Chapter Twenty Six.

A Turbulent School Meeting.

I hate when vice can bolt her arguments,
And virtue have no tongue to check her pride.
 
Milton’s Comus.

Next morning, after second school, Power went to see how Eden and Walter were getting on. He opened the door softly, and they did not observe his entrance.

Eden, very pale, and with an expression of pain and terror still reflected in his face, lay in a broken and restless sleep. Walter was sitting as still as death at the head of the bed. A book lay on his knees, but he had not been reading. He was in a “brown study,” and the dreamy far-off look with which his eyes were fixed upon vacancy showed how his thoughts had wandered. It was the same look which attracted Power’s attention when he first saw Walter in chapel, and which had shown him that he was no common boy. It often made him watch Walter, and wonder what could be occupying his thoughts.

It was looking at poor little Eden that had suggested to Walter’s mind the train of thought into which he had fallen. As he saw the child tossing uneasily about, waking every now and then to half-consciousness with a violent start, occasionally delirious, and to all appearances seriously ill—as he thought over Dr Keith’s remark, that even when he was quite well again his nervous system would be probably found to have received a shock of which the effects would never be obliterated during life, he could not help fretting very bitterly over the injury and suffering of his friend. And his own spirits were greatly shaken. It was of little matter that every time he raised his hand to cool his forehead, or ease the throbbing of his head, he felt how much he was bruised, cut, and swollen, or that the looking-glass showed him a face so hideously disfigured; he knew that this would grow right in a day or two, and he cared nothing for it. But when Harpour’s blow knocked him down, he had dashed his head with some violence on the floor, and this had hurt him so much and made him feel so ill, that Dr Keith was not without secret fears about the possibility of a concussion of the brain. Yet all the sorrow which Walter now felt was for Eden, and he was not thinking of himself.

He was mentally staring face to face at the mystery of human cruelty and malice. The little boy, whose fine qualities so few besides himself had discovered, was lying before him in pain and nervous prostration, solely because malignant unkindness seemed to give pleasure to two bad, brutal fellows. Walter had himself rescued Eden by his consistent kindness from being bullied, corrupted, tormented—yet apparently to little purpose. That the poor boy’s powers would be decidedly injured by this last prank, was certain. Dr Keith had dropped mysterious hints, and Walter had himself heard how wild and incoherent were Eden’s murmurs. If he should become an idiot? O God! that men and boys should have such hearts!

And then and there Walter, while yet a boy, solemnly and consciously recorded an unspoken vow that he at least, till death, would do all that lay in his own power to lighten, not to increase, the sum of human misery; that he would study all things that were kind, and gentle, and tender-hearted, in his dealings with others; that he would ever be on the watch against wounding thoughts, and uncharitable judgments, and unkind deeds; above all, that he would strive with all his power against the temptation to cutting and sarcastic words, against calumny, and misrepresentation, against envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. These were the noble thoughts and high resolves which were passing through the boy’s mind when Power’s quiet footstep entered the room.

Power stopped for a minute to look at the somewhat saddening picture in the darkened room—Walter, still as death, deep in thought, his chin leaning on his hand, and his face presenting an uncouth mixture of shapes and colours as he sat by Eden’s bedside; and Eden turning and moaning in an unrefreshing sleep.

Walter started from his reverie and smiled, as Power noiselessly approached.

“My poor Walter, how marked you are!”

“Oh, never mind, it’s nothing. I had a good cause, and it’s done good.”

“Poor fellow! But how’s Arty? He looks wretchedly ill.”

“He’s in a sad way I’m afraid, Power,” said Walter, shaking his head.

“I hope he’ll be all right soon.”

“Yes, I hope so; but we shall have to take great care of him.”

“Poor child, poor child!” said Power, bending over him compassionately.

“Has Flip told Somers of Harpour?” asked Walter.

“I don’t know whether you are quite up to hearing school news yet.”

“O yes! tell me all about it,” said Walter eagerly.

