The Three Midshipmen — Key Ideas to Explore

Ours was a capital school, though it was not a public one. It was not far from London, so that a coach could carry us down there in little more than an hour from the _White Horse Cellar_, Piccadilly. On the top of the posts, at each side of the gates, were two eagles; fine large birds I thought them. They looked out on a green, fringed with tall elms, beyond which was our cricket-field. A very magnificent red-brick old house rose behind the eagles, full of windows belonging to our sleeping-rooms. The playground was at the back of the house, with a grand old tulip tree in the centre, a tectum for rainy weather on one side, and the large school room on the other. Beyond was a good-sized garden, full of apple and pear trees, but, as we very seldom went into it, I do not remember its appearance. Perhaps, were I to see the place again, I might find its dimensions somewhat altered. The master was a first-rate schoolmaster. What his attainments were, I cannot say; but he understood managing boys admirably. He kept us all in very good order, had us fairly taught, fed us with wholesome, if not luxurious, food, and, though he used his cane freely, treated us justly. We held him in awe, and yet we liked him.

It was after the summer holidays, when I had just got back, I heard that three new boys had come. In the afternoon they all appeared in the playground. They were strangers to each other as well as to us, but their similarity of fate drew them together. One was a slightly made, dark, and somewhat delicate-looking boy; another was a sturdy little fellow, with a round, ruddy countenance, and a jovial, good-natured expression in it, yet he did not look as if he would stand any nonsense; the third was rather smaller than the other two, a pleasant-looking fellow, and though his eyes were red with crying, he seemed to be cutting some joke which made his companions laugh. He had come all the way from Ireland, we heard, and his elder brother had that morning left him and gone back home, and that made him unhappy just then. He at once got the name of Paddy in the school. He did not mind it. His real name was Terence Adair, so sometimes he was called Paddy Adair.

"I say, you fellow, what's your name?" asked a biggish boy of the stoutest of the three new-comers.

"Jack Rogers," was the answer, given in a quiet tone.

"I don't believe it," replied the big boy, who was known as Bully Pigeon; "it's such a rum name."

"I'll make you believe it, and remember it too," exclaimed the new-comer, eyeing the other from head to foot, and walking firmly up to him, with his lips closed, while he moved his head slowly from side to side. "I tell you my name is Jack Rogers--Now!"

The bully did not say a word. He looked as if he would have liked to have hit, but Paddy Adair had followed his new friend, and was evidently about to join in the fray if it was once begun; so the big boy thought better of it. He would gain no credit for attacking a little fellow the first day of his coming. There were many witnesses of the scene, and Jack was unanimously pronounced to be a plucky little chap. Pigeon, defeated in one direction, turned his attention to the first-named boy, who had scarcely moved since he entered the playground, but kept looking round with his large black eyes on the scene before him, which was evidently strange to his sight.

"What are you called, I should like to know?" he asked in a rude tone.

"Alick Murray," was the answer, in a quiet, gentlemanly voice.

"Then you come from Scotland, I suppose?" said the bully.

"Yes, I do," replied the former.

"Oh! I wonder your mamma would let you go away from her," observed the big boy, with a sneer.

"My mamma is just dead," answered Murray, in a mild tone, a tear springing to his eye.

"Shame! shame!" shouted the voices of several boys who had come up; among them that of Jack Rogers was the loudest.

"I didn't mean to say anything to hurt him," said the bully, sneaking away. "I'll pay you off for this some day," he muttered as he passed Jack.

Jack looked after him and laughed.

"He'll have two to fight if he tries it, mind that," said Adair to his new friend.

Jack thanked him, but said that he should soon be able to tackle him, if he could not just now. He would try at all events.