Works of Ellen Wood

by Ellen Wood

“Oh, stunning! I lay down on one of the coffins! Only Ord couldn’t hear what I said then.”

  “You are a cool young gentleman, you! Should you like to be locked up here for a night?”

  “Can’t tell till I try it,” returned the incorrigible Stephens.

  “Then, don’t you let out that I allowed Ord to stop in here with you, or maybe you will. There’s not another gent in the college, as I believe, who would have done for you what he has to-day; so keep your mouth shut, and don’t get him into a row.”

  William waited outside the schoolroom door for Stephens: it was to give him the same caution that the sexton had done, remembering his promise to the latter. It was ten minutes past three when they entered the school. Stephens scuttered on to his desk, and escaped the notice of Mr. Bourn, although he was down on the roll as being late; but the second-desk boys were already round the head master’s desk. William joined them, and Mr. Harkaway observed that he looked very pale. It was the effect of his subterranean sojourn.

  “You are late, Ord.”

  “Yes, sir; I am sorry.”

  “Well,” said the master, good naturedly, “it does not often happen with you. Don’t let it occur again.”

  He held out his hand for William’s book, as head of the class. The latter had none to give. “If you please, sir, I have not been able to do the task.”

  This from Ord! Mr. Harkaway questioned whether he heard aright. “Do you mean that you have not attempted it r “No, sir; I have been — have been — occupied, and have not been able to give a minute to it.”

  “Of all the barefaced avowals, this is about the worst!”, exclaimed the master, recovering from his astonishment.

  “What have you been at?”

  “I cannot tell you, sir.”

  “Not tell!” Is it too bad to tell? Is it something you are ashamed of?”

  William shook his head. “It is nothing bad, sir; but it is what I am not at liberty to speak of.”

  “Did you remember what I promised to any boy who should appear at school this afternoon with his task unperformed?” demanded the master, in a quiet, concentrated tone.

  “I remembered it, sir,” William was compelled to acknowledge.

  “And it did not weigh with you? Very well, sir. Return to your desk for the present. Henley, begin.”

  Henley began, full of consternation at Ord’s disobedience, as was the whole class. They got through their lesson, badly or worse; at any rate, just sufficiently well to escape punishment, and were despatched to their places. Then the master reached out the birch, laid it on his desk, and called up Ord.

  “Do you persist in your refusal to tell me why you did not do your punishment lesson?”

  “I should be glad to tell you, sir, if I could. Indeed, I was not hindered by anything wrong — anything to be ashamed of.”

  “That is no answer. Jones!”

  The whole school was hushed, for they knew why Jones was called. He was the tallest and strongest amongst them, standing nearly six feet high, and it was he who — to use the expression of the boys— “did the hoisting” when a birching took place. The master rose from his desk, and signed to William to make ready. As he obeyed, a strange sort of shiver, plainly visible to the master, ran through and shook his frame.

  “You have never been flogged, I think, Ord?”

  “No, sir.”

  And, even as William spoke, a thought came over him to declare the truth, and escape it, for he knew that Mr. Harkaway — a remarkably just man, and also a kind one, as schoolmasters run, treating the boys to threatenings more than to realities — would not flog him if he knew the whole facts. But he remembered his passed word to Bryant, and kept silence.

  “I am sorry you compel me to it now,” was the remark of the master. “When a boy has passed years in the school with credit to himself, there’s all the more disgrace to him if he comes to a flogging at the last. I hope this will be a warning to you.”

  With the first stroke of the birch, a sharp cry escaped William, for he was remarkably sensitive to physical pain. What to many another boy would have been trifling, to him was excruciating agony. It is generally so with these refined, gentle natures. But he recollected the jeering that took place afterwards, when any boy cried out under his punishment, and by dint of great effort he preserved silence. The master did not make it heavy; had it been that great insensible Jones, for instance, he would have given him twice as much. But, the pain over, William thought not of that; he thought of the disgrace.