“Well, I’ve no good news to tell. It’s a case of ponos ponoo ponon pherei, as Percival said when I told him about you and Eden. By the by, he sent all sorts of kind messages, and will come and see you.”

“Thanks; but about Harpour?”

“Well, Flip meant to tell Somers, but the whole thing spread over the school at once, before morning chapel was well over; so, Dimock being head of Robertson’s house, thought it was his place to take it up. He sent for Harpour in the classroom, and told him he meant to cane him for his abominable, ruffianly conduct; but before he’d begun, Harpour seized hold of the cane, and wouldn’t let it go. Luckily Dimock didn’t fly into a rage, nor did he let himself down by a fight, which Harpour wanted to bring on. He simply let go of the cane quite coolly, and said, ‘Very well, Harpour, it would have been a good deal the best for you to have taken quietly the caning you so thoroughly deserve; as you don’t choose to do that, I shall put the matter in Somers’ hands. I’m glad to be rid of the responsibility.’”

“Did it end there?”

“Not a bit of it; the school are in a ferment. You know the present monitors, and particularly Somers, aren’t popular; now Harpour is popular, although he’s such a brute, because he’s a great swell at cricket and the games. I’m afraid we shall have a regular monitorial row. The monitors have convened a meeting this morning to decide about Harpour; and, to tell you the truth, I shouldn’t wonder if the school got up a counter-meeting.”

“Don’t any of the masters know about Eden?”

“Not officially, though I should think some rumours must have got to them.”

“But surely it’s very odd that the school should side with Jones and Harpour, after the shameful mischief they’ve done?”

“Odd, à priori; but lots of things always combine to make up a school opinion, you know the fellows just catch up what they hear first. But who do you think is foremost champion on the school side—stirring them up to resist, abusing you, abusing Flip, abusing the monitors, and making light of Harpour’s doings?”

Walter asked “Who?” but he knew beforehand that Power’s answer would be—

“Kenrick!”

After this he said nothing, but put his hand wearily to his head, which in his weak state, was aching violently with the excitement of the news which Power had told him.

“Ah, I see, Walter, you’re not quite well enough yet to be bothered. I’ll leave you quiet. Good-bye.”

“Good-bye. Do come again soon, and tell me how things go on.”

Strolling out from the sad sickroom into the court, Power was attracted into the great schoolroom by the sound of angry voices. Entering, he found half the school, and all the lower forms, collected round the large desk at which the headmaster usually sat. A great many were talking at once, and every tongue was engaged in discussing the propriety, in this instance, of any monitorial interference.

“Order, order,” shouted one or two of the few fifth-form fellows present; “let’s have the thing managed properly. Who’ll take the chair?”

There was a general call for Kenrick, and as he was one of the highest fellows in the room, he got into the chair, and amid a general silence delivered his views of the present affair.

“You all know,” he said, “that Dimock meant to cane Harpour because he played off a joke against one of the fellows last night. Harpour refused to take the caning, and the monitors are holding a meeting this morning to decide what to do about Harpour. Now I maintain that they’ve no right to do anything; and it’s very important that we shouldn’t let them have just their own way. The thing was merely a joke. Who thinks anything of just putting on a mask in fun, to startle another fellow? One constantly hears of its being done merely to raise a laugh, and we must all have often seen pictures of it. Of course, in this case, every one is extremely sorry for the consequences, but it was impossible to foresee them, and nobody has any right to judge of the act because it has turned out so unluckily. I vote that we put the question—‘Have the monitors any right to interfere?’”

Loud applause greeted the end of Kenrick’s speech, and the little bit at the end about separating an act from its consequences told wonderfully among the boys. They raised an almost unanimous cry of “Well done, Ken,” “Quite right,” “Harpour shan’t be caned.”

