"Dear Da. Thanks awfully for the bob."

A good many of Arthur's letters began with this curious observation. Whether this particular "bob" had reference to Railsford's testimonial or not, the writer cannot speak positively.

"We had a ripping time at our sports, and licked all the records but three. No end of a crow for us. The School's tearing its hair all over the place, and our fellows have been yelling for two days without stopping. It's a jolly good job that row about Bickers came on when it did, as our chaps would never have pulled themselves together as they did without it. Nobody wants to find the chap out now; so your particular is all serene up to now, and I don't mean to drip and spoil his game." (We wonder what Daisy made of this curious sentence when she read it!) "Dig and I were awfully riled we hadn't got you down for the sports, and I wanted Marky to wire up for you and put them off till you came. As it was, it didn't matter a bit, for Miss Violet showed up like a trump as she is, and backed us up; so it's just as well you hadn't come. Violet nodded to me! She's the most beautiful girl in the world. Smedley turned up too; brickish, wasn't it? Bickers of course came, and tried to spoil our sports, but Marky gave him a flea in his ear, and Dig and I howled; so he didn't stay long.

"Bateson and Jukes pulled off the kids' hundred yards; and jolly cocky they were, I can tell you. Bateson's the sneak I told you of.

"Tilbury won the Shell quarter-mile. Dig and I were in for it, but we wanted to save ourselves for the long jump and hurdles, so we ran easy, and Tilbury did it hands down.

"Ah, Da, really you should have been there to see the high jump! Smedley and Clipstone tied 5 41/2 last week for the School. No end of a jump to beat; and Dig and I were in a blue funk about our men. Barnworth and Wake were the only two entered;—dark horses both; at least I didn't know what either of them could do. I heard Ainger tell Violet he thought we'd pull it off, so I perked up. They started at 4 foot 10. Wake muffed his first jump, and we gave ourselves up for gone 'coons. However, he hopped over second try. They went up by inches to five feet. My word! you should have seen the way Violet clapped! They'd have been cads if they hadn't gone over, with her backing them up like that. Wake's got the rummiest jump you ever saw. He runs sideways at the bar, and sort of lies down on his back on it as he goes over. You'd think he'd muff it every time, but just as he looks like done for, he kicks up his foot and clears. Barnworth takes it straight—skips up to the bar and goes over like a daisy, without seeming to try.

"At 5 foot 1, Wake mulled twice, and we thought he was out of it. But the third time he got over finely with a good inch to spare. It got precious ticklish after this; and no one said a word till each Jump was done: and then we let out. Violet stood up and looked as if she'd got a ten-pound note on the event. At 5 foot 3 Barnworth came a cropper; and I fancy he must have screwed his foot. Anyhow, he had to sit a minute before he tried again. Then he went over like a shot—and you may guess we yelled. Five foot 31/2. Both of them mulled the first—but Barnworth cleared easily second shot. We fancied Wake would too, but he missed both his other chances, and so got out of it. Awfully good jump this for a Fifth-form chap.

"Barnworth pulled himself together after that, and cleared the 5 foot 31/2 and 5 foot 4 first go. Then came the tug. The bar went up to 5 41/2, Smedley's jump, and you might have heard a fly cough. We were pretty nervous, I can tell you, and it would have done you good to see Violet standing up and holding her breath. Barnworth was the only chap that didn't seem flurried. Smedley and Marky both looked blue, and poor Froggy looked as if he was going to blubber.

"My wig! Daisy, if you'd heard the yell when the beggar cleared the bar first shot! Dig and I went mad; and somebody had to clout us on the head before we could take it in that the fun wasn't over. Of course it was not. Pas un morceau de il—we'd tied them; but we'd still to lick them.

"'Bravo, Barnworth,' yells Violet. 'Go it, old kangaroo,' howls Dig. 'Take your time and tuck in that shoe-lace,' says Marky. 'A million to one on our man,' says I; and then up goes the bar to 5 foot 5; and then you could have heard a caterpillar wink. Old Barnworth looked a little green himself this time; and didn't seem in a hurry to begin. He muffed his first jump, and we all thought the game was up. But no! The beggar hopped over second time as easily as I could hop 3 feet. My word, it was a hop! Dig stood on his head and I could have done so too, only Violet was looking. She was no end glad. Elle est une brique et une demie! So's Smedley; for though it was his jump was beaten, he cheered as loud as anybody. I forgive him the licking he gave me last term. Marky made a regular ass of himself, he was so pleased. Every one wanted Barnworth to go on, but he wouldn't, as he had a race to come on.

"Then came the Shell hurdles, 120 yards, ten flights. Dig and I were in, and had to beat 191/2 seconds. I felt jolly miserable, I can tell you, at the start, and that ass Dig made it all the worse by fooling about just to show off, and making believe to spar at me, when he was shaking in his shoes all the time; Marky wasn't much better, for he came and said, 'You'll have to run your very best to win it.' As if we didn't know that! He don't deserve a testimonial for doing a thing like that. Next that ass Smedley went and made up to Violet just when she wanted to back us up, and I don't believe she saw a bit of the race till the finish. It was enough to make any chap blue. Then monsieur started us, and kept us waiting a whole minute (it seemed like an hour) while the second hand of his wretched watch was getting round. And then he started us in such a rotten way that it wasn't till I saw Dig running that I took in we were off, and coming up to the first hurdle. But soon the fellows began to yell, and I felt better.

"Dig had the pull of me at the start, but I got up to him at the third hurdle. He missed a step in landing, and that put him out, and we went over the fourth and fifth neck and neck. Then I saw Violet stand up, out of the corner of my left eye; and Smedley began to look at us too. After that it was all right. At the sixth hurdle we both rose together, and then I heard a crack and a grunt behind me, and knew poor old Dig had come a cropper. Of course I had no time to grin, as I had my time to beat. But it was very lonely doing those next three hurdles. I didn't know how I was going, only I could swear I'd been twenty seconds long before I got to the eighth. I nearly mulled the ninth, and lost a step after the jump. That made me positive I'd not beaten my time; and I had half a mind to pull up, I was so jolly miserable. However, the fellows were still yelling, so I pulled myself together and went at the last hurdle viciously and got clean over, and then put it on all I could to the winning-post. I guessed I'd done it in thirty seconds, and wished there was a pit I could tumble into at the end.

"Then Marky came and patted me on the back. 'Splendid, old fellow,' said he. 'How do you mean?' said I; 'ain't I licked into a cocked hat?' 'You've done it in nineteen seconds,' said he. 'Go on!' said I. And then the other fellows came up and cheered, and then Violet called out, 'Bravo, Herapath,' and Ainger said, 'Run indeed, young 'un.' So I had to believe it; and I can tell you I was a bit pleased. J'etais un morceau plaise.

"I was sorry for old Dig, but he won the Shell wide jump directly afterwards. I made a mess of the half-mile. I ought to have got it from Smythe, of the School-house; but all I could do was to dead heat his time. I suppose I was fagged after the hurdles. Tilbury had it all his own way with the Shell cricket-ball, and Stafford got the senior throw. Felgate was in against him—rather a decent chap, one of our prefects; had me to tea in his room the other day. He and Marky don't hit it. He was lazy, and didn't bother himself. Fellows said he could easily have licked the School record if he'd tried; but he didn't; and Stafford missed it by a few inches. So that event we lost. Jolly sell, joli vendre.

"Never mind, we got the mile, and that was the crackest thing of all. We had to beat Smedley and Branscombe, both—only Branscombe—he's Bickers's prefect—didn't run it out last week. Smedley's time was 4.50. Ainger and Stafford ran for us; and Ranger was put on the track with 200 yards start to force the pace.

"Stafford was out of it easily; but Ranger stuck to it like a Trojan. The first lap he was still a hundred yards to the good, and going like steam. Ainger ran finely, and overhauled him gradually. Still he had about twenty yards to the good at the beginning of the last lap. Then it was fine to see Ainger tuck in his elbows and let himself out. A quarter of a mile from home Ranger was clean out of it, regularly doubled up; but Ainger kept on steadily for a couple of hundred yards.

"Then, my word, he spurted right away to the finish! You never saw such a rush up as it was! The fellows yelled, I can let you know. Every one knew that it was our event the second the spurt began, and when he got up to the tape and '4.42' was shouted out, it was a sight to see the state we were in. It's the best mile we ever did at Grandcourt, and even Smedley, though he was a bit riled, I fancy, at his licking, said he couldn't have done it in the time if he'd tried.

"I send you Dig's programme, with the times all marked. You'll see we won them all except the senior cricket-ball, half-mile, and senior hundred. It's a rattling good score for us, I can tell you; and we cheered Marky like one o'clock. It was an awful sell Violet couldn't give away our prizes; but she shied at it. I suppose old Pony would have gruffed at her. She is the most beautiful girl in the world.

