LOVEL’S WOODS
“Ough, school again!” exclaimed Jimmie Lawrence, with a grunt, as
he jumped off the platform of the little way-train at Monday Port
one bright cold afternoon the following January. “I say, Tony,” he
continued, linking his arm in that of his companion, and fishing in his
pockets with his disengaged hand for his luggage checks, “this term it
is school and no mistake! An unspeakable odor of gumshoe pervades the
premises; Pussie Gray hurls math. lessons at your head a yard long, and
the masters generally shriek exhortations at you as though you were
deaf as well as dumb.”
“Nonsense, Jimmo! I am right glad to get back.” And Tony drew in a deep
breath of the cold pure air, and his eyes glistened as he looked out
across the snow-clad landscape—the white town clinging to its hills,
the frozen pond, the troubled blue waters of the bay. “I’ve never seen
any snow to speak of, you know; think of the sliding down Deal Hill!
Mind, old boy, we’re to pack over to Lovel’s Woods this afternoon and
see to a cave.”
“Gemini crickets! Deering, you’ll get enough of the Woods before the
winter’s over. Me for the form-room and a heart to heart talk with my
loving schoolmates.”
“Be an old woman if you like,” interrupted Kit Wilson, who joined them
at this moment. “Tony and I will find the cave, and you’ve got to pony
up the first supply of grub.”
“Oh, very well,” said Jimmie, with a grand air, as the three boys
climbed into a fly. “If you will direct the coachman of this equipage
to stop at the Pie-house, I will give Mrs. Wadmer a _carte blanche_
order for the proper supplies; and we’ll have a feed to-morrow
afternoon. At present, I’m perished with cold.”
By this time the driver had applied the whip to his poor horse, and the
dilapidated fly was crawling up the cobblestones of Montgomery street.
Once the top of the hill was gained, it moved along more rapidly, and
soon Monday Port was left behind, the icy shores of Deal Water had been
skirted, and the long hill that led up to the school was being climbed.
The school “barge,” filled with a shouting, laughing crowd of small
boys, was lumbering along ahead of them, and a dozen or so more cabs
such as our friends had chartered dotted the white road. They passed a
few of these, and noisy greetings were exchanged.
“There’s a trifling pleasure in seeing the kids once more,” said
Jimmie, settling back after they had passed the barge, and assuming
a _blasé_ expression. “It would be rather jolly to be a prefect and
boss ‘em all about.... Whoa-up! here’s the Pie-house and there’s
Mother Wadmer in the doorway with a smile of welcome as broad as her
pocketbook is deep. Hello, Mrs. Wadmer,” he cried, as the cab drew up
before a small frame house by the roadside, on the portico of which
stood a tall angular Cæsarean dame, with a calico apron drawn over her
head.
“How de do, Master Lawrence; howdy, boys. Come right in, and I’ll give
you a glass of the best cider you’ve ever tasted. ‘Tis Mister Wadmer’s
own brew, and a fine thing to begin the term on.”
The three boys piled out of the fly, and in a moment were merrily
greeting the crowd of youngsters who already had established themselves
about the long deal table in Mrs. Wadmer’s hospitable kitchen. “Hello,
Jim!” “Hello, Kit!” “Hello, Tony,” and a dozen other names, nicknames
or parts of names, rang out. The boys shook hands, exchanged rapid
notes of vacation experiences, gulped down several glasses of cider,
and consumed a score or so of luscious tarts.
“When did you get back, Tack?” Kit enquired of a large, ungainly,
rosy-cheeked boy who came from Maine.
“This morning,” answered Turner. “I came down on the boat last night
to New York—scrumptious time. Say, Kit, have you heard the latest at
school?”
“No, we just got in, crawled across the flats from Coventry. What’s up?”
“What’s up? why, some meddlesome jackanapes in the Sixth got wise
to something irregular last winter and has gone to the Doctor with
a doleful tale about the wickedness that’s supposed to go on in the
Woods; so the fiat has gone forth: no caves for boys below the Fourth.”
“No caves!” shouted a dozen boys. A storm of protests and exclamations
arose. “Well,” said Jimmie, as the hubbub ceased, “school will be a
jolly old jumping-off place then.”
