St. Winifred's Part 32

"Well, let's hope he'll come round again all the sooner. Have you broken with him, then?"

"Well, nearly. We are barely civil to each other, that's all, and I don't suppose we shall be even that now: for I pitched into him to-day at the meeting."

Walter only sighed, and just then Power stole into the room.

"Hallo!" he said, "Flip, I believe you and I shall kill the invalids between us. I just met Dr Keith on the stairs, and he only gave me leave to come for five minutes, for he says they both need quiet. You, I suspect, Master Flip, took French leave."

"I like that," said Henderson, laughing, "considering that this is your _second_ visit, and only my first. I've been telling Walter about the meeting."

"The credit--if there is any--is yours, Flip; you broke the ice, and showed the Harpourites that they weren't going to carry it all their own way, as they fancied."

"I'm so glad you came out strong, Power," said Walter; "Flip says you took them all by storm."

"That's Flip's humbug," said Power; "but," he whispered, "if I did any good, it's all through you, Walter."

"How do you mean?"

"Why, first of all, I wasn't going to hear animals like Mackworth abuse you; and next, but for you I should have continued my old selfish way of keeping aloof from all school concerns. It cost me an effort to conquer my shyness, but I remembered our old talk on Appenfell, Walter."

Walter smiled gratefully, and Power continued, "But I've come to tell you both a bit of news."

"What's that?" they asked eagerly.

"Why, there's a notice on the board, signed by Somers, to say that 'All the school are requested to stay in their places after the master has left the room at two o'clock calling-over.'"

"Whew! what a row we shall have!" said Henderson.

"How I wish I were well enough to be out now," said Walter. "I hate to be shut up while all this is going on."

"Poor fellow, with _that_ face?" said Power. "No; you must be content to wait and get well."

"It isn't the face that keeps me in, Power; it's the bang on the head, Keith says."

"Yes, and Keith says that he doesn't know when you _will_ be well if these young chatterboxes stay with you," said the good-humoured doctor, entering at the moment. "Vanish both of you!"

The boys smiled and bade Walter good-bye, as they wished him speedy relief from Dr Keith's prison. "And when do you think poor little Eden may come and sit in my study again?" asked Power. "I miss him very much."

"You mustn't think of that for a long time," answered the doctor.

"How about this two o'clock affair?" said Henderson, as they left the room.

"Upon my word I don't know. Sit next to me, Flip, in case of a row."

"Are the monitors strong enough, do you think?"

"We shall see."

The school was in a fever of excitement and curiosity. At dinner-time nothing else was talked of by the lower boys, but the upper forms kept a dignified silence.

Two o'clock came. The names of all the school were called over, and amid perfect silence the master of the week left the hall. Then Somers stood up in the dais and said--

"Is Harpour here?--the rest please to keep their places."

"I'm here--what do you want of _me_?" said Harpour sulkily, as he stood up in his place.

"First of all, I want to tell you before the whole school that you have been behaving in the most shamefully cruel and blackguard way, and in a way that has produced disastrous consequences to one of the little fellows. A big fellow like you ought to be _thoroughly_ ashamed of such conduct. If you were capable of a blush you ought to blush for it. It is our duty as monitors, and my duty as Head of the school, to punish you for this conduct, as Dr Lane has left it in our hands; and I am going to cane you for it. Stand out."

"I won't. I'll see you d.a.m.ned first."

A sensation ran through the school at this open defiance; but Somers, quite unmoved, repeated--

"I take no notice of your words further than to tell you that if you swear again you will have an additional punishment; but once again I tell you to stand out."

Harpour quailed a little at his firm tone, and at the total absence of all support from his followers; but he again flatly refused to stand out.

"Very well," said Somers; "you have already defied the authority of one monitor, and that is an aggravation of your original offence. I should have been glad to have avoided a scene, but if your common sense doesn't make you bear the punishment coolly, you shall bear it by force. Will you stand out?--no?--then you shall be made. Fetch him here, some one,"

he said, turning to the sixth-form.

The second monitor, Danvers, quietly seized Harpour's right arm, and Macon, one of the biggest fellows in the fifth-form, of his own accord got up and seized the other, Harpour's heart sank at this, for Danvers and the other were with him in the cricket eleven, and he was not as strong as either of them singly.

"Now mark," said Somers; "caned you _shall_ be, to redeem the character of the school; but unless you take it without being _made_ to take it, your name shall also be immediately struck off the school list, and you shall leave Saint Winifred's this evening. You'll be no great loss, I take it. So much I may tell you as a proof that the Headmaster has left _us_ to vindicate the name of Saint Winifred's."

Seeing that resistance was useless, Harpour accordingly stood out in the centre of the room, but not until he had cast an inquiring look among those who embraced his side; and these, who, as we have seen, were tolerably numerous, all looked at Kenrick that he might give some hint as to what they should do. Thus appealed to, Kenrick rose and said--

"I protest against this caning."

"You!" said Somers, turning contemptuously in that direction; "who are you?"

The general t.i.tter which these words caused made Kenrick furious, and he cried out angrily--

"It is against the opinion of the majority of the school."

"We shall see," said Somers, with stinging _sang froid_; "meanwhile, you may sit down, and let the majority of the school speak for themselves, otherwise you may be requested to occupy a still more prominent position. I shall have something to say to _you_ presently."

"Let's rescue him," said Kenrick, springing forward, and several fellows stirred in answer to the appeal; but Macon, seizing hold of Tracy with one arm, and Mackworth with the other, thrust them both down on the floor, and Danvers, catching hold of Kenrick, swung him over the form, and pinned him there. The general laugh with which this proceeding was received showed that only a small handful of the school were really opposed to the monitors, and that most boys thoroughly concurred with them, and held them to be in the right. So Macon quietly boxed Jones's ears, since Jones was making a noise, and then told him and the others that they might return to their places.

Crimsoned all over with shame and anger, Kenrick sat down, and Somers proceeded to administer to Harpour a most severe caning. That worthy quite meant to stretch to the utmost his powers of endurance, and made several scornful remarks after each of the first blows. But Somers had no intention to let him off too easily; each sneer was followed by a harder cut, and the remarks were very soon followed by a silent but significant wince. It was not until a writhe had been succeeded by a sob, and a sob by a howl, that Somers said to him--

"Now you may go."

And Harpour did go to his seat, in an agony of mingled pain and shame.

He had boasted repeatedly that he would never take a thras.h.i.+ng from anyone; but he _had_ taken it, and succ.u.mbed to it, and that too in the presence of the whole school. He was tremendously ashamed; he never forgot the scene, and determined never to lose an opportunity of revenging it.

The school felt it to be an act of simple justice, and that the punishment was richly deserved. They looked on in stern silence, and those lower boys who had in the morning determined to interfere, gazed with some discomfiture upon their champion's fall.

"And now, Master Kenrick, _you_ stand here--what, no!--Stand here, sir."

Kenrick only glared defiance.