Well, you may guess what a jaw there was that afternoon; and finally, after hours of talk, Slade decided the point must be arranged by putting papers into a hat. If you drew a cross on the paper it meant that you wanted Ferrars to be expelled; and if you drew a naught, that meant he was to be let off. You were not bound to say how you voted, and the excitement when the votes were counted was something frightful. Ferrars little knew what was going on.
At last the numbers were read out:
| For expulsion | 124 |
| Against expulsion | 101 |
And Slade and Bradwell were mad when Slade read them, and said that Merivale was disgraced. But Gideon and Butler and Ashby major and Trelawny said not, and thought it wasn’t a case for anything but justice. The Doctor made no remark when he heard what had happened, but I heard him tell the new master, Thompson, a day afterwards that perhaps the Lower School ought not to have been allowed to vote, as small boys would merely have understood that Ferrars had stolen money and nothing else. Their minds, the Doctor said, were not big enough to take in the peculiar nature of the case. But Thompson said he honestly believed the school was perfectly right, and that the subtleties of the case were not for that court; and the Doctor sighed and said it might be so.
Anyway, Ferrars went. We never saw him again, and the only cheerful thing about the end of it was that Steggles was badly scored off. You see he nipped off to the Doctor among the first, and said Ferrars had stolen ten shillings from him too. But it happened that Ferrars had kept the most careful account of all the money he had raised for Mrs. Gouger and the people he had raised it from. But he had never taken a farthing from Steggles. So Steggles was flogged by Mannering in his best form; which shows that things which are frightfully sad in themselves often produce fine results in a roundabout sort of manner.
The Buckeneers
Of corse even a kid can get a good idea sometimes, and Maine, who I was fagging for, said afterwards that the idea was alright. Whether young Bailey or me thort of it first I don’t know, but Maine lent me a book about coarseers and buckeneers and such like people, and he said it was a great life, though not much followed in present times. He was no good for a coarseer himself, becorse the sea always made him dredfully bad, and, besides, he was going to be a bushranger some day, being an Australian and well up in it. But he said that Drake and Raleigh and many other men in our English history were buckeneers of the dedliest sort and had made England what it was; so me and Bailey thort a lot about it and wished a good deal we could begin that sort of life. Bailey said that in the books he’d read, if a boy began young, he was generally a super cargo and went on getting grater and grater slowly; but I thort boys began as cabin-boys and got grater very quickly by resquing people. But Bailey said that was only in books, and that nobody got on quickly at sea owing to the compettitishun. He did not much think there were any buckeneers left, but Maine said there were, cheefly off the coast of Africa, and that daring and dedly deeds were done in the Mediterranan to this day. He said the lawlessness there was awful, and that nobodi knew what went on along the north side of Africa in little bays and inletts there not marked on maps.
When Bailey herd that, he took more interest in it and wished he had been born the son of a pirit insted of a doctor, because he said we should have come eesily to it if our fathers had been in that corse of life; but when I told Maine, he sed that the best and most splendid pirits had had to overcome grate dificultees in their youth, and that it was the pirit who began as a meer boy at school who often made the gratest name.
Bailey sed he was a pirit at heart, and I sed I was to; but not untell we red a butiful book by Stevenson could we see any way to be one reelly. Then we saw that we must go away from Merivale in secret--in fact, we must fly; and Bailey sed it would have to be by night to avoid capture, and Maine sed it was so. But it was a tremendous thing to do, and I asked Bailey about his mother, and Bailey sed his mother would blub a good deal at first, but she would live to be proud of him when his name was wringing through England. And I felt the same in a way, becorse, though I have got no mother to blub, I have got an uncle, who is my gardian, and he is a lawer and a Conservitive who has tried to get into Parleyment and failed.
Then me and Bailey talked it out when chaps were asleep in our dormitory, and the thing was what we should reelly and truly be, becorse there were coarseers and buckeneers and pirits, and they all had their own pekuliar ways. So we asked Maine which was best, and he sed “buckeneers.” He didn’t seem to know exacktly what a coarseer was; but he told us all about pirits, and he sed they kill womin and childrin, and Bailey said he’d rather be a docter, like his father, than do that, and I said the same. But a buckeneer is very diferent, being like Raleigh and Drake; and a buckeneer may have his name wringing through England, but a pirit never has, being rather a beast reelly. Maine sed it was like this: a pirit always thinks of himself, and nobody else; but the best sort of buckeneer thinks of himself, of corse, but thinks of his country to; and after he has replennished his coffers he makes his soverein a present of islands, and so on, which are gennerally called after him, so that his name may never be forgottun. And Bailey sed that was the sort he wanted to be, and I sed so to.