  There was some jeering after school; not at the solitary cry — the boys excused that, in consideration of the martyr silence which had succeeded it — but at the model scholar, as they sometimes called Ord, having been flogged at last. William winced; few of the boys but could bear jeering better than he, but his conscience was whispering to him the consolation that he did not deserve it.

  “Never you mind what they say, Ord,” called out Jones. “You showed your pluck, in refusing to disclose private movements to the master, and I admire you for it. What right has he to pry into the ins and outs of what we may do out of school?”

  “Hold your tongue, Jones,” interposed the senior boy; “Ord was wrong. He ought to have told the master the cause of his shirking his task.”

  “But I couldn’t, Durham,” said William; “and yet I declare to you that I was in no mischief: that was not the reason I couldn’t tell him. You must believe me or not, as you like; but I declare it upon my honour.”

  William went home to tea, saying nothing there of his flogging. His lessons for the following day were forward, his exercise was done, for he had intended to devote this evening to preparing for the prize competition. Not he, however; he was too unhinged for study, and soon after tea he put on his trencher and strolled out. His aunt had inquired why he was not at home to dinner, but he answered evasively.

  He took his way towards the back of the cathedral, passed underneath the elm trees, through the cloisters, not yet closed for the night, and went round towards the front. He had not met a single boy; nobody but the old cloister porter, Dade. It was dusk, nearly dark, and he leaned in an angle of the dead wall, in the unfrequented alley, and thought over his grievances. About ten yards off him was the little quaint lodge, containing but one room, where lived the cloister-porter. Suddenly he saw a college boy come leaping up by the front entrance of the cathedral, open the door of the porter’s lodge, and enter it. He came out immediately, a book in his hand, and made off again. The incident aroused William from his thoughts, and he slowly left his resting-place, passed the lodge, and went into the town.

  “Good-evening, sir.”

  The salutation came from Hopley the butcher, who was airing himself at his shop door — a respectable, fair-dealing, prosperous tradesman, with whom William had a great acquaintance. His mother had dealt with him during her life, as did his aunt.

  “You remember them there letters that you wrote to Australia for me, sir?”

  “Yes,” said William.

  “Well, they got there safely, they did, and I have had a answer to ’em this morning. I’m as glad as anything,” added the butcher, his honest face shining with satisfaction. “I wish, sir, if it’s not taking upon myself too much to ask it, as you’d just write another for me, to say I’ve had ‘em?”

  “I’ll write it now, if you like,” said William.

  The butcher took him at his word, and led the way through the shop with alacrity, establishing William at the parlour table. Like many another honest and well-to-do butcher, he could not accomplish a letter, at least one that anybody, himself included, could make top or tail of, though he managed his accounts and bills with exactness. His wife was dead, his two sons had emigrated to Australia (led away by the delusion of coming home in a year or two with at least a plum apiece), and the only letters which appeared to have reached them were those written and addressed by William. The butcher, some months back, had been bewailing the absence of news of them, setting it down to his o
wn imperfect writing, and William had offered his services.

  Half-past nine struck before the epistle was concluded, for Mr. Hopley was not over luminous in his mode of dictation, and it was a long one besides.

  At length it was folded, sealed, and directed, and William rose to leave.

  “Would you please to take a glass o’ wine, Master Ord? I’ve got it in the house.”

  “Wine? oh, no, thank you. Let me know when you want another written.”

  As William spoke, he became conscious that something had been pushed into his hand. It was half a sovereign. His face flushed as he laid it down.

  “Why, you don’t think I have done this for payment, Mr. Hopley!”

  The butcher’s face turned red also. “Payment! Sir, I humbly beg pardon if I’ve offended you. I never thought of paying you for what you’ve done; I shouldn’t offer such a thing. I know I am but a tradesman, sir, and you’re a gentleman, but I thought maybe you’d be none the worse for accepting a few pears and nuts from me, and such-like things that the young college gentry buy up. It ‘ud make me proud if you would, sir, and they mightn’t taste none the sourer, perhaps, for coming from me.”

