Chapter VII: The Return of the Wanderers

While Bailey and his friends were spending the evening in the company of Mr. George Washington Bankes, the principal of Mecklemburg House was in a condition in which principals are very seldom supposed to be, a condition very closely allied to tears.

Mr. Fletcher was a tall, thin man, whose height was altogether out of proportion to his width. He was afflicted with a chronic stoop, and had a way, in walking, of shuffling, rather than stepping from foot to foot, which was scarcely dignified. His face was not unpleasing; there was a mildness in his eye and a sweetness about his infrequent smile which spoke of a gentler nature than the typical pedagogue is supposed to have.

The Philistines were upon him now; the battle, which he had long been feebly eluding, rather than boldly facing, had closed its ranks, and in the mere preamble to the fray he had immediately succumbed. It would have been better, perhaps, if he had been made of sterner stuff, but, unless he could have been entirely changed into another man, sooner or later the end was bound to come. Mr. Fletcher was ruined, and with him Mecklemburg House Collegiate School was ruined too.

He had been on a forlorn hope to town. A certain creditor, in return for money advanced, held a bill of sale on all the contents of the academy. Necessary payments had not been made, and he had threatened to swoop down upon the ancient red-brick house, and make a clearance of every desk and stool, every pot and kettle, every bed and bolster the premises contained. To appease this personage, Mr. Fletcher had journeyed up to town, and had journeyed up in vain. The fiat had gone forth that to-morrow, the day after, any day or any hour--in the middle of the night, for all he knew--hard-hearted strangers might and would arrive, and, without asking with your leave or by your leave, would strip Mecklemburg House of every movable it contained.

This was what it had come to after five-and-twenty years! When his father died he had been left a comfortable sum of ready money, untarnished credit, and a flourishing school; of all which nothing was left him now.

The principal and his wife were seated in their own sitting-room, trying to look the matter boldly in the face. Mr. Fletcher, sitting with his elbows on the table, covered his face with his hands. Mrs. Fletcher, a hard-featured woman, had her arm about his neck, and strove to comfort him. Her ideas of comfort were of a material sort.

"Come, eat your supper, now do. You've had nothing to eat all day, and when you've eaten a bit things will look brighter, perhaps."

Mr. Fletcher turned his care-worn face up to his wife.

"Jane, things will never look bright to me again."

The man's voice trembled, and the woman turned her face away, perhaps unwilling to let him see that in her eyes were tears. The principal got up and began to walk about the room. His stoop was more pronounced than usual, and his shuffling style of movement more ungainly.

"I'm just a failure, that's what I am, a failure. The world's moved on, and I've stood still. I'm exactly where my father was, and in schools and schoolmasters there's a difference of a hundred years between his time and this. I'm not fit for keeping school in these new times. I don't know what I am fit for. I'm fit for nothing but to die!"

"And if you die, what's to become of me?"

"And if I live, what'll happen to you then?"

"It'll happen to me that I'll have you, and do you think that's nothing?"

"Jane, it's worse than nothing! You ought to have been the man instead of me. I shall be a clog to you and a burden; you're fit for fifty things, and I'm not fit for one! I could not make a decent clerk. I'm very certain I could not pass the examination required of a teacher in a board-school; I doubt if I ever could have reached that standard. I'm very certain I could not now. Times are changed in matters of education. People used to be satisfied with a twentieth part of what they now require. When I am turned out of the house in which I was born, and in which I have lived my whole life long, as I shall be in the course of a day or two, and you are turned out with me, wife, there will be fifty openings you will be fitted to fill, while I shall only be fit to carry circulars from house to house, or a sandwich-board through the streets."

"It's no use talking in that way, Beauclerk; it only breaks my heart to hear you, and it does no good. We must make up our minds to do something at once, and the great thing is, what? Now come and eat your supper, or you'll be ill; you know how you suffer if you go hungry to bed."

"I may as well become accustomed to it, because I shall have to go hungry very soon."

"Beauclerk!--what is the use of going on like that?--do you want to break my heart?"

"Wife, I believe mine's broken."

Mr. Fletcher leaned his face against the wall just where he was standing, his long, lean frame shaken with his sobbing.

