England -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction; Short stories, English
The spectacle we made, going home down the Gloucester Road, could not be
easily forgotten. Folks collected on the pavement, and came to the
windows and doors to see the sight. It was like an army of soldiers
returning from battle. Bleeding faces, black eyes, clothes tattered and
bespattered with mud. Farmers going back from market drew up their gigs
to the roadside, to stare at us while we passed. One little girl, in
a pony-chaise, wedged between a fat old lady in a red shawl and a
gentleman in top-boots, was frightened nearly into fits. She shrieked
and cried, till you might have heard her up at Mr. Allies's; and the old
lady could not pacify her. The captain was out when we got in: and Mrs.
Sanker took it all with her usual apathy, only saying we had better have
come straight home from college to hear some more poetry.
An awful fuss was made by the head-master. Especially as the boys had to
appear on Sunday at the cathedral services. Damages were visible on many
of them; and their white surplices only helped to show the faces off
the more. The chorister who took the solo in the afternoon anthem was
decorated with cuttings of sticking-plaster; he looked like a tattooed
young Indian.
The school broke up on the Monday: and on that day Mr. and Mrs.
Todhetley drove into Worcester, and put up at the Star and Garter. They
came to us in the afternoon, as had been agreed upon; dinner being
ordered by Captain Sanker for five o'clock. It was rather a profuse
dinner; fish and meat and pies and dessert, but quite a scramble of
confusion: which none of the Sankers seemed to notice or to mind.
"Johnny dear, is it _always_ like this?" Mrs. Todhetley could not help
asking me, in a whisper. "I should be in a lunatic asylum in a week."
We started for Malvern on Tuesday at eleven o'clock. The Squire drove
Bob and Blister in his high carriage: Dr. Teal, Captain Sanker, and Fred
sitting with him. There was no railroad then. The ladies and the girls
crammed themselves into a post-carriage from the Star, and a big
waggonette was lent by some friend of Dr. Teal for the rest. The boys
were losing the signs of their damages; nothing being very conspicuous
now but Dan's nose. It refused to go down at all in size, and in colour
was brighter than a rainbow. The Teals kept laughing at it, which made
Dan savage; once he burst out in a passion, wishing all the Frogs were
shot.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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