Chapter Fifteen.

Chapter Fifteen.A Lower School Festival.“I tell you what, Wray,” said Oliver one evening about a week after the match, “I heartily wish this term was over.”“Why, that’s just what I heard your young brother say. He is going to learn the bicycle, he says, in the holidays.”“Oh, it’s not the holidays I want,” said Oliver. “But somehow things have gone all wrong. I’ve been off my luck completely this term.”“Off your luck!—You great discontented, ungrateful bear. Haven’t you got the English prize? Aren’t you in the School Eleven? and didn’t you make top score in the match with the Sixth last Saturday? Whatever do you mean by ‘off your luck’?”“Oh, it’s not that, you know,” said Oliver, pulling a quill pen to bits. “What I mean is—oh, bother!—a fellow can’t explain it.”“So it seems,” laughed Wraysford; “but I wish a fellow could, for I’ve not a notion what you’re driving at.”“Well, I mean I’m not doing much good. There’s that young brother of mine, for instance. What good have I been to him? There have I let him go and do just what he likes, and not looked after him a bit ever since he came here.”“And I wager he’s got on all the better for not being tied up to your apron strings. He’s a fine honest little chap, is young Greenfield.”“Oh, I dare say; but somehow I don’t seem to know as much of him now as I used to do before he came here.”“That’s Loman’s fault, I bet you anything,” exclaimed Wraysford. “I’m sure he won’t do the kid any good. But Rastle was saying only yesterday how well Stephen was getting on in class.”“Was he? It’s little thanks to me if he is,” said Oliver, gloomily.“And what else have you got to grumble about?” asked his friend.“Why, you know how I’m out with the Fifth over that affair with Loman. They all set me down as a coward, and I’m not that.”“Of course you aren’t,” warmly replied the other. “But, Noll, you told me a little while ago you didn’t care a snap what they thought.”“No more I do, in a way. But it’s very uncomfortable.”“Why don’t you tell them straight out why you didn’t let out at Loman? They are sure to respect your motive.”“Yes, and set me down as posing as a martyr or a saint! No! I’d sooner pass as a coward than set up as a saint when I’m not one. Why, Wray, if you’ll believe me, I’ve been a worse Christian since I began to try to be one, than I ever was before. I’m for ever losing my temper, and—”“Shut up that tune, now,” interposed Wraysford, hurriedly. “If you are beginning at that again, I’ll go. As if you didn’t know you were the best fellow in the school!”“I’m not the best,oranything like,” said Oliver, warmly; “I hate your saying so—I wish almost I had never told you anything about it.”“Well, I don’t know,” said Wraysford, walking to the window and looking out. “Ever since you told me of it, I’ve been trying myself in a mild way to go straight. But it’s desperate hard work.”“Desperate hard work even if you try in more than a mild way,” said Oliver.Both were silent for a little, and then Oliver, hurriedly changing the subject, said, “And then, to proceed with my growl, I’m certain to come a howler over the Nightingale.”Wraysford turned from the window with a laugh.“I suppose you expect me to sympathise with you about that, eh? The bigger the howler the better for me! I only wish you were a true prophet, Noll, in that particular.”“Why, of course you’ll beat me—and if you don’t Loman will. I hear he’s grinding away like nuts.”“Is he, though?” said Wraysford.“Yes, and he’s going to get a ‘coach’ in the holidays too.”“More likely a dog-cart. Anyhow, I dare say he will run us close. But he’s such a shifty fellow, there’s no knowing whether he will stay out.”Just at that moment a terrific row came up from below.“Whatever’s up down there?”“Only the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles. By the way,” said Wraysford, “they’ve got a grand ‘supper,’ as they call it, on to-night to celebrate their cricket match. Suppose we go and see the fun?”“All right!” said Oliver. “Who won the match?”“Why, what a question! Do you suppose a match between Guinea-pigs and Tadpolesevercame to an end? They had a free fight at the end of the first innings. The Tadpole umpire gave one of his own men ‘not out’ when he hit his wicket, and they made a personal question of it, and fell out. Your young brother, I hear, greatly distinguished himself in the argument.”“Well, it doesn’t seem to interfere with their spirits now, to judge of the row they are making. Just listen!”By this time they had reached the door of the Fourth Junior room, whence proceeded a noise such as one often hears in a certain popular department of the Zoological Gardens. Amid the tumult and hubbub the two friends had not much difficulty in slipping in unobserved and seating themselves comfortably in an obscure corner of the festive apartment, behind a pyramid of piled-up chairs and forms.The Junior “cricket feast” was an institution in Saint Dominic’s, and was an occasion when any one who had nerves to be excruciated or ear-drums to be broken took care to keep out of the way. In place of the usual desks and forms, a long table ran down the room, round which some fifty or sixty urchins sat, regaling themselves with what was left of a vast spread of plum-cake, buns, and ginger-beer. How these banquets were provided was always a mystery to outsiders. Some said a levy of threepence a head was made; others, that every boy was bound in honour to contribute something eatable to the feast; and others averred that every boy had to bring his own bag and bottle, and no more. Be that as it might, the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at present assembled looked uncommonly tight about the jackets after it all, and not one had the appearance of actual starvation written on his lineaments.The animal part of the feast, however, was now over, and the intellectual was beginning. The tremendous noise which had brought Oliver and Wraysford on to the scene had indeed been but the applause which followed the chairman’s opening song—a musical effort which was imperatively encored by a large and enthusiastic audience.The chairman, by the way, was no other than our friend Bramble, who by reason of seniority—he had been two years in the Fourth Junior, and showed no signs of rising higher all his life—claimed to preside on all such occasions. He sat up at the top end in stately glory, higher than the rest by the thickness of a Liddell and Scott, which was placed on his chair to lift him up to the required elevation, blushingly receiving the applause with which his song was greeted, and modestly volunteering to sing it again if the fellows liked.The fellows did like. Mr Bramble mounted once more on to the seat of his chair, and saying, “Look-out for the chorus!” began one of the time-honoured Dominican cricket songs. It consisted of about twelve verses altogether, but three will be quite enough for the reader.“There was a little lad,(Well bowled!)And a little bat he had;(Well bowled!)He skipped up to the wicket,And thought he’d play some cricket,But he didn’t, for he was—Well bowled!“He thought he’d make a score(So bold),And lead-off with a four(So bold);So he walked out to a twister,But somehow sort of missed her,And she bailed him, for he wasToo bold.“Now all ye little boys(So bold),Who like to make a noise(So bold),Take warning by young Walker,Keep your bat down to a yorker,Or, don’t you see? you’ll be—Well bowled!”The virtue of the pathetic ballad was in the chorus, which was usually not sung, but spoken, and so presented a noble opportunity for variety of tone and expression, which was greedily seized upon by the riotous young gentlemen into whose mouths it was entrusted. By the time the sad adventures of Master Walker had been rehearsed in all their twelve verses, the meeting was so hoarse that to the two elder boys it seemed as if the proceedings must necessarily come abruptly to a close for want of voice.But no! If the meeting was for the moment incapable of song, speech was yet possible and behold there arose Master Paul in his place to propose a toast.Now Master Paul was a Guinea-pig, and accounted a mighty man in his tribe. Any one might have supposed that the purpose for which he had now risen was to propose in complimentary terms the health of his gallant opponents the Tadpoles. This, however, was far from his intention. His modesty had another theme. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. There were no ladies present, but that didn’t matter. Tremendous cheers greeted this opening. “You all know me; I am one of yourselves.” Paul had borrowed this expression from the speech of a Radical orator, which had appeared recently in the papers. Every one knew it was borrowed, for he had asked about twenty of his friends during the last week whether that wouldn’t be “a showy lead-off for his cricket feast jaw?”The quotation was, however, now greeted as vociferously as if it had been strictly original, and shouts of “So you are!”“Bravo, Paul!” for a while drowned the orator’s voice. When silence was restored his eloquence took a new and unexpected departure. “Jemmy Welch, I’ll punch your head when we get outside, see if I don’t!” Jemmy Welch was a Guinea-pig who had just made a particularly good shot at the speaker’s nose with a piece of plum-cake. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not detain you with a speech (loud cheers from all, and ‘Jolly good job!’ from Bramble). I shall go on speaking just as long as I choose, Bramble, so now! (Cheers.) I’ve as much right to speak as you have. (Applause.) You’re only a stuck-up duffer. (Terrific cheers, and a fight down at the end of the table.) I beg to drink the health of the Guinea-pigs. (Loud Guinea-pig cheers.) We licked the old Tadpoles in the match. (‘No you didn’t!’ ‘That’s a cram!’ and groans from the Tadpoles.) I say we did! Your umpire was a cheat—they always are! We beat you hollow, didn’t we, Stee Greenfield?”“Yes, rather!” shouted Stephen, snatching a piece of cake away from a Tadpole and shying it to a Guinea-pig.“That’s eight matches we’ve won,” proceeded Paul; “and—all right, Spicer! I saw you do it this time! See if I don’t pay you for it!” whereat the speaker hurriedly quitted his seat and, amid howls and yells, proceeded to “pay out” Spicer.Meanwhile Stephen heard his name suddenly called upon for a song, an invitation he promptly obeyed. But as the clamour was at the time deafening, and the attention of the audience was wholly monopolised by the commercial transactions taking place between Paul and Spicer, the effect of the performance was somewhat lost. Oliver certainly did see his young brother mount up on the table, turn very red in the face, open his mouth and shut it, smile in one part, look sorrowful in another, and wave his hand above his head in another. But that was the only intimation he had of a musical performance proceeding. Words and tune were utterly inaudible by any one except the singer himself—even ifheheard them.This was getting monotonous, and the two visitors were thinking of withdrawing, when the door suddenly opened, and a dead silence prevailed. The new-comer was the dirtiest and most ferocious-looking of all the boys in the lower school, who rushed into the room breathless, and in what would have been a white heat had his face been clean enough to show it. “What do you think?” he gasped, catching hold of the back of a chair for support; “Tony Pembury’s kept me all this while brushing his clothes! I told him it was cricket feast, but he didn’t care! What do you think of that? Of course, you’ve finished all the grub; I knew you would!”This last plaintive wail of disappointment was drowned in the clamour of execration which greeted the boy’s announcement. Lesser feuds were instantly forgotten in presence of this great insult. The most sacred traditions of Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles were being trampled upon by the tyrants of the upper school! Not even on cricket feast night was a fag to be let off fagging!It was enough! The last straw breaks the camel’s back, and the young Dominicans had now reached the point of desperation.It was long before silence enough could be restored, and then the redoubtable Spicer yelled out, “Let’s strike!”The cry was taken up with yells of enthusiasm—“Strike! No more fagging!”“Any boy who fags after this,” screamed Bramble, “will be cut dead! Those who promise hold up your hands—mind, it’s a promise!”There was no mistaking the temper of the meeting, every hand in the room was held up.“Mind now, no giving in!” cried Paul. “Let’s stick all together. Greenfield senior shallkillme before I do anything more for him!”“Poor fellow!” whispered Oliver, laughing; “what a lot of martyrdoms he’ll have to put up with!”“And Pembury shall kill me,” squealed the last comer, who had comforted himself with several crusts of plum-cakes and the dregs of about a dozen bottles of ginger-beer. And every one protested their willingness to die in the good cause.At this stage Oliver and Wraysford withdrew unobserved. “I’m afraid we’ve been eavesdropping,” said Oliver. “Anyhow, I don’t mean to take advantage of what I’ve heard.”“What a young ruffian your brother is!” said Wraysford; “he looked tremendously in earnest!”“Yes, he always is. You’ll find he’ll keep his word far better than most of them.”“If he does, I’m afraid Loman will make it unpleasant for him,” said Wraysford.“Very likely.”“Then you’ll have to interfere.”“Why, what a bloodthirsty chap you are, Wray! You are longing for me to quarrel with Loman. I’ll wait till young Stephen asks me to.”“Do you think he will? He’s a proud little chap.”Oliver laughed. “It’ll serve him right if he does get a lesson. Did ever you see such a lot of young cannibals as those youngsters? Are you coming to have supper with me?”The nine o’clock bell soon rang, and, as usual, Oliver went to his door and shouted for Paul.No Paul came.He shouted again and again, but the fag did not appear. “They mean business,” he said. “What shall I do? Paul!”This time there came a reply down the passage—“Shan’t come!”“Ho, he!” said Oliver; “this is serious; they are sticking to their strike with a vengeance! I suppose I must go and look for my fag, eh, Wray? Discipline must be maintained.”So saying, Oliver stepped out into the passage and strolled off in the direction from which the rebel’s voice had proceeded. The passages were empty; only in the Fourth Junior room was there a sound of clamour.Oliver went to the door; it was shut. He pushed; it was fortified. He kicked on it; a defiant howl greeted him from the inside. He called aloud on his fag; another “Shan’t come!” was his only answer.It was getting past a joke, and Oliver’s temper was, as we have seen not of the longest. He kicked again, angrily, and ordered Paul to appear.The same answer was given, accompanied with the same yell, and Oliver’s temper went faster than ever. He forgot he was making himself ridiculous; he forgot he was only affording a triumph to those whom he desired to punish; he forgot the good resolutions which had held him back on a former occasion, and, giving way to sudden rage, kicked desperately at the door once more.This time his forcible appeal had some effect. The lower panel of the door gave way before the blow and crashed inwards, leaving a breach large enough to admit a football.It was an unlucky piece of success for Oliver, for next moment he felt his foot grabbed by half a dozen small hands within and held firmly, rendering him unable to stir from his ridiculous position. In vain he struggled and raged; he was a tight prisoner, at the mercy of his captors.It was all he could do to stand on his one foot, clinging wildly to the handle of the door. In this dignified attitude Wraysford presently found his friend, and in such a state of passion and fury as he had never before seen him.To rap the array of inky knuckles inside with a ruler, and so disengage the captive foot, was the work of a minute. Oliver stood for a moment facing the door and trembling with anger, but Wraysford, taking him gently by the arm, said, “Come along, old boy!”There was something in his voice and look which brought a sudden flush into the pale face of the angry Oliver. Without a word, he turned from the door and accompanied his friend back to the study. There were no long talks, no lectures, no remorseful confessions that evening. The two talked perhaps less than usual, and when they did it was about ordinary school topics.No reference was made either then or for a long while afterwards to the events of the evening. And yet Oliver and Wraysford, somehow, seemed more than ever drawn together, and to understand one another better after this than had ever been the case before.

