though the seat was not a cushioned one. He had the inoffensive Kiffin
for a neighbour, his chief tormentors were far away from him in one of
the back pews, and here at least he thought no harm could come to him.
He could allow himself safely to do what I am afraid he generally did do
under the circumstances--snatch a few intermittent but sweet periods of
dreamless slumber.
But, while the service was proceeding, Mr. Bultitude was suddenly
horrified to observe that a young lady, who occupied a pew at right
angles to and touching that in which he sat, was deliberately making
furtive signals to him in a most unmistakable manner.
She was a decidedly pretty girl of about fifteen, with merry and daring
blue eyes and curling golden hair, and was accompanied by two small
brothers (who shared the same book and dealt each other stealthy and
vicious kicks throughout the service), and by her father, a stout,
short-sighted old gentleman in gold spectacles, who was perpetually
making the wrong responses in a loud and confident tone.
To be signalled to in a marked manner by a strange young lady of great
personal attractions might be a coveted distinction to other schoolboys,
but it simply gave Mr. Bultitude cold thrills.
"I suppose _that's_ 'Connie Davenant,'" he thought, shocked beyond
measure as she caught his eye and coughed demurely for about the fourth
time. "A very forward young person! I think somebody ought to speak
seriously to her father."
"Good gracious! she's writing something on the flyleaf of her
prayer-book," he said to himself presently. "I hope she's not going to
send it to _me_. I won't take it. She ought to be ashamed of herself!"
Miss Davenant was indeed busily engaged in pencilling something on a
blank sheet of paper; and, having finished, she folded it deftly into a
cocked-hat, wrote a few words on the outside, and placed it between the
leaves of her book.
Then, as the congregation rose for the Psalms, she gave a meaning glance
at the blushing and scandalised Mr. Bultitude and by dexterous
management of her prayer-book shot the little cocked-hat, as if
unconsciously, into the next pew.
By a very unfortunate miscalculation, however, the note missed its
proper object, and, clearing the partition, fluttered deliberately down
on the floor by Dulcie's feet.
Paul saw this with alarm; he knew that at all hazards he must get that
miserable note into his own possession and destroy it. It might have his
name somewhere about it; it might seriously compromise him.
So he took advantage of the noise the congregation made in repeating a
verse aloud (it was not a high church) to whisper to Dulcie: "Little
Miss Grimstone, excuse me, but there's a--a note in the pew down by your
feet. I believe it's intended for me."
Dulcie had seen the whole affair and had been not a little puzzled by
it, a clandestine correspondence being a new thing in her short
experience; but she understood that in this golden-haired girl, her
elder by several years, she saw her rival, for whom Dick had so basely
abandoned her yesterday, and she was old enough to feel the slight and
the sweetness of revenge.
So she held her head rather higher than usual, with her firm little chin
projecting wilfully, and waited for the next verse but one before
retorting, "Little Master Bultitude, I know it is."
"Could you--can you manage to reach it?" whispered Paul entreatingly.
"Yes," said Dulcie, "I could."
"Then will you--when they sit down?"
"No," said Dulcie firmly, "I shan't."
The other girl, she noticed with satisfaction, had become aware of the
situation and was evidently uneasy. She looked as imploringly as she
dared at remorseless little Dulcie, as if appealing to her not to get
her into trouble; but Dulcie bent her eyes obstinately on her book and
would not see her.
If the letter had been addressed to any other boy in the school, she
would have done her best to shield the culprits; but this she could not
bring herself to do here. She found a malicious pleasure in remaining
absolutely neutral, which of course was very wrong and ill-natured of
her.
Mr. Bultitude began now to be seriously alarmed. The fatal paper must be
seen by some one in the Doctor's pew as soon as the congregation sat
down again; and, if it reached the Doctor's hands, it was impossible to
say what misconstruction he might put upon it or what terrible
consequences might not follow.
He was innocent, perfectly innocent; but though the consciousness of
innocence is frequently a great consolation, he felt that unless he
could imbue the Doctor with it as well, it would not save him from a
flogging.
So he made one more desperate attempt to soften Dulcie's resolution:
"Don't be a naughty little girl," he said, very injudiciously for his
purpose, "I tell you I must have it. You'll get me into a terrible mess
if you're not careful!"
