CHAPTER XXFINCH’S HOURFor our friends the incident was closed. Jimmie took his seat in the prefect meetings on Sunday nights and solemnly assisted, with increasing interest, in “running the school,” as the members of those conclaves were accustomed to term their labors. Tony acquiesced in the inevitable with a good grace, and beyond discussing the matter in its various aspects, with Jimmie and to some extent with Mr. Morris, who was handicapped in expressing his opinion by professional loyalty, he kept his mouth shut.Others did not. Decisions of such a nature, important to the life of a school, are rarely long kept secret. And in this instance, the Head Master did not resent the facts being known, though he himself of course maintained an absolute reserve. The facts were known sooner or later, and with a fair degree of accuracy. And the knowledge increased neither Mr. Roylston’s popularity nor his peace of mind. Indeed he found himself increasingly unable to extract comfort from the reflection that a deserved punishment had been fearlessly administered or that in being just he was as wise as if he had also been merciful. During that term Mr. Roylston had many bad quarters of an hour.As for Tony, as Doctor Forester had predicted, the loss of the Head Prefectship added to rather than diminished from his strength among his schoolmates. He became, quite naturally and spontaneously, the unofficial adviser of the prefect body, and particularly of Clavering, who made a point of consulting him upon all important matters that came to the prefects’ notice. The effect of this generosity on Clavering’s part was to reveal the two boys to each other and to establish a firm friendship between them.Clavering was a heavy, solid, serious-minded boy, of a mighty frame and muscle, but slow, patient and cautious in his thought and emotions. Until Tony had become fairly intimate with him, he had never appreciated his classmate’s deep and earnest character; just as Clavering, until he got behind Tony’s light-hearted genial pleasantness of manner and speech, had not realized that there was anything there worth while,—any seriousness of purpose, soundness of feeling, or loyalty to principle. He had taken Tony superficially, and was surprised in the course of the term to find how much he had grown to like him; how much, too, he was depending on Tony’s judgment and feeling in the various matters with which the Head Prefect in a large school may have to deal.“I’m slow; you’re quick,” he said to Tony one night. “I’m fairly sure, I suppose, when I make up my mind,—but it takes me the deuce of a long time to see things straight. You seem to see into a situation, to know a fellow, right off.”“Well, I dare say I’m quick, but I make lots of mistakes, you know,” laughed Tony, pleased with thecompliment, especially coming from a boy who never paid them.“They don’t seem to count for much then,” was Clavering’s reply. He forgot that one of Tony’s mistakes accounted for himself rather than Tony being the Head of the School.“That is more comforting as a general proposition than as an afterthought,” said Tony ambiguously, and turned the subject of conversation to football.In this field Clavering seemed an expert. And such indeed he proved himself again on the gridiron that fall, for Deal turned out one of the best teams that Jack Stenton could remember, and that was paying it very high praise. They won all their games, including the one with Boxford by a score of 24 to 0, which was the largest on record. Clavering was a tower of strength to the team, and Tony, who had lost nothing of his fleetness, again distinguished himself by some brilliant, if not quite such dramatic runs as twice before he had made.Before the boys realized it the football season was over, and the Sixth Form were looking forward to their last Christmas vacation of school days. This time Tony took Jimmie Lawrence to Low Deering with him, and had the keen pleasure of initiating his best friend into all the associations and delights of his home and country.The Deering fortunes were in better shape, particularly as Victor had kept his promise, and was devoting himself with industrious zeal to the plantation. The old general took a great fancy to Jimmie, particularly he found a bond between him and theboy in mutual literary tastes. The old man could not lead a very intellectual life, but he reverenced it and longed for it. The promise of Jimmie’s appreciation and powers was to him peculiarly delightful. The boys had a capital vacation, so that they were sorry when it came to an end and they were back at Deal again for the long winter term.Since his confession Finch avoided Deering. He felt self-conscious about his sentimental outbreak against being “thrown over.” Tony certainly had not thrown him over, but he did not see his way to be with Finch anything more than persistently patient and kind. Only once afterward was the subject of their conversation of the night of the faculty-meeting reopened.“Of course, Jake,” Tony said, “you see, just as well as I do, how absolutely wrong your actions were. I am going to leave it entirely to you to set yourself right with Wilson—right to the extent, at least, of letting him know that you are sorry. He has been mighty decent to keep quiet.”“Oh, he hasn’t kept quiet,” Finch rejoined sullenly. “Most of your crowd—of his crowd, anyway, know more or less about it. I have seen that all along.”“Well, perhaps they do; I have not heard them speak of it anyway. Kit can’t have told it very generally, or I would have heard.”“Oh, I don’t know—not after the row you had with him about me. They all like you too much, except Wilson, to give you a chance to get sore again. They don’t think me worth bothering about.”“Well, even so—you have given some cause forthat attitude now. But I tell you what, I want to get right with Kit again. Not, old chap, at the price of throwing you over—don’t think that!—but, on the other hand, I don’t want to make keeping on good terms with you the price of Kit’s friendship. There isn’t need. And can’t you see that I cannot be the one to tell Kit the—to tell Kit about you?”Finch did not see, but he kept silent. He appreciated neither Tony’s deep feeling for his friend nor Tony’s delicate consideration for him. He was thinking dolefully of just how miserable and unfortunate and unlovable he was. Yet, with all the ardor of his intense famished little soul, he clung to Deering’s patient tolerance, and mutely resolved to give him no chance of “flinging him off.” But as for going to Kit with the truth, that was an act of which he was incapable, an act of which he was even incapable of perceiving the point.“I’m just worthless, Deering,” he said at last miserably, “I’ll be thankful when it’s all over.”“Now, cut that out, Jake. Get out and play with somebody. Don’t mope round all the time; and come in often and see us. Jimmie is glad to have you.”“Thanks,” said Finch. He longed to open again the conversation about the Head Prefectship, and learn from Tony what he really felt about that, but with dull shame for his baseness, he did not dare. And as for Tony that was a subject that he felt he never could discuss with Finch again.Time drifted on. Finch continued to worship Deering, but he avoided him more than he had done before, and lived his own lonely, unhappy life, asmany a boy had done before him at school, with all that young world around him, gay, spirited, uncaring. Morris cared, but to his advances Finch proved adamant. As the term advanced, in the inevitable distraction to other interests and pleasures, it was only natural that the attention Tony had concentrated on Finch at the opening of the term, should have slacked. After a time, growing used to seeing less of him, even Tony began to feel that Finch was getting on well enough, and ceased for the most part to worry about him.Finch had not forgotten his grudge against Mr. Roylston, but rather nursed it with the tenacity of such a nature, and took a gloomy pleasure in planning from time to time impossible schemes of revenge. For a long time Deering’s tranquillity with regard to the Head Prefectship disarmed Jacob. It was hard to resent for your hero what he himself did not resent. But he nursed his grudge.It happened along in January that the prefects had occasion to deal with some disciplinary irregularities. Being governed by Clavering’s advice, they frankly mismanaged the case and involved two or three boys in a somewhat unfair predicament. Clavering, realizing that his judgment had been at fault, appealed to Deering, who had the good luck to make a suggestion that speedily set matters straight and saved the school from rather a mess. The boys talked over the affair quite generally, and as often happens, they criticised Clavering somewhat sharply, spoke indeed more harshly, most of them, than they really felt. Finch overheard a discussion of the incidentin the common-rooms which was concluded by Teddy Lansing affirming rather loudly and tactlessly, “Well, it was a rotten roast when Deering did not get the Head Prefectship in the first place. Clavering is a blundering old cow.”“That it was—a rotten roast!” came in a sharp staccato from a near-by corner. Finch had spoken, impulsively, and quite unusually drawing attention to himself.“Yeaaaaa! Yeaaaa!” was returned in full chorus which half jeered at the boy, half applauded his sentiments.“Bully for you, Pinch!” shouted Teddy. “You stick up for your friend, don’t you?”“Friend or no friend,” answered Finch, with unwonted boldness, “it was a roast. He was cheated out of it.”“Guess he was,” agreed another boy. “How’d it come about, d’ye know?”“Yes, I know,” Finch answered, “but I’m not saying.”“Oh, inside information, eh?”“If you want to call it that.”“Who from—Tony Deering?”Finch turned to his questioner with a vicious snarl. “No, it wasn’t from Tony Deering. He don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to him, but it makes a lot of difference to the school.”“Well, who cooked his goose?”“Who cooks everybody’s goose?” demanded Finch.“Well, I guess, Pinch my boy, it don’t need a prophet to answer that question,” Teddy responded. “Verylikely it was the mild and gentle Ebenezer Gumshoe Roylston. You’re right, I guess. But let me tell you,” he added, as he pulled Finch aside, “Tony’s the last person in the world who would thank you for discussing his affairs in a crowd.”Finch suddenly realized the truth of this remark, hung his head, and sidled away. But this outbreak on Tony’s behalf had excited him. It brought back all the old hopes and fears, the old pangs of disappointment and chagrin, and renewed his rage against Mr. Roylston.Not long after the conversation which has just been reported, the mid-year examinations were held. Finch, who still had difficulty with his Latin, had studied particularly hard, and had practically crammed by heart the translation of several difficult passages from Cicero’sOrationsupon which the Sixth Form were to be examined. As soon as he entered the examination room, over which Mr. Roylston was presiding, and had looked over his paper, noting that two of the passages he had so poled up were on it, he quickly wrote them out on a separate piece of paper, intending to write them into his examination book at his leisure; then he bent laboriously to his task of working out the paper.Mr. Roylston, an argus-eyed examiner, eventually observed from his desk that Finch was copying something into his examination book from a detached slip of paper. He strolled leisurely and softly about the room and advanced down the aisle where Finch was sitting from behind. As he reached the boy, he glanced down over his shoulder, and saw whathe was doing. He suspected, not without reason, that Finch was not strictly honest in his work, and the present circumstance, it must be confessed, had all the appearance of cheating.Without warning he reached over Finch’s shoulder, and took the examination book and the sheet of paper on which the translated passages of Cicero were written from the hands of the astonished and frightened boy. “You may leave the room,” he said, “and report to me in my study to-night at eight o’clock.”Finch looked up at him wildly. “What’s the matter? What are you doing that for?” he exclaimed excitedly.“You understand perfectly well,” the master replied sharply. “You are excused from this examination. Leave the room! Do you understand me?”“No—!” began Finch, flushing crimson.“Go!” repeated Mr. Roylston, pointing to the door, heedless of the excited attention of the boys around.The color fled from Finch’s face as swiftly as it had come. He rose, threw down his pencil, and dashed out of the room. Mr. Roylston folded the papers, and then composed the schoolroom with a glance.Finch was not seen about the school again that day. At nightfall he returned from the Woods where he had taken refuge, bought himself a bun or so at the Pie-house, for he was nearly famished, and having thus made a frugal supper, at eight o’clock he presented himself at the door of Mr. Roylston’s study in Howard House.The master had no doubt in his mind that he had detected a flagrant case of cheating, a crime that wasabove all others abominable in his eyes. He bade Finch enter, when he heard his soft knock at his door, and then let him stand awkwardly a moment or so while he examined him critically. The haggard face, the hunted look, seemed to him those of a criminal.“Ah!” he said at last, “you are here.”“Yes—I am here,” Finch answered sullenly. “What do you want with me!”“Don’t forget yourself. Incidentally, I may say, that you have involved yourself in an excessive number of late marks, if not in more serious trouble, by your prolonged absence to-day.”“I’ll attend to that. What do you want with me?”“In the first place, and instantly,” said Mr. Roylston in acid tones, “I want a respectful demeanor.”Finch bit his lips. “I’m sorry.... But I’ll take what’s coming to me for being away to-day. You told me to report to you at eight o’clock. I am here.”“Yes,” observed the master, “you are here. To come to the point——”“Yes, yes,—why did you take my examination book?”Mr. Roylston had not gauged the boy’s attitude as yet. He supposed he would lie—that kind of a boy usually did. He sought Finch’s weak troubled eyes with a piercing glance. “I took it,” he said, in a cold judicial voice, “because you were cheating.”“I was not cheating!” Finch exclaimed passionately.Mr. Roylston smiled patiently. “The evidence is sufficiently strong as scarcely to admit of mistake.You may affect to deny it; but I tell you candidly, young man, I have suspected you before; and further, you will scarcely be surprised to hear that I have very little confidence in your word.”Finch gulped. “I was not cheating!” he repeated, but in trembling tones. For the moment despair got the better of the determination in which he had come to keep that appointment. He had cheated before. A wave of emotion swept over him, and he swayed for a moment from sheer physical weakness. What difference did it make? he felt. He did not care. A wild impulse seized him to tell the truth boldly. He would tell everything, confess everything, but about that one thing he would be believed. It was the end, he knew; but he would not have the end come and himself be involved, convicted, of what was not true. There was enough that was. The master was looking at him coldly, but for the moment was saying nothing. Finch put his hand out to a near-by table to steady himself.“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston, a gleam of triumph in his sharp black eyes, “I see that you do not mean to dispute me.”“Do you want the truth?” cried Finch, meeting the master’s eye again with a fierce look.“Naturally.”“Then you shall have it!”Finch threw back his head; he expanded in body and soul; and kept his eyes fastened on Mr. Roylston’s countenance in which he was to see a variety of emotions depicted in the next few moments. He felt his hour was come.“You shall have it!” he repeated, moistening his parched lips.To Mr. Roylston’s fascinated gaze, the boy seemed transformed; a soul, misshaped, distorted, hitherto utterly abased, had risen in that despised body, and was leaping forth from the boy’s eyes to grapple with his own soul. He had a sickening sense that he was about to pass through an unseemly scene, the most unseemly and disagreeable scene of his life, and that he was powerless to avert it.“You shall have it,” repeated Finch again. “I have cheated—cheated—cheated—day after day—day after day. And I’ll tell you why. Because, slave as I would, work as I could for you, I never got one mark of credit, one word of praise, one syllable of recognition from your cold hateful mouth. I tried like a dog to do my best for you—it was poor, but it was my best! but it was no use. From the day I got to this place you have hated and despised me. Oh, I have seen it, and knew it, and cursed you, cursed you for it. You wouldn’t let yourself be fair. Do you know, I’ve lived in hell in this school. And at last, I determined to cheat you, to pay you back in the only dirty way I knew how. But to-day, something—I don’t know what—it wasn’t fear of you—somethingmade me honest. The paper you took from me I had written out from memory after I got into the room.”“Stick to facts,” said the master.“I am sticking to facts. Believe it or not—it’s true. That’s true, though I who tell it am a cheat and a liar and a sneak. I have been all that—notbecause I was made that way or wanted to be, I don’t think, but because I couldn’t get a chance to be myself, couldn’t get a show. And you—you kept me from being decent as much as anybody else, as much as the biggest bully in the school. You want me to stick to facts. All right, I’ll stick to ‘em. I have hated you. I have hated you so that many a time I’ve wanted to kill you. And because I couldn’t think of any way to fight you in the open, I have been low and vile, and fought you in the dark. You thought Kit Wilson rough-housed your rooms last year, didn’t you? That’s the way you suspect people without evidence, and act on your suspicions and can’t hide ‘em when you don’t dare to act. I hate Wilson too, so I was glad when you thought he was the guilty one. But I did it, I tell you. I rough-housed your rooms and hid your papers and messed up your desk drawers and books. I couldn’t stand it. I can’t stand it any longer. You’ll have me fired, I know that—and I don’t care. But for once in your life you are hearing what is thought of you. You’re hated, hated, hated!”The boy paused for a moment, out of breath, still clutching the table desperately. Mr. Roylston tried but could not speak. A thousand emotions stung him to the quick; and deep within, there was a sense, outrageous as was this attack, that he was at the bar of an avenging justice, paying with bitter humiliation for the lack of charity of which the boy’s wild words convicted him. At last he found his voice, but he was still under the spell of the strange situation.“I will tolerate this extraordinary conversation amoment longer. Why have you so viciously hated me?”“Why—because you are cruel,” cried Finch, recovering himself, “because you are pitiless, because you do wicked, unkind things in the name of justice. Yes, yes, you shall have it all. You have never given me one chance, and you were glad—gladto-day when you thought you had caught me at last. You are always suspecting, suspecting evil—until at last your suspicions find it or create it. You have scared me, hurt me, hounded me—I don’t know how you do it, but you do do it—and, thank God, you’ll never do it again. Of course, you’ll have me fired now, I know that, and I don’t care. And I deserve to be. I ain’t fit to be here. But it’s you as much as anyone else that’s kept me from being fit. I am just full of hate and malice. Don’t I know it? Don’t I suffer from it?”“Aside from my severity—or my cruelty, as you are pleased to call it,—for what else do you blame me?”“Above all,” cried Finch, and a note of exultation rang in his voice, “above all for the way you’ve treated Anthony Deering. I know him, and he is the soul of honor, he has a heart. You or I aren’t fit to unlace his boots. You kept him from getting what he deserved—the Head Prefectship.”“Deering told you that?”