“I tell you what, Wray,” said Oliver one evening about a week after the match, “I heartily wish this term was over.”

“Why, that’s just what I heard your young brother say. He is going to learn the bicycle, he says, in the holidays.”

“Oh, it’s not the holidays I want,” said Oliver. “But somehow things have gone all wrong. I’ve been off my luck completely this term.”

“Off your luck!—You great discontented, ungrateful bear. Haven’t you got the English prize? Aren’t you in the School Eleven? and didn’t you make top score in the match with the Sixth last Saturday? Whatever do you mean by ‘off your luck’?”

“Oh, it’s not that, you know,” said Oliver, pulling a quill pen to bits. “What I mean is—oh, bother!—a fellow can’t explain it.”

“So it seems,” laughed Wraysford; “but I wish a fellow could, for I’ve not a notion what you’re driving at.”

“Well, I mean I’m not doing much good. There’s that young brother of mine, for instance. What good have I been to him? There have I let him go and do just what he likes, and not looked after him a bit ever since he came here.”

“And I wager he’s got on all the better for not being tied up to your apron strings. He’s a fine honest little chap, is young Greenfield.”

“Oh, I dare say; but somehow I don’t seem to know as much of him now as I used to do before he came here.”

“That’s Loman’s fault, I bet you anything,” exclaimed Wraysford. “I’m sure he won’t do the kid any good. But Rastle was saying only yesterday how well Stephen was getting on in class.”

“Was he? It’s little thanks to me if he is,” said Oliver, gloomily.

“And what else have you got to grumble about?” asked his friend.

“Why, you know how I’m out with the Fifth over that affair with Loman. They all set me down as a coward, and I’m not that.”

“Of course you aren’t,” warmly replied the other. “But, Noll, you told me a little while ago you didn’t care a snap what they thought.”

“No more I do, in a way. But it’s very uncomfortable.”

“Why don’t you tell them straight out why you didn’t let out at Loman? They are sure to respect your motive.”

“Yes, and set me down as posing as a martyr or a saint! No! I’d sooner pass as a coward than set up as a saint when I’m not one. Why, Wray, if you’ll believe me, I’ve been a worse Christian since I began to try to be one, than I ever was before. I’m for ever losing my temper, and—”

“Shut up that tune, now,” interposed Wraysford, hurriedly. “If you are beginning at that again, I’ll go. As if you didn’t know you were the best fellow in the school!”

“I’m not the best,oranything like,” said Oliver, warmly; “I hate your saying so—I wish almost I had never told you anything about it.”

“Well, I don’t know,” said Wraysford, walking to the window and looking out. “Ever since you told me of it, I’ve been trying myself in a mild way to go straight. But it’s desperate hard work.”

“Desperate hard work even if you try in more than a mild way,” said Oliver.

Both were silent for a little, and then Oliver, hurriedly changing the subject, said, “And then, to proceed with my growl, I’m certain to come a howler over the Nightingale.”

Wraysford turned from the window with a laugh.

“I suppose you expect me to sympathise with you about that, eh? The bigger the howler the better for me! I only wish you were a true prophet, Noll, in that particular.”

“Why, of course you’ll beat me—and if you don’t Loman will. I hear he’s grinding away like nuts.”

“Is he, though?” said Wraysford.

“Yes, and he’s going to get a ‘coach’ in the holidays too.”

“More likely a dog-cart. Anyhow, I dare say he will run us close. But he’s such a shifty fellow, there’s no knowing whether he will stay out.”

Just at that moment a terrific row came up from below.

“Whatever’s up down there?”

“Only the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles. By the way,” said Wraysford, “they’ve got a grand ‘supper,’ as they call it, on to-night to celebrate their cricket match. Suppose we go and see the fun?”

“All right!” said Oliver. “Who won the match?”

“Why, what a question! Do you suppose a match between Guinea-pigs and Tadpolesevercame to an end? They had a free fight at the end of the first innings. The Tadpole umpire gave one of his own men ‘not out’ when he hit his wicket, and they made a personal question of it, and fell out. Your young brother, I hear, greatly distinguished himself in the argument.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem to interfere with their spirits now, to judge of the row they are making. Just listen!”

By this time they had reached the door of the Fourth Junior room, whence proceeded a noise such as one often hears in a certain popular department of the Zoological Gardens. Amid the tumult and hubbub the two friends had not much difficulty in slipping in unobserved and seating themselves comfortably in an obscure corner of the festive apartment, behind a pyramid of piled-up chairs and forms.

The Junior “cricket feast” was an institution in Saint Dominic’s, and was an occasion when any one who had nerves to be excruciated or ear-drums to be broken took care to keep out of the way. In place of the usual desks and forms, a long table ran down the room, round which some fifty or sixty urchins sat, regaling themselves with what was left of a vast spread of plum-cake, buns, and ginger-beer. How these banquets were provided was always a mystery to outsiders. Some said a levy of threepence a head was made; others, that every boy was bound in honour to contribute something eatable to the feast; and others averred that every boy had to bring his own bag and bottle, and no more. Be that as it might, the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at present assembled looked uncommonly tight about the jackets after it all, and not one had the appearance of actual starvation written on his lineaments.

The animal part of the feast, however, was now over, and the intellectual was beginning. The tremendous noise which had brought Oliver and Wraysford on to the scene had indeed been but the applause which followed the chairman’s opening song—a musical effort which was imperatively encored by a large and enthusiastic audience.

The chairman, by the way, was no other than our friend Bramble, who by reason of seniority—he had been two years in the Fourth Junior, and showed no signs of rising higher all his life—claimed to preside on all such occasions. He sat up at the top end in stately glory, higher than the rest by the thickness of a Liddell and Scott, which was placed on his chair to lift him up to the required elevation, blushingly receiving the applause with which his song was greeted, and modestly volunteering to sing it again if the fellows liked.

The fellows did like. Mr Bramble mounted once more on to the seat of his chair, and saying, “Look-out for the chorus!” began one of the time-honoured Dominican cricket songs. It consisted of about twelve verses altogether, but three will be quite enough for the reader.

“There was a little lad,(Well bowled!)And a little bat he had;(Well bowled!)He skipped up to the wicket,And thought he’d play some cricket,But he didn’t, for he was—Well bowled!“He thought he’d make a score(So bold),And lead-off with a four(So bold);So he walked out to a twister,But somehow sort of missed her,And she bailed him, for he wasToo bold.“Now all ye little boys(So bold),Who like to make a noise(So bold),Take warning by young Walker,Keep your bat down to a yorker,Or, don’t you see? you’ll be—Well bowled!”

