St. Winifred's; or, The World of School

by F. W. Farrar

  CHAPTER SIX.

  A BURST OF WILFULNESS.

  --Nunquamne reponam Vexatus toties?

  Juvenal i. i.

  Although Walter's football triumphs prevented him from losingself-respect and sinking into wretchlessness or desperation, they didnot save him from his usual arrears of punishment and extra work.Besides this, it annoyed him bitterly to be always, and in spite of alleffort, bottom, or nearly bottom, of his form. He knew that thisgrieved and disappointed his parents nearly as much as himself, and hefeared that they would not understand the reason which, in his case,rendered it excusable--viz., the enormous amount of purely routine workfor which other boys had been prepared by previous training, and inwhich, under his present discouragements and inconveniences, he felt itimpossible to recover ground. It was hard to be below boys to whom heknew himself to be superior in every intellectual quality; it was hardfor a boy really clever and lively, to be set down at once as an idlerand dunce. And it made Walter very miserable. For meanwhile Mr Patonhad taken quite a wrong view of his character. He answered so well attimes, construed so happily, and showed such bright flashes ofintelligence and interest in parts of his work, that Mr Paton, makingno allowances for new methods and an untrained memory, set him down, byan error of judgment, as at once able and obstinate, capable of doingexcellently, and wilfully refusing to do so. This was a phase ofcharacter which always excited his indignation; and it was for the boy'sown sake that he set himself to correct it, if possible. On both sides,therefore, there was some misunderstanding, and a consequentexacerbation of mind which told injuriously on their daily intercourse.

  Walter's vexation and misery reached its acme on the receipt by hisfather of his first school character, which document his father sentback for Walter's own perusal, with a letter which, if not actuallyreproachful, was at least uneasy and dissatisfied in tone.

  For the character itself Walter cared little, knowing well that it wasfounded throughout on misapprehension; but his father's letter stirredthe very depths of his heart, and made them turbid with passion andsorrow. He received it at dinner-time, and read it as he went acrossthe court to the detention-room, of which he was now so frequent anoccupant. It was a bright September day, and he longed to be out atsome game, or among the hills, or on the shore. Instead of that, he wasdoomed for his failures to two long weary hours of mechanicalpen-driving, of which the results were torn up when the two hours wereover. He had had no exercise for the last week; all his spare time hadbeen taken up with impositions; Mr Robertson had given him a severe andangry lecture that morning; even Mr Paton, who rarely used stronglanguage, had called him intolerable and incorrigible, and hadthreatened a second report to the headmaster, because this was the tenthsuccessive Greek grammar lesson in which he had failed. Added to allthis, he was suffering from headache and lassitude. And now hisfather's letter was the cumulus of his misfortunes. A rebellious,indignant, and violent spirit rose in him. Was he always, for no faultof his own, to be bullied, baited, driven, misunderstood, and crushed inthis way? If it was of no use trying to be good, and to do his duty,how would it do to try the other experiment--to fling off the trammelsof duty and principle altogether; to do all those things whichinclination suggested and the moral sense forbade; to enjoy himself; todeclare himself on the side of pleasure and self-indulgence? Certainlythis would save him from much unpleasantness and annoyance in many ways.He was young, vigorous, active; he might easily make himself morepopular than he was with the boys; and as for the authorities, do whathe would, it appeared that he could hardly be in worse disrepute thannow. Vice bade high: as he thought of it all, his pen flew faster, andhis pulse seemed to send the blood bounding through his veins as hetightened the grasp of his left-hand round the edge of the desk.

  Hitherto the ideal which he had set before him, as the standard to beattained during his school-life, had been one in which a successfuldevotion to duty, and a real effort to attain to "godliness and goodlearning," had borne the largest share. But on this morning a verydifferent ideal rose before him; he would abandon all interest in schoolwork, and only aim at being a gay, high-spirited boy, living solely forpleasure, amusement, and self-indulgence. There were many such aroundhim--heroes among their schoolfellows, popular, applauded, and proud.Sin seemed to sit lightly and gracefully upon them. Endowed as he waswith every gift of person and appearance, to this condition at least hefelt that he could easily attain. It was an ideal not, alas! unnaturalto the perilous age:

  "Which claims for manhood's vice the privilege Of boyhood--when young Dionysius seems All joyous as he burst upon the East A jocund and a welcome conqueror; And Aphrodite, sweet as from the sea She rose, and floated in her pearly shell A laughing girl; when lawless will erects Honour's gay temple on the Mount of God, And meek obedience bears the coward's brand; While Satan in celestial panoply With Sin, his lady, smiling by his side, Defies all heaven to arms."

  Yes; he would follow the multitude to do all the evil which he saw beingdone around him; it looked a joyous and delightful prospect. He gazedon the bright vision of sin, on the iridescent waters of pleasure; anddid not know that the brightness was a mirage of the burning desert, theiridescence a film of corruption over a stagnant pool.

