I stepped that way, and found him as good as his word. I went back to my place sadder, if not wiser, than when I left it; and for that day and for several days to come, I found that a sitting posture was not altogether free from discomfort.
Poor old Tunder! he was not a bad sort of fellow after all. He left the school not very long afterwards, and then we found out how many kindly and generous things he had done in a quiet unobtrusive sort of way. I don’t suppose his salary as an under-master was a very large one, and I know from what he said himself that he had no private income, so that he must have practised considerable economy and self-denial to have been able to indulge in those unsuspected acts of charity in the poorer parts of Greychester which came to light after he had gone. I have lost sight of him for some time; but if he should still be living, and should chance to read these lines, he will see that in spite of the spring-frog episode, I can still speak of him with respect, and even affection.
But I am wasting time in gossiping about so paltry an affair as my first flogging, and almost forgetting that I have a story of a very different kind to tell—a story so tinged to a certain extent with sadness, that even now it costs me something to relate it. Indeed, I should not do so, did I not think that—apart from the passing interest it may have—it may serve in some cases to point a moral and give a warning.
Two of my particular chums at school were Frank and Charlie Stewart, popularly known as the two young Hotspurs. Why, I will tell you. They were fellows of the real good sort, as we used to say, good run-getters in a cricket-match, and pulling a first-rate oar. Not that they were dunces either, for they were never very low down in their forms, and they had a quickness and readiness that carried them above fellows of more plodding industry. They had one fault—I suppose every schoolboy has one, many more than one—and it was this failing that gained them their nickname. Kindly and good-natured enough as a general rule, each of them had a quick and impetuous disposition, which was liable, under no very great provocation, to blaze out into hot passion. They resented anything like dictation or unfair treatment so much, that their high spirit could at times scarcely brook even a fair and proper opposition to their ideas and opinions, and instead of trying to gain their argument, they would lose their temper. But, to do them justice, there was nothing sullen, or mean, or vindictive about them; and their fits of temper were shortlived. They tried earnestly to guard against their besetting weakness, sometimes succeeding, and always bitterly lamenting afterwards if they failed. Occasionally, they came to words between themselves; but in a moment or two they would be as friendly as ever again, pulling a pair together, or tossing for sides at cricket. Once, however, they came to blows, and it is that scene which is so vividly painted on my memory.
Like myself, the Stewarts were town-boys, and as our homes were not very far apart, we generally went to and from school together, the intimacy thus formed being gradually ripened by congenial tastes and pursuits into a warm and lasting friendship, which made them almost like brothers, and their house quite a second home to me. Their father, who had been a retired naval officer, possessed of ample independent means, had died a year or two before, and they lived with their widowed mother and a sister—a child, when first I knew her, of about six or seven. Margerie her name was—Queen Margerie, in a playful way, they always called her; and well she deserved her title, for she held absolute and sovereign sway over every heart in the household, and indeed over all who knew her.
I wish I were a word-painter, so that I could portray Queen Margerie as I see her in my mind’s eye now. I wish a more skilful hand than mine could place the portrait before you—the portrait of a child—somewhat small for her age, you might say, and perhaps somewhat fragile-looking—with clustering soft brown hair, brightened here and there by a gleam of gold; hazel eyes, always lit up with mirth and happiness, except when the story of some one’s troubles filled them with tears; and soft cheeks, where the shadow of ill-humour seemed never to find a resting-place. And then, what pretty ways she had; talking in such a demure, old-world fashion, with a voice deep for a child, and yet with such music in it, and doing everything so pleasantly and lovingly, that no wonder those about her made her their idol.
Chief among the idolaters were her two brothers. If I had not seen it, I should never have thought that two school-lads could have been so tender and loving to a child. No trouble and no self-sacrifice did they grudge her, gratifying her wishes, as far as lay in their power, as soon as they were uttered; often, indeed, anticipating them before they were spoken. It was curious, and yet pleasant, to see how they would come to her with the story of their feats and adventures, like knights of old, who valued most their victories in the jousts in that they gained them the smile of the queen of the tournament. If either of them had won a prize, or made the top score in a match, or done some other redoubtable thing, his chief pleasure was in the thought of Queen Margerie’s delight at the news. ‘Tell me all about it,’ she would say, nestling eagerly close to him, ‘tell me every word—every word from beginning to end.’ Then would he give her a full and graphic account, she listening with growing interest the while, and gazing at him with a look of pride, until the tale was ended; and then her joy at the history of his success was to him his crowning reward.
Queen Margerie, how mother, brother, servants adored thee! I believe if the sacrifice of their own lives had been necessary to preserve thine, not one of them would have hesitated a moment to pay the price.
‘They overdid it,’ do you say? Nay, believe me, they did not, for a child in the home may be among the very richest gifts for which heaven claims our gratitude. A child’s presence may fill with sunlight the house which else would be wrapt in gloom; a child’s influence may preserve purity in the mind which but for it might become stained and corrupted; a child’s love may serve to keep warm the heart which the cares and worries of life might otherwise make cold and selfish.
‘I wonder,’ said Frank Stewart once to me, in an abstracted sort of way, as if he had been pondering over some weighty matter—‘I wonder what we should do if anything were to happen to Margerie; if she were to—to go away.’