Wilfrid Cumbermede

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AN EXPLOSION.

One Spring morning we had got up early and sauntered out together. I remember perfectly what our talk was about. Charley had started the question: 'How could it be just to harden Pharaoh's heart and then punish him for what came of it?' I who had been brought up without any superstitious reverence for the Bible, suggested that the narrator of the story might be accountable for the contradiction, and simply that it was not true that God hardened Pharaoh's heart. Strange to say, Charley was rather shocked at this. He had as yet received the dogma of the infallibility of the Bible without thinking enough about it to question it. Nor did it now occur to him what a small affair it was to find a book fallible, compared with finding the God of whom the book spoke fallible upon its testimony--for such was surely the dilemma. Men have been able to exist without a Bible: if there be a God it must be in and through Him that all men live; only if he be not true, then in Him, and not in the first Adam, all men die.

We were talking away about this, no doubt after a sufficiently crude manner, as we approached the house, unaware that we had lingered too long. The boys were coming out from breakfast for a game before school.

Amongst them was one of the name of Home, who considered himself superior, from his connection with the Scotch Homes. He was a big, strong, pale-faced, handsome boy, with the least bit of a sneer always hovering upon his upper lip. Charley was half a head shorter than he, and I was half a head shorter than Charley. As we passed him, he said aloud, addressing the boy next him--

'There they go--a pair of sneaks!'

Charley turned upon him at once, his face in a glow.

'Home,' he said, 'no gentleman would say so.'

'And why not?' said Home, turning and striding up to Charley in a magnificent manner.

'Because there is no ground for the assertion,' said Charley.

'Then you mean to say I am a liar?'

'I mean to say,' returned Charley, with more promptitude than I could have expected of him, 'that if you are a gentleman, you will be sorry for it.'

'There is my apology, then!' said Home, and struck Charley a blow on the head which laid him on the ground. I believe he repented it the moment he had done it.

I caught one glimpse of the blood pouring over the transparent blue-veined skin, and rushed at Home in a transport of fury.

I never was brave one step beyond being able to do what must be done and bear what must be borne; and now it was not courage that inspired me, but a righteous wrath.

I did my best, got a good many hard blows, and planted not one in return, for I had never fought in my life. I do believe Home spared me, conscious of wrong. Meantime some of them had lifted Charley and carried him into the house.

Before I was thoroughly mauled, which must have been the final result, for I would not give in, the master appeared, and in a voice such as I had never heard from him before, ordered us all into the school-room.

'Fighting like bullies!' he said. 'I thought my pupils were gentlemen at least!'

Perhaps dimly aware that he had himself given some occasion to this outbreak, and imagining in his heart a show of justice, he seized Home by the collar, and gave him a terrible cut with the riding-whip which he had caught up in his anger. Home cried out, and the same moment Charley appeared, pale as death.

'Oh, sir!' he said, laying his hand on the master's arm appealingly, 'I was to blame too.'

'I don't doubt it,' returned Mr Forest. 'I shall settle with you presently. Get away!'

'Now, sir,' he continued, turning to me--and held the whip suspended, as if waiting a word from me to goad him on. He looked something else than a gentleman himself just then. It was a sudden outbreak of the beast in him. 'Will you tell me why you punish me, sir, if you please? What have I done?' I said.

His answer was such a stinging blow that for a moment I was bewildered, and everything reeled about me. But I did not cry out--I know that, for I asked two of the fellows after.

'You prate about justice!' he said. 'I will let you know what justice means--to you at least.'

And down came a second cut as bad as the first. My blood was up.

'If this is justice, then there is no God,' I said.

He stood aghast. I went on.

'If there be a God--'

'_If_ there be a God!' he shrieked, and sprang towards me.

I did not move a step.

'I hope there is,' I said, as he seized me again; 'for you are unjust.'

I remember only a fierce succession of blows. With Voltaire and the French revolution present to his mind in all their horror, he had been nourishing in his house a toad of the same spawn! He had been remiss, but would now compel those whom his neglect had injured to pay off his arrears! A most orthodox conclusion! but it did me little harm: it did not make me think that God was unjust, for my uncle, not Mr Forest, was my type of Christian. The harm it did was of another sort--and to Charley, not to me.

Of course, while under the hands of the executioner, I could not observe what was going on around me. When I began to awake from the absorption of my pain and indignation, I found myself in my room. I had been ordered thither, and had mechanically obeyed. I was on my bed, staring at the door, at which I had become aware of a gentle tapping.

'Come in,' I said; and Charley--who, although it was his room as much as mine, never entered when he thought I was there without knocking at the door--appeared, with the face of a dead man. Sore as I was, I jumped up.

'The brute has not been thrashing you, Charley!' I cried, in a wrath that gave me the strength of a giant. With that terrible bruise above his temple from Home's fist, none but a devil could have dared to lay hands upon him!

'No, Wilfrid,' he answered; 'no such honour for me! I am disgraced for ever!'

He hid his wan face in his thin hands.

'What do you mean, Charley?' I said. 'You cannot have told a lie!'

'No, Wilfrid. But it doesn't matter now. I don't care for myself any more.'

'Then, Charley, what have you done?'

