opened. I ran out and caught sight of my aunt Dorothy, in company with
old Mr. Bannerbridge. I was kissed and hugged for I know not how long,
until the smell of Riversley took entire possession of me, and my old
home seemed nearer than the one I lived in; but my aunt, seeing tears on
my cheeks, asked me what was my cause of sorrow. In a moment I poured
out a flood of complaints against Mrs. Waddy for vexing my father. When
she heard of the scarlet livery, my aunt lifted her hands. 'The man is
near the end of his wits and his money together,' said Mr. Bannerbridge;
and she said to me, 'My darling Harry will come back to his own nice
little room, and see his grandpapa soon, won't you, my pet? All is ready
for him there as it used to be, except poor mama. "Kiss my boy, my
Harry--Harry Richmond." Those were her last words on her death-bed,
before she went to God, Harry, my own! There is Sampson the pony, and
Harry's dog Prince, and his lamb Daisy, grown a sheep, and the ploughboy,
Dick, with the big boots.' Much more sweet talk of the same current that
made my face cloudy and bright, and filled me with desire for Riversley,
to see my mother's grave and my friends.
Aunt Dorothy looked at me. 'Come now,' she said; 'come with me, Harry.'
Her trembling seized on me like a fire. I said, 'Yes,' though my heart
sank as if I had lost my father with the word. She caught me in her arms
tight, murmuring, 'And dry our tears and make our house laugh. Oh!
since the night that Harry went . . . . . And I am now Harry's mama, he
has me.'
I looked on her forehead for the wreath of white flowers my mother used
to wear, and thought of my father's letter with the prayer written on the
black-bordered page. I said I would go, but my joy in going was gone.
We were stopped in the doorway by Mrs. Waddy. Nothing would tempt her to
surrender me. Mr. Bannerbridge tried reasoning with her, and, as he
said, put the case, which seemed to have perched on his forefinger. He
talked of my prospects, of my sole chance of being educated morally and
virtuously as became the grandson of an English gentleman of a good old
family, and of my father having spent my mother's estate, and of the
danger of his doing so with mine, and of religious duty and the awfulness
of the position Mrs. Waddy stood in. He certainly subdued me to very
silent breathing, but did not affect me as my aunt Dorothy's picturing of
Riversley had done; and when Mrs. Waddy, reduced to an apparent
submissiveness, addressed me piteously, 'Master Richmond, would you leave
papa?' I cried out, 'No, no, never leave my papa,' and twisted away from
my aunt's keeping. My father's arrival caused me to be withdrawn, but I
heard his offer of his hospitality and all that was his; and subsequently
there was loud talking on his part. I was kissed by my aunt before she
went. She whispered, 'Come to us when you are free; think of us when you
pray.' She was full of tears. Mr. Bannerbridge patted my head.
The door closed on them and I thought it was a vision that had passed.
But now my father set my heart panting with questions as to the terrible
possibility of us two ever being separated. In some way he painted my
grandfather so black that I declared earnestly I would rather die than go
to Riversley; I would never utter the name of the place where there was
evil speaking of the one I loved dearest. 'Do not, my son,' he said
solemnly, 'or it parts us two.' I repeated after him, 'I am a Roy and
not a Beltham.' It was enough to hear that insult and shame had been
cast on him at Riversley for me to hate the name of the place. We cried
and then laughed together, and I must have delivered myself with amazing
eloquence, for my father held me at arms' length and said, 'Richie, the
notion of training you for a General commandership of the British army is
a good one, but if you have got the winning tongue, the woolsack will do
as well for a whisper in the ear of the throne. That is our aim, my son.
We say,--you will not acknowledge our birth, you shall acknowledge our
worth.' He complained bitterly of my aunt Dorothy bringing a lawyer to
our house. The sins of Mrs. Waddy were forgiven her, owing to her noble
resistance to the legal gentleman's seductive speech. So I walked up and
down stairs with the kings of England looking at me out of the coloured
windows quietly for a week; and then two ugly men entered the house,
causing me to suffer a fearful oppression, though my father was
exceedingly kind to them and had beds provided for them, saying that they
were very old retainers of his.
But the next day our scarlet livery appeared. After exacting particular
attention to his commands, my father quitted Mrs. Waddy, and we mounted
the carriage, laughing at her deplorable eyes and prim lips, which he
imitated for my amusement. 'A load is off my head,' he remarked. He
asked me if splendour did not fatigue me also. I caught the answer from
his face and replied that it did, and that I should like to go right on
to Dipwell 'The Burgundy sleeps safe there,' said my father, and thought
over it. We had an extraordinary day. People stood fast to gaze at us;
in the country some pulled off their hats and set up a cheer. The
landlords of the inns where we baited remained bare-headed until we
started afresh, and I, according to my father's example, bowed and lifted
my cap gravely to persons saluting us along the roads. Nor did I seek to
know the reason for this excess of respectfulness; I was beginning to
take to it naturally. At the end of a dusty high-road, where it descends
the hill into a town, we drew up close by a high red wall, behind which I
heard boys shouting at play. We went among them, accompanied by their
master. My father tipped the head boy for the benefit of the school, and
following lunch with the master and his daughter, to whom I gave a kiss
at her request, a half-holiday was granted to the boys in my name. How
they cheered! The young lady saw my delight, and held me at the window
while my father talked with hers; and for a long time after I beheld them
in imagination talking: that is to say, my father issuing his
instructions and Mr. Rippenger receiving them like a pliant hodman;
for the result of it was that two days later, without seeing my kings
of England, my home again, or London, I was Julia Rippenger's intimate
friend and the youngest pupil of the school. My father told me
subsequently that we slept at an hotel those two nights intervening.
Memory transplants me from the coach and scarlet livery straight to my
place of imprisonment.
CHAPTER V
I MAKE A DEAR FRIEND
Heriot was the name of the head boy of the school. Boddy was the name of
one of the ushers. They were both in love with Julia Rippenger. It was
my fortune to outrun them in her favour for a considerable period, during
which time, though I had ceased to live in state, and was wearing out my
suits of velvet, and had neither visit nor letter from my father, I was
in tolerable bliss. Julia's kisses were showered on me for almost
anything I said or did, but her admiration of heroism and daring was so
fervent that I was in no greater danger of becoming effeminate than
Achilles when he wore girl's clothes. She was seventeen, an age
bewitching for boys to look up to and men to look down on. The puzzle of
the school was how to account for her close relationship to old
Rippenger. Such an apple on such a crab-tree seemed monstrous. Heriot
said that he hoped Boddy would marry old Rippenger's real daughter, and,
said he, that's birch-twigs. I related his sparkling speech to Julia,
who laughed, accusing him, however, of impudence. She let me see a
portrait of her dead mother, an Irish lady raising dark eyelashes, whom
she resembled. I talked of the portrait to Heriot, and as I had
privileges accorded to none of the other boys and could go to her at any
hour of the day after lessons, he made me beg for him to have a sight of
it. She considered awhile, but refused. On hearing of the unkind
refusal, Heriot stuck his hands into his pockets and gave up cricketing.
We saw him leaning against a wall in full view of her window, while the
boys crowded round him trying to get him to practise, a school-match of
an important character coming off with a rival academy; and it was only
through fear of our school being beaten if she did not relent that Julia
handed me the portrait, charging me solemnly to bring it back. I
promised, of course. Heriot went into his favourite corner of the
playground, and there looked at it and kissed it, and then buttoned his
jacket over it tight, growling when I asked him to return it. Julia grew
frightened. She sent me with numbers of petitions to him.
'Look here, young un,' said Heriot; 'you're a good little fellow, and I
like you, but just tell her I believe in nothing but handwriting, and if
she writes to me for it humbly and nicely she shall have it back. Say I
only want to get a copy taken by a first-rate painter.'