“No, Deering didn’t tell me that. Deering’s not that sort, don’t you know it, can’t you believe it? He isn’t a sneak; but I am; and I listened under the windows of the faculty room the night you spokeagainst him, the first night of this year. And what had he done against you except what half the fellows do to most of the masters more or less all the time? But you wouldn’t forgive him, though he was fool enough to be sorry for what he had done, for making fun of you. But you couldn’t be kind. I listened—I heard it all. You saved that paper, and bided your time, that’s what you did—waited your chance to get even. Do you know that many a night I’ve laid in bed and prayed for courage to get up and come over and do some terrible thing to you. I’ve actually wanted to kill you. But I don’t want to now. The bitterest medicine you can take is to have, for once in your life, some one else, though it’s only a worthless rotten chap like me, tell you to your face that you are cruel and unkind and that he despises you.”At last Finch stopped. He was trembling violently, his cheeks were blazing, his eyes feverish and wild, but his soul was filled with a sense of triumph.For a moment Mr. Roylston covered his face with his hand. Then he rose up quickly, master of himself again.“You are excited and irresponsible.”“I’m excited,” said Finch, “but I know perfectly well what I’m saying.”“Of course,” said Mr. Roylston, “if you are not suddenly gone insane, you must leave this school at once. You will come with me instantly to Doctor Forester.”“Oh, I’m ready to be fired.”Mr. Roylston made no reply, but opened the study door, and motioned to the boy to follow him. Theyleft Howard House and walked rapidly across the quadrangle to the Rectory. It was a warm humid night, after a week of intense cold. There was a pale young moon in the western sky.As they reached the foot of the Rectory steps, Finch turned. “I’m not going in,” he exclaimed.“Pardon me, you are, and at once.”“I’m not. This is the end. I am done with it. I’m going to chuck it all. Say what you please, the time for browbeating, scaring me is gone. I’m off.”“Where are you going?” cried the master in alarm.“It doesn’t matter. You will never see me again.” With that he turned, and ran rapidly across the campus down the hill.Mr. Roylston strained his eyes for a moment after the fleeing figure, then ran hastily up the steps, and knocked at the door of the Doctor’s study.Doctor Forester himself opened the door, and drew the agitated master within. Deering, Lawrence and Clavering were sitting before the study fire. They had risen and were standing.“What is the matter?” asked the Head quickly.Mr. Roylston forgot the boys’ presence. “A serious thing—a very serious thing. Finch, just now, in my study, attacked me with the most wanton, intemperate abuse. I brought him to you—but here—at the very door he turned and fled....”“Yes—fled—why—where?”“It is very serious, I think. I think it would be better if these boys went after him at once. I fearsomething terrible may happen. I will explain later.” He sank exhausted into a chair.“Which way has he gone, sir?” asked Tony.“Across the campus—down the hill. Hurry, Deering, hurry! else something terrible may happen.”CHAPTER XXISELF-SACRIFICEIt was a warm muggy night. A pale moon shone dimly through the mists, and the buildings of the school cast long shadows across the campus, giving a weird uncanny effect to the scene, of which the boys were immediately conscious as they came out of the Doctor’s study.They waited for a moment outside, straining their eyes for a sight of Finch. Suddenly Jimmie discerned a dark figure just disappearing over the brow of the hill. “There he goes,” he cried, “over the hills towards the beach.”“All right—after him!” urged Tony, and set the pace at a rapid trot. Lawrence and Clavering kept close behind.In a few moments they had reached the brow of the hill over which Lawrence had seen the figure disappear. They paused for a moment to look about them. Out of range of the lights of the school, the mists were less confusing and the moonlight more effective. Tony was searching the beach with his eyes. “I can’t make out a thing,” he said. “Do you see anything of him, Ned?”“Not a thing,” Clavering answered. “Are you sure, Jim, you saw him a moment ago?”“Dead sure. Look there! isn’t that him?”“Where?”“Down by the road—near the marshes.” He pointed eagerly.“Yes, yes,” cried Tony. “Come on. He’s no good at running. We ought to catch him before he reaches the Pond. If he gets to the Woods, there’s no knowing where to find him.”They started down the hill at a rapid pace.“He would have to go round the Pond to get into the Woods,” said Clavering as they ran. “The ice is rotten; he can’t cross the Pond. So let’s go to the north and cut him off.”“You do that, Ned,” suggested Tony. “Cut in at the farmhouse by the head of the Pond; Jim and I will keep right on. He may never stop to think that the ice has gone rotten.”“All right. Look, he’s slowing up.” They could see with fair distinctness.Finch, for it was he, had reached the foot of the hill. He paused for a moment, seeming to hesitate between the Old Beach Road and the path across the marshes; and apparently chose the latter, for he crossed the road, and climbed the stone wall. Ignorant that he was so closely followed, he had not been running very fast, so that our friends were rapidly gaining upon him. By the time they had reached the foot of the hill, he was only halfway across the marshes; and was forced to pick his way, for he was not very familiar with the ground, and was handicapped by his frequent stumbling against a stone. In some places the ground was hard and frozen, in others it was wet and muddy.“Cut across now to the head of the Pond,” saidTony, as the three clambered over the stone wall which divided the marshes from the road. “We can catch him all right.”Clavering diverged, as Deering suggested, and the other two kept on directly in Finch’s track. It was difficult to run over the uneven ground, and once Jimmie tripped and fell over a boulder, so that they were delayed for a moment. The marshes were about two hundred yards wide, and ended at the high bank which had been built up around Beaver Pond, which was used as a reservoir. Beyond loomed the dark ridges of Lovel’s Woods, ghostly in the pale misty moonlight.As Finch emerged at last from the uneven, reed-choked ground of the marshes, Tony and Jimmie were scarcely fifty yards behind him. Suddenly he heard the sound of their pattering feet, and turned and stood still like a startled deer to listen. Then, as he made out the dark forms so little behind him, he ran rapidly up the steep bank of the Pond.“Jake, Jake, wait for me!” Tony called. “It’s Deering—wait a second!”Finch now on the top of the bank, stopped again. Our two friends out of breath, paused at the bottom. Hardly a dozen yards divided them.“Wait a second! What’s your hurry?” Tony repeated, starting forward again, but at that very moment his foot caught in a loose stone and he went sprawling, and Jimmie, too late to turn aside, fell on top of him. Finch did not move, but waited a moment, while the two picked themselves up. No damage was done, but they were windless.“Who are you?” Finch called down.“It’s me—Tony Deering.”Again they started to climb the bank. Finch stooped quickly and picked up a couple of enormous stones.“Stop there!” he cried. “If you come up that bank, I’ll fire this at your head. I mean it.”The two pursuers stopped involuntarily.“Throw that rock down. What’s the matter with you?” cried Tony sharply.“It don’t make any difference. What are you following me for? What do you want with me?”“I want to know what on earth you are cutting out for like this. What’s the matter? we’re not going to hurt you.”“No, I know you’re not. Mind—don’t take a step, or I’ll fire this at your head. I’ve chucked the whole thing. I’m clearing out, d’ye hear? I won’t be stopped.”“Look here, Jake; you’re crazy. Don’t act like——”“Maybe I am, but that don’t alter the fact that you are not coming up that bank without getting this in your head. I won’t be followed.”“For goodness’ sake, Jake, listen to reason.” Tony began to advance cautiously.“Back!” cried Finch. “Get back, if you’ve anything to say.” And he poised the rock threateningly.Tony stopped a moment, willing to accomplish by persuasion what he was determined to effect by force if need be. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll cry a truce for a minute. Don’t be an ass, now—tell me what’s the trouble and where you are cutting out to.”“Who sent you after me?” demanded Finch.“Mr. Roylston came——”“Pah!” Jake uttered an exclamation of profound disgust.“Mr. Roylston,” Tony repeated, “burst into Doctor Forester’s study, and said that you had been abusing him, and that you had lit out some place, and then he came near falling into a faint. So we started after you. This is no way to——”“Well, I don’t care whether it’s a way or not,” interrupted Finch. “I’m done with the school. I’m chucking it.”“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t do it in a fool way like this. Come back and take your medicine like a man.”“I’m tired of taking medicine,” Finch replied bitterly. “I’ve taken all I ever mean to in that school, anyway.”“Where are you going?”“That’s my affair.”“Well, come back, and you can go off decently to-morrow.”“No—I’d back down to-morrow like the shivering scared fool I’ve always been. To-night, I’m up to it. I’m going now—to-night.”“Where?”“Oh, I dunno—it don’t make any difference—away from here.”“Look here, Jake; that’s a pretty mean way to treat me—to say nothing of the school.”“Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way. But I don’t owe the school anything.”“Yes, you do, a lot; the Doctor—Bill——”“Back!” cried Finch sharply. “Don’t try to sneak up on me. Let me alone. Maybe I’ll write and let you know where I am. But I am going to cut out to-night.”Tony glanced at Jimmie who was close by his side. “Let’s risk it, Jim,” he whispered, “he can only hit one of us, I reckon.” “All right—heave ahead!” Jimmie responded in a low tone.Without wasting further words the two boys began to dash up the steep bank.“Get down there!” Finch yelled. “I’m going to throw.” He raised his arm, but something paralyzed his vicious intention. It seemed to him that he tried to throw and could not. The big stone fell crashing from his hand, and rolled harmlessly down the bank. Finch turned, and with a cry sprang toward the icy surface of the Pond. When the boys got to the top of the bank, he was already a dozen feet out on the Pond.“For God’s sake, Jake, don’t try to cross the Pond. The ice is rotten.” Tony and Jimmie were now at the edge of the shore. “The ice is rotten.” Deering repeated, “it can’t hold you.”“I’m all right enough, I guess,” Finch called back. “I’m light enough. So long!”The two boys stood breathless, watching the retreating figure.“What’ll we do,” exclaimed Jimmie, turning a ghastly face to his friend. “It won’t hold him.”“No, I know it won’t.... Jake! Jake!” Tony called.There was no reply. “Quick!” exclaimed Deering, “get those planks there—we’ll run ‘em along the ice, and have something to hold to if we go in. We’ve got to follow. Quick, Jim!”They dashed to a point a few yards up the shore where some heavy planks had been placed by the skaters early in the season to serve as seats in putting on and taking off their skates. It was the work of a second to rip up two of them, and slide them out on the ice in the direction Finch had gone.By this time the runaway boy was about twenty yards from shore, he had stopped for the moment and was watching them curiously. When he saw them slide the planks out, he started again, heading for the opposite bank from which the dark woods loomed up. They could see him distinctly, trying to slide, his foot catching every second in the soft ice.Suddenly there was a cry. “There he goes!” cried Jimmie, as Finch disappeared beneath the ice.They pushed breathlessly, incautiously forward, sending the planks on ahead of them. Finch rose in the middle of the great hole that his plunge had made. They could hear him sputter and see him splash helpless in the pool of dark water and broken bits of rotten ice. He could swim, and had got to the edge of the circle of water, and was clutching desperately at the firmer ice. But each time it gave way, enlarging the hole, but bringing the boy very little nearer his would-be rescuers.“Stick to it, Jake!” Tony called. “We’ll get you out, if you can hold out. Quick, Jim. Slide the plank out.”On they went, fearful every instant that they would be in like predicament. “There’s no use,” said Jimmie. “If we only had a rope!”“Well, we haven’t, and he can’t hold out till we get one.”At that very second Finch lost his hold again and for the second time slipped beneath the icy waters of the Pond. He came up in a moment, splashing again. “Help, help!” he called despairingly.“All right—hold out—we’re coming.” They had got the plank well out now toward the struggling boy. “Hold out, Jake—We’ll get it to you.”Inch by inch they got it nearer. But Finch was becoming exhausted.“He can’t do it!” cried Jimmie. “Oh, God help us! What shall we do? What shall we do?”“Look here,” said Tony. “I am going in after him if he goes down again. Keep the plank out and I can get hold of it, and hang on, maybe, till you get back with help. Yell for Ned to stay and help here, if he can. Then run to the farmhouse and get a rope. And for God’s sake, go quick, Jim.”“Tony! don’t—you can’t!”“I’ve got to. Hold on, Jake,” he cried again. The end of the plank was at the edge of the hole. Finch clutched at it, but his strength was gone. “I can’t,” he cried feebly, and sank again.“Do as I told you, now,” said Tony. He ripped off his coat and shoes and was sliding forward. As he neared the hole, suddenly the ice crushed beneath his weight, and he sank into the bitter depths. In a second he was at the surface, and striking out boldlyto the spot where Finch had gone down. He dived once, got hold of Finch’s body, clasped it, and with terrible effort got to the surface again. Jimmie had pushed the plank almost within his reach. He clasped it tightly, and managed by its aid to keep his own and Finch’s head above water. Finch seemed lifeless. “A rope, a rope,” called Tony.Lawrence was already crawling back to the shore, where Clavering, who had heard the commotion, had run down to meet him.“Finch fell in—Tony’s gone in after him, and he’s got him, and’s clinging to a plank. Do what you can. I’m off for a rope at the Red Farmhouse.”Clavering took in the situation at a glance. And as Lawrence began to start across the marsh, he began to haul a heavier plank out on the ice, calling out encouragement to Tony as he did so.Jimmie ran like the wind, and at last reached the farmhouse on the edge of the marshes. “A rope, a rope,” he cried, to the astonished farmer into whose kitchen he had burst. “There’s two boys drowning in the Pond.”In ten minutes Jimmie, the farmer and his son, were back at the edge of the Pond, with a stout rope which had a noose at the end. “Hurry up!” called Clavering, “he’s holding out.”i292WITH TERRIBLE EFFORT HE GOT TO THE SURFACE AGAINIn a moment they were out on the ice and had thrown the noosed rope to Tony, clinging for dear life to the plank. He managed to get it about his shoulders, then the four, the two boys on the ice, and the farmer and his son on the shore, began to pull. It was a struggle, but at last their efforts proved successful and Tony, half-dead with the cold and almost paralyzed from the burden of Finch’s lifeless body, was hauled out on firm ice, and then carried to the shore. There the farmer’s wife had arrived with blankets and whisky. They swathed the two half-drowned boys in the blankets; the farmer and his son picked up Finch, whom they thought was dead; Lawrence and Clavering did the same for Deering, and in a few moments they were at the Red Farm. Mrs. Simpson, the farmer’s wife, had already telephoned for a doctor and to the School.Soon Doctor Carter, the school physician, and Doctor Forester himself, arrived on the scene. They gave directions for Tony to be well wrapped in blankets and to be taken at once to the school infirmary, and then set to work in the effort to restore Finch to consciousness.Jimmie drove up to the Infirmary in the farmer’s wagon with Tony, and helped the nurses get him to bed. Then for two hours he waited for the news from the farmhouse. It was after eleven when at last a ring came on the telephone. Jimmie sprang to the receiver. It was Doctor Forester, wanting the head nurse. “Finch is just living,” he said. “We will bring him up later. Tell the nurse I wish to speak to her.”CHAPTER XXIITHE CHAPELOn the morrow the school learned the thrilling story of the night. The boys were filled with wonder at the heroism, only to be cast into the depths of anxiety by the news from the Infirmary. Finch, though living, was in a high fever and delirious; doomed, if he ultimately recovered, the physician said, to do so only after a severe illness. Deering was threatened with pneumonia. For nearly a week the issues were not certain. Then at last came the welcome announcement that Tony was out of danger and by another week would be about. Finch’s malady had developed into brain fever. It would be weeks before a crisis was reached; months before recovery could be hoped for.Clavering and Lawrence told the story of the rescue, and left nothing to the imagination in their assertion and account of Tony’s heroism. In the excitement with which the boys listened to the tale and with which they waited for Tony’s reappearance that they might give him a splendid ovation, it was practically forgotten—and indeed few knew—why Finch had started across the Pond that night. The scene in the Rectory study when Mr. Roylston had appeared, was kept a strict secret, owing to the Head Master’s explicit injunctions.One night, shortly after the episode, the first night that any favorable news had come from the Infirmary, as Doctor Forester was sitting before his study fire, there came a tap on the door, and in response to his summons, Mr. Roylston entered.“Ah, I am glad to see you,” said the Head, who had been waiting, a little impatiently, for his assistant master to seek this interview. “Have a cigar?” he added.“No, thank you,” said Mr. Roylston, seating himself in a straight-backed chair. “I have come—as soon as I could recover from the shock of recent events—to tell you what I know—what led me several nights ago, to bring Finch here.”“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I want to hear all about it. I have foreborne to question you, though I realized there was something behind it which in good time you would explain. Fortunately now, we are assured that Deering is out of danger. The doctor holds out some small hope for poor Finch, but it will be a tough pull.”“Yes, I fear so. I hope, I hope deeply that he will recover. I am relieved to know that Deering is better.” He paused for a moment, as though he could scarcely bring himself to say what was on his mind. “Doctor Forester, I have come to-night not only to give you an explanation but to make a confession.”“Yes,” said the Head in a sympathetic tone.“I have always tried, sir, to do my duty in this school according to my light.”“Yes,” said Doctor Forester, “I believe that, my friend.”“But my light, sir, has often,—always, I fear, been a poor one.”“Ah,” interposed the older man, “who of us would dare say otherwise? We all fall short, every one.”“Possibly—but all are not too proud, as I have been, to acknowledge it. I have never acknowledged it, sir, until to-night—not even to myself.” He paused again, to continue presently, as he shaded his face with his hand, “I will not go into details, but I want to put it boldly, baldly. I have been hard, hard to the degree of cruelty, on that poor boy who is lying now in the delirium of a dangerous fever. God forgive me!... I disapproved, sir, of your taking him here, and though, even now, I cannot say that I think you were wise in that——”“Alas, no!” interrupted the Head Master, “not if we are to judge by the immediate results. But I think I see deeper....”The master thought a moment in silence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think you do. It is having a wider, a deeper effect than I have realized.... But he, poor boy, has suffered, and I have so often, so uncharitably, made him suffer; while those, whom I have not liked, Morris, young Deering, and others, have been kind. It is terrible to me, sir, now to think of that suffering.”