FINCH’S HOUR

For our friends the incident was closed. Jimmie took his seat in the prefect meetings on Sunday nights and solemnly assisted, with increasing interest, in “running the school,” as the members of those conclaves were accustomed to term their labors. Tony acquiesced in the inevitable with a good grace, and beyond discussing the matter in its various aspects, with Jimmie and to some extent with Mr. Morris, who was handicapped in expressing his opinion by professional loyalty, he kept his mouth shut.

Others did not. Decisions of such a nature, important to the life of a school, are rarely long kept secret. And in this instance, the Head Master did not resent the facts being known, though he himself of course maintained an absolute reserve. The facts were known sooner or later, and with a fair degree of accuracy. And the knowledge increased neither Mr. Roylston’s popularity nor his peace of mind. Indeed he found himself increasingly unable to extract comfort from the reflection that a deserved punishment had been fearlessly administered or that in being just he was as wise as if he had also been merciful. During that term Mr. Roylston had many bad quarters of an hour.

As for Tony, as Doctor Forester had predicted, the loss of the Head Prefectship added to rather than diminished from his strength among his schoolmates. He became, quite naturally and spontaneously, the unofficial adviser of the prefect body, and particularly of Clavering, who made a point of consulting him upon all important matters that came to the prefects’ notice. The effect of this generosity on Clavering’s part was to reveal the two boys to each other and to establish a firm friendship between them.

Clavering was a heavy, solid, serious-minded boy, of a mighty frame and muscle, but slow, patient and cautious in his thought and emotions. Until Tony had become fairly intimate with him, he had never appreciated his classmate’s deep and earnest character; just as Clavering, until he got behind Tony’s light-hearted genial pleasantness of manner and speech, had not realized that there was anything there worth while,—any seriousness of purpose, soundness of feeling, or loyalty to principle. He had taken Tony superficially, and was surprised in the course of the term to find how much he had grown to like him; how much, too, he was depending on Tony’s judgment and feeling in the various matters with which the Head Prefect in a large school may have to deal.

“I’m slow; you’re quick,” he said to Tony one night. “I’m fairly sure, I suppose, when I make up my mind,—but it takes me the deuce of a long time to see things straight. You seem to see into a situation, to know a fellow, right off.”

“Well, I dare say I’m quick, but I make lots of mistakes, you know,” laughed Tony, pleased with the compliment, especially coming from a boy who never paid them.

“They don’t seem to count for much then,” was Clavering’s reply. He forgot that one of Tony’s mistakes accounted for himself rather than Tony being the Head of the School.

“That is more comforting as a general proposition than as an afterthought,” said Tony ambiguously, and turned the subject of conversation to football.

In this field Clavering seemed an expert. And such indeed he proved himself again on the gridiron that fall, for Deal turned out one of the best teams that Jack Stenton could remember, and that was paying it very high praise. They won all their games, including the one with Boxford by a score of 24 to 0, which was the largest on record. Clavering was a tower of strength to the team, and Tony, who had lost nothing of his fleetness, again distinguished himself by some brilliant, if not quite such dramatic runs as twice before he had made.

Before the boys realized it the football season was over, and the Sixth Form were looking forward to their last Christmas vacation of school days. This time Tony took Jimmie Lawrence to Low Deering with him, and had the keen pleasure of initiating his best friend into all the associations and delights of his home and country.

The Deering fortunes were in better shape, particularly as Victor had kept his promise, and was devoting himself with industrious zeal to the plantation. The old general took a great fancy to Jimmie, particularly he found a bond between him and the boy in mutual literary tastes. The old man could not lead a very intellectual life, but he reverenced it and longed for it. The promise of Jimmie’s appreciation and powers was to him peculiarly delightful. The boys had a capital vacation, so that they were sorry when it came to an end and they were back at Deal again for the long winter term.

Since his confession Finch avoided Deering. He felt self-conscious about his sentimental outbreak against being “thrown over.” Tony certainly had not thrown him over, but he did not see his way to be with Finch anything more than persistently patient and kind. Only once afterward was the subject of their conversation of the night of the faculty-meeting reopened.

