The Young Physician

by Francis Brett Young

“Don’t talk so loud, you ass,” said Douglas. “Well, will you come?”

“No, I won’t,” said Edwin.

“You said you went to the Birches.”

“I did go to the Birches.”

“Well, nobody believes you. Now’s your chance to show your pluck. Come along, gentlemen, show your pluck. . . . Three to one bar one. . . . ’Ere you are, sir. The old and trusted firm. Ingleby . . . you are a rotten little funk!”

Edwin said nothing. “He’s got more sense than you have, anyway, Griff,” said Douglas.

That night in the dormitory when the lights were turned down Griffin had not appeared. Douglas, who slept next to him, had constructed, by means of his own bolster and another confiscated from the bed of the small boy on whom the animosity of the coalition was now chiefly lavished, a very plausible imitation of Griffin’s prostrate figure. As Griffin habitually slept in a position which enabled him to absorb his own fugginess, this was not difficult. When Edwin went to sleep Griffin had not arrived. Drugged with fresh air he slept untroubled by any dream. In the middle of the night (as it seemed) he awoke, not because he had heard any sound but rather because he had become aware in his sleep of some unusual presence. He did not move, but slowly opened his eyes, and all he saw was the figure of Mr. Selby, gigantically tall, clad in a long bath-gown of Turkish towelling and carrying a lighted candle that cast a shadow even more gigantic on the whitewashed walls. He moved slowly and his bedroom slippers made no sound on the boarded floor. Opposite the foot of Edwin’s and Widdup’s bed he paused for a moment. Edwin closed his eyes. He felt the eyelids quiver. Why on earth should Selby want to look at him? He passed on, and Edwin, cautiously opening his eyes, saw him pause again opposite the gap between Douglas and Griffin. At this point he waited longer. He appeared to be thinking. He passed on and then suddenly turned back and gently lifted the sheet from Griffin’s pillow. Gently he replaced it. Edwin was almost too sleepy to realize that Griffin wasn’t there; but when he did, the first thought which came into his mind was one of spontaneous and inexplicable loyalty. He thought, “Poor old Griff: He’s in for it.” And yet, if there was one person in the world against whom he had a reasonable excuse for hatred . . . Very silently Selby left the dormitory. Edwin became conscious of the ghostly noises of the night: a night-jar spinning in the wood at the back of the Schoolhouse: the boom of a cockchafer that some enthusiast had captured and imported into the dormitory. The clock in the high turret struck twelve. The chime wandered clanging over the empty quadrangle.

III

The next week was the most sensational that had ever shaken the placid life of St. Luke’s. The fall of Griffin was no startling matter—deliberately he had been “asking for it,” and the escapade of the fair in race-week was no more than a crowning glory. Still, it was an impressive affair. Immediately after breakfast next morning it was whispered that Griffin had been sent to the infectious ward in the sanatorium, which was always devoted, by reason of its size rather than any conscious attempt at symbolism, to the isolation of moral leprosy. It became certain—and Edwin, after his vision of Selby’s visit in the night had taken it for granted—that Griffin was to be “bunked.” In the afternoon, Douglas, faithfully prowling near his comrade’s prison, had seen Griffin, splendidly unrepentant, at the high window of his condemned cell. Griffin had smiled. Griffin, evidently, didn’t give a damn for the whole business. The house thrilled. Of such stuff heroes were made. It remained to be seen, in the opinion of the critical, how Griffin would shape in the supreme test of the scaffold on which he would probably be birched before the assembled school. The betting was all on Griffin’s being a sportsman.

There followed a day of suspense. Consultations between masters were noticed. Selby, for a whole hour, had been closeted with the Head. Old fat Leeming had been sent for at last to join their deliberations. What had Leeming to do with it? Other housemasters had been summoned to the room beneath the clock and emerged with unusually serious faces. Who was this Griffin that his fate should shake the foundations of Olympus? The Head, indeed, showed his seriousness more clearly than all the others. He arrived late in chapel, where the service had waited on his coming: he stalked up the aisle, as full of omen as any black crow, with his pale seamed face and his shaggy black beard, and his arms crossed behind his back beneath the skirts of his gown. From his high seat at the end of the chancel he scowled on the whole school as if he hated it. At supper a message was read out. The school would assemble by classes in the Big Schoolroom at noon. Poor old Griff. . . . The sergeant, it was said, had been seen binding a new birch in the porter’s lodge.