“Fair laughs the morn, and soft the zephyr blows,
While proudly riding o'er the azure realm,
In gallant trim the gilded vessel goes,
Youth on the prow, and pleasure at the helm.”
--Gray's Bard.
“Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn?”
--Henry IV.
THE dinner passed off heavily; every attempt to keep up a continued
conversation failed entirely; and a general feeling of relief was
experienced when the time arrived for us to retire to the pupils' room.
Even here, however, the state of things was not much better. Lawless
and the others having in vain attempted to learn more of the affair from
Oaklands and myself than we felt at liberty to tell them, lounged over a
book, or dozed by the fire; whilst we, unable to converse on the subject
which alone engrossed our thoughts, and disinclined to do so upon any
other, were fain to follow their example. About half-past eight Dr.
Mildman and Cumberland returned, and, after dinner, which was served
to them in the Doctor's study, Cumberland retired to his room, where
he remained during the rest of the evening. Oaklands then received a
summons from the Doctor, and, on his return, informed us that (as we had
already heard) Cumberland was to be expelled. He added that Dr. Mildman
intended to take him to town himself the next morning, as he was anxious
to see Cumberland's uncle, who was also his guardian: he would probably,
therefore, not return till the following day, in consequence of which
we should have a whole holiday, and he trusted to us to spend it in a
proper manner, which, as Coleman remarked, proved that he was of a very
confiding disposition indeed, and no mistake.
When we went up to bed Oaklands beckoned me into his room, and, as
soon as he had closed the door, gave me an account (having obtained Dr.
Mildman's permission to do so) of the interview with Spicer. They found
him, it seemed, at his lodgings, preparing for his departure. At first
he took a very high tone, denied the whole thing, and was extremely
blustering and impertinent; but on being confronted with Cumberland, and
~94~~threatened by Dr. Mildman's legal friend with the terrors of the
law, he became thoroughly crestfallen, restored the three-hundred-pound
cheque, and consented, on the payment of fifty pounds, in addition to
the fifty pounds he had already received, to give up all claims upon
Cumberland, whereupon they paid him the money down, made him sign a
paper to the above effect, and left him.
“And so, my dear Frank,” said Oaklands, “there is an end of that affair,
and, if it only produces as much effect upon Cumberland as it has
produced upon me, it will read him a lesson he will not forget for many
a long day. I blame myself excessively,” he continued, “for my own share
in this matter; if it had not been for my easy, careless way of going
on, this scheme would never have been thought of--nay, I might, perhaps,
have been able to rescue Cumberland from the hands of this sharper; but
in this manner we neglect the opportunities afforded us of doing good,
and--Frank,” he continued, with a sudden burst of energy, “I will cure
myself of this abominable indolence.” He paused for some minutes in
thought, and then added, “Well, I must not stand here raving at you any
longer; it is getting very late: goodnight, old fellow! I shall be
glad enough to tumble into bed, for I'm as tired as a dog: it really is
astonishing how easily I am knocked up.”
The absurdity of this remark, following upon the resolution he had
expressed with so much energy but a minute before, struck us both at the
same instant, and occasioned a fit of laughter, which we did not check
till we recollected with what dissonance any approach to mirth must
strike the ear of the prisoner (for such he was in fact, if not in name)
in the adjoining apartment.
“Now, sir; come, Mr. Fairlegh, you'll be late for breakfast,” were the
first sounds that reached my understanding on the following morning:
I say understanding, as I had heard, mixed up with my dreams, sundry
noises produced by unclosing shutters, arranging water-jugs, etc., which
appeared to my sleep-bewildered senses to have been going on for at
least half an hour. My faculties not being sufficiently aroused to
enable me to speak, Thomas continued, “You'll be late, Mr. Fairlegh”;
then came an aside, “My wig, how he do sleep! I hope he ain't been
a-taking lauddelum, or morpheus, or anything of a somnambulous natur. I
wouldn't be master, always to have six boys a weighing on my mind, for
all the wealth of the Ingies.--Mr. Fairlegh, I say!”
