Chapter Fifteen.
Much excellent, and consequently useless, diplomacy displayed—A truce, and many heads broken—The battle rages; and, at length, the pueriles achieve the victory.
The reader must not suppose that, while masters and scholars were ranged against each other as antagonists, they were quiet as statues. There was much said on both sides, reasonings, entreaties, expostulations, and even jocularity passed, between the adverse, but yet quiescent ranks. In this wordy warfare the boys had the best of it, and I’m sure the ushers had no stomach for the fray—if they fought, they must fight, in some measure, with their hands tied; for their own judgment told them that they could not be justified in inflicting upon their opponents any desperate wounds. In fact, considering all the circumstances, though they asseverated that the boys were terribly in the wrong, they could not say that Mr Root was conspicuously in the right.
When Mr Root got among his myrmidons, he resolutely cried, “Gentlemen assistants, advance, and seize Master Atkinson, Master Brewster, Master Davenant, and especially Master Rattlin;” the said Master Rattlin having very officiously wriggled himself into the first rank. Such is the sanctity of established authority, that we actually gave back, with serried files however, as our opponents advanced. All had now been lost, even our honour, had it not been for the gallant conduct of young Henry Saint Albans, a natural son of the Duke of Y—, who was destined for the army, and, at that time, studying fortification, and to some purpose—for, immediately behind our front ranks, and while Mr Root was haranguing and advancing, Saint Albans had arranged the desks quite across the room, in two tiers, one above the other; the upper tier with their legs in the air, no bad substitute for chevaux-de-frise. In fact, this manoeuvre was an anticipation of the barricades of Paris. When the boys came to the obstacle, they made no difficulty of creeping under or jumping over it; but for the magisterial Mr Root, fully powdered; or the classical master, full of Greek; or the mathematical master, conscious of much Algebra, to creep under these desks, would have been infra dig, and for them to have leapt over was impossible. The younger assistants might certainly have performed the feat, but they would have been but scurvily treated for their trouble, on the wrong side of the barricade.
When two antagonist bodies cannot fight, it is no bad pastime to parley. Saint Albans was simultaneously and unanimously voted leader, though we had many older than he, for he was but eighteen. A glorious youth was that Saint Albans! Accomplished, generous, brave, handsome, as are all his race, and of the most bland and sunny manners that ever won woman’s love, or softened man’s asperity. He died young—where? Where should he have died, since this world was deemed by Providence not deserving of him, but amidst the enemies of his country, her banners waving victoriously above, and her enemies flying before, his bleeding body?
Henry now stood forward as our leader and spokesman: eloquently did he descant upon all our grievances, not forgetting mouldy bread, caggy mutton, and hebdomadal meat pies. He represented to Mr Root the little honour that he would gain in the contest, and the certain loss—the damage to his property and to his reputation—the loss of scholars, and of profit; and he begged him to remember that every play-box in the school-room was filled with fireworks, and that they were all determined,—and sorry he was in this case to be obliged to uphold such a determination,—they were one and all resolved, if permission were not given, to let off the fireworks out of doors, they would in—the consequences be on Mr Root’s head. His speech was concluded amidst continued “Bravos!” and shouts of “Now, now!”
Old Reynolds, our classic, quietly stood by, and taking snuff by handfuls, requested, nay, entreated Mr Root to pass it all off as a joke, and let the boys, with due restrictions, have their will. Mr Root, with a queer attempt at looking pleasant, then said, “He began to enter into the spirit of the thing—it was well got up—there could be really nothing disrespectful meant, since Mr Henry Saint Albans was a party to it (be it known that Henry was an especial favourite), and that he was inclined to humour them, and look upon the school in the light of a fortress about to capitulate. He therefore would receive a flag of truce, and listen to proposals.”
The boys began to be delighted. The following conditions were drawn up; and a lad, with a white handkerchief tied to a sky-rocket stick, was hoisted over the benches into the besieging quarters. The paper, after reciting (as is usual with all rebels in arms against their lawful sovereign) their unshaken loyalty, firm obedience, and unqualified devotion, went on thus—but we shall, to save time, put to each proposition the answer returned:—
1. The young gentlemen shall be permitted, as in times past, to discharge their fireworks round what remains of the bonfire, between the hours of nine and eleven o’clock.
Ans. Granted, with this limitation, that all young gentlemen under the age of nine shall surrender their fireworks to the elder boys, and stand to see the display without the fence.
