Rattlin the Reefer Part 5

The boys began to be delighted. The following conditions were drawn up; and a lad, with a white handkerchief tied to a sky-rocket stick, was hoisted over the benches into the besieging quarters. The paper, after reciting (as is usual with all rebels in arms against their lawful sovereign) their unshaken loyalty, firm obedience, and unqualified devotion, went on thus--but we shall, to save time, put to each proposition the answer returned:--

1. The young gentlemen shall be permitted, as in times past, to discharge their fireworks round what remains of the bonfire, between the hours of nine and eleven o'clock.

_Ans_. Granted, with this limitation, that all young gentlemen under the age of nine shall surrender their fireworks to the elder boys, and stand to see the display without the fence.

2. That any damage or injury caused by the said display to Mr Root's premises, fences, etcetera, shall be made good by a subscription of the school.

_Ans_. Granted.

3. It being now nearly eight o'clock, the young gentlemen shall have their usual suppers.

_Ans_. Granted.

4. That a general amnesty shall be proclaimed, and that no person or persons shall suffer in any manner whatever for the part that he or they may have taken in this thoughtless resistance.

_Ans_. Granted, with the exception of Masters Atkinson, Brewster, Davenant, and Rattlin.

Upon the last article issue was joined, the flag of truce still flying during the debate. The very pith of the thing was the act of amnesty and oblivion. Yet so eager were now the majority of the boys for their amus.e.m.e.nt, that had it not been for the n.o.ble firmness of Saint Albans, the leaders, with poor Pilgarlick, would have been certainly sacrificed to their l.u.s.t of pleasure. But the affair was soon brought to a crisis.

All this acting the military pleased me most mightily, and, the better to enjoy it, I crouched under one of the desks that formed the barricade and, with my head and shoulders thrust into the enemy's quarters, sat grinning forth my satisfaction.

The last clause was still canva.s.sing, when, unheard-of treachery! Mr Root, seeing his victim so near, seized me by the ears, and attempted to lug me away captive. My schoolfellows attempted to draw me back. Saint Albans protested--even some of the masters said "Shame!" when Mr Root, finding he could not succeed, gave me a most swinging slap of the face, as a parting benediction, and relinquished his grasp. No sooner did I fairly find myself on the right side of the barricade, than, all my terrors overcome by pain, I seized an inkstand and discharged it point blank at the fleecy curls of the ferulafer with an unlucky fatality of aim! Mr Root's armorial bearings were now, at least, on his crest, _blanche_ chequered _noir_.

"On, my lads, on!" exclaimed the gallant Saint Albans; the barricades were scaled in an instant, and we were at fisticuffs with our foes.

Rulers flew obliquely, perpendicularly, and horizontally--inkstands made ink-spouts in the air, with their dark gyrations--books, that the authors had done their best to fasten on their shelves peacefully for ever, for once became lively, and made an impression. I must do Mr Root the justice to say, that he bore him gallantly in the _melee_. His white and black head popped hither and thither, and the smack of his whip resounded horribly among the shins of his foes.

Old Reynolds, not, even in battle, being able to resist the inveteracy of habit, had the contents of his large snuff-mull forced into his eyes, ere twenty strokes were struck. He ran roaring and prophecying, like blind Tiresias, among both parties, and, as a prophet, we respected him.

The French master being very obese, was soon borne down, and there he lay sprawling and calling upon glory and _la belle France_, whilst both sides pa.s.sed over him by turns, giving him only an occasional kick when they found him in their way. It is said of Mr Simpson, the mathematical master,--but I will not vouch for the truth of the account for it seems too Homeric,--that being hard pressed, he seized and lifted up the celestial globe, wherewith to beat down his opponents; but being a very absent man, and the ruling pa.s.sion being always dreadfully strong upon him, he began, instead of striking down his adversaries, to solve a problem upon it, but, before he had found the value of a single tangent, the orb was beaten to pieces about his skull, and he then saw more stars in his eyes than ever twinkled in the Milky Way. In less than two minutes, Mr Root to his crest added _gules_--his nose spouted blood, his eyes were blackened, and those beautiful teeth, of which he was so proud, were alarmingly loosened.

For myself I did not do much--I could not--I could not for very rapture.

