A Dog with a Bad Name Part 4

"He's not dead!" they heard him whisper to Mr Frampton.

Still they stood round, silent and motionless. The relief itself was terrible. He was not dead, but would those deep-fringed eyes ever open again?

The doctor whispered again to Mr Frampton and Mr Freshfield, and the two pa.s.sed their hands under the prostrate form to lift it. But before they could do so the doctor, who never took his eyes off the boy's face, held up his hand suddenly, and said "No! Better have a hurdle,"

pointing to one which lay not far off on the gra.s.s.

A dozen boys darted for it, and a dozen more laid their coats upon it to make a bed. Once more, amid terrible suspense, they saw the helpless form raised gently and deposited on the hurdle. A sigh of relief escaped when the operation was over, and the sad burden, supported at each corner by the two masters, Scarfe and Farfield, began to move slowly towards the school.

"Slowly, and do not keep step. Above all things avoid a jolt," said the doctor, keeping the boy's hand in his own.

The crowd opened to let them pa.s.s, and then followed in mournful procession.

As the bearers pa.s.sed on, Jeffreys, who all this time had been forgotten, but who had never once turned his face from where Forrester lay, stepped quickly forward as though to a.s.sist in carrying the litter.

His sudden movement, and the startling gesture that accompanied it, disconcerted the bearers, and caused them for a moment to quicken their step, thus imparting an unmistakable shock to the precious burden.

The doctor uttered an exclamation of vexation and ordered a halt.

"Stand back, sir!" he cried angrily, waving Jeffreys back; "a jolt like that may be fatal!"

An authority still more potent than that of the doctor was at hand to prevent a recurrence of the danger. Jeffreys was flung out of reach of the litter by twenty angry hands and hounded out of the procession.

He did not attempt to rejoin it. For a moment he stood and watched it as it pa.s.sed slowly on. A cold sweat stood on his brow, and every breath was a gasp. Then he turned slowly back to the spot where Forrester had fallen, and threw himself on the ground in a paroxysm of rage and misery. It was late and growing dark as he re-entered the school. There was a strange, weird silence about the place that contrasted startlingly with the usual evening clamour. The boys were mostly in their studies or collected in whispering groups in the schoolrooms.

As Jeffreys entered, one or two small boys near the door hissed him and ran away. Others who met him in the pa.s.sage and on the stairs glared at him with looks of mingled horror and aversion, which would have frozen any ordinary fellow.

Jeffreys, however, did not appear to heed it, still less to avoid it.

Entering the Sixth Form room, he found most of his colleagues gathered, discussing the tragedy of the day in the dim light of the bay window.

So engrossed were they that they never noticed his entrance, and it was not till after standing a minute listening to their talk he broke in, in his loud tones--

"Is Forrester dead?"

The sound of his voice, so harsh and unexpected, had the effect of an explosion in their midst.

They recoiled from it, startled and half-scared. Then, quickly perceiving the intruder, they turned upon him with a howl.

But this time the Cad did not retreat before them. He held up his hand to stop them with a gesture almost of authority.

"Don't!" he exclaimed. "I'll go. But tell me, some one, is he dead?"

His big form loomed out in the twilight a head taller than any of his companions, and there was something in his tone and att.i.tude that held them back.

"You will be sorry to hear," said Scarfe, one of the first to recover his self-control, and with a double-edge of bitterness in his voice, "that he was alive an hour ago."

Jeffreys gave a gasp, and held up his hand again.

"Is there hope for him, then?"

"Not with you in the school, you murderer!" exclaimed Farfield, advancing on the Cad, and striking him on the mouth.

Farfield had counted the cost, and was prepared for the furious onslaught which he felt certain would follow.

But Jeffreys seemed scarcely even to be aware of the blow. He kept his eyes on Scarfe, to whom he had addressed his last question, and said--

"You won't believe me. I didn't mean it."

"Don't tell lies," said Scarfe, "you did--coward!"

Jeffreys turned on his heel with what sounded like a sigh. The fury of his companions, which had more than once been on the point of breaking loose in the course of the short conference, vented itself in a howl as the door closed behind him. And yet, some said to themselves, would a murderer have stood and faced them all as he had done?

The long night pa.s.sed anxiously and sleeplessly for most of the inhabitants of Bolsover. The event of the day had awed them into something like a common feeling. They forgot their own petty quarrels and grievances for the time, and thought of nothing but poor Forrester.

The doctor and Mr Frampton never quitted his room all night. Boys who, refusing to go to bed, sat anxiously, with their study doors open, eager to catch the first sound proceeding from that solemn chamber, waited in vain, and dropped asleep where they sat as the night gave place to dawn.

Even the masters hovered restlessly about with careworn faces, and full of misgivings as hour pa.s.sed hour without tidings.

At length--it was about ten o'clock, and the school bell was just beginning to toll for morning chapel--the door opened, and Mr Frampton stepped quickly out of the sick-room.

"Stop the bell at once!" he said.

Then Forrester must still be living!

"How is he?" asked a dozen voices, as the head-master pa.s.sed down the corridor.

"There is hope," said Mr Frampton, "and, thank G.o.d! signs of returning consciousness."

And with that grain of comfort wearied Bolsover filed slowly into church.

As Mr Frampton reached his study door he found Scarfe and Farfield waiting for him.

"Well?" said he wearily, seeing that they had something to say. "Come in."

They followed him into the room.

"Is there really hope?" said Scarfe, who truly loved the injured boy.

"I think so. He never moved or showed sign of life, except the beating of his heart, till an hour ago. Then he moved his head and opened his eyes."

"Did he know you, sir?"

"The doctor thinks he did. But everything depends now on quiet and care."

"We wanted to speak to you, sir, about the--the accident," said Farfield with a little hesitation.

"Yes. I have hardly heard how it happened, except that he fell in attempting to collar Jeffreys. Was it not so?"

"Yes, sir," replied Farfield. "But--"

"Well, what?" asked Mr Frampton, noticing his hesitation.