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Trumps by George William Curtis

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Reposing upon his easy, conscious superiority, Abel had long worshiped
Hope Wayne. They were nearly of the same age--she a few months the
younger. But as the regulations of the school confined every boy, without
especial permission of absence, to the school grounds, and as Abel had no
acquaintance with Mr. Burt and no excuse for calling, his worship had
been silent and distant. He was the more satisfied that it should be so,
because it had never occurred to him that any of the other boys could be
a serious rival for her regard. He was also obliged to be the more
satisfied with his silent devotion, because never, by a glance, did she
betray any consciousness of his particular observation, or afford him
the least opportunity for saying or doing any thing that would betray
it. If he hastened to the front door of the church he could only stand
upon the steps, and as she passed out she nodded to her few friends,
and immediately followed her grandfather into the carriage.

When Gabriel Bennet came to Mr. Gray's, Abel did not like him. He laughed
at him. He made the other boys laugh at him whenever he could. He bullied
him in the play-ground. He proposed to introduce fagging at Mr. Gray's.
He praised it as a splendid institution of the British schools, simply
because he wanted Gabriel as his fag. He wanted to fling his boots at
Gabriel's head that he might black them. He wanted to send him down
stairs in his shirt on winter nights. He wanted to have Gabriel get up in
the cold mornings and bring him his breakfast in bed. He wanted to chain
Gabriel to the car of his triumphal progress through school-life. He
wanted to debase and degrade him altogether.

"What is it," Abel exclaimed one day to the large boys assembled in
solemn conclave in the school-room, "that takes all the boorishness and
brutishness out of the English character? What is it that prevents the
Britishers from being servile and obsequious--traits, I tell you, boys,
unknown in England--but this splendid system of fagging? Did you ever
hear of an insolent Englishman, a despotic Englishman, a surly
Englishman, a selfish Englishman, an obstinate Englishman, a domineering
Englishman, a dogmatic Englishman? Never, boys, never. These things are
all taken out of them by fagging. It stands to reason they should be. If
I shy my boots at a fellow's head, is he likely to domineer? If I kick a
small boy who contradicts me, is he likely to be opinionated and
dogmatic? If I eat up my fag's plum-cake just sent by his mamma, hot,
as it were, from the maternal heart, and moist with a mother's tears, is
that fag likely to be selfish? Not at all. The boots, and the kicking,
and the general walloping make him manly. It teaches him to govern his
temper and hold his tongue. I swear I should like to have a fag!"
perorated Abel, meaning that he should like to be the holy office, and
to have Gabriel Bennet immediately delivered up to him for discipline.

Once Gabriel overheard this kind of conversation in the play-ground, as
Abel Newt and some of the other boys were resting after a game at ball.
There were no personal allusions in what Abel had said, but Gabriel took
him up a little curtly:

"Pooh! Abel, how would you like to have Gyles Blanding shy his boots at
your head?"

Abel looked at him a moment, sarcastically. Then he replied:

"My young friend, I should like to see him try it. But fagging concerns
small boys, not large ones."

"Yes!" retorted Gabriel, his eyes flashing, as he kept tossing the ball
nervously, and catching it; "yes, that's the meanness of it: the little
boy can't help himself."

"By golly, I'd kick!" put in Little Malacca.

"Then you'd be licked till you dropped, my small Sir," said Abel,
sneeringly.

"Yes, Abel," replied Gabriel, "but it's a mean thing for an American boy
to want fagging."

"Not at all," he answered; "there are some young American gentlemen I
know who would be greatly benefited by being well fagged; yes, made to
lie down in the dirt and lick a little of it, and fetch and carry. And to
be kicked out of bed every morning and into bed every night would be the
very best thing that could happen to 'em. By George, I should like to
have the kicking and licking begin now!"

Gabriel had the same dislike of Abel which the latter felt for him,
but they had never had any open quarrel. Even thus far in the present
conversation there had been nothing personal said. It was only a warm
general discussion. Gabriel merely asked, when the other stopped,

"What good does the fagging do the fellow that flings the boots and
bullies the little one?"

"Good?" answered Abel--"what good does it do? Why,
he has been through it all himself, and he's just paying it
off."

Abel smiled grimly as he looked round upon the boys, who did not seem at
all enthusiastic for his suggestion.

"Well," said he, "I'm afraid I shall have to postpone my millennium of
fagging. But I don't know what else will make men of you. And mark you,
my merry men, there's more than one kind of fagging;" and he looked in a
droll way--a droll way that was not in the least funny, but made the boys
all wonder what Abel Newt was up to now.




