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 years have passed since the conclusion of those summer holidays, before we again meet our young friends of Saint Winifred’s.

The two years—as what years are not?—have been full of change. Walk across the court with me, and let us discover what we can about the present state of things.

The first we meet are Walter and Power—taller and manlier looking than they were, but otherwise little changed in appearance. Walter, with his dark hair and blue eyes, his graceful figure and open face, is still the handsome, attractive-looking boy we used to see. Power, too, has the same refined, thoughtful look, the same delicate yet noble features, the same eyes, which we recognise at once as the clear and bright index of a beautiful and unstained soul.

And neither of these boys has failed in their promise of their earlier days, and the warm friendship with which they regarded each other has done much to bring about this result. Each in his own way has rejoiced in his youth, has passed an innocent and happy boyhood, stored with pleasant reminiscences for after days, filled with high hopes and manly principles, with habits well-regulated, and that fine self-control which had 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 in wasteful profusion; they have felt and known that the purest pleasures were also the sweetest and the most permanent. Their minds are well cultivated, their bodies are in vigorous health, their hearts are glowing with generous impulse and warm enthusiasm; and if sorrow should ever darken their after years, it can never drive them to despair, for they have wandered in the pleasant paths of wisdom, they have drunk the pure cup of innocence, they will carry out of the torrid zone of youth clear 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 in his pockets, his air haughty and nonchalant, and his cap a little on one side? He is still pleasant looking, his face still shows the capabilities for good and great things, but we are obliged to say of him:

“Quantum mutatus ab illo Hectore!”

Yes, Kenrick—for it is he—is altered for the worse. Something or other has left, in its traces upon his face, the history of two degenerate years. His cheek does not look as if it were capable any longer of an ingenuous blush, and there is a curl about his lip and nostril which speaks of perpetual unhealthy scorn, that child of mortified vanity and conceit, which brazens out the reproaches of self-distrust and self-reproach. See with what a careless, almost patronising, air he barely notices the master who is passing by him. He has just flung a slight nod to Power, studiously taking care not to notice Walter at all. Look, too, at the boys who are with him; they are not boys with whom we like to see him; they are an idle lot, precocious only in folly and in vice. And that little fellow, who seems to be his especial favourite, is not at all to our taste; he seems the coolest of them all. For during the last few years Kenrick has entirely lost his balance; he has deserted his best friends for the adulation of younger boys, who fed his vanity, and the society of elder boys, who perverted his thoughts, and vitiated his habits. He has slackened in the career of honourable industry, he has deflected from the straight paths of integrity and virtue. Already the fresh eagerness of youth has palled into satiety, already some of its sparkling-wine for him is bitter as vinegar; with him already pleasure has become hectic fever instead of a healthy glow. Alas! he is not happy. Within these two years he has lost—and his countenance betrays the fact in its ruined beauty—he has lost the true joys of youth, and known instead of them the troubles of the envious, the fears of the cowardly, the heaviness of the slothful, the shame of the unclean. He has lost something of the instinctive shrinking, even in thought, from all that is vile and base, the loathing of falsehood, the kindness that will not willingly give pain, the humility which has lowly thoughts of its own worth; he has lost his joy in things lovely, and excellent, and of good report; he has changed them for the mirth of fools, which is like crackling thorns—changed them for the feet that go down to death, for the steps that lay hold of hell. It is a mean price for which he has sold his peace of conscience—“the sweetness of the cup that is charged with poison, the beauty of the serpent whose bite is death.”

Eden, who is seated reading on one of the benches by the wall, has recovered from his illness, but he is not, and never will be, what, but for 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 often varying in colour, the delicate flush which any pulse of emotion drives glowing into the somewhat pale face, give to him an almost girlish aspect, and tell the tale of a weakened constitution. Eden’s development has been quite altered by his fright; most of the vivacity and playfulness of his character has vanished; and although it flashes out 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 quiet and reserved. Yet Eden has a position of his own in the school; and unobtrusive as he is, his opinion is always listened to with kindness and respect. When he came into school again after his recovery he was received, as I have said already, with almost brotherly affection by all the boys, who felt how much he had been wronged. He became the child and protégé of the school, and any cruelty to him would, after this, have been violently resented. Devoting himself wholly to work and reading, he became very successful in his progress, and is now in the second fifth. But what chiefly marks him is his extreme gentleness, and the eager way in which he strives to help all the younger and most helpless boys. Experience of suffering has given him a keen sympathy with 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. He is 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 knew him two years ago, he is doing twice as much mischief now. His influence is unmitigatedly pernicious. With just enough cunning skill to escape detection, he yet signalises himself by complicity in every form of wrong which goes on in the school, and some new wrongs he introduces and invents. But nothing delights him so much as to instigate other boys to resist the authority of the masters. They know him to be a nucleus of disorder and wickedness, but he has acted with such consummate ingenuity as to avoid even laying himself open to any distinct proof of his many offences.

He is just now stopping for a minute in his game to talk to those three boys, who have been strutting up and down the court arm in arm, and whom we easily recognise. The one with the red puffy face, with an enormous gold pin in his cravat, a bunch of charms hanging to his chain, and a ring on his hand, which he loses no opportunity of displaying, is our friend Jones, with vulgarity as usual stamped on every feature, and displayed in every movement which he makes; the tall slim fellow, with an air of feeble fastness, an indecisive mouth, a habit of running his hand through his light-coloured hair, and a gaze which usually settles in fixed admiration on his faultless boots, can be no one but Howard Tracy; the third, a fellow with far more meaning and strength in his face, betrays himself to be Mackworth, by the insinuating plausibility and Belial-like grace of his manner and aspect. A dangerous serpent this; one never sees him, or hears him speak, or observes the dark glitter of his eye, without being reminded of a cerastes lythely rustling through the dry grass towards its victim.

And there at last—I thought we should never see him—is our dear young joker of jokes, the same unaltered Flip whom we know, running down the school steps. His face is overflowing with mirth and fun, and now he is stopping and holding both his sides for laughter, while, with little touches of his own, he retails some of the strange blunders which Bliss has made in the viva voce examination that morning; to which his friend Whalley listens with the same good-humoured smile which he had of old. Henderson is a perfect mimic, but never uses his powers of mimicry in an ill-natured spirit; and his imitation of Bliss’s stolid perplexity and Dr Lane’s comments are very ludicrous. While he is in the middle of this narrative, Bliss himself appears on the scene and relieves his feelings by delivering the only pun he ever made in his life, and observing, 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 twice before,” observes Henderson, calmly pulling undone the bow of Bliss’s necktie, and running off to escape retaliation, followed at his leisure by Whalley, who knows Bliss to be much too lazy to pursue the chase very far.

Let us come and hear—for we have put on our cap of darkness and are invisible, coming and going where we like, unobserved—what our four fast friends at the racket-court are talking about.

“We shall have lots of larks this half,” observes Harpour, leaning on his racket.

“Yes; such fun, old boy,” answers Jones.

“I declare this dull old place was getting quite lively before last holidays,” says Mackworth; “we shall soon get things all right here.”

“Fancy that fellow Power head of the school,” said Harpour, bursting into a roar of scornful laughter, echoed in faint sniggerings by Jones and Tracy.

“Might as well have a jug of milk and water head of the school,” sneered Mackworth.

“Or a bottle of French polish, I should think,” casually suggests Henderson, who, en passant, has heard the last remark.

“Damn that fellow,” says Mackworth, stamping, “by Jove, I’ll be even with 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 faces of all four grew darker; “and Kenrick’s a third.”

“O, Kenrick is, is he? that’s all right. Jolly fellow is Ken,” observes Harpour, approvingly. “Yes, quite up to snuff,” adds Jones; “and a thorough gentlemanly chap,” assents Mackworth; for, amazing to relate, Kenrick is on good terms with these fellows now, though he has never spoken to Walter yet.

“Of good family, too, on the mother’s side,” drawls Tracy, with his hand lifting 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 Mackworth observes, “And let those monitors try to peach if they dare. We’ll soon have them under our thumb.”

After which, as their conversation is supremely repulsive, let us go and take a breath of delicious pure sea air, and seat ourselves by Walter and Power on the shore. Walter is in good, and even gay spirits, being fresh from Semlyn, but Power seems a little grave and depressed.

“Look, Walter,” he says, shying a round stone at a bit of embedded rock about twenty yards before them, but missing it; “I believe it was that identical rock—”

“That identical rock,” said Walter, taking a better shot, and hitting it; “well, what about it?”

”—On which you were standing one autumn evening three years ago, when the tide was coming in—”

“And to save me wet trousers you took off your shoes and stockings, and carried me in on your back,” said Walter. “I remember it well, Rex; it was a happy day for me. I recollect I’d been very miserable; it was after the Paton affair, you know, and every one was cutting me. Your coming to speak to me was about the last thing in the world I expected and 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 a young swell in those days that I never thought we should meet each other.”

