When the devil suggests some pleasant but wrong scheme to frail humanity, his dupes generally find him a most amiable and efficient patron at the beginning of the enterprise, however he may leave them in the lurch when the fatal catastrophe approaches. To give that much-abused personage his due, on the occasion to which we are about to allude, he adhered to his word like the gentleman Shakspere has declared him to be, for, as at seven o’clock the very small curtain of the very “minor” theatre at Tickletown drew up, and the limited orchestra, with a hoarse, eccentric, and ad libitum bass, left off playing, four distinguished-looking young gentlemen entered the stage-box, and arranged the drapery in such manner that, themselves unseen, they might alike be able to witness the performance and criticise the house, which, in virtue of its being the fascinating-Courtenay Trevanion’s (alias Jack Sprattly’s) benefit, was crowded by all the rank and fashion of Tickletown.
Any person who had very closely observed this same box, might have perceived peeping from under the corner of the red curtain nearest the stage, a little, eager, restless, excited face, watching with the deepest and most engrossing interest every trifle that occurred, as though it presented some great and striking novelty. Had the looker-on been of a speculative turn of mind, he might have wondered why this little, bright face, which ought naturally to have expressed nothing but childish delight and surprise, should have had this expression marred by an anxious, scared look, which occasionally passed across the boy’s intelligent features. To the reader, however, this evidence that Hugh Colville was feeling slightly ill-at-ease, even in the midst of his enjoyment, need present no mystery. But as the play proceeded, and Polly made her appearance, looking like a single angel, and singing like a whole covey of them, interest and delight overpowered conscience; and when Jack. Sprattly came on in jet black boots and moustachios, and bright red coat and cheeks, and swaggering about the stage as Macheath, and looking so charmingly impudent, sang in a rich rollicking tenor, “How happy could I be with either,” toll-derolling at the end with a devil-may-care joviality, which produced him three several encores, Hugh Colville’s delight waxed to such a pitch that he mentally decided, if the Doctor had suddenly appeared, armed with his stoutest cane, and then and there varied the performance by flogging him before the faces of the assembled audience, the exquisite pleasure he enjoyed would have been cheaply purchased at even that frightful cost. Then followed a pantomime! Hugh’s first pantomime!
Juvenile reader whose first pantomime is yet to come, mark my words, the words of one who speaks from experience! You look forward eagerly, no doubt, to the wonderful time when you shall be a grown-up man, and do as you please, which you firmly believe will involve always sitting up till three o’clock in the morning; riding a prancing horse all day; eating unlimited plum-pudding without uncomfortable consequences; and having that very pretty little girl next door, with whom you danced—and, in your small, unassuming way, flirted also—at the children’s ball last Christmas, grown up into a beautiful wife for you, who will always do exactly what you wish with her, and never go near Howell and James’s at any price. You have heard poets and other licensed story-tellers rave about there being
“Nothing half so sweet in life
As love’s young dream;”
or prate of the delights of ambition; the charms of fame; the pleasures of hope and of memory; the satisfaction of a good conscience; or the inestimable blessings of domestic felicity—which, in a general way, means buying cradles, paying taxes, and settling bills:—you may have heard all this, and believed much or little of it, as your bump of veneration happens to be largely developed or otherwise. But what I am going to tell you is a “great fact;” and do you remember it, and act upon it accordingly. The happiest time of your life ought to be, and probably therefore will be, the glorious night on which you, a light-hearted, merry child, witness your first pantomime!—and you may go with my compliments to Papa and inform him that I say so.
At all events, Hugh Colville felt strongly that until he had seen a clown he had been ignorant of the real dignity of human nature, or the sublime heights to which, properly cultivated, it was capable of soaring. Columbine also (as enacted by that houri, Rosetta Matilda Slammock) impressed him with a deep sense of the sylph-like grace and ethereal purity of woman,—all but the very pink calves of her seraphic legs, in regard to which, beautiful and praiseworthy as they were, viewing them in the abstract as mere bounding, pirouetting, sliding, and gliding machines, he could not help indulging some scruples of conscience, mentally classing them with unpaid-for toffy, clandestine nine-pins on Sunday, and the few other examples of the “pleasant, but wrong” principle, which had come within the limits of his juvenile experience; and he was just considering that, if Heaven had vouchsafed to place him in the proud and enviable position of her elder brother, he should have mildly remonstrated against her making such a very prominent feature of her legs; when to his surprise and regret, Virtue suddenly triumphed amidst ablaze of fireworks, and Vice being punished in the person of the Lurid Wizard of the Forty-locked Murderer’s Cavern, who was dragged by three supernumerary fiends-to a naughty place under the stage, the curtain fell, and all was over.
The next phase of the evening was to Hugh one strange and uncomfortable scene of inexplicable confusion. Biggington, Norman, and his companions, went behind the scenes, under the auspices of Jack Sprattly, who did not look nearly so brave and glorious out of his scarlet coat; and Hugh followed them for fear of being lost, receiving at their hands much the same kind and degree of attention that a little dog would have met with.
Of all miserable, desolate, chaotic-looking places, the stage of a theatre in dishabille is one of the most forlorn. The incomprehensible machinery for scene-shifting, the frightful backs of all the brilliant effects, the dirt, the smell of the lamps, the ropes, the rubbish, the dangerous trap-doors, the tired, sleepy carpenters, the haggard, snobbish actors, and, worse than all, the pale, hollow-eyed actresses, with their forced, heartless laughter—a very mockery of mirth—of all places for destroying illusion, commend me to the region behind the-scenes as the most dismally effectual.
