The Channings Part 9

"My dear, if that is the point, I'll have a fire-escape placed over the front door every night, and pay a couple of watchmen to act as guardians. Constance!" again dropping his tone of mockery, "you know that you may trust me better than that."

"But, Hamish, how do you spend your time, that you cannot complete your books in the day?"

"Oh," drawled Hamish, "ours is the laziest office! gossiping and scandal going on in it from morning till night. In the fatigue induced by that, I am not sure that I don't take a nap, sometimes."

Constance could not tell what to make of him. He was gazing at her with the most perplexing expression of face, looking ready to burst into a laugh.

"One last word, Hamish, for I hear Judith calling to you. Are you obliged to do this night-work?"

"I am."

"Then I will say no more; and things must go on as it seems they have hitherto done."

Arthur came running upstairs, and Hamish met him at the chamber door. Arthur, who appeared strangely agitated, began speaking in a half-whisper, unconscious that his sister was within. She heard every word.

"Judy says some young man wants you, Hamis.h.!.+ I fear it may be the fellow to serve the writ. What on earth is to be done?"

"Did Judy say I was at home?"

"Yes; and has handed him into the study, to wait. Did you not hear her calling to you?"

"I can't--see him," Hamish was about to say. "Yes, I will see him," he added after a moment's reflection. "Anything rather than have a disturbance which might come to my mother's ears. And I suppose if he could not serve it now, he would watch for me in the morning."

"Shall I go down first, and hear what he has to say?"

"Arthur, boy, it would do no good. I have brought this upon myself, and must battle with it. A Channing cannot turn coward!"

"But he may act with discretion," said Arthur. "I will speak to the man, and if there's no help for it, I'll call you."

Down flew Arthur, four stairs at a time. Hamish remained with his body inside his chamber door, and his head out. I conclude he was listening; and, in the confusion, he had probably totally forgotten Constance. Arthur came bounding up the stairs again, his eyes sparkling.

"A false alarm, Hamis.h.!.+ It's only Martin Pope."

"Martin Pope!" echoed Hamish, considerably relieved, for Martin Pope was an acquaintance of his, and sub-editor of one of the Helstonleigh newspapers. "Why could not Judy have opened her mouth?"

He ran down the stairs, the colour, which had left his face, returning to it. But it did not to that of Constance; hers had changed to an ashy whiteness. Arthur saw her standing there; saw that she must have heard and understood all.

"Oh, Arthur, has it come to this? Is Hamish in that depth of debt!"

"Hus.h.!.+ What brought you here, Constance?"

"What writ is it that he fears? Is there indeed one out against him?"

"I don't know much about it. There may be one."

She wrung her hands. "The next thing to a writ is a prison, is it not? If he should be taken, what would become of the office--of papa's position?"

"Do not agitate yourself," he implored. "It can do no good."

"Nothing can do good: nothing, nothing. Oh, what trouble!"

"Constance, in the greatest trouble there is always one Refuge."

"Yes," she mentally thought, bursting into tears. "What, but for that shelter, would become of us in our bitter hours of trial?"

CHAPTER XI.

THE CLOISTER KEYS.

It was the twenty-second day of the month, and nearly a week after the date of the last chapter. Arthur Channing sat in his place at the cathedral organ, playing the psalm for the morning; for the hour was that of divine service.

"O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious: and His mercy endureth for ever!"

The boy's whole heart went up with the words. He gave thanks: mercies had come upon him--upon his; and that great dread--which was turning his days to gall, his nights to sleeplessness--the arrest of Hamish, had not as yet been attempted. He felt it all as he sat there; and, in a softer voice, he echoed the sweet song of the choristers below, verse after verse as each verse rose on the air, filling the aisles of the old cathedral: how that G.o.d delivers those who cry unto Him--those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death; those whose hearts fail through heaviness, who fall down and there is none to help them--He brings them out of the darkness, and breaks their bonds in sunder. They that go down to the sea in s.h.i.+ps, and occupy their business in great waters, who see the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep; whose hearts cower at the stormy rising of the waves, and in their agony of distress cry unto Him to help them; and He hears the cry, and delivers them. He stills the angry waves, and calms the storm, and brings them into the haven where they would be; and then they are glad, because they are at rest.