“Pooh!” said Power; “but wasn’t it good now of me to break the ice and speak 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 have known each other till this day.”

“I shouldn’t have done it at that time,” said Walter, “because I was in Coventry; but—well, never mind, Rex, we understand each other. I was 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 sixth monitor 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 is yours.”

“If it weren’t for that, I think I would have left, Walter. I don’t think, somehow, I’ve influence enough for head. I’m not swell enough at the 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 been cowardice, 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 to fly, like the Roman soldier whose skeleton was found in the sentry box at Pompeii,” said Power, playfully getting up and assuming a military attitude.

“And here am I,” said Walter, laughing, as he stood beside him with one foot 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 very short-sighted, and always shutting up with a headache; Smythe is a mere book-worm, and a regular butt even among the little fellows—worse than useless—no dignity or anything else; Kenrick (for Kenrick had so far kept the advantage of his original start that, much as he had fallen off in 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 chief danger—a doubtful general in the camp. Hullo, Flip, you here?” said he, as Henderson came up and joined them.

“Myself, O Evides; who’s the doubtful general in the camp?—not I, I hope.”

“You, Flip? no; but Kenrick. We’re talking about the monitors.”

“A doubtful general!—a traitor, you mean, an enemy, a spy,” said Henderson, hotly. “There, now, don’t stop me, Power; abuse is a good safety-valve; the scream of the steam-engine letting off superfluous vapour. I should dislike him far worse if I bottled up against him a silent spite, hated him in the dark, and didn’t openly abuse him sometimes.”

Power’s large and gentle mind, and Walter’s generous temper prevented them from joining in Henderson’s strong language; but they felt no less than 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 to public-houses, and habitually associated with inferiors, and those the least creditable set in the school, did more to damage the authority of the upper boys than any number of external assaults on them if they were consistent and united among themselves.

“I foresee storms ahead,” said Power, with a sigh. “Flip, you must stand by me as well as Walter.”

“Never fear,” said Henderson; “but remember I’m only the junior monitor of the lot, and I’m so quick-tempered, I’m always afraid of stirring up a commotion some day with the Harpoons”—as Henderson had christened the Harpour lot.

“You must be like the lightning-kite then,” said Power, “and turn the flash 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 the monitors used to be then!” said Power.

“And do you remember certain boys whom Somers, and Dimock, and Danvers praised on a certain occasion?” said Walter. “Come, Rex, don’t despond. We weren’t afraid then, why should we be now?”

“But then they had Macon, and fellows like that, to uphold them in the school.”

“So have we,” said Henderson; “first and foremost Whalley, who’s now got 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 a lightning-kite ready made for you no doubt; he’s accustomed to the experiment.”

“Why, Flip, you talk as if we were going to have a pitched battle,” said Power, ignoring his joke about Franklin.

“So we are—practically and morally. Look out for skirmishes from the Harpour lot; especially the world, the flesh, and the devil, whom I just saw arm in arm.”

“What do you mean, Flip?” asked Walter, laughing.

“Mean! nothing at all—only Tracy, Jones, and Mackworth. Tracy’s the world, 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 they can help it,” said Walter; “Cradock and Eden.”

“Briareus and Paradise,” said Henderson; “poor Eden, he can’t do much for 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 the monitors this half?” said Power.

“Why, the fifth has in it a more turbulent lot just now than I ever knew before; big impudent fellows, with no good in them, and quite at the beck 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 since they caught it so tremendously from Somers. Well, never mind; aide toi et ciel t’aidera. Why, look, there’s Paradise, taking charge as usual of a little new fellow; who is it?”

“Look and see,” said Walter, as a little fellow came up, with an unmistakable 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! an Evides 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 fellow to have a monitor brother, and Eden to look after you from the first. I wish I’d been so lucky, I know.”

“O Walter, what a jolly place this is,” said his little brother,—“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 his lips.

Chapter Thirty One.

Among the Noelites.

But, I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

Much Ado about Nothing.

Etiam si quis a culpa vacuus in amicitiam ejus inciderat, quotidiano usu per similisque ceteris efficiebatur.—Sallust.

The changes described in the last chapter were not the only ones which seriously affected the prosperity of Saint Winifred’s School, for the stall of masters was also partly altered during the last two years, and the alterations had not been improvements. Mr Paton—who had by this time manfully resumed his old theological labours, and who, to please Walter, had often employed him as a willing amanuensis in attempting to replace the burnt manuscript—had retired from his mastership to a quiet country living to which he had been presented by Sir Lawrence Power. Strange as it may seem, Mr Paton chiefly, though of course indirectly, owed this living to Walter, who had first talked to Sir Lawrence about Mr Paton, in terms of deep regard. The opportunity, therefore, which Walter had sought so earnestly, of atoning in some way for the mischief which he had done to his old master, was amply granted to him; and Mr Paton never felt more strongly, that even out of the deepest apparent evils God can bring about undoubted blessings. Saint Winifred’s, however, was the loser by his promotion. The benefit of his impartial justice and stern discipline, and the weight of his firm and manly character in the councils of the school, was gone. And Saint Winifred’s had suffered a still greater loss in the departure of Mr Percival, who had accepted, some months before, the offer of a tutorship in his own university. Had he continued where he was, his influence, his well-deserved popularity, his kind, wise, conciliatory manner, the gratitude which rewarded his ready and self-denying sympathy, would, in the troubled period which ensued, have been even more useful than his brilliant scholarship and successful method of teaching a form. These two masters had left amid the universal regret of the boys and of their colleagues, and their places had been filled up by younger, less able, and less experienced men.

And worse than this, Dr Lane, soon after the term began, was taken seriously ill, and was ordered to the German baths for two months, during which his work was done by another master, who had not the same influence. From all which causes, this half-year at Saint Winifreds was the most turbulent, the most riotous, and the most unhappy, ever known in that honourable and ancient school.

So little Charlie Evson soon found reason to revise and modify his opinion, that Saint Winifred’s—as he then saw it—was jollier than even Semlyn itself. His name had been entered in the list of Mr Percival’s house, before it was known that he was going to leave. Walter liked Mr Percival so much better than he did his own tutor, Mr Robertson, and had experienced from him so much more kindness, that he thought it would be an advantage for Charlie to be placed directly under so wise and kind a friend; and Mr Evson, afraid that his little son would be quite overshadowed by his elder brother, and that Walter’s influence, which was very transcendent over Charlie’s mind, would make him too dependent on another, and prevent him from developing his own natural character, was by no means averse to the arrangement. But since Mr Percival had left, Charlie, with the other boys in the house, was handed over to the charge of Mr Noel, a new master, who had to win his way and learn his work, neither of which he succeeded in doing until he had committed many mistakes.

In this house were Kenrick and Mackworth—Kenrick, as monitor, was in some measure responsible for the character of the house, and he had Charlie as one of his fags. At this time, as I have already observed with sorrow, Kenrick’s influence was not only useless for good, but was even positively bad. There was no other monitor who did not try to be of some use to his fags; many of the monitors, by quiet kindnesses and useful hints, by judicious help and unselfish sympathy, were of most real service to the boys who nominally “fagged” for them, but who, in point of fact, were required to do nothing except taking an occasional message, seeing that the study fires did not go out, and carrying up the tea and breakfast for a week each, in order of rotation. Few Saint Winifred’s boys would have hesitated to admit that they would have been less happy, and would have had fewer chances in school-life, if they had not been fags at first, and thereby found friends and protectors in the boys for whom they fagged. Kenrick, however, did not follow the good example which had become almost traditional; for, filled as he was with the spirit of wilful pride, and on bad terms with the order to which he belonged, he either spoiled his fags by petting and pampering them, and letting them see his own disregard for duty, or, if they did not take his fancy, he snubbed and disregarded them—at any rate, did nothing whatever to help them.

Kenrick was quite willing to have placed Charlie Evson in the first of these classes, for he was a boy whom it was impossible to see and not to like. His antagonistic position towards most of his own body, made him the head of a sort of faction in the school, and he would have been proud beyond measure to have had any boy like Charlie as one of his followers. But Kenrick had better reasons for wishing to attach Charlie to himself. Deeply as he had degenerated, disgraceful as his present conduct was, Kenrick, in the secret depths of his soul, sighed and pined for better things; though vice, and folly, and pride had their attractions for him, he was still sick at heart for the purer atmosphere which he had left. He looked at Charlie with vague hopes, for through him he thought that he might yet perhaps, without lowering his pride by actually seeming to have made any advance, bring about a reconciliation with his best and earliest friends, bring about a return to his former and more upright course.

