St. Winifred's Part 33

"Danvers, hand him here;" but Danvers stepped up to Somers and whispered, "Don't be too sharp on him, Somers, or you'll drive him to despair. Remember he's high in the fifth, and has been a distinguished fellow. Don't make too much of this one escapade."

"All right. Thanks, Danvers," said Somers; and added aloud, in a less sarcastic tone--"Come here, Kenrick; I merely wish to speak a word with you;" and then Danvers kindly but firmly took the boy's hand, and led him forward.

"You said the majority of the school denied our right to interfere."

No answer.

"Do you consider yourself in person to be the majority of the school, pray?"

No answer.

"We are all perfectly aware, sir, of your meeting, and of your precious casting vote. But you must be informed that a rabble of sh.e.l.l and fourth-form boys do not const.i.tute the school in any sense of the word.

And understand too, that even if the majority of the school _had_ been against us, we monitors are not quite so ignorant of our solemn duty as to make that any reason for letting a brutal and cowardly act of bullying go unpunished. You have been very silly, Kenrick, and have been just misled by conceit. Yes, you may look angry; but you know me of old; you've never received anything but kindness at my hands since the day you were my f.a.g, and I tell you again that you've just been misled by conceit. Think rather less of yourself, my good fellow. You ought to have known better. Your friend Power has shown you an infinitely more sensible example. _You_ may sit down, sir, with this warning; and, in the name of the monitors, I beg to thank the other fellows, especially Evson and Henderson, who did their best to protect little Eden. They behaved like thorough gentlemen, and it would be well if more of you younger boys were equally alive to the true honour of the school."

"I wish he'd be more conciliatory," whispered Dimock to Danvers; "he's plucky and firm, but so very dictatorial and unpersuasive. Besides, he's forgotten to thank Power."

"Yes," said Danvers, "his tone spoils all. Somers," he said, "you've omitted to mention Power, and the fellows will be gone in a minute."

"I've been talking so much, you say it."

"Not I; I'm no speaker. Here, Dimock will."

"Ay, that'll do. One minute more, please," called Somers, raising his hand to the boys, who, during this rapidly whispered conversation, were beginning to leave their places.

"Somers wishes me to add," said Dimock, "that all the monitors and many of the sixth and fifth forms wish to express our best thanks to Power for the exceedingly honourable and fearless way in which he this morning maintained the rights and duties which belong to us. You younger fellows know very well that we monitors extremely dislike to interfere, that we do so only on the rarest occasions, and that we are always most anxious to avoid caning. You know that we never resort to it unless we are obliged to do so by the most flagrant offences, which would otherwise sap the honour and character of the school. Let us all be united and work together for the good of Saint Winifred's. Don't let any interested parties lead you to believe that we either do or wish to tyrannise. Our authority is for your high and direct advantage; I appeal to you whether you do not know it?"

"Yes, yes, Dimock," answered many voices; and before they streamed out of the ball, they gave "three cheers for the monitors," which were so heartily responded to, that the hissing of Harpour, Kenrick, and others, only raised a laugh, which filled to the very brim the bitter cup of hate and indignation which Kenrick had been forced that day to drink.

To be addressed like that before the whole school--snubbed, reproved, threatened--it was intolerable; that he, Kenrick, high in the school, brilliant, promising, successful, accustomed only to flattery and praise, should be publicly set down among a rabble of lower boys--it made him mad to think of it.

"A nice tell-tale mess you've made of this business, Power," he said savagely, the red spot still lingering on his cheek, as he confronted his former friend; "I hope you're ashamed of yourself."

"I, Ken? no."

"Then you ought to be."

"Honestly, Ken, who ought to be most ashamed--you, the advocate of Harpour and his set, or I, who merely defended my best friend for behaving most honourably--as he always does?"

"_Always_?" sneered Kenrick.

Power turned on him his clear bright eye, and said nothing for a moment; but then he laid his arm across his shoulder in the old familiar manner, and said, "You are not happy now, Ken, as you used to be."

"Why the devil not?"

Power shook his head. "Because your heart is n.o.bler than your acts; your nature truer than your conduct; and _that_ is and will be your punishment. Why do you nurse this bad feeling till it has so mastered you?"

Kenrick stood still, his cheeks flushed, his eyes downcast; and Power, as he turned away, sadly repeated, half to himself the wonderful verse--

"Virtutem _videant, intabescantque relicta_."

Kenrick understood it; it came to his heart like an arrow, and rankled there; it made a wound, the faithful wound of a friend, better than the kisses of an enemy--but the time of healing was far-off yet.

CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.

FALLING AWAY.

Oh deeper dole!

That so august a spirit, sphered so fair, Should from the starry sessions of his peers, Decline to quench so bright a brilliancy In h.e.l.l's sick spume. Ay me, the deeper dole!

Tannhauser.

It was generally on Sundays that boys walked in the croft with those who were, and whom they wished to be considered as, their most intimate and confidential friends. To one who knew anything of the boys' characters, it was most curious and suggestive to observe the groups into which they spontaneously formed themselves. The sets at Saint Winifred's were not very exclusive or very accurately defined; and one boy might, by virtue of different sympathies or accomplishments, belong to two or three sets at once. Still there were some sets whose outermost circles barely touched each other; and hitherto the friends among whom Kenrick had chiefly moved would never have a.s.sociated intimately with the fellows among whom Harpour was considered as the leading spirit.

