“It is mine — it is my gold cross,” spoke Van Rheyn, catching up one of the wet towels. The bath this evening had been impromptu, and we had only two towels between us, which Parker and Whitney had brought. In point of fact, it had been against rules also, for we were not expected to go into the river without the presence of a master. But just at this bend it was perfectly safe. Jessup passed the blue ribbon round his neck, letting the cross hang behind. This done, he turned himself about for general inspection, and the boys crowded round to look.

  “What do you say it is, Bristles?”

  “My gold cross.”

  “You don’t mean to tell us to our faces that you wear it?”

  “I wear it always,” freely answered Van Rheyn.

  Jessup took it off his neck, and the boys passed it about from one to another. They did not ridicule the cross — I think the emblem on it prevented that — but they ridiculed Van Rheyn.

  “A friend of mine went over to the tar-and-feather islands,” said Millichip, executing an aggravating war-dance round about Charley. “He found the natives sporting no end of charms and amulets — nearly all the attire they did sport — rings in the nose and chains in the ears. What relation are those natives to you, Miss Charlotte?”

  “Don’t injure it, please,” pleaded Van Rheyn.

  “We’ve an ancient nurse at home who carries the tip of a calf’s tongue in her pocket for luck,” shrieked Thorne. “And I’ve heard — I have heard, Bristles — that any fellow who arms himself with a pen’orth of blue-stone from the druggist’s, couldn’t have the yellow jaundice if he tried. What might you wear this for, pray?”

  “My Aunt Annette gave it me as a present when she was dying,” answered poor helpless Charley, who had never the smallest notion of taking chaff otherwise than seriously, or of giving chaff back again.

  He had dressed himself to his trousers and shirt, and stood with his hand stretched out, waiting for his cross.

  “In the Worcester Journal, one day last June, I read an advertisement as big as a house, offering a child’s caul for sale,” cried Snepp. “Any gentleman or lady buying that caul and taking it to sea, could never be drowned. Bristles thinks as long as he wears this, he won’t come to be hanged.”

  “How’s your grandmother, Miss Charlotte?”

  “I wish you would please to let me alone,” said he patiently. “My father would not have placed me here had he known.”

  “Why don’t you write and tell him, Bristles?”

  “I would not like to grieve him,” simply answered Charley. “I can bear. And he does so much want me to learn good English.”

  “This cross is gold, I suppose?” said Bill Whitney, who now had it.

  “Yes, it is gold,” answered Van Rheyn.

  “I wouldn’t advise you to fall amongst thieves, then. They might ease you of it. The carving must be worth something.”

  “It cost a great deal to buy, I have heard my aunt say. Will you be so good as to give it me, that I may finish to dress myself?”

  Whitney handed him the cross. Time was up, in fact; and we had to make a race for the house. Van Rheyn was catching it hot and sharp, all the way.

  One might have thought that his very meekness, the unresisting spirit in which he took things, would have disarmed the mockery. But it did not. Once go in wholesale for putting upon some particular fellow in a school, and the tyranny gains with use. I don’t think any of them meant to be really unkind to Van Rheyn; but the play had begun, and they enjoyed it.

  I once saw him drowned in tears. It was at the dusk of evening. Charley had come in for it awfully at tea-time, I forget what about, and afterwards disappeared. An hour later, going into Whitney’s room for something Bill asked me to fetch, I came upon Charles Van Rheyn — who also slept there. He was sitting at the foot of his low bed, his cheek leaning on one of his hands, and the tears running down swiftly. One might have thought his heart was broken.

  “What is the grievance, Charley?”

  “Do not say to them that you saw me,” returned he, dashing away his tears. “I did not expect any of you would come up.”

  “Look here, old fellow: I know it’s rather hard lines for you just now. But they don’t mean anything: it is done in sport, not malice. They don’t think, you see, Van Rheyn. You will be sure to live it down.”

  “Yes,” he sighed, “I hope I shall. But it is so different here from what it used to be. I had such a happy home; I never had one sorrow when my mother was alive. Nobody cares for me now; nobody is kind to me: it is a great change.”