But this was not to be. When a boy goes wrong he strews every step of his downward career with obstacles against his own return; and he little dreams how difficult of removal some of these obstacles will be. The obstacle in this case was another little fag of Kenrick’s, named Wilton. I am sorry to write of that boy. Young in years, he was singularly old in vice. A more brazen, a more impudent, a more hardened little scapegrace—in schoolboy language, “a cooler hand”—it would have been impossible to find. He had early gained the name of Raven from his artful looks. His manner was a mixture of calm audacity and consummate self-conceit. Though you knew him to be a thorough scamp, the young imp would stare you in the face with the effrontery of a man about town. He was active, sharp, and nice-looking, and there was nothing which he was either afraid or ashamed to do. He had not a particle of that modesty which in every good boy is as natural as it is graceful; he could tell a lie without the slightest hesitation or the faintest blush; nay, while he was telling it, though he knew that you knew it to be a lie, he would not abash for an instant the cold glance of his wicked dark eyes. Yet this boy, like Charlie, was only thirteen years old. And for all these reasons, Wilton was the idol of all the big bad boys in the school; and in spite of all these reasons—for the boy had in him the fascination of a serpent—he was the declared favourite of Kenrick too.

The three boys who gave the tone to Mr Noel’s house, were Kenrick, Mackworth, and Wilton. They formed as it were an electric chain of bad influence, and as they were severally prominent in the chief divisions of the school, they had peculiar opportunities for doing harm. Kenrick’s evil example told with extraordinary power through the whole house, and especially upon the highest boys, who naturally imitated him. I do not mean to say that Kenrick had sunk so low that wilfully and consciously he lowered the character of the house, which as monitor he ought to have improved and raised; but he did so whether with intention or not; he did so negatively by neglecting all his duties, and by giving no direct countenance to what was right; he did so positively by not openly discountenancing, and by actually practising, many things which he knew to be wrong. The bad work was carried on by Mackworth, who was the most prominent fifth-form boy in the house. This boy’s ability, and strength of will, and keenness of tongue, gave him immense authority, and enabled him to carry out almost everything he liked. To complete the mischief, among the lower boys Wilton reigned supreme; and as Wilton was prouder of Kenrick’s patronage than of anything else, and by flattery and cajolery could win over Kenrick to nearly anything, the worst part of the characters of these boys acting and reacting on each other, leavened the house through and through with all that is least good, or true, or lovely, or of a good report. The mischief began before Mr Percival left, but it never could have proceeded half so far, if Mr Noel’s inexperience, and the very kindness which led him to relax the existing discipline, had not tempted the boys to unwonted presumption.

Such was the state of things when Charlie entered Mr Noel’s house. Walter knew that Mr Percival’s promotion had frustrated the plan he had formed when he advised his father to put Charlie in that house, but the step could not now be recalled, nor, indeed, was Walter or any other monitor aware how bad the state of things had become. For among other dangerous innovations, Mackworth and Wilton had brought about a kind of understanding, that the house should to some extent keep to itself, resent all intrusion into its own precincts, and maintain a profound silence about its own secrets. Besides all this, Walter bitterly and sorrowfully felt that for some reason, which he was unable to fathom, the whole school was just then in an unsatisfactory state, and that Charlie, for whom his whole heart yearned with brotherly love and pity, would be exposed to severe temptations in whatever house he should be placed. He hoped too that, as Charlie would always have the run of his and of Power’s study, it would make little difference to him that he was under a different house master.

To Mackworth and Wilton the arrival of one or two new boys was a matter of some importance, but little anxiety. The new boys were necessarily young, and in the present united state of the house, it was tolerably certain that they would catch the prevalent spirit, and be quickly assimilated to the condition of the others. The task of moulding them—if they were at all difficult to manage—fell to Wilton, and he certainly accomplished it with astonishing success. A newcomer’s sensibilities were not too quickly shocked. The Noelites, for their own purposes, behaved very kindly to him at first; they were first-rate hands at “destroying a boy by means of his best affections,” at “seething a kid in its mother’s milk.” The bad language, the school trickeries and deceits, the dodges for breaking rules and escaping punishments, the agreed-on lies to avoid detection, the suppers, and brandy, and smoking parties, and false keys to get out after lock-up, and all the other detestable symptoms of a vitiated and depraved set, were carefully kept in abeyance at first. The new fellow was treated very kindly, was sounded and fathomed cautiously, was taught to get up a strong house feeling by perpetual endeavours to wake in him the esprit de corps, was gently ridiculed if he displayed any good principle, was tremendously bullied if he showed signs of recalcitrance, was according to his temperament led, or coaxed, or initiated, or intimidated, into the condition of wickedness required of him before the house could continue to go to the devil, as fast as it wished to do, and was doing before. This was Mackworth’s work, and Wilton acted as his Azazel, and Kenrick did not interfere, though he knew or guessed all that was going on; he did not interfere, he did not prevent it, he did not even remonstrate at first, and afterwards he began by acquiescing, he ended by—yes, the truth must be told—he ended in joining in it all. O Kenrick, when human beings meet face to face before a certain judgment-seat, there are some young souls who will have a bill of indictment against you; the same who may point to Mackworth or to Wilton, and say, as of old, “The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.” Five new boys had come this half-year. Four of them had been sounded by the rest of the house; one of them, named Stone, had come from a large private school, and was prepared for whatever he might find in more senses than one. Another, Symes, was a boy ill-trained at home, of no particular principles, and quite ready to flow with the stream. A third, Hanley, had come meaning to be good; he had been shocked when he first heard oaths, and when he was first asked if he would mind telling any of the regular lies—“crams” the boys called them—in the event of any master questioning him; but his wounded sensibilities were very quickly healed, and he had passed with fatal facility from disgust to indifference, from indifference to toleration. The fourth, Elgood, was a timid child, for whom no one cared either way, and whom they took care to frighten into promising to do whatever he was ordered. A terrible state of things—was it not? But, ah me! it was so once upon a time. The fifth new boy in Mr Noel’s house was Charles Evson; and with this fifth new boy the devil’s agents knew instinctively that they would have a great deal of trouble. But they meant to bait their hook very carefully, and they did not at all despair. Their task was made peculiarly piquant by its very difficulty, and by the fact that Charlie was one in whom their declared enemy, Walter Evson, was so nearly concerned. They were determined by fair means or foul to win him over, and make him their proselyte, until he became as much a child of sin as they were themselves. But they proceeded to their task with the utmost caution, and endeavoured to charm Charlie over to their views by showing him great attention, by trying to make things pleasant for him, by flattering him with notice, and seeming to welcome him cordially as one of themselves. Their dissimulation was profound; at first the new boy found everything quite delightful, and before a week was over had caught, as they meant him to catch, the spirit of party, and always was ready to stick up for the Noelites as the best house in the school. So far so good; but this was only the first step of initiation into these Eleusinian mysteries.

So Master Wilton—Belial junior, as Henderson always called him—ingratiated himself into Charlie’s favour, and tried, not without success, to make himself peculiarly agreeable. At first sight, indeed, Charlie felt an inward repulsion to him. He did not know why he did, for, so far from there being anything obviously repulsive in Wilton’s look or manners, there were many who thought him the picture of innocence, and considered his manners quite perfection in their politeness and good breeding. Charlie therefore instantly conquered his first feeling of dislike as uncharitable and groundless; and as Wilton seemed to lay himself out for his friendship, he was oftener with him during the first fortnight than with any other boy. It was strange to see the two together, so utterly different were they in every respect, and so great was the contrast of Charlie’s sweet, bright, modest face, with the indescribable dangerous coolness of Wilton’s knowing smile.

“Look,” said Henderson to Whalley, as he saw them together one day in the playground; “there go Ithuriel and Belial junior, very thick at present.”

“Yes; I don’t like to see it. I don’t hear any good of that fellow Wilton.”

“Good! I should rather think not!”

“Give young Evson a hint, Flip, will you, that Wilton’s not a good friend for him. He looks a nice little fellow, and I don’t like to tell him, because I don’t know him.”

“Never fear; when Charlie touches him with his spear, or sees him light on the top of Niphates—one of which things will happen soon enough—he’ll not be slow to discover who he is. If not, I’ll tell Walter, and he shall be Charlie’s Uriel.”

“Touches him with his spear!—what spear?—top of Niphates!—Uriel!” said Whalley, with ludicrous astonishment; “here, Power, you’re just in time to help me to put a strait-waistcoat on Flip. He says that when Wilton lights on the top of Niphates, which he will do soon, young Evson will discover that he’s a scamp. What does it all mean?”

“It only means that Flip and I have been reading the Paradise Lost,” said Power, laughing, “and at present Flip’s mind is a Miltonic conglomerate.” And he proceeded to explain to Whalley that Ithuriel was one of the Cherubs who guarded Eden—

(“Only that in this case Eden guards the cherub,” observed Henderson, parenthetically.)

”—and who, by touching Satan with his spear, made him bound up in his original state, when he sat like a toad squat at the ear of Eve, and, moreover, that Uriel had recognised Satan through his mask, when, lighting on Niphates, his looks became ‘Alien from heaven, with passions foul obscured.’”