CHAPTER IV.

NIGHT.


It was already dusk, but the summer evening is the best time for play.
The sport in the play-ground at Mr. Gray's was at its height, and the
hot, eager, panting boys were shouting and scampering in every direction,
when a man ran in from the road and cried out, breathless,

"Where's Mr. Gray?"

"In his study," answered twenty voices at once. The man darted toward the
house and went in; the next moment he reappeared with Mr. Gray, both of
them running.

"Get out the boat!" cried Mr. Gray, "and call the big boys. There's a man
drowning in the pond!"

The game was over at once, and each young heart thrilled with vague
horror. Abel Newt, Muddock, Blanding, Tom Gait, Jim Greenidge, and the
rest of the older boys, came rushing out of the school-room, and ran
toward the barn, in which the boat was kept upon a truck. In a moment the
door was open, the truck run out, and all the boys took hold of the rope.
Mr. Gray and the stranger led the way. The throng swept out of the gate,
and as they hastened silently along, the axles of the truck kindled with
the friction and began to smoke.

"Carefully! steadily!" cried the boys all together.

They slackened speed a little, but, happily, the pond was but a short
distance from the school. It was a circular sheet of water, perhaps a
mile in width.

"Boys, he is nearly on the other side," said Mr. Gray, as the crowd
reached the shore.

In an instant the boat was afloat. Mr. Gray, the stranger, and the six
stoutest boys in the school, stepped into it. The boys lifted their oars.
"Let fall! give way!" cried Mr. Gray, and the boat moved off, glimmering
away into the darkness.

The younger boys remained hushed and awe-stricken upon the shore. The
stars were just coming out, the wind had fallen, and the smooth, black
pond lay silent at their feet. They could see the vague, dark outline of
the opposite shore, but none of the pretty villas that stood in graceful
groves upon the banks--none of the little lawns that sloped, with a
feeling of human sympathy, to the water. The treachery of that glassy
surface was all they thought of. They shuddered to remember that they had
so often bathed in the pond, and recoiled as if they had been friends of
a murderer. None of them spoke. They clustered closely together,
listening intently. Nothing was audible but the hum of the evening
insects and the regular muffled beat of the oars over the water. The
boys strained their ears and held their breath as the sound suddenly
stopped. But they listened in vain. The lazy tree-toads sang, the
monotonous hum of the night went on.

Gabriel Bennet held the hand of Little Malacca--a dark-eyed boy, who was
supposed in the school to have had no father or mother, and who had
instinctively attached himself to Gabriel from the moment they met.

"Isn't it dreadful?" whispered the latter.

"Yes," said Gabriel, "it's dreadful to be young when a man's drowning,
for you can't do any thing. Hist!"

There was not a movement, as they heard a dull, distant sound.

"I guess that's Jim Greenidge," whispered Little Malacca, under his
breath; "he's the best diver."

Nobody answered. The slow minutes passed. Some of the boys peered timidly
into the dark, and clung closer to their neighbors.

"There they come!" said Gabriel suddenly, in a low voice, and in a few
moments the beat of the oars was heard again. Still nobody spoke. Most of
the boys were afraid that when the boat appeared they should see a dead
body, and they dreaded it. Some felt homesick, and began to cry. The
throb of oars came nearer and nearer. The boat glimmered out of the
darkness, and almost at the same moment slid up the shore. The solemn
undertone in which the rowers spoke told all. Death was in the boat.

Gabriel Bennet could see the rowers step quickly out, and with great care
run the boat upon the truck. He said, "Come, boys!" and they all moved
together and grasped the rope.

"Forward!" said Mr. Gray.

Something lay across the seats covered with a large cloak. The boys did
not look behind, but they all knew what they were dragging. The homely
funeral-car rolled slowly along under the stars. The crickets chirped;
the multitudinous voice of the summer night murmured on every side,
mingling with the hollow rumble of the truck. In a few moments the
procession turned into the grounds, and the boat was drawn to the
platform.

"The little boys may go," said Mr. Gray.

They dropped the rope and turned away. They did not even try to see
what was done with the body; but when Blanding came out of the house
afterward, they asked him who found the drowned man.

"Jim Greenidge," said he. "He stripped as soon as we were well out on the
pond, and asked the stranger gentleman to show him about where his friend
sank. The moment the place was pointed out he dove. The first time he
found nothing. The second time he touched him"--the boys shuddered--"and
he actually brought him up to the surface. But he was quite dead. Then
we took him into the boat and covered him over. That's all."

