THE LITTLE HUNCHBACK

“What is your name, my lad?” Mr. Moncrief asked as he entered the room.

“Paul Percival,” answered our hero.

“And he goes to the same school as Cousin Stan. Isn’t that stunning, pa?” exclaimed Harry Moncrief.

“Many thanks for the great service you have done, Paul,” said Mr. Moncrief earnestly. “You have not only done a great service for me and my brother, but for your country. A duty like that brings its own reward. But how was it you came by the back way?”

Paul then explained all that had happened since he had left Mr. Moncrief’s brother. The stoppage on the way by the two men who had tried to wrest from him the letter, the death of poor Falcon, the loss of the letter and its recovery, his arrival at Oakville, and his discovery that Brockman was lying in wait for him at the house.

“The scoundrels!” cried Mr. Moncrief, with flashing eyes, as he paced rapidly to and fro the room. Then, pausing again, he clasped Paul by the hand.

“I gave you credit for a great deal, but I haven’t given you half credit enough. So long as you do your duty as you have done it to-night, you have nothing to fear for the future. May God bless you, and have you always in His keeping, as He has had to-night. I will return with you home, and see that no harm befalls you by the way.”

Mr. Moncrief had already given orders that his trap should be in readiness as quickly as possible, and shortly after the servant entered and announced that the coachman was awaiting his master.

“Good-bye, Paul! You’ll look out for me at Garside, won’t you?” cried Harry, as he went out.

“Oh, yes, I’ll look out for you!” said Paul, as he thought with a smile of the instructions Plunger had given Harry on his introduction to Garside School.

Mrs. Moncrief kissed Paul as she wished him good-night, just as his mother did, and he could not help blushing. He wondered whether Connie Moncrief would do the same, and was much relieved on finding that she made no attempt to follow her mother’s example.

Nothing was to be seen of the man Brockman when they got outside.

“He has smelt a rat, and when he found the horse was being harnessed, got away as quickly as possible,” said Mr. Moncrief. “We shan’t be troubled with him again to-night.”

Mr. Moncrief’s surmise turned out to be correct. No further adventure befel them on the homeward journey. Paul learned, by the way, that the man Zuker was a German Jew of great ability and cunning. He was suspected to be a spy in the service of a foreign Government which Government Mr. Moncrief did not mention, but Paul guessed which was meant.

The spy’s purpose in coming to England was to ascertain all he could as to the defences of the Thames and the Medway.

“Can’t you have the man arrested?” Paul asked, deeply interested in all he heard, and feeling more and more convinced that this man Zuker was the spy whom his father had saved from the sea at the risk of his own life.

“He’s too adroit. He’s one of the craftiest spies the Admiralty has ever had to deal with. We can get no direct evidence against him. Neither do we know his exact whereabouts. He’s like some nasty slug you can only tell where he’s been by the slime he leaves behind. Of course, he has one or two confederates to help him.”

“I trust they aren’t Englishmen, sir?” said Paul.

“I trust so, too. But I fear there are still Judases in the land men who would betray their country, as Judas betrayed his Lord and Master, for money, though the price would be a great deal more than thirty pieces of silver. Our enemies would give a great deal to get a draft of some of the plans in the archives of the Admiralty, I can tell you, Paul.”

By this time they had reached Paul’s home, to the great relief of Mrs. Percival and Mr. Henry Moncrief, who had begun to fear that some mishap had befallen Paul by the way. By the latter’s request nothing was said to his mother about the peril in which he had stood, for fear of alarming her.

The two brothers had a short interview together. Then, as Mr. Henry Moncrief’s leg was still painful, it was decided that he should remain at Rosemore Paul’s home that night, and return to his own home the next morning. His brother returned to Oakville that same night.

The next morning a carriage came for Mr. Henry Moncrief, to which he was able to limp by the assistance of a manservant.

“I shan’t regret the accident which has introduced me to you and your son, madam,” said he, as he wished Paul and his mother good-bye through the carriage window. “I have to thank you for your hospitality, and him for the great service he has done me. God bless him and you!”

It was almost an echo of words Paul had heard before, but they fell none the less sweetly on his ears. That night he dreamed he was hard at work on the prize essay, “The Invasion of Great Britain,” and that just as he had finished it, a shadow fell across the room. He turned round to see whence the shadow came, and saw that it was Zuker! Then he melted into thin air. When Paul turned to his essay he found that that had disappeared, too. In the shock of the discovery he awoke. Some one was bending over him, but it was not Zuker. It was his mother.

“What is it, dear?” she asked anxiously. “You cried out so loudly that I thought something dreadful had happened.”

“Cried out! What?”

“Help! help!”

“Oh,” said Paul, laughing, but shivering in spite of himself, “I was dreaming that is all! I’m sorry to have disturbed you, mother.”

The day following, the vacation was at an end, and Paul returned to Garside. It was an old, turreted building, dating a couple of centuries back. Flying from the west turret was a flag, known as the “old flag at Garside.” It had a history which was dear to every boy in the school. It had been taken by Captain Talbot in the Crimea. The captain had formerly been a scholar at Garside. He died soon after of his wounds, and left the flag as a legacy to the school.

