University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE CAPUT MEETS BRADE.

When the two boys found themselves alone, as they
were left in the last chapter, Russell turned to Brade,
and asked: —

“Did you do that to Tarleton?”

“Yes; and I feel ashamed of pounding into a fellow;
only then I couldn't help it,” said Brade, apologetically.
“He called me all sorts of names, and abused us all,
and said he'd whip Peters or any of us he could get
hold of; and at last I had to tell him to let Peters
alone, and he might fight me. But he took hold of
Peters, you know; and when I went up there, he came
at me in an awful way. He gave me this knock before
I stirred. I had to hit him; and I'm sure I did not
give him more than half a dozen licks before he gave
out, and said I `didn't let him have a chance.'”

“Well, it'll do him good, perhaps. It's his own
fault,” said Russell.

A new voice spoke: —

“Tarleton's got a pretty hard way o' gettin' a false
face,”[1] said Mr. Stout, who, following his rake, had
come near them before they were aware, but who said
his say, as if not at all connected with their conversation.
“It wouldn't cost much money to buy one, at a

store; and I guess he'd be just as well satisfied, and it
would do him just as much good.” And Mr. Stout
moved on at his work.

“Now, what do you think about it, Russell? I didn't
want to fight,” said Brade, seriously.

“Oh! I think he won't show it much in the course
of an hour or two,” said Russell, “and it will do him
good.”

“But it isn't like a Christian to fight,” said Brade.
“I know that, very well; and I wanted to be fit to be
confirmed! But can you help it, always?” Here,
after a pause, he shook his head, and added: “you
can't, can you?”

He was evidently appealing as to an older and wiser
Christian than himself.

“I don't suppose you can always keep out of it,” Russell
answered. “It isn't Christian to be quarrelsome,
or to abuse another fellow, or to be a tyrant; but you
may get into it by taking another fellow's part, or you
may have to defend yourself; and, if you don't want
to, or only do it in self-defence, why I suppose it'll be
looked over, — and if you're sorry for it,” he added, as
if he had forgotten a part of his argument. “You
know it's the heart, Brade: it mustn't be in your
heart.”

“I'm sure it isn't in my heart,” Antony said, decisively;
“that I'm sure: it isn't in my heart.”

“You get a chance and go and ask the Caput. You
can talk to him as easily as you can to me,” said his
adviser.

“But I couldn't tell him about Tarleton?”

“He wouldn't ask you about any boy; but he'll go
into it, and he'll tell you every thing.”

There was a short silence after these words, while
Brade stood thinking. Then he said, “I'll try,” and
they parted.

Opportunities, in this world, often come very timely
to our wants; and so Brade found it now. He had
scarcely walked a dozen steps, after leaving Russell,
before the Rector of the School came suddenly upon
him, and called him by name, as he was slowly walking
and thinking.

“Let's go on together,” said the Rector.

So here was a chance for the boy.

“Well, Antony, school-life seems to agree with you
pretty well. Was it Remsen's family-watch that made
the mistake about time, this morning? The hands
were caught together? Old fellows (or young fellows)
mustn't fold their hands in the midst of things,
— at any rate, if they do, people must look to other
guides. But, if that's the only fault, it'll be easily set
right, in the watch. I suppose trapping, just now,
doesn't leave time for the `Notes on Cæsar'?”

“I found the men's notes were better,” answered the
boy, with a pleasant laugh, “and so I stopped.”

“Well, that's just honest modesty. I suppose the
men's notes were better, no doubt. Yours were very
good practice, though,” said the Rector. “I'd keep on
making notes upon things as they come, in lessons, and
reading, and any thing. Sometimes even boys strike
out something good; and, at any rate, they learn to
handle things for themselves.”

“I always keep a sort of a note-book,” said Antony,
modestly.

“So do; and tell me about your notes, sometimes,”
said the Caput, — “will you?”

They had turned the corner of the gymnasium, and
had passed “Quercus,” and were now on the field of
the late conflicts. The spot must have urged upon
Tarleton's unwilling antagonist the question that he
was longing to ask.

As they crossed the ground on which Peters had won
his unbloody laurels, and on which Tarleton had been
a second time worsted, not without blood, the Rector's
foot slipped on the damp earth. He probably had not
forgotten that the fighting of an hour or two before,
had been done here, and was not speaking altogether
at random, when he said, —

“You haven't read, yet, about Nisus slipping in the
gore?”