  William saw the good faith, the single-hearted, genuine feeling which dictated the offering; he saw how hurt that feeling would be if he declined it. He laughed, took up, the money, and thanked Mr. Hopley, and said he should enjoy the pears and nuts amazingly. In all probability he would; for William Ord was one who had rarely pocket money to spend. Indeed, his lack of it was a byword amongst the king’s scholars.

  On this same evening, it happened that the head-master encountered Bryant, the sexton, who had just locked up the cathedral for the night. “Good-evening, Bryant,” said he as he passed him.

  But the sexton stopped. The Reverend Mr. Harkaway was a favourite of his, and the two were, so to speak, upon intimate terms. “Did you hear of that affair to-day, sir?” he asked, looking cautiously round, as if afraid the trunks of the elm-trees might possess ears.

  “What affair?” returned the clergyman.

  “That of little Stephens being locked up in the crypt. Mr. Knox ordered it for punishment, sir.”

  “Mr. Knox ordered Stephens locked up in the crypt!” repeated the head master. What can you possibly mean, Bryant?”

  “Why, sir, I mean that, and nothing less. Stephens was impudent to him in the cloisters, and Mr. Knox called me and ordered me to put him into the crypt. He was there from one o’clock till three.”

  “I never heard of such a thing,” ejaculated the master, in a tone that betrayed his awe. “Why, he might never have come out alive!”

  “And I don’t know that he would, if it had not been for young Ord,” returned the sexton.— “He heard Mr.

  Knox give the order, and came after me in a state of such excitement, saying the lad might go mad, or die. But you know, sir, I could not help myself.”

  “Well, I don’t know, Bryant. I don’t think I should lock a child up in the crypt, if ordered by the bishop.”

  “I don’t suppose you would, sir; but your position is one thing, and mine’s another. Ord stopped with him all the time — that is, with the passage and the two gratings between them — and kept calling out to him to keep fear away. He would stop, made me let him, and I locked him in, though I was half afraid, lest it should come to Mr. Knox’s ears. A regular trump, is that Ord, for thoughtfulness: what other of the king’s scholars would have stopped there, all voluntary, to keep fright from the lad?”

  “Bless me!” exclaimed the master, the past becoming clear. “Ord had a particular task to do between one and three, and I flogged him for not doing it. Why could he not open his mouth and tell me the reason?”

  “Well, sir, before I would let him stop, he gave me his promise that he’d never tell it to anybody. I’m so afraid of its getting to Mr. Knox, you see, sir; but I know you are safe.”

  “Did it do harm to Stephens? I fancy he was at afternoon school.”

  “Harm, no; the little reptile! He boasted to me, with a grin, that he had lain down on the coffins. But it was one thing, as you may judge, sir, to have Ord to call out to him all the time; it might have been another, had he been left alone amongst the dead.”

  The master nodded, and continued his way. If ever he had felt vexed with himself, he was feeling it then for having flogged Ord. He remembered how pale and weary the boy had looked when he came into school; he remembered the shiver that ran through his frame when told to prepare for the birching. “Why could he not speak?” chafed the master.

  You will be inclined to think that this incident never could have happened: that a young boy never could have been consigned to that fearful place by a clergyman, a high dignitary of the Church. I can assure you that it did happen, precisely as I have related it. Mr. Knox is dead now, but I should have written it all the same had he been alive, for it was beyond doubt a cruel and most unjustifiable act.

  CHAPTER IV. THE THEFT IN THE CLOISTER-PORTER’S LODGE.

  THE boys assembled at seven the next morning for early school, most of them before the hour struck, for they were obliged to be punctual. Somewhat to their surprise the head master entered as the college clock was striking; he was not usually quite so early.

  “Prayers.”

  The school rose as the master spoke. He read the Latin prayer, recited the pater-noster, pronounced the benediction, and the school sat down again. The master also resumed his seat for a few moments, and then he rose, took off his spectacles, and addressed the assembly.

