There is a queer elasticity about boys which no one, least of all themselves, can account for. A quarter of an hour after the big practice had begun Stephen had forgotten all about his examination, and could think of nothing but cricket.
As he sat cross-legged on the grass among half a dozen youngsters like himself, he even began to forget that he was a new boy, and was surprised to find himself holding familiar converse with one and another of his companions.
“Well bowled, sir!” shouted Master Paul, as a very swift ball from Ricketts took Bullinger’s middle stump clean out of the ground—“rattling well bowled! I say,” he added, turning round; “if Ricketts bowls like that to-day week, the others will be nowhere.”
“Oh,” said Stephen, to whom this remark seemed to be addressed.
Master Paul looked sharply round.
“Hullo, young ’un, is that you? Jolly good play, isn’t it? Who are you for, A or Z?”
“What do you mean?”
“Mean? Do you back the A’s or the Z’s? that’s what I mean. Oh, I suppose you don’t twig, though. A to M, you know, against N to Z.”
“Oh,” said Stephen, “I back the A to M’s, of course; my brother is in that half.”
“So he is—isn’t that him going in now? Yes; you see if Ricketts doesn’t get him out in the first over!”
Stephen watched most eagerly and anxiously. They were not playing a regular game, only standing up to be bowled at in front of the nets, or fielding at fixed places; but each ball, and each hit, and each piece of fielding, was watched and applauded, as if a victory depended on it, for out of those playing to-day the two elevens for the Alphabet match were to be chosen; and out of those two elevens, as every one knew, the School eleven, which would play the County in June, was to be selected. Oliver, despite Paul’s prophecy, stood out several overs of Ricketts’, and Loman’s, and the school captain’s, one after the other, cutting some of their balls very hard, and keeping a very steady guard over his wicket. At last a ball of Loman’s got past him and snicked off his bails.
Stephen looked inquiringly round at Paul, and then at the small knot of Sixth fellows who were making notes of each candidate’s play.
“He’s all right,” said Paul; “I guess Raleigh,” (that was the school captain) “didn’t fancy his balls being licked about like that. Never mind—there goes Braddy in.”
And so the practice went on, each candidate for the honour of a place in the eleven submitting to the ordeal, and being applauded or despised according as he acquitted himself. Wraysford, of course, came out of the trial well, as he always did.
“I declare, the Fifth could lick the Sixth this year, Tom,” said Pembury to Tom Senior, as they sat together looking on.
“I’m sure they could; I hope we challenge them.”
Just then a Sixth Form fellow strolled up to where the speakers were standing.
“I say, Loman,” said Pembury, “we were just saying our men could lick yours all to fits. Don’t you think so yourself?”
“Can’t say I do; but you are such a wonderful lot of heroes, you Fifth, that there’s no saying what you couldn’t do if you tried,” replied Loman, with a sneer.
“But you take such precious good care we shall not try, that’s just it,” said Pembury, winking at his companion. “Never mind, we’ll astonish you some day,” growled the editor of the Dominican as he hobbled away.
Loman strolled up to where the small boys were sitting.
“Which of you is young Greenfield?” he said.
“I am,” said Stephen, promptly.
“Run with this letter to the post, then, and bring me back some stamps while you are there, and get tea ready for two in my study by half-past six—do you hear?”
And off he went, leaving Stephen gaping at the letter in his hand, and quite bewildered as to the orders about tea.
Master Paul enjoyed his perplexity.
“I suppose you thought you were going to get off fagging. I say, you’ll have to take that letter sharp, or you’ll be late.”
“Where’s the post-office?”
“About a mile down Maltby Road. Look here, as you are going there, get me a pound of raisins, will you?—there’s a good chap. We’ll square up to-night.”
Stephen got up and started on his errands in great disgust.
He didn’t see why he was to be ordered about and sent jobs for the other boys, just at a time, too, when he was enjoying himself. However, it couldn’t be helped.
Three or four fellows stopped him as he walked with the letter in his hand to the gates.
“Oh, are you going to the post? Look here, young ’un, just call in at Splicer’s about my bat, will you? thanks awfully!” said one.