"You needn't go telling the mater, but I was off my feed a whole day after the sports. How soon do fellows get money enough to marry? If I get the Swift Scholarship I shall have L20 a-year for three years— something to start with. I wish you'd come down and give me a leg-up. I'm afraid that cad Smedley's got his eye on her. His father's only a doctor. We're better off than that, besides being chummy with a baronet. Hullo! there's the bell for cubicles. Ta, ta. Je suis tres miserable. Your aff. A.H."

Little dreaming of the sad blight which had come over his future young kinsman's life, Railsford was sitting in his room that Sunday evening, feeling rather more than usually comfortable. He had some cause to be pleased. His house had done better than anyone expected. They had beaten all the records but three, and, without being specially conceited, Railsford took to himself the credit of having done a good deal to bring about this satisfactory result.

"Curious," said he to himself, "that in all probability, if that affair of Bickers's had not happened, we might never have risen as a house; indeed, it's almost a mercy the culprit has never been discovered, for we should have then been plunged back into the current, and the work of pulling ourselves together might never have been done. It's odd that, as time goes on, there is not even a hint or a suspicion who did it. There's only one boy in the house I'm not sure of, and he is too great a coward to be a ruffian. Well, well, we have the cricket season and the exams, coming on. If only we do as well in them as we've done in the sports, it will not be altogether against us if the mystery remains a mystery a little longer."

Whereupon the door opened and Mr Bickers stepped in. Railsford had completely forgotten the episode in the fields the previous day; he scarcely recollected that Mr Bickers had been present at the sports, and was delightfully oblivious to the fact that he, Railsford, had either slighted or offended his colleague. He wondered what was the occasion of the present visit, and secretly resolved to keep both his temper and his head if he could.

"Good-evening," said he, with a friendly smile. "I'm just going to have my coffee; won't you have a cup too, Bickers?"

Mr Bickers took no notice of this hospitable invitation, but closed the door behind him and said, "I want a few words with you, Mr Railsford."

"Certainly? I've nothing to do— Won't you take a seat?"

Mr Bickers took a seat, a little disconcerted by Railsford's determined good-humour. He had not counted upon that.

"The last time I saw you you were hardly so polite," said he, with a sneer.

"When was that? I'm very sorry if I was rude; I had no intention, I assure you."

Railsford began to feel a little like the lamb in the fable. This wolf had evidently come bent on a quarrel, and Railsford, lamb and all as he was, would have liked to oblige him. But he was quick enough to see— with the memory of more than one failure to warn him—that his only chance with Mr Bickers was, at all costs, not to quarrel.

"You are fortunate in your short memory; it is a most convenient gift."

"It's one, at any rate, I would like to cultivate with regard to any unpleasantness there may have been between you and me, Bickers," said Railsford.

This was not a happy speech, and Mr Bickers accepted it with a laugh.

"Quite so; I can understand that. It happens, however, that I have come to assist in prolonging your memory with regard to that unpleasantness. I'm sorry to interfere with your good intentions, but it cannot be helped this time."

"Really," said Railsford, feeling his patience considerably taxed, "all this is very perplexing. Would you mind coming to the point at once, Bickers?"

"Not at all. When I saw you yesterday I asked you to look at a letter I had with me."

"Oh, yes; I remember now. I was greatly taken up with the sports, and had no time then. I felt sure you would understand."

"I understood perfectly. I have brought the letter for you now," and he held it out.

Railsford took it with some curiosity, for Mr Bickers's manner, besides being offensive, was decidedly mysterious.

"Am I to read it?"

"Please."

The letter was a short one, written in an evidently disguised hand:

"Sir,—The name of the person who maltreated you lately is perfectly well-known in Railsford's house. No one knows his name better than Mr Railsford himself. But as the house is thriving by what has occurred, it is to nobody's interest to let out the secret. The writer of this knows what he is speaking about, and where to find the proofs.—A Friend."

Railsford read this strange communication once or twice, and then laughed.

"It's amusing, isn't it?" sneered Mr Bickers.

"It's absurd!" said Railsford.

"I thought you would say so," said Bickers, taking back the letter and folding it up. "For all that, I should like to know the name of the person referred to."

"You surely do not mean, Bickers, that you attach any importance to a ridiculous joke like that?"

"I attach just the importance it deserves, Railsford."

"Then I would put it in the fire, Bickers."

Mr Bickers's face darkened. Long ere now he had calculated on reducing the citadel of his adversary's good-humour, and now that it still held out, he felt his own self-possession deserting him.

"Allow me to tell you, Railsford, that I believe what that letter states!"

"Do you really? I hope when I tell you that every word of it which relates to myself is a grotesque falsehood, you will alter your opinion."

"Even that would not convince me," said Bickers.

Railsford stared at him blankly. He had surely misunderstood his words.

"I said," he repeated, and there was a tremor of excitement in his voice, which afforded his enemy the keenest pleasure—"I said that every word in that letter which refers to me is false. You surely don't believe it after that?"

"I said," repeated Mr Bickers, with a fine sneer, "that even that would not convince me."

Surely the longed-for explosion would come now! He saw Railsford's face flush and his eyes flash. But before the furious retort escaped from his lips, a wise whisper from somewhere fell between them and robbed the wolf of his prey.

"Then," said the Master of the Shell, forcing his lips to a smile, "there is not much to be gained by prolonging this interview, is there?"

Mr Bickers was deeply mortified. There was nothing for it now but for him to assume the role of aggressor. He would so much have preferred to be the aggrieved.

"Yes, Railsford," said he, rising from his chair and standing over his enemy. "I dare you to say that you neither know nor suspect the person who assaulted me!"

Railsford felt devoutly thankful he had kept his head. He now dug his hands into his pockets, stretched himself, and replied,—

"You may very safely do that, Bickers."

It was hard lines for poor Bickers, this. He had worked so hard to get himself an adversary; and here was all his labour being lost!

"You're paltering," snarled he. "I dare you to say you did not do the cowardly deed yourself!"

Railsford could not imagine how he had ever been so foolish as to be in a rage with the fellow. He laughed outright at the last piece of bluster. Bickers was now fairly beside himself, or he would never have done what he did. He struck Railsford where he sat a blow on the mouth, which brought blood to his lips. This surely was the last card, and Railsford in after years never knew exactly how it came about that he did not fly there and then at his enemy's throat, and shake him as a big dog shakes a rat. It may have been he was too much astonished to do anything of the sort; or it may have been that he, the stronger man of the two, felt a sort of pity for the poor bully, which kept him back. At any rate, his good genius befriended him this time, and saved him both his dignity and his moral vantage. He put his handkerchief to his lips for a moment, and then said quietly—

"There are two ways of leaving this room, Bickers: the door and the window. I advise you to choose the door."

Mr Bickers was too cowed by his own act to keep up the contest, and hating himself at that moment almost as much—but not quite—as he hated his enemy, he slunk out of the door and departed to his own house. Railsford sat where he was, and stared at the door by which his visitor had left, in a state of bewildered astonishment.

The more Railsford thought the matter over, the less he liked it. For it convinced him that there was someone desirous of doing him an injury by means of the very master who was already predisposed to believe evil of him. It was rather a damper after the glorious result of the sports, and Railsford tried to laugh it off and dismiss the whole matter from his mind.

"At least," said he to himself, "if the accusation comes in no more likely a form than I have seen to-night, I can afford to disregard it. But though Bickers made a fool of himself for once in a way, it does not at all follow that he will not return to the attack, and that I may actually have to answer to Grandcourt the charges of that precious letter. It's too absurd, really!"



CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE TESTIMONIAL.

As the reader may suppose, the sympathetic soul of Miss Daisy Herapath was considerably moved by the contents of her brother's letter, which we gave in the last chapter. She naturally took an interest in the welfare and doings of Railsford's house; and as she heard quite as often from the master as she did from his pupil, she was able to form a pretty good, all-round opinion on school politics.

Arthur's lively account of the House sports had delighted her. Not that she understood all the obscure terms which embellished it; but it was quite enough for her that the house had risen above its tribulations and rewarded its master and itself by these brilliant exploits in the fields. But when Arthur passed from public to personal matters, his sister felt rather less at ease. She much disliked the barefaced proposal for the testimonial, and had told her brother as much more than once. On the whole, she decided to send Arthur's letter and its enclosure to Railsford, and confide her perplexities to him.

Railsford perused the "dear boy's" florid effusion with considerable interest, particularly, I grieve to say, certain portions of it, which if Daisy had been as wise as she was affectionate, she would have kept to herself. When people put notes into circulation, it's not the fault of those into whose hands they come if they discover in them beauties unsuspected by the person for whose benefit they were issued. Railsford saw a great deal more in Arthur's letter than Daisy had even suspected. A certain passage, which had seemed mere mysterious jargon to her, had a pretty plain meaning for him, especially after the interview last Sunday with Mr Bickers.