Biggington, Norman, and Stradwick, having disappeared somewhere within the mysterious precincts of the green-room where they remained long enough for Terry to jump over everything, and tumble down everywhere, and set wrong bells ringing in all kinds of unexpected places, and have a terrific combat with nobody in virtue of a “property” sword and buckler wherewith he had illegally armed himself—the party re-assembled, and without further delay proceeded to “The Bull.”
This remarkable quadruped must have been, in his interesting lifetime, a most rare and wonderful creature, at least, if he at all resembled his portrait, which hung creaking on a species of jovial gibbet in front of the hostelrie bearing his name. The picture certainly may have been a likeness, but as it represented the bovine original got up, regardless of expense, in richly-gilt hoofs and horns, with his tail twisted over his back in the shape of a horizontal figure of eight, ending in a bright golden flame, while such a cluster of Hyperion curls waved over his massive-brow, as involuntarily to suggest the idea of his wearing one of those false fronts, paraded by self-deluding old ladies in the forlorn hope of deceiving society on the score of their undesirable longevity, we can scarcely conceive the artist to have adhered to nature with a proper degree of pre-Raphaelite severity. Be this as it may, the present proprietor of the Bull had exerted all his energies to provide a supper commensurate with the dignity and gullibility of the givers of the feast; and Hugh Colville’s eyes sparkled with delight, when the goodly array of nice things first met his gaze; for, though by no means greedy, he was still almost a child, and was a hungry school-boy into the bargain—need we say more?
Then arrived Courtenay Trevanion (alias Jack Sprattly) and the young ladies, who from a strict sense of propriety, which was one of their marked characteristics, had refused to come unless they might be allowed to bring with them Mrs. Belvidera Fitz-Siddons as chaperone. This great lady, for such she was in every sense of the word, had done the heavy tragic business for many years with immense éclat, until latterly she had grown too heavy even for that, which fact had been painfully impressed upon her by reason of her constantly, at harrowing moments of heart-rending despair, disappearing suddenly from before the streaming eyes of the astonished audience down traps calculated to support mortals of moderate (but not immoderate) weight. Finding that these unexpected disappearances tended to impart a burlesque character to her acting, rather than to increase the pathos thereof, Mrs. B. Fitz-Siddons had wisely restricted herself to such parts as suited her advanced years; and now having, by the trifling addition of sixpence weekly to his salary, bribed the call-boy to chalk B. T. (beware traps!) upon all dangerous footing, she still shone in the elderly comic line, and played Mrs. Malaprop and Mrs. Backbite to delighted audiences. For the rest, this illustrious woman rejoiced in a pair of large, bold, uncomfortable black eyes; a man’s voice, slightly the worse for wear, and——and a little failing she had in regard to liquor; stiff horse-hair-like curls, which might have been her own only that she had a harmless scruple against wasting money on paying her bills; and a generally hooked outline, so essentially Israelitish, that her green-room cognomen of “Mother Moses” appeared by no means inappropriate. Of the young ladies we will only say that, like all young ladies, they were irresistible.
Just at first starting, matters appeared a little dull and unpromising; the fact being that the two elder Tickletonians, not finding, when put to the test, that they were quite such thorough men of the world as they imagined themselves, suffered under an uncomfortable inability to make small talk; while Jack Sprattly, possessing a most inconvenient appetite, was so engrossed with the good cheer before him, that conversation, under the circumstances, became a physical impossibility.
As the supper progressed, however, and more especially when the champagne (which really was not bad for Tickle-town) had made two or three rounds, affairs began to brighten. Mrs. Fitz-Siddons, unlike the voracious Macheath (which hungry highwayman still continued to demolish a supper more fitted for forty thieves than for one), was able to eat, drink, and talk at the same moment; and soon, by the cheerful, not to say jolly, style alike of the sentiments she expressed and of the manner in which she expressed them, succeeded in placing the “young people,” as she called them, upon a more friendly footing.
“Cora-lee, my love,” she began (and be it observed, parenthetically, that this, noble woman spoke with a slight Irish brogue—a philological fact to be accounted for only by the hypothesis, which she herself had started on a particular occasion, when she was suffering from a temporary nervous affection which confused her speech and imparted a slight unsteadiness to her gait, viz., that her mother must have been an Irishman), “Cora-lee, my love! don’t ye see Mr. Biggington waiting to take wine with ye; thank ye, sir, since you’re so very pressing I’ll not refuse; only up to my thumb, if you please, sir” (as she spoke, she, with delightful unconsciousness, ran her thumb up the glass as the wine advanced, until her digit and the champagne reached the brim simultaneously). “Your health, Mr. Norman, sir; O-phaliur, my darling, the same to the fortunes of the colville family. Go you;—it’s the cavalry you’re going into, Mr. Norman, they do tell me, and it’s an ornament you’ll be to the ridgimint—fine men they are, the Lancers. I’d a brother in them once; maybe you’ll have heard tell of Major Fitz-Siddons? Six feet six did he stand in his stocking-soles, till he fell gloriously leading a forlorn hope at the siege of—of—bless the name of the place! now I can’t for the life of me lay my tongue to it.”
“Troy, perhaps,” suggested Terry, politely.
