The Crofton Boys Part 9

"Why, you know--to be sure you know that is a nick-name?" said Dale.

"Is it? I never thought of that," replied Hugh. "What is his real name?"

"Samuel Jones. However, there is Colin Frazer--and Fry, his name is Augustus Adolphus; I will play them off the next time they quiz Amelia.

How old is your sister Agnes?"

Then the two boys wandered off among the furze bushes, talking about their homes; and in a little while they had so opened their hearts to each other, that they felt as if they had always been friends. n.o.body thought any more about them when once the whole school was dispersed over the heath. Some boys made for a hazel copse, some way beyond the heath, in hopes of finding a few nuts already ripe. Others had boats to float on the pond. A large number played leap-frog, and some ran races.

Mr Carnaby threw himself down on a soft couch of wild thyme, on a rising ground, and took out his book. So Dale and Hugh felt themselves un.o.bserved, and they chatted away at a great rate. Not but that an interruption or two did occur. They fell in with a flock of geese, and Hugh did not much like their appearance, never having heard a goose make a noise before. He had eaten roast goose, and he had seen geese in the feathers at the poulterers'; but he had never seen them alive, and stretching their necks at pa.s.sengers. He flinched at the first moment.

Dale, who never imagined that a boy who was not afraid of his schoolfellows could be afraid of geese, luckily mistook the movement, and said, "Ay, get a switch,--a bunch of furze will do, and we will be rid of the noisy things."

He drove them away, and Hugh had now learned, for ever, how much noise geese can make, and how little they are to be feared.

They soon came upon some creatures which were larger and stronger, and with which Hugh was no better acquainted. Some cows were grazing, or had been grazing, till a party of boys came up. They were now restless, moving uneasily about, so that Dale himself hesitated for a moment which way to go. Lamb was near,--the pa.s.sionate boy, who was n.o.body's friend, and who was therefore seldom at play with others. He was also something of a coward, as any one might know from his frequent bullying. He and Holt happened to be together at this time; and it was their appearance of fright at the restless cows which frightened Hugh. One cow at last began to trot towards them at a pretty good rate. Lamb ran off to the right, and the two little boys after him, though Dale pulled at Hugh's hand to make him stand still, as Dale chose to do himself. He pulled in vain--Hugh burst away, and off went the three boys, over the hillocks and through the furze, the cow trotting at some distance behind. They did not pause till Lamb had led them off the heath into a deep lane, different from the one by which they had come. The cow stopped at a patch of green gra.s.s, just at the entrance of the hollow way; and the runners therefore could take breath.

"Now we are here," said Lamb, "I will show you a nice place,--a place where we can get something nice. How thirsty I am!"

"And so am I," declared Holt, smacking his dry tongue. Hugh's mouth was very dry too, between the run and the fright.

"Well, then, come along with me, and I will show you," said Lamb.

Hugh thought they ought not to go farther from the heath: but Lamb said they would get back by another way,--through a gate belonging to a friend of his. They could not get back the way they came, because the cow was there still. He walked briskly on till they came to a cottage, over whose door swung a sign; and on the sign was a painting of a bottle and a gla.s.s, and a heap of things which were probably meant for cakes, as there were cakes in the window. Here Lamb turned in, and the woman seemed to know him well. She smiled, and closed the door behind the three boys, and asked them to sit down: but Lamb said there was no time for that to-day,--she must be quick. He then told the boys that they would have some ginger-beer.

"But may we?" asked the little boys.

"To be sure; who is to prevent us? You shall see how you like ginger-beer when you are thirsty."

The woman declared that it was the most wholesome thing in the world; and if the young gentleman did not find it so, she would never ask him to taste her ginger-beer again. Hugh thanked them both; but he did not feel quite comfortable. He looked at Holt, to find out what he thought: but Holt was quite engrossed with watching the woman untwisting the wire of the first bottle. The cork did not fly; indeed there was some difficulty in getting it out: so Lamb waived his right, as the eldest, to drink first; and the little boys were so long in settling which should have it, that the little spirit there was had all gone off before Hugh began to drink; and he did not find ginger-beer such particularly good stuff as Lamb had said. He would have liked a drink of water better. The next bottle was very brisk: so Lamb seized upon it; and the froth hung round his mouth when he had done: but Holt was no better off with his than Hugh had been. They were both urged to try their luck again. Hugh would not: but Holt did once; and Lamb, two or three times.

Then the woman offered them some cakes upon a plate: and the little boys thanked her, and took each one. Lamb put some in his pocket, and advised the others to do the same, as they had no time to spare. He kept some room in his pocket, however, for some plums; and told the boys that they might carry theirs in their handkerchiefs, or in their caps, if they would take care to have finished before they came within sight of the usher. He then asked the woman to let them out upon the heath through her garden gate; and she said she certainly would when they had paid. She then stood drumming with her fingers upon the table, and looking through the window, as if waiting.

"Come, Proctor, you have half-a-crown," said Lamb. "Out with it!"

"My half-crown!" exclaimed Proctor. "You did not say I had anything to pay."

