by Ellen Wood
“Is Bill Ord at home?”
“All right, Jones; come in,” he called out, for he recognised the voice.
“Well, old fellow! and how are you getting on?” demanded Jones, as he brought his great body inside the room. “How precious hard you are working for this prize!”
“I must, if I am to stand a chance of gaining it,” replied William. “Fred Henley is working quite as hard. I have completed the Latin and English essays, and I’m about the Greek one now. I am backward with that, but I shall get it done.”
“How many nights have you sat up?”
“Not one entire night, but a great many times till one and two in the morning. I’ll tell you how I did. I began with the English essay and wrote it out in the rough, altered, corrected it, and wrote it fairly. Then I put it by, and Went to the Latin, and did just the same by that. Then I turned back to the English, and you’d be surprised how much I found to alter and correct again, only in those few days; and then back to the Latin again. I wrote both of them over four times; and I think they are as good now as my abilities will make them.”
“But what a thundering trouble!” ejaculated Jones, with his mouth open.
“I don’t mind trouble: I thought of the stake. I hope I shall do as well by the Greek, but it’s harder work.”
“Ord,” said Jones, leaning forward and speaking in a low tone, “I’ll give you a lift with the Greek. Not a soul will know it; I’ll never split. You deserve to get the prize, if it’s only to pay off Henley for keeping up the ball about that half-sovereign. I’ll do the whole essay for you, and you can copy it out.”
William did not speak for a few moments, and then he looked at Jones with a pleasant smile. “You mean kindly, I know; mean serving me: but I fear it would do me harm in the end; not good.”
“What are you driving at now?” asked Jones, not comprehending.
“Well, Jones, I’ll speak out. You know we are all, the second class, trying for this prize, and to some of us it would be a very great boon. But we are only allowed to try for it in a just way; it must be all our own work, every letter of it; and, you see, if anybody helped us, it would be a sort of fraud. Instead of bringing us luck, it would bring us just the contrary. I know it would.”
Jones could not understand this kind of reasoning at all. “Look here, Bill,” said he; “suppose I did your Greek essay, it would be a deal better done than you could do it, for you know there’s not one in the first class better up in Greek than I am. Well, and suppose that good essay, in conjunction with your other things, gained you the prize, wouldn’t that be good luck?”
William shook his head. “If it did bring me the prize, it would never prosper me in the long run. It couldn’t. Unfair dealing cannot prosper.”
“Why not? Nobody would know it was unfair, I say.”
“Oh, yes, they would, Jones. One who rules and directs everything would know it.”
“I say, Ord, don’t talk moonshine. As if little rubbishing trifles were — were — noticed up there!”
“Everything that we do, the most trivial action, the slightest thought, is noticed and known. And, as we strive to do right in single-heartedness, committing our cause to Him, so shall we be prospered.”
“You think so!”
“Think! I have known it all my life, Jones; and it grows plainer to me day by day. The wonder to me is, that the whole world does not see it.”
Jones was biting the feather of a quill pen which he had picked up, looking half-comical, half-serious. “I suppose you flap down on your knees every night, and pray that the prize may be yours?” quoth he.
“Not precisely. I pray that it may be mine, if it shall be Gods good will to give it me; if He shall see that it be well for me. I am quite easy whichever way it may turn out. If I lose it, I shall still know that it is His will, and therefore must be for the best.”
Jones paused. “Then you won’t accept my offer? I came down on purpose to make it, Ord.”
William laughed. “Would it be to my interest to accept it, believing what I have said?”
“Well, don’t go and split that I made it. Harkaway might hoist me, six feet though I am.”
“You never need fear my splitting about anything, Jones, and I thank you for your kind feeling,” replied William, putting his hand into Jones’s, and looking into his eyes with his own sincere ones.
“He’s a rum un, is that Bill Ord,” was Mr. Jones’s mental comment as he decamped. “But he’s a sterling fellow at bottom, blest if he isn’t, and just the cut for a parson. I’ll learn to think like him when I grow to be an old man.”
