Chapter Eighteen.

Chapter Eighteen.A Holiday Adventure.When a big school like Saint Dominic’s is gathered together within the comparatively narrow compass of four walls, thereissome possibility of ascertaining how it prospers, and what events are interesting it. But when the same school is scattered to the four winds of heaven during the holidays, it would require a hundred eyes and more to follow its movements.It would be impossible, for instance, at one and the same time to accompany Raleigh and his sisters up Snowdon, and look on at Bramble catching crabs on the rocks at Broadstairs; nor, while we follow Dr Senior among the peaks and passes of Switzerland (and remark, by the way, what a nice quiet boy Tom Senior is, when he has only his father and his mother to tempt him into mischief) can we possibly expect to regard very attentively the doings of Simon, as he gapes about before the London shop-windows, and jerks off a score or more stanzas of his “Hart’s Earnings,” which is now about a quarter done.So the reader must imagine how most of the boys spent their holidays, how they enjoyed them, and how they behaved themselves during the period, and be content to be told only about two groups of holiday-makers, about whom, as they are destined to figure pretty conspicuously in next term’s doings at Saint Dominic’s, it will be interesting to hear rather more particularly now.And the first group—if we can call a single person a “group”—is Loman.Loman began his holidays in anything but cheerful spirits. No one had seemed particularly sorry to say good-bye to him at Saint Dominic’s, and a good many had been unmistakably glad. And he had quite enough on his mind, apart from this, to make his home-coming far less joyous than it might have been. It ought to have been the happiest event possible, for he was coming home to parents who loved him, friends who were glad to see him, and a home where every comfort and pleasure was within his reach. Few boys, indeed, were more blessed than Loman with all the advantages of a Christian and happy home; and few boys could have failed to return to such a home after a long absence without delight. But to Loman, these holidays, the surroundings of home afforded very little pleasure. His mind was ill at ease. The burden of debt was upon him, and the burden of suspense. He had tried hard to assure himself that all would come right—that he would certainly win the scholarship, and so wipe off the debt; but his confidence became less and less comfortable as time went on.He dared not tell his troubles to his father, for he feared his upbraiding; and he would not confess them to his mother, for she, he knew, would tell all to his father. He still clung to the hope that all would come right in the end; and then what would have been gained by telling his parents all about it?The one thing was hard work—and Loman came home determined to work. His parents saw him out of spirits, and were concerned. They did what they could to cheer him, but without much success.“Come, Edward, put away your books to-day,” his mother would say; “I want you to drive me over to Falkham in the pony-chaise.”“I really can’t, mother; I must work for the scholarship.”“Nonsense, boy; what is a scholarship compared with your health? Besides, you’ll work all the better if you take some exercise.”But for a week nothing could tempt him out. Then, instead of accompanying his father or mother, he would take long solitary rides on his own pony, brooding all the while over his troubles.One day, when in the course of one of these expeditions he had taken the direction of Maltby—which was only fifteen miles distant from his home—he became suddenly aware of an approaching dog-cart in the road before him, and a familiar voice crying, “Why, if it ain’t young Squire Loman, riding a bit of very tidy horseflesh too, as I’m a Dutchman!”It was Cripps. What evil spirit could have brought him on the scene now?“Well, I never reckoned to see you now,” said he, in his usual jaunty manner. “Fact is, I was just trotting over to seeyou. I wanted to try what this here cob was made of, and, thinks I, I may as well kill two birds with one stone, and look up my young squire while I’m about it.”“Coming to see me!” exclaimed Loman, horrified. “I say, Cripps, you mustn’t do that. My father would be very angry, you know.”“Nice, that is! As if I wasn’t as good company as any one else!”“Oh! it’s not that,” said Loman, fearing he had given offence. “What I mean is—”“Oh, I know—about that there rod. Bless me! I won’t let out on you, my beauty—leastways, if you come up to scratch. He’d like to hear the story, though, the old gentleman, I fancy. Wouldn’t he now?”“I wouldn’t have him know it for worlds. It’ll be all right, Cripps, indeed it will about the money.”Mr Cripps looked very benignant.“All right, young swell, I hope it will. Funny I feel such an interest in you, ’specially since that young greeny friend of yours put in a word for you. He’s a real nice sort, he is—he owes you one, and no mistake.”“What!” said Loman, in surprise; “who do you mean? Young Greenfield?”“To be sure. Regular young chum of mine, he is. I know all about you, my master, and no mistake!”“What—the young sneak? What has he been saying about me?”“Eh!—what ain’t he been saying! In course you didn’t half murder him, eh? In course you ain’t a good hand at cheatin’ all round up at the school! What? In course you ain’t saying nice things agin me all over the place—and in course some of us wouldn’t like to see you get a reg’lar good hiding, wouldn’t we? Bless you, I knows all about it; but I’m mum, never fear!” Loman was furious.“The young liar!” he exclaimed. “I did owe him one; I’ll pay him when we get back!”“Hold hard, young gentleman,” said Cripps, coolly. “To be sure, he ain’t downright sweet on you; but I ain’t a-going to have him smashed, mind, all to bits. Well, never mind that. I’ll turn back with you, young gentleman, if I may. We’re only three miles from Maltby, and maybe you’ll honour a poor chap like me by having a look in at the Cockchafer.”Loman did not know how to say “No,” much as he disliked and feared his host. He returned with him to Maltby, and there spent an hour in the Cockchafer. He was introduced to several of Mr Cripps’s low friends, in whose society he found it easy enough to become low himself. Cripps, by a judicious mixture of flattery and sly threats, managed to keep the boy well in hand, and when at last he rose to go it was with a promise to return again before the holidays were over—“to prevent Cripps having the trouble of calling on him,” as that virtuous gentleman significantly put it.Loman kept his promise, and visited Maltby once or twice, becoming each time more familiar with Cripps and his low friends, who made a great deal of him, and flattered him on all possible occasions, so that the boy presently found himself, as he imagined, quite a young hero at the Cockchafer.Meanwhile, naturally, his reading fell behindhand. His parents, only too glad to see their boy taking more regular exercise, never suspected or inquired as to the direction of his frequent solitary rides. To them he seemed the same quiet, clever boy they fondly believed him. Little guessed they of the troubles that filled his breast or the toils that were daily enwrapping him!Thus Loman’s holidays came to an end. The farewell was once more said, parents and son parted, and on the first day of an eventful term the boy found himself once more within the walls of Saint Dominic’s.Oliver and Stephen, meanwhile, had been spending a very different sort of holiday at home. There was high feast and revelry when the two boys returned once more to the maternal roof. Stephen for once in a way had the satisfaction of finding himself a most unmistakable hero. He never tired telling of his adventures and discoursing on the whole manner of his life since the day he left home for Saint Dominic’s. To his sister he recounted in all the slang phraseology he had at his command, the famous cricket matches in which he had borne a part; and she, though it was exactly like Greek to her, drank in every word with interest. And to his mother he narrated his various fights with Bramble, and the terrific adventures through which he had passed, till the good lady’s hair nearly stood on end, and she began to think a public school was a terrible place to send a small boy to.Oliver, of course, had his stories to tell too, only in a more sober manner.There was a great scene when, on the first day of the holidays, the elder brother produced his books and announced that he must study at least two hours a day in prospect of the Nightingale Scholarship examination. But every one knew how much depended on his winning that scholarship, and in a few years being able to go to the university, so that the family gave in in the end, and Oliver was allowed his two hours’ study, but not a second more, every day. Stephen, meanwhile, taught his sister round-arm bowling, and devoted himself mind and body to the bicycle.The two brothers, during these holidays, became very great cronies. At school Oliver had seen comparatively little of his young brother, but now they were daily and hourly thrown together, the brotherly instincts in each blossomed wonderfully, and a mutual attachment sprang up which had hardly been there before.It had been arranged, before breaking-up, that Oliver and Wraysford should spend the last week of the holiday together in rowing down the Thames from Oxford to London.Great was Stephen’s joy and pride when one morning, near the appointed time, Oliver said to him, “Look here, Stee. How would you like to come with Wray and me next week?”“Like! wouldn’t I rather!” shouted the small boy in ecstasy. “Thanks, Noll, old man! I say, it will be a spree.” And the youngster became so riotous over the prospect that his elder brother had to threaten not to take him at all, and give him a thrashing into the bargain, before he could be reduced to order.They were to take a tent with them, and cooking utensils, so as to be quite independent of inns, and each voyager was to contribute his share of provender. Quite a Robinson Crusoe business, even down to the desert island, for on desert islands the boys had declared they intended every night to take up their quarters, and, come hail, snow, or lightning, there to sleep under their waterproof tent.Mrs Greenfield didn’t half like the idea, and became very pathetic on the subject of ague and rheumatic fever. But the boys carried the day by promising faithfully that they would catch neither malady. The looked-for day came at last, and to Oxford they went, where the familiar sight of Wraysford, in boating costume, at the railway station still further elated their high spirits. The boat was ready. The tent, the provender, the blankets, were snugly stowed away on board. The weather was fine, the river was charming, everything promised well; and punctually that Monday afternoon the three adventurers loosed from their moorings and turned the nose of their boat towards London.I wish I could tell the reader all the events of that wonderful voyage: how they paddled down merrily with the stream; how they found their desert island covered with nettles, which they had to mow down with their oars; how the soup-kettle wouldn’t act, and the stew-pan leaked; how grand the potted lobster tasted; how Stephen offered to make tea with muddy water, and how the paraffin oil of their lanterns leaked all over their plum-cake and sandwiches; how Stephen was sent up inland to forage, and came back with wonderful purchases of eggs and milk; how they started off one day leaving their tent behind them, and had to row back in a panic to recover it; how it rained one night, and a puddle formed on the roof of the tent, which presently grew so big that it overflowed and gave Wraysford a shower-bath; how each morning they all took headers into the stream, much to the alarm of the sleepy ducks; how they now and then ran foul of a boat, and now and then were turned off their camping ground by an indignant keeper! It was glorious fun. But it would take a volume to recount all that happened to them.They were coming near the end of their cruise. They had paddled down past the magnificent woods of Cliveden, and under the pretty bridge of Maidenhead; they had watched the boys bathing at “Athens,” and they had rowed through the gloomy shadow of Windsor Castle and on past Eton.Here the river is broken by a string of islands, which in many parts make the stream narrow; and the river being full of boats and barges, our three adventurers found themselves called upon to exercise more than ordinary precautions in keeping their course. This responsibility became at last so irksome that Oliver said, “I say, can’t we get out of this rabble anyhow? Why shouldn’t we take the other side of the islands?”“I don’t know. It would be a good deal quieter. I wonder none of the boats do it.”“Let’s try, anyhow. We can’t be far from the lock, and then the river will be wider. Take us up inside the next island, Stee, and mind you don’t foul any one while you’re about it.”Stephen did as he was bid. The stream was pretty strong just there, and the two rowers had to pull pretty hard to get round without drifting on to the island.Once out of the main stream, they were delighted to find the course clear. Indeed, they had the channel all to themselves.“What a jolly pace the stream is going at!” said Stephen; “why don’t you drift, you fellows, instead of pulling like that?”“Good idea for you, young ’un,” said Wraysford, pulling in his oar. Oliver followed his example.“Keep a look-out ahead,” said he to Stephen, “and sing out if any thing’s coming.”Stephen said, “All right,” but (careless pilot that he was) began pulling on his socks and shoes, which he had dispensed with during the morning.Thus occupied, and the other two sitting with their backs to the prow, the unnatural pace at which the boat flew along did not for a moment or two become apparent. Suddenly, however, Wraysford started up.“Get out your oar, Noll—quick!”“What’s the row?” said Oliver, proceeding leisurely to obey the order.“The weir! Quick, man, quick, or we shall be on to it!”They had indeed got into the race leading to the weir, and every moment the stream, swelled by recent rains, rushed faster.“Pull your right—hard!” cried Wraysford, backing water while Oliver flew to his oar.There was just time, by a tremendous effort, to save themselves; but Oliver’s oar was caught under one of the seats, and before he could extricate it the precious opportunity was lost.No one said a word. Stephen, with pale face, pulled his rudder string; and Wraysford, with his one oar, tried desperately to arrest the headlong progress of the boat.There was a shout from the bank, and a nearer and louder one from the lock. They became conscious of a great half-open gate on their right, and a rush of footsteps beside them. Then, in far shorter time than it takes to write it, the boat, side on to the weir, lurched and dashed for a moment in the troubled water, and the next instant turned over, and the three boys were struggling in the water.In an ordinary current such an adventure would have been of little moment, for the boys could swim. But in a torrent like this it was an awful peril. The swift flood sweeps on and sucks under its prey with fearful force. To resist it is impossible—to escape being dashed against its stony bottom is almost as impossible.Mercifully for Oliver, he did escape this latter peril, and, being cool always in the presence of danger, he offered no resistance to the stream, but struck out hard under the water for as long as his breath would permit.When at last, exhausted and unable to swim farther, he rose to the surface, he was in calm deep water many yards below the weir. Help was at hand, or he could never have reached the bank. As it was, when at last friendly arms did drag him ashore, he was too exhausted even to utter his brother’s name.Where was Stephen? and where was Wraysford?Wraysford had been more fortunate even than Oliver in his first capsize. He was swept over the weir, indeed, but into a side eddy which brought him up violently against a projecting branch, to which he clung wildly. Here he would have been safe, and even able to help himself to shore. But at the moment when he began to draw himself up from the water on to the branch, there was something—an arm cast wildly up—in the water beside him. In an instant Wraysford quitted his hold and plunged once more into the rapid. How, he knew not, but he just reached the hapless boy. It was too late to recover the friendly branch. All he could do was to cling to Stephen and trust to reaching calm water safely. Many a bruise the two received in that terrible passage, but the elder boy never once quitted his hold of the younger.At last—it seemed an age—calm water was reached, providentially near the bank. Still clinging to one another, they were pulled ashore, bruised, stunned, but safe.Thus ended this famous holiday cruise. The three boys kept their own secret, and talked little about the adventure, even to one another.In due time the holidays ended, and the Dominicans reassembled once more in their venerable Alma Mater. Need I say there were three within those walls who, whatever they were before, were now friends bound together by a bond the closest of all—a bond which had stood the test of life and death?

