"'WILD FLOWERS."'By Nicol Macmullen."'The vegetable kingdom is a very large one. John Ray, a native of Sussex, did much to advance the study of it. He was born in 1628, and died in 1705. There was a history of plants written three hundred years before Christ. Linnæus was the man who invented the sexual system—a very useful invention. It is a stepping-stone. He first mentioned it in 1736. Seaweeds are also a part of the vegetable kingdom, but they have no flowers, and so may be dismissed without further mention. Also Algæ. Of leaves, it may be said that some fall and some do not. At least, speaking strictly, all fall, and this is called a deciduous tree; but not all at once, and this is called an evergreen. Glands occur in the tissue of the leaves, and they also have hairs. Buds also have hairs. The organs of plants is almost the largest subject in the vegetable kingdom, but I have no time to mention more than one or two organs to-day. The root descends into the soil, the stems rise aloft, and the flowers bud out at the ends of them. Mistletoe and broom-rape are called parasites, because they live on other trees, instead of being on their own."'Coming now to flowers, we find that they may be divided into two main families: wild and garden. We shall dismiss garden flowers, as they do not belong to our subject, but wild flowers are the most beautiful things in the vegetable kingdom. Especially honeysuckle and blackberries. Many others will occur to the reader also. The flower is thetout ensembleof those organs which are concerned in reproduction.'"The Doctor stopped and put down Macmullen's essay. For my part, I was simply amazed at the amount Mac. knew, and I think everybody else was; but, strangely enough, the Doctor didn't like it."From this point our author quotes verbatim out of the pages of theEncyclopædia Britannica," continued Dr. Dunstan. "As an effort of memory the result is highly creditable, and Macmullen will have acquired a great deal of botanical knowledge which may possibly be of service to him in his future career; but as an essayist on wild flowers he is exceedingly evasive, and his effort fails radically and fundamentally. The subject is obviously not one that appeals to him. There is no sympathy, no love of his theme; above all, no moral deductions. Macmullen's mind has not been uplifted. He has, in fact, failed."Mac. didn't seem to care as much as you would have thought. He told me afterwards he felt so thankful when the Doctor shut up about him and turned to Tomkins, that he forgot everything else but relief.Tomkins became red when the Doctor picked up his essay; but it soon faded away—I mean the redness."Now here," said Dr. Dunstan, "we are met by an attempt of a very different character. The boy Tomkins appears to think that there is nothing more to be said about the flowers of the field than to utter their names. His prose lacks dignity; there is a feverish desire to tell us what everything is called. There is no poetry, no feeling. Vagueness, indeed, we have, but vagueness is not poetry, though to uncritical minds it may sometimes pass for such. This is how Tomkins approaches his subject. There is a breathlessness, a feeling of haste, as if somebody was chasing Tomkins along the road while he was making his researches. This, unless Tomkins has been guilty of trespass—an alternative I refuse to consider—is difficult to explain."The Doctor then gave us a bit out of Tomkins—"'As one walks down a country lane, one can often hardly see the leaves for the flowers. They burst upon the view in millions. The hedges are thronged with them; the scent is overpowering. Turn where you will, they greet the bewildered eye. They hang from the trees and spring from the earth; they twine also—as, for instance, briony and convolvuluses. At a single glance I take in dog-roses; campions of several sorts, including white; shepherd's purse—a weed; strawberry, primroses, cuckoo-flower, violet, bugle, herb robert, and also other wild geraniums of various kinds. They are in a crowded mass, all struggling for life. Stitchwort, nettle, archangel, cock's-foot grass, clematis, dock, heath, furze, bog-moss, darnel, dandelions, daisies, buttercups of sorts, marshmallow, water-lilies, rushes and reeds, poppies and peppermint, also ferns—one sees them all at a glance. Then, as one hastens swiftly onwards——'"I gasp for breath," said the Doctor; "I absolutely refuse to hasten swiftly onwards with Tomkins. At this breakneck pace he drags us through that portion of the British flora at his command. There is doubtless knowledge here; there is even reflection, as when he says, at the end of his paper, that wild flowers ought to make us thankful for our eyesight and for the lesser gift of smell. But, taken as a whole, we have no balance, absolutely no repose, no light, and no shade. There is too much hurry and bustle, too little feeling for the beauty attaching to English scenery or English prose; too eager a desire to display erudition in the empty matter of floral nomenclature."So that was the end of Tomkins. He was frightfully disappointed; but he felt so interested to know what wretched chaps like Smythe and Walters had done that was better, that he forgot even to be miserable about losing until afterwards.Then the Doctor went for Smythe."Huxley Smythe next challenges our attention," he said. "Now, here we are confronted with a still more amazing misunderstanding. Smythe appears to know absolutely nothing whatever concerning wild flowers; but he has seized this occasion to display an extraordinary amount of peculiar information concerning other matters. He evidently imagines that this will answer his purpose equally well. Moreover, he endeavours to cast his work in a poetic form—with results that have bewildered even me, despite my half-century of knowledge of thegenus puer. I do not say that rhyme is inadmissible. You shall not find me slow to encourage originality of thought even among the least of you; but Smythe trusts too little to himself and too much to other rhymsters—I will not call them poets. He has committed to memory many verses of a trivial and even offensive character. He has furnished me with a charm or incantation to remove warts. Elsewhere he commits himself to sentiments that may be described as flagrantly irreligious. It is true he glances obliquely at his subject from time to time; but not in a spirit which can admire or commend. We have, for instance, these lines—"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,You will see your true love the very next day.'"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thingIs tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someoneWill be certain to die ere the year is done.'"Whence Huxley Smythe has culled these pitiful superstitions I know not," continued the Doctor; "but he appears to be a veritable storehouse and compendium of them. They remind me only too painfully of a certain tiger's tail, though that incident is closed, and I desire to make no further mention of it. Had our theme been folklore, or those crude, benighted and indelicate fancies still prevailing among the bucolic population, Smythe must have conquered, and easily conquered. It is not so, however. He has chosen the occasion of the 'Bolsover' competition to reveal no little fantastic knowledge; but its lack of appropriate and apposite qualities effectually disposes of his claim. I will give you a last sample of his methods.A proposof absolutely nothing, on page four of his dissertation, Smythe submits this impertinence. He appears suddenly to have recollected it and inserted it in the body of his work, without the least consideration for its significance or my feelings."'There was an old man who lived in a woodAs you may plainly see,And said he could do more work in a dayThan his wife could do in three.'"The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe."This fragment—from some coarse old ballad, I suspect—is thrust upon me, as one might brandish a club in the face of an unoffending citizen. Smythe must chasten his taste and study the rudiments of logic and propriety before again he ventures to challenge our attention with original thoughts. Silence! Silence!" thundered the Doctor in conclusion; because Smythe's stuff made Steggles laugh out loud. Then several other chaps laughed, and in trying not to laugh, Wolf minor choked and made a noise, like a football exploding, that was far worse than laughter."There remains the effort of Rupert Walters," went on Dr. Dunstan. "He is the youngest of the competitors, and I find but little to praise in his achievement; yet it indicates a shadow of promise and a shade of imagination. Indeed, Mr. Briggs at first suspected that Walters had availed himself of secret and dishonest assistance; but this, I rejoice to know, is not the case. Walters has yet to learn to control the discharge of ink from his pen, and in matters of orthography also there is much to be desired for him—a remark which applies to all the competitors save Macmullen—but he possesses a dim and misty nucleus of feeling for the dignity of his native tongue. There is in his attempt a suggestion that at some distant date, if he is spared, and if he labours assiduously in the dead languages, Rupert Walters may control his living speech with some approach to distinction. I select his most pleasing passage."The Doctor regarded young Walters over his spectacles for a moment with a frightfully encouraging expression that he sometimes puts on when things are going extra well. Then he read the pleasing passage, as he called it."'Often, walking in the country far from home, you may see the briars falling over the sides of the lanes, and the may trees white with bloom. They look lovely against the blue sky; and a curious thing is that the distant trees also look blue, and not green, by reason of distance. Near at hand, yellow and red flowers may be dotted about; but when you look along the lane, you only see haze, which is beautiful. If there is a river flowing near by, it is also very beautiful indeed, especially with water-lilies on it. And clouds are lovely too, if reflected in a sheet of water beside which yellow irises spring up, and their foliage looks rather bluish. If a trout rises, it makes white rings on the water.'"Now, here," said the Doctor, "is a humble effort to set down what the eye of this tender boy has mirrored in the past. I need not tell you how he spells 'irises,' or 'curious,' or 'beautiful.' The fact remains that he has distanced his competitors and achieved the 'Bolsover' prize. Come hither, Rupert Walters. Let me shake your hand, my lad!"So that was the end of it, and Walters seemed more frightened than anything. But he took his book, and the matter ended, and the four chaps had their essays back, with Briggs's red pencil remarks on them, to send home to their people.The extraordinary truth only came to me three days later, when I happened to be having a talk with Walters and looking at his prize, which was duller even than most prizes. I said—"How the dickens did you remember that trees look blue seen a mile off?"And he said—"I didn't remember it. If you'll swear not to tell, I'll explain. I shall be rather glad to tell somebody."So I swore. Then Walters said—"I was just sitting biting my pen and drawing on the blotting-paper and casting my eyes about and wondering what on earth to say, when I saw right bang in front of me a great picture—a whacker—full of trees and a lane, and water and hills, and every mortal thing, even to the flowers dabbed about in front. Well—there you are! I just tried to put down what I saw. And I did it only too well, if anything. Of course, in a sort of way, it was cribbing; but then, of course, in another sort of way, it wasn't. Anyway, you've sworn not to tell—not even Tomkins; so of course you won't tell."And of course I didn't.THE CASE FOR FOWLENo. VIITHE CASE FOR FOWLEIIt's awful difficult to understand why some boys are liked and some utterly barred. I'm nearly sixteen now, and I've been at Merivale for years, but still I can't see it. All I know is that the chaps most boys like, I don't, and the very few chaps I like, nobody else does. At first I thought it was hampers and asked my mother to send me extra large ones, which she did; and such hampers as mine were never seen before in any school, I should think. But the boys ate my water-melons and peaches and many such unusual things, just as if they were the wretched windfalls that Masters gets from his father's orchards, or the feeble home-made jam and common or garden cakes that come to other fellows on their birthdays. Then the very chaps that guzzle my rare things pretend afterwards I've tried to poison them, and so on; and young Gregson, who once ate half a bruised pineapple of mine that was a bit off, got ill; and after that only certain chaps would take the things I offered. And nobody once, all the time I've been here, has ever offered me as much as a