Grandcourt assembled after the holidays in blissful ignorance of the
episode narrated in our last chapter. Branscombe's illness had been an
isolated case, and apparently not due to any defect in the sanitary
arrangements of his house. And as no other boy was reported to have
spent his holidays in the same unsatisfactory manner, and as Railsford
himself had managed to escape infection, it was decided by the
authorities not to publish the little misadventure on the housetop. The
captain of Bickers's house was absent on sick leave, and the Master of
the Shell (who had been nursing a stubborn cold during the holidays)
would not be in his place, so it was announced, for a week. That was
all Grandcourt was told; and, to its credit, it received the news with
profound resignation.
True, some of the more disorderly spirits in Railsford's house were
disposed to take advantage of his absence, and lead the much-enduring
Monsieur Lablache, who officiated in his place, an uncomfortable dance.
But any indications of mutiny were promptly stamped upon by Ainger and
the other prefects, who, because they resented monsieur's appointment,
were determined that, come what would, he should have no excuse for
exercising his authority. Monsieur shrugged himself, and had no
objection to the orderly behaviour of the house, whatever its motive,
nor had anyone else whose opinion on such a matter was worth having.
Arthur and Sir Digby, as usual, came back brimful of lofty resolutions
and ambitious schemes! Dig had considerably revised his time-table, and
was determined to adhere to it like a martyr to his stake.
Arthur, though he came armed with no time-table, had his own good
intentions. He had had one or two painful conversations with his
father, who had hurt him considerably by suggesting that he wasted a
great deal of time, and neglected utterly those principles of self-
improvement which had turned out men like Wellington, Dickens, Dr
Livingstone, and Mr Elihu Burritt. Arthur had seldom realised before
how odious comparisons may become. No doubt Wellington, Dickens, and
Company were good fellows in their way, but he had never done them any
harm. Why should they be trotted out to injure him?
He thought he _was_ improving himself. He was much better at a drop-
kick than he had been last year, and Railsford himself had said he was
not as bad at his Latin verses as he had been. Was not that
improvement--self-improvement? Then he was conscious of having
distinctly improved in morals. He had once or twice done his Caesar
without a crib, and the aggregate of lines he had had to write for
impositions had been several hundred less than the corresponding term of
last year.
Thus the son gently reasoned with his parent, who replied that what he
would like to see in his boy was an interest in some intellectual
pursuits outside the mere school routine. Why, now, did he not take up
some standard book of history with which to occupy his spare time, or
some great poem like the _Paradise Lost_, of which he might commit a few
lines to memory every day, and so emulate his great-uncle, who used to
be able to repeat the whole poem by heart?
Both Arthur and Dig had landed for the term with hampers more or less
replete with indigestible mementoes of domestic affection. Arthur had a
Madeira cake and a rather fine lobster, besides a small box of figs,
some chocolate creams, Brazil nuts, and (an enforced contribution from
the cook) pudding-raisins.
Dig, whose means were not equal to his connections, produced, somewhat
bashfully, a rather "high" cold chicken, some gingerbread, some pyretic
saline, and a slab or two of home-made toffee. These good things, when
spread out on the table that evening, made quite an imposing array, and
decidedly warmed the cockles of the hearts of their joint owners, and
suggested to them naturally thoughts of hospitality and revelry.
"Let's have a blow-out in the dormitory," proposed Arthur. "Froggy will
let us alone, and we can square Felgate with a hunk of this toffee if he
interferes."
Felgate was the prefect charged with the oversight of the Shell
dormitory in Railsford's--a duty he discharged by never setting foot
inside their door when he could possibly get out of it.
From a gastronomic point of view the boys would doubtless have done
better to postpone their feast till to-morrow. They had munched
promiscuously all day--during the railway journey especially--and almost
needed a night's repose to enable them to attack the formidable banquet
now proposed on equal terms. But hospitality brooks no delays.
Besides, Dig's chicken was already a little over ripe, and it was
impossible to say how Arthur's lobster might endure the night.
So the hearts of Maple, Tilbury, Dimsdale, and Simson were made glad
that evening by an intimation that it might be worth their while at bed-
time to smuggle a knife, fork, and plate a-piece into the dormitory, in
case, as Arthur worded it, there should be some fun going.
Wonderful is the intuition of youth! These four simple-minded,
uncultured lads knew what Arthur meant, even as he spoke, and joyfully
did him and Dig homage for the rest of the evening, and at bed-time
tucked each his platter under his waistcoat and scaled the stairs as the
curfew rang, grimly accoutred with a fork in one trouser pocket and a
knife in the other.
