Mildred Arkell Volume Ii Part 26

"It must be kept safe for your own sake, for your family's sake. If any evidence _has_ turned up, there's no cause to let the world know it before you are compelled. It would be damaging your cause irreparably."

Ben Carr nodded a.s.sent. "What is it?" he asked.

"Well, I think they have found out where the marriage was solemnized. I _think_ so, mind; I am not positive. That is, I am not positive of the fact; only that they think it so."

"How did you hear it?"

"Now, Ben, you'll not get me to let out that. I've said so. Perhaps I dreamt it; perhaps a little bird told me: never mind. I mean to go over to your place to see Valentine to-night, and drop him a hint of the state of affairs. Shall you be at home?"

"I didn't mean to be at home for some days to come; but I'll meet you there. Take care of one thing: that you say nothing to the squire."

Mr. Richards gave a knowing nod sideways, as if to intimate that he knew just as well what to do and what not to do as Benjamin Carr. Just then the noise of a train was heard puffing up.

"Here it comes, Richards."

"Here it doesn't," was the reply. "It's coming the wrong way. This is the London train coming in."

The train came in, and stopped on the other side of the platform, while it discharged its pa.s.sengers and any luggage pertaining to them. It then went puffing on, and the pa.s.sengers crossed the line to this side, as they had to do before they could leave the station. Benjamin Carr and his friend stood still to look at them, and the former recognised in one of them Mr. Arkell.

"How d'ye do, Mr. Arkell," said Ben, holding out his hand. "Been out anywhere?"

But Mr. Arkell did not see the hand. What with the jostling crowd, what with a small portmanteau he was carrying, what with wondering who the stranger might be, hanging lovingly on Ben's arm, for Mr. Arkell had not the honour of knowing Mr. Richards by sight, he certainly did not appear to see the held-out hand. "Where have you been?" inquired Ben, inquisitively.

"I have been to London, Mr. Benjamin, as you wish to know. A short visit, though."

"Oh," said Ben, meaning to be jocular. "Seen any of my friends there?"

"I saw Mrs. Carr, the clergyman's young widow: I don't know whether you count her as one of your friends. And I saw Mrs. Dund.y.k.e."

There was a look in Mr. Arkell's face, not usual on it: a peculiar, solemn, penetrating look. Somehow Mr. Ben Carr's jocularity and his courage went out of him together.

"Mrs. Dund.y.k.e?" he repeated, vaguely, staring over the heads of the pa.s.sing pa.s.sengers. "Oh, ah, I remember, that connexion of yours. I don't know her."

"I got her to give me a description of the man, calling himself Hardcastle, who lies under the suspicion of knowing rather too clearly what became of Mr. Dund.y.k.e. Poor Robert Carr, just dead, attempted the description of him, you may remember, at your father's table."

"Ah; yes," said Ben, striving to be more vague than before: and his dark face perceptibly changed its hue.

"And I may tell you that this description of Mrs. Dund.y.k.e's has made a singular impression upon me, and a very disagreeable one. It is not my affair," he added, slowly and distinctly; "and for the present I shall not make it mine: but----"

"Here's your train, Richards. Got a return ticket?"

The two walked forward to meet it, Richards evidently pulled along by his companion. The train came dashing in too far, and had to be backed: porters ran about, departing pa.s.sengers hustled each other. And altogether, in the general confusion, there was no more to be seen of Mr. Benjamin Carr.

CHAPTER XIII.

A DISLIKE THAT WAS TO BEAR ITS FRUITS.

The information, hinted at by Miss Beauclerc to Henry Arkell, had proved to be correct--the dean and chapter purposed to hold an examination of the college school.

To describe the consternation this caused would be difficult. It fell, not only upon the boys, but on the masters, like a clap of thunder: indeed the former cared for it the least. That the school was not in a state, in regard to its proficiency of study, to bear an examination, was a fact known to nearly everybody; and the head master, had it been possible, would have resisted the fiat of the dean.

In point of fact, the school had become notorious for its inefficiency.

