other. You know me well enough. What is the use of keeping it up any
longer? Let's talk, and stop humbugging. How much grub have you brought
back this time?"
To be advised to stop humbugging, and be persecuted with such idle
questions as these, maddened the poor gentleman. A hansom really had
rolled up to the steps outside. He must put an end to this waste of
precious time, and escape from this highly inconvenient small boy.
He forced his way to the door, the boy still keeping fast hold of his
arm. Fortunately the cab was still there, and its late occupant, a tall,
broad man, was standing with his back to them paying the driver. Paul
was only just in time.
"Porter!" he cried. "Where's that porter? I want my box put on that cab.
No, I don't care about the luggage; engage the cab. Now, you little
ruffian, are you going to let me go? Can't you see I'm anxious to get
away?"
Jolland giggled more impishly than ever. "Well, you _have_ got cheek!"
he said. "Go on, I wish you may get that cab, I'm sure!"
Paul, thus released, was just hurrying towards the cab, when the
stranger who had got out of it settled the fare with satisfaction to
himself and turned sharply round.
The gas-light fell full on his face, and Mr. Bultitude recognised that
the form and features were those of no stranger--he had stumbled upon
the very last person he had expected or desired to meet just then--his
flight was intercepted by his son's schoolmaster, Dr. Grimstone himself!
The suddenness of the shock threw him completely off his balance. In an
ordinary way the encounter would not of course have discomposed him, but
now he would have given worlds for presence of mind enough either to
rush past to the cab and secure his only chance of freedom before the
Doctor had fully realised his intention, or else greet him affably and
calmly, and, taking him quietly aside, explain his awkward position with
an easy man-of-the-world air, which would ensure instant conviction.
But both courses were equally impossible. He stood there, right in Dr.
Grimstone's path, with terrified starting eyes and quivering limbs, more
like an unhappy guinea-pig expecting the advances of a boa, than a
British merchant in the presence of his son's schoolmaster! He was sick
and faint with alarm, and the consciousness that appearances were all
against him.
There was nothing in the least extraordinary in the fact of the Doctor's
presence at the station. Mr. Bultitude might easily have taken this
into account as a very likely contingency and have provided accordingly,
had he troubled to think, for it was Dr. Grimstone's custom, upon the
first day of the term, to come up to town and meet as many of his pupils
upon the platform as intended to return by a train previously specified
at the foot of the school-bills; and Paul had even expressly insisted
upon Dick's travelling under surveillance in this manner, thinking it
necessary to keep him out of premature mischief.
It makes a calamity doubly hard to bear when one looks back and sees by
what a trivial chance it has come upon us, and how slight an effort
would have averted it altogether; and Mr. Bultitude cursed his own
stupidity as he stood there, rooted to the ground, and saw the hansom (a
"patent safety" to him in sober earnest) drive off and abandon him to
his fate.
Dr. Grimstone bore down heavily upon him and Jolland, who had by this
time come up. He was a tall and imposing personage, with a strong black
beard and small angry grey eyes, slightly blood-tinged; he wore garments
of a semi-clerical cut and colour, though he was not in orders. He held
out a hand to each with elaborate geniality.
"Ha, Bultitude, my boy, how are you? How are you, Jolland? Come back
braced in body and mind by your vacation, eh? That's as it should be.
Have you tickets? No? follow me then. You're both over age, I believe.
There you are; take care of them."
And before Paul could protest, he had purchased tickets for all three,
after which he laid an authoritative hand upon Mr. Bultitude's shoulder
and walked him out through the booking hall upon the platform.
"This is awful," thought Paul, shrinking involuntarily; "simply awful.
He evidently has no idea who I really am. Unless I'm very careful I
shall be dragged off to Crichton House before I can put him right. If I
could only get him away alone somewhere."
As if in answer to the wish, the Doctor guided him by a slight pressure
straight along by the end of the station, saying to Jolland as he did
so, "I wish to have a little serious conversation with Richard in
private. Suppose you go to the bookstall and see if you can find out any
of our young friends. Tell them to wait for me there."
