"I say, don't, Green: let the poor things alone!"
"You mind your own business. Oh! bother the old thorns!"
Brian Green snatched his hand out of the quickset hedge into which he
had thrust it, to reach the rough outside of a nest built by a bird,
evidently in the belief that the hawthorn leaves would hide it from
sight, and while they were growing the thorns would protect it from
mischievous hands.
But the leaves opened out slowly that cold spring, and a party of boys
from Dr Dunham's school, the Friary, Broadhurst, Kent, was not long in
spying out the unlucky parents' attempt at house-building and nursery.
Still, the thorns did their duty to some extent when Brian Green of the
red head leaped across the big dry ditch, rudely crushing a great clump
of primroses and forcing them down the slope, for when the
freckled-faced lad thrust his hand in to grasp the nest a sharp prick
made him withdraw it, while this action brought it in contact with a
natural _chevaux de frise_, scarified the back, and made a long scratch
on his thumb.
"I wish you'd keep your tongue inside your teeth, Nic Braydon!" cried
the boy fiercely. "You won't be happy till I've given you another
licking. Look here what you've made me do!"
"I didn't make you do it," said the first speaker. "Why don't you let
the birds alone?"
"Because, if you please, Miss Braydon," said the bigger lad mincingly,
"I'm not so good as you are. Oh dear, no! I'm going to take that nest
of young blackbirds because I want them to bring up and keep in a cage.
I'm going to transport them to the shed in the playground."
The first boy winced sharply at his companion's words, and the four lads
present burst into a derisive laugh at his annoyance; but he smothered
it down, and said quietly:--"Then you may as well leave them alone, for
they're not blackbirds."
"Yes, they are, stoopid."
"No, they're not."
"How do you know?"
"Because I found the nest when it was first built, and saw the eggs and
the old bird sitting."
"Oh, that's it, is it? Oh, I say, isn't he a nice, good little boy? He
doesn't want me to take the young birds because he wants to steal them
himself."
The others laughed in their thoughtlessness as their schoolfellow winced
again, and Brian Green still hung on to the bank, sucking the scratches
on his bleeding hand and grinning with satisfaction at the annoyance his
innuendoes caused.
"I say, boys," he cried, "they don't transport people for life for
stealing young blackbirds, do they?"
There was a fresh roar of laughter, and the boys watched Dominic
Braydon, who stood frowning, to see if he would make some sharp retort,
verbal or physical, and perhaps get thrashed again. But he concealed
his annoyance, and said quietly:
"That's a thrush's nest."
"You don't know anything about it, Convict," said Green.
The boy winced again; but he went on:
"Well, I know that. Blackbirds make rougher nests, and they're not
plastered inside so neatly with clay as that is. Then the eggs are
different: blackbirds' are all smudgy, dingy green; those were beautiful
blue eggs, with a few clear spots on one end. Yes, look," he cried;
"there's half one of them."
As he spoke he leaped down into the ditch, and picked up a fragile,
dried-up portion of an egg and showed it to his companions.
"Yah! Old Botany Bay don't know what he's talking about," said Green,
dragging a hedge-stake from the top of the bank, and wrenching the upper
part of the dense hawthorn growth into a gap, through which he pulled
the nest with its contents, four half-fledged birds, looking, with the
loose down at the back of their heads, their great goggle eyes and wide
gapes, combined with the spiky, undeveloped feathers and general
nakedness, about as ugly, goblin-like creatures as a painter could have
desired.
"There!" cried Green, dropping the hedge-stake and leaping back over the
ditch; "aren't those blackbirds? Oh, murder!"
There was a great roar of laughter, for the clumsy leap resulted in two
of the callow birds being jerked out heavily into the bottom of the
ditch, and upon their recovery one was found to be dead.
"Never mind," said Green; "three are better to bring up. Now then, in
you go, ugly."
He placed the bird in the nest with its companions, down by which it
snuggled itself at once, so that the three completely filled the bottom.
"Fits splendidly, boys. I shall make old Botany Bay get worms for me
and chop them up to feed them."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" said the first boy, frowning.
"You know you let those young starlings die."
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" retorted Green, "getting yourself
put in a school among young gentlemen. I don't know what the doctor was
thinking about to take a convict's son."
"My father is not a convict," cried Dominic angrily.
