Chapter Four.Michaelmas-Day over.Mrs Shaw ordered dinner presently; and while it was being served, she desired Phil to brush his brother’s clothes, as they were dusty from his ride. All the while he was brushing (which, he did very roughly), and all the first part of dinner-time, Phil continued to tease Hugh about what he had said on the top of the coach. Mrs Shaw spoke of the imprudence of talking freely before strangers; and Hugh could have told her that he did not need such a lecture at the very time that he found the same thing by his experience. He did wish Phil would stop. If anybody should ask him a question, he could not answer without crying. Then he remembered how his mother expected him to bear things; and he almost wished he was at home with her now, after all his longing to be away. This thought nearly made him cry again; so he tried to dwell on how his mother would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with in a coach was certainly the least agreeable: and he went on to relate an adventure which has happened to more persons than one. He had found the gentleman in the corner, with the shaggy coat, to be a bear—a tame bear, which had to take the quickest mode of conveyance, in order to be at a distant fair in good time. Mr Shaw spun out his story, so that Hugh quite recovered himself, and laughed as much as anybody at his uncle having formed a bad opinion of Bruin in the early twilight, for his incivility in not bowing to the passenger who left the coach.After dinner, Phil thought it time to be off to Crofton. He had missed something by coming away at all to-day; and he was not going to run the chance of losing the top of the class by not having time to do his Sallust properly. Mrs Shaw said they must have some of her plums before they went, and a glass of wine; and Mr Shaw ordered the gig, saying he would drive them, and thus no time would be lost, though he hoped Phil would not mind being at the bottom of every class for once to help his brother, seeing how soon a diligent boy might work his way up again. Phil replied that that was not so easy as people might think, when there was one like Joe Cape determined to keep him down, if he could once get him down.“I hope you will find time to help Hugh up from the bottom, in a class or two,” said Mr Shaw. “You will not be too busy about your own affairs to look to his, I suppose.”“Where is the use of my meddling?” said Phil. “He can’t rise for years to come. Besides—”“Why can’t I rise?” exclaimed Hugh, with glowing cheeks.“That is right, Hugh,” said his uncle. “Let nobody prophesy for you till you show what you can do.”“Why, uncle, he is nearly two years younger than any boy in the school; and—”“And there is little Page above you in algebra. He is about two years younger than you, Phil, if I remember right.”Hugh could not help clapping his hands at the prospect this held out to him. Phil took the act for triumphing over him, and went on to say, very insultingly, that a little fellow who had been brought up among the girls all his life, and had learned of nobody but Miss Harold, could not be expected to cut any figure among boys. Hugh looked so grieved for a moment, and then suddenly so relieved, that his kind uncle wondered what was in his mind. He took the boy between his knees and asked him.Hugh loved his uncle already, as if he had always known him. He put his arms round his neck, and whispered in his ear what he was thinking of;—his mother’s saying that God could and would, if He was sought, put the spirit of a man into the feeblest child.“True!—quite true! I am very glad you know that, my boy. That will help you to learn at Crofton, though it is better than anything they can teach you in their school-room.”Mrs Shaw and Phil looked curious; but Mr Shaw did not repeat a word of what Hugh had said. He put the boy away from his knees, because he heard the gig coming round.Mrs Shaw told Hugh that she hoped he would spend some of his Sundays with his uncle and her; and his uncle added that he must come on holidays as well as Sundays,—there was so much to see about the mill.Phil was amused, and somewhat pleased, to find how exactly Hugh remembered his description of the place and neighbourhood. He recognised the duck-pond under the hedge by the road-side, with the very finest blackberries growing above it, just out of reach. The church he knew, of course, and the row of chestnuts, whose leaves were just beginning to fall; and the high wall dividing the orchard from the playground. That must have been the wall on which Mr Tooke’s little boy used to be placed to frighten him. It did not look so very high as Hugh had fancied it. One thing which he had never seen or heard of was the bell, under its little roof on the ridge of Mr Tooke’s great house. Was it to call in the boys to school, or for an alarm? His uncle told him it might serve the one purpose in the day, and the other by night; and that almost every large farm thereabouts had such a bell on the top of the house.The sun was near its setting when they came in sight of the Crofton house. A long range of windows glittered in the yellow light, and Phil said that the lower row all belonged to the school-room;—that whole row.In the midst of his explanations Phil stopped, and his manner grew more rough than ever—with a sort of shyness in it too. It was because some of the boys were within hearing, leaning over the pales which separated the playground from the road.“I say; hollo there!” cried one. “Is that Prater you have got with you?”“Prater the second,” cried another. “He could not have had his name if there had not been Prater the first.”“There! There’s a scrape you have got me into already!” muttered Phil.“Be a man, Phil, and bear your own share,” said Mr Shaw; “and no spite, because your words come back to you!”The talk at the palings still went on, as the gig rolled quietly in the sandy by-road.“Prater!” poor Hugh exclaimed. “What a name!”“Yes; that is you,” said his uncle. “You know now what your nick-name will be. Every boy has one or another: and yours might have been worse, because you might have done many a worse thing to earn it.”“But the usher, uncle?”“What of him?”“He should not have told about me.”“Don’t call him ‘Prater the third,’ however. Bear your own share, as I said to Phil, and don’t meddle with another’s.”Perhaps Mr Shaw hoped that through one of the boys the usher would get a new nick-name for his ill-nature in telling tales of a little boy, before he was so much as seen by his companions. He certainly put it into their heads, whether they would make use of it or not.Mr Tooke was out, taking his evening ride; but Mr Shaw would not drive off till he had seen Mrs Watson, and introduced his younger nephew to her, observing to her that he was but a little fellow to come among such a number of rough boys. Mrs Watson smiled kindly at Hugh, and said she was glad he had a brother in the school, to prevent his feeling lonely at first. It would not take many days, she hoped, to make him feel quite at home. Mr Shaw slipped half-a-crown into Hugh’s hand, and whispered to him to try to keep it safe in his inner pocket Hugh ran after him to the door, to tell him he had five shillings already—safe in his box: but his uncle would not take back the half-crown. He thought that, in course of time, Hugh would want all the money he had.Mrs Watson desired Phil to show his brother where he was to sleep, and to help him to put by his clothes. Phil was in a hurry to get to his Sallust; so that he was not sorry when Mrs Watson herself came up to see that the boy’s clothes were laid properly in the deep drawer in which Hugh was to keep his things. Phil then slipped away.“Dear me!” said Mrs Watson, turning over one of Hugh’s new collars, “we must have something different from this. These collars tied with a black ribbon are never tidy. They are always over one shoulder or the other.”“My sisters made them; and they worked so hard to get them done!” said Hugh.“Very well—very right: only it is a pity they are not of a better make. Every Sunday at church, I shall see your collar awry—and every time you go to your aunt’s, she will think we do not make you neat. I must see about that. Here are good stockings, however—properly stout. My dear, are these all the shoes you have got?”“I have a pair on.”“Of course; I don’t doubt that. We must have you measured to-morrow for some boots fitter for the country than these. We have no London pavement here.”And so Mrs Watson went on, sometimes approving and sometimes criticising, till Hugh did not know whether to cry or to be angry. After all the pains his mother and sisters had taken about his things, they were to be found fault with in this way!When his box was emptied, and his drawer filled, Mrs Watson took him into the school-room, where the boys were at supper. Outside the door the buzz seemed prodigious, and Hugh hoped that, in such a bustle, nobody would notice him. Here he was quite mistaken. The moment he entered there was a hush, and all eyes were turned upon him, except his brother’s. Phil hardly looked up from his book; but he made room for Hugh between himself and another boy, and drew the great plate of bread within reach. Mrs Watson saw that Hugh had his basin of milk; and he found it a good thing to have something to do while so many eyes were upon him. He felt that he might have cried if he had not had his supper to eat.The usher sat at the top of the table, reading. Mrs Watson called his attention to Hugh; and Hugh stood up and made his bow. His face was red, as much with anger as timidity, when he recognised in him the passenger who had sat beside the coachman.“Perhaps, Mr Carnaby,” said Mrs Watson, “you will find something for this young gentleman to do, when he has had his supper, while the rest are learning their lessons. To-morrow he will have his own lessons; but to-night—”“There is always the multiplication-table,” replied Mr Carnaby. “The young gentleman is partial to that, I fancy.”Hugh reddened, and applied himself to his bread and milk.“Never mind a joke,” whispered Mrs Watson. “We won’t plague you with the multiplication-table the first evening. I will find you a book or something. Meantime, there is a companion for you—I forgot that.”The good lady went down the room, and brought back a boy who seemed to be doing all he could to stop crying. He dashed his hand over his eyes every minute, and could not look anybody in the face. He had finished his supper, and was at a loss what to do next, as he had only arrived that morning, and did not know anybody at Crofton. His name was Tom Holt, and he was ten years old.When they had told their names and ages, and where they came from, the boys did not know what to say next; and Hugh wished Phil would stop murmuring over his Sallust and looking in the dictionary every minute; but Mrs Watson did not forget the strangers. She brought them Cook’s Voyages out of the library, to amuse themselves with, on condition of their delivering the book to Mr Carnaby at bedtime.The rest of the evening passed away very pleasantly. Hugh told Holt a great deal about Broadstairs and the South Sea Islands, and confided to him his own hopes of being a sailor, and going round the world; and, if possible, making his way straight through China,—the most difficult country left to travel in, he believed, except some parts of Africa. He did not want to cross the Great Desert, on account of the heat. He knew something of what that was by the leads at home, when the sun was on them. What was the greatest heat Holt had ever felt? Then came the surprise. Holt had last come from his uncle’s farm; but he was born in India, and had lived there till eighteen months ago. So, while Hugh had chattered away about the sea at Broadstairs, and the heat on the leads at home, his companion had come fourteen thousand miles over the ocean, and had felt a heat nearly as extreme as that of the Great Desert! Holt was very unassuming too. He talked of the heat of gleaning in his uncle’s harvest-fields, and of the kitchen when the harvest-supper was cooking; owning that he remembered he had felt hotter in India. Hugh heaped questions upon him about his native country and the voyage; and Holt liked to be asked: so that the boys were not at all like strangers just met for the first time. They raised their voices in the eagerness of their talk, from a whisper so as to be heard quite across the table, above the hum and buzz of above thirty others, who were learning their lessons half-aloud. At last Hugh was startled by hearing the words “Prater,” “Prater the second.” He was silent instantly, to Holt’s great wonder.Without raising his eyes from his book, Phil said, so as to be heard as far as the usher,—“Who prated, of Prater the second? Who is Prater the third?”There was a laugh which provoked the usher to come and see whereabouts in Sallust such a passage as this was to be found. Not finding any such, he knuckled Phil’s head, and pulled his hair, till Hugh cried out—“O, don’t, sir! Don’t hurt him so!”“Do you call that hurting? You will soon find what hurting is, when you become acquainted with our birch. You shall have four times seven with our birch— Let us see,—that is your favourite number, I think.”The usher looked round, and almost everybody laughed.“You see I have your secret;—four times seven,” continued Mr Carnaby. “What do you shake your head for?”“Because you have not my secret about four times seven.”“Did not I hear your father? Eh?”“What did you hear my father say? Nobody here knows what he meant? And nobody need know, unless I choose to tell—which I don’t.—Please don’t teaze Phil about it, sir: for he knows no more about it than you do.”Mr Carnaby said something about the impertinence of little boys, as if they could have secrets, and then declared it high time that the youngsters should go to bed. Hugh delivered Cook’s Voyages into his hands, and then bade Phil good-night. He was just going to put his face up to be kissed, but recollected in time that he was to leave off kissing when he went to school. He held out his hand, but Phil seemed not to see it, and only told him to be sure to lie enough on one side, so as to leave him room; and that he was to take the side of the bed next the window. Hugh nodded and went off, with Holt and two more, who slept in the same room.The two who were not new boys were in bed in a minute; and when they saw Hugh wash his face and hands, they sat up in bed to stare. One of them told him that he had better not do that, as the maid would be coming for the light, and would leave him in the dark, and report of him if he was not in bed. So Hugh made a great splutter, and did not half dry his face, and left the water in the basin;—a thing which they told him was not allowed. He saw that the others had not kneeled down to say their prayers,—a practice which he had never omitted since he could say a prayer, except when he had the measles. He knew the boys were watching him; but he thought of his mother, and how she had taught him to pray at her knee. He hid himself as well as he could with the scanty bed-curtains, and kneeled. He could not attend to the words he said, while feeling that eyes were upon him; and before he had done, the maid came in for the candle. She waited; but when he got into bed, she told him that he must be quicker to-morrow night, as she had no time to spare waiting for the candle.Hugh was more tired than he had ever been in his life. This had been the longest day he had ever known. It seemed more like a week than a day. Yet he could not go to sleep. He had forgotten to ask Phil to be sure and wake him in time in the morning: and now he must keep awake till Phil came, to say this. Then, he could not but ask himself whether he liked, and should like, being at school as much as he expected; and when he felt how very unlike home it was, and how rough everybody seemed, and how Phil appeared almost as if he was ashamed of him, instead of helping him, he was so miserable he did not know what to do. He cried bitterly,—cried till his pillow was quite wet, and he was almost choked with his grief; for he tried hard not to let his sobs be heard. After awhile, he felt what he might do. Though he had kneeled he had not really prayed: and if he had, God is never weary of prayers. It was a happy thought to Hugh that his very best friend was with him still, and that he might speak to Him at any time. He spoke now in his heart; and a great comfort it was. He said—“O God, I am all alone here, where nobody knows me; and everything is very strange and uncomfortable. Please, make people kind to me till I am used to them; and keep up a brave heart in me, if they are not. Help me not to mind little things; but to do my lessons well, that I may get to like being a Crofton boy, as I thought I should. I love them all at home very much,—better than I ever did before. Make them love me, and think of me every day,—particularly Agnes,—that they may be as glad as I shall be when I go home at Christmas.”This was the most of what he had to say; and he dropped asleep with the feeling that God was listening to him.After a long while, as it seemed to him, though it was only an hour, there was a light and some bustle in the room. It was Phil and two others coming to bed.“O Phil!” cried Hugh, starting bolt upright and winking with sleep,—“I meant to keep awake, to ask you to be sure and call me in the morning, time enough,—quite time enough, please.”The others laughed; and Phil asked whether he had not seen the bell, as he came; and what it should be for but to ring everybody up in the morning.“But I might not hear it,” pleaded Hugh.“Not hear it? You’ll soon see that.”“Well, but you will see that I really do wake, won’t you?”“The bell will take care of that, I tell you,” was all he could get from Phil.
Mrs Shaw ordered dinner presently; and while it was being served, she desired Phil to brush his brother’s clothes, as they were dusty from his ride. All the while he was brushing (which, he did very roughly), and all the first part of dinner-time, Phil continued to tease Hugh about what he had said on the top of the coach. Mrs Shaw spoke of the imprudence of talking freely before strangers; and Hugh could have told her that he did not need such a lecture at the very time that he found the same thing by his experience. He did wish Phil would stop. If anybody should ask him a question, he could not answer without crying. Then he remembered how his mother expected him to bear things; and he almost wished he was at home with her now, after all his longing to be away. This thought nearly made him cry again; so he tried to dwell on how his mother would expect him to bear things: but neither of them had thought that morning, beside his box, that the first trial would come from Phil. This again made him so nearly cry that his uncle observed his twitching face, and, without noticing him, said that he, for his part, did not want to see little boys wise before they had time to learn; and that the most silent companion he had ever been shut up with in a coach was certainly the least agreeable: and he went on to relate an adventure which has happened to more persons than one. He had found the gentleman in the corner, with the shaggy coat, to be a bear—a tame bear, which had to take the quickest mode of conveyance, in order to be at a distant fair in good time. Mr Shaw spun out his story, so that Hugh quite recovered himself, and laughed as much as anybody at his uncle having formed a bad opinion of Bruin in the early twilight, for his incivility in not bowing to the passenger who left the coach.
