Chapter Five.How my master entered and quitted the head master’s study twice in one morning.Charlie’s first care in the morning was, as I need hardly say, to pull me out from under his pillow, and consult me as to the time. None of his companions were astir, so that, not having anything particular to do, he lay still, and abandoned himself to the luxury of an idle half-hour in bed.His spirits were so greatly revived by his night’s rest that he forgot both the novelty and the loneliness of his position, and fell to polishing first his knife and then me as merrily as if he were at home. What a difference a sound sleep often makes in the aspect of our affairs! Twelve hours ago he had felt as if he could never be sufficiently bold as to whistle within the walls of Randlebury, and now the first sight and sound which greeted Halliday’s returning senses, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, was his youngprotégéwhistling to himself like a lark, and brightening me up with all his might with the corner of his blanket till I glowed again at nearly a red heat.“Who’s that kicking up that row whistling?” growled a voice from the far end of the room; “because I’d like to shy a boot at his head.”At this Charlie subsided, not desiring to gratify his unknown auditor in his benevolent desire, and very soon after jumped up and dressed himself.“Look here, youngster,” said Joe, “you’d better do my study now, as you mayn’t have time after breakfast to-day. You know which room it is—the sixth on your right when you get downstairs. Cut along, look sharp, you’ve a good half-hour.”Charlie made his way down to the lion’s den, meeting on his way several other discontented fags, bound on similar errands. He set himself to clean the window, tidy the cupboard, and generally put things square, and had succeeded fairly well in this endeavour by the time his patron made his appearance.“What’s the time?” inquired that lord of creation, running his eye rapidly round the room at the same time, to notice how his fag had done his duty.“It’s five minutes to eight,” replied Charlie, after consulting me, and highly delighted to be thus appealed to.“Come along to breakfast, then. You’ll have to sit at a different table from me; but mind and wait for me afterwards, for I’ve got to take you to the doctor.”So Charlie was conducted down to the hall to breakfast, and provided with a humble seat at the foot of the lowest table, while Joe Halliday made his way with all the dignity that became his years to a distinguished place at the highest.My master found himself among a set of noisy little boys, who amused themselves during the greater part of the meal by interchanging volleys of bread pellets, which much oftener missed their marks than reached them, in consequence of which he himself came in for the brunt of the cannonade. Once he ventured to return one of the random shots which had found its way to his fingers. Fortune favoured his aim, and his shaft hit the boy it was intended for full in the eye.“Who did that?” cried the wounded hero sharply.“I did,” replied Charlie, quite proud of his achievement.“All right, I’ll punch your head for it when we get outside.”This was by no means what Charlie had expected. He had imagined the wound would be received in the same spirit of jest in which it was aimed.“It was only in fun,” he explained; “did it hurt you?”“Of course it did,” exclaimed the injured youth, who till Charlie’s arrival had been the junior pupil of the school, and was now delighted to find some one below himself in the scale of seniority. “Of course it did, and you’ll catch it.”All the other boys laughed, and Charlie, who could not find it in him to be overawed by even so majestic a hero as little Master Johnny Walker, made the best of his position.“Look here,” he said, “I’ll give you three shots at my mouth, and if you—”“There’s too much talking at table six!” exclaimed an awful voice, and instantly every voice was hushed, including Charlie’s, who blushed to the roots of his hair, and felt as if he had been singled out before the whole school as a rioter. He gulped down his breakfast without further argument with Master Walker, and was relieved, when the meal was over, to find that that doughty warrior appeared to have altered his mind about punching his youthful head.After some time he saw Halliday beckoning to him from the other side of the room.“Now you’ve got to go to the doctor,” said he; “come along.”This was the first time my master had fully realised the solemn nature of the approaching interview, and I felt his heart flutter as he inquired,—“I say, what will he say to me?”“Oh, all sorts of things; you’d better mind what you’re up to, I can tell you,” was the reassuring reply.“Do you think I shall get in a row for driving the cab yesterday?” faltered Charlie.“Shouldn’t wonder,” was the reply.“Oh, dear! And do you think he saw me hit Johnny Walker in the eye at breakfast?”“What, were you the boy who was kicking up all that row? My eye! you’re in for it! Here you are; I’ll knock for you.”And giving the poor trembling boy not so much as an instant in which to collect his flurried ideas, Joe gave a rap at the door, which was answered at once by a sharp “Come in!” from within.“Now then,” said Halliday, “in you go.”Charlie’s knees shook under him, and he hung back from that awful door in mute terror.“Come in!” again cried the voice.“Do you hear, you young muff?” exclaimed Halliday. “Won’t you catch it! Go in, will you?”And opening the door himself he fairly pushed my poor master into the head master’s study.Fancy the agony of the poor boy, fully believing himself a doomed miscreant, entering for the first time the awful presence of the head master of Randlebury School.He stood there with downcast eyes, not daring to speak, and rooted to the spot.“Why, what’s the matter, my boy?”At the words Charlie started like one electrified. He had surely heard that voice before somewhere! He looked up, and what was his astonishment to find in his dreaded principal no other than the gentleman with whom he had yesterday spent such a friendly hour in the train between Gunborough and Randlebury!And his face was as kind as ever, and his voice encouraging, as he repeated,—“What’s the matter, my man? has the watch stopped.”“Oh, sir,” said Charlie, running up to him, “I am glad it’s you, and I’m so sorry I drove the cab, and hit Walker in the eye. I’ll never do it again!”“Tut, tut,” said the head master; “if you never do any worse than that, you won’t go far wrong. I didn’t tell you who I was yesterday, because I wanted you to manage for yourself, and fight your own battle on first arriving. Now tell me how you have got on.”And Charlie faithfully recounted to him everything, including my sudden indisposition, and my cure by Tom Drift.Dr Weldon (for that was his name) listened to his story, and then said,—“Well, you’ve made a pretty good beginning. Now try to remember this: your father has sent you here for two reasons; one is that your head may be furnished, and the other is that your character may be trained. I and your teachers can undertake the first; but it depends chiefly on you how the second succeeds. You will constantly be having to choose for yourself between what is right and what is wrong, and between what is true and what is false. Take the advice of one who has passed through all the temptations you are likely to meet here—rely always on a wisdom that is better than your own, and when once you see which way duty calls, follow that way as if your life depended on it. Do this, and you’ll turn out a far better man than the man who is talking to you. Whenever you are in trouble come to me, I shall always be glad to see you. I promised you, you know, I would ask for you occasionally, didn’t I? And now let’s see what you’ve got in your head.”And then followed a brief examination, conducted in a way which put Charlie quite at his ease, and so enabled him to acquit himself with a fair amount of credit and win from his master a commendation, which he prized not a little, for it was that his father’s efforts had not been wasted on him.“You will be put in the second-form,” said the doctor, “and if you work hard, I see no reason why you should not get up into the third next midsummer. Now, good-bye. I hope you won’t find the head master of Randlebury is as ‘stiff and stuck-up a fellow’ as you dreaded, and I trust I shall find you as honest and brave a fellow as I hoped you would turn out the first time I saw you. Good-bye.”Charlie rose to leave with overflowing heart. He even forgot in the midst of his pleasant emotion to inquire, as he had fully intended to do, after the doctor’s watch, and if it was still a quarter of an hour fast.As he left the room he could not help contrasting with thankfulness his present state of mind with that in which he had entered it an hour ago. He laughed at himself for all his foolish fears then, and as for the future, that seemed now ever so much easier and brighter.Outside the door he found Tom Drift passing along the corridor in a state of great excitement.“The very chap, I declare,” cried he. “I say, lend us your watch, young un, will you?”“What for?” asked Charlie.“Only a time race. Tom Shadbolt says he can run a mile in 4.40. I say he can’t do it under 4.50, and we’ve got a bet of half-a-crown a side upon it. So lend us your watch to time him by.”Charlie hesitated, and a pang passed through his breast. He knew that one of the things which he had promised his father was that he would have nothing to do with betting or gambling in any form, and how could he obey in this respect if he now lent me for the purpose for which I was required? And yet he owed Tom Drift no common gratitude for the good service he had done in setting me right yesterday, and surely if any one had a right to borrow me it was he. The struggle was a sore one, but soon decided.“I can’t lend it you, Tom Drift.”“Why ever not?” asked Tom sharply.“I’m very sorry; if it had been anything else—but I promised father I would not gamble.”“Young ass! who wants you to gamble? I only want you to lend us your watch.”“Youare gambling, though,” said Charlie timidly.“And what’s that got to do with you, you young idiot,” exclaimed Drift, fairly losing his temper, “if I am?”“I’m very sorry,” said Charlie, “especially as you put it all right. If it was anything else; but I can’t for this.”“Look here,” said Drift in a fury, “we’ve had fooling enough. Hand me the watch this moment, or I’ll take it and smash it, and you into the bargain!”“Oh, Tom Drift, don’t do that. I would so gladly for anything else, but I promised father—”“Once more, will you, or will you not?”“I can’t.”“Then take that!” and next moment Charlie received a blow full on the chest, which sent him staggering back against the wall.Oh, how he wished that moment he had never owned me!Tom came upon him with an angry oath, and seized him by the throat.“Will you give it up?”“No,” replied Charlie.He was fairly roused now; no boy—certainly no boy of his sort—can stand quietly by and receive undeserved blows. Tom tightened his grip on the boy’s throat, and strove to snatch me from his pocket.Quick as thought Charlie threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant the doctor’s door opened, and the head master stood gazing on the scene.Poor Charlie! five minutes ago so full of bright hopes and brave resolutions, and now, under the eyes of the very man who had inspired in him those hopes and resolutions, engaged in a common fight with a schoolfellow!“What is all this?” asked the doctor sternly. “Come in here, you two.”Charlie, with sinking heart, entered again that solemn room, and Drift followed, sulky, and with a black bruise on his forehead.Charlie left his antagonist to tell his story after his own fashion, and was too dispirited either to contradict him or seek to justify himself. He felt ashamed of himself, and in his self-humiliation saw neither defence nor extenuation for his conduct.Drift was dismissed with a few sharp words of reproof and warning. Charlie remained longer.What the doctor said to him, and what he said to the doctor, I need not here repeat. Suffice it to say, the former was able to form a fairer estimate of my master’s conduct than he himself was. He did not blame him; he even told him that no boy could expect to get through his school days without some blows, and advised him to see they were always on the right side. He talked to him long and seriously about home, and so comforted him in prospect of future difficulties and temptations, that when he left that study the second time, it was as a wiser, though perhaps a sadder boy than before.
Charlie’s first care in the morning was, as I need hardly say, to pull me out from under his pillow, and consult me as to the time. None of his companions were astir, so that, not having anything particular to do, he lay still, and abandoned himself to the luxury of an idle half-hour in bed.
His spirits were so greatly revived by his night’s rest that he forgot both the novelty and the loneliness of his position, and fell to polishing first his knife and then me as merrily as if he were at home. What a difference a sound sleep often makes in the aspect of our affairs! Twelve hours ago he had felt as if he could never be sufficiently bold as to whistle within the walls of Randlebury, and now the first sight and sound which greeted Halliday’s returning senses, as he sat up and rubbed his eyes, was his youngprotégéwhistling to himself like a lark, and brightening me up with all his might with the corner of his blanket till I glowed again at nearly a red heat.
“Who’s that kicking up that row whistling?” growled a voice from the far end of the room; “because I’d like to shy a boot at his head.”
At this Charlie subsided, not desiring to gratify his unknown auditor in his benevolent desire, and very soon after jumped up and dressed himself.
“Look here, youngster,” said Joe, “you’d better do my study now, as you mayn’t have time after breakfast to-day. You know which room it is—the sixth on your right when you get downstairs. Cut along, look sharp, you’ve a good half-hour.”
Charlie made his way down to the lion’s den, meeting on his way several other discontented fags, bound on similar errands. He set himself to clean the window, tidy the cupboard, and generally put things square, and had succeeded fairly well in this endeavour by the time his patron made his appearance.
“What’s the time?” inquired that lord of creation, running his eye rapidly round the room at the same time, to notice how his fag had done his duty.
