Chapter VI: En Route for Home

How sad it is for friends to quarrel, and, at times, how awkward too! as see this case in point. Such is poetic justice, which says not only is it wrong to do this thing, but it is at the same time exceedingly uncomfortable too. Here were three friends, or, at any rate, such they had been up to a very recent period, starting from the same place, travelling the same road, bound for the same destination, not only not on speaking terms, but each cherishing in his breast anything but friendly feelings towards the others; in fact, they were at daggers drawn. Tregowan was firmly resolved on no conditions to have anything to do with Noel and Pollyon, while Noel and Pollyon were singularly disposed not only to thrash each other, but also to thrash Duke into the bargain. It will be perceived that it was an exceedingly uncomfortable state of things.

The storm still raged its fiercest; the quantity of snow which had fallen since the morning was astonishing. Trees, hedges, fields alike were hidden from the eye; here and there the drifts, gathered by the wind, rose to your thighs at least. It bade fair, if it continued--and it showed no signs of leaving off, for the clouds out every side were dull and heavy and overcharged with snow--to take its place among the great storms of history; one of those which is spoken of with awe and reverence, as "I mind the storm of '41; ay, it were a storm, it were," which mark the chronology in rural districts, and of which men speak when they are old as having seen when they were young. It bade fair to be a mighty storm, and through it our three friends had now to journey home.

Under such circumstances most people would have supposed that the best thing for them to do would have been for them to have chummed together, and to have enjoyed the rigours of the season as it is the fashion of the boyish heart to do; but no, thank you; not for them. They were not on terms, and each made up his mind to let the others understand that he had not the least desire to be. This, however, was a resolution which it was difficult to carry to its logical conclusion, and from the very first the difficulty began. For instance, it was very certain that there was only one vehicle to convey them all three down to the station; but this would by no means suit their lordships, if you please. Nothing less would satisfy them than that each should journey in a conveyance of his own. Tregowan point-blank declared that on no condition would he travel with either Pollyon or Penharden--he objected to them both; Pollyon and Penharden on their part each protesting that anybody's company but his own was not to be endured. Here at the commencement was a block.

It was vainly pointed out to them that, since it was utterly impossible to procure any other vehicle but the one at hand, to fall in with their wishes was more than could be done; while to suppose that the unfortunate animal whose task it was to draw the vehicle in such weather and on such a road could go three times to the station and three times back again in order to gratify their whims, was to suppose what was obviously nonsense. Moreover, even allowing the thing was feasible, he who had the good fortune to travel last would undoubtedly miss the only train by which it was possible to go; so they were in a pleasant quandary.

"No," said Noel to Brown the driver, when for the third or fourth time the position of affairs had been explained, "you waste your breath in talking. I am not to be persuaded; I totally decline to accept your proposition; I am firmly resolved that, if I am not free to go alone, I will not go at all."

"Then, sir, I'd stop behind, if I was you," returned the badgered Brown.

"I'm not going to waste time talking," exclaimed Pollyon, taking the bull by the horns and advancing to the front; "I am going by this 'bus, let any one else come who dares." And with a "I'm ready when you are, Brown," Lionel opened the door and placed himself inside.

This was bringing matters to a crisis; there was the 'bus, and there was Lionel standing at the door and perfectly ready to repel any one who might attempt to force an entry; but no one showed the least inclination so to do. True, Penharden looked fierce about the eyes, but scorn, not force, was the weapon best suited to his mood.

"You need not be in the least alarmed," he said, his nose high in the air, and with his grandest manner. "The mere fact of your being in there is enough to keep me out. You must find some other cad to keep you company."

"I don't happen to know any other cad but you," replied Lionel from the 'bus, and Penharden frowned.

As for Tregowan, he declined either to expostulate with Brown or to bandy words with the two others. He simply kept himself apart. Recognising the position of affairs, and that it was vain to hope for any other vehicle, he put his gaiters on, turned his coat up to his ears, and proceeded to walk the distance through the snow.

"You ain't a going to walk it, sir?" cried Brown, not unnaturally amazed at this proceeding. "Why, bless my 'eart, there's room in that there 'bus for a dozen, let alone for three. And as for Mr. Pollyon, he just talks what he don't know nothing at all about, 'cause I ain't goin' to 'ave him keep anybody out of my 'bus, and so that's plain. Come, Mr. Tregowan, let me drive you, sir."

"No, thank you, Brown. I'm much obliged to you, but it shan't make any difference in your fare," was Duke's reply; and as fast as circumstances permitted he stepped off through the falling and fallen snow.

"Well, if you ain't three nice young gentlemen, I never did," declared Mr. Brown, turning upon the remaining two. "What sort of Christians do you call yourselves, I'd like to know, agoin' on like this at this season of the year? There ain't no heathens what wouldn't behave themselves better, I'll be bound. Well, Mr. Penharden"--this with sarcastic emphasis--"do you mean walkin' too, I'd like to know?"