Ah, my boys! Jones never did grow to be an old man; scarcely a young one. In less than two years’ time, from that, he was dead; was drowned, boating at the university.
Had it been well for him, or not, judge you, that he had learnt to think in his youth like William Ord?
CHAPTER V. THE AWARDING OF THE PRIZE.
You have heard the old saying, that rumour gathers strength as it flies: very much indeed does it gather, especially if it be evil rumour. Before the week came, in which the prize was to be decided, the ill-feeling against William Ord, touching the loss of the porter’s money, had grown to a height unparalleled in the school, and three parts of the boys simultaneously shunned him.
Michaelmas day fell that year upon a Saturday, and the essays of the boys were to be given in to the head master on the Saturday or Monday previous. Three or four brought them on the Saturday morning at the ten o’clock school, the rest would not bring them until Monday. Each essay was separate in itself, and the three were enclosed in a clean sheet of paper, on which was written outside, “Latin, Greek, and English Prize Essays. William Ord or whatever the respective name might be. William was one who brought in his; and soon after Mr. Harkaway came in, he took them up to his desk.
“Oh!” said the master, “the essays. Have you all brought them?”
“No, sir, only four of us. I, and Jackson, and Perry, and Blake, senior. The others will be in on Monday morning.”
“Well then, I think,” said the master, speaking somewhat hesitatingly, “that I won’t take any of them until Monday. You can put them in your desk, Ord, and I will receive them altogether on Monday.”
The boys did as they were told, and left their essays in the school desk. At one o’clock, as William was running home, he heard a voice calling to him. It was that of the senior boy.
“What a hurry you are in, Ord! I want a word with you. I say, you are aware of this prejudice that has arisen against you in the school?”
“Of course I am. I have no peace in my life. They chalk my jacket, and throw ink over my books, and steal my themes; all sorts of petty annoyances they are up to. Yesterday, half-a-dozen of them hissed me in High Street. I shall live it down, Durham.”
“Yes, I don’t doubt that,” returned Durham in his lazy way: “but it’s thundering unlucky it should have happened just now, because it does not give you fair play. I heard a word dropped this morning that Parker had been influenced against you: I heard it said that if your scholastic merits earned the prize, Parker would not award it you, but pass you over, and give it to the next best.” Something very like ice shot through William’s heart. “Where did you hear this, Durham?”
“That’s my business. It was from a friend of yours, not an enemy; at least, a friend so far as that he has not joined the cabal against you. He heard it mentioned, he did not know that it was correct, neither do I; I give it you only as it was given to me. I thought I’d tell you, that you may not be overpowered with disappointment when the time comes. With fair play, no prejudice, and no favour, I fancy you would have been the lucky one.”
“It’s a cruel thing,” cried William, speaking excitedly, “that he who really took the money does not come forward and exonerate me.”
“So it is,” acquiesced Durham, “if any one of the fellows did take it; but I can’t bring myself to swallow that. Why, Elchester School would never hold up
its head again. I’d cut it, I know that.”
“Harkaway would expel him.”
“Be shot to expelling! That would not pay him out. He ought to be hoisted up to one of the college pinnacles, and left there till his bones whitened in the sun.”
Durham turned off, as he spoke, towards the head master’s, in a hurry for his dinner, and William went home, gloomily enough. The information seemed to have bowed his spirit down to the very dust, and, but for one thing, he would have given way to hopeless and bitter despair. What was that thing? I wish you had it, boys: his sure reliance upon God. Depression he could not help; but there lay his anchor.
William debated a question with himself that day, and at length came to a resolution. In the evening he went up to St. Matthew’s vicarage, where Mr, Henley, who was curate of the parish, resided; the vicar living at another incumbency at some distance.
“Is Fred in?”
Fred’s young brother came running from the parlour as the question was asked. “Fred’s in his bedroom,” quoth he, “up to his ears in his lessons, and he won’t let any of us go near him; he’ll give us a tanning if we do.”
