Chapter Twenty Seven.

The Monitors.

In the teeth of clenched antagonisms.
 
Tennyson.

The meeting over, Henderson, who had not seen Walter since the morning, flew up to the sickroom to tell him the news, which he was sure would specially interest him. As he entered, the same spectacle was before him which Power had already seen—little Eden restless, and sometimes wandering—Walter seated silently by the bed watching him, his legs crossed, and his hands clasped over one knee. The curtains were drawn to exclude the glare. Walter could read but little, for his eyes were weak after the fight; but his thoughts and his nursing of his little friend kept him occupied. Henderson, fresh from the excitement of the meeting, was struck with the deep contrast presented by this painfully quiet scene.

He was advancing eagerly, but Walter rose with his finger on his lip, and spoke to him in a whisper, for Eden had just dropped off to sleep.

Henderson shook him warmly by the hand, and whispered—“I’ve such lots to tell you;” and, sitting down by Walter, he gave him an account of what had just taken place. “You should have heard Power, Walter; upon my word he spoke like an orator, and regularly bowled the Harpour lot off their legs. It’s splendid to see him coming out so in the school—isn’t it?”

“It is indeed; and thanks to you, too, Flip, for sticking up for me.”

“Oh, what I did was nothing. But only fancy that fellow Kenrick fighting against us like this, and giving his casting vote against Harpour’s being thrashed! You’ve no idea, Walter, how that fellow’s changed.”

He was interrupted, for Eden woke with a short scream, and, starting up in bed, looked round with a scared expression, shuddering and moaning as he fell back again on his pillow.

“Oh, don’t, don’t, don’t frighten me,” he said appealingly, while the perspiration burst out over his pale face; “please, Harpour, please don’t. Oh, Walter, Walter, do help me.”

“Hush, my poor, little fellow, I’m here,” said Walter tenderly, as he smoothed his pillow; “don’t be afraid, Arty, you’re quite safe, and I’m staying with you. They only put on masks to frighten you; it was nothing but that.”

Bending over the bed, he talked to him in a gentle, soothing voice, and tried to make him feel at ease, while the child flung both his arms round his neck, sobbing, and still clung tight to his hand when Walter had succeeded in allaying the sudden paroxysm of terror.

Henderson, deeply touched, had looked on with glistening eyes. “How kind you are, Walter,” he said, taking his other hand, and affectionately pressing it. “I should just like to have Kenrick here, and show him what his new friends have done.”

“Don’t be indignant against him, Flip. I wish, indeed, he would but come into this room, and make it up with us, and be what he once was. But he did not even take the slightest notice of the letter I wrote him, entreating him to overlook any fault I had been guilty of, however unconsciously. I never meant to wrong him, and I love him as much as ever.”

“Love him!” said Henderson, “I don’t; his new line isn’t half to my fancy. He must be jolly miserable, that’s one comfort.”

“Hush! he was our friend, Flip, remember; indeed, I feel as a friend to him still, whatever his feelings are for me. But why do you think he must be miserable?”

“Because you can see in his face and manner, that all the while he knows he’s in the wrong, and is thoroughly ashamed at bottom.”

“Well, let’s hope he’ll come round again all the sooner. Have you broken with him, then?”

“Well, nearly. We are barely civil to each other, that’s all, and I don’t suppose we shall be even that now: for I pitched into him to-day at the meeting.”

Walter only sighed, and just then Power stole into the room.

“Hallo!” he said, “Flip, I believe you and I shall kill the invalids between us. I just met Dr Keith on the stairs, and he only gave me leave to come for five minutes, for he says they both need quiet. You, I suspect, Master Flip, took French leave.”

“I like that,” said Henderson, laughing, “considering that this is your second visit, and only my first. I’ve been telling Walter about the meeting.”

“The credit—if there is any—is yours, Flip; you broke the ice, and showed the Harpourites that they weren’t going to carry it all their own way, as they fancied.”

“I’m so glad you came out strong, Power,” said Walter; “Flip says you took them all by storm.”

“That’s Flip’s humbug,” said Power; “but,” he whispered, “if I did any good, it’s all through you, Walter.”

“How do you mean?”

“Why, first of all, I wasn’t going to hear animals like Mackworth abuse you; and next, but for you I should have continued my old selfish way of keeping aloof from all school concerns. It cost me an effort to conquer my shyness, but I remembered our old talk on Appenfell, Walter.”

Walter smiled gratefully, and Power continued, “But I’ve come to tell you both a bit of news.”

“What’s that?” they asked eagerly.

“Why, there’s a notice on the board, signed by Somers, to say that ‘All the school are requested to stay in their places after the master has left the room at two o’clock calling-over.’”

“Whew! what a row we shall have!” said Henderson.

“How I wish I were well enough to be out now,” said Walter. “I hate to be shut up while all this is going on.”

“Poor fellow, with that face?” said Power. “No; you must be content to wait and get well.”