Julia shed tears at his cruelty, called him cruel, wicked, false to his
word. She wrote, but the letter did not please him, and his reply was
scornful. At prayers morning and evening, it was pitiful to observe her
glance of entreaty and her downfallen eyelashes. I guessed that in
Heriot's letters to her he wanted to make her confess something, which
she would not do. 'Now I write to him no more; let him know it, my
darling,' she said, and the consequence of Heriot's ungrateful obstinacy
was that we all beheld her, at the ceremony of the consecration of the
new church, place her hand on Mr. Boddy's arm and allow him to lead her
about. Heriot kept his eyes on them; his mouth was sharp, and his arms
stiff by his sides. I was the bearer of a long letter to her that
evening. She tore it to pieces without reading it. Next day Heriot
walked slowly past Mr. Boddy holding the portrait in his hands. The
usher called to him!
'What have you there, Heriot?'
My hero stared. 'Only a family portrait,' he answered, thrusting it safe
in his pocket and fixing his gaze on Julia's window.
'Permit me to look at it,' said Mr. Boddy.
'Permit me to decline to let you,' said Heriot.
'Look at me, sir,' cried Boddy.
'I prefer to look elsewhere, sir,' replied Heriot, and there was Julia
visible at her window.
'I asked you, sir, civilly,' quoth Boddy, 'for permission to look,--
I used the word intentionally; I say I asked you for permission . . .'
'No, you didn't,' Heriot retorted, quite cool; 'inferentially you did;
but you did not use the word permission.'
'And you turned upon me impudently,' pursued Boddy, whose colour was
thunder: 'you quibbled, sir; you prevaricated; you concealed what you
were carrying . . .'
'Am carrying,' Heriot corrected his tense; 'and mean to, in spite of
every Boddy,' he murmured audibly.
'Like a rascal detected in an act of felony,' roared Boddy, 'you
concealed it, sir . . .'
'Conceal it, sir.'
'And I demand, in obedience to my duty, that you instantly exhibit it for
my inspection, now, here, at once; no parleying; unbutton, or I call Mr.
Rippenger to compel you.'
I was standing close by my brave Heriot, rather trembling, studious of
his manfulness though I was. His left foot was firmly in advance, as he
said, just in the manner to start an usher furious:
'I concealed it, I conceal it; I was carrying it, I carry it: you demand
that I exhibit for your inspection what I mean no Boddy to see? I have
to assure you respectfully, sir, that family portraits are sacred things
with the sons of gentlemen. Here, Richie, off!'
I found the portrait in my hand, and Heriot between me and the usher, in
the attitude of a fellow keeping another out of his home at prisoner's-
base. He had spied Mr. Rippenger's head at the playground gate. I had
just time to see Heriot and the usher in collision before I ran through
the gate and into Julia's arms in her garden, whither the dreadful
prospect of an approaching catastrophe had attracted her.
Heriot was merely reported guilty of insolence. He took his five hundred
lines of Virgil with his usual sarcastic dignity: all he said to Mr.
Rippenger was, 'Let it be about Dido, sir,' which set several of the boys
upon Dido's history, but Heriot was condemned to the battles with Turnus.
My share in this event secured Heriot's friendship to me without costing
me the slightest inconvenience. 'Papa would never punish you,' Julia
said; and I felt my rank. Nor was it wonderful I should when Mr.
Rippenger was constantly speaking of my father's magnificence in my
presence before company. Allowed to draw on him largely for pocket-
money, I maintained my father's princely reputation in the school. At
times, especially when the holidays arrived and I was left alone with
Julia, I had fits of mournfulness, and almost thought the boys happier
than I was. Going home began to seem an unattainable thing to me.
Having a father, too, a regular father, instead of a dazzling angel that
appeared at intervals, I considered a benefaction, in its way, some
recompense to the boys, for their not possessing one like mine. My
anxiety was relieved by my writing letters to my father, addressed to the
care of Miss Julia Rippenger, and posting them in her work-basket. She
favoured me with very funny replies, signed, 'Your own ever-loving Papa,'
about his being engaged killing Bengal tigers and capturing white
elephants, a noble occupation that gave me exciting and consolatory
dreams of him.
We had at last a real letter of his, dated from a foreign city; but he
mentioned nothing of coming to me. I understood that Mr. Rippenger was
disappointed with it.
Gradually a kind of cloud stole over me. I no longer liked to ask for
pocket-money; I was clad in a suit of plain cloth; I was banished from
the parlour, and only on Sunday was I permitted to go to Julia. I ceased
to live in myself. Through the whole course of lessons, at play-time, in
my bed, and round to morning bell, I was hunting my father in an unknown
country, generally with the sun setting before me: I ran out of a wood
almost into a brook to see it sink as if I had again lost sight of
him, and then a sense of darkness brought me back to my natural
consciousness, without afflicting me much, but astonishing me. Why was
I away from him? I could repeat my lessons in the midst of these dreams
quite fairly; it was the awakening among the circle of the boys that made
me falter during a recital and ask myself why I was there and he absent?
They had given over speculating on another holiday and treat from my
father; yet he had produced such an impression in the school that even
when I had descended to the level of a total equality with them, they
continued to have some consideration for me. I was able to talk of
foreign cities and could tell stories, and I was, besides, under the
immediate protection of Heriot. But now the shadow of a great calamity
fell on me, for my dear Heriot announced his intention of leaving the
school next half.
'I can't stand being prayed at, morning and evening, by a fellow who
hasn't the pluck to strike me like a man,' he said. Mr. Rippenger had
the habit of signalizing offenders, in his public prayers, as boys whose
hearts he wished to be turned from callousness. He perpetually suspected
plots; and to hear him allude to some deep, long-hatched school
conspiracy while we knelt motionless on the forms, and fetch a big breath
to bring out, 'May the heart of Walter Heriot be turned and he comprehend
the multitudinous blessings,' etc., was intensely distressing. Together
with Walter Heriot, Andrew Saddlebank, our best bowler, the drollest
fellow in the world, John Salter, and little Gus Temple, were oftenest
cited. They declared that they invariably uttered 'Amen,' as Heriot did,
but we none of us heard this defiant murmur of assent from their lips.
Heriot pronounced it clearly and cheerfully, causing Julia's figure to
shrink as she knelt with her face in the chair hard by her father's desk-
pulpit. I received the hearty congratulations of my comrades for singing
out 'Amen' louder than Heriot, like a chorister, though not in so
prolonged a note, on hearing to my stupefaction Mr. Rippenger implore
that the heart of 'him we know as Richmond Roy' might be turned. I did
it spontaneously. Mr. Rippenger gazed at me in descending from his desk;
Julia, too, looking grieved. For my part, I exulted in having done a
thing that gave me a likeness to Heriot.
'Little Richmond, you're a little hero,' he said, caressing me. 'I saw
old Rippenger whisper to that beast, Boddy. Never mind; they won't hurt
you as long as I'm here. Grow tough, that's what you've got to do. I'd
like to see you horsed, only to see whether you're game to take it
without wincing--if it didn't hurt you much, little lad.'
He hugged me up to him.
'I'd take anything for you, Heriot,' said I.
'All right,' he answered, never meaning me to suffer on his account. He
had an inimitable manner of sweet speaking that endeared him to younger
boys capable of appreciating it, with the supernatural power of music.
It endeared him, I suppose, to young women also. Julia repeated his
phrases, as for instance, 'Silly boy, silly boy,' spoken with a wave of
his hand, when a little fellow thanked him for a kindness. She was angry
at his approval of what she called my defiance of her father, and
insisted that I was the catspaw of one of Heriot's plots to vex him.
'Tell Heriot you have my command to say you belong to me and must not be
misled,' she said. His answer was that he wanted it in writing. She
requested him to deliver up her previous letters. Thereupon he charged
me with a lengthy epistle, which plunged us into boiling water. Mr.