The old days of confining the boys' studies exclusively to Latin and Greek were over; but the additional branches inaugurated could scarcely be said to have begun. The masters, wedded to the old system, did not take to them kindly; the boys did not, of their own will, take to them at all. They could not spell; they knew nothing of English grammar, except what they could pick up of it through their acquaintance with the Latin; they hardly knew a single event in English, French, or modern history; and of geography they were intensively ignorant. What could be expected? For years and years, for many hours a day, had these boys been kept to work, always at the old routine work, Latin and Greek. Examine them in these cla.s.sics, and Mr. Wilberforce would have no reason to complain of his pupils; but in all else a charity boy could beat them.

Had one of those college boys been required to write a letter in English, every other word in it would have been spelled incorrectly. I am giving you a true account of the state of the school at that period: and I fear that you will scarcely believe it. A few of the boys, a very few, only some three or four, had been generally well educated; but these owed it to the care, the forethought, perhaps the _means_ of their parents: home tutors were expensive.

As Miss Beauclerc had said, it was in consequence of a letter, written by one of the senior boys, that this trouble had come about. It was a disgraceful letter--speaking in reference to its spelling and composition--neither more nor less. The letter had been brought under the astonished eyes of one of the chapter, and he showed it to the dean. They awoke from their supineness, and much indignation at the young scholar was privately expressed. What _did_ they expect? Did they think spelling came to the boys intuitively, as pecking at grain does to birds? It may be said that the boys ought to have been able to spell correctly before entering the school, and to have possessed some other general learning; that the parents ought to have taken care of that. But "ought" does not go for much in this world. Many of the boys were indulged children who had never been brought on at all, except in reading, and that was essential, or they could not be admitted; and, at that time, they entered young--nine years old. As they went in, little ignoramuses, so they remained, except in the cla.s.sics. Many a boy has gone from that school to the university not educated at all, save in the dead languages.

Of course, when the innovation (as the masters regarded it) came in, a little stir was caused. A pretence was made of teaching the school foreign branches, such as spelling and geography; but whether it might be owing to the innate prejudice of their masters, or to their own stupidity, little, if any, progress was made. The boys remained lamentably deficient; and they thought it no shame to be so. Rather the contrary, in fact; for a feeling grew up in the school that these common branches of learning were not essential to them as gentlemen; that it was derogatory altogether to a foundation school to have them introduced. The masters had winked at this state of things, and they perhaps did not know how intensely ignorant some of their best cla.s.sical scholars were.

It may be imagined, therefore, what the consternation was when the dean's announcement was received early in August. There was to be an examination held; but not until November; so the boys and the masters had three months to prepare. It's true you cannot convert ignorant boys into finished scholars in three months, however humble may be the attainments required; but you may do something towards it by means of drilling. So the boys, to their intense disgust, were drilled late and early--and that disgust did not render their apprehensions the quicker.

Amidst the very few who need not fear that, or any other examination, was Henry Arkell. He was not yet a senior boy (speaking of the four seniors), but he was by far the best scholar in the school. He owed this chiefly to his father. Mr. Peter Arkell was so finished a scholar himself, it had been strange indeed if he had not sought to render his son one; and Henry's abilities were of a most superior order.

Indeed--but that a sort of prejudice exists against these clever lads, I could say a great deal more of his abilities, his attainments, than I mean to say--for this is no fict.i.tious history. Intellectual, clever, good, refined, sensitive, Henry Arkell seemed to be one of those superior spirits not meant for this world. The event too often proves that they were not meant for it.

He was not a favourite in the school, except with a few. By the majority he was intensely disliked. The dislike arose from envy, and his own gifts excited it. His unusual beauty, his sensitive temperament, his refinement of manner, his ever-pervading sense of religion, his honourable nature, as seen in even the smallest action,--all and each of them were objectionable to the rough schoolboys. Most of these qualities he had inherited from his mother, and for any one of them, the school, as a whole, would have ridiculed and despised him. They would have been quite enough without his superior advancement; which put _them_ to the shame, and called forth now and again some stinging comparison from the lips of the head master. When he first entered the school, he had unintentionally excited the ill-will of the two sons of Mrs. Lewis, and of their chosen companions, the two Aultanes. These boys longed above everything to thrash him every day of their lives; but he had been taken under the protection of Mr. St. John and Travice Arkell, and they dared not, and it did not increase their love for him.