"Beauclerk! Beauclerk! don't! don't!"

Hard-faced Mrs. Fletcher went to her husband, and took him in her arms, and soothed him as though he were a child of five. Mr. Fletcher looked up. His face was ghastly with the effort he made at self-control.

"I think I will have some supper; perhaps it will do me good,"

Husband and wife sat down to supper. There were the remains of a leg of mutton, a little glass jar half-filled with pickled cabbage, a small piece of cheese, and bread. Mrs. Fletcher put some mutton on her husband's plate, and a smaller portion on her own. Mr. Fletcher swallowed one or two mouthfuls, but apparently it went against the grain.

"I can't eat it," he said, pushing away his plate; "I'm not hungry."

"Won't you have some cheese? it's very nice cheese."

"I'm not hungry," repeated her husband.

His wife held her peace; she continued eating, not, perhaps, because she was hungry, but possibly because she wished, in doing something, to find a momentary relief from the necessity of thinking. Mr. Fletcher sat drawing patterns with his fork upon the tablecloth.

"I shall write to the parents in the morning. In fact, I ought to write to them to-night, but I don't feel up to it. I shall tell them that I am ruined, root and branch, stock and stone; that Mecklemburg House Collegiate School is a thing of the past, and that they had better remove their sons immediately, and let them have the means to travel with, because I have none."

"When did Booker say he would distrain?"

Booker was the creditor who held the bill of sale.

"He didn't specify the exact hour and minute, but it'll only be a question of an hour or two in any case. We can't pay and the things must go."

"But you have received money from some of the boys in advance."

Mr. Fletcher got up, and began to pace the room again.

"I have received money from most of them. Jane, what am I to do? As you know very well, I have received from more than half the boys the term's fees in advance. I am not clear that they could not prosecute me for obtaining money by means of false pretences; but, in any case, I shall feel that I have played the part of a dishonest man. Why didn't I say frankly at the beginning of the term, I am ruined, ruined hopelessly! and gone down at once without a pretence of struggling through another term?"

"We have struggled through so many, we could not tell we should not be able to struggle again."

"At any rate, we haven't. Before we're halfway through the term we're beaten, and I have received money on what was very much like false pretences. Then there are Mr. Till and Mr. Shane; they're entitled to a term's salary, if they could not lay claim to a term's notice too."

Mrs. Fletcher's face grew cold and hard, and there was an unpleasant glitter in her eyes.

"I shouldn't trouble myself about them; a more helpless lout than Mr. Shane, as you call him, I never saw, and to my mind Mr. Till never has been worth his salt. This morning, when he was left in charge, the school was like a bear-garden; I had to go in half a dozen times to ask what the noise was about. It's my belief that if you had had proper assistance you wouldn't be in the state you are in now."

Mr. Fletcher sighed.

"That is not the question, my dear; I owe them the money, and they ought to be paid. I know that they are both almost, if not quite penniless, and if I do not pay them something I doubt whether they will have the means to take them up to town. Remember, too, that this is the middle of term, and that how long they will be without even the chance of getting another situation goodness only knows."

"And are you better off? Have you better prospect of a situation? Beauclerk, before you pay either of those men a penny you will have to speak to me; I will not be robbed by them."

"If I would I have nothing to pay them with, so there is an end of it, my dear."

"Do you know what Mr. Shane's latest performance has been?" Struck by something in his wife's tone, Mr. Fletcher glanced at her with inquiry in his eyes. "I have not told you yet, because I have been too much upset by the news which you have brought to tell you anything,--goodness knows we have enough of our own to bear without having to bear the brunt of that clown's blunders too."

Seeing that his wife's eloquence bade fair to carry her away, Mr. Fletcher interposed a question.

"What has Mr. Shane been doing?"

"Doing! I'll tell you what he has been doing,--and you talk of robbing yourself to give him money! He let four of those boys go out in the rain this afternoon, when I expressly told him not to; and it would seem as if he has let them go for good, for they are still out now."

Her husband looked at her, not quite catching the meaning of her words.

"Still out now?"