When they were alone the Doctor paced solemnly along in silence for some
moments, while Paul, who had always been used to consider himself a
fairly prominent object, whatever might be his surroundings, began to
feel an altogether novel sensation of utter insignificance upon that
immense brown plain of platform and under the huge span of the arches
whose girders were lost in wreaths of mingled fog and smoke.
Still he had some hope. Was it not possible, after all, that the Doctor
had divined his secret and was searching for words delicate enough to
convey his condolences?
"I wished to tell you, Bultitude," said the Doctor presently, and his
first words dashed all Paul's rising hopes, "that I hope you are
returning this term with the resolve to do better things. You have
caused your excellent father much pain in the past. You little know the
grief a wilful boy can inflict on his parent."
"I think I have a very fair idea of it," thought Paul, but he said
nothing.
"I hope you left him in good health? Such a devoted parent,
Richard--such a noble heart!"
At any other time Mr. Bultitude might have felt gratified by these
eulogies, but just then he was conscious that he could lay no claim to
them. It was Dick who had the noble heart now, and he himself felt even
less of a devoted parent than he looked.
"I had a letter from him during the vacation," continued Dr. Grimstone,
"a sweet letter, Richard, breathing in every line a father's anxiety and
concern for your welfare."
Paul was a little staggered. He remembered having written, but he would
scarcely perhaps have described his letter as "sweet," as he had not
done much more than enclose a cheque for his son's account and object to
the items for pew-rent and scientific lectures with the diorama as
excessive.
"But--and this is what I wanted to say to you, Bultitude--his is no
blind doting affection. He has implored me, for your own sake, if I see
you diverging ever so slightly from the path of duty, not to stay my
hand. And I shall not forget his injunctions."
A few minutes ago, and it would have seemed to Paul so simple and easy a
matter to point out to the Doctor the very excusable error into which he
had fallen. It was no more than he would have to do repeatedly upon his
return, and here was an excellent opportunity for an explanation.
But, somehow the words would not come. The schoolmaster's form seemed so
tremendous and towering, and he so feeble and powerless before him, that
he soon persuaded himself that a public place, like a station platform,
was no scene for domestic revelations of so painful a character.
He gave up all idea of resistance at present. "Perhaps I had better
leave him in his error till we get into the train," he thought; "then we
will get rid of that other boy, and I can break it to him gradually in
the railway carriage as I get more accustomed to him."
But in spite of his determination to unbosom himself without further
delay, he knew that a kind of fascinated resignation was growing upon
him and gaining firmer hold each minute.
Something must be done to break the spell and burst the toils which were
being woven round him before all effort became impossible.
"And now," said the Doctor, glancing up at the great clock-face on which
a reflector cast a patch of dim yellow light, "we must be thinking of
starting. But don't forget what I have said."
And they walked back towards the book-stalls with their cheery warmth
of colour, past the glittering buffet, and on up the platform, to a part
where six boys of various sizes were standing huddled forlornly together
under a gaslight.
"Aha!" said Dr. Grimstone, with a slight touch of the ogre in his tone,
"more of my fellows, eh? We shall be quite a party. How do you do, boys?
Welcome back to your studies."
And the six boys came forward, all evidently in the lowest spirits, and
raised their tall hats with a studied politeness.
"Some old friends here, Bultitude," said the Doctor, impelling the
unwilling Paul towards the group. "You know Tipping, of course; Coker,
too, you've met before--and Coggs. How are you, Siggers? You're looking
well. Ah, by the way, I see a new face--Kiffin, I think? Kiffin, this is
Bultitude, who will make himself your mentor, I hope, and initiate you
into our various manners and customs."
And, with a horrible dream-like sense of unreality, Mr. Bultitude found
himself being greeted by several entire strangers with a degree of
warmth embarrassing in the extreme.
He would have liked to protest and declare himself there and then in his
true colours, but if this had been difficult alone with the Doctor under
the clock, it was impossible now, and he submitted ruefully enough to
their unwelcome advances.
Tipping, a tall, red-haired, raw-boned boy, with sleeves and trousers he
had outgrown, and immense boots, wrung Paul's hand with misdirected
energy, saying "how-de-do?" with a gruff superiority, mercifully
tempered by a touch of sheepishness.
