A Dog with a Bad Name.
by Talbot Baines Reed.
CHAPTER ONE.
DRY-ROT.
Bolsover College was in a bad temper. It often was; for as a rule it had little else to do; and what it had, was usually a less congenial occupation.
Bolsover, in fact, was a school which sadly needed two trifling reforms before it could be expected to do much good in the world. One was, that all its masters should be dismissed; the other was, that all its boys should be expelled. When these little changes had been effected there was every chance of turning the place into a creditable school; but not much chance otherwise.
For Bolsover College was afflicted with dry-rot. The mischief had begun not last term or the term before. Years ago it had begun to eat into the place, and every year it grew more incurable. Occasional efforts had been made to patch things up. A boy had been now and then expelled.
A master had now and then "resigned." An old rule had now and then been enforced. A new rule was now and then inst.i.tuted. But you can"t patch up a dry-rot, and Bolsover crumbled more and more the oftener it was touched.
Years ago it had dropped out of the race with the other public-schools.
Its name had disappeared from the pa.s.s list of the University and Civil Service candidates. Scarcely a human being knew the name of its head- master; and no a.s.sistant-master was ever known to make Bolsover a stepping-stone to pedagogic promotion. The athletic world knew nothing of a Bolsover Eleven or Fifteen; and, worse still, no Bolsover boy was ever found who was proud either of his school or of himself.
Somebody asks, why, if the place was in such a bad way, did parents continue to send their boys there, when they had all the public-schools in England to choose from? To that the answer is very simple. Bolsover was cheap--horribly cheap!
"A high cla.s.s public-school education," to quote the words of the prospectus, "with generous board and lodging, in a beautiful midland county, in a n.o.ble building with every modern advantage; gymnasium, cricket-field, and a full staff of professors and masters," for something under forty pounds a year, was a chance not to be snuffed at by an economical parent or guardian. And when to these attractions was promised "a strict attention to morals, and a supervision of wardrobes by an experienced matron," even the hearts of mothers went out towards the place.
After all, argues many an easy-going parent, a public-school education is a public-school education, whether dear Benjamin gets it at Eton, or Shrewsbury, or Bolsover. We cannot afford Eton or Shrewsbury, but we will make a pinch and send him to Bolsover, which sounds almost as good and may even be better.
So to Bolsover dear Benjamin goes, and becomes a public-school boy. In that "n.o.ble building" he does pretty much as he likes, and eats very much what he can. The "full staff of professors and masters" interfere very little with his liberty, and the "attention to morals" is never inconveniently obtruded. He goes home pale for the holidays and comes back paler each term. He scuffles about now and then in the play-ground and calls it athletics. He gets up Caesar with a crib and Todhunter with a key, and calls it cla.s.sics and mathematics. He loafs about with a toady and calls it friendship. In short, he catches the Bolsover dry- rot, and calls it a public-school training:
What is it makes Benjamin and his seventy-nine school-fellows (for Bolsover had its full number of eighty boys this term) in such a particularly ill-humour this grey October morning? Have his professors and masters gently hinted to him that he is expected to know his lessons next time he goes into cla.s.s? Or has the experienced matron been overdoing her attention to his morals? Ask him. "What!" he says, "don"t you know what the row is? It"s enough to make anybody shirty.
Frampton, this new head-master, you know, he"s only been here a week or two, he"s going to upset everything. I wish to goodness old Mullany had stuck on, cad as he was. He let us alone, but this beast Frampton"s smashing the place up. What do you think?--you"d never guess, he"s made a rule the fellows are all to tub every morning, whether they like it or not. What do you call that? I know I"ll get my governor to make a row about it. It won"t wash, I can tell you. What business has he to make us tub, eh, do you hear? That"s only one thing. He came and jawed us in the big room this morning, and said he meant to make football compulsory! There! You needn"t gape as if you thought I was gammoning.
I"m not, I mean it. Football"s to be compulsory. Every man Jack"s got to play, whether he can or not. I call it brutal! The only thing is, it won"t be done. The fellows will kick. I shall. I"m not going to play football to please a cad like Frampton, or any other cad!"
What Benjamin says is, for a wonder, the truth. A curious change had come over Bolsover since the end of last term. Old Mr Mullany, good old fossil that he was, had resigned. The boys had heard casually of the event at the end of last term. But the old gentleman so seldom appeared in their midst, and when he did, so rarely made any show of authority, that the school had grown to look upon him as an inoffensive old fogey, whose movements made very little difference to anybody.
It was not till the holidays were over, and Mr Frampton introduced himself as the new head-master, that Bolsover awoke to the knowledge that a change had taken place. Mr Frampton--he was not even a "Doctor"
or a "Reverend," but was a young man with sandy whiskers, and a red tie--had a few ideas of his own on the subject of dry-rot. He evidently preferred ripping up entire floors to patching single planks, and he positively scared his colleagues and pupils by the way he set to work.
He was young and enthusiastic, and was perhaps tempted to overdo things at first. When people are being reformed, they need a little breathing time now and then; but Mr Frampton seemed to forget it.
He had barely been in his post a week when two of the under-masters resigned their posts. Undaunted he brought over two new men, who shared his own ideas, and installed them into the vacancies. Then three more of the old masters resigned; and three more new men took their places.
Then the "experienced matron" resigned, and Mrs Frampton took her place. No sooner was that done than the order went out that every boy should have a cold bath every morning, unless excused by the doctor.