"It's a jolly good job that row about Bickers came on when it did. ... Nobody wants to find the chap out now, so your particular is all serene up to now, and I don't mean to drip and spoil his game."

What could this mean except that Arthur, somehow or other, knew a secret respecting the Bickers affair which he was keeping to himself, presumably in the interests of Railsford? Could this mysterious hint have any connection with the false rumour which had reached Bickers and magnified itself in his mind to such an uncomfortable extent? Railsford resolved to delight the heart of his young relative by a friendly visit, and make a reconnaissance of the position. He had a very good pretext in the anxious solicitude expressed in Daisy's letter for the health and appetite of her love-tossed brother. He would make it his business to inquire how the sufferer did.

Waiting, therefore, until a preternatural stillness in the room above assured him that Dig was out of the way, the Master of the Shell went up-stairs and ushered himself into Arthur's study.

"Hard at work, I see," said Railsford cheerily. "How are you getting on?"

"All serene, thanks," replied Arthur. "That is, not very well."

"Have you stuck fast in your translations? Let me look."

"Oh no. I'm not doing my exercise," said Arthur, in alarm. "I'm only looking up some words. Do you want to see Dig? He's gone to Wake's room."

"No, I came to see you. I heard you'd been out of sorts. Are you all right now? Was it the sports knocked you up?"

"No—that is, yes, they did a bit, I think," said Arthur. It was the sports which had done it, though not in the way "Marky" fancied.

"Well, we mustn't have you laid up, must we? We want you for the Swift Scholarship, you know."

"Oh, all right, sir, I'm going to mug hard for that after Easter, really."

"Why put it off till then? You may come to my room any evening you like. I shall generally have time enough."

This invitation did not fascinate the boy as it deserved to do.

"I fancy I'd work steadier here," said he. "Besides, Dig and I use the same books."

"Well, the first thing is to get yourself all right. What's troubling you, Arthur?"

This was a startling question, and Arthur felt himself detected.

"I suppose you've heard. Keep it quiet, I say."

"What is it? Keep what quiet?"

"Why, about her, you know. I say, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford—could you ever give me a leg-up with her? If you asked her to your room one day, you know I could come too, and do my work."

Railsford laughed.

"I thought you could do your work better here; besides, you and Oakshott use the same books."

"Oakshott be hanged! I mean—I say, Marky, do you think I've a chance? I know Smedley's—"

Railsford's experience in cases of this sort was limited, but he was philosopher enough to know that some distempers need to be taken seriously.

"Look here, Arthur," said he gravely, "the best thing you can do is to go straight over to Dr Ponsford's and ask to see him, and tell him exactly how matters stand. Remind him that you're just fifteen, and in the Shell, and that your income is a shilling a week. You need not tell him you were detained two afternoons this week, because he will probably find that out for himself by looking at monsieur's books. If he says he will be delighted to accept your offer, then I promise to back you up. Let me see, I know the doctor's at home this evening; it's not 7.30 yet, so you'll have time, if you go at once, to catch him before his tea. I'll wait here till you come back."

Arthur's face underwent a wonderful change as the master quietly uttered these words. It began by lengthening, and growing a little pale; then it grew troubled, then bewildered, then scarlet, and finally, when he had ended, it relaxed into a very faint smile.

"I think I'll wait a bit," said he gravely.

"Very well, only let me hear the result when you do go."

"I think I may as well start work for the Swift to-night," said he, "if you don't mind."

"By all means, my boy. Come along to my room and we'll look through the list of subjects."

Arthur, before the task was half over, had recovered his spirits and advanced far in the esteem of his future kinsman.

"Awfully brickish of you, sir," he said. "It wouldn't be a bad score for our house if we got all the prizes at the exams, would it?"

"Not at all. But we mustn't be too confident."

"Jolly lucky we're cut off from the rest of the chaps, isn't it? It makes us all sit up."

"That state of things may end any time, you know," said the master. "But we must 'sit up' all the same."

"Oh, but it won't come out till the exams, are over, will it?"

"How do I know?"

Arthur glanced up at his kinsman, and inwardly reflected what a clever chap he was to ask such a question in such a way.

"Oh, all right. All I meant was, it wouldn't suit our book, would it, to let it out just yet?"

"It's not a question of what suits anyone. It's a question of what is right. And if anybody in the house knows anything I don't, he ought to speak, whatever it costs."

"There's an artful card," thought Arthur to himself, and added aloud—

"I don't fancy any fellow knows anything you don't, Marky—I mean Mr Railsford. I don't."

"Don't you? Do you know," said the master, "I have sometimes had an impression you did. I am quite relieved to hear it, Arthur."

"Oh, you needn't be afraid of me," said Arthur, lost in admiration for the cleverness of his future brother-in-law. "I'm safe, never you fear."

"It's a strange mystery," said Railsford, "but sooner or later we shall know the meaning of it."

"Later the better," put in Arthur, with a wink.

"I don't envy the feelings of the culprit, whoever he is; for he is a coward as well as a liar."

"No, more do I, Perhaps you're too down on him, though. Never mind, he's safe enough, for you and me."

"You have an odd way of talking, Arthur, which doesn't do you justice. As I said, you have more than once made me wonder whether you were not keeping back something about this wretched affair which I ought to know."

"Honour bright, I know a jolly lot less about it than you; so you really needn't be afraid of me; and Dig's safe too. Safe as a door-nail."

Railsford was able to write home on the following Sunday that Arthur had quite recovered his appetite, and that the "low" symptoms to which Dig had darkly referred had vanished altogether. Indeed, Arthur on this occasion developed that most happy of all accomplishments, the power of utterly forgetting that he had done or said anything either strange in itself or offensive to others. He was hail-fellow-well-met with the boys he had lately kicked and made miserable; he did not know what you were talking about when you reminded him that a day or two ago he had behaved like a cad to you; and, greatest exploit of all, he had the effrontery to charge Dig with being "spoons" on Violet, and to hold him up to general ridicule in consequence!

"How much have you really got for the testimonial?" said Dig one morning.

"Eleven and six," said Arthur dismally; "not a great lot, but enough for a silver ring."

"Not with Daisy's name on it."

"No, we'll have to drop that, unless we can scratch it on."

"We'll have a try. When shall we give it?"

"To-morrow's Rag Sunday, isn't it? Let's give it him to-night—after tea. I'll write out a list of the chaps, and you can get up an address, unless Felgate will come and give him a speech."

"Think he will? All serene. We'll give the fellows the tip, and do the thing in style. Hadn't you better cut and get the ring, I say?"

Arthur cut, armed with an exeat, and made the momentous purchase. The fancy stationer of whom he bought the ring assured him it was solid silver, and worth a good deal more than the 10 shillings 6 pence he asked. The other shilling Arthur invested in a box wherein to put it, and returned to school very well satisfied with his bargain. He and Dig spent an anxious hour trying to scratch the letters with a pin on the inner surface; and to Arthur belonged the credit of the delicate suggestion that instead of writing the term of endearment in vulgar English they should engrave it in Classic Greek, thus: chuki. The result was on the whole satisfactory; and when the list of contributors was emblazoned on a sheet of school paper, and Sir Digby Oakshott's address (for Felgate declined the invitation to make a speech) had been finally revised and corrected, the prospects of the ceremonial seemed very encouraging.

Arthur and Dig, once more completely reconciled, went through the farce of house tea that evening in the common room with considerable trepidation. They had a big job on hand, in which they were to be the principal actors, and when the critical time comes at last, we all know how devoutly we wish it had forgotten us! But everything had been carefully arranged, and everyone had been told what to expect. It was therefore impossible to back out, and highly desirable, as they were in for it, to do it in good style.

As the clock pointed to the fatal hour, Dig sharply rattled his spoon against the side of his empty cup. At the expected signal, about a dozen boys, the contributors to the testimonial, rose to their feet, and turned their eyes on Arthur. Railsford, at the head of the table, mistook the demonstration for a lapse of good manners, and was about to reprimand the offenders, when by a concerted movement the deputation stepped over their forms and advanced on the master in a compact phalanx. Arthur and Dig, both a little pale and dry about the lips, marched at their head. "What is all this?" inquired Railsford. Arthur and Dig replied by a rather ceremonious bow, in which the deputation followed them; and then the latter carefully cleared his throat.

