CHAPTER IV

MR. ROSE AND BRIGSON

"Raro antecedentem scelestum
Deseruit pede Poena claudo."--HOR.

After prayers the next morning Dr. Rowlands spoke to his boarders on the previous day's discovery, and in a few forcible vivid words set before them, the enormity of the offence. He ended by announcing that the boys who were caught would be birched,--"except the elder ones, Bull and Brigson, who will bring me one hundred lines every hour of the half-holidays till further notice. There are some," he said, "I am well aware, who, though present yesterday, were not detected. I am sorry for it, for their sakes; they will be more likely to sin again. In cases like this, punishment is a blessing, and impunity a burden." On leaving the room he bade Eric follow him into his study. Eric obeyed, and stood before the head-master with downcast eyes.

"Williams," he said, "I have had a great regard for you, and felt a deep interest in you from the day I first saw you, and knew your excellent parents. At one time I had conceived great hopes of your future course, and your abilities seemed likely to blossom into noble fruit. But you fell off greatly, and grew idle and careless. At last an event happened, in which for a time you acted worthily of yourself, and which seemed to arouse you from your negligence and indifference. All my hopes in you revived; but as I continued to watch your course (more closely, perhaps, than you supposed), I observed with pain that those hopes must be again disappointed. It needs but a glance at your countenance to be sure that you are not so upright or right-minded a boy as you were two years ago. I can judge only from your outward course; but I deeply fear, Williams, I deeply fear, that in other respects also you are going the down-hill road. And what am I to think now, when on the same morning, you and your little brother both come before me for such serious and heavy faults? I cannot free you from blame even for his misdoings, for you are his natural guardian here; I am only glad that you were not involved with him in that charge."

"Let me bear the punishment, sir, instead of him," said Eric, by a sudden impulse; "for I misled him, and was there myself."

Dr. Rowlands paced the room in deep sorrow. "You, Williams! on the verge of the sixth form. Alas! I fear, from this, that the state of things among you is even worse than I had supposed."

Eric again hung his head.

"No; you have confessed the sin voluntarily, and therefore at present I shall not notice it; only, let me entreat you to beware. But I must turn to the other matter. What excuse have you for your intolerable conduct to Mr. Rose, who, as I know, has shown you from the first the most unusual and disinterested kindness?"

"I cannot defend myself, sir. I was excited, and could not control my passion."

"Then you must sit down here, and write an apology, which I shall make you read aloud before the whole school at twelve to-day."

Eric, with trembling hand, wrote his apology, and Dr Rowlands glanced at it. "Come to me again at twelve," he said.

At twelve all the school were assembled, and Eric, pale and miserable, followed the Doctor into the great school-room. The masters stood at one end of the room, and among them Mr. Rose, who, however, appeared an indifferent and uninterested spectator of the transaction. Every eye was fixed on Eric, and every one pitied him.

"We are assembled," said Dr. Rowlands, "for an act of justice. One of your number has insulted a master publicly, and is ashamed of his conduct, and has himself written the apology which he will read. I had intended to add a still severer punishment, but Mr. Rose has earnestly begged me not to do so, and I have succumbed to his wishes. Williams, read your apology."

There was a dead hush, and Eric tried once or twice in vain to utter a word. At last, by a spasmodic effort, he regained his voice, and read, but in so low and nervous a tone, that not even those nearest him heard what he was saying.

Dr. Rowlands took the paper from him. "Owing," he said, "to a very natural and pardonable emotion, the apology has been read in such a way that you could not have understood it. I will therefore read it myself. It is to this effect--

"'I, Eric Williams, beg humbly and sincerely to apologise for my passionate and ungrateful insult to Mr. Rose.'

"You will understand that he was left quite free to choose his own expressions; and as he has acknowledged his shame and compunction for the act, I trust that none of you will be tempted to elevate him into a hero, for a folly which he himself so much regrets. This affair,--as I should wish all bad deeds to be after they have once been punished,--will now be forgiven, and I hope forgotten."

They left the room and dispersed, and Eric fancied that all shunned and looked coldly on his degradation But not so: Montagu came, and taking his arm in the old friendly way, went a walk with him. It was a constrained and silent walk, and they were both glad when it was over, although Montagu did all he could to show that he loved Eric no less than before. Still it was weeks since they had been much together, and they had far fewer things in common now than they used to have.

"I'm so wretched, Monty," said Eric at last; "do you think Rose despises me?"

"I am sure of the contrary. Won't you go to him, Eric, and say all you feel?"

"Heigh ho! I shall never get right again. Oh, to recover the last two years!"

"You can redeem them, Eric, by a nobler present. Let the same words comfort you that have often brought hope to me--'I will restore the years which the locust hath eaten.'"

They reached the school-door, and Eric went straight to the library. Mr. Rose was there alone. He received him kindly, as usual, and Eric went up to the fire-place where he was standing. They had often stood by that library fire on far different terms.

