Chapter Sixteen.

Chapter Sixteen.The Testimonial.As the reader may suppose, the sympathetic soul of Miss Daisy Herapath was considerably moved by the contents of her brother’s letter, which we gave in the last chapter. She naturally took an interest in the welfare and doings of Railsford’s house; and as she heard quite as often from the master as she did from his pupil, she was able to form a pretty good, all-round opinion on school politics.Arthur’s lively account of the House sports had delighted her. Not that she understood all the obscure terms which embellished it; but it was quite enough for her that the house had risen above its tribulations and rewarded its master and itself by these brilliant exploits in the fields. But when Arthur passed from public to personal matters, his sister felt rather less at ease. She much disliked the barefaced proposal for the testimonial, and had told her brother as much more than once. On the whole, she decided to send Arthur’s letter and its enclosure to Railsford, and confide her perplexities to him.Railsford perused the “dear boy’s” florid effusion with considerable interest, particularly, I grieve to say, certain portions of it, which if Daisy had been as wise as she was affectionate, she would have kept to herself. When people put notes into circulation, it’s not the fault of those into whose hands they come if they discover in them beauties unsuspected by the person for whose benefit they were issued. Railsford saw a great deal more in Arthur’s letter than Daisy had even suspected. A certain passage, which had seemed mere mysterious jargon to her, had a pretty plain meaning for him, especially after the interview last Sunday with Mr Bickers.“It’s a jolly good job that row about Bickers came on when it did. ... Nobody wants to find the chap out now, so your particular is all serene up to now, and I don’t mean to drip and spoil his game.”What could this mean except that Arthur, somehow or other, knew a secret respecting the Bickers affair which he was keeping to himself, presumably in the interests of Railsford? Could this mysterious hint have any connection with the false rumour which had reached Bickers and magnified itself in his mind to such an uncomfortable extent? Railsford resolved to delight the heart of his young relative by a friendly visit, and make a reconnaissance of the position. He had a very good pretext in the anxious solicitude expressed in Daisy’s letter for the health and appetite of her love-tossed brother. He would make it his business to inquire how the sufferer did.Waiting, therefore, until a preternatural stillness in the room above assured him that Dig was out of the way, the Master of the Shell went up-stairs and ushered himself into Arthur’s study.“Hard at work, I see,” said Railsford cheerily. “How are you getting on?”“All serene, thanks,” replied Arthur. “That is, not very well.”“Have you stuck fast in your translations? Let me look.”“Oh no. I’m not doing my exercise,” said Arthur, in alarm. “I’m only looking up some words. Do you want to see Dig? He’s gone to Wake’s room.”“No, I came to see you. I heard you’d been out of sorts. Are you all right now? Was it the sports knocked you up?”“No—that is, yes, they did a bit, I think,” said Arthur. It was the sports which had done it, though not in the way “Marky” fancied.“Well, we mustn’t have you laid up, must we? We want you for the Swift Scholarship, you know.”“Oh, all right, sir, I’m going to mug hard for that after Easter, really.”“Why put it off till then? You may come to my room any evening you like. I shall generally have time enough.”This invitation did not fascinate the boy as it deserved to do.“I fancy I’d work steadier here,” said he. “Besides, Dig and I use the same books.”“Well, the first thing is to get yourself all right. What’s troubling you, Arthur?”This was a startling question, and Arthur felt himself detected.“I suppose you’ve heard. Keep it quiet, I say.”“What is it? Keep what quiet?”“Why, abouther, you know. I say, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford—could you ever give me a leg-up with her? If you asked her to your room one day, you know I could come too, and do my work.”Railsford laughed.“I thought you could do your work better here; besides, you and Oakshott use the same books.”“Oakshott be hanged! I mean—I say, Marky, do you think I’ve a chance? I know Smedley’s—”Railsford’s experience in cases of this sort was limited, but he was philosopher enough to know that some distempers need to be taken seriously.“Look here, Arthur,” said he gravely, “the best thing you can do is to go straight over to Dr Ponsford’s and ask to see him, and tell him exactly how matters stand. Remind him that you’re just fifteen, and in the Shell, and that your income is a shilling a week. You need not tell him you were detained two afternoons this week, because he will probably find that out for himself by looking at monsieur’s books. If he says he will be delighted to accept your offer, then I promise to back you up. Let me see, I know the doctor’s at home this evening; it’s not 7.30 yet, so you’ll have time, if you go at once, to catch him before his tea. I’ll wait here till you come back.”Arthur’s face underwent a wonderful change as the master quietly uttered these words. It began by lengthening, and growing a little pale; then it grew troubled, then bewildered, then scarlet, and finally, when he had ended, it relaxed into a very faint smile.“I think I’ll wait a bit,” said he gravely.“Very well, only let me hear the result when you do go.”“I think I may as well start work for the Swift to-night,” said he, “if you don’t mind.”“By all means, my boy. Come along to my room and we’ll look through the list of subjects.”Arthur, before the task was half over, had recovered his spirits and advanced far in the esteem of his future kinsman.“Awfully brickish of you, sir,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a bad score for our house if we got all the prizes at the exams, would it?”“Not at all. But we mustn’t be too confident.”“Jolly lucky we’re cut off from the rest of the chaps, isn’t it? It makes us all sit up.”“That state of things may end any time, you know,” said the master. “But we must ‘sit up’ all the same.”“Oh, but it won’t come out till the exams, are over, will it?”“How do I know?”Arthur glanced up at his kinsman, and inwardly reflected what a clever chap he was to ask such a question in such a way.“Oh, all right. All I meant was, it wouldn’t suit our book, would it, to let it out just yet?”“It’s not a question of what suits anyone. It’s a question of what is right. And if anybody in the house knows anything I don’t, he ought to speak, whatever it costs.”“There’s an artful card,” thought Arthur to himself, and added aloud—“I don’t fancy any fellow knows anything you don’t, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford.Idon’t.”“Don’t you? Do you know,” said the master, “I have sometimes had an impression you did. I am quite relieved to hear it, Arthur.”“Oh, you needn’t be afraid of me,” said Arthur, lost in admiration for the cleverness of his future brother-in-law. “I’m safe, never you fear.”“It’s a strange mystery,” said Railsford, “but sooner or later we shall know the meaning of it.”“Later the better,” put in Arthur, with a wink.“I don’t envy the feelings of the culprit, whoever he is; for he is a coward as well as a liar.”“No, more do I, Perhaps you’re too down on him, though. Never mind, he’s safe enough, for you and me.”“You have an odd way of talking, Arthur, which doesn’t do you justice. As I said, you have more than once made me wonder whether you were not keeping back something about this wretched affair which I ought to know.”“Honour bright, I know a jolly lot less about it than you; so you really needn’t be afraid of me; and Dig’s safe too. Safe as a door-nail.”Railsford was able to write home on the following Sunday that Arthur had quite recovered his appetite, and that the “low” symptoms to which Dig had darkly referred had vanished altogether. Indeed, Arthur on this occasion developed that most happy of all accomplishments, the power of utterly forgetting that he had done or said anything either strange in itself or offensive to others. He was hail-fellow-well-met with the boys he had lately kicked and made miserable; he did not know what you were talking about when you reminded him that a day or two ago he had behaved like a cad to you; and, greatest exploit of all, he had the effrontery to charge Dig with being “spoons” on Violet, and to hold him up to general ridicule in consequence!“How much have you really got for the testimonial?” said Dig one morning.“Eleven and six,” said Arthur dismally; “not a great lot, but enough for a silver ring.”“Not with Daisy’s name on it.”“No, we’ll have to drop that, unless we can scratch it on.”“We’ll have a try. When shall we give it?”“To-morrow’s Rag Sunday, isn’t it? Let’s give it him to-night—after tea. I’ll write out a list of the chaps, and you can get up an address, unless Felgate will come and give him a speech.”“Think he will? All serene. We’ll give the fellows the tip, and do the thing in style. Hadn’t you better cut and get the ring, I say?”Arthur cut, armed with anexeat, and made the momentous purchase. The fancy stationer of whom he bought the ring assured him it was solid silver, and worth a good deal more than the 10 shillings 6 pence he asked. The other shilling Arthur invested in a box wherein to put it, and returned to school very well satisfied with his bargain. He and Dig spent an anxious hour trying to scratch the letters with a pin on the inner surface; and to Arthur belonged the credit of the delicate suggestion that instead of writing the term of endearment in vulgar English they should engrave it in Classic Greek, thus:chuki. The result was on the whole satisfactory; and when the list of contributors was emblazoned on a sheet of school paper, and Sir Digby Oakshott’s address (for Felgate declined the invitation to make a speech) had been finally revised and corrected, the prospects of the ceremonial seemed very encouraging.Arthur and Dig, once more completely reconciled, went through the farce of house tea that evening in the common room with considerable trepidation. They had a big job on hand, in which they were to be the principal actors, and when the critical time comes at last, we all know how devoutly we wish it had forgotten us! But everything had been carefully arranged, and everyone had been told what to expect. It was therefore impossible to back out, and highly desirable, as theywerein for it, to do it in good style.As the clock pointed to the fatal hour, Dig sharply rattled his spoon against the side of his empty cup. At the expected signal, about a dozen boys, the contributors to the testimonial, rose to their feet, and turned their eyes on Arthur. Railsford, at the head of the table, mistook the demonstration for a lapse of good manners, and was about to reprimand the offenders, when by a concerted movement the deputation stepped over their forms and advanced on the master in a compact phalanx. Arthur and Dig, both a little pale and dry about the lips, marched at their head. “What is all this?” inquired Railsford. Arthur and Dig replied by a rather ceremonious bow, in which the deputation followed them; and then the latter carefully cleared his throat.“We, the undersigned, boys in your house,” he began, reading from the paper before him in a somewhat breathless way, “beg to present you with a small token of our esteem—(Go on, hand it up, Arthur), and hope you will like it, and that it will fit, and trust that the name graven within will suggest pleasant memories in which we all join. The letters are in the Greek character. We hope we shall all enjoy our holidays, and come back better in mind and body. You may rely on us to back you up, and to keep dark things you would not like to have mentioned.—Signed, with kind regards, Daisy Herapath (a most particular friend), J. Felgate (prefect), Arthur Herapath (treasurer), Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet (secretary), Bateson and Jukes (Babies), Maple, Simson, Tilbury, and Dimsdale (Shell), Munger (Fifth), Snape (Baby in Bickers’s house).”It spoke a good deal for Mark Railsford that under the first shock of this startling interview, he did not bowl over the whole deputation like so many ninepins and explode before the assembled house. As it was he was too much taken aback to realise the position for a minute or so; and by that time the baronet’s address was half read. He grimly waited for the end of it, studiously ignoring the box which Arthur held out, opened, to fascinate him with its charms.When the reading was done, he wheeled round abruptly in his chair, in a manner which made the deputation stagger back a pace; and said—“You mean it kindly, no doubt; but I don’t want a present and can’t take one. It was foolish of you to think of such a thing. Don’t let it occur again. I’m vexed with you, and shall have to speak to some of you privately about it. Go to your rooms.”“What’s to become of the ring!” said Dig disconsolately, as he and Arthur sat and cooled themselves in their study. “Mr Trinket won’t take it back. He’d no business to cut up rough like that.”“Fact is,” replied Arthur, “Marky’s got to draw the line somewhere. He knows he’s in a jolly row about that business, you know, and he doesn’t want a testimonial for it. I don’t blame him. I’ll get Daisy to buy the ring in the holidays, and we can have the fellows to a blow-out next term with the money.”