“Just tell, him I want to speak with him, Charlie. I won’t hinder him two minutes.”
The result was, that William was allowed to go up. Fred sat before a table, busy with his Latin essay. “I left the Latin till the last,” he remarked, “and shall soon have finished it. There’s not above a dozen lines more, and then all will be done. I think it’s good,” he added, as he looked down at it with complacency. “I think it will take the shine out of some of ‘em; perhaps out of yours.”
“Henley, I came up to say a word to you about this persecution that’s going on against me,” began William, sitting down opposite to him. “It “was told to me to-day that it is likely to influence the awarding of the prize; that if I deserve it by merit I shall not get it. Don’t you think that’s too bad?”
Henley raised his eyebrows in a cavalier sort of manner.
“It would be too bad if you were innocent, but—”
“Stop!” thundered William. “You don’t think me guilty?”
Henley’s eyes flashed “I believe you guilty, from my very soul.”
“Henley, Henley! it is you who are guilty,” he returned impressively, his momentary anger calming down. “You have been the chief one to raise this flame against me — to fan it, at all events. How could you do so? knowing that it was you, and you only, who went into Dade’s lodge that night.”
“How then! what do you mean?” demanded Henley, turning as red as a turkey-cock.
“I saw you.”
“You didn’t.”
“I did. And I have kept it from everybody, never suffering a hint of it to escape me; bearing the brunt of the ill-feeling which ought to have been directed to you. As I stood against the wall that night, I saw a college boy in his trencher come rushing up, go into the lodge, and come out again. It was too dusk to distinguish clearly, but it looked like you; in short, Henley, it was you, there’s no doubt, and it’s of no use your denying it to me. How, if you possess a spark of manly feeling, you will declare this, and move this unjust suspicion away from me. As to the money, if you did take it—”
“It’s a lie,” burst forth Henley, “I never touched the money.”
“Do you deny that it was you who went in?”
“Ho, I don’t deny it; and what possessed me to be such a fool, as not to acknowledge it at the time, I don’t know; I have been in a passion with myself ever since. It happened in this way. When we came out of school that afternoon — which was the afternoon you got the flogging — do you remember?”
“I am not likely to forget,” was William’s answer.
“We stopped awhile, some of us, in the cloisters, talking it over, and then Green, senior, called out, ‘Let’s go in fur a round at “who’s the strongest?” in front of the cathedral,’ and we tore off. I was last, some yards behind the rest, and just before I came to old Dade’s I dropped my gradus, which I was carrying home. ‘Bother the thing!’ said I, and I pitched it on to Dade’s table and told him to take care of it. The game was over in an hour, and I ran sweating home, swallowed down my tea, and got to my lessons. Then I remembered my gradus, and had to go back for it. I rushed into the lodge, as you say, took up the book, and rushed out again; and if it was the last word I had to speak, if I knew I was going to die next minute, I’d swear that I never saw any money or canvas bag at all, and I don’t believe any was there. I don’t believe there was a thing on the table, but my book. There!”
“Why did you help on the suspicion against me?” asked William.
“Look here. I knew I had not taken it, but I knew if it came out that it was I who had been in the lodge, suspicion would fall upon me, especially as I had not openly declared at first that it was I. Naturally I felt a feeling of resentment against the fellow who had taken it, feeling that he ought to be posted, and so exonerate the rest of us. Who could I suppose it to have been, but you? None of the others were near the lodge.”
“I was no nearer than the outside. I never went in. The idea of my pilfering money! I don’t believe you thought it, Henley.”
“I swear I did, then. There was that half-sovereign, you know. Who could have had it, if you didn’t?”
“Nay, I say, who could have taken it if you didn’t?”
“Do you think I did now?” fired Henley.
“No, I don’t. I think you have told me the truth. Will you be generous, Fred, and so far do me justice, by telling this to the master and Mr. Parker?”
