The Channings. Henry Wood

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СКАЧАТЬ with several shades of colour, blue, green, and yellow, the result of the previous day’s pugilistic encounter: “my brother Roland heard the master say he suspected one of the seniors.”

      Arthur Channing looked inquiringly at Gaunt. The latter tossed his head haughtily. “Roland Yorke must have made some mistake,” he observed to Arthur. “It is perfectly out of the question that the master can suspect a senior. I can’t imagine where the school could have picked up the notion.”

      Gaunt was standing with Arthur, as he spoke, and the three seniors, Channing, Huntley, and Yorke, happened to be in a line facing them. Arthur regarded them one by one. “You don’t look very like committing such a thing as that, any one of you,” he laughed. “It is curious where the notion can have come from.”

      “Such absurdity!” ejaculated Gerald Yorke. “As if it were likely Pye would suspect one of us seniors! It’s not credible.”

      “Not at all credible that you would do it,” said Arthur. “Had it been the result of accident, of course you would have hastened to declare it, any one of you three.”

      As Arthur spoke, he involuntarily turned his eyes on the sea of faces behind the three seniors, as if searching for signs in some countenance among them, by which he might recognize the culprit.

      “My goodness!” uttered the senior boy, to Arthur. “Had any one of those three done such a thing—accident or no accident—and not declared it, he’d get his name struck off the rolls. A junior may be pardoned for things that a senior cannot.”

      “Besides, there’d be the losing his chance of the seniorship, and of the exhibition,” cried one from the throng of boys in the rear.

      “How are you progressing for the seniorship?” asked Arthur, of the three. “Which of you stands the best chance?”

      “I think Channing does,” freely spoke up Harry Huntley.

      “Why?”

      “Because our progress is so equal that I don’t think one will get ahead of another, so that the choice cannot be made that way; and Channing’s name stands first on the rolls.”

      “Who is to know if they’ll give us fair play and no humbug?’ said Tom Channing.

      “If they do, it will be what they have never given yet!” exclaimed Stephen Bywater. “Kissing goes by favour.”

      “Ah, but I heard that the dean—”

      At this moment a boy dashed into the throng, scattering it right and left. “Where are your eyes?” he whispered.

      Close upon them was the dean. Arm in arm with him, in his hat and apron, walked the Bishop of Helstonleigh. The boys stood aside and took off their trenchers. The dean merely raised his hand in response to the salutation—he appeared to be deep in thought; but the bishop nodded freely among them.

      “I heard that the dean found fault, the last time the exhibition fell, and said favour should never be shown again, so long as he was Dean of Helstonleigh,” said Harry Huntley, when the clergy were beyond hearing, continuing the sentence he had been interrupted in. “I say that, with fair play, it will be Channing’s; failing Channing, it will be mine; failing me, it will be Yorke’s.”

      “Now, then!” retorted Gerald Yorke. “Why should you have the chance before me, pray?”

      Huntley laughed. “Only that my name heads yours on the rolls.”

      Once in three years there fell an exhibition for Helstonleigh College school, to send a boy to Oxford. It would be due the following Easter. Gaunt declined to compete for it; he would leave the school at Michaelmas; and it was a pretty generally understood thing that whichever of the three mentioned boys should be appointed senior in his place, would be presented with the exhibition. Channing and Yorke most ardently desired to gain it; both of them from the same motive—want of funds at home to take them to the university. If Tom Channing did not gain it, he was making up his mind to pocket pride, and go as a servitor. Yorke would not have done such a thing for the world; all the proud Yorke blood would be up in arms, at one of their name appearing as a servitor at Oxford. No. If Gerald Yorke should lose the exhibition, Lady Augusta must manage to screw out funds to send him. He and Tom Channing were alike designed for the Church. Harry Huntley had no such need: the son of a gentleman of good property, the exhibition was of little moment to him, in a pecuniary point of view; indeed, a doubt had been whispered amongst the boys, whether Mr. Huntley would allow Harry to take advantage of it, if he did gain it, for he was a liberal-minded and just man. Harry, of course, desired to be the successful one, for fame’s sake, just as ardently as did Channing and Yorke.

      “I’m blessed if here isn’t that renowned functionary, Jack Ketch!”

      The exclamation came from young Galloway. Limping in at one of the cloister doors, came the cloister porter, a surly man of sixty, whose temper was not improved by periodical attacks of lumbago. He and the college boys were open enemies. The porter would have rejoiced in denying them the cloisters altogether; and nothing had gladdened his grim old heart like the discussion which was said to have taken place between the dean and chapter, concerning the propriety of shutting out the boys and their noise from the cloisters, as a playground. He bore an unfortunate name—Ketch—and the boys, you may be very sure, did not fail to take advantage of it, joining to it sundry embellishments, more pointed than polite.

      He came up, a ragged gig-whip in his hand, which he was fond of smacking round the throng of boys. He had never yet ventured to touch one of them, and perhaps it was just as well for him that he had not.

      “Now, you boys! be off, with your hullabaloo! Is this a decent noise to make around gentlefolks’ doors? You don’t know, may be, as Dr. Burrows is in town.”

      Dr. Burrows happened to live in a house which had a door opening to the cloisters. The boys retorted. The worst they gave Mr. Ketch was “chaff;” but his temper could bear anything better than that, especially if it was administered by the senior boy.

      “Dear me, who’s this?” began Gaunt, in a tone of ultra politeness. “Boys, do you see this gentleman who condescends to accost us? I really believe it is Sir John Ketch. What’s that in his hand?—a piece of rope? Surely, Mr. Ketch, you have not been turning off that unfortunate prisoner who was condemned yesterday? Rather hasty work, sir; was it not?”

      Mr. Ketch foamed. “I tell you what it is, sir. You be the senior boy, and, instead of restraining these wicked young reptiles, you edges ‘em on! Take care, young gent, as I don’t complain of you to the dean. Seniors have been hoisted afore now.”

      “Have they, really? Well, you ought to know, Mr. Calcraft. There’s the dean, just gone out of the cloisters; if you make haste, Calcraft, you’ll catch him up. Put your best foot foremost, and ask him if he won’t report Mr. Gaunt for punishment.”

      The porter could have danced with rage; and his whip was smacking ominously. He did not dare advance it too near the circle when the senior boy was present, or indeed, when any of the elder boys were.

      “How’s your lumbago, Mr. Ketch?” demanded Stephen Bywater. “I’d advise you to get rid of that, before the next time you go on duty; it might be in your way, you know. Never was such a thing heard of, as for the chief toppler-off of the three kingdoms to be disabled in his limbs! What would you do? I’m afraid you’d be obliged to resign your post, and sink into private life.”

      “Now I just vow to goodness, as I’ll do all I can to get these cloisters took from you boys,” shrieked СКАЧАТЬ