To come to how it really began, one bright morning the two went over to Vanderdecken’s camp without leave, and there Joe was wicked enough and foolish enough to heave half a brick into the cauldron of soup preparing for the mariners. It was a wicked thing to do because they had never harmed him, and a foolish thing because detection was certain. But he had bragged that he would do it, and Sylvia had giggled in the usual way and said she didn’t believe him, so he hunted up the half-brick and off they went.
Speaking of the act entirely apart from its moral aspect I may say that it was a good shot. Six mariners were standing about the cauldron, sniffing the fragrant steam and speaking in praise of the cook, when the missile arrived from a high neighbouring rock, and its impact caused the hot, glutinous liquid to bespatter their faces and clothing. On the next instant Joe, Sylvia and Tiger started home at a brisk run. Arriving breathless they proceeded at once, and in sight of some of the ladies, to be kind to animals. They gathered handfuls of grass and offered them to some overfed sheep, and their expression while doing so was something like that on the faces of angels in the pictures of Murillo, that great painter.
In due time the six mariners and the cook arrived to make their complaint. Their annoyance was so great that, though fluent, they were unintelligible; I am inclined to think that at first they could only articulate expletives in use among Dutch seamen of the seventeenth century. But at length they were calmed sufficiently to enable them to state their case and to demand that Joe, whom they had recognized, be delivered over to them for the punishment of keel-hauling, a term which was not understood by any of the ladies.
Miss Watkyns was sympathetic, but she could not, of course, allow them to take the law into their own hands. She soothed them down with diplomatic words, promised that the boy should receive castigation proportional to his offence, and gave them each a ball of some composition warranted to remove grease stains without injuring the fabric.
Then she went for the Handy Encyclopædia to see what it had to say about keel-hauling. It was as follows:
“Keel-hauling. A form of discipline once in great vogue among
seamen. The usual method of application was to attach ropes to the
four limbs of the delinquent, lower him over the bows of the ship,
and drag him to the stern post and up again, the process being
repeated as many times as was considered necessary to expiate the
offence. In very serious cases it was the custom to continue the
operation until such barnacles as had accumulated on the ship’s keel
had been scraped off. See Shell Fish.”
“I gather that they are vexed,” observed Miss Watkyns to herself as she replaced the volume. Then—for in spite of her high ideals she was human--“I should have liked to see that half-brick arriving.”
In the conference that followed Miss Scadging proposed that Joe should be considered the sole culprit, since he was a boy and therefore it was his duty to set an example to the weaker sex. Miss Gribblestone objected to this on principle; she was by no means convinced that women were the weaker sex and she recounted again how she had laid out Joe’s father; also she quoted Police Court instances of crimes committed by men at the instigation of females. Miss Watkyns was of opinion that a good and quick way to settle the matter would be to hand Joe six or ten of the very best with the back of a hairbrush before the assembled children; but Miss Gribblestone objected strongly to this as tending to break the boy’s spirit. She made the counter-suggestion of an appeal to his pride.
It is no exaggeration to say that I could keep on like this for pages, but I will not risk wearying the reader with a disquisition on the arguments for and against corporal punishment. I will merely state that it was finally decided to let Sylvia off for just this once, but to incarcerate Joe for the rest of the day in the Turret Chamber on a diet of bread and water.