But although Dulcie had been extremely well brought up, I regret to say
that the only answer she chose to make to this appeal was that slight
contortion of the features, which with a pretty girl is euphemised as a
"_moue_," and with a plain one is called "making a face." When he saw it
he knew that all hope of changing her purpose must be abandoned.
Then they all sat down, and, as Paul had foreseen, there the white
cocked-hat lay on the dark pew-carpet, hideously distinct, with _billet
doux_ in every fold of it!
It could only be a question of time now. The curate was reading the
first lesson for the day, but Mr. Bultitude heard not a verse of it. He
was waiting with bated breath for the blow to fall.
It fell at last. Dulcie, either with the malevolent idea of hastening
the crisis, or (which I prefer to believe for my own part) finding that
her ex-lover's visible torments were too much for her desire of
vengeance, was softly moving a heavy hassock towards the guilty note.
The movement caught her mother's eye, and in an instant the compromising
paper was in her watchful hands.
She read it with incredulous horror, and handed it at once to the
Doctor.
The golden-haired one saw it all without betraying herself by any
outward confusion. She had probably had some experience in such matters,
and felt tolerably certain of being able, at the worst, to manage the
old gentleman in the gold spectacles. But she took an early opportunity
of secretly conveying her contempt for the traitress Dulcie, who
continued to meet her angry glances with the blandest unconsciousness.
Dr. Grimstone examined the cocked-hat through his double eyeglasses,
with a heavy thunder-cloud gathering on his brows. When he had mastered
it thoroughly, he bent forward and glared indignantly past his wife and
daughter for at least half a minute into the pew where Mr. Bultitude was
cowering, until he felt that he was coming all to pieces under the
piercing gaze.
The service passed all too quickly after that. Paul sat down and stood
up almost unconsciously with the rest; but for the first time in his
life he could have wished the sermon many times longer.
The horror of his position quite petrified him. After all his prudent
resolutions to keep out of mischief and to win the regard and confidence
of his gaoler by his good conduct, like the innocent convict in a
melodrama, this came as nothing less than a catastrophe. He walked home
in a truly dismal state of limp terror.
Fortunately for him none of the others seemed to have noticed his
misfortune, and Jolland made no further advances. But even the weather
tended to increase his depression, for it was a bleak, cheerless day,
with a bitter and searching wind sweeping the gritty roads where
yesterday's rain was turned to black ice in the ruts, and the sun shone
with a dull coppery glitter that had no warmth or geniality about it.
The nearer they came to Crichton House the more abjectly miserable
became Mr. Bultitude's state of mind. It was as much as he could do to
crawl up the steps to the front door, and his knees positively clapped
together when the Doctor, who had driven home, met them in the hall and
said in a still grave voice, "Bultitude, when you have taken off your
coat, I want you in the study."
He was as long about taking off his coat as he dared, but at last he
went trembling into the study, which he found empty. He remembered the
room well, with its ebony-framed etchings on the walls, bookcases and
blue china over the draped mantelpiece, even to a large case of
elaborately carved Indian chessmen in bullock-carts and palanquins, on
horses and elephants, which stood in the window-recess. It was the very
room to which he had been shown when he first called about sending his
son to the school. He had little thought then that the time would come
when he would attend there for the purpose of being flogged; few things
would have seemed less probable. Yet here he was.
But his train of thought was abruptly broken by the entrance of the
Doctor. He marched solemnly in, holding out the offending missive. "Look
at this, sir!" he said, shaking it angrily before Paul's eyes. "Look at
this! what do you mean by receiving a flippant communication like this
in a sacred edifice? What do you mean by it?"
"I--I didn't receive it," said Paul, at his wits' end.
"Don't prevaricate with me, sir; you know well enough it was intended
for you. Have the goodness to read it now, and tell me what you have to
say for yourself!"
Paul read it. It was a silly little school-girl note, half slang and
half sentiment, signed only with the initials C.D. "Well, sir?" said the
Doctor.
"It's very forward and improper--very," said Paul; "but it's not my
fault--I can't help it. I gave the girl no encouragement. I never saw
her before in all my life!"
