A Hero of Romance (Unabridged). Richard Marsh
think once, and twice, and thrice before he spent half a crown upon a book. His books were to him his children. In those dreams of future glory his books were his constant companions, his open sesame, his royal road to fame; with their aid he could do so much, without their aid so little. So now and then he ventured to spend half a crown upon a volume which he wanted.
The grammar, being badly aimed, fell just in front of him. He made a dash at it. Some one gave him a push and he fell sprawling on the floor; but he seized the book with his left hand. Griffin, falling on it tooth and nail, caught hold of it before he could secure it from danger. There was a rush of half a dozen. Every one wanted a finger in the pie. The grammar was clutched by half a dozen hands at once. The back was rent off, leaves pulled out, the book was torn to shreds. Mr. Shane lay on the floor, with the ruins of his grammar in his hands.
Just then Bertie Bailey entered the room, victorious from his contest with Mr. Till. A shout of welcome greeted him.
"Hullo, Bailey! have you done the lines?"
Bertie, a deliberate youth as a rule, took his time to answer. He surveyed the scene, then he put his fingers to his nose, repeating the gesture with which he had retreated from Mr. Till.
"Catch me at it!--think I'm a silly?" Then he put his hands into his pockets, and slouched into the centre of the room. The boys crowded round him.
"Did he let you off?" asked Griffin.
"Of course he let me off; I made him: he knew better than to try to make me do his lines."
Then he told the story; the boys laughed. The way in which the ushers were compelled to stultify themselves was a standing joke at Mecklemburg House. That Mr. Till should have been forced to eat his own words, and to let insubordination go unpunished, was a humorous idea to them.
Mr. Shane still remained upon the floor. He was engaged in gathering together the remnants of his grammar. Perhaps a pot of paste, with patient manipulation, might restore it yet. He would give himself a great deal of labour to avoid the expenditure of another half-crown; perhaps he had not another half-crown to spend.
"What's the row?" asked Bertie, seeing Mr. Shane engaged in gathering up the fragmentary leaves. They told him.
"I'm going out," said Bailey, "and I should like to see anybody stop me. I say, Mr. Shane, I want to go down to the village."
Mr. Shane repeated his stock phrase.
"Mrs. Fletcher said no one was to go out while it rained." He had collected all the remnants of his grammar, and was rising with them in his hand.
"Give me hold!" exclaimed Bertie; and he snatched what was left of the book out of the usher's hands.
"Bailey!" cried Mr. Shane.
"Look here, I want to go down to the village. I suppose I may, mayn't I?"
"Mrs. Fletcher said no one was to go out if it rained," stammered Mr. Shane.
"If you don't let me go, I'll burn this rubbish!" Bertie flourished the ruined grammar in the tutor's face. Mr. Shane made a dart to recover his property; but Bertie was too quick for him, and sprang aside beyond his reach. It is not improbable that if it had come to a tussle Mr. Shane would have got the worst of it.
"Who's got a match?" asked Bertie. Some one produced half a dozen. "Will you let me go?"
"Don't burn it," said Mr. Shane. "It cost me half a crown; I only bought it last week."
"Then let me go."
"What'll Mrs. Fletcher say?"
"How's she to know unless you tell her? I'll be back before tea. I don't care if it cost you a hundred half-crowns, I'll burn it. Make up your mind. Is it going to cost you half a crown to keep me in?"
Bertie struck a match. Mr. Shane attempted to rush forward to put it out, but some of the boys held him back. His heart went out to his book as though it were a child.
"If I let you go, you promise me to be back within half an hour? I don't know what Mrs. Fletcher will say if she should hear of it;--and don't get wet."
"I'll promise you fast enough. Mrs. Fletcher won't hear of it; and what if she does? She can't eat you. You needn't be afraid of my getting wet."
"I shan't let anybody else go."
"Oh yes, you will! You'll let Griffin and Ellis go; you don't think I'm going all that way alone?"
"And me!" cried Edgar Wheeler. Pretty nearly all the other boys joined him in the cry.
"I am not going to have all you fellows coming with me," announced Bertie. "Wheeler can come; but as for the rest of you, you can stay at home and go to bed--that's the best place for little chaps like you. Now then, Shane, look alive; is it going to cost you half a crown, or isn't it?"
Mr. Shane sighed. If ever there was a case of a round peg in a square hole, Mr. Shane's position at Mecklemburg House was a case in point. The youth, for he was but a youth, was a good youth; he had an earnest, honest, practical belief in God; but surely God never intended him for an assistant-master. Perhaps in the years to come he might drift into the place which had been prepared for him in the world, but it was difficult to believe that he was in it now. A studious dreamer, who did nothing but dream and study, he would have been no more out of his element in a bear garden than in the extremely difficult and eminently unsatisfactory position which he was supposed--it was veritable supposition--to fill at Mecklemburg House.
"How many of you want to go?"
"There's me,"--Bertie was not the boy to take the bottom seat--"and Griffin, and Ellis, and Wheeler, that's all. Now what is the good of keeping messing about like this?"
"You're sure you won't be more than half an hour?"
"Oh, sure as sticks."
"And what shall I say to Mrs. Fletcher if she finds out? You're sure to lay all the blame on me." Mr. Shane had a prophetic eye.
"Say you thought it didn't rain."
"I don't think it does rain much." Mr. Shane looked out of the window, and salved his conscience with the thought. "Well, if you're quite sure you won't get wet, and you won't be more than half an hour--you--can--go." The latter three words came out, as it were, edgeways and with difficulty from the speaker's mouth, as if even he found the humiliation of his attitude difficult to swallow.
"Come along, boys!--here's your old book!" Bertie flung the grammar into the air, the leaves went flying in all directions, the four boys went clattering out of the room with noise enough for twenty, and Mr. Shane was left to recover his dignity and collect the scattered volume at his leisure.
But Nemesis awaited him. No sooner had the conquering heroes disappeared than an urchin, not more than eight or nine years of age, catching up one of the precious leaves, exclaimed,--
"Let's tear the thing to pieces!" The speaker was little Willie Seymour, Bertie Bailey's cousin. It was his first term at school, but he already bade fair to do credit to the system of education pursued at Mecklemburg House.
"Right you are, youngster," said Fred Philpotts, an elder boy. "It's a burning shame to let them go and keep us in. Let's tear it all to pieces."
And they did. There was a sudden raid upon the scattered leaves; at the mercy of twenty pairs of mischievous hands, they were soon reduced to atoms so minute as to be altogether beyond the hope of any possible recovery. Nothing short of a miracle could make those tiny scraps of printed paper into a book again. And seeing it was so Mr. Shane leaned his head against the window-pane and cried.
Chapter III
AT MOTHER HUFFHAM'S
It was only when Bailey and his friends were away from the house that it occurred to them to consider what it was they had come out for. They slunk across the grass-grown courtyard,