'You are always so kind, Wilfrid!' he returned, with a hopelessness which seemed almost coldness.

'Charley,' I said, 'if you don't tell me what has happened--'

'Happened!' he cried. 'Hasn't that man been lashing at you like a dog, and I didn't rush at him, and if I couldn't fight, being a milksop, then bite and kick and scratch, and take my share of it? O God!' he cried, in agony, 'if I had but a chance again! But nobody ever has more than one chance in this world. He may damn me now when he likes: I don't care!'

'Charley! Charley!' I cried; 'you're as bad as Mr Forest. Are you to say such things about God, when you know nothing of him? He may be as good a God, after all, as even we should like him to be.'

'But Mr Forest is a clergyman.'

'And God was the God of Abraham before ever there was a clergyman to take his name in vain,' I cried; for I was half mad with the man who had thus wounded my Charley. '_I_ am content with you, Charley. You are my best and only friend. That is all nonsense about attacking Forest. What could you have done, you know? Don't talk such rubbish.'

'I might have taken my share with you,' said Charley, and again buried his face in his hands.

'Come, Charley,' I said, and at the moment a fresh wave of manhood swept through my soul; 'you and I will take our share together a hundred times yet. I have done my part now; yours will come next.'

'But to think of not sharing your disgrace, Wilfrid!'

'Disgrace!' I said, drawing myself up, 'where was that?'

'You've been beaten,' he said.

'Every stripe was a badge of honour,' I said, 'for I neither deserved it nor cried out against it. I feel no disgrace.'

'Well, I've missed the honour,' said Charley; 'but that's nothing, so you have it. But not to share your disgrace would have been mean. And it's all one; for I thought it was disgrace, and I did not share it. I am a coward for ever, Wilfrid.'

'Nonsense! He never gave you a chance. I never thought of striking back: how should you?'

'I will be your slave, Wilfrid! You are so good, and I am so unworthy.'

He put his arms round me, laid his head on my shoulder, and sobbed. I did what more I could to comfort him, and gradually he grew calm. At length he whispered in my ear--

'After all, Wilfrid, I do believe I was horror-struck, and it wasn't cowardice pure and simple.'

'I haven't a doubt of it,' I said. 'I love you more than ever.'

'Oh, Wilfrid! I should have gone mad by this time but for you. Will you be my friend whatever happens?--Even if I should be a coward after all?'

'Indeed I will, Charley.--What do you think Forest will do next?'

We resolved not to go down until we were sent for; and then to be perfectly quiet, not speaking to any one unless we were spoken to; and at dinner we carried out our resolution.

When bed-time came, we went as usual to make our bow to Mr Forest.

'Cumbermede,' he said sternly, 'you sleep in No. 5 until further orders.'

'Very well, sir,' I said, and went, but lingered long enough to hear the fate of Charley.

'Home,' said Mr Forest, 'you go to No. 3.'

That was our room.

'Home,' I said, having lingered on the stairs until he appeared, 'you don't bear me a grudge, do you?'

'It was my fault,' said Home. 'I had no right to pitch into you. Only you're such a cool beggar! But, by Jove! I didn't think Forest would have been so unfair. If you forgive me, I'll forgive you.'

'If I hadn't stood up to you, I couldn't,' I returned. 'I knew I hadn't a chance. Besides, I hadn't any breakfast.'

'I was a brute,' said Home.

'Oh, I don't mind for myself; but there's Osborne! I wonder you could hit him.'

'He shouldn't have jawed me,' said Home.

'But you did first.'

We had reached the door of the room which had been Home's and was now to be mine, and went in together.

'Didn't you now?' I insisted.

'Well, I did; I confess I did. And it was very plucky of him.'

'Tell him that, Home,' I said. 'For God's sake tell him that. It will comfort him. You must be kind to him, Home. We're not so bad as Forest takes us for.'

'I will,' said Home.

And he kept his word.

We were never allowed to share the same room again, and school was not what it had been to either of us.

Within a few weeks Charley's father, to our common dismay, suddenly appeared, and the next morning took him away. What he said to Charley I do not know. He did not take the least notice of me, and I believe would have prevented Charley from saying good-bye to me. But just as they were going Charley left his father's side, and came up to me with a flush on his face and a flash in his eye that made him look more manly and handsome than I had ever seen him, and shook hands with me, saying--

'It's all right--isn't it, Wilfrid?'

'It is all right, Charley, come what will,' I answered.

'Good-bye then, Wilfrid.'

'Good-bye, Charley.'

And so we parted.

I do not care to say one word more about the school. I continued there for another year and a half. Partly in misery, partly in growing eagerness after knowledge, I gave myself to my studies with more diligence. Mr Forest began to be pleased with me, and I have no doubt plumed himself on the vigorous measures by which he had nipped the bud of my infidelity. For my part I drew no nearer to him, for I could not respect or trust him after his injustice. I did my work for its own sake, uninfluenced by any desire to please him. There was, in fact, no true relation between us any more.

I communicated nothing of what had happened to my uncle, because Mr Forest's custom was to read every letter before it left the house. But I longed for the day when I could tell the whole story to the great, simple-hearted man.

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