A STILTED COMBAT.

BY G. B. BURGIN,

Author of "Gascoigne's Ghost," etc.

I.

Peele sat on the platform, surrounded by a group of youthful sympathizers. "The fact is," he said, the light of battle in his eye, "I'll either have Gough's gore, or he mine. Matters have come to a crisis."

At the other end of the school-room "Grinny" Gough made an exactly similar speech. From time to time these youthful Montagues and Capulets glanced ruefully at a blackboard containing the following pregnant information:

Composition to be written by every boy in the school, instead of customary half-holiday.

Subject:

Landes.—A maritime department in the southwest of France, on the coast of the Bay of Biscay. It derives its name from the landes, or marshy heaths, which occupy a considerable portion of its surface. The capital of the department is Mont-de-Marsan, and its area 3599 square miles. The population in 1893 was 35,143.

Impositions must be handed in to Mr. Squinnige at evening preparation.

Peele glanced ruefully at the blackboard. His look of disgust gradually gave way to a broad grin of delight. Gough (he was pressing a metal inkpot against a black eye) intercepted the grin, and looked more rueful still.

"It seems to me," said Peele, again addressing his followers, "we're going to have a jolly row."

"And all because of a few potatoes," said the Tadpole.

"And a girl," added Bates.

"Girls always do let a man in for rows," observed a youthful pessimist.

Peele checked his followers with a lordly wave of his hand. "I thought I was in Ireland," he said, "I saw so many potatoes flying about, and heard Squinnige say, 'Gentlemen, gentlemen, you forget yourselves as gentlemen.'"

"He never forgets himself—especially at meals," said the Tadpole. "I don't know how the row began. When I saw the other fellows chucking taters I chucked too. I bagged Squinnige first shot; then he got under the table and yowled."

"I began it myself," Peele admitted. "When I saw Polyhymnia [Miss Wantage's real name was Polly, but Peele preferred "Polyhymnia" as being more sonorous] giving that beast Gough two potatoes instead of one, I didn't mean to say a word; but he pitched one into the fireplace, and I couldn't help shying mine at his head. He shied back, and hit Squinnige, and then you fellows all chipped in."

From which it will be gathered that the young gentlemen of Hutton Park Academy were in a state of open rebellion. There were several causes to account for this; but the chief among them was the rivalry which existed between Peele and "Grinny" Gough with regard to Polyhymnia, who was sixteen to their fourteen.

Dr. Wantage had a theory that to teach boys to be gentlemen they should be subjected at an early age to the refining influence of feminine society.

He was a widower. The only feminine society, therefore, that he could provide for the young gentlemen under his charge was that of Polyhymnia, who entered into his plans with the greatest gusto, and announced that she was perfectly willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the school. Had the Doctor been a suspicious man, he would have wondered at this alacrity, but a work on Greek particles absorbed most of his time, and he noticed nothing. Polyhymnia had only been home about a fortnight from school, and was already beginning to find time hang heavily on her hands. She hailed the Doctor's scheme with delight, and made her first public entrance at the boys' dinner, and sat at the head of the table in order to distribute the potatoes.

Peele, who was the first boy to enter the room, made her a lordly bow. "Grinny" Gough came second, put one foot into a hole in the mat, and tumbled heavily at his divinity's feet. The rest of the rank and file made an awkward entrance over "Grinny" Gough's prostrate body, whilst Peele conversed with Polyhymnia, and regarded his rival with lofty contempt.

Polyhymnia declined to carve for the forty young gentlemen, but devoted herself to the distribution of potatoes, boiled in their skins—the potatoes' skins, not the young gentlemen's. On the first day of her doing so each boy was about to devour his potato, when the Tadpole noticed that Peele gracefully removed his from his plate, wrapped it up in his handkerchief, bowed to Polyhymnia, and put it in his pocket—his breast pocket. Polyhymnia blushed; this was true worship. Her blushes were succeeded by others when the whole of Peele's faction proceeded to follow their chief's example, each boy enfolding the precious potato in a more or less dirty pocket-handkerchief. But after about three days' persistent accumulation of potatoes, Nature asserted itself, and Peele's followers felt that it was rather ridiculous to carry about a pound and a half of uneaten vegetables in their pockets. On the fourth day, Gough, with a vigorous sneer at Peele, had, as Peele explained, ostentatiously pitched his extra potato into the fireplace. The next instant he received the point of a particularly hard-skinned potato in his left eye. Two moments later the battle became general, Peele standing in front of Polyhymnia, and shielding her from flying missiles with heroic devotion. Then Squinnige, the usher, came out from under the table, and the result was the suppression of the customary half-holiday, and an absurd "imposition" to be done about the Landes.

