The Three Midshipmen.

by W.H.G. Kingston.

CHAPTER ONE.

EARLY DAYS.

Ours was a capital school, though it was not a public one. It was not far from London, so that a coach could carry us down there in little more than an hour from the _White Horse Cellar_, Piccadilly. On the top of the posts, at each side of the gates, were two eagles; fine large birds I thought them. They looked out on a green, fringed with tall elms, beyond which was our cricket-field. A very magnificent red-brick old house rose behind the eagles, full of windows belonging to our sleeping-rooms. The playground was at the back of the house, with a grand old tulip tree in the centre, a tectum for rainy weather on one side, and the large school room on the other. Beyond was a good-sized garden, full of apple and pear trees, but, as we very seldom went into it, I do not remember its appearance. Perhaps, were I to see the place again, I might find its dimensions somewhat altered. The master was a first-rate schoolmaster. What his attainments were, I cannot say; but he understood managing boys admirably. He kept us all in very good order, had us fairly taught, fed us with wholesome, if not luxurious, food, and, though he used his cane freely, treated us justly. We held him in awe, and yet we liked him.

It was after the summer holidays, when I had just got back, I heard that three new boys had come. In the afternoon they all appeared in the playground. They were strangers to each other as well as to us, but their similarity of fate drew them together. One was a slightly made, dark, and somewhat delicate-looking boy; another was a st.u.r.dy little fellow, with a round, ruddy countenance, and a jovial, good-natured expression in it, yet he did not look as if he would stand any nonsense; the third was rather smaller than the other two, a pleasant-looking fellow, and though his eyes were red with crying, he seemed to be cutting some joke which made his companions laugh. He had come all the way from Ireland, we heard, and his elder brother had that morning left him and gone back home, and that made him unhappy just then. He at once got the name of Paddy in the school. He did not mind it. His real name was Terence Adair, so sometimes he was called Paddy Adair.

"I say, you fellow, what's your name?" asked a biggish boy of the stoutest of the three new-comers.

"Jack Rogers," was the answer, given in a quiet tone.

"I don't believe it," replied the big boy, who was known as Bully Pigeon; "it's such a rum name."

"I'll make you believe it, and remember it too," exclaimed the new-comer, eyeing the other from head to foot, and walking firmly up to him, with his lips closed, while he moved his head slowly from side to side. "I tell you my name is Jack Rogers--Now!"

The bully did not say a word. He looked as if he would have liked to have hit, but Paddy Adair had followed his new friend, and was evidently about to join in the fray if it was once begun; so the big boy thought better of it. He would gain no credit for attacking a little fellow the first day of his coming. There were many witnesses of the scene, and Jack was unanimously p.r.o.nounced to be a plucky little chap. Pigeon, defeated in one direction, turned his attention to the first-named boy, who had scarcely moved since he entered the playground, but kept looking round with his large black eyes on the scene before him, which was evidently strange to his sight.

"What are you called, I should like to know?" he asked in a rude tone.

"Alick Murray," was the answer, in a quiet, gentlemanly voice.

"Then you come from Scotland, I suppose?" said the bully.

"Yes, I do," replied the former.

"Oh! I wonder your mamma would let you go away from her," observed the big boy, with a sneer.

"My mamma is just dead," answered Murray, in a mild tone, a tear springing to his eye.

"Shame! shame!" shouted the voices of several boys who had come up; among them that of Jack Rogers was the loudest.

"I didn't mean to say anything to hurt him," said the bully, sneaking away. "I'll pay you off for this some day," he muttered as he pa.s.sed Jack.

Jack looked after him and laughed.

"He'll have two to fight if he tries it, mind that," said Adair to his new friend.

Jack thanked him, but said that he should soon be able to tackle him, if he could not just now. He would try at all events.

"That's it," cried Terence enthusiastically. "That's just what I like.

If you are knocked down you can but get up again and try once more."

"So my papa says," observed Jack. "He's a first-rate father, let me tell you. He never would let any of us give in except to himself. He used to throw us into a pond, and tell us to swim, and unless we had actually been drowning, nothing would have made him help us; so we all very soon learned, and now there isn't a chap of my size I wouldn't swim against. We live down in Northamptonshire. My papa has a place there.

We are all very jolly. There are a number of us, sisters and brothers.

You must come down and see them some holidays. You'll like them, I know. There's no nonsense about them."

Terence said he should like it very much, if he did not go back to Ireland. He had three brothers and a sister, but they were all older than himself. His papa was the Honourable Mr Adair, and he had an uncle, Lord Derrynane. He did not know whether they were rich or not.

They lived in a big house, and had a number of servants, and people were constantly coming and going; so he supposed they were. The truth was, as I heard afterwards, they were living a great deal too fast, and Terence had nothing left as his share of his father's property, except, as he said, his debts. That, however, was no fault of his.

"I say," observed Jack, "don't let us leave that poor fellow alone any longer. He seems very low-spirited about his mother. It's natural, you know; though I don't like to see a fellow blubbering just because he has hurt himself, or lost a peg-top, or anything of that sort."

So they went up to Alick Murray, and began talking to him, and Terence said something funny and made him laugh.

"I wonder what games they have here?" asked Jack.