There were no more games, there was no other talk, that evening. When the
boys were going to bed, Gabriel asked Little Malacca in which room Jim
Greenidge slept.

"He sleeps in Number Seven. Why?"

"Oh! I only wanted to know."

Gabriel Bennet could not sleep. His mind was too busy with the events of
the day. All night long he could think of nothing but the strong figure
of Jim Greenidge erect in the summer night, then plunging silently into
the black water. When it was fairly light he hurried on his clothes, and
passing quietly along the hall, knocked at the door of Number Seven.

"Who's there?" cried a voice within.

"It's only me."

"Who's me?"

"Gabriel Bennet."

"Come in, then."

It was Abel Newt who spoke; and as Gabriel stepped in, Newt asked,
abruptly,

"What do you want?"

"I want to speak to Jim Greenidge."

"Well, there he is," replied Newt, pointing to another bed. "Jim! Jim!"

Greenidge roused himself.

"What's the matter?" said his cheery voice, as he rose upon his elbow and
looked at Gabriel with his kind eyes. "Come here, Gabriel. What is it?"

Gabriel hesitated, for Abel Newt was looking sharply at him. But in a
moment he went to Greenidge's bedside, and said, shyly, in a low voice,

"Shall I black your boots for you?"

"Black my boots! Why, Gabriel, what on earth do you mean? No, of course
you shall not."

And the strong youth looked pleasantly on the boy who stood by his
bedside, and then put out his hand to him.

"Can't I brush your clothes then, or do any thing for you?" persisted
Gabriel, softly.

"Certainly not. Why do you want to?" replied Greenidge.

"Oh! I only thought it would be pleasant if I could do something--that's
all," said Gabriel, as he moved slowly away. "I'm sorry to have waked
you."

He closed the door gently as he went out. Jim Greenidge lay for some time
resting upon his elbow, wondering why a boy who had scarcely ever spoken
a word to him before should suddenly want to be his servant. He could
make nothing of it, and, tired with the excitement of the previous
evening, he lay down again for a morning nap.




CHAPTER V.

PEEWEE PREACHING.


Upon the following Sunday the Rev. Amos Peewee, D.D., made a suitable
improvement of the melancholy event of the week. He enlarged upon the
uncertainty of life. He said that in the midst of life we are in death.
He said that we are shadows and pursue shades. He added that we are here
to-day and gone to-morrow.

During the long prayer before the sermon a violent thunder-gust swept
from the west and dashed against the old wooden church. As the Doctor
poured forth his petitions he made the most extraordinary movements with
his right hand. He waved it up and down rapidly. He opened his eyes for
an instant as if to find somebody. He seemed to be closing imaginary
windows--and so he was. It leaked out the next day at Mr. Gray's that Dr.
Peewee was telegraphing the sexton at random--for he did not know where
to look for him--to close the windows. Nobody better understood the
danger of draughts from windows, during thunder-storms, than the Doctor;
nobody knew better than he that the lightning-rod upon the spire was no
protection at all, but that the iron staples with which it was clamped
to the building would serve, in case of a bolt's striking the church, to
drive its whole force into the building. As a loud crash burst over the
village in the midst of his sermon, and showed how frightfully near the
storm was, his voice broke into a shrill quaver, as he faltered out,
"Yes, my brethren, let us be calm under all circumstances, and Death
will have no terrors."

The Rev. Amos Peewee had been settled in the village of Delafield since a
long period before the Revolution, according to the boys. But the parish
register carried the date only to the beginning of this century. He wore
a silken gown in summer, and a woolen gown in winter, and black worsted
gloves, always with the middle finger of the right-hand glove slit,
that he might more conveniently turn the leaves of the Bible, and the
hymn-book, and his own sermons.

The pews of the old meeting-house were high, and many of them square. The
heads of the people of consideration in the congregation were mostly
bald, as beseems respectable age, and as the smooth, shiny line of pates
appeared above the wooden line of the pews they somehow sympathetically
blended into one gleaming surface of worn wood and skull, until it seemed
as if the Doctor's theological battles were all fought upon the heads of
his people.

But the Doctor was by no means altogether polemical. After defeating and
utterly confounding the fathers who fired their last shot a thousand
years ago, and who had not a word to say against his remaining master of
the field, he was wont to unbend his mind and recreate his fancy by
practical discourses. His sermons upon lying were celebrated all through
the village. He gave the insidious vice no quarter. He charged upon it
from all sides at once. Lying couldn't stand for a moment. White lies,
black lies, blue lies, and green lies, lies of ceremony, of charity, and
of good intention disappeared before the lightning of his wrath. They are
all children of the Devil, with different complexions, said Dr. Peewee.