Boddy sat in the schoolroom while Heriot's pen was at work, on the wet
Sunday afternoon. His keen little eyes were busy in his flat bird's head
all the time Heriot continued writing. He saw no more than that Heriot
gave me a book; but as I was marching away to Julia he called to know
where I was going.
'To Miss Rippenger,' I replied.
'What have you there?'
'A book, sir.'
'Show me the book.'
I stood fast.
'It 's a book I have lent him, sir,' said Heriot, rising. 'I shall see
if it's a fit book for a young boy,' said Boddy; and before Heriot could
interpose, he had knocked the book on the floor, and out fell the letter.
Both sprang down to seize it: their heads encountered, but Heriot had the
quicker hand; he caught the letter, and cried 'Off !' to me, as on
another occasion. This time, however, he was not between me and the
usher. I was seized by the collar, and shakes roughly.
'You will now understand that you are on a footing with the rest of
the boys, you Roy,' said Boddy. 'Little scoundrelly spoilt urchins,
upsetting the discipline of the school, won't do here. Heriot, here
is your book. I regret,' he added, sneering, 'that a leaf is torn.'
'I regret, sir, that the poor boy was so savagely handled,' said Heriot.
He was warned to avoid insolence.
'Oh, as much Virgil as you like,' Heriot retorted; 'I know him by heart.'
It was past the hour of my customary visit to Julia, and she came to
discover the reason of my delay. Boddy stood up to explain. Heriot went
forward, saying, 'I think I'm the one who ought to speak, Miss Rippenger.
The fact is, I hear from little Roy that you are fond of tales of Indian
adventure, and I gave him a book for you to read, if you like it. Mr.
Boddy objected, and treated the youngster rather rigorously. It must
have been quite a misunderstanding on his part. Here is the book it's
extremely amusing.'
Julia blushed very red. She accepted the book with a soft murmur, and
the sallow usher had not a word.
'Stay,' said Heriot. 'I took the liberty to write some notes. My father
is an Indian officer, you know, and some of the terms in the book are
difficult without notes. Richie, hand that paper. Here they are, Miss
Rippenger, if you'll be so kind as to place them in the book.'
I was hoping with all my might that she would not deny him. She did,
and my heart sank.
'Oh, I can read it without notes,' she said, cheerfully.
After that, I listened with indifference to her petition to Boddy that I
might be allowed to accompany her, and was not at all chagrined by his
refusal. She laid down the book, saying that I could bring it to her
when I was out of disgrace.
In the evening we walked in the playground, where Heriot asked me to do a
brave thing, which he would never forget. This was that I should take a
sharp run right past Boddy, who was pacing up and down before the gate
leading into Julia's garden, and force her to receive the letter. I went
bounding like a ball. The usher, suspecting only that I hurried to speak
to him, let me see how indignant he was with my behaviour by striding all
the faster as I drew near, and so he passed the gate, and I rushed in.
I had just time to say to Julia, 'Hide it, or I'm in such a scrape.'
The next minute she was addressing my enemy:
'Surely you would not punish him because he loves me?' and he, though he
spoke of insubordination, merited chastisement; and other usher phrases,
seemed to melt, and I had what I believe was a primary conception of the
power of woman. She led him to talk in the gentlest way possible of how
the rain had refreshed her flowers, and of this and that poor rose.
I could think of nothing but the darling letter, which had flashed out of
sight as a rabbit pops into burrows. Boddy departed with a rose.
'Ah, Richie,' she said, 'I have to pay to have you with me now.'
We walked to the summer-house, where she read Heriot's letter through.
'But he is a boy! How old is Heriot? He is not so old as I am!'
These were her words, and she read the letter anew, and read it again
after she had placed it in her bosom, I meanwhile pouring out praises of
Heriot.
'You speak of him as if you were in love with him, Richmond,' she said.
'And I do love him,' I answered.
'Not with me?' she asked.
'Yes, I do love you too, if you will not make him angry.'
'But do you know what it is he wants of me?'
I guessed: 'Yes; he wants you to let him sit close to you for half an
hour.'
She said that he sat very near her in church.
'Ah,' said I, 'but he mustn't interrupt the sermon.'
She laughed, and mouthed me over with laughing kisses. 'There's very
little he hasn't daring enough for!'
We talked of his courage.
'Is he good as well?' said Julia, more to herself than to me; but I sang
out,
'Good! Oh, so kind!'
This appeared to convince her.
'Very generous to you and every one, is he not?' she said; and from that
moment was all questions concerning his kind treatment of the boys, and
as to their looking up to him.
I quitted her, taking her message to Heriot: 'You may tell him--tell him
that I can't write.'
Heriot frowned on hearing me repeat it.
'Humph!' he went, and was bright in a twinkling: 'that means she'll
come!' He smacked his hands together, grew black, and asked, 'Did she
give that beast Boddy a rose?'
I had to confess she did; and feeling a twinge of my treason to her, felt
hers to Heriot.
'Humph!' he went; 'she shall suffer for that.'
All this was like music going on until the curtain should lift and reveal
my father to me.
There was soon a secret to be read in Heriot's face for one who loved
it as I did. Julia's betrayed nothing. I was not taken into their
confidence, and luckily not; otherwise I fear I should have served
them ill, I was so poor a dissembler and was so hotly plied with
interrogations by the suspicious usher. I felt sure that Heriot and
Julia met. His eyes were on her all through prayer-time, and hers
wandered over the boys' heads till they rested on him, when they gave a
short flutter and dropped, like a bird shot dead. The boys must have had
some knowledge that love was busy in their midst, for they spoke of
Heriot and Julia as a jolly couple, and of Boddy as one meaning to play
the part of old Nick the first opportunity. She was kinder to them than
ever. It was not a new thing that she should send in cakes of her own
making, but it was extraordinary that we should get these thoughtful
presents as often as once a fortnight, and it became usual to hear a boy
exclaim, either among a knot of fellows or to himself, 'By jingo, she is
a pretty girl!' on her passing out of the room, and sometimes entirely of
his own idea. I am persuaded that if she had consented to marry Boddy,
the boys would have been seriously disposed to conspire to jump up in the
church and forbid the banns. We should have preferred to hand her to the
junior usher, Catman, of whom the rumour ran in the school that he once
drank a bottle of wine and was sick after it, and he was therefore a weak
creature to our minds; the truth of the rumour being confirmed by his
pale complexion. That we would have handed our blooming princess to him
was full proof of our abhorrence of Boddy. I might have thought with the
other boys that she was growing prettier, only I never could imagine her
so delicious as when she smiled at my father.
The consequence of the enlistment of the whole school in Heriot's
interests was that at cricket-matches, picnics on the hills, and boating
on the canal, Mr. Boddy was begirt with spies, and little Temple reported
to Heriot a conversation that he, lying hidden in tall grass, had heard
between Boddy and Julia. Boddy asked her to take private lessons in
French from him. Heriot listened to the monstrous tale as he was on the
point of entering Julia's boat, where Boddy sat beside her, and Heriot
rowed stroke-oar. He dipped his blade, and said, loud enough to be heard
by me in Catman's boat,
'Do you think French useful in a military education, sir?'
And Boddy said, 'Yes, of course it is.'
Says Heriot, 'Then I think I shall take lessons.'
Boddy told him he was taking lessons in the school.
'Oh!' says Heriot, 'I mean private lessons'; and here he repeated one of
Temple's pieces of communication: 'so much more can be imparted in a
private lesson!'
Boddy sprang half up from his seat. 'Row, sir, and don't talk,' he
growled.
'Sit, sir, and don't dance in the boat, if you please, or the lady will
be overset,' said Heriot.
Julia requested to be allowed to land and walk home. Boddy caught the
rudder lines and leapt on the bank to hand her out; then all the boys in
her boat and in Catman's shouted, 'Miss Julia! dear Miss Julia, don't
leave us!' and we heard wheedling voices: 'Don't go off with him alone!'
Julia bade us behave well or she would not be able to come out with us.