It was too dark to have seen any thing, unless very
showy; and if Brade had thought of it, for an instant,
he might have felt sure that any slight blood drawn in
his encounter with Tarleton would hardly have fallen
to the ground at all, or, if it had reached the sod,
would have kept no place upon it; but his voice shook
a little, as he answered hastily, —

“I've heard the Fourth read it, sir, about the boxers.
It was pretty brutal, wasn't it?”

“Oh! Nisus wasn't one of the fighters: he was
running a race, and slipped in the blood of a victim.
That fighting was pretty horrible and disgusting
work.”

Now was Antony's chance, and he used it.

“If that had been now, sir, those fighters couldn't
have been Christians?” he asked; and while he asked
turned his face over towards the horizon, as if the
answer did not concern him much.

“I think not,” said the Rector. “We excuse wars,

because nations make their people go into them: they
ought to have been done away with eighteen hundred
years ago. Mangling and slaughtering honest husbands
and sons is too wickedly foolish to think of, quietly.
Fighting, for the love of it, or for anger, or for mastery,
is brute's work. If you see a beast attack a person,
you may fight him; if you see a ruffian attack a person,
he's no better; if a ruffian attacks you, you may
knock him off.”

“That's all I did,” said Brade, without thinking, his
spirits rose so suddenly. The Rector did not show any
consciousness of the slip.

“I should like to be confirmed, sir,” said Antony,
with a steady voice, “if you think I'm fit,” and so
brought his timid desire to a head, at once.

To those who serve at heavenly altars; to those who
are, by ordination or occasion, ambassadors for Christ
to souls of others; to those who love God, or believe in
God; to those who have any awe for God's breath of
life in the young, a call like this is both holy and touching.
It is the seeking of the soul, already, when blind
and helpless, blessed and gifted by its Maker and Redeemer,
to come consciously into communion with Him.
The moments in which this vital work is going on are
moments of trembling precaution and hope, and waiting,
until the soul, still very new to our manhood, has
laid hold, and steadied itself, and is walking in the
Spirit.

“Of course, Antony, if you have the right understanding
and feeling about it, it's just what you ought
to desire, of all things,” said his spiritual pastor.
“Let's have a very high notion of it. The Christian
life is the living in the Spirit, instead of the flesh; and

`the Spirit' is the Holy Spirit. You were taken into
God's family before you knew any thing, and now
you're to declare openly — being old enough to know
— that you choose God's life, of yourself, and want to
live in it for ever. That's what you're doing, my young
brother; and the Spirit takes part in it, and His part
He'll do.”

“That's just what I want to do, — whatever is to be
done,” said Brade, simply. “God will have to help
me, I know; and He will do that, of course. He helps
everybody.”

“Of course He will. It's only through the Spirit
that we can live that life; and He dwells in the Church,
for ever, to be with those that are living that life.
Jesus, our Lord, is that Life, and the Raising-up from
the Dead; and it's the Spirit that enables us to partake
of Christ, in worship, and in self-denial, and in kind
doings, and in the great commemorative sacrifice of the
Lord's Supper. `He that eateth my flesh and drinketh
my blood hath everlasting life, and I will raise
him up at the Last Day.' All that's as high as it
can be.”

“And what'll I have to do?” asked Brade, as simply
as before.

“What great thing, to match this great thing?” said
the Rector, smiling, as one might judge from his voice.
“Just what the Catechism teaches about Baptism, that
Confirmation follows: — `Repentance, whereby we forsake
sin, and Faith, whereby we steadfastly believe the
promises of God;' and the Spirit works these in us;
and we must pray to get the Spirit; and it is He that
teaches us to pray. You see that, the moment we
begin, He does it for us by making us do it.”

They had been drawing nearer, in the dusk, to the
noise of the play-ground, though they had walked
slowly. The rush of the tireless foot-ball kickers could
be seen, as well as heard, through the murk. The
Rector changed the subject of the conversation.

“We haven't had any more of the distinguished
stranger?” he said.

Brade laughed, as he answered, “No, sir. The boys
made plenty of talk out of that.”

“Well, we've got great times coming, — Mrs. Wadham's
party and Benefactors' Day. Every invited boy,
with a good record, shall go to Mrs. Wadham's.”

Then, sending the boy off happy to his fellows, the
Rector kept on in his walk.