by F. W. Farrar
PART II.
OLD AND NEW FACES.
Pudorem, amicitiam, pudicitiam, divina atque humana promiscum, nihil pensi neque moderati habere.
Sallust.
And now, gentle or ungentle reader, we must imagine that two whole yearshave passed since the conclusion of those summer holidays, before weagain meet our young friends of Saint Winifred's.
The two years--as what years are not?--have been full of change. Walkacross the court with me, and let us discover what we can about thepresent state of things.
The first we meet are Walter and Power--taller and manlier looking thanthey were, but otherwise little changed in appearance. Walter, with hisdark hair and blue eyes, his graceful figure and open face, is still thehandsome, attractive-looking boy we used to see. Power, too, has thesame refined, thoughtful look, the same delicate yet noble features, thesame eyes, which we recognise at once as the clear and bright index of abeautiful and unstained soul.
And neither of these boys has failed in their promise of their earlierdays, and the warm friendship with which they regarded each other hasdone much to bring about this result. Each in his own way has rejoicedin his youth, has passed an innocent and happy boyhood, stored withpleasant reminiscences for after days, filled with high hopes and manlyprinciples, with habits well-regulated, and that fine self-control whichhad taught them--
"Rapt in reverential awe, To sit, self-governed in the fiery prime Of youth, obedient at the feet of law."
They have enjoyed the gifts of early years without squandering them inwasteful profusion; they have felt and known that the purest pleasureswere also the sweetest and the most permanent. Their minds are wellcultivated, their bodies are in vigorous health, their hearts areglowing with generous impulse and warm enthusiasm; and if sorrow shouldever darken their after years, it can never drive them to despair, forthey have wandered in the pleasant paths of wisdom, they have drunk thepure cup of innocence, they will carry out of the torrid zone of youthclear consciences, unremorseful memories, and unpolluted minds.
Who is this who saunters across the playground, talking in loud,self-confident tones with two or three fellows round him, his hands inhis pockets, his air haughty and nonchalant, and his cap a little on oneside? He is still pleasant looking, his face still shows thecapabilities for good and great things, but we are obliged to say ofhim:
"Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore!"
Yes, Kenrick--for it is he--is altered for the worse. Something orother has left, in its traces upon his face, the history of twodegenerate years. His cheek does not look as if it were capable anylonger of an ingenuous blush, and there is a curl about his lip andnostril which speaks of perpetual unhealthy scorn, that child ofmortified vanity and conceit, which brazens out the reproaches ofself-distrust and self-reproach. See with what a careless, almostpatronising, air he barely notices the master who is passing by him. Hehas just flung a slight nod to Power, studiously taking care not tonotice Walter at all. Look, too, at the boys who are with him; they arenot boys with whom we like to see him; they are an idle lot, precociousonly in folly and in vice. And that little fellow, who seems to be hisespecial favourite, is not at all to our taste; he seems the coolest ofthem all. For during the last few years Kenrick has entirely lost hisbalance; he has deserted his best friends for the adulation of youngerboys, who fed his vanity, and the society of elder boys, who pervertedhis thoughts, and vitiated his habits. He has slackened in the careerof honourable industry, he has deflected from the straight paths ofintegrity and virtue. Already the fresh eagerness of youth has palledinto satiety, already some of its sparkling-wine for him is bitter asvinegar; with him already pleasure has become hectic fever instead of ahealthy glow. Alas! he is not happy. Within these two years he haslost--and his countenance betrays the fact in its ruined beauty--he haslost the true joys of youth, and known instead of them the troubles ofthe envious, the fears of the cowardly, the heaviness of the slothful,the shame of the unclean. He has lost something of the instinctiveshrinking, even in thought, from all that is vile and base, the loathingof falsehood, the kindness that will not willingly give pain, thehumility which has lowly thoughts of its own worth; he has lost his joyin things lovely, and excellent, and of good report; he has changed themfor the mirth of fools, which is like crackling thorns--changed them forthe feet that go down to death, for the steps that lay hold of hell. Itis a mean price for which he has sold his peace of conscience--"thesweetness of the cup that is charged with poison, the beauty of theserpent whose bite is death."