When a big school like Saint Dominic’s is gathered together within the comparatively narrow compass of four walls, thereissome possibility of ascertaining how it prospers, and what events are interesting it. But when the same school is scattered to the four winds of heaven during the holidays, it would require a hundred eyes and more to follow its movements.

It would be impossible, for instance, at one and the same time to accompany Raleigh and his sisters up Snowdon, and look on at Bramble catching crabs on the rocks at Broadstairs; nor, while we follow Dr Senior among the peaks and passes of Switzerland (and remark, by the way, what a nice quiet boy Tom Senior is, when he has only his father and his mother to tempt him into mischief) can we possibly expect to regard very attentively the doings of Simon, as he gapes about before the London shop-windows, and jerks off a score or more stanzas of his “Hart’s Earnings,” which is now about a quarter done.

So the reader must imagine how most of the boys spent their holidays, how they enjoyed them, and how they behaved themselves during the period, and be content to be told only about two groups of holiday-makers, about whom, as they are destined to figure pretty conspicuously in next term’s doings at Saint Dominic’s, it will be interesting to hear rather more particularly now.

And the first group—if we can call a single person a “group”—is Loman.

Loman began his holidays in anything but cheerful spirits. No one had seemed particularly sorry to say good-bye to him at Saint Dominic’s, and a good many had been unmistakably glad. And he had quite enough on his mind, apart from this, to make his home-coming far less joyous than it might have been. It ought to have been the happiest event possible, for he was coming home to parents who loved him, friends who were glad to see him, and a home where every comfort and pleasure was within his reach. Few boys, indeed, were more blessed than Loman with all the advantages of a Christian and happy home; and few boys could have failed to return to such a home after a long absence without delight. But to Loman, these holidays, the surroundings of home afforded very little pleasure. His mind was ill at ease. The burden of debt was upon him, and the burden of suspense. He had tried hard to assure himself that all would come right—that he would certainly win the scholarship, and so wipe off the debt; but his confidence became less and less comfortable as time went on.

He dared not tell his troubles to his father, for he feared his upbraiding; and he would not confess them to his mother, for she, he knew, would tell all to his father. He still clung to the hope that all would come right in the end; and then what would have been gained by telling his parents all about it?

The one thing was hard work—and Loman came home determined to work. His parents saw him out of spirits, and were concerned. They did what they could to cheer him, but without much success.

“Come, Edward, put away your books to-day,” his mother would say; “I want you to drive me over to Falkham in the pony-chaise.”

“I really can’t, mother; I must work for the scholarship.”

“Nonsense, boy; what is a scholarship compared with your health? Besides, you’ll work all the better if you take some exercise.”

But for a week nothing could tempt him out. Then, instead of accompanying his father or mother, he would take long solitary rides on his own pony, brooding all the while over his troubles.

One day, when in the course of one of these expeditions he had taken the direction of Maltby—which was only fifteen miles distant from his home—he became suddenly aware of an approaching dog-cart in the road before him, and a familiar voice crying, “Why, if it ain’t young Squire Loman, riding a bit of very tidy horseflesh too, as I’m a Dutchman!”

It was Cripps. What evil spirit could have brought him on the scene now?

“Well, I never reckoned to see you now,” said he, in his usual jaunty manner. “Fact is, I was just trotting over to seeyou. I wanted to try what this here cob was made of, and, thinks I, I may as well kill two birds with one stone, and look up my young squire while I’m about it.”

“Coming to see me!” exclaimed Loman, horrified. “I say, Cripps, you mustn’t do that. My father would be very angry, you know.”

“Nice, that is! As if I wasn’t as good company as any one else!”

“Oh! it’s not that,” said Loman, fearing he had given offence. “What I mean is—”

“Oh, I know—about that there rod. Bless me! I won’t let out on you, my beauty—leastways, if you come up to scratch. He’d like to hear the story, though, the old gentleman, I fancy. Wouldn’t he now?”

“I wouldn’t have him know it for worlds. It’ll be all right, Cripps, indeed it will about the money.”

Mr Cripps looked very benignant.

“All right, young swell, I hope it will. Funny I feel such an interest in you, ’specially since that young greeny friend of yours put in a word for you. He’s a real nice sort, he is—he owes you one, and no mistake.”

“What!” said Loman, in surprise; “who do you mean? Young Greenfield?”

“To be sure. Regular young chum of mine, he is. I know all about you, my master, and no mistake!”

“What—the young sneak? What has he been saying about me?”

“Eh!—what ain’t he been saying! In course you didn’t half murder him, eh? In course you ain’t a good hand at cheatin’ all round up at the school! What? In course you ain’t saying nice things agin me all over the place—and in course some of us wouldn’t like to see you get a reg’lar good hiding, wouldn’t we? Bless you, I knows all about it; but I’m mum, never fear!” Loman was furious.

“The young liar!” he exclaimed. “I did owe him one; I’ll pay him when we get back!”

“Hold hard, young gentleman,” said Cripps, coolly. “To be sure, he ain’t downright sweet on you; but I ain’t a-going to have him smashed, mind, all to bits. Well, never mind that. I’ll turn back with you, young gentleman, if I may. We’re only three miles from Maltby, and maybe you’ll honour a poor chap like me by having a look in at the Cockchafer.”

Loman did not know how to say “No,” much as he disliked and feared his host. He returned with him to Maltby, and there spent an hour in the Cockchafer. He was introduced to several of Mr Cripps’s low friends, in whose society he found it easy enough to become low himself. Cripps, by a judicious mixture of flattery and sly threats, managed to keep the boy well in hand, and when at last he rose to go it was with a promise to return again before the holidays were over—“to prevent Cripps having the trouble of calling on him,” as that virtuous gentleman significantly put it.

Loman kept his promise, and visited Maltby once or twice, becoming each time more familiar with Cripps and his low friends, who made a great deal of him, and flattered him on all possible occasions, so that the boy presently found himself, as he imagined, quite a young hero at the Cockchafer.

Meanwhile, naturally, his reading fell behindhand. His parents, only too glad to see their boy taking more regular exercise, never suspected or inquired as to the direction of his frequent solitary rides. To them he seemed the same quiet, clever boy they fondly believed him. Little guessed they of the troubles that filled his breast or the toils that were daily enwrapping him!

Thus Loman’s holidays came to an end. The farewell was once more said, parents and son parted, and on the first day of an eventful term the boy found himself once more within the walls of Saint Dominic’s.

