THE STRONG-ROOM AT THE BEECH-HILL INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL.
The trip was finished, and Dory was relieved from further duty in the
pilot-house. He came down upon the main deck just as the carpenter was
unlocking the door of Oscar Chester’s prison. Mr. Brookbine had a
lantern in one hand, which threw its light into the room when the door
was opened.
The rebel was lying on the floor, which was quite dry, for the room
had not been used for several weeks. He seemed to be making himself
quite at home in his prison; and possibly he had been asleep, for he
gaped and yawned when he was discovered. But this was affectation. He
wanted to make his persecutors, as he regarded them, think that he was
not at all disturbed by his confinement.
“You may came out now, Chester,” said Captain Gildrock.
“I don’t want to go out: I am very comfortable here, I want you to
understand,” replied Oscar with plentiful display of bravado.
“It is my order that you come out!” added the captain sternly.
“I don’t know that I care for your orders. I have made up my mind to
stay in this place only long enough to get even with that Dory
Dornwood. When I have thrashed him within an inch of his life, I shall
be ready to leave; and I shall leave, I want you to understand,”
answered Oscar. “I don’t intend to be bossed by any little boy you may
see fit to place over me.”
“I shall not argue the question with you: I told you to come out,”
continued Captain Gildrock in very decided, though gentle, tones.
“And I told you I wouldn’t go out!” replied Oscar.
“You may bring him out, Mr. Brookbine, and take him up to the brig,”
said the captain, as he took the lantern from the hand of the
carpenter.
“You have brought that big bully, have you?” demanded the rebel,
rising from his reclining position.
No one replied to this demand, but the carpenter walked into the
prison. Oscar was disposed to show fight. He retreated to a corner,
and put himself in the attitude of defence. Suddenly, as if by
impulse, the prisoner began to feel in his pockets; but the stout
mechanic did not give him time enough to produce any thing. He took
him by the collar of his coat, and lifted him off the floor. With his
other hand, he jerked the hands of the prisoner out of his pockets. As
he did so, a two-bladed knife dropped from one of them.
Possibly the sight of this article kindled the anger of the carpenter,
for he began to bang the captive about in a manner that threatened
serious bodily injury to the victim.
“Hold on to him, but don’t hurt him any more than may be necessary,”
interposed Captain Gildrock. “We can cure him of his infirmity in a
few days.”
“The rascal wants to knife me, and I am inclined to shake the bad
blood out of him,” replied the mechanic.
“He is a lunatic: he is boiling over with bad passions. A few days in
the brig will cool him off. We will treat him as a sick boy; and, when
he gets better, we will talk with him. Possibly there may be some
reason in him when he is himself, if he ever is himself. If we can’t
manage him, we will send him to the lunatic-asylum,” said the captain,
as the carpenter dragged his prisoner out upon the deck.
Dory picked up the knife, and followed his uncle to the
school-buildings in the rear of the mansion. Oscar could not stand the
discipline of the burly Vermonter. He soon found, if he had not
learned it before, that he was powerless in the hands of his
persecutor; and he walked quietly in the direction he was led.
Captain Gildrock had expected to have some just such boys as Oscar
Chester. In fact, he knew of this very one; for his uncle had applied
to him to take him, as soon as he knew that he intended to open a
mechanical institution. Mr. Chester was an old friend of the captain,
to whom the latter had described his educational plan. This was the
reason he happened to know all about Oscar, while he had taken pains
not to be informed in regard to the antecedents of all his other
pupils.
The founder of the new school understood men and boys thoroughly. Some
of his scholars must inevitably be rebellious and troublesome, and he
had fully provided for the treatment of such cases. He had erected two
temporary buildings, one of which was the dormitory and the other the
workshop and schoolroom, the latter occupying the story over the
former. The students were to take their meals in the large dining-room
of the mansion.
The dormitory consisted of twenty-four sleeping-rooms, each of which
had been furnished with an iron bedstead and such simple furniture as
might be required. Nothing was extravagant, or even elegant; for the
school was an experiment which might succeed or fail.
In a small brick building close to the shop, a steam-engine had
already been set up, from which a belt extending into the shop was to
run the lathes, circular-saws, planers, boring-machines, and other
machinery. One part of the shop was for woodwork, and the other for
iron. But most of the tools and apparatus had not yet been put in
their places.
At one end of the dormitory was the “brig.” Captain Gildrock’s
earliest experience at sea had been in the navy, where he had obtained
his first ideas of discipline. The ship’s prison on board a man-of-war
is called the “brig.” The captain had already given this name to his
place of discipline.
