THE CHAPEL

On the morrow the school learned the thrilling story of the night. The boys were filled with wonder at the heroism, only to be cast into the depths of anxiety by the news from the Infirmary. Finch, though living, was in a high fever and delirious; doomed, if he ultimately recovered, the physician said, to do so only after a severe illness. Deering was threatened with pneumonia. For nearly a week the issues were not certain. Then at last came the welcome announcement that Tony was out of danger and by another week would be about. Finch’s malady had developed into brain fever. It would be weeks before a crisis was reached; months before recovery could be hoped for.

Clavering and Lawrence told the story of the rescue, and left nothing to the imagination in their assertion and account of Tony’s heroism. In the excitement with which the boys listened to the tale and with which they waited for Tony’s reappearance that they might give him a splendid ovation, it was practically forgotten—and indeed few knew—why Finch had started across the Pond that night. The scene in the Rectory study when Mr. Roylston had appeared, was kept a strict secret, owing to the Head Master’s explicit injunctions.

One night, shortly after the episode, the first night that any favorable news had come from the Infirmary, as Doctor Forester was sitting before his study fire, there came a tap on the door, and in response to his summons, Mr. Roylston entered.

“Ah, I am glad to see you,” said the Head, who had been waiting, a little impatiently, for his assistant master to seek this interview. “Have a cigar?” he added.

“No, thank you,” said Mr. Roylston, seating himself in a straight-backed chair. “I have come—as soon as I could recover from the shock of recent events—to tell you what I know—what led me several nights ago, to bring Finch here.”

“Yes, yes,” said the Doctor, “I want to hear all about it. I have foreborne to question you, though I realized there was something behind it which in good time you would explain. Fortunately now, we are assured that Deering is out of danger. The doctor holds out some small hope for poor Finch, but it will be a tough pull.”

“Yes, I fear so. I hope, I hope deeply that he will recover. I am relieved to know that Deering is better.” He paused for a moment, as though he could scarcely bring himself to say what was on his mind. “Doctor Forester, I have come to-night not only to give you an explanation but to make a confession.”

“Yes,” said the Head in a sympathetic tone.

“I have always tried, sir, to do my duty in this school according to my light.”

“Yes,” said Doctor Forester, “I believe that, my friend.”

“But my light, sir, has often,—always, I fear, been a poor one.”

“Ah,” interposed the older man, “who of us would dare say otherwise? We all fall short, every one.”

“Possibly—but all are not too proud, as I have been, to acknowledge it. I have never acknowledged it, sir, until to-night—not even to myself.” He paused again, to continue presently, as he shaded his face with his hand, “I will not go into details, but I want to put it boldly, baldly. I have been hard, hard to the degree of cruelty, on that poor boy who is lying now in the delirium of a dangerous fever. God forgive me!... I disapproved, sir, of your taking him here, and though, even now, I cannot say that I think you were wise in that——”

“Alas, no!” interrupted the Head Master, “not if we are to judge by the immediate results. But I think I see deeper....”

The master thought a moment in silence. “Yes,” he said at last. “I think you do. It is having a wider, a deeper effect than I have realized.... But he, poor boy, has suffered, and I have so often, so uncharitably, made him suffer; while those, whom I have not liked, Morris, young Deering, and others, have been kind. It is terrible to me, sir, now to think of that suffering.”

“Yes, my friend, yes; I think it must be. You have been hard, too hard; but, thank God, righteousness comes of suffering. I can see, oh, in so many ways, how poor Finch’s suffering is teaching us all a lesson, teaching us a truer religion, a sweeter, kinder philosophy of life.”

“As I said,” Mr. Roylston resumed, “I was hard on him, hard on Deering, whom poor Finch worshiped with passionate adoration. And I accused Finch of cheating—he had not sometimes been strictly honest—but on that occasion, I misjudged him—wounded him deeply—he may have resisted a keen temptation. At any rate, worn-out, half-crazed, quite desperate, he came to me that night and made a passionate attack on me. His language was ill-tempered, ill-judged, violent!—but the awful part of it to me is, that in substance his accusations were justified. I had been, as he told me, so terribly cruel, hard, mean. I could not end the scene, unseemly as it was; for my conscience was accusing me more bitterly, more deeply, more violently than that poor half-crazed lad.... At last, scarcely knowing what to do, I sought to bring him to you.... At the very door of this room, he turned and fled. I feared he meant, as he had practically threatened, to destroy himself. And but for Deering how nearly he succeeded!”

“Yes, yes,” said the Head Master gently, “I see, I see....”

“And I have,” continued Mr. Roylston, “I have too been hard on Deering—have not acknowledged in him the qualities—manliness, honor, unselfishness—which I have known were there. He gladly sprang to the chance of laying down his life for the poor little abandoned wretch for whom I could not find a kind word. God forgive me, Doctor, I cannot forgive myself.”