dry biscuit out of their beastly hampers.I pointed this out to Travers, who, though no friend of mine, always appeared to have more sense in a general way than most fellows; and he said—"You sneer so at chaps. You always make it so jolly clear your hampers are the best in the world, that naturally they think you wouldn't care about their things. Besides, Steggles did offer you three ripe pears, for I saw him do it.""Yes," I said, "he did—just because he knew they were over-ripe and thought to score off me. I knew why he had done it, and told him so.""Then he offered them to me," said Travers, "so I can tell you that you are quite wrong. I took them and ate them on the spot, and they were perfectly good, decent pears. For once in a way Steggles was quite straight and meant no harm at all."Well, I saw after a bit that it wasn't hampers, or anything of that sort; and then I thought it was games. But I wasn't going to make a fool of myself at footling games for anybody, and I always did get out of them when I could. However, it wasn't altogether games either, though certainly more games than hampers. Still, there were chaps who didn't play games any better than me—such as Richards, who always went to matches and was keen about games, though useless himself, and Ford, who made peculiar knots in rope, and Jameson, who drew pictures in the chaps' Latin grammars of the remarkable things mentioned in syntax. Then another great thing, showing what mean beasts most boys are, is the fact that if certain masters like certain boys, then other boys also like them.Once, and only once, I got jolly friendly with a master who was very much disliked indeed by everybody else. I mean Browne. I never found him bad at first, and he used me a good bit in many ways and nearly always gave me full marks. But he changed frightfully over the business of the blackboard, and it happened like this. You see, as Browne thought well of me, he confided in me a bit out for walks; and I confided in him; and he asked me a lot of questions concerning a lot of boys; and, as I hated them all, I told him what he wanted to know. He was frightfully obliged and said I was a power for good in the school; and also said that such a boy as I am, without silly ideas about sneaking, may be of the greatest use to masters if he really has the welfare and interest of the school at heart. He also gave me a knife and seemed pretty sure I should win several prizes at the end of the term. In fact, we got very friendly and I certainly did him a very good turn by helping him to understand why some boys didn't like him, and telling him what they said about him behind his back. He was greatly obliged to me, and used the things I told him, and scored pretty badly off some chaps as a result. It rather surprised them to find how much he knew; but it didn't make them like him any better. Then they began to try and score off him, and finally, owing to an unfortunate accident, I got mixed up in it.Steggles did an unusual thing to young Frost. Steggles had borrowed the matron's scissors to cut his toe-nails, which were turning in and tearing his toes and making them pour with blood. And after he had used them and shortened his toe-nails by about half-an-inch or so, he kept them and told the matron that he had lost them. Then came young Frost, who was a sort of relation of Trelawny, who was at that time easily the best-liked chap at Merivale.Well, Steggles got young Frost up into the gym. alone, as he thought, and told him it was the rule for new boys to have their hair cut close to their heads, because they often brought infection to Merivale in that way. So he cut all young Frost's hair off; and I was there, hidden in a corner reading a grown-up novel that I had found in Browne's room. Because Browne, as a great favour, used to allow me in his study to see the remarkable things he has there—chiefly on the mantelpiece, including photographs of well-known actresses, said to be signed by themselves. So I saw Steggles cut off Frost's hair, and I did not know Steggles had seen me, but he had. And he made me swear not to tell, which I did; but knowing that an oath is not binding when the good of the school is involved, I told Browne about it, and he took the credit to himself over it and taxed Steggles with it. Of course Steggles denied it, and it couldn't be proved, because young Frost had a rotten idea it would be unsportsmanlike to sneak. So it came about that Browne couldn't do anything without getting me into a row, and accordingly nothing was done to Steggles. But Steggles did a lot to me, because of course he knew I was the only person who could have told Browne the truth, as young Frost hadn't.Then a rather clever beast called Macmullen wrote a piece of poetry with rhymes, and after about twenty copies of this poetry had been sent to me anonymously written round picture-postcards, Macmullen got Travers to print it up on the blackboard just before Browne's mathematical lesson came on.So when he arrived, there it was staring at him; and it was so exceedingly well printed that he could not possibly tell who had done it.There is a young sneaker called FowleWho ought to be made to howl,For the things that Browne knows,Which you would not suppose,All come from that blighter called Fowle.I wanted to rub it out before Browne came, but of course the chaps wouldn't let me.Browne read this carefully and took such a long time looking at it, that Steggles said he was learning it by heart. Then he picked up the duster and slowly rubbed it out. He made no remark whatever, and for the time being the score rather missed fire on Browne. But it didn't miss fire on me, because the next day, when I was passing his study, Browne called me in and asked me about it. He said—"Who wrote that piece of impertinence on the blackboard yesterday?"And I said—"Macmullen invented it, sir, and Travers printed it up; but I don't know who told them there was a sort of understanding between us."Then Browne was greatly enraged and said—"How dare you say there is any understanding between us, Fowle? Such impertinence I never heard! What do I know about you and your affairs, excepting that you are deservedly a very unpopular boy! And I'll thank you not to bring any more of your mean tales to me. A tale-bearer is an odious thing; so remember; no more sneaking, or it will be very much the worse for you!"I was so astonished that I couldn't do anything but stare."Now be off about your business," said Browne, and I went.That shows pretty well what Mr. Browne was, I should think. The beastly ingratitude of the man seemed to me the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened; and after that I never could do right with Browne, and he sided against me and never would listen to me, even when I had to tell him things in self-defence.I could easily show again and again that I was in the right and other chaps were in the wrong, or masters too, for that matter; but it was not much good trying to convince people with the whole of them against me. There was always a proper religious reason for the things I did, and though sometimes they looked queer until explained, I always could explain them. But after I got to be hated, nobody would so much as stop to listen to the explanations—not even the Doctor.Everybody said he was just and fair, though an old footler; but I know very well he wasn't, owing to the time when Corkey minimus dropped a shilling in the playground and I found one there. Well, how could I know that because Corkey mins. had lost a shilling and I had found one, the one I had found was bound to be the identical same shilling that Corkey had lost? I shall always say it was frightfully unfair to me to order me to give up the shilling as the Doctor did, and then jaw me before the whole school.Once my father said to me, "Always act from high motives, Roger," and I always did; but nobody ever gave me any credit for doing so; and when I told the Doctor over the affair of Gurney's tame white rabbit, which I found wandering alone in the playground after dark and killed with a cricket stump, for fear that it should starve to death, and was seen doing it by Gurney, who came to look for it—when I told the Doctor I had done this from the best motives and not because Gurney had taken me down in class the day before—he said that I was deceiving myself and told me that Satan had put it into my heart to kill Gurney's rabbit. Really I had only done it out of fear that a poor dumb creature would suffer; and yet the Doctor misunderstood me in such a wicked and spiteful way, that he caned me and made me dig a grave and bury the brute in front of the whole school as a punishment.As to my feelings, which are frightfully keen, nobody cares a button about them and I have to do things, simply in self-defence, that I should never do if I was treated fairly. Even Tin Lin Chow when he was here had a better time than me, and I could tell you a lot of things you wouldn't believe in the matter of tortures, simply invented by Steggles and others in order to be applied to me. Steggles has invented two sets of tortures called 'mind tortures' and 'body tortures'; and the mind tortures are babyish, but the body tortures are well worth avoiding. So I always pretend the mind tortures are the worst, whereas really only a fool would care for them, as they mean nothing to anybody who is religious.But what I meant to tell you was a fair case of the sort of things that happen to me and I have to endure. I was told that I was to be tried by court-martial, and I said "Why?" and Trelawny, the champion fighter of the school, put the case before me.He said—"It is well known in the lower school that you have got up more fights between kids than any other chap."He then mentioned seven fights which he had written down."Now," he said, "did you or did you not arrange those seven fights?"He had a lot of witnesses present and so I said—"Five of them I arranged, because I wanted to see if——"He interrupted me."You go about asking chaps if they give one another 'best,' and when they say 'no,' though they may be perfectly friendly, you go on at them till you work up a fight."I denied it, and he said, "You can reserve your beastly defence for the court-martial. I've only got one more question to ask you at present, namely, Have you ever fought anybody yourself?"And I said—"No, Trelawny, I never have, because it would be contrary to my opinions."Then he merely said I was a sticky and noxious worm that wanted poisoning with rat poison, and that nothing more need be said before the court-martial.IIWell, the court-martial, though held by the sixth, was grossly unfair, and the thing they decided to do was simply cruel bullying in a superior form. To begin with, Macmullen, who is the champion speaker at our debates, was the leading witness against me; whereas I had nobody to speak for me, because though I was told three days before the trial to get somebody to speak for me, of course nobody would; and I had to stick up for myself, which was a thing I never could do. So I went down, and the fools pretended to prove that I had arranged hundreds of fights and been second at scores. And yet, somehow, I had never fought a single fight myself from the time I came there. Dozens of kids were called to witness at the court-martial that I had given them 'best' rather than fight them; and many were much younger than me, and one, called Foster, was only eleven, though certainly he was a great fighter, and many boys of fourteen had to give him best in the long run, though not till after they had fought him and been licked. Well, just because my religious opinions kept me from fighting anybody, and especially Foster, they called me an insect and a coward and a disgrace to the school and so on. Then Trelawny, as the head of the court-martial, gave a verdict and I was sentenced to have a fight, whether I liked it or not. Inquiries were made and finally the court-martial found a chap called Andrews, who was in my class and whose age was just one week less than mine. This Andrews and me they decided must fight; and when it was known, everybody wanted to be second for Andrews and nobody wanted to be second for me. Trelawny said we might have a week to train, and then the court-martial broke up. It was a brutal bit of work altogether, and I found rather an interesting thing, which was that Andrews felt quite differently to the affair to me. I talked to him privately as soon as I could, and pretended it was all rot and laughed at the whole thing. But he said it wasn't rot at all as far as he was concerned. He was a new boy and rather keen to make friends and be well thought of; so he considered this a jolly good opportunity and began to train as well as he knew how. I saw at a glance that he could lick me, for I'd never learned fighting and hated hurting anything, I'm sure, always; and I argued a good deal with Andrews about it. He said that his father had told him that a chance