"Forgive me, sir," was all Eric could say, as the tears rushed to his eyes.

"Freely, my boy," said Mr. Rose, sadly. "I wish you could feel how fully I forgive you; but," he added, laying his hand for the last time on Eric's head, "you have far more, Eric, to forgive yourself. I will not talk to you, Eric; it would be little good, I fear; but you little know how much I pity and tremble for you."

While these scenes were being enacted with Eric, a large group was collected round the fire-place in the boarders' room, and many tongues were loudly discussing the recent events.

Alas for gratitude! there was not a boy in that group to whom Mr. Rose had not done many an act of kindness; and to most of them far more than they ever knew. Many a weary hour had he toiled for them in private, when his weak frame was harassed by suffering; many a sleepless night had he wrestled for them in prayer, when, for their sakes, his own many troubles were laid aside. Work on, Walter Rose, and He who seeth in secret will reward you openly! but expect no gratitude from those for whose salvation you, like the great tenderhearted apostle, would almost be ready to wish yourself accursed.

Nearly every one in that noisy group was abusing Mr. Rose. It had long been Brigson's cue to do so; he derided him on every opportunity, and delighted to represent him as hypocritical and insincere. Even his weak health was the subject of Brigson's coarse ridicule, and the bad boy paid, in deep hatred, the natural tribute which vice must ever accord to excellence.

"You see how he turns on his pets if they offend him," said Brigson; "why, even that old beast Gordon isn't as bad."

"Yes; while poor Eric was reading, Rose reminded me of Milton's serpent," drawled Bull;

"Hope elevates and joy brightens his crest."

"He-e-ar! He-e-ar!" said Pietrie; "vide the last fifth form Rep."

"I expect Eric won't see everything so much couleur de Rose now, as the French frog hath it," remarked Graham.

"It was too bad to stand by and triumph, certainly," observed Wildney.

"I say, you fellows," remonstrated Wright, who, with Vernon, was sitting reading a book at one of the desks, "all that isn't fair. I'm sure you all saw how really sorry Rose looked about it; and he said, you know, that it was merely for the sake of school discipline that he put the matter in Rowlands' hands."

"Discipline be hanged," shouted Brigson; "we'll have our revenge on him yet, discipline or no."

"I hope you won't, though," said Vernon; "I know Eric will be sorry if you do."

"The more muff he. We shall do as we like."

"Well, I shall tell him; and I'm sure he'll ask you not. You know how he tries to stick up for Rose."

"If you say a word more," said Brigson, unaccustomed to being opposed among his knot of courtiers, "I'll kick you out of the room; you and that wretched little fool there with you."

"You may do as you like," answered Wright, quietly, "but you won't go on like this long, I can tell you."

Brigson tried to seize him, but failing, contented himself with flinging a big coal at him as he ran out of the room, which narrowly missed his head.

"I have it!" said Brigson; "that little donkey's given me an idea. We'll crust Rose to-night."

"To crust," gentle reader, means to pelt an obnoxious person with crusts.

"Capital!" said some of the worst boys present; "we will."

"Well, who'll take part?"

No one offered. "What! are we all turning sneaks and cowards? Here, Wildney, won't you? you were abusing Rose just now."

"Yes, I will," said Wildney, but with no great alacrity. "You'll not have done till you've got us all expelled, I believe."

"Fiddle-stick end! and what if we are? besides, he can't expel half the school."

First two or three more offered, and then a whole lot, gaining courage by numbers. So the plot was regularly laid. Pietrie and Graham were to put out the lights at each end of one table immediately after tea, and Wildney and Brooking at the other, when the study fellows had gone out. There would then be only Mr. Rose's candle burning, and the two middle candles, which, in so large a room, would just give enough light for their purpose. Then all the conspirators were to throng around the door, and from it aim their crusts at Mr. Rose's head, Not nearly so many would have volunteered to join, but that they fancied Mr. Rose was too gentle to take up the matter with vigor, and they were encouraged by his quiet leniency towards Eric the night before. It was agreed that no study-boy should be told of the intention, lest any of them should interfere.

Many hearts beat fast at tea that night as they observed that numbers of boys, instead of eating all their bread, were cutting off the crusts, and breaking them into good-sized bits.

Tea finished, Mr. Rose said grace, and then sat down quietly reading in his desk. The signal agreed on was the (accidental) dropping of a plate by Brigson. The study-boys left the room.

Crash!--down fell a plate on the floor, breaking to pieces in the fall.

Instantly the four candles went out, and there was a hurried movement towards the door, and a murmur of voices.

"Now then," said Brigson, in a loud whisper, "what a funky set you are! Here goes?"

The master, surprised at the sudden gloom and confusion, had just looked up, unable to conjecture what was the matter. Brigson's crust caught him a sharp rap on the forehead as he moved.