I danced and shouted in all the madness of exhilaration. I tasted then, for the first time, the fierce and delirious poison of contention.

Had the battle-cry been "A Rattlin!" instead of "A Saint Albans!" I could not have been more elated. The joy of battle to the young heart is like water to the sands of the desert--which cannot be satiated.

In much less than three minutes the position under the gallery was carried. Root and the masters made good their retreat through the door, and barricaded it strongly on the outside--so that if we could boast of having barred him out, he could boast equally of having barred us in.

We made three prisoners, Mr Reynolds, Mr Moineau, and a lanky, sneaking, turnip-complexioned under-usher, who used to write execrable verses to the sickly housemaid, and borrow half-crowns of the simple wench, wherewith to buy pomatum to plaster his thin, lank hair. He was a known sneak, and a suspected tell-tale. The b.o.o.by fell a-crying in a dark corner, and we took him with his handkerchief to his eyes. Out of the respect that we bore our French and Latin masters, we gave them their liberty, the door being set ajar for that purpose; but we reserved the usher, that, like the American Indians, we might make sport with him.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

AN AFFECTING APPEAL THAT EFFECTS NOTHING--THE REBELS COMMENCE THEIR REJOICINGS--THEY ARE SUDDENLY DAMPED--THE FIREMEN DEFEAT THE FIRE-BOYS BY MEANS OF WATER--THE VICTORS ARE VANQUISHED, WHO SHORTLY FIND THEMSELVES COVERED WITH DISGRACE AND THE BED-CLOTHES.

When we informed the captive usher that he was destined for the high honour of being our Guy Faux, and that he should be the centre of our fireworks, promising him to burn him as little as we could help, and as could reasonably be expected, his terror was extreme, and he begged, like one in the agonies of death, that we would rather b.u.mp him. We granted his request, for we determined to be magnanimous, and he really bore it like a stoic.

Scarcely had we finished with the usher, than Mrs Root, "like Niobe, all in tears," appeared; with outstretched arms, in the gallery. Her outstretched arms, her pathetic appeals, her sugared promises, had no avail: the simple lady wanted us to go to bed, and Mr Root, to use her own expression, should let us all off to-morrow. We were determined to stay up, and let all our fireworks off to-night. But we granted to her intercession, that all the little boys should be given up to her.

It now became a very difficult thing to ascertain who was a little boy.

Many a diminutive urchin of eight, with a stout soul, declared that he was a big fellow, and several lanky lads, with sops of bread for hearts, called themselves little boys. There was, as I said before, no communication from the schoolroom with the orchestra; we were, therefore, obliged to pile the desks as a platform, and hand up the chicken-hearted to take protection under the wing of the old hen.

Our captive usher respectfully begged to observe that though he could not say that he was exactly a little boy, yet if it pleased us, he would much rather go to bed, as he had lately taken physic. The plea was granted, but not the platform. That was withdrawn, and he was forced to climb up one of the pillars; and, as we were charitably inclined, we lent him all the impetus we could by sundry, appliances of switches and rulers, in order to excite a rapid circulation in those parts that would most expedite his up ward propulsion, upon the same principles that cause us to fire one extremity of a gun, in order to propel the ball from the other. He having been gathered with the rest round Mrs Root, she actually made us a curtsey in the midst of her tears, and smiled as she curtseyed, bidding us all a good-night, to be good boys, to do no mischief, and, above all, to take care of the fire. Then, having obtained from us a promise that we would neither injure the organ, nor attempt to get into the orchestra, she again curtseyed, and left us masters of the field.

Now the debate was frequent and full. We had rebelled, and won the field of rebellion in order to be enabled to discharge our fireworks.

The thought of descending, by means of the windows, was soon abandoned.

We should have been taken in the detail, even if we escaped breaking our bones. We were compelled to use the school-room for the sparkling display, and, all under the directions of Saint Albans, we began to prepare accordingly. Would that I had been the hero of that night!

Though I did not perform the deeds, I felt all the glow of one; and, unexpected honour! I was actually addressed by Henry Saint Albans himself as "honest Ralph Rattlin, the brave boy who slept in the haunted room." There was a distinction for you! Of course, I cannot tell how an old gentleman, rising sixty-five, feels when his sovereign places the blue riband over his stooping shoulders, but if he enjoys half the rapture I then did, he must be a very, very happy old man.