to make friends and distinguish himself would be sure to come. And Andrews said no doubt his father was right, and that the chance had come and that he was going to distinguish himself as much as he could on me.Well, of course I saw what had to be done. Just at that time I was rather unfairly hated by Dr. Dunstan, because of an affair in the playground. There was a fir-tree in it at one corner, and I had found that turpentine came out if you cut notches in it. Well, into this turpentine I stuck live ants and then burnt them up with a burning-glass. It was nothing; but old Briggs, the writing master and natural history master, discovered me doing it and must needs make a ridiculous fuss. He told the Doctor and the Doctor made a ridiculous fuss too and turned against me and hated me. So Dunstan was out of the question, and there was only one other master I could tell, and that was Monsieur Michel, the French master. But he was weak and useless in an emergency like this; so finally I decided that the proper person to approach would be Andrews himself.That much was pretty easy to decide, but then came the question what to say to him, and I was helped in this matter by a very lucky thing. It came out in class that Andrews was an absolute flyer at geography, and though not as good as me—me being head of the class in that subject—still he jolly soon got second to me and stopped there. I am a tremendous dab at geography myself; and if I knew as much about other things I should be in the sixth; and if a good many things I know—especially about religious saints—were regular subjects in school, instead of being barred altogether, I should also be in the sixth.And finding out the greatness of Andrews at geography gave me the idea I wanted, which happened only just in time; because the day I spoke to him was a Wednesday and the next Saturday was the day we had to fight.I said—"Aren't you looking forward to Saturday?"And he said—"Yes, I am."And I said—"So am I, because I'm in training too; and I find that I fight tremendously well, and I'm only sorry I hadn't to fight a lot sooner."But I couldn't deceive him with this, for a moment; so I soon changed the subject.I introduced prizes and said that the Doctor was particularly keen about the subject of geography and always gave the best prizes for that."I know," he said, "and I should have had a jolly good chance if it hadn't been for you.""You would," I said. "In fact, but for me you would be a snip for it."We talked a bit and then I said—"I wonder if your father would rather you made your mark by fighting me, or by winning the geography prize in your first term? Of course, to win any prize in your first term is a great score for a chap."He said that he hadn't thought of it, and after I pressed him a lot, he admitted that there was no doubt the prize would suit his mother best, but he thought very likely if he won a fight it would suit his father best.He said—"My father's a soldier, and I'm going to be one; and so, naturally, fighting is more in my line than geography."But I doubted this, and, in fact, I proved that a mere fight was nothing, whereas geography was a great deal and at least as much use to a soldier as fighting—especially after he had lost a battle.Finally he said that I might be right, but that it didn't much matter as I was bound to win the geography prize, and he was equally bound to lick me next Saturday.Then I made my great offer.I said—"Look here; I'm not afraid of fighting, or anything like that; but I've got religious objections to it and, in fact, though your father might like you to fight, my father would get into a frightful bate if I did. Really it might be jolly serious for me, and it would not matter to my father in the least whether I won the fight or lost it."Andrews said that had nothing to do with him; so I went on and explained how it might have a great deal to do with him.I said—"You see, if you lost the fight, your father would very likely be very sick about it, and instead of getting rewarded, you might get nothing; whereas, if the fight fell through and you merely said firmly you had no reason for fighting me, and were not going to do it just because you were ordered to, and then went and won the geography prize, that would be a much greater score for you."He admitted it might be, but didn't see how he could beat me at geography.Then I said—"If you refuse to fight me, you shall get the geography prize, because I need not put down anything like all I know and can boss a lot of questions purposely."He said—"It would please my mother and might do me a lot of good with my grandmother."And I said—"It certainly would; and next term, if you still want a fight, I'll easily arrange one for you with somebody else, and then you can make it all right with your father."He said—"Will you solemnly swear on human blood that you will boss the geography paper and let me get the prize?"And to show him how much in earnest I was, I took out my knife there and then, and he pricked his finger and I pricked mine, and then I swore that I would let him have the geography prize, and he swore that he would refuse to fight me.I felt that was a pretty good day's work, and so did he; but I felt it all the time, whereas Andrews only felt it in stray moments and, between whiles, was jolly savage with himself for swearing the blood oath. He was frightfully scorned for not fighting me, and the only thing that comforted him, and that only in secret, was that his mother and grandmother would be full of rejoicing in the holidays and richly reward him for winning the geography prize.In fact, he kept on so obstinately about his mother, that I began to think about mine, and the sad grief it would be to her if I did not win this prize as usual. After a time I realized that I had actually put Andrews before my own dear mother, and I felt very shocked to think of what I had done.The end of the term began to get nearer and nearer, and the exams. were going to begin soon. I tried hard not to think about geography and not to think about my mother, but Andrews found the only subjects that interested him were these subjects; and at last I simply had to avoid Andrews, because he kept on to such a sickening extent about what a score it would be to win it.Very strange thoughts came over me during those days and I got more and more undecided as to what was right to do. There was my duty to Andrews, who, in a vague sort of way, had got the right to win the geography prize, and there was my duty to my father, who paid Dr. Dunstan a lot of money for letting me come to Merivale and naturally expected me to do my best; which I always did do, I'm sure. Then there was my duty to Dr. Dunstan; and to deceive him deliberately about my knowledge of geography was, of course, a very wrong thing to do. And, greatest of all, there was my own conscience, which is the 'still small voice' of the Bible. Besides, I'd been very careful to say that Andrews should have the geography prize, not that he should win it. No chap ever tried harder than me to do the right thing, and what made it so difficult was that my conscience and my duty to everybody but Andrews was on one side, while the stupid affair with Andrews was on the other side. Of course a blood oath is all nonsense if you are a Christian, and not in the least binding to a religious person. In fact, only savages believe in it at all. Therefore, as far as that went, I did not feel in the least bound to Andrews. If I had not been coming back the next term, I should have seen my way clearer very likely; but I was; and so was Andrews.Somehow I couldn't decide till the actual day of the geography exam., and then, strangely enough, the paper seemed simply to have been made for me. I knew the answer to everything, and question No. 6 gave me a chance of saying some jolly good and peculiar things about Spain and the Holy Inquisition not generally known at all. Probably not a soul at Merivale but the Doctor and me knew them.Somehow I felt it would be mean and wicked to pretend not to know all these things. My conscience simply cried out to me to do the paper as well as possible and leave the result in Higher Hands, because if Providence meant Andrews to win, he would win. So I did my best, as I usually do; and when the result was put up it was found that I had beaten Andrews by one hundred and ten marks, and Andrews was a long way ahead of everybody else.Naturally Andrews, not understanding what it is to have such delicate feelings as me, was a good bit annoyed; but I was ready for him, and though I did not tell of my secret struggles to do right, which he would not have understood, I did explain that I had acted from proper motives.I said—"I promised that you should have the geography prize, not that you should win it. You shall have it, and the minute I get it on prize day, I shall hand it over to you."But Andrews did not fall in with this, and I felt, somehow, that he wouldn't. He said several revengeful things about next term; but he may be dead before then, and anyway, much will happen in the holidays to make him forget this affair, or take a better view of it.I only mention the thing, in fact, to show how hard it is to make chaps understand you if you always try to do right as much as you can. I should clearly like to leave Merivale, but there seems to be no chance of it at present.My father often says, rather unkindly, that nobody ever wanted honour and truth and decency and manliness licked into them worse than I do; but my mother, who always understands me much better than him, says that many of the best and most famous men in the world have looked back to their school-days with hatred and loathing; and so I must no doubt be one of them; because nobody ever hated boys and masters and school in general worse than me. It will be very different when I get away from them all and go into the world; because there I shall meet plenty of nice people who think the same as I do.'CHERRY RIPE'No. VIII'CHERRY RIPE'IThis is an awful rum story about the extraordinary cunning of a man generally known as 'Cherry Ripe,' from selling cherries; and to tell it right I must first explain about our cricket ground and a wood and a field. After the cricket ground comes a narrow wood, well known as the place for fights, and also wood-pigeons' nests, which breed there in great quantities. It is a long and narrow wood, and then comes a field, also long but not so narrow. This field is a very up-and-down field, with hollows in it, and at the bottom, in one corner, a drinking-place for cows has been arranged, where yellow irises grow in summer, and where most of our tame frogs come from. There is a clump of trees in this field, and a hawk once built in them; but Freckles found the nest and took the eggs, so the hawk did not build there again. After the up-and-down field there comes an old, rather broken wall, and inside the wall is the orchard and nursery garden of Cherry Ripe.Needless to say his real name was not 'Cherry Ripe' but Jenkins—not any relation to the Jenkins at Merivale, though chaps who wanted to rot Jenkins always pretended that Cherry Ripe was his father, which much annoyed Jenkins. Because this Cherry Ripe was a fierce and a common man, and had been known to be dismissed with a caution for ill-treating a horse, and was no friend to us either.He made his living by fruit and vegetables; and at the right season of the year sold cherries, of which he had many fine trees in his nursery garden. He also had apples and pears and gooseberries in great abundance. He also laid out large pieces of his nursery garden in spring flowers for market, and he grew onions and turnips and rhubarb, and many other uninteresting things.We naturally went there to see how it looked from time to time, and he chased us a good deal over the field; but, when we were once in the wood, he was of course powerless. In fact, he never caught anybody in fair hunting except Chilvers, who was once down by the pond collecting waterman beetles in his shoe, having nothing else to do it with. But Chilvers had never been in the nursery garden in his life, and told Cherry Ripe so. Only he refused to believe Chilvers, and said that he was trespassing just as much in the field as he would have been in the orchard. Which, in its paltry way, was true. Chilvers then offered him a penny and an Indian coin for twelve waterman beetles; and all he did was to say "No cheek!" and box Chilvers on the ear and tell him to be off. So he made a bitter enemy of Chilvers.This Cherry Ripe was old and ugly. He never seemed to shave, and yet his beard never seemed to grow. What there was looked a mangy grey streaked with brown. He wore an old hat that had once been black, but was now rather inclined to turn green, and he had glittering eyes, one of which watered. He had also a curious way of lifting up and down his eyebrows, which young Smythe said showed a bad disposition, and was common to gorillas. He had been heard to