Chapter Seven.I ate that dinner very uneasily. For one thing, I had no appetite, having had enough before I took my place. For another, I was worried by the furtive grins and whispers of the boys near me, the news of the fight having run like lightning through the school. Then I was in a constant state of dread lest my appearance should be noticed by either Mr Rebble, the Doctor, or the new assistant master, who was dining on the principal’s left, for the Doctor made our dinner his lunch and of course had his late. I had not had a chance to look in a glass, and, as my face ached and felt tight, I imagined terrible black eyes, a horribly swollen nose, and that my top lip was puffed out to a large size. In fact, I felt that I must be in that state; and as I glanced at Mercer, I was surprised to see that he hardly showed a mark. Lastly, I could not get on with my dinner, because my mouth would not open and shut properly, while every attempt to move my lower jaw sidewise gave me intense pain.I was in hopes that this was not noticed, and to get over the difficulty of being seen with my plate of meat untouched, I furtively slipped two slices, a potato, and a piece of bread under the table, where I knew that the two cats would be foraging according to their custom.I thought the act was not noticed, but the boy on my right had been keenly watching me.“Can’t you eat your dinner?” he whispered.There was no other course open save making a paltry excuse, so I said gruffly,—“Never mind, old chap,” he said, to my surprise. “Lots of us laugh at you, but—. I say, don’t tell ’em I said so.”“I don’t sneak and tell tales,” I said morosely.“No, of course you wouldn’t. I was going to say lots of us laugh at you, but lots of us wish you and Senna Tea had given those two bullies an awful licking.”“Thank-ye,” I said, for these words were quite cheering, and I glanced at Mercer, who was fiddling his dinner about, and cutting the pink-looking cold boiled beef up in very small squares.“Can’t you get on?” I whispered.“No. ’Tain’t likely; but just you wait.”“What for?”“Never mind!”The dinner went on, with the clattering of knives and forks upon plates, and, the meat being ended, the pudding came along, round, stodgy slices, with glittering bits of yellow suet in it, and here and there a raisin, or plum, as we called it, playing at bo-peep with those on the other side,—“Spotted Dog,” we used to call it,—and I got on a little better, for it was nice and warm and sweet, from the facts that the Doctor never stinted us boys in our food, and that, while the cook always said she hated all boys, she contrived to make our dinners tasty and good.“Try the pudding,” I whispered to Mercer.“Shan’t. I should like to shy it bang in old Burr major’s face.”“Oh, never mind.”“But I do mind; but just you wait!”“Well, I am waiting,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what you mean?”Mercer was silent.“I say!”“Well?”“You’re not going to give him anything nasty, are you?”“Yes.”“Oh!”“You wait and see!”“But you mustn’t; it wouldn’t do.”“Wouldn’t it? Ah, just you wait. We’ll make ’em sorry for this.”“I’m not going to do anything nasty,” I said sturdily.“Yes, you are; you’re going to do as I do. We’re mates, and you’ve got to help me as I helped you.”I thought of the pot marked “poison;” of Dicksee being bad through taking something Mercer had given him; and a curious sensation of sickness came over me, and I left half my pudding, just as Mercer took up his fork, chopped his disk up into eight pieces, and began to bolt them fiercely.“Eat your pudding,” he said, noticing that I had left off.“Can’t. I’ve had enough.”“You must. I want you to grow strong. I shall give you some tonic stuff my father prescribes for people.”I looked at him in horror, but he was glaring at the last piece of pudding on his fork.“Just you wait!” he said gloomily.“I will not help him in anything I think wrong,” I said to myself; and a few minutes after, Mercer leaned towards me.“Look!” he whispered; “there’s Eely Burr and Fathead grinning at us. Wait a bit! They don’t know what a horrible revenge we’re going to have on them.”“But if it’swe,” I said, “you ought to tell me what the revenge is going to be.”“I’ll tell you some time,” he whispered. “Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps to-night.—You wait!”“Oh, how I do hate being treated like that!” I thought to myself, and I was about to beg of him to tell me then, and to try to persuade him not to, do anything foolish, when the Doctor tapped the table with the handle of his cheese-knife, grace was said, and we all adjourned to the play-field for the half-hour at our disposal before we resumed our studies.I had no further opportunity for speaking to Mercer that afternoon, for, when we returned to the schoolroom, the Doctor made us a speech, in which he said he, “regretted deeply to find.”—Here he stopped to blow his nose, and I turned hot, cold, and then wet, as I felt that we two would be publicly reproved and perhaps punished for fighting.“That,” continued the Doctor, “many of the boys had been going back in minor subjects.”I breathed more freely at this.Mr Hasnip, whom he now publicly presented to us, was an Oxford gentleman, who would take our weak points in hand, strengthen them, and help him, the Doctor, to maintain the high position his establishment had held for so many years.Of course we all looked very hard at the new usher, who was a pale, yellowish-looking man, with eyes hidden by smoked glasses, which enabled him to see without being seen, and he now smiled at us as if he were going to bite, and was nicknamed Parsnip by Mercer on the instant.“He’ll be a teaser,” whispered Mercer. “Going to strengthen our weak parts, is he? Wish he could strengthen mine in the way I want. I suppose we shall be turned over to him. Can’t be worse than old Reb.”Mercer was right; we two were the first boys turned over to the new usher, and this was fortunate for us, for he knew nothing about our personal appearance; and the swellings that did come on, and which would have been noticed directly by Mr Rebble, passed unheeded by him.I was very glad when tea-time came, for my head was so confused that Mr Hasnip was quite right in telling me I was a very stupid boy, for I was that afternoon—very.But the meal-time did come, and as soon as tea was over, instead of going into the play-field with the others, I sat down alone, sore, aching, and disconsolate, to try and master some of the things Mr Hasnip had said I was behindhand in.I had just taken up my book, with my head feeling more hazy than ever, and the shouts of the boys floating in at the open window, when Mercer came in hurriedly.“Here, put that book away,” he said quickly.“What for? I don’t want to come out.”“But you must. I’ve been and put away my specimens, and that settled it. Come along.”“But why must I come out? I don’t want to play, and the other fellows will only laugh at us.”“No, they will not. They’re not going to see us. Come along. Revenge!”I got up and took my cap unwillingly, but, as we got out in the soft evening air, I began to think that perhaps I could keep him back if he were going to do anything wrong, so I walked on by his side with more alacrity.“Going for a walk?” I said, as I found that he avoided the play-field.“No. You wait and you’ll see.”“Well, you needn’t be so disagreeable with me,” I said gruffly.“I’m not, only I ache and burn, and I’m full of it. Come on.”To my surprise, he led me down to the lodge cottage, where the big, soldierly-looking fellow was enjoying his evening pipe in his neatly-kept little garden.“Evening, young gents,” he said, saluting us. “When do you two begin your drill?”“I don’t know, Lomax. When the new master’s done thumping Latin and Euclid into us.”“Humph! Well, gentlemen, I hear that the Romans were very fine soldiers, and Euclid’s all about angles and squares, isn’t it?”“Yes.”“Well, they’re right enough in infantry formation—squares are, and the angles in fortification, which is a thing I don’t know much about, having been in the cavalry; but when you are ready, so am I, and I’ll set you up and make men of you as your fa—” he glanced at me and pulled himself up short—“as your people shall be proud of.”“That’s right, Lom, and I’ll bring you some prime tobacco soon as I can. I say, you can fight, can’t you?”“Well,” he said, smiling and drawing himself up, “they used to say I could once upon a time. There’s my old sword hanging up over the chimney-piece, and if it could speak—”“Yes, yes, I know, and you’ve been wounded,” cried Mercer hastily; “but I don’t mean with swords and pistols, I mean with your fists.”“Oh, I see. Boxing.”“Yes,” cried Mercer eagerly.And I was still so dull and confused by the knocking about I had received, that I had not a glimmer of what he was aiming at.“Yes; boxing. I want you to teach us.”“Yes, I was a dabster at it when I was in the —th. We had no end of it, and we lads used to have a regular subscription round to buy new gloves. Oh yes, I gave lessons to the officers regularly. Long time since I’ve had the gloves on, but I could handle my fists as well as ever, I daresay.”“Then you’ll teach us?”“Teach you? No, no, my lads. Infantry drill; clubs and dumb-bells; singlestick and foil; riding with a military seat; but—use of the gloves! Oh dear no! What do you think the Doctor would say?”“But he won’t know, Lom, and we’ll pay you, honour bright.”“I know you would, Master Mercer; and if this young gent, whose father was in the cavalry—”“Yes, at Chilly—” began Mercer.“Wallah, sir,” said Lomax severely. “If he says he’ll pay me, of course he would. But no, sir, no. Besides, we’ve got no gloves, and boxing-gloves—two pairs—cost money.”“Of course. I know they would, but we’d buy them, or you should for us, and then we could come here now and then, and you could teach us in your room, and nobody would know.”“No, sir, no,” said the sergeant, shaking his head.“I say, Lom, look at us both,” said Mercer. “See anything?”“Well, yes, I do, plain, my lads. You two don’t want any teaching. You’ve got swelled lips, and mousy eyes rising, and your noses are a bit puffy. You have both been fighting.”“Yes, Lom, and see how we’ve been knocked about.”“Well, boys who will fight must take what they get and not grumble.”“But we didn’t want to fight. They made us.”“Why, I thought you two were such friends and mates already. Bah! lads, you shouldn’t fight without there’s good reason.”“But we didn’t fight,” cried Mercer angrily.“Why, just look at you both! your faces say it as plain as your lips.”“But I mean not together. Eely Burr and big Dicksee came and thrashed us. They would not leave us alone.”“Oh, come: that’s bullying,” said Lomax, shaking his head, “and it isn’t a fair match; they’re a good two years older than you, and used to fighting, and you ain’t.”“No,” said Mercer excitedly; “and it’s cruel and cowardly. I’m not a bit afraid of him, and Burr junior wasn’t of his man, and we did the best we could, but they knocked us about just as they liked, and hit us where they pleased, and we couldn’t hurt them a bit.”“No, you wouldn’t be able of course,” said the old sergeant thoughtfully, taking our arms and feeling our muscles. “Well, it was very plucky of you both to stand up and face ’em, that’s all I can say. Is that why you want to learn to use your fists?”“Yes, and as soon as we can both box well, we want to give them both such lickings!” cried Mercer eagerly.The old sergeant began to laugh in a quiet way, and wiped the tears out of his eyes.“Then you want to learn on the sly, and astonish ’em some day?”“Yes, yes,” I said eagerly, for I was as excited as my companion, whose idea of revenge, now it was explained, seemed to me to be glorious.“Well, it is tempting,” said the sergeant thoughtfully.“And you’ll teach us?”“And his father fought at Chillianwallah! Yes, it is tempting. You ought to be able to take your own part if big cowards tackle you.”“Yes, Lom. Then do teach us.”“No. What would the Doctor say?”“He never should know. We’d never tell, either of us, would we, Burr?”“Never!” I cried.“I believe you, boys, that I do,” said the old man; “and it was never forbidden. Never even mentioned,” he continued thoughtfully. “I should like to oblige an old soldier’s son.”“And I mean to be an army surgeon,” said Mercer.“And you couldn’t do better, my lad.”“Then you’ll teach us?” cried Mercer, and I hung upon his answer, with the spirit of retaliation strong within me now.“Do you know what it means, my lads? Deal of knocking about.”“We don’t care how much, do we, Burr?”“No,” I cried excitedly. “You may knock me down hundreds of times, if you’ll teach me how to knock you down.”“But the gloves will cost about a pound.”“A pound!” said Mercer in dismay. Then a happy thought struck him.“We shall have to give up buying Magglin’s gun for the present,” he whispered to me. Then aloud—“All right Lom. If we bring you the money, will you buy the gloves?”“Yes, my lads, I will; and good ones.”“And you will teach us?”“I’ll teach you,” said the sergeant, “for the sake of helping to make a strong man of the son of a brave officer, who died for his country. There!”“Hooray!” cried Mercer; “and how much will you charge for the lessons, Lom? because you must make it a little more, as we shall have to go tick for a bit, because of paying so much for the gloves.”“How much?” said the sergeant thoughtfully. “Let me see. First and foremost, your words of honour that you’ll never tell a soul I taught you how to fight, for it might lead to unpleasantness.”“On my honour, I’ll never tell!” cried Mercer.“And on my honour I never will!” I said excitedly.“Right, then, so far,” said Lomax. “Now about those gloves. If I recollect right, they’re eight-and-six a pair, and two pairs are seventeen shillings.”“And the carriage,” said Mercer.“Stop a bit. I think, being an old soldier, and teaching, the makers’ll take something off for me. I know they’ll send ’em down carriage paid, and Jem Roff’ll get ’em for me from the cross when the waggon goes in. Got your money?”“I’ve got half a sovereign,” said Mercer.“I’ve got seven shillings,” I said.“Hand over then,” said the sergeant, and we lightened our purses tremendously.“That’s right,” said Lomax. “Now about the pay for the lessons. I want that in advance.”“Oh!” we both ejaculated in dismay.“We can’t pay now, Lom,” said Mercer, “but we will.”“Yes, you can.”“But how?”“Give me your fists, both of you, in a hearty soldier’s grip, my lads. That’s my pay in advance, and if in less than six months you two don’t give those two bullies a big dressing down, why, I’m a Dutchman.”“Oh, Lom!”“Oh, thank you!” I cried.“Thank you, my lads, and God bless you both. Fighting’s generally bad, but it’s good sometimes. There, be off, both of you, and I’ll write a letter for those gloves to-night.”We left him with our hearts beating high.“I don’t mind my face swelling a bit now,” said Mercer.“I should like to begin learning to-morrow,” I said, and then we were both silent for a few minutes, till Mercer turned round with a queer laugh on his swollen face.“I say,” he cried, with a chuckle, “I wonder whether old Dicksee will cry cock-a-doodle-doo next time when we’ve done.”“Let’s wait and see,” said I; and that night I dreamed that I was a wind-mill, and that every time my sails, which were just the same as arms, went round, they came down bang on Dicksee’s head, and made him yell.I woke up after that dream, to find it was broad daylight, and crept out of bed to look at my face in the glass, and shrank away aghast, for my lip was more swollen, and there was a nasty dark look under my eye.