“Seriously, though,” said Henderson, “Uriel must be asleep, or he wouldn’t let his little brother get under Belial’s wings.”

In fact, Wilton was forced to keep on the mask much longer than he had ever meant to do. He could find no joint in Charlie’s armour. The boy was so thoroughly manly, so simple-hearted, so trustful and innocent, that Wilton could make nothing of him. If he tried to indoctrinate Charlie into the state of morality among the Noelites, either Charlie did not understand him, or else quite openly expressed his disapproval and even indignation; and when finally Wilton quite tired out, did throw off the mask, Charlie shook him away from him, turned with a sickening sensation from the unbared features of vice, and unfeignedly loathed the boy who had pretended to be his friend—loathed him all the more because he had tried to like him, but now saw the snare which was being spread in his sight.

Every now and then during their early intercourse Charlie had felt a certain restraint in talking to Wilton; he could not be at ease with him though he tried. He caught the gleam of the snake through the flowers that only half concealed his folds. And Wilton, too, had got very tired of playing a part. He could not help his real wickedness cropping out now and then, yet whenever it did, Charlie started in such a way that even Wilton was ashamed; and though generally the shafts of conscience glanced off from the panoply of steel and ice which cased this boy’s heart, yet during these days they once or twice reached the mark, and made him smart with long-unwonted anguish. He was conscious that he was doing the devil’s work, and doing it for very poor wages, he felt now and then Charlie’s immense superiority to himself, and, in a mood of pity, when, as they were standing one day in Mr Noel’s private room to say a lesson, he caught sight of their two selves reflected in the looking-glass over the mantelpiece, and realised the immense gulf which separated them—a gulf not of void chaos and flaming space, but the deeper gulf of warped affections and sinful thoughts—he had felt a sudden longing to be other than what he was, to have Charlie for a true friend, to give up trying to make him a bad boy, and to fall at his feet and ask his pardon. And when he had doggedly failed in his lesson, and got his customary bad mark, and customary punishment, and received his customary objurgation, that he was getting worse and worse, and that his time was utterly wasted—and when he saw the master’s face light up with a pleased expression as Charlie went cheerfully and faultlessly through his work—a sudden paroxysm of penitence seized Wilton, and, once out of the room, he left Charlie and ran up the stairs to Kenrick’s study, in which he was allowed to sit whenever he liked. No one was there, and throwing himself into a chair, Wilton covered his face with both hands, and burst into passionate tears. A long train of thoughts and memories passed through his mind—memories of his own headlong fall to what he was, memories of younger and of innocent days, memories of a father, now dead, who had often set him on his knee, and prayed, before all other things, that he might grow up a good and truthful boy, and with no stain upon his name. But while memory whispered of past innocence, conscience told him of present guilt; told him that if his father could have foreseen what he would become, his heart would have broken; told him, and he knew it, that his name was a proverb and a byeword in the school. But the prominent and the recurring thought was ever this—“Is it too late to mend? Is the door shut against me?” For Wilton remembered how once before his mind was harrowed by fear and guilt as he had listened to Mr Percival’s parting sermon on that sad text—one of the saddest in all the Holy Book—“And the door was shut.”

Suddenly he was startled violently from his reverie, for the door was shut with a bang, and Kenrick, entering, flung himself in a chair, saying, with a vexed expression of voice, “Too late.”

It was but a set of verses which Kenrick had written for a prize exercise, and which he had just sent in too late. He had not lost all ambition, but he had no real friend now to inspirit or stimulate him, so that he often procrastinated, and was seldom successful with anything.

But his accidental words fell with awful meaning and strange emphasis on poor Wilton’s ear. Wilton had never heard of the Bath Kol, he knew nothing of the power that wields the tongue amid the chances of destiny; but fear made him superstitious, and, forgetting his usual dissimulation, he looked up at Kenrick aghast, without wiping away the traces which unwonted tears had left upon his face.

“Why, Raven, boy, what’s the matter?” asked Kenrick, looking at him with astonishment; “much you care for my having a set of iambics too late.”

“Oh, is that all?” asked Wilton, still looking frightened.

“All? Yes; and enough, too, for me. But”—stopping suddenly—“why, Raven, what’s the row? You’ve been crying, by all that’s odd! Why, I didn’t know you’d ever shed a tear since you’d been in the cradle. Raven crying—what a notion! Crocodile tears, eh?”

Wilton was ashamed to have been caught crying, and angry to be laughed at. He was leaving the room silently and in a pet, when Kenrick caught him, and, looking at him, said in a kindlier tone—

“Nonsense, Ra; don’t mind a little chaff. What’s happened? Nothing serious, I hope?”

But Wilton was angry and miserable just then, and struggled to get free. He did not venture to tell Kenrick what had really been passing through his mind. “Let me go,” he said, struggling to get free.

“O, go, by all means,” said Kenrick, with his pride all on fire in a moment; “don’t suppose that I want you or care for you;” and he turned his back on Wilton, to whom he had never once spoken harshly before.

The current of Wilton’s thoughts was turned; he really loved Kenrick, who was the only person for whom he had any regard at all. Besides, Kenrick’s support and favour were everything to him just then, and he stopped irresolutely at the door, unwilling to leave him in anger.

“What do you want? Why don’t you go?” asked Kenrick, with his back still turned.

Wilton came back to the window, and humbly took Kenrick’s hand, looking up at him as though to ask forgiveness.

“How odd you are to-day, Raven,” said Kenrick, relenting. “What were you crying about when I came in?”

“Well, I’ll tell you, Ken. I was thinking how much better some fellows are than I am, and whether it was too late to begin afresh, and whether the door was open to me still, when you came in, and said, ‘Too late,’ and banged the door, which I took for an answer to my thoughts.”

They were the first serious words Kenrick had ever heard from Wilton; but he did not choose to heed them, and only said, after a pause—

“Other fellows better than you? Not a bit of it. Less plucky, perhaps; greater hypocrites, certainly; but you are the jolliest of them all, Ra.”

And with that silly, silly speech Wilton was reassured; a gratified smile perched itself upon his lips, and his eyes sparkled with delight; nor was he soon revisited by any qualms of conscience.

Chapter Thirty Two.

Disenchantment.

“How do you get on with the young Evson, Ra?” asked Mackworth of Wilton, with a sneer.

“Not at all,” said Wilton. “He’s awfully particular and strait-laced, just like that brother of his. No more fun while he’s in the house.”

“Confound him,” said Mackworth, frowning darkly; “if he doesn’t like what he sees, he must lump it. He’s not worth any more trouble.”

“So, Mack, you too have discovered what he’s like.”

“Yes, I have,” answered Mackworth savagely. For all his polish, his courtesies, and civilities had not succeeded in making Charlie conceal how much he feared and disliked him. The young horse rears the first time it hears the adder’s hiss, and the dove’s eye trembles instinctively when the hawk is near. Charlie half knew and half guessed the kind of character he had to deal with, and made Mackworth hate him with deadly hatred by the way in which, without one particle of rudeness or conceit, he managed to keep him at a distance, and check every approach to intimacy.

With Kenrick the case was different. Charlie thought that he looked one of the nicest and best fellows in the house, but he could not get over the fact that Wilton was his favourite. It was Wilton’s constant and daily boast that Ken would do anything for him; and Charlie felt that Wilton was not a boy whom Walter or Power at any rate would even have tolerated, much less liked. It was this that made him receive Kenrick’s advances with shyness and coldness; and when Kenrick observed this, he at once concluded that Charlie had been set against him by Walter, and that he would report to Walter all he did and said. This belief was galling to him as wormwood. Suddenly, and with most insulting publicity, he turned Charlie off from being one of his fags, and from that time never spoke of him without a sneer, and never spoke to him at all.

Meanwhile, as the term advanced, Saint Winifred’s gradually revealed itself to Charlie in a more and more unfavourable light. The discipline of the school was in a most impaired state; the evening work grew more and more disorderly; few of the monitors did their duty with any vigour, and the big idle fellows in the fifth set the example of insolence towards them and rudeness to the masters. All rules were set at defiance with impunity, and in the chaos which ensued, every one did what was right in his own eyes.

One evening, during evening work, Charlie was trying hard to do the verses which had been set to his form. He found it very difficult in the noise that was going on. Not half a dozen fellows in the room were working or attempting to work; they were talking, laughing, rattling the desks, playing tricks on each other, and throwing books about the room. The one bewildered new master, who nominally kept order among the two hundred boys in the room, walked up and down in despair, speaking in vain first to one, then to another, and almost giving up the farce of attempting to maintain silence. But seeing Charlie seriously at work he came up and asked if he could give him any assistance.

