The Reverend Nicholas Bowen, D.D., headmaster of Saint Kirwin's, ruled
that institution with a sway that was absolutely and entirely despotic.
His aim was to model it on the lines of the greater public schools as
much as possible, and to this end his assistant staff were nearly all
university graduates, and more than half of them in Holy Orders. He was
a great believer in the prefectorial system, and those of the school
selected to carry it out were entrusted with large powers. On the other
hand, they were held mercilessly responsible even for unconscious
failures of duty, and on this ground alone the luckless Haviland had
ample cause for his misgivings.
The outward aspect, too, of the Doctor was eminently calculated to
command the respect of his juvenile kingdom. He was very tall and
strongly built, and half a lifetime of pedagogic despotism had endowed
him with a sternness of demeanour awe-inspiring enough to his charges,
though when turned towards the outside world, as represented by his
clerical colleagues for instance, it smacked of a pomposity bordering on
the absurd. He had his genial side, however, and was not averse to the
cracking of pedagogic jokes, at which he expected the form to laugh. It
is almost unnecessary to add that the form never by any chance
disappointed him.
To-day, however, no trace of such geniality was discernible, nothing but
a magisterial severity in every movement of the massive iron grey head,
a menace in the fierce brown eyes, as in a word, sounding like the
warning bark of an angry mastiff, he ordered the whole school to keep
their places. The whole school did so, and that with a thrill of
pleasurable excitement. There was no end of a row on, it decided, and
as it only concerned the one who was standing alone before the dread
presence, the residue prepared to enjoy the situation.
It was the more enjoyable to the vast majority of the spectators because
the delinquent was a prefect, and not a very popular one at that.
"Have you any further report to make, Haviland?" said the headmaster.
"No, sir," answered Haviland in genuine surprise, for he had made his
reports, all in order, his own roll, and the general report as prefect
of the week. Yet he didn't like the tone. It sounded ominous.
"Ah! Let Finch and Harris step forward."
Two quaking juniors slunk from their places, and stood in the awful
presence. The crime charged against the luckless pair was that of
trespass. The system of "bounds" did not exist at Saint Kirwin's,
though there were limits of time, such being constituted by frequent
callings-over. Otherwise the school could wander as it listed, the
longest stretch obtainable being about an hour and three-quarters.
There had, however, been a good many complaints of late with regard to
boys overrunning the neighbouring pheasant coverts in search of birds'
nests, for egg-collecting had many enthusiastic votaries in the school,
and now these two luckless ones, Finch and Harris, had been collared
red-handed that very afternoon by a stalwart keeper, and hauled straight
away to the Doctor.
But where did Haviland come in? Just this way. In the course of a
severe cross-examination in private, the headmaster had elicited from
the two frightened juniors that when emerging from some forbidden ground
they had seen Haviland under circumstances which rendered it impossible
that he should not have seen them. It is only fair to the two that they
hardly knew themselves how the information had been surprised out of
them--certain it was that no other master could have done it--only the
terrible Doctor. It had been ruled of late, by reason of the frequency
of such complaints, that all cases of trespass on preserved land should
be reported, instead of being dealt with as ordinary misdemeanours by
the prefects; and here was a most flagrant instance of breach of trust
on the part of one of the latter. As for Haviland, the game was all up,
he decided. He would be deprived of his official position, and its
great and material privileges, and be reduced to the ranks. He expected
nothing less.
"Now, Haviland," said the Doctor, "how is it you did not report these
boys?"
"I ought to have, sir," was the answer.
"You ought to have," echoed the Doctor, his voice assuming its most
awe-inspiring tones. "And, did you intend to report them?"
Here was a loophole. Here was a chance held out to him. Why not grasp
it? At best he would get off with a severe wigging, at worst with an
imposition. It would only be a white lie after all, and surely under
the circumstances justifiable. The stern eyes of the headmaster seemed
to penetrate his brain, and every head was craned forward open-mouthed
for his answer. It came.
"I'm afraid I did not, sir."
"You are afraid you did not! Very well. Then there is no more to be
said." And the Doctor, bending down, was seen to be writing something
on a slip of paper--the while the whole school was on tenterhooks, but
the excitement was of a more thrilling nature than ever now. What would
be the upshot? was in every mind. A swishing of course. Not for
Haviland though; he was too old, and a prefect. He would be reduced.
Then the headmaster looked up and proceeded to pass sentence.
"These continual complaints on the part of the neighbours," he said,
"are becoming very serious indeed, and are getting the school a very bad
name. I am determined to put a stop to them, and indeed it is becoming
a grave question with me whether I shall not gate the whole school
during the remainder of the term. These two boys, who have been brought
up to me, represent a number of cases, I am afraid, wherein the
offenders escape undetected and unpunished: therefore I shall make a
severe example of them, and of any others in like case. And now a word
to the prefects."
A long, acrid, and bitter homily for the benefit of those officials
followed--the juniors listening with intense delight, not that the order
was especially unpopular, but simply the outcome of the glee of juvenile
human nature over those set in authority over it being rated and brought
to book in their turn. Then, having descanted on authority and trust,
and so forth, until every one of those officially endowed with such
responsibility began almost to wish they were not--with the exception
perhaps of the one who stood certain to be deprived of it--the
headmaster proceeded:
"Harris and Finch, I shall flog you both to-morrow morning after
divinity lesson, and I may add that any boy reported to me for the same
offence will certainly receive the same treatment. As for you,
Haviland," handing him the slip of paper on which he had been writing,
"you will post this upon the board. And I warn you that any further
dereliction of duty on your part brought to my notice will entail very
much more severe consequences."
