The Crofton Boys Part 8

Sometimes Hugh started out of bed, and began to dress, when the elder boys went up with their light, only an hour after the younger ones.

Sometimes he would begin saying his syntax in the middle of the night, fancying he was standing before Mr Carnaby; and once he walked in his sleep as far as the head of the stairs, and then suddenly woke, and could not make out where he was. Phil should have told Mr Tooke of these things; but Hugh was so very anxious that n.o.body should know of his "tricks" (as the boys in his room called his troubles), that Phil only mentioned the matter to Mrs Watson, who had known so many bad sleepers among little boys, and had so little idea that the habit was anything new, that she took scarcely any notice of it. She had his hair cut very short and close, and saw that he took a moderate supper, and was satisfied that all would be well. Hugh did not part with his hair till he had joked himself about its length as much as any one could quiz him for it. When he had pulled it down over the end of his nose, and peeped through it, like an owl out of an ivy-bush, he might be supposed to part with it voluntarily, and not because he was laughed at.

Phil's observation of his brother's toil and trouble led him to give him some help. Almost every day he would hear Hugh say his lesson--or try to say it; for the poor boy seldom succeeded. Phil sometimes called him stupid, and sometimes refrained from saying so, whatever he might think; but there really was very little difference in the result, whether Phil heard the lessons beforehand or not; and it gave Joe Cape a great advantage over Phil that he had no little brother to attend to.

Considering how selfish rivals.h.i.+p is apt to make boys (and even men), it was perhaps no wonder that Phil sometimes kept out of Hugh's way at the right hour, saying to himself that his proper business was to do his lessons, and get or keep ahead of Joe Cape; and that Hugh must take his chance, and work his own way, as other boys had to do. This conduct might not be wondered at in Phil; but it hurt Hugh, and made him do his lessons all the worse. He did not like to expose his brother's unkindness to any one, or he would oftener have asked Firth to help him.

Firth, too, had plenty of work of his own to do. More than once, however, Firth met the little lad, wandering about, with his grammar in his hand, in search of the hidden Phil; and then Firth would stop him, and sit down with him, and have patience, and give him such clear explanations, such good examples of the rules he was to learn, that it all became easy, and Hugh found his lessons were to him only what those of other boys seemed to them. Still, however, and at the best, Hugh was, as a learner, far too much at the mercy of circ.u.mstances--the victim of what pa.s.sed before his eyes, or was said within his hearing.

Boys who find difficulty in attending to their lessons are sure to be more teased with interruptions than any others. Holt had not the habit of learning; and he and Hugh were continually annoyed by the boys who sat near them watching how they got on, and making remarks upon them.

One day, Mr Tooke was called out of the school-room to a visitor, and Mr Carnaby went up to take the master's place, and hear his cla.s.s.

This was too good an opportunity for the boys below to let slip; and they began to play tricks,--most of them directed against Hugh and Tom Holt. One boy, Warner, began to make the face that always made Holt laugh, however he tried to be grave. Page drew a caricature of Mrs Watson on his slate, and held it up; and Davison took a mask out of his desk, and even ventured to tie it on, as if it had not been school-time.

"I declare I can't learn my lesson--'tis too bad!" cried Hugh.

"'Tis a shame!" said Tom Holt, sighing for breath after his struggle not to laugh. "We shall never be ready."

Hugh made gestures of indignation at the boys, which only caused worse faces to be made, and the mask to nod.

"We wont look at them," proposed Holt. "Let us cover our eyes, and not look up at all."

Hugh put his hands before his eyes; but still his mind's eye saw the grinning mask, and his lesson did not get on. Besides, a piece of wet sponge lighted on the very page he was learning from. He looked up fiercely, to see who had thrown it. It was no other than Tooke, who belonged to that cla.s.s:--it was Tooke, to judge by his giggle, and his pretending to hide his face, as if ashamed. Hugh tossed back the sponge, so as to hit Tooke on the nose. Then Tooke was angry, and threw it again, and the sponge pa.s.sed backwards and forwards several times: for Hugh was by this time very angry,--boiling with indignation at the hards.h.i.+p of not being able to learn his lesson, when he really would if he could. While the sponge was still pa.s.sing to and fro, Mr Carnaby's voice was heard from the far end of the room, desiring Warner, Page, Davison, and Tooke to be quiet, and let the boys alone till Mr Tooke came in, when Mr Tooke would take his own measures.

Hugh, wondering how Mr Carnaby knew, at that distance, what was going on, found that Holt was no longer by his side. In a moment, Holt returned to his seat, flushed and out of breath. A very slight hiss was heard from every form near, as he came down the room.

"O! Holt! You have been telling tales!" cried Hugh.

"Telling tales!" exclaimed Holt, in consternation, for Holt knew nothing of school ways. "I never thought of that. They asked me to tell Mr Carnaby that we could not learn our lessons."

"They! Who? I am sure I never asked you."

"No; you did not: but Harvey and Prince did,--and Gillingham. They said Mr Carnaby would soon make those fellows quiet; and they told me to go."

"You hear! They are calling you 'tell-tale.' That will be your name now. Oh, Holt! You should not have told tales. However, I will stand by you," Hugh continued, seeing the terror that Holt was in.

"I meant no harm," said Holt, trembling. "Was not it a shame that they would not let us learn our lessons?"

"Yes, it was--but--"

At this moment Mr Tooke entered the room. As he pa.s.sed the forms, the boys were all bent over their books, as if they could think of nothing else. Mr Tooke walked up the room to his desk, and Mr Carnaby walked down the room to _his_ desk; and then Mr Carnaby said, quite aloud,--

"Mr Tooke, sir."

"Well."

