Parkhurst Boys, and Other Stories of School Life

Talbot Baines Reed

"Parkhurst Boys"

Chapter One.

My First Football Match.

It was a proud moment in my existence when Wright, captain of our football club, came up to me in school one Friday and said, “Adams, your name is down to play in the match against Craven to-morrow.”

I could have knighted him on the spot. To be one of the picked “fifteen,” whose glory it was to fight the battles of their school in the Great Close, had been the leading ambition of my life—I suppose I ought to be ashamed to confess it—ever since, as a little chap of ten, I entered Parkhurst six years ago. Not a winter Saturday but had seen me either looking on at some big match, or oftener still scrimmaging about with a score or so of other juniors in a scratch game. But for a long time, do what I would, I always seemed as far as ever from the coveted goal, and was half despairing of ever rising to win my “first fifteen cap.” Latterly, however, I had noticed Wright and a few others of our best players more than once lounging about in the Little Close, where we juniors used to play, evidently taking observations with an eye to business. Under the awful gaze of these heroes, need I say I exerted myself as I had never done before? What cared I for hacks or bruises, so only that I could distinguish myself in their eyes? And never was music sweeter than the occasional “Bravo, young ’un!” with which some of them would applaud any special feat of skill or daring.

So I knew my time was coming at last, and only hoped it would arrive before the day of the Craven match, the great match of our season—always looked forward to as the event of the Christmas term, when victory was regarded by us boys as the summit of all human glory, and defeat as an overwhelming disgrace.

It will therefore be understood why I was almost beside myself with delight when, the very day before the match, Wright made the announcement I have referred to.

I scarcely slept a wink that night for dreaming of the wonderful exploits which were to signalise my first appearance in the Great Close—how I was to run the ball from one end of the field to the other, overturning, dodging, and distancing every one of the enemy, finishing up with a brilliant and mighty kick over the goal. After which I was to have my broken limbs set by a doctor on the spot, to receive a perfect ovation from friend and foe, to be chaired round the field, to be the “lion” at the supper afterwards, and finally to have a whole column of the Times devoted to my exploits! What glorious creatures we are in our dreams!

Well, the eventful day dawned at last. It was a holiday at Parkhurst, and as fine a day as any one could wish.

As I made my appearance, wearing the blue-and-red jersey of a “first fifteen man” under my jacket, I found myself quite an object of veneration among the juniors who had lately been my compeers, and I accepted their homage with a vast amount of condescension. Nothing was talked of during the forenoon but the coming match. Would the Craven fellows turn up a strong team? Would that fellow Slider, who made the tremendous run last year, play for them again this? Would Wright select the chapel end or the other, if we won the choice? How were we off behind the scrimmage?

“Is Adams to be trusted?” I heard one voice ask.

Two or three small boys promptly replied, “Yes”; but the seniors said nothing, except Wright, who took the opportunity of giving me a little good advice in private.

“Look here, Adams; you are to play half-back, you know. All you’ve got to take care of is to keep cool, and never let your eyes go off the ball. You know all the rest.”

A lecture half an hour long could not have made more impression. I remembered those two hints, “Keep cool, and watch the ball,” as long as I played football, and I would advise every half-back to take them to heart in like manner.

At noon the Craven team came down in an omnibus, and had lunch in hall with us, and half an hour later found us all in a straggling procession, making for the scene of conflict in the Great Close. There stood the goals and the boundary-posts, and there was Granger, the ground-keeper, with a brand-new lemon-shaped ball under his arm.

“Look sharp and peel!” cried our captain.

So we hurried to the tent, and promptly divested ourselves of our outer garments, turned up the sleeves of our jerseys, and tied an extra knot in our bootlaces. As we emerged, the Craven men were making their appearance on the ground in battle array. I felt so nervous myself that I could not, for the life of me, imagine how some of them could look so unconcerned, whistling, and actually playing leapfrog to keep themselves warm!

An officer in the Crimean War once described his sensation in some of the battles there as precisely similar to those he had experienced when a boy on the football field at Rugby. I can appreciate the comparison, for one. Certainly never soldier went into action with a more solemn do-or-die feeling than that with which I took my place on the field that afternoon.

“They’ve won the choice of sides,” said somebody, “and are going to play with the wind.”

“Take your places, Parkhurst!” shouted our captain.

The ball lies in the centre of the ground, and Wright stands ten yards or so behind it, ready for the kick-off. Of our fifteen the ten forwards are extended in a line with the ball across the field, ready to charge after it the moment it goes flying. The two best runners of our team are stationed quarter-back, where they can skirmish on the outskirts of the scrimmage. I am posted a little in rear of them at half-back—an unusual post for so young a player, but one which was accorded to me by virtue of my light weight and not inconsiderable running powers. Behind me are the two backs, on whom, when all else fails, the issue of the conflict depends. The Craven players are similarly disposed, and waiting impatiently for our captain’s kick.

“Are you ready?” he shouts.

Silence gives consent.

He gives a quick glance round at us, then springs forward, and in an instant the ball is soaring high in the direction of the Cravens’ goal amid the shouts of onlooking friend and foe.

Our forwards were after it like lightning, but not before a Craven back had got hold of it and run some distance in the direction of our goal. He did not wait to be attacked, but by a clever drop-kick, a knack peculiar to all good backs, sent it spinning right over the forwards’ heads into the hands of one of our quarter-backs. He, tucking it under his arm and crushing his cap on to his head, started to run. Going slowly at first, he steered straight for the forwards of the enemy till within a pace or two of them, when he doubled suddenly, and amid the shouts of our partisans slipped past them and was seen heading straight for the Craven goal. But although he had escaped their forwards, he had yet their rearguard to escape, which was far harder work, for was not one of that rearguard the celebrated Slider himself, who by his prowess had last year carried defeat to our school; and the other, was it not the stalwart Naylor, who only a month ago had played gloriously for his county against Gravelshire?

Yet our man was not to be daunted by the prestige of these distinguished adversaries, but held on his way pluckily, and without a swerve. It was a sight to see those two cunningly lay wait for him, like two spiders for a fly. There was nothing for it but to plunge headlong into their web in a desperate effort to break through. Alas! brave man! Naylor has him in his clutches, the Craven forwards come like a deluge on the spot, our forwards pour over the Craven, and in an instant our hero and the ball have vanished from sight under a heap of writhing humanity.

“Down!” cries a half-choked voice, from the bottom of the heap. It was rather an unnecessary observation, as it happens, but it served as a signal to both parties to rise to their feet and prepare for a “scrimmage.”

Now, if truth must be told, our school always had the reputation of being second to none in “going through a scrimmage,” so while the players are scrambling to their feet, and waiting for the ball to be “grounded,” I will explain what our method of doing the thing was.

It was nothing more nor less than a carrying out of the principle of the wedge. The ball formed the apex; the fellows got up close to it, so as never to let it out of reach of their four feet. Behind these two came three with locked arms, and behind the three, four. The men in the middle pushed straight ahead, and those at the sides inwards towards the ball, while the two or three remaining forwards lent their weight to one side or other of the base, according as the exigencies of the scrimmage demanded. Thus our wedge, embodying a concentrated pressure in the direction of the ball, the farther it advanced the farther it scattered asunder the foe, who fell off from its gradually widening sides without hope of getting again within reach of the ball except by retreating to the rear and beginning the struggle over afresh. When this manoeuvre was well executed, it was almost certain to carry the ball through the scrimmage, and when that happened, then was the time for us half and quarter-backs to look out for our chance.

Our men went at it with their customary vigour and address, and presently the ball emerged on the far side of the scrimmage. In an instant it was caught up by one of the Craven quarter-backs, and in an instant our men were upon him again before he could get a start for a run. Scrimmage after scrimmage ensued, the ball was constantly in Chancery, but each crush brought us a yard or so nearer the enemy’s goal than we had been before.

All this time I was little better than a spectator, for the ball never once came within reach of my fingers, and I was beginning to think that, after all, a big match was not so exciting a thing as one is apt to imagine.

At last, however, after one scrimmage more desperate than any that had gone before, the ball flew out suddenly, and bounded off one of the Craven men into my grasp. Now was my chance. “If only I could—”

The next thing I was conscious of was that about twenty people had fallen to the ground all of a heap, and that I and the ball were at the bottom.

“Down!” I cried.

“Pack up there, Parkhurst!” sang out Wright.

I extricated myself as quickly as I could, and got back to my place in the rear, thinking to myself, after all, there was some little excitement in football.

At last the ball got well away from the scrimmage, and who should secure it but the redoubtable Slider! I felt a passing tremor of deep despair, as I saw that hero spring like the wind towards our goal.

“Look out, Adams!” shouted Wright.

Sure enough he was coming in my direction! With the desperation of a doomed man I strode out to meet him. He rushed furiously on—swerving slightly to avoid my reach, and stretching out his arm to ward off my grasp. I flung myself wildly in his path. There was a heavy thud, and the earth seemed to jump up and strike me. The next moment I was sprawling on my back on the grass. I don’t pretend to know how it all happened, but somehow or other I had succeeded in checking the onward career of the victorious Slider; for though I had fallen half stunned before the force of his charge, he had recoiled for an instant from the same shock, and that instant gave time for Wright to get hold of him, and so put an end for the time to his progress.

“Well played!” said some one, as I picked myself up. So I was comforted, and began to think that, after all, football was rather a fine game.

Time would fail me to tell of all the events of that afternoon—how Wright carried the ball within a dozen yards of our opponents’ goal; how their forwards passed the ball one to another, and got a “touch-down” behind our line, but missed the kick; how Naylor ran twenty yards with one of our men hanging on his back; how our quarter-back sent the ball nearly over their goal with as neat a drop-kick as ever it has been my lot to witness.

The afternoon was wearing. I heard the time-keeper call out, “Five minutes more!” The partisans of either side were getting frantic with excitement. Unless we could secure an advantage now, we should be as good as defeated, for the Craven had scored a “touch-down” to our nothing. Was this desperate fight to end so? Was victory, after all, to escape us? But I had no time for reflection then.

“Now, Parkhurst,” sang out Wright, “pull yourselves together for once!”

A Craven man is standing to throw the ball out of “touch,” and either side stands in confronting rows, impatient for the fray. Wright is at the end of the line, face to face with Naylor, and I am a little behind Wright.

“Keep close!” exclaims the latter to me, as the ball flies towards us.

Wright has it, but in an instant Naylor’s long arms are round him, bearing him down.

“Adams!” ejaculates out captain, and in a trice he passes the ball into my hands, and I am off like the wind. So suddenly has it all been done that I have already a yard or two start before my flight is discovered. There is a yelling and a rush behind me; there is a roar from the crowds on either side; there is a clear “Follow up, Parkhurst!” from Wright in the rear; there is a loud “Collar him!” from the Craven captain ahead. I am steering straight for their goal; three men only are between me and it—one, their captain, right back, and Slider and another man in front of him.

I see at a glance that my only hope is to keep as I am going and waste no time in dodging, or assuredly the pursuing host will be upon me. Slider and his companion are closing in right across my path, almost close together. With a bound I dash between them. Have they got me, or have I escaped them? A shout louder than ever and a “Bravo!” from Wright tell me I am clear of that danger, and have now but their last defence to pass. He is a tall, broad fellow, and a formidable foe to encounter, and waits for me close under their goal. The pace, I feel, is telling on me; the shouting behind sounds nearer, only a few yards divides us now. Shall I double, shall I venture a kick, or shall I charge straight at him?

“Charge at him!” sounds Wright’s voice, as if in answer to my thought. I gather up all my remaining force, and charge. There is a flash across my eyes, and a dull shock against my chest. I reel and stagger, and forget where I am. I am being swept along in a torrent; the waters with a roar rush past me and over me. Every moment I get nearer and nearer the fatal edge—I am at it—I hang a moment on the brink, and then—

“Down!” shouts a voice close at my ear, and there is such a noise of cheering and rejoicing that I sit up and rub my eyes like one waking bewildered from a strange dream.

Then I find out what has happened. When I charged at the Craven captain the shock sent me back staggering into the very arms of Wright and our forwards, who were close at my heels, and who then, in a splendid and irresistible rush, carried me and the ball and the half of the other side along with them right behind the enemy’s goal-line, where we fall en masse to the earth—I, with the ball under me, being at the bottom.

Even if I had been hurt—which I was not—there was no time to be wasted on condolences or congratulations. The time-keeper held his watch in his hand, and our goal must be kicked at once, if it was to be kicked at all. So the fifteen paces out were measured, the “nick” for the ball was carefully made, the enemy stood along their goal-line ready to spring the moment the ball should touch the earth. Wright, cool and self-possessed, placed himself in readiness a yard or two behind the ball, which one of our side held an inch off the ground. An anxious moment of expectation followed; then came a sharp “Now!” from our captain. The ball was placed cunningly in the nick, the Craven forwards rushed out on it in a body, but long before they could reach it, Wright’s practised foot had sent it flying straight as an arrow over the bar, and my first football match had ended in a glorious victory for the Old School.

The terms used here describe the Rugby game as it used to be played prior to 1880.

Chapter Two.

The Parkhurst Paper-chase.

“The meet is to be at one o’clock, sharp, in the Dean’s Warren—don’t forget!”

So said Forwood, the “whipper-in” of the Parkhurst Hare and Hounds Club, to me, one March morning in the year 18—. I had no need to be reminded of the appointment; for this was the day of the “great hunt” of the year, always held by the running set at Parkhurst School to yield in interest to no other fixture of the athletic calendar.

In fine weather, and over good country, a paper-chase is one of the grandest sports ever indulged in—at least, so we thought when we were boys—and the “great hunt” was, of course, the grandest run of the year, and looked forward to, consequently, with the utmost eagerness by all lovers of running in our school.

This year, too, I had a special interest in the event, for it was my turn to run “hare”—in other words, to be, with another fellow, the object of the united pursuit of some twenty or thirty of my schoolfellows, who would glory in running me down not a whit less than I should glory in escaping them.

For some weeks previously we had been taking short trial runs, to test our pace and powers of endurance; and Birch (my fellow-“hare”) and I had more than once surveyed the course we proposed to take on the occasion of the “great hunt,” making ourselves, as far as possible, acquainted with the bearings of several streams, ploughed fields, and high walls to be avoided, and the whereabouts of certain gaps, woods, and hollows to be desired. We were glad afterwards that we had taken this precaution, as the reader will see.

I can’t say if the Parkhurst method of conducting our “hunts” was the orthodox one; I know we considered it was, as our rules were our own making, or rather a legacy left to us by a former generation of runners at the school.

We were to take, in all, a twelve miles’ course, of nearly an oval shape, six miles out and six miles home. Any amount of dodging or doubling was to be allowed to us hares, except crossing our own path. We were to get five minutes’ clear start, and, of course, were expected to drop our paper “scent” wherever we went.

Luckily for me, Birch was an old hand at running hare, and up to all sorts of dodges, so that I knew all it was needful for me to do was to husband my “wind,” and run evenly with him, leaving him to shape our course and regulate our pace.

It was a lively scene at the Dean’s Warren, when we reached it a few minutes before the appointed time that afternoon. The “pack”—that is, the twenty or thirty fellows who were to run as “hounds”—were fast assembling, and divesting themselves of everything but their light flannels. The whipper-in, conspicuous by the little bugle slung across his shoulders, and the light flag in his hand, was there in all the importance of his office; and, as usual, the doctor and a party of visitors, ladies and gentlemen, had turned out to witness the start.

“Five minutes, hares!” shouts Forwood, as Birch and I came on the spot.

We use the interval in stripping off all unnecessary apparel, and girding ourselves with our bags of “scent,” or scraps of torn-up paper, which we are to drop as we run. Then we sit and wait the moment for starting. The turf is crisp under our feet; the sun is just warm enough to keep us from shivering as we sit, and the wind just strong enough to be fresh. Altogether it is to be doubted if a real meet of real hounds to hunt real hares—a cruel and not very manly sport, after all—could be much more exciting than this is.

“Half a minute!” sings out the whipper-in, as we spring to our feet.

In another thirty seconds we are swinging along at a good pace down the slope of the warren, in the direction of Colven meadows, and the hunt has begun.

As long as we were in sight of the pack we kept up a good hard pace, but on reaching cover we settled down at once to a somewhat more sober jog-trot, in anticipation of the long chase before us.

We made good use of our five minutes’ start, for by the time a distant bugle note announced that the hounds were let loose on our track we had covered a good piece of ground, and put several wide fields and ditches and ugly hedges between us and our pursuers.

Now it was that Birch’s experiences served us in good stead. I never knew a fellow more thoroughly cunning; he might have been a fox instead of a hare. Sometimes he made me run behind him and drop my scent on the top of his, and sometimes keep a good distance off, and let the wind scatter it as much as it could. When we came to a gap, instead of starting straight across the next field he would turn suddenly at right angles, and keep close up under the hedge half-way round before striking off into the open. Among trees and bushes he zigzagged and doubled to an alarming extent, so that it seemed as if we were losing ground every moment. So we should have been if the chase had been by sight instead of by scent; but that would have been against all rules.

If the hounds were to see the hares twenty yards in front of them, and the scent lay half a mile round, they would be bound, according to our rules, to go the half-mile, however tempting the short cut might seem.

It was after a very wide circuit, ending up on the top of a moderate rise, that we first caught sight of our pursuers. As they were a full six minutes behind us, we agreed to sit down under cover for a minute and watch them.

At that moment they had evidently lost the scent, and were ferreting about among some low trees and bushes in search of it. We saw the flag of the whipper-in marking the spot where it was last visible, and round this, on all sides, the hounds were exploring busily in search of the “new departure.” Then, presently, came a cry of “Forward!” and off they all started in our direction; and as the scent after that seemed to lie pretty clear we considered it high time for us to resume our flight.

So we made off again, and being refreshed by our brief halt, made over a couple of ploughed fields, which Birch suggested “would make a few of the hounds look foolish”; and so on till we reached the first water we had encountered since the start. This was a trout-stream, well known to some of us who were fond of fishing—nowhere more than half a foot deep, and in some places easily passable, dry shod, on stepping-stones. Birch, however, avoided these, and boldly splashing into the stream over his ankles, bade me follow.

“We’ll soon dry up,” he said, “and this will gain us a minute or two.”

Instead of going straight across, the wily hare began to paddle up the middle of the stream for twenty or thirty yards, and, of course, in so doing our scent was soon drifted away down the current. So we flattered ourselves, when we at last did make the opposite bank, that our pursuers would be puzzled for a minute or two to know what had become of us.

After a further quarter of a mile we thought we might venture to take another brief halt on the strength of this last manoeuvre. We were unable to do so where we could command a view of the hounds, but as we reckoned we had at least gained three minutes, we felt we could quite afford to take it easy for that length of time.

Fancy, then, our horror when, after about a couple of minutes, we heard a cry of “Forward!” close to us, and evidently on this side of the stream.

Off we dashed like mad, in a regular panic, and never checked our pace till we had put three ploughed fields and a couple of wide ditches to our credit. We did not discover till it was all over how it was our cunning scheme to perplex the hounds had thus miscarried. Then we were told that some of the scent, instead of dropping into the water, as we intended, had lodged on the top of some stones in mid-stream, and this had at once betrayed our dodge to the practised eyes of the foremost hounds. It was a caution to be more careful another time.

We had to work hard to make up for the ground we had lost by this mistake, but our next sight of the hounds showed that we were fairly ahead again, and that the ploughed fields had (as Birch predicted) told on a good portion of the pack, who now (at least, those of them who were at all well up) scarcely numbered a dozen.

Half a mile farther brought us to Wincot village, down the main street of which we sped, greatly to the admiration of the inhabitants, who turned out in force to see the sport.

By this time we had fairly got our “second winds,” and began to realise the benefit of the steady training of the past fortnight. At an ordinary pace, with the second wind well laid on, we felt we ought to be able to hold out for the run home, unless some very unexpected accident should intervene.

Past the village, we rattled on till we came to the railway embankment, across which we trespassed, not without some difficulty, as it was steep and railed off on either side by high palisades. Once over this, we turned at right angles, and ran for half a mile close alongside the line, and past Wincot station. Here it was necessary to recross the line (down a cutting this time), and as we were doing so we caught sight, on our left, of the leading hounds scrambling to the top of the embankment, which we had passed only a minute or two before.

Clear of the railway, there remained a good steady piece of work cut out for us to reach home, across an awful country, full of hedges and ditches, and as hilly as a pie-crust.

But Birch and I were well in the humour of the thing by this time, and determined it should not be our fault if the “great hunt” of this year ended in a victory for the hounds. So we spurted for nearly a mile, jumping most of the narrow ditches and low hedges that crossed our path, and making as straight a course as the hilly ground allowed of. But, despite all our efforts, the occasional glimpses which we caught of our pursuers showed us that we were unable to shake off four or five of the leading hounds, who, with Forwood at their head, were coming on at a great pace, and, if not gaining on us, at least not losing ground.

This would never do. It would be all up if things went on so, we could see; so the cunning Birch had once again to resort to his dodges to gain time.

Suddenly altering our track, and leaving the fields, he struck a dusty lane, which wound in and out in the direction of Parkhurst. Now, as this was a very dusty and a very chalky lane, and as the wind was blowing the dust about very freely, it was easy to see why the artful Birch made use of it on the present occasion. Our white scraps of paper, falling on the white road, and being fallen on by the white dust, had a good chance of escaping detection, unless looked after very carefully; and to make matters more secure, we dodged off into the fields, and back again into the lane, pretty often, leaving our pursuers a ditch to jump each time.

This manoeuvre answered fairly well, for the next time we saw the hounds they were searching about by the side of a ditch for our track, a good way to the rear.

We had now to face the hardest bit of work of the afternoon. The last two miles home were over a perfectly flat bit of country—so flat that the hounds would have us in view nearly all the way, and, consequently, to dodge or double would be simply useless. Our only course was a straight hard run for it, trusting to our legs and our wind to pull us through. So we settled down to the task with a will. Scarcely had we emerged into the open ground for a couple of minutes, when we saw a figure dash out of the lane in full cry after us.

It was Forwood, the whipper-in, a terrible “scud” across country, and he was only fifty yards or so ahead of three others, also celebrated for their pace. So we hares had our work cut out for us, and no mistake!

For a mile we ran as hard as we well could, turning neither to right nor left, and halting neither at ditch nor dyke. Parkhurst Towers rose before us in the distance, and more than one boy

was already strolling out in our direction to witness the finish.

How we wished we were as fresh as they!

“Put it on, hares!” shouted the first who met us, “you’ll do it yet.”

“Hounds are gaining!” cried the next we passed—a young urchin sitting on a bank and eating toffee.

And now there met us not single spectators only, but groups, who cheered loudly, backing, some the hares and some the hounds, till we hardly knew where we were. Some even began to run along with us, at a respectful distance, in order to be “in at the death.”

The playground wall was now visible only half a mile away, on the other side of the Gravelshire Canal, which had to be crossed by a bridge which we were fast approaching.

I gave a rapid look back. Forwood was now only a hundred yards behind us, with lots of running still in him. He would certainly run us down in the next half-mile.

“Birch,” I said, as I ran beside him, “are you good for a swim?”

“Rather!” he exclaimed; “if you are. Quick!”

We swerved suddenly in our course, and, to the amazement of all spectators, left the bridge on our left. In another minute we were on the margin of the canal, and the next moment the splash of a double “header,” and the shouts of the assembled onlookers, proclaimed that we had made a plunge for it. The canal was only about thirty feet wide, and we were across it in a twinkling, our light flannel clothes scarcely interfering with our swimming, and certainly not adding much to the weight we carried after being soaked through.

Three hundred yards now! Ah! that cheer behind means that Forwood has followed our plunge. What are they laughing at, though? Can he have foundered? No! Another shout! That means he is safe over, and hard at our heels.

For the last three hundred yards we run a regular steeplechase. The meadows are intersected with lines of hurdles, and these we take one after another in our run, as hard as we can. Only one more, and then we are safe!

Suddenly I find myself on my face on the grass! I have caught on the last hurdle, and come to grief!

Birch in an instant hauls me to my feet, just as Forwood rises to the leap. Then for a hundred yards it is a race for very life. What a shouting there is! and what a rushing of boys and waving of caps pass before our eyes! On comes Forwood, the gallant hound, at our heels; we can hear him behind us distinctly!

“Now you have them!” shouts one.

“One spurt more, hares!” cries another, “and you are safe!”

On we bound, and on comes the pursuer, not ten yards behind—not ten, but more than five. And that five he never makes up till Birch and I are safe inside the school-gates, winners by a neck—and a neck only—of that famous hunt.

The pack came straggling in for the next hour, amid the cheers and chaffing of the boys. Three of them, who had kept neck and neck all the way, were only two minutes behind Forwood; but they had shirked the swim, and taken the higher and drier course—as, indeed, most of the other hounds did—by way of the bridge. Ten minutes after them one other fellow turned up, and a quarter of an hour later three more; and so on until the whole pack had run, or walked, or limped, or ridden home—all except one, little Jim Barlow, the tiniest and youngest and pluckiest little hound that ever crossed country. We were all anxious to know what had become of this small chap of thirteen, who, some one said, ought never to have been allowed to start on such a big run, with his little legs. “Wait a bit,” said Forwood; “Jim will turn up before long, safe and sound, you’ll see.”

It was nearly dusk, and a good two hours after the finish. We were sitting in the big hall, talking and laughing over the events of the afternoon, when there came a sound of feet on the gravel walk, accompanied by a vehement puffing, outside the window.

“There he is!” exclaimed Forwood, “and, I declare, running still!”