I ate that dinner very uneasily. For one thing, I had no appetite, having had enough before I took my place. For another, I was worried by the furtive grins and whispers of the boys near me, the news of the fight having run like lightning through the school. Then I was in a constant state of dread lest my appearance should be noticed by either Mr Rebble, the Doctor, or the new assistant master, who was dining on the principal’s left, for the Doctor made our dinner his lunch and of course had his late. I had not had a chance to look in a glass, and, as my face ached and felt tight, I imagined terrible black eyes, a horribly swollen nose, and that my top lip was puffed out to a large size. In fact, I felt that I must be in that state; and as I glanced at Mercer, I was surprised to see that he hardly showed a mark. Lastly, I could not get on with my dinner, because my mouth would not open and shut properly, while every attempt to move my lower jaw sidewise gave me intense pain.
I was in hopes that this was not noticed, and to get over the difficulty of being seen with my plate of meat untouched, I furtively slipped two slices, a potato, and a piece of bread under the table, where I knew that the two cats would be foraging according to their custom.
I thought the act was not noticed, but the boy on my right had been keenly watching me.
“Can’t you eat your dinner?” he whispered.
There was no other course open save making a paltry excuse, so I said gruffly,—
“Never mind, old chap,” he said, to my surprise. “Lots of us laugh at you, but—. I say, don’t tell ’em I said so.”
“I don’t sneak and tell tales,” I said morosely.
“No, of course you wouldn’t. I was going to say lots of us laugh at you, but lots of us wish you and Senna Tea had given those two bullies an awful licking.”
“Thank-ye,” I said, for these words were quite cheering, and I glanced at Mercer, who was fiddling his dinner about, and cutting the pink-looking cold boiled beef up in very small squares.
“Can’t you get on?” I whispered.
“No. ’Tain’t likely; but just you wait.”
“What for?”
“Never mind!”
The dinner went on, with the clattering of knives and forks upon plates, and, the meat being ended, the pudding came along, round, stodgy slices, with glittering bits of yellow suet in it, and here and there a raisin, or plum, as we called it, playing at bo-peep with those on the other side,—“Spotted Dog,” we used to call it,—and I got on a little better, for it was nice and warm and sweet, from the facts that the Doctor never stinted us boys in our food, and that, while the cook always said she hated all boys, she contrived to make our dinners tasty and good.
“Try the pudding,” I whispered to Mercer.
“Shan’t. I should like to shy it bang in old Burr major’s face.”
“Oh, never mind.”
“But I do mind; but just you wait!”
“Well, I am waiting,” I said. “Why don’t you tell me what you mean?”
Mercer was silent.
“I say!”
“Well?”
“You’re not going to give him anything nasty, are you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh!”
“You wait and see!”
“But you mustn’t; it wouldn’t do.”
“Wouldn’t it? Ah, just you wait. We’ll make ’em sorry for this.”
“I’m not going to do anything nasty,” I said sturdily.
“Yes, you are; you’re going to do as I do. We’re mates, and you’ve got to help me as I helped you.”
I thought of the pot marked “poison;” of Dicksee being bad through taking something Mercer had given him; and a curious sensation of sickness came over me, and I left half my pudding, just as Mercer took up his fork, chopped his disk up into eight pieces, and began to bolt them fiercely.
“Eat your pudding,” he said, noticing that I had left off.
“Can’t. I’ve had enough.”
“You must. I want you to grow strong. I shall give you some tonic stuff my father prescribes for people.”
I looked at him in horror, but he was glaring at the last piece of pudding on his fork.
“Just you wait!” he said gloomily.
“I will not help him in anything I think wrong,” I said to myself; and a few minutes after, Mercer leaned towards me.
“Look!” he whispered; “there’s Eely Burr and Fathead grinning at us. Wait a bit! They don’t know what a horrible revenge we’re going to have on them.”
“But if it’swe,” I said, “you ought to tell me what the revenge is going to be.”
“I’ll tell you some time,” he whispered. “Perhaps to-morrow, perhaps to-night.—You wait!”
“Oh, how I do hate being treated like that!” I thought to myself, and I was about to beg of him to tell me then, and to try to persuade him not to, do anything foolish, when the Doctor tapped the table with the handle of his cheese-knife, grace was said, and we all adjourned to the play-field for the half-hour at our disposal before we resumed our studies.
I had no further opportunity for speaking to Mercer that afternoon, for, when we returned to the schoolroom, the Doctor made us a speech, in which he said he, “regretted deeply to find.”—Here he stopped to blow his nose, and I turned hot, cold, and then wet, as I felt that we two would be publicly reproved and perhaps punished for fighting.
“That,” continued the Doctor, “many of the boys had been going back in minor subjects.”
I breathed more freely at this.
Mr Hasnip, whom he now publicly presented to us, was an Oxford gentleman, who would take our weak points in hand, strengthen them, and help him, the Doctor, to maintain the high position his establishment had held for so many years.
Of course we all looked very hard at the new usher, who was a pale, yellowish-looking man, with eyes hidden by smoked glasses, which enabled him to see without being seen, and he now smiled at us as if he were going to bite, and was nicknamed Parsnip by Mercer on the instant.
“He’ll be a teaser,” whispered Mercer. “Going to strengthen our weak parts, is he? Wish he could strengthen mine in the way I want. I suppose we shall be turned over to him. Can’t be worse than old Reb.”
Mercer was right; we two were the first boys turned over to the new usher, and this was fortunate for us, for he knew nothing about our personal appearance; and the swellings that did come on, and which would have been noticed directly by Mr Rebble, passed unheeded by him.
I was very glad when tea-time came, for my head was so confused that Mr Hasnip was quite right in telling me I was a very stupid boy, for I was that afternoon—very.
But the meal-time did come, and as soon as tea was over, instead of going into the play-field with the others, I sat down alone, sore, aching, and disconsolate, to try and master some of the things Mr Hasnip had said I was behindhand in.
I had just taken up my book, with my head feeling more hazy than ever, and the shouts of the boys floating in at the open window, when Mercer came in hurriedly.
“Here, put that book away,” he said quickly.
“What for? I don’t want to come out.”
“But you must. I’ve been and put away my specimens, and that settled it. Come along.”
“But why must I come out? I don’t want to play, and the other fellows will only laugh at us.”
“No, they will not. They’re not going to see us. Come along. Revenge!”
I got up and took my cap unwillingly, but, as we got out in the soft evening air, I began to think that perhaps I could keep him back if he were going to do anything wrong, so I walked on by his side with more alacrity.
“Going for a walk?” I said, as I found that he avoided the play-field.
“No. You wait and you’ll see.”
“Well, you needn’t be so disagreeable with me,” I said gruffly.
“I’m not, only I ache and burn, and I’m full of it. Come on.”
To my surprise, he led me down to the lodge cottage, where the big, soldierly-looking fellow was enjoying his evening pipe in his neatly-kept little garden.
“Evening, young gents,” he said, saluting us. “When do you two begin your drill?”
“I don’t know, Lomax. When the new master’s done thumping Latin and Euclid into us.”
“Humph! Well, gentlemen, I hear that the Romans were very fine soldiers, and Euclid’s all about angles and squares, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, they’re right enough in infantry formation—squares are, and the angles in fortification, which is a thing I don’t know much about, having been in the cavalry; but when you are ready, so am I, and I’ll set you up and make men of you as your fa—” he glanced at me and pulled himself up short—“as your people shall be proud of.”
“That’s right, Lom, and I’ll bring you some prime tobacco soon as I can. I say, you can fight, can’t you?”
“Well,” he said, smiling and drawing himself up, “they used to say I could once upon a time. There’s my old sword hanging up over the chimney-piece, and if it could speak—”
“Yes, yes, I know, and you’ve been wounded,” cried Mercer hastily; “but I don’t mean with swords and pistols, I mean with your fists.”
“Oh, I see. Boxing.”
“Yes,” cried Mercer eagerly.
And I was still so dull and confused by the knocking about I had received, that I had not a glimmer of what he was aiming at.
“Yes; boxing. I want you to teach us.”
“Yes, I was a dabster at it when I was in the —th. We had no end of it, and we lads used to have a regular subscription round to buy new gloves. Oh yes, I gave lessons to the officers regularly. Long time since I’ve had the gloves on, but I could handle my fists as well as ever, I daresay.”
“Then you’ll teach us?”
“Teach you? No, no, my lads. Infantry drill; clubs and dumb-bells; singlestick and foil; riding with a military seat; but—use of the gloves! Oh dear no! What do you think the Doctor would say?”
“But he won’t know, Lom, and we’ll pay you, honour bright.”
“I know you would, Master Mercer; and if this young gent, whose father was in the cavalry—”
“Yes, at Chilly—” began Mercer.
“Wallah, sir,” said Lomax severely. “If he says he’ll pay me, of course he would. But no, sir, no. Besides, we’ve got no gloves, and boxing-gloves—two pairs—cost money.”
“Of course. I know they would, but we’d buy them, or you should for us, and then we could come here now and then, and you could teach us in your room, and nobody would know.”
“No, sir, no,” said the sergeant, shaking his head.
“I say, Lom, look at us both,” said Mercer. “See anything?”
“Well, yes, I do, plain, my lads. You two don’t want any teaching. You’ve got swelled lips, and mousy eyes rising, and your noses are a bit puffy. You have both been fighting.”