“No caves for boys below the Fourth,” echoed Kit. “Well, I announce my
promotion then. Come on, Tony; come on, Jim; let’s get up to school and
get the facts.”
They stalked out amidst howls of derision, and re-entered their
chariot. Jimmie had taken care, however, to direct Mrs. Wadmer to
stack it well with such provisions as were in customary requisition in
Lovel’s Woods. The worthy landlady of the Pie-house was officially deaf
to all rules that emanated from the Head unless they were presented
to her in writing. She owed, it may be said in parenthesis, her long
career under the shadow of Deal School to the admirable loyalty of many
generations of Deal boys.
As luck would have it, to Tony’s amusement as he watched Jimmie’s
expression, the first person they met in the Old School whither they
went at once to report, was Mr. Roylston, who held a roll-call in his
hands and wore on his face a look of patient suffering and in his eyes
an expression of latent indignation. Our friends, thanks to their
digression at the Pie-house, were ten minutes late.
“How do you do, Mr. Roylston?” exclaimed Kit, offering his hand, and
receiving three of the master’s lifeless fingers. A pencil occupied
the other two. “Ah!” he murmured,—Kit afterwards declared, with
satisfaction,—“Lawrence, Wilson, Deering—ten minutes late. I
congratulate you on the punctual way in which you begin the new year.”
“Oh, sir, we were beguiled by the way,” protested the irrepressible
Kit. “The woman beguiled me, sir, and I did eat.”
“Faugh!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston. “Spare me your coarse irreverence. You
are redolent of the unpleasant odors of the Pie-house. I will give you
five marks apiece.”
“Oh, sir!”
“Please, sir!”
“I beg of you, sir. Pray divide ‘em, sir.”
“Silence, Wilson; you are impertinent as well as irreverent. If you
linger longer with this futile protesting, I shall double your marks.
Kindly go at once and unpack your trunks.”
“Please, sir; we always do that in the evening, sir; and I hope you
will allow us to go to the form-room, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me so. Write out for me before to-morrow’s school fifty
lines of the Æneid, and go at once.”
“Very good, sir!” And lest they all get a similar dose of “pensum,”
as such punishments were called, they hurried off to the Third Form
common-room. There they found a crowd of newly-arrived boys, engaged in
a vociferous denunciation of the Doctor’s new rule against caves in the
Woods. The news had evidently been announced by the prefects.
“What a gloomy old piece of rubber the Gumshoe is!” muttered Kit, as
they were entering. “Fancy soaking me a pensum two minutes after I’m
back at school. Hey, you fellows!” he cried, “what’s this racket?”
A dozen boys started to explain together, so that from their noisy
chatter nothing could be gathered, except “Woods,” “caves” and
execrations on the Head and the Sixth, with Kit’s lament on the gloomy
Mr. Roylston rising above it all like a dismal howl.
A Fourth Form boy,—Barney Clayton, by name,—thrust a red head through
the open doorway. “Oh, fy!” he yelled, “what a precious howl you kids
are letting out! What’s the matter? does the prohibition against caves
rile your independent spirits?”
“Get out, you red-head!” rose in angry chorus; and one boy shied
a dog-eared Latin book at the fiery shock in the doorway. In a
second a shower of missiles,—ink-stands, books, chairs, waste-paper
basket,—went flying through the doorway and out into the corridor.
Barney ducked his head and fled, shouting back derisive taunts. The
commotion attracted the attention of Mr. Roylston at his post in the
main hall, and he came flying to quell the disturbance. And, alas!
he arrived just at a moment to receive full in the face the contents
of a waste-paper basket, which Kit had flung. The débris descended
upon him in comical fashion. The poor gentleman was speechless with
indignation; but the situation was too much for the boys; despite his
angry countenance, his blazing black eyes, they greeted his appearance
with shouts of laughter.
He waited, inarticulate with rage, until the commotion ceased, finally
quelling them to a spell-bound silence by the sheer force of his
anger, and a little also, by the righteousness of his cause.
“In the whole course of my career as a schoolmaster,” the master said
at last, with a nervous jerk to each phrase, but pronouncing each word
with the deadly precision of a judge uttering a capital sentence, “I
have never been met with such gratuitous insult. Every member of this
form will consider himself on bounds until further notice. As for
you, Wilson, you shall be reported immediately to the Head, and if my
recommendation can effect it, you will receive the caning you deserve.”
