"Your chances will be much better if you go up from a public school, trained in accuracy by the thorough work of language, and made more powerful by the very fact of not having followed merely your own bent. Your contempt for the classics shows how one-sided you are growing. Besides, I thought you knew that the days are over of unmitigated classics. You would have many more opportunities, and much better ones, of studying physical science than I can provide for you here."
This was a new light to Bobus, and when Mr. Ogilvie proved its truth to him, and described the facilities he would have for the study, he allowed that it made all the difference.
Meantime the two ladies had gone in, Mary asking where Janet was.
"Gone with Jessie and her mother to a birthday party at Polesworth Lawn."
"Not a good day for it."
"It is the perplexing sort of day that no one knows whether to call it fine or wet; but Ellen decided on going, as they were to dance in the hall if it rained. I'm sure her kindness is great, for she takes infinite trouble to make Janet producible! Poor Janet, you know dressing her is like hanging clothes on a wooden peg, and a peg that won't stand still, and has curious theories of the beautiful, carried out in a still more curious way. So when, in terror of our aunt, the whole female household have done their best to turn out Miss Janet respectable, between this house and Kencroft, she contrives to give herself some twitch, or else is seized with an idea of the picturesque, which sets every one wondering that I let her go about such a figure. Then Ellen and Jessie put a tie here, and a pin there, and reduce the chaotic mass to order."
It was not long before Janet appeared, and Jessie with her, the latter having been set down to give a message. The two girls were dressed in the same light black-and-white checked silk of early youth, one with pink ribbons and the other with blue; but the contrast was the more apparent, for one was fresh and crisp, while the other was flattened and tumbled; one said everything had been delightful, the other that it had all been very stupid, and the expression made even more difference than the complexion, in one so fair, fresh, and rosy, in the other so sallow and muddled. Jessie looked so sweet and bright, that when she had gone Miss Ogilvie could not help exclaiming, "How pretty she is!"
"Yes, and so good-tempered and pleasant. There is something always restful to me in having her in the room," said Caroline.
"Restful?" said Janet, with one of her unamiable sneers. "Yes, she and H. S. H. sent me off to sleep with their gossip on the way home! O mother, there's another item for the Belforest record. Mr. Barnes has sent off all his servants again, even the confidential man is shipped off to America."
"You seem to have slept with one ear open," said her mother. "And oh!" as Janet took off her gloves, "I hope you did not show those hands!"
"I could not eat cake without doing so, and Mr. Glover supposed I had been photographing."
"And what had you been doing?" inquired Mary, at sight of the brown stains.
"Trying chemical experiments with Bobus," said her mother.
"Yes!" cried Janet, "and I've found out why we did not succeed. I thought it out during the dancing."
"Instead of cultivating the 'light fantastic toe,' as the Courier calls it."
"I danced twice, and a great plague it was. Only with Mr. Glover and with a stupid little middy. I was thinking all the time how senseless it was."
"How agreeable you must have been!"
"One can't be agreeable to people like that. Oh, Bobus!" as he came into the room with Mr. Ogilvie, "I've found out-"
"I thought Jessie was here," he interrupted.
"She's gone home. I know what was wrong yesterday. We ought to have isolated the hypo-"
"Isolated the grandmother," said Bobus. "That has nothing to do with it."
"I'm sure of it. I'll show you how it acts."
"I'll show you just the contrary."
"Not to-night," cried their mother, as Bobus began to relight the lamp. "You two explosives are quite perilous enough by day without lamps and candles."
"You endure a great deal," said Mr. Ogilvie.
"I'm not afraid of either of these two doing anything dangerous singly, for they are both careful, but when they are of different minds, I never know what the collision may produce."
"Yes," said Bobus, "I'd much sooner have Jessie to help me, for she does what she is bid, and never thinks."
"That's all you think women good for," said Janet.
"Quite true," said Bobus, coolly.
And Mr. Ogilvie was acknowledged by his sister to have done a good deed that night, since the Folly might be far more secure when Janet tried her experiments alone.
CHAPTER XIV. PUMPING AWAY.