Henderson had been watching Kenrick with an expression of intense anger and disdain. At the end of his remarks, he sprang, rather than rose, up and immediately began to pour out an impetuous answer. His first words, before the fellows had observed that he meant to speak, were drowned in the general uproar; and when they had all caught sight of him, an expression of decided disapprobation ran round the throng of listeners. It did not make him swerve in the slightest degree. Looking round scornfully and steadily, he said—

“I know why some of you hiss. You think I told Dimock of Harpour. As it happens I didn’t; but I’m neither afraid nor ashamed to tell you all, as I told Harpour to his face, that I had fully intended to do it—or rather I meant to tell, not Dimock, but Somers. Will you let me speak?” he asked, angrily, as his last sentence was interrupted by a burst of groans, commenced by a few of those whose interests were most at stake, and taken up by the mass of ignorant boys.

Power plucked Henderson by the sleeve, and whispered, “Hush, Flip; go on, but keep your temper.”

“I’ve as much right to speak—if this is meant for a school meeting—as Kenrick or any one else; and what I have to say is this: Kenrick has been merely throwing dust into your eyes, misleading you altogether about the true state of the case. It’s all very fine, and very easy for him to talk so lightly of its being ‘a joke,’ and ‘a bit of fun,’ and so on; but I should like to ask him whether he believes that? and whether he’s not just hunting for popularity, and mixing up with it a few private spites? and whether he’s not thoroughly ashamed of himself at this moment? There! you may see that he is,” continued Henderson, pointing at him; “see how he is blushing scarlet, and looking the very picture of degradation.”

Here Kenrick started up and most irascibly informed Henderson that he wasn’t going to sit there and be slanged by him, and that as he was in the chair, he would not let Henderson go on any more unless he cut short his abuse; and while Kenrick was saying this, in which he entirely carried the meeting with him, Power again whispered, “You’re getting too personal, Flip; but go on, only say no more about Kenrick—though I’m afraid it’s all true.”

“Well, at any rate, I will say this,” continued Henderson, whose flow of words was rather stopped by his having been pulled up so often—“and I ought to know, for I was in the room at the time, and I appeal to Anthony and Franklin, and all the rest of the dormitory, to say if it isn’t true. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t meant for a joke. It was a piece of deliberate, diabolical—”

“Oh! oh! oh!” began a few of Harpour’s claqueurs, and the chorus was again swelled by a score of others.

“I repeat it—of deliberate, diabolical cruelty, chosen just because there was nothing more cruel they dared to do. And,” he said, speaking at the top of his voice, to make himself heard over the clamour, “the fellows who did it are a disgrace to Saint Winifred’s, and they deserve to be caned by the monitors, if any fellows ever did.”

He sat down amid a storm of disapprobation, but his look never quailed for an instant, as he glanced steadily round, and noticed how Kenrick, though in favour with the multitude, and so much higher in the school, did not venture to meet his eye. And he was more than compensated for the general disfavour, by feeling Power’s hand rest on his shoulder, and hearing him whisper, “That’s famous, Flip; you’re a dear plucky fellow. Walter himself couldn’t have done it more firmly.”

Then Belial-like, rose Mackworth, perfectly at his ease, intending as much general mischief as lay in his power, and bent on saying as many unpleasant things as he could. In this, however, his benevolent views were materially frustrated by Henderson, who made his contemptuous comments in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by many, and quite distinctly enough to disconcert Mackworth’s oratory.

“As the gentleman who has just sat down has poured so many bottles of wrath—”

“Bottles of French varnish,” suggested Henderson—“on our heads generally, I must be allowed to make a few remarks in reply. His speech consisted of nothing but rabid abuse; without a shred of argument.”—“Rabid fact without a shred of fudge,” interpolated Henderson.

“If for every trifling freak fellows were to be telling the monitors, we had better inaugurate at once the era of sneaks and cowards.”

“Era of sham polish and fiddlestick ends,” echoed Henderson; and Mackworth, who had every intention of making a very flourishing speech, was so disconcerted by this unwonted pruning of his periods, that he somewhat abruptly sat down, muttering anathemas on Henderson, and flustered quite out of his usual bland manner.

