"By Jove!"
The sun had come out. Come out, and we had never noticed it. It was shining as brightly as could be on the slates of all the houses. The rain had ceased.
"I say, we shall have the review yet!" cried Dan. "And, by Jupiter, that"s the college bell! Make a rush, you fellows, or you"ll be marked late. There"s three o"clock striking."
The king"s scholars thought it a great shame that they should have to attend prayers in the cathedral morning and afternoon on saints" days, instead of wholly benefiting by the holiday. They had to do it, however.
The three went flying out towards the cathedral, and I gave King my arm to help him after them. Tod and I--intending to take part in the review at Berwick"s Bridge--went to college also, and sat behind the surpliced king"s scholars on the decani side, in the stalls next to the chanter.
But for a little mud, you"d hardly have thought there had been any rain when we got out again; and the sun was glowing in the blue sky. Not a single fellow was absent: even King limped along. We took the way by the Severn, past the boat-house at the end of the college boundaries, and went leisurely along the towing-path, intending to get into the fields beyond Diglis Wharf, and so onwards.
I don"t believe there was a thought in any one"s mind that afternoon of the enemy. The talk--and a good hubbub it was--turned wholly upon soldiers and reviews. A regular review of the Worcestershire militia took place once a year on Kempsey Ham, and some of the boys" heads got a trifle turned with it. They were envying Lord Ward, now, as they went along: saying they should like to be him, and look as well as he did, and sit his horse as proudly.
"Of course he"s proud," squeaked out the biggest Teal, whose voice was uncertain. "Think of his money!--and his horses!--and see how good-looking he is! If Lord Ward hasn"t a right to be proud, I should like to know who has. Why, he--oh, by George! I say, look here!"
Turning into the first field, we found we had turned into a company of Frogs. All the whole lot, it seemed. Caws and croaks and hoots and groans from either side rose at once on the air. Which army commenced hostilities, I couldn"t tell; the one was as eager for it as the other; and in two minutes the battle had begun--begun in earnest. Up dashed the senior boy.
"Look here," said he to me and Tod; "you understand our rules. You must neither of you attempt to meddle in this. Stay and look on, if you please; but keep at a sufficient distance where it may be seen that you are simply spectators. These beggars shan"t have it to say that we were helped."
He dashed back again. Tod ground his teeth with the effort it took to keep himself from going in to pummel some of the Frogs. Being upon honour, he had to refrain; and he did it somehow.
The Frogs had the blazing sun in their eyes; our side had it at their backs--which was against the Frogs. There were no weapons of any sort; only arms and hands. It looked like the scrimmage of an Irish row.
Sometimes there was closing-in, and fighting hand to hand; sometimes the forces were drawn back again, each to its respective ground. During the first of these interludes, just as the sides were preparing to charge, a big Frog, with broad awkward shoulders, a red, rugged face, and a bleeding nose, came dashing forward alone into the ranks of the college boys, caught up poor lame helpless King Sanker, bore him bravely right through, and put him down in safety beyond, in spite of the blows freely showered upon him. Not a soul on our side had thought of King; and the college boys were too excited to see what the big Frog was about, or they"d perhaps have granted him grace to pa.s.s unmolested. King sat down on the wet gra.s.s for a bit, and gazed about him like a fellow bewildered. Seeing me and Tod he came limping round to us.
"It was good-natured of that big Frog, wasn"t it, Johnny Ludlow?"
"Very. He"d make a brave soldier. I mean a real soldier."
"Perhaps I should have been killed, but for him. I was frightened, you see; and there was no way out. I couldn"t have kept on my legs a minute longer."
The battle raged. The cawing and the croaking, that had been kept up like an array of trumpets, fell off as the fighting waxed hotter. The work grew too fierce and real for abuse of tongue. We could hear the blows dealt on the upturned faces. King, who had a natural horror of fighting, trembled inwardly from head to foot, and hid his face behind me. Tod was dancing with excitement, flinging his closed fists outward in imaginary battle, and roaring out like a dragon.
I can"t say who would have won had they been left alone. Probably the Frogs, for there were a great many more of them. But on the other hand, none of them were so old as some of the college boys. When the fight was at the thickest, we heard a sudden shout from a ba.s.s, gruff, authoritative voice: "Now then, boys, how dare you!" and saw a big, portly gentleman in black clothes and a white necktie, appear behind the Frogs, with a stout stick in his hand.
It was Clerk Jones, their master. His presence and his voice acted like magic. Not a Frog of them all but dropped his blows and his rage. The college boys had to drop theirs, as the enemy receded. Clerk Jones put himself between the two sets of combatants.
