with a
start, under the impression that I had been asleep all day.
My head was not quite so bad, and, after lying still, thinking, and
listening to the shouts from the cricket-field, I said weakly,--
"Have they nearly done, Tom?"
"Done! No, of course not."
"What time is it?"
"Don't know. Haven't got a watch."
"Well, what time do you think it is?"
"'Bout two. They've just gone to the wickets again after lunch."
"Why don't you go and join them now?"
"You know. How's your head?"
"A little better, I think."
"Well enough to come down and look on?"
"Oh no," I said, with a shudder; "I feel too sick and ill for that."
"Have another snooze, then, and you'll be better still."
"But it's too bad to keep you out of the fun," I said.
"I didn't grumble. Go to sleep."
I determined that I would not, but I did, and woke again, to repeat my
question about the time, and receive the answer that my companion had
not got a watch.
"How long have I been asleep, then?" I asked.
"'Bout an hour. Here! hi! what are you going to do?"
"Get up, and go down in the field," I said.
"Hooray! Then it's all right again?"
"No," I replied; "but it's a little better, and I should like to go and
lie down under the big hedge, and see our fellows win."
"Come, I do like that," cried Mercer eagerly, as I went to the
wash-stand, well bathed my temples, and then, feeling very sick and
faint, but not in such pain, I put on my jacket and boots, and we went
slowly down-stairs, and out into the field, where every one was too
intent to take much notice of us, as Tom led me up to the big hedge,
where I lay down on the grass about fifty yards from where the tent
stood close up; and from time to time I saw the boys who were about to
go in to bat, go to the tent to take off their jackets and vests, and
come out ready for the fight.
Our boys were in, and I saw Dicksee change and go to the wicket to come
back with a "duck's egg," as we called it. Then Hodson went in and made
a stand, but a quarter of an hour later, the boy who faced him was
caught, and Burr major walked up to the tent, disappeared, and came out
again all in white, with a brand-new bat over his shoulder.
Just then Mercer, who had been round to the scorers, came back, and
stood watching Burr major as he marched off.
"Oh, I say," he said, "don't you wish you were in it, Frank?"
"Yes," I said, with a sigh. Then--"How's the game now?"
"We're a hundred behind 'em, and our fellows can't stand their bowling.
If Eely and Hodson don't make a big stand, we shall have a horrid
licking. Better?"
"Yes, a little," I said faintly, and then I lay watching the game, while
Mercer walked about--now going up to the empty tent where the boys'
clothes were, now coming back to me to talk about the game. Once he
went and lay down near the tent. Another time he went by it out of
sight, but he was soon back to see how I was, and off in the other
direction, this time to go right round the field and come back by the
tent, and throw himself down by my side.
"What do you think of it now? Oh, look! Hooray! hooray! Run! run!
run!" he roared, and then joined in the hand-clapping, for Hodson had
made a splendid leg hit, which brought us in four, and two more from an
overthrow.
This excited Tom Mercer to such an extent that he could not lie still,
but went off again in the direction of the tent, while I began to know
that I was better, from the interest I was able to take in the game.
Then, after seeing Burr major and Hodson make hit after hit, for they
were now well in, and punishing the bowling to a tremendous extent, I
began to think about how good-companion-like it had been of Mercer to
spoil his own pleasure so as to stay with me, and I lay there resting on
my elbow, watching him for a few minutes, as he stood close up to the
tent.
"Well, Burr junior, how's the head?" cried Mr Hasnip, strolling up with
Mr Rebble.
"A good deal better, sir," I replied, "but very far from well."
"You'll have to take a long night's rest before it will be quite right,"
said Mr Rebble. "By the way, Mrs Browne said I was to report how you
were, so that she could send you something to take if you did not seem
better."
"Oh, I'm ever so much better, sir!" I cried hastily, for I had a keen
recollection of one of the good lady's doses which she had prescribed,
and whose taste I seemed to distinguish then.
"Oh yes, you'll be all right in the morning," said Mr Hasnip. "Well,
Mercer, how are we getting on?"
"I haven't been to the scorers' table, sir," said Mercer, who had just
come back from a spot near the tent, where he could get a better view of
the field than from where I lay under the big oak tree.
"Run and ask, my lad," said Mr Rebble, and he and Mr Hasnip sat down
near me, and chatted so pleasantly that I forgot all about the way in
which they tortured me sometimes with questions.