laugh when picking apples with his daughters. But he never laughed at us, and when we took to calling him 'Cherry Ripe,' he hated us, and often shook his fist at us from a distance.So we then felt something had to be done against him to score off him.When this was decided upon, Steggles and Methuen and Pedlar and myself—me being Weston minor—and Chilvers went into committee, as it is called, and in fact we had a regular meeting. Many others wanted to join, but we felt five was enough, and we all had a jolly special private good reason for going into committee against Cherry Ripe.Chilvers of course had been licked by Cherry Ripe, because to box one's ears is the same as licking one in a very insulting manner. Pedlar also had been insulted, and a good deal hurried twice by Cherry Ripe, when he found him catapulting quite harmlessly in his orchard in December, when of course there was nothing to take but vegetables; and Methuen and Steggles once meeting Cherry Ripe going the rounds with his cart and fruit and scales for weighing things, had politely stopped him and asked to buy two pennyworth of pears. And Cherry Ripe had the frightful impertinence to say that "No chap wearing them hats" should have so much as a spring onion of his growing, which was not only turning away business, but cheeking the school colours openly. So it seemed about time to do something, and we accordingly did. I may say that I had no particular grudge against Cherry Ripe, but I was well known at being better at wall-climbing than any chap who ever came to Merivale. Climbing had always been my strong point, and, as I was also going to be a missionary later in life, I kept it up, because you never know—not if you are a missionary.The committee merely decided that as the cherry season was now near, we had better wait for it, and then, at the first opportunity, make a 'Jameson raid.' This is a particular sort of raid invented by the great Dr. Jameson of South Africa, and it consists of doing something so suddenly that nobody is ready. A Jameson raid is useless if the other side is prepared; it is also useless if you are not prepared yourself. The great thing is to be first, and also an important point is to commit the raid where and when it will be least expected. Therefore we gave it out, hoping that it would somehow get to Cherry Ripe, that we meant to make a raid on his young apples on Wednesday, being a half-holiday; whereas the truth was we were going to have a dash at his cherries on the Saturday. There was a cricket match on that day, and Steggles arranged details.I won't say much about what happened, because the thing failed even more fearfully than Dr. Jameson's affair long ago. We were deceived in a most peculiar manner, owing to the deliberate cunning of Cherry Ripe; and afterwards, talking it over while we wrote two thousand Latin lines each, we came to the conclusion that there was a traitor at work. Naturally we thought of Fowle, but Fowle knew nothing; besides, he was in the hospital at the time with something the matter with his knee.To go back, I must explain that all went well until we got on the top of Cherry Ripe's wall. Then what should we see but Cherry Ripe up a cherry tree and his daughters down below! They were a long way off, and we saw at a glance that it would take Cherry Ripe about a year to climb down from his tree, even if he saw us. As for his daughters, seeing our ages were fifteen and upwards, except Chilvers, who was certainly only thirteen, but could run faster than his sister, who was seventeen, we did not fear them.As Cherry Ripe was picking cherries, we went for the green gooseberries. I dropped down first in a very stealthy manner, that Freckles had taught me before he went home to Australia; then Pedlar and Methuen dropped, and then Chilvers. He fell rather awkwardly and smashed off a large purple cabbage, and was glad of it.But Steggles stopped on the wall, for some private reason. He said afterwards, when taxed with treachery, that it wasn't so in the least; but that from the very beginning he had had a curious feeling when he woke up that day. It is the feeling you get when you wake up on a day that you are going to be flogged; and you have the same feeling, only far, far worse, on the day when you are going to be hung. All criminals know this. Steggles certainly shouted "Cave!" as soon as the horrible moment came; but when he did finally drop off the wall, it was on the other side. In fact, he escaped and left us to our fate. Nothing could be done to Steggles, but we never felt the same to him again.What happened was this. We were just eating a few gooseberries rather fast, before settling down steadily to fill our pockets, when Steggles gave the alarm. But it was too late. Suddenly there sprang up from their hiding-places no less than three men—the youngest not less than twenty years old; and the eldest was Cherry Ripe himself. This so much horrified us, as we had seen him at the top of a high cherry tree two hundred yards away only a second before, that we lost our instinct of self-preservation and fell a prey to the enemy. We were all caught, in fact, except Steggles, and we were then marched down to Cherry Ripe's house, and then along the road, and so back to Merivale. His hateful daughters stood and sniggered at us as we were taken past them; and then we saw that the whole thing was a mean plot, and, in fact, a swizz. A swizz is a chouse, and a chouse is the same as a sell. It was a scarecrow in the tree and not Cherry Ripe at all! The scarecrow wore his green hat, and his daughters pretended to be talking to him. As Peters said afterwards, Sherlock Holmes himself would have been almost deceived by such a deadly plot. Afterwards we found, curiously enough, that we had collected exactly thirteen gooseberries before the crash came, which shows that thirteen is an unlucky number, whatever scientific people may say against it.Cherry Ripe brought us back to Merivale, and came to the front door and asked to see the Doctor. He gave his name as 'Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm,' and said it in a very grand tone of voice, as if he was somebody. But the Doctor, little knowing what was going to happen, sent out to tell Mr. Jenkins to walk in. Pedlar said he thought that the Doctor probably hoped Cherry Ripe had come with an advantageous offer to supply Merivale with green stuff at low prices; but of course this was not so.Dr. Dunstan received us in his study, and he was much surprised to see Chilvers appear after Cherry Ripe, and still more surprised to see the rest of us come behind."And what may be the meaning of this deputation?" said the Doctor. "Perhaps you, Methuen, will explain."But Cherry Ripe said that he had come to do the explaining. Certainly he told the truth, but he told it in a beastly mean way.He said—"There's times when a man has got to stand up for his rights, mister"—meaning the Doctor—"and this is one of 'em. These here young rips be always driving my life out of me, and an example must be made. I was half in a mind to send for a policeman; but I thought as I'd give 'em one more chance for their parents' sakes, so brought 'em to you, because no doubt you be paid very well for larning 'em their lessons and keeping 'em out of mischief. I've two things against 'em, and one is that they bawl 'Cherry Ripe' after me morning, noon, and night, and take sights at me, and do many other rude things; and the other is that now, this minute, I've catched 'em red-handed in my gooseberry-bed, tucking down my fruit for all they were worth. That's trespass and it's also theft, and I don't want no more of it.""Thank you," said the Doctor. "You have stated your case with a lucidity and force that does you no little credit, Mr. Jenkins. Now the accused and the accuser may freely speak, whilst I, as arbiter between them, reserve the last word, and I fear the last action also." His eyes roamed over to the corner where the canes were kept. Then he went on—"Your indictment consists of three articles, and we will take them in your own order. You submit that these youths have insulted you, have trespassed on your private property, and have stolen your goods. Now, boy Pedlar, have you or have you not, at any time and in any public place, addressed Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm, as 'Cherry Ripe'?""Yes, sir," said Pedlar."Methuen?""Yes, sir.""Weston?""Yes, sir.""Chilvers?""Yes, sir."The Doctor seemed disappointed, and Cherry Ripe smiled with a grim and scornful smile."To accost an honest purveyor of the fruits of the earth with words which, in the nature of his calling, it is necessary that he should himself loudly repeat at intervals—to do this is a senseless and offensive act," said the Doctor. "Nothing can be said in favour of it. No earthly benefit—not even the meretricious semblance of benefit—can accrue to the boy who bawls 'Cherry Ripe!' after somebody else. The operation shows a lack of mental balance that may make us fear for the sanity of the performer, and regard the probable course of his future with dismay and the liveliest foreboding. But now we are faced with accusations of a very different character. It is asserted that you four boys have gone out of bounds, and disobeyed me; that you have trespassed on another's private property, and so made of no account the laws of man; and, lastly, that you have taken fruit that did not belong to you—that you have broken the eighth Commandment, and thus shattered the sacred edict of your Maker!"The Doctor worked this up, as only he can, till we saw what an immense number of laws we had broken all at once—like you do when you begin to play golf—and, of course, it was a very solemn moment for everybody. Even Cherry Ripe looked rather frightened. The Doctor rolled it out, and shook his finger at Cherry Ripe as much as at us. Then came the questions."Is this infamous imputation true, Edgar Methuen?""Yes, sir.""And you, Harold Pedlar?""Yes, sir.""Weston?""Yes, sir.""Chilvers?"Chilvers, like a little fool, tried to hedge against the future."Yes, and I'm very sorry, sir," he said.The Doctor looked at us as if we were some new sort of animals, and he didn't know how we had got in. He gave a tremendous snort, and took off his glasses. Then he turned to Cherry Ripe."To attempt any analysis of my personal emotions at this juncture would be vain," he said. "In these cases introspection may well be left for a subsequent occasion. For the moment justice cries with trumpet tongue. And be under no apprehension, Jenkins, that justice will miscarry on this occasion. As an agriculturist——"Here the Doctor forgot us, and talked like anything to Cherry Ripe about growing vegetables, and Ceres and Pomona and Horace and Virgil, and other well-known people out of school books. He fairly terrified Cherry Ripe, I believe. Anyway, Cherry Ripe kept creeping nearer and nearer to the door. Then, at last, he got in a word."Don't be too hard on 'em this time, your honour. Just one, two, and another on the place that's made for it.""Pardon me," answered the Doctor, raising his hand. "You now trench on my prerogative, Jenkins. The question of what is to follow may very well be left with the preceptor of these fallen boys. Have no fear for that. And to plead for leniency before the breaking of a Commandment is to admit a personal laxity of view that I, for one, am bound to deplore."Cherry Ripe had now reached the door, and I believe he thought that if he stopped another moment the Doctor would cane him too. So he began to clear out. But first he said—"Well, good-evening, all!" Then he hooked it—rather thankfully. And we wished we could.We got four on each hand, and two thousand lines each, and to stop in for two half-holidays. So that, as Methuen very truly remarked, was first blood for Cherry Ripe.
"'WILD FLOWERS.
"'By Nicol Macmullen.
"'The vegetable kingdom is a very large one. John Ray, a native of Sussex, did much to advance the study of it. He was born in 1628, and died in 1705. There was a history of plants written three hundred years before Christ. Linnæus was the man who invented the sexual system—a very useful invention. It is a stepping-stone. He first mentioned it in 1736. Seaweeds are also a part of the vegetable kingdom, but they have no flowers, and so may be dismissed without further mention. Also Algæ. Of leaves, it may be said that some fall and some do not. At least, speaking strictly, all fall, and this is called a deciduous tree; but not all at once, and this is called an evergreen. Glands occur in the tissue of the leaves, and they also have hairs. Buds also have hairs. The organs of plants is almost the largest subject in the vegetable kingdom, but I have no time to mention more than one or two organs to-day. The root descends into the soil, the stems rise aloft, and the flowers bud out at the ends of them. Mistletoe and broom-rape are called parasites, because they live on other trees, instead of being on their own.