_Revenons a nos moutons_--which phrase I use on account of its originality, and its applicability to fireworks. Nails were driven into the walls, and Catherine-wheels fixed on them; Roman candles placed upon the tables instead of mutton-dips, and the upper parts of the school windows let down for the free egress of our flights of sky-rockets. The first volley of the last-mentioned beautiful firework went through the windows, amidst our huzzas, at an angle of about sixty-five degrees, and did their duty n.o.bly; when--when--of course, the reader will think that the room was on fire. Alas! it was quite the reverse. A n.o.ble Catherine-wheel had just begun to fizz, in all the glories of its many-coloured fires, when, horror, dismay, confusion! half a dozen firemen, with their hateful badges upon their arms, made their appearance in the orchestra, and the long leathern tube being adjusted, the brazen spout began playing upon us and the Catherine-wheel, amidst the laughter of the men, in which even we partic.i.p.ated, whilst we heard the clank, clank, clank, of the infernal machine working in the play-ground. Mr Root was not simple enough to permit his house to be burned down with impunity; and, since he found he could do no better, he resolved to throw cold water upon our proceedings.

The school-room door was now thrown open, to permit us to go out if we pleased, but we chose to remain where we were, for the simple reason, that we did not know whom we might meet on the stairs. We had agreed, under the directions of Saint Albans, to let off our fireworks with some order; but now, instead of playthings for amus.e.m.e.nt, they were turned into engines of offence. Showers of squibs, crackers, and every species of combustible were hurled at our opponents above us. It was the struggle of fire with water: but that cold and powerful stream played continuously; wherever it met us it took away our breath, and forced us to the ground, yet we bore up gallantly, and the rockets that we directed into the orchestra very often drove our enemies back, and would have severely injured the organ, had they not covered it with blankets.

We advanced our desks near the gallery, to use them as scaling-ladders to storm; but it would not do, they were not sufficiently high, and the stream dashed the strongest of us back. However, we plied our fiery missiles as long as they lasted; but the water never failed--its antagonist element did too soon. Whilst it lasted, considering there was no slaughter, it was a very glorious onslaught.

In one short half-hour we were reduced. Drowned, burnt, blackened-- looking very foolish, and fearing very considerably, we now approached the door: it was still open--no attempt to capture anyone--no opposition was offered to us; but the worst of it was, we were obliged to sneak through files of deriding neighbours and servants, and we each crept to bed, like a dog that had stolen a pudding, anything but satisfied with our exploits, or the termination of them.

Saint Albans would not forgive himself. He heaped immeasurable shame upon his own head, because he had not secured the orchestra. He declared he had no military genius. He would bind himself an apprentice to a country carpenter, and make pigsties--he would turn usher, and the boys should b.u.mp him for an a.s.s--he would run away. He did the latter.

Leaving the firemen to see all safe, Mr Root to deplore his defaced school-room and his destroyed property, Mrs Root to prepare for an immensity of cases of cold, and burnt faces and hands,--I shall here conclude the history of the famous barring out of the fifth of November, of the year of grace, 18---. If it had not all the pleasures of a real siege and battle except actual slaughter, I don't know what pleasure is; and the reader by-and-by will find out that I had afterwards opportunities enough of judging upon this sort of kingly pastimes, in which the cutting of throats was not omitted.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

IS FULL OF MORAL AND RELIGIOUS DISQUISITIONS, THEREFORE IT BEHOVETH THE GENERAL READER TO LOOK AT AND Pa.s.s IT BY WITH THAT INATTENTION THAT READERS GENERALLY HAVE FOR MORALITY AND RELIGION.

When the boys came downstairs, there was as comfortless a scene displayed before them as the most retributive justice could have wished to visit on the rebellious. The morning raw and cold, the floor saturated with water, and covered with cases of exploded fireworks; the school-room in horrible confusion, scarcely a pane of gla.s.s unshattered--the walls blackened, the books torn--and then the masters and ushers stole in, looking both suspicious and discomfited. Well, we went to prayers, and very lugubriously did we sing the hymn:--

"Awake, my soul, and with the sun, Thy daily course of duty run."

