henrietta—a family chronicle—the school mimic—my first fight.
henrietta often argued points, which made rupert very angry. he said that even if she were in the right, that had nothing to do with it, for girls oughtn't to dispute or discuss. and then henrietta argued that point too.
rupert and henrietta often squabbled, and always about the same sort of thing. i am sure he would have been very kind to her if she would have agreed with him, and done what he wanted. he often told me that the gentlemen of our family had always been courteous to women, and i think he would have done anything for henrietta if it had not been that she would do everything for herself.
when we wanted to vex her very much, we used to call her "monkey," because we knew she liked to be like a boy. she persuaded mother to let her have her boots made like ours, because she said the roads [22]were so rough and muddy (which they are). and we found two of her books with her name written in, and she had put "henry," and rupert wrote etta after it, and "monkey" after that. so she tore the leaves out. her hair was always coming out of curl. it was very dark, and when it fell into her eyes she used to give her head a peculiar shake and toss, so that half of it fell the wrong way, and there was a parting at the side, like our partings. nothing made rupert angrier than this.
henrietta was very good at inventing things. once she invented a charade quite like a story. rupert was very much pleased with it, because he was to act the hero, who was to be a young cavalier of a very old family—our family. he was to arrive at an inn; henrietta made it the real old inn in the middle of the town, and i was the innkeeper, with henrietta's pillow to make me fat, and one of nurse's clean aprons. then he was to ask to spend a night in the old castle, and henrietta made that the real castle, which was about nine miles off, and which belonged to our cousin, though he never spoke to us. and a ghost was to appear. the ghost of the ancestor in the miniature in mother's bedroom. henrietta did the ghost in a white sheet; and with her hair combed, and burnt-cork moustache, she looked so exactly like the picture that rupert started when she came [23]in, and stared; and mother said he had acted splendidly.
henrietta was wonderfully like the picture. much more like than rupert ever was, which rather vexed him, because that ancestor was one of the very bravest, and his name was rupert. he was rather vexed, too, when she rode the pony bare-backed which had kicked him off. but i think the pony was fonder of henrietta, which perhaps made it easier for her to manage it. she used to feed it with bits of bread. it got them out of her pocket.
one of the things henrietta could not do as well as rupert was cricket. rupert was one of the best players in the school. henrietta used to want to play with us at home, and she and i did play for a bit, before breakfast, in the drying ground; but rupert said, if i encouraged her in being unladylike, he would not let me come to the school matches. he said i might take my choice, and play either with girls or boys, but not with both. but i thought it would be very mean to leave henrietta in the lurch. so i told her i would stick by her, as rupert had not actually forbidden me. he had given me my choice, and he always kept his word. but she would not let me. she pretended that she did not mind; but i know she did, for i could see afterwards that she had been crying. however, she would [24]not play, and mother said she had much rather she did not, as she was so afraid of her getting hit by the ball. so that settled it, and i was very glad not to have to give up going to the school matches.
the school we went to was the old town grammar school. it was a very famous one; but it was not so expensive as big public schools are, and i believe this was why we lived in this town after my father's death, for mother was not at all rich.
the grammar school was very large, and there were all sorts of boys there—some of gentlemen, and tradesmen, and farmers. some of the boys were so very dirty, and had such horrid habits out of school, that when rupert was thirteen, and i was ten, he called a council at the beginning of the half, and a lot of the boys formed a committee, and drew up the code of honour, and we all subscribed to it.
the code of honour was to forbid a lot of things that had been very common in the school. lying, cheating over bargains, telling tales, bragging, bad language, and what the code called "conduct unbecoming schoolfellows and gentlemen." there were a lot of rules in it, too, about clean nails, and shirts, and collars and socks, and things of that sort. if any boy refused to agree to it, he had to fight with thomas johnson.
there could not have been a better person than [25]rupert to make a code of honour. we have always been taught that honour was the watch-word of our family—dearer than anything that could be gained or lost, very much dearer than mere life. the motto of our arms came from an ancestor who lost the favour of the king by refusing to do something against his conscience for which he would have been rewarded. it is "honour before honours."
i can just remember the man, with iron-grey hair and gold spectacles, who came to our house after my father's death. i think he was a lawyer. he took lots of snuff, so that henrietta sneezed when he kissed her, which made her very angry. he put rupert and me in front of him, to see which of us was most like my father, and i can recall the big pinch of snuff he took, and the sound of his voice saying "be like your father, boys! he was as good as he was gallant. and there never lived a more honourable gentleman."