In due time Mercer came back to announce that Hodson and Burr major had
put on sixty-one between them, and that there were hopes that the game
might be pulled out of the fire even then.
Mercer sat down now beside me, and, the ground in front clearing a
little, we had a good view of the game, which grew more and more
interesting as the strangers fought their best to separate our two
strongest men, and stop them from steadily piling up the score; the loud
bursts of shouting stirring them on to new efforts, which resulted in
the ball being sent here, there, and everywhere, for twos, threes, and
fours, till the excitement seemed to have no bounds.
Then came a check, just as the servants had been busy carrying urns,
teapots, and piled-up plates into the tent, for it was getting late in
the afternoon.
The check was caused by a ball sent skying by Hodson and cleverly
caught, with the result that one of our best cricketers shouldered his
bat and marched off the ground, but proudly, for he had had a splendid
innings, and quite a jubilation of clapping hands ran round the field.
Another took his place, and helped Burr major to make a little longer
stand, but the spirit had gone out of his play, which became more and
more cautious. He stole one here and sent the ball for one there, but
made no more brilliant hits for threes and fours.
At last after a good innings the fresh man was clean bowled, and another
took his place.
"Last of 'em," said Mercer. "Oh, if they can only do it! We only want
five to win."
But during the next quarter of an hour these five were not made. The
new-comer contented himself with playing on the defensive, and with the
knowledge to trouble him of the game resting entirely on his shoulders,
Burr major grew more and more nervous, missing excellent chances that he
would have jumped at earlier in his innings.
"Four to win." Then the fresh boy got a chance, and made one which sent
our lads nearly frantic.
"Three only to win," and there seemed to be not a doubt of our success
now,--for it was "our" success, though I had had nothing to do with the
result.
And now Burr major had a splendid chance, but he was too nervous to take
it, and the over proved blank, as did the next. But in the one which
followed, the fresh boy sent a ball just by mid-wicket, a run was
stolen, and I, too, grew so excited that I forgot my headache and rose
to my knees.
It was a fresh over, a change had been made in the bowling, and the
first ball was delivered and stopped.
The second ball went rushing by the wicket, but it was not wide; and now
the third ball was bowled. It seemed to be an easy one, and in the
midst of the most profound excitement, Burr major gathered himself
together for a big hit, struck out, and--the ball went flying out of the
field?
No; Burr major just missed it, the off-bail was bowled clean and fell a
dozen yards away.
We were beaten.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
There was a tremendous burst of cheering and a rush for the tent by the
boys who had left their jackets within, and among them Burr major,
disappointed, but at the same time justly proud of the splendid score he
had made, walked up to the door, disappeared amongst plenty of clapping,
and soon after came out again in his jacket and vest.
We had all clustered up round about the players, and two masters shook
hands with the champion, who directly after caught sight of me.
"Hallo! How's the head?" he cried.
"Getting better now."
"I saw you watching the match," he continued. "Nice time you had of it
lying about under that tree, while we fellows did all the work."
"I should have liked to be in it," I said rather drearily; "but I really
was very bad."
His attention was called off soon after, and then there was a summons to
the tent for the festive high tea, which was to come off directly, as
the Hastings boys had a long drive back.
I was much better, but the thought of food in that crowded tent was
nauseating, and, watching my opportunity, I slipped away, seeing Tom
Mercer looking about as if in search of me before going into the tent.
"I know what I'll do," I thought. "I'll walk gently down along the lane
to Bob Hopley's place, and ask Polly to make me a cup of tea and cut me
some bread and butter."
The plan was simple enough, and I strolled out and along the road, and
then entered a gate, to make a short cut along the hedge side of the
fields.
The evening was glorious, and after a broiling day the soft moist odours
that came from the copses dotted here and there seemed delightfully
refreshing, and so I strolled on and on till I was only a short distance
from the cottage, which was separated from me by a couple of fields,
when I turned slowly toward a corner of the enclosure I was in, where
there was a pond and a patch of moist land where weeds never noticed
towered up in abundance, and, to my surprise, I caught sight of Magglin
seated on the bank of the pond, with his feet hanging close to the
water, and apparently engaged in his evening toilet. It seemed to me
that he must have been washing his face, and that he was now wiping it
upon some great leaves which he plucked from time to time.