As the reader may suppose, the sympathetic soul of Miss Daisy Herapath was considerably moved by the contents of her brother’s letter, which we gave in the last chapter. She naturally took an interest in the welfare and doings of Railsford’s house; and as she heard quite as often from the master as she did from his pupil, she was able to form a pretty good, all-round opinion on school politics.

Arthur’s lively account of the House sports had delighted her. Not that she understood all the obscure terms which embellished it; but it was quite enough for her that the house had risen above its tribulations and rewarded its master and itself by these brilliant exploits in the fields. But when Arthur passed from public to personal matters, his sister felt rather less at ease. She much disliked the barefaced proposal for the testimonial, and had told her brother as much more than once. On the whole, she decided to send Arthur’s letter and its enclosure to Railsford, and confide her perplexities to him.

Railsford perused the “dear boy’s” florid effusion with considerable interest, particularly, I grieve to say, certain portions of it, which if Daisy had been as wise as she was affectionate, she would have kept to herself. When people put notes into circulation, it’s not the fault of those into whose hands they come if they discover in them beauties unsuspected by the person for whose benefit they were issued. Railsford saw a great deal more in Arthur’s letter than Daisy had even suspected. A certain passage, which had seemed mere mysterious jargon to her, had a pretty plain meaning for him, especially after the interview last Sunday with Mr Bickers.

“It’s a jolly good job that row about Bickers came on when it did. ... Nobody wants to find the chap out now, so your particular is all serene up to now, and I don’t mean to drip and spoil his game.”

What could this mean except that Arthur, somehow or other, knew a secret respecting the Bickers affair which he was keeping to himself, presumably in the interests of Railsford? Could this mysterious hint have any connection with the false rumour which had reached Bickers and magnified itself in his mind to such an uncomfortable extent? Railsford resolved to delight the heart of his young relative by a friendly visit, and make a reconnaissance of the position. He had a very good pretext in the anxious solicitude expressed in Daisy’s letter for the health and appetite of her love-tossed brother. He would make it his business to inquire how the sufferer did.

Waiting, therefore, until a preternatural stillness in the room above assured him that Dig was out of the way, the Master of the Shell went up-stairs and ushered himself into Arthur’s study.

“Hard at work, I see,” said Railsford cheerily. “How are you getting on?”

“All serene, thanks,” replied Arthur. “That is, not very well.”

“Have you stuck fast in your translations? Let me look.”

“Oh no. I’m not doing my exercise,” said Arthur, in alarm. “I’m only looking up some words. Do you want to see Dig? He’s gone to Wake’s room.”

“No, I came to see you. I heard you’d been out of sorts. Are you all right now? Was it the sports knocked you up?”

“No—that is, yes, they did a bit, I think,” said Arthur. It was the sports which had done it, though not in the way “Marky” fancied.

“Well, we mustn’t have you laid up, must we? We want you for the Swift Scholarship, you know.”

“Oh, all right, sir, I’m going to mug hard for that after Easter, really.”

“Why put it off till then? You may come to my room any evening you like. I shall generally have time enough.”

This invitation did not fascinate the boy as it deserved to do.

“I fancy I’d work steadier here,” said he. “Besides, Dig and I use the same books.”

“Well, the first thing is to get yourself all right. What’s troubling you, Arthur?”

This was a startling question, and Arthur felt himself detected.

“I suppose you’ve heard. Keep it quiet, I say.”

“What is it? Keep what quiet?”

“Why, abouther, you know. I say, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford—could you ever give me a leg-up with her? If you asked her to your room one day, you know I could come too, and do my work.”

Railsford laughed.

“I thought you could do your work better here; besides, you and Oakshott use the same books.”

“Oakshott be hanged! I mean—I say, Marky, do you think I’ve a chance? I know Smedley’s—”

Railsford’s experience in cases of this sort was limited, but he was philosopher enough to know that some distempers need to be taken seriously.

“Look here, Arthur,” said he gravely, “the best thing you can do is to go straight over to Dr Ponsford’s and ask to see him, and tell him exactly how matters stand. Remind him that you’re just fifteen, and in the Shell, and that your income is a shilling a week. You need not tell him you were detained two afternoons this week, because he will probably find that out for himself by looking at monsieur’s books. If he says he will be delighted to accept your offer, then I promise to back you up. Let me see, I know the doctor’s at home this evening; it’s not 7.30 yet, so you’ll have time, if you go at once, to catch him before his tea. I’ll wait here till you come back.”

Arthur’s face underwent a wonderful change as the master quietly uttered these words. It began by lengthening, and growing a little pale; then it grew troubled, then bewildered, then scarlet, and finally, when he had ended, it relaxed into a very faint smile.

“I think I’ll wait a bit,” said he gravely.

“Very well, only let me hear the result when you do go.”

“I think I may as well start work for the Swift to-night,” said he, “if you don’t mind.”

“By all means, my boy. Come along to my room and we’ll look through the list of subjects.”

Arthur, before the task was half over, had recovered his spirits and advanced far in the esteem of his future kinsman.

“Awfully brickish of you, sir,” he said. “It wouldn’t be a bad score for our house if we got all the prizes at the exams, would it?”

“Not at all. But we mustn’t be too confident.”

“Jolly lucky we’re cut off from the rest of the chaps, isn’t it? It makes us all sit up.”

“That state of things may end any time, you know,” said the master. “But we must ‘sit up’ all the same.”

“Oh, but it won’t come out till the exams, are over, will it?”

“How do I know?”

Arthur glanced up at his kinsman, and inwardly reflected what a clever chap he was to ask such a question in such a way.

“Oh, all right. All I meant was, it wouldn’t suit our book, would it, to let it out just yet?”

“It’s not a question of what suits anyone. It’s a question of what is right. And if anybody in the house knows anything I don’t, he ought to speak, whatever it costs.”

“There’s an artful card,” thought Arthur to himself, and added aloud—

“I don’t fancy any fellow knows anything you don’t, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford.Idon’t.”

“Don’t you? Do you know,” said the master, “I have sometimes had an impression you did. I am quite relieved to hear it, Arthur.”

“Oh, you needn’t be afraid of me,” said Arthur, lost in admiration for the cleverness of his future brother-in-law. “I’m safe, never you fear.”

“It’s a strange mystery,” said Railsford, “but sooner or later we shall know the meaning of it.”

“Later the better,” put in Arthur, with a wink.

“I don’t envy the feelings of the culprit, whoever he is; for he is a coward as well as a liar.”

“No, more do I, Perhaps you’re too down on him, though. Never mind, he’s safe enough, for you and me.”

“You have an odd way of talking, Arthur, which doesn’t do you justice. As I said, you have more than once made me wonder whether you were not keeping back something about this wretched affair which I ought to know.”

“Honour bright, I know a jolly lot less about it than you; so you really needn’t be afraid of me; and Dig’s safe too. Safe as a door-nail.”

Railsford was able to write home on the following Sunday that Arthur had quite recovered his appetite, and that the “low” symptoms to which Dig had darkly referred had vanished altogether. Indeed, Arthur on this occasion developed that most happy of all accomplishments, the power of utterly forgetting that he had done or said anything either strange in itself or offensive to others. He was hail-fellow-well-met with the boys he had lately kicked and made miserable; he did not know what you were talking about when you reminded him that a day or two ago he had behaved like a cad to you; and, greatest exploit of all, he had the effrontery to charge Dig with being “spoons” on Violet, and to hold him up to general ridicule in consequence!

“How much have you really got for the testimonial?” said Dig one morning.

“Eleven and six,” said Arthur dismally; “not a great lot, but enough for a silver ring.”

“Not with Daisy’s name on it.”

“No, we’ll have to drop that, unless we can scratch it on.”

“We’ll have a try. When shall we give it?”

“To-morrow’s Rag Sunday, isn’t it? Let’s give it him to-night—after tea. I’ll write out a list of the chaps, and you can get up an address, unless Felgate will come and give him a speech.”

“Think he will? All serene. We’ll give the fellows the tip, and do the thing in style. Hadn’t you better cut and get the ring, I say?”

Arthur cut, armed with anexeat, and made the momentous purchase. The fancy stationer of whom he bought the ring assured him it was solid silver, and worth a good deal more than the 10 shillings 6 pence he asked. The other shilling Arthur invested in a box wherein to put it, and returned to school very well satisfied with his bargain. He and Dig spent an anxious hour trying to scratch the letters with a pin on the inner surface; and to Arthur belonged the credit of the delicate suggestion that instead of writing the term of endearment in vulgar English they should engrave it in Classic Greek, thus:chuki. The result was on the whole satisfactory; and when the list of contributors was emblazoned on a sheet of school paper, and Sir Digby Oakshott’s address (for Felgate declined the invitation to make a speech) had been finally revised and corrected, the prospects of the ceremonial seemed very encouraging.

Arthur and Dig, once more completely reconciled, went through the farce of house tea that evening in the common room with considerable trepidation. They had a big job on hand, in which they were to be the principal actors, and when the critical time comes at last, we all know how devoutly we wish it had forgotten us! But everything had been carefully arranged, and everyone had been told what to expect. It was therefore impossible to back out, and highly desirable, as theywerein for it, to do it in good style.

As the clock pointed to the fatal hour, Dig sharply rattled his spoon against the side of his empty cup. At the expected signal, about a dozen boys, the contributors to the testimonial, rose to their feet, and turned their eyes on Arthur. Railsford, at the head of the table, mistook the demonstration for a lapse of good manners, and was about to reprimand the offenders, when by a concerted movement the deputation stepped over their forms and advanced on the master in a compact phalanx. Arthur and Dig, both a little pale and dry about the lips, marched at their head. “What is all this?” inquired Railsford. Arthur and Dig replied by a rather ceremonious bow, in which the deputation followed them; and then the latter carefully cleared his throat.