“Belleisle, more likely,” put in Jack Sprattly; it was the first word he had uttered since they sat down, and he had a largish tartlet in his mouth as he spoke;—swallowing the morsel, he continued in a whisper to Biggington, next to whom he was seated—
“The major was no major at all, but only a private, and was drummed out of the regiment for stealing the captain’s shirts.”
Having once found his tongue, which was not until he had more than satisfied even his uncompromising appetite, Jack proceeded to make use (we can scarcely in conscience say, good use) of it, to relate all sorts of anecdotes, theatrical and otherwise, of which the wit was so small as scarcely to deserve the name, while what ought to have been the moral was rather the reverse.
Then, quite by accident, another gentleman connected with the theatre called to speak to Mr. Sprattly, so of course he was invited to join them, and proved a great acquisition to the party, as it was generally reported of him that there was no subject, grave or gay, human or divine, on which he could not perpetrate a bad pun; and certainly on that evening he did his best, or more correctly, his worst, to justify popular opinion. And thus a vast amount of nonsense was talked, and many bottles of wine drunk, until Norman conceived that the time was ripe for the execution of his project.
It has before been intimated that the apparent friendship existing between Biggington and Norman was based upon a most false and hollow foundation,—the truth being that the cock of the school, who was older than Norman, had, in times past, availed himself of his superior strength to bully, and impose insults and indignities upon, his junior, under which the proud spirit of the embryo lancer had chafed, until a deep thirst for revenge was excited, which he only waited a favourable opportunity to satisfy. During the previous year, a change had taken place in their relation to each other. Biggington having grown up, was, by the immutable laws of nature, prevented from growing any higher, while Norman, in obedience to the same laws, grew steadily after him until he also had attained the full stature of man; while, although of a slighter build, he had so strengthened his frame by athletic exercises, that he was now no contemptible antagonist even for the colossal Biggington. That the bully himself was aware of this fact, may be gathered from the extreme care with which he avoided giving Norman an opportunity of picking a quarrel with him—a line of policy which, until the evening in question, had proved most successful. Norman, although apparently enjoying himself to the utmost, and constantly hastening the circulation of the decanters, contrived to drink very little wine; Biggington, on the other hand, who was essentially animal in his tastes, indulged freely, until the effects became unmistakably apparent in his flushed cheeks and rapid, thick utterance. During the earlier part of the evening he had devoted his attentions to the amiable and accomplished Juliet Elphinstone (alias Betsy Slasher) as he found that young lady, who was of a singularly affable, not to say free and easy, disposition, least trouble to get on with; and Biggington hated trouble. But as Coralie’s diffidence vanished before the influence of the champagne, and the polished compliments which Norman from time to time addressed to her not unwilling ears, she laughed and displayed her white teeth and uttered piquant nothings in the prettiest broken English imaginable, till she appeared altogether so fascinating, that Biggington began to perceive he had made a mistake, which the wine he drank rendered him determined at all hazards to remedy.
Norman, who watched him closely, remarking this, redoubled his attentions to Coralie, and Biggington’s dissatisfaction and ill-temper became so unmistakable that they were observed even by Mrs. Fitz-Siddons, whose troublesome nerves were again beginning to inconvenience her, as was evinced by a slight disposition towards the unromantic spasmodic affection popularly termed winking, with which she punctuated (so to speak) her sentences. Feeling desirous that so agreeable an evening should end as harmoniously as it had begun, she tossed off a final bumper of claret (Mrs. Fitz-S. was great at claret), and, turning to the young ladies, began—
“Cora-lee, my love—O-phaliur, my darling, all that’s bright my dears, must (wink)—the fondest hearts must part; ‘parting is such sweet sorrow,’ you remember! Not another drop, I’m obleeged to ye, Mr. Biggington, sir—well, if you will have it so I suppose I must (wink); we weaker vessels you know—”
“Hold as much as the strong ones,” interposed Jack, “and carry it off a precious sight better too, and no mistake,” he added sotto voce to his punning friend, glancing towards Biggington as he spoke.
In the meantime, the young ladies having risen, were looking for their bonnets and mantles. Terry, whose strong point was activity, had discovered Miss Ophelia’s shawl, and, with many grimaces as of a polite monkey, had placed it over her shoulders; and Norman was about to perform the same friendly office by Coralie, when Biggington sprang to his feet, and advancing with a slight unsteadiness in his gait, exclaimed in a hoarse, angry voice—
“Give me that shawl directly, Norman; I intend to escort Miss Coralie home.”
“Excuse me,” was the quiet reply; “having found the shawl, I shall not yield the privilege of placing it over the fair owner’s shoulders, to you or any one.”
“Won’t you?” returned Biggington, with an oath; “we’ll soon see that!” and as he spoke he grasped the shawl with one hand, while he attempted to push Norman aside with the other.
Drawing back to avoid his grasp, Norman whispered to Terry, “Watch and see who strikes the first blow, and then lock the door and put the key in your pocket.”
Irritated at the tenacity with which Norman still retained his hold on the shawl, Biggington pressed angrily forward, when, by putting out his foot, Norman contrived to trip him up, while, by a slight push, he caused him to lose his balance, so that he reeled and would have fallen, had not Jack Sprattly caught him just at the critical moment. Rendered furious by the laugh which followed his discomfiture, and losing sight of his habitual caution from the effects of the wine he had drunk, Biggington’s savage nature blazed forth in all its full ferocity, and, springing forward with a bound like that of some wild animal, he aimed a blow at Norman’s head, which if it had taken effect as it was intended, would have ended the struggle at once.