“There was a little lad,(Well bowled!)And a little bat he had;(Well bowled!)He skipped up to the wicket,And thought he’d play some cricket,But he didn’t, for he was—Well bowled!“He thought he’d make a score(So bold),And lead-off with a four(So bold);So he walked out to a twister,But somehow sort of missed her,And she bailed him, for he wasToo bold.“Now all ye little boys(So bold),Who like to make a noise(So bold),Take warning by young Walker,Keep your bat down to a yorker,Or, don’t you see? you’ll be—Well bowled!”

The virtue of the pathetic ballad was in the chorus, which was usually not sung, but spoken, and so presented a noble opportunity for variety of tone and expression, which was greedily seized upon by the riotous young gentlemen into whose mouths it was entrusted. By the time the sad adventures of Master Walker had been rehearsed in all their twelve verses, the meeting was so hoarse that to the two elder boys it seemed as if the proceedings must necessarily come abruptly to a close for want of voice.

But no! If the meeting was for the moment incapable of song, speech was yet possible and behold there arose Master Paul in his place to propose a toast.

Now Master Paul was a Guinea-pig, and accounted a mighty man in his tribe. Any one might have supposed that the purpose for which he had now risen was to propose in complimentary terms the health of his gallant opponents the Tadpoles. This, however, was far from his intention. His modesty had another theme. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. There were no ladies present, but that didn’t matter. Tremendous cheers greeted this opening. “You all know me; I am one of yourselves.” Paul had borrowed this expression from the speech of a Radical orator, which had appeared recently in the papers. Every one knew it was borrowed, for he had asked about twenty of his friends during the last week whether that wouldn’t be “a showy lead-off for his cricket feast jaw?”

The quotation was, however, now greeted as vociferously as if it had been strictly original, and shouts of “So you are!”

“Bravo, Paul!” for a while drowned the orator’s voice. When silence was restored his eloquence took a new and unexpected departure. “Jemmy Welch, I’ll punch your head when we get outside, see if I don’t!” Jemmy Welch was a Guinea-pig who had just made a particularly good shot at the speaker’s nose with a piece of plum-cake. “Now, ladies and gentlemen, I shall not detain you with a speech (loud cheers from all, and ‘Jolly good job!’ from Bramble). I shall go on speaking just as long as I choose, Bramble, so now! (Cheers.) I’ve as much right to speak as you have. (Applause.) You’re only a stuck-up duffer. (Terrific cheers, and a fight down at the end of the table.) I beg to drink the health of the Guinea-pigs. (Loud Guinea-pig cheers.) We licked the old Tadpoles in the match. (‘No you didn’t!’ ‘That’s a cram!’ and groans from the Tadpoles.) I say we did! Your umpire was a cheat—they always are! We beat you hollow, didn’t we, Stee Greenfield?”

“Yes, rather!” shouted Stephen, snatching a piece of cake away from a Tadpole and shying it to a Guinea-pig.

“That’s eight matches we’ve won,” proceeded Paul; “and—all right, Spicer! I saw you do it this time! See if I don’t pay you for it!” whereat the speaker hurriedly quitted his seat and, amid howls and yells, proceeded to “pay out” Spicer.

Meanwhile Stephen heard his name suddenly called upon for a song, an invitation he promptly obeyed. But as the clamour was at the time deafening, and the attention of the audience was wholly monopolised by the commercial transactions taking place between Paul and Spicer, the effect of the performance was somewhat lost. Oliver certainly did see his young brother mount up on the table, turn very red in the face, open his mouth and shut it, smile in one part, look sorrowful in another, and wave his hand above his head in another. But that was the only intimation he had of a musical performance proceeding. Words and tune were utterly inaudible by any one except the singer himself—even ifheheard them.

This was getting monotonous, and the two visitors were thinking of withdrawing, when the door suddenly opened, and a dead silence prevailed. The new-comer was the dirtiest and most ferocious-looking of all the boys in the lower school, who rushed into the room breathless, and in what would have been a white heat had his face been clean enough to show it. “What do you think?” he gasped, catching hold of the back of a chair for support; “Tony Pembury’s kept me all this while brushing his clothes! I told him it was cricket feast, but he didn’t care! What do you think of that? Of course, you’ve finished all the grub; I knew you would!”

This last plaintive wail of disappointment was drowned in the clamour of execration which greeted the boy’s announcement. Lesser feuds were instantly forgotten in presence of this great insult. The most sacred traditions of Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles were being trampled upon by the tyrants of the upper school! Not even on cricket feast night was a fag to be let off fagging!

It was enough! The last straw breaks the camel’s back, and the young Dominicans had now reached the point of desperation.

It was long before silence enough could be restored, and then the redoubtable Spicer yelled out, “Let’s strike!”

The cry was taken up with yells of enthusiasm—“Strike! No more fagging!”

“Any boy who fags after this,” screamed Bramble, “will be cut dead! Those who promise hold up your hands—mind, it’s a promise!”

There was no mistaking the temper of the meeting, every hand in the room was held up.

“Mind now, no giving in!” cried Paul. “Let’s stick all together. Greenfield senior shallkillme before I do anything more for him!”

“Poor fellow!” whispered Oliver, laughing; “what a lot of martyrdoms he’ll have to put up with!”

“And Pembury shall kill me,” squealed the last comer, who had comforted himself with several crusts of plum-cakes and the dregs of about a dozen bottles of ginger-beer. And every one protested their willingness to die in the good cause.

At this stage Oliver and Wraysford withdrew unobserved. “I’m afraid we’ve been eavesdropping,” said Oliver. “Anyhow, I don’t mean to take advantage of what I’ve heard.”

“What a young ruffian your brother is!” said Wraysford; “he looked tremendously in earnest!”

“Yes, he always is. You’ll find he’ll keep his word far better than most of them.”

“If he does, I’m afraid Loman will make it unpleasant for him,” said Wraysford.

“Very likely.”

“Then you’ll have to interfere.”

“Why, what a bloodthirsty chap you are, Wray! You are longing for me to quarrel with Loman. I’ll wait till young Stephen asks me to.”

“Do you think he will? He’s a proud little chap.”

Oliver laughed. “It’ll serve him right if he does get a lesson. Did ever you see such a lot of young cannibals as those youngsters? Are you coming to have supper with me?”

The nine o’clock bell soon rang, and, as usual, Oliver went to his door and shouted for Paul.

No Paul came.

He shouted again and again, but the fag did not appear. “They mean business,” he said. “What shall I do? Paul!”

This time there came a reply down the passage—“Shan’t come!”

“Ho, he!” said Oliver; “this is serious; they are sticking to their strike with a vengeance! I suppose I must go and look for my fag, eh, Wray? Discipline must be maintained.”

So saying, Oliver stepped out into the passage and strolled off in the direction from which the rebel’s voice had proceeded. The passages were empty; only in the Fourth Junior room was there a sound of clamour.

Oliver went to the door; it was shut. He pushed; it was fortified. He kicked on it; a defiant howl greeted him from the inside. He called aloud on his fag; another “Shan’t come!” was his only answer.

It was getting past a joke, and Oliver’s temper was, as we have seen not of the longest. He kicked again, angrily, and ordered Paul to appear.

The same answer was given, accompanied with the same yell, and Oliver’s temper went faster than ever. He forgot he was making himself ridiculous; he forgot he was only affording a triumph to those whom he desired to punish; he forgot the good resolutions which had held him back on a former occasion, and, giving way to sudden rage, kicked desperately at the door once more.

This time his forcible appeal had some effect. The lower panel of the door gave way before the blow and crashed inwards, leaving a breach large enough to admit a football.

It was an unlucky piece of success for Oliver, for next moment he felt his foot grabbed by half a dozen small hands within and held firmly, rendering him unable to stir from his ridiculous position. In vain he struggled and raged; he was a tight prisoner, at the mercy of his captors.

It was all he could do to stand on his one foot, clinging wildly to the handle of the door. In this dignified attitude Wraysford presently found his friend, and in such a state of passion and fury as he had never before seen him.

To rap the array of inky knuckles inside with a ruler, and so disengage the captive foot, was the work of a minute. Oliver stood for a moment facing the door and trembling with anger, but Wraysford, taking him gently by the arm, said, “Come along, old boy!”

There was something in his voice and look which brought a sudden flush into the pale face of the angry Oliver. Without a word, he turned from the door and accompanied his friend back to the study. There were no long talks, no lectures, no remorseful confessions that evening. The two talked perhaps less than usual, and when they did it was about ordinary school topics.

No reference was made either then or for a long while afterwards to the events of the evening. And yet Oliver and Wraysford, somehow, seemed more than ever drawn together, and to understand one another better after this than had ever been the case before.