“We, the undersigned, boys in your house,” he began, reading from the paper before him in a somewhat breathless way, “beg to present you with a small token of our esteem—(Go on, hand it up, Arthur), and hope you will like it, and that it will fit, and trust that the name graven within will suggest pleasant memories in which we all join. The letters are in the Greek character. We hope we shall all enjoy our holidays, and come back better in mind and body. You may rely on us to back you up, and to keep dark things you would not like to have mentioned.—Signed, with kind regards, Daisy Herapath (a most particular friend), J. Felgate (prefect), Arthur Herapath (treasurer), Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet (secretary), Bateson and Jukes (Babies), Maple, Simson, Tilbury, and Dimsdale (Shell), Munger (Fifth), Snape (Baby in Bickers’s house).”

It spoke a good deal for Mark Railsford that under the first shock of this startling interview, he did not bowl over the whole deputation like so many ninepins and explode before the assembled house. As it was he was too much taken aback to realise the position for a minute or so; and by that time the baronet’s address was half read. He grimly waited for the end of it, studiously ignoring the box which Arthur held out, opened, to fascinate him with its charms.

When the reading was done, he wheeled round abruptly in his chair, in a manner which made the deputation stagger back a pace; and said—

“You mean it kindly, no doubt; but I don’t want a present and can’t take one. It was foolish of you to think of such a thing. Don’t let it occur again. I’m vexed with you, and shall have to speak to some of you privately about it. Go to your rooms.”

“What’s to become of the ring!” said Dig disconsolately, as he and Arthur sat and cooled themselves in their study. “Mr Trinket won’t take it back. He’d no business to cut up rough like that.”

“Fact is,” replied Arthur, “Marky’s got to draw the line somewhere. He knows he’s in a jolly row about that business, you know, and he doesn’t want a testimonial for it. I don’t blame him. I’ll get Daisy to buy the ring in the holidays, and we can have the fellows to a blow-out next term with the money.”

