The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 45

"You'll answer for a lot of things, it strikes me, young gentleman,"

said Cripps, "before you've done."

There were signs of relenting in this speech which the boy was quick to take advantage of.

"_Do_ wait till then!" he said, beseechingly.

Cripps pretended to meditate.

"I don't see how I can. I'm a poor man, got my rent to pay and all that. Look here, young gentleman, I must have 10 pounds down, if I'm to wait."

"Ten pounds! I haven't as much in the world!" exclaimed Loman. "I can give you five pounds, though," he added. "I've just got a note from home to-day."

"Five's no use," said Cripps, contemptuously, "wouldn't pay not the interest. You'll have to make it a tenner, young gentleman."

"Don't say that, Cripps, I'd gladly do it if I could; I'd pay you every farthing, and so I will if you only wait."

"That's just the way with you young swells. You get your own ways, and leave other people to get theirs best way they can. Where's your five-pound?"

Loman promptly produced this, and Cripps as promptly pocketed it, adding, "Well, I suppose I'll have to give in. How long do you say--two months?"

"Three," said Loman. "Oh, thanks, Cripps, I really _will_ pay up then."

"You'd better, because, mind you, if you don't, I shall walk straight to the governor. Don't make any mistake about that."

"Oh, yes, so you may," said the wretched Loman, willing to promise anything in his eagerness.

Finally it was settled. Cripps was to wait three months longer; and Loman, although knowing perfectly well that there was absolutely less chance then of having the money than there had been now, felt a weight temporarily taken off his mind, and was all grat.i.tude.

Of course, he stayed a while as usual and tasted Mr Cripps's beer, and of course he met again not a few of his new friends--sharpers, most of them, of Cripps's own stamp, or green young gentlemen of the town, like Loman himself. From one of the latter Loman had the extraordinary "good luck" that afternoon to win three pounds over a wager, a sum which he at once handed over to Cripps in the most virtuous way, in further liquidation of his debt.

Indeed, as he left the place, and wandered slowly back to Saint Dominic's, he felt quite encouraged.

"There's eight pounds of it paid right off," said he to himself; "and before Christmas something is sure to turn up. Besides, I'm sure to get some more money from home between now and then. Oh, it'll be all right!"

So saying he tried to dismiss the matter from his mind and think of pleasanter subjects, such, for instance, as Oliver's crime, and his own clever use of it to delude the Sixth.

Things altogether were looking up with Loman. Cheating, lying, and gambling looked as if they would pay after all!

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

AT COVENTRY.

Were you ever at Coventry, reader? I don't mean the quaint old Warwicks.h.i.+re city, but that other place where from morning till night you are shunned and avoided by everybody? Where friends with whom you were once on the most intimate terms now pa.s.s you without a word, or look another way as you go by? Where, whichever way you go, you find yourself alone? Where every one you speak to is deaf, every one you appear before is blind, every one you go near has business somewhere else? Where you will be left undisturbed in your study for a week, to f.a.g for yourself, study by yourself, disport yourself with yourself?

Where in the playground you will be as solitary as if you were in the desert, in school you will be a cla.s.s by yourself, and even in church on Sundays you will feel hopelessly out in the cold among your fellow-wors.h.i.+ppers?

If you have ever been to such a place, you can imagine Oliver Greenfield's experiences during this Christmas term at Saint Dominic's.

When the gentlemen of the Fifth Form had once made up their minds to anything, they generally carried it through with great heartiness, and certainly they never succeeded better in any undertaking than in this of "leaving Oliver to himself."

The only drawback to their success was that the proceeding appeared to have little or no effect on the _very_ person on whose behalf it was undertaken. Not that Oliver could be _quite_ insensible of the honours paid him. He could not--they were too marked for that. And without doubt they were as unpleasant as they were unmistakable. But, for any sign of unhappiness he displayed, the whole affair might have been a matter of supreme indifference to him. Indeed, it looked quite as much as if Greenfield had sent the Fifth to Coventry as the Fifth Greenfield.