"To my own knowledge, Bultitude, she has sat in that pew regularly for a
year."
"Very probably," said Paul, "but I don't notice these matters. I'm past
that sort of thing, my dear sir."
"What is her name? Come, sir, you know that."
"Connie Davenant," said Paul, taken unawares by the suddenness of the
question. "At least, I--I heard so to-day." He felt the imprudence of
such an admission as soon as he had made it.
"Very odd that you know her name if you never noticed her before," said
the Doctor.
"That young fellow--what's-his-name--Jolland told me," said Paul.
"Ah, but it's odder still that she knows yours, for I perceive it is
directed to you by name."
"It's easily explained, my dear sir," said Paul; "easily explained. I've
no doubt she's heard it somewhere. At least, I never told her; it is not
likely. I do assure you I'm as much distressed and shocked by this
affair as you can be yourself. I am indeed. I don't know what girls are
coming to nowadays."
"Do you expect me to believe that you are perfectly innocent?" said the
Doctor.
"Yes, I do," said Mr. Bultitude. "I can't prevent fast young ladies from
sending me notes. Why, she might have sent _you_ one!"
"We won't go into hypothetical cases," said the Doctor, not relishing
the war being carried into his own country; "she happened to prefer you.
But, although your virtuous indignation seems to me a trifle overdone,
sir, I don't see my way clear to punishing you on the facts, especially
as you tell me you never encouraged these--these overtures, and my
Dulcie, I am bound to say, confirms your statement that it was all the
other young lady's doing. But if I had had any proof that you had begun
or responded to her--hem--advances, nothing could have saved you from a
severe flogging at the very least--so be careful for the future."
"Ah!" said Paul rather feebly, quite overwhelmed by the narrowness of
his escape. Then with a desperate effort he found courage to add, "May
I--ah--take advantage of this--this restored cordiality to--to--in fact
to make a brief personal explanation? It--it's what I've been trying to
tell you for a long time, ever since I first came, only you never will
hear me out. It's highly important. You've no notion how serious it is!"
"There's something about you this term, Richard Bultitude," said the
Doctor slowly, "that I confess I don't understand. This obstinacy is
unusual in a boy of your age, and if you really have a mystery it may be
as well to have it out and have done with it. But I can't be annoyed
with it now. Come to me after supper to-night, and I shall be willing to
hear anything you may have to say."
Paul was too overcome at this unexpected favour to speak his thanks. He
got away as soon as he could. His path was smoothed at last!
That afternoon the boys, or all of them who had disposed of the work set
them for the day, were sitting in the schoolroom, after a somewhat
chilly dinner of cold beef, cold tarts, and cold water, passing the time
with that description of literature known as "Sunday reading."
And here, at the risk of being guilty of a digression, I must pause to
record my admiration for this exceedingly happy form of compromise,
which is, I think, peculiar to the British and, to a certain extent, the
American nations.
It has many developments; ranging from the mild Transatlantic compound
of cookery and camp-meetings, to the semi-novel, redeemed and chastened
by an arrangement which sandwiches a sermon or a biblical lecture
between each chapter of the story--a great convenience for the race of
skippers.
Then there are one or two illustrated magazines which it is always
allowable to read on the Sabbath without fear of rebuke from the
strictest--though it is not quite easy to see why.
Open any one of the monthly numbers, and the chances are that you may
possibly find at one part a neat little doctrinal essay by a literary
bishop; the rest of the contents will consist of nothing more serious
than a paper upon "cockroaches and their habits" by an eminent savant; a
description of foreign travel, done in a brilliant and wholly secular
vein; and, further on again, an article on aesthetic furniture--while the
balance of the number will be devoted to instalments of two thrilling
novels by popular authors, whose theology is seldom their strongest
point.
Oddly enough, too, when these very novels come out later in three-volume
form, with the "mark of the beast" in the shape of a circulating library
ticket upon them, they will be fortunate if they are not interdicted
altogether by some of the serious families who take in the magazines as
being "so suitable for Sundays."