The school couldn"t resign, so they sulked, and gasped in the unwelcome element, and coughed heart-rendingly whenever they met the tyrant. The tyrant was insatiate. Before the school could recover from his first shock, the decree for compulsory football staggered it.
Compulsory football! Why, half the fellows in the school had never put their toes to a football in their lives, and those who had had rarely done more than punt the leather aimlessly about, when they felt in the humour to kick something, and n.o.body or nothing more convenient was at hand. But it was useless to represent this to Mr Frampton.
"The sooner you begin to play the better," was his reply to all such objections.
But the old goal posts were broken, and the ball was flabby and nearly worn-out.
"The new goals and ball are to arrive from London to-day."
But they had not got flannels or proper clothes to play in.
"They must get flannels. Every boy must have flannels, and meanwhile they must wear the oldest shirts and trousers they had."
Shirts and trousers! Then they weren"t even to be allowed to wear coats and waistcoats this chilly weather! Hadn"t they better wait till next week, till they could ask leave of their parents, and get their flannels and practise a bit?
"No. Between now and Sat.u.r.day they would have two clear days to practise. On Sat.u.r.day, the Sixth would play the School at three o"clock."
And Mr Frampton, there being nothing more to say on this subject, went off to see what his next pleasant little surprise should be. Bolsover, meanwhile, snarled over the matter in ill-tempered conclaves in the play-ground.
"It"s simple humbug," said Farfield, one of the Sixth. "I defy him to make me play if I don"t choose."
"I shall stand with my hands in my pockets, and not move an inch," said another.
"I mean to sit down on the gra.s.s and have a nap," said a third.
"All very well," said a youngster, called Forrester; "if you can get all the other fellows to do the same. But if some of them play, it"ll look as if you funked it."
"Who cares what it looks like?" said Farfield. "It will look like not being made to do what they"ve no right to make us do--that"s all I care about."
"Well, I don"t know," said Pridger, another of the Sixth; "if it came to the School licking us, I fancy I"d try to prevent that."
"And if it came to the Sixth licking us," said young Forrester, who was of the audacious order, "I fancy _I"d_ try to put a stopper on that."
There was a smile at this, for the valiant junior was small for his age, and flimsily built. Smiles, however, were not the order of the day, and for the most part Bolsover brooded over her tribulations in sulky silence.
The boys had not much in common, and even a calamity like the present failed to bring them together. The big boys mooned about and thought of their lost liberties, of the afternoons in the tuck-shop, of the yellow- backed novels under the trees, of the loafings down town, and wondered if they should ever be happy again. The little boys--some of them--wept secretly in corners, as they pictured themselves among the killed and wounded on the terrible football field. And as the sharp October wind cut across the play-ground, they shuddered, great and small, at the prospect of standing there on Sat.u.r.day, without coats or waistcoats, and wondered if Frampton was designedly dooming them to premature graves.
A few, a very few, of the more sensible ones, tried to knock up a little practice game and prepare themselves for the terrible ordeal. Among these were two boys belonging to the group whose conversation the reader has already overheard.
One of them, young Forrester, has already been introduced. Junior as he was, he was a favourite all over Bolsover, for he was about the only boy in the school who was always in good spirits, and did not seem to be infected with the universal dry-rot of the place. He was a small, handsome boy, older indeed then he looked (for he was nearly fifteen), not particularly clever or particularly jocular. To look at him you would have thought him delicate, but there was nothing feeble in his manner. He looked you straight in the face with a pair of brown saucy eyes; he was ready to break his neck to oblige any one; and his pocket- money (fancy a Bolsover boy having pocket-money!) was common property.
Altogether he was a phenomenon at Bolsover, and fellows took to him instinctively, as fellows often do take to one whose character and disposition are a contrast to their own. Besides this, young Forrester was neither a prig nor a toady, and devoted himself to no one in particular, so that everybody had the benefit of his good spirits, and enjoyed his pranks impartially.
The other boy, who appeared to be about eighteen or nineteen, was of a different kind. He, too, was a cut above the average Bolsoverian, for he was clever, and had a mind of his own. But he acted almost entirely on antipathies. He disliked everybody, except, perhaps, young Forrester, and he found fault with everything. Scarfe--that was his name was a Sixth Form boy, who did the right thing because he disliked doing what everybody else did, which was usually the wrong. He disliked his school-fellows, and therefore was not displeased with Mr Frampton"s reforms; but he disliked Mr Frampton and the new masters, and therefore hoped the school would resist their authority. As for what he himself should do, that would depend on which particular antipathy was uppermost when the time came.
Curiously enough, Bolsover by no means disliked Scarfe. They rather respected a fellow who had ideas of his own, when they themselves had so few; and as each boy, as a rule, could sympathise with his dislike of everybody else, with one exception, he found plenty of adherents and not a few toadies.
Forrester was about the only boy he really did not dislike, because Forrester did not care twopence whether any one liked him or not, and he himself was quite fond of Scarfe.
"What do you think the fellows will do?" said the junior, after attempting for the sixth time to "drop" the ball over the goal without success.
"Why, obey, of course," said Scarfe scornfully.
"Shall you?"
"I suppose so."
"Why, I thought you were going to stick out."
"No doubt a lot of the fellows would like it if I did. They always like somebody else to do what they don"t care to do themselves."