“It’s five minutes to eight,” replied Charlie, after consulting me, and highly delighted to be thus appealed to.
“Come along to breakfast, then. You’ll have to sit at a different table from me; but mind and wait for me afterwards, for I’ve got to take you to the doctor.”
So Charlie was conducted down to the hall to breakfast, and provided with a humble seat at the foot of the lowest table, while Joe Halliday made his way with all the dignity that became his years to a distinguished place at the highest.
My master found himself among a set of noisy little boys, who amused themselves during the greater part of the meal by interchanging volleys of bread pellets, which much oftener missed their marks than reached them, in consequence of which he himself came in for the brunt of the cannonade. Once he ventured to return one of the random shots which had found its way to his fingers. Fortune favoured his aim, and his shaft hit the boy it was intended for full in the eye.
“Who did that?” cried the wounded hero sharply.
“I did,” replied Charlie, quite proud of his achievement.
“All right, I’ll punch your head for it when we get outside.”
This was by no means what Charlie had expected. He had imagined the wound would be received in the same spirit of jest in which it was aimed.
“It was only in fun,” he explained; “did it hurt you?”
“Of course it did,” exclaimed the injured youth, who till Charlie’s arrival had been the junior pupil of the school, and was now delighted to find some one below himself in the scale of seniority. “Of course it did, and you’ll catch it.”
All the other boys laughed, and Charlie, who could not find it in him to be overawed by even so majestic a hero as little Master Johnny Walker, made the best of his position.
“Look here,” he said, “I’ll give you three shots at my mouth, and if you—”
“There’s too much talking at table six!” exclaimed an awful voice, and instantly every voice was hushed, including Charlie’s, who blushed to the roots of his hair, and felt as if he had been singled out before the whole school as a rioter. He gulped down his breakfast without further argument with Master Walker, and was relieved, when the meal was over, to find that that doughty warrior appeared to have altered his mind about punching his youthful head.
After some time he saw Halliday beckoning to him from the other side of the room.
“Now you’ve got to go to the doctor,” said he; “come along.”
This was the first time my master had fully realised the solemn nature of the approaching interview, and I felt his heart flutter as he inquired,—
“I say, what will he say to me?”
“Oh, all sorts of things; you’d better mind what you’re up to, I can tell you,” was the reassuring reply.
“Do you think I shall get in a row for driving the cab yesterday?” faltered Charlie.
“Shouldn’t wonder,” was the reply.
“Oh, dear! And do you think he saw me hit Johnny Walker in the eye at breakfast?”
“What, were you the boy who was kicking up all that row? My eye! you’re in for it! Here you are; I’ll knock for you.”
And giving the poor trembling boy not so much as an instant in which to collect his flurried ideas, Joe gave a rap at the door, which was answered at once by a sharp “Come in!” from within.
“Now then,” said Halliday, “in you go.”
Charlie’s knees shook under him, and he hung back from that awful door in mute terror.
“Come in!” again cried the voice.
“Do you hear, you young muff?” exclaimed Halliday. “Won’t you catch it! Go in, will you?”
And opening the door himself he fairly pushed my poor master into the head master’s study.
Fancy the agony of the poor boy, fully believing himself a doomed miscreant, entering for the first time the awful presence of the head master of Randlebury School.
He stood there with downcast eyes, not daring to speak, and rooted to the spot.
“Why, what’s the matter, my boy?”
At the words Charlie started like one electrified. He had surely heard that voice before somewhere! He looked up, and what was his astonishment to find in his dreaded principal no other than the gentleman with whom he had yesterday spent such a friendly hour in the train between Gunborough and Randlebury!
And his face was as kind as ever, and his voice encouraging, as he repeated,—
“What’s the matter, my man? has the watch stopped.”
“Oh, sir,” said Charlie, running up to him, “I am glad it’s you, and I’m so sorry I drove the cab, and hit Walker in the eye. I’ll never do it again!”
“Tut, tut,” said the head master; “if you never do any worse than that, you won’t go far wrong. I didn’t tell you who I was yesterday, because I wanted you to manage for yourself, and fight your own battle on first arriving. Now tell me how you have got on.”
And Charlie faithfully recounted to him everything, including my sudden indisposition, and my cure by Tom Drift.
Dr Weldon (for that was his name) listened to his story, and then said,—
“Well, you’ve made a pretty good beginning. Now try to remember this: your father has sent you here for two reasons; one is that your head may be furnished, and the other is that your character may be trained. I and your teachers can undertake the first; but it depends chiefly on you how the second succeeds. You will constantly be having to choose for yourself between what is right and what is wrong, and between what is true and what is false. Take the advice of one who has passed through all the temptations you are likely to meet here—rely always on a wisdom that is better than your own, and when once you see which way duty calls, follow that way as if your life depended on it. Do this, and you’ll turn out a far better man than the man who is talking to you. Whenever you are in trouble come to me, I shall always be glad to see you. I promised you, you know, I would ask for you occasionally, didn’t I? And now let’s see what you’ve got in your head.”
And then followed a brief examination, conducted in a way which put Charlie quite at his ease, and so enabled him to acquit himself with a fair amount of credit and win from his master a commendation, which he prized not a little, for it was that his father’s efforts had not been wasted on him.
“You will be put in the second-form,” said the doctor, “and if you work hard, I see no reason why you should not get up into the third next midsummer. Now, good-bye. I hope you won’t find the head master of Randlebury is as ‘stiff and stuck-up a fellow’ as you dreaded, and I trust I shall find you as honest and brave a fellow as I hoped you would turn out the first time I saw you. Good-bye.”
Charlie rose to leave with overflowing heart. He even forgot in the midst of his pleasant emotion to inquire, as he had fully intended to do, after the doctor’s watch, and if it was still a quarter of an hour fast.
As he left the room he could not help contrasting with thankfulness his present state of mind with that in which he had entered it an hour ago. He laughed at himself for all his foolish fears then, and as for the future, that seemed now ever so much easier and brighter.
Outside the door he found Tom Drift passing along the corridor in a state of great excitement.
“The very chap, I declare,” cried he. “I say, lend us your watch, young un, will you?”
“What for?” asked Charlie.
“Only a time race. Tom Shadbolt says he can run a mile in 4.40. I say he can’t do it under 4.50, and we’ve got a bet of half-a-crown a side upon it. So lend us your watch to time him by.”
Charlie hesitated, and a pang passed through his breast. He knew that one of the things which he had promised his father was that he would have nothing to do with betting or gambling in any form, and how could he obey in this respect if he now lent me for the purpose for which I was required? And yet he owed Tom Drift no common gratitude for the good service he had done in setting me right yesterday, and surely if any one had a right to borrow me it was he. The struggle was a sore one, but soon decided.
“I can’t lend it you, Tom Drift.”
“Why ever not?” asked Tom sharply.
“I’m very sorry; if it had been anything else—but I promised father I would not gamble.”
“Young ass! who wants you to gamble? I only want you to lend us your watch.”
“Youare gambling, though,” said Charlie timidly.
“And what’s that got to do with you, you young idiot,” exclaimed Drift, fairly losing his temper, “if I am?”
“I’m very sorry,” said Charlie, “especially as you put it all right. If it was anything else; but I can’t for this.”
“Look here,” said Drift in a fury, “we’ve had fooling enough. Hand me the watch this moment, or I’ll take it and smash it, and you into the bargain!”
“Oh, Tom Drift, don’t do that. I would so gladly for anything else, but I promised father—”
“Once more, will you, or will you not?”
“I can’t.”
“Then take that!” and next moment Charlie received a blow full on the chest, which sent him staggering back against the wall.
Oh, how he wished that moment he had never owned me!
Tom came upon him with an angry oath, and seized him by the throat.
“Will you give it up?”
“No,” replied Charlie.
He was fairly roused now; no boy—certainly no boy of his sort—can stand quietly by and receive undeserved blows. Tom tightened his grip on the boy’s throat, and strove to snatch me from his pocket.
Quick as thought Charlie threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant the doctor’s door opened, and the head master stood gazing on the scene.
Poor Charlie! five minutes ago so full of bright hopes and brave resolutions, and now, under the eyes of the very man who had inspired in him those hopes and resolutions, engaged in a common fight with a schoolfellow!
“What is all this?” asked the doctor sternly. “Come in here, you two.”
Charlie, with sinking heart, entered again that solemn room, and Drift followed, sulky, and with a black bruise on his forehead.
Charlie left his antagonist to tell his story after his own fashion, and was too dispirited either to contradict him or seek to justify himself. He felt ashamed of himself, and in his self-humiliation saw neither defence nor extenuation for his conduct.
Drift was dismissed with a few sharp words of reproof and warning. Charlie remained longer.
What the doctor said to him, and what he said to the doctor, I need not here repeat. Suffice it to say, the former was able to form a fairer estimate of my master’s conduct than he himself was. He did not blame him; he even told him that no boy could expect to get through his school days without some blows, and advised him to see they were always on the right side. He talked to him long and seriously about home, and so comforted him in prospect of future difficulties and temptations, that when he left that study the second time, it was as a wiser, though perhaps a sadder boy than before.