Oliver and Stephen, meanwhile, had been spending a very different sort of holiday at home. There was high feast and revelry when the two boys returned once more to the maternal roof. Stephen for once in a way had the satisfaction of finding himself a most unmistakable hero. He never tired telling of his adventures and discoursing on the whole manner of his life since the day he left home for Saint Dominic’s. To his sister he recounted in all the slang phraseology he had at his command, the famous cricket matches in which he had borne a part; and she, though it was exactly like Greek to her, drank in every word with interest. And to his mother he narrated his various fights with Bramble, and the terrific adventures through which he had passed, till the good lady’s hair nearly stood on end, and she began to think a public school was a terrible place to send a small boy to.

Oliver, of course, had his stories to tell too, only in a more sober manner.

There was a great scene when, on the first day of the holidays, the elder brother produced his books and announced that he must study at least two hours a day in prospect of the Nightingale Scholarship examination. But every one knew how much depended on his winning that scholarship, and in a few years being able to go to the university, so that the family gave in in the end, and Oliver was allowed his two hours’ study, but not a second more, every day. Stephen, meanwhile, taught his sister round-arm bowling, and devoted himself mind and body to the bicycle.

The two brothers, during these holidays, became very great cronies. At school Oliver had seen comparatively little of his young brother, but now they were daily and hourly thrown together, the brotherly instincts in each blossomed wonderfully, and a mutual attachment sprang up which had hardly been there before.

It had been arranged, before breaking-up, that Oliver and Wraysford should spend the last week of the holiday together in rowing down the Thames from Oxford to London.

Great was Stephen’s joy and pride when one morning, near the appointed time, Oliver said to him, “Look here, Stee. How would you like to come with Wray and me next week?”

“Like! wouldn’t I rather!” shouted the small boy in ecstasy. “Thanks, Noll, old man! I say, it will be a spree.” And the youngster became so riotous over the prospect that his elder brother had to threaten not to take him at all, and give him a thrashing into the bargain, before he could be reduced to order.

They were to take a tent with them, and cooking utensils, so as to be quite independent of inns, and each voyager was to contribute his share of provender. Quite a Robinson Crusoe business, even down to the desert island, for on desert islands the boys had declared they intended every night to take up their quarters, and, come hail, snow, or lightning, there to sleep under their waterproof tent.

Mrs Greenfield didn’t half like the idea, and became very pathetic on the subject of ague and rheumatic fever. But the boys carried the day by promising faithfully that they would catch neither malady. The looked-for day came at last, and to Oxford they went, where the familiar sight of Wraysford, in boating costume, at the railway station still further elated their high spirits. The boat was ready. The tent, the provender, the blankets, were snugly stowed away on board. The weather was fine, the river was charming, everything promised well; and punctually that Monday afternoon the three adventurers loosed from their moorings and turned the nose of their boat towards London.

I wish I could tell the reader all the events of that wonderful voyage: how they paddled down merrily with the stream; how they found their desert island covered with nettles, which they had to mow down with their oars; how the soup-kettle wouldn’t act, and the stew-pan leaked; how grand the potted lobster tasted; how Stephen offered to make tea with muddy water, and how the paraffin oil of their lanterns leaked all over their plum-cake and sandwiches; how Stephen was sent up inland to forage, and came back with wonderful purchases of eggs and milk; how they started off one day leaving their tent behind them, and had to row back in a panic to recover it; how it rained one night, and a puddle formed on the roof of the tent, which presently grew so big that it overflowed and gave Wraysford a shower-bath; how each morning they all took headers into the stream, much to the alarm of the sleepy ducks; how they now and then ran foul of a boat, and now and then were turned off their camping ground by an indignant keeper! It was glorious fun. But it would take a volume to recount all that happened to them.

They were coming near the end of their cruise. They had paddled down past the magnificent woods of Cliveden, and under the pretty bridge of Maidenhead; they had watched the boys bathing at “Athens,” and they had rowed through the gloomy shadow of Windsor Castle and on past Eton.

Here the river is broken by a string of islands, which in many parts make the stream narrow; and the river being full of boats and barges, our three adventurers found themselves called upon to exercise more than ordinary precautions in keeping their course. This responsibility became at last so irksome that Oliver said, “I say, can’t we get out of this rabble anyhow? Why shouldn’t we take the other side of the islands?”

“I don’t know. It would be a good deal quieter. I wonder none of the boats do it.”

“Let’s try, anyhow. We can’t be far from the lock, and then the river will be wider. Take us up inside the next island, Stee, and mind you don’t foul any one while you’re about it.”

Stephen did as he was bid. The stream was pretty strong just there, and the two rowers had to pull pretty hard to get round without drifting on to the island.

Once out of the main stream, they were delighted to find the course clear. Indeed, they had the channel all to themselves.

“What a jolly pace the stream is going at!” said Stephen; “why don’t you drift, you fellows, instead of pulling like that?”

“Good idea for you, young ’un,” said Wraysford, pulling in his oar. Oliver followed his example.

“Keep a look-out ahead,” said he to Stephen, “and sing out if any thing’s coming.”

Stephen said, “All right,” but (careless pilot that he was) began pulling on his socks and shoes, which he had dispensed with during the morning.

Thus occupied, and the other two sitting with their backs to the prow, the unnatural pace at which the boat flew along did not for a moment or two become apparent. Suddenly, however, Wraysford started up.

“Get out your oar, Noll—quick!”

“What’s the row?” said Oliver, proceeding leisurely to obey the order.

“The weir! Quick, man, quick, or we shall be on to it!”

They had indeed got into the race leading to the weir, and every moment the stream, swelled by recent rains, rushed faster.

“Pull your right—hard!” cried Wraysford, backing water while Oliver flew to his oar.

There was just time, by a tremendous effort, to save themselves; but Oliver’s oar was caught under one of the seats, and before he could extricate it the precious opportunity was lost.

No one said a word. Stephen, with pale face, pulled his rudder string; and Wraysford, with his one oar, tried desperately to arrest the headlong progress of the boat.

There was a shout from the bank, and a nearer and louder one from the lock. They became conscious of a great half-open gate on their right, and a rush of footsteps beside them. Then, in far shorter time than it takes to write it, the boat, side on to the weir, lurched and dashed for a moment in the troubled water, and the next instant turned over, and the three boys were struggling in the water.

In an ordinary current such an adventure would have been of little moment, for the boys could swim. But in a torrent like this it was an awful peril. The swift flood sweeps on and sucks under its prey with fearful force. To resist it is impossible—to escape being dashed against its stony bottom is almost as impossible.

Mercifully for Oliver, he did escape this latter peril, and, being cool always in the presence of danger, he offered no resistance to the stream, but struck out hard under the water for as long as his breath would permit.

When at last, exhausted and unable to swim farther, he rose to the surface, he was in calm deep water many yards below the weir. Help was at hand, or he could never have reached the bank. As it was, when at last friendly arms did drag him ashore, he was too exhausted even to utter his brother’s name.

Where was Stephen? and where was Wraysford?

Wraysford had been more fortunate even than Oliver in his first capsize. He was swept over the weir, indeed, but into a side eddy which brought him up violently against a projecting branch, to which he clung wildly. Here he would have been safe, and even able to help himself to shore. But at the moment when he began to draw himself up from the water on to the branch, there was something—an arm cast wildly up—in the water beside him. In an instant Wraysford quitted his hold and plunged once more into the rapid. How, he knew not, but he just reached the hapless boy. It was too late to recover the friendly branch. All he could do was to cling to Stephen and trust to reaching calm water safely. Many a bruise the two received in that terrible passage, but the elder boy never once quitted his hold of the younger.

At last—it seemed an age—calm water was reached, providentially near the bank. Still clinging to one another, they were pulled ashore, bruised, stunned, but safe.

Thus ended this famous holiday cruise. The three boys kept their own secret, and talked little about the adventure, even to one another.

In due time the holidays ended, and the Dominicans reassembled once more in their venerable Alma Mater. Need I say there were three within those walls who, whatever they were before, were now friends bound together by a bond the closest of all—a bond which had stood the test of life and death?