At her entreaty Boddy stepped back to his post, and the two boats went
forward like swans that have done ruffling their feathers.
The boys were exceedingly disappointed that no catastrophe followed the
events of the day. Heriot, they thought, might have upset the boat,
saved Julia, and drowned Boddy, and given us a feast of pleasurable
excitement: instead of which Boddy lived to harass us with his tyrannical
impositions and spiteful slaps, and it was to him, not to our Heriot,
that Julia was most gracious. Some of us discussed her conduct.
'She's a coquette,' said little Temple. I went off to the French
dictionary.
'Is Julia Rippenger a coquette, Heriot?' I asked him.
'Keep girls out of your heads, you little fellows,' said he, dealing me a
smart thump.
'Is a coquette a nasty girl?' I persisted.
'No, a nice one, as it happens,' was his answer.
My only feeling was jealousy of the superior knowledge of the sex
possessed by Temple, for I could not fathom the meaning of coquette; but
he had sisters. Temple and I walked the grounds together, mutually
declaring how much we would forfeit for Heriot's sake. By this time my
Sunday visits to Julia had been interdicted: I was plunged, as it were,
in the pit of the school, and my dreams of my father were losing
distinctness. A series of boxes on the ears from Boddy began to astound
and transform me. Mr. Rippenger, too, threatened me with carvings,
though my offences were slight. 'Yes,' said Temple and I, in chorus,
'but you daren't strike Heriot!' This was our consolation, and the
sentiment of the school. Fancy, then, our amazement to behold him laying
the cane on Heriot's shoulders as fiercely as he could, and Boddy
seconding him. The scene was terrible. We were all at our desks doing
evening tasks for the morrow, a great matchday at cricket, Boddy watching
over us, and bellowing, 'Silence at your work, you lazy fellows, if you
want lessons to be finished at ten in the morning!' A noise came growing
up to us from below, up the stairs from the wet-weather shed, and Heriot
burst into the room, old Rippenger after him, panting.
'Mr. Boddy, you were right,' he cried, 'I find him a prowler, breaking
all rules of discipline. A perverted, impudent rascal! An example shall
be set to my school, sir. We have been falling lax. What! I find the
puppy in my garden whistling--he confesses--for one of my servants------
here, Mr. Boddy, if you please. My school shall see that none insult me
with impunity!' He laid on Heriot like a wind on a bulrush. Heriot bent
his shoulders a trifle, not his head.
'Hit away, sir,' he said, during the storm of blows, and I, through my
tears, imagined him (or I do now) a young eagle forced to bear the
thunder, but with his face to it. Then we saw Boddy lay hands on him,
and in a twinkling down pitched the usher, and the boys cheered--chirped,
I should say, they exulted so, and merely sang out like birds, without
any wilfulness of delight or defiance. After the fall of Boddy we had no
sense of our hero suffering shame. Temple and I clutched fingers tight
as long as the blows went on. We hoped for Boddy to make another attempt
to touch Heriot; he held near the master, looking ready to spring, like a
sallow panther; we kept hoping he would, in our horror of the murderous
slashes of the cane; and not a syllable did Heriot utter. Temple and I
started up, unaware of what we were going to do, or of anything until we
had got a blow a-piece, and were in the thick of it, and Boddy had us
both by the collars, and was knocking our heads together, as he dragged
us back to our seats. But the boys told us we stopped the execution.
Mr. Rippenger addressed us before he left the school-room. Saddlebank,
Salter, and a good many others, plugged their ears with their fists.
That night Boddy and Catman paced in the bedchambers, to prevent plotting
and conspiracy, they said. I longed to get my arms about Heriot, and
thought of him, and dreamed of blood, and woke in the morning wondering
what made me cry, and my arms and back very stiff. Heriot was gay as
ever, but had fits of reserve; the word passed round that we were not to
talk of yesterday evening. We feared he would refuse to play in the
match.
'Why not?' said he, staring at us angrily. 'Has Saddlebank broken his
arm, and can't bowl?'
No, Saddlebank was in excellent trim, though shamefaced, as was Salter,
and most of the big boys were. They begged Heriot to let them shake his
hand.
'Wait till we win our match,' said Heriot.
Julia did not appear at morning prayers.
'Ah,' said Temple, 'it'd make her sick to hear old Massacre praying.' It
had nearly made him sick, he added, and I immediately felt that it had
nearly made me sick.
We supposed we should not see Julia at the match. She came, however, and
talked to everybody. I could not contain myself, I wanted so to tell her
what had befallen Heriot overnight, while he was batting, and the whole
ground cheering his hits. I on one side of her whispered:
'I say, Julia, my dear, I say, do you know . . .'
And Temple on the other: ' Miss Julia, I wish you'd let me tell you--'
We longed to arouse her pity for Heriot at the moment she was admiring
him, but she checked us, and as she was surrounded by ladies and
gentlemen of the town, and particular friends of hers, we could not speak
out. Heriot brought his bat to the booth for eighty-nine runs. His
sleeve happened to be unbuttoned, and there, on his arm, was a mark of
the cane.
'Look!' I said to Julia. But she looked at me.
'Richie, are you ill?'
She assured me I was very pale, and I felt her trembling excessively, and
her parasol was covering us.
'Here, Roy, Temple,' we heard Heriot call; 'here, come here and bowl to
me.'
I went and bowled till I thought my head was flying after the ball and
getting knocks, it swam and throbbed so horribly.
Temple related that I fell, and was carried all the way from the cricket-
field home by Heriot, who would not give me up to the usher. I was in
Julia's charge three days. Every time I spoke of her father and Heriot,
she cried, 'Oh, hush!' and had tears on her eyelids. When I was quite
strong again, I made her hear me out. She held me and rocked over me
like a green tree in the wind and rain.
'Was any name mentioned?' she asked, with her mouth working, and to my
'No,' said 'No, she knew there was none,' and seemed to drink and choke,
and was one minute calm, all but a trembling hanging underlip, next
smiling on me, and next having her face carved in grimaces by the jerking
little tugs of her mouth, which I disliked to see, for she would say
nothing of what she thought of Heriot, and I thought to myself, though I
forbore to speak unkindly, 'It's no use your making yourself look ugly,
Julia.' If she had talked of Heriot, I should have thought that crying
persons' kisses were agreeable.
On my return into the school, I found it in a convulsion of excitement,
owing to Heriot's sending Boddy a challenge to fight a duel with pistols.
Mr. Rippenger preached a sermon to the boys concerning the unChristian
spirit and hideous moral perversity of one who would even consent to
fight a duel. How much more reprehensible, then, was one that could
bring himself to defy a fellow-creature to mortal combat! We were not of
his opinion; and as these questions are carried by majorities, we decided
that Boddy was a coward, and approved the idea that Heriot would have to
shoot or scourge him when the holidays came. Mr. Rippenger concluded his
observations by remarking that the sharpest punishment he could inflict
upon Heriot was to leave him to his own conscience; which he did for
three days, and then asked him if he was in a fit state of mind to beg
Mr. Boddy's pardon publicly.
'I'm quite prepared to tell him what I think of him publicly, sir,' said
Heriot.
A murmur of exultation passed through the school. Mr. Rippenger seized
little Temple, and flogged him. Far from dreading the rod, now that
Heriot and Temple had tasted it, I thought of punishment as a mad
pleasure, not a bit more awful than the burning furze-bush plunged into
by our fellows in a follow-my-leader scamper on the common; so I caught
Temple's hand as he went by me, and said, eagerly, 'Shall I sing out
hurrah?'
'Bother it!' was Temple's answer, for he had taken a stinging dozen, and
had a tender skin.
