Read Ebook: Deirdre by Stephens James

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Ebook has 336 lines and 13800 words, and 7 pages

Williams faced round as he heard my voice; and then, without waiting to hear the end of my sentence, got up and took a seat at the lower end of the table.

"Poor beggar's out of sorts," said I to myself. "Another of his bilious attacks, I suppose," I added, moving up to his seat and addressing the proud occupant of the carver's chair. This fellow was Harrison, whom, next to Browne, we counted the oiliest fellow at Draven's. He could sing, and make puns, and though a long way behind Browne, was a popular, jovial companion.

He appeared not to hear my remark, but, hitching his chair a little away, began deliberately to carve a slice of ham.

He took a long time about it, and I watched him patiently till he was done. It was a prime ham, I could see, and, ashamed as I am to confess it, it made me feel amiable to all the world to find it was so.

"If they were all like this--" I began.

"There's room here, Harrison, old man," Williams called up the table.

Whereupon Harrison, plate in hand, went down to keep Williams company, leaving me for the first time in my life "top-hammer."

Somehow I did not enjoy the dignity quite as much as I should have expected. I was sorry Harrison had gone, for I wanted to speak to him about Potter, and I could not help fancying, from his unusual manner, that he was put out about something, and I thought he might have told me about it instead of chumming up to Williams. However, I was hungry, and took my slice of ham and passed the dish along to the fellow next me, who sat below the two empty chairs up which I had risen.

It was rather a solitary meal, and I was glad when it was over and the bell rang for first school. There at least I should have the society of the sympathetic Sadgrove, who, as I knew, felt as sore as I did about Potters behaviour.

But, to my mortification as well as perplexity, Sadgrove I found, had cleared out his desk and removed his goods and chattels to a seat on the row behind mine, where he appeared to have met with a cordial welcome from his new neighbours.

I could not make it out. He always told me he liked his desk better than any, and would not change it even for Browne's. And here he was, for no apparent reason, on a lower form, at a smaller desk, and in-- well, less select society.

As I sat in my place that morning, with an empty desk on each side of me, it began slowly to dawn on my mind that something was wrong somewhere.

The proceedings of Odger junior, Potter, Sadgrove, Williams, and Harrison, taken singly, were not of much importance, but taken as a whole I did not like them. I might be wrong. There might be no intention to cut me, and I could not think of anything I had done or said which would account for it. I would try, at any rate, to get to the bottom of it before I was many hours older.

So I went in search of my cousin, who was a few months my senior, and a particular chum of Williams.

"I say, Arthur, what did Williams cut me dead for this morning?"

Arthur looked uncomfortable and said--

"How should I know?"

"You do know," said I, "and I want to know why."

He coloured up, and made as though he would leave room. But my blood was up, and I stepped across door.

"Tell me this," I said. "Have these fellows cut on purpose or no?"

"However should--"

"You do know. Are they cutting me or no?"

He flushed up again, and then said hurriedly--

"Yes, we are!"

I AM BEATEN.

"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 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 notebooks 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 manoeuvre 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.

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