The Channings. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ “Get to it at once.”

      Roland Yorke unlocked a drawer, collected sundry parchments together, and sat down to his desk. He and Arthur had their places side by side. Mr. Galloway stood at a table, and began sorting some papers that were upon it.

      “How is Mr. Channing this morning, Arthur?”

      “Much as usual, thank you, sir. Certain news, which arrived last night, has not tended to cheer him.”

      “It is true, then?” remarked Mr. Galloway. “I heard a rumour of it.”

      “Oh, it’s true enough,” said Arthur. “It is in all the morning papers.”

      “Well, there never was a more unjust decision!” emphatically spoke Mr. Galloway. “Mark you, I am not reflecting on the Lord Chancellor’s judgment. I have always said that there were one or two nasty points in that suit, which the law might get hold of; but I know the whole cause by heart, from beginning to end; and that money was as much your father’s, as this coat, that I have on, is mine. Tell him I’ll come in one of these fine evenings, and abuse the injustice of our laws with him,—will you?”

      “Yes, sir,” replied Arthur.

      “What’s this row in the college school about a destroyed surplice, and the boys not getting their holiday through it?” resumed Mr. Galloway.

      “Oh, are they not savage!” struck in Roland Yorke. “The first thing Tod did, when he came home to breakfast, was to fling over his bowl of coffee, he was in such a passion. Lady Augusta—she came down to breakfast this morning, for a wonder—boxed his ears, and ordered him to drink water; but he went into the kitchen, and made a lot of chocolate for himself.”

      “What are the particulars? How was it done? I cannot understand it at all,” said Mr. Galloway.

      “Bywater left his clean surplice yesterday in the vestry, and some one threw ink over it—half soaked it in ink, so the choristers told Tom,” answered Arthur Channing. “In the afternoon—they had service late, you know, sir, waiting for the judges—Bywater was not in his place to sing the anthem, and Hurst sang it, and it put the master out very much.”

      “Put him out all the more that he has no one to punish for it,” laughed Roland Yorke. “Of course Bywater couldn’t appear in his stall, and sing the anthem, if he had no surplice to put on; and the master couldn’t tan him for not doing it. I know this, if it had happened while I was in the college school, I’d just have skinned some of the fellows alive, but what I’d have made them confess.”

      “Suppose you had skinned the wrong party?” cynically observed Mr. Galloway. “You are too hasty with your tongue, Roland Yorke. My nephew, Mark, ran in just now to tell me of the holiday being denied, and that was the first I had heard of the affair. Mark thinks one of the seniors was in it; not Gaunt.”

      Arthur Channing and Roland Yorke both looked up with a sharp, quick gesture. Gaunt excepted, the only senior, besides their respective brothers, was Harry Huntley.

      “It is not likely, sir,” said Arthur.

      “A senior do it!” scoffed Roland Yorke. “What a young idiot Mark Galloway must be, to think that!”

      “Mark does not seem to think much about it on his own account,” said Mr. Galloway. “He said Bywater thought so, from some cause or other; and has offered to bet the whole school that it will turn out to be a senior.”

      “Does he, though!” cried Yorke, looking puzzled. “Bywater’s a cautious fellow with his money; he never bets at random. I say, sir, what else did Galloway tell you?”

      “That was all,” replied Mr. Galloway. And if you wonder at a staid old proctor chattering about this desultory news with his clerks in business hours, it may be explained to you that Mr. Galloway took the greatest possible interest, almost a boyish interest, in the college school. It was where he had been educated himself, where his nephews were being educated; he was on intimate terms with its masters; knew every boy in it to speak to; saw them troop past his house daily in their progress to and fro; watched them in their surplices in a Sunday, during morning and afternoon service; was cognizant of their advancement, their shortcomings, their merits, and their scrapes: in fact, the head-master could not take a greater interest in the doings of the collegiate school, than did Mr. Galloway. Whether of work, or whether of gossip, his ears were ever open to listen to its records. Besides, they were not so overburdened with work in that office, but that there was ample time for discussing any news that might be agreeable to its master. His work was light; his returns were heavy; his stewardship alone brought him in several hundreds a year.

      “The Reverend Mr. Pye seems uncommonly annoyed about it, sir,” Mr. Jenkins ventured to put in. To interrupt, or take part in any conversation, was not usual with him, unless he could communicate little tit-bits of information touching the passing topic. “You are aware that Mr. Harper, the lay-clerk, lodges at our house, sir. Well, Mr. Pye came round last night, especially to question him about it.”

      “What could Harper tell?” asked Mr. Galloway.

      “He could not tell anything; except that he would answer for the lay-clerks knowing nothing of the transaction. The master said he never supposed the lay-clerks did know anything of it, but he had his reasons for putting the question. He had been to the masons, too, who are repairing the cathedral; and they declared to the master, one and all, that they had not been into the vestry yesterday, or even round to that side of the college where the vestry is situated.”

      “Why should the master take it up so pertinaciously?” wondered Roland Yorke.

      “I’m sure I don’t know, sir. He was like one in a fever, so excited over it, Harper said.”

      “Did he talk to you about it, Jenkins?” asked Mr. Galloway.

      “I did not see him, sir; it was Harper told me afterwards,” was the reply of Jenkins, as he subsided to his writing again.

      Just at this juncture, who should come in view of the window but the head-master himself. He was passing it with a quick step, when out flew Mr. Galloway, and caught him by the button. Roland Yorke, who was ever glad of a pretext for idleness, rose from his stool, and pushed his nose close up to the nearest pane, to listen to any colloquy that might ensue; but, the window being open, he might have heard without leaving his seat.

      “I hear the boys have not a holiday to-day, Pye,” began Mr. Galloway.

      “No, that they have not,” emphatically pronounced the master; “and, if they go on as they seem to be going on now, I’ll keep them without it for a twelvemonth. I believe the inking of that surplice was a concocted plan, look you, Galloway, to—”

      “To what?” asked Mr. Galloway, for the master stopped short.

      “Never mind, just yet. I have my strong suspicions as to the guilty boy, and I am doing what I can to convert them into proofs. If it be as I suspect now, I shall expel him.”

      “But what could it have been done for?” debated Mr. Galloway. “There’s no point in the thing, that I can see, to ink and damage a surplice. If the boy to whom it belonged had been inked, one might not have wondered so much.”

      “I’ll ‘point him,’” cried the master, “if I catch the right one.”

      “Could it have been one of the seniors?” returned the proctor, all his strong interest awakened.

      “It СКАЧАТЬ