“Yes, Lom, and see how we’ve been knocked about.”
“Well, boys who will fight must take what they get and not grumble.”
“But we didn’t want to fight. They made us.”
“Why, I thought you two were such friends and mates already. Bah! lads, you shouldn’t fight without there’s good reason.”
“But we didn’t fight,” cried Mercer angrily.
“Why, just look at you both! your faces say it as plain as your lips.”
“But I mean not together. Eely Burr and big Dicksee came and thrashed us. They would not leave us alone.”
“Oh, come: that’s bullying,” said Lomax, shaking his head, “and it isn’t a fair match; they’re a good two years older than you, and used to fighting, and you ain’t.”
“No,” said Mercer excitedly; “and it’s cruel and cowardly. I’m not a bit afraid of him, and Burr junior wasn’t of his man, and we did the best we could, but they knocked us about just as they liked, and hit us where they pleased, and we couldn’t hurt them a bit.”
“No, you wouldn’t be able of course,” said the old sergeant thoughtfully, taking our arms and feeling our muscles. “Well, it was very plucky of you both to stand up and face ’em, that’s all I can say. Is that why you want to learn to use your fists?”
“Yes, and as soon as we can both box well, we want to give them both such lickings!” cried Mercer eagerly.
The old sergeant began to laugh in a quiet way, and wiped the tears out of his eyes.
“Then you want to learn on the sly, and astonish ’em some day?”
“Yes, yes,” I said eagerly, for I was as excited as my companion, whose idea of revenge, now it was explained, seemed to me to be glorious.
“Well, it is tempting,” said the sergeant thoughtfully.
“And you’ll teach us?”
“And his father fought at Chillianwallah! Yes, it is tempting. You ought to be able to take your own part if big cowards tackle you.”
“Yes, Lom. Then do teach us.”
“No. What would the Doctor say?”
“He never should know. We’d never tell, either of us, would we, Burr?”
“Never!” I cried.
“I believe you, boys, that I do,” said the old man; “and it was never forbidden. Never even mentioned,” he continued thoughtfully. “I should like to oblige an old soldier’s son.”
“And I mean to be an army surgeon,” said Mercer.
“And you couldn’t do better, my lad.”
“Then you’ll teach us?” cried Mercer, and I hung upon his answer, with the spirit of retaliation strong within me now.
“Do you know what it means, my lads? Deal of knocking about.”
“We don’t care how much, do we, Burr?”
“No,” I cried excitedly. “You may knock me down hundreds of times, if you’ll teach me how to knock you down.”
“But the gloves will cost about a pound.”
“A pound!” said Mercer in dismay. Then a happy thought struck him.
“We shall have to give up buying Magglin’s gun for the present,” he whispered to me. Then aloud—
“All right Lom. If we bring you the money, will you buy the gloves?”
“Yes, my lads, I will; and good ones.”
“And you will teach us?”
“I’ll teach you,” said the sergeant, “for the sake of helping to make a strong man of the son of a brave officer, who died for his country. There!”
“Hooray!” cried Mercer; “and how much will you charge for the lessons, Lom? because you must make it a little more, as we shall have to go tick for a bit, because of paying so much for the gloves.”
“How much?” said the sergeant thoughtfully. “Let me see. First and foremost, your words of honour that you’ll never tell a soul I taught you how to fight, for it might lead to unpleasantness.”
“On my honour, I’ll never tell!” cried Mercer.
“And on my honour I never will!” I said excitedly.
“Right, then, so far,” said Lomax. “Now about those gloves. If I recollect right, they’re eight-and-six a pair, and two pairs are seventeen shillings.”
“And the carriage,” said Mercer.
“Stop a bit. I think, being an old soldier, and teaching, the makers’ll take something off for me. I know they’ll send ’em down carriage paid, and Jem Roff’ll get ’em for me from the cross when the waggon goes in. Got your money?”
“I’ve got half a sovereign,” said Mercer.
“I’ve got seven shillings,” I said.
“Hand over then,” said the sergeant, and we lightened our purses tremendously.
“That’s right,” said Lomax. “Now about the pay for the lessons. I want that in advance.”
“Oh!” we both ejaculated in dismay.
“We can’t pay now, Lom,” said Mercer, “but we will.”
“Yes, you can.”
“But how?”
“Give me your fists, both of you, in a hearty soldier’s grip, my lads. That’s my pay in advance, and if in less than six months you two don’t give those two bullies a big dressing down, why, I’m a Dutchman.”
“Oh, Lom!”
“Oh, thank you!” I cried.
“Thank you, my lads, and God bless you both. Fighting’s generally bad, but it’s good sometimes. There, be off, both of you, and I’ll write a letter for those gloves to-night.”
We left him with our hearts beating high.
“I don’t mind my face swelling a bit now,” said Mercer.
“I should like to begin learning to-morrow,” I said, and then we were both silent for a few minutes, till Mercer turned round with a queer laugh on his swollen face.
“I say,” he cried, with a chuckle, “I wonder whether old Dicksee will cry cock-a-doodle-doo next time when we’ve done.”
“Let’s wait and see,” said I; and that night I dreamed that I was a wind-mill, and that every time my sails, which were just the same as arms, went round, they came down bang on Dicksee’s head, and made him yell.
I woke up after that dream, to find it was broad daylight, and crept out of bed to look at my face in the glass, and shrank away aghast, for my lip was more swollen, and there was a nasty dark look under my eye.
Chapter Eight.I stood gazing into the little looking-glass with my spirits sinking down and down in that dreary way in which they will drop with a boy who wakes up in the morning with some trouble resting upon his shoulders like so much lead.I was more stiff and sore, too, at first waking, and all this combined to make me feel so miserable, that I began to think about home and my mother, and what would be the consequences if I were to dress quickly, slip out, and go back.She would be so glad to see me again, I thought, that she would not be cross; and when I told her how miserable I was at the school, she would pity me, and it would be all right again.I was so elated by the prospect, and—young impostor that I was—so glad of the excuse which the marks upon my face would form to a doting mother, that I began to dress quickly, and had got as far as I could without beginning to splash in the water and rattle the little white jug and basin, when the great obstacle to my evasion came before me with crushing power, and I sat on my bed gazing blankly before me.For a terrible question had come for an answer, and it was this:“What will uncle say?”And as I sat on the edge of my bed, his handsome, clearly-cut face, with the closely-cropped white hair and great grey moustache, was there before me, looking at me with a contemptuous sneer, which seemed to say, “You miserable, despicable young coward! Is this the way you fulfil your promise of trying to be a man, worthy of your poor father, who was a brave soldier and a gentleman? Out upon you for a miserable young sneak!”That all came up wonderfully real before me, and I felt the skin of my forehead wrinkle up and tighten other parts of my face, while I groaned to myself, as if apologising to my uncle,—“But I can’t stop here, I am so miserable, and I shall be horribly punished for what I could not help. The boys say the Doctor is very severe, sometimes.”There was my uncle’s stern face still, just as I had conjured it up, and he was frowning.He will be horribly angry with me, I thought, and it would make poor mamma so unhappy, and—“I can’t go, and I won’t go,” I said, half aloud. “I don’t care if the Doctor cuts me to pieces; and I won’t tell how I got the marks, for, if I do, all the boys will think I am a sneak.”“Fill the tea-cup—fill the tea-cup—fill the tea-cup! High up—high up—high up! Fine morning—fine morning—fine morning!”The notes of a thrush, sounding exactly like that, with the help of a little imagination; and I rose, went to the window, gazed out, and there was the sun, looking like a great globe of orange, lighting up the mists in the hollows, and making everything look so glorious, that I began to feel a little better.Turning round to look at my schoolfellows asleep in their little narrow beds, all in exceedingly ungraceful attitudes, and looking towzley and queer, I saw that, as I held the blind on one side, the sunlight shone full on Mercer, and I hurt myself directly by bursting out into a silent fit of laughter, which drew my bruised face into pain-producing puckers. But it was impossible to help it, all the same, for Mercer’s phiz looked so comic.The swelling about his eyes had gone down, and there were only very faint marks beneath them, but his mouth was twisted all on one side, and his nose looked nearly twice as big as usual.He’s worse than I am, I thought, as I stood gazing at him, and this brought up our visit to the lodge the previous evening, and a grim feeling of satisfaction began to make me glow, as I dwelt upon Mercer’s plans, and in imagination I saw myself about to be possessed of a powerful talisman, which would enable me to retaliate on my enemies, and be always one who could protect the weak from the oppressor. And as I stood thinking all this, I turned again to look out of the window, where the lovely landscape of the Sussex weald lay stretched out before me, and listened to the birds bursting forth into their full morning song, as the sun literally cut up the mists, which rose and dispersed just as the last of the mental mists were rising fast from about me. There was the glorious country, with all its attractions for a town boy, and close by me lay Mercer, who seemed to me quite a profound sage in his knowledge of all around, and I felt that, after all, I had got too much budding manliness in me to give up like a coward, who would run away at the first trouble he had to meet.I was a natural boy once again, and, going back to Mercer’s bedside, I began to think that there was no fun in seeing him sleeping away there while I was wide awake; so, stealing softly to his little wash-stand, I took the towel, dipped one corner carefully in the jug, and then, with a big drop ready to fall, I held it close to his nose, squeezed it a little, and the drop fell.The effect was instantaneous.Mercer gave a spring which made his bed creak, and sat up staring at me.“What are you doing?” he said. “Why can’t you be quiet? Has the bell rung?”“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t heard it.”“Why—why, it’s ever so early yet, and you’re half dressed. Oh, how my nose burns! I say, is it swelled?”“Horribly!” I said.He leaped out of bed, ran to the glass, stared in, and looked round again at me.“Oh my!” he ejaculated, as he gazed at me wildly; “there’s no getting out of this. Bathing won’t take a nose like that down. It ought to have on a big linseed meal poultice.”“But you couldn’t breathe with a thing like that on.”“Oh yes, you could,” he said, with the voice of authority. “You get two big swan quills, and cut them, and put one up each nostril, and then put on your plaster. That’s how my father does.”“But you couldn’t go about like that.”“No, you lie in bed on your back, and whistle every time you breathe.”I laughed.“Ah, it’s all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor’s desk this morning, and he’ll want to know about the fighting.”“Well, we must tell him, I suppose,” I said. “They began on us.”“No,” said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did when I woke; “that wouldn’t do here. The fellows never tell on each other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It’s precious hard to be licked, and then punished after, when you couldn’t help it, isn’t it?”“Yes,” I said. “Then you won’t tell about Burr major and Dicksee.”“Oh no. Never do. We shall have to take it and grin and bear it, whether it’s the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it’ll mean ever so much keeping in. I wouldn’t care if it had been a month or two ago.”“What difference would that have made?”“Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it’s so fine, I want for us to go and collect things, and I’m not going to be beaten over that stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I try to stuff one, and then you’ll see. We’ll be on the watch next time, so that old Eely shan’t catch us, and—ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh my!” he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the air.“What are you laughing about?” I said, feeling glad to see that he too was getting rid of the depression.“Wait a bit,” he whispered. “Won’t we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how it does hurt!” he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and speaking in a snuffling tone. “I shall aim straight at old Eely’s snub all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so mad, for he’s as proud of himself as a peacock, and thinks he’s handsome. What do you think he does?”“I don’t know,” I said.“Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning—musk. Oh, he is a dandy! But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn’t it a lot for two pairs of gloves? And, I say!”“Yes.”“He’s an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he’s had his licking,—two lickings, for you shall give him one too,—I’ll tell you what we’ll always say to him.”“Well?”“We’ll say, ‘What sized gloves do you take?’”“But he will not know anything about the gloves,” I said, interrupting a laugh. “We shan’t have gloves on then.”“No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind. Let’s dress, and go and look at the gardens—perhaps there may be some good butterflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook’s down, I’ll beg some hot water to bathe my nose.”But Mercer did not put in a petition for the hot water. “It’s no good,” he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed. “It’s like physic; we’ve got to take it, so we may as well face it all out and get it over.”Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what was to come.It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr Rebble came by with the new assistant master.“Bless me! Good gracious! Look, Mr Hasnip. Did you ever see such a nose? No, no, Mercer: sit up, sir.”Poor Mercer had ducked down to hide his bulbous organ, but he had to sit up while Mr Hasnip brought his smoke-tinted spectacles to bear upon it.“Terrible!” he said. “The boy must have been fighting.”“Yes; and here’s the other culprit,” cried Mr Rebble. “Look at this boy’s eye and mouth. Have you two boys been fighting?”“Yes, sir,” I said in a low voice.“Disgraceful! Well, the Doctor must know of it, and he will punish you both severely.”The two masters moved off to their table, and a buzz of excitement ran through the nearest boys, while, as I looked up, I could see Burr major standing up in his place and looking over toward us.“I say,” whispered Mercer, “here’s a game; they think we two have been fighting together like old Lom did. Let ’em think so. Don’t you say a word.”“But it will be so dishonest,” I expostulated.“No, it won’t. If they ask you who you fought with, you must say nothing.”“Not tell them?”“No. The Doctor will say you are stubborn and obstinate, and threaten to expel you; but he don’t mean it, and you’ve got to hold your tongue, as I told you before. We never split on each other here.”“Will the Doctor know, do you think?” I asked, as we went on with our breakfast.“Sure to. Old Reb’s safe to go and tell him directly he comes.”I soon heard that this opinion was shared, for one of the bigger boys came over from his seat near Burr major.“I say,” he said, “Reb’s sure to tell the Doctor about you two. Shall you say that you had a round with big Burr and old Fatsee?”“Did Eely tell you to come and ask?” said Mercer, glancing toward where Burr major was anxiously watching in our direction.“Never you mind. Are you going to tell?”“What is it to you?”“A good deal. You tell, and half a dozen of us mean to wallop you two, and you won’t like that.”“Oh, I shouldn’t mind, and Burr junior wouldn’t. I know old Squirmy sent you to ask because—there, look at him—he’s all in a fiddle for fear the Doctor should punish him—a great coward!—for knocking smaller boys about.”“Look here,” whispered the ambassador, “don’t you be quite so saucy.”“Shall if I like. You go and tell old Eely, old slimy Snip, that I’m not like his chosen friend Dicksee, a miserable, tale-telling sneak. I shan’t let out about Burr major being such a coward, and Burr here won’t tell about fat-headed Dicksee, so now you can go.”“And you’d better keep to it,” said the boy, looking at me fiercely; but I did not feel afraid, for Mercer’s project about the gloves had sent a glow through me, and, as he said, our time would come.But I felt anything but comfortable an hour later, when I was back in school, after the breakfast had been cleared, for I could see that the boys had their eyes upon us, and were whispering, and I knew it related to the punishment to come.The worst moments were when the Doctor entered and took his place in his pulpit amidst a suppressed rustle, and I set my teeth as I stood up, and shrank down again at the earliest opportunity, feeling as if the Doctor’s eye was fixed upon me, and, as it happened, just as I was wishing he would speak, and, as I felt it, put me out of my misery, he uttered one of his tremendous coughs, which had far more effect in producing silence than Mr Rebble’s words.“Thomas Mercer, Burr junior,” he said loudly, “come up here.”“I wish I had run away this morning,” was my first thought, but it was gone directly, and I was glad I had not, as I walked as firmly as I could, side by side with my brother offender, right up to the front of the Doctor’s desk, where he sat frowning upon us like a judge without his wig and gown.“Hah!” he ejaculated in his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us searchingly. “No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have been fighting?”“Yes, sir.”“Yes, sir.”“I am glad that you have frankness enough to own to it. You, Mercer, knew better; but you, sir, had to learn that you have broken one of the most rigid rules of my establishment. I object to fighting, as savage, brutal, and cruel, and I will not allow it here. Mr Rebble, give these boys heavy impositions, and you will both of you stop in and study every day for a fortnight under Mr Hasnip’s directions. Some principals would have administered the cane or the birch, but I object to those instruments as being, like fighting, savage, brutal, and cruel, only to be used as a last resource, when ordinary punishments suitable for gentlemen fail. I presume that you make no defence?” He continued rolling out his words in a broad volume of sound. “You own that you have both been fighting? Silence is a full answer. Return to your places.”I heard Mercer utter a low sigh, and my breast felt overcharged as we went back to our desks, where we were no sooner seated than Mercer whispered,—“Never mind, old chap! we’ll help one another; and he never asked who we had been fighting with, so we didn’t get extra punishment for being stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!”Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost exactly the same when we grew up to be men.“I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do,” I thought, as the clock at last told that the morning’s studies were nearly at an end, and I was still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, Dicksee, and the other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first whispered,—“Lucky for you two that you didn’t tell. My! I shouldn’t have liked to be you, if you had.”“Go and scent your handkerchief,” said Mercer angrily. “I’d tell if I liked.”“If they weren’t here, I’d punch your ugly head,” whispered Eely, and they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom, with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual custom, still in his desk at the other.“Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior,” he said. “Or no—Mercer can keep his seat.”I rose with Mercer, who resumed his place.“Burr junior,” said the Doctor, rolling out his words slowly, as if they were so precious that they ought to make a proper impression, “I sentenced you to a certain series of punishments, to endure for fourteen days; but you are new, untrained, and have been so unfortunate as to receive such education as you possess by private tuition. Under these circumstances, you are wanting in social knowledge, especially of the kind bearing upon your conduct to your fellow-workers in a school like this. In consequence, I shall make a point of looking over this your first offence, and exonerating you. That will do.”I murmured my thanks, and remained in my place.“Well,” said the Doctor, as Mr Hasnip coughed to take my attention, “why are you waiting?”“For Mercer, sir.”“But I have not excused him. He is not a new boy; and besides, I am sure you would like him to be punished.”“No, no!” I said eagerly; “and I don’t want to be let off if he is not.”“Hum! Hah!” ejaculated the Doctor, looking at me benevolently through his spectacles. “Well—er—er—yes—I like that. Mercer, you are excused too. That will do.”“Thank you, sir; thank you, sir,” cried Mercer joyfully; and we both bowed and hurried away to the loft, Mr Rebble shaking his head at us as we passed his desk, and Mr Hasnip, as I thought, looking sadly disappointed as far as I could judge, though I could not see his eyes.On reaching the loft, Mercer was in such a state of exultation that he relieved his feelings by standing upon his head on the corn-bin; but I did not feel so glad, for I had not spoken out, and the Doctor had been acting under a misconception, and I said so.“Oh, never mind,” cried Mercer, speaking with his heels in the air. “We couldn’t explain, and it don’t matter. Oh, I say, won’t old Eely be pleased that we’ve got off!”I did not answer, for I still felt that I should like to go and tell the Doctor frankly everything that had passed.
I stood gazing into the little looking-glass with my spirits sinking down and down in that dreary way in which they will drop with a boy who wakes up in the morning with some trouble resting upon his shoulders like so much lead.
I was more stiff and sore, too, at first waking, and all this combined to make me feel so miserable, that I began to think about home and my mother, and what would be the consequences if I were to dress quickly, slip out, and go back.
She would be so glad to see me again, I thought, that she would not be cross; and when I told her how miserable I was at the school, she would pity me, and it would be all right again.
I was so elated by the prospect, and—young impostor that I was—so glad of the excuse which the marks upon my face would form to a doting mother, that I began to dress quickly, and had got as far as I could without beginning to splash in the water and rattle the little white jug and basin, when the great obstacle to my evasion came before me with crushing power, and I sat on my bed gazing blankly before me.
For a terrible question had come for an answer, and it was this:
“What will uncle say?”
And as I sat on the edge of my bed, his handsome, clearly-cut face, with the closely-cropped white hair and great grey moustache, was there before me, looking at me with a contemptuous sneer, which seemed to say, “You miserable, despicable young coward! Is this the way you fulfil your promise of trying to be a man, worthy of your poor father, who was a brave soldier and a gentleman? Out upon you for a miserable young sneak!”
That all came up wonderfully real before me, and I felt the skin of my forehead wrinkle up and tighten other parts of my face, while I groaned to myself, as if apologising to my uncle,—
“But I can’t stop here, I am so miserable, and I shall be horribly punished for what I could not help. The boys say the Doctor is very severe, sometimes.”
There was my uncle’s stern face still, just as I had conjured it up, and he was frowning.
He will be horribly angry with me, I thought, and it would make poor mamma so unhappy, and—
“I can’t go, and I won’t go,” I said, half aloud. “I don’t care if the Doctor cuts me to pieces; and I won’t tell how I got the marks, for, if I do, all the boys will think I am a sneak.”
“Fill the tea-cup—fill the tea-cup—fill the tea-cup! High up—high up—high up! Fine morning—fine morning—fine morning!”
The notes of a thrush, sounding exactly like that, with the help of a little imagination; and I rose, went to the window, gazed out, and there was the sun, looking like a great globe of orange, lighting up the mists in the hollows, and making everything look so glorious, that I began to feel a little better.
Turning round to look at my schoolfellows asleep in their little narrow beds, all in exceedingly ungraceful attitudes, and looking towzley and queer, I saw that, as I held the blind on one side, the sunlight shone full on Mercer, and I hurt myself directly by bursting out into a silent fit of laughter, which drew my bruised face into pain-producing puckers. But it was impossible to help it, all the same, for Mercer’s phiz looked so comic.
The swelling about his eyes had gone down, and there were only very faint marks beneath them, but his mouth was twisted all on one side, and his nose looked nearly twice as big as usual.
He’s worse than I am, I thought, as I stood gazing at him, and this brought up our visit to the lodge the previous evening, and a grim feeling of satisfaction began to make me glow, as I dwelt upon Mercer’s plans, and in imagination I saw myself about to be possessed of a powerful talisman, which would enable me to retaliate on my enemies, and be always one who could protect the weak from the oppressor. And as I stood thinking all this, I turned again to look out of the window, where the lovely landscape of the Sussex weald lay stretched out before me, and listened to the birds bursting forth into their full morning song, as the sun literally cut up the mists, which rose and dispersed just as the last of the mental mists were rising fast from about me. There was the glorious country, with all its attractions for a town boy, and close by me lay Mercer, who seemed to me quite a profound sage in his knowledge of all around, and I felt that, after all, I had got too much budding manliness in me to give up like a coward, who would run away at the first trouble he had to meet.
I was a natural boy once again, and, going back to Mercer’s bedside, I began to think that there was no fun in seeing him sleeping away there while I was wide awake; so, stealing softly to his little wash-stand, I took the towel, dipped one corner carefully in the jug, and then, with a big drop ready to fall, I held it close to his nose, squeezed it a little, and the drop fell.
The effect was instantaneous.
Mercer gave a spring which made his bed creak, and sat up staring at me.
“What are you doing?” he said. “Why can’t you be quiet? Has the bell rung?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I haven’t heard it.”
“Why—why, it’s ever so early yet, and you’re half dressed. Oh, how my nose burns! I say, is it swelled?”
“Horribly!” I said.
He leaped out of bed, ran to the glass, stared in, and looked round again at me.
“Oh my!” he ejaculated, as he gazed at me wildly; “there’s no getting out of this. Bathing won’t take a nose like that down. It ought to have on a big linseed meal poultice.”
“But you couldn’t breathe with a thing like that on.”
“Oh yes, you could,” he said, with the voice of authority. “You get two big swan quills, and cut them, and put one up each nostril, and then put on your plaster. That’s how my father does.”
“But you couldn’t go about like that.”