But whatever the cause, the Shell-fish in Railsford's presented a very
green appearance when they answered to their names next morning, and
were in an irritable frame of mind most of the day. Their bad temper
took the form of a dead set on the unhappy Monsieur Lablache, who,
during the first day of his vicarious office, led the existence of a pea
on a frying-pan. They went up to him with difficulties in Greek prose,
knowing that he comprehended not a word of that language; they asked his
permission for what they knew he could not grant, and on his refusal got
up cries of tyranny and despotism wherewith to raise the lower school;
they whistled German war songs outside his door, and asked him the date
of the Battle of Waterloo. When he demanded their names they told him
"Ainger," "Barnworth," "Wake"; and when he ordered them to stay in an
hour after school, they coolly stopped work five minutes before the bell
rang and walked under his very nose into the playground.
Poor monsieur, he was no disciplinarian, and he knew it. His backbone
was limp, and he never did the right thing at the right time. He
shrugged when he ought to have been chastising; and he stormed when he
ought to have held his tongue. Nobody cared for him; everybody wondered
why he of all men worked at the trade of schoolmaster. Perhaps if some
of my lords and baronets in the Shell had known that far away, in a tiny
cottage at Boulogne, this same contemptible Frenchman was keeping alive
from week to week, with his hard-earned savings, a paralysed father and
three motherless little girls, who loved the very ground he trod on, and
kissed his likeness every night before they crept to their scantily-
covered beds--if they had known that this same poor creature said a
prayer for his beloved France every day, and tingled in every vein to
hear her insulted even in jest--perhaps they would have understood
better why he flared up now and then as he did, and why he clung to his
unlovely calling of teaching unfeeling English boys at the rate of £30 a
term. But the Grandcourt boys did not know all this, and therefore they
had no pity for poor monsieur.
However, as I have said, monsieur shrugged his shoulders, and accepted
the help of the prefects to keep his disorderly charges within bounds.
From one of the prefects he got very hide help. Felgate had no interest
in the order of the house. It didn't matter to him whether it was
monsieur who had to deal with the rioters or Ainger. All he knew was,
he was not going to trouble his head about it. In fact, his sympathies
were on the side of the agitators. Why shouldn't they enjoy themselves
if they liked? They didn't hurt anybody--and if they did break the
rules of the house; well, who was to say whether they might not be right
and the rules of the house wrong?
Arthur Herapath, for instance, had set up with a dog--puppy to his
friend's dog, Smiley. Everybody knew live animals were against rules,
and yet Railsford had winked all last term at Smiley; why shouldn't
Arthur have equal liberty to enjoy the companionship of Smiley minor?
He met master and puppy in the passage one afternoon.
"Hullo, young 'un," said he, "another dog? How many's that?"
"Two," said Arthur, a little doubtful as to the prefect's reception of
the news. "You see it would be rough to take him from his mother while
he is so young. It's not as if he was no relation."
"Of course not. What have you been doing with Marky these holidays?"
"Oh, he was seedy--sore throat. I fancy he was shamming a bit to get a
week extra. You see, he's spoons on my sister Daisy."
"I fancy I've heard that before," observed Felgate.
"What I mean is, he hangs about our place a lot; so it's a good excuse
for him to be laid up, you know."
"Quite so. Perhaps he's not in a hurry to come back here for another
reason we know of, eh, youngster?"
"Ha, ha! but keep that mum, you know. We must back him through that
business. It's nearly blown over already."
"Has it? But, I say--"
Here Ainger came up and detected the puppy.
"You'll have to get rid of that, Herapath," said he.
"What, Smiley's pup? Why? Felgate's given me leave."
"Felgate may do as he pleases. I tell you you must send him home, and
Smiley too."
"What!" said Arthur aghast. "Smiley too! why, Railsford knows all about
Smiley, and let us have him all, last term."
"But you are not going to have them this term. Two other fellows have
started dogs on the strength of Smiley already, and there's to be a
clean sweep of the lot."
"Oh, rot! you can't interfere with fellows' rights like that," said
Felgate.
"I tell you Railsford gave us leave," repeated Arthur.
"Very well," said Ainger; "unless both of them are packed off home by
this time to-morrow, or sent down to the school farm, you'll go up to
the doctor and settle the question with him."
"Rubbish!" said Felgate. "Until Railsford--"
"Shut up," said the captain; "I'm not talking to you."
It was hardly to be wondered at if he was out of temper. He was having
any amount of extra work to do; and to be thus obstructed by one of his
own colleagues was a trifle too much for his limited patience.
Felgate coloured up at the rebuff, knowing well enough that the captain
would be delighted to make good his words at any time and place which
might be offered him. He remained after he had gone, and said to
Arthur--
"That's what I call brutal. You're not going to care two straws what he
says?"
