Mind you, if it’s interesting to watch any ordinary person come a
howler, what must it be to see your own head-master do it? A “howler,”
of course, is the same as a “cropper,” and you can come one at cricket
or football or in class or in everyday life.
Dr. Dunston’s howler was a most complicated sort, and I had the luck to
be one of the chaps who witnessed him come it. Of course, to see any
master make a tremendous mistake is good; but when you are dealing with
a man almost totally bald and sixty-two years of age the affair has a
solemn side, especially owing to his being a Rev. and a D.D. In fact,
Slade, who was with me, said the spectacle reminded him of the depths of
woe beggars got into in Greek tragedies, which often wanted half a dozen
gods to lug them out of. But no gods troubled themselves about Dunston;
and it really was a bit awful looked at from his point of view; because
it’s beastly to give yourself away to kids at the best of times; and no
doubt to him all of us are more or less as kids, even the Sixth.
He often had a way of bringing the parents of a possible new boy through
one or two of the big class-rooms and the chapel of Merivale, just to
show what a swagger place it was. Then we all bucked up like mad, and
the masters bucked up too, and gave their gowns a hitch round and their
mortar-boards a cock up, and made more noise and put on more side
generally, just to add to the splendor of the scene from the point of
view of the parents of the possible new boy.
Sometimes the affair was rather spoiled by an aunt or mother or some
woman or other asking the Doctor homely sort of questions about sanitary
arrangements or prayers; then to see old Dunston making long-winded
replies and getting even the drains to sound majestic was fine. His
manner varied according to the people who came over the school.
Sometimes, if it only happened to be a guardian or a lawyer, he was
short and stern. Then he just swept along, calling attention to the
ventilation and discipline, and looking at the chaps as if they were
dried specimens in a museum; but with fathers or women he had a playful
mood and an expression known as the “parent-smile.” To mothers he never
talked about “pupils,” but called the whole shoot of us “his lads,” and
beamed and fluttered his gown, like a hen with chickens flutters its
wings. The masters always copied him, and to see that little brute
Browne trying to flutter over the kids like a hen when the Doctor came
into his class-room was a ghastly sight, knowing him as we did. Also the
Doctor would often pat a youngster on the head and beam at him. He
generally singled Corkey minimus out for patting and beaming; and Corkey
minor said the irony of it was pretty frightful, considering that Corkey
minimus, for different reasons, got licked oftener by the Doctor than
almost any chap in the Lower School.
Well, one day in came the Doctor to the school-room of the Fourth. I’m
in the Sixth myself, and a personal chum of Slade’s, the head of the
school; but I happened to have gone to the Fourth with a message, so I
saw what happened. A very big man who puffed out his chest like a pigeon
followed the Doctor. He had a blue tie on with a jolly bright diamond in
it, and there were small purple veins in a regular network over his
cheeks, and his mustache was yellowish-gray and waxed out as sharp as
pins. A lady followed him with red rims to her little eyes and gold
things hanging about her chest. The Doctor, being all arched up and
rolled round from the small of the back like a wood-louse, seemed to
show they were parents of perhaps more fellows than one. The big chap
wore an eye-glass and spoke very loud, and was jolly pleasant.
“Ah!” he said, “and this is where the little boys work, eh? I expect,
now, my youngster will be drafted in among these small men, Doctor
Dunston?”
“It is very possible--nay, probable in the highest degree, my lord,”
said the Doctor. “We are now,” he continued, “in the presence of the
Fourth and Lower Fourth. The class-room is spacious, as you see, and
new. A commanding panorama of the surrounding country and our
playing-fields may be enjoyed from the French windows. If two of you
lads will move that black-board from there, Lord Golightly may be able
to see something of the prospect.”
Two of the kids promptly knocked down the black-board nearly onto the
purple-veined lord’s head. Then suddenly the lady called out and
attracted his attention. Looking round, we found she had got awfully
excited, and stood pointing straight at young Tomlin. He was a mere kid,
at the extreme bottom of the Lower Fourth; but he happened to be my fag,
so I was interested. She pointed at him, in the most frantic way, with a
hand in a browny-yellow glove, and a gold bracelet outside the glove and
a little watch let into the bracelet.