“Of course, Jake,” Tony said, “you see, just as well as I do, how absolutely wrong your actions were. I am going to leave it entirely to you to set yourself right with Wilson—right to the extent, at least, of letting him know that you are sorry. He has been mighty decent to keep quiet.”

“Oh, he hasn’t kept quiet,” Finch rejoined sullenly. “Most of your crowd—of his crowd, anyway, know more or less about it. I have seen that all along.”

“Well, perhaps they do; I have not heard them speak of it anyway. Kit can’t have told it very generally, or I would have heard.”

“Oh, I don’t know—not after the row you had with him about me. They all like you too much, except Wilson, to give you a chance to get sore again. They don’t think me worth bothering about.”

“Well, even so—you have given some cause for that attitude now. But I tell you what, I want to get right with Kit again. Not, old chap, at the price of throwing you over—don’t think that!—but, on the other hand, I don’t want to make keeping on good terms with you the price of Kit’s friendship. There isn’t need. And can’t you see that I cannot be the one to tell Kit the—to tell Kit about you?”

Finch did not see, but he kept silent. He appreciated neither Tony’s deep feeling for his friend nor Tony’s delicate consideration for him. He was thinking dolefully of just how miserable and unfortunate and unlovable he was. Yet, with all the ardor of his intense famished little soul, he clung to Deering’s patient tolerance, and mutely resolved to give him no chance of “flinging him off.” But as for going to Kit with the truth, that was an act of which he was incapable, an act of which he was even incapable of perceiving the point.

“I’m just worthless, Deering,” he said at last miserably, “I’ll be thankful when it’s all over.”

“Now, cut that out, Jake. Get out and play with somebody. Don’t mope round all the time; and come in often and see us. Jimmie is glad to have you.”

“Thanks,” said Finch. He longed to open again the conversation about the Head Prefectship, and learn from Tony what he really felt about that, but with dull shame for his baseness, he did not dare. And as for Tony that was a subject that he felt he never could discuss with Finch again.

Time drifted on. Finch continued to worship Deering, but he avoided him more than he had done before, and lived his own lonely, unhappy life, as many a boy had done before him at school, with all that young world around him, gay, spirited, uncaring. Morris cared, but to his advances Finch proved adamant. As the term advanced, in the inevitable distraction to other interests and pleasures, it was only natural that the attention Tony had concentrated on Finch at the opening of the term, should have slacked. After a time, growing used to seeing less of him, even Tony began to feel that Finch was getting on well enough, and ceased for the most part to worry about him.

Finch had not forgotten his grudge against Mr. Roylston, but rather nursed it with the tenacity of such a nature, and took a gloomy pleasure in planning from time to time impossible schemes of revenge. For a long time Deering’s tranquillity with regard to the Head Prefectship disarmed Jacob. It was hard to resent for your hero what he himself did not resent. But he nursed his grudge.

It happened along in January that the prefects had occasion to deal with some disciplinary irregularities. Being governed by Clavering’s advice, they frankly mismanaged the case and involved two or three boys in a somewhat unfair predicament. Clavering, realizing that his judgment had been at fault, appealed to Deering, who had the good luck to make a suggestion that speedily set matters straight and saved the school from rather a mess. The boys talked over the affair quite generally, and as often happens, they criticised Clavering somewhat sharply, spoke indeed more harshly, most of them, than they really felt. Finch overheard a discussion of the incident in the common-rooms which was concluded by Teddy Lansing affirming rather loudly and tactlessly, “Well, it was a rotten roast when Deering did not get the Head Prefectship in the first place. Clavering is a blundering old cow.”

“That it was—a rotten roast!” came in a sharp staccato from a near-by corner. Finch had spoken, impulsively, and quite unusually drawing attention to himself.

“Yeaaaaa! Yeaaaa!” was returned in full chorus which half jeered at the boy, half applauded his sentiments.

“Bully for you, Pinch!” shouted Teddy. “You stick up for your friend, don’t you?”

“Friend or no friend,” answered Finch, with unwonted boldness, “it was a roast. He was cheated out of it.”

“Guess he was,” agreed another boy. “How’d it come about, d’ye know?”

