The Hero of Garside School.

by J. Harwood Panting.

CHAPTER I

THE MOTHER'S PRAYER

"G.o.d grant that it may never happen, Paul; G.o.d grant that England may never be invaded, that her foes may never land upon our sh.o.r.es."

And the lips of Mrs. Percival moved in silent prayer. Paul regarded the loved face of his mother for a minute or two thoughtfully, as though he were longing to put to her many questions, but dared not. At length he said, breaking the silence:

"Did father ever speak of it?"

It was one of the greatest griefs of Paul's life that he had never known his father. He had been a captain in the Navy, but was unfortunately cut off in the prime of his career by a brave attempt to save the life of a man who had flung himself overboard. The man was saved, but Captain Percival was drowned, leaving a widow and son to lament his loss. Paul at that time was only a year old, so that it was not till the years went on he understood the greatness of his loss. Often and often his thoughts turned to the father who had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from him by a sudden and untimely death, especially when he saw the boys of his school who were fortunate enough to possess both parents; but often as his thoughts went to his father, he rarely spoke of him to his mother. He could see that the pain and sorrow of his death were still with her--that the awful moment when the news came of that sudden, swift catastrophe had written itself upon her heart and memory in writing which would never be effaced.

Paul did not find out all that he had become to his mother till some time after his father's death--not, in fact, till his first term at school had ended. He had never been away from home so long before, and he never forgot how she pressed him to her, and with what tender earnestness she said, "Ah, dear, you do not know how I have missed you."

That same night, when she had thought him fast asleep, she entered his room, looked long and earnestly in his face by the light of a candle, and then stole gently out. And that Sunday, when he went to the old church with her, he felt her hand steal into his as the vicar read the Litany; and the pressure of her hand waxed closer as the vicar's voice sounded through the church: "From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death."

Then rose the fervent response from the congregation, "Good Lord, deliver us." And none prayed it more fervently than the widow as she knelt by the side of her son.

It was not only that Mrs. Percival had lost her husband at sea, but she had lost a brother, a promising young lieutenant in the Navy, while on active service in China; and Paul's grandfather had lost his life many years back while fighting under Nelson at Copenhagen. It is little to be wondered at, therefore, that Mrs. Percival rarely spoke about the sea to Paul. She feared its fascination; she was anxious to keep his thoughts from it. He was all that was now left to her, and she had no wish that he should go into the service in which the lives of three near and dear relatives had been sacrificed.

"Yes, your father sometimes spoke of it," Mrs. Percival answered. "His father--that is to say, your grandfather--lived in the time when there was such a great scare about wicked Napoleon invading England; but that is long ago, and it was all ended by Nelson's last great victory at Trafalgar. Ah, Paul, these scares and wars are terrible. I sometimes think that it must be monsters ruling the world rather than men. If the prayers of mothers and wives and orphans could only be heard, I am sure that war, and the danger of war, would soon be over. But why are you worrying about an invasion?"

"Well, Great Britain has a good many enemies, you know, mother, and people are talking about a possible invasion. Besides, I've got to write something about it next term, and it won't do for the son of a captain to make a mess of it altogether."

"Write something?" questioned Mrs. Percival, turning pale. Ah, the terrible fascination of the sea! Was it going to claim her son as it had claimed her husband? "How is that?"

"A prize has been offered for the best paper on 'The Invasion of Great Britain.' I may as well have a cut in."

"By all means, Paul; but for my sake--for my sake"--placing her hand upon his shoulder--"don't think too much about the sea."

She leant forward and kissed him; then went hurriedly from the room.

Paul knew that it was his duty to do as his mother told him, but he found it very hard. He was a stalwart lad of fifteen, with the blood of two generations of seamen in his veins, so that it seemed as though his very blood were part of the brine of the ocean.

He stood by the window, looking from the old Manor House in which he lived to the road. Presently he saw Job Brice, who did odd jobs about the house and garden, walking across the grounds to the paddock. Job had been a seaman in the Navy at the same time as his father, and for that reason had been given employment, to add to his pension, at the Manor House; but he rarely spoke about his seafaring life to our hero. Paul suspected that this, in a large measure, was due to his mother, for whenever Job did speak, he always dwelt on the most unattractive side of a sailor's life.

So soon as Paul caught sight of Job, he seized his cap, and went after him. He came up with him just as he had entered the paddock.

