CHAPTER VII
LOVEL’S WOODS
“Ough, school again!” exclaimed Jimmie Lawrence, with a grunt, ashe jumped off the platform of the little way-train at Monday Portone bright cold afternoon the following January. “I say, Tony,” hecontinued, linking his arm in that of his companion, and fishing in hispockets with his disengaged hand for his luggage checks, “this term itis school and no mistake! An unspeakable odor of gumshoe pervades thepremises; Pussie Gray hurls math. lessons at your head a yard long, andthe masters generally shriek exhortations at you as though you weredeaf as well as dumb.”
“Nonsense, Jimmo! I am right glad to get back.” And Tony drew in a deepbreath of the cold pure air, and his eyes glistened as he looked outacross the snow-clad landscape—the white town clinging to its hills,the frozen pond, the troubled blue waters of the bay. “I’ve never seenany snow to speak of, you know; think of the sliding down Deal Hill!Mind, old boy, we’re to pack over to Lovel’s Woods this afternoon andsee to a cave.”
“Gemini crickets! Deering, you’ll get enough of the Woods before thewinter’s over. Me for the form-room and a heart to heart talk with myloving schoolmates.”
“Be an old woman if you like,” interrupted Kit Wilson, who joined themat this moment. “Tony and I will find the cave, and you’ve got to ponyup the first supply of grub.”
“Oh, very well,” said Jimmie, with a grand air, as the three boysclimbed into a fly. “If you will direct the coachman of this equipageto stop at the Pie-house, I will give Mrs. Wadmer a _carte blanche_order for the proper supplies; and we’ll have a feed to-morrowafternoon. At present, I’m perished with cold.”
By this time the driver had applied the whip to his poor horse, and thedilapidated fly was crawling up the cobblestones of Montgomery street.Once the top of the hill was gained, it moved along more rapidly, andsoon Monday Port was left behind, the icy shores of Deal Water had beenskirted, and the long hill that led up to the school was being climbed.The school “barge,” filled with a shouting, laughing crowd of smallboys, was lumbering along ahead of them, and a dozen or so more cabssuch as our friends had chartered dotted the white road. They passed afew of these, and noisy greetings were exchanged.
“There’s a trifling pleasure in seeing the kids once more,” saidJimmie, settling back after they had passed the barge, and assuminga _blasé_ expression. “It would be rather jolly to be a prefect andboss ‘em all about.... Whoa-up! here’s the Pie-house and there’sMother Wadmer in the doorway with a smile of welcome as broad as herpocketbook is deep. Hello, Mrs. Wadmer,” he cried, as the cab drew upbefore a small frame house by the roadside, on the portico of whichstood a tall angular Cæsarean dame, with a calico apron drawn over herhead.
“How de do, Master Lawrence; howdy, boys. Come right in, and I’ll giveyou a glass of the best cider you’ve ever tasted. ‘Tis Mister Wadmer’sown brew, and a fine thing to begin the term on.”
The three boys piled out of the fly, and in a moment were merrilygreeting the crowd of youngsters who already had established themselvesabout the long deal table in Mrs. Wadmer’s hospitable kitchen. “Hello,Jim!” “Hello, Kit!” “Hello, Tony,” and a dozen other names, nicknamesor parts of names, rang out. The boys shook hands, exchanged rapidnotes of vacation experiences, gulped down several glasses of cider,and consumed a score or so of luscious tarts.
“When did you get back, Tack?” Kit enquired of a large, ungainly,rosy-cheeked boy who came from Maine.
“This morning,” answered Turner. “I came down on the boat last nightto New York—scrumptious time. Say, Kit, have you heard the latest atschool?”
“No, we just got in, crawled across the flats from Coventry. What’s up?”
“What’s up? why, some meddlesome jackanapes in the Sixth got wiseto something irregular last winter and has gone to the Doctor witha doleful tale about the wickedness that’s supposed to go on in theWoods; so the fiat has gone forth: no caves for boys below the Fourth.”
“No caves!” shouted a dozen boys. A storm of protests and exclamationsarose. “Well,” said Jimmie, as the hubbub ceased, “school will be ajolly old jumping-off place then.”