"Coach-and-horses," said a biggish fellow, who had just entered the playground with some long strips of leather over his arm and a whip in his hand. "Now, if you three fellows will just be harnessed, you'll make a very good unicorn."

They all looked at each other, and as the big boy spoke in a good-natured tone, they agreed to do as he wished. Jack and Alick were harnessed together; Terence insisted on going as unicorn.

"I say, though," cried Jack, looking back; "what are you called? I always like to know the name of the driver."

"Ben Trotter when I'm not called Master Benjamin Trotter," was the answer.

"Not a bad name for a coachman," observed Jack, beginning to prance and kick about. He got a cut with the whip in return for his remark.

Terence reared and neighed, and kicked about furiously all the time, like a high-mettled steed who wanted to be off; and at last, Trotter having got the ribbons adjusted to his satisfaction, away they all went round the playground at a great rate, looking with great disdain on those boys who had only got string for harness. Thus were the three new-comers first yoked in fellowship. They were very much together ever afterwards, though they also had their own especial friends. Murray and Rogers were the most constant to each other. Murray was a studious, gentle boy. He had more talent than Jack; that is to say, he did his lessons a great deal better, and never got into any sc.r.a.pes. Jack never picked a quarrel, but he now and then got into one, and was apt in his lessons to give a false quant.i.ty, and sometimes a translation of his Caesar which put him down to the bottom of the cla.s.s. Murray was always ready and able to help him, but Jack was not a fellow who would consent to trust to the help of another. When he really tried, he could always do his work, and very creditably too. Adair, unlike his friends, was nearly always getting into trouble. He would not think enough about consequences. Once he and others had been letting off fireworks of their own manufacture in a remote corner of the playground. Notice was given that an usher was coming. They threw away their combustibles, and fled. Terence, however, had a piece of lighted touch-paper, which, in his hurry, he shoved into his pocket. It was already full of a similar preparation. He was caught and hauled away into the schoolroom to receive condign punishment. He tried to look very innocent, and requested to know why he was dragged along so unceremoniously. Paddy, under no circ.u.mstances, ever lost his politeness. Unhappily for him just as he reached the door the proofs of his guilt became apparent.

Streams of smoke and sparks burst out of his pockets, and the master had to pull out the burning paper to prevent him from being seriously injured. As to his lessons he very frequently was at the top of his cla.s.s, but he never could manage to keep there many days together. For some neglect or other, he soon again lost his place. Still he was a general favourite. Even the masters could not help liking him. The three new boys were put into one room. They slept there for several halves. On one occasion Terence had kept away a good deal from Jack and Murray, and a.s.sociated more than was his custom with several of the less nice boys. Among them was Pigeon, the bullying fellow. I happened to be awake one night, when, by the pale moonlight which streamed in at the windows, I saw Paddy Adair sit up in his bed and look about him. Pigeon and another biggish fellow did the same. They signed to each other, and slipping on their clothes, crept with their shoes in their hands out of the room. I could not go to sleep, wondering what had become of them.

Jack Rogers slept near me. He likewise had seen what had occurred.

They were absent about half an hour. They returned as noiselessly as they had gone out, and crept into bed again, of course thinking that no one had observed them. No sooner was the door closed than there was a strong smell of apples in the room, and presently "crunch! crunch!

crunch!" was heard.

"Those fellows have been stealing old Rowley's apples, now," thought Jack; "and that donkey Paddy Adair has, I'd bet, been heading the party."

He felt as if he were a spy by not letting them know that he was awake, so he sat up and said, "Hillo! you fellows, what have you been about?"

"Is that you awake, Jack?" answered Adair. "Never mind, we've had great fun. Have an apple, will you?"

"No, thank you," said Jack, "I'd rather not;" laying considerable emphasis on the last words.

"He doesn't deserve one as he hadn't the pluck to go and get them," said a voice from under the bedclothes.

"Who says that?" exclaimed Jack, sitting up in bed.

"Why, I say you would have been afraid to go and do what we have done,"

answered Bully Pigeon, summoning up more courage than was his wont.

"Afraid!" exclaimed Jack, springing out of bed and slipping on his trousers. "Afraid of what? Afraid of stealing? Afraid of telling a lie I am; but I'm not afraid of _you, you thief_, I can tell you."

Even Bully Pigeon could not stand this. Unless he would be jeered at and called sneak ever afterwards by all the little boys in the school, he felt that he must retaliate. He jumped up and sprang at Jack, aiming a blow, which, if the latter had not slipped aside, would have knocked him over. Jack, notwithstanding this, sprang back, and put himself on his defence, not only warding off the next blow Pigeon struck, but planting another between his eyes, which brought fire into them with a vengeance.

This enraged the bully, who came thundering down on Jack with all his might, and would have wellnigh crushed him, but Pigeon found a new a.s.sailant in the field whom he did not expect--one of his own party. It was Paddy Adair.

"I can't stand that, and I won't," he exclaimed, aiming a blow at Pigeon's head which sent him backwards; while Alick Murray, who had likewise jumped up, appeared on the other side of him.

"We are thieves, I tell you; we've been stealing old Rowley's apples, and Jack Rogers is right," cried Terence.