And Ballhatchet was so much convinced of "that there young May" being in earnest, that he assured his persuasive customers that it was as much as his licence was worth to supply them.
Evil and insubordination were more easily kept under than Norman had expected, when he first made up his mind to the struggle. Firmness had so far carried the day, and the power of manful assertion of the right had been proved, contrary to Cheviot's parting auguries, that he would only make himself disliked, and do no good.
The whole of the school was extremely excited this summer by a proceeding of Mr. Tomkins, the brewer, who suddenly closed up the footway called Randall's Alley, declaring that there was no right of passage through a certain field at the back of his brewery. Not only the school, but the town was indignant, and the Mays especially so. It had been the doctor's way to school forty years ago, and there were recollections connected with it that made him regard it with personal affection. Norman, too, could not bear to lose it; he had not entirely conquered his reluctance to pass that spot in the High Street, and the loss of the alley would be a positive deprivation to him. Almost every native of Stoneborough felt strongly the encroachment of the brewer, and the boys, of course, carried the sentiment to exaggeration.
The propensity to public speaking perhaps added to the excitement, for Norman May and Harvey Anderson, for once in unison, each made a vehement harangue in the school-court--Anderson's a fine specimen of the village Hampden style, about Britons never suffering indignities, and free-born Englishmen swelling at injuries.
"That they do, my hearty," interjected Larkins, pointing to an inflamed eye that had not returned to its right dimensions. However, Anderson went on unmoved by the under titter, and demonstrated, to the full satisfaction of all the audience, that nothing could be more illegal and unfounded than the brewer's claims.
Then came a great outburst from Norman, with all his father's headlong vehemence; the way was the right of the town, the walk had been trodden by their forefathers for generations past--it had been made by the good old generous-hearted man who loved his town and townspeople, and would have heard with shame and anger of a stranger, a new inhabitant, a grasping radical, caring, as radicals always did, for no rights, but for their own chance of unjust gains, coming here to Stoneborough to cut them off from their own path. He talk of liberalism and the rights of the poor! He who cut off Randall's poor old creatures in the almshouses from their short way! and then came some stories of his oppression as a poor-law guardian, which greatly aggravated the wrath of the speaker and audience, though otherwise they did not exactly bear on the subject.
"What would old Nicholas Randall say to these nineteenth-century doings?" finished Norman.
"Down, with them!" cried a voice from the throng, probably Larkins's; but there was no desire to investigate, it was the universal sentiment. "Down with it! Hurrah, we'll have our footpath open again! Down with the fences! Britons never shall be slaves!" as Larkins finally ejaculated.
"That's the way to bring it to bear!" said Harvey Anderson, "See if he dares to bring an action against us. Hurrah!"
"Yes, that's the way to settle it," said Norman. "Let's have it down. It is an oppressive, arbitrary, shameful proceeding, and we'll show him we won't submit to it!"
Carried along by the general feeling, the whole troop of boys dashed shouting up to the barricade at the entrance of the field, and levelled it with the ground. A handkerchief was fastened to the top of one of the stakes, and waved over the brewhouse wall, and some of the boys were for picking up stones and dirt, and launching them over, in hopes of spoiling the beer; but Norman put a stop to this, and brought them back to the school-yard, still in a noisy state of exultation.
It cooled a little by-and-by under the doubt how their exploit would be taken. At home, Norman found it already known, and his father half glad, half vexed, enjoying the victory over Tomkins, yet a little uneasy on his son's behalf. "What will Dr. Hoxton say to the dux?" said he. "I didn't know he was to be dux in mischief as well as out of it."
"You can't call it mischief, papa, to resent an unwarranted encroachment of our rights by such an old ruffian as that. One's blood is up to think of the things he has done!"
"He richly deserves it, no doubt," said the doctor, "and yet I wish you had been out of the row. If there is any blame, you will be the first it will light on."
"I am glad of it, that is but just. Anderson and I seem to have stirred it up--if it wanted stirring--for it was in every fellow there; indeed, I had no notion it was coming to this when I began."
"Oratory," said the doctor, smiling. "Ha, Norman! Think a little another time, my boy, before you take the law into your own hands, or, what is worse, into a lot of hands you can't control for good, though you may excite them to harm."
Dr. Hoxton did not come into school at the usual hour, and, in the course of the morning, sent for May senior, to speak to him in his study.
He looked very broad, awful, and dignified, as he informed him that Mr. Tomkins had just been with him to complain of the damage that had been done, and he appeared extremely displeased that the dux should have been no check on such proceedings.
"I am sorry, sir," said Norman, "but I believe it was the general feeling that he had no right to stop the alley, and, therefore, that it could not be wrong to break it down."
"Whether he has a right or not is not a question to be settled by you. So I find that you, whose proper office it is to keep order, have been inflaming the mischievous and aggressive spirit amongst the others. I am surprised at you; I thought you were more to be depended upon, May, in your position."
Norman coloured a good deal, and simply answered? "I am sorry, sir."
"Take care, then, that nothing of the kind happens again," said Dr. Hoxton, who was very fond of him, and did not find fault with him willingly.
That the first inflammatory discourse had been made by Anderson did not appear to be known--he only came in for the general reprimand given to the school.
It was reported the following evening, just as the town boys turned out to go to their homes, that "old Tomkins had his fence up five times higher than before."
"Have at him again, say I!" exclaimed Axworthy. "What business has he coming stopping up ways that were made before he was born?"
"We shall catch it from the doctor if we do," said Edward Anderson, "He looked in no end of a rage yesterday when he talked about the credit of the school."
"Who cares for the credit of the school?" said the elder Anderson; "we are out of the school now--we are townsmen--Stoneborough boys-- citizens not bound to submit to injustice. No, no, the old rogue knew it would not stand if it was brought into court, so he brings down old Hoxton on us instead--a dirty trick he deserves to be punished for."
And there was a general shout and yell in reply.
"Anderson," said Norman, "you had better not excite them again, they are ripe for mischief. It will go further than it did yesterday-- don't you see?"
Anderson could not afford to get into a scrape without May to stand before him, and rather sulkily he assented.
"It is of no use to rave about old Tomkins," proceeded Norman, in his style of popular oratory. "If it is illegal, some one will go to law about it, and we shall have our alley again. We have shown him our mind once, and that is enough; if we let him alone now, he will see 'tis only because we are ordered, not for his sake. It would be just putting him in the right, and maybe winning his cause for him, to use any more violence. There's law for you, Anderson. So now no more about it--let us all go home like rational fellows. August, where's August?"