Mr. Lamb improves his Mind in Private.
Rather to the consternation of the first desk, though perhaps not very
much to their surprise, Mr. Long brought a charge against them—that
they had been smoking. It was the morning following Gall's holiday; and
Mr. Long waylaid three or four of the seniors as they were filing into
the school-hall after chapel. Gall of course knew nothing of it. His
nose had been greeted with an unusual scent on his entering the chamber
the previous night, when the boys were all in bed and asleep, but he
was wise enough never to take cognizance of things that did not fall
under his immediate observation. Mr. Long addressed himself to civil
Trace.
"Trace, I charge you, speak the truth. Were you smoking?"
"No, Mr. Long, I was not. I never smoke."
"I _can't_ smoke, sir," put in Brown major eagerly. "Smoking wouldn't
agree with me."
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Long, but I think whoever has carried this
story to you, might have been better occupied in minding his own
business," observed Loftus, boldly. "I wonder you take notice of tales
brought by a rat."
Mr. Long flushed a little, but was not to be put down. He awarded every
one that slept in the senior room, except Gall and Trace, a severe
punishment: lessons to do out of hours. Gall, from his absence, could
not have been in the affair, and the denial of Trace was believed. If
Lamb was the sneak of the school, Trace was the Pharisee, and
considered by the masters accordingly. But that Mr. Long was conscious
of feeling rather small himself on the subject of listening to "a
rat"—whom _he_ took to mean Lamb—he might have laid the offence before
the Head Master: as it was, he dealt with it himself. There was much
dissatisfaction rife at the first desk that day.
Had a very angel from heaven come down to tell them the informant was
not Mr. Henry, they had scarcely listened. He was their rat. Even
Loftus and Irby, the two who had been inclined to like the German
master, turned against him. Gall also, in his private thoughts,
considered it a gratuitous interference.
"I told you I knew the fellow was a spy," cried Trace, speaking
vehemently in his condemning resentment.
A spy from henceforth, in their estimation, and to be looked upon as
such: one who would have the whole school armed against him.
But now, the informant was not Mr. Henry—as I daresay you have divined:
the real one was Lamb. When Brown minor carried back the news to his
chamber of what he had seen, Lamb, who slept there, treasured it up,
and whispered it to Mr. Long the first thing in the morning. Not a
single boy, save himself, would have told. The whole lot of juniors,
from the second desk downwards, would have scorned it: they were too
fond of escapades themselves, to tell of the seniors; not to speak of
the hidings—to use their own language—they would have been treated to
in private. In this instance Lamb was not suspected, the suspicion
having fixed itself on Mr. Henry.
Something almost amounting to a rebellion took place in the quadrangle
after morning school; and perhaps no man had ever been called so many
hard names as the unfortunate foreign master. Paradyne was not there;
being an outsider, and not in favour besides, he had gone home at once;
or the news of the accusation might have reached Mr. Henry. A cad! a
sneak! a German spy! What was to be done? asked the enraged boys, one
of another. Well, nothing much could be done, except send him to
Coventry. Not being the Head Master, they had not the authority to
dismiss him from his place; neither, as the affair had its rise in that
forbidden fruit, tobacco, could they be demonstrative in the hearing of
the masters.
"Let's go to him," foamed Savage. "Let's have it out."
"Better not," advised Fullarton, who, as purchaser of the cigars, felt
a trifle more insecure than the rest, and naturally wished the affair
to die away. "There'd only be a row. You know you never can keep your
temper, Savage."
"Temper be bothered," cried Brown major. "He ought to be told that
we've found him out."
"Then let Trace go. Trace can keep his."
Trace declined. "He'd rather not speak to the fellow."
"I'll go," said Loftus.
Away he went, on the spur of the moment, nearly the whole lot at his
heels. Brown major walked into the room with him; Fullarton pushed in
also, to see that peace was kept. Mrs. Butter, in a hot flurry banged
her kitchen-door in their faces; but their visit this time was not to
her.
Mr. Henry was at dinner. A snow-white cloth and napkin, and silver
forks; everything of that sort nice, as befitted a gentleman's table;
but the dinner itself consisted of potatoes, eaten with salt. A Dutch
cheese was there; bread; and a small glass of milk. The intruding
gentlemen stared at the fare, and Mr. Loftus's handsome nose went up
with an air, Mr. Henry rose and stood before the table, courteous
always; and Fullarton kicked out behind to keep out the throng.
"You were pacing the gravel walk at the back last night, Mr. Henry,"
began Loftus, so calmly that no human listener could have supposed it
the advance trumpet-blast of war, "and saw two or three cigars
overhead, I think?"
"Both saw them and smelt them," answered Mr. Henry with a smile.
"Exactly. Don't you think it was rather dishonourable of you to go and
tell the English master of it this morning?"