"'Coming now to flowers, we find that they may be divided into two main families: wild and garden. We shall dismiss garden flowers, as they do not belong to our subject, but wild flowers are the most beautiful things in the vegetable kingdom. Especially honeysuckle and blackberries. Many others will occur to the reader also. The flower is thetout ensembleof those organs which are concerned in reproduction.'"
The Doctor stopped and put down Macmullen's essay. For my part, I was simply amazed at the amount Mac. knew, and I think everybody else was; but, strangely enough, the Doctor didn't like it.
"From this point our author quotes verbatim out of the pages of theEncyclopædia Britannica," continued Dr. Dunstan. "As an effort of memory the result is highly creditable, and Macmullen will have acquired a great deal of botanical knowledge which may possibly be of service to him in his future career; but as an essayist on wild flowers he is exceedingly evasive, and his effort fails radically and fundamentally. The subject is obviously not one that appeals to him. There is no sympathy, no love of his theme; above all, no moral deductions. Macmullen's mind has not been uplifted. He has, in fact, failed."
Mac. didn't seem to care as much as you would have thought. He told me afterwards he felt so thankful when the Doctor shut up about him and turned to Tomkins, that he forgot everything else but relief.
Tomkins became red when the Doctor picked up his essay; but it soon faded away—I mean the redness.
"Now here," said Dr. Dunstan, "we are met by an attempt of a very different character. The boy Tomkins appears to think that there is nothing more to be said about the flowers of the field than to utter their names. His prose lacks dignity; there is a feverish desire to tell us what everything is called. There is no poetry, no feeling. Vagueness, indeed, we have, but vagueness is not poetry, though to uncritical minds it may sometimes pass for such. This is how Tomkins approaches his subject. There is a breathlessness, a feeling of haste, as if somebody was chasing Tomkins along the road while he was making his researches. This, unless Tomkins has been guilty of trespass—an alternative I refuse to consider—is difficult to explain."
The Doctor then gave us a bit out of Tomkins—
"'As one walks down a country lane, one can often hardly see the leaves for the flowers. They burst upon the view in millions. The hedges are thronged with them; the scent is overpowering. Turn where you will, they greet the bewildered eye. They hang from the trees and spring from the earth; they twine also—as, for instance, briony and convolvuluses. At a single glance I take in dog-roses; campions of several sorts, including white; shepherd's purse—a weed; strawberry, primroses, cuckoo-flower, violet, bugle, herb robert, and also other wild geraniums of various kinds. They are in a crowded mass, all struggling for life. Stitchwort, nettle, archangel, cock's-foot grass, clematis, dock, heath, furze, bog-moss, darnel, dandelions, daisies, buttercups of sorts, marshmallow, water-lilies, rushes and reeds, poppies and peppermint, also ferns—one sees them all at a glance. Then, as one hastens swiftly onwards——'
"I gasp for breath," said the Doctor; "I absolutely refuse to hasten swiftly onwards with Tomkins. At this breakneck pace he drags us through that portion of the British flora at his command. There is doubtless knowledge here; there is even reflection, as when he says, at the end of his paper, that wild flowers ought to make us thankful for our eyesight and for the lesser gift of smell. But, taken as a whole, we have no balance, absolutely no repose, no light, and no shade. There is too much hurry and bustle, too little feeling for the beauty attaching to English scenery or English prose; too eager a desire to display erudition in the empty matter of floral nomenclature."
So that was the end of Tomkins. He was frightfully disappointed; but he felt so interested to know what wretched chaps like Smythe and Walters had done that was better, that he forgot even to be miserable about losing until afterwards.
Then the Doctor went for Smythe.
"Huxley Smythe next challenges our attention," he said. "Now, here we are confronted with a still more amazing misunderstanding. Smythe appears to know absolutely nothing whatever concerning wild flowers; but he has seized this occasion to display an extraordinary amount of peculiar information concerning other matters. He evidently imagines that this will answer his purpose equally well. Moreover, he endeavours to cast his work in a poetic form—with results that have bewildered even me, despite my half-century of knowledge of thegenus puer. I do not say that rhyme is inadmissible. You shall not find me slow to encourage originality of thought even among the least of you; but Smythe trusts too little to himself and too much to other rhymsters—I will not call them poets. He has committed to memory many verses of a trivial and even offensive character. He has furnished me with a charm or incantation to remove warts. Elsewhere he commits himself to sentiments that may be described as flagrantly irreligious. It is true he glances obliquely at his subject from time to time; but not in a spirit which can admire or commend. We have, for instance, these lines—
"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,You will see your true love the very next day.'"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thingIs tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someoneWill be certain to die ere the year is done.'
"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,You will see your true love the very next day.'"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thingIs tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someoneWill be certain to die ere the year is done.'
"'Put yarrow under your pillow, they say,
You will see your true love the very next day.'
"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thingIs tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'
"'For pain in the stomach an excellent thing
Is tea made of mint and sprigs of ling.'
"'If you wash your clothes on Good Friday, someone
Will be certain to die ere the year is done.'
"Whence Huxley Smythe has culled these pitiful superstitions I know not," continued the Doctor; "but he appears to be a veritable storehouse and compendium of them. They remind me only too painfully of a certain tiger's tail, though that incident is closed, and I desire to make no further mention of it. Had our theme been folklore, or those crude, benighted and indelicate fancies still prevailing among the bucolic population, Smythe must have conquered, and easily conquered. It is not so, however. He has chosen the occasion of the 'Bolsover' competition to reveal no little fantastic knowledge; but its lack of appropriate and apposite qualities effectually disposes of his claim. I will give you a last sample of his methods.A proposof absolutely nothing, on page four of his dissertation, Smythe submits this impertinence. He appears suddenly to have recollected it and inserted it in the body of his work, without the least consideration for its significance or my feelings.
"'There was an old man who lived in a woodAs you may plainly see,And said he could do more work in a dayThan his wife could do in three.'"
"'There was an old man who lived in a woodAs you may plainly see,And said he could do more work in a dayThan his wife could do in three.'"
"'There was an old man who lived in a wood
As you may plainly see,
As you may plainly see,
And said he could do more work in a day
Than his wife could do in three.'"
Than his wife could do in three.'"
The Doctor looked awful sternly at Smythe.
"This fragment—from some coarse old ballad, I suspect—is thrust upon me, as one might brandish a club in the face of an unoffending citizen. Smythe must chasten his taste and study the rudiments of logic and propriety before again he ventures to challenge our attention with original thoughts. Silence! Silence!" thundered the Doctor in conclusion; because Smythe's stuff made Steggles laugh out loud. Then several other chaps laughed, and in trying not to laugh, Wolf minor choked and made a noise, like a football exploding, that was far worse than laughter.
"There remains the effort of Rupert Walters," went on Dr. Dunstan. "He is the youngest of the competitors, and I find but little to praise in his achievement; yet it indicates a shadow of promise and a shade of imagination. Indeed, Mr. Briggs at first suspected that Walters had availed himself of secret and dishonest assistance; but this, I rejoice to know, is not the case. Walters has yet to learn to control the discharge of ink from his pen, and in matters of orthography also there is much to be desired for him—a remark which applies to all the competitors save Macmullen—but he possesses a dim and misty nucleus of feeling for the dignity of his native tongue. There is in his attempt a suggestion that at some distant date, if he is spared, and if he labours assiduously in the dead languages, Rupert Walters may control his living speech with some approach to distinction. I select his most pleasing passage."
The Doctor regarded young Walters over his spectacles for a moment with a frightfully encouraging expression that he sometimes puts on when things are going extra well. Then he read the pleasing passage, as he called it.
"'Often, walking in the country far from home, you may see the briars falling over the sides of the lanes, and the may trees white with bloom. They look lovely against the blue sky; and a curious thing is that the distant trees also look blue, and not green, by reason of distance. Near at hand, yellow and red flowers may be dotted about; but when you look along the lane, you only see haze, which is beautiful. If there is a river flowing near by, it is also very beautiful indeed, especially with water-lilies on it. And clouds are lovely too, if reflected in a sheet of water beside which yellow irises spring up, and their foliage looks rather bluish. If a trout rises, it makes white rings on the water.'
"Now, here," said the Doctor, "is a humble effort to set down what the eye of this tender boy has mirrored in the past. I need not tell you how he spells 'irises,' or 'curious,' or 'beautiful.' The fact remains that he has distanced his competitors and achieved the 'Bolsover' prize. Come hither, Rupert Walters. Let me shake your hand, my lad!"
So that was the end of it, and Walters seemed more frightened than anything. But he took his book, and the matter ended, and the four chaps had their essays back, with Briggs's red pencil remarks on them, to send home to their people.
The extraordinary truth only came to me three days later, when I happened to be having a talk with Walters and looking at his prize, which was duller even than most prizes. I said—
"How the dickens did you remember that trees look blue seen a mile off?"
And he said—
"I didn't remember it. If you'll swear not to tell, I'll explain. I shall be rather glad to tell somebody."
So I swore. Then Walters said—
"I was just sitting biting my pen and drawing on the blotting-paper and casting my eyes about and wondering what on earth to say, when I saw right bang in front of me a great picture—a whacker—full of trees and a lane, and water and hills, and every mortal thing, even to the flowers dabbed about in front. Well—there you are! I just tried to put down what I saw. And I did it only too well, if anything. Of course, in a sort of way, it was cribbing; but then, of course, in another sort of way, it wasn't. Anyway, you've sworn not to tell—not even Tomkins; so of course you won't tell."
And of course I didn't.
THE CASE FOR FOWLE
No. VII
THE CASE FOR FOWLE
I
It's awful difficult to understand why some boys are liked and some utterly barred. I'm nearly sixteen now, and I've been at Merivale for years, but still I can't see it. All I know is that the chaps most boys like, I don't, and the very few chaps I like, nobody else does. At first I thought it was hampers and asked my mother to send me extra large ones, which she did; and such hampers as mine were never seen before in any school, I should think. But the boys ate my water-melons and peaches and many such unusual things, just as if they were the wretched windfalls that Masters gets from his father's orchards, or the feeble home-made jam and common or garden cakes that come to other fellows on their birthdays. Then the very chaps that guzzle my rare things pretend afterwards I've tried to poison them, and so on; and young Gregson, who once ate half a bruised pineapple of mine that was a bit off, got ill; and after that only certain chaps would take the things I offered. And nobody once, all the time I've been here, has ever offered me as much as a dry biscuit out of their beastly hampers.