"All very well," said Arthur, stroking his puppy; "if he sends me up to
Pony, what then?"
"Bless you, he won't send you up to Pony."
"Think not? If I thought he wouldn't, I'd hang on till Marky comes
back. He'd square the thing."
"Of course he would. It's a bit of spite of Ainger's. He thinks he's
not quite important enough, so he's going to start bullying. I'll back
you up."
"Thanks, awfully," said the ductile Arthur. "You're a brick. I'd take
your advice."
He did, and prevailed upon Dig to do the same.
The consequence was, that when next afternoon the captain walked into
their study to see whether his order had been complied with, he was met
by an unceremonious yap from Smiley herself, echoed by an impertinent
squeak from her irreverent son.
"You've got them still, then?" said Ainger. "Very well, they can stay
now till after you've been to the doctor. Nine o'clock sharp to-morrow
morning, both of you."
The friends turned pale.
"Not really, Ainger? You haven't sent up our names, have you? We'll
send them off. We thought as Felgate said--oh, you cad!"
This last remark was occasioned by Ainger departing and shutting the
door behind him without vouchsafing any further parley.
They felt that the game was up, and that they had been done. In their
distress they waited upon Felgate and laid their case before him. He,
as is usual with gentlemen of his type, said it was very hard and
unjust, and they would do quite right in resisting and defying everybody
all round. But he did not offer to go instead of them to the doctor, so
that his general observations on the situation were not particularly
comforting.
Arthur proposed telegraphing to Railsford something in this form:
"Ainger says Smiley's against rules. Wire him you allow."
But when the form was filled up and ready to send, the chance of it
succeeding seemed hardly worth the cost.
Finally they went down sadly after tea to the school farm and hired a
kennel, and arranged for the board and lodging of their exiled pets at
so much a week.
Next morning, in doleful dumps, they presented themselves before the
doctor. Arthur could hardly help remembering how, a short time ago, he
had pictured himself standing in that very room, demanding the hand of
Miss Violet. Now, Smiley minor, squeaking and grunting, as he hung by
his one tooth to his mother's tail, down there in the school farm, was
worth half a dozen Miss Violets to him.
And his once expected uncle--!
The doctor dealt shortly and decisively with the miscreants. He caned
them for defying their house-captain, and reprimanded them for imagining
that dogs could be permitted under the school roof.
On being told that Mr Railsford had known all about Smiley last term,
he declined to argue the matter, and concluded by a warning of the
possible consequences of a repetition of the offence.
They went back to their place, sore both in body and mind. To be caned
during the first week of the term was not quite in accordance with their
good resolutions, and to be bereft of the Smileys was a cruel outrage on
their natural affections. They owed both to Ainger, and mutually
resolved that he was a cad of the lowest description. For all that they
attended to his injunctions for the next few days with wonderful
punctuality, and decided to defer, till Railsford's return, their own
revenge and his consequent confusion.
Altogether, it was getting to be time for Railsford to turn up. The
evening before, the first master's session for the term had been held,
and the doctor, for a wonder, had been present. Towards the end of the
meeting, after the discussion of a great deal of general business, Mr
Bickers rose and asked leave to make a statement. The reader can guess
what that statement was.
He begged to remind the meeting that Grandcourt still lay under the
cloud of the mystery which enveloped the assault which had been made
upon himself last term. For himself, it mattered very little, but for
the honour of the school he considered the matter should not be allowed
to drop until it was properly cleared up. With a view to assisting in
such a result, he might mention that towards the end of last term a
rumour had come to his ears--he was not at liberty to say through what
channel--that the secret was not quite as dead as was generally
supposed. He had heard, on what he considered reliable authority, that
in Mr Railsford's house--the house most interested in this painful
question--the name of the culprit or culprits was generally known, or,
at least, suspected; and he believed he was not going too far in
mentioning a rumour that no one could make a better guess as to that
name than Mr Railsford himself.
Here Mr Grover and Monsieur Lablache both rose to their feet.
Monsieur, of course, gave way, but what he had meant to say was pretty
much what Mr Grover did say. He wished to point out that in his
friend's absence such an insinuation as that just made by the speaker
was quite unjustifiable. For his own part, he thought it a great pity
to revive the unfortunate question at all. At any rate, in Mr
Railsford's absence, he should certainly oppose any further reference
being made to it at this meeting.
"That," echoed monsieur, "is precisely my opinion."
"Very well," said Mr Bickers pleasantly. "What I have to say will keep
perfectly well until Mr Railsford comes back."
Whereupon the meeting passed to the next order of the day.