Читать книгу The Human Boy - Eden Phillpotts - Страница 8

Table of Contents

This is the story of the most tremendous thing that ever happened at Dunston’s, or any other school, I should think. Though in it luckily, I didn’t do any of the big part, being merely one of those chaps who were flogged and not expelled afterwards. Trelawny and Bradwell carried the thing through, and all the other fellows in the Wing Dormitory followed their lead. And, mind you, everybody had the welfare of the school at heart. It seemed a jolly brave sort of thing to do, and jolly interesting. Trelawny arranged the military side of the business, and Bradwell, whose father is known as the “Whiteley” of some place in Yorkshire, looked to the commissariat, which means feeding. As to Trelawny, who really captained the dormitory, he was Cornish, and a relation of that very chap fifty thousand Cornish men wanted to know the reason why about long ago. He was going to be a soldier, read history books for choice, and already knew many military words.

I was Bradwell’s fag at the time, because Watson minor had failed in some secret enterprise, and I remember the first conversation which led to everything. Happening to take some tuck in to Bradwell in the Fifth class-room, I found Trelawny there and heard him say:

“The only way. A protest, and a jolly dignified one, must be made. It’s for the credit of the school, and if the Doctor will not see it we must show him. I’ve thought about it a lot, and I think if a section of chaps could put themselves in a strong, fortified position they might demand to be heard, and even be able to offer an--an ultimatum. Of course, doing the thing for the good of the school and not for ourselves makes us morally right.”

“Of course,” said Bradwell.

“But we must be physically strong. In warfare the relative positions of the sides are always taken into account when the treaties of peace are arranged.”

“What are you staring at?” said Bradwell to me. “You hook it.”

So I hooked. But I knew perfectly well what they were talking about. Everybody in the Wing Dormitory did, because they often discussed the same question after they thought the rest of the chaps were asleep. It was the new mathematical master, Thompson, who troubled not only Trelawny and Bradwell but a lot of the other fellows. Trelawny had called him an “unholy bounder” the third day he was there, and that seemed to be a general opinion. Yet, with all his bounderishness, he was awfully clever, and meant well. But he didn’t know anything about chaps in a general way, and he left out his h’s and stuck them in with awfully rum effects. Thompson tried hard to be friendly to everybody, but only the kids liked him. He couldn’t understand somehow, and insulted chaps in the most frightful way, not seeing any difference between fellows at the top of the school and mere kids at the bottom. Captains of elevens were as nothing to him. He seemed to have read up boys like he read mathematics and stuff--from rotten books. He would say sometimes, “Now, you fellows, let’s ’ave a jolly game of leap-frog before the bell rings,” and things like that. Boys never do play leap-frog except in books really. Once he offered to show Trelawny how to make a kite, and he asked Chambers--Chambers, mind you, the Captain of the First Eleven at Cricket--whether he knew a shop where there were capital iron hoops for sale at a shilling each. I heard him say it, and he put it like this: “I say, Chambers, do you know those splendid ’oops they sell at Burford’s in ’Igh Street? It’s out of bounds, but if you like I’ll get you one this evening. They’ve got iron crooks and everything. I make this offer because you understood a little of what I said about Conic Sections this afternoon.” Thompson meant so jolly well that nobody could get in a wax with him personally; and, as I say, the kids, who didn’t see the “unholy bounder” side of him, and only knew he stood gallons of ginger-beer on half-holidays in the playing-fields, liked him better than anybody. But Trelawny took big views, and so did Bradwell, and they decided to make a definite protest.

Nothing happened till one day Thompson said something about Trelawney’s “Celtic thickness of skull.” That stung Trelawny like nettles, and he set to work and arranged the great plot of the Wing Dormitory. He decided that the fifteen chaps who slept in the isolated Wing Dormitory of Dunston’s were to fortify the place, and hold it before the world and the Doctor as a protest against Thompson. Every chap in the dormitory, from Trelawny and Bradwell to Watson minor, signed their names in their own blood on a paper Trelawny drew out; and Watson minor fainted while he was doing it, not being able to see his own gore on a pen without going off. We swore by a tremendous swear to obey Trelawny, to fortify the Wing Dormitory against siege, to devote every penny of our week’s pocket-money to provisions, and to hold out till we starved, having first signed another paper for Doctor Dunston explaining our united protest against Thompson, and hoping for the good of the school that he would be removed. I didn’t understand much about it really. In fact, I don’t believe anybody did but Trelawny and Bradwell. Only they said we were acting for the good of the school, and they also said that if we held the Wing Dormitory properly nothing short of cannon or starvation could dislodge us. It was a tremendously tall building, complete in itself, with iron fire-proof doors constructed to cut it off from the rest of the school, and with a bath-room and a lavatory adjoining, all at a great height above the ground. The windows were barred to keep chaps getting out. The bars would also keep chaps getting in, as Trelawny pointed out. He found also that it was possible when the iron doors were closed to pull down some wood-work, and stick things behind the doors so as they could not be opened again. The only entrance to the Wing Dormitory was through these iron doors, so once shut we were safe against anything but gunpowder; and Trelawny said Doctor Dunston was not the man to resort to physical means, especially if it meant knocking the place about. Bradwell came out wonderfully about the food, and knowing jolly well that they would turn the water out of the bath-room when the siege started, he made every chap fill his basin and jug the night before; because fresh water is vital to a siege.

There were fifteen chaps, and the time came at last, and one night we laid the manifesto on the mat outside the iron door, made everything fast, and waited to see what would happen. Some fellows thought that Thompson would be sent away at once, to avoid the affair becoming serious; others fancied we should be starved out or expelled to a man. Trelawny never hazarded any guess at what would be the end of it. “We are doing our duty in the interests of the school,” he said, “and whatever happens we mean well; and if it gets into print the sympathy of all chaps in public schools will be on our side.”