CHAPTER V

When Pen reached home on that afternoon after the battle of Chestnut Hill, he found that his Aunt Millicent was out, and that his grandfather had not yet returned from Lowbridge, the county seat, fourteen miles away. He had therefore an opportunity, unseen and unquestioned, to change his wet clothing for dry, and to bathe and anoint and otherwise care for his cuts and bruises. When it was all done he went down to the library and lighted the gas, and found a book and tried to read. But the words he read were meaningless. Try as he would he could not keep his mind on the printed page. Nor was it so much the s...o...b..ll fight that occupied his thoughts. He was not now exulting at any victory he had obtained over his foes. He was not even dwelling on the strategy and trickery displayed by Aleck Sands and his followers in seeking protection under the folds of the flag; strategy and trickery which had led so swiftly and sharply to his own undoing.

It was his conduct in that last, fierce moment of the fight that was blazoned constantly before his eyes with ever increasing strength of accusation. To think that he, Penfield Butler, grandson of the owner of Bannerhall, had permitted himself, in a moment of pa.s.sion, no matter what the provocation, to grind his country's flag into the slush under his heels; the very flag given by his grandfather to the school of which he was himself a member. How should he ever square himself with Colonel Richard Butler? How should he ever make it right with Miss Grey? How should he ever satisfy his own accusing conscience? Excuses for his conduct were plenty enough indeed; his excitement, his provocation, his freedom from malice; he marshalled them in orderly array; but, under the cold logic of events, one by one they crumbled and fell away. More and more heavily, more and more depressingly the enormity of his offense weighed upon him as he considered it, and what the outcome of it all would be he did not even dare to conjecture.

At half past five his Aunt Millicent returned. She looked in at him from the hall, greeted him pleasantly, said something about the miserable weather, and then went on about her household duties.

Dinner had been waiting for fifteen minutes before Colonel Butler reached home, and, in the mild excitement attendant upon his return, Pen's injuries escaped notice. But, at the dinner-table, under the brightness of the hanging lamps, he could no longer conceal his condition. Aunt Millicent was the first to discover it.

"Why, Pen!" she exclaimed, "what on earth has happened to you?"

And Pen answered, frankly enough:

"I've been in a s...o...b..ll fight, Aunt Milly."

"Well, I should say so!" she replied. "Your face is a perfect sight.

Father, just look at Pen's face."

Colonel Butler adjusted his eye-gla.s.ses deliberately, and looked as he was bidden to do.

"Some rather severe contusions," he remarked. "A bit painful, Penfield?"

"Not so very," replied Pen, "I washed 'em off and put on some Pond's extract, and some court-plaster, and I guess they'll be all right."

The colonel was still looking at Pen's wounds, and smiling as he looked.

"The nature of the injuries," he said, "indicates that the fighting must have been somewhat strenuous. But honorable scars, won on the field of battle, are something in which any man may take pardonable--"

"Father Richard Butler!" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. "Aren't you ashamed of yourself! Pen, let this be the last s...o...b..ll fight you indulge in while you live in this house. Do you hear me?"

"Yes, Aunt Millicent. There won't be any more; not any more at all."

"I should hope not," she replied; "with such a looking face as you've got."

Colonel Butler was temporarily subdued. Only the merry twinkle in his eyes, and the smile that hovered about the corners of his mouth, still attested the satisfaction he was feeling in his grandson's military prowess. He could not, however, restrain his curiosity until the end of the meal, and, at the risk of evoking another rebuke from his daughter, he inquired of Pen:

"A--Penfield, may I ask in which direction the tide of battle finally turned?"

"I believe we licked 'em, grandfather," replied Pen. "We drove 'em into the school-house anyway."

"Not, I presume, before some severe preliminary fighting had taken place?"

"There you go again, father!" exclaimed Aunt Millicent. "It's nothing but 'fighting, fighting,' from morning to night. What kind of a man do you think Pen will grow up to be, with such training as this?"

"A very useful, brave and patriotic citizen, I hope, my dear."

"Fiddlesticks!" It was Aunt Millicent's favorite e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n. But the colonel did not refer to the battle again at the table. It was not until after he had retired to the library, and had taken up his favorite position, his back to the fire, his eyes resting on the silken banner in the hall, that he plied Pen with further questions.

His daughter not being in the room he felt that he might safely resume the subject of the fight.

"I would like a full report of the battle, Penfield," he said. "It appears to me that it is likely to go down as a most important event in the history of the school."

Pen shook his head deprecatingly, but he did not at once reply.

Impatient at the delay, which he ascribed to the modesty characteristic of the brave and successful soldier, the colonel began to make more definite inquiry.

"In what manner was the engagement opened, Penfield?"

And Pen replied:

"Well, you know we built a snow fort in the school-house lot; and they sneaked up the back road, and cut across lots where we couldn't see 'em, and jumped on us suddenly from the stone-wall."

"Strategy, my boy. Military strategy deserving of a good cause. And how did you meet the attack?"

"Why, we pulled ourselves together and went for 'em."

"Well? Well? What happened?"

The colonel was getting excited and impatient.

"Well, we fought 'em and drove 'em down to the front of the school-house, and then they opened the door and sneaked in, just as I told you, and locked us out."

"Ah! more strategy. The enemy had brains. But you should have laid siege and starved him out."

"We did lay siege, grandfather."

"And did you starve him out?"

"No, they came out."

"And you renewed the attack?"

"Some of us did."

"Well, go on! go on! What happened? Don't compel me to drag the story out of you piecemeal, this way."

"Why, they--they played us another mean trick."

"What was the nature of it?"

"Well--you know that flag you gave the school?"

"Yes."

"They carried that flag ahead of 'em, Aleck Sands had it wrapped around him, and then--our fellows were afraid to fight."

"Strategy again. Military genius, indeed! But it strikes me, Penfield, that the strategy was a bit unworthy."