Frank Fairlegh Part 3

"How does the water come down at Lodore?

Das.h.i.+ng and flas.h.i.+ng, and splas.h.i.+ng and clas.h.i.+ng, All at once and all o'er, with a mighty uproar, And this way the water comes down at Lodore."

--Southey.

"PRAY, Fairlegh, what did you mean by not coming down till eleven o'clock?" asked c.u.mberland in an angry tone.

"Did its mamma say it was always to have its breakfast in bed, a dear?"

sneered Lawless.

"When she fastened that pretty square collar round its neck," chimed in Coleman.

"Just like a great gal," added Mullins.

"Mildman was exceedingly angry about it, I can tell you," continued c.u.mberland, "and desired me to speak seriously to you on the subject; such abominable idleness is not to be tolerated."

"It was not idleness," answered I, warmly; "you all know very well, why I could not come down, and I don't think it was at all right or kind of you to play me such a trick."

"Eh--now don't say that--you will hurt my feelings; I declare it is quite affecting," said Coleman, wiping his eyes with Mullins's handkerchief, of which he had just picked his pocket.

-22--"I'd have given five pounds to have seen old Sam's phiz, when he was trying to make out what ailed young stupid here, whether he was really ill, or only shamming," said Lawless; "depend upon it, he thinks it was all pretence, and he can't bear anything of that sort; that was why he began spinning him that long yarn about 'meriting his approbation by upright and straightforward conduct,' this morning. I saw what the old boy was aiming at in a minute; there's nothing puts him out so much as being deceived."

"Won't he set him all the hard lines to construe? that's all," said Mullins.

"It will be 'hard lines' upon him if he does," observed Coleman.

"Hold your tongue, Freddy! your puns are enough to make one ill," said c.u.mberland.

"Well, I don't know whether you are going to stand here all day baiting your pinafore, c.u.mberland?" interrupted Lawless; "I'm not, for I've got a horse waiting for me down at Snaffles's, and I am going to ride over to Hookley; there's a pigeon-match coming off to-day between Clayton, of the Lancers--(he was just above me at Eton, you know)--and Tom Horton, who won the great match at Pinchley, and I have backed Clayton pretty heavily--shall you come?"

"No," replied c.u.mberland, "no, I am going down to F------Street."

"As usual, the board of green cloth, eh? you will go there once too often, if you don't mind, old fellow." "That's my look out," replied c.u.mberland. And away they went to their different pursuits, each, as he left the room, making me a very low obeisance; Coleman taking the trouble to open the door again after he had gone out, to beg, "that, if I were going to write to my mother, I would tell her, with his love, that she need not make herself in the least uneasy, as _he had quite_ got over his last little attack". In a few minutes they had all quitted the house, and I remained the sole tenant of the pupils' room.

Many a long year has pa.s.sed over my head since the day I am now describing, and each (though my life has been on the whole as free from care as that of most of the sons of Adam) has brought with it some portion of sorrow or suffering to temper the happiness I have enjoyed, and teach me the much-required lesson, that "here we have no abiding place". I have lived to see bright hopes fade--high and n.o.ble aspirations fall to the ground, checked -23--by the sordid policy of worldly men--and the proud hearts which gave them birth become gradually debased to the level of those around them, or break in the unequal struggle--and these things have pained me. I have beheld those dear to me stretched upon the bed of sickness, and taken from me by the icy hand of death; and have deemed, as the grave closed over them, that my happiness, as far as this world was concerned, was buried with them. I have known (and this was grief indeed) those loved with all the warm and trustful confidence of youth prove false and unworthy of such deep affection; and have wished, in the bitterness of my soul, that the pit had shut her mouth upon me also, so I had but died with my faith in them unshaken. Still, although such sorrows as these may have produced a more deep and lasting effect, I do not remember ever to have felt more thoroughly desolate than upon the present occasion. The last scene, though trifling in itself, had made a great impression upon me, from the fact that it proved, as I considered, the animus of the pupils towards me. "Every man's hand was against me." Even the oaf Mullins might insult me with impunity; secure that, in so doing, if in nothing else, he would be supported by the rest. Then I had offended my tutor, all my predilections in whose favour had returned with double force, since I had satisfied myself that he was not addicted to the commission of petty larceny; offended him by allowing him to suppose that I had practised a mean deception upon him. Moreover, it was impossible to explain my conduct to him without showing up Coleman, an extreme measure for which I was by no means prepared. Besides, every one would think, if I were to do so, that I was actuated by a paltry spirit of malice, and that would have been worse to bear than anything. No--turn my gaze to whichever side I. would, the horizon seemed alike clouded; there was no comfort for me anywhere. I looked at my watch--two o'clock! Three long hours to dinner-time, in which I might do what I liked. _What I liked_! there was mockery in the very sound. What was there for me to do? go out and see more new faces looking coldly on me, and wander up and down in strange places alone, amidst a crowd? No! I had not the heart to do that. Sit down, and write home, and by telling them how miserable I was, render them unhappy too?--that was worst of all. At length I found a book, and began reading as it were mechanically, but so little was I able to fix my attention that, had I been questioned at the end of the time as to the subject of the work I had been -24--perusing, I should have been utterly at a loss for an answer. I had fairly given it up as hopeless, and closed the book, when I heard footsteps in the pa.s.sage, followed by the sudden apparition of the ever-smiling Mr. Frederick Coleman, who, closing the door after him, accosted me as follows:--

