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."