It was a warm, late September day and I was gazing idly down the garden when I became aware of some disturbance in the apple trees. I first saw the satchels on the ground, with blazers and caps screwed across them. Then I looked up and saw bare knees and grey shorts. There were two schoolboys in the trees, scrumping apples in the traditional fashion. They had obviously climbed over the back fence.
"Hey! Come down," I called.
They looked startled, and looked wildly around for some escape route. But I had reached the trees by the time they had reached the ground. I judged them both to be about 11 and the blazers and caps, as well as the socks now drooped around their ankles and the ties half-undone around their necks, told me that they went to a local prep school. They looked at me apprehensively.
"I think we'd better go inside and have a talk," I said.
I led them into the house. and then asked: "Now, what have you got to say for yourselves?"
The dark-haired and slightly taller one just shrugged his shoulders. The blond boy said: "Sorry, sir."
"It's not that I really mind about the apples. If you'd knocked on the front door and said you'd like some, I'd have them given to you. But climbing over the fence and... well, that's stealing." The blond boy again said he was sorry but his friend just stared at me.
I asked them for their names. I won't give them here; let's just call the blond one Paul and the dark one Keith.
"Well, boys, if I were to inform your headmaster of this, what would happen?"
Keith shrugged again. Paul said: "Don't know, sir."
"I think you do know."
Paul looked down, biting his lip. But this time Keith spoke: "We'd get the cane, sir." He said it in an assured, almost defiant way, as if to tell me that the cane held no fears for him.
This was the answer I'd expected, because I knew their prep school had a reputation for being strict and was quite liberal in the use of corporal punishment. But until that point, I swear that no plan had formed in my head. Then I thought: there's a cane, here in this house. When my wife and I had bought the place two years ago, we had found a cane in the attic. We laughed and joked about it for a bit, even gave each other a few light flicks, and then thought no more about it. I had no idea why it was there; I knew the previous owners, an elderly couple, had had five children, so I imagined that it had once been used to keep them in order.
"Have you had the cane before? Keith?"
"Yes, sir, quite a few times. My Dad gives me it at home as well." He sounded quite proud of this.
"Paul?"
"Only once, sir. But I've had the slipper quite alot, sir. All the teachers can use the slipper. And I get the belt at home."
"So. Which do you prefer? I tell your parents what you've been up to, or your school?"
"The school," said Keith, decisively. "At least I get to keep my trousers on. My Dad gives it bare."
"Do you have to tell anybody?" asked Paul.
"What, and just let you off?"
"No," said Paul. "You could just, well, we could do something for you here."
"Like what?"
"Run errands. Clean your car."
It was only now that the idea entered my head. Here were two naughty little boys. They needed punishment. I had a cane in the attic. It would wrap itself quite nicely across their young bottoms. Well, why not? From their point of view, it would be over and done with. From my point of view: well, I was the aggrieved party and, yes, I quite liked the idea of caning these lads.
But don't rush it, I told myself. "Would you take a punishment from me?"
Keith gave that annoying shrug again. (I'll cane his seat that little bit harder, I thought.) Paul said: "Depends what it is."
"Well, I've got a cane here. I've never used it. But if you're going to get the cane at school, or something from your parents, I may as well do it myself. "
The two boys looked at each other. "What, now?" asked Paul. I nodded.
"How many?" asked Keith.
"How many do you get at school?"
"Depends. A couple."
I didn't believe that. I guessed that Keith had had six of the best several times and that he sometimes got a few more at home. When I settled on four, I thought they both looked relieved, like union leaders after a successful negotiation. I told them to wait while I fetched the cane.
As I came down with it, I swished it through the air a few times, and also bent it in the time-honoured schoolmasterly manner. It seemed ideally suited to 11-year-old rears and particularly to those of the two waiting downstairs.
Paul, predictably, looked the more apprehensive as I reappeared with the cane. Keith was almost blase. "Shall I bend over, sir?"
"Yes, of course," I said, and approached with the cane poised. Paul stood aside rather hurriedly, as Keith rather gracefully touched his toes and presented a tightly- trousered and very nicely-shaped little bottom for my attention. Paul, I noticed, had pulled his socks up, straightened his tie, tucked his white shirt into his shorts, and generally smartened himself up. Keith hadn't bothered with any of that, which somehow made him seem naughtier, more defiant and more deserving of a good hard caning.