“Yes, I know,” Finch answered, “but I’m not saying.”

“Oh, inside information, eh?”

“If you want to call it that.”

“Who from—Tony Deering?”

Finch turned to his questioner with a vicious snarl. “No, it wasn’t from Tony Deering. He don’t care. It doesn’t make any difference to him, but it makes a lot of difference to the school.”

“Well, who cooked his goose?”

“Who cooks everybody’s goose?” demanded Finch.

“Well, I guess, Pinch my boy, it don’t need a prophet to answer that question,” Teddy responded. “Very likely it was the mild and gentle Ebenezer Gumshoe Roylston. You’re right, I guess. But let me tell you,” he added, as he pulled Finch aside, “Tony’s the last person in the world who would thank you for discussing his affairs in a crowd.”

Finch suddenly realized the truth of this remark, hung his head, and sidled away. But this outbreak on Tony’s behalf had excited him. It brought back all the old hopes and fears, the old pangs of disappointment and chagrin, and renewed his rage against Mr. Roylston.

Not long after the conversation which has just been reported, the mid-year examinations were held. Finch, who still had difficulty with his Latin, had studied particularly hard, and had practically crammed by heart the translation of several difficult passages from Cicero’s Orations upon which the Sixth Form were to be examined. As soon as he entered the examination room, over which Mr. Roylston was presiding, and had looked over his paper, noting that two of the passages he had so poled up were on it, he quickly wrote them out on a separate piece of paper, intending to write them into his examination book at his leisure; then he bent laboriously to his task of working out the paper.

Mr. Roylston, an argus-eyed examiner, eventually observed from his desk that Finch was copying something into his examination book from a detached slip of paper. He strolled leisurely and softly about the room and advanced down the aisle where Finch was sitting from behind. As he reached the boy, he glanced down over his shoulder, and saw what he was doing. He suspected, not without reason, that Finch was not strictly honest in his work, and the present circumstance, it must be confessed, had all the appearance of cheating.

Without warning he reached over Finch’s shoulder, and took the examination book and the sheet of paper on which the translated passages of Cicero were written from the hands of the astonished and frightened boy. “You may leave the room,” he said, “and report to me in my study to-night at eight o’clock.”

Finch looked up at him wildly. “What’s the matter? What are you doing that for?” he exclaimed excitedly.

“You understand perfectly well,” the master replied sharply. “You are excused from this examination. Leave the room! Do you understand me?”

“No—!” began Finch, flushing crimson.

“Go!” repeated Mr. Roylston, pointing to the door, heedless of the excited attention of the boys around.

The color fled from Finch’s face as swiftly as it had come. He rose, threw down his pencil, and dashed out of the room. Mr. Roylston folded the papers, and then composed the schoolroom with a glance.

Finch was not seen about the school again that day. At nightfall he returned from the Woods where he had taken refuge, bought himself a bun or so at the Pie-house, for he was nearly famished, and having thus made a frugal supper, at eight o’clock he presented himself at the door of Mr. Roylston’s study in Howard House.

The master had no doubt in his mind that he had detected a flagrant case of cheating, a crime that was above all others abominable in his eyes. He bade Finch enter, when he heard his soft knock at his door, and then let him stand awkwardly a moment or so while he examined him critically. The haggard face, the hunted look, seemed to him those of a criminal.

“Ah!” he said at last, “you are here.”

“Yes—I am here,” Finch answered sullenly. “What do you want with me!”

“Don’t forget yourself. Incidentally, I may say, that you have involved yourself in an excessive number of late marks, if not in more serious trouble, by your prolonged absence to-day.”

“I’ll attend to that. What do you want with me?”

“In the first place, and instantly,” said Mr. Roylston in acid tones, “I want a respectful demeanor.”

Finch bit his lips. “I’m sorry.... But I’ll take what’s coming to me for being away to-day. You told me to report to you at eight o’clock. I am here.”

“Yes,” observed the master, “you are here. To come to the point——”

“Yes, yes,—why did you take my examination book?”

