_ CHAPTER SIX. HOW MY MASTER HAD BOTH HIS FRIENDS AND HIS ENEMIES AT RANDLEBURY
The events of Charlie's first day at Randlebury had at least taught him one salutary lesson, and that was, to moderate his enthusiasm with regard to me, and consequently for the next few weeks I had a quiet time of it. True enough, my master would occasionally produce me in confidence to a select and admiring audience, and would ever and again proffer the use of me to his protector, Joe Halliday, but he gave up flourishing me in the face of every passer-by, and took to buttoning his jacket over the chain, I found my health all the better for this gentler usage, and showed my gratitude by keeping perfect time from one week's end to the other.
It is hardly necessary for me to say that Charlie was not long in making friends at Randlebury. Indeed some of his acquaintance looked upon this exceeding friendliness in the boy's disposition as one of his weak points.
"I do believe," said Walcot, who was only four from the head of the school, to his friend, Joe Halliday, one day, about a month after my master's arrival at Randlebury--"I do believe that young fag of yours would chum up to the poker and tongs if there were no fellows here."
"Shouldn't wonder," said Joe. "He's a sociable young beggar, and keeps my den uncommon tidy. Why, only the other day, when I was in no end of a vicious temper about being rowed about my Greek accents, you know, and when I should have been really grateful to the young scamp if he'd given me an excuse for kicking him, what should he do but lay wait for me in my den with a letter from his father, which he insisted on reading aloud to me. What do you think it was about?"
"I couldn't guess," said Walcot.
"Well, you must know he's lately chummed up very thick with my young brother Jim in the second, and--would you believe it?--he took it into his head to sit down and write to his governor to ask him if he would give Jim and me each a watch like the one he's got himself. What do you think of that?"
"Did he, though?" exclaimed Walcot, laughing. "I say, old boy, you'll make your fortune out of that youngster; and what did his father say?"
"Oh, he was most polite, of course; his boy's friends were his friends, and all that, and he finished up by saying he hoped we should both come and spend Christmas there."
"Ha! ha! and did he send the watches?"
"No; I suppose he wants to spy out the land first."
"Well," said Walcot, "the boy's all right with you, but he'll go making a fool of himself some day if he makes up to everybody he meets."
My master, in fact, was already a popular boy with his fellows. He had a select band of admirers among the youth of the Second-Form, who cackled round him like hens round a bantam. Together they groaned over their Latin exercises and wrestled with their decimals; together they heard the dreaded summons to the master's desk; and side by side, I am sorry to say, they held out their open palms to receive his cane. If a slate bearing on its surface an outline effigy of the gentleman who presided over the lessons of the class was brought to light, and the names of its perpetrators demanded, Charlie's hand would be seen among a forest of other upraised, ink-stained hands, and he would confess with contrition to having contributed the left eye of the unlucky portrait. And if, amid the solemn silence which attended a moral discourse from the master on the evils of gluttony, a sudden cataract of nuts, apples, turnips, and jam sandwiches on to the floor should drown the good man's voice, Charlie would be one of the ill-starred wights who owned to a partnership in the bag of good things which had thus miserably burst, and would proceed with shame first to crawl and grope on the dusty floor to collect his contraband possessions, and then solemnly to deposit the same jam, turnips, and all, on the desk of the offended dominie as a confiscated forfeit.
By these and many other like experiences Charlie identified himself with his comrades, and established many and memorable bonds of sympathy. He took the allegiance of his followers and the penalties of his masters in equal good part. He was not the boy to glory in his scrapes, but he was the boy to get into them, and once in, no fear of punishment could make a tell-tale, a cheat, or a coward of him.
With the elder boys he was also a favourite, for what big boy does not take pride in patronising a plucky, frank youngster? Patronising with Charlie did not mean humiliation. It is true he would quake at times in the majestic company of the heroes of the Sixth Form, but without hanging his head or toadying. It is one thing to reverence a fellow- being, and another to kneel and lick his boots.
Altogether Charlie had what is called "fallen on his feet" at Randlebury. By the end of two months he was as much at home there as if he had strutted its halls for two years. His whistle was as shrill as any in the lobbies, and Mrs Packer stuck her fingers in her ears when he burst into her parlour to demand a clean collar. He had already signalised himself too on the cricket field, having scored one run (by a leg-bye) in the never-to-be-forgotten match of First Form, First Eleven, against Second-Form, Second Eleven; and he had annihilated the redoubtable Alfred Redhead in the hundred yards hopping match, accomplishing that distance in the wonderfully short time of forty-five seconds!
