The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations

CHAPTER XXI.

WATCHMAN. How, if he will not stand? DOGBERRY. Why, then, take no note of him, but let him go. Much Ado about Nothing.

Dr.May promised Margaret that he would see whether the black-hole of Cocksmoor was all that Norman depicted it, and, accordingly, he came home that way on Tuesday evening the next week, much to the astonishment of Richard, who was in the act of so mending the window that it might let in air when open, and keep it out when shut, neither of which purposes had it ever yet answered.

Dr. May walked in, met his daughter's look of delight and surprise, spoke cheerfully to Mrs. Green, a hospital acquaintance of his, like half the rest of the country, and made her smile and curtsey by asking if she was not surprised at such doings in her house; then looked at the children, and patted the head that looked most fit to pat, inquired who was the best scholar, and offered a penny to whoever could spell copper tea-kettle, which being done by three merry mortals, and having made him extremely popular, he offered Ethel a lift, and carried her off between him and Adams, on whom he now depended for driving him, since Richard was going to Oxford at once.

It was possible to spare him now. Dr. May's arm was as well as he expected it ever would be; he had discarded the sling, and could use his hand again, but the arm was still stiff and weak--he could not stretch it out, nor use it for anything requiring strength; it soon grew tired with writing, and his daughters feared that it ached more than he chose to confess, when they saw it resting in the breast of his waistcoat. Driving he never would have attempted again, even if he could, and he had quite given up carving--he could better bear to sit at the side than at the bottom of the dinner-table.

Means of carrying Margaret safely had been arranged by Richard, and there was no necessity for longer delaying his going to Oxford, but he was so unwillingly spared by all, as to put him quite into good spirits. Ethel was much concerned to lose him from Cocksmoor, and dreaded hindrances to her going thither without his escort; but she had much trust in having her father on her side, and meant to get authority from him for the propriety of going alone with Mary.

She did not know how Norman had jeopardised her projects, but the danger blew over. Dr. May told Margaret that the place was clean and wholesome, and though more smoky than might be preferred, there was nothing to do any one in health any harm, especially when the walk there and back was over the fresh moor. He lectured Ethel herself on opening the window, now that she could; and advised Norman to go and spend an hour in the school, that he might learn how pleasant peat- smoke was--a speech Norman did not like at all. The real touchstone of temper is ridicule on a point where we do not choose to own ourselves fastidious, and if it and been from any one but his father, Norman would not have so entirely kept down his irritation.

Richard passed his examination successfully, and Dr. May wrote himself to express his satisfaction. Nothing went wrong just now except little Tom, who seemed to be justifying Richard's fears of the consequence of exciting his father's anger. At home, he shrank and hesitated at the simplest question if put by his father suddenly; and the appearance of cowardice and prevarication displeasing Dr. May further, rendered his tone louder, and frightened Tom the more, giving his manner an air of sullen reserve that was most unpleasant. At school it was much the same--he kept aloof from Norman, and threw himself more into the opposite faction, by whom he was shielded from all punishment, except what they chose themselves to inflict on him.

Norman's post as head of the school was rendered more difficult by the departure of his friend Cheviot, who had always upheld his authority; Harvey Anderson did not openly transgress, for he had a character to maintain, but it was well known throughout the school that there was a wide difference between the boys, and that Anderson thought it absurd, superfluous, and troublesome in May not to wink at abuses which appeared to be licensed by long standing. When Edward Anderson, Axworthy, and their set, broke through rules, it was with the understanding that the second boy in the school would support them, if he durst.

The summer and the cricket season brought the battle of Ballhatchet's house to issue. The cricket ground was the field close to it, and for the last two or three years there had been a frequent custom of despatching juniors to his house for tarts and ginger-beer bottles. Norman knew of instances last year in which this had led to serious mischief, and had made up his mind that, at whatever loss of popularity, it was his duty to put a stop to the practice.

