The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 51

Surely the Fourth Junior have come to an end now! No! there is one more prize.

"First Latin--Greenfield junior."

This time there was a louder cheer than ever, for Stephen is a popular boy outside his own cla.s.s. Oliver joins in the cheer, and Pembury and Wraysford and one or two others, and of course the Guinea-pigs, go in a lump for him. It is quite a minute before the n.o.ble Earl can get hold of the words of presentation; and when at last Stephen is dispatched, the Doctor turns round and says, "If you boys will make a _little_ less noise I dare say we shall get through the list quite as satisfactorily, and possibly a little more quickly."

"Hear, hear!" says one of the governors, and nod, nod goes the n.o.ble Earl's head.

The consequence of this is that the prizes to the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Senior are presented amid something very much like silence, which, however, grows less and less solemn as the proceedings go on.

The last Fourth Senior boy to be called is the hero Forrester, who is now fully const.i.tuted a member of the first football fifteen. He gets a vehement cheer at all costs, mingled with shouts of "Well kicked, sir!"

"Hack it through!" and the like, which clearly show that the sympathy of Saint Dominic's is quite as much with the exploits accomplished by the young hero's feet as by those of his head.

Now for the Fifth! If the Doctor expects the company is to remain solemn during the next quarter of an hour he knows nothing at all about the school over which he presides.

"Fifth Form--(cheers)--French--(cheers)--Pembury--(terrific applause, during which Tony walks in demurely on his crutches and receives his well-merited award). English history--(applause)--Pembury."

Once more enter Tony on his crutches to receive another prize.

"Bravo, Tony!"

"Hurrah for the _Dominican_!"

"Well done, Editor!" rise from various parts of the hall, in the midst of which Pembury retires positively for the last time.

"First Greek prize--Wraysford."

Wraysford advances gravely and slowly. The instant he appears there arises a cheer--the mightiest of any yet. Everybody cheers, and when they have done cheering they stamp, and when they have done stamping they clap. Wraysford stands disconcerted and flushed with the demonstration, at a loss whether to smile or frown. He knows the meaning of that cheer as well as anybody, and it grates on his ear unpleasantly as he listens. What ages it seems before it is done, and the n.o.ble Earl at last holds out the book and says, "I have great pleasure, Wraysford, in handing you this prize. Your schoolfellows are all proud of you; I feel sure you deserve their good opinion. I wish you success, Wraysford;" and so saying, the good old gentleman bobs affably, and Wraysford, amid another tempest of applause, bows too, and takes off his prize.

"The next name," says the Doctor, referring to his list, "is that of the winner of the Nightingale Scholars.h.i.+p--(sensation)--and I may tell your lords.h.i.+p that the boy is, in the opinion of his examiners and myself, one of the most promising boys for his age that Saint Dominic's has known. The examiners report that his answers to the questions on the paper deserve the greatest credit. I will say only this before his face: Nightingale Scholars.h.i.+p--Greenfield senior."

A solemn silence marks the close of the Doctor's speech, in the midst of which Oliver, with pale face, but otherwise unmoved, advances to where the n.o.ble Earl stands. A few of the strangers greet his appearance with a clapping of hands, but the sound falls strangely on the silence all round.

The n.o.ble Earl, who is evidently ready with a neat little speech which shall sum the applause that never comes, is disconcerted at this unwonted stillness. You might hear a pin fall as the old gentleman, in dumb show, places the certificate into the boy's hand and tries to get at the words which the silence has scared away.

Oliver waits no longer than he can help. With a bow, he takes the parchment and turns to quit the scene.

It is at this moment, that somewhere or other in the hall, there rises a faint, almost whispered, hiss. Slight as it is, it falls with startling effect upon the dead silence which reigns. Then, like the first whisper of a storm, it suddenly grows and swells and rushes, angrily and witheringly, about the head of the wretched Oliver. Then as suddenly it dies away into silence, and the presentation of the Nightingale Scholars.h.i.+p is at an end.

The visitors, the committee, the ladies, the n.o.ble Earl, look about them in blank astonishment and misery. The Doctor's face flushes up mightily as he glares for one instant around him, and then drops his head over the prize list.

The only thing there is for him to do he does. He calls on the next name as composedly as he can, and proceeds with the business of the day.

But the magic has suddenly gone out of prize-day, and no coaxing can bring it back. The Fifth, and after them the Sixth, advance and receive their rewards amidst the listless indifference of the audience, and uncheered by the faintest spark of enthusiasm. No one takes the trouble to cheer anybody. Even Raleigh, the captain, comes in and out almost unheeded; and when at last the final name is reached, it is a relief to every one.

The rest of the day drags heavily--it is no use trying to get up the steam. The visitors are out of humour, and the n.o.ble Earl leaves early.

The musical feast provided by the glee club is a failure altogether. A few only come to it, and nothing interferes with music like a poor audience.

As to the charade, it is abandoned at the last moment.

Then a great many mothers and aunts make the discovery that there is an evening train from Maltby; and having made it, act upon it; and the tide of emigration sets out forthwith.

Among the first to depart is Wraysford.

As he appears at the school door, trunk in hand, waiting for the school omnibus (which vehicle, by the way, is having a busy time of it), Pembury hobbles up, similarly equipped for the road.

"You off by this train?" says the latter to Wraysford.

"Yes; are you?"

"I may as well. I can get home by nine; and my people won't be in a great rage if I turn up earlier than they expect."

"Well, we may as well get a fly as wait for the wretched omnibus," says Wraysford. "Come along; there are flies at the corner of Hall Street."

Out walked the two, saying good-bye to one or two on the road. At the drive gate two boys are standing waiting for the omnibus. Wraysford and Pembury are upon them before they observe that these are Oliver and his brother.

What is to be done? There is no escaping them--they must pa.s.s; yet both of them, somehow, would at that moment--they couldn't tell why--have dropped into the earth.

Oliver looks up as they approach.

Now or never! 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!"

Ah! my Fifth Form heroes, just fancy!

CHAPTER THIRTY.

A NEW TURN OF THE TIDE.

The three weeks of Christmas holiday darted past only too rapidly for most of the boys at Saint Dominic's. Holidays have a miserable knack of sliding along. The first few days seem delightfully long. Then, after the first week, the middle all of a sudden becomes painfully near. And the middle once pa.s.sed, they simply tear, and bolt, and rush pitilessly on to the end, when, lo and behold! your time is up before you well knew it had begun.

So it happened with most of the boys. With one or two, however, the holiday dragged heavily, and one of these was Master Thomas Senior.

This forlorn youth, no longer now rollicking Tom of the Fifth, but the meek and mild, and withal sulky, hopeful of the Reverend Thomas Senior, D.D., of Saint Dominic's, watched the last of his chums go off with anything but glee. He was doomed to three weeks' kicking of his heels in the empty halls and playgrounds of Saint Dominic's, with nothing to do and no one to do it with. For the boy's mother was ill, which kept the whole family at home, and Tom's baby brother, vivacious youth as he was, was hardly of a companionable age yet.

As to the Doctor (Tom, by the way, even in the bosom of his family, always thought and talked of his father as the "Doctor")--as for the Doctor, well, Tom was inclined to s.h.i.+rk the risk of more _tete-a-tetes_ than he could possibly help with so formidable a personage, even though he _was_ his own parent.

But try all he could, Tom was let in for it once, when he found himself face to face one day at dinner with the Doctor, and no third person to help him out.