Chapter Six.How my master had both his friends and his enemies at Randlebury.The events of Charlie’s first day at Randlebury had at least taught him one salutary lesson, and that was, to moderate his enthusiasm with regard to me, and consequently for the next few weeks I had a quiet time of it. True enough, my master would occasionally produce me in confidence to a select and admiring audience, and would ever and again proffer the use of me to his protector, Joe Halliday, but he gave up flourishing me in the face of every passer-by, and took to buttoning his jacket over the chain, I found my health all the better for this gentler usage, and showed my gratitude by keeping perfect time from one week’s end to the other.It is hardly necessary for me to say that Charlie was not long in making friends at Randlebury. Indeed some of his acquaintance looked upon this exceeding friendliness in the boy’s disposition as one of his weak points.“I do believe,” said Walcot, who was only four from the head of the school, to his friend, Joe Halliday, one day, about a month after my master’s arrival at Randlebury—“I do believe that young fag of yours would chum up to the poker and tongs if there were no fellows here.”“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Joe. “He’s a sociable young beggar, and keeps my den uncommon tidy. Why, only the other day, when I was in no end of a vicious temper about being rowed about my Greek accents, you know, and when I should have been really grateful to the young scamp if he’d given me an excuse for kicking him, what should he do but lay wait for me in my den with a letter from his father, which he insisted on reading aloud to me. What do you think it was about?”“I couldn’t guess,” said Walcot.“Well, you must know he’s lately chummed up very thick with my young brother Jim in the second, and—would you believe it?—he took it into his head to sit down and write to his governor to ask him if he would give Jim and me each a watch like the one he’s got himself. What do you think of that?”“Did he, though?” exclaimed Walcot, laughing. “I say, old boy, you’ll make your fortune out of that youngster; and what did his father say?”“Oh, he was most polite, of course; his boy’s friends were his friends, and all that, and he finished up by saying he hoped we should both come and spend Christmas there.”“Ha! ha! and did he send the watches?”“No; I suppose he wants to spy out the land first.”“Well,” said Walcot, “the boy’s all right with you, but he’ll go making a fool of himself some day if he makes up to everybody he meets.”My master, in fact, was already a popular boy with his fellows. He had a select band of admirers among the youth of the Second-Form, who cackled round him like hens round a bantam. Together they groaned over their Latin exercises and wrestled with their decimals; together they heard the dreaded summons to the master’s desk; and side by side, I am sorry to say, they held out their open palms to receive his cane. If a slate bearing on its surface an outline effigy of the gentleman who presided over the lessons of the class was brought to light, and the names of its perpetrators demanded, Charlie’s hand would be seen among a forest of other upraised, ink-stained hands, and he would confess with contrition to having contributed the left eye of the unlucky portrait. And if, amid the solemn silence which attended a moral discourse from the master on the evils of gluttony, a sudden cataract of nuts, apples, turnips, and jam sandwiches on to the floor should drown the good man’s voice, Charlie would be one of the ill-starred wights who owned to a partnership in the bag of good things which had thus miserably burst, and would proceed with shame first to crawl and grope on the dusty floor to collect his contraband possessions, and then solemnly to deposit the same jam, turnips, and all, on the desk of the offended dominie as a confiscated forfeit.By these and many other like experiences Charlie identified himself with his comrades, and established many and memorable bonds of sympathy. He took the allegiance of his followers and the penalties of his masters in equal good part. He was not the boy to glory in his scrapes, but he was the boy to get into them, and once in, no fear of punishment could make a tell-tale, a cheat, or a coward of him.With the elder boys he was also a favourite, for what big boy does not take pride in patronising a plucky, frank youngster? Patronising with Charlie did not mean humiliation. It is true he would quake at times in the majestic company of the heroes of the Sixth Form, but without hanging his head or toadying. It is one thing to reverence a fellow-being, and another to kneel and lick his boots.Altogether Charlie had what is called “fallen on his feet” at Randlebury. By the end of two months he was as much at home there as if he had strutted its halls for two years. His whistle was as shrill as any in the lobbies, and Mrs Packer stuck her fingers in her ears when he burst into her parlour to demand a clean collar. He had already signalised himself too on the cricket field, having scored one run (by a leg-bye) in the never-to-be-forgotten match of First Form, First Eleven, against Second-Form, Second Eleven; and he had annihilated the redoubtable Alfred Redhead in the hundred yards hopping match, accomplishing that distance in the wonderfully short time of forty-five seconds!But the dearest of all his friends was Jim Halliday, his lord and master’s young brother. To Jim, Charlie opened his own soul, and me, and the knife; with Jim he laid his schemes for the future, and arranged, when he was Governor-General of India and Jim was Prime Minister, he would swop a couple of elephants for one of Ash and Tackle’s best twenty-foot fishing-rods, with a book of flies complete. With Jim, Charlie talked about home and his father, and the coming holidays, till his face shone with the brightness of the prospect. Nor was the faithful Jim less communicative. He told Charlie all about his sisters down at Dullfield, where his father had once been clergyman, and gave it as his opinion that Jenny was the one Charlie had better marry; and to Charlie he imparted, as an awful secret not to be so much as whispered to any one, that he (Jim) was going to array his imposing figure for the first time in a tail-coat at Christmas.With two friends on such a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other, did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday did they fish for hours in the same pool, or climb the same tree for the same nest; what book of Jim’s was there (schoolbooks excepted) that Charlie had not dog’s-eared; and was not Charlie’s little library annotated in every page by Jim’s elegant thumbs? In short, these two were as one. David and Jonathan were nothing to them.But in the midst of all his comfort and happiness one continually recurring thought troubled Charlie, that was about Tom Drift. He had promised the mother to be a friend to her son, and although he owned to himself he neither liked nor admired Tom, he could not be easy with this broken promise on his mind.One day, about a month after the quarrel outside the head master’s study, my master, after a hard inward struggle, conceived the desperate resolve of going himself to the lion in his den and seeking a reconciliation.He walked quickly to Tom’s study, for fear his resolution might fail him, and knocked as boldly as he could at the door.“Come in!” cried Tom inside.Charlie entered, and found his late antagonist sprawling on two chairs, reading a yellow-backed novel.At the sight of Charlie he scowled, and looked anything but conciliatory.“What do you want?” he said angrily.“Oh, Tom Drift!” cried Charlie, plunging at once into his subject, “I do wish you’d be friends; I am so sorry I hurt you.”This last was an ill-judged reference; Tom was vicious enough about that bruise on his forehead not to need any reminder of the injuries he had sustained in that memorable scuffle.“Get off with you, you little beast!” he cried. “What do you mean by coming here?”“I know I’ve no business, Tom Drift; but I do so want to be friends, because—because I promised your mother, you know.”“What do I care what you promised my mother? I don’t want you. Come, off you go, or I’ll show you the way.”Charlie turned to go, yet still lingered. A desperate struggle was taking place, I could feel, within him, and then he stammered out, “I say, Tom Drift, if you’ll only be friends I’llgiveyou my watch.”Poor boy! Who knows what that offer cost him? it was indeed the dearest bribe he had to give.Tom laughed sneeringly. “Who wants your watch, young ass?—a miserable, second-hand, tin ticker; I’d be ashamed to be seen with it. Come, once more, get out of here or I’ll kick you out!”Charlie obeyed, miserable and disappointed.He could stand being spoken roughly to, he could bear his disappointment, but to hear his father’s precious gift spoken of as a “miserable, second-hand tin ticker,” was more than he could endure, and he made his way back to his room conscious of having lost more than he had gained by this thankless effort at reconciliation.“What are you in the sulks about?” inquired Halliday that evening, as Charlie was putting away his lord and master’s jam in the cupboard.“I don’t want to be sulky,” Charlie said, “but I wish I could make it up with Tom Drift.”“With who?” exclaimed Joe, who, as we have before observed, was subject to occasional lapses of grammar.“Tom Drift, you know; we had a row the first day.”“I know,” replied Joe; “about that everlasting watch of yours, wasn’t it?”“Yes,” said Charlie, “I didn’t like to lend it him, because—”“I know all about that,” said Halliday. “You were squeamish about something or other he wanted it for. Well, the watch belonged to you, I suppose, and you aren’t obliged to lend it to anybody. What on earth do you want to go worrying about the thing any more for?”“I’m not; only I wanted to be friends with Tom Drift.”“What for?” demanded Joe.“Oh, because—because I promised his mother I would be,” pleaded Charlie.“All I can say is, you had no business to promise any one to be friends with a fellow you never saw.”“But she said he was a nice fellow; and besides he made my watch go when it had stopped,” added Charlie, as a great argument.“Why, Charlie, you are a greater little noodle than I took you for. Every one who calls that precious watch a good name is your master, and you’re his slave.”“Not so bad as that, Joe,” said Charlie; “but I say, isn’t Tom Drift a nice boy, then?”“Isn’t he? that’s all,” replied the other. “I’m not going to abuse him behind his back, but take my advice, young un. You are better off as Tom’s enemy than his friend, and don’t you try to make up to him any more.”“Why not?” asked Charlie in bewilderment.“Never you mind,” was all Joe’s reply; “and now hand me down my Liddell and Scott and make yourself scarce.”Charlie, sorely puzzled, did as he was bid.He certainly was not in love with Tom Drift; but it was not easy for him to give up, without an effort, his promise to be his friend.Tom, however, was by no means in need of friends. Not many weeks after the day when Charlie had left his study, disappointed and miserable, he might have been seen entertaining company of quite a different sort.(My readers, let me here observe, must not be too curious to understand how it is I am able to speak of so many things which must have taken place beyond the range of my observation. They will find the reason all in good time.)The supper party over which Tom presided consisted of four boys, including himself. One was Shadbolt, on whose account, it will be remembered, Tom had desired to borrow Charlie’s watch. Shadbolt was an unwholesome-looking fellow of fifteen, with coarse features and eyes that could not look you straight in the face if they had tried. He was accompanied by his chum Margetson, who certainly had the advantage of his friend in looks, as well as in intellect. The quartet was completed by Gus Burke, one of the smallest and most vicious boys at Randlebury. He was the son of a country squire, who had the unenviable reputation of being one of the hardest drinkers and fastest riders in his county; and the boy had already shown himself only too apt a pupil in the lessons in the midst of which his childhood had been passed. He had at his tongue’s tip all the slang of the stables and all the blackguardisms of the betting-ring; and boy—almost child—as he was, he affected the swagger and habits of a “fast man,” like a true son of his father.At Randlebury he had wrought incredible mischief. Tom Drift was not the only soft-minded vain boy whom he had infected by his pernicious example. Like all reckless swaggerers, he had his band of admirers, who marked every action and drank in every word that fell from their hero’s lips.It was just with such boys as Drift that his influence was most telling; for Tom was a boy not without aptitude to note and emulate a powerful example, whether it were good or bad, while his vanity rendered him as pliant as wax to the hand of the flatterer.Such was the party which assembled surreptitiously in Tom’s study that evening and partook of the smuggled supper.Tom had had hard work to provide for his guests, and had succeeded only at the risk of grave penalties if detected.“I say, Tom, old horse, this is a prime spread!” said Gus; “where did you get it?”“Oh!” said Tom, “I had a new hat coming from Tiler’s, so I got old Tripes (the butcher) to make a neat brown-paper parcel of the kidneys, and got them up in my gossamer. The old donkey might have done the thing better though, for the juice squeezed through, and the inside of my hat looks as if I had lately been scalped.”“Hard lines! But never mind, perhaps they’ll put it down to the crack you got on your forehead.”Tom flushed scarlet; any reference to his inglorious scuffle with Charlie Newcome was odious to him, as Gus and the others knew well enough. He said nothing, however, only scowled angrily.“What!” said Gus, “does it hurt you still then? Never mind, it was a good shot, and I wouldn’t be ashamed of having floored you myself.”“He didn’t floor me; I fell!” cried Tom indignantly.“Did you? Rather a way fellows have when they get knocked down!”“I was not knocked down, Gus, I tell you; and you’d better shut up!”“All right, old horse! you mustn’t mind a bit of chaff. I’m sure you’ve taken it all very well.”“Yes,” said Margetson, “everybody thinks you must take after your mother; you’re such a sweet-tempered chap.”“What do you know about my mother?” snarled Tom.“Only what your young friend tells everybody about her.”“What business has he to go talking all over the school about my affairs?” exclaimed Tom furiously. “What’s my mother to do with him?”“A great deal, it seems,” replied Margetson, “for he promised her, on the strength of her assertion that you were a nice boy, to be your friend, and now he’s awfully hurt you won’t let him.”“I thought it was Tom who was awfully hurt,” put in Gus, by way of parenthesis.“I tell you what it is, you fellows,” said Tom, “it may be all very funny for you, but I’ve had quite enough of it. Ever since that young canting humbug came here I’ve led the life of a dog. If, instead of making a fool of me, you’d tell me how I can pay him out, I should be better pleased.”“All very fine,” said Margetson; “why don’t you pay your own bills?”“If you want some one to punch his head,” said Shadbolt the ugly, “I don’t mind trying; my life is insured.”“Suppose we make him stupid,” suggested Gus, “with milk punch, and shove him inside the doctor’s study.”“Couldn’t you get hold of his watch and boil it?” said Margetson, who had heard of the experiments practised on me in Mrs Packer’s parlour.“If I got hold of it I’d smash it into fifty pieces!” growled Tom between his teeth.“Look here, you fellows, I’ve got a glorious plan!” exclaimed Gus suddenly.“What is it?” they all cried.But Gus’s plan requires a new chapter.
The events of Charlie’s first day at Randlebury had at least taught him one salutary lesson, and that was, to moderate his enthusiasm with regard to me, and consequently for the next few weeks I had a quiet time of it. True enough, my master would occasionally produce me in confidence to a select and admiring audience, and would ever and again proffer the use of me to his protector, Joe Halliday, but he gave up flourishing me in the face of every passer-by, and took to buttoning his jacket over the chain, I found my health all the better for this gentler usage, and showed my gratitude by keeping perfect time from one week’s end to the other.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that Charlie was not long in making friends at Randlebury. Indeed some of his acquaintance looked upon this exceeding friendliness in the boy’s disposition as one of his weak points.
“I do believe,” said Walcot, who was only four from the head of the school, to his friend, Joe Halliday, one day, about a month after my master’s arrival at Randlebury—“I do believe that young fag of yours would chum up to the poker and tongs if there were no fellows here.”
“Shouldn’t wonder,” said Joe. “He’s a sociable young beggar, and keeps my den uncommon tidy. Why, only the other day, when I was in no end of a vicious temper about being rowed about my Greek accents, you know, and when I should have been really grateful to the young scamp if he’d given me an excuse for kicking him, what should he do but lay wait for me in my den with a letter from his father, which he insisted on reading aloud to me. What do you think it was about?”
“I couldn’t guess,” said Walcot.
“Well, you must know he’s lately chummed up very thick with my young brother Jim in the second, and—would you believe it?—he took it into his head to sit down and write to his governor to ask him if he would give Jim and me each a watch like the one he’s got himself. What do you think of that?”
“Did he, though?” exclaimed Walcot, laughing. “I say, old boy, you’ll make your fortune out of that youngster; and what did his father say?”