“We were not throwing at you—we didn’t know you were coming—” began
Kit.
“Silence! do not add hypocrisy to insolence. You had been told to go to
your rooms.... Disperse now at once, and do not show yourselves before
supper. You Wilson, Lawrence and Deering, remain behind and clean up
this disgusting mess. It is not surprising, I may say, that the Head
feels himself unable to trust this form in the Woods this winter.” And
with this parting shot, Mr. Roylston turned and walked away, with what
dignity he could command.
The boys, somewhat subdued by the dispiriting announcement of bounds,
marched off gloomily, and our three friends stayed behind and began to
clear up the débris.
“Well,” said Kit at last, turning a half-merry, half-rueful countenance
to his companions, as he seated himself upon a broken chair, “what
a gloomy ass it is! But, oh my dears, did you observe his beautiful
pea-green, Nile blue, ultramarine phiz as the contents of the
waste-basket descended upon his lean and hairless chops? Oh, my! what a
home-coming! what a sweet heart to heart talk we’ve all had together!”
“And a jolly good caning you’ll get, Kitty, when Gumshoe has had his
talk with the Doctor.”
“Jolly good,” replied Kit, rubbing his legs with a wry face. “But in
the meantime, mes enfants,” he continued, “since I am to be swished, it
shall not be that I suffer unjustly; we are going to make the swishing
worth while. We are off to the Woods this minute. We’ll take the stuff
over, stow it in the cave, put up a notice, and be back by supper. I’ll
be hanged if I’ll pay any attention to Gumshoe’s twaddle about bounds
or to the Doctor’s nonsense about caves. Are you with me, Jimmie, old
boy?”
“Well, rather,” Jimmie replied. “The experience of the last quarter of
an hour has quite discouraged me with regard to the peace and quiet and
healthy conversation us nice boys ought to have in form common-room.”
Tony had kept silent. “Well, are you going to cut for a quitter?” asked
Kit, turning upon him with an indignant glare.
“Not I,” said Tony quickly.
“Then help stow this truck. We’ve an hour and a half till supper, and
the Gumshoe will undoubtedly think we have _disperrssed_ to our rooms.”
And he gave an absurd imitation of Mr. Roylston’s manner of speaking.
Ten minutes later they were running down the slope of Deal Hill, under
the cover of the stone walls; then tearing across the frozen marshes,
and clambering up the steep banks and crags that bounded the west
side of Lovel’s Woods. The sun was sinking in the west, and its rich
mellow golden light fell athwart the snow-clad woodland, flooding it
with glory, save where the great masses of pine and cedar cast broad
splotches of shadow. The splendid loveliness of the dying afternoon,
the biting cold of the wind, the thrill of doing the forbidden, filled
Tony with a delicious sense of happiness and adventure.
Each boy had his arms full of cooking utensils, food, boxes—the varied
paraphernalia of a cave. It had been an ancient custom at Deal during
the winter for boys to have caves in Lovel’s Woods, where they cooked
weird messes during the afternoons when there was no skating. This year
the Doctor, owing to certain abuses reported by the prefects the year
before, had decided to restrict the use of caves to the three upper
forms.
Kit had a particular cave in mind, far away on the remote side of
what was known as the Third Ridge, a cave that he and Jimmie and
Teddy Lansing had had together the year before as Second Formers.
This desirable spot was a natural formation in the rocky side of the
farther of the three ridges of which Lovel’s Woods consisted. It was
practically inaccessible from below, and the entrance above, well
concealed by a clump of low cedars, was a narrow cleft in the rocks, at
the extreme edge of which the initiated might descend to the cave by a
series of dangerous steps which the boys had fashioned in the side of
the precipitous cliff.
Tony and Kit climbed down into the cave, while Jimmie, lying flat
on the ledge above, handed down to them the supply of stores. These
were safely stowed in a strong box, which had lasted out the previous
season, and made secure. When the boys had clambered up again, they
discovered that the sun had set and the darkness was gathering swiftly.
The clear crescent of the new moon hung in the western sky a band of
gold, and the evening star was rising over the ocean.