But if lying be a vice, surely, said he, discretion is a virtue. "My
dear Mr. Gray," said Dr. Peewee to that gentleman when he was about
establishing his school in the village, and was consulting with the
Doctor about bringing his boys to church--"my dear Mr. Gray," said the
Doctor, putting down his cigar and stirring his toddy (he was of an
earlier day), "above all things a clergyman should be discreet. In
fact, Christianity is discretion. A man must preach at sins, not sinners.
Where would society be if the sins of individuals were to be rudely
assaulted?--one more lump, if you please. A man's sins are like his
corns. Neither the shoe nor the sermon must fit too snugly. I am a
clergyman, but I hope I am also a man of common sense--a practical man,
Mr. Gray. The general moral law and the means of grace, those are the
proper themes of the preacher. And the pastor ought to understand the
individual characters and pursuits of his parishioners, that he may
avoid all personality in applying the truth."

"Clearly," said Mr. Gray.

"For instance," reasoned the Doctor, as he slowly stirred his toddy, and
gesticulated with one skinny forefinger, occasionally sipping as he went
on, "if I have a deacon in my church who is a notorious miser, is it not
plain that, if I preach a strong sermon upon covetousness, every body in
the church will think of my deacon--will, in fact, apply the sermon to
him? The deacon, of course, will be the first to do it. And then, why,
good gracious! he might even take his hat and cane and stalk heavily down
the broad aisle, under my very nose, before my very eyes, and slam the
church door after him in my very face! Here at once is difficulty in the
church; hard feeling; perhaps even swearing. Am I, as a Christian
clergyman, to give occasion to uncharitable emotions, even to actual
profanity? Is not a Christian congregation, was not every early Christian
community, a society of brothers? Of course they were; of course we must
be. Little children, love one another. Let us dwell together, my
brethren, in amity," said the Doctor, putting down his glass, and
forgetting that he was in Mr. Gray's study; "and please give me your
ears while I show you this morning the enormity of burning widows upon
the funeral pyres of their husbands."

This was the Peewee Christianity; and after such a sermon the deacon has
been known to say to his wife--thin she was in the face, which had a
settled shade, like the sober twilight of valleys from which the sun has
long been gone, though it has not yet set--

"What shocking people the Hindoos are! They actually burn widows! My
dear, how grateful we ought to be that we live in a Christian country
where wives are not burned!--Abraham! if you put another stick of wood
into that stove I'll skin you alive, Sir. Go to bed this instant, you
wicked boy!--It must be bad enough to be a widow, my dear, let alone
the burning. Shall we have evening prayers, Mrs. Deacon?"

In the evening of the day on which the Doctor improved the drowning, and
exhorted his hearers to be brave, Mr. Gray asked Gabriel Bennet, "Where
was the text?"

"I don't know, Sir," replied Gabriel. As he spoke there was the sound of
warm discussion on the other side of the dining-room, in which the boys
sat during the evening.

"What is it, Gyles?" asked Mr. Gray.

"Why, Sir," replied he, "it's nothing. We were talking about a ribbon,
Sir."

"What ribbon?"

"A ribbon we saw at church, Sir."

"Well, whose was it?" asked Mr. Gray.

"I believe it was Miss Hope Wayne's."

"You believe, Gyles? Why don't you speak out?"

"Well, Sir, the fact is that Abel Newt says she had a purple ribbon on
her bonnet--"

"She hadn't," said Gabriel, breaking in, impetuously. "She had a
beautiful blue ribbon, and lilies of the valley inside, and a white
lace vail, and--"

Gabriel stopped and turned very red, for he caught Abel Newt's eyes fixed
sharply upon him.

"Oh ho! the text was there, was it?" asked Mr. Gray, smiling.

But Abel Newt only said, quietly:

"Oh well! I guess it _was_ a blue ribbon after all."




CHAPTER VI.

EXPERIMENTUM CRUCIS.


"The truth is, Gyles;" said Abel to Blanding, his chum, "Gabriel Bennet's
mother ought to come and take him home for the summer to play with the
other calves in the country. People shouldn't leave their spoons about."

The two boys went in to tea.

In the evening, as the pupils were sitting in the dining-room, as usual,
some chatting, some reading, others quite ready to go to bed,

"Mr. Gray," said Abel to Uncle Savory, who was sitting talking with Mrs.
Gray, whose hands, which were never idle, were now busily knitting.