“Yes, my friend, yes; I think it must be. You have been hard, too hard; but, thank God, righteousness comes of suffering. I can see, oh, in so many ways, how poor Finch’s suffering is teaching us all a lesson, teaching us a truer religion, a sweeter, kinder philosophy of life.”“As I said,” Mr. Roylston resumed, “I was hard on him, hard on Deering, whom poor Finch worshiped with passionate adoration. And I accused Finch of cheating—he had not sometimes been strictly honest—but on that occasion, I misjudged him—wounded him deeply—he may have resisted a keen temptation. At any rate, worn-out, half-crazed, quite desperate, he came to me that night and made a passionate attack on me. His language was ill-tempered, ill-judged, violent!—but the awful part of it to me is, that in substance his accusations were justified. I had been, as he told me, so terribly cruel, hard, mean. I could not end the scene, unseemly as it was; for my conscience was accusing me more bitterly, more deeply, more violently than that poor half-crazed lad.... At last, scarcely knowing what to do, I sought to bring him to you.... At the very door of this room, he turned and fled. I feared he meant, as he had practically threatened, to destroy himself. And but for Deering how nearly he succeeded!”“Yes, yes,” said the Head Master gently, “I see, I see....”“And I have,” continued Mr. Roylston, “I have too been hard on Deering—have not acknowledged in him the qualities—manliness, honor, unselfishness—which I have known were there. He gladly sprang to the chance of laying down his life for the poor little abandoned wretch for whom I could not find a kind word. God forgive me, Doctor, I cannot forgive myself.”“God does forgive you, my friend,” said the Head,without looking up. He had been gazing into the fire, thinking deeply.Mr. Roylston did not reply to this remark, and for a few moments both men sat in silence, staring into the fire, absorbed in their thoughts.It was Doctor Forester at last who spoke again. “It would be easy, my friend, to assure you that you exaggerate, that you do yourself injustice; and, in truth, I think you do. But I have no wish to urge that view upon you; for I believe, to be quite frank, that there is a poor weaker side to all of us that we never have a chance of conquering altogether unless we recognize it, and if for a long time we have not recognized it or have deceived ourselves, nothing is so good for us as a frank confession. As for the details of the incidents to which you refer, of course I am in ignorance, and I prefer to be. So far as I have observed your treatment toward Finch, it merited no criticism; and as for your attitude toward Deering, I have nothing to say that I did not say the night we discussed his appointment to the Head Prefectship. I thought you severe but not unjust. As a matter of fact, if you feel now that you could wish you had taken another course, I may tell you that I do not think the fact that Deering is not Head Prefect has in the least interfered with his popularity or his influence with the boys. Clavering has made him his right hand man.”“I am glad of that,” said Mr. Roylston.“And now, after this rescue of Finch at the risk of his own life,—undoubtedly he will be the strongest boy in school.”“I think that I should like to tell him that I do fully forgive him—that I regret my stand with regard to his appointment.”“Well,” said the Head Master, “I think that he would like to hear.”With that Mr. Roylston said good-night. He walked over to the Infirmary at once and enquired about the two boys. Finch’s condition was still unsatisfactory, but Deering was very much better—and, yes, he was quite able to see Mr. Roylston if the master desired.Tony was still in bed, but he looked splendidly well and bright as he lay in the cool white cot, which had been pushed near the open log fire. A nurse had been reading to him. He had had a close call, but now he was practically himself again and would be going down in a few days.He was surprised to see Mr. Roylston, but not in the least embarrassed. He shook hands cordially. The master enquired about his health, made some perfunctory remarks about the rescue and about the school, fidgeting and ill at ease, until the nurse took the hint and slipped away.“I came,” he said then, as he drew up the chair near the bedside and took a seat, “not only to enquire about you, as I have been doing daily, but to have a little talk with you, since I know you are practically all right again.”“Yes, sir,” said Tony.“Do you know, Anthony,” asked Mr. Roylston suddenly, “why it was that Jacob Finch tried to run away that night?”“Why, no, sir—I don’t—not altogether, that is. Poor Jake was in a bad way; things had been getting pretty hard for him for one reason or another, and he was making them still harder for himself. I did hear that you caught him cheating in your Latin examination, and I just supposed that that was the last straw. He’s always been rather friendly with me, but he was so vicious that night down by the pond, refusing altogether to tell me why he was cutting out, that I thought him a little out of his head. But I supposed the cheating was really responsible.”“Well,” rejoined Mr. Roylston, after a moment’s reflection, “as a matter of fact I was altogether mistaken about his cheating in that particular examination. I believe what he afterwards told me, that he had not cheated at all; though, as he also acknowledged he had cheated so often before that I can hardly blame myself for suspecting him.”“Yes, I know,” said Tony; “I am afraid poor Jake lost all hold of himself. He was not naturally a cheat or a story-teller, but—but—well, I try to think he wasn’t altogether responsible.”“Perhaps not—that night in my room, at all events, he quite lost control of himself as a result of my accusation, and he told me in a very bitter language that my attitude toward him had been one of the chief causes of his unhappiness here at Deal.”Tony scarcely knew what to say to this, for of course he remembered how bitterly Finch had always hated Mr. Roylston. The master, however, did not expect a reply. “I think,” he went on, “that there was a good deal of justice in what the boy said, though I didnot mean to go into that with you to-night. Among other things he told me that night that he intensely resented my attitude toward you.”Tony laughed a little. “Jake showed equally bad judgment whether he greatly liked or disliked a person.”“Well,” continued Mr. Roylston, “right or wrong, his remarks have caused me to think things over very seriously the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that in this also Finch was right. I was hard on you—too hard.”Tony lay still for a moment, thinking; finally he raised himself a little and looked at the master intently. “Mr. Roylston,” he said, “it’s mighty white of you to come and say this to me. In return I want to tell you just one thing—the one thing I have against you—the rest has been give and take, and none of it, it seems to me, very serious. I know I have annoyed you a great many times and that occasionally in Lower School days I was more or less impertinent, but I did one thing that I was thoroughly ashamed of and thoroughly sorry for. As for your soaking me a lot in the old days, as for your preventing me from being Head Prefect, I’ve borne no grudge. I think you were pretty stiff—I think honestly you are too stiff as to discipline most of the time—but I never thought you were unfair or unjust, and I have but one grudge against you. And that is that when I apologized to you for writing that thing a year ago you wouldn’t accept my apology really; you wouldn’t believe I was sorry.”“Well, I believe so now,” said Mr. Roylston,“and it is to tell you that particularly that I have come here to-night.”“I’m mighty glad, sir. That’s all I ever blamed you for, sir,—really. I have often complained of you in a noisy careless kind of way, as I have of other masters, but that was all guff. I didn’t any more really mean those things than I supposed you meant things when you would look at us sometimes as if we were actually beneath contempt.”Mr. Roylston reflected a moment. “I am afraid,” he continued, “that on my side, I do regret a great many things. I have been genuinely lacking in sympathy more than once. I have often been unnecessarily hard. It has not been right; and, as you see, I regret it. The more keenly, I fancy, as my lack of sympathy in this particular case of Finch counted a great deal in what so nearly meant a tragedy.”“Well, fortunately, it wasn’t one, sir. The nurse tells me that they think poor Jake will pull through.”“Yes, but he will not get back to work again this term; there is no chance of that.”“What do you think, sir, will happen to him? what will he do next year?”“Well, I am beginning to feel as I have never felt before that after all this the situation will clear itself, will be changed. I fancy he will stay on at Deal next year, and I begin to think that we will know how then to help him make good.”“Really?—well, I wish he could. I’d feel pretty good to know that poor Jake had made good here. I’m afraid I haven’t helped him very much.”“Haven’t helped him very much!” exclaimedMr. Roylston. “Though what you have done for him may seem not to have counted just now, I feel very certain that it will appear to count tremendously later.”“Why, sir—I really didn’t do anything.”Mr. Roylston smiled. “Well, I must not talk with you any longer. Good-night, Anthony. I hope you will get down very soon, and I trust that in the future we will understand one another a little better.”“I am sure we will, sir. And thank you ever so much for coming up.”“I fancy,” Mr. Roylston murmured to himself, as he left the room, “I fancy that hereafter I shall understand all boys a little better.”On the Sunday of the week that Tony was in the Infirmary, the Doctor took the opportunity to make some remarks about the boy’s act of heroism in the course of his sermon in the Chapel.“Fortunately,” he said, “one of the boys about whom we have been so anxious the past few days is now quite out of danger and will soon be amongst us once more, and though the other must still undergo a long and severe illness the physicians hold out strong hope of his ultimate recovery.“Naturally,” he continued, “such a dramatic incident as the rescue of one boy by another at the risk of his life has brought vividly before our minds the characters of the two boys principally involved, their situation and relation to the school. One of these boys as we know has had the advantages of a normal, happy, healthy boyhood, the other through misfortune has been deprived of almost all that thefirst boy has enjoyed. But the self-forgetful service of the one for the other, a service that culminated in heroism when he freely risked his life to save the other’s, has set us all an example of kindliness and consideration, an example of true religion, of unselfish Christian service, that we should take to heart....“There have been criticisms in connection with this affair that Deal School is only adapted to dealing with and caring for the happy, healthy, lucky type of boy. I do not think so. Despite much that has been unfortunate, despite much suffering that has been involved and still may be involved, despite even the lives that have been risked, it has been a thing tremendously worth while to the school to have had that less fortunate, less happy boy amongst us.“It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. A school altogether fails, just as a human life altogether fails, if at heart and in spirit, it is not dedicated, so far as opportunity permits, to the service of men. The lesson of this incident is the lesson that I would we might all learn from the school.”The Doctor’s sermon was not the kind of a sermon to be much discussed, but it made a deep impressionon the school. For one or two masters and for several boys it was the inspiration as they knelt later of as earnest prayer as they had ever offered.Doctor Forester had been going frequently to the Infirmary to see Tony, and after the first few days he had continued his confirmation instructions so that Deering could keep up with the class.Tony’s first appearance amongst the boys after his convalescence was in the Chapel at the preparatory service the night before the confirmation. It was a quiet little service, conducted by the Bishop and the Head. Again the theme of the address was service—a theme that in some fashion or other seemed to have flashed in and out of all Tony’s consciousness and experience for the past year.As he knelt that night in the dim Chapel and offered up a grateful thanksgiving that life and health had been spared to him, he resolved more definitely and consciously than ever before that whatever he did in the world thereafter he would never live wholly or selfishly for himself.And in after years he was to look back on that night, as he looked back on the night on the beach when he had walked with Mr. Morris, as another important moment in the process of his coming to himself.
CHAPTER XXFINCH’S HOURFor our friends the incident was closed. Jimmie took his seat in the prefect meetings on Sunday nights and solemnly assisted, with increasing interest, in “running the school,” as the members of those conclaves were accustomed to term their labors. Tony acquiesced in the inevitable with a good grace, and beyond discussing the matter in its various aspects, with Jimmie and to some extent with Mr. Morris, who was handicapped in expressing his opinion by professional loyalty, he kept his mouth shut.Others did not. Decisions of such a nature, important to the life of a school, are rarely long kept secret. And in this instance, the Head Master did not resent the facts being known, though he himself of course maintained an absolute reserve. The facts were known sooner or later, and with a fair degree of accuracy. And the knowledge increased neither Mr. Roylston’s popularity nor his peace of mind. Indeed he found himself increasingly unable to extract comfort from the reflection that a deserved punishment had been fearlessly administered or that in being just he was as wise as if he had also been merciful. During that term Mr. Roylston had many bad quarters of an hour.As for Tony, as Doctor Forester had predicted, the loss of the Head Prefectship added to rather than diminished from his strength among his schoolmates. He became, quite naturally and spontaneously, the unofficial adviser of the prefect body, and particularly of Clavering, who made a point of consulting him upon all important matters that came to the prefects’ notice. The effect of this generosity on Clavering’s part was to reveal the two boys to each other and to establish a firm friendship between them.Clavering was a heavy, solid, serious-minded boy, of a mighty frame and muscle, but slow, patient and cautious in his thought and emotions. Until Tony had become fairly intimate with him, he had never appreciated his classmate’s deep and earnest character; just as Clavering, until he got behind Tony’s light-hearted genial pleasantness of manner and speech, had not realized that there was anything there worth while,—any seriousness of purpose, soundness of feeling, or loyalty to principle. He had taken Tony superficially, and was surprised in the course of the term to find how much he had grown to like him; how much, too, he was depending on Tony’s judgment and feeling in the various matters with which the Head Prefect in a large school may have to deal.“I’m slow; you’re quick,” he said to Tony one night. “I’m fairly sure, I suppose, when I make up my mind,—but it takes me the deuce of a long time to see things straight. You seem to see into a situation, to know a fellow, right off.”“Well, I dare say I’m quick, but I make lots of mistakes, you know,” laughed Tony, pleased with thecompliment, especially coming from a boy who never paid them.“They don’t seem to count for much then,” was Clavering’s reply. He forgot that one of Tony’s mistakes accounted for himself rather than Tony being the Head of the School.“That is more comforting as a general proposition than as an afterthought,” said Tony ambiguously, and turned the subject of conversation to football.In this field Clavering seemed an expert. And such indeed he proved himself again on the gridiron that fall, for Deal turned out one of the best teams that Jack Stenton could remember, and that was paying it very high praise. They won all their games, including the one with Boxford by a score of 24 to 0, which was the largest on record. Clavering was a tower of strength to the team, and Tony, who had lost nothing of his fleetness, again distinguished himself by some brilliant, if not quite such dramatic runs as twice before he had made.Before the boys realized it the football season was over, and the Sixth Form were looking forward to their last Christmas vacation of school days. This time Tony took Jimmie Lawrence to Low Deering with him, and had the keen pleasure of initiating his best friend into all the associations and delights of his home and country.The Deering fortunes were in better shape, particularly as Victor had kept his promise, and was devoting himself with industrious zeal to the plantation. The old general took a great fancy to Jimmie, particularly he found a bond between him and theboy in mutual literary tastes. The old man could not lead a very intellectual life, but he reverenced it and longed for it. The promise of Jimmie’s appreciation and powers was to him peculiarly delightful. The boys had a capital vacation, so that they were sorry when it came to an end and they were back at Deal again for the long winter term.Since his confession Finch avoided Deering. He felt self-conscious about his sentimental outbreak against being “thrown over.” Tony certainly had not thrown him over, but he did not see his way to be with Finch anything more than persistently patient and kind. Only once afterward was the subject of their conversation of the night of the faculty-meeting reopened.“Of course, Jake,” Tony said, “you see, just as well as I do, how absolutely wrong your actions were. I am going to leave it entirely to you to set yourself right with Wilson—right to the extent, at least, of letting him know that you are sorry. He has been mighty decent to keep quiet.”“Oh, he hasn’t kept quiet,” Finch rejoined sullenly. “Most of your crowd—of his crowd, anyway, know more or less about it. I have seen that all along.”“Well, perhaps they do; I have not heard them speak of it anyway. Kit can’t have told it very generally, or I would have heard.”“Oh, I don’t know—not after the row you had with him about me. They all like you too much, except Wilson, to give you a chance to get sore again. They don’t think me worth bothering about.”“Well, even so—you have given some cause forthat attitude now. But I tell you what, I want to get right with Kit again. Not, old chap, at the price of throwing you over—don’t think that!—but, on the other hand, I don’t want to make keeping on good terms with you the price of Kit’s friendship. There isn’t need. And can’t you see that I cannot be the one to tell Kit the—to tell Kit about you?”Finch did not see, but he kept silent. He appreciated neither Tony’s deep feeling for his friend nor Tony’s delicate consideration for him. He was thinking dolefully of just how miserable and unfortunate and unlovable he was. Yet, with all the ardor of his intense famished little soul, he clung to Deering’s patient tolerance, and mutely resolved to give him no chance of “flinging him off.” But as for going to Kit with the truth, that was an act of which he was incapable, an act of which he was even incapable of perceiving the point.“I’m just worthless, Deering,” he said at last miserably, “I’ll be thankful when it’s all over.”“Now, cut that out, Jake. Get out and play with somebody. Don’t mope round all the time; and come in often and see us. Jimmie is glad to have you.”