Eden, who is seated reading on one of the benches by the wall, hasrecovered from his illness, but he is not, and never will be, what, butfor Harpour's brutality, he might have been. He is a nervous, timid,intellectual boy. No game, unfortunately, has any attraction for him.The large liquid eyes, swimming sometimes with strange lustre, and oftenvarying in colour, the delicate flush which any pulse of emotion drivesglowing into the somewhat pale face, give to him an almost girlishaspect, and tell the tale of a weakened constitution. Eden'sdevelopment has been quite altered by his fright; most of the vivacityand playfulness of his character has vanished; and although it flashesout with pleasant mirth when he is alone with his few closest friends,such as Walter and Power, his manner is, for the most part, very quietand reserved. Yet Eden has a position of his own in the school; andunobtrusive as he is, his opinion is always listened to with kindnessand respect. When he came into school again after his recovery he wasreceived, as I have said already, with almost brotherly affection by allthe boys, who felt how much he had been wronged. He became the childand protege of the school, and any cruelty to _him_ would, after this,have been violently resented. Devoting himself wholly to work andreading, he became very successful in his progress, and is now in thesecond fifth. But what chiefly marks him is his extreme gentleness, andthe eager way in which he strives to help all the younger and mosthelpless boys. Experience of suffering has given him a keen sympathywith the oppressed, and young as he is he is still doing a useful work.
There is Harpour playing rackets, and he is playing remarkably well. Heis now nineteen, and a personage of immense importance in the school,for he is head of the cricket eleven, Walter being head of the football.Harpour is quite unchanged, and if he was doing mischief when we knewhim two years ago, he is doing twice as much mischief now. Hisinfluence is unmitigatedly pernicious. With just enough cunning skillto escape detection, he yet signalises himself by complicity in everyform of wrong which goes on in the school, and some new wrongs heintroduces and invents. But nothing delights him so much as toinstigate other boys to resist the authority of the masters. They knowhim to be a nucleus of disorder and wickedness, but he has acted withsuch consummate ingenuity as to avoid even laying himself open to anydistinct proof of his many offences.
He is just now stopping for a minute in his game to talk to those threeboys, who have been strutting up and down the court arm in arm, and whomwe easily recognise. The one with the red puffy face, with an enormousgold pin in his cravat, a bunch of charms hanging to his chain, and aring on his hand, which he loses no opportunity of displaying, is ourfriend Jones, with vulgarity as usual stamped on every feature, anddisplayed in every movement which he makes; the tall slim fellow, withan air of feeble fastness, an indecisive mouth, a habit of running hishand through his light-coloured hair, and a gaze which usually settlesin fixed admiration on his faultless boots, can be no one but HowardTracy; the third, a fellow with far more meaning and strength in hisface, betrays himself to be Mackworth, by the insinuating plausibilityand Belial-like grace of his manner and aspect. A dangerous serpentthis; one never sees him, or hears him speak, or observes the darkglitter of his eye, without being reminded of a cerastes lythelyrustling through the dry grass towards its victim.
And there at last--I thought we should never see him--is our dear youngjoker of jokes, the same unaltered Flip whom we know, running down theschool steps. His face is overflowing with mirth and fun, and n
ow he isstopping and holding both his sides for laughter, while, with littletouches of his own, he retails some of the strange blunders which Blisshas made in the _viva voce_ examination that morning; to which hisfriend Whalley listens with the same good-humoured smile which he had ofold. Henderson is a perfect mimic, but never uses his powers of mimicryin an ill-natured spirit; and his imitation of Bliss's stolid perplexityand Dr Lane's comments are very ludicrous. While he is in the middleof this narrative, Bliss himself appears on the scene and relieves hisfeelings by delivering the only pun he ever made in his life, andobserving, in a solemn tone of voice--
"Flip, don't be flippant;" a remark which he has substituted for the"I'll lick you, Flip," of old days.
"You dear old Blissidas, I _think_ I've heard that pun once or twicebefore," observes Henderson, calmly pulling undone the bow of Bliss'snecktie, and running off to escape retaliation, followed at his leisureby Whalley, who knows Bliss to be much too lazy to pursue the chase veryfar.
Let us come and hear--for we have put on our cap of darkness and areinvisible, coming and going where we like, unobserved--what our fourfast friends at the racket-court are talking about.
"We shall have lots of larks this half," observes Harpour, leaning onhis racket.
"Yes; such fun, old boy," answers Jones.
"I declare this dull old place was getting quite lively before lastholidays," says Mackworth; "we shall soon get things all right here."
"Fancy that fellow Power head of the school," said Harpour, burstinginto a roar of scornful laughter, echoed in faint sniggerings by Jonesand Tracy.