  “Gentlemen choristers, and king’s scholars, I have a word to say to you; attend. Yesterday afternoon I flogged William Ord. He has been in the school for some years, and had never, so far as came under my cognizance, deserved a flogging, or any extreme punishment whatever — which is more than can be said of many of you. I flogged him yesterday, believing he merited it I had given him, in common with the rest of his class, a certain task to perform, and he came with it undone, not touched, declining to account to me for the cause of his disobedience. Since then, circumstances have come to my knowledge — not from him — which induce me to declare that he did not merit it. I assert publicly that I am sorry I gave it him. Do not misunderstand me,” added the master, raising his voice and speaking in a tone that savoured of sternness; “I am not taking blame to myself for having given him that flogging; quite the contrary. I acted as I should act again to-morrow, according to the merits of the case, as they appeared to me. Ord in one sense was to blame, by observing the reticence. Had he imparted to me but a word of the facts, I should have seen that he deserved praise, not blame. Praise, do you hear, not blame. But he deemed himself bound in honour to be silent. It was an impossibility, under the circumstances, that he could do the task; therefore I say that he received a punishment which was not merited, and for his own sake I regret that it was inflicted. I have told you this from a sense of justice towards him, and to put him right again with the school.”

  The master sat down, put on his glasses, and summoned the first class. The school had listened, thunderstruck; never had such an address been heard from Mr. Harkaway; and William was more surprised than any. After the second desk had been up to their lessons, the master signed to William to remain when he dismissed the rest to their places.

  “Why did you not tell me, and save yourself?” he inquired in a low tone, inaudible to other ears.

  The colour rushed into William’s refined face. “Do you know about it, sir?”

  “I do. Bryant told me. Why did not you?”

  “I had given him my word, sir, not to tell any one.”

  “You might have trusted me, for all that. You did well with regard to Stephens, Ord: very well,” added the master emphatically; “and it is probable that to you he owes—”

  Mr. Harkaway was interrupted. Dade, the cloister-porter, had entered the school-room and was advancing towards him. He was a tall, gaunt man, very upright, though nearly seventy, with keen black eyes and grey hair. In his yout
h he had been a soldier, and retained a military air about him still. He brought the back of his arm up to his brow by way of salute to the master.

  “Beg pardon, sir, for intruding here,” he began; “but I have got a complaint to make, and I thought I’d come as soon a’most as morning school was opened: leastways before it closed. I was robbed, sir, last night.”

  “Indeed!” replied the head master, wondering why the complaint was brought to him.

  “And I’m as sure as sure can be, that it was one of these college gentlemen who did it,” proceeded the porter. “ What were you robbed of?”

  “Of money, sir. A sovereign and a half in gold.”

  The master’s brow grew dark as thunder. The boys were bad and mischievous in many ways; he knew that; if they were not, they had not been schoolboys; but — to lapse into crime? No, no; Mr. Harkaway resented the insinuation.

  “Dade, you cannot know what you are saying. A college boy rob you, or anybody else, of money! What can possess you to make such an accusation?”

  “Sir, I don’t mean no offence to you, and I’m sure I’d rather have marched ten miles another road than have come to you with the complaint; but facts is facts. You’ll permit me to tell ’em you, sir?”

  “Of course,” said the master; while the whole school, upper and lower, forgetting their studies, sat absorbed in the tale.

  “I gets my bit o’ pension, sir, paid every three months, and I puts it into the little canvas bag, and takes it out as I wants it. Last night I’d got a sovereign and a half left in it, in gold. I unlocked the drawer where it’s kept, intending to take out the half sovereign, and just as I had got the bag on the table under the window, and was untying it, I saw the bishop come up, as from the town, with a little packet in his hand, looking like a thin book wrapped up. Instead of turning in at his private door to the palace grounds, he come on, past my lodge, which was wide open, just at the very moment as one of the prebends, it was Dr. Trench, come out of the alley and met him. They talked together for a minute, and then the bishop turns round and looks out for me. ‘Here, Dade,’ says he, ‘just take this round to the deanery. Tell them to give it to the dean at once, with my compliments.’ ‘Yes, my lord,’ says I; and his lordship put the little packet in my hands, and went into his own grounds with Dr. Trench.”