“Thanks,” said Finch. He longed to open again the conversation about the Head Prefectship, and learn from Tony what he really felt about that, but with dull shame for his baseness, he did not dare. And as for Tony that was a subject that he felt he never could discuss with Finch again.Time drifted on. Finch continued to worship Deering, but he avoided him more than he had done before, and lived his own lonely, unhappy life, asmany a boy had done before him at school, with all that young world around him, gay, spirited, uncaring. Morris cared, but to his advances Finch proved adamant. As the term advanced, in the inevitable distraction to other interests and pleasures, it was only natural that the attention Tony had concentrated on Finch at the opening of the term, should have slacked. After a time, growing used to seeing less of him, even Tony began to feel that Finch was getting on well enough, and ceased for the most part to worry about him.Finch had not forgotten his grudge against Mr. Roylston, but rather nursed it with the tenacity of such a nature, and took a gloomy pleasure in planning from time to time impossible schemes of revenge. For a long time Deering’s tranquillity with regard to the Head Prefectship disarmed Jacob. It was hard to resent for your hero what he himself did not resent. But he nursed his grudge.It happened along in January that the prefects had occasion to deal with some disciplinary irregularities. Being governed by Clavering’s advice, they frankly mismanaged the case and involved two or three boys in a somewhat unfair predicament. Clavering, realizing that his judgment had been at fault, appealed to Deering, who had the good luck to make a suggestion that speedily set matters straight and saved the school from rather a mess. The boys talked over the affair quite generally, and as often happens, they criticised Clavering somewhat sharply, spoke indeed more harshly, most of them, than they really felt. Finch overheard a discussion of the incidentin the common-rooms which was concluded by Teddy Lansing affirming rather loudly and tactlessly, “Well, it was a rotten roast when Deering did not get the Head Prefectship in the first place. Clavering is a blundering old cow.”“That it was—a rotten roast!” came in a sharp staccato from a near-by corner. Finch had spoken, impulsively, and quite unusually drawing attention to himself.“Yeaaaaa! Yeaaaa!” was returned in full chorus which half jeered at the boy, half applauded his sentiments.“Bully for you, Pinch!” shouted Teddy. “You stick up for your friend, don’t you?”“Friend or no friend,” answered Finch, with unwonted boldness, “it was a roast. He was cheated out of it.”“Guess he was,” agreed another boy. “How’d it come about, d’ye know?”“Yes, I know,” Finch answered, “but I’m not saying.”“Oh, inside information, eh?”“If you want to call it that.”“Who from—Tony Deering?”Finch turned to his questioner with a vicious snarl. “No, it wasn’t from Tony Deering. He don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to him, but it makes a lot of difference to the school.”“Well, who cooked his goose?”“Who cooks everybody’s goose?” demanded Finch.“Well, I guess, Pinch my boy, it don’t need a prophet to answer that question,” Teddy responded. “Verylikely it was the mild and gentle Ebenezer Gumshoe Roylston. You’re right, I guess. But let me tell you,” he added, as he pulled Finch aside, “Tony’s the last person in the world who would thank you for discussing his affairs in a crowd.”Finch suddenly realized the truth of this remark, hung his head, and sidled away. But this outbreak on Tony’s behalf had excited him. It brought back all the old hopes and fears, the old pangs of disappointment and chagrin, and renewed his rage against Mr. Roylston.Not long after the conversation which has just been reported, the mid-year examinations were held. Finch, who still had difficulty with his Latin, had studied particularly hard, and had practically crammed by heart the translation of several difficult passages from Cicero’sOrationsupon which the Sixth Form were to be examined. As soon as he entered the examination room, over which Mr. Roylston was presiding, and had looked over his paper, noting that two of the passages he had so poled up were on it, he quickly wrote them out on a separate piece of paper, intending to write them into his examination book at his leisure; then he bent laboriously to his task of working out the paper.Mr. Roylston, an argus-eyed examiner, eventually observed from his desk that Finch was copying something into his examination book from a detached slip of paper. He strolled leisurely and softly about the room and advanced down the aisle where Finch was sitting from behind. As he reached the boy, he glanced down over his shoulder, and saw whathe was doing. He suspected, not without reason, that Finch was not strictly honest in his work, and the present circumstance, it must be confessed, had all the appearance of cheating.Without warning he reached over Finch’s shoulder, and took the examination book and the sheet of paper on which the translated passages of Cicero were written from the hands of the astonished and frightened boy. “You may leave the room,” he said, “and report to me in my study to-night at eight o’clock.”Finch looked up at him wildly. “What’s the matter? What are you doing that for?” he exclaimed excitedly.“You understand perfectly well,” the master replied sharply. “You are excused from this examination. Leave the room! Do you understand me?”“No—!” began Finch, flushing crimson.“Go!” repeated Mr. Roylston, pointing to the door, heedless of the excited attention of the boys around.The color fled from Finch’s face as swiftly as it had come. He rose, threw down his pencil, and dashed out of the room. Mr. Roylston folded the papers, and then composed the schoolroom with a glance.Finch was not seen about the school again that day. At nightfall he returned from the Woods where he had taken refuge, bought himself a bun or so at the Pie-house, for he was nearly famished, and having thus made a frugal supper, at eight o’clock he presented himself at the door of Mr. Roylston’s study in Howard House.The master had no doubt in his mind that he had detected a flagrant case of cheating, a crime that wasabove all others abominable in his eyes. He bade Finch enter, when he heard his soft knock at his door, and then let him stand awkwardly a moment or so while he examined him critically. The haggard face, the hunted look, seemed to him those of a criminal.“Ah!” he said at last, “you are here.”“Yes—I am here,” Finch answered sullenly. “What do you want with me!”“Don’t forget yourself. Incidentally, I may say, that you have involved yourself in an excessive number of late marks, if not in more serious trouble, by your prolonged absence to-day.”“I’ll attend to that. What do you want with me?”“In the first place, and instantly,” said Mr. Roylston in acid tones, “I want a respectful demeanor.”Finch bit his lips. “I’m sorry.... But I’ll take what’s coming to me for being away to-day. You told me to report to you at eight o’clock. I am here.”“Yes,” observed the master, “you are here. To come to the point——”“Yes, yes,—why did you take my examination book?”Mr. Roylston had not gauged the boy’s attitude as yet. He supposed he would lie—that kind of a boy usually did. He sought Finch’s weak troubled eyes with a piercing glance. “I took it,” he said, in a cold judicial voice, “because you were cheating.”“I was not cheating!” Finch exclaimed passionately.Mr. Roylston smiled patiently. “The evidence is sufficiently strong as scarcely to admit of mistake.You may affect to deny it; but I tell you candidly, young man, I have suspected you before; and further, you will scarcely be surprised to hear that I have very little confidence in your word.”Finch gulped. “I was not cheating!” he repeated, but in trembling tones. For the moment despair got the better of the determination in which he had come to keep that appointment. He had cheated before. A wave of emotion swept over him, and he swayed for a moment from sheer physical weakness. What difference did it make? he felt. He did not care. A wild impulse seized him to tell the truth boldly. He would tell everything, confess everything, but about that one thing he would be believed. It was the end, he knew; but he would not have the end come and himself be involved, convicted, of what was not true. There was enough that was. The master was looking at him coldly, but for the moment was saying nothing. Finch put his hand out to a near-by table to steady himself.“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston, a gleam of triumph in his sharp black eyes, “I see that you do not mean to dispute me.”“Do you want the truth?” cried Finch, meeting the master’s eye again with a fierce look.“Naturally.”“Then you shall have it!”Finch threw back his head; he expanded in body and soul; and kept his eyes fastened on Mr. Roylston’s countenance in which he was to see a variety of emotions depicted in the next few moments. He felt his hour was come.“You shall have it!” he repeated, moistening his parched lips.To Mr. Roylston’s fascinated gaze, the boy seemed transformed; a soul, misshaped, distorted, hitherto utterly abased, had risen in that despised body, and was leaping forth from the boy’s eyes to grapple with his own soul. He had a sickening sense that he was about to pass through an unseemly scene, the most unseemly and disagreeable scene of his life, and that he was powerless to avert it.“You shall have it,” repeated Finch again. “I have cheated—cheated—cheated—day after day—day after day. And I’ll tell you why. Because, slave as I would, work as I could for you, I never got one mark of credit, one word of praise, one syllable of recognition from your cold hateful mouth. I tried like a dog to do my best for you—it was poor, but it was my best! but it was no use. From the day I got to this place you have hated and despised me. Oh, I have seen it, and knew it, and cursed you, cursed you for it. You wouldn’t let yourself be fair. Do you know, I’ve lived in hell in this school. And at last, I determined to cheat you, to pay you back in the only dirty way I knew how. But to-day, something—I don’t know what—it wasn’t fear of you—somethingmade me honest. The paper you took from me I had written out from memory after I got into the room.”“Stick to facts,” said the master.“I am sticking to facts. Believe it or not—it’s true. That’s true, though I who tell it am a cheat and a liar and a sneak. I have been all that—notbecause I was made that way or wanted to be, I don’t think, but because I couldn’t get a chance to be myself, couldn’t get a show. And you—you kept me from being decent as much as anybody else, as much as the biggest bully in the school. You want me to stick to facts. All right, I’ll stick to ‘em. I have hated you. I have hated you so that many a time I’ve wanted to kill you. And because I couldn’t think of any way to fight you in the open, I have been low and vile, and fought you in the dark. You thought Kit Wilson rough-housed your rooms last year, didn’t you? That’s the way you suspect people without evidence, and act on your suspicions and can’t hide ‘em when you don’t dare to act. I hate Wilson too, so I was glad when you thought he was the guilty one. But I did it, I tell you. I rough-housed your rooms and hid your papers and messed up your desk drawers and books. I couldn’t stand it. I can’t stand it any longer. You’ll have me fired, I know that—and I don’t care. But for once in your life you are hearing what is thought of you. You’re hated, hated, hated!”The boy paused for a moment, out of breath, still clutching the table desperately. Mr. Roylston tried but could not speak. A thousand emotions stung him to the quick; and deep within, there was a sense, outrageous as was this attack, that he was at the bar of an avenging justice, paying with bitter humiliation for the lack of charity of which the boy’s wild words convicted him. At last he found his voice, but he was still under the spell of the strange situation.“I will tolerate this extraordinary conversation amoment longer. Why have you so viciously hated me?”“Why—because you are cruel,” cried Finch, recovering himself, “because you are pitiless, because you do wicked, unkind things in the name of justice. Yes, yes, you shall have it all. You have never given me one chance, and you were glad—gladto-day when you thought you had caught me at last. You are always suspecting, suspecting evil—until at last your suspicions find it or create it. You have scared me, hurt me, hounded me—I don’t know how you do it, but you do do it—and, thank God, you’ll never do it again. Of course, you’ll have me fired now, I know that, and I don’t care. And I deserve to be. I ain’t fit to be here. But it’s you as much as anyone else that’s kept me from being fit. I am just full of hate and malice. Don’t I know it? Don’t I suffer from it?”“Aside from my severity—or my cruelty, as you are pleased to call it,—for what else do you blame me?”“Above all,” cried Finch, and a note of exultation rang in his voice, “above all for the way you’ve treated Anthony Deering. I know him, and he is the soul of honor, he has a heart. You or I aren’t fit to unlace his boots. You kept him from getting what he deserved—the Head Prefectship.”“Deering told you that?”“No, Deering didn’t tell me that. Deering’s not that sort, don’t you know it, can’t you believe it? He isn’t a sneak; but I am; and I listened under the windows of the faculty room the night you spokeagainst him, the first night of this year. And what had he done against you except what half the fellows do to most of the masters more or less all the time? But you wouldn’t forgive him, though he was fool enough to be sorry for what he had done, for making fun of you. But you couldn’t be kind. I listened—I heard it all. You saved that paper, and bided your time, that’s what you did—waited your chance to get even. Do you know that many a night I’ve laid in bed and prayed for courage to get up and come over and do some terrible thing to you. I’ve actually wanted to kill you. But I don’t want to now. The bitterest medicine you can take is to have, for once in your life, some one else, though it’s only a worthless rotten chap like me, tell you to your face that you are cruel and unkind and that he despises you.”At last Finch stopped. He was trembling violently, his cheeks were blazing, his eyes feverish and wild, but his soul was filled with a sense of triumph.For a moment Mr. Roylston covered his face with his hand. Then he rose up quickly, master of himself again.“You are excited and irresponsible.”“I’m excited,” said Finch, “but I know perfectly well what I’m saying.”“Of course,” said Mr. Roylston, “if you are not suddenly gone insane, you must leave this school at once. You will come with me instantly to Doctor Forester.”“Oh, I’m ready to be fired.”Mr. Roylston made no reply, but opened the study door, and motioned to the boy to follow him. Theyleft Howard House and walked rapidly across the quadrangle to the Rectory. It was a warm humid night, after a week of intense cold. There was a pale young moon in the western sky.As they reached the foot of the Rectory steps, Finch turned. “I’m not going in,” he exclaimed.“Pardon me, you are, and at once.”“I’m not. This is the end. I am done with it. I’m going to chuck it all. Say what you please, the time for browbeating, scaring me is gone. I’m off.”“Where are you going?” cried the master in alarm.“It doesn’t matter. You will never see me again.” With that he turned, and ran rapidly across the campus down the hill.Mr. Roylston strained his eyes for a moment after the fleeing figure, then ran hastily up the steps, and knocked at the door of the Doctor’s study.Doctor Forester himself opened the door, and drew the agitated master within. Deering, Lawrence and Clavering were sitting before the study fire. They had risen and were standing.“What is the matter?” asked the Head quickly.Mr. Roylston forgot the boys’ presence. “A serious thing—a very serious thing. Finch, just now, in my study, attacked me with the most wanton, intemperate abuse. I brought him to you—but here—at the very door he turned and fled....”“Yes—fled—why—where?”“It is very serious, I think. I think it would be better if these boys went after him at once. I fearsomething terrible may happen. I will explain later.” He sank exhausted into a chair.“Which way has he gone, sir?” asked Tony.“Across the campus—down the hill. Hurry, Deering, hurry! else something terrible may happen.”
FINCH’S HOUR
For our friends the incident was closed. Jimmie took his seat in the prefect meetings on Sunday nights and solemnly assisted, with increasing interest, in “running the school,” as the members of those conclaves were accustomed to term their labors. Tony acquiesced in the inevitable with a good grace, and beyond discussing the matter in its various aspects, with Jimmie and to some extent with Mr. Morris, who was handicapped in expressing his opinion by professional loyalty, he kept his mouth shut.
Others did not. Decisions of such a nature, important to the life of a school, are rarely long kept secret. And in this instance, the Head Master did not resent the facts being known, though he himself of course maintained an absolute reserve. The facts were known sooner or later, and with a fair degree of accuracy. And the knowledge increased neither Mr. Roylston’s popularity nor his peace of mind. Indeed he found himself increasingly unable to extract comfort from the reflection that a deserved punishment had been fearlessly administered or that in being just he was as wise as if he had also been merciful. During that term Mr. Roylston had many bad quarters of an hour.
As for Tony, as Doctor Forester had predicted, the loss of the Head Prefectship added to rather than diminished from his strength among his schoolmates. He became, quite naturally and spontaneously, the unofficial adviser of the prefect body, and particularly of Clavering, who made a point of consulting him upon all important matters that came to the prefects’ notice. The effect of this generosity on Clavering’s part was to reveal the two boys to each other and to establish a firm friendship between them.
Clavering was a heavy, solid, serious-minded boy, of a mighty frame and muscle, but slow, patient and cautious in his thought and emotions. Until Tony had become fairly intimate with him, he had never appreciated his classmate’s deep and earnest character; just as Clavering, until he got behind Tony’s light-hearted genial pleasantness of manner and speech, had not realized that there was anything there worth while,—any seriousness of purpose, soundness of feeling, or loyalty to principle. He had taken Tony superficially, and was surprised in the course of the term to find how much he had grown to like him; how much, too, he was depending on Tony’s judgment and feeling in the various matters with which the Head Prefect in a large school may have to deal.
“I’m slow; you’re quick,” he said to Tony one night. “I’m fairly sure, I suppose, when I make up my mind,—but it takes me the deuce of a long time to see things straight. You seem to see into a situation, to know a fellow, right off.”
“Well, I dare say I’m quick, but I make lots of mistakes, you know,” laughed Tony, pleased with thecompliment, especially coming from a boy who never paid them.
“They don’t seem to count for much then,” was Clavering’s reply. He forgot that one of Tony’s mistakes accounted for himself rather than Tony being the Head of the School.
“That is more comforting as a general proposition than as an afterthought,” said Tony ambiguously, and turned the subject of conversation to football.
In this field Clavering seemed an expert. And such indeed he proved himself again on the gridiron that fall, for Deal turned out one of the best teams that Jack Stenton could remember, and that was paying it very high praise. They won all their games, including the one with Boxford by a score of 24 to 0, which was the largest on record. Clavering was a tower of strength to the team, and Tony, who had lost nothing of his fleetness, again distinguished himself by some brilliant, if not quite such dramatic runs as twice before he had made.
Before the boys realized it the football season was over, and the Sixth Form were looking forward to their last Christmas vacation of school days. This time Tony took Jimmie Lawrence to Low Deering with him, and had the keen pleasure of initiating his best friend into all the associations and delights of his home and country.