The way he went on at both sides was something good to hear. Shaking his stick at his own boys, they turned tail softly, and then rushed away through the mud like wild horses, not waiting to hear the close: so the college boys had the pepper intended for the lot. He vowed and declared by the stick that was in his hand--and he had the greatest mind, he interrupted himself to say, to put it about _their_ backs--that if ever they molested his boys again, or another quarrel was got up, he would appeal publicly to the dean and chapter. If one of the college boys made a move in future to so much as cast an insulting look towards a boy in St. Peter"s School, that boy should go before the dean; and it would not be his fault (the clerk"s) if he was not expelled the cathedral. _He_ would take care, and precious good care, that his boys should preserve civility henceforth; and it was no great favour to expect that the college boys would do so. For his part he should feel ashamed in their places to oppress lads in an inferior cla.s.s of life to themselves; and he should make it his business before he slept to see the head-master of the college school, and report this present disgraceful scene to him: the head-master could deal with it as he pleased.
Mr. Jones went off, flourishing his stick; and our side began to sum up its damages: closed eyes, scratched faces, swollen noses, and torn clothes. Dan Sanker"s nose was as big as a beer barrel, and his shirt-front hung in ribbons. Fred"s eyes were black. Toby"s jacket had a sleeve slit up, and one of his boots had disappeared for good.
The spectacle we made, going home down the Gloucester Road, could not be easily forgotten. Folks collected on the pavement, and came to the windows and doors to see the sight. It was like an army of soldiers returning from battle. Bleeding faces, black eyes, clothes tattered and bespattered with mud. Farmers going back from market drew up their gigs to the roadside, to stare at us while we pa.s.sed. One little girl, in a pony-chaise, wedged between a fat old lady in a red shawl and a gentleman in top-boots, was frightened nearly into fits. She shrieked and cried, till you might have heard her up at Mr. Allies"s; and the old lady could not pacify her. The captain was out when we got in: and Mrs.
Sanker took it all with her usual apathy, only saying we had better have come straight home from college to hear some more poetry.
An awful fuss was made by the head-master. Especially as the boys had to appear on Sunday at the cathedral services. Damages were visible on many of them; and their white surplices only helped to show the faces off the more. The chorister who took the solo in the afternoon anthem was decorated with cuttings of sticking-plaster; he looked like a tattooed young Indian.
The school broke up on the Monday: and on that day Mr. and Mrs.
Todhetley drove into Worcester, and put up at the Star and Garter. They came to us in the afternoon, as had been agreed upon; dinner being ordered by Captain Sanker for five o"clock. It was rather a profuse dinner; fish and meat and pies and dessert, but quite a scramble of confusion: which none of the Sankers seemed to notice or to mind.
"Johnny dear, is it _always_ like this?" Mrs. Todhetley could not help asking me, in a whisper. "I should be in a lunatic asylum in a week."
We started for Malvern on Tuesday at eleven o"clock. The Squire drove Bob and Blister in his high carriage: Dr. Teal, Captain Sanker, and Fred sitting with him. There was no railroad then. The ladies and the girls crammed themselves into a post-carriage from the Star, and a big waggonette was lent by some friend of Dr. Teal for the rest. The boys were losing the signs of their damages; nothing being very conspicuous now but Dan"s nose. It refused to go down at all in size, and in colour was brighter than a rainbow. The Teals kept laughing at it, which made Dan savage; once he burst out in a pa.s.sion, wishing all the Frogs were shot.
I remember that drive still. John Teal and I sat on the box of the post-carriage, the post-boy riding his horses. I remember the different features of the road as we pa.s.sed them--not but that I knew them well before; I remember the laden orchards, and the sweet scent of the bean-fields, in flower then. Over the bridge from Worcester went we, up the New Road and through St. John"s, and then into the open country; past Lower Wick, where Mrs. Sherwood lived, and on to Powick across its bridge. I remember that a hea.r.s.e and three mourning-coaches stood before the Lion, the men refreshing themselves with drink; and we wondered who was being buried that day. Down that steep and awkward hill next, where so many accidents occurred before it was altered, and so on to the Link; the glorious hills always before us from the turning where they had first burst into view; their clumps of gorse and broom, their paths and their sheep-tracks growing gradually plainer to the sight the nearer we drew. The light and shade cast by the sun swept over them perpetually, a landscape ever changing; the white houses of the village, nestling amidst their dark foliage, looked fair for the eye to rest upon. Youth, as we all get to learn when it has gone by, lends a charm that later life cannot know: but never a scene that I have seen since, abroad or at home, lies on my memory with half the beauty as does that old approach to Malvern. Turning round to the left at the top of the Link, we drove into Great Malvern.
The carriages were left at the Crown. An old pony was chartered for some of the provisions, and we boys carried the rest. The people at St. Ann"s Well had been written to, and the room behind the well was in readiness for us. Once the baskets were deposited there, we were at liberty till dinner-time, and went on up the hill. Turning a corner which had hidden the upper landscape from view, we came upon Dan Sanker, who had got on first. He was standing to confront us, his face big with excitement, his nose flaming.