Chapter Nineteen.An old Fire re-kindled.Saint Dominic’s reassembled after the holidays in an amiable frame of mind.The Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, as the Doctor had prophesied, had cooled down considerably in spirit during the period, and now returned quietly to work just as if the mighty “strike” had never existed. Stephen’s regular fights with Bramble recommenced the very first day, so that everything was quite like old times.Oliver found that the Fifth, all but one or two, had quite forgotten their suspicions of his bravery which had spoiled the pleasure of his last term, and there seemed every prospect of his getting through this with less risk to his quick temper than before.As for the Sixth, the Fifth had forgiven them all their offences, and would have been quite prepared, had it been allowed, to live in peace with their seniors, and forget all the dissensions of the Summer term. But it was not allowed, and an event which happened early in the term served to revive all the old animosities between the two head classes.At Saint Dominic’s, for reasons best known to the all-wise beings who presided over its management, the principal examinations and “removes” of the year took place not, as in most schools, at the end of the Midsummer term, but at the beginning of the Autumn term, about Michaelmas; consequently now, with the examinations looming in the distance, everybody who had anything to hope for from hard work settled down to study like mad. Cricket was over for the year, and football had not begun. Except boating there was not much doing out of doors, and for that reason the season was favourable for work. Studies, which used to be bear-gardens now suddenly assumed an appearance of respectability and quiet. Books took the place of boxing-gloves, and pens of fencing-sticks. The disorderly idlers who had been in the habit of invading at will the quarters of the industrious were now given to understand they must “kick-up their heels” elsewhere.Theymight not want to grind, but others did.The idlers of the Fifth, to whom this warning was addressed on every hand, had nothing for it but to obey, and, feeling themselves greatly ill-used, to retire sadly, to some spot where “they could kick-up a row to themselves.”Casting about them for such a spot, it happened that Braddy and Ricketts one day lit almost by accident on an old empty study, which some years since had been a monitor’s room, but was now empty and tenantless.It at once occurred to these two astute heroes that this would be a magnificent place for boxing-matches. In the other studies one was always banging against the corners of tables, or tripping over fenders, but here there was absolutely nothing, but four bare walls to interfere with anybody.They called in two more friends—Tom Senior and another—who declared it was a splendid find, and the four thereupon took formal possession of their new territory, and inaugurated the event by a terrific eight-handed match.Nothing could have been more satisfactory. The room was well out of the way; the studious ones of the Fifth were spared all annoyance, and the riotous ones had an asylum to go to. No one was a bit the worse for the move; every one, on the contrary, found himself decidedly the better.“Go and kick-up a row in the monitor’s room,” became quite a common objurgation in the Form, among the diligent; as common, in fact, as “Come along, old man, and have it out in the monitor’s room,” was among the idlers.But, as ill-luck would have it, this delightful retreat happened to be situated immediately over the study occupied by Wren of the Sixth. That worthy hero, seated one afternoon over his books, was startled by a terrific noise, followed by a vibration, followed by the rattling of all his tumblers in the cupboard, followed by a dull, heavy thud over his head, which tempted him to believe either that an earthquake was in progress, or that one of the chimney-stacks had fallen on to the roof. When, however, the noise was repeated, and with it were blended laughter and shouts of “Now then, let him have it!”“Well parried!”“Bravo, Bully!” and the like, Wren began to change his mind, and laid down his pen. He walked up the stairs to the upper landing, where, at once, the noise guided him to the old monitor’s room. Then the truth dawned upon him. He stayed long enough to get a pretty clear idea of who the “new lodgers” were, and then prudently retired without attempting a parley single-handed.But next morning, when the festive rioters of the Fifth approached once more the scene of their revels, what was their amazement and rage to find the door locked, and the following notice, on a piece of school paper, affixed to the panel—“Monitor’s room. This room is closed by direction of the monitors.”You might have knocked them over with a feather, so stupefied were they by this announcement! They stared at the door, they stared at one another, and then they broke out into a tempest of rage.“The blackguards! what do they mean?” exclaimed Braddy, tearing down the paper and crushing it up in his hands.“Monitor’s room, indeed!” cried Ricketts. “We’lllet them see whose room it is!”“Kick open the door, can’t you?” said Tom Senior.They did kick open the door between them. The lock was a weak one, and soon gave way.Once inside, the evicted ones indulged their triumph by an uproar of more than usual vehemence, longing that it might tempt into their clutches the daring intruders who had presumed to interfere with their possession. No one came. They had their fling undisturbed. But before they quitted their stronghold one of their number, by diligent searching, had found in the lock of a neighbouring study-door a key which would fit theirs. Repairing, therefore, the catch, damaged by their late forcible entry, they calmly locked the door behind them when they went, and affixed to it, in the identical place where the other notice had hung, “Fifth Form. Private study. Not to be entered without permission.”Of course, the news of this interesting adventure soon spread, and for a day or two the diligent as well as the idle on either side looked on with increasing interest for the issue of the contest.For a while the Fifth had the best of it. They defied the enemy to turn them out, and procured and fixed an additional lock on the door. The Sixth threatened to report the matter to the Doctor, and summoned the invaders for the last time to capitulate. The invaders laughed them to scorn, and protested the room belonged to them, and leave it they would not for all the monitors in the world. The monitors retired, and the Fifth enjoyed their triumph.But next day the Doctor abruptly entered the Fifth Form room, and said, “There is an unoccupied room at the end of the top landing, which some boys in this class have been making use of to the annoyance of other boys. This room, please remember, is not to be entered in future without my permission.”Checkmate with a vengeance for the Fifth!This event it was which, trivial in itself, re-kindled once more with redoubled heat the old animosity between the two head Forms at Saint Dominic’s. Although the original quarrel had been confined to only half-a-dozen individuals, it became now a party question of intense interest. The Sixth, who were the triumphant party, could afford to treat the matter lightly and smile over it, a demeanour which irritated the already enraged Fifth past description. The two Forms cut one another dead in the passages. The Fifth would gladly have provoked their rivals to blows, but, like sensible men, the Sixth kept the right side of the law, and refused to have anything to do with the challenges daily hurled at them.As might be expected, the affair did not long remain a secret from the rest of the school. The Fourth Senior, as a body, stood up for the Sixth, and the Third and Second, on the whole, sided with the Fifth. But when it came to the junior school—the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles—all other partisanship was thrown quite into the shade.The quarrel was one completely after their own hearts. It had begun in a row, it had gone on in a row, and, if it ever ended, it would end in a row.A meeting was summoned at the earliest opportunity to take the momentous matter into consideration.“What I say,” said Bramble, “is, it’s a jolly good job!”“What’s a jolly good job?” demanded Stephen, who, of course, was red-hot for the Fifth.“Why, chucking them out! I’m glad to see it, ain’t you, Padger?”“They didn’t chuck them out!” roared Paul; “they went and sneaked to the Doctor, that’s what they did!”“I don’t care! I say it’s a jolly good job! Those who say it’s a jolly good job hold up—”“Shut up your row!” cried Stephen; “you’re always sticking yourself up. I say it’s a beastly shame, and I hope the Fifth will let them know it!”“You’re a young idiot, that’s what you are!” exclaimed Bramble in a rage. “What business have you got at the meeting? Turn him out!”“I’ll turnyouout!” replied the undaunted Stephen; “I’ve as much right here as you have. So there!”“Turn him out, can’t you?” roared Bramble. “Bah! who goes and swills ginger-beer down in a public-house in the town, eh?”This most unexpected turn to the conversation startled Stephen. He turned quite pale as he replied, “Idid, there! But I didn’t go in at the public door. And you’ve been sneaking!”“No, I haven’t. Padger told me, didn’t you, Padger? Padger peeped through the door, and saw you. Oh, my eye! won’t I kick-up a shine about it! I’ll let out on you, see if I don’t. Bah, public-house boy! potboy, yah!”Stephen’s only answer to this was a book, accurately shied at the head of his enemy.The subsequent proceedings at the meeting were a trifle animated, but otherwise not interesting to the reader. The chief result was that the Guinea-pigs emerged as uncompromising champions for the Fifth, and the Tadpoles equally strong for the Sixth, while Stephen felt decidedly uncomfortable as to the consequences of Bramble’s discovery of his secret visits last term to the Cockchafer.Stephen had in a confidential moment during the holidays told Oliver of these visits, and of his intimacy with Mr Cripps. The elder brother was very angry and astonished when he heard of it. He set before the boy, in no measured terms, the risk he was running by breaking one of the rules of the school; and, more than that, he said Cripps was a blackguard, and demanded of Stephen a promise, there and then, that he would never again enter the Cockchafer under any pretext whatever. Stephen, forced to submit, although not convinced that Cripps was such a wicked man as his brother made out, promised, but reserved to himself mentally the right to see Cripps at least once more at the Lock-House, there to return him the bicycle lantern, which it will be remembered that kind gentleman had lent the boy before the holidays. As to the Cockchafer, he was thoroughly frightened at the thought of having been seen there, and fully determined, even before Bramble’s threat, never again to cross its threshold. After all, Stephen knew he had little enough to fear from that small braggadocio; Bramble had neither the wit nor the skill to use his discovery to any advantage. For a day or two he followed his adversary up and down the passages with cries of “Potboy!” till everybody was sick of the sound, and felt heartily glad when, one fine afternoon, Stephen quietly deposited his adversary on his back on the gravel of the playground.But to return to the feud between Fifth and Sixth.Things after a little seemed to quiet down once more. The exiled rioters, after a long and disheartening search, found rest for the soles of their feet in Tom Senior’s study, which, though not nearly so convenient, afforded them asylum during their pugilistic encounters.The studious ones settled down once more to their work, and the near approach of the examinations presently absorbed all their attention.The struggle for the Nightingale Scholarship naturally was regarded with the most intense interest—not because it was the most important examination of the year: it was not. Not because it was worth 50 pounds a year for three years. That to most of the school was a minor consideration. It was as nothing to the fact that of the three candidates for the scholarship one was a Sixth Form boy and two Fifth. If only one of the latter could come out first, the Fifth and their partisans, all the school over, felt that the insult of the past month would be wiped out, and the glory of the Form avenged for ever. And it must be confessed that the Sixth, however much they professed to ignore the rivalry of their juniors, were equally anxious for their own man, and of late Loman had been working hard. He had worked, so it was reported, during the holidays, and now, ever since term had begun, he had remained more or less secluded in his study, or else, with a book under his arm, had taken walks outside.Of course, the Sixth Form boy would win! Who ever heard of a Fifth boy beating a Sixth? And yet, in Oliver and Wraysford, the Fifth, every one admitted, had two strong men. They would at least make a hard fight for the prize. The Sixth only hoped they would not run their mantooclose, and so make the glory of his certain victory at all doubtful.Loman was not a favourite even with his own class-fellows, but they could forgive anything now, provided he made sure of the Nightingale.“He’ll be all right!” said Callonby to Wren one day, when the two happened to hit on the topic of the hour; “he’s a great deal steadier than he was last term.”“I wish he’d read indoors, then, and not be everlastingly trotting out with his books.”“Oh! I don’t know; it’s much jollier reading out of doors, if you can do it.”“As long as hedoesread. Well, it will be a regular sell if he comes to grief; the Fifth will be intolerable.”“They’re not far short of that now. Hullo!” This exclamation was provoked by the sight of Loman in the playground under their window. He was returning from one of his studious rambles, with his book under his arm, slowly making for the school.There was nothing in this to astonish the two boys as they looked down. What did astonish them was that he was walking unsteadily, with a queer, stupid look on his face, utterly unlike anything his schoolfellows had ever seen there before. They watched him cross the playground and enter the school-house. Then Wren said, gravely, “It’s all up with the Nightingale, at that rate.”“Looks like it,” said the other, and walked away. Loman was returning from one of his now frequent visits to the Cockchafer.

Saint Dominic’s reassembled after the holidays in an amiable frame of mind.

The Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles, as the Doctor had prophesied, had cooled down considerably in spirit during the period, and now returned quietly to work just as if the mighty “strike” had never existed. Stephen’s regular fights with Bramble recommenced the very first day, so that everything was quite like old times.

Oliver found that the Fifth, all but one or two, had quite forgotten their suspicions of his bravery which had spoiled the pleasure of his last term, and there seemed every prospect of his getting through this with less risk to his quick temper than before.

As for the Sixth, the Fifth had forgiven them all their offences, and would have been quite prepared, had it been allowed, to live in peace with their seniors, and forget all the dissensions of the Summer term. But it was not allowed, and an event which happened early in the term served to revive all the old animosities between the two head classes.

