Читать книгу The School Ghost and Boycotted with Other Stories - Talbot Baines Reed - Страница 8

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“Yes, we are.”

The reader may think it strange when I tell him that my first sensation on receiving this momentous announcement was one of almost amusement. I knew it was a mistake, and that I had done nothing to merit the sentence which had been passed upon me. Draven’s had put itself in the wrong, and I had pride enough to determine that I of all people was not going out of my way to put it right.

So I took my cousin’s announcement coolly, and refrained from demanding any further explanations.

“Oh!” I said, with something like a sneer, and walked off; leaving him, so I flattered myself, rather snubbed.

I was boycotted!

There was something a trifle flattering in the situation. Brave men before my time had been boycotted. I had read their stories, and sympathised with them, and hated (as I hate still) the miscreants who, in the name of “patriotism,” had acted the sneak’s and coward’s part to ruin them. Now I was going to taste something of their hardships at the hands of my “patriotic” schoolfellows; and my spirit rose as I resolved to hold up my head with the bravest of them.

Forewarned is forearmed; and when I went into school that afternoon I gave no one a chance of avoiding me. I spread myself out as comfortably as possible at my place, and shifted some of the papers and books which crowded my own desk into the vacant desks on either side of me, first ejecting rather ostentatiously a few papers and note-books which had been left in them by their late owners.

I was conscious of one or two glances directed my way across the room; but these only added to my pleasure as I emptied Sadgrove’s inkpot into my own, and proceeded cheerfully to cut my initials on Williams’s desk. When I was put up to construe, I managed to get through my passage without any sign of trepidation; and when at last the class was dismissed, I took the wind out of the sails of my boycotters by remaining some minutes later than any one else, completing the decoration of my new quarters.

It was easy enough in the playground that afternoon to keep clear of my fellow human beings; and I had, as I persuaded myself, a jolly hour in the gymnasium all by myself. Fellows looked in at the door now and then, but did not disturb my peace; and it was rather gratifying than otherwise to feel that as long as I chose to occupy the place every one else would have to wait outside.

“After all,” thought I, as I went to bed that night, “boycotting isn’t as bad as people make it out. I’ve had all I wanted to-day. No one has annoyed me or injured me. I can do pretty much as I like; in fact, I do more than I ever used to be able to do. If any one is loser by it all, it’s the other fellows, and not me. I rather enjoy it.

“Still,” I could not help reflecting, as I turned over and went to sleep, “I think Harrison might have stuck by me.”

When I woke next morning it was with a sense of something on my mind. I tried hard to persuade myself it was amusement, and went down to breakfast wondering how Draven’s would keep it up. I found myself “top-hammer” again—or I should say “top-muttoner,” for ham was a luxury reserved only for one day in the week—and the two chairs below me were again vacant.

I helped myself to a slice from the uninviting joint, and then artlessly pushed the dish along one place, opposite the first of the empty chairs, and proceeded to regale myself.

It was interesting to see the perplexity which my simple manœuvre caused. The next fellow below me, out of reach three chairs away, had nothing for it but either to speak to me, which I calculated his vows would not allow him to do, or else ignominiously to walk up to the seat next mine and possess himself of the dish. He did the latter, and I scored one—the only “one” I scored for some time to come.

For Draven’s, seeing I was defiant, felt hurt in its pride, and drew the blockade closer around me. It had expected at least that I should make some effort to win my way back into popularity, and it did not at all like, when it chose to boycott me, that I should boycott it. So gradually we forgot what the quarrel was about, and set ourselves to see who could hold out longest.

A manly, sensible, Christian occupation for fifty fellow-creatures during a dull winter month!

I never got the gymnasium to myself now, for whenever I went it was always full, and remained full till I was tired of waiting for a vacant bar or swing. As for football, hockey, paper-chasing, and the other school sports, I was, of course, excluded both by my own pride and the action of the school.

In fact, Draven’s never pulled together so well at anything as they did at boycotting me during those few weeks. Their discipline was splendid. They all seemed to know exactly what to do and what not to do when I appeared on the scene, and any hopes I had of winning over a few stragglers to my side vanished before the blockade had lasted a week.

