Читать книгу The Outlaw - John David Hennessy - Страница 11

Table of Contents

When Jack called the roll on the following morning there was a large muster of scholars. The attendance was undoubtedly improving, the only notable and unexplained absence being that of Mercy Lord. The schoolmaster, however, made no comment, but quietly read out, off the black-board, the school-song, and took his flute to lead the singing.

Just then the school-house door was pushed open, and with a flushed face and excited demeanour, Mercy Lord entered, accompanied by her mother.

Mrs. Robert Lord was a ladylike woman, of easy, independent carriage; but when excited, she had a shrill, voluble tongue. It was plain that she had come upon an unpleasant errand, and meant to have her say about it to the schoolmaster, probably in the presence of the scholars.

"Betsy, hand Mrs. Lord a chair," said Jack, without giving the lady time to speak.

Betsy frowned, and, with the greatest deliberation, did as she was told.

"Kindly take a seat, Mrs. Lord," said the teacher, "until we have sung the school opening song."

Mrs. Lord hesitated; she had not come there for either entertainment or instruction, she thought, but for the exaction of condign punishment upon those who had disturbed the peace of her family. Jack, however, softly ran over the air of the song on his flute; so she sat down, Mercy standing by her side.

The song happened to be an old one, which the scholars had practised frequently, and it was sung with melodious heartiness. It was as follows:

"What were life without some one to cheer us

With a word or a smile on our way,

A friend who is faithfully near us,

And heeds not what others may say?

The bravest of spirits have often

Half failed in the race that they ran

For a kind word life's hardships to soften.

Then say a kind word when you can."

The chorus, which was rendered fortissimo, ran as follows:

"Then say a kind word when you can,

Oh! say a kind word when you can,

For a kind word life's hardships may soften,

Then say a kind word when you can, when you can."

Jack looked over his flute at Mrs. Lord and Mercy, wondering what would be the next development and fervently hoping that she would have time to cool down, and would not make a scene before the children, when a couple of childish voices repeated:

"When you can, when you can."

Some of the bigger girls laughed at this, and it seemed as though the whole school intuitively knew that Mrs. Lord's presence boded no good to some one.

The next verse followed more softly, but with deeper significance:

"Each one of us owns to some failing,

Though some may have more than the rest,

But there's no good in needlessly railing

'Gainst those who are striving their best!

Remember a word spoke complaining

May blight every effort and plan,

Which a kind word would help in attaining,

Then say a kind word when you can."

Again the chorus rolled out in shrill vehemence, and the childish voices echoed a second time to the closing refrain:

"When you can, when you can."

Jack still took observations over his flute, and thought he saw Mrs. Lord brush something out of the corner of her eye with her handkerchief, when she used that useful article avowedly for another purpose. The last verse followed:

"Oh, say a kind word then whenever

'Twill make the heart cheerful and glad,

But chiefly, forget it, oh never,

To the one that is hopeless and sad;

For there's no word so easy in saying,

So begin, if you never began,

And do not in life be delaying,

To say a kind word when you can."

When the chorus had died away, Mrs. Lord sat quietly in her chair, waiting for the schoolmaster to come and speak to her. The song had evidently soothed the lady's feelings, if it had done nothing more.

"I intended to say a few words to the whole school," said Jack, struck by a sudden inspiration as he laid aside his flute, "and although Mrs. Lord is evidently here in reference to the matter, I think it will be just as well for me to speak to you as I intended whether any personal complaint was made to me or not. I have occasionally called my little friend Mercy Lord up before the school, and commended her work, and endeavoured to use her quickness of apprehension to help you to understand better what I had to teach you. In doing this, I only regarded the good of you all and did not think for a moment that it would cause any ill will towards Mercy, or jealousy on the part of any one. But, I regret to say, some of you have misunderstood me, and thought that I was unduly favouring Mercy. Now I am here not to make favourites of any of you, but to teach you your lessons and do my best to make you learn them. I am deeply grieved to find, on account of this, some of you have been jealous. Possibly you don't know, but jealousy is a very poor and contemptible thing for one person to harbour against another. But when it takes the form of petty, spiteful acts, such as the smearing of a neat copy-book with ink and the tearing of leaves out of lesson-books, it is still more contemptible and wicked, and for the sake of the school discipline must be punished. I am not going to ask now who did it——"

"Please, Mr. Bennett, it was Tot Gardiner," piped out a juvenile voice.

For a moment there was dead silence. An awful silence!

"Yes," called out Tot in a passion. "I smeared the copy-book, but I'll punch Mick Bromley's head and give him a real lamming when school is over, for all that."

"And throw mud at 'im, as yer did at Mercy as she went by yer stockyard yesterday afternoon," yelled out a big cornstalk, who was an ardent supporter of the Lords and an admirer of Mercy.

It was Mick Cassidy. Tot turned round upon him with flashing eyes, and throwing a lesson-book she held in her hand, struck him smartly across the face: "You——sneak, take that!"

In a moment the whole school was in an uproar, and half the children rose to their feet.

"Sit down, all of you!" thundered Jack above the din.

"Tot Gardiner, go to the back form and sit down there at once."

"I shan't," cried out Tot, "and don't you try to make me, Mr. Bennett; what does that old frump want, coming here upsetting the school?"

She pointed her finger at Mrs. Lord, who sat frowning and trembling with excitement.

"Sit down, Tot," called out Jack, his face blazing with passion. "I'll thrash the first who dares to say another word."

"Then you'll have to thrash me," yelled out Bob Carey, pulling off his coat as he spoke, and doubling his fists in a fighting attitude, as he ranged himself in front of Tot Gardiner.

"Yer big fool, you!" ejaculated Tot, hitting him no gentle cuff on the side of his head.