“It isn’t the face that keeps me in, Power; it’s the bang on the head, Keith says.”

“Yes, and Keith says that he doesn’t know when you will be well if these young chatterboxes stay with you,” said the good-humoured doctor, entering at the moment. “Vanish both of you!”

The boys smiled and bade Walter good-bye, as they wished him speedy relief from Dr Keith’s prison. “And when do you think poor little Eden may come and sit in my study again?” asked Power. “I miss him very much.”

“You mustn’t think of that for a long time,” answered the doctor.

“How about this two o’clock affair?” said Henderson, as they left the room.

“Upon my word I don’t know. Sit next to me, Flip, in case of a row.”

“Are the monitors strong enough, do you think?”

“We shall see.”

The school was in a fever of excitement and curiosity. At dinner-time nothing else was talked of by the lower boys, but the upper forms kept a dignified silence.

Two o’clock came. The names of all the school were called over, and amid perfect silence the master of the week left the hall. Then Somers stood up in the daïs and said—

“Is Harpour here?—the rest please to keep their places.”

“I’m here—what do you want of me?” said Harpour sulkily, as he stood up in his place.

“First of all, I want to tell you before the whole school that you have been behaving in the most shamefully cruel and blackguard way, and in a way that has produced disastrous consequences to one of the little fellows. A big fellow like you ought to be thoroughly ashamed of such conduct. If you were capable of a blush you ought to blush for it. It is our duty as monitors, and my duty as Head of the school, to punish you for this conduct, as Dr Lane has left it in our hands; and I am going to cane you for it. Stand out.”

“I won’t. I’ll see you damned first.”

A sensation ran through the school at this open defiance; but Somers, quite unmoved, repeated—

“I take no notice of your words further than to tell you that if you swear again you will have an additional punishment; but once again I tell you to stand out.”

Harpour quailed a little at his firm tone, and at the total absence of all support from his followers; but he again flatly refused to stand out.

“Very well,” said Somers; “you have already defied the authority of one monitor, and that is an aggravation of your original offence. I should have been glad to have avoided a scene, but if your common sense doesn’t make you bear the punishment coolly, you shall bear it by force. Will you stand out?—no?—then you shall be made. Fetch him here, some one,” he said, turning to the sixth-form.

The second monitor, Danvers, quietly seized Harpour’s right arm, and Macon, one of the biggest fellows in the fifth-form, of his own accord got up and seized the other, Harpour’s heart sank at this, for Danvers and the other were with him in the cricket eleven, and he was not as strong as either of them singly.

“Now mark,” said Somers; “caned you shall be, to redeem the character of the school; but unless you take it without being made to take it, your name shall also be immediately struck off the school list, and you shall leave Saint Winifred’s this evening. You’ll be no great loss, I take it. So much I may tell you as a proof that the Headmaster has left us to vindicate the name of Saint Winifred’s.”

Seeing that resistance was useless, Harpour accordingly stood out in the centre of the room, but not until he had cast an inquiring look among those who embraced his side; and these, who, as we have seen, were tolerably numerous, all looked at Kenrick that he might give some hint as to what they should do. Thus appealed to, Kenrick rose and said—

“I protest against this caning.”

“You!” said Somers, turning contemptuously in that direction; “who are you?”

The general titter which these words caused made Kenrick furious, and he cried out angrily—

“It is against the opinion of the majority of the school.”

“We shall see,” said Somers, with stinging sang froid; “meanwhile, you may sit down, and let the majority of the school speak for themselves, otherwise you may be requested to occupy a still more prominent position. I shall have something to say to you presently.”

“Let’s rescue him,” said Kenrick, springing forward, and several fellows stirred in answer to the appeal; but Macon, seizing hold of Tracy with one arm, and Mackworth with the other, thrust them both down on the floor, and Danvers, catching hold of Kenrick, swung him over the form, and pinned him there. The general laugh with which this proceeding was received showed that only a small handful of the school were really opposed to the monitors, and that most boys thoroughly concurred with them, and held them to be in the right. So Macon quietly boxed Jones’s ears, since Jones was making a noise, and then told him and the others that they might return to their places.

Crimsoned all over with shame and anger, Kenrick sat down, and Somers proceeded to administer to Harpour a most severe caning. That worthy quite meant to stretch to the utmost his powers of endurance, and made several scornful remarks after each of the first blows. But Somers had no intention to let him off too easily; each sneer was followed by a harder cut, and the remarks were very soon followed by a silent but significant wince. It was not until a writhe had been succeeded by a sob, and a sob by a howl, that Somers said to him—

“Now you may go.”

And Harpour did go to his seat, in an agony of mingled pain and shame. He had boasted repeatedly that he would never take a thrashing from anyone; but he had taken it, and succumbed to it, and that too in the presence of the whole school. He was tremendously ashamed; he never forgot the scene, and determined never to lose an opportunity of revenging it.