  The letter from home was his chief stumbling-block. He loved his fatherand mother with almost passionate devotion; he clung to his home with anintensity of concentrated love. He really had tried to please them, andto do his best; but yet they didn't seem to give him credit for it.Look at this cold reproachful letter; it maddened him to think of it.

  There was only one thing which checked him. It was a little voice,which had been more silent lately, because other and passionate toneswere heard more loudly; but yet even from a child poor Walter had beenaccustomed to listen with reverence to its admonitions. It was a voicebehind him saying--"This is the way, walk ye in it," now that he wasturning aside to the right-hand or to the left. But the noble accentsin which it whispered of patience were drowned just now in the clamorousturbulence of those other voices of appeal.

  The two hours of detention were over, and the struggle was over too.Walter drew his pen with a fierce and angry scrawl over the lines he hadwritten, showed them up to the master in attendance with a careless andalmost impudent air, and was hardly out of the room before he gave ashout of emancipation and defiance. Impatience and passion had won theday.

  He ran up to the playground as hard as he could tear to work off theexcitement of his spirits, and get rid of the inward turmoil. On agrass bank at the far end of it he saw two boys seated, whom he knew atonce to be Henderson and Kenrick, who, for a wonder, were reading, notgreen novels, but Shakespeare!

  "I'll tell you what it is, Henderson," he said; "I _can't_ and I _won't_stand this any longer. It's the last detention breaks the boy's back.I hate Saint Winifred's, I hate Dr Lane, I hate Robertson, and I _hate,hate, hate_ Paton!" he said, stamping angrily.

  "Hooroop!" said Henderson; "so the patient Evson is on fire at last.Tell it not to Dubbs."

  "Why, Walter, what's all this about?" asked Kenrick.

  "Why, Ken," said Walter, more quietly, "here's a history of my life:Greek grammar, lines, detention, caning--caning, detention, lines, Greekgrammar. I'm sick of it; I _can't_ and I _won't_ stand it any more."

  "Whether," spouted Henderson, from the volume on his knee--

  "`Whether 'twere nobler for the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, Or to take arms against a sea of troubles. And by opposing end them!'"

  "End them I will," said Walter; "somehow, I'll pay him out, depend uponit."

  "Recte si possis si non quocunque modo," said Somers, the head of theschool, whose fag Walter was, and who, passing by at the moment, caughtthe last sentence; "what is the excitement among you small boys?"

  "The old story--pitching into Paton," said Kenrick indifferently, andrather contemptuously; for he was a _protege_ of Somers, and feltannoyed that he should see Walter's unreaso
nable display, the more so asSomers had asked him already, "why he was so much with that idle newfellow who was always being placed lag in his form?"

  "What's it all about?" asked Somers of Kenrick.

  "Because he gets lines for missing his grammar, I suppose." There wassomething in the tone which was especially offensive to Walter; for itsounded as if Kenrick wanted to show him the cold shoulder before his_great_ friend, the head of the school.

  "Oh, _that_ all? Well, my dear fellow, the remedy's easy; work at it alittle harder;" and Somers walked on, humming a tune.

  "I wonder what he calls _harder_," said Walter, shaking his fist; "whenI first came I used to get up quite early in the morning, and learn ittill I was half-stupid; I wonder whether he ever did as much?"

  "Well, but it's no good abusing Paton," said Kenrick; "of course, if youdon't know the lesson, he concludes you haven't learnt it."

  "Thank you for nothing, Kenrick," said Walter curtly; "come along,Flip."

  Kenrick was vexed; he was conscious of having shown a little coolnessand want of sympathy; and he looked anxiously after Henderson and Walteras they walked away.

  Presently he started up, and ran after them. "Don't be offended,Walter, my boy," he said, seizing his hand. "I didn't mean to be coldjust now; but, really, I don't see why you should be so very wrathfulwith Paton; what can a master do if one fails in a lesson two or threetimes running? he must punish one, I suppose."

  "Hang Paton," said Walter, shaking off his hand rather angrily, for hewas now thoroughly out of temper.

  "O, very well, Evson," said Kenrick, whose chief fault was an intensepride, which took fire on the least provocation, and which made him takeumbrage at the slightest offence; "catch me making an advance to youagain. Henderson, you left your book on the grass;" and turning on hisheel, he walked slowly away--heavy at heart, for he liked Walter betterthan any other boy in the school, and was half ashamed to break with himabout such a trifle.

  Henderson, apart from his somewhat frivolous and nonsensical tone, was awell-meaning fellow. When he was walking with Walter, he had intendedto chaff him about his sudden burst of ill-temper, and jest away hisspirit of revenge; but he saw that poor Walter was in no mood for jokes,and he quite lacked the moral courage to give good advice in a sober orserious way, or to recommend any course _because_ it was right. This,at present, was beyond Henderson's standard of good, so he left Walterand went back for his book.