every one said the same. we were very proud of it, and always boasted about our father to the new nursemaids, or any other suitable hearer. i was a good deal annoyed by one little maid, who when i told her, over our nursery tea, that my father had been the most honourable of men, began to cry about her father, who was dead too, and said he was "just the same; for in the one and twenty years he kept a public-house, he never put so much as a pinch of [26]salt into the beer, nor even a gill of water, unless it was in the evening at fair-time, when the only way to keep the men from fighting was to give them their liquor so that it could not do them much harm." i was very much offended by the comparison of my father, who was an officer and a gentleman of rank, with her father, who was a village publican; but i should like to say, that i think now that i was wrong and jane was right. if her father gave up profit for principle, he was like my father, and like the ancestor we get the motto from, and like every other honourable man, of any rank or any trade.
every time i boasted in the nursery of my father being so honourable, i always finished my saying, that that was why he had the word honourable before his name, as men in old times used to be called "the good" or "the lion heart." the nursemaids quite believed it, and i believed it myself, till the first week i went to school.
it makes me hot all over to remember what i suffered that week, and for long, afterwards. but i think it cured me of bragging, which is a mean ungentlemanly habit, and of telling everybody everything about myself and my relations, which is very weak-minded.
the second day i was there, one of the boys came up to me and said, with a mock ceremony and po[27]liteness which unfortunately took me in, "if i am not mistaken, sir, that esteemed lady, your mother, is an honourable?"
he was nearly five years older than i; his name was weston; he had a thin cadaverous face, a very large nose, and a very melancholy expression. i found out afterwards that he was commonly called "the clown," and was considered by boys who had been to the london theatres to surpass the best professional comic actors when he chose to put forth his powers. i did not know this then. i thought him a little formal, but particularly courteous in his manner, and not wishing to be behindhand in politeness, i replied, with as much of his style as i could assume, "certainly, sir. but that is because my father was an honourable. my father, sir, was the most honourable of men."
a slight spasm appeared to pass over weston's face, and then he continued the conversation in a sadder tone than the subject seemed to require, but i supposed that this was due to his recalling that my father was dead.
i confess that it did not need many leading inquiries to draw from me such a narrative of my father's valour and high principle, as well as the noble sentiments and conspicuous bravery which have marked our family from saxon times, as i was well [28]accustomed to pour forth for the edification of our nursemaids. i had not proceeded far, when my new friend said, "won't you walk in and take a seat?" it was recreation time, and the other boys were all out in the playground. i had no special friend as yet; rupert had stuck to me all the first day, and had now left me to find my own level. i had lingered near the door as we came out, and there weston had joined me. he now led me back into the deserted school-room, and we sat down together on an old black oak locker, at the bottom of the room.
how well i remember the scene! the dirty floor, the empty benches, the torn books sprinkled upon the battered desks, the dusty sunshine streaming in, the white-faced clock on the wall opposite, over which the hands moved with almost incredible rapidity. but when does time ever fly so fast as with people who are talking about themselves or their relations?
once the mathematical master passed through the room. he glanced at us curiously, but weston's face was inscrutable, and i—tracing some surprise that i should have secured so old and so fine-mannered a boy for a friend—held up my head, and went on with my narrative, as fluently as i could, to show that i had parts which justified weston in his preference.
tick, tack! went the clock. click, clack! went [29]my tongue. i fear that quite half-an-hour must have passed, when a big boy, with an open face, blue eyes, and closely curling fair hair, burst in. on seeing us he exclaimed, "hulloh!" and then stopped, i suspect in obedience to weston's eyes, which met his in a brief but expressive gaze. then weston turned to me.
"allow me," said he, "to introduce mr. thomas johnson. he bears a very high character in this school, and it will afford him the keenest satisfaction to hear an authentic account of such a man as your esteemed father, whose character should be held up for the imitation of young gentlemen in every establishment for the education of youth."
i blushed with pride and somewhat with nervousness as mr. thomas johnson seated himself on the locker on the other side of me and begged (with less elegance of expression than my first friend) that i would "go ahead."
i did so. but a very few minutes exhausted the patience of my new hearer. when he had kicked a loose splinter of wood satisfactorily off the leg of one of the desks he began to look at the clock, which quickened my pace from my remoter ancestors to what the colonel of the regiment in which my father was an ensign had said of him. i completed my narrative at last with the lawyer's remark, and added, [30]"and everybody says the same. and that is why my father had 'the honourable' before his name, just as—" &c., &c.
i had no sooner uttered these words than johnson started from his seat, and, covering his face with a spotted silk pocket-handkerchief, rushed precipitately from the school-room. for one brief instant i fancied i heard him choking with laughter, but when i turned to weston he got up too, with a look of deep concern. "mr. johnson is taken very unwell, i fear," said he. "it is a peculiar kind of spasm to which he is subject. excuse me!"
he hurried anxiously after his friend, and i was left alone in the school-room, into which the other boys shortly began to pour.