“Oh, I’m blest, though,” returned Henley, going red again. “I can’t, Ord; they’d say at once that I was guilty. I wish I hadn’t been such a torn-fool as to be silent at the time, but I’m not going to speak now. If anybody says that this affair is to influence the decision, I don’t believe it — not a word of it. It’s not likely. I say, mind, I have told you this in confidence, and you can’t in honour repeat it again.”
“No! If you are not generous, I will be. Harkaway pressed me to say what fellow it was I saw going into the lodge, but I refused. Good-night, Henley.”
On the following day, Sunday, at eight o’clock, the boys attended early prayers in the cathedral as usual The second service began at a quarter past eleven; and, as the clock struck eleven, the king’s scholars were marching along the cloisters to take their places — Durham, having locked up the schoolroom, bearing the keys in his hand. At that moment, in rushed Fred Henley, in a white heat; he made his way to the senior boy who walked last.
“I say, Durham, let me have the keys, that I may get my surplice. Don’t be ill-natured.”
“It’s against the rule. You are late.’
“A rule that the senior may break if he pleases. Come, it’s not often I have asked the favour. Our clock at home was wrong.”
Durham, one of the best seniors that the school had ever known, too much the gentleman to be a tyrant, lent him the keys, and Henley went to the schoolroom; but he was full ten minutes before he came in to college. His place was on the senior or decani side, and, as he passed Durham, he slipped the keys noiselessly into his hand.
“What a time you have been!” whispered Jackson, next to whom he sat.
“I have been hunting for my prayer-book, and can’t find it. I know there’ll be a row if Harkaway twigs me; he always makes one, if he sees us looking over each other’s books.”
Monday, the next day, the boys’ different essays were given in. As William was limping towards home, past the elm-trees, he encountered Parson Turbeville.
“Halloa, Ord! you look down-hearted. What’s the matter?”
“Do I, sir? Oh, it’s nothing.”
“Anything amiss with the essays? Won’t they get on?”
“They are all right, sir, so far as that goes. They are all gone in.”
“Are yours all right?” proceeded the old parson. “Standing on end with talent, eh?”
William smiled. “ I don’t
think they are badly done, sir; but if they were found able enough to have come from a University man who had gained his double — first, it seems that they are not to win the prize.”
“How’s that?” asked Mr. Turbeville.
William told him the whole history — all — even how he obtained the half-sovereign; omitting only the mention of Henley in the matter.
“Boy! you did not take the money!”
It was a cruel question; at least William felt it to be one, coming from Mr. Turbeville, whom he greatly respected and liked. The tears rose to his eyes, and twinkled on their lashes, as he turned them full on the clergyman.
“Sir! I would not wrong anybody of a pin.”
“Who said you would?’ returned the old gentleman, bringing down his stick with a bang. “ I didn’t put it as a question; I’m sure you would not; but I should like to ask why you are fearful, knowing your own innocence. A clear conscience need fear nothing. Go home, Ord, and sleep well. As to the precentor, had’ he meant to pass you over from any such cause, I should have heard of it: we were talking over Dade’s loss only this morning, and I am sure the precentor casts no suspicion to you. Durham vows it was no college boy, and I agree with him.”
But, in spite of Mr. Turbeville’s words, William’s spirits would not cheer up. Henley maintained a silence now, but the rest were more fierce upon him than ever.
Saturday dawned — Michaelmas day. Being a saint’s day, the college school had holiday, as was customary — the king’s scholars attending prayers in the cathedral at ten o’clock. At eleven, the boys trooped back to the schoolroom, not to take off their surplices, — those, they were to wear during the examination. William was nearly the last to enter, and a partial hiss greeted him.
“Let’s give him some chaff,” whispered St. Aubin. “Ord, have you ordered a glass case to put the crown prize in?”
“Because you’re sure to get it, you know — over the left.”‘
“Oh, bother chaff!” cried an ill-tempered boy, Green, senior. “You are a big idiot, Bill Ord, for not withdrawing from the competition. You know you can’t win; you have got no friends now, and there’ll be no consideration shown you.”