CHAPTER III.

Hard and Obstinate as Nails.

Dr. Brabazon sat at his desk-table, birch in hand. Not often were the whole of the boys assembled in hall as on this afternoon; there were smaller rooms appropriated to particular branches of study. A huge birch, apparently made out of ten besoms. The stump rested on the table, the pointed end with its tickling twigs, tapered aloft in the air. This formidable weapon, meant to inspire wholesome awe, had never been used within memory. Very rarely was it taken from its receptacle to be held _in terrorem_, as now, over the different desks, running down the side walls of the long room, and along the end of it.

The shooting of James Talbot the previous night in the plantation: was it an accident, or was it done of deliberation? This was what the Head Master wanted to get at: and he very particularly wanted to get at the gentleman who did it. Dick Loftus had made a clean breast of it, offhand; for it was in Dick's nature so to do. But, in spite of all the questioning; private, individual, and collective;—in spite of putting the school upon its honour;—in spite of the offered promise that the boy, if an accident, should be held harmless, nobody came forward to confess; the whole lot remained, as the Doctor in his vexation expressed it, "hard and obstinate as nails." So then the birch was got out.

"Gentlemen, I feel sure it was a pure accident, and I could extend my free forgiveness to the offender if he will only come forward in honour and avow himself. Talbot is going on well; will be amidst us again, I hope, in a few days; there's no earthly reason for his refusing to acknowledge himself. Mrs. Talbot, sitting now with her son, says she forgives him heartily. She is a Christian woman, gentlemen, and she is sorry for the boy, instead of angry with him, because she knows how sorry he must be himself for this. 'Accidents and moments of thoughtlessness happen to us all,' she has just remarked to me: and so they do. Come! I hope there's some honour left amidst us yet."

The appeal elicited no response. And yet, that one of the boys present had been guilty, there could be little doubt; or that he had gone out in a master's cap by accident or design. In the confusion of the news the previous night, when a rush was made to the robing closet, the caps of the two masters, then arrived, were found hanging there. Upon the boys being mustered, all who were known to have returned to school answered to their names. There was no confusion, no sign of guilt observable in any one of the responders: nevertheless, the offender must have made a run, as if for his life, sneaked in, replaced the cap, and mingled with the others.

"_Won't_ you speak?" reiterated the Doctor, casting his eyes around in anger.

But not one answered.

Up went the birch, and came down again on its hard end. Dr. Brabazon was by no means a choleric man; but he could be so when greatly provoked.

"Mr. Henry—no, don't rise, don't quit your place—of what height was the boy you saw running away?"

The Doctor's voice—a sonorous voice at all times—went rolling down the spacious room to the opposite corner, where Mr. Henry sat behind his desk. The latter hesitated in his reply, and the boys turned their eyes from the Head Master to him.

"I cannot say positively, sir," was the foreign master's answer. "It was so momentary a glimpse that I caught."

"Yet you met him—as I am given to understand—face to face!"

"I did; but he glided aside at once amidst the trees. He was of a good height."

"Tall enough for a senior boy?"

"Yes, certainly: I think so."

The birch agitated itself gently, as if the Doctor's hand shook a little, and he looked full at the first desk, regarding those seated at it in individual turn.

"I thought I could have _trusted_ you all; I deemed there was not one of you that I might not have relied upon. Gall, did you do this? I ask you chiefly for form's sake, for you had not come back to college. Did you fire, by accident or design, this pistol off in the plantation last night?"

"No, sir, I did not," replied Gall, slightly rising in his place to answer.

"Did you, Loftus major?"

The exceeding satire of the question, as addressed to him, the wronged owner of the abstracted weapon, nearly struck Loftus major dumb.

"Of course I did not, sir," he said, after a pause.

"Did you go out of college after prayers?"

"No."

"Trace, did you go out of college after prayers, and fire off this pistol?"

"No, sir." And Trace's usual civility of tone was marked by a dash of remonstrance at being asked. Suspect him, Mr. Trace, the model fellow of the school! What next?

"Irby, did you?"

"I, sir! No, sir. It wasn't me, sir."

"Fullarton, did you?"

"I did not get back until this morning, sir."

"True. Brown major, did you do it?"

Brown Major, a simple fellow in most things, but with a rare capacity for Latin and Greek, opened his eyes in pure wonder. "Please, sir, I never fired off a pistol in my life, sir. I shouldn't know how to do it, sir."

And so on. Not a boy at the first desk acknowledged it; and they numbered twelve. The Doctor glanced at the second desk; some tall boys were there; but he said no more. Perhaps he thought suspicion did not lie with them; perhaps he would not afford them opportunity of telling a falsehood.

