University of Virginia Library

20. CHAPTER XX.
WHAT HAPPENED TO REMSEN'S WATCH, AND
TARLETON'S EXPERIENCE.

If the looking forward to a battle brings with it a
crowding of the brain and a clanging in the breast,
what a change does victory (especially one almost
harmless to both parties) bring! What a playing about
the casing of the heart by the late stormy and turbid
tide of blood! What a happy tingling, all over the
body, by things hurrying to get back into their old
ways!

The triumphant throng is half-way down the slope
toward the house.

Here Peters, the awkward hero of the day, suddenly
started forward; for, as they were coming down, they
saw in front of them the storm-house-door open, and
Remsen and Brade sallying forth. Having hurried a
little way forward toward them, Peters then seemed to
falter in his purpose, and stopped.

Remsen was swinging, with one hand, by its long
chain, what any eye, almost, in the School could recognize
afar, the famous time-piece of his forefathers, and
apparently threatening to let it go; but the attention
of both Remsen and his companion was soon drawn to
the unusual appearance of the little throng which was
approaching them. The newly made triumphal song

was raised with much vigor by the accompanying choristers
as the two parties approached each other.

While Brade and Remsen questioned, Alonzo Peters,
like a modest hero, had withdrawn a little, as if conscious
of having deserved well of them and of the
community. The story was told with a little plain web
from Russell, and little varied and fanciful bits of warp
from members of the chorus. The story, of course, culminated
in the unexpected but entire success of Peters.

“How did he get into it?” asked Remsen, looking at
Peters in the new character of a hero in single combat,
but taking things in a business-like way.

Wadham and Hirsett both undertook to answer, as
having had a large share in the encounter by looking
on at it.

“That trapping business;” said one. “He said you
three were liars;” added the other, leaving the subject
of his sentence a little hard to define. “He wanted
Peters to confess you were liars.”

“What a fool he was, not to wait till we got out!
He might have got an awful licking;” said Remsen, as
unsympathizingly critical as if Peters were a thousand
miles off in space, and further off in spirit.

The modest and withdrawing hero was quick to hear
this disparaging speech. “I showed I wasn't a coward,”
he said: “I stood up for everybody.” Having said so
much, he began to walk away by himself. Russell
looked after him, and said, —

“He's a spunky old fellow, though, Remsen; and he
did it for you.”

“He's a regular old brick!” said Wadham, not so
much seeking novelty as fitness in his phrase. “If
you'd seen him walk up!”

“I think you ought to speak pretty well of him,
Remsen,” said Russell.

“Well,” said Remsen, smiling not ill-naturedly, and
addressing the younger by-standers, “tell him I think
he's as brave as Archimedes — or Achilles — and William
Wallace, and Robert Bruce.”

Meadows, laughing at Remsen's “Archimedes,” set
off to give the message with much alacrity, as if he
thought that Peters would enjoy it as much as himself.

Now that every thing connected with the late battle
had been done with, Russell turned to Remsen, who
was still carrying the heirloom swinging by its chain,
and said curiously, “Oh, let's see the old watch!” and,
as Remsen held it up, Russell remarked upon the carvings
and lettering of its face, turning the long-time
implement round. “What does ἐξαγορεύσα<ε (exagoreusate)
mean?” he asked, reading the very word, most
likely, which Mr. Don had carefully copied.

“My grandfather told me,” said Remsen, “it was out
of the Bible, and meant `redeeming,' or something.”

“Ho!” said Will Hirsett, who, though young in
years, was already a little advanced in his acquaintance
with Language, “twig the old turnip!” and he, too,
stared with all his eyes.

Others came up, and there was quite a gathering
about the venerable relic.

“Who wants to buy?” asked the owner. “This old
thing got me kept in to-day.”

He did not add what very likely had touched him
more than any thing, that the old thing had become a
laughing-stock, that day.