If they determined none of them to speak to him, he was equally determined none of them should have the chance; and if it was part of their scheme to leave him as much as possible to himself, they had little trouble in doing it, for he, except when inevitable, never came near them.

Of course this was dreadfully irritating to the Fifth! The moral revenge they had promised themselves on the disgracer of their cla.s.s never seemed to come off. The wind was taken out of their sails at every turn. The object of their aversion was certainly not reduced to humility or penitence by their conduct; on the contrary, one or two of them felt decidedly inclined to be ashamed of themselves and feel foolish when they met their victim.

Oliver always had been a queer fellow, and he now came out in a queerer light than ever.

Having once seen how the wind lay, and what he had to expect from the Fifth, he altered the course of his life to suit the new circ.u.mstances with the greatest coolness. Instead of going up the river in a pair-oar or a four, he now went up in a sculling boat or a canoe, and seemed to enjoy himself quite as much. Instead of doing his work with Wraysford evening after evening, he now did it undisturbed by himself, and, to judge by his progress in cla.s.s, more successfully than ever. Instead of practising with the fifteens at football, he went in for a regular course of practice in the gymnasium, and devoted himself with remarkable success to the horizontal bar and the high jump. Instead of casting in his lot in cla.s.s with a jovial though somewhat distracting set, he now kept his mind free for his studies, and earned the frequent commendation of the Doctor and Mr Jellicott.

Now, reader, I ask you, if you had been one of the Fifth of Saint Dominic's would not all this have been very riling? Here was a fellow convicted of a shameful piece of deceit, caught, one might say, in the very act, and by his own conduct as good as admitting it. Here was a fellow, I say, whom every sensible boy ought to avoid, not only showing himself utterly indifferent to the aversion of his cla.s.s-fellows, but positively thriving and triumphing before their very faces! Was it any wonder if they felt very sore, and increasingly sore on the subject of Oliver Greenfield?

One boy, of course, stuck to the exile through thick and thin. If Oliver had murdered all Saint Dominic's with slow poison, Stephen would have stuck to him to the end, and he stuck to him now. He, at least, never once admitted that his brother was guilty. When slowly he first discovered what were the suspicions of the Fifth, and what was the common talk of the school about Oliver, the small boy's indignation was past description. He rushed to his brother.

"Do you hear the lies the fellows are telling about you, Noll?"

"Yes," said Oliver.

"Why don't you stop it, and tell them?"

"What's the use? I've told them once. If they don't choose to believe it, they needn't."

Any other boy would, of course, have taken this as clear evidence of the elder brother's guilt; but it only strengthened the small boy's indignation.

"_I'll_ let them know, if _you_ won't!" and forthwith he went and proceeded to make himself a perfect nuisance in the school. He began with Wraysford.

"I say, Wray," he demanded, "do you hear all the lies the fellows are telling about Noll?"

"Don't make a row now," said Wraysford, shortly. "I'm busy." But Stephen had no notion of being put down.

"The fellows say he stole an exam paper, the blackguards! I'd like to punch all their heads, and I will too!"

"Clear out of my study, now," said Wraysford, sharply.

Stephen stared at him a moment. Then his face grew pale as he grasped the meaning of it all.

"I say, Wray, surely _you_ don't believe it?" he cried.

"Go away now," was Wraysford's only answer.

But this did not suit Stephen, his blood was up, and he meant to have it out.

"Surely _you_ don't believe it?" he repeated, disregarding the impatience of the other; "_you_ aren't a blackguard, like the rest?"

"Do you hear what I tell you?" said Wraysford.

"No, and I don't mean to!" retorted the irate Stephen. "If you were anything of a friend you'd stand up for Oliver. You're a beast, Wraysford, that's what you are!" continued he, in a pa.s.sion. "You're a blackguard! you're a liar! I could kill you!"

And the poor boy, wild with rage and misery, actually flung himself blindly upon his brother's old friend--the saviour of his own life.