And so it was. In a minute the door swung open, and in trotted little Jim, dripping wet, coated with mud, and panting like a steam-engine, but otherwise as self-composed as usual.

“How long have you fellows been in?” he demanded of us, as he sat down and began to lug off his wet boots.

“Two hours,” replied Birch.

The little hero looked a trifle mortified to find he was so far behind, and we were quite sorry for him.

“Never mind,” he said, “I ran on the scent every inch of the way, and only pulled up once, at Wincot, for five minutes.”

“You did!” exclaimed one or two voices, as we all stared admiringly at this determined young hound.

“Yes; and a nice dance you gave a chap my size over the railway and across those ditches! But I didn’t miss a single one of them, all the same.”

“But what did you do at the canal?” asked Forwood.

“Why, swam it, of course—obliged to do it, wasn’t I, if the hares went that way? I say, is there any grub going?”

Plucky little Jim Barlow! After all, he was the hero of that “big hunt,” though he did come in two hours late.

This was the last big “hare and hounds” I ever ran in. I have many a time since ridden with a real hunt over the same country, but never have I experienced the same thrill of excitement or known the same exultation at success as when I ran home with Birch, two seconds ahead of the hounds, in the famous Parkhurst Paper-chase of 18 hundred and something.

Chapter Three.

The Parkhurst Boat-race.

“Adams is wanted down at the boat-house!” Such was the sound which greeted my ears one Saturday afternoon as I lolled about in the playground at Parkhurst, doing nothing. I jumped up as if I had been shot, and asked the small boy who brought the message who wanted me.

“Blades does; you’ve got to cox the boat this afternoon instead of Wilson. Look sharp!” he said, “as they’re waiting to start.”

Off I went, without another word, filled with mingled feelings of wonder, pride, and trepidation. I knew Wilson, the former coxswain of the school boat, had been taken ill and left Parkhurst, but this was the first I had ever heard of my being selected to take his place. True, I had steered the boat occasionally when no one else could be got, and on such occasions had managed to keep a moderately good course up the Two Mile Reach, but I had never dreamed of such a pitch of good fortune as being called to occupy that seat as a fixture.

But now it wanted only a week of the great race with the Old Boys, and here was I summoned to take charge of the rudder at the eleventh hour, which of course meant I would have to steer the boat on the occasion of the race! No wonder, then, I was half daft with excitement as I hurried down to the boathouse in obedience to the summons of Blades, the stroke of the Parkhurst Four.

I should explain that at Parkhurst we were peculiarly favoured in the matter of boating. The River Colven flowed through the town only half a mile from the school boundaries, and being at that place but a short distance from the sea, it was some fifty yards broad, a clear, deep stream, just the sort of water one would choose for rowing. There was no lock for six miles or so up, and the few craft which came in from the sea rarely proceeded beyond Parkhurst; so that we had a long, uninterrupted stretch of water for our boats, which, as soon as ever the spring set in, and the weather became too hot for football and hare and hounds, appeared in force every half-holiday on its surface.

Some of the fellows on such occasions used to amuse themselves by starting off for a long, leisurely grind up-stream; or else with set sail to tack down the lower reaches towards the sea; but most of us who laid claim in any degree to the name of enthusiastic oarsmen, confined our operations mainly to the Two Mile Reach, on which most of the club races were rowed, chief of which was the Old Boys’ Race, already referred to.

This race had been instituted some years before my time at the school, by an old Parkhurstian, who presented a cup, to be rowed for annually, between the best four-oared crew of the present school, and any crew of old pupils who had been at Parkhurst within two years.

This race was the all-absorbing topic in our boat-club for several weeks before the event. How carefully the crew were selected, how strictly they trained, how patiently Mr Blunt, one of the masters, and an old Cambridge oar, “coached” or tutored them; how regularly the boat went over the course morning after morning, before breakfast; how eagerly the fellows criticised or commended the rowers; how impatiently we all looked forward to the coming contest!

This year our prospects were doubtful. The Old Boys had got together a strong crew, who were reported by some who had been over to see them to be very fast, and in splendid form; while we, at the last moment, had had the disadvantage to lose our coxswain and have to fill his place with a less experienced hand. Still, the school “four” was a good one, carefully drilled, with plenty of power; one which Mr Blunt pronounced ought to hold its own with any other average crew. So, on the whole, there was no saying how the chances stood.

I found I had all my work before me to get accustomed to my new duties before the day of the race. Daily I was out with the four, and several times besides I was taken over the course in a punt, and carefully shown all the shallows, and bends, and eddies of the stream, and made familiar with the ins and outs of either bank.

Luckily, I was a light weight to begin with, so that I did not lose much by my limited period of training, being indeed not so heavy as the former coxswain of the boat, whom I had succeeded.

Well, the eventful day came at last. The Old Boys arrived the day before, and from the two trial rows which they took over the course, we could see they were a first-rate crew and formidable opponents. Still our “coach,” who had watched them minutely, told us we had the better stroke of the two, and if we could only hold out, ought to win after all. This was comforting information, for the showy style of our opponents had struck terror into not a few of those whose sympathies were on the side of the present boys.

The school turned out in force to witness the event. The towing-path was lined with spectators, many of them from a distance, attracted by the prospect of an exciting race. A goodly muster of old fellows revisited the haunts of their school days, and congregated about the winning-post, while others, of a more athletic turn, prepared to run along with the race from beginning to end.

Meanwhile, in the boat-house, we had stripped for action and launched our boat. As we were ready to put off, and make for the starting-point, Mr Blunt came up and said to Blades, our “stroke”,—

“Now remember, row a steady stroke all through. Don’t be flurried if they get the best of the start. If you can stick to them the first half of the way, you ought to be able to row them down in the last; and mind, Adams,” he said, addressing me, “don’t let them force you out of your straight course, and don’t waste time in trying to bother them. Keep as straight as an arrow, and you can’t go wrong.”

As our fellows put off for the starting-place, their long clean stroke elicited no little admiration from the onlookers, who saw much in it that augured well for the success of our boat. Thanks to Mr Blunt, our crew had learned to master that steady, strong sweep of the oars which is universally admitted to be the perfection of rowing style and the most serviceable of all strokes. Rowed well through from first to last, gripping the water the instant the oar is back and the body and arms forward, and dragged clean through without jerk or plunge, the swing of the bodies regular as clockwork, the feather clear and rapid—this essentially is the kind of rowing which not only puts most pace into the boat, but is capable of being sustained far longer than any other.

Not long after us our opponents embarked, and we had an opportunity of criticising their style as they paddled up to where we lay waiting for them. It certainly looked pretty and taking. The stroke was quicker than ours, and equally regular, but it seemed to end in a spasmodic jerk as the oars left the water, which, though it succeeded in making the boat travel quickly, appeared to try the powers of the rowers rather more than our style did. Still, there was no mistaking that they were a fast and a powerful crew, and I remember to this day the passing thought, “I wish we were at the end of it!” that flashed through my mind as I gathered my rudder lines together, ready for the start.

Mr Blunt is to act as starter, and is coming towards us in a boat, with his watch in his hand. Our rivals’ boat is lying close beside ours, and I can see their stroke is leaning forward and saying something to the coxswain. I wonder it it’s about me? Perhaps he is telling him to push me out of my course, or perhaps they are saying how nervous I am looking! Well, I am nervous. I begin to think I shall forget which way I have to go. Perhaps I shall pull the right-hand line instead of the left; or possibly I shall omit to pull either line at all! What lasting disgrace will then be mine! Then suddenly I remember what Mr Blunt said, that it’s all up with a race if the “cox” loses his head, and by a violent effort I banish my qualms, and resolve, come what may, nothing shall unsteady me. Still, my hands tremble as I grasp the lines.

“Adams,” says Blades, “make my stretcher fast, will you?”

The voice of a human being close to me, somehow, has the effect of helping me to recover my wits completely; and as I kneel and make fast the stretcher, and then once again take my seat in the stern of the boat, I feel quite myself again, and wonder at myself for being such an ass.

“Back water half a stroke!” calls out Mr Blunt to us from his skiff.

We obey him, and then find the other boat is a little in front of us. We therefore move a quarter of a stroke forward. Still the boats are not quite level. The other boat must come back a foot or two. Not quite enough; our boat must advance a few inches. There, now they are level.

“Are you ready?” No, our boat has drifted forward again, and must be moved back. All this takes time, but presently we are once again level, and the question is repeated—

“Are you ready?”

The only answer this time is the leaning forward of both crews, with arms stretched and oars well back, in readiness for the signal.

What ages it seems! And there I actually the wind has blown our rivals’ bows across the stream, and before we start another two minutes must be spent in manoeuvring her back into position. Once again—

“Are you ready?”

No answer, save the quick reach forward and silent suspense.

“Then go!” and I feel the boat half lifted in the water under me. The first stroke is rather a scramble, and so is the second, but by the third the boat has begun to get its “way” on, and in a stroke or two more our men have settled down to their customary swing.

But what of our opponents? At the first stroke their boat had dashed away an inch or two in advance of ours, at the third that distance had become a foot, and presently they were far enough ahead to enable me to catch sight of their coxswain’s back. As we both settled down to work, they were rowing at a considerably quicker pace than we, wrenching the boat forward at each stroke, and inch by inch improving their advantage.

All this I noticed before the shout with which the spectators hailed the start had died away. I had a dim vision of a body of runners starting along with us on the banks, and of eager cries to one crew or the other from sympathising onlookers; but I had enough to do to keep my eye fixed ahead, without gaping at the crowd.

Remembering Mr Blunt’s advice, I selected a landmark in front, and steered our course direct for it; a plan of which I had cause to be glad pretty early in the race. For the Old Boys’ boat, drawing steadily ahead to about half a boat’s length, began very gradually to insinuate its nose a little over in our direction, so that, had I not had a fixed point on which to steer, I should have been strongly tempted to give way unwittingly before it, and so abandon an inch or two of the water that fairly belonged to our boat. As it was, however, I was able both to detect and defeat this manoeuvre, for, keeping on a perfectly straight course, the others were obliged to draw in their horns, and return to a straight course too, having lost some little ground in the process. Still, they seemed to be forging ahead, and the shouts from the banks announced that thus far, at any rate the Parkhurst boat was getting the worst of it.

I stole a look at Blades. His face was composed and unconcerned, and it was easy to see he knew what he was about. He kept up his long steady swing, being well backed up by the three men behind him, and lifted the boat well at the beginning of the stroke, never letting it down till the end. I could see that he knew exactly how far the others were ahead, and at what rate they were rowing; and yet he neither quickened nor altered his stroke, but plodded on with such a look of easy confidence that I at once felt quite satisfied in my own mind as to the result. It was not long before our opponents gave indication of abating somewhat the quick stroke they had hitherto maintained, and by virtue of which they had already got nearly a boat’s length ahead. At the same moment Blades slightly quickened his stroke, and instantly our boat began to crawl up alongside that of our rivals, amid the frantic cheers of the onlookers. Slowly and surely we forged ahead, till our stroke’s oar was level with their coxswain. Then a spurt from the Old Boys kept the two boats abreast for a few seconds, but it died away after a little, and once more their boat travelled slowly back, as we drew level, and began in our turn to take the lead. Now was our time to—

What is that ahead on the water, drifting right across the bows of our boat? A shout from the banks apprises me that others besides myself have taken the sudden alarm. An empty boat, insecurely moored to the bank, has got adrift, and is calmly floating up with the tide in mid-stream along our very course! What is to be done? The other boat, being on the opposite side, can easily clear the obstacle, but not so ours. Either we must put our bows across our enemy’s water, and so run the risk of a “foul,” and consequent defeat, or else we must lose ground by slackening our pace and going out of our course to avoid the unlucky boat. There are not ten seconds in which to decide; but that suffices me to choose the latter alternative, trusting to the rowing powers of our crew to make up the disadvantage.

“Look to your oars, stroke side!” I cry, and at the same time pull my rudder line quickly.

It was as I expected. The boat lost ground instantly, and I could see, out of the corner of my eye, the Old Boys’ boat shoot forward with a quickened stroke, and hear the triumphant shouts of their partisans.

A second or two sufficed to get past the obstructing boat, our oars on the stroke side just scraping it as we did so; but as we headed again into our proper course, we saw our opponents two clear boats’ lengths in front, their men pulling with all the energy of triumph and confidence.

It was a sight to make one despair. How were we ever to make up that tremendous gap?

“How much?” Blades inquires, as he swings forward towards me.

“Two!” I reply.

He sets his face determinedly, and quickens his stroke. The men behind him do not at first get into the altered swing, and for a moment or two the rowing is scrambling, and our boat rolls unsteadily, a spectacle hailed with increased joy by the partisans of the Old Boys’ boat.

“Steady now!” cries Blades, over his shoulder, and next moment the boat rights itself; the four oars dip and feather simultaneously. I, sitting in the stern, can feel the swing as of one man, and the boat dashes forward like a machine. Our fellows on the banks mark the change and cheer tremendously.

“Well spurted, Parkhurst!” “Put it on now!” “You’re gaining!” “Rowed indeed!” Such were the cries which, as I heard them, set my blood tingling with excitement.

It was a long time before any perceptible gain was noticeable from where I sat. The Old Boys had taken advantage of their lead to come across into our water, and all I could see of them was the blades of their oars on in front, which rose and fell swiftly and with a regular beat.

Still the shout from the bank was, “You’re gaining!” and presently I saw their boat edging off again into their own water, by which I concluded we had pulled up sufficiently to make this necessary to avoid a foul.

Our men pulled splendidly. Cool, determined, and plucky, each rowed his best, his eyes fixed on the back of the man before him, keeping perfect time, and pulling each stroke through with terrible energy. I could see by their pale looks that they shared the common excitement, but there was no sign of flurry or distress, nothing but a quiet determination, which augured better for the result of their efforts than all the shouts of the onlookers.

Where are we now? Those willows on my left are, I know, just half a mile from the winning-post. Shall we, in that distance, be able to pull up the length which now divides us and our rivals? There is a chance yet! The leading boat is not going as fast as it was a minute ago. I can tell that by the eddies from their oars which sweep past.

“How much?” inquired Blades again, as he swung forward.

“One!” I replied.

I could see by the gleam in his eyes that he had hope still of making that one length nothing before the winning-post was reached.

That shout from the bank means something, surely!

“Well rowed indeed, Parkhurst!”

“They’re overlapped!”

Yes, those who could see it were watching the little pink flag at the prow of our boat creeping, inch by inch, up the stern of our rivals’. The eddies from their oars came past nearer now, and the “thud” of their outriggers sounded closer.

Yes, we are gaining without doubt; but shall we overtake them in time to avoid defeat? I can see a mass of people ahead on the banks, and know that they are gathered opposite the winning-post. It can’t be a quarter of a mile off now!

Again that shout from the bank. Ah, yes, our bow oar is level with their stroke. “Now you have it!” shout our fellows.

Blades turns his head for half a second, and cries to his men as he quickens up to his final spurt.

What a shout then rent the air! Our boat no longer crawled up beside the Old Boys, but began to fly. On, on! Their coxswain seems to be gliding backwards towards me. In vain they attempt to answer our spurt; they have not the rowing left in them to do it. Nothing can stop us! In another moment we are abreast, and almost instantly there come such cheers after cheers from the bank that even the dash of the oars was drowned in it.

“Parkhurst’s ahead!”

“Ah, well rowed!”

“Now, Old Boys!”

“It’s a win!”

On, on! What sensation so glorious, so madly exciting, as that of one of the crew of a winning boat within twenty yards of the goal? I am tempted to shout, to wave my hat, to do something ridiculous, but I set my teeth and sit still, holding my breath. Four strokes more will do it. One! I am level with the stroke of the Old Boys’ boat. Two! Our fellows pull as if they had another half-mile to go still. Three! The judge at the winning-post is lifting his hand and cocking his pistol. Four! Crack goes the signal! and as our men cease rowing, and the boat shoots forward with the impetus of that last terrific stroke, amid the cheers and shouts of the assembled crowd, I breathe again, knowing that the Parkhurst boat has won, by three yards, the grandest race in which it was ever my lot to take part.

Chapter Four.

Parkhurst versus Westfield.

“Now, Parkhurst, turn out sharp! They are going in first.” So shouted Steel, the captain of our eleven, putting his head in at the door of the tent in which we were arraying ourselves in flannels and spiked shoes, and otherwise arming for the great match against Westfield School, which was now about to commence.

We always looked upon these Westfield fellows as our most dangerous rivals on the cricket field (much in the light in which we esteemed Craven where football was concerned), and the match in which our respective pretensions were yearly settled was, I need hardly say, regarded as the match of the season, and made the object of untiring practice and feverish excitement.

Year after year, for twelve years, our rival elevens had met, always on the last Saturday of June, one year at Parkhurst and the next at Westfield, and so far the result had been that each school had won six matches. Fancy then the state of our feelings this year, as we started off in the early morning on our omnibus from Parkhurst, to engage in the decisive contest which (unless it ended in a draw) must turn the balance either in favour of our school, or to the glorification of our rivals. We could not bear to think of the possibility of a defeat; it would be too tragical, too shameful. So as we drove over to Westfield that morning, we talked of nothing but victory, and felt very like those determined old Spartans who, when they went to the wars, made a vow they would return either with their shields or on them.

Of course there was a regular swarm of people to see the match. Old Parkhurst “bats,” who had played in the first match, thirteen years ago, were there, with big beards, and very majestic to look at; Old Boys, now settled in life, were there with their wives and children; carriages full of our own and Westfield’s fathers and mothers; and shoals of young brothers and sisters, crammed the space beyond the flags; the “doctors,” as usual, had driven over; and almost gave offence to some of our most enthusiastic partisans by “chumming up” publicly with the head master of our rivals! And then, besides, there was a host of outsiders, drawn together by simple curiosity or love of cricket; so that altogether, as we emerged from our tent in our snow-white flannels and pink belts, we felt that the eyes of the world were upon us, and were more convinced than ever that anything short of victory would be the most terrible of all calamities which could fall on our youthful heads.

Our great hope was in Steel, our captain, one of the best cricketers Parkhurst had ever produced; and for coolness and self-confidence without his equal anywhere. We all adored him, for he never snubbed youngsters, or made light of their doings. If, during practice, a fellow bowled, batted, or fielded well, Steel took care to encourage him; but if any one played carelessly, or bungled, Steel scowled, and that unlucky man’s name disappeared for a season from the list of candidates for a place in the first eleven.

See him now stroll up to the wickets, with his wicket-keeping pads on, talking on the way to one of the two men who are to officiate first with their bats on behalf of Westfield.

We youngsters can’t understand such coolness, and keep our eyes on him, as if every moment we expected to see him fell his rival to the earth. It’s a great matter to be used to a thing. I, who was now making my first appearance in the first eleven, felt as if the world began, continued, and ended within the area of this Westfield meadow; but here was some one who, to all appearances, made no more of the great match than he would of his dinner.

But away now with all thoughts but cricket! The ball we have been tossing about idly is taken into custody by the umpire; Steel is behind the wickets, looking round to see if we fielders are all in our places, and motioning one or two of us to stand deeper or closer in, as he deems advisable. The Westfield batsman who is to receive the first over is getting “middle”; our bowler is tucking up his sleeves, and gripping the brand-new ball in his hand; the ground-keeper is chasing a few small boys back behind the ropes; and the scorers in the big tent are dipping their pens in the ink.

Altogether, it is a critical moment in my life—a moment that seems as long as a whole day.

“Play!” cries the umpire; and our bowler delivers his first ball—not a very alarming one, and evidently meant more as a test of the ball and the pitch than as a serious attack on the enemy’s wicket. My readers of course do not expect me to give a full, true, and particular account of every ball bowled on that eventful day. That would be as tedious for them as for me. But I shall do my best to recall the chief features of the game as they presented themselves to me from my post, first at cover-point, and (while our side was batting) from the tent and the wickets.

The first few overs were not eventful. They rarely are. Our men had to get used to the ground and the ball; and the batsmen chose to be exceedingly careful how they hit out at first. In the third over a single run was made, and of course the Westfield fellows cheered as if the match were already won. Then gradually came one or two more singles, a two, another one, a three, and then, just as the two batsmen were getting into good humour and fancying they might lay about them a little more freely, down went the first wicket amid the cheers of our fellows, and we saw the figures 12 posted up on the telegraph, as indicating the score so far standing to the credit of Westfield.

We had not long to wait for the next man in, and still less long to see him out, poor fellow! for the very first ball sent his bails flying over Steel’s head, and he had to trudge back to the tent and take off his pads almost before he had got used to the feel of them on his legs.

In the over following the arrival of his successor an easy catch by point disposed of another wicket.

“This is something like!” I exclaimed to myself. “Three men out for fourteen runs. If it goes on like this, we shall have it all our own way”; and in my satisfaction I ventured to communicate my ideas to the man fielding at point.

“Adams, will you attend to the game?” It was Steel who spoke, and at the sound of his voice I started like one shot, and discovered that the next man was in and ready to begin. I stepped back to my place in an instant, and would sooner have had one of Hurley’s swiftest balls catch me on the bare shin than be thus publicly called to order before the whole field. I can safely say that never in my life since that moment have I caught myself talking during “play” in a cricket match.

I felt in disgrace, and got nervous; I dared not look at Steel, for fear of meeting his eye. I wished myself a mile away, and repented of my satisfaction of being in the first eleven. Most devoutly I hoped no ball would chance near me, as I should assuredly miss it. As the thought passed my mind the man who was batting cut a ball hard and low in my direction. It was so hard and so low that under any circumstances it would have been a most difficult ball to field, still more to catch. It flew towards me a few inches from the ground, and I was in despair. I knew every eye in the field was on me—Steel’s in particular. Here would be some hundreds of witnesses to my utter imbecility! Would that the ground would swallow me! I sprang forward and tripped as I sprang. In my fall the ball dashed into my hand, and fell from it to the earth. I had missed the catch, and my disgrace was complete. Fancy then my astonishment when I heard Steel’s awful voice cry, “Well tried, sir!” and when a distant sound of clapping reached me from the tents! I could not understand it at first; but I afterwards found out that by my lucky trip I had more nearly succeeded in catching the ball than a more experienced player would have done had he kept his balance, and so I got credit for a good piece of play which I did not in the least deserve. However, it served to recover me from my nervousness and bad spirits, and incite me to a desire to accomplish something for which I could honestly take credit.

Never was such a determination more called for than now. Driver, the captain of the Westfield eleven, was at the wickets, a most tremendous hitter. All bowling came alike to him. The swifter the ball the happier he was; sending one over the bowler’s head, another nearly into the scorers’ tent, another among the spectators behind the ropes. The score, hitherto so slow, began to fly up. Forty, fifty, sixty, seventy we saw posted up in rapid succession, and wondered how it all would end. He seemed to have as many lives as a cat. Some easy catches were missed, and some “runs out” were only just avoided. Still he scored, no matter who his partner was (and one or two came and went while he was in); he hit away merrily, and the cheers of Westfield grew almost monotonous from their frequency.

We on the “off” side, however, had not much to do, for nearly all Driver’s hits were to the “on,” and, curiously enough, nearly all found their way between two of our men, the “mid-wicket on” and the “long on,” just out of the reach of either. I could not help wondering why neither of these fellows altered his place, so as to guard the weak point.

It is curious how sometimes in cricket the same thing occurs to two people at the same time. While I was inwardly speculating on the result of this change of position, Steel appeared to become aware of the same necessity, for I saw him behind the batsman’s back silently motioning “mid-wicket on” to stand farther back, and “mid on” to come round to a “square” position. This manoeuvre, however, did not escape the wily Driver, who sent his next ball to leg, and the next to the identical spot “mid-wicket on” had just quitted. Still, Steel motioned to them to remain in their new posts. He knew well enough that if a man has a habit of hitting in any one direction, however studiously he tries to avoid the place. Nature will sooner or later assert herself, and the ball will fly where it has been wont to fly. So it was in this case. He could not resist an impulse to lift one specially tempting ball in the direction of his old haunt, and sure enough in so doing he sent it clean into “long on’s” hands, and with his own innings ended, to our great relief, the innings of his side, for a total score of 174, of which he had contributed quite the odd 74.

It was a good round score to overtake, and things did not promise cheerfully for us at the commencement of our innings. The Westfield men were happy in possessing two swift bowlers, who made havoc of the first two or three on our side who presented themselves. I was one of these.

When I started for the wickets, armed with pads and gloves and bat, I did not feel happy; still, I was in hopes I might at least succeed in “breaking my duck’s egg,” which was more than could be said for either of my predecessors.

I felt rather important as I requested the umpire to give me “middle,” and hammered the mark a little with my bat. Still, my feet fidgeted; there was a sort of “cobwebby” feeling on my face, and a tickling sensation in the small of my back, as I stood ready for my first ball, which convinced me I was by no means at home in my new position.

“Play!” cries the umpire.

The bowler starts to run, with arm extended. He makes a sort of curve round the wicket, and balances himself on one foot as he discharges his ball. It comes like lightning, right on to my bat, twisting it in my grasp, and then is snatched up in an instant by “point,” who tosses it to the wicket-keeper, who returns it to the bowler. All this is very alarming. Here are eleven men banded together with the one object of putting me out, and they are all so quiet and determined about it that I feel like a guilty thing as I stand there to defend my wicket.

The bowler starts again for his sinuous run, and again the ball whizzes from his hand. I lift my bat in an attempt to strike it; it slips under it; there is a little “click” behind my back, and then the ball flies aloft, and I discover that my services at the wicket are no longer required.