"What, Fairlegh, all in the downs, old fellow?--'never say die!'--come, be jolly--look at me".

As he said this I involuntarily raised my eyes to his features, and certainly if ever there were a face formed for banis.h.i.+ng blue devils by a glance, it was his. It was a round face, not remarkable for beauty of outline, inasmuch as it bore a strong resemblance to that of the gentleman on the blue China plates, in two pigtails and a petticoat, who appears to pa.s.s a mild ornithological and botanical existence in studying intently certain fishy-looking birds, and a cannon-ball tree, which form the leading feature of the landscape in his vicinity. With regard to expression, however, Coleman had a decided advantage over the Chinese horticulturist, for, whereas the countenance of the latter gentleman expresses (if indeed it can be said to express anything) only meek astonishment, Coleman's small black eyes danced and sparkled with such a spirit of mischief and devilry, while such a fund of merriment, and, as it now for the first time struck me, of good-nature also, lurked about the corners of his mouth, that it seemed impossible to look at him without feeling that there was something contagious in his hilarity.

"Why," said I, "everything here is so new to me, so entirely different from all I have been accustomed to before, and the unkind--that is, the odd way in which Lawless and the rest of you seem to behave to me, treating me as if you thought I was either a fool or a baby--it all seems so strange, that I confess I am not over-happy."

"Precious odd if you were, I think," replied Coleman; "and it was a horrid shame of me to hide your trousers as I did this morning. Oh! how delightfully miserable you did look, as you stood s.h.i.+vering up in the cold! I'm sorry for it now, but I'm such a chap for a bit of fun, that if a trick like that comes into my head, do it I must. Oh! I get into no end of sc.r.a.pes that way! Why it was but the other day I put a piece of cobbler's wax on the seat of Mildman's chair, and ruined his best Sunday-going sit-upons; he knew, too, who did it, I'm sure, for the next day he gave me a double dose of Euclid, to take the nonsense out of me, I suppose. He had better mind what he's at, though! I have got another dodge ready for him -25--if he does not take care! But I did not mean to annoy you: you behaved like a brick, too, in not saying anything about it--I am really very sorry."

"Never mind," said I; "it's all right again now: I like a joke as well as anybody when I know it's only fun; the thing I am afraid of now is, that Dr. Mildman may think I wanted to deceive him, by pretending to be ill, when I was not."

"I daresay he has got a pretty good notion how it is," said Coleman, "but we'll get Thomas to tell him what I was up to, and that will set it all straight again."

"That will be very kind indeed," replied I; "but will not Dr. Mildman be angry with you about it?"

"Not he," said Coleman, "he never finds fault unless there's real necessity for it; he's as good a fellow as ever lived, is old Sam, only he's so precious slow."

"I am glad you like him, he seems so very kind and good-natured," said I, "just the sort of person one should wish one's tutor to be. But about c.u.mberland and Lawless; what kind of fellows are they when you come to know them?"

"Oh, you will like Lawless well enough when he gets tired of bullying you," replied Coleman; "though you need not stand so much of that as I was obliged to bear; you are a good head taller than I am--let's look at your arm; it would be all the better for a little more muscle, but that will soon improve. I'll put on the gloves with you for an hour or so every day."

"Put on the gloves!" repeated I; "how do you mean?--what has that to do with Lawless?"

"Oh, you m.u.f.f! don't you understand?--of course, I mean the boxing-gloves; and when you know how to use your fists, if Lawless comes it too strong, slip into him."

"He must bully a good deal before I am driven to that," replied I; "I never struck a blow in anger in my life."

"You will see before long," rejoined Coleman; "but at all events there is no harm in learning to use your fists; a man should always be able to defend himself if he is attacked."

