Going Down Stream.
If any one supposed that Low Heath had heard the last of Mr Jarman’s guy they little knew Mr Jarman, or Tempest, or the Philosophers. The ghost of that unhappy effigy was hardly likely to be laid by a simple magisterial decision.
Mr Jarman, it was rumoured, had a bad quarter of an hour with the doctor that evening, and went about his ordinary work for the next few days with a scowl which boded no good to any one who chanced to cross him, least of all to those of us who had contributed to his defeat.
Tempest, on the other hand, took his victory coolly. He talked it over with his chums, and came to the conclusion that they were quits with the enemy and could afford to leave him alone. But it was plain to see that he had suffered a jar, which found expression in his reckless unconcern for the duties of his position as head of his house, and an increased disinclination to make any exertion for the credit of a school which, he considered, had treated him ill. What troubled me most was to notice that his spirits had flagged, and that he was dropping slowly into the listless indifference which had made Pridgin only a term ago shirk his responsibilities to the school.
Towards us juniors he was utterly easy-going, perhaps in token of his gratitude for the assistance we had rendered him at a critical time; but chiefly, I fear, because he was slack to check anything which seemed to defy constituted authority or promised to give an uneasy time to the representatives of law and order.
To do us credit, we availed ourselves of his licence to the uttermost. Sharpe’s rapidly became known as the “rowdy” house at Low Heath, and we grew almost proud of the distinction. Mr Sharpe, an amiable bookworm, made periodical mild expostulations, which were always most deferentially received, and most invariably neglected.
If any reader thinks (as we flattered ourselves at the time) that Mr Jarman was the cause of all this state of things, let me tell him he is as stupid as we young fools then were.
It’s all very well to stand up for your rights, but the way to do it is not by letting everything go wrong. If poor old Tempest had taken a bigger view of things, he would have seen that the way to pay Jarman out was by making Sharpe’s house the crack house of Low Heath in spite of him. But how hard it is to see just what the right thing is at the time! So I do not propose to throw stones at anybody, whatever the reader may do.
The Philosophers of course duly entered a record of the transactions just related in their minutes, the reading of which occupied the whole of one of the extraordinary general meetings of their club.
One could never say what line Langrish would take up; and I as president always had my qualms in calling upon him to read the minutes of the previous meeting.