"Oh, isn't he, just. Transported for life. We know, don't we, boys?"
"Yes--yes," was chorused.
"Of course he was," cried Green. "You can't keep these things quiet.
Pretends his father is a settler. Yes; the judge settled him for life."
The boy looked round for applause, and received it sufficiently to make
him go on with his banter.
"Just as if we weren't sure to find out the truth. Calls him a
squatter. Yes; the government made him squat pretty quickly."
There was another laugh as the boys wandered on along the edge of the
great common, where the quickset hedge divided it from the cultivated
land, high above which a lark was circling and singing with all its
might.
"I want to know why the doctor lets him stop amongst gentlemen's sons."
"I know, Bry Green," said a mischievous-looking, dark-eyed boy; "it's
because his father pays."
"He wouldn't be here long if his father didn't," said Green laughingly.
"Unless he supplied the doctor with sugar and soap and candles and soda
and blue."
There was a roar of laughter once more, in which Dominic Braydon joined,
and Green turned so suddenly on the last speaker that the young thrushes
were nearly jerked out of the nest.
"Do you want me to give you a wipe on the mouth, Tomlins?" cried the boy
angrily.
"Oh no, sir; please don't, sir," was the reply, with a display of mock
horror and dread; "only you said gentlemen's sons, sir,--and I thought
what a pity it was Nic Braydon's father wasn't a grocer."
"My father's a wholesale dealer in the City," said Green loftily; "and
it's only as a favour that he lets old Dunham have things from his
warehouse at trade price."
"Ho, ho, ho! here's a game!" cried the dark boy, throwing himself down
on the velvety turf and kicking out his legs in his delight.
"My father isn't a poor parson," continued Green contemptuously; "and if
any of you fellows like to call on me during the holidays, any one will
show you Alderman Green's big house on Clapham Common. We keep a
butler, footman, coachman, and three gardeners."
"And the gardeners make all the beds," said Tomlins, at which there was
another laugh.
"You're a little idiot, Tomlins," said Green loftily.
"Yes, sir; but I can't help it," said the boy meekly. "You see my
father never brought home turtle soup from the Lord Mayor's dinner so as
to make me big and fat."
"You won't be happy till I've rubbed your ugly snub nose against the
next tree," cried Green. "Get up, you gipsy-looking cub!"
He stepped quickly as he spoke to where the boy still lay upon the green
and kicked him viciously.
"Oh!" yelled the boy, who began to writhe now in earnest as he fought
hard to control himself, but in vain, for he rose to his knees at last
with the tears coming fast, and then limped slowly along, sobbing
bitterly.
"Serve you right," cried Green. "Teach you not to be so jolly saucy.
Now then, none of your sham. I didn't hurt you much. Go on."
"I--I can't yet," sobbed the boy.
"Oh yes, you can. None of that. Here, carry these."
He thrust the nest of young thrushes into the boy's hand, and forced him
to proceed, limping heavily.
"Look at the little humbug," cried Green, as they all went on, with
Dominic Braydon hanging down his head and gazing hard at the ground to
keep from darting indignant glances at the tyrant who had bullied and
insulted him till it had been almost beyond bearing. He felt a choking
sensation in the throat, and an intense longing to do something; but his
ways were peaceful, and Green, was heavy, big, and strong. In addition,
he was cock of the school, to whom every one had yielded for a long time
past; and Dominic Braydon had still fresh in his memory that day when he
had resisted a piece of tyranny and fought at the far end of the school
garden, where an unlucky blow on the bridge of the nose had half blinded
him and made him an easy victim to the enemy, who administered a severe
drubbing and procured for his adversary a birching for fighting--it was
before caning days--and a long series of impositions for obstinacy, a
trait the doctor said that he absolutely abhorred--Dominic's obstinacy
consisting in a stubborn refusal to confess who had beaten him. This
his schoolfellows called honourable; but Green had other opinions, and
set it down to the fear of getting another thrashing for telling tales.
But Green was not quite correct.
And so on this bright spring half-holiday the boys went on along the
side of the common toward the dense furze clump, Green hectoring,
throwing stones at everything he saw, from the donkeys and geese to the
yellow-hammers which flitted along the hedge, stopping now and then to
twitter out their quaint little song about "a little bit o' bread and no
cheese," and looking as much like canaries as they could as they perched
upon some twig.