After dinner, Phil thought it time to be off to Crofton. He had missed something by coming away at all to-day; and he was not going to run the chance of losing the top of the class by not having time to do his Sallust properly. Mrs Shaw said they must have some of her plums before they went, and a glass of wine; and Mr Shaw ordered the gig, saying he would drive them, and thus no time would be lost, though he hoped Phil would not mind being at the bottom of every class for once to help his brother, seeing how soon a diligent boy might work his way up again. Phil replied that that was not so easy as people might think, when there was one like Joe Cape determined to keep him down, if he could once get him down.
“I hope you will find time to help Hugh up from the bottom, in a class or two,” said Mr Shaw. “You will not be too busy about your own affairs to look to his, I suppose.”
“Where is the use of my meddling?” said Phil. “He can’t rise for years to come. Besides—”
“Why can’t I rise?” exclaimed Hugh, with glowing cheeks.
“That is right, Hugh,” said his uncle. “Let nobody prophesy for you till you show what you can do.”
“Why, uncle, he is nearly two years younger than any boy in the school; and—”
“And there is little Page above you in algebra. He is about two years younger than you, Phil, if I remember right.”
Hugh could not help clapping his hands at the prospect this held out to him. Phil took the act for triumphing over him, and went on to say, very insultingly, that a little fellow who had been brought up among the girls all his life, and had learned of nobody but Miss Harold, could not be expected to cut any figure among boys. Hugh looked so grieved for a moment, and then suddenly so relieved, that his kind uncle wondered what was in his mind. He took the boy between his knees and asked him.
Hugh loved his uncle already, as if he had always known him. He put his arms round his neck, and whispered in his ear what he was thinking of;—his mother’s saying that God could and would, if He was sought, put the spirit of a man into the feeblest child.
“True!—quite true! I am very glad you know that, my boy. That will help you to learn at Crofton, though it is better than anything they can teach you in their school-room.”
Mrs Shaw and Phil looked curious; but Mr Shaw did not repeat a word of what Hugh had said. He put the boy away from his knees, because he heard the gig coming round.
Mrs Shaw told Hugh that she hoped he would spend some of his Sundays with his uncle and her; and his uncle added that he must come on holidays as well as Sundays,—there was so much to see about the mill.
Phil was amused, and somewhat pleased, to find how exactly Hugh remembered his description of the place and neighbourhood. He recognised the duck-pond under the hedge by the road-side, with the very finest blackberries growing above it, just out of reach. The church he knew, of course, and the row of chestnuts, whose leaves were just beginning to fall; and the high wall dividing the orchard from the playground. That must have been the wall on which Mr Tooke’s little boy used to be placed to frighten him. It did not look so very high as Hugh had fancied it. One thing which he had never seen or heard of was the bell, under its little roof on the ridge of Mr Tooke’s great house. Was it to call in the boys to school, or for an alarm? His uncle told him it might serve the one purpose in the day, and the other by night; and that almost every large farm thereabouts had such a bell on the top of the house.
The sun was near its setting when they came in sight of the Crofton house. A long range of windows glittered in the yellow light, and Phil said that the lower row all belonged to the school-room;—that whole row.
In the midst of his explanations Phil stopped, and his manner grew more rough than ever—with a sort of shyness in it too. It was because some of the boys were within hearing, leaning over the pales which separated the playground from the road.
“I say; hollo there!” cried one. “Is that Prater you have got with you?”
“Prater the second,” cried another. “He could not have had his name if there had not been Prater the first.”
“There! There’s a scrape you have got me into already!” muttered Phil.
“Be a man, Phil, and bear your own share,” said Mr Shaw; “and no spite, because your words come back to you!”
The talk at the palings still went on, as the gig rolled quietly in the sandy by-road.
“Prater!” poor Hugh exclaimed. “What a name!”
“Yes; that is you,” said his uncle. “You know now what your nick-name will be. Every boy has one or another: and yours might have been worse, because you might have done many a worse thing to earn it.”
“But the usher, uncle?”
“What of him?”
“He should not have told about me.”
“Don’t call him ‘Prater the third,’ however. Bear your own share, as I said to Phil, and don’t meddle with another’s.”
Perhaps Mr Shaw hoped that through one of the boys the usher would get a new nick-name for his ill-nature in telling tales of a little boy, before he was so much as seen by his companions. He certainly put it into their heads, whether they would make use of it or not.
Mr Tooke was out, taking his evening ride; but Mr Shaw would not drive off till he had seen Mrs Watson, and introduced his younger nephew to her, observing to her that he was but a little fellow to come among such a number of rough boys. Mrs Watson smiled kindly at Hugh, and said she was glad he had a brother in the school, to prevent his feeling lonely at first. It would not take many days, she hoped, to make him feel quite at home. Mr Shaw slipped half-a-crown into Hugh’s hand, and whispered to him to try to keep it safe in his inner pocket Hugh ran after him to the door, to tell him he had five shillings already—safe in his box: but his uncle would not take back the half-crown. He thought that, in course of time, Hugh would want all the money he had.
Mrs Watson desired Phil to show his brother where he was to sleep, and to help him to put by his clothes. Phil was in a hurry to get to his Sallust; so that he was not sorry when Mrs Watson herself came up to see that the boy’s clothes were laid properly in the deep drawer in which Hugh was to keep his things. Phil then slipped away.
“Dear me!” said Mrs Watson, turning over one of Hugh’s new collars, “we must have something different from this. These collars tied with a black ribbon are never tidy. They are always over one shoulder or the other.”
“My sisters made them; and they worked so hard to get them done!” said Hugh.
“Very well—very right: only it is a pity they are not of a better make. Every Sunday at church, I shall see your collar awry—and every time you go to your aunt’s, she will think we do not make you neat. I must see about that. Here are good stockings, however—properly stout. My dear, are these all the shoes you have got?”
“I have a pair on.”
“Of course; I don’t doubt that. We must have you measured to-morrow for some boots fitter for the country than these. We have no London pavement here.”
And so Mrs Watson went on, sometimes approving and sometimes criticising, till Hugh did not know whether to cry or to be angry. After all the pains his mother and sisters had taken about his things, they were to be found fault with in this way!
When his box was emptied, and his drawer filled, Mrs Watson took him into the school-room, where the boys were at supper. Outside the door the buzz seemed prodigious, and Hugh hoped that, in such a bustle, nobody would notice him. Here he was quite mistaken. The moment he entered there was a hush, and all eyes were turned upon him, except his brother’s. Phil hardly looked up from his book; but he made room for Hugh between himself and another boy, and drew the great plate of bread within reach. Mrs Watson saw that Hugh had his basin of milk; and he found it a good thing to have something to do while so many eyes were upon him. He felt that he might have cried if he had not had his supper to eat.
The usher sat at the top of the table, reading. Mrs Watson called his attention to Hugh; and Hugh stood up and made his bow. His face was red, as much with anger as timidity, when he recognised in him the passenger who had sat beside the coachman.
“Perhaps, Mr Carnaby,” said Mrs Watson, “you will find something for this young gentleman to do, when he has had his supper, while the rest are learning their lessons. To-morrow he will have his own lessons; but to-night—”
“There is always the multiplication-table,” replied Mr Carnaby. “The young gentleman is partial to that, I fancy.”
Hugh reddened, and applied himself to his bread and milk.
“Never mind a joke,” whispered Mrs Watson. “We won’t plague you with the multiplication-table the first evening. I will find you a book or something. Meantime, there is a companion for you—I forgot that.”
The good lady went down the room, and brought back a boy who seemed to be doing all he could to stop crying. He dashed his hand over his eyes every minute, and could not look anybody in the face. He had finished his supper, and was at a loss what to do next, as he had only arrived that morning, and did not know anybody at Crofton. His name was Tom Holt, and he was ten years old.
When they had told their names and ages, and where they came from, the boys did not know what to say next; and Hugh wished Phil would stop murmuring over his Sallust and looking in the dictionary every minute; but Mrs Watson did not forget the strangers. She brought them Cook’s Voyages out of the library, to amuse themselves with, on condition of their delivering the book to Mr Carnaby at bedtime.
The rest of the evening passed away very pleasantly. Hugh told Holt a great deal about Broadstairs and the South Sea Islands, and confided to him his own hopes of being a sailor, and going round the world; and, if possible, making his way straight through China,—the most difficult country left to travel in, he believed, except some parts of Africa. He did not want to cross the Great Desert, on account of the heat. He knew something of what that was by the leads at home, when the sun was on them. What was the greatest heat Holt had ever felt? Then came the surprise. Holt had last come from his uncle’s farm; but he was born in India, and had lived there till eighteen months ago. So, while Hugh had chattered away about the sea at Broadstairs, and the heat on the leads at home, his companion had come fourteen thousand miles over the ocean, and had felt a heat nearly as extreme as that of the Great Desert! Holt was very unassuming too. He talked of the heat of gleaning in his uncle’s harvest-fields, and of the kitchen when the harvest-supper was cooking; owning that he remembered he had felt hotter in India. Hugh heaped questions upon him about his native country and the voyage; and Holt liked to be asked: so that the boys were not at all like strangers just met for the first time. They raised their voices in the eagerness of their talk, from a whisper so as to be heard quite across the table, above the hum and buzz of above thirty others, who were learning their lessons half-aloud. At last Hugh was startled by hearing the words “Prater,” “Prater the second.” He was silent instantly, to Holt’s great wonder.
Without raising his eyes from his book, Phil said, so as to be heard as far as the usher,—
“Who prated, of Prater the second? Who is Prater the third?”
There was a laugh which provoked the usher to come and see whereabouts in Sallust such a passage as this was to be found. Not finding any such, he knuckled Phil’s head, and pulled his hair, till Hugh cried out—
“O, don’t, sir! Don’t hurt him so!”
“Do you call that hurting? You will soon find what hurting is, when you become acquainted with our birch. You shall have four times seven with our birch— Let us see,—that is your favourite number, I think.”
The usher looked round, and almost everybody laughed.
“You see I have your secret;—four times seven,” continued Mr Carnaby. “What do you shake your head for?”
“Because you have not my secret about four times seven.”
“Did not I hear your father? Eh?”
“What did you hear my father say? Nobody here knows what he meant? And nobody need know, unless I choose to tell—which I don’t.—Please don’t teaze Phil about it, sir: for he knows no more about it than you do.”
Mr Carnaby said something about the impertinence of little boys, as if they could have secrets, and then declared it high time that the youngsters should go to bed. Hugh delivered Cook’s Voyages into his hands, and then bade Phil good-night. He was just going to put his face up to be kissed, but recollected in time that he was to leave off kissing when he went to school. He held out his hand, but Phil seemed not to see it, and only told him to be sure to lie enough on one side, so as to leave him room; and that he was to take the side of the bed next the window. Hugh nodded and went off, with Holt and two more, who slept in the same room.
The two who were not new boys were in bed in a minute; and when they saw Hugh wash his face and hands, they sat up in bed to stare. One of them told him that he had better not do that, as the maid would be coming for the light, and would leave him in the dark, and report of him if he was not in bed. So Hugh made a great splutter, and did not half dry his face, and left the water in the basin;—a thing which they told him was not allowed. He saw that the others had not kneeled down to say their prayers,—a practice which he had never omitted since he could say a prayer, except when he had the measles. He knew the boys were watching him; but he thought of his mother, and how she had taught him to pray at her knee. He hid himself as well as he could with the scanty bed-curtains, and kneeled. He could not attend to the words he said, while feeling that eyes were upon him; and before he had done, the maid came in for the candle. She waited; but when he got into bed, she told him that he must be quicker to-morrow night, as she had no time to spare waiting for the candle.
Hugh was more tired than he had ever been in his life. This had been the longest day he had ever known. It seemed more like a week than a day. Yet he could not go to sleep. He had forgotten to ask Phil to be sure and wake him in time in the morning: and now he must keep awake till Phil came, to say this. Then, he could not but ask himself whether he liked, and should like, being at school as much as he expected; and when he felt how very unlike home it was, and how rough everybody seemed, and how Phil appeared almost as if he was ashamed of him, instead of helping him, he was so miserable he did not know what to do. He cried bitterly,—cried till his pillow was quite wet, and he was almost choked with his grief; for he tried hard not to let his sobs be heard. After awhile, he felt what he might do. Though he had kneeled he had not really prayed: and if he had, God is never weary of prayers. It was a happy thought to Hugh that his very best friend was with him still, and that he might speak to Him at any time. He spoke now in his heart; and a great comfort it was. He said—
“O God, I am all alone here, where nobody knows me; and everything is very strange and uncomfortable. Please, make people kind to me till I am used to them; and keep up a brave heart in me, if they are not. Help me not to mind little things; but to do my lessons well, that I may get to like being a Crofton boy, as I thought I should. I love them all at home very much,—better than I ever did before. Make them love me, and think of me every day,—particularly Agnes,—that they may be as glad as I shall be when I go home at Christmas.”
This was the most of what he had to say; and he dropped asleep with the feeling that God was listening to him.
After a long while, as it seemed to him, though it was only an hour, there was a light and some bustle in the room. It was Phil and two others coming to bed.
“O Phil!” cried Hugh, starting bolt upright and winking with sleep,—“I meant to keep awake, to ask you to be sure and call me in the morning, time enough,—quite time enough, please.”
The others laughed; and Phil asked whether he had not seen the bell, as he came; and what it should be for but to ring everybody up in the morning.
“But I might not hear it,” pleaded Hugh.
“Not hear it? You’ll soon see that.”
“Well, but you will see that I really do wake, won’t you?”
“The bell will take care of that, I tell you,” was all he could get from Phil.