At Saint Dominic’s, for reasons best known to the all-wise beings who presided over its management, the principal examinations and “removes” of the year took place not, as in most schools, at the end of the Midsummer term, but at the beginning of the Autumn term, about Michaelmas; consequently now, with the examinations looming in the distance, everybody who had anything to hope for from hard work settled down to study like mad. Cricket was over for the year, and football had not begun. Except boating there was not much doing out of doors, and for that reason the season was favourable for work. Studies, which used to be bear-gardens now suddenly assumed an appearance of respectability and quiet. Books took the place of boxing-gloves, and pens of fencing-sticks. The disorderly idlers who had been in the habit of invading at will the quarters of the industrious were now given to understand they must “kick-up their heels” elsewhere.Theymight not want to grind, but others did.

The idlers of the Fifth, to whom this warning was addressed on every hand, had nothing for it but to obey, and, feeling themselves greatly ill-used, to retire sadly, to some spot where “they could kick-up a row to themselves.”

Casting about them for such a spot, it happened that Braddy and Ricketts one day lit almost by accident on an old empty study, which some years since had been a monitor’s room, but was now empty and tenantless.

It at once occurred to these two astute heroes that this would be a magnificent place for boxing-matches. In the other studies one was always banging against the corners of tables, or tripping over fenders, but here there was absolutely nothing, but four bare walls to interfere with anybody.

They called in two more friends—Tom Senior and another—who declared it was a splendid find, and the four thereupon took formal possession of their new territory, and inaugurated the event by a terrific eight-handed match.

Nothing could have been more satisfactory. The room was well out of the way; the studious ones of the Fifth were spared all annoyance, and the riotous ones had an asylum to go to. No one was a bit the worse for the move; every one, on the contrary, found himself decidedly the better.

“Go and kick-up a row in the monitor’s room,” became quite a common objurgation in the Form, among the diligent; as common, in fact, as “Come along, old man, and have it out in the monitor’s room,” was among the idlers.

But, as ill-luck would have it, this delightful retreat happened to be situated immediately over the study occupied by Wren of the Sixth. That worthy hero, seated one afternoon over his books, was startled by a terrific noise, followed by a vibration, followed by the rattling of all his tumblers in the cupboard, followed by a dull, heavy thud over his head, which tempted him to believe either that an earthquake was in progress, or that one of the chimney-stacks had fallen on to the roof. When, however, the noise was repeated, and with it were blended laughter and shouts of “Now then, let him have it!”

“Well parried!”

“Bravo, Bully!” and the like, Wren began to change his mind, and laid down his pen. He walked up the stairs to the upper landing, where, at once, the noise guided him to the old monitor’s room. Then the truth dawned upon him. He stayed long enough to get a pretty clear idea of who the “new lodgers” were, and then prudently retired without attempting a parley single-handed.

But next morning, when the festive rioters of the Fifth approached once more the scene of their revels, what was their amazement and rage to find the door locked, and the following notice, on a piece of school paper, affixed to the panel—“Monitor’s room. This room is closed by direction of the monitors.”

You might have knocked them over with a feather, so stupefied were they by this announcement! They stared at the door, they stared at one another, and then they broke out into a tempest of rage.

“The blackguards! what do they mean?” exclaimed Braddy, tearing down the paper and crushing it up in his hands.

“Monitor’s room, indeed!” cried Ricketts. “We’lllet them see whose room it is!”

“Kick open the door, can’t you?” said Tom Senior.

They did kick open the door between them. The lock was a weak one, and soon gave way.

Once inside, the evicted ones indulged their triumph by an uproar of more than usual vehemence, longing that it might tempt into their clutches the daring intruders who had presumed to interfere with their possession. No one came. They had their fling undisturbed. But before they quitted their stronghold one of their number, by diligent searching, had found in the lock of a neighbouring study-door a key which would fit theirs. Repairing, therefore, the catch, damaged by their late forcible entry, they calmly locked the door behind them when they went, and affixed to it, in the identical place where the other notice had hung, “Fifth Form. Private study. Not to be entered without permission.”

Of course, the news of this interesting adventure soon spread, and for a day or two the diligent as well as the idle on either side looked on with increasing interest for the issue of the contest.

For a while the Fifth had the best of it. They defied the enemy to turn them out, and procured and fixed an additional lock on the door. The Sixth threatened to report the matter to the Doctor, and summoned the invaders for the last time to capitulate. The invaders laughed them to scorn, and protested the room belonged to them, and leave it they would not for all the monitors in the world. The monitors retired, and the Fifth enjoyed their triumph.

But next day the Doctor abruptly entered the Fifth Form room, and said, “There is an unoccupied room at the end of the top landing, which some boys in this class have been making use of to the annoyance of other boys. This room, please remember, is not to be entered in future without my permission.”

Checkmate with a vengeance for the Fifth!

This event it was which, trivial in itself, re-kindled once more with redoubled heat the old animosity between the two head Forms at Saint Dominic’s. Although the original quarrel had been confined to only half-a-dozen individuals, it became now a party question of intense interest. The Sixth, who were the triumphant party, could afford to treat the matter lightly and smile over it, a demeanour which irritated the already enraged Fifth past description. The two Forms cut one another dead in the passages. The Fifth would gladly have provoked their rivals to blows, but, like sensible men, the Sixth kept the right side of the law, and refused to have anything to do with the challenges daily hurled at them.

As might be expected, the affair did not long remain a secret from the rest of the school. The Fourth Senior, as a body, stood up for the Sixth, and the Third and Second, on the whole, sided with the Fifth. But when it came to the junior school—the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles—all other partisanship was thrown quite into the shade.

The quarrel was one completely after their own hearts. It had begun in a row, it had gone on in a row, and, if it ever ended, it would end in a row.

A meeting was summoned at the earliest opportunity to take the momentous matter into consideration.

“What I say,” said Bramble, “is, it’s a jolly good job!”

“What’s a jolly good job?” demanded Stephen, who, of course, was red-hot for the Fifth.

“Why, chucking them out! I’m glad to see it, ain’t you, Padger?”

“They didn’t chuck them out!” roared Paul; “they went and sneaked to the Doctor, that’s what they did!”

“I don’t care! I say it’s a jolly good job! Those who say it’s a jolly good job hold up—”

“Shut up your row!” cried Stephen; “you’re always sticking yourself up. I say it’s a beastly shame, and I hope the Fifth will let them know it!”

“You’re a young idiot, that’s what you are!” exclaimed Bramble in a rage. “What business have you got at the meeting? Turn him out!”

“I’ll turnyouout!” replied the undaunted Stephen; “I’ve as much right here as you have. So there!”

“Turn him out, can’t you?” roared Bramble. “Bah! who goes and swills ginger-beer down in a public-house in the town, eh?”

This most unexpected turn to the conversation startled Stephen. He turned quite pale as he replied, “Idid, there! But I didn’t go in at the public door. And you’ve been sneaking!”

“No, I haven’t. Padger told me, didn’t you, Padger? Padger peeped through the door, and saw you. Oh, my eye! won’t I kick-up a shine about it! I’ll let out on you, see if I don’t. Bah, public-house boy! potboy, yah!”

Stephen’s only answer to this was a book, accurately shied at the head of his enemy.

The subsequent proceedings at the meeting were a trifle animated, but otherwise not interesting to the reader. The chief result was that the Guinea-pigs emerged as uncompromising champions for the Fifth, and the Tadpoles equally strong for the Sixth, while Stephen felt decidedly uncomfortable as to the consequences of Bramble’s discovery of his secret visits last term to the Cockchafer.

Stephen had in a confidential moment during the holidays told Oliver of these visits, and of his intimacy with Mr Cripps. The elder brother was very angry and astonished when he heard of it. He set before the boy, in no measured terms, the risk he was running by breaking one of the rules of the school; and, more than that, he said Cripps was a blackguard, and demanded of Stephen a promise, there and then, that he would never again enter the Cockchafer under any pretext whatever. Stephen, forced to submit, although not convinced that Cripps was such a wicked man as his brother made out, promised, but reserved to himself mentally the right to see Cripps at least once more at the Lock-House, there to return him the bicycle lantern, which it will be remembered that kind gentleman had lent the boy before the holidays. As to the Cockchafer, he was thoroughly frightened at the thought of having been seen there, and fully determined, even before Bramble’s threat, never again to cross its threshold. After all, Stephen knew he had little enough to fear from that small braggadocio; Bramble had neither the wit nor the skill to use his discovery to any advantage. For a day or two he followed his adversary up and down the passages with cries of “Potboy!” till everybody was sick of the sound, and felt heartily glad when, one fine afternoon, Stephen quietly deposited his adversary on his back on the gravel of the playground.

But to return to the feud between Fifth and Sixth.

Things after a little seemed to quiet down once more. The exiled rioters, after a long and disheartening search, found rest for the soles of their feet in Tom Senior’s study, which, though not nearly so convenient, afforded them asylum during their pugilistic encounters.

The studious ones settled down once more to their work, and the near approach of the examinations presently absorbed all their attention.

The struggle for the Nightingale Scholarship naturally was regarded with the most intense interest—not because it was the most important examination of the year: it was not. Not because it was worth 50 pounds a year for three years. That to most of the school was a minor consideration. It was as nothing to the fact that of the three candidates for the scholarship one was a Sixth Form boy and two Fifth. If only one of the latter could come out first, the Fifth and their partisans, all the school over, felt that the insult of the past month would be wiped out, and the glory of the Form avenged for ever. And it must be confessed that the Sixth, however much they professed to ignore the rivalry of their juniors, were equally anxious for their own man, and of late Loman had been working hard. He had worked, so it was reported, during the holidays, and now, ever since term had begun, he had remained more or less secluded in his study, or else, with a book under his arm, had taken walks outside.

Of course, the Sixth Form boy would win! Who ever heard of a Fifth boy beating a Sixth? And yet, in Oliver and Wraysford, the Fifth, every one admitted, had two strong men. They would at least make a hard fight for the prize. The Sixth only hoped they would not run their mantooclose, and so make the glory of his certain victory at all doubtful.

Loman was not a favourite even with his own class-fellows, but they could forgive anything now, provided he made sure of the Nightingale.

“He’ll be all right!” said Callonby to Wren one day, when the two happened to hit on the topic of the hour; “he’s a great deal steadier than he was last term.”

“I wish he’d read indoors, then, and not be everlastingly trotting out with his books.”

“Oh! I don’t know; it’s much jollier reading out of doors, if you can do it.”

“As long as hedoesread. Well, it will be a regular sell if he comes to grief; the Fifth will be intolerable.”

