Talbot Baines Reed

“ You know what it is to sit biting the end of your pen, and glaring at the ruthless question in front of you. You know what it is to dash nervously from question to question, answering a bit of this and a bit of that, but lacking the patience to work steadily down the list. And you have experienced doubtless the aggravation of hearing the pen of the man on your right flying along the paper with a hideous squeak, never stopping for a moment to give you a chance. And knowing all this, there is no need for me to describe the vicissitudes of this particular day of ordeal at Saint Dominic’s. ”

“ They spent a merry morning, these young rebels, wondering in whispers over their lessons what this and that Sixth or Fifth Form fellow had done without them. With great glee they imagined Raleigh blacking his own boots and Pembury boiling his own eggs, and the very idea of such wonders quite frightened them. At that rate Saint Dominic’s would come to a standstill altogether.
“Serve ’em right!” said Bramble; “they want a lesson. I wish I’d two fellows to strike against instead of one!”
“One’s enough if he strikes you back,” said Stephen, with a rueful grin. ”

“ With all their faults, Oliver Greenfield and Wraysford are splendid boys, of just the fibre that the Church needs, and the world cannot afford to do without; and yet their school career proves by no means a bed of roses. To drift with the current is proverbially easy; to seek to stem it manfully, and steer by the stars, may, and often does, lay one open to misapprehension or envy, and all the ills that follow in their train ”

“ Equal! What a shout greets the announcement! But it dies away suddenly, and a new anxious silence ensues. The game is saved, but not won; another run is wanted.
No one says a word, but the Fifth everywhere look on with a confidence which is far more eloquent than words.
Raleigh is the bowler from the lower end, and the Sixth send out their hearts to him. He may save them yet!
He runs, in his usual unconcerned manner, up to the wicket and delivers the ball. It is one which there is but one way of playing—among the slips.
Oliver understands it evidently, and, to the joy of the Fifth, plays it. ”

“ Now if there is one thing fatal to football it is indecision. If you wobble about, so to speak, between half a dozen opinions, you may just as well sit down on the ground where you are and let the ball go to Jericho. Loman gets flurried completely, and ends by giving the ball a miserable side-kick into touch—to the extreme horror of everybody and the unmitigated disgust of the peppery Stansfield. ”

“ Where every one you speak to is deaf, every one you appear before is blind, every one you go near has business somewhere else? Where you will be left undisturbed in your study for a week, to fag for yourself, study by yourself, disport yourself with yourself? Where in the playground you will be as solitary as if you were in the desert, in school you will be a class by yourself, and even in church on Sundays you will feel hopelessly out in the cold among your fellow-worshippers? ”

“ Alas! our occupation’s gone! No longer will the Dominican be able to bring its sledge-hammer down on high places and walk into the Sixth. For two of our men, O Fifth!—Greenfield and Wraysford—have joined the classic ranks of those who eat toffee in the top form, and play ‘odds and evens’ under the highest desks of Saint Dominic’s. We must be careful now, or we shall catch it. And yet we ought to congratulate the Sixth! At last they have got intelligence and high principle, and two good men behind a scrimmage among them; and more are coming! ”

“ Not even on cricket feast night was a fag to be let off fagging!
It was enough! The last straw breaks the camel’s back, and the young Dominicans had now reached the point of desperation.
It was long before silence enough could be restored, and then the redoubtable Spicer yelled out, “Let’s strike!”
The cry was taken up with yells of enthusiasm—“Strike! No more fagging!”
“Any boy who fags after this,” screamed Bramble, “will be cut dead! Those who promise hold up your hands—mind, it’s a promise!” ”

“ As the game went on the excitement increased rapidly; and when at length the ninth wicket went down for sixty-one, and the last man in appeared, with nine to win, the eagerness on both sides scarcely knew bounds. Every ball, every piece of fielding, was cheered by one side, and every hit and every piece of play was as vehemently cheered by the other. If Raleigh and Wren had been nervous bowlers, they would undoubtedly have been disconcerted by the dead silence, followed by terrific applause, amid which every ball—even a wide—was delivered. ”

“ At this moment up came Pembury, with a very long face.
“It’s no fight after all, you fellows,” said he. “Loman funks it!”
“What! he won’t fight!” almost shrieked the rest. “It must be wrong.”
“Oh, all right, if it’s wrong,” snarled Pembury. “I tell you there’s no fight; you can believe it or not as you like,” and off he hobbled, in unusual ill-humour.
This was a sad blow to the Fifth. They saw no comfort anywhere. They flocked to Oliver’s study, but he was not there, and Wraysford’s door was locked. ”

“ Had Oliver been the most popular boy in the school it would have been all the same. As it was, he was a long way from being the most popular. He never took any pains to win the good opinion of his fellows. When, by means of some achievement in which he excelled, he had contrived (as in the case of the cricket match last term) to bring glory on his school and to make himself a hero in the eyes of Saint Dominic’s, he had been wont to take the applause bestowed on him with the utmost indifference, which some might even construe into contempt. ”

“ The kick-off is a positive luxury under such circumstances; Stansfield needn’t be afraid of skying the ball now, and he isn’t. It shoots up with a prodigious swoop and soars right away to touch-line, so that the County’s “back” is the first of their men to go into action. He brings the ball back deftly and prettily, slipping in and out among his own men, who get beside him as a sort of bodyguard, ready at any moment to carry on the ball. It is ludicrous to see Ricketts and Winter and Callonby flounder about after him. The fellow is like an eel. ”