  And Walter, flinging into the schoolroom, found several spirits seventimes more wicked than himself, and fed the fire of his wrath with thefuel of unbounded abuse, mockery, and scorn of Mr Paton, in which hewas heartily abetted by the others, who hailed all indications thatWalter was likely to become one of themselves. And that evening,instead of attempting to get up any of his work, Walter wasted the wholetime of preparation in noise, folly, and turbulence; for which he wasduly punished by the master on duty.

  He got up next morning breathing, with a sense of defiance andenjoyment, his new atmosphere of self-will. He, of course, broke downutterly, more utterly than ever, in his morning lessons, and got aproportionately longer imposition. Going back to his place, hepurposely flung down his books on the desk, one after another with abang; and for each book which he had flung down, Mr Paton gave him ahundred lines, whereupon he laughed sarcastically, and got two hundredmore. Conscious that the boys were watching with some amusement thislittle exhibition of temper and trial of wills, he then took out a sheetof paper, wrote on it, in large letters, the words Two Hundred Lines forMr Paton, and, amid the tittering of the form, carried it up to MrPaton's desk.

  This was the most astoundingly impudent and insubordinate act which hadever been done to Mr Paton for years, and it was now his turn to beangry. But mastering his anger with admirable determination, he merelysaid, "Evson, you must be beside yourself this morning; it is veryrarely, indeed, that a new boy is so far gone in disobedience as this.I have no hesitation in saying that you are the most audacious andimpertinent new boy with whom I have ever had to deal. I must cane youin my room after detention, to which you will of course go."

  "Thank you, sir," said Walter, with a smile of impudent _sang froid_;and the form tittered again as he walked noisily to his seat. But MrPaton, allowing for his violent frame of mind, took no notice of thislast affront.

  Whereupon Walter, taking another large piece of paper, and a splutteringquill pen, wrote on it, with a great deal of scratching--

  Due from Evson to Mr Paton.

  For missing lesson... 100 lines. For laying down books... 300 lines. For laughing... 200 lines. For writing 200 lines... A caning.

  Detention, of course. Thank you for nothing.

  And on the other side of the sheet he wrote in large letters--"No Go!"Which, being done, he passed the sheet along the form _pour encouragerles autres_.

  "Evson," said Mr Paton, quietly, "bring me that paper."

  Walter took it up--looking rather alarmed this time--but with the side"_No go_!" uppermost.

  "What is this, Evson?"

  "Number ninety, sir," said Walter, amid the now unconcealed laughter ofthe rest, who knew very well that he had intended it for "No go."

  Mr Paton looked curiously at Walter for a minute, and then said,"Evson, Evson, I could not have thought you so utterly foolish. Well,you know that each fresh act _must_ have its fresh punishment. You mustleave the room now, and _besides all your other punishments_ I must alsoreport you to the headmaster. You can best judge with what result."

  This was a mistake of Mr Paton's--a mistake of judgment only--for whichhe cannot be blamed. But it was a disastrous mistake. Had he been atall a delicate judge or reader of the phenomena of character, he wouldhave observed at once that at that moment there was a wild spirit ofanger, a rankling sense of injustice and persecution in Walter's heart,which no amount of punishment could have cowed. Walter just then mightwithout the least difficulty have been goaded into some act of violencewhich would have rendered expulsion from the school an unavoidableconsequence. So easy is it to petrify the will, to make a boy bad inspite of himself, and to spoil, with no intentions but those ofkindliness and justice, the promise of a fair young life. For when thewill has once been suffered to grow rigid by obstinacy--a result whichis very easy to avoid--no power on earth can bend it _at the time_. HadMr Paton sent Walter out of the room before; had he at the end said,"Evson, you are not yourself to-day, and I forgive you," Walter wouldhave been in a moment as docile and as humble as a child. But as itwas, he left the room quite coolly, with a sneer on his lips, and bangedthe door; yet the next moment, when he found himself in the court alone,unsupported by the countenance of those who enjoyed his rebelliousness,he seated himself on a bench in the courtyard, hung his head on hisbreast, and burst into a flood of tears. If any friend could have seenhim at that moment, or spoken one word in season, how much pain the poorboy might have been saved! Kenrick happened to cross the court; themoment Walter caught sight of him he sat with head erect and armsfolded, but Kenrick was not to be deceived. He had caught one glimpseof Walter first; he saw his eyes wet with tears, and knew that he was introuble. He hung on his foot doubtfully for one moment--but then hispride came in; he remembered the little pettish repulse in theplayground the day before; the opportunity was lost, and he walkedslowly on. And Walter's heart grew as hard within him as a stone.