“Good gracious!” she said, “do look Ralph! What an astounding
resemblance! Whoever is that boy?”
Tomlin turned rather red in the gills, which was natural.
“Do you know the lad?” asked the Doctor.
“Never saw him before in my life; but I hope he’ll forgive me for being
so rude as to point at him in that way,” she said. “He’s exactly like
our dear Carlo; they might be twins.”
Tomlin thought she meant a pet dog, and got rather rum to look at.
“Carlo is our son, you know,” explained the lord.
“Singular coincidence,” answered Doctor Dunston, not looking very keen
about it. In fact, he wasn’t too fond of Tomlin at any time, and seemed
sorry he should be dragged in now. But the kid was a very tidy sort,
really--Captain of the Third Footer Eleven and a good runner. He
happened to be the son of a big London hatter who had a shop of enormous
dimensions in Bond Street; and the Doctor was said to get his own hats
there; yet he didn’t like Tomlin.
Tomlin went out into the open, and the purple-veined lord shook hands
with him, and the lord’s wife stood him in the light and turned him
round to catch different expressions. Then they admitted that the
likeness was really most wonderful, and they both hoped Tomlin and Carlo
would be great friends. Tomlin, told by the Doctor to answer, stood on
one leg, twisted his arms in a curious way he’s got when nervous, and
said he hoped they might be; but he said it as though he knew jolly well
they wouldn’t.
Then the lord and the lady cleared out, and a week later Carlo came. His
real name was Westonleigh, and he was a viscount or something, being
eldest son of an earl; but we called him Carlo, and he grew jolly waxy
when he found his nickname had got to Merivale before him. He fancied
himself to a most hideous extent for a kid of nine, and explained he’d
only come for a year or so before going to Eton. He went into the Lower
Fourth, so Tomlin ceased to be at the bottom of that class.
The likeness between Carlo and my fag was really most peculiar. It must
have been for Carlo’s own mother to see it; but when Carlo heard that
Tomlin would be a hatter in the course of years he refused to have
anything to do with him. And Tomlin loathed Carlo, too, from the start;
so instead of being chums according to the wish of the purple-veined
lord, they hated one another, and the first licking of any importance
which Carlo got he had from Tomlin.
The chap was a failure all round, and it’s no good saying he wasn’t.
Everybody saw it but Doctor Dunston, and he wouldn’t. Carlo proved to be
a sneak and a liar of the deepest sort--not to masters, but to the
chaps; and he was also jolly cruel to animals, and very much liked to
torture things that couldn’t hit him back, such as mice and insects. He
had a square face and snubby nose, and a voice and eyes exactly similar
to Tomlin’s; but there was no likeness in their characters, Tomlin being
a very decent kid, as I have said. Fellows barred Carlo all round, and
he only had one real chum in the miserable shape of Fowle. Fowle sucked
up to him and listened for hours about his ancestors, and buttered him
at all times, hoping, of course, that some day he would get asked to
Carlo’s father’s castle in the holidays. I may also note Carlo never
played games, excepting tossing behind the gymnasium for half-pennies
with Fowle and Steggles, Steggles, of course, winning.
Happening one day to go down through the playground, young Tomlin saw
Westonleigh near a little fir-tree which grew at the top of the
drill-ground. He was alone, and seemed to be doing something queer, so
Tomlin stopped and went over.
“What are you up to?” he said.
“Frying ants,” said Carlo, “though it’s no business of yours. You see,
there’s turpentine juice come out of this tree where I cut it yesterday,
and you can stick the ants in it, then fry them to a cinder with a
burning-glass, like this.”
“That’s what you’re doing?”
“It is.”
“Don’t you think you’re rather a little beast?”
“What d’ you mean, hatter?”
“I mean I’m going to kick you for being such a cruel beast.”