“No caves for boys below the Fourth,” echoed Kit. “Well, I announce mypromotion then. Come on, Tony; come on, Jim; let’s get up to school andget the facts.”
They stalked out amidst howls of derision, and re-entered theirchariot. Jimmie had taken care, however, to direct Mrs. Wadmer tostack it well with such provisions as were in customary requisition inLovel’s Woods. The worthy landlady of the Pie-house was officially deafto all rules that emanated from the Head unless they were presentedto her in writing. She owed, it may be said in parenthesis, her longcareer under the shadow of Deal School to the admirable loyalty of manygenerations of Deal boys.
As luck would have it, to Tony’s amusement as he watched Jimmie’sexpression, the first person they met in the Old School whither theywent at once to report, was Mr. Roylston, who held a roll-call in hishands and wore on his face a look of patient suffering and in his eyesan expression of latent indignation. Our friends, thanks to theirdigression at the Pie-house, were ten minutes late.
“How do you do, Mr. Roylston?” exclaimed Kit, offering his hand, andreceiving three of the master’s lifeless fingers. A pencil occupiedthe other two. “Ah!” he murmured,—Kit afterwards declared, withsatisfaction,—“Lawrence, Wilson, Deering—ten minutes late. Icongratulate you on the punctual way in which you begin the new year.”
“Oh, sir, we were beguiled by the way,” protested the irrepressibleKit. “The woman beguiled me, sir, and I did eat.”
“Faugh!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston. “Spare me your coarse irreverence. Youare redolent of the unpleasant odors of the Pie-house. I will give youfive marks apiece.”
“Oh, sir!”
“Please, sir!”
“I beg of you, sir. Pray divide ‘em, sir.”
“Silence, Wilson; you are impertinent as well as irreverent. If youlinger longer with this futile protesting, I shall double your marks.Kindly go at once and unpack your trunks.”
“Please, sir; we always do that in the evening, sir; and I hope youwill allow us to go to the form-room, sir.”
“Don’t ‘sir’ me so. Write out for me before to-morrow’s school fiftylines of the Æneid, and go at once.”
“Very good, sir!” And lest they all get a similar dose of “pensum,”as such punishments were called, they hurried off to the Third Formcommon-room. There they found a crowd of newly-arrived boys, engaged ina vociferous denunciation of the Doctor’s new rule against caves in theWoods. The news had evidently been announced by the prefects.
“What a gloomy old piece of rubber the Gumshoe is!” muttered Kit, asthey were entering. “Fancy soaking me a pensum two minutes after I’mback at school. Hey, you fellows!” he cried, “what’s this racket?”
A dozen boys started to explain together, so that from their noisychatter nothing could be gathered, except “Woods,” “caves” andexecrations on the Head and the Sixth, with Kit’s lament on the gloomyMr. Roylston rising above it all like a dismal howl.
A Fourth Form boy,—Barney Clayton, by name,—thrust a red head throughthe open doorway. “Oh, fy!” he yelled, “what a precious howl you kidsare letting out! What’s the matter? does the prohibition against cavesrile your independent spirits?”
“Get out, you red-head!” rose in angry chorus; and one boy shieda dog-eared Latin book at the fiery shock in the doorway. In asecond a shower of missiles,—ink-stands, books, chairs, waste-paperbasket,—went flying through the doorway and out into the corridor.Barney ducked his head and fled, shouting back derisive taunts. Thecommotion attracted the attention of Mr. Roylston at his post in themain hall, and he came flying to quell the disturbance. And, alas!he arrived just at a moment to receive full in the face the contentsof a waste-paper basket, which Kit had flung. The débris descendedupon him in comical fashion. The poor gentleman was speechless withindignation; but the situation was too much for
the boys; despite hisangry countenance, his blazing black eyes, they greeted his appearancewith shouts of laughter.
He waited, inarticulate with rage, until the commotion ceased, finallyquelling them to a spell-bound silence by the sheer force of hisanger, and a little also, by the righteousness of his cause.
“In the whole course of my career as a schoolmaster,” the master saidat last, with a nervous jerk to each phrase, but pronouncing each wordwith the deadly precision of a judge uttering a capital sentence, “Ihave never been met with such gratuitous insult. Every member of thisform will consider himself on bounds until further notice. As foryou, Wilson, you shall be reported immediately to the Head, and if myrecommendation can effect it, you will receive the caning you deserve.”