At first I didn’t mind it. My mettle was up, I was excited, and the consciousness that I was unjustly treated carried me through.

But in a few days the novelty began to wear off, and I began to get tired of my own company. I still made the most of my elbow-room in class and at meals, but it ceased to be amusing.

I tried to work hard in my study every evening, and to persuade myself I was glad of the opportunity of making up for lost time; but somehow or other the distant sounds of revelry and laughter made Livy and Euclid more dull and uninteresting than ever. I tried to hug myself with the notion of how independent I was in school and out, how free I was from bores, how jolly the long afternoon walks were with no one hanging on at my heels, how dignified it was to hold up my head when all the world was against me. But spite of it all I moped.

Greatly to my disgust, Draven’s did not mope. As I sat down in my study, or wandered, still more solitary, in the crowded playground, it seemed as if all the school except myself had never been in better spirits. Fellows seemed to have shaken off the cloud which Browne’s expulsion had left behind. The football team was better than it had been for a year or two, and I overheard fellows saying that the “Saturday nights” were jollier even than last winter. In fact, it seemed as if, like Jonah, the throwing of me overboard had brought fine weather all round.

Still I was not going to give in. Draven’s should be ashamed of itself before I met it half way!

So I watched with satisfaction my face growing pale day by day, and I aided this new departure in my favour by eating less than usual, giving up outdoor exercise, and staying up late over my lessons.

I calculated that at the rate I was going I should be reduced to skin and bones by the end of my term, and perhaps at my funeral Draven’s would own they had wronged me. At present, however, my pallor seemed to escape their observation, and as for my late hours, all the good they did me was an imposition from Mr. Draven for breaking rules.

As the days went on, I seemed to have dropped altogether out of life. I might have been invisible, for anything any one seemed to see of me. Even the masters appeared to have joined in the conspiracy to ignore me, and for a whole week I sat at my solitary desk without hearing the sound of my own voice.

My readers may scoff when I tell them that at the end of a fortnight I felt like running away. The silence and isolation which had amused me at first became a slow torture at last, and, poor-spirited wretch that I was, my only comfort was in now and then crying in bed in the dark.

I made up for this secret weakness by putting on a swagger in public, and rendered myself ridiculous in consequence. Draven’s could hardly help being amused by a fellow who one day slunk in and out among them self-consciously pale, black under the eyes, with a hacking cough and a funereal countenance, and the next blustered about defiantly and glared at every one he met.

The fact was, having despaired of making a friend, my one longing now was to make an enemy. I would have paid all my pocket-money twice over for a quarrel or a fight with somebody. But that was a luxury harder to get even than a friendly word.

I tried one day.

I was mooning disconsolately round the playground, when I met young Wigram, the most artless youngster in all Draven’s.

“You played up well in the second fifteen on Saturday,” I said, as if I had spoken to him not five minutes ago, whereas, as a matter of fact, the sound of my own voice gave me quite a shock.

“Yes,” began he, falling into the snare, “I was lucky with that run up from—er—I—beg pardon—good-bye,” and he bolted precipitately.

It was a mild victory as far as it went, but it did not end there, for that afternoon I came upon a group in the playground, the central figure of which was the wretched Wigram, on his knees in the act of apologising humbly all round for having been cad enough to speak to me. It seemed a good chance for the long-wished-for quarrel, and I jumped at it.

“Let him go!” shouted I, breaking into the group and addressing the company generally. “If any one touches him he will have to fight me!”

Alas! they stared a little, and then laughed a little, and then strolled away, with Wigram among them, leaving me alone. After that I knew I was beaten, and might as well own it, for a disappointed enemy is a far worse failure than a disappointed friend.

Still I clung on to my pride. Broken down as I was, and unnerved and damaged in my self-respect, there was but a week more of the term to run, and I would try to hold out till the end. If I could only do that, I was safe, for I would get my father to take me away at Christmas for good. No—would I?—that would be the biggest surrender of all. I could not think what I would do.

So I sat down and wrote to Browne for lack of any better occupation, and told him how I envied him his expulsion, and wished any such luck could happen to me.

Then I grimly set myself to endure the remaining days of my slow torture.

Oh, the silence of those days! The noise and laughter of the fellows was nothing to it. I could endure the one, and in my extremity was even glad of it. But the sealed lips of every one that met me were like so many daggers.