“Twenty minutes to supper: we can just make it,” exclaimed Kit, looking
at his watch. “Heave ahead, my hearties, and let’s run for it.”
And run they did, at breakneck speed along the mazy paths, through the
tangled undergrowth, over the slippery crags, across the frozen marsh.
Kit, the imprudent, was impudently singing at the top of his shrill
voice the verses of one of the School songs.
“Out of the briny east,
Out of the frosty north,
Over the school-topp’d hill,
Whistle the shrill winds forth.
“Over the waves a-quiver,
Over the salt sedge grass,
Over the beaches tawny,
The bright wind spirits pass.”
And the other two boys took up the ringing refrain,
“Grapple them e’er they go,
Grapple them e’er they go.”
Luck was with them. They reached the school as the great bell in the
Chapel struck six. Five minutes later, after a hasty wash and brush-up
in their rooms, they were in the great library, shaking hands with the
Doctor and Mrs. Forester and with masters and boys.
The three, more closely united than ever by their sense of sharing
a dangerous secret, kept together during chapel, and directly after
were for making off to Jimmie’s room, when Sandy Maclaren, looking
wonderfully handsome and “swagger” in his town clothes, laid a heavy
hand on Kit’s shoulder. “Not so fast, boy. The Doctor wants to see you
instanter at the Rectory.”
Kit heaved a sigh in mock heroics. “Hail, blithe spirits,” he lamented,
murdering his quotation, “hail and farewell.”
The boys pressed his hands heartily. “Is it a caning, Sandy?” they
asked.
“Well, I rather think so,” answered Maclaren, with a smile. “You
weren’t very keen not to distinguish between Barney Clayton and Mr.
Roylston.”
“They were both butting in,” protested Kit.
“Well, cut along now. And you two report to Bill, he’s looking for you.”
Kit found the Doctor in his comfortable study at the Rectory, standing
before a glowing log fire, with his swallow-tails spread to the blaze.
“Ah, Christopher,” the Head Master exclaimed, shaking hands with the
culprit, “I’m glad to see you.”
“Thank you, sir. Maclaren said you wanted to see me particularly?”
“I do, most particularly. Take off your coat.”
Kit backed a little. “But, sir——”
“Yes, my boy, I dare say you have full and ample explanations, but
I am quite sure they will not impress me. I know that you were but
one of many in this fracas, and that it is your misfortune—shall
I say?—rather than your fault that your particular missile took
unfortunate effect. But we must all suffer at times for our mistakes,
perhaps a little unjustly. The moment has struck when you must suffer
too. The sooner we get at this business the sooner it will be over.”
“Very good, sir,” said Kit, and silently removed his coat. And then the
Doctor took a familiar implement of stout old hickory from a corner,
and swished him soundly. Those were the happy days when debts against
school discipline were so quickly and effectively liquidated.
Kit bore no grudge to the Doctor, and comparatively little to
Mr. Roylston. “It was worth it,” he confessed to Jimmie and Tony
afterwards, “and I rather think this lets me out, conscientiously lets
me out, you know, from paying attention to his futile announcement of
bounds.”
It goes without saying that the Doctor’s prohibition against Lovel’s
Woods was about as unpopular a rule as had ever been promulgated.
Combined with the fact that the Third Form were bounded for a month,
as a consequence of their trouble with Mr. Roylston, the Lower School
began the term in a bad mood. The Third Formers were particularly
disgruntled with the prefects, who had assumed the responsibility of
keeping Lovel’s Woods in order. It appeared that smoking had been
indulged in the year before quite extensively by some of the younger
boys, and gambling was suspected on the part of a few of the older
ones. The Doctor’s rule had been more in the nature of a preventive
than a punishment.
But the effort to keep the rule effective was more of an undertaking
than the prefects had realized; for they felt themselves required
practically to police the forbidden district, a task, the novelty of
which soon wore off. With the older boys caves were not particularly
popular. Chapin and Marsh started one together, and moved into it
the paraphernalia that they had hitherto kept stored in the cave on
the beach by Beaver Creek. All of the prefects, acting on Maclaren’s
advice, gave up their caves in order to set an example; with the result
that there were hardly more than a dozen in official operation.
