Tea was a comfortable meal at Harton in the winter half of the year,
when the boys had fires in their rooms, at least, for social fellows who
clubbed together. Not but what it is cosy to linger over the meal with
a book in your hand, or propped up, as you sit alone at the corner of
the table, half turned to the hearth.
But Forsyth, Strachan, and Kavanagh liked to mess together, and
Strachan's room being the largest of the three, they selected that to
have their breakfast and tea in. All their cups, saucers, and so on,
were kept in a cupboard in that room, but toasting or such other light
cookery as their fags performed for them was done in their respective
apartments, for the avoidance of overcrowding and dispute amongst the
operators. Also, when bloaters, sprats, or sausages were in question,
it was well not to feed in the room in which the smell of preparation
was most powerful.
Though the half was drawing to its close, the evening board was
bountifully spread; for Forsyth's birthday had come off two days before,
and brought with it a token from home--a wicker token which the Lord
Mayor himself would not have despised. There was a ham, succulent and
tender; a tongue, fresh, not tinned, boiled, not stewed, of most
eloquent silence; a packet of sausages, a jar of marmalade, and, most
delicious of all, some potted shrimps. Harry knew, but did not tell,
that every one of those shrimps had been stripped of its shell by the
hands of Trix, who plumed herself, with unquestionable justice, upon her
shrimp-potting. Unfathomable is the depth of female devotion; fancy any
one being able to skin a shrimp, prawn, or walnut, and not eat it! The
shrimps, the sausages, were gone, the tongue was silent for ever, but
the ham and the marmalade remained.
The three friends were the oldest boys in the house, and almost in the
school. Two of them, Strachan and Kavanagh, were to leave at the end of
the half, and Forsyth was to do so after the next.
"Where's Kavanagh?" said the latter, coming into the room and sitting
down by the fire.
"At his tutor's," said Strachan; "he is bound to be in directly. Let
the tea brew a bit longer."
"It's uncommonly cold this evening; going to snow, I think. I hate snow
in February; there is no chance of real frost for skating, and it spoils
the football. Oh, here's Kavanagh."
The youth named strolled deliberately in at the moment, sat down at the
table, and began to shave off a slice of ham.
"Has the cold wind made you hungry, or has the effort to understand that
chorus in Euripides exhausted you?"
"I never try to understand what I firmly believe to have no meaning
whatever," drawled Kavanagh; "and I am never hungry. I consider it bad
form to be hungry; it shows that a fellow does not eat often enough.
Now the distinguishing mark of a gentleman is that he has too many meals
a day ever to feel hungry."
"I see; then you are only carving the ham for us."
"That does not exactly follow. Never jump to conclusions. A fire may
not actually require coals, yet you may put some on to keep it going; so
it is with a gentleman's stomach. You may take ham to appease hunger,
or you may take it to prevent the obtrusion of that vulgar sensation.
Not that I object to helping you fellows. The carving of ham is an art,
a fourpenny piece representing the maximum of thickness which the lean
should obtain. With a carving-knife and fork this ideal is not too easy
of attainment, but with these small blunt tools it requires a first-rate
workman to approach it. Now this slice, which I sacrifice on the altar
of friendship, is, I regret to say, fully as thick as a shilling."
At this moment a little boy, Kavanagh's fag, came into the room bearing
a muffin on a toasting-fork.
"Devereux!" said Kavanagh, severely, "do you know what Louis the
Fourteenth of France said when his carriage drew up, as he stepped
outside his front door?"
"No."
"He said, `I almost had to wait!' Now I, too, say to you that my tea is
poured out, my ham cut, and I almost had to wait. Not quite, happily
not quite, or the consequences to you would have been--terrible!"
The little boy did not look very frightened, in spite of the tone in
which the last word was uttered. Kavanagh had never been known wilfully
to hurt anything weaker than himself in his life. As he was tall and
strong, this is saying a great deal.
The two other fags grinned; one of them filled up the tea-pot, and then
Strachan said "Go!" and all three lower boys vanished in a twinkling to
prepare their own teas.
"We shall not have many more teas together," said Forsyth.
"No, but we may dinners," replied Strachan.
"Suppose we all get into the same regiment."
"The job is to get into any regiment at all," said Kavanagh. "There is
that abominable examination to be got over. Awfully clever and hard
reading fellows get beaten in it every time, I can tell you."
"Well, but I believe it is easier through the Militia than direct into
Sandhurst, is it not? And that is the way you and I are going to try.
