Parkhurst Boys Part 20

"What do you mean by telling lies, you young cub?"

"I only said I took it," whimpered I, nursing my sore arm, "because you made me."

"Then you mean to say you didn't, do you?" cried the bully, with another grab at my hand.

What would have become of me I don't know, had not a sixth-form fellow come by at that moment, at the sight of whom Master Bangs let go my arm, smiled benevolently on me and cringingly on him, and then slunk away to his den, never to find me again within reach of his ten fingers if I could help it.

It would be hard to say what object Bob had in this conduct. He certainly had not much to gain. Sometimes, indeed, he succeeded in compelling his victims to empty their pockets to him, and hand over the little treasures in the way of eatables, penknives, or india-rubber to which he might take a fancy, but this was comparatively rare. Nor was his bullying actuated by the lofty motive of administering wholesome discipline on his young schoolfellows. In fact, so far from doing them good, he made sneaks and cowards of a good many of them, and, as happened in my case, led them to tell falsehoods in order to escape his clutches.

I should be sorry to think that Bob Bangs was influenced by sheer spite and cruelty of heart, or by a wanton delight in witnessing and contributing to the suffering of others; yet so one was often forced to believe. It is bad enough when one fellow stands by and, without lifting a finger to help, lets another suffer; but when, instead of that, he actually makes himself the instrument of torture, he is nothing short of a brute.

Perhaps, however, it would hardly be fair to say that Bob was quite so bad as this. We are bound to give the worst characters their due; and without attempting to excuse or justify a single blow the Bully ever struck, we must bear in mind this one thing.

There is a certain cla.s.s of people to whom power becomes a ruling pa.s.sion. Somebody must be made to feel, and somebody must be brought to acknowledge it. These people are generally those who have the greatest possible aversion to enduring oppression in their own persons, or who have themselves in their time been roughly handled. They love to see others quail before them, as they themselves would be ready to quail before those they hold in awe; and it is no small set-off against their own terrors to feel themselves in turn objects of terror to others.

People of this sort are of course generally cowards and toadies, and in bullying they find the fullest gratification of their craving for power.

Bob may sometimes feel a pa.s.sing pity for the poor little wretch he is tormenting; but until that poor little wretch consents to knuckle under, to apologise, to obey, to accuse himself, in the manner Bob selects, he must not be spared.

Boys who want to understand what real bullying is, should call to mind that parable about the servant who, having quailed and cringed and implored before his lord until he was forgiven his huge debt, forthwith pounced on a poor fellow-servant who happened to owe him a few shillings, and, deaf to the very entreaties which he himself had but a minute before used, haled him off to gaol till the last farthing should be paid.

He was bad enough; but the wolf in Aesop's fable was still worse. The poor lamb there owed nothing; it only chanced to be drinking of the same stream.

"What do you mean by polluting my water?" growls the wolf.

"I am drinking lower down than you," replies the innocent, "and so that cannot be."

"Never mind, you called me names a year ago."

"Please, sir, a year ago I wasn't born."

"Well, then, it was your father, and it's all the same thing; and, what's more, you need not think I'm going to be done out of my breakfast by your talk--so here goes!" And we all know what became of the poor lamb. A gentleman cannot be a bully, and a bully cannot be a gentleman.

By gentleman I mean not the vulgar use of the word. The rich sn.o.b who keeps his carriages, and counts his income with five or six figures, and considers that sufficient t.i.tle to the name, may be, and often is, a bully. His servants may lead the lives of dogs, his tradesmen dread the sound of his voice, and his dependants shake in their shoes before him.

But a gentleman--a man (or boy) of honour, kindliness, modesty, and sense--could no more be a bully than black could be white.

Bullying is essentially vulgar, and stamps the person who indulges in it as ill-conditioned and stupid. He tries to pa.s.s off his lack of brains with bl.u.s.ter, and to make up by tyranny for the contempt which his ill- bred manners would naturally secure for him. But he deceives n.o.body but himself. The youngsters tremble before him; but they despise him; in a year or two they will laugh at him, and after that--thrash him.

Yes; I am sorry to counsel that physic for anybody, but really it is the only one which can possibly cure the bully. The time must come when the little boy will find himself grown up and possessed of a muscle, and then the bully will find, to his astonishment, that he has tried his art once too often.

So it was with Bob Bangs. He found himself on his back one day with a small army of youngsters executing a war dance round him. He got roughly used, poor fellow, and at last changed his tune from threats to whines, and eventually, with the aid of a few parting kicks, was permitted to depart in peace. And he never tried on bullying with us again, except indeed when he was fortunate enough to get hold of one of us singly in a lonely comer. And even then he generally heard of it afterwards.