Mr. Roylston had not gauged the boy’s attitude as yet. He supposed he would lie—that kind of a boy usually did. He sought Finch’s weak troubled eyes with a piercing glance. “I took it,” he said, in a cold judicial voice, “because you were cheating.”

“I was not cheating!” Finch exclaimed passionately.

Mr. Roylston smiled patiently. “The evidence is sufficiently strong as scarcely to admit of mistake. You may affect to deny it; but I tell you candidly, young man, I have suspected you before; and further, you will scarcely be surprised to hear that I have very little confidence in your word.”

Finch gulped. “I was not cheating!” he repeated, but in trembling tones. For the moment despair got the better of the determination in which he had come to keep that appointment. He had cheated before. A wave of emotion swept over him, and he swayed for a moment from sheer physical weakness. What difference did it make? he felt. He did not care. A wild impulse seized him to tell the truth boldly. He would tell everything, confess everything, but about that one thing he would be believed. It was the end, he knew; but he would not have the end come and himself be involved, convicted, of what was not true. There was enough that was. The master was looking at him coldly, but for the moment was saying nothing. Finch put his hand out to a near-by table to steady himself.

“Ah!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston, a gleam of triumph in his sharp black eyes, “I see that you do not mean to dispute me.”

“Do you want the truth?” cried Finch, meeting the master’s eye again with a fierce look.

“Naturally.”

“Then you shall have it!”

Finch threw back his head; he expanded in body and soul; and kept his eyes fastened on Mr. Roylston’s countenance in which he was to see a variety of emotions depicted in the next few moments. He felt his hour was come.

“You shall have it!” he repeated, moistening his parched lips.

To Mr. Roylston’s fascinated gaze, the boy seemed transformed; a soul, misshaped, distorted, hitherto utterly abased, had risen in that despised body, and was leaping forth from the boy’s eyes to grapple with his own soul. He had a sickening sense that he was about to pass through an unseemly scene, the most unseemly and disagreeable scene of his life, and that he was powerless to avert it.

“You shall have it,” repeated Finch again. “I have cheated—cheated—cheated—day after day—day after day. And I’ll tell you why. Because, slave as I would, work as I could for you, I never got one mark of credit, one word of praise, one syllable of recognition from your cold hateful mouth. I tried like a dog to do my best for you—it was poor, but it was my best! but it was no use. From the day I got to this place you have hated and despised me. Oh, I have seen it, and knew it, and cursed you, cursed you for it. You wouldn’t let yourself be fair. Do you know, I’ve lived in hell in this school. And at last, I determined to cheat you, to pay you back in the only dirty way I knew how. But to-day, something—I don’t know what—it wasn’t fear of you—something made me honest. The paper you took from me I had written out from memory after I got into the room.”

“Stick to facts,” said the master.

“I am sticking to facts. Believe it or not—it’s true. That’s true, though I who tell it am a cheat and a liar and a sneak. I have been all that—not because I was made that way or wanted to be, I don’t think, but because I couldn’t get a chance to be myself, couldn’t get a show. And you—you kept me from being decent as much as anybody else, as much as the biggest bully in the school. You want me to stick to facts. All right, I’ll stick to ‘em. I have hated you. I have hated you so that many a time I’ve wanted to kill you. And because I couldn’t think of any way to fight you in the open, I have been low and vile, and fought you in the dark. You thought Kit Wilson rough-housed your rooms last year, didn’t you? That’s the way you suspect people without evidence, and act on your suspicions and can’t hide ‘em when you don’t dare to act. I hate Wilson too, so I was glad when you thought he was the guilty one. But I did it, I tell you. I rough-housed your rooms and hid your papers and messed up your desk drawers and books. I couldn’t stand it. I can’t stand it any longer. You’ll have me fired, I know that—and I don’t care. But for once in your life you are hearing what is thought of you. You’re hated, hated, hated!”

The boy paused for a moment, out of breath, still clutching the table desperately. Mr. Roylston tried but could not speak. A thousand emotions stung him to the quick; and deep within, there was a sense, outrageous as was this attack, that he was at the bar of an avenging justice, paying with bitter humiliation for the lack of charity of which the boy’s wild words convicted him. At last he found his voice, but he was still under the spell of the strange situation.