"We, the undersigned, boys in your house," he began, reading from the paper before him in a somewhat breathless way, "beg to present you with a small token of our esteem—[Go on, hand it up, Arthur], and hope you will like it, and that it will fit, and trust that the name graven within will suggest pleasant memories in which we all join. The letters are in the Greek character. We hope we shall all enjoy our holidays, and come back better in mind and body. You may rely on us to back you up, and to keep dark things you would not like to have mentioned.— Signed, with kind regards, Daisy Herapath (a most particular friend), J. Felgate (prefect), Arthur Herapath (treasurer), Sir Digby Oakshott, Baronet (secretary), Bateson and Jukes (Babies), Maple, Simson, Tilbury, and Dimsdale (Shell), Munger (Fifth), Snape (Baby in Bickers's house)."

It spoke a good deal for Mark Railsford that under the first shock of this startling interview, he did not bowl over the whole deputation like so many ninepins and explode before the assembled house. As it was he was too much taken aback to realise the position for a minute or so; and by that time the baronet's address was half read. He grimly waited for the end of it, studiously ignoring the box which Arthur held out, opened, to fascinate him with its charms.

When the reading was done, he wheeled round abruptly in his chair, in a manner which made the deputation stagger back a pace; and said—

"You mean it kindly, no doubt; but I don't want a present and can't take one. It was foolish of you to think of such a thing. Don't let it occur again. I'm vexed with you, and shall have to speak to some of you privately about it. Go to your rooms."

"What's to become of the ring!" said Dig disconsolately, as he and Arthur sat and cooled themselves in their study. "Mr Trinket won't take it back. He'd no business to cut up rough like that."

"Fact is," replied Arthur, "Marky's got to draw the line somewhere. He knows he's in a jolly row about that business, you know, and he doesn't want a testimonial for it. I don't blame him. I'll get Daisy to buy the ring in the holidays, and we can have the fellows to a blow-out next term with the money."



CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

THE SECRET OUT.

"If you please, sir, would you mind coming to see one of the young gentlemen in our house before you start? He don't seem himself."

The speaker was Mrs Phillips, the dame of Bickers's house, and the individual she addressed was Mark Railsford, who, with his portmanteau on the steps beside him, was impatiently awaiting the cab which should take him from Grandcourt for the Easter holidays. The place was as empty and deserted as on that well-remembered day when he came down— could it be only the beginning of this present term?—to enter upon his new duties at the school. The boys, as was their wont, had almost without exception left by the eight o'clock train, Arthur and Dig being among the foremost. The few who had remained to finish their packing had followed by the ten o'clock. The doctor and his niece had left for town last night; the other masters had made an early start that morning; and Railsford, junior master, and consequently officer of the guard for the day, imagined himself, as he stood there with his portmanteau about two o'clock, the "last of the Mohicans."

"Who is it?" he said, as the cab rumbled through the gateway.

"It's Mr Branscombe, sir. He overslep' hisself, as the way of speaking is, and as there was no call-over, and all the young gentlemen were in a rush, nobody noticed it. But when I went to make the beds, I finds him still in 'is, and don't like the looks of 'im. Anyhow, sir, if you'd come and take a look at him—"

Railsford looked up at the school clock. He could catch the 2.30 train if he left in five minutes. If he lost that train he would have to wait till six. He told the cabman to put the portmanteau on the top, and wait for him at the door of Bickers's house, and then walked after Mrs Phillips, rather impatiently.

He had never set foot in Mr Bickers's house before, and experienced a curious sensation as he crossed the threshold of his enemy's citadel. Suppose Mr Bickers should return and find him there—what a pretty situation!

"Up-stairs, sir, this way," said Mrs Phillips, leading him up to the prefects' cubicles. She opened the door at the end, and ushered him into the house-captain's study.

On his low narrow camp bed lay Branscombe, flushed, with eyes closed, tossing and moaning, and now and then talking to himself, Railsford started as his eyes fell on him.

"He's ill!" he whispered to Mrs Phillips.

"That's what I thought," observed the sagacious dame.

Railsford knew little enough about medicine, and had never been ill himself in his life. But as he lifted the hot hand which lay on the coverlet, and marked the dry parched lips, and listened to the laboured breathing, he knew that he was in the presence of a grave illness of some kind.

"Go and fetch Dr Clarke at once, Mrs Phillips," said he, "and tell the cabman on your way down not to wait."

Branscombe opened his eyes and clutched greedily at the tumbler Railsford offered. But his throat was too sore to allow him to drain it, and he gave it back with a moan. Then he dozed off fitfully, and recommenced his tossing.

"Where are they all?" he asked, again opening his eyes.

He scarcely seemed to take in who Railsford was.

"They went by the ten o'clock train," said Railsford.

"Why didn't they call me? Where's Clipstone?"

"You weren't very well. You had better lie quiet a little," said Railsford.

The invalid made no attempt to get up, but lay back on the pillow and moaned.

"Open the window," said he, "the room's so hot."

Railsford made believe to obey him, and waited anxiously for the doctor. It seemed as if he would never arrive.

It was a strange position for the Master of the Shell, here at the bedside of the captain of his rival's house, the only occupant with him of the great deserted school. He had reckoned on spending a very different day. He was to have seen Daisy once more that afternoon, and the foolish young couple had been actually counting the minutes till the happy meeting came round. By this time he would have been in the train whizzing towards her, with all the troubles of the term behind him, and all the solaces of the vacation ahead. To-morrow, moreover, was the day of the University Boat-Race, and he, an old "Blue," had in his pocket at that moment a ticket for the steamer which was to follow the race. He was to have met scores of friends and fought again scores of old battles, and to have dined with the crews in the evening!

What was to become of all these plans now? He was absolutely a prisoner at this poor fellow's bedside. He did not know his address at home, or where to send for help. Besides, even if he could discover it, it would be twenty-four hours at least before he could hand over his charge into other hands.

These selfish regrets, however, only flashed through Railsford's mind to be again dismissed. He was a brave man, and possessed the courage which, when occasion demands, can accept a duty like a man. After all, was it not a blessing his cab had not come five minutes earlier than it had? Suppose this poor sufferer had been left with no better guardian than the brusque Mrs Phillips, with her scruples about "catching" disorders?

The doctor's trap rattled up to the door at last. He was one of those happy sons of Aesculapius who never pull long faces, but always say the most alarming things in the most delightful way.

"Ah," said he, hardly glancing at the patient, and shaking hands airily with Railsford, "this is a case of the master being kept in, and sending to the doctor for his exeat, eh? Sorry I can't give it to you at present, my dear fellow; rather a bad case."

"What is it?" asked Railsford.

"Our old friend, diphtheria; knowing young dog, to put it off till breaking-up day. What an upset for us all if he'd come out with it yesterday! Not profitable from my point of view, but I daresay the boys will have it more comfortably at home than here, after all. This must have been coming on for some time. How long has he been feverish?"

"I don't know. I only found him like this half an hour ago, and want your advice what to do."

The doctor, almost for the first time, looked at the restless invalid on the bed and hummed.

"Dr Ponsford has gone to the Isle of Wight, I hear," said he.

"I really don't know where he's gone," said Railsford impatiently.

"I wish I could get a holiday. That's the worst of my kind of doctor—people take ill so promiscuously. As sure as we say we'll go off for a week, some aggravating patient spits blood and says, 'No, you don't.' I think you should send for this boy's mother, do you know."

"I don't know her address. Is he so very ill, then?"

"Well, of the two, I think you should telegraph rather than write. It might be more satisfaction to you afterwards. Have you no way of finding where he lives? Looked in his pockets? There may be a letter there."

It was not an occasion for standing on ceremony, and Railsford, feeling rather like a pickpocket, took down the jacket from the peg and searched it. There was only one letter in the pocket, written in a female hand. It was dated "Sunday," but bore no address further than "London, N." on the postmark.

"Pity," said the doctor pleasantly. "Of course you have had diphtheria yourself?"

"No."

"H'm, I can hardly advise you to leave him till somebody comes to relieve guard. But it's doubtful whether he will be well in time to nurse you. You should send for your own folk in time."

If this doctor had not been Railsford's only support at present, he would have resented this professional flippancy more than he did.

"I'm not afraid," said he. "I shall try to find out where his people live. Meanwhile would it be well to send a trained nurse here; or can I manage myself?"

"Quite straightforward work," said the doctor, "if you like it. I've known cases no worse than this finish up in three days, or turn the corner in seven. You mustn't be surprised if he gets a great deal worse at night. He's a bit delirious already."

Then the doctor went into a few details as to the medicine and method of nursing.

The most important thing was to discover, if possible, the address of the patient's parents, and summon them. He approached the bed in the vague hope that Branscombe might be able to help him. But the sufferer, though he opened his eyes, seemed not to know him, and muttered to himself what sounded more like Greek verse than English. In desperation Railsford summoned Mrs Phillips. She, cautious woman, with a son of her own, would by no means come into the room, but stood at the door with a handkerchief to her mouth.