But Norman was prepared for such a salute, and, dodging aside, received the blow on his shoulder, whence it glanced off innocuously; then, before his antagonist could recover his guard, he rushed in and planted a well-directed hit on his face, in a direction which was certain to render him the proprietor of a black eye for the next week to come, at the very least. Thereupon ensued a grand shindy. Terry, in obedience to Norman’s directions, having recorded in the tablet of his memory the fact that Biggington had struck the first blow, hastened to lock the door and secrete the key; having accomplished these feats, he called out, “A ring! a ring!” at the same time exhorting the combatants to take it sweetly and easily, and to fight fair, and like gentlemen of the sixth form.
The two girls, frightened out of their affectation, shrank into the farthest corner of the apartment, where they clung to each other in speechless terror. Mrs. Belvidera Fitz-Siddons, considerably flustered (no other word could express her exact state of mind so graphically), in trying to get out of the way, fell first over, and finally upon, a sofa, where, after making one or two abortive efforts to rise, she remained uttering incoherent ejaculations to which no one paid the slightest attention.
Jack Sprattly made a feeble and futile attempt to bring about a reconciliation; but his friend—who, from being invariably cast as the benevolent uncle, or philanthropic benefactor, in all the genteel comedies, had, by a not unnatural reaction, acquired a sanguinary and democratic habit of mind—drew him back, muttering in a theatrical whisper—
“Let the serpent-brood of haughty aristocrats prey upon each other, Jack; there will be more room in the world for the honest sons of labour.”
In the meantime, after a short but spirited rally, the combatants came to the ground together, when Terry picked up Norman and gave him a knee, while Stradwick, frightened out of his wits (the few he possessed), did the same by Biggington. Five or six rounds ensued; but as Norman, who was, to begin with, the most scientific pugilist, appeared perfectly cool and self-possessed, while Biggington was furious with rage, and excited and bewildered by the wine he had imbibed, each round terminated in Norman’s favour; he having escaped any disfiguring blow, while his antagonist’s countenance already showed marks of severe punishment. When the seventh round commenced, and Norman again succeeded in planting a well-directed hit on the bridge of his adversary’s nose, it became evident that the bully’s temporary courage was failing him, and that one or two more rounds would completely exhaust it.
By this time the landlord of the inn and his myrmidons had been aroused by the noise, and were clamouring at the door demanding admission; but so effectually had Terry hidden the key, that Jack Sprattly, unable to find it, was reduced to shout to them to burst the door open. This, however, was more easily said than done, for the door was made of stout oak, and he fastenings were strong and in good repair.
In the eighth round Biggington, rendered furious by pain, pressed so hard upon Norman that, in avoiding his blows, he entangled his foot in the carpet, and stumbled, while at the same moment a left-handed hit from his opponent catching him on the side of his head, brought him to the ground so violently that, when raised on his seconds knee, he stared wildly about him and scarcely appeared conscious where he was; but a few moments served to restore him, and when time was called, he sprang to his feet with an expression of countenance which showed he meant mischief.
Biggington, elated by his success, fought with more energy and spirit than he had shown in the last round or two; but in attempting to end the conflict by a tremendous hit, he overreached himself, and Norman, seizing his opportunity, drew back his arm, then flinging it out from the shoulder, with the force and rapidity of a sledge-hammer, caught his antagonist a crashing blow between the eyes, before which he went down like a shot, and when time was again called, he remained stunned and insensible. At the same moment the fastenings of the door suddenly gave way, and the landlord and his wife, supported by the entire dramatis personae of the establishment, appeared upon the scene of action in various attitudes of terror and amazement.
Ernest Carrington sat in the retirement of his little study, and gave himself up to thought. His scholastic labours were over for the day, and with a head too tired for mental occupation, and a heart too full of the great problem of existence to find pleasure in frivolous amusements, he sat resting his aching brow upon his hand, pondering the mighty enigma of human life in general, and his own individual experience of it in particular. He thought of the aspirations of his boyhood, of the bright hopes of his later youth, and mentally compared them with the dark reality of his manhood; he called to mind the dreams of greatness which he had pictured to himself—not the-false and hollow greatness of mere rank and riches, but the true greatness of living to become a benefactor to his species; the greatness which he sought when he took upon him the duties, and privileges, and responsibilities of his sacred calling; greatness the praise whereof is uttered by the lips of widows and orphans, and written on broken and contrite hearts, to be transferred thence, by an angel’s hand, to the Book of Life. And then, for he was young and loving-hearted, he thought of softer, brighter visions; of a fair ideal being, with an angel’s brow and a woman’s form, who should pass by his side through life, and, loving him more than all things else save the GOD who gave them, to each other, should meet him again, and be his reward in Heaven, where perfect bliss could be ensured by the certainty that they should part no more. And in what had these bright visions ended?—a life of solitary drudgery. Even independence, the one thing that sweetens labour—the power of carrying out his own ideas of right and wrong—even that, by his subordinate position, was denied to him. And why was all this? What wrong had he committed, to deserve so severe a punishment? Why was he condemned to this mental prison-discipline, this alternation between psychological oakum-picking and solitary confinement? Nay, was not his present position, the result of his own unselfishness and liberality? If he had not given up his patrimony for the benefit of his sisters, nor relinquished his claim upon the entailed property, he would have possessed a fair income, on which he could have lived comfortably until he should have met with some ecclesiastical preferment, the duties of which would have afforded him the opportunities he sought of devoting himself to the good of others. If not permitted to exercise the talents committed to him to the glory of God, why was he born into this world at all? Poor Ernest! he had yet to learn that hardest of all lessons, to an eager, energetic spirit: he had yet to acquire belief in the great truth, that
“———They also serve
Who stand and wait.”
