Three boys began to explain at once; but the doctor, who was walking
with his wife and two daughters, and had been attracted by the struggle
going on, held up his hand.
"That will do! that will do!" he said in his most dignified manner and
with his deepest-toned voice. "I have seen enough. Disgraceful!
disgraceful! It would have been bad enough in the village lads and the
farm labourers' boys; but in the young gentlemen of the Friary it is
outrageous. Silence!" he nearly shouted, as Nic began to speak. "I
tell you I saw enough. You, sir, were attacking Green with a violence
that was nothing less than brutal and savage. I am shocked, quite
shocked. Such conduct cannot be borne. Ladies present too, exposed to
seeing your ruffianly violence."
"But, sir--" began Nic.
"How dare you speak, sir, after I have ordered you to be silent! Your
half-holiday is cancelled. Back all of you to the Friary; I will see
you on my return. Now, my dears, we will resume our walk."
The doctor turned upon his heels, and went off with his ladies talking
in a loud voice about botany, the words _Ranunculaceae_ and
_Caryophyllaceae_ being plainly heard as he stopped and picked a yellow
blossom and a tuft of weed, the young ladies glancing back twice at the
boys who had been guilty of so disgraceful a breach of scholastic
etiquette as to have their fight take place upon an open common and let
it be seen.
Nic stood arranging his jacket and torn-off collar, looking down rather
dismally at Green, and wishing that he had not hit him quite so hard;
for his adversary was seated upon the grass where there was no furze,
embracing his knees and resting his brow upon them, softly swaying his
head from side to side.
Tomlins was the first to speak, for the others were looking after the
doctor, and were--especially the two seconds--wondering what the doctor
would say when he came back, and how severe their punishment would be.
The fight had done the little dark-eyed fellow good. It was like so
much liniment rubbed into his bruise to see the brutal tyrant of the
school well thrashed; and feeling that with such a protector as Nic he
had no more to fear from Green, he was not above giving expression to
his thoughts.
"Never you mind, Nic Braydon," he said. "I shall speak out when the
doctor has us up. It wasn't your fault, but bully Gooseberry Green's.
He began it, knocking me about, kicking me--a brute. I shall tell the
doctor everything just as it happened."
At this Green raised his face to dart a vindictive, threatening look at
the little fellow, but he had not paused to think about the state of his
face, which was comic in the extreme, and instead of alarming Tomlins
made him forget his lameness more and more, and sent him into a fit of
laughter.
"Here, boys, look at Gooseberry's phiz. He seems as if he'd been
washing it and left it too long to soak! My! what a swelled head!"
The others joined in the roar of laughter, and Green's face was hidden
again directly.
But Nic had not laughed. He was hurt bodily and mentally. There was a
feeling of regret, too, uppermost, which made him resent this unseemly
mirth as cowardly to a fellow enemy.
"You be quiet, Tomlins!" he cried.
"What for?" retorted the boy. "You haven't been kicked as I have. I
shall laugh at Gooseberry if I like. He began it all, and he has got
his dose, and serve him right. Here, let's get back. Old Dictionary
turned his head just now. I say, Greeny, like to have another kick.
I'm such a little one, I shan't hit you again."
"Wait a bit," muttered Green.
"Oh, certainly; I'm in no hurry. Only you may as well do it when Nic
Braydon's here, because he can give you my compliments afterwards, and
leave my card in each of your eyes. Poor old chap! I'm so glad you've
been licked."
"Will you be quiet, young un!" cried Nic angrily. "It's mean and
cowardly."
"Well, that's the stuff he deals in," said Tomlins. "He likes that
better than anything else."
"That's no reason why you should," cried Nic. "Let him be, I tell you."
"Oh, all right, I've done; but I suppose I may say I'm very sorry for
him."
"No, you _mayn't_," cried Nic. "Here, come on back, Greeny; we've had
it out, but we needn't be bad friends. I'm sorry we fought; you'll
shake hands, won't you?"
Green made no movement, and Nic drew closer and held out his hand again.
"Come on," he said; "I'm sorry now; shake hands."
But Green did not move. He sat there crouched together, till Tomlins
went behind him.
"He's asleep," cried the little fellow. "I'll give him a job like he
gave me, and wake him up."
Green spun round upon the bottom of his spine and faced his little
tormentor, who started back with a cry of mock alarm.
"Here, hi, Nic!" he shouted. "Hold him back. He's going to bite."
Nic made a rush, not to protect Tomlins, but to seize him and drag him
away.
"If you tease him again, I'll kick you too," he whispered. "Let him be;
he's beaten. You don't want to hit him now he's down."
"Yes, I do," said the boy, struggling to free himself. "I owe him a
lot, and it isn't safe to hit him when he's not down. Oh, I say, don't;
you're hurting me."