"Well, Abel."

"Suppose we have some game."

"Certainly. Boys, what shall we do? Let us see. There's the Grand Mufti,
and the Elements, and My ship's come loaded with--and--well, what shall
it be?"

"Mr. Gray, it's a good while since we've tried all calling out together.
We haven't done it since Gabriel Bennet came."

"No, we haven't," answered Mr. Gray, as his small eyes twinkled at the
prospect of a little fun; "no, we haven't. Now, boys, of course a good
many of you have played the game before. But you, new boys, attend! the
thing is this. When I say three--_one, two, three_!--every body is to
shout out the name of his sweet-heart. The fun is that nobody hears any
thing, because every body bawls so loud. You see?" asked he, apparently
feeling for his handkerchief. "Gabriel, before we begin, just run into
the study and get my handkerchief."

Gabriel, full of expectation of the fun, ran out of the room. The moment
he closed the door Mr. Gray lifted his finger and said,

"Now, boys! every body remain perfectly quiet when I say three."

It was needless to explain why, for every body saw the intended joke, and
Gabriel returned instantly from the study saying that the handkerchief
was not there.

"No matter," said Mr. Gray. "Are you all ready, boys. Now, then--_one,
two, three_!"

As the word left Mr. Gray's lips, Gabriel, candid, full of spirit, jumped
up from his seat with the energy of his effort, and shouted out at the
top of his voice,

"Hope Wayne!"

--It was cruel. That name alone broke the silence, ringing out in
enthusiastic music.

Gabriel's face instantly changed. Still standing erect and dismayed, he
looked rapidly around the room from boy to boy, and at Mr. Gray. There
was just a moment of utter silence, and then a loud peal of laughter.

Gabriel's color came and went. His heart winced, but not his eye. Young
hearts are tender, and a joke like this cuts deeply. But just as he was
about to yield, and drop the tell-tale tear of a sensitive, mortified boy,
he caught the eye of Abel Newt. It was calmly studying him as a Roman
surgeon may have watched the gladiator in the arena, while his life-blood
ebbed away. Gabriel remembered Abel's words in the play-ground--"There's
more than one kind of fagging."

When the laugh was over, Gabriel's had been loudest of all.




CHAPTER VII.

CASTLE DANGEROUS.


The next day when school was dismissed, Abel asked leave to stroll out
of bounds. He pushed along the road, whistling cheerily, whipping the
road-side grass and weeds with his little ratan, and all the while
approaching the foot of the hill up which the road wound through the
estate of Pinewood. As he turned up the hill he walked more slowly,
and presently stopped and leaned upon a pair of bars which guarded the
entrance of one of Mr. Burt's pastures. He gazed for some time down into
the rich green field that sloped away from the road toward a little
bowery stream, but still whistled, as if he were looking into his mind
rather than at the landscape.

After leaning and musing and vaguely whistling, he turned up the hill
again and continued his walk.

At length he reached the entrance of Pinewood--a high iron gate, between
huge stone posts, on the tops of which were urns overflowing with vines,
that hung down and partly tapestried the columns. Immediately upon
entering the grounds the carriage avenue wound away from the gate, so
that the passer-by could see nothing as he looked through but the hedge
which skirted and concealed the lawn. The fence upon the road was a high,
solid stone wall, along whose top clustered a dense shrubbery, so that,
although the land rose from the road toward the house, the lawn was
entirely sequestered; and you might sit upon it and enjoy the pleasant
rural prospect of fields, woods, and hills, without being seen from the
road. The house itself was a stately, formal mansion. Its light color
contrasted well with the lofty pine-trees around it. But they, in turn,
invested it with an air of secrecy and gloom, unrelieved by flowers or
blossoming shrubs, of which there were no traces near the house, although
in the rear there was a garden so formally regular that it looked like a
penitentiary for flowers.

These were the pine-trees that Hope Wayne had heard sing all her
life--but sing like the ocean, not like birds or human voices. In the
black autumn midnights they struggled with the north winds that smote
them fiercely and filled the night with uproar, while the child cowering
in her bed thought of wrecks on pitiless shores--of drowning mothers and
hapless children. Through the summer nights they sighed. But it was not
a lullaby--it was not a serenade. It was the croning of a Norland
enchantress, and young Hope sat at her open window, looking out into
the moonlight, and listening.

Abel Newt opened the gate and passed in. He walked along the avenue, from
which the lawn was still hidden by the skirting hedge, went up the steps,
and rang the bell.

"Is Mr. Burt at home?" he asked, quietly.

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