Chapter Five.Crofton Play.Hugh found, in the morning, that there was no danger of his not hearing the bell. Its clang clang startled him out of a sound sleep; and he was on his feet on the floor almost before his eyes were open. The boys who were more used to the bell did not make quite so much haste. They yawned a few times, and turned out more slowly; so that Hugh had the great tin wash basin to himself longer than the rest. There was a basin to every three boys; and, early as Hugh began, his companions were impatient long before he had done. At first, they waited, in curiosity to see what he was going to do after washing his face; when he went further, they began to quiz; but when they found that he actually thought of washing his feet, they hooted and groaned at him for a dirty brat.“Dirty!” cried Hugh, facing them, amazed, “Dirty for washing my feet! Mother says it is a dirty trick not to wash all over every day.”Phil told him that was stuff and nonsense here. There was no room and no time for such home-doings. The boys all washed their heads and feet on Saturdays. He would soon find that he might be glad to get his face and hands done in the mornings.The other boys in the room were, or pretended to be, so disgusted with the very idea of washing feet in a basin, that they made Hugh rinse and rub out the tin basin several times before they would use it, and then there was a great bustle to get down-stairs at the second bell. Hugh pulled his brother’s arm, as Phil was brushing out of the room, and asked, in a whisper, whether there would be time to say his prayers.“There will be prayers in the school-room. You must be in time for them,” said Phil. “You had better come with me.”“Do wait one moment, while I just comb my hair.”Phil fidgeted, and others giggled, while Hugh tried to part his hair, as Susan had taught him. He gave it up, and left it rough, thinking he would come up and do it when there was nobody there to laugh at him.The school-room looked chilly and dull, as there was no sunshine in it till the afternoon; and still Mr Tooke was not there, as Hugh had hoped he would be. Mrs Watson and the servants came in for prayers, which were well read by the usher; and then everybody went to business:—everybody but Hugh and Holt, who had nothing to do. Class after class came up for repetition; and this repetition seemed to the new boys an accomplishment they should never acquire. They did not think that any practice would enable them to gabble, as everybody seemed able to gabble here. Hugh had witnessed something of it before,—Phil having been wont to run off at home, “Sal, Sol, Ren et Splen,” to the end of the passage, for the admiration of his sisters, and so much to little Harry’s amusement, that Susan, however busy she might be, came to listen, and then asked him to say it again, that cook might hear what he learned at school. Hugh now thought that none of them gabbled quite so fast as Phil: but he soon found out, by a glance or two of Phil’s to one side, that he was trying to astonish the new boys. It is surprising how it lightened Hugh’s heart to find that his brother did not quite despise, or feel ashamed of him, as he had begun to think: but that he even took pains to show off. He was sorry too when the usher spoke sharply to Phil, and even rapped his head with the cane, asking him what he spluttered out his nonsense at that rate for. Thus ended Phil’s display; and Hugh felt as hot, and as ready to cry, as if it had happened to himself.Perhaps the usher saw this; for when he called Hugh up, he was very kind. He looked at the Latin grammar he had used with Miss Harold, and saw by the dogs’-ears exactly how far Hugh had gone in it, and asked him only what he could answer very well. Hugh said three declensions, with only one mistake. Then he was shown the part that he was to say to-morrow morning; and Hugh walked away, all the happier for having something to do, like everybody else. He was so little afraid of the usher, that he went back to him to ask where he had better sit.“Sit! O! I suppose you must have a desk, though you have nothing to put in it. If there is a spare desk, you shall have it: if not, we will find a corner for you somewhere.”Some of the boys whispered that Mrs Watson’s footstool, under her apron, would do: but the usher overheard this, and observed that it took some people a good while to know a new boy; and that they might find that a little fellow might be as much of a man as a big one. And the usher called the oldest boy in the school, and asked him to see if there was a desk for little Proctor. There was: and Hugh put into it his two or three school-books, and his slate; and felt that he was now indeed a Crofton boy. Then, the usher was kinder than he had expected; and he had still to see Mr Tooke, of whom he was not afraid at all. So Hugh’s spirits rose, and he liked the prospect of breakfast as well as any boy in the school.There was one more rebuff for him, first, however. He ran up to his room, to finish combing his hair, while the other boys were thronging into the long room to breakfast. He found the housemaids there, making the beds; and they both cried “Out! Out!” and clapped their hands at him, and threatened to tell Mrs Watson of his having broken rules, if he did not go this moment Hugh asked what Mrs Watson would say to his hair, if he went to breakfast with it as it was. One of the maids was good-natured enough to comb it for him, for once: but she said he must carry a comb in his pocket; as the boys were not allowed to go to their rooms, except at stated hours.At last, Hugh saw Mr Tooke. When the boys entered school at nine o’clock, the master was at his desk. Hugh went up to his end of the room, with a smiling face, while Tom Holt hung back; and he kept beckoning Tom Holt on, having told him there was nothing to be afraid of. But when, at last, Mr Tooke saw him, he made no difference between the two, and seemed to forget having ever seen Hugh. He told them he hoped they would be good boys, and would do credit to Crofton; and then he asked Mr Carnaby to set them something to learn. And this was all they had to do with Mr Tooke for a long while.This morning in school, from nine till twelve, seemed the longest morning these little boys had ever known. When they remembered that the afternoon would be as long, and every morning and afternoon for three months, their hearts sank. Perhaps, if any one had told them that the time would grow shorter and shorter by use, and at last, when they had plenty to do, almost too short, they would not have believed it, because they could not yet feel it. But what they now found was only what every boy and girl finds, on beginning school, or entering upon any new way of life.Mr Carnaby, who was busy with others, found it rather difficult to fill up their time. When Hugh had said some Latin, and helped his companion to learn his first Latin lesson, and both had written a copy, and done a sum, Mr Carnaby could not spare them any more time or thought, and told them they might do what they liked, if they only kept quiet, till school was up. So they made out the ridiculous figures which somebody had carved upon their desks, and the verses, half rubbed out, which were scribbled inside: and then they reckoned, on their slates, how many days there were before the Christmas holidays;—how many school-days, and how many Sundays. And then Hugh began to draw a steamboat in the Thames, as seen from the leads of his father’s house; while Holt drew on his slate the ship in which he came over from India. But before they had done, the clock struck twelve, school was up, and there was a general rush into the playground.Now Hugh was really to see the country. Except that the sun had shone pleasantly into his room in the morning, through waving trees, nothing had yet occurred to make him feel that he was in the country. Now, however, he was in the open air, with trees sprinkled all over the landscape, and green fields stretching away, and the old church tower half-covered with ivy. Hugh screamed with pleasure; and nobody thought it odd, for almost every boy was shouting. Hugh longed to pick up some of the shining brown chestnuts which he had seen yesterday in the road, under the trees; and he was now cantering away to the spot, when Phil ran after him, and roughly stopped him, saying he would get into a fine scrape for the first day, if he went out of bounds.Hugh had forgotten there were such things as bounds, and was not at all glad to be reminded of them now. He sighed as he begged Phil to show him exactly where he might go and where he might not Phil did so in an impatient way, and then was off to trap-ball, because his party were waiting for him.The chestnut-trees overhung one corner of the playground, within the paling: and in that corner Hugh found several chestnuts which had burst their sheaths, and lay among the first fallen leaves. He pocketed them with great delight, wondering that nobody had been before him to secure such a treasure. Agnes should have some; and little Harry would find them nice playthings. They looked good to eat too; and he thought he could spare one to taste; so he took out his knife, cut off the point of a fine swelling chestnut, and tasted a bit of the inside. Just as he was making a face over it, and wondering that it was so nasty, when those which his father roasted in the fire-shovel on Christmas-day were so good, he heard laughter behind him, and found that he was again doing something ridiculous, though he knew not what: and in a moment poor Hugh was as unhappy as ever.He ran away from the laughing boys, and went quite to the opposite corner of the playground, where a good number of his schoolfellows were playing ball under the orchard-wall. Hugh ran hither and thither, like the rest, trying to catch the ball; but he never could do it; and he was jostled, and thrown down, and another boy fell over him; and he was told that he knew nothing about play, and had better move off.He did so, with a heavy heart, wondering how he was ever to be like the other boys, if nobody would take him in hand, and teach him to play, or even let him learn. Remembering what his mother expected of him, he tried to sing, to prevent crying, and began to count the pales round the playground, for something to do. This presently brought him to a tree which stood on the very boundary, its trunk serving instead of two or three pales. It was only a twisted old apple-tree; but the more twisted and gnarled it was, the more it looked like a tree that Hugh could climb; and he had always longed to climb a tree. Glancing up, he saw a boy already there, sitting on the fork of two branches, reading.“Have you a mind to come up?” asked the boy.“Yes, sir, I should like to try and climb a tree. I never did.”“Well, this is a good one to begin with. I’ll lend you a hand; shall I?”“Thank you, sir.”“Don’t call me, ‘sir.’ I’m only a schoolboy, like you. I am Dan Firth. Call me Firth, as I am the only one of the name here. You are little Proctor, I think—Proctor’s brother.”“Yes: but, Firth, I shall pull you down, if I slip.”“Not you: but I’ll come down, and so send you up to my seat, which is the safest to begin with. Stand off.”Firth swung himself down, and then, showing Hugh where to plant his feet, and propping him when he wanted it, he soon seated him on the fork, and laughed good-naturedly when Hugh waved his cap over his head, on occasion of being up in a tree. He let him get down and up again several times, till he could do it quite alone, and felt that he might have a seat here whenever it was not occupied by any one else.While Hugh sat in the branches, venturing to leave hold with one hand, that he might fan his hot face with his cap, Firth stood on the rail of the palings, holding by the tree, and talking to him. Firth told him that this was the only tree the boys were allowed to climb, since Ned Reeve had fallen from the great ash, and hurt his spine. He showed what trees he had himself climbed before that accident; and it made Hugh giddy to think of being within eight feet of the top of the lofty elm in the churchyard, which Firth had thought nothing of mounting.“Did anybody teach you?” asked Hugh.“Yes; my father taught me to climb, when I was younger than you.”“And had you anybody to teach you games and things, when you came here?”“No: but I had learned a good deal of that before I came; and so I soon fell into the ways here. Have you anybody to teach you?”“No— yes— why, no. I thought Phil would have showed me things; but he does not seem to mind me at all.” And Hugh bit his lip, and fanned himself faster.“Ah! He attends to you more than you think.”“Does he? Then why— but what good does it do me?”“What good? His holding off makes you push your own way. It lets you make friends for yourself.”“I have no friends here,” said Hugh.“Yes, you have. Here am I. You would not have had me, if you had been at Proctor’s heels at this moment.”“Will you be my friend, then?”“That I will.”“What, a great boy like you, that sits reading in a tree! But I may read here beside you. You said there was room for two.”“Ay; but you must not use it yet,—at least, not often, if you wish to do well here. Everybody knows I can play at anything. From the time I became captain of the wall at fives, I have had liberty to do what I like, without question. But you must show that you are up to play, before they will let you read in peace and quiet.”“But how can I, if— if—”“Once show your spirit,—prove that you can shift for yourself, and you will find Phil open out wonderfully. He and you will forget all his shyness then. Once show him that he need not be ashamed of you—”“Ashamed of me!” cried Hugh, firing up.“Yes. Little boys are looked upon as girls in a school till they show that they are little men. And then again, you have been brought up with girls,—have not you?”“To be sure; and so was he.”“And half the boys here, I dare say. Well, they are called Bettys till—”“I am not a Betty,” cried Hugh, flashing again.“They suppose you are, because you part your hair, and do as you have been used to do at home.”“What business have they with my hair? I might as well call them Bruins for wearing theirs shaggy.”“Very true. They will let you and your hair alone when they see what you are made of; and then Phil will—”“He will own me when I don’t want it; and now, when he might help me, there he is, far off, never caring about what becomes of me!”“O yes, he does. He is watching you all the time. You and he will have it all out some day before Christmas, and then you will see how he really cares about you. Really your hair is very long,—too like a girl’s. Shall I cut it for you?”“I should like it,” said Hugh, “but I don’t want the boys to think I am afraid of them; or to begin giving up to them.”“You are right there. We will let it alone now, and cut it when it suits our convenience.”“What a nice place this is, to be sure!” cried Hugh, as the feeling of loneliness went off. “But the rooks do not make so much noise as I expected.”“You will find what they can do in that way when spring comes,—when they are building.”“And when may we go out upon the heath, and into the fields where the lambs are?”“We go long walks on Saturday afternoons; but you do not expect to see young lambs in October, do you?”“O, I forgot I never can remember the seasons for things.”“That shows you are a Londoner. You will learn all those things here. If you look for hares in our walks, you may chance to see one; or you may start a pheasant; but take care you don’t mention lambs, or goslings, or cowslips, or any spring things; or you will never hear the last of it.”“Thank you: but what will poor Holt do? He is from India, and he knows very little about our ways.”“They may laugh at him; but they will not despise him as they might a Londoner. Being an Indian, and being a Londoner, are very different things.”“And yet how proud the Londoners are over the country! It is very odd.”“People are proud of their own ways all the world over. You will be proud of being a Crofton boy, by-and-by.”“Perhaps I am now, a little,” said Hugh, blushing.“What, already? Ah! You will do, I see. I have known old people proud of their age, and young people of their youth. I have seen poor people proud of their poverty; and everybody has seen rich people proud of their wealth. I have seen happy people proud of their prosperity, and the afflicted proud of their afflictions. Yes; people can always manage to be proud: so you have boasted of being a Londoner up to this time; and from this time you will hold your head high as a Crofton boy.”“How long? Till when?”“Ah! Till when? What next! What do you mean to be afterwards?”“A soldier, or a sailor, or a great traveller, or something of that kind. I mean to go quite round the world, like Captain Cook.”“Then you will come home, proud of having been round the world; and you will meet with some old neighbour who boasts of having spent all his life in the house he was born in.”“Old Mr Dixon told mother that of himself, very lately. Oh dear, how often does the postman come?”“You want a letter from home, do you? But you left them only yesterday morning.”“I don’t know how to believe that,—it seems such an immense time! But when does the postman come?”“Any day when he has letters to bring,—at about four in the afternoon. We see him come, from the school-room; but we do not know who the letters are for till school breaks up at five.”“O dear!” cried Hugh, thinking what the suspense must be, and the disappointment at last to twenty boys, perhaps, for one that was gratified. Firth advised him to write a letter home before he began to expect one. If he did not like to ask the usher, he himself would rule the paper for him, and he could write a bit at a time, after his lessons were done in the evening, till the sheet was full.Hugh then told his grievance about the usher, and Firth thought that though it was not wise in Hugh to prate about Crofton on the top of the coach, it was worse to sit by and listen without warning, unless the listener meant to hold his own tongue. But he fancied the usher had since heard something which made him sorry; and the best way now was for Hugh to bear no malice, and remember nothing more of the affair than to be discreet in his future journeys.“What is the matter there?” cried Hugh. “O dear! Something very terrible must have happened. How that boy is screaming!”“It is only Lamb again,” replied Firth. “You will soon get used to his screaming. He is a very passionate boy—I never saw such a passionate fellow.”“But what are they doing to him?”“Somebody is putting him into a passion, I suppose. There is always somebody to do that.”“What a shame!” cried Hugh.“Yes: I see no wit in it,” replied Firth. “Anybody may do it. You have only to hold your little finger up to put him in a rage.”Hugh thought Firth was rather cool about the matter. But Firth was not so cool when the throng opened for a moment, and showed what was really done to the angry boy. Only his head appeared above ground. His schoolfellows had put him into a hole they had dug, and had filled it up to his chin, stamping down the earth, so that the boy was perfectly helpless, while wild with rage.“That is too bad!” cried Firth. “That would madden a saint.”And he jumped down from the paling and ran towards the crowd. Hugh, forgetting his height from the ground, stood up in the tree, almost as angry as Lamb himself, and staring with all his might to see what he could. He saw Firth making his way through the crowd, evidently remonstrating, if not threatening. He saw him snatch a spade from a boy who was flourishing it in Lamb’s face. He saw that Firth was digging, though half-a-dozen boys had thrown themselves on his back, and hung on his arms. He saw that Firth persevered till Lamb had got his right arm out of the ground, and was striking everywhere within reach. Then he saw Firth dragged down and away, while the boys made a circle round Lamb, putting a foot or hand within his reach, and then snatching it away again, till the boy yelled with rage at the mockery.Hugh could look on no longer. He scrambled down from the tree, scampered to the spot, burst through the throng, and seized Lamb’s hand. Lamb struck him a heavy blow, taking him for an enemy; but Hugh cried “I am your friend,” seized his hand again, and tugged till he was first red and then black in the face, and till Lamb had worked his shoulders out of the hole, and seemed likely to have the use of his other arm in a trice.Lamb’s tormentors at first let Hugh alone in amazement; but they were not long in growing angry with him too. They hustled him—they pulled him all ways—they tripped him up; but Hugh’s spirit was roused, and that brought his body up to the struggle again and again. He wrenched himself free, he scrambled to his feet again, as often as he was thrown down; and in a few minutes he had plenty of support. Phil was taking his part, and shielding him from many blows. Firth had got Lamb out of the hole, and the party against the tormentors was now so strong that they began to part off till the struggle ceased. Firth kept his grasp of the spade; for Lamb’s passion still ran so high that there was no saying what might be the consequences of leaving any dangerous weapon within his reach. He was still fuming and stamping, Hugh gazing at him the while in wonder and fear.“There stands your defender, Lamb,” said Firth, “thinking he never saw a boy in a passion before. Come, have done with it for his sake: be a man, as he is. Here, help me to fill up this hole—both of you. Stamp down the earth, Lamb. Tread it well—tread your anger well down into it. Think of this little friend of yours here—a Crofton boy only yesterday.”Lamb did help to fill the hole, but he did not say a word—not one word to anybody till the dinner-bell rang. Then, at the pump, where the party were washing their hot and dirty and bruised hands, he held out his hand to Hugh, muttering, with no very good grace—“I don’t know what made you help me, but I will never be in a passion with you;—unless you put me out, that is.”Hugh replied that he had come to help because he never could bear to see anybodymade worse. He always tried at home to keep the little boys and girls off “drunk old Tom,” as he was called in the neighbourhood. It was such a shame to make anybody worse! Lamb looked as if he was going to fly at Hugh now: but Firth put his arm round Hugh’s neck, and drew him into the house, saying in his ear—“Don’t say any more that you have no friends here. You have me for one; and you might have had another—two in one morning—but for your plain speaking about drunk old Tom.”“Did I say any harm?”“No—no harm,” replied Firth, laughing. “You will do, my boy—when you have got through a few scrapes. I’m your friend, at any rate.”
Hugh found, in the morning, that there was no danger of his not hearing the bell. Its clang clang startled him out of a sound sleep; and he was on his feet on the floor almost before his eyes were open. The boys who were more used to the bell did not make quite so much haste. They yawned a few times, and turned out more slowly; so that Hugh had the great tin wash basin to himself longer than the rest. There was a basin to every three boys; and, early as Hugh began, his companions were impatient long before he had done. At first, they waited, in curiosity to see what he was going to do after washing his face; when he went further, they began to quiz; but when they found that he actually thought of washing his feet, they hooted and groaned at him for a dirty brat.
