He was fairly roused now; no boy--certainly no boy of his sort--can stand quietly by and receive undeserved blows. Tom tightened his grip on the boy"s throat, and strove to s.n.a.t.c.h me from his pocket.
Quick as thought Charlie threw his arms round him, and, though the smaller boy of the two, extricated himself from the clutch of the bully, and sent him in turn staggering back. Livid with rage, Tom rushed at him; but Charlie eluded him, and left him to overbalance himself and fall sprawling on the paved floor. At this instant the doctor"s door opened, and the head master stood gazing on the scene.
Poor Charlie! five minutes ago so full of bright hopes and brave resolutions, and now, under the eyes of the very man who had inspired in him those hopes and resolutions, engaged in a common fight with a schoolfellow!
"What is all this?" asked the doctor sternly. "Come in here, you two."
Charlie, with sinking heart, entered again that solemn room, and Drift followed, sulky, and with a black bruise on his forehead.
Charlie left his antagonist to tell his story after his own fashion, and was too dispirited either to contradict him or seek to justify himself.
He felt ashamed of himself, and in his self-humiliation saw neither defence nor extenuation for his conduct.
Drift was dismissed with a few sharp words of reproof and warning.
Charlie remained longer.
What the doctor said to him, and what he said to the doctor, I need not here repeat. Suffice it to say, the former was able to form a fairer estimate of my master"s conduct than he himself was. He did not blame him; he even told him that no boy could expect to get through his school days without some blows, and advised him to see they were always on the right side. He talked to him long and seriously about home, and so comforted him in prospect of future difficulties and temptations, that when he left that study the second time, it was as a wiser, though perhaps a sadder boy than before.
CHAPTER SIX.
HOW MY MASTER HAD BOTH HIS FRIENDS AND HIS ENEMIES AT RANDLEBURY.
The events of Charlie"s first day at Randlebury had at least taught him one salutary lesson, and that was, to moderate his enthusiasm with regard to me, and consequently for the next few weeks I had a quiet time of it. True enough, my master would occasionally produce me in confidence to a select and admiring audience, and would ever and again proffer the use of me to his protector, Joe Halliday, but he gave up flourishing me in the face of every pa.s.ser-by, and took to b.u.t.toning his jacket over the chain, I found my health all the better for this gentler usage, and showed my grat.i.tude by keeping perfect time from one week"s end to the other.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that Charlie was not long in making friends at Randlebury. Indeed some of his acquaintance looked upon this exceeding friendliness in the boy"s disposition as one of his weak points.
"I do believe," said Walcot, who was only four from the head of the school, to his friend, Joe Halliday, one day, about a month after my master"s arrival at Randlebury--"I do believe that young f.a.g of yours would chum up to the poker and tongs if there were no fellows here."
"Shouldn"t wonder," said Joe. "He"s a sociable young beggar, and keeps my den uncommon tidy. Why, only the other day, when I was in no end of a vicious temper about being rowed about my Greek accents, you know, and when I should have been really grateful to the young scamp if he"d given me an excuse for kicking him, what should he do but lay wait for me in my den with a letter from his father, which he insisted on reading aloud to me. What do you think it was about?"
"I couldn"t guess," said Walcot.
"Well, you must know he"s lately chummed up very thick with my young brother Jim in the second, and--would you believe it?--he took it into his head to sit down and write to his governor to ask him if he would give Jim and me each a watch like the one he"s got himself. What do you think of that?"
"Did he, though?" exclaimed Walcot, laughing. "I say, old boy, you"ll make your fortune out of that youngster; and what did his father say?"
"Oh, he was most polite, of course; his boy"s friends were his friends, and all that, and he finished up by saying he hoped we should both come and spend Christmas there."
"Ha! ha! and did he send the watches?"
"No; I suppose he wants to spy out the land first."
"Well," said Walcot, "the boy"s all right with you, but he"ll go making a fool of himself some day if he makes up to everybody he meets."
My master, in fact, was already a popular boy with his fellows. He had a select band of admirers among the youth of the Second-Form, who cackled round him like hens round a bantam. Together they groaned over their Latin exercises and wrestled with their decimals; together they heard the dreaded summons to the master"s desk; and side by side, I am sorry to say, they held out their open palms to receive his cane. If a slate bearing on its surface an outline effigy of the gentleman who presided over the lessons of the cla.s.s was brought to light, and the names of its perpetrators demanded, Charlie"s hand would be seen among a forest of other upraised, ink-stained hands, and he would confess with contrition to having contributed the left eye of the unlucky portrait.
And if, amid the solemn silence which attended a moral discourse from the master on the evils of gluttony, a sudden cataract of nuts, apples, turnips, and jam sandwiches on to the floor should drown the good man"s voice, Charlie would be one of the ill-starred wights who owned to a partnership in the bag of good things which had thus miserably burst, and would proceed with shame first to crawl and grope on the dusty floor to collect his contraband possessions, and then solemnly to deposit the same jam, turnips, and all, on the desk of the offended dominie as a confiscated forfeit.
