CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE GOOD CONDUCT PRIZE.
It was three years after. Sometimes three years makes a considerablechange in grown-ups. More often it leaves them pretty much where theywere. But with boys and girls the world begins all over again everytwo years at most. So the terms went and came, and at each vacation,instead of returning home, Hugh John went to London. For it sohappened that the year he had left for school the house of WindyStandard was burned down almost to the ground, and Mr. Picton Smithtook advantage of the fact to build an entirely new mansion on asomewhat higher site.
The first house might have been saved had the Bounding Brothers beenin the neighbourhood, or indeed any active and efficient helpers. Butthe nearest engine was under the care of the Edam fire brigade, whoupon hearing of the conflagration, with great enthusiasm ran theirengine a quarter of a mile out of the town by hand. Then their ardoursuddenly giving out, they sat down and had an amicable smoke on theroadside till the horse was brought to drag the apparatus the rest ofthe distance.
But alas! the animal was too fat to be got between the shafts, so ithad to be sent back and a leaner horse forwarded. Meantime the houseof Windy Standard was blazing merrily, and when the Edam fire companyfinally arrived, the ashes were still quite hot.
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So in this way it came about that it was three long years before HughJohn again saw the hoary battlements of the ancient strength on thecastle island which he and his army had attacked so boldly. There weregreat changes in the town itself. The railway had come to Edam, andnow steamed and snorted under the very walls of the Abbey. Chimneyshad multiplied, and the smoke columns were taller and denser. Therubicund Provost had gone the way of all the earth, even of allprovosts! And the leading bailie, one Donnan, a butcher and armycontractor, sat with something less of dignity but equal efficiency inhis magisterial chair.
Hugh John from the station platform saw something of this with a sickheart, but he was sure that out in the pure air and infinite quiet ofWindy Standard he would find all things the same. But a new and finerhouse shone white upon the hill. Gardens flourished on unexpectedplaces with that appearance of having been recently planted,frequently pulled up by the roots, looked at and put back, whichdistinguishes all new gardens. Here and there white-painted vineriesand conservatories winked ostentatiously in the sun.
What a time Hugh John had been planning they would have! For months hehad thought of nothing but this. Toady Lion and he would do all overagain those famous deeds of daring he had done at the castle. Againthey would attack the island. Other secret passages would bediscovered. All would be as it had been--only nicer. And CissyCarter--more than everything else he had looked forward to meetingCissy. Prissy had seen her often, and even during the last week shehad written to Hugh John (Prissy always did like to write letters)that Cissy Carter was just splendid--so much older and _so_ improved.Cissy was now nearly seventeen, being (as before) a year and threemonths older than Hugh John.
Now the distinguished military hero had not been much troubled withsentiment during his school terms. Soldiers at the front never are. Hewas fully occupied in doing his lessons fairly. He got on well with"the fellows." He was anxious to keep up his end in the games. But,for all that, during these years he had sacredly kept the half of thecrooked sixpence in his box, hidden in the end of a tie which he neverwore. Now, however, he had looked it out, and by dint of hammeringhis imagination, he had managed to squeeze out an amount of feelingwhich quite astonished himself.
He would be noble, generous, forbearing. He remembered how faithfullyCissy had loved him, and how unresponsive he had been in the past. Heresolved that all would be very different now.
It was.
Then again he had brought back a record of some distinction from St.Salvator's. He had won the school golf championship. He possessed alsoa fine bat with an inscription on silver, telling how in the matchwith St. Aiden's, a rival college of much pretension, he had made 100not out, and taken eight wickets for sixty-nine.
Besides this presentation cricket bat Hugh John had brought home onlyone other prize. This was a fitted dressing-bag of beautiful design,with a whole armoury of wonderful silver-plated things inside. It wasknown as the Good Conduct Prize, and was awarded every year, not bythe masters, but by the free votes of all the boys. Prissy wasenormously proud of this tribute paid to her brother by hiscompanions. The donor was an old gentleman whose favourite hobby wasthe promotion of the finer manners of the ancient days, and the termsof the remit on which the award must be made were, that it should begiven to the boy who, in the opinion of his fellow-students, was mostdistinguished for consistent good manners and polite breeding, shownboth by his conduct to his superiors in school, and in associationwith his equals in the playing fields.
At first Hugh John had taken no interest whatever in this award,perhaps from a feeling that his own claims were somewhat slender--orthinking that the prize would merely be some "old book or other." Butit happened that, in order to stimulate the school during the last laxand sluggish days of the summer term, the head-master took out thefittings of the dressing-bag, and set the stand containing them on hisdesk in view of all.
There was a set of razors among them.
Instantly Hugh John's heart yearned with a mighty desire to obtainthat prize. How splendid it would be if he could appear at home beforeToady Lion and Cissy Carter with a moustache!
That night he considered the matter from all points of view--and felthis muscles. In the morning he was down bright and early. He prowledabout the purlieus of the playground. At the back of the gymnasium hemet Ashwell Major.
"I say, Ashwell Major," he said, "about that Good Conduct Prize--whoare you going to vote for?"
"Well," replied Ashwell Major, "I haven't thought much--I supposeSammy Carter."
"Oh, humbug!" cried our hero; "see here, Sammy will get tons of prizesanyway. What does he want with that one too?"
"Well," said the other, "let's give it to little Brown. Butterwouldn't melt in his mouth. He's such a cake."
Hugh John felt that the time for moral suasion had come.
"Smell that!" he said, suddenly extending the clenched fist with whicha week before he had made "bran mash" of the bully of the school.
"SMELL THAT!"]
Reluctantly Ashwell Major's nostrils inhaled the bouquet of HughJohn's knuckles. Ashwell Major seemed to have a dainty anddiscriminating taste in perfumes, for he did not appear to relish thisone.
Then Ashwell Major said that now he was going to vote solidly forHugh John Smith. He had come to the conclusion that his manners werequite exceptional.
And so as the day went on, did the candidate for the fitteddressing-bag argue with the other boarders, waylaying them one by oneas they came out into the playground. The day-boys followed, and eachenjoyed the privilege of a smell at the fist of power.
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"I rejoice to announce that the Good Conduct Prize has been awarded bythe unanimous vote of all the scholars of Saint Salvator's to HughJohn Picton Smith of the fifth form. I am the more pleased with thisresult, that I have never before known such complete and remarkableunanimity of choice in the long and distinguished history of thisinstitution."
These were the memorable words of the headmaster on the great day ofthe prize-giving. Whereupon our hero, going up to receive hiswell-earned distinction, blushed modestly and becomingly; and wasgazed upon with wrapt wonder by the matrons and maids assembled, asbeyond controversy the model boy of the school. And such a burst ofcheering followed him to his seat as had never been heard within thewalls of St. Salvator's. For quite casually Hugh John had mentionedthat he would be on the look-out for any fellow that was a sneak anddidn't cheer like blazes.
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MORAL.--_There is no moral to this chapter._