"Never heard of the blessed places," said the Tadpole, with a rueful glance at the blackboard. "What are they, anyway?"

"Oh, it's easy enough," said Peele. "You fellows needn't trouble about it. It's where every one goes about on stilts. Now just settle down and do your 'impo,' or Squinnige'll be at us again. He's a victim to duty, is Squinnige, and I want to make things easy for him."

At this moment Gough, surrounded by his faction, approached the platform.

"Come down, and I'll lick your head off," he said to Peele.

Peele, who was an admirable boxer for his age, regarded Gough with particular contempt.

"Squinnige would be at us before I'd blackened the other eye," he said to Gough. "Name your weapons. We'll fight this thing out like gentlemen."

Gough was staggered. If he did not assert himself his ascendency was gone forever.

"I'd like to punch your head," he said; "but, as you say, when gentlemen fight about a woman they don't do it with fists. Swords and pistols are common. I'd like something worse."

Gough's followers crowded to the support of their chief with a thrill of delight.

"I call this prime," said the Guinea-Pig. "Prime!" he repeated, smacking his lips.

Peele waved his hand with lofty condescension.

"As you please," he said, glancing idly at the blackboard. Then a thought struck him which did credit to his love of the dramatic.

"What do you say to stilts?" he asked.

"Stilts!" said Gough, in amazement. "You might as well talk of 80-ton guns."

"Not at all," said Peele. "Quite customary in France. Much deadlier than pistols."

"But how d'you do it?" asked the crestfallen Gough.

Peele shrugged his shoulders.

"Oh, stand on one stilt and hit with the other," he said. "Gentlemen generally leave details to their seconds."

"That's all very well," said Gough. "I didn't come over to England with a Norman pig-driver, and ain't used to those things; but we can't make fools of ourselves in the middle of the playground. If you can hit on a way of working it without making asses of ourselves I'm game."

"All right," said Peele, loftily; "I'll work it out. The Tadpole acts for me. I suppose the Guinea-Pig will do the same for you?"

"Yes," said Gough, sulkily, creeping away to his end of the school-room.

Peele's followers gathered round him again and began to worship.

"Of course it's all guff," said the Tadpole. "Nothing but a stork could fight on one leg."

Peele again waved his hand.

"Can each of you fellows rake up a shilling?"

It being Saturday, the amount required was speedily subscribed, and handed over with unquestioning faith to Peele.

"What are you going to do with it?" asked the Tadpole.

Peele sat down and hastily drew a pair of stilts. "I'll take this to the village," he said, "and get Smith to make us forty pairs. Then I'll show you fellows how to use them. It's often struck me we could play 'footer' in this way and get a lot of fun out of it. Now, Tadpole, go and explain to the enemy."

When the plan was explained to the enemy, the enemy immediately acquiesced in it. About a week later Dr. Wantage was surprised to see his pupils mounted on stilts and tumbling about in every direction. When he came to the Tadpole, who sat on the ground, ruefully rubbing the back of his head, the Doctor sternly ordered that big-headed youth to rise.

"What's the meaning of this tomfoolery, Wilkinson?" (the Tadpole's name was Wilkinson) he demanded.

The Tadpole looked imploringly round at Peele, who at that moment appeared on stilts which covered about six feet at a stride.

"It's this way, sir," Peele explained to the Doctor, as he leaped to the ground. "Mr. Squinnige gave us an 'impo' on the Landes last Saturday, where the people do everything on stilts. We got so interested in it, we're going to play a football match on stilts when we've had a little practice."

The Doctor looked round and saw half of his pupils reclining in various involuntary attitudes on the ground, whilst ten or twelve others put their stilts against the wall and tried in vain to get on them.