The rude will scuffle through with ease enough, Great schools best suit the sturdy and the rough. Soon see your wish fulfilled in either child, The pert made perter, and the tame made wild. Cowper.
Robert Otway Brownlow came out fourth on the roll of newly-elected scholars of S. Mary, Winton, and his master was, as his sister declared, unwholesomely proud of it, even while he gave all credit to the Folly, and none to himself.
Still Mary had her way and took him to Brittany, and though her present pupils were to leave the schoolroom at Christmas, she would bind herself to no fresh engagement, thinking that she had better be free to make a home for him, whether at Kenminster or elsewhere.
When the half-year began again Bobus was a good deal missed, Jock was in a severe idle fit, and Armine did not come up to the expectations formed of him, and was found, when "up to Mr. Perkins," to be as bewildered and unready as other people.
All the work in the school seemed flat and poor, except perhaps Johnny's, which steadily improved. Robert, whose father wished him to be pushed on so as to be fit for examination for Sandhurst, opposed, to all pressure, the passive resistance of stolidity. He was nearly sixteen, but seemed incapable of understanding that compulsory studies were for his good and not a cruel exercise of tyranny. He disdainfully rejected an offer from his aunt to help him in the French and arithmetic which had become imminent, while of the first he knew much less than Babie, and of the latter only as much as would serve to prevent his being daily "kept in."
One chilly autumn afternoon, Armine was seen, even by the unobservant under-master, to be shivering violently, and his teeth chattering so that he could not speak plainly.
"You ought to be at home," said Mr. Perkins. "Here, you, Brownlow maximus, just see him home, and tell his mother that he should be seen to."
"I can go alone," Armine tried to say; but Mr. Perkins thought the head-master could not say he neglected one who was felt to be a favoured scholar if he sent his cousin with him.
So presently Armine was pushed in at the back door, with these words from Rob to the cook-"Look here, he's been and got cold, or something."
Rob then disappeared, and Armine struggled in to the kitchen fire, white, sobbing and panting, and, as the compassionate maids discovered, drenched from head to foot, his hair soaked, his boots squishing with water. His mother and sisters were out, and as cook administered the hottest draught she could compound, and Emma tugged at his jacket, they indignantly demanded what he had been doing to himself.
"Nothing," he said. "I'll go and take my things off; only please don't tell mother."
"Yes," said old nurse, who had tottered in, but who was past fully comprehending emergencies; "go and get into bed, my dear, and Emma shall come and warm it for him."
"No," stoutly said the little boy; "there's nothing the matter, and mother must not know."
"Take my word for it," said cook, "that child have a been treated shameful by those great nasty brutes of big boys."
And when Armine, too cold to sit anywhere but by the only fire in the house, returned with a book and begged humbly for leave to warm himself, he was installed on nurse's footstool, in front of a huge fire, and hot tea and "lardy-cake" tendered for his refreshment, while the maids by turns pitied and questioned him.
"Have you ha
d a haccident, sir," asked cook.
"No," he wearily said.
"Have any one been doing anything to you, then?" And as he did not answer she continued: "You need not think to blind me, sir; I sees it as if it was in print. Them big boys have been a-misusing of you."
"Now, cook, you ain't to say a word to my mother," cried Armine, vehemently. "Promise me."
"If you'll tell me all about it, sir," said cook, coaxingly.
"No," he answered, "I promised!" And he buried his head in nurse's lap.
"I calls that a shame," put in Emma; "but you could tell _we_, Master Armine. It ain't like telling your ma nor your master."
"I said no one," said Armine.
The maids left off tormenting him after a time, letting him fall asleep with his head on the lap of old nurse, who went on dreamily stroking his damp hair, not half understanding the matter, or she would have sent him to bed.
Being bound by no promise of secrecy, Emma met her mistress with a statement of the surmises of the kitchen, and Caroline hurried thither to find him waking to headache, fiery cheeks, and aching limbs, which were not simply the consequence of the position in which he had been sleeping before the fire. She saw him safe in bed before she asked any questions, but then she began her interrogations, as little successfully as the maids.