“There, don't make such a row,” replied I, jumping ~95~~out of bed and
making a dash at my clothes; “is it late?”
“Jest nine o'clock, sir; master and Mr. Cumberland's been gone these two
hours. Shocking affair that, sir; it always gives me quite a turn when
any of our gents is expelled: it's like being thrown out of place at a
minute's warning, as I said to cook only this morning. 'Cook,' says I,
'life's a curious thing,' there's----”
“The breakfast bell ringing, by all that's unlucky,” exclaimed I; and
downstairs I ran, with one arm in, and one out of my jacket, leaving
Thomas to conclude his speculations on the mutability of human affairs
as he best might, solus.
“How are we going to kill time to-day?” inquired Oaklands, as soon as we
had done breakfast.
“We mustn't do anything to outrage the proprieties,” said Coleman;
“remember we are on _parole d'honneur_.”
“On a fiddlestick,” interrupted Lawless; “let's all ride over to
the Duke of York, at Bradford, shoot some pigeons, have a champagne
breakfast, and be home again in time for the old woman's feed at five
o'clock. I daresay I can pick up one or two fellows to go with us.”
“No,” said Oaklands, “that sort of thing won't do to-day. I quite agree
with Freddy, we ought not to do anything to annoy the Doctor upon this
occasion; come, Lawless, I'm sure you'll say so too, if you give it a
moment's thought.”
“Well, he's a good old fellow in his way, I know, but what are we to be
at then? something I must do, if it's only to keep me out of mischief.”
“It's a lovely day; let us hire a boat, and have a row,” suggested
Coleman.
“That's not against the laws, is it?” asked Oaklands.
“Not a bit,” replied Coleman; “we used to go pulling about like bricks
last summer, and Mildman rather approved of it than otherwise, and said
it was a very healthy exercise.”
“Yes, that will do,” said Lawless; “I feel savage this morning, and
a good pull will take it out of me as well as anything. Now, don't go
wasting time; let's get ready, and be off;” and accordingly in less than
half an hour we were prepared, and on our way to the beach.
“How are we going to do it?” inquired Lawless; “you'll take an oar,
Oaklands?”
Oaklands replied in the affirmative.
“Can you row, Fairlegh?”
I answered that I could a little.
~96~~“That will do famously, then,” said Lawless; “we'll have a
four-oar; Wilson has a capital little boat that will be just the thing;
Freddy can steer, he's a very fair hand at it, and we four fellows will
pull, so that we need not be bothered with a boatman. I do abominate
those chaps, they are such a set of humbugs.”
No objection was made to this plan. Lawless succeeded in getting the
boat he wished for; it was launched without any misadventure, and we
took our places, and began pulling away merrily, with the wind (what
little there was) and tide both in our favour.
The morning was beautiful: it was one of those enjoyable days, which
sometimes occur in early spring, in which Nature, seeming to overleap
at a bound the barrier between winter and summer, gives us a delightful
foretaste of the good things she has in store for us. The clear bright
sea, its surface just ruffled by a slight breeze from the south-west,
sparkled in the sunshine, and fell in diamond showers from our oars as
we raised them out of the water, while the calm serenity of the deep
blue sky above us appeared, indeed, a fitting emblem of that heaven, in
which “the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest”.
The peaceful beauty of the scene seemed to impress even the restless
spirits of which our little party was composed, and, by common consent,
we ceased rowing, and suffered the boat to drift with the tide, merely
pulling a stroke now and then to keep her head in the right direction.
After drifting for some twenty minutes or so in the manner I have
described Lawless, who never could remain quiet long, dropped the
blade of his oar into the water with a splash that made us all start,
exclaiming as he did so:--
“Well, this may be very sentimental and romantic, and all that sort of
thing, but it doesn't strike me as particularly entertaining. Why, you
fellows were all asleep, I believe.”