"O that men would therefore praise the Lord for His goodness: and declare the wonders that He doeth for the children of men!

"And again, when they are minished, and brought low: through oppression, through any plague or trouble; though He suffer them to be evil intreated through tyrants: and let them wander out of the way in the wilderness; yet helpeth He the poor out of misery: and maketh him households like a flock of sheep.

"Whoso is wise will ponder these things: and they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord."

The refrain died away, the gentle echo died after it, and silence fell upon the cathedral. It was broken by the voice of the Reverend William Yorke, giving out the first lesson--a chapter in Jeremiah.

At the conclusion of the service, Arthur Channing left the college. In the cloisters he was overtaken by the choristers, who were hastening back to the schoolroom. At the same moment Ketch, the porter, pa.s.sed, coming towards them from the south entrance of the cloisters. He touched his hat in his usual ungracious fas.h.i.+on to the dean and Dr. Gardner, who were turning into the chapter-house, carrying their trenchers, and looked the other way as he pa.s.sed the boys.

Arthur caught hold of Hurst. "Have you 'served out' old Ketch, as you threatened?" he laughingly asked.

"Hus.h.!.+" whispered Hurst. "It has not come off yet. We had an idea that an inkling of it had got abroad, so we thought it best to keep quiet for a few nights, lest the Philistines should be on the watch. But the time is fixed now, and I can tell you that it is not a hundred nights off."

With a shower of mysterious nods and winks, Hurst rushed away and bounded up the stairs to the schoolroom. Arthur returned to Mr. Galloway's. "It's the awfullest shame!" burst forth Tom Channing that day at dinner (and allow me to remark, _par parenthese_, that, in reading about schoolboys, you must be content to accept their grammar as it comes); and he brought the handle of his knife down upon the table in a pa.s.sion.

"Thomas!" uttered Mr. Channing, in amazed reproof.

"Well, papa, and so it is! and the school's going pretty near mad over it!" returned Tom, turning his crimsoned face upon his father. "Would you believe that I and Huntley are to be pa.s.sed over in the chance for the seniors.h.i.+p, and Yorke is to have it, without reference to merit?"

"No, I do not believe it, Tom," quietly replied Mr. Channing. "But, even were it true, it is no reason why you should break out in that unseemly manner. Did you ever know a hot temper do good to its possessor?"

"I know I am hot-tempered," confessed Tom. "I cannot help it, papa; it was born with me."

"Many of our failings were born with us, my boy, as I have always understood. But they are to be subdued; not indulged."

"Papa, you must acknowledge that it is a shame if Pye has promised the seniors.h.i.+p to Yorke, over my head and Huntley's," reiterated Tom, who was apt to speak as strongly as he thought. "If he gets the seniors.h.i.+p, the exhibition will follow; that is an understood thing. Would it be just?"

"Why are you saying this? What have you heard?"

"Well, it is a roundabout tale," answered Tom. "But the rumour in the school is this--and if it turns out to be true, Gerald Yorke will about get eaten up alive."

"Is that the rumour, Tom?" said Mrs. Channing.

Tom laughed, in spite of his anger. "I had not come to the rumour, mamma. Lady Augusta and Dr. Burrows are great friends, you know; and we hear that they have been salving over Pye--"

"Gently, Tom!" put in Mr. Channing.

"Talking over Pye, then," corrected Tom, impatient to proceed with his story; "and Pye has promised to promote Gerald Yorke to the seniors.h.i.+p. He--"

"Dr. Burrows has gone away again," interrupted Annabel. "I saw him go by to-day in his travelling carriage. Judy says he has gone to his rectory; some of the deanery servants told her so."

"You'll get something, Annabel, if you interrupt in that fas.h.i.+on," cried Tom. "Last Monday, Dr. Burrows gave a dinner-party. Pye was there, and Lady Augusta was there; and it was then they got Pye to promise it to Yorke."

"How is it known that they did?" asked Mr. Channing.