But the dearest of all his friends was Jim Halliday, his lord and master's young brother. To Jim, Charlie opened his own soul, and me, and the knife; with Jim he laid his schemes for the future, and arranged, when he was Governor-General of India and Jim was Prime Minister, he would swop a couple of elephants for one of Ash and Tackle's best twenty-foot fishing-rods, with a book of flies complete. With Jim, Charlie talked about home and his father, and the coming holidays, till his face shone with the brightness of the prospect. Nor was the faithful Jim less communicative. He told Charlie all about his sisters down at Dullfield, where his father had once been clergyman, and gave it as his opinion that Jenny was the one Charlie had better marry; and to Charlie he imparted, as an awful secret not to be so much as whispered to any one, that he (Jim) was going to array his imposing figure for the first time in a tail-coat at Christmas.
With two friends on such a footing of confidence, is it a wonder they clave one to the other in mute admiration and affection? Many a sumptuous supper, provided at the imminent peril of embargo by the authorities on the one hand, and capture by hungry pirates on the other, did they smuggle into port and enjoy in company; on many a half-holiday did they fish for hours in the same pool, or climb the same tree for the same nest; what book of Jim's was there (schoolbooks excepted) that Charlie had not dog's-eared; and was not Charlie's little library annotated in every page by Jim's elegant thumbs? In short, these two were as one. David and Jonathan were nothing to them.
But in the midst of all his comfort and happiness one continually recurring thought troubled Charlie, that was about Tom Drift. He had promised the mother to be a friend to her son, and although he owned to himself he neither liked nor admired Tom, he could not be easy with this broken promise on his mind.
One day, about a month after the quarrel outside the head master's study, my master, after a hard inward struggle, conceived the desperate resolve of going himself to the lion in his den and seeking a reconciliation.
He walked quickly to Tom's study, for fear his resolution might fail him, and knocked as boldly as he could at the door.
"Come in!" cried Tom inside.
Charlie entered, and found his late antagonist sprawling on two chairs, reading a yellow-backed novel.
At the sight of Charlie he scowled, and looked anything but conciliatory.
"What do you want?" he said angrily.
"Oh, Tom Drift!" cried Charlie, plunging at once into his subject, "I do wish you'd be friends; I am so sorry I hurt you."
This last was an ill-judged reference; Tom was vicious enough about that bruise on his forehead not to need any reminder of the injuries he had sustained in that memorable scuffle.
"Get off with you, you little beast!" he cried. "What do you mean by coming here?"
"I know I've no business, Tom Drift; but I do so want to be friends, because--because I promised your mother, you know."
"What do I care what you promised my mother? I don't want you. Come, off you go, or I'll show you the way."
Charlie turned to go, yet still lingered. A desperate struggle was taking place, I could feel, within him, and then he stammered out, "I say, Tom Drift, if you'll only be friends I'll _give_ you my watch."
Poor boy! Who knows what that offer cost him? it was indeed the dearest bribe he had to give.
Tom laughed sneeringly. "Who wants your watch, young ass?--a miserable, second-hand, tin ticker; I'd be ashamed to be seen with it. Come, once more, get out of here or I'll kick you out!"
Charlie obeyed, miserable and disappointed.
He could stand being spoken roughly to, he could bear his disappointment, but to hear his father's precious gift spoken of as a "miserable, second-hand tin ticker," was more than he could endure, and he made his way back to his room conscious of having lost more than he had gained by this thankless effort at reconciliation.
"What are you in the sulks about?" inquired Halliday that evening, as Charlie was putting away his lord and master's jam in the cupboard.
"I don't want to be sulky," Charlie said, "but I wish I could make it up with Tom Drift."
"With who?" exclaimed Joe, who, as we have before observed, was subject to occasional lapses of grammar.
"Tom Drift, you know; we had a row the first day."
"I know," replied Joe; "about that everlasting watch of yours, wasn't it?"
"Yes," said Charlie, "I didn't like to lend it him, because--"
"I know all about that," said Halliday. "You were squeamish about something or other he wanted it for. Well, the watch belonged to you, I suppose, and you aren't obliged to lend it to anybody. What on earth do you want to go worrying about the thing any more for?"
"I'm not; only I wanted to be friends with Tom Drift."
"What for?" demanded Joe.
"Oh, because--because I promised his mother I would be," pleaded Charlie.
"All I can say is, you had no business to promise any one to be friends with a fellow you never saw."
"But she said he was a nice fellow; and besides he made my watch go when it had stopped," added Charlie, as a great argument.
"Why, Charlie, you are a greater little noodle than I took you for. Every one who calls that precious watch a good name is your master, and you're his slave."
"Not so bad as that, Joe," said Charlie; "but I say, isn't Tom Drift a nice boy, then?"
"Isn't he? that's all," replied the other. "I'm not going to abuse him behind his back, but take my advice, young un. You are better off as Tom's enemy than his friend, and don't you try to make up to him any more."