"Oh, very well, Peele," he said; "don't let your zeal carry you too far. It will be awkward if half of you are laid up with broken arms and legs." And the Doctor continued his way to a neighboring wood, there to meditate on particles.

Polyhymnia could not understand this sudden craze for stilts. She pressed Peele for an explanation.

"I'm sure you're at the bottom of it," said Polyhymnia, with emphasis. "You are the worst boy I ever knew—and the handsomest," she added, weakly.

"If you look in your glass," said Peele, "I think you'll find I'm not at the bottom of it all. I wish you wouldn't speak to that beast Gough."

"Gough is full of good points," said Polyhymnia, angrily.

"So are a lot of other beasts," retorted Peele, more than ever decided that the combat should be waged to the death.

A bogus match was played under the Doctor's nose one afternoon, in which Peele's followers got decidedly the worst of it. Gough, emboldened by triumph, proposed that Peele and himself should settle their differences in Homeric combat then and there.

"I fight," retorted Peele, "when there is no chance of interruption."

This remark made the matter irrevocable, and the combat was fixed to take place on the following Saturday afternoon, when it was known that the Doctor would be away.

On the appointed afternoon all the boys in the school were drawn up into two armies mounted on stilts.

Peele and Gough stalked into the middle of the playground, attended by the Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig respectively, and ceremoniously bowed to each other, although the feat was difficult.

Now that everything had gone so far, the Tadpole began to funk it. "Hadn't you better let him off?" he said, apprehensively, to Peele.

"Say another word," threatened Peele, "and I'll begin on you."

THEN THE FIGHT COMMENCED.

Then the fight commenced.

The Tadpole and the Guinea-Pig had drawn up a code regulating the manner of the combat.

The combatants were not allowed to push against each other, but might strike with one stilt, or thrust. Whenever one fell, it counted to his opponent.

The two began shuffling warily round each other, like wrestlers waiting for an opening. By a dexterous thrust of the right stilt Gough succeeded in bringing Peele to the ground, amid derisive shouts from his followers. Peele's face was badly scratched by the gravel, but he was on his stilts again in a second.

In the next round he fought more warily, and balancing himself on one foot, delivered a swashing blow at Gough's shoulder-blade. He was about to follow it up as Gough wavered, but the Guinea-Pig came behind him, and, utterly regardless of the laws of the duello, struck Peele a crushing blow on the back of the head with his stilt.

Peele fell to the ground for the second time. There was a cry of horror, as Polyhymnia, who had not accompanied her father, rushed up and supported his head on her lap; whilst Gough stood moodily looking on at his rival, and the abashed Guinea-Pig bolted, amid a shower of stilts flung at him by the enraged boys.

"You coward!" screamed Polyhymnia to Gough. "Oh, you base, cowardly wretch; you daren't fight him yourself, so you got some one else to attack him from behind. I'll never speak to you again."

Gough was too proud to exculpate himself at the expense of his injudicious follower. Peele at last opened his eyes. "It wasn't his fault," he said, magnanimous to the last; "don't let on to the Doctor," and fainted.

Peele remained a month in the sick-room. The first day he was able to come down into the matron's parlor he found Gough there, gloomily waiting for him.

"I've come," the latter explained, "to let you know I wasn't cad enough to plan hitting you from behind."

Peele looked at him curiously.

"I never thought you were," he said.

"The Doctor fancies it was an accident," moodily continued Gough; "and he's ordered all the stilts to be burned. Since then I've been thinking things over." He hesitated. "We could finish this affair in the holidays, on the sands at Boulogne. Perhaps pistols would be better; stilts are too uncertain," he added, darkly. "You shall have first shot to make up for this."

Polyhymnia entered the room.

"Shake hands," she commanded, "or I'll never speak to either of you again. Besides, if you don't, I'll tell the Doctor all about it."

Dogged to the last, the foes reluctantly shook hands, and Gough left the room. Polyhymnia remained, looking at Peele rather doubtfully.

She came a step or two nearer, but he did not glance at her.

"Philip!" she said. "Aren't you beginning rather early?"

Peele looked up.

Polyhymnia put out her hand, and insisted on his shaking hands with her.

"I've not given Gough a single potato since you were ill," she said; "and I never, never will, as long as I live."

Peele began to feel better.