CHAPTER THE TWELFTH.THE GENTLEMAN.
THAT afternoon a gentleman who had witnessed part of the foregoing scene from the breeches-maker’s window, whither he had gone for a pair of buckskin riding-gloves—struck by the dauntless manner of Jabez, related what he had seen to his wife, Mrs. Ashton, the stately sister of Mrs. Chadwick; whilst Augusta, their eight-year old daughter, sat on a footstool by her side, hemming a bandana handkerchief for her father, an inveterate snuff-taker—occasionally putting in a word, as only spoiled daughters did in those days.
“Mamma, I daresay that’s the little boy Cousin Ellen told me about.”
“Pooh, pooh! Augusta,” said Mr. Ashton, tapping the lid of his snuff-box, and then, from force of habit, handing it to his wife, the wave of whose hand put it back—“pooh, pooh! child. Do you think there’s only one Blue-coat boy in the town? Besides, he was not such a little boy. I know I thought something of myself when I was his size,” said Mr. Ashton, dusting the snuff from his ruffles as he spoke.
“But he would be a little boy when Ellen knew him first. She says it was before I was born.”
“He could not be a Blue-coat boy then, my dear,” observed Mrs. Ashton; “he was too young.”
“But Ellen showed him to me when we went to the College at Easter; and she says he has killed a snake—a real live snake, papa. And Aunt Chadwick bought Ellen such a pretty pincushion he had worked, and, oh! such a handsome bead purse!”
Mr. Ashton smiled at his daughter’s enthusiasm.
“Ah! I think I have heard of him before; he is a sort ofprotegeof Parson Brookes.”
“He is a very honest boy,” appended Mrs. Ashton, as sheexamined Augusta’s hemming by the light of the nearest wax candle. “Ellen lost Prince William’s shilling that same day. You know she always wears it dangling from her neck, absurd as it is for a great girl of fifteen.”
“Well?” said Augusta, looking up inquiringly.
“Well, my dear, the very next afternoon the boy Jabez Clegg knocked at the door in Oldham Street with the shilling, which he said he had found in sweeping the library, and remembered seeing it on Miss Chadwick’s neck. Many a boy, at Easter, would have spent it in cakes or toffy.”
“I suppose, to use one of your favourite maxims, he must have thought ‘honesty the best policy,’” remarked her husband.
“Yes; and ‘duty its own reward’—for he refused the half-crown that Sarah offered him.”
Mr. Ashton took another pinch of snuff, with grave consideration, then put the box, after some deliberation, into his deep waistcoat pocket, and again flapped the snuff off ruffles and neck-cloth ends.
“Wouldn’t take the money, you say?”
“Would not take it,” his wife repeated, folding up the finished handkerchief.
After a pause, Mr. Ashton said, with his head on one side,—
“I think I shall look after that younker. What is he like?”
“Oh, that I cannot tell; I was not with them. But I think Sarah said he had got an ugly scar on one of his eyebrows.”
Mr. Ashton brought down his hand with a clap on that of Augusta, resting on his knee.
“Then, my little Lancashire witch, the poor cripple’s champion and Ellen’s hero of romancewillbe one and the same. I must certainly look after that lad.”
But even as Mr. Ashton came to that conclusion Jabez was in mortal peril, and his romance and theirs threatened to end at the beginning.
Laurence Aspinall was not of a temper to brook interference with his sport, or to be treated as the inferior of a “common charity boy.” Since the hour that Jabez had declined to single him out for punishment, he had resented the sense of his own inferiority which conscience pressed upon him. In refusing to tender either thanks or apology at Ben Travis’s instigation, he lost caste in the school, and the knowledgerankled in his breast. Against the debt of gratitude he owed to Jabez he laid up a fund of envy and spite, out of which he meant to pay him in full the first opportunity. That opportunity had arrived. There were some birds of his own feather, who stuck by him, of whom Ned Barret was one.
Old Brookes had been too drunk to swear positively who had molested him, or to obtain credence if he did; but the inopportune arrival of Jabez and Ben Travis had made detection certain, and nothing was Joshua Brookes so sure to punish with severity as an attack on the father who made his life a burden to him.
On the principle that they might “as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb,” the noble five resolved to waylay the Blue-coat boy on his return, and either extract from him a promise of secrecy, or give him a sound drubbing for his pains.