"As if you did not know that, without my telling you! You don't think people give away their good things, I suppose! Come,--where's your half-crown? My money is all at home."

Holt had nothing with him either. Lamb asked the woman what there was to pay. She seemed to count and consider; and Holt told Hugh afterwards that he saw Lamb wink at her. She then said that the younger gentlemen had had the most plums and cakes. The charge was a shilling a piece for them, and sixpence for Master Lamb:--half-a-crown exactly. Hugh protested he never meant anything like this, and that he wanted part of his half-crown to buy a comb with; and he would have emptied out the cakes and fruit he had left; but the woman stopped him, saying that she never took back what she had sold. Lamb hurried him, too, declaring that their time was up; and he even thrust his finger and thumb into Hugh's inner pocket, and took out the half-crown, which he gave to the woman. He was sure that Hugh could wait for his comb till Holt paid him, and the woman said she did not see that any more combing was wanted: the young gentleman's hair looked so pretty as it was. She then showed them through the garden, and gave them each a marigold full-blown. She unlocked her gate, pushed them through, locked it behind them, and left them to hide their purchases as well as they could. Though the little boys stuffed their pockets till the ripest plums burst, and wetted the linings, they could not dispose of them all; and they were obliged to give away a good many.

Hugh went in search of his new friend, and drew him aside from the rest to relate his trouble. Dale wondered he had not found out Lamb before this, enough to refuse to follow his lead. Lamb would never pay a penny. He always spent the little money he had upon good things, the first day or two; and then he got what he could out of any one who was silly enough to trust him.

"But," said Hugh, "the only thing we had to do with each other before was by my being kind to him."

"That makes no difference," said Dale.

"But what a bad boy he must be! To be sure, he will pay me, when he knows how much I want a comb."

"He will tell you to buy it out of your five shillings. You let him know you had five shillings in Mrs Watson's hands."

"Yes; but he knows how I mean to spend that,--for presents to carry home at Christmas. But I'll never tell him anything again. Oh! Dale! Do you really think he will never pay me?"

"He never pays anybody; that is all I know. Come,--forget it all, as fast as you can. Let us go and see if we can get any nuts."

Hugh did not at all succeed in his endeavours to forget his adventure.

The more he thought about it, the worse it seemed; and the next time he spoke to Holt, and told him to remember that he owed him a shilling, Holt said he did not know that,--he did not mean to spend a shilling; and it was clear that it was only his fear of Hugh's speaking to Mrs Watson or the usher, that prevented his saying outright that he should not pay it. Hugh felt very hot, and bit his lip to make his voice steady when he told Dale, on the way home, that he did not believe he should ever see any part of his half-crown again. Dale thought so too; but he advised him to do nothing more than keep the two debtors up to the remembrance of their debt. If he told so powerful a person as Firth, it would be almost as much tale-telling as if he went to the master at once; and Hugh himself had no inclination to expose his folly to Phil, who was already quite sufficiently ashamed of his inexperience.

So poor Hugh threw the last of his plums to some cottager's children on the green, in his way home; and, when he set foot within bounds again, he heartily wished that this Sat.u.r.day afternoon had been rainy too; for any disappointment would have been better than this sc.r.a.pe.

While learning his lessons for Monday, he forgot the whole matter; and then he grew merry over the great Sat.u.r.day night's washing; but after he was in bed, it flashed upon him that he should meet uncle and aunt Shaw in church to-morrow, and they would speak to Phil and him after church; and his uncle might ask after the half-crown. He determined not to expose his companions, at any rate: but his uncle would be displeased; and this thought was so sad that Hugh cried himself to sleep. His uncle and aunt were at church the next morning; and Hugh could not forget the ginger-beer, or help watching his uncle: so that, though he tried several times to attend to the sermon; he knew nothing about it when it was done. His uncle observed in the churchyard that they must have had a fine ramble the day before; but did not say anything about pocket-money. Neither did he name a day for his nephews to visit him, though he said they must come before the days grew much shorter. So Hugh thought he had got off very well thus far. In the afternoon, however, Mrs Watson, who invited him and Holt into her parlour, to look over the pictures in her great Bible, was rather surprised to find how little Hugh could tell her of the sermon, considering how much he had remembered the Sunday before. She had certainly thought that to-day's sermon had been the simpler, and the more interesting to young people, of the two. Her conversation with Hugh did him good, however. It reminded him of his mother's words, and of her expectations from him; and it made him resolve to bear, not only his loss, but any blame which might come upon him silently, and without betraying anybody. He had already determined, fifty times within the twenty-four hours, never to be so weakly led again, when his own mind was doubtful, as he had felt it all the time from leaving the heath to getting back to it again. He began to reckon on the Christmas holidays, when he should have five weeks at home, free from the evils of both places,--from lessons with Miss Harold, and from Crofton sc.r.a.pes.

