The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's Part 7

"Let's have a look at the questions," again demanded Oliver, but at that moment Loman's voice sounded down the pa.s.sage.

"Greenfield junior, where are you?"

Stephen, quite glad of this excuse for again refusing to show that wretched paper, jumped up, and saying, "There's Loman wants his tea cleared away," vanished out of the room.

Poor Stephen! There was little chance of another turn at his paper that night. By the time Loman's wants had been attended to, and his directions for future f.a.gging delivered, the prayer-bell rang, and for the half-hour following prayers the new boy was hauled away by Master Paul into the land of the Guinea-pigs, there to make the acquaintance of some of his future cla.s.s-fellows, and to take part in a monster indignation meeting against the monitors for forbidding single wicket cricket in the pa.s.sage, with a door for the wicket, an old inkpot for the ball, and a ruler for the bat. Stephen quite boiled with rage to hear of this act of tyranny, and vowed vengeance along with all the rest twenty times over, and almost became reconciled with his enemy of the morning (but not quite) in the sympathy of emotion which this demonstration evoked.

Then, just as the memory of that awful paper rushed back into his mind, and he was meditating sneaking off to his brother's study, the first bed-bell sounded.

"Come on," said Paul, "or they'll bag our blankets."

Stephen, wondering, and shivering at the bare idea, raced along the pa.s.sage and up the staircase with his youthful ally to the dormitory.

There they found they had been antic.i.p.ated by the blanket-s.n.a.t.c.hers; and as they entered, one of these, the hero of the inky head, was deliberately abstracting one of those articles of comfort from Stephen's own bed.

"There's young Bramble got your blanket, Greenfield," cried Paul, "pitch into him!"

Stephen, nothing loth, marched up to Master Bramble and demanded his blanket. A general engagement ensued, some of the inhabitants of the dormitory siding with Stephen, and some with Bramble, until it seemed as if the coveted blanket would have parted in twain. In the midst of the confusion a sentry at the door suddenly put his head in and shouted "Nix!" The signal had a magical effect on all but the uninitiated Stephen, who, profiting by his adversaries' surprise, made one desperate tug at his blanket, which he triumphantly rescued.

"Look sharp," said Paul, "here comes Rastle." Mr Rastle was the small boys' tutor and governor. Stephen took the hint, and was very soon curled up, with his brave blanket round him, in bed, where, despite the despairing thought of his paper, the cruel injustice of the owner of the jam-pots, and the general hardness of his lot, he could not help feeling he was a good deal more at home at Saint Dominic's than he had ever yet found himself.

Of one thing he was determined. He would be up at six next morning, and make one last desperate dash at his exam paper.

CHAPTER FIVE.

SHAKING DOWN TO WORK.

"Master Greenfield, junior, is to go to the head master's study at half-past nine," called out Mr Roach, the school porter, putting his head into the dormitory, at seven o'clock next morning.

Stephen had been up an hour, making fearful and wonderful shots of answers to his awful questions, half of which he had already ticked off as done for better or worse. "If I write _something_ down to each,"

thought he to himself, "I might happen to get one thing right; it'll be better than putting down no answer at all."

"Half-past nine!" said he to Paul, on hearing this announcement; "_ten_ was the time I was told."

"Who told you?"

"The gentleman who gave me my paper."

"What paper? you don't have papers. It's _viva voce_."

"I've got a paper, anyhow," said Stephen, "and a precious hard one, too, and I've only half done it."

"Well, you'll have to go at half-past nine, or you'll catch it," said Paul. "I say, there's Loman calling you."

Stephen, who, since the indignation meeting last night, had felt himself grow very rebellious against the monitors, did not choose to hear the call in question, and tried his hardest to make another shot at his paper. But he could not keep deaf when Loman himself opened the door, and pulling his ear inquired what he meant by not coming when he was told? The new boy then had to submit, and sulkily followed his lord to his study, there to toast some bread at a smoky fire, and look for about half an hour for a stud that Loman said had rolled under the chest of drawers, but which really had fallen into one of that gentleman's boots.

By the time these labours were over, and Stephen had secured a mouthful of breakfast in his brother's study, it was time to go down to prayers; and after prayers he had but just time to wonder what excuse he should make for only answering half his questions, when the clock pointed to the half-hour, and he had to scuttle off as hard as he could to the Doctor's study.

Dr Senior was a tall, bald man, with small, sharp eyes, and with a face as solemn as an owl's. He looked up as Stephen entered.

"Come in, my man. Let me see; Greenfield? Oh, yes. You got here on Tuesday. How old are you?"

"Nearly eleven, sir," said Stephen, with the paper burning in his pocket.

"Just so; and I dare say your brother has shown you over the school, and helped to make you feel at home. Now suppose we just run through what you have learned at home."

Now was the time. With a sigh as deep as the pocket from which he pulled it, Stephen produced that miserable paper.

"I'm very sorry, sir," he began, "I've not had time--"

"Tut, tut!" said the Doctor; "put that away, and let us get on."

Stephen stared. "It's the paper you gave me!" he said.

The Doctor frowned. "I hope you are not a silly boy," he said, rather crossly.

"I'm afraid they are all wrong," said Stephen; "the questions were-- were--rather hard."

"What questions?" exclaimed the Doctor, a trifle impatient, and a trifle puzzled.

"These you sent me," said Stephen, humbly handing in the paper.

"Hum! some mistake; let's see, perhaps Jellicott--ah!" and he put on his gla.s.ses and unfolded the paper.

"Question 1. Grammar!" and then a cloud of amazement fell over the Doctor's face. He looked sharply out from under his spectacles at Stephen, who stood anxiously and nervously before him. Then he glanced again at the paper, and his mouth twitched now and then as he read the string of questions, and the boy's desperate attempts to answer them.

"Humph!" he said, when the operation was over, "I'm afraid, Greenfield, you are not a very clever boy--"

"I know I'm not, sir," said Stephen, quite relieved that the Doctor did not at once order him to quit Saint Dominic's.

"Or you would have seen that this paper was a practical joke." Then it burst all of a sudden on Stephen. And all this about "Mr Finis", "Oh, ah," and the rest of it had been a cruel hoax, and no more!

"Come, now, let us waste no more time. I'm not surprised," said the Doctor, suppressing a smile by a very hard twitch; "I'm not surprised you found these questions hard. How far have you got in arithmetic?"

And then the Doctor launched Stephen into a _viva voce_ examination, in which that young prodigy of learning acquitted himself far more favourably than could have been imagined, and at the end of which he heard that he would be placed in the fourth junior cla.s.s, where it would be his duty to strain every nerve to advance, and make the best use of his time at Saint Dominic's. Then the Doctor rang his bell.

"Tell Mr Rastle kindly to step here," said he to the porter.

Mr Rastle appeared, and to his charge, after solemnly shaking hands and promising to be a paragon of industry and good conduct, Stephen was consigned by the head master.

"By the way," said the Doctor, as Stephen was leaving, "will you tell the boy who gave you this paper I wish to see him?"

Stephen, who had been too much elated by the result of the real examination to recollect for the moment the trickery of the sham one, now blushed very red as he remembered what a goose he had been, and undertook to obey the Doctor's order. And this it was very easy to do.

For as he opened the study-door he saw Pembury just outside, leaning against the wall with his eyes on the clock as it struck ten.

As he caught sight of Stephen emerging from the head master's study, his countenance fell, and he said eagerly and half-anxiously, "Didn't I tell you ten o'clock, Greenfield?"