The Deering fortunes were in better shape, particularly as Victor had kept his promise, and was devoting himself with industrious zeal to the plantation. The old general took a great fancy to Jimmie, particularly he found a bond between him and theboy in mutual literary tastes. The old man could not lead a very intellectual life, but he reverenced it and longed for it. The promise of Jimmie’s appreciation and powers was to him peculiarly delightful. The boys had a capital vacation, so that they were sorry when it came to an end and they were back at Deal again for the long winter term.
Since his confession Finch avoided Deering. He felt self-conscious about his sentimental outbreak against being “thrown over.” Tony certainly had not thrown him over, but he did not see his way to be with Finch anything more than persistently patient and kind. Only once afterward was the subject of their conversation of the night of the faculty-meeting reopened.
“Of course, Jake,” Tony said, “you see, just as well as I do, how absolutely wrong your actions were. I am going to leave it entirely to you to set yourself right with Wilson—right to the extent, at least, of letting him know that you are sorry. He has been mighty decent to keep quiet.”
“Oh, he hasn’t kept quiet,” Finch rejoined sullenly. “Most of your crowd—of his crowd, anyway, know more or less about it. I have seen that all along.”
“Well, perhaps they do; I have not heard them speak of it anyway. Kit can’t have told it very generally, or I would have heard.”
“Oh, I don’t know—not after the row you had with him about me. They all like you too much, except Wilson, to give you a chance to get sore again. They don’t think me worth bothering about.”
“Well, even so—you have given some cause forthat attitude now. But I tell you what, I want to get right with Kit again. Not, old chap, at the price of throwing you over—don’t think that!—but, on the other hand, I don’t want to make keeping on good terms with you the price of Kit’s friendship. There isn’t need. And can’t you see that I cannot be the one to tell Kit the—to tell Kit about you?”
Finch did not see, but he kept silent. He appreciated neither Tony’s deep feeling for his friend nor Tony’s delicate consideration for him. He was thinking dolefully of just how miserable and unfortunate and unlovable he was. Yet, with all the ardor of his intense famished little soul, he clung to Deering’s patient tolerance, and mutely resolved to give him no chance of “flinging him off.” But as for going to Kit with the truth, that was an act of which he was incapable, an act of which he was even incapable of perceiving the point.
“I’m just worthless, Deering,” he said at last miserably, “I’ll be thankful when it’s all over.”
“Now, cut that out, Jake. Get out and play with somebody. Don’t mope round all the time; and come in often and see us. Jimmie is glad to have you.”
“Thanks,” said Finch. He longed to open again the conversation about the Head Prefectship, and learn from Tony what he really felt about that, but with dull shame for his baseness, he did not dare. And as for Tony that was a subject that he felt he never could discuss with Finch again.
Time drifted on. Finch continued to worship Deering, but he avoided him more than he had done before, and lived his own lonely, unhappy life, asmany a boy had done before him at school, with all that young world around him, gay, spirited, uncaring. Morris cared, but to his advances Finch proved adamant. As the term advanced, in the inevitable distraction to other interests and pleasures, it was only natural that the attention Tony had concentrated on Finch at the opening of the term, should have slacked. After a time, growing used to seeing less of him, even Tony began to feel that Finch was getting on well enough, and ceased for the most part to worry about him.
Finch had not forgotten his grudge against Mr. Roylston, but rather nursed it with the tenacity of such a nature, and took a gloomy pleasure in planning from time to time impossible schemes of revenge. For a long time Deering’s tranquillity with regard to the Head Prefectship disarmed Jacob. It was hard to resent for your hero what he himself did not resent. But he nursed his grudge.
It happened along in January that the prefects had occasion to deal with some disciplinary irregularities. Being governed by Clavering’s advice, they frankly mismanaged the case and involved two or three boys in a somewhat unfair predicament. Clavering, realizing that his judgment had been at fault, appealed to Deering, who had the good luck to make a suggestion that speedily set matters straight and saved the school from rather a mess. The boys talked over the affair quite generally, and as often happens, they criticised Clavering somewhat sharply, spoke indeed more harshly, most of them, than they really felt. Finch overheard a discussion of the incidentin the common-rooms which was concluded by Teddy Lansing affirming rather loudly and tactlessly, “Well, it was a rotten roast when Deering did not get the Head Prefectship in the first place. Clavering is a blundering old cow.”
“That it was—a rotten roast!” came in a sharp staccato from a near-by corner. Finch had spoken, impulsively, and quite unusually drawing attention to himself.
“Yeaaaaa! Yeaaaa!” was returned in full chorus which half jeered at the boy, half applauded his sentiments.
“Bully for you, Pinch!” shouted Teddy. “You stick up for your friend, don’t you?”
“Friend or no friend,” answered Finch, with unwonted boldness, “it was a roast. He was cheated out of it.”
“Guess he was,” agreed another boy. “How’d it come about, d’ye know?”
“Yes, I know,” Finch answered, “but I’m not saying.”
“Oh, inside information, eh?”
“If you want to call it that.”
“Who from—Tony Deering?”
Finch turned to his questioner with a vicious snarl. “No, it wasn’t from Tony Deering. He don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to him, but it makes a lot of difference to the school.”
“Well, who cooked his goose?”
“Who cooks everybody’s goose?” demanded Finch.
“Well, I guess, Pinch my boy, it don’t need a prophet to answer that question,” Teddy responded. “Verylikely it was the mild and gentle Ebenezer Gumshoe Roylston. You’re right, I guess. But let me tell you,” he added, as he pulled Finch aside, “Tony’s the last person in the world who would thank you for discussing his affairs in a crowd.”
Finch suddenly realized the truth of this remark, hung his head, and sidled away. But this outbreak on Tony’s behalf had excited him. It brought back all the old hopes and fears, the old pangs of disappointment and chagrin, and renewed his rage against Mr. Roylston.
Not long after the conversation which has just been reported, the mid-year examinations were held. Finch, who still had difficulty with his Latin, had studied particularly hard, and had practically crammed by heart the translation of several difficult passages from Cicero’sOrationsupon which the Sixth Form were to be examined. As soon as he entered the examination room, over which Mr. Roylston was presiding, and had looked over his paper, noting that two of the passages he had so poled up were on it, he quickly wrote them out on a separate piece of paper, intending to write them into his examination book at his leisure; then he bent laboriously to his task of working out the paper.
Mr. Roylston, an argus-eyed examiner, eventually observed from his desk that Finch was copying something into his examination book from a detached slip of paper. He strolled leisurely and softly about the room and advanced down the aisle where Finch was sitting from behind. As he reached the boy, he glanced down over his shoulder, and saw whathe was doing. He suspected, not without reason, that Finch was not strictly honest in his work, and the present circumstance, it must be confessed, had all the appearance of cheating.
Without warning he reached over Finch’s shoulder, and took the examination book and the sheet of paper on which the translated passages of Cicero were written from the hands of the astonished and frightened boy. “You may leave the room,” he said, “and report to me in my study to-night at eight o’clock.”
Finch looked up at him wildly. “What’s the matter? What are you doing that for?” he exclaimed excitedly.
“You understand perfectly well,” the master replied sharply. “You are excused from this examination. Leave the room! Do you understand me?”
“No—!” began Finch, flushing crimson.
“Go!” repeated Mr. Roylston, pointing to the door, heedless of the excited attention of the boys around.
The color fled from Finch’s face as swiftly as it had come. He rose, threw down his pencil, and dashed out of the room. Mr. Roylston folded the papers, and then composed the schoolroom with a glance.
Finch was not seen about the school again that day. At nightfall he returned from the Woods where he had taken refuge, bought himself a bun or so at the Pie-house, for he was nearly famished, and having thus made a frugal supper, at eight o’clock he presented himself at the door of Mr. Roylston’s study in Howard House.
The master had no doubt in his mind that he had detected a flagrant case of cheating, a crime that wasabove all others abominable in his eyes. He bade Finch enter, when he heard his soft knock at his door, and then let him stand awkwardly a moment or so while he examined him critically. The haggard face, the hunted look, seemed to him those of a criminal.
“Ah!” he said at last, “you are here.”
“Yes—I am here,” Finch answered sullenly. “What do you want with me!”
“Don’t forget yourself. Incidentally, I may say, that you have involved yourself in an excessive number of late marks, if not in more serious trouble, by your prolonged absence to-day.”
“I’ll attend to that. What do you want with me?”
“In the first place, and instantly,” said Mr. Roylston in acid tones, “I want a respectful demeanor.”
Finch bit his lips. “I’m sorry.... But I’ll take what’s coming to me for being away to-day. You told me to report to you at eight o’clock. I am here.”
“Yes,” observed the master, “you are here. To come to the point——”
“Yes, yes,—why did you take my examination book?”
Mr. Roylston had not gauged the boy’s attitude as yet. He supposed he would lie—that kind of a boy usually did. He sought Finch’s weak troubled eyes with a piercing glance. “I took it,” he said, in a cold judicial voice, “because you were cheating.”
“I was not cheating!” Finch exclaimed passionately.
Mr. Roylston smiled patiently. “The evidence is sufficiently strong as scarcely to admit of mistake.You may affect to deny it; but I tell you candidly, young man, I have suspected you before; and further, you will scarcely be surprised to hear that I have very little confidence in your word.”
Finch gulped. “I was not cheating!” he repeated, but in trembling tones. For the moment despair got the better of the determination in which he had come to keep that appointment. He had cheated before. A wave of emotion swept over him, and he swayed for a moment from sheer physical weakness. What difference did it make? he felt. He did not care. A wild impulse seized him to tell the truth boldly. He would tell everything, confess everything, but about that one thing he would be believed. It was the end, he knew; but he would not have the end come and himself be involved, convicted, of what was not true. There was enough that was. The master was looking at him coldly, but for the moment was saying nothing. Finch put his hand out to a near-by table to steady himself.
“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston, a gleam of triumph in his sharp black eyes, “I see that you do not mean to dispute me.”
“Do you want the truth?” cried Finch, meeting the master’s eye again with a fierce look.
“Naturally.”
“Then you shall have it!”
Finch threw back his head; he expanded in body and soul; and kept his eyes fastened on Mr. Roylston’s countenance in which he was to see a variety of emotions depicted in the next few moments. He felt his hour was come.
“You shall have it!” he repeated, moistening his parched lips.
To Mr. Roylston’s fascinated gaze, the boy seemed transformed; a soul, misshaped, distorted, hitherto utterly abased, had risen in that despised body, and was leaping forth from the boy’s eyes to grapple with his own soul. He had a sickening sense that he was about to pass through an unseemly scene, the most unseemly and disagreeable scene of his life, and that he was powerless to avert it.
“You shall have it,” repeated Finch again. “I have cheated—cheated—cheated—day after day—day after day. And I’ll tell you why. Because, slave as I would, work as I could for you, I never got one mark of credit, one word of praise, one syllable of recognition from your cold hateful mouth. I tried like a dog to do my best for you—it was poor, but it was my best! but it was no use. From the day I got to this place you have hated and despised me. Oh, I have seen it, and knew it, and cursed you, cursed you for it. You wouldn’t let yourself be fair. Do you know, I’ve lived in hell in this school. And at last, I determined to cheat you, to pay you back in the only dirty way I knew how. But to-day, something—I don’t know what—it wasn’t fear of you—somethingmade me honest. The paper you took from me I had written out from memory after I got into the room.”
“Stick to facts,” said the master.
“I am sticking to facts. Believe it or not—it’s true. That’s true, though I who tell it am a cheat and a liar and a sneak. I have been all that—notbecause I was made that way or wanted to be, I don’t think, but because I couldn’t get a chance to be myself, couldn’t get a show. And you—you kept me from being decent as much as anybody else, as much as the biggest bully in the school. You want me to stick to facts. All right, I’ll stick to ‘em. I have hated you. I have hated you so that many a time I’ve wanted to kill you. And because I couldn’t think of any way to fight you in the open, I have been low and vile, and fought you in the dark. You thought Kit Wilson rough-housed your rooms last year, didn’t you? That’s the way you suspect people without evidence, and act on your suspicions and can’t hide ‘em when you don’t dare to act. I hate Wilson too, so I was glad when you thought he was the guilty one. But I did it, I tell you. I rough-housed your rooms and hid your papers and messed up your desk drawers and books. I couldn’t stand it. I can’t stand it any longer. You’ll have me fired, I know that—and I don’t care. But for once in your life you are hearing what is thought of you. You’re hated, hated, hated!”
The boy paused for a moment, out of breath, still clutching the table desperately. Mr. Roylston tried but could not speak. A thousand emotions stung him to the quick; and deep within, there was a sense, outrageous as was this attack, that he was at the bar of an avenging justice, paying with bitter humiliation for the lack of charity of which the boy’s wild words convicted him. At last he found his voice, but he was still under the spell of the strange situation.
“I will tolerate this extraordinary conversation amoment longer. Why have you so viciously hated me?”
“Why—because you are cruel,” cried Finch, recovering himself, “because you are pitiless, because you do wicked, unkind things in the name of justice. Yes, yes, you shall have it all. You have never given me one chance, and you were glad—gladto-day when you thought you had caught me at last. You are always suspecting, suspecting evil—until at last your suspicions find it or create it. You have scared me, hurt me, hounded me—I don’t know how you do it, but you do do it—and, thank God, you’ll never do it again. Of course, you’ll have me fired now, I know that, and I don’t care. And I deserve to be. I ain’t fit to be here. But it’s you as much as anyone else that’s kept me from being fit. I am just full of hate and malice. Don’t I know it? Don’t I suffer from it?”
“Aside from my severity—or my cruelty, as you are pleased to call it,—for what else do you blame me?”
“Above all,” cried Finch, and a note of exultation rang in his voice, “above all for the way you’ve treated Anthony Deering. I know him, and he is the soul of honor, he has a heart. You or I aren’t fit to unlace his boots. You kept him from getting what he deserved—the Head Prefectship.”
“Deering told you that?”
“No, Deering didn’t tell me that. Deering’s not that sort, don’t you know it, can’t you believe it? He isn’t a sneak; but I am; and I listened under the windows of the faculty room the night you spokeagainst him, the first night of this year. And what had he done against you except what half the fellows do to most of the masters more or less all the time? But you wouldn’t forgive him, though he was fool enough to be sorry for what he had done, for making fun of you. But you couldn’t be kind. I listened—I heard it all. You saved that paper, and bided your time, that’s what you did—waited your chance to get even. Do you know that many a night I’ve laid in bed and prayed for courage to get up and come over and do some terrible thing to you. I’ve actually wanted to kill you. But I don’t want to now. The bitterest medicine you can take is to have, for once in your life, some one else, though it’s only a worthless rotten chap like me, tell you to your face that you are cruel and unkind and that he despises you.”
At last Finch stopped. He was trembling violently, his cheeks were blazing, his eyes feverish and wild, but his soul was filled with a sense of triumph.
For a moment Mr. Roylston covered his face with his hand. Then he rose up quickly, master of himself again.
“You are excited and irresponsible.”
“I’m excited,” said Finch, “but I know perfectly well what I’m saying.”
“Of course,” said Mr. Roylston, “if you are not suddenly gone insane, you must leave this school at once. You will come with me instantly to Doctor Forester.”
“Oh, I’m ready to be fired.”
Mr. Roylston made no reply, but opened the study door, and motioned to the boy to follow him. Theyleft Howard House and walked rapidly across the quadrangle to the Rectory. It was a warm humid night, after a week of intense cold. There was a pale young moon in the western sky.
As they reached the foot of the Rectory steps, Finch turned. “I’m not going in,” he exclaimed.
“Pardon me, you are, and at once.”
“I’m not. This is the end. I am done with it. I’m going to chuck it all. Say what you please, the time for browbeating, scaring me is gone. I’m off.”
“Where are you going?” cried the master in alarm.
“It doesn’t matter. You will never see me again.” With that he turned, and ran rapidly across the campus down the hill.
Mr. Roylston strained his eyes for a moment after the fleeing figure, then ran hastily up the steps, and knocked at the door of the Doctor’s study.
Doctor Forester himself opened the door, and drew the agitated master within. Deering, Lawrence and Clavering were sitting before the study fire. They had risen and were standing.
“What is the matter?” asked the Head quickly.
Mr. Roylston forgot the boys’ presence. “A serious thing—a very serious thing. Finch, just now, in my study, attacked me with the most wanton, intemperate abuse. I brought him to you—but here—at the very door he turned and fled....”
“Yes—fled—why—where?”
“It is very serious, I think. I think it would be better if these boys went after him at once. I fearsomething terrible may happen. I will explain later.” He sank exhausted into a chair.
“Which way has he gone, sir?” asked Tony.
“Across the campus—down the hill. Hurry, Deering, hurry! else something terrible may happen.”