Chapter Sixteen.Guinea-Pigs and Tadpoles on Strike.If anything had been required to make the “strike” of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles a serious matter, the “affair of Greenfield senior’s right foot” undoubtedly had that effect. Theéclatwhich that heroic exploit lent to the mutiny was simply marvellous. The story was told with fifty exaggerations all over the school. One report said that the whole body of the monitors had besieged the Fourth Junior door, and had been repulsed with heavy slaughter. Another declared that Oliver had been captured by the fags, and branded on the soles of his feet with a G and a T, to commemorate the emancipation of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles; and a third veracious narrative went so far as to say that the Upper Fifth and several members of the Sixth had humbly come and begged forgiveness for their past misdeeds, and were henceforth to become the fags of their late victims.True or untrue as these stories were, any amount of glory accompanied the beginning of the strike, and there was sufficient sense of common danger to unite the youngsters in very close bonds. You rarely caught a Guinea-pig or a Tadpole alone now; they walked about in dozens, and were very wide awake. They assembled on every possible occasion in their room, and fortified their door with chairs and desks, and their zeal with fiery orations and excited conjurations. One wretched youth who the first evening had been weak enough to poke his master’s fire, was expelled ignominiously from the community, and for a week afterwards lived the life of an outcast in Saint Dominic’s. The youngsters were in earnest, and no mistake. Stephen Greenfield, as was only natural, did not altogether find cause for exultation over the event which led to the strike. For a whole day he was very angry on his brother’s account, and threatened to stand aloof from the revolution altogether; but when it was explained to him this would lead to a general “smash-up” of the strike, and when it was further explained that the fellows who caught hold of his big brother’s right foot couldn’t possibly be expected to know to whom that foot belonged, he relented, and entered as enthusiastically as any one into the business. Indeed, if all the rebels had been like Stephen, the fags at Saint Dominic’s would be on strike to this day. He contemplated martyrdom with the utmost equanimity, and the Inquisition itself never saw a more determined victim.The morning after the famous “cricket feast” gave him his first opportunity of sacrificing himself for the good of his country. Loman met him in the passage after first-class.“Why didn’t you turn up and get my breakfast, you idle young vagabond?” inquired the Sixth Form boy, half good-humouredly, and little guessing what was in the wind. “I’m not idle,” said Stephen.“Then what do you mean by not doing your work?”“It’s not my work.”Loman opened his eyes in amazement, and stared at this bold young hero as if he had dropped from the clouds. “What!” he cried; “what do you say?”“It’s not my work,” repeated Stephen, blushing, but very determined.“Look here, young fellow,” said Loman, when he was sure that he had really heard correctly, “don’t you play any of your little games with me, or you’ll be sorry for it.”Stephen said nothing, and waited with a tremor for what was to follow.Loman was hardly a bully naturally. It was always easier for him to be civil than to be angry, especially with small boys, but this cool defiance on the part of his fag was too much for any one’s civility, and Loman began to be angry.“What do you mean by it?” he said, catching the boy by the arm.Stephen wrenched away his arm and stood dogged and silent.Nothing could have irritated Loman more. To be defied and resisted by a youngster like this was an experience quite new to him.“Just come to my room,” said he, gripping his fag angrily by the shoulder. “We’ll see who’s master of us two!”Stephen was forced to submit, and allowed himself to be dragged to the study.“Now!” said Loman shutting the door.“Now!” said Stephen, as boldly as he could, and wondering what on earth was to become of him.“Are you going to do what you’re told, or not?” demanded Loman.“Not whatyoutell me,” replied Stephen, promptly, but not exactly cheerfully.“Oh!” said Loman, his face becoming crimson, “you’re quite sure?”“Yes,” said Stephen.“Then take that!” said Loman.It was a sharp box on the ears, suddenly administered. Stephen recoiled a moment, but only a moment. He had expected something a good deal worse. If that was all, he would brave it out yet.“Don’t you hit me!” he said, defiantly.Loman could not stand to be defied. His vanity was his weak point, and nothing offended his vanity so much as to find any one as determined as himself.He took up a ruler, and in his passion flung it at the luckless Stephen’s head. It struck him hard on the cheek. The blood flushed to the boy’s face as he stood a moment half-stunned and smarting with the pain, confronting his adversary. Then he rushed blindly in and flung himself upon the bully.Of course it was no match. The small boy was at the mercy of the big one. The latter was indeed taken aback for a moment at the fury of his young assailant, impotent as it was, but that was all. He might have defended himself with a single hand; he might have carried the boy under one arm out into the passage. But the evil spirit had been roused within him, and that spirit knew no mercy. He struck out and fought his little foeman as if he had been one of his own size and strength. For every wild, feeble blow Stephen aimed, Loman aimed a hard and straight blow back. If Stephen wavered, Loman followed in as he would in a professional boxing match, and when at last the small boy gave up, exhausted, bleeding, and scarcely able to stand, his foe administered a parting blow, which, if he had struck no other, would have stamped him as a coward for ever.“Now!” exclaimed Loman, looking down on his victim, “will you do what you’re told now, eh?”It was a critical moment for poor Stephen. After all, was the “strike” worth all this hardship? A single word would have saved him; whereas if he again defied his enemy, it was all up with him.He did waver a moment; and lucky for him he did. For just then the door opened, and Simon entered. Stephen saw his chance. Slipping to the open door, he mustered up energy to cry as loud as he could, “No, I won’t;” and with that made good his escape into the passage, as done up as a small boy well could be without being quite floored.A dozen eager friends were at hand to aid in stopping the bleeding of their hero’s nose, and to apply raw steak to his black eye. The story of his desperate encounter flew on the wings of fame all over the school, and the glory and pride of the youngsters reached its climax when, that afternoon, Stephen with his face all on one side, his eye a bright green and yellow, and his under lip about twice its ordinary thickness, took his accustomed place in the arithmetic class of the Fourth Junior.“Why, Greenfield,” exclaimed Mr Rastle, when in due time the young hero’s turn came to stand up and answer a question, “what have you been doing to yourself?”“Nothing, sir,” remarked Stephen, mildly.“How did you come by that black eye?” asked the master.“Fighting, sir,” said Stephen, rather pompously.“Ah! what did you say forty-eight sixths was equal to?”This was Mr Rastle’s way. He very rarely hauled a boy over the coals before the whole class.But after the lesson he beckoned Stephen into his study.“I’m afraid you got the worst of that fight,” he said.Stephen, who by this time knew Mr Rastle too well to be afraid of him, and too well, also, not to be quite frank with him, answered meekly, “The fellow was bigger than me.”“I should guess that by the state of your face. Now, I don’t want to know what the fight was about, though I dare say you’d like to tell me (Stephen was boiling to tell him). You small boys have such peculiar reasons for fighting, you know, no one can understand them.”“But this was because—”“Hush! Didn’t I tell you I won’t hear what it was about, sir!” said Mr Rastle, sharply. “Did you shake hands afterwards?”“No, I didn’t,and I won’t!” exclaimed Stephen, forgetting, in his indignation, to whom he was speaking.“Then,” said Mr Rastle, quietly, “write me out one hundred lines of Caesar, Greenfield; and when you have recollected how to behave yourself, we will talk more about this. You can go.”Mr Rastlewasa queer man; he never took things as one expected. When Stephen expected him to be furious he was as mild as a lamb. There was no making him out.But this was certain: Stephen left his room a good deal more crestfallen than he entered it. He had hoped to win Mr Rastle’s sympathy and admiration by an account of his grievances, and, instead of that, he was sent off in disgrace, with an imposition for being rude, and feeling anything but a hero.Even the applause of his friends failed to console him quite. Besides, his head ached badly, and the bruise on his cheek, which he had scarcely felt among his other wounds, now began to swell and grow painful. Altogether, he was in the wars.He was groaning over his imposition late that evening in the class-room, feeling in dreadful dumps, and wishing he had never come to Saint Dominic’s, when a hand laid on his shoulder made him start. He looked up and saw Mr Rastle.“Greenfield,” said the master, kindly, “how much of your imposition have you done?”“Seventy lines, sir.”“Hum! That will do this time. You had better get to bed.”“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Stephen, moved far more by Mr Rastle’s kind tone than by his letting him off thirty lines of the Caesar, “I’m so sorry I was rude to you.”“Well, I was sorry, too; so we’ll say no more about that. Why, what a crack you must have got on your cheek!”“Yes, sir; that was the ruler did that.”“The ruler! Then it wasn’t a fair fight? Now don’t begin telling me all about it. I dare say you were very heroic, and stood up against terrible odds. But you’ve a very black eye and a very sore cheek now, so you had better get to bed as fast as you can.”And certainly the pale, bruised, upturned face of the boy did not look very bright at that moment.Stephen Greenfield went off to bed that night in a perturbed state of mind and body. He had stuck loyally to his promise not to fag, and he had earned the universal admiration of his comrades. But, on the other hand, he had been awfully knocked about, and, almost as bad, he had been effectively snubbed by Mr Rastle. He did not exactly know what to think of it all. Had he done a fine deed or a foolish one? and what ought he to do to-morrow?Like a sensible little man, he went sound asleep over these questions, and forgot all about them till the morrow.When he woke Stephen was like a giant refreshed. His eye was certainly a rather more brilliant yellow than the day before, and his cheek still wore a dull red flush. But somehow he felt none of the misgivings and dumps that had oppressed him the night before. He was full of hope again and full of courage. The Guinea-pigs should never chargehimwith treachery and desertion, and what he had gone through already in the “good cause” he would go through again.With this determination he dressed and went down to school. Loman, whose summons he expected every moment to hear, did not put him to the necessity of a renewed struggle. From all quarters, too, encouraging reports came in from the various insurgents. Paul announced that Greenfield senior took it “like a lamb”; Bramble recounted how his “nigger-driver,” as he was pleased to call Wren, had chased him twice round the playground and over the top of the cricket-shed without being able to capture him; and most of the others had exploits equally heroic to boast of. Things were looking up in the Fourth Junior.They spent a merry morning, these young rebels, wondering in whispers over their lessons what this and that Sixth or Fifth Form fellow had done without them. With great glee they imagined Raleigh blacking his own boots and Pembury boiling his own eggs, and the very idea of such wonders quite frightened them. At that rate Saint Dominic’s would come to a standstill altogether.“Serve ’em right!” said Bramble; “they want a lesson. I wish I’d two fellows to strike against instead of one!”“One’s enough if he strikes you back,” said Stephen, with a rueful grin.Master Bramble evinced his sympathy by laughing aloud. “I say, you look just like a clown; doesn’t he, Padger, with his eye all sorts of colours and his cheek like a house on fire?”“All very well,” said Stephen; “I wish you’d got my cheek.”“Bramby’s got cheek enough of his own, I guess,” put in Paul; whereat Master Bramble fired up, and a quarrel became imminent.However, Stephen prevented it by calling back attention to his own picturesque countenance. “I don’t mind the eye, that don’t hurt; but I can tell you, you fellows, my cheek’s awful!”“I always said you’d got an awful cheek of your own, young Greenfield,” said Bramble, laughing, as ifhewas the inventor of the joke. Stephen glowered at him.“Well, you said so yourself,” put in Bramble, a little mildly, for since Stephen’s exploit yesterday that young hero had advanced a good deal in the respect of his fellows. “But, I say, why don’t you stick some lotion or something on it? It’ll never get right if you don’t, will it, Padger?”Padger suggested that young Greenfield might possibly have to have his cheek cut off if he didn’t look-out, and Paul said the sooner he “stashed his cheek” the better.The result of this friendly and witty conference was that Stephen took it into his head to cure his cheek, and to that end applied for leave from Mr Rastle to go down that afternoon to Maltby to get something from the chemist.Mr Rastle gave him leave, and told him the best sort of lotion to ask for, and so, as soon as afternoon school was over, our young champion sallied boldly forth on his errand. He felt very self-satisfied and forgiving to all the world as he walked along. There was no doubt about it, he was a hero. Every one seemed to take an interest in his black eye and sore cheek, from Mr Rastle downwards. Very likely that fight of his with Loman yesterday would be recorded as long as Saint Dominic’s remained, as the event which saved the lower school from the tyranny of the upper!His way to the chemist’s lay past the turning up to the Cockchafer, and the idea occurred to him to turn in on the way back and talk over the event of the hour with Mr Cripps, whom he had not seen since the bagatelle-lesson a week ago. He was sure that good gentleman would sympathise with him, and most likely praise him; and in any case it would be only civil, after promising to come and see him sometimes, to look in.The only thing was that the Cockchafer, whatever one might say about it, was a public-house. The private door at the side hardly sufficed to satisfy Stephen that he was not breaking rules by going in. He would not have entered by the public door for worlds, and the thought did occur to him, Was there very much difference after all between one door and the other? However, he had not answered the question before he found himself inside, shaking hands with Mr Cripps.That gentleman was of course delighted, and profuse in his gratitude to the “young swell” for looking him up. He listened with profound interest and sympathy to his story, and made some very fierce remarks about what he would do to “that there” Loman if he got hold of him. Then the subject of bagatelle happened to come up, and presently Stephen was again delighting and astonishing the good gentleman by his skill in that game. Then in due time it came out that the boy’s mother had bought him a bicycle, and he was going to learn in the holidays, a resolution Mr Cripps highly approved of, and was certain a clever young fellow like him would learn in no time, which greatly pleased Stephen.Before parting, Mr Cripps insisted on lending his young friend a lantern for his bicycle, when he rode it in the dark. It was a specially good one, he said, and the young gentleman could easily return it to him after the holidays, and so on.Altogether it was a delightful visit, and Stephen wondered more than ever how some of the fellows could think ill of Mr Cripps.“Oh, I say,” said the boy, at parting; “don’t do what you said you would to Loman. I’m not afraid of him, you know.”“I’d like to knock his ugly head off for him!” cried Mr Cripps, indignantly.“No, don’t; please don’t! I’d rather not. I dare say he’s sorry for it.”“I’ll see he is!” growled Mr Cripps.“Besides, I’ve forgiven him,” said Stephen, “and oughtn’t to have told tales of him; so mind you don’t do it, Mr Cripps, will you?”“I’ll see,” said Mr Cripps. “Good-bye for the present, young gentleman, and come again soon.”And so, at peace with all the world, and particularly with himself, Stephen strolled back to Saint Dominic’s, whistling merrily.