  “Take heart, Charley,” I said, holding out my hand. “I know you will live it down in time.”

  Of all the fellows I ever met, I think he was the most grateful for a word of kindness. As he thanked me with a glad look of hope in his eyes, I saw that he had been holding the cross clasped in his palm; for it dropped as he put his hand into mine.

  “It helps me to bear,” he said, in a whisper. “My mother, who loved me so, is in heaven; my father has married Mademoiselle Thérèsine de Tocqueville. I have no one now.”

  “Your father has not married that Thérèsine de Tocqueville?”

  “Why, yes. I had the letter close after dinner.”

  So perhaps he was crying for the home unhappiness as much as for his school grievances. It all reads strange, no doubt, and just the opposite of what might be expected of one of us English boys. The French bringing-tip is different from ours: perhaps it lay in that. On the other hand, a French boy, generally speaking, possesses a very shallow sense of religion. But Van Rheyn had been reared by his English mother; and his disposition seemed to be naturally serious and uncommonly pliable and gentle. At any rate, whether it reads improbable or probable, it is the truth.

  I got what I wanted for Billy Whitney, and went down, thinking what a hard life it was for him — what a shame that we made it so. Indulged, as Van Rheyn must have always been, tenderly treated as a girl, sheltered from the world’s roughness, all that coddling must have become to him as second nature; and the remembrance lay with him still. Over here he was suddenly cut off from it, thrown into another and a rougher atmosphere, isolated from country, home, home-ties and associations; and compelled to stand the daily brunt of this petty tyranny.

  Getting Tod apart that night, I put the matter to him: what a shame it was, and how sorry I felt for Charley Van Rheyn; and I asked him whether he thought he could not (he having a great deal of weight in the school) make things pleasanter for him. Tod responded that I should never be anything but a muff, and that the roasting Van Rheyn got treated to was superlatively good for him, if ever he was to be made into a man.

  However, before another week ran out, Dr. Frost interfered. How he obtained an inkling of the reigning politics we never knew. One Saturday afternoon, when old Fontaine had taken Van Rheyn out with him, the doctor walked into the midst of us, to the general consternation.

  Standing in the centre of the schoolroom, with a solemn face, all of us backing as much as the wall allowed, and the masters who chanced to be present rising to their feet, the doctor spoke of Van Rheyn. He had reason to suspect, he said, that we were doing our best to worry Van Rheyn’s life out of him: and he put the question deliberately to us (and made us answer it), how we, if consigned alone to a foreign home, all its inmates strangers, would liked to be served so. He did not wish, he went on, to think he had pitiful, ill-disposed boys, lacking hearts and common kindness, in his house: he felt sure that what had passed arose from a heedless love of mischief; and it would greatly oblige him to find from henceforth that our conduct towards Van Rheyn was changed: he thought, and hoped, that he had only to express a wish upon the point, to ensure obedience.

  With that — and a hearty nod and smile around, as if he put it as a personal favour to himself, and wanted us to see that he did, and was not angry, he went out again. A counsel was held to determine whether we had a sneak amongst us — else how could Frost have known? — that Charley himself had not spoken, his worst enemy felt sure of. But not one could be pitched upon: every individual fellow, senior and junior, protested earnestly that he had not let out a syllable. And, to tell the truth, I don’t think we had.

  However, the doctor was obeyed. From that day all real annoyance to Charles Van Rheyn ceased. I don’t say but what there would be a laugh at him now and then, and a word of raillery, or that he lost his names of Bristles and Miss Charlotte; but virtually the sting was gone. Charley was as grateful as could be, and seemed to become quite happy; and upon the arrival of a hamper by grande vitesse from Rouen, containing a huge rich wedding-cake and some packets of costly sweetmeats, he divided the whole amongst us, keeping the merest taste for himself. The school made its comments in return.

  “He’s not a bad lot after all, that Van Rheyn. He will make a man yet.”

  “It isn’t a bit of use your going in for this, Van Rheyn, unless you can run like a lamplighter.”