But his trial was more nearly ended than he was aware of even as he sat there late into the night, pondering on the evils of his position but perceiving no means of escaping from them, the very fact of his unaccustomed wakefulness constituted the first link of the chain of events which was to bring about his deliverance. Days afterwards this idea struck him, and taught him a useful lesson.
The great clock in the school-room had just proclaimed, for the benefit of the blackbeetles, crickets, and mice then tenanting the apartment, the interesting fact that it was two a.m., and Ernest, weary and dispirited, had just determined to put himself and his troubles to bed, when he recollected he had left some Greek exercises, which he had to look over before the school opened the next morning, lying on his desk in the school-room. Anxious not to disturb any one, he substituted a pair of soft slippers for his boots; and knowing exactly the spot in which he had left the papers, he determined to dispense with a candle. Feeling his way cautiously, he descended the stairs and reached the school-room without any contretemps—but here a difficulty arose, for some one had moved the papers. Recollecting he had some lucifers in his desk, he was preparing to light a taper which he kept there for the purpose of sealing letters, when a sound, as of footsteps in the play-ground, caught his ear:—he paused to listen;—the steps appeared to come nearer, till at length they approached the outer door;—from the sound it was evident that there were two or three persons. When they reached the door, they paused and spoke to each other in a low whisper; then Ernest became aware, from the altered nature of the sounds, that some one was climbing into the loft over the stable; his first idea was, that they were common pilferers, intending to steal the Doctor’s oats; but it occurred to him that there might be some communication between the loft and the dwelling-house, and that they were burglars attempting to effect an entrance; desirous of obtaining a more certain knowledge before he gave any alarm, Ernest remained motionless, listening to the sounds without. Suddenly, a noise above him caused him to look up; as he did so, a small window in the skylight was cautiously opened, and a boy’s head and shoulders were thrust in;—seeing this, Ernest stooped down so as to become hidden by the rails of the desk. Having reconnoitred the apartment, and imagining it untenanted, the owner of the head and shoulders noiselessly drew in the rest of his small person; then, hanging by his hands, he allowed his legs to drop, till, with his feet, he was enabled to reach the Doctor’s desk, which was considerably higher than any of the others; he next closed the window, and silently gliding down the slope of the desk, by the aid of a high stool gained terra firma.
Ernest’s first impulse was to collar him, but on second thoughts he determined to wait, and let the affair develop itself a little further. Having reached the ground, Hugh (for of course the reader has long since surmised that it was that misguided child) crept cautiously to the outer door, and withdrew the bolt; as he did so, Ernest noiselessly crossed the apartment, and, when the door opened, seized the first person who attempted to enter. A short, but severe struggle ensued, which ended in Ernest’s favour: finding himself foiled in his endeavours to free himself from the young tutor’s grasp, Norman (for he it was) observed quietly—
“Let me go, Mr. Carrington, you have half strangled me: I shall not attempt to escape.”
“I’ll take good care of that,” returned Ernest drily, releasing his grasp on his antagonist’s throat, though he still retained his hold on his collar. “Oblige me by walking across the room,” he continued: “I must take measures for securing your companions in this nocturnal adventure, as well as yourself.”
So saying, he conducted Norman to the door of the schoolroom which led to the interior of the house—this he locked—then, still retaining his hold on the prisoner’s collar, he rang a bell which communicated with the Doctor’s private apartments. In the meantime, perceiving farther concealment to be impossible, Biggington, leaning on Stradwick’s arm and Terry’s shoulder, entered considerably the worse for wear, and flung himself doggedly on a bench. The sound of approaching footsteps soon broke the uncomfortable silence which followed the capture of Norman. Ernest unfastened the door, and Dr. Donkiestir, followed by a man-servant with a lantern and a thick stick, hastily entered.
“Ha! Mr. Carrington! Norman! What is all this? What is all this?” he exclaimed, as his eye fell upon the two most prominent figures.
In a few words, Ernest explained his own share in the matter; then setting Norman at liberty, he crossed his arms on his breast, and, leaning against a high desk, left the Doctor to finish the adventure.
“In the first place, who have we here?” inquired the head-master, sternly. Receiving no answer, he took the lantern from the servant, and held it so that the light fell in turn on the faces of the different delinquents, remarking as he did so—“Norman! I believed you to have been too much of a gentleman to have been mixed up in an affair of this kind—you have disappointed me; go to your room, I shall speak to you to-morrow. Biggington! why what is the matter with him?” throwing the light of the lantern full upon his swollen and discoloured features, he continued—“Why you’ve been lighting, sir, and are partly intoxicated! Disgusting! you shall disgrace my school no longer. Stradwick! with Biggington, of course. At all events, I am glad to perceive you are sober—fighting is a vice I never suspected you of. Terry! have all the pains I have taken with you led to no better result than this? but I suppose you chose to copy Norman, even in his faults! And lastly, who is this poor child you have suborned to aid you in your nefarious practices? The younger Colville! your brother should have prevented this!”
