It has been said that no opportunity occurred for an outbreak on Paradyne during morning study. That the row began. He was caught up in passing through the quadrangle, on his way home, and surrounded. Yelling, shouting, kicking, hitting, a hundred inflamed faces were turned upon him at once, a hundred arms and legs put out their aggressive strength. The seniors, who first raised the storm, had not intended it to take this turn, but they were powerless to stem the torrent now, and so some of them went in for it. The boy put his back against a pillar, and stood his ground bravely, fencing off blows as he best could, hitting back again, his whole face glowing with scorn for his assailants, and for the unequal conflict. Suddenly Bertie Loftus appeared: he had been indoors, and knew nothing of it: and stood for a moment in surprised astonishment. Pushing through the crowd with his great strength, great when he put his indolence off and his metal on, he took up a position side by side with Paradyne.
"Look here, you fellows, I'll have no more of this. You ought to be ashamed of your manners: I am, for you; disgracing yourselves in this fashion! Trace! Brown major! Talbot! Whitby!—all you strong ones—I call upon you to beat the throng off. Dick, you young fool, be a man if you can!"
He spoke with the authority of the acting senior, but he was not obeyed as the real one. The boys' passions were up. None of them saw that a stranger who happened to be passing, had halted at the great gates to look on, and was standing in amazement. Bertie's words made some temporary impression, and there came a lull in the storm.
"Now then," he cried, taking advantage of the silence, "wait, all of you. Let us bring a little reason to bear, and don't go in for this row, as if you were so many Irish jackasses met at a fighting fair. Trace, the affair is yours if it's anybody's; you raised it; suppose you explain to Paradyne what the matter is."
"Suppose you explain yourself," retorted Trace, terribly vexed at being thus publicly called upon.
"It is not my business," said Bertie. "You know, you all know, I have not joined the cabal."
"Let Paradyne take himself off, and have done with it," roared a voice: and a Babel of tongues followed, each one taking the explanation on itself. The late Mr. Paradyne was called everything but a gentleman, some of the names being remarkably choice. George, with flashing eyes and earnestly indignant words, denied the truth of the charges, and stood up as bravely (morally) for his father, as he did physically for himself. He kept his place and defied the lot, Bertie protecting him.
"Wasn't he a sneak? Wasn't he a swindler? Didn't he go in for everything that was low and bad and dishonest, and then poison himself?" roared the malcontents, hustling and jostling each other.
"No; he was neither a sneak nor a swindler; he went in for nothing that was bad, and he did not poison himself," retorted George. "Look here—you, Lamb—when you were accused of firing off the pistol that shot the earl, were you not innocent?"
"Of course I was innocent," roared Lamb.