  “But I can run, you know,” responded Van Rheyn.

  “Yes. But can you keep the pace up?”

  “Why not?”

  “We may be out for three or four hours, pelting like mad all the time.”

  “I feel no fear of keeping up,” said Van Rheyn. “I will go.”

  “All right.”

  It was on a Saturday afternoon; and we were turning out for hare and hounds. The quarter was hard upon its close, for September was passing. Van Rheyn had never seen hare and hounds: it had been let alone during the hotter weather: and it was Tod who now warned him that he might not be able to keep up the running. It requires fleet legs and easy breath, as every one knows; and Van Rheyn had never much exercised either.

  “What is just the game?” he asked in his quaintly-turned phrase. And I answered him — for Tod had gone away.

  “You see those strips of paper that they have torn out of old copybooks, and are twisting? That is for the scent. The hare fills his pockets with it, and drops a piece of it every now and then as he runs. We, the hounds, follow his course by means of the scent, and catch him if we can.”

  “And then?” questioned Van Rheyn.

  “Then the game is over.”

  “And what if you not catch him?”

  “The hare wins; that’s all. What he likes to do is to double upon us cunningly and lead us home again after him.”

  “But in all that there is only running.”

  “We vault over the obstructions — gates, and stiles, and hedges. Or, if the hedges are too high, scramble through them.”

  “But some hedges are very thick and close: nobody could get through them,” debated Van Rheyn, taking the words, as usual, too literally.

  “Then we are dished. And have to find some other way onwards, or turn back.”

  “I can do what you say quite easily.”

  “All right, Charley,” I repeated: as Tod had done. And neither of us, nor any one else, had the smallest thought that it was not all right.

  Millichip was chosen hare. Snepp turned cranky over something or other at the last moment, and backed out of it. He made the best hare in the school: but Millichip was nearly as fleet a runner.

  What with making the scent, and having it out with Snepp, time was hindered; and it must have been getting on for four o’clock when we started. Which docked the run considerably, for we had to be in at six to tea. On that account, perhaps, Millichip thought he must get over the ground the quicker; for I don’t think we had ever made so swift a course. Letting the hare get well on ahead, the signal was given, and we started after him in full cry, rending the air with shouts, and rushing along like the wind.

  A right-down good hare Millichip turned out to be; doubling and twisting and finessing, and exasperating the hounds considerably. About five o’clock he had made tracks for home, as we found by the scent: but we could neither see him nor catch him. Later, I chanced to come to grief in a treacherous ditch, lost my straw hat, and tore the sleeve of my jacket. This threw me behind the rest; and when I pelted up to the next stile, there stood Van Rheyn. He had halted to rest his arms on it; his breath was coming in alarming gasps, his face whiter than a sheet.

  “Halloa, Van Rheyn! What’s up? The pace is too much for you.”

  “It was my breath,” said he, when he could answer. “I go on now.”

  I put my hand on him. “Look here: the run’s nearly over: we shall soon be at home. Don’t go on so fast.”

  “But I want to be in at what they call the death.”

  “There’ll be no death to-day: the hare’s safe to win.”

  “I want to keep up,” he answered, getting over the stile. “I said I could keep up, and do what the rest did.” And off he was again, full rush.

  Before us, on that side of the stile, was a tolerably wide field. The pack had wound half over it during this short halt, making straight for the entrance to the coppice at the other end. We were doing our best to catch them up, when I distinctly saw a heavy stone flung into their midst. Looking at the direction it came from, there crept a dirty ragamuffin over the ground on his hands and knees. He did not see us two behind; and he flung another heavy stone. Had it struck anyone’s head it would have done serious damage.

  Letting the chase go, I stole across and pounced upon him before he could get away. He twisted himself out of my hands like an eel, and stood grinning defiance and whistling to his dog. We knew the young scamp well: and could never decide whether he was a whole scamp, or half a natural. At any rate, he was vilely bad, was the pest of the neighbourhood, and had enjoyed some short sojourns in prison for trespass. Raddy was the name he went by; we knew him by no other; and how he got a living nobody could tell.