"Have you any idea where his home is?"

"No. Hasn't he labelled his box?"

"He does not seem to have begun to pack at all. Do you know the doctor's address?"

"No, he said no letters were to be forwarded. You'll excuse me, Mr Railsford, but as you are taking charge, I should like to be spared away an hour or so. I feel so upset, like. A bit of fresh air would be the very thing for me."

She was evidently in such a panic on her own account, and so nervous of her proximity even to Railsford, that he saw it was little use to object.

"You must be back in two hours, without fail," said he; "I may want you to go for the doctor again."

She went; and Railsford, as he listened to the clatter of her boots across the quadrangle, felt more than ever utterly alone. He set himself to clear the room as far as possible of all unnecessary furniture. The poor fellow's things lay about in hopeless confusion. Evidently he had had it in his mind to pack up yesterday; but had felt too ill to carry out his purpose, and gone to bed intending to finish in the morning.

Flannels, running-shoes, caps, books, linen, and papers lay scattered over the room, and Railsford, as he gathered them together and tried to reduce the chaos to order, felt his heart sink with an undefined apprehension.

Yesterday, perhaps, this little array of goods and chattels meant much to the young master who called them his. To-day, what cared he as he lay there tossing feverishly on his bed, muttering his Greek verses and moaning over his sore throat, whose they were, and who touched them? And to-morrow—?

Railsford pulled himself together half angrily. A nice fellow, he, for a sick nurse?

Suddenly he came upon a desk with the key in the lock. Perhaps this might contain the longed-for address. He opened it and glanced inside. It was empty. No. There was only a paper there—a drawing on a card. Railsford took it up and glanced at it, half absent. As his eyes fell on it, however, he started. It was a curious work of art; a sketch in pen and ink, rather cleverly executed, after the model of the old Greek bas-reliefs shown in the classical dictionaries. It represented what first appeared to be a battle scene, but what Railsford on closer inspection perceived was something very different.

The central figure was a man, over whose head a sack had been cast, which a tall figure behind was binding with cords round the victim's neck and shoulders. On the ground, clutching the captive's knees with his arms, and preparing to bind them, sat another figure, while in the background a third, with one finger to his lips, expressive of caution, pointed to an open door, evidently of the dungeon intended for the prisoner. It was an ordinary subject for a picture of this kind, and Railsford might have thought nothing of it, had not his attention been attracted by some words inscribed in classic fashion against the figures of the actors in this little drama.

Under the central figure of the captive he read in Greek capitals the legend BIKEROS; over the head of his tall assailant was written BRANSKOMOS. The person sitting and embracing the captive's knees was labelled KLIPSTONOS, while the mysterious figure in the rear, pointing out the dungeon, bore the name of MUNGEROS. Over the door itself was written BOOTBOX. Below the whole was written the first line of the Iliad, and in the corner, in minute characters, were the words, "S. Branscombe, inv. et del."

Railsford stared at the strange work of art in blank amazement. What could it mean? At first he was disposed to smile at the performance as a harmless jest; but a moment's consideration convinced him that, jest or not, he held in his hand the long-sought clue to the Bickers mystery which had troubled the peace of Grandcourt for the last term.

Here, in the hand of the chief offender himself, was a pictorial record of that grievous outrage, and here, denounced, by himself in letters of Greek, were the names for which all the school had suffered. The Master of the Shell seemed to be in a dream. Branscombe and Clipstone, the head prefects of Bickers's own house I and Munger, the ill-conditioned toady of Railsford's!

His first feelings of excitement and astonishment were succeeded by others of alarm and doubt. The murder was out, but how? He knew the great secret at last, but by what means? His eyes turned to the restless sufferer on the bed, and a flush of crimson came to his face as he realised that he had no more right to that secret than he had to the purse which lay on the table. He had opened the desk to look for an address, and nothing more. If, instead of that address, he had accidentally found somebody else's secret, what right had he—a man of honour and a gentleman—to use it, even if by doing so he could redress one of the greatest grievances in Grandcourt?

He thrust the picture back into the desk, and wished from the bottom of his heart he had never seen it. Mechanically he finished tidying the room, and clearing away to the adjoining study as much as possible of the superfluous furniture. Then with his own hands he lit the fire and carried out the various instructions of the doctor as to the steaming of the air in the room and the preparation of the nourishment for the invalid.

Branscombe woke once during the interval and asked hoarsely, "What bell was that?"

Then, without waiting for an answer, he said,—

"All right, all right, I'll get up in a second," and relapsed into his restless sleep.

Mrs Phillips did not return till eight o'clock; and the doctor arrived almost at the same time.

"Has he taken anything?" he inquired.

"Scarcely anything; he can hardly swallow."

"You'll have a night with him, I fancy. Keep the temperature of the room up to sixty, and see he doesn't throw off his clothes. How old is he—eighteen?—a great overgrown boy, six feet one or two, surely. It goes hard with these long fellows. Give me your short, thick-set young ruffian for pulling through a bout like this. Have you found out where he lives?"

"No, I can't discover his address anywhere."

"Look in his Sunday hat. I always kept mine there when I was a boy, and never knew a boy who didn't."

Branscombe, however, was an exception.

"Well," said the doctor, "it's a pity. A mother's the proper person to be with him a time like this. She'll never— What's this?"

It was an envelope slipped behind the bookcase, containing a bill from Splicer, the London cricket-bat-maker, dated a year ago. At the foot the tradesman had written, "Hon. sir, sorry we could not get bat in time to send home, so forward to you direct to Grandcourt School, by rail."

"There we are," said the doctor, putting the document in his pocket. "This ought to bring mamma in twenty-four hours. The telegraph office is shut now, but we'll wake Mr Splicer up early, and have mamma under weigh by midday. Good-night, Railsford—keep the pot boiling, my good fellow—I'll look round early."

He was gone, and Railsford with sinking heart set himself to the task before him. He long remembered that night. It seemed at first as if the doctor's gloomy predictions were to be falsified, for Branscombe continued long in a half-slumber, and even appeared to be more tranquil than he had been during the afternoon.

Railsford sat near the fire and watched him; and for two hours the stillness of the room was only broken by the lively ticking of the little clock on the mantelpiece, and the laboured breathing of the sufferer.

He was nearly asleep when a cry from the bed suddenly roused him.

"Clip!" called the invalid.

Railsford went to his side and quietly replaced the covering which had been tossed aside.

"Clip! look alive—he's coming—don't say a word, hang on to his legs, you know—En jam tempus erat—Munger, you cad, why don't you come? Italiam fato profugus. Hah! got you, my man. Shove him in, quick! Strike a light, do you hear? here they come. What are you doing, Clip?—turn him face up. That's for blackguarding me before the whole house! Clip put me up to it. Don't cut and leave me in the lurch, I say. You're locking me in the boot-box!—let me out—I'm in for the mile, you know. Who's got my shoes? Pastor cum traheret per freta navibus. Well run, sir! He's giving out! I say, I say. I can't keep it up. I must stop. Clip, you put me up to it, old man. It'll never come out—never—never. He thinks it was Railsford, ho, ho! I'll never do such a thing again. Come along—sharp—coast's clear!"

Then he began to conjugate a Greek verb, sometimes shouting the words and sitting up in bed, and sometimes half whimpering them as Railsford gently laid him back on the pillow. There was not much fear of Railsford dropping asleep again after this. The sick lad scarcely ceased his wild talk all the night through. Now he was going over again in detail that dark night's work in the boot-box; now he was construing Homer to the doctor; now he was being run down in the mile race; now he was singing one of his old child's hymns; now he was laughing over the downfall of Mr Bickers; now he was making a speech at the debating society. It was impossible for the listener to follow all his wild incoherent talk, it was all so mixed up and jumbled. But if Railsford harboured any doubts as to the correctness of his surmise about the picture, the circumstantial details of the outrage repeated over and over in the boy's wild ravings effectually dispelled them.

He knew now the whole of the wretched story from beginning to end. The proud boy's resentment at the insult he had received in the presence of his house, the angry passions which had urged him to the act of revenge, the cowardly precautions suggested by his confederate to escape detection, and the terrors and remorse following the execution of their deep-laid scheme. Yet if the listener had no right to the secret locked up in the desk, still less had he the right to profit by these sad delirious confessions.

Towards morning the poor exhausted sufferer, who during the night had scarcely remained a moment motionless, or abated a minute in his wild, wandering talk, sunk back on his pillow and closed his eyes like one in whom the flame of life had sunk almost to the socket. Railsford viewed the change with the utmost alarm, and hastened to give the restoratives prescribed by the doctor in case of a collapse. But the boy apparently had run through his strength and lacked even the power to swallow.