A timid voice from Meadows, already back at the

outskirts, asked what the owner would take for it.
Many curious eyes gazed upon the small mass of machinery,
incased in glass and silver, which had timed,
most likely, many a meal, and possibly some lovers'
meetings; had been held to the delighted ear of many
a toddler, and allowed to go to his mouth without fear
of its getting into his throat.

“Ain't it a buster?” asked Will Hirsett, keeping
safely outside of any competition or curious questioning
about its market-worth, — perhaps because he had no
money, perhaps because he had no faith in Remsen's
intention of selling his heirloom.

“Will you sell it?” asked Meadows.

“No!” said Remsen. “Here goes!” And, in spite of
several outcries, such as “I wouldn't,” from Russell,
and “Oh, don't!” “Give it to a fellow!” “Give it to
me!” from younger boys, he whirled it out of his hand,
and it struck with a thud, and a rattle or jingle, on the
bank near the gymnasium.

“Oh, too bad! wasn't it?” said Meadows and others;
and a race began toward the spot where the long-valued,
but just now dishonored, relic had fallen.

“Let it alone!” said Remsen; and all but little
Meadows stopped short of the place. He went up to
it, and took a good look at it, as it lay.

“Shall I take it, and get it mended?” asked Meadows;
but the owner said, “No!” without giving any
explanation of his unwillingness to have any one else
own what he himself was willing to throw away.

Such things — indeed, most things — make only a
short-lived impression upon boys, even as upon men.
The by-standers began to disperse, remarking Remsen's
queer way of treating his watch: “If he didn't care

any more for it than to fling it away, why shouldn't he
let another fellow have it, that would take care of it?”

“I shouldn't think Brade would let him,” said Hirsett,
“because he liked it so.”

“Where is Brade?” asked Wadham. “He isn't
there. — He was there.”

“Oh, yes! I saw him there,” said Meadows.

But when they looked, with all their eyes, he was
not there.

Before this time the famous Peters had come back,
looking now contented and restored to every-day life;
and the knot of boys, considerate (like men) of the
lustre that was fresh on him just now, stopped to give
him an account of the treatment of the historic time-piece,
and pointed to the spot where it was lying.
Thereupon Peters, with his head in the air, walked
slowly up to the borders of the little knot, which still
stood, of that which had been gathered about Russell
and Remsen and the watch, and there stood looking
first over toward the rejected heirloom, and then toward
the doer of the strange deed, as if to establish
some fanciful explanation between them.

When Brade appeared presently, coming from the
direction of the gymnasium, Peters ran to him, with
much alacrity, and gave him, volubly, such information
as he himself had gained.

Remsen, who heard it, laughed at Peters's manner, or
at what he said, but did not interfere; and Brade, who
could hardly forget with what pride and confidence, no
longer ago than that morning, he had borne the long-descended
relic in his pocket, ran to the spot, with
Peters following, while Remsen and Russell walked
leisurely up to join them.

Brade looked at it, for a moment, as it lay in the
brown turf, on its back, like a stranded Gallipagos
turtle, with his upper shell knocked in. He kneeled
and put his ear to it, and proclaimed that it was “all
going;” for the stout old thing had kept its honest
“works” together, and with a steady ticking was doing
its best to bear up. He took it tenderly in hand,
and looked it over carefully, and put it carefully in his
pocket.

If Remsen had been inclined to say any thing about
this disposition of the watch, something even more
pressing called his attention.

“What's happened to you, Bradey?” he asked of
his friend, who was hot and flushed, and looking as
if he might have fallen in the gymnasium. “You're
hurt, man! How did you do it?”

“Oh, it isn't any thing. It doesn't hurt: it's only
a little scratch,” said Brade. “Does it show much?”
And, putting his hand to his face, he examined it as if
to see whether any blood had come away.

“What ails Tarleton?” Russell asked, while Remsen
was occupied; for Tarleton might be seen coming
down also, but walking fast over toward the kitchen
part of the house, and holding a handkerchief over
his face.

Boys' lives have a great many happenings; for boys
are almost always trying at one or other of all the laws
of the universe, and practising with one or more of the
great elements of things. So they are never surprised
at what happens to each other.