"I did not do so."
"_We_ think it was," continued Loftus, wholly disregarding the denial.
"A gentleman could not be guilty of such an act. You have but just come
among us, and in any case the matter was none of yours. Perhaps you
will concern yourself in future with your own affairs, and not with
ours. The first desk is not accustomed to this kind of thing."
Except for the stress laid upon the word "gentleman," there was nothing
offensive in the cold tone: Loftus could not have descended to abuse.
Mr. Henry looked surprised, rather bewildered.
"I should think you did not hear my denial, Loftus. I assure you I have
not spoken of this."
"That's all," returned Loftus, going out with his tail, who had not
seen cause to interfere. Brown major, however, thought better of it,
and turned back for a parting word.
"Such a nasty, sneaking thing to do, you know! You might have accused
us openly to our faces; not have gone canting to the masters behind our
backs."
Whatever Bertie Loftus's faults might be, he scorned a lie: and he
fully believed the denial of the German master to be nothing less. So
far as the smoking party knew, nobody else had been, or could have
been, cognizant of the cigars; for Brown minor and his room had kept
their own counsel.
"I knew he'd deny it," exclaimed Trace, when they got back, his light
eyes flashing with a scorn not often seen there. "You now see what he
is."
"I say, what d'ye think he's having for dinner?" burst out Fullarton.
"Potatoes and salt."
"Potatoes and salt? Go along with you."
"Ask Loftus then; ask Brown. He had got nothing else but a Dutch
cheese; he was washing 'em down with milk."
"What else could be expected of one who'd go to lodge at Mother
Butter's?" was the scornful remark of Savage. "He must be a cad!"
"And an owl," squeaked Lamb, venturing forward. "Owls go out prowling
at night. Nobody else _could_ have told."
Clearly. A master who dined on potatoes and salt, and eat his words
with a lie when his villainy was found out, was an owl, and all the
rest of it.
Mr. Henry meanwhile was unconscious of the storm against him. He rather
laughed over the matter, attaching no importance to it. His frugal
dinner despatched, he was plodding on with his translation, when a
little fellow, to whom he had promised some help in a tormenting French
exercise, came in; and he was followed by George Paradyne, who often
brought his Greek difficulties to Mr. Henry. George was a good
classical scholar, but Mr. Henry was a better. Patiently he gave his
best attention to both, putting his own work aside. He was always ready
to help the boys out of hours, and encouraged them to come to him,
though it was not in his line of duties.
Afternoon school began. A dull, weary afternoon, with inward
dissatisfaction reigning. Mr. Henry called up the second desk, and
found his pupils careless and troublesome, bordering on
insubordination. He promised them punishment if they did not attend
better. Master Dick Loftus especially was as scornfully insolent as he
dared be. Not very long after they were sent back to their places, Dick
lifted the lid of his desk, and fished up a rotten apple.
"Onions, see here. I've a great mind to shy it at him."
Onions glanced round the room; he enjoyed mischief as much as Dick, and
was heartily hating and despising Mr. Henry: having nothing of the
sneak in his own disposition, he could not tolerate it in others.
"You'll be seen, Dick. Old Jebb's eyes are rolling about."
"They always are, and be hanged to him, when Brabazon's away!"
exclaimed Smart from the other side of Dick, as resentfully as if the
rolling of the Reverend Mr. Jebb's eyes were a personal affront.
Presently the opportunity came; Dick raised the apple, carefully took
aim, and sent it flying. Good aim, for it struck the cheek of Mr.
Henry, making on it a great dash and splash, as it is in the nature of
a rotten apple to do. But, unfortunately, at the very moment of Dick's
giving an impetus to the missile, Mr. Henry happened to raise his eyes;
he saw the deliberate aim, saw the throw, and Dick knew that he saw it.
The whole room was aroused.
"Who did that?" cried out Mr. Baker, in a passion. "He shall have a
good caning, whoever it was."
Nobody answered. The second desk especially, bending attentively over
their books, looked up in innocent surprise.
"Who did it, I ask?" roared Mr. Baker, a choleric man, beginning to
talk fast and furiously, and to cane his table as kindly as if it had
been a boy's back. In the midst, in walked the Head Master. As he took
his place the noise sunk to a calm.
"Did you see who flung the apple, Mr. Henry?" inquired the Master, when
he was made cognizant of the cause of uproar he had come upon: and his
quiet voice of authority presented a contrast to Mr. Baker's.
Involuntarily, as it were, and for a moment only, Mr. Henry's glance
met Dick's. Something like shame for the act, something like a piteous
appeal for silence, went out of Dick's eyes. It is so very different,
you see—the accomplishing a little thing of this sort with impunity,
and the being caught in the act. Mr. Henry, replying to the Head
Master, said it might have been an accident, and finished wiping his
face with his handkerchief. A nice mess the cambric was in.