For two terrible hours it seemed to Railsford as if the young life were slipping through his hands; and he scarcely knew at one time if the prayer he sent up would reach its destination before the soul of him on whose behalf it rose. But soon after the school clock had tolled eight, and when the clear spring sun rising above the chapel tower sent its rays cheerily into the sick-chamber, the breathing became smoother and more regular, and the hand on which that of Railsford rested grew moist.

The doctor arrived an hour later, and smiled approvingly as he glanced at the patient.

"He's going to behave himself after all," said he. "You'll find he will wake up in an hour or two with an appetite. Give him an egg beaten up in milk, with a spoonful of brandy."

"What about his parents?" asked Railsford.

"They will be here by the four-o'clock train. What about your breakfast? you've had nothing since midday yesterday; and if you're going to have your turn at that sort of thing," added he, pointing to the bed, "you'd better get yourself into good trim first. Get Mrs Phillips to cook you a steak, and put yourself outside it. You can leave him safely for twenty minutes or so."

Branscombe slept steadily and quietly through the forenoon, and then woke, clear in mind, and, as the doctor anticipated, with an appetite.

He swallowed the meal prepared for him with considerably less pain than yesterday, and then, for the first time, recognised his nurse.

"Thank you, sir," said he; "have I been seedy long?"

"You were rather poorly yesterday, old fellow," said Railsford, "and you must keep very quiet now, and not talk."

The patient evinced no desire to disobey either of these injunctions, and composed himself once more to sleep.

Before he awoke, a cab had driven into the courtyard and set down three passengers. Two of them were Mr and Mrs Branscombe, the third was a trained nurse from London.

As they appeared on the scene, joined almost immediately by the doctor, Railsford quietly slipped away from the room and signalled to the cabman to stop and pick him up. Five minutes later, he and his portmanteau were bowling towards the station, a day late for the boat-race. But in other respects Mark Railsford was a happy man, and a better one for his night's vigil in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.



CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

RODS IN PICKLE FOR RAILSFORD.

Grandcourt assembled after the holidays in blissful ignorance of the episode narrated in our last chapter. Branscombe's illness had been an isolated case, and apparently not due to any defect in the sanitary arrangements of his house. And as no other boy was reported to have spent his holidays in the same unsatisfactory manner, and as Railsford himself had managed to escape infection, it was decided by the authorities not to publish the little misadventure on the housetop. The captain of Bickers's house was absent on sick leave, and the Master of the Shell (who had been nursing a stubborn cold during the holidays) would not be in his place, so it was announced, for a week. That was all Grandcourt was told; and, to its credit, it received the news with profound resignation.

True, some of the more disorderly spirits in Railsford's house were disposed to take advantage of his absence, and lead the much-enduring Monsieur Lablache, who officiated in his place, an uncomfortable dance. But any indications of mutiny were promptly stamped upon by Ainger and the other prefects, who, because they resented monsieur's appointment, were determined that, come what would, he should have no excuse for exercising his authority. Monsieur shrugged himself, and had no objection to the orderly behaviour of the house, whatever its motive, nor had anyone else whose opinion on such a matter was worth having.

Arthur and Sir Digby, as usual, came back brimful of lofty resolutions and ambitious schemes! Dig had considerably revised his time-table, and was determined to adhere to it like a martyr to his stake.

Arthur, though he came armed with no time-table, had his own good intentions. He had had one or two painful conversations with his father, who had hurt him considerably by suggesting that he wasted a great deal of time, and neglected utterly those principles of self- improvement which had turned out men like Wellington, Dickens, Dr Livingstone, and Mr Elihu Burritt. Arthur had seldom realised before how odious comparisons may become. No doubt Wellington, Dickens, and Company were good fellows in their way, but he had never done them any harm. Why should they be trotted out to injure him?

He thought he was improving himself. He was much better at a drop- kick than he had been last year, and Railsford himself had said he was not as bad at his Latin verses as he had been. Was not that improvement—self-improvement? Then he was conscious of having distinctly improved in morals. He had once or twice done his Caesar without a crib, and the aggregate of lines he had had to write for impositions had been several hundred less than the corresponding term of last year.

Thus the son gently reasoned with his parent, who replied that what he would like to see in his boy was an interest in some intellectual pursuits outside the mere school routine. Why, now, did he not take up some standard book of history with which to occupy his spare time, or some great poem like the Paradise Lost, of which he might commit a few lines to memory every day, and so emulate his great-uncle, who used to be able to repeat the whole poem by heart?

Both Arthur and Dig had landed for the term with hampers more or less replete with indigestible mementoes of domestic affection. Arthur had a Madeira cake and a rather fine lobster, besides a small box of figs, some chocolate creams, Brazil nuts, and (an enforced contribution from the cook) pudding-raisins.

Dig, whose means were not equal to his connections, produced, somewhat bashfully, a rather "high" cold chicken, some gingerbread, some pyretic saline, and a slab or two of home-made toffee. These good things, when spread out on the table that evening, made quite an imposing array, and decidedly warmed the cockles of the hearts of their joint owners, and suggested to them naturally thoughts of hospitality and revelry.

"Let's have a blow-out in the dormitory," proposed Arthur. "Froggy will let us alone, and we can square Felgate with a hunk of this toffee if he interferes."

Felgate was the prefect charged with the oversight of the Shell dormitory in Railsford's—a duty he discharged by never setting foot inside their door when he could possibly get out of it.

From a gastronomic point of view the boys would doubtless have done better to postpone their feast till to-morrow. They had munched promiscuously all day—during the railway journey especially—and almost needed a night's repose to enable them to attack the formidable banquet now proposed on equal terms. But hospitality brooks no delays. Besides, Dig's chicken was already a little over ripe, and it was impossible to say how Arthur's lobster might endure the night.

So the hearts of Maple, Tilbury, Dimsdale, and Simson were made glad that evening by an intimation that it might be worth their while at bed- time to smuggle a knife, fork, and plate a-piece into the dormitory, in case, as Arthur worded it, there should be some fun going.

Wonderful is the intuition of youth! These four simple-minded, uncultured lads knew what Arthur meant, even as he spoke, and joyfully did him and Dig homage for the rest of the evening, and at bed-time tucked each his platter under his waistcoat and scaled the stairs as the curfew rang, grimly accoutred with a fork in one trouser pocket and a knife in the other.

But whatever the cause, the Shell-fish in Railsford's presented a very green appearance when they answered to their names next morning, and were in an irritable frame of mind most of the day. Their bad temper took the form of a dead set on the unhappy Monsieur Lablache, who, during the first day of his vicarious office, led the existence of a pea on a frying-pan. They went up to him with difficulties in Greek prose, knowing that he comprehended not a word of that language; they asked his permission for what they knew he could not grant, and on his refusal got up cries of tyranny and despotism wherewith to raise the lower school; they whistled German war songs outside his door, and asked him the date of the Battle of Waterloo. When he demanded their names they told him "Ainger," "Barnworth," "Wake"; and when he ordered them to stay in an hour after school, they coolly stopped work five minutes before the bell rang and walked under his very nose into the playground.

Poor monsieur, he was no disciplinarian, and he knew it. His backbone was limp, and he never did the right thing at the right time. He shrugged when he ought to have been chastising; and he stormed when he ought to have held his tongue. Nobody cared for him; everybody wondered why he of all men worked at the trade of schoolmaster. Perhaps if some of my lords and baronets in the Shell had known that far away, in a tiny cottage at Boulogne, this same contemptible Frenchman was keeping alive from week to week, with his hard-earned savings, a paralysed father and three motherless little girls, who loved the very ground he trod on, and kissed his likeness every night before they crept to their scantily- covered beds—if they had known that this same poor creature said a prayer for his beloved France every day, and tingled in every vein to hear her insulted even in jest—perhaps they would have understood better why he flared up now and then as he did, and why he clung to his unlovely calling of teaching unfeeling English boys at the rate of L30 a term. But the Grandcourt boys did not know all this, and therefore they had no pity for poor monsieur.

However, as I have said, monsieur shrugged his shoulders, and accepted the help of the prefects to keep his disorderly charges within bounds.

From one of the prefects he got very hide help. Felgate had no interest in the order of the house. It didn't matter to him whether it was monsieur who had to deal with the rioters or Ainger. All he knew was, he was not going to trouble his head about it. In fact, his sympathies were on the side of the agitators. Why shouldn't they enjoy themselves if they liked? They didn't hurt anybody—and if they did break the rules of the house; well, who was to say whether they might not be right and the rules of the house wrong?

Arthur Herapath, for instance, had set up with a dog—puppy to his friend's dog, Smiley. Everybody knew live animals were against rules, and yet Railsford had winked all last term at Smiley; why shouldn't Arthur have equal liberty to enjoy the companionship of Smiley minor?

He met master and puppy in the passage one afternoon.