It was one of the rooms of the dormitory, fitted up for the purpose
intended. The walls and ceiling, as well as the floor, had been
constructed of thick spruce plank. All the wood had been covered with
sheet-iron. The two windows were grated with iron bars. It contained a
narrow iron bedstead, an iron stand for a table, and one chair of the
same material. The locks on the door were strong enough for any
prison. But not even the door could be seen from the hall of the
dormitory, for it was concealed by a wooden partition in front of it.
No boy was to be allowed to visit this strong-room unless he was
condemned to become an occupant of it for his misconduct. He had not
mentioned it to the boys, and the instructors were requested not to do
so. The iron in the room was all painted black, so that it was an
exceedingly gloomy-looking apartment. The captain hoped he should
never have occasion to make any use of the brig; and certainly he had
not expected to have an occupant for it on the day the first of the
boys arrived.
Mr. Brookbine took his prisoner to the brig, attended by the captain.
He was hurried up the stairs, and thrust into the prison, without any
ceremony. The lantern lighted up the gloomy den when the door was
opened; and, if Oscar did not shrink from his fate, he had more nerve
than ninety-nine in a hundred boys.
He did give a start when he looked into the brig, and it required some
effort on the part of the mechanic to force him into it. In the
dungeon he looked about him with something like an expression of
disgust on his face. Then he seemed to feel that he was yielding
somewhat to the circumstances; and he straightened up, and made an
effort to “stiffen his back.” His persecutors were retiring from the
entrance, and the captain was about to close the door.
“I have eaten nothing since I had my breakfast, early this morning,”
said Oscar stiffly, when he saw that he was about to be locked into
the cell for the night.
“It is your own fault. All the rest of the boys had supper at the
hotel in Burlington,” replied the captain.
“Do you mean to starve me?” demanded the prisoner.
“No, I don’t mean to starve you.--Dory,” called the captain at the
open window in the hall: “go into the house and get a loaf of bread, a
case-knife, and a pitcher of water.”
In a few minutes the skipper of the Goldwing returned with the
articles named, and Captain Gildrock placed them on the iron table.
“Am I to be fed on dry bread?” asked Oscar, as he looked with contempt
upon the provision on the table.
“I don’t answer questions at the present time. There is food: you can
eat it or let it alone. You can stay in this place a day, a week, a
month, or a year: the time depends upon yourself,” said the captain,
as he withdrew from the brig.
He closed the door, and secured it with the great lock. He also
fastened the door in the plank partition, so that no student could get
within six feet of the strong-room.
“That fellow will think better of it in a few days, perhaps by
to-morrow,” said Captain Gildrock, as they left the dormitory.
“For a boy, he is the hardest customer I ever had to deal with,”
replied Brookbine. “There is no more reason in him than there is in a
brickbat.”
The captain led the way to the schoolroom, where the boys had
assembled. They were behaving themselves very well, and they all
applauded when the captain entered the room.
“Boys, there is nothing more to be done to-night. To-morrow will be
Saturday; and we shall organize the ship’s company for the Sylph, and
take a little trip in her down the lake, perhaps as far as
Plattsburgh. Your rooms are all ready for you, and you can retire as
soon as possible. We have breakfast at seven in the morning.”
The captain stood upon the platform, and made this little speech,
which was applauded by the students. Mr. Brookbine was left to look
after the pupils, and the captain and Dory went into the house. Though
it was after nine o’clock in the evening, they found Mr. Bolingbroke
Millweed and his mother in the sitting-room. Her son had related to
her his adventures on the lake and in Burlington. She was very
grateful to Dory for what he had done, and expressed herself to that
effect in very high-flown speech.
“My son Bolingbroke informs me that you have manifested some interest
in his future welfare, for which I am extremely grateful to you,
Captain Gildrock. I hope you will be able to do something for him; for
a word from you would secure for him a good place in a store,” said
Mrs. Millweed, after she had succeeded in introducing the subject.
“I offered your son a place in my school for a year. If he is going to
accept the offer I made him, I want him here at seven to-morrow
morning,” replied the captain bruskly. “I don’t know any thing about
him, and I can’t recommend him for a place in a store.”
“I don’t wish to make a mechanic of him,” protested Mrs. Millweed. “I
am looking for something higher than that for him.”
“Do you think that being a counter-jumper is something higher?”
demanded the captain, laughing heartily at the idea.
“I wish him to be a merchant; and I am sure that is higher and more
respectable than a greasy mechanic,” added the lady with a sneer.
“Very well, madam: I cannot do any thing for your son,” added the
captain decidedly. “There are ten times as many clerks as can find
places now.”
“I have never allowed my boys to work on the farm; and they haven’t
acquired any low ideas,” continued Mrs. Millweed as she moved to the
door, closely attended by Bolingbroke.
The visitors departed, and it was not probable that they would again
darken the captain’s door.