"It seems, then, I am not to be told. Well,"—and he turned particularly to the seniors—"I must believe that some mystery attaches to this affair, and that not one of you is guilty. I will trust you still, as I have ever done: only—do not let it come to my knowledge later that my trust is a mistaken one."

He flung up the lower compartment of his table, put in the birch, and shut it down with a bang. An uncomfortable feeling was on the Head Master that day.

A thirteenth boy had been added to the first desk, in George Paradyne. Mr. Baker had directed him to take his place at it after morning school, in accordance with some words let fall by the Head Master, of the boy's proficiency. The first desk was a very exclusive desk, not to be invaded lightly by a new-comer, and the decision, an unusual one, did not find favour. Paradyne was greeted with a stare of surprise, and the desk turned its back upon him.

The afternoon studies proceeded as on other afternoons; but neither masters nor boys felt at ease. Trace, especially, was in a state of inward commotion, calm as he appeared outwardly. He supposed that Dr. Brabazon had decided to retain Paradyne in the college, and he resented it utterly. Mr. Trace had also one or two private matters of his own troubling him, that it would not be convenient to speak of.

Loftus, as you perceive, was back in his place. He had walked on to his uncle's before dinner, when despatched by the Head Master, carrying the banished pistols in all the ignominy of the position. Sir Simon Orville's residence was about half a mile from the college. Pond Place it was called; an appellation that was supposed to have originated from a large pond in the vicinity, and was excessively distasteful to Mr. Loftus. A lovely spot, whatever it might be called, with the brightest and rarest flowers clustering on the green slope before the low white house. Sir Simon happened to be tending some of these flowers, as it was his delight to do, when Loftus entered, and that young gentleman was a little disconcerted at the encounter. In his present frame of mind, he really did not want the additional humiliation of having to explain to his uncle.

"Halloa!" cried Sir Simon, in surprise. "What brings you here?"

He was a little round man, with a red, kind face, shaped not unlike the head of a codfish, and light hair that stuck up in a high point above his forehead: one of the most unpretending, outspeaking men ever known, who could not conceal that he had been "born nobody," imperfectly educated, and had made his fortune laboriously and honestly by the work of his hands. Now and then he burst out with these revelations before the schoolboys, to whom he was fond of declaring his sentiments, to the intense chagrin of Loftus major and the dancing delight of Dick. Sir Simon, an old bachelor, was very kind and good, hospitable to everybody, and making much of his nephews. He was fond of Albert Loftus, distinguishing the really good qualities of the boy's nature, though ridiculing his pride and self-assumption. "He'll get it taken out of him," Sir Simon would say: and to do the knight justice, he spared no opportunity of helping on the process of extermination.

Twitching at his grey garden coat, which caught, with the suddenness of his turning, in a beautiful shrub that bore white flowers, Sir Simon looked in his nephew's face: not quite so lofty a face as usual.

"What's the matter, Bertie? What's in that parcel?"

So Bertie Loftus had to explain: he had taken a brace of pistols to school, and the Doctor had despatched them back again. Sir Simon enjoyed the information immensely; that is the "despatching back" portion of it. He knew very little about pistols himself; could not remember, like Brown major, to have handled one in his life; and regarded them rather in the light of a dangerous animal that you were never sure of.

"I should have buried them in the ground, had I been the Doctor, instead of giving them back to you. You'll come to some mischief, Mr. Albert, if you meddle with edged tools."

"I'd as soon he had buried them, as sent me back with them in the face of the school," avowed Loftus, in his subdued spirit. Very subdued just now, for there was more behind. Too honourable not to tell the whole, he went on to disclose the calamity that the pistols had caused. Sir Simon was horror-struck.

"_Albert!_ You have shot a boy?"

"It was that miserable Dick," returned Loftus, looking as chapfallen as it was possible for him, with his naturally proud face, to look. "I'm very sorry, of course; I'd rather have been shot myself. But it was not my fault, and Dick ought to be punished."

"No; you ought to be punished for taking the things to school," rebuked Sir Simon. "It would be punishment enough for my whole life, sir, if I had been the means of putting a fellow-creature's life in danger. Here, stop! Where are you going now?"

"To put the pistols away," answered Loftus, who was turning to the house.

"Are they loaded?"

"No, sir; not now."

"I'd not permit a loaded pistol to come inside my house, look you, Albert. You'll shoot yourself, sir; that's what you'll do. And it's poor Talbot, is it? I knew his father when I lived in Bermondsey."

Away went Loftus, feeling no security that the pistols were not going to be confiscated here. He locked them up in the room he occupied when staying at his uncle's, and came forth again directly, delivering the Head Master's message as he passed Sir Simon.

"Very well; I'll come, tell Dr. Brabazon. I suppose he is going to complain of this underhanded act of yours."

Mr. Loftus supposed so too: had supposed nothing else since the message was given him.

