Great applause greeted the finish of the president's speech, and Preston's health was drunk amid a scene of the wildest enthusiasm. Cries of "On your pins, Preston!" – "Well bowled, sir!" – "Order!" – "Speak up!" etc., rent the air; while the pounding of fists and drumming of feet were continued until a game leg of one of the forms suddenly gave way, causing a temporary disappearance of half the company beneath the table.
Preston might have been able to howl, but he certainly could not talk, and it was hard for him to follow such a glib speaker as the president. However, the fact remained that he had distinguished himself, and brought honour to the Fifth Form in general by taking seven wickets; and for this reason his comrades would have been content had he merely stood up and reeled off the list of prepositions which govern the accusative, or quoted selections from the multiplication table. As it was, they awarded him a cordial reception, and filled up the pauses in his disjointed utterances with tumultuous applause.
"I'm much obliged to you fellows for drinking my health," began the bowler. "It's jolly good of you, and – all that sort of thing. (Cheers.) I did manage to bag seven wickets." (Renewed applause, interrupted by a warning shout of "Look out! this form's going again!") "I was going to say," continued the speaker, attempting to hide his embarrassment by pretending to drink out of an empty glass, "that it was rather a fluke – " (Shouts of "No! no!" "More pop for the gentleman!" and fresh outbursts of cheering.) "Well, I did the best I could, and – well – glad you're pleased, and all that sort of thing. (Alarums and excursions.) I suppose I ought to say something about this society, but, as regards that matter, the former speaker has rather taken the sails out of my wind. (Cheers and laughter.) No, I should say the whales out of my – (Yells of laughter.) Any way," concluded Preston, shouting to be heard above the general uproar, "I'm much obliged to you, and – all that sort of thing – "
It was not until several ginger-beer bottles had rolled off the table, and the rickety form had once more gone down with every soul on board, that a sufficient amount of order was restored to enable the president to call on somebody for a song.
"Sing yourself, Tinkleby," was the answer. "Give us 'Little Brown Jug.'"
The president complied with the request. Mead, a musical companion, ground out an unearthly accompaniment on "Duster's" little, broken-winded harmonium; and the company shrieked the chorus, regardless of time, tune, or anything but the earnest desire of each individual to make more noise than any one else.
When this deafening uproar had at length subsided, everybody was forced to remain quiet for a few moments to regain their breath. "Now, then," said Tinkleby, "who's next? What's that? All right. Bos. Jones says he will give us a recitation."
The announcement was received with a groan. Mr. Boswell-Jones was rather a pompous young gentleman, who expended most of his energies trying to live up to his double surname, and in consequence was not very popular with his schoolfellows. He rather fancied himself as an elocutionist; and though he might have seen "rocks ahead" in the manner in which the audience received the president's announcement, Boswell-Jones had sufficient confidence in his own powers to be blind to any lack of appreciation on the part of other people. He stood up and adjusted his necktie, cleared his throat, and began, —
"I remembah, I remembah,
The house where I was bawn,
("Euh! re – ah – lly!" murmured the listeners.)
The leetle window where the sun
Came peeping in at mawn."
"Whose little son?" interrupted Dorris.
"Shut up!" cried the president.
"Well, I only wanted to know," said Dorris in an injured tone. "I should call it jolly good cheek of anybody's son to come peeping in through my bedroom window – "
"Shut up!" exclaimed Tinkleby. "Go on, Bos."
"He never came a wink too soon,
Nor brought too long a day;
But now" —
continued the reciter with a great amount of pathos,
– "I often wish the night
Had bawn my breath away!"
"So do I," mumbled Paterson. "Let's have another song."
"I remembah, I remembah,
The roses, red and white – "
"Go on, Bossy," ejaculated the irrepressible Dorris; "you don't remember it at all, you're simply making it up as you go along."
A general disturbance followed this last interruption – the audience laughed, the president vainly endeavoured to restore order, and Boswell-Jones sat down in a rage, and refused to continue his oration.
"A song, a song!" cried several voices. "Jack Fenleigh, you know something; come on, let's have it."