Chapter Seventeen.The Secret Out.“If you please, sir, would you mind coming to see one of the young gentlemen in our house before you start? He don’t seem himself.”The speaker was Mrs Phillips, the dame of Bickers’s house, and the individual she addressed was Mark Railsford, who, with his portmanteau on the steps beside him, was impatiently awaiting the cab which should take him from Grandcourt for the Easter holidays. The place was as empty and deserted as on that well-remembered day when he came down—could it be only the beginning of this present term?—to enter upon his new duties at the school. The boys, as was their wont, had almost without exception left by the eight o’clock train, Arthur and Dig being among the foremost. The few who had remained to finish their packing had followed by the ten o’clock. The doctor and his niece had left for town last night; the other masters had made an early start that morning; and Railsford, junior master, and consequently officer of the guard for the day, imagined himself, as he stood there with his portmanteau about two o’clock, the “last of the Mohicans.”“Who is it?” he said, as the cab rumbled through the gateway.“It’s Mr Branscombe, sir. He overslep’ hisself, as the way of speaking is, and as there was no call-over, and all the young gentlemen were in a rush, nobody noticed it. But when I went to make the beds, I finds him still in ’is, and don’t like the looks of ’im. Anyhow, sir, if you’d come and take a look at him—”Railsford looked up at the school clock. He could catch the 2.30 train if he left in five minutes. If he lost that train he would have to wait till six. He told the cabman to put the portmanteau on the top, and wait for him at the door of Bickers’s house, and then walked after Mrs Phillips, rather impatiently.He had never set foot in Mr Bickers’s house before, and experienced a curious sensation as he crossed the threshold of his enemy’s citadel. Suppose Mr Bickers should return and find him there—what a pretty situation!“Up-stairs, sir, this way,” said Mrs Phillips, leading him up to the prefects’ cubicles. She opened the door at the end, and ushered him into the house-captain’s study.On his low narrow camp bed lay Branscombe, flushed, with eyes closed, tossing and moaning, and now and then talking to himself, Railsford started as his eyes fell on him.“He’s ill!” he whispered to Mrs Phillips.“That’s what I thought,” observed the sagacious dame.Railsford knew little enough about medicine, and had never been ill himself in his life. But as he lifted the hot hand which lay on the coverlet, and marked the dry parched lips, and listened to the laboured breathing, he knew that he was in the presence of a grave illness of some kind.“Go and fetch Dr Clarke at once, Mrs Phillips,” said he, “and tell the cabman on your way down not to wait.”Branscombe opened his eyes and clutched greedily at the tumbler Railsford offered. But his throat was too sore to allow him to drain it, and he gave it back with a moan. Then he dozed off fitfully, and recommenced his tossing.“Where are they all?” he asked, again opening his eyes.He scarcely seemed to take in who Railsford was.“They went by the ten o’clock train,” said Railsford.“Why didn’t they call me? Where’s Clipstone?”“You weren’t very well. You had better lie quiet a little,” said Railsford.The invalid made no attempt to get up, but lay back on the pillow and moaned.“Open the window,” said he, “the room’s so hot.”Railsford made believe to obey him, and waited anxiously for the doctor. It seemed as if he would never arrive.It was a strange position for the Master of the Shell, here at the bedside of the captain of his rival’s house, the only occupant with him of the great deserted school. He had reckoned on spending a very different day. He was to have seen Daisy once more that afternoon, and the foolish young couple had been actually counting the minutes till the happy meeting came round. By this time he would have been in the train whizzing towards her, with all the troubles of the term behind him, and all the solaces of the vacation ahead. To-morrow, moreover, was the day of the University Boat-Race, and he, an old “Blue,” had in his pocket at that moment a ticket for the steamer which was to follow the race. He was to have met scores of friends and fought again scores of old battles, and to have dined with the crews in the evening!What was to become of all these plans now? He was absolutely a prisoner at this poor fellow’s bedside. He did not know his address at home, or where to send for help. Besides, even if he could discover it, it would be twenty-four hours at least before he could hand over his charge into other hands.These selfish regrets, however, only flashed through Railsford’s mind to be again dismissed. He was a brave man, and possessed the courage which, when occasion demands, can accept a duty like a man. After all, was it not a blessing his cab had not come five minutes earlier than it had? Suppose this poor sufferer had been left with no better guardian than the brusque Mrs Phillips, with her scruples about “catching” disorders?The doctor’s trap rattled up to the door at last. He was one of those happy sons of Aesculapius who never pull long faces, but always say the most alarming things in the most delightful way.“Ah,” said he, hardly glancing at the patient, and shaking hands airily with Railsford, “this is a case of the master being kept in, and sending to the doctor for hisexeat, eh? Sorry I can’t give it to you at present, my dear fellow; rather a bad case.”“What is it?” asked Railsford.“Our old friend, diphtheria; knowing young dog, to put it off till breaking-up day. What an upset for us all if he’d come out with it yesterday! Not profitable from my point of view, but I daresay the boys will have it more comfortably at home than here, after all. This must have been coming on for some time. How long has he been feverish?”“I don’t know. I only found him like this half an hour ago, and want your advice what to do.”The doctor, almost for the first time, looked at the restless invalid on the bed and hummed.“Dr Ponsford has gone to the Isle of Wight, I hear,” said he.“I really don’t know where he’s gone,” said Railsford impatiently.“I wishIcould get a holiday. That’s the worst of my kind of doctor—people take ill so promiscuously. As sure as we say we’ll go off for a week, some aggravating patient spits blood and says, ‘No, you don’t.’ I think you should send for this boy’s mother, do you know.”“I don’t know her address. Is he so very ill, then?”“Well, of the two, I think you should telegraph rather than write. It might be more satisfaction to you afterwards. Have you no way of finding where he lives? Looked in his pockets? There may be a letter there.”It was not an occasion for standing on ceremony, and Railsford, feeling rather like a pickpocket, took down the jacket from the peg and searched it. There was only one letter in the pocket, written in a female hand. It was dated “Sunday,” but bore no address further than “London, N.” on the postmark.“Pity,” said the doctor pleasantly. “Of course you have had diphtheria yourself?”“No.”“H’m, I can hardly advise you to leave him till somebody comes to relieve guard. But it’s doubtful whether he will be well in time to nurse you. You should send for your own folk in time.”If this doctor had not been Railsford’s only support at present, he would have resented this professional flippancy more than he did.“I’m not afraid,” said he. “I shall try to find out where his people live. Meanwhile would it be well to send a trained nurse here; or can I manage myself?”“Quite straightforward work,” said the doctor, “if you like it. I’ve known cases no worse than this finish up in three days, or turn the corner in seven. You mustn’t be surprised if he gets a great deal worse at night. He’s a bit delirious already.”Then the doctor went into a few details as to the medicine and method of nursing.The most important thing was to discover, if possible, the address of the patient’s parents, and summon them. He approached the bed in the vague hope that Branscombe might be able to help him. But the sufferer, though he opened his eyes, seemed not to know him, and muttered to himself what sounded more like Greek verse than English. In desperation Railsford summoned Mrs Phillips. She, cautious woman, with a son of her own, would by no means come into the room, but stood at the door with a handkerchief to her mouth.“Have you any idea where his home is?”“No. Hasn’t he labelled his box?”“He does not seem to have begun to pack at all. Do you know the doctor’s address?”“No, he said no letters were to be forwarded. You’ll excuse me, Mr Railsford, but as you are taking charge, I should like to be spared away an hour or so. I feel so upset, like. A bit of fresh air would be the very thing for me.”She was evidently in such a panic on her own account, and so nervous of her proximity even to Railsford, that he saw it was little use to object.“You must be back in two hours, without fail,” said he; “I may want you to go for the doctor again.”She went; and Railsford, as he listened to the clatter of her boots across the quadrangle, felt more than ever utterly alone. He set himself to clear the room as far as possible of all unnecessary furniture. The poor fellow’s things lay about in hopeless confusion. Evidently he had had it in his mind to pack up yesterday; but had felt too ill to carry out his purpose, and gone to bed intending to finish in the morning.Flannels, running-shoes, caps, books, linen, and papers lay scattered over the room, and Railsford, as he gathered them together and tried to reduce the chaos to order, felt his heart sink with an undefined apprehension.Yesterday, perhaps, this little array of goods and chattels meant much to the young master who called them his. To-day, what cared he as he lay there tossing feverishly on his bed, muttering his Greek verses and moaning over his sore throat, whose they were, and who touched them? And to-morrow—?Railsford pulled himself together half angrily. A nice fellow, he, for a sick nurse?Suddenly he came upon a desk with the key in the lock. Perhaps this might contain the longed-for address. He opened it and glanced inside. It was empty. No. There was only a paper there—a drawing on a card. Railsford took it up and glanced at it, half absent. As his eyes fell on it, however, he started. It was a curious work of art; a sketch in pen and ink, rather cleverly executed, after the model of the old Greek bas-reliefs shown in the classical dictionaries. It represented what first appeared to be a battle scene, but what Railsford on closer inspection perceived was something very different.The central figure was a man, over whose head a sack had been cast, which a tall figure behind was binding with cords round the victim’s neck and shoulders. On the ground, clutching the captive’s knees with his arms, and preparing to bind them, sat another figure, while in the background a third, with one finger to his lips, expressive of caution, pointed to an open door, evidently of the dungeon intended for the prisoner. It was an ordinary subject for a picture of this kind, and Railsford might have thought nothing of it, had not his attention been attracted by some words inscribed in classic fashion against the figures of the actors in this little drama.Under the central figure of the captive he read in Greek capitals the legend BIKEROS; over the head of his tall assailant was written BRANSKOMOS. The person sitting and embracing the captive’s knees was labelled KLIPSTONOS, while the mysterious figure in the rear, pointing out the dungeon, bore the name of MUNGEROS. Over the door itself was written BOOTBOX. Below the whole was written the first line of the Iliad, and in the corner, in minute characters, were the words, “S.Branscombe, inv. et del.”Railsford stared at the strange work of art in blank amazement. What could it mean? At first he was disposed to smile at the performance as a harmless jest; but a moment’s consideration convinced him that, jest or not, he held in his hand the long-sought clue to the Bickers mystery which had troubled the peace of Grandcourt for the last term.Here, in the hand of the chief offender himself, was a pictorial record of that grievous outrage, and here, denounced, by himself in letters of Greek, were the names for which all the school had suffered. The Master of the Shell seemed to be in a dream. Branscombe and Clipstone, the head prefects of Bickers’s own house! and Munger, the ill-conditioned toady of Railsford’s!His first feelings of excitement and astonishment were succeeded by others of alarm and doubt. The murder was out, but how? He knew the great secret at last, but by what means? His eyes turned to the restless sufferer on the bed, and a flush of crimson came to his face as he realised that he had no more right to that secret than he had to the purse which lay on the table. He had opened the desk to look for an address, and nothing more. If, instead of that address, he had accidentally found somebody else’s secret, what right had he—a man of honour and a gentleman—to use it, even if by doing so he could redress one of the greatest grievances in Grandcourt?He thrust the picture back into the desk, and wished from the bottom of his heart he had never seen it. Mechanically he finished tidying the room, and clearing away to the adjoining study as much as possible of the superfluous furniture. Then with his own hands he lit the fire and carried out the various instructions of the doctor as to the steaming of the air in the room and the preparation of the nourishment for the invalid.Branscombe woke once during the interval and asked hoarsely, “What bell was that?”Then, without waiting for an answer, he said,—“All right, all right, I’ll get up in a second,” and relapsed into his restless sleep.Mrs Phillips did not return till eight o’clock; and the doctor arrived almost at the same time.“Has he taken anything?” he inquired.“Scarcely anything; he can hardly swallow.”“You’ll have a night with him, I fancy. Keep the temperature of the room up to sixty, and see he doesn’t throw off his clothes. How old is he—eighteen?—a great overgrown boy, six feet one or two, surely. It goes hard with these long fellows. Give me your short, thick-set young ruffian for pulling through a bout like this. Have you found out where he lives?”“No, I can’t discover his address anywhere.”“Look in his Sunday hat. I always kept mine there when I was a boy, and never knew a boy who didn’t.”Branscombe, however, was an exception.“Well,” said the doctor, “it’s a pity. A mother’s the proper person to be with him a time like this. She’ll never— What’s this?”It was an envelope slipped behind the bookcase, containing a bill from Splicer, the London cricket-bat-maker, dated a year ago. At the foot the tradesman had written, “Hon. sir, sorry we could not get bat in time to send home, so forward to you direct to Grandcourt School, by rail.”“There we are,” said the doctor, putting the document in his pocket. “This ought to bring mamma in twenty-four hours. The telegraph office is shut now, but we’ll wake Mr Splicer up early, and have mamma under weigh by midday. Good-night, Railsford—keep the pot boiling, my good fellow—I’ll look round early.”He was gone, and Railsford with sinking heart set himself to the task before him. He long remembered that night. It seemed at first as if the doctor’s gloomy predictions were to be falsified, for Branscombe continued long in a half-slumber, and even appeared to be more tranquil than he had been during the afternoon.Railsford sat near the fire and watched him; and for two hours the stillness of the room was only broken by the lively ticking of the little clock on the mantelpiece, and the laboured breathing of the sufferer.He was nearly asleep when a cry from the bed suddenly roused him.“Clip!” called the invalid.Railsford went to his side and quietly replaced the covering which had been tossed aside.“Clip! look alive—he’s coming—don’t say a word, hang on to his legs, you know—En jam tempus erat—Munger, you cad, why don’t you come?Italiam fato profugus. Hah! got you, my man. Shove him in, quick! Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing, Clip?—turn him face up. That’s for blackguarding me before the whole house! Clip put me up to it. Don’t cut and leave me in the lurch, I say. You’re locking me in the boot-box!—let me out—I’m in for the mile, you know. Who’s got my shoes?Pastorcum traheret per freta navibus. Well run, sir! He’s giving out! I say, I say. I can’t keep it up. I must stop. Clip, you put me up to it, old man. It’ll never come out—never—never. He thinks it was Railsford, ho, ho! I’ll never do such a thing again. Come along—sharp—coast’s clear!”Then he began to conjugate a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over again in detail that dark night’s work in the boot-box; now he was construing Homer to the doctor; now he was being run down in the mile race; now he was singing one of his old child’s hymns; now he was laughing over the downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and over in the boy’s wild ravings effectually dispelled them.He knew now the whole of the wretched story from beginning to end. The proud boy’s resentment at the insult he had received in the presence of his house, the angry passions which had urged him to the act of revenge, the cowardly precautions suggested by his confederate to escape detection, and the terrors and remorse following the execution of their deep-laid scheme. Yet if the listener had no right to the secret locked up in the desk, still less had he the right to profit by these sad delirious confessions.Towards morning the poor exhausted sufferer, who during the night had scarcely remained a moment motionless, or abated a minute in his wild, wandering talk, sunk back on his pillow and closed his eyes like one in whom the flame of life had sunk almost to the socket. Railsford viewed the change with the utmost alarm, and hastened to give the restoratives prescribed by the doctor in case of a collapse. But the boy apparently had run through his strength and lacked even the power to swallow.For two terrible hours it seemed to Railsford as if the young life were slipping through his hands; and he scarcely knew at one time if the prayer he sent up would reach its destination before the soul of him on whose behalf it rose. But soon after the school clock had tolled eight, and when the clear spring sun rising above the chapel tower sent its rays cheerily into the sick-chamber, the breathing became smoother and more regular, and the hand on which that of Railsford rested grew moist.The doctor arrived an hour later, and smiled approvingly as he glanced at the patient.“He’s going to behave himself after all,” said he. “You’ll find he will wake up in an hour or two with an appetite. Give him an egg beaten up in milk, with a spoonful of brandy.”“What about his parents?” asked Railsford.“They will be here by the four-o’clock train. What about your breakfast? you’ve had nothing since midday yesterday; and if you’re going to have your turn at that sort of thing,” added he, pointing to the bed, “you’d better get yourself into good trim first. Get Mrs Phillips to cook you a steak, and put yourself outside it. You can leave him safely for twenty minutes or so.”Branscombe slept steadily and quietly through the forenoon, and then woke, clear in mind, and, as the doctor anticipated, with an appetite.He swallowed the meal prepared for him with considerably less pain than yesterday, and then, for the first time, recognised his nurse.“Thank you, sir,” said he; “have I been seedy long?”“You were rather poorly yesterday, old fellow,” said Railsford, “and you must keep very quiet now, and not talk.”The patient evinced no desire to disobey either of these injunctions, and composed himself once more to sleep.Before he awoke, a cab had driven into the courtyard and set down three passengers. Two of them were Mr and Mrs Branscombe, the third was a trained nurse from London.As they appeared on the scene, joined almost immediately by the doctor, Railsford quietly slipped away from the room and signalled to the cabman to stop and pick him up. Five minutes later, he and his portmanteau were bowling towards the station, a day late for the boat-race. But in other respects Mark Railsford was a happy man, and a better one for his night’s vigil in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

“If you please, sir, would you mind coming to see one of the young gentlemen in our house before you start? He don’t seem himself.”

The speaker was Mrs Phillips, the dame of Bickers’s house, and the individual she addressed was Mark Railsford, who, with his portmanteau on the steps beside him, was impatiently awaiting the cab which should take him from Grandcourt for the Easter holidays. The place was as empty and deserted as on that well-remembered day when he came down—could it be only the beginning of this present term?—to enter upon his new duties at the school. The boys, as was their wont, had almost without exception left by the eight o’clock train, Arthur and Dig being among the foremost. The few who had remained to finish their packing had followed by the ten o’clock. The doctor and his niece had left for town last night; the other masters had made an early start that morning; and Railsford, junior master, and consequently officer of the guard for the day, imagined himself, as he stood there with his portmanteau about two o’clock, the “last of the Mohicans.”

“Who is it?” he said, as the cab rumbled through the gateway.

“It’s Mr Branscombe, sir. He overslep’ hisself, as the way of speaking is, and as there was no call-over, and all the young gentlemen were in a rush, nobody noticed it. But when I went to make the beds, I finds him still in ’is, and don’t like the looks of ’im. Anyhow, sir, if you’d come and take a look at him—”

Railsford looked up at the school clock. He could catch the 2.30 train if he left in five minutes. If he lost that train he would have to wait till six. He told the cabman to put the portmanteau on the top, and wait for him at the door of Bickers’s house, and then walked after Mrs Phillips, rather impatiently.

He had never set foot in Mr Bickers’s house before, and experienced a curious sensation as he crossed the threshold of his enemy’s citadel. Suppose Mr Bickers should return and find him there—what a pretty situation!

“Up-stairs, sir, this way,” said Mrs Phillips, leading him up to the prefects’ cubicles. She opened the door at the end, and ushered him into the house-captain’s study.