Charlie gratefully thanked him, and the master sat down to try and smooth some of his difficulties. His doing so was the sign for an audible titter, which there was no attempt to suppress; and when he had passed on, Wilton, whose conduct had been more impertinent than that of any one else, said to Charlie—

“I say, young Evson, how you are grinding.”

“I have these verses to do,” said Charlie simply.

“Ha! ha! ha!” laughed Wilton, as though he had made some good joke. “Here, shall I give you a wrinkle?”

“Yes, if it’s allowed.”

The answer was greeted with another laugh, and Wilton said, “I’ll save you all further trouble, young ’un. Observe the dodge; we’re all up to it.”

He put up a white handkerchief to his nose, and walking to the master said, “Please, sir, my nose is bleeding. May I go out for a minute?”

“Your nose bleeding? That’s the third time your nose has bled this week, and other boys have also come with their noses bleeding.”

“Do you doubt my word, sir?” asked Wilton, his handkerchief still held up, and assuming an injured air.

“I should be sorry to do so until you give me reason,” answered the master, courteously. “It seems a strange circumstance, but you may go.”

It would have been very easy to see whether his nose was bleeding or not, but the master was trying, very unsuccessfully at present, whether implicit confidence would produce a sense of honour among the boys.

Wilton went out hardly concealing his laughter, and in ten minutes returned with the verses, finished and written out. “There,” he said, “Ken did those for me; he knocked them off in five minutes. Ken’s an awfully clever fellow, though he never opens a book. Don’t bore yourself with verses any more; I’ll get them done for you.”

Charlie glanced at the paper, and saw at once that the verses were perfectly done. “Do you mean to show up that copy as your own, Wilton?”

“Of course I do.”

“But we are marked for them.”

“Hear! hear! thanks for the information. So much the better. I shall get a jolly good mark.”

“Shut up, young innocence, and don’t be a muff,” said another Noelite. “We all do the same thing. Take what heaven sends you and be glad to get it.”

“Thank you,” said Charlie, looking round; “you may, but I’d rather not. It isn’t fair.”

“Oh, how good we are! how sweet we are! what an angel we are!” said Wilton, turning up the whites of his eyes, while the rest applauded him. But if they meant their jeers to tell on Charlie’s resolution, they were mistaken. He looked quietly round at them all with his clear eyes, gravely handed the paper back to Wilton, and quietly resumed his work. They were angry to be so foiled, and determined that, if he would not copy the verses, he should at least do them in no other way. One of them took his paper and tore it, another split his quill pens by dashing them on the desk, while a third seized his dictionary. The master, observing that something was going on at that desk, came and stood by; and as long as he was there, Charlie managed to write out what he had done, while the others, cunningly inserting an occasional mistake, or altering a few epithets, copied out the verses which Kenrick had done for Wilton. But directly the master turned away again, a boy on the opposite side of the table, with the utmost deliberation, took hold of Charlie’s fair copy, and emptied the inkstand over it in three or four separate streams.

Vexed as he was—for until this time he had never known unkindness—he took it quietly and good-humouredly. Next morning, before the rest of the boys in his dormitory, who were mainly in his own form, were aware of what he meant to do, he got up early and went to Walter’s study, hoping to write out the verses there from memory. But he found the study in the possession of the housemaid; chapel-bell rang, and after chapel he went into morning school with the exercise unfinished. For this, he, the only boy in the form who had attempted to do his duty, received a punishment, while the rest looked on unabashed, and got marks for their stolen work. Wilton received nearly full marks for his. The master, Mr Paton’s successor, thought it odd that Wilton could do his verses so much better than any of his other work, but he could not detect the cheating, and Wilton always assured him that the verses were entirely his own composition.

It was about time now, Wilton thought, to hoist his true colours; but, as he had abundance of brass, he followed Charlie out of the schoolroom, talked to him familiarly, as if nothing had happened, and finally took his arm. But this was too much; for the boy, who was as open as the day in all his dealings, at once withdrew his arm, and standing still, looked him full in the face.

“So!” said Wilton, “now take your choice—friends or enemies—which shall it be?”

“If you want me to cheat, and tell lies, and be mean—not friends.”

“So! enemies then, mind. Look out for squalls, young Evson. One question, though,” said Wilton, as Charlie turned away.

“Well?”

“Are you going to sneak about this to your brother?”

Charlie was silent. Without any intention of procuring Walter’s interference, he had meant to talk to him about his difficulties, and to ask his advice. But if this was to be stigmatised as sneaking he felt that he had rather not do it, for there is no action a boy fears more, and considers more mean than this.

“Oh, I see,” said Wilton; “you do mean to peach, blab, tell tales, do you? Well, it don’t matter much; you’ll find he can do precious little; and it will be all the worse for you in the long-run.”

“I shan’t tell him,” said Charlie, shortly; and those words sealed his lips, as with a heavy heart he entered the breakfast-room, and meditated on troubles to come.

Which troubles came quite fast enough—very fast indeed. For the house, or rather the leading spirits in it, thought that they had wasted quite enough time, and with quite sufficient success in angling for the new boys, and determined to resume without any further delay their ordinary courses. If Charlie was fool enough to resist them, they said, so much the worse for him. During the day, indeed, he was saved from many of the annoyances which Walter had been obliged to endure, by escaping from the Great Schoolroom to the happy and quiet refuge of Walter’s, or Power’s or Eden’s study. There he could always be unmolested, and enjoy the kindness with which he was treated, and the cheerful, healthy atmosphere which contrasted so strangely in its moral sweetness with the turbid and polluted air of Noelite society. But in the evening at Preparation, and afterwards in the dormitories, he was wholly at the mercy of that bad confederacy which had tried to mould him to its own will. He was in a large dormitory of ten boys, and as this was the principal room in Mr Noel’s house, it formed the regular refuge every night for the idle and the mischievously inclined. When the candles were put out at bed-time it was seldom long before they were relit in this room—which was somewhat remote from the others, at the end of a long corridor, and of which the window opened on a secluded part of Dr Lane’s garden. If a scout were placed at the end of the corridor he could give timely warning of any danger, so that the chance of detection was very small. Had the candles been relit only for a game of play, Charlie would have been the first to join in the fun. But the Noelites were far too vitiated in taste to be long content with mere bolstering or harmless games. It seemed to Charlie that the candles were relit chiefly for the purpose of eating and drinking forbidden things, of playing cards, or of bullying and tormenting those boys who were least advanced in general wickedness.

“I say, young Evson,” said Wilton to him one night soon after the fracas above narrated, “we’re going to have some fun to-night. Stone, like a brick as he is, has stood a couple of bottles of wine, and Hanley some cards. We shall have a smoke too.”

All this was said in a tone of braggadocio, meant to be exceedingly telling, but it only made Charlie feel that he loathed this swaggering little boy with his premature savoir vivre, more and more. He understood, too, the hint that two of the new fellows had contributed to the house carousal, and fully expected that he would be asked next. He secretly, however, determined to refuse, because he knew well that a mere harmless feast was not intended, but rather a smoking and drinking bout. He had subscribed liberally to all the legitimate funds—the football, the racquet court, the gymnasium; but he saw no reason why he should be taxed for things which he disliked and disapproved. The result of that evening confirmed him in his resolution. It was a scene of drinking, gluttony, secret fear, endless squabbling, and joyless excitement.

“Of course you’ll play, and put into the pool?” said Wilton.

“No, thank you.”

“No, thank you,” said Wilton, scornfully mimicking his tone. “Of course not; you’ll do nothing except set yourself up for a saint, and make yourself disagreeable.”

During the evening Stone brought him some wine, which Charlie again declined, with “No, thank you, Stone.” Wilton again echoed the refusal, which was chorused by a dozen others; and from that time Charlie was duly dubbed with the nickname of “No-thank-you.” He was forcibly christened by this new name, by being held in bed while half a wine-glass of port was thrown in his face. The wine poured down and stained his night-shirt, and then they all began to dread that it would lead to their being discovered, and threatened Charlie with endless penalties if he dared to tell. There was, however, little danger, as the Noelites had bribed the servants who waited on them and cleaned their rooms.

The same scene, with slight variations, was constantly repeated, and every fresh refusal was accompanied by a kick or a cuff from the bigger boys, a sneer or an insult from the younger; for Charlie himself was one of the youngest of them all. One night it was, “I say, you fellow—you, No-thank-you—will you fork out for some wine to-night? No? Well then, take that and that, and be hung to you for a little muff.” Another time it would be, “Hi there, No-thank-you—we want sixpence for a pack of cards. Oh, you won’t be so sinful as to part with sixpence for cards? Confounded little miser;” “Niggard,” said another; “Skinflint,” shouted a third. And a general cry of “Saint,” which expressed the climax of villainy, ended the verbal portion of the contest. And then, some one would slap him on the cheek, with “take that,” “and that,” from another, “and that,” from a third—the last being a boot or a piece of soap shied at his head.