“Oh, he was most polite, of course; his boy’s friends were his friends, and all that, and he finished up by saying he hoped we should both come and spend Christmas there.”
“Ha! ha! and did he send the watches?”
“No; I suppose he wants to spy out the land first.”
“Well,” said Walcot, “the boy’s all right with you, but he’ll go making a fool of himself some day if he makes up to everybody he meets.”
My master, in fact, was already a popular boy with his fellows. He had a select band of admirers among the youth of the Second-Form, who cackled round him like hens round a bantam. Together they groaned over their Latin exercises and wrestled with their decimals; together they heard the dreaded summons to the master’s desk; and side by side, I am sorry to say, they held out their open palms to receive his cane. If a slate bearing on its surface an outline effigy of the gentleman who presided over the lessons of the class was brought to light, and the names of its perpetrators demanded, Charlie’s hand would be seen among a forest of other upraised, ink-stained hands, and he would confess with contrition to having contributed the left eye of the unlucky portrait. And if, amid the solemn silence which attended a moral discourse from the master on the evils of gluttony, a sudden cataract of nuts, apples, turnips, and jam sandwiches on to the floor should drown the good man’s voice, Charlie would be one of the ill-starred wights who owned to a partnership in the bag of good things which had thus miserably burst, and would proceed with shame first to crawl and grope on the dusty floor to collect his contraband possessions, and then solemnly to deposit the same jam, turnips, and all, on the desk of the offended dominie as a confiscated forfeit.
By these and many other like experiences Charlie identified himself with his comrades, and established many and memorable bonds of sympathy. He took the allegiance of his followers and the penalties of his masters in equal good part. He was not the boy to glory in his scrapes, but he was the boy to get into them, and once in, no fear of punishment could make a tell-tale, a cheat, or a coward of him.
With the elder boys he was also a favourite, for what big boy does not take pride in patronising a plucky, frank youngster? Patronising with Charlie did not mean humiliation. It is true he would quake at times in the majestic company of the heroes of the Sixth Form, but without hanging his head or toadying. It is one thing to reverence a fellow-being, and another to kneel and lick his boots.
Altogether Charlie had what is called “fallen on his feet” at Randlebury. By the end of two months he was as much at home there as if he had strutted its halls for two years. His whistle was as shrill as any in the lobbies, and Mrs Packer stuck her fingers in her ears when he burst into her parlour to demand a clean collar. He had already signalised himself too on the cricket field, having scored one run (by a leg-bye) in the never-to-be-forgotten match of First Form, First Eleven, against Second-Form, Second Eleven; and he had annihilated the redoubtable Alfred Redhead in the hundred yards hopping match, accomplishing that distance in the wonderfully short time of forty-five seconds!
But the dearest of all his friends was Jim Halliday, his lord and master’s young brother. To Jim, Charlie opened his own soul, and me, and the knife; with Jim he laid his schemes for the future, and arranged, when he was Governor-General of India and Jim was Prime Minister, he would swop a couple of elephants for one of Ash and Tackle’s best twenty-foot fishing-rods, with a book of flies complete. With Jim, Charlie talked about home and his father, and the coming holidays, till his face shone with the brightness of the prospect. Nor was the faithful Jim less communicative. He told Charlie all about his sisters down at Dullfield, where his father had once been clergyman, and gave it as his opinion that Jenny was the one Charlie had better marry; and to Charlie he imparted, as an awful secret not to be so much as whispered to any one, that he (Jim) was going to array his imposing figure for the first time in a tail-coat at Christmas.
With two friends on such a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other, did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday did they fish for hours in the same pool, or climb the same tree for the same nest; what book of Jim’s was there (schoolbooks excepted) that Charlie had not dog’s-eared; and was not Charlie’s little library annotated in every page by Jim’s elegant thumbs? In short, these two were as one. David and Jonathan were nothing to them.
But in the midst of all his comfort and happiness one continually recurring thought troubled Charlie, that was about Tom Drift. He had promised the mother to be a friend to her son, and although he owned to himself he neither liked nor admired Tom, he could not be easy with this broken promise on his mind.
One day, about a month after the quarrel outside the head master’s study, my master, after a hard inward struggle, conceived the desperate resolve of going himself to the lion in his den and seeking a reconciliation.
He walked quickly to Tom’s study, for fear his resolution might fail him, and knocked as boldly as he could at the door.
“Come in!” cried Tom inside.
Charlie entered, and found his late antagonist sprawling on two chairs, reading a yellow-backed novel.
At the sight of Charlie he scowled, and looked anything but conciliatory.
“What do you want?” he said angrily.
“Oh, Tom Drift!” cried Charlie, plunging at once into his subject, “I do wish you’d be friends; I am so sorry I hurt you.”
This last was an ill-judged reference; Tom was vicious enough about that bruise on his forehead not to need any reminder of the injuries he had sustained in that memorable scuffle.
“Get off with you, you little beast!” he cried. “What do you mean by coming here?”
“I know I’ve no business, Tom Drift; but I do so want to be friends, because—because I promised your mother, you know.”
“What do I care what you promised my mother? I don’t want you. Come, off you go, or I’ll show you the way.”
Charlie turned to go, yet still lingered. A desperate struggle was taking place, I could feel, within him, and then he stammered out, “I say, Tom Drift, if you’ll only be friends I’llgiveyou my watch.”
Poor boy! Who knows what that offer cost him? it was indeed the dearest bribe he had to give.
Tom laughed sneeringly. “Who wants your watch, young ass?—a miserable, second-hand, tin ticker; I’d be ashamed to be seen with it. Come, once more, get out of here or I’ll kick you out!”
Charlie obeyed, miserable and disappointed.
He could stand being spoken roughly to, he could bear his disappointment, but to hear his father’s precious gift spoken of as a “miserable, second-hand tin ticker,” was more than he could endure, and he made his way back to his room conscious of having lost more than he had gained by this thankless effort at reconciliation.
“What are you in the sulks about?” inquired Halliday that evening, as Charlie was putting away his lord and master’s jam in the cupboard.
“I don’t want to be sulky,” Charlie said, “but I wish I could make it up with Tom Drift.”
“With who?” exclaimed Joe, who, as we have before observed, was subject to occasional lapses of grammar.
“Tom Drift, you know; we had a row the first day.”
“I know,” replied Joe; “about that everlasting watch of yours, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Charlie, “I didn’t like to lend it him, because—”
“I know all about that,” said Halliday. “You were squeamish about something or other he wanted it for. Well, the watch belonged to you, I suppose, and you aren’t obliged to lend it to anybody. What on earth do you want to go worrying about the thing any more for?”
“I’m not; only I wanted to be friends with Tom Drift.”
“What for?” demanded Joe.
“Oh, because—because I promised his mother I would be,” pleaded Charlie.
“All I can say is, you had no business to promise any one to be friends with a fellow you never saw.”
“But she said he was a nice fellow; and besides he made my watch go when it had stopped,” added Charlie, as a great argument.
“Why, Charlie, you are a greater little noodle than I took you for. Every one who calls that precious watch a good name is your master, and you’re his slave.”
“Not so bad as that, Joe,” said Charlie; “but I say, isn’t Tom Drift a nice boy, then?”
“Isn’t he? that’s all,” replied the other. “I’m not going to abuse him behind his back, but take my advice, young un. You are better off as Tom’s enemy than his friend, and don’t you try to make up to him any more.”
“Why not?” asked Charlie in bewilderment.
“Never you mind,” was all Joe’s reply; “and now hand me down my Liddell and Scott and make yourself scarce.”
Charlie, sorely puzzled, did as he was bid.
He certainly was not in love with Tom Drift; but it was not easy for him to give up, without an effort, his promise to be his friend.
Tom, however, was by no means in need of friends. Not many weeks after the day when Charlie had left his study, disappointed and miserable, he might have been seen entertaining company of quite a different sort.
(My readers, let me here observe, must not be too curious to understand how it is I am able to speak of so many things which must have taken place beyond the range of my observation. They will find the reason all in good time.)
The supper party over which Tom presided consisted of four boys, including himself. One was Shadbolt, on whose account, it will be remembered, Tom had desired to borrow Charlie’s watch. Shadbolt was an unwholesome-looking fellow of fifteen, with coarse features and eyes that could not look you straight in the face if they had tried. He was accompanied by his chum Margetson, who certainly had the advantage of his friend in looks, as well as in intellect. The quartet was completed by Gus Burke, one of the smallest and most vicious boys at Randlebury. He was the son of a country squire, who had the unenviable reputation of being one of the hardest drinkers and fastest riders in his county; and the boy had already shown himself only too apt a pupil in the lessons in the midst of which his childhood had been passed. He had at his tongue’s tip all the slang of the stables and all the blackguardisms of the betting-ring; and boy—almost child—as he was, he affected the swagger and habits of a “fast man,” like a true son of his father.
At Randlebury he had wrought incredible mischief. Tom Drift was not the only soft-minded vain boy whom he had infected by his pernicious example. Like all reckless swaggerers, he had his band of admirers, who marked every action and drank in every word that fell from their hero’s lips.
It was just with such boys as Drift that his influence was most telling; for Tom was a boy not without aptitude to note and emulate a powerful example, whether it were good or bad, while his vanity rendered him as pliant as wax to the hand of the flatterer.
Such was the party which assembled surreptitiously in Tom’s study that evening and partook of the smuggled supper.
Tom had had hard work to provide for his guests, and had succeeded only at the risk of grave penalties if detected.
“I say, Tom, old horse, this is a prime spread!” said Gus; “where did you get it?”
“Oh!” said Tom, “I had a new hat coming from Tiler’s, so I got old Tripes (the butcher) to make a neat brown-paper parcel of the kidneys, and got them up in my gossamer. The old donkey might have done the thing better though, for the juice squeezed through, and the inside of my hat looks as if I had lately been scalped.”
“Hard lines! But never mind, perhaps they’ll put it down to the crack you got on your forehead.”
Tom flushed scarlet; any reference to his inglorious scuffle with Charlie Newcome was odious to him, as Gus and the others knew well enough. He said nothing, however, only scowled angrily.
“What!” said Gus, “does it hurt you still then? Never mind, it was a good shot, and I wouldn’t be ashamed of having floored you myself.”
“He didn’t floor me; I fell!” cried Tom indignantly.
“Did you? Rather a way fellows have when they get knocked down!”
“I was not knocked down, Gus, I tell you; and you’d better shut up!”
“All right, old horse! you mustn’t mind a bit of chaff. I’m sure you’ve taken it all very well.”
“Yes,” said Margetson, “everybody thinks you must take after your mother; you’re such a sweet-tempered chap.”
“What do you know about my mother?” snarled Tom.
“Only what your young friend tells everybody about her.”
“What business has he to go talking all over the school about my affairs?” exclaimed Tom furiously. “What’s my mother to do with him?”
“A great deal, it seems,” replied Margetson, “for he promised her, on the strength of her assertion that you were a nice boy, to be your friend, and now he’s awfully hurt you won’t let him.”
“I thought it was Tom who was awfully hurt,” put in Gus, by way of parenthesis.
“I tell you what it is, you fellows,” said Tom, “it may be all very funny for you, but I’ve had quite enough of it. Ever since that young canting humbug came here I’ve led the life of a dog. If, instead of making a fool of me, you’d tell me how I can pay him out, I should be better pleased.”
“All very fine,” said Margetson; “why don’t you pay your own bills?”
“If you want some one to punch his head,” said Shadbolt the ugly, “I don’t mind trying; my life is insured.”
“Suppose we make him stupid,” suggested Gus, “with milk punch, and shove him inside the doctor’s study.”
“Couldn’t you get hold of his watch and boil it?” said Margetson, who had heard of the experiments practised on me in Mrs Packer’s parlour.
“If I got hold of it I’d smash it into fifty pieces!” growled Tom between his teeth.
“Look here, you fellows, I’ve got a glorious plan!” exclaimed Gus suddenly.
“What is it?” they all cried.
But Gus’s plan requires a new chapter.