Jack had a good voice, and with Mead extracting fearful groans and growls out of the harmonium, he started off on the first verse of "The Mermaid," a song which he was destined in after years to sing under strangely different circumstances: —
"Oh, 'twas in the broad Atlantic, 'mid the equinoctial gales,
That a gay young tar fell overboard, among the sharks and whales;
And down he went like a streak of light, so quickly down went he,
Until he came to a mermaid at the bottom of the deep blue sea."
Then the audience took up the chorus, and yelled, —
"Rule, Britannia! Bri – tann – ia rules the waves!
And Bri – tons never, never, ne – ver shall be
Mar – ri – ed to a mer – mai – ed
At the bottom of the deep blue sea!"
The song was received with great enthusiasm, and the performers might have been kept repeating the last chorus until break of day on the following morning, it Tinkleby had not suddenly jumped up, crying, "I say, you chaps, it's five-and-twenty past seven. We shall be late for lock-up."
Every one sprang to his feet. Dorris was the first to reach the door, and being of a playful disposition caught up a bundle of coats and blazers and bolted with them under his arm. A moment later certain of the peaceful citizens of Melchester were astonished at the sight of a dozen or more young gentlemen tearing madly down the street in their shirt-sleeves. And so ended the third annual supper of the Fifth Form Literary Society.
CHAPTER IX.
"GUARD TURN OUT!"
"He felt for them as he had never felt for any other bird in the world. He was not envious … but wished to be as lovely as they." – The Ugly Duckling.
"It is jolly to be here at Brenlands again," said Jack, as he sat dangling his legs from the kitchen table, and munching one of the sweet pods of the peas which his aunt was shelling. "I've been looking forward to it ever since last summer."
"Yes, and a pretty fuss I had to get you to accept my first invitation," answered Queen Mab; "I thought you were never going to condescend to favour us with your company. However, I've got you all here again, and it is jolly; and what's more, you managed to turn up at the proper time yesterday instead of coming half a day late, as you did last year, you rascal!"
The boy laughed. "Oh, well! you may put that down to Val," he answered. "He's quite taken me in hand lately, and has been in an awful funk for fear I should get into another row just before the holidays. You know those penny toys you get with a little thing like a pair of bellows under them that squeaks – well, I got a bird the other day and pulled off the stand, and stuck it in my shoe so that I could make a noise with it when I walked. Whenever I moved about in class, old Ward used to beseech me with tears in his eyes to wear another pair of boots. I used to come squeaking into assemblies a bit late on purpose, and send all the fellows into fits. It was a fearful joke; but poor old Val got quite huffy about it, and kept saying I should be found out, and that there was no sense in my 'monkey tricks,' as he called them."
"So they are," answered Queen Mab, smiling in spite of herself. "I should have thought you were old enough to find some more sensible amusement than putting pieces of penny toys in your boots. You may laugh at Valentine if you like, but I can tell you this, he's very fond of you, and that's the reason why he doesn't like to see you in trouble."
"I know he is," returned the boy briskly. "He's a brick; and I like him better than any other chap in the school."
Queen Mab went on shelling her peas, and Jack remained perched on the end of the table, quite content to continue watching her nimble fingers and sweet, restful face. It certainly was jolly to be back again at Brenlands. He was no longer the ugly duckling; Helen and Barbara were like sisters, and he got on with them swimmingly; all kinds of splendid projects were on the carpet, and there were plenty of long summer days to look forward to in which to carry them out. To be a careless dog of a schoolboy, ready for anything in the way of larks and excitement, and paying precious little attention to one's books or conduct record, might be a fascinating sort of existence; yet somehow it was not altogether unpleasant, once in a way, to become for a time a member of a more civilized and refined society, where gentler treatment encouraged gentler manners, where hearts were thought of as well as heads, where there was no black list, and where no one would have made a boast of being on it, had such a thing existed.
This year the mimic war operations were of a more advanced kind than had ever been attempted before. A fortress built of clay and pebbles was mined and blown up; and there still being some powder left, Jack successfully performed the feat of blowing himself up, and in doing so sustained the loss of an eyebrow. In order that this catastrophe should not alarm Queen Mab, the missing hair was replaced by burnt cork; but Jack, forgetting what had happened, sponged his face and rushed down to tea, where Barbara, after regarding him for a few moments in silence, leaned across the table and remarked, with a wise shake of her head, "Yes, I see – you've been shaving."