By these and many other like experiences Charlie identified himself with his comrades, and established many and memorable bonds of sympathy. He took the allegiance of his followers and the penalties of his masters in equal good part. He was not the boy to glory in his sc.r.a.pes, but he was the boy to get into them, and once in, no fear of punishment could make a tell-tale, a cheat, or a coward of him.
With the elder boys he was also a favourite, for what big boy does not take pride in patronising a plucky, frank youngster? Patronising with Charlie did not mean humiliation. It is true he would quake at times in the majestic company of the heroes of the Sixth Form, but without hanging his head or toadying. It is one thing to reverence a fellow- being, and another to kneel and lick his boots.
Altogether Charlie had what is called "fallen on his feet" at Randlebury. By the end of two months he was as much at home there as if he had strutted its halls for two years. His whistle was as shrill as any in the lobbies, and Mrs Packer stuck her fingers in her ears when he burst into her parlour to demand a clean collar. He had already signalised himself too on the cricket field, having scored one run (by a leg-bye) in the never-to-be-forgotten match of First Form, First Eleven, against Second-Form, Second Eleven; and he had annihilated the redoubtable Alfred Redhead in the hundred yards hopping match, accomplishing that distance in the wonderfully short time of forty-five seconds!
But the dearest of all his friends was Jim Halliday, his lord and master"s young brother. To Jim, Charlie opened his own soul, and me, and the knife; with Jim he laid his schemes for the future, and arranged, when he was Governor-General of India and Jim was Prime Minister, he would swop a couple of elephants for one of Ash and Tackle"s best twenty-foot fishing-rods, with a book of flies complete.
With Jim, Charlie talked about home and his father, and the coming holidays, till his face shone with the brightness of the prospect. Nor was the faithful Jim less communicative. He told Charlie all about his sisters down at Dullfield, where his father had once been clergyman, and gave it as his opinion that Jenny was the one Charlie had better marry; and to Charlie he imparted, as an awful secret not to be so much as whispered to any one, that he (Jim) was going to array his imposing figure for the first time in a tail-coat at Christmas.
With two friends on such a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other, did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday did they fish for hours in the same pool, or climb the same tree for the same nest; what book of Jim"s was there (schoolbooks excepted) that Charlie had not dog"s-eared; and was not Charlie"s little library annotated in every page by Jim"s elegant thumbs? In short, these two were as one. David and Jonathan were nothing to them.
But in the midst of all his comfort and happiness one continually recurring thought troubled Charlie, that was about Tom Drift. He had promised the mother to be a friend to her son, and although he owned to himself he neither liked nor admired Tom, he could not be easy with this broken promise on his mind.
One day, about a month after the quarrel outside the head master"s study, my master, after a hard inward struggle, conceived the desperate resolve of going himself to the lion in his den and seeking a reconciliation.
He walked quickly to Tom"s study, for fear his resolution might fail him, and knocked as boldly as he could at the door.
"Come in!" cried Tom inside.
Charlie entered, and found his late antagonist sprawling on two chairs, reading a yellow-backed novel.
At the sight of Charlie he scowled, and looked anything but conciliatory.
"What do you want?" he said angrily.
"Oh, Tom Drift!" cried Charlie, plunging at once into his subject, "I do wish you"d be friends; I am so sorry I hurt you."
This last was an ill-judged reference; Tom was vicious enough about that bruise on his forehead not to need any reminder of the injuries he had sustained in that memorable scuffle.
"Get off with you, you little beast!" he cried. "What do you mean by coming here?"
"I know I"ve no business, Tom Drift; but I do so want to be friends, because--because I promised your mother, you know."
"What do I care what you promised my mother? I don"t want you. Come, off you go, or I"ll show you the way."
Charlie turned to go, yet still lingered. A desperate struggle was taking place, I could feel, within him, and then he stammered out, "I say, Tom Drift, if you"ll only be friends I"ll _give_ you my watch."
Poor boy! Who knows what that offer cost him? it was indeed the dearest bribe he had to give.
Tom laughed sneeringly. "Who wants your watch, young a.s.s?--a miserable, second-hand, tin ticker; I"d be ashamed to be seen with it. Come, once more, get out of here or I"ll kick you out!"
Charlie obeyed, miserable and disappointed.
He could stand being spoken roughly to, he could bear his disappointment, but to hear his father"s precious gift spoken of as a "miserable, second-hand tin ticker," was more than he could endure, and he made his way back to his room conscious of having lost more than he had gained by this thankless effort at reconciliation.
"What are you in the sulks about?" inquired Halliday that evening, as Charlie was putting away his lord and master"s jam in the cupboard.
"I don"t want to be sulky," Charlie said, "but I wish I could make it up with Tom Drift."
"With who?" exclaimed Joe, who, as we have before observed, was subject to occasional lapses of grammar.