So ended my first innings. Happily for our side, some of the men who went in afterwards made a better show than we three unfortunates who had opened the ball had done. Steel made forty, and two others about twenty each, which, added to the odds and ends contributed by the rest of our side, brought the Parkhurst score up to 102—72 runs behind our competitors.

There was great jubilation among the Westfield partisans, as their heroes entered on their second innings under such promising auspices, especially when the redoubtable Driver went in first with the bat which had wrought such wonders in the former innings. There seemed every probability, too, of his repeating his late performance with even greater vigour, for the first ball which reached him he sent flying far and high right over the tents for six, a magnificent hit, which fairly deserved the praise it received, not from the Westfield fellows only, but from ours, who for a moment could forget their rivalry to admire a great exploit. The next three balls were delivered to his partner at the wickets, who blocked carefully, evidently bent on acting on the defensive while his companion made the running. From the fifth ball of that over a bye was scored, which brought Driver once again to the end facing the bowler. The next ball came slightly to the “off,” and he tried to cut it. Either he miscalculated, or was careless about the direction he gave it, for he lodged it clean into my hands, a safe and easy catch, but a catch of enormous importance to our side, as it disposed once and for all of our most dreaded opponent.

Bereft of their champion, the Westfield fellows only succeeded in putting together the moderate score of fifty in their second innings, of which twenty-four were contributed by one man. So our spirits revived somewhat, as we discovered we had only 123 to make to win. That was indeed plenty against such bowling, but it was a good deal less than we had dreaded.

Well, the decisive innings began, as soon as we had fortified ourselves with lunch, provided for us by our hospitable rivals. The afternoon was getting on, but still the crowd of spectators kept together patiently, determined to see the end of the match.

“Shall we do it?” I heard some one ask of Steel.

“Do what?” was the evasive reply.

“Win,” said the other.

“How do I know?” was our captain’s curt answer.

If there was one thing that annoyed Steel above others, it was to be asked foolish questions.

He sent in two steady men first, with orders not to be in a hurry to score, but to “break the back” of the bowling. And this advice they faithfully acted upon. For over after over there was nothing but blocking. In vain the bowlers strained every nerve to get round or under those stubborn bats. They could not do it! Runs came few and far between—the field had nothing to do—and altogether the game became very monotonous. But those fellows did better service to our side than many who scored more and played in more brilliant style. We could see their prolonged stand was not without its effect on the Westfield bowlers. Their bowling became less and less steady, and their style seemed to lose its precision, as ball after ball fell hopelessly off those obstinate bats. This was evidently just what Steel wanted, and we could tell by his frequent “Played, sir!” how thoroughly he approved of the steady discipline of his men. After a time the very monotony of the game seemed to excite the spectators, who answered each neat “block” with a cheer, which showed they, too, could appreciate the tactics of our captain.

It was getting desperate for Westfield, and humiliating too, when one of their bowlers happened to change his style. Instead of the slashing round-arm balls which he had hitherto sent in, he suddenly and without warning put in an underhand lob—an easy, slow, tempting ball, apparently bound to rise exactly on the player’s bat.

Our man fell into the snare. I could hear Steel, who was near me, groan, as we watched him lift the bat which had till now remained so well under control, and stepping forward prepare for a terrific “slog.” Alas! the deceitful ball never rose at all, but pitching quietly a foot before the crease, shot forward along the ground, and found its way at last to the wicket, amid the tremendous shouts of all the crowd.

A parting being thus made between the two steady partners, the survivor, as is so often the case, did not long remain behind his companion, and when Steel went in, three wickets had already fallen with only fifteen runs.

Will our captain save us from defeat? See him stand coolly at the wicket—how sure of himself he seems!—how indifferent to that imposing combination of bowlers and fielders which surround him! He takes his time to get comfortably settled at his wicket, and kneels down to tighten a shoestring, as if nobody was waiting for him. Then pulling down the peak of his cap to shade his eyes from the sun, he leisurely turns his face to the bowler, and announces himself ready for the worst that desperate character can do to him.

We watched breathlessly the result of his first over, and with an excitement strangely in contrast with the indifferent and apparently careless demeanour of the batsman himself. It was soon apparent, however, that we might dismiss all anxiety from our minds as to his safety, for he set briskly to work, punishing every ball that came to him, yet never giving a single chance. I have rarely seen such good “all-round play.” Unlike the Westfield captain, who was strong only on the leg side of the wicket, he was thoroughly at home from whatever side the attack was delivered. Some balls he hit to “leg,” and some he cut with terrific force past “cover-point.” No ball came amiss to him; he was up to “twisters,” and “lobs,” and “thunderbolts,” and walked into them all with faultless dexterity.

Up went our score. Twenty grew to forty, and forty to fifty. It was all a matter of time now. If the five remaining men still to go in could together make a stand long enough to enable him to overtake the enemy’s score, he would assuredly do it, unless some unforeseen accident prevented it. Of these five I was next in order; nor was it long before my turn arrived, and I found myself sallying forth to join my captain at the wickets. Remembering the poor figure I had cut in the first innings, I was not very sanguine of distinguishing myself on this occasion. Still, there was something in being opposite Steel which gave me confidence, and relieved me of the nervous sensations which marked my late début.

The first ball or two after my arrival fell to the lot of Steel, who sent them flying promptly, and gave me some running to do in consequence. This helped still more to make me comfortable, so that when at last my turn came to be bowled at, I experienced none of the desolate feeling which had rendered my former brief innings so unhappy.

I manage to block the first ball, and the second also. Then comes a third, under which I contrive to get my bat and send it flying.

“Come!” shouts Steel, and I run.

“Another!” he cries; and I run again, and am safe back before the ball returns to the wicket-keeper’s hands.

Positively I had scored two! I felt as proud as if I had been elected an M.P. The next ball went for two more, and I could hear a cheer from the tent, which made me feel very valiant. I glanced to the signal-board; our score was ninety-six, only twenty-seven to win! Why should not I be able to hold out until Steel made up the figure, and so defeat Westfield by four wickets? At any rate I would try; and I sent my next ball for a single.

Then it was Steel’s turn to bat. Of course he would send it flying.

Horrors! He has missed it! A deafening shout proclaims that his glorious innings is at an end, and I feel like an orphan as I watch him, with his bat under his arm, quitting the wicket at which he had put together sixty-six runs in as fine a style as any player ever did. It was good to hear the applause which welcomed him back to the tent.

But what was to become of us? Here were twenty-six runs to get, and the four weakest batsmen of our side to play. However, one can but do his best.

So I played as carefully as I could, becoming gradually accustomed to the bowling, and knocking an occasional one or two on to the score. My new companion, however, kept me company but a short time, and his successor shorter still. This fellow coming in now is our last man. Will he and I ever be able to stick together till these fifteen runs which are now required can be made up?

“Steady, Tom,” I whisper, as he passes me on the way to his wicket. He winks his answer.

It is a responsible thing for us two youngsters, with the whole fate of the school depending on us. But we keep cool, and play our very best. One by one the score runs up. Ten to win—now eight, seven. It is getting exciting. The crowd hangs eagerly on the result of each ball. Another two from my companion. The Westfield fellows look nervously at the signal-board, as if by watching it they could make our figure grow less. But, no! Another two, from my bat this time, and then a single. Only two to win! The next ball gets past my comrade’s bat, and skims within a hair’s-breadth of his bails.

“Steady, now!” cries Steel, cheerily. “Mind what you’re at!”

Steady it is. The next two balls are blocked dead.

Then my companion makes a single. Hurrah! We are equal now. At any rate defeat is averted! Now for victory! It is my turn to bat; but this ball is not the sort of one to play tricks with; so with an effort I keep my bat square, and stop it without hitting.

“Played, sir!” cries some one, approvingly, and I feel my self-denial rewarded.

But the next ball is not so dangerous. I can see it is a careless one, which I may safely punish. Punish it I will; so I step forward, and catching it on the bound, bang it I know not and care not where.

What shouting! what cheering as we run, one, two, three, four, five times across the wickets! The match is ours, with a wicket to spare; and as we ride back that evening to Parkhurst, and talk and laugh and exult over that day’s victory, we are the happiest eleven fellows, without exception, that ever rode on the top of an omnibus.

Chapter Five.

A Boating Adventure at Parkhurst.

Once, and once only, did I play truant from Parkhurst, and that transgression was attended with consequences so tragical that to this day its memory is as vivid and impressive as if the event I am about to record had happened only last week, instead of a quarter of a century ago.

I shall recall it in the hope of deterring my readers from following my foolish example—or at least of warning them of the terrible results which may ensue from a thoughtless act of wrong-doing.

I have already mentioned that Parkhurst stood some two or three miles above the point at which the River Colven flows into the sea. From the school-house we could often catch the hum of the waves breaking lazily along the shore of Colveston Bay; or, if the wind blew hard from the sea, it carried with it the roar of the breakers on the bar mouth, and the distant thunder of the surf on the stony beach.

Of course, our walks and rambles constantly took the direction of the shores of this bay; and though, perhaps, a schoolboy is more readily impressed with other matters than the beauties of nature, I can remember even now the once familiar view from Raven Cliff as if my eyes still rested upon it.

I can see, on a hot summer afternoon, the great curve of that beautiful bay, bounded at either extremity by headlands, bathed in soft blue haze. I can see the cliffs and chines and sands basking, like myself, in the sun. On my right, the jagged outline of a ruined sea-girt castle stands out like a sentinel betwixt is land and water. On my left I can detect the fishermen’s white cottages crouching beneath the crags. I can see the long golden strip of strand beyond; and, farther still, across the wide estuary of the Wraythe, the line of shadowy cliffs that extend like a rugged wall out to the dim promontory of Shargle Head.

Above all, I can see again the sea, bluer even than the blue sky overhead; and as it tumbles languidly in from the horizon, fringing the amphitheatre of the bay with its edge of sparkling white, my ears can catch the murmur of its solemn music as they heard it in those days long gone by.

Well I remember, too, the same bay and the same sea; but oh, how changed!

Far as the eye could reach the great white waves charged towards the land, one upon another, furious and headlong; below us they thundered and lashed and rushed back upon their fellows, till we who watched could not hear so much as our own voices. In the distance they leapt savagely at the base of the now lowering headlands, and fought madly over the hidden rocks and sands. They sent their sleet and foam-flakes before them, blinding us where we stood on the cliff-top; they seethed and boiled in the hollows of the rocks, and over the river bar they dashed and plunged till far up the stream their fury scarcely spent itself.

At such times no ship or boat ventured willingly into Colveston Bay; or if it did, it rarely, if ever, left it again.

But such times were rare—very rare with us. Indeed, I had been months at Parkhurst before I witnessed a real storm, and months again before I saw another. So that my acquaintance with the bay was almost altogether connected with its milder aspects, and as such it appeared both fascinating and tempting.

It was on a beautiful August holiday morning that four of us were lounging lazily in a boat down at the bar mouth, looking out into the bay and watching the progress of a little fishing smack, which was skipping lightly over the bright waves in the direction of Shargle Head. Her sails gleamed in the sunlight, and she herself skimmed so lightly across the waters, and bounded so merrily through their sparkling ripples, that she seemed more like a fairy craft than a real yacht of boards and canvas. “I’d give a good deal to be in her!” exclaimed Hall, one of our party, a sea captain’s son, to whom on all nautical matters we accorded the amplest deference. “So would I,” said Hutton. “How jolly she looks!”

“Ever so much more fun than knocking about on this stupid old river,” chimed in I.

“I say, you fellows,” cried Hall, struck by a sudden idea, “why shouldn’t we have a little cruise in the bay? It would be glorious a day like this!”

“I’m not sure old Rogers,” (that was the disrespectful way in which, I regret to say, we were wont to designate Dr Rogers, our head master) “would like it,” I said; “he’s got some notion into his head about currents and tides, and that makes him fidgety.”

“Currents and fiddlesticks!” broke in Hall, with a laugh; “what does he know about them? I tell you, a day like this, with a good sailing breeze, and four of us to row, in case it dropped, there’d be no more difficulty in going over there and back than there would in rowing from here back to Parkhurst.”

“How long would it take to get to Shargle?” inquired Hutton.

“Why, only two hours, and perhaps less. The wind’s exactly right for going and coming back too. We can be back by four easily, and that allows us an hour or two to land there.”

It certainly was tempting; the day was perfection, and Colveston Bay had never looked more fascinating. The headlands stood out so distinctly in the clear air that it was hard to imagine Shargle Head was five miles distant from where we sat.

When the proposition had first been made I had felt a passing uncomfortableness as to the lawfulness of such an expedition without the distinct sanction of the head master; but the more I gazed on the bay, and the more Hall talked in his enthusiastic manner of the delights of a cruise, and the longer I watched the fairy-like progress of the little white-sailed fishing-boat, the less I thought of anything but the pleasure which the scheme offered.

So when Hall said, “Shall we go, boys? What do you say?” I for one replied, “All serene.”

All this while one of our party had been silent, watching the fishing-boat, but taking no part in our discussion. He was Charlie Archer, a new boy at Parkhurst, and some years our junior. But from the first I had taken a remarkable fancy to this clever, good-humoured, plucky boy, who henceforth had become my frequent companion, and with me the companion of the others who now composed our party. He now looked up and said, greatly to our surprise—

“I say, I don’t want to go!”

“Why not?” we all asked.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter,” he replied, in evident confusion. “I don’t want to spoil your fun, you know, but I’d rather not go myself.”

“Why, what on earth’s the matter with you, Charlie?” I asked. “I thought you were always ready for an adventure.”

“I’d rather not go, please,” he repeated. “You can put me ashore.”

“Why not?” again inquired Hall, this time testily. He never liked Charlie quite as much as Hutton and I did, and was evidently displeased to have him now putting forward objections to a proposition of his own making. “Why not?”

“Because—because,” began the boy hesitatingly—“because I don’t want to go.”

Hall became angry. Like most boys not sure of the honesty of their own motives, he disliked to have it suggested that what he was urging was wrong. He therefore replied, with a taunt keener than any persuasion—

“Poor little milksop, I suppose he’s afraid of getting drowned, or of doing something his mamma, or his grandmamma, or somebody wouldn’t like their little pet to do. We’d better put him ashore, boys; and mind his precious little boots don’t get wet while we’re about it!”

It was a cruel blow, and struck home at Archer’s one weak point.

Plucky and adventurous as he was, the one thing he could not endure was to be laughed at. And his face flushed, and his lips quivered, as he heard Hall’s brutal speech, and marked the smile with which, I am ashamed to say, we received it.

“I’m not afraid,” he exclaimed.

“Then why don’t you want to go?”

He was silent for some time. A struggle was evidently going on in his mind. But the sneer on Hall’s face determined him.

“I do want to go. I’ve changed my mind!”

“That’s the style,” said Hutton, patting him on the back. “I knew you were one of the right sort.”

Hall, too, condescended to approve of his decision, and at once began to busy himself with preparations for our immediate start.

I, however, was by no means comfortable at what had taken place. It was plain to see Charlie had yielded against his better judgment, and that with whatever alacrity he might now throw himself into the scheme, his mind was not easy. Had I been less selfishly inclined towards my own pleasure, I should have sided with him in his desire not to engage in a questionable proceeding; but, alas! my wishes in this case had ruled my conscience. Still, I made one feeble effort on Archer’s behalf.

“Hall,” whispered I, as I stooped with him to disengage the ropes at the bottom of the boat, “what’s the use of taking Charlie when he doesn’t want to go? We may as well put him ashore if he’d sooner not go.”

“Archer,” said Hall, looking up from his ropes, “did you say you wanted to go, or not?”

The question was accompanied by a look which made it hard for the boy to reply anything but—

“I want to go.”

“And it’s your own free will, eh?”

“Yes.”

So ended my weak effort. If only I had been more determined to do right; if, alas! I had imagined a thousandth part of what that day was to bring forth, I would have set Archer ashore, whether he would or not, even if to do so had cost me my life.

But this is anticipating.

For half an hour we were busy getting our boat trim for her voyage. She was a somewhat old craft, in which for many years past we had been wont to cruise down the seaward reaches of the Colven, carrying one lug-sail, and with thwarts for two pairs of oars. She was steady on her keel, and, as far as we had been able to judge, sound in every respect, and a good sailor. Certainly, on a day like this, a cockleshell would have had nothing to fear, and we were half sorry we had not a lighter boat than the one we were in to take us across to Shargle.

Hall, who assumed the command from the first, impressed us not a little by the businesslike way in which he set to work to get everything ship-shape before starting. He knew clearly the use of each rope and pulley; he knew precisely the necessary amount of ballast to be taken, and the proper place for stowing it; he discoursed learnedly on knots and hitches, and aroused our sympathy by his laments on the absence of a bowsprit and foresail. Hutton was sent ashore to buy provisions. Charlie was set to baling out the boat. I occupied myself with mopping the seats, and generally “swabbing her up,” as Hall called it, so that in due time we were ready to sail, well provisioned and well equipped, on our eventful voyage.

Up went the sail; we watched it first flap wildly, and then swell proudly in the wind as the sheet rope was drawn in, and Hall’s hand put round the helm. Then, after a little coquetting, as if she were loth to act as desired without coaxing, she rose lightly to the rippling waves, and glided forward on her way.

“Adams,” said Hall, “you’d better make yourself snug up in the bows; Hutton, sit where you are, and be ready to help me with the sail when we tack. Charlie, old boy, come down astern, beside me; sit a little farther over, Hutton. Now she’s trim.”

Trim she was, and a strange feeling of exhilaration filled my breast as we now darted forward before the steady breeze, dancing over the waves with a merry splash, tossing them to either side of our prow, and listening to them as they gurgled musically under our keel.

“There’s Neil!” cried Charlie, as we passed the coastguards’ boathouse, “spying at us through the telescope.”

“Let him spy,” laughed Hall; “I dare say he’d like to be coming too. It’s slow work for those fellows, always hanging about doing nothing.”

“What’s he waving about?” inquired I from the bows, for we could see that the sailor had put down his glass, and was apparently trying to catch our attention by his gesticulations.

Hall looked attentively for a moment, and then said—

“Oh, I see, he’s pointing up at the flagstaff to show us the wind’s in the north-east. I suppose he thinks no one knows that but himself.”

“Let’s see,” said Hutton, “we are going north-west, aren’t we?”

“Yes, so we shall be able to make use of the wind both ways, with a little tacking.”

“He’s shouting something now,” said Charlie, with his eyes still on Neil.

“Oh, he’s an old woman,” said Hall, laughing; “he’s always wanting to tell you this and that, as if no one knew anything about sailing but himself.” And he took off his hat and waved it ceremoniously to the old sailor, who continued shouting and beckoning all the while, though without avail, for the only words that came to us across the water were “fresh” and “afternoon,” and we were not much enlightened by them.

“I’m afraid he’s fresh in the morning,” laughed Hutton.

A short sail brought us to the bar mouth, over which, as the tide was in and the sea quiet, we passed without difficulty, although Hall had bade us have the oars ready in case of emergency, should it be necessary to lower our sail in crossing. But of this there was no need, and in a minute we were at last in the bay, and fairly at sea.

“Do you see Parkhurst over the trees there, you fellows?” cried Charlie, pointing behind us. “I never saw the place from the bay before.”

“Nor I,” I answered; “it looks better here than from any other side.”

We were all proud of the old school-house, and fully impressed with its superiority over any other building of the kind in the kingdom.

The view in the bay was extremely beautiful, Shargle Head stood out opposite us, distinct and grand, towering up from the water, and sweeping back to join the moorland hills behind. On our left, close beside the bar mouth, rose Raven Cliff, where we so often had been wont to lie and look out on this very bay; and one by one we recognised the familiar spots from our new point of view, and agreed that from no side does a grand coast look so grand as from the sea.

Our boat scudded along merrily, Hall keeping her a steady course, well up to the wind. After a few lessons we got to know our respective duties (so we thought) with all the regularity of a trained ship’s crew. With the wind as it was, right across our course, we had not much need to tack; but when the order to “stand by” did arrive, we prided ourselves that we knew how to act.

Hall let go the sheet, and Hutton lowered the sail, Charlie put round the helm, and I in the bows was ready to aid the others in shifting the canvas to the other side of the mast and hauling up the sail again. Then Hall resumed charge of the helm and drew in the sheet, Charlie and Hutton “trimmed” over to the other side of the boat, and once again our little craft darted forward.

We were all in exuberant spirits that lovely summer morning; even Charlie seemed to have forgotten his uneasiness at first starting, for he was now the life and soul of our party.

He told us wonderful stories about this very bay, gathered from some of his favourite histories. How, after the defeat of the Spanish Armada, when the proud vessels of Spain were driven partly by tempest, partly by the pursuit of our admiral, headlong along: this very coast, one of them had got into Colveston Bay, and there been driven ashore at the base of Raven Cliff, not one man of all her crew surviving that awful wreck. And he repeated one after another the legends connected with Druce Castle, whose ruined turrets we could discern away behind us, and of all the coves and crags and caves as we passed them, till, in our imagination, the bay became alive once more with ships and battle, and we seemed to watch the gleam of armour on the castle walls, and the glare of beacons on the headlands, and to hear the thunder of cannon from the beach; when presently Hall’s cheery call to “stand by” wakened us into a sudden recollection of our present circumstances. And then what songs we sang! what famous sea stories Hall told us! how Hutton made us roar with his recitations! how the time seemed to fly, and the boat too, and we in it, until at last we found the Great Shargle towering over our heads, and knew we had all but reached our destination.

Hall looked at his watch.

“That was a good run, boys,” said he; “not quite two hours—an uncommonly good run for an old tub like this. Now where shall we land?”

“I vote we land on Welkin Island,” said Charlie.

Welkin Island was separate about three-quarters of a mile from the mainland, famous for its caves and shells.

“All serene,” said Hall, putting the boat about; “stand by.”

So we made our last tack, and very soon were close up at the island. After some cruising we selected an eligible creek for landing, into which Hall ran our boat as neatly as the most experienced helmsman in Her Majesty’s Navy.

Then we landed, and dragging ashore our hamper of provisions, picnicked at the edge of the rocks, with the water on three sides of us, with Shargle Head across the narrow channel rising majestically above us, and the great amphitheatre of the bay extended like a picture beyond.

Need I say what a jovial repast it was; what appetites we had, what zest our situation lent to our meal, how each vied with each in merriment! But Charlie was the blithest of us all.

Then we wandered over that wonderful island. We waded into the caves, and climbed to the cliff tops; we filled our pockets with shells, we bathed, we aimed stones into the sea, we raced along the strand, we cut our names in a row on the highest point of the island, in commemoration of our expedition, and there they remain to this day.

“I say, I hope it’s not going to rain,” said Hutton, looking up at the clouds, which had for some time been obscuring the sun.

“Who cares if it does?” shouted Charlie. “Hullo, there goes my roof!” cried he, as a sudden gust of wind lifted his hat from his head, and sent it skimming down the rocks.

“I think it’s time we started home,” said Hall hurriedly.

There was something in the uneasy look of his face as he said this which made me uncomfortable.

So we turned to embark once more in our boat.

We could not conceal from ourselves, as we made our way to the creek where we had left her moored, that the weather, which had thus far been so propitious to our expedition, was not holding out as we could have wished. The wind, which had been little more than a steady breeze during the morning, now met us in frequent gusts, which made us raise our hands to our hats. A few ugly-looking black clouds on the horizon had come up and obscured the sun, threatening not only to shut out his rays, but to break over the bay in a heavy downpour of rain. Even on the half-sheltered side of the island where we were, the water, which had hitherto moved only in ripples, now began to heave restlessly in waves, which curled over as they met the breeze, and covered the sea with little white breakers. There was an uncanny sort of moan about the wind as it swept down the hollows of the rocks, and even the seagulls, as they skimmed past us on the surface of the now sombre water, seemed uncomfortable.

However, the sea was not rough, and though the sun happened to be hidden from us, we could see it shining brightly away in the direction of Parkhurst. The wind, too, though stronger than it had been in the morning, was still not violent, and we had little doubt of making as quick, if not a quicker passage back than we had already made.

So, although in our secret hearts each one of us would perhaps have preferred the weather of the earlier part of the day to have continued, we did not let our uneasiness appear to our fellows, or allow it to interfere with our show of good spirits.

“I tell you what,” said Charlie, laughing, as we came down to our boat, “it would be a real spree to have a little rough water going back, just for the fun of seeing old Hutton seasick.”

“I shall be very pleased to give you some amusement,” replied Hutton; “and perhaps Adams will assist, for I saw him looking anxiously over the bows once or twice as we were coming.”

“So did I,” said Charlie; “he must have seen a ghost in the water, for he looked awfully pale.”

“Shut up, you fellows,” cried I, who was notoriously a bad sailor, and easily disturbed by a rough sea; “perhaps we shall all—”

“I say,” called out Hall from the boat, where he was busy tying up a reef in our sail, “I wish you fellows would lend a hand here, instead of standing and chaffing there.”

We obeyed with alacrity, and very soon had our boat ready for starting.

“Now, Adams and Hutton, take the oars, will you? and pull her out of this creek: we had better not hoist our sail till we are clear of these rocks.”

As we emerged from our little harbour the boat “lumped” heavily over the waves that broke upon the rocks, and we had a hard pull to get her clear of these and turn her with her stern to Shargle.

“Now stand by,” shouted Hall.

We shipped our oars, and in a moment the sail, shortened by one reef, was hauled up, and the boat began to scud swiftly forward.

“You’ll have to sit right over, you two,” said Hall to Hutton and me, “to keep her trim. Look sharp about it!”

As he spoke a gust took the sail, and caused the boat to heel over far on to her side. She righted herself in an instant, however, and on we went, flying through the water.