“No, you lie in bed on your back, and whistle every time you breathe.”
I laughed.
“Ah, it’s all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor’s desk this morning, and he’ll want to know about the fighting.”
“Well, we must tell him, I suppose,” I said. “They began on us.”
“No,” said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did when I woke; “that wouldn’t do here. The fellows never tell on each other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It’s precious hard to be licked, and then punished after, when you couldn’t help it, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I said. “Then you won’t tell about Burr major and Dicksee.”
“Oh no. Never do. We shall have to take it and grin and bear it, whether it’s the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it’ll mean ever so much keeping in. I wouldn’t care if it had been a month or two ago.”
“What difference would that have made?”
“Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it’s so fine, I want for us to go and collect things, and I’m not going to be beaten over that stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I try to stuff one, and then you’ll see. We’ll be on the watch next time, so that old Eely shan’t catch us, and—ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh my!” he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the air.
“What are you laughing about?” I said, feeling glad to see that he too was getting rid of the depression.
“Wait a bit,” he whispered. “Won’t we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how it does hurt!” he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and speaking in a snuffling tone. “I shall aim straight at old Eely’s snub all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so mad, for he’s as proud of himself as a peacock, and thinks he’s handsome. What do you think he does?”
“I don’t know,” I said.
“Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning—musk. Oh, he is a dandy! But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn’t it a lot for two pairs of gloves? And, I say!”
“Yes.”
“He’s an awful dandy about his gloves too. By and by, when he’s had his licking,—two lickings, for you shall give him one too,—I’ll tell you what we’ll always say to him.”
“Well?”
“We’ll say, ‘What sized gloves do you take?’”
“But he will not know anything about the gloves,” I said, interrupting a laugh. “We shan’t have gloves on then.”
“No more we shall. What a pity! That spoils my joke. Never mind. Let’s dress, and go and look at the gardens—perhaps there may be some good butterflies out in the sunshine; and as soon as cook’s down, I’ll beg some hot water to bathe my nose.”
But Mercer did not put in a petition for the hot water. “It’s no good,” he said, when we were down by the gardens, soon after we were dressed. “It’s like physic; we’ve got to take it, so we may as well face it all out and get it over.”
Very good philosophy, of course, but I did not feel hopeful about what was to come.
It all began at breakfast, where we were no sooner seated, than Mr Rebble came by with the new assistant master.
“Bless me! Good gracious! Look, Mr Hasnip. Did you ever see such a nose? No, no, Mercer: sit up, sir.”
Poor Mercer had ducked down to hide his bulbous organ, but he had to sit up while Mr Hasnip brought his smoke-tinted spectacles to bear upon it.
“Terrible!” he said. “The boy must have been fighting.”
“Yes; and here’s the other culprit,” cried Mr Rebble. “Look at this boy’s eye and mouth. Have you two boys been fighting?”
“Yes, sir,” I said in a low voice.
“Disgraceful! Well, the Doctor must know of it, and he will punish you both severely.”
The two masters moved off to their table, and a buzz of excitement ran through the nearest boys, while, as I looked up, I could see Burr major standing up in his place and looking over toward us.
“I say,” whispered Mercer, “here’s a game; they think we two have been fighting together like old Lom did. Let ’em think so. Don’t you say a word.”
“But it will be so dishonest,” I expostulated.
“No, it won’t. If they ask you who you fought with, you must say nothing.”
“Not tell them?”
“No. The Doctor will say you are stubborn and obstinate, and threaten to expel you; but he don’t mean it, and you’ve got to hold your tongue, as I told you before. We never split on each other here.”
“Will the Doctor know, do you think?” I asked, as we went on with our breakfast.
“Sure to. Old Reb’s safe to go and tell him directly he comes.”
I soon heard that this opinion was shared, for one of the bigger boys came over from his seat near Burr major.
“I say,” he said, “Reb’s sure to tell the Doctor about you two. Shall you say that you had a round with big Burr and old Fatsee?”
“Did Eely tell you to come and ask?” said Mercer, glancing toward where Burr major was anxiously watching in our direction.
“Never you mind. Are you going to tell?”
“What is it to you?”
“A good deal. You tell, and half a dozen of us mean to wallop you two, and you won’t like that.”
“Oh, I shouldn’t mind, and Burr junior wouldn’t. I know old Squirmy sent you to ask because—there, look at him—he’s all in a fiddle for fear the Doctor should punish him—a great coward!—for knocking smaller boys about.”
“Look here,” whispered the ambassador, “don’t you be quite so saucy.”
“Shall if I like. You go and tell old Eely, old slimy Snip, that I’m not like his chosen friend Dicksee, a miserable, tale-telling sneak. I shan’t let out about Burr major being such a coward, and Burr here won’t tell about fat-headed Dicksee, so now you can go.”
“And you’d better keep to it,” said the boy, looking at me fiercely; but I did not feel afraid, for Mercer’s project about the gloves had sent a glow through me, and, as he said, our time would come.
But I felt anything but comfortable an hour later, when I was back in school, after the breakfast had been cleared, for I could see that the boys had their eyes upon us, and were whispering, and I knew it related to the punishment to come.
The worst moments were when the Doctor entered and took his place in his pulpit amidst a suppressed rustle, and I set my teeth as I stood up, and shrank down again at the earliest opportunity, feeling as if the Doctor’s eye was fixed upon me, and, as it happened, just as I was wishing he would speak, and, as I felt it, put me out of my misery, he uttered one of his tremendous coughs, which had far more effect in producing silence than Mr Rebble’s words.
“Thomas Mercer, Burr junior,” he said loudly, “come up here.”
“I wish I had run away this morning,” was my first thought, but it was gone directly, and I was glad I had not, as I walked as firmly as I could, side by side with my brother offender, right up to the front of the Doctor’s desk, where he sat frowning upon us like a judge without his wig and gown.
“Hah!” he ejaculated in his most awe-inspiring tones, as he looked at us searchingly. “No doubt about it. Disgraceful marks, like a pair of rough street boys instead of young gentlemen. So you two have been fighting?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I am glad that you have frankness enough to own to it. You, Mercer, knew better; but you, sir, had to learn that you have broken one of the most rigid rules of my establishment. I object to fighting, as savage, brutal, and cruel, and I will not allow it here. Mr Rebble, give these boys heavy impositions, and you will both of you stop in and study every day for a fortnight under Mr Hasnip’s directions. Some principals would have administered the cane or the birch, but I object to those instruments as being, like fighting, savage, brutal, and cruel, only to be used as a last resource, when ordinary punishments suitable for gentlemen fail. I presume that you make no defence?” He continued rolling out his words in a broad volume of sound. “You own that you have both been fighting? Silence is a full answer. Return to your places.”
I heard Mercer utter a low sigh, and my breast felt overcharged as we went back to our desks, where we were no sooner seated than Mercer whispered,—
“Never mind, old chap! we’ll help one another; and he never asked who we had been fighting with, so we didn’t get extra punishment for being stubborn. Oh dear me, what a rum place school is!”
Poor Mercer, he had yet to learn, as I had, that the school was only the world in miniature, and that we should find our life there almost exactly the same when we grew up to be men.
“I wonder what Mr Hasnip will set us to do,” I thought, as the clock at last told that the morning’s studies were nearly at an end, and I was still wondering when the boys rose, and Eely Burr, Dicksee, and the other big fellow, Hodson, came round behind us, and the first whispered,—
“Lucky for you two that you didn’t tell. My! I shouldn’t have liked to be you, if you had.”
“Go and scent your handkerchief,” said Mercer angrily. “I’d tell if I liked.”
“If they weren’t here, I’d punch your ugly head,” whispered Eely, and they all three went out, leaving us two alone in the great schoolroom, with the ushers at one end, and the Doctor, contrary to his usual custom, still in his desk at the other.
“Stand, Thomas Mercer and Burr junior,” he said. “Or no—Mercer can keep his seat.”
I rose with Mercer, who resumed his place.
“Burr junior,” said the Doctor, rolling out his words slowly, as if they were so precious that they ought to make a proper impression, “I sentenced you to a certain series of punishments, to endure for fourteen days; but you are new, untrained, and have been so unfortunate as to receive such education as you possess by private tuition. Under these circumstances, you are wanting in social knowledge, especially of the kind bearing upon your conduct to your fellow-workers in a school like this. In consequence, I shall make a point of looking over this your first offence, and exonerating you. That will do.”
I murmured my thanks, and remained in my place.
“Well,” said the Doctor, as Mr Hasnip coughed to take my attention, “why are you waiting?”
“For Mercer, sir.”
“But I have not excused him. He is not a new boy; and besides, I am sure you would like him to be punished.”
“No, no!” I said eagerly; “and I don’t want to be let off if he is not.”
“Hum! Hah!” ejaculated the Doctor, looking at me benevolently through his spectacles. “Well—er—er—yes—I like that. Mercer, you are excused too. That will do.”
“Thank you, sir; thank you, sir,” cried Mercer joyfully; and we both bowed and hurried away to the loft, Mr Rebble shaking his head at us as we passed his desk, and Mr Hasnip, as I thought, looking sadly disappointed as far as I could judge, though I could not see his eyes.
On reaching the loft, Mercer was in such a state of exultation that he relieved his feelings by standing upon his head on the corn-bin; but I did not feel so glad, for I had not spoken out, and the Doctor had been acting under a misconception, and I said so.
“Oh, never mind,” cried Mercer, speaking with his heels in the air. “We couldn’t explain, and it don’t matter. Oh, I say, won’t old Eely be pleased that we’ve got off!”
I did not answer, for I still felt that I should like to go and tell the Doctor frankly everything that had passed.