"No, Brown, I do not intend to walk," answered Mr. Penharden. "I intend to do nothing of the kind; but at the same time you will understand that nothing will induce me to enter the same vehicle which contains that--that person," pointing to Pollyon. "I intend to ride beside you on the box."

"I would if I were you," cried out Pollyon, who was making himself as comfortable as possible with rugs and wrappers. "I quite believe that nothing would induce you to come in here. Your discretion is stronger than your valour, my poor boy."

But Noel was not to be goaded into warlike measures, with a fresh accession of dignity. "Hold my rug, Brown," he said. "Here, you fellow," to another of the servants standing by, "help me with this coat of mine;" and with the servant's aid he struggled into an overcoat of vast dimensions. While he struggled, he observed, for the benefit of those around, "That person is quite aware what I think of him--that he is a cad and an idiot. He is also aware that sooner than soil my hands by touching him I would endure any quantity of the vulgar insolence in which he is so singularly proficient." By this time he was in his coat, and it was buttoned to the chin. "Here, Brown, if you will give me that rug. Thank you! Now, if you will give me a hand up to the box I am quite at your disposal."

And at his leisure Master Penharden ascended to his perch.

"I can't drive for you, Brown, I suppose?" he inquired affably, arranging himself as comfortably as possible upon the seat.

"No, thank you, sir," answered Brown grimly, with a twinkle in his eye. "I'm much obliged to you, but I don't think that you can. You see, sir, it ain't the driving; it's these 'eer very cur'us roads. There's no knowing what might happen before you brought us to the other end."

"Oh yes, there is!" bawled Pollyon from the inside, apparently having overheard his friend's suggestion. "What do you suppose would happen with an imbecile to drive?"

"Don't listen to him," said Noel loftily. "You'll have all your work cut out for you if you intend to catch this train, so the sooner you are off the better it will be."

Mr. Brown seemed to be of his opinion. Settling himself upon his post of duty, the reins were soon in order, and with a "Now then, my beauties," a start was fairly made. And no sooner were their backs well turned, and the 'bus well off, than the two school servants lounging in the hall looked at each other meaningly, and then burst into a loud guffaw.

"Well," said one to the other, "nice young chaps they be. I'd like to have the handling o' they." And at the thought of it he laughed again.

But the "young chaps" in question were anything but conscious that they appeared in any way ridiculous; on the contrary, they were strongly under the impression that their behaviour was of that dignified kind which impresses bystanders with involuntary respect and admiration. With his most manly air, Noel sat by the coachman's side; but in spite of his heroic attempts to appear so comfortable that it would be impossible to improve his situation, in his heart he could not but own that if he were but warmer, and he could but keep the snow out of his face and eyes, it would be better. But confess it--never!

As for Pollyon, he certainly had little of which he could with propriety complain. He had the whole 'bus to himself; he could scarcely have wanted more. He was free to do exactly what he pleased; he was sheltered from the storm, was not cramped for room, could sit or lie down exactly as he chose, could take his ease in whatever way it suited him; there was no reason why he should not be satisfied, and so he told himself.

"This suits my taste exactly," he said, stretching himself full length upon the seat, with the rug drawn to his chin. "I hope those fellows are suited too. I'd fall out with some one every day if I thought I should get out of it so well as this. Never mind! it will teach me, when next I feel inclined to do anybody a good turn, to keep my inclination in my pocket. What a mule Tregowan is! I hope the Doctor wigged him well. Whether he did or didn't, I'll be straight with him for this."

While he thus soliloquised, a not too pleasant look upon his face, all at once the 'bus gave a great lurch, and Master Pollyon, taken unawares, rolled off the seat on to the floor. It was the merest chance the 'bus was not turned over. The horses, shying at something, backed against a hedge, and all but brought the whole conveyance to the ground. Fortunately, however, Brown was able to quiet them in time to preserve its equilibrium, and the only person worse for what had happened was Pollyon. In falling off the seat, he had fallen on his face, and falling on his face necessitated falling on his nose. True, the distance was not great, but since his hands were comfortably tucked away beneath the rug, he was unable in any way to save himself, and, in consequence, came with all his weight upon his nose. Moreover, and what was quite as bad, where he fell, there too he lay, with the rug wrapped closely round and round his arms and body, encased in it somewhat after the fashion of an Egyptian mummy. The space between the seats being only just wide enough to admit his body, utterly unable to use his hands, there he lay jammed between the seats until some one chose to come to his assistance.