“How do you feel, Adams?” called out Charlie mischievously, from his end of the boat.

“Pleasant motion, isn’t it?” put in Hutton, laughing.

“Look here, you fellows,” said Hall abruptly, “stop fooling now, and look after the boat.”

“Why, what’s the row?” said Hutton, struck with his unusually serious tone. “It’s all right, isn’t it?”

“It’s all right,” said Hall curtly, “if you’ll only attend to the sailing.”

Our merriment died away on our lips, for it was plain to be seen Hall was in no jesting humour.

Then several things struck us which we had not previously noticed. One was that the wind had shifted farther north, and was blowing hard right into the bay, gathering strength every minute. Hall, we noticed, was sailing as close as possible up to it, thus making our course far wider than that which had brought us in the morning.

“Why are you steering out like that?” I ventured to ask.

“Because if I didn’t— Look out!” he exclaimed, as a sudden gust caught the boat, making her stagger and reel like a drunken man. In an instant he had released the sheet rope, and the sail flapped with a tremendous noise about the mast. It was but an instant, however, and then we saw him coolly tighten the cord again, and put back the helm to its former course. After that I did not care to repeat my question.

Reader, have you ever found yourself at sea in an open boat, a mile or so from land, in a gathering storm; with the wind in your teeth and the sea rising ominously under your keel; with the black clouds mustering overhead, and the distant coastline whitening with breakers? Have you marked the headlands change from white to solemn purple? Have you listened to that strange hiss upon the water, and that moaning in the wind? Have you known your boat to fly through the waves without making way, and noted anxiously by some landmark that she is rather drifting back with the current, instead of, as it seems, tearing before the wind?

If so, you can imagine our feelings that afternoon.

It was useless to pretend things were not as bad as they looked; it was useless not to admit to ourselves we were fairly in for it now, and must brave it out as best we could; it was useless to maintain we had not been foolish, wickedly foolish, in starting on so venturesome an expedition; it was useless to deny that it would have been better had we remained at Shargle, or returned to Parkhurst by land.

We were in for it now.

The one thing which gave us confidence was Hall’s coolness, now that the danger was unmistakable. He neither allowed himself to get flurried nor alarmed, but sat with closed lips watching the sail—one hand on the tiller and the other grasping the sheet, ready to let it go at a moment’s notice.

As for us, we wished we could do anything more active than sit still and trim the boat. But even that was some use, and so we remained, watching anxiously the clouds as they rolled down the sides of the hills and half obscured Shargle Head from our view.

Presently, however, Hall said—

“Get the oars out, will you? we haven’t made any way for an hour.”

No way for an hour! Had we then been all that time plunging through the waves for nothing? With what grim earnestness we set to work to row through this unyielding current!

But to no effect—or scarcely any. The little white cottage on Shargle, which we looked round at so anxiously from time to time, to ascertain what progress had been made, remained always in the same position, and after twenty minutes’ desperate pulling it seemed as if the total distance gained had been scarcely half a dozen yards.

It was disheartening work, still more so as the sea was rising every minute, and the rain had already begun to fall.

“We’re in for a gale,” said Hall, as a wave broke over the side, drenching Hutton and me, and half-filling the bottom of the boat with water. “Look sharp, Charlie, and bale out that before the next comes.”

Charlie set to work with a will, and for a time we rowed steadily on, without saying a word.

“What’s the time?” I asked presently of Hall, as I saw him take out his watch.

“Five,” said he.

It was an hour after the time we had expected to be back at Parkhurst, and we were not yet clear of Shargle. The same thought evidently crossed the minds of the other three, for they all glanced in the direction of Raven Cliff, now scarcely visible through the heavy rain.

“I wish we were safe home,” muttered Hutton, the most dispirited of our crew. “What fools we were to come!”

We said nothing, but pulled away doggedly at the oars.

Now it really seemed as if we were making some progress out of that wretched current, for the white cottage on the cliff appeared farther astern than it had done since we began to row, and we were beginning to congratulate ourselves on our success, when Hall, who had for some time been anxiously watching the shore, cried out—

“For goodness’ sake pull hard, you fellows! we are drifting in fast. Here, Charlie, take the helm, and keep her the way she is, while I get down the sail. It’s no use now. Mind your heads, but don’t stop rowing,” he shouted to us, as he let down the sail suddenly, and lowered the mast. “Keep her head out, Charlie, whatever you do. Let go that rope beside you. That’s right. Now take hold of that end of the mast and slip it under the seat.”

So saying he managed to get down the mast and stow it away without impeding either the rowing or the steering, and immediately the advantage of the step was manifest in the steadier motion of the boat, although we groaned inwardly at the thought of having now all the distance to row. At least I groaned inwardly. Hutton was hardly as reserved.

“I tell you what,” he said to me, stopping rowing, “I don’t know what you and the other fellows intend to do, but I can’t row any more. I’ve been at it an hour together.”

“What are we to do, then?” inquired I.

“Why shouldn’t Hall take a turn? He’s been doing nothing.”

“He’s been steering,” replied I, “and he’s the only fellow who knows how, and Charlie’s not strong enough to row.”

“Well, all I can say is, I don’t mean to row any longer.”

All this had been said in an undertone to me, but now Hall cried out—

“What are you shopping for, Hutton? Pull away, man, or we shall never get out of this.”

“Pull away yourself!” said Hutton sulkily. “I’ve had enough of it. You brought us here, you’d better take us back!”

Hall’s face at that moment was a study. I fancy if this had been a ship and he the skipper, he would not have hesitated an instant how to deal with this unexpected contingency. But now he did hesitate. It was bitter enough punishment to him to be there exposed to all the dangers of a sudden storm, with the safety, and perhaps the life, not only of himself, but of us whom he had induced to accompany him, on his hands; but to have one of those comrades turn against him in the moment of peril was more than he had looked for.

“I’ll take an oar,” said Charlie, before there was time to say anything.

“No,” said Hall, starting up; “take the helm, Charlie. And you,” added he, to Hutton, “give me your oar and get up into the bows.”

The voice in which this was spoken, and the look of scorn which accompanied it, fairly cowed Hutton, who got up like a lamb and crawled into the bows, leaving Hall and me to row.

“Keep her straight to the waves, whatever you do! it’s all up if she gets broadside on!” said the former to Charlie.

And so for another half-hour we laboured in silence; then almost suddenly the daylight faded, and darkness fell over the bay.

I rowed on doggedly in a half-dream. Stories of shipwrecks and castaways crowded in on my mind; I found myself wondering how and when this struggle would end. Then my mind flew back to Parkhurst, and I tried to imagine what they must think there of our absence. Had they missed us yet? Should I ever be back in the familiar house, or—but I dared not think of that. Then I tried to pray, and the sins of my boyhood came up before my mind as I did so in terrible array, so that I vowed, if but my life might be spared, I would begin a new and better life from that time forward. Then, by a strange impulse, my eyes rested on Charlie, as he sat there quietly holding the tiller in his hands and gazing out ahead into the darkness. What was it that filled me with foreboding and terror as I looked at the boy? The scene of the morning recurred to my mind, and my halfhearted effort to prevent him from accompanying us. Selfish wretch that I had been! what would I not now give to have been resolute then? If anything were to happen to Charlie, how could I ever forgive myself?

“I think we’ve made some way,” he cried out cheerily. “Not much,” said Hall gloomily; “that light there is just under Shargle Head.”

“Had we better keep on as we are?” I asked. “I don’t see what else is to be done. If we let her go before the wind, we shall get right on to the rocks.”

“You’ve a lot to answer for,” growled Hutton from where he lay, half-stupid with terror, in the bows.

Hall said nothing, but dashed his oar vehemently into the water and continued rowing.

“I wonder if that light is anywhere near Parkhurst?” presently asked Archer. “Do you see?”

We looked, and saw it; and then almost instantly it vanished. At the same time we lost sight of the lights on Shargle Head, and the rain came down in torrents. “A mist!” exclaimed Hall, in tones of horror. Well indeed might he and we feel despair at this last extinguisher of our hopes. With no landmark to steer by, with wind and sea dead in our teeth, with the waves breaking in over our sides, and one useless mutineer in our midst, we felt that our fate was fairly sealed. Even Hall for a moment showed signs of alarm, and we heard him mutter to himself, “God help us now!” Next moment a huge wave came broadside on to us and emptied itself into our boat, half filling us with water. In the sudden shock my oar was dashed from my hand and carried away overboard!

“Never mind,” said Hall hurriedly, “it would have been no use; put her round, Charlie, quick—here, give me the tiller!”

In a moment the boat swung round to the wind (not, however, before she had shipped another sea), and then we felt we were simply flying towards the fatal rocks.

“Bale out, all of you!” shouted Hall; and we obeyed, including even Hutton, who seemed at last, in very desperation, to be awakening to a sense of his duty.

The next few minutes seemed like an age. As we knelt in our half-flooded boat scooping up the water there in our hats, or whatever would serve for the purpose, we could hear ahead of us the angry roar of breakers, and knew every moment was bringing us nearer to our doom.

By one impulse we abandoned our useless occupation. What was the use of baling out a boat that must inevitably in a few minutes be dashed to pieces on the rocks? Hutton crawled back into the bows, and Charlie and I sat where we were on the seat and waited.

I could not fail, even in such a situation, to notice and admire Hall’s self-possession and coolness. Desperate as our case was, he kept a steady hand on the helm, and strained his eyes into the mist ahead, never abating for a moment either his vigilance or his courage. But every now and then I could see his eyes turn for a moment to Charlie, and his face twitch as they did so, with a look of pain which I was at no loss to understand.

“How far are we from the rocks?” asked Charlie.

“I can’t say; a quarter of an hour, perhaps.”

“Whereabouts are we?” I asked.

“When the lights went out we were opposite Raven Cliff,” replied Hall.

We were silent for another minute; then Hall took out his watch.

“Eight o’clock,” said he.

“They’ll be at prayers at Parkhurst,” said Charlie; and in the silence that followed, need I say that we too joined as we had never done before in the evening prayers of our schoolfellows?

“Charlie, old boy,” said Hall, presently, “come and sit beside me, will you?”

Poor Hall! had it been only his own life that was at stake, he would never have flinched a muscle; but as he put his arm round the boy whom he had led into danger he groaned pitiably.

“I wonder if Neil’s out looking for us,” Hutton said from the bows.

“Not much use,” said Hall. “If only this mist would lift!”

But it did not lift. For another five minutes we tore through the waves, which as we neared the shore became wilder and rougher. Our boat, half full of water, staggered at every shock, and more than once we believed her last plunge had been taken.

On either side of us, for the little distance we could see through the mist, there was nothing but white foam and surging billows; behind us rushed the towering waves, overtaking us one by one, tossing us aloft and dashing us down, till every board of our boat creaked and groaned. Above us the rain poured in torrents, dashing on to our bare heads, and blinding us whenever we turned our faces back.

Then Hall cried out, “Listen! those must be breakers behind us!”

Assuredly they were! On either side we could hear the deafening thunder of the surf as it dashed over the rocks.

“Then, thank God!” exclaimed Hall, “we must have got in between two reefs; perhaps we shall go aground on the sand!”

The next two minutes are past description. Hutton crawled down beside me where I sat, and I could feel his hand on my arm, but I had no eyes except for Charlie, who sat pale and motionless with Hall’s arm round him.

“Now!” shouted Hall, abandoning the tiller, and tightening his hold on the boy.

There was a roar and a rush behind us, our boat swooped up with the wave, and hung for a moment trembling on its crest, then it fell, and in an instant we were in the water.

Hutton was beside me as the rush back of that huge wave swept us off our feet. I seized him by the arm, and next moment we were struggling to keep our heads up. Then came another monster, and lifted us like straws, flinging us before it on to the strand, and then rolling and foaming over us as we staggered to our feet.

Hutton, half stunned, had been swept from my hold, but mercifully was still within reach. Clutching him by the hair, I dragged him with all my might towards the land, before the returning wave should once more sweep us back into the sea. By a merciful Providence, a solitary piece of rock was at hand to aid us; and clinging to this we managed to support that terrific rush, and with the next wave stagger on to solid ground.

But what of Charlie? Leaving my senseless companion, I rushed wildly back to the water’s edge, and called, shouted, and even waded back into the merciless surf. But no answer: no sign. Who shall describe the anguish of the next half-hour? I was conscious of lights and voices; I had dim visions of people hurrying; I felt something poured down my throat, and some one was trying to lift me from where I sat. But no! I would not leave that spot till I knew what had become of Charlie, and in my almost madness I shrieked the boy’s name till it sounded even above the roaring waves.

Presently the lights moved all to one spot, and the people near me moved too. Weak as I was, I sprang to my feet and followed.

Good heavens! what did I see? Two sailors, half naked, stooped over something that lay on the sand between them, What, who was it? I cried; and the crowd made way for me as I fought my way to the place.

Two figures lay there; the smaller locked in the arms of his protector! But dead or living? Oh, if I could but hear some voice say they were not dead! Another person was kneeling over them beside me. Even in that moment of confusion and terror I could recognise his voice as that of the Parkhurst doctor.

“Look after this one here,” he said; “he has a broken arm. Carry up the little fellow to the cottage.”

Then I knew Charlie was dead!

It was weeks before I was sufficiently recovered in body or mind to hear more than I knew. Then the doctor told me:—

“Hall is getting better. He broke his arm in two places, trying to shield the boy from the rocks. He will not speak about it himself, and no one dares mention Archer’s name to him. There was neither bruise nor scratch on the little fellow’s body, which shows how heroically the other must have tried to save him.”

I soon recovered, but Hall was ill for many weeks—ill as much from distress of mind as from the injuries he had received. He and I are firm friends to this day; and whenever we meet, we speak often of little Charlie Archer. Hall is a sea captain now, and commands his own vessel in distant seas; but though he has been through many a peril and many a storm since, I can confidently say he never showed himself a better sailor than he did the night we sailed back from the Shargle.

Chapter Six.

“Fivers” versus “Sixers” at Parkhurst.

“I tell you what it is, you fellows, I shall learn to swim!” The speaker was Bobby Jobson, a hero of some thirteen summers, who, in company with four of us, his schoolfellows, sat on the bank of the Colven, under some willows, dabbling his shins in the clear water of the river.

The summer had been tremendously hot. Cricket was out of the question, and boating equally uninviting. The playground had been left deserted to bake and scorch under the fierce sun, and the swings and poles in the gymnasium had blistered and cracked in solitude. The only place where life was endurable was down by the river, and even there it was far too hot to do anything but sit and dabble our feet under the shelter of the trees, and think of icebergs!

A few of the fellows, to our unbounded envy, bathed. They could swim, we could not; and if any rule at Parkhurst was strict, it was the rule which forbade any boy who could not swim to bathe in the river, except with special leave and under the care of a master. And so, like so many small editions of Tantalus, we sat on the bank and kicked our heels in the water, and bemoaned the fate which had brought us into the world without web-feet.

Young donkeys that we were! The idea of learning to swim had never occurred to any of us till Bobby Jobson, in a happy moment, gave birth to the idea in his ejaculation, “I tell you what it is, you fellows, I shall learn to swim!”

“How?” I inquired.

“How?” said Jobson; “why, you know, how does every body learn?” and then he was polite enough to call me a duffer.

“I’ll tell you the way,” said Ralley, one of our set. “Lie across a desk on your stomach, two or three hours every day, and kick out with your arms and legs.”

“Corks and bladders,” mildly suggested some one else.

“Get old Blades,” (that was the boatman) “to tie a rope round your middle and chuck you into the Giant’s Pool,” kindly proposed another.

“Just tumble in where you are,” said Ralley, “and see if it doesn’t come naturally.”

“Ugh!” said Jobson, with a grimace, giving a sidekick in the water in the direction of the last speaker. “I’m not sure that that dodge would pay.”

While he spoke, to our unbounded horror, the bank on which he and his next neighbour were sitting suddenly gave way, and next moment, with a shout and a splash, our two comrades were floundering helplessly in five feet of water!

Help, happily, was at hand, or there is no saying what might have been the end of the adventure. We did all we could by reaching out our hands and throwing them our jackets to help them, while, with our shouts, we summoned more effective aid. Old Blades, who providentially happened to be passing, was with us in less than a minute, and fished out the two poor half-drowned boys, scarcely a moment before they needed it. They were more frightened, I fancy, than damaged; anyhow, we smuggled them home, dripping as they were, and helped them to bed; and when, next morning, they turned up as usual, nothing the worse for their first swimming lesson, we were, as you may imagine, infinitely relieved.

This little adventure was the origin of the Parkhurst Swimming Club. The doctor, on hearing of the affair, took the proper course; and, instead of forbidding us the river, he secured the services of one or two instructors, and had us all taught the art of swimming. For three months, every day of the week, the School Creek was full of sputtering, choking youngsters. Every new boy was hunted down to the river in turn, and by the end of the year there was hardly a boy at Parkhurst who could not keep his chin up in deep waters.

But this is a long introduction.

One day, two summers after that in which young Jobson and his friend had tumbled into the Colven, a large party of us were down at the bathing-place, indulging in what had now become a favourite summer pastime. It so happened that our party was made up entirely of boys in the two senior classes of the school—the fifth and the sixth. Most of us were landed and dressing, and while so occupied had leisure to watch the performances of those who still remained in the water.

Two of these specially interested us, who were swimming abreast about a hundred yards from the landing-place, evidently racing home. One of these chanced to be a sixth-form boy and the other a fifth, and a sudden impulse seized us of the latter class to cheer our man vehemently, and back him to be the first to reach home. The sixth-form fellows, thus challenged, became equally excited in backing their man, and so, without premeditation, a regular match was made. The two swimmers, hearing our shouts, entered into the spirit of the thing, and a desperate race ensued. They came on, neck and neck, towards us, cheered like mad by their respective supporters, both sides deeming the honour of his form at stake in the event. Within a yard or two of the finish they were still level, when the sixth-form man put on a terrific spurt, to our huge disgust, and just landed himself in a nose ahead.

Of course, we were not going to be beaten thus, and there and then demanded our revenge. Whereupon the company—half of them in a very elementary stage of dressing, and the other half in no stage at all—resolved itself into a meeting on the spot, and fixed that day week for a formal trial of prowess between the two classes. Three events were to be contested—a half-mile race, a hundred yards, and a duck hunt—and, of course, the winner of two out of the three would carry the day.

Then, in great excitement, we finished our toilets and hurried back to the school, where, naturally, the news of the coming contest spread like wildfire and caused a great commotion. The school divided itself forthwith into two factions, calling themselves the “fivers” and “sixers.” The selection of representatives to compete in the races was a matter of almost as much excitement as the races themselves, and I need hardly say it was a proud day for me when I was informed I was to act in the capacity of “hunter” for the fifth in the duck hunt. I accepted the honour with mingled pride and misgivings, and spent a busy week practising for my arduous duties.

Well, the eventful day came at last, and nearly the whole school mustered at Cramp Corner to see the sport. For the half-mile race, which was to come off first, there were only two fellows competing. Our man was Barlow—of paper-chase celebrity—while the sixth were very confident of winning with Chesney, a hero nearly six feet high. Certainly, as the two stood on the spring-board waiting the signal to go, there seemed very little chance for the small Jim against his lanky antagonist, although some of us comforted ourselves with the contemplation of our man’s long arms and the muscles in his legs. The course was to be once up Cramp Reach and back—just half a mile. The swimmers were at liberty to swim in any manner they chose, and bound only to one rule—to keep their right side.

They were not long kept waiting in their scanty attire on the planks. The doctor himself gave the signal to start, and at the word they darted with two “swishes” into the water. Jim’s head was up first, and off he started at a steady chest-stroke, meaning business. Chesney’s dive was a long one, and, considering he had a half-mile race before him, a foolish one, for he taxed his breath at the outset, which might have been avoided, had he thought less about elegance and more about the race. However, he did not seem at first to be any the worse off for he took a slight lead of Jim, going through the water swiftly and easily, with as pretty a side-stroke as any fellow’s at the school. In point of style there was no comparison between the two. Jim pounded along monotonously, but steadily, with a square front, preserving all along the same regular stroke, the same pace, and the same dogged expression of countenance with which he had entered the water. His rival, on the other hand, delighted the spectators by all kinds of graceful variety. Now he darted forward on his side, now on his back. Sometimes he refreshed himself by a swift dive, and sometimes he swung his arms like a windmill. In fact, there was scarcely any accomplishment possible in rapid swimming which he did not give us the benefit of.

But it was evident some of his friends did not approve of his style. I heard one of them, running near me, growl, “I wish he would give over his capers and swim like a rational animal.”

“Rational or not, he’s keeping his lead,” said another, and so he was. Plodding Jim, with his everlasting chest-stroke, was half a dozen yards or so behind, and did not look like picking up either. Nevertheless, we cheered him like mad, and kept up our hopes that he would “stay out” the better of the two.

When both turned at the top of the reach, Chesney gave up his fanciful swimming, and, to our alarm, settled down to a side-stroke, which for a time looked powerful and effective. But he had been too confident all along, and now, when he reckoned on shaking off his opponent and getting a clear lead, he found out he was destined to do just the reverse. What long faces the “sixers” pulled as their man began to puff and slacken pace! A half-mile race is no joke, believe me; and so Chesney began to find out. Before half the distance back was covered he showed unmistakable signs of going to pieces, and—a very ominous sign—took to changing from one side to another at very frequent intervals.

Of course we “fivers” howled with delight! Our man had never turned a hair, and was now pulling up at every stroke. As he drew level, Chesney gathered up all his remaining strength for a spurt. But it came to nothing. Jim held on his way almost remorselessly, and headed his man fifty yards from the winning-post; and the next thing we saw was Chesney pulling up dead, and making for the bank in a very feeble condition. Jim quietly swam on amid our frantic plaudits, and landed pretty nearly as fresh as when he started.

So far so good. Loud and long were our exultations, for we had hardly expected to win this race; we had put our chief confidence on the hundred yards, which was to follow. In this race three a side were entered, and of our three we knew no one in the school who could beat Halley at a hundred yards. It was rumoured, indeed, that Payne, one of the three “sixers,” had been doing very well in training, but the reports of him were not sufficiently decided to shake our faith in our own hero.

It was an anxious moment as they stood there waiting for the doctor’s signal. If only we could win this race, we should have our two races out of the three in hand without further combat.

“Go!” cried the doctor; and at the word six youthful forms plunge into the water, and for a second are lost to sight. But the moral of the half-mile race has evidently been taken to heart by these six boys. They waste neither time nor wind under the surface, but rising quickly, dash to their work. After the first few strokes Payne showed in front, greatly to the delight of the “sixers,” who felt that everything depended on their man. We, however, were glad to see our man sticking close up, and keeping stroke for stroke after his rival. Of the others, one only—little Watson—of the sixth seemed to hold his own, and that was a good three yards in the rear of Halley: while the three others fell off hopelessly from the very beginning.

The race was short, but eventful. To our delight, Halley overhauled Payne before half-way was reached, and we felt now absolutely sure of the race. It never occurred to us to think of young Watson at all. But all of a sudden it became apparent that that young man meant business. He changed his front, so to speak, in a very unexpected manner, and just as we were beginning to exult over our man’s certain victory, he lay over on his side, and, with a peculiar, jerky side-stroke, began to work his little carcase through the water at a wonderful pace.

Before long he had overtaken his fellow-“sixer,” and almost immediately drew up to our champion. We were in consternation. Twenty yards more would end the race, and if only our man could hold out and keep his lead, we were all right. At first it looked as if he would, for, encouraged by our cheers, and seeing his peril, he spurted, and kept a good yard ahead of this audacious young “sixer.” But the latter put one spurt on to another, and drew up inch by inch. Ten yards from home they were level; then, for a stroke or two, there was a frantic struggle; then the “sixers” sent forth a shout that must have frightened the very fishes; and well they might, for their man had won the race, a yard and a half clear ahead of our champion.

One race each! And now for the “duck hunt” to settle the match. But before I go further I ought to explain, for the benefit of those who have not been initiated into the mysteries of the pastime, how a duck hunt was managed at Parkhurst.

The part of the river selected was close to the mouth, where the stream at high water is about a quarter of a mile broad. Two boundary boats, one above and one below, were anchored at half a mile distance, and between these limits the hunt was to take place. The “duck” was provided with a little punt, about five feet long and pretty wide, in which he was to escape as best he might from a cutter manned by four rowers and a coxswain, and carrying in its bows a “hunter.” As long as he chose, or as long as he could, the duck might dodge his pursuers in his punt; but when once run down he would have to take to the water, and by swimming make good his escape from his pursuers, whose “hunter” would be ready at any moment to jump overboard and secure him. If, however, after twenty minutes the duck still remained uncaught, he was to be adjudged winner.

Such was the work cut out for us on this memorable afternoon. The duck on the present occasion was a sixth-form fellow called Haigh, one of the best divers and swimmers in the school, while, as I have already said, I had been selected to act as hunter on behalf of the fifth.

The duck, arrayed in the slightest of costumes, was not long in putting in an appearance in his little punt, which, being only five feet long, was so light that it seemed to jump through the water at every stroke of the oars; while a single stroke either way sufficed to change its course in a moment. The cutter, in the prow of which I (as slenderly attired as the duck) was stationed, was also a light boat, and of course, with its four rowers, far swifter than the punt; but when it came to turning and dodging, it was, because of its length, comparatively unwieldy and clumsy.

All now was ready for the chase. The duck was to get a minute’s clear start, and at the signal off he darted up the stream. The minute seemed to us in the cutter as if it were never going to end, and we watched with dismay the pace at which our lively fugitive was “making tracks.”

