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Harpour made a spring at Henderson to thrash him for these words, but again the burly Cradock interposed by saying, good-humouredly, as he put himself in Harpour's way, "There, stop squabbling, for goodness' sake, you two, and let's have a little peace. Flip, you shut up." Alas! how easily things go wrong! And there follows a mist and a weeping rain, And life is never the same again!
But when Harpour's blow knocked him down, he had dashed his head with some violence on the floor, and this had hurt him so much and made him feel so ill, that Dr Keith was not without secret fears about the possibility of a concussion of the brain. Yet all the sorrow which Walter now felt was for Eden, and he was not thinking of himself.
It is a mean price for which he has sold his peace of conscience "the sweetness of the cup that is charged with poison, the beauty of the serpent whose bite is death." Eden, who is seated reading on one of the benches by the wall, has recovered from his illness, but he is not, and never will be, what, but for Harpour's brutality, he might have been. He is a nervous, timid, intellectual boy.
Walter hit him a steady blow in the face, and the fight between these unequally-matched combatants a boy not fifteen against a much stronger boy of seventeen began. The result could not be dubious. Walter fought with indomitable pluck; it was splendid to see the sturdiness with which he bore up under the blows of Harpour's strong fist, which he could only return at intervals.
"You shan't touch him," said Kenrick; "you'd no right to search him, in the first place." "I mean to cane him, Kenrick. Who will prevent me?" "We will," said several voices; among which Harpour's and Mackworth's were prominent. "You mean to try and prevent it by force?" "Yes." "And, Kenrick, you abet this?" "I do," said Kenrick, who had lost all self-control.
But only fancy that fellow Kenrick fighting against us like this, and giving his casting vote against Harpour's being thrashed! You've no idea, Walter, how that fellow's changed." He was interrupted, for Eden woke with a short scream, and, starting up in bed, looked round with a scared expression, shuddering and moaning as he fell back again on his pillow.
"Oh! oh! oh!" began a few of Harpour's claqueurs, and the chorus was again swelled by a score of others. "I repeat it of deliberate, diabolical cruelty, chosen just because there was nothing more cruel they dared to do.
But who do you think is foremost champion on the school side stirring them up to resist, abusing you, abusing Flip, abusing the monitors, and making light of Harpour's doings?" Walter asked "Who?" but he knew beforehand that Power's answer would be "Kenrick!"
The second monitor, Danvers, quietly seized Harpour's right arm, and Macon, one of the biggest fellows in the fifth-form, of his own accord got up and seized the other, Harpour's heart sank at this, for Danvers and the other were with him in the cricket eleven, and he was not as strong as either of them singly.
"I captured it off someone's leg, who was under my bed last night," said Walter, giving it into Harpour's hand. "The deuce you did!" "Yes; and I smacked the fellow with it, as I will do again, if he comes again." "The deuce you will!
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