"Yes, still out now. Bailey, Griffin, Wheeler and Ellis went out this afternoon, in all the rain and fog, with Mr. Shane's permission; and out they've stopped, for they're not back yet."

"Not back yet! Jane, you cannot mean it. Why, it's nearly midnight." Mr. Fletcher looked at his venerable silver watch, which had come to him, with the rest of his possessions, from his father. "What's that?"

Husband and wife listened. The silence which reigned without had been broken by a crash from the schoolroom, a crash which bore a strong family resemblance to the sound made by the upsetting of a form.

"It's those boys!" said Mrs. Fletcher. "They're getting through the window."

She hurried off to see, her husband following closely after. All the lights were out; save the sitting-room which they had left, all the house was dark. She called to him to bring the lamp. Returning, he snatched it from the table and went after her again.

They entered the schoolroom, Mr. Fletcher acting as lamp-bearer. Directly the door was opened they were conscious of a strong current of air within the room. Mrs. Fletcher went swiftly forward, picking her way among the desks and forms, and the cause of the noise they had heard and the draught they felt was soon apparent. The furthest window was wide open. In front of it a form was overturned upon the floor, a form which some one effecting a burglarious entrance through the window in the dark had unwittingly turned over. The lady's quick eye caught sight of a figure crouching behind a neighbouring desk. It did not take her long to drag a young gentleman out by the collar of his coat.

"Well--upon--my--word!"

Her astonishment was genuine, and excusable; few more disreputable figures ever greeted a lady's eye.

"Is this Bailey?"

It was Bailey. Perhaps at that moment Bailey rather wished it wasn't; but the surprise of his sudden capture had bereft him of the power of speech, and he was unable to deny his identity. The lady did nothing else but stare. Suddenly somebody else made his appearance at the window, a head rose above the window-sill, and a meek, modest voice inquired,--

"Please, ma'am, may I come in?"

The new-comer was Edward Wheeler. The lady's astonishment redoubled.

"Well--I--never!"

Taking this exclamation to convey permission, Wheeler gradually raised himself the necessary height, and finally, after a few convulsive plunges to prevent himself from slipping back again, scrambled through the window and stood upon the floor. Wheeler presented a companion picture to his friend. As he had lost his hat at an early hour of the evening, he, perhaps, in some slight details, bore away the palm from Bailey. Mrs. Fletcher stared at them both in blank amazement; in all her experience of boys she never had seen anything quite equal to these two. Mr. Fletcher, lamp in hand, came up to join in the inspection.

"Where have you boys been?" he asked.

"Out to tea," said Bailey.

Mrs. Fletcher sniffed disdainfully.

"Out to tea! Don't tell me that! I should think you've been out to tea in a ditch!"

Mr. Fletcher carried on the examination.

"How dare you tell me you've been to tea! Where have you boys been?"

"We have been out to tea," said Bailey.

"And where, sir, have you been having tea, that you come back at this hour, and in such a plight as that?"

"Washington Villa," answered Bailey.

"Washington Villa! And where's Washington Villa? But never mind that, I shall have something to say to you in the morning. Where are those other boys? Where are Griffin and Ellis?"

"They're coming," muttered Bailey.

Just then they came. While Mr. Fletcher hesitated, in doubt what to do or say, a voice, unmistakably Ellis', was heard without.

"Is that you, Bailey? Won't I pay you out for this, you cad! We might have got drowned for all you cared. Here's Griffin got half-drowned as it is."

Thrusting her head out of the window, Mrs. Fletcher replied to the wanderer; a reply, doubtless, as unexpected as undesired.

"If Mr. Fletcher did as I wished him, he'd give each of you boys a good round flogging before you went to bed, a lot of disobedient, ungrateful, untruthful, and untrustworthy scamps!"

Possibly this was enough for Ellis, for he subsided and was heard no more, but a sound of weeping arose. It was the grief of Charlie Griffin. Placing the lamp upon a desk, Mr. Fletcher put his head out of the window beside his wife's.

"I'm not going to open the hall door for you at this time of night. Your friends came through the window, and you can follow your friends."

