The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 62

Won't they? Such is the perversity of that creature people call Luck, and such is the hatred it has for anything like a boast, that two minutes--only two minutes--after the words are out of the captain's mouth another Dominican goal has fallen.

For Stansfield in kicking off gets his foot too much under the ball, which consequently rises against the wind and presents an easy catch to any one who comes out to take it. A County forward sees his chance.

Rushing up, he catches the ball, and instantaneously, so it seems, drop-kicks it, a tremendous kick clean over the School goal, before even the players have all taken up their places after the last catastrophe.

This is dreadful! worse than ever! Never in their worst days had such a thing happened. For once in a way Stansfield's hopefulness deserts him, and he feels the School is in for an out-and-out hiding.

The captain would like extremely to blow some one up, if he only knew whom. It is so aggravating sometimes to have no one to blow-up.

Nothing relieves the feelings so, does it?

However, Stansfield has to bottle up his feelings, and, behold! once more he and his men are in battle array.

This time it's steady all again, and the ball is kept well out of sight.

It can't even slip out behind now, as before; for the School quarter-backs are up to that dodge, and ready to pounce upon it before it can be lifted or sent flying. Indeed, the only chance the wretched ball has of seeing daylight is--

Hullo! half-time!

The announcement falls on joyful ears among the Dominicans. They have worked hard and patiently against heavy odds; and they feel they really deserve this respite.

Now, at last, if the wind wouldn't change for them, they have changed over to the wind, which blows no longer in their faces, but gratefully on to their backs.

The kick-off is a positive luxury under such circ.u.mstances; Stansfield needn't be afraid of skying the ball now, and he isn't. It shoots up with a prodigious swoop and soars right away to touch-line, so that the County's "back" is the first of their men to go into action. He brings the ball back deftly and prettily, slipping in and out among his own men, who get beside him as a sort of bodyguard, ready at any moment to carry on the ball. It is ludicrous to see Ricketts and Winter and Callonby flounder about after him. The fellow is like an eel. One moment you have him, the next he's away; now you're sure of him, now he's out of all reach. Ah! Stansfield's got him at last! No he hasn't; but Winter has--No, Winter has lost him; and--just look--he's past all the School forwards, no one can say how.

Young Forrester tackles him gamely--but young Forrester is no hand at eel-catching; in fact, the eel catches Forrester, and leaves him gracefully on his back. Past the quarter-backs! The man has a charmed life!

Ah! Greenfield has got him at last. Yes, Mr Eel, you may wriggle as hard as you like, but you'd hardly find your way out of that grip without leave!

Altogether this is a fine run, and makes the School see that even with the wind they are not going to have it all their own way. However, they warm up wonderfully after this.

Steady is still the word (what grand play we should get if it were always the word at football, you schoolboys! You may kick and run and scrimmage splendidly, but you are not steady--but this is digression).

Steady is still the word, and _every_ minute Saint Dominic's pulls better together. The forwards work like one man, and, lighter weight though they are, command the scrimmages by reason of their good "packing."

Wren and young Forrester, the quarter-backs, are "dead on" the ball the moment it peeps out from the scrimmage; and behind them at half-back Oliver and Bullinger are not missing a chance. If they did, Wraysford is behind them, a prince of "backs."

Oh, for a chance to put this fine machinery into motion! Time is flying, and the umpire is already fidgeting with his watch. Oh, for one chance! And while we speak here it comes. A County man has just darted up along the touch-line half the length of the field. Wren goes out to meet him, and behind Wren--too close behind--advances Oliver. The County man thinks twice before delivering himself up into the clutches of one of these heroes, and ends his run with a kick, which, Oliver being not in his place, Wraysford runs forward to take. Now Wraysford has hardly had a run this afternoon. He means to have one now! And he does have one. He takes the ball flying, gives one hurried look round, and then makes right for the thick of the fray. Who backs him up?

Greenfield for one, and all the rest of Saint Dominic's for the other.

"Stick close!" he says to Oliver, as he flies past. Oliver wants no bidding. He follows his man like a shadow. In and out among the forwards, and round about past the quarter-backs; and when at last Wraysford is borne down by a combined force of half and three-quarter-backs, Greenfield is there to take the ball on.