At any rate, then we can go into the same Militia regiment, and that
will give us two trainings, besides preliminary drills, and so forth, to
have some fun together. And Forsyth must come in too."
"I have not quite made up my mind to go into the army, or rather to try
for it, at all yet," said Forsyth. "It seems such a waste of time to
sap for it, and then be sold after all. I can never do half so well as
I fairly ought in an examination, because I take so long to remember
things I know quite well, even if I have plenty of time to think them
out. I can learn, but I can't cram, so I fear I should never be in it."
"Oh, have a shy, man; it is only going in for something else if you
fail. And there is no life like the army if you succeed."
"If we fail, we fail. `But screw your courage to the sticking-place,
and we'll not fail,'" quoted Kavanagh.
"Well, it is very tempting; perhaps I shall try," said Forsyth.
"Look here, then," said Strachan, "there are two vacancies amongst the
sub-lieutenants in the fourth battalion of the Blankshire, and my father
is a friend of the Colonel. I am to have one, and I have no doubt you,
Kavanagh, will get the other. There is almost sure to be another
vacancy before the next training, and if there is, don't you think your
friends would let you leave Harton at once, and take it? Then you could
serve one training this year, and another next year, and be ready to go
in for the Competitive at the same time that we do."
"Thanks, old fellow," said Forsyth. "I will talk it over with my people
when I go home at Easter, and will let you know as quickly as I can."
"That is settled then. Oh, we won't say good-bye yet awhile."
"It is a strange thing," said Kavanagh, who, having finished his tea,
had tilted his chair so that his back leaned against the wall, while his
feet rested on another chair, less for the comfort of the position, than
to afford him an opportunity of admiring his well-cut trousers, his
striped socks, and his dandy shoes; "it is a strange thing that there
should only be one career fit for a fellow to follow, and that it should
be impossible for a fellow to get into it."
"It sounds rather like a sweeping assertion that, doesn't it?" observed
Strachan, who was helping himself to marmalade.
"That is because you do not grasp the meaning which I attach to the word
_fellow_. I do not allude to the ordinary mortal, who might be a
lawyer, or a parson, or a painter, or fiddler, or anything, and who
might get any number of marks in an examination. I mean by fellows, the
higher order of beings, who are only worth consideration; I do not
define them, because that is impossible; you must know, or you mustn't
know, according to your belonging to them or not. Anyhow, there they
are, and everything and everybody else is only of value so far as he,
she, or it is conducive to their comfort and well-being. For them the
army is the only fit profession, and only a few of them can get enough
marks to enter it."
"Am I one of these extra superfines?" asked Strachan.
"You may be, perhaps, if you don't eat too much marmalade."
"Come, you are pretty fond of jam yourself, Kavanagh," cried Forsyth.
"Well, yes; we all have our little weaknesses."
"That reminds me," said Strachan, turning round and poking the fire.
"Our school career is drawing to a close, and I have never made my
confession. I committed a crime last November which I have never owned,
which no one suspects, but which weighs, whenever I think of it, on my
conscience."
"Unburden," said Kavanagh.
"Well, then, you may remember that the weather was very mild up to the
seventh of the month."
"Don't; but grant it. Go ahead."
"On the eighth of November it grew suddenly colder, and I got out my
winter things, and in the afternoon I changed. Having done so, I put my
pencil in the right-hand waistcoat pocket. There was something round
and hard there--a lozenge? No, a shilling, which had remained there
ever since I changed my winter clothes in the spring. Now at that time
we were reduced to anchovy paste for breakfast, and our bare rations for
tea. Money was spent, tick was scarce, stores were exhausted. Faithful
to a friendship which has all things in common. I went out to Dell's
and bought a pot of apricot jam for tea, the time for which had arrived.
As ill-luck would have it, both you fellows were detained at something
or another--French, I rather think. I had to go to my tutor myself at
seven, so I could not wait, and began my tea alone. Well, the jam was
good, very good, hanged good; I never ate such jam! Had I had quite a
third of it? Not quite, perhaps; I gave myself the benefit of the
doubt. But, then, the gap looked awful. Happy thought! I would turn
it out into a saucer, and you might take it for a sixpenny pot. After
all, not expecting any, you would be pleased with that. But it looked
rather more than a sixpenny pot, so I had a bit more to reduce. And
then--you would not come, and you knew nothing about it. Why make two
bites of a cherry? I finished it, threw the pot out of window, and held
my tongue. But oh! Next day, when Kavanagh received his weekly
allowance, and laid it out in treacle and sprats for the public good, I
did indeed feel guilty."