"Here; stop a bit; don't stride off like that. I suppose you must _eat_, though you have done your best to kill a boy. Will you have some dinner? There's a beautiful couple of ducks."

"I can't stay, Uncle Simon: the Head Master ordered me back at once. Thank you all the same."

Sir Simon nodded, and Bertie set off back again; leaving Pond Place behind him, and the cherished pistols that had come altogether to grief.

Sir Simon Orville knew the hours at the college, and he timed his visit so as to catch Dr. Brabazon at the rising of afternoon school. The Doctor took him into his study: a pleasant room, with a large bay window at the back of the house, partially overlooking the boys' playground, with its gymnastic poles. The middle compartment of the window opened to the ground, French fashion.

Sir Simon spoke at once of the unhappy accident that his nephews had been the means of causing; asking what he could do, how he could help the poor boy, and insisting that all charges should be made his. He then found it was not on that business Dr. Brabazon had sent for him, but on the other annoying matter relating to George Paradyne. The doctor stated the circumstances to him: that one of the new scholars, entered that day, had been recognized by Trace to be the son of the defaulting man, Paradyne.

"It vexed me greatly," observed the master, when he had concluded his recital. "Somehow the term seems to have begun ungraciously. I suppose there's no doubt that the boy is the same?"

"I daresay not," replied Sir Simon, standing up by the window. "Raymond ought to know him."

"Ay. Well, it is a very vexatious matter, and one difficult to deal with. Just at first, while Trace was speaking, I thought there could be only one course—that of putting Paradyne away. But the cruel injustice of this on the boy struck me immediately, and I could not help asking myself why we should visit on children the sins of their fathers, any more than—than—" Dr. Brabazon seemed to hesitate strangely, and came to a long pause—"any more than we visit the sins of children on their parents."

Sir Simon brought down his stick with a couple of thumps. It was a thick stick of carved walnut-wood, that he was rarely seen without, and he had a habit of enforcing his arguments with it in this manner. Dr. Brabazon understood this as meant to enforce his.

"And so I decided to do nothing until I had seen you. I would not have assigned him his place in the school, but Mr. Baker did so before I could stop it. But for your nephews being here, I should not think of taking notice of the matter; I should let the boy remain on. As it is, I must leave it to you, Sir Simon. If you consider he ought not to be in the same establishment as your nephews—their companion and associate—I'll put him away. Or, if you think it would be very objectionable to themselves—"

"Objectionable to them!" cried Sir Simon, bringing down his stick again in wrath. "I can only tell you this, doctor, that if my nephews were mean enough and ill-natured enough to carry out those old scores upon the boy, I'd disown 'em."

"Trace, I am sure, will not like the boy to stay, though he may silently put up with it. I saw that."

"Trace has got his silent crotchets just as much as anybody else," cried Sir Simon, a shade of deeper anger in his tone. "I'll talk to him; I'll talk to the three. Treat Paradyne as you do the rest, Dr. Brabazon; I would ask it of you as a personal favour. _I_ turn the boy away! I've just as much right to do it as he has to turn me out of Pond Place. Deprive the lad of an education; of the means by which he'll have to make his bread? No; a hundred times over, no," concluded Sir Simon, in an explosive tone, the stick descending again.

"Very well; he shall stay. And if circumstances force me to put him away later,—that is, if the facts become known to the school, and the boy's life is thereby rendered unhappy, why—but time enough to talk of that," broke off the speaker. "It might happen, however, Sir Simon; and there's no knowing how soon."

Sir Simon saw that it might. "Who knows of it?" he asked.

"Your two nephews and John Irby. I have strictly charged them, on their honour, not to speak of this: I called them in before afternoon school. Dick does not appear to have heard the name yet: but I shall speak to him. It is unfortunate the name should be so peculiar—Paradyne."

Sir Simon nodded. "What an odd thing it is the boy should have come to this particular school," he exclaimed. "Is he one of your boarders?"

"No; he is an out-pupil; not in any master's house at all. About five weeks ago," pursued the head master, in explanation, "I received a letter from the country, from a lady signing herself Paradyne—I remember thinking it an uncommon name at the time—asking if there was a vacancy in the college for a well-advanced outdoor pupil, and inquiring the terms. There happened to be a vacancy, and I said so, and sent the terms; in a few days she wrote again, saying her son would enter. She has come up to live here. I asked Paradyne this morning where he was going to live, and he said close by, with his mother."

"They never much liked her, I remember," observed Sir Simon, who was casting his thoughts back. "Mrs. Trace used to say she spent too much."

"I suppose they lived beyond their means, these Paradynes."