"If you"ll believe me, those cursed Frogs are here!"
In angry consternation--for the Frogs seemed to have no business to be at Malvern--we rushed on, turned another corner, and so brought ourselves into a wide expanse of upper prospect. Sure enough! About a hundred of the Frogs in their Sunday clothes were trooping down the hill. They had the start of us in arriving at Malvern, and had been to the top already.
"I"ll--be--jiggered!" cried Dan, savagely. "What a horrid lot they are!
Look at their sneaking tail-coats. Wouldn"t I like to pitch into them!"
The college school wore the Eton jacket. Those preposterous coats, the tails docked to the size of the boys, did not improve the appearance of the Frogs. But as to pitching-in, Dan did not dare to do it after what had pa.s.sed. It was his nose that made him so resentful.
"I desire that you will behave as gentlemen," said Captain Sanker, who was behind with the Squire, and bid us halt. "Those poor boys are here, I see; but they will not, I am sure, molest you, neither must you molest them. Civility costs nothing, remember. What are you looking so cross for, Dan?"
"Oh, well, papa, it"s like their impudence, to come here to-day!"
muttered Dan.
The captain laughed. "They may say it"s like yours, to come, Dan: they were here first. Go on, lads, and don"t forget yourselves."
Tod"s whistle below was heard just then; and Dan, not caring to show his nose to the enemy, responded, and galloped back. We went on. The paths there are narrow, you know, and we expected to have all the string of Frogs sweeping past us, their coats brushing our jackets. But--perhaps not caring to meet us any more than we cared to meet them--most of them broke off on a detour down the steep of the hill, and so avoided us.
About half-a-dozen came on. One of them was a big-shouldered, awkward, red-faced boy, taller than the rest of them and not unlike a real frog; he walked with his cap in his hand, and his brown hair stood on end like a porcupine"s. Indisputably ugly was he, with a mouth as wide as a frying-pan; but it was a pleasant and honest face, for all that. King suddenly darted to him as he was pa.s.sing, and pulled him towards Captain Sanker, in excitement.
"Papa, this is the one I told you of; the one who saved me and didn"t mind the blows he got in doing it. I should have been knocked down, and my knee trampled on, but for him."
Out went Captain Sanker"s hand to shake the boy"s. He did it heartily.
As to the Frog, he blushed redder than before with modesty.
"You are a brave lad, and I thank you heartily," said the captain, wringing his hand as though he"d wring it off. "You do honour to yourself, whoever you may be. There was not one of his own companions to think of him, and save him, and you did it in the midst of danger. Thank you, my lad."
The captain slid half-a-crown into his hand, telling him to get some Malvern cakes. The boy stood back for us to go by. I was the last, and he spoke as if he knew me.
"Good-day, Master Johnny."
Why, who was he? And, now I came to look at his freckled face, it seemed quite familiar. His great wide mouth brought me remembrance.
"Why, it"s Mark Ferrar! I didn"t know you at first, Mark."
"We"ve come over here for the day in two vans," said Mark, putting his grey cap on. "Eighty of the biggest of us; the rest are to come to-morrow. Some gent that"s visiting at St. Peter"s parsonage has given us the treat, sir."
"All right, Mark. I"m glad you thought of King Sanker on Sat.u.r.day."
Ferrar touched his cap, and went vaulting down after his comrades. He was related to Daniel Ferrar, the Squire"s bailiff, of whom you have heard before, poor fellow, and also to the Batleys of South Crabb. He used to come over to Crabb, that"s where I had seen him.
Some donkeys came running down the hill, their white cloths flying.
Captain Sanker stopped one and put King on him--for King was tired already. We soon got to the top then, and to Lady Harcourt"s Tower. Oh, it was a glorious day! The great wide prospect around stood out in all its beauty. The vale of Herefordshire on the one side with its rural plains and woods basked in the sunshine, its crops of ruddy pears and apples giving token of the perry and cider to come; on the other side rose the more diversified landscape that has been so much told and talked of. Over the green meadows and the ripening corn-fields lay Worcester itself: the cathedral showing out well, and the summit of the high church-spire of St. Andrew"s catching a glint of the sunlight.
Hills caught the eye wherever it turned: Bredon Hill, Abberleigh Hills, the Old Hills; homesteads lay upon their lands, half hidden by their rick-yards and cl.u.s.tering trees; cattle and sheep browsed on the gra.s.s or lay in the shade to shelter themselves from the midday sun. To the right, on the verge of the horizon, far, far away, might be caught a glimpse of something that sparkled like a bed of stars--the Bristol Channel. It is not often you can discern that from Malvern, but this day that I am telling of was one of the clearest ever seen there; the atmosphere looking quite rarefied in spite of the sunlight.