"The boys all say it, papa. It was circulating through the school this morning like wild-fire."

"You will never take the prize for logic, Tom. How did the boys hear it, I ask?"

"Through Mr. Calcraft," replied Tom.

"Tom!"

"Mr. Ketch, then," said Tom, correcting himself as he had done before. "Both names are a mile too good for him. Ketch came into contact with some of the boys this morning before ten-o'clock school, and, of course, they went into a wordy war--which is nothing new. Huntley was the only senior present, and Ketch was insolent to him. One of the boys told Ketch that he would not dare to be so, next year, if Huntley should be senior boy. Ketch sneered at that, and said Huntley never would be senior boy, nor Channing either, for it was already given to Yorke. The boys took his words up, ridiculing the notion of his knowing anything of the matter, and they did not spare their taunts. That roused his temper, and the old fellow let out all he knew. He said Lady Augusta Yorke was at Galloway's office yesterday, boasting about it before Jenkins."

"A roundabout tale, indeed!" remarked Mr. Channing; "and told in a somewhat roundabout manner, Tom. I should not put faith in it. Did you hear anything of this, Arthur?"

"No, sir. I know that Lady Augusta called at the office yesterday afternoon while I was at college. I don't know anything more."

"Huntley intends to drop across Jenkins this afternoon, and question him," resumed Tom Channing. "There can't be any doubt that it was he who gave the information to Ketch. If Huntley finds that Lady Augusta did a.s.sert it, the school will take the affair up."

The boast amused Hamish. "In what manner will the school be pleased to 'take it up?'" questioned he. "Recommend the dean to hold Mr. Pye under surveillance? Or send Lady Augusta a challenge?"

Tom Channing nodded his head mysteriously. "There is many a true word spoken in jest, Hamish. I don't know yet what we should do: we should do something. The school won't stand it tamely. The day for that one-sided sort of oppression has gone out with our grandmothers' fas.h.i.+ons."

"It would be very wrong of the school to stand it," said Charley, throwing in his word. "If the honours are to go by sneaking favour, and not by merit, where is the use of any of us putting out our mettle?"

"You be quiet, Miss Charley! you juniors have nothing to do with it," were all the thanks the boy received from Tom.

Now the facts really were very much as Tom Channing a.s.serted; though whether, or how far, Mr. Pye had promised, and whether Lady Augusta's boast had been a vain one, was a matter for speculation. Neither could it be surmised the part, if any, played in it by Prebendary Burrows. It was certain that Lady Augusta had, on the previous day, boasted to Mr. Galloway, in his office, that her son was to have the seniors.h.i.+p; that Mr. Pye had promised it to her and Dr. Burrows, at the dinner-party. She spoke of it without the least reserve, in a tone of much self-gratulation, and she laughingly told Jenkins, who was at his desk writing, that he might wish Gerald joy when he next saw him. Jenkins accepted it all as truth: it may be questioned if Mr. Galloway did, for he knew that Lady Augusta did not always weigh her words before speaking.

In the evening--this same evening, mind, after the call at the office of Lady Augusta--Mr. Jenkins proceeded towards home when he left his work. He took the road through the cloisters. As he was pa.s.sing the porter's lodge, who should he see in it but his father, old Jenkins, the bedesman, holding a gossip with Ketch; and they saw him.

"If that ain't our Joe a-going past!" exclaimed the bedesman.

Joe stepped in. He was proceeding to join in the converse, when a lot of the college boys tore along, hooting and shouting, and kicking a ball about. It was kicked into the lodge, and a few compliments were thrown at the boys by the porter, before they could get the ball out again. These compliments, you may be quite sure, the boys did not fail to return with interest: Tom Channing, in particular, being charmingly polite.

"And the saucy young beast'll be the senior boy soon!" foamed Mr. Ketch, as the lot decamped. "I wish I could get him gagged, I do!"

"No, he will not," said Joe Jenkins, speaking impulsively in his superior knowledge. "Yorke is to be senior."

"How do you know that, Joe?" asked his father.