"Might as well have a jug of milk and water head of the school," sneeredMackworth.
"Or a bottle of French polish, I should think," casually suggestsHenderson, who, _en passant_, has heard the last remark.
"Damn that fellow," says Mackworth, stamping, "by Jove, I'll be evenwith him some day."
"Is he one of the new monitors?" asks Jones.
"Yes," says Tracy, "and Evson's another;" and at Walter's name the facesof all four grew darker; "and Kenrick's a third."
"O, Kenrick is, is he? that's all right. Jolly fellow is Ken," observesHarpour, approvingly. "Yes, quite up to snuff," adds Jones; "and athorough gentlemanly chap," assents Mackworth; for, amazing to relate,Kenrick is on good terms with these fellows now, though he has neverspoken to Walter yet.
"Of good family, too, on the mother's side," drawls Tracy, with his handlifting his locks.
"I say, old fellows," says Harpour, with many knowing looks and winks,and poking of his friends in the ribs. "I say, stunning tap at Dan's,you know, eh? I say;" whereupon the others laugh, and Belial Mackworthobserves, "And let those monitors try to peach if they dare. We'll soonhave _them_ under our thumb."
After which, as their conversation is supremely repulsive, let us go andtake a breath of delicious pure sea air, and seat ourselves by Walterand Power on the shore. Walter is in good, and even gay spirits, beingfresh from Semlyn, but Power seems a little grave and depressed.
"Look, Walter," he says, shying a round stone at a bit of embedded rockabout twenty yards before them, but missing it; "I believe it was thatidentical rock--"
"_That_ identical rock," said Walter, taking a better shot, and hittingit; "well, what about it?"
"--On which you were standing one autumn evening three years ago, whenthe tide was coming in--"
"And to save me wet trousers you took off your shoes and stockings, andcarried me in on your back," said Walter. "I remember it well, Rex; itwas a happy day for me. I recollect I'd been very miserable; it wasafter the Paton affair, you know, and every one was cutting me. Yourcoming to speak to me was about the last thing in the world I expectedand the best thing I could have hoped. I'd often wanted to know you,longed to have you as a friend; but I used to lock up to you as such ayoung swell in those days that I never thought we should meet eachother."
"Pooh!" said Power; "but wasn't it good now of me to break the ice andspeak first? I declare, I think I've never done it with any one else._You'd_ never have done it--now confess? Only fancy, we mightn't haveknown each other till this day."
"I shouldn't have done it at _that_ time," said Walter, "because I wasin Coventry; but--well, never mind, Rex, we understand each other. Iwas looking at some porpoises, I remember."
"Yes; happy days they were after that. I wish the time was back again!Fancy you a monitor, and me head of the school!"
"Fancy! we've got up the school so much faster than we used to expect."
"Yes; but I wish we could change places, and you be head and I sixthmonitor as you are. You'll help me, Walter, won't you?"
"You don't doubt that, Rex, I'm sure; _all_ the help _I_ can give isyours."
"If it weren't for that, I think I would have left, Walter. I don'tthink, somehow, I've influence enough for head. I'm not swell enough atthe games."
"You play though now, and enjoy them; and I don't half believe you, Rex,when you talked of having wished to leave. That would have beencowardice, you know, and you're not the boy to leave your post."
"Here I am then in my place, armour on, visor down, determined not tofly, like the Roman soldier whose skeleton was found in the sentry boxat Pompeii," said Power, playfully getting up and assuming a militaryattitude.
"And here am I," said Walter, laughing, as he stood beside him with onefoot advanced--"I, your sixth Hyperaspistes."
"The sixth!--the _first_ you mean," said Power. "The four monitors,between you and me, won't, I fear, help us much. Browne is veryshort-sighted, and always shutting up with a headache; Smythe is a merebook-worm, and a regular butt even among the little fellows--worse thanuseless--no dignity or anything else; Kenrick (for Kenrick had so farkept the advantage of his original start that, much as he had fallen offin work, Walter had not yet got above him)--well, you know what Ken is!"
"Yes, I know what Ken is now--_Hespemor en phthimenoir_--he's our chiefdanger--a doubtful general in the camp. Hullo, Flip, _you_ here?" saidhe, as Henderson came up and joined them.
"Myself, O Evides; who's the doubtful general in the camp?--not I, Ihope."
