Ernest Bracebridge: School Days

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“To make him sick and wretched; to teach him to smoke and to drink beer and spirits, and to listen to your foul conversation—you reprobate!” answered Lemon calmly, as he stopped and faced Blackall.

“By God! I’ll thrash you for that as soundly as you ever were in your life,” exclaimed Blackall, taking his cigar out of his mouth, and rising to his feet.

Earnest’s heart rose to his mouth; Buttar clenched his fists tightly. Putting Eden behind them, they sprang to Lemon’s side, and looked defiantly at the approaching bully. None of the other boys of either party stirred. Blackall did not like the aspect of affairs. He knew that though, from his greater strength and weight, he could thrash Lemon, he could not hope at any time to gain an easy victory; and from what he had observed of Ernest, he suspected that if he did strike, he would strike very hard and sharp. Buttar also, when once he was attempting to thrash him, had given him such a hit in the eye that the mark had remained for a fortnight at least, to the no small satisfaction of those whom he had been accustomed to bully. He therefore stopped just before he got up to Lemon.

“Come,” he said, “I don’t want to quarrel. Let Eden remain, and I’ll cry pax.”

“Certainly not, Blackall, you’ve let Eden do what is forbidden; you are setting him a bad example. I shall therefore be glad to take him away from you. He wishes to accompany me, and I shall let him do so,” was the answer.

“Oh, you’re a puritanical saint, Lemon,—all the school knows that,” said Blackall with a sneer with which he hoped to cover his own retreat. He had been telling the fellows around him that he felt very seedy, and as he looked at the firm front of his three antagonists he had no fancy to commence a desperate fight with them.

“I wish to deserve the good opinion of my schoolfellows, and I do not believe that they will agree with you,” said Lemon. “If hating vice and despising the low practices in which you indulge will make me a saint, I am ready to acknowledge the impeachment, and I can only say that I hope the poor little fellows may see the hideousness of sin, and loathe it as much as they do the vile tobacco-leaves you give them to suck, and the spirits and beer which you teach them to drink. Stop! hear me out. There is nothing immoral in drinking a glass of beer or in smoking, but in our case they are both forbidden by the Doctor, whom we are bound to obey. Both become vices when carried to excess, as you, Blackall, carry them, and would teach your pitiable imitators to carry them; and I warn you and them that such practices can only bring you disgrace and misery at last.”

Lemon, without saying another word, turned on his heel, and, accompanied by his two sturdy supporters, was walking away.

“Do you mean to say that I drink?” shouted Blackall, with an oath, as soon as he could recover from the astonishment into which this unusual style of address had thrown him.

Lemon turned round, looked him full in the face, and said, “I do.” Then he went on the way he had been going. Blackall did not say another word, but staggered back to the bank on which he had been sitting, and endeavoured to re-light the end of the cigar he had dropped when he got up. He knew that Lemon had spoken the truth. Already he had that day stopped at more than one road-side ale-house and drunk several glasses of beer. “In vino-veritas,” is a true saying. Blackall when sober might pass for a very brave fellow: his true character came out when he was drunk, and he showed himself an arrant coward, as he had done on this occasion. The boys who remained with him looked very foolish, and some of them felt heartily ashamed of their leader. Some resolved to break from him altogether, but he had thrown his chains too firmly over others to allow them to hope or even to wish to get free from him. Lemon, Ernest, Buttar, and their companions continued their walk, carrying poor little Eden along with them. He confessed to having chewed a piece of the cigar and swallowed it, before he discovered that it was not intended to be eaten. Happily for him, he became violently sick, and then, having washed his face in a brook and taken a draught of cold water, he was able to enjoy the beautiful coast scenery the party ultimately reached.