“Dirty!” cried Hugh, facing them, amazed, “Dirty for washing my feet! Mother says it is a dirty trick not to wash all over every day.”
Phil told him that was stuff and nonsense here. There was no room and no time for such home-doings. The boys all washed their heads and feet on Saturdays. He would soon find that he might be glad to get his face and hands done in the mornings.
The other boys in the room were, or pretended to be, so disgusted with the very idea of washing feet in a basin, that they made Hugh rinse and rub out the tin basin several times before they would use it, and then there was a great bustle to get down-stairs at the second bell. Hugh pulled his brother’s arm, as Phil was brushing out of the room, and asked, in a whisper, whether there would be time to say his prayers.
“There will be prayers in the school-room. You must be in time for them,” said Phil. “You had better come with me.”
“Do wait one moment, while I just comb my hair.”
Phil fidgeted, and others giggled, while Hugh tried to part his hair, as Susan had taught him. He gave it up, and left it rough, thinking he would come up and do it when there was nobody there to laugh at him.
The school-room looked chilly and dull, as there was no sunshine in it till the afternoon; and still Mr Tooke was not there, as Hugh had hoped he would be. Mrs Watson and the servants came in for prayers, which were well read by the usher; and then everybody went to business:—everybody but Hugh and Holt, who had nothing to do. Class after class came up for repetition; and this repetition seemed to the new boys an accomplishment they should never acquire. They did not think that any practice would enable them to gabble, as everybody seemed able to gabble here. Hugh had witnessed something of it before,—Phil having been wont to run off at home, “Sal, Sol, Ren et Splen,” to the end of the passage, for the admiration of his sisters, and so much to little Harry’s amusement, that Susan, however busy she might be, came to listen, and then asked him to say it again, that cook might hear what he learned at school. Hugh now thought that none of them gabbled quite so fast as Phil: but he soon found out, by a glance or two of Phil’s to one side, that he was trying to astonish the new boys. It is surprising how it lightened Hugh’s heart to find that his brother did not quite despise, or feel ashamed of him, as he had begun to think: but that he even took pains to show off. He was sorry too when the usher spoke sharply to Phil, and even rapped his head with the cane, asking him what he spluttered out his nonsense at that rate for. Thus ended Phil’s display; and Hugh felt as hot, and as ready to cry, as if it had happened to himself.
Perhaps the usher saw this; for when he called Hugh up, he was very kind. He looked at the Latin grammar he had used with Miss Harold, and saw by the dogs’-ears exactly how far Hugh had gone in it, and asked him only what he could answer very well. Hugh said three declensions, with only one mistake. Then he was shown the part that he was to say to-morrow morning; and Hugh walked away, all the happier for having something to do, like everybody else. He was so little afraid of the usher, that he went back to him to ask where he had better sit.
“Sit! O! I suppose you must have a desk, though you have nothing to put in it. If there is a spare desk, you shall have it: if not, we will find a corner for you somewhere.”
Some of the boys whispered that Mrs Watson’s footstool, under her apron, would do: but the usher overheard this, and observed that it took some people a good while to know a new boy; and that they might find that a little fellow might be as much of a man as a big one. And the usher called the oldest boy in the school, and asked him to see if there was a desk for little Proctor. There was: and Hugh put into it his two or three school-books, and his slate; and felt that he was now indeed a Crofton boy. Then, the usher was kinder than he had expected; and he had still to see Mr Tooke, of whom he was not afraid at all. So Hugh’s spirits rose, and he liked the prospect of breakfast as well as any boy in the school.
There was one more rebuff for him, first, however. He ran up to his room, to finish combing his hair, while the other boys were thronging into the long room to breakfast. He found the housemaids there, making the beds; and they both cried “Out! Out!” and clapped their hands at him, and threatened to tell Mrs Watson of his having broken rules, if he did not go this moment Hugh asked what Mrs Watson would say to his hair, if he went to breakfast with it as it was. One of the maids was good-natured enough to comb it for him, for once: but she said he must carry a comb in his pocket; as the boys were not allowed to go to their rooms, except at stated hours.
At last, Hugh saw Mr Tooke. When the boys entered school at nine o’clock, the master was at his desk. Hugh went up to his end of the room, with a smiling face, while Tom Holt hung back; and he kept beckoning Tom Holt on, having told him there was nothing to be afraid of. But when, at last, Mr Tooke saw him, he made no difference between the two, and seemed to forget having ever seen Hugh. He told them he hoped they would be good boys, and would do credit to Crofton; and then he asked Mr Carnaby to set them something to learn. And this was all they had to do with Mr Tooke for a long while.
This morning in school, from nine till twelve, seemed the longest morning these little boys had ever known. When they remembered that the afternoon would be as long, and every morning and afternoon for three months, their hearts sank. Perhaps, if any one had told them that the time would grow shorter and shorter by use, and at last, when they had plenty to do, almost too short, they would not have believed it, because they could not yet feel it. But what they now found was only what every boy and girl finds, on beginning school, or entering upon any new way of life.
Mr Carnaby, who was busy with others, found it rather difficult to fill up their time. When Hugh had said some Latin, and helped his companion to learn his first Latin lesson, and both had written a copy, and done a sum, Mr Carnaby could not spare them any more time or thought, and told them they might do what they liked, if they only kept quiet, till school was up. So they made out the ridiculous figures which somebody had carved upon their desks, and the verses, half rubbed out, which were scribbled inside: and then they reckoned, on their slates, how many days there were before the Christmas holidays;—how many school-days, and how many Sundays. And then Hugh began to draw a steamboat in the Thames, as seen from the leads of his father’s house; while Holt drew on his slate the ship in which he came over from India. But before they had done, the clock struck twelve, school was up, and there was a general rush into the playground.
Now Hugh was really to see the country. Except that the sun had shone pleasantly into his room in the morning, through waving trees, nothing had yet occurred to make him feel that he was in the country. Now, however, he was in the open air, with trees sprinkled all over the landscape, and green fields stretching away, and the old church tower half-covered with ivy. Hugh screamed with pleasure; and nobody thought it odd, for almost every boy was shouting. Hugh longed to pick up some of the shining brown chestnuts which he had seen yesterday in the road, under the trees; and he was now cantering away to the spot, when Phil ran after him, and roughly stopped him, saying he would get into a fine scrape for the first day, if he went out of bounds.
Hugh had forgotten there were such things as bounds, and was not at all glad to be reminded of them now. He sighed as he begged Phil to show him exactly where he might go and where he might not Phil did so in an impatient way, and then was off to trap-ball, because his party were waiting for him.
The chestnut-trees overhung one corner of the playground, within the paling: and in that corner Hugh found several chestnuts which had burst their sheaths, and lay among the first fallen leaves. He pocketed them with great delight, wondering that nobody had been before him to secure such a treasure. Agnes should have some; and little Harry would find them nice playthings. They looked good to eat too; and he thought he could spare one to taste; so he took out his knife, cut off the point of a fine swelling chestnut, and tasted a bit of the inside. Just as he was making a face over it, and wondering that it was so nasty, when those which his father roasted in the fire-shovel on Christmas-day were so good, he heard laughter behind him, and found that he was again doing something ridiculous, though he knew not what: and in a moment poor Hugh was as unhappy as ever.
He ran away from the laughing boys, and went quite to the opposite corner of the playground, where a good number of his schoolfellows were playing ball under the orchard-wall. Hugh ran hither and thither, like the rest, trying to catch the ball; but he never could do it; and he was jostled, and thrown down, and another boy fell over him; and he was told that he knew nothing about play, and had better move off.
He did so, with a heavy heart, wondering how he was ever to be like the other boys, if nobody would take him in hand, and teach him to play, or even let him learn. Remembering what his mother expected of him, he tried to sing, to prevent crying, and began to count the pales round the playground, for something to do. This presently brought him to a tree which stood on the very boundary, its trunk serving instead of two or three pales. It was only a twisted old apple-tree; but the more twisted and gnarled it was, the more it looked like a tree that Hugh could climb; and he had always longed to climb a tree. Glancing up, he saw a boy already there, sitting on the fork of two branches, reading.
“Have you a mind to come up?” asked the boy.
“Yes, sir, I should like to try and climb a tree. I never did.”
“Well, this is a good one to begin with. I’ll lend you a hand; shall I?”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t call me, ‘sir.’ I’m only a schoolboy, like you. I am Dan Firth. Call me Firth, as I am the only one of the name here. You are little Proctor, I think—Proctor’s brother.”
“Yes: but, Firth, I shall pull you down, if I slip.”
“Not you: but I’ll come down, and so send you up to my seat, which is the safest to begin with. Stand off.”
Firth swung himself down, and then, showing Hugh where to plant his feet, and propping him when he wanted it, he soon seated him on the fork, and laughed good-naturedly when Hugh waved his cap over his head, on occasion of being up in a tree. He let him get down and up again several times, till he could do it quite alone, and felt that he might have a seat here whenever it was not occupied by any one else.
While Hugh sat in the branches, venturing to leave hold with one hand, that he might fan his hot face with his cap, Firth stood on the rail of the palings, holding by the tree, and talking to him. Firth told him that this was the only tree the boys were allowed to climb, since Ned Reeve had fallen from the great ash, and hurt his spine. He showed what trees he had himself climbed before that accident; and it made Hugh giddy to think of being within eight feet of the top of the lofty elm in the churchyard, which Firth had thought nothing of mounting.
“Did anybody teach you?” asked Hugh.
“Yes; my father taught me to climb, when I was younger than you.”
“And had you anybody to teach you games and things, when you came here?”
“No: but I had learned a good deal of that before I came; and so I soon fell into the ways here. Have you anybody to teach you?”
“No— yes— why, no. I thought Phil would have showed me things; but he does not seem to mind me at all.” And Hugh bit his lip, and fanned himself faster.
“Ah! He attends to you more than you think.”
“Does he? Then why— but what good does it do me?”
“What good? His holding off makes you push your own way. It lets you make friends for yourself.”
“I have no friends here,” said Hugh.
“Yes, you have. Here am I. You would not have had me, if you had been at Proctor’s heels at this moment.”
“Will you be my friend, then?”
“That I will.”
“What, a great boy like you, that sits reading in a tree! But I may read here beside you. You said there was room for two.”
“Ay; but you must not use it yet,—at least, not often, if you wish to do well here. Everybody knows I can play at anything. From the time I became captain of the wall at fives, I have had liberty to do what I like, without question. But you must show that you are up to play, before they will let you read in peace and quiet.”
“But how can I, if— if—”
“Once show your spirit,—prove that you can shift for yourself, and you will find Phil open out wonderfully. He and you will forget all his shyness then. Once show him that he need not be ashamed of you—”
“Ashamed of me!” cried Hugh, firing up.
“Yes. Little boys are looked upon as girls in a school till they show that they are little men. And then again, you have been brought up with girls,—have not you?”
“To be sure; and so was he.”
“And half the boys here, I dare say. Well, they are called Bettys till—”
“I am not a Betty,” cried Hugh, flashing again.
“They suppose you are, because you part your hair, and do as you have been used to do at home.”
“What business have they with my hair? I might as well call them Bruins for wearing theirs shaggy.”
“Very true. They will let you and your hair alone when they see what you are made of; and then Phil will—”
“He will own me when I don’t want it; and now, when he might help me, there he is, far off, never caring about what becomes of me!”
“O yes, he does. He is watching you all the time. You and he will have it all out some day before Christmas, and then you will see how he really cares about you. Really your hair is very long,—too like a girl’s. Shall I cut it for you?”
“I should like it,” said Hugh, “but I don’t want the boys to think I am afraid of them; or to begin giving up to them.”
“You are right there. We will let it alone now, and cut it when it suits our convenience.”
“What a nice place this is, to be sure!” cried Hugh, as the feeling of loneliness went off. “But the rooks do not make so much noise as I expected.”
“You will find what they can do in that way when spring comes,—when they are building.”
“And when may we go out upon the heath, and into the fields where the lambs are?”
“We go long walks on Saturday afternoons; but you do not expect to see young lambs in October, do you?”
“O, I forgot I never can remember the seasons for things.”
“That shows you are a Londoner. You will learn all those things here. If you look for hares in our walks, you may chance to see one; or you may start a pheasant; but take care you don’t mention lambs, or goslings, or cowslips, or any spring things; or you will never hear the last of it.”
“Thank you: but what will poor Holt do? He is from India, and he knows very little about our ways.”
“They may laugh at him; but they will not despise him as they might a Londoner. Being an Indian, and being a Londoner, are very different things.”
“And yet how proud the Londoners are over the country! It is very odd.”
“People are proud of their own ways all the world over. You will be proud of being a Crofton boy, by-and-by.”
“Perhaps I am now, a little,” said Hugh, blushing.
“What, already? Ah! You will do, I see. I have known old people proud of their age, and young people of their youth. I have seen poor people proud of their poverty; and everybody has seen rich people proud of their wealth. I have seen happy people proud of their prosperity, and the afflicted proud of their afflictions. Yes; people can always manage to be proud: so you have boasted of being a Londoner up to this time; and from this time you will hold your head high as a Crofton boy.”
“How long? Till when?”
“Ah! Till when? What next! What do you mean to be afterwards?”
“A soldier, or a sailor, or a great traveller, or something of that kind. I mean to go quite round the world, like Captain Cook.”
“Then you will come home, proud of having been round the world; and you will meet with some old neighbour who boasts of having spent all his life in the house he was born in.”
“Old Mr Dixon told mother that of himself, very lately. Oh dear, how often does the postman come?”
“You want a letter from home, do you? But you left them only yesterday morning.”
“I don’t know how to believe that,—it seems such an immense time! But when does the postman come?”
“Any day when he has letters to bring,—at about four in the afternoon. We see him come, from the school-room; but we do not know who the letters are for till school breaks up at five.”
“O dear!” cried Hugh, thinking what the suspense must be, and the disappointment at last to twenty boys, perhaps, for one that was gratified. Firth advised him to write a letter home before he began to expect one. If he did not like to ask the usher, he himself would rule the paper for him, and he could write a bit at a time, after his lessons were done in the evening, till the sheet was full.
Hugh then told his grievance about the usher, and Firth thought that though it was not wise in Hugh to prate about Crofton on the top of the coach, it was worse to sit by and listen without warning, unless the listener meant to hold his own tongue. But he fancied the usher had since heard something which made him sorry; and the best way now was for Hugh to bear no malice, and remember nothing more of the affair than to be discreet in his future journeys.
“What is the matter there?” cried Hugh. “O dear! Something very terrible must have happened. How that boy is screaming!”
“It is only Lamb again,” replied Firth. “You will soon get used to his screaming. He is a very passionate boy—I never saw such a passionate fellow.”
“But what are they doing to him?”
“Somebody is putting him into a passion, I suppose. There is always somebody to do that.”
“What a shame!” cried Hugh.
“Yes: I see no wit in it,” replied Firth. “Anybody may do it. You have only to hold your little finger up to put him in a rage.”
Hugh thought Firth was rather cool about the matter. But Firth was not so cool when the throng opened for a moment, and showed what was really done to the angry boy. Only his head appeared above ground. His schoolfellows had put him into a hole they had dug, and had filled it up to his chin, stamping down the earth, so that the boy was perfectly helpless, while wild with rage.
“That is too bad!” cried Firth. “That would madden a saint.”
And he jumped down from the paling and ran towards the crowd. Hugh, forgetting his height from the ground, stood up in the tree, almost as angry as Lamb himself, and staring with all his might to see what he could. He saw Firth making his way through the crowd, evidently remonstrating, if not threatening. He saw him snatch a spade from a boy who was flourishing it in Lamb’s face. He saw that Firth was digging, though half-a-dozen boys had thrown themselves on his back, and hung on his arms. He saw that Firth persevered till Lamb had got his right arm out of the ground, and was striking everywhere within reach. Then he saw Firth dragged down and away, while the boys made a circle round Lamb, putting a foot or hand within his reach, and then snatching it away again, till the boy yelled with rage at the mockery.