"No, he isn't," I said to myself the next moment. "He has been
poaching, and saw me coming. It's all a pretence to throw me off the
scent;" and I went on, my way being close by him, and there he was
rubbing away at his face with the leaves, while I glanced here and there
in search of a wire set for rabbit or hare, though I shrewdly suspected
that the wire he had been setting would be over in the copse beyond the
pond, in the expectation of getting a pheasant.
He was so quick of hearing that he could detect a footstep some distance
off, but this time he turned round sharply when I exclaimed,--
"Hallo, Magglin!"
"Eh--I--Oh, how de do, sir?"
"Better than you do," I said sharply. "What have you been doing to your
face?"
"Face? Oh, rubbing it a bit, sir, that's all. Good as washing."
"Dock leaves," I said. "What, have you stung yourself?"
"Oh yes, I forgot that, sir. Just a little bit, sir. I was coming
through the hedge down below there, and a 'ormous old nettle flew back
and hit me acrost the cheek. But it aren't nothing."
More than I should like to have, I thought to myself, as I went on, for
his face was spotted with white patches, and I knew how they must
tingle.
Ten minutes after, I was in the lane, in time to meet Polly Hopley, in
her best bonnet and with a key in her hand, going up to the cottage
door.
She smiled as she saw me, hurried to the cottage, unlocked the door, and
stood back for me to enter.
"Been out, Polly?" I said.
"Yes, sir, of course. Father took me to see the cricket match. Doctor
Browne told father we might come into the field, and it were lovely.
But why didn't you play?"
I told her, and she expressed her sympathy. Then, in a very decided
way,--
"Sweets and puffs aren't good for you, sir, and I won't sell you one
to-day."
"I don't want any, Polly," I replied. "I was going to ask you to sell
me a cup of tea."
"And I won't do that neither, sir; but I'm going to make myself some
directly, and if you'll condescend to sit down in father's big chair and
have some, I should be glad."
To the girl's great delight, I accepted her offer. The kettle hanging
over the smouldering fire of wood ashes was soon boiling, and I partook
of a delicious tea, with fresh water-cresses from the spring, and cream
in my tea from the General's dairy, while Polly cut bread and butter,
and chatted about "father's" troubles with the poachers, and about the
baits he had been getting ready for our next fishing visit to the ponds.
Then again about the cricket match, and we were carrying on an animated
conversation when the door was thrown quickly open, and Bob Hopley
appeared.
"Oh, dad, how you startled me!" cried Polly, jumping up.
"Startled you, my lass? I heerd loud talking and I'd been told young
Magglin had come down this way, and I thought it was him."
"I saw him just before I came in, over by the pond there by the copse,"
I said.
"He wasn't likely to be in here, father," said Polly primly. "I should
like to catch him trying to come in."
"So should I," said the keeper grimly. "I'd try oak that time 'stead o'
hazel."
"Hush, dad! do adone," whispered Polly. Then aloud--
"Master Burr's been poorly all day, and as they were all feasting and
junketing at the school, he come down here to ask me to make him some
tea, and he's very welcome, aren't he, father?"
"I should just think he is, my lass. But fill up his cup again, and
he's got no fresh butter."
"I've done," I said; "and oh, I do feel so much better now! Do you know
what a bad sick headache is?"
"No, my lad, no. I aren't had one since--"
"Oh, father!"
"Come, Polly, don't be hard on a man. That was only the club feast."
"I haven't patience with such feasts," said Polly sharply. "I never go
to feasts, and come back--"
"Poorly, my lass, poorly," said Bob hastily.
"Yes, very poorly," said Polly sarcastically, "and say, `My head's fit
to split,' next day. Seems to me that's all such heads are fit for
then--to split and burn."
"Nay, nay, my lass, they burn quite enough, I can tell 'ee. Man does do
stoopid things sometimes."
Bob was very apologetic about sitting down to tea, with me there. Then
of course I apologised, and sat watching him drinking great draughts out
of a basin and devouring huge slices of bread and butter.
"Rare stuff kettle broth, sir," he said. "Don't give you no headaches;
do it, Polly?"
"No, father."
"She don't make it strong enough for that, Mr Burr, sir," he continued,
giving me a wink.
"Quite as strong as is good for you, father."
"Right, my lass," said Bob, helping himself to some more cream, "and not
so strong as is good for you."
I rose to go soon after, and the keeper joined with his daughter in
absolutely refusing to let me pay for my meal.
"Glad to have seen you, sir; and now mind that as soon as ever your
young friend Mas' Mercer--Mas' Bri'sh Museum, as I call him--is ready,
and you can get a day, I'll take you to our stock pond, where the carps
and tenches are so thick, they're asking to be caught. You shall have a
day."
