"I can't help it, sir. I will not tell."
He took his punishment, a very severe one. Pulling his jacket on his stiff and aching arms, when it was over, he once more looked at the lot as he went out. And the boys, in their heart of hearts, felt that George Paradyne, the despised, was made of nobler stuff than they were.
[CHAPTER XI.]
Only the Heat!
In one of the houses in Prospect Terrace there sat a family at early breakfast. A nice family; the growing up sons and daughters loving and obedient, the father and mother anxiously training them to good. It was the Talbots. They had quitted their close residence in Pimlico, and taken this in the healthy country district; having moved in at the recent quarter. Mr. Talbot was a tall, spare man, rather absorbed in cares; Mrs. Talbot a pleasant woman with a countenance and demeanour serenely cheerful, imparting in some way an idea of peace. James, known to you as Earl of Shrewsbury, was the eldest son. He was at the breakfast table now, for this was the last day of the Easter holidays, which he had been spending at home.
Yes, time had gone on at Orville, as it goes on with us all. April was in, and the Easter holidays were now at an end. There was nothing much to tell of the last term, no particular event to record. Mrs. Butter overcame her fright in time, but not her anger; Tom Brabazon disappeared again; the German master was patiently working; and George Paradyne was battling with the school enmity, and bearing on his own way in spite of circumstances. He would have done it less gallantly but for the ever-constant, daily counsels of Mr. Henry. Over and over again, but for that, the boy would have broken down, for the battle against him waxed fierce and strong. The step taken by Sir Simon Orville, in inviting Mrs. Paradyne and George to dinner on Christmas Day, meant to be a healer of strife, turned out just the reverse. Trace, powerless to rebel against it, concentrated his indignation within him at the time, to let it loose on the head of the unhappy boy later. Not in a violent way, not in any manner that could be taken hold of: he was civil to Paradyne's face; but he so worked craftily on others, that a regular cabal set in against George Paradyne. Mr. Henry, so to say, bore the brunt for him. He soothed the insults, he talked the boy's resentful spirit into peace, he cheered him bravely on, he encouraged him to persevere and be patient. The Talbots were speaking of this enmity as they sat at breakfast. James suddenly interposed with a question to his father.
"Papa, shall you not be late?"
Mr. Talbot glanced at his watch and smiled. The idea of his son's giving him a caution on the score; he, the most strictly punctual clerk the bank possessed. "It's odd how a feeling of dislike does arise in schools against a particular boy," he observed. "It was so in the school I went to, I remember. There's sure to be good cause for it. These instincts are generally to be trusted."
"Papa, what do you call instinct?"
"What do I call instinct?" repeated Mr. Talbot. "I should have thought you were old enough, James, to know what instinct meant, without my telling you."
James laughed. "Because I think in this case our instinct is for Paradyne, instead of against him. I know mine is."