"Look-out there!" cries the County captain, "mark that man." The County does mark that man, and they have the painful task of marking him pa.s.s one half-back and floor another before he is arrested.

"I'm here!" cries Wraysford's voice at that moment; and next instant the ball is again hurrying on towards the County goal in Wraysford's arms, Greenfield once more being in close attendance.

And now the County backs come into action, and the first of them collars Wraysford. But it is Oliver who collars the ball, and amid the shouts, and howls, and cheers of players and spectators rushes it still onward.

The second "back" is the County's only remaining hope, nor surely will he fail. He rushes at Oliver. Oliver rushes at him. Wraysford, once more on his feet, rushes on them both.

"Look-out for the ball there!" is the panic cry of the County. Ay, look indeed! Oliver is down, but Wraysford has it, and walks with it merrily over the County's goal-line, and deposits it on the ground in the exact centre of the posts.

"There never was such a rush-up, or such a pretty piece of double play,"

say the knowing ones among the onlookers; and when a minute later the ball is brought out, and Stansfield kicks it beautifully over the goal, every one says that it is one of the best-earned goals that old meadow has ever seen kicked, and that Saint Dominic's, though beaten, has nothing in that day's performance to be ashamed of.

CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

A VOCAL, INSTRUMENTAL, AND DRAMATIC ENTERTAINMENT IN THE FOURTH JUNIOR.

Now among those who were present to witness the famous "rush-up" of Greenfield senior and Wraysford, which ended in the fall of the County goal, was one boy who showed very little enthusiasm over the achievement, or very little delight at the glory which the school thereby derived.

Loman, who, unable to sit in his study, and not knowing what else to do, had wandered almost instinctively to the meadow, found himself on this particular afternoon one of the most miserable boys in Saint Dominic's.

Two years ago, when he first entered the school, he was popular with his fellows and voted an acquisition on the cricket-ground and football-field whenever the youth of Saint Dominic's strove in emulation against their rivals. He could remember a time when fellows strolled arm-in-arm with him down to the matches; when the small boys looked quite meek in his presence, and the masters gave a friendly nod in answer to his salutes. That was when he was quite new at Saint Dominic's; but how changed now! This afternoon, for instance, as he stood looking on, he had the cheerful knowledge that not a boy in all that a.s.sembly cared two straws about him. Why wasn't _he_ playing in the match? Why did the fellows, as they came near him, look straight in front of them, or go round to avoid him? Why did the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles strut about and crack their vulgar jokes right under his very nose, as if he was n.o.body? Alas, Loman! something's been wrong with you for the last year or thereabouts; and if we don't all know the cause, we can see the effect. For it is a fact, you _are_ n.o.body in the eyes of Saint Dominic's at the present time.

However, he was destined to become a somebody pretty soon; and, indeed, as soon as the football match was over, and the supper after it was disposed of, and the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles (who, you know, had selected this same afternoon _for their_ great football match) had ceased their rows in slumber, every one's mind, at least the mind of every one in the two head forms, turned naturally to the strange and mysterious event of the morning. What various conclusions they came to it is not for me to set down here. They probably came to as good a conclusion as the reader has done, and waited impatiently to have the whole thing cleared up.

And it looked as if the Doctor were about to do this next morning, for he summoned together the Fifth and Sixth, and thus solemnly addressed them:--

"Before we begin the lesson for the day, boys, I wish to refer to an incident that happened here yesterday morning, which must be fresh in your memories. I mean the accidental discovery of the lost examination paper for the Nightingale Scholarship. I hope you will not draw hasty conclusions from what then occurred. The boy in whose book the paper was found is present here, and has a.s.sured me on his honour he never saw the paper before, and is quite ignorant how it came into his book. That is so, Loman?"

"Yes, sir," replied Loman.

"When a boy makes a statement to me on his honour, I accept it as such,"

said the Doctor, very gravely, and looking hard at the boy. "I accept it as such--"

Loman sat motionless with his eyes on the desk before him.