"Hullo, young 'un," said he, "another dog? How many's that?"

"Two," said Arthur, a little doubtful as to the prefect's reception of the news. "You see it would be rough to take him from his mother while he is so young. It's not as if he was no relation."

"Of course not. What have you been doing with Marky these holidays?"

"Oh, he was seedy—sore throat. I fancy he was shamming a bit to get a week extra. You see, he's spoons on my sister Daisy."

"I fancy I've heard that before," observed Felgate.

"What I mean is, he hangs about our place a lot; so it's a good excuse for him to be laid up, you know."

"Quite so. Perhaps he's not in a hurry to come back here for another reason we know of, eh, youngster?"

"Ha, ha! but keep that mum, you know. We must back him through that business. It's nearly blown over already."

"Has it? But, I say—"

Here Ainger came up and detected the puppy.

"You'll have to get rid of that, Herapath," said he.

"What, Smiley's pup? Why? Felgate's given me leave."

"Felgate may do as he pleases. I tell you you must send him home, and Smiley too."

"What!" said Arthur aghast. "Smiley too! why, Railsford knows all about Smiley, and let us have him all, last term."

"But you are not going to have them this term. Two other fellows have started dogs on the strength of Smiley already, and there's to be a clean sweep of the lot."

"Oh, rot! you can't interfere with fellows' rights like that," said Felgate.

"I tell you Railsford gave us leave," repeated Arthur.

"Very well," said Ainger; "unless both of them are packed off home by this time to-morrow, or sent down to the school farm, you'll go up to the doctor and settle the question with him."

"Rubbish!" said Felgate. "Until Railsford—"

"Shut up," said the captain; "I'm not talking to you."

It was hardly to be wondered at if he was out of temper. He was having any amount of extra work to do; and to be thus obstructed by one of his own colleagues was a trifle too much for his limited patience.

Felgate coloured up at the rebuff, knowing well enough that the captain would be delighted to make good his words at any time and place which might be offered him. He remained after he had gone, and said to Arthur—

"That's what I call brutal. You're not going to care two straws what he says?"

"All very well," said Arthur, stroking his puppy; "if he sends me up to Pony, what then?"

"Bless you, he won't send you up to Pony."

"Think not? If I thought he wouldn't, I'd hang on till Marky comes back. He'd square the thing."

"Of course he would. It's a bit of spite of Ainger's. He thinks he's not quite important enough, so he's going to start bullying. I'll back you up."

"Thanks, awfully," said the ductile Arthur. "You're a brick. I'd take your advice."

He did, and prevailed upon Dig to do the same.

The consequence was, that when next afternoon the captain walked into their study to see whether his order had been complied with, he was met by an unceremonious yap from Smiley herself, echoed by an impertinent squeak from her irreverent son.

"You've got them still, then?" said Ainger. "Very well, they can stay now till after you've been to the doctor. Nine o'clock sharp to-morrow morning, both of you."

The friends turned pale.

"Not really, Ainger? You haven't sent up our names, have you? We'll send them off. We thought as Felgate said—oh, you cad!"

This last remark was occasioned by Ainger departing and shutting the door behind him without vouchsafing any further parley.

They felt that the game was up, and that they had been done. In their distress they waited upon Felgate and laid their case before him. He, as is usual with gentlemen of his type, said it was very hard and unjust, and they would do quite right in resisting and defying everybody all round. But he did not offer to go instead of them to the doctor, so that his general observations on the situation were not particularly comforting.

Arthur proposed telegraphing to Railsford something in this form:

"Ainger says Smiley's against rules. Wire him you allow."

But when the form was filled up and ready to send, the chance of it succeeding seemed hardly worth the cost.

Finally they went down sadly after tea to the school farm and hired a kennel, and arranged for the board and lodging of their exiled pets at so much a week.

Next morning, in doleful dumps, they presented themselves before the doctor. Arthur could hardly help remembering how, a short time ago, he had pictured himself standing in that very room, demanding the hand of Miss Violet. Now, Smiley minor, squeaking and grunting, as he hung by his one tooth to his mother's tail, down there in the school farm, was worth half a dozen Miss Violets to him.

And his once expected uncle—!

The doctor dealt shortly and decisively with the miscreants. He caned them for defying their house-captain, and reprimanded them for imagining that dogs could be permitted under the school roof.

On being told that Mr Railsford had known all about Smiley last term, he declined to argue the matter, and concluded by a warning of the possible consequences of a repetition of the offence.

They went back to their place, sore both in body and mind. To be caned during the first week of the term was not quite in accordance with their good resolutions, and to be bereft of the Smileys was a cruel outrage on their natural affections. They owed both to Ainger, and mutually resolved that he was a cad of the lowest description. For all that they attended to his injunctions for the next few days with wonderful punctuality, and decided to defer, till Railsford's return, their own revenge and his consequent confusion.

Altogether, it was getting to be time for Railsford to turn up. The evening before, the first master's session for the term had been held, and the doctor, for a wonder, had been present. Towards the end of the meeting, after the discussion of a great deal of general business, Mr Bickers rose and asked leave to make a statement. The reader can guess what that statement was.

He begged to remind the meeting that Grandcourt still lay under the cloud of the mystery which enveloped the assault which had been made upon himself last term. For himself, it mattered very little, but for the honour of the school he considered the matter should not be allowed to drop until it was properly cleared up. With a view to assisting in such a result, he might mention that towards the end of last term a rumour had come to his ears—he was not at liberty to say through what channel—that the secret was not quite as dead as was generally supposed. He had heard, on what he considered reliable authority, that in Mr Railsford's house—the house most interested in this painful question—the name of the culprit or culprits was generally known, or, at least, suspected; and he believed he was not going too far in mentioning a rumour that no one could make a better guess as to that name than Mr Railsford himself.

Here Mr Grover and Monsieur Lablache both rose to their feet. Monsieur, of course, gave way, but what he had meant to say was pretty much what Mr Grover did say. He wished to point out that in his friend's absence such an insinuation as that just made by the speaker was quite unjustifiable. For his own part, he thought it a great pity to revive the unfortunate question at all. At any rate, in Mr Railsford's absence, he should certainly oppose any further reference being made to it at this meeting.

"That," echoed monsieur, "is precisely my opinion."

"Very well," said Mr Bickers pleasantly. "What I have to say will keep perfectly well until Mr Railsford comes back."

Whereupon the meeting passed to the next order of the day.



CHAPTER NINETEEN.

FELGATE, THE CHAMPION OF THE OPPRESSED.

It spoke well for Railsford's growing influence with his boys that as soon as he returned to his post every sign of mutiny disappeared, and the house seemed to regain that spirit of ambition and self-reliance which had characterised the last days of the previous term. A few knotty questions, as the reader knows, were awaiting the Master of the Shell on his arrival, but he took them one at a time, and not having been involved in the previous altercations respecting them, disposed of them a great deal more easily than had been expected.

Things had been coming to a climax rather rapidly between Felgate and Ainger. Not that Felgate had committed any unusual offence, or that Ainger had discovered anything new about him which he had not known before; but during the last few weeks of last term, and the opening days of the present, the two had crossed one another's paths frequently, and with increasing friction. Ainger was one of those fellows who, when their mind is set on a thing, seem to lose sight of all but two persons—the person who can help them most and the person who can hinder them most.

In the present case Ainger's heart was set on making his house the crack house of Grandcourt. The person who could help him most was Railsford, and the person who could hinder him most was Felgate. The captain had been shy of the new Master of the Shell for a long time, and the mistrust had not been all on one side, but as last term had worn on, and a common cause had arisen in the temporary disgrace of the house, master and head prefect had felt drawn together in mutual confidence, and Railsford now, though he still did not always realise it, had no more loyal adherent than Ainger. Ainger, on his part, was quite ready to acknowledge that without Railsford the house stood a poor chance of fulfilling the ambitious project he and Barnworth had marked out for it, and he only hoped, now, that the master might not rest on the laurels of last term, but would help to carry through the still more important exploits of this.

The great obstacle to whatever good was going on in Railsford's at present was Felgate. He had nearly succeeded last term in sowing discontent among the juvenile athletes, and he had, in the most unmistakable manner, not done his best in the one competition at the sports for which he had entered. That was bad enough, and the quick- tempered Ainger wrote up a heavy score against him on those two items. But now he had begun on a new line. Although a prefect himself, he not only evinced no interest in the order of the house at a time when the prefects were specially on their mettle, but he had taken pains to undermine the discipline of the place and set his authority up in antagonism to that of his own colleagues.

Felgate laid his plans deeply and cleverly. Ainger, as he knew, was popular because he had won the mile, and was upright, and meant what he said, and said what he meant. No boy of whom the same can be said could help being popular.