The position was not a pleasant one. Apart from the fact that his nose was bleeding--a fact of which he was too well aware--and that the blood was not improving his complexion, the position in itself was not a pleasant one. Face downwards at the bottom of a jolting 'bus, amid the damp and doubtful straw, jammed tight between the seats, scarce able to move a limb, it does not require a lively imagination to perceive that the shorter time one remained in such a posture the better it would be; so Master Pollyon rapidly concluded. But to hope for assistance was apparently in vain. He bawled and bawled, but either the whistling of the wind, or the falling snow, or the conversation in which they occasionally indulged, or the fact that their ears were covered with wraps and scarfs, prevented Mr. Brown and Penharden from hearing him. Almost continuously he bawled, in a moderate tone at first, then louder and still louder; but still no heed was paid. The straw got in his mouth and choked his utterance; he really could not shout his loudest; the case was getting desperate.

"Hi! HI! HI!" cried out Pollyon.

"The wind whistles pretty 'igh," said Brown to Noel at his side. "I don't remember the wind so 'igh as this in a storm of snow not since I don't know when."

"I say, Brown! BROWN! BROWN!" cried out Pollyon.

"If the snow goes on like this," said Penharden to Brown, "it will be the biggest storm I ever saw in all my life."

"I dessay, dessay," said Brown. "You ain't so old as me, you see. Now I mind," and he wagged his head, "I mind a good old fifty years ago--ay, that and more--that was a storm, that was. I was about your age--might 'a been a little more, a little less. It was the biggest storm I ever see. It 'gan about this time--ay, it was a Toosday too; I mind it was a Toosday--and it kep' on, kep' right on three days, never stopped, not once. Down in our parts there wasn't a piece o' ground not nowhere what wasn't ten feet deep in snow."

"BROWN! BROWN!" and Master Pollyon put a still greater strain upon his lungs. "Confound that Brown!" and he relapsed into silence for a time. "I know, I know"--this a little later in bitterness of spirit--"he's playing off one of his larks on me; it's that brute Penharden. PENHARDEN! PENHARDEN!" Between his passion and his pain he bade fair to break a blood-vessel. "What an idiot I am! what an ass! They don't mean to hear! Only wait a while; I'll be even with them then!" and he gnashed his teeth with fury.

But while Penharden froze on the box and Pollyon choked on the floor within, Tregowan made the best of his way alone. On the whole, considering what had chanced to Lionel, it is doubtful whether he was not as well off walking as they were riding. At any rate, he had himself to thank for whatever accidents might happen. Cold, when he was once off, he was very far from being; indeed it was soon a question whether he was not uncomfortably hot. Action was the thing best suited to his mood, and it was impossible for him to be even momentarily still. As he struggled on, the difficulties of the way and the necessity of overcoming them dispelled from his mind the clouds, and soon he had almost forgotten that he was leaving in disgrace.

"I'll beat those fellows yet," he said, when he had gone more than half the distance, and the omnibus was nowhere to be seen. "They'll stop wrangling there till I am in the train and off for home." A tolerably deep drift which he had not perceived engrossed his attention, for all at once, before he knew it, he had plunged into it above his knees.

"Hollo!" he said, disdaining to turn aside, and trudging through it anyhow, "this is pretty good for deep; lucky I had my gaiters on. If this goes on I shan't have a dry rag by the time I reach the station."

He was a peculiar sight, seeming to be a veritable snow man. From head to foot the glistening flakes concealed him, forming, as it were, an outer crust; his hands were in his pockets, and he was knee-deep in the snow. When every now and then he stopped a moment to shake himself, it tickled him to see the quantity he distributed on every side. Still on he went, more than three-quarters of the distance is covered now; indeed the station was but at the bottom of the hill.

"I wonder," he said to himself, struck by a sudden thought, "what those two fellows have had a row about? A pretty pair they are, stopping to soothe my distress and falling out themselves! I should say they were in a cheerful frame of mind. Anyhow"--he was haughty on a sudden--"it will teach them to interest themselves in their own affairs, and not in mine. Hollo!" he had stopped and looked around, "there is that old thing at last." The 'bus had but that moment come in sight. "It shan't beat me anyhow!" and away he went with redoubled energy. It was a race, and one he won. Helter-skelter, in any fashion, down the hill he went, through the drifts, through everything; continually all but falling, just saving himself in time. And when at last he reached the bottom and was outside the station doors, he was as hot as he had ever been on the hottest day in summer, and there, some thirty yards behind, came the 'bus ignobly lumbering.

"I should say they've had a pleasant time of it." This was as he shook the snow from off his person, and as he noticed how the vehicle gravitated first to this side then to that. "Been rather shaken I should think. I know what Brown's 'bus is at the best of times. I'd rather be excused from travelling in it just now."