On his low narrow camp bed lay Branscombe, flushed, with eyes closed, tossing and moaning, and now and then talking to himself, Railsford started as his eyes fell on him.

“He’s ill!” he whispered to Mrs Phillips.

“That’s what I thought,” observed the sagacious dame.

Railsford knew little enough about medicine, and had never been ill himself in his life. But as he lifted the hot hand which lay on the coverlet, and marked the dry parched lips, and listened to the laboured breathing, he knew that he was in the presence of a grave illness of some kind.

“Go and fetch Dr Clarke at once, Mrs Phillips,” said he, “and tell the cabman on your way down not to wait.”

Branscombe opened his eyes and clutched greedily at the tumbler Railsford offered. But his throat was too sore to allow him to drain it, and he gave it back with a moan. Then he dozed off fitfully, and recommenced his tossing.

“Where are they all?” he asked, again opening his eyes.

He scarcely seemed to take in who Railsford was.

“They went by the ten o’clock train,” said Railsford.

“Why didn’t they call me? Where’s Clipstone?”

“You weren’t very well. You had better lie quiet a little,” said Railsford.

The invalid made no attempt to get up, but lay back on the pillow and moaned.

“Open the window,” said he, “the room’s so hot.”

Railsford made believe to obey him, and waited anxiously for the doctor. It seemed as if he would never arrive.

It was a strange position for the Master of the Shell, here at the bedside of the captain of his rival’s house, the only occupant with him of the great deserted school. He had reckoned on spending a very different day. He was to have seen Daisy once more that afternoon, and the foolish young couple had been actually counting the minutes till the happy meeting came round. By this time he would have been in the train whizzing towards her, with all the troubles of the term behind him, and all the solaces of the vacation ahead. To-morrow, moreover, was the day of the University Boat-Race, and he, an old “Blue,” had in his pocket at that moment a ticket for the steamer which was to follow the race. He was to have met scores of friends and fought again scores of old battles, and to have dined with the crews in the evening!

What was to become of all these plans now? He was absolutely a prisoner at this poor fellow’s bedside. He did not know his address at home, or where to send for help. Besides, even if he could discover it, it would be twenty-four hours at least before he could hand over his charge into other hands.

These selfish regrets, however, only flashed through Railsford’s mind to be again dismissed. He was a brave man, and possessed the courage which, when occasion demands, can accept a duty like a man. After all, was it not a blessing his cab had not come five minutes earlier than it had? Suppose this poor sufferer had been left with no better guardian than the brusque Mrs Phillips, with her scruples about “catching” disorders?

The doctor’s trap rattled up to the door at last. He was one of those happy sons of Aesculapius who never pull long faces, but always say the most alarming things in the most delightful way.

“Ah,” said he, hardly glancing at the patient, and shaking hands airily with Railsford, “this is a case of the master being kept in, and sending to the doctor for hisexeat, eh? Sorry I can’t give it to you at present, my dear fellow; rather a bad case.”

“What is it?” asked Railsford.

“Our old friend, diphtheria; knowing young dog, to put it off till breaking-up day. What an upset for us all if he’d come out with it yesterday! Not profitable from my point of view, but I daresay the boys will have it more comfortably at home than here, after all. This must have been coming on for some time. How long has he been feverish?”

“I don’t know. I only found him like this half an hour ago, and want your advice what to do.”

The doctor, almost for the first time, looked at the restless invalid on the bed and hummed.

“Dr Ponsford has gone to the Isle of Wight, I hear,” said he.

“I really don’t know where he’s gone,” said Railsford impatiently.

“I wishIcould get a holiday. That’s the worst of my kind of doctor—people take ill so promiscuously. As sure as we say we’ll go off for a week, some aggravating patient spits blood and says, ‘No, you don’t.’ I think you should send for this boy’s mother, do you know.”

“I don’t know her address. Is he so very ill, then?”

“Well, of the two, I think you should telegraph rather than write. It might be more satisfaction to you afterwards. Have you no way of finding where he lives? Looked in his pockets? There may be a letter there.”

It was not an occasion for standing on ceremony, and Railsford, feeling rather like a pickpocket, took down the jacket from the peg and searched it. There was only one letter in the pocket, written in a female hand. It was dated “Sunday,” but bore no address further than “London, N.” on the postmark.

“Pity,” said the doctor pleasantly. “Of course you have had diphtheria yourself?”

“No.”

“H’m, I can hardly advise you to leave him till somebody comes to relieve guard. But it’s doubtful whether he will be well in time to nurse you. You should send for your own folk in time.”

If this doctor had not been Railsford’s only support at present, he would have resented this professional flippancy more than he did.

“I’m not afraid,” said he. “I shall try to find out where his people live. Meanwhile would it be well to send a trained nurse here; or can I manage myself?”

“Quite straightforward work,” said the doctor, “if you like it. I’ve known cases no worse than this finish up in three days, or turn the corner in seven. You mustn’t be surprised if he gets a great deal worse at night. He’s a bit delirious already.”

Then the doctor went into a few details as to the medicine and method of nursing.

The most important thing was to discover, if possible, the address of the patient’s parents, and summon them. He approached the bed in the vague hope that Branscombe might be able to help him. But the sufferer, though he opened his eyes, seemed not to know him, and muttered to himself what sounded more like Greek verse than English. In desperation Railsford summoned Mrs Phillips. She, cautious woman, with a son of her own, would by no means come into the room, but stood at the door with a handkerchief to her mouth.

“Have you any idea where his home is?”

“No. Hasn’t he labelled his box?”

“He does not seem to have begun to pack at all. Do you know the doctor’s address?”

“No, he said no letters were to be forwarded. You’ll excuse me, Mr Railsford, but as you are taking charge, I should like to be spared away an hour or so. I feel so upset, like. A bit of fresh air would be the very thing for me.”

She was evidently in such a panic on her own account, and so nervous of her proximity even to Railsford, that he saw it was little use to object.

“You must be back in two hours, without fail,” said he; “I may want you to go for the doctor again.”

She went; and Railsford, as he listened to the clatter of her boots across the quadrangle, felt more than ever utterly alone. He set himself to clear the room as far as possible of all unnecessary furniture. The poor fellow’s things lay about in hopeless confusion. Evidently he had had it in his mind to pack up yesterday; but had felt too ill to carry out his purpose, and gone to bed intending to finish in the morning.

Flannels, running-shoes, caps, books, linen, and papers lay scattered over the room, and Railsford, as he gathered them together and tried to reduce the chaos to order, felt his heart sink with an undefined apprehension.

Yesterday, perhaps, this little array of goods and chattels meant much to the young master who called them his. To-day, what cared he as he lay there tossing feverishly on his bed, muttering his Greek verses and moaning over his sore throat, whose they were, and who touched them? And to-morrow—?

Railsford pulled himself together half angrily. A nice fellow, he, for a sick nurse?

Suddenly he came upon a desk with the key in the lock. Perhaps this might contain the longed-for address. He opened it and glanced inside. It was empty. No. There was only a paper there—a drawing on a card. Railsford took it up and glanced at it, half absent. As his eyes fell on it, however, he started. It was a curious work of art; a sketch in pen and ink, rather cleverly executed, after the model of the old Greek bas-reliefs shown in the classical dictionaries. It represented what first appeared to be a battle scene, but what Railsford on closer inspection perceived was something very different.

The central figure was a man, over whose head a sack had been cast, which a tall figure behind was binding with cords round the victim’s neck and shoulders. On the ground, clutching the captive’s knees with his arms, and preparing to bind them, sat another figure, while in the background a third, with one finger to his lips, expressive of caution, pointed to an open door, evidently of the dungeon intended for the prisoner. It was an ordinary subject for a picture of this kind, and Railsford might have thought nothing of it, had not his attention been attracted by some words inscribed in classic fashion against the figures of the actors in this little drama.

Under the central figure of the captive he read in Greek capitals the legend BIKEROS; over the head of his tall assailant was written BRANSKOMOS. The person sitting and embracing the captive’s knees was labelled KLIPSTONOS, while the mysterious figure in the rear, pointing out the dungeon, bore the name of MUNGEROS. Over the door itself was written BOOTBOX. Below the whole was written the first line of the Iliad, and in the corner, in minute characters, were the words, “S.Branscombe, inv. et del.”

Railsford stared at the strange work of art in blank amazement. What could it mean? At first he was disposed to smile at the performance as a harmless jest; but a moment’s consideration convinced him that, jest or not, he held in his hand the long-sought clue to the Bickers mystery which had troubled the peace of Grandcourt for the last term.

Here, in the hand of the chief offender himself, was a pictorial record of that grievous outrage, and here, denounced, by himself in letters of Greek, were the names for which all the school had suffered. The Master of the Shell seemed to be in a dream. Branscombe and Clipstone, the head prefects of Bickers’s own house! and Munger, the ill-conditioned toady of Railsford’s!

His first feelings of excitement and astonishment were succeeded by others of alarm and doubt. The murder was out, but how? He knew the great secret at last, but by what means? His eyes turned to the restless sufferer on the bed, and a flush of crimson came to his face as he realised that he had no more right to that secret than he had to the purse which lay on the table. He had opened the desk to look for an address, and nothing more. If, instead of that address, he had accidentally found somebody else’s secret, what right had he—a man of honour and a gentleman—to use it, even if by doing so he could redress one of the greatest grievances in Grandcourt?

He thrust the picture back into the desk, and wished from the bottom of his heart he had never seen it. Mechanically he finished tidying the room, and clearing away to the adjoining study as much as possible of the superfluous furniture. Then with his own hands he lit the fire and carried out the various instructions of the doctor as to the steaming of the air in the room and the preparation of the nourishment for the invalid.

Branscombe woke once during the interval and asked hoarsely, “What bell was that?”

Then, without waiting for an answer, he said,—

“All right, all right, I’ll get up in a second,” and relapsed into his restless sleep.

Mrs Phillips did not return till eight o’clock; and the doctor arrived almost at the same time.

“Has he taken anything?” he inquired.

“Scarcely anything; he can hardly swallow.”

“You’ll have a night with him, I fancy. Keep the temperature of the room up to sixty, and see he doesn’t throw off his clothes. How old is he—eighteen?—a great overgrown boy, six feet one or two, surely. It goes hard with these long fellows. Give me your short, thick-set young ruffian for pulling through a bout like this. Have you found out where he lives?”

“No, I can’t discover his address anywhere.”

“Look in his Sunday hat. I always kept mine there when I was a boy, and never knew a boy who didn’t.”

