"Oh, my friends," said Richmond—he was standing up in front of the panels that turn into the Commandments on Sundays, and we were sitting down in the body of the chapel—"Oh, my friends, and there is another peril—a horror that walks in the noonday—a human leviathan seeking what it may devour, and its name is Stopford! I who speak to you know only too well this thorn in the flesh. I have suffered many things from him, and shall again. But I suffer gladly. I am chastened for my own good. Offences must come, but woe betide Stopford. He will have his portion in the burning lake, my friends, for he is a son of Belial; and he will call for a cup of cold water and probably none will bring it. He is a bully, a coward, a cribber and a dirty beast who never even washes his neck if he can help it. But black though his body may be, his heart is blacker, dear friends——"
It was at this point that Stopford jumped up with his eyes blazing; but Trelawny rapped him on the head and told him to sit down again. And Richmond minimus went on faster and faster.
"Let us Christian spirits seek this vile boy and try and lift him out of the slough. Let us not shun him as a thing unclean; let us not dispatch him where the worms they crawl out and the worms they crawl in, dear friends, but let us rejoice over this sinner as over a piece of silver which is lost by a widow and was found again. Oh, my friends, remember that Stopford is a human creature with a soul. It is hard to believe this, but I am right. He is one of ourselves; that is the sad truth. For our own sakes—for the sake of the school—let us try and turn him from his evil ways, and teach him that to twist my arms in the sockets till they ache all night is doing the devil's work, and that to kick me till my shins, which are very thin, bleed and gather, is also the devil's work; and to take sweets out of desks is also the devil's work; not to mention many, many other things, such as smashing young Dobson's birthday present from home and——"
"I didn't take anybody's sweets, you little beast!" screamed out Stopford; and the big chaps roared and gave three cheers for Richmond and three hisses for Stopford.
It was a frightfully exciting sermon, though never finished, and Richmond minimus seemed quite dazed and wet with perspiration afterwards. I talked to him in secret during evening prep., and told him I was afraid that Stopford would never forgive him, and have a fearful score off him sooner or later. I said—
"I remember hearing my father tell a story about a great clergyman—the champion preacher, I believe—and being champion he had to preach to Queen Victoria, which he did do. But instead of being terrifically careful what he was about, he lost his head, like you did to-night, and I believe he gave it to the Queen pretty much like you gave it to Stopford. Not of course that the Queen was ever a quarter as bad as Stopford. In fact, it was high treason to say she was bad at all—such a magnificent Queen as her—easily the best ever known in history. And everybody was in a frightful rage with the champion preacher; and the Queen didn't like it too well herself; and the result was that he never became the Archbishop of Canterbury, though it was a dead snip for him before."
"I know," answered Richmond minimus, "but when you're preaching, the things come pouring into your mind. You can't pick and choose. You have to say what you're told to say, if you understand me."
I said I didn't in the least.
"If you wanted to give it to Stopford in a sermon you ought to have chosen a time when he wasn't among the audience," I said.
"For safety, yes," admitted Richmond; "but at these times when I preach, I care for nothing. I caught his little, hateful, pink-rimmed eyes on me and my rage against him rose. I felt like those old prophets when they had to go and give it straight out from the shoulder to the kings that did evil."