The Pillars of the House Part 105

'Down with it, young chap,' called another, 'or ye'll be served with the same sauce!'

'Serve un right too!' was the rejoinder. ''Tis they Underwoods, as never stands up for poor men's rights, and is all for the tyrants.'

(All this full of abusive epithets.)

'Who said that?' broke out Lance, beginning hastily to close his umbrella, and trying to wrench his arm from Mr. Smith; 'I'm ready for him.'

But Mr. Smith, with an angry 'Are you mad?' held him fast; and his struggles provoked a good-humoured laugh at the little champion, still so white and slight.

'No, no,' said a big powerful man, collaring a great lad who had been thrusting forward at Lance's defiance, 'we don't have no mills with natomies like you! Go home and mind yer own business. Your father was another guess sort of parson, and I'll not see a finger laid on you.

Be off, till we've given that other bad lot a bit of our mind.'

'Not I!' growled Lance. 'I'll have it out with that rascal there.-- Nonsense, Mr. Smith; I can, I say--and I will!'

But the big man and Mr. Smith were perfectly in accordance this time; and without a word between them, the impulse of the coal-heaver's weight somehow opened a path, where, shoved by the one, and dragged by the other, Lance was at the corner--then round it--the crowd followed no farther.

'A plucky little chap that!' quoth the coal-heaver to Mr. Smith. 'You may thank your stars that he's his father's son, or it would have been the worse for you! And if ever you show the face of you here again, you know what to expect.'

'I expect nothing but what I am willing to receive in my Master's service,' said Mr. Smith, firmly meeting his eyes. 'Meantime, thank you for the help you have given me with these boys. Good morning. You will judge me more fairly another time.'

The man added another contemptuous oath to those with which he had freely laden his discourse; but Lance paused a moment to say, 'Thank you too, you meant it well; but I wish you'd have let me have it out with that foul-mouthed cad.'

'Wait till ye're a match for him, and welcome,' said the man. 'Bless ye! what could that fist do with Black Bill?'

'For shame, boys! come away,' said the infinitely disgusted Curate, and not a word was spoken down the first street, Bernard was still trembling with excitement, and Lance, conscious perhaps that though his interference had answered his purpose, he had been betrayed into what he now saw to have been absurd.

At last the Curate spoke, his naturally harsh voice wavering a little between reproach and acknowledgment. 'I am very sorry for all this, Lancelot Underwood. I believe you joined me out of a kind and generous feeling, of which I am sensible; otherwise, I should feel it my duty to report to your brother where I met you.'

'You are quite welcome,' said Lance, coolly.

'And I must say,' continued Mr. Smith, 'that if your whole training, as well as your recent severe illness, do not withhold you from such a.s.sociations, at least I entreat you to pause before leading your little brother into them.'

Lance made no answer, except to halt at a public drinking fountain, to wash away the damage his umbrella had sustained; and there, with a serious 'Take care!' the Curate left the brothers.

'Catch me going to his help again!' exclaimed Bernard, entirely unconscious that his own grat.i.tude to Lance was on a par with Mr.

Smith's. 'He may get out of the next row as he can!'

'Ah! Bear! You see how you are corrupting my innocent youth!'

'A meddling donkey! I wish he had a rotten egg in each eye! Now it will all come out.'

'What will?'

'Where we have been.'

'That's the best thing that could happen.'

'You don't mean that you mean to let it out?'

'If you expect me to tell lies for you, you are out there.'

'But, Lance, Lance,' in an agony, 'you wouldn't be such a sneak, when I trusted you?'

Lance laughed. The bare idea of betrayal seemed so absurd, that he scarcely thought it worth removing.

The two were slackening their pace as they saw Felix at the carriage- door of a lady customer; and Lance said gravely, 'I'll see to Mother Goldie; but now, Bear, that you are out of this sc.r.a.pe, I give you fair warning, that if I find you grubbing your nose into that sort of thing again, I'll put a stop to it, one way or another.'

'I'm not a bit worse than the rest. All the other fellows do it.'

'Oh, I suppose, if you think Stingo the right thing in dogs, you think Nares the right thing in fellows!'

At that moment the customer drove off, and Felix having spied the blue sunshade, tarried at the door to administer a remonstrance to Lance on being so foolish as to venture into the noon-day sun. He was not able to come in to dinner till it was half over, and then it was with a merry look and question, 'What's this, boys, about Mowbray Smith being mobbed in Smoke-jack Alley and your making in to the rescue?'

