Berite's Flogging


by Rod Birch

This story is taken from "Lesbia brandon", by Algernon Charles Swinburne. The original text has been added to, using Swinburne's own words, which he deleted from the published version.

Bertie was caught bathing in the sea and sentenced to a flogging. He made a last appeal, looking up at Denham's face. "Please, sir, I wasn't in the water long. And it wasn't very rough- not very. I promise I won't bathe again by myself."

"I don't think you will, Herbert" his tutor replied. "And I advise you as a friend not to keep me waiting or I shall have you hoisted; and then you must take the consequences. Go down!" - and poor Bertie took down his breeches and 'went down' after the manner of schoolboys at the block.

"Now, mind, I mean to punish you severely; after an offence like this, you can hardly expect to come off as easily as usual." He spoke in a clear, harsh voice, with brightening eyes and tightening lips, as he watched the boy wince; his words had edges and cut like a harsh look. "Must I tie your hands? Or will you promise not to resist?"

"I won't move; or put my hands back: I won't, on my honour!" Said the boy tremulously.

Then his tutor took up a long cutting rod and laid it on smartly, the supple twigs bending round upon the flesh. This first stroke made him leap and writhe, catching his breath with a sharp sob. At the next, he reddened with a double blush. The third cut left traces raised in red relief on the smooth pale skin; and after another cut or two the boy could hardly keep his tears in and his delicate boyish skin began to grow into a mass of red ridges. Denham knew better than to flog too fast; he paused after each cut and gave the boy time to smart. A few sharp words of reproach were intermixed between the cuts; and after each pause of the kind, a long switching cut was laid on which left deeper cuts on the boy's smooth skin.

"Will you tie my hands please-or I'm sure I can't- keep my word." quoth Bertie in a sharp, small shaking voice, turning half round and holding his wrists out after the 9th.

Denham was rather moved for the minute; but the cold fit of cruelty was upon him. He tied the small wrists tight and laid the lithe tough twigs with all the strength of his arm. The boy sobbed and flinched at each cut, feeling his eyes fill and blushing at his tears; but the cuts stung like fire, and burning with shame and pain alike, he pressed his hot, wet face down on his hands, bit his sleeve, his fingers, anything. His teeth drew blood as he chewed the flesh of his hands rather than cry out, whilst the birch drew blood from his squirming, tender bare bottom; Denham glittered with passion as he plied the rod with all his strength to the naked target below him.

Two dozen was Herbert's normal allowance and till the 24th cut he held out pretty well in hope of an end, despite the burning and fiery pain of his whipped posteriors. But when Denham applied a fresh rod to his quivering flesh and stripe followed hard on stripe, he sang out sharply: then drew himself tight as it were all over, trying to brace his muscles and harden his flesh into rigid resistance. But the pain beat him; as he turned and raised his face, tears streamed over the inflamed cheeks and imploring lips. Denham laid on every stripe with a cold fury that grew slowly to white heat. Eventually, he made an end of the flogging, the last stroke leaving poor Bertie's bare bottom covered in blood.

"Here," he said, contemptuous of the boy's brief bodily pain and half relieved by the sight of it. "Don't roar like that! Give me your hands to untie. You've felt the last of this rod, my boy. Come, stop your crying. I hope you'll never have anything worse to cry for; you'll be the luckiest fellow I know."

But Herbert, after a double dose of flogging, was not in a condition to see this. He rose, crying and sobbing and did readjust himself with sundry sobs and pauses and then stood tingling and crying, with hidden face and heaving shoulders.

"Sit down, sir, and get to work." Denham said before Herbert had properly readjusted his braces.

"Please sir, mayn't I stand?" Said Herbert with pathetic impudence.

"No sir; Sit down this instant!" and Bertie did so, with infinite precaution, uttering a sharp, suppressed cry as he came into contact with the one hard chair in the room. He knew that for three or four days at least, a chair would be to him an object of horror and avoidance. Denham plied him with alternate sums and syntax until there was a very fair list of blunders against his name. "You'll be very sorry for this on Friday, Herbert: very sorry and with good reason."

"I can't get them right this morning, sir." said the boy, pushing his hair up with a dolorous gesture. "And things won't stay in my head."

"They must be well whipped into you, then, and I dare say they will be." said his tutor. "Come to me at 1030 on Friday". The doleful boy looked back at the couch, noticing the tumbled cushion and the print of his knees where he had so recently been positioned for his flogging. And among other significant reminders, sundry broken twigs of birch lying about, bruised buds and frayed fragments of a very sufficient stout rod. That implement, no longer fresh and supple, with tough knots and expanding sprays, but ragged, unsightly, deformed, broken and used up, lay across another chair close at hand, with marks of his own blood upon it.

"Yes, Sir", he said, knowing that he would suffer the sting of the birch once again at 1030 that Friday.


More stories by Rod Birch