by Ellen Wood
“So! it was you, Master St. Aubin, was it! You think it’s all bosh, do you, folks trying to get along who have no fortunes! It’s well for you, young gentleman, that you were ‘born with a silver spoon in your mouth.’ Don’t count upon it too much, sir, or you may find it turn to a leaden one. I am ashamed of you, boys! I thought you had better sense. I have no sons, but, if I had, I would rather turn them into the world with what they stood upright in, and the will and heart to work, than send ’em out, with twenty thousand pounds apiece. I don’t like ‘fortunes;’ I don’t put faith in them; in nine cases out of ten they do harm, not good. A lad says, ‘My father has got plenty of money to leave me, so I need not work; I need not study, I need not cultivate my talents, I need not rough it in the world as others must, who have no expectations.’ Very good. What does that scapegrace do, boys? He grows up to idleness, which you know is the root of all evil; and, for want of wholesome employment, he gets into mischief, squandering his ‘fortune’ wholesale: lucky for him if he does not soon come to the dogs; too many such do. Yah, boys! don’t get rubbishing notions about ‘fortunes’ into your heads. Thank God that he has given you hands and brains; make the best of them, and you may set fortunes at defiance. You palm yourself upon your family and fortune, St. Aubin, but you’ll live yet to see some of these your companions, who have neither, looking down upon you.”
“What I said was true enough and no harm, Mr. Turbeville,” returned St. Aubin, who was rather corky in temper. “I said fifty pounds a year, the precentor’s gift, wouldn’t keep Ord or Henley at Oxford, if either should get it. Neither would it, sir.”
“Stand forth, Ord, stand forth Henley, stand forth all you second-desk boys,” resumed the minor canon, his face deepening to a purple. “I don’t know which of you is likely to get the prize, but it’s all the same, what I am about to say. If any one of you, I am speaking individually, is all cock-a-hoop with the notion of going to Oxford as a gentleman commoner, and flourishing off, as such, at Christ Church, the fifty pounds per annum will go but a very little way; but if you choose to put your mind and shoulders to the wheel, and enter as a servitor, you’ll find it more than enough for your expenses.”
“Oh, a servitor!” cried St. Aubin, with that motion towards the skies that he was fond of giving to his nose. “Rather lowering, that would be, sir.”
“Lowering! Lowering for you, perhaps, St. Aubin, who, when brains were being given out, caught but half the average portion,” retorted the old clergyman, while the throng shrieked with laughter, and St. Aubin was nearly mad. “Boys, listen! Some of the best men in the senate, at the bar, in the church, have climbed to their height step by step, have begun by being servitors, sizars. The precentor was a servitor: what is he the worse for it? he has lived, it seems, to help some of you. The under master was a servitor, and is proud of it,” he continued, rapping his stick violently: “I have got a nephew, and he will go as a servitor, or he doesn’t go at all. Don’t tell me! Whichever of you gets the prize, let him make it suffice for his wants: he can, if he will. And when the goal is reached, and you look back on your self-denials, your early struggles, you will feel ten times more pride and satisfaction than you could do had ‘fortune’ helped you on. Go in and try, boys, all in fairness and honour; no underhand work, mind, no cribbing; and whoever gains it, let him come to me for five shillings.”
A deafening cheer, and old Mr. Turbeville knocked his stick and one foot to its time, his wide mouth expanding with good humour.
“You know all about the precentor’s intention, sir,” remarked the senior boy.
“I knew it before anybody else did, Durham,” replied Mr. Turbeville. “He consulted me about it first of all. When poor Tom was dying, he said, ‘Father, I wish I could leave the second desk something by which they’d remember me; they are good fellows, and we have been very happy together.’ ‘I’ll think of it, Tom,’ said his father. And you have heard the result. Don’t let me catch you taking up false notions about ‘fortunes’ again,” added the minor canon as he walked away. “They are beneath the foundation boys of a royal-chartered school.”