Branscombe, however, was an exception.

“Well,” said the doctor, “it’s a pity. A mother’s the proper person to be with him a time like this. She’ll never— What’s this?”

It was an envelope slipped behind the bookcase, containing a bill from Splicer, the London cricket-bat-maker, dated a year ago. At the foot the tradesman had written, “Hon. sir, sorry we could not get bat in time to send home, so forward to you direct to Grandcourt School, by rail.”

“There we are,” said the doctor, putting the document in his pocket. “This ought to bring mamma in twenty-four hours. The telegraph office is shut now, but we’ll wake Mr Splicer up early, and have mamma under weigh by midday. Good-night, Railsford—keep the pot boiling, my good fellow—I’ll look round early.”

He was gone, and Railsford with sinking heart set himself to the task before him. He long remembered that night. It seemed at first as if the doctor’s gloomy predictions were to be falsified, for Branscombe continued long in a half-slumber, and even appeared to be more tranquil than he had been during the afternoon.

Railsford sat near the fire and watched him; and for two hours the stillness of the room was only broken by the lively ticking of the little clock on the mantelpiece, and the laboured breathing of the sufferer.

He was nearly asleep when a cry from the bed suddenly roused him.

“Clip!” called the invalid.

Railsford went to his side and quietly replaced the covering which had been tossed aside.

“Clip! look alive—he’s coming—don’t say a word, hang on to his legs, you know—En jam tempus erat—Munger, you cad, why don’t you come?Italiam fato profugus. Hah! got you, my man. Shove him in, quick! Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing, Clip?—turn him face up. That’s for blackguarding me before the whole house! Clip put me up to it. Don’t cut and leave me in the lurch, I say. You’re locking me in the boot-box!—let me out—I’m in for the mile, you know. Who’s got my shoes?Pastorcum traheret per freta navibus. Well run, sir! He’s giving out! I say, I say. I can’t keep it up. I must stop. Clip, you put me up to it, old man. It’ll never come out—never—never. He thinks it was Railsford, ho, ho! I’ll never do such a thing again. Come along—sharp—coast’s clear!”

Then he began to conjugate a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over again in detail that dark night’s work in the boot-box; now he was construing Homer to the doctor; now he was being run down in the mile race; now he was singing one of his old child’s hymns; now he was laughing over the downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and over in the boy’s wild ravings effectually dispelled them.

He knew now the whole of the wretched story from beginning to end. The proud boy’s resentment at the insult he had received in the presence of his house, the angry passions which had urged him to the act of revenge, the cowardly precautions suggested by his confederate to escape detection, and the terrors and remorse following the execution of their deep-laid scheme. Yet if the listener had no right to the secret locked up in the desk, still less had he the right to profit by these sad delirious confessions.

Towards morning the poor exhausted sufferer, who during the night had scarcely remained a moment motionless, or abated a minute in his wild, wandering talk, sunk back on his pillow and closed his eyes like one in whom the flame of life had sunk almost to the socket. Railsford viewed the change with the utmost alarm, and hastened to give the restoratives prescribed by the doctor in case of a collapse. But the boy apparently had run through his strength and lacked even the power to swallow.

For two terrible hours it seemed to Railsford as if the young life were slipping through his hands; and he scarcely knew at one time if the prayer he sent up would reach its destination before the soul of him on whose behalf it rose. But soon after the school clock had tolled eight, and when the clear spring sun rising above the chapel tower sent its rays cheerily into the sick-chamber, the breathing became smoother and more regular, and the hand on which that of Railsford rested grew moist.

The doctor arrived an hour later, and smiled approvingly as he glanced at the patient.

“He’s going to behave himself after all,” said he. “You’ll find he will wake up in an hour or two with an appetite. Give him an egg beaten up in milk, with a spoonful of brandy.”

“What about his parents?” asked Railsford.

“They will be here by the four-o’clock train. What about your breakfast? you’ve had nothing since midday yesterday; and if you’re going to have your turn at that sort of thing,” added he, pointing to the bed, “you’d better get yourself into good trim first. Get Mrs Phillips to cook you a steak, and put yourself outside it. You can leave him safely for twenty minutes or so.”

Branscombe slept steadily and quietly through the forenoon, and then woke, clear in mind, and, as the doctor anticipated, with an appetite.

He swallowed the meal prepared for him with considerably less pain than yesterday, and then, for the first time, recognised his nurse.

“Thank you, sir,” said he; “have I been seedy long?”

“You were rather poorly yesterday, old fellow,” said Railsford, “and you must keep very quiet now, and not talk.”

The patient evinced no desire to disobey either of these injunctions, and composed himself once more to sleep.

Before he awoke, a cab had driven into the courtyard and set down three passengers. Two of them were Mr and Mrs Branscombe, the third was a trained nurse from London.