Here Holt sprang from his desk, and ran to the usher, and besought him not to say a word about what Warner's cla.s.s had been doing. He even hung on Mr Carnaby's arm in entreaty; but Mr Carnaby shook him off, and commanded him back to his seat. Then the whole school heard Mr Tooke told about the wry faces and the mask, and the trouble of the little boys. Mr Tooke was not often angry; but when he was, his face grew white, and his lips trembled. His face was white now. He stood up, and called before him the little boy who had informed. Hugh chose to go with Holt, though Holt had not gone up with him about the letter, the other day; and Holt felt how kind this was. Mr Tooke desired to know who the offenders were; and as they were named, he called to them to stand up in their places. Then came the sentence. Mr Tooke would never forgive advantage being taken of his absence. If there were boys who could not be trusted while his back was turned, they must be made to remember him when he was out of sight, by punishment. Page must remain in school after hours, to learn twenty lines of Virgil; Davison twenty; Tooke forty--

Here everybody looked round to see how Tooke bore his father being so angry with him.

"Please, sir," cried one boy, "I saw little Proctor throw a sponge at Tooke. He did it twice."

"Never mind!" answered Tooke. "I threw it at him first. It is my sponge."

"And Warner," continued the master, as if he had not heard the interruption, "considering that Warner has got off too easily for many pranks of late,--Warner seventy."

Seventy! The idea of having anybody condemned, through him, to learn seventy lines of Latin by heart, made Holt so miserable that the word seventy seemed really to p.r.i.c.k his very ears. Though Mr Tooke's face was still white, Holt ventured up to him, "Pray, sir--"

"Not a word of intercession for those boys," said the master. "I will not hear a word in their favour."

"Then, sir--"

"Well."

"I only want to say, then, that Proctor told no tales, sir. I did not mean any harm, sir, but I told because--"

"Never mind that," cried Hugh, afraid that he would now be telling of Harvey, Prince, and Gillingham, who had persuaded him to go up.

"I have nothing to do with that. That is your affair," said the master, sending the boys back to their seats.

Poor Holt had cause to rue this morning, for long after. He was weary of the sound of hissing, and of the name "tell-tale;" and the very boys who had prompted him to go up were at first silent, and then joined against him. He complained to Hugh of the difficulty of knowing what it was right to do. He had been angry on Hugh's account chiefly; and he still thought it _was_ very unjust to hinder their lessons, when they wished not to be idle: and yet they were all treating him as if he had done something worse than the boys with the mask. Hugh thought all this was true: but he believed it was settled among schoolboys (though Holt had never had the opportunity of knowing it) that it was a braver thing for boys to bear any teasing from one another than to call in the power of the master to help. A boy who did that was supposed not to be able to take care of himself; and for this he was despised, besides being disliked, for having brought punishment upon his companions.

Holt wished Hugh had not been throwing sponges at the time:--he wished Hugh had prevented his going up. He would take good care how he told tales again.

"You had better say so," advised Hugh; "and then they will see that you had never been at school, and did not know how to manage."

The first Sat.u.r.day had been partly dreaded, and partly longed for, by Hugh. He had longed for the afternoon's ramble; but Sat.u.r.day morning was the time for saying tables, among other things. Nothing happened as he had expected. The afternoon was so rainy that there was no going out; and, as for the tables, he was in a cla.s.s of five; and "four times seven" did not come to him in regular course. Eight times seven did, and he said "fifty-six" with great satisfaction, Mr Carnaby asked him afterwards the dreaded question, but he was on his guard; and as he answered it right, and the usher had not found out the joke, he hoped he should hear no more of the matter.

The next Sat.u.r.day was fine, and at last he was to have the walk he longed for. The weekly repet.i.tions were over, dinner was done, Mr Carnaby appeared with his hat on, the whole throng burst into the open air, and out of bounds, and the new boys were wild with expectation and delight. When they had pa.s.sed the churchyard and the green, and were wading through the sandy road which led up to the heath, Firth saw Hugh running and leaping hither and thither, not knowing what to do with his spirits. Firth called him, and putting his arm round Hugh's neck, so as to keep him prisoner, said he did not know how he might want his strength before he got home, and he had better not spend it on a bit of sandy road. So Hugh was made to walk quietly, and gained his breath before the breezy heath was reached.

On the way, he saw that a boy of the name of Dale, whom he had never particularly observed before, was a good deal teased by some boys who kept crossing their hands before them, and curtseying like girls, talking in a mincing way, and calling one another Amelia, with great affectation. Dale tried to get away, but he was followed, whichever way he turned.

"What do they mean by that?" inquired Hugh of Firth.

"Dale has a sister at a school not far off, and her name is Amelia; and she came to see him to-day. Ah! You have not found out yet that boys are laughed at about their sisters, particularly if the girls have fine names."

"What a shame!" cried Hugh; words which he had used very often already since he came to Crofton.

He broke from Firth, ran up to Dale, and said to him, in a low voice, "I have two sisters, and one of them is called Agnes."

"Don't let them come to see you, then, or these fellows will quiz you as they do me. As if I could help having a sister Amelia!"

"Why, you are not sorry for that? You would not wish your sister dead, or not born, would you?"

"No; but I wish she was not hereabouts: that is, I wish she had not come up to the pales, with the maid-servant behind her, for everybody to see.

And then, when Mr Tooke sent us into the orchard together, some spies were peeping over the wall at us all the time."

"I only wish Agnes would come," cried Hugh, "and I would--"

"Ah! You think so now; but depend upon it, you would like much better to see her at home. Why, her name is finer than my sister's! I wonder what girls ever have such names for!"

"I don't see that these names are finer than some boys' names. There's Frazer, is not his name Colin? And then there's Hercules Fisticuff--"