They followed their friends, Ellis coming first; Griffin, with not unnatural bashfulness, preferring to keep in the background. Mrs. Fletcher's uplifted hands and cry of astonishment greeted Ellis, who was indeed a notable example of the possibilities of dirt as applied to the person, but Griffin's entry was followed by the silence of petrified amazement.

His friends' attempts at disfigurement were altogether unsuccessful as compared to the success which had attended his. They were dandies compared to him. It was difficult at a first glance to realize that he was a boy, or indeed a human being of any kind. He was covered with a combination of weeds, green slime, particoloured filth, and yellow clay; the water dripped from the more prominent portions of his frame; his clothes were glued to his limbs; he was hatless; his face and hair were plastered with the aforesaid slime; and, to crown it all, he was convulsed with a sorrow which lay too deep for words.

"Griffin!" was all that the headmaster's wife could gasp. "Charlie Griffin!"

"Where have you been?" asked Mr. Fletcher.

"I've been in the pond," gasped Griffin, half choked with mud and tears.

"In the pond? What pond?"

"Pa-almer's po-ond!"

"Palmer's pond! What were you doing in there? What I'm to do with you boys is more than I can say!" Mr. Fletcher sighed. "There's one thing, I shan't have to do with you much longer." This was muttered half beneath his breath. "What are we to do with them, my dear?" This was a question to his wife.

"Don't ask me; I don't know what we're to do with them. I should think that boy"--here she pointed an accusatory finger at Griffin--"had better go back to Palmer's pond. He appears to be fond of it, and it's the only place he's fit for." Griffin was moved to wilder tears. "He had better take his things off where he stands, and throw them out into the yard; they'll never be good for anything again, and he shan't go upstairs with them on. And all four of them"--this with sudden vivacity which turned attention away from Griffin--"must have a bath before they think of going to bed between my sheets. A pretty state of things to have to get baths ready at this time of night!"

"Griffin, you had better take off your things," said Mr. Fletcher mildly, when his wife had finished. "I don't know what your father will say when he hears of the way in which you treat your clothing."

Mrs. Fletcher returned to her sitting-room, and Griffin unrobed himself, flinging each separate article of clothing into the yard as he took it off. Then a procession, headed by Mr. Fletcher, started for the bath-room. After a few moments' contact with clean, cold water, the young gentlemen, presenting a more respectable appearance, were escorted to their bedroom, Mr. Fletcher remaining while they put themselves to bed. Having assured himself that they actually were between the sheets, "I will speak to you in the morning," he said, and disappeared.

When the boys had satisfied themselves that he was out of hearing, their tongues began to wag. Griffin was still whimpering.

"It's all through you, Bailey, I got into this row."

Something suspiciously like a chuckle was the only answer which came from Bailey's bed.

"I say, did you really tumble into Palmer's pond?" inquired Wheeler.

"Of course I did! How could I help it when you couldn't see your hand before your face?"

Wheeler buried himself in the bedclothes and roared with laughter.

"You wouldn't have laughed if it had been you," continued the outraged Griffin. "I was as nearly drowned as anything. I should have been if it hadn't been for a fellow with a lantern."

"Go away! drowned!" scoffed Bailey, unconsciously repeating the carter's words; "why, there isn't enough water to drown a cat!"

"What did you go and leave us for like that?" asked Ellis.

"Do you think I was going to mess about in the rain all night while you two were squabbling on top of each other in the mud?"

"I call it a mean thing to do!"

"Who cares what you call it?"

"And if it weren't so jolly late, I'd give you something for yourself."

"Oh, would you? You'd give me something for myself! I like that! You wait till the morning, and then perhaps I'll give you something for yourself instead!"

Unconscious of the compliments which his affectionate pupils were bandying from one to the other, Mr. Fletcher returned to his wife, seated in the parlour. His whole air was one of depression, as of one who had no longer spirit enough to fight with fortune.

"Well, it will be over to-morrow!" he said. "I don't think I'm much good at school-keeping; I'm not strong enough; I'm not sufficiently able to impress my influence on others." Going to the mantelshelf he leaned his head upon his hand. "I suspect I've failed as a schoolmaster because I deserved to fail."

Then, forgetting the heroes of the night, his wife began to comfort him.