"No; it did not appear so; and the mystery never was cleared up where the abstracted sums (enormous sums they were!) had gone, or what they had gone in. Mrs. Trace, my poor sister Mary, was of so very quiet a disposition herself caring nothing for dress or show; and Mrs. Paradyne, I suppose, did care for it. I remember my brother-in-law, Robert Trace, observed to me after the explosion, how glad he was that he and his wife had lived quietly; that no blame on that score could attach to him. The Loftus's were different; they spent all before them; not, however, more than they had a right to spend. I suppose you know the particulars, doctor?"

"Not at all. I never heard them."

"Then I'll tell you the story, from beginning to end, in a few brief words. My brother-in-law, Robert Trace, who was always up to his eyes in business—for Loftus would not attend to it—had some matters to transact for a Captain Arthur Paradyne,—the selling out of shares, or the buying in of shares, I forget which; and an intimacy grew up between him and his client. Paradyne had come into some money through the death of an aunt in Liverpool; previous to that he had lived in Germany, on a very small income, as I understood. He seemed a thorough gentleman, and, I should have said, an honest, open-dealing man. In an unlucky hour Robert Trace—who had been hankering after a third partner for some time, though Loftus could not see what they wanted with one, as they kept efficient clerks—proposed to Captain Paradyne to invest his money—two or three thousand pounds I think it was—in their concern, and take a share. Paradyne consented. Mr. Loftus murmured at first, but at last he consented; and the firm became Loftus, Trace, & Paradyne. Things went on smoothly for two years, or thereabouts, though Paradyne proved an utter novice in business matters, as your military men, gentlemen by birth and habit, often do; and Trace grumbled awfully. Not publicly, you know; only in private to me, whenever I was down at Liverpool. Then came the crash. Paradyne was discovered to have played up Old Harry with everything; the money of the firm, the shares of customers, all he could lay his hands on. Strange to say, it was Loftus, the unbusiness man, who was the one to make the first discovery. Only think of that!"

Dr. Brabazon merely nodded. He was listening attentively.

"Mr. Loftus had gone to Liverpool for a few days. Something struck him in looking over the books, and he called Robert Trace's attention to it. That night in private they went into the thing together, and saw that some roguery was being played. The next day it was all out, and ruin stared them in the face. On the following morning Mr. Loftus caused Paradyne to be arrested, and telegraphed for me. When I got down at night, the man was dead."

"Dead!" exclaimed Dr. Brabazon.

"He was dead, that poor Arthur Paradyne. Ah! when Loftus met me with the news, it was a shock. He had been taken before the magistrates for examination, was remanded, and put in a cell in the lock-up, or whatever they call the place. One of the clerks, a young man named Hopper, was allowed to have an interview with him; half an hour afterwards Paradyne was found dead in his cell. Of course it was assumed that he had taken poison, and the report found its way to the newspapers. But when the doctors made the examination, they found he had died of disease of the heart;—a natural sequence to the events of the day, for one whose heart was not sound."

"It was very shocking altogether."

"Ay, it was. And with his death ended the investigation. 'Why pursue it?' Trace asked; 'let it drop, for the wife and children's sake.' Robert Trace was a hard man in general; but I must say he behaved leniently in this case. It did not, so far, touch his pocket, you see; for all the investigation in the world would not have brought back the wasted money, or undone the work. The concern was wound up; Mr. Loftus had to move into a small house, and otherwise reduce his expenses; Robert Trace went to America with a little money I lent him; and Mrs. Paradyne disappeared."

"It was a dreadful thing for _her_," spoke Dr. Brabazon.

"Very. People, in their indignation against Paradyne, could not think of her; but I did, and I went to see her. She was very bitter against her husband; I could see it, though she said little."

"Did she tell you how the money had gone?"

"She did not know. The discovery that he had been using it came upon her with the same shock of astonishment that it had upon the rest of us. One thing she could swear to, she said to me—that it had never been brought home, or used in any way for her or his children. I can't quite recollect about the children," broke off Sir Simon: "there was one, I know, for I saw him—a fine boy; I suppose the one now come here; but I have an impression there were more."

"Had she nothing left—the mother?"

"I asked her the question. She told me she had a small income, nothing like enough to keep her. I wonder how they have lived?" continued Sir Simon, after a pause.

"The son has been to a thorough good school," observed Dr. Brabazon. "Did Mr. Paradyne acknowledge his guilt?"

"He denied it utterly, so Loftus told me; made believe at first to think they were accusing him in joke."

A sudden light, something like hope, appeared in Dr. Brabazon's eyes as he raised them to Sir Simon.

"Is it possible that he could have been innocent?" he eagerly asked.

"No, it is not possible; there was no one else who could have had access to the shares and things," was the avowal. But Sir Simon looked grieved, and was grieved, to have to make it.

And so it was decided that George Paradyne should remain.