I realised that I had no real idea how to cane a boy. Though I had had it at school a few times myself, I had rarely seen other boys get it. I thought there must be an art in it. Perhaps teachers got training in it at college. Did they take persistently naughty pupils from nearby schools for trial beatings? Or did they ask for volunteers?
With these idle thoughts bobbling around in my head, I raised the cane and rather clumsily brought it down quite high up on Keith's upturned buttocks. There was a sharp intake of breath, but I realised it came from Paul, not Keith, who remained perfectly still and calm as though nothing had happened. I raised the cane again and struck a sort of glancing blow on the clothed left thigh. I thought I detected a suppressed giggle.
I wasn't making a very good job of this. I decided to concentrate more. Here were two chubby 11-year-old bottoms waiting to be caned. Furthermore, they deserved it. I should make the most it, for their sake and mine. I might never cane anyone again. I realised that I was too conscious of Paul gazing at me. "Stay where you are, Keith. Don't move. Paul, stand over there, and bend over, and wait." I directed him to the other side of the room. He duly obeyed, though I noticed that he bent over more tentatively than Keith.
For the time being, though, I turned back to Keith. I lay the tip of the cane across the dead centre of his tight little buttocks, carefully positioning myself, feet slightly apart, to the side. I swung, and this time seemed to hit the target more truly, though Keith still didn't flinch. I took my time, raised the cane higher and delivered the next stroke lower. This time, the boy flinched just a tiny bit, but there wasn't even a mild "ouch".
"Don't get up till I tell you," I said.
I moved to Paul. "Bend over properly," I said. He was just leaning forward, hands on his knees. "Right over." I still wasn't satisfied, so I grabbed a straight-backed chair and pushed the trembling boy over the back of it, telling him to grip the bottom of the front legs. His pants were now really tight, clinging to his round bottom cheeks, and they had ridden up slightly, exposing bare thigh almost up to where the buttocks began to swell out. The height and position were far better than they had been in Keith's case.
Poor Paul! He had been more terrified of the cane in the first place, and less accustomed to having bamboo whipped across his young bottom. Now, he was getting a caning that was far more painful than his friend who, I felt sure, had led him into the escapade -- had received. I raised the cane shoulder high and whipped it down. Swish! Crack! Ouch! It was just like a caning was supposed to be. After the third, he tried to straighten up and I had to tell him to get back in position. I insisted on several adjustments, watching his squirming bottom, and his shorts riding higher and higher, before I delivered the last stroke, very low on the buttocks, with just a tiny fraction of cane falling on bare flesh. The last "ouch" was more of a scream.
Paul immediately jumped up and I delivered a sharp tap to the tops of his bare legs. "Don't get up till I tell you."
I stepped back, gazed at the two well-caned bottoms (well, one of them well-caned at any rate) for a moment. Then I gave them persmission to rise. Paul instantly began to clutch and rub his sore bottom. Keith, infuriatingly, kept his hands by his sides as if nothing had happened. Paul looked at Keith enviously and accusingly. He had really copped a hard caning which, I didn't doubt, had left four pink stripes across his young bottom. His friend, who had got him into this scrape and raised my temper with his insolence, had escaped lightly. I was tempted to ask for Paul's support in giving Keith another dose. If they pulled their pants down, the state of their respective bottoms would provide adequate supporting evidence for such action. But I thought better of it. If either of them did confide in their parents, there was unlikely to be much argument about the justice of four strokes each. Eight strokes, and any baring of bottoms, would be another matter.
I lectured them for a few more minutes, told them how much they had deserved the cane, and said that, if I found them uninvited in my garden again, they would get more strokes, with less clothing to protect them. I also gave them a few apples, before I dismissed them.
I never saw Paul again but I did see Keith about a year later in the street. "Had the cane lately?" I asked. He just grinnned, rubbed his bottom and asked cheekily: "You caned anybody lately?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Little did he know! That was not the last outing for the cane in the attic, and his bottom's and Paul's not the last to feel its sting!