They stood the same height to an inch and were the same age, so it was a
perfectly sportsman-like thing for Tomlin to offer.
“You seem to forget who you’re talking to,” said Carlo.
“No, I don’t--no chance of that. Your ancestors came over with William
the Conqueror--carried his portmanteau, I expect, then cleared out when
the fighting came on. Yes, and another ancestor stabbed a friend of Wat
Tyler’s when he was face down on the ground, after somebody else had
knocked him over. That’s what you are, ant-fryer.”
“I’ll thank you to let me pass,” said Carlo. “I’m not accustomed to
talking to people like you, and if you think I’m going to fight with a
future hatter you’re wrong.”
“Then you can put your tail between your legs and swallow this,” said
Tomlin, and he went on and licked Carlo pretty well. He also broke his
burning-glass.
“You’ll live to be sorry for this all your life!” yelled out Carlo, when
Tomlin let him get up off some broken flower-pots on the drill-ground.
“I’ll never forget it; I’ll get my father to make old Dunston expel you;
and when I’m a man I’ll devote all my time to wrecking your vile hat
business and ruining you and making you a shivering, starving beggar in
the streets!”
“Go and sneak, I should,” said Tomlin.
And blessed if Carlo didn’t! He tore straight off to the Doctor just as
he was, in his licked condition.
That much I heard from my fag, young Tomlin, but the rest I saw for
myself, as the Sixth happened to be before the Doctor in his study when
Carlo arrived. He was white and muddy, and slightly bloody and panting;
he looked jolly wicked, and his collar had carried away from the stud,
and his trousers were torn behind.
“My good lad, whatever has happened?” began the Doctor. “Don’t say you
have met with an accident? And yet your appearance--”
“Nothing of the sort,” said Carlo, who soon found out the Doctor had a
weak place for him, owing to his being a lord’s son. “I’ve been
frightfully and cruelly mangled through no fault of my own; and I
believe some things inside me are broken too.”
“Sit down, sit down, my unfortunate lad,” said the Doctor. Then he rang
the bell and told the butler to bring Viscount Westonleigh a glass of
wine at once.
“It’s Tomlin done it,” said Carlo. “He came up behind me, and, before I
could defend myself, he trampled on me and tried to tear me limb from
limb. I’m not strong, and I may die of it. Anyway, he ought to be
expelled, and I’ll write to my father, the earl, about it, and he’ll
make the whole country-side resound if Tomlin isn’t sent away and his
character ruined.”
“Hush, Westonleigh!” said the Doctor. “Have no fear that justice will
not be done, my boy. You shall yourself accuse Tomlin and hear what he
may have to say in defence.”
Then Tomlin was sent for, and in about ten minutes came.
“Is this true, boy Tomlin?” said the Doctor, putting on his big manner.
“One glance at your victim,” he continued, “furnishes a more conclusive
reply to my question than could any word of yours; nevertheless, I
desire to hear from your own lips whether Viscount Westonleigh’s
assertions are true or not.”
“Don’t know what he’s asserted, sir,” said Tomlin, which was a smart
thing for a kid to say. “If he said I’ve licked him, it’s true, sir.”
“That is what he _did_ assert, sir, in words chosen with greater regard
for my feelings than your own. And are you aware, George Tomlin, that
you have ‘licked’ one who, in the ordinary course of nature, and subject
to the will of an all-just, all-seeing Providence, will some day take
his seat in the House of Lords?”
“I’ve heard him _say_ he will, sir,” answered Tomlin, as though no
statement of Carlo’s could be worth believing.
“Don’t answer in that offensive tone, boy,” answered the Doctor, his
voice rising to the pitch that always went before a flogging. “If your
stagnant sense of right cannot bring a blush to your cheek before the
spectacle of your scandalous achievement, it will be necessary for
me--for me, your head-master, sir--to quicken the blood in your veins
and bring a blush to the baser extremity of your person. Some learn
through the head, George Tomlin; some can only be approached through the
hide; and with the latter category you have long, unhappily, chosen to
throw in your lot.”