"I'll give you a bit o' cheese and no bread," cried Green, as he hurled
stone after stone, but fortunately with the worst of aim. "Now then,
you Tomlins, stop that miserable snivelling, and walk upright; you're
not hurt."
The boy hastily wiped his eyes, as he mentally wished that he was big
and strong.
"And don't you drop those birds, or I'll give you another," shouted
Green, as he sent another pebble flying.
The boy stifled a sob, and followed limping.
"Lean on me, Bob," said Dominic.
"Thank you," sobbed the boy; and then in a whisper, "My hip hurts as if
it was put out."
"Not so bad as that," said Dominic in a low tone; and he helped the boy
along till Green looked back, saw what was taking place, and shouted:
"Now then, none of that, Convict. He's only shamming. Let him alone."
"Don't let him touch me, Nic," whispered the boy piteously; "I can
hardly walk."
Dominic said nothing, but his brow was full of lines; and he looked down
at the ground and supported his companion by tightly holding his arm.
"Do you hear?" roared Green, stopping now. "I told you to leave that
little sham alone."
"I'm not shamming, Nic," sobbed the boy in a whisper; "it hurts
dreadfully every time I move my leg."
"Oh, you won't, won't you?" cried Green menacingly. "I shall have to
give you a lesson too, Master Braydon, and transport you into a better
state of mind. Stand aside, will you?"
As he came up he struck Nic a back-handed blow across the chest, forcing
him backward and making Tomlins utter a cry of pain.
"Now then, none of that," continued Green. "Go on, and take care of
those birds,--go on!"
The boy in his dread and pain, wincing in the expectation of a fresh
kick, staggered on for a few paces, and then with a cry of misery fell
forward flat upon his chest.
"Mind those birds!" yelled Green, starting forward, and bending down he
flung the wretched boy over on to his back so as to extricate the bird's
nest.
But he was too late; the unfortunate callow songsters had been saved
from a lingering death by starvation and imprisonment, the sides of the
clay-lined nest being crushed in, and the breath out of the tender
little bodies.
They were quite dead, and in a fit of vindictive rage Green flew at the
innocent author of the mischief.
"You miserable little beast!" he roared; and his foot was raised to
deliver a savage kick. "Get up!"
But instead of Tomlins getting up, Green went down. For, quick as
thought, Dominic rushed at him.
"Let him alone!" he cried hoarsely; and the fierce thrust he gave sent
the young tyrant into a sitting position upon a cushion-like tuft rising
from the closely cropped grass.
But that tuft was only cushion-like in appearance. There were geese
feathers about, but they did not form its contents, for it was stuffed
with keen, stiff thorns such as can grow to perfection upon a Kentish
common; and if Brian Green had been an indiarubber ball he could not
have rebounded more suddenly than he did.
Raising the now empty nest he threw it with all his might at Dominic,
and both his fists after it.
The nest missed; the fists took effect, alighting as they did upon
Dominic's breast and shoulder, and completely driving all thought of
consequences out of the boy, who retaliated with such good effect that,
as the lookers-on cheered and shouted encouragement, the fight raged
fiercely. Even Tomlins forgot his sufferings, and watched every
fluctuation of the struggle with an intense longing to see the school
tyrant effectually mastered and dragged down from the pedestal whence he
had so long dominated and ill-used all around.
The others shared his feelings, and a couple immediately constituted
themselves seconds during the few minutes the fight went on fast and
furious, Dominic always being ready to dash into the affray after being
dragged up at the close of the wrestling bout which ended each round,
while Green grew more and more deliberate, as buzzing sounds came into
his head, ringings into his ears, and it began to dawn upon him that Nic
Braydon had the hardest face he ever touched, and that it was of no use
to keep on hitting it, for it always returned to be hit again.
At last, to the intense delight of the boys, it became evident that the
result of the encounter must be a sound thrashing for Brian Green, and
Nic's second kept on whispering to him to do this and do that to bring
it to an end.
Then came a most exciting finish, in which Nic was following up blow
with blow, and Green, backing slowly away, guarding himself
ineffectually, and growing confused and helpless, was wondering whether
Nic had had enough, when the fight came to a sudden termination, and
fists dropped down to sides, for the sonorous voice of the doctor arose
from close at hand with:
"Young gentlemen, what is the meaning of this disgraceful scene?"