It cannot be more wearisome to the reader than it is to me to linger in these coarse scenes; but, for Charlie, it was a long martyrdom most heroically borne. He was almost literally alone and single-handed against the rest of the house; yet he would not give way. Walter, and Power, and Henderson, all knew that he was bullied, sorely bullied; this they learnt far more from Eden, and from other sources, than from Charlie himself, for he, poor child, held himself bound by his promise to Wilton, and kept his lips resolutely sealed. But these friends knew that he was suffering for conscience sake; and Walter helped him with tender, brotherly affection, and Power with brave words and kindly sympathy, as well as by noble example, and Henderson by his cheering and playful manner; and this caused him much happiness all day long, until he felt that, with that short but heart-uttered prayer which he breathed so earnestly from “the altar of his own bedside,” he had strength sufficient to meet and to conquer the trials which night brought.

In the house one boy and one only helped him. That boy ought to have been Kenrick; his monitorial authority and many responsible privileges were entrusted to him, as he well knew, for the main express purpose of putting down all immorality, and all cruelty, with a strong and remorseless hand. It required very little courage to do this; the sympathies of the majority of boys, unless they be suffered to grow corrupted with an evil leaven, are naturally and strongly on the side of right. In Mr Robertson’s house, for instance, where Walter and Henderson were monitors, such wrong-doings could not have gone on with impunity, or rather could not have gone on at all. There, a little boy, treated with gross severity or injustice, would not have hesitated for an instant to invoke the assistance of the monitors, whom he looked upon as his natural guardians, and who would be eager to extend to him a generous and efficient protection.

The same was the case in Mr Edwardes’s house, of which Power was the head. Power, indeed, had no coadjutor on whom he could at all rely. One of the monitors associated with him was Legrange, who rather followed Kenrick’s lead, and the other was Brown, who, though well-intentioned, was a boy of no authority. Yet these two houses were in a better condition than any others in the school, because the heads of them did their duty; and it was no slight credit to Walter and Henderson that their house stood higher in character than any other, although it contained both Harpour and Jones. This could not have been the case had not those two worthies found a powerful counterpoise in two other fifth-form fellows, Franklin and Cradock, whose excellence was almost solely due to Walter’s influence. Kenrick, on the other hand, never interfered in the house, and let things go on exactly as they liked, although they were going to rack and ruin.

Charlie’s sole friend and helper in the house then was, not Kenrick, but Bliss. Poor Bliss quite belied his name, for his school work, in which he never could by any effort succeed, kept him in a state of lugubrious disappointment. Bliss lived a dim kind of life, seeing all sorts of young boys get above him and beat him in the race, and vaguely groping in thick mental darkness. Do what he could the stream of knowledge fled from his tantalised lip whenever he stooped to drink; and the fruits, which others plucked easily, sprang up out of his reach when he tried to touch the bough. He was constantly crushed by a desolating sense of his own stupidity; and yet his good temper was charming under all his trials, and he loved with a grateful humility all who tolerated his shortcomings. For this reason he had a sincere affection for Henderson, who plagued him, indeed, incessantly, but never in an unkind or insulting way; and who more than made up for the teasing by patient and constant help, without which Bliss would not have succeeded even as well as he did. Bliss was a strong active fellow, and good at the games, so that with most of the school he got on very well; but, nevertheless, he was generally set down as nearly half-witted—a mere dolt. Dolt or not, he did Charlie inestimable service; and if any boy is in like case with Bliss, let him take courage, for even the merest dolt has immense power for good as well as for harm, and Bliss extended to Charlie a gentle and manly sympathy which many a clever boy might have envied. He knew that Charlie was ill-used. Not being in the same dormitory, and joining very little in the house concerns, he was not able to interfere very directly in his aid; but he never failed to encourage him to resist iniquity of every kind. “Hold out, young Evson,” he would often say to him; “you’re a good, brave little chap, and don’t give in; you’re in the right and they in the wrong; and right is might, be sure of that.”

It was something in those days to meet with approbation for well-doing among the Noelites; and Charlie, with genuine gratitude, never forgot Bliss’s kind support; till Bliss left Saint Winifred’s they continued firm friends and fast.

“Have you made any friends in the house?” asked Mr Noel of Charlie on one occasion; for he often seized an opportunity of talking to his younger boys, for whom he felt a sincere interest, and whom he would gladly have shielded from temptation to the very utmost of his power, had he but known that of which he was unhappily so ignorant—the bad state of things among the boys under his care.

“Not many, sir,” said Charlie.

“Haven’t you? I’m sorry to hear that. I like to see boys forming friendships for future life; and there are some very nice fellows in the house. Wilton, for instance, don’t you like him? He’s very idle and volatile, I know, but still he seems to me a pleasant boy.”

Charlie could hardly suppress a smile, but said nothing; and Mr Noel continued, “Who is your chief friend, Evson, among my boys?”

“Bliss, sir,” said Charlie, with alacrity.

“Bliss!” answered Mr Noel in surprise. “What makes you like him so much? Is he not very backward and stupid?”

But Charlie would not hear a word against Bliss, and speaking with all the open trustfulness of a new boy, he exclaimed, “O sir, Bliss is an excellent fellow; I wish there were many more like him; he’s a capital fellow, sir, I like him very much; he’s the best fellow in the house, and the only one who stands by me when I am in trouble.”

“Well, I’m glad you’ve found one friend, Evson,” said Mr Noel; “no matter who he is.”

One way in which Bliss showed his friendship was by going privately to Kenrick, and complaining of the way in which Charlie was bullied. “Why don’t you interfere, Kenrick?” he asked.

“Interfere, pooh! It will do the young cub good; he’s too conceited, by half.”

“I never saw a little fellow less conceited, anyhow.”

Kenrick stared at him. “What business is it of yours, I should like to know?”

“It is business of mine; he is a good little fellow, and he’s only kicked because the others can’t make him as bad a lot as they are themselves; there’s that Wilton—”

“Shut up about Wilton, he’s a friend of mine.”

“Then more shame for you,” said Bliss.

“He’s worth fifty such chickens as little Evson, any day.”

“Chickens!” said Bliss, with a tone as nearly like contempt as he had ever assumed; “it’s clear you don’t know much about him; I wish, Kenrick, you’d do your duty more, and then the house would not be so bad as it is.”

Kenrick opened his eyes wide; he had never heard Bliss speak like this before. “I don’t want the learned, the clever, the profound Bliss to teach me my duty,” he said, with a proud sneer; “what business have you to abuse the house, because it is not full of young ninnies like Evson? You’re no monitor of mine, let me tell you.”

“You may sneer, Kenrick, at my being stupid, if you like; but, for all your cleverness, I wouldn’t be you for something; and if you won’t interfere, as you ought, I will, if I can.” And as Bliss said this, with clear flaming anger, and fixed on Kenrick his eyes, which were lighted up with honest purpose, Kenrick thought he had never seen him look so handsome, or so fine a fellow. “Yes, even he is superior to me now,” he thought, with a sigh, as Bliss left the room. Poor Ken—there was no unhappier boy at Saint Winifred’s; as he ate and ate of those ashy fruits of sin, they grew more and more dusty and bitter to his parched taste; as he drank of that napthaline river of wayward pride, it scorched his heart and did not quench his thirst.

Chapter Thirty Three.

Martyrdom.

“Since thou so deeply dost enquire, I will instruct thee briefly why no dread Hinders my entrance here. Those things alone Are to be feared whence evil may proceed, Nought else, for nought is terrible beside.” Carey’s Dante.

Gradually the persecutions to which Charlie was subjected mainly turned on one point. His tormentors were so far tired of bullying him, that they would have left him in comparative peace if he would have yielded one point—which was this.

The Noelites were accustomed now and then to have a grand evening “spread” as they called it, and when they had finished this supper, which was usually supplied by Dan, they generally began smoking, an amusement which they could enjoy after the lights were out. The smokers used to sit in the long corridor, which, as I have said, led to their dormitory, and the scout was always posted to warn them of approaching danger; but as they did not begin operations till the master had gone his nightly rounds, and were very quiet about it, there was not much danger of their being disturbed. Yet although the windows of the corridor and dormitory were all left wide open, and every other precaution was taken, it was impossible to get rid of the fumes of tobacco so entirely as to avoid all chance of detection. They had, indeed, bribed the servants to secrecy, but what they feared was being detected by some master. The Noelites, therefore, of that dormitory had been accustomed to agree that if they were questioned by any master about the smell of smoking, they would all deny that any smoking had taken place. The other nine boys in the dormitory, with the doubtful exception of Elgood, had promised that they would stick to this assertion in case of their being asked. The question was, “Would Charlie promise the same thing?” If not, the boys felt doubly insecure—insecure about the stability of their falsehood and the secrecy of their proceedings.