Another wanted him to buy a sixpenny novel at the library; a third commissioned him to invest threepence in “mixed sweets, chiefly peppermint”; and a fourth to call at Grounding, the naturalist’s, with a dead white mouse which the owner wanted stuffed.
After this, Stephen—already becoming a little more knowing—stuffed the letter in his pocket, and took care, if ever he passed any one, not to look as if he was going anywhere, for fear of being entrusted with a further mission.
He discharged all his errands to the best of his ability, including that relating to the dead mouse, which he had great difficulty in rescuing from the clutches of a hungry dog on the way down, and then returned with Paul’s raisins in one pocket, the mixed sweets in another, the book in another, and the other boy’s bat over his shoulder.
Paul was awaiting him at the gate of Saint Dominic’s.
“Got them?” he shouted out, when Stephen was still twenty yards off.
Stephen nodded.
“How much?” inquired Paul.
“Eighteen-pence.”
“You duffer! I didn’t mean them—pudding raisins I meant, about sixpence. I say, you’d better take them back, hadn’t you?”
This was gratitude! “I can’t now,” said Stephen. “I’ve got to get somebody’s tea ready—I say, where’s his study?”
“Whose? Loman’s? Oh, it’s about the eighth on the right in the third passage; next to the one with the kicks on it. What a young muff you are to get this kind of raisin! I say, you’d have plenty of time to change them.”
“I really wouldn’t,” said Stephen, hurrying off, and perhaps guessing that before he met Mr. Paul again the raisins would be past changing.
The boy to whom belonged the mixed sweets was no more grateful than Paul had been.
“You’ve chosen the very ones I hate,” he said, surveying the selection with a look of disgust.
“You said peppermint,” said Stephen.
“But I didn’t say green, beastly things!” grumbled the other. “Here, you can have one of them, it’s sure to make you sick!”
Stephen said “Thank you,” and went off to deliver up the bat.
“What a time you’ve been!” was all the thanks he got in that quarter. “Why couldn’t you come straight back with it?”
This was gratifying. Stephen was learning at least one lesson that afternoon—that a fag, if he ever expects to be thanked for anything he does, is greatly mistaken. He went off in a highly injured frame of mind to Loman’s study.
Master Paul’s directions might have been more explicit—“The eighth door on the right; next to the one with the kicks.” Now, as it happened, the door with the kicks on it was itself the eighth door on the right, with a study on either side of it, and which of these two was Loman’s Stephen could not by the unaided light of nature determine. He peeped into Number 7; it was empty.
“Perhaps he’s cut his name on the door,” thought Stephen.
He might have done so, but as there were about fifty different letters cut on the door, he was not much wiser for that.
“I’d better look and see if his name is on his collars,” Stephen next reflected, remembering with what care his mother had marked his own linen.
He opened a drawer; it was full of jam-pots. At that moment the door opened behind him, and the next thing Stephen was conscious of was that he was half-stunned with a terrific box on the ears.
“Take that, you young thief!” said the indignant owner of the study; “I’ll teach you to stick your finger in my jam. What do you mean by it?” and a cuff served as a comma between each sentence.
“I really didn’t—I only wanted—I was looking for—”
“That’ll do; don’t tell lies as well as steal; get away.”
“I never stole anything!” began Stephen, whose confusion was being rapidly followed by indignation at this unjust suspicion.
“That’ll do. A little boy like you shouldn’t practise cheating. Off you go! If I catch you again I’ll take you to the Doctor.”
In vain Stephen, now utterly indignant, and burning with a sense of injustice, protested his innocence. He could not get a hearing, and presently found himself out in the passage, the most miserable boy in all Saint Dominic’s.
He wandered disconsolately along the corridor, trying hard to keep down his tears, and determined to beg and beseech his brother to let him return home that very evening, when Loman and a friend confronted him.
“Hullo, I say, is tea ready?” demanded the former.
“No,” said Stephen, half choking.
“Why ever not, when I told you?”
