Henderson had been watching Kenrick with an expression of intense anger and disdain. At the end of his remarks, he sprang, rather than rose, up and immediately began to pour out an impetuous answer. His first words, before the fellows had observed that he meant to speak, were drowned in the general uproar; and when they had all caught sight of him, an expression of decided disapprobation ran round the throng of listeners. It did not make him swerve in the slightest degree. Looking round scornfully and steadily, he said—
“I know why some of you hiss. You think I told Dimock of Harpour. As it happens I didn’t; but I’m neither afraid nor ashamed to tell you all, as I told Harpour to his face, that I had fully intended to do it—or rather I meant to tell, not Dimock, but Somers. Will you let me speak?” he asked, angrily, as his last sentence was interrupted by a burst of groans, commenced by a few of those whose interests were most at stake, and taken up by the mass of ignorant boys.
Power plucked Henderson by the sleeve, and whispered, “Hush, Flip; go on, but keep your temper.”
“I’ve as much right to speak—if this is meant for a school meeting—as Kenrick or any one else; and what I have to say is this: Kenrick has been merely throwing dust into your eyes, misleading you altogether about the true state of the case. It’s all very fine, and very easy for him to talk so lightly of its being ‘a joke,’ and ‘a bit of fun,’ and so on; but I should like to ask him whether he believes that? and whether he’s not just hunting for popularity, and mixing up with it a few private spites? and whether he’s not thoroughly ashamed of himself at this moment? There! you may see that he is,” continued Henderson, pointing at him; “see how he is blushing scarlet, and looking the very picture of degradation.”
Here Kenrick started up and most irascibly informed Henderson that he wasn’t going to sit there and be slanged by him, and that as he was in the chair, he would not let Henderson go on any more unless he cut short his abuse; and while Kenrick was saying this, in which he entirely carried the meeting with him, Power again whispered, “You’re getting too personal, Flip; but go on, only say no more about Kenrick—though I’m afraid it’s all true.”
“Well, at any rate, I will say this,” continued Henderson, whose flow of words was rather stopped by his having been pulled up so often—“and I ought to know, for I was in the room at the time, and I appeal to Anthony and Franklin, and all the rest of the dormitory, to say if it isn’t true. It wasn’t a joke. It wasn’t meant for a joke. It was a piece of deliberate, diabolical—”
“Oh! oh! oh!” began a few of Harpour’s claqueurs, and the chorus was again swelled by a score of others.
“I repeat it—of deliberate, diabolical cruelty, chosen just because there was nothing more cruel they dared to do. And,” he said, speaking at the top of his voice, to make himself heard over the clamour, “the fellows who did it are a disgrace to Saint Winifred’s, and they deserve to be caned by the monitors, if any fellows ever did.”
He sat down amid a storm of disapprobation, but his look never quailed for an instant, as he glanced steadily round, and noticed how Kenrick, though in favour with the multitude, and so much higher in the school, did not venture to meet his eye. And he was more than compensated for the general disfavour, by feeling Power’s hand rest on his shoulder, and hearing him whisper, “That’s famous, Flip; you’re a dear plucky fellow. Walter himself couldn’t have done it more firmly.”
Then Belial-like, rose Mackworth, perfectly at his ease, intending as much general mischief as lay in his power, and bent on saying as many unpleasant things as he could. In this, however, his benevolent views were materially frustrated by Henderson, who made his contemptuous comments in a tone sufficiently loud to be heard by many, and quite distinctly enough to disconcert Mackworth’s oratory.