"I can't, mother," he said, hiding his face on the pillow.
"My little boy used to have no secrets from me."
"Men must have secrets sometimes, though they rack their hearts and- their backs," sighed poor Armine, rolling over. "Oh, mother, my back is so bad! Please don't bother besides."
"My poor darling! Let me rub it. There, you might trust Mother Carey! She would not tell Mr. Ogilvie, nor get any one into trouble."
"I promised, mother. Don't!" And no persuasions could draw anything from him but tears. Indeed he was so feverish and in so much pain that she called in Dr. Leslie before the evening was over, and rheumatic fever was barely staved off by the most anxious vigilance for the next day or two. It was further decreed that he must be carefully tended all the winter, and must not go to school again till he had quite got over the shock, since he was of a delicate frame that would not bear to be trifled with.
The boy gave a long sigh of content when he heard that he was not to return to school at present; but it did not induce him to utter a word on the cause of the wetting, either to his mother or to Mr. Ogilvie, who came up in much distress, and examined him as soon as he was well enough to bear it. Nor would any of his schoolfellows tell. Jock said he had had an imposition, and was kept in school when "it" happened; John said "he had nothing to do with it;" and Rob and Joe opposed surly negatives to all questions on the subject, Rob adding that Armine was a disgusting little idiot, an expression for which his father took him severely to task.
However there were those in Kenminster who never failed to know all about everything, and the first afternoon after Armine's disaster that Caroline came to Kencroft she was received with such sympathetic kindness that her prophetic soul misgave her, and she dreaded hearing either that she was letting herself be cheated by some tradesman, or that she was to lose her pupils.
No. After inquiries for Armine, his aunt said she was very sorry, but now he was better she thought his mother ought to know the truth.
"What-?" asked Caroline, startled; and Jessie, the only other person in the room, put down her work, and listened with a strange air of determination.
"My dear, I am afraid it is very painful."
"Tell me at once, Ellen."
"I can't think how he learnt it. But they have been about with all sorts of odd people."
"Who? What, Ellen? Are you accusing my boy?" said Caroline, her limbs beginning to tremble and her eyes to flash, though she spoke as quietly as she could.
"Now do compose yourself, my dear. I dare say the poor little fellow knew no better, and he has had a severe lesson."
"If you would only tell me, Ellen."
"It seems," said Ellen, with much regret and commiseration, "that all this was from poor little Armine using such shocking language that Rob, as a senior boy, you know, put him under the pump at last to put a stop to it."
Before Caroline's fierce, incredulous indignation had found a word, Jessie had exclaimed "Mamma!" in a tone of strong remonstrance; then, "Never mind, Aunt Carey, I know it is only Mrs. Coffinkey, and Johnny promised he would tell the whole story if any one brought that horrid nonsense to you about poor little Armine."
Kind, gentle Jessie seemed quite transported out of herself, as she flew to the door and called Johnny, leaving the two mothers looking at each other, and Ellen, somewhat startled, saying "I'm sure, if it is not true, I'm very sorry, Caroline, but it came from-"
She broke off, for Johnny was scuffling across the hall, calling out "Holloa, Jessie, what's up?"
"Johnny, she's done it!" said Jessie. "You said if the wrong one was accused you would tell the whole story!"
"And what do they say?" asked John, who was by this time in the room.
"Mamma has been telling Aunt Carey that Rob put poor little Armine under the pump for using bad language."
"I say!" exclaimed John; "if that is not a cram!"
"You said you knew nothing of it," said his mother.
"I said I didn't do it. No more I did," said John.
"No more did Rob, I am sure," said his mother.
But Johnny, though using no word of denial, made it evident that she was mistaken, as he answered in an odd tone of excuse, "Armie was cheeky."
"But he didn't use bad words!" said Caroline, and she met a look of comfortable response.
"Let us hear, John," said his mother, now the most agitated. "I can't believe that Rob would so ill-treat a little fellow like Armie, even if he did lose his temper for a moment. Was Armine impertinent?"