2. That any damage or injury caused by the said display to Mr Root’s premises, fences, etcetera, shall be made good by a subscription of the school.
Ans. Granted.
3. It being now nearly eight o’clock, the young gentlemen shall have their usual suppers.
Ans. Granted.
4. That a general amnesty shall be proclaimed, and that no person or persons shall suffer in any manner whatever for the part that he or they may have taken in this thoughtless resistance.
Ans. Granted, with the exception of Masters Atkinson, Brewster, Davenant, and Rattlin.
Upon the last article issue was joined, the flag of truce still flying during the debate. The very pith of the thing was the act of amnesty and oblivion. Yet so eager were now the majority of the boys for their amusement, that had it not been for the noble firmness of Saint Albans, the leaders, with poor Pilgarlick, would have been certainly sacrificed to their lust of pleasure. But the affair was soon brought to a crisis. All this acting the military pleased me most mightily, and, the better to enjoy it, I crouched under one of the desks that formed the barricade and, with my head and shoulders thrust into the enemy’s quarters, sat grinning forth my satisfaction.
The last clause was still canvassing, when, unheard-of treachery! Mr Root, seeing his victim so near, seized me by the ears, and attempted to lug me away captive. My schoolfellows attempted to draw me back. Saint Albans protested—even some of the masters said “Shame!” when Mr Root, finding he could not succeed, gave me a most swinging slap of the face, as a parting benediction, and relinquished his grasp. No sooner did I fairly find myself on the right side of the barricade, than, all my terrors overcome by pain, I seized an inkstand and discharged it point blank at the fleecy curls of the ferulafer with an unlucky fatality of aim! Mr Root’s armorial bearings were now, at least, on his crest, blanche chequered noir.
“On, my lads, on!” exclaimed the gallant Saint Albans; the barricades were scaled in an instant, and we were at fisticuffs with our foes. Rulers flew obliquely, perpendicularly, and horizontally—inkstands made ink-spouts in the air, with their dark gyrations—books, that the authors had done their best to fasten on their shelves peacefully for ever, for once became lively, and made an impression. I must do Mr Root the justice to say, that he bore him gallantly in the mêlée. His white and black head popped hither and thither, and the smack of his whip resounded horribly among the shins of his foes.
Old Reynolds, not, even in battle, being able to resist the inveteracy of habit, had the contents of his large snuff-mull forced into his eyes, ere twenty strokes were struck. He ran roaring and prophecying, like blind Tiresias, among both parties, and, as a prophet, we respected him. The French master being very obese, was soon borne down, and there he lay sprawling and calling upon glory and la belle France, whilst both sides passed over him by turns, giving him only an occasional kick when they found him in their way. It is said of Mr Simpson, the mathematical master,—but I will not vouch for the truth of the account for it seems too Homeric,—that being hard pressed, he seized and lifted up the celestial globe, wherewith to beat down his opponents; but being a very absent man, and the ruling passion being always dreadfully strong upon him, he began, instead of striking down his adversaries, to solve a problem upon it, but, before he had found the value of a single tangent, the orb was beaten to pieces about his skull, and he then saw more stars in his eyes than ever twinkled in the Milky Way. In less than two minutes, Mr Root to his crest added gules—his nose spouted blood, his eyes were blackened, and those beautiful teeth, of which he was so proud, were alarmingly loosened.
For myself I did not do much—I could not—I could not for very rapture. I danced and shouted in all the madness of exhilaration. I tasted then, for the first time, the fierce and delirious poison of contention. Had the battle-cry been “A Rattlin!” instead of “A Saint Albans!” I could not have been more elated. The joy of battle to the young heart is like water to the sands of the desert—which cannot be satiated.
In much less than three minutes the position under the gallery was carried. Root and the masters made good their retreat through the door, and barricaded it strongly on the outside—so that if we could boast of having barred him out, he could boast equally of having barred us in. We made three prisoners, Mr Reynolds, Mr Moineau, and a lanky, sneaking, turnip-complexioned under-usher, who used to write execrable verses to the sickly housemaid, and borrow half-crowns of the simple wench, wherewith to buy pomatum to plaster his thin, lank hair. He was a known sneak, and a suspected tell-tale. The booby fell a-crying in a dark corner, and we took him with his handkerchief to his eyes. Out of the respect that we bore our French and Latin masters, we gave them their liberty, the door being set ajar for that purpose; but we reserved the usher, that, like the American Indians, we might make sport with him.