Now, that morning, no one could tell whether the sun had waked or not, at least he kept his bed-curtains of fog closely drawn; and, about twenty-five of the scholars gave a new reading to "thy daily course of duty run," as, immediately after they had paid their doleful orisons, they took the course of running their duty by running away. There were no cla.s.ses that day. Mr Root did not make his appearance--and we had a constrained holiday.

On the 7th, to use a nautical expression, we had repaired damages, and we began to fall into the usual routine of scholastic business: but it was full a week before our master made his appearance in the school-room, and he did so then with a green shade over his eyes, to conceal the green shades under them. He came in at the usual hour of noon--the black list was handed up to him--and I expected, in the usual order of things, an a.s.siduous flogging. But in this world we are the martyrs of disappointment. The awful man folded up the paper very melancholily, and thrust it into his waistcoat pocket, and thus saved me the expense of some very excellent magnanimity, which I had determined to display, had he proceeded to flagellation. It was my intention very intrepidly to have told him, that if he punished me I also would run away. On the veracity of a schoolboy, I was disappointed at not receiving my three or four dozen.

I had now fairly commenced my enthusiastic epoch. I was somebody. I still slept in the haunted room. I had struck the first blow in the barring out--Saint Albans had openly commended me for my bravery--I could no longer despise myself, and the natural consequence was that others dared not. I formed friendships, evanescent certainly, but very sweet and very sincere. Several of the young gentlemen promised to prevail upon their parents to invite me to their homes during the approaching holidays; but either their memories were weak, or their fathers obdurate.

Well, the winter holidays came at last, and I was left sole inhabitant of that vast and lonely school-room, with one fire for my solace, and one tenpenny dip for my enlightenment. How awful and supernatural seemed every pa.s.sing sound that beat upon my anxious ears! Everything round me seemed magnified--the ma.s.sive shadows were as the wombs teeming with unearthly phantoms--the whistle of the wintry blasts against the windows, voiced the half-unseen beings that my fears acknowledged in the deep darknesses of the vast chamber. And then that lonely orchestra,-- often did I think that I heard low music from the organ, as if touched by ghostly fingers--how gladly I would have sunk down from my solitude to the vulgarity of the servant's hall--but that was now carefully interdicted. The consequences of all this seclusion to a highly imaginative and totally unregulated mind, must have been much worse than putting me to sleep in the haunted room, for in that I had my counter-spell--and long use had almost endeared me to it and its grotesque carvings--but this dismally large school-room, generally so instinct with life, so superabounding in animation, was painfully fearful, even from the contrast. Twenty times in the evening, when the cold blast came creeping along the floor and wound round my ankles, did I imagine it was the chill hand of some corpse, thrust up from beneath, that was seizing me in order to drag me downwards--and a hundred times, as the long flame from the candle flared up tremulously, and shook the deep shadows that encompa.s.sed me around, did I fancy that there were very hideous faces indeed mouthing at me amidst the gloom--and my own gigantic shadow--it was a vast horror of itself personified! It was a cruel thing, even in Mr Root, to leave me alone so many hours in that stupendous gloom; but his wife--fie upon her!

Considering how my imagination had been before worked upon, even from my earliest childhood, and the great nervous excitability of my temperament, it is a wonder that my mind did not reel, if not succ.u.mb-- but I now began to combat the approaches of one sort of insanity with the actual presence of another--I _wrote verses_. That was "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb," as Sterne would have expressed it, after the prettiest fashion imaginable.

Had I not the reader so completely at my mercy--did I not think him or her not only the gentlest but also the most deserving of all the progeny of j.a.phet--did I not think that it would be the very acme of ingrat.i.tude to impose upon him or her, I would certainly transcribe a centaine, or so, of these juvenile poems. It is true, they are very bad--but, then, that is a proof that they are undeniably genuine. I really have, in some things, a greatness of soul. I will refrain--but in order that these effusions may not be lost to the world, I offer them to the annuals for 1839; not so much for the sake of pecuniary compensation, but in order to improve the reading of some of that very unreadable cla.s.s of books.

Well, during these dismal holidays, I wrote verses and began to take, or to make, my madness methodical. The boys came back, and having left me a very Bobadil, they found me a juvenile Bavius.

