St. Winifred's Part 42

"Oh; yes; it's always Kenrick, of course," said he angrily. "I'll have nothing to do with your proceedings;" and, rising, from his place, he flung out of the room, not sorry to be absent from a scene which he thought might compromise his popularity with some of those who excepted him from the list of the monitors, whom they professed to consider as their natural enemies.

Harpour and Tracy had thought that when convened before the monitors they would have an opportunity for displaying plenty of insolence and indifference; but when they found themselves standing in the presence of those fifteen upper boys, each one of whom was in all respects their superior, all their courage evaporated. But they were let off very easily. The monitors were content with the complete triumph they had gained that morning, and with the disgrace to which these fellows had been compelled to submit. All that they now required from them was an expression of regret for what they had done, and a promise not to offend in the same way again; and when these had been extorted, they were dismissed by Power with some good advice, and a tolerably stern reprimand. Power did this with an ease and force which moved the admiration of all his brother monitors; no one could have done it as he did it, who was not supported by the authority of a high and stainless character consistently maintained. What he said was not without effect; even the coa.r.s.e burly Harpour dared not look up, but could only fix his eyes on the floor and kick the matting in sullen wrath while this virtuous and n.o.ble boy looked at him and rebuked him; but Tracy was more deeply moved. Tracy, weak, foolish, and feebly fast as he was, had some elements of good and gentlemanly feeling in him, and, with more wisely chosen a.s.sociates, would have developed a much less contemptible character. When Power had done speaking, he looked up and said, without one particle of his usual affectation--

"I really am sorry for helping to get up this affair. I see I've been in the wrong, and I beg pardon sincerely. You may depend on my not having anything more to do with a thing of this kind."

"Thank you, Tracy," said Walter; "that was spoken like a man. We've known each other for some time now, and I wish we could get on more unitedly. You might do some good in the school if you chose."

"Not much, I'm afraid now," said Tracy, "but I'll tr(ai)y."

"Well, then, Tracy, we'll shake hands on that resolve, and bygones shall be bygones," said Henderson. "You'll forgive my making fun of you this morning."

He shook hands with Henderson and with Walter, while Power, holding out his hand, said, smiling, "It's never too late to mend."

"No," said Tracy, looking at one of his boots, which he had a habit of putting out before the other.

"He applied your remark to his boots, Power," said Henderson, laughing.

"Did you observe how the hole in one of them distressed him."

So the monitors separated, not without hopes that things were beginning to look a little brighter than before.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

THE FINAL FRACAS.

Harpour, and all who, like him, had long been endeavouring to undermine the authority which was the only safeguard to the morality of the school, felt themselves distinctly baffled. Mackworth had been put to utter rout by Bliss, and though he was almost bursting with dark spite, would not venture to do much; Jones had become a perfect joke through the whole school, and was constantly having white hen's feathers and goose-feathers enclosed to him in little envelopes until he was half mad with impotent wrath; Harpour himself had been made very decidedly to swallow the leek of public humiliation; and as for Wilton, he began to feel rather small.

Tracy again had openly deserted them. After the interview with Power, Harpour had abused him roundly as a turncoat, and he had told his former a.s.sociates that he was sorry to have had anything to do with their machinations; that they were going all wrong, and were ruining the school, and that he at any rate felt that he had done mischief enough already, and meant to do no more. This proof of their failing influence exasperated them greatly. Harpour threatened, and Mackworth said all the pungent and insulting things he could, contemptuously mimicking all Tracy's dandiacal affectations. Tracy winced under this treatment; high words followed, and after a scene of noisy altercation, Tracy broke with his former "party," and after the quarrel spoke to them no more.

Dr Lane, too, had now recovered from his fever, and returned to the school. When the reins were in his strong hands, the difference was soon perceived. The abuses which had crept in during his absence were quietly and firmly rectified, and all tendencies to insubordination were repressed with a stern and just decision which it was impossible to gainsay or to resist. The whole aspect of things altered, and, lonely as he was among the Noelites, even Charlie Evson began to like Saint Winifred's better, and to feel more at home in its precincts.

Still, those who were rebelliously inclined were determined not to give in at once, and anxiously looked out for some opportunity in which they could have Kenrick on their side. If they could but secure this, they felt tolerably confident of giving the monitors a rebuff, and of carrying with them that numerous body in the school who had been taught under their training to resist authority on every possible occasion.

The opportunity was not long wanting. One fine afternoon a poor old woman had come up to the playground with a basket of trifles, by the sale of which she hoped to support herself during the unexpectedly long absence of a sailor son. Her extreme neatness of person, and her quiet, respectable manners had interested some of the boys in her appearance; and when she came up to sell the little articles, many of which her own industry had made, she generally found ready purchasers. Walter, who knew her well, had visited her cottage, and had often seen the sailor boy on whose earnings she in a great measure depended. This only son had now been away for some time on a distant voyage, and the poor woman, being pressed for the necessaries of life, took her basket once more to the playground of Saint Winifred's. Charlie had often heard about her from Walter, and he gladly made from her a few small purchases, in which the other boys followed his example. While he was doing this, he distinctly saw one of the Noelites--an ill-conditioned fellow in the sh.e.l.l, named Penn--thrust his hand into the old woman's basket, which was now surrounded by a large group of boys, and secrete a small bottle of scent. Charlie waited a moment, expecting to see him pay for it, but Penn, who fancied that he had been un.o.bserved, dropped it quietly into his pocket, and stood looking on with an innocent and indifferent air.