Mr. Bultitude, at all events, had reason to be grateful for this
toleration, for in one of the bound volumes supplied to him he found a
most interesting and delightfully unsectarian novel, which appealed to
his tastes as a business man, for it was all about commerce and making
fortunes by blockade-running; and though he was no novel reader as a
rule, his mind was so relieved and set at rest by the prospect of seeing
the end of his trouble at last, that he was able to occupy his mind with
the fortunes of the hero.
He naturally detected technical errors here and there. But that pleased
him, and he was becoming so deeply absorbed in the tale that he felt
seriously annoyed when Chawner came softly up to the desk at which he
was sitting, and sat down close to him, crossing his arms before him,
and leaning forward upon them with his sallow face towards Paul.
"Dickie," he began, in a cautious, oily tone, "did I hear the Doctor say
before dinner that he would hear anything you have to tell him after
supper? Did I?"
"I really can't say, sir," said Paul; "if you were near the keyhole at
the time, very likely you did."
"The door was open," said Chawner, "and I was in the cloak-room, so I
heard, and I want to know. What is it you're going to tell the Doctor?"
"Mind your own business, sir," said Paul sharply.
"It is my own business," said Chawner; "but I don't want to be told what
you're going to tell him. I know."
"Good heavens!" said Mr. Bultitude, annoyed to find his secret in
possession of this boy of all others.
"Yes," repeated Chawner. "I know, and I tell you what--I won't have it!"
"Won't have it! and why?"
"Never mind why. Perhaps I don't choose that the Doctor shall be told
just yet; perhaps I mean to go up and tell him myself some other day. I
want to have a little more fun out of it before I've done."
"But--but," said Paul, "you young ghoul, do you mean to say that all you
care for is to see other people's sufferings?"
Chawner grinned maliciously. "Yes," he said suavely; "it amuses me."
"And so," said Paul, "you want to hold me back a little longer--because
it's so funny; and then, when you're quite tired of your sport, you'll
go up and tell the Doctor my--my unhappy story yourself, eh? No, my
friend; I'd rather not tell him myself--but I'll be shot if I let _you_
have a finger in it. I know my own interests better than that!"
"Don't get in a passion, Dickie," said Chawner; "it's Sunday. You'll
have to let me go up instead of you--when I've frightened them a little
more."
"Who do you mean by them, sir?" said Paul, growing puzzled.
"As if you didn't know! Oh, you're too clever for me, Dickie, I can
see," sniggered Chawner.
"I tell you I don't know!" said Mr. Bultitude. "Look here, Chawner--your
confounded name is Chawner, isn't it?--there's a mistake somewhere, I'm
sure of it. Listen to me. I'm not going to tell the Doctor what you
think I am!"
"What do I think you are going to tell him?"
"I haven't the slightest idea; but, whatever it is, you're wrong."
"Ah, you're too clever, Dickie; you won't betray yourself; but other
people want to pay Coker and Tipping out as well as you, and I say you
must wait."
"I shan't say anything to affect anyone but myself," said Paul; "if you
know all about it, you must know that--it won't interfere with your
amusement that I can see."
"Yes, it will," said Chawner irritably, "it will--you mayn't mean to
tell of anyone but yourself; but directly Grimstone asks you questions,
it all comes out. I know all about it. And, anyway, I forbid you to go
up till I give you leave."
"And who the dooce are you?" said Mr. Bultitude, nettled at this
assumption of authority. "How are you going to prevent me, may I ask?"
"S'sh! here's the Doctor," whispered Chawner hurriedly. "I'll tell you
after tea. What am I doing out of my place, sir? Oh, I was only asking
Bultitude what was the collect for to-day, sir. Fourth Sunday after the
Epiphany? thank you, Bultitude."
And he glided back to his seat, leaving Paul in a state of vague
uneasiness. Why did this fellow, with the infernal sly face and glib
tongue, want to prevent him from righting himself with the world, and
how could he possibly prevent him? It was absurd; he would take no
notice of the young scoundrel--he would defy him.
But he could not banish the uneasy feeling; the cup had slipped so many
times before at the critical moment that he could not be sure whose hand
would be the next to jog his elbow. And so he went down to tea with
renewed misgivings.
12. _Against Time_
"There is a kind of Followers likewise, which are dangerous, being
indeed Espials; which enquire the Secrets of the House and beare
Tales of them."--BACON.