  “What did you throw those stones for?”

  “Shan’t tell ye. Didn’t throw ’em at you.”

  “You had better mind what you are about, Mr. Raddy, unless you want to get into trouble.”

  “Yah — you!” grinned Raddy.

  There was nothing to be made of him; there never was anything. I should have been no match for Raddy in an encounter; and he would have killed me without the slightest compunction. Turning to go on my way, I was in time to see Van Rheyn tumble over the stile and disappear within the coppice. The rest must have nearly shot out of the other end by that time. It was a coppice that belonged to Sir John Whitney. Once through it, we were on our own grounds, and within a field of home.

  I went on leisurely enough: no good to try to catch them up now. Van Rheyn would not do it, and he had more than half a field’s start of me. It must have been close upon six, for the sun was setting in a ball of fire; the amber sky around it was nearly as dazzling as the sun, and lighted up the field.

  So that, plunging into the coppice, it was like going into a dungeon. For a minute or two, with the reflection of that red light lingering in my eyes, I could hardly see the narrow path; the trees were dark, thick, and met overhead. I ran along whistling: wondering whether that young Raddy was after me with his ugly dog; wondering why Sir John did not ——

  The whistling and the thoughts came to a summary end together. At the other end of the coppice, but a yard or two on this side the stile that divided it from the open field, there was Charles Van Rheyn on the ground, his back against the trunk of a tree, his arms stretched up, clasping it. But for that clasp, and the laboured breathing, I might have thought he was dead. For his face was ghastly, blue round the mouth, and wore the strangest expression I ever saw.

  “Charley, what’s the matter?”

  But he could not answer. He was panting frightfully, as though every gasp would be his last. What on earth was I to do? Down I knelt, saying never another word.

  “It — gives — me — much — hurt,” said he, at length, with a long pause between every word.

  “What does?”

  “Here” — pointing to his chest — towards the left side.

  “Did you hurt yourself? Did you fall?”

  “No, I not hurt myself. I fell because I not able to run more. It is the breath. I wish papa was near me!”

  Instinct told me that he must have assistance, and yet I did not like to leave him. But what if delay in getting it should be dangerous? I rose up to go.

  “You — you are not going to quit me!” he cried out, putting his feeble grasp on my arm.

  “But, Charley, I want to get somebody to you,” I said in an agony, “I can’t do anything for you myself: anything in the world.”

  “No, you stay. I should not like to be alone if I die.”

  The shock the word gave me I can recall yet. Die! If there was any fear of that, it was all the more necessary I should make a rush for Dr. Frost and Featherston. Never had I been so near my wits’ end before, in the uncertainty as to what course I ought to take.

  All in a moment, there arose a shrill whistle on the other side the stile. It was like a godsend. I knew it quite well for that vicious young reptile’s, but it was welcome to me as sunshine in harvest.

  “There’s Raddy, Van Rheyn. I will send him.”

  Vaulting over the stile, I saw the young man standing with his back to me near the hedge, his wretched outer garment — a sack without shape — hitched up, his hands in the pockets of his dilapidated trousers, that hung in fringes below the knee. He was whistling to his dog in the coppice. They must have struck through the tangles and briars higher up, which was a difficult feat, and strictly forbidden by law. It was well Sir John’s agent did not see Mr. Raddy — whose eyes, scratched and bleeding, gave ample proof of the trespass.

  “Yah!” he shrieked out, turning at the sound of me, and grinning fresh defiance.

  “Raddy,” I said, speaking in persuasive tones to propitiate him in my great need, “I want you to do something for me. Go to Dr. Frost as quickly as you are able, and say — —”

  Of all the derisive horrible laughs, his interruption was the worst and loudest. It drowned the words.

  “One of the school has fallen and hurt himself,” I said, putting it in that way. “He’s lying here, and I cannot leave him. Hush, Raddy! I want to tell you,” — advancing a step or two nearer to him and lowering my voice to a whisper,— “I think he’s dying.”

 

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