If anything had been required to make the “strike” of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles a serious matter, the “affair of Greenfield senior’s right foot” undoubtedly had that effect. Theéclatwhich that heroic exploit lent to the mutiny was simply marvellous. The story was told with fifty exaggerations all over the school. One report said that the whole body of the monitors had besieged the Fourth Junior door, and had been repulsed with heavy slaughter. Another declared that Oliver had been captured by the fags, and branded on the soles of his feet with a G and a T, to commemorate the emancipation of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles; and a third veracious narrative went so far as to say that the Upper Fifth and several members of the Sixth had humbly come and begged forgiveness for their past misdeeds, and were henceforth to become the fags of their late victims.

True or untrue as these stories were, any amount of glory accompanied the beginning of the strike, and there was sufficient sense of common danger to unite the youngsters in very close bonds. You rarely caught a Guinea-pig or a Tadpole alone now; they walked about in dozens, and were very wide awake. They assembled on every possible occasion in their room, and fortified their door with chairs and desks, and their zeal with fiery orations and excited conjurations. One wretched youth who the first evening had been weak enough to poke his master’s fire, was expelled ignominiously from the community, and for a week afterwards lived the life of an outcast in Saint Dominic’s. The youngsters were in earnest, and no mistake. Stephen Greenfield, as was only natural, did not altogether find cause for exultation over the event which led to the strike. For a whole day he was very angry on his brother’s account, and threatened to stand aloof from the revolution altogether; but when it was explained to him this would lead to a general “smash-up” of the strike, and when it was further explained that the fellows who caught hold of his big brother’s right foot couldn’t possibly be expected to know to whom that foot belonged, he relented, and entered as enthusiastically as any one into the business. Indeed, if all the rebels had been like Stephen, the fags at Saint Dominic’s would be on strike to this day. He contemplated martyrdom with the utmost equanimity, and the Inquisition itself never saw a more determined victim.

The morning after the famous “cricket feast” gave him his first opportunity of sacrificing himself for the good of his country. Loman met him in the passage after first-class.

“Why didn’t you turn up and get my breakfast, you idle young vagabond?” inquired the Sixth Form boy, half good-humouredly, and little guessing what was in the wind. “I’m not idle,” said Stephen.

“Then what do you mean by not doing your work?”

“It’s not my work.”

Loman opened his eyes in amazement, and stared at this bold young hero as if he had dropped from the clouds. “What!” he cried; “what do you say?”

“It’s not my work,” repeated Stephen, blushing, but very determined.

“Look here, young fellow,” said Loman, when he was sure that he had really heard correctly, “don’t you play any of your little games with me, or you’ll be sorry for it.”

Stephen said nothing, and waited with a tremor for what was to follow.

Loman was hardly a bully naturally. It was always easier for him to be civil than to be angry, especially with small boys, but this cool defiance on the part of his fag was too much for any one’s civility, and Loman began to be angry.

“What do you mean by it?” he said, catching the boy by the arm.

Stephen wrenched away his arm and stood dogged and silent.

Nothing could have irritated Loman more. To be defied and resisted by a youngster like this was an experience quite new to him.

“Just come to my room,” said he, gripping his fag angrily by the shoulder. “We’ll see who’s master of us two!”

Stephen was forced to submit, and allowed himself to be dragged to the study.

“Now!” said Loman shutting the door.

“Now!” said Stephen, as boldly as he could, and wondering what on earth was to become of him.

“Are you going to do what you’re told, or not?” demanded Loman.

“Not whatyoutell me,” replied Stephen, promptly, but not exactly cheerfully.

“Oh!” said Loman, his face becoming crimson, “you’re quite sure?”

“Yes,” said Stephen.

“Then take that!” said Loman.

It was a sharp box on the ears, suddenly administered. Stephen recoiled a moment, but only a moment. He had expected something a good deal worse. If that was all, he would brave it out yet.

“Don’t you hit me!” he said, defiantly.

Loman could not stand to be defied. His vanity was his weak point, and nothing offended his vanity so much as to find any one as determined as himself.

He took up a ruler, and in his passion flung it at the luckless Stephen’s head. It struck him hard on the cheek. The blood flushed to the boy’s face as he stood a moment half-stunned and smarting with the pain, confronting his adversary. Then he rushed blindly in and flung himself upon the bully.

Of course it was no match. The small boy was at the mercy of the big one. The latter was indeed taken aback for a moment at the fury of his young assailant, impotent as it was, but that was all. He might have defended himself with a single hand; he might have carried the boy under one arm out into the passage. But the evil spirit had been roused within him, and that spirit knew no mercy. He struck out and fought his little foeman as if he had been one of his own size and strength. For every wild, feeble blow Stephen aimed, Loman aimed a hard and straight blow back. If Stephen wavered, Loman followed in as he would in a professional boxing match, and when at last the small boy gave up, exhausted, bleeding, and scarcely able to stand, his foe administered a parting blow, which, if he had struck no other, would have stamped him as a coward for ever.

“Now!” exclaimed Loman, looking down on his victim, “will you do what you’re told now, eh?”

It was a critical moment for poor Stephen. After all, was the “strike” worth all this hardship? A single word would have saved him; whereas if he again defied his enemy, it was all up with him.

He did waver a moment; and lucky for him he did. For just then the door opened, and Simon entered. Stephen saw his chance. Slipping to the open door, he mustered up energy to cry as loud as he could, “No, I won’t;” and with that made good his escape into the passage, as done up as a small boy well could be without being quite floored.

A dozen eager friends were at hand to aid in stopping the bleeding of their hero’s nose, and to apply raw steak to his black eye. The story of his desperate encounter flew on the wings of fame all over the school, and the glory and pride of the youngsters reached its climax when, that afternoon, Stephen with his face all on one side, his eye a bright green and yellow, and his under lip about twice its ordinary thickness, took his accustomed place in the arithmetic class of the Fourth Junior.

“Why, Greenfield,” exclaimed Mr Rastle, when in due time the young hero’s turn came to stand up and answer a question, “what have you been doing to yourself?”

“Nothing, sir,” remarked Stephen, mildly.

“How did you come by that black eye?” asked the master.

“Fighting, sir,” said Stephen, rather pompously.

“Ah! what did you say forty-eight sixths was equal to?”

This was Mr Rastle’s way. He very rarely hauled a boy over the coals before the whole class.

But after the lesson he beckoned Stephen into his study.

“I’m afraid you got the worst of that fight,” he said.

Stephen, who by this time knew Mr Rastle too well to be afraid of him, and too well, also, not to be quite frank with him, answered meekly, “The fellow was bigger than me.”

“I should guess that by the state of your face. Now, I don’t want to know what the fight was about, though I dare say you’d like to tell me (Stephen was boiling to tell him). You small boys have such peculiar reasons for fighting, you know, no one can understand them.”

“But this was because—”

“Hush! Didn’t I tell you I won’t hear what it was about, sir!” said Mr Rastle, sharply. “Did you shake hands afterwards?”

“No, I didn’t,and I won’t!” exclaimed Stephen, forgetting, in his indignation, to whom he was speaking.

“Then,” said Mr Rastle, quietly, “write me out one hundred lines of Caesar, Greenfield; and when you have recollected how to behave yourself, we will talk more about this. You can go.”

Mr Rastlewasa queer man; he never took things as one expected. When Stephen expected him to be furious he was as mild as a lamb. There was no making him out.

But this was certain: Stephen left his room a good deal more crestfallen than he entered it. He had hoped to win Mr Rastle’s sympathy and admiration by an account of his grievances, and, instead of that, he was sent off in disgrace, with an imposition for being rude, and feeling anything but a hero.

Even the applause of his friends failed to console him quite. Besides, his head ached badly, and the bruise on his cheek, which he had scarcely felt among his other wounds, now began to swell and grow painful. Altogether, he was in the wars.

He was groaning over his imposition late that evening in the class-room, feeling in dreadful dumps, and wishing he had never come to Saint Dominic’s, when a hand laid on his shoulder made him start. He looked up and saw Mr Rastle.

“Greenfield,” said the master, kindly, “how much of your imposition have you done?”

“Seventy lines, sir.”

“Hum! That will do this time. You had better get to bed.”

“Oh, sir!” exclaimed Stephen, moved far more by Mr Rastle’s kind tone than by his letting him off thirty lines of the Caesar, “I’m so sorry I was rude to you.”

“Well, I was sorry, too; so we’ll say no more about that. Why, what a crack you must have got on your cheek!”

“Yes, sir; that was the ruler did that.”

“The ruler! Then it wasn’t a fair fight? Now don’t begin telling me all about it. I dare say you were very heroic, and stood up against terrible odds. But you’ve a very black eye and a very sore cheek now, so you had better get to bed as fast as you can.”