“Ready all, in the cutter!” cries the doctor. “Off!” and next moment we are flying through the water in full cry. As we gradually pull up to the duck he diminishes his pace, and finally lies on his oars and coolly waits for us.

“Put it on, now!” calls out our coxswain, and our boat shoots forward. When within a few yards, the duck, apparently alive to his danger, dashes his oars into the water and darts ahead. But we are too fast for him. Another two strokes and we shall row him down.

“Now then!” cries our coxswain.

Ah! At a tremendous pace our boat flew forward over the very place where, a second before, our duck had been. But where was he? By a turn of the hand he had twisted round his punt, and as our fellows dug their oars wildly into the water and tried to pull up, there was he, calmly scuttling away in an opposite direction, and laughing at us!

In due time we had swung round, and were after him again, the wiser for this lesson.

Next time we overhauled him we made our approach in a far more gingerly manner. We kept as little way as possible on our boat, determined not to lose time again by overshooting our mark. As long as he could, our duck led us down stream, then, when we had all but caught him, he made a feint of swooping off to the right, a manoeuvre which our coxswain promptly followed. But no sooner was our rudder round than the rogue deftly brought his punt sharp to the left, and so once more escaped us.

This sort of thing went on for a long time, and I was beginning to think the hunt was likely to prove a monotonous affair after all, when our coxswain suddenly called to me down the boat—

“Be ready, Adams.”

Then it began gradually to dawn on me our coxswain after all knew what he was about. There was a rather deep bay up near the top of the course, bounded by two prominent little headlands, and into this bay the duck, in a moment of carelessness, had ventured. It was a chance not to be let slip. A few strokes brought our cutter up to the spot, and once there, our cunning coxswain carefully kept us pointed exactly across the bay. The duck, seeing his danger, made a dash to one corner, hoping to avoid us; but he was too late, we were there before him, and before he could double and make the other corner our boat had back-watered to the spot. Thus gradually we hemmed him in closer and closer to the shore, amid the cheers of our friends, until at last it was evident to every one the punt was no longer of use.

Still, he let us sidle close up to him before he abandoned his craft; then with a sudden bound he sprang overboard and disappeared from view.

It was no use going after him, I knew, till I could see where he would rise, and so I waited, ready for a plunge, watching the water where he would probably turn up. Several seconds passed, but there were no signs of him. He was a good diver, we all knew, but this was surely a very long dive. Had an accident happened to him? A minute elapsed, two, and yet he never appeared! We in the boat were aghast; he must have come to grief. Ah! what were the people on the bank laughing at? Could there be some trick? Next instant the coxswain called out, laughing—

“He’s hanging on to the rudder; over you go, Adams!”

At the word I slipped overboard and gave chase. And now began an exciting pursuit. Haigh, though perfectly at home in the water, was not a rapid swimmer; but in point of diving and dodging he had a tremendous advantage over any of his pursuers. The moment I got near him, and just as I was thinking to grab him, he would disappear suddenly and come up behind me. He would dive towards the right and come up towards the left. He would dodge me round the boat, or swim round me in circles, but no effort of mine could secure him. The time was getting on, and I was no nearer having him than before. With all his dodges, too, he never seemed to take his eyes off me for an instant, either above or below the water.

Once, as I was giving him chase, he suddenly dived, and the next intimation I had of his whereabouts was a sly pinch of my big toe as he came up behind me. This was adding insult to injury, so I dashed round, and made at him. Again he dived; and this time, without waiting an instant, I dived too. I could see him distinctly under the water, scuttling away in a downward direction just below me. Shutting my lips tight, I dug my way down after him; but, alas! under water I was no match for Haigh. I felt an irresistible temptation to gasp; my nose smarted, and the water round my head seemed like lead. As quickly as possible I turned my hands up, and struck out for the surface.

What ages it seemed before I reached it! A second—half a second longer, and I should have shipped a mouthful, perhaps a chestful of water. I reached the surface at last, and, once above water, felt all right again. I looked about anxiously for my duck. But he was still down below. I reckoned, from the direction in which he had dived, that he would not be able to go far to either side, and therefore would rise close to me, probably exhausted, and if so, I had a good chance at last of catching him. So I waited and watched the place, but he never came.

Remembering my own sensations, and how nearly I had come to grief, I took a sudden fright, and concluding he must be in straits down below, shouted to the boat to come to the place, and then dived. I groped about, and looked in all directions, but saw no sign of him, and finally, in a terrible fright, made once more for the surface.

The first thing I was conscious of, on getting my head up, was a great shouting and laughing, and then I caught sight of that abominable duck, who had come up behind me, and had been laughing all the while behind my back, while I had been hunting for him in a far more serious way than I need ever have done!

Before I could turn and make towards him “Time!” was shouted from the bank; and so the Parkhurst Swimming Contest ended in a lamentable, though not disgraceful, defeat of the “fivers.”

Chapter Seven.

Athletic Sports at Parkhurst.

The last Saturday before the summer holidays was invariably a great day at Parkhurst. The outdoor exercises of the previous ten months culminated then in the annual athletic sports, which made a regular field-day for the whole school. Boys who had “people” living within a reasonable distance always did their best to get them over for the day; the doctor—an old athlete himself—generally invited his own party of friends; and a large number of spectators from Parkhurst village and the neighbourhood were sure to put in an appearance, and help to give importance to the occasion. Athletic sports without spectators (at least, so we boys thought) would be a tame affair, and we were sure to get through our day’s performances all the better for a large muster of outsiders on the ground.

The occasion I am about to recall was specially interesting to me, as it was the first athletic meeting in which I, a small boy just entering my teens, ever figured. I was only down to run in one of the races, and that was the three-legged race; and yet I believe there was not a boy in the school so excited at the prospect of these sports as I was. I thought the time would never come, and was in positive despair when on the day before it a little white cloud ventured to appear in the blue sky. A wet day, so I thought, would have been as great a calamity as losing the whole circle of my relatives, and almost as bad as having my favourite dog stolen, or my fishing-rod smashed; and I made a regular fool of myself in the morning of the eventful day by getting up first at two a.m., then at three, then at four, and four or five times more, to take observations out of the window, till at last my bedfellow declared he would stand it no longer, and that since I was up, I should stay up.

Ah! he was an unsympathetic duffer, and knew nothing of the raptures of winning a three-legged race.

Well, the day was a splendid one after all—a little hot, perhaps, but the ground was in grand order, and hosts of people would be sure to turn up. My race yoke-fellow and I went out quite early for a final spin over the course, and found one or two of the more diligent of our schoolfellows taking a similar advantage of the “lie-abeds.” Of course, as we were of opinion that the three-legged race was the most important and attractive of all the day’s contests, we paid very little heed to what others were doing, but sought out a retired corner for ourselves, where, after tying our inside legs together, and putting our arms round one another’s necks in the most approved fashion, we set to and tore along as fast as we could, and practised starts and falls, and pick-ups and spurts, and I don’t know what else, till we felt that if, after all, we were to be beaten, it would not be our faults. With which comfortable reflection we loosed our bonds and strolled back to breakfast.

Here, of course, the usual excitement prevailed, and one topic engrossed all the conversation. I sat between a fellow who was in for the Junior 100 yards, and another who was down for the “hurdles.” Opposite me was a hero whom every one expected to win in throwing the cricket-ball, and next to him a new boy who had astonished every one by calmly putting his name down for the mile race before he had been two hours at Parkhurst. In such company you may fancy our meal was a lively one, and, as most of us were in training, a very careful one.

The first race was to be run at twelve, and we thought it a great hardship that the lower school was ordered to attend classes on this of all days from nine to eleven. Now I am older, it dawns on me that this was a most wholesome regulation; for had we small chaps been allowed to run riot all the morning, we should have been completely done up, and fit for nothing when the races really began. We did not do much work, I am afraid, at our desks that morning, and the masters were not particularly strict, for a wonder. The one thing we had to do was to keep our seats and restrain our ardour, and that was no easy task.

Eleven came at last, and off we rushed to the mysteries of the toilet. What would athletic sports be like without flannel shirts and trousers, or ribbons and canvas shoes? At any rate, we believed in the importance of these accessories, and were not long in arraying ourselves accordingly. I could not help noticing, however, as we sallied forth into the field, that fine feathers do not always make fine birds. There was Tom Sampson, for instance, the biggest duffer that ever thought he could run a step, got up in the top of the fashion, in bran-new togs, and a silk belt, and the most gorgeous of scarlet sashes across his shoulders; while Hooker, who was as certain as Greenwich time to win the quarter-mile, had on nothing but his old (and not very white) cricket clothes, and no sash at all. And there was another thing I noticed about these old hands: they behaved in the laziest of manners. They sprawled on the grass or sat on the benches, appearing disinclined for the slightest exertion; while others, less experienced, took preliminary canters along the tracks, or showed off over the hurdles. Fine fellows, no doubt, they thought themselves; but they had reason to be sorry for this waste of energy before the day was out.

Programmes! With what excitement I seized mine and glanced down it! There it was! “Number 12. Three-legged Race, 100 yards, for boys under 15. 1, Trotter and Walker (pink); 2, White and Benson (green); 3, Adams and Slipshaw (blue).” Reader, have you ever seen your name in print for the first time? Then you may imagine my sensations!

Things now begin to look like business. The doctor has turned up, and a party of ladies. The visitors’ enclosure is fast filling up, and there is a fair show of carriages behind. Those big fellows in the tall hats are old Parkhurstians, come to see the young generation go through its paces, and that little knot of men talking together in the middle of the ground consists of the starter, judge, and umpire. Not a few of us, too, turn our eyes wistfully to that tent over yonder, where we know are concealed the rewards of this day’s combats; and in my secret heart I find myself wondering more than once how it will sound to hear the names “Adams and Slipshaw” called upon to receive the first prize for the three-legged race.

Hark! There goes a bell, and we are really about to begin. “Number 1, Junior 100 yards, for boys under 12,” and 24 names entered! Slipshaw and 1, both over 12, go off to have a look at “the kids,” and a queer sight it is. Of course, they can’t all, 24 of them, run abreast, and so they are being started in heats, six at a time. The first lot is just starting. How eagerly they toe the line and look up at the starter!

“Are—” he begins, and two of them start, and have to be called back. “Are you ready?” he says. Three of them are off now, and can’t understand that they are to wait for the word “Off!” But at last the starter gets to the end of his speech and has them fairly off. The little fellows go at it as if their lives depended on it. Their mothers and big brothers are looking on, their “chums” are shouting to them along the course, and the winning-post is not very far ahead. On they go, but not in a level row. One has taken the lead, and the others straggle behind him in a queer procession. It doesn’t last long. Even a Junior 100 yards must come to an end at last, and the winner runs, puffing, into the judge’s arms, half a dozen yards ahead of the next boy, and 50 yards ahead of the last. The other three heats follow, and then, amid great excitement, the final heat is run off, and the best man wins.

For the Senior 100 yards which followed only three were entered, and each of these had his band of confident admirers. Slipshaw and I were very “sweet” on Jackson, who was monitor of our dormitory, and often gave us the leavings of his muffins, but Ranger was a lighter-built fellow, and seemed very active, while Bruce’s long legs looked not at all pleasant for his opponents. The starter had no trouble with them, but it was no wonder they all three looked anxious as they turned their faces to him; for in a 100 yards’ race the start is everything, as poor long-legged Bruce found out, for he slipped on the first spring, and never recovered his lost ground. Between Ranger and Jackson the race was a fine one to within twenty yards of home, when our favourite’s “fat” began to tell on him, and though he stuck gallantly to work he could not prevail over the nimble Ranger, who slipped past him and won easily by a yard.

This was a damper for Slipshaw and me, who, as in duty bound, attended our champion back to where he had left his coat, and so missed the throwing of the cricket-ball, which was easily won by the favourite.

But though we missed that event, we had no notion of missing the high jump, which promised to be the best thing (next to the three-legged race) that day. Four fellows were in for it, and of these Shute and Catherall were two of the best jumpers Parkhurst had ever had; and it was well known all over the school that in practice each had jumped exactly 5 foot 4 inches. Who would win now? The two outsiders were soon got rid of, one at 4 foot 10 inches, and the other at 5 foot; and the real interest of the event began when Shute and Catherall were left alone face to face with the bar. Shute was a tall fellow, of slight make and excellent spring. Catherall was short, but with the bounce of an india-rubber ball in him, and a wonderful knack of tucking his feet up under him in jumping. It was a pretty sight to watch them advance half-inch by half-inch, from 5 foot to 5 foot 3 inches. There seemed absolutely nothing to choose between them, they both appeared to clear the bar so easily. At 5 foot 3½ inches. Shute missed his first jump, greatly to the dismay of his adherents, who saw Catherall clear it with complete ease. If he were to miss the second time, he would be out of it, and that would be a positive tragedy. So we all watched his next jump with breathless anxiety. He stood looking at the bar for a second or two, as if doubting his own chance. Then his face cleared up, and he sprang towards it. To our delight he rose beautifully and cleared it easily. At 5 foot 4 inches both missed the first jump, but both cleared it at the second trial. And now for the tug of war. Both had accomplished the utmost he had ever hitherto achieved, and it remained to be seen whether the excitement of the occasion would assist either or each to excel himself. Shute came to grief altogether at 5 foot 4½ inches, and again, to our dismay, Catherall bounded over the bar at his first effort. Shute’s friends were in despair, and if that hero had been a nervous fellow he might have been the same. But he was a very cool fish, and instead of losing his nerve, sat down on the grass and tightened the lace of his shoe. Then he slowly rose to his feet and faced his task. At that moment I forgot all about the three-legged race, and gave my whole heart up to the issue of this jump. He started to run at last, slow at first, but gathering pace for his final leap. Amid breathless silence he sprang forward and reached the bar, and then—then he coolly pulled up and walked back again. This looked bad; but better to pull up in time than spoil his chance. He kept us waiting an age before he was ready to start again, but at last he turned for his last effort. We could tell long before he got to the bar that this time, at any rate, he was going to jump, whether he missed or no. Jump he did, and, to our unbounded delight, just cleared the bar—so narrowly that it almost shook as he skimmed over it. That was the end of the high jump; for though both attempted the 5 foot 5 inches, neither accomplished it, and the contest was declared to be a dead heat.

After this several unimportant races followed, which I need hardly describe. Number 12 on the list was getting near, and I was beginning to feel a queer, hungry sort of sensation which I didn’t exactly like. However, the mile was to be run before our turn came, and that would give me time to recover.

For this race we had many of us looked with a curious interest, on account of the new boy, of whom I have spoken, being one of the competitors in it. He didn’t look a likely sort of fellow to win a race, certainly, for he was slightly bow-legged and thick-set, and what seemed to us a much more ominous sign, was not even arrayed in flannels, but in an ordinary white shirt and light cloth trousers. However, he took his place very confidently at the starting-post, together with three rivals, wearing respectively black, red, and yellow for their colours.

The start for a mile race is not such a headlong affair as for a hundred yards, and consequently at the word “Off!” there was comparatively little excitement among us spectators.

Yellow went to the front almost immediately, with red and black close behind, while the new boy seemed to confirm our unfavourable impression by keeping considerably in the rear. The mile was divided into three laps round the field, and at the end of the first the positions of the four were the same as at starting. But it was soon evident yellow was not destined to continue his lead, for before the half distance was accomplished, red and black, who all along had been neck and neck, were up to him and past him, and by the end of the lap the new boy had also overtaken him.

And now we became considerably more interested in the progress of this new boy, who, it suddenly occurred to us, seemed to be going very easily, which was more than could be said of red, who was dropping a little to the rear of black. A big boy near me said, “That fellow’s got the wind of a balloon,” and I immediately began to think he was not far wrong. For in this third lap, when two of the others were slacking pace, and when the third was only holding his own, the new boy freshened up remarkably. We could watch him crawl up gradually nearer and nearer to red, till a shout proclaimed him to be second in the running. But black was still well ahead, and in the short space left, as the big boy near me said, “He could hardly collar his man.”

But see! The fellow is positively beginning to tear along! He seems fresher than when he started. “Look out. Black!” shout twenty voices. All very well to say, “Look out!” Black is used up, and certainly cannot respond to this tremendous spurt. Thirty yards from home the new boy is up to his man, and before the winning-post is reached he is a clear ten yards ahead.

“Bellows did it,” said the big boy; “look at his chest”; and then for the first time I noticed where the secret of this hero’s triumph lay.

But, horrors! the next race is Number 12, and Slipshaw and I scuttle off as hard as we can go, to get ready.

How miserable I felt then! I hated athletic sports, and detested “three-legged races.” As we emerged from the tent, we and the other two couples, ambling along on our respective three legs, a shout of laughter greeted our appearance. I, for one, didn’t see anything to laugh at, just then.

“Adams,” said Slipshaw, as we reached the starting-place, “take it easy, old man, and mind you don’t go over.”

“All right,” said I, feeling very much inclined to go over at that instant. Then that awful starter began his little speech.

“Are you ready?” he asked.

“Not at all,” inwardly ejaculated I.

“Off!” he cried; and almost before I knew where I was, Slipshaw and I were hopping along on our three legs amid the cheers of the crowd.

“Steady!” said he, as I stepped out rather too fast.

Alas! we were last. The other two couples were pounding along ahead at a wonderful pace.

“Steady!” growled Slipshaw again, as I began to try to run, and nearly capsized him.

You may laugh, reader, but it was no joke, that three-legged race. The others ahead of us showed no signs of flagging; they were going hard, one couple close at the heels of the other, and we a full five yards behind. I was giving one despairing thought to the pots and prizes in the tent, when a great roar of laughter almost made me forget which foot to put forward.

What could it be?—and Slipshaw was laughing too!

“Steady, now,” he said, “and come along!”

The laughter continued, and looking before me, I suddenly detected its cause. The leading couple in a moment of over-confidence had attempted to go too fast, and had come on their noses on the path, and the second couple, too close behind them, had not had time to avoid the obstacle, but had plunged headlong on to the top of them! It was all right now! Slipshaw and I trotted triumphantly past the prostrate heap, and after all won our prize! You may fancy I was too excited to think of much else after that, except indeed the hurdle race, which was most exciting, and won most cleverly by Catherall, who, though he came to grief at the last hurdle, was able to pick himself up in time to rush in and win the race by a neck from the new boy, whom we found to be almost as good at jumping as he was at running.

Then followed a two-mile race—rather dull to watch—and with that the sports were at an end.

Need I say how proudly Slipshaw and I marched up arm-in-arm to receive the prize for our race, which consisted of a bat for me and a telescope for my companion?—or how the new boy was cheered?—or how Shute and Catherall were applauded?

Before I left Parkhurst I was an old hand at athletic sports, but I don’t think I ever thought any of them so interesting as the day on which Slipshaw and I, with our legs tied together, came in first in the three-legged race!

Chapter Eight.

The Sneak.

Sneak! It’s an ugly name, but not ugly enough, believe me, for the animal it describes.

Like his namesake, the snake, he may be a showy enough looking fellow at first sight, he may have the knack of wriggling himself into your acquaintance, and his rattle may amuse you for a time, but wait till he turns and stings you!

I am at a loss how to describe in a few words what I—and, I expect, most of us—mean when we talk of a sneak. He is a mixture of so many detestable qualities. There is a large amount of cowardice in his constitution, and a similar quantity of jealousy; and then there are certain proportions of falsehood, ingratitude, malice, and officiousness to complete his ugly anatomy, to say nothing of hypocrisy and self-conceit. When all these amiable ingredients are compounded together, we have our model sneak.

How we detest the fellow! how our toes tingle when he comes our way! how readily we go a mile round to avoid him! how we hope we may never be like him!

Let me tell you of one we had at our school. Any one who did not know Jerry would have said to himself, “That’s a pleasant enough sort of fellow.” For so he seemed. With a knack of turning up everywhere, and at all times, he would at first strike the stranger as only an extremely sociable fellow, who occasionally failed to see he wasn’t as welcome as one would think he deserved to be. But wait a little. Presently he’d make up to you, and become very friendly. In your pleasure at finding some one to talk to after coming away from home to a new and lonely place, you will, in the innocence of your heart, grow confidential, and tell him all your secrets. You will perhaps tell him to whom your sister is engaged; how much pocket-money your father allows you. You’ll show him a likeness of the little cousin you are over head and ears in love with, and tell him about the cake your old nurse has packed up among the schoolbooks in your trunk. He takes the greatest interest in the narration; you feel quite happy to have had a good talk about the dear home, and you go to bed to dream of your little sweetheart and your new friend.

In the morning, when you wake, there is laughter going on in the beds round you. As you sit up and rub your eyes, and wonder where you are—it’s all so different from home—you hear one boy call out to another—

“I say, Tom, don’t you wish you had a nurse to make you cakes?”

That somehow seems pointed at you, though addressed to another, for all the other boys look round at you and grin.

“Wouldn’t I?” replies the Tom appealed to. “Only when a chap’s in love, you know, he’s no good at cakes.”

“Cakes!” “in love!” They must be making fun of you; but however do they know so much about you? Listen! “If I had a sister, I’d take care she didn’t go and marry a butter-man, Jack, wouldn’t you?”

It must be meant for you; for you had told Jerry the evening before that your sister was going to marry a provision merchant! Then all of a sudden it flashes upon you. You have been betrayed! The secrets you have whispered in private have become the property of the entire school; and the friend you fancied so genial and sympathising has made your open-hearted frankness the subject of a blackguard jest, and exposed you to all the agony of schoolboy ridicule!

With quivering lips and flushed face, half shame, half anger, you dash beneath the clothes, and wish the floor would open beneath you. When the getting-up bell sounds, you slink into your clothes amid the titters of your companions. It is weeks before you hear the end of your nurse, your pocket money, your sister, and your sweetheart; and for you all the little pleasure of your first term at school has gone.

But what of Jerry? He comes to you in the morning as if nothing had happened, with a “How are you, old fellow?”

You are so indignant you can’t speak; all you are able to do is to glare in scorn and anger.

“Afraid you’re not well,” remarks the sneak; “change of scene, you know. I hope you’ll soon be better.”

Just as he is going you manage, though almost bursting with the effort, to stammer out—“What do you mean by telling tales of me to all the fellows?” He looks perplexed, as if at a loss for your meaning. “Tell tales of you?” says he. “I don’t know what you mean, old chap.”

“Yes, you do. How did they all know all about me this morning, if you hadn’t told them?”

Then, as if your meaning suddenly dawned upon him, he breaks into a forced laugh, and exclaims—

“Oh, the chaff between Tom and Jack! I was awfully angry with Jack for beginning it—awfully angry. We happened to be talking last night, you know, about home, and I just mentioned what you had told me, never thinking the fellow would be such a cad as to let it out.”

You are so much taken aback at the impudence of the fellow, that you let him walk away without another word. If you have derived no other advantage from your first day at school, you have at least learned to know the character of Jerry. And you find it out better as you go on.

If you quarrel with him, and threaten him with condign punishment, he will report you to the doctor, and you’ll get an imposition. If you sit up beyond hours reading, he’ll contrive to let the monitors know, and your book will be confiscated; if you happen to be “spinning a yarn” with a chum in your study, you will generally find, if you open the door suddenly, that he is not very far from the keyhole; if you get up a party to partake of a smuggled supper in the dormitory, he will conduct a master to the scene, and get you into a row. There’s no secret so deadly he won’t get hold of; nothing you want kept quiet that he won’t spread all round the school. In fact, there’s scarcely anything he does not put his finger into, and everything he puts his finger into he spoils.

If, in a weak moment of benevolence, you take him back into your confidence and friendship, no one will be more humble and forgiving and affable; but he will just use your new favour as a weapon for paying back old grudges, and sorely will you repent your folly.

In fact, there is only one place for Jerry—that place is Coventry. That city is famous for one sneak already. Let Jerry keep him company. There he can tell tales, and peep and listen and wriggle to his heart’s content. He’ll please himself, and do no one any harm.

A sneak has not always the plea of self-interest for his meanness. Often enough his tale-bearing or his mischief-making can not only do his victims incalculable harm, but cannot do him any possible good.

What good did the snake in the fable expect who, having been rescued, and warmed and restored to life by the merciful woodcutter, turned on his deliverer and stung him? No wonder the good fellow knocked him on the head! I knew another sneak once who seemed to make a regular profession of this amiable propensity. He seemed to consider his path in life was to detect and inform on whatever, to his small mind, seemed a culpable offence. In the middle of school, all of a sudden his raspy voice would lift itself up in ejaculations like these, addressed to the master,—

“Please, sir,” (he always prefaced his remarks with “Please, sir”), “Please, sir, Tom Cobb’s eating an apple!”

“Please, sir, Jenkins has made a blot!”

“Please, sir, Allen junior is cutting his name on the desk!”

Perhaps the indignant Allen junior would here take occasion to acknowledge his sense of this attention by a private kick under the desk. Then it would be—

“All right, Joe Allen; I’ll sneak of you, you see if I don’t!”

No one could do it better.

Amiable little pet, how we all loved him!

Sneaking seems to be a sort of disease with some people. There’s no other way of accounting for it. It sometimes seems as if the mere sight of happiness or success in others is the signal for its breaking out. As we have said, its two leading motives are cowardice and jealousy. Just as the cur will wait till the big dog has passed by, and then, slinking up behind, give a surreptitious snap at his heels, so the sneak, instead of standing face to face with his rival, and instead of entering into fair competition with him, creeps up unobserved and inflicts his wound on the sly.

Thus it has been with all traitors and spies and deserters and mischief-makers since the world began. What a list one could give of the sneaks of history, beginning at that arch-serpent who marred the happiness of Eden, down to some of the informers and renegades of the present day!

