"There's times when a man has got to stand up for his rights,
mister"--meaning the Doctor--"and this is one of 'em. These here young
rips be always driving my life out of me, and an example must be made.
I was half in a mind to send for a policeman; but I thought as I'd give
'em one more chance for their parents' sakes, so brought 'em to you,
because no doubt you be paid very well for larning 'em their lessons and
keeping 'em out of mischief. I've two things against 'em, and one is
that they bawl 'Cherry Ripe' after me morning, noon, and night, and take
sights at me, and do many other rude things; and the other is that now,
this minute, I've catched 'em red-handed in my gooseberry-bed, tucking
down my fruit for all they were worth. That's trespass and it's also
theft, and I don't want no more of it."
"Thank you," said the Doctor. "You have stated your case with a
lucidity and force that does you no little credit, Mr. Jenkins. Now the
accused and the accuser may freely speak, whilst I, as arbiter between
them, reserve the last word, and I fear the last action also." His eyes
roamed over to the corner where the canes were kept. Then he went on--
"Your indictment consists of three articles, and we will take them in
your own order. You submit that these youths have insulted you, have
trespassed on your private property, and have stolen your goods. Now,
boy Pedlar, have you or have you not, at any time and in any public
place, addressed Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm,
as 'Cherry Ripe'?"
"Yes, sir," said Pedlar.
"Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
"Yes, sir."
The Doctor seemed disappointed, and Cherry Ripe smiled with a grim and
scornful smile.
"To accost an honest purveyor of the fruits of the earth with words
which, in the nature of his calling, it is necessary that he should
himself loudly repeat at intervals--to do this is a senseless and
offensive act," said the Doctor. "Nothing can be said in favour of it.
No earthly benefit--not even the meretricious semblance of benefit--can
accrue to the boy who bawls 'Cherry Ripe!' after somebody else. The
operation shows a lack of mental balance that may make us fear for the
sanity of the performer, and regard the probable course of his future
with dismay and the liveliest foreboding. But now we are faced with
accusations of a very different character. It is asserted that you four
boys have gone out of bounds, and disobeyed me; that you have trespassed
on another's private property, and so made of no account the laws of
man; and, lastly, that you have taken fruit that did not belong to
you--that you have broken the eighth Commandment, and thus shattered the
sacred edict of your Maker!"
The Doctor worked this up, as only he can, till we saw what an immense
number of laws we had broken all at once--like you do when you begin to
play golf--and, of course, it was a very solemn moment for everybody.
Even Cherry Ripe looked rather frightened. The Doctor rolled it out,
and shook his finger at Cherry Ripe as much as at us. Then came the
questions.
"Is this infamous imputation true, Edgar Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you, Harold Pedlar?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
Chilvers, like a little fool, tried to hedge against the future.
"Yes, and I'm very sorry, sir," he said.
The Doctor looked at us as if we were some new sort of animals, and he
didn't know how we had got in. He gave a tremendous snort, and took off
his glasses. Then he turned to Cherry Ripe.
"To attempt any analysis of my personal emotions at this juncture would
be vain," he said. "In these cases introspection may well be left for a
subsequent occasion. For the moment justice cries with trumpet tongue.
And be under no apprehension, Jenkins, that justice will miscarry on
this occasion. As an agriculturist----"
Here the Doctor forgot us, and talked like anything to Cherry Ripe about
growing vegetables, and Ceres and Pomona and Horace and Virgil, and
other well-known people out of school books. He fairly terrified Cherry
Ripe, I believe. Anyway, Cherry Ripe kept creeping nearer and nearer to
the door. Then, at last, he got in a word.
"Don't be too hard on 'em this time, your honour. Just one, two, and
another on the place that's made for it."
"Pardon me," answered the Doctor, raising his hand. "You now trench on
my prerogative, Jenkins. The question of what is to follow may very
well be left with the preceptor of these fallen boys. Have no fear for
that. And to plead for leniency before the breaking of a Commandment is
to admit a personal laxity of view that I, for one, am bound to
deplore."
Cherry Ripe had now reached the door, and I believe he thought that if
he stopped another moment the Doctor would cane him too. So he began to
clear out. But first he said--
"Well, good-evening, all!" Then he hooked it--rather thankfully. And
we wished we could.
We got four on each hand, and two thousand lines each, and to stop in
for two half-holidays. So that, as Methuen very truly remarked, was
first blood for Cherry Ripe.
*II*
Of course, this was merely the beginning of the great anti-Cherry Ripe
feeling, and next term we were planning a deadly revenge with regard to
Cherry Ripe's Kentish cobnuts, which were remarkably fine, when a great
assistant came to our aid in the shape of Trelawny. This was that
Trelawny who had such a terrible end in the matter of the protest of the
wing dormitory. But many things happened first. He was fourteen, and a
fighter from the beginning. All his relations were also fighters, and
poetry had been made about one, who was condemned to death for
magnificent fighting in historic times. This Trelawny, by the most
curious accident, proved to know an immense deal about Cherry Ripe. And
it came out that Trelawny's father, who was a retired soldier and only a
colonel, though Trelawny said that if justice had been done he would be
a general at least, actually owned miles of land about Merivale,
including Cherry Ripe's nursery garden and the field.