As they appeared on the scene, joined almost immediately by the doctor, Railsford quietly slipped away from the room and signalled to the cabman to stop and pick him up. Five minutes later, he and his portmanteau were bowling towards the station, a day late for the boat-race. But in other respects Mark Railsford was a happy man, and a better one for his night’s vigil in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Chapter Eighteen.Rods in Pickle for Railsford.Grandcourt assembled after the holidays in blissful ignorance of the episode narrated in our last chapter. Branscombe’s illness had been an isolated case, and apparently not due to any defect in the sanitary arrangements of his house. And as no other boy was reported to have spent his holidays in the same unsatisfactory manner, and as Railsford himself had managed to escape infection, it was decided by the authorities not to publish the little misadventure on the housetop. The captain of Bickers’s house was absent on sick leave, and the Master of the Shell (who had been nursing a stubborn cold during the holidays) would not be in his place, so it was announced, for a week. That was all Grandcourt was told; and, to its credit, it received the news with profound resignation.True, some of the more disorderly spirits in Railsford’s house were disposed to take advantage of his absence, and lead the much-enduring Monsieur Lablache, who officiated in his place, an uncomfortable dance. But any indications of mutiny were promptly stamped upon by Ainger and the other prefects, who, because they resented monsieur’s appointment, were determined that, come what would, he should have no excuse for exercising his authority. Monsieur shrugged himself, and had no objection to the orderly behaviour of the house, whatever its motive, nor had anyone else whose opinion on such a matter was worth having.Arthur and Sir Digby, as usual, came back brimful of lofty resolutions and ambitious schemes! Dig had considerably revised his time-table, and was determined to adhere to it like a martyr to his stake.Arthur, though he came armed with no time-table, had his own good intentions. He had had one or two painful conversations with his father, who had hurt him considerably by suggesting that he wasted a great deal of time, and neglected utterly those principles of self-improvement which had turned out men like Wellington, Dickens, Dr Livingstone, and Mr Elihu Burritt. Arthur had seldom realised before how odious comparisons may become. No doubt Wellington, Dickens, and Company were good fellows in their way, but he had never done them any harm. Why should they be trotted out to injure him?He thought hewasimproving himself. He was much better at a drop-kick than he had been last year, and Railsford himself had said he was not as bad at his Latin verses as he had been. Was not that improvement—self-improvement? Then he was conscious of having distinctly improved in morals. He had once or twice done his Caesar without a crib, and the aggregate of lines he had had to write for impositions had been several hundred less than the corresponding term of last year.Thus the son gently reasoned with his parent, who replied that what he would like to see in his boy was an interest in some intellectual pursuits outside the mere school routine. Why, now, did he not take up some standard book of history with which to occupy his spare time, or some great poem like theParadise Lost, of which he might commit a few lines to memory every day, and so emulate his great-uncle, who used to be able to repeat the whole poem by heart?Both Arthur and Dig had landed for the term with hampers more or less replete with indigestible mementoes of domestic affection. Arthur had a Madeira cake and a rather fine lobster, besides a small box of figs, some chocolate creams, Brazil nuts, and (an enforced contribution from the cook) pudding-raisins.Dig, whose means were not equal to his connections, produced, somewhat bashfully, a rather “high” cold chicken, some gingerbread, some pyretic saline, and a slab or two of home-made toffee. These good things, when spread out on the table that evening, made quite an imposing array, and decidedly warmed the cockles of the hearts of their joint owners, and suggested to them naturally thoughts of hospitality and revelry.“Let’s have a blow-out in the dormitory,” proposed Arthur. “Froggy will let us alone, and we can square Felgate with a hunk of this toffee if he interferes.”Felgate was the prefect charged with the oversight of the Shell dormitory in Railsford’s—a duty he discharged by never setting foot inside their door when he could possibly get out of it.From a gastronomic point of view the boys would doubtless have done better to postpone their feast till to-morrow. They had munched promiscuously all day—during the railway journey especially—and almost needed a night’s repose to enable them to attack the formidable banquet now proposed on equal terms. But hospitality brooks no delays. Besides, Dig’s chicken was already a little over ripe, and it was impossible to say how Arthur’s lobster might endure the night.So the hearts of Maple, Tilbury, Dimsdale, and Simson were made glad that evening by an intimation that it might be worth their while at bed-time to smuggle a knife, fork, and plate a-piece into the dormitory, in case, as Arthur worded it, there should be some fun going.Wonderful is the intuition of youth! These four simple-minded, uncultured lads knew what Arthur meant, even as he spoke, and joyfully did him and Dig homage for the rest of the evening, and at bed-time tucked each his platter under his waistcoat and scaled the stairs as the curfew rang, grimly accoutred with a fork in one trouser pocket and a knife in the other.But whatever the cause, the Shell-fish in Railsford’s presented a very green appearance when they answered to their names next morning, and were in an irritable frame of mind most of the day. Their bad temper took the form of a dead set on the unhappy Monsieur Lablache, who, during the first day of his vicarious office, led the existence of a pea on a frying-pan. They went up to him with difficulties in Greek prose, knowing that he comprehended not a word of that language; they asked his permission for what they knew he could not grant, and on his refusal got up cries of tyranny and despotism wherewith to raise the lower school; they whistled German war songs outside his door, and asked him the date of the Battle of Waterloo. When he demanded their names they told him “Ainger,” “Barnworth,” “Wake”; and when he ordered them to stay in an hour after school, they coolly stopped work five minutes before the bell rang and walked under his very nose into the playground.Poor monsieur, he was no disciplinarian, and he knew it. His backbone was limp, and he never did the right thing at the right time. He shrugged when he ought to have been chastising; and he stormed when he ought to have held his tongue. Nobody cared for him; everybody wondered why he of all men worked at the trade of schoolmaster. Perhaps if some of my lords and baronets in the Shell had known that far away, in a tiny cottage at Boulogne, this same contemptible Frenchman was keeping alive from week to week, with his hard-earned savings, a paralysed father and three motherless little girls, who loved the very ground he trod on, and kissed his likeness every night before they crept to their scantily-covered beds—if they had known that this same poor creature said a prayer for his beloved France every day, and tingled in every vein to hear her insulted even in jest—perhaps they would have understood better why he flared up now and then as he did, and why he clung to his unlovely calling of teaching unfeeling English boys at the rate of £30 a term. But the Grandcourt boys did not know all this, and therefore they had no pity for poor monsieur.However, as I have said, monsieur shrugged his shoulders, and accepted the help of the prefects to keep his disorderly charges within bounds.From one of the prefects he got very hide help. Felgate had no interest in the order of the house. It didn’t matter to him whether it was monsieur who had to deal with the rioters or Ainger. All he knew was, he was not going to trouble his head about it. In fact, his sympathies were on the side of the agitators. Why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves if they liked? They didn’t hurt anybody—and if they did break the rules of the house; well, who was to say whether they might not be right and the rules of the house wrong?Arthur Herapath, for instance, had set up with a dog—puppy to his friend’s dog, Smiley. Everybody knew live animals were against rules, and yet Railsford had winked all last term at Smiley; why shouldn’t Arthur have equal liberty to enjoy the companionship of Smiley minor?He met master and puppy in the passage one afternoon.“Hullo, young ’un,” said he, “another dog? How many’s that?”“Two,” said Arthur, a little doubtful as to the prefect’s reception of the news. “You see it would be rough to take him from his mother while he is so young. It’s not as if he was no relation.”“Of course not. What have you been doing with Marky these holidays?”“Oh, he was seedy—sore throat. I fancy he was shamming a bit to get a week extra. You see, he’s spoons on my sister Daisy.”“I fancy I’ve heard that before,” observed Felgate.“What I mean is, he hangs about our place a lot; so it’s a good excuse for him to be laid up, you know.”“Quite so. Perhaps he’s not in a hurry to come back here for another reason we know of, eh, youngster?”“Ha, ha! but keep that mum, you know. We must back him through that business. It’s nearly blown over already.”“Has it? But, I say—”Here Ainger came up and detected the puppy.“You’ll have to get rid of that, Herapath,” said he.“What, Smiley’s pup? Why? Felgate’s given me leave.”“Felgate may do as he pleases. I tell you you must send him home, and Smiley too.”“What!” said Arthur aghast. “Smiley too! why, Railsford knows all about Smiley, and let us have him all, last term.”“But you are not going to have them this term. Two other fellows have started dogs on the strength of Smiley already, and there’s to be a clean sweep of the lot.”“Oh, rot! you can’t interfere with fellows’ rights like that,” said Felgate.“I tell you Railsford gave us leave,” repeated Arthur.“Very well,” said Ainger; “unless both of them are packed off home by this time to-morrow, or sent down to the school farm, you’ll go up to the doctor and settle the question with him.”“Rubbish!” said Felgate. “Until Railsford—”“Shut up,” said the captain; “I’m not talking to you.”It was hardly to be wondered at if he was out of temper. He was having any amount of extra work to do; and to be thus obstructed by one of his own colleagues was a trifle too much for his limited patience.Felgate coloured up at the rebuff, knowing well enough that the captain would be delighted to make good his words at any time and place which might be offered him. He remained after he had gone, and said to Arthur—“That’s what I call brutal. You’re not going to care two straws what he says?”“All very well,” said Arthur, stroking his puppy; “if he sends me up to Pony, what then?”“Bless you, he won’t send you up to Pony.”“Think not? If I thought he wouldn’t, I’d hang on till Marky comes back. He’d square the thing.”“Of course he would. It’s a bit of spite of Ainger’s. He thinks he’s not quite important enough, so he’s going to start bullying. I’ll back you up.”“Thanks, awfully,” said the ductile Arthur. “You’re a brick. I’d take your advice.”He did, and prevailed upon Dig to do the same.The consequence was, that when next afternoon the captain walked into their study to see whether his order had been complied with, he was met by an unceremonious yap from Smiley herself, echoed by an impertinent squeak from her irreverent son.“You’ve got them still, then?” said Ainger. “Very well, they can stay now till after you’ve been to the doctor. Nine o’clock sharp to-morrow morning, both of you.”The friends turned pale.“Not really, Ainger? You haven’t sent up our names, have you? We’ll send them off. We thought as Felgate said—oh, you cad!”This last remark was occasioned by Ainger departing and shutting the door behind him without vouchsafing any further parley.They felt that the game was up, and that they had been done. In their distress they waited upon Felgate and laid their case before him. He, as is usual with gentlemen of his type, said it was very hard and unjust, and they would do quite right in resisting and defying everybody all round. But he did not offer to go instead of them to the doctor, so that his general observations on the situation were not particularly comforting.Arthur proposed telegraphing to Railsford something in this form:“Ainger says Smiley’s against rules. Wire him you allow.”But when the form was filled up and ready to send, the chance of it succeeding seemed hardly worth the cost.Finally they went down sadly after tea to the school farm and hired a kennel, and arranged for the board and lodging of their exiled pets at so much a week.Next morning, in doleful dumps, they presented themselves before the doctor. Arthur could hardly help remembering how, a short time ago, he had pictured himself standing in that very room, demanding the hand of Miss Violet. Now, Smiley minor, squeaking and grunting, as he hung by his one tooth to his mother’s tail, down there in the school farm, was worth half a dozen Miss Violets to him.And his once expected uncle—!The doctor dealt shortly and decisively with the miscreants. He caned them for defying their house-captain, and reprimanded them for imagining that dogs could be permitted under the school roof.On being told that Mr Railsford had known all about Smiley last term, he declined to argue the matter, and concluded by a warning of the possible consequences of a repetition of the offence.They went back to their place, sore both in body and mind. To be caned during the first week of the term was not quite in accordance with their good resolutions, and to be bereft of the Smileys was a cruel outrage on their natural affections. They owed both to Ainger, and mutually resolved that he was a cad of the lowest description. For all that they attended to his injunctions for the next few days with wonderful punctuality, and decided to defer, till Railsford’s return, their own revenge and his consequent confusion.Altogether, it was getting to be time for Railsford to turn up. The evening before, the first master’s session for the term had been held, and the doctor, for a wonder, had been present. Towards the end of the meeting, after the discussion of a great deal of general business, Mr Bickers rose and asked leave to make a statement. The reader can guess what that statement was.He begged to remind the meeting that Grandcourt still lay under the cloud of the mystery which enveloped the assault which had been made upon himself last term. For himself, it mattered very little, but for the honour of the school he considered the matter should not be allowed to drop until it was properly cleared up. With a view to assisting in such a result, he might mention that towards the end of last term a rumour had come to his ears—he was not at liberty to say through what channel—that the secret was not quite as dead as was generally supposed. He had heard, on what he considered reliable authority, that in Mr Railsford’s house—the house most interested in this painful question—the name of the culprit or culprits was generally known, or, at least, suspected; and he believed he was not going too far in mentioning a rumour that no one could make a better guess as to that name than Mr Railsford himself.Here Mr Grover and Monsieur Lablache both rose to their feet. Monsieur, of course, gave way, but what he had meant to say was pretty much what Mr Grover did say. He wished to point out that in his friend’s absence such an insinuation as that just made by the speaker was quite unjustifiable. For his own part, he thought it a great pity to revive the unfortunate question at all. At any rate, in Mr Railsford’s absence, he should certainly oppose any further reference being made to it at this meeting.“That,” echoed monsieur, “is precisely my opinion.”“Very well,” said Mr Bickers pleasantly. “What I have to say will keep perfectly well until Mr Railsford comes back.”Whereupon the meeting passed to the next order of the day.

Grandcourt assembled after the holidays in blissful ignorance of the episode narrated in our last chapter. Branscombe’s illness had been an isolated case, and apparently not due to any defect in the sanitary arrangements of his house. And as no other boy was reported to have spent his holidays in the same unsatisfactory manner, and as Railsford himself had managed to escape infection, it was decided by the authorities not to publish the little misadventure on the housetop. The captain of Bickers’s house was absent on sick leave, and the Master of the Shell (who had been nursing a stubborn cold during the holidays) would not be in his place, so it was announced, for a week. That was all Grandcourt was told; and, to its credit, it received the news with profound resignation.

True, some of the more disorderly spirits in Railsford’s house were disposed to take advantage of his absence, and lead the much-enduring Monsieur Lablache, who officiated in his place, an uncomfortable dance. But any indications of mutiny were promptly stamped upon by Ainger and the other prefects, who, because they resented monsieur’s appointment, were determined that, come what would, he should have no excuse for exercising his authority. Monsieur shrugged himself, and had no objection to the orderly behaviour of the house, whatever its motive, nor had anyone else whose opinion on such a matter was worth having.

Arthur and Sir Digby, as usual, came back brimful of lofty resolutions and ambitious schemes! Dig had considerably revised his time-table, and was determined to adhere to it like a martyr to his stake.

Arthur, though he came armed with no time-table, had his own good intentions. He had had one or two painful conversations with his father, who had hurt him considerably by suggesting that he wasted a great deal of time, and neglected utterly those principles of self-improvement which had turned out men like Wellington, Dickens, Dr Livingstone, and Mr Elihu Burritt. Arthur had seldom realised before how odious comparisons may become. No doubt Wellington, Dickens, and Company were good fellows in their way, but he had never done them any harm. Why should they be trotted out to injure him?

He thought hewasimproving himself. He was much better at a drop-kick than he had been last year, and Railsford himself had said he was not as bad at his Latin verses as he had been. Was not that improvement—self-improvement? Then he was conscious of having distinctly improved in morals. He had once or twice done his Caesar without a crib, and the aggregate of lines he had had to write for impositions had been several hundred less than the corresponding term of last year.

Thus the son gently reasoned with his parent, who replied that what he would like to see in his boy was an interest in some intellectual pursuits outside the mere school routine. Why, now, did he not take up some standard book of history with which to occupy his spare time, or some great poem like theParadise Lost, of which he might commit a few lines to memory every day, and so emulate his great-uncle, who used to be able to repeat the whole poem by heart?

Both Arthur and Dig had landed for the term with hampers more or less replete with indigestible mementoes of domestic affection. Arthur had a Madeira cake and a rather fine lobster, besides a small box of figs, some chocolate creams, Brazil nuts, and (an enforced contribution from the cook) pudding-raisins.