Mr. Rippenger called me up to him, to inform me, that whoever I was,
and whatever I was, and I might be a little impostor foisted on his
benevolence, yet he would bring me to a knowledge of myself: he gave me
warning of it; and if my father objected to his method, my father must
write word to that effect, and attend punctually to business duties, for
Surrey House was not an almshouse, either for the sons of gentlemen of
high connection, or for the sons of vagabonds. Mr. Rippenger added a
spurning shove on my shoulder to his recommendation to me to resume my
seat. I did not understand him at all. I was, in fact, indebted to a
boy named Drew, a known sneak, for the explanation, in itself difficult
to comprehend. It was, that Mr. Rippenger was losing patience because
he had received no money on account of my boarding and schooling. The
intelligence filled my head like the buzz of a fly, occupying my
meditations without leading them anywhere. I spoke on the subject to
Heriot.
'Oh, the sordid old brute !' said he of Mr. Rippenger. 'How can he know
the habits and feelings of gentlemen? Your father's travelling, and
can't write, of course. My father's in India, and I get a letter from
him about once a year. We know one another, and I know he's one of the
best officers in the British army. It's just the way with schoolmasters
and tradesmen: they don't care whether a man is doing his duty to his
country; he must attend to them, settle accounts with them--hang them!
I'll send you money, dear little lad, after I've left.'
He dispersed my brooding fit. I was sure my father was a fountain of
gold, and only happened to be travelling. Besides, Heriot's love for
Julia, whom none of us saw now, was an incessant distraction. She did
not appear at prayers. She sat up in the gallery at church, hardly to be
spied. A letter that Heriot flung over the gardenwall for her was
returned to him, open, enclosed by post.
'A letter for Walter Heriot,' exclaimed Mr. Boddy, lifting it high for
Heriot to walk and fetch it; and his small eyes blinked when Heriot said
aloud on his way, cheerfully,
'A letter from the colonel in India!'
Boddy waited a minute, and then said, 'Is your father in good health?'
Heriot's face was scarlet. At first he stuttered, 'My father!--I hope
so! What have you in common with him, sir?'
'You stated that the letter was from your father,' said Boddy.
'What if it is, sir?'
'Oh, in that case, nothing whatever to me.'
They talked on, and the youngest of us could perceive Boddy was bursting
with devilish glee. Heriot got a letter posted to Julia. It was laid on
his desk, with her name scratched completely out, and his put in its
place. He grew pale and sad, but did his work, playing his games, and
only letting his friends speak to him of lessons and play. His counsel
to me was, that in spite of everything, I was always to stick to my tasks
and my cricket. His sadness he could not conceal. He looked like an old
lamp with a poor light in it. Not a boy in the school missed seeing how
Boddy's flat head perpetually had a side-eye on him.
All this came to an end. John Salter's father lived on the other side
of the downs, and invited three of us to spend a day at his house. The
selection included Heriot, Saddlebank, and me. Mr. Rippenger, not liking
to refuse Mr. Salter, consented to our going, but pretended that I was
too young. Salter said his mother and sisters very much wished to make
my acquaintance. We went in his father's carriage. A jolly wind blew
clouds and dust and leaves: I could have fancied I was going to my own
father. The sensation of freedom had a magical effect on me, so that I
was the wildest talker of them all. Even in the middle of the family I
led the conversation; and I did not leave Salter's house without
receiving an assurance from his elder sisters that they were in love with
me. We drove home--back to prison, we called it--full of good things,
talking of Salter's father's cellar of wine and of my majority Burgundy,
which I said, believing it was true, amounted to twelve hundred dozen;
and an appointment was made for us to meet at Dipwell Farm, to assist in
consuming it, in my honour and my father's. That matter settled, I felt
myself rolling over and over at a great rate, and clasping a juniper
tree. The horses had trenched from the chalk road on to the downs. I
had been shot out. Heriot and Salter had jumped out--Heriot to look
after me; but Saddlebank and the coachman were driving at a great rate
over the dark slope. Salter felt some anxiety concerning his father's
horses, so we left him to pursue them, and walked on laughing, Heriot
praising me for my pluck.
'I say good-bye to you to-night, Richie,' said he. 'We're certain to
meet again. I shall go to a military school. Mind you enter a cavalry
regiment when you're man enough. Look in the Army List, you'll find me
there. My aunt shall make a journey and call on you while you're at
Rippenger's, so you shan't be quite lonely.'
To my grief, I discovered that Heriot had resolved he would not return to
school.
'You'll get thrashed,' he said; ' I can't help it: I hope you've grown
tough by this time. I can't stay here. I feel more like a dog than a
man in that house now. I'll see you back safe. No crying, young
cornet!'
We had lost the sound of the carriage. Heriot fell to musing. He
remarked that the accident took away from Mr. Salter the responsibility
of delivering him at Surrey House, but that he, Heriot, was bound, for
Mr. Salter's sake, to conduct me to the doors; an unintelligible
refinement of reasoning, to my wits. We reached our town between two and
three in the morning. There was a ladder leaning against one of the
houses in repair near the school. 'You are here, are you!' said Heriot,
speaking to the ladder: 'you 'll do me a service--the last I shall want
in the neighbourhood.' He managed to poise the ladder on his shoulder,
and moved forward.
'Are we going in through the window?' I asked, seeing him fix the ladder
against the school-house wall.
He said, 'Hush; keep a look-out.'
I saw him mount high. When he tapped at the window I remembered it was
Julia's; I heard her cry out inside. The window rose slowly. Heriot
spoke:
'I have come to say good-bye to you, Julia, dear girl: don't be afraid of
me.' She answered inaudibly to my ears. He begged her to come to him at
once, only once, and hear him and take his hand. She was timid; he had
her fingers first, then her whole arm, and she leaned over him. 'Julia,
my sweet, dear girl,' he said; and she:
'Heriot, Walter, don't go--don't go; you do not care for me if you go.
Oh, don't go.'
'We've come to it,' said Heriot.
She asked why he was not in bed, and moaned on:
'Don't go.' I was speechless with wonder at the night and the scene.
They whispered; I saw their faces close together, and Heriot's arms round
her neck. 'Oh, Heriot, my darling, my Walter,' she said, crying, I knew
by the sound of her voice.
'Tell me you love me,' said Heriot.
'I do, I do, only don't go,' she answered.
'Will you love me faithfully?'
'I will; I do.'
'Say, "I love you, Walter."'
'I love you, Walter.'
'For ever.'
'For ever. Oh! what a morning for me. Do you smell my honeysuckle?
Oh, don't go away from me, Walter. Do you love me so?'
'I'd go through a regiment of sabres to get at you.'
'But smell the night air; how sweet! oh, how sweet! No, not kiss me,
if you are going to leave me; not kiss me, if you can be so cruel!'
'Do you dream of me in your bed?'
'Yes, every night.'
'God bless the bed!'
'Every night I dream of you. Oh! brave Heriot; dear, dear Walter, you
did not betray me; my father struck you, and you let him for my sake.
Every night I pray heaven to make you forgive him: I thought you would
hate me. I cried till I was glad you could not see me. Look at those
two little stars; no, they hurt me, I can't look at them ever again. But
no, you are not going; you want to frighten me. Do smell the flowers.
Don't make them poison to me. Oh, what a morning for me when you're
lost! And me, to look out on the night alone! No, no more kisses! Oh,
yes, I will kiss you, dear.'
Heriot said, 'Your mother was Irish, Julia.'
'Yes. She would have loved you.'
'I 've Irish blood too. Give me her portrait. It 's the image of you.'
'To take away? Walter! not to take it away?'
'You darling! to keep me sure of you.'
'Part with my mother's portrait?'
'Why, yes, if you love me one bit.'
'But you are younger than me, Heriot.'
'Then good-night, good-bye, Julia.'
'Walter, I will fetch it.'
Heriot now told her I was below, and she looked down on me and called my
name softly, sending kisses from her fingers while he gave the cause for
our late return.
'Some one must be sitting up for you--are we safe?' she said.
Heriot laughed, and pressed for the portrait.
'It is all I have. Why should you not have it? I want to be
remembered.'