Coggs and Coker welcomed him with open arms as an equal, while Siggers,
a short, slight, sharp-featured boy, with a very fashionable hat and
shirt-collars, and a horse-shoe pin, drawled, "How are you, old boy?"
with the languor of a confirmed man about town.
The other two were Biddlecomb, a boy with a blooming complexion and a
singularly sweet voice, and the new-comer, Kiffin, who did not seem much
more at home in the society of other boys than Mr. Bultitude himself,
for he kept nervously away from them, shivering with the piteous
self-abandonment of an Italian greyhound.
Paul was now convinced that unless he exerted himself considerably, his
identity with his son would never even be questioned, and the danger
roused him to a sudden determination.
However his face and figure might belie him, nothing in his speech or
conduct should encourage the mistake. Whatever it might cost him to
overcome his fear of the Doctor, he would force himself to act and talk
ostentatiously, as much like his own ordinary self as possible, during
the journey down to Market Rodwell, so as to prepare the Doctor's mind
for the disclosures he meant to make at the earliest opportunity. He was
beginning to see that the railway carriage, with all those boys sitting
by and staring, would be an inconvenient place for so delicate and
difficult a confession.
The guard having warned intending passengers to take their seats, and
Jolland, who had been unaccountably missing all this time, having
appeared from the direction of the refreshment buffet, furtively
brushing away some suspicious-looking flakes and crumbs from his coat,
and contrived to join the party unperceived, they all got into a
first-class compartment--Paul with the rest.
He longed for moral courage to stand out boldly and refuse to leave
town, but, as we have seen, it was beyond his powers, and he temporised.
Very soon the whistle had sounded and the train had begun to glide
slowly out beyond the platform and arch, past the signal boxes and long
low sheds and offices which are the suburbs of a large terminus--and
then it was too late.
4. _A Minnow amongst Tritons_
"Boys are capital fellows in their own way among their mates; but
they are unwholesome companions for grown people."--_Essays of
Elia._
For some time after they were fairly started the Doctor read his evening
paper with an air of impartial but severe criticism, and Mr. Bultitude
as he sat opposite him next to the window, found himself overwhelmed
with a new and very unpleasant timidity.
He knew that, if he would free himself, this utterly unreasonable
feeling must be wrestled with and overcome; that now, if ever, was the
time to assert himself, and prove that he was anything but the raw youth
he was conscious of appearing. He had merely to speak and act, too, in
his ordinary everyday manner; to forget as far as possible the change
that had affected his outer man, which was not so very difficult to do
after all--and yet his heart sank lower and lower as each fresh
telegraph post flitted past.
"I will let him speak first," he thought; "then I shall be able to feel
my way." But there was more fear than caution in the resolve.
At last, however, the Doctor laid down his paper, and, looking round
with the glance of proprietorship on his pupils, who had relapsed into a
decorous and gloomy silence, observed: "Well, boys, you have had an
unusually protracted vacation this time--owing to the unprecedented
severity of the weather. We must try to make up for it by the zest and
ardour with which we pursue our studies during the term. I intend to
reduce the Easter holidays by a week by way of compensation."
This announcement (which by no means relieved the general
depression--the boys receiving it with a sickly interest) was good news
to Paul, and even had the effect of making him forget his position for
the time.
"I'm uncommonly glad to hear it, Dr. Grimstone," he said heartily, "an
excellent arrangement. Boys have too many holidays as it is. There's no
reason, to my mind, why parents should be the sufferers by every
snowstorm. It's no joke, I can assure you, to have a great idle boy
hanging about the place eating his empty head off!"
A burglar enlarging upon the sanctity of the law of property, or a sheep
exposing the fallacies of vegetarianism, could hardly have produced a
greater sensation.
Every boy was roused from his languor to stare and wonder at these
traitorous sentiments, which, from the mouth of any but a known and
tried companion, would have roused bitter hostility and contempt. As it
was, their wonder became a rapturous admiration, and they waited for the
situation to develop with a fearful and secret joy.
It was some time before the Doctor quite recovered himself; then he said
with a grim smile, "This is indeed finding Saul amongst the prophets;
your sentiments, if sincere, Bultitude--I repeat, if sincere--are very
creditable. But I am obliged to look upon them with suspicion!" Then, as
if to dismiss a doubtful subject, he inquired generally, "And how have
you all been spending your holidays, eh!"