The school felt it to be an act of simple justice, and that the punishment was richly deserved. They looked on in stern silence, and those lower boys who had in the morning determined to interfere, gazed with some discomfiture upon their champion’s fall.

“And now, Master Kenrick, you stand here—what, no!—Stand here, sir.”

Kenrick only glared defiance.

“Danvers, hand him here;” but Danvers stepped up to Somers and whispered, “Don’t be too sharp on him, Somers, or you’ll drive him to despair. Remember he’s high in the fifth, and has been a distinguished fellow. Don’t make too much of this one escapade.”

“All right. Thanks, Danvers,” said Somers; and added aloud, in a less sarcastic tone—“Come here, Kenrick; I merely wish to speak a word with you;” and then Danvers kindly but firmly took the boy’s hand, and led him forward.

“You said the majority of the school denied our right to interfere.”

No answer.

“Do you consider yourself in person to be the majority of the school, pray?”

No answer.

“We are all perfectly aware, sir, of your meeting, and of your precious casting vote. But you must be informed that a rabble of shell and fourth-form boys do not constitute the school in any sense of the word. And understand too, that even if the majority of the school had been against us, we monitors are not quite so ignorant of our solemn duty as to make that any reason for letting a brutal and cowardly act of bullying go unpunished. You have been very silly, Kenrick, and have been just misled by conceit. Yes, you may look angry; but you know me of old; you’ve never received anything but kindness at my hands since the day you were my fag, and I tell you again that you’ve just been misled by conceit. Think rather less of yourself, my good fellow. You ought to have known better. Your friend Power has shown you an infinitely more sensible example. You may sit down, sir, with this warning; and, in the name of the monitors, I beg to thank the other fellows, especially Evson and Henderson, who did their best to protect little Eden. They behaved like thorough gentlemen, and it would be well if more of you younger boys were equally alive to the true honour of the school.”

“I wish he’d be more conciliatory,” whispered Dimock to Danvers; “he’s plucky and firm, but so very dictatorial and unpersuasive. Besides, he’s forgotten to thank Power.”

“Yes,” said Danvers, “his tone spoils all. Somers,” he said, “you’ve omitted to mention Power, and the fellows will be gone in a minute.”

“I’ve been talking so much, you say it.”

“Not I; I’m no speaker. Here, Dimock will.”

“Ay, that’ll do. One minute more, please,” called Somers, raising his hand to the boys, who, during this rapidly whispered conversation, were beginning to leave their places.

“Somers wishes me to add,” said Dimock, “that all the monitors and many of the sixth and fifth forms wish to express our best thanks to Power for the exceedingly honourable and fearless way in which he this morning maintained the rights and duties which belong to us. You younger fellows know very well that we monitors extremely dislike to interfere, that we do so only on the rarest occasions, and that we are always most anxious to avoid caning. You know that we never resort to it unless we are obliged to do so by the most flagrant offences, which would otherwise sap the honour and character of the school. Let us all be united and work together for the good of Saint Winifred’s. Don’t let any interested parties lead you to believe that we either do or wish to tyrannise. Our authority is for your high and direct advantage; I appeal to you whether you do not know it?”

“Yes, yes, Dimock,” answered many voices; and before they streamed out of the ball, they gave “three cheers for the monitors,” which were so heartily responded to, that the hissing of Harpour, Kenrick, and others, only raised a laugh, which filled to the very brim the bitter cup of hate and indignation which Kenrick had been forced that day to drink. To be addressed like that before the whole school—snubbed, reproved, threatened—it was intolerable; that he, Kenrick, high in the school, brilliant, promising, successful, accustomed only to flattery and praise, should be publicly set down among a rabble of lower boys—it made him mad to think of it.

“A nice tell-tale mess you’ve made of this business, Power,” he said savagely, the red spot still lingering on his cheek, as he confronted his former friend; “I hope you’re ashamed of yourself.”

“I, Ken? no.”

“Then you ought to be.”

“Honestly, Ken, who ought to be most ashamed—you, the advocate of Harpour and his set, or I, who merely defended my best friend for behaving most honourably—as he always does?”

“Always?” sneered Kenrick.

Power turned on him his clear bright eye, and said nothing for a moment; but then he laid his arm across his shoulder in the old familiar manner, and said, “You are not happy now, Ken, as you used to be.”

“Why the devil not?”

Power shook his head. “Because your heart is nobler than your acts; your nature truer than your conduct; and that is and will be your punishment. Why do you nurse this bad feeling till it has so mastered you?”

Kenrick stood still, his cheeks flushed, his eyes downcast; and Power, as he turned away, sadly repeated, half to himself the wonderful verse—

“Virtutem videant, intabescantque relicta.”

Kenrick understood it; it came to his heart like an arrow, and rankled there; it made a wound, the faithful wound of a friend, better than the kisses of an enemy—but the time of healing was far-off yet.