"Good-bye, Polly," I said, shaking hands. "You've quite cured my head."
"I am so glad, sir!" she cried; and I went back to the school, Bob
seeing me part of the way, and saying to me confidentially as we
walked,--
"You see me leathering that poaching vagabond Magglin, sir. It's like
this. The reason for it was--No, sir. Good-night. You're too young to
talk about that sort o' thing. Don't forget about the fish."
He hurried away without another word, while I went on, and found Tom
Mercer looking for me, and eager to hear where I had been.
"What a shame!" he cried. "The high tea was very jolly, but I missed
you. I wish I'd gone too. I say, we were licked, but it was a splendid
match after all. Hallo! here's Hodson. The chaps all went off on their
'bus cheering and--Hooray, Hodson! what a day!"
"Yes; but I say," said the lad, "Burr major's lost his watch."
"His watch!" cried Mercer, giving quite a jump. "Oh!"
"Yes; he left it in his waistcoat in the tent when he stripped for his
innings, and when he felt for it some time after, it was gone."
"Then he didn't miss it directly?" I said.
"No, not till a little while ago. A lot of the fellows are up in the
field searching for it. Haven't either of you seen it, have you?"
"No," I said, and Mercer shook his head.
"Come on and help look for it," cried Hodson; and we went up to the
field, where the tent was still standing, it being understood that the
men were to come and take it down in the morning.
"Lucky they were not here," I said, "or some of them might have been
suspected of taking it."
"Yes, it would be ugly for them," assented Hodson. "You see, nobody but
our boys and the Hastings chaps went into the tent, except the servants
to lay the tables, and of course they wouldn't have taken it."
"But they may have found it," I said. "He is sure to have dropped it
somewhere in the grass."
"Of course," cried Mercer; "and some one has put his foot on it and
smashed the glass."
"Get out, Senna! you always make the worst of every thing," cried Hodson
merrily; and soon after, we reached the field, where the boys were
spread about, looking in all kinds of possible and impossible places--
impossible because Burr major had never been near them after he had put
on his things.
"Are you sure that you brought your watch out in the field," said Mr
Hasnip, who was one of the group standing by Burr major.
"Oh yes, sir, certain."
"But it does not do to be too certain, my lad. Have you been up in your
bedroom, and looked there?"
"No, sir, because I was so sure I brought it out."
"Why were you so sure?"
"Because--because I thought I would wear it, as we had strangers
coming."
"Never mind, you may have altered your mind. Go and look. You see we
have thoroughly searched every place where you could have been."
"I'll go and look, sir," said Burr major, "but it's of no use."
He went off toward the schoolhouse, and Mr Rebble then coming up, the
two masters began to talk about the missing watch.
"It is so awkward," said Mr Rebble. "We can't write and ask the party
if either of them took a watch by mistake. Stop! I have it."
"The watch?" cried Mr Hasnip eagerly.
"No. Wait till he comes back, and I think I can explain it all."
We had not long to wait before Burr major came back to us.
"No, sir," he said. "I've looked everywhere; it isn't in my room."
"Then I think I can help you," said Mr Rebble. "What jacket and vest
are those you have on?"
"My third best, sir."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes, sir," said Burr major wonderingly.
"Look at them," continued Mr Rebble. "Are they really your own things,
and not the clothes of one of our visitors taken by mistake, and he has
taken yours."
Burr major slipped off his jacket and held it up in the dusk to point
out a label inside the collar, where, worked in blue silk upon white
satin, was the name of the maker, his own father.
"Yes, that's yours," said Mr Rebble in a disappointed tone. "I thought
that the mistake might have been made. But the vest--are you sure of
that?"
"Oh yes," said Burr major, who then looked inside the collar and found
the same maker's name.
"I thought that, sir," said Burr major; "but I could feel that they were
my things as soon as I put them on. I say, has any fellow taken my
watch for a game?"
There was silence at first, then a murmur of, "No, no, no;" and, as it
was getting too dark now to resume the search, we all trooped back to
the schoolroom to sit and talk over the one event which had spoiled what
would otherwise have been a most enjoyable day, for, as Tom Mercer said
when we went up to bed,--
"It's nicer for those Hastings chaps to have won. They've gone back
jollier. By and by we shall be going over to play them, and then we
shall be in the eleven, and must win."