Chapter Seven.How a pleasant treat in store was prepared for my master.Gus proceeded then to divulge his plan for giving Tom Drift his revenge on my master.“Let’s take him to Gurley races on Saturday,” said he. “You know it’s a holiday, and if we can only get him with us, well astonish his sanctimonious young soul. What do you say?”“You’ll never get him to come,” said Margetson.“Won’t we? Well see about that,” replied Gus, “he needn’t know where he’s going.”“But even so,” said Drift, “you won’t get him; he’s not in love with me, and I don’t fancy any of you are much in his line.”“Oh, you’ll have to manage that part, Tom. You know how the young idiot’s pining to make it up with you, for your dear old mother’s sake!”“Now you needn’t start that nonsense again,” put in Tom sulkily.“All right; but don’t you see, if you were to take a forgiving fit and make up to him, and talk about the old lady and his watch, and all that, he’d be out of his wits with joy? and then if you asked him to come for a day’s fishing on Saturday, we could meet you somewhere on the road, and then he’d have to come whether he liked or not; and won’t we astonish him!”Tom mused a little.“It’s not a bad idea,” said he presently, “if it would only work. But I can’t make up to the young puppy as you think. Ten to one I should stop short in the middle and kick him.”“That would spoil all the fun. Try it on, any way, it’ll be a nice little excitement to have young Innocent with us. And now, Tom, where are blacks and reds; I’m just in the humour for a rubber, aren’t you?”The host produced from a locked desk a dirty and much-worn pack of cards, and the party sat down to play.They played for penny points, and as Gus and Margetson were partners, it is hardly necessary to say that Drift and his ill-looking friend lost every game.Before this amiable and congenial quartet separated, Gus had referred again to the scheme of getting Charlie to Gurley races, and got Drift to promise he would secure his victim next day.Next day, accordingly, as Charlie was in the midst of a desperate game of fives with his friend Jim, a small boy came to him and said that Tom Drift wanted him.“What for?” demanded Charlie, who, since his talk with the elder Halliday, had felt somewhat “shy” about Tom.“I don’t know,” said the boy.“Your turn, Charlie,” called out Jim from the end of the court.Charlie took his turn while he was revolving on his answer to this mysterious summons.“What does that child want?” inquired Jim, with all the loftiness of a second-form boy speaking of a first.“He says Tom Drift wants me.”“Whew!” whistled Jim, who of course knew the whole mystery of the affair between his chum and Tom; “tell him to go to Jericho! Look out for yourself!”And so saying, he took his turn with the ball.“That wouldn’t do,” said Charlie; “I don’t want to rile him.”“I’dlike to have a chance,” retorted the implacable Jim. “Well, then, tell him you can’t come. Here, young un, tell Tom Drift Charlie can’t come. Do you hear? Cut your sticks!”But Charlie called the messenger back. “Icould, go if I wanted, Jim. Better tell him I’d rather not come. Say that, youngster—I’d rather not.”So off the youngster ran, and Charlie and Jim finished their game. Of coarse, the youthful messenger gave Tom a full, true, and particular account of this conversation in all its details, which rendered that young gentleman rather less eager than ever for his enterprise. However, he had the fear of Gus before his eyes, and strolled out into the playground on the chance of coming across Charlie.And he did come across him, arm-in-arm with the faithful Jim. Tom worked his face into the ghastly similitude of a friendly smile as he approached, and said, in as genial a voice as he could pretend, “I’m glad I met you, Newcome, because I want to speak to you, if you don’t mind taking a turn round the playground.”Charlie, of course, was astonished; he had expected at the very least to be kicked over the wall when he saw Tom approach, and he was utterly at a loss to understand this not unfriendly greeting. Innocent boy! it never occurred to him the demonstration could be anything but real. Jim would have been a tougher subject to deal with. Indeed, as he let go Charlie’s arm, and saw him walk off with Tom, he muttered to himself, not caring particularly whether the latter heard him or not.“Gammon! that’s what it is.”Charlie had not long to wait before his companion began the conversation.“I suppose you wonder why I want you, Newcome?” said he. “The fact is, I’ve been thinking I wasn’t altogether right in being down on you the other day about lending me that watch, especially as you were a new boy; and I’m sorry if I hurt you.”Charlie sprung towards him and caught his arm.“Oh, Tom Drift, don’t say that, please! It was my fault—all my fault, and I have been so sorry ever since. And you will be friends now, won’t you? I do so want to be, because I promised your mother—”Tom gave a quick gesture of impatience, which, if Charlie had understood, he would have known how near receiving a kick he was at that moment.Tom, however, restrained himself, and said,—“Oh, yes, for her sake I’d like to be friends, of course, and I hope you’ll forget all about that wretched quarrel.”“Indeed I will,” cried Charlie; “and don’t let us say any more about it. I am ever so much happier now, and it was so good of you to come to me and make it up.”“Well,” said Tom loftily, “you know it’s no use for two fellows to be at loggerheads when it can be helped, and I dare say we shall get on all the better now. How are you going on in the second?”Whereupon Charlie launched into a lengthy and animated account of his experiences, to which Tom pretended to listen, but scarcely heard a word.“So you are fond of fishing?” he said, casually, after the boy had mentioned something on that subject.“Ain’t I, though?” cried Charlie, now quite happy, and his old self again. “I say, Tom Drift, would you like to see the new lance-wood top I’ve got to my rod? It’s a stunner, I can tell you. I’ll lend it you, you know, any time you like.”“Have you caught much since you were here!” asked Tom, anxious to get this hateful business over.“No. You know the brook here isn’t a good one for fish, and I don’t know anywhere else near.”“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Tom, as if the idea had then for the first time occurred to him. “Suppose we go off for a regular good day on Saturday? It’s a holiday, you know, and we could go and try up the Sharle, near Gurley. There’s lots of trout there, and we are certain to have a good day.”“How jolly!” exclaimed Charlie. “It would be grand. But I say, Tom Drift, are you sure you wouldn’t mind coming? It wouldn’t be a bother to you, would it?”“Not a bit. I like a good day’s fishing. But, I say, young un, you’d better not say anything about it to any one, or we shall have a swarm of fellows come too, and that will spoil all the sport.”“All right,” said Charlie. “I say what a day we shall have! I’ll bring my watch and knife, you know, and some grub, and we can picnic there, eh?”“That’ll be splendid. Well, I must go in now, so good-bye, Newcome, and shake hands.”What a grip was that! on one side all trust and fervour, and on the other all fraud and malice!Tom Drift was not yet utterly bad. Would that he had allowed his conscience to speak and his better self prevail! Half a dozen times in the course of his walk from the playground to the school he repented of the wicked part he was playing in the scheme to injure Charlie. But half a dozen times the thought of Gus and his taunts, and the recollection of his own bruised forehead came to drive out all passing sentiments of pity or remorse.Charlie rejoined his chum with a beaming face.“Well,” asked Jim, “what has he been saying to humbug you this time?”“Nothing very particular; and I won’t let you call him a humbug. I say, Jim, old boy, he’s made it up at last, and we’re friends, Tom Drift and I! Hurrah! I was never so glad, isn’t it jolly?”Jim by no means shared his friend’s enthusiasm. Like his elder brother, he instinctively disliked Tom Drift, without exactly being able to give a reason.His reserve, however, had no effect on Charlie’s high spirits. At last the wish of his heart had been gained! No longer did he walk with the burden of a broken promise weighting his neck; no longer did the consciousness of having an enemy oppress him.“Simpleton!” many of my readers will exclaim. Perhaps he was; but even if you laugh at him, I think you will hardly despise him for his simple-mindedness, for who would not rather be such a one than the tempter, Tom Drift?All that week he was jubilant. Boys looked round in astonishment at the shrillness of his whistle and the ring of his laughter. His corner of the class room was a simple Babel, and the number of apples he bestowed in charity was prodigious.Something, every one could see, had happened to make him happier than ever. Few knew what that something was, and fewer still knew what it meant.“What are you up to to-morrow?” asked the elder Halliday of his fag on the Friday evening.“Fishing,” briskly replied the boy.“You’re for ever fishing,” said Joe. “I suppose that young brother of mine is going with you?”“No; Jim’s going to play in the match against the Badgers.”The “Badgers,” let me explain, was the name of a scratch cricket eleven made up of boys in the first, second and third forms.“Are you going alone, then?”Charlie felt uncomfortable as he answered,—“No.”“Whom are you going with?” pursued the inquiring Joe.“A fellow in the fifth who asked me to come.”“What’s his name?”Charlie had no help for it now.“Tom Drift,” he faltered.“Tom Drift! I thought you and he were at loggerheads.”“Oh, don’t you know we’ve made it up? He was awfully kind about it, and said he was sorry, when it was really my fault, and we shook hands, and to-morrow we are going to fish in a place he knows where there’s no end of trout.”“Where’s that?”“He didn’t want me to tell, for fear everybody should come and spoil the sport; but I suppose I can tell you, though; it’s up the Sharle, near Gurley.”“Humph! I’ve fished there before now. Not such a wonderful lot of fish, either.”“I suppose you won’t be there to-morrow?” asked Charlie nervously, afraid of losing the confidence of Tom Drift by attracting strangers to his waters.“Not if I know it,” replied Joe. “I say, youngster, I thought you had given up the notion of making up to that fellow?”“I didn’t make up to him, only I can’t be sorry to be friends with him—”“Well, I hope you won’t be sorry now you’ve done it. Take care what you’re about, that’s all.”Charlie was again perplexed to understand why Halliday seemed to have such a dislike to poor Tom.Just as he was going off to bed Joe stopped him and asked,—“By the way, shall you be using your watch to-morrow?”“Well, I promised I’d take it, to see how the time went; but I dare say we could do without it, and I would like to lend it to you, Halliday.”“Not a bit of it,” replied the other. “I can do without it as well as you. I am going to walk over to Whitstone Woods and back.”“Hullo, that’s a long trot,” said Charlie. “It must be nearly thirty miles.”“Something like that,” said Joe. “Walcot and I are going to make a day of it.”“Which way do you go?”“Through Gurley, and then over Rushton Common and past Slingcomb.”“Never! I wish I could do thirty miles at a stretch.”“So you will some day. Good-night.”And Charlie went to bed, to dream of the lance-wood top of his rod and the trout in the Sharle.In the meanwhile the conspirators had had another meeting in Drift’s den.“Well, have you hooked him?” asked Gus.“Yes; it’s all right. He took it all in like a lamb.”“And all the school,” said Margetson, “is talking of the great reconciliation, and the gratification which that event will undoubtedly afford to your venerable mother.”“Shut up, will you, Margetson? I’ve had quite enough of that chaff.”“But I do assure you, Tom—”“That’ll do,” said Tom, snappishly; and Margetson did not go the length of saying what it was he was so ready to assure him of.“Well,” said Gus, “we’ll meet you and the young cub at the cross roads by Sharle Bridge. The races don’t begin till twelve, so we shall have lots of time. I mean to see if we can’t get a trap at Gurley, and do the thing in style. What do you say? We could get one for about ten bob.”“All serene,” said Margetson. “I’ll fork out my share.”“You’ll pay for me, Tom,” said Shadbolt, “won’t you?”“I’ll see,” said Tom.“All right, that’s settled; and you are seeing about grub, Tom, aren’t you? Don’t forget the etceteras. What time have you told young mooney-face?”“Nine. He’s sure to be in time.”“Well, we’ll start a little before, you know, and meet you quite by accident, and the young beggar won’t smell a rat till we are safe in Gurley.”“And if he turns cantankerous?”“Then we can put Shaddy to look after him.”“Who’s going to win the Gulley Plate, Gus?”And then the party fell to canvassing the entries for the morrow’s races, and making their bets, in which, of course, Tom stood almost bound to lose, whichever horse won.Long ere they had parted company Charlie was sound asleep and dreaming, with me under his pillow.
Gus proceeded then to divulge his plan for giving Tom Drift his revenge on my master.
“Let’s take him to Gurley races on Saturday,” said he. “You know it’s a holiday, and if we can only get him with us, well astonish his sanctimonious young soul. What do you say?”
“You’ll never get him to come,” said Margetson.