“They’re not far short of that now. Hullo!” This exclamation was provoked by the sight of Loman in the playground under their window. He was returning from one of his studious rambles, with his book under his arm, slowly making for the school.

There was nothing in this to astonish the two boys as they looked down. What did astonish them was that he was walking unsteadily, with a queer, stupid look on his face, utterly unlike anything his schoolfellows had ever seen there before. They watched him cross the playground and enter the school-house. Then Wren said, gravely, “It’s all up with the Nightingale, at that rate.”

“Looks like it,” said the other, and walked away. Loman was returning from one of his now frequent visits to the Cockchafer.

Chapter Twenty.A Crisis.The eventful day, which at the beginning of the term had seemed an age away, slowly but surely drew near.This was Saturday. On Monday the examination would be over, and in a week the competitors would know their fates!Some of my readers may know the queer sensation one sometimes gets at the approach of a long-looked-for and hardly-worked-for examination. For a week or so you have quietly been counting up what youdoknow. Now there breaks upon you an awful picture of what you donotknow, and with it the absolute conviction that what you do not know is exactly what you ought to know, and what you do know is no use at all. It is too late to do anything. You cannot get up in a day what it would take you a fortnight to go through. And it is not much good, now you are sure it is useless, to go over again what you have done. You begin to feel a sort of despair, which becomes, as the hours close in, positively reckless. What do you care if you do miss? What’s the use of bothering any more about it? It cannot be helped; why make yourself miserable? Only, you would give worlds to have the thing all over. Such at least were the sensations which stirred in the breasts of Oliver Greenfield and Horace Wraysford as they sat somewhat dejectedly over their books in Oliver’s study that Saturday afternoon.They had both worked hard since the holidays, generally together, neither concealing from the other what he had read or what he intended to read. Very bad rivals were these two, for though each was intent on winning the scholarship, each felt he would not break his heart if the other beat him, and that, as every one knows, is a most unheard-of piece of toleration. Now, however, each felt he had had enough of it. Oliver in particular was very despondent. He slammed up his books suddenly, and said, “I give it up; it’s not a bit of use going on!”Wraysford pushed back his chair slowly, and said, not very cheeringly, “Upon my word I think you’re right, Noll.”“I’ve a good mind,” said Oliver, looking very morose, “to scratch, and leave you and Loman to fight it out.”“Don’t be a jackass, Noll,” replied Wraysford, half laughing. “Thatwouldbe a sensible thing to do!”“All very well for you to laugh,” said Oliver, his brow clouding. “You know you are well up and are going to win.”“I’m no better up than you are,” said the other.“You know you’re going to win,” repeated Oliver.“I only wish I did,” said Wraysford, with a sigh.“Why,” pursued Oliver, evidently bent on a melancholy tack, “I assure you, Wray, I’ve forgotten half even of what I did know. I was going over some of those brutal Roman History dates in bed last night, for instance, and I positively couldn’t remember one. Then I tried the map of Greece, but I was still worse there; I couldn’t remember where one single place was except Athens and Corinth, and I’m sure I used to be pretty well up in that.”“I expect you were half asleep at the time,” suggested his friend.“No, I wasn’t; I couldn’t sleep a wink. I say, Wray,wouldn’tit be jolly if we only knew now what the questions are going to be on Monday?”“Why don’t you go and ask the Doctor?” said Wraysford, laughing; “he’d be delighted to tell you.”“What a humbug you are, Wray! I say, suppose we shut up work now and have a turn on the river. I’m certain it will do us more good than cracking our skulls here.”“Just what I had been thinking. I’m game, and it can’t make much difference.”“I suppose Loman is grinding up to the last?”“I suppose so; I was almost in hopes he wouldn’t keep it up.”“Never mind, it will all be over on Monday; that’s a comfort! Come along, old man. Suppose we get young Stee to cox us up to the lock and back.”Hue and cry was forthwith made for Stephen, but he was not to be found. He was out, Paul said; at the post, or somewhere.“Oh, all right; you can come and cox us yourself, youngster,” said Wraysford.“Cox you!” exclaimed Paul; “why, ain’t the Nightingale exam coming on, then, on Monday?”“Of course it is!”“And you two going out to row! I say, the Sixth will win it if you don’t look-out!” said Paul, in a very concerned voice.It was quite a revelation to the two boys to discover how great was the interest taken by outsiders in the coming event. Paul was in a great state of alarm, and was actually inclined to refuse to aid and abet what he imagined to be a wicked waste of precious opportunity, until, putting his head into Loman’s study, he found that the Sixth Form fellow was also not at work.When Oliver and Wraysford appeared in boating flannels in the playground they created as much sensation as if they had been ghosts.“You don’t mean to say you’re going out, you fellows?” exclaimed Ricketts, one of the idle ones of the Fifth.“Yes, I do,” said Wraysford.“But the Nightingale, I say?”“That’s not till Monday.”“I know; but aren’t you grinding for it? I say, don’t let them beat you! Hadn’t you better work instead of going out?”Ricketts, by the way, had not done a stroke of work that he could possibly help all the term!All the other Fifth Form fellows they encountered echoed more or less anxiously the same advice. But the two friends were obdurate. Threats, promises, entreaties, would not put them off their row up the river, and they went on their way, leaving behind them an unusual gloom on the spirits of their dearest friends.The only person who seemed really glad to see them leaving their work was Bramble. He, with his friend Padger, and a few other irreconcilables, were just returning from a rat-catching expedition, and the sight of the Fifth Form heroes in boating costume filled them with joy.“Hullo—my eye—hurrah!” shouted Bramble, taking in the situation in a moment. “There they go! I hope they get drowned; don’t you, Padger?”Padger was understood to assent to this benevolent aspiration.“Go it.You’llget the Nightingale! I thought you would! Hope you get drowned, do you hear! Hurrah for the Sixth!”At this juncture Master Paul gave chase, and for a few moments Bramble and his friends were too much engaged to speak; but at last, when the chase was over, and further reprisals were out of the question, the hero of the Tadpoles summoned up all his remaining powers to yell:“Yah boo, Nightingale! Hope you get drowned! Yah!” after which he went his way.The two friends paddled quietly up the river. They talked very little, but both felt relieved to be away from their books. As they went on their spirits rose, greatly to Paul’s displeasure. That young gentleman, immoderately jealous for the glory of the Fifth, was content as long as the two rowers remained grave and serious; he could then make himself believe they were engaged in mental exercises favourable to Monday’s examination. But as soon as they began to whistle, and chaff him and one another, and talk of their holiday adventures, Paul became displeased, for they could not possibly do this and be inwardly preparing for the examination at the same time.However, he had to submit as best he could, and gave all his attention to steering them carefully, so that it should be no fault of his, at any rate, if they were prevented from showing up on the critical day.“This old Shar isn’t half such a jolly river as the Thames, is it, Wray?”“Rather not!” replied Wraysford, resting on his oar; “and yet it’s pretty enough in parts.”“Oh, up at the weir?—yes. But I’m out of love with weirs at present. I shudder every time I think of that one up the Thames.”“It wasn’t pleasant, certainly,” said Wraysford.“Pleasant! Old man, if you hadn’t been there it would have been a good deal worse than unpleasant. Poor Stee!”“Pull your left, Greenfield senior, or you’ll be into the bank!” sung out Paul.They paddled on again until Gusset Lock came in sight. There were very few boats about; the season was, in fact, at an end, and the river, which a month or two ago had generally swarmed with boats just at this part on Saturday afternoons, looked quite deserted.“Shall we go through the lock or turn round?” inquired Paul.“May as well turn, eh, Wray?”Paul was about to obey the order and turn the boat, when, casting his eyes on the bank, he started suddenly to his feet and exclaimed, pointing towards the lock-house, “Hullo! I say, there’s something up there!”The two others looked round; something more lively than usual was undoubtedly taking place at old Mr Cripps’s residence, to judge by the shouts and laughter which proceeded from the group of people assembled near the door.From where they were the boys in the boat could not see what the nature of the excitement was, and therefore paddled on with a view to satisfy their curiosity.As they came up to the lock Paul suddenly exclaimed, “That’s young Greenfield!”“What!” said Oliver—“Stephen?”“Yes, and—whaton earthare they doing to him?”The boat being low down under the bank, it was impossible to see what was going on on the tow-path. Oliver, however, having once heard Stephen’s name, ordered Paul to put them into the opposite bank quick, where they could land.While this was being done a shriek from the bank sent the blood suddenly to the faces of the two friends. It was Stephen! They dashed ashore, and in a moment were across the lock and on the spot. The spectacle which met their eyes as they came up was a strange one. The central figure was the luckless Stephen, in the clutches of three or four disreputable fellows, one of whom was Cripps the younger, who, with loud laughter at the boy’s struggles and brutal unconcern at his terror, were half dragging, half carrying him towards the water’s edge.Beside them stood Loman, flushed, excited, and laughing loudly. Poor Stephen, very unlike himself, appeared to be utterly cowed and terrified, and uttered shriek upon shriek as his persecutors dragged him along.“Oh, don’t! Please, Cripps! Don’t let them, Loman—don’t let them drown me!” he shouted.A laugh was the only answer.It was at this moment, and just when, to all appearances, the boy was about to be thrown into the water, that Oliver and Wraysford appeared on the scene.Their appearance was so sudden and unexpected that the fellows, even though they did not know who the two boys were, were momentarily taken aback and dropped their prey.With a bound Oliver sprang furiously on Cripps, who happened to be nearest him, and before that respectable gentleman knew where he was, had dealt him a blow which sent him staggering back in the utmost alarm and astonishment. Wraysford, no less prompt, tackled one of the other blackguards, while Stephen, now released, and cured of his momentary terror by the appearance of the rescuers, did his share manfully with one of the others.The contest was short and sharp. A pair of well-trained athletic schoolboys, with a plucky youngster to help them, are a match any day for twice the number of half-tipsy cads. In a minute or two the field was clear of all but Cripps, who appeared, after his short experience, by no means disposed to continue the contest single-handed. As for Loman, he had disappeared.“What is all this?” demanded Oliver, when at last, breathless and pale with excitement, he could find words.“Oh, Noll!” cried Stephen, “I’ll tell you all about it. But let’s get away from here.”“No, I won’t go!” shouted Oliver—“not till I know what it all means. You fellow!” added he, walking up to Cripps, “you’d better speak or I’ll thrash you!”Mr Cripps, who had had time to recover somewhat from his first surprise, looked a little inclined to defy his young antagonist, but, thinking better of it, suddenly assumed his usual impudent swagger as he replied, with a laugh, “Come, I say, youdodo it well, you do! It was a joke—just a joke, young gentleman. You’ve no occasion to flurry yourself; we wouldn’t have hurt a hair of the young gentleman’s head. Ask Mr Loman.”“Where’s Loman?” demanded Oliver. “Gone,” said Stephen. “But I say, Noll, do come away. I’ll tell you all about it. Do come.”Cripps laughed. “Don’t you swallow all that young swell tells you. He’s a nice boy, he is, but—well, he’d better mind what he says, that’s all!”“Do come away!” once more entreated Stephen.“Yes, do come away,” laughed Cripps, mimicking the boy’s tones. “When I calls up at the school I’ll let them all know what a nice young prig he is, coming down and drinking at my public-house and then turning round on me. Never fear!I’lllet them know, my beauties! I’ll have a talk with your Doctor and open his eyes for him. Good-bye, you sneaking young—”“Look here!” said Wraysford, quietly walking up to the blackguard in the midst of this discourse, “if you don’t stop instantly you’ll be sorry for it.”Cripps stared a moment at the speaker, and at the first he held out. Then, without another word, he turned on his heel into the cottage, leaving the three boys standing in undisputed possession of the tow-path.“Come on, how, old man!” said Wraysford; “we can’t do any good by staying here.”Oliver looked disposed to resist, and cast a glance at the cottage door by which Cripps had just vanished. But he let himself be persuaded eventually, and turned gloomily towards the boat. Here Paul, who had been a witness of thefracason the tow-path, was waiting, ready to steer home, and bursting with curiosity to hear all Stephen had to say.Greatly to his disgust, Oliver said, peremptorily, “You’ll have to walk home, Paul; Stephen will steer.”“Why, you said I might steer.”Oliver was in no humour for an argument, so he gave Paul a light box on his ears and advised him to go home quietly unless he wanted a thrashing, and not say a word to any one about what had occurred.Paul had nothing for it but sulkily to obey, and walk back. At last the others got on board and put off homeward.“Now,” said Oliver, presently, resting on his oar and bending forward towards Stephen.“Oh, Noll!” began that unhappy youngster, “I am so very, very sorry! it was all—”“None of that,” angrily interrupted the elder brother. “Just tell me how it came about.”Stephen, quite cowed by his brother’s angry manner, told his story shortly and hurriedly.“Why,” he said, “you know I promised you never to go to the Cockchafer again, and I didn’t, but I thought I ought to see Cripps and give him back the bicycle-lamp.”“Young muff!” ejaculated his brother.“So,” pursued Stephen, still more falteringly, “I thought I’d come up this afternoon.”“Well, go on, can’t you?” said Oliver, losing his temper at the poor boy’s evident uneasiness.“Cripps asked me into the cottage, and there were some fellows there, smoking and drinking and playing cards.”“Was Loman one of them?” put in Wraysford.“I think so,” said poor Stephen, who had evidently started his story in the hope of keeping Loman’s name quiet.“Thinkso, you young cad!” cried Oliver. “Why can’t you tell the truth straight out? Was he there or not?”“Yes, he was. I did mean to tell the truth, Noll, really, only—only there’s no need to get Loman in a row.”“Go on,” said Oliver.“They made fun of me because I wouldn’t smoke and play with them. You know I promised mother not to play cards, Noll. I didn’t mind that, though, but when I wanted to go away they—that is, Cripps—wouldn’t let me. I tried to get away, but he stopped me, and they said they’d make me play.”“Who said? Did Loman?” inquired Oliver, again. “Why—yes,” said Stephen falteringly, “he and the rest. They held me down in a chair, and made me take hold of the cards, and one of them opened my mouth and shouted beastly words down into it—ugh!”“Was that Loman?”“No,” said Stephen, relieved to be able to deny it.“What did he do?” demanded Oliver.“They all—”“What did Loman do, I say?” again asked Oliver.It was no use trying to keep back anything.“He pulled my ears, but not very hard. Really I expect it was only fun, Noll.” This was said quite beseechingly. “I said I thought they were very wicked to be doing what they did; but they only laughed at that, and called me a prig.”“Much better if you’d kept what you thought to yourself,” said Wraysford. “Well?”“Oh, then they did a lot of things to rile me, and knocked me about because I wouldn’t drink their stuff, and they swore too.”“Did Loman swear?”“They all swore, I think,” said Stephen; “and then, you know, when I wouldn’t do what they wanted they said they’d throw me in the river, and then you fellows turned up.”“Did Loman tell them to throw you in the river?” said Oliver, whose brow had been growing darker and darker.“Oh, no,” exclaimed Stephen, “he didn’t, really! I think he was sorry.”“Did he try to prevent it, then?” asked Oliver.“Well, no; I didn’t hear him say—” faltered Stephen; but Oliver shut him up, and turning to Wraysford said, “Wray, I shall thrash Loman.”“All serene,” replied Wraysford; “you’d better have it out to-night.”“Oh, Noll!” cried Stephen in great distress; “don’t fight, please. It was all my fault, for—”“Shut up, Stee,” said Oliver, quietly, but not unkindly. Then turning to Wraysford, he added, “After tea, then, Wray, in the gymnasium.”“Right you are!” replied his friend.And then, without another word, the three rowed back to Saint Dominic’s.

