Guy Livingstone | Page 2

appreciate it, you must understand that the highest form in the
school--the sixth--were regarded by the fags and other subordinate
classes with an inexpressible reverence and terror. They were
considered as exempt from the common frailties of schoolboy nature:
no one ventured to fix a limit to their power. Like the gods of the
Lotus-eater, they lay beside their nectar, rarely communing with
ordinary mortals except to give an order or set a punishment. On the
form immediately below them part of their glory was reflected; these
were a sort of hêmitheoi, awaiting their translation into the higher
Olympus of perfected omnipotence.
In this intermediate state flourished, at the time I speak of, one Joseph
Baines, a fat, small-eyed youth, with immense pendent pallid cheeks,
rejoicing in the sobriquet of "Buttons," his father being eminent in that
line in the Midland Metropolis. The son was Brummagem to the
back-bone. He was intensely stupid; but, having been a fixture at ----
beyond the memory of the oldest inhabitant, he had slowly gravitated
on into his present position, on the old Ring principle, "weight must
tell." I believe he had been bullied continuously for many years, and
now, with a dull, pertinacious malignity, was biding his time, intending,
on his accession to power, to inflict full reprisals on those below him;
or, in his own expressive language, "to take it out of 'em, like smoke."
He was keeping his hand in by the perpetration of small tyrannies on all
whom he was not afraid to meddle with; but hitherto, from a lingering
suspicion, perhaps, that it was not quite safe, he had never annoyed
Livingstone.
It was on a Saturday night, the hebdomadal Saturnalia, when the week's
work was over, and no one had any thing to do; the heart of Joseph was

jocund with pork chops and mulled beer, and, his evil genius tempting
him, he proposed to three of his intimates "to go and give the Count a
turn." Nearly every one had a nickname, and this had been given to
Guy, partly, I think, from his haughty demeanor, partly from a
prevalent idea that this German dignity was dormant somewhere in his
family. When the quartette entered, Guy knew perfectly what they
came for, but he sat quite still and silent, while two of them held him
down by the arms in his chair.
"I think you'd look very well with a cross on, Count," Baines said, "so
keep steady while we decorate you."
As he spoke he was mixing up a paste with tallow and candle-snuff,
and, when it was ready, came near to daub the cross on Livingstone's
forehead.
The two who held him had been quite deceived by his unexpected
tranquillity, and had somewhat relaxed their gripe as they leaned
forward to witness the operation; but the fourth, standing idle, saw all
at once the pupils of his eyes contract, and his lips set so ominously,
that the words were in his mouth, "Hold him fast!" when Guy, exerting
the full force of his arms, shook himself clear, and grasping a
brass-candlestick within his reach, struck the executioner straight
between the eyes. The effort of freeing himself to some extent broke
the force of the blow, or the great Baines dynasty might have ended
there and then; as it was, Buttons fell like a log, and, rolling once over
on his face, lay there bleeding and motionless.
While the assistants were too much astounded to detain him, Guy
walked out without a glance at his prostrate enemy; and going straight
to the head of the house, told him what had happened. The character of
the aggressor was so well known, that, when they found he was not
seriously hurt, they let Guy off easy with "two books of the Iliad to
write out in Greek." Buttons kept the sick-room for ten days, and came
out looking more pasty than ever, with his pleasant propensities
decidedly checked for the time.
In his parish church at Birmingham, two tons of marble weighing him

down, the old button-maker sleeps with his father (to pluralize his
ancestors would be a grave historical error), and Joseph II. reigns in his
stead, exercising, I doubt not, over his factory-people the same
ingenuity of torture which in old times nearly drove the fags to
rebellion. He is a Demosthenes, they say, at vestries, and a Draco at the
Board of Guardians; but in the centre of his broad face, marring the
platitude of its smooth-shaven respectability, still burns angrily a dark
red scar--Guy's sign-manual--which he will carry to his grave.
The exultation of the lower school over this exploit was boundless.
Fifty energetic admirers contended for the honor of writing out the
punishment inflicted on the avenger; and one sentimentalist, just in
Herodotus, preserved the