It was therefore with no little surprise that Mr Percival, who with Mr Paton pa.s.sed through the croft on his Sunday stroll, observed Kenrick-- not with his usual companions, Power or Walter or Whalley--but arm in arm with Harpour and Tracy, and accompanied by one or two other boys of similar character. It immediately explained to him much that had taken place. He had heard vague rumours of the part Kenrick had taken at the meeting; he had heard both from him and from Walter that they were no longer on good terms with each other; but now it was further plain to him that Kenrick was breaking loose from all his old moorings, and sailing into the open sea of wilfulness and pride.

"What are you so much interested about?" asked Mr Paton, as his colleague followed the boys with his glance.

"I am wondering how and why this change has come over Kenrick."

"What change?"

"Don't you see with whom he is walking? Oh, I forgot that you never notice that kind of outer life among the boys; on the other hand, I always do; it helps me to understand these fellows, and do more for them than I otherwise could."

"You observe them to some purpose, Percival, at any rate, for your influence among them is wonderful--as I have occasion to discover every now and then."

"But Kenrick puzzles me. '_Nemo repente fuit turp.i.s.simus_' one used to think; yet that boy has dropped from the society of such a n.o.ble fellow as Power, with his exquisite mind and manners, plumb into the abyss of intimacy with Harpour. There must be something all wrong."

A very little observation showed Mr Percival that his conjectures about Kenrick were correct. Clever as he was, his work deteriorated rapidly; the whole expression of his countenance changed for the worse; he was implicated more than once in very questionable transactions; he lost caste among the best and most honourable fellows, and proportionately gained influence among the worst and lowest lot in the school, whose idol and hero he gradually became. His descent was sudden, because his character had always been unstable. The pride and pa.s.sion which were mollified and restrained as long as he had moved with wise and upright companions, broke forth with violence when once he fancied himself slighted, and had committed himself to a course which he well knew to be wrong. There was one who conjectured much of this at a very early period. It was Kenrick's mother; his letters always indicated the exact state of his thoughts and feelings; and Mrs Kenrick knew that the coldness and recklessness which had lately marked them were proofs that her boy was going wrong. The violence, too, with which he spoke of Evson, and the indications that he had dropped his old friends and taken up with new and worse companions, filled her mind with anxiety and distress; yet what could she do, poor lady, in her lonely home? There was one thing only that she could do for him in her weakness; and those outpourings of sorrowful and earnest prayer were not in vain.

Mr Percival tried to make some effort to save Kenrick from the wrong courses which he had adopted; he asked him quietly to come and take a gla.s.s of wine after dinner; but the interview only made matters worse.

Kenrick, not undated by his popularity among the lower forms as a champion of the supposed "rights" of the school, chose to adopt an independent and almost patronising tone towards his tutor; he entered in a jaunty manner, and glancing carelessly over the table, declined to take any of the fruit to which the master invited him to help himself.

He determined to be as uncommunicative as possible; avoided all conversation, and answered Mr Percival's questions on all subjects by monosyllables, uttered in a disrespectful and nonchalant tone. Yet all the while he despised himself and was ill at ease. He knew the deep kindness of the master's intentions, and felt that he ought to be grateful for the interest shown towards him; but it required a stronger power and a different method from his own, to exorcise from his heart the devil of self-will; and besides this, it cannot be denied that in the first bloom and novelty of sin, in the free exercise of an insolent liberty, there is a sense of pleasure for many hearts; it is the honey on the rim of the poison-cup, the bloom on the Dead Sea apple, the mirage on the scorching waste.

Mr Percival understood him thoroughly, and saw that he must be left to the bitter teachings of experience. Always fond of Kenrick, he had never been blind to his many faults of character, and was particularly displeased with his present manner, which he knew to be only adopted on purpose to baffle any approach to advice or warning.

"Good morning, Kenrick," he said, rising rather abruptly, while a slight smile of pity rested on his lips.

"Good morning, sir," said Kenrick; and as he rose in an airy manner to leave the room, Mr Percival put a hand on each of the boy's shoulders, and looked him steadily in the face. Kenrick tried to meet the look, not with the old open gaze of frank and innocent confidence, but with an expression half shrinking, half defiant. His eyes fell immediately, and satisfied by this perusal of his features that Kenrick was going wrong, Mr Percival said only this--

"Your face, my boy, is as a book where men May read strange matters."

Kenrick had tried to be off-hand and patronising in manner, but the attempt had failed egregiously, and he felt very uncomfortable as he left the room where he had so often met with kindness, and which he _never_ entered on the same terms again.

Meanwhile our two invalids, Walter and Eden, recovered but slowly. But for the kindness of every one about them their hours would have pa.s.sed very wearily in the sickroom. Their tedium was enlivened by constant visits from Henderson and Power, who never failed to interest Walter by their school news, and especially by telling of those numerous little incidents which tended to show that although after the late excitements there was a certain detumescence, still the general effect had been to arouse a spirit of opposition to all const.i.tuted authority. Kenrick's name was sometimes on their lips, but as they could not speak of him favourably, and as the subject was a painful one, they rarely talked much about him.

Among other visitors was Dr Lane, who, as well as Mrs Lane, showed great solicitude about them. The Doctor, who had been told by Dr Keith that, but for Walter's tender nursing, Eden's case might have a.s.sumed a far more dangerous complexion, lent them interesting books and pictures, and often came for a few minutes to exchange some kind words with them.

Mrs Lane asked them to the Lodge, read to them, sang to them, played chess and draughts with them, and often gave them drives in her carriage. These little gracious acts of simple kindness won the hearts of both the boys, and hastened their convalescence.