"Yes, that's very true," observed I; "but you have not told me anything of c.u.mberland. Shall I ever like him, do you think?"

"Not if you are the sort of fellow I take you to be," replied he; "there's something about c.u.mberland not altogether right, I fancy; I'm not very strait-laced myself, particularly if there's any fun in a thing, not so much so as I should be, I suspect; but c.u.mberland is too bad even -26--for me; besides, there's no fun in what he does, and then he's such a humbug--not straightforward and honest, you know. Lawless would not be half such a bully either, if c.u.mberland did not set him on. But don't you say a word about this to any one; c.u.mberland would be ready to murder me, or to get somebody else to do it for him--that's more in his way."

"Do not fear my repeating anything told me in confidence," replied I; "but what do you mean when you say there's something wrong about c.u.mberland?"

"Do you know what Lawless meant by the 'board of green cloth' this morning?"

"No--it puzzled me."

"I will tell you then," replied Coleman, sinking his voice almost to a whisper--"the billiard table!"

After telling me this, Coleman, evidently fearing to commit himself further with one of whom he knew so little, turned the conversation, and, finding it still wanted more than an hour to dinner, proposed that we should take a stroll along the sh.o.r.e together. In the course of our walk I acquired the additional information that another pupil was expected in a few days--the only son of Sir John Oaklands, a baronet of large fortune in Hertfords.h.i.+re; and that an acquaintance of Coleman's, who knew him, said he was a capital fellow, but very odd--though in what the oddity consisted did not appear. Moreover, Coleman confirmed me in my preconceived idea, that Mullins's genius lay at present chiefly in the eating, drinking, and sleeping line--adding that, in his opinion, he bore a striking resemblance to those somewhat dissimilar articles, a m.u.f.f and a spoon. In converse such as this, the time slipped away, till we suddenly discovered that we had only a quarter of an hour left in which to walk back to Langdale Terrace, and prepare for dinner; whereupon a race began, in which my longer legs gave me so decided an advantage over Coleman that he declared he would deliver me up to the tender mercies of the "Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals," for what he was pleased to call "an aggravated case of over-driving a private pupil".

We had not more than five minutes left when we arrived at Dr. Mildman's door, Coleman affording a practical ill.u.s.tration of the truth of the aphorism, that "it is the pace that kills"; so that Thomas's injunction, "Look sharp, gentlemen," was scarcely necessary to induce us to rush upstairs two steps at a time. In the same hurry I entered my bedroom, without observing that the door was standing ajar rather suspiciously, for which piece of inattention I -27--was rewarded by a deluge of water, which wetted me from head to foot, and a violent blow on the shoulder, which stretched me on the ground in the midst of a puddle. That I may not keep the reader in suspense I will at once inform him that I was indebted for this agreeable surprise to the kindness and skill of Lawless, who, having returned from his pigeon-match half-an-hour sooner than was necessary, had devoted it to the construction of what he called a "b.o.o.by trap," which ingenious piece of mechanism was arranged in the following manner: The victim's room-door was placed ajar, and upon the top thereof a Greek Lexicon, or any other equally ponderous volume, was carefully balanced, and upon this was set in its turn a jug of water. If all these were properly adjusted, the catastrophe above described was certain to ensue when the door was opened.

[Ill.u.s.tration: page27 Caught in a Trap]

"Fairly caught, by Jove," cried Lawless, who had been on the watch.

"By Jupiter Pluvius, you should have said," joined in Coleman, helping me up again; for so sudden and unexpected had been the shock that I had remained for a moment just as I had fallen, with a kind of vague expectation that the roof of the house would come down upon me.

"I suppose I have to thank you for that," said I, turning to Lawless.

"Pray, don't mention it, Pinafore," was the answer; "what little trouble I had in making the arrangement, I can a.s.sure you, was quite repaid by its success."

"I'll certainly put on the gloves to-morrow," whispered I to Coleman--to which he replied by a sympathetic wink, adding:--

"And now I think you had better get ready, more particularly as you will have to find out 'how to dress _jugged hair_,' as the cookery-books say".

By dint of almost superhuman exertions I did just contrive to get down in time for dinner, though my unfortunate "jugged hair," which was anything but dry, must have presented rather a singular appearance. In the course of dinner Dr. Mildman told us that we should have the whole of the next day to ourselves, as he was obliged to go to London on business, and should not return till the middle of the day following--an announcement which seemed to afford great satisfaction to his hearers, despite an attempt made by c.u.mberland to keep up appearances, by putting on a look of mournful resignation, which, being imitated by Coleman, who, as might be expected, rather overdid the thing, failed most signally. -28--