"The school doesn't consist altogether of such softs as your lot, luckily," answered Harpour.

"Softs or not, we've put a spoke in _your_ wheel for the present,"

answered Franklin. "I congratulate you on the rich black eye which one of the softs, half your size, has given you."

"They're not worth snarling with, Franklin," said Henderson; "we shall be rid of him and Jones from Number 10 henceforth; that's one blessing."

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-gla.s.s 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 G.o.d! 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 n.o.ble thoughts and high resolves which were pa.s.sing 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 compa.s.sionately.

"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 cla.s.sroom, 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, _a 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 n.o.body 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 ma.s.s of ignorant boys.

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