Hugh could look on no longer. He scrambled down from the tree, scampered to the spot, burst through the throng, and seized Lamb’s hand. Lamb struck him a heavy blow, taking him for an enemy; but Hugh cried “I am your friend,” seized his hand again, and tugged till he was first red and then black in the face, and till Lamb had worked his shoulders out of the hole, and seemed likely to have the use of his other arm in a trice.
Lamb’s tormentors at first let Hugh alone in amazement; but they were not long in growing angry with him too. They hustled him—they pulled him all ways—they tripped him up; but Hugh’s spirit was roused, and that brought his body up to the struggle again and again. He wrenched himself free, he scrambled to his feet again, as often as he was thrown down; and in a few minutes he had plenty of support. Phil was taking his part, and shielding him from many blows. Firth had got Lamb out of the hole, and the party against the tormentors was now so strong that they began to part off till the struggle ceased. Firth kept his grasp of the spade; for Lamb’s passion still ran so high that there was no saying what might be the consequences of leaving any dangerous weapon within his reach. He was still fuming and stamping, Hugh gazing at him the while in wonder and fear.
“There stands your defender, Lamb,” said Firth, “thinking he never saw a boy in a passion before. Come, have done with it for his sake: be a man, as he is. Here, help me to fill up this hole—both of you. Stamp down the earth, Lamb. Tread it well—tread your anger well down into it. Think of this little friend of yours here—a Crofton boy only yesterday.”
Lamb did help to fill the hole, but he did not say a word—not one word to anybody till the dinner-bell rang. Then, at the pump, where the party were washing their hot and dirty and bruised hands, he held out his hand to Hugh, muttering, with no very good grace—
“I don’t know what made you help me, but I will never be in a passion with you;—unless you put me out, that is.”
Hugh replied that he had come to help because he never could bear to see anybodymade worse. He always tried at home to keep the little boys and girls off “drunk old Tom,” as he was called in the neighbourhood. It was such a shame to make anybody worse! Lamb looked as if he was going to fly at Hugh now: but Firth put his arm round Hugh’s neck, and drew him into the house, saying in his ear—
“Don’t say any more that you have no friends here. You have me for one; and you might have had another—two in one morning—but for your plain speaking about drunk old Tom.”
“Did I say any harm?”
“No—no harm,” replied Firth, laughing. “You will do, my boy—when you have got through a few scrapes. I’m your friend, at any rate.”
Chapter Six.First Ramble.Hugh’s afternoon lessons were harder than those of the morning; and in the evening he found he had so much to do that there was very little time left for writing his letter home. Some time there was, however; and Firth did not forget to rule his paper, and to let Hugh use his ink. Hugh had been accustomed to copy the prints he found in the Voyages and Travels he read; and he could never see a picture of a savage but he wanted to copy it. He was thus accustomed to a pretty free use of his slate-pencil. He now thought that it would save a great deal of description if he sent a picture or two in his letter: so he flourished off, on the first page, a sketch of Mr Tooke sitting at his desk at the top of the school, and of Mr Carnaby standing at his desk at the bottom of the school.The next evening he made haste to fill up the sheet, for he found his business increasing upon his hands so fast that he did not know when he should get his letter off, if he did not despatch it at once. He was just folding it up when Tom Holt observed that it was a pity not to put some words into the mouths of the figures, to make them more animated; and he showed Hugh, by the curious carvings of their desks, how to put words into the mouths of figures. Hugh then remembered having seen this done in the caricatures in the print-shops in London; and he seized on the idea. He put into Mr Tooke’s mouth the words which were oftenest heard from him, “Proceed, gentlemen;” and into Mr Carnaby’s, “Hold your din.”Firth was too busy with his sense-verses to mind the little boys, as they giggled, with their heads close together, over Hugh’s sheet of paper; but the usher was never too busy to be aware of any fun which might possibly concern his dignity. He had his eye on the new boys the whole while. He let Hugh direct his letter, and paint up a stroke or two which did not look so well as the rest; and it was not till Hugh was rolling the wafer about on his tongue that he interfered. Mr Carnaby then came up, tapped Hugh’s head, told him not to get on so fast, for that every letter must be looked over before it went to the post. While saying this, he took the letter, and put it into his waistcoat pocket. In vain Hugh begged to have it again, saying he would write another. The more he begged, and the more dismayed Tom Holt looked, the less Mr Carnaby would attend to either. Firth let himself be interrupted to hear the case: but he could do nothing in it. It was a general rule, which he thought every boy had known; and it was too late now to prevent the letter being looked over.Mr Carnaby was so angry at the liberty Hugh had taken with his face and figure, that, in spite of all prayers, and a good many tears, he walked up the school with the letter, followed by poor Hugh, as soon as Mr Tooke had taken his seat next morning. Hugh thought that Holt, who had put him up to the most offensive part of the pictures, might have borne him company; but Holt was a timid boy, and he really had not courage to leave his seat. So Hugh stood alone, awaiting Mr Tooke’s awful words, while the whole of the first class looked up from their books, in expectation of what was to happen. They waited some time for the master’s words; for he was trying to help laughing. He and Mr Carnaby were so much alike in the pictures, and both so like South Sea islanders, that it was impossible to help laughing at the thought of this sketch going abroad as a representation of the Crofton masters. At last all parties laughed aloud, and Mr Tooke handed Hugh his wafer-glass, and bade him wafer up his letter, and by all means send it. Mr Carnaby could not remain offended if his principal was not angry: so here the matter ended, except that Hugh made some strong resolutions about his future letters, and that the corners of the master’s mouth were seen to be out of their usual order several times in the course of the morning.This incident, and everything which haunted Hugh’s mind, and engrossed his attention, was a serious evil to him; for his business soon grew to be more than his habit of mind was equal to. In a few days, he learned to envy the boys (and they were almost the whole school) who could fix their attention completely and immediately on the work before them, and relax as completely, when it was accomplished. When his eyes were wandering, they observed boy after boy frowning over his dictionary, or repeating to himself, earnestly and without pause; and presently the business was done, and the learner at ease, feeling confident that he was ready to meet his master. After double the time had passed Hugh was still trying to get the meaning of his lesson into his head—going over the same words a dozen times, without gaining any notion of their meaning—suffering, in short from his long habit of inattention at home. He did now try hard; but he seemed to get only headaches for his pains. His brother saw enough to make him very sorry for Hugh before ten days were over. He might not, perhaps, have been struck with his anxious countenance, his frequent starts, and his laying his head down on his desk because it ached so, if it had not been for what happened at night. Sometimes Hugh started out of bed, and began to dress, when the elder boys went up with their light, only an hour after the younger ones. Sometimes he would begin saying his syntax in the middle of the night, fancying he was standing before Mr Carnaby; and once he walked in his sleep as far as the head of the stairs, and then suddenly woke, and could not make out where he was. Phil should have told Mr Tooke of these things; but Hugh was so very anxious that nobody should know of his “tricks” (as the boys in his room called his troubles), that Phil only mentioned the matter to Mrs Watson, who had known so many bad sleepers among little boys, and had so little idea that the habit was anything new, that she took scarcely any notice of it. She had his hair cut very short and close, and saw that he took a moderate supper, and was satisfied that all would be well. Hugh did not part with his hair till he had joked himself about its length as much as any one could quiz him for it. When he had pulled it down over the end of his nose, and peeped through it, like an owl out of an ivy-bush, he might be supposed to part with it voluntarily, and not because he was laughed at.Phil’s observation of his brother’s toil and trouble led him to give him some help. Almost every day he would hear Hugh say his lesson—or try to say it; for the poor boy seldom succeeded. Phil sometimes called him stupid, and sometimes refrained from saying so, whatever he might think; but there really was very little difference in the result, whether Phil heard the lessons beforehand or not; and it gave Joe Cape a great advantage over Phil that he had no little brother to attend to. Considering how selfish rivalship is apt to make boys (and even men), it was perhaps no wonder that Phil sometimes kept out of Hugh’s way at the right hour, saying to himself that his proper business was to do his lessons, and get or keep ahead of Joe Cape; and that Hugh must take his chance, and work his own way, as other boys had to do. This conduct might not be wondered at in Phil; but it hurt Hugh, and made him do his lessons all the worse. He did not like to expose his brother’s unkindness to any one, or he would oftener have asked Firth to help him. Firth, too, had plenty of work of his own to do. More than once, however, Firth met the little lad, wandering about, with his grammar in his hand, in search of the hidden Phil; and then Firth would stop him, and sit down with him, and have patience, and give him such clear explanations, such good examples of the rules he was to learn, that it all became easy, and Hugh found his lessons were to him only what those of other boys seemed to them. Still, however, and at the best, Hugh was, as a learner, far too much at the mercy of circumstances—the victim of what passed before his eyes, or was said within his hearing.Boys who find difficulty in attending to their lessons are sure to be more teased with interruptions than any others. Holt had not the habit of learning; and he and Hugh were continually annoyed by the boys who sat near them watching how they got on, and making remarks upon them. One day, Mr Tooke was called out of the school-room to a visitor, and Mr Carnaby went up to take the master’s place, and hear his class. This was too good an opportunity for the boys below to let slip; and they began to play tricks,—most of them directed against Hugh and Tom Holt. One boy, Warner, began to make the face that always made Holt laugh, however he tried to be grave. Page drew a caricature of Mrs Watson on his slate, and held it up; and Davison took a mask out of his desk, and even ventured to tie it on, as if it had not been school-time.“I declare I can’t learn my lesson—’tis too bad!” cried Hugh.“’Tis a shame!” said Tom Holt, sighing for breath after his struggle not to laugh. “We shall never be ready.”Hugh made gestures of indignation at the boys, which only caused worse faces to be made, and the mask to nod.“We wont look at them,” proposed Holt. “Let us cover our eyes, and not look up at all.”Hugh put his hands before his eyes; but still his mind’s eye saw the grinning mask, and his lesson did not get on. Besides, a piece of wet sponge lighted on the very page he was learning from. He looked up fiercely, to see who had thrown it. It was no other than Tooke, who belonged to that class:—it was Tooke, to judge by his giggle, and his pretending to hide his face, as if ashamed. Hugh tossed back the sponge, so as to hit Tooke on the nose. Then Tooke was angry, and threw it again, and the sponge passed backwards and forwards several times: for Hugh was by this time very angry,—boiling with indignation at the hardship of not being able to learn his lesson, when he really would if he could. While the sponge was still passing to and fro, Mr Carnaby’s voice was heard from the far end of the room, desiring Warner, Page, Davison, and Tooke to be quiet, and let the boys alone till Mr Tooke came in, when Mr Tooke would take his own measures.Hugh, wondering how Mr Carnaby knew, at that distance, what was going on, found that Holt was no longer by his side. In a moment, Holt returned to his seat, flushed and out of breath. A very slight hiss was heard from every form near, as he came down the room.“O! Holt! You have been telling tales!” cried Hugh.“Telling tales!” exclaimed Holt, in consternation, for Holt knew nothing of school ways. “I never thought of that. They asked me to tell Mr Carnaby that we could not learn our lessons.”“They! Who? I am sure I never asked you.”“No; you did not: but Harvey and Prince did,—and Gillingham. They said Mr Carnaby would soon make those fellows quiet; and they told me to go.”“You hear! They are calling you ‘tell-tale.’ That will be your name now. Oh, Holt! You should not have told tales. However, I will stand by you,” Hugh continued, seeing the terror that Holt was in.“I meant no harm,” said Holt, trembling. “Was not it a shame that they would not let us learn our lessons?”“Yes, it was—but—”At this moment Mr Tooke entered the room. As he passed the forms, the boys were all bent over their books, as if they could think of nothing else. Mr Tooke walked up the room to his desk, and Mr Carnaby walked down the room tohisdesk; and then Mr Carnaby said, quite aloud,—“Mr Tooke, sir.”“Well.”Here Holt sprang from his desk, and ran to the usher, and besought him not to say a word about what Warner’s class had been doing. He even hung on Mr Carnaby’s arm in entreaty; but Mr Carnaby shook him off, and commanded him back to his seat. Then the whole school heard Mr Tooke told about the wry faces and the mask, and the trouble of the little boys. Mr Tooke was not often angry; but when he was, his face grew white, and his lips trembled. His face was white now. He stood up, and called before him the little boy who had informed. Hugh chose to go with Holt, though Holt had not gone up with him about the letter, the other day; and Holt felt how kind this was. Mr Tooke desired to know who the offenders were; and as they were named, he called to them to stand up in their places. Then came the sentence. Mr Tooke would never forgive advantage being taken of his absence. If there were boys who could not be trusted while his back was turned, they must be made to remember him when he was out of sight, by punishment. Page must remain in school after hours, to learn twenty lines of Virgil; Davison twenty; Tooke forty—Here everybody looked round to see how Tooke bore his father being so angry with him.“Please, sir,” cried one boy, “I saw little Proctor throw a sponge at Tooke. He did it twice.”“Never mind!” answered Tooke. “I threw it at him first. It is my sponge.”“And Warner,” continued the master, as if he had not heard the interruption, “considering that Warner has got off too easily for many pranks of late,—Warner seventy.”Seventy! The idea of having anybody condemned, through him, to learn seventy lines of Latin by heart, made Holt so miserable that the word seventy seemed really to prick his very ears. Though Mr Tooke’s face was still white, Holt ventured up to him, “Pray, sir—”“Not a word of intercession for those boys,” said the master. “I will not hear a word in their favour.”“Then, sir—”“Well.”“I only want to say, then, that Proctor told no tales, sir. I did not mean any harm, sir, but I told because—”“Never mind that,” cried Hugh, afraid that he would now be telling of Harvey, Prince, and Gillingham, who had persuaded him to go up.“I have nothing to do with that. That is your affair,” said the master, sending the boys back to their seats.Poor Holt had cause to rue this morning, for long after. He was weary of the sound of hissing, and of the name “tell-tale;” and the very boys who had prompted him to go up were at first silent, and then joined against him. He complained to Hugh of the difficulty of knowing what it was right to do. He had been angry on Hugh’s account chiefly; and he still thought itwasvery unjust to hinder their lessons, when they wished not to be idle: and yet they were all treating him as if he had done something worse than the boys with the mask. Hugh thought all this was true: but he believed it was settled among schoolboys (though Holt had never had the opportunity of knowing it) that it was a braver thing for boys to bear any teasing from one another than to call in the power of the master to help. A boy who did that was supposed not to be able to take care of himself; and for this he was despised, besides being disliked, for having brought punishment upon his companions.Holt wished Hugh had not been throwing sponges at the time:—he wished Hugh had prevented his going up. He would take good care how he told tales again.“You had better say so,” advised Hugh; “and then they will see that you had never been at school, and did not know how to manage.”The first Saturday had been partly dreaded, and partly longed for, by Hugh. He had longed for the afternoon’s ramble; but Saturday morning was the time for saying tables, among other things. Nothing happened as he had expected. The afternoon was so rainy that there was no going out; and, as for the tables, he was in a class of five; and “four times seven” did not come to him in regular course. Eight times seven did, and he said “fifty-six” with great satisfaction, Mr Carnaby asked him afterwards the dreaded question, but he was on his guard; and as he answered it right, and the usher had not found out the joke, he hoped he should hear no more of the matter.The next Saturday was fine, and at last he was to have the walk he longed for. The weekly repetitions were over, dinner was done, Mr Carnaby appeared with his hat on, the whole throng burst into the open air, and out of bounds, and the new boys were wild with expectation and delight. When they had passed the churchyard and the green, and were wading through the sandy road which led up to the heath, Firth saw Hugh running and leaping hither and thither, not knowing what to do with his spirits. Firth called him, and putting his arm round Hugh’s neck, so as to keep him prisoner, said he did not know how he might want his strength before he got home, and he had better not spend it on a bit of sandy road. So Hugh was made to walk quietly, and gained his breath before the breezy heath was reached.On the way, he saw that a boy of the name of Dale, whom he had never particularly observed before, was a good deal teased by some boys who kept crossing their hands before them, and curtseying like girls, talking in a mincing way, and calling one another Amelia, with great affectation. Dale tried to get away, but he was followed, whichever way he turned.“What do they mean by that?” inquired Hugh of Firth.“Dale has a sister at a school not far off, and her name is Amelia; and she came to see him to-day. Ah! You have not found out yet that boys are laughed at about their sisters, particularly if the girls have fine names.”“What a shame!” cried Hugh; words which he had used very often already since he came to Crofton.He broke from Firth, ran up to Dale, and said to him, in a low voice, “I have two sisters, and one of them is called Agnes.”“Don’t let them come to see you, then, or these fellows will quiz you as they do me. As if I could help having a sister Amelia!”“Why, you are not sorry for that? You would not wish your sister dead, or not born, would you?”