And certainly the pale, bruised, upturned face of the boy did not look very bright at that moment.

Stephen Greenfield went off to bed that night in a perturbed state of mind and body. He had stuck loyally to his promise not to fag, and he had earned the universal admiration of his comrades. But, on the other hand, he had been awfully knocked about, and, almost as bad, he had been effectively snubbed by Mr Rastle. He did not exactly know what to think of it all. Had he done a fine deed or a foolish one? and what ought he to do to-morrow?

Like a sensible little man, he went sound asleep over these questions, and forgot all about them till the morrow.

When he woke Stephen was like a giant refreshed. His eye was certainly a rather more brilliant yellow than the day before, and his cheek still wore a dull red flush. But somehow he felt none of the misgivings and dumps that had oppressed him the night before. He was full of hope again and full of courage. The Guinea-pigs should never chargehimwith treachery and desertion, and what he had gone through already in the “good cause” he would go through again.

With this determination he dressed and went down to school. Loman, whose summons he expected every moment to hear, did not put him to the necessity of a renewed struggle. From all quarters, too, encouraging reports came in from the various insurgents. Paul announced that Greenfield senior took it “like a lamb”; Bramble recounted how his “nigger-driver,” as he was pleased to call Wren, had chased him twice round the playground and over the top of the cricket-shed without being able to capture him; and most of the others had exploits equally heroic to boast of. Things were looking up in the Fourth Junior.

They spent a merry morning, these young rebels, wondering in whispers over their lessons what this and that Sixth or Fifth Form fellow had done without them. With great glee they imagined Raleigh blacking his own boots and Pembury boiling his own eggs, and the very idea of such wonders quite frightened them. At that rate Saint Dominic’s would come to a standstill altogether.

“Serve ’em right!” said Bramble; “they want a lesson. I wish I’d two fellows to strike against instead of one!”

“One’s enough if he strikes you back,” said Stephen, with a rueful grin.

Master Bramble evinced his sympathy by laughing aloud. “I say, you look just like a clown; doesn’t he, Padger, with his eye all sorts of colours and his cheek like a house on fire?”

“All very well,” said Stephen; “I wish you’d got my cheek.”

“Bramby’s got cheek enough of his own, I guess,” put in Paul; whereat Master Bramble fired up, and a quarrel became imminent.

However, Stephen prevented it by calling back attention to his own picturesque countenance. “I don’t mind the eye, that don’t hurt; but I can tell you, you fellows, my cheek’s awful!”

“I always said you’d got an awful cheek of your own, young Greenfield,” said Bramble, laughing, as ifhewas the inventor of the joke. Stephen glowered at him.

“Well, you said so yourself,” put in Bramble, a little mildly, for since Stephen’s exploit yesterday that young hero had advanced a good deal in the respect of his fellows. “But, I say, why don’t you stick some lotion or something on it? It’ll never get right if you don’t, will it, Padger?”

Padger suggested that young Greenfield might possibly have to have his cheek cut off if he didn’t look-out, and Paul said the sooner he “stashed his cheek” the better.

The result of this friendly and witty conference was that Stephen took it into his head to cure his cheek, and to that end applied for leave from Mr Rastle to go down that afternoon to Maltby to get something from the chemist.

Mr Rastle gave him leave, and told him the best sort of lotion to ask for, and so, as soon as afternoon school was over, our young champion sallied boldly forth on his errand. He felt very self-satisfied and forgiving to all the world as he walked along. There was no doubt about it, he was a hero. Every one seemed to take an interest in his black eye and sore cheek, from Mr Rastle downwards. Very likely that fight of his with Loman yesterday would be recorded as long as Saint Dominic’s remained, as the event which saved the lower school from the tyranny of the upper!

His way to the chemist’s lay past the turning up to the Cockchafer, and the idea occurred to him to turn in on the way back and talk over the event of the hour with Mr Cripps, whom he had not seen since the bagatelle-lesson a week ago. He was sure that good gentleman would sympathise with him, and most likely praise him; and in any case it would be only civil, after promising to come and see him sometimes, to look in.

The only thing was that the Cockchafer, whatever one might say about it, was a public-house. The private door at the side hardly sufficed to satisfy Stephen that he was not breaking rules by going in. He would not have entered by the public door for worlds, and the thought did occur to him, Was there very much difference after all between one door and the other? However, he had not answered the question before he found himself inside, shaking hands with Mr Cripps.

That gentleman was of course delighted, and profuse in his gratitude to the “young swell” for looking him up. He listened with profound interest and sympathy to his story, and made some very fierce remarks about what he would do to “that there” Loman if he got hold of him. Then the subject of bagatelle happened to come up, and presently Stephen was again delighting and astonishing the good gentleman by his skill in that game. Then in due time it came out that the boy’s mother had bought him a bicycle, and he was going to learn in the holidays, a resolution Mr Cripps highly approved of, and was certain a clever young fellow like him would learn in no time, which greatly pleased Stephen.

Before parting, Mr Cripps insisted on lending his young friend a lantern for his bicycle, when he rode it in the dark. It was a specially good one, he said, and the young gentleman could easily return it to him after the holidays, and so on.

Altogether it was a delightful visit, and Stephen wondered more than ever how some of the fellows could think ill of Mr Cripps.

“Oh, I say,” said the boy, at parting; “don’t do what you said you would to Loman. I’m not afraid of him, you know.”

“I’d like to knock his ugly head off for him!” cried Mr Cripps, indignantly.

“No, don’t; please don’t! I’d rather not. I dare say he’s sorry for it.”

“I’ll see he is!” growled Mr Cripps.

“Besides, I’ve forgiven him,” said Stephen, “and oughtn’t to have told tales of him; so mind you don’t do it, Mr Cripps, will you?”

“I’ll see,” said Mr Cripps. “Good-bye for the present, young gentleman, and come again soon.”

And so, at peace with all the world, and particularly with himself, Stephen strolled back to Saint Dominic’s, whistling merrily.