They were too like-minded for long conference. To put the old breeches-maker off the scent, all dispersed but one, Kit Townley, who pulled a top from his pocket and whipped away at it with as much energy as ever did his Anglo-Saxon ancestors. Perhaps he thought he had a meddlesome College boy under his lash.
After a time, the others sauntered back one by one, from contrary directions; there was more top-whipping, and some of the whips and tops were new. Then when they saw they were unobserved, they adjourned to the school-yard, and laying a cap on the broad step, two or three of them sat down to a game at cob-nut, so that if any unlikely straggler did come that way there might be an apparent reason for their presence.
It was late in the year. The breeches-maker was seated at his early tea, and so were most of his neighbours. The twilight was coming gently down, and the boys, tired of waiting, were about to go home to their own—Aspinall expecting a reprimand for being late. Jabez, who had been delayed at the office of Harrop the printer in the Market Place, came briskly up with a parcel in his hand just as they reached the gate. One of them snatched the parcel from him and ran with it into the school-yard. As a natural consequence Jabez followed to regain his property.
That was just what they wanted. The light iron gate was pushed-to, and there they were, shut in and screened from observation, between the deserted Grammar School on the one hand, and the College School-room on the other, which, with the dormitory above, was equally sure to be empty at that hour.They were free to torment him as they pleased. The parcel was tossed from hand to hand with subdued glee, and their whip-lashes and strung cob-nuts cut at his arms and shoulders, as Jabez sprang forward and darted hither and thither, perplexed and baffled in his efforts to recover it. Once or twice it went down on the damp ground, and gained in grime what it lost in shape.
“Oh! dear, dear! do give me my parcel!” cried Jabez, in perplexity. “Our governor will think I’ve been loitering.”
“And so you have, you canting yellow-skirt. You stopped to put your long finger in our pie!” was the swift retort of Laurence, as he interposed his body between Jabez and the boy who held his lost charge.
“Eh! and you went off with Travis, wasting your time!” added Kit Townley.
“I never waste my time on an errand.”
“Oh! Miss Nancy never wastes time on an errand.” mimicked Ned Barret; and still they kept the boy on the run until he leaned, out of breath, against the wall which served as a parapet above the river.
Then, the disputed prize being kept by Kit Townley at a respectable distance, Laurence advanced to parley with him, offering to restore his parcel and let him go if he would take a solemn oath, which he dictated, to maintain silence on all which had transpired that afternoon.
“I cannot; I must account for my time,” firmly answered Jabez, “and I must account for that dirty parcel.”
“Tell them you tumbled down and hurt yourself,” suggested Aspinall.
“I cannot; it would be untrue!”
At this the lads set up a loud guffaw, as if truth were somewhat out of fashion; but the one who stood nearest the gate with the parcel looked restless, as if beginning to be tired of the whole business. Just then Laurence went blustering up to the College boy, and, thrusting his face forward, said—
“If you don’t go down on your marrow-bones this instant, and swear to tell no tales, we’ll pitch you over the wall.”
“You dare not!” boldly retorted Jabez, with a set face.
“Oh! daren’t we? We’ll see that! Lend a hand.”
“No, you dare not!” repeated he, planting himself firmly against the wall.
There was a sudden rush; they closed round him, more in bravado than with any intent to do him bodily harm: slidinghim up against the smooth-worn brick-work, they hoisted him above their shoulders, meaning to hold him there. But in their eagerness they had thrust him too far, and crowding on each other, one, being jostled, let go, and Jabez toppled over the precipice!
There was a scream; a splash in the water. Tabitha, taking clothes from a line in the back-yard, cried out, “What is that?” Parson Brookes’s startled pigeons flew from their dove-cote, and wheeling round in widening circles cooed affrightedly.
The white-faced boys stood aghast. Unless his fall had been seen from the opposite croft, their victim would be drowned before any aid they could bring was available; a wide circuit must be taken before a bridge could be reached! Buildings blocked up that side of the river. They looked at each other and spoke in whispers; then, with an animal instinct of self-preservation, sneaked off in silence and terror, leaving him to his fate.
Not all. Kit Townley, who held the parcel, had drawn near to remonstrate. With a shriek he threw down the paper, and, hardly conscious what he did, tore wildly through the gates, and across the College Yard, to startle the first he met with the alarm that a College boy was drowning in the Irk!