Stephen looked at him, and tried to speak, and then finally burst into tears.
“Here’s an oddity for you! Why, what’s the row, youngster?”
“Nothing,” stammered Stephen.
“That’s a queer thing to howl at. If you were weeping because you hadn’t made my tea, I could understand it. Come along, I’ll show you how to do it this time, young greenhorn.”
Stephen accompanied him mechanically, and was ushered into the study on the other side of the door with the kicks to that in which he had been so grievously wronged.
He watched Loman prepare the meal, and was then allowed to depart, with orders to be in the way, in case he should be wanted.
Poor Stephen! Things were going from bad to worse, and life was already a burden to him. And besides—that examination paper! It now suddenly dawned upon him. Here it was nearly seven o’clock, and by ten to-morrow he was to deliver it up to Dr. Senior!
How ever was he to get through it? He darted off to Oliver’s study. It was empty, and he sat down, and drawing out the paper, made a dash at the first question.
The answer wouldn’t come! Parse “Oh, ah!”
“Oh” is an interjection agreeing with “ah.”
“Ah” is an interjection agreeing with “oh.” It wouldn’t do. He must try again.
“Why,” cried the voice of Wraysford, half an hour later, “here’s a picture of industry for you, Greenfield. That young brother of yours is beginning well!”
Stephen hurriedly caught up his papers for fear any one should catch a glimpse of the hopeless attempts at answers which he had written. He was greatly tempted to ask Oliver about “Mr. Finis,” only he had promised not to get any help.
“Let’s have a look at the questions,” again demanded Oliver, but at that moment Loman’s voice sounded down the passage. “Greenfield, junior, where are you?”
Stephen, quite glad of this excuse for again refusing to show that wretched paper, jumped up, and saying, “There’s Loman wants his tea cleared away,” vanished out of the room.
Poor Stephen! There was little chance of another turn at his paper that night. By the time Loman’s wants had been attended to, and his directions for future fagging delivered, the prayer-bell rang, and for the half-hour following prayers the new boy was hauled away by Master Paul into the land of the Guinea-pigs, there to make the acquaintance of some of his future class-fellows, and to take part in a monster indignation meeting against the monitors for forbidding single wicket cricket in the passage, with a door for the wicket, an old ink-pot for the ball, and a ruler for the bat. Stephen quite boiled with rage to hear of this act of tyranny, and vowed vengeance along with all the rest twenty times over, and almost became reconciled with his enemy of the morning (but not quite) in the sympathy of emotion which this demonstration evoked.
Then, just as the memory of that awful paper rushed back into his mind, and he was meditating sneaking off to his brother’s study, the first bed-bell sounded.
“Come on,” said Paul, “or they’ll bag our blankets.”
Stephen, wondering and shivering at the bare idea, raced along the passage and up the staircase with his youthful ally to the dormitory. There they found they had been anticipated by the blanket-snatchers; and as they entered, one of these, the hero of the inky head, was deliberately abstracting one of those articles of comfort from Stephen’s own bed.
“There’s young Bramble got your blanket, Greenfield,” cried Paul, “pitch into him!”
Stephen, nothing loth, marched up to Master Bramble and demanded his blanket. A general engagement ensued, some of the inhabitants of the dormitory siding with Stephen, and some with Bramble, until it seemed as if the coveted blanket would have parted in twain. In the midst of the confusion a sentry at the door suddenly put his head in and shouted “Nix!” The signal had a magical effect on all but the uninitiated Stephen, who, profiting by his adversaries’ surprise, made one desperate tug at his blanket, which he triumphantly rescued.
“Look sharp,” said Paul, “here comes Rastle.”
Mr. Rastle was the small boys’ tutor and governor. Stephen took the hint, and was very soon curled up, with his brave blanket round him, in bed, where, despite the despairing thought of his paper, the cruel injustice of the owner of the jam-pots, and the general hardness of his lot, he could not help feeling he was a good deal more at home at Saint Dominic’s than he had ever yet found himself.
Of one thing he was determined. He would be up at six next morning, and make one last desperate dash at his examination paper.