CHAPTER XXISELF-SACRIFICEIt was a warm muggy night. A pale moon shone dimly through the mists, and the buildings of the school cast long shadows across the campus, giving a weird uncanny effect to the scene, of which the boys were immediately conscious as they came out of the Doctor’s study.They waited for a moment outside, straining their eyes for a sight of Finch. Suddenly Jimmie discerned a dark figure just disappearing over the brow of the hill. “There he goes,” he cried, “over the hills towards the beach.”“All right—after him!” urged Tony, and set the pace at a rapid trot. Lawrence and Clavering kept close behind.In a few moments they had reached the brow of the hill over which Lawrence had seen the figure disappear. They paused for a moment to look about them. Out of range of the lights of the school, the mists were less confusing and the moonlight more effective. Tony was searching the beach with his eyes. “I can’t make out a thing,” he said. “Do you see anything of him, Ned?”“Not a thing,” Clavering answered. “Are you sure, Jim, you saw him a moment ago?”“Dead sure. Look there! isn’t that him?”“Where?”“Down by the road—near the marshes.” He pointed eagerly.“Yes, yes,” cried Tony. “Come on. He’s no good at running. We ought to catch him before he reaches the Pond. If he gets to the Woods, there’s no knowing where to find him.”They started down the hill at a rapid pace.“He would have to go round the Pond to get into the Woods,” said Clavering as they ran. “The ice is rotten; he can’t cross the Pond. So let’s go to the north and cut him off.”“You do that, Ned,” suggested Tony. “Cut in at the farmhouse by the head of the Pond; Jim and I will keep right on. He may never stop to think that the ice has gone rotten.”“All right. Look, he’s slowing up.” They could see with fair distinctness.Finch, for it was he, had reached the foot of the hill. He paused for a moment, seeming to hesitate between the Old Beach Road and the path across the marshes; and apparently chose the latter, for he crossed the road, and climbed the stone wall. Ignorant that he was so closely followed, he had not been running very fast, so that our friends were rapidly gaining upon him. By the time they had reached the foot of the hill, he was only halfway across the marshes; and was forced to pick his way, for he was not very familiar with the ground, and was handicapped by his frequent stumbling against a stone. In some places the ground was hard and frozen, in others it was wet and muddy.“Cut across now to the head of the Pond,” saidTony, as the three clambered over the stone wall which divided the marshes from the road. “We can catch him all right.”Clavering diverged, as Deering suggested, and the other two kept on directly in Finch’s track. It was difficult to run over the uneven ground, and once Jimmie tripped and fell over a boulder, so that they were delayed for a moment. The marshes were about two hundred yards wide, and ended at the high bank which had been built up around Beaver Pond, which was used as a reservoir. Beyond loomed the dark ridges of Lovel’s Woods, ghostly in the pale misty moonlight.As Finch emerged at last from the uneven, reed-choked ground of the marshes, Tony and Jimmie were scarcely fifty yards behind him. Suddenly he heard the sound of their pattering feet, and turned and stood still like a startled deer to listen. Then, as he made out the dark forms so little behind him, he ran rapidly up the steep bank of the Pond.“Jake, Jake, wait for me!” Tony called. “It’s Deering—wait a second!”Finch now on the top of the bank, stopped again. Our two friends out of breath, paused at the bottom. Hardly a dozen yards divided them.“Wait a second! What’s your hurry?” Tony repeated, starting forward again, but at that very moment his foot caught in a loose stone and he went sprawling, and Jimmie, too late to turn aside, fell on top of him. Finch did not move, but waited a moment, while the two picked themselves up. No damage was done, but they were windless.“Who are you?” Finch called down.“It’s me—Tony Deering.”Again they started to climb the bank. Finch stooped quickly and picked up a couple of enormous stones.“Stop there!” he cried. “If you come up that bank, I’ll fire this at your head. I mean it.”The two pursuers stopped involuntarily.“Throw that rock down. What’s the matter with you?” cried Tony sharply.“It don’t make any difference. What are you following me for? What do you want with me?”“I want to know what on earth you are cutting out for like this. What’s the matter? we’re not going to hurt you.”“No, I know you’re not. Mind—don’t take a step, or I’ll fire this at your head. I’ve chucked the whole thing. I’m clearing out, d’ye hear? I won’t be stopped.”“Look here, Jake; you’re crazy. Don’t act like——”“Maybe I am, but that don’t alter the fact that you are not coming up that bank without getting this in your head. I won’t be followed.”“For goodness’ sake, Jake, listen to reason.” Tony began to advance cautiously.“Back!” cried Finch. “Get back, if you’ve anything to say.” And he poised the rock threateningly.Tony stopped a moment, willing to accomplish by persuasion what he was determined to effect by force if need be. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll cry a truce for a minute. Don’t be an ass, now—tell me what’s the trouble and where you are cutting out to.”“Who sent you after me?” demanded Finch.“Mr. Roylston came——”“Pah!” Jake uttered an exclamation of profound disgust.“Mr. Roylston,” Tony repeated, “burst into Doctor Forester’s study, and said that you had been abusing him, and that you had lit out some place, and then he came near falling into a faint. So we started after you. This is no way to——”“Well, I don’t care whether it’s a way or not,” interrupted Finch. “I’m done with the school. I’m chucking it.”“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t do it in a fool way like this. Come back and take your medicine like a man.”“I’m tired of taking medicine,” Finch replied bitterly. “I’ve taken all I ever mean to in that school, anyway.”“Where are you going?”“That’s my affair.”“Well, come back, and you can go off decently to-morrow.”“No—I’d back down to-morrow like the shivering scared fool I’ve always been. To-night, I’m up to it. I’m going now—to-night.”“Where?”“Oh, I dunno—it don’t make any difference—away from here.”“Look here, Jake; that’s a pretty mean way to treat me—to say nothing of the school.”“Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way. But I don’t owe the school anything.”“Yes, you do, a lot; the Doctor—Bill——”“Back!” cried Finch sharply. “Don’t try to sneak up on me. Let me alone. Maybe I’ll write and let you know where I am. But I am going to cut out to-night.”Tony glanced at Jimmie who was close by his side. “Let’s risk it, Jim,” he whispered, “he can only hit one of us, I reckon.” “All right—heave ahead!” Jimmie responded in a low tone.Without wasting further words the two boys began to dash up the steep bank.“Get down there!” Finch yelled. “I’m going to throw.” He raised his arm, but something paralyzed his vicious intention. It seemed to him that he tried to throw and could not. The big stone fell crashing from his hand, and rolled harmlessly down the bank. Finch turned, and with a cry sprang toward the icy surface of the Pond. When the boys got to the top of the bank, he was already a dozen feet out on the Pond.“For God’s sake, Jake, don’t try to cross the Pond. The ice is rotten.” Tony and Jimmie were now at the edge of the shore. “The ice is rotten.” Deering repeated, “it can’t hold you.”“I’m all right enough, I guess,” Finch called back. “I’m light enough. So long!”The two boys stood breathless, watching the retreating figure.“What’ll we do,” exclaimed Jimmie, turning a ghastly face to his friend. “It won’t hold him.”“No, I know it won’t.... Jake! Jake!” Tony called.There was no reply. “Quick!” exclaimed Deering, “get those planks there—we’ll run ‘em along the ice, and have something to hold to if we go in. We’ve got to follow. Quick, Jim!”They dashed to a point a few yards up the shore where some heavy planks had been placed by the skaters early in the season to serve as seats in putting on and taking off their skates. It was the work of a second to rip up two of them, and slide them out on the ice in the direction Finch had gone.By this time the runaway boy was about twenty yards from shore, he had stopped for the moment and was watching them curiously. When he saw them slide the planks out, he started again, heading for the opposite bank from which the dark woods loomed up. They could see him distinctly, trying to slide, his foot catching every second in the soft ice.Suddenly there was a cry. “There he goes!” cried Jimmie, as Finch disappeared beneath the ice.They pushed breathlessly, incautiously forward, sending the planks on ahead of them. Finch rose in the middle of the great hole that his plunge had made. They could hear him sputter and see him splash helpless in the pool of dark water and broken bits of rotten ice. He could swim, and had got to the edge of the circle of water, and was clutching desperately at the firmer ice. But each time it gave way, enlarging the hole, but bringing the boy very little nearer his would-be rescuers.“Stick to it, Jake!” Tony called. “We’ll get you out, if you can hold out. Quick, Jim. Slide the plank out.”On they went, fearful every instant that they would be in like predicament. “There’s no use,” said Jimmie. “If we only had a rope!”“Well, we haven’t, and he can’t hold out till we get one.”At that very second Finch lost his hold again and for the second time slipped beneath the icy waters of the Pond. He came up in a moment, splashing again. “Help, help!” he called despairingly.“All right—hold out—we’re coming.” They had got the plank well out now toward the struggling boy. “Hold out, Jake—We’ll get it to you.”Inch by inch they got it nearer. But Finch was becoming exhausted.“He can’t do it!” cried Jimmie. “Oh, God help us! What shall we do? What shall we do?”“Look here,” said Tony. “I am going in after him if he goes down again. Keep the plank out and I can get hold of it, and hang on, maybe, till you get back with help. Yell for Ned to stay and help here, if he can. Then run to the farmhouse and get a rope. And for God’s sake, go quick, Jim.”“Tony! don’t—you can’t!”“I’ve got to. Hold on, Jake,” he cried again. The end of the plank was at the edge of the hole. Finch clutched at it, but his strength was gone. “I can’t,” he cried feebly, and sank again.“Do as I told you, now,” said Tony. He ripped off his coat and shoes and was sliding forward. As he neared the hole, suddenly the ice crushed beneath his weight, and he sank into the bitter depths. In a second he was at the surface, and striking out boldlyto the spot where Finch had gone down. He dived once, got hold of Finch’s body, clasped it, and with terrible effort got to the surface again. Jimmie had pushed the plank almost within his reach. He clasped it tightly, and managed by its aid to keep his own and Finch’s head above water. Finch seemed lifeless. “A rope, a rope,” called Tony.Lawrence was already crawling back to the shore, where Clavering, who had heard the commotion, had run down to meet him.“Finch fell in—Tony’s gone in after him, and he’s got him, and’s clinging to a plank. Do what you can. I’m off for a rope at the Red Farmhouse.”Clavering took in the situation at a glance. And as Lawrence began to start across the marsh, he began to haul a heavier plank out on the ice, calling out encouragement to Tony as he did so.Jimmie ran like the wind, and at last reached the farmhouse on the edge of the marshes. “A rope, a rope,” he cried, to the astonished farmer into whose kitchen he had burst. “There’s two boys drowning in the Pond.”In ten minutes Jimmie, the farmer and his son, were back at the edge of the Pond, with a stout rope which had a noose at the end. “Hurry up!” called Clavering, “he’s holding out.”i292WITH TERRIBLE EFFORT HE GOT TO THE SURFACE AGAINIn a moment they were out on the ice and had thrown the noosed rope to Tony, clinging for dear life to the plank. He managed to get it about his shoulders, then the four, the two boys on the ice, and the farmer and his son on the shore, began to pull. It was a struggle, but at last their efforts proved successful and Tony, half-dead with the cold and almost paralyzed from the burden of Finch’s lifeless body, was hauled out on firm ice, and then carried to the shore. There the farmer’s wife had arrived with blankets and whisky. They swathed the two half-drowned boys in the blankets; the farmer and his son picked up Finch, whom they thought was dead; Lawrence and Clavering did the same for Deering, and in a few moments they were at the Red Farm. Mrs. Simpson, the farmer’s wife, had already telephoned for a doctor and to the School.Soon Doctor Carter, the school physician, and Doctor Forester himself, arrived on the scene. They gave directions for Tony to be well wrapped in blankets and to be taken at once to the school infirmary, and then set to work in the effort to restore Finch to consciousness.Jimmie drove up to the Infirmary in the farmer’s wagon with Tony, and helped the nurses get him to bed. Then for two hours he waited for the news from the farmhouse. It was after eleven when at last a ring came on the telephone. Jimmie sprang to the receiver. It was Doctor Forester, wanting the head nurse. “Finch is just living,” he said. “We will bring him up later. Tell the nurse I wish to speak to her.”
SELF-SACRIFICE
It was a warm muggy night. A pale moon shone dimly through the mists, and the buildings of the school cast long shadows across the campus, giving a weird uncanny effect to the scene, of which the boys were immediately conscious as they came out of the Doctor’s study.
They waited for a moment outside, straining their eyes for a sight of Finch. Suddenly Jimmie discerned a dark figure just disappearing over the brow of the hill. “There he goes,” he cried, “over the hills towards the beach.”
“All right—after him!” urged Tony, and set the pace at a rapid trot. Lawrence and Clavering kept close behind.
In a few moments they had reached the brow of the hill over which Lawrence had seen the figure disappear. They paused for a moment to look about them. Out of range of the lights of the school, the mists were less confusing and the moonlight more effective. Tony was searching the beach with his eyes. “I can’t make out a thing,” he said. “Do you see anything of him, Ned?”
“Not a thing,” Clavering answered. “Are you sure, Jim, you saw him a moment ago?”
“Dead sure. Look there! isn’t that him?”
“Where?”
“Down by the road—near the marshes.” He pointed eagerly.
“Yes, yes,” cried Tony. “Come on. He’s no good at running. We ought to catch him before he reaches the Pond. If he gets to the Woods, there’s no knowing where to find him.”
They started down the hill at a rapid pace.
“He would have to go round the Pond to get into the Woods,” said Clavering as they ran. “The ice is rotten; he can’t cross the Pond. So let’s go to the north and cut him off.”
“You do that, Ned,” suggested Tony. “Cut in at the farmhouse by the head of the Pond; Jim and I will keep right on. He may never stop to think that the ice has gone rotten.”
“All right. Look, he’s slowing up.” They could see with fair distinctness.
Finch, for it was he, had reached the foot of the hill. He paused for a moment, seeming to hesitate between the Old Beach Road and the path across the marshes; and apparently chose the latter, for he crossed the road, and climbed the stone wall. Ignorant that he was so closely followed, he had not been running very fast, so that our friends were rapidly gaining upon him. By the time they had reached the foot of the hill, he was only halfway across the marshes; and was forced to pick his way, for he was not very familiar with the ground, and was handicapped by his frequent stumbling against a stone. In some places the ground was hard and frozen, in others it was wet and muddy.
“Cut across now to the head of the Pond,” saidTony, as the three clambered over the stone wall which divided the marshes from the road. “We can catch him all right.”
Clavering diverged, as Deering suggested, and the other two kept on directly in Finch’s track. It was difficult to run over the uneven ground, and once Jimmie tripped and fell over a boulder, so that they were delayed for a moment. The marshes were about two hundred yards wide, and ended at the high bank which had been built up around Beaver Pond, which was used as a reservoir. Beyond loomed the dark ridges of Lovel’s Woods, ghostly in the pale misty moonlight.
As Finch emerged at last from the uneven, reed-choked ground of the marshes, Tony and Jimmie were scarcely fifty yards behind him. Suddenly he heard the sound of their pattering feet, and turned and stood still like a startled deer to listen. Then, as he made out the dark forms so little behind him, he ran rapidly up the steep bank of the Pond.
“Jake, Jake, wait for me!” Tony called. “It’s Deering—wait a second!”
Finch now on the top of the bank, stopped again. Our two friends out of breath, paused at the bottom. Hardly a dozen yards divided them.
“Wait a second! What’s your hurry?” Tony repeated, starting forward again, but at that very moment his foot caught in a loose stone and he went sprawling, and Jimmie, too late to turn aside, fell on top of him. Finch did not move, but waited a moment, while the two picked themselves up. No damage was done, but they were windless.
“Who are you?” Finch called down.
“It’s me—Tony Deering.”
Again they started to climb the bank. Finch stooped quickly and picked up a couple of enormous stones.
“Stop there!” he cried. “If you come up that bank, I’ll fire this at your head. I mean it.”
The two pursuers stopped involuntarily.
“Throw that rock down. What’s the matter with you?” cried Tony sharply.
“It don’t make any difference. What are you following me for? What do you want with me?”
“I want to know what on earth you are cutting out for like this. What’s the matter? we’re not going to hurt you.”
“No, I know you’re not. Mind—don’t take a step, or I’ll fire this at your head. I’ve chucked the whole thing. I’m clearing out, d’ye hear? I won’t be stopped.”
“Look here, Jake; you’re crazy. Don’t act like——”
“Maybe I am, but that don’t alter the fact that you are not coming up that bank without getting this in your head. I won’t be followed.”
“For goodness’ sake, Jake, listen to reason.” Tony began to advance cautiously.
“Back!” cried Finch. “Get back, if you’ve anything to say.” And he poised the rock threateningly.
Tony stopped a moment, willing to accomplish by persuasion what he was determined to effect by force if need be. “All right,” he agreed. “We’ll cry a truce for a minute. Don’t be an ass, now—tell me what’s the trouble and where you are cutting out to.”
“Who sent you after me?” demanded Finch.
“Mr. Roylston came——”
“Pah!” Jake uttered an exclamation of profound disgust.
“Mr. Roylston,” Tony repeated, “burst into Doctor Forester’s study, and said that you had been abusing him, and that you had lit out some place, and then he came near falling into a faint. So we started after you. This is no way to——”
“Well, I don’t care whether it’s a way or not,” interrupted Finch. “I’m done with the school. I’m chucking it.”
“Well, for goodness’ sake, don’t do it in a fool way like this. Come back and take your medicine like a man.”
“I’m tired of taking medicine,” Finch replied bitterly. “I’ve taken all I ever mean to in that school, anyway.”
“Where are you going?”
“That’s my affair.”
“Well, come back, and you can go off decently to-morrow.”
“No—I’d back down to-morrow like the shivering scared fool I’ve always been. To-night, I’m up to it. I’m going now—to-night.”