“We were not throwing at you—we didn’t know you were coming—” beganKit.
“Silence! do not add hypocrisy to insolence. You had been told to go toyour rooms.... Disperse now at once, and do not show yourselves beforesupper. You Wilson, Lawrence and Deering, remain behind and clean upthis disgusting mess. It is not surprising, I may say, that the Headfeels himself unable to trust this form in the Woods this winter.” Andwith this parting shot, Mr. Roylston turned and walked away, with whatdignity he could command.
The boys, somewhat subdued by the dispiriting announcement of bounds,marched off gloomily, and our three friends stayed behind and began toclear up the débris.
“Well,” said Kit at last, turning a half-merry, half-rueful countenanceto his companions, as he seated himself upon a broken chair, “whata gloomy ass it is! But, oh my dears, did you observe his beautifulpea-green, Nile blue, ultramarine phiz as the contents of thewaste-basket descended upon his lean and hairless chops? Oh, my! what ahome-coming! what a sweet heart to heart talk we’ve all had together!”
“And a jolly good caning you’ll get, Kitty, when Gumshoe has had histalk with the Doctor.”
“Jolly good,” replied Kit, rubbing his legs with a wry face. “But inthe meantime, mes enfants,” he continued, “since I am to be swished, itshall not be that I suffer unjustly; we are going to make the swishingworth while. We are off to the Woods this minute. We’ll take the stuffover, stow it in the cave, put up a notice, and be back by supper. I’llbe hanged if I’ll pay any attention to Gumshoe’s twaddle about boundsor to the Doctor’s nonsense about caves. Are you with me, Jimmie, oldboy?”
“Well, rather,” Jimmie replied. “The experience of the last quarter ofan hour has quite discouraged me with regard to the peace and quiet andhealthy conversation us nice boys ought to have in form common-room.”
Tony had kept silent. “Well, are you going to cut for a quitter?” askedKit, turning upon him with an indignant glare.
“Not I,” said Tony quickly.
“Then help stow this truck. We’ve an hour and a half till supper, andthe Gumshoe will undoubtedly think we have _disperrssed_ to our rooms.”And he gave an absurd imitation of Mr. Roylston’s manner of speaking.
Ten minutes later they were running down the slope of Deal Hill, underthe cover of the stone walls; then tearing across the frozen marshes,and clambering up the steep banks and crags that bounded the westside of Lovel’s Woods. The sun was sinking in the west, and its richmellow golden light fell athwart the snow-clad woodland, flooding itwith glory, save where the great masses of pine and cedar cast broadsplotches of shadow. The splendid loveliness of the dying afternoon,the biting cold of the wind, the thrill of doing the forbidden, filledTony with a delicious sense of happiness and adventure.
Each boy had his arms full of cooking utensils, food, boxes—the variedparaphernalia of a cave. It had been an ancient custom at Deal duringthe winter for boys to have caves in Lovel’s Woods, where they cookedweird messes during the afternoons when there was no skating. This yearthe Doctor, owing to certain abuses reported by the prefects the yearbefore, had decided to restrict the use of caves to the three upperforms.
Kit had a particular cave in mind, far away on the remote side ofwhat was known as the Third Ridge, a cave that he and Jimmie andTeddy Lansing had had together the year before as Second Formers.This desirable spot was a natural formation in the rocky side of thefarther of the three ridges of which Lovel’s Woods consisted. It waspractically inaccessible from below, and the entrance above, wellconcealed by a clump of low cedars, was a narrow cleft in the rocks, atthe extreme edge of which the initiated might descend to the cave by aseries of dangerous steps which the boys had fashioned in the side ofthe precipitous cliff.
Tony and Kit climbed down into the cave, while Jimmie, lying flaton the ledge above, handed down to them the supply of stores. Thesewere safely stowed in a strong box, which had lasted out the previousseason, and made secure. When the boys had clambered up again, theydiscovered that the sun had set and the darkness was gathering swiftly.The clear crescent of the new moon hung in the western sky a band ofgold, and the evening star was rising over the ocean.
