St. Winifred's; or, The World of School

by F. W. Farrar

Tracy again had openly deserted them. After the interview with Power, Harpour had abused him roundly as a turncoat, and he had told his former associates that he was sorry to have had anything to do with their machinations; that they were going all wrong, and were ruining the school, and that he at any rate felt that he had done mischief enough already, and meant to do no more. This proof of their failing influence exasperated them greatly. Harpour threatened, and Mackworth said all the pungent and insulting things he could, contemptuously mimicking all Tracy’s dandiacal affectations. Tracy winced under this treatment; high words followed, and after a scene of noisy altercation, Tracy broke with his former “party,” and after the quarrel spoke to them no more.

Dr Lane, too, had now recovered from his fever, and returned to the school. When the reins were in his strong hands, the difference was soon perceived. The abuses which had crept in during his absence were quietly and firmly rectified, and all tendencies to insubordination were repressed with a stern and just decision which it was impossible to gainsay or to resist. The whole aspect of things altered, and, lonely as he was among the Noelites, even Charlie Evson began to like Saint Winifred’s better, and to feel more at home in its precincts.

Still, those who were rebelliously inclined were determined not to give in at once, and anxiously looked out for some opportunity in which they could have Kenrick on their side. If they could but secure this, they felt tolerably confident of giving the monitors a rebuff, and of carrying with them that numerous body in the school who had been taught under their training to resist authority on every possible occasion.

The opportunity was not long wanting. One fine afternoon a poor old woman had come up to the playground with a basket of trifles, by the sale of which she hoped to support herself during the unexpectedly long absence of a sailor son. Her extreme neatness of person, and her quiet, respectable manners had interested some of the boys in her appearance; and when she came up to sell the little articles, many of which her own industry had made, she generally found ready purchasers. Walter, who knew her well, had visited her cottage, and had often seen the sailor boy on whose earnings she in a great measure depended. This only son had now been away for some time on a distant voyage, and the poor woman, being pressed for the necessaries of life, took her basket once more to the playground of Saint Winifred’s. Charlie had often heard about her from Walter, and he gladly made from her a few small purchases, in which the other boys followed his example. While he was doing this, he distinctly saw one of the Noelites—an ill-conditioned fellow in the shell, named Penn—thrust his hand into the old woman’s basket, which was now surrounded by a large group of boys, and secrete a small bottle of scent. Charlie waited a moment, expecting to see him pay for it, but Penn, who fancied that he had been unobserved, dropped it quietly into his pocket, and stood looking on with an innocent and indifferent air.

Instantly Charlie’s indignation knew no bounds. He could hardly believe his own eyes; he knew that a few of the very worst in the school, and some in his own house in particular, would regard this as a venial offence. They would not call it stealing but “bagging a thing,” or, at the worst, “cribbing it”—concealing the villainy under a new name, a name with no very odious associations attached to it; just as they called lying “cramming,” under which title it sounded much less repulsive. In fact, these young Noelites took a most Spartan view of these petty larcenies, confining the criminality to the incurring of detection. But they had never succeeded in making Charlie take this view; he never would adopt the change of language by which they altered the accepted meaning of words in accordance with their own propensities and dispositions, and to him this particular act which Penn committed with perfect nonchalance, appeared to be not only a theft, but a theft accompanied by a cruelty and deadness to all sense of pity, which dipped it in the very blackest and most revolting dye. He could not restrain, and did not attempt to restrain, the passionate contempt and horror which he felt for this act.

“Penn,” he said, in a loud and excited voice, not doubting that the sympathies of the others would be as warm as his own, “Penn, you wicked brute, you have stolen that bottle of scent. Here, Mrs Hart, you shan’t suffer at any rate if there is a fellow so base and wicked,” and he at once pulled out his last half-crown, and insisted on her taking it in payment for the stolen article.

Penn, for the moment, was quite taken aback by the scathing flame of Charlie’s righteous anger. If there had been none but Noelites there he would have made very light of the accusation, and probably have laughed it off; but there were others looking on who would, he knew, view the transaction in a very different light, so he thought that his safest course lay in a flat denial. It was not reasonable to expect that he would stick at this; a boy who has no scruples about “bagging” the property of a poverty-stricken old woman, is not likely to hesitate about telling a “cram” to escape exposure.

“What’s all this about, you little fool? I haven’t bagged anything.”

Charlie was still more amazed; he positively could not understand a great brazen lie like this, and yet it was impossible to doubt that it was a lie, against the evidence of his own senses.

“You didn’t take that scent-bottle? oh! how can you tell such a lie? I saw you with my own eyes.”