Instantly Charlie's indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly believe his own eyes; he knew that a few of the very worst in the school, and some in his own house in particular, would regard this as a venial offence. They would not call it stealing but "bagging a thing," or, at the worst, "cribbing it"--concealing the villainy under a new name, a name with no very odious a.s.sociations attached to it; just as they called lying "cramming," under which t.i.tle it sounded much less repulsive. In fact, these young Noelites took a most Spartan view of these petty larcenies, confining the criminality to the incurring of detection. But they had never succeeded in making Charlie take this view; he never would adopt the change of language by which they altered the accepted meaning of words in accordance with their own propensities and dispositions, and to him this particular act which Penn committed with perfect nonchalance, appeared to be not only a theft, but a theft accompanied by a cruelty and deadness to all sense of pity, which dipped it in the very blackest and most revolting dye. He could not restrain, and did not attempt to restrain, the pa.s.sionate contempt and horror which he felt for this act.

"Penn," he said, in a loud and excited voice, not doubting that the sympathies of the others would be as warm as his own, "Penn, you wicked brute, you have stolen that bottle of scent. Here, Mrs Hart, _you_ shan't suffer at any rate if there _is_ a fellow so base and wicked,"

and he at once pulled out his last half-crown, and insisted on her taking it in payment for the stolen article.

Penn, for the moment, was quite taken aback by the scathing flame of Charlie's righteous anger. If there had been none but Noelites there he would have made very light of the accusation, and probably have laughed it off; but there were others looking on who would, he knew, view the transaction in a very different light, so he thought that his safest course lay in a flat denial. It was not reasonable to expect that he would stick at this; a boy who has no scruples about "bagging" the property of a poverty-stricken old woman, is not likely to hesitate about telling a "cram" to escape exposure.

"What's all this about, you little fool? I haven't bagged anything."

Charlie was still more amazed; he positively could not understand a great brazen lie like this, and yet it was impossible to doubt that it _was_ a lie, against the evidence of his own senses.

"You didn't take that scent-bottle? oh! how _can_ you tell such a lie?

I saw you with my own eyes."

"What do I care for you or your eyes?" was the only answer which Penn vouchsafed to return.

"You're always flying out at fellows like a young turkey-c.o.c.k, you No-thank-you," said Wilton. "Why don't you thrash him, Penn, for his confounded impudence?"

"Thrash him yourself if you like, Raven; I don't care the snap of a finger for what he says."

"What do you mean, No-thank-you, by charging him with bagging the thing when he says he didn't?" said Wilton in a threatening tone to Charlie; and as Charlie took no notice, he enforced the question by a slap on the cheek; for Wilton had old grudges against Charlie to pay off.

"I didn't speak to _you_, Wilton; but you shan't hit me for nothing; you force me to fight against my will," said Charlie, returning the blow; "you can't say that I'm doing it to get off anything this time, as you did once before."

A long and desperate fight ensued between Charlie and Wilton; too long and too desperate in the opinion of several of the bystanders; but as there was no one near who had any authority, n.o.body liked to interfere.

So, as they were very equally matched, neither of the combatants showed the least sign of giving in, though their faces and clothes were smeared with blood. At last Henderson and Whalley, who were strolling through the playground, caught sight of the crowd, and came up to see what was the matter.

"It's a fight," said Henderson; "young Evson and Belial junior; I'd much rather see them fight than see them friends."

"Yes, Flip; but they've evidently been fighting quite long enough to be good for them. You're a monitor--couldn't you see if they ought not to be separated, and shake hands?"

"Hallo, stop, you two," said Henderson, pushing his way into the crowd.

"What's all this about? let's see that it's all right."

"It's a fair fight," said several; "you've no right to stop it."

"I won't stop it unless there's good reason, though I think it's gone on long enough. What began it?"

"No-thank-you charged Penn with--"

"Who is No-thank-you?" asked Whalley.

"Young Evson, then," said Mackworth sulkily, "charged Penn with bagging a scent-bottle from the old woman's basket, and then he was impudent, so Wilton was going to pitch into him."

"And couldn't manage it, apparently," said Whalley; "come, you two, shake hands now."

Charlie, after a moment's hesitation, frankly held out his hand; but Wilton said, "He'd no right to accuse a Noelite falsely as he did."

"It wasn't falsely," said Charlie; "I saw him take it, and a horrid shame it was."

"Is one of your bottles missing, Mrs Hart?" asked Whalley.

"Yes, sir; but now young Master Evson has paid for it, and I don't want no more fighting about it, sir, please."

"Well, my good woman, there's something for you," said Henderson, giving her a shilling; "and I hope n.o.body will treat you so badly again; you'd better go now. And now, Penn, if you didn't take the bottle, of course you won't mind being searched?"

"Of course I _shall_," said Penn, edging uneasily away to try if possible to get rid of the unlucky bottle, which now felt as if it burned his pocket.

"Stay, my friend," said Whalley, collaring him; "no shuffling away, if you please."

"What the devil is your right to search me?" said Penn, struggling in vain under Whalley's grasp; "don't you fellows let him search me."

The attention of all was now fairly diverted from the fight, which, therefore, remained undecided; while the boys, especially the Noelites, formed an angry group round Henderson and Whalley, to prevent them, if possible, from any attempt to search Penn. Meanwhile, seeing that something was going on, other boys came flocking up until a large number of the school were a.s.sembled there, while Whalley still kept tight hold of Penn, and Henderson watched that he should play no tricks; the Noelites meantime exclaiming very loudly against the supposed infringement of their abstract rights.