I now began to approach my thirteenth year, and, what with my rhyming and my fistical prowess,--my character for bravery and the peculiarity of my situation, as it regarded its mystery--I became that absurd thing that the French call "_une tete montee_." Root had ceased to flog me.

I could discover that he even began to fear me--and just in proportion as he seemed to avoid all occasion to punish me, I became towards him mild, observant, and respectful. The consequence was, that, as I was no longer frightened out of my wits at church, from very weariness, and for the sake of variety, I began to attend to the sermons. What a lesson ought not this to be to instructors! One Sunday I returned from church in a state of almost spiritual intoxication. The rector was a pale, attenuated man, with a hollow, yet flashing eye--a man who seemed to have done with everything in this world, excepting to urge on his brethren to that better one, to which himself was fast hastening; and, on this memorable day, that I fancied myself a convert, he had been descanting on the life of the young Samuel. Of course he, very appropriately, often turned to the juvenile part of his congregation; and as I was seated in the front row, I felt as if I were alone in the church--as if every word were individually addressed to myself; his imploring yet impa.s.sioned glances seemed to irradiate my breast with a sweet glory. I felt at once, that since the goodness of the Creator was inexhaustible, the fault must rest with man if there were no more Samuels, so I determined to be one--to devote myself entirely to divine abstraction, to heavenly glory, and to incessant worship--and, stupendous as the a.s.sertion may seem, for six weeks I did so. This resolution became a pa.s.sion--a madness. I was as one walking in a sweet trance--I revelled in secret bliss, as if I had found a glorious and inexhaustible treasure. I spoke to none of my new state of mind-- absorbed as I was, I yet dreaded ridicule--but I wrote hymns, I composed sermons. If I found my attention moving from heavenly matters, I grew angry with myself, and I renovated my flagging attention with inward e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. I had all the madness of the anchorite upon me in the midst of youthful society, yet without his asceticism, and certainly without his vanity.

My studies, of course, were nearly totally neglected, under this complete alienation of spirit, and Mr Root, lenient as he had lately become towards me, began to flog again; and--shall I be believed when I say it?--I have been examining my memory most severely, and I am sure it has delivered up its record faithfully; but yet I hardly dare give it to the world--but, despite of ridicule, I find myself compelled to say, that these floggings I scarcely felt. I looked upon them as something received for the sake of an inscrutable and unfathomable love, and I courted them--they were pleasurable. I now can well understand the enthusiasm and the raptures of that ridiculous cla.s.s of exploded visionaries, called flagellants. I certainly was in a state of complete oblivion to everything but a dreamy fanaticism, and yet that term is too harsh, and it would be impiety to call it holiness, seeing that it was in a state of inutility,--and yet, many well-meaning persons will think, no doubt, that my infant and almost sinless hand had hold of a blessed link of that chain of ineffable love, which terminates in the breast of that awful Being, who sits at the right-hand of the throne of the Eternal. I give, myself, no opinion. I only state facts. But I cannot help hazarding a conjecture of what I might have been, had I then possessed a friend in any one of my instructors, who could have pointed out to me what were the precincts of true piety, what those of incipient insanity. At that time I had the courage to achieve anything. Let the cold-hearted and the old say what they will, youth is the time for moral bravery. The withered and the aged mistake their failing forces for calmness and resignation, and an apathy, the drear antic.i.p.ator of death, for presence of mind.

However, this state of exalted feeling had a very ludicrous termination.

I ceased fighting, I was humble, seeking whom I might serve, reproving no one, but striving hard to love all, giving, a.s.sisting, and actually panting for an opportunity of receiving a slap on one side of the face, that I might offer the other for the same infliction. The reader may be sure that I had the Bible almost constantly before me, when not employed in what I conceived some more active office of what I thought sanctification. But though the spirit may be strong, at times, the body will be weak. I believe I dozed for a few minutes over the sacred book, when a wag stole it away, and subst.i.tuted for it the "renowned and veracious History of the Seven Champions of Christendom." There was the frontispiece, the gallant Saint George, in gold and green armour, thrusting his spear into the throat of the dragon, in green and gold scales. What a temptation! I ogled the book coyly at first. I asked for my Bible. "Read that, Ralph," said the purloiner; oh! recreant that I was, I read it.