He was an ardent cricketer himself, and though the game did not, in anticipation, seem to him to have all the charms of last year, he entered into it with full zest when once engaged. But his eye was on all parts of the field, and especially on the corner by the bridge, and the boys knew him well enough to attempt nothing unlawful within the range of that glance. However, the constant vigilance was a strain too great to be always kept up, and he had reason to believe he was eluded more than once.

At last came a capture, something like that of Tom, one which he could not have well avoided making. The victim was George Larkins, the son of a clergyman in the neighbourhood, a wild, merry varlet, who got into mischief rather for the sake of the fun than from any bad disposition.

His look of consternation was exaggerated into a most comical caricature, in order to hide how much of it was real.

"So you are at that trick, Larkins."

"There! that bet is lost!" exclaimed Larkins. "I laid Hill half-a- crown that you would not see me when you were mooning over your verses!"

"Well, I have seen you. And now--"

"Come, you would not thrash a fellow when you have just lost him half-a-crown! Single misfortunes never come alone, they say; so there's my money and my credit gone, to say nothing of Ballhatchet's ginger-beer!"

The boy made such absurd faces, that Norman could hardly help laughing, though he wished to make it a serious affair. "You know, Larkins, I have given out that such things are not to be. It is a melancholy fact."

"Ay, so you must make an example of me!" said Larkins, pretending to look resigned. "Better call all the fellows together, hadn't you, and make it more effective? It would be grateful to one's feelings, you know; and June," added he, with a ridiculous confidential air, "if you'll only lay it on soft, I'll take care it makes noise enough. Great cry, little wool, you know."

"Come with me," said Norman. "I'll take care you are example enough. What did you give for those articles?"

"Fifteen-pence halfpenny. Rascally dear, isn't it? but the old rogue makes one pay double for the risk! You are making his fortune, you have raised his prices fourfold."

"I'll take care of that."

"Why, where are you taking me? Back to him?"

"I am going to gratify your wish to be an example."

"A gibbet! a gibbet" cried Larkins. "I'm to be turned off on the spot where the crime took place--a warning to all beholders. Only let me send home for old Neptune's chain, if you please, sir--if you hang me in the combined watch-chains of the school, I fear they would give way and defeat the purposes of justice."

They were by this time at the bridge. "Come in," said Norman to his follower, as he crossed the entrance of the little shop, the first time he had ever been there. A little cringing shrivelled old man stood up in astonishment.

"Mr. May! can I have the pleasure, sir?"

"Mr. Ballhatchet, you know that it is contrary to the rules that there should be any traffic with the school without special permission?"

"Yes, sir--just nothing, sir--only when the young gentlemen come here, sir--I'm an old man, sir, and I don't like not to oblige a young gentleman, sir," pleaded the old man, in a great fright.

"Very likely," said Norman, "but I am come to give you fair notice. I am not going to allow the boys here to be continually smuggling spirits into the school."

"Spirits! bless you, sir, I never thought of no sich a thing! 'Tis nothing in life but ginger-beer--very cooling drink, sir, of my wife's making she had the receipt from her grandmother up in Leicestershire. Won't you taste a bottle, sir?" and he hastily made a cork bounce, and poured it out.

That, of course, was genuine, but Norman was "up to him," in schoolboy phrase.

"Give me yours, Larkins."

No pop ensued. Larkins, enjoying the detection, put his hands on his knees and looked wickedly up in the old man's face to see what was coming.

"Bless me! it is a little flat. I wonder how that happened? I'll be most happy to change it, sir. Wife! what's the meaning of Mr. Larkins's ginger-pop being so flat?"

"It is very curious ginger-beer indeed, Mr. Ballhatchet," said Norman; "and since it is liable to have such strange properties, I cannot allow it to be used any more at the school."

"Very well, sir-as you please, sir. You are the first gentleman as has objected, sir."

"And, once for all, I give you warning," added Norman, "that if I have reason to believe you have been obliging the young gentlemen, the magistrates and the trustees of the road shall certainly hear of it."

"You would not hurt a poor man, sir, as is drove to it--you as has such a name for goodness!"