But, boys, mind this. There's nothing more likely than that in your struggle for independence you will, if victorious, be tempted to become bullies yourselves. In your anxiety to "pay out" your old enemy, you may forget that you are yourselves falling into the very transgression for which you have chastised him. That would be sad indeed. A boy that can bear malice, and refuse quarter to a fallen foe, is very little different from a bully himself.

Rather be careful to show yourselves Christians and gentlemen, even in the way you rid yourselves of bullies. It is one thing, in self- defence, to right yourself, and it is another to return evil for evil.

The best revenge you can have is, instead of dancing on his prostrate body, to set him an example of forbearance and self-control in your own conduct, which shall point him out a surer road to respect and authority than all the bullying in the world could ever give him.

CHAPTER NINETEEN.

WILLIAM THE ATHELING; OR, THE WRECK OF THE "WHITE SHIP."

The eager crowd thronged the little Norman seaport of Barfleur. Knights in armour, gay ladies and merry children mingled in the narrow streets which led down to the bustling harbour, in which lay at anchor a gay fleet of ships, decked with pennons and all the marks of festivity and rejoicing. One man's name was on every lip, and in expectation of that man's arrival this brave company lined the seash.o.r.e and its approaches.

Presently was heard a distant trumpet note, and then a clatter of many horses.

"He comes!" shouted the crowd. "Long live our Duke Henry!" And at the shout there appeared the royal troop, with King Henry of England at its head, followed by his sons and daughter and n.o.bles, amid the plaudits of the loyal crowd.

"All bids fair," said the king to one who was near him, as he rode slowly towards the harbour; "the sea is calm and the wind is propitious; an emblem of the happy peace we have concluded with France, and the prosperous years that he before us."

"Long live Henry of England!" shouted the crowd again. With that the troop reached the sunny harbour.

Here ensued all the bustle and confusion of an embarkation. Baggage and horses and armour were transferred speedily from the sh.o.r.e to shipboard.

Henry himself inspected the vessel which was to convey him and his household across the sea, while the loyal Norman crowd pressed round, eager to bid their liege good speed on his voyage.

The afternoon was advancing, and the order had already been given to embark, when, through the crowd which thronged King Henry, there struggled forward a man dressed in sailor guise, who advanced and fell on one knee before his sovereign.

"My liege," said he, "a boon for me!"

"Who art thou?" inquired the king.

"My lord duke, Stephen, my father, served thy father, William of Normandy, all his life. He it was who steered the vessel which carried the duke to the conquest of England. Permit me, my lord, a like honour.

See where my `White Ship' waits to receive her captain's n.o.ble sovereign."

Henry looked in the direction pointed, and saw the gallant vessel, gleaming like silver with its white p.o.o.p and oars and sails in the sun; surely as fair a ship as ever crossed the sea.

"Brave son of a brave father," replied the king, "but that my word has been given, and my baggage is already embarked on another's vessel, thy request should not have been in vain. But, to show that I hold thy father's son worthy of his name, see, I entrust to thee my son William, heir to my throne, in all confidence that thou wilt conduct him safely over. Let him go with thee, while I myself do set sail in the vessel I had chosen."

Fitz-Stephen bowed low, and the young Prince William, a lad of eighteen years, stepped forward gaily towards him, and cried--

"Come, comrade! thou shalt find a king's son as good company as his father. In token of which, bid thy brave men feast at my charge with as much to eat and drink as they have a fancy to. Then, when that is done, we will start on our merry voyage."

Almost immediately afterwards King Henry embarked, leaving the Prince William, and two other of his children, Richard and Adela, to follow that same night in the "White Ship."

"Farewell, my father!" shouted the young prince, as the oars of the king's vessel struck the water; "perchance I shall be on the farther side before thee!"

So the king started.

It was late before the merrymakers on board the "White Ship" set their faces seaward. The prince himself had honoured the feast, and bidden every man to fill his cup and drink deep and long. So when about midnight they addressed themselves to the voyage, the rowers splashed wildly with their oars, and the crew pulled at the ropes with unsteady hands.

Far across the calm waters might have been heard the song and the laughter of the two hundred voyagers. In a few hours, thought they, we shall be across, and then will we renew our feast in England.

"Fitz-Stephen!" cried the prince, flushed with wine himself, and in a tone of excitement--"Fitz-Stephen, how far say you is my father's ship before ours?"

"Five leagues," replied the sailor, "or more."

"Then may we not overtake him before the night is past? You know this coast; can we not steer closer in, and so gain on them?"

"My lord," said Fitz-Stephen, "there are many sunken rocks on this coast, which the mariner always avoids by keeping out to sea."

"Talk not to me of rocks on a night when the sea is calm and the wind so gentle it scarce fills the sails, and the moon so clear we can see a mile before us! What say you, my men? Shall we overtake the king?