A pause.
"I said, `And then we must win.'"
"Yes, I heard you."
"Then why didn't you speak?"
"Because I was thinking about Burr major's watch."
"Oh, bother his watch!" said Mercer hastily. "I'm beginning to be glad
that he has lost it. Now he won't be always flourishing it in your face
and seeming to say, `Poor fellow, I'm sorry you haven't got a watch
too.'"
"Well, you needn't be so cross about it," I said.
"Why needn't I? One gets sick of his watch. There's always been a fuss
about it ever since he came back with it. It's lost now, and a jolly
good job too. Now we've heard the end of it. Old Eely's watch is
regularly wound up."
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
But we had not heard the end of it, for the Doctor was so much annoyed
that he sent Mr Hasnip on a private diplomatic visit to his brother
schoolmaster at Hastings, to speak of the trouble we were in, and to ask
if it were possible that the watch had been taken by mistake.
Mr Hasnip's mission was as useless as the search made by the boys, who
all stood round while the men took down the tent, so as to make sure
that no strangers should be more successful than we were.
But the tent was carted away, poles, flags, and all, and then we resumed
our search over the space where the erection had stood, even up to the
hedge, and boys were sent over it to peer about in the ditch beyond.
Every minute out of school hours was devoted to the search for Burr
major's watch, but there was no result; and when Mr Hasnip returned,
soon after the boys had again given up the hunt, and told the Doctor
what he had done, he came away, and saw Mr Rebble, who told Burr major,
and Burr major told Hodson who was the medium that conveyed to the boys
generally the fact that the Doctor had shaken his head.
The next day came, and the next, and another day passed, with the
memories of the cricket match growing more faint. Burr major's watch
was not found, and, after the first two days, the boys had ceased to
look suspiciously at one another, and charge a school-fellow with having
hid the watch "for a game." Lessons went on as usual, and my riding was
kept up, but the cob was only brought over once a week.
I had a pretty good time at the drilling though, but that was only in
company with the other boys.
Then the days grew to weeks, and we had our trip to Hastings; that is to
say, our eleven; and, being free from headache this time, both Mercer
and I played, all coming back in triumph, and nearly sending the private
omnibus horses off at a wild gallop as we neared the school: for we came
back to announce that we had beaten our adversaries in one innings, they
having scored so badly that they had to follow on.
This trip revived the talk about Burr major's watch, but only for a day
or two, and then once more the topic died out, though I heard
incidentally from Mr Hasnip that the Doctor was bitterly grieved at
such a loss taking place in his school.
I worked hard in those days, and made rapid progress, I afterwards
found, though I did not grasp it at the time, and I had now grown to
like my school life intensely.
Now and then a letter came from the General, asking leave for Mercer and
me to go over to early dinner, the old gentleman welcoming us warmly,
and making me give proofs of my progress in all parts of my education
that had a military bearing. Then we were sent back in the dog-cart,
generally with a crown a piece, and a big basket of fruit--a present,
this latter, which made us very popular with the other boys, who envied
our luck, as they called it, greatly, particularly our expeditions to
the General's ponds, from which we brought creels full of trophies in
triumph. But only to have our pride lowered by the cook, to whom we
took our prizes, that lady declaring them all to be rubbish except the
eels, and those, she said, were too muddy to be worth the trouble of
taking off their skins.
Then, too, we had natural history excursions to make additions to the
museum in the bin.
I thoroughly enjoyed these trips, and became the most enthusiastic of
collectors, but I regret to say that with possession my interest ceased.
Mercer bullied me sharply, but it was of no good. If lizards were to be
plunged in spirits and suspended by a silken thread or fine wire to the
cork of the bottle, he had to do it; and though he showed me how, at
least a dozen times, to skin a snake through its mouth, so as to strip
off the covering whole and ready to fill up with sand, so as to preserve
its shape, he never could get me to undertake the task.
Certainly I began to pin out a few butterflies on cork, but I never
ended them, nor became an adept at skinning and mounting quadrupeds and
birds.
"It's all sheer laziness," Mercer used to say pettishly.
"Not it," I said. "I like the birds and things best unstuffed. They
look a hundred times better than when you've done them your way."
"But they won't keep, stupid," he cried.
"Good thing too. I'd rather look at them for two days as they are, than
for two years at your guys of things."
"What!" he cried indignantly. "Guys!"