"I have given you warning," said Norman. "The next time I find any of your bottles in the school fields, your licence goes. Now, there are your goods. Give Mr. Larkins back the fifteen-pence. I wonder you are not ashamed of such a charge!"

Having extracted the money, Norman turned to leave the shop. Larkins, triumphant, "Ha! there's Harrison!" as the tutor rode by, and they touched their caps. "How he stared! My eyes! June, you'll be had up for dealing with old Ball!" and he went into an ecstasy of laughing. "You've settled him, I believe. Well, is justice satisfied?"

"It would be no use thrashing you," said Norman, laughing, as he leaned against the parapet of the bridge, and pinched the boy's ear. "There's nothing to be got out of you but chaff."

Larkins was charmed with the compliment.

"But I'll tell you what, Larkins, I can't think how a fellow like you can go and give in to these sneaking, underhand tricks that make you ashamed to look one in the face."

"It is only for the fun of it."

"Well, I wish you would find your fun some other way. Come, Larkins, recollect yourself a little--you have a home not so far off. How do you think your father and mother would fancy seeing you reading the book you had yesterday, or coming out of Ballhatchet's with a bottle of spirits, called by a false name?"

Larkins pinched his fingers; home was a string that could touch him, but it seemed beneath him to own it. At that moment a carriage approached, the boy's whole face lighted up, and he jumped forward. "Our own!" he cried. "There she is!"

She was, of course, his mother; and Norman, though turning hastily away that his presence might prove no restraint, saw the boy fly over the door of the open carriage, and could have sobbed at the thought of what that meeting was.

"Who was that with you?" asked Mrs. Larkins, when she had obtained leave to have her boy with her, while she did her shopping.

"That was May senior, our dux."

"Was it? I am very glad you should be with him, my dear George. He is very kind to you, I hope?"

"He is a jolly good fellow," said Larkins sincerely, though by no means troubling himself as to the appropriateness of the eulogy, nor thinking it necessary to explain to his mother the terms of the conversation.

It was not fruitless; Larkins did avoid mischief when it was not extremely inviting, was more amenable to May senior, and having been put in mind by him of his home, was not ashamed to bring the thought to the aid of his eyes, when, on Sunday, during a long sermon of Mr. Ramsden's, he knew that Axworthy was making the grimace which irresistibly incited him to make a still finer one.

And Ballhatchet was so much convinced of "that there young May" being in earnest, that he assured his persuasive customers that it was as much as his licence was worth to supply them.

Evil and insubordination were more easily kept under than Norman had expected, when he first made up his mind to the struggle. Firmness had so far carried the day, and the power of manful assertion of the right had been proved, contrary to Cheviot's parting auguries, that he would only make himself disliked, and do no good.

The whole of the school was extremely excited this summer by a proceeding of Mr. Tomkins, the brewer, who suddenly closed up the footway called Randall's Alley, declaring that there was no right of passage through a certain field at the back of his brewery. Not only the school, but the town was indignant, and the Mays especially so. It had been the doctor's way to school forty years ago, and there were recollections connected with it that made him regard it with personal affection. Norman, too, could not bear to lose it; he had not entirely conquered his reluctance to pass that spot in the High Street, and the loss of the alley would be a positive deprivation to him. Almost every native of Stoneborough felt strongly the encroachment of the brewer, and the boys, of course, carried the sentiment to exaggeration.

The propensity to public speaking perhaps added to the excitement, for Norman May and Harvey Anderson, for once in unison, each made a vehement harangue in the school-court--Anderson's a fine specimen of the village Hampden style, about Britons never suffering indignities, and free-born Englishmen swelling at injuries.

"That they do, my hearty," interjected Larkins, pointing to an inflamed eye that had not returned to its right dimensions. However, Anderson went on unmoved by the under titter, and demonstrated, to the full satisfaction of all the audience, that nothing could be more illegal and unfounded than the brewer's claims.