So, if he could only have looked inside, and realised the comforts of Master Lionel's position, he would have said, especially if it had been his lot to have journeyed in such a fashion. Long ere this Pollyon had been dissolved in tears, not silent tears, although they might as well have been for all that anybody heard of them. What with pain and rage, and a desperate sense of the ridiculousness of his position, he was in a pretty state of mind. To crown all, while he was in the midst of his distress, and he was really beginning to think that he could not stand it any longer, the 'bus drew up before the station yard. Down jumped Penharden as quickly as he could, though, owing to the circumstances of the case, that was by no means fast. Out came a porter to assist Brown with the luggage, while the stationmaster, who had somewhat recovered from the outrageous treatment which he had previously received, came to stamp his feet and to look on. There was quite a small excitement.

Tregowan and Noel, following their original tactics, declined to pay the slightest attention to each other, and each strode into the station as though he walked on stilts, and it was not until they were inside that it occurred to them to wonder where Pollyon might be. Noel, supposing that he of course was taking his ease upon the seat, never troubled to notice if it were actually so, disdaining to let him think that he took any the faintest interest in his movements. They were, however, just beginning to think that he was taking things uncommonly leisurely, when an exclamation from outside diverted their attention.

"Why," exclaimed the porter, who had opened the door of the omnibus to see if there was any luggage left inside, "what's the row in here? Well, if there ain't some one stone-dead upon the floor."

Stone-dead! It was by no means so bad as that, though, for a moment, Pollyon almost wished that there were indeed an end of him. Up came Brown and the stationmaster, and on their heels Tregowan, Penharden, and the booking-clerk.

"Dead! Who's dead? What, Mr. Pollyon!" said Brown, and regardless of the snow, they hustled each other out of the way in their anxiety to see the awful sight which was to be seen inside.

"Dead! Who are you calling dead?" shouted Pollyon, putting an end to all doubt upon the spot. "What are you standing there for, you grinning apes? What do you really call yourselves, I'd like to know?"

"Been drinking," suggested the stationmaster _sotto voce_, but still sufficiently loud for Lionel to hear. "Ah! poor young man! It's very sad in one so young, now isn't it?"

"I can't think how he's a-managed it," reflected Brown, scratching his head and wondering. "He was all right when we started."

"And I'm all right now," bellowed Pollyon, who was in no humour to be particular as to the language which he used. "Can't you see that I've fallen off from that confounded seat--boo!" This was unmistakably a sob. "And I'm wrapped in this confounded cloak--boo! and I can't get up, you idiots!"

"Of course, of course," said Penharden, speaking for the first time. "We all see that; he thought it was his bedtime, and so he went to bed upon the floor. Poor dear young gentleman! What will his mother say to him?"

"Wait till I get at you!" screamed Pollyon, wholly unable to do anything but scream.

"Come, if this young gent's goin' by this train, why he'd better go, that's all," sensibly remarked the porter, going in and restoring, with no little difficulty, the ill-used Pollyon to his perpendicular again.

"Let me get at him!" shouted Lionel, burning to be at Penharden's throat.

"Come, this won't do, you know," returned the porter, restraining the young gentleman's impetuosity. "The tram's doo in three minutes. If I was you, I'd go and have a wash and brush. You ain't exactly fit to travel as you are."

Which, in fact, was true. What with blood, and dirt, and tears, his face was so disfigured that it would have been difficult for any one to recognise in this extraordinary figure the neat and trim Pollyon, who ordinarily looked as though he had just stepped from a bandbox. None the less he was much more inclined to assault Penharden, or any one else who might happen to cross his path, than to array himself respectably.

"Get out of my way," he stormed at the friendly porter, "get out of my way. Do you think I'm going to have you tell me what I ought to do or what I oughtn't? Get out of my way, you vagabond."

But the porter, more sensible than the fiery youth, still declined to listen to his violence, and remained as a barrier between him and his revenge; while the train, steaming into the station at this moment, made it evident that unless they actually did want to remain there overnight a move had better at once be made. Instantly the booking-clerk rushed to his office, while Duke and Noel, all impatience, tore after him to secure their tickets. As for Pollyon, he too yielded to the pressure of necessity, and, under the porter's kindly care, proceeded to make himself presentable in as short a time as possible.

Time was precious; the train, already late, was anxious to be off again; every one was in a hurry; the baggage was bundled in, and the boys were all anxiety to secure seats. The guard, naturally supposing them to be acquaintances, if not friends, held one carriage open for the three of them to enter; but they would none of it. Marmaduke passed in, but Noel and Lionel, who still was in no comfortable plight, sought places for themselves elsewhere, and only found them just in time--just when the guard's flag was being waved and he was whistling.

And so at last even they were away _en route_ for home, the last from Dorrincourt, and the great school was left in solitude,--a condition of things in strange contrast to the din of voices and the noise of feet which had woke the echoes such a short time since.