Chapter Nine.Mercer was terribly exercised in mind about Magglin’s gun, and his having to give that up for the sake of his revenge, but a letter from home containing five shillings revived his hopes, and it was put aside as a nest-egg, so that the amount might be raised at last, though what the amount was we had no idea.Our injuries soon became better, and were forgotten, as the days went rapidly by, while I grew so much at home that the arrival of a new pupil made me feel quite one of the old boys. I had my patch of garden given me, and took great pride in digging and planting it, and as soon as my interest was noticed by my namesake, he coolly walked across it twice, laughing at me contemptuously the while, as if he knew that I dared not retaliate.And all this time I worked hard with my lessons, with more or less success, I suppose, for Mr Hasnip, who was a kind of encyclopaedia, and seemed to know everything, did not scold me and box my ears with the book he held every day.We did not have another fishing trip, for the keeper met us one day and informed us that we owed him two shillings for damage done to his lines, and this debt I undertook to repay as soon as I obtained some more money from home. But we had several afternoons in the woods, and brought back treasures which were safely deposited in Mercer’s box, ready for examination at some future time.Some people would not have called them treasures, though they were looked upon as such by Mercer, who was exceedingly proud of a snake-skin which he found in a patch of dwarf furze, and of a great snail shell that was nearly white, and had belonged to one of the molluscs used by the Romans for their soup.Among other things was an enormous frog, which was kept alive in some fresh damp moss stuffed into a fig drum, into which a certain number of unfortunate flies were thrust every day through a hole, filled directly after by a peg. Whether those flies were eaten by the frog, or whether they got out again, I never knew, but Mercer had perfect faith in their being consumed.Just about this time, too, my chosen companion got in debt.It was in this wise. We went down the garden one day, talking very earnestly about how long it was before the gloves needed for our lessons came down, wondering, too, that we had never been able to catch sight of the old sergeant, when Mercer suddenly became aware of the fact that Magglin, who was hoeing weeds, was also making mysterious signs to us to go round to his side of the garden; and when we reached him he whispered to my companion, after looking cautiously round to see that we were not observed,—“You don’t want to buy a ferret, do you, Master Mercer?”“Yes,” cried the latter eagerly; “I do want a ferret to hunt the rats in the stable. No, I don’t,” he said sadly; “I haven’t got any money.”“You not got no money!” said the gipsy-looking fellow. “Oh, I like that, and you a gentleman.”“How much is it?” said Mercer.“Oh, only five shillin’. It’s like giving it away, only a chap I know wants some money, and he ast me to see if any of the young gents would like to buy it.”“’Tisn’t your old ferret, then?”“Oh no, sir; I got rid o’ that long enough ago, because I thought people would say I kep’ it to catch rabbids. They are so disagreeable. But this is an out and outer to catch rabbids,” he whispered.“But five shillings is such a lot of money for a ferret, Magg.”“Lot! Well, there! It’s giving of it away. Why, if I wanted such a thing, and had the chance to get such a good one as this, I’d give ten shillin’ for it.”“But is it a good one, Magg?”“Splendid. You come and look at it. I’ve got it in the tool-house in a watering-pot.”“Let’s go and see it, Frank,” cried Mercer, and we followed the slouching-looking fellow into the tool-shed, where a watering-pot stood, with a piece of slate over the half open top and a piece of brick laid on that.“There!” cried Magglin, removing the cover and taking out a sandy-coloured snaky-looking animal, with sharp nose and pink eyes, one which writhed about almost like an eel.“Why, it’s your old one, Magg, that you had in the hedge that day.”“Nay, not it. It’s something like it, but this is an ever so much better one. Why, don’t you recollect? That one used to get in the holes and wouldn’t come out again for hours and hours.”“Oh yes, I recollect, and how cold it was. This is it.”“Why, don’t I keep telling of you it ain’t. This is a hever so much better one as I’ve got to sell for a chap for five shillin’: but if you don’t want to buy it, you needn’t keep finding fault with it. I dessay Mr Big Burr will buy it. It’s a beauty—ain’t yer?”“But I do want to buy it,” said Mercer, watching the man as he stroked and caressed the thin creature, “but I haven’t got any money to spare.”“That don’t matter. If you like to buy the ferret, I dessay the chap’ll wait and take a shillin’ one time and a shillin’ another, till it’s all paid off.”“Oh,” cried Mercer, “if he’ll sell it like that I’ll have it; but you’re sure it’s not your old one?”“Sartain as sartain. That’s a ferret as’ll do anybody credit.”“But will it hunt rabbits up into holes, and stop sucking their blood?”“Oh, I don’t know nothing about rabbids,” said Magglin. “It won’t do so with me; ’tis yours then.”“Will it bite?” I asked.“Rats, sir. You try him, he’s as tame as a kitten. But I must get back to my work. Where’ll you have it?”“I want it up in my box—the old corn-bin up in the loft, Magg. Will you take it and put it in if I give you the key?”“Course I will, sir.”“And bring me back the key?”“Course I will, sir.”“I don’t like to take it myself, because one of the fellows might see me, and they’d want to know what I’d got.”“All right, sir, I’ll take it; and am I to put it in the box?”“No. I forgot. It would eat the skins and things.”“That he would and no mistake,” said Magglin, grinning hugely. “Shall I leave him in the can? There is a stone in the spout so as he can’t squeeze his way out, for he’ll go through any hole a’most.”“Yes; put it right up in the dark corner at the far end.”“Right, sir. And you owe me five shillin’.”“No, it’s to your friend.”“All the same, sir. Thank-ye.”“I’m afraid he has cheated me,” said Mercer thoughtfully, as we walked away. “Now I come to recollect, his old ferret had a bit nipped out of the top of its little ear like that has, and Magg said a rat bit it out one day.”“If he has cheated you, I wouldn’t pay for it,” I said.“I don’t know how it is,” continued Mercer thoughtfully, “but it seems to me as if people like to cheat schoolboys. We never did two shillings worth of damage to those fishing lines—and I’ve got a horrible thought, Burr!”“What is it?” I said.“Why, it’s all that time since we gave old Lom the money, and for the first week he was always winking and laying his finger up against the side of his nose every time he saw us, and now we can’t ever see him at all.”“Oh!” I ejaculated. “No. Impossible! He’s an old soldier, and he couldn’t cheat us like that.”“Well, if he has, I’ll tell the Doctor, and have him punished.”“You couldn’t tell,” I said dolefully.“No, I forgot that. Well, let’s go and see if he’s at home now. Why, he hasn’t done any drilling this week! Why’s that?”I shook my head, feeling horrified at the idea of such a fine-looking, frank old soldier being guilty of a piece of trickery, and I said so, but declared that I would not believe it.“I don’t want to, but people do cheat us. Even Polly Hopley charges us double for lots of the things we have.”By this time we had reached the lodge, but the door was shut, and Mercer looked at me very gloomily.“There’s all our money gone,” he said; “and I’ll never trust anybody again. I wish I hadn’t bought that ferret. You see if it don’t cheat us too, and run away. This makes eight times we’ve come to look for old Lom, and he must be— What?”“Look,” I said eagerly. “I knew he couldn’t do such a thing. There he is in that cart.”Sure enough, there was the sergeant; and then as the cart drew nearer, it was pulled up, and the old man leaped down, thanked the farmer for giving him a lift, and walked toward his cottage, carrying a big long carpet-bag.“Ah, Mr Lomax!” I cried, as I hurried towards him, but he laid his finger to the side of his nose, nodded, frowned, unlocked his door and went in.“There, that’s how he always goes on now,” said Mercer spitefully. “It was all gammon, and he never meant to teach us, and we shan’t be able to serve those two out. Come on.”We were moving off disconsolately, I with quite a feeling of pain in my breast, when a voice said, “Hi!” and, looking round, there was the sergeant beckoning to us.My heart seemed to leap again, and I hurried back.“How are you both?” he said, putting his hand in his pocket and taking out a flat steel tobacco-box which opened with a spring. “I had to go up to town more than a week ago to an inspection and about my pension, and while I was up I thought I’d go and see my sisters, and then I thought I’d go and see about those—you know what.”“And did you?” I cried eagerly.“Wait a moment,” he said, taking out four shillings and handing them to us—two to each. “I did write about them, and they asked so much that I wrote to another place, and they were dear too; and then, as I had to go up, I went to a place I remembered, and saw the man, and told him what I wanted, and he brought out two pairs of his best, which had been in the shop three years, and got faded to look at, but he said they were better than ever, and he let me have ’em for thirteen shillings.”“Oh, Lom!” cried Mercer excitedly. “But when are they coming down?”“They are down. Didn’t you see?”“No, I didn’t see.”“They were in the carpet-bag,” I cried. “Oh, do let’s look!”“No, not to-day, my lads. They’re all right, and if you like to get up to-morrow morning and come to me at five o’clock, I’ll give you your first lesson. Now I must go and report myself to the Doctor, or he’ll be drumming me out of the regiment for not doing my work.”He saluted us and marched off, while we went round to the back and made our way to the stables and up into the loft, for Mercer to have a peep at the ferret, which tried hard to get out. Then, closing the slate down close, he spun round, cut a caper, struck an attitude, and began sparring and dancing round me in the most absurd manner.“Oh, only wait!” he cried, pausing to take breath. “I do feel so glad! But, I say, we mustn’t have that ferret there. I know. I’ll put it in the bin, watering-pot and all, or it’ll either get out, or some of the boys’ll come and look, and let it go.”“But you haven’t got the key.”“I forgot. I didn’t get it from old Magg, again. Let’s go and find him. No, it’s all right. He has put it in the padlock.”The bin was thrown open; but the pot was not placed therein, for Mercer remembered a box with a lid, which, as he expressed it, lived in there, and it was emptied and brought forth.“Just make him a splendid little hutch!” he cried, “Here, come along, Sandy.”He thrust his hand into the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of Mercer’s hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards, one evidently made by a rat.“Oh!” ejaculated Mercer dolefully. “There goes five shillings down that hole. What an unlucky beggar I am!”“Oh, he’ll soon come out again,” I said.“Not he; and that’s the worst of you, Burr—you will make the best of things so. He won’t come out—he’ll live down there hunting the rats; and I’m sure now that we shall never get him again, for it is the one Magg used to have, and he has tricked me. I know it by that bit out of its ear. It is his ferret.”“Well, you haven’t paid him for it,” I said, laughing. “And if he has cheated you, I wouldn’t pay.”“But I said I would,” replied Mercer, shaking his head; “and one must keep one’s promises, even with cheats. But never mind; old Lom’s got the gloves, and if Magg gives me any of his nonsense, I’ll thrash him, too, eh?”“Tea!” I cried, for just then the bell began to ring.
Mercer was terribly exercised in mind about Magglin’s gun, and his having to give that up for the sake of his revenge, but a letter from home containing five shillings revived his hopes, and it was put aside as a nest-egg, so that the amount might be raised at last, though what the amount was we had no idea.
Our injuries soon became better, and were forgotten, as the days went rapidly by, while I grew so much at home that the arrival of a new pupil made me feel quite one of the old boys. I had my patch of garden given me, and took great pride in digging and planting it, and as soon as my interest was noticed by my namesake, he coolly walked across it twice, laughing at me contemptuously the while, as if he knew that I dared not retaliate.
And all this time I worked hard with my lessons, with more or less success, I suppose, for Mr Hasnip, who was a kind of encyclopaedia, and seemed to know everything, did not scold me and box my ears with the book he held every day.
We did not have another fishing trip, for the keeper met us one day and informed us that we owed him two shillings for damage done to his lines, and this debt I undertook to repay as soon as I obtained some more money from home. But we had several afternoons in the woods, and brought back treasures which were safely deposited in Mercer’s box, ready for examination at some future time.
Some people would not have called them treasures, though they were looked upon as such by Mercer, who was exceedingly proud of a snake-skin which he found in a patch of dwarf furze, and of a great snail shell that was nearly white, and had belonged to one of the molluscs used by the Romans for their soup.
Among other things was an enormous frog, which was kept alive in some fresh damp moss stuffed into a fig drum, into which a certain number of unfortunate flies were thrust every day through a hole, filled directly after by a peg. Whether those flies were eaten by the frog, or whether they got out again, I never knew, but Mercer had perfect faith in their being consumed.
Just about this time, too, my chosen companion got in debt.
It was in this wise. We went down the garden one day, talking very earnestly about how long it was before the gloves needed for our lessons came down, wondering, too, that we had never been able to catch sight of the old sergeant, when Mercer suddenly became aware of the fact that Magglin, who was hoeing weeds, was also making mysterious signs to us to go round to his side of the garden; and when we reached him he whispered to my companion, after looking cautiously round to see that we were not observed,—
“You don’t want to buy a ferret, do you, Master Mercer?”
“Yes,” cried the latter eagerly; “I do want a ferret to hunt the rats in the stable. No, I don’t,” he said sadly; “I haven’t got any money.”
“You not got no money!” said the gipsy-looking fellow. “Oh, I like that, and you a gentleman.”
“How much is it?” said Mercer.
“Oh, only five shillin’. It’s like giving it away, only a chap I know wants some money, and he ast me to see if any of the young gents would like to buy it.”
“’Tisn’t your old ferret, then?”
“Oh no, sir; I got rid o’ that long enough ago, because I thought people would say I kep’ it to catch rabbids. They are so disagreeable. But this is an out and outer to catch rabbids,” he whispered.
“But five shillings is such a lot of money for a ferret, Magg.”
“Lot! Well, there! It’s giving of it away. Why, if I wanted such a thing, and had the chance to get such a good one as this, I’d give ten shillin’ for it.”
“But is it a good one, Magg?”
“Splendid. You come and look at it. I’ve got it in the tool-house in a watering-pot.”
“Let’s go and see it, Frank,” cried Mercer, and we followed the slouching-looking fellow into the tool-shed, where a watering-pot stood, with a piece of slate over the half open top and a piece of brick laid on that.