But there was to arise a worse cause of enmity than any of these, as Henry grew older, and _that_ was the favour shown him by the dean's daughter. To see him under the especial favour of the dean was aggravation enough; but that was as nothing compared to the intimacy accorded him by the dean's daughter. You know what these things are with schoolboys. Half the school believed themselves in love with this attractive girl, who condescended to freedom with them; the other half _were_ in love with her. After their fashion, you know. It was not that serious love that makes or mars the heart for all time, though the boys might think it so. Lewis senior--his name was Roland, and he was one of the four senior boys--was especially envious of this favour of Miss Beauclerc's. He was very fond of her, and would have given all he possessed in the world for it to be accorded to him. _He_ could only love and admire her at a distance; while Arkell might tell it to her face if he pleased--and Lewis felt sure he _did_. He hated Henry with a pa.s.sionate hatred. He saw, with that intuition natural to these things, that Henry loved Georgina Beauclerc, and with no pa.s.sing school-boy's love. He wished that the earth contained only their three selves, that he might set upon the fragile boy and kill him, and keep the young lady to himself ever afterwards--Adam and Eve in a second Paradise. Indeed, Mr. Lewis had got into a habit of indulging this train of thought rather more than was wholesome for him, and would have shot Henry Arkell in a duel with all the non-compunction in the world.

Not being able to do this--for the human race could not be exterminated so easily, and duels are not in fashion--he made up for the disappointment by rendering Henry Arkell's life as miserable as it is well possible for one boy to render another's. He excited the school against him; he openly derided the position and known poverty of his father, Peter Arkell; and he positively affected to rebel--he would have rebelled had he dared--when Henry came to reside temporarily in the head master's house. The scholars in that house had hitherto been gentlemen, he said, loudly. Indeed, but for one fortunate circ.u.mstance, Henry's life at the master's might have been rendered nearly unbearable; and this was, that he was in favour with the senior boy--an idle, gentlemanly fellow of the name of Jocelyn. So long as Jocelyn remained in the school, there could be no very undue open oppression put upon Henry Arkell. It was not that the head boy held Henry in any especial favour; but he was of too just a nature, too much the gentleman in ideas and habits, to permit cruelty or unfairness of any sort. But you have now heard enough to gather that Henry Arkell was not in favour with the majority of the college boys, his fellows; and you hear its causes.

The cramming that the boys were now subjected to, did not improve their temper. Unfortunately, the dean had not specified--perhaps purposely--what would be the branches chosen for examination. Mr.

Wilberforce and the under masters presumed that it would chiefly lie in the cla.s.sics, and, so far, were tolerably easy; but the result of this was, that the Latin and Greek lessons were increased, leaving less time for what they were pleased to consider inferior studies.

"Suppose," suggested the second master, one day, "it should be in those other studies that the dean purposes to examine them?"

Mr. Wilberforce turned purple.

"In _those_!--to the exclusion of the higher! Nonsense! It is not likely. The boys will cut a pretty figure if he should."

"The fact is, they are such a dull lot."

"Most of them: yes. I think, Mr. Roberts, you had better hold some dictation cla.s.ses; and we'll get in a few conspicuous maps."

But all the studies that came in addition, whether dictation cla.s.ses or the staring at maps, the boys resented wofully; and though they were obliged to submit, it did not, I say, improve their temper. One afternoon in October, when everything seemed to have gone wrong, and the school rather wished, on the whole, that they had never been born, or that books had not been invented, or that they were private pupils of the head master's (for _they_ were not to be included in the examination, only the forty foundation boys, the king's scholars), the school was waiting impatiently to hear half-past four strike, for then only another half-hour must elapse before they would be released from school. The choristers had come in at four o'clock from service with the head master, whose week it was for chanting, and had settled down to their respective desks. Henry Arkell, who was at the first desk now, but nothing like its head, for promotion in the school was not attained by proficiency, but by priority of entrance, had come in with the rest; he was senior chorister now, and was seated bending over a book, his head half buried between his raised hands, and his elbows on the desk.

"What are you conning there so attentively, Mr. Arkell?"

The authoritative words came from Lewis. He was monitor that week, and therefore head of all the school, under the senior boy: his present position on the rolls was that of fourth senior.

"I'm reading Greek," replied Henry, without removing his hands or looking up. "I've done my lessons."

"Take your hands and elbows down. I should like to see."

Down went the hands and elbows, but he did not look up.