"Accident or no accident, the boy shall be punished if I can discover
him," returned the doctor. "Can't you tell who flung it?"
Mr. Henry merely shook his head very slightly. It was of no
consequence, he quietly said, and called up the third class for its
German exercises. Dr. Brabazon, letting the matter drop, sat down and
began turning the things over on his table in search of his
lead-pencil. Not finding it, he took one from his pocket, and, in doing
so, let it fall. It rolled along the floor, and one of the boys picked
it up.
"Thank you, Jessop," said he, always pleasant with his pupils. "It
would not do to lose this, would it?"
The pencil was of gold, with a beautiful diamond set in the top. It had
been a present to him from some former pupils. The doctor began to make
notes on an exercise.
"I say, Dick, what a blessing the German did not twig you," whispered
Smart, speaking with his head bent over his Euripides as if he were
steadily conning it.
"But he did," answered Dick.
"I'm sure he didn't. What nonsense! As if he'd not have got you into
punishment if he had the chance!"
Dick, for a wonder, did not insist on his own opinion, and the
afternoon went on. Dr. Brabazon's man-servant, Dean, appeared at the
door and said a gentleman was waiting to see him, and the doctor left
the hall. He only came back again just as the classes were rising.
Boys and masters poured out indiscriminately as usual. Mr. Henry walked
away quickly, and the boys went into a state of frantic delight in the
tea-room, ironically hoping he was washing his cheek.
But Dick Loftus had been struck with the amazing generosity displayed
to him; for that Mr. Henry saw him fling the apple purposely, had been
as plain to him as the sun at noon-day; and he thought he owed some
acknowledgment of the consideration shown. Dick Loftus was all impulse,
and he forthwith went on the gallop to Mother Butter's. Mr. Henry was
bending over his table working at the translation.
"I've come to say I'm sorry for what I did, and to thank you for not
telling of me," began Dick, his face glowing rather more than usual.
"That's right," said Mr. Henry, his luminous eyes lighting up with a
smile as he took Dick's hand and shook it.
"You saw me fling it, didn't you, sir?"
"Yes."
"Then why didn't you tell?"
"Because I did not wish you to be punished. I like to make people's
lives pleasant to them; perhaps because I have had very little pleasure
in my own."
"Would you never punish any of us?"
"I would if I saw you do essentially wrong. But for petty
spite—retaliation—revenge—oh, Dick, don't you know Who it is that has
warned us against these? I think we must all try for love and peace on
earth if we would enter into it in heaven."
Dick considered: it was rather an unaccustomed way of putting matters.
He began to work things out in his mind, speaking, as was usual with
him, what came uppermost.
"I don't call it at all a heavenly thing to have gone behind their
backs, and told about the seniors smoking," said he, practically. "I
suppose you think smoking's one of the wrong things."
"It's not very right," replied Mr. Henry. "It injures themselves, and
it is flying in the face of orders."
"But why did you not report them openly, instead of the—the other way?"
"I did not report them at all. I did not mention it to any one."
"Is that true?" asked Dick, dubiously.
"Boy! I should never tell you what was not true."
Dick stood puzzled. It was Mr. Henry's word against common sense;
against the conviction of the whole school. Nothing would come of
arguing the matter, even had Mr. Henry been disposed to argue it, and
Dick turned to leave, saying something in a complaining tone about
having to get to his lessons in play hours.
"Do you find them difficult?" asked Mr. Henry.
"Difficult?" returned Dick, as if the question were an aggravation.
"It's that horrid Euclid. Nothing ever bothers me as that does."
"Bring it to me; I daresay I can smooth your mountains for you by a
little explanation."
"Do you mean it?" cried Dick, a spring of gratitude in his voice. "But
it is not in your work. You have nothing to do with Euclid."
"Never mind that. Fetch it now."
Dick flew for his books. Mr. Henry did smooth the mountains, patiently,
kindly; and he bade him always come to him in the same
stumbling-blocks—every evening if he liked. Mrs. Butter made her
appearance once, which Dick regarded as an agreeable interlude, for it
enabled him to ask affectionately after the shorn cock and the other
animals, to the lady's great wrath. She had a pair of new boots in her
hand for Mr. Henry; the man, she said, was waiting for the money. Mr.
Henry replied that it was not convenient to pay him then; he would send
it in a day or two.
Dick, his Euclid difficulty over, went home; and in giving an account
to his friends of various matters, mentioned this episode of the new
boots and the nonpayment—not in ill-nature, but in his propensity to
gossip. Trace was contemptuous over it.
"I'll lay a guinea the fellow has not a shilling in the world!"