Then came a great outburst from Norman, with all his father's headlong vehemence; the way was the right of the town, the walk had been trodden by their forefathers for generations past--it had been made by the good old generous-hearted man who loved his town and townspeople, and would have heard with shame and anger of a stranger, a new inhabitant, a grasping radical, caring, as radicals always did, for no rights, but for their own chance of unjust gains, coming here to Stoneborough to cut them off from their own path. He talk of liberalism and the rights of the poor! He who cut off Randall's poor old creatures in the almshouses from their short way! and then came some stories of his oppression as a poor-law guardian, which greatly aggravated the wrath of the speaker and audience, though otherwise they did not exactly bear on the subject.

"What would old Nicholas Randall say to these nineteenth-century doings?" finished Norman.

"Down, with them!" cried a voice from the throng, probably Larkins's; but there was no desire to investigate, it was the universal sentiment. "Down with it! Hurrah, we'll have our footpath open again! Down with the fences! Britons never shall be slaves!" as Larkins finally ejaculated.

"That's the way to bring it to bear!" said Harvey Anderson, "See if he dares to bring an action against us. Hurrah!"

"Yes, that's the way to settle it," said Norman. "Let's have it down. It is an oppressive, arbitrary, shameful proceeding, and we'll show him we won't submit to it!"

Carried along by the general feeling, the whole troop of boys dashed shouting up to the barricade at the entrance of the field, and levelled it with the ground. A handkerchief was fastened to the top of one of the stakes, and waved over the brewhouse wall, and some of the boys were for picking up stones and dirt, and launching them over, in hopes of spoiling the beer; but Norman put a stop to this, and brought them back to the school-yard, still in a noisy state of exultation.

It cooled a little by-and-by under the doubt how their exploit would be taken. At home, Norman found it already known, and his father half glad, half vexed, enjoying the victory over Tomkins, yet a little uneasy on his son's behalf. "What will Dr. Hoxton say to the dux?" said he. "I didn't know he was to be dux in mischief as well as out of it."

"You can't call it mischief, papa, to resent an unwarranted encroachment of our rights by such an old ruffian as that. One's blood is up to think of the things he has done!"

"He richly deserves it, no doubt," said the doctor, "and yet I wish you had been out of the row. If there is any blame, you will be the first it will light on."

"I am glad of it, that is but just. Anderson and I seem to have stirred it up--if it wanted stirring--for it was in every fellow there; indeed, I had no notion it was coming to this when I began."

"Oratory," said the doctor, smiling. "Ha, Norman! Think a little another time, my boy, before you take the law into your own hands, or, what is worse, into a lot of hands you can't control for good, though you may excite them to harm."

Dr. Hoxton did not come into school at the usual hour, and, in the course of the morning, sent for May senior, to speak to him in his study.

He looked very broad, awful, and dignified, as he informed him that Mr. Tomkins had just been with him to complain of the damage that had been done, and he appeared extremely displeased that the dux should have been no check on such proceedings.

"I am sorry, sir," said Norman, "but I believe it was the general feeling that he had no right to stop the alley, and, therefore, that it could not be wrong to break it down."

"Whether he has a right or not is not a question to be settled by you. So I find that you, whose proper office it is to keep order, have been inflaming the mischievous and aggressive spirit amongst the others. I am surprised at you; I thought you were more to be depended upon, May, in your position."

Norman coloured a good deal, and simply answered? "I am sorry, sir."

"Take care, then, that nothing of the kind happens again," said Dr. Hoxton, who was very fond of him, and did not find fault with him willingly.

That the first inflammatory discourse had been made by Anderson did not appear to be known--he only came in for the general reprimand given to the school.

It was reported the following evening, just as the town boys turned out to go to their homes, that "old Tomkins had his fence up five times higher than before."

"Have at him again, say I!" exclaimed Axworthy. "What business has he coming stopping up ways that were made before he was born?"

"We shall catch it from the doctor if we do," said Edward Anderson, "He looked in no end of a rage yesterday when he talked about the credit of the school."

"Who cares for the credit of the school?" said the elder Anderson; "we are out of the school now--we are townsmen--Stoneborough boys-- citizens not bound to submit to injustice. No, no, the old rogue knew it would not stand if it was brought into court, so he brings down old Hoxton on us instead--a dirty trick he deserves to be punished for."