"have you been all alone, old fellow?" said rupert kindly; "i hoped you had picked up a chum."
"so i have," was my proud reply; "two chums."
"i hope they're decent fellows," said rupert. (he had a most pestilent trick of perpetually playing monitor, to the wet-blanketing of all good fellowship.)
"you know best," said i pertly; "it's weston and johnson. we've been together a long time."
"weston?" cried rupert. "i hope to goodness, charlie, you've not been [31]playing the fool?"
"you can ask them," said i, and tossing my head i went to my proper place.
for the rest of school-time i wore a lofty and rupert an anxious demeanour. secure on the level of a higher friendship, i was mean enough to snub the friendly advances of one or two of the younger boys.
when we went home at night, i found my mother much more ready than rupert to believe that my merits had gained for me the regard of two of the upper boys. i was exultingly happy. not a qualm disturbed the waking dreams in which (after i was in bed) i retold my family tale at even greater length than before, except that i remembered one or two incidents, which in the excitement of the hour i had forgotten when in school.
i was rather sorry, too, that, bound by the strictest of injunctions from rupert and my own promise, i had not been able, ever so casually, to make my new friends aware that among my other advantages was that of being first cousin to a peer, the very one who lived at the castle. the castle was a show place, and i knew that many of my schoolfellows were glad enough to take their friends and go themselves to be shown by the housekeeper the pictures of my ancestors. on this point they certainly had an advantage over me. i had not seen the pictures. [32]our cousin never called on us, and never asked us to the castle, and of course we could not go to our father's old home like common holiday-making townspeople.
i would rather not say very much about the next day. it must seem almost incredible that i could have failed to see that weston and johnson were making fun of me; and i confess that it was not for want of warnings that i had made a fool of myself.
i had looked forward to going to school with about equal measures of delight and dread; my pride and ambition longed for this first step in life, but rupert had filled me with a wholesome awe of its stringent etiquette, its withering ridicule, and unsparing severities. however, in his anxiety to make me modest and circumspect, i think he rather over-painted the picture, and when i got through the first day without being bullied, and made such creditable friends on the second, i began to think that rupert's experience of school life must be due to some lack of those social and conversational powers with which i seemed to be better endowed. and then weston's acting would have deceived a wiser head than mine. and the nursemaids had always listened so willingly!
as it happened, rupert was unwell next day and [33]could not go to school. he was obviously afraid of my going alone, but i had no fears. my self-satisfaction was not undone till playtime. then not a boy dispersed to games. they all gathered round weston in the playground, and with a confident air i also made my way to his side. as he turned his face to me i was undeceived.
weston was accustomed—at such times as suited his caprice and his resources—to give exhibitions of his genius for mimicry to the rest of the boys. i had heard from rupert of these entertainments, which were much admired by the school. they commonly consisted of funny dialogues between various worthies of the place well known to everybody, which made weston's audience able to judge of the accuracy of his imitations. from the head-master to the idiot who blew the organ bellows in church, every inhabitant of the place who was gifted with any recognizable peculiarity was personated at one time or another by the wit of our school. the favourite imitation of all was supposed to be one of the dialogues of plato, "omitted by some strange over-sight in the edition which graces the library of our learned and respected doctor," weston would say with profound gravity. the dialogue was between dr. jessop and silly billy—the idiot already referred to—and the apposite latin quotations of the head-master [34]and his pompous english, with the inapposite replies of the organ-blower, given in the local dialect and billy's own peculiar jabber, were supposed to form a masterpiece of mimicry.
little did i think that my family chronicle was to supply weston with a new field for his talents!
in the midst of my shame, i could hardly help admiring the clever way in which he had remembered all the details, and twisted them into a comic ballad, which he had composed overnight, and which he now recited with a mock heroic air and voice, which made every point tell, and kept the boys in convulsions of laughter. not a smile crossed his long, lantern-jawed face; but mr. thomas johnson made no effort this time to hide a severe fit of his peculiar spasms in his spotted handkerchief.
sometimes—at night—in the very bottom of my own heart, when the darkness seemed thick with horrors, and when i could not make up my mind whether to keep my ears strained to catch the first sound of anything dreadful, or to pull the blankets over my head and run the risk of missing it,—in such moments, i say, i have had a passing private doubt whether i had inherited my share of the family instinct of courage at a crisis.
it was therefore a relief to me to feel that in this moment of despair, when i was only waiting till the [35]boys, being no longer amused by weston, should turn to amuse themselves with me, my first and strongest feeling was a sense of relief that rupert was not at school, and that i could bear the fruits of my own folly on my own shoulders. to be spared his hectoring and lecturing, his hurt pride, his reproaches, and rage with me, and a probable fight with weston, in which he must have been seriously hurt and i should have been blamed—this was some comfort.