“Where?”
“Oh, I dunno—it don’t make any difference—away from here.”
“Look here, Jake; that’s a pretty mean way to treat me—to say nothing of the school.”
“Well, I’m sorry if you feel that way. But I don’t owe the school anything.”
“Yes, you do, a lot; the Doctor—Bill——”
“Back!” cried Finch sharply. “Don’t try to sneak up on me. Let me alone. Maybe I’ll write and let you know where I am. But I am going to cut out to-night.”
Tony glanced at Jimmie who was close by his side. “Let’s risk it, Jim,” he whispered, “he can only hit one of us, I reckon.” “All right—heave ahead!” Jimmie responded in a low tone.
Without wasting further words the two boys began to dash up the steep bank.
“Get down there!” Finch yelled. “I’m going to throw.” He raised his arm, but something paralyzed his vicious intention. It seemed to him that he tried to throw and could not. The big stone fell crashing from his hand, and rolled harmlessly down the bank. Finch turned, and with a cry sprang toward the icy surface of the Pond. When the boys got to the top of the bank, he was already a dozen feet out on the Pond.
“For God’s sake, Jake, don’t try to cross the Pond. The ice is rotten.” Tony and Jimmie were now at the edge of the shore. “The ice is rotten.” Deering repeated, “it can’t hold you.”
“I’m all right enough, I guess,” Finch called back. “I’m light enough. So long!”
The two boys stood breathless, watching the retreating figure.
“What’ll we do,” exclaimed Jimmie, turning a ghastly face to his friend. “It won’t hold him.”
“No, I know it won’t.... Jake! Jake!” Tony called.
There was no reply. “Quick!” exclaimed Deering, “get those planks there—we’ll run ‘em along the ice, and have something to hold to if we go in. We’ve got to follow. Quick, Jim!”
They dashed to a point a few yards up the shore where some heavy planks had been placed by the skaters early in the season to serve as seats in putting on and taking off their skates. It was the work of a second to rip up two of them, and slide them out on the ice in the direction Finch had gone.
By this time the runaway boy was about twenty yards from shore, he had stopped for the moment and was watching them curiously. When he saw them slide the planks out, he started again, heading for the opposite bank from which the dark woods loomed up. They could see him distinctly, trying to slide, his foot catching every second in the soft ice.
Suddenly there was a cry. “There he goes!” cried Jimmie, as Finch disappeared beneath the ice.
They pushed breathlessly, incautiously forward, sending the planks on ahead of them. Finch rose in the middle of the great hole that his plunge had made. They could hear him sputter and see him splash helpless in the pool of dark water and broken bits of rotten ice. He could swim, and had got to the edge of the circle of water, and was clutching desperately at the firmer ice. But each time it gave way, enlarging the hole, but bringing the boy very little nearer his would-be rescuers.
“Stick to it, Jake!” Tony called. “We’ll get you out, if you can hold out. Quick, Jim. Slide the plank out.”
On they went, fearful every instant that they would be in like predicament. “There’s no use,” said Jimmie. “If we only had a rope!”
“Well, we haven’t, and he can’t hold out till we get one.”
At that very second Finch lost his hold again and for the second time slipped beneath the icy waters of the Pond. He came up in a moment, splashing again. “Help, help!” he called despairingly.
“All right—hold out—we’re coming.” They had got the plank well out now toward the struggling boy. “Hold out, Jake—We’ll get it to you.”
Inch by inch they got it nearer. But Finch was becoming exhausted.
“He can’t do it!” cried Jimmie. “Oh, God help us! What shall we do? What shall we do?”
“Look here,” said Tony. “I am going in after him if he goes down again. Keep the plank out and I can get hold of it, and hang on, maybe, till you get back with help. Yell for Ned to stay and help here, if he can. Then run to the farmhouse and get a rope. And for God’s sake, go quick, Jim.”
“Tony! don’t—you can’t!”
“I’ve got to. Hold on, Jake,” he cried again. The end of the plank was at the edge of the hole. Finch clutched at it, but his strength was gone. “I can’t,” he cried feebly, and sank again.
“Do as I told you, now,” said Tony. He ripped off his coat and shoes and was sliding forward. As he neared the hole, suddenly the ice crushed beneath his weight, and he sank into the bitter depths. In a second he was at the surface, and striking out boldlyto the spot where Finch had gone down. He dived once, got hold of Finch’s body, clasped it, and with terrible effort got to the surface again. Jimmie had pushed the plank almost within his reach. He clasped it tightly, and managed by its aid to keep his own and Finch’s head above water. Finch seemed lifeless. “A rope, a rope,” called Tony.
Lawrence was already crawling back to the shore, where Clavering, who had heard the commotion, had run down to meet him.
“Finch fell in—Tony’s gone in after him, and he’s got him, and’s clinging to a plank. Do what you can. I’m off for a rope at the Red Farmhouse.”
Clavering took in the situation at a glance. And as Lawrence began to start across the marsh, he began to haul a heavier plank out on the ice, calling out encouragement to Tony as he did so.
Jimmie ran like the wind, and at last reached the farmhouse on the edge of the marshes. “A rope, a rope,” he cried, to the astonished farmer into whose kitchen he had burst. “There’s two boys drowning in the Pond.”
In ten minutes Jimmie, the farmer and his son, were back at the edge of the Pond, with a stout rope which had a noose at the end. “Hurry up!” called Clavering, “he’s holding out.”
i292
WITH TERRIBLE EFFORT HE GOT TO THE SURFACE AGAIN
WITH TERRIBLE EFFORT HE GOT TO THE SURFACE AGAIN
WITH TERRIBLE EFFORT HE GOT TO THE SURFACE AGAIN
In a moment they were out on the ice and had thrown the noosed rope to Tony, clinging for dear life to the plank. He managed to get it about his shoulders, then the four, the two boys on the ice, and the farmer and his son on the shore, began to pull. It was a struggle, but at last their efforts proved successful and Tony, half-dead with the cold and almost paralyzed from the burden of Finch’s lifeless body, was hauled out on firm ice, and then carried to the shore. There the farmer’s wife had arrived with blankets and whisky. They swathed the two half-drowned boys in the blankets; the farmer and his son picked up Finch, whom they thought was dead; Lawrence and Clavering did the same for Deering, and in a few moments they were at the Red Farm. Mrs. Simpson, the farmer’s wife, had already telephoned for a doctor and to the School.
Soon Doctor Carter, the school physician, and Doctor Forester himself, arrived on the scene. They gave directions for Tony to be well wrapped in blankets and to be taken at once to the school infirmary, and then set to work in the effort to restore Finch to consciousness.
Jimmie drove up to the Infirmary in the farmer’s wagon with Tony, and helped the nurses get him to bed. Then for two hours he waited for the news from the farmhouse. It was after eleven when at last a ring came on the telephone. Jimmie sprang to the receiver. It was Doctor Forester, wanting the head nurse. “Finch is just living,” he said. “We will bring him up later. Tell the nurse I wish to speak to her.”
CHAPTER XXIITHE CHAPELOn the morrow the school learned the thrilling story of the night. The boys were filled with wonder at the heroism, only to be cast into the depths of anxiety by the news from the Infirmary. Finch, though living, was in a high fever and delirious; doomed, if he ultimately recovered, the physician said, to do so only after a severe illness. Deering was threatened with pneumonia. For nearly a week the issues were not certain. Then at last came the welcome announcement that Tony was out of danger and by another week would be about. Finch’s malady had developed into brain fever. It would be weeks before a crisis was reached; months before recovery could be hoped for.Clavering and Lawrence told the story of the rescue, and left nothing to the imagination in their assertion and account of Tony’s heroism. In the excitement with which the boys listened to the tale and with which they waited for Tony’s reappearance that they might give him a splendid ovation, it was practically forgotten—and indeed few knew—why Finch had started across the Pond that night. The scene in the Rectory study when Mr. Roylston had appeared, was kept a strict secret, owing to the Head Master’s explicit injunctions.One night, shortly after the episode, the first night that any favorable news had come from the Infirmary, as Doctor Forester was sitting before his study fire, there came a tap on the door, and in response to his summons, Mr. Roylston entered.“Ah, I am glad to see you,” said the Head, who had been waiting, a little impatiently, for his assistant master to seek this interview. “Have a cigar?” he added.“No, thank you,” said Mr. Roylston, seating himself in a straight-backed chair. “I have come—as soon as I could recover from the shock of recent events—to tell you what I know—what led me several nights ago, to bring Finch here.”“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I want to hear all about it. I have foreborne to question you, though I realized there was something behind it which in good time you would explain. Fortunately now, we are assured that Deering is out of danger. The doctor holds out some small hope for poor Finch, but it will be a tough pull.”“Yes, I fear so. I hope, I hope deeply that he will recover. I am relieved to know that Deering is better.” He paused for a moment, as though he could scarcely bring himself to say what was on his mind. “Doctor Forester, I have come to-night not only to give you an explanation but to make a confession.”“Yes,” said the Head in a sympathetic tone.“I have always tried, sir, to do my duty in this school according to my light.”“Yes,” said Doctor Forester, “I believe that, my friend.”“But my light, sir, has often,—always, I fear, been a poor one.”“Ah,” interposed the older man, “who of us would dare say otherwise? We all fall short, every one.”“Possibly—but all are not too proud, as I have been, to acknowledge it. I have never acknowledged it, sir, until to-night—not even to myself.” He paused again, to continue presently, as he shaded his face with his hand, “I will not go into details, but I want to put it boldly, baldly. I have been hard, hard to the degree of cruelty, on that poor boy who is lying now in the delirium of a dangerous fever. God forgive me!... I disapproved, sir, of your taking him here, and though, even now, I cannot say that I think you were wise in that——”“Alas, no!” interrupted the Head Master, “not if we are to judge by the immediate results. But I think I see deeper....”The master thought a moment in silence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think you do. It is having a wider, a deeper effect than I have realized.... But he, poor boy, has suffered, and I have so often, so uncharitably, made him suffer; while those, whom I have not liked, Morris, young Deering, and others, have been kind. It is terrible to me, sir, now to think of that suffering.”“Yes, my friend, yes; I think it must be. You have been hard, too hard; but, thank God, righteousness comes of suffering. I can see, oh, in so many ways, how poor Finch’s suffering is teaching us all a lesson, teaching us a truer religion, a sweeter, kinder philosophy of life.”“As I said,” Mr. Roylston resumed, “I was hard on him, hard on Deering, whom poor Finch worshiped with passionate adoration. And I accused Finch of cheating—he had not sometimes been strictly honest—but on that occasion, I misjudged him—wounded him deeply—he may have resisted a keen temptation. At any rate, worn-out, half-crazed, quite desperate, he came to me that night and made a passionate attack on me. His language was ill-tempered, ill-judged, violent!—but the awful part of it to me is, that in substance his accusations were justified. I had been, as he told me, so terribly cruel, hard, mean. I could not end the scene, unseemly as it was; for my conscience was accusing me more bitterly, more deeply, more violently than that poor half-crazed lad.... At last, scarcely knowing what to do, I sought to bring him to you.... At the very door of this room, he turned and fled. I feared he meant, as he had practically threatened, to destroy himself. And but for Deering how nearly he succeeded!”“Yes, yes,” said the Head Master gently, “I see, I see....”“And I have,” continued Mr. Roylston, “I have too been hard on Deering—have not acknowledged in him the qualities—manliness, honor, unselfishness—which I have known were there. He gladly sprang to the chance of laying down his life for the poor little abandoned wretch for whom I could not find a kind word. God forgive me, Doctor, I cannot forgive myself.”“God does forgive you, my friend,” said the Head,without looking up. He had been gazing into the fire, thinking deeply.Mr. Roylston did not reply to this remark, and for a few moments both men sat in silence, staring into the fire, absorbed in their thoughts.It was Doctor Forester at last who spoke again. “It would be easy, my friend, to assure you that you exaggerate, that you do yourself injustice; and, in truth, I think you do. But I have no wish to urge that view upon you; for I believe, to be quite frank, that there is a poor weaker side to all of us that we never have a chance of conquering altogether unless we recognize it, and if for a long time we have not recognized it or have deceived ourselves, nothing is so good for us as a frank confession. As for the details of the incidents to which you refer, of course I am in ignorance, and I prefer to be. So far as I have observed your treatment toward Finch, it merited no criticism; and as for your attitude toward Deering, I have nothing to say that I did not say the night we discussed his appointment to the Head Prefectship. I thought you severe but not unjust. As a matter of fact, if you feel now that you could wish you had taken another course, I may tell you that I do not think the fact that Deering is not Head Prefect has in the least interfered with his popularity or his influence with the boys. Clavering has made him his right hand man.”“I am glad of that,” said Mr. Roylston.“And now, after this rescue of Finch at the risk of his own life,—undoubtedly he will be the strongest boy in school.”“I think that I should like to tell him that I do fully forgive him—that I regret my stand with regard to his appointment.”“Well,” said the Head Master, “I think that he would like to hear.”With that Mr. Roylston said good-night. He walked over to the Infirmary at once and enquired about the two boys. Finch’s condition was still unsatisfactory, but Deering was very much better—and, yes, he was quite able to see Mr. Roylston if the master desired.Tony was still in bed, but he looked splendidly well and bright as he lay in the cool white cot, which had been pushed near the open log fire. A nurse had been reading to him. He had had a close call, but now he was practically himself again and would be going down in a few days.He was surprised to see Mr. Roylston, but not in the least embarrassed. He shook hands cordially. The master enquired about his health, made some perfunctory remarks about the rescue and about the school, fidgeting and ill at ease, until the nurse took the hint and slipped away.“I came,” he said then, as he drew up the chair near the bedside and took a seat, “not only to enquire about you, as I have been doing daily, but to have a little talk with you, since I know you are practically all right again.”“Yes, sir,” said Tony.“Do you know, Anthony,” asked Mr. Roylston suddenly, “why it was that Jacob Finch tried to run away that night?”“Why, no, sir—I don’t—not altogether, that is. Poor Jake was in a bad way; things had been getting pretty hard for him for one reason or another, and he was making them still harder for himself. I did hear that you caught him cheating in your Latin examination, and I just supposed that that was the last straw. He’s always been rather friendly with me, but he was so vicious that night down by the pond, refusing altogether to tell me why he was cutting out, that I thought him a little out of his head. But I supposed the cheating was really responsible.”“Well,” rejoined Mr. Roylston, after a moment’s reflection, “as a matter of fact I was altogether mistaken about his cheating in that particular examination. I believe what he afterwards told me, that he had not cheated at all; though, as he also acknowledged he had cheated so often before that I can hardly blame myself for suspecting him.”“Yes, I know,” said Tony; “I am afraid poor Jake lost all hold of himself. He was not naturally a cheat or a story-teller, but—but—well, I try to think he wasn’t altogether responsible.”“Perhaps not—that night in my room, at all events, he quite lost control of himself as a result of my accusation, and he told me in a very bitter language that my attitude toward him had been one of the chief causes of his unhappiness here at Deal.”Tony scarcely knew what to say to this, for of course he remembered how bitterly Finch had always hated Mr. Roylston. The master, however, did not expect a reply. “I think,” he went on, “that there was a good deal of justice in what the boy said, though I didnot mean to go into that with you to-night. Among other things he told me that night that he intensely resented my attitude toward you.”Tony laughed a little. “Jake showed equally bad judgment whether he greatly liked or disliked a person.”“Well,” continued Mr. Roylston, “right or wrong, his remarks have caused me to think things over very seriously the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that in this also Finch was right. I was hard on you—too hard.”Tony lay still for a moment, thinking; finally he raised himself a little and looked at the master intently. “Mr. Roylston,” he said, “it’s mighty white of you to come and say this to me. In return I want to tell you just one thing—the one thing I have against you—the rest has been give and take, and none of it, it seems to me, very serious. I know I have annoyed you a great many times and that occasionally in Lower School days I was more or less impertinent, but I did one thing that I was thoroughly ashamed of and thoroughly sorry for. As for your soaking me a lot in the old days, as for your preventing me from being Head Prefect, I’ve borne no grudge. I think you were pretty stiff—I think honestly you are too stiff as to discipline most of the time—but I never thought you were unfair or unjust, and I have but one grudge against you. And that is that when I apologized to you for writing that thing a year ago you wouldn’t accept my apology really; you wouldn’t believe I was sorry.”“Well, I believe so now,” said Mr. Roylston,“and it is to tell you that particularly that I have come here to-night.”“I’m mighty glad, sir. That’s all I ever blamed you for, sir,—really. I have often complained of you in a noisy careless kind of way, as I have of other masters, but that was all guff. I didn’t any more really mean those things than I supposed you meant things when you would look at us sometimes as if we were actually beneath contempt.”Mr. Roylston reflected a moment. “I am afraid,” he continued, “that on my side, I do regret a great many things. I have been genuinely lacking in sympathy more than once. I have often been unnecessarily hard. It has not been right; and, as you see, I regret it. The more keenly, I fancy, as my lack of sympathy in this particular case of Finch counted a great deal in what so nearly meant a tragedy.”“Well, fortunately, it wasn’t one, sir. The nurse tells me that they think poor Jake will pull through.”“Yes, but he will not get back to work again this term; there is no chance of that.”“What do you think, sir, will happen to him? what will he do next year?”“Well, I am beginning to feel as I have never felt before that after all this the situation will clear itself, will be changed. I fancy he will stay on at Deal next year, and I begin to think that we will know how then to help him make good.”“Really?—well, I wish he could. I’d feel pretty good to know that poor Jake had made good here. I’m afraid I haven’t helped him very much.”“Haven’t helped him very much!” exclaimedMr. Roylston. “Though what you have done for him may seem not to have counted just now, I feel very certain that it will appear to count tremendously later.”“Why, sir—I really didn’t do anything.”Mr. Roylston smiled. “Well, I must not talk with you any longer. Good-night, Anthony. I hope you will get down very soon, and I trust that in the future we will understand one another a little better.”“I am sure we will, sir. And thank you ever so much for coming up.”“I fancy,” Mr. Roylston murmured to himself, as he left the room, “I fancy that hereafter I shall understand all boys a little better.”On the Sunday of the week that Tony was in the Infirmary, the Doctor took the opportunity to make some remarks about the boy’s act of heroism in the course of his sermon in the Chapel.“Fortunately,” he said, “one of the boys about whom we have been so anxious the past few days is now quite out of danger and will soon be amongst us once more, and though the other must still undergo a long and severe illness the physicians hold out strong hope of his ultimate recovery.“Naturally,” he continued, “such a dramatic incident as the rescue of one boy by another at the risk of his life has brought vividly before our minds the characters of the two boys principally involved, their situation and relation to the school. One of these boys as we know has had the advantages of a normal, happy, healthy boyhood, the other through misfortune has been deprived of almost all that thefirst boy has enjoyed. But the self-forgetful service of the one for the other, a service that culminated in heroism when he freely risked his life to save the other’s, has set us all an example of kindliness and consideration, an example of true religion, of unselfish Christian service, that we should take to heart....“There have been criticisms in connection with this affair that Deal School is only adapted to dealing with and caring for the happy, healthy, lucky type of boy. I do not think so. Despite much that has been unfortunate, despite much suffering that has been involved and still may be involved, despite even the lives that have been risked, it has been a thing tremendously worth while to the school to have had that less fortunate, less happy boy amongst us.“It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. A school altogether fails, just as a human life altogether fails, if at heart and in spirit, it is not dedicated, so far as opportunity permits, to the service of men. The lesson of this incident is the lesson that I would we might all learn from the school.”The Doctor’s sermon was not the kind of a sermon to be much discussed, but it made a deep impressionon the school. For one or two masters and for several boys it was the inspiration as they knelt later of as earnest prayer as they had ever offered.Doctor Forester had been going frequently to the Infirmary to see Tony, and after the first few days he had continued his confirmation instructions so that Deering could keep up with the class.Tony’s first appearance amongst the boys after his convalescence was in the Chapel at the preparatory service the night before the confirmation. It was a quiet little service, conducted by the Bishop and the Head. Again the theme of the address was service—a theme that in some fashion or other seemed to have flashed in and out of all Tony’s consciousness and experience for the past year.As he knelt that night in the dim Chapel and offered up a grateful thanksgiving that life and health had been spared to him, he resolved more definitely and consciously than ever before that whatever he did in the world thereafter he would never live wholly or selfishly for himself.And in after years he was to look back on that night, as he looked back on the night on the beach when he had walked with Mr. Morris, as another important moment in the process of his coming to himself.
