Burr Junior Part 25

"I don't mind my face swelling a bit now," said Mercer.

"I should like to begin learning to-morrow," I said, and then we were both silent for a few minutes, till Mercer turned round with a queer laugh on his swollen face.

"I say," he cried, with a chuckle, "I wonder whether old d.i.c.ksee will cry c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo next time when we've done."

"Let's wait and see," said I; and that night I dreamed that I was a wind-mill, and that every time my sails, which were just the same as arms, went round, they came down bang on d.i.c.ksee's head, and made him yell.

I woke up after that dream, to find it was broad daylight, and crept out of bed to look at my face in the gla.s.s, and shrank away aghast, for my lip was more swollen, and there was a nasty dark look under my eye.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

I stood gazing into the little looking-gla.s.s with my spirits sinking down and down in that dreary way in which they will drop with a boy who wakes up in the morning with some trouble resting upon his shoulders like so much lead.

I was more stiff and sore, too, at first waking, and all this combined to make me feel so miserable, that I began to think about home and my mother, and what would be the consequences if I were to dress quickly, slip out, and go back.

She would be so glad to see me again, I thought, that she would not be cross; and when I told her how miserable I was at the school, she would pity me, and it would be all right again.

I was so elated by the prospect, and--young impostor that I was--so glad of the excuse which the marks upon my face would form to a doting mother, that I began to dress quickly, and had got as far as I could without beginning to splash in the water and rattle the little white jug and basin, when the great obstacle to my evasion came before me with crushing power, and I sat on my bed gazing blankly before me.

For a terrible question had come for an answer, and it was this:

"What will uncle say?"

And as I sat on the edge of my bed, his handsome, clearly-cut face, with the closely-cropped white hair and great grey moustache, was there before me, looking at me with a contemptuous sneer, which seemed to say, "You miserable, despicable young coward! Is this the way you fulfil your promise of trying to be a man, worthy of your poor father, who was a brave soldier and a gentleman? Out upon you for a miserable young sneak!"

That all came up wonderfully real before me, and I felt the skin of my forehead wrinkle up and tighten other parts of my face, while I groaned to myself, as if apologising to my uncle,--

"But I can't stop here, I am so miserable, and I shall be horribly punished for what I could not help. The boys say the Doctor is very severe, sometimes."

There was my uncle's stern face still, just as I had conjured it up, and he was frowning.

He will be horribly angry with me, I thought, and it would make poor mamma so unhappy, and--

"I can't go, and I won't go," I said, half aloud. "I don't care if the Doctor cuts me to pieces; and I won't tell how I got the marks, for, if I do, all the boys will think I am a sneak."

"Fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup--fill the tea-cup! High up--high up--high up! Fine morning--fine morning--fine morning!"

The notes of a thrush, sounding exactly like that, with the help of a little imagination; and I rose, went to the window, gazed out, and there was the sun, looking like a great globe of orange, lighting up the mists in the hollows, and making everything look so glorious, that I began to feel a little better.

Turning round to look at my schoolfellows asleep in their little narrow beds, all in exceedingly ungraceful att.i.tudes, and looking towzley and queer, I saw that, as I held the blind on one side, the sunlight shone full on Mercer, and I hurt myself directly by bursting out into a silent fit of laughter, which drew my bruised face into pain-producing puckers.

But it was impossible to help it, all the same, for Mercer's phiz looked so comic.

The swelling about his eyes had gone down, and there were only very faint marks beneath them, but his mouth was twisted all on one side, and his nose looked nearly twice as big as usual.

He's worse than I am, I thought, as I stood gazing at him, and this brought up our visit to the lodge the previous evening, and a grim feeling of satisfaction began to make me glow, as I dwelt upon Mercer's plans, and in imagination I saw myself about to be possessed of a powerful talisman, which would enable me to retaliate on my enemies, and be always one who could protect the weak from the oppressor. And as I stood thinking all this, I turned again to look out of the window, where the lovely landscape of the Suss.e.x weald lay stretched out before me, and listened to the birds bursting forth into their full morning song, as the sun literally cut up the mists, which rose and dispersed just as the last of the mental mists were rising fast from about me. There was the glorious country, with all its attractions for a town boy, and close by me lay Mercer, who seemed to me quite a profound sage in his knowledge of all around, and I felt that, after all, I had got too much budding manliness in me to give up like a coward, who would run away at the first trouble he had to meet.

I was a natural boy once again, and, going back to Mercer's bedside, I began to think that there was no fun in seeing him sleeping away there while I was wide awake; so, stealing softly to his little wash-stand, I took the towel, dipped one corner carefully in the jug, and then, with a big drop ready to fall, I held it close to his nose, squeezed it a little, and the drop fell.

The effect was instantaneous.

Mercer gave a spring which made his bed creak, and sat up staring at me.

"What are you doing?" he said. "Why can't you be quiet? Has the bell rung?"

"I don't know," I said. "I haven't heard it."

"Why--why, it's ever so early yet, and you're half dressed. Oh, how my nose burns! I say, is it swelled?"

"Horribly!" I said.

He leaped out of bed, ran to the gla.s.s, stared in, and looked round again at me.

"Oh my!" he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed, as he gazed at me wildly; "there's no getting out of this. Bathing won't take a nose like that down. It ought to have on a big linseed meal poultice."

"But you couldn't breathe with a thing like that on."

"Oh yes, you could," he said, with the voice of authority. "You get two big swan quills, and cut them, and put one up each nostril, and then put on your plaster. That's how my father does."

"But you couldn't go about like that."

"No, you lie in bed on your back, and whistle every time you breathe."

I laughed.

"Ah, it's all very fine to laugh, but we shall be had up to the Doctor's desk this morning, and he'll want to know about the fighting."

"Well, we must tell him, I suppose," I said. "They began on us."

"No," said Mercer, shaking his head, and looking as depressed as I did when I woke; "that wouldn't do here. The fellows never tell on each other, and we should be sent to Coventry. It's precious hard to be licked, and then punished after, when you couldn't help it, isn't it?"

"Yes," I said. "Then you won't tell about Burr major and d.i.c.ksee."

"Oh no. Never do. We shall have to take it and grin and bear it, whether it's the cane or impositions. Worst of it is, it'll mean ever so much keeping in. I wouldn't care if it had been a month or two ago."

"What difference would that have made?"

"Why, it was all wet weather then. Now it's so fine, I want for us to go and collect things, and I'm not going to be beaten over that stuffing. Next time I shall look at a live bird ever so long before I try to stuff one, and then you'll see. We'll be on the watch next time, so that old Eely shan't catch us, and--ha, ha, ha! Oh my! oh my! oh my!" he cried, sitting down on the edge of his bed, rocking himself to and fro, and kicking up his bare feet and working his toes about in the air.

"What are you laughing about?" I said, feeling glad to see that he too was getting rid of the depression.

"Wait a bit," he whispered. "Won't we astonish them! Oh, my nose, how it does hurt!" he added, covering the swollen organ with his hand, and speaking in a snuffling tone. "I shall aim straight at old Eely's snub all the time, so as to make it twice as big as mine is. He will be so mad, for he's as proud of himself as a peac.o.c.k, and thinks he's handsome. What do you think he does?"

"I don't know," I said.

"Puts scent on his handkerchief every morning--musk. Oh, he is a dandy!

But wait a bit! Seventeen shillings! Isn't it a lot for two pairs of gloves? And, I say!"