“No; but I wish she was not hereabouts: that is, I wish she had not come up to the pales, with the maid-servant behind her, for everybody to see. And then, when Mr Tooke sent us into the orchard together, some spies were peeping over the wall at us all the time.”“I only wish Agnes would come,” cried Hugh, “and I would—”“Ah! You think so now; but depend upon it, you would like much better to see her at home. Why, her name is finer than my sister’s! I wonder what girls ever have such names for!”“I don’t see that these names are finer than some boys’ names. There’s Frazer, is not his name Colin? And then there’s Hercules Fisticuff—”“Why, you know—to be sure you know that is a nick-name?” said Dale.“Is it? I never thought of that,” replied Hugh. “What is his real name?”“Samuel Jones. However, there is Colin Frazer—and Fry, his name is Augustus Adolphus; I will play them off the next time they quiz Amelia. How old is your sister Agnes?”Then the two boys wandered off among the furze bushes, talking about their homes; and in a little while they had so opened their hearts to each other, that they felt as if they had always been friends. Nobody thought any more about them when once the whole school was dispersed over the heath. Some boys made for a hazel copse, some way beyond the heath, in hopes of finding a few nuts already ripe. Others had boats to float on the pond. A large number played leap-frog, and some ran races. Mr Carnaby threw himself down on a soft couch of wild thyme, on a rising ground, and took out his book. So Dale and Hugh felt themselves unobserved, and they chatted away at a great rate. Not but that an interruption or two did occur. They fell in with a flock of geese, and Hugh did not much like their appearance, never having heard a goose make a noise before. He had eaten roast goose, and he had seen geese in the feathers at the poulterers’; but he had never seen them alive, and stretching their necks at passengers. He flinched at the first moment. Dale, who never imagined that a boy who was not afraid of his schoolfellows could be afraid of geese, luckily mistook the movement, and said, “Ay, get a switch,—a bunch of furze will do, and we will be rid of the noisy things.”He drove them away, and Hugh had now learned, for ever, how much noise geese can make, and how little they are to be feared.They soon came upon some creatures which were larger and stronger, and with which Hugh was no better acquainted. Some cows were grazing, or had been grazing, till a party of boys came up. They were now restless, moving uneasily about, so that Dale himself hesitated for a moment which way to go. Lamb was near,—the passionate boy, who was nobody’s friend, and who was therefore seldom at play with others. He was also something of a coward, as any one might know from his frequent bullying. He and Holt happened to be together at this time; and it was their appearance of fright at the restless cows which frightened Hugh. One cow at last began to trot towards them at a pretty good rate. Lamb ran off to the right, and the two little boys after him, though Dale pulled at Hugh’s hand to make him stand still, as Dale chose to do himself. He pulled in vain—Hugh burst away, and off went the three boys, over the hillocks and through the furze, the cow trotting at some distance behind. They did not pause till Lamb had led them off the heath into a deep lane, different from the one by which they had come. The cow stopped at a patch of green grass, just at the entrance of the hollow way; and the runners therefore could take breath.“Now we are here,” said Lamb, “I will show you a nice place,—a place where we can get something nice. How thirsty I am!”“And so am I,” declared Holt, smacking his dry tongue. Hugh’s mouth was very dry too, between the run and the fright.“Well, then, come along with me, and I will show you,” said Lamb.Hugh thought they ought not to go farther from the heath: but Lamb said they would get back by another way,—through a gate belonging to a friend of his. They could not get back the way they came, because the cow was there still. He walked briskly on till they came to a cottage, over whose door swung a sign; and on the sign was a painting of a bottle and a glass, and a heap of things which were probably meant for cakes, as there were cakes in the window. Here Lamb turned in, and the woman seemed to know him well. She smiled, and closed the door behind the three boys, and asked them to sit down: but Lamb said there was no time for that to-day,—she must be quick. He then told the boys that they would have some ginger-beer.“But may we?” asked the little boys.“To be sure; who is to prevent us? You shall see how you like ginger-beer when you are thirsty.”The woman declared that it was the most wholesome thing in the world; and if the young gentleman did not find it so, she would never ask him to taste her ginger-beer again. Hugh thanked them both; but he did not feel quite comfortable. He looked at Holt, to find out what he thought: but Holt was quite engrossed with watching the woman untwisting the wire of the first bottle. The cork did not fly; indeed there was some difficulty in getting it out: so Lamb waived his right, as the eldest, to drink first; and the little boys were so long in settling which should have it, that the little spirit there was had all gone off before Hugh began to drink; and he did not find ginger-beer such particularly good stuff as Lamb had said. He would have liked a drink of water better. The next bottle was very brisk: so Lamb seized upon it; and the froth hung round his mouth when he had done: but Holt was no better off with his than Hugh had been. They were both urged to try their luck again. Hugh would not: but Holt did once; and Lamb, two or three times. Then the woman offered them some cakes upon a plate: and the little boys thanked her, and took each one. Lamb put some in his pocket, and advised the others to do the same, as they had no time to spare. He kept some room in his pocket, however, for some plums; and told the boys that they might carry theirs in their handkerchiefs, or in their caps, if they would take care to have finished before they came within sight of the usher. He then asked the woman to let them out upon the heath through her garden gate; and she said she certainly would when they had paid. She then stood drumming with her fingers upon the table, and looking through the window, as if waiting.“Come, Proctor, you have half-a-crown,” said Lamb. “Out with it!”“My half-crown!” exclaimed Proctor. “You did not say I had anything to pay.”“As if you did not know that, without my telling you! You don’t think people give away their good things, I suppose! Come,—where’s your half-crown? My money is all at home.”Holt had nothing with him either. Lamb asked the woman what there was to pay. She seemed to count and consider; and Holt told Hugh afterwards that he saw Lamb wink at her. She then said that the younger gentlemen had had the most plums and cakes. The charge was a shilling a piece for them, and sixpence for Master Lamb:—half-a-crown exactly. Hugh protested he never meant anything like this, and that he wanted part of his half-crown to buy a comb with; and he would have emptied out the cakes and fruit he had left; but the woman stopped him, saying that she never took back what she had sold. Lamb hurried him, too, declaring that their time was up; and he even thrust his finger and thumb into Hugh’s inner pocket, and took out the half-crown, which he gave to the woman. He was sure that Hugh could wait for his comb till Holt paid him, and the woman said she did not see that any more combing was wanted: the young gentleman’s hair looked so pretty as it was. She then showed them through the garden, and gave them each a marigold full-blown. She unlocked her gate, pushed them through, locked it behind them, and left them to hide their purchases as well as they could. Though the little boys stuffed their pockets till the ripest plums burst, and wetted the linings, they could not dispose of them all; and they were obliged to give away a good many.Hugh went in search of his new friend, and drew him aside from the rest to relate his trouble. Dale wondered he had not found out Lamb before this, enough to refuse to follow his lead. Lamb would never pay a penny. He always spent the little money he had upon good things, the first day or two; and then he got what he could out of any one who was silly enough to trust him.“But,” said Hugh, “the only thing we had to do with each other before was by my being kind to him.”“That makes no difference,” said Dale.“But what a bad boy he must be! To be sure, he will pay me, when he knows how much I want a comb.”“He will tell you to buy it out of your five shillings. You let him know you had five shillings in Mrs Watson’s hands.”“Yes; but he knows how I mean to spend that,—for presents to carry home at Christmas. But I’ll never tell him anything again. Oh! Dale! Do you really think he will never pay me?”“He never pays anybody; that is all I know. Come,—forget it all, as fast as you can. Let us go and see if we can get any nuts.”Hugh did not at all succeed in his endeavours to forget his adventure. The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed; and the next time he spoke to Holt, and told him to remember that he owed him a shilling, Holt said he did not know that,—he did not mean to spend a shilling; and it was clear that it was only his fear of Hugh’s speaking to Mrs Watson or the usher, that prevented his saying outright that he should not pay it. Hugh felt very hot, and bit his lip to make his voice steady when he told Dale, on the way home, that he did not believe he should ever see any part of his half-crown again. Dale thought so too; but he advised him to do nothing more than keep the two debtors up to the remembrance of their debt. If he told so powerful a person as Firth, it would be almost as much tale-telling as if he went to the master at once; and Hugh himself had no inclination to expose his folly to Phil, who was already quite sufficiently ashamed of his inexperience. So poor Hugh threw the last of his plums to some cottager’s children on the green, in his way home; and, when he set foot within bounds again, he heartily wished that this Saturday afternoon had been rainy too; for any disappointment would have been better than this scrape.While learning his lessons for Monday, he forgot the whole matter; and then he grew merry over the great Saturday night’s washing; but after he was in bed, it flashed upon him that he should meet uncle and aunt Shaw in church to-morrow, and they would speak to Phil and him after church; and his uncle might ask after the half-crown. He determined not to expose his companions, at any rate: but his uncle would be displeased; and this thought was so sad that Hugh cried himself to sleep. His uncle and aunt were at church the next morning; and Hugh could not forget the ginger-beer, or help watching his uncle: so that, though he tried several times to attend to the sermon; he knew nothing about it when it was done. His uncle observed in the churchyard that they must have had a fine ramble the day before; but did not say anything about pocket-money. Neither did he name a day for his nephews to visit him, though he said they must come before the days grew much shorter. So Hugh thought he had got off very well thus far. In the afternoon, however, Mrs Watson, who invited him and Holt into her parlour, to look over the pictures in her great Bible, was rather surprised to find how little Hugh could tell her of the sermon, considering how much he had remembered the Sunday before. She had certainly thought that to-day’s sermon had been the simpler, and the more interesting to young people, of the two. Her conversation with Hugh did him good, however. It reminded him of his mother’s words, and of her expectations from him; and it made him resolve to bear, not only his loss, but any blame which might come upon him silently, and without betraying anybody. He had already determined, fifty times within the twenty-four hours, never to be so weakly led again, when his own mind was doubtful, as he had felt it all the time from leaving the heath to getting back to it again. He began to reckon on the Christmas holidays, when he should have five weeks at home, free from the evils of both places,—from lessons with Miss Harold, and from Crofton scrapes.It is probable that the whole affair would have passed over quietly, and the woman in the lane might have made large profits by other inexperienced boys, and Mr Carnaby might have gone on being careless as to where the boys went out of his sight on Saturdays, but that Tom Holt ate too many plums on the present occasion. On Sunday morning he was not well; and was so ill by the evening, and all Monday, that he had to be regularly nursed; and when he left his bed, he was taken to Mrs Watson’s parlour,—the comfortable, quiet place where invalid boys enjoyed themselves. Poor Holt was in very low spirits; and Mrs Watson was so kind that he could not help telling her that he owed a shilling, and he did not know how he should ever pay it; and that Hugh Proctor, who had been his friend till now, seemed on a sudden much more fond of Dale; and this made it harder to be in debt to him.The wet, smeared lining of the pockets had told Mrs Watson already that there had been some improper indulgence in good things; and when she heard what part Lamb had played towards the little boys, she thought it right to tell Mr Tooke. Mr Tooke said nothing till Holt was in the school again, which was on Thursday; and not then till the little boys had said their lessons, at past eleven o’clock. They were drawing on their slates, and Lamb was still mumbling over his book, without getting on, when the master’s awful voice was heard, calling up before him Lamb, little Proctor, and Holt. All three started, and turned red; so that the school concluded them guilty before it was known what they were charged with. Dale knew,—and he alone; and very sorry he was, for the intimacy between Hugh and him had grown very close indeed since Saturday.The master was considerate towards the younger boys. He made Lamb tell the whole. Even when the cowardly lad “bellowed” (as his school-fellows called his usual mode of crying) so that nothing else could be heard, Mr Tooke waited, rather than question the other two. When the whole story was extracted, in all its shamefulness, from Lamb’s own lips, the master expressed his disgust. He said nothing about the money part of it—about how Hugh was to be paid. He probably thought it best for the boys to take the consequences of their folly in losing their money. He handed the little boys over to Mr Carnaby to be caned—“To make them remember,” as he said; though they themselves were pretty sure they should never forget. Lamb was kept to be punished by the master himself. Though Lamb knew he should be severely flogged, and though he was the most cowardly boy in the school, he did not suffer so much as Hugh did in the prospect of being caned—being punished at all. Phil, who knew his brother’s face well, saw, as he passed down the room, how miserable he was—too miserable to cry; and Phil pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered that being caned was nothing to mind—only a stroke or two across the shoulders. Hugh shook his head, as much as to say, “It is not that.”No—it was not the pain. It was the being punished in open school, and when he did not feel that he deserved it. How should he know where Lamb was taking him? How should he know that the ginger-beer was to be paid for, and that he was to pay? He felt himself injured enough already: and now to be punished in addition! He would have died on the spot for liberty to tell Mr Tooke and everybody what he thought of the way he was treated. He had felt his mother hard sometimes; but what had she ever done to him compared with this? It was well he thought of his mother. At the first moment, the picture of home in his mind nearly made him cry—the thing of all others he most wished to avoid while so many eyes were on him; but the remembrance of what his mother expected of him—her look when she told himhe must not fail, gave him courage. Hard as it was to be, as he believed, unjustly punished, it was better than having done anything very wrong—anything that he really could not have told his mother.Mr Carnaby foresaw that a rebuke was in store for him for his negligence during the walk on Saturday; and this anticipation did not sweeten his mood. He kept the little boys waiting, though Holt was trembling very much, and still weak from his illness. It occurred to the usher that another person might be made uncomfortable; and he immediately acted on the idea. He had observed how fond of one another Dale and Hugh had become; and he thought he would plague Dale a little. He therefore summoned him, and desired him to go, and bring him a switch, to cane these boys with.“I have broken my cane; so bring me a stout switch,” said he. “Bring me one out of the orchard; one that will lay on well—one that will not break with a good hard stroke;—mind what I say—one that will not break.”“Yes, sir,” replied Dale, readily; and he went as if he was not at all unwilling. Holt shivered. Hugh never moved.It was long, very long, before Dale returned. When he did, he brought a remarkably stout broomstick.“This won’t break, I think, sir,” said he.The boys giggled. Mr Carnaby knuckled Dale’s head as he asked him if he called that a switch.“Bring me aswitch” said he. “One that is not too stout, or else it will not sting. It must sting, remember,—sting well. Not too stout, remember.”“Yes, sir,” said Dale; and away he went again.He was now gone yet longer; and by the time he returned everybody’s eyes were fixed on the door, to see what sort of a switch would next appear. Dale entered, bringing a straw.“I think this will not be too stout, sir.”Everybody laughed but Hugh—even Holt.There was that sneer about Mr Carnaby’s nose which made everybody sorry now for Dale: but everybody started, Mr Carnaby and all, at Mr Tooke’s voice, close at hand. How much he had seen and heard, there was no knowing; but it was enough to make him look extremely stern.“Are these boys not caned yet, Mr Carnaby?”“No, sir:—I have not—I—”“Have they been standing here all this while?”“Yes, sir. I have no cane, sir. I have been sending—”“I ordered them an immediate caning, Mr Carnaby, and not mental torture. School is up,” he declared to the boys at large. “You may go—you have been punished enough,” he said to the little boys. “Mr Carnaby, have the goodness to remain a moment.”And the large room was speedily emptied of all but the master, the usher, and poor Lamb.“The usher will catch it now,” observed some boys, as the master himself shut the door behind them. “He will get well paid for his spite.”“What will be done to him?” asked Hugh of Dale, whom he loved fervently for having saved him from punishment.“Oh, I don’t know; and I don’t care—though he was just going to give my head some sound raps against the wall, if Mr Tooke had not come up at the moment.”“But whatwillbe done to Mr Carnaby?”“Never mind what: he won’t be here long, they say. Fisher says there is another coming; and Carnaby is here only till that other is at liberty.”This was good news, if true: and Hugh ran off, quite in spirits, to play. He had set himself diligently to learn to play, and would not be driven off; and Dale had insisted on fair scope for him. He played too well to be objected to any more. They now went to leap-frog; and when too hot to keep it up any longer, he and Dale mounted into the apple-tree to talk, while they were cooling, and expecting the dinner-bell.Something happened very wonderful before dinner. The gardener went down to the main road, and seemed to be looking out. At last he hailed the London coach. Hugh and Dale could see from their perch. The coach stopped, the gardener ran back, met Mr Carnaby under the chestnuts, relieved him of his portmanteau, and helped him to mount the coach.“Is he going? Gone for good?” passed from mouth to mouth, all over the playground.“Gone for good,” was the answer of those who knew to a certainty.The boys set up first a groan, so loud that perhaps the departing usher heard it. Then they gave a shout of joy, in which the little boys joined with all their might—Hugh waving his cap in the apple-tree.