It is probable that the whole affair would have pa.s.sed over quietly, and the woman in the lane might have made large profits by other inexperienced boys, and Mr Carnaby might have gone on being careless as to where the boys went out of his sight on Sat.u.r.days, but that Tom Holt ate too many plums on the present occasion. On Sunday morning he was not well; and was so ill by the evening, and all Monday, that he had to be regularly nursed; and when he left his bed, he was taken to Mrs Watson's parlour,--the comfortable, quiet place where invalid boys enjoyed themselves. Poor Holt was in very low spirits; and Mrs Watson was so kind that he could not help telling her that he owed a shilling, and he did not know how he should ever pay it; and that Hugh Proctor, who had been his friend till now, seemed on a sudden much more fond of Dale; and this made it harder to be in debt to him.

The wet, smeared lining of the pockets had told Mrs Watson already that there had been some improper indulgence in good things; and when she heard what part Lamb had played towards the little boys, she thought it right to tell Mr Tooke. Mr Tooke said nothing till Holt was in the school again, which was on Thursday; and not then till the little boys had said their lessons, at past eleven o'clock. They were drawing on their slates, and Lamb was still mumbling over his book, without getting on, when the master's awful voice was heard, calling up before him Lamb, little Proctor, and Holt. All three started, and turned red; so that the school concluded them guilty before it was known what they were charged with. Dale knew,--and he alone; and very sorry he was, for the intimacy between Hugh and him had grown very close indeed since Sat.u.r.day.

The master was considerate towards the younger boys. He made Lamb tell the whole. Even when the cowardly lad "bellowed" (as his school-fellows called his usual mode of crying) so that nothing else could be heard, Mr Tooke waited, rather than question the other two. When the whole story was extracted, in all its shamefulness, from Lamb's own lips, the master expressed his disgust. He said nothing about the money part of it--about how Hugh was to be paid. He probably thought it best for the boys to take the consequences of their folly in losing their money. He handed the little boys over to Mr Carnaby to be caned--"To make them remember," as he said; though they themselves were pretty sure they should never forget. Lamb was kept to be punished by the master himself. Though Lamb knew he should be severely flogged, and though he was the most cowardly boy in the school, he did not suffer so much as Hugh did in the prospect of being caned--being punished at all. Phil, who knew his brother's face well, saw, as he pa.s.sed down the room, how miserable he was--too miserable to cry; and Phil pulled him by the sleeve, and whispered that being caned was nothing to mind--only a stroke or two across the shoulders. Hugh shook his head, as much as to say, "It is not that."

No--it was not the pain. It was the being punished in open school, and when he did not feel that he deserved it. How should he know where Lamb was taking him? How should he know that the ginger-beer was to be paid for, and that he was to pay? He felt himself injured enough already: and now to be punished in addition! He would have died on the spot for liberty to tell Mr Tooke and everybody what he thought of the way he was treated. He had felt his mother hard sometimes; but what had she ever done to him compared with this? It was well he thought of his mother. At the first moment, the picture of home in his mind nearly made him cry--the thing of all others he most wished to avoid while so many eyes were on him; but the remembrance of what his mother expected of him--her look when she told him _he must not fail_, gave him courage.

Hard as it was to be, as he believed, unjustly punished, it was better than having done anything very wrong--anything that he really could not have told his mother.

Mr Carnaby foresaw that a rebuke was in store for him for his negligence during the walk on Sat.u.r.day; and this antic.i.p.ation did not sweeten his mood. He kept the little boys waiting, though Holt was trembling very much, and still weak from his illness. It occurred to the usher that another person might be made uncomfortable; and he immediately acted on the idea. He had observed how fond of one another Dale and Hugh had become; and he thought he would plague Dale a little.

He therefore summoned him, and desired him to go, and bring him a switch, to cane these boys with.

"I have broken my cane; so bring me a stout switch," said he. "Bring me one out of the orchard; one that will lay on well--one that will not break with a good hard stroke;--mind what I say--one that will not break."

"Yes, sir," replied Dale, readily; and he went as if he was not at all unwilling. Holt shivered. Hugh never moved.

It was long, very long, before Dale returned. When he did, he brought a remarkably stout broomstick.

"This won't break, I think, sir," said he.

The boys giggled. Mr Carnaby knuckled Dale's head as he asked him if he called that a switch.

"Bring me a _switch_" said he. "One that is not too stout, or else it will not sting. It must sting, remember,--sting well. Not too stout, remember."

"Yes, sir," said Dale; and away he went again.

He was now gone yet longer; and by the time he returned everybody's eyes were fixed on the door, to see what sort of a switch would next appear.

Dale entered, bringing a straw.

"I think this will not be too stout, sir."

Everybody laughed but Hugh--even Holt.

There was that sneer about Mr Carnaby's nose which made everybody sorry now for Dale: but everybody started, Mr Carnaby and all, at Mr Tooke's voice, close at hand. How much he had seen and heard, there was no knowing; but it was enough to make him look extremely stern.

"Are these boys not caned yet, Mr Carnaby?"

"No, sir:--I have not--I--"

"Have they been standing here all this while?"

"Yes, sir. I have no cane, sir. I have been sending--"