“Something has been said about cowardice and sneaking,” said Whalley, getting up. “I should like to know whether you think it more cowardly to fight a fellow twice one’s size, and to mark him pretty considerably too” (a remark which Whalley unceremoniously emphasised by pointing at Harpour’s black eye), “or to lay a plot to frighten in the dark a mere child, very nervous and very timid, who has never harmed any one in his life.”

Next, Howard Tracy, addressing the meeting, running his hand occasionally through his hair, “would put the question on a different footing altogether. As to what had been done to Eden, he stood on neutral ground, and gave no opinion. But who, he asked, were these monitors that they should thrash any one at all? He had never heard that they were of particularly good families, or that they had anything whatever which gave them a claim to interfere with other fellows. The question was, whether a parcel of monitors were to domineer over the school?”

“The question was nothing of the kind!” said Franklin very bluntly; “it was, whether big bullies, like Harpour, were to be at perfect liberty to frighten fellows into idiots or beat them into mummies, at their own will and pleasure? That was the only question. Harpour or Somers—bullies or monitors—which will you have, boys?”

And after this arose a perfect hubbub of voices. Some got up and ridiculed the monitors; others extolled Harpour, and tried to make out that he was misused for being called to account for a mere frolic; others taunted Evson and Henderson with a conspiracy against their private enemies. On the whole, they were nearly unanimous in agreeing that the school should prevent the monitors from any exercise of their authority.

And then, in the midst of the hubbub, Power rose, “in act more graceful,” and there was an immediate and general call for silence. To the great majority of the boys, Power was hardly known except by name and by sight; but his school successes, his rare ability, his stainless character, and many personal advantages, commanded for him the highest admiration. His numerous slight acquaintances in the school all liked his pleasant and playful courtesy, and were proud to know him; his few friends entertained for him an almost extravagant affection. His ancient name, his good family, and the respect due to his high position in the school, would alone have been sufficient to gain him a favourable hearing; but, besides this, he had hitherto come forward so little, that there was a strong curiosity to see what line he would take, and how he would be able to speak. There were indeed a few who were most anxious to silence him as quickly as possible, knowing what effect his words would be likely to produce; and when he began, they raised several noisy interruptions; but Kenrick, for very shame, was obliged at first to demand for him the attention which, after the first sentence or two, his quiet, conciliatory, and persuasive manner effectually secured.

Reviewing the whole tumultuary discussion, he began by answering Kenrick. After alluding to the long course of bullying which had been ended in this manner, he appealed to the common sense of the meeting whether the thing could be regarded as a mere joke, when they remembered Eden’s tender age and highly susceptible nature? Was it not certain, and must it not have been obvious to the bullies, that serious, if not desperately dangerous results must follow? What those results had been was well-known, and in describing what he had seen of them in the sickroom only half an hour before, Power made a warm appeal to their feelings of pity and indignation—an appeal which every one felt to be manly, and which could not fail of being deeply touching, because it was both simple and natural.

“Then,” said Power, “the next speaker talked about sneaking and cowardice. Well, those charges had been sufficiently answered by Whalley, and, indeed, on behalf of his friends Evson and Henderson, he perhaps need hardly condescend to answer them at all. His friend Henderson had been long enough among them to need no defence, and if he did, it would be sufficiently supplied by the high courage, of which they had just seen a specimen. As for Evson, any boy who had given as many proofs of honour and manliness as he had done during his two terms at Saint Winifred’s, certainly required no one’s shield to be thrown over him. Would any of them show their courage by walking across the Razor on some dark foggy winter’s night? and would they find in the school any other fellow of Evson’s age who would not shrink from standing up in a regular fair fight with another of twice his own strength and size? Those charges he thought he might throw to the winds; he was sure that no one believed them; but there was, he admitted, one cowardice of which his two friends had often been guilty, and it was a cowardice for which they need not blush; he meant the cowardice, the arrant, the noble cowardice of being afraid not to do what they thought right, and of being afraid to do what they knew to be base and wrong.”