Hugh’s afternoon lessons were harder than those of the morning; and in the evening he found he had so much to do that there was very little time left for writing his letter home. Some time there was, however; and Firth did not forget to rule his paper, and to let Hugh use his ink. Hugh had been accustomed to copy the prints he found in the Voyages and Travels he read; and he could never see a picture of a savage but he wanted to copy it. He was thus accustomed to a pretty free use of his slate-pencil. He now thought that it would save a great deal of description if he sent a picture or two in his letter: so he flourished off, on the first page, a sketch of Mr Tooke sitting at his desk at the top of the school, and of Mr Carnaby standing at his desk at the bottom of the school.
The next evening he made haste to fill up the sheet, for he found his business increasing upon his hands so fast that he did not know when he should get his letter off, if he did not despatch it at once. He was just folding it up when Tom Holt observed that it was a pity not to put some words into the mouths of the figures, to make them more animated; and he showed Hugh, by the curious carvings of their desks, how to put words into the mouths of figures. Hugh then remembered having seen this done in the caricatures in the print-shops in London; and he seized on the idea. He put into Mr Tooke’s mouth the words which were oftenest heard from him, “Proceed, gentlemen;” and into Mr Carnaby’s, “Hold your din.”
Firth was too busy with his sense-verses to mind the little boys, as they giggled, with their heads close together, over Hugh’s sheet of paper; but the usher was never too busy to be aware of any fun which might possibly concern his dignity. He had his eye on the new boys the whole while. He let Hugh direct his letter, and paint up a stroke or two which did not look so well as the rest; and it was not till Hugh was rolling the wafer about on his tongue that he interfered. Mr Carnaby then came up, tapped Hugh’s head, told him not to get on so fast, for that every letter must be looked over before it went to the post. While saying this, he took the letter, and put it into his waistcoat pocket. In vain Hugh begged to have it again, saying he would write another. The more he begged, and the more dismayed Tom Holt looked, the less Mr Carnaby would attend to either. Firth let himself be interrupted to hear the case: but he could do nothing in it. It was a general rule, which he thought every boy had known; and it was too late now to prevent the letter being looked over.
Mr Carnaby was so angry at the liberty Hugh had taken with his face and figure, that, in spite of all prayers, and a good many tears, he walked up the school with the letter, followed by poor Hugh, as soon as Mr Tooke had taken his seat next morning. Hugh thought that Holt, who had put him up to the most offensive part of the pictures, might have borne him company; but Holt was a timid boy, and he really had not courage to leave his seat. So Hugh stood alone, awaiting Mr Tooke’s awful words, while the whole of the first class looked up from their books, in expectation of what was to happen. They waited some time for the master’s words; for he was trying to help laughing. He and Mr Carnaby were so much alike in the pictures, and both so like South Sea islanders, that it was impossible to help laughing at the thought of this sketch going abroad as a representation of the Crofton masters. At last all parties laughed aloud, and Mr Tooke handed Hugh his wafer-glass, and bade him wafer up his letter, and by all means send it. Mr Carnaby could not remain offended if his principal was not angry: so here the matter ended, except that Hugh made some strong resolutions about his future letters, and that the corners of the master’s mouth were seen to be out of their usual order several times in the course of the morning.
This incident, and everything which haunted Hugh’s mind, and engrossed his attention, was a serious evil to him; for his business soon grew to be more than his habit of mind was equal to. In a few days, he learned to envy the boys (and they were almost the whole school) who could fix their attention completely and immediately on the work before them, and relax as completely, when it was accomplished. When his eyes were wandering, they observed boy after boy frowning over his dictionary, or repeating to himself, earnestly and without pause; and presently the business was done, and the learner at ease, feeling confident that he was ready to meet his master. After double the time had passed Hugh was still trying to get the meaning of his lesson into his head—going over the same words a dozen times, without gaining any notion of their meaning—suffering, in short from his long habit of inattention at home. He did now try hard; but he seemed to get only headaches for his pains. His brother saw enough to make him very sorry for Hugh before ten days were over. He might not, perhaps, have been struck with his anxious countenance, his frequent starts, and his laying his head down on his desk because it ached so, if it had not been for what happened at night. Sometimes Hugh started out of bed, and began to dress, when the elder boys went up with their light, only an hour after the younger ones. Sometimes he would begin saying his syntax in the middle of the night, fancying he was standing before Mr Carnaby; and once he walked in his sleep as far as the head of the stairs, and then suddenly woke, and could not make out where he was. Phil should have told Mr Tooke of these things; but Hugh was so very anxious that nobody should know of his “tricks” (as the boys in his room called his troubles), that Phil only mentioned the matter to Mrs Watson, who had known so many bad sleepers among little boys, and had so little idea that the habit was anything new, that she took scarcely any notice of it. She had his hair cut very short and close, and saw that he took a moderate supper, and was satisfied that all would be well. Hugh did not part with his hair till he had joked himself about its length as much as any one could quiz him for it. When he had pulled it down over the end of his nose, and peeped through it, like an owl out of an ivy-bush, he might be supposed to part with it voluntarily, and not because he was laughed at.
Phil’s observation of his brother’s toil and trouble led him to give him some help. Almost every day he would hear Hugh say his lesson—or try to say it; for the poor boy seldom succeeded. Phil sometimes called him stupid, and sometimes refrained from saying so, whatever he might think; but there really was very little difference in the result, whether Phil heard the lessons beforehand or not; and it gave Joe Cape a great advantage over Phil that he had no little brother to attend to. Considering how selfish rivalship is apt to make boys (and even men), it was perhaps no wonder that Phil sometimes kept out of Hugh’s way at the right hour, saying to himself that his proper business was to do his lessons, and get or keep ahead of Joe Cape; and that Hugh must take his chance, and work his own way, as other boys had to do. This conduct might not be wondered at in Phil; but it hurt Hugh, and made him do his lessons all the worse. He did not like to expose his brother’s unkindness to any one, or he would oftener have asked Firth to help him. Firth, too, had plenty of work of his own to do. More than once, however, Firth met the little lad, wandering about, with his grammar in his hand, in search of the hidden Phil; and then Firth would stop him, and sit down with him, and have patience, and give him such clear explanations, such good examples of the rules he was to learn, that it all became easy, and Hugh found his lessons were to him only what those of other boys seemed to them. Still, however, and at the best, Hugh was, as a learner, far too much at the mercy of circumstances—the victim of what passed before his eyes, or was said within his hearing.
Boys who find difficulty in attending to their lessons are sure to be more teased with interruptions than any others. Holt had not the habit of learning; and he and Hugh were continually annoyed by the boys who sat near them watching how they got on, and making remarks upon them. One day, Mr Tooke was called out of the school-room to a visitor, and Mr Carnaby went up to take the master’s place, and hear his class. This was too good an opportunity for the boys below to let slip; and they began to play tricks,—most of them directed against Hugh and Tom Holt. One boy, Warner, began to make the face that always made Holt laugh, however he tried to be grave. Page drew a caricature of Mrs Watson on his slate, and held it up; and Davison took a mask out of his desk, and even ventured to tie it on, as if it had not been school-time.
“I declare I can’t learn my lesson—’tis too bad!” cried Hugh.
“’Tis a shame!” said Tom Holt, sighing for breath after his struggle not to laugh. “We shall never be ready.”
Hugh made gestures of indignation at the boys, which only caused worse faces to be made, and the mask to nod.
“We wont look at them,” proposed Holt. “Let us cover our eyes, and not look up at all.”
Hugh put his hands before his eyes; but still his mind’s eye saw the grinning mask, and his lesson did not get on. Besides, a piece of wet sponge lighted on the very page he was learning from. He looked up fiercely, to see who had thrown it. It was no other than Tooke, who belonged to that class:—it was Tooke, to judge by his giggle, and his pretending to hide his face, as if ashamed. Hugh tossed back the sponge, so as to hit Tooke on the nose. Then Tooke was angry, and threw it again, and the sponge passed backwards and forwards several times: for Hugh was by this time very angry,—boiling with indignation at the hardship of not being able to learn his lesson, when he really would if he could. While the sponge was still passing to and fro, Mr Carnaby’s voice was heard from the far end of the room, desiring Warner, Page, Davison, and Tooke to be quiet, and let the boys alone till Mr Tooke came in, when Mr Tooke would take his own measures.
Hugh, wondering how Mr Carnaby knew, at that distance, what was going on, found that Holt was no longer by his side. In a moment, Holt returned to his seat, flushed and out of breath. A very slight hiss was heard from every form near, as he came down the room.
“O! Holt! You have been telling tales!” cried Hugh.
“Telling tales!” exclaimed Holt, in consternation, for Holt knew nothing of school ways. “I never thought of that. They asked me to tell Mr Carnaby that we could not learn our lessons.”
“They! Who? I am sure I never asked you.”
“No; you did not: but Harvey and Prince did,—and Gillingham. They said Mr Carnaby would soon make those fellows quiet; and they told me to go.”
“You hear! They are calling you ‘tell-tale.’ That will be your name now. Oh, Holt! You should not have told tales. However, I will stand by you,” Hugh continued, seeing the terror that Holt was in.
“I meant no harm,” said Holt, trembling. “Was not it a shame that they would not let us learn our lessons?”
“Yes, it was—but—”
At this moment Mr Tooke entered the room. As he passed the forms, the boys were all bent over their books, as if they could think of nothing else. Mr Tooke walked up the room to his desk, and Mr Carnaby walked down the room tohisdesk; and then Mr Carnaby said, quite aloud,—
“Mr Tooke, sir.”
“Well.”
Here Holt sprang from his desk, and ran to the usher, and besought him not to say a word about what Warner’s class had been doing. He even hung on Mr Carnaby’s arm in entreaty; but Mr Carnaby shook him off, and commanded him back to his seat. Then the whole school heard Mr Tooke told about the wry faces and the mask, and the trouble of the little boys. Mr Tooke was not often angry; but when he was, his face grew white, and his lips trembled. His face was white now. He stood up, and called before him the little boy who had informed. Hugh chose to go with Holt, though Holt had not gone up with him about the letter, the other day; and Holt felt how kind this was. Mr Tooke desired to know who the offenders were; and as they were named, he called to them to stand up in their places. Then came the sentence. Mr Tooke would never forgive advantage being taken of his absence. If there were boys who could not be trusted while his back was turned, they must be made to remember him when he was out of sight, by punishment. Page must remain in school after hours, to learn twenty lines of Virgil; Davison twenty; Tooke forty—
Here everybody looked round to see how Tooke bore his father being so angry with him.
“Please, sir,” cried one boy, “I saw little Proctor throw a sponge at Tooke. He did it twice.”
“Never mind!” answered Tooke. “I threw it at him first. It is my sponge.”
“And Warner,” continued the master, as if he had not heard the interruption, “considering that Warner has got off too easily for many pranks of late,—Warner seventy.”
Seventy! The idea of having anybody condemned, through him, to learn seventy lines of Latin by heart, made Holt so miserable that the word seventy seemed really to prick his very ears. Though Mr Tooke’s face was still white, Holt ventured up to him, “Pray, sir—”
“Not a word of intercession for those boys,” said the master. “I will not hear a word in their favour.”
“Then, sir—”
“Well.”
“I only want to say, then, that Proctor told no tales, sir. I did not mean any harm, sir, but I told because—”
“Never mind that,” cried Hugh, afraid that he would now be telling of Harvey, Prince, and Gillingham, who had persuaded him to go up.
“I have nothing to do with that. That is your affair,” said the master, sending the boys back to their seats.
Poor Holt had cause to rue this morning, for long after. He was weary of the sound of hissing, and of the name “tell-tale;” and the very boys who had prompted him to go up were at first silent, and then joined against him. He complained to Hugh of the difficulty of knowing what it was right to do. He had been angry on Hugh’s account chiefly; and he still thought itwasvery unjust to hinder their lessons, when they wished not to be idle: and yet they were all treating him as if he had done something worse than the boys with the mask. Hugh thought all this was true: but he believed it was settled among schoolboys (though Holt had never had the opportunity of knowing it) that it was a braver thing for boys to bear any teasing from one another than to call in the power of the master to help. A boy who did that was supposed not to be able to take care of himself; and for this he was despised, besides being disliked, for having brought punishment upon his companions.
Holt wished Hugh had not been throwing sponges at the time:—he wished Hugh had prevented his going up. He would take good care how he told tales again.
“You had better say so,” advised Hugh; “and then they will see that you had never been at school, and did not know how to manage.”
The first Saturday had been partly dreaded, and partly longed for, by Hugh. He had longed for the afternoon’s ramble; but Saturday morning was the time for saying tables, among other things. Nothing happened as he had expected. The afternoon was so rainy that there was no going out; and, as for the tables, he was in a class of five; and “four times seven” did not come to him in regular course. Eight times seven did, and he said “fifty-six” with great satisfaction, Mr Carnaby asked him afterwards the dreaded question, but he was on his guard; and as he answered it right, and the usher had not found out the joke, he hoped he should hear no more of the matter.
The next Saturday was fine, and at last he was to have the walk he longed for. The weekly repetitions were over, dinner was done, Mr Carnaby appeared with his hat on, the whole throng burst into the open air, and out of bounds, and the new boys were wild with expectation and delight. When they had passed the churchyard and the green, and were wading through the sandy road which led up to the heath, Firth saw Hugh running and leaping hither and thither, not knowing what to do with his spirits. Firth called him, and putting his arm round Hugh’s neck, so as to keep him prisoner, said he did not know how he might want his strength before he got home, and he had better not spend it on a bit of sandy road. So Hugh was made to walk quietly, and gained his breath before the breezy heath was reached.
On the way, he saw that a boy of the name of Dale, whom he had never particularly observed before, was a good deal teased by some boys who kept crossing their hands before them, and curtseying like girls, talking in a mincing way, and calling one another Amelia, with great affectation. Dale tried to get away, but he was followed, whichever way he turned.
“What do they mean by that?” inquired Hugh of Firth.
“Dale has a sister at a school not far off, and her name is Amelia; and she came to see him to-day. Ah! You have not found out yet that boys are laughed at about their sisters, particularly if the girls have fine names.”
“What a shame!” cried Hugh; words which he had used very often already since he came to Crofton.
He broke from Firth, ran up to Dale, and said to him, in a low voice, “I have two sisters, and one of them is called Agnes.”
“Don’t let them come to see you, then, or these fellows will quiz you as they do me. As if I could help having a sister Amelia!”
“Why, you are not sorry for that? You would not wish your sister dead, or not born, would you?”
“No; but I wish she was not hereabouts: that is, I wish she had not come up to the pales, with the maid-servant behind her, for everybody to see. And then, when Mr Tooke sent us into the orchard together, some spies were peeping over the wall at us all the time.”
“I only wish Agnes would come,” cried Hugh, “and I would—”
“Ah! You think so now; but depend upon it, you would like much better to see her at home. Why, her name is finer than my sister’s! I wonder what girls ever have such names for!”
“I don’t see that these names are finer than some boys’ names. There’s Frazer, is not his name Colin? And then there’s Hercules Fisticuff—”
“Why, you know—to be sure you know that is a nick-name?” said Dale.