"Then give me leave that I may turn the key,
That no man enter till my tale be done."
Very possibly Chawner's interference in Mr. Bultitude's private affairs
has surprised others besides the victim of it; but the fact is that
there was a most unfortunate misunderstanding between them from the very
first, which prevented the one from seeing, the other from explaining,
the real state of the case.
Chawner, of course, no more guessed Paul's true name and nature than
anyone else who had come in contact with him in his impenetrable
disguise, and his motive for attempting to prevent an interview with the
Doctor can only, I fear, be explained by another slight digression.
The Doctor, from a deep sense of his responsibility for the morals of
those under his care, was perhaps a trifle over-anxious to clear his
moral garden of every noxious weed, and too constant in his vigilant
efforts to detect the growing shoot of evil from the moment it showed
above the surface.
As he could not be everywhere, however, it is evident that many
offences, trivial or otherwise, must have remained unsuspected and
unpunished, but for a theory which he had originated and took great
pains to propagate amongst his pupils.
The theory was that every right-minded boy ought to feel himself in such
a fiduciary position towards his master, that it became a positive duty
to acquaint him with any delinquencies he might happen to observe among
his fellows; and if, at the same time, he was oppressed by a secret
burden on his own conscience, it was understood that he might hope that
the joint revelation would go far to mitigate his own punishment.
It is doubtful whether this system, though I believe it is found
successful in Continental colleges, can be usefully applied to English
boys; whether it may not produce a habit of mutual distrust and
suspicion, and a tone the reverse of healthy.
For myself, I am inclined to think that a schoolmaster will find it
better in the long run, for both the character and morals of his school,
if he is not too anxious to play the detective, and refrains from
encouraging the more weak-minded or cowardly boys to save themselves by
turning "schoolmaster's evidence."
Dr. Grimstone thought otherwise; but it must be allowed that the system,
as in vogue at Crichton House, did not work well.
There were boys, of course, who took a sturdier view of their own rights
and duties, and despised the talebearers as they deserved; there were
others, also, too timid and too dependent on the good opinion of others
to risk the loss of it by becoming informers; but there were always one
or two whose consciences were unequal to the burden of their neighbour's
sin, and could only be relieved by frank and full confession.
Unhappily they had, as a general rule, contributed largely to the sum
of guilt themselves, and did not resort to disclosure until detection
seemed reasonably imminent.
Chawner was the leader of this conscientious band; he revelled in the
system. It gave him the means at once of gratifying the almost universal
love of power and of indulging a catlike passion for playing with the
feelings of others, which, it is to be hoped, is more uncommon.
He knew he was not popular, but he could procure most of the incidents
of popularity; he could have his little court of cringing toadies; he
could levy his tribute of conciliatory presents, and vent many private
spites and hatreds into the bargain--and he generally did.
Having himself a tendency to acts of sly disobedience, he found it a
congenial pastime to set the fashion from time to time in some one of
the peccadilloes to which boyhood is prone, and to which the Doctor's
somewhat restrictive code added a large number, and as soon as he saw a
sufficient number of his companions satisfactorily implicated, his
opportunity came.
He would take the chief culprits aside, and profess, in strict
confidence, certain qualms of conscience which he feared could only be
appeased by unburdening his guilt-laden soul.
To this none would have had any right to object--had it not necessarily,
or at least from Chawner's point of view, involved a full, true, and
particular account of the misdoings of each and every one; and
consequently, for some time after these professions of misgivings,
Chawner would be surrounded by a little crowd of anxiously obsequious
friends, all trying hard to overcome his scruples or persuade him at
least to omit their names from his revelations.
Sometimes he would affect to be convinced by their arguments and send
them away reassured; at others his scruples would return in an
aggravated form; and so he would keep them on tenterhooks of suspense
for days and weeks, until he was tired of the amusement--for this
practising on the fears of weaker natures is a horribly keen delight to
some--or until some desperate little dog, unable to bear his torture any
longer, would threaten to give himself up and make an end of it.
Then Chawner, to do him justice, always relieved him from so
disagreeable a necessity, and would go softly into the Doctor's study,
and, in a subdued and repentant tone, pour out his general confession
for the public good.