The boys tore home to dinner, and William immediately imparted the news — as of course the others did. “If I get the prize, aunt, you will give up the plan about the bank, will you not?” he asked.
Miss Ord considered a minute before she answered. “Perhaps I would, William.” She would not at present speak more decisively.
Soon the head master gave out the subjects of competition. The boys would be examined as to their respective proficiency in the ordinary school courses; besides which, each boy must write an essay in Greek, Latin, and English, the three subjects for the essays being furnished them. And it was intimated that upon the merits of the essays the point would chiefly turn.
“Those essays will floor Henley,” observed Trail to the rest of his desk, when the conditions were made known.
“He’s not as good at composition as Ord, especially in Latin.”
The desk did not agree with Trail: they thought Henley equal to Ord in composition any day. Unless it was in Latin: in that they did deem him inferior. “He’ll get help, sub rosa,” said Jones.
“He cannot do that,” haughtily spoke Durham. “Harkaway has put them all on their honour, as English gentlemen, not to use unfair means, cribs or help. I am not sure about Henley’s Latin, as Trail says: but for that, it would be a drawn battle between him and Ord.”
“Well, it’s their affair, not ours; so let them fight it out.”
CHAPTER III. THE LOCKING UP IN THE CRYPT.
IT was the middle of September, and the second desk boys, especially Ord and Henley, were working night and day for the prize. Not a boy in the school but had secret bets upon the issue, from the senior boy’s half guinea, down to the threepence of the extreme juniors — following the example set by their leaders. Ord was the chief favourite, but Henley had supporters; others also, two or three.
One unlucky Friday (if anything bad happened, out of the common, it was sure to be on a Friday, the boys were fond of saying) the second desk got into hot water with the master. Whether they had been attending too much to the essays, certain it is, their lessons that day were most imperfectly performed, even Ord’s. The Reverend Mr. Harkaway, though a good-hearted man and an excellent master, occasionally had what the school called “severe fits,” and never a more severe fit did he display than on this day. He caned their hands all round, and then set them their punishment; so many lines to learn, construe, eta It was to be done between morning and afternoon school, would take up the whole of the two hours, from one to three, leaving perhaps a space of ten minutes to snatch a bit of dinner. “I’ll teach you to brave me, I’ll teach you to bring up lessons not looked at,” reiterated he. “And now mark, sirs,” he added, bringing down his cane with a great thump on the desk, “if any one of you dares to appear here at three o’clock with his task not done, I’ll birch that boy, whoever he may be. As true as that I sit here, I’ll do it.”
One o’clock struck, and the last to leave the school was William Ord, for he had been hunting for a book which had been mislaid. As he went through the cloisters, his attention was drawn to a noise down by the entrance to the cathedral, between that and the chapter-house. A few of the juniors of the lower school appeared to have collected there.
“Oh, if you please, come and part Winn and Powel, junior,” shrieked out a youngster, running up to him, all excitement “They are fighting, and Winn has got Powel down, and is kicking him. Come and see, please.”
Down the cloisters ran William. The two boys were on the ground, struggling, crying, and kicking, while a third, little Stephens, was urging them on. A very imp of mischief was that young Stephens; careless, daring, impudent: and yet the school could not help liking the little chap. He was from the country, had just lost both father and mother, and was now placed in lodgings in Elchester that he might attend the college school.
Almost side by side with William, as he went
along, there came out of the chapter-house the Reverend Mr. Knox, one of the prebendaries. Spectacles on nose, he saw not a pile of caps, over which Stephens was keeping guard, stepped amongst them, and nearly fell. Catching hold of a projecting point of the cloister wall he saved himself, but his face came in contact with it, and his spectacles fell off and were broken. Now, what did that wretched little Stephens do? He laughed: put his hands impudently on his hips, and laughed out loud in the canon’s face. Little notion had he of the exceeding awe with which the dean and chapter were held by the boys, of the deference paid to them; Her Majesty herself receives no greater submission of manner, than did the prebends of Elchester from the college boys. Stephens was fresh (seven weeks, or so, back) from his late father’s farm, and Stephens was incorrigible.