Poor Hugh, his worst fears realized, had been crouching close to Terry (the most goodnatured of the party) in an agony of apprehension; but, at this insinuation, all his love for Percy, together with the innate sense of justice which was one of his best traits, rose up within him, and, at any cost, he hastened to repel it.
“Percy knew nothing of it; knows nothing yet,” he said; “I have deceived him; and it will serve me right if you flog me to death, sir, but do not be angry with dear Percy!” and here a burst of tears chocked his utterance.
The Doctor was as much affected as a school-master can be.
“Poor child!” he replied; “do not be alarmed for your brother; if he is, as you state, ignorant of this business, he has nothing to fear. You may all,” he added, raising his voice—“you may all depend upon my acting with the most strict and impartial justice; and now to your dormitories instantly. I shall investigate this affair most scrupulously to-morrow.”
So saying, the Doctor withdrew, courteously but stiffly bowing to Ernest; leaving the man-servant, with the thick stick and the lantern, to see the delinquents safely to bed; where it is but charitable to desire for them a good night; a consolation we can scarcely expect them to obtain, however much we may “wish they may get it.”
It cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to be hanged—however thoroughly you may be aware that you deserve it—however clearly you may perceive that it will be for the good of society, nay, possibly, looking beyond the present moment, for your own good also; yet the stubborn fact must ever remain the same—it cannot be a pleasant thing to be going to be hanged!
Now, although as the law at present stands they do not exactly hang refractory or disobedient schoolboys, yet there is a process analogous thereunto, though milder in degree, termed flogging, to which such juvenile offenders are occasionally subjected; and this process it was which, as Hugh Colville sobbed forth his penitence and remorse on his brother’s neck, loomed large in the distance, and hung over him, and weighed upon him, and crushed him down into a very abject and desponding condition indeed. It was not simply the pain (though that constituted a large and uncomfortable item in his depression) that frightened him, but the publicity, the exposure, the disgrace, were more than he could bear to contemplate;—while Percy, cut to the heart by his brother’s misconduct, yet sympathising with a bitter intensity in his dread of the probable consequences, could only comfort him with feeble hopes of commutation of punishment, which his reason belied.
Poor little Hugh! how deeply did he repent having yielded to the temptation; how bitterly did he reproach himself for having deceived Percy; what vows of amendment did he register, if only he should escape that dreaded flogging; and how pale did he turn, and how sick at heart with apprehension did he feel, when the bell rang for morning school, and he knew that, before it broke up, his fate would be decided!
As the boys assembled in the great schoolroom, it was evident by their eager, excited faces, and by a general amount of subdued whispering, that the news of the escapade of the previous night had transpired, and all eyes were fixed on Norman, Stradwick, and Terry (Biggington did not appear); even Hugh Colville came in for a degree of observation which served still more to embarrass and distress him.
As the clock struck eight, the Doctor, followed by the other masters, entered; and the cloud that hung upon his brow was-without the smallest vestige of a silver lining, and appeared so awful and portentous as to strike terror into the stoutest hearts The moment prayers were ended, the head-master rose and said, in a clear, stern voice—
“Before school commences, I have a painful duty to perform. Regardless of my express prohibition, certain scholars of the sixth form have ventured to break through the regulations of the school—which do not permit any of the boys to be out at night—and have been to the theatre, taking with them one of the younger boys, who, on their return, was put through a window, and made to unbolt the school-room door, in order to admit them, How they employed their time after they quitted the theatre, I have yet to discover; but they did not return till two o’clock in the morning—one of them in a disgraceful state of intoxication. As the whole school is aware of my orders, and the manner in which they have been disobeyed, I consider it salutary that they should also be witnesses of my method of dealing with the culprits, so as at once to vindicate my authority, and to mark my disapprobation of their rebellious and ungentlemanly conduct.”
The Doctor then resumed his seat, and continued—“Let those whose names are mentioned step forward—Biggington!”
There was a moment’s breathless silence, and then, with trembling knees, downcast eyes, and guilty, sheepish manner, Stradwick replied, that “Biggington was too ill to leave his bed.”
“I am not surprised,” was the reply. “Let Norman, Stradwick, Terry, and the younger Colville stand forward.”
With a proud, haughty bearing, Norman advanced, and placed himself immediately in front of the head-master’s desk. Crestfallen and sulky, Stradwick shambled after him. A moment’s delay took place ere Hugh could muster sufficient physical strength to tear himself from his brother’s side: while Percy was near him, he felt some degree of security; but Terry put his arm round him, and whispering, “Cheer up, young’un, flogging’s nothing when you’re used to it, and I dare say the Doctor will let you off easy—never say die!” half led, half carried him to the tribunal of justice.
“You are the eldest, Norman,” observed the Doctor, fixing his stern glance upon him; “and I will therefore deal first with you. Whatever faults you may possess, I have never known you tell me an untruth, and therefore I shall, for the satisfaction of myself and of those around me, ask you one or two questions, which you are at liberty to answer or not, as you may prefer. In the first place, do you admit the truth of the accusation brought against you?”
“Yes, sir,” was the quiet self-possessed reply, in a tone neither disrespectful nor penitent.
“Have you any objection to give me an account of the expedition, especially how you passed the evening after you quitted the theatre?” was the next inquiry.