I pointed this out to Travers, who, though no friend of mine, always appeared to have more sense in a general way than most fellows; and he said—
"You sneer so at chaps. You always make it so jolly clear your hampers are the best in the world, that naturally they think you wouldn't care about their things. Besides, Steggles did offer you three ripe pears, for I saw him do it."
"Yes," I said, "he did—just because he knew they were over-ripe and thought to score off me. I knew why he had done it, and told him so."
"Then he offered them to me," said Travers, "so I can tell you that you are quite wrong. I took them and ate them on the spot, and they were perfectly good, decent pears. For once in a way Steggles was quite straight and meant no harm at all."
Well, I saw after a bit that it wasn't hampers, or anything of that sort; and then I thought it was games. But I wasn't going to make a fool of myself at footling games for anybody, and I always did get out of them when I could. However, it wasn't altogether games either, though certainly more games than hampers. Still, there were chaps who didn't play games any better than me—such as Richards, who always went to matches and was keen about games, though useless himself, and Ford, who made peculiar knots in rope, and Jameson, who drew pictures in the chaps' Latin grammars of the remarkable things mentioned in syntax. Then another great thing, showing what mean beasts most boys are, is the fact that if certain masters like certain boys, then other boys also like them.
Once, and only once, I got jolly friendly with a master who was very much disliked indeed by everybody else. I mean Browne. I never found him bad at first, and he used me a good bit in many ways and nearly always gave me full marks. But he changed frightfully over the business of the blackboard, and it happened like this. You see, as Browne thought well of me, he confided in me a bit out for walks; and I confided in him; and he asked me a lot of questions concerning a lot of boys; and, as I hated them all, I told him what he wanted to know. He was frightfully obliged and said I was a power for good in the school; and also said that such a boy as I am, without silly ideas about sneaking, may be of the greatest use to masters if he really has the welfare and interest of the school at heart. He also gave me a knife and seemed pretty sure I should win several prizes at the end of the term. In fact, we got very friendly and I certainly did him a very good turn by helping him to understand why some boys didn't like him, and telling him what they said about him behind his back. He was greatly obliged to me, and used the things I told him, and scored pretty badly off some chaps as a result. It rather surprised them to find how much he knew; but it didn't make them like him any better. Then they began to try and score off him, and finally, owing to an unfortunate accident, I got mixed up in it.
Steggles did an unusual thing to young Frost. Steggles had borrowed the matron's scissors to cut his toe-nails, which were turning in and tearing his toes and making them pour with blood. And after he had used them and shortened his toe-nails by about half-an-inch or so, he kept them and told the matron that he had lost them. Then came young Frost, who was a sort of relation of Trelawny, who was at that time easily the best-liked chap at Merivale.
Well, Steggles got young Frost up into the gym. alone, as he thought, and told him it was the rule for new boys to have their hair cut close to their heads, because they often brought infection to Merivale in that way. So he cut all young Frost's hair off; and I was there, hidden in a corner reading a grown-up novel that I had found in Browne's room. Because Browne, as a great favour, used to allow me in his study to see the remarkable things he has there—chiefly on the mantelpiece, including photographs of well-known actresses, said to be signed by themselves. So I saw Steggles cut off Frost's hair, and I did not know Steggles had seen me, but he had. And he made me swear not to tell, which I did; but knowing that an oath is not binding when the good of the school is involved, I told Browne about it, and he took the credit to himself over it and taxed Steggles with it. Of course Steggles denied it, and it couldn't be proved, because young Frost had a rotten idea it would be unsportsmanlike to sneak. So it came about that Browne couldn't do anything without getting me into a row, and accordingly nothing was done to Steggles. But Steggles did a lot to me, because of course he knew I was the only person who could have told Browne the truth, as young Frost hadn't.
Then a rather clever beast called Macmullen wrote a piece of poetry with rhymes, and after about twenty copies of this poetry had been sent to me anonymously written round picture-postcards, Macmullen got Travers to print it up on the blackboard just before Browne's mathematical lesson came on.
So when he arrived, there it was staring at him; and it was so exceedingly well printed that he could not possibly tell who had done it.
There is a young sneaker called FowleWho ought to be made to howl,For the things that Browne knows,Which you would not suppose,All come from that blighter called Fowle.
There is a young sneaker called FowleWho ought to be made to howl,For the things that Browne knows,Which you would not suppose,All come from that blighter called Fowle.
There is a young sneaker called Fowle
Who ought to be made to howl,
For the things that Browne knows,Which you would not suppose,
For the things that Browne knows,
Which you would not suppose,
All come from that blighter called Fowle.
I wanted to rub it out before Browne came, but of course the chaps wouldn't let me.
Browne read this carefully and took such a long time looking at it, that Steggles said he was learning it by heart. Then he picked up the duster and slowly rubbed it out. He made no remark whatever, and for the time being the score rather missed fire on Browne. But it didn't miss fire on me, because the next day, when I was passing his study, Browne called me in and asked me about it. He said—
"Who wrote that piece of impertinence on the blackboard yesterday?"
And I said—
"Macmullen invented it, sir, and Travers printed it up; but I don't know who told them there was a sort of understanding between us."
Then Browne was greatly enraged and said—
"How dare you say there is any understanding between us, Fowle? Such impertinence I never heard! What do I know about you and your affairs, excepting that you are deservedly a very unpopular boy! And I'll thank you not to bring any more of your mean tales to me. A tale-bearer is an odious thing; so remember; no more sneaking, or it will be very much the worse for you!"
I was so astonished that I couldn't do anything but stare.
"Now be off about your business," said Browne, and I went.
That shows pretty well what Mr. Browne was, I should think. The beastly ingratitude of the man seemed to me the most extraordinary thing that had ever happened; and after that I never could do right with Browne, and he sided against me and never would listen to me, even when I had to tell him things in self-defence.
I could easily show again and again that I was in the right and other chaps were in the wrong, or masters too, for that matter; but it was not much good trying to convince people with the whole of them against me. There was always a proper religious reason for the things I did, and though sometimes they looked queer until explained, I always could explain them. But after I got to be hated, nobody would so much as stop to listen to the explanations—not even the Doctor.
Everybody said he was just and fair, though an old footler; but I know very well he wasn't, owing to the time when Corkey minimus dropped a shilling in the playground and I found one there. Well, how could I know that because Corkey mins. had lost a shilling and I had found one, the one I had found was bound to be the identical same shilling that Corkey had lost? I shall always say it was frightfully unfair to me to order me to give up the shilling as the Doctor did, and then jaw me before the whole school.
Once my father said to me, "Always act from high motives, Roger," and I always did; but nobody ever gave me any credit for doing so; and when I told the Doctor over the affair of Gurney's tame white rabbit, which I found wandering alone in the playground after dark and killed with a cricket stump, for fear that it should starve to death, and was seen doing it by Gurney, who came to look for it—when I told the Doctor I had done this from the best motives and not because Gurney had taken me down in class the day before—he said that I was deceiving myself and told me that Satan had put it into my heart to kill Gurney's rabbit. Really I had only done it out of fear that a poor dumb creature would suffer; and yet the Doctor misunderstood me in such a wicked and spiteful way, that he caned me and made me dig a grave and bury the brute in front of the whole school as a punishment.
As to my feelings, which are frightfully keen, nobody cares a button about them and I have to do things, simply in self-defence, that I should never do if I was treated fairly. Even Tin Lin Chow when he was here had a better time than me, and I could tell you a lot of things you wouldn't believe in the matter of tortures, simply invented by Steggles and others in order to be applied to me. Steggles has invented two sets of tortures called 'mind tortures' and 'body tortures'; and the mind tortures are babyish, but the body tortures are well worth avoiding. So I always pretend the mind tortures are the worst, whereas really only a fool would care for them, as they mean nothing to anybody who is religious.
But what I meant to tell you was a fair case of the sort of things that happen to me and I have to endure. I was told that I was to be tried by court-martial, and I said "Why?" and Trelawny, the champion fighter of the school, put the case before me.
He said—
"It is well known in the lower school that you have got up more fights between kids than any other chap."
He then mentioned seven fights which he had written down.
"Now," he said, "did you or did you not arrange those seven fights?"
He had a lot of witnesses present and so I said—
"Five of them I arranged, because I wanted to see if——"
He interrupted me.
"You go about asking chaps if they give one another 'best,' and when they say 'no,' though they may be perfectly friendly, you go on at them till you work up a fight."
I denied it, and he said, "You can reserve your beastly defence for the court-martial. I've only got one more question to ask you at present, namely, Have you ever fought anybody yourself?"
And I said—
"No, Trelawny, I never have, because it would be contrary to my opinions."
Then he merely said I was a sticky and noxious worm that wanted poisoning with rat poison, and that nothing more need be said before the court-martial.
II
Well, the court-martial, though held by the sixth, was grossly unfair, and the thing they decided to do was simply cruel bullying in a superior form. To begin with, Macmullen, who is the champion speaker at our debates, was the leading witness against me; whereas I had nobody to speak for me, because though I was told three days before the trial to get somebody to speak for me, of course nobody would; and I had to stick up for myself, which was a thing I never could do. So I went down, and the fools pretended to prove that I had arranged hundreds of fights and been second at scores. And yet, somehow, I had never fought a single fight myself from the time I came there. Dozens of kids were called to witness at the court-martial that I had given them 'best' rather than fight them; and many were much younger than me, and one, called Foster, was only eleven, though certainly he was a great fighter, and many boys of fourteen had to give him best in the long run, though not till after they had fought him and been licked. Well, just because my religious opinions kept me from fighting anybody, and especially Foster, they called me an insect and a coward and a disgrace to the school and so on. Then Trelawny, as the head of the court-martial, gave a verdict and I was sentenced to have a fight, whether I liked it or not. Inquiries were made and finally the court-martial found a chap called Andrews, who was in my class and whose age was just one week less than mine. This Andrews and me they decided must fight; and when it was known, everybody wanted to be second for Andrews and nobody wanted to be second for me. Trelawny said we might have a week to train, and then the court-martial broke up. It was a brutal bit of work altogether, and I found rather an interesting thing, which was that Andrews felt quite differently to the affair to me. I talked to him privately as soon as I could, and pretended it was all rot and laughed at the whole thing. But he said it wasn't rot at all as far as he was concerned. He was a new boy and rather keen to make friends and be well thought of; so he considered this a jolly good opportunity and began to train as well as he knew how. I saw at a glance that he could lick me, for I'd never learned fighting and hated hurting anything, I'm sure, always; and I argued a good deal with Andrews about it. He said that his father had told him that a chance to make friends and distinguish himself would be sure to come. And Andrews said no doubt his father was right, and that the chance had come and that he was going to distinguish himself as much as he could on me.