"The beggar merely rents it from my father for so many pounds a year,"
said Trelawny. "Why, if I said a word to my father, I could have the
man turned out altogether, and his daughters and everybody. I'll jolly
soon teach him!"
This was a pretty good score for us, and we soon arranged to show Cherry
Ripe that things were changed. Trelawny took to strolling about in
Cherry Ripe's field as if it belonged to him; and, of course, as I
pointed out to Trelawny, when his father died, though I hoped it would
not be for ten years at least--still he had to--and when he did, the
field and the orchard and everything would actually be Trelawny's own,
to do what he liked with. He said it was so; and he said that he should
jolly soon clear Cherry Ripe out, and build almshouses for old soldiers
broken in the wars, when he came to have the ground. He wouldn't take
nuts or anything. He said that was paltry; but he had a fixed idea that
he ought to be perfectly free of the place, and he went on strolling
about in it till at last Cherry Ripe surprised him down at the pond in
the field. I was there, too, but Cherry Ripe didn't recognize me,
which, no doubt, was lucky.
He seemed to have something on his mind, for he didn't get into a bate,
but merely said--
"Now, you boys, you slope off to your playground--can't have you messing
about here."
"Perhaps you don't know who you're talking to, Mr. Jenkins," said
Trelawny in a frightfully grand tone of voice.
Then Cherry Ripe jumped.
"Lord, the sauce of your nippers now-a-days! Why can't your old
gentleman over there teach you manners as well as figures and all the
rest of it?"
Clearly he meant no less a person than Dr. Dunstan.
"My name is Trelawny," began Trelawny.
"A very fine name too," said Cherry Ripe. "Take care you never bring no
discredit on it, there's a good boy."
"My father is your landlord," said Trelawny. "And I'll thank you not to
call me 'boy'!"
Cherry Ripe was by no means so much struck by this as you might have
expected.
"You're the Colonel's young shaver--eh? Well, I hope you'll turn out as
sensible a man--though I do wish me and him saw alike on the subject of
a new tomato house. However, everybody's a right to his own opinion."
Trelawny was fuming, like a train wanting to start.
"You don't seem to understand," he said, "that this very field we're in
at this moment will be mine before long!"
"The Colonel's not ailing, I hope?" said Cherry Ripe very civilly.
I could now see that Mr. Jenkins was laughing at Trelawny, but, luckily,
Trelawny did not see this, or he might have taken some very desperate
step.
"And I want to say further," went on Trelawny, not answering about his
father, "that as this land will be mine sooner or later, I have a
perfect right to walk on it when and where I choose."
"Agreed," said Cherry Ripe; "and as I'm renting the land, and don't like
rude little boys poking about where they've no business, I've got a
perfect right to pull their ears for 'em when I catches 'em. So that's
settled. Now we know where we are. Be off with you both, or I'll begin
this minute!"
Trelawny was as furious as a grown man. He turned a sort of colour like
stewed fruit; but, of course, we had to go. There was nothing else we
could do--for the moment.
"I shall write to my father about this, and you'll soon find out you
can't insult your own landlord's son with impunity," Trelawny shouted,
as we got through the hedge back into our wood.
"Can't do better. And tell him what I said," answered Cherry Ripe.
Then he seemed to forget us, and stood quite still looking into the
pond. Evidently he had other things on his mind besides Trelawny; but
Trelawny didn't think so, and believed that Jenkins was standing like
that in a frightful funk to think of the dangerous thing he'd done.
"However, it's too late now; I shall write to my father next Sunday,"
said Trelawny; and he did, and he got a letter back.
We were rather keen to hear what his father was going to do about it,
and expected he would read it out to us. But he tore the letter up
small, and chucked it away, and merely said he was surprised to find his
father didn't agree with him.
"But I'll make it clear that the man ought to be sacked when I go home,"
said Trelawny.
Funnily enough, though he'd torn this letter up so small and flung it
scornfully away, we found out afterwards what was in it; because Peters,
who hoped to be a detective of crime when he grew up, always collected
anything with writing on it to decipher mysteries; and it was him who
found out what Johnson's pet name at home was, and how many sisters West
had, and other things not generally known. He said if a letter was once
torn up and flung away, that it was public property for a detective; and
so when Trelawny had gone, Peters collected the bits of his letter, and
pieced it together after taking frightful trouble. It was a
detective-like thing but not a sportsmanlike thing to do, and Trelawny,
when he came to hear of it, challenged Peters. In fact, they fought,
and Peters was badly licked. Still, the letter certainly was rather
curious, considering it came from Trelawny's own father.