Chapter Seventeen.The Doctor among the Guinea-Pigs.TheDominicanappeared once more before the holidays, and, as might have been expected (besides its usual articles at the expense of the Sixth Form), made itself particularly merry over the rebellion of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles.Pembury was not the fellow to give quarter in his own particular line of attack; and it must be confessed he had the proud satisfaction of making his unfortunate young victims smart.The “leading article” of the present number bore the suggestive title, “Thank Goodness!” and began as follows:“Thank goodness, we are at last rid of the pest which has made Saint Dominic’s hideous for months past! At a single blow, with a single clap of the hands, we have sent Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles packing, and can now breathe pure air. No longer shall we have to put up with the plague. We are to be spared the disgust of seeing them, much more of talking to them or hearing their hideous voices. No longer will our morning milk be burned; no longer will our herrings be grilled to cinders; no longer will our jam be purloined; no longer will our books and door-handles be made abominable by contact with their filthy hands! Thank goodness! The Doctor never did a more patriotic deed than this! The small animals are in future to be kept to their own quarters, and will be forbidden the liberty they have so long abused of mixing with their betters. It is as well for all parties; and if any event could have brightened the last days of this term, it is this—” and so on.Before this manifesto, a swarm of youngsters puzzled on the day of publication with no little bewilderment and fury. They had refused to allow any of their number to act as policeman, and had secretly been making merry over the embarrassment of their late persecutors, and wondering whatever they would be able to say for their humiliated selves in theDominican—and lo! here was an article which, if it meant anything, meant that the heroic rebellion of the juniors was regarded not with dismay, but with positive triumph, by the very fellows it had been intended to “squash!”“What does it mean, Padger?” asked Bramble, who, never much of a scholar, was quite unable to master the meaning of this.“It’s all a pack of crams,” replied Padger, not quite sure of the sense himself.“It means,” said Stephen, “the fellows say they are jolly glad to get rid of us.”“Eh?” yelled Bramble; “oh, I say, you fellows, come to the meeting! Jolly glad! They aren’t a bit glad.”“They say so,” said Paul. “Hold hard, Bramble, let’s read the rest.”It was all his friends could do to restrain the ardent Bramble from summoning a meeting on the spot to denounce theDominicanand all its “crams.” But they managed to hold him steady while they read on.“The Doctor never did a more—pat—pat—ri—what do you call it?—patriotic deed than this!”“Hullo, I say, look here!” cried Stephen, turning quite yellow; “the Doctor’s in it, they say, Bramble. ‘The small animals’—that’s you and Padger—‘are to be kept in their own quarters.’ Whew! there’s a go.”“What!” shrieked Bramble, “who says so? The Doctor never said so. I shall do what I choose. He never said so. Bother the Doctor! Who’s coming to the meeting, eh?”But at that moment the grave form of Doctor Senior appeared in the midst of the group, just in time to hear Master Bramble’s last complimentary shout.The head master was in the most favourable times an object of terror to the “guilty-conscienced youth” of the Fourth Junior, and the sight even of his back often sufficed to quell their tumults. But here he stood face to face with his unhappy victims, one of whom had just cried, “Bother the Doctor!” and all of whom had by word and gesture approved of the sentiment. Why would not the pavement yawn and swallow them? And which of them would not at that moment have given a thousand pounds (if he had it) to be standing anywhere but where he was?“Go to your class-room,” said the Doctor, sternly, eyeing the culprits one by one, “and wait there for me.”They slunk off meekly in obedience to this order, and waited the hour of vengeance in blank dismay.Dr Senior did not keep them long in suspense, however. His slow, firm step sounded presently down the corridor, and at the sound each wretched culprit quaked with horror.Mr Rastle was in the room, and rose as usual to greet his chief; the boys also, as by custom bound, rose in their places. “Good morning, Mr Rastle,” said the Doctor. “Are your boys all here?”“Yes, sir, we have just called over.”“Ah! And what class comes on first?”“English literature, sir.”“Well, Mr Rastle, I will take the class this morning, please—instead of you.”A groan of horror passed through the ranks of the unhappy Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at these words. Bramble looked wildly about him, if haply he might escape by a window or lie hid in a desk; while Stephen, Paul, Padger, and the other ringleaders, gave themselves up for lost, and mentally bade farewell to joy for ever.“What have the boys been reading?” inquired Dr Senior of Mr Rastle.“Grey’sElegy, sir. We have just got through it.”“Oh! Grey’sElegy!” said the Doctor; and then, as if forgetting where he was, he began repeating to himself,—“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.”“The first boy,—what can you tell me about the curfew?” The first boy was well up in the curfew, and rattled off a “full, true, and particular account” of that fine old English institution, much to everybody’s satisfaction. The Doctor went on repeating two or three verses till he came to the line,—“The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”“What does that line mean?” he asked of a boy on the second desk.The boy scarcely knew what it meant, but the boy below him did, and was quite eager for the question to be passed on. It was passed on, and the genius answered promptly, “Four old men.”“Four rude old men,” shouted the next, seeing a chance.“Four rude old men who used to sleep in church,” cried another, ready to cap all the rest.The Doctor passed the question on no further; but gravely explained the meaning of the line, and then proceeded with his repetition in rather a sadder voice.Now and again he stopped short and demanded an explanation of some obscure phrase, the answers to which were now correct, now hazy, now brilliantly original. On the whole it was not satisfactory; and when for a change the Doctor gave up reciting, and made the boys read, the effect was still worse. One boy, quite a master of elocution, spoilt the whole beauty of the lines,—“Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smileThe short and simple annals of the Poor,—”by reading “animals” instead of “annals”; while another, of an equally zoological turn of mind, announced that—“On some fondbeastthe parting soul relies,—”instead of “breast.”But the climax of this “animal mania” was reached when the wretched Bramble, finally pitched upon to go on, in spite of all his efforts to hide, rendered the passage:—“Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,” etcetera, as—“Happy some hairy-headed swine may say.”This was a little too much.“That will do, sir,” said the Doctor, sternly. “That will do. What is your name, sir?”“Bramble, please, sir.”“Well, Bramble, how long have you been in this class?”“Two years, sir.”“And have you been all the while on the bottom desk?”“Yes, please, sir.”“Sir, it displeases me. You are a dunce, sir.”And then, to Bramble’s utter despair and to the terror of all the other unprofitable members of the class, the Doctor proceeded to catechise sharply the unhappy youth on his general knowledge of the subjects taught during the term.As might be expected, the exhibition was a miserable one; Bramble was found wanting in every particular. The simplest questions could hardly coax a correct answer out of him, whereas an ordinary inquiry was hopelessly beyond his powers. He mixed up William the Conqueror and William of Orange; he subtracted what ought to be multiplied, and floundered about between conjunctions and prepositions in a sickening way. The Doctor did not spare him. He went ruthlessly on—exposing the boy’s ignorance, first in one thing, then another. Bramble stood and trembled and perspired before him, and wished he was dead, but the questions still came on. If he had answered a single thing correctly it would have been a different matter, but he knew nothing. I believe he did know what twice two was, but that was the one question the Doctor did not ask him. As to French, Latin, Grammar, and Euclid, the clock on the wall knew as much of them as Bramble. It came to an end at last.“Come here, Bramble,” said the Doctor, gravely; “and come here, you, and you, and you,” added he, pointing to Stephen and Paul and four or five others of the party who had been reading theDominicanthat morning.The luckless youngsters obeyed, and when they stood in a row before the dreaded Doctor, the bottom form and half of the bottom form but one were empty.“Now, you boys,” began the head master, very gravely, “I hadn’t intended to examine you to-day; but, from something I heard one of you say, I felt rather anxious to know how some of you are doing in your studies. These half-dozen boys I was particularly anxious to know of, because I heard them talking to-day as if they were the most important boys in the whole school. Theyarethe most important; for they are the most ignorant, and require, and in future will receive, the closest looking after. You, little boys,” said the Doctor, turning to the row of abashed culprits, “take a word of warning from me. Do not be silly as well as dunces. Do not think, as long as you know least of any one in the school you can pretend to rule the school. I hope some of you have been led to see to-day you are not as clever as you would like to be. If you try, and work hard, and stick like men to your lessons, you will know more than you do now; and when you do know more you will see that the best way for little boys to get on is not by giving themselves ridiculous airs, but by doing their duty steadily in class, and living at peace with one another, and submitting quietly to the discipline of the school. Don’t let me hear any more of this recent nonsense. You’ll be going off in a day or two for the holidays. Take my advice, and think over what I have said; and next term let me see you in your right minds, determined to work hard and do your part honestly for the credit of the good old school. Go to your places, boys.”And so the Doctor’s visitation came to an end. It made a very deep impression on the youthful members of the Fourth Junior. Most of them felt very much ashamed of themselves; and nearly every one felt his veneration and admiration for the Doctor greatly heightened. Only a few incorrigibles like Bramble professed to make light of the scene through which they had just passed, and even he, it was evident, was considerably chastened by his experience.That evening, after the first bed-bell, Dr Senior requested some of the masters to meet with him for a few minutes in his study.“Do any of you know,” asked the head master, “anything about this newspaper, theDominican, which I see hanging outside the Fifth door?”“I hear a great many boys talking about it,” said Mr Jellicott of the Fifth. “It is the joint production of several of the boys in my form.”“Indeed! A Fifth form paper!” said the Doctor. “Has any one perused it?”“I have,” said Mr Rastle. “It seems to me to be cleverly managed, though perhaps a little personal.”“Ah, only natural with schoolboys,” said the Doctor. “I should like to see it. Can you fetch it, Rastle?”“It is nailed to the wall,” said Mr Rastle, smiling, “like Luther’s manifesto; but I can get one of the boys, I dare say, to unfasten it for you.”“No, do not do that,” said the Doctor. “If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, you know, Mahomet and his disciples must go to the mountain, eh, Mr Harrison? I think we might venture out and peruse it where it hangs.” So half-stealthily, when the whole school was falling asleep, Dr Senior and his colleagues stepped out into the passage, and by the aid of a candle satisfied their curiosity as to the mysteriousDominican.A good deal of its humour was, of course, lost upon them, as they could hardly be expected to understand the force of all the allusions it contained. But they saw quite enough to enable them to gather the general tenor of the paper; it amused and it concerned them.“It shows considerable ability on the part of its editor,” said the Doctor, after the masters had returned to his study, “but I rather fear its tone may give offence to some of the boys—in the Sixth for instance.”“I fancy there is a considerable amount of rivalry between the two head forms,” said Mr Harrison.“If there is,” said Mr Jellicott, “this newspaper is hardly likely to diminish it.”“And it seems equally severe on the juniors,” said Mr Rastle.“Ah,” said the Doctor, smiling, “about that ‘strike.’ I can’t understand that. Really the politics of your little world, Rastle, are too intricate for any ordinary mortal. But I gather the small boys have a grievance against the big ones?”“Yes, on the question of fagging, I believe.”“Oh!” said the Doctor. “I hope that is not coming up. You know I’m heretic enough to believe that a certain amount of fagging does not do harm in a school like ours.”“Certainly not,” said Mr Jellicott. “But these small boys are really very amusing. They appear to be regularly organised, and some of them have quite a martyr spirit about them.”“As I can testify,” said Mr Rastle, proceeding to recount the case of Stephen Greenfield and his sore cheek. The Doctor listened to it all, half gravely, half amused, and presently said:“Well, it is as well the holidays are coming. Things are sure to calm down in them; and next term I dare say we shall be all the wiser for the lessons of this. Meanwhile I should like to see the editor of this paper to-morrow. Who is he, Jellicott?”“I believe it is Pembury.”“Very well. Send him to me, will you, to-morrow at ten? Good-night. Thank you for your advice!”Next morning the Doctor talked to Pembury about theDominican. He praised the paper generally, and congratulated him on the success of his efforts. But he took exception to its personal tone.“As long as you can keep on the broad round of humour and pure fun, nothing can please us more than to see you improving your time in a manner like this. But you must be very careful to avoid what will give pain or offence to any section of your schoolfellows. I was sorry to see in the present number a good deal that might have been well omitted of that kind. Remember this, Pembury, I want all you boys, instead of separating off one set from another, and making divisions between class and class, to try to make common cause over the whole school, and unite all the boys in common cause for the good of Saint Dominic’s. Now your paper could help not a little in this direction. Indeed, if it does not help, it had better not be issued. There! I shall not refer to the matter again unless you give me cause. I do not want to discourage you in your undertaking, for it’s really an excellent idea, and capitally carried out. Andverbum sap, you know, is quite sufficient.”Anthony, with rather a long face, retired from the Doctor’s presence.A few days later the school broke up for the summer holidays.

TheDominicanappeared once more before the holidays, and, as might have been expected (besides its usual articles at the expense of the Sixth Form), made itself particularly merry over the rebellion of the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles.

Pembury was not the fellow to give quarter in his own particular line of attack; and it must be confessed he had the proud satisfaction of making his unfortunate young victims smart.

The “leading article” of the present number bore the suggestive title, “Thank Goodness!” and began as follows:

“Thank goodness, we are at last rid of the pest which has made Saint Dominic’s hideous for months past! At a single blow, with a single clap of the hands, we have sent Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles packing, and can now breathe pure air. No longer shall we have to put up with the plague. We are to be spared the disgust of seeing them, much more of talking to them or hearing their hideous voices. No longer will our morning milk be burned; no longer will our herrings be grilled to cinders; no longer will our jam be purloined; no longer will our books and door-handles be made abominable by contact with their filthy hands! Thank goodness! The Doctor never did a more patriotic deed than this! The small animals are in future to be kept to their own quarters, and will be forbidden the liberty they have so long abused of mixing with their betters. It is as well for all parties; and if any event could have brightened the last days of this term, it is this—” and so on.

Before this manifesto, a swarm of youngsters puzzled on the day of publication with no little bewilderment and fury. They had refused to allow any of their number to act as policeman, and had secretly been making merry over the embarrassment of their late persecutors, and wondering whatever they would be able to say for their humiliated selves in theDominican—and lo! here was an article which, if it meant anything, meant that the heroic rebellion of the juniors was regarded not with dismay, but with positive triumph, by the very fellows it had been intended to “squash!”

“What does it mean, Padger?” asked Bramble, who, never much of a scholar, was quite unable to master the meaning of this.

“It’s all a pack of crams,” replied Padger, not quite sure of the sense himself.

“It means,” said Stephen, “the fellows say they are jolly glad to get rid of us.”

“Eh?” yelled Bramble; “oh, I say, you fellows, come to the meeting! Jolly glad! They aren’t a bit glad.”

“They say so,” said Paul. “Hold hard, Bramble, let’s read the rest.”

It was all his friends could do to restrain the ardent Bramble from summoning a meeting on the spot to denounce theDominicanand all its “crams.” But they managed to hold him steady while they read on.

“The Doctor never did a more—pat—pat—ri—what do you call it?—patriotic deed than this!”

“Hullo, I say, look here!” cried Stephen, turning quite yellow; “the Doctor’s in it, they say, Bramble. ‘The small animals’—that’s you and Padger—‘are to be kept in their own quarters.’ Whew! there’s a go.”

