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 l