There was no attempt to answer this question, it being felt probably
that it was, like the conventional "How do you do?" one to which an
answer is neither desired nor expected, especially as he continued
almost immediately, "I took my boy Tom up to town the week before
Christmas to see the representation of the 'Agamemnon' at St. George's
Hall. The 'Agamemnon,' as most of you are doubtless aware, is a drama by
AEschylus, a Greek poet of established reputation. I was much pleased by
the intelligent appreciation Tom showed during the performance. He
distinctly recognised several words from his Greek Grammar in the course
of the dialogue."
No one seemed capable of responding except Mr. Bultitude, who dashed
into the breach with an almost pathetic effort to maintain his
accustomed stiffness.
"I may be old-fashioned," he said, "very likely I am; but
I--ah--decidedly disapprove of taking children to dramatic exhibitions
of any kind. It unsettles them, sir--unsettles them!"
Dr. Grimstone made no answer, but he put a hand on each knee, and glared
with pursed lips and a leonine bristle of the beard at his youthful
critic for some moments, after which he returned to his _Globe_ with a
short ominous cough.
"I've offended him now," thought Paul. "I must be more careful what I
say. But I'll get him into conversation again presently."
So he began at the first opportunity: "You have this evening's paper, I
see. No telegrams of importance, I suppose?"
"No, sir," said the Doctor shortly.
"I saw a report in to-day's _Times_," said poor Mr. Bultitude, with a
desperate attempt at his most conversational and instructive manner, "I
saw a report that the camphor crop was likely to be a failure this
season. Now, it's a very singular thing about camphor, that the
Japanese----" (he hoped to lead the conversation round to colonial
produce, and thus open the Doctor's eyes by the extent of his
acquaintance with the subject).
"I am already acquainted with the method of obtaining camphor, thank
you, Bultitude," said the Doctor, with dangerous politeness.
"I was about to observe, when you interrupted me," said Paul, "(and this
is really a fact that I doubt if you are aware of), that the Japanese
never----"
"Well, well," said the Doctor, with some impatience, "probably they
never do, sir, but I shall have other opportunities of finding out what
you have read about the Japanese."
But he glanced over the top of the paper at the indignant Paul, who was
not accustomed to have his information received in this manner, with
less suspicion and a growing conviction that some influence during the
holidays had changed the boy from a graceless young scapegrace into a
prig of the first water.
"He's most uncivil"--Mr. Bultitude told himself--"almost insulting, but
I'll go on. I'm rousing his curiosity. I'm making way with him; he sees
a difference already." And so he applied himself once more.
"You're a smoker, of course, Dr. Grimstone?" he began. "We don't stop
anywhere, I think, on the way, and I must confess myself, after dinner,
a whiff or two--I think I can give you a cigar you'll appreciate."
And he felt for his cigar-case, really forgetting that it was gone, like
all other incidents of his old self; while Jolland giggled with
unrestrained delight at such charming effrontery.
"If I did not know, sir," said the Doctor, now effectually roused, "that
this was ill-timed buffoonery, and not an intentional insult, I should
be seriously angry. As it is, I can overlook any exuberance of mirth
which is, perhaps, pardonable when the mind is elated by the return to
the cheerful bustle and activity of school-life. But be very careful."
"He needn't be so angry," thought Paul, "how could I know he doesn't
smoke? But I'm afraid he doesn't quite know me, even now."
So he began again: "Did I hear you mention the name of Kiffin amongst
those of your pupils here, Doctor? I thought so. Not the son of Jordan
Kiffin, of College Hill, surely? Yes? Why, bless my soul, your father
and I, my little fellow, were old friends in days before you were born
or thought of--born or thought of. He was in a very small way then, a
very small---- Eh, Dr. Grimstone, don't you feel well?"
"I see what you're aiming at, sir. You wish to prove to me that I'm
making a mistake in my treatment of you."
"That was my idea, certainly," said Paul, much pleased. "I'm very glad
you take me, Doctor."