In an instant he started up, and ten or twelve more crusts flew by or hit him on the head, as he strode out of the desk towards the door. Directly he stirred, there was a rush of boys into the passage, and if he had once lost his judgment or temper, worse harm might have followed. But he did not. Going to the door, he said, "Preparation will be in five minutes; every boy not then in his place will be punished."

During that five minutes the servants had cleared away the tea, full of wonder; but Mr. Rose paced up and down the room, taking no notice of any one. Immediately after, all the boys were in their places, with their books open before them, and in the thrilling silence you might have heard a pin drop. Every one felt that Mr. Rose was master of the occasion, and awaited his next step in terrified suspense.

They all perceived how thoroughly they had mistaken their subject. The ringleaders would have given all they had to be well out of the scrape. Mr. Rose ruled by kindness, but he never suffered his will to be disputed for an instant. He governed with such consummate tact, that they hardly felt it to be government at all, and hence arose their stupid miscalculation. But he felt that the time was now come to assert his paramount authority, and determined to do so at once and for ever.

"Some of you have mistaken me," he said, in a voice so strong and stern that it almost startled them. "The silly display of passion in one boy yesterday has led you to presume that you may trifle with me. You are wrong. For Williams' sake, as a boy who has, or at least once had, something noble in him, I left that matter in the Doctor's hands. I shall not do so to-night. Which of you put out the candles?"

Dead silence. A pause.

"Which of you had the audacity to throw pieces of bread at me?"

Still silence.

"I warn you that I will know, and it will be far worse for the guilty if I do not know at once." There was unmistakeable decision in the tone.

"Very well. I know many boys who were not guilty because I saw them in parts of the room where to throw was impossible. I shall now ask all the rest, one by one, if they took any part in this. And beware of telling me a lie."

There was an uneasy sensation in the room, and several boys began to whisper aloud, "Brigson! Brigson!" The whisper grew louder, and Mr. Rose heard it. He turned on Brigson like a lion, and said--

"They call your name; stand out!"

The awkward, big, ungainly boy, with his repulsive countenance, shambled out of his place into the middle of the room. Mr. Rose swept him with one flashing glance. "That is the boy," thought he to himself, "who has been like an ulcer to this school. These boys shall have a good look at their hero." It was but recently that Mr. Rose knew all the harm which Brigson had been doing, though he had discovered, almost from the first, what sort of character he had.

So Brigson stood out in the room, and as they looked at him, many a boy cursed him in their hearts for evil taught them, such as a lifetime's struggle could not unteach. And it was that fellow, that stupid, clumsy, base compound of meanness and malice, that had ruled like a king among them. Faugh!

"They call your name! Do you know anything of this?"

"No!" said Brigson; "I'll swear I'd nothing to do with it."

"Oh-h-h-h!" the long, intense, deep-drawn expression of disgust and contempt ran round the room.

"You have told me a lie!" said Mr. Rose, slowly, and with ineffable contempt. "No words can express my loathing for your false and dishonorable conduct. Nor shall your lie save you, as you shall find immediately. Still, you shall escape if you can or dare to deny it again. I repeat my question--Were you engaged in this?"

He fixed his full, piercing eye on the culprit, whom it seemed to scorch and wither. Brigson winced back, and said nothing. "As I thought," said Mr. Rose.

"Not one boy only, but many, were engaged. I shall call you up one by one to answer me. Wildney, come here."

The boy walked in front of the desk.

"Were you one of those who threw?"

Wildney, full as he was of dangerous and deadly faults, was no coward, and not a liar. He knew, or at least feared, that this new scrape might be fatal to him, but, raising his dark and glistening eyes to Mr. Rose, he said penitently--

"I didn't throw, sir, but I did put out one of the candles that it might be done."

The contrast with Brigson was very great; the dark cloud hung a little less darkly on Mr. Rose's forehead, and there was a very faint murmur of applause.

"Good! stand back. Pietrie, come up."

Pietrie, too, confessed, and indeed all the rest of the plotters except Brooking. Mr. Rose's lip curled with scorn as he heard the exclamation which his denial caused; but he suffered him to sit down.

When Wright's turn came to be asked, Mr. Rose said--"No! I shall not even ask you, Wright. I know well that your character is too good to be involved in such an attempt."

The boy bowed humbly, and sat down. Among the last questioned was Vernon Williams, and Mr. Rose seemed anxious for his answer.

"No," he said at once,--and seemed to wish to add something.

"Go on," said Mr. Rose, encouragingly.

"Oh, sir! I only wanted to say that I hope you won't think Eric knew of this. He would have hated it, sir, more even than I do."

"Good," said Mr. Rose; "I am sure of it. And now," turning to the offenders, "I shall teach you never to dare again to be guilty of such presumption and wickedness as to-night. I shall punish you according to my notion of your degrees of guilt. Brigson, bring me a cane from that desk."