Mechanically Haviland took the paper, containing of course the notice of
his suspension, and could hardly believe his eyes. This is what he
read:
"Haviland. Prefect.
"Fifteen hundred lines (of Virgil). For gross neglect of duty. Gated
till done.
"Nicholas Bowen, D.D., Headmaster."
The great bound of relief evolved by the respite of the heavier penalty
was succeeded in his mind by resentment and disgust as he realised the
magnitude of this really formidable imposition. The Doctor had left the
desk and the room, and now the whole gathering was pouring forth to the
outer air again. Not a few curious glances were turned on Haviland to
see how he took it: the two condemned juniors, however, being surrounded
by a far more boisterously sympathetic crowd--those who had been swished
before undertaking, with a hundredfold wealth of exaggeration, to
explain to these two, who had not, what it felt like, by way of
consolation.
"What's he given you, Hav?" said Medlicott, a fellow prefect, and rather
a chum of the principal victim's, looking over the notice. "That all!
You've got off cheap, I can tell you. We reckoned it meant suspension--
especially as Nick has a down on you."
"Nick," be it observed, was the inevitable name by which the redoubtable
headmaster was known among the boys. It had started as "Old Nick," but
the suggestion diabolical had been sacrificed to brevity.
"That all!" echoed Haviland wrathfully. "Fifteen hundred's a howling
stiff impos, Medlicott. And it really means two thou, for the old brute
always swears about a third of your stuff is so badly written you've got
to do it over again. It's a regulation time-honoured swindle of his.
And--just as the egg-season is getting at its best! It's too beastly
altogether."
Haviland was an enthusiastic egg-hunter, and had a really fine
collection. In the season he lived for nothing else, every moment of
his spare time being given up to adding to it. Of course he himself
frequently transgressed the laws of trespass, but he was never known to
bring a junior to book for doing so--on the contrary, he was always
careful to look the other way if he suspected the presence of any such.
Now, having fixed the hateful notice to the board nailed to the wall for
such purposes, he got out a Virgil and sat down to begin his odious
task. The big schoolroom was empty save for a few who were under like
penalty with himself. What a lovely afternoon it was, and he would have
had nearly an hour and a half, just time to go over and secure the two
remaining eggs in that sparrow-hawk's nest in the copse at the foot of
the down--a programme he had mapped out for himself before this grievous
misfortune had overtaken him. Now some other fellow would find them, or
they would be "set" and useless before he could get out again. "Gated
till done." Half the sting of the penalty lay in those abominable
words--for it meant that no foot could be set outside the school gates
until the whole of it was completed.
"I say, Haviland. We're no end sorry."
The interruption proceeded from the two smaller culprits, predestined to
the rod on the morrow. Haviland looked up wrathfully.
"Sorry, are you, you young sweeps? So am I--sorry I didn't `sock' your
heads off."
"Please, Haviland, can't we do your impos for you--or at any rate some
of it?"
"D'you think Old Nick's such an ass as all that? Why, he'd spot the
fraud a mile off! Besides, remember what he said about breach of trust
and all that. He'd better keep that for chapel next Sunday," he added
sneeringly. "Look here, you youngsters, you'll be well swished
to-morrow, a round dozen at least, and you'd better toss for second
innings, because then Nick'll be getting tired--but anyway you're not
gated and I am. Will you go and take a nest for me?"
"Rather. Where is it?" chorussed both boys eagerly.
"Smallest of the two tree patches, foot of Sidebury Down.
Sparrow-hawk's--in an ivy-hung ash. It's quite an easy climb. You
can't miss it, and there should be two eggs left in it. I collared two
a couple of days back, and put in stones. You won't get pickled for it
any more either, because it isn't on preserved ground. You'll have to
run all the way though."
They promised, and were off like a shot, and it is only fair to say that
they brought back the spoil, and duly and loyally handed it over to its
legitimate claimant.
Left to himself, Haviland set to work with an effort. After a hundred
of the lines he flung his pen down angrily.
"Hang it, I hate this beastly place," he muttered to himself. "I don't
care how soon I leave."
This was not strictly true. He liked the school and its life, in
reality more than he was aware of himself. He was always glad to get
back to it, for his home life was unattractive. He was the son of an
extremely conscientious but very overworked and very underpaid parson,
the vicar of a large and shabby-genteel suburban parish, and the fresh,
healthy, beautiful surroundings of Saint Kirwin's all unconsciously had
their effect upon his impressionable young mind, after the glaring
dustiness, or rain-sodden mud according to the season of the year--of
the said suburb. He was a good-looking lad of seventeen, well-grown for
his age, and seeming older, yet thus early somewhat soured, by reason of
the already felt narrowing effects of poverty, and an utter lack of
anything definite in the way of prospects; for he had no more idea of
what his future walk in life was to be than the man in the moon.
And so he sat, that lovely cloudless half-holiday afternoon, grinding
out his treadmill-like imposition, angrily, rebelliously, his one and
only thought to get that over as soon as possible.