"Serve you right. Come away."
"Here, boys, help!" cried Tomlins, making a grimace. "Convict's setting
up for--Ah!"
He did not have time to finish his sentence, for Nic caught him sharply
by the shoulders and gave him an angry shake.
"If you say that again, I'll serve you worse than Green did. No, I
won't;" he said in repentance. "There, go on back."
The boy was silenced, and in a startled way joined his schoolfellows,
while Nic once more went close up to Green.
"Let me help you up," he said. "Here, shake hands, Green. It was only
a fight, and you might have won."
There was no answer, and Nic took his adversary by the arm, half forcing
him to rise; but Green did not turn his head, nor raise his face to gaze
in that before him, though he unresistingly allowed himself to be helped
along the side of the hedge, so as to reach the lane that led to the
high road and the village, at one end of which the park-like grounds of
the doctor's establishment stood.
"He'll come round soon," thought Nic. "He's sure to feel sore after
such a licking."
"I say, isn't old Convict a rum one," whispered one of the boys who had
been seconds.
"Well, he always was," said the other. "What do you mean?"
"Why giving Green a licking, and then going to help him like that."
The other boy looked at the battered pair, and let them pass on in
front, following afterwards with the others.
"It's the proper thing to do, isn't it?"
"Yes, with some fellows," said Tomlins, who was listening. "I should do
it to either of you chaps if I'd licked you."
The pair looked at each other and laughed.
"Hark at Mouse Tomlins," said one of them.
"Ah, you wait. I shall get bigger some day, and then I shall do just as
Convict Braydon does; but I shouldn't to old Green. You see if he don't
hit foul before long, and serve poor old Convict out."
"Don't you be so fond of calling him Convict; he doesn't like it," said
Braydon's second.
"Well, he shouldn't be a convict then," retorted the boy.
"And you shouldn't be a cocky, conceited little donkey," said the elder
boy.
"But I'm not," said the little fellow, laughing; and then wincing and
crying, "Oh, my leg!"
"And he's not a convict."
"But Gooseberry Green says his father is, and that he was sent over to
Botany Bay, and that's what makes poor old Braydon so mad."
"His father and mother are both out there somewhere, because Nic told me
so, and he says he's going out there some day; but his father can't be a
convict, or else he wouldn't be at a good school like this. It's all
Green's disagreeableness."
"I'm jolly glad he has got a licking," said the other, "though I
seconded him; but I wish he hadn't spoiled our afternoon. If Nic
Braydon would come too, I'd go and get into the Hurst. The doctor won't
be back for two hours safe, and he's sure not to send for us till eight
o'clock. Let's get him to come."
"Well, you ask him."
The boy hurried on and overtook the adversaries.
"Here, Nic Braydon, let him go on by himself. We're going to finish the
afternoon together. We don't see any fun in going back yet."
Nic turned his face to his companion, who burst out laughing--a laugh in
which he was joined by the others as they came up, Tomlins being the
most facetious.
"I say, look at his open eye," cried the little fellow, "and the crack
on his lip. I say, don't laugh, Nic; it'll hurt. Don't he look like
enjoying himself!"
"Be quiet, Tomlins!" cried Nic's second.
"All right; I've done."
"I say, will you come, Nic?"
"No; I'm going to see Green back to the Friary."
"And then," cried Tomlins, "they're going to have a can of hot water and
sponge one another, and make friends and live happy ever after. I say,
wouldn't they both look nice in a glass case!"
Nic smiled in spite of himself; and went on back to the Friary, where
the man-servant also indulged in a grin as he saw the battered, pair,
who partook of their tea with pain, and looked thoroughly unpresentable
when at eight o'clock they were summoned to the doctor's study to be
lectured severely, Nic getting the greater part of the scolding, which
ended with the ominous words:
"I will say no more, Dominic Braydon, for I don't like to come hastily
to decisions; but I am afraid that I shall be forced to expel so
evil-tempered, virulent, and quarrelsome a boy. Now retire, sir, to
your dormitory. I will see you after breakfast in the morning."
Nic went slowly up to the room he shared with Tomlins and the boy who
had been his second, feeling that the doctor was cruelly unjust in
refusing to listen to explanations which he had on his side been
extremely unwilling to make.
"Nobody seems to understand me," he said to himself; "convict, always
convict. And, suppose I am expelled, what shall I do? what will my
father say? It seems sometimes more than I can bear;" and for hours
that night he lay awake, feeling no bodily pains in the fiercer ones of
the mind, and always dwelling upon his position--quite alone in England,
with father, mother, and sisters at the other side of the world, at a
time, too, when it might take a year for a letter sent to bring back its
answer; so that it was getting far on toward the early dawn when he
ceased thinking about the far-away land of the convict and kangaroo, and
went off fast asleep.