She sobbed as she said this and disappeared. Heriot still talked into
her room. I thought I heard a noise of the garden-door opening. A man
came out rushing at the ladder. I called in terror: 'Mr. Boddy, stop,
sir.' He pushed me savagely aside, pitching his whole force against the
ladder. Heriot pulled down Julia's window; he fell with a heavy thump on
the ground, and I heard a shriek above. He tried to spring to his feet,
but dropped, supported himself on one of his hands, and cried:
'All right; no harm done; how do you do, Mr. Boddy? I thought I'd try
one of the attics, as we were late, not to disturb the house. I 'm not
hurt, I tell you,' he cried as loud as he could.
The usher's words were in a confusion of rage and inquiries. He
commanded Heriot to stand on his legs, abused him, asked him what he
meant by it, accused him of depravity, of crime, of disgraceful conduct,
and attempted to pluck him from the spot.
'Hands off me,' said Heriot; 'I can help myself. The youngster 'll help
me, and we'll go round to the front door. I hope, sir, you will behave
like a gentleman; make no row here, Mr. Boddy, if you've any respect for
people inside. We were upset by Mr. Salter's carriage; it's damaged my
leg, I believe. Have the goodness, sir, to go in by your road, and we'll
go round and knock at the front door in the proper way. We shall have to
disturb the house after all.'
Heriot insisted. I was astonished to see Boddy obey him and leave us,
after my dear Heriot had hopped with his hand on my shoulder to the
corner of the house fronting the road. While we were standing alone a
light cart drove by. Heriot hailed it, and hopped up to the driver.
'Take me to London, there's a good fellow,' he said; 'I'm a gentleman;
you needn't look fixed. I'll pay you well and thank you. But quick.
Haul me up, up; here's my hand. By jingo! this is pain.'
The man said, 'Scamped it out of school, sir?'
Heriot replied: 'Mum. Rely on me when I tell you I'm a gentleman.'
'Well, if I pick up a gentleman, I can't be doing a bad business,' said
the man, hauling him in tenderly.
Heriot sung to me in his sweet manner, 'Good-bye, little Richie. Knock
when five minutes are over. God bless you, dear little lad! Leg 'll get
well by morning, never fear for me; and we'll meet somehow; we'll drink
the Burgundy. No crying. Kiss your hand to me.'
I kissed my hand to him. I had no tears to shed; my chest kept heaving
enormously. My friend was gone. I stood in the road straining to hear
the last of the wheels after they had long been silent.
CHAPTER VI
A TALE OF A GOOSE
From that hour till the day Heriot's aunt came to see me, I lived
systematically out of myself in extreme flights of imagination, locking
my doors up, as it were, all the faster for the extremest strokes of Mr.
Rippenger's rod. He remarked justly that I grew an impenetrably sullen
boy, a constitutional rebel, a callous lump: and assured me that if my
father would not pay for me, I at least should not escape my debts.
The title of little impostor, transmitted from the master's mouth to
the school in designation of one who had come to him as a young prince,
and for whom he had not received one penny's indemnification, naturally
caused me to have fights with several of the boys. Whereupon I was
reported: I was prayed at to move my spirit, and flogged to exercise my
flesh. The prayers I soon learnt to laugh to scorn. The floggings,
after they were over, crowned me with delicious sensations of martyrdom.
Even while the sting lasted I could say, it's for Heriot and Julia! and
it gave me a wonderful penetration into--the mournful ecstasy of love.
Julia was sent away to a relative by the sea-side, because, one of the
housemaids told me, she could not bear to hear of my being beaten. Mr.
Rippenger summoned me to his private room to bid me inform him whether I
had other relatives besides my father, such as grandfather, grandmother,
uncles, or aunts, or a mother. I dare say Julia would have led me to
break my word to my father by speaking of old Riversley, a place I half
longed for since my father had grown so distant and dim to me; but
confession to Mr. Rippenger seemed, as he said of Heriot's behaviour to
him, a gross breach of trust to my father; so I refused steadily to
answer, and suffered the consequences now on my dear father's behalf.
Heriot's aunt brought me a cake, and in a letter from him an
extraordinary sum of money for a boy of my age. He wrote that he knew
I should want it to pay my debts for treats to the boys and keep them in
good humour. He believed also that his people meant to have me for the
Christmas holidays. The sum he sent me was five pounds, carefully
enclosed. I felt myself a prince again. The money was like a golden
gate through which freedom twinkled a finger. Forthwith I paid my debts,
amounting to two pounds twelve shillings, and instructed a couple of day-
boarders, commercial fellows, whose heavy and mysterious charges for
commissions ran up a bill in no time, to prepare to bring us materials
for a feast on Saturday. Temple abominated the trading propensities of
these boys. 'They never get licked and they've always got money, at
least I know they always get mine,' said he; 'but you and I and Heriot
despise them.' Our position toward them was that of an encumbered
aristocracy, and really they paid us great respect. The fact was that,
when they had trusted us, they were compelled to continue obsequious, for
Heriot had instilled the sentiment in the school, that gentlemen never
failed to wipe out debts in the long run, so it was their interest to
make us feel they knew us to be gentlemen, who were at some time or other
sure to pay, and thus also they operated on our consciences. From which
it followed that one title of superiority among us, ranking next in the
order of nobility to the dignity conferred by Mr. Rippenger's rod, was
the being down in their books. Temple and I walked in the halo of
unlimited credit like more than mortal twins. I gave an order for four
bottles of champagne.
On the Friday evening Catman walked out with us. His studious habits
endeared him to us immensely, owing to his having his head in his book on
all occasions, and a walk under his superintendence was first cousin to
liberty. Some boys roamed ahead, some lagged behind, while Catman turned
over his pages, sounding the return only when it grew dark. The rumour
of the champagne had already intoxicated the boys. There was a companion
and most auspicious rumour that Boddy was going to be absent on Saturday.
If so, we said, we may drink our champagne under Catman's nose and he be
none the wiser. Saddlebank undertook to manage our feast for us. Coming
home over the downs, just upon twilight, Temple and I saw Saddlebank
carrying a long withy upright. We asked him what it was for. He shouted
back: 'It's for fortune. You keep the rear guard.' Then we saw him
following a man and a flock of geese, and imitating the action of the man
with his green wand. As we were ready to laugh at anything Saddlebank
did, we laughed at this. The man walked like one half asleep, and
appeared to wake up now and then to find that he was right in the middle
of his geese, and then he waited, and Saddlebank waited behind him.
Presently the geese passed a lane leading off the downs. We saw
Saddlebank duck his wand in a coaxing way, like an angler dropping his
fly for fish; he made all sorts of curious easy flourishes against the
sky and branched up the lane. We struck after him, little suspecting
that he had a goose in front, but he had; he had cut one of the loiterers
off from the flock; and to see him handle his wand on either side his
goose, encouraging it to go forward, and remonstrating, and addressing it
in bits of Latin, and the creature pattering stiff and astonished, sent
us in a dance of laughter.
'What have you done, old Saddle?' said Temple, though it was perfectly
clear what Saddlebank had done.
'I've carved off a slice of Michaelmas,' said Saddlebank, and he hewed
the air to flick delicately at his goose's head.
'What do you mean--a slice?' said we.
We wanted to be certain the goose was captured booty. Saddlebank would
talk nothing but his fun. Temple fetched a roaring sigh:
'Oh! how good this goose 'd be with our champagne.'
The idea seized and enraptured me. 'Saddlebank, I 'll buy him off you,'
I said.
'Chink won't flavour him,' said Saddlebank, still at his business: 'here,
you two, cut back by the down and try all your might to get a dozen
apples before Catman counts heads at the door, and you hold your
tongues.'
We shot past the man with the geese--I pitied him--clipped a corner of
the down, and by dint of hard running reached the main street, mad for
apples, before Catman appeared there. Apples, champagne, and cakes were
now provided; all that was left to think of was the goose. We glorified
Saddlebank's cleverness to the boys.