He brought it.

"Hold out your hand."

The cane fell, and instantly split up from top to bottom. Mr. Rose looked at it, for it was new that morning.

"Hah! I see; more mischief; there is a hair in it."

The boys were too much frightened to smile at the complete success of the trick.

"Who did this? I must be told at once."

"I did, sir," said Wildney, stepping forward.

"Ha! very well," said Mr. Rose, while, in spite of his anger, a smile hovered at the corner of his lips. "Go and borrow me a cane from Mr. Harley."

While he went there was unbroken silence.

"Now, sir," said he to Brigson, "I shall flog you."

Corporal punishment was avoided with the bigger boys, and Brigson had never undergone it before. At the first stroke he writhed and yelled; at the second he retreated, twisting like a serpent, and blubbering like a baby; at the third he flung himself on his knees, and, as the strokes fell fast, clasped Mr. Rose's arm, and implored and besought for mercy.

"Miserable coward," said Mr. Rose, throwing into the word such ringing scorn that no one who heard it ever forgot it. He indignantly shook the boy off, and caned him till he rolled on the floor, losing every particle of self-control, and calling out, "The devil--the devil--the devil!" ("invoking his patron saint," as Wildney maliciously observed).

"There! cease to blaspheme, and get up," said the master, blowing out a cloud of fiery indignation. "There, sir. Retribution comes at last, leaden-footed but iron-handed. A long catalogue of sins is visited on you to-day, and not only on your shrinking body, but on your conscience too, if you have one left. Let those red marks betoken that your reign is ended. Liar and tempter, you have led boys into the sins which you then meanly deny! And now, you boys, there in that coward, who cannot even endure his richly-merited punishment, see the boy whom you have suffered to be your leader for well-nigh six months!"

"Now, sir"--again he turned upon Brigson--"that flogging shall be repeated with interest on your next offence. At present you will take each boy on your back while I cane him. It is fit that they should see where you lead them to."

Trembling violently, and cowed beyond description, he did as he was bid. No other boy cried, or even winced; a few sharp cuts was all which Mr. Rose gave them, and even they grew fewer each time, for he was tired, and displeased to be an executioner.

"And now," he said, "since that disgusting but necessary scene is over, never let me have to repeat it again."

But his authority was established like a rock from that night forward. No one ever ventured to dispute it again, or forgot that evening. Mr. Rose's noble moral influence gained tenfold strength from the respect and wholesome fear that he then inspired.

But, as he had said, Brigson's reign was over. Looks of the most unmitigated disgust and contempt were darted at him, as he sat alone and shunned at the end of the table; and the boys seemed now to loathe and nauseate the golden calf they had been worshipping. He had not done blubbering even yet, when the prayer-bell rang. No sooner had Mr. Rose left the room than Wildney, his dark eyes sparkling with rage, leaped on the table, and shouted--

"Three groans, hoots, and hisses, for a liar and a coward," a sign of execration which he was the first to lead off, and which the boys echoed like a storm.

Astonished at the tumult, Mr. Rose re-appeared at the door. "Oh, we're not hissing you, sir," said Wildney excitedly; "we're all hissing at lying and cowardice."

Mr. Rose thought the revulsion of feeling might do good, and he was striding out again, without a word, when--

"Three times three for Mr. Rose," sang out Wildney.

Never did a more hearty or spontaneous cheer burst from the lips and lungs of fifty boys than that. The news had spread like wildfire to the studies, and the other boys came flocking in during the uproar, to join in it heartily. Cheer after cheer rang out like a sound of silver clarions from the clear boy-voices; and in the midst of the excited throng stood Eric and Montagu, side by side, hurrahing more lustily than all the rest.

But Mr. Rose, in the library, was on his knees, with moving lips and lifted hands. He coveted the popular applause as little as he had dreaded the popular opposition; and the evening's painful experiences had taught him anew the bitter lesson to expect no gratitude, and hope for no reward, but simply, and contentedly, and unmurmuringly, to work on in God's vineyard so long as life and health should last.

Brigson's brazen forehead bore him through the disgrace which would have crushed another. But still he felt that his position at Roslyn could never be what it had been before, and he therefore determined to leave at once. By grossly calumniating the school, he got his father to remove him, and announced, to every one's great delight, that he was going in a fortnight. On his last day, by way of bravado, he smashed and damaged as much of the school property as he could, a proceeding which failed to gain him any admiration, and merely put his father to ruinous expense.

The day after his exposure Eric had cut him dead, without the least pretence of concealment; an example pretty generally followed throughout the school.

In the evening Brigson went up to Eric and hissed in his ear, "You cut me, curse you; but, never fear, I'll be revenged on you yet."

"Do your worst," answered Eric, contemptuously, "and never speak to me again."