"Let him alone!" cried he. "How can you be so cowardly as to attack a little fellow? And two of you! Shame!"
Now, if there was one earthly thing that the college boys would not brook, it was being interfered with by a stranger. William suffered. Frank's treatment had been nothing to what he had to submit to. He was knocked down, trampled on, kicked, buffeted, abused; Cyril Dare being the chief and primary aggressor. At that moment the under-master came in view, and the boys made off—all except Cyril Dare.
Reined in against the wall, at a few yards' distance, was a lad on a pony. He had delicately expressive features, large soft brown eyes, a complexion too bright for health, and wavy dark hair. The face was beautiful; but two upright lines were indented in the white forehead, as if worn there by pain, and the one ungloved hand was white and thin. He was as old as William within a year; but, slight and fragile, would be taken to be much younger. Seeing and hearing—though not very clearly—what had passed, he touched his pony, and rode up to Cyril Dare. The latter was beginning to walk away leisurely, in the wake of his companions; the upper boys were rather fond of ignoring the presence of the under-master. Cyril turned at hearing himself called.
"What! Is it you, Henry Ashley? Where did you spring from?"
"Cyril Dare," was the answer, "you are a wretched coward."
Cyril Dare was feeling anger yet, and the words did not lessen it. "Of course you can say so!" he cried. "You know that you can say what you like with impunity. One can't chastise a cripple like you."
The brilliant, painful colour flushed into the face of Henry Ashley. To allude openly to infirmity such as this is as iron entering into the soul. Upon a sensitive, timid, refined nature (and those suffering from this sort of affliction are nearly sure to possess that nature), it falls with a bitterness that can neither be conceived by others nor spoken of by themselves. Henry Ashley braved it out.
"A coward, and a double coward!" he repeated, looking Cyril Dare full in the face, whilst the transparent flush grew hotter on his own. "You struck a young boy down, and then kicked him; and for nothing but that he stood up like a trump at your abuse of his brother."
"You couldn't hear," returned Cyril Dare roughly.
"I heard enough. I say that you are a coward."