"You, Flip? no; but Kenrick. We're talking about the monitors."
"A doubtful general!--a traitor, you mean, an enemy, a spy," saidHenderson, hotly. "There, now, don't stop me, Power; abuse is a goodsafety-valve; the scream of the steam-engine letting off superfluousvapour. I should dislike him far worse if I bottled up against him asilent spite, hated him in the dark, and didn't openly abuse himsometimes."
Power's large and gentle mind, and Walter's generous temper preventedthem from joining in Henderson's strong language; but they felt no lessthan he did that, if they were to work for the good of the school,Kenrick would be their most dangerous, though not their declared,opponent. A monitor who seemed to recognise none of a monitor's duties,who openly broke rules and defied discipline, who smoked and went topublic-houses, and habitually associated with inferiors, and those theleast creditable set in the school, did more to damage the authority ofthe upper boys than _any_ number of external assaults on them if theywere consistent and united among themselves.
"I foresee storms ahead," said Power, with a sigh. "Flip, you muststand by me as well as Walter."
"Never fear," said Henderson; "but remember I'm only the junior monitorof the lot, and I'm so quick-tempered, I'm always afraid of stirring upa commotion some day with the Harpoons"--as Henderson had christened theHarpour lot.
"You must be like the lightning-kite then," said Power, "and turn theflash away from us."
"`And dash the beauteous terror to the ground, Smiling majestic,'"
observed Henderson, parodying the gesture, and making the others laugh.
"Do you remember Somers, and Dimock, and Danvers? What big fellows themonitors used to be then!" said Power.
"And do you remember certain boys whom Somers, and Dimock, and Danverspraised on a certain occasion?" said Walter. "Come, Rex, don't despond.We weren't afraid then, why s
hould we be now?"
"But then they had Macon, and fellows like that, to uphold them in theschool."
"So have _we_," said Henderson; "first and foremost Whalley, who's nowgot his remove into the upper sixth; then there's dear old Blissidas,who has arms if he hasn't got brains, and who is as staunch as a rock;and best of all, perhaps, there's Franklin, second in both elevens,brave as a lion, strong as a bull. By the by, as I have alightning-kite ready made for you no doubt; he's accustomed to theexperiment."
"Why, Flip, you talk as if we were going to have a pitched battle," saidPower, ignoring his joke about Franklin.
"So we are--practically and morally. Look out for skirmishes from theHarpour lot; especially the world, the flesh, and the devil, whom I justsaw arm in arm."
"What _do_ you mean, Flip?" asked Walter, laughing.
"Mean! nothing at all--only Tracy, Jones, and Mackworth. Tracy's theworld, Jones is the flesh--raw flesh; and Mackworth's the other thing."
"I'll tell you of two more who won't let the school override us if theycan help it," said Walter; "Cradock and Eden."
"Briareus and Paradise," said Henderson; "poor Eden, he can't do muchfor us except look on with large troubled eyes."
"Can't he though, Flip? he's got a good deal of power."
"He's got a great deal of good from Power, I know, but--"
"But don't be a donkey, Flip."
"Do shut up. Why should you two expect such a dead assault on themonitors this half?" said Power.
"Why, the fifth has in it a more turbulent lot just now than I ever knewbefore; big impudent fellows, with no good in them, and quite at thebeck of the Harpour set," said Walter.
"Yes, and with that fellow Kenrick for a protagonist," said Henderson;"he and Harpour have always been at mischief about the monitors sincethey caught it so tremendously from Somers. Well, never mind; _aide toiet ciel t'aidera_. Why, look, there's Paradise, taking charge as usualof a little new fellow; who is it?"
"Look and see," said Walter, as a little fellow came up, with anunmistakable family resemblance--a pretty boy, with fresh round cheeks,and light hair, which shone like gold when the sunshine fell upon it.
"Why, Walter--why, this must be your brother. Well, I declare! anEvides secundus, Evides redivivus. Just what you were the day you came,and made Jones look small three years ago. How do you do, young 'un?"He shook him kindly by the hand and said, "You're a lucky little fellowto have a monitor brother, and Eden to look after you from the first. Iwish _I'd_ been so lucky, I know."
"O Walter, what a _jolly_ place this is," said his littlebrother,--"jollier than Semlyn even."
"Wait a bit, Charlie; don't make up your mind too soon," said Walter;while Eden looked at the boy with a somewhat sad smile playing on hislips.