Well, of course I saw what had to be done. Just at that time I was rather unfairly hated by Dr. Dunstan, because of an affair in the playground. There was a fir-tree in it at one corner, and I had found that turpentine came out if you cut notches in it. Well, into this turpentine I stuck live ants and then burnt them up with a burning-glass. It was nothing; but old Briggs, the writing master and natural history master, discovered me doing it and must needs make a ridiculous fuss. He told the Doctor and the Doctor made a ridiculous fuss too and turned against me and hated me. So Dunstan was out of the question, and there was only one other master I could tell, and that was Monsieur Michel, the French master. But he was weak and useless in an emergency like this; so finally I decided that the proper person to approach would be Andrews himself.
That much was pretty easy to decide, but then came the question what to say to him, and I was helped in this matter by a very lucky thing. It came out in class that Andrews was an absolute flyer at geography, and though not as good as me—me being head of the class in that subject—still he jolly soon got second to me and stopped there. I am a tremendous dab at geography myself; and if I knew as much about other things I should be in the sixth; and if a good many things I know—especially about religious saints—were regular subjects in school, instead of being barred altogether, I should also be in the sixth.
And finding out the greatness of Andrews at geography gave me the idea I wanted, which happened only just in time; because the day I spoke to him was a Wednesday and the next Saturday was the day we had to fight.
I said—
"Aren't you looking forward to Saturday?"
And he said—
"Yes, I am."
And I said—
"So am I, because I'm in training too; and I find that I fight tremendously well, and I'm only sorry I hadn't to fight a lot sooner."
But I couldn't deceive him with this, for a moment; so I soon changed the subject.
I introduced prizes and said that the Doctor was particularly keen about the subject of geography and always gave the best prizes for that.
"I know," he said, "and I should have had a jolly good chance if it hadn't been for you."
"You would," I said. "In fact, but for me you would be a snip for it."
We talked a bit and then I said—
"I wonder if your father would rather you made your mark by fighting me, or by winning the geography prize in your first term? Of course, to win any prize in your first term is a great score for a chap."
He said that he hadn't thought of it, and after I pressed him a lot, he admitted that there was no doubt the prize would suit his mother best, but he thought very likely if he won a fight it would suit his father best.
He said—
"My father's a soldier, and I'm going to be one; and so, naturally, fighting is more in my line than geography."
But I doubted this, and, in fact, I proved that a mere fight was nothing, whereas geography was a great deal and at least as much use to a soldier as fighting—especially after he had lost a battle.
Finally he said that I might be right, but that it didn't much matter as I was bound to win the geography prize, and he was equally bound to lick me next Saturday.
Then I made my great offer.
I said—
"Look here; I'm not afraid of fighting, or anything like that; but I've got religious objections to it and, in fact, though your father might like you to fight, my father would get into a frightful bate if I did. Really it might be jolly serious for me, and it would not matter to my father in the least whether I won the fight or lost it."
Andrews said that had nothing to do with him; so I went on and explained how it might have a great deal to do with him.
I said—
"You see, if you lost the fight, your father would very likely be very sick about it, and instead of getting rewarded, you might get nothing; whereas, if the fight fell through and you merely said firmly you had no reason for fighting me, and were not going to do it just because you were ordered to, and then went and won the geography prize, that would be a much greater score for you."
He admitted it might be, but didn't see how he could beat me at geography.
Then I said—
"If you refuse to fight me, you shall get the geography prize, because I need not put down anything like all I know and can boss a lot of questions purposely."
He said—
"It would please my mother and might do me a lot of good with my grandmother."
And I said—
"It certainly would; and next term, if you still want a fight, I'll easily arrange one for you with somebody else, and then you can make it all right with your father."
He said—
"Will you solemnly swear on human blood that you will boss the geography paper and let me get the prize?"
And to show him how much in earnest I was, I took out my knife there and then, and he pricked his finger and I pricked mine, and then I swore that I would let him have the geography prize, and he swore that he would refuse to fight me.
I felt that was a pretty good day's work, and so did he; but I felt it all the time, whereas Andrews only felt it in stray moments and, between whiles, was jolly savage with himself for swearing the blood oath. He was frightfully scorned for not fighting me, and the only thing that comforted him, and that only in secret, was that his mother and grandmother would be full of rejoicing in the holidays and richly reward him for winning the geography prize.
In fact, he kept on so obstinately about his mother, that I began to think about mine, and the sad grief it would be to her if I did not win this prize as usual. After a time I realized that I had actually put Andrews before my own dear mother, and I felt very shocked to think of what I had done.
The end of the term began to get nearer and nearer, and the exams. were going to begin soon. I tried hard not to think about geography and not to think about my mother, but Andrews found the only subjects that interested him were these subjects; and at last I simply had to avoid Andrews, because he kept on to such a sickening extent about what a score it would be to win it.
Very strange thoughts came over me during those days and I got more and more undecided as to what was right to do. There was my duty to Andrews, who, in a vague sort of way, had got the right to win the geography prize, and there was my duty to my father, who paid Dr. Dunstan a lot of money for letting me come to Merivale and naturally expected me to do my best; which I always did do, I'm sure. Then there was my duty to Dr. Dunstan; and to deceive him deliberately about my knowledge of geography was, of course, a very wrong thing to do. And, greatest of all, there was my own conscience, which is the 'still small voice' of the Bible. Besides, I'd been very careful to say that Andrews should have the geography prize, not that he should win it. No chap ever tried harder than me to do the right thing, and what made it so difficult was that my conscience and my duty to everybody but Andrews was on one side, while the stupid affair with Andrews was on the other side. Of course a blood oath is all nonsense if you are a Christian, and not in the least binding to a religious person. In fact, only savages believe in it at all. Therefore, as far as that went, I did not feel in the least bound to Andrews. If I had not been coming back the next term, I should have seen my way clearer very likely; but I was; and so was Andrews.
Somehow I couldn't decide till the actual day of the geography exam., and then, strangely enough, the paper seemed simply to have been made for me. I knew the answer to everything, and question No. 6 gave me a chance of saying some jolly good and peculiar things about Spain and the Holy Inquisition not generally known at all. Probably not a soul at Merivale but the Doctor and me knew them.
Somehow I felt it would be mean and wicked to pretend not to know all these things. My conscience simply cried out to me to do the paper as well as possible and leave the result in Higher Hands, because if Providence meant Andrews to win, he would win. So I did my best, as I usually do; and when the result was put up it was found that I had beaten Andrews by one hundred and ten marks, and Andrews was a long way ahead of everybody else.
Naturally Andrews, not understanding what it is to have such delicate feelings as me, was a good bit annoyed; but I was ready for him, and though I did not tell of my secret struggles to do right, which he would not have understood, I did explain that I had acted from proper motives.
I said—
"I promised that you should have the geography prize, not that you should win it. You shall have it, and the minute I get it on prize day, I shall hand it over to you."
But Andrews did not fall in with this, and I felt, somehow, that he wouldn't. He said several revengeful things about next term; but he may be dead before then, and anyway, much will happen in the holidays to make him forget this affair, or take a better view of it.
I only mention the thing, in fact, to show how hard it is to make chaps understand you if you always try to do right as much as you can. I should clearly like to leave Merivale, but there seems to be no chance of it at present.
My father often says, rather unkindly, that nobody ever wanted honour and truth and decency and manliness licked into them worse than I do; but my mother, who always understands me much better than him, says that many of the best and most famous men in the world have looked back to their school-days with hatred and loathing; and so I must no doubt be one of them; because nobody ever hated boys and masters and school in general worse than me. It will be very different when I get away from them all and go into the world; because there I shall meet plenty of nice people who think the same as I do.
'CHERRY RIPE'
No. VIII
'CHERRY RIPE'
I
This is an awful rum story about the extraordinary cunning of a man generally known as 'Cherry Ripe,' from selling cherries; and to tell it right I must first explain about our cricket ground and a wood and a field. After the cricket ground comes a narrow wood, well known as the place for fights, and also wood-pigeons' nests, which breed there in great quantities. It is a long and narrow wood, and then comes a field, also long but not so narrow. This field is a very up-and-down field, with hollows in it, and at the bottom, in one corner, a drinking-place for cows has been arranged, where yellow irises grow in summer, and where most of our tame frogs come from. There is a clump of trees in this field, and a hawk once built in them; but Freckles found the nest and took the eggs, so the hawk did not build there again. After the up-and-down field there comes an old, rather broken wall, and inside the wall is the orchard and nursery garden of Cherry Ripe.
Needless to say his real name was not 'Cherry Ripe' but Jenkins—not any relation to the Jenkins at Merivale, though chaps who wanted to rot Jenkins always pretended that Cherry Ripe was his father, which much annoyed Jenkins. Because this Cherry Ripe was a fierce and a common man, and had been known to be dismissed with a caution for ill-treating a horse, and was no friend to us either.
He made his living by fruit and vegetables; and at the right season of the year sold cherries, of which he had many fine trees in his nursery garden. He also had apples and pears and gooseberries in great abundance. He also laid out large pieces of his nursery garden in spring flowers for market, and he grew onions and turnips and rhubarb, and many other uninteresting things.
We naturally went there to see how it looked from time to time, and he chased us a good deal over the field; but, when we were once in the wood, he was of course powerless. In fact, he never caught anybody in fair hunting except Chilvers, who was once down by the pond collecting waterman beetles in his shoe, having nothing else to do it with. But Chilvers had never been in the nursery garden in his life, and told Cherry Ripe so. Only he refused to believe Chilvers, and said that he was trespassing just as much in the field as he would have been in the orchard. Which, in its paltry way, was true. Chilvers then offered him a penny and an Indian coin for twelve waterman beetles; and all he did was to say "No cheek!" and box Chilvers on the ear and tell him to be off. So he made a bitter enemy of Chilvers.