Mr. Knox caught hold of him: he was a most passionate man, though sufficiently pleasant with the boys in general, when he came in contact with them. “How dare you laugh?” he uttered.
“I laughed at you,” grinned Stephens, with what the canon took for deliberate insolence; as any one else, not knowing the young imp’s nature, would have taken it for. “I thought you were going to measure your length on the gravestones: wish you had.”
The rest of the youngsters, terrified out of their senses, turned tail and sidled off; the two brave combatants, forgetting hostilities, gathered themselves softly up and followed them. William Ord felt that he should like to do the same. Mr. Knox was nearly black with rage, and stuttered as he brought his words out.
“Are you a senior?” he asked of William. For it was customary to send complaints to the head master by seniors only.
“No, sir.”
“What is this fellow’s name?”
“It’s Bob Stephens, if you want to know it,” struck in that undaunted gentleman, before William Ord could answer. — .
The canon foamed. And at that moment one of the sextons appeared at the college door in his black gown, keys in hand, looking out to see what the noise was. Sextons as they are termed; but their office consists in showing the congregation into pews on Sundays, and showing the cathedral to strangers on a week day. Mr. Knox beckoned to the man, and motioned him to take Stephens in charge.
“Take this wicked boy, and lock him up in the crypt.”
“Sir?” returned the sexton, startled.
“Don’t you hear me!” passionately demanded the prebend. “Lock this boy in the crypt, and keep him there until I give you orders to release him.”
There might be no appeal against the mandate of one of the chapter, and the sexton drew Stephens with him into the cathedral. The canon walked away with slow and stately step, carrying his damaged glasses. William waited till he was out of the cloisters, and then hastened into the cathedral after the culprit. But, by that time, he and the sexton were down the steps, close to the death-vault. Stephens had made no resistance; seemed, in fact, rather to make a joke of the affair. William followed them down the cold dark steps. At the foot of the steps was an iron gate, then a dark passage, and then came the iron door of the crypt. Stephens was already in, and the sexton back at the second gate, which he was locking behind him. William laid his hand upon the man’s arm in agitated excitement.
“Oh, Bryant, you never will leave him there!” he uttered.
“What else am I to do, Master Ord? I can’t help myself.”
“But to keep him locked up with the coffins! with the dead! It — it may drive him mad.”
“I know it’s a shocking thing; it’s not right,” replied the man. “It would about kill some boys, and that’s the fact.”
“Bryant, don’t leave him!” panted William. “Let him out, for the love of God!”
“Now you look here, sir. You know that whatever a prebend commands, we must obey, and no shuffling. I should like to catch myself running counter to old Knox: why, the college wouldn’t hold him, and I should lose my place.”
“But if Stephens should become an idiot for life! Such things have been heard of.”
“It won’t be my fault,” returned the man. “I can’t help myself, I say. What did he do, to provoke the prebend like this?”
“Oh, he was very bad, very insolent; I don’t excuse him. — But to leave him there with the dead bodies is awful: it’s wicked. Stephens,” he added, raising his voice to a high pitch, “can you hear me?”
“Halloa!” responded Stephens, his voice coming with an echo along the passage.
“Bryant, I shall stop here and call out to him. It may keep terror away.”
“Then you’ll just do nothing of the sort, Master Ord. Why, that would be nearly as bad as releasing the lad! I tell you I am not going to get into trouble with Mr. Knox.”
“You have got children of your own, Bryant: how should you like for one of them to be locked up in the crypt, and left alone there?”
“Come, don’t talk nonsense,” was Bryant’s answer, for the question brought the horror of the transaction more palpably home to him. “Mine would never come out alive: they are precious young cowards; believing in ghosts and all that sort of stuff.”
“And yet you would leave Stephens! Suppose, when you come to release him, you find him dead?”