“Keep the flag flying at the old school,” he said, almost with his last breath. And then God received his spirit.

The flag was very much stained, and had scarcely any of the original pattern remaining; but, none the less, the boys were prouder of that flag than any other decoration in the school.

Just as Paul came in sight of it flying from the turret, a timid voice sounded in his ear:

“Is that Garside, please?”

Paul, looking down at the speaker, saw a weak-looking, wizen-faced boy, with pale, thin cheeks, and one shoulder slightly higher than the other. In a word, he was a hunchback. Paul could not help a slight start as he looked at him. The boy was quick to notice it, and a slight wave of colour came to the pallid cheek. Paul was annoyed at himself for having betrayed astonishment, and answered kindly:

“Yes; that is Garside. Are you going there?”

The boy nodded.

“Very well; we’ll go along together. Do you mind taking my arm? The fellows are rather a rough lot till you get to know them. Your first term, isn’t it?”

The boy looked his gratitude as Paul took him by the arm.

“Yes; my first term,” he said.

“Do you know anybody at the school?”

“Nobody. I’m quite a stranger.”

He spoke with a foreign accent, and Paul wondered who he could be. At the same time he could not help pitying the solitary boy. He would have rather a sorry time of it amongst the other “Gargoyles.”

“Well, youngster” a junior was always “a youngster” in the eyes of his senior “if I can be of help to you at any time, don’t be afraid to come to me. What is your name?”

“Hibbert Tim Hibbert. And and if you don’t mind, I’d like to know yours?”

Paul told him his name, and they entered the grounds together. A number of the boys had already arrived. Some stood in small groups, talking and laughing about incidents that had happened during the vacation. Others were playing at leapfrog, or chasing each other from pillar to post.

Those nearest to the gates paused in their games as Paul entered, and stared at the hunchback. Newall, a senior, said something about “Percival and his camel.” The remark was as cruel as offensive. Paul did not mind for himself, but he did for his companion. He glanced at Hibbert, and again noticed the delicate colouring mount to the pale cheek. He had evidently caught the sense of Newall’s remark, too.

“They have rough speech as well as rough ways, haven’t they?” the boy remarked quietly.

“Some of them yes; but you mustn’t mind that. They’re not such a bad lot, take them altogether.”

Newall was one of the most arrogant boys at Garside. He had a rough tongue, and loved to domineer. You will always find your Newalls in every public school, no matter where it be. They are terrors to the nervous, sensitive boy; but they always succeed in attracting to themselves followers, lads of like dispositions to themselves.

Paul knew well enough that Newall intended the remark for his benefit, but he paid no heed to it. He looked round the ground in the hope of finding Stanley Moncrief, but saw nothing of him.

“Perhaps he’s gone to meet that young cousin of his,” he said to himself, as his mind went back to Oakville, and the never-to-be-forgotten evening on which he had met Harry Moncrief. Hibbert wished to be taken to Mr. Weevil the science master, as he was to receive his introduction to the school through that gentleman.

Paul accordingly took him to Mr. Weevil’s rooms. He was fortunate enough to find the master in. He was a sallow-complexioned man, with thin, clean-shaven lips. He had a restless, hungry-looking pair of eyes, which went up quickly to Paul as he entered the room.

“What is it, Percival?”

“I’ve brought along a new boy, sir Hibbert.”

“Hibbert?” Mr. Weevil at once rose from his seat, and eyed the boy keenly; then his hand went out to the lad: “Welcome to Garside. You can leave us, Percival.”

Thus summarily dismissed, Paul went out, leaving Hibbert and the science master together. It seemed as though the master were favourably impressed with the new boy in spite of the fact that he was a hunchback.

“Bravo, Weevil! That’s a point in your favour, at any rate. I didn’t think that you had much pity for any one. Poor little chap!”

His heart went out in sympathy to the little hunchback. What a shadow his deformity must cast upon his life?

“They say that hunchbacks are spiteful, and I don’t wonder at it. But Hibbert doesn’t seem a spiteful sort of fellow. Where did he pick up that foreign accent, I wonder?”

As he thought of him, he could not help thinking how thankful he ought to be to God that he was healthy and straight of limb. It was not till he came in contact with poor, deformed creatures like Tim Hibbert that he understood God’s goodness to himself.

“Not more than others I deserve,
Yet Thou hast given me more,”

he said softly to himself as he returned to the ground.

He had not gone far before he saw Stanley Moncrief coming towards him. He was about Paul’s age and height, with a like ruddy complexion, and frank, open face. The two chums were delighted to meet again, especially as so much had happened since their last meeting. Arm in arm they walked about the ground talking eagerly, when their conversation was suddenly interrupted by a shout of laughter from the other end of the ground.

“I say, Paul, that looks very much like my young cousin coming towards us,” said Stanley, looking in the direction whence the laughter came. “What on earth has the little ass been doing with himself?”