'By jingo! what a treat you'll have,' Temple said among them, bursting
with our secret.
Saddlebank pleaded that he had missed his way on presenting himself ten
minutes after time. To me and Temple he breathed of goose, but he
shunned us; he had no fun in him till Saturday afternoon, when Catman
called out to hear if we were for cricket or a walk.
'A walk on the downs,' said Saddlebank.
Temple and I echoed him, and Saddlebank motioned his hand as though he
were wheedling his goose along. Saddlebank spoke a word to my
commissioners. I was to leave the arrangements for the feast to him, he
said. John Salter was at home unwell, so Saddlebank was chief. No
sooner did we stand on the downs than he gathered us all in a circle, and
taking off his cap threw in it some slips of paper. We had to draw lots
who should keep by Catman out of twenty-seven; fifteen blanks were
marked. Temple dashed his hand into the cap first 'Like my luck,' he
remarked, and pocketed both fists as he began strutting away to hide his
desperation at drawing a blank. I bought a substitute for him at the
price of half-a-crown,--Drew, a fellow we were glad to get rid of; he
wanted five shillings. The feast was worth fifty, but to haggle about
prices showed the sneak. He begged us to put by a taste for him; he was
groaned out of hearing. The fifteen looked so wretched when they saw
themselves divided from us that I gave them a shilling a-piece to console
them. They took their instructions from Saddlebank as to how they were
to surround Catman, and make him fancy us to be all in his neighbourhood;
and then we shook hands, they requesting us feebly to drink their
healths, and we saying, ay, that we would.
Temple was in distress of spirits because of his having been
ignominiously bought off. Saddlebank, however, put on such a pace that
no one had leisure for melancholy. 'I'll get you fellows up to boiling
point,' said he. There was a tremendously hot sun overhead. On a sudden
he halted, exclaiming: 'Cooks and gridirons! what about sage and
onions?' Only Temple and I jumped at the meaning of this. We drew lots
for a messenger, and it was miserable to behold an unfortunate fellow
touch Saddlebank's hand containing the notched bit of stick, and find
himself condemned to go and buy sage and onions somewhere, without
knowing what it was for how could he guess we were going to cook a raw
goose! The lot fell to a boy named Barnshed, a big slow boy, half way up
every class he was in, but utterly stupid out of school; which made
Saddlebank say: 'They'll take it he's the bird that wants stuffing.'
Barnshed was directed where to rejoin us. The others asked why he was
trotted after sage and onions. 'Because he's an awful goose,' said
Saddlebank.
Temple and I thought the word was out and hurrahed, and back came
Barnshed. We had a task in persuading him to resume his expedition, as
well as Saddlebank to forgive us. Saddlebank's anger was excessive. We
conciliated him by calling him captain, and pretending to swear an oath
of allegiance. He now led us through a wood on to some fields down to a
shady dell, where we were to hold the feast in privacy. He did not
descend it himself. Vexatious as it was to see a tramp's tent there, we
nevertheless acknowledged the respectful greeting of the women and the
man with a few questions about tentpegs, pots, and tin mugs. Saddlebank
remained aloft, keeping a look-out for the day-school fellows, Chaunter,
Davis, and Bystop, my commissioners. They did not keep us waiting long.
They had driven to the spot in a cart, according to Saddlebank's
directions. Our provisions were in three large hampers. We praised
their forethought loudly at the sight of an extra bottle of champagne,
with two bottles of ginger-wine, two of currant, two of raisin, four pint
bottles of ale, six of ginger-beer, a Dutch cheese, a heap of tarts,
three sally-lunns, and four shillingsworth of toffy. Temple and I joined
our apples to the mass: a sight at which some of the boys exulted aloud.
The tramp-women insisted on spreading things out for us: ten yards off
their children squatted staring: the man smoked and chaffed us.
At last Saddlebank came running over the hill-side, making as if he meant
to bowl down what looked a black body of a baby against the sky, and
shouting, 'See, you fellows, here's a find!' He ran through us, swinging
his goose up to the hampers, saying that he had found the goose under a
furze-bush. While the words were coming out of his mouth, he saw the
tramps, and the male tramp's eyes and his met.
The man had one eyebrow and his lips at one corner screwed in a queer
lift: he winked slowly. 'Odd! ain't it?' he said.
Saddlebank shouldered round on us, and cried, 'Confound you fellows!
here's a beastly place you've pitched upon.' His face was the colour of
scarlet in patches.
'Now, I call it a beautiful place,' said the man, 'and if you finds
gooses hereabouts growing ready for the fire, all but plucking, why, it's
a bountiful place, I call it.'
The women tried to keep him silent. But for them we should have moved
our encampment. 'Why, of course, young gentlemen, if you want to eat the
goose, we'll pluck it for you and cook it for you, all nice,' they said.
'How can young gentlemen do that for theirselves?'
It was clear to us we must have a fire for the goose. Certain
observations current among us about the necessity to remove the goose's
inside, and not to lose the giblets, which even the boy who named them
confessed his inability to recognize, inclined the majority to accept the
woman's proposal. Saddlebank said it was on our heads, then.
To revive his good humour, Temple uncorked a bottle of champagne. The
tramp-woman lent us a tin mug, and round it went. One boy said, 'That's
a commencement'; another said, 'Hang old Rippenger.' Temple snapped his
fingers, and Bystop, a farmer's son, said, 'Well, now I've drunk
champagne; I meant to before I died!' Most of the boys seemed puzzled by
it. As for me, my heart sprang up in me like a colt turned out of
stables to graze. I determined that the humblest of my retainers should
feed from my table, and drink to my father's and Heriot's honour, and I
poured out champagne for the women, who just sipped, and the man, who
vowed he preferred beer. A spoonful of the mashed tarts I sent to each
of the children. Only one, the eldest, a girl about a year older than
me, or younger, with black eyebrows and rough black hair, refused to eat
or drink.
'Let her bide, young gentlemen,' said a woman; 'she's a regular
obstinate, once she sets in for it.'
'Ah!' said the man, 'I've seen pigs druv, and I've seen iron bent double.
She's harder 'n both, once she takes 't into her head.'
'By jingo, she's pig-iron!' cried Temple, and sighed, 'Oh, dear old
Heriot!'
I flung myself beside him to talk of our lost friend.
A great commotion stirred the boys. They shrieked at beholding their
goose vanish in a pot for stewing. They wanted roast-goose, they
exclaimed, not boiled; who cared for boiled goose! But the woman asked
them how it was possible to roast a goose on the top of wood-flames,
where there was nothing to hang it by, and nothing would come of it
except smoked bones!
The boys groaned in consternation, and Saddlebank sowed discontent by
grumbling, 'Now you see what your jolly new acquaintances have done for
you.'
So we played at catch with the Dutch cheese, and afterwards bowled it for
long-stopping, when, to the disgust of Saddlebank and others, down ran
the black-haired girl and caught the ball clean at wicket-distance. As
soon as she had done it she was ashamed, and slunk away.
The boys called out, 'Now, then, pig-iron !'
One fellow enraged me by throwing an apple that hit her in the back.
We exchanged half-a-dozen blows, whereupon he consented to apologize, and
roared, 'Hulloa, pig-iron, sorry if I hurt you.'
Temple urged me to insist on the rascal's going on his knees for flinging
at a girl.
'Why,' said Chaunter, 'you were the first to call her pig-iron.'
Temple declared he was a blackguard if he said that. I made the girl
take a piece of toffy.
'Aha!' Saddlebank grumbled, 'this comes of the precious company you would
keep in spite of my caution.'
The man told us to go it, for he liked to observe young gentlemen
enjoying themselves. Temple tossed him a pint bottle of beer, with an
injunction to him to shut his trap.
'Now, you talk my mother tongue,' said the man; 'you're what goes by the
name of a learned gentleman. Thank ye, sir. You'll be a counsellor some
day.'