i had got my lesson well by heart. fifty thousand preachers in fifty thousand pulpits could never have taught me so effectually as weston's ballad, and the laughter of his audience, that there is less difference than one would like to believe between the vanity of bragging of one's self and the vanity of bragging of one's relations. also that it is not dignified or discreet to take new acquaintance into your entire confidence and that even if one is blessed with friends of such quick sympathy that they really enjoy hearing about people they have never seen, it is well not to abuse the privilege, and now and then to allow them an "innings" at describing their remarkable parents, brothers, sisters, and remoter relatives.
i realized all this fully as i stood, with burning cheeks and downcast eyes, at the very elbow of my tormentor. but i am glad to know that i would not have run away even if i could. my resolution grew [36]stubborner with every peal of laughter to bear whatever might come with pluck and good temper. i had been a fool, but i would show that i was not a coward.
i was very glad that rupert's influenza kept him at home for a few days. i told him briefly that i had been bullied, but that it was my own fault, and i would rather say no more about it. i begged him to promise that he would not take up my quarrel in any way, but leave me to fight it out for myself, which he did. when he came back i think he regretted his promise. happily he never heard all the ballad, but the odd verses which the boys sang about the place put him into a fury. it was a long time before he forgave me, and i doubt if he ever quite forgave weston.
i held out as well as i could. i made no complaint, and kept my temper. i must say that henrietta behaved uncommonly well to me at this time.
"after all, you know, charlie," she said, "you've not done anything really wrong or dishonourable." this was true, and it comforted me.
except henrietta, i really had not a friend; for rupert was angry with me, and the holding up at school only made me feel worse at home.
at last the joke began to die out, and i was getting on very well, but for one boy, a heavy-looking [37]fellow with a pasty face, who was always creeping after me, and asking me to tell him about my father. "johnson minor," we called him. he was a younger brother of thomas johnson, the champion of the code of honour.
he was older than i, but he was below me in class, and though he was bigger, he was not a very great deal bigger; and if there is any truth in the stories i have so often told, our family has been used to fight against odds for many generations.
i thought about this a good deal, and measured johnson minor with my eye. at last i got henrietta to wrestle and box with me for practice.
she was always willing to do anything tomboyish, indeed she was generally willing to do anything one wanted, and her biceps were as hard as mine, for i pinched them to see. we got two pairs of gloves, much too big for us, and stuffed cotton wool in to make them like boxing-gloves, as we used to stuff out the buff-coloured waistcoat when we acted old gentlemen in it. but it did not do much good; for i did not like to hurt henrietta when i got a chance, and i do not think she liked to hurt me. so i took to dumb-belling every morning in my night-shirt; and at last i determined i would have it out with johnson minor, once for all.
one afternoon, when the boys had been very [38]friendly with me, and were going to have me in the paper chase on saturday, he came up in the old way and began asking me about my father, quite gravely, like a sort of poor imitation of weston. so i turned round and said, "whatever my father was—he's dead. your father's alive, johnson, and if you weren't a coward, you wouldn't go on bullying a fellow who hasn't got one."
"i'm a coward, am i, master honourable?" said johnson, turning scarlet, and at the word honourable i thought he had broken my nose. i never felt such pain in my life, but it was the only pain i felt on the occasion; afterwards i was much too much excited, i am sorry that i cannot remember very clearly about it, which i should have liked to do, as it was my first fight.
there was no time to fight properly. i was obliged to do the best i could. i made a sort of rough plan in my head, that i would cling to johnson as long as i was able, and hit him whenever i got a chance. i did not quite know when he was hitting me from when i was hitting him; but i know that i held on, and that the ground seemed to be always hitting us both.
how long we had been struggling and cuffing and hitting (less scientifically but more effectually than when henrietta and i flourished our stuffed [39]driving gloves, with strict and constant reference to the woodcuts in a sixpenny boxer's guide) before i got slightly stunned, i do not know; when i came round i was lying in weston's arms, and johnson minor was weeping bitterly (as he believed) over my corpse. i fear weston had not allayed his remorse.
my great anxiety was to shake hands with johnson. i never felt more friendly towards any one.
he met me in the handsomest way. he apologized for speaking of my father—"since you don't like it," he added, with an appearance of sincerity which puzzled me at the time, and which i did not understand till afterwards—and i apologized for calling him a coward. we were always good friends, and our fight made an end of the particular chaff which had caused it.
it reconciled rupert to me too, which was my greatest gain.
rupert is quite right. there is nothing like being prepared for emergencies. i suppose, as i was stunned, that johnson got the best of it; but judging from his appearance as we washed ourselves at the school pump, i was now quite prepared for the emergency of having to defend myself against any boy not twice my own size.