"Why not?" asked Charlie in bewilderment.
"Never you mind," was all Joe's reply; "and now hand me down my Liddell and Scott and make yourself scarce."
Charlie, sorely puzzled, did as he was bid.
He certainly was not in love with Tom Drift; but it was not easy for him to give up, without an effort, his promise to be his friend.
Tom, however, was by no means in need of friends. Not many weeks after the day when Charlie had left his study, disappointed and miserable, he might have been seen entertaining company of quite a different sort.
[My readers, let me here observe, must not be too curious to understand how it is I am able to speak of so many things which must have taken place beyond the range of my observation. They will find the reason all in good time.]
The supper party over which Tom presided consisted of four boys, including himself. One was Shadbolt, on whose account, it will be remembered, Tom had desired to borrow Charlie's watch. Shadbolt was an unwholesome-looking fellow of fifteen, with coarse features and eyes that could not look you straight in the face if they had tried. He was accompanied by his chum Margetson, who certainly had the advantage of his friend in looks, as well as in intellect. The quartet was completed by Gus Burke, one of the smallest and most vicious boys at Randlebury. He was the son of a country squire, who had the unenviable reputation of being one of the hardest drinkers and fastest riders in his county; and the boy had already shown himself only too apt a pupil in the lessons in the midst of which his childhood had been passed. He had at his tongue's tip all the slang of the stables and all the blackguardisms of the betting-ring; and boy--almost child--as he was, he affected the swagger and habits of a "fast man," like a true son of his father.
At Randlebury he had wrought incredible mischief. Tom Drift was not the only soft-minded vain boy whom he had infected by his pernicious example. Like all reckless swaggerers, he had his band of admirers, who marked every action and drank in every word that fell from their hero's lips.
It was just with such boys as Drift that his influence was most telling; for Tom was a boy not without aptitude to note and emulate a powerful example, whether it were good or bad, while his vanity rendered him as pliant as wax to the hand of the flatterer.
Such was the party which assembled surreptitiously in Tom's study that evening and partook of the smuggled supper.
Tom had had hard work to provide for his guests, and had succeeded only at the risk of grave penalties if detected.
"I say, Tom, old horse, this is a prime spread!" said Gus; "where did you get it?"
"Oh!" said Tom, "I had a new hat coming from Tiler's, so I got old Tripes (the butcher) to make a neat brown-paper parcel of the kidneys, and got them up in my gossamer. The old donkey might have done the thing better though, for the juice squeezed through, and the inside of my hat looks as if I had lately been scalped."
"Hard lines! But never mind, perhaps they'll put it down to the crack you got on your forehead."
Tom flushed scarlet; any reference to his inglorious scuffle with Charlie Newcome was odious to him, as Gus and the others knew well enough. He said nothing, however, only scowled angrily.
"What!" said Gus, "does it hurt you still then? Never mind, it was a good shot, and I wouldn't be ashamed of having floored you myself."
"He didn't floor me; I fell!" cried Tom indignantly.
"Did you? Rather a way fellows have when they get knocked down!"
"I was not knocked down, Gus, I tell you; and you'd better shut up!"
"All right, old horse! you mustn't mind a bit of chaff. I'm sure you've taken it all very well."
"Yes," said Margetson, "everybody thinks you must take after your mother; you're such a sweet-tempered chap."
"What do you know about my mother?" snarled Tom.
"Only what your young friend tells everybody about her."
"What business has he to go talking all over the school about my affairs?" exclaimed Tom furiously. "What's my mother to do with him?"
"A great deal, it seems," replied Margetson, "for he promised her, on the strength of her assertion that you were a nice boy, to be your friend, and now he's awfully hurt you won't let him."
"I thought it was Tom who was awfully hurt," put in Gus, by way of parenthesis.
"I tell you what it is, you fellows," said Tom, "it may be all very funny for you, but I've had quite enough of it. Ever since that young canting humbug came here I've led the life of a dog. If, instead of making a fool of me, you'd tell me how I can pay him out, I should be better pleased."
"All very fine," said Margetson; "why don't you pay your own bills?"
"If you want some one to punch his head," said Shadbolt the ugly, "I don't mind trying; my life is insured."
"Suppose we make him stupid," suggested Gus, "with milk punch, and shove him inside the doctor's study."
"Couldn't you get hold of his watch and boil it?" said Margetson, who had heard of the experiments practised on me in Mrs Packer's parlour.
"If I got hold of it I'd smash it into fifty pieces!" growled Tom between his teeth.
"Look here, you fellows, I've got a glorious plan!" exclaimed Gus suddenly.
"What is it?" they all cried.
But Gus's plan requires a new chapter. _