"But," went on the Doctor, turning again to the boys, "before I dismiss the subject I must do justice to one among you who I find, much to my pain, has been an object of suspicion in connection with this same lost paper. Greenfield senior, I have no hesitation in saying, is perfectly clear of any such imputation as that you put upon him. I may say in his presence I believe him to be incapable of a fraudulent and mean act; and further than that, you boys will be interested to hear that the questions which he answered so brilliantly in that examination were not the questions which appeared on the lost paper at all, but an entirely new set, which for my own satisfaction I drew up on the morning of examination itself."

This announcement _did_ interest every one--the Fifth particularly, who felt their own humiliation now fourfold as they looked at Oliver, and thought of what their conduct to him had been.

It interested Oliver and Wraysford as much as any one, but for a different reason. Supposing Loman had taken the paper--this was the reflection which darted through both their minds--supposing Loman _had_ taken the paper and worked up the answers from it, might not the sudden change of questions described by the Doctor account for the low place he had taken in the exam?

Altogether the Doctor's speech left things (except as concerned Oliver) not much more satisfactory than before. The natural impulse of everybody was to suspect Loman. But, then, six months ago the natural impulse had been equally as strong to suspect Oliver, and--well, that had somehow turned out a bad "spec," and so might this.

So Saint Dominic's really didn't know what to think, and settled down to the work of the term in an uneasy frame of mind, wishing something would turn up, to end the wretched affair of the lost paper definitely one way or another.

Of course the report of the new state of affairs soon penetrated down to the lower school, and the Guinea-pigs and Tadpoles at any rate were not slow in making up _their_ minds on the burning question.

They turned out in a body and hooted Loman up and down the pa.s.sages with as much, if not more, glee than some of them had lately hooted Oliver.

"Yah, boo! Who stole the exam paper?--there! old Loman." Such were the cries which presently became familiar in the school, until one day Mr Rastle dropped down on some twenty of the "howlers," and set them each twelve propositions of Euclid to learn by heart, and two hours a-piece in the detention-room, there to meditate over their evil ways.

The quiet of the lower school during the next week was something delicious.

The tyrannical proceeding on the part of Mr Rastle provoked bitter indignation, of course, in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of the culprits. Why weren't they to be allowed to express their feelings? And if Rastle did want to "pot" them, why should he give them Euclid to learn, when he knew perfectly well Euclid was the very thing not one of them _could_ learn by heart? And if he did want to detain them, why _ever_ should he fix on the identical week in which the grand "Vocal, Instrumental, and Dramatic Entertainment" of the Fourth Junior was due to come off.

It was an abominable piece of spite, that was a fact; and Mr Rastle was solemnly condemned one evening in the dormitory to be blown up with dynamite at the first convenient opportunity. Meanwhile, come what would, the "Vocal, Instrumental, and Dramatic Entertainment" _should_ come off, if it cost every man Jack of the "entertainers" his head.

Stephen, who by this time was a person of authority in his cla.s.s, was appointed president of the "V. I. and D. Society." The manner of his election to this honourable office had been peculiar, but emphatic. He had been proposed by Paul and seconded by himself in a short but elegant speech, in which he a.s.serted he would only serve if his appointment was unanimous. It _was_ unanimous, for directly after this magnanimous statement he and Paul and a few others proceeded summarily to eject Bramble, Padger, and others who showed signs of opposition; and then, locking the door, proceeded to an immediate vote, which, amid loud Guinea-pig cheers, was declared to be unanimous, one contumacious Tadpole, who had escaped notice, having his hands held down by his sides during the ceremony. As soon as the doors were open, Bramble, who had meanwhile collected a large muster of adherents, rushed in, and, turning out all the Guinea-pigs, had himself elected treasurer, and Padger honorary secretary. These exciting appointments having been made, the meeting was "thrown open," a programme was drawn up, and the preparations were in a very forward state when the sad interruption occasioned by Mr Rastle's brutal conduct took place. But if Mr Rastle thought he was going to extinguish the "Vocal, Instrumental, and Dramatic Entertainment" he was woefully mistaken.