A speech which was perhaps rather lacking in dignity for a professor. The lesson then went on, and was succeeded by others, sometimes in the room, sometimes in the orchard, according to the weather. And when the pupils had attained a certain degree of proficiency they were paired off against one another, first for leads-off, at the head, parry and return at the body, stop and return at the head, and so forth. Finally, for loose sparring, the professor standing by and stopping them when they got wild, or began punching indiscriminately. Saurin made considerable progress, and was a long way the best of the class—so much so, indeed, that he had to play lightly with the others, or they would not all set to with him. Even such a critic as Slam expressed his approval, and this superiority was sugar and sack to Saurin, being indeed the first consolation he had received since the mortification of being turned out of the eleven. But, alas! sparring was not a recognised item of Weston athletics, and he could not gain the applause of the whole school by his proficiency, which was only known to a very few of the initiated. Unless, indeed,—and here a thought which had long lain dormant in his mind, for the first time assumed a distinct shape. Suppose he happened to come to an open outbreak with Crawley, and it ended in a fight, what an opportunity it would be to gratify his ambition and his hatred at the same time! He did not actually plan anything of the kind, or say to himself that he would pick a quarrel. The idea was merely a fancy, a daydream. Man or boy must be bold as well as bad deliberately to form a scheme for bringing about an encounter with a formidable enemy, and Saurin was not particularly bold, certainly not rashly so, and Crawley would be likely to prove a very awkward customer. Instructors of any sort, whether they are professors of mathematics, or Hebrew, or of dancing, or boxing, have this in common, that they are sure to take a special interest in apt pupils; and so Mr Wobbler paid more attention to Saurin than to the others, and showed him certain tricks, feints, and devices which he did not favour everybody with. He also gave him some hints in wrestling, and taught him the throw called the cross-buttock. Saurin used likewise to go to the highroad along which the professor took his daily walks in preparation for his match, and sometimes held the stop-watch for him, and learned how to walk or run in a way to attain the maximum of speed with a minimum of exertion. The mere learning to box, and the necessary association with a man like Wobbler, would not have done the boys much harm of itself. The deception practised in order to obtain the money to pay him with, and the skulking and dodging necessary for approaching and leaving Slam’s premises without being seen, were far more injurious to them, especially since the great freedom allowed to the boys at Weston was granted on the assumption that they would not take advantage of it to frequent places which were distinctly forbidden. And to do them justice, the great majority felt that they were on honour, and did not abuse the trust. But for Saurin, and for Edwards and a few others who followed Saurin’s lead, the mischief did not end here. Mr Wobbler sometimes unbended—Mr Saurin was such a “haffable gent” there was no resisting him—and told anecdotes of his past experiences, which were the reverse of edifying. It was a curious fact that every action upon which he prided himself, or which he admired in his friends, was of a more or less fraudulent nature; and Mr Slam, who was always present on these occasions, shared these sentiments, and contributed similar reminiscences of his own. It was true that the boys looked upon these two, and upon the young sporting farmers who sometimes dropped in, and boasted of poaching, and horse-cheating exploits in a spirit of emulation, as “cads,” who had a different code from their own; but it is very difficult to associate with persons of any station in life who think it clever to defraud others, and consider impunity as the only test of right or wrong, and to laugh at their dishonourable tricks, without blunting our own moral sense. We cannot touch pitch without being defiled.
Another great evil was the beer-drinking, at any time, whether they were thirsty or not, which went on. Worse still, spirits were sometimes introduced. The frequenters of Slam’s spent all their pocket-money at that place in one way or another; and the pity of it was, that most of them would much rather, certainly at starting, have laid it out in oyster-patties, strawberry messes, and ices, than in forming habits which they would very probably give their right arms to be rid of in after-life. The best hope for them, next to being found out, was that their course of boxing lessons would soon be over, and Mr Wobbler would go away to walk his match and clear out of the neighbourhood, and that then they would give up frequenting this disreputable hole before the bad habits which they were so sedulously acquiring got a complete hold upon them. As it was at present, Topper was the only living being that had tried to do a good turn for them; if he had succeeded in worrying the professor, the whole clique would have broken up.
Chapter Five.
Hostilities Commenced.
Many Weston boys who had nothing to do with Slam, who did not care for ratting, and saw no fun in being the proprietor of a dog that could only be seen occasionally and by stealth, took a perfectly legitimate interest in Wobbler as a competitor in the Somersetshire ten-miles championship, and when it became generally known that he was training in the neighbourhood (which was not for some time, nor until the number of boxing lessons subscribed for by the Saurin class had been pretty well exhausted), a good many repaired when time allowed to the nice bit of straight highroad some two miles off where the pedestrian pounded along daily, with his body inclined somewhat forward, his arms held in front of his chest, a little stick in his right hand, fair heel and toe, at a rate of over seven miles in the hour. A group, of which Penryhn was one, were walking in that direction one afternoon, when Buller overtook them at a sharp run, pulling up alongside his friend.
“So you have come then after all?” said Penryhn.
“Yes,” replied Buller, mopping his forehead. “I finished the task I set myself directly after you started, and thought I could catch you up. But it’s hot!”
“Is it true that you have been elected into the house eleven?”