"I say, Brice, I've just been talking to mother about father. I don't like to question her too much, for I can see it gives her pain."

"Quite right, Master Paul; it does give her pain," said Job, turning his scarred, weather-beaten face to the boy; "and it's very good of you to think of her. It ain't all boys who're so thoughtful of their mother."

"Oh, don't b.u.t.ter me, Brice, for I'm long chalks from deserving it. But perhaps you wouldn't mind answering me a question I could never quite make out. I've heard that father died in saving another man. And that is all I do know, for mother never speaks of it, and I can't keep boring her with questions. How did it happen?"

"Well, no one knows exactly. So far as could be made out, some pirate--some furrin sneak--got into his cabin while we were in port, and got at his private despatches. He was imprisoned in the hold by the captain's orders. The next day we were to make for Gibraltar, where the spy was to be tried by court-martial. The next night was a dirty one--no rain to speak of, but dark and bl.u.s.tery. While it was at its height, the prisoner in the hold managed to escape, and jumped overboard. Your father was one of the first to see him, and leapt after him. He reached the poor wretch and held him till the boat put out; then a fiercer gust of wind came, and they were separated. The spy was swept in the direction of the boat. Your father was swept away from it. The spy was caught up and dragged into it. Your father was never seen again. He'd saved the spy's life at the expense of his own. There wasn't a man on board the ship but esteemed--yes, loved your father. He was one of the best skippers that ever walked a deck. What we felt afterwards, Master Paul, can't be described. We felt just sick that he'd gone, and that that sneaking, shivering furrin rascal had been saved. Some of the boys would ha' lynched him, I think, only that he looked purty sick at that time hisself, and they knew a court-martial was awaitin' him at Gibraltar. Well, he were taken to Gib."

"And what happened?" asked the lad, as the old salt paused.

"What happened? Why, he got clean off!" cried the old salt indignantly.

"There was little or no evidence agen him. The one who knew all about him, and what he'd been up to, was your father, and--and----"

Job Brice came to a dead stop as the back of his big, rough hand went across his eyes.

"My father had gone to the bottom! Yes, yes, I understand it all!" said Paul in a choking voice. "So they were obliged to release the man, and he got off scot-free?"

"You've just guessed it, Master Paul! It makes me blood boil when I think of it!"

Then he ended up, as he always did: "Ah, it's a dog's life, is the sea!

Don't you ever think of the sea, Master Paul!"

Paul knew from what quarter the final moral, with which Job invariably favoured him, came. Usually he smiled; but there was no smile on his face now. He could understand his mother's feelings as he had never understood them before. He could understand why she so rarely spoke of that time--why she never referred to his father's death.

"You can't remember the man's name, I suppose?"

"No, I can't remember that," answered Job, rubbing his head thoughtfully, "'cept that it was a foreign one--Zuker, I think it was, or some such name as that. Don't think no more about it. Thinking about it don't do no good."

"Poor, poor father!" said Paul, as he turned once more towards the house. "He must have been a brave man. Oh, that I could have seen him, and known him, so that I might be able to remember him as he was in life, instead of carrying about a dead image in my heart!"

Still, it was a comfort to know that his father had been loved by those under him--that he had died a brave death. Better, far better, to die a brave death than to live on in shame and infamy, as the man had probably lived whom his father had saved.

And yet this mean, despicable spy might have turned over a new leaf from the day his father had sacrificed his life to save him. He might have begun a new and n.o.bler life. If so, the sacrifice had not been in vain.

CHAPTER II

THE MESSAGE

The long autumn holiday was drawing to a close. In a couple of days'

time Paul would be back again at the old school--back again at Garside House. He had had a pretty good time during the "vac.," but, none the less, he should not be sorry to meet again the fellows of his Form.

School wasn't such a bad place, after all.

"Fact, if it wasn't for that wretched science master, Weevil--why wasn't he christened Weazel?--one might put up with a lot of it. Don't know how it is, but he always puts my back up."

Paul was returning home across the fields, and had just alighted over a five-barred gate into a lane which wound round the side of the Manor House into the main road, when he was arrested by a cry of distress.

"Hallo! What's that? Some one down? My--down it is!"

A horseman had come a cropper a little distance down the lane. Paul immediately ran to his a.s.sistance.

"What's wrong, sir? A tumble?"

"Yes; Falcon slipped, and before I quite knew where I was I was out of the saddle. But I don't think I'm hurt very much."