“Won’t we? Well see about that,” replied Gus, “he needn’t know where he’s going.”
“But even so,” said Drift, “you won’t get him; he’s not in love with me, and I don’t fancy any of you are much in his line.”
“Oh, you’ll have to manage that part, Tom. You know how the young idiot’s pining to make it up with you, for your dear old mother’s sake!”
“Now you needn’t start that nonsense again,” put in Tom sulkily.
“All right; but don’t you see, if you were to take a forgiving fit and make up to him, and talk about the old lady and his watch, and all that, he’d be out of his wits with joy? and then if you asked him to come for a day’s fishing on Saturday, we could meet you somewhere on the road, and then he’d have to come whether he liked or not; and won’t we astonish him!”
Tom mused a little.
“It’s not a bad idea,” said he presently, “if it would only work. But I can’t make up to the young puppy as you think. Ten to one I should stop short in the middle and kick him.”
“That would spoil all the fun. Try it on, any way, it’ll be a nice little excitement to have young Innocent with us. And now, Tom, where are blacks and reds; I’m just in the humour for a rubber, aren’t you?”
The host produced from a locked desk a dirty and much-worn pack of cards, and the party sat down to play.
They played for penny points, and as Gus and Margetson were partners, it is hardly necessary to say that Drift and his ill-looking friend lost every game.
Before this amiable and congenial quartet separated, Gus had referred again to the scheme of getting Charlie to Gurley races, and got Drift to promise he would secure his victim next day.
Next day, accordingly, as Charlie was in the midst of a desperate game of fives with his friend Jim, a small boy came to him and said that Tom Drift wanted him.
“What for?” demanded Charlie, who, since his talk with the elder Halliday, had felt somewhat “shy” about Tom.
“I don’t know,” said the boy.
“Your turn, Charlie,” called out Jim from the end of the court.
Charlie took his turn while he was revolving on his answer to this mysterious summons.
“What does that child want?” inquired Jim, with all the loftiness of a second-form boy speaking of a first.
“He says Tom Drift wants me.”
“Whew!” whistled Jim, who of course knew the whole mystery of the affair between his chum and Tom; “tell him to go to Jericho! Look out for yourself!”
And so saying, he took his turn with the ball.
“That wouldn’t do,” said Charlie; “I don’t want to rile him.”
“I’dlike to have a chance,” retorted the implacable Jim. “Well, then, tell him you can’t come. Here, young un, tell Tom Drift Charlie can’t come. Do you hear? Cut your sticks!”
But Charlie called the messenger back. “Icould, go if I wanted, Jim. Better tell him I’d rather not come. Say that, youngster—I’d rather not.”
So off the youngster ran, and Charlie and Jim finished their game. Of coarse, the youthful messenger gave Tom a full, true, and particular account of this conversation in all its details, which rendered that young gentleman rather less eager than ever for his enterprise. However, he had the fear of Gus before his eyes, and strolled out into the playground on the chance of coming across Charlie.
And he did come across him, arm-in-arm with the faithful Jim. Tom worked his face into the ghastly similitude of a friendly smile as he approached, and said, in as genial a voice as he could pretend, “I’m glad I met you, Newcome, because I want to speak to you, if you don’t mind taking a turn round the playground.”
Charlie, of course, was astonished; he had expected at the very least to be kicked over the wall when he saw Tom approach, and he was utterly at a loss to understand this not unfriendly greeting. Innocent boy! it never occurred to him the demonstration could be anything but real. Jim would have been a tougher subject to deal with. Indeed, as he let go Charlie’s arm, and saw him walk off with Tom, he muttered to himself, not caring particularly whether the latter heard him or not.
“Gammon! that’s what it is.”
Charlie had not long to wait before his companion began the conversation.
“I suppose you wonder why I want you, Newcome?” said he. “The fact is, I’ve been thinking I wasn’t altogether right in being down on you the other day about lending me that watch, especially as you were a new boy; and I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
Charlie sprung towards him and caught his arm.
“Oh, Tom Drift, don’t say that, please! It was my fault—all my fault, and I have been so sorry ever since. And you will be friends now, won’t you? I do so want to be, because I promised your mother—”
Tom gave a quick gesture of impatience, which, if Charlie had understood, he would have known how near receiving a kick he was at that moment.
Tom, however, restrained himself, and said,—
“Oh, yes, for her sake I’d like to be friends, of course, and I hope you’ll forget all about that wretched quarrel.”
“Indeed I will,” cried Charlie; “and don’t let us say any more about it. I am ever so much happier now, and it was so good of you to come to me and make it up.”
“Well,” said Tom loftily, “you know it’s no use for two fellows to be at loggerheads when it can be helped, and I dare say we shall get on all the better now. How are you going on in the second?”
Whereupon Charlie launched into a lengthy and animated account of his experiences, to which Tom pretended to listen, but scarcely heard a word.
“So you are fond of fishing?” he said, casually, after the boy had mentioned something on that subject.
“Ain’t I, though?” cried Charlie, now quite happy, and his old self again. “I say, Tom Drift, would you like to see the new lance-wood top I’ve got to my rod? It’s a stunner, I can tell you. I’ll lend it you, you know, any time you like.”
“Have you caught much since you were here!” asked Tom, anxious to get this hateful business over.
“No. You know the brook here isn’t a good one for fish, and I don’t know anywhere else near.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Tom, as if the idea had then for the first time occurred to him. “Suppose we go off for a regular good day on Saturday? It’s a holiday, you know, and we could go and try up the Sharle, near Gurley. There’s lots of trout there, and we are certain to have a good day.”
“How jolly!” exclaimed Charlie. “It would be grand. But I say, Tom Drift, are you sure you wouldn’t mind coming? It wouldn’t be a bother to you, would it?”
“Not a bit. I like a good day’s fishing. But, I say, young un, you’d better not say anything about it to any one, or we shall have a swarm of fellows come too, and that will spoil all the sport.”
“All right,” said Charlie. “I say what a day we shall have! I’ll bring my watch and knife, you know, and some grub, and we can picnic there, eh?”
“That’ll be splendid. Well, I must go in now, so good-bye, Newcome, and shake hands.”
What a grip was that! on one side all trust and fervour, and on the other all fraud and malice!
Tom Drift was not yet utterly bad. Would that he had allowed his conscience to speak and his better self prevail! Half a dozen times in the course of his walk from the playground to the school he repented of the wicked part he was playing in the scheme to injure Charlie. But half a dozen times the thought of Gus and his taunts, and the recollection of his own bruised forehead came to drive out all passing sentiments of pity or remorse.
Charlie rejoined his chum with a beaming face.
“Well,” asked Jim, “what has he been saying to humbug you this time?”
“Nothing very particular; and I won’t let you call him a humbug. I say, Jim, old boy, he’s made it up at last, and we’re friends, Tom Drift and I! Hurrah! I was never so glad, isn’t it jolly?”
Jim by no means shared his friend’s enthusiasm. Like his elder brother, he instinctively disliked Tom Drift, without exactly being able to give a reason.
His reserve, however, had no effect on Charlie’s high spirits. At last the wish of his heart had been gained! No longer did he walk with the burden of a broken promise weighting his neck; no longer did the consciousness of having an enemy oppress him.
“Simpleton!” many of my readers will exclaim. Perhaps he was; but even if you laugh at him, I think you will hardly despise him for his simple-mindedness, for who would not rather be such a one than the tempter, Tom Drift?
All that week he was jubilant. Boys looked round in astonishment at the shrillness of his whistle and the ring of his laughter. His corner of the class room was a simple Babel, and the number of apples he bestowed in charity was prodigious.
Something, every one could see, had happened to make him happier than ever. Few knew what that something was, and fewer still knew what it meant.
“What are you up to to-morrow?” asked the elder Halliday of his fag on the Friday evening.
“Fishing,” briskly replied the boy.
“You’re for ever fishing,” said Joe. “I suppose that young brother of mine is going with you?”
“No; Jim’s going to play in the match against the Badgers.”
The “Badgers,” let me explain, was the name of a scratch cricket eleven made up of boys in the first, second and third forms.
“Are you going alone, then?”
Charlie felt uncomfortable as he answered,—
“No.”
“Whom are you going with?” pursued the inquiring Joe.
“A fellow in the fifth who asked me to come.”
“What’s his name?”
Charlie had no help for it now.
“Tom Drift,” he faltered.
“Tom Drift! I thought you and he were at loggerheads.”
“Oh, don’t you know we’ve made it up? He was awfully kind about it, and said he was sorry, when it was really my fault, and we shook hands, and to-morrow we are going to fish in a place he knows where there’s no end of trout.”
“Where’s that?”
“He didn’t want me to tell, for fear everybody should come and spoil the sport; but I suppose I can tell you, though; it’s up the Sharle, near Gurley.”
“Humph! I’ve fished there before now. Not such a wonderful lot of fish, either.”
“I suppose you won’t be there to-morrow?” asked Charlie nervously, afraid of losing the confidence of Tom Drift by attracting strangers to his waters.
“Not if I know it,” replied Joe. “I say, youngster, I thought you had given up the notion of making up to that fellow?”
“I didn’t make up to him, only I can’t be sorry to be friends with him—”
“Well, I hope you won’t be sorry now you’ve done it. Take care what you’re about, that’s all.”
Charlie was again perplexed to understand why Halliday seemed to have such a dislike to poor Tom.
Just as he was going off to bed Joe stopped him and asked,—
“By the way, shall you be using your watch to-morrow?”
“Well, I promised I’d take it, to see how the time went; but I dare say we could do without it, and I would like to lend it to you, Halliday.”
“Not a bit of it,” replied the other. “I can do without it as well as you. I am going to walk over to Whitstone Woods and back.”
“Hullo, that’s a long trot,” said Charlie. “It must be nearly thirty miles.”
“Something like that,” said Joe. “Walcot and I are going to make a day of it.”
“Which way do you go?”
“Through Gurley, and then over Rushton Common and past Slingcomb.”
“Never! I wish I could do thirty miles at a stretch.”
“So you will some day. Good-night.”
And Charlie went to bed, to dream of the lance-wood top of his rod and the trout in the Sharle.
In the meanwhile the conspirators had had another meeting in Drift’s den.
“Well, have you hooked him?” asked Gus.
“Yes; it’s all right. He took it all in like a lamb.”
“And all the school,” said Margetson, “is talking of the great reconciliation, and the gratification which that event will undoubtedly afford to your venerable mother.”
“Shut up, will you, Margetson? I’ve had quite enough of that chaff.”
“But I do assure you, Tom—”
“That’ll do,” said Tom, snappishly; and Margetson did not go the length of saying what it was he was so ready to assure him of.
“Well,” said Gus, “we’ll meet you and the young cub at the cross roads by Sharle Bridge. The races don’t begin till twelve, so we shall have lots of time. I mean to see if we can’t get a trap at Gurley, and do the thing in style. What do you say? We could get one for about ten bob.”
“All serene,” said Margetson. “I’ll fork out my share.”
“You’ll pay for me, Tom,” said Shadbolt, “won’t you?”
“I’ll see,” said Tom.
“All right, that’s settled; and you are seeing about grub, Tom, aren’t you? Don’t forget the etceteras. What time have you told young mooney-face?”
“Nine. He’s sure to be in time.”
“Well, we’ll start a little before, you know, and meet you quite by accident, and the young beggar won’t smell a rat till we are safe in Gurley.”
“And if he turns cantankerous?”
“Then we can put Shaddy to look after him.”
“Who’s going to win the Gulley Plate, Gus?”
And then the party fell to canvassing the entries for the morrow’s races, and making their bets, in which, of course, Tom stood almost bound to lose, whichever horse won.
Long ere they had parted company Charlie was sound asleep and dreaming, with me under his pillow.