Boys cannot be too early on their guard against sneaking habits. No truly English boy, we are glad to think, is likely to fall into them; still, even among our own acquaintance, it is sad to think how many there are who are not wholly free from the reproach.

The child in the nursery who begins to tell tales to his mother of his little brothers and sisters will, if not corrected, grow up to be just such another sneak as Jerry; and Jerry, unless he cures himself of his vice, will become a mere odious meddler and scandalmonger in society, and may arrive at the unenviable distinction of being the most detested man of his generation.

Every disease has its cure. Be honest, be brave, be kind, and have always a good conscience, and you cannot be a sneak.

Chapter Nine.

The Sulky Boy.

We all know him. He might be a good-looking fellow, perhaps, if it weren’t for the scowl over his eyes and the everlasting pout about his lips. He skulks about with his hands in his pockets, and his head hung down. We all make room for him, and give him a wide berth; no one is anxious to be chosen upon the same side with him at chevy, or to get the desk next his in school. It’s a fact we are all afraid of him, though we all despise him. He makes everybody unhappy, by being miserable himself for no reason at all.

Sometimes, indeed, he can be jolly enough—when he chooses. No one could tell at such times that there was anything queer about him; but then all of a sudden he shows in his true colours (and dingy enough colours they are), and then it is all up with enjoyment till he takes himself off, which he generally does before long.

All this is very sad; and if I say a word or two about sulkiness now, it will be in the hope of inducing my readers to give no encouragement to so ugly a vice.

There are two ways of showing anger, when one is unfortunate enough to be under the necessity of being angry. You can’t always help it. Some people are never put out. However much you rile them, they are always good-humoured, always cool, always friendly. You might as well try to talk the sun behind a cloud as to get them in a rage. Happy the few who have this art! They always get the best of it, they always win the greatest respect, they always are the least likely people for any one to quarrel with.

I don’t count these among the two classes of angry people, because they are not angry. But angry people are generally either in a rage or in the sulks. Neither is pleasant to meet, yet for my own part I would sooner have to do with the fellow in the rage. There’s no deception about him; he’s angry, and he lets you know it; he’s got a grievance, and he blurts out what it is; he hits straight out from the shoulder, and you know what you’ve to expect. With such a one it is generally soon all over. Just as the April shower, sharp enough while it lasts, gives place in time to the sun, so Will Hothead generally gets all right as soon as he has let the steam off; and when he shakes hands and makes it up, you are pretty sure he thinks none the worse of you, and bears no malice.

Don’t imagine I’m trying to justify exhibitions of temper. Far from it. I say every boy who can’t control his temper has yet to learn one of the greatest lessons of life. What I want to show is that even passion, bad as it is, is not so bad as sulkiness.

For just consider what a miserable sort of boy this Tom Sulks, that we all of us know, is. Why, almost before he could speak he had learned to pout. If a toy was denied him, he neither bellowed like his little brother nor raved like his little sister, but toddled off and sulked in a corner all day long. When he grew a little older, if he was not allowed to play in the garden because it was damp, he refused to play in the nursery, he refused to come down to the dining-room, he refused to say his prayers at bedtime. When he was old enough to go to school, he would either play marbles the way he was used to (which was the wrong way), or not at all. If found fault with for not knowing his lesson, he pushed his books from him, and endured to be stood in the corner, or punished some other way, rather than learn his task. The vice only became worse and worse as time went on, and to-day Tom is an odious fellow. Look at him playing at cricket. He steps across the wickets to hit at a ball, but, instead, stops it with his foot. “How’s that, umpire?” cries the bowler. “Out, leg before,” is the answer.

Tom still keeps his place.

“Out, do you hear, leg before?”

“It wasn’t!” growls Tom.

“The umpire gives it out,” is the unanswerable reply.

Thereupon Tom’s face clouds over, his eyebrows gather, and his lips shape themselves into a pout, as he drops his bat and walks from the wicket without a word. No one takes any notice of him, for the event is too common, alas, to occasion surprise. We know what his sulks mean. No one will get a word from him for hours, perhaps a day; no attempts at conciliation will tempt him back to the game, no friendly talk will chase the cloud from his face. There he goes, slouching up the playground into the house, and he will skulk upstairs to his study and slam the door, and that’s all we shall see of Tom till suppertime.

Once, I remember, young Jim Friendly, a new boy, tried hard to coax Tom back into good humour. They had been having a match at something, I forget what, and Jim happened to say that something Tom did was against the rules. Tom, as usual, grew sulky and walked off.

“What, you aren’t going in?” said Jim, disconcerted. No answer. “I didn’t mean to offend you, old fellow; you may be right, after all.” No answer. “I beg your pardon, Tom. I wouldn’t have said it if I thought you’d have minded.” No answer. “Don’t be angry with a fellow, I didn’t mean—”

No answer. And so Jim went on apologising, as if he had been all in the wrong and the other all in the right, and getting no word in reply, only the same scowl and uncompromising sullenness. “I’ll take jolly good care not to stroke that fellow the wrong way again,” said Jim, afterwards; “and if I should, I won’t waste my time in stroking him the right way.”

Just fancy what sort of man such a fellow as Tom is likely to turn out. Is he likely to have many friends? Unless he can get a few of his own sort, I’m afraid he’ll be rather badly off in that respect. And then, oh, horrors! fancy half a dozen Tom Sulks together! What a happy family they would be! When Tom goes to business, he had better make up his mind to start a concern of his own, for I’m afraid he would have some difficulty in getting a partner, or, at any rate, keeping one. I could quite fancy some important question arising where Tom and his partner might hold different views. Tom insists he’s right, the partner insists he’s right. Tom consequently stays away for a week from the office, during which the poor partner has to manage as best he can.

Whatever Tom will do about marrying I don’t know; and when he is married, what his wife will do, I know still less—it’s no use speculating on such a matter. But now, letting Tom be, let us inquire whether the sulky boy is more to be blamed than pitied. That he is an odious, disagreeable fellow, there is no doubt. But perhaps it’s not all his own fault. Some boys are of duller natures than others. The high-spirited, healthy, sanguine fellow will flare up at a moment’s notice, and let fly without stopping to think twice of the injury done him, while the dull boy is altogether slower in his movements: words don’t come to his lips so quickly, or thoughts don’t rush into his mind as promptly as in others; he is like the snail who, when offended, shrinks back into its shell, leaving nothing but a hard, unyielding exterior to mark his displeasure. A great many boys are sulky because they have not the boldness to be anything else; and a great many others are so because to their small minds it is the grandest way of displaying their wrath. If only they could see how ridiculous they are!

I once knew two boys who for some time had been firm friends at school. By some unlucky chance a misunderstanding occurred which interrupted this friendship, and the grievance was, or appeared to be, so sore, that neither boy would speak to the other. Well, this went on for no less than six months, and became the talk of the whole school. These silly boys, however, were so convinced of the sublimity of their respective conducts that they never observed that every one was laughing at them. Daily they passed one another, with eyes averted and noses high in the air; daily they fed their memories with the recollection of their smart. For six months never a word passed between them. Then came the summer holidays, in the course of which it suddenly occurred to both these boys, being not altogether senseless boys, that after all they were making themselves rather ridiculous. And the more they thought of it, the more ashamed of themselves they grew, till at last one sat down and wrote,—

“Dear Dick, I’m sorry I offended you; make it up,” to which epistle came, by return post, a reply,—

“Dear Bob, I’m sorry I offended you; let’s be friends.”

And the first day of next term these two met and shook hands, and laughed, and owned what fools they had both been.

A great many of the faults of this life come from the lack of a sense of humour. Certainly, if sulky boys had more of it, they would be inclined to follow the example of these two.

But, although there is a great deal about the sulky boy that merits pity rather than blame, there is much that deserves merciless censure. Why should one boy, by a whim of selfish resentment, mar the pleasure, not only of those with whom he has his quarrel, but with every one else he comes in contact with? “One dead fly,” the proverb says, “makes the apothecary’s ointment unsavoury”; and one sulky boy, in like manner, may destroy the harmony of a whole school. Isn’t it enough, if you must be disagreeable, to confine your disagreeableness to those for whom it is meant, without lugging a dozen other harmless fellows into the shadow of it? Do you really think so much of your own importance as to imagine all the world will be interested in your quarrel with Smith, because he insisted a thing was tweedledum and you insisted it was tweedledee? Or, if you have the grace to confine your sulkiness to Smith alone, for his private benefit, do you imagine you will convince him of the error of his ways by shutting yourself up and never looking or speaking to him?

It used to be a matter of frequent debate at school what ought to be done to Tom Sulks.

“Kick him,” said some. “Laugh at him,” said others. “Send him to Coventry,” put in a third. “Lecture him,” advised others. “Let him alone,” said the rest.

And this, after all, is the best advice. If a sulky fellow won’t come round of his own accord, no kicks, or laughs, or snubs, or lectures will bring him.

Surely none of the readers of this chapter are sulky boys! It is not to be expected you will get through life without being put out—that is sure to happen; and then you’ve three courses open to you: either to take it like a man and a Christian, not rendering evil for evil, not carried away by revengeful impulse, but bearing what can honourably be borne with a good grace; and for the rest, if action is necessary, righting yourself without malice or vindictiveness; or else you can fly into a rage, and slog out blindly in wild passion; or you can sulk like a cur in a corner, heeded by no one, yet disliked by all, and without a friend—not even yourself.

You will know which of the three best becomes a British boy. Be assured, that which worst becomes him is sulking.

Chapter Ten.

The Easy-going Boy.

It is a common complaint in these degenerate days that we live harder than our fathers did. Whatever we do we rush at. We bolt our food, and run for the train; we jump out of it before it has stopped, and reach the school door just as the bell rings; we “cram” for our examinations, and “spurt” for our prizes. We have no time to read books, so we scuttle through the reviews, and consider ourselves up in the subject; we cut short our letters home, and have no patience to sit and hear a long story out. We race off with a chum for a week’s holiday, and consider we have dawdled unless we have covered our thirty miles a day, and can name as visited a string of sights, mountains, lakes, and valleys a full yard long.

If such charges are just (and they are, we fear, not wholly unfounded), it is at least a satisfaction to know that there is one brilliant exception to the rule, and that is in the person of Master Ned Easy.

Whatever other folk do, he has no notion of hurrying himself. Some one once said of him that he was a fellow who looked as if he’d been born with his hands in his pockets. He takes his time about everything he does. If the breakfast bell rings before he is dressed, then—well, breakfast must wait. If breakfast is over before he has well begun, then everybody else must wait while he, in a leisurely way, polishes off his viands. In the classes, his is sure to be the last paper to be handed up; and when the boys are dismissed, he saunters forth to the playground in the rear of all the others. When he is one of a fishing-party, and everybody but he is ready, he keeps them all waiting till their patience is completely exhausted, while he gets together his tackle, laces his boots, and selects his flies.

“Come on! look alive!” is the cry that is for ever being hurled at him, “All serene, old fellow; what’s the hurry?” is his invariable reply.

I well remember the first time I made Ned’s acquaintance, and I will recall the incident, as giving a fair specimen of the fellow and his peculiarity.

It was a big cricket match, the afternoon was far advanced, the light was getting uncertain, and time was almost up. Our school’s ninth wicket had fallen, and yet there were five runs to get to win, which we could just do, if our last man in was quick.

“Now, Ned!” calls out our captain, coming up to the tent; “look sharp in.”

Ned coolly sat down on the bench in our tent and proceeded to put on a pad.

“Never mind about that! there’s no time,” said our captain impatiently, “and they are bowling slow.”

“Oh, it won’t take a minute,” says Ned, discovering he had been putting the pad on upside down, and proceeding to undo it. We stood round in feverish impatience, and the minute consumed in putting on those miserable leg-fenders seemed like a year.

Ned himself, however, did not seem in the least flurried by our excitement.

“Pity they don’t make these things fasten with springs instead of straps,” he observed, by way of genial conversation.

Oh, how we chafed and fumed!

“Will you look sharp, if you’re going to play at all?” howls our captain.

“All right, old chap; I can’t be quicker than I am; where are the gloves?”

The gloves are brought like lightning, but not like lightning put on. No, the india-rubber gauntlets must needs be drawn with the greatest care and deliberation over his fingers, and even then require a good deal of shifting to render them comfortable. Then he was actually (I believe) going to take them off in order to roll up his shirt sleeves, had not two of us performed that office for him with a rapidity which astonished him.

“Upon my word, this is too bad,” says our captain, flinging down the bat he was holding, and stamping with vexation. “We might as well give the whole thing up!”

“I’m awfully sorry,” drawled Ned, in an injured tone; “but how could I help it? I’m ready now.”

“Ready! I should hope you were. Off you cut now; it only wants five minutes to the time.”

He starts to go, but turns before he has well left us, and says—

“Oh, I say, Jim, lend us your bat, will you? This one is sprung, and one of the—”

“Here you are,” we shout, running to him with a dozen bats at once—“only look sharp.”

“I only want one,” he says. “Let me see this; no, this will do. Thanks, old man,” and off he saunters again.

The other side is lying comfortably on the grass, very well satisfied at the delay which every moment adds to their chance of victory. What centuries Ned appears to be taking in strolling up to the wickets!

“I wish I was behind him with a red-hot poker,” says one; “I’d make him trot!”

“Not a bit of it,” growls our captain; “Ned would want more than that to start him.”

Look at him now, getting “middle” as if he’d the whole afternoon before him! And that done, he slowly and deliberately taps the end of his bat on the place till we almost yell with rage.

“It’s no use now!” groans our captain in absolute despair; and so, indeed, we and our smiling adversaries all thought.

“Play!” cries the bowler.

“Wait a bit,” says the aggravating Ned, dipping his hands in the sawdust! “now!”

The ball comes at last, and Ned lets fly. It is a grand hit; the ball comes whizzing right past where we stand, and with delight as great as our previous agony we cheer till we are hoarse.

Three runs are added to our score, and now we only want one more to equal our opponents, and two to win; but we shall never do it in the time, unless fortune favours us strangely. For see, it is “over,” and the fielders will consume half of the remaining two minutes in changing their position.

Then again “play” is called.

Would you believe it? Ned calls out for “middle” again at the new wicket, and repeats the same pottering operation when he has got it. “Well, if ever I saw—”

What our captain is about to say no one ever hears, for at that moment the ball is delivered, and Ned blocks it dead.

There is just time for one ball more, and on that all our hopes depend.

It comes, and Ned bangs at it! It’s a run! No, it isn’t! yes it is! The fielder has missed it. Hurrah! we are equal!

Actually they are running another! They won’t do it. Up comes the ball to the wicket-keeper, and forward darts Ned’s bat over the crease.

“How’s that, umpire?” cries the wicket-keeper.

“Not out!”

“Time’s up!”

Oh, how we cheer! How we rush forward and shoulder Ned home to the tent. Never was such a close shave of a match!

Ned himself by no means shares in the general excitement.

“Why, what a hurry you fellows were in!” he says. “Look here, George, I’ll show you now what I meant about the springs on the pads.”

Now you will understand what a very aggravating fellow this Ned Easy was; and yet he generally managed to come off best in the end. He generally managed to scrape in at the finish of whatever he undertook.

I am certain that if he were a prisoner of war let out on parole, with a pledge to return in one hour or suffer death, he would turn up cool and comfortable on the sixtieth tick of the sixtieth minute of that hour, and look quite surprised at the men who were loading their muskets for his execution.

But some day the chances are he will be late in earnest, and then he will have to repent in a hurry of his bad speed.

A fellow who is easy-going about his time is generally easy-going about his friends, his money, and his morals.

Not that Ned is the sort of fellow to turn out a rascal exactly. He has not the energy, even if he had the inclination. A rascal, to be at all successful, must be brisk, and an observer of times and seasons, and that is altogether out of Ned’s line. No; he’ll be careless about what he does, and about what people think of him; he will lend a sovereign with as little idea of getting it back as he has of returning the pound he himself had borrowed; he will think nothing of keeping a friend waiting half a day; neither will he take offence if his own good nature is drawn on to an unlimited extent.

He is, after his fashion, an observer of the golden rule, for although he is constantly annoying and exasperating people by his easy-going ways, he is never afflicted if others do to him as he does to them. He goes through life with the notion that every one is as complaisant and comfortable as himself. “Easy-going-ness” (if one may coin a word for the occasion) is, many people would say, a combination of selfishness and stupidity, but I think such people judge rather too hardly of Ned and his compeers. It’s all very well for some of us, who perhaps are of an active turn of mind, to talk about curing oneself of this fault; but perhaps, if we knew all, we should find that it would be about as easy as for a fair-complexioned person to make himself dark. Ned’s disposition is due more to his constitution than his upbringing, and those who are blindly intolerant of his ways do him a wrong. I’m sure he himself wishes he were as smart as some boys he sees, but he can’t be, and you might just as well try to lash an elephant into a gallop as Ned into a flurry.

It is generally found that what he does he does well, which in a measure makes up for the length of time he takes in doing it; he is good-natured, brave, harmless, and cheery, and has lots of friends, whom he allows full liberty both to abuse and laugh at him (and what can friends want more?) and for the rest, he’s neither vicious nor an idiot; and if nobody were worse than he is, the world would perhaps be rather better than it is.

An artificial “easy-going-ness” is undoubtedly a vice. It’s a forgery, however, easily detected, and generally brings its own punishment. I advise none of my readers to try it on. If they are naturally energetic and smart, they have a much better chance of rising in the world than Ned has; but let them, when they laugh at Ned and abuse him, remember the fable of the hare and the tortoise.

I must just tell one more story of Ned in conclusion.

One night our whole school was startled by an alarm of “Fire!” We sprang from our beds, and, without waiting to dress, rushed to the quarter from which the cry had proceeded. It was only too true; a barn at one end of the buildings was in flames, and there seemed every prospect of the school itself catching fire.

We hurried back in a panic towards the staircase leading to the front door, and in doing so discovered Ned was not with us.

One of us darted off to the dormitory, where he lay in bed sound asleep.

A rough shake roused him.

“What’s the row?” he drawled, stretching himself.

“Get up quick, Ned; there’s a fire!”

“Where?” asked Ned, without stirring.

“In the doctor’s wing.”

The doctor’s wing was that farthest removed from our dormitories.

Ned yawned.

“Then it couldn’t possibly reach here for half an hour. Call us again in twenty minutes, Ben, there’s a good fellow!”

Chapter Eleven.

The Boy who is “Never Wrong.”

One might fancy at the first blush, that such a boy is one to be envied, admired, and caressed above all others. Never wrong! What would not some of us give to have the same said of us? Aren’t we always blundering and losing our way and making asses of ourselves every day of our lives? What wonder then if to us a being who is “never wrong” should appear almost superhuman in his glory?

But, so far from being the noble, delightful creature one would expect, the boy I am speaking of is an odious fellow, and as ridiculous as he is odious, and I will tell you why.

The principal reason is, because he requires us to believe, on his own unaided testimony, that he is the infallible being he professes to be; and the second and hardly less important reason is, that, so far from being always right, he is as often, if not oftener, wrong than other people; in short, he’s a hum!

“Never wrong,” indeed! If all the British Association were to declare as much of any one man, we should hardly be inclined to swallow it; but when our sole authority in the matter is Master Timothy Told-you-so himself, it becomes a joke, and a very poor joke too.

Let us just take stock of Timothy for a minute or two, to explain what we mean.

He’s in class, and the lesson is history. He does not look happy, but of course that can’t be because he doesn’t know the lesson. Timothy not know a lesson indeed!

“Timothy,” says the master, “tell me in whose reign the Reformation was introduced into England, will you?”

“James the First,” replies Timothy.

“Next boy?”

“Henry the Eighth.”

“Right; go up.”

“Oh, sir,” says Timothy, “that’s what I meant; I mistook the name for a moment!” And he goes down with the air of an injured and resigned boy.

In the geography class which follows Tim has another opportunity of displaying his learning.

“On what river does Berlin stand?” is the question.

Tim hums and haws. “On the—oh—the—the, on the—er—the—”

“Next boy?”

“Berlin is on the Spree, sir.”

“Ah, of course! It slipped me,” mutters Tim with a thoughtful frown. “Any one knows Berlin is on the Spree!” And down he goes again, as if it were the common lot of all clever boys.

Arithmetic ensues. “Tell me, Timothy, if a man earns four shillings and sixpence halfpenny a day, how much does he make in a week of six days?”

This enormous problem Tim takes due time to cogitate. Of course he could tell you straight off if he chose; but as it is the practice to work out sums in the head, he condescends to the common prejudice. At length the oracle speaks.

“One pound three and two pence halfpenny.”

“Quite wrong; what do you make it, Edward?”

“One pound four.”

“Wrong. Next?”

“One pound seven and threepence.”

“That’s right.”

“Oh yes, to be sure!” exclaims Tim, with the gesture of one who clutches at the very words of his own lips uttered by another; “of course, that’s what I meant!”

“Timothy,” says the master, gravely, “if you meant it, why did you not say it?”

Why not, indeed? That is one of the very few questions, reader, in all this world’s philosophy which Timothy is unable to answer.

Of course every one laughs at Timothy, but that does not afflict him. So fortified is he in the assurance of his own infallibility, that the scorn of the ignorant is to him but as the rippling of water at the base of a lighthouse.

Do not mistake me, Tim is not a dunce. For every question he answers wrongly, perhaps he answers half a dozen correctly. If he chose to take his stand on his general proficiency, he would pass for a fairly clever fellow. But that will by no means satisfy him. He will never admit himself beaten. There is always some trivial accident, some unforeseen coincidence, without which his success would have been certain and recognised; but which, as it happens, slightly interfere with his triumph.

It is the same in games as in the class-room. If he is beaten in a race, it is because he has slipped in starting; if he is clean bowled first ball at cricket, it is because there was a lump in the grass just where the ball pitched; if he lets the enemy’s halfback pass him at football, it is because he made sure Perkins had collared him—otherwise, of course, he would have won the race, made top score at the wickets, and saved his goal. As it happens, he does neither.

There is a touch of dishonesty in this, though perhaps Tim does not intend it. Why cannot he own he is “out of it” now and then? His fellows would respect him far more and laugh at him far less; he would gain far more than he lost, besides having the satisfaction of knowing he had not tried to deceive anybody. But I sometimes think, when Tim makes his absurd excuses, he really believes what he says; just as the ostrich, when he buries his head in the sand, really believes he is hidden from the sight of his pursuers.

It is natural in human nature not to relish the constant admission of error or failure. Who of us is not glad to feel at times (even if we do not say it) that “it’s not our fault”? The person who is always making little of himself, and never admitting what small merit he might fairly claim, is pretty much the same sort of deception as Tim, and we despise him almost as much. We would all of us, in fact (and what wonder?) like to be “always right,” and perhaps our tendency is to let the wish become father to the thought rather too often.

But to return to Timothy. Nothing, of course, could astonish him; nothing was ever news to him; nothing could evoke his applause. “Tim,” perhaps some one would say, “do you know old Grinder (the head master) is going to be married, and we are to get a week extra holiday?”

“Ah,” says Tim, to whom this is all news, “I always thought there was something of the kind up. For my own part, I thought we should get a fortnight extra.”

“Buck made a good jump yesterday, Tim,” says another. “Five feet and half an inch.”

“Sure it wasn’t three-quarters of an inch?” is Tim’s provoking answer.

Of all irritating things, perhaps the most irritating is to have your big bundle of news calmly opened and emptied, and its contents appropriated without scruple or acknowledgment.

Tim this very day has the gratification of amazing half the school with the news of Dr Grinder’s approaching marriage and the consequent extra holidays, and of seeing the enthusiastic astonishment of others to whom he retails the latest achievement of the athletic Buck.

But he did not always come off so easily. Once he was made the victim of a joke which, in any one less self-satisfied, might have effectually checked his foolish propensity. It was a wet day, and the boys were all assembled in the big play-room, not knowing exactly what to do, and ready for the first bit of fun which might turn up.

“Couldn’t somebody draw Tim out?” one of us whispered.

The idea caught like wildfire, and after a brief pause Tidswell, the monitor, said, amid the hushed attention of the company—

“By the way, Tim, wasn’t that a queer account of the sea-serpent in the paper the other day?”

“Awfully queer,” replied the unsuspecting Tim; “I didn’t know you had seen it.”

“Fancy a beast a mile and a half long from head to tail!”

“It’s a good size,” said Tim, “but nothing out of the common for a sea-serpent, you know.”

“Now I come to think of it, though,” said Tidswell, “it didn’t say that the serpent was a mile and a half long; it was a mile and a half from the ship when it was seen, wasn’t that it?”

“Yes, a mile and a half from the ship. I thought you were drawing the long bow in saying it was so big as all that.”

“They saw it a mile and a half off, and just fancy feeling its breath at that distance?”

“I’m not astonished at that,” said Tim, “for all those beasts have enormous lungs.”

“How absurd of me! I should have said it seemed to all appearances lifeless when they saw it,” said Tidswell.

“Yes; dead, in fact,” put in Tim, getting into difficulties.

“And then suddenly it stood erect on its tail, and shot forward towards the vessel.”

“Shows the strength of their backs. I couldn’t help thinking that when I saw the account.”

“What am I talking about?” exclaimed Tidswell, hastily correcting himself; “it was the ship stood in towards the monster and shot at him.”

“Ah, yes; so it was. I made the same mistake myself, see. Yes, they fired a broadside at him.”

“No; only one shot at his head.”

“That was all. Isn’t that what you said?”

“And then he turned over in the water—”

“Dead as a leg of mutton!” put in Tim.

“No; the shot missed him, and he wasn’t touched.”