Norman paused for a moment, in thought, ere he answered, “My only objection, Doctor Donkiestir, would be the possibility, of betraying my companions; but it appears to me that as you saw and recognised us on our return, and are acquainted with the main facts of the case, the little I shall have to add will tend rather to help than to injure them. For private reasons of my own, I proposed to Biggington to go to the theatre last night, and devised a scheme by which we might accomplish our purpose; but the loft window being too small to admit the passage of a man’s body, I bribed little Colville to accompany us by a promise of taking him to the play, which he had missed the other morning, forbidding him to tell his brother lest he should prevent him. We slipped out after five o’clock school, Stradwick and Terry accompanying us; went to the theatre, and supped afterwards at a tavern with some of the actors and actresses; towards the end of the evening, Biggington insulted and struck me; I returned the blow, and we fought; in the last round, a hit I made stunned him, and it was some little time before he recovered sufficiently to walk back; as soon as he was able to do so, we returned—of the rest, you are yourself aware, sir.”
When Norman had left off speaking, Doctor Donkiestir paused for a moment ere he replied.
“Your account completely agrees with all the facts I have been able to acquire in regard to this disgraceful affair. You admit the truth of the accusation brought against you, and by your own statement confess that you were the originator of the scheme; you have also demeaned yourself so far as to quarrel with a youth in a state of partial intoxication, and as it appears to me, availed yourself of his incapable condition to punish him most severely. It has always been a chief object with me, and one in which I have been in many instances most successful, to induce the elder scholars to set a good example to the younger ones; up to the present time, I have been well satisfied with you upon this point; I am the more surprised and disappointed at your late gross misconduct. My duty is clear. No kind of subordination could be kept up in the school if I were not to visit such an offence as that of which you have been guilty, with the most severe punishment it is in my power to inflict—I have, therefore, resolved to expel you and Biggington. You may now resume your seat, and, when school is over, come to my study, where I shall acquaint you with the arrangements I propose to make for your immediate departure. Stradwick, have you anything to say in your defence?”
Stradwick, thus appealed to, remained uneasily shifting from leg to leg, until at last he bleated forth, in a half-crying tone of voice—
“If you please, sir, I went because Biggington went.”
As the abject parasite uttered these words, a furtive smile went the round of the school, but the Doctor’s face relaxed not’ a muscle as he said sternly—
“I have long observed with displeasure the weak and servile manner in which you have imitated the worst points in Big-gington’s character; I, therefore, cannot do better than afford you a practical lesson how, by participating in his vices, you must also share in the punishment they entail. You I shall also expel—sit down. Now, Terry, how came you to be of this party? Heedless and imprudent I have long known you to be, but disobedient I have never before found you.”
For a moment Terry hung his head, and a tear glistened in his clear, blue eye; dashing it away, he raised his face to that of the Doctor, as he replied earnestly—
“It was the fun and excitement of the thing tempted me, sir; and I never thought about how wrong it was, till it was too late for thinking to be of any use. I am most of all sorry to have disobeyed you and forfeited your good opinion, and, if you will but give me a chance of regaining it, I’ll cheerfully bear any punishment you like to inflict.”
The head-master paused ere he answered—
“I will take you at your word; I shall not expel you, but degrade you to the lower school. On every holiday and halfholiday during this half-year, you will remain in, and employ your time in construing and learning by heart six hundred lines of Greek tragedy; and, lastly, you are forbidden to contend for any of the prizes before the holidays. If it were not against my rule to administer corporal punishment to boys in the fifth and sixth forms, you would scarcely have escaped so easily. Resume your place, sir. Now, Hugh Colville, tell me the truth: did the elder boys force you to accompany them, or merely induce you to do so by promising to take you to the play?”
Poor Hugh! all eyes were turned upon him as, hastily swallowing his tears, he replied—
“Biggington promised me a thrashing if I refused to go; but it wasn’t that, sir; it was the play did it, sir: I did so want to see a play.”
For a moment a faint gleam of pity passed over the Doctor’s face, but had vanished ere he resumed—
“I am sorry that I feel it impossible to look over this, your first offence;—you are so young a child that I believed and hoped you had scarcely been in a position to exercise your own free will in this instance; that, in fact, you had been merely a passive instrument in the hands of your elders; but this does not appear to have been the case—you evidently, being aware of my orders to the contrary, were persuaded to share in this expedition in order to witness a play; and you studiously concealed your intentions from your brother, because he, being older and steadier than yourself, might have interfered to prevent you from going, which you well knew that he would disapprove of. I consider this so reprehensible that, in justice, I am bound to punish you for it, and the only punishment likely to make much impression on one of your age and character, and to inspire you with a salutary dread of, and respect for properly constituted authority, is a flogging, which will be administered to you in private, as soon as morning-school breaks up.”
Hugh, who had listened to the Doctor’s address as if life or death hung upon his words, clasped his hands together in an agony of supplication as his worst fears became realised; the head-master, however, who had hurried over the latter part of his speech, as though he had mistrusted in some degree his own resolution, turned hastily away, and began arranging the papers on his desk; and poor Hugh, finding all hope shut out from him, crept back to his brother’s side, and burying his face on Percy’s shoulder, gave way to a burst of passionate but silent weeping.