“There!” cried Magglin, removing the cover and taking out a sandy-coloured snaky-looking animal, with sharp nose and pink eyes, one which writhed about almost like an eel.
“Why, it’s your old one, Magg, that you had in the hedge that day.”
“Nay, not it. It’s something like it, but this is an ever so much better one. Why, don’t you recollect? That one used to get in the holes and wouldn’t come out again for hours and hours.”
“Oh yes, I recollect, and how cold it was. This is it.”
“Why, don’t I keep telling of you it ain’t. This is a hever so much better one as I’ve got to sell for a chap for five shillin’: but if you don’t want to buy it, you needn’t keep finding fault with it. I dessay Mr Big Burr will buy it. It’s a beauty—ain’t yer?”
“But I do want to buy it,” said Mercer, watching the man as he stroked and caressed the thin creature, “but I haven’t got any money to spare.”
“That don’t matter. If you like to buy the ferret, I dessay the chap’ll wait and take a shillin’ one time and a shillin’ another, till it’s all paid off.”
“Oh,” cried Mercer, “if he’ll sell it like that I’ll have it; but you’re sure it’s not your old one?”
“Sartain as sartain. That’s a ferret as’ll do anybody credit.”
“But will it hunt rabbits up into holes, and stop sucking their blood?”
“Oh, I don’t know nothing about rabbids,” said Magglin. “It won’t do so with me; ’tis yours then.”
“Will it bite?” I asked.
“Rats, sir. You try him, he’s as tame as a kitten. But I must get back to my work. Where’ll you have it?”
“I want it up in my box—the old corn-bin up in the loft, Magg. Will you take it and put it in if I give you the key?”
“Course I will, sir.”
“And bring me back the key?”
“Course I will, sir.”
“I don’t like to take it myself, because one of the fellows might see me, and they’d want to know what I’d got.”
“All right, sir, I’ll take it; and am I to put it in the box?”
“No. I forgot. It would eat the skins and things.”
“That he would and no mistake,” said Magglin, grinning hugely. “Shall I leave him in the can? There is a stone in the spout so as he can’t squeeze his way out, for he’ll go through any hole a’most.”
“Yes; put it right up in the dark corner at the far end.”
“Right, sir. And you owe me five shillin’.”
“No, it’s to your friend.”
“All the same, sir. Thank-ye.”
“I’m afraid he has cheated me,” said Mercer thoughtfully, as we walked away. “Now I come to recollect, his old ferret had a bit nipped out of the top of its little ear like that has, and Magg said a rat bit it out one day.”
“If he has cheated you, I wouldn’t pay for it,” I said.
“I don’t know how it is,” continued Mercer thoughtfully, “but it seems to me as if people like to cheat schoolboys. We never did two shillings worth of damage to those fishing lines—and I’ve got a horrible thought, Burr!”
“What is it?” I said.
“Why, it’s all that time since we gave old Lom the money, and for the first week he was always winking and laying his finger up against the side of his nose every time he saw us, and now we can’t ever see him at all.”
“Oh!” I ejaculated. “No. Impossible! He’s an old soldier, and he couldn’t cheat us like that.”
“Well, if he has, I’ll tell the Doctor, and have him punished.”
“You couldn’t tell,” I said dolefully.
“No, I forgot that. Well, let’s go and see if he’s at home now. Why, he hasn’t done any drilling this week! Why’s that?”
I shook my head, feeling horrified at the idea of such a fine-looking, frank old soldier being guilty of a piece of trickery, and I said so, but declared that I would not believe it.
“I don’t want to, but people do cheat us. Even Polly Hopley charges us double for lots of the things we have.”
By this time we had reached the lodge, but the door was shut, and Mercer looked at me very gloomily.
“There’s all our money gone,” he said; “and I’ll never trust anybody again. I wish I hadn’t bought that ferret. You see if it don’t cheat us too, and run away. This makes eight times we’ve come to look for old Lom, and he must be— What?”
“Look,” I said eagerly. “I knew he couldn’t do such a thing. There he is in that cart.”
Sure enough, there was the sergeant; and then as the cart drew nearer, it was pulled up, and the old man leaped down, thanked the farmer for giving him a lift, and walked toward his cottage, carrying a big long carpet-bag.
“Ah, Mr Lomax!” I cried, as I hurried towards him, but he laid his finger to the side of his nose, nodded, frowned, unlocked his door and went in.
“There, that’s how he always goes on now,” said Mercer spitefully. “It was all gammon, and he never meant to teach us, and we shan’t be able to serve those two out. Come on.”
We were moving off disconsolately, I with quite a feeling of pain in my breast, when a voice said, “Hi!” and, looking round, there was the sergeant beckoning to us.
My heart seemed to leap again, and I hurried back.
“How are you both?” he said, putting his hand in his pocket and taking out a flat steel tobacco-box which opened with a spring. “I had to go up to town more than a week ago to an inspection and about my pension, and while I was up I thought I’d go and see my sisters, and then I thought I’d go and see about those—you know what.”
“And did you?” I cried eagerly.
“Wait a moment,” he said, taking out four shillings and handing them to us—two to each. “I did write about them, and they asked so much that I wrote to another place, and they were dear too; and then, as I had to go up, I went to a place I remembered, and saw the man, and told him what I wanted, and he brought out two pairs of his best, which had been in the shop three years, and got faded to look at, but he said they were better than ever, and he let me have ’em for thirteen shillings.”
“Oh, Lom!” cried Mercer excitedly. “But when are they coming down?”
“They are down. Didn’t you see?”
“No, I didn’t see.”
“They were in the carpet-bag,” I cried. “Oh, do let’s look!”
“No, not to-day, my lads. They’re all right, and if you like to get up to-morrow morning and come to me at five o’clock, I’ll give you your first lesson. Now I must go and report myself to the Doctor, or he’ll be drumming me out of the regiment for not doing my work.”
He saluted us and marched off, while we went round to the back and made our way to the stables and up into the loft, for Mercer to have a peep at the ferret, which tried hard to get out. Then, closing the slate down close, he spun round, cut a caper, struck an attitude, and began sparring and dancing round me in the most absurd manner.
“Oh, only wait!” he cried, pausing to take breath. “I do feel so glad! But, I say, we mustn’t have that ferret there. I know. I’ll put it in the bin, watering-pot and all, or it’ll either get out, or some of the boys’ll come and look, and let it go.”
“But you haven’t got the key.”
“I forgot. I didn’t get it from old Magg, again. Let’s go and find him. No, it’s all right. He has put it in the padlock.”
The bin was thrown open; but the pot was not placed therein, for Mercer remembered a box with a lid, which, as he expressed it, lived in there, and it was emptied and brought forth.
“Just make him a splendid little hutch!” he cried, “Here, come along, Sandy.”
He thrust his hand into the pot, took hold of the ferret, and was about to place it in the box; but it gave a wriggle and writhe, glided out of Mercer’s hand, crept under the corn-bin, and, as he tried to reach it, I saw it run out at the back, and creep down a hole in the floor boards, one evidently made by a rat.
“Oh!” ejaculated Mercer dolefully. “There goes five shillings down that hole. What an unlucky beggar I am!”
“Oh, he’ll soon come out again,” I said.
“Not he; and that’s the worst of you, Burr—you will make the best of things so. He won’t come out—he’ll live down there hunting the rats; and I’m sure now that we shall never get him again, for it is the one Magg used to have, and he has tricked me. I know it by that bit out of its ear. It is his ferret.”
“Well, you haven’t paid him for it,” I said, laughing. “And if he has cheated you, I wouldn’t pay.”
“But I said I would,” replied Mercer, shaking his head; “and one must keep one’s promises, even with cheats. But never mind; old Lom’s got the gloves, and if Magg gives me any of his nonsense, I’ll thrash him, too, eh?”
“Tea!” I cried, for just then the bell began to ring.
Chapter Ten.That evening after tea, while Mercer and I were down by the gardens, where I found that somebody had been dancing a jig on my newly-raked beds, we heard a good deal of chattering and laughing over in the play-field, and Burr major’s voice dominating all the others so queerly that I laughed.“I say, isn’t it rum!” said Mercer, joining in. “I hope we shan’t be like that by and by. Hodson is sometimes. There, hark!”I listened, and Burr major was speaking sharply in a highly-pitched voice, that was all squeak, and then it descended suddenly into a gruff bass like a man’s.“Do you know what old Reb said he was one day?” said Mercer, wiping his eyes, for a chance to laugh at his tyrant always afforded him the most profound satisfaction.“No. A dandy?”“A hobbledehoy! and he looks it, don’t he? It did make him so savage when he heard, and he said he wasn’t half such a hobbledehoy as old Reb was, and Dicksee said he’d go and tell.”“And did he?”“Did he? You know how my nose was swelled up.”“Of course.”“Well, that was nothing to Dicksee’s. His is a nose that a tap will swell up, and when old Eely regularly hammered till it was soft, it looked dreadful, and when he said he’d go straight to the Doctor, Eely hammered him again till he went down on his knees and begged Eely’s pardon, and promised to say it was done by a cricket-ball. I say, hark! they’ve got something over there. Let’s go and see.”We went down along the hedge to the gate, and as soon as we passed through we could see Burr major standing up tall and thin in the midst of a group of boys, to whom he was showing something, and, our curiosity being excited, we strolled up to the group, to find that a general inspection was going on of a little bright new silver watch which Burr major had received in a box along with some new clothes that day from his father in London.The great tall, thin fellow was giving himself the most ridiculous airs, and talking in a haughty condescending way to the boys about him, just as if watches were the commonest things in the world to him.“Then, you know,” he was saying, as we drew nigh, “you press on that little round place very lightly with your nail, and the back flies open—see.”He pressed the spring, the back opened, showing the polished interior of the case, and then shut it with a snap two or three times, the case flashing in the evening light; and as I glanced at Mercer, I quite wondered to see the eager look of interest and longing he directed at that watch.“I say, how do you wind it up?” cried a small boy.“Why, you just push the key in that little hole, and turn it a few times so. Oh, I forgot—I did wind it up before.”“Why, you wound it up six times,” said Dicksee, with a sneer.“Well, it’s my own watch, isn’t it, stupid? I can wind it up a hundred times if I like,” cried Burr major contemptuously.“I say, how much did it cost?” said Hodson.“How should I know? I’m not going to ask my father how much a thing costs when he gives me a present. Lot of money—ten or fifteen pounds, I daresay.”“Yah! Silver watches don’t cost so much as that,” sneered Dicksee.“Look here, Dicky,” cried Burr major, “you’re getting too cheeky. I shall have to take you down a peg or two.”“Oh, never mind old Fatsides,” cried another boy. “Here, Burr, old chap, show us the works.”“Oh, nonsense, boys! I’m going to put it away now,” said Burr major, opening and shutting the back, so as to make a loud snapping noise.“I say, I should have a gold chain if I were you, Burr,” said another boy.“No, I don’t think I shall,” said the big fellow nonchalantly; “not for school. Silver would be good enough when a fellow’s playing cricket or football.”“Oh, I say, do show us the works!” said the boy who had spoken before.“Oh, very well. What young noodles you are! Any one would think you had never seen a watch before. You see this is one of the best class of watches, and you open the glass by pressing your nail in there. That’s it, you see; and then you stick your nail on that little steel thing, and then it comes open—so. Here, keep back, some of you. Breathing on the works spoils a watch.”“Oh, what a beauty!” rose in chorus, and I saw Mercer press forward with his eyes dilated, and an intense look of longing in his countenance, as he gazed at the bright yellow works, and the tiny wheel swinging to and fro upon its hair-spring.