“Is it? I never thought of that,” replied Hugh. “What is his real name?”
“Samuel Jones. However, there is Colin Frazer—and Fry, his name is Augustus Adolphus; I will play them off the next time they quiz Amelia. How old is your sister Agnes?”
Then the two boys wandered off among the furze bushes, talking about their homes; and in a little while they had so opened their hearts to each other, that they felt as if they had always been friends. Nobody thought any more about them when once the whole school was dispersed over the heath. Some boys made for a hazel copse, some way beyond the heath, in hopes of finding a few nuts already ripe. Others had boats to float on the pond. A large number played leap-frog, and some ran races. Mr Carnaby threw himself down on a soft couch of wild thyme, on a rising ground, and took out his book. So Dale and Hugh felt themselves unobserved, and they chatted away at a great rate. Not but that an interruption or two did occur. They fell in with a flock of geese, and Hugh did not much like their appearance, never having heard a goose make a noise before. He had eaten roast goose, and he had seen geese in the feathers at the poulterers’; but he had never seen them alive, and stretching their necks at passengers. He flinched at the first moment. Dale, who never imagined that a boy who was not afraid of his schoolfellows could be afraid of geese, luckily mistook the movement, and said, “Ay, get a switch,—a bunch of furze will do, and we will be rid of the noisy things.”
He drove them away, and Hugh had now learned, for ever, how much noise geese can make, and how little they are to be feared.
They soon came upon some creatures which were larger and stronger, and with which Hugh was no better acquainted. Some cows were grazing, or had been grazing, till a party of boys came up. They were now restless, moving uneasily about, so that Dale himself hesitated for a moment which way to go. Lamb was near,—the passionate boy, who was nobody’s friend, and who was therefore seldom at play with others. He was also something of a coward, as any one might know from his frequent bullying. He and Holt happened to be together at this time; and it was their appearance of fright at the restless cows which frightened Hugh. One cow at last began to trot towards them at a pretty good rate. Lamb ran off to the right, and the two little boys after him, though Dale pulled at Hugh’s hand to make him stand still, as Dale chose to do himself. He pulled in vain—Hugh burst away, and off went the three boys, over the hillocks and through the furze, the cow trotting at some distance behind. They did not pause till Lamb had led them off the heath into a deep lane, different from the one by which they had come. The cow stopped at a patch of green grass, just at the entrance of the hollow way; and the runners therefore could take breath.
“Now we are here,” said Lamb, “I will show you a nice place,—a place where we can get something nice. How thirsty I am!”
“And so am I,” declared Holt, smacking his dry tongue. Hugh’s mouth was very dry too, between the run and the fright.
“Well, then, come along with me, and I will show you,” said Lamb.
Hugh thought they ought not to go farther from the heath: but Lamb said they would get back by another way,—through a gate belonging to a friend of his. They could not get back the way they came, because the cow was there still. He walked briskly on till they came to a cottage, over whose door swung a sign; and on the sign was a painting of a bottle and a glass, and a heap of things which were probably meant for cakes, as there were cakes in the window. Here Lamb turned in, and the woman seemed to know him well. She smiled, and closed the door behind the three boys, and asked them to sit down: but Lamb said there was no time for that to-day,—she must be quick. He then told the boys that they would have some ginger-beer.
“But may we?” asked the little boys.
“To be sure; who is to prevent us? You shall see how you like ginger-beer when you are thirsty.”
The woman declared that it was the most wholesome thing in the world; and if the young gentleman did not find it so, she would never ask him to taste her ginger-beer again. Hugh thanked them both; but he did not feel quite comfortable. He looked at Holt, to find out what he thought: but Holt was quite engrossed with watching the woman untwisting the wire of the first bottle. The cork did not fly; indeed there was some difficulty in getting it out: so Lamb waived his right, as the eldest, to drink first; and the little boys were so long in settling which should have it, that the little spirit there was had all gone off before Hugh began to drink; and he did not find ginger-beer such particularly good stuff as Lamb had said. He would have liked a drink of water better. The next bottle was very brisk: so Lamb seized upon it; and the froth hung round his mouth when he had done: but Holt was no better off with his than Hugh had been. They were both urged to try their luck again. Hugh would not: but Holt did once; and Lamb, two or three times. Then the woman offered them some cakes upon a plate: and the little boys thanked her, and took each one. Lamb put some in his pocket, and advised the others to do the same, as they had no time to spare. He kept some room in his pocket, however, for some plums; and told the boys that they might carry theirs in their handkerchiefs, or in their caps, if they would take care to have finished before they came within sight of the usher. He then asked the woman to let them out upon the heath through her garden gate; and she said she certainly would when they had paid. She then stood drumming with her fingers upon the table, and looking through the window, as if waiting.
“Come, Proctor, you have half-a-crown,” said Lamb. “Out with it!”
“My half-crown!” exclaimed Proctor. “You did not say I had anything to pay.”
“As if you did not know that, without my telling you! You don’t think people give away their good things, I suppose! Come,—where’s your half-crown? My money is all at home.”
Holt had nothing with him either. Lamb asked the woman what there was to pay. She seemed to count and consider; and Holt told Hugh afterwards that he saw Lamb wink at her. She then said that the younger gentlemen had had the most plums and cakes. The charge was a shilling a piece for them, and sixpence for Master Lamb:—half-a-crown exactly. Hugh protested he never meant anything like this, and that he wanted part of his half-crown to buy a comb with; and he would have emptied out the cakes and fruit he had left; but the woman stopped him, saying that she never took back what she had sold. Lamb hurried him, too, declaring that their time was up; and he even thrust his finger and thumb into Hugh’s inner pocket, and took out the half-crown, which he gave to the woman. He was sure that Hugh could wait for his comb till Holt paid him, and the woman said she did not see that any more combing was wanted: the young gentleman’s hair looked so pretty as it was. She then showed them through the garden, and gave them each a marigold full-blown. She unlocked her gate, pushed them through, locked it behind them, and left them to hide their purchases as well as they could. Though the little boys stuffed their pockets till the ripest plums burst, and wetted the linings, they could not dispose of them all; and they were obliged to give away a good many.
Hugh went in search of his new friend, and drew him aside from the rest to relate his trouble. Dale wondered he had not found out Lamb before this, enough to refuse to follow his lead. Lamb would never pay a penny. He always spent the little money he had upon good things, the first day or two; and then he got what he could out of any one who was silly enough to trust him.
“But,” said Hugh, “the only thing we had to do with each other before was by my being kind to him.”
“That makes no difference,” said Dale.
“But what a bad boy he must be! To be sure, he will pay me, when he knows how much I want a comb.”
“He will tell you to buy it out of your five shillings. You let him know you had five shillings in Mrs Watson’s hands.”
“Yes; but he knows how I mean to spend that,—for presents to carry home at Christmas. But I’ll never tell him anything again. Oh! Dale! Do you really think he will never pay me?”
“He never pays anybody; that is all I know. Come,—forget it all, as fast as you can. Let us go and see if we can get any nuts.”
Hugh did not at all succeed in his endeavours to forget his adventure. The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed; and the next time he spoke to Holt, and told him to remember that he owed him a shilling, Holt said he did not know that,—he did not mean to spend a shilling; and it was clear that it was only his fear of Hugh’s speaking to Mrs Watson or the usher, that prevented his saying outright that he should not pay it. Hugh felt very hot, and bit his lip to make his voice steady when he told Dale, on the way home, that he did not believe he should ever see any part of his half-crown again. Dale thought so too; but he advised him to do nothing more than keep the two debtors up to the remembrance of their debt. If he told so powerful a person as Firth, it would be almost as much tale-telling as if he went to the master at once; and Hugh himself had no inclination to expose his folly to Phil, who was already quite sufficiently ashamed of his inexperience. So poor Hugh threw the last of his plums to some cottager’s children on the green, in his way home; and, when he set foot within bounds again, he heartily wished that this Saturday afternoon had been rainy too; for any disappointment would have been better than this scrape.
While learning his lessons for Monday, he forgot the whole matter; and then he grew merry over the great Saturday night’s washing; but after he was in bed, it flashed upon him that he should meet uncle and aunt Shaw in church to-morrow, and they would speak to Phil and him after church; and his uncle might ask after the half-crown. He determined not to expose his companions, at any rate: but his uncle would be displeased; and this thought was so sad that Hugh cried himself to sleep. His uncle and aunt were at church the next morning; and Hugh could not forget the ginger-beer, or help watching his uncle: so that, though he tried several times to attend to the sermon; he knew nothing about it when it was done. His uncle observed in the churchyard that they must have had a fine ramble the day before; but did not say anything about pocket-money. Neither did he name a day for his nephews to visit him, though he said they must come before the days grew much shorter. So Hugh thought he had got off very well thus far. In the afternoon, however, Mrs Watson, who invited him and Holt into her parlour, to look over the pictures in her great Bible, was rather surprised to find how little Hugh could tell her of the sermon, considering how much he had remembered the Sunday before. She had certainly thought that to-day’s sermon had been the simpler, and the more interesting to young people, of the two. Her conversation with Hugh did him good, however. It reminded him of his mother’s words, and of her expectations from him; and it made him resolve to bear, not only his loss, but any blame which might come upon him silently, and without betraying anybody. He had already determined, fifty times within the twenty-four hours, never to be so weakly led again, when his own mind was doubtful, as he had felt it all the time from leaving the heath to getting back to it again. He began to reckon on the Christmas holidays, when he should have five weeks at home, free from the evils of both places,—from lessons with Miss Harold, and from Crofton scrapes.
It is probable that the whole affair would have passed over quietly, and the woman in the lane might have made large profits by other inexperienced boys, and Mr Carnaby might have gone on being careless as to where the boys went out of his sight on Saturdays, but that Tom Holt ate too many plums on the present occasion. On Sunday morning he was not well; and was so ill by the evening, and all Monday, that he had to be regularly nursed; and when he left his bed, he was taken to Mrs Watson’s parlour,—the comfortable, quiet place where invalid boys enjoyed themselves. Poor Holt was in very low spirits; and Mrs Watson was so kind that he could not help telling her that he owed a shilling, and he did not know how he should ever pay it; and that Hugh Proctor, who had been his friend till now, seemed on a sudden much more fond of Dale; and this made it harder to be in debt to him.
The wet, smeared lining of the pockets had told Mrs Watson already that there had been some improper indulgence in good things; and when she heard what part Lamb had played towards the little boys, she thought it right to tell Mr Tooke. Mr Tooke said nothing till Holt was in the school again, which was on Thursday; and not then till the little boys had said their lessons, at past eleven o’clock. They were drawing on their slates, and Lamb was still mumbling over his book, without getting on, when the master’s awful voice was heard, calling up before him Lamb, little Proctor, and Holt. All three started, and turned red; so that the school concluded them guilty before it was known what they were charged with. Dale knew,—and he alone; and very sorry he was, for the intimacy between Hugh and him had grown very close indeed since Saturday.
The master was considerate towards the younger boys. He made Lamb tell the whole. Even when the cowardly lad “bellowed” (as his school-fellows called his usual mode of crying) so that nothing else could be heard, Mr Tooke waited, rather than question the other two. When the whole story was extracted, in all its shamefulness, from Lamb’s own lips, the master expressed his disgust. He said nothing about the money part of it—about how Hugh was to be paid. He probably thought it best for the boys to take the consequences of their folly in losing their money. He handed the little boys over to Mr Carnaby to be caned—“To make them remember,” as he said; though they themselves were pretty sure they should never forget. Lamb was kept to be punished by the master himself. Though Lamb knew he should be severely flogged, and though he was the most cowardly boy in the school, he did not suffer so much as Hugh did in the prospect of being caned—being punished at all. Phil, who knew his brother’s face well, saw, as he passed down the room, how miserable he was—too miserable to cry; and Phil pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered that being caned was nothing to mind—only a stroke or two across the shoulders. Hugh shook his head, as much as to say, “It is not that.”
No—it was not the pain. It was the being punished in open school, and when he did not feel that he deserved it. How should he know where Lamb was taking him? How should he know that the ginger-beer was to be paid for, and that he was to pay? He felt himself injured enough already: and now to be punished in addition! He would have died on the spot for liberty to tell Mr Tooke and everybody what he thought of the way he was treated. He had felt his mother hard sometimes; but what had she ever done to him compared with this? It was well he thought of his mother. At the first moment, the picture of home in his mind nearly made him cry—the thing of all others he most wished to avoid while so many eyes were on him; but the remembrance of what his mother expected of him—her look when she told himhe must not fail, gave him courage. Hard as it was to be, as he believed, unjustly punished, it was better than having done anything very wrong—anything that he really could not have told his mother.
Mr Carnaby foresaw that a rebuke was in store for him for his negligence during the walk on Saturday; and this anticipation did not sweeten his mood. He kept the little boys waiting, though Holt was trembling very much, and still weak from his illness. It occurred to the usher that another person might be made uncomfortable; and he immediately acted on the idea. He had observed how fond of one another Dale and Hugh had become; and he thought he would plague Dale a little. He therefore summoned him, and desired him to go, and bring him a switch, to cane these boys with.
“I have broken my cane; so bring me a stout switch,” said he. “Bring me one out of the orchard; one that will lay on well—one that will not break with a good hard stroke;—mind what I say—one that will not break.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Dale, readily; and he went as if he was not at all unwilling. Holt shivered. Hugh never moved.
It was long, very long, before Dale returned. When he did, he brought a remarkably stout broomstick.
“This won’t break, I think, sir,” said he.
The boys giggled. Mr Carnaby knuckled Dale’s head as he asked him if he called that a switch.
“Bring me aswitch” said he. “One that is not too stout, or else it will not sting. It must sting, remember,—sting well. Not too stout, remember.”
“Yes, sir,” said Dale; and away he went again.
He was now gone yet longer; and by the time he returned everybody’s eyes were fixed on the door, to see what sort of a switch would next appear. Dale entered, bringing a straw.
“I think this will not be too stout, sir.”
Everybody laughed but Hugh—even Holt.
There was that sneer about Mr Carnaby’s nose which made everybody sorry now for Dale: but everybody started, Mr Carnaby and all, at Mr Tooke’s voice, close at hand. How much he had seen and heard, there was no knowing; but it was enough to make him look extremely stern.
“Are these boys not caned yet, Mr Carnaby?”
“No, sir:—I have not—I—”
“Have they been standing here all this while?”
“Yes, sir. I have no cane, sir. I have been sending—”
“I ordered them an immediate caning, Mr Carnaby, and not mental torture. School is up,” he declared to the boys at large. “You may go—you have been punished enough,” he said to the little boys. “Mr Carnaby, have the goodness to remain a moment.”
And the large room was speedily emptied of all but the master, the usher, and poor Lamb.
“The usher will catch it now,” observed some boys, as the master himself shut the door behind them. “He will get well paid for his spite.”
“What will be done to him?” asked Hugh of Dale, whom he loved fervently for having saved him from punishment.
“Oh, I don’t know; and I don’t care—though he was just going to give my head some sound raps against the wall, if Mr Tooke had not come up at the moment.”
“But whatwillbe done to Mr Carnaby?”
“Never mind what: he won’t be here long, they say. Fisher says there is another coming; and Carnaby is here only till that other is at liberty.”
This was good news, if true: and Hugh ran off, quite in spirits, to play. He had set himself diligently to learn to play, and would not be driven off; and Dale had insisted on fair scope for him. He played too well to be objected to any more. They now went to leap-frog; and when too hot to keep it up any longer, he and Dale mounted into the apple-tree to talk, while they were cooling, and expecting the dinner-bell.
Something happened very wonderful before dinner. The gardener went down to the main road, and seemed to be looking out. At last he hailed the London coach. Hugh and Dale could see from their perch. The coach stopped, the gardener ran back, met Mr Carnaby under the chestnuts, relieved him of his portmanteau, and helped him to mount the coach.
“Is he going? Gone for good?” passed from mouth to mouth, all over the playground.
“Gone for good,” was the answer of those who knew to a certainty.
The boys set up first a groan, so loud that perhaps the departing usher heard it. Then they gave a shout of joy, in which the little boys joined with all their might—Hugh waving his cap in the apple-tree.