Bob Carey was eighteen and, if anything, a trifle taller than the school teacher; he was broadly built, and those who had fought with him said that he was as hard as nails; but Jack's blood was up, and springing from his platform, he caught Bob by the neck, and dragging him by main force out upon the floor, stood him in front of his desk. Bob's surprise, and the nearness of the schoolmaster's person, for the moment prevented him from using his fists. But, with a great effort, he shook the teacher off him, and lifted his closed fist to strike.

What might have happened it is hard to say; the girls screamed and the younger boys bellowed out incoherently, when Betsy leaped over the desk in front of her and threw herself between her infuriated brother and the teacher.

"Go outside and cool yourself, you hot-headed booby," she ejaculated. "Give the stupid boy his coat," she shouted to Tot Gardiner, who picked it up and hurled it over the heads of the children at him.

"Get out of this, or I'll tell your father and he can thrash you, you great fool. Do you think Mr. Bennett will teach you another thing after this? And you can't spell calf, or write a thing, you big, blustering ignoramus."

Bob cooled down in a moment, and looked sheepishly at his sister.

"Get out of the school, get out of the school," she cried, pointing to the door. "Do you think I'm going to have a brother of mine insulting and fighting with the schoolmaster? Go home and tell mother what a gawk you've made of yourself."

"He's not going to thrash Tot," said Bob sullenly, shuffling off in the direction of the door.

"You great booby," was all the reply the indignant girl vouchsafed him as he slung himself out.

All this had occupied less time than it takes to relate, and the scholars, big and little, cowed and frightened by such tremendous and unlooked for developments, had betaken themselves again to their seats.

Jack stood opposite Betsy on the school-house floor, seemingly for the moment as much bewildered as the rest at the unexpected turn of things. He could not imagine what to say or do; but Betsy, with a woman's quick intuition, rose to the occasion.

"May I speak a word to the school, Mr. Bennett?" she exclaimed.

Jack bowed his head, at a loss to know what to say, and Betsy Carey took the bull by the horns.

"Girls and boys," she said, "Mr. Bennett has made me monitor, and I'll own up to it it's a pretty bad monitor I've been. The scene in this schoolhouse to-day is a disgrace to us, and to our fathers and mothers, and the whole district. We couldn't have a better or kinder teacher than Mr. Bennett, or one that would try to get us on more and teach us something, and we owe him the biggest possible apology. I'm sure that Tot Gardiner is just as sorry as I am, and so will my brother be as soon as I get home and tell his father about his carryings on this morning. I expect that he will be expelled from the school, for squaring up at the master; and serve him right too, although he is my brother. If Mr. Bennett had been like some schoolmasters I've heard about, he'd have caned Mick Cassidy and a dozen more of you long before this, and put the fear of death into you, and the School Committee would have backed him up in it; make no mistake about that! I should apologize too to Mrs. Lord for this morning's business, and I hope she will go away and think no more about it, and we'll see that Mercy is not interfered with any more. I can't think what devil of mischief has got into the school; I feel that ashamed that I don't know what to say. We are such a lot of ignorant, half-trained youngsters, that I hope Mr. Bennett will overlook the matter and go on teaching us until we learn better how to behave ourselves."

Betsy had been half crying the whole of the time, and at this she broke down completely and went outside to hide her tears.

Never in his life had Salathiel passed through such an ordeal as this. He stood up before the now awed and frightened children, and simply said: "I am much obliged to Miss Carey. I can't teach school any more to-day, I will speak about it to the School Committee this afternoon. You can all go home."

Never did a school break up so quietly. One by one, big and little, the boys and girls left for their homes, Mrs. Lord and Mercy with them. Jack followed abstractedly to the school-house door as the last departed and there found Betsy, with the bridle of her pony over her arm.

"Mr. Bennett," she said, "I am so awfully sorry. I hope you will forgive us all—and we were getting to like you so much!"

Then, suddenly, the impetuous girl sprang upon Loiterer and cantered off, and Jack found himself alone.

He pulled to the door of the now deserted school-house, and looked down the hill after the last of his scholars and Betsy, and then went into his shanty.

"That girl's a brick," he muttered to himself, "but it's plain that I can't manage the school."

He felt terribly depressed and downhearted. "It's like my luck," he said bitterly. "I suppose some other untoward thing will come out of this."

* * * * * * * *

As Betsy rode home she fell in with a strange man, seemingly a swagman, sitting smoking on a wayside log; she did not quite like the look of him, but he stood up to speak to her as she rode by.

"Can you please tell me which is the way to the school-house?" he asked.

Betsy started, and stared at him for a moment bewildered. She had not quite recovered from her recent agitation.

"Is it Mr. Bennett, the school-teacher, you want?" she asked quickly.

"I believe that's the gentleman," said the man.

While Betsy gave the necessary directions she took careful note of a number of things about the man, which had he known, might not have pleased him.

"Short, fair man, queer grey eyes, wears little earrings, wrists tattooed; may have been a sailor once. Carries pistols and rides a horse. His saddle and bridle were behind the tree, horse at the back, feeding no doubt near the blind creek. No relation of Mr. Bennett, I'm sure, not at all alike; I wonder what he wants with him!"

Not long afterwards, as Jack sat drinking a cup of tea, he heard some one coming across the school ground.

He rose up to see who the new-comer might be, and stood in the doorway.

"Good day, captain."

Jack was not at all surprised; it was just about what he had expected would happen. 'It never rains, but it pours.'

"Good day, Dan; come in and have a drink of tea and something to eat; the billy is just boiling."

He knew what Dan's errand was. He had been sent by the gang to bring him back, and he could not have come at a better time for the success of his mission.