“Not he:” but the man evidently did not feel over comfortable. “He is a young dare-devil, is that Stephens, and nothing better.”
“But some of these dare-alls, in ordinary life, turn out to be the worst cowards, if exposed to terror. Bryant, it’s of no use; I can’t leave him there alone; if anything bad come of it, I should have it on my conscience all my life. You let me stop here, and I’ll keep calling out to him.”
“But I tell you I dare not.”
“It cannot bring you blame. I pass you my word that I will never let it be known to any one.”
The sexton wavered. “Suppose Mr. Knox should take it in his head to come?”
“Now, is it likely? As if he would come down to the crypt!”
“And where’s the good of it? I don’t believe your being here will do him one bit of service, with that long dark passage between you.”
“You might as well let me into the passage, Bryant. And then I could go nearly close to him.”
“You’ll be asking to be put in the crypt with him next,” irascibly returned the man. “That’s just like you college gents: give you an inch, and you’ll take an ell. To let you stop here is risking my post, should it ever come out to Mr. Knox.”
“It won’t come out. I have given you my word; and Stephens will be quiet about it, out of gratitude to you.”
Bryant said no more, but began to ascend the stairs, and when he arrived at the top, locked the door safely. So that Stephens was locked in the crypt, and William Ord locked in on the narrow staircase, the passage and the two locked iron gates being between the boys. It was anything but a pleasant situation for either; cold, dark, damp; and smelling of the earth.
Did William Ord forget the task set him by the head master? No: it had been present to his mind during the whole of the colloquy with Bryant. But, like a brave, humane boy as he was, brave in the cause of right, he resolved to endure the birching, rather than abandon poor little Stephens. He had never had a flogging, and he was nearly the only boy in the school who could make the boast; and to endure the shame of one would be a bitter pill to swallow. “But,” thought he, “Stephens might go mad, or die: should I count the ill of a flogging against that?”
“Are you afraid, Stephens?” ho called out, as soon as Bryant had locked the staircase door.
“Not much,” came the answer back. “I’m going to count the coffins.”
“All’s right: there’s no fear. I am going to stop here with you, Stephens.”
“That’s jolly! I say, didn’t that fat old parson go thump with his spectacles?”
“Don’t you speak in that way,” bawled out William. “You will be sure to get expelled.”
“Hope I shall: I hate school learning. I wish I was back at the farm: uncle lives at it now.”
“
How had you used to spend your time all day? Tell me about it. Pitch your voice high, or I can’t hear.” Little Stephens went into the narrative, and grew absorbed in it. Precisely what William wished, for it kept him from superstitious fears. And thus two hours passed away.
Three o’clock struck, and the college-bell tolled out for service. Bryant, leaving the pews, nearly empty on a week-day, to the care of the under sexton, went sauntering up the cloisters, keys in hand, about the time he knew the prebends would be assembling in the chapter-house. Mr. Knox was sure to be one; for it was he who was in residence: and, when a prebend was taking what was called his close residence, he was regular in his attendance at daily service in the cathedral The bait took. Mr. Knox, in his surplice and hood, his trencher on his head, entered the cloisters by the south door. Bryant touched his hair by way of salute, and Mr. Knox’s eyes fell upon him.
“You may release that boy now, Bryant.”
Glad enough was Bryant to obey, for he had been upon thorns all along. First, touching the mental and physical state of Master Stephens; secondly, lest young Ord’s share in the business should be known. “Now, you be off out of here first,” he said, when he descended the stairs and came to Ord. “I am going to unlock him, and I won’t have you both go out together.”
“Has Knox given orders for his release?” eagerly asked William.
“What a stupid question, Master Ord! As if I should dare to release him without orders!”
William ascended the stairs to the body of the cathedral, and for a few moments had to keep his eyes shut, so dazzling was the day-light after the darkness. The sexton went on, and unlocked the crypt, door.
“Well,” quoth he to Stephens, “have you enjoyed yourself.”