“What!” shrieked Bramble, “who says so? The Doctor never said so. I shall do what I choose. He never said so. Bother the Doctor! Who’s coming to the meeting, eh?”

But at that moment the grave form of Doctor Senior appeared in the midst of the group, just in time to hear Master Bramble’s last complimentary shout.

The head master was in the most favourable times an object of terror to the “guilty-conscienced youth” of the Fourth Junior, and the sight even of his back often sufficed to quell their tumults. But here he stood face to face with his unhappy victims, one of whom had just cried, “Bother the Doctor!” and all of whom had by word and gesture approved of the sentiment. Why would not the pavement yawn and swallow them? And which of them would not at that moment have given a thousand pounds (if he had it) to be standing anywhere but where he was?

“Go to your class-room,” said the Doctor, sternly, eyeing the culprits one by one, “and wait there for me.”

They slunk off meekly in obedience to this order, and waited the hour of vengeance in blank dismay.

Dr Senior did not keep them long in suspense, however. His slow, firm step sounded presently down the corridor, and at the sound each wretched culprit quaked with horror.

Mr Rastle was in the room, and rose as usual to greet his chief; the boys also, as by custom bound, rose in their places. “Good morning, Mr Rastle,” said the Doctor. “Are your boys all here?”

“Yes, sir, we have just called over.”

“Ah! And what class comes on first?”

“English literature, sir.”

“Well, Mr Rastle, I will take the class this morning, please—instead of you.”

A groan of horror passed through the ranks of the unhappy Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at these words. Bramble looked wildly about him, if haply he might escape by a window or lie hid in a desk; while Stephen, Paul, Padger, and the other ringleaders, gave themselves up for lost, and mentally bade farewell to joy for ever.

“What have the boys been reading?” inquired Dr Senior of Mr Rastle.

“Grey’sElegy, sir. We have just got through it.”

“Oh! Grey’sElegy!” said the Doctor; and then, as if forgetting where he was, he began repeating to himself,—

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.”

“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.”

“The first boy,—what can you tell me about the curfew?” The first boy was well up in the curfew, and rattled off a “full, true, and particular account” of that fine old English institution, much to everybody’s satisfaction. The Doctor went on repeating two or three verses till he came to the line,—

“The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”

“The rude Forefathers of the hamlet sleep.”

“What does that line mean?” he asked of a boy on the second desk.

The boy scarcely knew what it meant, but the boy below him did, and was quite eager for the question to be passed on. It was passed on, and the genius answered promptly, “Four old men.”

“Four rude old men,” shouted the next, seeing a chance.

“Four rude old men who used to sleep in church,” cried another, ready to cap all the rest.

The Doctor passed the question on no further; but gravely explained the meaning of the line, and then proceeded with his repetition in rather a sadder voice.

Now and again he stopped short and demanded an explanation of some obscure phrase, the answers to which were now correct, now hazy, now brilliantly original. On the whole it was not satisfactory; and when for a change the Doctor gave up reciting, and made the boys read, the effect was still worse. One boy, quite a master of elocution, spoilt the whole beauty of the lines,—

“Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smileThe short and simple annals of the Poor,—”

“Nor Grandeur hear with a disdainful smileThe short and simple annals of the Poor,—”

by reading “animals” instead of “annals”; while another, of an equally zoological turn of mind, announced that—

“On some fondbeastthe parting soul relies,—”

“On some fondbeastthe parting soul relies,—”

instead of “breast.”

But the climax of this “animal mania” was reached when the wretched Bramble, finally pitched upon to go on, in spite of all his efforts to hide, rendered the passage:—

“Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,” etcetera, as—

“Haply some hoary-headed swain may say,Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn,” etcetera, as—

“Happy some hairy-headed swine may say.”

This was a little too much.

“That will do, sir,” said the Doctor, sternly. “That will do. What is your name, sir?”

“Bramble, please, sir.”

“Well, Bramble, how long have you been in this class?”

“Two years, sir.”

“And have you been all the while on the bottom desk?”

“Yes, please, sir.”

“Sir, it displeases me. You are a dunce, sir.”

And then, to Bramble’s utter despair and to the terror of all the other unprofitable members of the class, the Doctor proceeded to catechise sharply the unhappy youth on his general knowledge of the subjects taught during the term.

As might be expected, the exhibition was a miserable one; Bramble was found wanting in every particular. The simplest questions could hardly coax a correct answer out of him, whereas an ordinary inquiry was hopelessly beyond his powers. He mixed up William the Conqueror and William of Orange; he subtracted what ought to be multiplied, and floundered about between conjunctions and prepositions in a sickening way. The Doctor did not spare him. He went ruthlessly on—exposing the boy’s ignorance, first in one thing, then another. Bramble stood and trembled and perspired before him, and wished he was dead, but the questions still came on. If he had answered a single thing correctly it would have been a different matter, but he knew nothing. I believe he did know what twice two was, but that was the one question the Doctor did not ask him. As to French, Latin, Grammar, and Euclid, the clock on the wall knew as much of them as Bramble. It came to an end at last.

“Come here, Bramble,” said the Doctor, gravely; “and come here, you, and you, and you,” added he, pointing to Stephen and Paul and four or five others of the party who had been reading theDominicanthat morning.

The luckless youngsters obeyed, and when they stood in a row before the dreaded Doctor, the bottom form and half of the bottom form but one were empty.

“Now, you boys,” began the head master, very gravely, “I hadn’t intended to examine you to-day; but, from something I heard one of you say, I felt rather anxious to know how some of you are doing in your studies. These half-dozen boys I was particularly anxious to know of, because I heard them talking to-day as if they were the most important boys in the whole school. Theyarethe most important; for they are the most ignorant, and require, and in future will receive, the closest looking after. You, little boys,” said the Doctor, turning to the row of abashed culprits, “take a word of warning from me. Do not be silly as well as dunces. Do not think, as long as you know least of any one in the school you can pretend to rule the school. I hope some of you have been led to see to-day you are not as clever as you would like to be. If you try, and work hard, and stick like men to your lessons, you will know more than you do now; and when you do know more you will see that the best way for little boys to get on is not by giving themselves ridiculous airs, but by doing their duty steadily in class, and living at peace with one another, and submitting quietly to the discipline of the school. Don’t let me hear any more of this recent nonsense. You’ll be going off in a day or two for the holidays. Take my advice, and think over what I have said; and next term let me see you in your right minds, determined to work hard and do your part honestly for the credit of the good old school. Go to your places, boys.”

And so the Doctor’s visitation came to an end. It made a very deep impression on the youthful members of the Fourth Junior. Most of them felt very much ashamed of themselves; and nearly every one felt his veneration and admiration for the Doctor greatly heightened. Only a few incorrigibles like Bramble professed to make light of the scene through which they had just passed, and even he, it was evident, was considerably chastened by his experience.

That evening, after the first bed-bell, Dr Senior requested some of the masters to meet with him for a few minutes in his study.

“Do any of you know,” asked the head master, “anything about this newspaper, theDominican, which I see hanging outside the Fifth door?”

“I hear a great many boys talking about it,” said Mr Jellicott of the Fifth. “It is the joint production of several of the boys in my form.”

“Indeed! A Fifth form paper!” said the Doctor. “Has any one perused it?”

“I have,” said Mr Rastle. “It seems to me to be cleverly managed, though perhaps a little personal.”

“Ah, only natural with schoolboys,” said the Doctor. “I should like to see it. Can you fetch it, Rastle?”

“It is nailed to the wall,” said Mr Rastle, smiling, “like Luther’s manifesto; but I can get one of the boys, I dare say, to unfasten it for you.”

“No, do not do that,” said the Doctor. “If the mountain will not come to Mahomet, you know, Mahomet and his disciples must go to the mountain, eh, Mr Harrison? I think we might venture out and peruse it where it hangs.” So half-stealthily, when the whole school was falling asleep, Dr Senior and his colleagues stepped out into the passage, and by the aid of a candle satisfied their curiosity as to the mysteriousDominican.

A good deal of its humour was, of course, lost upon them, as they could hardly be expected to understand the force of all the allusions it contained. But they saw quite enough to enable them to gather the general tenor of the paper; it amused and it concerned them.

“It shows considerable ability on the part of its editor,” said the Doctor, after the masters had returned to his study, “but I rather fear its tone may give offence to some of the boys—in the Sixth for instance.”

“I fancy there is a considerable amount of rivalry between the two head forms,” said Mr Harrison.

“If there is,” said Mr Jellicott, “this newspaper is hardly likely to diminish it.”

“And it seems equally severe on the juniors,” said Mr Rastle.

“Ah,” said the Doctor, smiling, “about that ‘strike.’ I can’t understand that. Really the politics of your little world, Rastle, are too intricate for any ordinary mortal. But I gather the small boys have a grievance against the big ones?”

“Yes, on the question of fagging, I believe.”

“Oh!” said the Doctor. “I hope that is not coming up. You know I’m heretic enough to believe that a certain amount of fagging does not do harm in a school like ours.”

“Certainly not,” said Mr Jellicott. “But these small boys are really very amusing. They appear to be regularly organised, and some of them have quite a martyr spirit about them.”

“As I can testify,” said Mr Rastle, proceeding to recount the case of Stephen Greenfield and his sore cheek. The Doctor listened to it all, half gravely, half amused, and presently said:

“Well, it is as well the holidays are coming. Things are sure to calm down in them; and next term I dare say we shall be all the wiser for the lessons of this. Meanwhile I should like to see the editor of this paper to-morrow. Who is he, Jellicott?”

“I believe it is Pembury.”

“Very well. Send him to me, will you, to-morrow at ten? Good-night. Thank you for your advice!”

Next morning the Doctor talked to Pembury about theDominican. He praised the paper generally, and congratulated him on the success of his efforts. But he took exception to its personal tone.

“As long as you can keep on the broad round of humour and pure fun, nothing can please us more than to see you improving your time in a manner like this. But you must be very careful to avoid what will give pain or offence to any section of your schoolfellows. I was sorry to see in the present number a good deal that might have been well omitted of that kind. Remember this, Pembury, I want all you boys, instead of separating off one set from another, and making divisions between class and class, to try to make common cause over the whole school, and unite all the boys in common cause for the good of Saint Dominic’s. Now your paper could help not a little in this direction. Indeed, if it does not help, it had better not be issued. There! I shall not refer to the matter again unless you give me cause. I do not want to discourage you in your undertaking, for it’s really an excellent idea, and capitally carried out. Andverbum sap, you know, is quite sufficient.”

Anthony, with rather a long face, retired from the Doctor’s presence.

A few days later the school broke up for the summer holidays.

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