This Cherry Ripe was old and ugly. He never seemed to shave, and yet his beard never seemed to grow. What there was looked a mangy grey streaked with brown. He wore an old hat that had once been black, but was now rather inclined to turn green, and he had glittering eyes, one of which watered. He had also a curious way of lifting up and down his eyebrows, which young Smythe said showed a bad disposition, and was common to gorillas. He had been heard to laugh when picking apples with his daughters. But he never laughed at us, and when we took to calling him 'Cherry Ripe,' he hated us, and often shook his fist at us from a distance.
So we then felt something had to be done against him to score off him.
When this was decided upon, Steggles and Methuen and Pedlar and myself—me being Weston minor—and Chilvers went into committee, as it is called, and in fact we had a regular meeting. Many others wanted to join, but we felt five was enough, and we all had a jolly special private good reason for going into committee against Cherry Ripe.
Chilvers of course had been licked by Cherry Ripe, because to box one's ears is the same as licking one in a very insulting manner. Pedlar also had been insulted, and a good deal hurried twice by Cherry Ripe, when he found him catapulting quite harmlessly in his orchard in December, when of course there was nothing to take but vegetables; and Methuen and Steggles once meeting Cherry Ripe going the rounds with his cart and fruit and scales for weighing things, had politely stopped him and asked to buy two pennyworth of pears. And Cherry Ripe had the frightful impertinence to say that "No chap wearing them hats" should have so much as a spring onion of his growing, which was not only turning away business, but cheeking the school colours openly. So it seemed about time to do something, and we accordingly did. I may say that I had no particular grudge against Cherry Ripe, but I was well known at being better at wall-climbing than any chap who ever came to Merivale. Climbing had always been my strong point, and, as I was also going to be a missionary later in life, I kept it up, because you never know—not if you are a missionary.
The committee merely decided that as the cherry season was now near, we had better wait for it, and then, at the first opportunity, make a 'Jameson raid.' This is a particular sort of raid invented by the great Dr. Jameson of South Africa, and it consists of doing something so suddenly that nobody is ready. A Jameson raid is useless if the other side is prepared; it is also useless if you are not prepared yourself. The great thing is to be first, and also an important point is to commit the raid where and when it will be least expected. Therefore we gave it out, hoping that it would somehow get to Cherry Ripe, that we meant to make a raid on his young apples on Wednesday, being a half-holiday; whereas the truth was we were going to have a dash at his cherries on the Saturday. There was a cricket match on that day, and Steggles arranged details.
I won't say much about what happened, because the thing failed even more fearfully than Dr. Jameson's affair long ago. We were deceived in a most peculiar manner, owing to the deliberate cunning of Cherry Ripe; and afterwards, talking it over while we wrote two thousand Latin lines each, we came to the conclusion that there was a traitor at work. Naturally we thought of Fowle, but Fowle knew nothing; besides, he was in the hospital at the time with something the matter with his knee.
To go back, I must explain that all went well until we got on the top of Cherry Ripe's wall. Then what should we see but Cherry Ripe up a cherry tree and his daughters down below! They were a long way off, and we saw at a glance that it would take Cherry Ripe about a year to climb down from his tree, even if he saw us. As for his daughters, seeing our ages were fifteen and upwards, except Chilvers, who was certainly only thirteen, but could run faster than his sister, who was seventeen, we did not fear them.
As Cherry Ripe was picking cherries, we went for the green gooseberries. I dropped down first in a very stealthy manner, that Freckles had taught me before he went home to Australia; then Pedlar and Methuen dropped, and then Chilvers. He fell rather awkwardly and smashed off a large purple cabbage, and was glad of it.
But Steggles stopped on the wall, for some private reason. He said afterwards, when taxed with treachery, that it wasn't so in the least; but that from the very beginning he had had a curious feeling when he woke up that day. It is the feeling you get when you wake up on a day that you are going to be flogged; and you have the same feeling, only far, far worse, on the day when you are going to be hung. All criminals know this. Steggles certainly shouted "Cave!" as soon as the horrible moment came; but when he did finally drop off the wall, it was on the other side. In fact, he escaped and left us to our fate. Nothing could be done to Steggles, but we never felt the same to him again.
What happened was this. We were just eating a few gooseberries rather fast, before settling down steadily to fill our pockets, when Steggles gave the alarm. But it was too late. Suddenly there sprang up from their hiding-places no less than three men—the youngest not less than twenty years old; and the eldest was Cherry Ripe himself. This so much horrified us, as we had seen him at the top of a high cherry tree two hundred yards away only a second before, that we lost our instinct of self-preservation and fell a prey to the enemy. We were all caught, in fact, except Steggles, and we were then marched down to Cherry Ripe's house, and then along the road, and so back to Merivale. His hateful daughters stood and sniggered at us as we were taken past them; and then we saw that the whole thing was a mean plot, and, in fact, a swizz. A swizz is a chouse, and a chouse is the same as a sell. It was a scarecrow in the tree and not Cherry Ripe at all! The scarecrow wore his green hat, and his daughters pretended to be talking to him. As Peters said afterwards, Sherlock Holmes himself would have been almost deceived by such a deadly plot. Afterwards we found, curiously enough, that we had collected exactly thirteen gooseberries before the crash came, which shows that thirteen is an unlucky number, whatever scientific people may say against it.
Cherry Ripe brought us back to Merivale, and came to the front door and asked to see the Doctor. He gave his name as 'Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm,' and said it in a very grand tone of voice, as if he was somebody. But the Doctor, little knowing what was going to happen, sent out to tell Mr. Jenkins to walk in. Pedlar said he thought that the Doctor probably hoped Cherry Ripe had come with an advantageous offer to supply Merivale with green stuff at low prices; but of course this was not so.
Dr. Dunstan received us in his study, and he was much surprised to see Chilvers appear after Cherry Ripe, and still more surprised to see the rest of us come behind.
"And what may be the meaning of this deputation?" said the Doctor. "Perhaps you, Methuen, will explain."
But Cherry Ripe said that he had come to do the explaining. Certainly he told the truth, but he told it in a beastly mean way.
He said—
"There's times when a man has got to stand up for his rights, mister"—meaning the Doctor—"and this is one of 'em. These here young rips be always driving my life out of me, and an example must be made. I was half in a mind to send for a policeman; but I thought as I'd give 'em one more chance for their parents' sakes, so brought 'em to you, because no doubt you be paid very well for larning 'em their lessons and keeping 'em out of mischief. I've two things against 'em, and one is that they bawl 'Cherry Ripe' after me morning, noon, and night, and take sights at me, and do many other rude things; and the other is that now, this minute, I've catched 'em red-handed in my gooseberry-bed, tucking down my fruit for all they were worth. That's trespass and it's also theft, and I don't want no more of it."
"Thank you," said the Doctor. "You have stated your case with a lucidity and force that does you no little credit, Mr. Jenkins. Now the accused and the accuser may freely speak, whilst I, as arbiter between them, reserve the last word, and I fear the last action also." His eyes roamed over to the corner where the canes were kept. Then he went on—
"Your indictment consists of three articles, and we will take them in your own order. You submit that these youths have insulted you, have trespassed on your private property, and have stolen your goods. Now, boy Pedlar, have you or have you not, at any time and in any public place, addressed Mr. Jenkins, of the Merivale and District Fruit Farm, as 'Cherry Ripe'?"
"Yes, sir," said Pedlar.
"Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
"Yes, sir."
The Doctor seemed disappointed, and Cherry Ripe smiled with a grim and scornful smile.
"To accost an honest purveyor of the fruits of the earth with words which, in the nature of his calling, it is necessary that he should himself loudly repeat at intervals—to do this is a senseless and offensive act," said the Doctor. "Nothing can be said in favour of it. No earthly benefit—not even the meretricious semblance of benefit—can accrue to the boy who bawls 'Cherry Ripe!' after somebody else. The operation shows a lack of mental balance that may make us fear for the sanity of the performer, and regard the probable course of his future with dismay and the liveliest foreboding. But now we are faced with accusations of a very different character. It is asserted that you four boys have gone out of bounds, and disobeyed me; that you have trespassed on another's private property, and so made of no account the laws of man; and, lastly, that you have taken fruit that did not belong to you—that you have broken the eighth Commandment, and thus shattered the sacred edict of your Maker!"
The Doctor worked this up, as only he can, till we saw what an immense number of laws we had broken all at once—like you do when you begin to play golf—and, of course, it was a very solemn moment for everybody. Even Cherry Ripe looked rather frightened. The Doctor rolled it out, and shook his finger at Cherry Ripe as much as at us. Then came the questions.
"Is this infamous imputation true, Edgar Methuen?"
"Yes, sir."
"And you, Harold Pedlar?"
"Yes, sir."
"Weston?"
"Yes, sir."
"Chilvers?"
Chilvers, like a little fool, tried to hedge against the future.
"Yes, and I'm very sorry, sir," he said.
The Doctor looked at us as if we were some new sort of animals, and he didn't know how we had got in. He gave a tremendous snort, and took off his glasses. Then he turned to Cherry Ripe.
"To attempt any analysis of my personal emotions at this juncture would be vain," he said. "In these cases introspection may well be left for a subsequent occasion. For the moment justice cries with trumpet tongue. And be under no apprehension, Jenkins, that justice will miscarry on this occasion. As an agriculturist——"
Here the Doctor forgot us, and talked like anything to Cherry Ripe about growing vegetables, and Ceres and Pomona and Horace and Virgil, and other well-known people out of school books. He fairly terrified Cherry Ripe, I believe. Anyway, Cherry Ripe kept creeping nearer and nearer to the door. Then, at last, he got in a word.
"Don't be too hard on 'em this time, your honour. Just one, two, and another on the place that's made for it."
"Pardon me," answered the Doctor, raising his hand. "You now trench on my prerogative, Jenkins. The question of what is to follow may very well be left with the preceptor of these fallen boys. Have no fear for that. And to plead for leniency before the breaking of a Commandment is to admit a personal laxity of view that I, for one, am bound to deplore."
Cherry Ripe had now reached the door, and I believe he thought that if he stopped another moment the Doctor would cane him too. So he began to clear out. But first he said—
"Well, good-evening, all!" Then he hooked it—rather thankfully. And we wished we could.
We got four on each hand, and two thousand lines each, and to stop in for two half-holidays. So that, as Methuen very truly remarked, was first blood for Cherry Ripe.