“Twenty minutes to supper: we can just make it,” exclaimed Kit, lookingat his watch. “Heave ahead, my hearties, and let’s run for it.”
And run they did, at breakneck speed along the mazy paths, through thetangled undergrowth, over the slippery crags, across the frozen marsh.Kit, the imprudent, was impudently singing at the top of his shrillvoice the verses of one of the School songs.
“Out of the briny east, Out of the frosty north, Over the school-topp’d hill, Whistle the shrill winds forth.
“Over the waves a-quiver, Over the salt sedge grass, Over the beaches tawny, The bright wind spirits pass.”
And the other two boys took up the ringing refrain,
“Grapple them e’er they go, Grapple them e’er they go.”
Luck was with them. They reached the school as the great bell in theChapel struck six. Five minutes later, after a hasty wash and brush-upin their rooms, they were in the great library, shaking hands with theDoctor and Mrs. Forester and with masters and boys.
The three, more closely united than ever by their sense of sharinga dangerous secret, kept together during chapel, and directly afterwere for making off to Jimmie’s room, when Sandy Maclaren, lookingwonderfully handsome and “swagger” in his town clothes, laid a heavyhand on Kit’s shoulder. “Not so fast, boy. The Doctor wants to see youinstanter at the Rectory.”
Kit heaved a sigh in mock heroics. “Hail, blithe spirits,” he lamented,murdering his quotation, “hail and farewell.”
The boys pressed his hands heartily. “Is it a caning, Sandy?” theyasked.
“Well, I rather think so,” answered Maclaren, with a smile. “Youweren’t very keen not to distinguish between Barney Clayton and Mr.Roylston.”
“They were both butting in,” protested Kit.
“Well, cut along now. And you two report to Bill, he’s looking for you.”
Kit found the Doctor in his comfortable study at the Rectory, standingbefore a glowing log fire, with his swallow-tails spread to the blaze.
“Ah, Christopher,” the Head Master exclaimed, shaking hands with theculprit, “I’m glad to see you.”
“Thank you, sir. Maclaren said you wanted to see me particularly?”
“I do, most particularly. Take off your coat.”
Kit backed a little. “But, sir——”
“Yes, my boy, I dare say you have full and ample explanations, butI am quite sure they will not impress me. I know that you were butone of many in this fracas, and that it is your misfortune—shallI say?—rather than your fault that your particular missile tookunfortunate effect. But we must all suffer at times for our mistakes,perhaps a little unjustly. The moment has struck when you must suffertoo. The sooner we get at this business the sooner it will be over.”
“Very good, sir,” said Kit, and silently removed his coat. And then theDoctor took a familiar implement of stout old hickory from a corner,and swished him soundly. Those were the happy days when debts againstschool discipline were so quickly and effectively liquidated.
Kit bore no grudge to
the Doctor, and comparatively little toMr. Roylston. “It was worth it,” he confessed to Jimmie and Tonyafterwards, “and I rather think this lets me out, conscientiously letsme out, you know, from paying attention to his futile announcement ofbounds.”
It goes without saying that the Doctor’s prohibition against Lovel’sWoods was about as unpopular a rule as had ever been promulgated.Combined with the fact that the Third Form were bounded for a month,as a consequence of their trouble with Mr. Roylston, the Lower Schoolbegan the term in a bad mood. The Third Formers were particularlydisgruntled with the prefects, who had assumed the responsibility ofkeeping Lovel’s Woods in order. It appeared that smoking had beenindulged in the year before quite extensively by some of the youngerboys, and gambling was suspected on the part of a few of the olderones. The Doctor’s rule had been more in the nature of a preventivethan a punishment.
But the effort to keep the rule effective was more of an undertakingthan the prefects had realized; for they felt themselves requiredpractically to police the forbidden district, a task, the novelty ofwhich soon wore off. With the older boys caves were not particularlypopular. Chapin and Marsh started one together, and moved into itthe paraphernalia that they had hitherto kept stored in the cave onthe beach by Beaver Creek. All of the prefects, acting on Maclaren’sadvice, gave up their caves in order to set an example; with the resultthat there were hardly more than a dozen in official operation.