Tomlin said nothing, but looked at Carlo.
“Before proceeding, according to my custom, I shall hear both sides of
this question--_audi alteram partem_, George Tomlin. Now say what you
have to say; explain why your lamentable, your unholy, your aboriginal
passions led you to fall upon Viscount Westonleigh from behind--to take
him in the rear, sir, after the unmanly fashion of the North American
Indian or other primitive savage.”
“I didn’t take him in the rear at all, sir,” said Tomlin. “I stood right
up to him, and he said he wouldn’t fight a future hatter.”
“A very proper decision, too, sir--a natural and wise decision,”
declared the Doctor. “Why should the son of Lord Golightly imbue his
hand in the blood of--I will not say a future hatter, for I yield to no
man in my respect for your father, Tomlin, and his business is alike
honorable and necessary; but why should he fight anybody?”
“If he’s challenged he’s got to, sir, or else take a licking.”
“No flippancy, sir!” thundered the Doctor again. “Who are _you_ to
announce the laws which govern the society of Merivale? Shall it be
possible in a Christian land, at a Christian college for Christian lads,
to find infamous boys with tigrine instincts parading the fold for the
purpose of smiting when and where they will? This, sir, is the very
apotheosis of savagery!”
“I didn’t do it for nothing, sir,” said Tomlin. “I’m not going to sneak,
of course; but I--I licked Carlo for a jolly good reason, and he knows
what.”
“Don’t know anything of the sort,” declared Carlo. “You flew at me like
a wolf from behind.”
“That’s a good one,” answered Tomlin.
“Anybody can see you did from the state I’m in,” said Carlo.
“You two boys,” began the Doctor again, “though you know it not, stand
here before me as types of a great social movement, I may even say
upheaval. In the democratic age upon which we are now entering, we shall
find the Tomlins at war with the Westonleighs; we shall find the
Westonleighs disdaining to fight, and the Tomlins accordingly doing what
pleases them in their own brutal way. Now, here I find myself met with
statement and counter-statement. The indictment is all too clear against
you, boy Tomlin, for even the glass of old brown sherry which he has
just consumed fails to soothe your unfortunate victim’s nerve-centres.
He is still far from calm; his ganglions are yet vibrating. This work of
destruction was yours. You do not deny it, but you refuse any
explanation, making instead a vague and ambiguous reference to not
sneaking. No man hates the tale-bearer more than your head-master, sir,
but there are occasions when the school’s welfare and the protection of
our little commonwealth make it absolutely necessary that offences
should be reported to the ruler of that commonwealth. I have no
hesitation in saying that Westonleigh saw the present incident in this
light. He had no right to hush up the matter. Whatever his private
instincts towards mercy, his duty to his companions and to me, together
with a hereditary sense of justice and the fearless instincts of his
race, compelled him to come before me and report the presence of a young
garroter in our midst. I select the word, George Tomlin, and I say that,
having regard to the perverted, not to say inverted, sense of justice
and honor all too common among every community of boys, Westonleigh’s
act was a brave act. I accept his statement in its entirety;
consequently, Tomlin, you may join me this evening, at nine o’clock,
after prayers.”
That meant a flogging, and Tomlin said, “Yes, sir,” and hooked it; but
the wretched Carlo thought he was going to hear Tomlin expelled. He
burst out and said as much, and the Doctor started as if a serpent had
stung him, and told Carlo to control the instinct of revenge so common
to all human nature, and explained that chaps were not expelled for
trifles. He reminded Carlo that Tomlin had an immortal soul like
himself, and seemed to imply that being expelled from Merivale would
ruin a chap’s future in the next world as well as this one. Finally, he
allowed Carlo, in consideration of the dressing he had got, to stop in
the playground that afternoon with a book. So the little skunk crept
off, shattered ganglions and all, pretending to walk lame; while the
Doctor, evidently much bothered altogether, took up our work where he
had left it.