"But look here!" cried Dick. "I don't really think it was he that told
about the smoke. He says he didn't: he's as earnest as he can be."
"That's all your opinion's good for," returned Trace. And the rest gave
a slighting laugh at Dick. Dick took his revenge in a most impudent
whistle.
The boys were subsequently in the hall at their evening lessons. Lamb,
who had contrived to do his quickly, was stealing out to pass the
intervening half-hour before prayer-time in his bedroom, which was
against rules. In passing the mathematical room, he encountered Mr.
Long. Glancing around to see that no one else was within hearing, Mr.
Long accosted him in a semi-undertone.
"By the way, Lamb—there was no mistake I suppose in regard to that
matter you mentioned to me? The seniors _were_ smoking?"
"No mistake at all, sir. Five or six cigars were alight, and the room
was full of smoke."
"They are making a terrible fuss over it—just as though it were not
true."
"It was quite true, sir. My only motive in reporting it to you was
their own good: I did not want to get them into a row. It _is_ a
pernicious habit."
"Ah," returned Mr. Long, peering rather dubiously through his
spectacles on his virtuous friend. For he really did not approve of
sneaks as a whole, but there always seemed some excuse for listening to
this one. What with his near sight, and what with his absent brain,
buried in its calculations and sciences, Mr. Long was reproachfully
self-conscious that he did not look out for peccadilloes as he ought.
"That's all then, Lamb."
Mr. Long turned towards the hall; Lamb towards the library, as if he
wanted to borrow a book. But as soon as the master's footsteps had died
away, the young gentleman altered his course, and stole gingerly up the
stairs.
After Dick Loftus had left with his mathematical books, Mr. Henry got
to his translation, and wrote on by candle-light, how long he hardly
knew. His head, which had been aching all the evening, grew worse, and
he suddenly bethought himself to take a mouthful of fresh air. The
heavy atmosphere was so different from what he was accustomed to in
Germany, that he sometimes felt three parts stifled. Putting on his
trencher, he strolled across the gymnasium ground, damp this evening,
to the broad gravel walk before mentioned, leading past the study and
the rest of the back windows of the college. Barely had he begun to
pace the path, when he encountered a strange man, much to his surprise;
for the place was private. Mr. Henry accosted him.
"Are you in search of any one?"
"I have a letter for Dr. Brabazon. I can't find any entrance to the
house. This is Orville College, isn't it?"
The words were spoken roughly and impatiently; the tones seemed to be
those of an educated man. Mr. Henry tried to get a distinct view of his
face, but the speaker turned his back, and appeared to be looking for
some entrance to the college.
"You must go round to the front," said Mr. Henry. "The entrances are
all on that side."
Without a word of thanks, the stranger went off down the path, looking
here and there like one uncertain of his road; but he took the right
turning, round by the chapel. Mr. Henry, who had watched him, continued
his way to the top of the gravel-walk—he, and his tired brow.
As he was passing underneath the bedrooms in returning, a piece of
newspaper, seemingly as large as a whole _Times_, and crumpled into a
sort of ball, came down upon his cap.
"Who's that?" he called out, thinking it might have been done to
attract his attention. The question brought forth a boy's head from one
of the upper windows, and a faint light that was burning in the room
suddenly went out.
"Did you throw that down for any purpose?" asked Mr. Henry.
"No, sir. Did it touch you? I beg your pardon. It was only a piece of
old newspaper I threw away."
The head went in again. Mr. Henry had not discerned to whom it
belonged, and did not care to know. He began to cross slowly back
towards home; he could not afford to waste more time, but must get to
his work again.
"It was that beast of a German!"
The words came from Mr. Lamb—for his head it was, which had been thrust
forth in answer to Mr. Henry. Lamb had gained the bedroom
unmolested—you saw him on his way to it—and the first thing he did,
after bolting the door, was to light a private taper. He had brought a
huge cake to school, with sundry other luxuries, and had been enjoying
them systematically, so much each day, as he could get solitary
opportunity. The last slice of the cake only remained to be eaten. He
gobbled it in rather quickly, licked up the crumbs remaining in the
paper, made a ball of that, and flung it out just as Mr. Henry chanced
to be passing. When the latter called out, Lamb extinguished the candle
with his finger and thumb, and then looked out to answer.
"It's that beast of a German!"
But Mr. Lamb need not have called names. He watched Mr. Henry crossing
towards his home, and gave him time to get indoors. It wanted still
some twenty minutes to the hour for chapel, and he relighted his taper.
Diving into the bottom of his box, he brought forth a favourite book
for a little wholesome recreation, and also a choice cigarette, which
he lighted. Down he sat on the next box, low, square, and convenient;
puffing comfortably away, and improving his mind with the solacing
pages of "Jack Sheppard."