I looked for, and found, reasons for me to give impositions to Morley and Quird which would keep them occupied after prayers every evening for a week. Sometimes it is easier to punish the wicked than to defend the innocent.
Gradually I discovered that the defeat was widely recognised as having been an honourable one. Dansey told me that he had overheard two older boys talking about the fight at breakfast: one had said that the little Yankee was a well plucked ’un, to which the other had replied that he had fought like the very devil and that Quird should be ashamed of himself for picking on such a youngster.
“So you see there’s no harm in it,” Dansey said. “None in the world.”
Over the next few days I did not pay much attention to Charlie Frant and the American boy. I saw them, of course, and noted that they showed no further marks of mistreatment, or rather no more than one would expect to find on small boys in their situation. I was aware, however, that they often sat together and played together. Once I overheard two older boys pretending to mistake one for the other, but in a jocular way that suggested that the resemblance between them had become a source of friendly amusement rather than mockery.
The next event of importance to this history occurred on Monday the 11th October. The boys were more or less at leisure during the period between the end of morning school at eleven o’clock and their dinner two hours later. They might play, write letters, or do their preparation. They were also allowed to request permission to make excursions to the village.
Their movements outside the school, however, were strictly regulated, at least in theory. Mr Bransby had decreed, for example, among other things, that boys should patronise certain establishments and not others. Only the older boys were permitted to purchase liquor, for which they required special permission from Mr Bransby. The older boys ignored the condition, usually with impunity, and were frequently drunk at weekends and on holidays; and some of the younger ones were not slow to follow their example. But I own I was surprised when I saw Charlie Frant ineffectually attempting to conceal a pint bottle beneath his coat.
I had walked into the village in order to buy a pipe of tobacco. On my way back to the school, I happened to pass the yard entrance of the inn which hired out hacks. There was really no avoiding the meeting. Looking as furtive as a pair of housebreakers, Frant and Allan edged out of the yard immediately in front of me. I was on their left, but their attention was to their right, towards the school, in other words, the direction from which they expected trouble. Frant actually knocked into me. I watched the shock spreading over his features.
“What have you got there?” I asked sternly.
“Nothing, sir,” replied Charlie Frant.
“Don’t be a fool. It looks remarkably like a bottle. Give it me.”
He passed it to me. I pulled out the cork and sniffed. The contents smelled of citrus and spirits.
“Rum-shrub, eh?”
The boys stared up at me with wide, terrified eyes. Rum-shrub was something of a favourite among the older boys at the Manor House School, for the combination of rum with sugar and orange or lemon juice offered them a cheap, sweet and rapid route to inebriation. But it was not a customary beverage for ten-year-olds.
“Who told you to purchase this?” I inquired.
“No one, sir,” said Frant, staring at his boots and blushing.
“Well, Allan, is your memory any better?”
“No, sir.”
“In that case, I shall be obliged if you would both wait on me after supper.” I slipped the bottle into my coat pocket. “Good day.”
I walked on, swinging my stick and wondering which of the older boys had sent them out. I would have to beat Allan and Frant, if only for the look of the thing. Allan and Frant followed me round the corner. I glanced back, in time to see a man coming up behind them. He was a tall figure, clad in a blue coat with metal buttons.
“Boy,” the man said, taking Charlie by the arm with a large hand and bending down to peer into his face. “Come here – let me look at you.”
His face was turned away from me, but it was the voice that was somehow familiar – deep, husky and audible though the man spoke little above a whisper. He must have seen me ahead but cannot have realised my connection with the boys.
“Let go,” Charlie said, trying to tug himself away.
“You’ll do as I ask, my boy, because –”
“Let him go, sir,” snapped Allan in his high voice. He took hold of Charlie’s other arm and tried to pull him away.
Charlie saw me. “Sir! Mr Shield!”
The man raised his stick. I was not sure which boy he intended to hit. I did not wait to find out but shouted and broke into a run.
“That is enough, sir. Leave the boys alone.”
He released his grip on Charlie and swung towards me. “And who the devil are you?”
“Their master.”
He screwed up his forehead. His eyes were hidden by dark glasses. I could not tell whether he recognised me or not.
“Damn you,” he said.
“Be off with you. Or I shall call the constable.”
The man’s face changed: it was as though the features were dissolving into a puddle of discoloured flesh. “I meant no harm, sir, I take my oath on it. Won’t you pity an old soldier? All I hoped was that these two young gents might be able to oblige me with the price of a little refreshment.”
I suppressed the temptation to give him the bottle of rum-shrub. Instead I raised my stick. He muttered a few words I could not catch and walked rapidly away, his shoulders rounded.
Charlie Frant looked up at me with his mother’s eyes. “Thank you, sir.”
“I suggest you return to school before you fall into more mischief,” I said.
They scuttled down the lane. I wondered if I should accost the man but he was already out of sight. So I followed the boys, walking slowly and cudgelling my brains to find an explanation while wondering whether an explanation was in fact required. Here was an old reprobate, I told myself, a drunkard lurking in the environs of an inn in the hope of cadging a drink. No doubt he had seen the two little boys with their bottle of rum-shrub leaving the tap and he had followed them as a hunter follows his prey.
It was the most natural thing in the world, a man would think, nothing strange about it. But to me there was something strange. I could not be sure but I believed I might have seen the fellow before. Was it he who had accosted me the previous week outside Mr Allan’s house in Southampton-row? The coat and hat were different, and so was the accent; but the voice itself was similar, and so were the blue spectacles and the beard like an untidy bird’s nest.
I took the coward’s way out and did not pursue the matter. After supper I flogged the little boys as lightly as I could while preserving the decencies. Both of them thanked me afterwards, as custom dictated. Allan was pale but apart from grunting when the blows fell gave no sign of pain; Frant wept silently, but I turned my eyes away so that he would not know that I had seen his moment of weakness. He was the gentler of the two, who followed where Edgar Allan led.
Mr Bransby usually