Chapter Eight.How my master did not catch the fish he expected.About ten years before the time of my story it had happened that in a famous battle fought between her Majesty’s troops and those of a hostile and savage king, the colours of the 300th Regiment were noticed to be in imminent peril of capture. The ensign who carried them was wounded, and already a score of the enemy were rushing forward to seize the prize and carry it off in triumph to their king. Suddenly, however, there dashed up to the spot a young cornet of dragoons, who, seeing the peril of his fellow-officer and the colours he carried, dragged him, flag and all, up nearly into his own saddle, and started off with his precious burden towards a place of shelter from the fire and spears of the savages. Before, however, he had gone twenty yards the poor ensign tumbled to the ground, shot through the heart, yielding with his dying hands his colours to the dragoon. That plucky young soldier, wrapping the torn and stained flag round his body, set his teeth, stooped forward in his saddle, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped for his life. He had a terrific gauntlet to run, and grandly he ran it. The friendly trench was in sight, the cheers of his comrades fell like music on his ears, a vision of glory and honour flashed through his mind, and then suddenly he reeled forward in his seat—a malignant shot had found him out at last, and, with the colours round him, he dropped from his horse into his comrades’ arms a dead man.This hero was an old Randlebury boy; and ever since that day, on every anniversary of his glorious death, Randlebury kept, and still keeps, holiday.All this Charlie was informed of by his faithful chum, Jim Halliday, as the former was dressing himself on the morning of the eventful holiday in question.What possessed him to get up at six, when he was not to start till nine, I cannot say. He even routed me from under his pillow at five, so fidgety was he, and as soon as ever I pointed to six he bounced out of bed as if he was shot.“What are you up to, getting up at this time?” growled Jim, who, much to the mutual delight of the boys, slept in the same room with Charlie.“Oh, you know; I don’t want to be behindhand,” replied Charlie.“Behindhand! Why, do you know it’s only just six?”“I know that, and I mean to make the most of my holiday. I say, Jim, what do they want to give us a holiday for, do you know?”“They don’t want to at all; they’ve got to.”“Got to? What do you mean?” inquired Charlie, dragging on his boots.And then Jim, with many yawns and growls, told him the story; and, without waiting for his comments thereon, rolled over and went off to sleep again.Charlie spent his early hour in polishing up things generally. When he had polished up his rod with the lance-wood top, he polished up his green can and his hooks. Then he warmed me up with a piece of wash-leather, and then his many-fanged knife.By the time these little jobs were accomplished, and Joe’s study put in order, the breakfast bell sounded, and he went down with a mouth sore with whistling.He caught sight of Tom Drift at another table, and nodded and waved his green can to him; he informed every boy within hearing distance that it was certain to be a fine day, whatever it looked like now; and he made the wildest and most indiscriminate promises to entertain his whole acquaintance at no end of a trout supper on the spoils of that day’s sport. Twenty times during breakfast did he pull me out and look impatiently at my minute-hand slowly making its way from eight to nine; and as soon as ever the meal was over he rushed upstairs like mad for his rod and bag, and then tore down again four steps at a time, nearly knocking the head master over at the bottom.“Gently, my man,” said that gentleman, recognising in this cannon-ball of a young fellow his little travelling companion. “Why, what’s the matter?”“I beg your pardon, doctor,” said Charlie; “did I hurt you?”“Not a bit. So you are going to fish to-day?”“Yes, sir,” said the beaming Charlie. “I say, sir, do you think it’ll be a fine day?”“I hope so—good-bye. I suppose this can will be full when you come back?”“Good-bye, sir,” said Charlie, secretly resolving that if fortune favoured him he would present the two finest of his trout to the doctor.He found Drift ready for him when he reached that young gentleman’s study.Besides his rod, Tom had a somewhat cumbersome bag, which, as it carried most of the provisions for the whole party, he was not a little surly about being burdened with.Charlie, of course, thought it was his and Tom’s dinner.“Is that the grub?” he cried. “Why, Tom Drift, you have been laying in a spread! What a brick you are! Look here, I’d carry it—isn’t it a weight, though! If we get all this inside us two we shan’t starve!”And so they started, Charlie lugging along the bag and whistling like a lark.“Looks cloudy,” said Tom, who felt he must say something or other.“Never mind, all the better for the trout, you know. I say, I wish I had my fly on the water this minute.”As Tom was silent, Charlie kept up the conversation by himself.“I say, Tom Drift,” said he, “if your mother could only see us two chaps going off for a day’s fishing she—”“Look here, draw it mild about my mother, young un. She can take care of herself well enough.”Charlie blushed to the roots of his hair at this rebuke, and for some time the flow of his conversation was arrested.It was a good four miles from Randlebury to Sharle Bridge; and long ere they reached it Charlie’s arm ached with the ponderous bag he was carrying. He did not, however, like to say anything, still less to ask Tom to take a turn at carrying it; so he plodded on, changing hands every few minutes, and buoying himself up with the prospect of the river and the trout.Presently they came within sight of the signpost which marks the junction of the Gurley and Sharle Bridge roads.“Here we are at last!” cried Charlie, panting and puffing. “I say, Tom Drift, I don’t believe I could have carried this bag any farther if I’d tried.”“It’ll be lighter when we go home. Hullo! who are these three?” for at this moment Gus, Margetson, and Shadbolt made their appearance.“They look like Randlebury fellows by their caps. Oh, I know who one of them is,” added Charlie— “Margetson, in the fourth; don’t you know him?”“Rather!” replied Tom; “and the other two are Shaddy and Gus. Who’d have thought of meetingthem!” and he gave a whistle, which succeeded in attracting the attention of the worthy trio.Of course their surprise at meeting Tom and his companion was no less great—in fact, they had to inquire who the youngster was.“Where are you off to?” demanded Gus.“We’re going to try our luck up the Sharle,” said Tom.“You’ll be sold if you do,” said Gus. “We were down looking at it, and a pretty state it’s in. Old Skinner at the Tannery took it into his head to leave his gates up last night, and his muck has got into the river and poisoned every fish in it—hasn’t it, Shad?”“Rather!” replied Shad. “I was glad enough to get my nose away from the place.”“Here’s a go, Charlie!” said Tom, turning to his young companion.During this short conversation Charlie had passed through all the anguish of a bitter disappointment. It is no light thing to have the hope of days snuffed out all in a moment, and he was ready to cry with vexation. However it couldn’t be helped, and he had learned before now how to take a disappointment like a man. So when Tom appealed to him he put a good face on it, and said,—“Awful hard lines. Never mind, let’s go back and see the match with the Badgers, Tom.”“Why don’t you come with us?” asked Gus. “We are going to Gurley; have you ever been to Gurley, young un?”“No,” said Charlie.“Come along, then, we’ll show it you. It’s a prime town, isn’t it, Margetson?”“Don’t ask me,” said Margetson; “I’d sooner see about Gurley than catch a seven-pounder, any day.”“And besides,” said Tom, “isn’t there some good fishing above the lock! Come along, Charlie; we shall not be baulked of our day’s sport after all.”Charlie joined the party, although he did not conceive any great admiration for Tom’s three friends. His anxiety not to offend his now reconciled enemy, and the possibility of fishing after all, overruled him; and still dragging the bag, he trudged along with the others towards Gurley.As they approached the town he could not help noticing the number of holiday-makers and vehicles that passed them. There were drags full of gaily-dressed ladies; and gentlemen who wore veils; and there were light jaunty dog-carts with spruce young white-hatted gentlemen perched in them; there were vans in which corks were popping like musketry fires and parties on foot like themselves, hurrying forward with loud laughter and coarse music.“Surely,” thought he, “there’s something on at Gurley.”Presently a waggonette, driven by a very loud youth in a check suit, and with an enormous cigar in his mouth, pulled up in passing, and its driver addressed Gus.“So you’ve foundyourway here, have you, my young bantam? Catchyoubeing out of a good thing. Are you going on the grand stand?”“Don’t know,” said Gus grandly. “We may pick up a trap in the town.”“Ho, ho! going to do it flash, are you? Well, there’s one of you could do with a little spice,” added he, glancing at Charlie. “I suppose my trap’s not grand enough for you.”“Can you give us a lift, then, Bill?” asked Gus, charmed at the idea.“Yes, to be sure; I’ve no company to-day. There’s just room. Hop in. I may as well turn an honest penny as not. Here, you young sinner, jump up beside me on the box.” And before Charlie knew where he was or whither he was going he found himself on the box of the waggonette beside the flash youth, and his four friends behind him inside.“Who’s your friend, Gus?” he heard Margetson ask.“Son of Belsham, who keeps the ‘Green Tiger’ at Randlebury. We’re in luck, I can tell you, you fellows.”As Charlie gradually recovered from his bewilderment he felt himself extremely uncomfortable and ill at ease. From what had been said he had gathered that the object of the boys in going to Gurley was something more than to see the town; and he by no means liked Gus’s new friend, or approved of his easy familiarity with a low publican’s son. It was not long before his dawning suspicions were fully confirmed.“So you’re going to see the races?” asked Mr Belsham.“No, I’m not,” replied Charlie, as curtly as he could, for he had no desire to encourage the conversation of this objectionable person.“Ain’t you? And what are you going to do, then, my young lamb?” And in the course of this brief sentence Mr Belsham succeeded in interjecting at least three oaths.“I shan’t speak to you if you swear,” said Charlie; “it’s wrong to swear.”“No! is it? Who says that?”“My father says so,” blurted out Charlie, fully satisfied that no better reason could be demanded.Belsham laughed, and turning to the four inside, said,—“I say, young gentlemen, this young pippin tells me he’s got a father who says it’s wrong to swear. What do you think of that?”“His father must be an amusing man,” replied Gus.“Wait till we get on to the course,” said Margetson; “he’ll hear something to astonish him there, young prig!”“I’m not going to the races!” cried my master, starting from his seat, and now fully alive to the fraud of which he had been made the victim. “How could you do this, Tom Drift! Let me down, will you!” and he struggled so desperately with Belsham that that gentleman was obliged to let go the reins in order to hold him.Of course it was no use his resisting. Amid the shouts and jeers of his schoolfellows he was held on to the box. In vain he pleaded, besought, struggled, threatened; there he was compelled to stay, all through Gurley and out to the racecourse. Here he found himself in the midst of a yelling, blaspheming, drunken multitude, from the sight of whose faces and the sound of whose words his soul revolted so vehemently that it lent new vigour to his exhausted frame, and urged him to one last desperate struggle to free himself and escape from his tormentors.“Look here,” said Belsham to Gus; “if you suppose I’m going to have all my fun spoiled by looking after this cub of yours while you’re enjoying yourselves there inside, you’re mistaken; here, look after him yourselves.”So saying, he dragged Charlie from his seat and swung him down into the waggonette with such force that he lay there half stunned and incapable of further resistance, and so for the time being saved his persecutors a good deal of trouble.And indeed had it been otherwise it is hardly likely they would have just then been able to pay him much attention, for at that moment the horses were all drawn up at the starting-post, waiting for the signal to go.That was a feverish moment for Tom Drift. He had bet all his money on one horse, and if that horse did not win, he would lose every penny of it.As usual, he had repented a hundred times of that day’s business, and the last brutal outrage on poor Charlie had called up even in his seared breast a fleeting feeling of indescribable shame. It was, alas! only fleeting.Next moment he forgot all but the horses. There they stood in a long restless line. A shout! and they were off. In the first wild scramble he could catch a sight of the colours on which his hopes depended near the front. On they came like the wind. A man near shouted the name of Tom’s horse—“It’s winning,” and Tom’s head swam at the sound. On still nearer, and now they have passed. In the retreating, straggling crowd he can see his horse still, but it seems to be going back instead of forward. Like a torrent the others overhaul and pass it. Then a louder shout than usual proclaims the race over, and the favourite beaten, and Tom staggers down to his seat sick and half stupid.“Never mind, old man,” he heard Gus say, “luck’s against you this time; you’ll have your turn some day. Take some of this, man, and never say die.”And Tom, reckless in his misery, took the proffered bottle, and drank deeply.It was late in the afternoon before Belsham thought of turning his horse’s head homeward, and by that time Charlie, on the floor of the waggonette, was slowly beginning to recover consciousness.