* * * * *
Tomlin got flogged all right, and there the matter ended, excepting that
a lot of fellows sent Carlo to Coventry and called him “ant-fryer” from
that day.
Then, within three weeks, came the Doctor’s howler, Steggles being
responsible. Steggles is a bit of a hound, but his cunning is wonderful.
As for the Doctor, he continued making much of Carlo and sitting on
Tomlin, till one day, going into chapel, he unexpectedly patted Tomlin
on the head. Tomlin was rather pleased, because he thought the Doctor
was relenting to him; but when Steggles heard of it he said:
“Why, you fool, he thought he was patting Westonleigh!”
Then, on an evening when Tomlin was cooking a sausage for me in the
Sixth’s class-room, he said:
“Please, I should like to speak to you, if I may.”
So I chucked work, and told him to say what he liked.
“It’s only to show how things go against a chap, no matter what he
does,” said the kid. “This term I have been flogged for licking Carlo,
and caned three times since for other things, which were more bad luck
than anything else; and now I’ll be flogged again to-morrow for absolute
certain.”
“Why?”
“Well, it’s a jolly muddle. You know Steggles?”
“Yes, you’re a fool to go about with him,” I said.
“Perhaps I was. Anyway, Steggles and me made a plot to get some of the
medlars from the tree on the lawn, and we minched out after dark to do
it. They’re simply allowed to fall and rot on the ground, which is a
waste of good tuck, Steggles says. We went out about ten o’clock last
night, past Browne’s study window; and we looked in from the shrubbery
to see the window open, and soda-water and whiskey and pipes on the
table; but no Browne, strange to say. Then we sneaked on, and Steggles
suddenly heard something and got funky, but I kept him going. We reached
the tree and Steggles lighted his bull’s-eye lantern, so as to collect
the medlars, when suddenly out from behind the tree itself rushed a man.
We hooked it like lightning, naturally, and I never saw Steggles go at
such a pace in my life, and he stuck to his lantern, too; but I tripped
and fell, and before I could get up the man had collared me. If you’ll
believe it, the man was Browne! He asked me who the other chap was, and
I said I couldn’t be quite sure; so he told me to go back to bed, which
I did. That was last night; and the one medlar we had time to get
Steggles had eaten before I got back, which shows what Steggles is.
To-day Browne will tell the Doctor. He always chooses the evening after
prayers, so that he can work the Doctor up with his stories and get a
chap flogged right away; because it often happens when Doctor Dunston
says he’ll flog a chap next day he doesn’t do it.”
“And what is Steggles going to do?”
“He says he is watching events. He also says that Browne was certainly
stealing the Doctor’s medlars himself, and really we surprised him, not
he us; but, of course, Steggles says it’s no good my telling the Doctor
that. Steggles also says that he’s got an idea which may come to
something. I don’t know; but he’s a very cute chap. I’ve got to keep out
of the way after prayers to-night, and Steggles is going to watch
Browne. He won’t tell me his plan. I thought once that perhaps he meant
giving himself up for me, and I asked him, and he said I ought to know
him better.”
Tomlin then cleared out, and as the Doctor took Slade and me for a short
Greek lesson every evening after prayers, because of special
examinations, I had the good luck to see the end of the business that
very night.
We’d just got to work by the Doctor’s green-shaded reading-lamp when
Browne came in with his grovelling way, pretending he was awfully sorry
for having to round on Tomlin, but that his duty gave him no option, and
so on.
“Last night,” he said, “I was sitting correcting exercises in my study
when I fancied I saw a form steal across the grass outside. Thinking
some vagabond might be in the grounds, I dashed out and followed as
quickly as possible. Presently I saw a light, and noted two figures
under the medlar-tree. Fearing they might be plotting against the house,
I went straight at them, and, to my astonishment, saw that they were
only boys. One darted away, and I failed to catch him; the other, I much
regret to say, was Tomlin.”
That is how Browne put the affair.
“Tomlin again!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Positively that boy’s behavior
passes the bounds of endurance.”