“God does forgive you, my friend,” said the Head, without looking up. He had been gazing into the fire, thinking deeply.

Mr. Roylston did not reply to this remark, and for a few moments both men sat in silence, staring into the fire, absorbed in their thoughts.

It was Doctor Forester at last who spoke again. “It would be easy, my friend, to assure you that you exaggerate, that you do yourself injustice; and, in truth, I think you do. But I have no wish to urge that view upon you; for I believe, to be quite frank, that there is a poor weaker side to all of us that we never have a chance of conquering altogether unless we recognize it, and if for a long time we have not recognized it or have deceived ourselves, nothing is so good for us as a frank confession. As for the details of the incidents to which you refer, of course I am in ignorance, and I prefer to be. So far as I have observed your treatment toward Finch, it merited no criticism; and as for your attitude toward Deering, I have nothing to say that I did not say the night we discussed his appointment to the Head Prefectship. I thought you severe but not unjust. As a matter of fact, if you feel now that you could wish you had taken another course, I may tell you that I do not think the fact that Deering is not Head Prefect has in the least interfered with his popularity or his influence with the boys. Clavering has made him his right hand man.”

“I am glad of that,” said Mr. Roylston.

“And now, after this rescue of Finch at the risk of his own life,—undoubtedly he will be the strongest boy in school.”

“I think that I should like to tell him that I do fully forgive him—that I regret my stand with regard to his appointment.”

“Well,” said the Head Master, “I think that he would like to hear.”

With that Mr. Roylston said good-night. He walked over to the Infirmary at once and enquired about the two boys. Finch’s condition was still unsatisfactory, but Deering was very much better—and, yes, he was quite able to see Mr. Roylston if the master desired.

Tony was still in bed, but he looked splendidly well and bright as he lay in the cool white cot, which had been pushed near the open log fire. A nurse had been reading to him. He had had a close call, but now he was practically himself again and would be going down in a few days.

He was surprised to see Mr. Roylston, but not in the least embarrassed. He shook hands cordially. The master enquired about his health, made some perfunctory remarks about the rescue and about the school, fidgeting and ill at ease, until the nurse took the hint and slipped away.

“I came,” he said then, as he drew up the chair near the bedside and took a seat, “not only to enquire about you, as I have been doing daily, but to have a little talk with you, since I know you are practically all right again.”

“Yes, sir,” said Tony.

“Do you know, Anthony,” asked Mr. Roylston suddenly, “why it was that Jacob Finch tried to run away that night?”

“Why, no, sir—I don’t—not altogether, that is. Poor Jake was in a bad way; things had been getting pretty hard for him for one reason or another, and he was making them still harder for himself. I did hear that you caught him cheating in your Latin examination, and I just supposed that that was the last straw. He’s always been rather friendly with me, but he was so vicious that night down by the pond, refusing altogether to tell me why he was cutting out, that I thought him a little out of his head. But I supposed the cheating was really responsible.”

“Well,” rejoined Mr. Roylston, after a moment’s reflection, “as a matter of fact I was altogether mistaken about his cheating in that particular examination. I believe what he afterwards told me, that he had not cheated at all; though, as he also acknowledged he had cheated so often before that I can hardly blame myself for suspecting him.”

“Yes, I know,” said Tony; “I am afraid poor Jake lost all hold of himself. He was not naturally a cheat or a story-teller, but—but—well, I try to think he wasn’t altogether responsible.”

“Perhaps not—that night in my room, at all events, he quite lost control of himself as a result of my accusation, and he told me in a very bitter language that my attitude toward him had been one of the chief causes of his unhappiness here at Deal.”

Tony scarcely knew what to say to this, for of course he remembered how bitterly Finch had always hated Mr. Roylston. The master, however, did not expect a reply. “I think,” he went on, “that there was a good deal of justice in what the boy said, though I did not mean to go into that with you to-night. Among other things he told me that night that he intensely resented my attitude toward you.”

Tony laughed a little. “Jake showed equally bad judgment whether he greatly liked or disliked a person.”

“Well,” continued Mr. Roylston, “right or wrong, his remarks have caused me to think things over very seriously the last few days, and I have come to the conclusion that in this also Finch was right. I was hard on you—too hard.”

Tony lay still for a moment, thinking; finally he raised himself a little and looked at the master intently. “Mr. Roylston,” he said, “it’s mighty white of you to come and say this to me. In return I want to tell you just one thing—the one thing I have against you—the rest has been give and take, and none of it, it seems to me, very serious. I know I have annoyed you a great many times and that occasionally in Lower School days I was more or less impertinent, but I did one thing that I was thoroughly ashamed of and thoroughly sorry for. As for your soaking me a lot in the old days, as for your preventing me from being Head Prefect, I’ve borne no grudge. I think you were pretty stiff—I think honestly you are too stiff as to discipline most of the time—but I never thought you were unfair or unjust, and I have but one grudge against you. And that is that when I apologized to you for writing that thing a year ago you wouldn’t accept my apology really; you wouldn’t believe I was sorry.”