THE CHAPEL
On the morrow the school learned the thrilling story of the night. The boys were filled with wonder at the heroism, only to be cast into the depths of anxiety by the news from the Infirmary. Finch, though living, was in a high fever and delirious; doomed, if he ultimately recovered, the physician said, to do so only after a severe illness. Deering was threatened with pneumonia. For nearly a week the issues were not certain. Then at last came the welcome announcement that Tony was out of danger and by another week would be about. Finch’s malady had developed into brain fever. It would be weeks before a crisis was reached; months before recovery could be hoped for.
Clavering and Lawrence told the story of the rescue, and left nothing to the imagination in their assertion and account of Tony’s heroism. In the excitement with which the boys listened to the tale and with which they waited for Tony’s reappearance that they might give him a splendid ovation, it was practically forgotten—and indeed few knew—why Finch had started across the Pond that night. The scene in the Rectory study when Mr. Roylston had appeared, was kept a strict secret, owing to the Head Master’s explicit injunctions.
One night, shortly after the episode, the first night that any favorable news had come from the Infirmary, as Doctor Forester was sitting before his study fire, there came a tap on the door, and in response to his summons, Mr. Roylston entered.
“Ah, I am glad to see you,” said the Head, who had been waiting, a little impatiently, for his assistant master to seek this interview. “Have a cigar?” he added.
“No, thank you,” said Mr. Roylston, seating himself in a straight-backed chair. “I have come—as soon as I could recover from the shock of recent events—to tell you what I know—what led me several nights ago, to bring Finch here.”
“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I want to hear all about it. I have foreborne to question you, though I realized there was something behind it which in good time you would explain. Fortunately now, we are assured that Deering is out of danger. The doctor holds out some small hope for poor Finch, but it will be a tough pull.”
“Yes, I fear so. I hope, I hope deeply that he will recover. I am relieved to know that Deering is better.” He paused for a moment, as though he could scarcely bring himself to say what was on his mind. “Doctor Forester, I have come to-night not only to give you an explanation but to make a confession.”
“Yes,” said the Head in a sympathetic tone.
“I have always tried, sir, to do my duty in this school according to my light.”
“Yes,” said Doctor Forester, “I believe that, my friend.”
“But my light, sir, has often,—always, I fear, been a poor one.”
“Ah,” interposed the older man, “who of us would dare say otherwise? We all fall short, every one.”
“Possibly—but all are not too proud, as I have been, to acknowledge it. I have never acknowledged it, sir, until to-night—not even to myself.” He paused again, to continue presently, as he shaded his face with his hand, “I will not go into details, but I want to put it boldly, baldly. I have been hard, hard to the degree of cruelty, on that poor boy who is lying now in the delirium of a dangerous fever. God forgive me!... I disapproved, sir, of your taking him here, and though, even now, I cannot say that I think you were wise in that——”
“Alas, no!” interrupted the Head Master, “not if we are to judge by the immediate results. But I think I see deeper....”
The master thought a moment in silence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think you do. It is having a wider, a deeper effect than I have realized.... But he, poor boy, has suffered, and I have so often, so uncharitably, made him suffer; while those, whom I have not liked, Morris, young Deering, and others, have been kind. It is terrible to me, sir, now to think of that suffering.”
“Yes, my friend, yes; I think it must be. You have been hard, too hard; but, thank God, righteousness comes of suffering. I can see, oh, in so many ways, how poor Finch’s suffering is teaching us all a lesson, teaching us a truer religion, a sweeter, kinder philosophy of life.”
“As I said,” Mr. Roylston resumed, “I was hard on him, hard on Deering, whom poor Finch worshiped with passionate adoration. And I accused Finch of cheating—he had not sometimes been strictly honest—but on that occasion, I misjudged him—wounded him deeply—he may have resisted a keen temptation. At any rate, worn-out, half-crazed, quite desperate, he came to me that night and made a passionate attack on me. His language was ill-tempered, ill-judged, violent!—but the awful part of it to me is, that in substance his accusations were justified. I had been, as he told me, so terribly cruel, hard, mean. I could not end the scene, unseemly as it was; for my conscience was accusing me more bitterly, more deeply, more violently than that poor half-crazed lad.... At last, scarcely knowing what to do, I sought to bring him to you.... At the very door of this room, he turned and fled. I feared he meant, as he had practically threatened, to destroy himself. And but for Deering how nearly he succeeded!”
“Yes, yes,” said the Head Master gently, “I see, I see....”
“And I have,” continued Mr. Roylston, “I have too been hard on Deering—have not acknowledged in him the qualities—manliness, honor, unselfishness—which I have known were there. He gladly sprang to the chance of laying down his life for the poor little abandoned wretch for whom I could not find a kind word. God forgive me, Doctor, I cannot forgive myself.”
“God does forgive you, my friend,” said the Head,without looking up. He had been gazing into the fire, thinking deeply.
Mr. Roylston did not reply to this remark, and for a few moments both men sat in silence, staring into the fire, absorbed in their thoughts.
It was Doctor Forester at last who spoke again. “It would be easy, my friend, to assure you that you exaggerate, that you do yourself injustice; and, in truth, I think you do. But I have no wish to urge that view upon you; for I believe, to be quite frank, that there is a poor weaker side to all of us that we never have a chance of conquering altogether unless we recognize it, and if for a long time we have not recognized it or have deceived ourselves, nothing is so good for us as a frank confession. As for the details of the incidents to which you refer, of course I am in ignorance, and I prefer to be. So far as I have observed your treatment toward Finch, it merited no criticism; and as for your attitude toward Deering, I have nothing to say that I did not say the night we discussed his appointment to the Head Prefectship. I thought you severe but not unjust. As a matter of fact, if you feel now that you could wish you had taken another course, I may tell you that I do not think the fact that Deering is not Head Prefect has in the least interfered with his popularity or his influence with the boys. Clavering has made him his right hand man.”
“I am glad of that,” said Mr. Roylston.
“And now, after this rescue of Finch at the risk of his own life,—undoubtedly he will be the strongest boy in school.”
“I think that I should like to tell him that I do fully forgive him—that I regret my stand with regard to his appointment.”
“Well,” said the Head Master, “I think that he would like to hear.”
With that Mr. Roylston said good-night. He walked over to the Infirmary at once and enquired about the two boys. Finch’s condition was still unsatisfactory, but Deering was very much better—and, yes, he was quite able to see Mr. Roylston if the master desired.
Tony was still in bed, but he looked splendidly well and bright as he lay in the cool white cot, which had been pushed near the open log fire. A nurse had been reading to him. He had had a close call, but now he was practically himself again and would be going down in a few days.
He was surprised to see Mr. Roylston, but not in the least embarrassed. He shook hands cordially. The master enquired about his health, made some perfunctory remarks about the rescue and about the school, fidgeting and ill at ease, until the nurse took the hint and slipped away.
“I came,” he said then, as he drew up the chair near the bedside and took a seat, “not only to enquire about you, as I have been doing daily, but to have a little talk with you, since I know you are practically all right again.”
“Yes, sir,” said Tony.
“Do you know, Anthony,” asked Mr. Roylston suddenly, “why it was that Jacob Finch tried to run away that night?”
“Why, no, sir—I don’t—not altogether, that is. Poor Jake was in a bad way; things had been getting pretty hard for him for one reason or another, and he was making them still harder for himself. I did hear that you caught him cheating in your Latin examination, and I just supposed that that was the last straw. He’s always been rather friendly with me, but he was so vicious that night down by the pond, refusing altogether to tell me why he was cutting out, that I thought him a little out of his head. But I supposed the cheating was really responsible.”
“Well,” rejoined Mr. Roylston, after a moment’s reflection, “as a matter of fact I was altogether mistaken about his cheating in that particular examination. I believe what he afterwards told me, that he had not cheated at all; though, as he also acknowledged he had cheated so often before that I can hardly blame myself for suspecting him.”
“Yes, I know,” said Tony; “I am afraid poor Jake lost all hold of himself. He was not naturally a cheat or a story-teller, but—but—well, I try to think he wasn’t altogether responsible.”
“Perhaps not—that night in my room, at all events, he quite lost control of himself as a result of my accusation, and he told me in a very bitter language that my attitude toward him had been one of the chief causes of his unhappiness here at Deal.”
Tony scarcely knew what to say to this, for of course he remembered how bitterly Finch had always hated Mr. Roylston. The master, however, did not expect a reply. “I think,” he went on, “that there was a good deal of justice in what the boy said, though I didnot mean to go into that with you to-night. Among other things he told me that night that he intensely resented my attitude toward you.”
Tony laughed a little. “Jake showed equally bad judgment whether he greatly liked or disliked a person.”
“Well,” continued Mr. Roylston, “right or wrong, his remarks have caused me to think things over very seriously the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that in this also Finch was right. I was hard on you—too hard.”
Tony lay still for a moment, thinking; finally he raised himself a little and looked at the master intently. “Mr. Roylston,” he said, “it’s mighty white of you to come and say this to me. In return I want to tell you just one thing—the one thing I have against you—the rest has been give and take, and none of it, it seems to me, very serious. I know I have annoyed you a great many times and that occasionally in Lower School days I was more or less impertinent, but I did one thing that I was thoroughly ashamed of and thoroughly sorry for. As for your soaking me a lot in the old days, as for your preventing me from being Head Prefect, I’ve borne no grudge. I think you were pretty stiff—I think honestly you are too stiff as to discipline most of the time—but I never thought you were unfair or unjust, and I have but one grudge against you. And that is that when I apologized to you for writing that thing a year ago you wouldn’t accept my apology really; you wouldn’t believe I was sorry.”
“Well, I believe so now,” said Mr. Roylston,“and it is to tell you that particularly that I have come here to-night.”
“I’m mighty glad, sir. That’s all I ever blamed you for, sir,—really. I have often complained of you in a noisy careless kind of way, as I have of other masters, but that was all guff. I didn’t any more really mean those things than I supposed you meant things when you would look at us sometimes as if we were actually beneath contempt.”
Mr. Roylston reflected a moment. “I am afraid,” he continued, “that on my side, I do regret a great many things. I have been genuinely lacking in sympathy more than once. I have often been unnecessarily hard. It has not been right; and, as you see, I regret it. The more keenly, I fancy, as my lack of sympathy in this particular case of Finch counted a great deal in what so nearly meant a tragedy.”
“Well, fortunately, it wasn’t one, sir. The nurse tells me that they think poor Jake will pull through.”
“Yes, but he will not get back to work again this term; there is no chance of that.”
“What do you think, sir, will happen to him? what will he do next year?”
“Well, I am beginning to feel as I have never felt before that after all this the situation will clear itself, will be changed. I fancy he will stay on at Deal next year, and I begin to think that we will know how then to help him make good.”
“Really?—well, I wish he could. I’d feel pretty good to know that poor Jake had made good here. I’m afraid I haven’t helped him very much.”
“Haven’t helped him very much!” exclaimedMr. Roylston. “Though what you have done for him may seem not to have counted just now, I feel very certain that it will appear to count tremendously later.”
“Why, sir—I really didn’t do anything.”
Mr. Roylston smiled. “Well, I must not talk with you any longer. Good-night, Anthony. I hope you will get down very soon, and I trust that in the future we will understand one another a little better.”
“I am sure we will, sir. And thank you ever so much for coming up.”
“I fancy,” Mr. Roylston murmured to himself, as he left the room, “I fancy that hereafter I shall understand all boys a little better.”
On the Sunday of the week that Tony was in the Infirmary, the Doctor took the opportunity to make some remarks about the boy’s act of heroism in the course of his sermon in the Chapel.
“Fortunately,” he said, “one of the boys about whom we have been so anxious the past few days is now quite out of danger and will soon be amongst us once more, and though the other must still undergo a long and severe illness the physicians hold out strong hope of his ultimate recovery.
“Naturally,” he continued, “such a dramatic incident as the rescue of one boy by another at the risk of his life has brought vividly before our minds the characters of the two boys principally involved, their situation and relation to the school. One of these boys as we know has had the advantages of a normal, happy, healthy boyhood, the other through misfortune has been deprived of almost all that thefirst boy has enjoyed. But the self-forgetful service of the one for the other, a service that culminated in heroism when he freely risked his life to save the other’s, has set us all an example of kindliness and consideration, an example of true religion, of unselfish Christian service, that we should take to heart....
“There have been criticisms in connection with this affair that Deal School is only adapted to dealing with and caring for the happy, healthy, lucky type of boy. I do not think so. Despite much that has been unfortunate, despite much suffering that has been involved and still may be involved, despite even the lives that have been risked, it has been a thing tremendously worth while to the school to have had that less fortunate, less happy boy amongst us.
“It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. A school altogether fails, just as a human life altogether fails, if at heart and in spirit, it is not dedicated, so far as opportunity permits, to the service of men. The lesson of this incident is the lesson that I would we might all learn from the school.”
The Doctor’s sermon was not the kind of a sermon to be much discussed, but it made a deep impressionon the school. For one or two masters and for several boys it was the inspiration as they knelt later of as earnest prayer as they had ever offered.
Doctor Forester had been going frequently to the Infirmary to see Tony, and after the first few days he had continued his confirmation instructions so that Deering could keep up with the class.
Tony’s first appearance amongst the boys after his convalescence was in the Chapel at the preparatory service the night before the confirmation. It was a quiet little service, conducted by the Bishop and the Head. Again the theme of the address was service—a theme that in some fashion or other seemed to have flashed in and out of all Tony’s consciousness and experience for the past year.
As he knelt that night in the dim Chapel and offered up a grateful thanksgiving that life and health had been spared to him, he resolved more definitely and consciously than ever before that whatever he did in the world thereafter he would never live wholly or selfishly for himself.
And in after years he was to look back on that night, as he looked back on the night on the beach when he had walked with Mr. Morris, as another important moment in the process of his coming to himself.