“Yes, it’s a good watch,” said Burr major, in a voice full of careless indifference. “Not the same make as my father’s. His is gold, of course, and when you open it, there’s a cap fits right over the top—just over there. His is a repeater, and when you touch a spring, it strikes the quarters and the hours.”Mercer looked on as if fascinated.“Like a clock,” said Hodson.“Of course it does like a clock,” said Burr major contemptuously. “It’s jewelled, too, in ever so many holes. It cost a hundred guineas, I think, without the chain.”“Oh!” rose in chorus.“Is that jewelled in lots of holes?” said one of the boys.“Of course it is. My father wouldn’t send me a watch without it was.”“I can’t see any holes,” said one.“And I don’t see any jewels,” said another.“Where are they, then?” said Hodson.“The other side, of course.”“Then what’s the good of them?”“Makes a watch more valuable,” said Burr major haughtily. “There, don’t crowd in so. I’m going to put it away now.”“What jewels are they?” said a boy. “Pearls?”“Diamonds,” said Mercer, with his eyes fixed on the watch, “to make hard points for the wheels to swing upon, because diamonds won’t wear.”“Oh, hark at him!” cried Burr major. “Old Senna knows all about it. Hardly ever saw a watch before in his life.”“Haven’t I?” cried Mercer. “Why, my father has a beauty, with second hands—a stop watch.”“Ha, ha, ha!” cried Burr major, closing his new present with a loud snap. “A stop watch! that’s an old one that won’t go, boys. Poor old Mercer!—poor old Senna Tea! Did your father buy it cheap?”There was a roar of laughter at this, for the boys always laughed at Burr major’s jokes.“No; I know,” said Hodson. “One of old Senna’s patients that he killed, left it him in his will.”I saw Mercer turn scarlet.“Did you ever take it to pieces, and stuff it again, Senna?” and there was another roar of laughter.“He did, I know, and that’s why it won’t go.”“Come along,” whispered Mercer to me, for, now that the watch had disappeared in its owner’s pocket, the attraction which had held my companion there seemed to have gone, and we began to walk away.“There they go,” cried Burr major; “pair of ’em. Burr junior’s getting on nicely with his stuffing. I say, young un, how many doses of physic has he made you take?”“Come away,” whispered Mercer; “let’s go back to the gardens. If I stop here, I shall fly out at him, and get knocked about again.”“Ah! Oh! Go home!” was shouted, Burr major starting the cry, and his followers taking it up in chorus till we had passed through the gate, when Mercer clenched his fists, and gave both feet a stamp.“And him to have a watch like that!” he cried; “and I’ve longed for one ever since I was ten. Oh, I do hate that chap! Shouldn’t you have liked to hit him?”“No,” I said. “I felt all the time as if I should have liked to kick him.”“Oh, I felt that too. But, I say, shouldn’t you like a watch the same as his?”“Yes,” I said, “of course. Perhaps we shall have watches some day.”“Let’s save up and buy one between us, and you have it one week, and me the other.”“But you wanted to save up and buy the gun that takes to pieces, so that we could go shooting.”“Yes, so I did,” said Mercer—“so I do. But I should like that watch.”“Perhaps he’ll get tired of it soon,” I said, “and want to sell it.”“No; he isn’t that sort of fellow. He always sticks to his things, and you never know him give anything away. But, I say, it is a beautiful watch, isn’t it?”“Yes; so new and bright. It was going, too.”“Wish he’d lose it when he was jumping or playing cricket, and I could find it.”“But you couldn’t keep it, if you did find it. You’d know it was his.”“But perhaps I mightn’t know he’d lost it, and it was his. Then I might keep it, mightn’t I?”I burst out laughing at him.“Why, you’ve taken quite a fancy to that watch, Tom,” I said, and he looked at me with his forehead all puckered up.“Yes, I suppose so,” he said dreamily. “I felt as if I’d give everything I have got to have it.”“Stuffed birds, and the frog, and the ferret, and the boxing-gloves?” I said merrily.“No, no, no! that I wouldn’t. There, I’m not going to think about it any more. I say, the gloves—to-morrow morning. Oh!”
That evening after tea, while Mercer and I were down by the gardens, where I found that somebody had been dancing a jig on my newly-raked beds, we heard a good deal of chattering and laughing over in the play-field, and Burr major’s voice dominating all the others so queerly that I laughed.
“I say, isn’t it rum!” said Mercer, joining in. “I hope we shan’t be like that by and by. Hodson is sometimes. There, hark!”
I listened, and Burr major was speaking sharply in a highly-pitched voice, that was all squeak, and then it descended suddenly into a gruff bass like a man’s.
“Do you know what old Reb said he was one day?” said Mercer, wiping his eyes, for a chance to laugh at his tyrant always afforded him the most profound satisfaction.
“No. A dandy?”
“A hobbledehoy! and he looks it, don’t he? It did make him so savage when he heard, and he said he wasn’t half such a hobbledehoy as old Reb was, and Dicksee said he’d go and tell.”
“And did he?”
“Did he? You know how my nose was swelled up.”
“Of course.”
“Well, that was nothing to Dicksee’s. His is a nose that a tap will swell up, and when old Eely regularly hammered till it was soft, it looked dreadful, and when he said he’d go straight to the Doctor, Eely hammered him again till he went down on his knees and begged Eely’s pardon, and promised to say it was done by a cricket-ball. I say, hark! they’ve got something over there. Let’s go and see.”
We went down along the hedge to the gate, and as soon as we passed through we could see Burr major standing up tall and thin in the midst of a group of boys, to whom he was showing something, and, our curiosity being excited, we strolled up to the group, to find that a general inspection was going on of a little bright new silver watch which Burr major had received in a box along with some new clothes that day from his father in London.
The great tall, thin fellow was giving himself the most ridiculous airs, and talking in a haughty condescending way to the boys about him, just as if watches were the commonest things in the world to him.
“Then, you know,” he was saying, as we drew nigh, “you press on that little round place very lightly with your nail, and the back flies open—see.”
He pressed the spring, the back opened, showing the polished interior of the case, and then shut it with a snap two or three times, the case flashing in the evening light; and as I glanced at Mercer, I quite wondered to see the eager look of interest and longing he directed at that watch.
“I say, how do you wind it up?” cried a small boy.
“Why, you just push the key in that little hole, and turn it a few times so. Oh, I forgot—I did wind it up before.”
“Why, you wound it up six times,” said Dicksee, with a sneer.
“Well, it’s my own watch, isn’t it, stupid? I can wind it up a hundred times if I like,” cried Burr major contemptuously.
“I say, how much did it cost?” said Hodson.
“How should I know? I’m not going to ask my father how much a thing costs when he gives me a present. Lot of money—ten or fifteen pounds, I daresay.”
“Yah! Silver watches don’t cost so much as that,” sneered Dicksee.
“Look here, Dicky,” cried Burr major, “you’re getting too cheeky. I shall have to take you down a peg or two.”
“Oh, never mind old Fatsides,” cried another boy. “Here, Burr, old chap, show us the works.”
“Oh, nonsense, boys! I’m going to put it away now,” said Burr major, opening and shutting the back, so as to make a loud snapping noise.
“I say, I should have a gold chain if I were you, Burr,” said another boy.
“No, I don’t think I shall,” said the big fellow nonchalantly; “not for school. Silver would be good enough when a fellow’s playing cricket or football.”
“Oh, I say, do show us the works!” said the boy who had spoken before.
“Oh, very well. What young noodles you are! Any one would think you had never seen a watch before. You see this is one of the best class of watches, and you open the glass by pressing your nail in there. That’s it, you see; and then you stick your nail on that little steel thing, and then it comes open—so. Here, keep back, some of you. Breathing on the works spoils a watch.”
“Oh, what a beauty!” rose in chorus, and I saw Mercer press forward with his eyes dilated, and an intense look of longing in his countenance, as he gazed at the bright yellow works, and the tiny wheel swinging to and fro upon its hair-spring.
“Yes, it’s a good watch,” said Burr major, in a voice full of careless indifference. “Not the same make as my father’s. His is gold, of course, and when you open it, there’s a cap fits right over the top—just over there. His is a repeater, and when you touch a spring, it strikes the quarters and the hours.”
Mercer looked on as if fascinated.
“Like a clock,” said Hodson.
“Of course it does like a clock,” said Burr major contemptuously. “It’s jewelled, too, in ever so many holes. It cost a hundred guineas, I think, without the chain.”
“Oh!” rose in chorus.
“Is that jewelled in lots of holes?” said one of the boys.
“Of course it is. My father wouldn’t send me a watch without it was.”
“I can’t see any holes,” said one.
“And I don’t see any jewels,” said another.
“Where are they, then?” said Hodson.
“The other side, of course.”
“Then what’s the good of them?”
“Makes a watch more valuable,” said Burr major haughtily. “There, don’t crowd in so. I’m going to put it away now.”
“What jewels are they?” said a boy. “Pearls?”
“Diamonds,” said Mercer, with his eyes fixed on the watch, “to make hard points for the wheels to swing upon, because diamonds won’t wear.”
“Oh, hark at him!” cried Burr major. “Old Senna knows all about it. Hardly ever saw a watch before in his life.”
“Haven’t I?” cried Mercer. “Why, my father has a beauty, with second hands—a stop watch.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” cried Burr major, closing his new present with a loud snap. “A stop watch! that’s an old one that won’t go, boys. Poor old Mercer!—poor old Senna Tea! Did your father buy it cheap?”
There was a roar of laughter at this, for the boys always laughed at Burr major’s jokes.
“No; I know,” said Hodson. “One of old Senna’s patients that he killed, left it him in his will.”
I saw Mercer turn scarlet.
“Did you ever take it to pieces, and stuff it again, Senna?” and there was another roar of laughter.
“He did, I know, and that’s why it won’t go.”
“Come along,” whispered Mercer to me, for, now that the watch had disappeared in its owner’s pocket, the attraction which had held my companion there seemed to have gone, and we began to walk away.
“There they go,” cried Burr major; “pair of ’em. Burr junior’s getting on nicely with his stuffing. I say, young un, how many doses of physic has he made you take?”
“Come away,” whispered Mercer; “let’s go back to the gardens. If I stop here, I shall fly out at him, and get knocked about again.”
“Ah! Oh! Go home!” was shouted, Burr major starting the cry, and his followers taking it up in chorus till we had passed through the gate, when Mercer clenched his fists, and gave both feet a stamp.
“And him to have a watch like that!” he cried; “and I’ve longed for one ever since I was ten. Oh, I do hate that chap! Shouldn’t you have liked to hit him?”
“No,” I said. “I felt all the time as if I should have liked to kick him.”
“Oh, I felt that too. But, I say, shouldn’t you like a watch the same as his?”
“Yes,” I said, “of course. Perhaps we shall have watches some day.”
“Let’s save up and buy one between us, and you have it one week, and me the other.”
“But you wanted to save up and buy the gun that takes to pieces, so that we could go shooting.”
“Yes, so I did,” said Mercer—“so I do. But I should like that watch.”
“Perhaps he’ll get tired of it soon,” I said, “and want to sell it.”
“No; he isn’t that sort of fellow. He always sticks to his things, and you never know him give anything away. But, I say, it is a beautiful watch, isn’t it?”
“Yes; so new and bright. It was going, too.”
“Wish he’d lose it when he was jumping or playing cricket, and I could find it.”
“But you couldn’t keep it, if you did find it. You’d know it was his.”
“But perhaps I mightn’t know he’d lost it, and it was his. Then I might keep it, mightn’t I?”
I burst out laughing at him.
“Why, you’ve taken quite a fancy to that watch, Tom,” I said, and he looked at me with his forehead all puckered up.
“Yes, I suppose so,” he said dreamily. “I felt as if I’d give everything I have got to have it.”
“Stuffed birds, and the frog, and the ferret, and the boxing-gloves?” I said merrily.
“No, no, no! that I wouldn’t. There, I’m not going to think about it any more. I say, the gloves—to-morrow morning. Oh!”