And Charlie Evson, of course, refused to promise this. Single-handed he fought this battle against the other boys in his house, and in spite of solicitation, coaxing, entreaty, threats and blows, steadily declared that he was no tell-tale, that he had never mentioned anything which had gone on in the house, but that if he were directly asked whether a particular act had taken place or not, he would still keep silence, but could not and would not tell a lie.

Now some of the house—and especially Mackworth and Wilton—had determined, by the help of the rest, to crush this opposition, to conquer this obstinacy, as they called it; and, since Charlie’s reluctance could not be overcome by persuasion or argument, to break it down by sheer force. So, night after night, a number of them gathered round Charlie, and tried every means which ingenuity or malice could suggest to make him yield on this one point; the more so, because they well knew that to gain one concession was practically to gain all, and Charlie’s uprightness contrasted so unpleasantly with their own base compliances, that his mere presence among them became, from this circumstance, a constant annoyance. One boy with a high and firm moral standard, steadily and consistently good, can hardly fail to be most unpopular in a large house full of bad and reckless boys.

It was a long and hard struggle; so long that Charlie felt as if it would last for ever, and his strength would give way before he had wearied-out his persecutors. For now it seemed to be a positive amusement, a pleasant occupation to them, night after night, to bully him. He dreaded, he shuddered at the return of evening; he knew well that from the time when Preparation began, till the rest were all asleep, he could look for little peace. Sometimes he was tempted to yield. He knew that at the bottom the fellows did not really hate him, that he might be very popular if he chose, even without going to nearly the same lengths as the others, and that if he would but promise not to tell, his assent would be hailed with acclamations. Besides, said the tempter, the chances are very strongly in favour of your not being asked at all about the matter, so that there is every probability of your not being called upon to tell the “cram;” for by some delicate distinction the falsehood presented itself under the guise of a “cram,” and not of a naked lie; that was a word the boys carefully avoided applying to it, and were quite angry if Charlie called it by its right name. One evening the poor little fellow was so weary and hopeless and sad at heart, and he had been thrashed so long and so severely, that he was very near yielding. A paper had been written, the signing of which was tacitly understood to involve a promise to deny that there had been any smoking at night if they were taxed with it; and all the boys except Elgood and Charlie had signed this paper. But the fellows did not care for Elgood; they knew that he dared not oppose them long, and that they could make him do their bidding whenever the time came. Well, one evening, Charlie, in a weak mood, was on the verge of signing the paper, and thus purchasing a cessation of the long series of injuries and taunts from which he had been suffering. He was sitting up in bed, and had taken the pencil in hand to sign his name. The boys, in an eager group round him, were calling him a regular brick, encouraging him, patting him on the back, and saying that they had been sure all along that he was a nice little fellow, and would come round at last. Elgood was among them, looking on with anxious eyes. He had immensely admired Charlie’s brave firmness, and nothing but reliance on the strength of his stronger will had encouraged him in the shadow of opposition. “If young Evson does it,” he whispered, “I will directly.” Charlie caught the whisper; and in an agony of shame flung away the pencil. He had very nearly sinned himself, and forgotten the resolution which had been granted him in answer to his many prayers; but he had seen the effects of bad example, and nothing should induce him to lead others with him into sin. “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil,” was the instant supplication which rose from his inmost heart, as he threw down the pencil and pushed the paper aside.

“I can’t do it,” he said; “I must not do it; I never told a lie in my life that I remember. Don’t ask me any more.” Instantly the tone and temper of the boys changed. A shower of words, which I will not repeat, assailed his ears; he was dragged out of bed and thrashed more unmercifully than he had ever been before. “You shall give way in the end, mind that,” was the last admonition he received from one of the bigger fellows, as he dragged himself to his bed, sobbing for pain, and aching with disquietude of heart. “The sooner it is the better; for you little muffs and would-be saints don’t go down with us.”

And then for a few evenings, when the candles were put out, and the fellows had nothing better to do, it used to be the regular thing for some one to suggest, “Come, let’s bait No-thank-you; it’ll be rare fun.” Then another would say, “Come, No-thank-you, sign the paper like a good fellow, and spare yourself all the rest.”

“Do,” another insidious friend would add; “I am quite sorry to see you kicked and thrashed so often.”

“I’ll strike a light in one second if you will,” suggested a fourth. “No, you won’t? oh, then, look out, Master No-thank-you, look out for squalls.” But still, however beaten or insulted, holding out like a man, and not letting the tears fall if he could help it, though they swam in his eyes for pain and grief, the brave boy resisted evil, and would not be forced to stain his white soul with the promise of a lie.

There were some who, though they dared not say anything, yet looked on at this struggle with mingled shame and admiration—shame for themselves, admiration for Charlie. It could not be but that there were some hearts among so many which had not seared the tender nerves of pity, and more than once Charlie saw kindly faces looking at him out of the cowardly group of tormentors, and heard timid words of disapprobation spoken to the worst of those who bullied him. More often, too, some young Noelite who met him during the day would seem to address him with a changed nature, would speak to him warmly and with friendliness, would show by little words and actions that he felt for him and respected him, although he had not courage enough to resist publicly the opposing stream. And others of the baser sort observed this. What if this one little new fellow should beat them after all, and end their domination, and introduce in spite of them a truer and better and more natural state of things? it was not to be tolerated for a moment, and he must be put down with a strong hand at once.

Meanwhile Charlie’s heart was fast failing him, dying away within him; for under this persecution his health and spirits were worn out. His face, they noticed, was far paler than when he came, his looks almost haggard, and his manner less sprightly than before. He had honourably abstained hitherto from giving Walter any direct account of his troubles, but now he yearned for some advice and comfort, and went to Walter’s study, not to complain, but to ask if Walter thought there was any chance of his father removing him to another school, because he felt that at Saint Winifred’s he could neither be happy nor in any way succeed.

“Well, Charlie boy, what can I do for you?” said Walter, cheerfully pushing away the Greek Lexicon and Aristophanes over which he was engaged, and wheeling round the armchair to the fire, which he poked till there was a bright blaze.

“Am I disturbing you at your work, Walter?” said the little boy, whose dejected air his brother had not noticed.

“No, Charlie, not a bit; you never disturb me. I was just thinking that it was about time to shut up, for it’s almost too dark too read, and we’ve nearly half an hour before tea-time; so come here and sit on my knee and have a chat. I haven’t seen you for an age, Charlie.”

Charlie said nothing, but he was in a weary mood, and was glad to sit on his brother’s knee and put his arm round his neck; for he was more than four years Walter’s junior, and had never left home before, and that night the homesickness was very strongly upon him.

“Why, what’s the matter, Charlie boy?” asked Walter playfully. “What’s the meaning of this pale face and red eyes? I’m afraid you haven’t found Saint Winifred’s so jolly as you expected; disenchanted already, eh?”

“O Walter, I’m very, very miserable,” said Charlie, overcome by his brother’s tender manner towards him; and leaning his head on Walter’s shoulder he sobbed aloud.

“What is it, Charlie?” said Walter, gently stroking his light hair. “Never be afraid to tell me anything. You’ve done nothing wrong, I hope?”

“O no, Walter. It’s because I won’t do wrong that they bully me.”

“Is that it? Then dry your tears, Charlie boy, for you may thank God, and nothing in earth or under the earth can make you do wrong if you determine not—determine in the right way, you know, Charlie.”

“But it’s so hard, Walter; I didn’t know it would be so very hard. The house is so bad, and no one helps me except Bliss. I don’t think you were ever troubled as I am, Walter.”

“Never mind, Charlie. Only don’t go wrong whatever they do to you. You don’t know how much this will smooth your way all the rest of your school-life. It’s quite true what you say, Charlie, and the state of the school is far worse than ever knew it; but that’s all the more reason we should do our duty, isn’t it.”

“O Walter, but I know they’ll make me do wrong some day. I wish I were at home. I wish I might leave. I get thrashed and kicked and abused every night, Walter, and almost all night long.”

“Do you?” asked Walter, in angry amazement. “I knew that you were rather bullied—Eden told me that—but I never knew it was so bad as you say. By jove, Charlie, I should like to catch some one bullying you, and—well, I’ll warrant that he shouldn’t do it again.”

“O, I forgot, Walter, I oughtn’t to have told you; they made me promise not. Only it is so wretched.”

“Never mind, my poor little Charlie,” said Walter. “Do what’s right and shame the devil. I’ll see if I can’t devise some way of helping you; but anyhow, hold up till the end of term, and then no doubt papa will take you away if you still wish it. But what am I to do without you, Charlie?”

“You’re a dear, dear good brother,” said Charlie, gratefully; “and but for you, Walter, I should have given in long ago.”

“No, Charlie, not for me, but for a truer friend than even I can be, though I love you with all my heart. But will you promise me one thing faithfully?”

“Yes, that I will.”

“Well, promise me then that, do what they will, they shan’t make you tell a lie, or do anything else that you know to be wrong.”