During the Doctor’s address to Hugh, Norman, who during the whole of his own examination and sentence had appeared perfectly cool, self-possessed, and almost indifferent, began for the first time to evince symptoms of uneasiness:—when the decree for the flogging was promulgated, he unconsciously bit his lip, and clenched and unclenched his hand convulsively; but when Hugh burst into tears, he rose and said in an eager, excited voice—
“I beg your pardon, Doctor Donkiestir, but I believe, in fact I am certain, this poor child was assured that if the affair came to your knowledge, he should be protected from the effects of your displeasure.”
“By those who, for their own selfish purposes, were leading him into evil, I presume?” inquired the Doctor. Norman making no reply, he continued:—“Did you tell this little fellow such an untruth—pledging yourself to that which you knew you were unable to perform?”
“If I did not actually say so, I allowed it to be said in my presence without contradicting it, which amounts to the same thing, sir,” replied Norman, colouring.
“I am glad to see that you have sufficient right feeling left to be ashamed of your heartless and unmanly conduct,” resumed the head-master; “and I can devise you no more fitting punishment, than to show you by practical experience, how powerless you are to counteract the evil consequences of the wrong you have committed. Your appeal only confirms my decision in regard to little Colville.”
Norman had hitherto succeeded beyond his expectations in his cleverly-devised scheme. His object had been to secure two points: first, to wreak his revenge on Biggington, by forcing him into a struggle, for which he had been for some weeks past privately training himself under the auspices of a retired pugilist, who kept a public-house in the neighbourhood; and, secondly, to be expelled for so doing, by which event he should be enabled to join the regiment to which he had been appointed, and upon which all his hopes and wishes were just now centred, four months sooner than he otherwise could have done. Accordingly, till Hugh Colville, for whom he had taken a decided liking, was sentenced to be flogged, Norman had been inwardly congratulating himself on his success; but the fact of being unable to protect this child, to whom he had by implication pledged himself, wounded his pride and self-respect to such a degree, that, as the Doctor had truly observed, no more effective punishment could have been devised for him.
In the meantime Percy had been working himself up into a dreadful state of mind. The reflection that Hugh, his lost father’s darling, who had scarcely had a cross word spoken to him in his lifetime, and even since he had been at school (owing to his own watchfulness, and the rough good-nature of their cousin Wilfred Goldsmith), had never received an angry blow—the reflection that Hugh, his pet, everybody’s pet, was sentenced to be flogged, was more than he could bear with equanimity. What could be done to save him? He glanced inquiringly towards Wilfred, but that knowing young gentleman shook his head despondingly—the case was beyond his skill; determined to risk a last appeal, he half rose from his seat, but the Doctor’s quick glance detected the movement, and he said in a decided, but not an unkind tone of voice—
“Sit down, Percy Colville; I am doing what is best for your brother’s future interests, and my decision is irrevocable. I will not hear another word on this subject from anybody,” he continued angrily, perceiving that Percy still seemed inclined to remonstrate.
Ernest Carrington’s desk was so situated that he could not only see each movement of the two Colvilles, but could actually hear every word they spoke to each other; thus he became aware that, at the moment in which the Doctor addressed Percy, Hugh started, and made a manful effort to subdue his tears.
“Hush, Percy,” he said, in a broken whisper, “hush, dear, he will be angry with you. I daresay I can bear it; it’s only the disgrace I’m thinking of, and that somebody may tell mamma of it, and make her unhappy, perhaps.” And here, despite his efforts, a sob choked his utterance.
Ernest caught the import of the whisper, and at the same moment he became aware of a timid and appealing glance from Percy, which Hugh also observing, a new light broke in upon him; for the first time,—believing equally in Ernest’s will and power to assist him,—a hope of deliverance suggested itself to him; and, with a piteous, expressive little face, in which every passing thought and emotion could be read as in an open book, he also fixed his large tearful eyes imploringly upon Ernest’s countenance.
And Ernest?—in his own private mind, he had all along considered the Doctor injudiciously severe in regard to Hugh—he had duly estimated the strength of the temptation, and the poor child’s weakness—he had also perceived the depth and sincerity of Hugh’s repentance; and now his promise to do his best to befriend the orphan boys, and the recollection of the fact that he had been the involuntary instrument of Hugh’s detection, recurred to him with a force that was irresistible, and springing from his seat, he said—
“Doctor Donkiestir, I fear the petition I am about to urge may be opposed to the etiquette of the school, but I ask, as a personal favour, that Hugh Colville may not be flogged.”
The Doctor’s brow grew dark, but self-restraint in speech had long since become habitual to him.
“I believe,” he said, “I believe I have clearly signified my wish that no further attempt to influence me in Hugh Colville’s favour should be made.”
“I am aware of your prohibition, sir,” returned Ernest, completely carried away by feeling, “but I have pledged myself to befriend these orphan boys, and I will not fly from my word; I therefore again ask as a personal favour that Hugh Colville shall be let off.”
The Doctor’s lips worked convulsively, but by a great exertion of self-control he a second time restrained himself from any outward expression of anger.
“I grant your request, Mr. Carrington,” he said gravely, “your position as second master in this school necessitates my doing so. How far your having urged it proves you to be unfitted for that position, is a question which I have yet to consider. Hugh Colville, you may thank Mr. Carrington for your escape from a well-deserved flogging: I hope the narrowness of this escape may impress you for the future, and that, while under my tuition, you may never again merit so severe and disgraceful a punishment. And now let the sixth form come up to me in mathematics.”
And so the scene ended. Ernest had redeemed his word, and saved Hugh from a flogging, but at what amount of personal sacrifice remained yet to be proved.