The eventful day, which at the beginning of the term had seemed an age away, slowly but surely drew near.

This was Saturday. On Monday the examination would be over, and in a week the competitors would know their fates!

Some of my readers may know the queer sensation one sometimes gets at the approach of a long-looked-for and hardly-worked-for examination. For a week or so you have quietly been counting up what youdoknow. Now there breaks upon you an awful picture of what you donotknow, and with it the absolute conviction that what you do not know is exactly what you ought to know, and what you do know is no use at all. It is too late to do anything. You cannot get up in a day what it would take you a fortnight to go through. And it is not much good, now you are sure it is useless, to go over again what you have done. You begin to feel a sort of despair, which becomes, as the hours close in, positively reckless. What do you care if you do miss? What’s the use of bothering any more about it? It cannot be helped; why make yourself miserable? Only, you would give worlds to have the thing all over. Such at least were the sensations which stirred in the breasts of Oliver Greenfield and Horace Wraysford as they sat somewhat dejectedly over their books in Oliver’s study that Saturday afternoon.

They had both worked hard since the holidays, generally together, neither concealing from the other what he had read or what he intended to read. Very bad rivals were these two, for though each was intent on winning the scholarship, each felt he would not break his heart if the other beat him, and that, as every one knows, is a most unheard-of piece of toleration. Now, however, each felt he had had enough of it. Oliver in particular was very despondent. He slammed up his books suddenly, and said, “I give it up; it’s not a bit of use going on!”

Wraysford pushed back his chair slowly, and said, not very cheeringly, “Upon my word I think you’re right, Noll.”

“I’ve a good mind,” said Oliver, looking very morose, “to scratch, and leave you and Loman to fight it out.”

“Don’t be a jackass, Noll,” replied Wraysford, half laughing. “Thatwouldbe a sensible thing to do!”

“All very well for you to laugh,” said Oliver, his brow clouding. “You know you are well up and are going to win.”

“I’m no better up than you are,” said the other.

“You know you’re going to win,” repeated Oliver.

“I only wish I did,” said Wraysford, with a sigh.

“Why,” pursued Oliver, evidently bent on a melancholy tack, “I assure you, Wray, I’ve forgotten half even of what I did know. I was going over some of those brutal Roman History dates in bed last night, for instance, and I positively couldn’t remember one. Then I tried the map of Greece, but I was still worse there; I couldn’t remember where one single place was except Athens and Corinth, and I’m sure I used to be pretty well up in that.”

“I expect you were half asleep at the time,” suggested his friend.

“No, I wasn’t; I couldn’t sleep a wink. I say, Wray,wouldn’tit be jolly if we only knew now what the questions are going to be on Monday?”

“Why don’t you go and ask the Doctor?” said Wraysford, laughing; “he’d be delighted to tell you.”

“What a humbug you are, Wray! I say, suppose we shut up work now and have a turn on the river. I’m certain it will do us more good than cracking our skulls here.”

“Just what I had been thinking. I’m game, and it can’t make much difference.”

“I suppose Loman is grinding up to the last?”

“I suppose so; I was almost in hopes he wouldn’t keep it up.”

“Never mind, it will all be over on Monday; that’s a comfort! Come along, old man. Suppose we get young Stee to cox us up to the lock and back.”

Hue and cry was forthwith made for Stephen, but he was not to be found. He was out, Paul said; at the post, or somewhere.

“Oh, all right; you can come and cox us yourself, youngster,” said Wraysford.

“Cox you!” exclaimed Paul; “why, ain’t the Nightingale exam coming on, then, on Monday?”

“Of course it is!”

“And you two going out to row! I say, the Sixth will win it if you don’t look-out!” said Paul, in a very concerned voice.

It was quite a revelation to the two boys to discover how great was the interest taken by outsiders in the coming event. Paul was in a great state of alarm, and was actually inclined to refuse to aid and abet what he imagined to be a wicked waste of precious opportunity, until, putting his head into Loman’s study, he found that the Sixth Form fellow was also not at work.

When Oliver and Wraysford appeared in boating flannels in the playground they created as much sensation as if they had been ghosts.

“You don’t mean to say you’re going out, you fellows?” exclaimed Ricketts, one of the idle ones of the Fifth.

“Yes, I do,” said Wraysford.

“But the Nightingale, I say?”

“That’s not till Monday.”

“I know; but aren’t you grinding for it? I say, don’t let them beat you! Hadn’t you better work instead of going out?”

Ricketts, by the way, had not done a stroke of work that he could possibly help all the term!

All the other Fifth Form fellows they encountered echoed more or less anxiously the same advice. But the two friends were obdurate. Threats, promises, entreaties, would not put them off their row up the river, and they went on their way, leaving behind them an unusual gloom on the spirits of their dearest friends.

The only person who seemed really glad to see them leaving their work was Bramble. He, with his friend Padger, and a few other irreconcilables, were just returning from a rat-catching expedition, and the sight of the Fifth Form heroes in boating costume filled them with joy.

“Hullo—my eye—hurrah!” shouted Bramble, taking in the situation in a moment. “There they go! I hope they get drowned; don’t you, Padger?”