“Yes, taking the medlars of one who has always treated him as you have.
I couldn’t trust myself to speak to him. He’s a very disappointing boy.”
“He’s a disgraceful, degenerate, disreputable boy! I can forgive much;
but the stealing of fruit--and that _my_ fruit! Greediness, immorality,
ingratitude in the person of one outrageous lad! I thank you, Browne.
Yours was a zealous act, and argued courage of high order. Oblige me by
sending Tomlin hither at once. There shall be no delay.”
Browne hurried off to find the wretched Tomlin; and Doctor Dunston, who
always had to work up his feelings before flogging a chap, snorted like
a horse, and took off his glasses, and went to the corner behind the
book-case where canes and things were kept. He seemed to forget Slade
and me, so we sat tight in the gloom outside the radius of light thrown
by the green-shaded lamp, and waited with regret to see Tomlin catch it.
The Doctor talked to himself as he brought out a birch and swished it
through the air once or twice.
“Upon my soul,” he said, “Lord Golightly’s son was right. His knowledge
of character is remarkable in so young a lad. Tomlin will have to be
expelled; Tomlin must go; such consistent, such inherent depravity
appears ineradicable. Pruning is of no avail; the branch must be
sacrificed. My medlars under cover of darkness! And I would have given
them freely had he but asked!”
He evidently wasn’t going to expel Tomlin this time, but he meant doing
all he knew with the birch; and as Tomlin was some while coming, the
Doctor’s safety-valves were regularly humming before he turned up. When
he did come he walked boldly in; and the Doctor, who had been striding
up and down like a lion at the Zoo, didn’t wait for any remarks, but
just went straight for him, seized him by the nape of the neck, nipped
his hand round his back--in a way he did very neatly from long
practice--and began to administer about the hottest flogging he’d given
to any boy in his life.
“So--you--add--the--eighth--com--mand--ment--to--the--others--you--have--already--shattered--deplorable--boy!”
roared the Doctor, giving Tomlin one between each smack.
“You--would--purloin--steal--rob--the medlars--of your preceptor.
You would lead others--to--share--your--sin. You would
bring--tears--of--grief--to--a--good--mother’s--eyes!”
Here the Doctor stopped a moment for breath, but he still held on to
Tomlin, who, much to my surprise, wriggled about a good deal. In fact,
he shot out his legs over and over again at intervals, like a
grasshopper does when it gets into the water; and when he got a chance
he yelled back at the Doctor:
“It’s a lie--a filthy lie!” he shrieked out. “Beast--devil! Let me go!
Let me go! I never touched your rotten old medlars--oh!--oh!”
Then the Doctor went off again.
“Silence, miserable child! Cease your blasphemies.
Falsehood--will--not--save--you--now!”
“I never touched them, I tell you, you muddle-headed old beast! You’re
killing me, and my father’ll imprison you for life for it. I wish they
could hang you. I’ll make you smart for this if you only live till I
grow up--devil!”
But the Doctor had shot his bolt. He gave Tomlin a final smack, then
shook him off like a spider, picked up his mortar-board, which had
fallen off in the struggle, and put the birch in its place.
“Now go, and don’t speak another word, or I shall expel you, wretched
lad!”
Meantime Slade and I were fairly on the gasp, for from the time that
Tomlin, as we thought, had called the Doctor a devil we realized the
truth. Now his passion nearly choked him; he danced with pain and rage;
only when the Doctor took a stride towards him he opened the door and
hooked it.
The Doctor puffed and grunted like a traction-engine trying to get up a
hill.
“These are the black days in a head-master’s life, Slade,” he said.
“That misguided lad thinks that I enjoyed administering his punishment,
yet both mentally and physically the operation caused me far greater
suffering than it brought to him. I am wounded--wounded to the
heart--and the exertion causes and will cause me much discomfort for
hours to come, owing to its unusual severity. I may say that not for ten
years has it been necessary for me to flog a boy as I have just flogged
George Tomlin. Now let us proceed.”