'I won't get off thieves, I can tell you,' said Temple. He was the son
of a barrister.
'Nor you won't help cook their gooses for them, may be,' said the man.
'Well, kindness is kindness, all over the world.'
The women stormed at him to command him not to anger the young gentlemen,
for Saddlebank was swearing awfully in an undertone. He answered them
that he was the mildest lamb afloat.
Despairing of the goose, we resolved to finish the cold repast awaiting
us. The Dutch cheese had been bowled into bits. With a portion of the
mashed tarts on it, and champagne, it tasted excellently; toffy to
follow. Those boys who chose ginger-wine had it, and drank, despised.
The ginger-beer and ale, apples and sallylunns, were reserved for supper.
My mind became like a driving sky, with glimpses of my father and Heriot
bursting through.
'If I'm not a prince, I'm a nobleman,' I said to Temple.
He replied, 'Army or Navy. I don't much care which. We're sure of a
foreign war some time. Then you'll see fellows rise: lieutenant,
captain, colonel, General--quick as barrels popping at a bird. I should
like to be Governor of Gibraltar.'
'I'll come and see you, Temple,' said I.
'Done! old Richie,' he said, grasping my hand warmly.
'The truth is, Temple,' I confided to him, 'I've an uncle-I mean a
grandfather-of enormous property; he owns half Hampshire, I believe, and
hates my father like poison. I won't stand it. You've seen my father,
haven't you? Gentlemen never forget their servants, Temple. Let's drink
lots more champagne. I wish you and I were knights riding across that
country there, as they used to, and you saying, "I wonder whether your
father's at home in the castle expecting our arrival."'
'The Baron!' said Temple. 'He's like a Baron, too. His health. Your
health, sir! It's just the wine to drink it in, Richie. He's one of the
men I look up to. It 's odd he never comes to see you, because he's fond
of you; the right sort of father! Big men can't be always looking after
little boys. Not that we're so young, though, now. Lots of fellows of
our age have done things fellows write about. I feel--' Temple sat up
swelling his chest to deliver an important sentiment; 'I feel uncommonly
thirsty.'
So did I. We attributed it to the air of the place, Temple going so far
as to say that it came off the chalk, which somehow stuck in the throat.
'Saddleback, don't look glum,' said Temple. 'Lord, Richie, you should
hear my father plead in Court with his wig on. They used to say at home
I was a clever boy when I was a baby. Saddleback, you've looked glum all
the afternoon.'
'Treat your superiors respectfully,' Saddlebank retorted.
The tramp was irritating him. That tramp had never left off smoking and
leaning on his arm since we first saw him. Two boys named Hackman and
Montague, not bad fellows, grew desirous of a whiff from his pipe. They
had it, and lay down silent, back to back. Bystop was led away in a
wretched plight. Two others, Paynter and Ashworth, attacked the apples,
rendered desperate by thirst. Saddlebank repelled them furiously. He
harangued those who might care to listen.
'You fellows, by George! you shall eat the goose, I tell you. You've
spoilt everything, and I tell you, whether you like it or not, you shall
have apples with it, and sage and onions too. I don't ask for thanks.
And I propose to post outposts in the wood to keep watch.'
He wanted us to draw lots again. His fun had entirely departed from him;
all he thought of was seeing the goose out of the pot. I had a feeling
next to hatred for one who could talk of goose. Temple must have shared
it.
'We 've no real captain now dear old Heriot 's gone,' he said. 'The
school's topsy-turvy: we're like a lot of things rattled in a box. Oh,
dear! how I do like a good commander. On he goes, you after him, never
mind what happens.'
A pair of inseparable friends, Happitt and Larkins, nicknamed Happy-go-
Lucky, were rolling arm-in-arm, declaring they were perfectly sober, and,
for a proof of it, trying to direct their feet upon a lump of chalk, and
marching, and missing it. Up came Chaunter to them: 'Fat goose?' he
said-no more. Both the boys rushed straight as far as they could go;
both sung out, 'I'm done!' and they were.
Temple and I contemplated these proceedings as matters belonging to the
ordinary phenomena of feasting. We agreed that gentlemen were always the
last to drop, and were assured, therefore, of our living out the field;
but I dreaded the moment of the goose's appearance, and I think he did
also. Saddlebank's pertinacity in withholding the cool ginger-beer and
the apples offended us deeply; we should have conspired against him had
we reposed confidence in our legs and our tongues.
Twilight was around us. The tramp-children lay in little bundles in one
tent; another was being built by the women and the girl. Overhead I
counted numbers of stars, all small; and lights in the valley-lights of
palaces to my imagination. Stars and tramps seemed to me to go together.
Houses imprisoned us, I thought a lost father was never to be discovered
by remaining in them. Plunged among dark green leaves, smelling wood-
smoke, at night; at morning waking up, and the world alight, and you
standing high, and marking the hills where you will see the next morning
and the next, morning after morning, and one morning the dearest person
in the world surprising you just before you wake: I thought this a
heavenly pleasure. But, observing the narrowness of the tents, it struck
me there would be snoring companions. I felt so intensely sensitive,
that the very idea of a snore gave me tremours and qualms: it was
associated with the sense of fat. Saddlebank had the lid of the pot in
his hand; we smelt the goose, and he cried, 'Now for supper; now for it!
Halloa, you fellows!'
'Bother it, Saddlebank, you'll make Catman hear you,' said Temple, wiping
his forehead.
I perspired coldly.
'Catman! He's been at it for the last hour and a half,' Saddlebank
replied.
One boy ran up: he was ready, and the only one who was. Presently
Chaunter rushed by.
'Barnshed 's in custody; I'm away home,' he said, passing.
We stared at the black opening of the dell.
'Oh, it's Catman; we don't mind him,' Saddlebank reassured us; but we
heard ominous voices, and perceived people standing over a prostrate
figure. Then we heard a voice too well known to us. It said, 'The
explanation of a pupil in your charge, Mr. Catman, being sent barefaced
into the town--a scholar of mine-for sage and onions . . .'
'Old Rippenger!' breathed Temple.
We sat paralyzed. Now we understood the folly of despatching a donkey
like Barnshed for sage and onions.
'Oh, what asses we have been!' Temple continued. 'Come along-we run for
it! Come along, Richie! They 're picking up the fellows like
windfalls.'
I told him I would not run for it; in fact, I distrusted my legs; and he
was staggering, answering Saddlebank's reproaches for having come among
tramps.
'Temple, I see you, sir!' called Mr. Rippenger. Poor Temple had advanced
into the firelight.
With the instinct to defeat the master, I crawled in the line of the
shadows to the farther side of a tent, where I felt a hand clutch mine.
'Hide me,' said I; and the curtain of the tent was raised. After
squeezing through boxes and straw, I lay flat, covered by a mat smelling
of abominable cheese, and felt a head outside it on my chest. Several
times Mr. Rippenger pronounced my name in the way habitual to him in
anger: 'Rye!'
Temple's answer was inaudible to me. Saddlebank spoke, and other boys,
and the man and the woman. Then a light was thrust in the tent, and the
man said, 'Me deceive you, sir! See for yourself, to satisfy yourself.
Here's our little uns laid warm, and a girl there, head on the mat, going
down to join her tribe at Lipcombe, and one of our women sleeps here, and
all told. But for you to suspect me of combining--Thank ye, sir.
You've got my word as a man.'
The light went away. My chest was relieved of the weight on it. I sat
up, and the creature who had been kind to me laid mat and straw on the
ground, and drew my head on her shoulder, where I slept fast.
ETEXT EDITOR'S BOOKMARKS:
A stew's a stew, and not a boiling to shreds
I can't think brisk out of my breeches
Kindness is kindness, all over the world
Learn all about them afterwards, ay, and make the best of them
To hope, and not be impatient, is really to believe
Unseemly hour--unbetimes