“Heigho!” exclaimed Oaklands, rousing himself, with a deep sigh, “I was
in such a delicious reverie; what a barbarian you are, Lawless! you seem
utterly ignorant of the pleasures of the _dolce-far-niente_.”
“_Dolce-far-devilskin_!” was the reply, in tones of the greatest
contempt. “I would not be as lazy as you are, Oaklands, for any money.
You are fitter to lounge about in some old woman's drawing-room, than to
handle an oar.” “Well, I don't know,” answered Oaklands, quietly, “but I
think I can pull as long as you can.”
~97~~“You do, do you?” rejoined Lawless, “it will be odd to me, if you
can. I don't think I was stroke-oar in the crack boat at Eton for a
year, without knowing how to row a little; what do you say to having a
try at once?”
“With all my heart,” replied Oaklands, divesting himself of his
waistcoat, braces, and neckcloth--which latter article he braced tightly
round his waist--an example speedily followed by Lawless, who exclaimed,
as he completed his preparations:--
“Now, you young shavers, pull in your oars, and we'll give you a ride,
all free, gratis, for nothing”.
Mullins and I hastened to comply with Lawless's directions, by placing
the oars and seating ourselves so as not to interfere with the trim of
the boat; while he and Oaklands, each taking a firm grasp of his oar,
commenced pulling away in real earnest. They were more evenly matched
than may be at first imagined, for Lawless, though much shorter than
Oaklands, was very square-built and broad about the shoulders, and his
arms, which were unusually long in proportion to his height, presented a
remarkable development of muscle, while it was evident, from the manner
in which he handled his oar, that he was the more practised rower of the
two. The boat, urged by their powerful strokes, appeared to fly through
the water, while cliff and headland (we were rowing along shore about
half a mile from the beach) came in view and disappeared again like
scenes in some moving panorama. We must now have proceeded some miles,
yet still the rival champions continued their exertions with unabated
energy and a degree of strength that seemed inexhaustible. Greatly
interested in the event, I had at first watched the contending parties
with anxious attention, but, perceiving that the efforts they were
making did not produce any visible effects upon them, and that the
struggle was likely to be a protracted one, I took advantage of the
opportunity to open a letter from my sister, which I had received just
as I was leaving the house. I was sorry to find, on perusing it, that my
father had been suffering from an inflammatory attack, brought on by
a cold which he had caught in returning from a visit to a sick
parishioner, through a pouring rain. A postscript from my mother,
however, added that I need not make myself in the least uneasy, as the
apothecary assured her that my father was going on as well as possible,
and would probably be quite restored in the course of a week or so. On
observing the date of the letter I found I ought to have received it the
day before. Arguing from this (on the “no-news-being-good-news” system)
~98~~that I should have heard again if anything had gone wrong, I
dismissed the subject from my mind, and was reading Fanny's account of
a juvenile party she had been at in the neighbourhood, when my attention
was roused by Coleman, who, laying his hand on my shoulder, said:
“Look out, Frank, it won't be long now before we shall see who's best
man; the work's beginning to tell”.
Thus invoked, I raised my eyes, and perceived that a change had come
over the aspect of affairs while I had been engaged with my letter.
Oaklands and Lawless were still rowing with the greatest energy, but it
appeared to me that their strokes were drawn with less and less vigour
each succeeding time, while their flushed faces, and heavy breathing,
proved that the severe labour they had undergone had not been without
its effect. The only visible difference between them was, that Lawless,
from his superior training, had not, as a jocky would say, “turned
a hair,” while the perspiration hung in big drops upon the brow of
Oaklands, and the knotted, swollen veins of his hands stood out like
tightly strained cordage.
“Hold hard!” shouted Lawless. “I say, Harry,” he continued, as soon as
they left off rowing, “how are you getting on?”
“I have been cooler in my life,” replied Oaklands, wiping his face with
his handkerchief.
“Well, I think it's about a drawn battle,” said Lawless; “though I am
free to confess, that if you were in proper training, I should be no
match for you, even with the oar.”