But what proved a source of endless delight to the two boys was an old, military bell-tent which Queen Mab had bought for their special use and amusement. They pitched it on a corner of the lawn, and were always repairing thither to read, and talk, and hold councils of war. It was delightful to speculate as to what doughty warriors might have been sheltered beneath it; and to imagine that sundry small rents and patches must be the result of the enemy's fire, and not due to the wear and tear of ordinary encampments.
Not satisfied with living in it by day, they determined to pass a night there also, and would not rest content until their aunt had given them permission to try the experiment.
"All we want," said Valentine, "is a mackintosh to spread on the ground, and a few rugs and sofa cushions, and a candle and a box of matches."
"Very well, you can have plenty of those," answered Queen Mab; "perhaps some day you won't be so well off, Valentine."
She spoke lightly enough, and with no foreshadowing of a visionary picture, often to haunt her mind in the days to come, of men lying silently under a clear, starlit sky, with belts on, rifles by their sides, and bayonets ready fixed.
The two boys prepared to put their project into immediate execution; and in connection with this their first but by no means last experience of a night under canvas, they were destined to fall in with a little adventure which must be recorded.
Shortly before the commencement of the holidays a lot of strawberries had been stolen from the garden, and Queen Mab feared lest a similar fate should overtake a fine show of pears which were just getting ripe.
"Well, good-night," she said, as she prepared to close the door on the two adventurers; "if you're cold, and want to come in, throw some pebbles up at my window."
"Oh, we shan't want to come in," answered Jack stoutly. "If you hear any one coming to steal the fruit, you shout, 'Guard turn out!' and we'll nab 'em."
The boys settled down like old campaigners. "Awful joke, isn't it?" said Jack.
"Yes, prime!" answered Valentine; "soldiering must be jolly."
Half an hour passed.
"I say," murmured Valentine, "this ground seems precious hard!"
"Yes," answered his companion. "I've tried lying on it every way, and I believe my bones are coming through my skin."
A long pause, and then, "I say, don't you think it's nearly morning?"
"Oh, no! the church clock has only just struck one."
The darkness seemed to lengthen out into that of a polar winter instead of a single night. At length the canvas walls began to grow grey with dawn, and Jack awoke with a shiver, wondering whether he had really been asleep or not.
"It's beastly cold," he muttered.
"Yes," answered Valentine. "I thought it was never going to get light. Look here, I'm determined I will sleep! What's the good of my being a soldier if I can't sleep in a tent?"
He turned over on his face, and had just dropped off into a doze, when he was awakened by Jack, who had reached over and was shaking his arm.
"I say – Val – who was that?"
"Who's what?" was the drowsy answer.
"Why! didn't you hear? Some one just walked down the path. It can't be Jakes; it isn't five o'clock."
Valentine rubbed his eyes, thought for a moment, and then suddenly sat up broad awake.
"The pears!" he whispered.
Both boys sprang up, unlaced the door of the tent, and sallied forth in the direction of the fruit garden.
"Don't make a row; walk on the grass border. Hist! there he is!"
There he was, sure enough; a boy about their own age, calmly picking pears and dropping them into a basket. Jack and Valentine slowly crept down by the side of the raspberry bushes, like Indians on a war-trail.
"Now then!" murmured the former, "charge!"
The thief jumped as if a gun had been fired off behind him, and started to run, but before he could reach the path he was fairly collared. He struggled violently, and then commenced to kick, whereupon his arm was suddenly twisted behind his back, a style of putting on the curb-rein with which fractious small boys will be well acquainted.
"Woa! steady now, 'oss!" said Jack facetiously. "Keep your feet quiet, or I shall put the screw on a bit tighter. Now then, what shall we do with him?"
"Put him into the tool shed," answered Valentine.
The culprit, finding himself fairly mastered, became more docile. His captors, however, turned a deaf ear to his pleadings to be let go; and thrusting him into the little outhouse, turned the key in the lock, and then began to wonder what they should do next.
"Well," said Jack, "we've got a prisoner of war now, and no mistake. What shall we do with the beggar? go for a policeman?"
"No, we don't want to get the chap sent to prison."
"If we tell Aunt Mab she'll let him go, and he ought to be punished."
"Of course he does – young villain! It's like his cheek coming here and bagging all the fruit."
"I have it!" said Jack, suddenly struck with a bright idea. "We'll lick him!"