In these remarks Power quite carried his audience away with him; the strain was of a higher mood than boys had often heard from boys, and it was delivered with an eloquence and earnestness that raised a continuous applause. This, however, Power checked by going on speaking until he was obliged to stop and take breath; but then it burst out in the most unmistakable and enthusiastic manner, and entirely drowned the few and timid counter-demonstrations of the Jones and Mackworth school.

“Now I have detained you too long,” said Power, “and I apologise for it (Go on! go on! shouted the boys); but as so many have spoken on the other side, and so few on this, perhaps you will excuse me (Yes, yes!) Well, then, Tracy has asked, ‘Who are the monitors? and what right have they to interfere?’ I answer, that the monitors are our schoolfellows, and are simply representatives of the most mature form of public school opinion. They have all been lower boys; they have all worked their way up to the foremost place; they are, in short, the oldest, the cleverest, the strongest, and the wisest among us; And their right depends on an authority voluntarily delegated to them by the masters, by our parents, and by ourselves—a right originally founded on justice and common sense, and venerable by very many years of prestige and of success. At any rate, a fellow who behaves as Harpour has done, has the least right to complain of this exercise of a higher authority. If he had a right—and he has no right except brute strength, if that be a right—to bully, beat, torment, and perhaps injure for life a poor little inoffensive child, and by doing so to render the name of the school infamous, I maintain that the monitors, who have the interest of the school most at heart, who are ranged ex officio on the side of truth, of justice, and of honour, have infinitely more right to thrash him for it. Supposing that there were no monitors, what would the state of the school be? above all, what would be the condition of the younger and weaker boys? they would be the absolutely defenceless prey of a most odious tyranny. Let me say then, that I most distinctly and emphatically approve of the manner in which my friends have acted; that I envy and admire the moral courage which helped them to behave as they did; and that if the school attempts on this occasion to resist the legitimate and most wholesome exercise of the monitors’ power, it will suffer a deep disgrace and serious loss. I oppose Kenrick’s motion with every feeling of my heart, and with every sentiment of my mind. I think it dangerous, I think it useless, and I think it most unjust.”

A second burst of applause followed Power’s energetic words, and continued for several minutes. He had utterly changed the opinions of many who were present, and Kenrick felt his entire sympathy and admiration enlisted on behalf of his former friend. He would at the moment have given anything to get up and retract his previous remarks and beg pardon for them. But his pride and passion were too strong for him, and coldly rising, he put it to the meeting, “whether they decided that the monitors had the right to interfere or not.”

Jones, Mackworth, Harpour, and others, were eagerly canvassing for votes, and when Kenrick demanded a show of hands, a good many were raised on their side. When the opposite question was put, at first only Power, Henderson, Whalley, and Franklin held up their hands; but they were soon followed by Bliss, then by Anthony and Cradock, and then by a great many more who took courage when they saw what champions were on their side. The hands were counted, and there was found to be an equal number on both sides. The announcement was received with dead silence.

“The chairman of course has a casting vote,” said Mackworth.

Kenrick sat still for a moment, not without an inward conflict; and then, afraid to risk his popularity with those whom he had now adopted as his own set, he said, rising—

“And I give it against the right of the monitors.”

A scene of eager partisanship and loud triumph ensued, during which Power once more stood forward, and observed—

“You must allow me to remind you that the present meeting in no way represents the sense of the school. I do not see a dozen boys present who are above the lowest fifth-form; and I do earnestly entreat those who have gained this vote not to disturb the peace and comfort of the school by attempting a collision between themselves and the monitors, who will certainly be supported by the nearly unanimous opinion of the upper fifth forms.”

“We shall see about that,” answered Kenrick in a confident tone. “At any rate, the vote is carried.” He left the chair, and the boys broke up into various groups, still eagerly discussing the rights and wrongs of the question which had been stirred.

“So, Power,” said Kenrick, with a sneer, which he assumed to hide his real feelings, “all your fine eloquence is thrown away, you see. We’ve carried the day after all, in spite of you.”

“Yes, Ken,” said Power, gently; “you’ve carried it quocunque modo. How comes Kenrick to be on the same side as Jones, Mackworth, and Harpour?”