For the first few weeks of the term the prefects were so zealous intheir police duties that few boys cared to run the risk of “skipping”to the Woods. Even our three friends, despite their firm resolution toevade the rule, for the time being felt it the part of wisdom to lielow. Accordingly they avoided the Woods as if it were plague strickenand industriously played hockey every afternoon on Deal Great Pond,which was fully two miles away. But toward the end of January a thawset in, the skating was spoiled, a heavy snow came, and their usualsports were interrupted; consequently the temptation to visit thecave _sub rosa_ grew stronger than ever. Gradually also the inclementweather dampened the ardor of the prefects and they began to relaxtheir vigilance over the forbidden territory. And we may say in passingthat Tony and Jimmie and Kit spent several delightful afternoons intheir hiding-place, and the parts of one or two wildly thrilling nightsafter lights.
Despite his nefarious proceedings in contravention of the rules, be itsaid to his credit, Tony was making good his resolution of “poling”at his books, and felt confident of taking a good stand in the schoolwhen the ranks were read at the beginning of February. The footballgame, so far as his part in it was concerned, as Morris had predicted,seemed forgotten. He avoided Chapin as much as he could, and when theyinevitably met he treated him with a courteous indifference which theolder boy doubtless understood and was thankful to accept.
Carroll, after a vacation spent in New York where he had seen all ofthe plays and dined at the best restaurants and gone to many moredances than were good for his health, returned to the school more thanever dissatisfied and disgruntled with the life he led in it. The talkwith Mr. Morris about Tony, the consciousness that they possessed animportant secret in common, served a little to make his relations withhis house master easier, but he was still unable to give his friendshipin the easy way he longed to give it. Neither, to his deepening chagrinand regret, was he making progress in his friendship with Deering, forTony was more than ever absorbed in the life of his form, and spentall his free time with Wilson and Lawrence. He seemed unconscious ofthe affection he had won from Carroll and this, with Carroll’s intenseconsciousness of how completely his affection was going out, served tomake their relations anything but free and spontaneous. So far as Tonythought about his room-mate that term it was as of an older fellow withwhom he was not very congenial, and of whose laziness and indifferentattitude toward the school he did not approve. He thought Carroll to bewasting his time both at his books and in the school life, in eitherof which he could have counted immensely. Had Tony been less absorbedin his younger friends, he would probably have found a good deal inReggie to like and value, as earlier in the year he had begun to feelhe should.
From his cozy den in the midst of Standerland Hall, surrounded by hiswell-loved books, his few but carefully chosen pictures, Mr. Morriswatched the life throbbing about him with sympathetic insight andkeen interest. He was not one of those fortunate schoolmasters who donot allow their profession to engage their affections. Morris, witha surrender that was effectually a sacrifice, for he had gifts andopportunities that might have won him a finer place in the world,gave his life completely to the school. He had loved it as a boy, hehad looked back upon it during college with fond recollection andyearning, and after three years or so at a professional school, havingtaken his examinations for the bar, he had gone back to accept Dr.Forester’s offer of a mastership. For half-a-dozen years he had beenthere now, and each year the place and the boys got a deeper hold uponhis heart and his interest. He was scrupulously fair and evenly kind;therefore deservedly popular; but despite this he had his favoriteboys, not usually known as such by the school at large, to whom hegave a special affection and a deeper interest. From the first day,when Deering, with his sparkling eyes and bright, clear-cut, eagerface, had come to him for a seat in the schoolroom, he had felt forhim that keen attraction which, as he grew to know the boy’s highspirits, lively sense of honor, and sunshiny nature, had deepened to areal affection. In Carroll also he had always felt a special interest,and had been glad when Tony was put to room with him. He saw Reggie’sgrowing devotion to Deering, and was sorry that Tony did not respondto a greater extent. Morris felt that Carroll needed the strengtheninginfluence of a strong unselfish friendship with the right sort of boyto help make a man of him. Occasionally Morris had the two boys withothers in his rooms for tea or on Saturday nights for a rarebit and abit of supper, but otherwise occasions did not present themselves forhis getting to know them better. He was sorry for this, but saw no verysatisfactory way of making them. By the end of January it seemed tohim that Reggie was in quite the worst attitude that he had ever been,thoroughly indifferent to the work and life of the school.
Deering of Deal; Or, The Spirit of the School Page 10