Valentine hesitated. "I don't like setting on a chap two against one," he answered. "I don't mind a stand-up fight."
"Well, that's what I mean," answered Jack joyously. "Look here!" he continued, hammering on the door of the shed – "look here, you inside there! I'm going to punch your head for stealing those pears. If you like to come out I'll fight you, and then you can go; if not, you can stay where you are. Will you come?"
"Yes," answered the prisoner sullenly.
Twenty years ago a fight was not quite such a rare occurrence at Melchester School as it would be to-day. Jack threw off his coat with alacrity.
"Now, Val, you watch; and if the beggar tries to bolt, you leg him down."
With a dogged look the stranger took up his ground, and on the signal being given for the commencement of hostilities, lowered his head, and made a wild rush at his antagonist. The latter stepped aside, and greeted him with a smart cuff on the side of the head. Once more the visitor came on like a runaway windmill, but this time Jack walked backward and refused the encounter.
"Oh, look here," he cried, in an injured tone, "can't you do any better than that? Can't you stand up and hit straight? Don't you know how to box?"
"No."
"Well, what's the good of saying you'll come out and fight? What's your name?"
"Joe Crouch."
"Well then, Joseph, you'd better take your hook. There's your old basket, only just leave those pears behind; and don't come here again, or we'll set the bobby on your track."
Crouch marched off, evidently astonished at finding himself at liberty to depart. When he reached the gate, he turned, and touched his cap. "Morning, gen'lemen," he said, and so disappeared. Valentine laughed, and regarded his cousin with a queer look in his face.
"You are a rum fellow, Jack; you're always wanting to fight somebody. When you get two fellows against you like Garston and Rosher, you go at it like a tiger; and then another time, just because you get hold of a chap who can't knock you down, you back out and make peace."
"Well," answered the other, "there's no sport in licking a chap like that. I'll tell you what, I'm frightfully hungry."
The two adventurers had plenty to tell at breakfast that morning, and the interest in their capture lasted throughout the day. In the evening the young folks went out a favourite walk through the lanes and fields. Valentine and Barbara were running races on the way home; but Jack lingered behind with Helen, who was gathering ferns.
"Let me carry your basket," he said.
"Oh, don't you trouble; you'd rather run on with Val and Barbara."
"I expect you don't want me. I know you think I've got no manners, and in that you're about right."
"No, I don't think anything of the kind," said Helen, laughing. "I shall be very glad if you will carry the basket, because I want to talk to you."
"Now for a lecture," said Jack to himself. – "All right, fire away!"
"Well," began the girl, looking round at him with a twinkle in her eye, "I want to know why you didn't set Val on to fight that boy this morning, instead of offering to do it yourself."
"Oh, I don't know! It was my own idea; besides, I'm bigger and stronger."
"You mean you did it so that Val shouldn't get hurt, in the same way that you grappled with those three fellows who were ill-treating him at school."
"Pooh! he didn't tell you that, did he? He always lets you know all the bothers I get into. You'll think I do nothing but fight and kick up rows; and," added the speaker, with a pathetic look of injured innocence, "I've been behaving jolly well lately."
"I think you're a dear, good fellow for defending Val," said Helen warmly, "and I've been wanting to thank you ever since."
"It was nothing. 'Twasn't half as much as he did for me when he climbed that tree and freed my bootlace. I wish he wouldn't go telling you everything that happens at school."
"You were saying a day or so ago," said the girl, slyly, "that you didn't care for anybody, or for what people thought of you."
"Yes, I do," answered the ugly duckling; "I care a lot what you folks think of me at Brenlands."
"Why?"
"Why, because you're all better than I am, and yet you never try to make me feel it; but I do all the same. And I love you three and Queen Mab; and I love the place; and I should like to live here always. But outside of that," he added quickly, "I don't care a button for anything."
"I wish you wouldn't talk like that."
"But it's a fact."
"You mean," she answered gently, "that you've said it so often that at last you're beginning to believe it's true."
A few mornings later, when the boys came down to breakfast, they were surprised, on looking out of the window, to see no less a personage than Joe Crouch weeding the garden path.
"I found he was out of work, and his parents wretchedly poor," said Queen Mab; "so I said he might come and help Jakes by doing a few odd jobs. You know the old maxim," she added, smiling – "the beet way to subdue an enemy is to turn him into a friend."