"Well, so they are," I said. "Look at that owl; look at the squirrel,
with one hind leg fat and the other lean, and his body so full that he
seems to have eaten too many nuts."
"But those were some of the first stuffings," he pleaded.
"But the last are worse," I cried, laughing. "Then look at the rabbit.
Who'd ever know that was a rabbit, if it wasn't for his ears and the
colour of his skin? He looks more like a bladder made of fur."
"But he isn't finished yet."
"Nor never will be," I cried merrily.
"Ah, you're getting tired of natural history," said Mercer, seating
himself on the edge of the bin, and looking lovingly down at its
contents, for this conversation took place up in the loft.
"Wrong!" I cried. "I get fonder of it every day; but I'm not going to
skin and stuff things to please anybody, not even you."
"I'm sorry for you," said Mercer. "You're going to be a soldier. My
father says I'm to be a doctor. You're going to destroy, and I'm going
to preserve."
I burst out laughing.
"I say, Tom," I cried, as he looked up at me innocently, in surprise at
my mirth, and I went and sat at the other end of the bin; "had one
better kill poor people out of their misery than preserve them to look
like that?" and I pointed down at the half-stuffed rabbit.
"Go on," he said quietly. "Scientific people always get laughed at. I
don't mind."
"More do I."
"I've had lots of fun out of all these things, and it's better than
racing all over a field, kicking a bag of wind about, and knocking one
another down in a charge, and then playing more sacks on the mill, till
a fellow's most squeezed flat. I hate football, and so do you."
"No, you don't," I said; "you love a game sometimes as much as I do.
What I don't like in it is, that when I'm hurt, I always want to hit
somebody."
"Yes, that is the worst of it," he said quietly; "and since I've found
out that I can fight, I'm ever so much readier to punch anybody's head."
"But you don't."
"No; I don't, because it don't seem fair. I don't care, though, how you
laugh. I shall go on with my natural history even when I grow a man,
and have to drive round like father does, giving people stuff. It gives
you something to think about."
"Yes, it gives you something to think about," I said merrily. "I always
get thinking about these."
"I say: don't," cried Mercer; "you've upset my owl on to that blackbird.
I wish you wouldn't be so fond of larking."
"All right, Tom; I won't tease you," I said. "It's all right, and I'll
always go with you collecting. I never knew there were half so many
things to see out of doors, till I went out with you. When shall we
have a regular good walk through the General's woods?"
"Any time we can get away," he cried, brightening up. "I'm ready."
"All right," I said; "then we will go first chance."
"We must tell Bob Hopley we're going, or he may hear us in the wood, and
pepper us, thinking it's old Magglin."
"What?"
"He said he would, if ever he caught him there."
"Seen him lately?" I said.
"No; have you?"
"Not since the cricket match day, when I was going to Bob Hopley's."
"One of the boys said he saw him hanging about, twice over, and I
suppose he was trying to see me, and get a shilling out of me. I'm sure
he's had nearly a pound out of me, that I didn't owe him. I wish I
wasn't so soft."
"So do I."
"Ah, now you're laughing at me. Never mind, I've done with him now.
Never a penny does he ever get out of me again."
"Till next time, Tom," I said.
"No, nor next time neither. I don't suppose we shall see much more of
him here, for Bob Hopley says that so sure as he catches him poaching,
he shall speak out pretty plainly, so as to get him sent away. He says
that many a time he has let him off with a good licking, sooner than get
him sent to prison, for he don't think prison's good for young men like
him."
"I suppose it isn't," I said thoughtfully, as I watched my companion,
and saw how lovingly he arranged and rearranged his grotesque-looking
creatures at the bottom and on the rough shelves of the bin that he had
put up from time to time.
And as I watched him, an idea entered my brain which tickled me so, that
I had hard work to keep from laughing aloud, and being noticed.
The idea came as he glanced at me, and moved the rabbit to the corner
nearest to him--the absurd-looking object being carefully covered over,
as if he was afraid I should begin joking him again about its unfinished
state.
All at once, moved by the impulse which had set me laughing, I leaned
over and stretched out my hand toward the corner where he had placed the
rabbit.
"What are you going to do?" he cried excitedly, and he caught my wrist.
"Only going to take out bunny, and see how he's getting on."
"No, no, don't."
"Why not?" I cried merrily.
"Because--because I don't want it touched."
"But I can improve it so."
"No, no: be quiet. Oh, I say, Frank, pray don't touch it."