Joe replied by relating what he had heard said by the Lady Augusta that afternoon. It did not conciliate the porter in the remotest degree: he was not more favourably inclined to Gerald Yorke than he was to Tom Channing. Had he heard the school never was to have a senior again, or a junior either, that might have pleased him.

But on the following morning, when he fell into dispute with the boys in the cloisters, he spoke out his information in a spirit of triumph over Huntley. Bit by bit, angered by the boys' taunts, he repeated every word he had heard from Jenkins. The news, as it was busily circulated from one to the other, caused no slight hubbub in the school, and gave rise to that explosion of Tom Channing's at the dinner-table.

Huntley sought Jenkins, as he had said he would do, and received confirmation of the report, so far as the man's knowledge went. But Jenkins was terribly vexed that the report had got abroad through him. He determined to pay a visit to Mr. Ketch, and reproach him with his incaution.

Mr. Ketch sat in his lodge, taking his supper: bread and cheese, and a pint of ale procured at the nearest public-house. Except in the light months of summer, it was his habit to close the cloister gates before supper-time; but as Mr. Ketch liked to take that meal early--that is to say, at eight o'clock--and, as dusk, for at least four months in the year, obstinately persisted in putting itself off to a later hour, in spite of his growling, and as he might not shut up before dusk, he had no resource but to take his supper first and lock up afterwards. The "lodge" was a quaint abode, of one room only, built in an obscure nook of the cathedral, near the grand entrance. He was pursuing his meal after his own peculiar custom: eating, drinking, and grumbling.

"It's worse nor leather, this cheese! Selling it to a body for double-Gloucester! I'd like to double them as made it. Eight-pence a pound!--and short weight beside! I wonder there ain't a law pa.s.sed to keep down the cost o' provisions!"

A pause, given chiefly to grunting, and Mr. Ketch resumed:-- "This bread's rougher nor a bear's hide! Go and ask for new, and they palms you off with stale. They'll put a loaf a week old into the oven to hot up again, and then sell it to you for new! There ought to be a criminal code pa.s.sed for hanging bakers. They're all cheats. They mixes up alum, and bone-dust, and plaster of Paris, and--Drat that door! Who's kicking at it now?"

No one was kicking. Some one was civilly knocking. The door was pushed slightly open, and the inoffensive face of Mr. Joseph Jenkins appeared in the aperture.

"I say, Mr. Ketch," began he in a mild tone of deprecation, "whatever is it that you have gone and done?"

"What d'ye mean?" growled old Ketch. "Is this a way to come and set upon a gentleman in his own house? Who taught you manners, Joe Jenkins?"

"You have been repeating what I mentioned last night about Lady Augusta's son getting the seniors.h.i.+p," said Jenkins, coming in and closing the door.

"You did say it," retorted Mr. Ketch.

"I know I did. But I did not suppose you were going to repeat it again."

"If it was a secret, why didn't you say so?" asked Mr. Ketch.

"It was not exactly a secret, or Lady Augusta would not have mentioned it before me," remonstrated Joe. "But it is not the proper thing, for me to come out of Mr. Galloway's office, and talk of anything I may have heard said in it by his friends, and then for it to get round to his ears again! Put it to yourself, Mr. Ketch, and say whether you would like it."

"What did you talk of it for, then?" snarled Ketch, preparing to take a copious draught of ale.

"Because I thought you and father were safe. You might both have known better than to speak of it out of doors. There is sure to be a commotion over it."

"Miserable beer! Brewed out of ditch-water!"

"Young Mr. Huntley came to me to-day, to know the rights and the wrongs of it--as he said," continued Joseph. "He spoke to Mr. Galloway about it afterwards--though I must say he was kind enough not to bring in my name; only said, in a general way, that he had 'heard' it. He is an honourable young gentleman, is that Huntley. He vows the report shall be conveyed to the dean."

"Serve 'em right!" snapped the porter. "If the dean does his duty, he'll order a general flogging for the school, all round. It'll do 'em good."

"Galloway did not say much--except that he knew what he should do, were he Huntley's or Channing's father. Which I took to mean that, in his opinion, there ought to be an inquiry inst.i.tuted."

"And you know there ought," said Mr. Ketch.