“I’ll promise you, Walter, if I can,” said the little boy humbly; “but I’ve been doing my best for a long time.”

“You couldn’t tell a lie, Charlie boy, without being found out; that I feel sure of,” said Walter, smiling, as he held his brother’s ingenuous face between his hands, and looked at it. “I don’t doubt you for an instant; but I’ll have a talk with Power about you. As head of the school he may be able to do something, perhaps. It’s Kenrick’s duty properly, but—”

“Kenrick, Walter? He’s of no use; he lets the house do just as it likes, and I think he must have taken a dislike to me, for he turned me off quite roughly from being his fag.”

“Never mind him or any one else, Charlie. You’re a brave little fellow, and I’m proud of you. There’s the tea-bell; come in with me.”

“Ah, Walter, it’s only in the evenings when you’re away that I get pitched into. If I were but in the same house with you, how jolly it would be.” And he looked wistfully after his brother as they parted at the door of the hall, and Walter walked up to the chief table where the monitors sat, while he went to find a place among the boys in his own form and house. He found that they had poured his tea into his plate over his bread and butter, so he got very little to eat or drink that evening.

It was dark as they streamed out after tea to go into the Preparation-room, and he heard Elgood’s tremulous voice saying to him, “Oh, Evson, shall you give way to-night, and sign?”

“Why to-night in particular, Elgood?”

“Because I’ve heard them say that they’re going to have a grand gathering to-night, and to make you, and me too; but I can’t hold out as you do, Evson.”

“I shall try not to give way; indeed, I won’t be made to tell a lie,” said Charlie, thinking of his interview with Walter, and the hopes it had inspired.

“Then I won’t either,” said Elgood, plucking up courage. “But we shall catch it awfully, both of us.”

“They can’t do more than lick us,” said Charlie, trying to speak cheerily, “and I’ve been licked so often that I’m getting accustomed to it.”

“And I’d rather be licked,” said a voice beside them, “and be like you two fellows, than escape being licked, and be like Stone and Symes, or even like myself.”

“Who’s that?” asked Elgood hastily, for it was not light enough to see.

“Me—Hanley. Don’t you fellows give in; it will only make you miserable, as it has done me.”

They went in to Preparation, which was succeeded by chapel, and then to their dormitories. They undressed and got into bed, as usual, although they knew that they should be very soon disturbed, for various signs told them that the rest had some task in hand. Accordingly, the lights were barely put out, when a scout was posted, the candles were re-lighted, and a number of other Noelites, headed by Mackworth, came crowding into the dormitory.

“Now you, No-thank-you, you’ve got one last chance—here’s this paper for you to sign; fellows have always signed it before, and you shall too, whether you like or no. We’re not going to alter our rules because of you. We want to have a supper again in a day or two, and we can’t have you sneaking about it.” Mackworth was the speaker.

“I don’t want to sneak,” said Charlie firmly; “you’ve been making me wretched, and knocking me about, all these weeks, and I’ve never told of you yet.”

“We don’t want any orations; only Yes or No—will you sign?”

“Stop,” said Wilton, “here’s another fellow, Mac, who hasn’t signed;” and he dragged Elgood out of bed by one arm.

“Oh, you haven’t signed, haven’t you? Well, we shall make short work of you. Here’s the pencil, here’s the paper, and here’s the place for your name. Now, you poor little fool, sign without giving us any more trouble.”

Elgood trembled and hesitated.

“Look here,” said Mackworth brutally; “I don’t want to break such a butterfly as you upon the wheel, but—how do you like that?” He drew a cane from behind his back, and brought it down sharply on Elgood’s knuckles, who, turning very white, sat down and scrawled his name hastily on the paper; but no sooner had he done it than, looking up, he caught Charlie’s pitying glance upon him, and running the pencil through his signature, said no more, but pushed the paper hastily away and cowered down, expecting another blow, while Charlie whispered, “Courage.”

“You must take the other fellow first, Mac, if you want to get on,” suggested Wilton. “Evson, as a friend, I advise you not to refuse.”

“As a friend!” said Charlie, with simple scorn, looking full at Wilton. “You are no friend of mine; and, Wilton, I wouldn’t even now change places with you.”

“Wouldn’t you?—Pitch into him, Mac. And you,” he said to Elgood, “you may wait for the present.” He administered a backhander to Elgood as he spoke, and the next minute Charlie, roused beyond all bearing, had knocked him down. Twenty times before he would have been tempted to fight Wilton, if he could have reckoned upon fair play; but what he could stand in his own person was intolerable to him to witness when applied to another.

Wilton sprang up in perfect fury, and a fight began; but Mackworth at once pulled Charlie off, and said, “Fight him another time, if you condescend to do so, Raven; don’t you see now that it’s a mere dodge of his to get off. Now, No-thank-you, the time has come for deeds; we’ve had words enough. You stand there.” He pushed Charlie in front of him. “Now, will you sign?”

“Never,” said Charlie, in a low but firm tone.

“Then—”

“Not with the cane, not with the cane, Mackworth,” cried several voices in agitation, but not in time to prevent the cane descending with heavy hand across the child’s back.

Charlie’s was one of those fine, nervous, susceptible temperaments, which feel every physical sensation, and every mental emotion, with tenfold severity. During the whole of this scene; so painfully anticipated, in which he had stood alone among a group of boys, whose sole object seemed to be to show their hatred, and who were twice as strong as himself, his feelings had been highly wrought; and though he had had many opportunities of late to train his delicate organisation into manly endurance, yet the sudden anguish of this unexpected blow quite conquered him. A thrilling cry broke from his lips, and the next moment, when the cane again tore his shoulders, a fit of violent hysteria supervened, which alarmed the brutes who were trying to master his noble resolution.

And at this crisis the door burst open with a sudden crash, and Bliss entered in a state of burning indignation, followed more slowly by Kenrick.

“O, I am too late,” he said, stamping his foot; “what have you been doing to the little fellow?” and thrusting some of them aside, he took up Charlie in his arms, and gradually soothed and calmed him till his wild sobs and laughter were hushed, while the rest looked on silent. But feeling that Charlie shrank as though a touch were painful to him, Bliss unbared his back, and the two blue weals all across it showed him what had been done.

“Look there, Kenrick,” he said, with great sternness, as he pointed to the marks; and then, laying Charlie gently down on his bed, he thundered out, in a voice shaken with passion, “You dogs, could you look on and allow this? By heavens, Kenrick, if you mean to suffer this, I won’t. Out of my way, you.” Scattering the rest before him like a flock of sheep, he seized Mackworth with his strong hands, shook him violently by both shoulders, and then tearing the cane out of his grasp, he demanded, “Was it you who did this?”

“What are you about, you Bliss?” said Mackworth, with very ruffled dignity. “Mind what you’re after, and don’t make such a row, you ass’s head,” he continued authoritatively, “or you’ll have Noel or some one in here.”

“Ho! that’s your tone, you cruel, reprobate bully,” said Bliss, supplied by indignation with an unusual flow of words; “we’ve had enough of that, and too much. You can look at poor little Evson there, and not sink into the very earth for shame! By heavens, Belial, you shall receive what you’ve given. I’ll beat you as if you were a dog. Take that.” The cut which followed showed that he was in desperate earnest, and that, however immovable he might generally be, it was by no means safe to trifle with him in such a mood as this.

Mackworth tried in vain to seize the cane; Bliss turned him round and round as if he were a child; and as it was quite clear that he did not mean to have done with him just yet, Mackworth’s impudent bravado was changed into abject terror as he received a second weighty stroke, so heartily administered that the cane bent round him, in the hideous way which canes have, and caught him a blow on the ribs.

Mackworth sprang away, and fled, howling with shame and pain, through the open door, but not until Bliss had given him two more blows on the back, with one of the two cutting open his coat from the collar downwards, with the other leaving a mark at least as black as that which he had inflicted on the defenceless Charlie.

“To your rooms, the rest of you wretches,” said he, as they dispersed in every direction before him. “Kenrick,” he continued, brandishing the cane, “I may be a dolt, as you’ve called me before now, but since you won’t do your duty, henceforth I will do it for you.”

Kenrick slank off, half afraid that Bliss would apply the cane to him; and, speaking in a tone of authority, Bliss said to the boys in the dormitory, “If one of you henceforth touch a hair of Evson’s head, look out; you know me. You little scamp and scoundrel, Wilton, take especial care.” He enforced the admonition by making Wilton jump with a little rap of the cane, which he then broke, and flung out of the window. And then, his whole manner changing instantly into an almost womanly tenderness, he sat by poor little Charlie, soothing and comforting him till his hysterical sobs had ceased; and, when he felt sure that the fit was over, gently bade him good-night, and went out, leaving the room in dense silence, which no one ventured to break but the warm-hearted little Hanley, who, going to Charlie’s bedside, said—