"Oh, all right," I said, after a good-humoured struggle with him, in
which I did not use much force, and I let him shut the bin, and sit on
the lid.
Dinner!
For the bell began to ring, and I dashed down, to run out of the stable
and across the yard, expecting that he would follow me, and running so
blindly that I came right upon Dicksee, just leaving the stable door,
and sent him down upon his hands and knees.
"Hallo!" I shouted; "what were you doing there?--listening?"
"What's that to you?" grumbled the boy, as he rose slowly and carefully,
examining his hands to see if the skin was off. "You did that on
purpose."
"No, I didn't," I replied; "but I would have done it, if I had known you
were sneaking and eavesdropping there."
"Who was sneaking and eavesdropping? What was there to listen to?" he
retorted. "'Tain't your stable. I've as good a right there as you
have. Tom Mercer and you ain't going to have it all to yourselves for
your old slugs and snails and dead cats."
"You mind Tom Mercer doesn't catch you," I said. "You don't want him to
lick you again, I know."
"Yah!" he shouted, and he ran off just as my companion came down.
"Who was that?" he said.
"Fatty Dicksee. I told him you'd give him another dressing down if he
came sneaking about here."
"And so I will," cried Tom. "He has never forgiven me, though, for the
last. I know he hates me. So does Eely hate you."
"Let 'em," I said, as we went on.
"But they'll serve us out some day if they can."
"Dinner--dinner!" I cried. "Come on!" and we set off at a trot, for
the prospect of hot roast mutton and potatoes just then was of far more
consequence to me than my school-fellow's prophecies of evil.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
I thought of my little plan that night when I went to bed, and I had it
in my mind when I woke next morning, and laughed over it merrily as I
dressed.
It was the merest trifle, but it amused me; and I have often thought
since of what big things grow sometimes out of the merest trifles.
School-days are often so monotonous that boys jump at little things for
their entertainment, and as there was some good-humoured mischief in
this which would do no one any harm, only create a laugh, in which Tom
Mercer would no doubt join after he had got over the first feeling of
vexation, I had no hesitation about putting it in force.
I had to wait for my opportunity, and it came that afternoon, when most
of the boys were together cricketing and playing rounders. I glanced
round the field, and then slipped away unobserved, made my way round by
the back, and crossed the open space toward the yard.
It was absolutely necessary for me to meet no one, so as to avoid
suspicion when Mercer found out what had been done, and I intended, as
soon as I had executed my little plan, to slip back by the same way into
the play-field, so as to be able to prove where I was on that afternoon.
But, as a matter of course, just because I did not wish to meet any one,
I must meet the cook just returning from the kitchen garden with a
bundle of thyme in her hand.
Everybody spoke of Cook as being disagreeable and ready to snap and
snarl if she were asked for anything extra because a boy was sick; but
they say, "Speak well of the bridge that carries you well over," and I
always found her the most kindly of women; and she nodded and smiled.
"What boys you and Master Mercer are!" she said. "Why, you are always
going and moping up in that loft instead of being in the fields at
play."
She went on toward the house, and I stood hesitating about carrying out
my plan.
"She knows I've come," I said, "and if there is a row, and questions
asked, she may say that she saw me."
"Nonsense! she'll never hear about it," I said, and, running into the
dark stable, I stopped short, for I fancied there was a sound overhead;
but I heard no more, and, thinking it was fancy, I ran to the steps,
climbed up, and was crossing the floor when I heard a faint rustling in
a heap of straw at the far end, in the darkest corner of the loft.
"Rats," I said to myself, as I went on to the place where the big bin
stood under a little window, passed it, and reached up to take the key
from the beam upon which it was always laid, the simplicity of the
hiding-place making it all the more secure.
To my utter astonishment, the key was not there, but a second glance
showed me that it was in the padlock.
"Been up here and forgot to lock it," I said to myself. "All the better
for me. Some one else may have been up, and done it through his leaving
the key there."
I laughed to myself as I took the padlock out and threw open the bin,
with the intention of having what I called a game.
This was to consist in my arranging the various stuffed creatures in as
comical a way as I could; and my first thought was to take the rabbit,
alter its position a little, and lay it upon an extemporised bed, with
the doctor--the owl--holding one paw to feel its pulse, while all the
other creatures looked on.
"What shall be the matter with him?" I thought. Then directly--"I
know: all his stuffing come out."
I seized the owl, and found that I could easily twist the wire down its
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