"I shall take you in a way you won't appreciate soon, if this goes on,"
said the Doctor under his breath.
"When the time comes I shall know how to deal with you. Till then
you'll have the goodness to hold your tongue," he said aloud.
"It's not a very polite way of putting it," Paul said to himself, "but,
at any rate, he sees how the case stands now, and after all, perhaps, he
only speaks like that to put the boys off the scent. If so, it's
uncommonly considerate and thoughtful of him, by Gad. I won't say any
more."
But by-and-by, the open window made him break his resolution. "I'm sorry
to inconvenience you, Dr. Grimstone," he said, with the air of one used
to having his way in these matters, "but I positively must ask you
either to allow me to have this window up or to change places with you.
The night air, sir, at this time of the year is fatal, my doctor tells
me, simply fatal to a man of my constitution."
The Doctor pulled up the window with a frown, and yet a somewhat puzzled
expression. "I warn you, Bultitude," he said, "you are acting very
imprudently."
"So I am," thought Paul, "so I am. Good of him to remind me. I must keep
it up before all these boys. This unpleasant business mustn't get about.
I'll hold my tongue till we get in. Then, I daresay, Grimstone will see
me off by the next train up, if there is one, and lend me enough for a
bed at an hotel for the night. I couldn't get to St. Pancras till very
late, of course. Or he might offer to put me up at the school. If he
does, I think I shall very possibly accept. It might be better."
And he leant back in his seat in a much easier frame of mind; it was
annoying, of course, to have been turned out of his warm dining-room,
and sent all the way down to Market Rodwell on a fool's errand like
this; but still, if nothing worse came of it, he could put up with the
temporary inconvenience, and it was a great relief to be spared the
necessity of an explanation.
The other boys watched him furtively with growing admiration, which
expressed itself in subdued whispers, varied by little gurgles and
"squirks" of laughter; they tried to catch his eye and stimulate him to
further feats of audacity, but Mr. Bultitude, of course, repulsed all
such overtures with a coldness and severity which at once baffled and
piqued them.
At last his eccentricity took a shape which considerably lessened their
enthusiasm. Kiffin, the new boy, occupied the seat next to Paul; he was
a nervous-looking little fellow, with a pale face and big pathetic brown
eyes like a seal's, and his dress bore plain evidence of a mother's
careful supervision, having all the uncreased trimness and specklessness
rarely to be observed except in the toilettes of the waxen prodigies in
a shop-window.
It happened that, as he lay back in the padded seat between the
sheltering partitions, watching the sickly yellow dregs of oil surging
dismally to and fro with the motion in the lamp overhead, or the black
indistinct forms flitting past through the misty blue outside, the
pathos of his situation became all at once too much for him.
He was a home-bred boy, without any of that taste for the companionship
and pursuits of his fellows, or capacity for adapting himself to their
prejudices and requirements, which give some home-bred boys a ready
passport into the roughest communities.
His heart throbbed with no excited curiosity, no conscious pride, at
this his first important step in life; he was a forlorn little stranger,
in an unsympathetic strange land, and was only too well aware of his
position.
So that it is not surprising that as he thought of the home he had left
an hour or two ago which now seemed so shadowy, so inaccessible and
remote, his eyes began to smart and sting, and his chest to heave
ominously, until he felt it necessary to do something to give a partial
vent to his emotions and prevent a public and disgraceful exhibition of
grief.
Unhappily for him he found this safety-valve in a series of suppressed
but distinctly audible sniffs.
Mr. Bultitude bore this for some time with no other protest than an
occasional indignant bounce or a lowering frown in the offender's
direction, but at last his nerves, strung already to a high pitch by all
he had undergone, could stand it no longer.
"Dr. Grimstone," he said with polite determination, "I'm not a man to
complain without good reason, but really I must ask you to interfere.
Will you tell this boy here, on my right, either to control his feelings
or to cry into his pocket-handkerchief, like an ordinary human being? A
good honest bellow I can understand, but this infernal whiffling and
sniffing, sir, I will not put up with. It's nothing less than unnatural
in a boy of that size."
"Kiffin," said the Doctor, "are you crying?"
"N--no, sir," faltered Kiffin; "I--I think I must have caught cold,
sir."