The two boys took considerable interest in Crouch, regarding him as their own particular protégé. Joe, for his part, seemed to remember their early morning encounter with gratitude, as having been the means of landing him in his present situation. He had apparently a great amount of respect for Jack, and seeing the latter cutting sticks with a blunt knife, asked leave to take it home with him, and brought it back next day with the blades shining like silver, and as sharp as razors.
One afternoon, when the boys were lying reading in the tent, Barbara suddenly appeared in the open doorway, and stamping her foot, cried, "Bother!"
"What's up with you, Bar?"
"Why, that wretched Raymond Fosberton is in the house talking to Aunt Mab. He's walked over from Grenford; and he is going to stay the night."
Valentine groaned, and Jack administered a kick to an unoffending camp-stool.
"What does he want to come here for, I wonder?" continued Barbara. "Silly monkey! you should just see him in his white waistcoat and shiny boots – faugh!" And she choked with wrath.
Raymond's presence certainly did not contribute very much to the happiness of the party. He monopolized the conversation at tea-time, was very high and mighty in his manner, and patronized everybody in turn. He lost his temper playing croquet, and broke one of the mallets; and later on in the evening he cheated at "word-making," and because he failed to win, pronounced it a "stupid game, only fit for kids."
In Barbara, however, he found his match. She cared not two straws for all the Fosbertons alive or dead; and when the visitor, who had been teasing her for some time, went so far as to pull her hair, she promptly dealt him a vigorous box on the ear, a proceeding which so delighted the warlike Jack that he chuckled till bed-time.
Every one felt relieved when it came to tea-time on the following day. Raymond had announced his intention of walking home in the cool of the evening, and Queen Mab proposed that his cousins should accompany him part of the way.
They had walked about a mile, Jack and Helen being a little in advance of the others, when the girl caught hold of her cousin's arm.
"Oh, look!" she said, "there's a man coming who's drunk."
"Never mind," answered Jack stoutly; "he won't interfere with us."
The man, who had reeled into the hedge, suddenly staggered back into the middle of the road, and stood there barring the way.
"'Ello! Misser Fenleigh," he began, "'ow're you to-night, sir?"
Jack stared at the speaker in astonishment, and then recognized him as the same man who had spoken to them in Melchester.
"Look here!" he said hotly. "I've told you twice I don't know you. You just stand clear and let us pass."
By this time the remainder of the party had come up.
"Why, 'ere's Misser Fosbe'ton," continued the man, with a tipsy leer. "Now I jus' ask you, sir, if these two gen'lemen don't owe me some money for a drink."
Raymond's face flushed crimson, and then turned white.
"You've had too much already, Hanks," he said sharply; "just shut up, and stand out of the road."
"Oh, no offence!" muttered the man, staggering aside to let the cousins pass; "'nother time'll do jus' the same."
"Look here, Raymond, who is that fellow?" asked Valentine, as soon as they had got out of earshot of the stranger, "Twice he's come up to us in the street at Melchester, saying he knows us, and wanting money; and the last time, old Westford saw us talking to him, and we got into a beastly row, and were gated for a fortnight. Who is he?"
"Oh, he's a lazy blackguard called Ned Hanks; he's always poaching and getting drunk. He never does any work, except now and then he collects rags and bones, and sells them in Melchester."
"How does he know you?"
"He lives close to Grenford, and every one knows me there."
"But how does he know us?"
"I can't say. Haven't you ever seen him at Brenlands?"
"No, never."
"Well, I suppose he must have found out your name somehow; and he's always cadging for money for a drink. Don't you trouble to come any further. By-the-bye, next year I'm going to set up in diggings at Melchester. I shall be articled to a solicitor there; and if you fellows are still at the school, we might go out together."
"Confound that man!" said Jack, on the following morning; "I should like to find out who he is, and why he always speaks to us. I wonder if Crouch knows anything about him."
Joe Crouch was questioned, and admitted that he knew the man Hanks well by sight, and had sometimes spoken to him.
Jack explained the reason of his inquiry. "The fellow's got us into one row already. Why should he always be bothering us for money?"
Joe Crouch stood thoughtfully scratching his head for a moment with the point of the grass clippers.
"I dunno, sir," he answered; "but maybe I might find out."