Dig, whose means were not equal to his connections, produced, somewhat bashfully, a rather “high” cold chicken, some gingerbread, some pyretic saline, and a slab or two of home-made toffee. These good things, when spread out on the table that evening, made quite an imposing array, and decidedly warmed the cockles of the hearts of their joint owners, and suggested to them naturally thoughts of hospitality and revelry.

“Let’s have a blow-out in the dormitory,” proposed Arthur. “Froggy will let us alone, and we can square Felgate with a hunk of this toffee if he interferes.”

Felgate was the prefect charged with the oversight of the Shell dormitory in Railsford’s—a duty he discharged by never setting foot inside their door when he could possibly get out of it.

From a gastronomic point of view the boys would doubtless have done better to postpone their feast till to-morrow. They had munched promiscuously all day—during the railway journey especially—and almost needed a night’s repose to enable them to attack the formidable banquet now proposed on equal terms. But hospitality brooks no delays. Besides, Dig’s chicken was already a little over ripe, and it was impossible to say how Arthur’s lobster might endure the night.

So the hearts of Maple, Tilbury, Dimsdale, and Simson were made glad that evening by an intimation that it might be worth their while at bed-time to smuggle a knife, fork, and plate a-piece into the dormitory, in case, as Arthur worded it, there should be some fun going.

Wonderful is the intuition of youth! These four simple-minded, uncultured lads knew what Arthur meant, even as he spoke, and joyfully did him and Dig homage for the rest of the evening, and at bed-time tucked each his platter under his waistcoat and scaled the stairs as the curfew rang, grimly accoutred with a fork in one trouser pocket and a knife in the other.

But whatever the cause, the Shell-fish in Railsford’s presented a very green appearance when they answered to their names next morning, and were in an irritable frame of mind most of the day. Their bad temper took the form of a dead set on the unhappy Monsieur Lablache, who, during the first day of his vicarious office, led the existence of a pea on a frying-pan. They went up to him with difficulties in Greek prose, knowing that he comprehended not a word of that language; they asked his permission for what they knew he could not grant, and on his refusal got up cries of tyranny and despotism wherewith to raise the lower school; they whistled German war songs outside his door, and asked him the date of the Battle of Waterloo. When he demanded their names they told him “Ainger,” “Barnworth,” “Wake”; and when he ordered them to stay in an hour after school, they coolly stopped work five minutes before the bell rang and walked under his very nose into the playground.

Poor monsieur, he was no disciplinarian, and he knew it. His backbone was limp, and he never did the right thing at the right time. He shrugged when he ought to have been chastising; and he stormed when he ought to have held his tongue. Nobody cared for him; everybody wondered why he of all men worked at the trade of schoolmaster. Perhaps if some of my lords and baronets in the Shell had known that far away, in a tiny cottage at Boulogne, this same contemptible Frenchman was keeping alive from week to week, with his hard-earned savings, a paralysed father and three motherless little girls, who loved the very ground he trod on, and kissed his likeness every night before they crept to their scantily-covered beds—if they had known that this same poor creature said a prayer for his beloved France every day, and tingled in every vein to hear her insulted even in jest—perhaps they would have understood better why he flared up now and then as he did, and why he clung to his unlovely calling of teaching unfeeling English boys at the rate of £30 a term. But the Grandcourt boys did not know all this, and therefore they had no pity for poor monsieur.

However, as I have said, monsieur shrugged his shoulders, and accepted the help of the prefects to keep his disorderly charges within bounds.

From one of the prefects he got very hide help. Felgate had no interest in the order of the house. It didn’t matter to him whether it was monsieur who had to deal with the rioters or Ainger. All he knew was, he was not going to trouble his head about it. In fact, his sympathies were on the side of the agitators. Why shouldn’t they enjoy themselves if they liked? They didn’t hurt anybody—and if they did break the rules of the house; well, who was to say whether they might not be right and the rules of the house wrong?

Arthur Herapath, for instance, had set up with a dog—puppy to his friend’s dog, Smiley. Everybody knew live animals were against rules, and yet Railsford had winked all last term at Smiley; why shouldn’t Arthur have equal liberty to enjoy the companionship of Smiley minor?

He met master and puppy in the passage one afternoon.

“Hullo, young ’un,” said he, “another dog? How many’s that?”

“Two,” said Arthur, a little doubtful as to the prefect’s reception of the news. “You see it would be rough to take him from his mother while he is so young. It’s not as if he was no relation.”

“Of course not. What have you been doing with Marky these holidays?”

“Oh, he was seedy—sore throat. I fancy he was shamming a bit to get a week extra. You see, he’s spoons on my sister Daisy.”

“I fancy I’ve heard that before,” observed Felgate.

“What I mean is, he hangs about our place a lot; so it’s a good excuse for him to be laid up, you know.”

“Quite so. Perhaps he’s not in a hurry to come back here for another reason we know of, eh, youngster?”

“Ha, ha! but keep that mum, you know. We must back him through that business. It’s nearly blown over already.”

“Has it? But, I say—”

Here Ainger came up and detected the puppy.

“You’ll have to get rid of that, Herapath,” said he.

“What, Smiley’s pup? Why? Felgate’s given me leave.”

“Felgate may do as he pleases. I tell you you must send him home, and Smiley too.”

“What!” said Arthur aghast. “Smiley too! why, Railsford knows all about Smiley, and let us have him all, last term.”

“But you are not going to have them this term. Two other fellows have started dogs on the strength of Smiley already, and there’s to be a clean sweep of the lot.”

“Oh, rot! you can’t interfere with fellows’ rights like that,” said Felgate.

“I tell you Railsford gave us leave,” repeated Arthur.

“Very well,” said Ainger; “unless both of them are packed off home by this time to-morrow, or sent down to the school farm, you’ll go up to the doctor and settle the question with him.”

“Rubbish!” said Felgate. “Until Railsford—”

“Shut up,” said the captain; “I’m not talking to you.”

It was hardly to be wondered at if he was out of temper. He was having any amount of extra work to do; and to be thus obstructed by one of his own colleagues was a trifle too much for his limited patience.

Felgate coloured up at the rebuff, knowing well enough that the captain would be delighted to make good his words at any time and place which might be offered him. He remained after he had gone, and said to Arthur—

“That’s what I call brutal. You’re not going to care two straws what he says?”

“All very well,” said Arthur, stroking his puppy; “if he sends me up to Pony, what then?”

“Bless you, he won’t send you up to Pony.”

“Think not? If I thought he wouldn’t, I’d hang on till Marky comes back. He’d square the thing.”

“Of course he would. It’s a bit of spite of Ainger’s. He thinks he’s not quite important enough, so he’s going to start bullying. I’ll back you up.”

“Thanks, awfully,” said the ductile Arthur. “You’re a brick. I’d take your advice.”

He did, and prevailed upon Dig to do the same.

The consequence was, that when next afternoon the captain walked into their study to see whether his order had been complied with, he was met by an unceremonious yap from Smiley herself, echoed by an impertinent squeak from her irreverent son.

“You’ve got them still, then?” said Ainger. “Very well, they can stay now till after you’ve been to the doctor. Nine o’clock sharp to-morrow morning, both of you.”

The friends turned pale.

“Not really, Ainger? You haven’t sent up our names, have you? We’ll send them off. We thought as Felgate said—oh, you cad!”

This last remark was occasioned by Ainger departing and shutting the door behind him without vouchsafing any further parley.

They felt that the game was up, and that they had been done. In their distress they waited upon Felgate and laid their case before him. He, as is usual with gentlemen of his type, said it was very hard and unjust, and they would do quite right in resisting and defying everybody all round. But he did not offer to go instead of them to the doctor, so that his general observations on the situation were not particularly comforting.

Arthur proposed telegraphing to Railsford something in this form:

“Ainger says Smiley’s against rules. Wire him you allow.”

But when the form was filled up and ready to send, the chance of it succeeding seemed hardly worth the cost.

Finally they went down sadly after tea to the school farm and hired a kennel, and arranged for the board and lodging of their exiled pets at so much a week.

Next morning, in doleful dumps, they presented themselves before the doctor. Arthur could hardly help remembering how, a short time ago, he had pictured himself standing in that very room, demanding the hand of Miss Violet. Now, Smiley minor, squeaking and grunting, as he hung by his one tooth to his mother’s tail, down there in the school farm, was worth half a dozen Miss Violets to him.

And his once expected uncle—!

The doctor dealt shortly and decisively with the miscreants. He caned them for defying their house-captain, and reprimanded them for imagining that dogs could be permitted under the school roof.

On being told that Mr Railsford had known all about Smiley last term, he declined to argue the matter, and concluded by a warning of the possible consequences of a repetition of the offence.

They went back to their place, sore both in body and mind. To be caned during the first week of the term was not quite in accordance with their good resolutions, and to be bereft of the Smileys was a cruel outrage on their natural affections. They owed both to Ainger, and mutually resolved that he was a cad of the lowest description. For all that they attended to his injunctions for the next few days with wonderful punctuality, and decided to defer, till Railsford’s return, their own revenge and his consequent confusion.

Altogether, it was getting to be time for Railsford to turn up. The evening before, the first master’s session for the term had been held, and the doctor, for a wonder, had been present. Towards the end of the meeting, after the discussion of a great deal of general business, Mr Bickers rose and asked leave to make a statement. The reader can guess what that statement was.

He begged to remind the meeting that Grandcourt still lay under the cloud of the mystery which enveloped the assault which had been made upon himself last term. For himself, it mattered very little, but for the honour of the school he considered the matter should not be allowed to drop until it was properly cleared up. With a view to assisting in such a result, he might mention that towards the end of last term a rumour had come to his ears—he was not at liberty to say through what channel—that the secret was not quite as dead as was generally supposed. He had heard, on what he considered reliable authority, that in Mr Railsford’s house—the house most interested in this painful question—the name of the culprit or culprits was generally known, or, at least, suspected; and he believed he was not going too far in mentioning a rumour that no one could make a better guess as to that name than Mr Railsford himself.

Here Mr Grover and Monsieur Lablache both rose to their feet. Monsieur, of course, gave way, but what he had meant to say was pretty much what Mr Grover did say. He wished to point out that in his friend’s absence such an insinuation as that just made by the speaker was quite unjustifiable. For his own part, he thought it a great pity to revive the unfortunate question at all. At any rate, in Mr Railsford’s absence, he should certainly oppose any further reference being made to it at this meeting.

“That,” echoed monsieur, “is precisely my opinion.”

“Very well,” said Mr Bickers pleasantly. “What I have to say will keep perfectly well until Mr Railsford comes back.”

Whereupon the meeting passed to the next order of the day.

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