“Well, I believe so now,” said Mr. Roylston, “and it is to tell you that particularly that I have come here to-night.”

“I’m mighty glad, sir. That’s all I ever blamed you for, sir,—really. I have often complained of you in a noisy careless kind of way, as I have of other masters, but that was all guff. I didn’t any more really mean those things than I supposed you meant things when you would look at us sometimes as if we were actually beneath contempt.”

Mr. Roylston reflected a moment. “I am afraid,” he continued, “that on my side, I do regret a great many things. I have been genuinely lacking in sympathy more than once. I have often been unnecessarily hard. It has not been right; and, as you see, I regret it. The more keenly, I fancy, as my lack of sympathy in this particular case of Finch counted a great deal in what so nearly meant a tragedy.”

“Well, fortunately, it wasn’t one, sir. The nurse tells me that they think poor Jake will pull through.”

“Yes, but he will not get back to work again this term; there is no chance of that.”

“What do you think, sir, will happen to him? what will he do next year?”

“Well, I am beginning to feel as I have never felt before that after all this the situation will clear itself, will be changed. I fancy he will stay on at Deal next year, and I begin to think that we will know how then to help him make good.”

“Really?—well, I wish he could. I’d feel pretty good to know that poor Jake had made good here. I’m afraid I haven’t helped him very much.”

“Haven’t helped him very much!” exclaimed Mr. Roylston. “Though what you have done for him may seem not to have counted just now, I feel very certain that it will appear to count tremendously later.”

“Why, sir—I really didn’t do anything.”

Mr. Roylston smiled. “Well, I must not talk with you any longer. Good-night, Anthony. I hope you will get down very soon, and I trust that in the future we will understand one another a little better.”

“I am sure we will, sir. And thank you ever so much for coming up.”

“I fancy,” Mr. Roylston murmured to himself, as he left the room, “I fancy that hereafter I shall understand all boys a little better.”

On the Sunday of the week that Tony was in the Infirmary, the Doctor took the opportunity to make some remarks about the boy’s act of heroism in the course of his sermon in the Chapel.

“Fortunately,” he said, “one of the boys about whom we have been so anxious the past few days is now quite out of danger and will soon be amongst us once more, and though the other must still undergo a long and severe illness the physicians hold out strong hope of his ultimate recovery.

“Naturally,” he continued, “such a dramatic incident as the rescue of one boy by another at the risk of his life has brought vividly before our minds the characters of the two boys principally involved, their situation and relation to the school. One of these boys as we know has had the advantages of a normal, happy, healthy boyhood, the other through misfortune has been deprived of almost all that the first boy has enjoyed. But the self-forgetful service of the one for the other, a service that culminated in heroism when he freely risked his life to save the other’s, has set us all an example of kindliness and consideration, an example of true religion, of unselfish Christian service, that we should take to heart....

“There have been criticisms in connection with this affair that Deal School is only adapted to dealing with and caring for the happy, healthy, lucky type of boy. I do not think so. Despite much that has been unfortunate, despite much suffering that has been involved and still may be involved, despite even the lives that have been risked, it has been a thing tremendously worth while to the school to have had that less fortunate, less happy boy amongst us.

“It is a noble and a fine thing to risk one’s life to save the life of another, and I do not doubt that most, if not all, of our boys would gladly seize such an opportunity in the same spirit as it was seized by Anthony Deering and his companions a few nights since. That gladness to risk life should be a symbol of what is infinitely harder, and infinitely more needed, I may say, but of which also our friends set us the example,—the good will and unselfishness to live for others. A school altogether fails, just as a human life altogether fails, if at heart and in spirit, it is not dedicated, so far as opportunity permits, to the service of men. The lesson of this incident is the lesson that I would we might all learn from the school.”

The Doctor’s sermon was not the kind of a sermon to be much discussed, but it made a deep impression on the school. For one or two masters and for several boys it was the inspiration as they knelt later of as earnest prayer as they had ever offered.

Doctor Forester had been going frequently to the Infirmary to see Tony, and after the first few days he had continued his confirmation instructions so that Deering could keep up with the class.

Tony’s first appearance amongst the boys after his convalescence was in the Chapel at the preparatory service the night before the confirmation. It was a quiet little service, conducted by the Bishop and the Head. Again the theme of the address was service—a theme that in some fashion or other seemed to have flashed in and out of all Tony’s consciousness and experience for the past year.

As he knelt that night in the dim Chapel and offered up a grateful thanksgiving that life and health had been spared to him, he resolved more definitely and consciously than ever before that whatever he did in the world thereafter he would never live wholly or selfishly for himself.

And in after years he was to look back on that night, as he looked back on the night on the beach when he had walked with Mr. Morris, as another important moment in the process of his coming to himself.