For the first few weeks of the term the prefects were so zealous in
their police duties that few boys cared to run the risk of “skipping”
to the Woods. Even our three friends, despite their firm resolution to
evade the rule, for the time being felt it the part of wisdom to lie
low. Accordingly they avoided the Woods as if it were plague stricken
and industriously played hockey every afternoon on Deal Great Pond,
which was fully two miles away. But toward the end of January a thaw
set in, the skating was spoiled, a heavy snow came, and their usual
sports were interrupted; consequently the temptation to visit the
cave _sub rosa_ grew stronger than ever. Gradually also the inclement
weather dampened the ardor of the prefects and they began to relax
their vigilance over the forbidden territory. And we may say in passing
that Tony and Jimmie and Kit spent several delightful afternoons in
their hiding-place, and the parts of one or two wildly thrilling nights
after lights.
Despite his nefarious proceedings in contravention of the rules, be it
said to his credit, Tony was making good his resolution of “poling”
at his books, and felt confident of taking a good stand in the school
when the ranks were read at the beginning of February. The football
game, so far as his part in it was concerned, as Morris had predicted,
seemed forgotten. He avoided Chapin as much as he could, and when they
inevitably met he treated him with a courteous indifference which the
older boy doubtless understood and was thankful to accept.
Carroll, after a vacation spent in New York where he had seen all of
the plays and dined at the best restaurants and gone to many more
dances than were good for his health, returned to the school more than
ever dissatisfied and disgruntled with the life he led in it. The talk
with Mr. Morris about Tony, the consciousness that they possessed an
important secret in common, served a little to make his relations with
his house master easier, but he was still unable to give his friendship
in the easy way he longed to give it. Neither, to his deepening chagrin
and regret, was he making progress in his friendship with Deering, for
Tony was more than ever absorbed in the life of his form, and spent
all his free time with Wilson and Lawrence. He seemed unconscious of
the affection he had won from Carroll and this, with Carroll’s intense
consciousness of how completely his affection was going out, served to
make their relations anything but free and spontaneous. So far as Tony
thought about his room-mate that term it was as of an older fellow with
whom he was not very congenial, and of whose laziness and indifferent
attitude toward the school he did not approve. He thought Carroll to be
wasting his time both at his books and in the school life, in either
of which he could have counted immensely. Had Tony been less absorbed
in his younger friends, he would probably have found a good deal in
Reggie to like and value, as earlier in the year he had begun to feel
he should.
From his cozy den in the midst of Standerland Hall, surrounded by his
well-loved books, his few but carefully chosen pictures, Mr. Morris
watched the life throbbing about him with sympathetic insight and
keen interest. He was not one of those fortunate schoolmasters who do
not allow their profession to engage their affections. Morris, with
a surrender that was effectually a sacrifice, for he had gifts and
opportunities that might have won him a finer place in the world,
gave his life completely to the school. He had loved it as a boy, he
had looked back upon it during college with fond recollection and
yearning, and after three years or so at a professional school, having
taken his examinations for the bar, he had gone back to accept Dr.
Forester’s offer of a mastership. For half-a-dozen years he had been
there now, and each year the place and the boys got a deeper hold upon
his heart and his interest. He was scrupulously fair and evenly kind;
therefore deservedly popular; but despite this he had his favorite
boys, not usually known as such by the school at large, to whom he
gave a special affection and a deeper interest. From the first day,
when Deering, with his sparkling eyes and bright, clear-cut, eager
face, had come to him for a seat in the schoolroom, he had felt for
him that keen attraction which, as he grew to know the boy’s high
spirits, lively sense of honor, and sunshiny nature, had deepened to a
real affection. In Carroll also he had always felt a special interest,
and had been glad when Tony was put to room with him. He saw Reggie’s
growing devotion to Deering, and was sorry that Tony did not respond
to a greater extent. Morris felt that Carroll needed the strengthening
influence of a strong unselfish friendship with the right sort of boy
to help make a man of him. Occasionally Morris had the two boys with
others in his rooms for tea or on Saturday nights for a rarebit and a
bit of supper, but otherwise occasions did not present themselves for
his getting to know them better. He was sorry for this, but saw no very
satisfactory way of making them. By the end of January it seemed to
him that Reggie was in quite the worst attitude that he had ever been,
thoroughly indifferent to the work and life of the school.