"But," said Felgate to himself, "there are other ways of being popular. I haven't won the mile or anything else; I'm not particularly upright, and I shouldn't like to assert I always either say what I mean or mean what I say. Still I can make myself pleasant to a parcel of kids when I choose; I can let them off some of their little rows, and I can help them to some better sport than all this tomfoolery about getting up a crack eleven and winning all the school prizes. Ainger won't like it, but I fancy I can sail close enough to the wind not to give him a chance of being down on me. And as for Railsford—the snob—if he interferes, well, I can take it out of him in a way he don't suspect. What a hypocrite the fellow must be to do a thing like that, and come here smiling and talk about making this the crack house of Grandcourt! Bah!"

And the righteous soul of Felgate waxed hot within him, and he set himself to consider how, with least risk to himself, and most mischief to everyone else, he could drive a wedge into the project of his colleagues, and make to himself a party in Railsford's. He passed in review the various rules of the house, to discover someone on which he might possibly found a grievance. For your man who sets himself to make a party must have a grievance. He fancied he had discovered just what he wanted in the time-honoured rule about compulsory cricket. Every boy was obliged to show up in the cricket-field three times a week, whether he liked it or not. There were very few boys in Railsford's, as Felgate knew, who did not like it; but he fancied for all that he could make something out of the rule.

He began by breaking it himself. He knew that no one would be particularly concerned on his account, for he was an indifferent player, and also a prefect might on a pinch excuse himself. After a week's abstention, during which, rather to his disappointment, no notice was taken of his defection, he began to talk about it to one and another of the more studious boys of the house, boys very keen on winning the school prizes at the end of the term for which they were entered. Sherriff of the Fifth was one of these, and, much as he liked cricket, he was bemoaning one day having to turn out into the fields just when he wanted to finish a knotty problem in trigonometry.

"Don't go," said Felgate. "Surely no one has a right to spoil your chance of a scholarship for a musty old school rule that ought to have been abolished a century ago."

"It's not a bad rule on the whole, I fancy," said Sherriff; "but it comes a little rough on me just now."

"My dear fellow, we're not quite slaves here; and if it doesn't suit you to go down on your knees to an antiquated rule of this kind, then you're not the fellow I take you for if you do it. It hasn't suited me often enough, and I've not been such a muff as to think twice about it."

"What happened to you when you didn't turn up?"

"Nothing, of course. I should have been rather glad if something had, for the sake of fighting the thing out. It's enough to make some fellows loathe the very name of cricket, isn't it?"

"Some of the fellows who can't play don't like it, certainly."

"I don't blame them. If only a few of them would stand out, they'd soon break down the system. But I'm keeping you from your work, old man; you'll think me as bad as the rule. They say you'll have a jolly hard fight for your exam, so you're right to waste no time."

The result of this conservation was that Sherriff, one of the steadiest second-rate bats in the house, was absent from the practice, and a hue- and-cry was made after him. He was found working hard in his study.

"I really can't come to-day. I'm in for the exam, you know, and it'll take me a tremendous grind to lick Redgrave."

"But," said Stafford, who was the ambassador, "it's all the same for all of us. If every fellow said the same, it would be all up with house cricket; and we wanted to turn out such a hot team this year, too. Come on. You'll do your work twice as well after it; and the ground's just in perfect condition for batting to-day."

Sherriff was not proof against this wily appeal. It had been an effort to him to break the rule. It was no effort now to decide to keep it. So he jumped into his flannels and took his beloved bat, and made a long score that morning against Wake's bowling, and was happy. Felgate mentally abused him for his pusillanimity, but saw no reason, for all that, for not turning the incident to account. He proclaimed poor Sherriffs wrongs to a few of the other malcontents.

"It's hard lines," said he, "that just because of this wretched rule, Sherriff is to lose his scholarship. He can't possibly win it unless he's able to read every moment of his time; and that our grave and reverend seniors don't mean to allow."

"Brutal shame," said Munger, "hounding him down like that I've half a mind to stick out."

"That's what Sherriff said," sneered Felgate, "but he had to knuckle under."

"Catch me knuckling under!" said Munger.

He stayed away the next practice day, and, much to his mortification, nobody took the slightest notice of his absence.

"You see," said Felgate, "if only one or two of you stand steady, they can't compel you to play. It's ridiculous."

Next day, accordingly, three fellows stayed away; who, as they were the three premier louts in Railsford's, were never missed or inquired after. But when the next day the number swelled to five, and included Simson, who at least knew one end of a bat from the other, and had once tipped a ball to leg for two, the matter was no longer to be overlooked. The captain's attention was called to the fact that one fellow in the Fifth, three in the Shell, and one Baby, besides Felgate, were not down on the ground.

"Fetch them, then," said Ainger, "and tell them to look sharp, or they'll catch it."

Wake was the envoy this time, and duly delivered his message to the deserters, whom, rather suspiciously, as it seemed to him, he found together.

"You'd better go, you youngsters," said. Felgate, with a sneer; "you'll have to do it sooner or later—you'd better cave in at once."

"I'm hanged if I go," said Munger.

"I fancy that's a safe fixture, whether you go or not," drily observed Wake. "Look sharp, are you coming or not?"

"I'm not coming, I tell you," said Munger.

"No more am I," said Simson.

"No more am I," said each of the others.

"Are you coming, Felgate?" demanded Wake.

This was an irreverent question for a Fifth-form boy to ask a prefect, and Felgate naturally rebuked it.

"It's no business of yours, and you'd better not be impudent, I can tell you. As it happens, I've got some work to do, and can't come. Cut away, you needn't stay."

Wake departed cheerfully, and announced that the whole thing was a "put- up job," as Arthur would have called it, and that Felgate was at the bottom of it. Whereupon Ainger's face grew dark, and he walked, bat in hand, to the house. The mutineers, with the exception of Felgate, who, with the usual prudence of a professional "patriot," had retired to his study, were loafing about the common room just where Wake had interviewed them.

"What's the meaning of all this?" demanded the captain; "what do you mean by not turning up to cricket and sending word you weren't coming when Wake came for you?"

It was much easier defying Ainger in his absence than in his presence, and now that he stood there and confronted them, the delinquents did not quite feel the hardy men of war they had been five minutes ago. Munger, however, tried to carry the thing off with a bluster.

"We don't see the fun of being compelled to go every time. We don't care about cricket; besides—we don't mean to go. Felgate doesn't go; why don't you make him?"

The captain put down his bat.

"Munger, go and put on your flannels at once."

"What if I don't?" asked Munger.

Ainger replied by giving him a thrashing there and then, despite his howls and protests that he had just been going, and would never do it again. The captain replied that he didn't fancy he would do it again in a hurry; and as the remainder of the company expressed positive impatience to go to the cricket-field, he let them of! with a caution, and, after seeing them started, walked moodily up to Felgate's study.

Felgate was comfortably stretched on two chairs, reading a novel. But as he held the book upside down, Ainger concluded that he could not be very deeply engrossed in its contents.

"You're working, I hear?" said the captain.

"Is that all you've come to tell me?" replied Felgate.

"No, only most fellows when they're reading—even if it's novels, read the right way up. It's bad for the eyes to do it upside down."

Felgate looked a little disconcerted and shut up his book.

"You've missed the last two weeks at cricket," said the captain. "We have managed to get on without you, though, and one of the things I looked in to say now was that if you choose to stay away always you are welcome. Don't think it will put us out."

This was unexpected. Felgate was prepared to hear a peremptory order to go to the field, and had laid his plans for resisting it.

"I've just been seeing one or two other louts down below who hadn't turned up. I'm glad to hear you advised them to go when I sent Wake to fetch them. It's a pity they didn't take your advice, for I've had to thrash Hunger. And if you happen to know where I can find the coward who put him and the rest up to breaking the rule, and didn't dare to show face himself, I'll thrash him too."

Felgate was completely disconcerted by this speech, and gnashed his teeth to find himself made a fool of after all.

"Why on earth can't you get out of my study and go down to your cricket? I don't want you here," he snarled.

"I dare say not. But I thought you ought to know what I have been doing to enforce the rule, and what I mean to do. I hope you will tell that coward I spoke of what he may expect."

"Look here," said Felgate, firing up—for a baulked bully rarely talks in a whisper—"you may think yourself a very important person, but I don't." (This was the speech Felgate had prepared in case he had been ordered down to cricket.) "I consider the cricket rule is a bad one, and I'm not surprised if fellows kick against it. I've something better to do than to go down to the field three times a week; and I shall certainly sympathise with any fellows who complain of it and try to get it abolished, and I've told them so. You can do what you like with me. I've told you what I shall do."

"And I," said the captain, whose temper was extinguished, "have told you what I shall do. Is this room large enough, or shall we come outside?"