'Oh,' said Lance, 'there was an attempt at getting up a shindy, but it was of the meanest description. No one knew how to set about it.

There was only one Irishman there, and he was a woman.' (This with a wink to Sibby.)

'And you didn't offer to fight big Ben Blake?'

'Ben Blake, on the contrary, elbowed us all safe out, because my father was another guess sort of parson!'

'And there was a horrible little cad making faces,' exclaimed Bernard, unable to resist claiming part of the glory,' and I was just going to have pitched into him--'

'What--you saw the row getting up, and went to stand by Smith?' said Felix.

'Yes,' said Bernard boldly; 'and n.o.body durst lay a finger on him when we were on each side of him!'

At which everybody burst out laughing, including Mr. Froggatt, and Lance most of all. 'Who was it then,' he struggled to say gravely, 'that pulled so hard at the back of my coat? I suppose it must have been some little cad. I thought it had been you.'

'Well, it was time to hold you back, when you were going to fight that great lout!'

'For my part,' said Lance, 'I think it must have been Smith and I that were holding the Great Bear back by his tail from fighting big Ben Blake. Eh?'

Bernard, never able to bear being laughed at, looked intensely sulky, and a true description of the affair being asked by Mr. Froggatt, Lance gave it, exactly enough, but with so much of the comic side that every one was in fits of merriment, all of which, in his present mood, the younger boy imagined to be aimed at him. He was too full of angry self-consequence really to attend, so as to see how entirely disconnected with himself the laughter was; all he cared for was that Lance should not betray him; and to a.s.sure himself on this head, it must be confessed that he hovered on the upper stairs out of sight, while Felix was lingering on the lower to say to Lance, 'Of course it was only Smith's affair that took you into Smoke-jack Alley?'

'Not exactly,' said Lance.

Bernard trembled with resentment and alarm.

'I don't want to ask questions, but you know it is not a nice place for yourself or for Bernard.'

'My dear governor, I know that as well or better than you do, and it won't be my fault if I go there again.'

'Don't let it be anybody's fault,' returned Felix, and vanished through the office door; while Lance, sighing wearily, was heard repairing to his refuge in his own room, and Bernard grimly and moodily swung himself downstairs on his way to afternoon school, believing himself a much aggrieved party. Here was Lance, whom he had believed a fellow-inhabitant of the Alsatia of boyhood turned into one of those natural enemies, moral police, who wanted to do him good! True, Lance had helped him out of his sc.r.a.pe, and guarded his secret; but Bernard could not forgive either his own alarm, or the 'not exactly'; and the terms of confidence so evident between him and Felix seemed to place them in the same hateful category. Worse than all, Lance had laughed at him, and Bernard was far too proud and self-important not to feel every joke like so many nettle-stings. He had expected an easy careless helper; he had found what he could not comprehend, whether boy or man, but at any rate a thing with that intolerable possession, a conscience, and a strong purpose of keeping him out of mischief.

To detect which purpose was to be resolved on thwarting it. Nor, it must be allowed, was Lance's management perfect. He wanted to make himself a companion such as would content the boy instead of the Nareses, but to cross the interval of amus.e.m.e.nt between sixteen and ten required condescension, that could not but be perceived and rejected, nor did he perceive that ridicule was an engine most fatal in dealing with Bernard. Of course nothing like all this pa.s.sed through the boy's mind. Lance simply saw that his little brother was getting into mischief, and tried to play with him to keep him out of it, but was neither well nor happy enough to do so naturally, and therefore did not succeed. Yet if he had abstained from showing Bernard a picture in the style of Punch, of the real animal and no mistake, and Bernard himself pointing to Felix and observing that the governor didn't know what's what, he might have prevailed to prevent the boy from eluding him and going to Mr. Sims' rat-hunt.

Of all this Felix: knew nothing. He still had much lee-way to make up, in consequence of his absence, and the excitement in the town told upon the business.

Mr. Bevan's reply had been a timid endeavour at peace-making which foes called shuffling, and friends could only call weakness, so that it added to the general exasperation. Then came the Archdeacon's investigation, which elucidated the Curate's moral integrity, but showed how money subscribed for charity had gone in the church expenses, that ought to have been otherwise provided for. It was allowed that the Rector had been only to blame in leaving the whole administration to the Curate under his wife's dominion, and as the lady could not be put forward, Mr. Smith was left to bear the whole brunt of the storm.