At last I was really ill—or at any rate I was so reduced that unless relief came soon I must either capitulate or run away.

Even yet I found it hard to contemplate the former alternative. I met Harrison one morning in the passage. I suppose I must have looked specially miserable, for, contrary to his usual practice now, instead of looking away, he slackened speed as he came up and looked at me. Now was my time surely. I was famished for want of a friendly word or look, and my pride was at its last gasp. I believe I had actually begun to speak, when a sound in the passage startled us both, and we passed by as of old—strangers.

I rushed off to my study, ashamed and disappointed, and paced round it like a caged animal. What could I do? Should I write to some of the fellows? Should I tell Draven? or—should I escape?

Then it occurred to me, had not I a right to know why I was being treated like this? What had I done? Was I a sneak, or a leper, or a murderer, that I should thus be excommunicated and tortured? What a fool I had been, not to think of this before! Alas! it was too late now. My pride had made it impossible for me to speak the first word without surrendering all along the line; and even yet, at the eleventh hour, I could not face that. So I shut myself up for another day, miserable, nervous, and ill, and counted the minutes to bedtime.

The evening post brought a letter from Browne, and, thankful for any diversion, and the silent company even of a friendly piece of paper, I crawled off early to my study to make the most of my little comfort.

I started before I had read two lines, and uttered an exclamation of amazement.

“Dear Smither,

“There’s been a most frightful mistake. By the same post as brought your letter I got enclosed from Williams. What a set of cads they’ve been, and all my fault! I’ve written to Williams that if it’s not all put right in twenty-four hours I’ll come down, disgraced as I am, and tell Draven. I’m in too great a rage to write more. Unless I get a telegram ‘All right!’ by ten to-morrow morning I’ll come.

“Yours ever, “P. Browne.”

Williams’s letter enclosed—or rather part of it, for Browne had kept one sheet—was as follows, though my head was swimming so much at the time that I could scarcely take it all in.

“The fellows here haven’t forgotten you, and they’re showing it in a pretty decided way at present. About three weeks ago we discovered that Smither, who called himself your friend, was the sneak who went to Draven the morning you were expelled, and let out about you. He was seen coming from D.’s study early, and young Wright, who happened to be in the next room, heard him speaking about you. Well, we’ve boycotted him. Not a fellow is allowed to speak to him, or notice him, or go near him. Everybody’s been bound over, and unless some one plays traitor, the place will get too hot for him before the term’s up. And serve him right too. Harrison and I——” Here the letter broke off.

I felt stunned; and, strange to say, the sudden discovery left me as miserable as it found me. I suppose I was ill; but for a short time my passion got the upper hand, and made it worse for me than if I had never known the truth.

But it didn’t last long. There came a knock at the door, and, without waiting for an invitation, Harrison came into the room, looking so miserable and scared that I scarcely recognised him for a moment. He was evidently prepared for any sort of rebuff, and I despised myself far more than him as I heard the half-frightened voice in which he began.

“Smither, old man——”

He got no farther; or at least I did not hear any more. It seemed like a dream after that. I was dimly conscious of his hand on my arm and then round me. The next thing I was aware of was that I was lying in bed, with him sitting beside me sponging my forehead.

“Has the bed-bell rung?” I asked.

“My dear fellow, you’ve been in bed a fortnight,” said he, bending over me; “but you mustn’t talk now.”

After awhile I asked again—

“Why are you here, then?” for the term had had only three days to run when I had been taken ill.

“We couldn’t go, old man. The fellows begged Draven to let them stay till you were out of danger, and he did. They’re all here. This is Christmas Day, and they will be glad to hear you are better. But really you mustn’t talk, please.”

“Tell the fellows to go home, then,” I said, “and wish them a Merry Christmas, and say——”

“Really, old man,” pleaded Harrison, looking quite frightened, “don’t talk.”

That was the quietest, but not the least hopeful Christmas Day I ever spent.

And when Draven’s met again next term, I fancy most of us had got by heart the good Christmas motto, “Good-will to men,” and were mutually agreed that, whatever manly and noble sports we should engage in during the year, boycotting should not be one of them.