Burr Junior Part 56

"No, I shan't," said a harsh voice, which we knew at once as Magglin's.

"I bought it o' porpos for you, and you've got to wear it."

"Then I shan't, and if you come talking to me again like that, I shall tell father."

"No, you won't."

"Indeed and I shall, and the sooner you go the better. He isn't far off."

"Yes, he is," said Magglin, "and won't be back for hours."

"How do you know?"

"Because I watched him."

"Yes, that's what you poaching chaps always do, watch the keeper till he's out of the way," said Polly sharply.

"Don't call me a poacher, Polly."

"Yes, I shall; and that's what you are."

"Come away," I whispered; "don't let's stop listening."

"We can't help it, without going all the way back."

"Poachers always make the best keepers, Polly, and I'm going to be a keeper now, and marry you."

"Are you, indeed?" said the girl indignantly. "That you just aren't, and if you ever dare to call me Polly again, I'll throw a bucket o'

water over you."

"Not you," said Magglin. "I say, do have it. It's real gold."

"I don't care if it's real silver!" cried Polly. "I've got brooches of my own, thank you, and I'll trouble you to go."

"'Tarn't good enough for you, I suppose. Well, I'll bring you something better."

_Bang_.

The cottage door was closed violently. Then we heard footsteps, which ceased after a minute, and we went on out toward the lane.

"Make haste!" I said; "it must be getting late."

"Ah," said Mercer, "if I'd got a watch like old Eely's, we could tell the time."

"And as you haven't, we must guess it," I said. "Look!"

Mercer turned at my words, for he was looking back to see if Polly Hopley was visible at the cottage door, the news we had heard of her father being away robbing us of any desire to call.

There, about fifty yards away, with his back to us, was Magglin, rubbing something on his sleeve. Then he breathed upon it, and gave it another rub, before holding it up in the sunshine, and we could see that it was bright and yellow, possibly a brooch.

The next minute the poacher had leaped into the wood and pa.s.sed among the trees.

"Oh, what a game!" said Mercer, as we walked away. "If Bob Hopley knows, he'll lick old Magglin with a ramrod. There, come on."

We reached the school in good time, only two or three of the boys being about, and spent the next half-hour turning over Mercer's melancholy-looking specimens of the taxidermist's art, one of the most wretched being a half finished rabbit, all skin and tow.

"Well, I would burn that," I said. "It does look a brute."

"Burn it? I should think not," he cried indignantly. "It looks queer, because it isn't finished. I'm going to make a natural history scene of that in a gla.s.s case. That's to be a rabbit just caught by a weasel, and I shall have the weasel holding on by the back of its neck, and the rabbit squealing."

"Where's your weasel?"

"Oh, I shall get Magglin or Bob Hopley to shoot me one some day. Wish I'd got a gun of my own!"

"You're always wishing for guns and watches, or something else you haven't got," I said, laughing.

"Well, that's quite natural, isn't it?" cried Mercer good-humouredly.

"I always feel like that, and it does seem a shame that old Eely should have tail coats and white waistcoats and watches, and I shouldn't. But, I say, Frank, he can't fight, can he?"

"No," I said, "but don't talk about it. I hate thinking of it now."

"I don't," said Mercer. "I shall always think about it when I come up here, and feel as I did then, punching poor old d.i.c.ksee's big fat head.

I say, won't it do him good and make him civil? Look here," he continued, making a bound and pointing to a knot on the rough floor boards, "that's the exact spot where his head came down whop."

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

We boys used to think the days at old Browne's very long and tedious, and often enough feel a mortal hatred of Euclid as a tyrant who had invented geometry for the sake of driving boys mad. What distaste, too, we had for all the old Romans who had bequeathed their language to us; just as if English wasn't ten times better, Mercer used to say.

"Bother their old declensions and conjugations!" he would cry. "What's the good of them all? I call it a stupid language to have no proper prepositions and articles and the rest of it: tucking i's, a's, and e's at the end of words instead."

But what days they were after all--days that never more return! The Doctor was pretty stern at times, and gave us little rest. Mr Rebble seemed to be always lying in wait to puzzle us with questions, and Mr Hasnip appeared to think that we never had enough to learn; while the German and French masters, who came over twice a week from Hastings, both seemed to have been born with the idea that there was nothing of the slightest consequence in the way of our studies but the tongues they taught. And oh, the scoldings we received for what they called our neglect and stupidity!

"_Ach, dumkopf_!" the German master would cry wrathfully; while the French master had a way of s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g up his eyes, wrinkling his face, and grinding his teeth at our p.r.o.nunciation.

I'm afraid we hated them all, in complete ignorance of the other side of the case, and the constant unwearying application they gave to a set of reckless young rascals, who construed Latin with their lips and the game that was to be played that afternoon with their brains.

I confess it. I must have been very stupid in some things, sharp as I was in others, and I have often thought since that Mr Rebble's irritability was due to the constant trouble we gave him; that Mr Hasnip was at heart a thorough gentleman; and as for "Old Browne," as we called him, he was a ripe scholar and a genuine loveable old Englishman, with the health and welfare of his boys thoroughly at heart.

We thought nothing of it. A boy's nature does not grasp all these things. To us it was a matter of course that, if we were ill, Mrs Doctor should have us shut up in another part of the house, and, with her two daughters, risk infection, and nurse us back to health. I could not see then, but I can now, what patient devotion was given to us. Of course I could not see it, for I was a happy, thoughtless boy, living my golden days, when to breathe and move was a genuine pleasure, and the clouds and troubles that shut off a bit of life's sunshine only made the light the brighter when it came again!

Ah! it's a grand thing to be a boy, with all your life before you, and if any young sceptic who reads these words, and does not skip them because he thinks they are prosy preaching, doubts what I say, let him wait. It is the simple truth, and I am satisfied, for I know that he will alter his tune later on.

In spite, then, of the many troubles I had to go through, with the weariness of much of the learning, it was a delightful life I led, and though a little dumpy at leaving home after the holidays, I had forgotten my low spirits long before I got back to the Doctor's, and was looking forward longingly to seeing old faces, wondering what the new ones would be like, and eager to renew my friendly relations with Tom Mercer, Lomax, Bob Hopley, and Cook, and to give them the little presents I was taking back.

These were mere trifles, but they went a long way with the recipients.

Tom Mercer declared that the blade of the knife I gave him was the best bit of steel he ever saw. It wasn't: for, unless the edge was constantly renewed, there never was such a knife to cut.

Lomax's gift was more satisfactory, for my uncle got it for me with a grim smile, as he thought, I know, of his old soldiering days. It was a quarter of a pound of very choice Virginia tobacco, and it delighted the old sergeant so, that I thought he would have hugged me. I don't know how long that lasted, but I am sure he h.o.a.rded some of it up for nearly a year, and he would call my attention to its "glorious scent," as he called it, though to me it was very nasty indeed.