And there was a general shout and yell in reply.

"Anderson," said Norman, "you had better not excite them again, they are ripe for mischief. It will go further than it did yesterday-- don't you see?"

Anderson could not afford to get into a scrape without May to stand before him, and rather sulkily he assented.

"It is of no use to rave about old Tomkins," proceeded Norman, in his style of popular oratory. "If it is illegal, some one will go to law about it, and we shall have our alley again. We have shown him our mind once, and that is enough; if we let him alone now, he will see 'tis only because we are ordered, not for his sake. It would be just putting him in the right, and maybe winning his cause for him, to use any more violence. There's law for you, Anderson. So now no more about it--let us all go home like rational fellows. August, where's August?"

Tom was not visible--he generally avoided going home with his brother; and Norman having seen the boys divide into two or three little parties, as their roads lay homewards, found he had an hour of light for an expedition of his own, along the bank of the river. He had taken up botany with much ardour, and sharing the study with Margaret was a great delight to both. There was a report that the rare yellow bog-bean grew in a meadow about a mile and a half up the river, and thither he was bound, extremely enjoying the summer evening walk, as the fresh dewy coolness sunk on all around, and the noises of the town were mellowed by distance, and the sun's last beams slanted on the green meadows, and the May-flies danced, and dragon-flies darted, and fish rose or leaped high in the air, or showed their spotted sides, and opened and shut their gills, as they rested in the clear water, and the evening breeze rustled in the tall reeds, and brought fragrance from the fresh-mown hay.

It was complete enjoyment to Norman after his day's study and the rule and watch over the unruly crowd of boys, and he walked and wandered and collected plants for Margaret till the sun was down, and the grasshoppers chirped clamorously, while the fern-owl purred, and the beetle hummed, and the skimming swallows had given place to the soft-winged bat, and the large white owl floating over the fields as it moused in the long grass.

The summer twilight was sobering every tint, when, as Norman crossed the cricket-field, he heard, in the distance, a loud shout. He looked up, and it seemed to him that he saw some black specks dancing in the forbidden field, and something like the waving of a flag, but it was not light enough to be certain, and he walked quickly home.

The front door was fastened, and, while he was waiting to be let in, Mr. Harrison walked by, and called out, "You are late at home to- night--it is half-past nine."

"I have been taking a walk, sir."

A good-night was the answer, as he was admitted. Every one in the drawing-room looked up, and exclaimed as he entered, "Where's Tom?"

"What! he is not come home?"

"No! Was he not with you?"

"I missed him after school. I was persuaded he was come home. I have been to look for the yellow bog-bean. There, Margaret. Had not I better go and look for him?"

"Yes, do," said Dr. May. "The boy is never off one's mind."

A sort of instinctive dread directed Norman's steps down the open portion of Randall's Alley, and, voices growing louder as he came nearer, confirmed his suspicions. The fence at this end was down, and, on entering the field, a gleam of light met his eye on the ground--a cloud of smoke, black figures were flitting round it, pushing brands into red places, and feeding the bonfire.

"What have you been doing?" exclaimed Norman. "You have got yourselves into a tremendous scrape!"

A peal of laughter, and shout of "Randall and Stoneborough for ever!" was the reply.

"August! May junior! Tom! answer me! Is he here?" asked Norman, not solicitous to identify any one.

But gruff voices broke in upon them. "There they are, nothing like 'em for mischief."

"Come, young gentlemen," said a policeman, "be off, if you please. We don't want to have none of you at the station to-night."

A general hurry-skurry ensued. Norman alone, strong in innocence, walked quietly away, and, as he came forth from the darkness of the alley, beheld something scouring away before him, in the direction of home. It popped in at the front door before him, but was not in the drawing-room. He strode upstairs, called, but was not answered, and found, under the bedclothes, a quivering mass, consisting of Tom, with all his clothes on, fully persuaded that it was the policeman who was pursuing him.