“By heavens, this is too bad!” he exclaimed, stamping his foot with anger.  “What have I ever done to you young blackguards, that you should treat me thus?  Have I ever been a bully?  Have I ever harmed one of you?  And you, too, Vernon Williams!”

The little boy trembled and looked ashamed under his noble glance of sorrow and scorn.

“Well, I know who has put you up to this; but you shall not escape so.  I shall thrash you every one.”

Very quietly he suited the action to the word, sparing none.  They took it patiently enough, conscious of richly deserving it; and when it was over, Vernon said, “Forgive me, Montagu.  I am very sorry, and will never do so again.”  Montagu, without deigning a reply, motioned them to go, and then sat down, full of grief, on his bed.  But the outrage was not over for that night, and no sooner had he put out the light than he became painfully aware that several boys were stealing into the room, and the next moment he felt a bolster fall on his head.  He was out of bed in an instant, and with a few fierce and indignant blows, had scattered the crowd of his cowardly assailants, and driven them away.  A number of fellows had set on him in the dark—­on him, of all others.  Oh, what a change must have happened in the school that this should be possible!  He felt that the contagion of Brigson’s baseness had spread far indeed.

He fought like a lion, and several of the conspirators had reason to repent their miscalculation in assaulting so spirited an antagonist.  But this did not content him; his blood was up, and he determined to attack the evil at its source.  He strode through his discomfited enemies straight into Brigson’s room, struck a match, and said, “Brigson, get out of bed this instant.”

“Hullo!” grunted Brigson, pretending to be only just awake.

“None of that, you blackguard!  Will you take a thrashing?”

“No!” roared Brigson, “I should think not.”

“Well, then, take that!” he shouted, striking him in the face.

The fight that followed was very short.  In a single round Montagu had utterly thrashed, and stricken to the earth, and forced to beg for mercy, his cumbrous and brutal opponent.  He seemed to tower above him with a magnificent superiority, and there was a self-controlled passion about him which gave tremendous energy to every blow.  Brigson was utterly dashed, confounded, and cowed, and took without a word the parting kick of ineffable contempt which Montagu bestowed on him.

“There,” he said to the fellows, who had thronged in from all the dormitories at the first hint of a fight, “I, a sixth-form fellow, have condescended to thrash that base coward there, whom all you miserable lower boys have been making an idol and hero of, and from whom you have been so readily learning every sort of blackguardly and debasing trick.  But let me tell you and your hero, that if any of you dare to annoy or lift a finger at me again, you shall do it at your peril.  I despise you all; there is hardly one gentlemanly or honorable fellow left among you since that fellow Brigson has come here; yes, I despise you, and you know that you deserve it.”  And every one of them did shrink before his just and fiery rebuke.