“I will tolerate this extraordinary conversation a moment longer. Why have you so viciously hated me?”

“Why—because you are cruel,” cried Finch, recovering himself, “because you are pitiless, because you do wicked, unkind things in the name of justice. Yes, yes, you shall have it all. You have never given me one chance, and you were glad—glad to-day when you thought you had caught me at last. You are always suspecting, suspecting evil—until at last your suspicions find it or create it. You have scared me, hurt me, hounded me—I don’t know how you do it, but you do do it—and, thank God, you’ll never do it again. Of course, you’ll have me fired now, I know that, and I don’t care. And I deserve to be. I ain’t fit to be here. But it’s you as much as anyone else that’s kept me from being fit. I am just full of hate and malice. Don’t I know it? Don’t I suffer from it?”

“Aside from my severity—or my cruelty, as you are pleased to call it,—for what else do you blame me?”

“Above all,” cried Finch, and a note of exultation rang in his voice, “above all for the way you’ve treated Anthony Deering. I know him, and he is the soul of honor, he has a heart. You or I aren’t fit to unlace his boots. You kept him from getting what he deserved—the Head Prefectship.”

“Deering told you that?”

“No, Deering didn’t tell me that. Deering’s not that sort, don’t you know it, can’t you believe it? He isn’t a sneak; but I am; and I listened under the windows of the faculty room the night you spoke against him, the first night of this year. And what had he done against you except what half the fellows do to most of the masters more or less all the time? But you wouldn’t forgive him, though he was fool enough to be sorry for what he had done, for making fun of you. But you couldn’t be kind. I listened—I heard it all. You saved that paper, and bided your time, that’s what you did—waited your chance to get even. Do you know that many a night I’ve laid in bed and prayed for courage to get up and come over and do some terrible thing to you. I’ve actually wanted to kill you. But I don’t want to now. The bitterest medicine you can take is to have, for once in your life, some one else, though it’s only a worthless rotten chap like me, tell you to your face that you are cruel and unkind and that he despises you.”

At last Finch stopped. He was trembling violently, his cheeks were blazing, his eyes feverish and wild, but his soul was filled with a sense of triumph.

For a moment Mr. Roylston covered his face with his hand. Then he rose up quickly, master of himself again.

“You are excited and irresponsible.”

“I’m excited,” said Finch, “but I know perfectly well what I’m saying.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Roylston, “if you are not suddenly gone insane, you must leave this school at once. You will come with me instantly to Doctor Forester.”

“Oh, I’m ready to be fired.”

Mr. Roylston made no reply, but opened the study door, and motioned to the boy to follow him. They left Howard House and walked rapidly across the quadrangle to the Rectory. It was a warm humid night, after a week of intense cold. There was a pale young moon in the western sky.

As they reached the foot of the Rectory steps, Finch turned. “I’m not going in,” he exclaimed.

“Pardon me, you are, and at once.”

“I’m not. This is the end. I am done with it. I’m going to chuck it all. Say what you please, the time for browbeating, scaring me is gone. I’m off.”

“Where are you going?” cried the master in alarm.

“It doesn’t matter. You will never see me again.” With that he turned, and ran rapidly across the campus down the hill.

Mr. Roylston strained his eyes for a moment after the fleeing figure, then ran hastily up the steps, and knocked at the door of the Doctor’s study.

Doctor Forester himself opened the door, and drew the agitated master within. Deering, Lawrence and Clavering were sitting before the study fire. They had risen and were standing.

“What is the matter?” asked the Head quickly.

Mr. Roylston forgot the boys’ presence. “A serious thing—a very serious thing. Finch, just now, in my study, attacked me with the most wanton, intemperate abuse. I brought him to you—but here—at the very door he turned and fled....”

“Yes—fled—why—where?”

“It is very serious, I think. I think it would be better if these boys went after him at once. I fear something terrible may happen. I will explain later.” He sank exhausted into a chair.

“Which way has he gone, sir?” asked Tony.

“Across the campus—down the hill. Hurry, Deering, hurry! else something terrible may happen.”