“ For the Landfield man has no notion of coming to close quarters; he is their crack drop-kick, and would be an ass indeed if he did not employ his talent with such a chance as this. He only runs a short way. Then he slackens pace. Wraysford rushes forward in front, the pursuing host rush on behind, but every one sees how it will be. The fellow takes a deliberate drop-kick at the goal, and up flies the ball as true as a rocket, clean over the posts, as certain a goal as Saint Dominic’s ever lost! ”

“ But as long as he was a member of the honourable fraternity of Guinea-pigs, Stephen Greenfield was not likely to be dull at Saint Dominic’s.
The politics of the lower school were rather intricate. The Guinea-pigs were not exactly the enemies of the Tadpoles, but the rivals. They were always jangling among themselves, it was true; and when Stephen, for the second time in one week, had hit Bramble in the eye, there was such jubilation among the Guinea-pigs that any one might have supposed the two clans were at daggers drawn. ”

“ Bramble looked wildly about him, if haply he might escape by a window or lie hid in a desk; while Stephen, Paul, Padger, and the other ringleaders, gave themselves up for lost, and mentally bade farewell to joy for ever.
“What have the boys been reading?” inquired Dr Senior of Mr Rastle.
“Grey’s Elegy, sir. We have just got through it.”
“Oh! Grey’s Elegy!” said the Doctor; and then, as if forgetting where he was, he began repeating to himself,—
“The curfew tolls the knell of parting day,
The lowing herds wind slowly o’er the lea.” ”

“ The story of his desperate encounter flew on the wings of fame all over the school, and the glory and pride of the youngsters reached its climax when, that afternoon, Stephen with his face all on one side, his eye a bright green and yellow, and his under lip about twice its ordinary thickness, took his accustomed place in the arithmetic class of the Fourth Junior.
“Why, Greenfield,” exclaimed Mr Rastle, when in due time the young hero’s turn came to stand up and answer a question, “what have you been doing to yourself?” ”

“ Wraysford feels he must say something!
“Good-bye, Greenfield,” he says. “I hope—”
Oliver quietly takes Stephen’s arm and turns on his heel.
Wraysford stares after him for a moment, and then slowly goes on his way, breathing hard.
“I wonder,” said Pembury, after a long silence—“I wonder, Wray, if it’s possible we are wrong about that fellow?”
Wraysford says nothing.
“He doesn’t act like a guilty person. Just fancy, Wray,”—and here Tony pulls up short, in a state of perturbation—“just fancy if you and I and the rest have been making fools of ourselves all the term!” ”

“ Stansfield’s got him at last! No he hasn’t; but Winter has—No, Winter has lost him; and—just look—he’s past all the School forwards, no one can say how.
Young Forrester tackles him gamely—but young Forrester is no hand at eel-catching; in fact, the eel catches Forrester, and leaves him gracefully on his back. Past the quarter-backs! The man has a charmed life!
Ah! Greenfield has got him at last. Yes, Mr Eel, you may wriggle as hard as you like, but you’d hardly find your way out of that grip without leave! ”

“ Even a green boy like Stephen could not fail to wonder why, if Mr Cripps was as hard up as he had just described himself, he should now be so anxious to represent himself as not in want of money.
“Please, I want to know the price.”
“As if I was a-going to name prices to a young gentleman like you! Please yourself about it. I shall not be disappointed if you gives me only eighteenpence, and if you thinks twelve bob is handsome, well, let it be. I can struggle on somehow.” ”

“ For the coming Saturday was the day of the great cricket match, Sixth versus School, from which a Dominican would as soon think of deserting as of emigrating.
But Loman must desert if he was to keep his appointment, and he managed the proceeding with his now characteristic untruthfulness; a practice he would have scorned only a few months ago. How easy the first wrong step! What a long weary road when one, with aching heart, attempts to retrace the way! And at present Loman had made no serious effort in that direction. ”

“ Some, with books under their arms, scuttled off to their studies. The heroes of the Sixth stalked majestically to their quarters. The day boarders hurried away to catch the train at Maltby. A few slunk sulkily to answer to their names in the detention-room, and others, with the air of men to whom time is no object and exertion no temptation, lounged about in the corridors with hands in pockets, regarding listlessly the general stampede of their fellows, and apparently not knowing exactly what to do with themselves. ”

“ The society in which he most delights is that of certain Guinea-pigs, between whom and himself a special bond of sympathy appears to exist. It is a touching sight to see him taking his daily walks in company with these singular animals; who, be it said, seem to be the only creatures able to appreciate his character. Curiously enough, since he left us, Saint Dominic’s has not collapsed; indeed, it is a singular fact that now he is away it is no longer considered necessary for every fellow to lock his study-door when he goes out, and keep the key. ”

“ The room was well out of the way; the studious ones of the Fifth were spared all annoyance, and the riotous ones had an asylum to go to. No one was a bit the worse for the move; every one, on the contrary, found himself decidedly the better.
“Go and kick-up a row in the monitor’s room,” became quite a common objurgation in the Form, among the diligent; as common, in fact, as “Come along, old man, and have it out in the monitor’s room,” was among the idlers.
But, as ill-luck would have it, this delightful retreat happened to be situated immediately over the study occupied by Wren of the Sixth. ”

“ Callonby, of course, did good work, but Loman, the half-back, was woefully unsteady.
“What a jackass I was to put the fellow there!” said Stansfield to himself.
And yet Loman, as a rule, was a good player, with plenty of dash and not a little courage. It was odd that to-day he should be showing such specially bad form.
There goes the ball again, clean over the forwards’ heads, straight for him! He is going to catch it and run! No; he is not! He is going to take a flying kick! No, he is not; he is going to make his mark! No, he is not; he is going to dribble it through! ”