“What made you stop just then?” inquired Oaklands; “I'm sure I could
have kept on for a quarter of an hour longer, if not more.”
“So could I,” replied Lawless, “ay, or for half an hour, if I had been
put to it; but I felt the work was beginning to tell, I saw you were
getting used up, and I recollected that we should have to row back with
the wind against us, which, as the breeze is freshening, will be no such
easy matter; so I thought if we went on till we were both done up we
should be in a regular fix.”
“It's lucky you remembered it,” said Oaklands; “I was so excited, I
should have gone on pulling as long as I could have held an oar; we
must be some distance from Helmstone by this time. Have you any idea
whereabouts we are?”
“Let's have a look,” rejoined Lawless. “Yes, that tall cliff you see
there is the Nag's Head, and in the little bay ~99~~beyond stands the
village of Fisherton. I vote we go ashore there, have some bread and
cheese, and a draught of porter at the inn, and then we shall be able to
pull back again twice as well.”
This proposal seemed to afford general satisfaction; Mullins and
I resumed our oars, and, in less than half an hour, we were safely
ensconced in the sanded parlour of the Dolphin, while the pretty
bar-maid, upon whom also devolved the duties of waitress, hastened to
place before us a smoking dish of eggs and bacon, which we had chosen
in preference to red herrings--the only other dainty the Dolphin had
to offer us--Coleman observing that a “hard roe” was the only part of a
herring worth eating, and we had had that already, as we came along.
“I say, my dear, have you got any bottled porter?” inquired Lawless.
“Yes, sir, and very good it is,” replied the smiling damsel.
“That's a blessing,” observed Coleman, piously.
“Bring us up a lot of it, my beauty,” resumed Lawless, “and some pewter
pots--porter's twice as good out of its own native pewter.”
Thus exhorted, the blooming waitress tripped off, and soon returned with
a basket containing six bottles of porter.
“That's the time of day,” said Lawless; “now for a corkscrew, pretty
one; here you are, Oaklands.”
“I must own that is capital, after such hard work as we have been
doing,” observed Oaklands, as he emptied the pewter pot at a draught.
“I say, Mary,” asked Coleman, “what's gone of that young man that used
to keep company along with you--that nice young chap, that had such
insinivatin ways with him?”
“I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about, sir; I've nothink to
say to no young man whatsumever,” replied the damsel addressed, shaking
her curls coquettishly.
“Ah!” sighed Coleman, “if I were but single now.”
“Why, you never mean to say you've got a wife already, such a very young
gentleman as you are?”
“Not only that, but a small family with a large appetite,” continued
Coleman, pathetically.
“Well, I never,” exclaimed the bar-maid, surprised, for once, out of
her company manners; then, observing a smile, at her expense, going the
round of the party, she added, “I see how it is; you are making fun
of me, sir; ~100~~oh, fie, you're a wicked young gentleman, I know you
are.”
“Never mind him, my dear,” said Lawless, “but give me another bottle of
porter.”
In converse such as this the meal and the half-dozen of porter were
finished; in addition to which Lawless chose to have a glass of
brandy-and-water and a cigar. Having been rendered unusually hungry by
the sea air and the unaccustomed exercise of rowing, I had both eaten
and drunk more than I was in the habit of doing, to which cause may be
attributed my falling into a doze; an example which, I have every reason
to believe, was followed by most of the others. I know not how long my
nap had lasted, when I was aroused by hearing Coleman exclaim:--
“Why I think it rains! Lawless, wake up! I don't much like the look of
the weather.”
“What's the row?” inquired Lawless, leisurely removing his legs from the
table on which they had been resting, and walking to the window--a feat,
by the way, he did not perform quite as steadily as usual. “By Jove!”
he continued, “the wind's blowing great guns; we must look sharp, and be
off--we shall have the sea getting up.”
Accordingly, the bill was rung for and paid; Mary received half a
crown and a kiss from Lawless, and down we ran to the beach, where
difficulties we were little prepared for awaited us.