“No. I meant they all thought he was as dead as a leg of mutton; but he was not so much as grazed.”

All this while the amusement of the listeners had been growing gradually beyond control, and at this point smothered explosions of laughter from one and another fell on Tim’s ears, like the dropping of musketry fire. But he did not guess its meaning, and continued turning towards Tidswell, and waiting for the conclusion of the story.

“And the last they saw of him,” resumed that worthy, his voice quailing with the exertion to keep it grave and composed—“the last they saw of him was, he was spinning away at the rate of twenty knots an hour, with his tail in his mouth, in the direction of the North Pole.”

“I fancied it was only eighteen knots an hour,” put in Tim seriously.

Another moment, and the laughter would assuredly burst upon him.

“Not in the account I saw. What paper did you see it in, Tim?”

“Eh? Why, the same as you,” replied Tim hurriedly, beginning to suspect the crimson faces of his comrades meant something more than admiration of his wisdom. “Where did you get the tale from? I forget.”

“I got the tale out of my head—like the serpent, you humbug!” roared Tidswell; and for the next five minutes Tim sat on his stool of repentance, amid the yells of laughter with which his companions hailed his discomfiture.

When silence was restored, of course he tried to explain that “he knew all along it was a joke, and only wanted to see how far he could gammon the fellows, and fancied he succeeded,” and presently quitted the room, an injured but by no means humiliated boy.

One last word. Timothy and his friends are amusing up to one point, and detestable up to another point; but when they come to you in the hour of your deepest sorrow and distress, and, with bland smile, say to you, “I told you so!” they are beyond all endurance, and you hope for nothing more devoutly than that you may never see their odious faces again.

The best cure possible for Tim is a homoeopathic one. Find some other boy equally conceited, equally foolish, equally unscrupulous, and set him at Tim. I will undertake to say that—unless the two devour one another down to the very tips of their tails, like the famous Kilkenny cats—they will bring one another to reason, and perhaps modesty, in double-quick time.

The great and wise Newton once said of himself that, so far from knowing all things, he seemed to himself to be but as a boy gathering pebbles on the seashore, while the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before him.

Newton was, in his way, almost as fine a fellow as Timothy Told-you-so, and if Timothy would but stoop to have more of Newton’s spirit, he might in time come to possess an atom or two of Newton’s sense.

Chapter Twelve.

The Untidy Boy.

Look at him! You could tell he was an untidy fellow at a single glance. One of his bootlaces is hanging loose, and the band of his scarf has slipped up above his collar. Though it is a fine day, his trouser legs are splashed up to the knee; and as for a parting to his hair, you might as well expect an Indian jungle to be combed. His hands are all over ink, and the sticky marks about his mouth tell their own tale. In short, Jack Sloven is a dirty boy, and is anything but a credit to the school he belongs to.

I wish you could see his school books. The pages look like well-used drum parchments, and I am certain Jack must often find it hard to decipher the words upon them. His exercises look as if they had been left out in an ink shower, and the very pen he uses is generally wet with ink up to the very tip of the handle, which, by the way, he usually nibbles when he’s nothing better to do. Who shall describe his desk? It is generally understood that a schoolboy’s desk is the receptacle for a moderately miscellaneous assortment of articles, but Jack’s seemed like a great pie, into which everything under the sun was crammed and stored up. The lid never shut; but if you were to open it, its contents would astonish you as much as the contents of that wonderful pie in the nursery rhyme astonished the king when he lifted the crust.

There were books, papers, hooks, balls, worms, stale sandwiches, photographs, toffee, birds’ eggs, keys, money, knives, cherry stones, silkworms, marbles, pencils, handkerchiefs, tarts, gum, sleeve links, and walnut shells. Any one venturesome enough to take a header through these might succeed in reaching the layer of last year’s apple peel below, or in penetrating to the crumb heaps in the bottom corners; but few there were who possessed that amount of boldness. Of course, Jack had no notion of what his worldly goods consisted. He had a way of shying things into his desk and forgetting them; and only when it became so full that the lid stood nearly wide open did he apprehend the necessity of a “clear-out.”

But if there was ever anything more awful to behold than Jack’s desk, it was one of these “clear-outs.” The event generally got wind when it was about to happen, and never failed to create a sensation in the school. All who had a right took care to be present at the ceremony, and I do believe if Jack had had the sense to issue reserved seat tickets, he might have made a nice thing out of it. At any rate, he made a nice thing out of that desk.

Quite indifferent to our presence and laughter, he began leisurely to take out its contents and spread them in glorious array upon the floor, with a view (as he was kind enough to explain to some one who asked him) “to sort them up.” The books and papers went in a pile by themselves; all loose papers were thrust inside the covers of the books; and all books without covers were jammed into all the covers without books that seemed likely to fit. Then all the pens and pencils were put into a pencil case, and if any happened to be too long, they were broken to the required shortness. This being satisfactorily done, Jack used next to turn his attention to the miscellaneous articles of food of which he found himself possessed. The sandwiches, if not more than a week old, he either ate or generously offered to some of us; the toffee he put into his pocket, and the tarts (if the jam were not already dried up) he put aside for private consumption hereafter. The shells, stones, peel, etcetera, he heaped up in one place on the floor, and trusted to Providence to dispose of them. The fish-hooks and baits, the birds’ eggs that were not broken, the silkworms, the photographs, pencils, knives, and other articles of use or ornament, he sorted carefully, and then put back into the desk. By this time it would occur to him he had been long enough over this business, so he shovelled the books and papers in anyhow, and anything else which happened still to be left out, and then finding that the lid would shut within an inch, he sighed with the relief of a man who has well discharged a painful duty.

How was it to be expected Jack could ever find anything he wanted? Sometimes he would sit grubbing in his desk, or among his books, to find a certain exercise or paper for half an hour, and finally, when everything was upside down, he would remember he had it in his waistcoat pocket, from the recesses of which he produced it crumpled, greasy, and almost illegible. On Sundays he always had a hunt for his gloves; and at the end of the term, when he undertook his own packing, he generally first of all contrived to pack up his keys in the very bottom of the trunk, and so had to take everything out before he could get them, and then when (with the aid of some dozen of us sitting on the top of the unfortunate receptacle, to cram down the jumble of things inside to a shutting point) he had succeeded in triumphantly turning the lock, it was a wonder if he had not to open and unpack it all again to find his straps.

As to his dress, I can safely say that, though Jack always had good clothes, he always looked much less respectable than other boys whose parents could not afford them anything but common material. Not only did he lose buttons, and drop grease over his coat and trousers, but he never folded or brushed them, or had them mended in time, as a tidy boy would have done. We were quite ashamed to be seen walking with him sometimes, he looked so disreputable, but no reproofs or persuasions could induce him to take more pains about his appearance.

“A place for everything, and everything in its place,” was a lesson Jack could not learn; the result was constant and incalculable trouble. If people could only realise the amount of time lost by untidiness, I think they would regard the fault with positive horror. Why, Jack Sloven, at the very mildest computation, must have lost half an hour a day. Half an hour a day, at the end of the year, makes a clear working fortnight to the bad, so that in twenty-five years, if he goes on as he has begun, he will have one year of which it will take him all his time to give an account.

But not only does untidiness waste time, and render the person who falls into it a disreputable member of society, but it seriously endangers his success in life. Jack Sloven was naturally a clever fellow. When he could find his books, he made good use of them; none of us could come up to him in translations, and he had the knack of always understanding what he read. If it had not been for this wretched habit, he might have got prizes at school, and still higher honours in after life; but as it was, he always came to grief. The notes he had made on his work were never to be found; he spent more time in collecting his materials than he had to spare for using them; most of his work had to be scrambled through at the last moment, and was accordingly imperfect. If Jack goes to business, he has a very poor chance of getting on, for untidiness and business will no more go together than oil and water. Few things are more against a man in business than untidiness; people fight shy of him. If his dress is untidy, his letters slovenly, his habits unpunctual, and his accounts confused, he will be regarded as a man not reliable, and not to be trusted, and people will refuse to transact with him. If he has a house of his own, he will never succeed in keeping his servants long, for they—so they say—have quite enough to do without unnecessary work. In fact, I don’t see how Jack is to get on at all unless he mends his ways.

Is it possible for an untidy boy to become tidy? Try. And if at first you don’t succeed—try again. You are sure to succeed if you stick to it. Don’t aim at apple-pie order—everything in lavender—never to be touched, and all that sort of thing. That’s as bad as the boy who once possessed a desk, which he would never use, for fear of marking the blotting-paper, and breaking the paper bands round the envelopes.

No; if you can get into the way of always putting the book you read back into its place on the shelf, and the paper you want where you will be certain to find it again—if you encourage a jealousy of rubbish, and a horror of dirt—if you take to heart the proverb I quoted just now, “A place for everything, and everything in its place”—you will be as tidy as you ever need be; and Jack Sloven’s troubles and misfortunes will never be yours.

Chapter Thirteen.

The Scapegrace.

The fellow’s always in a row! No matter what it’s about; no matter whose fault it is; no matter how he tried to keep out of it; it’s always the same—he’s in a row.

To fancy him not in a row would involve a flight of imagination of which we, at any rate, are utterly incapable. He has lived in an atmosphere of rows—rows in the nursery, rows at the dinner table, rows in the schoolroom, rows in the playground. His hands are like leather, so often have they been caned; his ears are past all feeling, so often have they been boxed; and solitary confinement, impositions, the corner, and the head master’s study, have all lost their horrors for him, so often has he had to endure them.

Sam Scamp of our school was, without exception, the unluckiest fellow I ever came across. It was the practice in the case of all ordinary offences for the masters of the lower forms to deal out their own retribution, but special cases were always reserved for a higher court—the head master’s study. Hither the culprits were conducted in awful state and impeached; here they heard judgment pronounced, and felt sentence executed. It was an awful tribunal, that head master’s study! “All hope abandon, ye who enter here,” was the motto—if not written, at least clearly implied—over the door. The mere mention of the place was enough to make one’s flesh creep. Yet, somehow or other, Sam Scamp, was always finding himself there. He must have abandoned hope once a week at least during his school life, and before he left school I am certain he must have worn that awful carpet threadbare, for all his offences were special offences. When half a dozen boys had spent one afternoon in throwing stones over a certain wall, the stone which broke the doctor’s conservatory window was, as might be expected, Sam’s. On the occasion of the memorable battle of the dormitories—that famous fight in which fifteen boys of Ward’s dormitory, arrayed in their nightgowns and armed with bolsters, engaged at dead of night in mortal combat with twenty boys of Johnson’s dormitory for the possession of a certain new boy who had arrived that day with a trunk full of cakes—when the monitors appeared on the scene, one boy, and one only, was captured, and that was Sam. When a dozen fellows had been copying off one another, the exercise book from which the discovery was made would be sure to be Sam’s; and when, in the temporary absence of the master, the schoolroom became transformed into a bear-garden—as it sometimes will—if suddenly the door were to open the figure which would inevitably fall on the master’s eye would be that of Sam, dancing a hornpipe in the middle of the floor, shouting at the top of his voice, and covered from head to foot with the dust he had himself kicked up.

On such occasions he was led off to the doctor’s study. I happened to be there once when he was brought up, and so had an opportunity of witnessing a scene which, if new to me, must have been very familiar to my unfortunate schoolfellow. (By the way, the reason I was in the doctor’s study was merely to return a book he had lent me, mind that, reader!)

“What, here again, Samuel?” said the doctor, recognising his too-well-known visitor.

“I’m very sorry, sir,” says Sam, humbly. “I can’t make out how it is. I try all I know—I do indeed—but somehow I’m always in trouble.”

“You are,” replies the doctor. “What is it about this time, Mr Wardlaw?”

“I can tell you, sir—” begins Sam eagerly.

“Be silent, sir! Well, Mr Wardlaw?”

“The boy has been very disrespectful, sir. When I came into the class-room this morning and opened my desk, I found it contained a guinea-pig and two white mice, who had—”

Here the unlucky Sam, after a desperate effort, in the course of which he has almost choked himself with a handkerchief, bursts into a laugh.

“What do you mean, sir?” thunders the doctor.

“Oh, sir, I couldn’t help it—really I couldn’t; I would rather have choked than do it—it’s just like me!”

And he looks so distressed and humble that the doctor turns from him, and invites Mr Wardlaw to resume his impeachment.

“I have only to say that this boy, on being charged with the deed, confessed to having done it.”

“Oh yes, sir, that’s all right—I did it; I’m very sorry; somehow I can’t make out how it is I’m so bad,” says Sam, with the air of one suffering from the strain of a constant anxiety.

“Don’t talk nonsense, sir!” says the doctor, sternly; “you can make it out as well as I can.”

“Shall I hold out my hand, sir?” says Sam, who by this time has a good idea of the routine of practice pursued in such interviews.

“No,” says the doctor. “Leave him here, Mr Wardlaw; and you,” adds he, for the first time remembering that I was present—“you can go.”

So we departed, leaving Sam shivering and shaking in the middle of the carpet. It was half an hour before he rejoined his schoolfellows, and this time his hands were not sore. But somehow he managed to avoid getting into scrapes for a good deal longer than usual. But there is no resisting the inevitable. He did in due time find himself in another row; and then he suddenly vanished from our midst, for he had been expelled.

Now, with regard to Sam and boys like him, it is of course only natural to hold them up as examples to others. No boy can be a scamp and not suffer for it some way or other; and as to saying it’s one’s misfortune rather than one’s fault that it is so, that is as ridiculous as to say, when you choose to walk north, that it is your misfortune you are not walking south.

But, in excuse for Sam, we must say that he was by no means the worst boy in our school, though he did get into the most rows, and was finally expelled in disgrace. If he had been deceitful or selfish, he would probably have escaped oftener than he did; but he never denied his faults or told tales of others. We who knew him generally found him good-natured and jovial; he looked upon himself as a far more desperate character than we ourselves did, and once I remember he solemnly charged me to take warning by his evil fate.

Still, you see, Sam sinned once too often. Even though his crimes were never more serious than putting guinea-pigs into the master’s desk, yet that sort of conduct time after time is not to be tolerated in any school. The example set by a mischievous boy to his fellows is not good; and if his scrapes are winked at always, the time will come when others will be encouraged to follow in his steps, and behave badly too. Sam, no doubt, deserved the punishment he got; and because one bad boy who is punished is no worse than a dozen bad boys who get off, that does not make him out a good boy, or a boy more hardly treated than he merited.

Scapegraces are boys who, being mischievously inclined, are constantly transgressing the line between right and wrong. Up to a certain point, a boy of good spirits and fond of his joke, is as jolly a boy as one could desire; but when his good spirits break the bounds of order, and his jokes interfere with necessary authority, then it is time for him to be reminded nothing ought to be carried too far in this world.

One last word about scapegraces. Don’t, like Sam, get it into your heads that you are destined to get into scrapes, and that therefore it is no use trying to keep out of them. That would be a proof of nothing but your silliness. I can’t tell you how it was Sam’s stone always broke the window, or why the master’s eye always fell on him when there was a row going on; but I can tell you this, that if Sam hadn’t thrown the stone, the window would not have been broken; and that if he had behaved well when the master’s eye was turned away, he would not have cut a poor figure when the door was opened. Some boys make a boast of the number of scrapes they have been in, and fondly imagine themselves heroes in proportion to the number of times they have been flogged. Well, if it pleases them to think so, by all means let them indulge the fancy; but we can at least promise them this—nobody else thinks so!

Chapter Fourteen.

The Unoriginal Boy.

It takes one a long time to discover that there is something wanting in the character of Ebenezer Ditto; and it takes a longer time still to make out exactly what that something is. He’s an ordinary-looking and ordinarily-behaved boy. There’s nothing amiss with the cut of his coat—it’s neither extra grand nor extra shabby; there’s nothing queer about his voice—he doesn’t stammer and he doesn’t squeak; there’s nothing remarkable about his conversation or his actions—he’s not a dunce, though he’s not clever; he’s not a scamp, though he’s not goody; he never offends any one, though he never becomes great friends with any one. What is it makes us not take to Ebenezer? Why is it, on the whole, we rather despise him, and feel annoyed when in his society? For, it is the truth, we don’t much care about him.

Well, the answer to this question may be, as I have said, not very readily discovered; but if you watch Master Ditto carefully, and make up your mind, you will get at the bottom of the mystery, you will find that it is this very “ordinary” manner about him to which you object. The fellow is dull—he is unoriginal.

You feel sometimes as if you would give a sovereign to see Ebenezer stand on his head, by way of variety. It annoys you when he sits there with his eyes on you, smiling when you smile, frowning when you frown, talking about the weather when you talk about the weather, and when you whistle “Nancy Lee” whistling his everlasting “Grandfather’s Clock.” It is a relief, by the way, even to hear him whistle a different tune, for it is about the only thing in which he does take an independent course. But, if truth were known, it would come out he only knows this one tune, and that is the reason. He has not originality enough in him to learn a second.

It is an annoying thing to be copied and imitated by any one, most of all by a fellow one’s own age. We can understand the little child imitating its father, and we enjoy seeing what capers it sometimes cuts in the attempt, but there’s nothing either interesting or amusing in the way Ebenezer goes on. When, for instance, by a sudden inspiration of genius, you take it into your head to shy a slice of apple across the room at Jack Sleepy just while he is in the act of yawning, with his mouth open wide enough to let a wheelbarrow down, it is not pleasant that immediately afterwards some one at your side should hurl a walnut at the same person and wound him seriously in the eye. Besides making a row, it takes away from the fun of your achievement, and makes the whole affair more than a joke. Or, being asked, let us suppose, to name your favourite hero in fiction, you are careful to select a somewhat out-of-the-way name, and reply, “Sidney Carton.” You are rather pleased to think you have thereby not only named some one whom no one else is likely to hit upon, but also you have delicately let your master see you have lately read a very good book. It is rather vexing when Ebenezer replies to the same question, “Sidney Carton,” in a knowing sort of manner, although you are positive he has never read the Tale of Two Cities, and doesn’t even know that Dickens was its author. Of course, your distinction in the matter has gone, and if your answer is judged the best, you only get half the credit you deserve. Or, to take one more example, supposing one day, being utterly sick of Ebenezer’s society, and longing to get a little time by yourself, you decline the tempting offer of a cricket match in which you know he also is likely to play. You mean to read this afternoon, you say. Well, isn’t it too bad when next moment you hear that wretched Ebenezer saying, in answer to the same invitation, “Very sorry, but I mean to read this afternoon,” and then have him come and sit down on a bench beside you with his book? And the worst of it is, you know if you now change your mind and go in for the match after all, he will change his mind and do the same.

The most aggravating thing about unoriginal fellows is that you cannot well get in a rage with them, for if you find fault with them, you find fault with yourselves.

“What a young ass you are not to play in the match!” you say to Ebenezer, hardly able to contain yourself.

“Why aren’t you playing in it?” he replies.

“Oh! I’ve some particular reading I want to do,” you say.

“So have I,” replies he.

You cannot say, “You have no business to read when cricket is going on,” nor can you say, “What do you mean by it?”

Clearly, if you do it, you are not the person to say he shall not.

I doubt if Ebenezer knows to what an extent he carries this trick of his. It is so natural for him to do as he sees others do that he fails to see how his actions appear in the same light as that in which others see them. Sometimes, indeed, he appears to be conscious of following his copy pretty closely, for we catch him trying to make some slight variation which will prevent it being said he does exactly the same. For instance, if you give a little select supper party in your study to two friends off roast potatoes and sardines, he will probably have three friends to breakfast off eggs and bread and jam; or if you hang up the portraits of your father and sister over your mantelpiece, he will suspend the likenesses of his mother and brother on his wall. He generally, you will find, tries to improve on you—which, of course, is not always hard to do. But sometimes he comes to grief in the attempt, as happened in the case of his wonderful “hanging shelves.” Ted Hammer, quite a mechanical genius, had made to himself a set of these shelves, which for neatness, simplicity, and usefulness were the marvel of the school. Of course Ebby got to know of it, and was unhappy till he could cap it with something finer still. So he made all sorts of excuses for coming constantly into Ted’s room and inspecting his work of art, till at last he felt quite sure he could make a set for himself. So he started to manufacture a set, twice the size, and with double the number of shelves. In due time he had it done and suspended on his wall, and it seemed as if Ted’s nose was completely out of joint, for Ebby’s shelves held not only his books, but his jam-pots and tumblers, and all sorts of odds and ends besides. But that very night there was a crash in his room, the like of which had never been heard before. We all rushed to the place. There were books, jam pots, ink pots, tumblers, in one glorious state of smash on the floor, and the unlucky shelves on the top of them; for Ebenezer had driven the small nail that supported the structure into nothing better than ordinary loose plaster. The only wonder was how the thing stayed up two minutes. So Ted Hammer’s nose was not out of joint after all.

This reminds us of the story of the two rival shoemakers, who lived opposite one another, and always strove each to outdo the other in every branch of their trade. One day, one of the two painted over his door the highly appropriate Latin motto, “Mens conscia recti.” His neighbour gnashed his teeth, of course, and vowed to improve on the inscription. And next day, when cobbler Number 1 and the world awoke, they beheld painted in huge characters over the fellow’s shop-front the startling announcement, “Men’s and Women’s conscia recti.”

It is the easiest thing possible (where the operator is not quite such a fool as this shoemaker) to improve on another’s production. When some genius brings out a machine over the plans of which he has spent half an anxious lifetime, a dozen copyists will in a year have out a dozen “improved machines,” each of them better than the first one, and therefore each helping to ruin the inventor. He had all the labour and all the knowledge. All the others did was to add a few slight improvements, for which they get all the credit due to the man without whom they would not have had an idea. This is, alas! very common, and cannot be avoided.

You can’t make a law against one boy imitating another, or even against his stepping into the credit due to you.

It is as easy to be unoriginal as it is hard at times to be original. Everybody falls into the fault more or less. Why is it we can never find anything to begin a conversation with except the weather? Somebody, I suppose, began on that topic once. Why is it we always wear the shaped coats that everybody else does? Somebody must have astonished the world by setting the fashion in the first instance.

There is a touch of envy in Ebenezer, I’m afraid; but the kindest way of accounting for his annoying ways is to believe he is not clever. No more he is. If he were, he would at least see how ridiculous he sometimes makes himself. The original boys, on the other hand, are clever, and they are quick in their ideas, which Ebenezer is not. The great thing in originality is to have your idea out before any one else. As long as it’s in your head and no one knows of it, you are no better off than the unoriginal many; but give your idea a shape and a name, and you are one of the original few. And the glory of being one of them is that you are sure to have one or two of Ebenezer’s sort at your tail!

Unoriginality is more a failing than a crime. Sometimes it may lead to actions which do real injury to another, but injury is rarely intended. It is stupidity more than anything else. But there is a point at which unoriginality may become a sin. Every boy has in him the power to say “Yes” or “No,” and he has also the conscience in him which tells him when he ought to say the one or the other. Now, when every one is saying “Yes” to a thing about which your conscience demands that you shall say “No,” it becomes your positive duty for once in your life to be original, and say it.

After all, most of us are medium sort of fellows. We are not geniuses, and we trust we are not dolts. The best thing we can do is to look out that we don’t lose all our originality while knocking through this world. The more we can keep of it, the more good we shall do; and if we find we have enough of it to entitle us to some “followers,” let us see to it we turn them out, if anything, better fellows than they were when first they “jumped up behind.”

Chapter Fifteen.

The Duffer.

What school is without its duffer, I wonder? Of course, none of us answer to the name, but we all know somebody who does, and it’s a curious thing nobody ever thoroughly dislikes a duffer. Why? Well, one reason may be that there’s nothing as a rule objectionable about such fellows, and another is that we are always ready enough to forgive one who makes us laugh; but I have an idea that the best reason why we are all so tolerant of duffers is that we are able to remind ourselves, when laughing at them, how very much the reverse of duffers we are ourselves.

However that may be, we had a glorious duffer at our school, who got himself and us into all sorts of scrapes, and yet was quite a favourite among his schoolfellows.

Billy Bungle (that was his name) was not by any means an idiot. He knew perfectly well that two and two made four, and yet, such a queer chap as he was, he would take any amount of pains to make five of it.

If there were two ways of doing anything, a right way and a wrong way, he invariably selected the latter; and if there seemed only one way, and that the right way, then he invented a wrong one for the occasion.

One day, one of the little boys in the school had a letter telling him to come home at once. He was not long in packing up his carpet bag, and getting the doctor’s leave to depart. But the doctor was unwilling for such a little helpless fellow as he to undertake the long journey all alone. He came down to the playground where we were, and beckoning to Billy, who happened to be the nearest at hand, said, “Bungle, will you go with this boy to the station, and see him off by the twelve train to X—? Here is the money to get his ticket; and carry his bag for him, there’s a man.”

Billy readily accepted the commission, and we watched him proudly marching from the playground with his small charge on one side and the carpet bag on the other. The station was a mile off, and it was nearly one o’clock when he returned home. We were in class at the time.

“Well, did you see him off?” asked the doctor.

“Yes, sir, all right; we caught an earlier train than the one you said—at a quarter to,” replied Billy, with the tone of a clever man.

“But the quarter to doesn’t go to X—. Didn’t I tell you to see him off by the twelve train?”

“I thought it would be all the better to catch the early one.”

“Stupid boy, don’t you know that train doesn’t go to X—?”

“No one said it didn’t, sir,” put in Billy, with an injured face.

“Did any one say it did?”

“I didn’t hear,” said Billy; “shall I go back and ask?”

“That would not be the least use,” said the master, too vexed almost to speak.

Billy stood before him, staring at him, and looking anything but cheerful.

