The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 43

As for the Fifth, Pembury's advice prevailed with them. There were a few who were still disposed to take their revenge on Oliver in a more marked manner than by merely cutting him; but a dread of the tongue of the editor of the _Dominican_, as well as a conviction of the uselessness of such procedure, constrained them to give way and fall in with the general resolution.

One boy only was intractable. That was Simon. It was not in the poet's nature to agree to cut anybody. When the cla.s.s dispersed he took it into his gifted head to march direct to Oliver's study. Oliver was there, writing a letter.

"Oh, I say, you know," began Simon, nervously, but smiling most affably, "all the fellows are going to cut you, you know, Greenfield. About that paper, you know, the time I met you coming out of the Doctor's study.

But _I_ won't cut you, you know. We'll hush it all up, you know, Greenfield; upon my word we will. But the fellows think--"

"That will do!" said Oliver, angrily.

"Oh, but you know, Greenfield--"

"Look here, if you don't get out of my study," said Oliver, rising to his feet, "I'll--"

Before he could finish his sentence the poet, who after all was one of the best-intentioned jacka.s.ses in Saint Dominic's, had vanished.

CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.

LOMAN IN LUCK.

While we have been talking of Oliver and Wraysford, and of the manner in which the results of the Nightingale examination affected them and the cla.s.s to which they belonged, the reader will hardly have forgotten that there was another whose interest in that result was fully as serious and fully as painful.

Loman had been counting on gaining the scholars.h.i.+p to a dead certainty.

From the moment when it occurred to him he would be able to free himself of his money difficulties with Cripps by winning it, he had dismissed, or seemed to dismiss, all further anxiety from his mind. He never doubted that he in the Sixth could easily beat the two boys in the Fifth; and though, as we have seen, he now and then felt a sneaking misgiving on the subject, it never seriously disturbed his confidence.

Now, however, he was utterly floored. He did not need to wait for the announcement of the results to be certain he had not won, for he had known his fate the moment his eyes glanced down the questions on the paper on the morning of examination.

At his last interview with Cripps that memorable Sat.u.r.day afternoon, he had promised confidently to call at the c.o.c.kchafer next Thursday with the news of the result, as a further guarantee for the payment of the thirty pounds, never doubting what that result would be. How was he to face this interview now?

He could never tell Cripps straight out that he had been beaten in the examination; that would be the same thing as telling him to go at once to the Doctor or his father with the doc.u.ment which the boy had signed, and expose the whole affair. And it would be no use making a poor mouth to the landlord of the c.o.c.kchafer and begging to be forgiven the debt; Loman knew enough by this time to feel convinced of the folly of that.

What was to be done?

"I shall have to humbug the fellow some way," said Loman to himself, as he sat in his study the afternoon after the announcement of the result.

And then followed an oath.

Loman had been going from bad to worse the last month. Ever since he had begun, during the holidays, regularly to frequent the c.o.c.kchafer, and to discover that it was his interest to make himself agreeable to the man he disliked and feared, the boy's vicious instincts had developed strangely. Company which before would have offended him, he now found--especially when it flattered him--congenial, and words and acts from which in former days he would have shrunk now came naturally.

"I shall have to humbug the fellow somehow," said he; "I only wish I knew how;" and then Loman set himself deliberately to invent a lie for Mr Cripps.

A charming afternoon's occupation this for a boy of seventeen!

He sat and pondered for an hour or more, sometimes fancying he had hit upon the object of his search, and sometimes finding himself quite off the tack. Had Cripps only known what care and diligence was being bestowed on him that afternoon he would a.s.suredly have been highly nattered.

At length he seemed to come to a satisfactory decision, and, naturally exhausted by such severe mental exertion, Loman quitted his study and sought in the playground the fresh air and diversion he so much needed.

One of the first boys he met there was Simon. "Hullo, Loman!" said that amiable genius, "would you have believed it?"

"Believed what?" said Loman.

"Oh! you know, I thought you knew, about the Nightingale, you know. I say, how jolly low you came out!"

"Look here! you'd better hold your row!" said Loman, surlily, "unless you want a hiding."

"Oh; it's not that, you know. What I meant was about Greenfield senior.

Isn't that a go?"

"What about him? Why can't you talk like an ordinary person, and not like a howling jacka.s.s?"

"Why, you know," said Simon, off whom all such pretty side compliments as these were wont to roll like water off a duck's back--"why, you know, about that paper?"

"What paper?" said Loman, impatiently. "The one that was stolen out of the Doctor's study, you know. Isn't that a go? But we're going to hush it up. Honour bright!"

Loman's face at that moment was anything but encouraging. Somehow, this roundabout way of the poet's seemed particularly aggravating to him, for he turned quite pale with rage, and, seizing the unhappy bard by the throat, said, with an oath, "What do you mean, you miserable beast?

What about the paper?"

"Oh!" said Simon, not at all put about by this rough handling--"why, don't you know? _we_ know who took it, we do; but we're all going to--"

But at this point Simon's speech was interrupted, for the very good reason that Loman's grip on his throat became so very tight that the wretched poet nearly turned black in the face.

With another oath the Sixth Form boy exclaimed, "Who took it?"

"Why--don't you know?--oh!--oh, I say, mind my throat!--haven't you heard?--why, Greenfield senior, you know!"

Loman let go his man suddenly and stared at him.

"Greenfield senior?" he exclaimed in amazement.

"Yes; would you have thought it? None of us would--we're all going to hush it up, you know, honour bright we are."

"Who told you he took it?"

"Why, you know, I saw him;" and here Simon giggled jubilantly, to mark what astonishment his disclosure was causing.

"_You_ saw him take it?" asked Loman, astounded.

"Yes; that is, I saw him coming out of the Doctor's study with it."

"You did?"

"Yes; that is, of course he must have had it; and he says so himself."

"What, Greenfield says he took the paper?" exclaimed Loman, in utter astonishment.

"Yes; that is, he doesn't say he didn't; and all the fellows are going to cut him dead, but we mean to hush it up if we can."

"Hush yourself up, that's what you'd better do," said Loman, turning his back unceremoniously on his informant, and proceeding, full of this strange news, on his solitary walk. What was in his mind as he went along I cannot tell you. I fancy it was hardly sorrow at the thought that a schoolfellow could stoop to a mean, dishonest action, nor, I think, was it indignation on Wraysford's or his own account.

Indeed, the few boys who pa.s.sed Loman that afternoon were struck with the cheerfulness of his appearance. Considering he had been miserably beaten in the scholars.h.i.+p examination, this show of satisfaction was all the more remarkable.

"The fellow seems quite proud of himself," said Callonby to Wren as they pa.s.sed him.