"But you ate the sprats and treacle all the same, I expect."
"I did. I would not shirk my punishment, and flinch from the coals of
fire which were heaped on my head. I even enjoyed them. But my
conscience has been very sore, and feels better now than it has done for
a long time."
"You have not got absolution yet," said Forsyth.
"Not by long chalks," cried Kavanagh. "Jam! And apricot of all jams.
If you really want to wipe out the crime you must make restitution."
"Gladly; but would not that be difficult?"
"Not at all; you can do it in kind. At compound interest three pots
will clear you, I should say; or, if it don't run to that, say two."
"Two will do," echoed Forsyth. "Who's that at the door?"
"It's me," said a youth--dressed in a chocolate coat with brass
buttons--entering the room.
"Oh, happy Josiah!" exclaimed Kavanagh; "careless of rules, and allowing
your nominative and accusative cases to wander about at their own sweet
will; what pangs would be yours at mid-day to-morrow if you were a
scholar instead of a page, and said `_Hominem sum_,' or uttered any
other equivalent to your late remark! Shades of Valpy and Arnold--`It's
me!'"
"Mr Wheeler wants to see you at once," said Josiah, not listening to
the criticism on his grammar, and addressing Forsyth.
"My tutor wants to see me? What on earth about, I wonder?"
Obviously, the best way to satisfy his curiosity on this head was to go
at once, and this he did.
Mr Wheeler sat at the paper-laden desk in his private study, under the
brilliant light of a lamp with a green glass shade over it. There was
no other light in the room, which was consequently in shadow, while the
tutor was in a flood of illumination.
"Sit down, Forsyth," he said. "I am sorry to say I have bad news for
you from home."
"My mother!"
"No, no, my boy; bad enough, but not so bad as that. There are money
losses. Your father was connected with a bank, and it has been
unfortunate. It seems that it was a great shock to him, and he was not
in very good health. You may have known that?"
"Yes, sir, yes. I noticed that he looked ill when I went home at
Christmas."
"To be sure--yes. Then you will not be surprised at this sudden blow
having affected him very seriously?"
Harry could not take it all in at once; he had to sit silent awhile, and
let the meaning of his tutor's words sink in. At length he asked--"Is
he dead?" And the sound of his own voice uttering the word made him
give a sob.
"No," said Mr Wheeler; "he is very ill, and insensible, but living, and
while there is life there is hope, you know. People often recover from
fits, and this seems to be an attack of that nature. But it is as well
that you should go home at once. Put a few things together, and you
will catch the 8:30 train. A fly and your travelling money shall be
ready by the time you are."
"Thank you, sir," said Harry, and went back to his Dame's House in a
dazed state. Strachan and Kavanagh heard him come upstairs, and as he
went straight to his own room they followed him.
"Well, have you got the medal for alcaics?" asked Strachan, for they had
concluded that that was the news his tutor had for him. But seeing his
friend's face he stopped short.
"Something the matter, old fellow, I am afraid," he said. "Bad news
from home?"
"Yes," said Harry, in a voice he just kept from faltering. "I must go
home to-night; my father is ill."
"I am awfully sorry," said Strachan, uncomfortably, wanting to do
something to aid or cheer his friend, and unable to think what.
Kavanagh made no remark, but, seeing at a glance how the land lay, took
a candle to the box-room, caught up a travelling bag belonging to
Forsyth, and brought it down to him just as he was going to call Josiah
to find it for him.
It was not long before he got some things into it, and was ready to
start. A grip of the hand from each of his friends and he was gone.
What a bad time he had during that short journey; feverishly impatient,
and yet dreading to get to the end of it. It was an express train, and
he got to London in an hour, and was just in time for another on the
short line to his home. So he reached Holly Lodge by eleven. Before he
could ring the door opened. Trix was listening for the wheels, and ran
to let him in. She had been crying, but was very quiet.
"He is alive, but cannot see or hear," she said. "Come."
His mother was there, and two doctors, who looked very grave. One soon
left, but the other, who was the regular medical attendant and a friend,
remained, not, as he plainly said, that he could do anything for the
sick man, who was dying. And in the course of the night he passed away
without regaining consciousness.
But there is no good in dwelling upon that, or on the gloom of the next
few weeks. Poor Mr Forsyth had a heart disease, and when the Great
Transit Bank came to final smash, the agitation killed him then and
there.
For he was quite ruined. It was not only the money he had invested in
the bank which was gone, but, as a large shareholder, he was responsible
for the enormous sums due to those who had dealt with the bank.
