"Let us take this defeat in a proper spirit, Gregson. It may be for our
good. As you know, I suffer a great deal from Stopford. Well, it will
all tell some day. I don't exactly understand now why Stopford is
allowed to twist my arms and then hit the muscles till they ache for
hours and often keep me awake at night; but there's a reason."
"The reason is that Richmond major has gone," I said.
"There's a better reason than that," he said. "I may turn Stopford from
his beastliness yet. Once or twice I've staggered him a bit with telling
him what will come of his cruelty to me."
That was the first time I seemed to see a screw loose in Richmond
minimus; but he didn't absolutely preach right bang out until we'd had a
missionary at the chapel one Sunday.
Our chapel was also the big school-room, and at one end were panels of
wood on week-days which very cunningly opened and turned into the Ten
Commandments on Sundays. On each side was a door, and one was the
Doctor's private entrance into the chapel, and the other was a deep
cupboard wherein were kept blackboards, large maps and other things. In
this chapel the missionary, who was an old pupil of Dr. Dunstan's,
preached to us about the heathen of some rather good-sounding place; and
Richmond minimus was so excited that he gave all his pocket-money and
borrowed two-pence of Williamson. In this manner he subscribed in all
fivepence; and if he could have borrowed more he would have given more.
From that day he decided to be a missionary at least, if not a martyr.
The missionary was certainly a good preacher, besides having seen lions
wild. It shows the difference between chaps that the lion part
interested me most and the heathen part bored me, while Richmond minimus
simply hated the lions, but the heathen part seemed to act on him like
ginger-beer and excite him to a fearful pitch.
Three days afterwards the fit burst out in Richmond minimus. I came
into the big school-room one night, ten minutes before the tea-bell, and
there he was preaching to about eight chaps, chiefly kids! But Mayne
and Morant were also there listening, Mayne being high in the sixth.
Words seemed to flow out of Richmond as easily as they flow out of a
master! He was talking about pocket-money.
"What is it but round bits of silver and copper?" he said. "Yet, my
dear friends, there is a great power in it, and we should not spend it
all on self. There are thousands of people who never have pocket-money,
but they deserve it quite as much as us; perhaps more. Suppose you have
threepence a week, which I have myself. Will it hurt you to yield up
one halfpenny to the charity box? Oh, my friends, it won't! Yet that
half-penny, given cheerfully every week through the term, comes out at
twelve halfpennies, which is sixpence. Do it gladly and your holidays
will be brighter by sixpence well spent than they otherwise would be."
Here the bell rang, and Mayne seemed in doubt whether to smack young
Richmond's head or rag him, or merely tell him he wasn't to preach
again. However, he did nothing except say to his chum, Morant, that it
was queer.
It wasn't what Richmond minimus said, but the way he said it. He was as
keen and solemn as if he'd been preaching to a million people in a
cathedral. The stuff about his wretched pocket-money might have been
the most important thing ever uttered by a bishop, such was the way he
said it. You couldn't help listening. It was only afterwards, when you
thought about it, that you realized what tommy rot it was. To cast away
a half-penny into the charity box weekly was a childish idea, I thought;
and Gideon, who understands the ins and outs of pocket-money in a way
nobody else does, owing to being the son of a diamond merchant, said
that the idea was false political economy; and I said so too.
As to Stopford, the charity box was a painful subject with him ever
since the Doctor happened to see him putting something into it. The
Doctor had found him subscribing rather often, and knowing the other
things that Stopford did, it much surprised him. So he set a trap and
had the box empty next time Stopford subscribed; and so at last found
out that it was Stopford who put in brace-buttons--a great problem that
had puzzled everybody the whole term. And they weren't even his own
brace-buttons.
After preaching three times Richmond minimus had the nerve to attack
Stopford publicly in a sermon! About twenty chaps were listening to
him, and as soon as he uttered the name, Stopford prepared to go and
scrag him; but two or three big fellows told him to sit down and not
interfere, and Richmond was so strung up and in such a frightfully
excited state that he sailed right on and spoke about Stopford in a way
that made many chaps bar Stopford for weeks afterwards.
"Oh, my friends," said Richmond--he was standing up in front of the
panels that turn into the Commandments on Sundays, and we were sitting
down in the body of the chapel--"Oh, my friends, and there is another
peril--a horror that walks in the noonday--a human leviathan seeking
what it may devour, and its name is Stopford! I who speak to you know
only too well this thorn in the flesh. I have suffered many things from
him, and shall again. But I suffer gladly. I am chastened for my own
good. Offences must come, but woe betide Stopford. He will have his
portion in the burning lake, my friends, for he is a son of Belial; and
he will call for a cup of cold water and probably none will bring it.
He is a bully, a coward, a cribber and a dirty beast who never even
washes his neck if he can help it. But black though his body may be,
his heart is blacker, dear friends----"
It was at this point that Stopford jumped up with his eyes blazing; but
Trelawny rapped him on the head and told him to sit down again. And
Richmond minimus went on faster and faster.
"Let us Christian spirits seek this vile boy and try and lift him out of
the slough. Let us not shun him as a thing unclean; let us not dispatch
him where the worms they crawl out and the worms they crawl in, dear
friends, but let us rejoice over this sinner as over a piece of silver
which is lost by a widow and was found again. Oh, my friends, remember
that Stopford is a human creature with a soul. It is hard to believe
this, but I am right. He is one of ourselves; that is the sad truth.
For our own sakes--for the sake of the school--let us try and turn him
from his evil ways, and teach him that to twist my arms in the sockets
till they ache all night is doing the devil's work, and that to kick me
till my shins, which are very thin, bleed and gather, is also the
devil's work; and to take sweets out of desks is also the devil's work;
not to mention many, many other things, such as smashing young Dobson's
birthday present from home and----"
"I didn't take anybody's sweets, you little beast!" screamed out
Stopford; and the big chaps roared and gave three cheers for Richmond
and three hisses for Stopford.
It was a frightfully exciting sermon, though never finished, and
Richmond minimus seemed quite dazed and wet with perspiration
afterwards. I talked to him in secret during evening prep., and told him
I was afraid that Stopford would never forgive him, and have a fearful
score off him sooner or later. I said--
"I remember hearing my father tell a story about a great clergyman--the
champion preacher, I believe--and being champion he had to preach to
Queen Victoria, which he did do. But instead of being terrifically
careful what he was about, he lost his head, like you did to-night, and
I believe he gave it to the Queen pretty much like you gave it to
Stopford. Not of course that the Queen was ever a quarter as bad as
Stopford. In fact, it was high treason to say she was bad at all--such
a magnificent Queen as her--easily the best ever known in history. And
everybody was in a frightful rage with the champion preacher; and the
Queen didn't like it too well herself; and the result was that he never
became the Archbishop of Canterbury, though it was a dead snip for him
before."
"I know," answered Richmond minimus, "but when you're preaching, the
things come pouring into your mind. You can't pick and choose. You
have to say what you're told to say, if you understand me."