"Well, rather," said John. "He wouldn't do Rob's French exercise." And then-as the ladies cried out, he added-"O yes, he knows ever so much more French than Rob, and now Bobus is gone Rob could not get anyone else."
"Bobus?"
"O yes, Bobus would do anybody's exercises at a penny for Latin, two for French, and three for Greek," said John, not aware of the shock he gave.
"And Armine would not?" said his mother. "Was that it?"
"Not only that," said John; "but the little beggar must needs up and say he would not help to act a falsehood, and you know nobody could stand that."
Caroline understood the gravity of such an offence better than Ellen did, for that good lady had never had much in common with her boys after they outgrew the nursery. She answered, "Armine was quite right."
"So much the worse for him, I fear," said Caroline.
"Yes," said John, "it would have been all very well to give him a cuff and tell him to mind his own business."
"All very well!" ejaculated his mother.
"But you know," continued Johnny to his aunt, "the seniors are always mad at a junior being like that; and there was another fellow who dragged him to the great school pump, and put him in the trough, and they said they would duck him till he swore to do whatever Rob ordered."
"Swore!" exclaimed his mother. "You don't mean that, Johnny?"
"Yes, I do, mamma," said John. "I would tell you the words, only you wouldn't like them. And Armine said it would be breaking the Third Commandment, which was the very way to aggravate them most. So they pumped on his head, and tried if he would say it. 'No,' he said. 'You may kill me like the forty martyrs, but I won't,' and of course that set them on to pump the more."
"But, Johnny, did you see it all?" cried Caroline. "How could you?"
"I couldn't help it, Aunt Carey."
"Yes, Aunt Carey," again broke in Jessie, "he was held down. That horrid--well, I won't say whom, Johnny--held him, and his arm was so twisted and grazed that he was obliged to come to me to put some lily-leaves on it, and if he would but show it, it is all black and yellow still."
Carey, much moved, went over and kissed both her boy
's champions, while Ellen said, with tears in her eyes, "Oh, Johnny, I'm glad you were at least not so bad. What ended it?"
"The school-bell," said Johnny. "I say, please don't let Rob know I told, or I shall catch it."
"Your father-"
"Mamma! You aren't going to tell him!" cried Jessie and Johnny, both in horror, interrupting her.
"Yes, children, I certainly shall. Do you think such wickedness as that ought to be kept from him? Nearly killing a fatherless child like that, because he was not as bad as they were, and telling falsehoods about it too! I never could have believed it of Rob. Oh! what school does to one's boys!" She was agitated and overcome to a degree that startled Carey, who began to try to comfort her.
"Perhaps Rob did not understand what he was about, and you see he was led on. Armine will soon be all right again, and though he is a dear, good little fellow, maybe the lesson may have been good for him."
"How can you treat it so lightly?" cried poor Ellen, in her agitated indignation. "It was a mercy that the child did not catch his death; and as to Rob-! And when Mr. Ogilvie always said the boys were so improved, and that there was no bullying! It just shows how much he knows about it! To think what they have made of my poor Rob! His father will be so grieved! I should not wonder if he had a fit of the gout!"
The shock was far greater to her than to one who had never kept her boys at a distance, and who understood their ways, characters, and code of honour; and besides Rob was her eldest, and she had credited him with every sterling virtue. Jessie and Johnny stood aghast. They had only meant to defend their little cousin, and had never expected either that she would be so much overcome, or that she would insist on their father knowing all, as she did with increasing anger and grief at each of their attempts at persuading her to the contrary. Caroline thought he ought to know. Her children's father would have known long ago, but then his wrath would have been a different thing from what seemed to be apprehended from his brother; and she understood the distress of Jessie and John, though her pity for Rob was but small. Whatever she tried to say in the way of generous mediation or soothing only made it worse; and poor Ellen, far from being her Serene Highness, was, between scolding and crying, in an almost hysterical state, so that Caroline durst not leave her or the frightened Jessie, and was relieved at last to hear the Colonel coming into the house, when, thinking her presence would do more harm than good, and longing to return to her little son, she slipped away, and was joined at the door by her own John, who asked-
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