Harry thought at first that they were penniless, and wondered almost in
despair how he should be able to support his mother and sister. For he
had learned no trade, he was not a skilled artisan, and mere manual
labour and clerk-work are, he knew, very poorly paid.
But when Mrs Forsyth had recovered sufficiently from the first shock of
her grief to grapple with the cares of every-day life, she showed him
that it was not so bad as he had feared.
"There is my five thousand pounds," she said--"my very own, which I had
before marriage, and which is secured to me. Two hundred and fifty
pounds a year I get from it, and it has always been a little pocket-
money which I had, without going to your dear father for every penny.
And now we must manage to live upon it."
Of course they had to go into a very small house, and could not take the
whole of that. And Harry did not go back to Harton, but began to try at
once for immediate employment which might bring some little grist to the
mill. And he was more fortunate than young fellows generally are when
starting on that heart-breaking search, for he had something to go upon.
He went straight to the London representative of the Egyptian house of
business with which his father had been connected, told his story, and
asked for employment.
"But your father was bought out fully, and you have no claim on us, you
know," said the merchant.
"I make no claim, sir," replied Harry; "I ask a favour. I don't know
why you should employ me more than anybody else, but still I thought the
connection might interest you. My father had a hand in establishing the
business, and I had a hope that that might weigh with you, if you have
found it a good one."
"Well, you have had a hard trial, and it is to your credit that you want
to go to work at once instead of sitting down in despair. The worst of
it is that you have been educated at Harton, and can know nothing of
what is useful in an office. What sort of hand do you write?"
"A shocking bad one, I fear, but any one can read it. And I am not so
very bad at figures. And I am ready to learn. Won't you give me a
chance, and pay me nothing till I am useful?"
"There is one thing, at any rate, you have learned at Harton," said the
other, with a smile, "and that is to speak up boldly, and to speak out
plainly. I was a friend of your poor father's, and shall be glad to
help you, since you are reasonable and see matters in their right light.
But you must not expect much."
So Harry was taken into the office as a clerk just for a month on trial.
And he showed so much zeal and intelligence that he was taken into
regular employment at the end of it, and received a five-pound note for
his work during the time of probation. And the joy and triumph with
which he brought home this, the first money he had ever earned, to his
mother and sister in the evening, cheered them all up in a manner to
which they had been strangers since ruin and death had fallen upon the
household.
Many castles did they build in the air that evening, but they were not
extravagant, their highest present ambition being to have the whole
cottage, which was but eight-roomed, to themselves, and to keep two
maids instead of one. And this, if Harry's salary rose to a hundred and
fifty, they thought they might manage. Of course it was a dreary life
for him after what he had been accustomed to, but he made the best of
it, and really interested himself in Egyptian trade, till he became a
connoisseur in gum. His principal recreation was shooting at the
Wimbledon butts on Saturday afternoons, he having joined a volunteer
corps for that purpose. He had done so at Harton, and was the best shot
there. He now had to compete with the best in the world, but he had a
marvellous eye, and up to three hundred yards could hold his own with
anybody. At any rate he won enough in prizes to pay all his expenses,
and a little over.
Even when their resources looked lowest, he never thought of selling the
sapphires his mysterious uncle had given him. He did not look upon them
as his own till the ten years were up, or to be used for any purpose but
that of going to find him. They, together with the silver case
containing the parchment and the ring, were locked up in his old-
fashioned, brass-bound desk which he kept in his bedroom. Nobody, not
even Trix, knew anything about them.
That was the one secret the brother and sister did not share. Beatrice
was disrespectful to her Mohammedan relative, and always called him
Uncle Renegade till Harry read Byron's "Siege of Corinth" aloud one
evening. After that she called him Uncle Alp.
But Harry Forsyth was destined to go to Egypt without needing his uncle.
He became more and more trusted by the firm which employed him, and at
last it was determined to send him out to the house at Cairo on
important business. His absence was a desolation for Mrs Forsyth and
Beatrice; but it meant money for one thing, and, what was far more
important in the mother's estimation, it was a change for Harry from the
gloomy monotony of a London office. As for the future she was under no
concern. She knew of Richard Burke's will, and that her children at all
events would be comfortably provided for by it, though she herself might
not outlive her elder brother.
Harry, as he was actually going to the country to which his uncle had
prophesied he would, took to wearing his ring, and carried the silver
case in an inner waistcoat pocket. The sapphires he left in his desk.