Russell walked away to meet or overtake Tarleton,
and the others took the same direction, at different
rates of speed. The by-standers (for we still have a

part of our chorus with us) went fast, of course, to be
first on the spot. The principals — as Remsen and
Brade, and (for the present, at least) Peters — followed
more slowly.

Tarleton had stopped at a pump which stood near
one of the doors, and was washing his face.

“Let me see, a minute, will you?” said Russell,
kindly, coming up and putting his hand under the
boy's forehead, and lifting up his face. The poor fellow,
what with one or more black eyes, and a nose out
of shape, and lips all swollen, and a general smearing
of blood, was, certainly, a very sorry sight to see, and
our “chorus” looked at him in wonder, and then proceeded
to do as Quintus Horatius Flaccus advises all
right-minded choruses to do: they began to pity the
wretched, and to speculate about the case.

“He's got a bad face, hasn't he?” said Meadows.
“Did Peters do all that to him?”

“No, I don't believe,” said the conquering Peters,
“I hurt him so much as that: I didn't mean to. I don't
believe I did. Oh, no! I'm almost sure I never did.
It almost makes me sick.”

The bruised and disfigured object of their pity here
uttered himself, but very obscurely, because the gates
of his speech would not open very readily; but he
seemed to say, turning to these speakers, “Do clear
out!” or “You clear out! will you?” an injunction
with which they partly complied, by withdrawing into
themselves, and keeping silence.

“I'll get something for you,” said Russell. “Don't
wash any thing except just the blood;” and, after a
moment's disappearance, came back with Mr. Stout,
who brought in his hand a piece of raw beef.

“Fell right against two fists, I suppose, and hit
just on his face. This had ought to be goose-skin
or ass-hide, by good rights,” said the head man, not
unkindly; and some of the boys, accustomed to his
style of satire, laughed. He added, gravely: “but
this'll have to do: it's the best I've got.”

How Tarleton came to this condition our faithful
chorus of intelligent by-standers have not settled, and
are still discussing, with many looks at Brade.

Russell, turning for a moment from his attendance,
took up the public expectation by announcing the
Referees' report, immediately; then wrapped the meat
in a handkerchief, and led off the disfigured Tarleton
to the house.

Mr. Stout made this reflection: —

“The strangest piece of the business is, that where
there's one chap that's met with an accident like that,
there's always another, close by, that's just like him, —
and mebbe more so, — and perhaps neither one of 'em
can tell how they got it.”

He had not scrutinized the group of boys, to see
whether this general principle would apply to any of
them, but, without looking, he said, —

“I see Brade has had a little tumble, too. I suppose
there's been some blowing. High winds are apt to
bring a good many things down.”

Saying this, Mr. Stout took his wheelbarrow and
rake, which were close at hand, and went about gathering
his fallen leaves, of which one pile, at least, we know
to have been disturbed during the wordy encounter of
Tarleton and Peters.

“Here come the Monitors!” said the crowd, as Russell

and Lamson drew near, followed by Towne. And
now all was expectation.

“Fellows!” said Russell, “I see all but Tarleton are
here” —

“If he hadn't been a fool, he'd have been here, too,”
said Towne.

Russell went on: “We've been to the ground. Jake
Moody had taken his dinner down, and been there all
day. We found Remsen and Brade's track down and
back from the fence, — Jake showed it. Then there
was one down by their snare, where Rainor says he
came, and a track just like it from there to Tarleton's
trap, and none the other way. Rainor's gone away.
We think none of the fellows ever went to any trap
but their own; but probably Rainor knows about it, if
any one.”

“I didn't believe they ever did!” said Brade, giving
his hand to Towne, who shook it heartily. Remsen
assented, without shaking hands.

No one could make out why Rainor should have put
one party's hare into the other party's trap; but everybody
reserved his judgment.

The crowd dispersed, — Brade loitering near Russell,
— and soon these two had a clear place to themselves,
with no one in sight except Mr. Stout; and he
was a little way off.