About ten years before the time of my story it had happened that in a famous battle fought between her Majesty’s troops and those of a hostile and savage king, the colours of the 300th Regiment were noticed to be in imminent peril of capture. The ensign who carried them was wounded, and already a score of the enemy were rushing forward to seize the prize and carry it off in triumph to their king. Suddenly, however, there dashed up to the spot a young cornet of dragoons, who, seeing the peril of his fellow-officer and the colours he carried, dragged him, flag and all, up nearly into his own saddle, and started off with his precious burden towards a place of shelter from the fire and spears of the savages. Before, however, he had gone twenty yards the poor ensign tumbled to the ground, shot through the heart, yielding with his dying hands his colours to the dragoon. That plucky young soldier, wrapping the torn and stained flag round his body, set his teeth, stooped forward in his saddle, and, digging his spurs into his horse, galloped for his life. He had a terrific gauntlet to run, and grandly he ran it. The friendly trench was in sight, the cheers of his comrades fell like music on his ears, a vision of glory and honour flashed through his mind, and then suddenly he reeled forward in his seat—a malignant shot had found him out at last, and, with the colours round him, he dropped from his horse into his comrades’ arms a dead man.
This hero was an old Randlebury boy; and ever since that day, on every anniversary of his glorious death, Randlebury kept, and still keeps, holiday.
All this Charlie was informed of by his faithful chum, Jim Halliday, as the former was dressing himself on the morning of the eventful holiday in question.
What possessed him to get up at six, when he was not to start till nine, I cannot say. He even routed me from under his pillow at five, so fidgety was he, and as soon as ever I pointed to six he bounced out of bed as if he was shot.
“What are you up to, getting up at this time?” growled Jim, who, much to the mutual delight of the boys, slept in the same room with Charlie.
“Oh, you know; I don’t want to be behindhand,” replied Charlie.
“Behindhand! Why, do you know it’s only just six?”
“I know that, and I mean to make the most of my holiday. I say, Jim, what do they want to give us a holiday for, do you know?”
“They don’t want to at all; they’ve got to.”
“Got to? What do you mean?” inquired Charlie, dragging on his boots.
And then Jim, with many yawns and growls, told him the story; and, without waiting for his comments thereon, rolled over and went off to sleep again.
Charlie spent his early hour in polishing up things generally. When he had polished up his rod with the lance-wood top, he polished up his green can and his hooks. Then he warmed me up with a piece of wash-leather, and then his many-fanged knife.
By the time these little jobs were accomplished, and Joe’s study put in order, the breakfast bell sounded, and he went down with a mouth sore with whistling.
He caught sight of Tom Drift at another table, and nodded and waved his green can to him; he informed every boy within hearing distance that it was certain to be a fine day, whatever it looked like now; and he made the wildest and most indiscriminate promises to entertain his whole acquaintance at no end of a trout supper on the spoils of that day’s sport. Twenty times during breakfast did he pull me out and look impatiently at my minute-hand slowly making its way from eight to nine; and as soon as ever the meal was over he rushed upstairs like mad for his rod and bag, and then tore down again four steps at a time, nearly knocking the head master over at the bottom.
“Gently, my man,” said that gentleman, recognising in this cannon-ball of a young fellow his little travelling companion. “Why, what’s the matter?”
“I beg your pardon, doctor,” said Charlie; “did I hurt you?”
“Not a bit. So you are going to fish to-day?”
“Yes, sir,” said the beaming Charlie. “I say, sir, do you think it’ll be a fine day?”
“I hope so—good-bye. I suppose this can will be full when you come back?”
“Good-bye, sir,” said Charlie, secretly resolving that if fortune favoured him he would present the two finest of his trout to the doctor.
He found Drift ready for him when he reached that young gentleman’s study.
Besides his rod, Tom had a somewhat cumbersome bag, which, as it carried most of the provisions for the whole party, he was not a little surly about being burdened with.
Charlie, of course, thought it was his and Tom’s dinner.
“Is that the grub?” he cried. “Why, Tom Drift, you have been laying in a spread! What a brick you are! Look here, I’d carry it—isn’t it a weight, though! If we get all this inside us two we shan’t starve!”
And so they started, Charlie lugging along the bag and whistling like a lark.
“Looks cloudy,” said Tom, who felt he must say something or other.
“Never mind, all the better for the trout, you know. I say, I wish I had my fly on the water this minute.”
As Tom was silent, Charlie kept up the conversation by himself.
“I say, Tom Drift,” said he, “if your mother could only see us two chaps going off for a day’s fishing she—”
“Look here, draw it mild about my mother, young un. She can take care of herself well enough.”
Charlie blushed to the roots of his hair at this rebuke, and for some time the flow of his conversation was arrested.
It was a good four miles from Randlebury to Sharle Bridge; and long ere they reached it Charlie’s arm ached with the ponderous bag he was carrying. He did not, however, like to say anything, still less to ask Tom to take a turn at carrying it; so he plodded on, changing hands every few minutes, and buoying himself up with the prospect of the river and the trout.
Presently they came within sight of the signpost which marks the junction of the Gurley and Sharle Bridge roads.
“Here we are at last!” cried Charlie, panting and puffing. “I say, Tom Drift, I don’t believe I could have carried this bag any farther if I’d tried.”
“It’ll be lighter when we go home. Hullo! who are these three?” for at this moment Gus, Margetson, and Shadbolt made their appearance.
“They look like Randlebury fellows by their caps. Oh, I know who one of them is,” added Charlie— “Margetson, in the fourth; don’t you know him?”
“Rather!” replied Tom; “and the other two are Shaddy and Gus. Who’d have thought of meetingthem!” and he gave a whistle, which succeeded in attracting the attention of the worthy trio.
Of course their surprise at meeting Tom and his companion was no less great—in fact, they had to inquire who the youngster was.
“Where are you off to?” demanded Gus.
“We’re going to try our luck up the Sharle,” said Tom.
“You’ll be sold if you do,” said Gus. “We were down looking at it, and a pretty state it’s in. Old Skinner at the Tannery took it into his head to leave his gates up last night, and his muck has got into the river and poisoned every fish in it—hasn’t it, Shad?”
“Rather!” replied Shad. “I was glad enough to get my nose away from the place.”
“Here’s a go, Charlie!” said Tom, turning to his young companion.
During this short conversation Charlie had passed through all the anguish of a bitter disappointment. It is no light thing to have the hope of days snuffed out all in a moment, and he was ready to cry with vexation. However it couldn’t be helped, and he had learned before now how to take a disappointment like a man. So when Tom appealed to him he put a good face on it, and said,—
“Awful hard lines. Never mind, let’s go back and see the match with the Badgers, Tom.”
“Why don’t you come with us?” asked Gus. “We are going to Gurley; have you ever been to Gurley, young un?”
“No,” said Charlie.
“Come along, then, we’ll show it you. It’s a prime town, isn’t it, Margetson?”
“Don’t ask me,” said Margetson; “I’d sooner see about Gurley than catch a seven-pounder, any day.”
“And besides,” said Tom, “isn’t there some good fishing above the lock! Come along, Charlie; we shall not be baulked of our day’s sport after all.”
Charlie joined the party, although he did not conceive any great admiration for Tom’s three friends. His anxiety not to offend his now reconciled enemy, and the possibility of fishing after all, overruled him; and still dragging the bag, he trudged along with the others towards Gurley.
As they approached the town he could not help noticing the number of holiday-makers and vehicles that passed them. There were drags full of gaily-dressed ladies; and gentlemen who wore veils; and there were light jaunty dog-carts with spruce young white-hatted gentlemen perched in them; there were vans in which corks were popping like musketry fires and parties on foot like themselves, hurrying forward with loud laughter and coarse music.
“Surely,” thought he, “there’s something on at Gurley.”
Presently a waggonette, driven by a very loud youth in a check suit, and with an enormous cigar in his mouth, pulled up in passing, and its driver addressed Gus.
“So you’ve foundyourway here, have you, my young bantam? Catchyoubeing out of a good thing. Are you going on the grand stand?”
“Don’t know,” said Gus grandly. “We may pick up a trap in the town.”
“Ho, ho! going to do it flash, are you? Well, there’s one of you could do with a little spice,” added he, glancing at Charlie. “I suppose my trap’s not grand enough for you.”
“Can you give us a lift, then, Bill?” asked Gus, charmed at the idea.
“Yes, to be sure; I’ve no company to-day. There’s just room. Hop in. I may as well turn an honest penny as not. Here, you young sinner, jump up beside me on the box.” And before Charlie knew where he was or whither he was going he found himself on the box of the waggonette beside the flash youth, and his four friends behind him inside.
“Who’s your friend, Gus?” he heard Margetson ask.
“Son of Belsham, who keeps the ‘Green Tiger’ at Randlebury. We’re in luck, I can tell you, you fellows.”
As Charlie gradually recovered from his bewilderment he felt himself extremely uncomfortable and ill at ease. From what had been said he had gathered that the object of the boys in going to Gurley was something more than to see the town; and he by no means liked Gus’s new friend, or approved of his easy familiarity with a low publican’s son. It was not long before his dawning suspicions were fully confirmed.
“So you’re going to see the races?” asked Mr Belsham.
“No, I’m not,” replied Charlie, as curtly as he could, for he had no desire to encourage the conversation of this objectionable person.
“Ain’t you? And what are you going to do, then, my young lamb?” And in the course of this brief sentence Mr Belsham succeeded in interjecting at least three oaths.
“I shan’t speak to you if you swear,” said Charlie; “it’s wrong to swear.”
“No! is it? Who says that?”
“My father says so,” blurted out Charlie, fully satisfied that no better reason could be demanded.
Belsham laughed, and turning to the four inside, said,—
“I say, young gentlemen, this young pippin tells me he’s got a father who says it’s wrong to swear. What do you think of that?”
“His father must be an amusing man,” replied Gus.
“Wait till we get on to the course,” said Margetson; “he’ll hear something to astonish him there, young prig!”
“I’m not going to the races!” cried my master, starting from his seat, and now fully alive to the fraud of which he had been made the victim. “How could you do this, Tom Drift! Let me down, will you!” and he struggled so desperately with Belsham that that gentleman was obliged to let go the reins in order to hold him.
Of course it was no use his resisting. Amid the shouts and jeers of his schoolfellows he was held on to the box. In vain he pleaded, besought, struggled, threatened; there he was compelled to stay, all through Gurley and out to the racecourse. Here he found himself in the midst of a yelling, blaspheming, drunken multitude, from the sight of whose faces and the sound of whose words his soul revolted so vehemently that it lent new vigour to his exhausted frame, and urged him to one last desperate struggle to free himself and escape from his tormentors.
“Look here,” said Belsham to Gus; “if you suppose I’m going to have all my fun spoiled by looking after this cub of yours while you’re enjoying yourselves there inside, you’re mistaken; here, look after him yourselves.”
So saying, he dragged Charlie from his seat and swung him down into the waggonette with such force that he lay there half stunned and incapable of further resistance, and so for the time being saved his persecutors a good deal of trouble.
And indeed had it been otherwise it is hardly likely they would have just then been able to pay him much attention, for at that moment the horses were all drawn up at the starting-post, waiting for the signal to go.
That was a feverish moment for Tom Drift. He had bet all his money on one horse, and if that horse did not win, he would lose every penny of it.
As usual, he had repented a hundred times of that day’s business, and the last brutal outrage on poor Charlie had called up even in his seared breast a fleeting feeling of indescribable shame. It was, alas! only fleeting.
Next moment he forgot all but the horses. There they stood in a long restless line. A shout! and they were off. In the first wild scramble he could catch a sight of the colours on which his hopes depended near the front. On they came like the wind. A man near shouted the name of Tom’s horse—“It’s winning,” and Tom’s head swam at the sound. On still nearer, and now they have passed. In the retreating, straggling crowd he can see his horse still, but it seems to be going back instead of forward. Like a torrent the others overhaul and pass it. Then a louder shout than usual proclaims the race over, and the favourite beaten, and Tom staggers down to his seat sick and half stupid.
“Never mind, old man,” he heard Gus say, “luck’s against you this time; you’ll have your turn some day. Take some of this, man, and never say die.”
And Tom, reckless in his misery, took the proffered bottle, and drank deeply.
It was late in the afternoon before Belsham thought of turning his horse’s head homeward, and by that time Charlie, on the floor of the waggonette, was slowly beginning to recover consciousness.