Padger was understood to assent to this benevolent aspiration.

“Go it.You’llget the Nightingale! I thought you would! Hope you get drowned, do you hear! Hurrah for the Sixth!”

At this juncture Master Paul gave chase, and for a few moments Bramble and his friends were too much engaged to speak; but at last, when the chase was over, and further reprisals were out of the question, the hero of the Tadpoles summoned up all his remaining powers to yell:

“Yah boo, Nightingale! Hope you get drowned! Yah!” after which he went his way.

The two friends paddled quietly up the river. They talked very little, but both felt relieved to be away from their books. As they went on their spirits rose, greatly to Paul’s displeasure. That young gentleman, immoderately jealous for the glory of the Fifth, was content as long as the two rowers remained grave and serious; he could then make himself believe they were engaged in mental exercises favourable to Monday’s examination. But as soon as they began to whistle, and chaff him and one another, and talk of their holiday adventures, Paul became displeased, for they could not possibly do this and be inwardly preparing for the examination at the same time.

However, he had to submit as best he could, and gave all his attention to steering them carefully, so that it should be no fault of his, at any rate, if they were prevented from showing up on the critical day.

“This old Shar isn’t half such a jolly river as the Thames, is it, Wray?”

“Rather not!” replied Wraysford, resting on his oar; “and yet it’s pretty enough in parts.”

“Oh, up at the weir?—yes. But I’m out of love with weirs at present. I shudder every time I think of that one up the Thames.”

“It wasn’t pleasant, certainly,” said Wraysford.

“Pleasant! Old man, if you hadn’t been there it would have been a good deal worse than unpleasant. Poor Stee!”

“Pull your left, Greenfield senior, or you’ll be into the bank!” sung out Paul.

They paddled on again until Gusset Lock came in sight. There were very few boats about; the season was, in fact, at an end, and the river, which a month or two ago had generally swarmed with boats just at this part on Saturday afternoons, looked quite deserted.

“Shall we go through the lock or turn round?” inquired Paul.

“May as well turn, eh, Wray?”

Paul was about to obey the order and turn the boat, when, casting his eyes on the bank, he started suddenly to his feet and exclaimed, pointing towards the lock-house, “Hullo! I say, there’s something up there!”

The two others looked round; something more lively than usual was undoubtedly taking place at old Mr Cripps’s residence, to judge by the shouts and laughter which proceeded from the group of people assembled near the door.

From where they were the boys in the boat could not see what the nature of the excitement was, and therefore paddled on with a view to satisfy their curiosity.

As they came up to the lock Paul suddenly exclaimed, “That’s young Greenfield!”

“What!” said Oliver—“Stephen?”

“Yes, and—whaton earthare they doing to him?”

The boat being low down under the bank, it was impossible to see what was going on on the tow-path. Oliver, however, having once heard Stephen’s name, ordered Paul to put them into the opposite bank quick, where they could land.

While this was being done a shriek from the bank sent the blood suddenly to the faces of the two friends. It was Stephen! They dashed ashore, and in a moment were across the lock and on the spot. The spectacle which met their eyes as they came up was a strange one. The central figure was the luckless Stephen, in the clutches of three or four disreputable fellows, one of whom was Cripps the younger, who, with loud laughter at the boy’s struggles and brutal unconcern at his terror, were half dragging, half carrying him towards the water’s edge.

Beside them stood Loman, flushed, excited, and laughing loudly. Poor Stephen, very unlike himself, appeared to be utterly cowed and terrified, and uttered shriek upon shriek as his persecutors dragged him along.

“Oh, don’t! Please, Cripps! Don’t let them, Loman—don’t let them drown me!” he shouted.

A laugh was the only answer.

It was at this moment, and just when, to all appearances, the boy was about to be thrown into the water, that Oliver and Wraysford appeared on the scene.

Their appearance was so sudden and unexpected that the fellows, even though they did not know who the two boys were, were momentarily taken aback and dropped their prey.

With a bound Oliver sprang furiously on Cripps, who happened to be nearest him, and before that respectable gentleman knew where he was, had dealt him a blow which sent him staggering back in the utmost alarm and astonishment. Wraysford, no less prompt, tackled one of the other blackguards, while Stephen, now released, and cured of his momentary terror by the appearance of the rescuers, did his share manfully with one of the others.

The contest was short and sharp. A pair of well-trained athletic schoolboys, with a plucky youngster to help them, are a match any day for twice the number of half-tipsy cads. In a minute or two the field was clear of all but Cripps, who appeared, after his short experience, by no means disposed to continue the contest single-handed. As for Loman, he had disappeared.

“What is all this?” demanded Oliver, when at last, breathless and pale with excitement, he could find words.

“Oh, Noll!” cried Stephen, “I’ll tell you all about it. But let’s get away from here.”

“No, I won’t go!” shouted Oliver—“not till I know what it all means. You fellow!” added he, walking up to Cripps, “you’d better speak or I’ll thrash you!”

Mr Cripps, who had had time to recover somewhat from his first surprise, looked a little inclined to defy his young antagonist, but, thinking better of it, suddenly assumed his usual impudent swagger as he replied, with a laugh, “Come, I say, youdodo it well, you do! It was a joke—just a joke, young gentleman. You’ve no occasion to flurry yourself; we wouldn’t have hurt a hair of the young gentleman’s head. Ask Mr Loman.”

“Where’s Loman?” demanded Oliver. “Gone,” said Stephen. “But I say, Noll, do come away. I’ll tell you all about it. Do come.”

Cripps laughed. “Don’t you swallow all that young swell tells you. He’s a nice boy, he is, but—well, he’d better mind what he says, that’s all!”

“Do come away!” once more entreated Stephen.

“Yes, do come away,” laughed Cripps, mimicking the boy’s tones. “When I calls up at the school I’ll let them all know what a nice young prig he is, coming down and drinking at my public-house and then turning round on me. Never fear!I’lllet them know, my beauties! I’ll have a talk with your Doctor and open his eyes for him. Good-bye, you sneaking young—”

“Look here!” said Wraysford, quietly walking up to the blackguard in the midst of this discourse, “if you don’t stop instantly you’ll be sorry for it.”

Cripps stared a moment at the speaker, and at the first he held out. Then, without another word, he turned on his heel into the cottage, leaving the three boys standing in undisputed possession of the tow-path.

“Come on, how, old man!” said Wraysford; “we can’t do any good by staying here.”

Oliver looked disposed to resist, and cast a glance at the cottage door by which Cripps had just vanished. But he let himself be persuaded eventually, and turned gloomily towards the boat. Here Paul, who had been a witness of thefracason the tow-path, was waiting, ready to steer home, and bursting with curiosity to hear all Stephen had to say.

Greatly to his disgust, Oliver said, peremptorily, “You’ll have to walk home, Paul; Stephen will steer.”

“Why, you said I might steer.”

Oliver was in no humour for an argument, so he gave Paul a light box on his ears and advised him to go home quietly unless he wanted a thrashing, and not say a word to any one about what had occurred.

Paul had nothing for it but sulkily to obey, and walk back. At last the others got on board and put off homeward.

“Now,” said Oliver, presently, resting on his oar and bending forward towards Stephen.

“Oh, Noll!” began that unhappy youngster, “I am so very, very sorry! it was all—”

“None of that,” angrily interrupted the elder brother. “Just tell me how it came about.”

Stephen, quite cowed by his brother’s angry manner, told his story shortly and hurriedly.

“Why,” he said, “you know I promised you never to go to the Cockchafer again, and I didn’t, but I thought I ought to see Cripps and give him back the bicycle-lamp.”

“Young muff!” ejaculated his brother.

“So,” pursued Stephen, still more falteringly, “I thought I’d come up this afternoon.”

“Well, go on, can’t you?” said Oliver, losing his temper at the poor boy’s evident uneasiness.

“Cripps asked me into the cottage, and there were some fellows there, smoking and drinking and playing cards.”

“Was Loman one of them?” put in Wraysford.

“I think so,” said poor Stephen, who had evidently started his story in the hope of keeping Loman’s name quiet.

“Thinkso, you young cad!” cried Oliver. “Why can’t you tell the truth straight out? Was he there or not?”

“Yes, he was. I did mean to tell the truth, Noll, really, only—only there’s no need to get Loman in a row.”

“Go on,” said Oliver.

“They made fun of me because I wouldn’t smoke and play with them. You know I promised mother not to play cards, Noll. I didn’t mind that, though, but when I wanted to go away they—that is, Cripps—wouldn’t let me. I tried to get away, but he stopped me, and they said they’d make me play.”

“Who said? Did Loman?” inquired Oliver, again. “Why—yes,” said Stephen falteringly, “he and the rest. They held me down in a chair, and made me take hold of the cards, and one of them opened my mouth and shouted beastly words down into it—ugh!”

“Was that Loman?”

“No,” said Stephen, relieved to be able to deny it.

“What did he do?” demanded Oliver.

“They all—”

“What did Loman do, I say?” again asked Oliver.

It was no use trying to keep back anything.

“He pulled my ears, but not very hard. Really I expect it was only fun, Noll.” This was said quite beseechingly. “I said I thought they were very wicked to be doing what they did; but they only laughed at that, and called me a prig.”

“Much better if you’d kept what you thought to yourself,” said Wraysford. “Well?”

“Oh, then they did a lot of things to rile me, and knocked me about because I wouldn’t drink their stuff, and they swore too.”

“Did Loman swear?”

“They all swore, I think,” said Stephen; “and then, you know, when I wouldn’t do what they wanted they said they’d throw me in the river, and then you fellows turned up.”

“Did Loman tell them to throw you in the river?” said Oliver, whose brow had been growing darker and darker.

“Oh, no,” exclaimed Stephen, “he didn’t, really! I think he was sorry.”

“Did he try to prevent it, then?” asked Oliver.

“Well, no; I didn’t hear him say—” faltered Stephen; but Oliver shut him up, and turning to Wraysford said, “Wray, I shall thrash Loman.”

“All serene,” replied Wraysford; “you’d better have it out to-night.”

“Oh, Noll!” cried Stephen in great distress; “don’t fight, please. It was all my fault, for—”

“Shut up, Stee,” said Oliver, quietly, but not unkindly. Then turning to Wraysford, he added, “After tea, then, Wray, in the gymnasium.”

“Right you are!” replied his friend.

And then, without another word, the three rowed back to Saint Dominic’s.

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