“I shall have to go down to the station myself,” said the doctor. “You are the stupidest boy I ever had to do with.”

Billy looked resigned; then fumbling in his waistcoat pocket, he pulled out a bit of blue cardboard. “Oh, here’s the ticket, sir.”

“What! Wasn’t it enough to send the poor boy off by a wrong train, without keeping his ticket? Go away, sir, this instant, to your room, and stay there till I give you leave to quit it!”

Billy obeyed, evidently unable to make the affair out.

By dint of telegrams and messengers, the missing boy turned up again; but it was a long time before Billy was allowed to forget the way he had “seen him off.”

This is just one specimen of our unlucky schoolfellow’s blunders. He was always in some trouble of the kind. He had to cease taking lessons in chemistry, because one time he nearly succeeded in blowing himself and three or four of us up by mixing certain combustibles together by mistake; and another time he upset a bottle of sulphuric acid over his clothes.

He was always very near the bottom of his class, because he would prepare the wrong lessons, or misunderstand the questions asked him. And yet he was always anxious to get on. Once, I remember, he confidentially asked me, if he were to learn Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon by heart, whether I thought he would be able to get the Greek prize? But he bungled more in the playground than anywhere. Perhaps it was because we laughed at him and made him nervous.

It was rarely any one cared to have him on their side at cricket. He missed the easiest catches, he got leg before wicket, he stopped still in the middle of a run to see if he would have time to finish it, and whenever he did manage to score one he was sure, in his excitement, to knock down his own wicket with a flourish of his bat.

In football it’s no exaggeration to say he was more often on the ground than the ball itself, and was invariably of more service to the other side than to his own. In fact, the possession of him got to be quite a joke.

“Who’s going to win?” asks some one, before a match begins.

“Which side is Billy Bungle on?” is the counter question.

“Oh, he’s on our side.”

“Then of course the other fellows will win,” is the uncomplimentary conclusion; and Billy, poor boy, who overhears it, half chokes with wounded feelings, and tucks up his sleeves and goes into the game, determined for once he will disappoint those who mock at him. Alas I scarcely has the ball been kicked off than he gets in the way of everybody he ought not to get in the way of, and lets the others pass him; he collars his own men, and kicks the ball towards his own goal, and falls down just in time to cause half a dozen of his side to tumble over him, and just as the ball rises, straight as an arrow, to fly over the enemy’s goal, his unlucky head gets in the way and spoils everything. No wonder he is in very poor demand as an ally.

Now, the question is, is it altogether Billy’s fault he is such a duffer? Of course it is, say nineteen out of every twenty of my readers. Any one with an ounce of brains and common sense could avoid such stupid blunders. But the twentieth is not quite so positive. “Perhaps it’s not altogether Billy’s fault,” he says. And I must confess I am inclined to agree with this. Of course, a great deal of his “duffingness” (I believe that’s the proper word) is due to his carelessness. If he took the trouble to think about what he was doing, he would never translate a French exercise into Latin, or learn his arithmetic by heart instead of his history; he would never mix together (under his nose) two chemicals that would assuredly explode and nearly blow his head off. For he has a few brains in that head, which makes such blunders all the less excusable. But I am not sure if a good deal of his bad luck is not due to the merciless way in which he was laughed at, and called “duffer,” and taught to believe that he could no more do a thing right than a bull could walk through a china-shop without making a smash. He got it into his head he was a duffer, and therefore did not take the pains he might have done.

“What’s the use of my bothering? I’m sure to make a mess of it!”

Fancy a boy saying this to himself at cricket, while a ball is flying beautifully towards him, an easy catch, even for a duffer. Do you suppose he will catch it? Not he. He will stand where he is, and put up his hands, and look another way. In fact, he won’t do his best. And why? Because all of us never expect him to catch it; and if he did, we should probably call it a “fluke,” and laugh at him all the more. Yes, it’s our fault in a certain measure that Billy is the awful “duffer” he is.

Sometimes, as in the game of football we have referred to, he does make up his mind to do his best; but even then the idea that “destiny” is against him, and that everybody is expecting him to make a fool of himself, as usual, is enough to make any fellow nervous and a duffer.

However, whatever excuses we may make for Billy, he was undoubtedly a duffer. I have named one reason of his bad luck—want of thought—and another was hurry. In fact, the two reasons become one, for it was chiefly because Billy would never give himself time to think that he made so many mistakes. All his thinking came after the thing was done. As soon as the chemicals had blown up, for instance, it entered his head he had mixed the wrong ingredients, and as soon as the ball was flying to the wrong goal it occurred to him he had kicked it in a wrong direction.

And this really brings me to the moral of my discourse. Don’t despair, if you are a duffer, for you may cure yourself of it, if you will only think and take your time. If we are not quick-witted, it does not follow we have no wits, and if we only use them carefully, we shall be no greater duffers than some of our sharp fellows.

The great philosopher Newton once appeared in the light of a great duffer. He had a cat, and that cat had a kitten, and these two creatures were continually worrying him by scratching at his study door to be let either in or out. A brilliant idea occurred to the philosopher—he would make holes in the bottom of his door through which they might pass in or out at pleasure without troubling him to get up and open the door every time. And thereupon he made a big hole for the cat and a little hole for the kitten, as if both could not have used the big hole!

Well, you say, one could fancy Billy Bungle doing a thing like that, but what an extraordinary error for a philosopher to fall into! It was, but the reason in both cases is alike. Neither thought sufficiently about what he was doing. Newton was absorbed with other things, and Billy was thinking of nothing, and yet both he and Newton were duffers, which goes to prove that without care any one may belong to that class.

How many men who have begun life as reputed “duffers” have turned out great men! but you will find that none of them ever did themselves any good till they had cured themselves of that fault. That’s what you, and I, and Billy Bungle must all do, boys.

Just two words more about Billy. We all liked him, as I have said, for he was imperturbably good-tempered. He bore no malice for all our laughing, and now and then, when he was able to see the joke, would assist in laughing at himself.

And then he never tried to make himself out anything but what he was. Of all detestable puppies, the duffer who tries to pass himself off for a clever man is the most intolerable; for nothing will convince him of his error, and nothing will keep him in his place. He’s about the one sort of character nobody knows how to deal with, for he sets everybody else but himself down as duffers. What can anybody do to such a one?

But there is another extreme. Billy’s great fault was that he was too ready to believe others who called him a duffer. Don’t take it for granted you are a duffer because any one tells you so. Find it out for yourself, and when you’ve found it out—“don’t be a duffer!”

Chapter Sixteen.

The Dandy.

Fine feathers make fine birds. This is a proverb which a great many people in our country—especially young people—most devoutly believe in, and they show their belief in a very emphatic way. They rig themselves out in the height of the fashion, no matter how ridiculous it is, or how uncomfortable; they take airs upon themselves which do not properly belong to them; they try to pass for something finer than they are, and if they do not end by being laughed at it is no fault of theirs.

You never saw such a dandy as we had at our school. He rejoiced in the name of Frederick Fop, and seemed possessed of the notion that his dainty person was worthy of the utmost amount of decoration that any one person could bestow upon it. No one objects to a fellow having a good coat and trousers, and a respectable hat; but when it comes to canary-coloured pantaloons, and cuffs up to the finger ends, and collars as high as the ears, and a hat as shiny as a looking-glass, the fellow gets to be rather a nuisance. Indeed, we had just as much objection to walking out with Fred Fop as we had with Jack Sloven; one was quite as unpleasantly conspicuous as the other.

It was often a marvel to some of us how it came to be allowed for a boy to dress as Fred did. You should have seen him coming down the stairs on Sunday, as we were about to start for church, putting on a lavender glove, and taking a couple of minutes to adjust his hat to the proper angle on his head.

How he minced along the pavement, dreading to speck his exquisite boots, and how artlessly he would carry one glove in his hand, in order to show off his elegant ring. His umbrella was the size of an ordinary young lady’s parasol, and as for his collars—of course it was impossible to turn his head one way or the other with those things sticking up on either side. He always insisted on having the inside of the pavement, in order to avoid the splashing of the cabs; and invariably entered church last, having occupied a certain time in the porch (so it was said) to make sure his necktie was properly tied, and that the corner of his handkerchief was hanging sufficiently far out of his breast-pocket, and that the expression of his countenance was sufficiently interesting. Having satisfied himself on these points, he advanced up the aisle in procession with himself, and scented the whole building in his triumphal progress.

It is hardly to be wondered at that Master Fop became the victim of all sorts of practical jokes. If by any chance one of the fellows should happen to be pitching water out of the window, it was an extraordinary coincidence that Fred in his grand hat was nearly always walking underneath. Another time, when some of the elder boys were allowed to attend a grand concert in the village, Fred of course was in his glory, and took every means to create a sensation by his elaborate toilet. And so he did! For as he sauntered beautifully up the hall to his seat in front, he was wholly unconscious that a startling label was hanging gracefully on the back buttons of his coat with this legend inscribed thereon—

“Look here! Our noted 50 shilling suit! A bargain!”

It was not till he went to sit down that he discovered the heartless joke, and then—but we may as well draw a veil over his confusion. Suffice it to say he did not enjoy the concert a bit.

But he was by no means cured of his vanity. No, not even by a subsequent and still more embarrassing adventure.

Several of the boys, among whom were Fred and Jack Sloven, were one day down at the river bathing, when a sudden thought seized certain of Fred’s tormentors to play him a very unkind trick. So while he was swimming by himself some distance off, they scuttled ashore and made off, taking with them Jack Sloven dressed up in Fred’s clothes, and, of course, leaving that disreputable young gentleman’s garments behind for the dandy. They made home as fast as they could, and Jack, as quickly as possible, divested himself of his unwonted finery, and put on another of his own suits. Then the conspirators assembled in the playground with as many of us as had heard what was going on, and awaited the return of poor Fred. He was a long time coming, and before he arrived the head master and two ladies had appeared on the scene.

But the end came to our suspense at last, and we saw our hero march home in state. Such a spectacle you never saw! being rather tall, Sam’s greasy and ink-stained breeches came down only half-way below his knees, and fitted as tight as gloves. The elegant wrists, usually shrouded beneath their snowy cuffs, now stuck out like skewers from two very short, very tight, and very shabby sleeves. Fred had not attempted to don the shirt and collar which had been left for him, and it was pretty evident by the way he shivered that if any one had unbuttoned the coat and grimy waistcoat he would not have discovered much more in the shape of vestments. But he had Jack’s great muddy boots on, and his disgracefully caved-in hat. In this guise he had to perambulate the village, and now, worst of all, he found himself face to face not only with a whole body of his schoolfellows, but with the doctor and two ladies!

If the whole scene had not been so ludicrous, one would have felt sympathy for the poor fellow; as it was, every one burst out laughing the moment he appeared. Even the doctor had to turn suddenly and walk towards the house.

But we heard of the affair again presently; for the doctor always visited severely any act of unkindness done even in joke, and the offenders in this case were duly punished. To his credit be it said, Fred did not exult over his vindication; the only revenge he took was when he had arrayed himself once more in his usual faultless get-up. He came down to the schoolroom where we were all assembled, and walking up to Jack Sloven, drawled out in a voice which everybody could hear, “Oh, you’ll find your things in the bath-room—all but your shirt. I really couldn’t touch that, so it’s lying on the river bank still, where you left it!”

There is one peculiarity about dandies. They are hardly ever persons of great minds. When the exquisite, on being asked how on earth he came by the wonderful necktie he had got on, replied, “Well, you see, I gave my whole mind to it!” he probably spoke the truth. But then you know a mind that exhausts all its energy in the production of a “choker,” however remarkable, cannot be a great one.

I should be sorry to hurt any one’s feelings, but it is nevertheless a fact that an unhealthy craving after finery is very often a symptom of something not very far short of idiocy. I do not mean to say Fred Fop was an idiot. He had a certain amount of sense; but he would have had a vast deal more if he had not given so much of his mind to the decoration of his person. And with it all he never succeeded, at school at any rate, in passing himself off for any one more important than he was. It is as much a sign of being no gentleman to over-dress as to dress like a sloven, but, as in every other case, the secret is to find the golden mean. I have often seen working-men dressed in a more gentlemanly way than certain gorgeous snobs of my acquaintance; not that their clothes were grander or cost more, but because they were neat. That really is the secret. It always seems to me a sign of a man being well dressed when one never notices how he is dressed at all. If he were badly dressed, or if he were over-dressed, one would notice it; and it is a sure sign of his having hit the happy mean when his dress leaves no impression on your mind at all.

But I am not going to set up as a tailor, and so I will bring this paper to a close with this one piece of advice; when there is nothing else left to think about, then by all means let us give our whole mind to the cut of our coats.

Chapter Seventeen.

The Growler.

Who doesn’t know Growler, of our school? He was a sort of fellow nothing and nobody could satisfy. If Growler were a week in an African desert without a drop of water to drink, and some one were then to come and offer him a draught, you may depend upon it the fellow would have something to find fault with. The rim of the bowl would be too thick, or there would be a flavour of sand in the water, or the Good Samaritan who held it to his parched lips wouldn’t tilt it up exactly when he ought to do so. If his rich uncle were to give him a splendid gold hunter watch and chain, he would growl because there wasn’t a seal hanging on the latter. If he were to succeed in getting a third prize, he’d growl because he had not got the second. If he got the second, he’d growl because he had not got the first. And if he should win the first prize of all, then he would growl because there was not a higher one possible. Was ever such a hopeless fellow to have to deal with!

I dare say you have heard the story of the Scotch elder who, on the question being raised what service he could render at the church meetings, replied briskly, “I can always object.” Well, Growler’s one strong point was his talent for objecting, and gallantly he used it.

He was one of those fellows who think a great deal more about the thorn of the rose than the flower, and who, feeing quite sure that nothing under the sun is perfect, set themselves to discover the imperfections in all things.

I remember once a lot of us had planned a most delightful picnic for a certain holiday. We were to take two boats some miles up the river to a certain little island, where we proposed to land and erect a tent. Each fellow was to bring some contribution to the picnic, which we were to partake of with grand ceremony under the willows. Then we were to have some music, and generally take it easy. Afterwards we were to bathe, and then row some mile or two farther up to the woods, and have a squirrel hunt; and towards evening, after a picnic tea, drift down with the stream in time for the nine o’clock bell. It seemed a perfect plan, and as we sat and discussed it our spirits rose, and we found ourselves already enjoying our picnic in prospect. But presently Growler came into the room, and as he was to be one of the party, we had to go over all the plans again to him. Well, it was too bad! Not a single detail in our programme pleased him.

“Row?” he said; “don’t we get enough rowing, without having to give up holidays to it? besides, what’s the fun of sitting in a tent, or eating your food among all the wasps and gnats up in that place? You surely aren’t going to take that wretched concertina; that’ll be enough to give us the blues, even if it doesn’t rain, which it’s pretty sure to do. I suppose you know the island’s about the worst place for bathing—”

“Come, now, old man, it’s a first-rate place.”

“Well, you may think so; I don’t. In fact, I don’t see the fun of bathing after dinner at all. You don’t expect me to make a fool of myself hunting squirrels, do you, in those horrid woods? And you’ll have to have tea, as you call it (though you might as well make one meal do for both), jolly early if you expect to drift down here by nine. Why, you won’t do it in anything like the time, and fine fun it will be, sitting like dummies in a boat going at a mile an hour.”

This was cheerful, and no amount of argument would do away with our desirable friend’s objections. The result was, we went, but tried to alter our programme in some points to please him: But he growled all the more, and would not enjoy the day himself, nor let us do so; and our grand picnic, thanks to him, was quite a failure.

It wouldn’t have been so bad if the result of Growler’s grumblings had been to give us something better in place of what he wanted us to give up. But that is a thing he never did. He could pick holes to any extent, but he couldn’t fill them up. There was no scheme or project he couldn’t pull to pieces with the utmost industry, but I never remember his originating any scheme of his own to take its place. This was hardly fair. If you take something away from a person, and give him nothing in exchange, it is robbery, and in this respect Growler was an awful thief.

Isn’t it true that if you set yourself to it, you could find fault with nearly everything? But in order to do it, you would have to be very selfish in the first place, and very hard-hearted in the next. The dog in the manger is a good type of this happy combination. He trampled on the hay that the cows thought so sweet, and wouldn’t touch it himself, and he wouldn’t let them touch it either; and that is precisely the charge to which Growler lays himself open. Let us hope he is not quite such a bad sort as this dog. He had got into a regular habit of growling, and it would be against his nature altogether to praise anything cordially.

Supposing Growler to be grown to a man, now; what a desirable creature he must be! What a fine man to get on to a committee, or into parliament! What a delightful partner to have in business! Why, he’d wear out an ordinary man in a month. What complainings, and questionings, and disapprovals, and censures would he ever be loading on the head of his colleagues!—how ready people would be to avoid him and give him a wide berth! For, assuredly, if in anything there was to be found a fault, Growler was the boy to find it. I remember a fairy tale about some folk who wanted to find out if a certain lady were a fairy princess or not; and the way they did it was to lay a pea on the floor of her room, and cover it with twenty feather beds one on the top of the other. Next morning they asked how she slept.

“Not at all,” said she, “for there was a dreadful lump in the bed.”

Then they knew she must be a fairy! Perhaps it would be a little too much to compare Growler with a fairy; but he certainly had a wonderful knack of discovering peas under the bed; and where there were none to discover, he found out something else. Now, you and I, I expect, in talking of the sun, would speak of it as a glorious light and heat-giving orb, without which we could none of us get on for a moment. But Growler’s version of the thing would be quite different.

“A thing full of great ugly spots, that goes scorching up one part of the earth and leaving another in the cold, and is generally hidden by clouds from all the rest.”

Such is the genial, bright view of things taken by our old schoolmate.

There are two sorts of growlers. There is the man who honestly attacks what is really wrong for the sake of making it right, and there is the man who instinctively grumbles at everything for the mere sake of growling. The former class is as useful as the latter is tiresome, and if we must growl, by all means let us find out some real grievance to attack. Grumbling is a habit that grows quickly and with very little encouragement, and those who go in for it must make up their minds to have to do with very few friends. For who would consent to be the friend of a growler? It would be as bad as becoming the servant of a man who kept an electrical machine—he would always be trying it on you! And he must be content also to find that very few people sympathise with him. For when a man is a confirmed grumbler at everything, no one afflicts himself much about his lamentations, but puts it all down to his infirmity.

“Poor fellow, his digestion isn’t good, or his liver’s out of order!” they will say, and think no more about it.

Growler of our school was an able fellow in his way; and successful, too, but he wasn’t liked. Some were afraid of him, some detested him, and most cared very little about him. I don’t suppose he will ever do much good in the world, for this reason—his influence is so small. One would like to know if he is really as unhappy as he would make every one believe. I have a notion he is not, but is the victim of a habit which he has allowed to grow on him till it is past shaking off. Moral, boys: When you catch yourselves grumbling, make sure the grievance is a real one. If it is, don’t be content with grumbling, but follow it up till the wrong is put right. But if you find yourself growling merely because it sounds a fine thing to do, then let growl number one be not only the first but the last performance of the kind; and no one then will be able to growl at you.

Chapter Eighteen.

The Bully.

There are bullies and bullies. There is the big brother, for instance, who considers it as much part of his duty to administer an occasional cuff to his youthful relative, as he does to stroke his own chin for the first sign of a beard, or to wear his tall hat on Sundays. That is not the sort of bullying any one complains of. Pretty sort of fellows some of us would have turned out if we hadn’t come in for a little wholesome knocking about in our day! What’s the use of big brothers, we should like to know, if it’s not to chastise youngsters! and what are younger brothers made for, if they are not to be occasionally “whopped!”

When I first reached a “bullyable” age, I found myself number three of a set of five boys. I had looked on in awe at the discipline inflicted by my eldest brother on number two; I had been a trembling spectator of scuffles and tears, and pulled ears and sore knuckles, and knew my turn for the same hardships was coming. And so it did. Number one went to college, and then number two was cock of the walk, and didn’t I catch it then? The ears that had recently smarted between another’s finger and thumb were now deaf to my lamentations, and the knuckles that I had seen bruised and sore now played on my poor countenance as if it had been a tambourine. It wasn’t pleasant while it lasted, of course; but then it was all in the regular course of things, and had to be grinned at and borne; and besides it was a splendid training for me, when I came to be left ruler of the roost with young number four at my mercy. Poor number four! he had a hard time of it. He was a meek sort of fellow, and took a lot of bullying. I’ve a broken-backed lexicon to this day which often used to fly across the room at his devoted head, and which he as regularly picked up and handed back to me.

Never was a czar more absolute than I during the brief years of my supremacy.

But it was monotonous work bullying a fellow who never showed fight; and one day, in reply to a touching lamentation on his part, I demanded, “Why don’t you say you won’t, then, and stick to it?” Would you believe it? the ungrateful fellow took me at my word! Next time I issued a decree, he made my hair stand on end by shouting, “Shan’t!” I could not believe my wits; and when he not only refused, but (in accordance with my own unlucky advice) positively defied me, I was fairly nonplussed! In vain the lexicon performed its airy flight; in vain my ruler flourished over his knuckles; in rain I stormed and raged. No martyr at the stake was ever more sublimely firm; and from that day my reign was over.

It was over as far as he was concerned; but as he resolutely declined to do his duty in knocking about number five, I had to sacrifice myself for the family good, and take that young scamp in hand too, and as he was the youngest, he had nothing to do but wait till he grew up, and then—when he suddenly discovered he was six feet high—he took a turn at bullying me, who by that time was a married man with a family.

Now, perhaps, this sort of bullying within ordinary bounds does no great harm. In our case we almost seemed to like one another the better for it, though each in his turn rent the air with his howls and lamentations. Perhaps, however, we were exceptional boys, and I am not going to recommend the system.

The dog mother who routs up her little pup from his comfortable nap, and shakes him with her teeth, and knocks him down and rolls him over and worries him till he yaps and yelps as if his last day had come, is not such a bully as the cat who holds a mouse under his paw, and plays with it and torments it previous to making a meal of it.

In one case the discipline is salutary and serves a good end; in the other it is sheer cruelty.

Just let me introduce you to a bully of the true sort—one whom we might call a professional bully—as contrasted with the amateur big-brother bullies of whom I have been speaking.

Bob Bangs of our school was a big, ill-conditioned, lazy, selfish, cross-grained sort of fellow. He was nearly the tallest fellow in the fifth form, but by no means the strongest. He was narrow across the chest, and shaky about the knees, though we youngsters held him too much in awe to take this into account at the time. To the big boys of the sixth form Bob was cringing and snivelling; nothing was too menial, so only as he could keep in their good graces. If he had known how, I dare say he would have blacked their boots or parted their hair; as it was, he laid himself out to fetch and carry, to go and come just as their lordships should direct; and their lordships, I have a notion, winked at one another and gave him plenty to do.

But to us youngsters Bob was wholly different. For one of us to come so much as across his path was sufficient provocation to his spite. Like a spider in its web, he would waylay and capture the wretched small fry of our school and haul them away to his den. There he would screw their arms and kick them, just for the pleasure of seeing their faces and hearing their howls. Generally, indeed, he managed to invent some pretext for his chastisement. This one had made a grimace at him across the room yesterday; that one had spilt some ink on his desk; poor Jack Flighty had had the cheek to laugh outside his door while he was reading; or Joe Tyler had bagged his straw hat instead of his own.

One day, I remember, I, a little unfortunate of ten summers, fell into his awful clutches.

“Come here, you young beggar!” I heard him call out.

I dared not disobey, and stood before him shaking in my shoes.

“What are you laughing at?” he says.

“I’m not laughing,” I said, feeling anything but in the humour for jocularity.

“Yes, you are, I tell you—take that!” and a smart box on the ear followed.

I writhed, but tried hard to suppress my ejaculation of pain.

“What’s that you called me?” demanded the bully.

“Nothing,” I faltered, rubbing my head.

“Yes, you did,” he said; “take that for telling a cram, and that for calling me names!” and suiting the action to the word he bestowed one cuff and one kick on my unoffending person, each of which I acknowledged by a howl.

“Now then,” said he, “what did you mean by borrowing Tom Groby’s Gulliver’s Travels yesterday when you knew I wanted to read it, eh?”

And he caught hold of my hand and gave my arm a suggestive preliminary screw.

“I didn’t,” I said.

“Yes, you did,” said he, tightening the pressure, so as to make me catch my under lip in my teeth. “You knew well enough I was half through it.”

“I mean, I didn’t borrow it. I never saw the book,” I shrieked, truly enough too, for this was clearly a case of mistaken identity.

“Yes, you did, for I was told so.”

“I didn’t; oh, let me go!” I cried, twisting under the torture; “it wasn’t me!”

“I tell you it was;” another screw, and another dance and howl from me; “and what’s the use of you saying it wasn’t?”

“Indeed it wasn’t!” I yelled, for by this time I was on my knees, and half dead with agony. “Oh! You’ll break my arm! Oh! Oh!”

“Say you took it, then,” replied my tormentor.

“It wasn’t me,” I shrieked. “Oh! Yes it was! Let go!”

Then he let go, and catching me by the collar of my coat with one hand, pulled my ear with the other, saying—

“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 class of people to whom power becomes a ruling passion. 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 passing 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 snob who keeps his carriages, and counts his income with five or six figures, and considers that sufficient title 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 pass off his lack of brains with bluster, and to make up by tyranny for the contempt which his ill-bred manners would naturally secure for him. But he deceives nobody 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 seashore 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 nobles, 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 shore 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 noble sovereign.”

Henry looked in the direction pointed, and saw the gallant vessel, gleaming like silver with its white poop 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.